They are both of them like a pair of Diamonds hard and sharp and nothing can cut the one so handsomly as his Fellow If they should chance to fall foul it would be indeed a Comical end of the Controversie and not unsuitable to the Representer who studied to make a Farce of it when he brought in his Phanatick Sermon But let them make what end of it they please there is a time when it is decent for us to give over that as hitherto Truth has lost no ground for want of Argument so it may lose no honour by want of Discretion I have given up the Representer and shall but once more trouble the Vindicator which will be more than enough for him since ere long he may expect from his Antagonist such an Account of the Articles of the Bishop of Meaux as will be esteemed by Judicious and Impartial men a Final Determination of that Controversie The CONTENTS of the ANSWER to the REPRESENTER HIS Extravagance in diverting to the Case of the Dissenters Page 1 And his Indiscretion in upbraiding us with their Sufferings Page 5 That the Discourse against Transubstantiation is not scurrilous Page 9 His Pretence that we have written against Popery without Success is false and impertinent if it were true Page 10 That the Papists are to thank the Representer for the Revival of these Controversies Page 13 That he now writes to praise himself and what he had written before Page 16 And presses upon us with meer Confidence and tedious Repetitions Page 21 That he is a False Representer because he has concealed one part of the Character of a Papist Page 28 The Folly of his Clamour that we pretend to know what Popery is better than the Papists Page 29 His Offer to receive us into the Church of Rome upon the Terms which he propounds considered Page 31 That we cannot with a good Conscience accept his Offer Page 32 That if we could he can give us no Security against Old Popery Page 33 That if he were able to secure us we have no reason to think that he is willing Page 34 His Insincerity in telling us that he detests some Doctrines and Practices with which his Answerer charged the Church of Rome and in refusing to say what they are in particular Page 35 The true meaning of these Offers to receive us upon the Profession of his New Popery Page 38 And this exemplified by the Terms upon which the Converts of the City of Orange were reconciled to the Church of Rome P. 39 That he has abused Mr. Montague by a False Representation of his Judgment concerning the Homilies of our Church P. 45 That he continues his Charge of Misrepresentation upon some of our Men without replying to the Answers made in their Defence P. 49 But makes bold to say that the Author of the View confessed what that Author clearly diproved Pag. 53 His Pretence for declining a particular Answer to the View Pag. 57 His pleasant way of proving that he has not forsaken the Defence of his Double Characters Pag. 58 A brief Rehearsal of the Representer's Performances Pag. 66 The CONTENTS of the REPLY to the VINDICATOR THAT the Apologies of the New Converts in France are a clear Evidence both that the Distinction between Old Popery and New Popery is generally understood there and that 't is not a Distinction without a Difference Pag. 71 That he strives in vain to shew the Case of Monsieur Imbert to be no Argument of such a Difference Pag. 78 That the New Popery is offered for the sake of the Old one Pag. 82 The Good-Friday Service of the Missal as to the Worship of the Cross once more explained Pag. 83 How Matters stand between Mr. de Meaux Mr. Widenfelt and Father Crasset as to the Worship of the B. Virgin. Pag. 85 The Vindicator's Rule to know the Churches Sense in these things by her General Councils and by her Universal Practice considered Pag. 88 That if there be another way to know the Churches Sense in Doctrines of Faith besides her Voice in General Councils and Two Poperies be made to appear that way the Vindicator gets nothing by Councils P. 90 That if there be no other way yet even by this way it is demonstrated that they have Two Poperies amongst them Pag. 93 That the Vindicator has brought things to that pass that he makes Councils as insignificant as the Representer has made the Scriptures to be Pag. 101 That to avoid Two Poperies he has in truth not left so much as One Popery amongst Papists Pag. 105 But after all the ill Language we have from the Vindicator here for not granting that his is the True Popery and the ill Usage we should meet with elsewhere for contending that it is the True one is a sensible Demonstration of Two Poperies Pag. 106 A final Defence of our Charge against the Council of Trent about the Veneration of Reliques Pag. 107 Of Judging of the Churches Sense by her Universal Practice Pag. 110 The Bishop of Meaux's arguing against the Pagans from their Practices shewn to be good against the Church of Rome Pag. 111 That the Vindicator has utterly ruined the Representer's Designs Pag. 113 And at the same time betraied the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition too Pag. 118 Particular Replies to what remains in his Full Answer Pag. 120 AN ANSWER TO THE REPRESENTERS REFLECTIONS UPON THE STATE and VIEW OF THE CONTROVERSY HIS first Reflection upon the Stater is for Misrepresenting the case of the Dissenters Had the Stater done so the Representer had business enough of his own to let them speak for themselves But he had a better opinion of himself than so Hitherto says he I have been concerned with such who have most unjustly traduced and exposed the Doctrine and Faith of our Church Pref. p. 1. and now of late an upstart sort of Misrepresenter has called upon me who pretends to give an account of the Present State c. Which is just as if he had said Have not I for this three years and upwards so mauld the Traducers and Exposers of Papists that they feel it to this very hour How then durst this upstart sort of Misrepresenter shew his head as if there were not such a Man as I in the Nation To this tune he begins which is not seemly in a Man whose Character requires more Humility and Modesty than this comes to For I am told he is a Reverend Father which makes me the more sorry for him I am resolved to be very Civil to the Representer but as he has behaved himself I am at a great loss how to express it His falling upon the forementioned Author as a Misrepresenter and the pretence upon which he does it too is so very much out of the common Road of pertinence that I know not what to do with him It looks as if he had been a little unsettled with that overweening opinion I mentioned just now and then
For those Advices did not only of themselves intimate that there were some in the Church of Rome who needed them but by the Opposition that was made against it they shewed too that there were some Practices condemned there which the prevailing part of the Roman Church could not bear the Condemnation of The Vindicator indeed would make us believe Pag. 5. that the Church is not to answer for the Extravagancies condemned in those Advices because she has always taken care to instruct the People better But he regards not what he says I pray what care did she take to instruct them better when Monsieur Widenfelt who took a little honest Care about it was served as Father Crasset assures us he was when the Holy See condemned him when Spain banished him and forbad the Reading and Printing of his Book and in a word when the Learned of all Nations were said to condemn him and all this but for advising the People better The Vindicator calls this a Scandalous Insinuation and says that the Defender knows it to be such and talks as if he had proved it without saying a word where he has done so And yet Father Crasset published it no longer ago than in the Year 1679. in the Preface to his La Veritable Devotion c. What shall we do with this Man who grows rude when he has nothing to say to the Argument and will then have us to speak against our Consciences when he either does so himself or talks of things without knowledge He says the Defender has given us in another place it may be thro forgetfulness a short Answer to this They who oppose that Book of wholesom Advices are not therefore Enemies to every one of those Particulars But how is this an Answer to it For they must oppose it for something or other that M. de Meaux is bound to answer for For M. Widâ—nfelt allows as much to the Blessed Virgin as M. de Meaux does and M. de Meaux would be thought to deny all that Widenfelt denies to her When Crasset is at leisure to tell us what those Particulars are which he and the Pope and the Learned of all Nations do condemn we shall then know more particularly what we are undoubtedly assured of in the general viz. That Crasset brings the Vniversal Church against the Exposition of the Bishop of Meaux For I say it again M. Widenfelt allows as much Honour to the Blessed Virgin as the Bishop's Exposition does The Consequence of all this is clear if the Bishop has expounded Popery to us as they say he has and if for all that the Bishop's Exposition be as Father Crasset assures us Widenfelt's Advices are an Outrage to the whole Church then of necessity there must be two Poperies among them and these not only different from but outrageously contrary to one another And here I will take notice of the Vindicator's Exception to Crasset's Testimony for an Old Popery Father Crasset saies he is again brought upon the Stage for defending what he himself does not acknowledge to be an Article of our Faith and therefore belongs not to what you call Popery at all This Man would fain say something if he knew what Does nothing then belong to Popery at all which Father Crasset does not acknowledge to be an Article of Faith I am somewhat sure that Father Crasset will not acknowledge it to be an Article of Faith That