VETERES VINDICATI IN AN Expostulatory Letter TO Mr. SCLATER of PVTNEY UPON HIS CONSENSVS VETERVM c. WHEREIN The Absurdity of his Method are shewn The Weakness of his Reasons are shewn His false Aspersions upon the Church of England are wiped off and her FAITH concerning the EUCHARIST proved to be THAT of the PRIMITIVE CHURCH Together with Animadversions on Dean Boileau's French Translation of and Remarks upon Bertram King Charles the Martyr to the Prince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 27. But if you never see my face again I do Require and intreat you as your FATHER and your KING that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or Disaffection from the TRUE RELIGION established in the CHURCH of ENGLAND I tell you I have TRYED IT and after MUCH SEARCH and MANY DISPUTES have concluded IT to be BEST in the WORLD not onely in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the POMP of SUPERSTITIOUS TYRANNY and the MEANNESS of FANTASTICK ANARCHY LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall. 1687. IMPRIMATUR Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep Cantuar. à Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Apr. 7. 1687. TO THE READER IT is not material to thee to know what were the particular Reasons that put me upon answering this Book of Mr. Sclater whether it were a Challenge or a Request both or neither such as it is it was designed for a Vindication of our most Holy Mother the Church of England from those very silly and very false Aspersions cast upon her by Mr. Sclater up and down his Book I hope no one will think that I have been too sharp upon him I am certain his behaviour in his Book was so very extravagant and his abuses so open and so intolerable that I can assure the Reader that it was with trouble that I did restrain using oftner a just Indignation There is no one that reads him who had he been to examine his Quotations as I obliged my self for t he most of them would not I think have been as sharp upon him as I have any where been It would have stirred up a very meek man's Indignation to have been served as he did me his Reader with his Quotation from Hilary pag. 38. where having by chance cast my eye on the first part of the passage set down by him I went hunting for the rest of it as it stood in his Book quite through St. Hilary's whole Book from thence and little dreamed of what I was very angry to find that I was to look backwards in St. Hilary for the other two parts of that passage There are other dealings in his Book much more provoking than this However if any one think I am too severe upon him I must onely say that it is perchance more pardonable in me than in another not that I have any personal quarrel against Mr. Sclater whom I am morally certain I never spoke with in my life but upon another account One short Address I cannot avoid the making here to my Brethren of the Clergy who have not opportunities of a full examination of these Controversies in Antiquity it self that they would beware for Mr. Sclater's sake of taking things too much on trust from our Romish Adversaries or of relying too much on some extraordinary passages out of the Fathers This Address I make because I have been informed that this unhappy man was very much imposed upon and perhaps almost perverted by that passage out of St. Chrysostome about St. Peter's having the Care of the whole Church committed to him which passage therefore I was the more carefull to examine and to confute it that some may see how unsafe it is to rely on scraps of Fathers about these Things and how little they ought to value even the most favourable place out of Antiquity for Popery since the stress of all Antiquity is directly against it as our excellent Writers have abundantly shewn and even such as I are able to shew AN EXPOSTULATORY LETTER TO Mr. EDWARD SCLATER of PVTNEY SIR THE expectation that some person of more leisure and better abilities would have condescended to the trouble of examining this your Treatise was the sole reason that hindred your receiving this sooner from me I am very certain there is nothing in it either so strong or so well managed that could affright any such from bringing your Book to account and therefore I must impute their neglect herein to another cause which I believe you are not at all desirous to hear mentioned by me I am sure I have the opinion of some and those learned persons to confirm me in this my belief 'T is for your own sake therefore chiefly and for those Readers who may possibly be startled at the Title of your Book that I undertake to examine it and to oblige you and them to see how very little reason you had or they to be mov'd by it to call your Book Consensus Veterum and what a miserable mistake you have made in this your forsaking the Communion of your Mother the Church of England and falling to that of Rome I hope you will not be angry that I take the same liberty to examine your method in this Change that you say you did to examine that of our Church One thing I 'll promise you which I am persuaded I shall in the examining of your reasons find you very often faulty in that I will constantly as to my Proofs and Authorities use all the fairness and ingenuity that becomes a Scholar or a Christian herein The Cause of the Church of England is so infinitely better and more steady than that you have so lately espoused that it would be as extremely imprudent as unjust to practise the contrary in the defence of her as she does not need so I am sure she does abhor and is far from admitting any indirect or fraudulent management of her Cause I shall therefore without any farther Preface prosecute my design and begin with your Preface which presents the Reader with a needless Apology about the Plural Title of your Tract for if those other quotations and proofs about the true Catholick Church and the Supremacy of St. Peter and the Bishops of Rome were of any force with you they deserve their place in the Plural Title of your Book if they were not yet that other about the Eucharist though with you All in All can be but one how great soever How Transubstantiation concludes Communion under one species I cannot understand since if Transubstantiation was always the Opinion of the Catholick Church as you affirm it was from the very beginning it would have concluded then as well as now which I am sure it did not for besides our Saviour's Institution in both kinds and his Precept as strict for either of
of the Church of England wanted the true Faith if so you are not then so charitable for all your Pretences as you might be and a little petition that true Faith as well as true Charity may possess our hearts would not be so very much or so troublesome for you now you are on your Rock to put up for us But perhaps your opinion is that our Faith is good enough in this Church onely that we are an ill-natured uncharitable Church and therefore want such an Oratour as you to obtain for us the Gift of Charity But do we want Charity so much more than our neighbours at Rome God will one day judge and let the world doe it in the mean time whether we or they want it more they that damn all besides their own Church or we that hold that even they may be saved And for our Faith neither shall we need to flatter our selves by and by we shall be called to account by you about it and proved to our sorrow to want that altogether as much as Charity so that in the mean time how are you the compassionate and charitable Man 'T is no wonder that one that hath made so great a mistake as to say there is no Vnity among the Reformed Communions should make such adoe to make the Church of Rome appear great by reckoning up all the Vniversities Bishopricks c. that own and submit to the Pope's Jurisdiction I have not so much time to trifle away as to examine whether your Muster be right all that it proves is that a great many Churches that by the Rules of Christianity and by the ancient Laws of the Catholick Church were free and independent do now labour willingly or unwillingly I do not pretend to know under the Vsurpation of the Church of Rome and her Vniversal Bishop which Title Gregory the Great himself a Bishop of that See thought Antichristian When you reckon Sicily and its Bishops you ought to have remembred that they have a Supreme Head of their own the King of Spain who is therefore once a year excommunicated by the other Supreme Head at Rome but for quietness sake as constantly the next day absolved who acts as supremely and Independently there as the Pope himself does in Rome or any part of Italy But this perchance you did not know and therefore 't would be very unreasonable to expect a true account of it from you CHAP. IX A Digression wherein is proved that the Church of Rome is a particular Church and that the Vnity among the Primitive Churches was in Faith onely YOUR next design if I understand you right is to prove the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome But before I undertake to talk with you about that I will take leave to make a Digression the Design of which shall be to shew you that I may not be onely employed in pulling down what you build how much you have been mistaken about your Notion of the Catholick Church and how miserably that Definition of S. N. or rather the Romish Missionaries have imposed upon you I will contract it as much as I can and care not how short I am so that I be but clear and intelligible The things therefore I propose to make appear are these First That the Church of Rome in the Primitive times was looked upon to be as particular a Church as any other then in being Secondly That as an Vnity in Faith was always required in every Particular Church to make it a true branch of the Catholick Church so there were in those Primitive times always found and always allowed of differences as to Practices Ceremonies Discipline and such things between the several particular Churches without any breach of Catholick Peace and Vnity 1. The first of these I am almost as much ashamed to attempt as to prove that I had a Mother it is so plain and visible through all Antiquity that I admire any Man that owns his Reason can in the least question the Church of Rome's being as Particular a Church as any of its neighbours such I am sure St. Paul thought it to be when he wrote his Epistle from Corinth to that Church and such St. Clemens knew it certainly to be when he writes in the name of the Church settled at Rome the famous Epistle to the Church of Corinth the Epistle St. Ignatius wrote to it just before his Martyrdom there does equally prove it with the other two and not one syllable is there to be met with in these three best Monuments of Antiquity as far as I can see that does at all advance her above the common level of the other her sister Churches or in the least hint her any ways being the Mistress or Mother of them all as the late and our modern Wise-men are pleased to say she is but for proving it are willing to be excused I question not but what I have cited out of St. Irenaeus proves the sentiment of him and his time to have been that she was a particular Church among the rest in the world he was certainly of this opinion S. Iren. con Haer. l. 3. c. 3. when telling the Hereticks that it would be too tedious to reckon up the Successions of ALL the CHURCHES he puts down that of Rome which he could not have done had not she been one of those All he there mentions I will but produce one more upon this too evident a point Tertullian d Edant ergo Origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per Successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis viris c. habuerit auctorem antecessorem Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum ab Joanne conlocatum refert Sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit proinde utique ceterae exhibent c. Tertull. de Praescript c. 32. Edit Franck. 1597. who challenging the Hereticks to shew the Original of their Churches the Succession of their Bishops in a direct line from either an Apostle or an Apostolical Person that always kept within the Vnity of the Church tells them the Apostolical Churches could doe this for example the Church of Smyrna that had Polycarp placed there for their first Bishop by St. John the Church of Rome that had Clemens ordained by St. Peter and for the rest of those Churches that they did the same 2. I 'll pass now to the second point to shew That as an Vnity in Faith was always required in every Particular Church to make it a true part of the Catholick Church so there were in those primitive times always found and always allowed of Differences as to Practice and Ceremonies Discipline and such things between the several particular Churches without any breach of Catholick Peace and Unity As to the Vnity by Faith I need not much if at all
