AN Amicable Accommodation OF THE DIFFERENCE Between the Representer AND THE ANSWERER In Return to his Last Reply against The PAPIST Protesting against Protestant Popery Permissu Superiorum LONDON Printed by H. Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1686. AN Amicable Accommodation OF THE DIFFERENCE Between the REPRESENTER And the ANSWERER HERE is a strange Voluminous ado about the Papist Misrepresented and Represented First almost Twenty Sheets by way of Answer to it then Ten in a second Reply and now Fifteen in a Rejoynder And after all this pother and noise the upshot of the Matter is come to this That the Word Misrepresented is an improper Expression That the Character of a Papist Misrepresented cannot be called a Misrepresentation in a strict and proper sense as our Antiprotester has it often in his last Reply where yet he owns the proving this to have been the main drift of his former Ten Sheets and a great part of these last Fifteen Surely he has taken a great deal of pains but to what purpose I expect to hear in other Ten Sheets yet to come for really I do not yet know that I am much concern'd whether it be a Misrepresentation in a strict and proper sense or no. And therefore since he has pitch'd upon so civil a way of confuting my Book I think I may in return to his Civility and without wrong to my Cause grant him the whole of his Pretensions and then sit down and smile with him a while to see how being so near of a mind we have yet been so long clashing Quills as Adversaries I am really for Peace and a good Correspondence and upon a serious Consideration of this last Answer having great reason to think that the most considerable part of the Contention between us has been about a Word and for want of a fair Understanding I 'le endeavour to lay open my Mind farther to him so to remove all Misrepresentation from between us I hope he 'll pardon the Expression tho' it be not in its strict and proper sense and by this means accommodate our Affair without letting it swell farther into a Quarrel of yet greater Volumes And First To take up the Matter from the beginning If he had duely consider'd all I said in the Papist Misrepresented and Represented he might very well have excus'd entring the Field against me For tho' I there complain'd of Papists being Misrepresented to the World that their Faith is expos'd in a Disguise and many things imputed to their Belief and Doctrine which they disown and abominate Yet in all this Complaint I nam'd no body I advanc'd no Accusations against any particular Party And tho' I could have fill'd my Margins with numbers of Authors urging much blacker Calumnies than I there inserted yet still I suppress'd all Names consulting Modesty and in regard of Peace Now what need here of any singling themselves or a Party out to Engage with me I left every body to to their own Conscience and had those who felt themselves touch'd conceal'd the Sting within their own Breast there had been still a Peace betwixt us If a Man wipes the Dirt off his Face that has been thrown at him in the Street I hope he may do it without any affront to the Passers-by His Complaint in general of being abus'd is only a Natural Right those that are innocent need not be much concern'd to clear themselves from the Charge and such as are guilty avoid all Quarrel if they but hold their Tongues The Papist therefore Misrepresented and Represented might very well have pass'd without moving of Choler if those who will have themselves not concern'd at all had not been too much concern'd to wipe off the Imputation This had been a means of preserving a mutual Peace from the beginning But Secondly Tho' contrary to this Method much Dust has been rais'd and not without some Heat in the Quarrel yet I am still persuaded our Differences may be compounded if a fair Condescension can win any thing upon my Adversary and he 'll allow me to purchase his Good-will by almost an entire Submission to the Chief of his Pretensions I 'le beg his leave to state the Occasion of our Debate and the Reader shall soon see how much I can oblige him by my yielding The Occasion of my writing the Papist Misrepresented and Represented was this I found that the People in England had a very false Notion of Popery or of the Faith and Doctrine of Roman Catholicks that there was scarce any one Article of their Creed any one Practice of their Church which was not falsly drawn in the Imagination of the Vulgar either blackned with Calumnies or disfigur'd with prejudic'd Interpretations or malicious Misconstructions that hence arose so great a hatred against all of that Communion that the Comprehensive Precept of Loving ones Neighbour seem'd now to admit with the Zealous of a necessary Exception against all of that Profession and the Design of rooting out Popery a sufficient Dispensation for the violating all other Duties both to God the King and our Neighbour This Uncharitable Temper I could not but look upon as ill becoming a Christian Name and that to endeavour to remedy it would not be only acceptable to Catholicks but even to Protestants too who I presum'd would be as willingly prevented from doing an Injury to their Neighbours as the others would be willing not to be injur'd it being a greater Concern of a Church not to do an Injury than to receive one For the removing therefore this Scandal from Christianity and hindring Men from maligning and railing against their Neighbours for