to be lawfull against Scriptures Fathers and Councells and the very Catechismes wherewith we teach our children yet this he said on Sunday the 25. of Jan. 1651. at Lincolns-Inne I would not mention so high a crime to his dishonour if it had not been committed in that publique Theater and so first published by himselfe And by this we see what ground the other Bishop had for his ingenuous Confession To your third Still it runs right Here is poem talionis which God inflicts upon you Reflect upon this well and seâ— how justly God hath retorted upon you what your Pulpits belched constantly against us for so many years and through our sides against your and our parents and against the whole Catholique world in respect of which ye deserve not the imaginary title of a Shadow But you go on 4. And we desire it may be considered in case a Covenant of like form should be tendered to the Citizens of London wherein they should be required to swear they would sincerely really and constantly without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of Treason the City Government by a Lord Mayor Aldermen Sheriffes Common Councell and other Officers depending thereon murther adultery theft cosenage and whatsoever shall be c. left they should partake in other mens sins whether such a tendry could be looked upon by any Citizen that had the least spirit of freedome in him as an act of justice meekness and reason How still it runs alike and justly to be retorted upon you from Catholiques and with some notorious advantage for this plea of yours is but a pretty fancy and ends in words but you have gone further with us we have been publiquely and ignominiously hanged with murtherers thieves and reputed Traytors and these have been looked upon by you as acts of justice meekness and reason as appears in my L. of Canterbury his Epistle to the late King But we will hear you further Secondly for Episcopall Government we are not satisfied how we can with a good conscience swear to endeavour the extirpation thereof first in respect of the thing it self concerning which Government we think we have reason to believe 1. That it is if not Jure Divino in the strictest sense that is to say expressely commanded by God in his Word yet of Apostolicall Institution that is to say was established in the Churches by the Apostles according to the mind and after the example of their Master Jesus Christ and that by vertue of their ordinary power and authority derived from him as deputed by him Governours of his Church 2. Or at least that Episcopall Aristocracy hath a fairer pretention and may lay a juster title and claim to a divine justification then any of the other forms of Church Government can do all which yet do pretend thereunto viz. that of the Papall Monarchy that of the Presbyterian Democracy and that of the Independents by particular Congregations or gathered Churches How feebly do these however learned men argue in this radicall point which cuts the very sinews and heart strings of their Idol their motions are unequall like a hen when her head is struck off they skip and leap inordinately with If 's and Ana's B. Vsher at the Isle of Wight gave a short come off saying that the Government by Bishops was not so necessary as to break the peace for it yet he scruples not to break the peace of the universall Church for things which they all confess less necessary In fine all of you are very short in this fundamentall point I love Lypsius his Laconisme rather then Cicero'es Dilatations but this must be considered promateria substrata this matter needed all possible to picks to strengthen it if you had them but I see your pantry is slenderly provided forasmuch as concerns your title to Episcopacy which is your aim to defend I will afterward shew the weaknesse of your title Had you consulted the Archives of the University and retrived the businesse now in hand to Wickliffs time and Tenets you would have found another kind of solution registred of the Convocation house and I believe much more savouring of well-grounded Divinity as applied to Episcopacy in it selfe not to yours For the comparison you make of Episcopall Aristocracy and Papall Monarchy are termes which your young Sophisters call Oucategorimaticall they signifie nothing as to this purpose For the question is not which is best but whether the first can be without the last you must first secure us de re then de modo For example there is a controversie betwixt Aristotle and Galen whether the seat of the soul is in the head or heart it were little to their purpose to assert one of these to be better then the other as separate from the other in its own nature but the way to determine it is from the operations of the soule to see first if it will give life to one without the other and therefore Averroes saith that he saw a ram walk a little when the head was struck off Truly this proof will hold in you you have made a great bluster for a time since the Popes head was taken off by Harry the VIII but ye see now you could continue no more then Averro's â—â—am because your life was from the Pope and upon this supposition the second question ceaseth Ye go on 2. But we are assured by the undoubted testimony of antient Records and later Histories that this forme of Government hath been continued with such an universall uninterrupted unquestioned succession in all the Churches of God and in all the Kingdomes that have beene called Christian throughout the whole world for fifteen hundred years together that there never was in all that time any considerable opposition made thereagainst That of Acrius was the greatest wherein yet there was little consideration beside these two things that it grew at the first but out of discontent and gained him at the last but the reputation of an Heretique From which antiquity and continuance we have just cause to fear that to endeavour the extirpation thereof c. Excuse me that I tell you here again you speak high words without sense as they are applied to your pretence of Episcopacy It is a great truth that Gods Church was universally govern'd by Bishops but this is not the question but whether your Schismaticall Bishops succeeded lawfully from that old Episcopacy that is whether the Church of God acknowledged Episcopacy lawfull which erected Altar against Altar which stood in division from all Bishops throughout the rest of the world and could not give letters Communicatories to Rome or to the other Patriarchs Your Proposition I deny not being in it self true as in the Councell of Constantinople where under Arcadius Origen's books were questioned the Fathers rejected not such books as werâ— found Orthodox notwithstanding his others were full of errâ—â—s and â—oth S. Hierome Ep. 75. and S. Aug. Ep. 9. followed the same method
