intelligence is as good in Heaven as it is upon Earth that you know both who are there and what they do you tell us that the Crown and Conquest which his late Majesty gained by his sufferings was procured by the intercession of his Grand-Mother Queen Mary We should be the apter to beleeve this if you were able to make it appear that all the Saints in Heaven do know all the particular necessities of all their posterity upon earth St. Austin makes the matter much more doubtfull than you that 's the least of his Assertion Aug. de cura pro mortuus c. 15. or rather to be plainly false fatendum est nescire quidem mortuos quid hic agatur But with presumptions you did begin your Dedication and with presumptions you end it In the mean time till you can make that appear we observe that neither Queen Maries constancy in the Roman Catholick Faith No faith sufficient armour against bloody attempts nor Henry the fourths change to the Roman Catholick Faith could save them from a bloudy end Then by what warrant do you impute King Charls his sufferings to his error in Religion Be your own Judge Heu quanta de spe decidimus Alas The Author much faln from his former charity in seeking the â—eunion of Christendome from what hopes are we faln Pardon our error that we have mistaken you so long You have heretofore pretended your self to be a moderate person and one that seriously endevoured the reuniting of Christendom by a fair Accommodation The widest wounds are closed up in time and strange Plants by inoculation are incorporated together and made one And is there no way to close up the wounds of the Church and to unite the disagreeing members of the same mysticall body Why were Caleb and Joshua onely admitted into the Land of promise whilst the carkasses of the rest perished in the Wilderness but onely because they had been Peace-makers in a time of Schism Well fare our learned and ingenuous Country-man S. Clara who is altogether as perspicacious as your self but much more charitable You tell us to our grief P. 204. that there is no accommodation to be expected that Cardinall Richelieu was too good a Christian and too good a Catholique to have any such thought that the one Religion is true the other false and that there is no society between light and darkness This is plain dealing to tell us what we must trust to No Peace is to be expected from you unless we will come unto you upon our knees with the words of the Prodigall Child in our mouthes Father forgive us we have sinned against Heaven and against thee Is not this rare Courtesie If we will submit to your will in all things you will have no longer difference with us So we might come to shake a worse Church by the hand than that which we were separated from The way to a generall Accomodation If you could be contented to wave your last four hundred years determinations or if you liked them for your selves yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches If you could rest satisfied with your old Patriarchal power and your Principium unitatis or Primacy of Order much good might be expected from free Councills and Conferences from moderate persons And we might yet live in Hope to see an Union if not in all Opinions yet in charity and all necessary points of saving truth between all Christians to see the Eastern and Western Churches joyn hand in hand and sing Ecce quà m bonum quam jucundum est habitare fratres in unum Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell toge-in unity But whilst you impose upon us daily new Articles of faith and urge rigidly what you have unadvisedly determined we dare not Sacrifice Truth to Peace nor be separated from the Gospel to be joyned to the Roman Church Yet in the point of our separation and in all things which concern either doctrine or discipline we profess all due obedience and submission to the judgement and definitions of the truly Catholique Church Lamenting with all our hearts the ptesent condition of Christendome which renders an Oecumenicall Councill if not impossible mens judgements may be had where their persons cannot yet very difficult wishing one as generall as might be and untill God send such an Opportunity endevouring to conform our selves in all things both in Credendis Agendis to whatsoever is uniform in the belief or practise in the doctrine or discipline of the Universall Church And lastly holding an Actuall Communion with all the divided parts of the Christian world in most things in voto according to our desires in all things FINIS
new Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Something 's are de Symbolo What are additions to the Creed and what are only explications somethings are contra symbolum and somethings are only praeter symbolum Something 's are conteined in the Creed either expresly or virtually either in the Letter or in the sense and may be deduced by evident consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two natures the procession of the Holy Ghost The addition of these was properly no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Oecumenicall Councill Aq. 2. 2. q. 1. Art 10. can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly somethings are contra symbolum contrary to the symbolicall Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not only unlawfull but hereticall also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not of this nature I will not now dispute Thirdly somethings are neither of the Faith nor against the Faith but only besides the Faith That is opinions or truths of an inferior nature which are not so necessary to be actually known for though all revealed truths be a like necessary to be believed when they are known yet all revealed truths are not a like necessary to be known It is not denyed but that Generall or Provinciall Councils may make constitutions concerning these for unity and uniformity and oblige all such as are subject to their jurisdiction to receive them either actively or passively without contumacy or opposition But to make these or any of these a part of the Creed and to oblige all Christians under pain of damnation to know and believe them is really to adde to the Creed and to change the Symbolicall Apostolicall Faith to which none can adde from which none can take away and comes within the compass of St. Pauls curse Gal. 1.8 If we or an Angell from Heaven shall Preach unto you any other Gospell or Faith than that which we have Preached let him be accursed Such are your Universality of the Roman Church by the Institution of Christ to make her the Mother of her Grand-Mother the Church of Jerusalem and the mistress of her many elder Sisters Your Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences and the Worship of Images and all other novelties defined in the Councill of Trent all which are comprehended in your New Roman Creed and obtruded by you upon all the world to be believed under pain of damnation He that can extract all these out of the old Apostolick Creed must needs be an excellent Chymist and may safely undercake to draw water out of a Pumice That afflictions come not by chance P. 4. Crosses are not alwaies punishments but sometimes corrections or tryals that prosperity is no evidence of Gods favour or adversity of his hatred that crosses imposed by God upon his servants look more forwards towards their amendment than backwards to their demerits and proceed not from a Judge revenging but from a Father correcting or which you have omitted from a Lord Paramount proving and magnifying before the world his own graces in his Servants for his glory and their Advantage are undeniable Truths which we readily admit As likewise that the dim eye of man cannot penetrate into the secret dispensations of Gods temporall judgements and mercies in this life so as to say this man is punished that other chastised this third is only proved But you forget all this soon after Which the Author presently forgets when you take upon you to search into yea more to determine the