nothing to the purpose because rather than fail he would make Nonsense of that Gentleman 's Arguing where his Purpose is as clear and his Sense as intelligible as a Man would desire it to be He answers next to what was observed again from Father Crasset but we will consider what belongs to him by it self and in the mean time go on with the Converts The next produced was Monsieur Ranchin who confessed a New Popery more boldly and roundly than Mr. Brueys did The Vindicator therefore slurs off his Testimony with saying only this Pag. 4. The Defender has shewn of what Credit such a Persons Authority is who weighed things so little as to sell his Religion for Money and Preferments But this is not so easily to be set aside For if he sold his Religion as there is too great reason to fear he did yet his Testimony to the Distinction between Old and New Popery is a very good one and an unanswerable Proof of what the Defender said That the Distinction was not of his own making but that in effect he found it made to his hands amongst the Bishop of Meaux's Converts Men often change their Religion for Worldly Interests but I think they never say so and that because they would still keep their Credit For which reason if they pretend such Motives to the Change they have made as are Matters of Fact easie to be judged of they will not be so careless of their Reputation as to pretend those things which the World can bear witness against Therefore since Mr. Ranchin laid his Change upon the great Difference between Old and New Popery there is no reason to question but whether this was the principal Cause of his Conversion or not yet such a Difference was commonly believed nay and that the Alteration in the Bishop of Meaux's way of expounding Popery from what had been in former Times and from the Belief and Practice of the Tartuffs and the People that now are was indeed notorious For otherwise he had taken a better way for his Reputation to pretend that he had been convinced by Old or by New Arguments of the Truth of that Doctrine which the Church of Rome constantly and universally held than to say that he was enlightned by a New Exposition no less needful for the Saving of Catholics than for the Conversion of Protestants For whether such an Exposition made any notable difference in Doctrine from what went for Popery before is a Matter that they can easily discern who perhaps are not so good Judges of a Disputation for Popery or against it If therefore Monsieur Ranchin was as careful of his Credit as he was sollicitous for Means to live like a Person of Quality he no doubt was very sure that the World was sufficiently aware of a notable Difference between the Old Popery of the Church of Rome and the New Popery of the Bishop of Meaux And it was frivolously done of the Vindicator to refuse his Testimony because the Defender was afraid his Worldly Interests had too great an Influence in the Change. Really if these Men serve their New Converts in this fashion it will mightily discourage them They have sweetned and gilded Popery for them to make it go down the better and yet they will not allow them to say what it was that made them swallow it with little or no straining Tho Ease Honour and Wealth did effectually determine them yet they should be permitted to tell their Friends what made the Change somewhat easie viz. that which these Men designed should do it Or else our English Representers and Vindicators may spoil their Market here before they have well begun to bid for Converts And this Inconvenience may presently follow that those who have yielded to them upon New Terms will begin to suspect that their Instructers mean to bring them into the Condition of the Tartuffs and the People in due time since they will neither themselves acknowledge that there is such a Difference nor so much as suffer their Converts to make any words of it but fall to reproaching them when they do so The same Reply may serve to the Vindicator's Exception against Mr. Pag. 4. Pawlet who because he made his Conscience comply with his Interest is no fit Man to be brought in as one of the Defender's Witnesses for such an odious Accusation So says the Vindicator But Mr. Pawlet was not the less fit Man for that For altho Insincerity does by no means qualifie a Man to be a Witness yet there are Cases in which the Testimony of an Insincere Man cannot reasonably be refused that is when his Interest does manifestly oblige him to speak the Truth Such is the present Case For had there been no good ground for this Distinction between Old and New Popery as these Men would now persuade us there is not Mr. Pawlet by using that Distinction could not but know that in stead of covering his own Insincerity he had more openly exposed himself for a Knave He calls this Charge of an Old and a New Popery an Odious Accusation Pag. 4. as the Distinction it self but a little before was That Odious Distinction But he forgets that this Distinction as Odious as it is is used by those of his own Communion and who being Converts their Testimony is so much the more remarkable They cannot be presumed to distinguish thus for the prejudice of their Converters nor to make the Distinction a matter of Accusation against them as the Vindicator very poorly insinuates They use it to defend themselves against the Expostulations of those whom they have forsaken and the nature of their Defence implies not only that they believe what they say in this Case but that they had reason to believe it For if it were altogether a Dream of theirs or ours that there are two sorts of Popery in the Communion of the Roman Church they might as well have defended their Revolt by pretending that the Church of Rome requires not the Veneration of Images or the Invocation of Saints in any sense at all or any other such thing as notoriously False as that would be As to the Inhabitants of Montauban that became Converts too upon M. de Meaux's Principles he says That their Acknowledgment is no convincing Proof that there was truly an Old and New Popery excepting in their Imaginations But their Testimony and the former Testimonies are I hope a convincing Proof that the Defender did not make this Distinction but that it was in effect made to his hand even by the Bishop of Meaux's Converts Which is the thing this Man should have spoken to but that every Mans Case will not bear Pertinence in his Answers But I have shewn him by the way that these Testimonies are a Terrible Argument of the Thing and that there is cause for such a Distinction as this which before I have done I shall make as evident as the cause of another thing is viz.