vel hoc prae pudore relinquitur Let us proceed to particulars Your first Paragraph is of the first Article of the Covenant 1. Wherein first we are not satisfied how we can with Judgement sweare to endeavour to preserve the Religion of another Kingdome whereof as it doth not concerne us to have very much so we professe to have very little understanding 2. Which so far as the occurrents of these unhappy times have brought it to our knowledge and we are able to judge as in three of the foure specified particulars viz. Worship Discipline and Government much worse and in the fourth that of Doctrine not at all better then our own which we are in the next passage of the Article required to reforme Blessed Saint Paul was much of another spirit he earnestly professeth a most hearty sence of the welfare of all Churches he hath a Sollicitous care of all he cryes out Who is weake and I not weake who is offended and I burne not 2 Cor. 11.28 He is highly sensible not onely of all Churches but persons See him 1 Cor. 1.10 how carefull he is to have all speak the same thing and that there be no division amongst them but that they be perfectly joyned together in the same minde and in the same judgement Reade him in all his Epistles see how he and his fellow labourers even anxiously esteemed themselves concerned in all the Churches progresse in true Doctrine and practise See what he sayes to the Romans Chap. 12. the aime of his Doctrine is that we must rejoyce with the joyfull weep with the sad we must mutually feele each others passions we must be deeply concerned in our Brethrens spirituall affaires chiefly but ye contrariwise professe not to be so much concerned in preserving the Religion of your Neighbour Church Solomon would have judg'd your title surreptitious with the pretended Mothers who was contented to have the Child quartered so that she might rob the true Mother of her infant ye caused indeed the breach in Scotland from their Mother of Rome having done that you professe your selves now not much concern'd to preserve her in any Religion Ye could not have used any Arguments more forcible to prove your selves not true lively Members of Christs great Spirituall body since it is cleare by your profession here that you are not vegitated with the common spirit of it for ye are not concerned c. Contrary to Saint Pauls teaching 1 Cor. 14.33 where he professeth to teach peace of Doctrine in all Churches Ye professe also that you differ from them in Worship Discipline and Government The Philosophers at Athens however different in their Schooles touching their opinions of the Deity Providence c. as appeares in the tenents of the Platonists Stoiques and Peripatetiques yet in their Temple touching Worship Discipline and Government did far more agree then you meeting quietly at their common oblations to God which ye professe not to be amongst you Have ye not in this undeniably abolished one Article of the Creed which is Communion of Saints and consequently taken away your very pretence to a Church Externall Communion consists in uniformity of Worship Discipline and Government most especially indeed in Worship and in this as you are seperated from Rome and their whole Communion so ye are as you professe from your neighbouring Churches whence it followes you are not a true Church of Christ I speak not this as if I were at all scandalized at your breaches Aristotle treating of Beasts calls a Wolfe though a Pestilent creature animal generosum because it will not be made tame I can say no lesse of you it is generous not to degenerate all your predecessours disagreed with each other as Luther Zuinglius Calvin and the rest Tertullian not far from the end of his treatise of Praescriptions will rub you hard upon the gills Mentior si non etiam à regulis suis variant inter se dum unusquisque proinde suo arbitrio modulatur quae accepit quemadmodum de arbitrio ea composuit illi quae tradidit c. It hath beene alwaies the custome from the beginning that you thus vary from one another and yet Tertullian speaks of it as a thing most ridiculous I lye saith he if it be not true that they differ from their owne rules c. he was afraid that future ages would not beleeve so prodigious a thing but succeeding ages make it appeare even to children Ye have therefore just title not onely to the Wolfe in this point of generosity but to the Foxes under Sampson in biting each other with all virulency and yet agree in your tailes by firing all behinde you which is Gods Church It 's Cato's aphorisme opertet mendacem esse memorem You have been also observed to have been in divers tales At the first under Henry the 8. your rule was to adhere to holy Scriptures determination of the Primitive Church or Generall Councells held before the last 600. yeares as appears in the Articles of union betwixt you and the Germans In B. Jewells time you confined your selves to the first 600. yeares After in Perkins time to the first 400. yeares and now in D'allie to the Apostles only And so by degrees you creep to your invisibility where every one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Son without a Father For the Doctrine you adde as followes Wherein if hereafter we shall find any thing as upon farther understanding thereof it is not impossible we may that may seeme to us savouring of Popery Superstition Heresie or Schisme or contrary to sound Doctrine or the Power of Godlinesse We shall be bound by the next Article to endeavour the extirpation after we have bound our selves by this first Article to the preservation thereof Wherein we already finde some things to our thinking so far tending to superstition in accounting Bishops Anti Christian and indifferent Ceremonies unlawfull and Schismes in making their Discipline and Government a marke of the true Church and the setting up thereof the erecting of the Church of Christ that it seemeth to us more reasonable that we should call upon them to reforme the same then that they should call upon us to preserve it Here you have toucht the matter againe more deeply to the quick your quarrels in Doctrine are of no lesse nature then of Superstition and Schisme Thus Presbytery and Prelacy are at open wars We heard of the Heralds at armes menacing mutuall defiance at the Scotts first entring our Countrey yet there were hopes of an attonement but this Covenant hath rendred them irreconcileable Tertullian in his book of Prayer propounds a question worth your knowing Quale sacrificium est à quo sine pace receditur No peace no Sacrifice He indeed insinuates an old and constant custome of the Catholick Church in a religious embrace of each other in time of Masse which he here calls Sacrifice signifying the charity which should be amongst Christians but you have professedly
