Deut. 29.29 Secret things belong to the Lord our God but things revealed unto us and our Children for ever This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ This is my Body leaving the manner to him that made the Sacrament we know it is Sacramentall and therefore efficacious because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances where man did not set a bar against himself But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually I mean not only after the manner of a spirit but in a spirituall sense whether it be in the Soul only or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Adduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind man dare conjecture we determine not Durand 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 an height nor dictate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erudita est inscitia O! Against multiplying of questions and controversies how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of Generall 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 wading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomacâ—ies whereof commeth envy strife raylings evill surmisings perverse disputings Old controversies evermore raise up new controversies and yet more controversies as Circles in the water do produce other Circles Now especially these Scholasticall 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 fundamentals 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 Bellonia shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdom it becometh well all good Christians and subjects to leave their litigious questions and 〈…〉 to bring water to quench the fire of civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coals of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-wirted fellow personated in the Orator Qui cum Capit is 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 trouble to you and me at this time is your Preface The Occasion of this Discourse 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 don P. 37. for you tell him that his eyes and his ears do hear and see those truths which make him to know the faults of that new Religion which he had sucked in 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 to have dyed an invisible Member of your Roman Catholick Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his Conversion which must be a conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charentou If your charity be not to be blamed The Authors indiscretion 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 groundless insinuations 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 To no purpose If your intentions be only to invite his Majesty to embrace the Catholick Faith The King is already a better Catholick than himself you might have spared both your Oyl and labour The Catholick Faith flourished 1200. years in the world before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better acquainted with the Primitive times than your self unless you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the word or the matter of transubstantiation Discursus modestus JesuitaruÌ„ p. 13. Watsons quod lib. l. 2. Art 4. Mark it well neither name nor thing His Majesty doth firmly beleeve all supernaturall truths revealed in sacred Writ He embraceth cheerfully whatsoever the holy Apostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Catholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Catholick 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 Faith to make him a good Catholick More than this your Roman Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Councill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third generall Councill Par. 2. Act. 6. c. 7. that of Ephesus which decreed 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 Not lawfull to add to the old Creed And that whosoever should dare to compose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresy if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Laymen anathematized Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fathers did which none will say to have been insufficient except they be mad Concil Flor. Sess 10. prof sid in bulla Pti quarti as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a
Subjects He was no Changeling indeed neither to the right hand nor to the left Henry the Fourth his Grandfather did turn indeed to the Roman Church Had his change any such Influence upon the Protestant party in France I know no followers such a change would gain him but I foresee clearly how many hearts it would lose him Certainly Sir if you would do a meritorious piece of â—â—…ice to his greatest Adversaries you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly than to see you successfull in this undertaking I have done with your Proposition Hee than compares it and your demonstration together will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight As a motive to his Majesties conversion you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation and desire that it may appear unto the world under his royall name P. 58. His improper choise of a Patron for his Treatise I meddle not with your Treatise some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough But how can his Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his Judgement against his Conscience so contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England not onely since the Reformation but before About the year seven hundred Serm. Saxon in festâ— Paschat The body of Christ wherein he suffered and his Body Consecrated in the Host differ much The body wherein he suffred was born of the Virgin consisting of flesh and bones and humane members his Spirituall body which we call the Host consists of many grains without blood bones or human members wherefore nothing is to be understood there corporally but all spiritually Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Faith nor a point of Faith in those dayes You charge the Protestants in divers places P. 62. That they have neither Church nor Faith but have lost both And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it P. 222. His unskilfulnes or his unfortunateness in his Demonstrations But your demonstration is a meer Paralogism You multiply your terms you confound your terms you change and alter your terms contrary to the rules of right arguing and vainly beat the air concluding nothing which you ought to prove nothing which your Adversary will denie You would prove that Protestants have no Church That you never attempt But you do attempt to prove how pittifully God knows that they are not the onely Church that is the one Holy Catholique Church This they did never affirm they did never think It sufficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church more pure more Orthodox more Catholique than the Roman alwayes professing Christ visibly never lurking invisibly in an other Communion which is another of your mistakes I should advise you to promise us no more evident demonstrations Either your skill or your luck is so extremely bad In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority and Revelation and deposited with the Church All that is true But that which you add that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church By this Church understanding the Church of this Age and which is yet worse the Church of one place and which is worst of all the Bishop of that one Church is most false The great advantage of the Prostant above the Roman Catholique in the choise of his foundation And so is that which you add that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings which makes so many differences among them Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith It cannot be the foundation of Faith Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith both with you and us but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason We have this Advantage of you