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
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
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
the same Worship as Christ himself and what does he conclude upon it Why that 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 And therefore I conceive that if neither side be Popery the Representers side is not Popery but a private Opinion which the Church has not yet censured as the Vindicator says Now what the Vindicator said in this Case is applicable to all others where the Answerer plainly shewed that the Eminent and Leading Men of the R. Church were of a different Sentiment from the Representer Whereas therefore the Representer either promised or threatned great matters in his Introduction I 'll endeavour says he to separate these Calumnies and Scandals from what is REALLY THE FAITH AND DOCTRINE OF THE CHVRCH I 'll take off the Black and Dirt which has been thrown upon her and set her forth in her GENVINE Complexion I 'll Represent a Papist whose Faith and Exercise of his Religion is according to the Direction and Command of the Church The Vindicator has on the other hand knocked him down at one blow For says he So long as the Church determines not the Dispute any one may hold which side they please as an opinion but neither side is truly what you ought to mean by Popery This shews that I was not much out of the way when I noted the great hazard of these Expounding and Representing designs The truth is it was so nice a work that in prudence they ought to have committed it to one hand and the Representer should have been the Vindicator For while they are two and and each of them driven to straits one of them being pressed on one side and the other on another side the danger was great that each of them would shift for himself a several way and be exposed to the Reproaches of one another Thus it happened that the Representer being pressed by his Adversaries for not having fairly Represented Popery was fain at last to make a Rule to know the Churches Sense by which might serve his turn and what should that be but the Currant passing of his Book amongst Catholics for this he thinks was enough to shew that the Doctrine of it was Authentic But the Vindicator being pressed with the Opposition that is made in the Roman Communion to the Doctrine of the Exposition and perceiving that Currant passing would not serve his turn he I say comes out a Month after the Representer and will not allow any thing to make Doctrine Authentic under the express Words of a General Approved Council and he has utterly undone the poor Representer's Rule of Currant passing which he thought was enough to shew that his Doctrine was Authentic Nay the unfortunate Vindicator has blown up the Exposition of the Bishop of Meaux as well as the Characters of the Representer which indeed could not be avoided because one must necessarily follow the Fate of the other For the Bishop's Exposition was solemnly pretended to be An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversie that is to say An Exposition of Popery But the Bishop has expounded many things for the Doctrine of the Catholic Church which other Members of the same Church condemn and so long as the Dispute remains undetermined neither Side is truly what you ought to call Popery And therefore the Bishop should have called his Book An Exposition of his own Private Sentiment concerning the Doctrine of the Catholic Church Thus I say he should have called it or else he should have found out another Vindicator Nay because the greatest Grace that his Doctrine seems now to have from the Church is That it is not censured by the Church The Title should have been a little more wary by running thus An Exposition of the Bishop's Private Sentiment which the Church has not yet censured concerning the Doctrine of the Catholic Church But because in truth the Living Church has begun to censure his Doctrine and they who have censured it are not censured for it The Title should have been yet more warily contrived thus An Exposition of the Bishop's Private Sentiment which Sentiment is not contrary to the express Words of a General Approved Council Then perhaps the Vindicator might have done something in discharge of the Duty of a Vindicator But as the case stands he ought henceforward to change his Name and to write himself the Betrayer of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition but by no means the Vindicator of it Which himself so well understood that he thought fit to pass over all the Letter of the Defender to the Bishop and he gives this substantial Reason for it Because the Letter concerns not him the Vindicator nor the Doctrine of the Catholic Church which he is to vindicate In good time But the Letter sorely concerned the Bishop and the Doctrine of his Exposition Pag. 8. and therefore if it does not concern the Vindicator you are not to wonder at it because there have been great Changes of late and now the Doctrine of the Bishop's Exposition is one thing and the Doctrine of the Catholic Church is another I may without breach of Modesty say that hitherto I have given the Vindicator a Full Reply And I believe the Reader would be well satisfied that I should drop him