and will not give us the least intimation of their Dogm's wherein his schemes did agree with theirs yet I think it very probable that he might light upon some of the same thoughts with them because I find a wonderfull agreement between the Followers of those two and this Gentleman For they had no reverence at all for Scripture and very small regard to Reason sometimes they would throw away Ed. Erasmi Basil 8vo 1571. and easily reject a great part of Scripture Iren. lib. 3. cap. 11. and at other times they would receive all Iren. lib. 3. cap. 12 pag. 302. but upon this condition that they might interpret it they made novel Inventions to be great and necessary Articles of Faith Id. lib. 3. cap. 11. p. 288. In tantum processerunt audaciae uti quod ab his non olim conscriptum est veritatis Evangelium titulent in nihilo conveniens Apostolorum Evangeliis they had a profound veneration for Authority and entirely submitted themselves to the Doctrines of Ebion and Cerinthus for they supposed that these men had a secret or mystery derived down by Tradition to them which alone was able to fix the sense of Scriptures and therefore whenever an Argument was directed against them out of Scriptures they still brought it to this Tradition without this they undervalued and slighted all the Scriptures and were the Inventers of the chiefest Arguments against them that our Authour and his Friends at this day do use All this will appear Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. if we look upon Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sunt ex Authoritate quia variè sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt Traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem and then farther toward the latter end of that Chapter they challenge something that speaks the great confidence they had in their way perhaps as much as the Infallibility of a Guide se indubitatè incontaminatè sincerè absconditum scire Mysterium The proceedings of those men are so like to the method of our Authour that I do not in the least wonder if he found in his Schemes something very agreeable to their Doctrines Some mens brains for all what that learned Spaniard teaches may be exactly of the same temper and consequently their wits of the same height I have heard of a fool who by thinking the very same thoughts with his Brother could find him out when all the wise men in the Town could not do it Thus far therefore I will be obliging to our Author and give him more credit than I will upon some other occasions I will though with some reluctancy of reason believe that whilst he was reading the Scriptures some thoughts might come into his mind agreeable enough with some of those that Ebion and Cerinthus had But after this high civility allowed him I hope he will not impose upon my Faith so far as to require me to believe that he found any thing in the Holy Scriptures that agreed with the idle whimsies and mad dreams and blasphemous prate of his two other friends Nailor and Muggleton This is such an impudence as R. C's aswell as Protestants must abhor all Popes and Councils that have ever been with wrath and indignation would have detested any man that should have dared to put so profane and vile a scandal upon those sacred writings What Anathema's would the Council of Trent have thundred out against Luther if ever he had wrote or spoken any thing so base as this It is certain that there is nothing in Scripture that can in the least seem to favour the blasphemies of those two wretches and I am unwilling to think that there was any thing in our Authour's schemes that would deserve the punishment which they justly suffered It is possible that he might have been of their acquaintance and have had very particular respects for their persons and so he might be over-easie to think that some of his thoughts might be like unto theirs This I am willing to guess because I can with confidence presume that he has kept very ill Company for though his natural temper carries him to speak soft and smooth things yet in spight of nature he is forced to be rude and saucy For why cannot he write a Book without pointing his discourse at the breasts of the Right Reverend Fathers of our Church why does he treat them with contempt and scorn why does he presume to daule 'em to twitch 'em by the Nose and pull 'em by the Beard and stand over 'em with Fescue and Ferula and tell 'em that here they were out and there they were out and that here and there and at every point he can instruct them All this comes from want of manners and good converse Muggleton would have done the same and so would Nailor and none but such as they For certainly a respect is due to them for their Character and a respect is due upon their Personal accompt they are men of excellent worth and great learning prudence piety and integrity and so conspicuously eminent in all these that our Authour is not able to match them in any one Countrey though he take as large a view of Bishops as he does of Conversions in his 14th page through Europe Asia Africa and America But when Reason and the Holy Scriptures are to be thrown down it is no great wonder if the Bishops of the Church of England fall with them I begin to be warm and you my Friend may be offended at it yet allow a little to a just indignation it may well move a man of a cold complexion to see a pert unknown come up so briskly to the heads of our Reverend Fathers and Address to them in a formal speech intimating thousands of mistakes miscarriages and errours in them and yet in all that speech the man says nothing but what is old and dull and flat insipid stuff all and every thing in it has been answer'd five hundred times since the Reformation and at least twenty within these two years This looks like perverse stupidity for men to pretend to be writers when they do not reade if our Authour had read the late Books by this writing he gives plain proof that his Reason serves as little in drawing up Plea's for Authority as it did before in making Schemes of Christian Doctrine out of the Scriptures All that he says is this that he heartily wished that God would have pleased to have left us some unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide p. 6. and then that God has not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters p. 10. From thence he presumes that there is such a thing and resolves to go in quest after it he
