he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man and Presbyterian Ministers are as needless as either Catholik or Protestant byshops On the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole Kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the Kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not onely by one but several acts and constitutions both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher than the byshops who by the law is under both King and byshop too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakned by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian King of any Kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reasons Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the lips of the king or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom Kings themselvs remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his Majesties autority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the Kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman Catholiks as to any Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his Majesties judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught
easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselvs in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jew◠〈◊〉 into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Litâ—… out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questions were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prelate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any other language but Latin before Edward the sixt dayes
his grace of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction I know and am fully assured ther is not one of those poor catholik priests who were lately banished out of England but would have defended even to extremity if need were this one most certain verity That a Metropolitan hath a jurisdiction as solid and good a jurisdiction over byshops as any these can have or plead for over parish priests And by as firm and good and ancient law is the one established as the other and indeed by the very same whilst a minister of his own presumes to tell the Arch-byshop his own prelate to his face that he hath no jurisdiction at all His 9 ch from page 91. to 169. Is wholly fanatick There he tells us plainly That neither Convocations Byshops nor Parliaments are judges of our faith That the English Church doth not punish for difference in opinions nor require that all should beleev as she beleevs or submit to her determinations but leaves every man to the liberty of his own judgment so he do not make factions against her Who ever urged men saith he to beleev as the Church beleevs p. 101. Also that no decrees of any Church are further to be admitted then they appear to particular mens judgments to agree with scriptur That every private man must make use of his own reason to judg or reject doctrin and rites propounded though scriptur be his guide That the business must there end without resigning to any further authority which is all as fallible as we be our selves That points fund amental are as perspicuous as the sun-beam and points not fundamental the Church doth not determin them and if any dispute should rise about them she silences indeed but expects not her children should be of her opinion only would not have them gainsay her That that Church does but mock us which expects a beleef to her proposals becaus she pretends to guide her self by scriptur For if scriptur must bend to their decrees and we must have no sence of scriptur but what they think fit then their decrees and not scriptur is our last rule And it is a pretty devise quoth he first to rule the rule and then be ruled by it c. Can a good Quaker say more for himself or desire more to be said for him If we be not bound to beleev we are not bound to hear Nay we are bound not to hear any such Church lest we should chance to beleev what aforehand we condemn and they themselvs dare not justifie He hath much of this talk up and down in his book Faith saith he p. 439. cannot be compelled By taking this liberty of discretion from men we force them to becom hypocrits and so profess outwardly what inwardly they disbeleev And again p. 450. We allow not any man openly to contradict the Churches decrees But when he thinks contrary to the determination of our Church he must keep his judgment to himself only refusing obedience with all humility till he be better informed No fanatick will desire to refuse obedience any longer Thus doth this champion deliver up himself and Church unto the will and disposal of all whatever sects and cares not so he may avoid catholik obeysance to make himself a prey to those who upon these grounds here laid down will soon turn him out of Church and pulpit too and strip him not only of his cloak but his coat also At last he answers the catholik arguments for the Churches assured and infallible guidance just as he did before your others for supremacy Seeing him there you see him every where Finally he brings in for a certain testimony of the Churches liability to errour the two opinions so rife in old time about communicating infants and the Millenaries thousand years of blessedness with Christ in this world after dooms-day Which are both of them now condemned saith he by a contrary beleef and practice of the present Church although they were held by not a few very antient Fathers in the primitive times And in this he triumphs exceedingly Surely without caus I should think Those primitive doctors we may be assured knew somthing more then their Catechism and committed to writing somthing of that they conceived beyond their Christian faith as well as the present Fathers and Doctors of the Church now do And if there were so great varieties of opinion among them concerning those two things as there are now adayes among catholik doctors about a thousand others it is a sign that those two points did not belong to their Catechisme of faith then assuredly known but only to scholastical Theology especially sith they had neither clear scriptur or general councel nor assured tradition for either side And it is of no moment that som of them should be so confident of their opinion as to think it to be a right firm Christian beleef For so I have heard my self many a school Divine in catholik countreys to say of his Thesis or school position the better to countenance his own divinity that it was either faith or very near it Besides I do not know that the present Church hath ever declared in any cannon of her faith either that the faithfull shall not reign upon earth a thousand years with Christ after dooms-day or that we may not communicate the Eucharist to children although this last is declared not necessary His 10 ch from page 169. to 180. Is against prayer for the dead and Purgatory Where both by the testimonies which you Sir do cite in your book and by the authorities he brings himself Mr. Whitby acknowledges that praying and offering for the dead is a very ancient and general custom amongst Christians Nay that S. Paul himself prayed for his deceased friend Onesiphorus This I say he plainly grants p. 182. But he addes that all this does not infer Purgatory or that Purgatory is a place under ground near hell where is fire and darknes or that all are in pain and torments there And so he pusles to the end of his chapter acknowledging faith and denying only theology For whether Purgatory signifie any one place as our imagination is apt to fancy or only a state and condition of som souls departed out of this visible world I see Mr. Whitby understands not that it is no Christian faith but a meer scholastical divinity But that our prayers offerings penances and good deeds do benefit the souls deceased this the very testimonies cited by Mr. Whitby himself as they do sufficiently evince so do they confirm catholik faith though they touch not upon theology at all And so while he oppugns the divinity of som catholiks he establishes the catholik faith of all Divines In the interim he ought to remember although in this he often forgets himself that by the very testimonies not only which you Sir do bring for Purgatory but those also which Mr. Whitby has against it we may see manifestly that our Protestant Church hath
loyalty with these seditious querks and quibbles Who can tell whether he be legitimatly begotten or rightly baptised or legally elected c. Catholiks have as much ground for their obedience to civil and spiritual Superiours as they have for their observance of their own natural father And I think that is enough If we had it not promised in Gospel as we have that Christ would preserv his Church from failing and errour yet the very beleef we have in his divinity would naturally infer such a confidence as Catholicks have in the Churches truth But Mr. Whitby understands not in whom this infallibility does originally reside as I perceiv by his fond interrogatories nor consequently what it is If he had ever had the happy hour to read the System of that learned Doctour Franciscus Davenport by whose light I have lately Sir since your departure hence to Paris sufficiently declared in our English tongue all this whole busines of infallibility he had saved a multitude of idle words drawn out of his famous fanatick Mr. Chillingworth Catholik Divines may several wayes defend and declare this busines of Infallibility as well as other points of religion according to their several conceptions and abilities and may go som of them so far as to defend even an intrinsecal inherent Infallibility either in the Pope or Councel And although this may suffer more difficulty then the extrinsecall one of Gods providence and guidance yet do I not see how any one can disprove a possibility of it However faith does not require so much at their hands If God be but infallible and Christ be true the Church is safe Very many bitter books have been written against Catholiks and their religion injuriously diminishing both them and it upon the mistake of this one busines of Infallibility perhaps a wilful one two very lately by Mr. Moulin and Denton to the great hurt and dammage of the innocent if men beleev them It is a very pious and good rule that of the Canon and civil law Cum sunt jura partium obscura reo favendum est potius quam actori But I doubt much whether the people of England who may read these invective books against Papists follow that rule or no. When the right of Parties is obscure saith the law the defendant is rather to be favoured than the plaintiff If it were so here we should not have been by such bitter books so highly incensed as I see we are against poor Catholiks but against those rather who slander them Mr. Moulin would prove that Catholik religion and not Protestancy is guilty of sedition and he does it by a relation of passionate words and actions of some Popes recorded in stories And this he takes to be a sufficient proof that Catholik religion is guilty of sedition It were indeed to be wished that all Popes words and actions were answerable to their religion and rule But that is hardly to be expected in this world The very place and honour that has ever been given to that seat is no small temptation of pride or other passions incident therupon into a mind not more then ordinarily furnished with all Christian vertues But if we will beleev histories concerning them we shall find no series or succession of men in any one place or dignity of this world to have held forth so many lights of vertue as that one chair hath don And if som have been faulty they gave no doubt much caus of grief or scandal but none of wonderment to the world They may surely fail in a greater temptation since other Christians who have the same means of grace do fail in lesser But Catholiks saith Mr. Moulin are bound by the very tenour of their religion to hold for good and justifie all that any of their Popes have ever said or don This would be very strange why so Becaus saith he they beleev them infallible Who beleevs them infallible How infallible that they can neither do nor speak amiss Who ever thought that Infallible is a word taken up lately by schoolmen to expres the sovereign power and indeficiency of Gods Church and not any inherent endowments of a Pope who is brought up when he is young like one of us in the Catechise and practice of Christian religion and when he is ripe and placed by Gods providence in that supream chair is eminently to practise those holy ruses and carefully to keep and maintain that depositum fidei the treasury of faith which he hath received and if he fail therin shall give an account and suffer for it in another world as severely as any other for their faults Nor are his words and actions a rule to other men of Christian religion but Christian religion is a rule to him both for his actions and words And all that Infallibility which Catholik writers to expres more than one thing in one short word make use of in their discourses with Protestants is only an extrinsecal providence of God watching over his Church to preserv the primitive apostolik spirit in her and to keep her alwayes even to the consummation of the world from errour and deficiency notwithstanding any opposition from without or the misdemeanours of any one or other within her self even the providence of that good God whose property it is not only to prevent evil from the good but even to work good out of evil that his Church which he hath promised to preserv may be ever safe And if ever this infallible providence do show it self it must surely be then when the ship is ready to be split by heresies and schismes that rise from som violent spirits breaking unity with that body so dangerously that Prelates are called together from all parts of the world as a help extraordinary in a general Councel to prevent the ruin And this is that which Divines mean when they say that the Pope is infallible in Cathedra in the Chair that is to say in consessu Seniorum Presbyterorum ecclesiae in a general convention of Christian Prelates So that Moulin speaks not one word to the purpos But Doctour Dentons book is not any such mistake but pure malice He intends to show that Papists were never punished for religion but for treason And his book is altogether made up of several stories of men Papists men sent over hither from beyond seas as he sayes to kill poison and destroy people Some when they had read his book took the Authour for a fool but I heard afterwards that he is Physician And upon that account I had him excused For if he be as bad at physick as he is in affairs of religion he had caus to be angry with them who came hither from forreign parts to take his office and emploiment out of his hands kill and poison people If the villains who ever they were had been only sent over to make folks sick they had don him som service but to poison men and kill them
one unto a body an organical body not only Roman Catholiks but our English Prelacy and Presbyterians too Yea the very Quakers to my knowledg esteem none to be so much as Christians who assemble not with them And they have with them som ministers of the gospel too though extemporary ones A wary reader may obsery by the sole mirrour of this book of Whitbies which is a collection of most of the chief authors that have written against Popery since the Reformation how unsettled all Protestants be in all the controverted points of religion wherof ther is not any one by som of them denied but is by som others of them affirmed They know what Church to oppose but how much of her doctrin they should evacuate they could never yet unanimously agree nor what answer to fix steadily to any Catholik ground He will find also amongst other things that our present Protestants now adayes do generally swerv from the first reformers almost in all points both of disciplin and faith about supremacy good works free will possibility of keeping Gods commands the real presence prayer for the dead tradition c. which former Protestants for the first forty years would not abide to hear of but now they are all in a manner so allowed by most Protestants that there appears little difference between their way and catholik faith but only that this stands unchanged the other may alter again to morrow Indeed every Protestant writer is in one thing or other a new reformer as Whitby is here And every half-score years brings forth new scenes nor is there any now that heeds any Protestant writer that is gon if he speak contrary to him though he were never so eminent even in the very point and busines of Reformation This is enough for Whitby I heard Sir above half a year ago that Dr. Barlow had made ready for the Press another book of his own against Mr. Cressy and therfor deteined this my letter with me till I might give you an account of his with it Truly Sir I watched as earnestly for it as any cat watches for a mous But it will not yet appear In the interim one Mr. Stillingfleet has lately written a great book against Popery even so big a book in folio that none may buy it but only such as hate Popery more than they love sixteen shillings And he also proceeds this new french Hugonot way insisted on by Whitby He is only for a Church diffusive that holds fundamentals what ever they be and makes no account of any Church organical Wherby he utterly disables not the Roman Hierarchy only but even our English Protestant Church and government if men do but understand what he sayes And yet this man is mightily applauded by our English byshops which I cannot but marvel at and do thence conclude that they all begin now to think our English Church it self that it may be made good must be pulled down Councels he holds with Whitby that they can have no autority to move our assent although they be general as ther has never been any he sayes these thousand years And what is ther then for Gods sake shall move the Presbyterians Independents and others here in England to approve of the constitutions and government of our English Church set up by a far lesser assembly In a word this whole book of Stillingfleets is a large