no more Honour is to be given to the Virgin than what Mr. Widenfelt or M. de Meaux allow to be given to her nay instead of defending we are very sure that he has opposed that Doctrine And does not the Bishop's Exposition of the Catholic Faith in this point belong to Popery at all But letting this pass at present Fa. Crasset defends in gross what Widenfelt condemns and does withal defend it as the Doctrine of the Universal Church to what he took Widenfelt's Book to be an Outrage And if Crasset believes what he defends not only to belong to Popery but to be the true and genuine Popery of the Church this Man hurts himself and not us by doing all he can to prove that Crasset's Doctrine cannot belong to Popery at all This is what we say that some of them call that Popery which others deny to be so and that what was heretofore universally maintained as Popery and is so maintained by the most considerable as well as the most numerous Party of the Roman Church now is by some others that we have to do with rejected as not belonging to Popery at all Which makes good what the Defender said that 't is not in our Calumnies that this reflecting Distinction is to be found but in the real disagreement of those of their own Communion But because these Men are always flying to the Churches Sence to make them and the Old Papists One though all the World sees that they are divided about this Question What is Popery therefore the Defender was desirous to know what at last this thing called the Churches Sence is and how we may come to the knowledge of it To both parts of this Question the Vindicator condescended tho with some frowning to return an Answer First Pag. 5. saies he the Churches Sence in our Case is that which she delivers as a Doctrine of Faith or a necessary Practice I should be too troublesome to him to ask upon this occasion what he should mean by those Words In our case and by some other Expressions that occur in the Interpretations of this Answer I shall therefore take his Answer without any exception to it that the Churches Sence in our case is what she delivers as a Doctrine of Faith or a necessary Practice But how shall we come to the knowledge of this Sence Pag. 6. To this he answers By the Voice of the Church in her General and Approved Councils and by her universally practising such things as necessary That is to say 1. We are to know what she delivers as a Doctrine of Faith by her Voice in her General and Approved Councils 2. We are to know what she delivers as a necessary Practice by her universally practising such things as necessary This I take to be his meaning and to these two Particulars some little I have to say with the Vindicator's good leave And first of the former I. Where I desire him not to take it ill if I ask him one Question or two with some under Questions which cannot be spared for if he has no mind to answer them he may let it alone The Question is this Whether there be no way to know what the Church delivers as a Doctrine of Faith but by her Voice in her General and Approved Councils The reason of the Question is this Because if there be another way and if the Gentlemen of the Old Popery should chance to prove their Doctrine to be the Churches Sence that way the Vindicator will be at
a loss again and the Sence of the Church in Council will do him little Service in those Points where it may be Councils are silent if the Sence of the Church out of Council be plainly and loudly against him and his Party If the Vindicator then should say That tho the Church has a Sence of Doctrines of Faith out of Council yet that Sence cannot or at least is never delivered but by her Voice in General Councils Then I have one other Question to put which will break out into a few more but which he who hath considered these things very well will make no difficulty to answer This Question is How the Churches Sence came to be known concerning Doctrines of Faith before any General and Approved Councils delivered them for such Which Question will appear to be a very reasonable one if he will please to read these that follow 1. Whether Doctrines of Faith be not the same now that they were from the Beginning 2. Whether the Sence of the Church concerning these Doctrines has not been always the same 3. Whether the Church therefore had not the same Sence of them before they were delivered by her Voice in General and Approved Councils that she had afterwards Or Whether she had one Sence and delivered another And then as I said at first 4. If she had the same Sence before it was so delivered that she had when she delivered it and after she delivered it How came that Sence to be known before This I think is plain enough but if it be not I will try to make it plainer Therefore 1. We say with the Romanist That it is a Doctrine of Faith that The Son is of the same Substance with the Father But this Doctrine was never delivered in a General and Approved Council before the First Council of Nice as it was impossible it should because that was the First General Council I would know of the Vindicator whether the Churches Sence concerning that Doctrine was not to be known before and how it was to be known 2. The Romanists say That 't is a Doctrine of Faith That in the Eucharist the Substance of the Bread is turned into the Substance of Christ's Body and the Substance of the Wine into the Substance of his Blood. But this was never delivered in any pretended General and Approved Council as we are very sure before the Council of Lateran under Innocent III. I would know of the Vindicator whether the Church had the same Sence of this Transubstantiation before that Lateran Council which 't is said to have had since and whether that Sence of the Church was known and if so then how it was known I have given the Vindicator two Instances One of a Doctrine of Faith for which we contend no less than the Roman Church and as we think to better purpose Another of a Doctrine which that Church says is of Faith tho we say it destroys All Faith and these two in behalf of all that are Real and of all that are by them pretended to be Doctrines of Faith. For till I am better informed by the Vindicator in answer to the foresaid Questions I say of all the Doctrines of both kinds that there should be some way to come to the Churches Sence about these things before she delivered her Sence of them in the Voice of General and Approved Councils This I shall presume till he acquaints me otherwise and if he does not yet understand which way these Questions drive I will now tell him Let him keep to his Principles and shew me by what way the Churches Sence came to be known concerning Doctrines of Faith before they were delivered by the Voice of General and Approved Councils and then let him leave it to me to shew him by the same way that Old Popery as we call it has been the Sence of the Church of Rome till these expounding and representing Days of ours Nay and that Father Crasset shall prove by the same way that it is now the Sence of the Roman Church whatever some few Men of that Communion may pretend to the contrary And when I have done this the Vindicator shall by me be never contradicted while he on the other side proves the Sense of the Church to be quite different from what Father Crasset in his way proves to be so For most undoubtedly he thereby does our Work for us and enables us to prove that there must of necessity be two Church-Senses betwixt them and consequently two sorts of Popery an Old Popery and a New Popery Whereas therefore the Vindicator says Till you can prove by the express Words of a General Approved Council that what you term Old Popery was delivered as a Doctrine of Faith all you say will avail nothing I would be glad to know what the Vindicator would have said in behalf of Transubstantiation so some such Man as Rabanus Maurus or Bertram or Berengarius if he had lived in their Times and they should have said to him tho I think in my Conscience none of 'em would have talked so insipidly Till you can prove by the express Words of a General Approved Council that what you term the Catholic Faith concerning Christ's Presence in the Eucharist was delivered as a Doctrine of Faith all you say will avail nothing Here I will not allow that the Vindicator should bring in the Doctors and Saints of the Church who might be pretended to bear Testimony to the Churches Sense in this Point For he has foreclosed himself as to this Relief and that by giving the Defender a notable Reason why all he can say will avail him nothing if he brings not the express Words of a Council For says he you bring only the Sentiments of Private Men which other Members of the same Church condemn I have urged this Matter further than I intended at first for I meant not to press for Answers to the foregoing Questions with much Importunity And now I say no more than that I shall take it very kindly of the Vindicator if he will please to admit these things into his Consideration and enlighten me with his Thoughts about them II. I proceed in the second place to suppose a very strange thing for fear the Vindicator should affirm it and that is That nothing is to be taken for the Sense of the Church as to Doctrines of Faith but what she declares by her Voice in General Approved Councils For if we take the Cause by this Handle the Distinction between Old and New Popery will I believe go on as roundly as it did before And some Inconvenience too will follow in the Close to trouble the Vindicator no less than this Odious Distinction between Old and New Popery Because I would lead him fairly to the Business I ask him in the First place Whether his Church hath delivered her Sense concerning those two Points which he mentions upon this occasion by her Voice in General and