here and leave his following Cavils to be confuted by any one that will take the pains to compare him and the Defender together But then this would be a Pretence for another Book and for some boasting that he is not answered A little therefore must be said to what remains Pag. 8. And 1. By many of the Roman Casuists allowing the Defamation of an Adversary by false Accusations as the Defender said in his Table it is so plain by the Book that he meant no more than that they maintained it to be but a Venial Sin that the Vindicator himself has not questioned it and therefore it was a mere Cavil to tax the Defender of Falsifying in this business tho to incourage the Vindicator to do well another time thus much he is to be commended for that he limited his Accusation to the expression of Allowing which he found in the Table This Sir as you here word it is a False Imputation Even where he does ill I am glad that he does no worse But to speak to the thing They that make one of the basest things in nature to be but a Venial Sin cannot reasonably be otherwise understood than that they intend to make it easie for their own Party to commit it And tho they flourish never so fairly with that Rule that No Evil is to be done that Good may come of it yet there are so many little ways amongst them of clearing themselves from Venial Sins that when so foul a Wickedness is made but Venial it can be with no other design than to encourage men to it
Why the Vindicator is not able to bear the mention of it His harping upon the Odiousness of this Distinction and of this Accusation does but give us just occasion to say that because it was necessary in these times for some of them to bring in a New Popery they must needs count it an Odious thing in us to put them in mind of the Old one But it seems that if we had said nothing of it they had been little the nearer for the Converts themselves have proclaim'd the Odious business who altho they were to be seduced by the inviting Appearance of a New Popery and some other New Popery-Motives not altogether so Sweet and Gentle were not yet to be so far trusted with the Secret of this Affair as to be told that they must conceal it from the World. These men no doubt could have wished that the Converts and we had kept their Counsel and left them to be the First Discoverers of it after that happy Work was done every where which they call Conversion If they expected this it was a vain presumption But whatever they imagined at first they cannot endure to be told now that the Trick was invented too late and discovered too soon to do all those Wonders which they designed by it And so much for the Vindication of the Distinction of Old and New Popery by the Testimony of the Converts The Defender touched upon Monsieur Imbert's Story which also clearly shewed the same Distinction going amongst Romanists themselves before the Defender insisted upon it The only Question as to the evidence of this Instance is whether Mr. Imbert was oppressed by his Diocesan the Archbishop of Bourdeaux for following Monsieur de Meaux's Exposition in declaring that not the Wood of the Cross but Jesus Christ who suffered upon it was to be Adored in the Good-Friday Service The proof that has been made of this is so good that the Vindicator denies not the Fact but contents himself not to confess it He saies indeed The Bishop tells of Extravagancies committed in the Church by Monsieur Imbert and I suppose if it were worth while he could prove them to you But in Conscience was it not worth while to prove them or at least to name them and to say what they were Was it not Mr. Imbert who in his Letter to the Bishop of Meaux appealed to the Process against him Desence of Exp. p. 126. and defied his Enemies to reproach him for his Life and Manners or for any other Doctrine than that of his Lordship Did he not publish a Factum of his Case all to the same purpose And can any other reason be given why it is not confuted in the Face of the World but because it cannot Sure I am that if it could have been done the Bishop might with less pain have disproved it than it hath cost him from time to time to shuffle it off in which labour he has so visibly added Insincerity to Insincerity Can the Vindicator think that it was not worth while for the Bishop to defend his Reputation against his Inferior as Mr. Imbert indeed is But the Bishop is now brought upon the Stage of the World for this matter and I must tell his Vindicator that Imbert being not only the Bishops Inferior but a man oppressed too by the Authority of the Archbishop of Bourdeaux the Bishop of Meaux's Friend the World does more undoubtedly believe that he delivered nothing but plain Truth in his Factum because if he had in the least swerved from it he had thereby exposed himself yet more to the power of that Greatness which oppress'd him to add to his Sufferings now with some Colour of Justice Whatever was at first insinuated by the Bishop it now appears that Imbert was no Fool unless in believing that the Bishop was in good earnest in his Exposition But the World will forgive him that when it will not so easily forgive the Expositor What should I say more the Vindicator himself has in effect acknowledged that it was worth while to make the