cast away Masse and Peace together The causes which each of you already alleadge are true enough but I leave your selves to prove them it s more then sufficient for all good Christians who tender their salvations not to adhere to either of you since you are so far from unity in Doctrine that your bodies respectively need Reformation as ye confesse of them and they of you wherein ye have destroyed your selves wholly First from the pretence of being one Christian Church and consequently any Church according as the universall Church teaches us I beleeve one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church If therefore no unity no Church And with no lesse evidence ye have Secondly destroyed either of you to be a Church having declared your severall errours in Superstition and Schisme For according to Holy Scriptures and the consent of all especially old Christians A Congregation which should generally and solemnly teach and professe Superstition and Schisme neither is nor can be a Church of Christ this would render it inconsistent with the light presented in Saint Johns Candlesticks and consequently alienate it from Christ This needs no further proofe to a man who hath observed the hinges of Christianity Doth not the whole world also know by your voluminous writings that ye have condemned the very Ceremonies of the Roman Church as unlawfull and made that amongst the vulgar people a maine argument of our Superstition and now ye say it is Superstition in the Presbyters to condemne them in you I le not presse you for I should presently cast you into Democritus his Well Ye wholly forget the force of an Argument called in the Schooles ad hominem drawne from a mans owne principle as here against you Ye goe on Secondly we are not satisfied in the next Branch concerning the Reformation of Religion in our owne Kingdome in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government how we can sweare to endeavour the same which without makeing a change therein cannot be done It is very well noted that ye cannot reforme without a change Phylosophy would laugh at you to attempt a Reformation without a proportionable mutation whence it followes that you have chang'd your Doctrine whence it further followes that its false you know Gamaliels rule if it be of God it will stand ye know then whence yours comes for if it change it is not of God You pretend to reverence the foure first generall Councells heare what the Councell of Chalcedon saith Act. 1. Sic sancivit sancta synodus c Si quis innovat Anaethema sit sanctorum patrum fidem servemus c. you see your sentence if you change you are gone and yet you must change If your Proselites would without prejudice observe how you tumble and tosse one another in reciprocall recriminations in matter of these high inconsistencies with Christianity they would relinquish such communion Your reasons to the contrary in order to you are important for it cannot be done 1. Papists Independents are equally rejected by the Praelatique party Without manifest scandall to the Papist and Separatist by yeilding the cause which our Godly Bishops and Martyrs and all our learned Divines ever since the Reformation have both by their writings and sufferings maintained who have justified against them both the Religion established in the Church of England to be agreeable to the word of God 2. By Justifying the Papists in the reproaches and scorne by them cast upon our Religion whose usuall objection it hath been and is that we know not what our Religion is that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay that our Religion is a Parliamentary Religion let us not be blamed if we call it a Parliament Religion Parliament Gospell Parliament Faith Harding Consul of Apology part 6. cap. 2. These are very home let me a little dilate them To your first You have indeed scandalized all the world and most of all those whom ye call Papists by yeilding the cause and shewing that hitherto ye have persecuted them to bloud to all manner of cruelties for not adhering to that which now is confessed to be Superstitious and Schismaticall Trajan was a Heathen and a profest enemy of Christian Religion yet he came not neere your cruelties He made a law that no Poursivants should search the houses or looke after Christians or their Priests but onely apprehend them if they should happen to meet them But under your reigne all our houses against the liberties of free borne Subjects as was declared in Master Pims case were disquieted by the very dregs of mankind continually infested with Saint Ignatius his Leopards who the better he treated them the worse they were but as he said Iniquitas eorum mea doctrina est their iniquities taught us patience This permission even of assemblies in point of Religion especially in the exercise of a Religion which was not newly taken up though different from that which was then in vogue was by the Senate allowed as that of the Jewes at Rome Nay Suetonius tells us that even the Christians were tollerated to assemble Eusebius Hist lib. 5. cap. 20. saith that Commodus the Emperour punished even by death such who accused Christians by reason of their quietnesse And in his third booke cap. 15. he tells how Nerva the Emperour did set Christians at liberty generally by publique Proclamation hence Saint John was freed from Patmos In fine he recalled all power given to Poursuivants by his predecessours How much more should Christian Senates allow of innocent meetings in celebration of a Religion which all our forefathers professed But ye persecuted both new and old Religions I feare the bloud of all those who have suffered death either by hanging Loaplanding as the Dutch call it famishing or starving for Religion will call for revenge but we pray with our blessed Saviour and his Protomartyr Saint Stephen ne statuas illis hoc peccatum Saint Paul hath also taught us Rom. 12.5.21 Be not overcome of evill but overcome good with evill Nay Aristotle himselfe in 4. Eth. cap. 3. saith it is a signe of magnanimity to forget injuries For as it is a marke of a weake Stomack not to be able to digest hard meat so it is of a pusillanimous Soule not to be able to indure a harsh word or harder threats Cicero lib. 2. Tusc ques speaking of wise mens patience saith si fortis in perferendo officii satis est ut laetetur non postulo These Christian wise men have gone further even to joy in Persecutions Aristotle when the Athenians were consulting to proceed in judgement against him upon suspition of some impiety in his opinions departed from Athens and removed his Schoole saying to his Schollars Discedamus Athenis ne prebeamus iis secundam occasionem sceleris quale prius perpetraverunt in Socratem neve iterū per impietatem violent Philosophiam Thus tender Aristotle was of Philosophy and of their innocency but our Christian Philosophers here have gone
conditions are required in a Lawfull taking or imposing Oaths You proceede The SECOND ARTICLE OF THE COVENANT First is cannot but affect us with some griefe and amazement to see that ancient forme of Church-Government which wee heartily and as wee hope worthily honour as under which our Religion was at first so orderly without Violence or Tumults and so happily reformed and hath since so long florished with Truth and Peace to the honour and happinesse of our own and the envy and admiration of other Nations not only 1. Endeavoured to be extirpated without any reason offered to our understandings for which it should be thought necessary or but so much as expedient so to doe But also 2. Ranked with Popery Superstition Heresy Schisme and prophanesse which wee unfainedly professe our selves to detest as much as any others whatsoever 3. And that with some intimation also as if that Government were some way or other so contrary to sound Doctrine or the power of Godlinesse that whosoever should not endeavour the extirpation thereof must of necessity partake in other mens sinnes which we cannot yet be perswaded to believe To your first Was not England reformed from Infidelity to Christianity without violence or tumult and so continued till Henry the Eights rupture both in body and minde did it not continue in admiration of all Nations because it never admitted any Heresies was it not endeavored to bee extirpated without any reasons