by General Councils and so by the Catholick Church and they have been in peaceable possession of it for many hundred of years P. 16 17. and now they cannot be divested of it neither by themselves nor by others neither in whole nor in part All these things he sets down I suppose as his own opinations and sentiments and would have his Friends to judge him by them as Orthodox and a true Convert He is not concerned whether they be true or false for he knows or may know that every one of these pretences has been proved by Dr. Barrow to be gross falsities and that almost to the evidence of Demonstration and yet our Authour brings not the least proof for any one of them from any Old Authour Indeed he tells us that we have the Succession of Bishops of Rome delivered to us by St. Augustine and that is true P. 15. but he was unlucky to put us in mind of that passage and much more because he never read it himself for had he seen the 165. Epistle of St. Augustine where that Succession is mentioned and the very next to it he might have found in that great Father a full contradiction to all his thoughts concerning the Scriptures and concerning Authority and then perhaps he would have imployed his time to better purposes than in writing this Book St. Austine in that Epistle sets down the succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter and that for no other purpose but to shew that none of all those Bishops was a Donatist Augustinus Epist 165. And that because a Donatist had set down the succession of their Bishops before not that he thought any one of them after St. Peter was a Sovereign Guide or had unerring authority in him for he himself presently adds to this that if any of them had been a Donatist or worse yet the Christian Doctrine would not have suffered the least by it In illum ordinem Episcoporum qui ducitur ab ipso Petro usque ad Anastasium qui nunc super eandem Cathedram sedet etiamsi quisquam traditor per illa tempora subrepsisset nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae innocentibus Christianis This I suppose our Authour is not willing to think because he depends so much upon Authority and so little upon the Scriptures but St. Augustine did because he relyed upon the Scriptures to teach us that Doctrine which Jesus Christ and his Apostles had revealed to the World and therefore in the same Epistle he slights all his other Arguments and fixes intirely upon the Scriptures as those alone which could give us a full and solid evidence for the truth of a Christian Doctrine Augustinus Epist 165. these are his words Quanquam nos non tam de istis documentis praesumamus quà m de Scripturis sanctis and then he cites a Text. But in the next Epistle and that against the Donatists after some other velitations and general topicks whereof Councils was one as appears by those words Faciant mille concilia Episcopi he comes to the holy Scriptures and triumphs in his Arguments and doubts not to defeat his adversaries by the force of them He begins with words frequent in his writings Augustinus Epist 166. In Scripturis didicimus Christum in Scripturis didicimus Ecclesiam has Scripturas communiter habemus quare non in eis Christum Ecclesiam communiter retinemus Then he throws out near twenty Texts one after another comments in short upon them and never doubts but that he and his Adversaries did sufficiently understand them without the assistance of a Sovereign Guide or an unerring Authority if our Authour had considered this it might have done him good but because he is pleased to find the Succession of Roman Bishops in St. Augustine I will shew him what he seems not to know two very considerable uses which that great Father made of that topick the First was to conciliate a most profound veneration to the Holy Scriptures thus therefore he writes August contra Faust Manich lib. 11. cap. 5. contra Faustum Manichaeum lib. 11. cap. 5. Distincta est à posteriorum libris excellentia canonicae Authoritatis veteris novi Testamenti quae Apostolorum confirmata temporibus per successiones Episcoporum propagationes Ecclesiarum tanquam in sede quâdam sublimiter constituta est cui serviat omnis fidelis pius intellectus A Second use that he made of this consideration of the Succession of Bishops in their Sees was in case of a dispute about a Text to evidence what was the first and so the true Christian Doctrine To this end he very frequently in his disputes with the Donatists requires them to search what was taught in the Churches of Corinth Galatia Ephesus Philippi Thessalonica all the Churches that had the honour to receive Apostolical Epistles Now if all these having several Successions of Bishops should agree in any one point that was controverted St. Augustine took their consent to be a good Argument that such a Doctrine was original and true he sends them indeed to Rome too but upon no other accompt and no higher reason than he does to those other Apostolical Churches Now I think I may presume in kindness to our Authour to give him one advice and that is this to have a care when he refers to St. Augustine that he knows his mind and that St. Augustine did write what he cites him for for I can tell him that a certain person who was of his opinion concerning a Soveraign Guide and unerring Authority to be sound in the Church of Rome came at length to believe and that consequentially to his opinion that the decretal Epistles of the Popes were of the same Authority with and to be reckoned amongst the Canonical Scriptures and to confirm his opinion he cited St. Augustine for it and this his citation had got into Gratians Decretum but the last Roman-Correctours of Gratian found it to be either gross forgery or a gross mistake and they have done St. Augustine right and a favour to such Persons as our Authour is to let them know that St. Augustine is no great friend to such fond and absurd opinions You may see Gratiani Decreti prim part Distin 19. Cap. 6. But because it may be some trouble to consult that Authour I will give you the truth and the forgery together St. Augustine in his Book De Doctrina Christiana lib. 2. cap. 8. had given us these words In Canonicis Scripturis Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quam plurium authoritatem sequatur inter quas sane illae sunt quae Apostolicas sedes habere Epistolas accipere meruerunt c. Now this was plain and good advice in the examination of Books that might be alledged to be Canonical Scriptures to give a preference to the testimony of those Churches that were called Apostolical Seats and such as had the honour to receive Epistles from the Apostles as Rome Corinth
Philippi c. But now a transcriber of this I suppose more knave than fool changes the words thus In Canonicis Scripturis Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quamplurium Divinarum Scripturarum solertissimus indagator autoritatem sequatur inter quas sane illae sint quas Apostolica sedes habere ab ea alii meruerunt accipere Epistolas This speaks quite a different thing that the Epistles of the Apostolical Seat are to be accounted Canonical Scriptures This forgery or mistake came abroad I suppose at the same time with the counterfeit ware of Riculphus and to this with the false Epistles of the most early Bishops of Rome were put into Gratian and there it remained as a great Authority in the behalf of the Sacredness and Canonicalness of Papal Epistles untill the last Correctours were pleased honestly to reject it and prudently to tell the World that they dare not own such follies or knaveries But farther because our Authour thinks to advantage himself of the Name of St. Augustine I will acquaint him that this Father had no very extraordinary opinion of Rome or the Bishops of it when he was in quest of the true Religion he left Rome and went to Milan and submitted himself to the guidance of St. Ambrose and received the true Christianity from him He had all his days the highest reverence for him and would have yielded to his Authority when he would not have yielded to the Pope's Augustinus Epist 162. He tells us that when Melchiades judged the cause of the Donatists he was joyned with several other Bishops in the same Commission by Constantine Aug. Epist 163. when he names those two great men Julius Bishop of Rome and Athanasius as orthodox Persons and defenders of the right faith he puts Athanasius in the first place It is he that gives those hard words Quidam qui nomen habet Falcidii duce Stultitià Civitatis Romanae jactantià Levitas Sacerdotibus August quaesti mes ex utroque mixtim p. 108. 