the false Conceits of their own Imaginations by what means soever taken up by them I thought it no ill Expedient to declare sincerely what is really the Faith of a Catholick and to shew more clearly how different it is from what it is vulgarly said to be I drew out two Descriptions or Characters of Popery the one being an Idea of Protestant Popery or as it is generally conceiv'd by Protestants and painted in the Imagination of the Vulgar of that Communion The other being a Draught of the Faith of Roman Catholicks as deliver'd and prescrib'd by their Church The former of these Characters I call'd A Papist Misrepresented and the latter A Papist Represented And I thought these Titles justifiable enough in as much as the one describes a Papist otherwise than he really is disfigur'd with false Colours and artificially turned into a Monster by a deform'd Dress thrown over him by such who through ignorance or malice are willing to render him Ridiculous While the other sets him out divested of this Bug bear Habit and shews him in his own genuine Shape and Complexion This inoffensive proceeding of mine as I thought and meant it pass'd not long without an Adversary who proclaim'd to the World that he had Answered and Confuted the Book But what and
and Cardinals is not enough to set him up for a Representer Besides the Archbishop I produc'd Sutcliff's Survey of Popery in which he had laid to the Papists charge such Tenets as are offensive to every Christian Ear and as much detested by Papists as any other Society whatsoever But I did not it seems set down his Reasons and his Authorities And this discovery puts the Answerer upon an outcry against the Representer's Honesty And yet where the Scandal is I cannot find For I undertook for no more than to shew the Doctrines laid by Mr. Sutcliff at the Papists door and this I did sincerely in his own words and sense and for his Reasons they were no Concern of mine neither will the Answerer after all his noise put his approbation to them as far as I see for having summ'd them up he concludes with this open hint p. 14. If some Protestants have charg'd the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome with such Consequences as they cannot justifie Wiser Protestants disown it He must be a very fooolish Representer therefore who should go about to confute such Reasons which nothing belong to Representing and are such as Wiser Protestants are asham'd of But now we are come to the Point of Honesty I cannot but admire a rare Knack the Answerer has especially in Translating honestly one Instance he gives us in his former Reply and another in this p. 76. where reciting a Prayer out of the Pontifical he has these words in the Latin Vt orantes inclinantesque se propter Deum ante istam Crucem but rendring it into English he leaves out those two little words propter Deum and puts it thus That those who Pray and Bow themselves before this Cross without mentioning for Gods sake or for the honor God as not fit for his purpose When I have learn'd this Artifice of him he may then with reason cry out of curtailing and dishonesty But at present I think he has something to mend at home in this Point And for my part I 'le endeavour not to follow so ill an Example And now at length we are arriv'd to the Question concerning the Bishop of Condom and some Points Treated of by him The Answerer has Debated the Matter in about One hundred Pages and fairly invites the Representer to dispute it out and two powerful Arguments he uses to provoke him to it The first is p. 26 That there is no reason to dispute it at all But the truth is says he I know no reason there is for all this dispute So that the Representer if he will be advis'd must leave off Character-making and dispute over an hundred Pages because there is no reason to dispute The second Reason ib. is because I was not satisfi'd with his bare telling me he did not like my Religion now he will give me some Reasons for 't And this is a Reason like the former For I never was concern'd with his not liking my Religion I never told him I was not satisfi'd with his bare telling me he did not like it that now he should pretend for this Reason to give me some Reasons for it All the business is dispute he 's resolv'd and in it must tho' by head and shoulders the Representing Humour do's not please him and Character-making is an aggrievance 't is too fair a way of dealing for him and lays too open the Mystery of Iniquity and therefore he has no better way to quit himself of this trouble than to draw me into an Ocean of Disputes that so Representing may be at an end Thus he labours to change the Scene and to tempt me out of the way but his weighty Reasons do not work so powerfully as to render me uncapable of resisting And therefore till we have other two Reasons given I 'le be no other than Representer still My business is matter of Fact and not of Right or de jure and since he has bulkt out his Answer with Nine Sheets of the Fifteen fill'd up with an occasional Discourse I 'le take the freedom gravely to turn over those his hundred occasional Pages tho' I fear he 'll take it ill but I cannot help him We Wise Converts do not love to go out of our way but upon very good grounds and therefore if the two Reasons he has given for this at present do not move us 't is because they are too sublime and not suited to our Capacity But however he requires satisfaction as to the Points he has there