discours against a Theological argument of some Catholik disputant The argument it seems was this Christian faith cannot be divine except it have its birth from an infallible proposer and consequently the Church must either be infallible or els our faith is not divine The answer of this argument is the very life and vitals of Mr. Stillingfleets whole book That same argument of the Catholik Gentleman is indeed a pretty theological ratiocination and Stillingfleets answer evasions and distinctions both concerning the argument in general and all the particulars it runs into are not unwitty But this is no part of our busines Alas we in our controversies about religion are not come thus far Such a discours had been handsomly fitted to theologicall schools and very proper amongst learned divines there but here not so What is it to our busines in hand whether faith can or cannot be divine except the proposer be infallible and as it were divine This is a meer theological dispute And he that answers Stillingfleets book defends not faith immediately but an argumentators syllogisme Religion indeed as soon as ever it is questioned or disputed runs presently into Philosophy And therin if great heed be not taken it is quite lost And thence it comes to pass that most part of our controversie books is about school philosophy and human reasonings I blame not the Catholik Gentleman who ever he was for his argumenting Nor will Stillingfleet be blamed for defending his place But I let my countreymen spectators of the contest understand that in deed and truth so often as we dispute we are beyond the busines All writers of controversie speak more then faith when they either defend or oppose it And in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it and so much this some times that the other is nothing at all discerned This the world must know and understand well or els they will be miserably mistaken as indeed I see all men are When two lawyers plead about a case of right perhaps three hours together all that three hours talk is not law or the right they talk of but only their ratiocinations about it And such are all our controversies about religion And he does best therin who still puts his adversary in mind what is his talk and what is the faith they talk of But he that defends both of them equally forgets himself And thus I see that generally men do miscarry on both sides the Protestant by calling that Romanish doctrin which is but a Catholiks discours for it and the Catholik by maintaining that talk of his which it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall For faith is firm and constant though all my talk for it be miserably weak Now all the whole busines of faith which Stillingfleet and his adversary talk of is as I take it only this That the Church of Christ hath by Gods divine promis of being ever with her a power to oblige her subjects to hear and obey her if they mean to be happy in their way The Catholik affirms this Stillingfleet with his Protestants deny it And this is all the faith that is in it which is not here touched And a theological busines of Infallibility only spoke of And therfor Stillingfleet is much to blame when he speaks so often in his book of the Romanists way of resolving faith the Romanists arguments for their faith the Romanists doctrin about infallibility not divine but as it were divine the Romanists tenet about
de lapsis has much to the same purpos giving us also to understand by his testimony that those ancient Christians for fear of death and the grievances of persecution had usually the Sacrament kept by them in a Repository or Ark in their houses which with all devout reverence when they were necessitated to it they put with their own hands into their mouths and participated on such like occasion although by general custom it used to be put into their mouths by the hands of Priests And he relates amongst other things a frightful story of a certain woman who for fear or other weaknes had complied to the idol sacrifices and when she came home to repent and humble her self in her Oratory and by holy communion both to expiate that her transgression and strengthen her against the like temptation as soon as she had opened her Ciborium or Pixis wherein the body of her Lord and Redeemer was kept a terrible flash of fire issuing thence upon her did so affright her that she durst not touch it Quandam saith he mulierem sacrificiis idolorum contaminatam cum Repositorium seu Arcam suam in quâ sanctum Domini posuerat manibus pollutis tentasset aperire ignis efflans eam terruit nec tangere erat ausa This and much more might be brought to witnes that primitive Christians thought themselves completly communicated in one kind and this very kind that is now in use amongst Catholiks But I must come to your Doctour Half-Communion saith he is another Popish novelty wherby they deprive the people of Christs blood Sir if they eat in memory that Christ died for them which they do and which in all Protestancy makes a perfect communion how are they deprived of his blood Can they beleev his death and passion without faith of his blood shed for them But they ought to have wine as well as bread So they have as much as the Disswader and his Church allows their people wherby they may feed upon Christ who shed his blood for us in their heart by faith with thanksgiving and which as your Disswader here speaks may make Christs body and blood present to them by sacramental consequence And how is it then a half-communion O but the wine is not the blood of Christ Not carnally as your Disswader speaks of his Sacrament but it is so by sacramental conseqence It is as much then as yours the blood of Christ And how is it then a half-communion and yours a whole one O but their bread is beleeved to be the body of Christ So it is but yours is not And therfor if theirs be but a half-communion yours is none at all But how good Doctour Disswasive is half-communion either new Popery or old Popery or any Popery at all Roman Catholiks or Papists use no such word nor do they own any such thing as Half-Communion They beleev and call it a whole Communion Is it lawful for you to forge a Popery of your own and then put it upon them who neither in thought word or any of their writings profess any such thing But is not Communion in one kind all one with Half-Communion No Sir it is not all one It differs as much as half and whole And that I think is somthing It is a whole Communion Sir both in the tenour of their beleef and according to that of yours And why then should you call it a half-communion According to theirs whole Christ is equally present under either of those figures or appearances and therfor according to their faith it is a whole Communion And according to yours it is no less When you your selves give the bread to your people and say Take this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed upon him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving you do not intend I suppose nor do the people mean to feed only upon one half of him Why then would your Disswader injuriously misname that a half-communion which in all opinions is a whole one Neither Catholiks nor Protestants feed upon the signs but thing signified This difference too there is that Catholiks have all the mystery of the passion represented to them in their sacrifice and the presence of the whole Lord in their Communion But Protestants have no such thing although the mystery be preacht to them And therfor is the Catholik not a half but whole Communion and that of the Protestants may well be doubted whether it be any Communion at all though it be a whole Sermon For how can any one discern the Lords body there where in reality it is not If your Disswader had a candour becoming a gentleman he would neither falsifie the wayes nor misname the practice of any Religion But be it as it is Since Papists as he will have them called have equally used the Communion in the liquid kind alone as this in only the other why should he call one of them more than the other by the name of Popery And why is not Communion in both kinds which he acknowledges to have been more in use amongst them and proves it by the testimony of their own popish doctours be rather Popery than either of the other O but this half-communion began but in the Councel of Constance I have sufficiently shown you Sir that the custom was in the world before the City of Constance knew what Christianity were And even this Councel of Constance is perverted by the Disswader too as if he had sworn to act nothing sincerely That busines in the Councel was thus Petrus Dresdensis and other associates of Huz had taught publickly and with much scandal that the Eucharist is necessarily to be given to lay-people after supper and in both kinds This doctrin and practice of theirs was censured by the Councel which at one and the same time declared those two circumstances of communicating in both kinds and after supper not to be of necessary obligation because the Canons and approved ancient custom of the Church had never looked upon those two circumstances as of necessity to be observed But what does your Disswader here First he sets down the Councels resolution in direct opposition to Christ Whereas Christ instituted c. yet we command contrary c. as though the Councel had absolutely annulled Christs institution which notwithstanding they acknowledg and allow for good and only declare the two said circumstances in that institution of our Lord not to be of that necessity as the substance of the institution it self giving for their reason for it which your Disswader thinks not good to take notice of that the Canons and ancient custom of the Church had sufficiently made manifest that those two circumstances of communicating at night and in both kinds were not necessary by allowing the contrary practice in primitive times Secondly whereas the Councel joyned both the circumstances together namely of communicacating in both kinds and after supper he quite leaves out that of receiving
go those hot and furious imaginations It is a phrase so ordinary with you that when another writer of your own judgment would have told me that my words are false or besides the purpos or the like you in a phrase of your own tell me still that I speak guns and daggers If he mean say you of me p 27. that ther is in good works an intrinsecal worth c. he speaks daggers and doth not himself beleev what he sayes And again p. 94. For men to come now in the end of the world and tell us That we must rest in the autority of the present Church c. is to speak daggers and swords to us upon a confidence that we will suffer our selves to be befoold So likewise p. 340. He tells us say you of me it is good to prefer a Translation before the Originals What shall we do with those men that speak such swords and daggers and are well neither full nor fasting I pray Sir where did you borrow this trope had you it from the school of Aristotle or Mars his camp Thirdly your prophetick assurance so often inculcated that if you could but once com to whisper me in the ear I would plainly acknowledg either that I understand not my self what I say or if I do beleev it not givs a fair character of those fanatick times wherin ignorance and hypocrisy prevailed over worth and truth wherof if your self wer any part it is no wonder you should think that I or any man els should either speak he knows not what or beleev not what himself speaks It was the proper badg of those times when after the alarm sounded in the Pulpit that our people therupon went forth in troops to battle neither did the peasant understand nor the man in black beleev although the sound rung generally in their ears that it was the sword of the Lord and of Gideon which they brandisht against the loyal band their foes Measuring me it seems by your self you tell me no less than seaven times in your book that I beleev not and I think seaventy times that I understand not what I speak my self It is a kind of charity in you to think your neighbour is as you know your self to be But I do not much care for that charity except you were better than I find you are Fourthly your pert assertion so often occurring in your book that ther is neither reason truth nor honesty in my words is but the overflowing of that former intemperat zeal and the more frequent it occurs the less approbation it will find Fiftly your sharp and frequent menaces that if I write or speak again I shall hear more find more feel more more to my smart more than I imagin more than I would rellishes too much of that insulting humour our bleeding Land then groaned under the many years of our anarchical confusion Sixthly the absence of your name in the frontispiece of your book which I have never before observed in all my life of any Protestant writer that hath ever in my time set forth a book here in England against Popery givs no small suspicion that the Authour of our Animadversione is no such Protestant as he would be thought to be Lastly that I may omit other special reasons your other general trick of charging me then most of all with fraud ignonorance and wickedness when in your own heart you find me most clear from any such blemish thereby to put a vail upon your own caus which would otherways be disparaged makes me smell a fox a notorious one Sic notus Vlysses This has been too often acted here in England to be soon forgotten The better the caus the lowder still was the cry against those who stood for it that the blustering nois of calumnies might drown all report of their innocence And by all this I cannot Sir but suspect that if the description of Popery your Animadversions givs us be right you are a Papist your self and no true Protestant a notorious Papist But as it is so let it be Thus much I only tell you that you may see I am neither neglective of your book nor idle but have perused and read it over And although what for the threats of your Animadversions and what for the reasons of my own Fiat I may not enter into controversie yet I hope I may let you know that I have seen your work And that you may the better credit me I will give you a short account of it first in general then in particular And this is all I mean here to do The whole design of Fiat Lux you do utterly mistake throughout all your book of Animadversions so that you conceiv that to be a controversy which is none that to be absolutely asserted which is but hypothetically discoursed out of the exceptions of other men that to be only for one side which is indifferently for all although I speak most for them that are most spoken against and am in very deed absolutely against all speaking quarrelling disputing about Religion If you will but have patience to hear my purpos and design which to all men not interested and blinded with a prejudice is clear enough relucent in the whole context of my Fiat what I say will easily appear to your self Fiat Lux sayes one thing and supposes it another thing he desires and aims at that he dislikes this he commends We are at this day at variance about Religion this Fiat Lux supposes But it were better to have peace this he aims at and desires And both these things are intermingled up and down in my book according to that small faculty that God hath given me though not according to the usual method that is found now adayes in books Here Sir in few words you have the summe of my Fiat And I hope you will grant that to be the scope of my book which I made it for That we are now at variance is most clear and certain by me supposed and not to be denied And that it were better to have peace is as absolutely expedient as the other is evidently true These then being things both of them which no man can resist either by denying the one or disliking the other I thought them better intermingled then set apart and with more reason to be supposed then industriously proved Yet to superinduce a disposition unto peace my only work was to demonstrate an uselesnes an endlesnes an unprofitablenes of quarrels which I laboured quite through my book beginning it with an intimation of our quarrels which St. Paul calls the fruits and works of the flesh and ending it with a commendation of charity which is the great fruit and blessing of Gods holy Spirit Now the easier to perswade my Countreymen to a belief both of the one and the other first is insinuated in Fiat Lux both the ill grounds and worst effects of feuds then is the plea of parties specified their