109. Edit Lugdun An. 1561. Diaconos Presbyteris coaequare contendit he tells us what it was that rais'd his passion the Deacons of Rome it seems would not yield to the Presbyters of other places upon that he says Quia Romanae Ecclesiae ministri sunt idcirco honorabiliores putantur quam apud caeteras Ecclesias propter magnificentiam urbis Romanae quae caput esse videtur omnium civitatum Si itaque sic est hoc debent Sacerdotibus suis vindicare And a little after he gives a fuller accompt of it Vides quid pariat vana praesumptio immemores enim elatione mentis eo quod videant Romanae Ecclesiae se esse ministros non considerant quid illis à Deo decretum sit quid debeant custodire sed tollunt haec de memoria assiduae Stationes domesticae officialitas quae per suggestiones malas seu bonas nunc plurimum potest aut timentur enim ne malè suggerant aut emuntur ut praestent But because this Book is accompted by several not to be St. Augustine's though sent abroad by the Monks and published in his Name I will add farther that St. Augustine's thoughts of Rome and the Bishops of that See were quite different from our Authour 's for if he thought that the Soveraign Guide and the unerring Authority had been there and that God deposited those great supports and securities of the Christian Faith in the Succession of the Roman Bishops then in all likelihood when Rome was taken by the Goths he would have lamented and mourned as a Jew formerly would have done at the taking of Jerusalem and the captivity of the High-Priest But alas there was nothing like it when this news was brought to St. Augustine all that he said of it was this Ibi multos fratres non habuimus non adhuc habemus Indeed for this expression he seems to apologize in his next Sermon but that not as to the truth of his words Serm 29. de verbis Domini but as to the spirit of mind in which he spake them that it was not out of any design to insult over the miseries of others Besides he that remembers what labour he and the rest of the African Bishops took to get the concurrence of the Bishops of Rome Innocentius and Zosimus to the condemnation of the Pelagian Heresie may well think that St. Augustine could have no great reverence for them and if we read Erasmus his Censure upon Innocent's Epistles which are printed with St. Augustine's we may possibly be tempted to entertain mean thoughts of the Bishop of so great a See These are Erasmus his words before the 96 th Ep. which is Innocents Innocentius superiori respondet suo more saevus potius quà m eruditus ad damnandum quà m docendum instructior But I must leave this and follow our Authour He goes on p. the 18 th leaping and skipping from one thing to another He speaks first of Victor what he did in casting out the Asiaticks and then what Gregory and others whom he calls Christ's Vicegerents did in bringing in converts and wonders that so many Proselytes should be made to so little purpose Then he fansies he had seen glorious and wonderfull Privileges in the Church of Rome and knows not how they could be forfeited After he falls to his wonted work of whipping our Bishops for telling him that new Doctrines had been brought into the Church which were not imposed upon the faithfull till the Council of Trent Now nothing of all this deserves an answer because it hath been so often given before But it may be expected by some As to Victor he says he excommunicated the Bishops of Asia for keeping of Easter contrary to the Institutions of St. Peter and St. Paul though tolerated by St. John Now this is fit to be said by a new Convert who must venture farther than any man of skill dare do For first the matter of fact is doubted and Valesius the last Editor of Eusebius who was all his days a Roman Catholick thinks that Victor went no farther than to high words and threatning And then as to the right of the action Eusebius lib. 5 c. 24. Irenaeus who wrote to Victor himself about it fully shews that it would have been unreasonable and against all the methods of his Predecessours But then thirdly the relation of our Authour is altogether groundless that St. Peter and St. Paul did institute and St. John onely tolerate For this is a thing that Polycrates the President of the Council of the Asiaticks never knew Victor himself never knew Irenaeus never knew Anicetus Bishop of Rome nor yet St. Polycarp that contested this point with him who too was St. John's own Disciple never knew Euseb lib. 5. c. 24. Certainly our Authour has some Pidgeon that whispers to him Secrets and Mysteries that no man knows I beg his leave a little to acquaint him with the sense
of his friend St. Augustine in a like case The Romans challenged to have a command from St. Peter for keeping the Saturday-Fast and those of the Eastern Churches quite contrarily asserted that they were expresly forbidden and that by St. John to fast upon that day A Presbyter of the Church of Rome writes to his friend and most earnestly exhorts him to do as they did and pleads thus Petrus Apostolorum caput coeli Janitor Ecclesiae fundamentum id ipsum Romanos edocuit Now St. Augustine being consulted in the case slights all that flaunting Plea of the Romans allows the allegation of the Easterns to be as good as those of the West and concludes thus that the Apostles St. Peter and St. John did not vary If they gave any rule it was the same every where And seeing there is a present difference it must be said that either the Eastern Church hath varied from the rule of St. John or else the Roman Church has varied from the rule of St. Peter Now which of these was the truth St. Augustine knew not He himself gives his sense in these words Epistola 86 Casulano Augustinus Ep. 86. Casulano After the Plea for Rome E contrario refertur occidentis potiùs aliqualoca in quibus Roma est non servasse quod Apostoli tradiderunt orientis verò terras unde coepit ipsum Evangelium ipsum praedicari in eo quod ab omnibus simul cum ipso Petro Apostolis traditum est ne Sabbato jejunetur sine aliqua varietate mansisse Upon this he concludes thus interminabilis est ista contentio generans lites non finiens quaestiones Had this great Father known any thing of a Soveraign Guide and unerring Authority seated at Rome he could never have doted so far as to have made this any matter of question But he knew nothing of that or of Peter commanding and John onely tolerating either in the one or the other case And I will presume for once that he knew a great deal more than our Authour does But the second skip our Authour takes is to Conversions and here he says he perceives P. 18. that according to the command and institution of our Saviour his Vicegerent did send out his Disciples Here I want our Authour's Spectacles for I can perceive nothing I see no Vicegerent of our Blessed Lord nor do I see any command that he ever gave to such a Person nor do I know whether he means the Disciples of the Vicegerent or the Disciples of our Lord. It is certain our Lord gave a command to the Apostles to teach all Nations and they and their Successours the Bishops have acted according to that command And if Gregory Bishop of Rome or any other have been industrious in that work we heartily thank and commend them But yet I wonder that our Authour has of a sudden grown so extremely blind as not to see that conversions may be made to what is bad as well as to what is good Pagans and Mahometans have been industrious to make converts So have all Hereticks his friends Ebion and Cerinthus Nailor and Muggleton Nay this if he had not despised and too long laid aside the Holy Scriptures he might have learn'd without the assistence of his unerring Authority from one saying of our Blessed Lord Math. 23.15 Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees c. After this gross piece of ignorance P. 19. which he is pleased to shew to advantage with flourishes of his pen comparing his reason with that of our Reverend Bishops he may excuse me from telling him how the great Privileges and Prerogatives of the Church of Rome could be forfeited untill he hath shown me in particular what they were that he insists upon For until he has proved that Rome did really enjoy such Prerogatives as he challenges on her behalf I will not undertake to shew when and how Rome forfeited that which Rome never had Our Authour may be a Sophister and how far he is beyond that himself best knows and so he may think no farther in this Paragraph than the old trite Cavil quod non perdidisti habes And his friends at Rome will con him but few thanks for that And now our Authour begins to whip our Bishops and wo be to them He tells them what he had been told that there were some late Doctrines introduced into the Church and such as were not imposed upon the faithfull before the Council of Trent This he says he could answer by alledging that the protesting against those Doctrines was in the same time But this he waves and chooseth rather to shew that the Doctrines we oppose were establisht by Councils before And here he begins with 1. The Pope's Supremacy P. 20. which he saith was confirmed in the Council of Chalcedon one of the first four general Councils owned by Protestants above 1200 years since 630 Fathers present Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu As for my part I wonder who either licensed or allowed this Book to be printed Will any man of skill think to advance a Plea for the Pope's Supremacy from the Council of Chalcedon It is certain that nothing was done there that might have any reference