that contribution should not take well Besides that as in the time of S. Bennet which may be reckoned to be about the year Five Hundred and Fifty Learning did in no degree flourish so it grew less and less for Seven Hundred years after his time or near so much even to the Age in which Erasmus lived who knew the talent of the Monks and Friers very well And truly I think Mr. Cressy's Superiors may believe that he hath taken too much pains in collecting a bundle of reproaches of a false pretender to Visions Miracles and Inspirations and an ignorant fool to be cast upon their Founder not one of which is laid to his charge by the Doctor and must therefore be imputed to another Author and he hath less reason to imagine that those reproaches must fall upon S. Gregory because he confirmed the Rules and writ the life of S. Bennet both which he might do without being guilty of either of those imputations He never knew S. Bennet and confirmed his Rules long after his death which makes some Catholick Writers believe that the Rules were in truth not made by S. Benedict and a known Catholick Antiquary Mr. Broughton takes upon him to pronounce that S. Gregory himself was never a Monk of that Order which is a greater affront to it than any that the Doctor hath put upon it I do not know but that the Church of England hath a just reverence and esteem of the learning and of the piety of S. Gregory and a greater than Mr. Cressy hath as will appear anon however as the most learned men who write many Books seldom write all with the same perfection and accurateness of judgment and their Readers do not look upon all with the same estimation so many do not believe and I doubt not many Catholicks that S. Gregorie's Dialogue of the Life of S. Bennet is for the learning or judgment of it equal to the rest of his Works But Mr. Cressy is very hard to be pleased who hath been so very angry with the Doctor for the rudeness and incivility of his language and is now no less displeased with him for his excess of civility in calling S. Benedict Saint which he says pag. 31. If he was guilty of what the Doctor charges him with savours something of blasphemy Truly though many men cannot comprehend how S. Benedict attained that degree yet no body is sure that he hath it not and his title doth not seem the worse because he doth not appear qualified by any particular Canonization at Rome there being I think no Record of any such but by a general consent amongst many devout persons which is the title of all those Primitive Saints to whose memories our Church pays as much reverence as the other doth before those very costly commencements were established at Rome which have lately conferred all those degrees and the preliminaries to it But I think it is now the civility of most of the Provinces of Europe to treat all men with the same stile that they assume to themselves or their Friends attribute to them and so we use to call those Saints who are commonly called so though we are not sure they are in Heaven and he would believe that he were very unkindly dealt with if he should be charged with want of integrity for calling the Reverend Prelates of our Church Bishops when if he did believe them really to be so he would not when he left the Church have been re-ordained and if he does not believe them to be such his insincerity is more to be reproved than our blasphemy in calling those Saints of whose station we are not so well assured But Mr. Cressy hath a greater insight into History and a more discerning spirit than any man of whom I have ever heard if he hath discovered That the greatest Iudgment and Plague that God ever no doubt in his just anger brought upon the Christian world or any Christian part of it in that general deluge of the Goths Vandals Huns Saxons Danes and other Pagan Nations proved a most unvaluable blessing as he says pag. 32. because God of those stones raised up children unto Abraham that is after these inhumane miscreants had for many hundred years massacred many millions of Christians demolished so many Churches and Religious houses and introduced a brutish savageness into the very nature of the Inhabitants within the Provinces of which they were possessed some of their posterity became Christians and yet for almost an Age after their conversion their manners remained still almost as much Pagan as they were before And for their building of Churches and Schools of piety hear what Monsieur Mezeray who is much more conversant with the transactions of those times than Mr. Cressy is says I know no time in which there were more Churches and Abbies built than in this speaking of the Tenth Century which was near the time when the most general conversion of these Barbarians happened The most wicked persons affected says he very much the title of Founders whist they ruined Churches on one side they built others on the contrary and made sacrilegious Offerings to God of those things which they had ravished from the poor and therefore those structures are not always the best Records of the piety of the Age in which they are erected and very few of the Monasteries into which Kings and Queens and Princes used to retire for attending their Heavenly meditation were erected after the incursion of those barbarous Pagans and before which that numerous Army of Martyrs was likewise expired since that time must be reckoned under the Ten Persecutions So that the unvaluable blessing that Christian Religion received from that impious inundation is not yet discovered or understood and less that the persons who by Gods blessed directions instilled into the hearts of men such an heroical Faith and Divine love were principally the Disciples of S. Benedict I must tell him again that Christianity was well