pretended Extravagancies of the unfortunate Imbert appear For he confesses that the severe Reflexions which the Defender makes against the Proceedings of the Archbishop of Bourdeaux are made justly enough if Imbert said the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth which is as much as to say that it was worth while to shew that the World ought not to think so severely of the Archbishop as it certainly would if Imbert were believed But the Vindicator's Consequence is as absurd as possible that this will make unbyass'd persons think that Imbert was not just in the delivery of the matter For because one Story is good till another is told unbyass'd Persons must think that Imbert was very just in the Relation since it so nearly concerned the Archbishop to have it disproved and yet he never went about it As for the Bishop of Meaux it concerned him much more who has not only forsaken this poor Man that suffers for nothing but conforming to the Bishops Exposition but has also endeavoured to take away his good Name and without offering any colour of proof has added Reproaches to his other Afflictions In short the Bishop has in all appearance said for himself what he is able But the pretended Extravagancies are yet to be named unless the Vindicator will insist upon that for which the Defender has brought Cardinal Capisucchi to acquit Monsieur Imbert and to condemn the Bishop Which I desire the Reader to take special notice of in the Answer to the Bishop of Meaux's Letter p. 41.42 But I forbid the Vindicator ever to say one word about it or to offer the least Reply to what I add concerning it That 't is such a blot to his Bishop and to his expounding Design as will stick upon them till they are so happy as to be forgotten But the Vindicator was so sensible of the Evidence of Imbert's Story that he thought fit to make an If of the main part of it and so to speak to the Supposition If the Curate saies he cried out as Imbert accuses him The Wood The Wood he was as much in the wrong as your self meaning the Defender That is the Curate mistook the meaning of the Church as much as the Defender did But the Vindicator should have gone on thus And if the Archbishop of Bourdeaux caused Process to be made against Imbert for crying out Not the Wood but Jesus Christ then the Archbishop mistook the meaning of the Church as much as the Curate And if the Bishop of Meaux abetted the Archbishop and forsook Imbert he was more to blame than either the Curate or the Archbishop not indeed for mistaking but for betraying the pretended Doctrine of the Church which he had so publickly owned before Now not to enquire by what Authority the Vindicator pronounced the Curate to be in the wrong since the Archbishop of Bourdeaux thought Imbert to be in the wrong
thing as this the Defender insinuated of the Representer's last Book by calling his Postscript a Full Answer to it But now the Representer has been answered more largely in the foregoing Part and therefore we might expect in Honour a more Full Answer than this Sheet and Half to the Second Defence But we expect no such thing for all that For tho as the World goes some Men are forced to say much against Nothing yet others finding it very painful to say much for Nothing have had the Face to call Half-sheets and such things Full Answers to such Books as if their more Learned Predecessors were now alive they would have given us we are apt to think what weight they had and at least equal measure in Return for them To this Full Answer of his P. 2. I intend to give a Reply more Full than his Answer is which slips over many Considerations in the Defenders Book for which I am sure he cannot pretend in the Representer's strain that they have been answered five hundred times over He declares once for all that he is resolved not to let any of the Defenders pretended Proofs escape or any thing that looks like a solid Answer pass unsatisfied Which Declaration was the more fit to be made once for all because it would trouble a Man's Conscience again to make it the second time or at least it would startle the Reader as often as it was made But in pursuit of this Intention as he says and it may be to make good his own Title of a Full Answer he falls in the first place upon the Defender's Title-Page where he would have had the Book called A free Confession of the Matter of Fact in all the Vindicator's Exceptions The Defender I am sure neither pretended to prove nor to answer in his Title Page But they are often busy where no need is who are idle where their Business lies However I shall remember this and desire to know what there is in the Book to make it deserve the Title of a Free Confession c. In the mean time I observe that he and the Representer are agreed to rid their hands of this Controversy by affirming now at last that we freely confess something or other which they have all this while laboured in vain to prove But before I have done with this Full Answer of his I may perhaps convince them both that they did not lay their Heads long enough together and that while they were agreeing what to make us confess they forgot a more material Point and that was now in so great a strait as the Representing Controversy was reduced to to agree in what they