to this Point which was not disclaimed by the Legates of the Pope upon the place and afterwards highly resented by Leo the I. who was then Pope It is true that Anatolius then Patriarch of Constantinople carried on a design to advance his Seat and because he was Bishop of New Rome would have the next place after the Bishop of the Old and so would have the Pre-eminence of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch Du Pin de antiaua Eccl. Discip p. 53. In order to this in the absence of the Pope's Legates Anatolius and his friends got the 28 Canon of that Council to pass which gives to the Patriarch of Constantinople 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as a learned Roman Catholick comments eadem aequalia privilegia tribuunt Episcopo novae Romae ac veteris Romae Episcopo Now assoon as the Legates of the Pope had heard of this they declared against it and obtained another Session wherein they might produce their Plea against the validity of this Canon both as to the form and matter But their objections were answered and the Canon passed against their minds though Lucentius one of the Pope's Legates protested against it and desired that his Protestation might be entred into the Acts of the Council And when Leo the Great who was then Pope heard of this he declared against it and wrote against it with a great deal of vehemence and indignation as any one may see who will consult these Epistles of his the 56 57 58 63 66. And Leo could never be brought to confirm that very Canon which our Authour tells us did confirm his Supremacy Now in this case I will presume that Pope to be a better guide and to have more
Sticklers for Roman Authority and Infallibility and that in a time when he contended most earnestly to bring in peace and good temper amongst Christians and had endeavoured passionately to persuade men to lay aside ill Language and odious Names such as one Party threw at another all which he says were cast up out of Hell such as these Papists Antichristians Ministers of Satan and on the other side Hereticks Schismaticks Apostates Though he heartily wish'd these Names out of the World yet he could be content that two or three of them were always ready to be thrown in the teeth of such Persons as our Authour would seem to be This remark I give to shew our Authour that I do not set down the Sayings and Opinions of others without considering first what weight and stress is to be laid upon them For I must consess that it is to me a scandal and matter of offence to find this Set of Authorities which our Authour uses in the same order and in the same words in another late Book intitled Pax vobis this seems to speak that the Authours of both these transcribed and never considered what force was in their Citations Is this fair dealing with a Man 's own Conscience or with his Readers when he is weighing of Religions and offering motives of Reconciliation either to himself or to others to act thus supinely This is worse than to take a journey to Edinburgh upon the next Hackney and never consider whether he be a Jade or no. A journey to Heaven is long to be sure of greatest importance He that takes up a new Religion to carry him thither had need use eyes and ears and heart and head too St. Paul had reason when he advised us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling but all men will not doe this they are in too much haste They that take satisfaction without reason and in spite of reason change their Religion cannot act with that caution which the great Apostle requires If I am not much out in my guess which I must leave to the Reader 's judgment when he has compared this Set of Citations with those in Pax vobis Pag. 70 71. we have here one of the most wretched Pleas that ever was used by a Writer It is not more than this I have met with some sayings of Men whom I care not for when or where or to what end they were spoken I never considered nor yet whether upon second thoughts they did not retract them my judgment concurs with them therefore I have found that lawfull Supreme Authority I searched for and where this Authority is there is Infallibility That is the first Motive to persuade that the Roman Catholick Church has Supreme Authority over all and Infallibility in the exercise of it He should now proceed to a second But instead of that we have Pag. 24 25 26 27. a discourse upon a new Subject so far is our Authour from making these Doctrines to appear reasonable that for so long together he 'll e'en let them shift for themselves his present business is to talk and talk he will of Separation or how the Church of Rome can be said to have separated either from her self or from the Catholick Church either whole or part and where that whole or part remained from whence the Church of Rome separated and then again where she remained and where she may be found and here he is urgent and importunate and will have an answer and that from the Bishops themselves for he comes up closely to the beards of them and tells them In good faith Fathers my Salvation is highly concern'd in this question and I must be satisfied He prevents them from giving such and such answers and swaggers it bravely out in these words I 'll sooner suffer my self to be knockt down with a true Protestant Flayl than with such a Protestant Answer and at last he adds from this reasonable and important request you shall never beat me whilst I live The Man grows warm and it is well for some that they are out of his way who knows what he may doe The occasion of all this noise and clamour he gives us in the 24th Page in these words You had often told me that She the Church of Rome had fallen from her primitive purity and separated her self from the one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Answer to Protestant Queries p. 10. declared also to be Antichristian and the true Church latent and invisible by that famous Napper to King James Brocard Fulk Sebast Francus Hospinian and many others Now what is all this to the Bishops of the Church of England must they answer for every thing that has been said by Fulk and Brocard and Napper or as you call him that famous Napper I pray how famous is he has any of the Bishops of England cited him these forty years does any of this Church reade him or depend upon him if your studies have been upon such Authours the Church of Rome have no great prize of you and these Motives as bad as they are were good enough to make you a Convert But yet there remains one Expression cited out of a little Book which it may be few of the Bishops of England ever saw but yet they must give an accompt of it and all the consequences he can gather from it for he says p. 26. his Salvation is highly concerned in it And it is a reasonable and important request And must the Bishops of England be accomptable for every little writing which they know nothing of would the Bishops of Rome think it fair that all the impertinences of our Authour should be charged upon them certainly no. But he argues that if the Church of Rome was once a pure and uncorrupted Church she remains so still for she can neither separate from her self nor from the Catholick Church Now if this Argument be good he himself is bound to answer for all the consequences that can come from a presumed separation either from it self or from the Catholick Church for we have oft proved and are always ready to prove that the Church of Rome is not the same as to purity and incorruption which it was It is changed it is altered multitudes of Innovations have overspread it and great numbers of Errours by little and little as Cassander says have crept in and prevailed over it But yet for all that we own and assert that there is a Church of Rome as well as a Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch and that though this as well as they have erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith So speaks the Church of England in her 19th Article And if she be a Church she must be a Member of the Catholick Church for every part must be contained in the whole None of us doubt but that the Church of Rome receives all the Canonical Scriptures that we