handled and I shall remit him to such Books in which these Controversies have been discuss'd at large And for my self shall sit down contented with the Title he often allows me of a Representer And as to the Bishop of Condom to whom I appeal'd for the justifying the Character of the Papist Represented he has undertaken his own Vindication and needs not the assistance of another Hand All the Concern I have is to declare that to assent to the Catholick Faith as Expounded by this Prelate is sufficient for any to be receiv'd into the Communion of our Church we require no other Terms And if the Answerer finds different Explications given by Bellarmine and others tho' the Books are approv'd yet there 's no obligation of being of their mind in things that are disputed amongst Divines 'T is in vain therefore to clamour against the Opinions of Bellarmine or Suarez Scotus c. as loose extravagant harsh or unsavoury c. since it suffices for Catholick Communion to subscribe to the Points treated by M. Condom in the sense he has expounded them if they are more soft or sweet than has hitherto be apprehended or deliver'd formerly by others let them but be receiv'd in that soft and sweet manner and no more is requir'd 'T is therefore nothing more than a Cavil to question whether Bellarmine and other eminent approv'd Authors are not as authentic a Rule for the Exposition of the Council of Trent and the Catholick Faith as the Bishop of Condom We have no concern in these Comparisons our whole business is only this Whether the embracing the Catholick Faith as expounded by the Bishop of Condom be sufficient for a Person to be receiv'd into the Communion of our Church And since this is evidently so and that all those that believe thus are actually acknowledg'd Members of this Church upon this Assent what needs the Representer who follows his Explication any farther Apology If any Person therefore may be thus receiv'd a Member of our Church upon the Terms I have propos'd in the Matters there handled I have Represented the Papist aright And amongst all the Arguments that have been publish'd only those have belong'd to me which endeavour to shew the falsity of this 'T is no wonder therefore I have wav'd the Consideration of many things that have been publish'd against me under the Title of an Answer since of the Forty Sheets that have come upon this Errand into the World there has not been three but what have forgot their Business they were sent upon If it be an Omission therefore not to return an Answer to such things as are not spoken to me 't is easily making a List of Omissions But let me see where it has been prov'd that 't is not sufficient for a Catholick to believe as I have propos'd as to those Particulars And if it has had no Answer it shall have one FINIS Pag. 2. 4. pag. 21 pag. 4. pag. 18. p. 2. alib Josh 22. 1 King 1. 13. Pap. not Misrep by Prot. p. 65. Disc against Invocation of Saints in the beginning Papist not Misrep by Prot. Revision revis in vindic of the Bish of Winton p. 23. Ans to Pap. Protest p. 9.
them or no They profess'd a hatred to Image-worship in the beginning for the more plausibly turning the Papists out of doors when they pursu'd them with the Commination in their old Common-Prayer-Books of Cursed be all Worshippers of Images but afterwards succeeding to the Errors of the Papists as well as to their Revenues they no longer dar'd to curse the Worshippers of Images knowing the Curse would light upon their own Heads but instead of that reform'd their Prayers and have it now Cursed are ye Idolaters 4. They worship Saints and Angels For see Beloved besides the building Churches to the Honour of their Names and setting up their Pictures in them which are as great external Acts of Worship and Religion as can be they likewise set Days apart to honour them as God has his Day set apart they command their Vigils to be kept and have Prayers in their Honour not questioning but that they can Pray for as many as they know upon Earth Nay they likewise pray for and depend upon their Assistance Help and Protection but especially of the Angels as you may see in their Common-Prayer Books where on the Day of Michael they beg to be defended by the Angels as if God who is Almighty were not able to defend them that they should thus seek shelter under the Angels Wings Is not this to leave God and his Christ and to make Gods of Creatures Oh! such abomination as this is not to be endured 't is intolerable Beloved For these Churches in their honour Days in their honour Images in their honour and Prayers in their honour is paying to them Divine Honours 't is worshipping them as Gods For mark ye now all Civil Honour is terminated on the visible things of this World and we have no intercourse with the invisible Inhabitants of the other World but what is Religious now if all Worship of invisible Beings is Divine and Religious Worship what abominable Idolatry are our blind Brethren faln into who by this Religious Worship make as many Gods as there are Angels and Saints in Heaven 5. They practice Idolatry again in receiving the Sacrament for though they allow this to be only Bread and Wine yet they pay it Religious Worship and honour it as God by falling down to it on their Knees They may say they do not this to the Bread and Wine But what must we not believe our Senses in so plain a Case Do we not see them do it with our Eyes And let them pretend what they please their Practice