that one might expect from its having such an Vniversal Dictator over it I trow not for did you never hear of that long bandying which perhaps is not ended about the Immaculate Conception nor of the violent Feuds betwixt the Jansenists and Molinists which for all the Popes determination continue to this Day Is that whole Community agreed about the Infallibility How is it then that some are for the Personal Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome as such some that He is so onely in Cathedra some that onely a General Council is such Are they agreed about his Jurisdiction How is it then that some put him under and others above a General Council Is his Supremacy determined wherein it doth consist Whence is it then that the Clergy of France so lately made Determinations for the Limitation of it 1682. and to deny his Deposing Power or Medling in Temporals And the Clergy of Hungary under the Arch-Bishop of Gran did 1684 Condemn the Determinations of France to omit the Inquisition of Toledo doing the same thing against them What was the reason that the Pope who is Dictator and might with a word as such silence these Quarrels suffers these contrary Determinations but that he hath wit enough to know that he is not so much a Dictator as Mr. Sclater makes him in France and that his Bulls would signifie no more there about these things than they did about the Regale Are not the Professed Members of that Communion for all their Dictator still quarrelling and bandying one against another witness the Satyrs and virulent Libels betwixt the Jesuites and the Carmelites to pass by the more personal ones betwixt Maimbourgh and Schelstreat betwixt Alexander Natalis and D'enghien betwixt Arnauld and Malebranch I will but ask you one question why all F. Alexandre Noel's Books wherein he hath done all he can to vindicate their Religion were all condemned to the Fire not excepting one by this Pope's Breve in Eighty Four. I doubt we shall find that Doctors differ about the deposing Power and the Popes Supremacy in the bosome of the Church of Rome it self and that the French did not submit quietly to the Condemnation of their Determinations by the Clergy of Hungary These things perchance are most of 'em news to you and therefore you cannot be blamed for thinking or writing that they are at Vnity under their Dictator at Rome because you knew no better but if you be angry and say you did know them I desire to know how you could say that the Members of that Church do submit to that Dictator and are at Vnity under him whereas the Instances I have given are more than enough to convince that what you have written is but a Dream and your own confident mistake CHAP. II. Arguments from the Three first Centuries and the beginning of the Fourth for St. Peter's Supremacy answered TO leave this and proceed in your Book your business being as I told you above to prove that Christ left his Church in a Monarchical State under the sole ordering of St. Peter at first to be continued after his decease under the successive Bishops of Rome It is strange to see how confusedly you go about it but much stranger that you should begin with St. Dennis and not with the Scripture But I am afraid this Book it self as well as the private Spirit that used to sense it are now distasted by you alike and that it is look'd upon as a far more dangerous than usefull Book and so fittest to be set aside where there is no absolute necessity of bringing it upon the Stage For your Testimony from St. Dennis you know my mind already pag. 11. and we shall have occasion by and by to talk a little more about him pag. 11. St. Irenaeus his Testimony had come in I think a little better under your last Head among your Testimonies for the Vnity of the Catholick Church But how it proves St. Peters Supremacy I cannot devise except you can prove that St. Peter and St. Paul were but One Individual and make them two into one Man as p. 76. you have made Scotus Erigena into two Nor is there a word here about Supremacy all that Irenaeus saith is g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. Romae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iren. c. Haer. l. 3. c. 3. Edit Feuard that St. Peter and St. Paul by their joint endeavours having founded that Church made Linus Bishop there c. which place seems to if it really do not exclude St. Peters being Bishop there himself at all so far is it from proving his Supremacy But if it will not serve for this purpose le ts see what it will do for to prove the Catholick Church to be Monarchical and no other than the Church of Rome You found say you Irenaeus I 'll venture to put in saying for without it or such a word I must confess that I cannot make English out of your Period that it was of necessity that every Church should agree with the Church of Rome c. Your translation here I cannot admit for convenire ad hanc Ecclesiam is surely to come up to this Church the reason of which St. Irenaeus makes the potentior Principalitas which I wonder you should omit in your Translation the more powerfull Principality the Supreme Civil Government Rome then being the Imperial City of the World and the Seat of the Senate and chief Judicatures which must of necessity bring People Christians as well as others thither from all parts and therefore make the Church of Rome a most visible and eminent Church and so the fittest for St. Irenaeus his design against the Hereticks when he had obliged himself to reckon up the Succession of one among the several Apostolical Churches of the World. I am not ignorant your now party are very earnest upon this place and very desirous to have it believed that by potentior Principalitas here is meant the Dignity and Jurisdiction of the Church at Rome over all other Churches and that therefore they should resort to her as to their Head and Mistress But not to insist on the Inconsistency of such a sense of these words with all the accounts we have of this and the rest of the Apostolical Churches from the purest Antiquity which I could easily shew had I room here I onely ask them what every Church was to go thither for Was it for the Catholick Faith that St. h Traditionem igitur Apostoloru◠in toto mundo manifestatam in Omni Ecclesiâ adest perspicere omnibus qui c. Iren. con Haer. l. 3. c. 3. Irenaeus assures us they every one had at home the Apostles after their Churches planted delivering to them the true Faith which then was kept as he assures us inviolably by them and therefore no need to go to Rome for it Was it for Discipline There was as little need for their going about this as for the other
it is a pitifull forged nonsensical piece of stuff that you would here impose on us for the Venerable St. Athanasius To wave Dr. Cave and our own Writers who make and prove it to be a forgery your own great m De Scriptoribus Eccles in Athanasio Bellarmine and Baronius had the same opinion of it the latter of whom as you may see in Bellarmine de Script Eccl. in Gratiano hath quite ruined it And here I cannot but admire that you should offer to put off such pitifull obsolete stuff in a Nation that hath so vast a number of learned men and thereby to make your self ridiculous and contemptible when such learned men as Baronius and Bellarmine who had as much zeal as any for the Chair at Rome and more learning than 40000 had already baffled the forgery and caused it to be hist off the stage But such stuff it seems will down with you and so doth that which is as bad you may easily guess what it is I mean. CHAP. XII His Arguments from the Fourth Century for St. Peter's Supremacy refuted WHAT you wanted of evidence from the three first Centuries of the Church which are far from affording you any Practice of such a Supremacy or any hints of there being any such thing settled at Rome but all speak the direct contrary to it as I could very easily shew you think to make up from little scraps of Fathers of the fourth and fifth Centuries whose Rhetorical and honorary Expressions ought not to be taken in a strict literal sense because otherwise it were easie to make them contradict themselves nay altogether unavoidable to prevent it The Instance shall be in St. Hilary whom you first quote pag. 12. He tells us say you Christ gave St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he built his Church upon him and yet in another part of his Works n Super hanc igitur Confessionis Petram Ecclesiae aedificatio est Haec Fides Ecclesiae fundamentum est Hilarius de Trinit l. 6. this Father makes the Confession it self as most of the Fathers doe the Rock on which our Saviour built his Church If you will then take the words you quote in a strict sense and I take those that I quote in as strict and literal St. Hilary I perceive is like to suffer betwixt us and be made directly to contradict himself As to the keys that I 'll answer anon As we served St. Hilary so we must Epiphanius about the Rock whom you quote making St. Peter pag. 13. the first of the Apostles the firm Rock upon which God's Church was built Him e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan adv Haeres L. 2. Tom. 1. p. 500. Edit Petav. I quote also making St. Peter's Confession not his person the foundation of the Catholick Church I must confess that it is purely necessity that forces me or any of our Church to shew these incoherences in the Fathers if taken in a rigid literal sense whereas allowing them a latitude befitting Homities not Controversies Rhetorical Amplifications not close inartificial Discourses they are consistent enough And so for St. Ambrose saying Christ left St. Peter as it were the Vicegerent or Deputy of his Love to us pag. 13. in another place He makes this very o Statim loci non immemor sui primatum egit primatum Confessionis utique non honoris primatum Fidei non Ordinis S. Ambros de Incarnat c. 4. Primacy