and bordering parts of Wales at the same time the Church of Rome was no less afflicted by the Heathen Emperours This is gross ignorance to talk of Saxons persecuting the Britains and Religion flying into Wales in the time of the Heathen Emperours Did the Man never hear of the name of Constantine and of the names of those glorious Christian Emperours that succeeded him in the East and West for more than two hundred years before the flying into Wales I hope he will not call them persecuting Heathen Emperours who brought the Empire into the Church The famous Council at Nice was celebrated in the Year 325. and the coming of the Saxons under Hengist into Britain was not till the Year 450 and it was near a hundred years after that before the Britains were dispossessed of the rest of their Countrey and forc'd to secure themselves amongst the Mountains of Wales This our Authour might easily have known if he had read Bede but he knew it not therefore he adds No wonder if in these days and circumstances there was but little correspondence between Rome and Wales This now is worse and worse what a little correspondence between Rome and Britain when Constantius was in Britain and Constantine and Theodosius and Maximus and the most of the chief Roman Commanders in their distinct times What! little correspondence between them though three of the British Bishops were at the Council of Arles and as many very probably at Nice and as many certainly at the Council of Ariminum and of Sardica Did this Man never hear of the names of Pelagius and Coelestius or of Palladius and Patricius and hundreds of others who came from Rome to Britain or went from Britain to Rome in all this long tract of time I would be willing to think that I mistake a little rather than judge that he mistakes so grosly But he will not allow it for he will have all the World to see how ignorant he is He adds to this these words But when the Church brought from her subterraneous refuges and set upon a Hill began to enlarge her self P. 31. and propagate the Gospel Gregory the Great sent Augustine the Monk into England to see how matters went there in this long interval of silence Certainly he does think that Gregory the Great was the first Roman Bishop that ever saw good days and that all his Predecessours were under the persecuting Heathen Emperours for now he says that the Church was brought from her subterraneous refuges and now she was set upon the Hill and now began to enlarge her self I wonder where he learnt this I hope it was from his Friend the famous Napper What is become of two and thirty Bishops of Rome so many there were between Sylvester who is said to have baptized the Emperour Constantine and this Gregory the Great did they all sleep did they doe nothing for the Church that she must be said now to inlarge her self There was near three hundred years past from Constantine's possession of the Empire to this mission of Augustine the Monk and was the Church all that time in subterraneous refuges Where were these subterraneous refuges from whence the Church came and where was the Hill upon which the Church was set in this Gregory's days I know that John of Constantinople was then most ambitious and indeavoured to mount up his Seat to higher power and dignity than that of Rome it self He challenged all the proud Titles that the Popes afterwards usurpt and designed to set his Church upon the Hill But Gregory the First wrote against him and charged him with pride and arrogancy and said plainly that whatever Bishop whether Roman or Constantinopolitan should assume those Titles he would be Antichristian or at least the Forerunner of Antichrist It is certain that Gregory the Great was content to keep things as he found them he did not set the Church upon a Hill or inlarge its power The Romanists can scarce pardon him for the great submission and deference which he yielded to the Emperour and the large expressions which he used in his Contest against John of Constantinople for the Protestants strongly argue from them against the pretences of the Popes themselves But our Authour adds that Gregory sent Augustine the Monk into England to see how matters went here in this long interval of silence He seems to think that Augustine came as a Spy or to make a discovery of an unknown Land but in this he is like himself still mistaken For Gregory knew how matters went here He knew that Bertha Queen to King Ethelbert was a Christian and that Luidhardus Bishop of Senlis was her Chaplain and that he performed to her and her Attendants all Christian Offices in the Church of St. Martin's Bede lib. 1. cap. 26. near Canterbury which was formerly built by the Romans And Gregory himself says in a Letter which he sent by this Augustine to the King of France and was delivered by him in his passage hither That the English Nation were desirous to become Christians His words are these Pervenit ad nos Greg. Epist lib. 5. Ep. 58. Anglorum gentem ad fidem Christianam desideranter velle converti sed Sacerdotes vestros è vicino negligere desideria eorum cessare suâ adhortatione succendere Ob hoc igitur Augustinum Servum Dei praesentium portitorem cujus zelus studium benè nobis est cognitum cum aliis servis Dei praevidimus illuc dirigendum Quibus etiam injunximus ut aliquos secum è vicino debeant Presbyteros ducere cum quibus eorum possint mentes agnoscere voluntatem admonitione suâ quantum Deus donaverit adjuvare and to the same purpose he writes in the next Epistle If our Authour had seen this Greg. Ep. 59. he would not have said that Gregory sent Augustine to see how matters went here in this long interval of silence But he goes on and tells us that the Britains knew him not that is Augustine untill he had confirmed his Commission by Miracles Now what had he to doe with them or they with him his Commission was to convert the Saxons or the English from their Paganism to Christianity as Gregory says in the forementioned Epistle Bede lib. 1. cap. 23. and Bede in these words Misit Servum Dei Augustinum alios complures praedicare Verbum Dei genti Anglorum Bede calls him Anglorum Apostolus to them he was sent to them he came and he had more work to doe amongst them than he was able to perform The Britains were not in the least concerned in his Commission for they were Christians and very good Christians according to our Authour's accompt For he tells us that the great Errours which Augustine found among them were chiefly two Their Asiatick Errour concerning the keeping of Easter and dissent from the Roman Church in the administring of Baptism As to the first of these their Asiatick
and will not give us the least intimation of their Dogm's wherein his schemes did agree with theirs yet I think it very probable that he might light upon some of the same thoughts with them because I find a wonderfull agreement between the Followers of those two and this Gentleman For they had no reverence at all for Scripture and very small regard to Reason sometimes they would throw away Ed. Erasmi Basil 8vo 1571. and easily reject a great part of Scripture Iren. lib. 3. cap. 11. and at other times they would receive all Iren. lib. 3. cap. 12 pag. 302. but upon this condition that they might interpret it they made novel Inventions to be great and necessary Articles of Faith Id. lib. 3. cap. 11. p. 288. In tantum processerunt audaciae uti quod ab his non olim conscriptum est veritatis Evangelium titulent in nihilo conveniens Apostolorum Evangeliis they had a profound veneration for Authority and entirely submitted themselves to the Doctrines of Ebion and Cerinthus for they supposed that these men had a secret or mystery derived down by Tradition to them which alone was able to fix the sense of Scriptures and therefore whenever an Argument was directed against them out of Scriptures they still brought it to this Tradition without this they undervalued and slighted all the Scriptures and were the Inventers of the chiefest Arguments against them that our Authour and his Friends at this day do use All this will appear Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. if we look upon Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sunt ex Authoritate quia variè sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt Traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem and then farther toward the latter end of that Chapter they challenge something that speaks the great confidence they had in their way perhaps as much as the Infallibility of a Guide se indubitatè incontaminatè sincerè absconditum scire Mysterium The proceedings of those men are so like to the method of our Authour that I do not in the least wonder if he found in his Schemes something very agreeable to their Doctrines Some mens brains for all what that learned Spaniard teaches may be exactly of the same temper and consequently their wits of the same height I have heard of a fool who by thinking the very same thoughts with his Brother could find him out when all the wise men in the Town could not do it Thus far therefore I will be obliging to our Author and give him more credit than I will upon some other occasions I will though with some reluctancy of reason believe that whilst he was reading the Scriptures some thoughts might come into his mind agreeable enough with some of those that Ebion and Cerinthus had But after this high civility allowed him I hope he will not impose upon my Faith so far as to require me to believe that he found any thing in the Holy Scriptures that agreed with the idle whimsies and mad dreams and blasphemous prate of his two other friends Nailor and Muggleton This is such an impudence as R. C's aswell as Protestants must abhor all Popes and Councils that have ever been with wrath and indignation would have detested any man that should have dared to put so profane and vile a scandal upon those sacred writings What Anathema's would the