offered to our understanding yet let mee also tell you that your pretended Reformation came not in nor continued without violence At the very first was there not violence offred in the first Parliament which began it in Edw. 6. time what course was then taken in the choice of Parliament men again what violence in keeping out the Bishops who then were necessary Members that the Vote might be carried for suppression of Masse and establishing your Common-Prayer Book And did it not continue by bloud The onely argument used to induce Catholique to adhere to your new Schismaticall Prelacy was that which began and continues the Alcaron which is the Sword or which is more ignominious the Gallowes Yet you live under those Governours who promise not to exercise violence upon Consciences which is your happinesse But if they should make use of your Lawes and argue with you ad hominem that way out of your principles there would be title for cruelties enough yee hare very closely followed the steps of your predecessors the Donatists whose bloudy proxagation of their Heresies St. Hierom in his Treatise against them towards the end of the third Booke shewes So does Orosius also and St. Augustine of the City of God which he dedicated to Marcellinus who was murthered by them God forbid that any Phalaris should put you to Perillus his punishment recorded in Ovid. Et Phalaris tauro violenti memb a Perilli Torruit in felix imbuit auctor vpus What a number of penall Lawes were in your time by your promotion made against tender Consciences and how rigidly put in execution How many tyrannicall Sentences and Censures did you passe in your high Comm ssion court for meer Peccadillo's What Forfeitures and Mulcts were imposed on all such as refused to be present at your adored Service of Common-Prayer which is now become so nauseous to the generality of People that it is not to be heard of in the whole Nation unlesse in some occult or remote Crany and of whose Origin continuation and Exit you may take this as a sure record that it was established by a Parliament on the 29 of May 1549. and was abolish'd on the 26 of Novemb. 1644. by the like authority Thus long did it and your Religion continue without flourishing either to the happinesse of our own or to the envy or admiration of any other Nation But on the contrary is it not most apparent that these and such like your unchristian actions and fanatique Innovations were the onely cause of all our late troubles Hinc illae Lachrymae From this Source hath issued a stream of bloud and a fountain of tears in the late warres Nor can it seem strange that Almighty God should at length unsheath his sword to revenge the innocent You know Haman was hang'd on the Gallowes which he erected for Mardocheus But wee pray that you may finde mercy To the Second Was not Catholike Religion by you called Popery and ranked with Superstation c. and hath it not by your selves to this day been so calumniated amongst the common people that they do yet take it to be really so In so much that one of your learned'st Prelates whose name out of civility I spare for I fight not against persons but causes being asked by a grave gentleman of your Prelatick Church why you did accuse the Church of Rome of such crimes as Superstition and Idolatry which she had suppressed in this Nation and in the whole world as all Histories witness Your Bishop answered ingenuously That this Prelatick Protestancy began with lies and so it must continue Hence this Gentleman took his rise to become Catholike Credidit domus ejus iota and all his Family Let not any man much wonder at this private confession of the Bishop for it is very well consistent with what others have taught in publike Mr. Gregory in his Opuscula page 145. hath these words We make Religion but a politike engine which being supposed the Bishop would not have had much labour to prove his Thesis It 's pretty to observe what strange devises Bishop Bancroft and others used to raise schismes amongst Catholikes as was confessed in Parliament as S. Augustine saith of Julian By this means he thought to destroy the Christian name when out of his envy to the Churches unity whence he had fallen he permitted sacrilegious dissentions to be free from censure You see whence they derived their Machiavelisme but all in vain we all stick to the rock when their sandy foundation failes And question lesse it had fail'd as soon as conceived if the people had not easily been carried away with any though meer appearances of Reformation and the hope of gain by the suppression of religious houses according to that Sparta diu stetit non quod Rex bene imperabat sed quia populus bene parebat You are well read in the history of Perkin Warbeek he had so long lied in personating a King that the Lord Chancellour Bacon saith he did at last verily think himself to be the King And really I do believe you had so long told this untruth of Catholiques that many of you began to believe that we were superstitious indeed your serious manner of speaking would almost make us think so were not the thing so ridiculous that we should be superstitious who onely have destroyed superstition to the astonishment of the world Who could believe that D. Vsher should not blush to preach so impudent an untruth as that Catholiques hold Fornication
for the Dead Nay that you may be assured ask a Heathen Historian Ammianus Marcellinus he will secure you that Christian Religion teacheth Cultum Sanctorum and to make addresses to them as he writes to Valentinian If you bad yet rather have a Schismatique of your owne stamp ask Lucilla a Patroness of the Donatists in lib. 1. of Optatus Millevitan As for prayers for the dead in order to remission of debts after this life before that great day of generall goal-delivery or last fiery purgation it was as I conceive practised always according to the sense of the Church universall by the East and West and judged very profitable by them all To omit particular Greek and Latine Fathers it seemeth in the Councell of Florence to be the sense of the Greek and Latine Church as appears in the narration of the whole dispute printed at Leiden in Holland and the definition of the Councell it self seems to come exceeding home where in defining what souls come to heaven before the day of Iudgment for that is the question there decided the Fathers spake thus Illorum etiam animas qui post baptismum susceptum nullam omnino peccati maculam incurrerunt illas etiam quae post contractam peccati maculam vel in suis corperibus vel eisdem exuti corporibus prout dictum est superius sunt purgatae in coelum mox recipi c. Here they suppose some souls to be purged before the last day els the discourse is not consequent nor to the purpose Which also is cleare in Pope Benedict XI his Extravagant which begins Benedictus Dens c. where defining the same truth agitated under John 22. his words are Si tum erit aliquod purgabile in eisdem lamen post mortem suam purgabunt c. etiam ante resumptionem suorum corporum judicium generale c. erunt in coelo c. He defines that some will be purged before the retaking of their bodies and the generall judgment and will go to heaven This definition opens fully the sense of the definition of Florence which is made in conformity to this and almost in the