should confess themselves The First Part of the Defence which he pretends to answer is the Historical Vindication of the Distinction between Old and New Popery For the Defender observing how much that Distinction was disliked by this Man told him that he found it in effect made to his hand in some of the Bishop of Meaux 's own Converts and in Books which are said to have undergone his particular perusal before they were permitted to come into the World. Def. Pref. P. 3. But the Vindicator declares that in the proof of this when he came to examine it he found nothing to the purpose Which is more than I shall say of his Exceptions to it for I think something will be found in them to our purpose how little soever there may be to his own The First Instance of the Converts is Monsieur Brueys who vehemently exhorted the Protestants to return to the Roman Communion by this Argument That the Doctrine of the Church was so expounded as none of their Forefathers understood it Of which and much more to the same purpose the Vindicator says I stand in need of your Spectacles Sir to see how he Monsieur Brueys proves that there was New and Old Popery any where but in the Conceit of our Adversaries their Forefathers as he calls them Which certainly is none of the wisest Answers that ever was made because it grants a New and Old Popery somewhere though it be not so honest as to confess it where it is Because he was resolved not to find it where Mr. Brueys did and where it is to be found he would find it where it never was viz. in the Conceit of our Forefathers But neither dos Mr. Bruey's arguing suppose that our Fore-fathers had any such Conceit but the quite contrary nor is it in it self true that they had For there was no such Distinction going in their Days nor occasion for it The Reason why our Fore-fathers never understood Popery as it is now understood by Monsieur Brueys and the new Converts is because the Bishop of Meaux's Fore-fathers never explain'd it as 't is explain'd now by him and some few others that have taken the hint from him And this New Exposition must have made a New Popery according to that Gentleman because the whole Force of his Argument to persuade his Old Friends to turn Papists lies evidently in that He says indeed That if their Protestant Forefathers had believed things to be as in effect they were and are now proposed they would never have separated from the Communion of the Church In which words I acknowledge that he lessens the Difference between the Former and Later Expositions of Popery as much as ever he can Which no Man will wonder at who considers that he is a Convert But 't is plain that he makes the Difference to be the Reason why on the one side their Forefathers went off from the Church of Rome and why on the other side themselves ought now to return to it And this I am sure is in effect to confess an Old and a New Popery and not only a more clear and intelligible way of expounding the very same things which the Bishop of Meaux has got above all that were before him Unless the Vindicator will say That their Forefathers as well as ours were so stupid that they could not see either the one what Doctrines they held or the other what they rejected but were still playing at Blindman's-buff about Notions which they could not make one another understand because they were not able to express them as they ought to have been expressed Which I am confident Mr. Brueys will never say and perhaps not the Vindicator neither tho without saying it he must in spite of his Heart find a New and Old Popery acknowledged by that Gentleman and that there was no occasion for that distinction till these happy Days of ours But for the Vindicator to find in Mr. Brueys's words a New and an Old Popery charged upon the Conceits of our Forefathers is so very ridiculous and utterly inconsistent with his Argument to persuade us to put Matters into the same State in which they were before by reuniting to the Church of Rome that any one may see he was hard put to it to make this Testimony
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
and I think I may put it to the Vindicator whether an Encouragement to sin be not equivalent to an Allowance of it He grants the Pope condemned these Propositions and seems to make some advantage of it as if they were now never more to be told of them because the Supreme Pastor has condemned them But before he insinuates any such Conclusions again I would desire him to inquire of F. â—C what became of the Popes Brief to that purpose in France tho I believe there are some Fathers nearer hand that can inform him if he knows it not already As for his endeavour to clear himself of denying what his Adversary proved upon this occasion Pag. 8. let him believe that he is come well off if he can I will not pursue him as if it was hard to get him at an Advantage 2. Pag. 9. Def. Pag. 54 55. He says the Defender far exceeds him in giving Obliging Titles otherwise called Hard Words The Defender put those together which he complained of and they are a pretty Company The Vindicator refers us to the Defence from Pag. 49 to 54. to shew how he has been used I have read over those Pages and I find the Defender there preparing himself to encounter Rudeness and