a Primacy of Confession not of Honour of Faith not of Order which expressions of his together with the perfect silence of Scripture and Prime Antiquity as to the thing make me I must confess neither Proselyte to subscribe to pag. 13. nor an Admirer of what you quote from St. Hierome that although God's Church was not so altogether founded upon St. Peter but that the other Apostles also had a share with him in the Office with your leave from your own Margin I translate that all the Apostles were equal in the foundation did equally receive the power of the keys which expressions by the bye as they contradict your own Testimonies from St. Hilary and Epiphanius so they ruine your pretensions for the Papal Supremacy of Jurisdiction yet one is chosen amongst the Twelve that a Head being placed over all occasion of Schism might be taken away I will but urge one place of Scripture why I think I ought not to subscribe to it and that is Acts 8.14 Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received by the Ministery of Philip the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John which had Peter been their Head their Prince their General as others call him would have looked just as well and not a jot less as if the College of Cardinals upon any important business into France should delegate and send the Pope and the Dean of their College thither But to pass these Objections and to admit St. Hierome's assertion pag. 13. it nor that from Optatus concerning the Prima Cathedra prove any thing more than a Primacy of Order which our Church I believe will not deny to the Bishop of Rome but that 's not the thing will or ever hath for these eight or nine hundred years contented them they are for a Supremacy of Jurisdiction as well as a Primacy of Order their chief ground for which pretension is as I take it the investing St. Peter their Predecessour with the power of the keys the thing I shall according to my promise undertake here the consideration of The dispute betwixt us about it is not whether the keys were given to St. Peter which no body of our Church did ever deny but whether he received them in his own person for his particular use and trust exclusively to all the rest of the Apostles That he did not receive them in his own person is plain from and the Judgment of Antiquity to you I need onely urge your own Testimony from St. p Cuncti claves regni coelorum accipiant ex aequo super eos Ecclesiae fortitudo solidetur L. 1. adv Jovin c. 14. Hierome who makes the Apostles equally to receive the power of the keys and to be equal in the foundation of the Catholick Church for others sake I might urge St. Cyprian q Vnus pro omnibus loquens Ecclesiae voce respondens S. Cyprian Ep. 59. Edit Oxon. who makes St. Peter the mouth of them all and to make that Confession upon which the keys were bestowed in the name of the Church St. Augustine r August Ep. 165. Edit Frob. who is of the same opinion and others but I had rather recur to Scripture it self where I think it is evident enough that he did in the name and for the use of them all receive those keys This I prove from St. Matthew who brings in our Saviour within two Chapters from that ſ
Matth. 16.13 14 c. wherein the discourse of our Saviour with his Disciples and his gift of the keys to Peter is recorded speaking to his Disciples as invested already with this power of binding and loosing t S. Matt. 18.17 18. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publicane verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound c. and whatsoever ye shall loose shall be loosed in heaven which place with me puts it past all doubt that the rest of the Apostles were equally concerned in that speech of our Saviour's to St. Peter and thereby had equal power But if they will not allow this place to suppose a power already given they will not dare to deny that it doth confer so that if he had the power given to him particularly in the Sixteenth Chapter of this Gospel they all have it now in the Eighteenth and thereby the same Jurisdiction and Authority in the Church which quite destroys all you have been hitherto about which was indeed to prove St. Peter had the same Supremacy invested on him by our Saviour which the Bishops of Rome do since from him exercise and enjoy But how little you have performed I dare appeal to any indifferent person to your own self if you will but compare your papers and mine together so that I might save my self the trouble to try what you say about that Primacy not dying with Peter but I will not lest you should say I left that part unanswered CHAP. XIII Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter answered the Proofs out of St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy fully confuted YOUR Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter are few and which is worse nothing to your purpose pag. 13. since they are far from proving what you desire but you ought to have remembred that it is not onely your Task to prove that there was such a Primacy and that it was not to die with St. Peter but that it was to descend to the successive Bishops of Rome after his decease and not to any of the Apostles nor to the Bishops of Antioch But since I perceive we shall find the first to wit of proving the Primacy not to die with St. Peter too many for you it would be cruel to put you upon proving any of the other for as to that proof out of the Epistle of St. Hierome to Demetrias all it proves is that Innocentius was Anastasius's Successour in the Apostolical Chair at Rome now if you cannot prove hence pag. 14. either that this was the sole and onely Apostolical Chair or that it was always the chief and governing Chair of the Catholick Church every one will see that you alledged a place nothing to the purpose having not a word of St. Peter in it that you cannot shew either of them is what I to prevent your trouble of inquiring among your people about it will make appear in a very few words That the Apostolical Chair at Rome is not the onely Chair in the Church Catholick v Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur proxima est tibi Achaia habes Corinthum Philippos Thessalonicenses Ephesum Romam Tertull. de Praescript contr Haeret. c. 36. Edit Junii Franekerae 1597. Tertullian is demonstration Run over saith he the Apostolical Churches in which the very Chairs the Apostles used are to this day presided in by the Bishops in their several places and then he reckons Corinth and Philippi and Rome it self among the rest That it was not originally the chief or governing Chair is as plain from the account we have in Euscbius from x Pest servatoris Ascensum Petrum Jacobum Joannem quamvis Dominus ipsos caeteris praetulisset non idcirco de primo honoris gradu inter se contendisse sed Jacobum cognomine Justum Hierosolymorum Episcopum elegisse Clemens apud Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 1. Edit Vales Clemens his Sixth Book of Institutions That after our Lord's Ascension Peter James and John tho' preferred not Peter alone by our Lord above the rest of the Apostles did not thereupon contend among themselves for the first place of Honour but chose James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem Whose Chair I am sure this passage makes Primus Honoris Gradus the chief Cathedra in the world Having thus spoiled this your proof your next will give me the less trouble pag. 14. wherein St. Hierome tells Damasus that in this miserable condition of the Eastern Churches being over-run by Heresies he would stick to St. Peter 's Chair and that Faith commended by St. Paul c. which passage would have cleared it self had you but been so just as to have translated the very next words which bring us St. Hierome's reason for this his resolution of slighting all Hereticks and communicating with the Apostolical Chair at Rome because he had in that Church been first made a Christian Inde nunc meae animae postulans cibum unde olim Christi vestimenta suscepi Hieron Ep. Damaso and therefore thence would receive the spiritual food for his Soul. Had you Mr. Scl. but made St. Hierome's resolution your own you had never fallen from the Catholick Apostolical and Orthodox Communion of the Church of England unto that of In the mean time remember that you have not proved either a Primacy or a Succession in it for the Bishops of Rome In the next place as tho' conscious to your self that you had done nothing hitherto and that your Arguments for the Supremacy and then for the Succession were too weak you fall again to the proving that St. Peter was Supreme O incomparable Method and are now resolved to doe it to purpose But how out of St. Chrysostome's Homilies and Comments There is no one that hath looked tho' but a little into that Father that will not smile at this your attempt However you tell us and no body will deny it that he gives St. Peter extraordinary and noble Titles pag. 15. that he calls him Prime Leader of the Apostles the head of Orthodoxy the great High-Priest of the Church the Pillar of the Church the Head of the Chorus of the Apostles and says that He took the charge of the whole Church throughout the World c. I have onely this question to put to you whether you take St. Chrysostome as to these passages concerning St. Peter the greatest as well as the clearest of which for your purpose I have here set down in a strict literal sense if you own it as you seem to do by placing them here for such a purpose I must then plainly tell you that you doe a very great wrong to this Holy and learned Father than whom no one perchance ever gave
particular Governour and here you prove that People must be dutifull to their Bishops pag. 8. Ay but say you St. Ignatius tells us there is but one Altar and one Bishop as also that there ought to be but one Church and one Faith which is in Christ c. and that surely is to the purpose This I utterly deny I grant indeed St. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians not as you have mistaken it to the Philippians to which Church he wrote no Epistle tho' some have coined one for him doth speak of one Altar and one Bishop and you had done fairly to have cited the passage at large as you did the other two nothing to the purpose but this is a certain sign that runs almost through your Book that where you onely hint or quote half or put an c. in the middle of a Sentence there all things will not be found fair The passage then is this (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Ignat. Ep. ad Philadelph Edit J. Vossii Be carefull therefore saith he speaking to the Philadelphians to make use of this one Eucharist for there is but one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one Cup to Communicate to us or unite us to his Blood one Altar as but one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons my fellow-servants that whatever ye do ye may act according to Gods appointment Now this passage is so far from proving what you would have it that there is but one Supreme Bishop who you say is he of Rome that it asserts the direct contrary for if it proves as you say it does that there is but one Altar and one Bishop I am as certain that it proves that one Bishop to be the Bishop of Philadelphia and that one Altar to be this Bishops since he exhorts these Philadelphians to make use and keep to that Eucharist that was to be received from that one Altar that did belong to that one Bishop and that one Bishop I am sure was the then Bishop of Philadelphia I will not urge upon you any place of Ignatius but will onely say and will be at any time ready to prove that he that cites Ignatius for a defender of a Monarchical Church under one Head on Earth either hath not read Ignatius or does not understand him What you urge from St. Cyprian is to no purpose since every one owns that every Member ought to keep the Vnity of that Church to which he doth belong and that no Man that is disobedient to the Church his Mother will ever have God for his Father Nor your long quotation from St. Irenaeus where your faculty of translating appears to be none of the best pag. 8. This Preaching and this Faith when the Church had heard spread through the whole World she diligently keeps as it were dwelling in one House to wit having one Soul and one Heart c. which give me leave to alter a little to St. Irenaeus his good sense and then you shall have my Answer about it The Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith although she be dispersed over the whole World yet keeps and preserves them as diligently as if she were confined to or did Inhabit a single House and she doth believe them without any difference or disagreement as tho' she had but one Soul and but one Heart and accordingly doth both preach teach and deliver these things these Articles of Faith as if she had but one Mouth c. Of all the passages in Antiquity I wonder what ill Fate put this piece of St. Irenaeus in your way had you considered it well I am sure we should not have met with it in your Book since it does perfectly ruine the whole design of this part of your Book for whereas the benefit you intended from it was to help you to prove that the Church of Christ is Monarchical under a single head there is nothing less here and every thing contrary for as it speaks of the Catholick Church as one through this Vnity of Faith so it proves what we of the Church of England so much contend for that the Particular Churches of Germany Spain France Aegypt and the East of Lybia Jerusalem Rome and the rest do make up this Catholick Church without the least hint of a Head over them all or of any other Vnity than that of Faith the Light that doth like the Sun equally enlighten every where You will say perhaps that the Church of Rome is not expressly mentioned here and that probably it is because all these Particular Churches mentioned are the several parts of her Body which really is the same as the Catholick Church But to spoil this groundless Pretence neque haequae in Medio Mundi sunt constitutae not to insist on it that by the Churches constituted in the middle of the World in this passage She as well as Jerusalem and the Churches betwixt them is certainly intimated I desire you but to peruse the Third Chapter of his Third Book against Heresies Having in the beginning of this Chapter urged against the Hereticks that none of the Apostles delivered to the Bishops their Successours any such things as they impiously taught and that he could shew this from the Successions in all the Churches he thus addresses them b Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine Omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare Successiones Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae Traditionem c. St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. contr Haeres Edit Feuardent 1625. But because it is too tedious in such a Volume as this is to reckon up the Successions of all Churches c. he then reckons up that of the very great and very ancient Church founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul c. If this passage do not prove the Church of Rome to be one of all those Churches and as Particular a Church as any of the rest I will for the future as you did abstract my self and deny my Eyes as well as my Reason What you quote from Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian two of whose passages are part falsly pag. 9. and part lamely translated are nothing at all to your purpose they only speak of the Catholick Church as one through the Vnity of Faith not a word of the Church of Rome or of her being that one Church under one Head Bishop The same advantage and no more doth that from St. Chrysostom afford you pag. 9. which says The Apostle calls it the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may shew it may be reduced into one which with your leave I would express thus to shew or having shewed that it ought to be at Vnity c. All which is no more than what the Members of the Church of England have said a Hundred Thousand times that every Church as well as that at Corinth ought to be at Vnity You
insist upon the proof of it since we both make it necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church S. Irenaeus cont Haer. l. 1. c. 3. St. Irenaeus in the Chapter you and I quoted doth sufficiently prove that it was the Faith received from the Apostles that made the Church one that it was that which enlightened and therefore saved every particular Church as well as particular Person No Man speaks more of the beauty and necessity of Vnity and yet that He meant it onely as to an Vnity of Faith is very apparent from that famous Epistle to Victor Bishop of Rome who had most imprudently and irregularly excommunicated the Asiatick Churches for not keeping Easter at the same time He and most other Christians did In this Epistle he tells Victor that before his time All Churches tho' several of 'em differing in this thing of the time of observing Easter preserved Catholick Peace and did communicate one with another notwithstanding such a difference Neque enim de Die viz. celebr Pasch solum controversia est sed etiam de formâ ipâ—a Jejunii Quidam enim existimant unico die sibi esse jejunandum alii duobus alii pluribus nihilominus tamen omnes isti pacem inter se retinuerunt nos invicem retinemus Ita Jejuniorum Diversitas Consensionem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fidei commendat apud Euseb Hist Eccl l. 5. c. 24. Ed. Vales. He gives him the Instance in this same Ep. of St. Polycarp and Anicetus who differing and resolved so to continue in this point did most lovingly communicate together at Rome it self Anicetus as a particular mark of Honour and Brotherly Love permitting St. Polycarp to Consecrate the Eucharist in his Church and stead and did as lovingly part He further informs him that it was not about the time of observing Easter onely that there were Differences between particular Churches he mentions the much greater variety in the great duty of Fasting that some fasted but one Day some two others more yet did however preserve Peace and Vnity with all that differed from them and so he says they still did continue to do in his time and concludes this Narrative thus That the Diversity of their Fasts did commend the Unity of their Faith than which I could never desire a more evident proof for what I have affirmed that different Customs were found and allowed of in the different particular Churches without breach of Catholick Vnity and Communion Tertullian is as express in both points of the Vnity of Faith and diversity of Discipline and Customs that tho' the first is necessary to all Churches yet that the other is lawfull and practised in different Communions e Regula quidem Fidei una omnino est sola immobilis irreformabilis credendi scilicet in unicum Deum Hac Lege Pidei manante cetera jam disciplinae conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis Tertul. de Virgin velandis c. 1. Edit Franck. The Rule of Faith says he is altogether one immoveable and uncapable of any Reformation or Alteration after which he sets down an Abridgment as Irenaeus had done above of the Apostles Creed and then proceeds hac Lege c. This Law or Rule of Faith continuing firm the other matters of Discipline and Manners do admit of Correction or Amendment These two eminent Writers are so clear and convincing in this matter that I 'll wave the producing any more Authorities to this purpose besides that of the very eminent and famous Firmilian Bishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea f Eos autem qui Romae sunt non ea in omnibus observare quae sunt ab origine tradita frustra Apostolorum auctoritatem praetendere scire quis etiam inde potest quod circa celebrandos dies Paschae circa multa alia divinae rei Sacramenta videat esse apud illos aliquas diversitates nec observari illic omnia aequaliter quae Hierosolymis observantur Secundum quod in caeteris quoque plurimis Provinciis multa pro locorum nominum l. hominum diversitate variantur nec tamen propter hoc ab Ecclesiae Catholicae pace atque unitate aliquando discessum est Firmiliani Epistola Cypriano inter Epist Cypriani 75. p. 220. Edit Oxon. who in an Epistle to St. Cyprian acquaints the World that they of the Romish Church did not observe in all things what had been delivered from the beginning I pray then what 's become of your Palladium Tradition and that they did to no purpose pretend the Authority of the Apostles he instances about the Observation of Easter and lays further to their charge some differences about many other divine affairs and administrations and says that they do not observe the same Customs that are at Jerusalem This he mentions not to blame them for them but to reprove their Pride and their disturbing the Peace and Vnity of the Catholick Church by breaking Communion with other Churches upon such accounts for in the next words to these I cite himself mentions that in very many other Provinces Cum una sit Fides cur funt Ecclesiarum diversae consuetudines c. many things were varied according to the diversity of places and names men however that the Peace and Vnity of the Catholick Church was not hereby broken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Interrogatio Augustini ad Gregor M. CHAP. X. An inquiry into RomanVnity under their Dictator HAving now discharged my self of my digression and satisfactorily I hope proved that which I undertook in it I do now pass to your Muster of all those places and persons under the Pope the Unity of which your assurance is doth hence proceed p. 11. because they submit themselves to the Judgment and Regulation of one Dictator who conserves the ancient Decrees of General Councils deposited with him by the whole Church from whom if any dissent or walk irregularly he is severed and cut off from the rest of the Members c. That the submission of all those Churches you mention to the Dictator at Rome is the cause of that Vnity you say is among them no Body does deny any more than that all the Philosophers among the Heathens would have been as much at Vnity had they made Aristippus or Pyrrho their Vniversal Dictator and resolved never to think speak or write besides what he was pleased to command or teach them The Question betwixt us is whether Christ did leave his Church in a Monarchical State under the sole ordering of St. Peter at first to be continued after his decease under the successive Bishops of Rome and this is the thing to be proved as for what you talk about the Roman Dictators keeping and managing the Canons of General Councils I question not before we part upon this head to prove your Reasons for it either false or ridiculous But before we go any further is the Church of Rome really at that Vnity