very same words so that I do not easily see what can be desired more The sense of the old Church S. Augustine declares in his Enchyridion to Laurence where speaking of such souls he saith quanto magis minúsve bona pereuntia dilexerunt tanto tardiùs citiusque salvari This clears all It s true he leaves the fire of Purgatory somewhat disputable which is not yet desined but he clears the meaning of Christians in their durance there and indeed tells us what the old Fathers and Liturgies and Councells signified in their degrees and practises of helping the dead by suffrages which was that answerably to their demerits they might tardiùs citiusve salvari There were many Foundations in this Nation made piously by your and our Predecessouis for the dead which you perverted to prophane uses as maintaining wives and children with manifest neglect and even professed contempt of praying for the dead as holding it unprofitable and uselesse contrary to all antiquity wherein you committed theft and sacriledge according to the Canons Concilii Vasensis Amico quippiam rapere furtum est ecclesiaâ— fraudare sacrilegium and the Canon spea â—s of this very matter largely And the fourth Councel of Carthage c. 95. saith Qui oblationes defunctorum aut negant ecclesiis aut cum difficultate reddunt tanquam egentium necatores excommunicentur They are excommunicated as murtherers Other Synods are as severe which I omit these signifying sufficiently the sense of the old Church See your friends of Magdeburg for these and for the rest of the Doctrines wherein you differ from us whether antiquity did not ackdowledge them Ask B. Vsher and the rest who have any ingenuity amongst you whether the Popes Supremacy was not acknowledg'd Read the history of the famous Dionisius Bishop of Corinth in Eusebius and S. Hierome who lived under Antoninus Verus you know how neere this was to the Apostles you will conclude of how great authority the Popes of Rome were in those first daies when their commands signified in their Epistles were even amongst the Greeks published in the Churches in time of Divine Service by the Bishops and S. Epiphanius in Panar heresi 30. against the Ebions witnesseth that S. Clement his Encycles were solemnly read in Churches which was an act of high reverence far from your scorn of that Supreme Seat See for this and all other points even all true Generall Councells to this day they will let you see clearly Ask Perkins and your most eminent Writers whether almost all the Tenents for which you separte from us were not held above 1300. years If Traditions prove Episcopacy they will as well prove the rest Truly this sole Paragraph destroyes all your Praelatique Protestancy and renders you to your first condition of invisibility where ye lay for 1500. years hidden not in Abrahams bosome But if you can faine any existence it must be in some occult receptacles or crany holes of your own fancies Plato's Ideas though fanatique enough never reacht you but Luther being in drink and his fancy weakned first began to dream of you though confusedly I know many of you are well acquainted with Gyges his Ring which renders you invisible at pleasure but you have not the perfect use of it els you could as well make your selves visible to all the world Your old friend B. White and B. Vsher laboured much to get this art but unsuccessefully I must needs touch this main point a little farther I more commend Monsieur D'ally Chillingworth and all his schools ingenuity who though they enervate the grounds of Christianity yet they far more consequently deny the Fathers to have that authority which Catholiques and the General Councells universally give them in clearing points of faith as in the first four where they were alledged examined and accordingly Faith declared by their authorities and so in every Councell hitherto in point of Christian Doctrine then you who play fast and loose Here you pretend necessity and high authority for Tradition which must needs be conveighed by them to us and in all your works as I have noted and as all know you have cryed out against it as not being necessary Thus you fight and contradict each other and your selves in these fundamentalls I remember Plato in his Timaeo tells of an Aegyptian Priest who thus spoke to Solon O Solon Solon vos quidem Graeci pueri semper estis senex autem Graecorum nemo nulla est enim apud vos disciplina quae senio incanuerit Will not this come home to you if your years are to be numbred with the continuance of your doctrines surely you will never be very aged Since you have toucht this point of the Fathers let me put in one observation whereby any ignorant person may judge whether the Fathers of how great or
little authority soever they are with you were Protestants or Catholiques without discussing their many volumes which only learned men can master that is look upon their persons see what they were in themselves peruse their lives without their books was not S. Augustine confessedly a Priest l. 9. Conf. c. 11 12 13 c. Vita ejus à Possidio De moribus eccles Cath. Ep. 90.92.45 aliis unmarried did he not say Masse that is offer up the body and bloud of Christ in sacrifice for the living and the dead was he not Bishop of Hippo did he not institute a religious order of Monks did he not in fact acknowledge the Pope to be Head of the Church and his Superiour c. Whether could he with these be a Protestant Nay whether were not many upon far lesse grouds often convicted at Newgate for Popish Priests and in your reign hang'd and quartered Take the same course with S. Hierome Vita ejus Ep. 25. ad Aug. alibi was he not a Monk a Priest unmarried said Masse a subject of S. Damasus Pope Vita Ambrofit ante ejus opera to 5. collecta ex operibus ejus See his Dialogue and Register See his life c. Take S. Ambrose was he not a Bishop and in the same sense a Priest that is in your language a Sacrificant of the body and bloud of Christ unmarried subject to Rome c. Take S. Gregory See S. Gregory Nazianzen in his Oration of S. Basile he was not only a Priest unmarried but a Pope and began a Religious Order If you go to the Greek Fathers S. Bafile was a Monk instituted a religious Order a Priest a Bishop unmarried made a form of Masse used this day by the Greek Church c. and all these and the rest lived and died in the communion of the Church of Rome Ask your selves whether these could be other then Papists Take twelve men from the Sessions in the Old Baily put them upon the same test that you did our Priests tell me what the Verdict will be This consideration alone is sufficient to compell any reasonable man to become Catholique and to see that your Praelatique Protestancy is a Bull in Christianity involving manifest implicancy I should advise you therefore to leave the Fathers renounce them nay you 'l do well to make an act of your Convocation for this and as you have new Doctrines get new Patrons your own fancies will be best coloured with the name of reason though abusively as your more elevated wits of late have done with your allowance as appeares in the publique approbations of Chillingworth S. Gregory Nissen writing the life of Gregory the Wonder-worker comes home to this saying that there were Nonnulli qui piam sinceram religionis doctrinam adulterarent ac per