not to heed any thing that may hinder your flourishes But Sir if you were kept up in a chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your aery vaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold had made an end of you But I beleev you love not such dry blows however you may be delighted with pen encounters at a distance where after your suppositum has been well inspired with the warm spirits blown hither out of the fortunate islands you may cavil revile and threaten at your pleasure and knock down the shadow of your adversary which your own spirits have raised up and presented to you in your chamber 10 ch from page 213 to 228. Your tenth chapter runs over two of my paragraffs which speak the plea of Independents Presbyterians and Protestants That you esteem idle the other sensles the last insufficient And to make this last good you endeavour to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat Lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England they were forced for their own preservation against Puritans to take up som of those principles again which former Protestants had sast down for Popish as is the autority of a visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between clergy and laiety c. Here first you deny that those principles are popish But Sir ther be som Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jury I have other things to do than to fill volums with useles texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers and catholik divines and councels Then secondly you challenge me to prove that those principles were ever dented by our prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therfor bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants becaus I say that our prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond the seas before our prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that out prelate Protestant affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied you bid me prove that our prelate Protestant ever denied them Thus you contradict what I say is pleaded against our prelate Protestant And again you do as stiffly gain-say what I plead for him my self You laugh at me even with head and shoulders and tell me that the prelate-Protestant has far better arguments for themselvs then either mine is or any I can bring nor do they need the help of such a weak logician as my self in this their caus Sir give me leav to tell you here once for all that I thought it sufficient for my design to set down either for Papist or Protestant when occasion required such reasons as appeared plausible to my self and to say all for them that can be said was neither the work of my small ability nor any purpos of my design And it is enough to me that I know no better But let us see what my argument is and how you crush it The Church say I must have a byshop or otherwise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first c. This that you may evacuate you tell me that the Church hath still the same head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and laws and is man-God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible bishop to be that head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and yet not the same Thus you speak But Sir I cannot in any reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true logick of the identity of the head than I do of the identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation com who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind becaus they adhere to the same principles of faith And as the body is of the same kind though not numerically the same so do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other beleeving men is departed hence to the glory of his Father that the Church should still have a head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or els say I she cannot be completely the same body or a body of the same kind she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible byshop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God but this man-hood is now separate nor is he visibly now present as man which immediately headed his beleevers under God on whose influence that natur depended His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in it self but in order also to his Church as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner beleeved but the natur delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples is now utterly withdrawn And if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then nor is she the same polity or body she was before Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labour so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of the invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior direction and government to his Church Pray tell me is
of themselves aim no further then the peace and happines of this life And so for the particular end and means answerable therunto which religion uses it will require a particular and special overseer Thus Aristotle though he conceited the celestial orbs to be contiguous and so all rapt together in a motion from East to West yet becaus they had special motions of their own he therfor allowed them particular intelligences to guide those motions So we see in ordinary affairs a man that hath several wayes and ends is guided by several directours in this by a lawyer in that by a physician by a gardener by a tradesman c Fiftly becaus head of the Church absolutely must be one that succeeds in his chair whom Jesus the master left and appointed personally to feed his flock No King upon earth ever pretended to fit in that Fishermans chair or to succeed him in it which the Pope to my knowledg for sixteen hundred years hath both challenged as his right and actually possest And Catholiks are all so fixt in this judgment that they can no more disbeleev it then they can ceas to beleev in Jesus Christ 11 ch from page 228. to 246. Your eleventh chapter falls directly upon my fifteenth paragraff of Scriptur And therfor I may here expect you should insult over me to the purpos But Sir I told you before and now tell you again that I know no other rule to Christians either for faith or manners no other hope no other comfort but what scriptur and holy gospel affords But this is not any part of the debate now in hand however you would perswade the world to think so When four or five men Sir of several judgements collected from the very scriptur you and I talk of rise up one against another with one and the same scriptur in their hands with such equal pretence of light power and reason that no one will either yield to another or remain himself in the same faith but run endles divisions without controul does scriptur prevent this evil does it has it can it remedy it can any one man make a religion by the autority of scriptur alone which neither himself nor any other upon the same grounds he framed it shall rationally doubt of This is our case Sir and only this which you do not so much as take notice of to the end you may with a more plausible rhetorick insult over me as a contemner of Gods word Nor do you heed any particle of my discours in this paragraff but according to your manner collect principles to the number of seven out of it you say which I do not know to be so much as hinted in it that as you did before so you may now again play with your own bawble and confute your self And they are in a manner the very same you sported with before in your second chapter 1. from the Romans we received the gospel 2. what is spoken in scripture of the Church belongs to the Roman 3. the Roman every way the same it was c. of all which I do not remember that I have in that my paragraff so much as any one word Sir either speak to my discours as you finde it or els hold your peace As if then you had overheard me afore-hand to give you this deserved check at the close of your chapter you bring in som few words of mine with a short answer of your own annext to the skirts of it which I here set down as you place them your self No man can say speaks Fiat Lux what ill popery ever did in the world till Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected Strange say you in your Animadversions when it did all the evils that ever were in the Christian world With the Roman catholiks unity ever dwelt Never Protestants know their neighbour catholiks not their religion They know both Protestants are beholding to Catholiks for their benefices books pulpits gospel For som not all The Pope was once beleeved general pastour over all Prove it The scriptur and gospel we had from the Pope Not at all You cannot beleev the scriptur but upon the autority of the Church We can and do You count them who brought the scriptur as lyars No otherwise The gospel separated from the Church can prove nothing Yes it self This short work you make with me And to all that serious discours of mine concerning scriptur which takes up sixteen pages in Fiat Lux we have got now in reply thereunto this your Laconick-confutation Strang. Never Know both Som not all Prove it Not at all Can and do No otherwis Yes it self 12 ch from page 246. to 262. Your twelfth chapter meets with my history of religion as a flint with steel only to strike fire For not heeding my story which is serious temperate and sober you tell another of your own fraught with defamations and wrath against all ages and people and yet speak as confidently as calm truth could do First you say that Joseph of Arimathea was in England but he taught the same religion that is in England now But what religion is that Sir Then you tell us that the story of Fugatius and Damian missioners of Pope Eleutherius you do suspect for many reasons But becaus you assign none I am therfor moved to think they may be all reduced to one which is that you will not acknowledg any good thing ever to have come from Rome Then say you succeeded times of luxury sloth pride ambition scandalous riots and corruption both of faith and manners over all the Christian world both princes priests prelates and people Not a grain of vertue or any goodnes we must think in so many Christian kingdoms and ages Then did Goths and Vandals and other pagans overflow the Christian world To teach them we may think how to mend their manners These pagans took at last to Christianity Haply becaus it was a more loose and wicked life than their own pagan profession These men now Christened advanced the Popes autority when Christian religion was now grown degenerate And now we come to know how the Roman byshop became a patriark above the rest by means namely of new converted pagans It was an odde chance they should think of advancing him to what they never knew either himself or any other advanced before amongst Christians whose rotten and corrupt faith they had lately embraced And yet more odde and strange it was that all Christendom should calmly submit to a power set up anew by young converted pagans no prince or byshop either there or of any other Christian Kingdom either then or ever after to this day excepting against it Had not all the byshops and priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world acknowledged by a hundred experiments the supreme spiritual autority of the Roman patriarch in all times before this deluge of Goths and Vandals But why do I expostulate
this his first chapter are cited som Councils severity against heretiks wherin Mr Whitby thinks himself concerned with much regret and anger One of these saith he was kept at Lateran the other at Leyden under Pope Innocent I suppose concilium Lateranum is the councel he sayes was kept at Lateran though his Dictionary of proper words will not help him to understand in what countrey that town of Lateran is to be found And concilium Lugdunense is that which he englishes the councel of Leyden all the history and reading Mr. Whitby has not been able to distinguish betwixt Ludunum Batavorum and Lugdunum in Gallia betwixt Leyden in Holland where never any councel was kept and Lyons in France where Pope Innocent held that councel whilst he sojourned in Burgundy But though he be yet but raw you shall find him a greater proficient by and by As for that councel of Lateran wherin is a confiscation of goods and other penalties decreed upon such as run into disturbing heresies it touched only exteriour disciplin or temporal statutes and no article or busines of religion Nor did the Church make any such constitution by her own autority but declared only what secular power may justly do when they think it expedient and necessary to prevent further evils What power have Priests and Byshops over mens estates and lives But the Emperour and Kings were willing to have it so ordained in that venerable assembly that with a more plausible colour they might be able to provide for their Kingdoms peace even in those affairs which they themselvs were to execute though not to determin Nor does any King in Christendom think himself any further obliged by that decree to put such laws in execution then he shall with his privat councel think fit And all secular princes will by the advice of their peers proceed to such penalties when they pleas whether any synod decree it or no. Nor is it the wors if a councel do say that in som cases may be don which princes in their discretion think expedient His 2 ch from page 7 to 9. Tells us that Mr. Whitby is here in a trembling sweat good Sir for your faults I tremble saith he to consider that our Author should be so imprudent to say no wors to call God to witness to his soul that he hath studiously avoided all caveling distortion of texts c. And then he addes with a new fervour That all Fathers are miserably corrupted by you and allegations most disingeniously forged And if it be not so quoth he I will forfeit presently my life Good man he engages very far as you see for you He will dy dy presently if Fathers all the Fathers be not corrupted miserably corrupted by you And this he will do without any trembling if he do not make that good which he trembles to think of But it is no wondrous matter I think to hear him utter such daring words although he use here none of his mental reservations he knows himself as safe as a thief in a mill and that it will never be put to a Jury to find whether he be guilty or no. His first chapter was fuming wrath this second a shivering fear And so he proceeds from one passion to another quite through his book even to the end to verifie his own words in his Epistle to his Patron where upon the sight of your book he saith that he found himself put into such a passion as vented it self into this reply But these passious of his and the various vilifications both of your book and person wherewith this reply of his and assault against Catholiks is stuft or any other of his calumnies and bitter invectives against Papists which are many and hainous I shall not trouble you with now You must have patience and let them pass as other good people do where ever you meet them Ministers good men fight for their wives and children either those they have or hope to have which will be undon and lost if the odium of Popery and of all such as any way excuse and defend their innocence be not smartly kept up My adversary OeN did as much to innocent Fiat Lux which had no other fault but that it had excused the faultles To do well and hear ill this must be the lot as that is the endeavour of all good men in this world In his 3 ch from page 9. to 17. The challenge of Bishop Jewel for the first 600 years against Papists which all his graver brethren disliked Mr. Whitby if his word here be of any worth will make it good yea and enlarge it with Perkins White Baxter and Crackanthorp to 800 yea 1200 years wherein there was not they say any such creatur as a Papist in the world And he cares not a pin though Beza Melancton and Luther acknowledg to the contrary that Popery hath the prerogative of Antiquity before all other waies Beza saith he and Melancton are strangers to us Must we be accountable for Luthers words And yet all over his book he makes more use of strangers gives more credit to them then any of our own and would have us do so too Are not Chamier Dally Plessis Grotius Blondel as much strangers and of as little credit as Beza Melancton and Luther But what if our own Dr. Willet speaks for the Papists antiquity above others What iâ— our own Whitaker say that to beleev by the testimony of the Church is the very heresie of the Papists O then his answer is ready at hand What is all this to the purpos did ever any Protestant say otherwis do they therfor confess their antiquity The stripling fears no colours If any or many both of our own and forreign Protestants do acknowledg the Papists antiquity why what then If some deny it then it is so It is as they say who say as he sayes And if any say otherwise it is otherwise It is not so Ther is one assertion in this his third chapter that deservs I think to be written in capital letters For p. 16. having told you Sir that Protestants either affront the evidence of Scripture against Fapists or the intent of the Apostles or rather of God himself c. he thinks therfor that Protestants rejection of Popery may well be excused and especially saith he these are his words so much remarkable When you Papists know we hold that in all matters of faith it is all one withus to be praeter Scripturam and to be contra That is in plain English what is not in Scripture that Protestants hold to be against it And is this so First it is hard to say how far matters of faith reach Ther is one sort of people now in England that would have all things acted and disposed even in civil affairs only according to the tenour of Gospel And what is beside it they conclude by this very axiom to be against it And so they decry all our Courts