since in the several Churches which they planted the Apostles ordained them Bishops delivering to them k Idem Ibidem suum ipsorum locum Magisterii their own place and power of Jurisdiction which certainly was for Discipline If they of your Party can invent any other business for their going thither I do not question but that any of our Writers will be able to refell it as soon as mentioned By this time you have taken leave of St. Peter and are got to that which you will begin again two pages hence to prove the Primacy did not dye with Peter for Method truly I cannot but admire you but must however take your Arguments as they come Well then you say of St. Clemens that under him a great dissention arising among the Corinthians pag. 11. He wrote powerfull Letters I wish you had told us how many Eusebius that had almost as good opportunities as you heard but of one and we commonly think it was but one that he wrote on this account to them compelling them to Peace repairing their Faith and declaring what Tradition they had lately received from the Apostles c. This Testimony to give it its due if it can but pass Muster will do your business this compelling looks as if a Generalissimo had to do about it and this repairing their Faith shews as clear as the Sun that the Bishops of Rome had the sole keeping of the Apostolical Faith and Tradition that so if any Church had lost it they might know whither to go to have it repaired a much nobler Province than that of conserving the ancient Decrees of General Councils But is all this certainly true why did you not then give us the passages where St. Clemens is so brisk upon the Corinthians no Sir if you had they must have been of your own making for I am pretty certain there is no such behaviour in that letter but the direct contrary I have particularly perused it upon this very occasion and can meet with nothing but suasory Arguments there such as might have become any other Bishop as well as him and therefore I must take the freedom to tell you that I do not believe you have read this Epistle over and that it was those you transcribed that imposed upon you as you have done upon your Reader and the same opinion I must have of your next Testimony from Tertullian for could any but one that is a stranger to that particular Book as well as to the rest of his Writings as I believe I shall find you quote him calling the Bishop of Rome Pontifex Maximus Bishop of Bishops bonus Pastor and benedictus Papa when the Bishop of Rome is not once mentioned in this Tract but granting him to be aimed at there is it not as plain that all these Titles are given purely in derision and therefore prove nothing to your purpose by Tertullian now a Heretick De Pudicitiâ and in this Tract ridiculing the discipline of the Catholick Church You might with as good a face have cited St. Cyprian and the African Bishops in Council with him calling the Bishop of Rome Bishop of Bishops for him I verily believe they meant there tho' they did not name him but that there was such a sting in the tail of these Bishops Preface to their Council as would have spoiled all your designs and have blown away all your groundless talk about a Supremacy for after they had resolved to give their own opinions concerning what they were met about without judging others or denying to communicate with those that might be of a different Judgment and had said that none of them made himself Bishop of Bishops or attempted to fright any of their Brother-Bishops into an Obedience or Submission to their Opinion by which expressions they more than seem to wipe the Bishop of Rome they give the reason of this their temper and moderation because every Bishop had his own Free-will Quando habeat omnis Episcopus pro licentiâ libertatis potestatis suae arbitrium proprium tamque judicari ab alio non possit quam nec ipse potest judicare Sed expectemus universi Judicium Domini nostri Jesu Christi qui unus solus habet potestatem praeponendi nos in Ecclesiae suae gubernatione de actu nostro judicandi Concil Carthag Episcoporum 87. A. D. 256. apud Cyprianum p. 229. Edit Oxon. and could no more be judged by another the Bishop of Rome himself not excepted than judge another Bishop and upon this conclude for themselves that they must all expect the Judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ who alone had the power as of making them Bishops for the Government of his Church so of calling them to an account for their discharge of the care and employment he had placed them in There is no one that hath read St. Cyprian and considered him that will not grant I might easily bring twenty places as evident as this for the Equality and Independency of Bishops But I must remember my task is to answer yours not to write a Book on this subject pag. 12. However this I could not omit thereby to obviate your quotation from him as if he should say the Church of Rome is the Mother and Root of the Catholick Church l Cypriani Epistola 45 Cornelio Edit Oxon Pamel 42. whereas his advice as he tells Cornelius here to those persons was upon his having communicated to them the Legality of Cornelius his Ordination about which there had been so much dissention to keep to Vnity the Mother and Root of the Catholick Church and therefore to communicate with Cornelius who was a Catholick Bishop and not with the Schismaticks who did not keep to the Vnity of the Church for the persuading of whom to such Unity he had sent among them Caldonius and Fortunatus A man would guess from your saying that Cyprian goes on and advises the Bishops of Numidia c. that this Epistle had been writ to them but this is but another touch of your skill and reading the Authours you quote But now you are returned to St. Peter again pag. 12. whom Eusebius you say calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince or Prolocutor c. which are betwixt you and me two very different things that he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his virtue or zeal's sake was their Prolocutor I easily grant but this does not prove him their Prince or Supreme and you ought to remember that honourary Titles or Compellations are not to be rigidly taken or stretched too far As to your large Title and Testimony from the Epistle of Saint Athanasius to Marcus Bishop of Rome where again you have lest St. Peter upon which I suppose and that out of St. Bernard you ground your former Assertion that the Bishops of Rome are the Conservers of the ancient Decrees of General Councils pag. 12. I will be brief and tell you that
Rome was from the beginning reckoned a particular Church I think is as plain as that Rome is in Italy I have proved it so fully above that I almost loath such a ridiculous subject of discourse pag. 17. And your Authorities from Pacian and Cyril of Jerusalem are not one jot to your purpose if you intend them to confirm that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church all that they say or prove being that Catholick is the Sirname of true Christians and that every one should enquire for and unite with the Catholick Church into whatsoever place he comes Now what is this to the Church of Rome here is no mention of her here not a syllable to determine that she is the Catholick Church to unite with which these two Fathers are carefull to advise These things you tell us gave you some small encouragement to betake your self to that Communion that was both Christian and Catholick c. for which very reason you needed not have left the Communion of the Church of England which is both Christian and Catholick You ought to dislike Papist upon the same ground you dislike Protestant and if Christian was too large for you you needed not to leave the Church of England to be both Catholick and Christian the Church of England denominates her self from no particular Persons good or bad but is a True Church having lawfull Pastors and a Catholick Faith. You next say you cannot imagine why Protestants should so decline the Title of Catholick you mean or suffer it with so much silence to be laid aside unless it be pag. 18. because it imports a Faith spread throughout the World which they very well know would be utterly impossible to prove their Protestant Faith ever was c. Whether this passage is more ridiculous or false I must own that upon the sudden I cannot tell if you mean here as you ought the Church of England as you must to be consistent with your self having a good while ago cast off all the other Reformed Communions nothing can be more false and ridiculous since twice a Day we use it constantly in our Service and surely you will not be so extravagantly unreasonable to say we do not Mean or Pray for our selves when we Pray for the Good Estate of the Catholick Church So that our decling the Title and suffering it with so much silence to he laid aside must be put to the account of the grosser sort of Untruths And we need not wonder that you would offer a false reason for a false thing our Faith and the Faith of all the Reformed Churches having been already proved to be Catholick and therefore your utterly impossible to prove it to be a Faith spread throughout the World must be put up on the same account Nor is there ever a Member of the Church of England of any Learning that I ever met with or heard of that either declined the Title of a Reformed Catholick or was not ready onely to profess but also to prove that by being a Son of the Church of England he was a Member of a Catholick Church As to what you add about the other Adjunct in our ours I say of the Church of England as well as yours at Rome Creed Apostolical that you saw less reason for their claim to that and to give them their due they were more modest than much to insist upon it c. This Sentence is Brass every bit of it for if you mean the Church of England here I am astonished to think you should have so little Conscience or so little Modesty to publish such a gross untruth in the face of a Church that is so far from not insisting on the Title of Apostolical that it denounces every person excommunicate that shall dare to say the Church g Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Church of England by Law established under the Kings Majesty is not a TRUE and an APOSTOLICAL CHURCH teaching and maintaining the DOCTRINE of the APOSTLES let him be Excommunicated â—pso facto and not restored but onely by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of this his WICKED ERROUR Can. 3. of the Synod in 1603. of England is not an Apostolical Church and calls such an affirmation an impious Errour But if you are resolved to carry things at this rate by brazening us down 't is to no purpose to contend with you I must needs tell you that you might as well have published to the World that the Church of England hath no Creed in her publick Service nor believes a Trinity nor hath any Bishops to preside ovâ—â— her as this of her neither having nor pretending to Apostolical Faith and Succession If you include also the rest of the Reformed Churches you might easily know that there is no thing they so much insist upon as the proving their Faith and Practices to be purely Apostolical and therefore their Churches to be such so that neither are they so modest as not to insist on their being