THE LATE ACT OF THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD Examined OR The OBIT of Prelatique PROTESTANCY Occasioning the Conversion of W.R. Sometimes of EXETER Colledge in OXFORD to Catholique UNION PSAL. 118.59 Cogitavi vias meas converti pedes meos in Testimonia tua St. Ambr. Ep. 31. ad Valent. Erubeseat senectus quae se emendare non potest nullus pudor est ad meliora transire Printed at Roven 1652. A NARRATIVE Of the Motives and Effects of this Treatise Learned READER IT hath beene a no lesse famous then celebrated Custome amongst the Ancients for Converts to write Apologies or some kinde of Literary Expressions of their Inductives to Matriculation into the Wombe of Christs Church as St. Justin Martyr Arnobius and the rest who of Heathens became Christians Great Origen and St. Augustine who from siding with Herctiques became Catholiques Hence I esteeme it my duty to addresse some Reason to the World why I left that Body of Christians where I had beene Baptiz'd and Educated and now incorporate my selfe to the Roman Catholique Church from which our Nation had this last age divided it selfe After my younger Studies in the University of Oxford I endeavoured to season my selfe in our greatest Authours as Bishop Juell Bishop Morton the last Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop Usher with Field White and the rest whose Apothegmes I received as Oracles without dispute and by the poursuite of them I began much to admire our Doctrines and no lesse to disesteeme the Roman Catholique But upon further growth in yeares with Themistocles I attempted to reach higher and entring though with great tendernesse to examine our Tenets and Proofes very speciously alleadged out of antiquity I found so many adulterated Texts of holy Fathers especially in Bishop Iewell and Bishop Morton so many to speake modestly misinterpreted in the rest of which I may opportunely give a list that I could not but blush to finde our main Pillers so stramineous in their very foundations Hence what curiosity had first invited now Conscience enforc'd mee earnestly to a serious and deeper search wherein I resolved with Cato not to be ashamed to Learne as hee Greeke So I Latine not according to the vulgar stile but the old pure Roman Language expressed in St. Hierome St. Augustine and the rest of those Professours of Christian Rhetorique neither did I omit with old Plato to peragrate Greece Aegypt and the Easterne parts to finde any holy Gymnosophists who could embowell not nature but the Sacred Mysteries of Christianity which I found not sufficiently dived into at home In my returne from this Sedentary Pilgrimage wholy settled by the re-searches of Antiquity in the truth of the Roman Church and her Tenets I fell upon this Act of the Convocation-House the Discussion whereof I present to all understandings not bias'd with the Praejudice of Customes Education or Ambition that they may judge out of this Summary what might be said if I should expatiate upon this subject I blush not to publish the impulsive cause of my actuall Conjunction to our old Roman Mother Church to be from this Act of the Convocation for though I was before fully satisfied of those old Tenets in a Speculative sense yet in reduceing my selfe to the Practicall part or profession of them I found many Phanatique Bug-beares till hapning upon this Act composed by a great Body of our most learned men and evidently seeing the inconsistency of the Doctrine here asserted especially concerning the necessity of Traditions with our former Tenets and Positions against Catholiques I was inavoidably compelled to an actuall and humble Submission of my will as well as of my judgement to the obedience of the Church And in this my voluntary retirement from the World I found unâ—xpectedly in these Forraine parts diverse of both our Universities to have taken the rise of their Conversions from the same ground and to have prevented mee in their Resolutions herein which made mee more thankfully to admire the Divine Providence in the secret conduct of Soules culled out for himselfe Master Gregory a very learned person and my contemporary in Oxford in his Preface to his Opuscula page 17. hath this ingenuous acknowledgement I am sorry sayes hee I have so much to accuse my Natition of that ever since the Times of Henry the eighth they should goe about in a Maze of Reformation and not know yet how to get either us or themselves out And truly who ever does well consider this Act of Convocation and the sad consequences of it will conclude with mee that there is but one way to get out of this Maze and that is by an humble returne to our Mother the Catholique Church which the dazled Eyes and selfe-bias'd Judgements of the contrivers of that Act could not then discerne But this short Examination of it may I hope contribute something towards their illumination From Paris this 1. of July 1652. Stilo loci W. R. The OBIT of Prelatique Protestancy OR The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation house at Oxford 1. of June 1641. Conteining their reasons against the Scottish Covenant and Presbytery CHymists amongst Physitians desire so far to reforme the Doctrine and Discipline of the Galenists that they neither observe the same Method nor druggs in their Cures as appeares in Paracelsus Crollius Helmontius and others nay they would willingly so far be thought to differ from them as that out of that respect they