Approved Councils or whether she has not The two Points are the Doctrine of the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Worshipping Images If she has not done it then in the Church of Rome there can be no Doctrine concerning these two things which can be called a Doctrine of Faith. The Vindicator therefore will say I hope that she has delivered her Sense by her Voice And so I ask him in the Second place Whether by the Doctrine which the Church delivers he understands only so many Words put together and not rather the Sense of those Words which the Voice of the Church uses that is which her General and Approved Councils have put together to express their Meaning by This is a Question which the Vindicator must needs understand because I do in effect but borrow it of his Friends For the like Question has been often put to us by them and particularly by his good Friend the Representer and it may be by himself viz. Whether by the Scriptures we understand the Words or the Sense So say I by the Doctrines of Faith which the Vindicator says are delivered by the Voice of the Church in her General Councils Does he mean the Sense or the Words only of her Councils I will for once answer for him That he means the Sense which is contained under the Words I ask him therefore the Third time Whether the Sense of those Words which his General Councils have put together Pag. 6. be not as he says what truly we ought to mean by Popery If I may be bold to answer for him once more he must needs grant it For if the Churches Doctrine of Faith be the same with the Sense of her General Councils and if that which we ought to call Popery and to mean by Popery be the Churches Doctrine of Faith it will go very hard if Popery be not the Sense of her General Councils And now the Odious Distinction clears up apace in going this way to work For if that part of Popery which is made by Doctrines of Faith be neither more nor less than the Sense of General Councils concerning such Doctrines as we Protestants disclaim it follows presently that the Sense of those Councils is what we ought to call Popery And therefore 1. I humbly conceive that if there be two Parties in the Church of Rome that are not agreed what the Sense of her General Councils is it follows out of hand that so far they are not agreed about Popery and that for this very good Reason Because the Sense of her General Councils and the Faith part of Popery according to him is all one and indeed but two Expressions of the same thing 2. It follows also That in what Sense soever either of those Parties takes the Words of the Churches Councils that Sense is and must necessarily be that Parties Popery because the Sense of her Councils being Popery that which is to one Party the Sense of her Councils must likewise be Popery to that Party 3. If therefore one of those Parties takes the Words of her Councils in one Sense and another takes the same Words in a contradictory Sense then because the Sense in which the former takes those Words is the Popery of or to that Party and the Sense of the latter is its Popery it unavoidably follows that there are two pretended Poperies betwixt those two Parties which are inconsistent with one another 4. If the Sense of one of these Parties was that which prevailed without Controul ever since the Council of Trent till very lately and the Sense of the other Party is therefore but of yesterday then of these two Poperies the former must needs be the Old Popery and the latter the New Popery 5. So much Reason as we have to believe the Old Popery to be the true Sense of the Churches Councils rather than the New one so much reason also we have to believe that the Old Popery is the True Popery and the New to be but an Imposture or a Mistake of those of the Roman Church that have of late brought it up 6. And lastly If Protestants did not make those different Senses for them but each Party in that Church made them for themselves then this Distinction of an Old and a New Popery is no Misrepresentation Falsification or Calumny of Protestants but a Distinction grounded upon the Real Disagreement of Papists about Popery Quod erat demonstrandum But I think that Men were never put to it as we are to make solemn proof of things that are so evident that they need not to be proved at all The Council of Trent determines That we are to fly to the Prayers the Help and the Assistance of the Saints If we would know the Councils Sense in this Matter the Old ones will tell us that the meaning is we should have recourse to them for other Aids besides their Prayers And as one would verily take this for the meaning from the Construction of the Words themselves so the Terms of Invoking the Saints which were then used in their Offices and still are so do manifestly favour that Interpretation But our New Expositors come and tell us that they require no other Aid and Assistance from the Saints than their Prayers and the Vindicator intimates that if they did we should have something to say against the Lawfulness of what they practise If Popery therefore be not so much the Words of the Council in which I acknowledge they all agree as the Sense of the Council in which they do not agree how is it possible but that here are two Poperies in this matter advanced amongst themselves one against the other Again The Council of Trent affirms That due Honour and Veneration is to be given to Images And therefore what one Party in that Church takes to be that due Honour is Popery to them because 't is the Sense of the Church to that Party And what another believes to be so is their Popery And here I am sure if we find a Harmony 't is made up all of Discords Indeed one would have thought that the Council by Due Honour and Veneration had meant that Worship which was at that time given to Images in the Roman Church which their Offices required and for which their most celebrated Writers had contended And this way of coming to the Sense of the Council must lead a Man to the Popery of giving the same Honour to the Image that is due to the Prototype or at least an Inferior Honor by which the Image might be said to be truly and properly worshipped For the former Sense Cardinal Capisucchi does at this day earnestly contend and very fairly argues it against all Opposers from the Words of the Council But the Bishop of Meaux and the Representer and the Vindicator are as cross to that Sense as downright Contradiction can make them They say See Second Def. p. 31 32 c. That in presence of
is every bodies else that I can speak to and which is worst of all I must not judge between these different Parties which of them speaks the Churches Sence because I am that way Infallibly thrown upon my own Sentiments which are as private as can be In this State there being no Council sitting I have no living Judge upon Earth to help me and I am sure I must not be a living Judge for my self so that I have no Oracle to go to but a few Dead Letters which cannot speak and I have no reason to expect whilst I am doubting whether the Words mean Capisucchi's or De Meaux's Sence that the Letters should disappear and other Letters rise in the room of them and make Words plain enough to end the Dispute And therefore I think we must do as the Vindicator gives leave and suspend our Judgment at least till the sitting of the next General and Approved Council that shall be called to interpret the last Tho I do not see how that could end the Controversie because the Words of that Council too must be interpreted by private Sence and so to the Worlds end till Councils have found out a way to determine Controversies of Faith without any Words at all There is I confess one way left to come to a certainty of the Churches Sence if we had it and but one and that is for every Body to be Infallible for by the same reason that they would take us off from the Scriptures we have not any security by Councils unless we had an infallible Spirit to interpret and then I fancy there would be no need of Councils at all for an Infallible way of interpreting the Scriptures will excuse any Mans dependence upon Councils that has it Now after these Men have vilified the private use of the Scriptures and have in effect made nothing of them for this Child of the Church to come now at last in his distress and make as little of General Councils is a just Infatuation upon him Who does not see that to get off the two Poperies which are so notorious he will allow nothing to be Popery but the very express Words of their Councils which indeed have a Sence that this Man calls the Churches Sence but then you are to ask no body what that Sence is For whoever he is that you ask he gives you but his own Sence or his private Sentiment And at this rate I confess it will be impossible to find out two Poperies in the Church because Popery is nothing but the Churches Sence But then you will not be able to find so much as One Popery in the Church and that it may be the Vindicator never thought of For whilst every body gives his own Sence to the Words of the Council as they say every one of us does to the Words of the Scripture indeed no Man can be certain that the Churches Sence is not reached by any of the private Sentiments of Men but who has had the good luck to reach it the Lord knows for 't is a Happiness which no Man that has it can certainly say that he has And therefore by that Trick which serves him to keep two Poperies out of the Church he has unawares thrown out all Popery excepting that dead Popery that lies buried in the Words of General and approved Councils Thus speaking of that which we Term Old Popery and his Parties condemning it he says Pag. 6. So long as there is such a Dispute betwixt them whom the Church acknowledges to be her Children and she does not determine it any one may hold which side