us to follow them doe demolish the fences and bullwarckes of the same Christianity and good life But all they who deserve the name of heretikes do agree to charge the Church of Christ with corruption and adultery and do deny in her both infallibility to know Christs doctrine and power to governe And consequently they destroy externall unity and the essence of it Which as it is not formally to ruine good life so it is more then to breake downe her outworkes since it entrencheth upon the very substance in common and leaveth no meanes but meere chance and hazard to come to the knowledge of Christs law and consequently to eternall salvation Whence we may understand what this name Popery signyfyeth to witt An affection or resolution to maintaine faith and good life and the causes of conserving them There are divers other points controverted betweene Catholikes and Sectaries But they are such as for the most part require no explication but a flatt denyall As when they accuse us to have deprived the Laiety of halfe the Communion we deny it For besides that the generall practise of Christians hath bin from the beginning to give the sacrament sometimes in one kinde ometimes in both the Church hath alwayes believed that the entire communion was perfectly administred in either We likewise deny that ever the Church held the necessity of communicating Infants The Popes personall infallibility that Indulgences can draw soules out of Purgatory that Prayers ought of necessity be in an unknowne tongue to though we may thinke it fitting in some circumstances that the publike service for reverence and Majesty be so performed that faith is not to be kept with Heretikes that the Pope can dispense with the subjection to Princes And many such other Tenets which are injuriously imposed upon Catholikes by Sectaries and are flatly denyed by us and therefore require no further explication or discourse about them A Sampler of Protestants Shuffling in there Disputes of Religion COntroversy Logick or the art of discoursing in matter of Religion between those who profess the Law of Christe can not be complete unless as Aristotle made a Book of fallacies to avoide cavills in his Organe or instrument of science so wee also discover the common fallacies used in controversies Not all but the chiefest and most ordinarily in this business This then is the scope of my present work For which the first note I make is that owre Ancients have taught us and by experience wee daylie finde that Heresie is in a manner as soon overthrowne as layed open falshood like turpitude being ashamed of nakedness Therefore 't is falshoods game to vest it self like an Angel of light in the skin of the lamb and to seeme to weare the Robes of truth I mean by words like those of the Catholick party to delude the simplicity of the Innocent and welwishing People And now must it be our theame to unvaile theire Shufflings The first Shuffle Of the Word Scripture And first If we aske them what they rely upon they braggingly answer on Gods word upbraiding Catholicks to rely upon men when they fly to the churches witness but if we press thē to declare what they meā by Gods word to wit the Book of the Bible or the meaning of it they are forced to answer the sense for even beasts can convince them that wee have the Book as well as they Marching on another step and pressing to know by what instruments or means they have the sense there is no subterfuge from confessing it is by reading and their owne judging or thinking the sense of the Scripture is that which they affirme though all Catholicks affirm the contrary And although even in this they are cosened following for the most part the explication of their preacher Yet I press not that for they know not that they do so But I conclude see what you meane when you say you rely upon Scripture or Gods word to wit that you rely upon your owne opinion or guessing that this is Gods word So that this glorious profession of relying upon Gods word is in substance and reality to rely upon the opinion or guessing of a Cobler or Tinker or some house-wife when the answerers are such or at most of a Minister who for his owne interest is bound to maintaine this is the meaning of Gods word The second Shuffle Of Generall Councils SOme Protestants are so bold as to profess they wil stand to Generall Councils Now a General Council in the language of Catholicks is a general meeting of the Christian World by the Bishops and Deputies of it to testify the Doctrine of the Christian Church And is accounted inerrable in such determinations and therefore to have power to command the faith of Christians and to cast out of the Church al who do not yield to such their determinations and agreements and by consequence to have a supreme Authority in the Church in matters of faith The Protestants loath to leave the shadow though they care not for the substance use the name but to no effect For the intention being to manifest the Doctrine of the Christian World They first agree not upon the notion of what a Council is Requiring sometimes that al Bishops should bee present sometimes that all Patriarks though known to bee professed Hereticks and under the Turk sometimes objecting want of liberty and mainly that they decide not by disputation out of onely scripture or that they taught false Doctrine So that to the Protestant a Council signifies an indefinite and uncertaine when and what it is meeting of men going upon the scripture Which as it is before declared signifies every cobler or Ministers fancie which hath no authority to binde men to believe and is to bee judged by the Doctrine or agreement in faith with the Protestants The third Shuffle Of the consent of Fathers THe consent of the Fathers or Doctours of Christians before oure age and controversies beares so Venerable an aspect as that few Hereticks dare at least before honest understanding Christians give it flatly the lye Therefore the discreeter part of Protestants acknowledg it yet with a salve that they were all men and might bee deceived which in effect is to say that it is no convincing or binding Authority as Catholicks hold it to bee nay to bee a stronger authority then that of Councils as being the judgement of the Catholick Church or the learned part of it which is al one as to faith The Protestant first at one clap cutts of a thousand or 13. hundred yeares nay some 15. hundred The one saying S. Gregory the great was the last Father and first Papistrie the more ordinary course being to acknowledg onely the Fathers of the Persecution time before Constantine finding Popery as they call it to publick afterwards some pressing that ever since the decease of the Apostles the Church hath been corrupted So that they neither give any authority to the consent of Fathers nor