is the best explication of their Belief 6. They use a Book of Prayers which is nothing but a ship of the Mass 'T was call'd a Mass-Book when it came first to light and tho' it has since reform'd its Name for the better imposing upon poor Souls yet the Nature of it is still the same The Epistles and Gospels and Collects and Litanies and Hymns are nothing but Terms of Babylon And pray now what are the Vigils Ember-days Rogation-days Ashwednesday Epiphany Sexagesima Quinquagesima Septuagesima is not all this the Language of the Beast Yea Beloved from the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh as their Language is such is their very Heart and Soul they delight in an unknown Tongue and one may as well understand the Mass as this Language of the Common-Prayer Book Then look in the Calendar of the Common-Prayer and there you 'l find the Mass-Saints stand in their Order March shews you Gregory the Pope and Benedict the Monk April has George that kill'd the Dragon the follow Dunstan that catch'd the Devil by the Nose and stickl'd for the Celebacy of the Clergy and Augustin that brought Popery into this Nation and thus their Saints are listed as in the Mass-Book and as the Demy-Gods were in the Calendar of the Heathens Then if you listen to them in this their Devotion you will not think them to be an Assembly of Christians but rather a Confusion of Misbelievers of all sorts of Infidels met in a Club There you 'l hear them with the Persians crying out to the Sun with the Aegyptians to the Whale to all the Fishes and Beasts with the Chaldeans to the Fire with the Syrians to the Birds and with the Papists too to Ananias Azarias and Misael Dead Men Men that cannot hear them and this in all their Churches as if these their Saints were like God himself present in all Places And this Devotion is call'd the Canticle of Benedicite taken out of the Apocrypha which with them you may see passes for very good Scripture So that the whole Common-Prayer Book if not worse is nothing but the Mass-Book in English And all the difference is that the Missal is of an Ancient standing us'd even in Basil and Chrysostom's time But our Common-Prayer Book never knew light till 't was devis'd under Edward VI. And how many Alterations has it had in this time Some made by King Edward himself some by Queen Elizabeth and several others since Nay have we not seen Prayers added to this Book in Thanksgiving for the Discovery of and Deliverance from a Plot which now every considering Man has reason to believe to have been no more than a Chimera and the Invention of Bad Men 7. They make Gods of Men attributing to them a Power of Forgiving Sins the incommunicable Attribute of the Almighty and this is plain in their Liturgy in which their Priests are order'd to give Absolution to Sinners 8. They encourage a Death-bed Repentance permitting their Members to live as extravagantly as they please all the time of their Health and not a word of Confess and Repent but when Death is waiting for them at their Beds-Head They have a Power to give Absolution they say and their never enjoyning it but in the last Agony is Argument enough to conclude there 's no obligation of Repenting amongst them till Death looks 'em in the Face 9. They know not what their Belief is touching this Power of Absolution Some of their Divines affirm That the Sentence by which Absolution is given to the Penitent is an Absolute and Definitive Sentence judicially absolving him from the Guilt of his Offences Others of their Doctors say That the Form of Absolution is Declarative rather than Absolute and think it a rashness to pronounce a Definitive Sentence in Gods Name And thus tho' their Faith be all pretended to be according to the Word of God yet 't is wonderful hard to know what it is and whilst they thus disagree amongst themselves how can any embrace their Creed who know not what they believe themselves 10. They dispense with Vows and dissolve the Obligation of such as are made even to God himself Thus you see when any Priest Jesuit or Fryar comes over to their Church tho' they have solemnly vow'd their Virginity to God and promised to the Almighty never to Marry yet they are no sooner made a Member of this Reform'd Congregation
one thing and now of late 't is become another and if right then I wonder how it can be right now Thus you see their Church alter and change according to the Complexion of the Times And not only in these things but in a thousand others nay in the very Articles of their Belief The Apostles Creed had never more than Twelve Articles and the assenting to these were enough to make a Christian but to make a Church of England Christian at first 't was requir'd to Subscribe to Forty two Articles and then a little after something was bated and 't was enough to subscribe to Thirty nine and in these there was so much chopping and changing both in Words Expressions and Sentences that even the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition never had more before it came to perfection These are the Marks my Dearest ones of that Congregation to which you are so earnestly invited to joyn but let those joyn with her that can those that can find a way to dispense with all their Sense and Reason and admit of Prophanation and Superstition and Idolatry for the Word of God But for us We have the Scripture and our Reason for our Guides and we need no better and we have no surer way of avoiding the Teeth