they please as an Opinion or suspend their Judgment but neither side is truly what you ought to mean by Popery So that 't is neither Popery to worship Images with the same Worship that is due to what they represent nor is it Popery to worship them with a Worship that is not the same nor is it Popery to worship them as it were not at all And therefore the Children of the Church may hold which side they please as an Opinion they may with Cardinal Capisucchi be of the opinion that M. de Meaux's Doctrine concerning due Honour and Veneration savours of Heresie and they may with M. de Meaux be of the Opinion that Capisucchi's Doctrine savours of Idolatry And they that are of the former Opinion may yet with the Cardinal approve the Bishops Exposition and they that are of the later Opinion may with the Bishop say That the Cardinal in his Treatise about Images had said nothing in the whole that contradicteth the Bishop In short we may take Due Honour and Veneration in this Sense or in that Sense or in any Sense wherein any of the Children of the Church understand it or if you please no Sense whatsoever For you may suspend your Judgment And if the Vindicator be in the right that what he has said in this case is applicable to all others Protestants without believing one Doctrine of Faith more than they do already may be said to have as much Doctrinal Popery as the Members of the Romish Church it self I would have the Vindicator think of these things and before he sends us again to the express Words of his General Councils to consider how his Friends have used the Scriptures and us for making them the Rule of our Faith. We do not pretend to find in express Words of their General Councils every thing which we call Old Popery but we find it in the Profession of the prevailing Part even of the present Roman Church and in its oppressing those that seem in good earnest to be of another mind And as we may without blame call that Popery or the Sense of their Church which themselves call so so we cannot be reproved for saying that their Popery seems to be the true and genuine Popery because it agrees vastly better with the express Words of their Councils than the Popery of our modern Expositors and Representers But yet for calling this Popery the Vindicator calls the Defender a Misrepresenter Pag. 6 7. a Misrepresenter and a Calumniator too a Misrepresenter a Falsifier and a Calumniator Thus he lays about him without Fear or Wit and hurts himself more than his Adversary For his bad Language does furnish me with a Proof that there are Two Poperies amongst them which the dullest Apprehension will feel and the finest shall not be able to distinguish away To take the Vindicator's Instance once more Here in England I make bold to say that worshipping Images and Crucifixes with the same Worship that is due to the Persons represented is Popery And for this by an Authentic Papist I am called a Misrepresenter a Falsifier and a Calumniator too Which are hard Words and I would not willingly deserve them I would therefore know what is the sincere Popery in this case and I am told That Images are not properly to be worshipped but the Persons represented
Construction is no False Translator but a True one especially if that Sentence be part of a Work where the Latin is every where else very good and that Sense which the Construction makes agrees with all that is in connexion And 1. it agrees very well with the mention of those many Benefits which Reliques are said to be the Means of And 2. It holds with the Difference between the Matter of this Period and that of the foregoing one much better than the Vindicator's Sense does For he would have the Help of the Saints to be mentioned here But let him observe that this was abundantly taken care for in the Provision that went immediately before and therefore if it were Indifferent as it is not which way the Construction should be carried according to the use of Latin this should carry it for ours that here the Council was engaged in a new Matter not for the Invocation of Saints and the Benefits of that which are provided for before but for the Veneration of their Reliques and the Benefits that come that way which is the Business of this Period And now the Vindicator may consider to whom of right the Character of a False Translator belongs of a Falsifier and a Calumniator too Certainly Controversies about Religion were never disgraced by such mean Bickerings as these but who can help it that has to do with such Men as this Vindicator and his Friend the Representer So much for knowing the Sense of the Church by her Voice in her General and Approved Councils Again We are to know what the Church delivers as a necessary Practice Pag. 6. by her universally practising such things as necessary I ask therefore 1. Did not the Church intend her Public Offices for Rules of Vniversal Practice and are they not therefore one Means by which we are to judge of such Practice 2. Whether those things are not necessary to be done in the Roman Church which her Public Offices require 3. Whether she does not practice those things as necessary which she practises in conformity to her own Public Offices or Whether it be indifferent for the Children of the Church to observe her Rules or to refuse to observe them The Vindicator understood himself to be liable to these Questions and therefore when he comes to apply this Means of knowing the Churches Sense in necessary Practices he adds a new Limitation Vnless says he you can prove That what you term Old Popery was delivered as a Practice necessary TO SALVATION all you say will avail you nothing For the Church is to answer for nothing which she requires not as necessary to Salvation And tho she obliges all her Children to worship the Wood on Good-Friday and condemns those that refuse as Schismatics as Imberâ— knows to his Cost yet 't is not the Churches Sense that they should do so because the Rubric does not add that this is Necessary to Salvation So that if the Church had commanded us to worship Moloch that had not been Popery or the Churches Sense unless she had inserted that Reason for her Command That 't is necessary to Salvation to worship Moloch In a word The General Practice of the Church of Rome in the Service of the Virgin the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Images is notorious to the World. And no Man that knows the authorized Practice can doubt of the Sense of the Church nor be ignorant that in these things the Bishop of Meaux has delivered not the Churches Sense but his own if indeed it be his own The Defender produced an Author of the Roman Communion who concluded that the true and only Means to free their Religion from the Exceptions of Heretics was to shew that it does not tolerate any thing but what is Good and that the Public Worship the Customs and Doctrines Authorized in it are Just and Holy. This Author had good Reason for what he said especially against the Bishop of Meaux who imputed to the Pagan Religion those Abuses which were publicly committed amongst them and laughed at the Expositions of the Philosophers that would put a good Sense upon their Abominable Worships The Vindicator says he admits the Parallel but he is certain that it will never make any thing for us till we can shew that the Church does or did make use of Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures to oblige People to believe and practise those things which we call Old Popery as the Heathens did to make them worship Idols That is to say He does not admit the Parallel tho he says he does admit it For the Bishop of Meaux was brought in charging Paganism with a Barbarous and Idolatrous Worship upon the account of their Notorious and Authorized Practices without regard to their Cruelties upon those that refused to comply with them And therefore if the Parallel be admitted we may conclude an Old Popery from a like general Practice without enquiring whether Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures were used to enforce it upon the people But the Vindicator has required a wise condition to make the Parallel hold for he says in effect that before Christianity appeared against Heathenism and till the Pagans had some people to hang and to torture Paganism could not be charged with a Corrupt and Idolatrous Worship And yet if this were necessary to be added Old Popery has not been behind hand with the use of Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures to speak all in a word it has had and to this day it has an Inquisition to uphold it As for what he says that the Defender must shew Pag. 7. that the Church allows such wicked Practices as correspond to his Authors example of Killing and Robbing and are as dangerous to the Church as those are to a State. I reply that the Question is not here how dangerous those Doctrines and Practices are which we call Old Popery but whether indeed they are to be charged upon the Church of Rome And the Similitude was brought to shew That it is to as little purpose to defend the Church of Rome against our exceptions by pretending that no decision of Council can be produced requiring that Service and Worship which is universally given to Saints and Images as to acquit a City where they rob and kill without contradiction by saying that there is no Law commanding Men to rob and murther one another As for the danger of those Doctrines and Practices which we call Old Popery 't is another Question in which I am pretty confident that Good Man the Representer is bound to appear He and the Vindicator therefore shall agree about it at their leisure I shall do my part to bring them fairly together and so let them compound the matter betwixt them as well as they can The Vindicator felt himself born down with those clear Testimonies of an Old Popery which the Defender plied him with and by what appears now he struggles