Incivility Pag. 49. esteeming it Vnchristian to return his Adversaries Revilings Pag. 50. shewing in him the marks of a Calumniating Spirit and that he is an unfit Witness to be credited against an Adversary Pag. 51 c. It seems he should have said that the Vindicator was a very Civil Moderate Fair-spoken and Honest Gentleman that had abused no body If we do not commend these Men as much as they commend themselves we must be thought to rail at them as much as they do at us For my own part I have not Complemented the Vindicator but I have spared him and he ought to thank me for it tho I do not much care whether he does or no unless withal he intends to deserve well for the time to come 3. To his Cavil at the Defenders arguing that the Bp. of Meaux's We suppose or as the Vindicator renders him We believe or as the French may be rendred We esteem is no Argument of the truth of that Doctrine which he so propounds I reply that the Defender did not thereupon infer that the Bishop had no other Argument to produce By the way Pag. 3. I tell the Vindicator that he cannot produce a better for that Doctrine that was in question Def. p. 57. But for him to say That the Defender sees he cannot now deny that that was a Falsification tho in Truth he would not allow it so much as to be a Mistake is to give us more and more reason to conclude that we must have done with these Men for why should a Man under restraint go on to argue with another that feels none To his other Cavil that the Defender brings in the Bishop observing that St. Paul concluded that Christ himself ought not to be any more offered without putting in the following Words up to death for us I reply that the Defender by Offering meant offering to death as he said in his last Defence and that without such a Supposition his Argument was lost But of this the Vindicator would take no notice I add that there was no need of repeating those Words that were omitted because Christ was spoken of before as a Victim offered for sin Nor was there any need of saying this but that I do in my Conscience believe that we have to do with such a Representer and a Vindicator as are not this day to be matched within the Lines of Communication If we go any further I think I know of One that will set 'em hard 4. For what concerns the Translation of the Bishops Letter it was certainly but just in the Defender to answer Mr. de Meaux's Sense and not his Translators Blunders But now for that wise Remark which the Vindicator has made upon that Passage Pag. 11. he had done much more prudently to have considered what the Defender told him That really he is not Master enough of the French Language to pretend to turn Critick in it than to have given the World so evident a Demonstration of it Every one knows that is at all acquainted with that Tongue that Cartons do not signifie in general any Leaves but such Leaves as are put into the room of others that are taken out of a Book and therefore to add Cartons to a Book is as the Defender truly rendred it to take out some Leaves and put in others in the room of them 5. The Defender named those Accusations of the Vindicator against him which he could not know to be true and gave some Reasons for saying so But the Vindicator charging the Defender with the like has neither given one Reason or so much as one Instance As for this Mans accusing the Defender of things which he knew to be evidently False the Defender instanced in the Vindicators charging him with Falsifying Cajetan upon the Question of Extreme Vnction tho it was most evident that he had not falsified Cajetan as he shewed in his Second Defence Upon this the Vindicator declares in the Presence of God Pag 10. the Avenger of all wilful Crimes That he never accused his Adversary of any thing but what he thought nay had proved him evidently guilty of And he thinks he has now satisfied the World that in that very instance the Defender is a Falsisier And for this he refers in the Margin to his Letter to the Author of the Discourse concerning Extreme Vnction Well the first use I make of this is to Adore the Mercy and Patience of the Great God to whom this Man has appealed I lay no stress at present upon the obvious right in this matter but as far as I can recollect he could not but have seen that Authors Answer to his Letter before this Full Answer of his came out of the Press And then the Lord have mercy upon him One thing I am sure of that he either wants that Conscience or that Understanding which are required to swearing in Truth and Judgment who can after such a Conviction declare in the Presence of Almighty God that he has proved the Defender a Falsifier of Cajetan 6. Pag. 10. As to his Scandalous Reflections upon the Church of England he refers us for a proof of whatever he has said to a late Book called Good Advice to the Pulpits which if it does prove those things against us which it pretends to do does not yet justifie one quarter of that Reviling which he has discharged against us But whereas he says that Book alone is enough to make our Party ashamed I must tell him that his Boast is a little unseasonable since his Party may have in a little time some cause to be ashamed of the Book and the Vindicator in particular for having boasted of it I