grounds and reasons why the hand of God P. 8. aswell as the Parliament hath been so heavy upon the Head of his late Majesty and his royall Son P. 14. Namely on Gods part because he called himself the head of the Church God purposing by his punishment to teach all other Princes that are in the Schism with what severity he can vindicate his glory in the injury done unto the Unity and Authority of his Church P. 9. And on the Parliaments part because he would not consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy and suppression of the Liturgy and Ceremonies established in the Church of England First what warrant have you to enquire into the Actions of that blessed Saint and Martyr which of them should be the causes of his sufferings Not remembring that the Disciples received a check from their Master upon the like presumption Joh. 9.2 Who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind Jesus answered neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him Better grounds of his Majesties sufferings than those of the Author The Heroicall Virtues the flaming Charity the admirable Patience the rare Humility the exemplary Chastity the constant and frequent Devotions and the invincible Courage of that happy Prince not daunted with the ugly face of a most horrid death have rendred him the glory of his Country the Honour of that Church whereof he was the chiefest member the admiration of Christendome and a pattern for all Princes of what Communion soever to imitate untill the end of the world His Suffrings were Palms his Prison a Paradise and his death-day the birth-day of his happiness whom his Enemies advantaged more by their cruelty than they could have done by their courtesie They deprived him of a corruptible Crown and invested him with a Crown of glory They snatched him from the sweet society of his dearest Spouse and from most hopefull Olive branches Psa 128.3 to place him in the bosoms of the holy Angels This alone is ground enough for his suffrings to manifest unto the world those transcendent and unparallel'd graces wherewith God had enriched him to which his suffrings gave the greatest lustre as the stars shine brightest in a dark night The Authors rash censure upon the Archbishop of Cant. The like liberty you assume towards the other most glorious Martyr the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a man of profound learning and exemplary life of clean hands of a most sincere heart a patron of all good learning a Professor of antient truth a great friend indeed and earnest pursuer of Order Unity and uniformity in Religion but most free from all sinister ends either a varitious or ambitious wherewith you do uncharitably charge him as if he sought onely his own Grandeur to make himself the head of a Schismaticall body In brief you therefore censure him because you did not know him I wish all your great Ecclesiastiques had his Innocency and fervent zeal for Gods Church and the peace thereof to plead for them at the day of Judgement By applying these particular Afflictions according to your own ungrounded Fancy what a wide gap have
Purgatory by your learning are past the fear of Hell Nor can this petition be any ways so wrested as to become appliable to the hour of death This prayer is not for the man but for the soul separated nor for the soul of a sick man or a dying man but for the souls of men actually deceased Certainly this prayer must have reference either to the sleeping of the souls or to the pains of Hell To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation Neither are you able to produce any one prayer publike or private Neither any one indulgence to that purpose for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory in all the Primitive times or out of your own antient Missals or records Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us as Articles of Faith which the greatest part of the Catholick Church never received untill this day Moreover though the sins of the faithfull be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death yet the publike promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come Though their souls be alwaies in an estate of blessedness yet they want the consummation of this blessedness extensively at least untill the body be reunited unto the soul and as it is piously and probably believed intensively also that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God as it shall have hereafter Then what forbids Christians to pray for this publick acquittall for this Consummation of blessedness So we do pray as often as we say thy kingdom come or come Lord Jesus come quickly Our Church is yet plainer that we with this our Brother and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name may have our perfect Consummation of blessedness in thy eternall kingdom This is far enough from your more gainfull prayers for the dead to deliver them out of Purgatory The Authority of the Pope Lastly concerning the Authority of the Pope It is he himself that hath renounced his lawfull Patriarchall Authority And if we should offer it him at this day he would disdain it We have only freed our selves from his tyrannicall usurped Authority But upon what termes upon what grounds how far and with what intention we have separated our selves or rather have suffered our selves to be separated from the Church of Rome you may find if you please in the Treatise of Schism I cannot choose but wonder to see you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case P 27. who separated himself from you as well as we in the dayes of a much better Bishop than we and upon much weaker grounds than we and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils He liked not the swelling title of Bishop of Bishops nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrifie an other into obedience No more do we He gave a primacy or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter as principiâ—m unitatis so do we But he beleeved that every Bishop had an equall share of Episcopall power so do we He provided a part as he thought fit in a Provinciall Councill for his own safety and the safety of his flock so did we He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Collegue and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a letter from such as had been censured by the African Bishops In St. Cyprians sense you are the beam that have separated your selves from the body of the Sun you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain It is you principally you that have divided the unity of the Church You collect as a Corollary from our supposed principall of the right and sufficiency of private judgement Whether humane Laws bynd the Conscience inlightned by the Spirit that no humane Authority can bind the conscience of an other or prescribe any thing unto it I have formerly shewed you your gross mistake in the premises Now if you please hear our sense of the Conclusion Humane Laws cannot be properly said to bind the Conscience by the sole authority of the Law-giver But partly by the equity of the Law every one being obliged to advance that which conduceth to a publick good thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self And especially by divine Authority which commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake not prudentially only The question is soon decided just Laws of lawfull Superiors either Civill or Ecclesiasticall have authority to bind the conscience in themselves but not from themselves How shall we beleeve that it is not you but God that represents these things to his Majesty P. 34. 