do acknowledg the thing the Catholicks call the Fathers accepting thereof commonly that is the two latter opinants no considerable part of them and the larger opinion nothing neer the half So that the consent of the Fathers in the sense of the Protestants signifieth nothing but the opniō of some few who have written either nothing or litle and obscurely of the points in cōtroversy The fourth Shuffle Of this Word Catholick Church TO the Catholick Church all plead the Apostles Creed forcing them to the name And Catholiks by this word understand a Church which hath endured from Father to Son from Christs time to ours still teaching the same Doctrine and living under an outward Visible goverment the head of which is in the Church of Rome and is the Pope And so acknowledg and obey a Visible and determinate authority to which recourse for Doctrine may in every moment bee made by looking into theire Catechismes and lives which are publick as those which were made by the order of the Council of Trent and in great ocasions to Generall meetings and in the meane while to the particular Church of Rome But the Protestant by this name pretends to a Church made of all whome they account good Christians which hath no other Rule then of the scripture that is of the fancy of every particular Congregation for their opinions no common goverment no bounds or limits to bee knowne by but such as the particular fancy of the Protestāt shal upō occasiō set to include or exclude whome he pleases So that plainly what they mean by the name of the Catholick Church is no determinate Congregation of men nor can have any influence to govern either faith or behaviour The fifth Shuffle Of consent with the Greeck Church SOme Protestants highly brag of theire communion with the Greek Church or rather of their consent of Doctrine with it for I have not heard of any communion unless with the Patriarch Cyril who for that cause was put out as an Heretik a business though of no consequence now yet for the name of what it hath been anciently of a colourable credit to them Let us therefore see what the Protestant means by this communion or consent Two points there are and onely two of moment of dissension betwixt the Greek and Latine Church The one about the Procession of the Holy Ghost in which the 39. Articles men agree with the Latine Church against the Graecians and yet these are the men who most pretend to the Greek Vnion The other of obedience to the Pope in the which the Greeks freely acknowledg the Popes Primacy which is the stumbling block to the Protestants and confess he were to bee obeyed if he made just commands and onely except against his oppression as they call it and clayming of more then his right And in this which is no matter of faith but of Schisme and if unjust confest if doubtfull suspected rebellion So that this glorious consent they boast of is not in Doctrine or sacraments the life of Christians but in a case of schisme and disobedience which is common to all Hereticks The sixth Shuffle Of Roman Church Nay some of thē being ashamed of their owne orphanage and that they can not name their Father or Mother wil in spite of the Roman Church and her defying them intrude themselves into heroff spring saying shee is substantially a true Church though shee coucheth insufferable errours in her faith which force them not to communicate with her let us therefore see what these meane by this Word the Roman Church Catholicks Meane by the name of Church a Congregation of men joyned with Rome in an obligation of Government for the maintaining faith sacraments and good life taking this obligation to bee that which maketh the mene bound together by it to bee a Church The Protestant takes this obligation to bee an unsufferable Tyranny wil have no rule of faith but such an one as hee can turne which way hee thinkes best for his interest or fancy sacraments and government no other then what hee cannot avoide out of his proposed rule of faith or at most without the shame of the world So that hee meanes nothing that belongs to the making a multitude of men a Church but onely the multitude of men of which a Church may bee made as if a man should call a house or Palace the ruines of one lying in a heape where it was fallen The seventh Shuffle Of the Word Mission THese are some but Generally the Prelatick party engages in deriving themselves by Mission from the Roman Church Lett us see then what they intend by this word Mission The Catholick interpretation is that Mission signifies a command givē to the party sent to deliver a Message to them to whome hee is sent which makes the Apostles question good How can they preach if they are not sent That is if no body deliver them an Errand to carry and God is sayed to put his owne Words in the Mouths of those he sends and Christe when hee sent his Apostles bad them preach or deliver to the world what he had taught them Now because this command or commission is delegated in the Catholick Church by a certaine ceremony which is called ordination or the sacrament of Order The Protestant grew ambitious of this outside and so pretends his first Prelates had an Ordination from the Catholick Bishops whome they had deposed or at least violently cast out from theire sees And this they call to have a Mission from the Roman Church So that they do not as much as pretend to the substance of the thing called truely Mission but to an outside and shadow good enough to serve their turnes who love the Glory of men and seek not after Gods honour The eighth Shuffle Of being like to the Primitive Church Another thing in which they insult over Catholicks is Antiquity the which because it hath a venerable awfulness in it self they specially the Presbyterian party much presume upon professing their Church to be more like the Ancient Christian Church thē the Catholicks is asking whether S. Peter were the Prince of Rome Bishops in such great Pompe had such Courts Altars Churches pictures in such abundance and so richly attired Ceremonies and Sacraments performed with so great magnificence and Order By which we see wherein these men place the Antiquity they pretend to to wit that the Church had not those meanes to draw weak hearts which need the helps of bodily appareances to raise themselves to the conceit of invisible goods Whereas the Catholick pretends to Antiquity and to bee like the primitive times in the substātial means of Christian life as in Church government and power of Bishops their accommodating of the quarrels of the faithfull by the order of the Apostles Performing the mass Baptisme Ordination and other Sacraments with exactness and diligence the Reliques and Holy Burialls having Feasts Fasts Penitential Canons flocks of People of both
there had been no place for that disjunctive Syllable I easily believe that many a pert batchellour will be ready to tell us that he can find wayes to salve all these places of Scripture and many more if they were urged But that cōcerneth not me I enquire onely what the outward face of Scripture is and to what belief it wil leade an honest heart left to its owne strength For if those queinte disputants do encounter with a person that is not enured to the Sophistry they will turn blacke into white make two egges three as the tale goeth of the impertinent forward scholler and bring to passe whatsoever they undertake Therefore it was necessary to impose among the conditions of reading the Bible this for a principall one That they who by Scripture ayme at coming to the truth should admitt of no Interpreter And this because of the danger in lighting upon a false one instead of a true one before one hath groundes to discerne which is a false one and which a true one For the case is very indifferēt betweene a Catholike Interpreter and any other The Catholike knoweth the doctrine of Christ that is to say the sense of the Scripture independently from the words of the Scripture And therefore in substantiall points which concerne Christs doctrine he cannot teach or interpret