authorative Mr. Whitby hath seen perhaps som elderly cockerel to part the frayes of younger chickens and thinks tribunals of byshops do no more The Pope it seems was ever a loving brother at least still ready to decide the frayes of all Churches and Byshops upon all occasions which was a pious and good work and not belonging to Antichrist He would do well Sir to part this fray of yours with Mr. Whitby which otherwis will never be ended Is the Roman Patriarch said to have the care of all the Churches Any one saith Whitby may have that repute for he that serves one Church serves all And if Whitby get but the cure of any one little Chappel here in England though it be but to read prayers in an hospital he must then be beleeved to have the solicitude of all the English Churches upon him In brief doth S. Chrysostom to declare a supremacy among the apostles affirm that St. James obtained the throne of Jerusalem but St. Peter was constituted master and teacher not of one throne but of the whole world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That text sayes he is in all likelihood by negligence of transcribers or som other way mistaken However it makes nothing for supremacy were not all the apostles so He gathers they were all so becaus the peculiarity of the title master and teacher of the whole world is there attributed unto one exclusively to all the rest Every minister is a byshop or overseer if we mind only the signification of the word but is he therfor so in the whole meaning and peculiarity of the title Finally doth our Mr. Whitgift acknowledg that the apostles were all equal as to their function not as to government equal quoad ministerium not quoad polititiam which is a plain and manifest assertion Sir of the supremacy you plead for What is this saith Whitby to the purpos He findes never a word in that speech of Dr. Whitgift which begins with s. u. p. and therfor cries out What is this to the purpos what is this to supremacy You must not expect Sir that in the succeeding chapters I should give you any more account of the particular quicknesses of your adversary They are all like these which I have here briefly hinted to you in this first controverted point of Supremacy only that you may see that he or the several champions rather which he makes use of have more distinctions than one But by such evasions distinctions and shifts wherewith most men are now made so acquainted that they can use them nimbly against any laws and authorities either divine or humane are the people of our distressed Kingdom carried up and down like a cork in water or gossimor in the air with every wind and billow of a fancy now here now there being removed once from their ancient stability unto endles disquiet Cannot a man in this manner and method evacuate slight and frustrate every thing What authority law or custom either human or divine can stand in force if it may be thus by Whitbean Sophomorismes laughed out of countenance I will be bold to say that the witty Presbyterian does more substantially refute all prelatick principles and practices then these answer the Roman Nay these in answering the Roman have made way for the Presbyterian And yet they will still be scribling But you must know Sir withall that Mr. Whitby in his intervals or cooler moods allows the Roman Patriarch a priority of order and honour although he will not afford him any autority or jurisdiction A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uppermost seat he shall have although no supremacy or power For he sayes p. 52. The byshop of Rome was to do it judg causes he means receiv appeals and the like more especially for the dignity of his seat which made him prime in order or Byshops And again p. 66. St. Basil calling the Byshop of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head or apex of Western Byshops makes him only saith he the chief in order and most eminent Byshop of the West which title we can very well allow him So that the Pope if he should come hither to us either for love or hospitality although our byshops will not allow him authoratively to visit keep chapter make laws or punish any of them for transgressing the ecclesiastical cannons yet will they give him a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffer him if Mr. Whitby be any legal master of ceremonies to sit at the upper end of the table And St. Peter it seems had no more Nor had he any power so much as to command any man to rise from the table if he behaved himself unmannerly at his meat And such a precedency he allows his own chief Superiour the Arch-byshop of Canterbury and no more A Metropolitan saith he p. 23. hath no jurisdiction over byshops He can do nothing c. And again page 33. His grace of Canterbury hath no power of jurisdiction over byshops And this he speaks boldly although he assert withall that a byshop hath jurisdiction over parish-priests and these over their parishioners So that according to Whitby that autority dignity and power which is in the lowest must be wanting in the highest degree of hierarchy which must if this be true end with power and begin with feeblenes contrary both to common reason and that famous speech of learned Porphyry In summis est unitas cum virtute in infimis multitudo cum debilitate Mr. Whitby has no hope perhaps ever to be made Metropolitan although he may possibly see himself a byshop and will not therfor devest himself aforehand of the dignity he may one time or other arrive at although the for call the grapes he has no hopes to reach unsavory and sowre stuff But his grace of Canterbury hath he no jurisdiction Mr. Whitby over byshops What law custom or tradition gives byshops a power over parish-priests which allows not a Metropolitan as much over byshops And if he have only a precedency of place then can these have no more And it is as easie to say the one as the other And is all our hierarchy com only to a precedency of honour Here will be fine work for a Quaker who will as resolutely deny the honour as you the power How coms that eminent person to be stiled his grace of Canterbury but only for his power dignity and jurisdiction over the venerable byshops And this power and dignity hath I am sure belonged to the See of Canterbury ever since the first planting of Christianity among the English which inables that byshop to make laws to visit his province to call together his byshops to censure to punish even Prelates themselves if they transgress the cannons which is as much as any byshop can do to his parish priests Is it not a strange presumption in a young man thus to disable his own chief prelate before his face and say peremptorily that a Metropolitan can do nothing that
which infers a worship of God in it not by it Chap. 15. from page 247 to 273. Is very earnest for scriptur and liturgy in a vulgar tongue This plea of Protestant ministers makes a plausible sound And they know it well enough For it was the first thing that by their rhetorical colours cast upon it commended them to the people after the Apostacy of the first reformers by whose perswasion the people was then made to beleev they should now be as gods all of them knowing good and evil The word of God saith Whitby is kept from the knowledge of the vulgar people in the Roman Church And thus they all say and ever will say be they never so much satisfied by Catholik writers to the contrary becaus it is to their own advantage it should be so thought in England and all other places where Protestants have invaded and now actually sit upon the Catholick Clergies benefice and byshoppricks But is ther any part or particle of Christian faith or religion or of the word of God that is kept from Catholiks or not made known to them in Books Catechismes Sermons all in their own language and in daily practis of that Church wherof they are members Do they not hear and read and see all the mysteries of our Christian faith Christ our Lords birth and passion resurrection and ascension into glory what he acted what he suffered what he taught what he constituted and ordained for our salvation what we are to hope what to beleev what to practice in order thereunto set before their eyes not only by continual sermons made to them all over the catholik world in their own vulgar tongue but by their Gospels and Epistles which they have lying by them collected for the cours of the whole year and translated into their own language together with several pious treatises and meditations upon all these rules and mysteries of faith unto so ample use that if they do but walk accordingly which is all that religion intends they cannot miss salvation Is not all this Gods word It is nothing els And what is ther more of the word of God except we will count letters and syllables The word of God then is not kept from the knowledg of the vulgar people in the Roman Church But why have they not the Bible translated as it lies in all languages where catholik faith is profest Becaus it is obscure as it lies in that short and ambiguous phrase and under so many several tropes of rhetorick and schemes also of logick wherin it was wrote apt therby to be perverted and misunderstood as we see by experience to be true unto endles factions Nor does the word of God consist so much in letters and syllables as in the marrow and meaning of his will And not the sence and meaning but the letter of the scriptur is that which makes hereticks But is not that the word of God which is kept from the people It is the word of God but not kept from the people For it is but the same with that which is delivered and made known unto the people So much as it contains whatever it be either of faith or morality either of what is to be beleeved or hoped or practised they have it all but disintangled from those artificiall schemes of logick and rhetorick wherof the holy writ is fuller then any book was ever writ by man which there inwrap and render it obscure Ther is no instruction no rule of piety no particle of comfort either for this world or the other in St. Pauls epistles for example but Catholiks have it they read it in their own language if they be able to read they know it all And they have it in a better and more facil manner then they could find it out by perusing those high theological discourses of his which the learnedst of men can hardly and very hardly understand The like I say of other portions of holy writ Only the disputative part with the interwoven systems of rhetorick this may exercise great and more sublime divines who by help of their various litterature may consider not only the plain truths therin contained which are common to them with other vulgar beleevers but the nature of the Metonymies Synechdoche's Metaphors together with the several modes of argumentation refutation objections and inopinate transitions in the context This if my adversary OeN had understood it had saved one fourth part of his Animadversions upon Fiat Lux and Whitby here had been utterly silent But it is their only advantage both in this and other controverted points of faith with Roman Catholiks either to be ignorant or dissemble their knowledg And therfor I have good reason to think they will never seem to understand But God grant they may The wonder is that English Protestants should still be as fiercely eager in this point when they write controversies as ever they were when they do themselves most heartily repent I have heard several great clergy-men amongst them speak it that they had ever given the Bible in that short ambiguous phrase it is penned into the hands of people in their own tongue to be thus perverted as it is every one his own way unto endles and irreconcilable schismes It would glad their hearts no doubt to see the Roman Church do indiscreetly as they have don But that will never be Holy catholik Church has revealed translated and several wayes made known the will of God to her people appointing most divine wayes and methods such as she had her self received from God to inure and keep them in the practis of that their holy faith And the disputative and sublimer divinity or as I may so speak the philosophical part of holy writ such as can may read on Gods name and the Church will commend them for it while these with all the rest attend unto those duties and good works every one in his calling which their holy faith prescribes These are and ever were the wayes and method of the now present and ancient catholik Church most wise and holy And her subjects and beleevers have profited therby many thousands of them unto angelical sanctity and all of them unto somthing more than otherwise they would have had whilst others that swerv from these wayes promote themselvs unto wildness and schisme without end missing indeed the word of God in the very scripture they read and never attaining to the true life and power in that form of words which they use not unto intended sanctification but by their own misinter pretations wrest and deprave daily unto their own destruction Nor will people be ruled now by their ministers but thinking it their own right to interpret as they pleas make it their only work to read and cant sentences and coin opinions as they list Excepting only this one fruit of our vulgar reading of scripture as it lies which in all mens judgments is an evil fruit I do not see nor
they exalted that of the right hand to depress the left in these later times they exalt the vertue of the left hand to depress the right Thus marriage is good and continence also is good they are both good Nay S. Paul sayes that continence is better or the vertue of the right hand For he that is unmarried only cares sayes he how to serve God well and pleas him but he that is married is solicitous for many worldly affairs concerning his wife and children and so is distracted and divided two wayes To exalt then the one of these two which are both good things unto such a monopoly of goodnes and excellency that the other shall be thought unlawful and evil this is doctrina daemoniorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Thus faith is good and other works of piety justice and sobriety unto which Christ and his apostles exhort us are good also and necessary and healthful He therfor that so magnifies the one as to evacuate the other teaches doctrinam daemoniorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Meat is good and fasting is good good to eat with thanksgiving and good in times and occasions to abstain But that man who so exalts the one as to exclude the other out of Christianity is a seducer and teaches the doctrin of demons So likewise doth he who either so highly magnifies free will as to exclude Gods grace or so defends grace that he abolishes all concurrence of free will unto works of piety and merit teach both of them equally the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning In a word not to mention more examples wherin I might be copious so to commend continence as to make marriage unlawful is the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning And so again to set up marriage as to teach continence to be both sinful and impossible is the doctrin both of demons and devils too implacable enemies both to truth and continence And Christ is equally crucified between both the theeves Ch. 18. from page 410. to 420. Begins to justifie the departure or schisme of the English from the Roman Church as good and lawful For if Schisme saith he be a crime it lies upon the Church not which separated but which gave the caus of separation the Roman not the English Church Causal schisme which gives the occasion bears all the blame but formal schisme which separates from an offensive society is an action of necessary vertue Nor can there be quoth he any necessity of communicating with others in wicked actions but a necessity rather of going out of Babylon Nor does every schisme turn the Church of Christ into a synagogue of Satan but only schisme in sundamentals which fundamentals he saith elswhere are as clear and perspicuous to all men as that twice two make four These Sir be his capital assertions in this chapter which how little they will serve his purpos against the Roman Church he that seriously reads your book against which this reply is made will soon perceiv But how much they will disadvantage him before the Presbyterian Quaker and other wayes here in England who separating from our English Church do thus justifie their schisme either by mincing the fault or laying it upon her from whom they have revolted it behoovs him well to consider Ch. 19. from page 420 to 428. Endeavours yet more to diminish the fault and justifie the secession Schisme saith he that proceeds from weaknes in persons that desire to know the truth and endeavour after it is free from crime And again External unity is not essential to the Church And schisme that is contrary to that unity divides not from Christs body in things absolutely necessary to be united but only in things not so necessary as in the same liturgies or ceremonies about matters not fundamental wherein an union is neither necessary nor yet possible This is I am sure the voice of a Presbyterian and no Prelatick Protestant as Whitby speaks himself to be And if it be indeed the sence of our English Church as her spokes-man here would make us beleev it is then are surely our English Byshops in charity all obliged earnestly to intercede with his royal Majesty who for civil respects hath forbidden all meetings out of ordinary Churches and Chappels that the poor Quaker who endeavours after truth and light with an innocent and unfeigned heart may be permitted for religious respects to meet at Bull and Mouth and other such like places where they may think fit being now resolved never to resort more to Protestant Steeple-houses or to any of their liturgies or ceremonies which communion is neither necessary unto any unity any substantial unity in Christs body nor yet possible that they may declare amongst themselvs the sons of light the power and truth in simplicity of heart without impeachment of the wicked Ch. 20. from page 428. to 448. Falls again to speak against Infallibility which he had battered before in his whole 9 chapter of above 30 pages and that with as much earnestness here as if nothing had been yet said of it But this chapter was written haply by som other hand which knew not what the former had performed till coming together both of the papers to the Press it was perceived they might both pass And here all general Councels and their determinations are disabled as destitute of any assurance of truth Is this Infallibility quoth he out of Chillingworth in the Councel alone or Pope alone c. What shall we do if they run counter c. To whom must we hearken when many pretend to the Popedom c. What if the Popes misdemeanour be the thing to be judged c. How can we be assured that any one is true Pope not Symoniacally ordained not illegally elected not invalidly baptised c. which are saith he uncertainties propounded by Mr. Chillingworth not possible to be resolved This kind of discours fills up this whole chapter By vertue of these uncertainties we can never tell whether Mr. Whitby be any minister or no or whether he be a Christian or so much as a Whitby If titulus coloratus and moral evidence may not suffice us we can be sure of no authority either spritual or civil in this world And if any one should learn by this wise master thus to except against the obliging power of acts and decrees of King or Parliament Is that power in the King alone or in the Parliament alone c. What if they run counter c. What if they should not be rightly chosen c. would he not talk as wise as this man and his little Doctor Chillingworth It ought to suffice an honest man and a good subject that an authority is set over him and peaceably accepted whom he ought indefinily to obey not only for wrath but conscience It is not his part to weaken due
