the Rule of our belief All this he must say of the Council of Trent or the Church represented in it of this Age that alone and not the Pope out of it must be in his doctrine our infallible Teacher Now further Is not the doctrin of the Council of Trent proposed to us as a Rule of our Faith of equal value and autority with the written word of God both proceeding from the Holy Ghost they say it is Is not moreover that doctrine known to us only by tradition certainly it is I have no notice of it nor can I have but by relation of others and they of no more credit with me but rather of far less then those Venerable Writers that relate to us the doctrine of the primitive Church Are there not Controversies dayly and endless about the sense and meaning of the Councill of Trent as well as about the more ancient Councils witness the dismall broyls betwixt Jesuists Jansenists and Dominicans Where is now Mr. I. S. his living infallible Judg The Councill of Trent and the Popes governing it are dead and gon The Pope now living or any Councill he can congregate less than a general one is not an infallible Judg. Who then will ascertain him will he have a generall Councill congregated for the resolution of his Faith in every doubt that comes into his head How shall we be sure that Pope Innocent and Alexander did not err in their definition of the great debate with the Jansenists Their definition not being in a general Council cannot be to us a warrant of security in Mr. I. S. his opinion The Jansenists will triumph at this and will that please them at Rome and Paris while Mr. I. S. agrees with them upon this particular I ask further Tho a General Council were congregated now to that effect such as that of Trent to ascertain us of the Articles defined against Jansenius how shall I be sure that God speaks by such a Council or the Church represented in it thus in Mr. I. S. his dialect because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her because he doth credit her by so many Miracles and supernatural marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her Well and where be those Miracles and supernatural marks assisting this Council present to ascertain us that God speaks by it are you sure to find them at hand when the Council is joined likely you are upon the experience of coining Miracles when occasion requires it By this Reader you may see how little Mr. I. S. hath don after so much ado to resolve his Faith without a Circle How rash his assurance was that Protestants will never resolve theirs without such a fault I will now shew briefly The Faith of Protestants is that contain'd in Canonical Scripture as he often supposes my Faith touching each point of those contained in Scripture I resolve thus I believe the Son of God was made Man because I find it written in the holy Scripture I believe what is written in the holy Scripture because it is the infallible Word of God And I believe it is the Word of God because the Apostles preaching it did confirm it with such Miracles and Wonders as only God could work And finally that the Apostles did deliver the Doctrine contained in Scripture and did confirm it with Miracles I beleive in force of universal tradition according to that celebrated notion of it delivered by Vincentius Lyrinensis quod ubique quod semper quod apud omnes est creditum what was alwaies in all places and by all Christians received and believed is to be taken for Universal and Apostolical Tradition This common consent of Christians making up universal Tradition we have in what is unanimously delivered by the ancient Fathers and declared in the first general Councils of those more holy and sincere primitive times Thither I go to take up my belief as to streams immediatly proceeding from the Fountain of Grace with more pleasure and satisfaction then to the muddy Waters of doctrine delivered by the Church of Rome of this corrupt Age past through so many hands defiled with ambition avarice and other earthly passions repugnant to sincerity of which we have too much assurance CHAP. XIV A Reflection upon the perverse Doctrine contained in the resolution of Faith proposed to us by Mr. I. S. and the pernicious and most dangerous consequences of it IT is a Providence of God and the great force of truth that our Adversaries should forget themselves sometimes and discover their wicked intentions covered under sacred pretexts All their Novelties they frequently set forth under the venerable cloak of Antiquity It is a glory of humility says S. Bernard that Pride should wear a cloak of it to be in esteem Gloriosa res humilitas qua se vestire solet Superbia ne evilescat and so it is a glory of Antiquity that Novellers should pretend credit to their inventions by casting on them a color of Antiquity It is very frequent with the Romanists to use this stratagem to cloak their new Decrees with the venerable name of ancient Canons to call their Church ancient Church tho composed of Novelties where it opposes the Reformed Mr. I. S. hath bin pleased to unmask his Church herein to us declaring that the ultimate ground and motive of their belief and their Proselytes must not be the Testimony of that sacred primitive Church govern'd by Christ himself and his blessed Apostles but the Testimony of the present Church of Rome infected with the corruptions which the World knows and both friends and foes do see and cry against with universal scanâ—al Besides the perversness of this Doctrine obvious to every one that will not blind himself wilfully taking from our sigâ—t and view the sweet and comfortable face of primitive Christianity and willing us only to attend the foul and abominable practices of the Roman Court calling it self Church and even the Catholic Universal and only Church to the offence and scandal of all sincere and knowing Men Besides the perversity of this Doctrine the dangerous consequences of it are much to be considered for preventing the growth of this destructive Seed First it followeth hence that as there is no end of Disputes and Controversies among Men nor any is like to be so there will be no end of coining new Articles of Faith all tending to the encrease of power and splendor of the Pope and his Court tho at the expences of disturbance and destructions to Men Cities Provinces and Kingdoms as often happen'd This to be their aim under the pretence of exalting and propagating the Faith of Christ appears by the next attemt of Mr. I. S. in favor of the Popes supremacy to be examined in the Chapter next following Having established the Pope and his present Church as he conceives in the possession of infallible Judges in matters of Faith the next point he takes in hand
wherewith Christ himself is to be worshipped And so respectively of the Images of other Saints that they are to be worshipped with the same kind of worship that is due to the Prototype Neither indeed do they say herein more then the Council of Trent doth teach them to say For in the Decree above mentioned touching the worship of Images it gives such a reason of it as declares the said worship to be measured by the quality of the Prototype Quoniam honos qui iis exhibetur refertur ad prototypa quae illae repraesentant ità ut per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoremus sanctos quorum illae similitudinem gerunt veneremur The honor which we give to Images says the Council is related to the Prototypes which they do represent so as that by the Images which we kiss and before which we uncover our head and bow down we adore Christ and worship the Saints whose likeness they bear Whence follows what the forementioned Divines said That the worship of Images being to be measured by the Quality of their Prototypes the worship of Latria is due to the Image of Christ that being the worship which is due to himself And by your denial of this to be the doctrine of your Church Mr. I. S. you will more easily perswade us that you begin to grow asham'd of your doctrine as well you may then that you understand the Tenets of the Roman Church better then Azorius did or those other Divines of greatest eminency among you by him quoted This being so consider the miserable condition of your doctrine how well you can desend it from the infamous note of Idolatry If you believe the best Interpreters touching the proper signification of the word Idolum you shall find them say it signifies no more then Imago So that an Image adored or worshipped is in propriety of speech an Idol worshipped and consequently a worship of Latria given to an Image or Idâ—l for they are the same is in all propriety of speech Idololatria Therefore according to the doctrine of the Council of Trent and your Divines forementioned by the worship of Latria given by you to the Image of Christ you commit formal Idolatry I wish with all my heart you did not and that no Argument of mine nor of any other could prove you guilty of this horrid crime By this you see how the Council of Trent and the most eminent of your Schole-men do countenance the stupid error of the vulgar among â—ou even exceed it It is plain they deliver in formal terms what I am certain would be a horror to the meaner Capacities if these did apprehend the sinful absurdity of it And your pretensiâ—n to more prudence in not terming your worship Latria doth not heal the wound nor so much as cover it from any clear sighted-eies The real guilt consists in worshipping Images against the Ordinance of God give that worship what name you please If I do say your people do pray to Images of wood or stone and therein do practice that great folly of which the Wise man accuses the Idolater that he is not ashamed to speak to that which hath no life For health he calls upon that which is weak for life prays to that which is dead Wisdom 13.17 if I do say moreover that your Church teacheth them to do so certainly you will say it is a great calumny But then tell me I pray whose words are these you speak to the Cross in the procession of good Friday O Crux ave spes unica Hoc Passionis tempore Auge piis justitiam Reisque dona veniam Hail ô Cross our only hope in this time of Passion give increase of grace to the godly and pardon to sinners If you tell me these are the words of the Church which you will not deny but spoken to Christ not to the Cross Azorius gainsays you for he declares that by those words the Church speaks to the Cross Ecclesia cum Crucem veneratur colit eam salutat alloquitur cum ait O Crux ave c. The Church says he adoring the Cross salutes it and speaks to it saying Hail ô Cross c. And is not this to speak to that which hath no life c. Thus your people do and which is worse thus your Church teaches them to do And thus we see your Church and People do what all Idolaters do to their Idols CHAP. XXIV Our Adversaries reply to my exceptions against their Invocation of Saints declared to be impertinent Mr. I.S. is so exact a Disputant that he takes it for a sufficient answer to my Arguments if he do's but mention the subject of them and say somthing of what his notes or stock of knowledg do's afford him without taking the trouble of examining whether what he saies be to the purpose of my Arguments or no. This is usual with him but very conspicuous in the present case of their Invocation of Saints I begun accusing their excesses in calling the Virgin Mary their life and hope their Redeemeress and Saviouress This I said to be contrary to St. Peters declaration That there is no salvation in any other besides Jesus Christ and that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved Act. IV. 12. To this Mr. I. S. saies it proves we must not ask the Saints on earth to pray for us which is to prove too much I hope Mr. I. S. himself will not be so desperate as to call his Colleague whose praiers he desires his Life and Hope his Saviour and Redeemer But how comes it to prove we must not desire at all the praiers of Saints upon earth Two excesses of Papists in their Invocation of Saints I took in hand to reprehend To speak of all the brevity which my business then did confine me to would not permit The one is to call the Virgin Mary Saviouress c. the other to dedicate more Churches and address more praiers to Saints then to Christ Both which excesses I convinc'd of error by those passages of Scripture which declare Christ our Lord to be our only Saviour and that he is more willing and able to help us then any other Saint and that he invites us to come to himself for remedy of all our needs Your way to answer this were either to purge your Church of those excesses or to prove that the Scriptures which I alledged did not evince those practices of yours to be excesses You do neither but in lieu thereof you speak only of desiring the praiers of Saints who live yet upon earth whereby you alter the state and terms of the question I spoke of praying to Saints who are no more on earth and fitted my Texts to the Confutation of that practice You speak of desiring those who are not yet departed this life to pray for us which are far different
belief the Word of God contained in the Gospel and in the other Canonical Scriptures while the Roman preaches articles coined by her self and never given to the Apostles to be preached as we shall shew abundantly hereafter refuting the errors of it CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that Title SVarez after having used his best endeavours to deprive the Church of England of her right to the name of Catholic with so little success as we have seen in the precedent Chapter he passes in the 17. Chapter of his foresaid Book to rob it of the name of Apostolic so to deprive King James of the title he gives himself of Defender of the Faith truly Catholic and Apostolic To prove that the Faith of the Church of England is not Apostolic he laies this foundation that two things are requisite to make a Faith or Doctrine Apostolic The first that it proceed in some manner from the Preaching words or writings of the Apostles Secondly that it be conveyed to us by legal tradition and succession The first is contained in those words of St. Paul Ephes 2.19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens with the Saints of the houshold of God are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets The second requisite is declared by Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. in these words Traditionem Apostolorum in omni Ecclesia adest perspicere quae vera velint audire habemus annumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos Who are willing to hear truth must look upon the tradition of the Apostles in all Churches and we can number those that were ordained Bishops by the Apostles and their successours to our own times Suarez pretends these two requisites to be wanting in the Church of England to merit the Name of Apostolic First saies he because the Doctrine of it was not preached by the Apostles neither was it taken out of their Doctrine or conveyed to us by lawful tradition Against which position he brings King James protesting himself to believe admit and reverence the Canonical Scripture the three Creeds and the first four General Councils in which sacred fountains he judged the Apostolic Faith to be contained and Suarez acknowledges that King James spoke herein not only his own sense but the sense and belief of the whole Church of England which is no small glory to it But how can Suarez make out that the Apostolic Faith and Doctrine is not sufficiently contained in those sacred Fountains of the Scriptures Creeds and Councils received by the Church of England See Reader and admire his answer Tho the Doctrine of the said Books considered in it self saies he be Catholic Apostolic Faith or rather a part of it for he pretends that all Catholic Faith is not contained in those fountains yet as it is received by sectaries either it is not Apostlic or it may not be certainly taken for such First because they cannot be certain whether those Books they receive be Canonical or the Councils legal Secondly that they cannot be certain of the true meaning of the Scriptures Creeds or Councils So that in conclusion the Divinity of our Saviour preached by a Romish Priest is Catholic Apostolic Faith but not so when preached by one of the Church of England I should indeed think this only consequence to be a sufficient confutation of this unhappy subtilty of Suarez but further to his reason when effectively we are secured that the Scripture received by us is truly Canonical and Divine and our adversaries do allow it what need is there for quarrelling about the grounds and motives of our security therein and touching the sense both of Scripture Creeds Councils the * Se tria symbola in eo seâ—su interpretari quem illis esse voluerunt Patres atque concilia a quibus funt condita atque descripta saying of K. James related by Suarez n. 9. that he does take the Creeds in the same sense which the Fathers and Councels by whom they were made were willing to give to them well considered is both pious and prudent When the words of a Scripture or article are capable of different senses all consistent with Christian verity and none repugnant to sound Doctrine it is bâ—t Catholic prety to suspend a firm assent to one and keep a readiness to adhere to what may be the real intention of the sacred writer For example that article of the Apostles Creed touching our Saviours descent into Hell is capable of different senses in relation to the Hell he descended into It s a groundless conjecture of Suarez that King James and the Church of England with him should deny a real descent and say he did suffer the pains of Hell in the garden as may be seen by the grave discourse of learned Dr. Pearson now Bishop of Chester upon that article We believe he descended really into Hell that is to say into some place under the Earth it may be without any absurdity to the Hell of the damned as declared in the second part of this Treatise c. 27. But whether it was that Hell or an other subterranean place he descended into we may with piety and prudence suspend our judgment having no Divine oracle to ground upon the determination of the place And Suarez gives us a signal example of this resignation of our intellects to the intention of the Writer in a matter less sacred then the Articles of the Creed I mean the expressions of Popes touching Indulgencies Finding insuperable difficulties in giving a congruous sense to terms of that art which appear non-sense as those of plena plenior plenissima full more full most full If full or plenary how can another be more full c. He confesses not to understand the propriety of these and other expressions used upon that Subject but will rest upon the judgment of the Church which knows the meaning of those measures as will be seen in the 39. Chapter And certainly all those of his party have need of this kind of resignation to rest upon if they will have quiet for there is no article of Creed or Council without diversity of Opinions touching the true meaning of it among their Doctors But this Author has more to say to us that the points wherein we differ from the Roman Church were never taught by any of the Apostles For example saith he to make the King Supreme Governour of the Church this nettles him still what place of Scripture what History do's warrant this Doctrine What Christian or Godly King did practise such a Supremacy over the Church to which I say that we have a warrant for this subjection to our Princes in the words of St. Paul Rom. XIII 1. Let every Soul be subject unto the higher powers where no distinction is
aggravated thereby as being a formal and willful impostor with certain knowledg of the untruth of what he saies he having bin a master of a Grammar School in one of those Colledges where I was Professor of Divinity and where he says Divinity was never taught and knowing certainly that I had all those emploiments which he denies I should have had for which cause several of the Romish Clergy and Laity in Ireland who know the same have detested the impudence of this man in denying a thing so publicly known I could not but imagin that some person capable himself of so desperate a folly as to take upon him fictitious titles should be author of this rude calumny for mens apprehensions of others are commonly a testimony of their own temper as is observed in the beginning of this Preface And if the said Jesuit be Author of that book and of the calumnies of it the observation now mentioned is fully verified in him for to my certain knowledg this man being sent away from Spain before he was ripe in learning to magnify his mission with privat friends gave himself a title so ridiculously and Chimerically fictitious that if I did mention it here it would bring upon him an incurable confusion not to wound him to deeply I forbear to unfold the matter further at present But I have declared it to a person of quality of his acquaintance with a message to him and his brethren that if they will not stand to the offer of their Superior above mentioned of union in Christianity and civill demeanor nor will accept of my invitation to a trial of our cause by a grave and Scholastic way becoming Christians and learned men but must force me out of it by calumnies and slanders they may possibly find that it is not want of materials that keeps me from throwing dirt in their face as others commonly do departing from them but want of inclination to such practises and when their * Vide Caramvel Theolog fundamentali fundamento 551. N. 1589. great Doctors teach them to raise false testimonies whereby to discredit their adversaries as this man does I hope they will allow me to repell with truth tho bitter the assaults of malicious enemies After the publication of these four Books now mentioned the last and great engin applied by my former brethren to recall me was a large and solemn Bull of Pope Clement the 10. now reigning in Rome signed and Sealed by his Protonotarius Apostolicus Claudius Agrete assuring me in terms of full Legality an intire and absolute Remission of all that is past and a favorable reception to my former condition and priviledges if I would return to them This Bull came into my hands by Dublin post in September last with a letter about it of few lines in Latin without subscription inticeing me to an acceptance of the favor offered and concluding with admonishing me of evil design'd against me if I did not consent to it of which designs against me I have had more notice given to me then I am willing to publish I thank God for delivering me hitherto and I pray that he may correct the ill affected minds that harbor such cruel thoughts To the offer made by that Bull of pardon and favour I answer that I want a more necessary indult from the true supreme Head of the Church our Saviour Jesus Christ for submitting to the present Laws and Commands of the Roman Church opposit as I do conceive to the Commandments of God the Doctrine of Christ and the practise of the primitive Apostolical Church as I hope to make appear in the following Treatise to the indifferent Reader by the help of God And finding the above mentioned I. S. more eager in challenging me to answer his Syllogisms and his party more confident of them I hastned my reply to him for the print but some delaies intervening which gave me way to have the second part which 〈◊〉 intended to be of my reply finished before this other could be printed I have resolved to leave his own place to Mr. I. S. which is the last and begin with my reply to N. N. declaring by occasion of his objections that the faith we profess in the Church of England is that and no other which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and was professed by the faithful in the first and better ages of Christianity that we have in this Church all those titles and rights which do qualify a Church for truly Catholic even according to the rules prescribed by the ablest writers of the Romish party whereby all those loud cries against us for Heretics and Scismaties appear to be no better then emty bubles and meer wind only apt to delude weak and ignorant people and thence I will proceed to declare how their ordinary stuffe of arguments against us is bottomed constanly upon false suppositions and misrepresentations of our Doctrin and practices which if well known to the sober and sincere sort of Roman Catholics they would be far otherwise affected then they are towards the Church of England by the false informations of ignorant or malicious instructors O may the Father of light and the God of truth open the eies of men blinded with earthly passons that they may see and follow the true way to everlasting happiness declared to us by his dear Son Jesus that his will and glory may be the common aime of all our wishes and writing and of all our actions that our Studies and endeavors be not to make the breach among Christians wider but to reconcile them in Christ that thus united in him we be at length happily united among our selves in the profession of true faith in our good Saviour Jesus to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen A TABLE of CHAPTERS Of the First PART CHAP. I. A Summary account of the Contents of N. N. his two Books and a Distribution of the points to be handled in relation to them pag. 1. CHAP. II. That the Church of England is a true Catholic Church and the Doctrine professed in it truly Catholic and Apostolic pag. 6. CHAP. III. Suarez his Argument taken from the propriety of the word Catholic applied to prove that the Church of England is truly Catholic pag. 14. CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that calling pag. 21. CHAA. V. Of the succession and Lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the reformed Church of England pag. 27. CHAP. VI. The Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in King Edward the Sixth his time and after proved to be legal and valid pap 41. CHAP. VII How far the form of Ordination used in the Church of England agrees with that of the ancient Church declared in the fourth Council of Carthage and how much the form prescribed by the Roman Pontifical of this time differs from