Council of Trent have thundred out against Luther if ever he had wrote or spoken any thing so base as this It is certain that there is nothing in Scripture that can in the least seem to favour the blasphemies of those two wretches and I am unwilling to think that there was any thing in our Authour's schemes that would deserve the punishment which they justly suffered It is possible that he might have been of their acquaintance and have had very particular respects for their persons and so he might be over-easie to think that some of his thoughts might be like unto theirs This I am willing to guess because I can with confidence presume that he has kept very ill Company for though his natural temper carries him to speak soft and smooth things yet in spight of nature he is forced to be rude and saucy For why cannot he write a Book without pointing his discourse at the breasts of the Right Reverend Fathers of our Church why does he treat them with contempt and scorn why does he presume to daule 'em to twitch 'em by the Nose and pull 'em by the Beard and stand over 'em with Fescue and Ferula and tell 'em that here they were out and there they were out and that here and there and at every point he can instruct them All this comes from want of manners and good converse Muggleton would have done the same and so would Nailor and none but such as they For certainly a respect is due to them for their Character and a respect is due upon their Personal accompt they are men of excellent worth and great learning prudence piety and integrity and so conspicuously eminent in all these that our Authour is not able to match them in any one Countrey though he take as large a view of Bishops as he does of Conversions in his 14th page through Europe Asia Africa and America But when Reason and the Holy Scriptures are to be thrown down it is no great wonder if the Bishops of the Church of England fall with them I begin to be warm and you my Friend may be offended at it yet allow a little to a just indignation it may well move a man of a cold complexion to see a pert unknown come up so briskly to the heads of our Reverend Fathers and Address to them in a formal speech intimating thousands of mistakes miscarriages and errours in them and yet in all that speech the man says nothing but what is old and dull and flat insipid stuff all and every thing in it has been answer'd five hundred times since the Reformation and at least twenty within these two years This looks like perverse stupidity for men to pretend to be writers when they do not reade if our Authour had read the late Books by this writing he gives plain proof that his Reason serves as little in drawing up Plea's for Authority as it did before in making Schemes of Christian Doctrine out of the Scriptures All that he says is this that he heartily wished that God would have pleased to have left us some unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide p. 6. and then that God has not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters p. 10. From thence he presumes that there is such a thing and resolves to go in quest after it he
comes to the Church of England and demands it there they deny that they have any such Authority Not content with that he puts himself to the trouble to prove it p. 11. he goes to the Church of Rome they say they have it p. 12. and he presently believes them and after a few rubs removed out of his way he reviews Bellarmine's marks and signs of a true Catholick Church and by them endeavours to shew that there is such an unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide in the Church of Rome Now all this is nothing but a plain begging of the Cause or a discovery how little he knows in this Controversie for certain it is that the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches ever since the Reformation have demanded and most earnestly required one plain positive proof that ever God Almighty or our Blessed Lord did ever appoint any such Sovereign Guide and unerring Authority in the Church But they could never receive any plausible Answer to it by all the ways whereby a Negative can be proved they have shewed that there is no such order or appointment in it Nay lately some Writers have asserted with good reason that such a thing is not agreeable to the methods that God has us'd in the Government of the World and that it would not be of any considerable use to the advancement of piety or any eminent vertue amongst men and that the pretence of it serves onely to support an unreasonable Usurpation over the Church of Christ Great Volumes and strong Arguments remain unanswer'd and yet at this time of the day the dull and stale old accompts of it without any new ornaments or new force are sent abroad without any ground or hope of victory to vindicate the interests of it This deserves a sharper Censure than I will give but yet I would have our Authour know that a New Convert to his Old Friends the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus might have alledged in his behalf all that which our Authour here does and that to as much purpose he might have said that he had wished that God had left an unerring Authority in his Church and that God had not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters and that therefore he presumed that such an Authority was somewhere to be sound As for Irenaeus his Church and those in Communion with it they did not in the least pretend to it but the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus did fully and loudly challenge it and therefore his Reverend Fathers Irenaeus and the rest of the Orthodox Bishops must have him excused for he will rather put himself under an unerring Authority than trust to the Guidance of Those that confess themselves to be no more than fallible men But to let that pass P. 13. the next thing we find in our Authour is Bellarmine's Notes of a true Church I suppose he puts them down to encrease the bulk of his Book He could not but know that they are of no Authority with us And Answers are given out to each of them in their Order He might have added strength and force to them whilst they are so briskly attacked but he has no pretence to build upon them or defend himself by them But besides he of all men living has the least right to expect any advantage from them because the chiefest of these Notes are grounded on sayings of the Prophets and he that has so far depreciated the true value of the Five Books of Moses p. 6. will hardly persuade another that he gives any great credit to the writings of the Prophets He there gives us an objection against the Pentateuch P. 6. from the supposed intermedlings of Esdras but does not well reflect that he derives that objection by several Medium's from the Samaritans who were the first and are at this day the chiefest Adversaries and greatest Calumniatours of Esdras Now these very men keep close to the Five Books of Moses and for this they offer some pretences of reason but our Authour without any reason at all would make advantage by the Prophets and throw contempt upon Moses and all this by virtue of the credit which he seems to give to the objections made against Esdras by the Samaritans But Most certainly in this he acts beyond his skill and talks without book for be it what it will Bellarmine's Notes are of no use to him and can do him as little service as that formidable force of Pagans and Turks and I know not how many Nations which he brings in to his assistance p. 11. where he himself says he has no Adversary It is well for him that that impertinency and this did not come together into his head at the same time for if he had thought but as much of the Pagan as he does of the Atheist and Theist perhaps his reason might have been as favourable to them as it was to those others p. 4. and then if Bellarmine's Notes had come into his way who knows but that the man might have turn'd Convert again and wrote another Book of the motives for his reconciliation to old Paganism for methinks it is very probable that our Authour might have found these amongst the Pagans Vniversality and Visibility Vninterrupted continuance and Succession till the days of Constantine lastly Vnity and Vniformity he might have seen there too that which they call a High-Priest and Holy Altar and a Holy Sacrifice Miracles and Religious Colleges and Abstinence P. 14. and vowed chastity and a great many Doctrines Authoritatively imposed and universally received throughout the World I will presume this Gentleman never read either Pausanias or Zozimus or the Epistles of Symmachus and it is happy for him that he did not I will venture the little skill that I have that any impartial Reader shall find better flourishes sairer turns of the Pen and more appearance of Argument in that Speech which Symmachus makes to the Emperour Valentinian Theodosius and Arcadius in the Name of Rome Pagan than our Authour gives us here against the Church of England to our Bishops Now if these little thoughts governed him in the change of one Religion it is well for him that he never ingaged in the consideration of the other But our Authour has Bellarmine's Notes and he will make something of them by virtue of them he says he sound what he was resolved to find before the true Catholick or one Church that may be said to be true in opposition to all others Now upon this foundation he builds apace P. 15. 1. That this being one Body must have one Head upon Earth and he after our Saviour's Death was St. Peter and after St. Peter's his Successours and they are the Bishops of Rome and those are every one of them in their several times not only Successours to St. Peter P. 16. but Christ's Vicegerents This their Authority he says has been owned
