forwardnesse or slownesse in this cause in titling to Divinity this their delusion with such heats doe they imbrace what was never heard of in Gods Church this fourteene hundred yeares and this doe they extoll to be the height of Reformation 2. All other sects and sorts that discent from them who will not be subject to this spirituall bondage have their bucklers of defence out of Scripture too the measure and judge whereof is their own interpretation they alledge That when two or three are gathered together God is in the midst of them whereas the Fathers say in their Expositions That when two or three of the Church are gathered together for devotion sake God is in the midst of them not that the gathering of two or three together doth make a Church thus in the Son of Gods Word doth swarmes of gnats and flyes play not capable of being governed And though both these Reformations be contrary to each other yet both oppose a third Reformation established by Parliamentary Laws which retained a solemnity of Forme and Ceremony and from its first angry leaving onely to acknowledge the Authority of the Roman Bishop fell by degrees to leave off one thing after another And as it served them to be able to bandy against the Church of Rome complide with those other reformists as they call themselves who in no other thing agreed with them but in disagreeing from it It s owne proper temper stood not upon termes irreconcilable but pretended the cause of new Doctrines received in the Church of Rome to be that which forced their departure the most ingenious and ingenuous owned this Modell whose parts I highly esteem whose persons I honour having had establishment of civill authority decency of Ceremony and Forme of Liturgy I endevoured to observe in the Writings of the chiefe upholders of it their freer and lesse compeld judgement concerning the Church of Rome such as fell from them in the intervals of their calentures heats of contradiction I found the Bishop of Canterbury against M. Fisher acknowledging that if they were another Church from the Church of Rome he would soon return to it Hooker denies to damne them who have been the authors of their salvation Others part stakes betwixt Truth and Faction saying The Church of Rome hath the truth in it as Silver lying hid among Rubbage I have heard a Learned Bishop yet living confesse All the difference was onely in words and termes Thus doe they date their Religion a new from some accidentall thing bringing in new Epochaes and accounts from changes and alterations which they terme Reformatition whereas the firme principle of the Church was ever a pleading an uninterrupted succession of Pastors and Doctrine from the Apostles time to this Saint Cyprian saying in his Epistles He hath not Ecclesiasticall Ordination who keeps not Ecclesiastical union but they have cut this Scepter which whilst whole every one did bow to into contemptible little coyne which are severall parties bearring different impressions which are onely currant with those whose perticular marke and character is set upon it CAP. II. A View of the whole Question betwixt the Church of Rome and the Episcopall party by answering the perticulars of that grand Objection which I repeate in the words of Doctor Bramhal Pag. 29. against Molatair If you seeke to obtrude upon us the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholique Church excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World from the communion of Christ OR The Opinions thereof for Artikles and Fundamentals of Catholique Faith neither our Reason nor our Religion nor our Charity will suffer us to listen to you Thus doe they Patronize their opposition to the Church of Rome under the challenged protection of Religion Reason and Charity and with as great applause as the naming of these things can afford they celebrate the triumph of error They be few words I confesse but such as govern and constitute all the actings and reasonings of man by their light and influence But to Write over the Doore where the Plague is all the Medicinable names in Physicke will not preserve men from Infection onely the greater danger is that men more easily under the title of good things are deceived into places of mortality And because this Objection seemingly is framed up and upheld by all those things that are worthy of man I will leave pecking at stones in the field and will impartially view the inward strength and force of this building They finde fault that any should obtrude upon them the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholique Church excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World from the communion of Christ Who is it that would obtrude the Roman Church with its adherents upon you is it onely in this age urged by a Faction Who is an enemy to your most necessary Reformation and for ambition and profit sake will not apply themselves to the innocency and purity of Gods true Religion Is it obtruded onely by those whom you have justly offended warranted thereto by the Laws of God and the Church Is it by those onely who by their erronious tenents makes justifiable your departure from them and bandying against them to returne to them again were to forfit your zeale in Gods cause to betray your Reason Religion and Charity but if on the contrary it prove onely a perverse proceeding to maintaine a Scisme if it be onely your calumny and ill dealing with your Mother from whose lap peevishly and without reason you have withdrawne your