the ancient â—orm pag. 49. CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination and wherein they do differ and how absurd the pretention of the Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders pag. 57. CHAP. IX That the succession of Bishops and Clergy since the Reformation is much more sure and unquestionable in the English Church then in the Romish pag. 6â— CHAP. X. A further cause of Nullity discovered in the Election of Pope Clement the 8 th pag. 75. CHAP. XI Nullities declared in the Popedom of Paul the 5 th and others following pag. 81. CHAP. XII Of the large extent of Christian Religion professed in the Church of England pag. 89. CHAP. XIII Of the several large and flourishing Christian Churches in the Eastern Countries not subject to the Pope pag. 98. CHAP. XIV Of the Jacobites Armenians Maronites and Indians pag. 110. CHAP. XV. A reflection upon the Contents of the three Chapters precceding and upon the pride and cruelty of the Romanists in despising and condemning all Christian Societies not subject to their Jurisdiction pag. 116. CHAP. XVI Inferences from the Doctrine preceeding of this who'e Treatise against the several objections of N. N. pag. 121. CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other-Romanists pag. 130. CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian pag. 132. CHAP. XIX N. N. His Book intitled the bleeding Iphigenia examined his abusive language bestowed therein upon persons of Honor and his censure upon the Kings Majesty reprehended pag. 140. CHAP. XX. That it is not lawful for subjects to raise arms and to go to war with their fellow subjects without the consent of their Prince The Doctrine of killing men and making war by way of prevention and on pretext of Raligion confuted pag. 148. CHAP. XXI A Conclusion of my discourse with N. N. with a Friendly Admonition to him pag. 171. CHAP. XXII A check to I. E. his Scandalous Libel and a vindication of the Church of England from his false and sâ—anderous report of it pag. 178. The SECOND PART CHAP. I. AN Anatomy of Mr. I. S. his Genius and drifts appearing in his Dedicatory Epistle to my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland pag. 1. CHAP. II. A vindication of several Saints and worthy Souls our Ancestors from the sentence of Damnation passed upon them by I. S. pag. 6. CHAP. III. Mr. I. S. His cold defence of the Infallibility of his Church examined pag. 14. CHAP. IV. That Protestants have a greater security for the truth of their Doctrine then Papists have pag. 19. CHAP. V. Mr. I. S. His prolix Excursion about the Popes Authority requisite to know which is the true Scripture declared to be impertinent and the state of the question cleared from the confusion he puts upon it pag. 27. CHAP. VI. Mr. I. S. His defence of the Popes pretended infallibility from the censure of Blasphemy declared to be weak and impertinent his particular opinion censured for heretical by his own party pag. 33. CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected pag. 41. CHAP. VIII Mr. I. S. His horrible Impiety against the Sacred Apostles and malicious impostures upon the Church of England reprehended pag. 46. CHAP. IX Our Adversartes pretention to prescription and Miracles in favour of the infallibility of their Church rejected his impostures upon me and upon the Church of England discovered further pag. 53. CHAP. X. A Check to Mr. I. S. his insolent Thesis prefixed for title to the 8th Chapter of his book that the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it That they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their tenets And his own argument retorted to prove that the Roman Church is not the Church of Christ pag. 59. CHAP. XI A Refutation of several other engagements of Mr. I. S. in that 8 th Chapter pag. 66. CHAP. XII Mr. I. S. His answer to my objections against the Popes in fallibility refuted his defence of Bellarmin of the General Council of Constance and of Costerus declared to be weak and vain pag. 70. CHAP. XIII Our Adversaries foul and greater circle committed pretending to rid his pretention of infallibility from the censure of a circle his many absurdities and great ignorance in the pursuit of that attemt discovered a better resolution of Faith proposed according to Protestant principles pag. 77. CHAP. XIV A Reflection upon the perverse Doctrine contained in the resolution of Faith proposed to us by Mr. I. S. and the pernicious and most dangerous consequence of it pag. 85. CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defence of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and Tyranical pag. 92. CHAP. XVI How falsly Mr. I. S. affirms the Irish did not suffer by the Popes prohibiting them to subscribe to the Remonstrance of fidelity proposed to them pag. 100. CHAP. XVII The complaint of Papists against our King for the Oath of Supremacy he demandeth from his subjects declared to be unjust pag. 103. CHAP. XVIII Our Adversaries essay in favour of Transubstantiation examined his challenge for solving two Syllogisms answered pag. 110. CHAP. XIX Several answers to my arguments against Transubstantiation refuted pag. 118. CHAP. XX. Ancient Schole men declare Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of Scripture and that it was not an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council Mr. I. S. his great boast of finding in my check to their worship of the hoste a prejudice to the Hierarchy of the Church of England declared to be void of sense and ground pag. 126. CHAP. XXI Mr. I. S. His weak defence of their halfe Communion confuted pag. 135. CHAP. XXII The Roman worship of Images declared to be sinfull pag. 142. CHAP. XXIII Mr. I. S. His defence of the Romish Worship of Images from the guilt of Idolatry confuted the miserable condition of the vulgar and unhappy engagement of the learned among Romanists touching the worship of Images discovered pag. 148. CHAP. XXIV Our Adversaries reply to my exceptions against their invocation of Saints declared to be impertinent pag. 159. CHAP. XXV A great stock of Faults and Absurdities discovered in Mr. I. S. his defence of Purgatory pag. 168. CHAP. XXVI The Argument for Purgatory taken from the 12 th of S. Matth. v. 32. solved 173. CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the Doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain pag. 185. CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church pag. 188. CHAP. XXIX The unhappy success of Mr. I. S. his great boast of skill in History touching the Antiquity of Indulgences discovered pag 195. CHAP. XXX Of
the strange and absurd terms used in the grants of Indulgences and the immoderate profuseness wherewith and slight causes for which they are granted pag. 199. CHAP. XXXI The Dismal unhapiness of the Romish People in having their Liturgy in a tongue unknown to them pag. 212. CHAP. XXXII The cruelty of the Roman Church in prohibiting the Reading of Scripture to the People and their common pretence of Sects and Divisions arising among Protestants refuted pag 216. CHAP. XXXIII Mr. I. S. His engagement touching the Immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary and the practise of Confession confuted pag. 219. CHAP. XXXIV A Reflection upon the many Fallacies Impertinencies Absurdities and Hallucinations of Mr. I.S. his Book which may justify a Resolution of not mispending time in reâ—urning any further reply to such writings and a â—onclusion of the whole Treatise exhorting him to a consideration of his miserable condition in deceiving himself and others with vanity pag. 222. TRUE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC FAITH Maintain'd in the CHURCH of ENGLAND PART I. Being A Reply to N. N. his two Books the one entitled The Bleeding Iphigenia the other The doleful fall of c. with a reflexion upon I. E. his Libel entitled A Soverain counterpoison c. and a Vindication of the Church of England from the calumnies of them and of their Party CHAP. I. A summary account of the Contents of N. N. his two Books and a distribution of the points to be handled in relation to them AN useful Proposal being made in the Senate of Athens by a person of ill repute those wise Senators accorded the same should be tender'd by another of a clearer fame that it might carry by his authority more weight and be the better accepted The like seems to have bin practis'd with me by my Brethren of the Romish communion Reasons of discontent with the Church of England and great affronts of it being presented to me by J. E. in his Book or Libel entitled A Soverain counterpoison c. they justly suspecting that I would slight that onset out of a dislike to the person because of his rude and passionate expressions have taken care that the same and other motives of discontent should be propos'd by another of greater repute an aged and grave Prelate renowned for learning and vertue and one much respected by me He is pleas'd to give me marks of former acquaintance for knowing him but without commission of further discovering him to the Reader then under the character of N. N. In the beginning of his Preface which came forth in a separate Tractate he tells me how much he was surpris'd and troubled seeing a Copy he receiv'd in Print from London of my Declaration for the Church of England This paper indeed saies he gave me a great heaviness of heart for I lov'd the Man dearly for his amiable nature and excellent parts and esteemed him both a pious person and a learned and so did all that knew him And after bemoaning my fall as he calls it from a little heaven the state of Religion wherein saies he for a time he shined like a little Star in vertue and learning he declares his anger against me and purpose of serving me not with the Waters of Shiloah that go softly but with those of Rezin more tumultuous to wash me from the stains of Heresie And after this leaving me he falls abruptly on lamenting the miseries of Ireland and complaining of injuries done to the natives of it and justifying their proceedings in their late Insurrection which he will not have to be called Rebellion In this he spends that Tractate and then proceeds to the greater Book design'd against me giving to it this title The doleful fall of Andrew Sall Jesuite of the fourth vow from the Roman Catholic and Apostolic faith lamented by his constant friend with an open rebuking of his embracing the Confession contained in the 39. Articles of the Church of England This Book he begins with a Rhetorical or Satyrical exclamation against my resolution of embracing the said Confession and proceeds to relate at large the vertues and learning of Saint Hierom Saint Augustine Saint Ambrose and other holy Doctors of the Church whose company he saies I have forsaken and then makes a large list of Heretics of all ages beginning with Luciser whom he will have to be the first Heretic before Mans creation and so coming down all along by Cain Lamech the Giants Cham Jannes and Jambre with others mentioned in holy writ to these of the latter times relating their execrable vices and errors of all which he will have me to be guilty and an associate of those Heretics for embracing the Confession contained in the 39 Articles of the Church of England He pretends to discuss and censure some of them as also some parts of my Declaration and makes a scandalous Narrative of the English Reformation and finally concludes with a fervent exhortation to me to return to the Roman Church By this Scheme I deliver of that Book the prudent Reader may judge how tedious a labour it were to take notice of every thing contained in it and how impertinent I being so far from what he supposes me to be and from being concerned in the Heresies and for the Heretics he mentions Yet the quality of the person the sacred tye of friendship which he professes for me and the good intention I am to believe he had in his writing and above all the love of truth oblig'd me to undeceive him and others that may be of his opinion in the great and gross mistake he is in touching my condition and that of the Church of England whose Communion I have embrac'd I will therefore declare First That the Religion we profess in the reformed Church of England is no other then the true Primitive Catholic and Apostolic Religion taught by our Saviour Jesus Christ and his Apostles and practis'd in the first and purer ages by the Primitive Church Secondly That we have nothing to do with the Heresies N. N. attributes to us and his Brethren practising such calumnies do manifest it is not the Spirit of God that moves them Thirdly That the professors of the Evangelical Doctrine in the Reformed Churches are not so few or despicable nor the Romish faction so considerable as they would make the Ignorant believe Fourthly and lastly I will refute some seditious Doctrines delivered in his first Book that is a preface to the second and will conclude with a check to J. E. his calumnies and barbarous abuses fastned on the Protestant Church CHAP. II. That the Church of England is a true Catholic Church and that the Doctrine professed in it is truly Catholic and Apostolic YOu begin the first Chapter of your Book against me N. N. under this character you will be named You begin I say with a Rhetorical exclamation in these terms O Sall tell us what domincering Spirit of darkness what black temtation hath drawn you out
of the house of God I may justly return for answer an other exclamation better grounded and say O N. N. tell us what domineering spirit of blindness what black presumtion is this that so generally possesses your faction amidst the light of so learn'd an age that a person of your years and degree should not know that in the House of my Heavenly Father there are many Mansions that it extends further then the quarters of the Roman Pope that by quitting his jurisdiction I forsake not the whole house of God But tho you declare to your Reader that your purpose is not to deal with me Scholastically but Historically that is to say as I find not by reason but by railing and by calumnies wherewith your usual armories are plentifully stored and by emty flourishes upon false grounds I will not engage in like manner with you but prove Scholastically that is to say with formal and solid arguments demonstrate that in all your cries you beat the air and not me that all of them are grounded upon a false supposition that by forsaking the Romish communion I did not forsake the Catholic Church that the Church of England whose communion I embraced is a very noble and sound member of the Catholic Church and the Doctrine professed in it proposed to the People for the object of their belief is truly Catholic and Apostolic free from all Heresie and falshood And when I have proved so much in a rational and Scholastic style and method it will appear how vain your attemt is of working on me by loud cries against Heresies wherein I am not concern'd as if you were hunting a wild Boar in a forrest to drive him by clamor and shouting into your nets It is reason that wins me and whereby I desire to win others not exclamations and cries of that kind I will not repete the just complaints delivered by many learned Writers of the arrogance of your party of their absurdity and impropriety of terms in pretending that they alone are the Catholic that is to say the Universal Church being at the best but a part of it and the same very corrupt and not the greater part but the less by very much as hereafter will appear To go through with my engagement of proving by Scholastical exact reasons that the Church of England is a true Catholic Church I 'le take up the arguments urged against this verity by one of the ablest Schoolmen that ever wrote in favour of your cause employed by the Pope against our great and learned K. James I mean Francis Suarez Jesuit I will I say take up the arguments wherewith this famous Schoolman pretends to rob the Church of England of the glorious title of a Catholic Church and declare by that way of arguing which Logicians after Aristotle do call argumentum mirabile that they prove the contrary and confirm the Church of England in its right to the title of a true Catholic and Apostolic Church It will indeed appear a singular triumph of truth that the weakest defender of it should wrest Arms out of the hand of the ablest opposer and beat him with his own weapons A trial of this great power of truth I offer now to the view of the ingenious Reader in my encounter with Suarez on this Subject I will not pursue all the amplifications and excursions of this voluminous Writer as not suitable to the brevity and perspicuity I intend to follow yet I will take up the foundations of all his arguments upon this subject and apply them to my purpose aforesaid Franciscus Suarez in his volume entituled defensio Fidei Catholicae Apostolicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores in his first Book from the 12. Chapter of it forward endeavours to prove that the Church of England is not a Catholic Church therefore that the Faith of it is not a Catholic Faith The first foundation he laies to this purpose is this that these two things Catholic Faith and Catholic Church are so united as the one may not be found separate from the other so that no Church may be Catholic wherein the Catholic Faith is not professed neither may the Catholic Faith be found in any Church that is not Catholic Thence he proceeds to prove that the Roman Church is Catholic because it has a continual succession from the first Church that was so called and retaineth the same Faith which the primitive Catholic Apostolic Church did profess for which he cites Tertullian saying Doctrinam Catholicam esse in Ecclesiâ Romanensi that in the Roman Church Catholic Doctrine is professed which is as much saies Suarez as if he had said it s a Catholic Church from all which Suarez concludes n. 13. that the Church of England is not Catholic because it is not the Roman Church nor united with it and there is but one Catholic Church as we confess in the Creed How hard a task Suarez has in proving to complete his argument that in the present Church of Rome that Faith and no other is taught which the ancient Church called Catholic did teach may appear by all my former discourses against their new coin'd Articles never mentioned in the Primitive Church But my present work will be to shew how his argument wherewith he pretends to prove the Roman Church to be the Catholic doth with more force evince the Church of England to be truly Catholic And thus I form it to that purpose In whatsoever Church that Faith is professed which was taught in the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic that Church is truly Catholic and Apostolic In the Church of England Tertul. in praescriptionibus cap. xx is professed that Faith which was taught by the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic therefore the Church of England is truly Catholic and Apostolic If we prove the minor proposition Suarez cannot in justice deny the consequence And if he will insist upon his pretention of such a disunion of his Church with that of England that both may not be Catholic let the second consequence be of his own making that their Church is no Catholic Church for it is not my intention to make them worse then the Doctors of the Church of England do who allow them to be members tho corrupt of the Catholic Church The minor proposition wherein the stress of my argument consists I prove thus The Faith taught by the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic is that contained in the three Creeds that of the Apostles of Nâ—â—e and Athanasius professâ—d and declared in the first four General Councils of Nice Ephesus Constantinople and Chalcedon received by the faithful in the four first ages of the Christian Church All this Faith is professed by the Church of England as Suarez confesses to have bin declared by King James and is to be seen in his Majesties Epistle to Cardinal Perron written by Isaac Causabon Therefore that Faith is taught in the
Church of England which was taught by the Primitive Church first called Catholic and Apostolic and consequently is a Church truly Catholic and Apostolic according to the foresaid rule given us by Suarez and laid for a foundation of his argument to prove the Roman Church to be Catholic And truly it cannot but appear strange that any Christian not blinded with partiality or prejudice should imagine that the sacred Apostles intrusted to preach saving Doctrine to all the World should not have given a sufficient notice of it in the system of Articles they left to us That those venerable Fathers of the purer ages of Christianity congregated in the four first general Councils should give us but a diminute account of Catholic and Apostolic belief that the Popes Infallibility Supremacy and other articles of latter impression in the Roman Church should be so essential to Christian Faith as none may be saved without a belief of them This argument may be confirmed by the testimony of Athanasius related by Suarez in the chapter above mentioned num 2. saying that the collection of Articles contained in his Creed is the Catholic Faith haec est Fides Catholica c. this is the Catholic Faith which except a Man believe he cannot be saved but in the Church of England that Faith called Catholic and contained in the Creed of Athanasius is believed and professed therefore if any Church professing the Catholic Faith is Catholic it self the Church of England professing this Catholic Faith is truly Catholic The second foundation laid by Suarez in the same chapter n. 6. to prove that his Church is Catholic is to say that it did in all times profess the Faith of that Creed wherein the Church is called Catholic But the Church of England does and alwaies did profess the Faith of the same Creed therefore it has the same right to the like calling The third foundation laid by Suarez from the 15. num of the said chapter is a sign or distinctive used by ancient Fathers for to know a Church or Congregation truly Catholic and to distinguish it from another not Catholic That whensoever any Sect takes its name from the master or teacher of such a Doctrine and the followers of it do call themselves by such a name neither the Doctrine nor the followers of it are Catholic For which he alledg'd the testimony of Athanasius Chrysostom Lactantius and Others And the reason or cause of this distinctive is that every Heresie brings in some novelty against the ancient Faith and new things must have new names whereby to be known and distinguished from others But it is very remarkable how this subtil disputant otherwise very exact and formal in his discourses pretending to rob the Church of England of the name of Catholic by the principle now mentioned comes to confirm the same name upon it not finding it capable of the foresaid note of a Sect not Catholic For pretending to name it from Calvin he finds an obstacle in it because Calvin do's not approve a chief Doctrine of it Then he passes to call it Henrician from King Henry the Eigth because from him the Church of England did learn to acknowledg the King for Head or supreme Governour of the Church in his own dominions Against this also he meets with several obstacles to which I will add this other very considerable that this practice of the Church of England is by many ages more ancient then the time of Henry the Eight whereas it allows no other Supremacy to our King over the Church then such as the Godly Kings of Israel and the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church did exercise in their respective Dominions as is declared in the 37. Article and in the second Canon of the Church of England Since Suarez can not find the name of Lutheran Calvinist Henrician or any other taken from any particular Author or teacher to be agreeable to this Church it must follow from the above mentioned note of a Catholic Church delivered by him and taken out of ancient Fathers that it is a Church truly Catholic that being the only name it self own 's And the Preachers of it praying for our King do stile him Defender of the Faith truly Catholic and Apostolic and King James in his Monitory to the Emperor and other Christian Princes stiles himself Defender of the Faith truly Christian Catholic and Apostolic of the ancient and Primitive Church and we do all pray heartily that our Kings may never defend any other Faith then this CHAP. II. Suarez his argument taken from the propriety of the word Catholic applied to prove that the Church of England is truly Catholic THe fourth foundation laid by Suarez in the 14th Chap. of his foresaid Book to prove that the Church of England is not Catholic he takes from the propriety meaning of the word Catholic He supposes that according to the etymology of the word in Greek Catholic is the same as Vniversal or Common which Universality he saies is fourfold in relation to the present purpose First as to the matter or object of our belief that it be entire comprehending all points belonging to Christian and saving Faith Secondly that it have an Universal or common reason of belief which common reason or rule must be Divine truth or the Word of God whereby he gives testimony to truth according to that expression of Saint Paul 1 Thess 2.13 When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us ye received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of God Thirdly Universality is required in relation to the degrees and orders of persons according to that description of a Church given by Optatus Milevitanus Lib. 2. contra Parmenianum Certa membra sua habet Ecclesia Episcopos Presbyteros Diaconos Ministres turbam fidelium that the Church has its certain members Bishops Priests Deacons Ministers and a Congregation of the faithful The fourth and chief universality required for the propriety of the name Catholic is that a Church to be such be extended over all the parts of the Earth according to the declaration of the said Optatus Lib. 2. Contra Donatistas ubi ergo erit proprietas Catholici nominis quod sit rationabilis ubique diffusat that the propriety of the name Catholic requires it should be a Church rational and diffused over all places Suarez endeavours to prove that all these proprieties of Universality belonging to a Catholic Church are wanting to this of England that it may be called Catholic First as to the material universality or integrity of Articles necessary to a Catholic Faith he pretends that the Church of England is deficient in several Articles as he promises to prove elsewhere but at present singles out as chief that of the Popes Supremacy which the Church of England denies and he promises to prove that it belongs to a Catholic Faith I commend Suarez his ingenuity and
made betwixt the Ecclesaâ—ic and Secular We have for the same practice the examples of the Godly Kings of â—srael and of Christian Emperours in the Primitâ—â—e Church as will be declared hereafter Chap. XV. 1. And our Doctrine herein being built thus on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets appears thereby to be Catholic and Apostolic And if any Doctrine of ours be not found grounded upon the same foundation of the Apostles and Prophets we are all reaâ—y to make that pious confession of our great King James related by Suarez Chapter XVII n. 15. Ego vero id ingenuè spondeo quoties Religionis quam profiteor ullum caput ostendetur non antiquum Catholicum Apostolicum sed novitium esse ac recens in rebus sc spectantibus ad sidem me statim ab eo dâ—sâ—essurum I do faithfully promise that whensoever any point of the Religion I profess shall be found not to be ancient Catholic and Apostolic but new and modern as to things belonging to Faith I will presently depart from it This much those of the Roman Church cannot say with sincerity and truth since several of their tenents are not built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets but are contrary to them as is declared in the second part of this Treatise Therefore our Church and the Faith of it rather then that of Rome is truly Catholic and Apostolic CHAP. V. Of the Succession and lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Reformed Church of England NOthing is affirmed more confidently nothing more blindly believed by most of the Romish party then the nullity of the Protestant Clergy that our Bishops Priests and Deacons are not such effectively but nominally or by title and therefore unable to give Orders they have not or administer Sacraments depending upon such Orders This I find by experience to be the greatest stop many of the more sober and serious of them have in embracing the Communion of the Church of England They see cleerly nothing is asserted by it which may be thought Heretical or erroneous And what it denies of superstructures added in latter Ages by the Roman Church they easily perceive them not to be essential to Salvation Their main scruple is whether in this separation of the reformed Churches from the Roman a lawful succession of Bishops and Ministers was retained and a legal ordination of them continued whether they may live and die confidently relying upon the Ministery of the reformed Ministers for consecrating absolving c. without recourse to a Romish Priest This point I find to be so necessary for setling the minds of many in this wavering age that I thought convenient to examine it exactly as far as may consist with the brevity and clearness I aim at in this writing To relate the reproches and calumnies of Romish Writers against our Ministery were endless and impertinent The shorter and readiest way will be to shew the truth and right of our cause by positive undeniable arguments touching the lawful succession and due Ordination of our Clergy This being established old stories and slanders will fall of themselves Who would not think it impertinent in me to take notice of that very rude and ridiculous fable of the Ordination of Parker and others at the Naggs-head in Cheapside most vigorously and demonstratively refuted many years ago by Mr. Mason and unhappily revived of late by a certain Gentleman to his own great shame and discredit of his cause being evidently convicted of Impostures by the Lord Bishop Bramhal in a separate Treatise printed upon that Subject Such base stuff as this if suitable to ears possessed with fury and blind passion is unworthy of any mention or regard among serious and sober Men. Now coming to the point after much reading and serious consideration upon the matter I wish heartily I could find the succession of lawful Bishops so cleer and not interrupted in the Roman Church from the Apostles times to the Reformation as we are able to shew it in ours from the beginning of the Reformation to our own daies It shall not be my present work to take notice of doubts occurring touching the former It will suffice for my purpose to demonstrate that from the beginning of Henry the Eight his reign when no doubt was of the legality of our Clergy to this day there has bin a lawful uninterrupted succession and due Ordination of Bishops and other Inferiour Clergy in the Churches of England and Ireland If the testimony of an adversary will avail we have that of * Cudsem de desper Calvini causa Cap. 11. pag. 108. Cudsemius who came into England the year 1608. to observe the state of our Church and the order of our Universities Concerning the state of the Calvinian Sect in England saith he it so standeth that either it may endure long or be changed suddainly or in a trice in regard of the Catholic order there in a perpetual line of their Bishops and the lawful succession of Pastors received from the Church for the honour whereof we use to call the English Calvinists by a milder term not Heretics but Schismatics Bellarmin is peremtory upon the contrary saying of all the Reformed Churches nostri temporis haeretici neutrum habent id est nec ordinationem nec successionem the Heretics of our times have neither ordination nor succession Whatsoever be said of other reformed Churches which I leave to speak for themselves upon this point we have cleer evidences to shew the falsity of the Cardinals assertion as relating to the Reformed Church of England and the more criminal as more wilful calumny of * Bristow Harding Sanders Kellison apud Masonliâ— 1. cap. 2. Vindiciae Eccleâ—ae Anglicanae Bristow Harding Sanders Howlet Kellison and other English Romanists whose malice must be Diabolical or their ignorance supine and unexcusable in slandering their Country with what they knew or easily might know to be an untruth as that stranger Cudsemius with due inquiry came to know For evidencing this point of so great importance * Papists Prisoners in Framblingham Castle in Queen Elizabeths time related by Mr. Mason 1 Book 3. Chap. of his English Edition that it was the cry of Papists to the Protestant Clergy in Queen Elizabeths time and is still the challenge of many among them if you can justify our calling we will come to your Church and be of your Religion I am to premise first as to matter of fact that in all prudence I am to rely with more satisfaction upon the public authentic records of the Church and state of England touching the transactions of both then upon the report of declared bitter Enemies such as those of the Romish faction are known to be Whereas it cannot but appear morally impossible in any impartial judgment that in so grave and wise a Nation as England is known to be the Lords and Officers of Church and State should conspire and agree in deluding