that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular error that full and free and universall assent which we give to holy Scripture and to all things therein conteined is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error which we hold unwittingly and unwillingly against Scripture But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties whether this man be Pope or not whether this Pope be Judge or not whether this Judge be infallible or not and if infallible wherein and how far the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain The stricter the adherence is to a false uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeeth 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 mouthes of your own Canons against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholique Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolicall Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolicall Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolicall 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 Apostolicall Regiment by erecting a visible and Universall Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolicall Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholique Apostolique 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 Virtuall or the representative or the essentiall Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves it Faith not into didine 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 generall Councill or the Essentiall Church that is the Church of Believers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a Generall or Provinciall Councill 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 this Chair But of all other Judgements this is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papall Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chair hath not been filled by
edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servants that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself We 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 P. 74. 75. His Majesties escape out of England almost miraculous 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 When 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 persons without either discovery or suspition seeme little less than a miracle That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness as the eyes 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 And seems to presage that God hath something to do with him 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 P. 76. Prayers and tears the proper Arms of woman 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 powerfull As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica Especially of Mothers for St. Austine her Son fieri non potuit 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 prejudiciall to our selves and our friends yet ad utilitatem 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 whites for his perseverance Yet not so powerfull as his Fathers intercession now in Heaven will be more effectuall with God than the prayers of his Mother for his change P. 77. The Authors instance of Henry the great not pertinent Your instance of his Majesties Grand-father 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 Plutarch to cut off a naturall leg and take one of wood To the tears of his Mother you adde the blood of his Father P. 77. 78. The just commendation of K. Charls 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 It is gross impudence to feign that he dyed a Roman Catholick Yet you are so extremely partiall to your self 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 Machiavell 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 parerit 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 barrowed but with stollen Saints Whom all the world know to have been none of yours What 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 The Authors confession confutes his demonstration that Prostants have no faith 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 generall 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 credentes c. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church if they endeavour to learn the truth and are not able to attein 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 His intelligence as good in Heaven as upon earth Lastly Sir to let us see that your
do suspect jugling No man proclameth in the Market that he hath rotten wares to sell And therefore we must be carefull notwithstanding your great promises to keep well Epicharmus his Jewell Remember to distrust By your permission your glistering demonstration is a very counterfeit not so valuable as a Bristol Diamant when it comes to be examined by the wheel Sometimes nothing is more necessary than Reformation Reformation is sometimes necessary Never was house so wel builded that now and then needed not reparation Never Garden so well planted but must sometimes be weeded Never any order so well instituted but in long tract of time there will be a bending and declining from its Primitive perfection and a necessity of reducing it to its first principles Are your Houses of Religion which are Reformed therefore the less Religious Why then did all the Princes and Commonwealths in Europe Yea the Fathers themselves in the Councill of Trent cry out so often so earnestly for a Reformation yet were forced to content themselves with a vain shadow for the substance as Ixion embraced a Cloud for Juno or Children are often stilled with an empty bottle Reformation not agreeable to all person especially the Court of Rome But Reformation is not agreeable to all persons Judas loved not an Audit because he kept the Bag. Dull Lethargick people had rather sleep to death than be awaked to and mad phrenetick Bigots are apt to beat the Chirurgion that would bind up their wounds but none are so averse from Reformation as the Court of Rome where the very name is more formidable than Hannibal at the Gates yea than all the five terrible things No mervail they are afraid to have their Oranges squeesed to their hands if they were infallible as they pretend there was no need of a Reformation we wish they were but we see they are not On the other side There is danger in Reformation it cannot be denyed that Reformation when it is unseasonable or inordinate or excessive may do more hurt than good when Reformers want just Authority or due information or have sinister ends or where the remedy may be of worse consequence than the abuse or where men run out of one extreme into another therefore it is a rule in prudence Not to remove an ill custom when it is well setled Unless it 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 The right rule of Reformation 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 abusers nor yet to do at so upon antient Institutions as for their sakes to cherish new abuses Our Reformation is just Our Reformation not the ruin of Faith Church or Common-wealth as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth as the building of Tenderden Steeple was the cause of Goodwins Sands or the 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 healthfull purgation It hath ruined the Common-wealth just as the pruning of the Vine ruins the Elm. No no Sir Our sufferings 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 sterve Innocents than to swim in plenty as Nocents But this is but one of your doubles to keep us from the right forme It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith It is your Papall Court that hath ruined the Church It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporall persons in order unto spirituall ends of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Alleageance 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 Civill 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 civill 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 Oecumenicall or Occidentall Councill it would become both you and us in the first place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch You say our Calvinistical Reformation so you are pleased to call it as you would have it for the moderate and orderly Reformation of England was the terror and eye-sore of Rome is founded upon two maxims Our first supposed Maxim The onâ—â—hat the Church was faln to ruin and desolation and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny The Catholick Church cannot come to ruin or be be guilty of Idolatry or 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 Universall 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 spirituall Adultery Thirdly we never said we never thought that the Oecumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny It is principled to suffer wrong to do none and by suffering to Conquer Chrysost 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 handfull of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms of your language Catholick and Roman not Convertibles in which by the Church you alwaies understand the Roman Church making Roman and Catholick to be convertibles As if Christ could not have