cultivated before S. Bennet's Rules were published or confirmed which was not till after the year Six Hundred and from that time it received greater improvement from the piety and learning of many devout Prelates and from the learning and good lives of the Clergy and of other Religious men than it hath ever done by the disciples of S. Bennet except all the Monasteries that have been ever founded and all the professed Monks shall be looked upon as founded by him upon which computation I doubt many of Mr. Cressy's mistakes are to be imputed nor is he probably well informed of the numbers which have been converted to Christianity by the Protestant Churches though he takes upon him to know that there is not one Village which he would hardly undertake since he cannot but know that the Protestants have many large Plantations in Provinces inhabited by Pagans whereof many have been converted if he did not think that a conversion from Paganism is to little purpose
instructors and he may be very confident if he finds neither of those that God hath not called him Sure Mr. Cressy cannot forget the names of very many persons it may be both men and women with whom and in whose conversation he had the honour and the happiness to spend many years of the most innocent part of his life from whose grave and learned information and excellent example he might have led a life more useful to God his Country and himself and in which he would have had less to answer to all three than that which he hath since by worse counsel and example given himself unhappily to And for Books I shall not supply his Catalogue with the names of many more of the same kind which he might as well have mentioned but I shall put him in mind of the excellent pious and devout Sermons which are constantly preached in that Church much better I believe than he hath heard in any other language and there was no restraint upon him but if he had liked other Books of devotion better he might have read the life of Mother Teresa that abounds in those visions he admires and that mystical Theology he delights in and even his own Sancta Sophia if any other man would have taken the pains to have put it together in that Colledge he was bred in with the same liberty he hath done either ever since sure good Books are not wanting in that climate For Miracles whereof he says we do not pretend to one not so much as the curing a Tertian Ague to testifie that our Reformation is pleasing to God I shall say no more than I have done We have not many to boast of and very good Catholicks think they boast of too many and would be glad to be without the mention of most of them and I do believe that very many pious men of his Church do believe that the restoration of the Church of England from that dust and ruines to which the barbarity impiety and sacriledge of the late rebellion had exposed it and in which the Roman Catholicks his Majesties own subjects more delighted and triumphed to see it almost buried than any other Catholicks did is a greater miracle of Gods mercy and power and if we make our selves worthy of it even a testimony of his being pleased with it then all those of which they brag so much are an evidence that he is pleased with what they do I have never had the luck to see his Church History which he is offended with the Doctor for stiling a great Legend which he knows is the stile given to those Collections in all Languages and he challenges the Doctor more scornfully to give to the world a pretty little legend of his reformed Saints The Doctor could very well have given him as large a list of as extraordinary persons of most profound learning and most exemplary lives of the Church of England since the Reformation as any other Christian Kingdom can supply him who it may lawfully be presumed since their deaths have enjoyed those sacred mansions of bliss which God hath prepared for those who please him but we are not ashamed that our Church is too modest to confer the sacred title of Saints which God hath reserved to his own only disposal for them to whom he had before assigned such a proportion of grace as is answerable to that high station and doth not receive the advice nor communicate the power in that particular of or to any person or jurisdiction upon Earth yet it shall be glad and doth pray that all such whom the Church of Rome hath presumed to call to that honour without any ambition or privity of their own may really enjoy the same And we do not in the least degree apprehend the displeasure of God Almighty upon our Church because it doth with all humility and after all possible endeavour to be capable of his favours leave the disposal of all the places and offices and imployments in his own house to his own gracious will and pleasure And though we do not pretend to know so much of their modern Saints as to think that they were of the same Religion with us Yet we do presume to say that the primitive Saints and Martyrs were all as much our Saints and Martyrs as theirs that is that we are as much of the same faith with those as they are We are as firm in the Apostles faith who were the first Saints and Martyrs of Christ as they can pretend to be We adhere as much to all the doctrine they taught and endeavour to practise all the duties which are enjoyned by them as sincerely and diligently as they do During the twelve persecutions which were the times when those prodigious Armies of Martyrs for their numbers were levied it may lawfully be presumed that very much the major part of them for those persecutions raged much more furiously in the East than in any part of Europe never heard of the Church of Rome none of them professed to have any opinion in which we differ from them The first and only subject of