69. The Author a little Enthusiasticall that addresseth them to him by your mouth that calleth him that stretcheth out his hand to him that hath set these things before his eyes in Characters not to be defaced What That his Majesty should turn Roman Catholick Are they like Belshazars Characters and are you the only Daniel that can read them we do not see a Cloven tongue upon your head nor a Dove seeming to whisper in your ear Be not too confident left some take it to be a little taint of Anabaptism perhaps you have had as strange phantasies as this heretofore whilst you were of a contrary party Be it what it will be you cannot offer it to his Majesty with more confidence or pretend more intimacy with God or to be more familiarly acquainted with his Cabinet Counsail than a Scotch Presbyter And yet your self would not value all his confidence at a Button Wise men are not easily gained by empty shews or pretenses that signifie nothing but the pretenders vanity nor by enthusiasticall interpretation of occurrences It is onely the weight of reason that depresseth the scale of their judgement and makes them to yield and submit unto it Howsoever it be God or you that represent these things to his Majesty you tell us that the end is to reduce him from those errors which he sucked in with his milk which in the dayes of peace and abundance it had been difficult for him to discover But now his eyes and his ears do see and hear those truths which make it evident to him that God hath condemned them to reduce him to the Communion of the Church wherein you promise him all manner of blessings Who told you of his Majesties new Illumination or what have you seen to beleeve any such thing when you dare avouch such gross untruths of himself to himself how should he credit your private presumptions which you tell him as a new Mercury dropped down from Heaven The Romanists require submission to their Church as necessary to salvation You tell us that it is necessary for every one to adhere to the true Church which is the keeper of saving truth That is true but nothing to his Majesty who hath more right already in the
Catholick Church than your self You tell us moreover that this Church is the Roman Church That is not true but suppose it were most true as it is most false what should a man be better or nearer to the knowledge of the truth and consequently to his salvation for his submission to the Roman Church Yet cannot agree among themselves what this Roman Church is As long as you cannot agree among your selves either what this Roman Church is or what your infallible Judge is One saith it is the Pope alone Another saith no but the Pope with his Conclave of Cardinals A third will goe no less than the Pope and a Provinciall Councill A fourth will not be contented without the Pope and a generall Councill A fifth is for a Generall Councill alone either with or without the Pope A sixth party and they are of no small esteem among you here at this present is for the essentiall Church that is the Company of all faithfull people whose reception say they makes the true ratification of the Acts of its representative body It were as good to have no infallible Judge as not to know or agree who it is Be not so centorious in condemning others for not submitting to your Roman Church or infallible Judge nor so positive to make this submission so absolutely necessary to salvation untill you agree better what this Judge or Church is It is five to one against you that you your self miss the right Judge The English Church not perished Whatsoever become of your Church you say Ours is perished by the proper Axioms of our own Reformation and hath no more any subsistence in the world nor pretence to the Privilege of a Church This is hard He perisheth twice that perisheth by his own weapons Even so Josephs Brethren told Joseph himself with Consciences guilty enough One is not Gen. 42.13 This is that which the Court of Rome would be content to purchase at any rate This hath been the end of all then secret Negotiations and Instructions by all means to support the Presbyterian faction in England against Episcopacy Not that they loved them more than us but that they feared us more than them There was an Israelitish Church when Elias did not see it but he must be as blind as Bartimaeus that cannot see the English Church Wheresoever there is a lawfull English Pastor and an English Flock and a subordination of this Flock to that Pastor there is a branch of the true English Protestant Church Do you make no difference between a Church persecuted and a Church extinguished Have patience and expect the Catastrophe It may be all this while the Carpenters Son is making a Coffin for Julian If it please God we may yet see the Church of England which is now frying in the fire come out like Gold out of the Furnace more pure and more full of lustre If not his will be done Just art thou O Lord and righteous are all thy iudgements The Primitive Church was as glorious in the sight of God when they served him in Holes and Corners in Cryptis Sacellis conventiculis ecclesiolis as when his worship was more splendidly performed in Basilicis and Cyriacis in goodly Churches and magnificent Cathedrals Your design stops not at the King of great Britain P. 42. but extends it self to all his subjects yea to all Protestants whatsoever I wonder why you stay there The Authors vain dreams and would not adde all the Eastern Churches and the great Turk himself since you might have done it with one other penfull of Ink and with as much pretence of reason to secure himself from the joynt forces of Christendom thus united by your means A strong phantasie will discover Armies and Navies in the Clouds men and horses and chariots in the fire and hear articulate dictates from the Bels. This is not to write waking but dreaming Yet you make it an easy work to effect which there needs no disputation but onely to behold the Hereticall Genius of our Reformation P. 43. 44. which is sufficiently condemned by it self if men will onely take the pains to compare the fundamentall principles thereof with the Consequences Great Houses and Forts are builded at an easy charge in Paper When you have consulted with your Architects and Engeniers you will find it to be a work of more difficulty And your adversaries resolution may teach you to your cost what it is to promise your self such an easie conquest before the fight and let you see that those golden mountains which you phantasied have no subsistance but in your own brain and send you home to seek out that self-conviction there which you sought to fasten upon others When you are able to prove your Universall Monarchy your new Canon of Faith your new Treasury of the Church your new Roman Purgatory whereof the Pope keeps the Keys your Image worship your common prayers in a tongue unknown your deteining of the Cup from the Laity in the publike administration of the Sacrament and the rest of your new Creed out of the four first Generall Councils or the Universall Tradition of the Church in those dayes either as principles or fundamentall truths which you affirm or so much as ordinary points of faith which we deny we will yield our selves to be guilty both of Contradiction and Schism Untill you are able to make these innovations good it were best for you to be silent and leave your vapouring Desperate undertakings do easily forfeit a mans reputation P. 47. c. His vainer proposition of a conference Now are we come to the most specious piece of your whole Epistle that is the motion or proposition of a Conference by Authority of the King of France at the instance of the King of great Britain before the Arch-Bishop of Paris and his Coadjutor between some of your Roman Catholick Doctors and the Ministers of the reformed Church at Paris whom you do deservedly commend for their sufficiency and zeal You further suppose that the Ministers of the reformed Church will accept of such a disputation or by their Tergiversation betray the weakness of their cause And you conclude confidently beyond supposition that they will be confuted and convicted and that their conversion or conviction will afford sufficient ground to the King of great Britain to embrace the Communion of the Roman Catholick Church And that his conversion will reduce all conscientious Protestants to unity and due obedience I will contract your larger Palm to a Fist If the King of great Britain desire a solemn conference the King of France will enjoyn it If he injoyn it the Ministers will accept if they do accept it they are sure to be convicted if they be convicted the King of great Britain will change his Religion if hee change his Religion all conscientious Protestants will be reduced And all this to be done not by the old way of disputing No take heed