of obedience upon those who are under their charge If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law they are not accomptable to their Inferiours but to him or them that have the Soveraign power of Legislative Judicature Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere To apply this to the case in Question concerning the exposition of the holy Scripture Every Christian keeping himself within the bounds of due obedience and submission to his lawfull Superiours hath a Judgement of Discretion Prove all things 1 Thes 5.21 hold fast that which is good He may apply the Rule of holy Scripture for his own private Instruction comfort edification and direction and for the framing of his life and belief accordingly The Pastors of the Church who are placed over Gods people as watchmen and guides have more than this a judgement of Direction to expound and interpret the holy Scriptures to others out of them to instruct the ignorant to reduce them who wander out of the right way to confute errors to foretell dangers and to draw sinners to repentance The chief Pastors to whose care the Regiment of the Church is committed in a more speciall manner have yet an higher degree of judgement a Judgement of Jurisdiction to prescribe to enjoyn to constitute to reform to censure to condemn to bind to loose judicially authoritatively in their respective charges If their Key shall erre either their Key of Knowledge or their Key of Jurisdiction they are accomptable to their respective Superiours and in the last place to a generall Councill which under Christ upon Earth is the highest Judge of Controversies Thus we have seen what is the Rule of Faith and by whom and how far respectively this rule is to be applied Thirdly The manner of expounding Scripture for the manner of expounding holy Scriptures for there may be a privacy in this also and more dangerous than the privacy of the person many things are necessary to the right interpretation of the Law to understand the reason of it the precedents the terms the forms the Reports and an ability to compare Law with Law He that wants all these Qualifications altogether is no interpreter of Law He that wants but some of them or wants the perfection of them by how much the greater is his defect by so much the less valuable is his exposition And if he shall out of private fancy or blind presumption arrogate to himself without these requisite means or above his capacity and proportion of Knowledge a power of expounding Law he is a mad-man So many things are required to render a man capable to expound holy Scriptures some more necessarily some less some absolutely some respectively As first to know the right Analogy of Faith to which all interpretations of Scripture must be of necessity conformed Secondly to know the practise and tradition of the Church and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages which gives a great light to 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 practise and tradition of the purest primitive ages or the Symbolicall faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely work-man 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 alwayes been the doctrine This is conformable to the doctrine and practise of our Church 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 Can. 1603. Can. 49. untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion only it gives it not to private persons above their Talents See the Preface to the Bishops Bible or beyond their last It disallows all phantasticall and Enthusiasticall presumption of incompetent and unqualified expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive interpreter of Scriptures howsoever otherwise qualified Cant. â—4 unless he be able to give a good accompt of his faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his expositions according to the Analogy thereof Cant. 1571. tit Concionatores It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholique 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 Ecclesiasticall duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers Can. 1631. Can. 53. 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 Art 20. Can. 1603. Can. 139. as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawfull 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 Majesty for the principall ground of our Reformation which our souls abhor Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawfull 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 from others So we shall leave neither a Sun in Heaven nor any excellent creature upon Earth for all have been abused by some persons in some kinds at some times We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions The English Church an enemy to upstart not
to Apostolicall traditions nor unwritten fundamentalls But we admit genuine Universall Apostolicall traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetuall 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 maner of observing it was very different in the Primitive 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 perpetuall practise 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 practise and tradition of the Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from beleeving that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principall motives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenicall Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition aâ— the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into pieces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at your pleasure have not so much ground left you as to see 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 ruunt 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 inhaerent righteousness merits Invocation of Saints prayer for the dead with Purgatory 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 unknown c. It seems you were loath to mention these things Of the Sacrifice of the Mass First you say we have renounced your sacrifice of the Mass If the Sacrifice 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 Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected 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 Eucharisticall sacrifice of prayers and praises we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross And in the language of holy Church things commemorated are related as if they were then acted As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son as this day to be born of a pure Virgin In the Collects for these â—easts And whose praise the younger Innocents have this day set forth And between the Ascension and Pentecost which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven we beseech thee leave us not comfortless but send unto us thy holy Spirit We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it we maintain an Application of its vertue So here is a commemorative impetrative applicative sacrifice Speak distinctly and I cannot understand what you can desire more To make it a suppletory sacrifice to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross I hope both you and I abhor The next crime objected by you to us is Of Transubstantiation that we have renounced Transubstantiation It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed you need not wonder at that But if we had rejected it 400. years sooner that had been a Miracle It was not so soon hatched To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author were sufficient to prove him a counterfeit Of 7. Sacraments Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture or Councill or Creed or Father or antient Author Anno 1439 1528. 