in the Library of Dublin University where it is ordered that the Bishop consecrating together with the Bishops assisting to help him do place the Book over the neck and the shoulders of the Bishop consecrated without saying any word one of the Chaplains of the Bishop elect kneeling behind him and holding the Book until it be given to his hands and then the Bishop consecrating and the other Bishops assisting him do touch with both their hands the head of the Bishop elect saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum Receive the Holy Ghost And in supposition that the mode of placeing the Book is not essential to this Ordination certainly the form prescribed by the Church of England in this particular is very decent and apposite to the purpose of this action the Arch-Bishop or other Bishop consecrating delivering the Bible to the Bishop consecrated saying give heed unto reading exhortation and Doctrine with other wholesome admonitions touching his pastoral duty Now touching the essential parts of this ordination which do consist in the imposition of hands as matter and the benediction or words pronounced by the Bishop consecrating as form the Church of England is exact in observing the form prescrib'd by the foresaid Council of Carthage since it orders that all the Bishops present should lay their hands upon the Bishop elect and only the Arch-Bishop or Bishop consecrating should bless or pronounce the words of the form saying Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Châ—st Here the Roman Pontifical deviates from the foresaid form prescribed by the Council of Carthage ordering that both the Bishop consecrating and the Bishops assisting should pronounce the words of the form saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum By this we see how exact the Church of England is in observing all the essential and necessary parts and ceremonies prescrib'd by that renowned Council of Carthage for the ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons As for other ceremonies not essential the Council of Trent it self declares that even in the administration of Sacraments whereof they will have Orders to be a part they may be altered by the Church as the condition of matters times and places may require Neither is this to be understood of the Church Universal congregated in a general Council only but also of each particular Church whence proceeded the great variety of Rites in things indifferent amongst the ancient and even modern Christians of several places and orders approved by that grave sentence of a Lib. 1. Epist 41. Gregory the Great in una fide nihil ossicit Sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa And as the Roman Church upon this account introduces new rites why may not that of England abolish others especially such as are found to be superstitious for which the b Distinct 63. Quia Canon law giveth this warrant Docemur exemplo Ezechiae frangentis serpontem aeneum quae in superstitionem vertuntur illa sine tarditate aliqua cum magna autoritate à posteris destrui posse We are taught by example of Hezechias that such things as turn to superstition may be without delay and with autority extirpated in after ages As a good husband cuts off not only rotten but superfluous branches that may suck away the sap from the main tree so any Church that is free and independent such as this of England is may cut off superstitious and superfluous rites and ceremonies which by their multiplicity may distract both the Ministers and Congregation and take their attention from the main object of their devotion And certainly who ever considers the vast number of ceremonies used now by the Roman Church and prescribed in their Pontifical will find it a task not easie for even a good capacity to comprehend and practice them all and very hard to think of elevating the mind withall to praier or meditation CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination wherein they differ and how absur'd the pretention of Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders AS the Church of England did not think convenient to follow that of Rome in all their superfluous ceremonies especially such of them as are noxious and opposite to the sincerity of Christian discipline so it do's not grudg to go along and conform with them in what they retain of ancient integrity In many things we agree with them First that only Bishops are to give Orders Secondly that none be promoted to Orders without the title of a benefice or sufficient patrimony which is far more exactly observed in the English then in the Romish Church Thirdly that the persons to be Ordained be examined as to behaviour and ability Fourthly that certain times and daies are appointed for Ordination Fifthly that the persons to be ordained ought to appear in the Church Sixthly that they receive their Orders on their knees Seventhly that they receive the Communion All this is commonly observ'd in both Churches but more exactly and indispensibly in the English as to Orders in general Now as to particular Orders we agree in the following points as to Deacons First that the Arch-Deacon presents them to the Bishop Secondly that the Bishop enquires of the Arch-Deacon whether he knows them to be worthy of that Order Thirdly that the Bishop admonishes the Congregation that if any person has any thing to say against them he should declare it Fourthly that the Bishop instructs them in the duty they are to perform Fifthly that litanies are said and the Bishop exhorts the Congregation to pray for the Persons to be ordained that they may be fit Ministers in that sacred Order Sixthy that the Bishop gives them the Book of the Gospels and power to read them in the Church of God Seventhly that one of the Deacons newly ordained should read the Gospel Herein we agree But we differ from the Roman Church First where they add to the litanies the invocation of Saints and Angels Secondly where power is given to the Deacons to read the Gospels for the dead Thirdly that what is not expresly delivered by the Roman formulary is more clearly expressed by the English As for example the Order of Deacons in the former is given by these words Receive the Holy Ghost for power to resist the Devil and his temtations in the Name of the Lord which being too general and common to all Christians is made more proper and apposite to the function of Deacons by these other words used in the English ordinal Receive autority to exercise the work of a Deacon in the Church of God committed to thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Fourthly that we redâ—ce the tedious variety of vestments and ceremonies used in the Roman Church to
my great comfort and no small grief to consider the disingenuity of Romanists in fomenting animosities among Christians by calumniating thus the opposers of their errors CHAP. XIII Of the several large and flourishing Christian Churches in the Eastern Countries not subject to the Pope TO all men truly zealous of the honour of God and of his Son Jesus Christ it cannot but be comfortable to see how happily the blessed Apostles have complied with the command of our Soveraign Lord and Saviour * Math. 28 â—9 Go and teach all Nations baptizing in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and how gloriously the Churches planted by them have persevered in the Faith of our Saviour in spight of the greatest persecutions and under the greatest Enemies of the Christian name such as the Turk is known to be and yet under his Domions is a numberless number of Christians of which the Grecians are for antiquity number and dignity the chief They acknowledg obedience to the Patriarch of Constantinople under whose jurisdiction are in Asia the Christians of Natolia Circassia Mengrelia and Russia as in Europe also the Christians of Grece Macedon Epirus Thrace Bulgaria Servia Bosnia Walachia Moldavia â—odolia Moscovia together with all the Islands of the Aegean Sea and others about Grece as far as Corfu besides a good part of the large Dominion of Polonia and those parts of Dalmatia and Croatia that are subject to the Turkish Dominion all which Congregations of Christians subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople do exceed in number them of the Romish Communion as I find recorded by diligent a Brerewood inquiries cap. 15. Pagit Christianography cap. 2. Writers whereof Pagit saies that Christians make up the two third parts of the Grand Signiors Subjects All these Churches do deny the Popes Supremacy they account the Pope and his Church Schismatical The Patriarch of Constantinople doth yearly upon the Sunday called Dominica invocavit solemnly excommunicate the Pope and his Clergy for Schismatics They deny Transubstantiation touching which point Cyril Patriarch of Constantinople delivereth this excellent confession as agreeable to the Doctrine of the Church of England as opposite to the Romish In the Eucharist saith b Cap. 17. Pag. 60. he we do confess a true and a real presence of Christ but such a one as Faith offereth us not such as devised Transubstantiation teacheth for we believe the Faithful to eat Christ's body in the Lords Supper not sensibly champing it with our teeth but partaking it with the sense of the soul For that is not the Body of Christ which offereth it self to our Eies in the Sacrament but that which Faith spiritually apprehendeth and offereth to us Hence ensueth that if we believe we eat and participate if we believe not we receive no profit by it Hieremy the Patriarch teacheth a change of bread into the Body of Christ which he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a transmutation which is not sufficient to infer a Transubstantiation because it may only signify a mystical alteration which the Patriarch in the same place plainly sheweth saying that the mysteries are truly the Body and Blood of Christ not that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he are changed into humane flesh but we into them for the better things have ever the preeminence The words of Cyril and Hieremy in Greek are to be found with Mr. Pagit in his Christianographie Cap. 4. They deny Purgatory fire So Nilus Arch-Bishop of Thessalonica a Nilus p 219. de purg igne we have not received by tradition from our teachers that there is any fire of purgatory nor any temporal punishment by fire neither do we know of any such Doctrine taught in the Eastern Church b Castr adver haeres l. 12. p. 1.8 Alphonsus de Castro It is one of the most known errors of the Grecians and Armenians that they teach there is no place of Purgatory where Souls after this Life are purged from their corruptions which they have contracted in their Bodies before they deserve to be received into the Eternal tabernacles They administer the Eucharist in both kinds of which c Cyr c 17. p. 61. Câ—rill the Patriarch As the institutor speaketh of his Body so also of his blood which commandment ought not to be rent asunder or mangled according to humane arbitrement but the institution delivered to be kept intire a Resp p. 129 distinct 31. aliter They allow married Priests Hier. Patr. We do permit those Priests that cannot contain the use of marriage They deny the worship of Images Concerning which point b Cyr. resp ad inter 4. p. 97. Cyril speaketh we forbid not the historical use of Pictures Painting being a famous and commendable Art we grant to them that will have them the pictures of Christ and Saints but their adoration and worship we detest as forbidden by the Holy Ghost in holy Scripture least we should before we are aware adore colours instead of our Creatour and Maker They acknowledg the sufficiency of Scripture for an entire rule of Faith and of our Salvation Of which c Damasc de Orthodoxa fide lib. 1. c. 1. Damascen giveth this testimony What soever is delivered unto us in the Law and in the Prophets by the Apostles and Evangelists that we receive acknowledg and reverence and beside these we require nothing else They do not forbid the layty the reading of Scriptures As the reading of Scripture is forbidden to no Christian Man saith Cyril the Patriarch so no Man is to be kept from the reading of it for the word is near in their mouth and in their hearts Therefore manifest injury is offered to any Christian Man of what rank or condition soever he be who is deprived or kept from reading or hearing the Holy Scripture They allow no private Masses as Châ—traeus relates No private Masses saies he are celebrated among the Grecks without other communicants as their liturgies and faithfull relations testifâ— They have prayer in a known tongue They use not prayer for Souls to be delivered out of purgatory nor the extreme unction nor elevating and carrying about the Sacrament that it may be adored nor indulgences nor sale of Masses Neither is there in their Canon any mention made of the sacrifice of the Body and blood of Christ for the living and dead as Chytraeus Guagnirus and others quoted by a Pagit c. 4. Pagit do relate Other differences of less account betwixt the Grecian Church and the Roman you may see related by b Brerew c. 15. Possev dereb Muscov pag. 38. Brerewood and Possevin Of the same Religion with the Grecians are the Christians of the vast and mighty Empire of Muscovia and Russia under their Metropolitan the Arch-Bishop of Mosco nominated and appointed by the Prince the Emperour of Russia and upon this nomination consecrated by two or three of his own suffragans To these may
say that this severe sentence is not of their making but delivered by Christ against all that will not obey his Vicar upon Earth the Pope of Rome And possible it is that some of the simpler sort may believe it is so But it s long since I knew and proved that none sufficiently conversant in the principles of their own Theology could seriously think it to be so but that according to their principles its blasphemy and Heresy to say without restriction and in general terms as commonly they do that none may be saved out of the communion of the Roman Church And my Antagonist I.S. tells us I did not trespass therein against truth of Doctrine but against policy or prudence as he calls it whereby I put a great stop to the conversion of Protestants if People did think that out of the Romish Communion any may be saved So as the prudence demanded from me was to fashion my Doctrine to the increase of the Popes Dominion be it with truth or untruth and pronounce sentence of damnation against all Christians not subject to him tho I should know no such sentence to be against them in the judgment of God I wish my good Brethren of the Roman Church did reflect upon and acknowledg the great injury they do to themselves in breeding and fomenting this unchristian hostility with the whole Society of Christians separated from their communion so numerous and illustrious as we have seen in the preceeding Chapters imprinting hatred towards all in the hearts of their Children which forceably must beget a return of hatred or disaffection and mistrust How incommodious it s to create to themselves so many Enemies how uneasie and disadvantagious to bereave themselves of the free and amiable society of so many noble Nations and brave People which the apprehension of Heresy makes intractable to them What happened to me with a Spanish young Man that came in my company out of Spain into England makes me more sensible of the misery that Romanists bring upon themselves this way He was of his own disposition chearfull and sociable but as soon as he came among the English People his heart and countenance fell down and he appeared sad and melancholic I inquiring of him the cause of that alteration he answered that he looked upon all those men as Heretics which made their very sight odious to him and their company displeasing The man did not well know what Heresy was and much less did he know whether those Men he saw were Heretics or no. He acknowledged them to be good men just and civil in their dealing and adorned with noble gifts of God yet the prejudice he was in against them by conceiving them to be Heretics made their sight and company odious to him Would not this Man have been more happy in conceiving a better opinion of the People would it not make him live with more ease and comfort among them not to mention now that higher Emolument and duty of maintaining charity towards all Men. CHAP. XVI Inferences from the preceeding Doctrine of this whole treatise against the several objections of N. N. HE that hath not considered the frame I proposed to observe in this treatise and seeth me go through many Chapters of it debating with Suarez and other Romish writers without any mention of N. N. may think I have neglected or forgotten him and his Book But if he will take notice of my purpose made in the beginning of cutting down by the root the whole Fabric of the said Book he shall find I am still upon my intended work The ground and foundation of all the cries and complaint of N. N. against me is a supposition that I have left the Catholic Church and Faith by withdrawing from the communion of the Roman Church and embracing this of England In the whole discourse of this Treatise I have proved that the Church of England is in all propriety Catholic and the Faith professed in it truly Catholic and Apostolic and all this by rules and principles taken from the ablest of Romish Writers for proceeding in this inquiry whereby it remains proved that all the exclamations of N. N. against me went upon a false supposition and consequently are vain and groundless Hence I infer first how vain is his query and more vain his divining answer about what drew me out of Gods house It appears by what is said hitherto and will be further declared in the rest of this Book that in my change I did not leave the house of God but removed to the best and soundest part of it that no private spirit or rash fancy moved me but a sincere acknowledgment of truth by the ordinary means God has disposed for us to come by it I infer secondly how groundless and unreasonable his pretention is that I should have quitted the holy Doctors Gregory Ambrose Augustine and Jerom and all the ancient Fathers and Catholic Doctors He do's not tell how or wherein I have deserted that noble company neither indeed were it easy for him to tell it I live and do firmly resolve to dy in the same Catholic Church which they lived and died in and in the profession of the same Catholic and Apostolic Faith which they professed The same and no other Faith is professed in the Church of England whose communion I have embraced as hath bin sufficiently demonstrated hitherto and I hope by the merits and grace of our Saviour Jesus to enjoy the company of those blessed Saints in Heaven maugreall the censures of Rome Neither was I ever closer with those Holy Fathers in the Romish Church then I am now in the English It is one of the perverse calumnies of our adversaries to give forth that there is not due regard had of them here I see the contrary I have observed diligently the waies of the Universities and method of Study with Learned men in England and Ireland and I see with them far greater application to the study and reading of holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church then ever I saw amongst Romanists Whilst the most learned of these spend their life and forces in speculative notions only serving Schole debates learned Protestants employ their time more happily in the study of the Holy Scriptures of Fathers and credible Histories I infer thirdly how rash and injurious is his censure in saying that by embracing the confession contained in the 39. Articles of the Church of England I have made my self partaker of all the Heresies and an associate of all the Heretics that were from the beginning of the World to this day Of these he makes a great list beginning with Lucifer whom he will have to be the first Heretic before Mans Creation and from him proceeds to Lamech the Gyants all those that entred not into the Ark but perished in the deluge who were all Heretics saies he Then enters Cham with the builders of Babels Esau Jannes and Jambres Corah and Dathan Nadah and
Abihu all those strange Kings that made war against the Children of Israel all the false Prophets of Baal Of all these Heretics he saies I am become an associate by embracing the confession contained in the 39 Articles of the Church of England But is not all this rage without any mixture of reason Is it not a sufficient confutation of the Man and a foul confusion to him to repete this raving speech of his In what part of the 39 Articles or of the three Creeds we use in the Church of England will he find those Heresies he appropriats to us But he will come nearer home and make a long narrative of errors and vices related of Luther Calvin Melanchton and others who contributed with their writings to the reformation of the Church To which I say first that I have but too much reason not to believe all that they say of their opposers Secondly that tho some of those who concurred to the Reformation should have fallen as men into some vices or errors the Reformation it self which certainly was a work of God ought not to be undervalued for that The sacred Colledg of the Apostles first founders of the Christian Church had in it one as bad as Judas shall the whole Colledg of the Apostles and the Religion founded by them be disesteemed for that Several of those renowned Fathers preachers and defenders of the Gospel after the Apostles in the primitive Church as Origen Tertullian c. through human frailty were guilty of no few errors shall we therefore despise the work they did and the healthful part of their Doctrine If you did tell me of some Doctrine imposed upon us as an article of belief and rule of manners that were Heretical or opposit to the law of God that were pertinent to work upon me but this I am certain you will never be able to do and no less certain am I that your Church is guilty of such impositions upon its followers as I shall demonstrate by several instances in the second part of this treatise But to tell me of vices and errors of particular persons is both impertinent and imprudent I knowing so much how matters go on your side I appeal to your own knowledg by what you have seen and heard of of the Court of Rome And if you will conceal your knowledg herein I remit your self and the Reader not to Protestant Historians which happily you may suspect but to your own most qualified as Platina Onuphrius and even Baronius Read in them the acts and lives of several of those your holy Fathers and infallible oracles of Doctrine the Popes of Rome see the transactions of John the thirteenth about the year 966 or of Sylvester the secound about the year 999. or John the 18. about the year 1003. or Benedict the 9. about the year 1033. or of Gregory the 7. about the year 1080. or Boniface the 8. about the year 1294. or Alexander the 6. and of his outragious Son Caesar Borgia about the year 1294. and you shall find them to be such men as no Epicurean monster storied out to the World has outgon them in sensuality cruelty tyranny and all manner of vices And while I have in my memory and before mine eies unfeigned Histories of this kind spare heaping fables against some particular persons concurring to the reformation But who will not admire the mans disingenuity in reproaching me and the Church of England with the Tenets or madness of the Quakers which he relates at the end of the 16 chapter of his Book knowing and confessing in the same place that they are reproved and punished by this Church and that the author of them James Naylour was condemned to a perpetual imprisonment after being whipt publicly and his tongue bored with a burning iron May not I with the same reason reproach him and his Church with the horrid impieties of the Jews Moors and Atheists as thick set in Spain and Italy as Quakers among us But were that fair dealing I knowing that such Sects are not approved of but rather punished in those Countries Why then for shame will N. N. tell me I am become of the society of Quakers by adhearing to the Church of England he telling at the same time how severely they are punished amongst us And if I were of his temper for pleasuring vulgar readers with stories and rarities of this kind I could with more ground of truth and therefore more sensibly return upon him a large sum of practices which to indifferent judgments would appear no better then madness yet daily used by persons and societies approved and applauded in his Church But I reserve my time and labour for a more serious and becoming work in the mean time I remit him to Sir Edwin Sandys his Book containing a Survey of the Western Church where he shall see set down with candor and ingenuity becoming a Gentleman and a Christian the rites and customs he saw practised in several societies of the Roman Church He do's not grudg to praise them where he finds them praise worthy neither do's he soure his pen in relating their faults If you will be ingenuous you will confess he saies nothing but what you know your self to be in practise and if long custom and passion got by it has not blinded your judgment you shall perceive many of those practices to be as unreasonable and mad as any of those you relate of the Quakers And if you will have a more exact and vigorous discussion of this point go to Dr. Stilling fleet his Book where he speaks of the fanaticism practiced in the Church of Rome and you shall find in it confusion enough and reason to spare objecting to us the follies of Quakers And whereas you pretend to fright me with representing to me errors of particular persons of the Protestant Church if I would resolve to make a return to you of that kind I could make my Book swell and the Readers heart tremble by relating the Heresies Blasphemies and execrable Doctrines which I have heard preached and saw printed by persons of your Church I will only relate to you for example some few propositions of Books that came to my own hands the one was of a grave preacher who prepared for the print a large volume of Commentaries upon the Gospel of St. Mark This book was sent by the Provincial of his order to be examined by me and having read it with attention I voted against the printing of it for several faults I specified in my censure but especially for containing some desperat blasphemous propositions as this following touching St. John Evangelist Joannis Excellentia titulo dilecti maxima est major est quam Redemtoris etiam in deo Tanta est quanta esse Deum trinum unum imo propter hoc verbum caro factum est For the understanding of which mad piece of Rhetoric it is to be considered that there are two Sects of Nuns the