probabiles argumentationes se penumero etiam doctis prudentibus viris veritatem facerent ambiguam There were some who would adulterate the sincerity and piety of Christian Doctrine by apparent probability of reason insomuch that even learned and prudent men would be caught by them I would that too too many were not taken with this guilded engine to the prejudice of Christianity Examine whether this warrants not all Catholiques from consenting to your new Articles and all your Proselites to leave you for them was it ever clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to continue in the Roman Faith nay hath not the contrary been demonstrated by arguments and confirmed by suffering death for it by learned men You would seem here to have a sense of the principles of justice ingenuity and humanity though they are not proportionable Pleas for perswasion of Christianity neither did the Apostles by civilities court men to become Christians yet some respect might in the beginning of your revolt and now also be used to Catholiques upon these titles since England received their first knowledge of Christ from the Pope and all Church endowments from them they should not in justice ingenuity and humanity be persecuted for these good deeds as they have beene by you though some of you I know were of milder spirits and disliked such cruelties After in the numbers ensuing you bring more motives but they are domestique within your own walls as some of the former were but as far as they have any force more strongly convince a necessity for the continuance or re-assuming of Catholique Religion though many of them are rather drawn from the kitchin then the Church there is little Christian Philosophy here but much of Praelatique policy as from Deanaries fat perfonages c. which are also glanced at in the former Article I omit also the joyned Paragraphs being very extrinsecall to our purpose and indeed to the businesse only ye seem to strike at the present Parliament wherein we leave you desiring you may be comprehended in the Act of perpetuall Oblivion You are indeed in the pursuit contented that Princes have Papall rights upon condition that you may have Episcopall honors and benefices you speak it very plainly and joyn them as closely you plead hard also for Bishops out of another topick namely because as you say King James had learned by experience that no Bishop no King Our former histories I believe could give some strength to such a pretence but this kind of argumentation ever since your time was antiquated in England for you were ever in true Logick in the judgment of all the Church-Praelates beside your selves no other then equivocally Bishops that is idem nomen and ratio diversa So that it was alwaies since you were concern'd in it and now much more acknowledged by all other divines to be subjectum non supponens that is a subject which signifies nothing I discusse not here at large whether it was for lack of true form or matter or Ministery which are all required in true Ordination yet you know it 's hard enough to prove that you had either your form especially of Priesthood as used in the sense of your Authors in the more generall opinion is not valid any more then the Arrians Baptism of Episcopacy also it 's dubious however if Priesthood fails Bishops fall matter ye reject as not necessary and therefore you keep imposition of hands as a ceremony only as many among you teach so that it cannot be cleared that you had any much lesse all necessaries Wherefore it must be presumed that here was some essentiall defect consequently no Ordination if no Ordination no Sacraments by your ordinary Ministery And from hence how many have we known who without your note of Apostasie have left your pretended Priesthood and became Lay-persons as Souldiers Physitians and the like according to that of Tertul. de Praescrip Alius hodie Episcopus cras alius hodie Diaconus qui cras Lector hodie Presbyter qui cras Laicus Some of you have indeed strugled hard for your succession from us as the Donatists did and therefore they
supposed a Bishop at Rome from whom they might seem still to descend wherein they did more wisely then you who judge him Antichrist who is your Head according to your own Tenets but you could never clear this imaginary title even of your Ministery For first though your Record were true as touching the matter of fact in the Ordination of Archbishop Parker which will never be cleared for it is gathered out of Stow 1. Eliz. Holinshed and other Protestant Historians that Parker and the rest of your first pretended Bishops were Bishops in your account before these Consecrators returned into England having run away in Q. Maries reigne therfore not ordained by them and by consequence the Record cannot be true Yet if it were there are many titles will render all invalid especially as touching the pretended Ordainers Ordinations Hodgkinson was one of the 26. who were instituted in the time of Henry the 8th his Schism if he were ordained it was by the new form which Sanders saith the King newly prescribed to Bishops and consequently of no effect Barlow was elected of Asaph and nominated Menevensis but no man hath hitherto prov'd that he was at all ordained Scory and Coverdal were elected under Edw. 6. but not ordained by a lawfull Bishop as that diligent and neer neighbour to those times Sanders shewes Landaff indeed was a true Catholike though pusillanimous Bishop but being threatened excommunication by Bonner Bishop of London if he should ordain them he feigned himself sick and declined the matter And it must be highly considerable that Bishop Oglethorp Bishop of Carlisle Kitchin Bishop of Landaff and other Bishops never acknowledged them as validly ordained Yet if all were true since some eminent Divines hold that to ordain is an act of jurisdiction and almost all hold that jurisdiction at least in the exercise is lost by deposition or excommunication the title of your succession cannot be certain Secondly You should be well read in the opinion of Armachanus Panormitanus Delphinus which Scotur is thought to hold probable and Durand will not have to be erroneous out of S. Hierome which if supposed would crush you wholly I only propound this to you as being consonant to your doctrine in this Act in the Paragraph concerning Episcopall Government and destructive to your succession because by this opinion all titles except divine which your Act challengeth not are surely lost because as Tertul in the place cited saith Ordinationes eorum temerariae leves inconstantes wanting divine foundation they must needs totter Thirdly the confusion at the Nags head witnessed by such who were present and afterward suffer'd severe imprisonment for their conscience must needs make a considerable argument for your nullity these aver'd that Landaff having withdrawn himself Scory was suffected Ordainer who laying his hands over their heads with the Bible said Take power to preach the word of God sincerely So that he doing it alone and in this only form nothing was done which will convince a nullity in all your first pretended Bishops and consequently in all those who have been ordained by them which renders the whole to be invalid because it cannot appeare that the sequent Ordainers were not descended