amisse without swerving from his owne faith But it is evident that every other who hath no rule for his beliefe besides the bare letter and words of Scripture is subject to errour through every passion and prejudice which hiddenly swayeth his heart awry and corrupteth his judgement by pride or other affection So that he may be rightly compared to a rotten cane that being leaned upon will breake and with its splinters wound and gore him that expected support from it The seventh REFLEXION That the reading of the Fathers will bring a man to the truth of Religion And that naturall reason will greatly advance a man thereunto IT seemeth strange to mee that any man who acknowledgeth Scripture should reject the Fathers since he can not renounce them without professing att the same time by so doing that he believeth himselfe to be able with his little witte and generally lesse study and learning to penetrate deeper into the intelligence of Scripture then so many ages eminent for industry sciēce and holynesse could reach unto And all this upon no other pretence but because they were men and consequently liable to erring As if himselfe were not a man but something else so farre beyond comparison with all other men that we ought rather to confide in his ability and honesty then in all mankinde that went before him Which is so unworthy and so intolerable a pride that I admire how any auditory can endure it But to come more closely to the point I say that seeing the Holy Fathers did both receive the prevaching of the Apostles neerer hand then wee do and did hold the truth of Scripture as strongly as we do and did spend much time in the earnest study of it and proceeded therein with as sincere hearts as wee can It may in no wise be doubted but that they had the meanes and the wills of having the true faith and consequently that they had it Therefore what was their universall Tenet in Matters of faith can not bee false nor ought to be rejected Or with any colour of reason be questioned by us as disagreeing with Scripture Besides their writings being large and numerous in which upon severall occasions and in differing circumstances they repeate and inculcate the same thinges by different wordes and expressions it must needes thence follow that their sense and meaning in most things of importance can not choose but be sufficiently explicated So as who ever shall reade them with candour ingenuity and judgement can not possibly doubt of it And accordingly experience hath shewed us that the judicious Protestants who gave themselves to the reading of the Fathers were in judgement neere unto Catholikes in most of their opinions And that which detained them from being absolutely Catholikes was besides the chaines of interest nothing but a secret pride of not submitting themselves to the Tradition of the Church in some particular points in which Tradition was not so cleare to them Though withall I deny not but that a wrong apprehension of some Catholike Tenets presumed upon the explication of some particular Doctors might unhappily contribute to this their obstinacy No doubt then but if any indifferent person not preimbibed with any wrong maxime shall bestow competent paines in reading the Fathers he will infallibly become Catholike Especially if hee take this rule along with him to compare the practise of Protestants with the practise of the Fathers and of the former Church By which he will see that this which they call Reformation hath cut away under pretence of abuses not the abuses but the very thinges themselves in which the abuses were like unskillfull Chirurgians that cut of a leg to cure a small sore in it or like Mahomet who tooke away all use of wine to cure drunkennesse And in the meane while they cavill att petty questions in which they strive to shew that the Church hath erred As for naturall reason No man will expect that it should be an entire meanes of attaining to the knowledge of the supernaturall truths which are contained in Christian Religion But onely that it may be a helpe thereunto by shewing that they are so farre from contradicting reason as indeed nothing can be more conformable to true reason then the whole oeconomy of them is And I dare promise whosoever shall seeke this that if he come unto it armed with true and sound Philosophy he may arrive to a full contentment of his understanding and heart in all that concerneth so noble an enquiry Now since Catholike Religion hath been so intelligibly divulged in the world St. Augustin maketh mention that he found the Mystery of the Trinity in the Platonists Bookes Now if you aske me how this came to passe I answere that God provided in Alexandria a City much addicted to learning one Ammonius Hermias a great Philosopher and a Christian Hee to make Christian Religion more acceptable sought to joyne it with Platonicke Philosophy Which was no hard matter to do Plato having bing been as Numenius sayth of him Moses speaking Greeke that is to say one who having lighted upon the Hebrew learning had sucked much out of it Now this Ammonius finding in Plato the Ideas of Being and of Vnity and of Life and such other ayery notions easy to be wrought upon to what hee designed endeavoured by these to instill into his Schollers the Mystery of the Trinity Which he did with such happy successe that of the three prime wittes of his Schoole the one Origen became so great and eminent a Doctor of the Church as antiquity hath acknowledged him The other two Amelius and Plotinus prooved two Conductours of the
Defendant for his answering And accordingly since it is well knowne that nothing but Demonstration can give security of a disputable truth He who in a Disputation of this nature undertaketh to prove an assertion ought first to engage his credit that in his conscience hee esteemeth the argument hee intendeth to propose to be Demonstrative How ever he may apprehend a failing on his part in pressing it either through want of sufficient skill or through the over proportion of his adversaries abilities or through the difficulty of well opening the Matter and making the truth appeare If hee refuse to do this he is to be protested against for a thiefe and a robber as our Saviour himselfe styleth such who hath a designe to abuse his hearers and to draw their soules for some private interest of his owne into eternall damnation And the Auditory is to be contested that such a disputation as the Arguer intendeth is a meere juggle and imposture a brabbling base counterscuffle not fitt for a grave Man to have a share in but a meere scolding losse of time and vexation both to the hearers and to the actours The Respondents taske is not so rigorous It is enough for him to maintaine that his adversary can not convince his Tenet of falsity Hee being for this passage but a defendant not a prover Thus farre for Opponents and Defendants in common But now to apply this to Catholikes and to those who have parted from them Let us begin with considering how their maine difference consisteth in this that the Catholike holdeth his doctrine because it came to him by his fore-fathers from Christ and relyeth upon his fore-fathers for the truth of this The Adversaries Universally do rely upon either Scripture or reason As for reason it is evident that it can not bee a sufficient ground of a doctrine that is held by authority And as for Scripture the Catholike maintaineth it as