selves if it be you onely who take scandal at the Church which can be none to you though they may be to it Tunc alta ruunt subductis tâ—cta columnis then have you Passion for Zeale Opinion for Faith and confusion for the effects St. Iraeneus who lived in the second age in his Booke against Heresies reckons up a succession of the Bishops of Rome from St. Peter to the Pope then present and pronounces it necessary for all Churches to hold communion with those that adhere to the Church of Rome Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles in quâ semper ab his qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae sit ab Apostolis traditio fundamentis igitur Ecclesiam Apostoli Lino Episcopatum c. then were they plain and positive in the declaring the duty of all to desert all perticular Churches which did not adhere and hold communion with the Sea of Rome Tertullian of the same Age De prescriptione Hereticorum si autem Italiae adjaces habes Romam unde nobis auctoritas praesto est St. Ambrose of the fourth Age or century of the Church How happy is that Church upon which the Apostles have poured out all Doctrine with their bloods Saint Jerom of the same time upon the first Epistle to Timothy The
Church which is the house of God notes upon it thus Of which Damasus then Pope is at this day ruler And againe Primà adversus Ruffinum fidem suam quam vocat camque qua Romana pollet Ecclesia Si Romana respondent ergo Catholici sumus St Augustine of the fifth Age lib. 11. cap. 2. contra Faunsâ—um Vides in hac re quid Ecclesiae Catholicae valeâ—t authoritas quae ab ipsis fundatissimis seâ—ibus Apostolorum usque ad hodiernum diem succedentium sibi met Episcoporum serie populorum consensione firmata St. Jerom of most austere life a profound Schollar and generall Linguist lived unmarried a Monke a Priest said Masse St. Augustine was Bishop of Hippo confessedly a Priest and offered up the body and blood of Christ in Sacrifice for the living and the dead Saint Basil a Monke Priest unmarried did not they all live and dye in the communion of the Church of Rome and did detest Scisme I remember one told me at Venice pleasantly discoursing of the difference which that Republique had with the Pope We would have become saith he any thing to have been ad oppisitum with the Pope Lutherans or Calvenists but that we were satisfied with the truth of all opinions of the Church from our own Records which have been in violated and kept intire and delivered then with as great vigor as now observed for about a thousand years which time that City hath stood never taken or plunderd nor burnt the two great winding sheets of humane things Will not the Laws and constitutions of all ancient governments declare and demonstrate the same even of those places which have revolted from them must all men in so many grave Councels resorting from all parts of the Christian world relating one to another what in the severall places whence they came hath been held and so from time to time an universall establishment of such things as have been found to be the generall Traditions and Doctrines of the Church and yet must all these be thought to have walked in a vaine shadow Rocks Cities Woods must be thought to move while their eyes dwelling too much upon the currant of the times breeds this deception that they are thought to move from the little Boats when it is the Ship boats departing from them Thus it is evident who thrusts the Church of Rome upon them and what hath thrust them from the Church of Rome When parties are once engaged though testimonies be as lowd as Thunder yet the ball must be kept up poore pretences must undergoe the opinion of inevitable necessities all sticks seen in that Water must be crooked Non persuadebis etiamsi persuaseris They say It must not be obtruded upon them as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World All Christians in all Ages have pronounced that Artikle I beleeve the holy Catholique Church if mens saith should not vary the object must never faile and in all Ages downe from our blessed Saviours time they have most stedfastly pronounced this Artikle in the bosome of the Church of Rome which taken locally is but a Parish Church but in respect of retaining with others that same Doctrine which the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul delivered them whether by writing or by word of mouth in that sence it is called Catholique and so Orbis in Vrbe est When Heresies sprung as there must be Heresies they had recourse still to what was delivered by way of Doctrines to them wherby they did repel all false and erronious opinions as constantly maintain their own Doctrine When diverse parts of Scripture were called in question it was the Churches Authority did pronounce them Divine now the Church was to be deceived in its Sentence or not If it was then infallible why not now and in the interpretation and exposition as well as the Letter when Scripture is not Scripture but rightly Expounded As touching an externe and adventitious condition of the Church it suffers sometime dilatation and inlargement other time persecution and contraction yet still ever the same The Arke that was the type of the Church vvas sometimes on the Waves sometime in the Wildernesse travelling againe in the Temple in peace and glory When the Arrian Heresie had so catchingly surprized the World no doubt but the Catholique Church did exclude them and because it vvill not now let every stinking puddle of Opinion and every