from these Parliamentary Bishops as Sanders calls them in that they supplicated the Parliament to confirm them and to supply what was wanting according to holy Churches Doctrine and practise Lastly Christian Divinity teacheth us that in the matter of Sacraments all are obliged to follow the more certain opinions and to leave the less probable whence it follows that all your Proselites are bound though there were some probability for your Ordination to leave you and return to us where it is unquestionable according to your confessed Principles Hence it appears in what a dangerous praecipice all souls are who depend on you for Sacraments since your title at the best is uncertaine and how secure are those of our Communion even according to your principles since all you pretend is from us yet I know not whence somwhat you seemed also to have in point of Jurisdiction which belong'd to true Episcopacy and this you exercised with unexemplar severity by imposing Oaths ex Officio the like not only praeter but contra Canonicall burthens extremely hard to all who did not even superstitiously adhere to you and these your proceedings were judg'd highly prejudiciall to the last King But to return to your proposition it would admit a greater truth being modified according to your intention with that which Logicians call a simple conversion thus no King no Bishop for this you need not argue ab authoritate al of us wil grant it in order to you and out of this self-interest I should almost conceive you wish the one with the other but not a King without a Bishop Your whole discourse inclines to this And for the former Aphorism indeed your reformed Episcopacy had no such influence upon the people as to conclude no Bishop no King their uxorious complexion rendred them too vulgar and contemptible You pretend indeed much zeale for the late King especially lest he should be perjured in violating his oath of preserving your Priviledges But it is conceived to be a fallacy of non causa pro causa and grounded not upon amor amicitiae but concupiscentiae that is you loved him for your own sakes you would not have him forsweare lest you lose all So you are tender against sacriledge wheras none are ignorant that your Reformation was grounded upon it the ruinous walls of houses dedicated to Gods service witnesse it and the Bishopricks of Oxford Peterborough Bristol Chester and Glocester were wholly founded upon Church-rapine But as in the former so in this you are suspected to seek quae vestra sunt non quae Jesu Christi Finally ye add We hope we shall be the lesse blamed for our unwillingnesse to have any actuall concurrence in the extirpating of Episcopall Government seeing of such extirpation there is no other use imaginable but either the alienation of their revenues and inheritances which how it can be severed from sacriledge and injustice we leave others to find out or to make way for the introducing of some other form of Church-Government which whatsoever it shall be will as we think prove either destructive of and inconsistent with Monarchicall Government or at leastwise more prejudiciall to the peaceable orderly and effectuall exercise thereof then a well regulated Episcopacy can possibly be These were the last words of the dying Praelacy and Praelatique Protestancy And truly the conjunction of them is so weak as being drawn à Posteriori and from very remote and extrinsecall topicks that they declare your cause desperate Alas why would you trouble your selves us and the world with a tedious contrast about a pure fanatique Idol which as in this upshot appears had never any reall foundation but only civitas solis a pretty invented Eutopia in the Sun where none but Knights
and imbecility that they cannot do these things this the divine providence hath brought to passe by the predictions of the Prophets by the humanity and Doctrine of Christ by the voyages of the Apostles by the Contumelies crosses bloud and death of Martyrs by the laudable and excellent lives of Saints and by miracles done at convenient times in all those things worthy of so great matters and vertues When therefore we see so great help and assistance from God and so great fruit and increase thereby shall we make any doubt or question at all of retyring into the bosome of that Church which even to the confession and acknowledgement of mankind from the See Apostolique by succession of Bishops hath obtained the soveraignty and principall authority Heretikes in vain barking round about it and being condemned partly by the judgement of the people themselves partly by the gravity of Councells partly also by the majesty and splendor of miracles unto which not to grant the chief place and preheminence is either indeed an extream impiety or a very rash and dangerous arrogancy for if there be no certain way for the minds of men to wisdome and salvation but when faith prepareth and disposeth them to reason what is it els to be ungratefull unto the divine Majesty for his aid and assistance but to have a will to resist an authority which was gained and purchased with such labour and pains and if every art and trade though but base and easie reqires a teacher or Master that it be learned and understood what greater expression can there be of rash arrogancy and pride then both to have no mind to learn the booke of the Divine mysteries from their Interpreters and yet to have a mind to condemn the unknown Thus far this glorious Saint Here we see how highly necessary blessed S. Augustine judged it for all Christians to adhere to the Catholique Church in all points of belief which he declares here to be the Roman Church that is to say that universall multitude of Christians which acknowledgeth Rome for their head whose authority as he saith is confirmed by consent of Nations Councells and Majesty of Miracles Was ever your fictitious Church thus adjusted Here great S. Augustine puls down sails and of a Master glories to become a Scholler Whence we learn that if an Origen the crums of whose plenty rendred Clemens Alexandrinus rich in the esteem of all or an Apollinarius with his conquests against Porphyry and other enemies of Gods Church or any other prodigious Comets of wit and learning or whatsoever posteriour Masters who can be but pedants to the former should presume to teach the Church or to question her Magisteriall Dictates or Conciliary Decrees we must say with Vinc. Lyr. ca. 10. that with the Church we ought to receive Doctors and not with Doctors to forsake the faith of the Church Could we attaine to S. Paulins contempt of our selves we should not at so high a rate as to the prejudice of Gods Church and his divine truths sell our raw conceits S. Hierome and S. Augustine made high esteem of his learned and pious Epistles and S. Amand kept them as Diadems in his Storehouse whereof he sent to S. Paulin a fardle to which he replies Legimus in tergo epistolae annotationem epistolarum quas meas esse indicatis nam verè prope earum omniumimmomor eram ut meas esse non recognoscerem nisi vestris literis credidissem unde majus accepi documentum charitatis vestrae quia plus me vobis quà m mihi notum esse perspexi If he had been tickled with our vanity he would have kept a better bed-roale of his writings in his memory then to borrow and even