you opened to the liberty and boldness of other men who if they should assume to themselves the same freedom that you have done might say as much with as much reason concerning the pressures of other great Princes abroad that God afflicts them because they will not become Protestants as you can say that God afflicted our late King because he would not turn Papist But if you will not allow his Majesties suffrings to be meerly probatory And if for your satisfaction there must be a weight of sin found out to move the wheel of Gods justice why do you not rather fix upon the body of his Subjects or at least a disloyall part of them Wee confess that the best of us did not deserve such a Jewell Soveraigns may be taken away for the sins of their subjects that God might justly snatch him from us in his wrath for our ingratitude Reason Religion and experience do all teach us that it is usuall with Almighty God to look upon a body politique or Ecclesiastique as one man and to deprive a perverse people of a good and gracious Governour as an expert Physician by opening a vein in one member cures the distempers of another Prov. 28. â— For the Transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof It may be that two or three of our Princes at the most the greater part whereof were Roman Catholiques Not above two or three of our Princes called Heads of the Church did stile themselves or give others leave to stile them the Heads of the Church within their Dominions But no man can be so simple as to conceive that they intended a spirituall headship to infuse the life and motion of grace into the hearts of the faithfull such an head is Christ alone No not yet an Ecclesiasticall headship We did never believe that our Kings in their own persons could exercise any act perteining either to the power of Order or Jurisdiction That is onely politicall heads 1 Sam. 15.17 Nothing can give that to another which it hath not it self They meant onely a Civill or Politicall head as Saul is called the Head of the Tribes of Israel to see that publick peace be preserved to see that all Subjects aswell Ecclesiastiques as others do their duties in their severall places to see that all things be managed for that great and Architectonicall end that is the weal and benefit of the whole body politique both for soul and body If you will not trust me Hear our Church it self When we attribute the Sovereign Government of the Church to the King Art 37. we do not give him any power to administer the Word or Sacraments but onely that Prerogative which God in holy Scripture hath alwayes allowed to Godly Princes to see that all Sates and Orders of their Subiects Ecclesiasticall and Civill do their duties and to punish those who are delinquent with the civill Sword Here is no power ascribed Expos Paraphr art Conf. Ang. Art 37. no punishment inflicted but meerly politicall and this is approved and justificed by S. Clara both by reason and by the example of the Parliament of Paris Yet by vertue of this Politicall power he is the Keeper of both Tables the preserver of true piety towards God as well as right Justice towards men And is obliged to take care of the souls aswell as the skins and carkasses of his subjects The Christian Emperours politicall heads This power though not this name the Christian Emperours of old assumed unto themselves to Convocate Synods to preside in Synods to confirm Synods to establish Ecclesiasticall Laws to receive appeals to nominate Bishops to eject Bishops to suppress Heresies to compose Ecclesiasticall differences in Councils out of Councils by themselves by their delegates All which is as clear in the History of the Church as if it were written with a beam of the Sun This power The old Kings of England politicall heads though not this name the Antient Kings of England ever exercised not onely before the Reformation but before the Norman Conquest as appears by the Acts of their great Councills by their Statutes and Articles of the Clergy by so many Laws of provision against the Bishop of Romes conferring Ecclesiasticall dignities and benefices upon foreiners by so many sharp oppositions against the exactions and usurpations of the Court of Rome by so many Laws concerning the Patronage of Bishopricks and Investitures of Bishops by so many examples of Church-men punished by the Civill Magistrate Of all which Jewels the Roman Court had undoubtedly robbed the Crown if the Peers and Prelates of the Kingdom had not come in to the rescue By the antient Laws of England it is death or at least a forfeiture of all his goods for any man to publish the Popes Bull without the Kings Licence The Popes Legate without the Kings leave could not enter into the Realm If an Ordinary did refuse to accept a resignation See Authorities for all these in Cawdries Case in Judge Crook his Reports the King might supply his defect If any Ecclesiasticall Court did exceed the bounds of its just power either in the nature of the cauie or manner of proceeding the Kings Prohibition had place So in effect the Kings of England were alwaies the Politicall heads of the Church within their own Dominions So the Kings of France are at this day But who told you that ever King Charles did call himself the Head of the Church Neither K. Charles K. James nor Queen Elizabeth stiled heads of the Church thereby to merit such an heavy Judgement He did not nor yet King James his Father nor Queen Elizabeth before them both who took Order in her first Parliament to have it left out of her Title They thought that name did sound ill and that it intrenched too far upon the right of their Saviour Therefore they declined it and were called onely Supreme Governours in all Causes over all persons Ecclesiasticall and Civill which is a Title de jure inseparable from the Crown of all soveraign Princes Where it is wanting de facto if any place be so unhappy to want it the King is but half a King and the Common-wealth a Serpent with two Heads Thus you see you are doubly and both wayes miserably mistaken First King Charles did never stile himself Head of the Church nor could with patience endure to hear that Title Secondly a Politicall Headship is not injurious to the Unity or Authority of the Church The Kings of Israel and Judah the Christian Emperours the English Kings before the Reformation yea even before the Conquest and other Soveraign Princes of the Roman Communion have owned it signally But it seems you have been told or have read this in the virulent writings of Sanders or Parsons or have heard of a ludicrous scoffing proposition of a Marriage between the two heads of the two Churches Sixtus Quintus and Queen Elizabeth for