their Martyrdom was that they loudly avowed the birth passion and resurrection of our Saviour and their peremptory refusal to offer sacrifice to or to acknowledge the power of the Pagan Gods and the last would have excused them and preserved their lives whatsoever they had thought of the other so that there was no other point of controversie in issue but whether they were Christians and their marvellous and without doubt divine courage in affirming that and asserting that doctrine so soon after they were informed of it and before they were acquainted with any other operation of it than in their courage to lay down their lives for it was the whole ground and merit of their Martyrdom For according to the best evidence we have of those dark times and of that darker affair we may reasonably believe that many thousands of those blessed Martyrs lost their lives within a day an hour or less time according as the wild and brutish rage of the Iudge could find ways for their torture and execution after the moment of their conversion in which the spirit and zeal of the new Christians to die for their faith was little more stupendious than the implacable rage of their persecutors was in the vindication of the honour of their Pagan Gods for which the husband condemned his wife the father his son the brother his brother and all relations those who were nearest and dearest to them to the most exquisite torments that could be devised Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum How the Church of Rome comes to ingross all these Saints and Martyrs to themselves as their peculiar Patrons and Advocates an evidence cannot easily be comprehended except they conclude the because they have a power to make or to declare Saints they have likewise a power to appoint them what they shall do after they are Saints which
majoribus to determine the points of Catholick truth c. To which there can be nothing more substantially answered for confutation than that the State of the Church must have been very deplorable and desperate if that had been a Catholick verity when Pope Marcellinus sacrificed to Idols or when Pope Liberius turned Arrian and would be much more lamentable in these days when the Church must remain in perpetual wardship and servitude under the Pope since no man can rationally expect a general Council to relieve her and when there is no other definition of Heresie in the Coena Domini than that which contradicts or is contrary to the doctrine or practice of the Church of Rome and when the authority of the Pope is urged as the best expedient for the establishing peace and unity in the world can there be any thing replied more pertinently for the conviction than the mention of those Popes who by the assuming that authority and purely for the vindication of it have caused more Christian blood to have been spilt more horrible Massacres of Kings and Princes and People than all the Heresies in the world and all other politick differences have produced if you cast in the Wars for the Holy Land which may justly be cast upon the Popes account and which is a circumstance very infamous as well as lamentable much the greatest part of this destruction and ruine proceeded from the perjury of Popes themselves after they had promised and sworn to observe such pacts and agreements voluntarily entred into by themselves or from the Dispensations they granted to others to break their Faith and not to perform the contracts they had entred into all which he says being granted nothing will follow whereas certainly it must follow that the persons of such men are not capable or worthy of such trusts or authority which is as much as those arguments are urged for Mr. Cressy would be contented to confess that some Popes for about an Age or two did cause intolerable disorders in the Church and Empire which by the way is argument enough against those personal qualifications upon condition that we would gratifie him with acknowledging that the Government of Popes did for a thousand years produce excellent order in the world which we are so far from granting that as we must confess that they were so modest for half that time as to make no claim to any such authority in Church or State so from the time they did claim it it produced more blood-shed than all other quarrels whatsoever And as Mr. Cressy must have the assistance of very good Antiquaries to name one War of a years continuance that was ever composed by the authority or mediation of any Pope where there can very hardly be named one solemn bloody War upon what Politick pretence soever it was at first entred into but that hath been carried on either upon his immediate advice and interest or fomented under-hand by his Council and assistance of which the Rebellion in Ireland must be one of the latest instances It cannot be denied that some Ages have been so ignorant and barbarous that the Popes authority hath been sufficient to kindle the most cruel and the most unnatural bloody diffentions and he hath never failed in contributing his utmost power to that end and it can be as easily proved that in this last Age many rebellions and ravenous Wars have fallen out which might either have been prevented or quickly composed as the late Rebellions in France and those in Catalonia being both between Catholicks if he as a common Father would have interposed his special authority and excommunicated those who he could not doubt were in Rebellion but he never would be induced to apply his power to that good end The Supremacy and Soveraignty of the Bishop of Rome was never the product of peace it grew very fat and the bulk thereof encreased to that unruly size in and by the most bloody Wars which Christendom hath ever been infested with which makes it