and will give full satisfaction in that Point if he were but capable of receiving it And I presume I have given him more than he can answer in the Reflexions upon the Lateran Council I. The Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church P. 21. This he undertakes to consider how far it may bear and appear reasonable to an impartial Reader These words are not worth the notice but that they tempt out a little suspicion that they are here set for a reserve in case of opposition for if it be said as most truly it may that there is not one plain proof either of the supreme Authority or Infallibility of the Roman Church in all this Discourse Our Authour may reply that he never undertook to give it All that he engaged for was appearances P. 23. and that he has performed by using the words oft tumbling and tossing them as Hay-makers do their mown Grass one while Authority is uppermost and soon after Infallibility Authority must lead in Infallibility and Infallibility must vindicate Authority but where either of these is to be found the Man neither proves nor knows and plainly says that he is not concerned whether there be any such thing as Infallibility or no p. 24. he says Were there no Infallibility as I believe there is I would still submit my Reason and regulate my Conscience P. 24. according to the Decrees of the supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority This is my belief pray blame me not All this is nothing else but appearances for neither is the Church of England nor the Church of Rome concerned in his belief or his fancy or his opinion for these may be wise or may be foolish may be well or may be ill grounded But yet it is admirable to see what great command he has over his Reason and his Conscience that he can make them turn which way he pleases and if he does but suppose a Supreme lawfull Authority to be in Ebion or Cerinthus Nailor or Muggleton or the Church of Rome He can be a Convert to any of them to day to this and to morrow to the quite contrary and that with as much reason and as good conscience to the one as to the other For which way soever he turns he may still say this is my belief pray blame me not His last Conversion was to the Church of Rome and he intimates that he changed upon this belief that there was a Supreme lawfull Ecclesiastical Authority to be found there but he has not the least reason to prove it though it must be confest that he has some appearances which I will impartially consider in their order 1. He gives us some Citations from Protestants Pag. 22 23. from Luther one and from Melancthon another whom he calls the Phoenix of Learning a fine word I wonder from whence he borrowed it another from Somaisius or Salmasius Another he would give from Grotius but what it is he has forgot he thinks it is somewhere in his Annotations upon the New Testament And then to make weight he throws in the Names of Jacob Cartwright Huss and Beza P. 23. And from hence he argues in these words These eminent Protestants were men of great learning and they had searcht and understood Scripture and History and if my judgment concurs with theirs in this point as I profess it doth then have I found that lawfull Supreme Authority Now these are dangerous words from the mouth of a new Convert it is well for him that he is not now in Spain for if he should make such a declaration there That his judgment concurs with the judgment of Luther Melancthon Huss and Beza in the Point of the Pope's Supremacy or the Supremacy of the Church of Rome he might perhaps be in danger of the Inquisition All the World knows the judgment of those men in this point and if he were before the Fathers of the Inquisition they would not be put off with a small Citation found they know not where and perhaps inserted by they know not whom He had done much better to have mistrusted his Copy than to depend upon such an Allegation Sure I am that if he made any use of those mens judgments or laid any great stress upon the words which he cites under their Names in his search or presumed discovery of a Supreme Authority of the Church of Rome he used both his Reason and his Conscience very hardly It is certain that Luther did speak variously of the Pope's Power sometimes higher and sometimes lower as appears to any one that reads either his Works or Cassander's Citations from him And as to Melancthon the Phoenix of Learning I am not concerned to search what he wrote to the Cardinal Belay And it may be I am civil in doing it He was a Wit that once charged it as an incivility upon his Acquaintance that he should take so much pains to prove him a Lyar. It is certain that Melancthon in his Loci Communes where he treats professedly upon this Subject declares fully and roundly against all this that is cited from him And therefore I presume that his judgment does not concur with Melancthon's for if it does he is no new Convert for he has found nothing that can call for a submission of Reason and Conscience nothing like to that Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church which a new Convert is bound to defend But because our Authour in desence of the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church has given such Citations from Protestants I 'll indeavour to requite him by one from a very good Roman Catholick and that is Cassander He in his Book de Officio pii hominis speaks to this purpose That there are some who because they see yet remaining amongst them not a few things that have descended down from Antiquity or the first Christians will keep up the present state of the Church just as it is though it be corrupt and foully stained by abuses that have crept in by little and little Nor will they suffer any thing to be alter'd though it may be done agreeable enough to the Decrees or Canons of the Ancients Pontificem verò Romanum quem Papam dicimus tant um non Deum faciunt ejusque Autoritatem non modò supra totam Ecclesiam sed supra ipsam Scripturam Divinam efferunt sententiam ejus Divinis Oraculis parem imo infallibilem fidei regulam constituunt hos non video cur minus Pseudocatholicos Papistas appellare possis The Roman Bishop whom we call Pope they make little less than God They set up his Authority not onely over the whole Church but over the holy Scripture it self and make his determination equal to the Divine Oracles and no less than an infallible rule of faith I see no cause but that you may give to these the name of false Catholicks and Papists Thus said that good man concerning the
this could be done and would not have us to pretend to derive Authority from the Church of Rome when she was in her purity and perfection Now this is wonderfully wise to inquire by what Authority we presume to obey God to amend our ways to throw off Errours to follow Truth Let him be assured that we shall not pretend to have derived Authority from Rome neither in her corruption nor in her purity to doe this And our Authour in the next Paragraph owns that we need not in case the one be an Errour and the other be a Truth But he adds we are now seeking for that Authority which shall declare this Truth and set forth this Errour Now this is honestly said that he is seeking for that Authority I am sure he has made no discovery of it as yet He undertook pag. 21 22. to shew that and the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and has talkt out eight Pages and has not given us the least Argument for either of them now he says he is seeking for it and he may seek all his days at this rate for he seeks just as one did for the Hare in the top of the Steeple If there were any such Authority and Infallibility as he pretends it must be as apparent and as visible as the Church it self there would need no long seeking for it He must be blind or fool or mad that did not see it or know it I rather think that our Authour is seeking for Arguments to prove it and in this he is unhappy for he finds none But Pag. 28 29 30. he endeavours for one and that is to this purpose that there are Errours and Heresies in the World He tells us of Socinians of Luther and Calvin and Beza and I know not how many more of late days And from thence P. 30. p. 30. he talks in these words Fathers if these instances be not sufficient to require a Supreme Judge to determine the right Faith and silence the