assume another name and therefore commonly style themselves Phylosophos per ignem Fiery that is hot spirited Phylosophers And truly when I looke upon this Consult and Result of the Convocation house Consisting of Masters Schollars and other Officers Members of the Vniversity as you profess I conceive you have endeavoured so far to reforme the Doctrine and manners of all others that you neither agree with them who would be esteemed reformed Churches nor with their and your Mother Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Disscipline Nay ye have gone so far with the Chymists that ye will not retaine the common name of all the Moderne Reformers as your later Masters professe in which all your Progenitors vaunted namely under the Notion of Pretestants but ye style your selves here Christians or Protestants with this distinctive appellative of the Church of England Others deny the name wholy as in our daily congresses we experience so that the more Unigenious name is Puritan which is also more uniforme to the Chymists hot spirited Phylosophy As therefore ye are seperate in place so in nature and name from all who rightly or falfly acknowledge Christ whence at the most according to your owne principles ye are but Anologically I feare I might better say equivocally Christians as it signifies a body of people uniformly professing Christ with the Universall Church So that what Celsus improperates in Origens third booke would surely come home to you Nec jam quicquam preter nomen eis commune superesse si tamen
in them and after the Se◠Apostolique But as ve◠quivocally use the term Episcopacy as signifying your nothing so I must deny it and connumerate it with your errours Again you strike upon Tradition for your Episcopacy wherein you commit a great soloecism in Divinity If it had been for Episcopacy in it self without restriction to your Idol you had come home indeed but as it was presented in your pide-coloured tincture it was never amongst the Ancient except Colythus and his complices might be admitted into the head of your list from whom you have an Jschyrian generation of Priests which S. Athanasius and as he assures us the generall Councell and I am sure the whole Church ever since condemned for spurious But in good earnest it is strange to see with what modesty you esteem a meer pretences for as much as concerns your Episcopacy of fifteen hundred years possession to be an invincible plea in this point and a reall and clear prescription for so many ages shall not hold for all others as most undoubtedly there was not any considerable opposition against Masse till Calvins time Luther was not so impudent as to take it away and how he fared in the sense of the whole Church we all know and so for many more high Articles of which I speak afterward wherein you are fallen All men carefull of their souls will sadly consider this It was truly and usually said of an eminent Bishop of your Order that he was Puritanus tantùm non in Episcopatu The same is as truly said of these pretenders to Episcopacy that they condemn Antiquity in all things except Episcopacy If novelty be not lawfull in this why in all other doctrines which you relinquisht against Antiquity It 's not Antiquity but fancy and ambition you follow els a true Syllogism in the same form will always conclude You put me in mind of the Asse who wresting Orpheus his sharp out of Apollo's hand played so ill-favouredly that the very dogs barked at him I will not be thought to apply this to you yet I must needs say that you begin to wrest our divine Arguments out of our hands and ye handle them so unhandsomly and jarringly from all our and your principles that all sorts of men will see whence and how injuriously you take them You go on 1. Would give such advantage to the Papists who usually object against us and our Religion the contempt of antiquity and the love of novelty that we should not be able to wipe off the aspersion 2. Would so diminish the just authority due to the consentient judgment and practise of the universall Church the best Interpreter of Scriptures in things not clearly exprest Reader observe what necessity there is for all sorts of Christians to recurre to Tradition for Lex currit cum praxi that without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely practised by us when by the Socinians Anabaptists and other Sectaries we should be called upon for our proofs As namely sundry Orthodoxall explications concerning the Trinity and Coequality of the persons in the Godhead against the Arians and other Heretiques the number use and efficacy of Sacraments the Baptizing of Infants National Churches the observation of the Lords day and even the Canon of Scripture it selfe 3. In respect of our selves we are not satisfied how it can stand with the Principles of Justice Ingenuity and Humanity to require the extirpation of Episcopall Government unlesse it had been first clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to be sincerely and really endeavoured by us To the first Indeed you cannot wipe off the aspersion no more then a Blackmore his colour You have given us a strange advantage and in this one passage put an affront upon all your former abettors An eminent person of your order being urged with the antiquity of our tenets replied that if things were to be salved by antiquity then sin would challenge great pre-eminency Thus far hath this plea been derided by you I could