determining in such affairs Nor is ther any the least mention either in Luther's resistance or Leo his censure about constituting new articles but only deciding the old which Luther would have thought to be erroneous however strengthened by antiquity and from which old errours he would make himself a reformation and innovation by the right which was in himself not subjected to any man no not to the Pope himself in those affairs Is this a mistake think you in your Disswader or somthing wors Truly I cannot think he was so ignorant The like insincerity doth this your Disswader exhibit in all that his talk of the Catholiks dealing with the Fathers works and the indexes or tables adjoyned to them jumbling his words so confusedly together that his reader might beleev that to be don to the Fathers writings themselvs which the Churches care provided to be done to the false glosses tables and indexes annexed to those writings and that to be taken out of those writings which ever was and still is in them and Printers and Correctours complaining of that fault of making alterations in the Fathers Editions which they did not so much as think of Which is a most stupendious insincerity And thus saith he are the Fathers maimed and curtailed by Papists insomuch that Sixtus Senensis praises Pope Pius 5. for this his car ein purging the Fathers works I say this whole talk of his is most prodigiously unjust For that Index Expurgatorius extended not to any writings or works of the Fathers but only to the marginal notes and false glosses and indexes or tables put to them by the hereticks and therfor are Tertullian Origen and some others still printed intire though ther be not a few things in them contrary to Catholik faith And this the very words of Junius a Correctour of a Press cited by the Doctour clearly intimates What saith he Papists dare not do with the Fathers they practise upon us he means Protestant printers and writers and with their little forks thrust out our annotations in the margent and our sayings in the indices although they be consonant to the Fathers minds But saith he this care was so great in Pius 5. that Sixtus Senensis commends the Pope for his industry in purging the Fathers works He did so indeed but if the Doctour had spoken out the sentence he had betrayed his own false heart which he would not willingly do Expurgari saith Senensis emaculari curasti omnium Catholicorum Scriptorum ac praecipue veterum Patrum scripta haereticorum aetatis nostrae faecibus contaminata venenis infecta Your Doctour our Disswader makes Senensis praise the Pope for his purging the Fathers as though he had scowred and scraped off the substance whereas he commended him only for his care in cleansing them from the infectious notes and glosses superadded to them by the hereticks of our times But Sir that I may tell you once for all The falsifications of Authours perverted by this your Disswader are so many so notorious and gross ones that in the very relating them I shall tire both my self and you My design is only to let you know that this whole work of his Disswasive from Popery if the proofs and citations he brings for his talk were true as they are all false signifies nothing at all Two worthy Catholik Gentlemen have discovered by the help of the Libraries in London and Oxford so many most gross falsifications one of them a hundred and fifty the other yet more and greater that it cannot but amaze an honest minded reader to behold them Pray read them Sir and ponder seriously and so rid of that trouble I shall make the more haste in my own design It was their endeavour it seems to show him to be dishonest mine is only to prove him impertinent God reward them for their pains and help me in mine For my hand denies me now his office not able to write with that facility it was wont But becaus I saw no abler pen to appear as I thought they would in the confutation of this slanderous book I judged it my part Sir to give you som general hints of light concerning it till there might issue som more plenary confutation by a better hand And here Sir you must know too that I had no sooner finished this my Epistle but that I understood of another book against this Doctour Taylors Disswasive a very solid book written by Ja. Ser. in order to his own book called Sure-Footing lately set forth which made me doubt for a while whether I should let this of mine appear especially when I considered the industry care and solidity of those three men the last wherof had so taken up what the other two had left for me to say and so utterly confounded this Disswasive that I might well be silent But I remembred a story which I had sometime read in holy writ of Joas the King of Israel who coming to visit Elizeus the Prophet when he lay sick on his death-bed was bid by him for his encouragement against his enemies to strike the ground with the javelin he had in his hand Joas at his word struck the floor three times But the holy man of God was angry with him and said If thou hadst struck five or six or seven times thou hadst smote Syria even to an utter consummation but now thou shalt smite it but thrice So very faulty is this Disswasive that it cannot be smote too often even to an utter consummation § 2 Which is about a leash of new Articles Sayes that in the Church of Rome faith and Christianity encreas like the moon and that ther be now two new articles of faith a coining namely the immaculate Conception and the Popes being above the Councel and one other lately produced in the Councel of Trent sess 21. which is That although the antient Fathers did give the Communion to Infants yet they did not beleev it necessary to salvation Which decree is saith he beyond all bounds of modesty and evident truth Here your Doctour tells news of one Article lately made and two more a coining which will shortly be out of the mint both which news he knows but we know not Indeed Sir this section belongs more to a writer of Diurnals or weakly Intelligencer than to a Doctour of Divinity And therfor at the reading of it I turned suddenly to the frontispiece of the book to see whose Imprimatur it had to it And I found it licensed not by Mr. l' Estrange but Geo. Stradling First then he tells us news to come and then news past A pair of faith articles are now he saith in the mint and will shortly come forth The Virgins immaculate Conception and the Popes being above a Councel But how can your Disswader say that these two are shortly to com forth wheras in this very section he tells us a little afterward that the Councel of Basil decreed the second Article against the
discretionis pervenerint necessariam esse Eucharistiae communionem anathema sit And this is all the articles of faith determined in that Councel upon this affair wherein the faithful are forbid to hold that the Communion of Infants is necessary to salvation If any one sayes the Councel shall say that communion of the Fucharist is necessary to babes before they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema And this doctrin I am perswaded your Disswader himself holds for good But this would not make him sport enough And therfor he lets pass the Canon or Article of faith and speaks of the doctrin or Declaration of it which is not propounded for faith at all to any beleever although all Catholiks that know it adhere to it as good and solid And this is his first legerdemain to propound that for an Article of faith which is only a doctrin or declaration of faith His next trick is to make it run short like a Canon of faith wheras it is a large and serious explication wherein those words he catches at are so connexed with others that their rationality there appears which here is hid Third is that he makes it the Councels busines to determin only a matter of fact of the ancient Fathers not beleeving infants communion necessary though themselves used it which was none of the Councels intention but insinuated only by way of anticipation to cut off the arguments of hereticks who strengthned their errour about the necessity of infants communion by example of the ancient Fathers who practised it Denique eadem sancta Synodus docet parvulos usu rationis carentes nulla obligari necessitate ad Sacramentalem Eucharistiae Communionem Siquidem per Baptisms lavacrum regenerati Christo incorporati adeptam jam filiorum Dei gratiam in illa aetate amittere non possunt Neque ideo tamen damnanda est antiquitas si eum morem in quibusdam locis aliquando servavit Vt enim sanctissimi illi Patres sui facti probabilem causam pro illius temporis ratione habuerunt ita certe eos nulla salutis necessitate id fecisse sine controversia credendum est Thus speaks the Councel in their doctrin or declaration of that Article of faith Siquis dixerit But enough of this busines And although your Disswaders talk deserv it not yet your own satisfaction concerning these three novelties here specified becaus I thought it might haply require what I have said therof pray take it in good part And be assured that faith and Christianity in the Roman Church increases not like the moon although out of that Church it decreas indeed like the moon in her wain daily and in all Reformations to the wors § 3. Which is about Indulgences Sayes that the doctrin of Indulgences is wholly new and unknown to antiquity as Antonius Prierias Byshop Fisher Agrippa and Durandus Popish doctours do acknowledg And hence it is that Gratian and Magister sententiarum both of them eminent doctors among the Papists have not a word of them Indeed in primitive times when the Byshop imposed several pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the penitent and relax som remaining parts of his pennance But the Roman doctrin of Indulgence is another thing They talk of Jubilees and treasure of the Church and pilgrimages which ancient Fathers either speak against or never heard of In fine theirs is becom a doctrin of solution not absolution that is the sinner is to go free without any punishment which is destructive to true repentance and right hope to Christs merits and free pardon nourishes pride and brings in money condemned by holy Scriptures and ancient Fathers who teach repentance reducing to a good life faith in Christs merits and hope in his promises Neither can any Papists tell what they are the better for their Indulgences or whether they be absolutions or compensations whether they take off actual pennances or potential such as be due in the court of man or of God whether they avail if the receiver do nothing for them or not whether they depend only of Christs satisfaction or the Saints likewis And therfor the Councel of Trent durst determin nothing about all these things but contented themselves only to declare this That ther is in the Church a power of granting Indulgences advising Catholiks to set other superfluous and curious questions aside Sir if I had had the opportunity to print the four paragraffs which to lessen the book I left out of my Fiat Lux becaus one of them was about Indulgence I should need to say the less to this section wherin I must notwithstanding be brief that I may speak somwhat also to those that follow Three things are in this his third section confusedly jumbled together by your Disswader concerning this busines of Indulgence Faith School-philosophy and Abuses Catholik faith and Tradition he sets down himself p. 17. and acknowledges it for good Now lest the Roman Emissaries saith he should deceiv any of the good sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the primitive Church when the Byshop imposed severe pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the Penitent and relax som of the parts of his pennance and according to the example of S. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease lest they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow These are his words And in them he hath set down exactly not only the faith but all the faith of Roman Catholiks in this point to stop the mouths of Roman Emissaries which faith and practise he acknowledges also expresly to be antient and primitive And thus much he would have us beleev that Protestants hold and allow although not their books and writings only which manifestly gainsay it but their very practise which hath long ago abandoned and is now utterly ignorant either of confession or pennance or relaxation or indulgence and the very Articles of the English Protestant Church refute him But he that writes against Popery need not heed what he sayes If another say the contrary so that he speak against Popery too they will both pass for good But the Papists saith your Disswader they are quite gone from this primitive way their doctrin of Indulgence is another thing quite another thing And then jumbles together heaps of their school-disputes about solutions absolutions compensations relaxations and such like stuff which together with som abuses that time has brought forch as well in that as other affairs and which Councels and Pastours have in all ages endeavoured to rectifie must make up a Miscellan which he would have to be thought the
defend all the new curious and scandalous questions and to uphold the gainfull trade Thus heavily poor man does your Disswader complain of the Councels silence in those philosophical points neither resolving the doubts nor so much as explicating the terms therof that he might understand what is superstitious and what is scandalous and what they mean by Indulgence and what by curious and the like hard words i th' interim while the Councel sends him to school to learn the meaning of those hard words and the result of those disputes which belonging not to faith make little to edification and from whence no accession to piety can be made nor indeed any useful knowledg all your Disswaders sport is spoiled And he has som reason indeed to complain and weep But I pray you Sir consider If I have a releasement granted me from som temporal penalties due to my misdoings what does it concern me to know whether that releasement be a substance or an accident whether it be in the predicament of quantity or quality whether it be a solution or absolution whether it be from power or bounty whether it issue as out of a treasure or from a tribunal or the like The Schoolmen whence your Doctour picked those curious questions would I am sure have acquainted him with their opinions concerning all such things if he had staid to read their answers But he was in haste and indeed it concerned him not to know their resolution He had enough to pick out their philosophicall prattle in the general heads of it which becaus it is found in the school-books of such as are Catholik beleevers he makes no doubt but the very naming of it will suffice to perswade the Land that it is all popish doctrin and Popery and that Papists cannot agree in it and that it is new Indeed Sir he has great need to go to school to those Doctours not only to hear their resolutions but to understand the very terms of the question For had he known what those very words of solution and absolution mean he had never added that absurd interpretation of his own which he give p. 20. It is a very strange thing saith he a solution not an absolution that is the sinner is let go free without punishment in this world or world to come a wise interpretation of a pittiful Divine But I cannot stand here to give notice of his special mistakes simple inferences vain insultings and particular falsifications all which are gross and various I do only assure you Sir that if he mean by Popery the Religion and faith of Roman Catholiks concerning this busines of Indulgences in one period above named he approves establishes and ratifies it all And in all the rest he sayes nothing against it and indeed nothing at all to it For the subtile curious theories that are made by wits upon this subject over and above what their faith extends unto as well as in all other things even from the worlds first creation to its final consummation all whatever is contained in the whole Bible about which they have raised many thousands of disputes over and above that which is there plainly delivered by their faith these for such as are at leasure and love them may serve for Academick exercise and discours The disorders and abuses that have been in this as well as other affairs all good men and sacred Councels have laboured to their power to suppress and rectifie And are ther not abuses of all kinds in the Protestant world notwithstanding any endeavors to the contrary But the faith that is in this point and all the whole practice of it Catholiks still hold and Protestants have forsaken it For these have neither confession of sins nor pennance for those sins confest nor indulgence of any such pennances injoyned as Catholiks have Indeed the Prelat Protestant keeps still one ancient custom of commuting as they call it which is but a new word for Indulgence when the pennance of standing in a white sheet for one kind of sin imposed is upon som considerations released For although the Reformation have taught that Matrimony is no Sacrament but a meer secular contract yet Ministers I know not how keep still that Spiritual Court as they call it unto themselves as being it seems the only men that are able to judg in those affairs But there be other sins that require pennance and satisfaction besides that one and other pennance besides a white sheet to be commuted § 4. Which is about Purgatory Sayes that Purgatory is another ill novelty both becaus the Greek Fathers never make any mention of Purgatory and also becaus the doctrins on which it is built are either fals or at least dubious as that there is distinction betwixt mortal sins and venial that sin may be taken away the obligation to punishment remaining that God requires of us a full exchange of pennances for the pleasure of sin notwithstanding Christ suffering for us But Papists are deceived in this point upon two mistakes the first wherof is that ancient Fathers used to pray for the dead but they prayed not in relation to Purgatory and so the Church of England allows to pray for the departed namely as the Fathers did The second is that the Fathers speak of a fire of purgation after this life which was but an opinion of such a thing after the day of judgment And this is also refuted by those other Fathers who hold the souls to be kept in secret receptacles untill dooms-day which opinion cannot stand with Purgatory Beside St. Austin in his time doubted whether Purgatory was or no. And though ancient Fathers speak much of intermedial states and purgations and fires and common receptacles and delivery of souls yet they never agreed throughout with the Church of Rome But Papists have been brought into this beleef by frightful relations of apparitions which the wiser sort beleev not And Tertullian denies that the souls of the dead do ever appear How the Greek Church denies this purgatory doctrin appears in the Councel of Florence Moreover S. Cyprian and others teach against it that after death is no place for pennance no purgation and no less holy scripture who saith Blessed are those who dye in the Lord. What a rapsody of stuff is here Papists gathered this doctrin of Purgatory out of fals grounds Papists have been frighted into this doctrin of Purgatory by apparitions The Fathers speak of a fire of purgation after this life but they meant not as Papists do The Fathers held secret receptacles for souls until dooms-day but that cannot stand with Papists Purgatory though they speak much of intermedial states yet that does not agree throughout with the Roman doctrin of Purgatory And blessed are the dead for they â—est from their labours Blessed surely had your Disswader been if he had rested from his labours too Sir if your Disswader had meant to say any thing to the purpos in this affair he