strongly as they Neither have they it but upon the credit of Catholikes And therefore all the arguments they can bring out of Scripture against Catholikes do beare in their fore-head a prejudice of being either false or att least uncertaine The tienth REFLEXION Of some particulars belonging to Catholikes Others to their Adversaries OUt of these premisses there follow some very considerable differences betweene Catholikes and Protestants in point of Disputation The first is That a Catholike ought not for his owne satisfaction to admitt of any disputation att all in Matters of Religion For he relyeth upon a better ground then any his Adversary can offer to him Namely an infallible and irrefragable Authority Hee taketh reason for an insufficient Judge in controversies of this Nature And against disputing out of Scripture he hath two prejudices The one that he holdeth his faith by the same rule by which hee receiveth the Scripture and therefore if Scripture should proove any thing against his faith which is impossible it would make him believe neither and so would not change him to be of a new Religion but cause him to be of none The other prejudice is That he who argueth out of Scripture proceedeth Texts whose sense is disputable in the words themselves Whereas the Catholike is before-hand assured of the sense as farre as concerneth faith Therefore it were in vaine for him to search in an uncertaine instructer the knowledge of that which he already knoweth certainly Yet further If any Catholike doe admitt Disputation for his owne sake and satisfaction he leaveth being a Catholike For the end of Disputation is to cleare a doubt And therefore where is no doubt there is no neede of disputing Neither can a Catholike have any doubt in any Matter of faith unlesse hee suspecteth his rule Which if he once do he is no longer a Catholike On the other side The Protestant building all his faith upon the ambiguous words of Scripture so loud disputed and eternally disputable must necessarily if he bee a rationall man live in perpetuall doubt For the very oppositiō of so many wise and learned men as affirme that the wordes he alleageth do not signify that which is necessary for his position is sufficient to make any rationall man be in doubt of an exposition of wordes that may beare severall senses which he seeth is so obvious and ordinary a rock of mistaking Therefore a Protestant were not rationall if he should not alwayes demand searching and disputing untill experience shall have taught him there is no End of it or by it Hee must resolve either to be ignorant and to trust or else to dispute without end And in very truth his disputing is to no end For suppose he be the arguent and do convince his adversary yet after all his paines he hath gained no more then onely to perceive that his adversary is a weaker disputant then hee or that peradvēture he was at that time surprised so that when he shall be in his better wittes he may happily be able to salve his arguments And if he be the Defendant and chāce to maintain his positiō yet it followeth not that a better Opponent then he had to deale withall mought not have convinced him So that on neither side there is any security to him because he bringeth no Demonstration but onely the bare appearance of ambiguous wordes There is an other impurity betweene Catholikes and their adversaries in this that if the Catholike be the Opponent he can dispute but of one point namely of the Infalliblity of the Church because his adversary is obliged to no other For take what point you will besides and one may be a perfect Protestant whether he hold it or deny it The authority of Bishops is the maine point of Protestācy by which it is distinguished from all other Sestaries Yet when it is for their turne the French Presbyterians so great enemies to that governmēt of the Church are their deare brethren The Greeks the Lutherans the Socinians the Anabaptistes how many positions do they maintaine different from the Protestants Neverthelesse when it pleaseth a Protestant to make his boasts of the large extent of the Reformed Churches all these are of this communion Nay Nay when he talketh of the Vniversall Church No Arrian Eutychian Nestorian or other Professour of whatsoever damned Heresy that hath a share against Popery is excluded by him from being an Orthodoxe Member of the Catholike Church but all are registred in his Kalendar as Professours of the onely true faith and as witnesses of Christs doctrine So that if a Catholike be to argue he looseth his labour in disputing of any point but of the Infallibility of the Church because he advanceth nothing by having the victory in any other For though he should reduce his adversary to be of his minde in all other articles yet not being so in this too he is as farre as ever from being a Catholike since the not believing of any one article of faith maketh a man no Catholike or which
say or are pretended to say in expresse termes or equivalent ones the proponents Conclusion so that the outward face of the wordes is plaine for his Tenet As when Catholikes produce the following Texts this is my body Simon the first The Gates of hell shall not prevaile against my Church whose sinnes you forgive shall be forgiven and any the like upon which occasion I may not forbeare to note that Protestants have not any one text of this kind against Catholikes unlesse they make use of the precept of not making graven images which concerneth Christians no more then doth the sacrificing of a Lambe att Easter Both of them being commands given singly to the Jewes Or else they are such Texts as though they do not containe the proponents conclusion in expresse wordes yet he pretendeth that it followeth out of the sense of them Now in these Texts there may be a double incertitude First whether the place alleaged do signify what the proponent pretendeth Secondly whether his conclusion would follow though that were granted Now in both these kindes of Texts When the Argument is drawne out of the force of the words and their force no other then from the Grammaticall or Dictionary-sense of those wordes it is ordinarily a pittifull weake Argument and the whole Disputation is no better then boyes-play and but like a construing of Terence It being almost if not alltogether impossible in our controversies to find a Text of Scripture absolutely convincing and consequently fitt to be insisted upon The reason whereof is that the downe right signification of a word especially in discourses when the Author doth not deliver his mind in a Dogmaticall way is more wavering and changeable then the Aspin leafe I remember how as I once pressed to a disputant this which I now say hee immediatly objected this Text to me Abraham genuit Isaac which he took to be unexplicable in any other sense then that Abraham was Isaacs Father I was not att the present furnished with the diverse explicationse of the word Genuit But God provided me an answere out of the first of St. Mathew where it is said Ioras genuit Oziam and yet there were some intermediate generations betweene Ioras and Ozias Whence it was clear that out of the bare wordes Abraham genuit Isaac it could not be Demonstratively inferred that Abraham was Isaacs Father Now after such an instance what evidence can be expected out of the simple signification of wordes Besides who can be so shallow as to imagine that a Sect which