by General Councils and so by the Catholick Church and they have been in peaceable possession of it for many hundred of years P. 16 17. and now they cannot be divested of it neither by themselves nor by others neither in whole nor in part All these things he sets down I suppose as his own opinations and sentiments and would have his Friends to judge him by them as Orthodox and a true Convert He is not concerned whether they be true or false for he knows or may know that every one of these pretences has been proved by Dr. Barrow to be gross falsities and that almost to the evidence of Demonstration and yet our Authour brings not the least proof for any one of them from any Old Authour Indeed he tells us that we have the Succession of Bishops of Rome delivered to us by St. Augustine and that is true P. 15. but he was unlucky to put us in mind of that passage and much more because he never read it himself for had he seen the 165. Epistle of St. Augustine where that Succession is mentioned and the very next to it he might have found in that great Father a full contradiction to all his thoughts concerning the Scriptures and concerning Authority and then perhaps he would have imployed his time to better purposes than in writing this Book St. Austine in that Epistle sets down the succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter and that for no other purpose but to shew that none of all those Bishops was a Donatist Augustinus Epist 165. And that because a Donatist had set down the succession of their Bishops before not that he thought any one of them after St. Peter was a Sovereign Guide or had unerring authority in him for he himself presently adds to this that if any of them had been a Donatist or worse yet the Christian Doctrine would not have suffered the least by it In illum ordinem Episcoporum qui ducitur ab ipso Petro usque ad Anastasium qui nunc super eandem Cathedram sedet etiamsi quisquam traditor per illa tempora subrepsisset nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae innocentibus Christianis This I suppose our Authour is not willing to think because he depends so much upon Authority and so little upon the Scriptures but St. Augustine did because he relyed upon the Scriptures to teach us that Doctrine which Jesus Christ and his Apostles had revealed to the World and therefore in the same Epistle he slights all his other Arguments and fixes intirely upon the Scriptures as those alone which could give us a full and solid evidence for the truth of a Christian Doctrine Augustinus Epist 165. these are his words Quanquam nos non tam de istis documentis praesumamus quà m de Scripturis sanctis and then he cites a Text. But in the next Epistle and that against the Donatists after some other velitations and general topicks whereof Councils was one as appears by those words Faciant mille concilia Episcopi he comes to the holy Scriptures and triumphs in his Arguments and doubts not to defeat his adversaries by the force of them He begins with words frequent in his writings Augustinus Epist 166. In Scripturis didicimus Christum in Scripturis didicimus Ecclesiam has Scripturas communiter habemus quare non in eis Christum Ecclesiam communiter retinemus Then he throws out near twenty Texts one after another comments in short upon them and never doubts but that he and his Adversaries did sufficiently understand them without the assistance of a Sovereign Guide or an unerring Authority if our Authour had considered this it might have done him good but because he is pleased to find the Succession of Roman Bishops in St. Augustine I will shew him what he seems not to know two very considerable uses which that great Father made of that topick the First was to conciliate a most profound veneration to the Holy Scriptures thus therefore he writes August contra Faust Manich lib. 11. cap. 5. contra Faustum Manichaeum lib. 11. cap. 5. Distincta est à posteriorum libris excellentia canonicae Authoritatis veteris novi Testamenti quae Apostolorum confirmata temporibus per successiones Episcoporum propagationes Ecclesiarum tanquam in sede quâdam sublimiter constituta est cui serviat omnis fidelis pius intellectus A Second use that he made of this consideration of the Succession of Bishops in their Sees was in case of a dispute about a Text to evidence what was the first and so the true Christian Doctrine To this end he very frequently in his disputes with the Donatists requires them to search what was taught in the Churches of Corinth Galatia Ephesus Philippi Thessalonica all the Churches that had the honour to receive Apostolical Epistles Now if all these having several Successions of Bishops should agree in any one point that was controverted St. Augustine took their consent to be a good Argument that such a Doctrine was original and true he sends them indeed to Rome too but upon no other accompt and no higher reason than he does to those other Apostolical Churches Now I think I may presume in kindness to our Authour to give him one advice and that is this to have a care when he refers to St. Augustine that he knows his