Christ's Vicar and not to a petulant Colledge consisting of a few passionate corrupted persons yet the Pope liked the censure too well to condemn it Besides two or three dissenters in so great a body signifie nothing for had it been in an Assembly of the Clergy or in a General Council the majority would easily have out-weighed so small a number of contrary Votes and if the Syndick Faber's asserting the Right of Princes makes this no Decree of the Sorbon then the Syndick Richer's assertion An. 1611. in his Book de Ecclesiastica politicâ potestate is enough to prove that the Sorbon does not acknowledge the Government of the Church to be Monarchical nor were the Sorbonists wanting to countenance this their assertion ordering Boucher and others to preach up the Authority of the Pope in such cases and the Justice of the King's Deposition and there was a Book written in defence of the Censure the Author of it believed to be our learned Stapleton by others more likely to to be the above named Boucher de justa abdicatione Henrici 3. and to make it appear that the Assistants of the League lookt on it as a quarrel on the behalf of Religion it is remarkable that the Duke of Parma left his own and the publick concerns in Flanders in a very ill posture only that he might re-enforce the League and relieve Paris which was likely to have fallen into the hands of Henry 4. who besieged it And now we are come to the Times that succeeded the Parricide of Henry the Great who tho never so heartily reconciled to the Church of Rome was never forgiven the sin of his first Apostasie as they called it till his death in the minority of whose Son Lewis 13. When the third Estate would have past a Law that the King was deposable for no cause whatever the Clergy violently opposed it and ordered the Cardinal de Perron to make a Speech against it which after they had examin'd and approved of in the Chamber Ecclesiastick they attended him to the convention of the three Estates where he pronounc't it An. 1615. which Speech our King James learnedly answer'd in his declaratio pro jure regio where you may see it proved that the Cardinal took upon him to assert that the Pope or the Church had power to depose Princes and that it was universally owned in France ever since their Schools had been opened and the event made it appear what the design of the Speech was after which the third Estate saw it impossible to go on with their design successfully and so declin'd it and whatever F. * Vb. supr c. ult Maimburge says to the contrary yet his own argument confirms what I assert That when this difference happened between the Clergy and the third Estate the two Chambers as he calls them the Clergy inform'd Pope Paul the 5. in their answer to his Breve of Jan. 31. 1615. Angebamur non mediocriter c. That they were troubled above measure to see Catholicks transported with an undiscreet Zeal meddle with matters of Faith where you may observe that the deposing power is acknowledg'd by them to be a matter of Faith earum rerum quae ad fidem pertinent though you deny it to be so which did not belong to the third Estate who were Lay-men and Lawyers but withal they confess that the determination of this point did belong to the Church i. e. to themselves and the Pope omnem hanc authoritatem penes Ecclesiam eosque solos esse quos illa fidelium gregi praeesse voluerit By which it is plain that that Speech was not one Doctors Opinion only as Monsieur Maimbourge affirms but the Opinion of the whole Chamber Ecclesiastick or their whole Clergy And that the French Church afterward owned the Opinion of that Speech seems plain because the general Assembly of the Clergy An. 1665. gave the Abbot Gentil 6000. Livres to collect the Memoirs of the Gallican Church which were afterward solemnly reviewed by several Bishops and Abbots and then publisht among which this Speech of Cardinal de Perron is printed and approved the whole scope of which Maimbourge himself confesses is inconsistent with the independent right of Princes and their exemption from any deposing power It is true this Speech that so few years since was Printed among the Memoirs with so much applause and approbation is now ordered to be left out of them which is so far from being an argument to incline any man to acquiesce in the judgment of such a Church that it may justly affright him from confiding in such volatile changeable men who in such weighty matters vary their Opinions so often from one extreme to another And the reason is plain the French Bishops following the dictates of that Court so that since the quarrel about the Regale they have sought to stoop the Pope and probably to make his Election depend on the present French King as it did antiently on Charles the Great And of this I could give some likely proofs but that the digression would be too long But against all this it is objected That under the present King Lewis 14. the Sorbon An. 1663. condemn'd even the indirect Power of the Pope over Princes and asserted that the King of France hath no other Superiour but God to which we answer that the same Colledge did in the days of the League maintain the contrary as I have formerly proved and at last the Sorbon is not the Representative of the French Church nor can it be imagined says the * Ch. 5. p. 14. Author of the second Treatise against the Oath of Allegiance That those men who took upon them to vary from the Censures Decrees or Definitions of Rome would ever go about to set up an independent or infallible Chair in the Sorbon and deliver their Opinion either as an Article of Faith in it self or as a Rule of Faith to others But the Objection is strengthened That the Archbishops and Bishops assembled at Paris An. 1682. as Representatives of the French Church did decree the same to which we †V. Jurieu ubi supr answer that the Declaration was made but by thirty or forty Prelates within the verge of the Court whereas in a free National Council the contrary might have been determined But put the case that this had been decreed in a full and free National Synod yet neither could this have establisht an indefeasible right for I remember that in the Convocation under Henry 8. the King's Supremacy was decreed and establisht by our Bishops even by Gardiner Bonner c. who in all other things were zealous Catholicks and yet I suppose you will be loath to grant that for that reason the King had a just Right to that Supremacy And this also serves to answer your Objection from the Determinations of the French Vniversities against the Deposing Doctrine because not onely the greatest part of the Vniversities of