hath men of any wit in it should maintaine a position against that sense of the letter which every Boy can penetrate but that it hath armed it selfe with some subterfuge which ordinarily speaking can not be weaker then the argument that dependeth upon so variable a ground as the use of wordes in human speech Neverthelesse this kind of arguing is the most used and much vaunted of As for example The Lutherans and the Calvinists agree in saying there is bread in the blessed Sacrament Their argument against Catholikes who allow it not to be so is that Christ called it bread after Consecration If you answer them that he doth not call it barely Bread but this bread or bread of life or with some other character to distinguish it from ordinary Bread They presently cry out that the wor Bread signifyeth bread made of wheate and turne to their Dictionary to justify that signification and sing victory as if nothing were answered So when they presse these wordes out of the English translation Hee tooke bread blessed it broke it and gave it If you desire instead of the word blessed it to putt in turned it into his body telling them that the blessing was the saying this is my body and the saying so was the very turning of the bread into his body If you reply thus they will grow impatient as if you committed an intollerable absurdity and aske you in what Dictionary or in what Author to blesse signifyeth to turne into ones body and will not heare that since in this case blessing was the pronouncing of such words it must of necessity signify the turning into his body Is it possible that otherwise witty men should be so overweaned of their owne side as to believe there is any force in such allegations which every Schoole-boy that construeth not by rote but understandeth what he sayth is able to discover The reason as I conceive of this low and shallow impertinency is that this disputative kind of men never raised their understanding to Geometricall Demonstrations or to any solide discourse and indeed not beyond the practise of Grammar rules in Scripture and some quainte Criticisme of the same pitch and therefore may be of a fitt cise to talke in a pulpit to a vulgar auditory or to cavill about wordes before unlearned persons who were never present att a solide Disputation nor are capable of the rigour or strict lawes of such a one But they are not strong enough to frame an argument that may beare water and endure the touch among judicious examiners Though like junior Sophisters they can pop out a great many slight objections and ruine a large course from one to an other to make a shew of learning without any substance of it Such a kind of Argument in the last mentioned question of the Eucharist is their great Achilles out of Theodoret and an obscute writer called Gelasius who say the nature of bread remaineth after consecration If you answer them that the word Nature signifyeth Quality even in our ordinary Manner of speech and that so they have gained nothing by the allegation of these authorities since we acknowledge and se that the Quality of bread remaineth after Consecration They againe cry Victory as before as if the most Grammaticall signification of one single word must cawy the bayes without any consideration of the circumstant words or of the connexion of the sense Which if any Schoole-boy of an upperforme should doe he could not but expect a smarte reward from his Master And yet these petty slight argumēts out of Scripture are in a Manner the strōgest they have by which they endeavour to overthrow the Religiō of their fore-fathers An other kinde of argument is frequent with them which is yet weaker thē this It is whē from some superficial sound of words that signify no such thing as the conclusiō they are to prove they take occasion to alledge a sentence of Scripture that in effect is nothing to the question in hand and yet they will make a noise that Scripture is cleare against you As when Esay 58. they cite your wills are found in your fastings to proove that voluntary fasts are unlawfull or Matt. 15 That which entereth into the mouth defileth not the soule But that which cometh out frō the heart And against works of super errogation Luke 17. When you have done all that is commanded you say you are
it is fruitelesse to dispute against a Protestant out of the Fathers unlesse you first settle what proof of Fathers he will admit Neither is it easy for a Protestāt to argue strōgly against a Catholike out of the Fathers For if the Catholike will binde him to it he must bring an universality of them or else the Catholike is not obliged to receive them And how can he go about to do this I understand not I meane in a private disputation where a Matter of three or foure testimonyes are capable of spinning out the whole time that people generally are willing to lend unto such an entertainment Neverthelesse the presumptuous and vaine Sophisters are forward to cry out that all the Fathers are on their side as their Patriarche Iewel begā the tune to them so shamefully that his owne Chaplaine forsooke him for his impudent falshood But concerning this point It is to be noted that although they break avowedly and confessedly from the universall face of antiquity in all Church-practise as in the Liturgies Letanies Masse praying to Saints praying for the dead most of the Sacraments Relikes Altars Pilgrimages Fastings Processions Cochibate of Priests religious men and women and almost all things of that nature yet have they so little ingenuity or rather they are so impudent as before women and ignorant persons to boast themselves Sectators of antiquity and they undertake to prove it by certaine broken ends of Texts concerning some speciall circumstance or nice point in which they have found some dark place in some Father I therefore putt these questions to any juditious person who is curious to heare disputation in Religion Whether in so large a Booke as the Scripture it be possible morally speaknig that there should not be divers hard and obscure passages And then whether an eloquent Sophister may not make use of such places to circumvent and delude weake soules unable to remember or marke the contrary Texts and to judge betweene them Which if he also graunt as he can not choose but do I aske him againe what security he hath or can have that his disputant is not such a one or at least may not be such a one And what I say of Scripture may be with much more force transferred to the workes of the Fathers which are much more ample and besides that may containe errours in them So that in conclusion all disputation out of Fathers is but beating the ayre unlesse the parties be first agreed what Fathers authorities shall be allowed sufficient to decide and terminate their differences Yet after all this the Protestant that is carried away with a beliefe of his disputants abilities will be still apt to reply that at the least it can not be denyed but that he who hath studied the Fathers so well as to be able to make out of them against Catholikes a ranged battaile of such obscure places must needes be an able and a learned Man and therefore he is not to be blamed for following such a guide who hath read so much and is conversant in the Fathers Seeing that they who are unlearned and cannot upon their owne stocke judge of such Matters must rely upon those who have made them their long and serious study To him who