mind and that St. Augustine did write what he cites him for for I can tell him that a certain person who was of his opinion concerning a Soveraign Guide and unerring Authority to be sound in the Church of Rome came at length to believe and that consequentially to his opinion that the decretal Epistles of the Popes were of the same Authority with and to be reckoned amongst the Canonical Scriptures and to confirm his opinion he cited St. Augustine for it and this his citation had got into Gratians Decretum but the last Roman-Correctours of Gratian found it to be either gross forgery or a gross mistake and they have done St. Augustine right and a favour to such Persons as our Authour is to let them know that St. Augustine is no great friend to such fond and absurd opinions You may see Gratiani Decreti prim part Distin 19. Cap. 6. But because it may be some trouble to consult that Authour I will give you the truth and the forgery together St. Augustine in his Book De Doctrina Christiana lib. 2. cap. 8. had given us these words In Canonicis Scripturis Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quam plurium authoritatem sequatur inter quas sane illae sunt quae Apostolicas sedes habere Epistolas accipere meruerunt c. Now this was plain and good advice in the examination of Books that might be alledged to be Canonical Scriptures to give a preference to the testimony of those Churches that were called Apostolical Seats and such as had the honour to receive Epistles from the Apostles as Rome Corinth
Errour about keeping of Easter The Britains observed the Rule which they had received with their Christianity and they received that as our Authour says in the days of the Apostles The Asiaticks received the same Rule and the famous Martyr Polycarp defended it stoutly as an Apostolical Tradition a whole Council under Polycrates in the Year 197. declared it to be the Rule of St. John taught and practised by him Upon this accompt if we suppose it an Errour it can be no great one For there is no Traditional Doctrine either in Rome or any other Church which solely stands upon the credit of Tradition and has no support from Scripture that can be better evidenced to come from an Apostle and with the first Christianity than this Tradition which the Britains Scots Asiaticks Greeks alledged in very early times to have received in one and the same way For if this be so great an Errour though it be so well attested and so strongly urged to be an Apostolical Tradition what security can we have for the truth of any other Tradition whatsoever The great St. Augustine shews us in his Epistle Casulano S. August Ep. 86. that the name of St. Peter can give no more Authority to a Tradition than the name of St. John nor has any Tradition more grounds of credit because it comes to us by the way of Rome than if it came by the way of Ephesus the Eastern Church is as creditable a Conveyancer of Tradition as the Western Therefore if the Britains must be accused of any great errour for following of this Tradition the Roman Church must be highly condemned for requiring the observance of so many things by virtue of Tradition when they have not the least appearance of such Arguments as the Britains had to prove their Traditions Apostolical The Britains kept close to their first Rule never in the least varied from it The Roman Church oft changed and altered and that before this Augustine the Monk's days as the Learned Dean of St. Paul's has accurately shown in his Discourse against Mr. Cressey And when those of the Roman Communion argued against the Asiaticks and Britains they could not disprove the Tradition or shew that this practice was an Innovation but they alledged Reasons and external Arguments to shew the inconveniency of it from the mischiefs that might come by such a compliance with the Jews Thus the Tables were changed Romanists were for Reason against Tradition and so they ever will be when it is for their Interest 2. The second Errour charged upon the Britains is dissent from the Church of Rome in the administring of Baptism Now this I suppose is put in to make weight in the Accusation for though Bede has those words yet he tells not wherein their practice differ'd from the Romans nor yet wherein they were to be blamed and has not one word in all his History besides wherein he blames either the Britains or the Irish whom he calls in the language of those times Scots for any errour in the administration of Baptism He says lib. 2. cap. 4. of the Scots that they had the same ways and methods that the Britains had Bede lib. 2. cap. 4. similem vitam ac professionem egisse and there having been according to Bede several Disputes between the Romanists and the Scots in lesser matters had this been their fault this would have been charged too upon them Our Authour adds P. 31. Although in some other matters they differ'd from the Church of Rome yet Augustine promised to tolerate them provided they would rectify these which the British Bishops consented to This is the worst Passage in all our Authour's Book for it is manifestly false point-blank against Bede's words who expresly says that they would not consent and then in the manner of citing the Passage there is that shuffling and juggle that plainly shews he designed falshood Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. The words in Bede are these Si in tribus his mihi obtemperare vultis ut Pascha suo tempore celebretis ut ministerium Baptizandi quo Deo renascimur juxta morem Romanae sanctae Ecclesiae Apostolicae Ecclesiae compleatis ut genti Anglorum una nobiscum praedicetis verbum Domini caetera quae agitis quamvis moribus nostris contraria aequanimiter cuncta tolerabimus At illi nihil horum se facturos neque illum pro Archiepiscopo