more to the Church than the Discourses so that by what I remember of those times P. 3. had not the Church of England taken the Lash in hand as well as the Pen the Churches had continued as empty as they are at this day Our Representer plainly insinuates by the way that our Churches are somewhat empty at this day and this is the very man who upon the present occasion observes That altho dealing out of Relations by Tale and by Scraps might pass in a matter beyond our memory P. 4. as of the Council of Trent of Lateran of Pope Gregory yet to come thus with half Stories in a Concern of Yesterday oh that is not to be endured But whether our Churches are as it were empty is without all doubt a Concern of to day and for a man not to tell half-Stories of such a Concern but whole Stories the quite contrary What is that I pray That he thinks it probable that the Dissenters were more wrought upon by Sufferings than by the Discourses of the Divines I easily grant for he knows of a certain Church that has done more by those sort of Perswasives than by all that ever was written in her behalf as all Europe and both the Indies can bear her witness Doubtless therefore he thinks it probable that our Church was a gainer by the execution of the Penal Laws at that time but whether it was so or not is another Question I find that where he mends the Staters Account for him he would have had him to say P. 4. That it was very likely for such is the frailty of wicked man that more were frighted and whipt to Church than came thither by Force of our Reasoning and Discourses By the way he should learn to be more grave and serious than to make sport with the Frailty of wicked man which is a thing that a good Priest ought to lament and to remedy what he can by his Doctrine and Example When he has to do with his Adversaries if he finds that any of them grows exceedingly impertinent and when Argument forsakes them fall to Ridiculing or that they use Tricks to cover their Convictions and do but discover them so much the more let him lay it on handsomly without sparing if he likes this way of Correction best But for a Priest of the living God to rally with the Frailty of wicked man when he means nothing by it but to help out a Lampoon upon a single Adversary whom he does not love is very unpriest-like and a more likely way to make Atheists than to mend that which he it seems can make merry withal the Frailty of wicked man. Well But 't is not so certain that when the Dissenters were under the execution of the Laws that then I say human Frailty wrought that way which he speaks of for it might work the quite contrary way and the Orders for that purpose coming from above much about the same time the offence which they took at that might prejudice many of them against all that the Divines could say tho the Divines had no hand in it for mankind is apt to be provoked as well as to be frighted and to act inconsiderately in one as well as in the other case But there is this Reason to think that they were rather the Discourses than the Penalties which filled our Churches That the Prosecutions have been at an end a good while and 't is therefore to be hoped that the virtue of the Discourses did the good work at first and goes on to do it still for whatever the Representer fancies the Churches are as full at this day as they were in those times when he pretends the Church of England took the Lash in hand They are so full that a Reverend Father may come to spy and hearken and think to escape in the Throng without being observed and what if the Representer has been upon this Mission himself Then I say he shall Represent for those that will trust him but for me and my Friends never whilst he breathes As for his Story of one Mr. P. 2. de Laune I know nothing of it The Representer says he wrote a Book and was sent to the Compter but he does not say it was for writing that Book tho he would insinuate some such matter from which modesty of his if there be any truth at all in the story one might venture to conclude that he knew the man was sent to Prison for something else And yet if he were sent to Prison for the writing of that Book but if neither that Divine whom he wrote against nor any of the rest contributed to it so much as by a wish the Representer stings us not by this Reflection Of this I have told him something of my own knowledg already For what he says of some that were starved and of Orphans and Widows that were made so by the Penalties inflicted upon the Dissenters it is to be hoped that our Representer over-does the business and rants somewhat too Tragically P. 3. For my part I have always thought that the use of those Perswasives which he talks of does at the long run more mischief to a Church than good and if I may speak my own experience I do not find this Spirit of Moderation to prevail any where so much as in the Church of England But the Representer brings over the Sufferings of Dissenters for nothing else but to prejudice them against us I will not here enter into an Enquiry what reason there is for it but this one thing I will say That I am no less desirous than himself that the Dissenters should be very often told of their Sufferings in those times only if a man will be telling them then as the Representer says it would do well not to tell the Story by halves but if he does then to return him some of his own words I do not think that with all his poor shifts P. 3. his Readers will be imposed upon in a matter so well known And therefore I no less than the Representer desire that the Dissenters would think of all that is past as long as they have a day to live As to the Tracts that were soon after written against the Papists the Representer observes that Two things were not mentioned by the Stater upon this occasion which we had upon the former Not the Plain and Inoffensive manner of Writing nor any News of Success which these Discourses had upon the Parties designed For the former he says P. 5. That the Stater was too conscious of the scurrilous and bitter Spirit with which some of them were penned that one against Transubstantiation being Instance enough By which he would insinuate that others of them too were written in the same manner How hard is it for some men to be sincere in any thing I remember indeed some of these Expressions in that Discourse which he produces such
Present State the Author of it either made but very small faults in drawing it up or he is very much obliged to the Representer for letting the great ones pass His next quarrel with the Stater is for making the Roman party the Aggressors P. 6. and the Papist Misrepresented c. the beginning of this Book-War For this Man will have the Onset to have been given by Dr. Sherlock in his Sermon before the House of Commons which was published as near as I can learn about Two Months before the Representer came forth The Author of the Agreement c. concurs with him in this Objection as he does in Humour to admiration tho' they have their several ways For one of them proves that we are Agreed with the Church of Rome and the other that we Misrepresent the same Church and yet so like one another as if the same Planet govern'd them both But as to the Doctor 's Sermon I do acknowledg that there was one passage in it that grated upon the Papists And I have two things to say to it First the Stater assures me that he did not think of that Sermon at all when he was at work and could therefore have no design in omitting it but withal now that he is told of it he cannot grant that a single Reflection in a Sermon that was afterwards Printed at the desire of the House ought to be esteemed the beginning or the occasion of those Controversies And he believes that if we had published such a like Book for this Church as the Representer did for his Party and one of their Sermons had been not long before published by Command with a like Reflection upon us they would for all that have thought us to be the Agressors He says farther that he spake only of Discourses that professedly treated of these Controversies and therefore that if he had thought of that Sermon he thinks it was not his Duty to take notice of it and he wonders that the Representer should be so overset with a Cavilling humour as not to observe those words State p. 4. that from the Death of our late Royal Sovereign our Divines thought fit to be of the Defensive side and for some time published no more DISCOVRSES OF THAT KIND but waited to see c. In the next place I must tell the Representer my thoughts and leave others to judge of them as they see cause I say then that the Representer published indeed his Book about two Months after the Sermon but if the Truth could be known I would venture all that little I am worth that the Representer had been hammering out that Book some Months before that Sermon was made For not to insist upon it that he has taken more time to write Books that are a great deal worse for perhaps he was otherwise imployed or gave himself some convenient Relaxation This I believe all considering persons will grant me that to represent Popery in a kind of Protestant dress is so nice and withal so dangerous tho' now it seems so necessary an undertaking that no performance can require greater Art and Application of mind Between the danger of giving up a point which the Church must not quit under the penalty of forfeiting her Infallibility and the danger of guarding it too plainly to the offence of Protestants the Undertaker is obliged to have his Eyes about him and to look on every side Every expression must be exactly weighed It will sometimes happen that but one will please which will not be thought of till many others are tried and