shall make such an objection it ought to be represented How meane and pittifull a change it is to fall from the splēdide authority of the whole Church to the obscure authority of a private Doctor be he what he will As also that to retire from the authority of few or but of one were a great imprudence in an unlearned man Who because hee is not able to judge of the quality of Doctors hath reason to adhere to the quantity and number of them Besides in all likelihood this great Doctor especially if he be yong hath not read the Fathers themselves but hath taken out of other Authors that write of controversies such places as he hath found cited in them for his purpose And this argueth but a small Modicum portion of learning though happily he may make a great shew with it among unlearned persons like one who can recite three verses of Homer in a country Schoole The Fifteenth REFLEXION On Arguments drawne from reason for Religion THere remaineth yet to be discoursed of the last kind of arguments that may be employed in disputations of Religion whose store house from whence they may be drawne is reason For the performance whereof lett us consider how Religion is apprehended generally to be a knowledge above nature and to be derived by authority from a source of higher understanding then ours is Yet on the other side It is evident that it can not be planted in us otherwise then that the roote of it must of necessity be in Reason seeing that Reason is our nature Now then the roote and basis of believing is manifestly from this that we are perswaded we ought to believe which importeth as much as that it is reasonable we should believe And therefore the arguments which in Matter of Religion ought chiefely to be managed out of Reason should be in common whether it be Reasonable to believe what is proposed unto us And because no man can doubt whether it be reasonable to believe what God proposeth the whole question is reduced to this point whether it be reasonable to believe what the Church or our fore-fathers deliver unto us as the doctrine which Jesus Christ whose authority no Christian excepteth against did teach and deliver to the world from his eternall Father In which question the affirmative reasons belong onely to Catholikes the negative to all others Here the Catholike disputant hath two wayes to proceede The one is in a manner Metaphysicall and of a rigorous consequence by shewing that this principle of Adhering to our forefathers doctrine in the way that the Catholike Church relyeth upon it could not have been taken up in any middle age but must of necessity have been continued from the beginning And then by proving that if this Principle hath continued from the beginning it is impossible that any errour should have crept into the Church After the doing of which It is as evidently demonstrated that Catholike faith is the sole true Christian faith as that the three Angels of a Triangle are equall to two right Angels or any other verity in Euclide or Archimedes The other way is to assume to prudent morall men that whosoever seeth a like evidence for Religion as he judgeth sufficient to venture his life or his estate or his honour upon and not be excused neither in prudence nor in conscience nor in honor if he doth not embrace it For if he seeth the same advantage in two severall cases and will venture in the one and not in the other It is evident he proceedeth not according to Reason in one of them And in our case whatsoever he may say to justifye himselfe he cannot be excused from making in truth no reall
word Father But as it is a substance â—ove it is not well expressed by either â—f these names but by the common â—ame of an Holy Spirit or Ghost made proper by want of a proper expression And this is that wee meane when we â—ay there are in God three Persons Faâ—her Sonne and Holy Ghost This indivisible thing we call God â—nd professe that he made time and in or with the beginning of time all other â—hings Whether spirituall and indivisible or bodily and subject to division and corruption or mortality Among the rest and as the principall of these Creatures which we know by our sense and conversation he made Man that is one man and one woman Hee made them such that by the corruption they were subject unto they should not be extinguished like the other Creatures sett round about them but should remaine spirituall things capable seeing him and of eternall happinesse These two he created in such state that reason was in them more powerfull then sense And could with ease have kept them from all unreasonable actions and from the unhappy effects of them had not the Envy of an other Intellectuall creature whom we call the Divell seduced the woman and by her meanes made the man also eate of fruits which they were fore-warned would bring them death and misery By this meanes disorder being brought into the two first men both in body and soule all their progeny became vicious every child drawing from his parents disorderly inclinations which avert him from the love and care of true Blisse and which strengthned by custome and opinion were able to carry the whole masse of Mankinde to eternall infelicity the just and deserved punishment of this default and its evill consequents This slavery of Man kinde to sinne was so strong that God Almighty was forced to lett great raines destroy it all reserving by his mercy onely 8. persons to people the world a new making the world it selfe much lesse distractive or inveighing with the pleasures of it by making it fuller of miseries And after a while againe he was forced to pitch upon one man and his seede neglecting the rest to conserve in them though weakely by lawes and speciall government the seedes of vertue often strengthening them by extraordinary meanes and encreasing their knowledge Yet for all that vertue faded much in them This people he governed first in Republike afterwardes in Royalty and lastly by Priests untill notwithstanding all his care and their science the people was growne into an extremity of perversenesse Then he came to the last remedy and taking or as it were grafting into his owne substance the nature of Man became the teacher and example to Man-kinde of all vertuous actions and good life And because mans nature was grafted by its noblest part that is by his Meus or roote of understanding to which God as a substance knowledge hath proportion It is rightly delivered unto us that the sonne of God tooke flesh upon him to be our guide and rule and not the Father or Holy Ghost though they both of them are inseparably in him So God who by his Ministers had hitherto instructed mankinde by Allegories and similitudes proportionable to their carnall imbecillity Now in his owne person opened the way to heaven in as plaine termes as mans nature is capable of teaching to abstract our selves from the love of creatures and to adhere to him by love of future blisse of our soules Having compleated the course of his teaching by word and example and having shewed us how to beare not feare the miseries of this world even death it selfe he thought good to give us a scantling of our future blisse of body being raised to life the third day after his death and during 40. days shewing us a new Nature which our bodies are to obtaine in the last resurrection if so we deserve it During his abode upon earth he chose certain believers called Apostles and under