to be said since the whole world sees plainly we still maintain the Field against them nay dare pretend without fearing an absolute baffle which must needs follow had we not at least Probabilities to befriend us that our Grounds are Evidently and Demonstrably Certain nay more dare venture to take the most clearing Method imaginable to stand or fall by and withal are bold to challenge them that they have no Evident Grounds to begin with nor dare venture to pursue that evidencing Method But my Lds own words in his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. § 2. will beyond all confute evince it ad hominem at least that we have Probabilities and those strong ones too on our side I pick out some leaving out other weighty ones which hisExpressions had too much deform'd His words are these Such as are the Beauty and Splendor of their Church their pompous Service the Stateliness and Solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of CATHOLICK which they suppose their own due and to concern no other sort of Christians he ought have said which the establisht use of the word and deriv'd riv'd down to the Successours of those who first had that Name forces all even their Adversaries to give them when they speak naturally and makes them despair of obtaining it for themselves The Antiquity of many of their Doctrins The Continual Succession of their Bishops their Immediate derivation from the Apostles the Title to succeed S. Peter the Multiteudand Variety of people which are of their Persuasion Apparent Consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected a pretended and sometimes an apparent Consent with some elder ages in many matters Doctrinal the great Consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide the great Differences which are commenced amongst their Adversaries Their happiness in being Instruments in converting divers Nations he should rather have said All The Advantages of Monarchical Government the benefit of which as well as the Inconveniences they dayly enjoy the Piety and Austerity of their Religious Orders of men and women the Single Life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their Exterior Observances the known Holiness of some of those persons whose Institutes the Religious Persons pretend to imitate c. After which he subjoyns These things and diverse others may very easily persuade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Forefathers which had actual Possession and seizure of men's understandings before the opposit professions had a name Thus he By which words 't is Evident we have Probabilities and high ones too on our side else how could they be able very easily to persuade persons of much reason especially they having as he sayes more piety or more then much that is very much which argues rather that those motives for Catholick Faith were sutable to Piety or Truths ot at least exceedingly-seeming-Pious so as the great Piety of those persons neither checkt at the practice according to those Motives nor their much Reason reach't to a discovery of their Fallaciousness Whence we may gather farther than those Motives so standing for us are to be rankt in the highest degree of Probability For since those Persons are confest to be very Pious that is very Good and so unapt to be byast by Passion and withal to have much Reason 't is plain the Cause of their Assent to Catholick Faith must be look't for in the Object and have a wonderful appearance at least of Evidence or highest Probability which is able to conquer and satisfy so Rational and sincere Understandings This being so my Ld. cannot in reason own himself a Dissuader nor pretend his Discourse has power to dissuade any from our Faith unless he put down the whole force of what we build our Faith on together with his motives why he judges it false and then compare or weigh those reasons together and so conclude his absolutely preponderating I doubt those very motives deliverd faintly by himself though an Adversary are such as had he laid them open at large as he does his own Objections he would have been infinitely puzzled to find others to overballance them with any show of Reason But I will not put him upon so large a task Let him onely consider on what Grounds the Rule of our Faith is built to wit on sensible and unmistakable matter of Fact from age to age and this unmistakableness confirm'd supernaturally by the concern of the Thing obliging the Beleevers best care to preserve it and by the Goodness implanted in their hearts by Christ's Doctrin which kept lively awake that care as it is at large laid open in Sure-Footing and then compare it with Descanting upon Scripture's Letter by Human Skills which is the Ground of the Protestants Faith as contra-distinguish't from ours or rather of their Dissent or negative Tenets and show those Grounds preponderating ours and then his Reader will have some encouragement to heed his Dissuasive otherwise he can have none Sixth Way 10. A Sixth way is to demand of his Lp. if he will undertake the pretended Evidences he produces whether Reasons or