discernable enough what diet they chuse to feed upon of which appetite their late savage Bulls against the peace of Munster and that of Osningbrooke when the Empire was even at its last gasp for want of blood is too great a manifestation Nor have they to this day how little noise soever they now make disclaimed any of those principles or the pretence to any of that power by the exercise whereof so many intolerable disorders as Mr. Cressy confesses were caused for about an Age or two in the Church and in the Empire I wonder Mr. Cressy should accuse the Doctor for arguing less reasonably in mentioning the Schismes which have been in the Church of Rome and the more modern disorders by reason of the quarrels between Bishops and Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges c. But I wonder more at his unskilfulness in the Ecclesiastical History when he says that all the Schismes were after the Church was above twelve hundred years old for before there were scarce any which is so great a mistake that my old kindness will scarce suffer me to take notice of it The last Schisme as I think before the year twelve hundred was that between Alexander the third and Victor the fifth which was after the year eleven hundred and fifty and is reckoned by all Ecclesiastical Writers to be the twenty fourth or twenty fifth Schisme and it is an unreasonable objection that there can be no such power inherent in the Pope as he assigns to him when it is so frequently uncertain who is Pope and that uncertainty hath continued so long and all the Princes of Christendom divided in the reception of him and the anti-Pope sometimes three or four together act and do all that the true Pope pretends to do and is obeyed as such in the Dominions of several Christian Princes This sure cannot be thought a light argument by any but such who think the pretence too frivolous to require an argument against it and he says the mention of the quarrels between Bishops and Monastick Orders and between the Regulars and the Seculars and much more such stuff implies no more but that Subjects are often times Rebellious to their Superiours therefore it were better there were no Superiours at all when such stuff is an unanswerable argument that the authority with the which he would invest the Pope for peace and unity sake doth not produce either where it is most submitted to He says very true that it is not the Popes infallibility but his authority which ends Controversies which is a good argument that they must remain unended when either party doth not acknowledge his authority and it seems the case is not very different when both sides do confess it for he says that all Catholicks do acknowledge that they are obliged at least to silence when imposed by the Pope yet it cannot be denied but that some have not complied with the obligation but
undertook to defend them was solemnly prohibited and condemned by the Pope since which time he says such doctrines have been wholly restrained and silenced to which I shall only say that these modern Casuists continue still the greatest Confessors in all Catholick Countries and it is observable that not one amongst them hath ever yet renounced or disclaimed one of those dangerous Opinions or positions which stand so condemned and it can therefore hardly be known that such doctrines are wholly restrained and for their being silenced which they urge still as a matter of great reformation in those loud differences and as if all the passions and inconveniencies which arise from thence were thereby suppressed if not extinguished whoever hath any conversation with those adversaries may quickly discern that neither of them hath laid aside their propositions or the animosities against each other and the silence contributes so little of charity that poor Monsieur since he was known to be the Author of the Provincial Letters can scarce enjoy peace in his Grave Indeed if the Bishops of France were not over-powred and even silenced too by the Regular Clergy those excesses would in a short time be well reformed The danger is that in the method and form of customary confessions there remains still a contention between the Authority of the Scriptures and of the Church without which it could hardly fall out that so many men who all hours of the day and of the night indulge to themselves even without concealing it the practice of those sins which the Scripture hath prohibited under the penalty of damnation cannot be seduced by example or importunity hardly by sickness to eat flesh upon a day of abstinence nor from prophane or unclean discourse in that very time which can proceed from no other principle than that the disobeying the injunctions of the Church which without doubt ought to be observed is a greater sin than those of our Saviour and men would not run to confession as they wash their hands with a resolution to make them less clean as soon as they have done If those fountains of confession and absolution from whence so many draw the waters of life come to be poysoned or prophaned they were much better be dryed up for a time or carefully inclosed that men might not resort thither till they are better instructed in the use of them and we may without breach of charity believe that very odious corruptions and presumptions had broken into those sacred offices when the Church it self took so much notice of it and could not prescribe a more secret remedy than a publick Bull which Pope Pius the fourth thought necessary to publish Contra sacerdotes qui mulieres poenitentes in actu Confessionis ad actus inhonestos provocare allicere tentant Bul. To. 2. Nor can we suppose that this remedy wrought its effect when another Pope near one hundred years after was compelled to renew and