them did sett a number of disciples gave them authority to preach and practised them in it even during his owne life but ordered them more especially towards his departure how they should behave themselves in the conversion of Jewes and Gentils and how they should governe the people they converted and brought to his beliefe After this he left them ascending in their sight above the cloudes And after 10. dayes according to his promise he so replenished them with faith and charity that he made them fitt Executors of his commands and instruments of building the Church he intended to spread over all nations He gave them fervour of heart knowledge of tongues and power of miracles together with discretion to use all to the end for which he designed them This Church being to consist of all man-kinde as one Body-Politike He thought fitt to sett universall rules of certaine externall actions and practises common to all by and in which they should communicate together and know one another And the maine scope of this instruction being to bring Men to the honour and service of God He made likewise for the principall of our eternall actioÌ„s one to be a publike testimony and recognisance that God is the sole Author of good to us and absolute Master of Life and death of Being and of Not-Being Such a ceremony is called a Sacrifice This he did immediatly before his death taking bread and wine and after imposition of his handes or blessing them he assured us that the thing he then gave was that very body which was to be wounded and that very Bloud which was to be shed for us And so against all prejudice of sense wee believe that the substances of bread and wine were changed really into the substance of this body and bloud notwithstanding that the Natures that is all the operations and resemblances of bread and wine do remaine as before This he commanded his Apostles to doe and by mediation of this sacrifice or obtestation or highest Prayer to obtaine for the quicke and the dead what ever is fitt to be impetrated for them He commanded also that doing this we should remember or rather commemorate that is offer in a human phrase to Gods remembrance his death and passion For as it is a true sacrifice by the reall and locall parting of his body and blood so this being done under the shapes of bread and wine becometh a figure and allegory of the reall and blondy separation of them made upon the holy Crosse This sacrifice performed which convenient ceremonies we usually call the Masse This incorporation of all Christians into the body of Christ by participation of this sacrifice is the highest motive of love to Christ and to one another that can fall into mans heart and therefore hath ever been a symbol or token of peace among Christians and is esteemed the Mystery or sacrament of Charity But because Christian life consisteth of seven vertues three Theologicall and foure Cardinall Christ delivered other six
Sexes dedicated to God Religious Ceremonies and all sorts of enticements to love heaven and follow good life So that the Antiquity the Protestant pretends to is of wanting wilfully those means of helping soules which the primitive Church wanted by the Violence of Persecution and the Antiquity meaned by Catholicks is of being like the Ancient Church in all things that promote vertue inwardly and outwardly The ninth Shuffle Of the Word Tradition TO Antiquity hangs Tradition that is the receiving of Doctrine and Customes from the Ancient Church The which Catholicks place in this that it is derived fom the Apostles to us by the continuall and immediate delivery of one Age to another the sons continuing their Fathers both beliefe and conversation in Christian life and treading the same paths of Salvation This was a bit of too soure a digestion for Protestants being not able to shew any Masters from whome they had received theire beliefe Yet a Tradition they must have not to be openly convinced of having forged their doctrine Some of them therefore sayed they received their doctrine by the Tradition of the Bible made unto them by the Churches continuing since the Apostles time Wherein you see an open equivocating in the word of Tradition Catholicks taking it for the delivery of doctrine that is of sense and meaning the Protestants for the delivery of a mute book or killing letter Others call Tradition the Testimony of the Fathers of all Ages and so att least divert the Question Turning the proof of Religion which is plaine and easie to every ordinary understanding into a business of learning and long study in which though they be worstted yet the People cannot see it nor descry theire falshood The tenth Shuffle Of the word Really TO descend from the Universality or defence of their whole Religiō to speciall articles of it wee shall finde them there like themselves As for example those who beare an outward respect to the Fathers finding them concurring so thick to testify Christes Body to bee in the Holy Eucharist will see me to say the same and use the word of Christ being Really and verily and truely in the Sacrament and that they onely question the manner how he is there which is lawfull amongst Catholicks to do So that you cannot almost distinguish them from Catholicks Vntil you come to explicatiō There the Catholick sayeth that Christes Body is in the sacrament as the substance of Bread was in the thing which before wee called Bread and now is no more but turned into that body wich was hanged on the Cross by an entitative and reall mutation The Protestant wil tell you that it is stil Bread and naturally and entitatively the same thing wich it was before consecration but that by faith which is a real actiō it is Christes true body to us How to justify these words that by Faith it is Christes true body is impossible unless they wil have us believe by faith what they tell us is false Therefore others say it is an assurāce of Christs Body as a bond is of mony Peradventure of enjoying Christe in Heaven But how different both senses bee from the Catholick which they seek to be thought theirs and from the natural meaning of the words every mā cā see So that the manner of being Christes Body which they question signifies whether it bee truely there or no but onely by a false apprehension they call Faith The eleventh Suffle Of the Word Sacrifice The like is of the word Sacrifice and Altar and such other In which the Catholick position makes these words proper and that the Mass is as or more properly signified by the word sacrifice as the sacrifice of the old law That there is a true and real separatiō of the body of our Saviour from his bloud and more proper to the names then nature can make which can not make a true body when the bloud is separated nor true bloud whē the body is left out wich in this sacramēt is performed and nevertheless Christe entire and untouched But a Protestāt wil tel you that whē the Holy offering is called a sacrifice it is meaned a sacrifice of praise or thanks giving that is in reality no sacrifice but an outward ceremony of praise or thāks giving others that it is a resemblāce or represētatiō of a sacrifice to wit of that of the holy Cross so that you see the differēce of the two significatiōs is no less thē whē by the same word as of Christes one means Christs Person another a Crucifix or the picture of Christe The twelfth Shuffle Of the Word Priesthood In consequēce and conformity