one passionatly bent to extol St. John the Evangelist above St. John Baptist the other preferring with no less animosity the Baptist before the Evangelist Our preacher before mentioned to pleasure the Nuns of the Evangelist delivers that prodigious Paradox which in English may be turned thus exceeding great is the excellency of John upon the account of being the Beloved It is greater then that of a Redeemer even in God it is so great as to be God in trinity and unity nay for this cause the word was made flesh Go now and compare this piece of Doctrine with any of those you related of the Protestant writers and if it has not out gon them all add to it what follows Being advertised by the inquisitor general of Spain at the second time he sent me a licence for reading prohibited Books that I had not given him account of what censureable propositions I might have lighted upon in my readings as he had charged me to do in the instrument of such a Licence which he had sent me the year before I sent to him a list of some perverse Doctrines I saw in Books approved and in much use among themselves for Protestant Books I could find none to give account of among which were the three propositions following prefixed for titles to so many moral discourses of Leander de Murcia in his Commentaries on the book of Esther The first of which goes thus Adeo essicax est mortis memoria ad reducendos in meliorem frugem homines ut non solum ipsi sed etiam Deus op Max. proposita ante oculos morte in meliora contendat The memory of Death is so powerful to reduce Men unto a better life that not only they but even God Almighty himself laying death before his eies becomes better The second runs thus Etiam daemon morte ante oculos constituta contendit in meliora even the Devil looking upon death mends himself The third proposition is this Tanta dilectione prosecutus est filius Dei homines vt pro ipsis quasi insanire videatur The Son of God his love to men has bin so great that he seems to be mad for them And if thus it goes even in Books current and approved among you what if I did relate the Doctrines of others censured and prohibited by your inquisitions as you and your party frequently do upbraid our Church with erroneous Doctrines of particular Men which we do utterly detest and our learned Men do vigorously oppose by word and pen in Pulpits Books and Scholes CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other Romanists IT is very usual with the Zelots of the Romish Church to make Henry the Eight sole Author of the Reformation of the English Church loading that Prince with bitter invectives and odious reports thereby to render the reformation contemtible to which N. N. in the 14. chapter of his Book adds a slanderous relation of the lives and behaviour of some Monks and Friers come out of Germany which he pretends to have bin the authors and contrivers of the 39. Articles of the Church of England I will not repete the many idle stories he tells of them more fit to divertise simple persons of his own credulity in a Winter night at the fire then to work on serious and knowing Men. I have chosen for a more short and solid way rather to justify our cause with positive arguments then to follow our adversaries in sifting fopperies To this purpose I will lay for foundation of my present discourse that the whole frame of the Reformation standeth upon two points whereof the first and more resented at Rome is the denying of the Popes supremacy and the withdrawing of the Church of England from subjection to him The second is the Reformation of the Liturgy and Doctrine of the said Church from errors and corruptions introduced in it As for the first it is clear and evident that neither Henry the 8. nor Luther nor Calvin nor any of those strangers mentioned by N. N. were authors or causers of the freedom of the Church of England from subjection to the Pope of Rome This freedom being by its own right inherent in it from the beginning of its Christianity however King Henry his valour and resolution broke off effectually the Tyrannical usurpations of Rome which long time did oppress the English Church and Nation notwithstanding their continual reluctancy and complaint against those Romish extortions Far were those good Christians that inhabited England before the time of Gregory the Great from giving or owning obedience to the Bishop of Rome and so when Augustin came hither about the year 590 and demanded their obedience to the Church of Rome the Abbot of Bangor returned him answer * Concil Spelm. P. 108. That they were obedient to the Church of God to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian to love every one in his degree in charity to help them in word and deed to be the Children of God and other obedience then this they did not know due to him whom he named to be Pope nor to be Father of Fathers And if Augustin did pretend to such a subjection from England to Rome as the Popes of it now would have certainly he exceeded his commission for St. Gregory that sent him never pretended to that supremacy which his successors do aspire to as we shall demonstrate in the 15 chapter of the second part of this treatise and how far he was from pretending England to be of his jurisdiction may appear by what is related of him that being told certain children were de Britannica Insula he did not know whether the Country were Christian or Pagan The siliâ—â— and voluntary respect and obedience which the holiness and learning of Gregory and some other good Popes gain'd among the English gave occasion to others following of less merit to pretend to a right to such obedience which being perceived by the Kings they prohibited all appeals to Rome and the coming of Legats thence and so much as the receiving of letters without the Kings licence as may appear by Paschalis the Second his letter to Henry the first expostulating with him about this particular in these words Sedis Apostolicae nuncii vel literae praeter jussum regiae Majestatis nullam in potestate tua susceptionem aut aditum promerentur nullus inde clamor nullum inde judicium ad sedem Apostolicam destinantur c. This happened in an 1114. notwithstanding the King stood upon his resolution so as in the year following 1119 sending his Bishops to a Council held by Callixtus the 2. at Rhemes at their departing he gave them instructions not to complain of each other because himself would right each of them at home that they * Joh Diacon l. 1. c. 21. vita Greg. should a Orderi Vital is p. 857. Ite Dominum
which I saw in the Records of that University are as follow Post susceptam itaque per nos quaestionem ante dictam cum omni humilitate devotione ac debita reverentia convocatis undique dictae nostrae Academiae Theologis habitoque complurium dierum spatio ac deliberandi tempore satis amplo quo interim cum omni qua potuimus diligentia Justitiae Zelo Religione conscientia incorrupta perscrutaremur tam Sacrae Scripturae libros quam super cisdem approbatissimos interpretes eos quidem saepe saepius à nobis evolutos exactissime collatos repetitos examinatos deinde disputationibus solennibus palam publice habitis celebratis tandem in hanc sententiam unanimiter omnes convenimus ac concordes fuimus viz. Romanum Episcopum majorem aliquam jurisdictionem non habere sibi a Deo collatam in Sacra Scriptura in hoc Regno Anglia quam alium quemvis Externum Episcopum We therefore after having taken in hand this question with all humility devotion and due reverence the Divines of our University being called together from all places and the space of many daies and time enough bein given for deliberating whereby with all diligence possible zeal of Justice Religion and upright conâ—â—ience we should search as well the Books of Holy Scripture as the most approved interpreters of them and they being very often turned over by us and most exactly conferred together review'd examin'd moreover having celebrated held public solemn disputes on this subject at last we have all unanimously agreed upon this sentence viz. That the Bishop of Rome hath not any more Jurisdiction given to him by God in holy Scripture in this Kingdom of England then any other foreign Bishop hath Having met with this religious and learned declaration of the University of Oxford I thought convenient to relate it here as well for the autority the opinion of this great University is apt to give to the matter as also that it may be to us an argument of the zeal and diligence wherewith the other Scholes Monasteries and Churches did proceed to deliver their opinion upon this subject And if it be true what the famous Canonist * Navar. cap. Cum conti gat de rescript remed 1 n. â—o qui unius Doctorâ—s eruditione ac animi pretate celebrâ—s autoritate dâ—ctus secerit al quid exâ—usatur etiamâ—â—d non esset justum alii contrarium tenerent Navar saies and now is more commonly said and confirmed by Casuists and Canonists that who do's any thing following therein the opinion of one Doctor of known learning and piety tho others be of contrary opinion is excused tho happily what he did should not be just in it self and if the authority of one Doctor of learning and piety can justify a mans proceeding shall not the opinion of so great a number of men famous for learning and piety that were then in the Universities Monasteries and Churches of England justify the proceedings of King Henry in freeing his Kingdom from the slavery it was in under the Bishop of Rome This indeed was to lay the axe to the root of the Romish usurpations and corruptions in this Land Their pretended authority in it being found and declared not to be from God nor grounded upon his divine word but illegally and fraudulently intruded upon the Nation it followeth that they were all at their own liberty to reform their Church by a National Synod of their own Prelats and Clergy under the protection and inspection of their Prince as in other times was don in this land in consequence to this the states of the Kingdom being congregated in * Stat. 26. Hen. 8. c. 1. begun Nov. 3. end Dec. 18. 1533. Parliament an 1533 have declared that his Majesty his heirs and successors Kings of this Realm shall have full power and autority from time to time to visit repress redress all such errors heresies abuses c. which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction may be lawfully reformed repressed ordered redressed c. And this was not to assume a new power but to renew and publish the ancient right of the Kings of this Land It is true that Popes in former ages not finding means to hinder our Princes from exercising this right of their own would by priviledg continue it unto them So Pope Nichelas finding our Kings to express one part of their office to be Regere populum Domini Ecclesiam ejus wrote to Edward the Confessor Vobis posteris vesâ—ris regibus Angliae committimus convocationem ejusdem loci omnium totius Angliae Ecclesiarum vice nostra cum consilio Episcoporum Abbatum constituatis ubique quae justa sunt We commit unto you and your successors Kings of England the government of that place and of all the Churches of England that in our name ye may by the Councils of Bishops and Abbots order in all places what will be just The same Pope did allow the like priviledg to the Emperor * Bar. 11. Annal. 1059. n. 23. Nicolaus Papa hoc domino meo privilegium quod ex paterno jure susceperat praebuit Said the Emperors advocat Pope Nicholas allowed this priviledg to my Master which himself had by his birth-right By the like art finding the People of England unwilling to acknowledg any Ecclesiastic power besides that of the land and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury for supreme of it under the King the Popes have contrived that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury should exercise that power as from them under the name of Legatus natus or Legat by his place of the Roman Sea This may seem like what they report of the great Cham of Tartary that after he had dined he orders to give leave by the sound of a Trumpet to all the Kings of the World that they may go to dinner But the Pope drives further in his grants that in time if power should assist him he may force upon them a subjection to him as if really the Princes did owe their power to him But the arts of Rome are too much known in England for the people to be further deluded by them And therefore a National Synod or a Convocation of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots and other Clergy of the Kingdom being celebrated at London by order of King Henry the sixth in the sixth year of his reign being that of our Lord 1552. a summary of Articles was agreed upon to remove dissentions in Religion and reform the Church from corruptions that crept into it so pious and moderate so well grounded upon Divine Scripture and upon the Doctrine and practice of the Primitive Apostolic Church that Romanists may more easily rail and rant at then discover any real error in them My adversary N. N. after highly inveighing against these Articles and boasting to discover Heresies in them singles out the 22. Article which runs thus The Roman
Doctrine of Purgatory Indulgences veneration and adoration as well of Images as of reliques as also of the invocation of Saints is absurd and vainly invented nor is grounded upon any authority of Scripture but is rather repugnant to the word of God Upon which Article N. N. delivers this heavy censure that it is false profane and Heretical But in the whole discourse of the second part of this Treatise I will demonstrate God willing that it is rather true Religious and Catholic as also I do intend by the help of God to vindicate the rest of those Articles in a separat Treatise from the cavils of Alexander White and other Romanists whereby N. N. will find how much he is mistaken in taking the said Alexander White 's Book against the thirty nine Articles for unanswerable as certainly he is far mistaken in saying resolutely tho without having any ground for it that the aforesaid White hath bestowed more time and deliberation in quitting those Articles then I have don in deserting the communion of the Roman Church Seven years he saies Mr. White spent in deliberating upon his resolution but certainly I have spent many more years in deliberating upon mine How many they were as it is not easie to demonstrate so it is not material to tell men may deliberate long and err at last in their resolution To my reasons alledged for that resolution which I took I appeal and do willingly expose them to public view and examination that others as well as I may judg of the weight of them Very foul and slanderous also has bin the mistake of our adversary in saying that the Authors of our 39. Articles were only some few obscare men Priests and Friers run out of Germany and that by them the Church and Kingdom of England was governed in the Reformation of their Religion How false their report is may appear by the public Records and Histories of the Land and by several Acts of Parliament passed with great deliberation of all the States of the Kingdom upon the settlement of the Reformation and of those Articles as well in that great Synod or Convocation celebrated under Edward the sixth in the year 1552. above mentioned as also an other no less famous Synod held at London ten years after viz. 1562. wherein the said Articles were reviewed examined and confirmed I have seen among Seldens Books kept in the Bodleian Library of Oxford an Authentic COpy of these Articles printed at London in the year 1563 and a scroul of parchment annexed to it with the subscriptions by their proper hands of the members of the lower house of Convocation being all Deans Arch Deacons and procurators of Clergy which I found to be in number 104 besides the Arch-Bishops and Bishops sitting in the upper house whose names came not in my way to see but I am to suppose they were all the Prelates of the Land as they used to meet in Convocation And is this to shuffle up a Reformation and make Articles in clandest in manner without due examination as our Adversary would make his Reader believe CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian THo N. N. had declared his purpose in the beginning to deal with me not Scholastically but Historically yet it seems he would not part with me without disputing upon the point of Transubstantiation He alledges testimonies and Fathers and miracles in favour of it and pretends it to have bin a Doctrine of more ancient standing then the Lateran Council To all which I have given a full answer in what I have delivered by my discourse formerly printed and in what will follow in the second part of this Treatise from the 18. Chapter forward Only I will reflect here upon two or three very gross mistakes of N. N. in his present discourse with me upon the point The first is touching my belief of this great mystery He saies resolutely without giving any ground for his saying as indeed he could have none for it that I do not believe Christ to be really present at all in this Sacrament why then saies he should he dispute with us about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation seeing he flatly denies the body and blood of Christ to be really and substantially present in the Sacrament But good Sir where have you seen this flat denial of mine certainly not in my declaration which seems to be the object of your quarrel not in the 39. Articles not in any public Catechism or system of Doctrine generally received by the Church of England nay the Catechism approved by autority and commended to the use of all being inserted into the Common Praier Book delivers the Doctrine quite opposite For to the question proposed touching the inward or invisible part of this Sacrament this answer is returned The Body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lords Supper And is this to deny flatly that the Body and blood of Christ is really present in the Sacrament as you impute to us When a Jesuite in Germany broached the like calumny in a conserence had with some of the English nobility waiting upon our King in that Country in presence of his Majesty and of a Prince Elector in that Empire both his Majesty and the Noble-Men took offence at his Speech as being a foul Calumny and therefore desired the Reverend and Learned Doctor Cosin Bishop of Durham to vindicate the Church of England from that a spersion as he did abundantly in a very learned Tract published under the title of Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis Wherein he proves by the Articles public Catechisms and by the testimonies of several * Vide Jacobum Armac in resp ad Malon Mont. Norw in Antidiatribis Laud. Cantua in resp ad Fish Hooker Polit. Eccles l. s Joh. Roffens de potest Pap. in prae fat stat Prime Elis. c. 1. 8. Elis. c. 12 13. Elis. c. 1. grave and learned Prelates that all true Protestants especially those of the Church of England do constantly believe and profess that Christ our Saviour is really and substantially present in the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and his Body and blood really and substantially received in it by the faithful and accordingly he alledges the learned Bilson B. of Wincl ester declaring the belief and Doctrine of the Church of England touching this point in the words following Eucharistiam non solum figuram esse Corporis Domini sed etiam ipsam veritatem naturam atque sul stantiam in se comprehendere ' That the Eucharist is not only a figure or representation of the Body of our Saviour but that it comprehends also the very truth and nature and substance of his body The very same Doctrine is contained in the 28. Article of the 39. above mentioned in these words The Body of Christ is given or taken and eaten in the
Supper only after an Heavenly and spiritual manner Here you have a real giving eating and taking and consequently a reall presence of the Body of Christ confessed by our Church as well as by yours Our difference is only touching the mode of his presence We say that mode or manner to be spiritual you pretend that it is corporal with what consequence or coherence with the rules of common reason you will never be able to declare nor how to avoid contradiction in saying that his flesh and blood is present in the Sacrament after a corporal manner and with all that none of our corporal senses is able to give testimony of such a presence Neither will you find it an easier task to declare unto us what may be the object of your adoration given to the consecrated bread If you say it is the person of our Saviour God and Man really present we adore and reverence the same as well as you If you pretend that your adoration doth extend to more that must be only the accidents of the Bread and Wine appearing to the senses which accidents being in your own confession meer creatures to give unto them the worship of Latria cannot with any colour of reason be excused from a formal Idolaâ—ry The second very gross error I find in the discourse of N. N. upon this subject is that finding me complain of the Roman Church for forcing upon Christians a belief of Monstrous miracles in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation he cries against me in Tragical terms as if I had reviled Gods wonders calling miracles monstrous and appeals to the Catholic Reader for a severe sentence against me in these words Numquid haec est atrox humuncionis insultantis Christo Ecclesiae rabies pag. 126. And I appeal to any Reader of sense whether I may not on good ground return on him this other quere Annon hic est hominis frigide id est non opportune excandescentis inconditus clamor p. 136. Is not this cry a fit of zeal unseasonably burniâ—g To call those miracles they pretend to intervene in the consecrated bread Monstrous he takes it for a contempt of Gods wonders in general So if I say a Man born with 2 Heads and 3 Eies is a Monstrous Man that must be taken for an affront put upon all humane kind Sir I reverence Gods wonders and those many miracles wrought by his powerful hand and I bless his holy name for all But those miracles you would have us believe to happen in the consecration of the Eucharist as that the substance of the bread vanishes a way and the accidents of it remain without any substance to rest upon c. these I deny to be true miracles or works of God but a product of your erring imagination and if you will persist in calling them miracles certainly they must appear monstrous ones For the proof whereof you give your self a very considerable help by a definition or description of a miracle which you produce out of Aquinas how much to your purpost is not easie to find but very clearly it serves for my present purpose of making your pretended miracles in the Eucharist appear most properly monstrous You tell us that Aquinas saies * 1. P. quaes 105. A. 7. quod nomen miraculi ab admiratione sumitur Admiratio autem consurgit cum effectus sunt manifesti à causa occulta That the word miracle comes from admiration and this admiration doth arise when the effect appears and the cause is hidden Here we have the common and ordinary nature of a miracle described that a wonderful effect should appear tho the cause should be hidden Now it rests to know what is the proper notion of a Monster Philosophers do give us this definition of it out of Aristotle monstrum est effectus à recta solita secundum speciem dispositione degenerans A Monster is an effect degenerating from the right and common disposition of things of that kind So that a Man born with two Heads is called monstrous because he degenerats from the right and common disposition of other men The Colledg of * Conimb in Arist. 2. Phy. c. 9. q. 5. Ar. 1. Coimbra declares this to be Vulgata Monstri desinitio the vulgar or commonly received definition of a Monster Now then if the common and ordinary nature of a miracle is as you tell us out of Aquinas that the miraculous effect should be manifest and apparent tho the cause were hidden then a miracle degenerating from this common course and nature of miracles so as the effect pretended to be miraculous should not be manifest or known to any must be according to these rules a monstrous Miracle deviating and degenerating from the common course of true Miracles Of this kind are your imaginary Miracles of the Eucharist that the bread and wine should be substantially converted into the flesh and blood of our Saviour corporally present If this were so indeed and therefore a real and true Miracle this miraculous effect would appear to the senses of men as that true and miraculous conversion of the Water into Wine at the wedding in Cana of Calilee did appear to the senses of the Men present there and thereby appeared to be a true Miracle and more fit to breed a belief in the beholders which is the ordinary aim of Divine providence in working Miracles and which certainly Christ would not have obtained of the persons then present if he had only told them that the water remaining with the same color tast and smell which it had before was really converted into Wine without letting any of their senses bear testimony of such a conversion Of this latter kind are your imaginary Miracles which being of your own making I may without offence to God or prejudice to his true Miracles call them Monstrous as degenerating from the common course of true Miracles The third mistake that I am to put N. N. in mind of at present is concerning his pretention to affinity with the Greek and Ruthenian Church in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and of other points controverted with our reformed Churches for which he pleases himself in telling us of a favourable relation to his purpose given by a Muskovite Priest to a French Prelate that feasted him But that he may see how wide is his mistake herein and how far the Grecians and Ruthenians are from joining issue with the Roman Church against us I remit him to what I have related above upon more solid and authorized grounds in the 13. Chapter of this Treatise Neither indeed can I see upon what ground you can pretend to union with the Greek Church in their tenets if it be not that several of your greatest Scholemen such as are a Lomb. 1. Sent. d. 11. Sane sciendum est quod licet in praesentiarticulo a nobis Graeci verbo discordent tamen sensu non differunt Lombard b Bona. in 1. sent d. 11. A. 1.