fill and foul many sheets in giving a syllable of your Authors for this Yet all antient Fathers and Councells esteemed this an infallible Plea and therefore the Nicene Fathers as appears in Athan. his Epistle of the Nicene Decrees cryed Ecce nos demonstramus istiusmodi sententiam à patribus ad patres quasi per manus traditam esse They esteemed it enough to shew a constant descent of their faith and this is our challenge against you To the second I see you forget that your 6.20.21 Articles exclude all orall Traditions it hath been the maine pretended cause of scandall and as ye have judg'd it most fundamentall that Catholiques plead a necessity of Apostolicall I raditions with the divine Scriptures Have not all the books of your Writers to this day been filled in proofe of the sufficiency of Scriptures and yet now even in the highest points of Christian Doctrine you acknowledge a necessity to have recourse to Tradition what man could have read this your second reason and not have conceived that this Praelatike slip had been again inserted into the old incorruptible Trunk or Body of the Catholique Church but the truth is that self-interest compells you to speak truth against your old Doctrines this blow hath struck you under the fifth rib and like the poor Pilgrime of Hiericho layed you wholly on your backs as objects of pity You specifie here many of the highest mysteries and to omit the rest you acknowledge that the Orthodox explication of the B. Trinity cannot be had from the Scripture alone without the Church Have not we then reason to confesse the Scripture alone not sufficient If you did stand to this truth there had not been such subdivisions of sects who deny the B. Trinity amongst you I have not indeed heard of many who embrace Arrius his Tenet that is that the Son is God but not co-eternall with the Father nor equall to him as Athanasius shews that he held but there are under the latitude of the Praelatique party who with Paulus Samosatenus Corpocras c. call in question his Deity and restraine him to his humanity and hence some eminent persons taking scandall left you and are joyn'd to the Catholike Church Nay you are not ashamed to run though vainly to Traditions for the chiefest grounds of your own Praelative Sect herein confessing that Scripture cannot reach them But to leave this to your selves let me instance more of our Doctrines which you most calumniate What more universal Tradition was extant then Masse that is the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ offered daily and perpetually for the living and the dead Read Mr. Perkins his Problemes he tells you that it was universally believed that Christ gave his true Body and Bloud at his last Supper Ask all the Liturgies since Christ In like manner read them for Jnvocation of Saints and Prayers
for the Dead Nay that you may be assured ask a Heathen Historian Ammianus Marcellinus he will secure you that Christian Religion teacheth Cultum Sanctorum and to make addresses to them as he writes to Valentinian If you bad yet rather have a Schismatique of your owne stamp ask Lucilla a Patroness of the Donatists in lib. 1. of Optatus Millevitan As for prayers for the dead in order to remission of debts after this life before that great day of generall goal-delivery or last fiery purgation it was as I conceive practised always according to the sense of the Church universall by the East and West and judged very profitable by them all To omit particular Greek and Latine Fathers it seemeth in the Councell of Florence to be the sense of the Greek and Latine Church as appears in the narration of the whole dispute printed at Leiden in Holland and the definition of the Councell it self seems to come exceeding home where in defining what souls come to heaven before the day of Iudgment for that is the question there decided the Fathers spake thus Illorum etiam animas qui post baptismum susceptum nullam omnino peccati maculam incurrerunt illas etiam quae post contractam peccati maculam vel in suis corperibus vel eisdem exuti corporibus prout dictum est superius sunt purgatae in coelum mox recipi c. Here they suppose some souls to be purged before the last day els the discourse is not consequent nor to the purpose Which also is cleare in Pope Benedict XI his Extravagant which begins Benedictus Dens c. where defining the same truth agitated under John 22. his words are Si tum erit aliquod purgabile in eisdem lamen post mortem suam purgabunt c. etiam ante resumptionem suorum corporum judicium generale c. erunt in coelo c. He defines that some will be purged before the retaking of their bodies and the generall judgment and will go to heaven This definition opens fully the sense of the definition of Florence which is made in conformity to this and almost in the very same words so that I do not easily see what can be desired more The sense of the old Church S. Augustine declares in his Enchyridion to Laurence where speaking of such souls he saith quanto magis minúsve bona pereuntia dilexerunt tanto tardiùs citiusque salvari This clears all It s true he leaves the fire of Purgatory somewhat disputable which is not yet desined but he clears the meaning of Christians in their durance there and indeed tells us what the old Fathers and Liturgies and Councells signified in their degrees and practises of helping the dead by suffrages which was that answerably to their demerits they might tardiùs citiusve