the reuniting forsooth of Christendome All the satisfaction I should enjoyn you is to perswade the Bishop of Rome if Gregory the Great were living The Authors satisfaction to perswade the Pope to leave that vain Title you could not fail of speeding to imitate the piety and humility of our Princes that is to content himself with his Patriarchicall dignity and primacy of Order Principium unitatis and to quit that much more presumptuous and if a Popes word may pass for current Antichristian terme of the Head of the Catholick Church If the Pope be the Head of the Catholique Church then the Catholique Church is the Popes body which would be but an harsh expression to Christian ears then the Catholick Church should have no Head when there is no Pope two or three Heads when there are two or three Popes an unsound Head when there is an hereticall Pope a broken Head when the Pope is censured or deposed and no Head when the See is vacant If the Church must have one Universall visible Ecclesiasticall Head a generall Councill may best pretend to that Title Neither are you more successfull in your other Reason Hatred of Episcopacy or the true cause why the Parliament persecuted the King why the Parliament persecuted the King Because he mainteined Episcopacy both out of Conscience and Interest which they sought to abolish For though it be easily admitted that some seditious and heterodox persons had an evill eye both against Monarchy and Episcopacy from the very beginning of these troubles either out of fiery zeal or vain affectation of Novelty like those who having the green-sickness prefer chalk and meal in a corner before wholsome meat at their Fathers table or out of a greedy and covetous desire of gathering some sticks for themselves upon the fall of those great Okes yet certainly they who were the contrivers and principall actors in this business did more malign Episcopacy for Monarchy's sake then Monarchie for Episcopacies What end had the Nuncio's faction in Ireland against Episcopacy whose mutinous courses apparantly lost that Kingdom When the Kings consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland was extorted from him by the Presbyterian faction which probably the prime authors do rue sufficiently by this time were those Presbyterian Scots any thing more favourable to Monarchy To come to England the chief Scene of this bloody Tragedy If that party in Parliament had at first proposed any such thing as the Abolition either of Monarchy or Episcopacy undoubtedly they had ruined their whole design untill daily tumults and uncontrollable uprores had chased away the greater and sounder part of both Houses Their first Protestation was solemnly made to God both for King and Church as they were by Law established The true causes of the troubles in Englâ—â—d Would you know then what it was that Conjur'd up the storm among us It was some feigned jealousies and fears which the first broachers themselves knew well enough to be fables dispersed cunningly among the people That the King purposed to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome and to reduce the free English Subject to a condition of absolute slavery under an Arbitrary Government For which massy weight of malitious untruth they had no supporters but a few Bull-rushes Secondly that he meant to apostate from the Protestant Religion to Popery and to that end had raised the Irish Rebellion by secret encouragements and Commissions For which monstrous calumny they had no other foundation except the solemn religious Order of divine Service in his own Chappell and Cathedral Churches then some unseasonable disputes about an Altar or a Table and the permission of the Popes Agent to make a short stay in England more for reasons of State than of Religion And some sensless fictions of some Irish Rebels who having a Patent under the great Seal of Ireland for their Lands to colour their barbarous murthers shewed it to the poor simple people as a Commission from the King to levy forces And lastly some impious pious frauds of some of your own partie whose private whispers and printed insinuations did give hopes that the Church of England was comming about to shake hands with the Roman in the points controverted Which was meerly devised to gull some silly creatures whom they found apt to be catched with chaff for which they had no more pretext of truth than you have for your groundless intimations in this unwelcome dedication These suspitions being compounded with Covetousness Ambition Envy Emulation desire of Revenge and discontent were the sourse of all our Calamities Thus much you your self confess in effect that this supposition that the King and Bishops had an intention to re-establish the Roman Catholique Religion was the venom which the Puritan faction infused into the hearts of the people P. 11. to fill them with hatred against a King worthy of love And the Parliament judged it a favourable occasion for their design to advance themselves to Soveraign Authority Be Judge your self how much they are accessary to our sufferings who either were or are the Authors or fomenters of these damnable slanders There was yet one cause more of this cruell persecution which I cannot conceal from you because it concerns some of your old acquaintance There was a Bishop in the world losers must have leave to talk whose privie Purse and subtill Counsells did help to kindle that unnaturall war in his Majesties three Kingdomes Our Cardinall Wolsey complained before his death That he had served his King better than his God But certainly this practise in your friend was neither Good service to his God to be the author of the effusion of so much innocent blood nor yet to his King to let the world see such a dangerous president It is high time for a man to look to himself when his next neighbours house is all on a flame As hitherto I have followed your steps though not altogether in your own Method or rather your own confusion So I shall observe the same course for the future Your discourse is so full of Meanders and windings turnings and returnings you congregate Heterogenious matter and segregate that which is homogeneous as if you had made your Dedication by starts and snatches and never digested your whole discourse On the contrary where I meet with any thing it shall be my desire to dispatch it out of my hands with whatsoever perteins unto it once for all I hope you expect not that I should amuse my self at your Rhetoricall flowers and elegant expressions they agree well enough with the work you were about The Pipe playes sweetly whilst the Fowler is catching his prey Trappings are not to be condemned if the things themselves are good and usefull but I prefer one Pomegranate Tree loaden with good fruit before a whole row of Cypresses that serve onely for shew Be sure of this that where any thing in your Epistle reflects upon the Church
do suspect jugling No man proclameth in the Market that he hath rotten wares to sell And therefore we must be carefull notwithstanding your great promises to keep well Epicharmus his Jewell Remember to distrust By your permission your glistering demonstration is a very counterfeit not so valuable as a Bristol Diamant when it comes to be examined by the wheel Sometimes nothing is more necessary than Reformation Reformation is sometimes necessary Never was house so wel builded that now and then needed not reparation Never Garden so well planted but must sometimes be weeded Never any order so well instituted but in long tract of time there will be a bending and declining from its Primitive perfection and a necessity of reducing it to its first principles Are your Houses of Religion which are Reformed therefore the less Religious Why then did all the Princes and Commonwealths in Europe Yea the Fathers themselves in the Councill of Trent cry out so often so earnestly for a Reformation yet were forced to content themselves with a vain shadow for the substance as Ixion embraced a Cloud for Juno or Children are often stilled with an empty bottle Reformation not agreeable to all person especially the Court of Rome But Reformation is not agreeable to all persons Judas loved not an Audit because he kept the Bag. Dull Lethargick people had rather sleep to death than be awaked to and mad phrenetick Bigots are apt to beat the Chirurgion that would bind up their wounds but none are so averse from Reformation as the Court of Rome where the very name is more formidable than Hannibal at the Gates yea than all the five terrible things No mervail they are afraid to have their Oranges squeesed to their hands if they were infallible as they pretend there was no need of a Reformation we wish they were but we see they are not On the other side There is danger in Reformation it cannot be denyed that Reformation when it is unseasonable or inordinate or excessive may do more hurt than good