Citations have not also been pretended at least to be answered by Learned men on our side and that the Indifferent part of the world have judg'd the Catholicks were so evidently concluded against by the Protestants that they were not able in reason to reply However he ought to have alledg'd that in the Evidences he brings the Protestants have had the last Reply that so at least there may be some sleight conjectural likelihood they were Unanswerable or Convictive This I say seems in reason fit to have been voucht and as Natural Method requires it plac't at the very Entrance of his Book so to give the Reader some faint hopes his perusing it might be perhaps to some purpose What does my L. of Downs He professes at the very beginning of his Introduction the direct contrary For he confesses there that the Evidences on both sides in questions of difference between our Churches have been so often produc't c. It will seem almost impossible to produce any new matter or if we could observe how unlikely he makes it he should conclude any thing it will not be probable that what can be newly alledg'd can prevail more than all which already hath been so often urg'd in these Questions He should after the words so often urg'd have added and never answer'd otherwise the often urging signifies nothing as to Convictiveness Yet careless of this he proceeds But we are not deterred from doing our duty by any such considerations as knowing that the same medicaments c. Which waving the pious Rhetorick to any Understanding man signifies directly as much as if he should profess I am resolv'd to write a Book against the Papists whatever comes onit or whether it be to purpose or
himself often alledges that very thing which should clear the Church and and makes use of it to her farther disgrace First making the School and Church Private Opinions or Explications and Faith all one and at next that the difference amongst such Opiners and Explicaters argues our difference in Faith How strange a malice is this Was there ever any time since the Apostles in which there were not in the Church diverse persons and even some Governours bad in their lives and also Erroneous in their Opinions when the Abstractedness of Christian Faith restrain'd not their Understandings from descending to particulars nor secur'd them in such discourses depending much upon human Sciences Do not the best Champions of Protestants object to the Ancient Fathers themselves such Errors in Opinions Yet no ancient Heretick was ever so weak as to make that an Argument against the Church of those times Did not many Protestant Writers holdmany Roman-Catholick Tenets as may be seen at large in the Protestants Apology Yet no Catholick in his Wits thought therefore the Church of England her self was Roman-Catholick I have heard that one of their Chief Ecclesiastical Officers namely Bishop Bilson writ a book purposely to justify the Hollanders Rebellion against the King of Spain maintaining that Subjects might in some Cases rise against their Soveraigns and turn them out of their Government And yet Catholicks are far from that peevishness to esteem the Protestants disloyal in their Principles but honour them highly for the contrary Virtue even though they are pleased to permit us their Fellow-sufferers for the same loyal Cause to be abused and branded publickly for Traytors by every disloyal Scribbler And to come neerer home did not my L. himself formerly write some strange Opinions I need not name them yet no Catholick was ever so absurd as to charge his Church with those Tenets But which is yet far worse he imputes to the Catholick Church such licentious Cases which not onely Private Authours may and do freely contradict but even Mulritudes of Church-Officers namely almost all the Bishops in France in Diocesan Synods nay the Head of the Church himself has disapproov'd in condemning the Apology writ for them Yet for all this all must be our Churches fault whether she will or no and our Doctrin though she condemns it Was ever such a disingenuous Writer heard of But what aggravates most the Case is neither the Church of England nor the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury nor any Officer or Bishop of hers that we heard of did ever in any solemn Act blemish those Authours cited in the Protestants Apology by condemning their Books nor yet those writ by the Dissuader though they judg'd them amiss but on the contrary his person is advanc't and chosen for their Champion and yet our Writers are soberer more candid than to impute to their Church any of these not-yet-disavow'd Faults whereas my Ld. for want of better Proofs will needs clap upon our Church any misreasonings of private men though our chief Church Governour and many Inferiour ones have discountenanc't and blemish't them Nor is it onely every defect human nature is liable to in reasoning or acting which must be made our Churches Crimes but every unfavorable Circumstance Man's Nature can light into and their defective Effects are all made by the Dissuader's Logick to spring from meer Popery nay the very National Rudeness of his wild Irish is in his Preface confounded by his carriage with our Churches Doctrin and the Inability of their Teachers with much Rhetorick complained of and charactered to be Popery when himself enjoyes the revenue which should educate them better and encourage them Against this kind of unreasonable procedure in the Dissuader I levelled those Corollaries from Corol. 