salvari There were many Foundations in this Nation made piously by your and our Predecessouis for the dead which you perverted to prophane uses as maintaining wives and children with manifest neglect and even professed contempt of praying for the dead as holding it unprofitable and uselesse contrary to all antiquity wherein you committed theft and sacriledge according to the Canons Concilii Vasensis Amico quippiam rapere furtum est ecclesiaâ— fraudare sacrilegium and the Canon spea â—s of this very matter largely And the fourth Councel of Carthage c. 95. saith Qui oblationes defunctorum aut negant ecclesiis aut cum difficultate reddunt tanquam egentium necatores excommunicentur They are excommunicated as murtherers Other Synods are as severe which I omit these signifying sufficiently the sense of the old Church See your friends of Magdeburg for these and for the rest of the Doctrines wherein you differ from us whether antiquity did not ackdowledge them Ask B. Vsher and the rest who have any ingenuity amongst you whether the Popes Supremacy was not acknowledg'd Read the history of the famous Dionisius Bishop of Corinth in Eusebius and S. Hierome who lived under Antoninus Verus you know how neere this was to the Apostles you will conclude of how great authority the Popes of Rome were in those first daies when their commands signified in their Epistles were even amongst the Greeks published in the Churches in time of Divine Service by the Bishops and S. Epiphanius in Panar heresi 30. against the Ebions witnesseth that S. Clement his Encycles were solemnly read in Churches which was an act of high reverence far from your scorn of that Supreme Seat See for this and all other points even all true Generall Councells to this day they will let you see clearly Ask Perkins and your most eminent Writers whether almost all the Tenents for which you separte from us were not held above 1300. years If Traditions prove Episcopacy they will as well prove the rest Truly this sole Paragraph destroyes all your Praelatique Protestancy and renders you to your first condition of invisibility where ye lay for 1500. years hidden not in Abrahams bosome But if you can faine any existence it must be in some occult receptacles or crany holes of your own fancies Plato's Ideas though fanatique enough never reacht you but Luther being in drink and his fancy weakned first began to dream of you though confusedly I know many of you are well acquainted with Gyges his Ring which renders you invisible at pleasure but you have not the perfect use of it els you could as well make your selves visible to all the world Your old friend B. White and B. Vsher laboured much to get this art but unsuccessefully I must needs touch this main point a little farther I more commend Monsieur D'ally Chillingworth and all his schools ingenuity who though they enervate the grounds of Christianity yet they far more consequently deny the Fathers to have that authority which Catholiques and the General Councells universally give them in clearing points of faith as in the first four where they were alledged examined and accordingly Faith declared by their authorities and so in every Councell hitherto in point of Christian Doctrine then you who play fast and loose Here you pretend necessity and high authority for Tradition which must needs be conveighed by them to us and in all your works as I have noted and as all know you have cryed out against it as not being necessary Thus you fight and contradict each other and your selves in these fundamentalls I remember Plato in his Timaeo tells of an Aegyptian Priest who thus spoke to Solon O Solon Solon vos quidem Graeci pueri semper estis senex autem Graecorum nemo nulla est enim apud vos disciplina quae senio incanuerit Will not this come home to you if your years are to be numbred with the continuance of your doctrines surely you will never be very aged Since you have toucht this point of the Fathers let me put in one observation whereby any ignorant person may judge whether the Fathers of how great or
you without manifest wrong to your selves Consciences Reputation and Estates to reforme your Doctrine How was it lawfull for the first Broachers of your Articles to pretend Reformation of the Doctrines they had sworne unto under us did not they beare false witnesse against themselves and are not you their issue conceived in Perjury It is ingenuously done of you to confesse you had a very considerable Eye to the losse of your Estates in refusing the Covenant though experience now teacheth you that the Covenanters themselves are not exempted from that losse Non est consilium contra Dominum your policies did not succeed How free were Catholiques from this Avarice They prodigally exposed all rather then to grate upon their Consciences This was not obstinacy but constancy like the old Christians in S. Basiles time who would not admit the change of a particle superest disserere de Syllaba oum unde caeperit c. No change of Faith with them 2. Catholiques were forced as much as in you lay to condemne what they were not nor yet are convinced of in their Judgements that the former that is the old Catholique Doctrines are not agreeable to Gods Word Wee must therefore cry aloud with Tertullian de Pres c. 3. against Hermogenes Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officinae c. Shew us where it is written that we must forsake stated truths for your variable conceits