Apostolical as to the want of Succession among them that you object against 'em and they do not deny you your self have furnished them with an answer to your Party from St. Ambrose's words Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri Fidem non habent de Poenit. l. 1. c. 6. that they enjoy not the inheritance or Succession of Peter who have not the Faith of Peter But here you have a mind to make the Church of England to be of your opinion that is that the foreign Reformed Churches have no true Ministers because those that come out of France with the Title of Ministers are not allowed to exercise their Ministry before they receive the Orders of the Church of England pag. 19. c. It is true they are not allowed to have a Cure of Souls here without the taking of Episcopal Orders because it is expressly provided by Act of Parliament among us that no one shall have such a Cure of Souls without Episcopal Orders which Act you know was fully designed against our home Dissenters who had opportunities of Episcopal Orders at home not against them who could not have them at home with whom also we had nothing to do But since no exception was made in the Act for them the Church cannot dispense with an Act of Parliament in their favour However that she allows theirs to be true tho' imperfect Churches is hence plain because her Members in their Travels communicate with those Churches which thing she would never permit had they no Ministry it was the Practice of our Exiles in France during the long Rebellion and Dr. R. Watson hath lately put forth the most Learned and most Religious Bishop Cozin who was one of those noble exiled Confessors his Defence of their communicating there with Geneva rather than Rome So that your Argument fails you also here CHAP. XV. More of his foul Aspersions on the Church of England exposed and
confuted YOU are next resolved to have a little fling at the Church of England about her Orders which you say pag. 19. they of that Church very much endeavour to prove and fain would have confest to be received from undoubted Bishops of the Church of Rome But here your heart failed you and this is all you have to say against our Orders which is nothing at all since we are much abler and as ready to prove the Legitimacy of our Orders as you can those of your Pope himself this is to bark when you dare not come near to fasten but if you have a mind to shew your parts upon this subject do but undertake and answer Arch-Bishop Bramhals Confutation of the Nags-head Ordination c. and I 'll do as I hear you have renounce my Orders But Alas Sir I might as well put you upon carrying Westminster Abby to Putney as upon the Answering that Vnanswerable Book After the civil hint that the Church of England hath no true Orders you are for making her amends out of Reverence to her by proving that she is a very Nonsensical foolish Church which you attempt by two small you have a kindness still for her or else we might have had four perhaps ten great Observations Your first is That this reduces the Catholick Church into a narrow corner of the World Toto divisos orbe Britannos 1 Obs pag. 19. and as small a handfull in that narrow Corner c. But pray Mr. Sclater how are we got hither What is this This that reduces the Catholick Church c. Hath the Church of England denied the foreign Reformed Churches to be true Churches Pray shew us where But suppose she had this will not prove that the Catholick Church is reduced into this narrow Corner of the World except you shew that she hath also denied the Church of Rome and those Churches that submit to her to be true Churches Nor this neither will not confirm your Observation supposing the Church of England had rejected both the foreign Reformed and Vnreformed Churches out of the Catholick Church since you have surely heard of such a Church as the Large Greek Church under the Four Patriarchs of the Russian Church of the vast Aethiopian Church of the Armenian and of the Nestorians to omit others Have you or can you prove that the Church of England hath excluded all these also from being Parts or Members of the Catholick Church If you cannot how doth she confine the Catholick Church here or what contradiction is she guilty of that abhors the thought of such a thing as you would fasten upon her I cannot refrain shewing a just resentment here and therefore must tell you that this your Observation is the most disingenuous and the most foolish that I ever met with in my Life and that I could never have suspected that any Man that had common sense and pretended to Conscience could have been guilty of so foul a thing had I not met with it in this Book And just such stuff as this is the Remark in this Observation upon our Church that she is pleased in order to avoid the Word Catholick to call it an Vniversal Church c. Who would expect that a Man that hath been a Minister in our Church these Thirty Years that hath used our Service perchance a Thousand times should make such a strange Remark hath our Church as you say she hath in order to avoid the Word Catholick struck it out of that Translation of the Apostles Creed which she appoints in her Liturgy Hath she struck it out and put in Vniversal in the Four places it used to occur in in the Creed of St. Athanasius Is it gone out of the Nicene Creed she appoints Pray get some Body to look those Three Creeds for you A Man would believe you had not seen a Common-Prayer-Book these Thirty Years or pass a much severer Sentence upon you Doth not the Church of England command its Daily Vse in the General Collect which we daily put up for the good Estate of the Catholick Church And further she is so far from altering or endeavouring to avoid as you most falsly would observe she doth the Word Catholick See Bishop Sparrows Collection of Canons c. that whereas in the Injunctions of King Edward the Sixth 1547. the Form of bidding the Common-Prayers before Sermon begun thus You shall Pray for the whole Congregation of Christ's Church and c. in those of Queen Elizabeth 1559 and in the 55th of the Canons Ecclesiastical of the Synod under King James the First 1604. the Word Catholick is put in and every Minister is commanded to begin his bidding of Prayer in these very words Ye shall Pray for Christs Holy Catholick Church c. Nay you your self used the term Catholick while you continued and as a Member of our Church on last Palm-Sunday at Putney Church or else you broke our Church Laws So that I cannot now avoid the asking you your self what you now think of this your Remark and whether you had not saved your self a disparagement had you had the good fortune not to have put it down You have a Second Remark much akin to the First in which you profess you can no more tell how she can be the Catholick Church than she is able to find her self in the innumerable huddle of ten times Ten more Dissenters Dissemblers and Indifferents pag. 19. than her number is able to make c. How you come to know the number of those that hold Communion with the Church of England to be so very small is matter of wonder to me but if I should say that your Calculation is most intolerably false I am sure you cannot disprove me since I am certain I have truth and the common Judgment of all unprejudiced Men on my side that Calculating the numbers of the several Parishes thro' England there are one with another Ten I may I believe safely say Twenty times more that hold Communion with the Church of England than dissent from it As for Dissemblers and Indifferents how you come to know Mens Hearts so well is owing more to your new than old Religion which would have taught you more Prudence about such things After you have come off so wretchedly with your first Observation no Body will expect wonders from your second which is 2 Obs pag. 20. That you should have had the better Opinion of this handfull as you ridiculously call the Church of England if their Faith had been conformable to the Faith of those Bishops from whom their Bishops had their Mission c. That our Bishops have their Mission from Rome is what we utterly deny that they were some of 'em in the beginning of the most necessary Reformation ordained by those that held with the Church of Rome in her corrupt Faith and Practices is what we do not deny This however we say cannot prejudice our Reformation since
if there were Errours fit to be thrown out of our Church you your self I am sure your Learned Men will grant that no Ordination can prejudice or hinder such a Rejection of Errours That there were such Errours crept in which ought to be cast out and were at our Reformation is what our Church-Men a Hundred times over have invincibly proved As to the Rule you bring from St. Ambrose that they enjoy not the Inheritance of Peter pag. 20. who receive not the Faith of Peter we are very ready to join issue with you or any of your Church upon it and I question not before you and I part on this subject to ruine the Papal and Roman Succession by your own Rule to wit by proving that they have receded from the Faith of Peter and the whole Primitive Church We readily own that a true and Apostolical Mission pag. 20. Commission and Ordination are considerable particulars and are as ready any time to assert that our Church hath them and to prove it against you at any time if you have a mind to undertake this point against her CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist put down Mr. Scl. 's Reasons from Scripture for Transubstantiation answered HAving traced you hitherto and found all your Attempts vain and your Reasons to no purpose which you took so much pains to scrape together to have proved that our Saviour Christ left his Catholick Church in a Monarchical State under a Particular Vicegerent and that that Vicegerent was the Bishop of Rome and his Church the Catholick Church And having shewn all your Attacks against and Remarks upon the Church of England to be very vain extremely abusive and extravagantly ridiculous I have now onely your last your great Reason to examine wherein you make an effort to prove that her Faith concerning the Eucharist is contrary to that of the Catholick Church If you could have proved this I must confess your forsaking our Communion would have been much more reasonable and therefore I question not but that as you have mustered up abundance of Authorities so you have done all you can to make them speak and declare against us but to how little purpose you have made all this noise and ado about this point also is what I shall quickly see Before I enter on your particular proofs I have a fresh complaint to make that you have not used herein that Ingenuity that would have become a Scholar one might very rationally have expected that as your Intentions were to prove against the Church of England that her Faith was as to the Eucharist false and corrupt so you would have set down what that her Faith is This would have looked like fair and ingenuous dealing first to have put down her Faith about the Eucharist and then to have shewn how contrary it was to Scripture and to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity If you reply to this my Complaint that her Faith is so well known that you needed not put it down together but that you have occasionally done it up and down these Authorities I must tell you that by the account you give of it occasionally