31. to 40. which I intreat my Reader to review and him to consider particularly In the mean time I would ask him on this occasion a few short Questions May not any one remain a Catholick and never hold or practice these Cases and Opinions Do not Catholicks impugn them as much as Protestants Does he find any of those Opinions or Cases in our Catechisms or any Command of our Church to hold or act them nay even in that most common point of extending Indulgences to the next world but they who will use them may who will not need not How then does he hope to dissuade from Catholick Religion by impugning that which touches not that Religion nor concerns any ones being of it And why does not he rather fear all sober men will see his aym by this declamatory kind of Opposition to endeavour to gain credit as a great Anti-papist and not to convince solidly his Readers whose experience if they know any thing enables them to give a ready and satisfactory answer in their own thoughts to all those Questions I have now ask't and so to confute neer three parts of His Book He saw it himself and though he carries it on all along as if he were willing all should be thought the Doctrin of our Church or Faith yet fearing the Calumny is too manifest to be cloak't he provides excuses and Evasions before hand in his Title p. 127. saying The Church of Rome AS IT IS AT THIS DAY DISORDER'D teaches doctrines and uses practices which are in themselves or in their immediate CONSEQUENCES direct Impieties c. So that he speaks of our Church precisely as having some disorders in her and that they lead to ill onely by Consequences drawn from such disorderly Tenets and who 's the drawer of these Consequences Himself But grant his position that there are Disorders in the Church I mean not in Faith held Universally and obligatorily but in unobligatory Opinions and Practices I ask does he think there was ever any time in which there were not some Disorders in the Church or ever will be while Original corruption lasts Does he 〈◊〉 the very time of the Apostles was exempt from such frailty or that S. Paul complain'd for nothing of the Pastors in those primitive and purest times Phil. 2. v. 21. that Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt non quae sunt Jesu Christi Again thinks he it any wonder that a disorder'd Tenet or a Falshood in a point belonging to manners is apt to lead by consequence to ill actions none doubting but that as Virtue is the connatural Effect of Truth so is Vice of Falshood What hath he got then by this kind of Proceeding taking up better half his book Onely this he hath proov'd there is Original Sin in the world and so it's Effects Ignorance and Interest Again let him consider how disputative an Age this last Century has been and what infinit multitudes of Writers concerning Opinionative Points of all sorts have been in our Church how voluminous how descending to particulars or Cases and this both in School-divinity Morals and Canon-Law and then let him speak seriously whether he can conceive it possible in human Nature there should not
be much Contingency in such an Universality depending on their private Reasons whereas scarce two men debating the same point particularly can light into the self-same Consequences but differ in their deductions Thinks he it possible many should not be Ignorant and so miscarry casually many Passionate and incline to some Tenets because sutable to their humour many conceited of their new Inventions and thence judging their Consequence to be connected with the point of Faith cry it up to be de side in their opinion and alledge that denying this you by consequence deny Faith This being so nay impossible to be otherwise and every Reader that sees the Dissuader's unreasonableness against us easily judging he would pick out the worst Instances he could find in that Infinity of Authours and the very complexion of his style being wholly Invidious expose them to shame with all the most disgraceful Rhetorick so great a wit as his heighten'd by that bitterest of Passions could deliver he will easily be able to make an Estimate what he may judge of my Ld's performance in this kinde 18. But now whates all this to to our Church For his Title p. 127. tells us 't is the Church of Rome which teaches such Doctrins and uses such Practices c. The Notion of Church as one would conceive is terminated and bounded precisely within the limits of its Definition a Body of the Faithful and Logick tells every one who understands it that since we work by abstracted notions or conceive a thing now thus now otherwise we must not confound those notions but hold strictly to the formal meaning of the word which expresses the thing we