inlarge that Bull with greater penalties as Pope Gregory the fifteenth hath done Contra sacerdotes in confessionibus Sacramentalibus poenitentes sollicitantes Bul. To. 3. In which it is observable that a greater latitude is permitted to Confessors for the discovery of this horrible impiety than is allowed for the discovery and prevention of the foulest Treason and after all this the condemning the dangerous positions of the modern Casuists hath been found as necessary which is still an argument that somewhat was still amiss in the administration of those Offices That great reverence was paid to the memory of many excellent persons after their death by visiting their Tombs and other commemoration of their vertues and noble actions hath great testimony from antiquity as ancient as we have any evidence of the practice of any formal devotions amongst Christians As the Primitive Christians amongst the Iews did not decline going to the Synagogues nor the practice of all things which were in custom with that Nation when the same could be innocently performed so amongst the Gentiles they observed whatsoever was in great reverence amongst them as the paying respect to the memory of their Ancestors always was and that did not contradict or offend any Christian Precept and it is not improbable that they might take that practice from them since the visitation of the Tombs and Sepultures of Martyrs is as ancient as Martyrdom it self but that those forms of Prayer for the dead which are now practised in the Roman Church were in use amongst Christians from the beginning till Protestantism arose Mr. Cressy will not prove and there is too great reason to doubt that whosoever doth believe that enormous sins which are unacknowledged and unrepented of at the death of the sinner may be expiated and consequently must be pardoned by what they who live after him can do for him hath a great temptation to live without that strict guard upon his affections and his passions which he might otherwise believe to be necessary But I do not think that any but illiterate Catholicks have that opinion whether the most learned amongst them are not well content that the rest in this and many other particulars should believe what they themselves do not believe I refer to Mr. Cressy assuring him likewise that if I did think that my Prayers or any thing else I could do could purchase the least ease to the Souls of my Friends or of my Enemies I would your them out with all may heart and should not fear any reprehension from the Church of England which hath declared no judgment in the point except it be comprehended in the Article of Purgatory and then the censure is no more than that it is a fond thing which in that case I would be content to undergo and for the many Masses which are usually said for them and which seems to give rich sinners some advantage I will say no more than that to my understanding that Priest who believes his Mass gives any benefit to the departed Soul hath much to answer that he doth not say it for charity but takes ten pence or a shilling at the rate that Masses are sold in that climate which seems to be more literal Simony than any act that passes under that reproach For the matter of Indulgences Mr. Cressy seems to be intirely of the Doctors judgment and opinion and therefore I cannot but wonder and lament that it being upon the matter the only Chapter in which he hath treated him with civility he chuses to conclude it so rudely as to say that every prudent Reader will easily discover from how poysonous a heart it issues and to how unchristian an end it was directed My exceptions to Indulgences is the deceit and fraud that is in them and the circumvention of the common people from which the Church it self cannot be excused there is scarce a Village in all the Catholick Dominions of the world which hath not one day in the year if not more the benefit of an
Indulgence to obtain which they visit such and such places and Churches so many times and in this expedition people of both sexes the lame and the blind tire themselves when whoever can read Latin finds that if he complies with the Precepts and Injunctions which are the conditions of every Indulgence of hearty repentance of all their sins and a sincere amendment of life and the like he shall be sure to enjoy all the benefits and more than are promised by that Indulgence though he should lie in his bed whilst others make those perambulations and yet this kind of fatuity is the ground of all those Indulgences and of the Pilgrimages which are undertaken except for Penance whereas if the conditions be performed they have no need of the Indulgence and if they be not they have no benefit by it though it costs even the poorest people some money which they cannot well spare in most places Mr. Cressy is not so sturdy a maintainer of all the points in difference with the Roman Church but he would willingly part with the Prayers in an unknown tongue though he says there is scarce a rustick so ignorant but well understands what the Priest does through the whole course of the Mass but I must confess my self so much more ignorant than his Rustick that though I have seen many Masses I never heard any nor saw any Congregation so intent as if they did desire to hear any thing that is said but whisper and talk and laugh except only at the Elevation and if the Congregation be great especially at a high Mass it is hardly possible that any considerable number of them can understand one word that is spoken nor is it held necessary for as the Priest takes more than ordinary care by an affected and industrious pronunciation not to have what he says understood so the people generally think themselves only concerned in being present and that