infectious currant of Faction run into its Sea or that like the Sea it will not let any dead or corrupt thing lye in its bowels therefore forsooth it must not be obtruded upon any as Catholique it excluding three parts of foure of the Christian World If it should have so much good nature to admit all its Doctrine would not be Catholique that is what was profest at all times the holy Catholique Church is but one Episcopacy is but one saith Saint Cyprian as Streames from the same Fountain Branches from the same Root here is nothing but that fidelity which a Spouse owes to her Betrothed no intertainment of Forraine loves or unlawfull mixtures Those that are called Reformists exclude not one another when they would appear a great body of opponents of the Roman Church they exclude them not from opposing the same Authority though in manner and in their own opinions they oppose and exclude one another like that Image part whereof was Clay part Iron that by cleaving together resembled a body though never incorporated Harmony of Confessions B. Hall of the Churches of Holland and France They are enemies of a good Catholique malice whilst they would unite all the different Formes of Scisme wherein every ones Fancy was their guide and of these would make an angry union to gratifie their humour of opposing their Mother Church and if one should lend a severe aspect into their own Commonwealths and Interests he shall seem to retreave the ancient Chaos each Sect so differing from other and every one dissenting from what themselves were at first When they shak'd hands with the Church of Rome every one departing a severall way according to the concernments and ends of their Leaders or the Genius and nature of the People or the accidents affaires of those times which steared their furies and indignations The Lutherans hold the Calvenists for the Phaetons of Europe and in a late Sinod have condemned them guilty of all the Warres and disasters in these late times Calvin allowes of Episcopacy yet his followers make it ground enough of an immortall quarrell to have them extirpated In every Country that ill Seed that Calvin sowed came up of a different fashion as he well perceived who described their severall humors of Genevizing Anglizing Scotizing What Wars are raysed in the mutuall opposition of each others Doctrine every one of them having some perticuler Opinion wherein they magnifie themselves being their Eurika and sets it as it were in the Van for an Ensigne of the Faction
under which they doe so peevishly militate A Satyre would be the best stile to describe the animosities they prosecute each others Opinion with and no lesse would it become all those angry fits that they expresse in their severall wandrings and errors they throw a Sea of gall and bitternesse after those who upon mature examination relinquish those Mazes they leade their followers in What should one speake of the fruitfull Independency big with all sorts of Opinions Brownists Anabaptists Arminian Zwinglian Aecolampadian and all these the English Church Protestant Episcopall banishes excludes from them The bosome of the Catholique Church is spread wide to intertaine all whom with earnest Prayers and endevors it invites and desires zealous of their salvation which onely in an ordinary way is to be had there The ancient Heretiques Arrians Nestorians Vtichians whose reliques yet possesse some place in the World are excluded likewise by themselves who make this objection and besides their owne Reformation hath been a varied unconstant one that except they would fal in love with this Word Reformation I know not well what can be understood by it H. 8. first onely threw out the Pope but retained the seven Sacraments after by degrees they were taken away and new Doctrines brought in with relaxations of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and sometime it hath been wholly submitted to the Presbyterian humour in confusedly going to their Churches and so generally using their Directory whereas according to their own opinions vvithout Bishops no Ordination can be Quo teneam nodo They complaine That the opinion of the Church of Rome are obtruded upon them for Artikles and Fundamentals in Faith Doth not all the Wildernesse of their opinions their opiniotive Idolatries each one avouching their Doctrine with Thus saith the Lord Doth not all their Anarchies and irregularities flow in upon them by letting those antient bulworks goe into neglect which stood betwixt a Sea of error and themselves that is in stead of standing upon the old wayes to view and discover truth from they have onely disdainefully trampled upon them and in stead of asking the Fathers to see vvhat they held and thought they will make bold to thinke the Fathers mistaken if they finde themselves contradicted by them and hold and thinke of them as not worth asking Thus doe they discountenance Tradition and the establishments of the Church The Apostle saith When he should come he would order things Now saith the Father what hath beene universally observed was ordered by him St. Augustine de Bap. contra Donatist That which the Universall Church holds and is not Instituted by Councels but alwayes retained it s probably beleeved not to be delivered but by Apostolicall authority Their error that oppose the authority of the Church and the prerogative of the Apostolicall Seat flowes from this wretched pudled Fountaine that is Reducing Reformation to the Scripture it selfe interpreted by mens