q. 1. Bonaventure c Scot. 1. Sent. d. prima q. 1. Scotus d Aquin. 1. p. q. 36.42 Aquinas and others do endeavour to excuse the Grecians in their chief error touching the proceeding of the Holy Ghost only from the Father and not from the Son saying that therein they differ from the Roman Church only in the manner of speaking not in the substance of Doctrine CHAP. XIX N. N. His Book intitled the bleeding Iphigenia examined his abusive language bestowed therein upon persons of Honour and his censure upon the Kings Majesty reprehended THo this Book begins with me and in the running Title stiles it self a prefâ—ce to the other greater Book designed against me yet I have so little a share of this preface directed to me as I hope the discreet Reader will excuse me if I be not so large in discussing it as some may expect Truly the matter and style of it is of that nature as made me ambiguous for a time in resolving upon any reply to it But upon more consideration I conceived it my duty to make the reflexions following upon it After having bestowed some few Pages in bemoaning a supposed fall of mine from the Catholic Faith he falls suddenly to lament the sufferings of the Irish and to accuse the supposed authors of it As to the first I have endeavored to give satisfaction in the whole discourse of this Treatise if he has true charity for me he will be glad to find that I am not in that bad condition he supposed And if he will be ingenuous and has not resolved as 't is usual with them to shut his eies against all evidences that may let him see his errors or entertain a charitable thought of his Christian Neighbors he may see cleerly by what I have said hitherto that by embracing the Communion of the Church of England I have not forsaken the true Catholic Faith and Church that I am far from being guilty of the Heresies or associate of those Heretics he mentions Now as to the second touching the miseries of the Irish I heartily condole with him therein but cannot approve of his manner of pleading for them nor of some Doctrines he le ts fall by the way I think it to be a more Christian duty and more becoming a good Pastor to exhort people in affliction to a conformity with Gods Holy will and to an acknowledgment of their sins that drew his anger upon them with due repentance of them then to excuse their errors and thereby to encourage them to provoke divine justice to further severities against them The former I have don on all occasions the second I see you do in the particulars of your Book which I am to examine now I will not debate with you touching the matters of fact you handle who begun or were more faulty in those unhappy revolutions I do not envy you the occasion you had of greater knowledg in that part then I who departed the Country in my younger age two years before those Tragedies begun and never returned until some years after our Soveraigns happy Restauration I leave to others better furnished with notices to examine what you say that way But I may judg of the style and Doctrinal part of your Book grounding my judgment as I hope I shall do upon good reasons And first as touching the style I am probably perswaded that no sober or wise man even of the party you pretend to favour will approve of the harsh and contemtuous language wher with you speak of persons of great honor and quality especially of one of the great Peers of the Realm an Earle and son to one of the greatest Earles of this Monarchy Lord President of that fair and goodly Province of Munster so stiled by your self not to mention his personal talents apt to make even one of lower birth noble and to gain him respect All these titles Honorable qualities could not induce you to give him once any of those civilities and marks of respect that are due to persons of his degree and quality And what is yet more intolerable not contented to abuse his person you extend your contemtuous Language to his whole family linked by manifold ties of consanguinity with the most illustrious families of England and Ireland I know that one of the rules of your Roman * Index expurg noviss edit Matrit 1667. regul gener 16. advertent 5. Todo lo que tiene sonido â—o apariencia de alabanza se les niegue a los que estan fuera de la yglesia Specialmente todos los epitetos de bueno virtuoso y pio nlâ—el titulo de Doctor O maestro ni el de theologo Permittese dar le titulo de Sennor o Don a quien es Sennor temporal y el de Padre o suegro a quien lo es por cortezia aunque no se le deve Expurgatory is to blot out of all Books any honorary title of wit or vertue given to Heretics which is to say in their Language to any Christian that is not of their communion a rule indeed rude enough but I did not hear yet of any rule given for divesting Earles and Lords of their ordinary titles rather the said rules permit it of courtesy if it be not perhaps a branch of that grand power they give to the Pope of deposing Kings of which N. N. may pretend to partake so much as may enable him to degrade an Earle Certainly this practise of speaking with contemt to Peers Presidents of provinces may be sooner learned in the Schole of Rome then in the Schole of Christ and of his Apostles When our dear Saviour was brought before the president of Judea Pilate and most unjustly sentenced to death by him he uttered no bitter or contemtuous word against him When the great Apostle Paul was before Porcius Festus Governour of the same Province and abused by him calling his excellent speech madness Paul answered him in mild and respectful terms * Ac. 2â— 25 I am not mad most noble Festus but speak forth the words of truth and soberness Could not you likewise speak what you conceive to be truth with soberness without offending Governors and great men by contemtuous expressions Doth your calling give you greater right to reprehend Princes and Governors then that of Christ and St. Paul did to them Thus matters do go in the Schole of Christ and of his Apostles but the Roman Schole teaches different Lessons a very famous one N. N. professes to have learned there which is that he honors the Pope or Bishop of Rome whom â—e calâ—s Luminare Majus the greater light more then the King whom he stiles Luminare minus the meaner light This he saith to be the practise of his Catholics which was taught to them by Pope Innocent the Third declaring himself to be as much above Emperors and Kings on Earth as the sun is above the moon in the heavens of which
Colledg of Pamplona and Divinity scholastic Moral Polemic or Controversial in the Colledges of Pamplona Palencia Tudela and Salamanca joyning with these functions of continual teaching which in those parts are exceedingly laborious the practise of very frequent preaching together with a constant and eager study of holy scripture counsels Fathers and History Ecclesiastic in which kind of study I had alwaies my chief delight when duty and employments enjoyned upon me forced me to the study of those other faculties And is this to be a vagrant person that could bear no fruit united to the stock what fruit would be man have me bear But what if we refer him to himself few pages after saying still excessive that before I was vir Apostolicus a most resplendent star in the firmament of the true Church c. now plunged in all the contrary vices and cries * page 27. quomodo obscuratum est aurum mutatus est color optimus how is the Gold become dim how is the most fine gold changed Truly I am to return the same question upon him How came this change or * Thren 4. how came he to know it For I feel no other change in me but to the better to a quiet of conscience and full satisfaction that I am in the right way of worshipping God But I find in his own words an answer to all he saies I was before vir Apostolicus now Apostata vilis dictus a vile Apostate not really but called so and by whom by a party which I prove by demonstrative reasons not railing at random as I. E. that they have apostatized from the true faith and Doctrine of Christ in several points as evidenced both in my former discourse printed and in the second part of this treatise at large wherefore to be called Apostate by them is to me the same as if I were called a Theif or high-way Robber by one that is such himself I knowing my self to be an Alien from those practises or as if I were called an Infidel by a Turk or Pagan If I was induced to make a blind vow of blind obedience to the Pope of Rome and his Ministers I made a former vow of Religious obedience to God and his holy Laws in my baptism if I find the latter vow made to the Pope not to consist with the complyance of the former made to God as I found clearly not to consist then must I stand to my former vow made to God and rescind the latter made to the Pope If this Libeller were contented to rail at me his guilt had bin less but he extends his insolent soul language to the whole Protestant Church belching out streams against it I know not which more of brutish ignorance or hellish malice in most notorious calumnies * Pag. 30 You deserted a Church saies he in which only is Faith Religion Priests Sacrifice Altars Sacraments and real remission not only of originall sin but also of actual mortal sins all which is excluded and exploded and quite abolished by your Protestant Sect. And all this he bables out boldly without giving one word of reason for all or any part of it but I have proved with clear demonstrative reasons from the beginning of this Treatise that in the Protestant Church we have and do profess the same true Catholic faith and Religion which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and was professed by the Church first called Catholie That we have a right Hierarchy and due ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons and therefore a due administration of Sacraments and remission of sins both original by Baptism and actuall by contrition and also by absolution upon confession not only allowed but commended and enjoyned to our people and practised by many if neglected by others it s their fault not of our Church and of the horror some have to this practise wee may well say your Church to be the cause by its intolerable tyranny over consciences as well in the reservation of cases to be absolved only by Prelates or by the Pope as in the difficulties daily added touching the mode of Confessions and circumstances to be declared in them which deters many even from the right use of it and is thought to be occasion of more loss then gain of souls among you He tells me * 63. Page that I know in my conscience that the Protestant Sect doth place all happiness in the pleasures honours liberty and contentments of the body and obstructs all means and waies to vertue to Sanctity Piety Mortification c. and doth stifle the fear of a living dreadful God and all this likewise without any proof of it Was there ever seen a more desperate insolency false prophet who dost pretend to dive into the inward of my conscience known only to God and to my self I will declare to the glory of God and edification of the Christian people miserably deluded by such Slaves of fury and lies what I know in my conscience to be true That in the Protestant Church I saw more practise of solid vertue piety and devotion and of the fear of God more apt means used to purchase those vertues both by the doctrine of our Church and by the ordinances of our state then ever I saw among the Romanists Since my coming to the Protestant Church my constant habitation has bin in Trinity Colledg of Dublin where I see more practise of sobriety devotion and piety then ever I saw in a Colledg of so many young men on the Romish side Three times a day they go all to prayers to the chappel at six in the morning ten at noon and four in the evening with admirable reverence and attention their Prayers most grave and pious for all purposes and for all sorts of persons they say kneeling the Psalmes standing and the sacred Lectures they hear sitting reverently and bare-headed with a respect due to the Lessons used by them sacred indeed as taken out of those blessed fountains of Living waters of the old and new Testament not out of the broaken Cisterns of Romantic Legends all being read in a voice audible and language intelligible and thereby sutable to the edification and instruction of all the people present The same order and style I see observed in the Palaces of Princes and Prelates and in the houses of Gentlemen and godly persons all the family being called to pray together in the Chappel or other decent room of the house after the manner now declared When I come to the Royal Castle or palace of Dublin there I see the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to whom a judicious French * Georg Fournier in geograph li. i. cujus praecipua inter omnes qui n Europasunt Pro reges eminent authoritas writer gives the Chief place among all the Viceroyes of Europe with all his flourishing family and many Nobles attending on his Excellency break off discourses and business tho weighty and serious and answer the found
of a Bell calling upon all at set hours to prayers in the Chappel to which they assist with singular piety and gravity If I look upon the people flocking to their public Churches on holy daies the very silence and modesty of their carriage in the streets gives me a Testimony of their inward good disposition and when they are come to the Church each one retires to his respective seat all being decently severed to avoid confusion and disorders Divine Office is performed in a most grave and decent manner all fitted to the benefit and spiritual food of souls so as if any Hymm or Psalm be sung with more exquisite music the Chanter or some other of the Quire admonishes the people what Psalm or verse is to be sung that seeing it in their Books they may be furnished with the sense that thereby the music may work better on their minds to devotion so great a care is taken that in all we pay to God rationabile obsequium a rational service with sense and feeling of what we do What if I consider the admirable devotion and reverence wherewith they go to receive the sacred Communion far greater then ever I saw with Papists tho pretending to believe something more they know not themselves what about the presence of our Saviour in that Sacrament then Protestants do A spectacle of this kind certainly grateful to God and to his Angels which I saw in Christs Church of Dublin on Resurrection Sunday last year sticks fast in my memory with joy The most Reverend the Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin Chancellor of Ireland having performed the Communion office with singular decency and good order he took himself first reverently the sacred Communion and gave it to the Minister of the Altar then to the Lord Leiutenant to the Peers and the Roial Council and to a numerous concourse all receiving it with singular devotion having for associates in giving it the most Reverend the Arch-Bishop of Armagh Primate of all Ireland the Right Reverend the Bishop of Meath the chief of the Bishops of Ireland after the Metropolitans and three dignitaries of the Church Doctors in Divinity to administer the Cup each one making a Godly brief exhortation to the receiver for a due receiving of it the Lord Arch-Bishop having read at the Communion Table a grave and pious Homily exhorting to a right preparation for receiving that venerable Sacrament as is usually don in all Churches upon such an occasion Go now Mr. I. E. and compare these practises of piety and devotion with your number of Ave Marias ran over Beads of stick or glass sitting or walking and mixing with them several talks to the people about you with your Mass mumbled over in hast and the people thronging to have a sight of the Priest and a touch of the holy water without understanding a word of what is saying This is your ordinary course of devotion and spiritual assistance given to your people if some particular persons will not provide otherwise for themselves And you speak to me of your deiform intentions of ravishing devotions c. I saw much of those devotions among your Extatics and in them much of delusion cheat and vanity I wish I may never see more of them What shall I say of the preaching used in the Protestant Church truly Apostolic and godly all delivering doctrinam sanam irreprehensibilem sound and blameless doctrine I may say with truth that I never saw a Protestant preacher yet giving a Sermon that was undecent or unbecoming that place not so with you There would I see frequently shewers of non-sens madness and blasphemies preached one to magnify his order will make his Frier a Cherubin another to out go him will make his a Seraphin and another thinking that but a small purchase will set up his Saint higher then Jesus Christ and the holy Trinity with other desperate essaies like those I produced above chap. 26. This lofty style certainly you missed in me when you tell your reader that tho I was a professor of Divinity yet not of any solid intensive learning a Pag. 56. In Epist de dicaâ— and in all the Doctors of the Protestant Church when you stile them ignorant Sciolists Good Lord who knows them and knows you as any may by your goodly Book what will he judg of your presumtion Finally will you tell me what purchase did you expect to make by your defamatory Libel to get the credit of an eminent Scold I confeses you deserve it and the highest chair appointed for persons of that quality And as for me you have confirmed me in the esteem of the election I made and in the acknowledgment of the great mercy of God in drawing me out of a Congregation where the spirit of fury and untruth animating all your Libel is countenanced If we are to believe you and shall we you had the boldness to present it to a most illustrious person whom I forbear to name for very reverence fearing an offence even in mentioning that so durty a piece of Paper should be put into such hands You tell us moreover that it was published by the approbation of your Superiors If it be so certainly God has turned the counsel of your Ahitophels into foolishness Let any man that hath not lost his wits judg whether it be tolerable that men who profess to be poor and humble should speak so scornfully and contemtuously of so great and illustrious a part of Christianity as we have seen the Protestant Church to be whether it be prudence in persons complaining that they are persecuted for their Religion and under the lash of a Protestant Government to cock and insult upon their masters with barbarous abusive language and most gross and manifest calumnies Mr. I. E. knows that in two visits he was pleased to bestow on me after he had honor'd me with his famous Libel excusing the harsh Language of it I told him my discontent was not for any injury don to me but for the prejudice I conceived such undiscreet writings would bring upon his poor Countrymen and mine of the Romish Communion of whose wellfare I could not omit to be solicitous and grieve for the harm they have received often by the means of blind Zelots Truly I was much pleased with the knowledge he seemed to have of my temper very alien from spite or malice and of the spirit of the Protestant Church in coming so freely to me after such heavy affronts published by him against both I do admire and honor the singular patience and Christian modesty of the English Government in not being to severe as Romanists are where they can command in punishing such proceedings and if Mr. I. E. and his council were wise they should rather honour then abuse this modesty of their Masters When I consider the different procedure of the Protestant Church and of the Romish with their desertors I am strongly confirmed in the choise I made If
ramble at this rate I confess plainly it seems to me intolerable and a sad task to dispute with a person of so irregular a style But if what I related of learned Protestants be so indeed which way comes it to be a Blasphemy to tell truth Now to know whether it be so let any that ever heard learned Protestants deliver their opinion upon that subject or did read their writings tell whether he knew any of them say that the Popish Religion in general and absolutely speaking is a sure way to Salvation or whether they could say it in consequence to their assertions ever accusing the Church of Rome of Idolatry superstition impiety c. crimes certainly inconsistent with Salvation if Ignorance did not excuse or penitence heal the malady The Testimony of Learned †Chillingworth part 1. c. 2. n. 17. Chillingworth well versed in the Doctrine of both parties may serve for many to this purpose who relating that Franciscus à sancta Clara and the Jesuit his Antagonist among other Learned Romanists do assure that ignorance and repentance may excuse a Protestant from Damnation he dying in his error adds these words and this is all the charity which by your own confession also the most favorable Protestants allow to Papists Here we have witnesses of both sides affirming that Protestants do not allow Salvation to Papists if ignorance or repentance will not protect them how then comes it to be so great a Paradox in me to tell they say so a greater Paradox certainly to say it should be blasphemy to tell it CHAP. II. A Vindication of several Saints and worthy souls our Ancestors from the sentence of Damnation passed upon them by I. S. TO render me odious to my Lord Lieutenant to my own kindred and to all good men he pretends that I adjudg unto Hell his Excellencies Ancestors my own Ancestors St. Bernard Aquinas and other holy men The ground he alledges for fathering this severe sentence upon me is that I should say that in the Popish religion none may be saved and which is more intolerable that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church All men that know my Principles and Temper in writing and speaking will admire the impudence of this man imputing to me such desperate rude Positions That none may be saved in the Romish or Popish Religion I never said with that generality but with a limitation leaving a gate to Salvation for innumerable good souls and for the holy and renowned men he mentions as I shall now declare To declare for damned all the adverse parties of Christians without distinction is a rashness I ever abhorred and constantly opposed in the Romanists when I was on their side and which I would not imitate against my present adversaries much less did I or could I say that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church out of which I expect no Salvation for my self or others I have said indeed and proved with reasons which I. S. will never solve that the Roman Church according to the present profession and practice of it is not a safe way to Salvation generally and absolutely speaking that many of the Tenets and Practises of it are inconsistent with Salvation in such as understanding the error of them do continue to embrace them This I have said and will maintain at all times by the help of God and truth but how different this is from saying that in the Roman Church a man may not be saved and that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church any man of common sense may easily conceive and withall judg how unpleasing a work it is to spend precious time in debating with a man of so confused brains and ill digested expressions Now therefore the foundation laied for the censure of Damnation passed against those Saints and renowned men not being from me but from the fancy or fiction of I. S. it remains that he is the Author of that malignant Censure my work will be to vindicate the persons injured from that cruell sentence by shewing that it is not a consequence of my opinion above mentioned own'd and confirm'd by many thousands of Learned and pious men The stress of his Argument and where he hopes to be more successfull is what concerns Thomas of Aquin. He sayes that the Sanctuary of ignorance which we allow to others for escaping Damnation can not avail him being well versed in Scripture and an eminent Master in most Sciences and so he conceives his Damnation unavoidable in consequence to my forementioned position and the common sense of all the reformed Churches and thence proceeds to sound a Triumph as to a manifest victory But if Mr. I. S. his Logic makes a Demonstration to him of this consequence it do's not to me nor will to any ordinary Logician that understands the terms and state of the Question If he do's not know how to save Aquinas and several other good learned men of the Roman Church from damnation in the opinion of so many thousands of Learnâ—d men of the Reformed Churches I can and will teach him I am not of those fiery spirits reproved by the Royal piety of King James who affirm that in the Popish Religion none can be saved as Mr. I. S. do's falsely and maliciously to his own knowledg impose upon me I incline with my study and wishes and more willingly deliver my opinion for the Salvation then for the Damnation of men when by the least probability induced thereunto And first for Aquinas and other learned men of his time I thus plead The errors and foul practices of the Roman Church were not so many then as now they increase daily They have not bin so known and cleared in the Crucible of public opposition none dared to check them and so they kept credit The impostures fallacies and absurdities of Mr. I. S. his book will not be so well known to his proselytes possessed with prejudices and to others that see it alone as to indifferent persons that will conferr it with my exceptions against it so it is with those erroneous tenets that began to be in use in Aquinas his time or somewhat before and were not opposed Secondly for many learned men even of our own time which seems more difficult I say invincible ignorance may be pleaded For which I advertise that invincible Ignorance according to the common use of Scholes and our present purpose is not that which by no means absolutely possible may be avoided but such as one may not remedy by means obvious to him according to his state and condition In this sense Shepherds and the like in Spain and â—taly that want instruction for knowing the Creed or Ten Commandments are commonly excused upon the account of invincible Ignorance and the fault laid upon their fathers masters or curates In like manner I say many professors of philosophy and divinity in Spain and Italy may be invincibly ignorant of the malice contained in
the erroneous Principles they profess having sucked them in their tender years as divine verities proceeding from a living reputed Infallible Autority They never heard them controuled or examined no books written against them were permitted to come in their sight They were taught it was a sin to doubt of the truth of their tenets ergo those men wanted the ordinary means of instruction and consequently may have the refuge of invincible Ignorance All this I know to be so by my own experience Having lived in Spain many years and having had for several of them licence from the Inquisitor general to read all manner of prohibited books the prohibition was so severe that I could never find one book of a Protestant to read And even in Ireland where more liberty may be expected there is a severe prohibition of reading books opposing the Romish tenets which appeared particularly touching that small book I published For offering it to be read by a Romish priest Vicar General of a famous Church in that kingdom that he might see I did not without consideration and reason what I did he desired to be excused from reading it fearing it would raise in him doubts which he could not solve and this injunction being so severe upon persons of that degree must be more indispensable upon the vulgar Means of instruction for knowing their errors being thus carefully prohibited to them of the Romish Communion in all times and places we may favorably conceive that many of them both learned and unlearned may have the excuse of invincible Ignorance the sin lying upon the Statists that for temporal ends do debar them from the means of healthful knowledg One touch more in favour of the learned Very many of them having bestowed the flower of their age in studies of Humanity Philosophy and Divinity speculative are taken up and often kept all their life time teaching those faculties without ever reflecting upon or having means to know the errors of their Church in the points controverted They take them upon the credit of their instructors for infallible verities being continually beaten into their ears with horror and execration against the opposite doctrine And how great the power of education and prejudice is let the Dominicans and Jesuits testifie How fierce and eagerly doth each one act and opine for the Schole he was educated in and against the opposite By this it appears how vain the Triumph of I. S. is as if in my opinion all learned men dying in the communion of the Church of Rome were damned to hell We have seen that impious sentence to be a product of his fancy no consequence of any doctrine of mine More rash and wicked was his attemt in casting the like sentence of Damnation upon those glorious Saints and great Doctors of the Church St. Augustin St. Jerome St Chrysostom What have they to do with his errors to be damned for them Strong opposers no Patrons of them were they as partly I have already and after will more fully declare It appears likewise by this discourse how ridiculous his charge upon me is of contradiction and speaking against my conscience in calling Thomas Aquinas a Saint I have declared how that doth consist with and contradicteth not what I have delivered touching the unsecurity of Salvation in the Communion of the Roman Church He pretends to render me guilty in the Tribunal of the English Inquisition for calling Aquinas a Saint but the inquisition of England is not so rude as that of Rome in denying common civility to men and the honorary Titles custom do's allow them He may as well accuse the compilers of the London Gazets for giving to the Pope the title of Holiness and will have as much thanks for it as for his present impeachment of me for calling Aquinas a Saint We do not take it for a certain proof of holiness to be canonized in the Church of Rome Many of their own more learned writers deny it to be unerreable therein It is not merit only gets that honor there And tho we know all this to be so we do not grudg to call those Saints we find by custom to be called so And by all that is said hitherto we may see and wonder how rare the boldness of this man is to term it Blasphemy in me to relate the common opinion of all learned Protestants or to consent to it and to propose to have us all burned for it by sentence of our own chief Governor to pretend for this wicked attemt the Authority of our Soveraign King James of glorious memory whose Decrees and sentiments herein I do most willingly obey and consent unto to impose upon me an opinion I never uttered by word or writing nor ever harbored in my thought that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church that her errors are inconsistent with Salvation to clip my words and force them against my will and well declared meaning to his malicious purposes And notwithstanding these enormous excesses and absurdities of his speech his presumtion is so blind that he concludes his Dedicatory Epistle saying that tho his Treatise contained nothing else but this check he gives to me it must be grateful to his Excellency If this address were made to a weak or dull person it were yet criminal enough but presented to so deep a judgment and well known wisdom as that of my Lord Lieutenant pardon me sacred laws of modesty if I say its a very insolent boldness But now to our chief case in Debate CHAP. III. Mr. S. his cold defence of the Infallibility of his Church examined BOTH in my Declaration and in my printed Sermon or discourse against the errors of the Roman Church I signified that the only anchor left to keep me in the communion of it after a strong apprehension of its erroneous Tenets was the opinion of Infallibility granted to that Church and the Head of it But that anchor being cut off and a clear discovery made of the fallacy of their pretended Infallibility I set open my eyes and heart to receive the light which God sent me in his holy Writ to discover their pernicious errors and declare for his truth against them My adversary preceiving this to be the hinge all the Fabric go's on and that if I were perswaded to that Infallibility I would blind my eyes and follow without any further dispute the conduct of such a Guide goes about to set up the said Infallibility with all his power and so entitles his book The unerring unerreable Church But his way to compass his design is very odd which is yielding to my first and main attack upon it that is the uncertainty of such an Infallibility to assist them which I proveed by the disconformity of their Authors in asserting it and the weakness of the grounds they produce for it But Mr. I. S. in the page 167. gives me leave to believe what I please therein It s no article of faith