habituros esse respondebant There cannot be a more plain denial than this How then comes our Authour to say that they consented The truth is he seems resolved to say it true or false and therefore he leaves the last words wherein Bede declares the Britains dissent Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. P. 31. and adds to them these Cum. Britones confitentur intellexisse se veram esse viam justitiae quam praedicaret Augustinus Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. And from thence would infer that the Britains did consent But these words belong to another matter they are part of Bede's Narration of the first meeting that Augustine had with the Britains then it seems Augustine did a Miracle and the Britains had a great sense of it and did confess that Augustine's way was the right way But yet for all this stound and hasty words they immediately recollected themselves and in the next moment tell him as Bede says Bede lib. 2. cap. 2. Non se posse absque suorum consensu ac licentiâ priscis abdicare moribus That without the leave and consent of their own Clergy and Laity or a Synod which was upon it forthwith called they could not depart from their ancient Customs Thus we see that the Britains who confessed as our Authour says yet would not consent till they had the Opinion and Judgment of a Synod and when Augustine proposed his Matters to the Synod they flatly denied either to receive his Doctrine or himself as their Archbishop So then it is plainly false that the Britains consented But yet our Authour puts down that Confession first in English and after another quite different discourse he puts it down in Latine and that on purpose to prove a consent Now this must be designed to cheat and couzen some I hope he meant it for the Roman Catholicks I do not fear that any Protestant can be gulled by such a sleight But from this Discourse our Authour observes that it may be inferred that Augustine and the Britains agreed in Substantials this may be allowed if he means onely those things which are necessarily to be held by every one that is a Member of the true Catholick Apostolick Church They agreed in the same Saviour in the same Scriptures in the same Creeds and in all the Doctrine that was maintained and declared in the first four General Councils But this will not suffice for our Authour imagines that they agreed in all the Doctrines which the Church of Rome at this day indeavours to impose upon others In order to this
a certain Spanish Don P. 7. he treads out the ground measures the length of his Weapon makes a Speech and would tempt a man to think he is resolved to fight but he withdraws safely and calls in two others to engage a desire he has to see the Holy Scriptures and Athanasius his Creed to combat one another for his divertisement Now which of these two he is for he says not nor yet seems to guess which would have the better in case of a Contrast But alass this man mistakes those two are Friends and if there were any difference between that Creed and the Holy Scriptures Athanasius if he were now alive would be the first man to declare against that Creed it is certain he learnt and sounded all his Doctrines upon those no man read them with greater care and attention no man cites them oftner or with greater veneration Whether our Authour knew this or no I cannot tell but after all his preparatory flourishes he gives no more than this dry insipid request to the Fathers of our Church that they would not tell him that every Christian suppose every Baker Shoemaker or Cobler upon a sincere perusal of this Holy Book would certainly have composed the Creed of Athanasius Now this is a thing which never was spoken either by Bishop Presbyter or Deacon or Parish Clerk Can any Reverend Bishop be presumed to think and say that the great Athanasius had not more wit and reason more art more skill in Consequences than every Cobler and Tinker or than this Man 's two Friends Nailor and Muggleton it is prodigious to think how men dote that undertake to write Books against Reason But whatever this Man does or can say most certain it is that if Athanasius was the Composer of this Creed he did it upon a sincere perusal of the Holy Scriptures by the power of a good Reason and by the skill which he had in Consequence As for Authority of Pope or Council he had none for this Composition this Creed lay in obscurity and was unknown in the Church long after the days of Athanasius and as it was composed at first so it was brought into the use of the Church afterwards for some time without any considerable Authority morely by the private reason of some that were little more than private Men. Thirdly In the next place our Authour sets down some matters of Faith great and necessary Articles P. 7. as he calls them and these are the Mystery of the Incarnation the Doctrines of the Trinity Consubstantiality Transubstantiation Predestination and Free-will These he examined by his Reason but he does not tell us what account his Reason gave of them It is possible after a sincere perusal of the Holy Scriptures that he might find great reason to believe the Incarnation of our Lord and the Doctrine of the Trinity and by consequence that of Consubstantiality and something of a Predestination and it is possible that from thence he found no reason to believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation for herein many other Mens Reasons would agree with His. This he does not tell us but yet this I will presume in favour to him that he does not think that the Fathers in the Council of Nice and those in the after Councils who fixed the Doctrine of the Trinity and Consubstantiality I say he does not think but that they made their Determinations with highest reason