one would be persuaded that it is far from being so well known I am sure that slender account or rather hints that you so often intersperse about it are utterly false and very foolish so that if any one should take an account of our Churches Faith from you and whom can they better take it from than one that was so lately a Minister among us they must believe that we hold the Eucharist to be mere figures mere representations and bare signs for that is the most you allow us to make of it that I can meet with in your Book all which how far it is from Truth I shall quickly shew you Well then since you had not the Ingenuity to put down an Account of the Church of England's Faith about the Eucharist I must that so I may the better examine the Proofs you bring and any one may compare the Authorities you quote and our Faith together and thereby more impartially judge and more readily discover whether Antiquity fairly laid down speak for or against us Concerning this Sacrament the Church of England in her 28th Article of Religion delivers her Opinion thus The Supper of the Lord is not onely a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Bloud of Christ After which having declared her self against Transubstantiation as repugnant to plain Scripture and to the nature of a Sacrament and against any Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Bloud in the Declaration about kneeling at the end of our Communion-Service in our Liturgy she goes on in this Article to declare that The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the Mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith which last expressions exclude the wicked from partaking of Christ's Body and allow them barely the Sign or outward part of the Eucharist In the Publick Catechism in the Liturgy having taught her Catechumens that there are two things in each of the Sacraments the outward Sign and the inward spiritual Grace she teaches them to answer that the outward part of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Bread and Wine and that the inward part or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithfull in the Lord's Supper These passages are sufficient to shew that our Church holds a real but not carnal a Spiritual and Heavenly but not Corporal Participation of Christ's Body and Bloud which tho' locally and naturally in Heaven is yet after a Mystical and Supernatural way communicated to the Faithfull not by the mouth of the Body but by that of Faith. Thus much for her Sentiment concerning this Sacrament pag. 20. now I must try your Reasons against it You tell us that you had been a long time greatly concerned for the Interpretation of but five small words of our Saviour c. The result of your concern I suppose was that those five words I doubt we shall find more than five or double five concerned in this business are to be taken in a literal sense and that which you offer for proof of it is this First Because this Sacrament was his last Will and Testament which ought not to be worded obscurely or doubtfully to prevent quarrels and divisions Secondly Because this Will is repeated by so many of his Apostles without the least variation or caution against the
they saw good c. To be brief with you on this point if you speak here of particular Persons in our Church it is utterly false since they are all obliged to believe that to be the Canon of Scripture which is set down in the Articles of our Church and there is not one Man of our Church that is at liberty to believe which he pleases and to reject which he pleases from being Canonical Scripture to him and for Traditions received in the Church no particular Man hath any more power over them than over the number of the Canonical Books But if you speak of our Church it self here which your words without stretching will not bear it is as false of Her since she believes and delivers those Books onely as Canonical which the Primitive Church believed and delivered down to her as such She rejects none as Apocryphal which were not also rejected as such by the Primitive Church as the Famous and most Learned Bishop Cosin hath most incomparably proved it for her in that his excellent Scholastick History of the Canon of Scripture And for Traditions she rejects none but such as have no evidence nor probability of their ever having been of use in the Primitive Church or such as are of no moment in which case I never saw reason why the National Church of England hath not as much Authority herein to judge of these things as the Church of Rome her self who for example sake hath left off giving the Communion to Infants tho' a Tradition of the Catholick Church So that I cannot for my Life see what you would fain tho' most ridiculously deduce from hence that all with us resolved it self into the Judgment of a Private Spirit pag. 3. and must be I suppose you mean the Private Spirit must be tho' your words are far from bearing it the chief or rather onely support of your Protestant Faith c. Since it is so palpably false as I have just now shewn nothing as to matters of Faith Discipline or Church Communion among us being either left to or guided by or depending upon any Man how great or how learned soever his private Spirit and so ridiculous that I could not forgive it any Man that had not abstracted himself from his reason but to doe you right you have almost a mind to come off it with your Methought and I am content without being angry that it should pass for your thought the abstracted-no-Religion Man's You go on to shew that you could not persuade your self that Scripture alone could be the Judge of Controversies pag. 3. and resolve your doubts when the Private Spirit was made the Judge of Scripture c. Let the private Spirit be excluded will you admit it then will you allow the Representative Church of England to interpret in new Emergencies which fell not within the care of Antiquity and the Four General Councils If you admit this there need be no dispute since long before your doubts the Church of England hath by publick Authority interpreted the Scripture in all matters of Faith and Discipline and tied up all her Members hath in all the points of Controversie betwixt us and Rome determined that the sense of the Scripture is directly against them and for us If you will not admit it I should be glad to see one reason against it that would not as fully fly in the face of the Church of Rome As to the Mischief upon this Principle of the Private Spirit pag. 3 4. the Wars and Murders c. You ought to have remembred that that Principle was not set up by but against the Church of England and that it was not the Church but the direct and sworn Enemies thereof that committed all those outrages you cannot be ignorant that it was She only that suffered during that Rebellion and Schism and therefore it is most unjust in you to insinuate as if She was cause of all that distraction whereas nothing is more apparent than the contrary to it And as to your Tanrum Religio c. I challenge you to shew any one Principle of the Church of England that encourages or does but glance towards Rebellion Sedition or disturbance of either Church or State This I 'll promise you for every one I 'll shew you Ten of your new Church I 'll shew you Councils for it your own most famous of all the European Councils the Fourth of Lateran leading the Van. Your Popes deposing Princes pag. 84. giving away their Kingdoms as they have done ours more than once setting up in Rebellion Son against Father I 'll shew you the Rebellious Holy League in France one King most barbarously Murdered by it a Pope Sixtus Quintus in a set Speech commending the Paricide the Sorbone it self making Rebellious Decrees against the Two Harries of France both Massacred by their Catholick as they call themselves Subjects but enough of this wherein you know or at least should that we have infinitely the advantage of your new Church as to Principles of Loyalty The result it seems of your Inquiry and search among us was that you could not comply with common reason if you did not disclaim the Judgment of your own or any Man 's private Spirit c. pag. 4. I have upon this but one Question to ask you and that is how you came to be a Roman Catholick if you disclaimed your own reason or private Spirit pray who chose your guide or Church for you if you disclaimed every ones else pray tell us how any Body else could doe it for you But notwithstanding this your disclaiming we find you busie enough up and down the Book acting as if you never had done any such thing discovering judging complying contemplating searching and Forty such expressions which used to denote the exercise of a Man's private Judgment and Reason CHAP. V. His Method farther exposed and the ridiculous Fruits of it THE Fruit of all your search hitherto hath been onely to find pag. 4. or at least to mistrust the ground you stood upon somewhat unsure c. What ground it was you then stood upon I cannot guess since before this you had abstracted your self from Religion and supposed your self as of no Religion so most certainly of no Church But all this is assuredly but a figure to bring in the Rock the Rock you think you were got upon when once a Romanist If I might have had a word with you before you had mounted your Rock for now I am afraid there is no speaking with you I would onely have been informed by you whether there is but one Rock and whether I must give (a) Orig. Hom. 1. in Matth. Origen the lie who tells me that all the Apostles were Rocks as well as Peter and what I must say to (b) Prescript c. 32. 36. Edit Franck. 1597. Tertullian and others that tell me other Apostles planted Churches as well as Peter