saith he that the Pope is infallible If he misliked that doctrine he might have denyed it and remain a Catholic A Catholic I may remain and do but not of their communion that Prop failing for those structures which I saw clearly to be ruinous without it It is an intolerable cavil to say I should speak of the Pope alone or of the Roman Diocess to delude the Reader with impertinent Digressions as often he doth I having clearly expressed my meaning to be that neither the Pope alone nor in a Council such as that of Trent nor the Congregation under his obedience are infallible To say the said Congregation should be the Church Universal which I allow according to St. Pauls Expression to be the pillar and ground of truth is an arrogant begging of a conclusion which will never be allow'd to them all Christian Churches that differ from them which are far the greater part of Christendom crying against their blind presumtion in appropriateing unto themselves the name of the Catholic Church That the Church truly Universal composed of all believers in Christ whether diffusive or representative in a Council truly Oecumenicall and free such as were the first four General Councils and such as was not the Councill of Trent is to have the assistance of the holy Ghost so that tho it be not properly infallible yet it shall not err in things fundamental to mens Salvation I do piously believe and of my meaning therein I gave him no occasion to doubt Therefore if he will speak to the purpose granting it is not an Article of faith that the Pope is infallible in the sense I denyed infallibility to him that is to say in a Council of those depending upon him or out of it it follow 's they have no certainty for their Tenets relying upon the Popes Infallibility which being no article of faith cannot be certain in it self nor consequently give certainty to things depending upon it He only allow's Infallibility to the Pope jointly with a general Council Herein he gratifies the Jansenists who may by this plead for indemnity notwithstanding the definitions of Innocent the Tenth and Alexander the Seventh against them which being not confirmed or autorized by a general Council in conjunction with the Pope cannot pretend to Infallibility in Mr. I. S. his opinion who hereby must incense against himself all the party adverse to the Jansenists which will prove too hard for him But he saies all Catholics do agree in the Infallibility of the Pope and a generall Council Therefore Aquinas Turrecremata and Alphonsus à Castro are in his opinion no Catholics of whom * Can. l. 4. De lo. c. 4. Aquin in 4 d. 6. qu. 1. art 7. in 3. qu. 2. ad 3. Turrecrem l. 2. sum Ecclesiae c. 91. Alphons à Cast de just Haer. pun l. c. 5. gloss interlin in illud Math. 16. portae infer c. Canus relates that the Church even Pope and Council together may err materially in their opinion as I mentioned in the 30. page of my discourse which if he did consider and examine he would not so peremtorily assert that all Catholics do agree in the Infallibility of Pope and Councel jointly Neither indeed do's Mr. S. himself sâ—em to be very strong in the belief of this Infallibility for in the comfort he gives his brethren on this account extolling magnificently their happiness herein above Protestants he so orders the matter that their comfort must not be grounded upon the real existence of that Infallibility but upon a strong apprehension or belief of it tho not extant It is a comfort saies he to an unacquainted Traveller to be guided by one whom he firmly believes to be acquainted with the way tho really your guide were not acquainted with the way if you câ—â—tainly believe that he is and cannot stray c. This is such another comfort as the grand Turk gives to his men that dying in his quarrel they go immediately to Paradise tho it be not so it s a comfort to think it is A sad comfort for the unhappy souls lost but commodious for the Turk to get by these means people to sight desperately and dye for him Thus it is with the Church or Court of Rome To believe they are infallible is a satisfaction to the people and very important for the autâ—rity and grandeur of that Court whether it be so indeed is not material The understanding of this mystery we are to owe to Mr. S. his ingenuity Poor man he has not been well acquainted with the intrigues of that Court they do not love to have arcana imperii the mysteries of their government discovered He will certainly fall short of his expected remuneration for his writing and if a Cap be deputed to him for it sure I am it will not be that of a Cardinal CHAP. IV. That Protestants have a greater security for the truth of their doctrine then Papists have Mr. I. S. his ridiculous exposition and impious contradicting of St. Pauls Text in favor of Scripture rebuked OUR Adversary triumphs upon the aforesaid comfort of Papists in apprehending their Guide to be Infallible tho he be not so indeed which comfort he saies the Protestants cannot have being guided by a Church which they believe is not so well assured of the way but they may err God forbid Protestants should not have a better warrant for the truth of their Doctrine then that he gives to Papists They have the infallible word of God delivering all their doctrine and clearly containing all that is necessary to Salvation and a perfect life as appears evidently by what I delivered in the discourse which Mr. I. S. go's about to oppose and will be further evidenced by shewing how vain and weak the opposition is They have besides in the general tradition of the Church a full and sufficient certainty that the books commonly received for Canonical are the true word of God and therefore are certain of Gods infallible autority assisting in favor of the verities contained in those books which kind of certainty tho only morall touching the existence of Gods revelation in favor of those verities joined with an absolute and undoubted Certainty that whatsoever God reveals is infallible verity makes up all the certainty that a pious and prudent believer ought to expect in matters of divine faith Mr. I. S. talks of a kind of certainty requisite for Divine faith which I doubt muâ—h whether he or any of his party ever had for all those articles they pretend to be of faith He tells us and takes it upon credit of his instructors without much examination as often he does in other matters that for all acts of belief touching revealed truths an absolute certainty is requisite clearing the believer from all manner of doubt If you speak of an objective certainty relating to the mystery revealed all true believers have it being fully assured that God cannot reveal an untruth but
perpetual assistance This assistance of Christ to his own true Church following the steps and doctrine of the Apostles we believe with joy but cannot approve the Arrogancy of Mr. I. S. and his brethren in appropriating all such promises to their own Faction and perpetually taking for granted in his Debates with us that to be the only Church favoured by such gracious promises being indeed but a very corrupt Member of the Church Universal to whom these promises were made a thing which we do not say barely but prove evidently Another example of their skill in clipping and corrupting Scripture he fetches out of the same Store-house upon the words of John XIV 16. I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter the spirit of truth that will abide with you for ever who will lead you unto all truth I discovered their abuse of this Text by restoring it to its integrity which according to their own Bible goes in these words If ye love me keep my commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive By the first words we see this to be a conditional promise limited to such as love God and keep his Commandments by the latter words worldly and sinful men are expresly excluded from receiving that gracious assistance of the Spirit of truth for which meaning of these words I related the Gloss interlineal and ordinary This discourse our Adversary opposes thus that after the former clause if you love me keep my commandments there is a punctum and then follows a distinct verse and I will ask my Father and he will give you another Paraclete c. which makes an absolute sense independent from the former This is indeed a subtilty well becoming a Sophister as if a punctum may not be interposed betwixt several clauses of one discourse tending to the same end or betwixt premises and a conclusion deduced from them as if the copulative particle and did not signify a conjunction of both clauses and an influence of the one upon the other as if all that were not cleared by the words I quoted in the Margin of the Gloss interlineal Mundus i. e. remanens amator mundi cum quo nunquam est amor Dei and of the Gloss ordinary non habent spirituales oculos quibus Spiritum Sanctum videant mundi amatores Here we see both Glosses denying the effect of that glorious promise to profane worldlings and consequently the promise made only to lovers of God and keepers of his holy Commandments If our Adversary were ingenuous he would spare his silly subtilties seeing them obstructed by this stating of the case CHAP. VIII Mr. I. S. his horrible impiety against the sacred Apostles and malicious imposing on the Church of England reprehended ANother grand Argument he has which he saies resolutely I can never answer is this that if the foresaid promise John XIV 16. was conditional as above-mentioned it follows we cannot be sure the Gospel is infallible whereas no Text of Scripture saies he pag. 89. tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it My first answer to this so unanswerable Argument is that if this man had delivered this expression in Spain and were accused to the Inquisition his body would suffer for it if his intellect were not reduced to acknowledg and repent the horrid impiety of it And I am certainly perswaded that there is no Christian that has any sense of piety in him whether Protestant or Papist but will cry out with horror against the insolent impiety of this man in speaking so irreverently of those sacred Organs of the Holy Ghost and blessed Disciples of Christ confirmed by him in grace as is the common apprehension and expression of Christians and replenished with the Holy Ghost Act. 2.4 for whose perseverance in grace our Saviour praied so fervently to his heavenly Father as we see in John the XVII 11. Holy Father keep through thine own name those thou hast given me Upon which words Maldonate delivers this Gloss Non rogat Christus ut nunc à peccatis liberentur sed ut jam liberati in eo statu quo erant conserventur ne quis ab eâ decedat gratiâ quam consecutus suo erat beneficio quemadmodum Judae contigerat That our Saviour praied for their perseverance in grace that none of them should fall from it as Judas did And will this rash man say that the praier of our Saviour was not heard nor his request granted by his heavenly Father in favor of his beloved Disciples If he will not be so profligately impious how dares he say that no Text of Scripture tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it If his Book did contain no other crime then this unchristian expression any true disciple of Christ and believer of his Gospel ought to judg the said Book more worth the burning then the reading He is not yet contented with the damnable expression fore-mentioned but must raise his censure against the truth of the Gospel of Christ to a higher degree p. 89. saying that not only we are not sure of the Infallibility of the Gospel but that we are assured it is not infallible and this horrible Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and the Gospel dictated by him he must father upon the Protestant Church but upon a ground so much of his own making that any dispassionate man and not blind may see the whole assertion to be his own and a product of his inclination which appears here and in many other places of destroying the foundations of all Christian Belief The ground he gives for this latter most damnable Blasphemy is That the common doctrine of the Protestant Church is That it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments therefore saies he The Evangelists when they wrote did not keep Gods Commandments and consequently they could not have the Paraclete to lead them into truth I never yet heard any Protestant deliver such a desperate proposition as this he fathers upon them which thus delivered categorically without further declaration or limitation were to say it were impossible for any man to be saved our Saviour often declaring that the only way to life everlasting is to keep Gods Commands It were also to give the lie to our Redeemer saying that his yoke is easy and his burden light Mat. XI 30. and that his Commandments are not grievous 1 Joh. V. 3. If he knows any Protestant Writer to have delivered that position in that latitude why do's not he tell me who he is and where he saith it that I may judg accordingly of the Author and of the Doctrine Must I take it upon his credit having so many experiences of
the untruth of his relations That he must not expect from me I suppose he found this doctrine which he saies to be common in the Protestant Church where he found me saying that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church as he do's most impudently impose upon me in his Dedicatory Epistle to my Lord Lieutenant This is their ordinary way of begetting in their Proselytes an abhorrence to their opposers viz. impostures and calumnies Of their calumny in this particular learned Le Blane complains declares thus in the behalf of Protestants cum Scriptura dicimus docemus fideles Dei mandata per Christi gratiam servare c. Thesi â—6 27. de observant Leg. We say and teach with the Scripture that the faithful do keep the Commandments of God by the grace of Christ Let not our Sophister think to appease my just indignation against him or to escape the censure I pass upon him of a blasphemous contemner of the Gospel of Christ and the sacred Writers of it the blessed Evangelists by saying he do's not assert himself the foresaid affronts he puts on the Gospel and the Evangelists but that he infers them from positions of the Protestant Church The whole doctrine and belief of the Protestant Church is contained in the Canonical Scripture and in the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England We are not in that confusion and uncertainty touching the object of our belief as he and his party are betwixt so many Articles dayly coined one overthrowing the other In what place of Canonical Scripture or of the foresaid thirty nine Articles did he find this proposition which he saies is the common doctrine of the Church of England That it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments which being all the ground he shews for this blasphemous Assertion that we are assured the Evangelists when they wrote the Gospel were not in the love of God and observance of his Commandments and by that assured the Gospel is not infallible the said ground I say not being to be found in any place of the fore-mentioned Rule and Canon of our Belief I conclude the Assertion pretended to flow from it to be of his own invention and his own sentiment Let this therefore be known to be his Tenet and Assertion to his eternal infamy That we are sure the Evangelists when they wrote the Gospel were not in the state of Grace that we are sure the Gospel is not infallible One that is found with a stoln horse is to be taken for the thief till he prove that he has received it lawfully from another We find that execrable Blasphemy in the mouth of I. S. Let him be taken and punished for Author of it if any just inquisition find him since he can find no other Author for it But all his Sophistry will not afford him even the least colour of excuse for the former part of his Assertion for which he will not be beholden to any other but delivers it for a document of his own That no Text of Scripture tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor any thing else gives us assurance of it Ask of any boy in Spain or Flanders but meanly catechized whether he was not taught by his Curate and Parents that the Apostles by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them were confirmed in grace wherewith we are assured they never lost it after And in case our Adversary should gain by some pictures or medals the votes of the boys in his favor other Doctors we have which he shall not so easily gain to his side who affirm that the sacred Apostles after receiving the Holy Ghost were so confirmed and strengthned in grace that no humane power or temtation could make them fail in their fidelity to God S. Augustin for one thus delivers his opinion Homil. 9. de Missione Spiritus Sancti Ante adventum vero Spiritus Sancti sub ipso crucis dominicae tempore alii ex discipulis effugantur alii unius Ancillae voce terrentur metu corda trepida penetrante dominum suum negare coguntur Post illustrationem vero Spiritus Sancti Confirmationem custodiis excruciati verberibus afflicti ibant gaudentes quia digni essent pro Christi nomine contumeliam pati That the Apostles so frail before as to run from their Master and deny him at the instance of a girl after being confirmed in grace by receiving the Holy Ghost were so constant in suffering prisons and scourgings that they rejoyced for being worthy of suffering for Christ The same doctrine of the Apostles being confirmed in grace by the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them so as they were by Gods special protection preserved from falling from it all their life tho otherwise peccable is delivered by other * Tertullian contra Praxed c. 34. Leo Magnus Ser. 2. de Pentecost Gregor Papa Homil. 30. in Evang. Chrysostom Homil. 4. in acta Apost Bernard Ser. in Fest Pentecostes Aquinas qu. 24. de Veritate art 9. ad 2. Justinianus disput 1. ex praeviis in Paulum c. 5. nu 7. Corn. Ã Lap. ad versum 3. c. 2. Actor Fathers and Scholemen All this force of testimonies of Scripture Fathers and Divines being in favor of the sacred Apostles to have bin confirmed in grace and preserved in it all their life how comes our Adversary to say we have no assurance of their being in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel Did they not write it after the Holy Ghost descended upon them Which shall we admire most his ignorance or impiety Truly he has given such testimony of both in this his undertaking rebuked in this Chapter that we might very well bid him farewell here and leave him as unworthy of any further reply But whereas he may meet with readers so short sighted as not to take notice of absurdities and guilts even of this size we will continue yet helping â—hem to find out gross errors and crimes in his writing CHAP. IX Our Adversaries pretention to prescription and miracles in favor of the Infallibility of their Church rejected his imposing on me and on the Church of England discovered further OUR Sophister finding but little right by Scripture or reason for the pretended Infallibility of his Church appeals to the title of Prescription that they have bin long time in possession of this prerogative and ought not to be disturbed now in the use of it Here he prepares a defence for thieves and robbers If they have our goods long time in their possession we must leave them to such possessors and not disturb them in the use of them The Turk is hereby justified in his possession of the holy Land and other Dominions of Christian Princes he has robbed The attempt of the said Princes in dispossessing this Robber is unjust according to Mr. I. S. his Logic. In it he could not find this rule of Law
Quae ab initio sunt male constituta tempore non convalescunt That what was unlawful in the beginning grows not by continuance lawful nor this other Non debet quis commodum reportare ex crimine none ought to find an advantage in a guilt for his defence An unjust usurper by a continuance of his usurpation is rendred rather more guilty then excusable We have shown by evident proofs that the pretention of the Roman Church to Infallibility was and is still an unjust usurpation a robbery of a priviledg belonging unto God and his holy Scripture communicated to the Apostles founders of Christian Religion and to the Church truly Catholic and Universal sticking to the Doctrine and Belief which Christ and his Apostles left to us not to that factious party devoted to the Pope of Rome which Mr. I. S. would have us take for the only Church committing in all his discourses a perpetual Solecism against the laws of a Disputant which is to take for granted the subject of the Debate which is constantly deny'd to them But his Logic will not take notice of these niceties Now therefore to accuse us that we disturb them in the possession of their Infallibility is like the complaint of a certain Gentleman against a Merchant calling on him for an old debt He ranted and swore he was a troublesom companion for importuning for the payment of a debt of so many years as if it were but of yesterday his delay in paying was an increase of his guilt The retaining of another mans goods as well as the taking them away against his will is robbery Thus it is in our case the pretention of the Roman Faction to Infallibility was a robbery from the beginning an imposing upon man kind as I have proved and the continuance of it is an increase of their guilt why will Mr. I. S. make this increase of their guilt an excuse of it Besides to say that his Church was in all Ages in peaceable possession of this prerogative of Infallibility as he do's pag. 76. is a wide mistake and as he asserts it without proof he must be contented with a bare denial for an answer while we leave him to look after any pertinent testimony of the Fathers of the first three hundred nay for a thousand years for his purpose which he shall never find In the seventh Chapter of his Book p. 102. he falls abruptly upon the old armory of miracles in favor of his Church Of this I could not but wonder having seen him p. 81. engage his whole Logic against the power of Miracles for breeding in men a saving divine Faith for said he Either they are only probable or evident if probable only they are not proportionable to give us that certainty required for divine Faith if evident absolutely they can be no motive of Faith which is of its own nature obscure In which piece of Logic he gives a clear testimony of his Impiety and Ignorance Impiety in pretending to weaken that strong foundation of Christian Belief taken from the glory of Miracles for which I remit him to what he alledges himself from the foresaid p. 102. Ignorance in pretending that an obscure Conclusion may not be deduced from an evident Premise To prove notum per ignotius a Conclusion clear by a Premise or Medium more obscure is a known fault in arguing but to prove by an evident Medium a Conclusion obscure is a fault of arguing never heard of yet before Mr. I. S. his Logic. By this Canon he makes the belief of Martha to be indiscreet who seeing the resurrection of her brother and other Miracles our Saviour wrought concluded I beleive that thou art Christ the son of God The miracle was evident but the generation of Christ from his heavenly Father obscure And who shall declare his generation Esa III. 8. Having thus helped him against himself for rendring Miracles a congruous way to find out true Religion I gladly accept the challenge to a trial of our Religion by them Our Religion or the object of our necessary Belief is only what is contained in the word of God by Canonical Scripture In favor of this Belief we have all the Miracles written in the Old and New Testament Their Religion as opposite to ours and differing from us are those Articles in debate introduced by the Roman Church Transubstantiation Purgatory Worship of Images c. Will he for shame pretend the stock of Romanies produced by them for these Innovations fit to be compared with the store of glorious Miracles which we have in the behalf of our divine truly infallible Belief contained in holy Scripture While we show his new Belief to be contrary to this divine Faith confirmed with Miracles of infallible truth as we do let him keep to himself his new-coin'd wonders and remember that God is not contrary to himself in putting his Seal to contrary Laws And if he must believe some of the wonders he proposes let Lessius and others help him to understand what to make of those miracles or wonders which Valerius Maximus Titus Livius and other Roman Historians do relate to have bin wrought in favor of their Temples and heathenish Superstitions and let him not expect from me that I should bestow time in examining the truth or false-hood of all his impertinent Allegations In the same seventh Chapter from p. 126. he fastens on me two notorious calumnies first that having left the Roman Church I fixed upon no other to be of the second that I said none may be saved in the Roman Church The falsehood of the first is seen by my public declaration for the Church of England the untruth of the other I declared in the second Chapter of this Treatise whereby all his verbosity upon this subject appears a fret of his Malice without any real ground without shame to tax me often with and repete with his frivolous exclamations without shewing where or when I did say what indeed I never said or wrote That there is no salvation in the Roman Catholic Religion With the same confidence and the like untruth he repetes That it is the constant doctrine of the Church of England that the Romish Religion is a saving Religion or a safe way to salvation which is what we deny them Let the Reader reflect upon what I said in the foresaid second Chapter of this Treatise and see the confusion of this mans brains in not understanding or delivering distinctly our sentiments according to our own expressions or the corruption of his mind in deceiving wilfully his Reader especially that he himself p. 133. alledgeth Doctor Stillingfleet comparing both Churches the Romish to a leaky Ship wherein a man may be saved but with great danger and difficulties and the Protestant to a sound Ship wherein one may be saved without hazard This is the utmost of courtesy or charity that may be and is extended to them Is this to say the Romish Church is a