when Reformers want just Authority or due information or have sinister ends or where the remedy may be of worse consequence than the abuse or where men run out of one extreme into another therefore it is a rule in prudence Not to remove an ill custom when it is well setled Unless it bring great prejudices and then it is better to give one account why we have taken it away than to be alwaies making excuses why we do it not Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion and lessen the credit of antient truths Break Ice in one place and it will crack in more Crooked sticks by bending streight are sometimes broken into two There is a right mean between these extremes The right rule of Reformation if men could light on it that is neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers out of a doating affection to the body that is neither to destroy antient Institutions out of a zealous hatred to some new abusers nor yet to do at so upon antient Institutions as for their sakes to cherish new abuses Our Reformation is just Our Reformation not the ruin of Faith Church or Common-wealth as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth as the building of Tenderden Steeple was the cause of Goodwins Sands or the ruin of the Country thereabouts because they happened both much about the same time Careat successibus opto May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden ruins the good Herbs It hath ruined the Church just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthfull purgation It hath ruined the Common-wealth just as the pruning of the Vine ruins the Elm. No no Sir Our sufferings for the Faith for the Church for the Monarchy do proclame us Innocent to all the world of the ruin either of Faith or Church or Monarchy And in this capacity we choose rather to sterve Innocents than to swim in plenty as Nocents But this is but one of your doubles to keep us from the right forme It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith It is your Papall Court that hath ruined the Church It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporall persons in order unto spirituall ends of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Alleageance of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction of the lawfulness of murthering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes of aequivocation and the like that first infected the world to the danger of Civill Government Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church at any time much less at this time when they are much faln from their former credit neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions destructive to all civill societies have been transplanted by our Sectaries and taken too deep root in our quarters but never by our fault If God should grant us the benefit of an Oecumenicall or Occidentall Councill it would become both you and us in the first place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch You say our Calvinistical Reformation so you are pleased to call it as you would have it for the moderate and orderly Reformation of England was the terror and eye-sore of Rome is founded upon two maxims Our first supposed Maxim The onâ—â—hat the Church was faln to ruin and desolation and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny The Catholick Church cannot come to ruin or be be guilty of Idolatry or Tyranny This is neither our foundation nor our superstruction neither our maxim nor our Opinion It is so far from it that we hold and teach the direct contrary First that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universall Church that though the rain descend and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon it yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation because it is builded upon a Rock Secondly we beleeve that the Catholick Church is the faithfull Spouse of Christ and cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is spirituall Adultery Thirdly we never said we never thought that the Oecumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny It is principled to suffer wrong to do none and by suffering to Conquer Chrysost as a flock of unarmed Sheep in the midst of a company of ravenous Wolves A new and unheard of kind of warfare as if one should throw an handfull of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms of your language Catholick and Roman not Convertibles in which by the Church you alwaies understand the Roman Church making Roman and Catholick to be convertibles As if Christ could not have
of obedience upon those who are under their charge If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law they are not accomptable to their Inferiours but to him or them that have the Soveraign power of Legislative Judicature Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere To apply this to the case in Question concerning the exposition of the holy Scripture Every Christian keeping himself within the bounds of due obedience and submission to his lawfull Superiours hath a Judgement of Discretion Prove all things 1 Thes 5.21 hold fast that which is good He may apply the Rule of holy Scripture for his own private Instruction comfort edification and direction and for the framing of his life and belief accordingly The Pastors of the Church who are placed over Gods people as watchmen and guides have more than this a judgement of Direction to expound and interpret the holy Scriptures to others out of them to instruct the ignorant to reduce them who wander out of the right way to confute errors to foretell dangers and to draw sinners to repentance The chief Pastors to whose care the Regiment of the Church is committed in a more speciall manner have yet an higher degree of judgement a Judgement of Jurisdiction to prescribe to enjoyn to constitute to reform to censure to condemn to bind to loose judicially authoritatively in their respective charges If their Key shall erre either their Key of Knowledge or their Key of Jurisdiction they are accomptable to their respective Superiours and in the last place to a generall Councill which under Christ upon Earth is the highest Judge of Controversies Thus we have seen what is the Rule of Faith and by whom and how far respectively this rule is to be applied Thirdly The manner of expounding Scripture for the manner of expounding holy Scriptures for there may be a privacy in this also and more dangerous than the privacy of the person many things are necessary to the right interpretation of the Law to understand the reason of it the precedents the terms the forms the Reports and an ability to compare Law with Law He that wants all these Qualifications altogether is no interpreter of Law He that wants but some of them or wants the perfection of them by how much the greater is his defect by so much the less valuable is his exposition And if he shall out of private fancy or blind presumption arrogate to himself without these requisite means or above his capacity and proportion of Knowledge a power of expounding Law he is a mad-man So many things are required to render a man capable to expound holy Scriptures some more necessarily some less some absolutely some respectively As first to know the right Analogy of Faith to which all interpretations of Scripture must be of necessity conformed Secondly to know the practise and tradition of the Church and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages which gives a great light to the finding out of the right sense Thirdly to be able to compare Texts with Texts Antecedents with Consequents without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the holy Ghost in the obscurer passages And lastly it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written He that wants all these requisites and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture is a doting Enthusiast fitter to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means and above the talent which God hath given him