I will presume too that he thinks that the Fathers in the Lateran and Tridentine Councils had reason to determine the Doctrine of Transubstantiation for though we think that in these two later Councils the generality acted by false reasons by prejudice and by worldly interest yet we do not doubt but they all and every one of them pretended to act with reason for certain it is that the private reason of any single man is a much better guide than the private Spirit of a Quaker or any other for a Reason may be urged and is upon information to be corrected but the pretence to the Spirit is not But if the majority of those Fathers at the Council of Nice were able by Scripture and Reason to establish those Doctrines of the Trinity and Consubstantiality to be Articles of the Christian Faith I know not why our Authour since he has the same Scripture and like Reason might not have done the same Sure I am that after this Council Athanasius pleaded much in the defence of the truth of these Doctrines and that not from the Authority of the Council but from the true sense and meaning of the several Texts Sozom. lib. 7. cap. 12. the same way of arguing was used in the first Constantinopolitan Council and so it continued till Theodosius by advice of Nectarius which he received from Sisinnius took another method After these doughty performances P. 8. our Authour comes in the next place a little more closely to Scripture or the sacred Records of Christian Religion and sets his reason to search and examine them and if possible to draw from thence a scheme of Christian Doctrine But here it seems his Reason was jaded and tyred out much more than in all the rest of his Disquisitions perhaps he found not there any thing like to the Doctrines that make up the Apostles Creed He does not tell this though he ought to have done it if he had compared his scheme with it But he tells us that he disagreed from all Churches the Church of England in her 39 Articles P. 8. and all the Catechisms of Catholicks Calvinists Lutherans and Socinians I was pleased that in his opinion the Doctrine of the Church of Rome did no more agree with Scripture than that of the Church of England But though I was pleased in this yet I was not very confident of any advantage from it because our Authour oft queries and seems to doubt whether his Reason does not much differ from other Mens I know that God Almighty has given different Talents to Men for Heads and Brains and Wits as well as Hearts are not alike in every Man I am sure the Ancients by virtue of plain honest reason were able to find the Christian Doctrine in the Holy Scriptures so did St. Irenaeus St. Athanasius St. Hierome St. Chrysostome St. Augustin and the rest This was a light to their feet and a lamp to their paths sufficient to satisfy those good men in matters of Faith and as this Man speaks in the great and necessary Articles But though this Man could not find the Christian Doctrine there yet it seems that he thought that he found something there that pretty well agreed with the dreams of Ebion and Cerinthus and with those of his dear Friends P. 8. Nailor and Muggleton The first of these I am much enclined to believe and if I were as impertinent as He is perhaps I might give some evidence of the second As for Ebion and Cerinthus this Gentleman is too close
forward to give any extraordinary Authority to such a Lateran Council intirely governed by such a Man as Pope Innocent III. especially in such a Doctrine which it self durst scarcely speak out but imposeth upon you in it by giving you onely one Word and that a barbarous one in all the presumed Acts of it And that comes in as it were by surprize and most amazing without any deliberation or consultation but you have it there before you in the reading of it can be aware and perhaps too before the Fathers who were convened in that Council themselves could be These Considerations I think sufficient to persuade any man to think himself under no great obligation to believe Transubstantiation by virtue of the Authority of this Council and I presume it will least of all affect the Faith of an English-man I shall onely add one thing more concerning this Lateran Council which some perhaps may think worthy of a remark and that is this This Lateran Council was not onely famous for new Doctrine Addit ad Concil Later quartum Edit Labb but new Doctours For here we find not onely Transubstantiation but St. Dominick He was at this Council And he and that Doctrine were in one and the same condition there in a like obscurity something perhaps but not much taken notice of but he and that went on from thence to be most conspicuous and remarkable They for some time after gave the great noise and talk to the World whereever Transubstantiation came the Fathers of the Inquisition who were the Order of Dominicans soon followed after and those Persons that were not subdued under the power of that Doctrine were sufficiently awed by the Terrour of these Fathers For whereas the Senses of Men were obstinate and refractary against their espoused Doctrine those Men made use of one Sense to oppose all the rest for by Rods and Scourges and Burnings they so affected the Sense of feeling that this in a most compendious way stilled and silenced all the others Thus Transubstantiation grew great And he that would argue for it from the Authority of the Lateran Council does but trifle it is and must and can be no otherwise prevalent than by the Authority of these Dominican Fathers The Order of these was confirmed the year after this Lateran Council and that by Innocent III. Thus effectually did this Pope doe his business when he made a new Doctrine and a new Law he provided a new Order of Men and a new Office to promote it and it is no