Dioclesian though he set up Inscriptions ob deletum nomen Christianum Constantius or Valens but only for a Julian whose Apostasie and Wickedness is fingular in Ecclesiastical History and the like of whom in all probability can never be expected again Nay Sir this disloyal principle will not let Christian snbjects pray for the death of a Julian though he tyranizes never so much over their bodies goods and liberties if he do not blaspheme Christ and persecute the Church of God with a diabolical spite against the evidence of Divine Miracles It leaves the Christian subjects of all Tyrants but such as are Julians indeed under the obligation of praying for them according to the Apostle's direction and the practice of the Primitive Christians which the Author of Jovian hath so much insisted upon and commended and his Prince must be a Julian indeed a Julian in all circumstances before he can be so much as tempted to pray against him for he doth not say that he would pray but that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed And it had been happy for the Christian world if the chief Pastors and Bishops and Councils and Doctors and Casuists of that which you call the Catholick Church had never taught any principle more disloyal than this Now Sir I beseech you to tell me how much disloyalty there is in this principle which secures all Infidel Heretical and Apostate Princes against the Prayers of their Christian subjects unless they be in all degrees as bad as Julian and secures even Julians themselves against all resistance and how much disloyalty there is in a man who by his principles will pray for all Tyrants but such an one as Julian was according to the Author of Jovian Sir I would to God you and your Doctors would declare as much Loyalty as this and I desire you to tell me that suppose a Roman Catholick Prince should become a Julian indeed and take up the methods of that Apostate whether you think his Roman Catholick Subjects would be tempted to pray for his destruction and if they should do so and no more do you think they would transgress any rule of Christian Loyalty Answer me these two questions sincerely and possitively and if your answer to the last be affirmative give your arguments for your Opinion and I dare engage the Author of Jovian shall submit to your reasons or answer them For I am confident he hath no fondness for his Opinion to which it is evident he was led by his great Charity for the Bishop and Church of Nazianzum And though in apologizing for them he hath asserted that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed yet he is so Loyal a Person that I believe he would overcome the temptation and only forbear praying for him as having sinned the sin unto death After which Apology you will suffer me to tell you that your Reflections will hardly be called an answer to the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome because in them you have not said a word to some material points of Controversy between you and us stated in that Book out of the Trent-Council and Catechism as if either the right were on your Adversaries side which I suppose you will be loath to acknowledge or his reasonings were unworthy your second thoughts which I suppose you will not own and if you do few wise men will acquiesce in your Sentiments for you wholly praetermit reflecting upon the Chapters of the Eucharist of Indulgences of satisfaction ex condigno of keeping the Scriptures and Prayers in an unknown Tongue of communion in one kind and of adding the Apocrypha and traditions to the holy writ with some others which being some of the most material points in difference between your Church and ours will either deserve some new thoughts or you will allow us to say that that book cannot be thought an answer which in silence passes by or leaps over so many weighty things that make up so much of the Controversy You assure us * Refl p. 5. that the Council of Trent is received here and all the Catholick World over as to its definitions of Faith though it be not wholly received in some places as to its other decrees which relate only to discipline Where I shall not ask what you mean by the Catholick World for I am well assured that you mean all Christians of the Roman persuasion which is a very narrow notion of the Catholick World excluding all other Christians from being Members of the Catholick Church but those of your own Opinion so that neither the Greek Church nor the rest of the Eastern Christians are in your sense any more Catholicks than the Church of England and the rest of the Protestants though antiently any man or Church of men were called Catholick because they agreed with the whole Catholick Church in Faith but now the holy Catholick Church of Christ must lose its name if it agree not with the particular Church of Rome but I would willingly know of you whence any particular Church hath that power that it may receive a general Council as you call that of Trent in some things and not in others I thought that the highest authority of the Church on Earth had been a general Council and if so why its definitions in matters of discipline should not be received and observed by all particular Churches is to me a great question for I cannot but see that one of these two things must follow from your Opinion either that Councils and Popes are fallible for