after supper becaus it would as much have inferred the Protestant practice to be against Christs institution as the Popish is and so his talk would either have been of no value or against himself Thirdly whereas the Councel declared only against the opinion which those Hereticks had of the necessity of those two circumstances and corresponding practice he makes them to condemn not their necessity but the circumstances themselves which the Councel never thought of Fourthly he delivers that Councels declaration against those circumstances as if it had been a dogme of faith and consequently Popery or Catholik Religion wheras it was delivered in order to the circumstances themselves but as a temporal law and decree though in order to the necessity of those circumstances it be a constant Catholik truth And therfor the Councel of Basil which a little after determined the same doctrin namely that Priests are not bound to communicate the people in both kinds whereof they also give their reason quia certa fide tenendum est quod sub specie panis non tantum caro sub specie vini non sanguis tantùm sed sub qualibet specie Christus totus continetur sess 30 yet they allowed the Bohemians and Moravians who desiring to submit to the Catholik Church and yet in their weaknes could not comply with that custom to be communicated in both kinds These four are shifts of much insincerity but I must bear with him His other authorities against this Catholik custom now generally in use may be easily understood by what I have hitherto spoken what they mean But that of Paschasius I cannot but give you notice of it For Paschasius speaking of one certain ceremony in the Priests celebration of Mass wherin he drops a piece of the host into the consecrated chalice Very rightly saith he is the flesh sociated with the blood becaus neither the flesh without the blood c. And a little after Therfor saith he they are well put together in the chalice becaus from one cup of Christs Passion c. From those words which speak only the Priest's action in the sacrifice of Mass your Protestant Disswader would prove his communion of people in both kinds of which Paschasius neither spoke nor thought Is he not hard put to it think you or is he ignorant rather of what he speaks But he is gon to his next section and I must follow him § 7. Which is against Service in an unknown Tongue Sayes that the Roman Church offends no less in another of their Novelties of using an unknown tongue in their Service which use can no more be reconciled with Saint Pauls fourteenth chapter to the Corinthians than adultery with the seventh Commandment and Origen Ambrose Basil Chrysostom Austin Aquinas also and Lyra speak all against it no less also the Civil and Canon Law Indeed what profit can he receiv who hears a sound and understands it not a dumb Priest would serve as well for God understands his thoughts The popish people that pray in their churches they know not what can have no affection becaus they have no understanding of their own prayers Therfore let every tongue prais the Lord. Here the Disswader that he may the better express the confusion and darknes that is in this popish custom which he means here to speak against uses a confused and dark speech of his own and confutes it rather by emblem than reason His reader no doubt will imagin or els the Disswader fails of his end that Roman Catholiks do not understand their own prayers in the Church that God is not praised by them in every tongue that they are not at all edified by their Liturgy or Mass that they joyn not their desires nor understand what they say or ask of God that their heart sayes nothing nor asks for nothing and therfor receivs nothing that they understand not in particular what they should desire or beg of God that their own souls have not any benefit by their prayers and that the Church will not suffer them to be brought out of their intollerable ignorance All these things are jumblingly said and asserted in this his section against the Roman liturgy must as he hopes be beleeved by his reader But ther is not a Roman catholik in the world however ignorant and simple he be but will be ready to tell your Disswader to his face that ther is not of all this any one word of it true But he imagines that Roman Catholiks come to Church like Protestants there standing or sitting and looking upon one another till a black-coat comes to read som prayers in their ears But in this he is grosly mistaken as all Catholiks know though others do not They have their obsecrations their meditations their postulations their psalms their ejaculations which humbly upon their knees they pour forth to their Redeemer both while their priest is with them at the altar and before and after too Nor is there a blesseder sight to be seen on earth than devout Catholicks in a Church wheras others stand or sit gazing about till the Parson comes to make use of their ears neither heart nor lip nor hand nor knee nor breast being to them of any use And this every one would understand as well as I if he understood Catholik customs and religion as I do Nor does the Priest come to the altar to teach the people what they should say but to pray and make an atonement for them And in his confession entrance hymn of glory to God on high prayer epistle and gospel and his whole work of consecration and offering they go along with him in their meditations humiliations and requests understanding all the whole matter and busines of that heavenly devotion though they hear not his particular words which it would be all one to them whether they were in latin or in the mother tongue I know alas I speak but in vain to such as are brought up in another way and by fallacious slights of ministers are lead into a misconceit of the ancient religion of this Land which till they see it again they can hardly ever rightly understand Prejudice is a lettance almost unremovable And it concerns ministers that such a prejudice should be continually rivetted into peoples minds who must either be deceived or ministers undone But he that sees Catholik people at their devotions and Protestants at theirs would if he be any wayes disinterested conclude with himself that Catholik people serv God in earnest Protestants but in jeast Truth is the Catholik Liturgy is only a representation of Christs death and passion which our Lord appointed should be exhibited to the eyes of his beleevers so long as the world shall last that coming still together they may worship there their crucified Lord and pour forth in him all their requests every one according to their several necessities So that the priest and peoples great work is soon ended the consecration
lifting up the host and chalice and adoration being all accomplished in half a quarter of an hour and in som Churches that especially of Ethiopia in yet lesser time And all the prayers and meditations and what other things the Priest either speaks with his lips or heart besides are only to dispose himself before and after that great work And in all times have Christian people ever made it their special care to furnish themselvs with such meditations and affections as that their solemn work of adoration requires I find in my heart here to set down the way I have been taught to hear Mass and which I practise my self Such an ocular pattern would I am sure give more satisfaction to my countrymen than any general words I can speak concerning it But I shall have som better place for that hereafter The testimony of authorities which your Disswader brings against this Roman custom of one and the same language all over the world which he calls an unknown tongue either speak nothing at all to that busines or say nothing but what Papists say themselves and many of them by his usual trick either of total falsity or partial depravation are made by your Disswader to speak against a custom which they never so much as dreamed to impugn If Origen say that the Grecians in their prayers use Greek and the Romans the Roman language c. so say all Papists too The Maronites with some others use the Hebrew Liturgy Grecians the Greek and Western Christians the Roman and so every one in his own tongue that is proper to that part of the Church wherof he is a member prayeth and praiseth God And yet it was never thought necessary that any people in the Christian world should have their Liturgy in their mother tongue Again if St. Ambrose say when people meet for edification in the Church things ought to be spoken which hearers understand so say and so do Papists also For all their Sermons which are made for edification are ever in the mother tongue or vulgar language of the Countrey and in so plain a manner they either are or should be uttered that hearers may understand and edifie thereby But the Christian sacrifice is offered up to God not for the peoples edification or instruction but for their reconciliation and peace Likewise if S. Jerom and Ulphilas translated the Bible so has it been translated by several other Priests since their time I beleev into all languages of the world and is continually read and expounded in Catholik Countreys now one mystery of it then another unto peoples constant edification But this infers not that it ever was or ought to be read in the Churches one chapter after another instead of their Liturgy No such thing did antiquity ever hear of If the civil law of Justinian ordain all byshops and Priests to celebrate the sacred oblation not in a low voice but with a loud clear voice which may be heard by people so do Roman Priests at this day act all according to that Canon But how came the first reforming Protestants to leave off the name of Priests but only becaus they had no such sacred oblation which was abolished by them any longer now to make Again if there issued from Pope Innocent the third a precept or decree in the Councel of Lateran that in the same city as your Disswader here speaks thinking it I beleev to be som City called Lateran where people had then met together from several parts of the world service should be celebrated according to the diversity of ceremonies and languages no doubt but that precept or decree was then observed throughout all the City of Rome where that Councel was kept And the Maronites with their adherents had the sacred Liturgy in Chaldee or Hebrew the Grecians in Greek others in Latin with such variety of ceremonies therin as was used in these several nations though they acted the same thing in substance So that such as came from Syria Egypt or Greece were not bound to be present at the Latin Liturgy although they were then in Rome nor yet the Romans to the Hebrew or Greek Mass And if any were met there from our English Sarum Church they might use their Sarum Missal and not that of the Roman Dioces although it might have shorter or perhaps longer graduals more or fewer meditations or differing evangiles or a longer solemnity of consecration This difference is still in the world amongst Roman Catholiks at this day and ever was and will be althoug the whole substance of their Messach or Liturgy be every where the same And for this reason a Dominican Fryar now deceased coming over some years ago into England becaus he began his Mass with Confitemini Domino after the manner of the Dominicans and not with the usual psalm Judica me Deus although they had patience with him till he had ended yet the women that were present at it got together afterwards and in their indiscreet zeal fell upon him and beat him for a counterfeit And if the Councel be of any force here otherwise why is it brought then are Catholiks according to that Councel to celebrate in the very same city here with Protestants without controul though they use diversity of ceremonies and languages All these authorities then make nothing against this piece of Popery but rather confirm it And the glosses which your Disswader makes upon them and all his insulting invectives are but the froth of his own evil will When your Disswader tells us further that Basil Chrysostome Ambrose Austin Aquinas and Lyra speak against Service in an unknown tongue as unapt to edifie the aforenamed Catholik Gentlemen who have endeavoured with all care to search the Libraries for a trial of your Disswaders honesty have found in som of those Fathers no such book as your Disswader cites and in none of them any such words Which I am apt to beleev not only by reason of the industrious sincerity of the said Gentlemen and palpable insincerity of this Disswader but for other special reasons drawn from the authors themselves For St. Basil and St. Chrysostome St. Austin and St. Ambrose the two first were Greek Priests that used a Greek Liturgy of their own one of them an Archbishop or Patriarch the other a monk the two last S. Ambrose a Priest and Bishop of Millain in Italy S. Austin the like in Africa and founder of the Augustin Canons regulars and Hermits used a Latin one both which differed even in their times from the vulgar language of their respective places And Aquinas and Lyra are manifestly known to be later popish Priests and Friars using one and the same Latin Liturgy differing from the languages of England and Spain As also becaus it is unlikely they would use this Disswaders reason becaus such unknown tongues in the liturgy would not edifie For though edification in a large sence may well agree with the Mass or Liturgy in
that it excites holy and heavenly affections yet in its proper sence it is the effect of sermons and good preachers edifying the people by their holy lives and wholsom doctrin unto an emulation and care of observing what those people see and hear so frequently taught and practised by their pious preachers Those words of S. Chrysostom If one speak in an unknown tongue he is a barbarian to himself and others are absolutely true For so if an Embassadour or any other here in England should chatter words which neither himself nor others understand he would be a barbarian both to others and to himself too But when your Disswader sayes that S. Chrysostom spake so in order to a form of prayer and urging the Apostles precept for it he wrongs him wretchedly For he does it not nor can such a saying have any place in such a busines For the priest speaks not in his liturgy to the people as your Disswader simply imagines but to God where both speaker and hearer understand But the testimony of Lyra who is made to say that in the primitive Church all things were done in a vulgar language is falsified in the very substance For he sayes not omnia all things but communia common things some parts in Baptism where the godfather or godmother makes a profession of faith somthing in churchings of women benedictions marriages and such like as is yet in use amongst Papists at this day were so done So that all the contents of this section the testimonies your Disswader brings against this Catholik custom and your Disswaders own insultings which I set down in the beginning together with his glosses upon those testimonies are either absolutely fals or totally impertinent and in one word unconscionably slaunderous But it is as possibly saith he to reconcile adultery with the seventh Commandment as Church service in a language not understood to the fourteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians And is it so Let us look then into that strange fourteenth Chapter and see what it sayes 1. Follow after charity and desire spiritual gists but rather that you may prophesie 2. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God for no man understandeth him however in the spirit he speaketh mysteries 3. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification exhortation and comfort 4. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself but he that prophesieth edifieth the Church 5. I would that you all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues except he interpret that the Church may receive edifying 6. Now brethren if I come unto you speaking with tongues what shall I profit you except I shall speak to you either by revelation or by knowledg or by prophesying or by doctrin 7. And even things without life giving sound whether pipe or harp except they give a distinction of the sound how shall it be known what is piped or harped 8. For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself for battle 9. So likewise you except you utter by the tongue words easie to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken for he shall speak unto the air 10. Ther are it may be so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them are without signification 11. Therfor if I know not the meaning of the voice I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me 12. Even so ye forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts seek that ye may excell to the edifying of the Church 13. Wherefor let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret 14. For if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayes but my understanding is unfruitful 15. What is it then I will pray with the spirit I will pray with the understanding also 16. Els when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen to thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest 17. For thou verily givest thanks well but the other is not edified 18. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all 19. Yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue 20. Brethren be not children in understanding howbeit in malice be ye children but in understanding men 21. In the law it is written with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people and yet for all that will they not hear me saith the Lord. 22. Wherfore tougues are for a sign not to them that beleev but to them that beleev not but prophesying serveth not to them that beleev not but to them who beleev 23. If therfor the whole Church be come together in som place and all speak with tongues and there come in those that are unlearned or unbeleevers will they not say that ye are mad 24. But if all prophesie and there come in one that beleeveth not or one unlearned he is convinced of all he is judged of all 25. And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 26. How is it then brethren when ye come together every one of you hath a psalm hath a doctrin hath a tongue hath a revelation hath an interpretation let all things be done to edifying 27. If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two or at the most by three and that by cours and let one interpret 28. But if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the Church and let him speak to himself and to God 29. Let the prophets speak two or three and let the other judg 30. And if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first hold his peace 31. For ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted 32. And the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets 33. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all Churches of the Saints I teach 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches for it is not permitted to them to speak but they are to be under obedience as also saith the law 35. And if they will learn any thing let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the Church 36. What came the word of God out from you or came it unto you only 37. If any think himself a prophet or spiritual let him acknowledg that the things I write unto you are the commandments of God the Lord. 38. But if any be ignorant let him be ignorant
book and besides all rule and against truth The occasion of assembling this Councel of Frankford were the misdemeanours of Elipandus Byshop of Tolledo in Spain For Faelix Urgelitanus his Countreyman having consulted Elipandus concerning that scholastick difficulty Whether Christ as man ought to be called the natural or only the adoptive Son of God by means of his discours and a book written by him upon that subject beleeved and said against the ancient language of the Church that Christ was to be held an adoptive child of God and not his natural son And these two together with Claudius Taurinensis who came to them from Italy filled all Spain with the clamour This act of theirs was fond as well as wicked For though in the schools it might haply be held that Christ as man is not the natural but only the adoptive Son of God if that particle as be taken for a note of reduplication yet they could not be igrant that beleevers have nothing to do with such nice logical points These conceiv Christ altogether specifically as he is in himself And so they had ever beleeved him to be the only begotten natural Son of God and we â—…l so many as are made partakers of his graâ—e â—…opted in him And he that shall â—rea 〈…〉 st to be as man only his adoptive Son whâ—ther that as of his be taken reduplica 〈…〉 ficatively he make but an ass 〈…〉 and a knave to boot But these three though often admonished yet would they not desist And therfor in a Councel at Ratisbone Faelix by name was condemned respect being then had to the person and dignity of the Archbyshop of Toledo and the other Byshop Faelix therfor was brought to the Emperour Charles his Court who then wintered at Rheginum where after a while he humbly submitted to the Councel there then met together and from thence sent to the presence of Pope Adrian in the Cathedral of S. Peter he publickly acknowledged his errour and returned home to his own City Elipand when he heard of all this grew more violent than before and laboured not only with his whole endeavour to reclaim Faelix to his former errour but by letters patent and large dated to all the Byshops of France and Germany to draw those two Kingdoms to his opinion Wherupon Faelix returned again to his vomit And least the infection should spread any further by the agreement of the Pope and Charles the Emperour a Councel was called at Frankford This was the very busines and occasion of that Councel wherby every one may discern himself not only the improbability that the said Councel of Frankford which purposely met together to maintain the honour of Christ should deface his figures but the falsity also of this your Disswader who tells us that a while after this Councel of Frankford Ludovicus son to Charles the great sent Claudius a famous Oratour to preach against images in Italy p. 60. Wheras Claudius had troubled Italy and Spain too three or four years before that Councel nay before the Councel of Ratisbone which was two years before and his way was condemned with himself both at Ratisbone and Frankford too These things being so how in the name of God comes your Disswader here against so much reason to aver that the Councel of Frankford declared against images that they condemned the second Nicen Synod wherin the use of Images had been maintained that they published a book wherin that Synod was declared Antichristian and that Ludovicus Charlemains son sent down Claudius after that Councel to preach against Images in Italy I know that other Protestants have been guilty too of some part of this his story so far at least as to say in particular that the Frankford Councel was against images But they never set down any of that Councels declaration against them nor is ther any extant Binius who set forth all the Councels at large both shows and copiously proves that the acts of the second Nicen Councel were all confirmed in the Councel of Frankford which is also averred by Alanus Surius Vasquez and several other learned men And since it is likely enough that somthing was done in this Councel about Images wherof ther is so much talk in the world ther can nothing be thought more rational than that Pope Adrian whose legates presided in both the Councels should according to the Churches custom send those decrees of Nice about the same time lately finished unto the Councel now at Frankford that the definition of the Nicen Councel might be made known to all the West by their acceptation and promulgation at Frankford Which also that it was absolutely done and no other thing done but it may sufficiently be gathered by the authority of the Councel of Senon which in the 14. of their decrees speaks thus Carolus magnus Francorum rex Christianissimus in Francofordiensi conventu ejusdem error is Iconomachorum suppressit insaniam quam infaelicissimus quidam Faelix in Gallias Germani as invexerat And the same is ratified by Platina who in the life of Pope Adrian Biennio post saith he Theophylactus Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine Francorum Germanorum Synodum habuerunt in qua Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant haerests Faeliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrogata est as also by Paulus Emilius who in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Councel of Frankford Et imaginibus saith he suus honor restitutus est The like may be proved out of Blondus in his Decads Sabellicus his Aeneads Gablisards Chronology Alanus his Dialogues Nauclerus c. All which various testimonies joyned in one together with the motives of that Frankford Councel the great procurer and protectour of that Councel Charles the great an eminent Champion of the Roman Church the Presidents of that Councel Theophylact and Stephen legates of the same Pope Adrian who had lately finished and confirmed the second Councel of Nice may suffice I should think to refute the trifling humour of this Disswader But his confidence is greater in his readers light beleef then either the weight or truth of his own words But all the devices of Roman writers to palliate this their crime he sayes are frivolous What are these devices and what is their crimes Sir where there is no crime there needs not any palliating devices Is it a crime to keep an image of Christ crucified for us that we may be often put in mind of the good and vertue of his holy passion and our fansie assisted and kept in at our prayers within the compass of their object This is the busines Sir speak directly unto this before you go any further You will make all sorts of prophane Images either to some civil use or indifferent or perhaps a naughty end This is no crime with you If it be how comes it to pass that never any byshop or other minister in England who scribble with
they heed not at all however your Disswader imagines any natural similitude in any of their pictures If they be so made as to raise the fansie to thoughts above and the love and vertues that may bring us thither they care not whether for example Saint Bennet were a man just of that complexion or Christ their Redeemer of those direct features the limner has given him They come not into their Churches nor do they cast their eyes upon their pictures for any such end And if God the Father be represented to their eyes as he is to their ears when he is called Father I see no harm in it If we may use such a form of words when we speak to God as this world we live in may afford our ears why may not the eyes have such an answerable form too But this is a busines which your Disswader if he were a Catholik might well propound in the next general Councel and do otherwise in the mean time if so he please in his own Diocess For neither books nor picturs can be used in any Diocess but what the Ordinary of the place allows And the Byshop still guides himself by the general doctrin and discipline the faith and custom the tradition and laws of the Church in the whole mannagement of his care And when these do not clearly descend to any particular which he is to deal with he uses therin his own discretion going that way if he do well that he findes comes nearest to the rule as temporal superiours also do in their affairs O but the Roman Church with much scandal and against nature and the reason of mankind in their mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot And do they so I have seen I think as many Catholik countreys and mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels as your Disswader ever did and yet I never saw any such picture therin all my life He has been it seems an earnest pryer into the front and faces of books But did he not mistake troâ—… you and take some fortune-book written in old letters for a mass-book and thence conclude that all breviaries and mass-books portuises and manuels were stored with such â—…gures However it were the picture was to blame For three noses and three faces ought to have more than four eyes And if ther were but four eyes I cannot see how ther should be three whole faces although ther were there three noses in it But this is as good stuff and as true and as pertinent too as any other part of this his book which he calls a Disswasive from Popery § 10. Which is against Papal authority Sayes that the Popes universal byshoprick is another novelty though not so ridiculous yet as dangerous as any other And a novelty it is for Christ left his Church in the hands of the Apostles without any superiority of one above another And in the Councel of Jerusalem James and not Peter gave the decisive sentence Christ sent all his Apostles with the same whole power as his Father sent him Therfor S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock And well said S. Cyprian that the Apostles were all the same that S. Peter was And this equality of power must descend to all byshops who succeed the Apostles in their ordinary power as embassadours for Christ So then by the law of Christ one byshop is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops Beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepheard and byshop of souls Under him every byshop is supream in spirituals and in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ And that this was ever beleeved in ancient times is proved by Pope Eleutherius his epistle to the byshops of France by S. Ambrose S. Cyprian Pope Symmachus S. Denyse Ignace Gelasius Jerom Fulgentius and even Pope Gregory the great Wherfor S. Paul expressy sayes that Christ appointed in his Church first Apostles but not S. Peter first Nor did Peter ever rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostom witnesses And it is even confest by som of the Romish party that the succession is not tyed to Rome as Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius Nor was any thing known therof in the primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen and all byshops treated with the Roman byshop as with a brother not superiour and a whole general Councel gave to the byshop of C. P. equal right and preheminence with the byshop of Rome Finally Christ gave no commandment to obey the byshop of Rome and probably never intended any such thing A man would surely think Sir that this nail is knocked in to the head What could be said more But to be brief with you If all the other sections of this your Disswasive have said nothing this I may say speaks somthing wors than nothing For his reasons are senceles his testimonies either impertinent or manifestly against himself and his whole discours contrary to the laws and constitutions of our English Protestant Church To begin with the last whether you look upon the statutes and acts of Parliament wherby our English Church and government were first settled in England upon the reformation in the dayes of Edward the sixth and afterwards ratified or the articles canons and constitutions that were agreed upon by the byshops and clergy and confirmed both by King Edward Queen Elizabeth King James and our good King Charles we shall clearly see that our English Protestant Church and government is Monarchical and that byshops are as much subjected to their Arch byshops as Ministers to Byshops and Arch-byshops in like manner to the King in whom the Episcopal power is radical and inherent and in whom is the fulness of ecclesiastical authority and from whom byshops do receiv their place authority power and jurisdiction And that Parson Vicar or other Doctour who shall write or speak contrary to this by the constitutions and canons ecclesiastical made in the time of our late good King Charles he is to be suspended and by the Canons and constitutions ecclesiastical made and confirmed in the Reign of King James he is excommunicated ipso facto and by the laws of Queen Elizabeth and King Edward to be further punished How comes it then that this your disswading Doctour utterly dissolves all this frame of government under pretence of talking against papal power as contrary to the mind and will of Christ which will and mind is notwithstanding most resolutely asserted by the constitutions and laws of this our very English Church and Kingdom which rejected indeed the Roman seat and person but retained still the power and ordination of Church-government which finally rested now no longer in any Roman byshop but in our own princely monarch If any will but take the pains to look upon our constitutions