unwillingly from S. Amand a knowledge of his own works Here is no danger of recalcitration in order to the holy Churches great treasury opportunely dispensed and humbly received by her learned children S. Paul our Grand Master puts all Doctrine and Doctors to the test thus If any preach unto you otherwise then you have received be he accursed It 's high time therefore to leave Pope Celestine his golden rule celebrated in Lirinensis let novelty cease to molest antiquity for whosoever he is or of whatsoever eminency for learning or sanctity he seems to be if he introduceth novelty alienus est prophanus est hostis est he is a wolfe in a sheeps cloathing What greater expression can there be of rash Arrogancy and pride c. as S. Augustine hath taught us FINIS A cursory Animadversion upon Henry Fernes Treatise of the Division between the English and Romish Church upon the Reformation IF I had not seen the two Capitall letters D. D. in the title page of his Treatise I should have esteem'd 〈◊〉 not worthy taking more notice â—f then of a scurrilous Pamphlet neither dare I play the Cabalist to â—ive the divers significations of those Hieroglyphicks but reading them without notes they import Doctor of Divinity the Preface a Country Sermon which ever must have a fling at the Papists neither that nor the ensuing discourse is ad Clerum els they would more savour of the Doctor according to the antientstle of the University In his said preface to take notice first of some of his calumnies there he falls into these expressions All the Christian world sees how long the poor distressed Eâ—stern Church has lain under that heavy condition unpitied by them of the Romish Communion and how they have stood affected to us since our Reformation has sufficiently appeared by their several practises against us what hand they had in our present troubles is not unknown to some what joy they now take in them let their own hearts tell them c. His chiefe ayme in the book is to shew that the arguments which they use to condemn the Independents are not retortable upon themselves by us and what greater use of reason they grant to their Proselites then we All which he labours for in the seventh and the ensuing Sections till the thirteenth wherein verily he is so unhappy that any child may return his arguments with great advantage His result being this that private judgement or judgement of discretion which he allows to private men must submit to the publique els the power of Jurisdiction must proceed to judge censure and cast out the disobedient and therefore he exacts even in case of errour all externall peaceable subjection Did ever the Roman Church go thus far was there ever challenged any higher captivation of understanding then that every one should submit to the publique Was ever externall subjection exacted in point of error which this D. D. wil have in his Church Further the Independents whom he involves with Sacrilegists he wil have inexcuseable in their breach from them because it was not warranted by a Nationall Synod as theirs which how untrue it is all know for all the Bishops of this Nation were excluded and imprisoned when the Doctors
party first decreed the breach from their old Mother Church as the very Acts testifie so that they had no more Nationall Synod then these who can when they please congregate as many of their party and stile it a Nationall Synod especially if warranted by Parliament as the Presbyterians have lately done whom he equally rejects Secondly he sayes the Independents or Sectaries as he calls them have not plain and evident Scripture but places unlearnedly wrested Who knows not that the Prelatists could never hitherto bring Scripture or antiquity except places unlearnedly wrested have not we demonstrated this 100. times do not they stand registred upon this accusation in all Courts of Justice equity and reason and yet are not able to wipe off the least part These are D. D. his peculiar Aphorismes which by a little redargution rise up in judgement against himselfe and his faction The other Sections are built upon Topicks as common as Robin Hoods Song and answered by every Stationers Catalogue of Frankfort Mart therefore I trouble not the judicious Reader with the rehearsall But to return to the words cited out of his Preface it is most evident to all who read histories what pains the Roman Church hath and doth take in maintaining Colledges and sending Missionaries for the reducing of the Eastern Church and with what affection and solicitude she laboured the recovery of England to her pristine Religion does clearly appeare by the innocent bloud of many of her Priests shed at Tyburn and other places of publique execution meerly upon that account which is the only practise he can justly accuse the Roman Church of what hand we Catholikes have had in the present troubles of the Land cannot be unknown but to those that are truly simplicians of very short consideration when our Priests being every where throughout the Countrey since the beginning of the late warres imprisoned and persecuted to death and our Layty ransackt almost to utter ruine in point of temporall estate only upon the score of their old Recusancy no one of them could be hitherto convicted of Incendiarisme notwithstanding the extreme eagernesse of their enemies to accuse them upon any cavill that malice could surmise let the D. D. convince me of the contrary by any particular instance if he can On the other side what hands and heads what pens and Pulpits those that were not Catholiques have had in their own and our late troubles the Parliamentary Records Scaffolds and Gallowses do make so evident that none can pretend ignorance but such as have their sculs stuffed with Fern. That we joy in our Adversaries troubles is another unproveable calumny of the Doctors We doe extremely pitty them and hope that the Divine permission of an infinity of Sects and subdivisions among them may sooner bring them to reflect on their common Schisme and of their owne accord to endeavour a re-union with the root whence they separated themselves But I presume when the Doctor has read the foregoing discourse he will ingeniously confess who were the only cause of our late troubles or if he will still seem to be wilfully ignorant let him inform himself further of the Scotchwomen of Edenborough who flung their stools at the late Arch-Bishop of Canterburies Legat's head that came to put in practise his new Service Book and other innovations there in the year 1639. I his bred the first disturbance and gave the Alarum to all the sad ensuing troubles in both Nations as our modern histories unanimously agree It would seem strange that a grave D. D. should nor be sensible of the sin of calumny against so celebrated a Church but to reproach her with want of charity or rather excesse of malice in joying at their neighbors spiritual ruines which by all possible solicitude she hath laboured to prevent and to accuse her Members as Boutefeus of State But this is the Prelatists constant stile since they were dispossest of true charity by imbracing Schism neither do I know what should move them thus to detract from the innocent but desparation FINIS ERRATA PAge 89. line 19. for salved read valued p. 96. l. 15. r. Decrees p. 106. l. 16. r. Parsonages