1547. first devised by Peter Lombard first decreed by Eugenius the fourth first confirmed in the Provinciall Councill of Senes and after in the Councill of Trent Either the word Sacrament is taken largely and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament then the onely sprinkâ—ing of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign instituted by Christ to convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof as do not set a bar against themselves according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church common to all or in the words of our Church generally necessary to Salvation are but two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose writes not of in his Book de Sacramentis because he did not know them These we admit for genuine and generall Sacraments Their Sacramentall vertue we acknowledge The rest we retein more purely than your selves though not under the Notion of such proper and generall Sacraments As Confirmation Ordination Matrimony Penitence though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction nor of your Ordinary penitentiary tax and lastly the Visitation of and Prayer for the sick which onely is of perpetual necessity The Unction prescribed by St. James Jam. 5.14 being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing or recovering men out of sicknesses then in use Whereas your custome is clean contrary never or rarely to enoyl any man untill he be past all hope of Recovery The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the primitive Church was Prayer and Absolution or the benefit of the Keys and the Viaticum of the body and blood of Christ which we retein Concerning Justification Of Justification we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice
Purgatory by your learning are past the fear of Hell Nor can this petition be any ways so wrested as to become appliable to the hour of death This prayer is not for the man but for the soul separated nor for the soul of a sick man or a dying man but for the souls of men actually deceased Certainly this prayer must have reference either to the sleeping of the souls or to the pains of Hell To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation Neither are you able to produce any one prayer publike or private Neither any one indulgence to that purpose for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory in all the Primitive times or out of your own antient Missals or records Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us as Articles of Faith which the greatest part of the Catholick Church never received untill this day Moreover though the sins of the faithfull be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death yet the publike promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come Though their souls be alwaies in an estate of blessedness yet they want the consummation of this blessedness extensively at least untill the body be reunited unto the soul and as it is piously and probably believed intensively also that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God as it shall have hereafter Then what forbids Christians to pray for this publick acquittall for this Consummation of blessedness So we do pray as often as we say thy kingdom come or come Lord Jesus come quickly Our Church is yet plainer that we with this our Brother and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name may have our perfect Consummation of blessedness in thy eternall kingdom This is far enough from your more gainfull prayers for the dead to deliver them out of Purgatory The Authority of the Pope Lastly concerning the Authority of the Pope It is he himself that hath renounced his lawfull Patriarchall Authority And if we should offer it him at this day he would disdain it We have only freed our selves from his tyrannicall usurped Authority But upon what termes upon what grounds how far and with what intention we have separated our selves or rather have suffered our selves to be separated from the Church of Rome you may find if you please in the Treatise of Schism I cannot choose but wonder to see you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case P 27. who separated himself from you as well as we in the dayes of a much better Bishop than we and upon much weaker grounds than we and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils He liked not the swelling title of Bishop of Bishops nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrifie an other into obedience No more do we He gave a primacy or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter as principiâ—m unitatis so do we But he beleeved that every Bishop had an equall share of Episcopall power so do we He provided a part as he thought fit in a Provinciall Councill for his own safety and the safety of his flock so did we He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Collegue and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a letter from such as had been censured by the African Bishops In St. Cyprians sense you are the beam that have separated your selves from the body of the Sun you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain It is you principally you that have divided the unity of the Church You collect as a Corollary from our supposed principall of the right and sufficiency of private judgement Whether humane Laws bynd the Conscience inlightned by the Spirit that no humane Authority can bind the conscience of an other 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 Laws 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 only The question is soon decided just Laws of lawfull Superiors either Civill or Ecclesiasticall have authority to bind the conscience in themselves but not from themselves How shall we beleeve that it is not you but God that represents these things to his Majesty P. 34. 69. The Author a little Enthusiasticall 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 Majesty should turn Roman Catholick Are they like Belshazars Characters and are you the only Daniel that can read them we do not see a Cloven tongue upon your head nor a Dove seeming to whisper in your ear Be not too confident left 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 Majesty with more confidence or pretend 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 or pretenses that signifie nothing but the pretenders vanity nor by enthusiasticall interpretation of occurrences It is onely the weight of reason that depresseth the scale of their judgement and makes them to yield and submit unto it Howsoever it be God or you that represent these things to his Majesty you tell us that the end is to reduce him from those errors which he sucked in with his milk which in the dayes of peace and abundance it had been difficult for him to discover But now his eyes and his ears do see and hear those truths which make 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 beleeve any such thing when you dare avouch 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 The Romanists require submission to their Church as necessary to salvation 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