sacraments can not be given to man You see how fondly as well as falsly you have foisted in these words with all his whole power What follows next S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock Pray Sir how many byshops were ther do you think in that one no huge town of Miletum Bastwick brings this for a proof that byshops and priests were all one thing in those dayes And if it be otherwise the times are much changed Then many byshops served one town now many towns will hardly serve one byshop But you cut off the sentence Sir that it may sound better for your purpos and which is wors change it too The Apostle charges them to attend to themselves and all the flock wherin the holy Ghost hath constituted them overseers Which last words becaus they limit both their care and your own argument you thought it prudence to leav them out Pray Sir would you have any byshop to enter upon anothers Diocess What then would you have here when you make S. Paul bid the pastors all of them to feed all the whole flock without any restriction In all your heats remember still your self Go on The equality of power must descend to all byshops who are their successours I can easily grant you that they have all of them equal power of administring Sacraments and looking to their flock every one within his own precincts And this is all your discours infers But an equality of power over one another was neither amongst the Apostles nor yet here in our English byshops nor ever in the Church of God How do you prove that By the law of Christone byshop is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepheard and byshop of souls Vnder him every byshop is supream This argument is in a mood and figure called Ita dico You say so and the statutes and canons of the Church of England say no. Whom shall we beleev I alwayes prefer a Church before any one Church-man though he be in her when he is against her But S. Paul sayes expresly that Christ appointed in his Church first apostles but not S. Peter first I marry Sir now we are come to an argument indeed And it runs thus According to S. Paul the apostles were the first rank or dignity in the Church but S. Peter was none of that rank or dignity therfor he could not be first Was not S. Peter then one of the apostles or will you make it run thus The apostles were the first rank or dignity in the Church but S. Peter was not that rank or dignity therfor he was not first This is indeed the surer way Becaus no one man can be reckoned for a rank or dignity or so many persons in the plural number This is an argument never yet thought of in Oxford or Cambridg to prove they have no superiour either over all or over any one Colledge Not over all For ther be first Colledges then Halls then Inns c. therfor the Vice-Chancellour is not first Not over one Colledge For ther are first Fellows then Schollars then Pensioners c. and therfor Mr. such a one who is neither fellows schollars nor pensioners is not first So here Christ saith S. Paul set in his Church first of all apostles therfor saith our learned Doctour not first S. Peter and secondarily apostles but all the apostles were first The apostles were the first rank of dignity good Sir but that rank had order in it too And so ther might be place for a first man even in the first rank But Peter did never rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostome witnesses He ruled then good Sir it seems he ruled then Will you bring this for an argument of his not ruling You are shrewdly put to it in the mean time And if he ruled and governed and mannaged all by common councel he was the better superiour for that but not therfor no superiour Will you admit no rulers but tyrants who do all by their own will But even some of their own popish writers do grant that the succession is not tied to Rome as Cusanus Soto Canus Driedo Segovius What does that opinion of theirs if they did say so prove against the sovereignty of one byshop over the rest which is the only thing now in hand wherever he reside I cannot in reason be thought to speak against our English monarchy although I should haply say that the King is not bound to reside still at Westminster The papal pastour hath ever since S. Peters time ever resided yet in that Roman Diocess which Catholiks do indeed consider as a thing somwhat strange since all other apostolical Sees besides that are failed and gone but no man knows the disposition of divine providence here on earth for future times Perhaps that Roman See I mean the particular Roman Diocess shall so remain to the worlds end and perhaps again it may not And if it should not or if that whole City should be destroyed or Christian Religion in it or if the City and all the whole Kingdom of Italy should lye under the ocean quite overwhelmed and drowned yet so long as the world lasts ther shall be a Church of Christ on earth and so long as ther is a Church ther will be one supream pastour of it where ever he reside And this is that which som Catholik doctours mean when they say that the succession is not tied to Rome What doth this make to your purpos Mr. Disswader Go on then No papal sovereignty was thought of in primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen Does an opposition infer a nullity of power Then Sir ther would be no power upon earth either ecclesiastical or civil which are all resisted one time or other Was there no royalty or byshops in England so much as thought of thirty years ago when they were both of them more than opposed by the rabble What miserable shifts are these You may find and I am confident you do find and know well enough that even in those times you speak of and before and after them the papal power was acknowledged and reverenced by the whole world and yet you will take advantage of a dispute that happens more or less in all ages to say against your conscience and from thence infer that the papal power was not so much as thought of in those primitive times God keep you Sir from contesting with any of your servants For if you do this argument of yours will prove that your autority in your own hous was not so much as thought of in those dayes either by you or them or any els Have you any thing els to say A general Councel of Chalcedon gave to the byshop of C. P. equal rights and preheminence with the byshop of Rome What general Councel was that and
by little and little according as themselvs increas all the whole frame of ancient religion Secondly it may be gathered by this that Christ our Lord instituted a monarchical government of his Church ruled so long as he lived by one and therfor must that government ever remain He set it up to remain For surely he did not set it up to be pulled down again Thirdly becaus there is no power on earth to change it What God has constituted man cannot undo lawfully I mean he cannot Now we have no such body of Christians in England that remain under one who is general pastour over all the Christian flock in the world or do so much as pretend it save only the few Roman Catholiks that are yet here left alive by the strange providence of that God unto whose universal Church they have still adhered notwithstanding the greatest trials that ever poor Christians were put to Neither Quaker Anabaptist or Independent Presbyterian or Prelate-Protestant do so much as pretend to any such thing but they all oppose it And as they do not pretend to belong to any general body that hath a visible head overseeing the whole flock of Christ throughout the world so neither is any of their Church-governments monarchical in their respective place if we may beleev themselvs I know our English Protestant Church was first appointed in the dayes of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth to be respectively monarchical that is to say within the precincts of this Kingdom the hierarchy ending in the Kings majesty who is doubtles the supream head and governour both of the Protestant Church and the temporal or civil state in all these his three Kingdoms But indeed and truth none of them acknowledg it For they do not any of them expect as they ought all of them to do a full decisive sentence from the Kings Majesties lips in all their controversies or doubts of faith nor will they acquiesce in his judgment which is a strange mad refractorines in our nation and contrary to our own principles The Independents last tribunal is in the light of his own breast The Presbyterian will not look beyond his Presbyteral Consistory And the Prelate-Protestant writer which I most marvel at ends all in the byshops allowing no autority power or jurisdiction to their Archbyshops but only an order and decent precedency for manners sake which in effect is wholly to dissolve the constituted frame of Church-government in this land They speak not indeed of the Kings majesty for fear I suppose of the rod God hath put into his hands But it is not hard to gather both by their words and actions what they think Whitby of late wrote a book against Dean Cressy and there he sayes expesly that an Arch-byshop hath a decent precedency but no authority and that his Grace of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction and that the Kings Majesty is not the root of Episcopal jurisdiction here in England And yet he was approved and praised even by our Protestant byshops Do they not see that à pari nay à fortiori the same be affirmed of our byshops that they have no autority and that they have but a decent precedeney over Presbyters and that they are not the root of ecclesiastical jurisdiction With what a strange blindnes are our eyes possest Nay this great Disswader an eminent man among Prelate-Protestants here teaches publickly that byshops are all supream under Christ So that this our Church-government by byshops can be no other but Aristocracy the Presbyterians a Democracy and the rest a plain Anarchy every man thinking and acting what is good in his own eyes And none of these who are all fallen from the general flock and general pastour heed unto effect any one thing that may restrain them either statutes canons laws constitutions or ought els But God blesses his true Church with a true obedience Thus I have given you Sir my reason why I think ther is and must be one general pastour over all the whole flock of Christians Pray ponder it well Brief I am in it becaus it is beyond my general design which is only to shew that Doctour Taylors Disswasive from Popery is insignificant I am now come to the testimonies your Disswader cites for himself which I told you before are above half of them impertinent and the rest if he had not fraudulently maimed them flatly against himself As for the first sort your Disswader imagining in his head that the Apostles had no superiour which is the grand falsity on which all his whole discours runs brings all those authors who either say that byshops are the successours of the Apostles or that they had received the keyes of heaven or that they are not to be contemned and the like for witnesses of his opinion as Irenaeus Cyprian Ambrose Anacletus Clemens Hieronimus Gregorius and various others All this is impertinent But the other autorities had they not been curtaild and perverted by him had openly and plainly spoken that Catholik truth which he here opposes namely that the Apostles had a superiour and that all the whole Christian flock have and ought to have one general pastour and that he ever hitherto hath sate since S. Peters death in the Roman See I know it would be worth my labour to set down all those testimonies by him here cited at large as they lye in those Catholik Fathers and Divines as apt at one and the same time to convince this his whole section of falsity and the Catholik doctrin to be no novelty as he sayes it is But becaus this is already done by the above-named Catholik Gentlemen who with a greater patience than I am master of turned over those many ancient authours I will content my self with only the first of them In the whole new testament saith your Disswader ther is no act or sign of superiority or that one apostle exercised power over another but to them whom Christ sent he in common intrusted the Church of God according to that excellent saying of S. Cyprian the other apostles are the same that S. Peter was indowed with an equal fellowship of honour and power c. This then is the excellent saying of S. Cyprian The other apostles are the same that St. Peter was indowed with an equal fellowship of honour and power And he cites it out of his epistle de unit Ecclesiae ad Novatian But did S. Cyprian either say or mean by that saying so much of it as is S. Cyprians that ther was no superiority among the apostles or that the Church of God was intrusted to them in common Nay does not S Cyprian use those words in a discours wherin he endeavours industriously to declare that there was a superiority among the Apostles in which as in a cone of unity they were all united although they were all alike in power and commission of administring Sacraments If it be so what shall we think of this Disswader and of his
under their patriark resident in Caramit metropolis of Mesopotamia or els in the monastery of S. Saphran near the city Merdin The Cophti or Christians of Egypt subject to the patriark of Alexandria The Habassms or midland Ethiopians under their own patriark or Abuna who is ever a monk of S. Antonies order consecrated for them by the patriark of Alexandria The Armenians on this side and beyond Euphrates under their two patriarks resident one of them in Mitilene or els in the city of Sis not far from Tarsus in Cilicia the other in Sebastia or els in the monastery of Ecmeazin The Maronites resident in mount Libanus under their patriark who is ever a monk and resides either in Tripoli or in the great monastery of S. Antony All these although many of them fell away long since from ecclesiastick unity upon their dislike of the Councel of Ephesus and Chalcedon where one person and two natures in Christ was declared and others of them upon other such like occasion yet do they still keep up all of them their monasteries altars priesthood sacred ordination messach and ancient Christian Liturgy Nor do they know any other way of serving or appeasing the Almighty in order to heavenly bliss than this propiatory sacrifice which received from their forefathers they practise and exercise to this day And this was ever the great devotion of all Christians and still is excepting only some few here in the North who have gone out of that primitive Christianity the last age by following the unhappy steps of Luther and Calvin and not all of them neither For Luther although he fouled yet did he not throw down the altar and the pure Lutherans that be yet in Germany Denmark and Sweathland keep it up still Thus Sir have other Protestants admitted all that to be ancient which this your Disswader calls a novelty unheard of in ancient times Nay Luther and Calvin esteemed all Popery an old Egyptian darknes spread over the face of the Church all ages since the Apostles dayes and dissipated at length by that new light which they revealed It is a strange thing that Popery which in Luther and Calvins dayes was old should now after a hundred years be grown young again But when Protestancy was new then Popery was old and now Popery must be thought new when Protestancy is grown old and rotten Truth is it was the Ministers advantage to acknowledg Popery to be old when 〈◊〉 where Catholik Religion spread all over â—…e earth had all her monuments intire by her to show her antiquity to all people then living who had also heard of the Catholik faith of their ancestours although they made it by slight of fallacious oratory erroneous But here and now in England where all those monuments are destroyed it is a double convenience to say that Popery is erroneous and new too When the first Reformers endeavoured to supplant the Catholik professours of their means and livings it was best to accuse them of old errours But now to keep their livings they have invaded it is a wiser part it seems to inveigh against Popery as a novelty There novelty could no way be proved and here in England antiquity cannot easily be shown Then matter of fact would have disproved novelty now matter of fact will not prove antiquity here in this Kingdom where the ancient religion is abrogated about a hundred years ago and people now alive that behold Protestancy never saw Catholick Religion and are almost perswaded by their ministers there was never any such thing here Nor will people read Catholik authors nor beleev them if they do nor have they power to consider who built all their Churches or made their laws or any other good thing done for them by Catholik beleevers but take all Papists to be in a manner Atheists becaus they com not to hear their ministers talk in those Churches from whence poor Catholiks were first solemnly banisht and then within a while after were punished for not coming there at such a time when their altar sacrifice and priesthood were now abolished and their priests put to death and others made liable to it afterwards when ever they should come into those Churches again to do their functions and ministers had got into their places to rail against them and that holy ancient Religion which had built those Churches to their hands Ther is I think no better way imaginable to discover the natur of the ancient Christian Church than by considering what was said to be her beleef and practice then when first she dared to show her face openly in the world appearing at length as it were from under ground and her former lurking condition wherin she had remained three hundred years under the cruel persecution of Pagan Emperours As soon as Constantin the Great Gods heavenly grace so moving him had first taken this holy Church by the hand and cloathed her with her ornaments of peace then surely she would appear her self And what she was then may be easily gathered by such ancient writers who either purposely spake of the life of Constantin or incidentally of the things which were done in those dayes as Eusebius Zozomen S. Jerom Bede and others who deliver us the form and features of the Christian Church in those times so like unto the Popery that is now adayes after thirteen or fourteen hundred years both in the particulars Dr. Taylor speaks of and several others now cancelled by our Protestant Reformation that a man may safely swear that the now present Popery and old Christianity are one and the same thing Eusebius tells us how Constantin the Emperour after the fashion of those good times chastised his own body with fasting and disciplines how he used to bless himself and sign his face with the sign of the Cross how highly he honoured and set up that triumphal ensign having confidence of victory in vertue therof how he erected illustrious temples in memory of the Christian martyrs how he refused to sit down in the general Councel of Nice till the Prelates there had given their consent how he dedicated a sumptuous Church in memory of the apostles and provided there a sepulchre for himself to the end that after his death he might be partaker of the prayers there offered how he assembled the priests to the dedication of his temple wherof some preached others offered sacrifice for the common peace for the Church of God and for the Emperour and lastly how in his sickness he confest his sins in a chappel of the martyrs and prayer and sacrifice made for his soul after his deceas Zozomen in his history tells us also of him that becaus those primitive Christians used consecrated places and only them for their publick Liturgy Constantin had ever carried with him in the camp a portable altar and tabernacle and priests and deacons attending it for celebration of divine mysteries how much also he honoured the holy monk S. Anthony for