to this they abuse the Word of Priesthood For finding al Antiquity gloriously full of this name they must also use it and finding St. Paul had too expressely taught us that a Priest was a publick Officer ordained to offer to God giftes and sacrifices and that he ought to be legitimately called to the office and that Catholiks take Priesthood in this meaning And how on the other side themselves had taken out of the Church all solemn offerings and sacrifice the business of a Priest and nevertheless shame on one side and ambition on the other egged them on to call themselves Priests they were forced to corrupt the Word sacrifice first as is declared to come to the name Priesthood So that Priesthood in the Protestant meaning is an officer chosen to sing Psalmes in the sight of the People The which how different it is from the Catholick explication of being the publick Officer of the eternall sacrifice is too plain to be declared Onely I must add that who takes ordination with the intention onely to become the chief or high singer of the Parish receiveth not Priesthood as it is meaned and used in the Catholick Church The thirteenth Shuffle Of the word Faith THe abuse of this name Faith must not bee omitted which Catholicks taking for a perswasion of such truths as are necessary to bring us to good life and salvation which perswasion wee settle upon Christes doctrine delivered unto us by Tradition of the Church The which meaning is cleare in the Apostle who expresseth himself to speak of faith that works by Charity The first Protestants took the word Faith as excluding Charity and cryed downe good works as improfitable the latter ashamed of this as destroying good life and plainly contrary to the whole designe of Scripture and Fathers took it for the same faith that Catholicks do but would have it have force precisely out of its being a persuasion and the working to follow to no effect but as a hanger on without any End whereas Catholicks make the persuasion to bee chiefly or wholly to breed Charity which is the true cause of salvation But the presbiterian party and the plainer dealing Protestants have quite changed and destroyed faith saying faith is a Persuasion that the believer must have that hee in Person is one of the
Predestinate and shall bee saved by this persuasion through the merits of Christe without any regard to his works and life Of which sense seeing there is no revelation there can be no relying upon the word of God for any such effect and so it is cleare these people have nothing like Faith the former Protestants having at least the Carcase but renounce the soule life and being of it A bundle of divers Shuffles If wee should as thus pass over all the points controverted between Catholiks and all that have separated thēselfs from the Catholick Church we should finde very few freely disputed but that either they calōniate the Catholick position or counterfeyt it As concerning images and Saints they pretend we worship them as Gods As for mariage they report we disallow it For the merits of Christe they say wee rely not upon them because we understand them otherwise then they do For the Catholick Church understands that Christe by his life and passion procured the Establishment of the Holy Church the preaching of the Gospel over the whole earth a settled meanes to continue and encrease what he by himself and his Apostles begun a seed and root of good life plāted by the sending of the Holy Ghost to remaine in the Church for ever a Government of Bishops and Doctours for ever sacraments to bee Vniversally administred Extraordinary Examples of Heroick vertues in Martyrs Confessours Monks and Nunnes and in a Word al that was necessary to bring the Vniversality of Mankinde to heavenly bliss and these meanes to be derived to single Persons according to Gods all good providence and the connatural suite of causes The protestant understands that Christe in his private prayer spake to his Father in particular for every one of the predestinate to save him for his and his passions sake and so infer that the beliefe that he is one of those for whome Christe specially prayed is that which must apply the grace granted by Christs eternal Father to his soule and thinkes the Catholick relyes not upon Christs merits because he doth it not so sillily as he does In penance the Catholick holdeth it a sacrament in forme of a judgment in which the penitent is absolved or condemned according to his desert The Protestant holdeth onely as it were a complement of ones acknowledging himself a sinner and asking of mercy and that the preacher without farther ceremony absolve him Those who believe not the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation nevertheless use the words of one God and three Persons and profess that though they hold the son and Holy Ghost to be creatures yet that they are to be called each of them God and likewise though some hold Christe to have no other nature then of a Man yet that he is justly called God for his greate perfections and Vnity in Charity with God It were superfluous to multiply more examples to shew how it is not the zeal of truth but either ignorance in them who do not understand the true difference betwixt the Catholick Church and its deserters or malice in them who disguise either theire owne tenets or those of the Catholick party God prosper the labours of those who seek Vnity and by his sweet conduct bring all who profess the name of Christe into perfect concord in one flock by the Vnity in faith and charity PAg. 3. l. 16. Leap p. 6. l. 8.50 l. 18. so p. 7. l. 4. with l. 7. even l. 27. of all p. 13. l. 6. too weak to p. 14. l. 14. of coming p. 17. l. 22. a quality p. 18. l. 7. to p. 21. l. 1. to p. 21 l. 1. to p. 22 l. 23. observe p. 23. l. 7. same manner l. 9. Godliness p. 27. l. 23. and 4. one then it p. 30. l. 6. hynde p. 52. l. 1. bee turned p. 58. l. 3. cultivated p. 59. l. 5. byassed p. 51. l. 27. different p. 74. l. 7. preaching p. 66. l. 18. cure drunkeness p. 69. l. 23. bring the p. 70. l. 9. God as solidly p. 72. l. 15. Conicks p. 74. l. 18. obstructed p. 76. l. 10. be forced p. 82. l. 22. before to bee for p. 87. l. 4. proceedeth upon l. 2.5 long p. 88. l. 24. solve p 89. l. 7. imparity p. 92. l. 8. and contradict p. 93. l. 8. offer p. 103. l. 22. overweened p. 104. l. 21. runne p. 105. l. 8. see l. 13. carry p. 107. l. 19. condescendences p. 109. l. 10. to see p. 117. l. 17. of allegations p. 119. l. 22. are as good p. 122. l. 25. Coelibate p. 128. l. 10. Angles l. 17. upon can l. 28. excused neither p. 131. l. 25. who as soone l. 26. think that p. 133. l. 9. not for l. loath p. 136. l. 21. which is out p. 140. l. 12. persecution p. 142. l. 15. certainty p. 146. l 4. of death and of l. 13. best when p. 148. l. 24. solue it p. 152. l. 16. importeth p. 153. l. 13. Abyssine p. 154. l. 9. singing and p. 157. l. 16. are so close l. 19. is so p. 158. l. 21 of such talkers p. 159. l. 12. else p. 160. l 24. exalted p. 163. l. 6. though their p. 164. l. 14. which praise p. 169. l. 14. heapes p. 170. l. 5. a Corus p. 182. l. 25. just indifference p. 184. l. 4. on it p. 189. l. 2◠capable of p. 190. l. 18. default p. 195. l. 18. with p. 1 6. l. 11. inure us p. 197. l. 10.11 toward theire teachers what adhesion to p. 198. l. 23.24 profess there p. 203. l. 21. cultivatour p. 206. l. 14. long as l. 201. l. 20. the fall p. 202. l. 25. tongue though