it is not necessary for them to hear or understand what is spoken because all that relates to them is done and completely performed by the Priest He confesses that it was far from being the Churches primary intention that the publick office should be in a tongue not understood by the people for it was at first composed he says in the language generally spoken and understood through Europe by which I suppose he means the Latin tongue in which he is much mistaken both that Latin was generally spoken and understood through Europe I am not sure that it was the language of all Italy it self or that in the first composing of Liturgies they were all one and the same or in one Language In the East and throughout the Greek Church we are sure they had and still have different Liturgies and we have no reason to believe that in the Latin Church the Liturgies were the same throughout the West but were such as the Bishops allowed or made for their own Dioceses We know that the British Church retained its Liturgie for many years and that it was near if not above one thousand years for it was not till the time of Gregory the Seventh before Spain parted with the Gothish Liturgie and accepted that from Rome and how many alterations have been since made in it is known to all who will inform themselves and after all I think S. Ambrose's Missal is still retained in Milan notwithstanding the Bull of Clement the Eighth and of the succeeding Popes and therefore I cannot doubt but that and very many particulars in common practioe are parts of that Religion of State which may without breach of charity or unity be altered and reformed by the Soveraign in such order as such mutations are made for the advancement of Gods service in such a Kingdom or Province for which it is made But Mr. Cressy would find himself as much deceived even in the making up that breach if the Popes consent be necessary to it as he was formerly in his draught of a protestation or subscription for the fidelity of the English Catholicks yet we know that Pope Pius in the beginning of Elizabeth's Reign was very willing to have dispensed with the usage of the English Liturgie the Communion in both kinds and whatever else was practised in that Church upon condition that the Popes authority and supremacy might have been resetled in that Kingdom which he knew would be a good bargain and enable him to undo all the rest when he should think it necessary but Mr. Cressy would have proceeded more warily if he had before he left the Church in which he was first ordained a Priest procured a Reformation in those two particulars for which he is now so willing to compound Indulgences and the praying in an unknown tongue which are greater blemishes in the Church he hath betaken himself into than all he hath left in that which he is departed from We are come at last to the Doctors exception against the Church of Romes denying the reading of the Bible indifferently and with this exception Mr. Cressy makes himself very merry as if the principles of the Religion of the Church of England must fall to the ground or as he says utterly go to wrack if that liberty were denied for how then should every sober enquirer into Scripture frame a Religion to himself And so pleases himself with endeavouring to perswade others contrary to his own conscience that every one of the Church of England hath liberty to frame a Religion to himself whereas he well knows that every member of the Church of Rome hath as much liberty to frame a Religion to himself as any one of the Church of England hath who is as much obliged to conform himself to the doctrine of that Church as the other is to that of Rome And for the opinion it hath of the Scripture it answers for it self in these words Article Sixth Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary for salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation How will this serve his turn to frame a Religion to himself But then he recreates himself with a Dialogue which he makes between the Doctor and one of his Parishioners which if he pleases is his own case whilst he triumphs in his conquests of those poor people which he perverts what do those simple creatures know of the authority of the whole Church when he amuzes them with points of Controversie of good works and of Christs very flesh and blood in the Sacrament contrary to the very evidence of all his senses to which all miracles have been subjected have those people any other knowledge or information of the sense of the Catholick Church than from him and would it not better become them to answer him that in those points they would chuse rather to believe their own Minister to whom
bitterly inveigh against his Principles and all for the novelty of them that is he says somewhat that hath not been said before and which they are not provided to answer which is rather an argument that all disputing is to little purpose and that it is time to give it over because neither party is reformed than that what he says is easie to be answered there will be every day new Principles new Arguments to inform and convince and convert those who obstinately persist in old Errours They who are but moderately versed in the Controversies about the Substantial points in difference between the Protestants I mean which are common with all Protestants and the Church of Rome cannot but find that the Romish Champions have quite shifted the Scene in all their arguments upon the most material matters and have found new mediums to support their cause They are visibly weary all but the Iesuits of insisting upon the Popes infallibility you scarce meet with an argument from it in any Book that is Printed nor can you engage them in it upon discourse They are with great