if they are deceived in one Opinion such as that of the power of the Church to depose Princes why may they not be deceived in another such as Transubstantiation or Purgatory or else that they are infallible in greater matters only and then to me it is a great wonder that they should erre in things of less moment and I never yet understood but that if general Councils could decide matters of Doctrine but that they had also as great a power in matters of discipline for if it be a lawful preface to the decrees of all Councils as your men say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis then the holy spirit is doubtless their guide in matters of discipline as well as in matters of Doctrine I am sure that the Antient Councils took upon them to decide both by their authority and all Christians thought themselves oblig'd to follow their dictates so the first general Council of the Apostles bound up all Christians from eating things strangled and Blood so the Council of Nice determin'd the precise day when Easter should be celebrated as well as the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and so also the second general Council made Constantinople a Patriarchate as well as Rome to go no further And I find no persons disputed those constitutions though only in matters of Discipline and
say relating to that Vision As 1. That it is very probably believed by most learned men that SS Perpetua and Faelicitas were Montanists among whom there were many visions which the rest of the World gave no credit to but this I shall not dispute But 2. I averr that it is very disputable both from the vision it self and from the quotations in St. Austin whether Dinocrates were baptiz'd or no. I know your †Chap. 23. p. 84. Adversary says he was baptized and St. Austin would fain have it so but there is no convincing proof that he was so and the silence of the Writer of that Passion seems to imply that he was not so Now then I urge you with this Dilemma either Dinocrates was baptiz'd or not if he were not baptiz'd as it is very probable because his Father was a very violent Heathen and so in all likelihood would not suffer his Son being so young to be baptiz'd then you have nothing to do with him in Purgatory for tho you have allotted an appartment there for the unbaptiz'd Children of Christian Parents yet you allow no place there to the unbaptiz'd Children of Heathen Parents who with their Pagan Progenitors are condemn'd to Hell unless we must reckon this story with those other of St. Thecla's bringing the Soul of Falconilla out of Hell or St. Gregory's praying thence the Emperour Trajan which later story the * 〈◊〉 Munster praef ad Evang. S. Matth. Heb. p. 103 4 Jews who themselves allow of a sort of Purgatory make sport of but if he he were baptiz'd as I profess I cannot believe tho St. Austin says so then it seems very hard that a Child of seven years old when few Children are capable of understanding enough to chuse to be wicked should be sent to Purgatory for sins which he knew not of for if that be true which St. Austin says that his Father probably carryed him to the Heathen Temples as we will suppose it to be this was the Father's sin and not the Child's and so I cannot see why Dinocrates should be punisht And to confirm my conjecture that he was not baptiz'd I am apt to think that in the Vision the Water * Pass s Perp p. 15. Ed. Oxon. which Perpetua saw her Brother endeavouring to drink of but could not come at was an Emblem of the Waters of Baptism which he seem'd to endeavour after and at last Perpetua her self says * Io. p. 5. that she her self was a Catechumen when she was apprehended and that at that time she had two Brethren both Catechumens now if we reckon Dinocrates for one of those two Brethren of hers or allow him to be dead some time before as I rather conjecture I am strongly inclined to believe that while the Father was an obstinate Pagan the Sister and the other Brothers only Catechumens that this younger Son who was but seven years old when he died was not baptiz'd before he went out of the World now if he were not baptiz'd the Fathers tell you there was no hopes of Salvation for him for to omit St. Austin and the African Fathers I will only instance in two remarkable passages the one for the Western Church out of * De Dog Eccl. c. 74. Gennadius Nullum Catechumenum c. That no Catechumen tho he die in a state of good works which is more than St. Austin says of Dinocrates for he accuses him of Idolatry can attain to Eternal life unless he be a Martyr And for the Eastern Church out of St. Chrysostom †To. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ep. ad Phi. p. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mourn over those who leave the world without Baptism they deserve your sighs and lamentations they are out of the Kingdom of God among the unrighteous and the condemn'd And now if all your former Arguments will not make us Converts you tell us * Refl p. ult that if a man assent to these Articles as you have stated them he shall have admittance into your Church and probably so for we know you deal very gently with your new Converts till you have secured them but who knows how much further he must go when he is under new Oaths of Obedience to that Church who makes her unwritten Traditions which no man knows till she reveals them to be as much the Rule of Faith and Manners as the Holy Scriptures and consequently binds all her followers to an Implicit Faith to believe whatever she shall reveal And I remember that Mr. Cambden * Annal. an 1560. records a report that once there were more easie terms of Reconciliation proposed by the Pope's Nuncio viz. the allowance of the Sacrament in both kinds and the confirmation of the English Lyturgy and probably many other things so the Papal Supremacy were acknowledged but we are very well satisfied that St. Peter had no more Authority than the rest of the Apostles and that every Bishop by Divine Right is a Successor of