safe way to salsation Is it safe to venture in a leaky Ship upon a stormy Sea But what saies he to the streams of learned Authors of the Protestant Church which Dr. Stillingfleet relates and of the very learned Book he wrote himself proving with irresistible Arguments that the Romish Church in several of her present Tenets and Practices is guilty of Idolatry Is Idolatry of those pious opinions which matter not for salvation And let Mr. I.S. know that I considered long and examined throughly the doctrine of the Church of England before I declared for it and he may spare his labour of catechizing me in the Tenets of it CHAP. X. A check to Mr. I. S. his insolent Thesis prefixed for title to the eighth Chapter of his Book That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it That they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets And his own Argument retorted to prove that the Roman Church is not the Church of Christ UNder so pregnant and big promising a title as this That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it that they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets c. and that in a Book presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the Earl of Essex under so magnificent a title I say exposed to the view of so great and judicious a person who would not expect a very exquisite discourse to go through so stout an undertaking And behold Reader what Mr. I. S. presents to his Excellency for that purpose For a Foundation of his discourse he will have us premise that Protestants do allow Papists not to err in points Fundamental to Salvation that our differences with them are about points not Fundamental He do's not seem to regard or know which be these points call'd Fundamental or not Fundamental which is a bad beginning to be clear and exact in the present Engagement But he is to suppose with Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Potter and other learned Writers of both Churches * See Chillingworth his Answer to the Book intitled Charity maintained c. c. 4. And Dr. Hammond in his Treatise of Fundamentals c. 2. Stillingfleet in his Rational Account Part. 1. cap. 2. B. Laud p. 42. following therein the common opinion of Fathers and Scholemen that the points Fundamental or of necessary belief to Salvation and to the constitution of a true Christian Church are those contained in the Apostles Creed which is a system or summary of Articles which those sacred Founders of Christianity thought fit and sufficient to be proposed to all men where the Gospel was preached and necessary to be explicitly believed So as the Council of Trent calls it Fundamentum firmum unicum Sess 3. not the firm alone but the only Foundation Points not Fundamental or inferior truths are all other divine Verities contained in the Word of God whether written in Canonical Scripture or delivered to us by Apostolical Universal Tradition implicitly contained in the Creed where we profess to believe in God and in the Catholic Church and explicitly to be believed when we should be ascertained that they are contained in those Oracles of God called inferior truths not that they are of less certainty and objective Infallibility in themselves then the other called Fundamental but because the explicit knowledg of them is not so necessary or obvious to all men and consequently are more capable of inculpable ignorance of them and errors about them in many men And because the Roman Church do's agree with us in the explicit confession of this Creed it is said not to err in Fundamental points tho found guilty of pernicious errors touching other points not Fundamental And with this Supposition I am confident my Antagonist will not quarrel if you take him here before he sees my reflexions upon his unwary Argument Upon the foresaid Foundation Mr. I. S. builds this Thesis That the Protestant Church as it is condistinct from the Popish Church is not the Church of Christ because saies he it do's not teach the doctrine of Christ and no Church can be called of Christ further then it teacheth his doctrine That Protestancy or the doctrine of Protestants as opposite to the Popish is not the doctrine of Christ he undertakes to prove with this Syllogism No fallible doctrine is the doctrine of Christ but Protestancy is altogether fallible doctrine Therefore Protestancy as it is properly the doctrine of the Protestant Church is not the doctrine of Christ This Syllogism he chalks out to us in a different Character for remarkable as indeed it is and for unanswerable for it is in Ferio saies he pag. 142. The Major Proposition we allow willingly the Minor to wit that Protestancy is altogether fallible doctrine he saies is manifest by virtue of this other no less remarkable Syllogism Protestancy or the doctrine wherein Protestants do differ from Papists is altogether of points not Fundamental but the doctrine of points not Fundamental or inferior truths is fallible doctrine therefore Protestancy is but fallible doctrine and therefore no doctrine of Christ He concludes with these words I confess ingenuously I think this Argument cannot be solidly answer'd If his confession herein be ingenuous indeed let him take in return this other ingenuous confession from me that I think seriously he is a very weak man If he be sensible himself of the fallacy and falsehood of his Argument he is unworthy in beguiling his Reader and unwise in exposing it to a polemical strict debate and thinking we should want a solid Answer to so silly a Sophism not to give it yet a more severe check haply he has that poor excuse in his favor that he knows not what he saies To see whether my Answer be solid let us examine how solid his Argument is The stress of it lies in his latter Syllogism whose major Proposition is That Protestancy or the doctrine wherein Protestants do differ from Papists is altogether of Points not Fundamental This we allow him to take for granted Let us proceed to the Minor But the doctrine of Points not Fundamental or inferior Truths saies he is fallible doctrine Stop here Sir and if Justice were don to you a perpetual stop should be put to your tongue for blasphemons from speaking any more It is a formal Blasphemy and a horrid one to say that the doctrine of Points not Fundamental or inferior Truths in general is fallible doctrine It is to say that the Word of God is fallible Remember what is premis'd a little before and supposed by your self in many places of your present discourse that the Points called not Fundamental are all those other divine Verities contained in the Word of God whether written in Canonical Scripture or deliver'd to us by Apostolical Tradition besides the Points contained in the Creed of equal objective certainty and truth with the other Points They are of a size as
you speak all being the Word of God tho not in the same degree of necessity to be explicitly believed by all men Therefore to say that the doctrine of Points not Fundamental is fallible is to say that the Word of God is fallible which without Controversy is a formal Blasphemy Poor Logician is this your Argument in Ferio for which you thought a solid Answer could not be found For a Syllogism in Feriâ— to be concluding the Premises must be allowed and will you have us allow your Premises when one of them is found to be a formal Blasphemy But it seems this horrible Blasphemy did not fall from him unawares it was with deliberation He goes to prove it and see how The Church can err and is fallible in Points not Fundamental therefore these Points are fallible This is another goodly piece of Logic which proves that Points Fundamental are likewise fallible Men can err and have erred in Points Fundamental therefore these also are fallible in your Dialect This is not to distinguish Subjective fallibility from the Objective to pass the imperfections of the faculty upon the object Mr. I. S. looks upon the Sun with squint or dim eies therefore the Sun is dim or squint The Pope can err and is fallible in declaring the Word of God therefore the Word of God is fallible Your brethren of Clermont Colledg who defended in their Theses mentioned chap. 6. that the Pope hath the same Infallibility which Christ had may think that consequence legal The Pope is fallible about the Word of God therefore the Word of God is fallible because the Pope hath the very same Infallibility which Christ the very Word of God hath But we that a low no such Equality of truth to men cannot take fallibility in the Word of God for a consequence of mans fallibility about it From the foresaid Position you proceed to the second grand Thesis prefixed to your Chapter That Protestants cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets This is sure a rare shew of your wit a product of your own invention never heard of before I confess to have never heard the like and thus you go to prove it Protestancy or the points wherein Protestants do differ from Papists is but a parcel of fallible doctrine but no fallible doctrine can without Blasphemy be sought for in Scripture therefore Protestants cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets Make of the Major what you please for the present what desperate Proposition is that of the Minor That no fallible doctrine may without Blasphemy be sought for in Scripture By this all the Fathers and Doctors of the Church all Divines that alledg Scripture for their several opinions which they do not pretend to be infallible nor more then probable opinions are guilty of Blasphemy in your esteem But that this so much solemnized Argument may not be altogether useless I will retort it upon your self with more force and less cavil proving by it that your Church is not the Church of Christ And thus I argue for it in your own terms No Church is any further the Church of Christ then as it teacheth the doctrine of Christ but the Roman Church as condistinct from the Reformed Protestant Church or in as much as it differs from it doth not teach the doctrine of Christ therefore the Roman Church as condistinct from the Reformed Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ The Minor Proposition That the Roman Church as condistinct from the Protestant Church doth not teach the doctrine of Christ I prove thus The doctrine which the Roman Church as condistinct from the Protestant and opposite to it doth teach is Popes Infallibility and Supremacy over all the Christian Church Transubstantiation Worship of Images Invocation of Saints Purgatory Indulgences half Communion Liturgy in an unknown tongue prohibiting the people to read holy Scripture c. all which I have declared in my former discourse not to be the doctrine of Christ but all contrary to it and in this present Treatise will more fully declare the same Therefore the Roman Church as condistinct from the Protestant and opposite to it doth not teach the doctrine of Christ and consequently is not the Church of Christ CHAP. XI A Refutation of several other Attemts of Mr. I. S. in that eighth Chapter YOU are prolix in pretending that Protestants have not unity of Faith with Papists God forbid they should agree in all with them spare bragging that they claim kindred with you It is a great piece of courtesy and charity in Protestants to admit kindred with you or allow you to be a part tho infected and corrupted of the Catholic Church a courtesy I say in some thing like that of Bellarmin in admitting even the most scandalously wicked of men Epicures in manners and Atheists in belief to the Communion of his Church provided they do but exteriourly own the Romish Religion and Obedience to the Pope tho but for temporal ends His kindness to his Lord the Pope and zeal for his grandeur makes him extend thus his courtesy Our love to our Lord Christ makes us admit kindred with you and to take you for Members of the Church Universal in as much as you confess with us tho but verbally the chief Articles of his doctrine contained in the Creed You proceed to exhort Protestants to an examen of their Belief whether they be in the right I wish your party did comply so well herein with their duty or were permitted to do it as Protestants do and are allowed Here they inquire dispute and read carefully Books for and against their Tenets They are permitted to do it and encouraged in it by their Instructors You will not allow your people to read dispute or doubt at all of your Tenets You say Protestants are obliged in conscience to doubt of their Religion while you tell your own people they are obliged in conscience not to doubt of theirs How came your Church by this Prerogative because 't is unerring and unerrable as the Title of your Book saies but the Book do's not prove as we are shewing Why are Protestants oblig'd to doubt of their Religion because it is new say you This was the Argument of Pagans to stop the preaching of the Gospel more improperly and with less ground used by you Our Religion is the Ancient and yours the New as we prove Where was our Religion say you before Luther A question which for one too old should be cast away We answer where yours never was in the Word of God and in the true Records of Primitive Christianity You conclude your heterogeneous Chapter and your first part of your Book with mentioning the Treatise or Paper I penned some years ago in favor of the Salvation of Protestants against your vulgar Teachers damning all to hell for Heretics without reserve or distinction You say the doctrine I delivered was true but it was indiscretion to declare it in
Ireland whither I was sent to convert Protestants The case was with Papists who concerned for the Salvation of their Relations and Friends of the Protestant Communion enquired whether such believing sincerely they were in the right never convinced of the contrary and living religiously in the fear of God and in the observation of his Commandments might be saved I answered they might and were not Heretics but Members of the Catholic Church a dignity received in their Baptism and not to be lost otherwise then by formal Heresy or Infidelity whereof they were not guilty by the foresaid Supposition You say all is true but 't is not discretion to declare truth it self when there is no obligation of declaring it Well but was there not an obligation upon me when question'd to answer according to truth No say you for if the Inquirers were Papists they needed not to be instructed in that truth 't is no Fundamental Truth If Protestants they were not oblig'd to know it for the same reason and that the answer was an encouragement to them to remain as they were A pretty subtilty We have declared before how touching Points not Fundamental there may be pernicious errors Such is that opposite to the Truth we now speak of an error subversive of Christian charity and public peace a seed of those Animosities Rebellion and Combustions which made this Land unhappy And ought not a sincere Instructor and faithful Minister of the Word of God to oppose this error No say you because it was to encourage Protestants to remain as they were and not to come under the Popes Obedience There is the ground of your dislike of me Thus indeed stood the case and this was one of my chief reasons to be dissatisfied of your way That the rule of my doctrine among you must not be truth but the interest of the Bishop of Rome and the increase of his Dominion whether by right or wrong This point of policy or discretion as you call it I refused openly to learn from you chusing rather to be of the Children of Light tho with less prudence in your opinion then of the Children of this World by that elevated point of prudence you would teach me of prostituting truth and honesty to the Popes pleasure and interest CHAP. VII Mr. I. S. his Answers to my Objections against the Popes Infallibility refuted his defence of Bellarmin of the Council of Constance and of Costerus declared to be weak and vain OUR Adversary fore-seeing what small assistance he could have from Scripture and reason to maintain his Tenets emploies his main forces in setting up their ordinary great engine of the Popes Infallibility and having bestowed the far greater part of his Book upon that subject turns to it again beginning the second part of his said Book with reflexions upon some of my Arguments against their pretention and wanting it seems materials to bring his Book to the intended bulk repotes much of what he said before wherein I will not imitate him by repeting my replies my desire being to abbreviate as far as may consist with a full satisfaction to all his Objections He pretends to cast a mist over the case turning the usual term of Popes Infallibility to Infallibility of the Church and by Church he means fraudulently not the Church Universal truly Catholic and Apostolic to which I allow all the priviledges and assistances of the Holy Ghost promised to it in Scripture tho he signifies that he doubts of my meaning herein but his own particular Church I do not mean the Diocess of Rome as he do's wilfully impose upon me happily to gain time or draw us from the point but the Congregation subject to the Pope wheresoever extant Defenders of a bad cause do love such confusion and obscurities as Foxes holes and thickets but we must keep him to the Light and to the ordinary use of terms taking for Popes Infallibility the same which he or any of his Communion attributes to their Church depending upon the Pope as is declared above in the beginning of the fifth Chapter I said I admired that Bellarmin should make it an Argument of the Popes Infallibility that the high Priest did bear in his Breast-plate two Hebrew words signifying Doctrine and Truth I questioned whether he believed all those high Priests even Caiphas condemning Christ to be infallible in their judgments Mr. I. S. to relieve Bellarmin endeavors to autorize the Affirmative and to that of Caiphas saâ—es nothing and so gives us leave to think that he held him also infallible according to that rule qui tacet consentire videtur By which we have this further notice of Mr. I. S. his singular doctrine that he finds Caiphas infallible in his judgment passed against the life of our Saviour and taxes me with ignorance for not knowing so much I accused them of making the Pope Arbiter and supreme Judg over Gods Laws So Bellarmin lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 5. sticketh not to say That if the Pope did command Vices and prohibit Virtues the Church would be obliged to believe Vice to be good and Virtue bad And the Council of Constance commanded the Decrees of Popes to be preferr'd before the Institutions of Christ since having confessed that our Saviour did ordain the Communion under both kinds to the Laity and that the Apostles did practice it they command it should be given for the future but in one kind alledging for reason that the precedent Popes and Church did practice it so Which is to extol the Decrees of Popes above them of Christ As if the Laws of England were not to be understood or practiced in Ireland but according to the will and declaration of the King of France certainly the King of France would be deemed of more power in Ireland then the King of England and the People more his subjects To that of Bellarmin you say he spoke of Vices and Virtues when there is a doubt of their being such for example if there should arise a doubt of Usury 's being a Vice and in that case the Pope should command Usury to be practiced we should be obliged to practice Usury Herein Sir you allow us all that we pretended and you confess what we condemned in Bellarmin I could alledg many Texts of Scripture supposing and affirming Usury to be a Vice But you spare me that labour presupposing that Vsury of it self is a Vice of its nature bad Per se malum and that you all know it to be such and notwithstanding that knowledg and Gods declaration in Scripture you say if the Pope should command Usury to be practiced we should be obliged to practice it And so it is indeed with you both in Usury and other Vices We know all that Rebellion is a sin and soodious to God that in Scripture it is compared to Witchcraft and Idolatry 1 Sam. xv 23. But if the Pope should command you to rebel against your King for Religions
not answer because the Scripture says it neither must I answer that I beleive God to speak by the Church because she works Miracles Here I am to doubt whether this be the same man that spoke to us a little before p. 177. and more at large p. 102. extolling the force of Miracles to beget an evidence of Credibility in the proposer of divine Verities or another of his Auxiliaries that came in his place to carry on the work without regard to what the former said But whoever he be let us see how he disputes against Miracles If the Miracles be absolutely evident says he they can be no motive of Faith which is of its own nature obscure and if they be but morally evident Miracles they can not be the motive because the motive of Faith must be infallible How blind is the attemt of this Man against Miracles how destructive of his own purpose How absurd and ridiculous his argument against Miracles I have declared above in Chap. 9. whither I remitt the Reader Now let us see this mysterious work of our Adversary go on Having excluded Miracles from ascertaining us of the credibility of the Church proposing doctrines to us he tells us how we must answer that question Why I beleive that God speaks by the Church and it must be thus because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her and I am obliged to beleive be speaks by her because he doth credit her with so many Miracles and supernatural marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her If it be the same Man that wrote the whole page it cannot but appear a wonder that having employed his skill a few lines before in weakning the force of Miracles to ground the infallibility of the Church on he should now take up the same Miracles for his ultimate reason of beleiving in the Church As a nice Man who throwing away the paring of his apple and checking his companion for eating his without paring fell immediatly after upon eating the paring he threw away To cast a patch upon this foul breach of coherence in reasoning our Adversary shuffles in a distinction betwixt the motive of our act of Faith and the motive of our obligation of beleiving which indeed is nothing else at the present then Culicem excoriare to flay a flea after much ado to do nothing The present question immediatly proposed is why am I to beleive that God speaks by the Church the only reason he gives for beleiving in the Church is Miracles What needs that distinction of motive to my beleif and motive to my acknowledgment of obligation to beleive the same reason that makes me beleive intimates to me my obligation of beleiving The primitive Christians who heard the Apostles preach and saw their Miracles knew nothing of these distinctions Seing those Servants of God confirm their doctrine with Miracles they beleived God spake by them and for the same reason or motive thought themselves obliged to beleive them If we have the same Faith that the primitive Christians of Jerusalem and Antioch had as Mr. I. S. says p. 183. why shall not we go the same way to beleive as they did But our Adversary is upon a design of imposing upon us a Faith which the Apostles did not teach which he discovers clearly tho happily not so much to his own knowledg p. 184. in those remarkable words The cheif and last motive whereupon our Faith must rest is the Word of God speaking to us by the Church The Church I say by which God actually in this present Age speaks unto us for we do not beleive because God did speak in the first second or third Age by the Church c. Here you see Reader a plain Confession of the great guilt of the Roman Church deserving the most severe resentment of all true Christians that glorious truly Catholic Apostolic and holy Church of the primitive Ages excluded from the office of being Mistress of our beleif and the Church of this corrupt Age governed by the most corrupt Court in the World if we are to beleive them that are best acquainted with it that of Rome substituted in her place And as this is proposed by our Adversary without any proof so it ought to be rejected by all true Christians with indignation Only I will reflect upon the inconsequence of the Man and how farr he is from his purpose of ridding himself from a Circle in resolving his Faith All that great Labyrinth he works from p. 176. to p. 184. in order to declare his procedure to each act of Faith and able to puzzle the best understanding will certainly be requisite in his opinion to proceed to this last act of Faith which he will have to be the guide of all others that the Roman Church of this Age is infallible in teaching what we ought to beleive This being as he says an act of divine Faith I mean that the Pope with a Generall Council such as that of Trent is infallible in proposing matters of Faith how shall he go about to resolve his Faith upon this particular point Certainly thus according to his former discourse I beleive that the present Church governed by the Pope of Rome in the Councill of Trent is infallible and God speaks by her because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her and I am obliged to beleive that God speaks by her because he credits her by so many Miracles and supernaturall marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her These are Mr. I. S. his own words and his Confession of Faith set down in the 181. page of his Book And while the Reader reckons how many Circles he committs here endeavouring to rid himself of one I ask of him where be those Miracles wrought by the Fathers of the Councill of Trent and the Popes moderating in it to breed in me an evidence of credibility that God spake by their mouth as the Christians of Jerusalem and Antioch saw the Apostles work for believing that God spake by them being he says I must take the objects of Faith upon credit of the present Church and that credit must be grounded upon Miracles and supernaturall marks appearing for it Will he have us prefer his forg'd Miracles in favour of his newcoin'd-Faith to those wrought by the Apostles in confirmation of the Faith preached by them Turn Reader to what I said to this purpose in the 9. Chapter of this Treatise The more I consider this resolution of Mr. I. S. his Faith the less I find in it of resolution and the more Circles and obscurities Now I enquire of him further why doth he exclude the Church of the first second and third Age from the office of declaring Gods will and word to us He answers because the declarations of that ancient Church are known to us onely by tradition and tradition says he is not the motive but
to establish as the chiefest of his concern is the Popes supremacy and absolute power over all Christians directly forfooth spirituals but effectively in their temporal concerns as many powerful Princes Kingdoms and provinces have experienced to their woe These two great Prerogatives of absolute power over all Christians and of infallibility in his Decrees such as none may oppose or mutter against being established in the Pope what security can people or Princes have of their Liberties or Possessions if liable to be censured Heretics if they do not receive and submit to any thing the Pope will be pleased to decree and declare for an article of Faith and being thus censured to have their Liberties and Lands seiz'd upon and taken from them by any that will have force to do it Next we are to consider the dangerous consequences of this Doctrine in the daily extent of the Popes power and autority by his Emissaries and flatterers Hitherto they were contented to assert his infallibility in matters of Right now of late they extend it to matters of Fact as appears in the famous Thesis of the Parisian Jesuits declared above in the ninth Chapter And tho another party opposed that assertion of theirs as mentioned in the place aforesaid all men know how litle success any may expect to have in the Roman Judicature against such as will engage in exalting and extending the power and authority of the Pope and so the Jesuits have not only obtained a censure of heresy and blasphemy c. agaist the Doctrine of Cornelius Jansenius where the debate was in matter of right but another arising touching the fact whether Jansenius did indeed deliver such a Doctrine They obtained wise from the succeeding Pope Alexander the 7th a Bull and Decree no less peremtory touching the fact declaring the said Propositions censured by his Predecessor to be really contain'd in Jansenius his Book and which is more wonderful he should know in the sense intended by Jansenius The foresaid sworn defenders and exalters of the Popes autority have defended publicly that we are to believe with divine Faith the said declaration of the Popes against Jansenius as well in matter of right as fact to be infallible by these notable words Fide divinâ credi potest librum cui titulus Augustinus Jansenii esse haereticum quinque Propositiones ex eo decerptas esse Jansenii in sensu Jansenii damnatas that the Book intitled the Augustin of Jansenius is heretical and the five Propositions which are gathered out of it are Jansenius's and in the sense of Jansenius condemned And there is no reason but we may expect a command of believing the Popes infallibility in this latter kind in matter of fact as formerly intimated in matters of right And if this be established that the Pope is infallible also in matters of fact and if he be pleased to declare that any of us in particular is an heretic or hath delivered an heretical Proposition Woe be to him so declared a heretic by the Pope All Christians subject to the Pope must take him for an heretic and proceed against him accordingly with all those severities inflicted by Canons against Heretics Mr. I. S. accuses me to the Lord Licutenant of Ireland that I should have said that there is no salvation in the Catholic hurch a proposition in my own opinion heretical and blasphemous taken in its proper literal and right sense not to take notice of some crooked improper sense which Mr. I. S. may pretend and may render my discourse obscure This testimony so evidently false he imposes upon me my Book being extant in the hands of many hundred men and my self living to declare the false-hood of it yet his confidence is such that having no evidence nor as much as attemted to prove the truth of his accusation he will have my Lord Lieutenant to proceed to the utmost severity against me commanding me to be burned for blasphemous Ill may he expect from his Excellency so unjust and rash a judgment but how far he may speed in Rome with the same accusation tho false I may not know Of their integrity proceeding to judgement without hearing the parties I can have no assurance If they declare me for Author of the Proposition imposed upon me by Mr. I. S. That in the Catholic Church there is no salvation and consequently guilty of heresy and blasphemy and all must take their declaration therein for infallible according to that increase of infallibility in matters of fact ascribed of late to the Pope by his prime Favorites what mischief may not I expect from all those who think it a special service of God to destroy Hereties But my particular concern is not of so great a force to declare the enormity or danger of this consequence He accuses the whole Church of Protestants of heresy and blasphemy in a high degree saying it s their common doctrine that it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments which proposition in its literal full sense is certainly heretical and blasphemous for derogatory of Gods justice and goodness and diametrically opposite to the doctrine of Christ as I have declared in the 8th Chapter where also I have shewed how falsely such a doctrine is imposed upon the whole Church of England But if our Adversary gets a definition of the Pope that we are in effect guilty of that error in what condition shall we stand with our neighbors our innocency in the case will not availe What if Mr. I. S. or other like him would accuse some great Christian Prince of heresy tho with as little truth as we have seen his accusation of me and of the Church of England now mentioned to have proceeded But if the malice of neighbors hunting after the Lands of such a Prince and of his Subjects disposed to rebell against him should join to accuse him of heretical pravity and the Pope thereby should proceed to deliver his infallible judgment touching such a Prince to be an heretic in effect in what miserable condition must that Prince be for credit and interest to be taken by all men for an undoubted heretic his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance to him and his Lands exposed to the prey of any stronger hand autorized by the Pope according to the procedure of that Court whereof many dismal Tragedies are to be seen in the Chronicles of England Germany Navarre and other Kingdoms of Europe To establish this power in the Pope of Rome so destructive to the peace and safety of Christian people and Princes being the aim of Mr. I. S. his tedious and intricate discourses in favor of his pretended unerring unerrable Church and that declared by himself he may expect the time when all Christian people are perfectly blind and mad to have his doctrine received And now having seen how unsuccessful he hath bin in setting up the grand Engine of the Popes infallibility or infallibility of the Church governed by the Pope by