as he that hath a little Language yet wants Logick or having both Language and Logick knows not or regards not either the Judgement of former expositors or the practise and tradition of the purest primitive ages or the Symbolicall faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely work-man to build a Temple to the Lord but ruine and destruction to himself and his seduced followers A new Physician we say requires a new Church-yard But such bold ignorant Empericks in Theology are ten times more dangerous to the Soul than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the body This hath alwayes been the doctrine This is conformable to the doctrine and practise of our Church and the practice of our English Church First it is so far from admitting laymen to be directive Interpreters of holy Scripture that it allows not this Liberty to Clergy-men so much as to gloss upon the Text Can. 1603. Can. 49. untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion only it gives it not to private persons above their Talents See the Preface to the Bishops Bible or beyond their last It disallows all phantasticall and Enthusiasticall presumption of incompetent and unqualified expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive interpreter of Scriptures howsoever otherwise qualified Cant. â—4 unless he be able to give a good accompt of his faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his expositions according to the Analogy thereof Cant. 1571. tit Concionatores It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholique Fathers and old Bishops of the Primitive Church have not collected out of the Scriptures It ascribes a Judgement of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops in all manner of Ecclesiasticall duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers Can. 1631. Can. 53. about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church Art 20. Can. 1603. Can. 139. as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawfull Synod as the representative Church Now Sir be your own Judge how infinitely you have wronged us and your self more suggesting that temerariously and without the Sphere of your knowledge to his Majesty for the principall ground of our Reformation which our souls abhor Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawfull for private persons or nothing Because we would not have them like Davids Horse and Mule without understanding do we therefore put both Swords in their hands to reform and cut off to plant and to pluck up to alter and abolish at their pleasure We allow them Christian liberty but would not have them Libertines Admit some have abused this just liberty may we therefore take it away from others So we shall leave neither a Sun in Heaven nor any excellent creature upon Earth for all have been abused by some persons in some kinds at some times We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions The English Church an enemy to upstart not
Subjects He was no Changeling indeed neither to the right hand nor to the left Henry the Fourth his Grandfather did turn indeed to the Roman Church Had his change any such Influence upon the Protestant party in France I know no followers such a change would gain him but I foresee clearly how many hearts it would lose him Certainly Sir if you would do a meritorious piece of â—â—…ice to his greatest Adversaries you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly than to see you successfull in this undertaking I have done with your Proposition Hee than compares it and your demonstration together will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight As a motive to his Majesties conversion you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation and desire that it may appear unto the world under his royall name P. 58. His improper choise of a Patron for his Treatise I meddle not with your Treatise some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough But how can his Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his Judgement against his Conscience so contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England not onely since the Reformation but before About the year seven hundred Serm. Saxon in festâ— Paschat The body of Christ wherein he suffered and his Body Consecrated in the Host differ much The body wherein he suffred was born of the Virgin consisting of flesh and bones and humane members his Spirituall body which we call the Host consists of many grains without blood bones or human members wherefore nothing is to be understood there corporally but all spiritually Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Faith nor a point of Faith in those dayes You charge the Protestants in divers places P. 62. That they have neither Church nor Faith but have lost both And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it P. 222. His unskilfulnes or his unfortunateness in his Demonstrations But your demonstration is a meer Paralogism You multiply your terms you confound your terms you change and alter your terms contrary to the rules of right arguing and vainly beat the air concluding nothing which you ought to prove nothing which your Adversary will denie You would prove that Protestants have no Church That you never attempt But you do attempt to prove how pittifully God knows that they are not the onely Church that is the one Holy Catholique Church This they did never affirm they did never think It sufficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church more pure more Orthodox more Catholique than the Roman alwayes professing Christ visibly never lurking invisibly in an other Communion which is another of your mistakes I should advise you to promise us no more evident demonstrations Either your skill or your luck is so extremely bad In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority and Revelation and deposited with the Church All that is true But that which you add that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church By this Church understanding the Church of this Age and which is yet worse the Church of one place and which is worst of all the Bishop of that one Church is most false The great advantage of the Prostant above the Roman Catholique in the choise of his foundation And so is that which you add that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings which makes so many differences among them Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith It cannot be the foundation of Faith Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith both with you and us but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason We have this Advantage of you that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular error that full and free and universall assent which we give to holy Scripture and to all things therein conteined is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error which we hold unwittingly and unwillingly against Scripture But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties whether this man be Pope or not whether this Pope be Judge or not whether this Judge be infallible or not and if infallible wherein and how far the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain The stricter the adherence is to a false uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeeth away our error in superstruction And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths and doubles the guilt of your errors I will by your leave requite your demonstration and turn the mouthes of your own Canons against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholique Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolicall Creed the Apostolicall Succession the Apostolicall Regiment and the Apostolicall Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolicall Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolicall Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolicall Succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars and Substitutes as to their Jurisdiction The Apostolicall Regiment by erecting a visible and Universall Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolicall Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholique Apostolique Church Again That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into Humane infallibility or the Infallibilitie of the present Church without knowing or according what that present Church is whether the Virtuall or the representative or the essentiall Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves it Faith not into didine Revelation and Authority but into the Infallibility of the present Church not knowing or not according what that present Church is whether the Virtual Church that is the Pope or the representative Church that is a generall Councill or the Essentiall Church that is the Church of Believers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a Generall or Provinciall Councill Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope that this infallibility is fixed to this Chair But of all other Judgements this is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papall Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chair hath not been filled by
of England I shall not miss it first or last though it be but a loose unjoynted peece and so perhaps hitherto untouched We are onely accused of Schism Amongst other things which you lay to our charge you glance at the least twelve times at our supposed Schism But from first to last never attempt to prove it as if you took it for granted I have shaped a Coat for a Schismatick and had presented it to you in this answer but considering that the matter is of moment and merits as much to be seriously and solidly weighed as your naked Crimination without all pretext of proof deserves to be sleighted lest it might seem here as an impertinent digression to take up too much place in this short discourse I have added it at the Conclusion of this Answer in a short Tract by it self that you may peruse it if you please Presbyterians and Brownists have been Romes best friends You fall heavily in this Discourse upon the Presbyterians Brownists and Independents if they intend to return you any answer they may send it by a messenger of their own As for my part I am not their Proctor I have received no Fee from them And if I should undertake to plead their Cause upon my own head by our old English Law you might call me to accompt for unlawfull maintenance Onely give me leave as a by-stander to wonder why you are so cholerique against them for certainly they have done you more service in England then ever you could have done for your selves And I wonder no less why you call our Reformation a Calvinisticall Reformation brought into England by Bucer and Peter Martyr a blind Reformation yea the intire ruine of the Faith of the very form of the Church and of the civill Government of the Common-wealth instituted by God P. 16. Though you confess again in our favour that if our first Reformers had been interrogated whether they meant P. 19. P. 14. any such thing they would have purged themselves P. 17. and avouched their Innocence with their hands upon the new Gospell The gifts of Enemies are no gifts If such as these are all your courtesies you may be pleased to take them again Our first Reformers might safely swear upon any Gospell old or new that they meant no such thing And we may as securely swear upon all the books of God old or new that there is no such thing But why our Gospell should be younger or newer than Sixtus Quintus his Gospell or Clemens Octavus his Gospell passeth my understanding and yours also Comparisons are odious therefore I will not say that the true English Protestant standing to his own grounds is the best subject in the world But I do say that he is as good a subject as any in the world and our principles as Innocent and as auxiliary to civill Government as the Maximes of any Church under Heaven And more than yours where the clashing of two Supreme Authorities and the exemption of your numerous Clergy from the Coercive power of the Prince and some other novelties which I forbear to mention do alwayes threaten a storm Tell me Sir if you can what Church in Europe hath declared more fully or more favourably for Monarchy than the poor Church of England L. Cant. 1643. C. 1. That the most high and Sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right being the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Lawes of Nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the old and new Testament Moreover that this power is extended over all their Subjects Ecclesiasticall and Civill That to set up any Independent coactive power above them either Papall or popular either directly or indirectly is to undermine their great royall Office and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Ordinance which God himself hath established That for their subjects to bear Arms against them Offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatsoever is to resist the powers which are ordeined of God The English Reformation not Calvinist cal And why do you call our Reformation Calvinisticall contrary to your own Conscience contrary to your own confession That in our Reformation we reteined the antient Order of Episcopacy P. 9. as Instituted by divine authority and a Liturgy and Ceremonies whereby we preserved the face or Image of the Catholick Church P. 10. And that for this very cause the disciplinarians of Geneva and the Presbyterians did conceive an implacable hatred against the King for the Churches sake and out of their aversion to it Did they hate their own Reformation so implacably If these things be to be reconciled reddat mihi minam Diogenes He that looks more in disputation to the Advantage of his partie than to the truth of his grounds had need of a strong memory We reteined not onely Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies but all things else that were conformable to the discipline and publick service of the primitive Church rightly understood No Sir we cannot pin our faith upon the sleeve of any particular man as one used to say We love no nismes M. Tho. Sq. neither Calvinism nor Lutheranisme nor Jonsenianism but onely one that we derive from Antioch that is Christianism We honour Learning and Piety in our fellow servants but we desire to wear no other badge or Cognizance than that we received from our own Master at our Baptism Bucer was as fit to be Calvins Master as his Scholar So long as Calvin continued with him in Germany he was for Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies and for assurance thereof subscribed the Augustane Confession and his late learned Successor and assertor in Geneva Monsieur Deodate with sundry others of that Communion were not averse from them Or why do you call our Reformation blind It was not blindness but too much affectation of knowledge and too much peeping into controverted and new fangled Questions that hath endamaged our Religion It is you that teach the Colliers Creed not we Howsoever you pretend to prove that our Reformation was the ruine of the Church and Common-wealth wee expect you should endeavour to prove it You cannot so far mistake your self as to conceive your authority to be the same with us that Pythagoras had among his Scholars to have his Dictates received for Oracles without proof what did I say that you pretend to prove it That 's too low an expression you promise us a demonstration of it P. 19. so lively and evident that no reason shall be able to contradict it Are you not afraid that too much expectation should prejudice your discourse by diminishing our applause Quid tanto dignum feret hic promissor hiatu Do you think of nothing now but Triumphs Lively and evident demonstration not to be contradicted by reason is like the Phenix much talked of but seldom seen Most men when they see a man strip up his sleeves and make too large promises of fair dealing