the Apostles and consequently hath equal power in the Church of Christ that the making more Sacraments than we are sure Christ instituted is an encroachment upon his Right and that the establishment of your five additional Sacraments is such an encroachment that the Jewish Canon of the Old Testament the Jews till our blessed Saviour's time being the only True Church of God with the uncontroverted Books of the New are the only divinely inspired Oracles and a sufficient Rule of Faith and Manners without the help of the Apocrypha or of unwritten Traditions that General Councils are not infallible much less the Pope either singly or with the Colledge of Cardinals that giving the Communion in one kind is robbing the people of what our Saviour gave them a right to and that Prayers in an unknown Tongue are a contradiction to St. Paul with many other such points which it is now needless to mention for which reason the Members of the Church of England think fit to continue where they are where they enjoy all the forementioned blessings with many others which must necessarily be forfeited when they embrace the Romish Communion Thus have I curforily taken notice of your Reflections in whatever material points you have thought fit to speak to except that very weighty and most material point of the power of Deposing Princes the thorow consideration of which was the first cause of my present undertaking Now you encounter your Adversaries Golath-Argument as you seen in scorn to call it as Card. Bellarmine in the Praeface to his Answer to Barclay says that writing in defence of Princes Barclay came out like Goliah to defie all the Armies of Israel with this distinction * Refl p. 9. that in all Councils there are some Articles of Faith which all Catholicks receive and some Constitutions and Decrees relating to Discipline and Government which are not absolutely obligatory so that I perceive that in some sort
c. or that which is directed by the Revelations made in Holy Scriptures and by the unanimous Interpretations made of those Scriptures by the ancient Fathers as the Church of England expresly doth 2. That you follow the methods of the French Church which is so far from being the Catholick Church even in your sence of the word that it is but a small part of it from them you take your Principles from the Bishop of Condom and Monsieur Veron and after their Example you make your complaints of being mis-represented for so the Gallican Bishops did in their late general Assemblies held July 11. An. 1685. complain of being mis-represented and of the Calumnies Injuries and Falsities which the Reformed Churches lay to their charge desiring that King in their Petition prefixt to the Acts of that Assembly to revoke all the Edicts made in behalf of the Hugonots because permitted onely in times of disturbance and for reasons which no longer subsist which though they afterwards modifie and limit onely to the passing an Edict to forbid the calumniating their Religion yet every considering man sees what they aim at And upon this Address the King past an Edict Aug. 23. forbidding all the Reformed to preach or write any thing against the Catholick Religion either directly or indirectly and to allow them the liberty of the Press onely for printing the Confession of their Faith their Prayers and the Rules of their Discipline but no other Books written by the Reformed Divines of that Kingdom and what the effects of that and other Edicts have been every wise Observer hath seen May our blessed and holy Saviour the true and undoubted Head of the Catholick Church heal all the Breaches thereof convert all Hereticks to the knowledge of the Truth shame and bring back all Schismaticks into the Unity of his Mystical Body that we may be one Sheepfold under one Shepherd the Bishop of our Souls Amen FINIS Advertisement of BOOKS Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard THE Vanity of all Pretences for Tolleration wherein the Late Pleas for Tolleration are fully answered and the Popular Arguments drawn from the Practice of the United Netherlands are stated at large and shewn to be weak fallacious and insufficient Quarto The Book of Bertram or Ratramnus Priest and Monk of Corbey concerning the Body and Bloud of the Lord in Latine With a New English Translation more exact than the former Also an Historical Dissertation concerning the Author and this Work wherein both are vindicated from the Exceptions of the Writers of the Church of Rome Protestancy proved Safer than Popery by a late Convert to the Church of England Miscellanea in quibus Continentur praemonitio ad Lectorem de infantum Communione apud Graecos Defensio Libri de Graecae Eccles statu contra Object Authoris Hist Criticae super fide Ritibus orientalium Brevis succincta Narratio de Vita studiis Gestis Martyrio D. Cyrilli Lucarii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Commentatio de Hymnis matutino Vespertino Graecorum Exercitatio Theologica de Causis remediisque dissidiorum quae orbem Christianum hodie affligunt Authore Thoma Smith Becles Augl Presbyt 1686. Octavo History of the Original and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues By the Learned P. Simon Octavo Enquiry after Happiness by the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo The Duty of Servants containing 1. How Parents ought to breed up their Children that they may be fit to be employed and trusted 2. How Servants may wisely chuse a Service 3. How they are to behave themselves in it in discharging their Duty towards God their Master and themselves with Prayers suited to each Duty To which is added a Discourse of the Sacrament intended chiefly for Servants By the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo Miracles Works above and contrary to Nature or an Answer to a late Translation out of Spinosa's Tractatus Theolog. Politicus Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan c. Quarto A Sermon about Frequent Communion By Dr. Tho. Smith Quarto