undertake for We are then to expect in honesty that since the Dissuader charges all those Doctrins and Practices on our Church all his Testimonies to fasten them on her should be of our Churches words or Expressions of the Churches Faith we need not doubt then but they will all be Definitions of General Councils Let the Margent inform us The first Citation is of Navarr's Enchiridion a private Casuist The 2d. of Reginaldus another Casuist The 3d and 4th of Sotus and Medina two other School-Divines Then comes in Reginaldus again then Sotus again in this tenour he proceeds for 133 pages that is from p. 127 to p. 260. not quoting the Council of Trent past 3 or 4. times but once as I remember the words of that Council and as oft abusing it by his strange misconstructions 19. For instance take his first Quotation of that Council p. 135 which I the more insist on because on that occasion I shall lay open his crafty and voluntary defiling every point he touches with most abominable misrepresentations and â—hose vizarded with an outward form of Holiness and such devout expressions as a Saint from Heaven would scarce 〈◊〉 lest prudent men should think it too much which I intended for a SIXTH Head of his disingenuities After then p. 133 and 134. he had made all the most odious Cases he could pick out the Roman Doctrin because the books of three or four Authours perused and allow'd by two or three others as not opposit to Faith See Coroll 33. that is the private Reasons of half a dozen Divines conceiv'd so which he amplifies beyond all bounds of moderation that one would judge a General Council or Provincial one at least that many Church Governours or Bishops had recommended those Cases to be held and follow'd at length he tells you sadly p. 134. that This though INFINITLY INTOLERABLE yet it is but the BEGINNING OF SORROWS Then follow the SUPER-INFINIT Sorrows themselves the first of which Sorrows is the Council of Trent's Doctrin and if it be Naught 't is certainly the Chief of them and so had I a word to express it so high which the Dissuader's Rhetorick would easily reach it should be phrased something above Super-infinit in regard by the Sacredness of it's Authority it would be a Ground and an Abetment to all the wicked Cases issuing from it Ere I come to examin it I premise this note that such Testimouies as This are onely to my Ld's purpose if he will argue against our Churcheâ— Doctrin In the success of these then lies the whole Trial of our Cause We have seen how he has sped formerly in his plain Demonstration and his onely efficacious Testimony of a Father let 's see how he thrives in this which we must acknowledge beyond all Evasion to express the sence of our Church 20. His last § then p. 134. begins with describing a true and Perfect Contrition and its Sacred Recommends as sufficient to blot out Sin All this is well nor is there as far as I know a Catholike in the world that was ever taught otherwise what follows Yet sayes he the Church of Rome does not allow it to be of any value unless it be joyn'd with a desire to confess their sins to a Priest saying that a man by Contrition is not reconcil'd to God without their Sacramental or Ritual Pennance actual or votive And this is decreed by the Council of Trent c. Then comes thundring in a Declamation fraught with such Invidious yet Holy Rhetorick that any honest unexamining Reader would almost lay his Salvation on 't he had all the Reason in the world Which things adds he besides that is against Scripture the promises of the Gospell and not onely teaches for Doctrins the Commandments of Men but evacuates the Goodness of God by their Traditions and weakens discourages the best repentance prefers repentance towards men before that which the Scripture calls Repentance towards God Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And there ends his paragraph in which his passion was in such hast that he forgot to add an Also to answer to the word Besides Now Ld have mercy upon usl What strangely wicked Doctrin is this which can occasion such a clutter of Devotion and Invectiveness jumbled together Attend Reader and from one Instance which I pick't not out purposely but took the first that my discourse led me to accidentally learn the nature of all the rest for scarce one passage in his whole book is free from this Fault The Council Sess. 14. as it is commonly reckon'd not 4th as perhaps his Printer mistook it c. 4. speaks of Contrition which it distinguishes into Perfect Contrition the same my Ld describes and declares that It reconciles a man to God before this Sacrament to wit of Pennance be actually received and Imperfect or Attrition springing from Consideration of the vileness of Sin or fear of Hell not from Love of God as its motive and to this it requires actually the Sacrament of Pennance this being properly efficacious to advance by Preparations to it beforehand which Attrition gives them will to make use of and the whole course of Exercises in it or belonging to it that Attrition into perfect or properly call d Contrition And speaking of the first sort or