of the Dragon than to keep out of the reach of his Tail If a Zealous Brother I say should in this manner paint out the Church of England to his Flock and endeavour to imprint in their Minds an Idea thus Foul and Monstrous of her teaching and maintaining abominable Superstitions and Idolatries I would fain know of the Answerer Whether this would be Representing or Misrepresenting the Church of England whether 't would be a shewing her as she is or as she is not I know according to his Principles the Charges being not false as to matter of Fact and none being urg'd without some Reason this Character ought not to be Entitled The Church of England Misrepresented And yet methinks I cannot fancy 't will be thought like her But however it be I am resolv'd to compound and not quarrel upon this score If he will not have this to be Misrepresenting in its strict and proper sense I am ready to allow that the word Misrepresented as it stands in the Title of my Book is not to be taken in its strict and proper sense as it signifies Calumniating by Perjury only and Lies such as was the Story of the Pilgrims Screw'd Guns and Black Bills for the hanging of the Jesuits and that of Stifling Sir Edm. Godfrey with a Pillow in the upper Court of Somerset-House and Strangling him in the lower Court before the Stables with a twisted Handkerchief and laying it on the Papists But in a less rigorous Signification as it implies the Representing a thing otherwise than it is and putting on false Colours whether by Wry Interpretations False Inferences Malicious Applications Weak Reasonings or any such like Topick For by whatsoever Method the thing is made to appear otherwise than it is 't is all the Misrepresenting I desire and equally fit for my purpose And now I have so far comply'd with the Answerer I hope the Talk of Misrepresenting as he says will be over And yet if he has a mind to prove once more in other ten Sheets That Misrepresenting is not to be taken in its strict and proper sense let him do it 't is only Twelve-pence apiece more for the Curious The Judicious will think it only worth a Smile if so much But I am yet in Arrears and must not part thus For it seems the Answerer has a Complaint against me and 't is this pag 3. That in my last Reply instead of defending my own Misrepresentations which I so unjustly father'd upon them I have pick'd up new Misrepresentations for him to Answer And really I was much to blame to look out for new Misrepresentations when he had little to say against the former except that they were not to be call'd Misresentations in a strict sense But where did I father 'em upon any body I laid them at no bodys door and if some appear'd so solicitous in clearing themselves that they were suspected to be Fathers they may thank themselves I pointed at none 'T is true for the shewing they were none of my own Childish Conceits I at length produc'd some eminent Protestants describing Popery with the same ill Features and worse than I had drawn it in my Character of a Papist Misrepresented and first the Archbishop of York And here the Quarrel is because I left out the Authorities mention'd by that Prelate And now the Answerer has inserted those Authorities what do they make to his purpose or against me Were they all exact and true which yet no Man will be able to make good is every thing to be set forth for the Faith of a Church which can be found in one Author as it is by him when he prefixes to them a He that is the Papist must believe Can the Church of England stand this Test Would it not be Misrepresenting her to Preface every extravagant Saying of her Members with She believes and She teaches What signifie therefore the mentioning those Authors when the Question is not What some Private Authors say but what the Church believes When the Archbishop therefore brings in the Papist professing his Faith with this solemn Protestation We must believe and then supports the Paradox with a single Authority or two as this was in him a piece of Artifice not justifiable amongst Friends so the omission of such Testimonies was beyond the possibility of being a Design unless it were of Consulting the Credit of the Prelate And tho' the Books mention'd were publish'd by Authority of Superiors yet from such Books cannot be fairly Represented the Faith of the Church and whosoever pretends to do it is nothing less than a Misrepresenter Nor will a Church of England-Man I fancy much question this Truth who I believe upon consideration will allow that his Church may be easily Misrepresented if every idle Opinion to be pick'd out of Books which come forth with an Imprimatur were to be inserted into the Character of her Faith And I cannot but wonder the Answerer should urge this Dispute now at this time when we have seen a Book Publish'd by Authority of Pope Cardinals and other Dignitaries and in a particular manner approv'd by them and yet question'd by some as not Representing the Faith of the Church aright Methinks when a Book of this Authority comes to be disputed as not truly Representing I cannot understand how every other Author with a petty Licence is a sufficient ground for a Representer But it must be so to drive the Business on When a Protestant shews forth the Church of Rome every thing that can be rak'd out of Books is authentick enough for him to put into the Character but when a Catholick Prelate Expounds the Doctrine of his Church all the Authority of Pope