wonder if by so doing he brought a new face of Christianity into the World Briet Annales in An. 1216. This Monsieur Briet says in his Annals in his remark upon the Order of Dominicans and the Franciscans An. 1216. Aliam Christianitati faciem induxit And I easily believe him that the Christianity which began to appear and was most visible in the World soon after this Lateran Council was as different from the Primitive Christianity as St. Dominick was distant in time from St. Peter or as his Rules were different from those in St. Peter's Epistles Now I have done with our Authour's Allegations from Councils And here according to fashion I might be tempted to talk a little of victory and tell my Reader what I think I have done But here I am stopped for our Authour has possest himself of this Post He has given us in the next Paragraph p. 21. such a Jargon of words that are designed to speak a victory but most certainly shew an intolerable vanity that I cannot imitate him For after he had reflected upon his doughty performances How he had found the Pope's Supremacy in the Council of Chalcedon and the Books called Apocrypha put into a higher rank than we place them as he thought by the Council of Carthage And the unbloudy Sacrifice decreed by the ninth Council of the Apostles And the adoration of Images established in the second Council at Nice with the general concurrences of Ancient Fathers And Transubstantiation owned and confirmed by 1300 Fathers in the great Lateran Council and he might as well have said 13000 and all to like purpose whilst never a man amongst them spake one word either to prove or disprove or approve that or any other Doctrine in the Council as far as it appears And after that he had remarked that all these Doctrines and I presume he means the Lateran Council too were brought into England by Augustine the Monk which Council was not in being till more than six hundred years were past after the death of Augustine When I say our Authour had seen that he had done all this he smiled and cockt his Beaver and admired his Atchievements and then forthwith speaks his glories in these words which I will set down here in perpetuam rei memoriam that all such Conquerors as he is may never want words wherein to express their glories or their follies Thus he says Indeed P. 21. Fathers when I had diligently examin'd this truth and found it most evident beyond the possibility of any just or reasonable contradiction I was much scandaliz'd at the disingenuity of your Writers who whilst they accuse others of fallacy imposture and impudence dare advance so great and demonstrable a falshood in matter of fact that nothing but ignorance can excuse them so they expose themselves to the greatest censure of rashness and indiscretion as uncharitable and unjust to those whom they call their Enemies as also unsafe and abusing the credulity of their Friends I admired to see these words in this place and am yet puzzled to think what could just now inspire him with all this puffiness He knew that he had never read one of these Councils and that he had transcribed from others without skill or care and he could not but know that some of his Allegations are most trite and common and answer'd most sully and largely by numberless numbers Why then does he seem here thus to admire his Acts and put down such an extravagant rant I cannot but think that the spirit of his old Friends Nailor and Muggleton came in to his assistence at the Writing of this Perhaps it is a Flower borrowed from some of that sort of Persons to adorn and imbellish a Book It is here I am sure out of its place altogether groundless and senseless and gives us one Argument more of the mighty powers of Face and what great expectances there are from it I do much believe that our Authour may hope for more success from that one Paragraph than from all his Allegations out of Councils Our Authour in the next Paragraph tells us he designs to be brief and therefore laying aside other Controversies he will insist onely upon two and they are these I. P. 22. The Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church II. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation The First of these I shall consider and leave the Second to others who both have
Sticklers for Roman Authority and Infallibility and that in a time when he contended most earnestly to bring in peace and good temper amongst Christians and had endeavoured passionately to persuade men to lay aside ill Language and odious Names such as one Party threw at another all which he says were cast up out of Hell such as these Papists Antichristians Ministers of Satan and on the other side Hereticks Schismaticks Apostates Though he heartily wish'd these Names out of the World yet he could be content that two or three of them were always ready to be thrown in the teeth of such Persons as our Authour would seem to be This remark I give to shew our Authour that I do not set down the Sayings and Opinions of others without considering first what weight and stress is to be laid upon them For I must consess that it is to me a scandal and matter of offence to find this Set of Authorities which our Authour uses in the same order and in the same words in another late Book intitled Pax vobis this seems to speak that the Authours of both these transcribed and never considered what force was in their Citations Is this fair dealing with a Man 's own Conscience or with his Readers when he is weighing of Religions and offering motives of Reconciliation either to himself or to others to act thus supinely This is worse than to take a journey to Edinburgh upon the next Hackney and never consider whether he be a Jade or no. A journey to Heaven is long to be sure of greatest importance