rejected Sometimes again when the first of all is not liked after the rejecting of many others that are found more liable to exception the first must be taken with all its faults So that here will be much altering and some restoring and not a little sining and superfining And when one Man has done what he can one Man's judgment in a Cause so perillous is not to be trusted It must be revised by others and because faults will come in one upon the neck of another where every place is a place to let them in it must be revised again and again as the Bishop of Condom can tell this Man if he needs that any body should tell him Now tho' the Papist Misrepresented and Represented does not rise up to the Spirit and the Art of the Exposition of the Catholick Faith yet considering the untractableness of the Matter it was no ill wrought piece of work and excepting that blunder of his that when he was a Protestant he believed the Sermons of the Papists to be in un unknown Tongue as well as their Prayers and two or three less considerable misfortunes it was conveniently contrived for its end which was to amuse less thinking people In a word it appears to be a work of so much labour and time that I believe few will question but tho' the Doctor 's Sermon was first rigg'd out yet the Papist Misrepresented and Represented was upon the Stocks a good while before And then the Representer's Conscience should have forbidden him to find fault with the Stater for intimating that the Gentlemen of the Roman Communion were first guilty of breaking the Peace This I think is enough in return to a small exception but whether it be or not the Stater is resolved to put himself upon the mercy of the World for the future rather than he will run out into any more Apologies upon so slender an occasion To proceed it was said in the Present State that we were surprized to find no notice taken of the former Tracts against Popery in the Representer's first Book This he turns well enough P. 7. confessing that it must needs be a matter of surprize That the Papists now enjoying the Royal Favour should after so many provocations be contented to make no other return than in a short moderate and peaceable Tract to give an account of their Faith and Doctrine c. And so he takes occasion to praise their Meekness and Charity To all which it might be enough to say that so long as it does no body any hurt other men may be safely allowed to commend themselves and let them consider whether it will do them any good But that if it were not more difficult to Answer some Books than to give a Reason for not Answering them in all likelyhood we had heard the Victories of these Writers more celebrated at this time than their Meekness and Charity But whereas he magnifies the Good Spirit of his short moderate and peaceable Tract upon this score That there was no upraiding the Church of England Divines in it notwithstanding Abusive Reflections c. he does in effect confess of the first View p. 65. what was proved of all his Books but the first That the Church of England Divines were intended in them as we were very sure that they were He has for some time lost that wariness which
are not to be trusted with an implicit Faith which we desire not to be but rather to be believed in these matters so far as we prove what we say and no farther And if he be trusted no farther we desire no more III. We offer says he and are ready to accept any into our Communion that will but embrace and receive the Doctrine as it there stands in his first Book under those very colours and that shape owning not only the substance of it but even that appearance c. Now this he hath offered twice or thrice before and his offer has been as often answered but he will not take the least notice of it He thought at first no doubt that here he had nicked the business but tho he has had some reason to fall in his opinion of the Proposal yet he comes over with it as if this too remained in its full force I will try however if it be possible to oblige him to reflect upon what we have to say in this matter 1. Then this offer ought to be esteemed no otherwise than a Ludicrous one made without good Faith and with no other meaning than to put some colour upon his own deceitful Characters of a Papist because he has been told and indeed could not be ignorant of it before that we cannot swallow Popery even as he has smooth'd and gilded it for us He has in the first Answer to his Book our Reasons against Popery as by him Represented which he did not and I imagine durst not reply to And so long as our Reasons are good against that which he confesses to be Popery he offers a vain tryal of his sincerity about that which he denies to be so because he knows that as the Case stands 't is impossible for us if we will keep a good Conscience to accept the offer And therefore this beloved offer of his which he intended for a Varnish to set off his Characters will to all men that can use their Eyes give a just occasion to suspect they are false and that the sincerity he has used in his Representation is of one piece with that which he has shewn in his Proposal To which I may add That if we are very sure that his Characters are Deceitful if we see that himself declines the defence of them and that no importunity will provoke him to undertake the vindication of them and that he writes time after time to excuse himself from it we cannot have just cause to believe that he is not deceitful in the offer he makes upon such Characters 2. Suppose that we could accept and should be accepted here upon the Terms he propounds yet we have no security that when we are in this Representer either can or will if he could save us from being pressed to profess and practise that Popery which he either denies or conceals On the one hand we are very certain that the prevailing part of his Church holds that which he either rejects from his Faith or says nothing of and if we understand any thing that they declare agreeably to their Councils and Publick Offices On the other hand we have no reason at all to believe his Authority in the Roman Church to be considerable enough to carry on his Representation when the turn is once serv'd or to secure us from being served in due time as Monsieur Imbert has been who was basely left in the lurch by the Bishop of Meaux after he had declar'd for worshiping not the Wood but Christ not the Cross but him that suffered on it Where the Inquisition is set up could this Man that talks as if he were somebody govern the proceedings by his Characters If he thinks that he could that 's a new Reason to suspect that his Wits are set aside by self-conceit If that he could not what Conscience could it be in him to try if he could draw us into Snares and by his New Popery wheedle us into a subjection to the Roman See and so into a necessity of being used as the Physician at Goa was Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa chap. xxvii who suffered under the Inquisition for two things whereof one was no more than his declaring as his Accusers said that an Ivory Crucifix was a piece of Ivory which I should think may as safely be said according to the Rules of New Popery as what the Representer offers might be done viz. to burn an Image or a Crucifix if that will satisfy us that he has no Superstition in these things For as I remember he talks at that rate But then again if the Representer were a Man of that Figure in his Church as to be able to save us in a time of Exigence we have not yet any good reason to trust him that he would be willing to do so for he has not given us reasonable assurance that himself rejects that Popery which he knows we call so I shall therefore take the same liberty with him that he has done with us and put him upon a Test which I think he cannot honestly refuse He has taxed his Answerer with charging the Determinations of Schoolmen and the Sentiments of private Authors and some Passages in Old Missals and Rituals upon the Church of Rome as if her Doctrine were to be concluded from thence I will not here repeat what has been said in answer to it But this I say will the Representer be content to go through his Thirty seven Points as they are considered by his first Answerer and make his Mark upon every thing which he rejects and which he says we falsly charge upon the Church of Rome and declare before the World upon his honest Word what it is that he believes to be impious there and ought not to be fastened upon his Church This perhaps would be something and we who are not a little disposed to hope well of other Men might then conceive our selves obliged to think that he means honestly He has more than once or twice offered that his Church shall receive us upon his Terms and he has been answered But as I do remember he has been asked whether he would refuse us if we desired to come into the Roman Communion with that which we call Old Popery But I do not remember that he has answered to that And yet I will assure him this was a very material Question and which I will make him take notice of here if I can Will the Representer take us by the hand and present us to his Church if we should come with the Lateran Popery about deposing Sovereigns for Heresy and with the Trent Popery about the Worship of Images as it is understood by Bellarmine or rather by Capisucchi and as it is practised by the Tartuffs of the Roman Church and with all that old Popery which the Answerer gives an account of If he will not undertake for us upon these Terms let him do two things which may fairly