perticular judgements The holy and sacred letters are the blessed records of our salvation Celestiall Messages Angels of peace winged with love which hover over mens soules with celestiall protections comforts and graces they are the glasse wherein is beheld the beauty of holinesse the splendor of the Eternall Father the Image of his Sonne Yet as S. Austine saith The words of the Scripture are to be so understood as the world hath beleeved which it self foretold should beleeve they were writ upon severall occasions to perticuler Churches which faithfully kept what was committed unto them whether by writing or by word of mouth the Scripture confessing That if all had been writ the world would not have contained the Books and every where they enjoyne the hearkning to the Church which who should not heare are excluded from Christian communion by their holy censure The Church was then establisht when divers of these sacred letters were directed to them and by them and what other rules were delivered taught them they governed taught administred corrected and absolved so that they were like the Testimony in the Arke the Church of God had the custody and interpretation of them so that who should Sacrilegiously steale the testimony out of the Ark and run away with Scripture and impaile Congregations about with new goverments and cry The Word of the Lord and quarrell at the other orders and Traditions of the Church he would be judged by all to have ravisht the spheares of government to have disordered the Divine dispensation of his goodnesse towards us Neither can they pretend any right over those Laws who are condemned by those Laws Waters out of their own channels beget strange and forraine tasts and this is the grand and unhaypy sophistry of this age a bene conjunctis ad male divisa Scripture divided from the Church seems to countenance every party in their fancies making it like a Looking-glasse wherin they doe but see their owne Image not Gods and by an inward delusion view the reflections of their owne wits flattering their understandings whilst by a foreprepared conceipt they finde some countenance to their own inward thoughts Whereas Scriptures the Oracles of God are truth not the Pen or the Presse being writ because they were true not true because they were writ They say neither their Religion Reason nor Charity will permit them to acknowledge the Church of Rome for their Mother I shall now view the use of Reason in the election of Religion and see if it well directed doth hinder them When that which flows from well establisht authority shall be call'd in question or disputed through the violence and disorder of Factions the upholders of Government and Justice have recourse to the Origens and Fountaines of Justice shewing how all their Acts and Decrees received their obligatory nature from the agreement they had with those rules of Reason and those severall Laws which constituted them to be good and just so that they who before found onely the effects of peace by a due obedience to them now search into the reasons and causes why they were of such power to produce such effects And those who before pleasantly lived in the building laboriously now seeks the Foundation The mysteries of Religion being above reason were confirmed with mirakles which are above nature but whether this or that Religion be the same with that which was so confirmed must be examined according to all those rules which though divinely given must now by reason be examined whether they be conformable to them or not The protitipe was from Heaven the originall supernaturall but for to prove the continuance of it we must compare and examine it according to all that hath been delivered concerning the same formerly And it s no small difficulty to chase truth through its severall channels The Laws of Gods Church challenge our obedience the opposing wherof is Scisme because we are kept in one intire body by the observation of them the neglect whereof cuts us off from that communion Civill Governments and
part the Parabolicall the Figurative expressions the Naturall the Originals of the Old and New Testaments the Hebrew and the Greeke with the Antient Greeke and Latin Glosses If Hystory may prevaile Eusebius shall bring testimony Palladius Sezemen Socrates Ruffin shall be witnesses St. Bede St. Jerom shall tell what was the practises in the first times of Christianity If the pious Decrees of those Popes which themselves beleeve to be Saints in Heaven shall be heard Catholique Doctors have viewed all their Decrees both before the Councell of Nice and after If conquest by the Arts of Disputation be pretended to they have enterd into the nicest differences and have been cutters of a Commin Seed and are throughly acquainted with all the most retired advantages of Wit and Learning There have been many and great challenges to the foure first Generall Councels Nice Constantinople Ephesus and Calcedon but many Catholiques have not onely read from the first of Nice to the last of Trent but also all other approved Provinciall Councels If the Fathers Doctors and men famous in all Ages be consulted with they will appeare to be all of the same holy Catholique Church St. Basill St. Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen St. Gregory Nessen St. Gregory the great Iraeneus Cyprian Fulgentius Pamphilus the Martyr Palladius Theodoret Ruffinus Lactantius Vincentius Lyrenensis Dionisius the Areopagite Schollar to Saint Paul St. Ignatius St. Polycarpus St. Clement St. Augustine Hierome St. Ambrose Papias Schollar of St. John the Evangelist c. Who will not then put their foot into the same Barke with so excellent company to sayle to happinesse in but remaine in the Cock-Boars of their owne private opinions to be tost with every wave of Doctrine and to suffer Shipwracke The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are preserved by the Roman Church defendors of the Catholique cause Its Doctrines whether writ or delivered by mouth Historians deliver the same to be with what Popes have maintained Decrees confirmed Expositions cleared Councels declared Schooles taught and Fathers delivered And their practice is demonstrated by all Ancient Laws of England Imperiall Nationall of Forraigne Countries and former times by confession of Enemies Mahumetans Jews Pagans and all those Scismatickes who confesse Antiquity is not for them I shall for those opinions that are pretended to be cause of their departure and the hinderance of their not returning againe to the Church of Rome give you a taste of the Fathers in severall Centuries and withall shew what fruits of piety charity and comfort they have contain'd in them Of the Eucharist Altars Sacrifice The word Transubstantiation must not be indured they say it is but a late word The verity of its Doctrine since the Councell of Laterane onely used hence they impute novelty to the Artikles of the Church they acknowledge the Church hath a power given it to decide controversies and the truth of the reall presence being called in question with subtile interpretation of words the Church must use some words of art to oppose them and secure the truth against their nimble turning of the sence of words so that to quarrell at the word is indeed to quarrell at the exercise of the Churches power moderne rebellions against the Tenents of holy Church forceth it to use some words to hinder the evasions of its enemies which they professe to signifie no more by then what was taught by This is my body The word Trinity was not used till Councels found it necessary to oppose certain Heresies of those times by framing that word But what a sinister laying hold of all occasions is there by those who once undertake to defend a party Ingenuity is fled passion is the Pilot whilst they are tost upon those faithles Seas of error Transelementation is as hard a word and M. Mountague allowes that The Greeks use a word to of the same signification yet no offence taken at it Heare the Fathers severall expressions as well as late Councels St. Ambrose in the fourth Age after Christ by the benediction nature it selfe is changed the change is not made by Faith alone but really saith St. Chrysostome Not every bread but that which receives the benediction is made the body of Christ Saint Augustine in the fifth Age. In answer to Melateiâ— The Bishop of Derry doth ingenuously confesse That Antiquity hath used the expressions of seeing Christ touching Christ in the Sacrament of fastning our teeth in his flesh c. What satisfaction can prevaile with a moderate ingenuity which one shall not meet with in later Schoole-men and Councels Clypeus Tridentinus saith Beleeve Transubstantiation but the manner of Transubstantiating you need not Schoole termes oblidge not whether by adduction or assumption or any other words of Art they may argue but not disturb the Faith of the Church How Christ is present in the Sacrament can neither be perceived by sense nor imagination St. Thomas of Aquin. Jeremias Patriarcha in Greece saith By the power of the omnipotent spirit the bread is changed into the very body of Christ wine into the very blood The Councell of Trent declares that in this Sacrament Jesus Christ true God and true Man is truely really and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things yet nor according to a naturall manner of existing but Sacramentally He was the Word that spake it And what that word did make it I doe beleeve and take it All the Ancients use constantly without flashes of Rhetoricke or translation of words the word sacrifice and not onely to note giving of thanks but propitiation oblation and offering likewise are used by the Fathers of the Councell of Nice Dialog 4.58 This sacrifice singularly saves the soule from Eternall destruction which doth repaire unto us by mistery the death of the onely begotten who although rising from the dead dyes not and death shall have no further power over him notwithstanding in himselfe immortally and incorruptibly living is againe sacrificed for us in the mistery of this holy oblation Fathers in all Ages have spoke and held this Cardinal Perron calls it a sacrifice applicative of a sacrifice Thus doe the enemies of Catholique Doctrines and words by their opposition of them make that which should be the band of Unity the flag of dissention And for the name of Altars St. Ambrose saith He is upon the Altar who suffered for all those under the Altar the bodies of Martyrs who are Redeemed by his Passion St. Augustine saith the sacrifice it selfe is the body of Christ which is not offered to the Martyrs because they themselves are that also The piety and fruits is brings The word Transubstantiaon truely understood affords us the comfort of asserting the truth of Gods promises For the severall modes and manners which those out of the Church fancy to themselves touching the presence of Christ if there were words of Art to expresse how detractive would they be found from the verity certainty and