He that takes up a new Religion to carry him thither had need use eyes and ears and heart and head too St. Paul had reason when he advised us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling but all men will not doe this they are in too much haste They that take satisfaction without reason and in spite of reason change their Religion cannot act with that caution which the great Apostle requires If I am not much out in my guess which I must leave to the Reader 's judgment when he has compared this Set of Citations with those in Pax vobis Pag. 70 71. we have here one of the most wretched Pleas that ever was used by a Writer It is not more than this I have met with some sayings of Men whom I care not for when or where or to what end they were spoken I never considered nor yet whether upon second thoughts they did not retract them my judgment concurs with them therefore I have found that lawfull Supreme Authority I searched for and where this Authority is there is Infallibility That is the first Motive to persuade that the Roman Catholick Church has Supreme Authority over all and Infallibility in the exercise of it He should now proceed to a second But instead of that we have Pag. 24 25 26 27. a discourse upon a new Subject so far is our Authour from making these Doctrines to appear reasonable that for so long together he 'll e'en let them shift for themselves his present business is to talk and talk he will of Separation or how the Church of Rome can be said to have separated either from her self or from the Catholick Church either whole or part and where that whole or part remained from whence the Church of Rome separated and then again where she remained and where she may be found and here he is urgent and importunate and will have an answer and that from the Bishops themselves for he comes up closely to the beards of them and tells them In good faith Fathers my Salvation is highly concern'd in this question and I must be satisfied He prevents them from giving such and such answers and swaggers it bravely out in these words I 'll sooner suffer my self to be knockt down with a true Protestant Flayl than with such a Protestant Answer and at last he adds from this reasonable and important request you shall never beat me whilst I live The Man grows warm and it is well for some that they are out of his way who knows what he may doe The occasion of all this noise and clamour he gives us in the 24th Page in these words You had often told me that She the Church of Rome had fallen from her primitive purity and separated her self from the one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Answer to Protestant Queries p. 10. declared also to be Antichristian and the true Church latent and invisible by that famous Napper to King James Brocard Fulk Sebast Francus Hospinian and many others Now what is all this to the Bishops of the Church of England must they answer for every thing that has been said by Fulk and Brocard and Napper or as you call him that famous Napper I pray how famous is he has any of the Bishops of England cited him these forty years does any of this Church reade him or depend upon him if your studies have been upon such Authours the Church of Rome have no great prize of you and these Motives as bad as they are were good enough to make you a Convert But yet there remains one Expression cited out of a little Book which it may be few of the Bishops of England ever saw but yet they must give an accompt of it and all the consequences he can gather from it for he says p. 26. his Salvation is highly concerned in it And it is a reasonable and important request And must the Bishops of England be accomptable for every little writing which they know nothing of would the Bishops of Rome think it fair that all the impertinences of our Authour should be charged upon them certainly no. But he argues that if the Church of Rome was once a pure and uncorrupted Church she remains so still for she can neither separate from her self nor from the Catholick Church Now if this Argument be good he himself is bound to answer for all the consequences that can come from a presumed separation either from it self or from the Catholick Church for we have oft proved and are always ready to prove that the Church of Rome is not the same as to purity and incorruption which it was It is changed it is altered multitudes of Innovations have overspread it and great numbers of Errours by little and little as Cassander says have crept in and prevailed over it But yet for all that we own and assert that there is a Church of Rome as well as a Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch and that though this as well as they have erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith So speaks the Church of England in her 19th Article And if she be a Church she must be a Member of the Catholick Church for every part must be contained in the whole None of us doubt but that the Church of Rome receives all the Canonical Scriptures that we