difficulty drawn into the matter of Transubstantiation but presently shelter themselves under the shadow of their Church and if they cannot avoid enlarging upon it they neither use argument or answer that ever Bellarmine relied upon being not satisfied with much he said in that point or Purgatory or some other matters which he hath handled more at large insomuch that it hath been observed these many years that Bellarmine's Controversies are so gathered up that they are not easie to be procured amongst the greatest Book-sellers and if they are ever reprinted they will pass a severe expurgation In these varieties and lawful changes of the method and order of disputation amongst learned men which cannot but be administred by the often saying and repeating the same things which are often evinced by a new medium after it hath been long unmoveable by an old why should it only be unlawful or incongruous in the Doctor or any other Writer in defence of the Church of England to introduce new principles if they will better contribute to the maintenance of old truths and which it is plain doth stagger them and forces them to fall upon the Person and decline the matter yet I am contented for the ending all disputes which are full of obstinacy and uncharitableness to concur in the reference and how ill soever Mr. Cressy and I have agreed from the beginning of his Book hitherto I am intirely of his mind in the matter and very words of his conclusion That there is a horrible depravation in the minds especially of Ecclesiasticks which depravation can now only be cured by the wisdom and power of the Civil Magistrate and to his wisdom and severity I leave it I have now waited upon Mr. Cressy to the end of his Book and I think have not left any clause in it of any importance unanswered and before I conclude I shall observe Cressy's own method in giving him some Counsel and Advice without taking much notice of his Post-script in which there is little addition of new matter but from the same temper of spirit some variety of bitterness with some new very ill words He wishes that if the Doctor thinks not himself obliged in Conscience by breaking all Rules of piety and humanity to do all manner of despight to his Catholick fellow Subjects he would hereafter please to abstain from reviling and blaspheming Gods Saints or traducing the most divine exercises of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven Alas the Doctor wishes and desires that all the English Roman Catholicks against whose corrupt opinions he hath with much strength of reason and very little passion writ very weightily but never against their Persons would be his Fellow-subjects give that evidence and security of and for their fidelity as their Fellow-subjects do That they would disclaim all kind of subjection to any other Soveraign and which till they do and which the Catholick Religion cannot hinder them from doing they cannot reckon themselves nor be accounted by others his Fellow-subjects And I do heartily wish not without some apprehension that Mr. Cressy hath not by breaking all rules of modesty and discretion brought more prejudice upon the Persons of his fellow-Catholicks than all the Doctor 's want of humanity hath done It was a little too soon to awaken all the Protestants of England that they might discern in what an ill condition they must be in if that Catholick spirit that discovers it self unwarily in him and others of his fraternity should have any prevalence or much countenance in the State To his blaspheming and reviling Gods Saints so absurdly charged upon him enough hath been said before nor is there evidence to induce the most charitable man to believe that all those are Gods Saints which stand in Mr. Cressy's Calender of Saints and it was very unadvisedly done that only one single line was not expunged if there was no more that gave the occasion of mentioning Saints and Miracles and Enthusiasmes which extorted from the Doctor all those animadversions which put the other into so much rage and fury that for the support of that one onely line he hath writ this whole Book that in every line is full of nothing but Miracles and Saints and divine exercise of contemplative Souls which by his favour is as new a Principle to defend the Romish Religion by as any the Doctor hath introduced against it and surely contains more of that kind of Learning than all the Books of pure aud solid Controversie that have been written since Luther begun his Separation as if he had a mind to put the verity of the Lives of the Saints in issue and to be strictly examined from which affectation I suppose his Superiours will divert him that they and their Miracles may be left to their own repose And for his most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven which is another new principle and which and the like must unavoidably be examined by new methods and argumentations it would be much better to leave those obscure contemplations to the Persons who delight in them and find relief by them which we may charitably hope is better understood by them than comprehended by us but if they will not keep their Cipher privately to themselves for their mutual correspondence and conversation but will constitute a new language in old words for the information and amazement of other men and will be then offended and shortly after condemn them for being without the effects which pious Souls naturally produce they should not take it ill if men who patiently hear what they say do in truth believe that they themselves are without any clear notions and can draw no sence out of that mist of words in which it is concealed Mental Prayer which they would fain make their imaginations understood by is a faculty every devout