the Representer has made for us One thing I am sure of that the Converts of the City of Orange were received upon such easy terms in point of Declaration that if Subjection and Communion had not been to follow one would have look'd upon the whole Transaction as a solemn Jest between the French General and the Bishop of Orange on the one side and the Citizens of Orange on the other The Passage is very remarkable and instructing and therefore I shall not think much to set down the Articles of Reconciliation as I have received them from hands of unquestionable credit 1. The Citizens of the Town of Orange that are under written considering that it is the Will of God of which Kings are the principal Interpreters that all Christians should reunite themselves into the same Church To testify their submission to the Order of the Divine Providence and that which they bear to the Holy Intentions of the King do intreat of his Majesty that his Troops commanded by the Count de Tessé should depart from them and that the Expence which has been or shall be made by them be levied upon the whole State without distinction of Religion We Order the Execution of the present Article according to the full Tenor of it Tessé 2. They declare that they do reunite themselves to the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church after the manner which that Church do's use to believe and to profess all the Christian and Orthodox Truths contained in the Holy Scripture which God hath manifested to the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists following the Interpretation and Sense of the Universal Church and renouncing all Errors and Heresies contrary thereunto 3. That for their great Consolation and Edification every Sunday before the Service there shall be read a Chapter of the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testament in French according to the Translations approved by the Church and that all the Divine Service which is performed in Latin shall be explained in French by the Pastors of the Church 4. That they shall invoke no other besides God the Father Son and Holy Ghost 5. That they shall not believe that it is necessary to Salvation to have any other Intercession and Mediation than that of our Lord Jesus Christ towards God the Father 6. That they shall not be obliged to render any Divine Honour to Images which shall be in the Church 7. That they shall adore Jesus Christ in the Eucharist who is Really Spiritually and Sacramentally contain'd in that Adorable Sacrament 8. That this Consolation shall be given to the Faithful that they shall communicate in both Kinds if the Universal Church shall think it convenient Done at Orange the 11th of Nov. 1685. We James d' Obeilh by the Grace of God Bishop of Orange Abbot and Count of Montfor Counsellor of the King in all his Councils have admitted these who are countersigned to the Reunion of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church upon the Conditions expressed in the Eight Articles above written Done at Orange this 13th of Novemb. 1685. John James Bishop of Orange The Representer may I think see in this Example that he is out-done in his own way and that there are in the World more mild and inoffensive Representations of Popery than his own and some provisions for saving the Consciences of the Reformed which himself has not made But I would know of him whether he do's believe that those who united themselves to the Roman Church with these Cautions can be reasonably judged to have proceeded with satisfaction in themselves and about what they did Or rather whether there be not all the Signs that one can have in a thing of this Nature that being distressed between a troublesome Conscience on the one Hand and Count Tessés Troops on the other they capitulated as well as they could for their own quiet and granted what they did to be delivered from the Souldiers and no more than what they did if by that means they might pacify their own Minds A very miserable Case most certainly And that which is yet more to be lamented is that these things should be done by Christians upon Christians Let the Representer take it into his serious Consideration and I believe it will be one of those things that he will always forget to put into the Character of his Papist Represented But why must the Minds of Men be racked in this manner Why must they be brought under the most dangerous Temptations to cheat themselves and for the gaining of rest from outward Miseries to betray the Tranquillity of their own Consciences and be constrained to play such Tricks with them as if one Man should chuse to put upon another he would be accounted no better than a cunning Knave He that cannot see the true Reason of this unmerciful dealing and that too by this very Example can see but little It is Vnion that is to say Submission to what they call the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church that must be by these means or by any means carried on This we meet with at the very head of the Provisions and again at the foot of them in the Bishop's Certificate Nor are any of the Reformed to expect otherwise but that this shall be expresly insisted on But because the poor People knew that Union to that Church carried dreadful Things along with it therefore they strugled and it seems they gained one of the prittiest Limitations of that Vnion that ever was heard of viz. To believe and to profess all the Christian and Orthodox Truths contained in the Holy Scripture which God hath manifested to the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists But then this Limitation would make the Vnion very insignificant for thus one may be united to the Turk viz. to believe and to profess all the Christian and Orthodox Truths contained in the Holy Scripture And therefore something must be added to that and certainly greater Artifice on both sides shall seldom be seen than what is shewn in putting in these words after the manner which that Church dos use which may indifferently refer either to reuniting or believing The People may understand it of being united to the Roman Church after the manner it uses till the Bishop teaches them to understand it of believing the Christian Truths of the Scripture after the manner of that Church And so by understanding the Scripture after the Interpretation and Sense of the Vniversal Church the Bishop has his meaning and they have theirs as long as he will suffer them The most jealous Princes never treated more nicely for their Honour than these poor Protestants did for their Conscience and their Masters for the Church of Rome And considering that they had but two hours allowed them to unite to the Roman Church before the last Extremity should be used upon refusal and that there were Difficulties on both Sides the Protestants consulted for their Consciences as much as it was possible for Men to do
Images respect is paid to the Persons whom they represent but Images themselves are not to be worshipped No God forbid but only used to put us in mind of the Original Thus they explicate the Language i. e. give us the Sense of their Church in her Decisions of Faith But so I dare say as it was never explicated before However if these Gentlemen believe the Sense of the Council to be as they say I wonder how it comes to pass that the Vindicator should not acknowledge it to be Popery For he must not forget that Popery is the Sense of the Church which she delivers by her Voice in Councils and therefore that the Sense of the Councils Words it truly Popery And consequently what He and His Party take to be their Sense they must in spite of their Hearts confess to be their Popery unless they care not how inconsistently they talk And then I would ask the Vindicator whether it be possible to reconcile his and the Bishops Sence with Cardinal Capisucchi's and those of his way The Truth is the Vindicator has given up the Cause for by saying that we bring only the private Sentiments of Men which other Members of the same Church condemn he confesses that they do in these things condemn one another Which perfectly acquits us from the charge of misrepresenting them when we say that there are two sorts of Popery amongst them by which we never meant any thing else than that one Party of them and that the greater does earnestly contend that that is Popery which the other utterly disclaims and does therefore set up another Sense of their Councils and their publick Offices opposite to that of the former As for his calling the Sentiments of the opposite Party Private Sentiments If he means that they keep their Persuasions to themselves and do not trouble the Church with them He is to know that as the Men are not private but of great Note and Authority in the R. Church and the number of their Followers far more considerable than of theirs who condemn them so their Sentiments are not private neither but as publick as Disputing for them and censuring and punishing their Opposers can make them But if I can understand him by private Sentiments he means the Sentiments of Men out of Council so that no measure is to be taken of the Doctrine of their Church by what is delivered by such Men tho they be Bishops or Cardinals and their number never so great and their Declarations never so publick and notorious and their Censures never so sharp against those that oppose them for still they are but the private Sentiments of Men out of Council Why then must the Representers or the Vindicators or even his Lordship the Bishop of Meaux's Sentiments concerning the Doctrine of the Church go for any other than the private Sentiments of Men For their Expositions have been neither made nor approved in General Councils Must Cardinal Capisucchi the Archbishop of Bourdeaux and Father Crasset with his Holy Bishops and Learned Doctors nay and with the Learned of all Nations be said to deliver only the Sentiments of private men whilest a few Teachers that arose in this Age whose Party is despicable who labour under the marks of Insincerity