wrong then and then and I know not what but at last then pray excuse me if my reason and piety and the reverent notion which I have of a Just God and a mercifull Saviour totally force my Judgment and Conscience to dissent from you in this particular Now this is no Argument that there is such an Authority in the Church either Eastern or Western Roman or Graecian but a wheedling Discourse to persuade weak Persons that there may be such an one because in our Authour's Opinion it would be fit or requisite or proper for God Almighty in this method to direct the interests of his Church And to bring People on to this belief here is an audacious and presumptuous intimation that God would neither be wise nor good in case he did it not Here we beg our Authour's pardon we will believe God to be wise and good and mercifull whether he sets up such an Authority or no He knows what is fit and requisite and proper much better than such pert confident men He permits sins great and most enormous in the World though he could as easily give a stop to them as to Errours and Heresies There are Errours amongst Protestants and there are Errours amongst Romanists and if the Temporal Authority did not doe more than the Spiritual they themselves would complain of many more than now they do There are Errours and Heresies of late days and there were so from the first beginnings of Christianity in all times and places St. Paul tells of some in his days and Ignatius of others and Irenaeus of others and those most gross and vile and filthy Now if God had made provision of the pretended Authority and Infallibility to give stop to them it were most improbable if not impossible that ever these should have been Their existence therefore is plain argument and demonstration that there are no such powerfull means set up and appoionted by God to prevent hinder stop or silence them He has done enough against them as he has done against all sins it is presumption not to acquiesce in his Wisedom or to challenge that he must doe that which we cannot prove that he has done But our Authour leaves this and says he must proceed P. 30. p. 30. and that he does yet not to evidence the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church by better Arguments but to plead the interest of it in general from the performances of Augustine the Monk This is an Argument that pleases him he had been nibling at it three times before p. 18. p. 21. p. 27. There he intimates that this Augustine first taught the English Nation Christianity and that he taught them those very Doctrines as Christian Truths which we at this day oppose He says p. 21. That all the Controverted Points particularly and by name were declared by some of your selves to have been brought into England by Augustine the Monk above a thousand years since I suppose he means that his Friend the famous Napper or some of his Apocalyptical Acquaintance had declared this But after all he comes to treat more closely upon this Argument pag. 30 31 32. I shall consider what he says and then give a full accompt of the whole matter But before I begin I must complain for it is a grief that I have an Adversary so weak and yet so consident For those two learned Men their Mr. Cressey and our Reverend Dean of St. Paul's have accurately considered and weighed all the particulars of this Dispute and made the best advantages of it But the man knows nothing of their Writings Pope Gregory he names and Bede he names but gives us not any ground to think that ever he has read over Bede's History or consulted Pope Gregory's Epistles and both these ought to have been well studied by a Writer upon this Subject if he had due regard for Truth or his own Credit 1. First he says If you tell me a Story of the Abbat of Bangor I answer that the particular ground of it is evidently false and forged Now Bede is the man that tells us a Story of the Abbat of Bangor and the numbers of Monks in that Abbey Bede l. 2. c. 2. And the Story as it lies in Bede gives all the advantage to Protestants that they can wish lib. 2. cap. 2. And if there be something added to that Story from an Ancient Record found and published by Sir Henry Spelman the skill and integrity of that excellent Person would persuade an indifferent man not presently to damn it for a forgery for he was not likely either to contrive one or to be cheated with one But be this what it will the Story that Bede gives is sufficient for our uses and that I hope he will not say is false or forged 2. P. 30. He says that the Britains received the Christian Faith in the Apostles days but being persecuted by Romans Picts and Saxons Religion fled to the Mountains
Errour about keeping of Easter The Britains observed the Rule which they had received with their Christianity and they received that as our Authour says in the days of the Apostles The Asiaticks received the same Rule and the famous Martyr Polycarp defended it stoutly as an Apostolical Tradition a whole Council under Polycrates in the Year 197. declared it to be the Rule of St. John taught and practised by him Upon this accompt if we suppose it an Errour it can be no great one For there is no Traditional Doctrine either in Rome or any other Church which solely stands upon the credit of Tradition and has no support from Scripture that can be better evidenced to come from an Apostle and with the first Christianity than this Tradition which the Britains Scots Asiaticks Greeks alledged in very early times to have received in one and the same way For if this be so great an Errour though it be so well attested and so strongly urged to be an Apostolical Tradition what security can we have for the truth of any other Tradition whatsoever The great St. Augustine shews us in his Epistle Casulano S. August Ep. 86. that the name of St. Peter can give no more Authority to a Tradition than the name of St. John nor has any Tradition more grounds of credit because it comes to us by the way of Rome than if it came by the way of Ephesus the Eastern Church is as creditable a Conveyancer of Tradition as the Western Therefore if the Britains must be accused of any great errour for following of this Tradition the Roman Church must be highly condemned for requiring the observance of so many things by virtue of Tradition when they have not the least appearance of such Arguments as the Britains had to prove their Traditions Apostolical The Britains kept close to their first Rule never in the least varied from it The Roman Church oft changed and altered and that before this Augustine the Monk's days as the Learned Dean of St. Paul's has accurately shown in his Discourse against Mr. Cressey And when those of the Roman Communion argued against the Asiaticks and Britains they could not disprove the Tradition or shew that this practice was an Innovation but they alledged Reasons and external Arguments to shew the inconveniency of it from the mischiefs that might come by such a compliance with the Jews Thus the Tables were changed Romanists were for Reason against Tradition and so they ever will be when it is for their Interest 2. The second Errour charged upon the Britains is dissent from the Church of Rome in the administring of Baptism Now this I suppose is put in to make weight in the Accusation for though Bede has those words yet he tells not wherein their practice differ'd from the Romans nor yet wherein they were to be blamed and has not one word in all his History besides wherein he blames either the Britains or the Irish whom he calls in the language of those times Scots for any errour in the administration of Baptism He says lib. 2. cap. 4. of the Scots that they had the same ways and methods that the Britains had Bede lib. 2. cap. 4. similem vitam ac professionem egisse and there having been according to Bede several Disputes between the Romanists and the Scots in lesser matters had this been their fault this would have been charged too upon them Our Authour adds P. 31. Although in some other matters they differ'd from the Church of Rome yet Augustine promised to tolerate them provided they would rectify these which the British Bishops consented to This is the worst Passage in all our Authour's Book for it is manifestly false point-blank against Bede's words who expresly says that they would not consent and then in the manner of citing the Passage there is that shuffling and juggle that plainly shews he designed falshood Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. The words in Bede are these Si in tribus his mihi obtemperare vultis ut Pascha suo tempore celebretis ut ministerium Baptizandi quo Deo renascimur juxta morem Romanae sanctae Ecclesiae Apostolicae Ecclesiae compleatis ut genti Anglorum una nobiscum praedicetis verbum Domini caetera quae agitis quamvis moribus nostris contraria aequanimiter cuncta tolerabimus At illi nihil horum se facturos neque illum pro Archiepiscopo habituros esse respondebant There cannot be a more plain denial than this How then comes our Authour to say that they consented The