do and has the same Creed and the same Sacraments that we have And so she must be a Church But yet she is corrupt and foully stained by the many additions that have been made to her Faith to her Sacraments to her Worship to her Government and to her primitive rule of Faith and all this in virtue of an usurped Authority and vainly pretended Infallibility All these things we charge upon Rome and we think the Charge high enough and if our Authour could have distinguished betwixt Errour and Schism he might have spared all his impertinent Queries concerning Separation from her self or Separation from the Catholick Church and where that Catholick Church is to be found for all this is but trifling in an over eager pursuit of Consequences from a possible sense of a word If Rome has thus erred she may be said to have left and gone from or be separated from that first holy Catholick and Apostolick Church without the making of an open Schism or Schismatical Separation For seeing particular Churches are called Catholick as the Catholick Church in Smyrna Euseb lib. 4. cap. 15. and the Catholick Church of Alexandria upon the accompt of their continuance in the true Faith with the rest of the Church of God or from their coherence with that Church which was properly and originally called so upon which accompt Clemens Alexandrinus Stro. 7. joins those two words together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ancient and Catholick Church So far then as any Church now in being shall depart from the Doctrine of that Ancient Catholick Church and profess great and many Errours and broach new Doctrines unknown to the Primitive Churches and lay mighty stresses upon them so as to make them necessary for Communion here and to Salvation hereafter Such a Church may be said to depart or separate it self from that ancient one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church And now our Authour may have that satisfaction which he says he must have and I agree with him that his Salvation is highly concerned in it He would know where that Catholick Church from which she Rome separated remained and where she may be found I am sorry he knows it not but he may easily be taught that she was and is in Heaven There are all the glorious Company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of Martyrs There are all the Servants and Saints of Jesus Christ who have lived and died in the true faith of him and thither all the faithfull Members of the true holy Catholick Church now living hope by the grace of Jesus Christ in the methods of the Gospel by keeping close to the Faith that was once delivered to the Saints in their due times to come and be received into that most happy and everlasting Communion This is my opinion and for once I will pray our Authour not to blame me for it I know he may bring against me Supreme lawfull Authority in the name of Pope John XXII who really designed and heartily indeavoured to make the contrary Doctrine to pass for an Article of Faith and if he had lived a little longer would have declared ex Cathedra that the Souls of the Saints do not come to bliss and happiness untill the general Resurrection I beseech him not to meddle with this but if he does I 'll promise to defend my Opinion from Scripture and Fathers and Councils and doubt not by my little Reason sufficiently to repell him and his Authority too But if he can think with me that the Members of the first Churches the holy Apostles and blessed Servants of our Lord are in bliss and happiness and is willing to find them and be with them He ought then to think again of the change of his Religion and of this accompt that he has given of the Motives to it for if he seriously reflects upon his own Salvation and is heartily concerned for it he will be ashamed and repent of all his rude and unseemly treatment of the Reverend Fathers of this Church It is not huffing and braving that speaks a religious Mind it is not saying In good faith Fathers my Salvation is concerned in it that speaks a pious and hearty sense of that great blessing of God He that with humility and reverence studies the mind and good pleasure of his Saviour cannot rant where he is ignorant despise his betters trample upon those whom he calls Reverend Fathers Such actions may be agreeable to a Man that has no sense of Salvation He that has thrown off one Religion and forgot to take up another He that can easily say and so good night to Christianity may doe this But a Convert to any Sect or Party of Christians or such as are willing to be reputed Christians should not doe it Because such actions speak a Man to be proud and ambitious and designing upon this World and something worse than I am willing to say I must stop onely in requital for some Texts of Scripture which p. 25. he advises us to consider I request him to reade these Rev. 2.5 Remember from whence thou art fallen and repent and doe the first works Eph. 4.14 That we henceforth be no more Children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive 2 Cor. 2.17 We are not as many which corrupt the word of God but as of sincerity but as of God in the fight of God speak we in Christ Our Authour goes on p. 27. But I must not follow him in all his Impertinencies P. 27. I shall speak of Augustine the Monk afterwards And shall at present onely teach him one thing which he there says he does not understand And that he gives us in these words How you should rise a pure Church after you had been buried so many hundred years in a corrupt Church I do not easily understand Thus he says but yet certainly he may understand it for the same way that I advise him to take that he may become a good man was taken by our Predecessours and by virtue of that proceeding they ceased to be a corrupt Church and became a pure one and that was by remembring from whence they were fallen and by repentance and by reformation they saw the Errours which Rome had taught and proudly imposed they were sorry to have been so long abused they withdrew themselves from slavery and knockt off the chains and fetters that an unjust Power had laid upon them they studied and learnt their true Rites and Liberties their duties to God and to their Saviour and to their Prince and when they knew these they practised them And so they did their first works that which Christ and his Apostles taught and so became a pure Church This was then done but such an answer as this will not satisfy our Authour for he inquires in the next Paragraph by what Authority