whose Doctrine being professed in good earnest is persecuted by that Church whose Faith it is said to be whilst those Men I say must be thought to deliver the True and Genuine Doctrine of the Church But if neither the one side nor the other side delivers the Sense of the Church Who knows what the Sense of the Church is and how shall I come by it The Vindicator directs me to the Express Words of General and Approved Councils But then I must needs ask him Who is to be Judge of the Sense of those express Words I see express Words indeed and I am very apt to think that I do understand the Sense of plain and express Words But if I may be allowed to understand express Words why can I not as well understand such Words in the Scriptures as in their Councils For the Words of the Scripture seem to me to be very expresly against many things that are held in the Church of Rome And here I have been told that this is not the Sense of the Scripture but my private Sense that the Scripture is a Dead Letter till the Churches Interpretation gives it Life and Sense that private Judgment is Fallible and therefore not to be relied upon that the same places seem to be express to one Man for this thing and to another Man for that thing that so many private Heads as there are so many Bibles there will be that after all our assurance that we understand plain and express Texts of Scripture there is no certainty to be had but by submitting to Authority and receiving Doctrines of Faith not from the Scripture but from the Church Well I submit to the Church and ask Where or by whom she delivers her Sence concerning Doctrines of Faith Ans By her Voice in her General and Approved Councils But where is that Voice to be heard Ans In the express Words of those Councils I go therefore to those Councils God help them that can't Here indeed I find express Words if a Man could but tell how to come to the Sense of them for I thought my self very sure of the meaning of express Words of Scripture But it seems I was mistaken then What assurance have I that I am not mistaken now For express Words are but as express Words in the Councils as they are in the Scriptures And if my Sence of such Words in the Scripture was but a private Sence before my Sence also of such Words in the Councils is no more now And therefore if I must trust to my own private Sence I shall be sorely tempted to go back again and to make as good a shift as I can with my private Sence and the Scriptures together rather than follow those who tell me my private Sence is not to be trusted and yet leave me to it at last For when all is done the Churches Sence according to this Man is a mere Notion of a thing that is no where to be found for the several Sences of her Words in Council are but the Sentiments of private Men which this Man opposes to the Sence of the Church to save his Church from two Poperies For instance if I go to Cardinal Capisucchi and his Party to ask them what the Churches Sence is of that due Honour and Veneration that is to be given to Holy Images they tell me the very same that is given to the Persons represented by them But what am I the nearer for this is but the Sentiment of private Men. I go to ask the Bishop of Meaux and his Party and they cry God forbid the Church requires no such thing But I conceive his Sentiment is as private as the Cardinals and so
at last with all his might to make this same Popery if so we must call it to be not the Popery of the Church but a Popery rather in the Church and because 't is of so large a Spread and is manifestly upheld by the Authority of the Great Ones therefore some good Words were now to be given it to save the Reputation of the Church which else will be in great danger of the Similitude of a City that permits to Rob and Kill without contradiction or rather of a City that rewards Robbers and punishes Honest men Wherefore says the Vindicator Every thing Pag. 7. I hope that any one fancies to be ill is not therefore to be reproved And is it come to this at last We had been in good hands I see if we had come into the Church of Rome upon the Representers Terms For was it not the Representer that said He would as soon be a TVRK as the Answerers Papist Now the Answerers Papist was the Old Papist And therefore it was notably and boldly said That he would as soon be a Turk as Our Papist For one would at least conclude from thence that the Expounding and Representing Party would have stood stoutly by us if we had come in rejecting all that Popery as we used to call it which the Representer had so bravely rejected But if we had taken the Bait had we not been finely angled up For what says our Representer's other self the Vindicator Why truly Every thing he hopes that any one Fancies to be ill is not therefore to be reproved It seems then that the Representer did but fancy those things to be ill which not he in his misrepresenting side but the Answerer charged upon them as Popery Or shall we say that these Men understand one another and that he did not fansie them to be ill but for the present thought good to say however that they were monstrous ill things and that he would as soon be a Turk as the Answerers Papist But I rather think they did not lay their Heads together upon this Business but that in the desperate estate to which the Vindicator's Cause was reduced by the clear Testimonies of such a Popery amongst them as the Representer rejects with detestation he found himself obliged for the credit of his Church and perhaps for his own safety to remit of his Rigour or rather to take off his Disguise a little without asking the Representer's leave and so he hopes that every thing that any one fansies to be ill is not therefore to be reproved But the Representer has the less reason to be angry with our Vindicator because this Gentleman has made as bold with himself as with his Friend The Vindicator too once fansied that it was an ill thing to Worship the Image of our Saviour or the Holy Cross with Divine Worship upon any account whatsoever But Cardinal Capisucchi came in the way and so every thing that the Vindicator himself fansied to be ill is not therefore to be reproved Nay he was not content to let the Old Popery get up again but he has been pleased to sink the New one as much For tho Cardinal Capisucchi says so and so yet seeing others of the same Communion reject this and are NOT CENSVRED BY THE CHVRCH it plainly follows that his is not the necessary Doctrine of the Church Pag. 7. And what he says in this case is applicable to all others Alas for New Popery for it declines apace we had thought it had been shewn us for the True Ancient Standing Sence of the Church And now the most that can be said for it is that it is not censured by the Church It seems then that these Expounders and Representers are but a Tolerated Party One step more backwards makes them not to be so much as Tolerated and the next news we shall hear is that they are Intolerable But by the way what Church does the Vindicator mean by saying that he and his are not censured by the Church I fansie he means the Invisible Church which cannot now be seen because no Council is sitting The Fathers that sate at Trent do not start out of their Graves to declare these Gentlemen Heretically inclined and the Books of the Council do not rise up and fly in their Faces For if we mind what the Authority of the now Living and Visible Church declares in this case we see that they who reject this Old Popery as we call it are censured by the Church and to mention Imbert no more the instance of Aegidius Magistralis Canon of Sevil in Spain is a Conviction to the Vindicator of something that I will not name For he was forced to abjure these two Propositions as Heretical 1. That the Images of Saints are not to be adored with the same Adoration with which the Prototypes are adored 2. That the Cross is to be worshipped only with an Inferiour Adoration This very Instance being produced by the Defender out of Capisucchi Pref. P. XIV XV. who left it for a Caution and a Conviction to such Men as in good earnest maintain our Vindicators Doctrine for the Vindicator to mention Capisucchi's Doctrine and to say in the same breath that they who reject it are not censured by the Church is of a piece with his Sincerity every where else Well but let that pass and let us consider what will come of this if it be true that they are not censured by the Church Really this is but a small encouragement to take Popery upon the Representer's Terms For that which is not now censured by the Church may in good time be censured by the Church Perhaps you will say there is no reason to fear it But in my mind there is for as I said before the Credit of this New Popery has sunk extremely in a Month for in truth the Vindicator has degraded it from being Popery as we observed some time since Now if it be not so much as Popery it may in a little time grow to be Heresie and then the Censures of the Church will follow as fast as can be In the mean time it is not Popery And so farewel to the Representer's Undertakings which are overthrown beyond all recovery unless he faces about and recovers his Credit by beating the Vindicator out of the Field with his own Hand The Representer at first gave us a two-fold Character of Popery One was of That Popery which the Papists own and profess as appears in the Title Page of his First Part. In his very first Article of Praying to Images the Popery which the Papists own and profess amounts to this That properly they do not so much as Honour Images but only Christ and his Saints This is the Popery of the Representing side What now says the Vindicator He very honestly acknowledges that there is a private Sentiment in the Church against this that will have the Image of Christ worshipped with