truth is he seems resolved to say it true or false and therefore he leaves the last words wherein Bede declares the Britains dissent Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. P. 31. and adds to them these Cum. Britones confitentur intellexisse se veram esse viam justitiae quam praedicaret Augustinus Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. And from thence would infer that the Britains did consent But these words belong to another matter they are part of Bede's Narration of the first meeting that Augustine had with the Britains then it seems Augustine did a Miracle and the Britains had a great sense of it and did confess that Augustine's way was the right way But yet for all this stound and hasty words they immediately recollected themselves and in the next moment tell him as Bede says Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. Non se posse absque suorum consensu ac licentiâ priscis abdicare moribus That without the leave and consent of their own Clergy and Laity or a Synod which was upon it forthwith called they could not depart from their ancient Customs Thus we see that the Britains who confessed as our Authour says yet would not consent till they had the Opinion and Judgment of a Synod and when Augustine proposed his Matters to the Synod they flatly denied either to receive his Doctrine or himself as their Archbishop So then it is plainly false that the Britains consented But yet our Authour puts down that Confession first in English and after another quite different discourse he puts it down in Latine and that on purpose to prove a consent Now this must be designed to cheat and couzen some I hope he meant it for the Roman Catholicks I do not fear that any Protestant can be gulled by such a sleight But from this Discourse our Authour observes that it may be inferred that Augustine and the Britains agreed in Substantials this may be allowed if he means onely those things which are necessarily to be held by every one that is a Member of the true Catholick Apostolick Church They agreed in the same Saviour in the same Scriptures in the same Creeds and in all the Doctrine that was maintained and declared in the first four General Councils But this will not suffice for our Authour imagines that they agreed in all the Doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day indeavours to impose upon others In order to this
pag. 32. he discourses After all this can we believe that the Britains who earnestly contradicted Augustine in these smaller matters and were so tenacious of their own Customs would have silently received so many and incomparably greater points of Faith had they in like manner disagreed from him therein credat Judaeus Apella Here our Authour is much to be blamed because he will not permit us to give him civil Language he does not onely betray his ignorance but what is much worse in this Paragraph he challenges to have skill in Bede and Bede is the man that contradicts him in every thing he says For Bede tells us that the Britains neither received greater points of Faith nor lesser from Augustine the Monk nor his Companions But for more than one hundred years after Augustine's arrival they esteemed all his teachings to be vain and trifling and little better than Paganism He concluded his History in the Year 725. as appears lib. 5. cap. 24. and he himself tells us in his Epitome that Augustine came into England in the Year 597. Yet he says Lib. 2. cap. 20. Cum usque hodiè moris sit Britonum Fidem Religionémque Anglorum pro nihilo habere neque in aliquo eis magis communicare quà m Paganis That the Britains according to their usual way had no esteem at all for the Faith and Religion of the English and that they would no more communicate with them than with the Pagans And Bede does not onely say that the Britains had so mean an opinion of the Romans Lib. 2. cap. 4. and their Disciples but likewise that the Scots or Irish had the same For where he gives us part of the Letter that Laurentius Mellitus and Justus sent to the Scots He says that when they had tried the Britains they thought the Scots might be better Cognoscentes Brittones Scottos meliores putavimus but yet they found both alike For Dagamus their Bishop would neither eat at the same Table nor in the same House with them Dagamus Episcopus ad nos veniens non solùm cibum nobiscum sed nec in eodem Hospitio quo vescebamur sumere voluit In the same page he says that Laurentius and the rest wrote to the Britains too Sed quantum haec agendo profecerit adhuc praesentia tempora declarant That is that the present opposition which the Britains made against the Romanists in Bede's days sufficiently sheweth that Laurentius his Letter had no effect upon them and that is the same thing which we had before usque hodie that from Augustine the Monk down to Bede's days the Britains had no regard for the Romans teaching of Faith or Religion so far as it differ'd from their own From these two Passages Henry of Huntingdon made the remark which he has lib. 3. Hist Nec Britannos Henr. Huntingd Hist lib. 3. nec Scotos velle communicare cum Anglis eorum Episcopo sancto Augustino magis quam Paganis This is sufficient to shew our Authour's presumption in alledging Bede to patronize his vain Opinations concerning the Britains if we give credit to him the Britains did not receive either so many or so great points of Faith from Augustine the Monk for they received none at all And therefore his Consequence which he draws from thence is like his Premisses good for nought That is this That the Doctrines these two Points excepted their Asiatick Errour and the difference about Baptism which Augustine taught the Saxons had been delivered to the Britains from the Apostles For seeing we have an acknowledged difference in these two Points in Augustin's days and other differences as I shall shew brake out afterwards and we find no manner of agreement between Augustine and the Britains and no communication between his Followers and them for an hundred years after but an extreme aversion and abhorrence of them and their ways he can no more argue for the truth of Augustine's Doctrines from the consent of the Britains than he may for the truth of all the Doctrines which the present Church of Rome teaches from the consent of the present Church of England we oppose them and so did they we and they too reject their Novelties their unjust Usurpations their unreasonable Impositions And though the terms of Communion which they would lay upon us are much harder than those which Augustine offered to the Britains yet we thank God our charity continues towards them we call them Christians and treat them as Christians which the old Britains would not do and with meekness and humility we endeavour to shew them their Errours This is enough to the Case of Augustine and of Bede's Relation of it And enough to the First Part of this Authour July 26. 1687. Sir I am Yours A brief Account of Augustine and the Conversion of the English taken out of Bede 's Ecclesiastical History AVgustine after he had been received gratiously by King Ethelbert knew not what he had to doe He was sent to preach plain Christianity to those that were willing to learn it But he had a mind to doe something else Bede lib. 1. cap. 27. and therefore soon sent to Pope Gregory for his resolution of certain Questions most of which our modern Historians censure as Legal and Levitical and think them all excepting three to be of little use Two of these are remarkable the first concerning his own power which he would have extended not onely over Britain but to France in this latter he was repressed and told that the Pope could not nor ought to grant it because his Predecessours had before setled it on the Bishop of Arles yet over the Bishops of Britain he gives him all the power which he could wish Omnes Episcopos Britanniarum tuae fraternitati committimus Bede lib. 1. cap 27. Resp 9. ut indocti doceantur infirmi persuasione roborentur perversi autoritate corrigantur Now it was unreasonable in Augustine to ask this and injustice in Gregory to grant it For both must needs know that this was an invasion of the Rights of Bishops against the Canons of the Church against the Sixth of the Nicene Council and the Eighth of the Ephesine which says expresly that if the Rites of Churches are taken away and that by any Patriarch whatsoever that Fact should be null and invalid Barnesius Cath-Rom Pacif. p. 60. This Father Barne says gave just cause and reason to the British Bishops to withstand Austin quia videbatur Augustinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agere cum iis cogendo eos ut reciperent eum pro Archiepiscopo mandatis exterorum se subderent Cum antiqui mores Ecclesiae suae postularent ut omnia inter se Synodicè agerent tum pro Episcoporum ordinationibus tum pro aliis negotiis Ecclesiasticis The second considerable Query of Augustine was concerning Rituals Bede lib. 1. cap. 27. Inter. 3. Forms of Worship Missals or Liturgies in this he propos'd how it