altogether disagreeing from Gods word This plea will destroy you wholy and with all Justice restore us at least to a quiet condition under the Profession of our old Tenets Ptolomey though of a different profession to both parties was thought capable to determine the Schismaticall Controversie of the two Temples of Hierusalem and Garizim 3. Catholiques did not onely believe but knew that their Doctrines were much better and more agreeable to the Word of God and the practise of the Catholique Church then your fancies And yet were compelled either to sweare to them or lose all Wise men do not onely provide for the present in making Lawes but foresee and prevent future and as much as may bee even possible dangers Had yee consulted with old Lycurgus hee found other wayes to perennize his owne Lawes and perswade an Opinion of their Divine Origen but your Eutopia hath destroyed it selfe by your owne Fundamentall Lawes they are now with full force retorted upon your selves as all men see and consequently enforce your ruine for want of Foundation Besides the falsity of your Doctrines in themselves you have all the outward Habiliments of Sectaries by which the old Church of Christ discovered their Novelties Athanasius destroyes Arianisme in his Tract of the Synods of Arimine and Seleucia by this most certaine Argument Vrsacius Valens Geminius cum caeteris suis Gregalibus id fecere quod antea nec factum nec auditum est apud Christianos Cum enim Scripsissent eam fidem quam voluerunt addidere Consulatum mensem diemque ejus temporis ut omnibus prudentibus palam facerent non olim sed nunc demum eorum fidem sub Constantio initium accepisse Thus S. Basil Ep. 82. and the rest confuted Heresies even by this Extrinsecall consideration and it was alwayes amongst Christians esteemed sufficient to assigne the Consulship the time and day of their Subscriptions Which of you or us cannot retrive your forme of Faith not onely to the reigne of which Prince but of the Lord Major under whom it began even with as much ease as this Act of the Convocation The Pithagorians did use to build Hearses for such who should apostatize from Philosophy esteeming them no better then dead men How much more should some such course bee taken for those who forsake Christian Philosophy and turne to Heresies and Errors I wonder you doe not blush to pretend the practise of the Catholique Church Here is repugnantia in adjecto as Logitians speake a Catholique Church confined to England you pretend no further then England for you say true Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Indeed this Iland hath beene stiled Orbis Britannicus a World by it selfe but it is a very little Catholick Church which encompaseth not this very Iland For Scotland is excluded by your own Confession So that if this Iland were the World it is not Catholique The reason why at Antioch the Name of Christians was added as a Surname to the Believers in Christ St. Athanasius in a Disputation against Arius sets downe to bee because they were before called Disciples which Name also Dositheus one Judas and others as well false as true Teachers gave to their Disciples and therefore the Apostles for distinction would have their Disciples to be surnamed Christians which was prophecied by Isaias e. 62. Servientibus mihi vocabitur novum nomen c. yet afterwards Heretiques abusively tooke this Name also and rendred it execrable to the Pagans by their ill lives and abominable Doctrines as Tertullian demonstrates in his Apologetico Whereupon the celebrated adjunct of Catholique was taken up and appropriated to Orthodox Christians against the Marcionites Harpocratians and after the Donatists and the rest of which also they were ambitious as appeares often in St. Augustines Collations with them even by as much title as you peruse him and acknowledge your selves non Suited the reason of this attribute was universality as Origen declares in his Dialogue and all the ancient testify Pacianus wrote a whole Treatise of the very Name Catholique which is yet extant though hee lived somewhat before St. Hierome Out of these examine your Title and you will finde it vaine trie it by this test and learne to renounce what yee have unjustly usurped Your last plea of perjury was not admitted to Catholiques who adhered to their first Tenents in the generall revolt of this Country yet you urge it handsomly to convince all your Brethren of high perjury in taking such an Oath which you your selves judge to be false since yee deny that there is such a power in Parliaments as yee said above and consequently in the Crowne being all the pretence you alleadge for it was from Parliaments This point of forcing mens Consciences with Oathes in matter of beliefe is excellently declared in a Letter written by Sir Alexander Irving a Scot dated the 20. Jan. 1651. to the Presbytery of Aberdeen and since Printed by authority to bee greater then any other tyranny namely to make men sweare that they believe what the imposers know or may presume they doe not thinke This is a sure way to send the swearers to the Devill especially if to compleat their Malice the Imposers should presently kill them as I hear of a Varlet who out of revenge made a wretch first forsweare his Religion and then instantly stabd him lest he should live and repent I could wish you others would vouchsafe to reade not our Schoolmen that were too much labour but our Summists at least to learne what