much a Madman as to believe S. N's Infallibility at Definitions and therefore now do wait for your proof of these two things First That this your espoused Definition is true that is that Christ his Catholick Church is Monarchical and governed supremely by one chief Pastor pag. 6. his Generalissimo a very fit Title in a literal sense for some of your Popes or Vicegerent here on Earth and Secondly That this Definition doth belong to the Church of Rome and not to the Church of England Do but prove me the first and I 'll forgive you the trouble of proving the Second and bestow it on you as a just reward for your pains about the first But before we begin I must desire you to remember not to confound Particular Churches with the Catholick Church and not to take that as said of the one which does certainly belong to the other You begin your Proofs with Scripture which a Man may easily see is not at all on your side you give us thence so few and those nothing to the purpose For as to the first out of Acts the Second pag. 7. Verse 1. how that which is onely an Historical Relation should be a Heavenly Representation I cannot imagine No Body will deny that they that meet as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you falsly quote it and as ill translate it at the same work should be as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one accord or of one mind and which is more that every Particular Church over the World should be as to the Rule of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one mind but I can never believe that for this reason they are can or ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always meet at the same place which your use of it would insinuate and must require the one as well as the other for your purpose But what this is to a Monarchical Church with a supreme Head I cannot guess nor your other from St. Pauls frequent Injunctions to his several Plantations that they should be all of one mind pag. 7. and speak the same things You had done well to have quoted some passages to have illustrated what you say or at least to have put down some references in the Margin but this alas was not convenient then even those that swallow what you say without examining could not avoid seeing the Fallacy for whereas St. Paul writing to Particular Churches exhorts them to be at Vnity among themselves you would fain turn it as if he should exhort them as to all particulars and circumstances to be at Vnity or to have the same with the other Churches as if writing to Ephesus for example he should exhort them to be of the same mind and to speak the same things with the Church of Corinth with the Church at Thessalonica c. Shew this and I 'll yield the point but remember that if you mean of the same mind and to speak the same things as to matters of Faith this as it need not be proved no Body gainsaying it so it does no ways serve what you cited it for to prove a Monarchical Church It cannot appear otherwise than very strange to all considering Persons that these People should generally with so much confidence affirm that our Saviour left his Church in such a condition with a Supreme Vicegerent over it and yet like you when they should come to make the thing apparent from the History of those first times penned in the Gospels Acts and Epistles are forc'd to drop the proof of it and to impose upon their Readers a scrap or two out of those writings not one jot to the purpose oftentimes You will easily find that I mean this of you and I must needs say that these your two useless proofs I mean Quotations for they are far from Proofs forced me upon this Remark CHAP. VII His Arguments for a Monarchical Church out of Antiquity refuted ONE comfort however you seem to promise us that you will make your Reader amends by your Testimonies out of the Fathers for your being so short and so destitute of 'em from Scripture You begin them in a quaint stile which I believe you took for a pretty fancy pag. 7. I followed say you I must confess a loof off her the Kings Daughter all glorious within Companions that followed her c. This passage is one of the pleasantest that I ever met with and the fullest of Figure I must profess till I saw your Book I always took St. Dennis Ignatius Irenaeus c. for Members of the Church and never in the least dreamed that these persons were her Companions or the Virgins that are her Fellows and I must own that it is the first time I ever heard of a Members being a companion to the Body or that a Man without the breach of common sense may say that his Hand or Foot is a Companion of his Body But you Sir had been contemplating just before the ravishing Beauty of the Kings Daughter all glorious within and the Virgins that be her Fellows and Companions did so run in your head that 't is no wonder you mistook Dennis the Areopagite and the rest you mention after him for the Queens Companions At present however we must let them pass as such whom you followed you tell us and lissened what they said of her and overheard First Dionysius the Areopagite St. Pauls Scholar Secondly Clemens Romanus c. 'T is commonly said it's ominous stumbling at the Threshold and a bad presage to trip at the first attempt and this truly is your very case for it is a great mistake you should overhear either of them two using those passages you mention since neither of them ever said the things St. Dennis having never left any thing writ at all nor St. Clemens any thing besides his two allowing the fragment of the Second to be his Epistles So that your two first quotations are pitifull Forgeries as I shall hereafter prove but granting the passages were true and as old as you would have 'em pag. 7. they are not one jot to your purpose The first of 'em saying onely that the Apostles desired their followers by their Instructions might be partakers of the Divine Nature the latter that Bishops should observe the Orders left by the Apostles pag. 8. both which are nothing to the purpose of a Monarchical Church but prove the contrary if it were worth the while to shew it Ignatius Saint and Martyr is the next you produce pag. 8. from him you tell us that People in all things should submit to their Bishop that no Man can be partaker of the Eucharist that abstains from the Bishops Altar A Man would guess by these passages that you had already forgot what you were about to prove You were to prove that Christ lest his Church under one
himself a greater liberty as to Rhetorical flights in his Homilies since in other places he bestows Titles as high and as great as these on other Apostles which if I take in the same sense that you do these the Good Father is made inconsistent with himself and to preach down-right falsities and contradictions I 'll instance onely in St. John and St. Paul do but give your self the trouble to reade over his Preface to his Comments on St. John's Gospel and tell me then whether you do not find him among other large Elogies calling St. John the Pillar of all the Churches throughout the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 2. p. 555. ad fin Edit Savil. and telling us that He had the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven But for St. Paul I am confident I can make even you confess that He mounts him above St. Peter himself concerning whom you have furnished a Catalogue of such glorious Titles Look but upon his Comment on that a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Tom. 3. p. 679. saying of St. Paul's 2 Cor. 11.28 about his care of all the Churches a passage by the bye that is more than all your whole Church can patch together for St. Peter how he advances our Apostle there he tells us that St. Paul had the care and charge not of a single House but of Cities and Countreys and Nations yea of the whole world b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 5. contr Jud. Tom. 6. pag. 364. in another place that he was intrusted with the charge and Government of the whole world which is the very same Commission and as full and clear as that great one which is your chief and best that you quote for St. Peter of his having the charge of the Church throughout the world And he does not onely make St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal in dignity to St. Peter but which is much more advances him above him as I undertook to prove c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrys Orat. 9. Tom. 6. p. 97. Edit Savil. No one says he speaking of St. Paul is greater than he no nor equal to him neither c. By this time I hope I have made it evident that St. Chrysostome will not doe your business that he is as much nay more against you than for you and that you and I ought both of us to own our several Quotations for Rhetorical Flights since in another d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrys Tom. 8. p. 115. Edit Savil. place if you and I be obstinate against any allowances for these passages He spoils all we have both brought when he tells us That the Apostles were appointed by God to be Rulers not Temporal Rulers to receive each his Nation or City but Spiritual Rulers intrusted in Common All together with the Care of the Catholick Church throughout the World. Therefore as all your Authorities from St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy are out of doors pag. 15. so that from St. Augustine comes too late having the same fault as I could most easily shew but do not think I need to trouble my self with it pag. 15. or what the Popes Legates said at Chalcedon that being to make a Man his own witness Especially since that great Council had so little value for what they said that they did notwithstanding all the Pope's opposition decree that Constantinople should enjoy equal Privileges with old Rome and which is more did declare e Etenìm antiquae Romae Throno QVOD VRBS ILLA IMPERARET jure Patres Privilegia tribuere EADEM CONSIDERATIONE moti 150 Dei amantissimi Episcopi S. Sancto novae Romae Throno AEQVALIA PRIVILEGIA addixerunt c. Concil Chalced cap. 28. Edit Bever Oxon. that as well old as new Rome had such great Privileges bestowed upon them purely because they were successively the Imperial Cities of the world CHAP. XIV The ridiculous Vse of his Testimonies shewn and his foolish Aspersions upon the Church of England wiped off THese Testimonies say you I content my self withall as sufficient to shew pag. 15. I have not gone rashly on without the advice of ancient Councellors c. It had been one further happiness for your Testimonies could they but have contented others as well as you say they have done you but how can that be expected since they are as I think I have fully shewn far from being satisfactory because altogether insufficient for the design you gather'd them for In a word you have neither proved that Christ left his Church in a Monarchical State nor that St. Peter was made the sole Head and Dictator as you word it of the Catholick Church nor lastly that the Bishops of Rome have and do succeed him in such a charge Had you done these you had done your cause service to attempt and not to do it is but to tell the World that it cannot be done and what thanks you will have for that I can very easily guess All these Testimonies you sum up with St. Bernard pag. 15. but since he lived far too late to be admitted a Witness about these things and you might as well have quoted those two Monsters of Men Gregory the Seventh and Innocent the Third for those purposes I must set him aside No Body ought to wonder that you are pleased with what you have thus scraped together or that you think you have found something since every one likes his own best how little reason you had to flatter your self I think I have abundantly proved but on you go and now strongly imagine that the wise God and his Son could leave which is a little too bold with God did leave might surely serve you none other at his Ascension pag. 16. c. To be short Sir all this pleasant fancy is answered already and all you have so carefully been about hitherto proves but a Dream a Delusion proceeding from your examining things by false Measures and through a false Glass But for all this This must be the Church you called Catholick in your Creed and till now did not so well mind c. Alas Sir that a Man of your parts and years should not before this have minded what Catholick meant and where that Church was when there 's scarce a person of any tolerable sense in England that cannot with a great deal of readiness give a sufficient account of these things but here is the Mystery you have found that the Church of Rome is this very Church mentioned in our common Creed and that when we profess we believe the Holy Catholick Church we mean tho' we do not mind it the Church of Rome It is to no purpose to endeavour to reclaim such Men as you since you seem to have abandoned the common principles by which Mankind govern themselves for else how could you dream of a part being the whole a Member the Body That the Church of