which name of either he pleaseth to term it to put us to silence as to further debates as truly he had need accordingly he appears ill furnished to enter into them We will now proceed to see how ill armed he is to encounter upon the particular points I proposed for motive of my discontent with the Roman Church CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defense of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain Their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and tyrannical OUR Adversary will have us take for an Article of Faith the Supreme power of the Pope over all Christians in Spiritual affairs Whether he hath the like supreme power over Princes in temporal concerns he leaves to our discretion to believe what we please the case being disputable And indeed it is a courtesy in Mr. I. S. to permit us this liberty even touching temporal affairs and beyond commission from the Court of Rome as may appear by what we are to say in this Chapter But what he allows him of Supremacy in Spiritual government over all other Bishops and over all Christians is certainly more then his right more then Christ gave him and more then S. Peter had whose Successor the Pope pretends to be He will never find any mention in History Ecclesiastic of any claim S. Peter should pretend to have of power over S. James in Jerusalem S. Andrew in Achaia over Thomas in the Indies or over any other of the Apostles in their respective Provinces no dependance of them upon him None of those more worthy first Bishops of Rome for five hundred years did ever pretend to any such Supremacy if we are to believe one of the best of them St. Gregory the Great in his many Epistles written against the Ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople pretending to such a calling of Universal Bishop Neither did he therein act for himself as he do's formally protest to obviate the malice of those who would cast that aspersion upon his proceeding herein a Gregorius lib. 4. Regist Ep. 36. In damnando generalitatis nomine saies he nostrum specialiter aliquid non amamus Neither indeed could the reasons he alledges against the Ambition of John of Constantinople consist with a pretention to such a Prerogative in favor of his own See namely b Jactantiam sumsit ita ut Universa sibi tentet adscribere omnia quae soli uni capiti cohaerent videlicet Christo per elationem pompatici sermonis ejusdem Christi sibi studeat membra subjugare cum fortasse in errore perit qui Universalis diâ—â—tur nullus jam Episcopus remansisse in statu veritatis invenitur ibid. that it is to rob Christ of his priviledg of being Head of the Universal Church that if the whole Church were subject to and depending upon one man he falling into Heresie all the Church would fall with him How foul an Aspersion Papists do cast upon this good Pope Gregory the Great saying he would claim to himself the calling he reprehended in John of Constantinople may appear by these words of his foresaid Epistle 36. written to Eulogius Bishop of Alexandria and to Athanasius Bishop of Antioch saying a Vnt per Sanctam Chalcedonensem Synodum Pontifici sedis Apostolica cui Deo disponente deservio hec Universitatis nomen oblatum est Sed nullus unquam decessorum meorum hoc tam profano vocabulo uti consensit quia videlicet si unus Patriarcha Vniversalis dicitur Patriarcharum nomen ceteris derogatur Sed absit absit hoc à Christiani mente id sibi velle quempiam arripere unde fratrum suorum honorem imminuere ex quantulacunque parte videatur The name of Universal Bishop was by the holy Council of Chalcedon offered only to the Bishop of the See Apostolic in which by Gods providence I do serve but none of my Predecessors did consent to use this profane calling For if one Patriarch or Bishop be called Universal the name of a Bishop is taken from the rest But far be this far be it from the mind of a Christian that any should assume to himself any thing which may seem to diminish in the least the honor of his brethren How can this consist with saying that Gregory did claim to himâ—elf that calling which he reprehended in John of Constantinople since he declares that his Predecessors did refuse that calling and alledges reasons which prove that none ought to admit it The same St. Gregory is the first Author I find to have accused of Anti-Christianism the pretention of the Pope to Supremacy over all Christians in the person of the foresaid John Patriarch of Constantinople of whose ambitious pretention to the like Supremacy he writes thus to the Empress Constantina b Sed in hac ejus superbia quid aliud nisi propinqua jam Antichristi esse tempora designatur quia illum videlicet imitatur qui spretis in sociali gaudio Angelorum legionibus ad culmen conatus est singularitatis erumpere dicens c. Lib. 4. Ep. 34. And what may we understand by this kind of pride but that the time of Anti-Christ is near since he imitates him who despising the social joy of Angels did endevor to rise up to the top of singularity saying I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North I will ascend above the height of the Clouds I will be like the most high This singularity of the Bishops of Rome in despising a fair and brotherly society with other Bishops and pretending a Supremacy over all and an Equality with God in several of his priviledges gave occasion to such as in after Ages called them Anti-christs Certainly this Ambition of being head of the Universal Church a priviledg granted in Scripture only to Christ the boldness of preferring his own laws to the Laws of Christ whereof we gave several instances have great affinity with the qualities of Anti-christ described in Scripture And St. Gregory his prediction that the usurpation of this Supremacy would be a calamity to the Church is found to be too true All the Combustions and dismal Contentions that afflicted this Kingdom for a whole Age did proceed from the Popes pretention to Supremacy It is not the intrinsic quality of speculative doctrines of Faith controverted it is not the alterations of Ceremonies or Language in divine Service did minister fuel to this fatal fire all these things would be easily agreed upon if we did allow but Supremacy to the Pope or he did quit his pretention to it Of this we have certainty by what Sir Roger Twisden affirms out of warrantable Histories and Relations that Pope Paulus IV. finding his fierceness could not avail with Queen Elizabeth offered a Tortura torti pag. 148. to let things stand as they were
its notorious vices That which takes place of a minor hath two Propositions in it The Jews in this occasion were damnable Vnbeleivers and what they denied was a fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do beleive it Where we see two distinct Propositions the second abruptly intruded without any connexion or affinity with the medium placed in the major And thence you pass to your third or rather fourth Proposition bearing by Ergo or therefore the mark of a Conclusion but no more For a Conclusion indeed ought to be a verity contained in the Premises in neither of your Premises is your Conclusion contained nor in both What only seemeth to have some affinity with the Conclusion is that second part of your Minor That what the Jews deny'd was a Fleshly eating of his real Body as the Papists do believe but tho this be so it s far from fetching in the Conclusion That Christ did sufficiently propose unto them a fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do believe it For tho they deny'd a fleshly eating it was not that only what they denied They denied also a Spiritual eating they denied a Fleshly eating but impertinently to the proposal of Christ They denied what was not demanded of them by a mistake of his meaning which our Saviour corrected immediately by saying Joh. VI. 63. The words he spoke to them were Spirit and Life You alledg that I acknowledged the Jews to have understood Christ of a Corporal and Fleshly eating as Papists do But you conceal fraudulently how I said and proved that they misunderstood him and Christ did tax them with a mis-understanding as now mention'd Where is now in all this any even probable ground for your Conclusion which you pretend to have found out clearly in the foresaid place of St. John that Christ in that occasion did sufficiently propose to them a Fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do believe it that only in denying such eating they were damnable Unbelievers You affirm decretorially without giving any reason for it that the words of our Saviour The Flesh profiteth nothing it s the Spirit that quickeneth c. was not a check to the Jews for understanding him of a Fleshly eating but to us for judging of this Mystery by the senses of the Flesh and by natural reason Sir we are ready by the help of divine Grace to captivate our seases and reason to the Obedience of Faith in God wheresoever we find him declare his Will to us without any further examen But such captivity of our understanding we do upon good grounds deny to your Decrees as undue to them In what the Church of England believes touching the holy Eucharist there is a large compass for divine Faith to be exercised It s no work of nature by sense or reason to understand or believe so strange an Union tho Spiritual as the Gospel tells us and we believe 'twixt Christ and the faithful Receiver of this Sacrament such streams of divine Grace such feeding of Souls to life everlasting To this we willingly pay a captivity of our understanding because we find it clearly declared in the Word of God tho never surpassing so much the reach of our natural Understanding From niceties touching the mode we do religiously abstain being God was not pleased to declare it according to that grave and religious expression of King James Quod legit Ecclesia Anglicana pie credit quod non legit pari pietate non inquirit What the Church of England reads that it doth piously believe what it doth not read with equal Piety omits to pry into CHAP. XIX Several Answers to my Arguments against Transubstantiation refuted TO all my Reasons touching the absurdity of the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the repugnance of it with all humane reason Mr. I. S. gives an easie Answer that in matters of Faith we must renounce Reason He should first prove that this is a point of Faith a doctrine contained in the Word of God His endeavors for it we have seen and declared to be vain in the precedent Chapter then it being an Article of their making he may not expect from us more subjection of our Intellects then his reâ—son will gain and he confessing Reason do's not assist him I take it for a confession that he is cast in the suit I urged that there was no necessity of forcing men to believe so hard a doctrine neither for the effect of the Sacrament nor for the verification of our Saviours words in the Institution of it Mr. I. S. confesses the first but denies the second upon a very trivial and no less weak Argument which I will shew rather proves against him then for him He saies that allowing the word Body is equivocal and indifferent to be taken for a real or figurative Body yet put in a Proposition it s determined to signifie that of which only the Predicate can be verified but only of Christ's real Body can it be verified that it was given for us therefore this Proposition This is my Body which is given for you is to be understood of Christ's real Body Here we have one Proposition made of two and the Predicate of the former made the Subject of the latter to frame a designed fallacy The former Proposition which is the proper Subject of our debate is this Hoc est Corpus meum this is my Bod. The Subject of this Proposition is the Bread Christ had in his hands and gave his Disciples to eat The Predicate is our Saviours Body and the question is how to understand the words of the Predicate so as they may be agreeable to the Subject The words of the Predicate are indifferent to be taken for a real or figurative Body and to be determined according to the quality of the Subject that so the Identity of both requisite for a true Proposition may be seen according to the rule above mentioned by Mr. I.S. all which proves that the word Body is to be taken rather in a figurative sense then in a real otherwise it could not be agreeable to the Subject which was Bread real and visible and called such before and after Consecration both by Christ and St. Paul Now take notice Reader of the egregious fallacy of our Adversary The foresaid complex Proposition he assumes to work upon This is my Body which is given for you is composed of two Propositions the one is hat now declared relating to what Christ had in his hand This is my Body The other relating to Christ's Body of which as subject of the second Proposition another Predicate is affirmed that it was given for us upon the Cross which was given for you Mr. I. S. to do his own work confounds these two Propositions and makes the Predicate of the former Proposition a Subject to the latter and instead of fitting the said Predicate of the former Proposition to the Subject of it as he should do being to speak to
the purpose he talks of fitting it to the Predicate of the second Proposition about which is no question for none doubts whether it was the real Body of Christ that was given for us upon the Cross I allow you the benefit of the same rule alledged for the second Proposition Christs Body was given for us that the indifferency of the word Body which is the Subject may be determined by the quality of the Predicate and so taken for a real Body because 't was a real Body which was given for us upon the Cross Why will not you allow us the benefit of the same rule for the former Proposition This is my Body which is the proper Subject of this Debate that the indifferency of the word Body in the Predicate be determined by the quality of the Subject which was the Bread Christ had in his hand and of which with more propriety and less violence may be affirmed that its a figurative Body of Christ then his living Body But if the rules of your Logic must be so extravagant as to demand that when a discrepancy appears betwixt the Predicate and Subject of a Proposition supposed to be true it s the Subject must be altered or fashioned to a conformity with the Predicate not the Predicate to conform with the Subject what will you make of these two Propositions of our Saviour I am the true Vine Joh. XV. 1. I am the bread of life Joh. VI. 48. In which two Propositions a great discrepancy appears betwixt the Predicate and Subject The person of Christ speaking is the Subject in both Propositions Wine and Bread the Predicate Will you have the person of Christ to be altered and converted to a Vine and to Bread to verifie those Propositions I hope you will not be so blasphemous And why Because Christ was seen to be a Man not a Vine or Bread and so was the Bread in his hands seen and felt to be true Bread no humane Body I objected that the Council of Trent Sess 13. Can. 2. accursing such as affirm Bread and Wine to remain in the Eucharist after Consecration doth oppose St. Paul calling the consecrated Element Bread You say he called it Bread not because it was such then but because it was Bread before as in Scripture we read The blind do see the lame do walk not that they were blind and lame when they did see and walk but because they were such before I answer that in these latter cases an Ampliation of the term was necessary because the senses did assure that those men were not then blind or lame but not so in St. Pauls case the senses did see and feel what he called Bread to be such indeed I produced several clear and express testimonies of the most ancient and renowned Fathers of the Church delivering our doctrine that the Elements in the Eucharist do not change their nature but are Types and Symbols of the Body of Christ abiding still in their proper substance To all which Mr. I. S. answers that the Eucharist is indeed a Type and Representation of Christ's Body but Christ himself is there both representing and represented as a King that would act a part in a Tragedy of his own Victories he would be the thing represented and the representation Truly I wonder how this old Simile kept credit so long time among Romish Catechists but more that it should be brought to a serious dispute I wonder they should not apprehend a great indecency in the parity if a Tragedy were made of the late Seige of Maestricht wherein the King of France was in person active would not a judicious man think it unbecoming the majesty of so great a Prince to go himself about all the Cities of the Country acting a part in such a Tragedy to represent his own Chivalry Why will not they think it indecent that the King of Glory Christ should act personally and corporally in all corners of the World where the Eucharist is celebrated being able to do all intended by it in a more intelligible way and with more decency But all this while our Adversary slips the main Point intended by the testimony of the Fathers that the Elements of Bread and Wine remain in their own nature unchanged after Consecration whereby they seem to lie under the curse of the Council of Trent now mentioned To which testimonies I will add another out of Dionysius Syrus writing upon the first Chapter of S. John v. 14. and the word was made Flesh His words translated by a most * Dr Lofius learned and honorable person out of the Syriac Language into English are these Object The Heretics demand how was the word made Flesh being not changed Sol. Even as he appeared to the Prophets in Similitudes without being changed as he was before he was made so was he when he was made without change And as the Amianton or Salamander is united with the fire without being changed as the Bread is made the Body of Christ and the waters of Baptism are made Spiritual without being changed from their nature so the word was made Flesh without being changed from what it was as God that is to say he took Flesh without being changed From the same hand I had notice that the Ethiopic Liturgy printed at Rome dn Dom. 1548. useth these words in the Celebration of the Sacrament This Bread is my Body which determination of the Particle hoc to Bread disfavoring the doctrine of Transubstantion the Translator of the Liturgy plai'd the falsary in translating that passage by the words Hoc est Corpus meum To all these and the like Testimonies Mr. I.S. saies they are not so clearly for us but that Bellarmin and others of his side do find waies to give them another sense and therefore we needed an infallible living Judg to determine the sense of the Fathers as well as of Scripture and that Judg being to be the Bishop of Rome he may be sure of a favorable sentence if the cause be devolved thither But what if we find a Pope clearly delivering our Opinion twelve hundred years ago and saying The Sacramental Elements after Consecration do not cease to be the substance and nature of Bread and Wine as we have found Pope Gelasius do whose words I related pag. 56. of my sormer Discourse Will he find a way to decline such a sentence Were the Popes Infallible in that time Certain I am they did not pretend to be so But Mr. I.S. answers that Bellarmin saies that Gelasius was no Pope but a Monk Bellarmiâ— do's cast a thick cloud upon History to prove so much or at least to render the matter obscure and so do's Baronius But this latter fearing not to carry on that design or as he saies to war with more gallantry and contemt of his Adversaries will afford them the Arms they pretend and allow Gelasius the Pope should be Author of those words And what then Why Gelasius by
the words substance of Bread and Wine did mean the Accidents or Species of Bread and Wine which do remain and are to us the means of knowing the substance and may not be called properly Accidents in this Case because there is no substance left for them to rest upon as the nature and common notion of an Accident do's require And having deliver'd this most strange and never heard of complication of contradictory expressions to make of Accidents a substance and with all no substance of Bread to remain he sounds lowdly a triumph over his Adversaries that he has whipt them like boys with their own arms and altho it be allowed gratis that the foresaid testimony should be of Pope Gelasius yet it serves nothing to their purpose I could enlarge more upon the Absurdities of Baronius his discourse upon that subject and the injury he do's to Gelasius in fathering upon him so ridiculous a paradox but I think sufficient for the present to let the Reader see how solid and serious I should say how childish and ridiculous even great Men appear when engaged in a bad cause I am apt to think that some will hardly believe so great a Man as Cardinal Baronius should deliver so eminent nonsense as we have now related Read him in his fifth Tome of his Annals An. Dom. 406. Gelasii Papae an 5. from the first number to the twentieth And conclude Reader from this passage what little hopes we may have of peace and end of Controversy among Christians by allowing the Pope to be infallible when the most clear and plain words of a Pope are subject to an Interpretation of them so cross and diametrically opposite to the meaning of them according to common use As to understand Scripture a Popes Declaration is pretended to be necessary so to understand each Pope his Declaration another infallible Judg is to be look'd after without end CHAP. XX. Ancient School-men declare Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of Scripture and that it was not an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council Mr. I. S. his great boast of finding in my Check to their worship of the Host a prejudice to the Hierarchy of the Church of England declared to be void of sense and ground MR. I. S. with his usual confidence says it is most false what I imputed to Scotus Ocham Cajetan and other School-men that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not contained in the Canon of Scripture nor was an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council He allows Cajetan was of that opinion and was censored for it he erred therein says he and what then but he denies resolutely that Scotus should be of such an opinion Then Bellarmin did him an injur in relating the contrary of him in these words One thing says he Scotus adds which is not to be approved that before the Lateran Council Transustantiation was no Article of Faith And a little before he tells us that Scotus said there is no place in Scripture that proves clearly Transubstantiation to be admitted if the authority of the Church did not intervene where Bellarmin adds Scotus his saying not to be improbable for tho the Scripture himself alledged may seem clear to the purpose yet even that * Vnum taemen addit Scotus quâ—d minimè probandum est ante â—ateranense consilium non fuisse dogina Fides Transidistantiaâ—â—enem may be doubted whereas most learned and acute Men such as Scotus chiefly was did hold the contrary These are the express words of Bellarmin lib. 3. de Euchar. c. 23. Here you have Bellarmin declaring clearly against Mr. I. S. that Scotus said that Transubstantiation was not an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council and that both Scotus and other most learned and acute men were of opinion that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is not clearly contained in Scripture And truly tho I had not seen Scotus his writing upon the point I am apt to believe that Mr. I. S. should be mistaken rather then Bellarmin but I have read over Scotus his discourse upon this subject not only in the printed Editions but in the ancient MS. kept in Merton Coll. in Oxon. whereof he was a Fellow with no small admiration and compassion to see so noble and excellent a wit forced to opine or seem to opine against his proper sentiment as he doth protest himself to do to comply with Pope Innocent and the Lateran Council Having stated the question of Transubstantiation related the opinion of Aquinas and others for it and confuted most vigorously their arguments out of Scripture and reason for it as not convincing at last yields to the opinion of Innocent in these words Teneo igitur istam opinionem ibi positam ab Innocentio quod substantia panis non maneat sed quod transubstantiatur in Corpus Christi non propter rationes praedictas quia non cogunt For which opinion to say something being forced to follow it he alledges two conveniences The first that if the substance of bread did remain under the Accidents of it a man taking the Body and Blood of our Savior under such Accidents would not be fasting and so may not celebrate twice in one day which is against that Canon de consecrat distinct primâ in nocte The second conveniency is that the Church prays as appears in the Canon of the Mass the bread and wine may be made the Body and Blood of our Savior Jesus Christ but prays not for a thing impossible therefore it is to be said that the substance of bread ceases to be there and is converted into the Body of Christ Whoever knew the subtilty and exactness of Scotus his reasoning may easily perceive that he spoke against his own sentiment when he alledged such weak Arguments as those two now mentioned and so not to forfeit the credit of his subtilty turns to protest with his accustomed ingenuity that he followed this opinion only for the Authority of the Church concluding thus hoc principaliter teneo propter Authoritatem Ecclesiae c. and the same his Scholiasts declares of him upon the foresaid words saying Tenet Doctor tertiam sententiam nempè panem converti in Corpus Christi quia sic Ecclesia tenet * Edit Lugdun an 1639. Vid. Scot. in 4. dist 10. q. 3. Scotus holds the bread to be converted into the Body of Christ because the Church declared it so in the Lateran Council not for any Authority of Scripture or reason which could move him to it The same I may easily prove of other learned Schoolmen By this you may see Mr. I. S. his rashness in saying I did most falsely impose upon Scotus what both Bellarmin and himself declares to be his proper opinion Of the same opinion with Scotus was Durandus in 4. Sent. dist 11. q. 1. sect propter 3. where he declares that the opinion affirming the substance of Bread to remain after Consecration was more convenient to obviate
difficulties rendring the Mystery more hard to be believed but that the contrary is to be held for the declaration of the Church Cajetan said that only the said declaration could make the words of our Saviour alledged for Transubstantiation appear convincing to that purpose And Suarez tells us his saying was commanded by Pope Pius the V. to be expunged An old Copy of Ocham I found in Dublin Library was more fortunate in escaping their blurs In his 5th quodlibet q. 30. he relates three opinions touching the Bread in the Eucharist The first saying that the Bread which was before is the Body of Christ after Consecration of which opinion he delivers this censure Prima est irrationalis that it is an unreasonable opinion The second opinion saies he is that the substance of Bread and Wine ceases to be and only the Accidents do remain and under them begins to be the Body of Christ Of this opinion he saies Est communis opinio quam tenâ—o propter determinationem Ecclcsiae non propâ—â—r aliam rationem That to this opinion he consems for the declaration of the Church in favor of it and not for any reason assisting it The third opinion related by him is that the substance of Bread and Wine remains after Consecration and of this he saies Tertia opinio esset multum rationabilis nisi esset determinatio Ecclesiae in contrarium That this opinion were very rational if the determination of the Church were not contrary to it So that it is not any reason nor any ground they saw for it in Scripture made these and many other very Learned men consent to the doctrine of Transubstantiation but only a blind Obedience to Innocents Decree in the Lateran Council Bellarmin wishes we should all have this submission to the Autority of the Church and I wish with all my heart that both we and he and his party and all Christians should have due submission to the Church truly Catholic Primitive and Apostolic declaring to us the Word of God by Canonical Scripture and Universal Tradition in which Fountains of Truth neither Transubstantiation will be found nor any of their Errors which I pointed out for motives of my forsaking their Communion Neither is I. S. more fortunate in his attemt of putting a terror upon me as if I had shock'd the Hierarchy of the Church of England by saying its rashness to give divine Adoration to a Wafer wherein they cannot be sure Christ to be Present this depending according to their own Principles upon the Priests intention to Consecrate his due Ordination and of the Bishop that gave him Orders his intention and due Ordination and so upward of endless requisites impossible to be certainly known And what has all this to do with shocking the Hierarchy of the the Church of England When I saw the man begin with so great a clap and sounding already a triumph I expected the story of the Nags-head or some other of their old Engines against the Legality of the Protestant Clergy should come down but all he brings is that we do also allow some things to be essentially requisite for the validity of a Sacrament the defect of which nullifies the Sacrament As for Baptism water is requisite and the form of words I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost The Minister may vitiate this form and utter somewhat in lieu of it or omit some words of it or add some other that would destroy the form The same may happen in the Ordination of a Minister or Bishop and there is no certainty that no error of these should have happen'd in any one of the whole train of our Ordainers and if it was wanting in any all the Ordinations derived from him are null Therefore we can have no Assurance of our Hierarchy I leave the Judicious Reader to see what singular exploit this man hath done herein against the Church of England his reasons alledged of doubting the Legality of its Ministers doth prove so much for rendring doubtful the Legality of the Roman Clergy by his own confession but much more for what I am to add first that we do not make the effects of Sacraments to depend so much upon the intention and quality of the Ministers as Papists do We entertain a better opinion of Gods goodness that he will not have pious Souls lose the fruit of their sincere Endeavors and will supply to that effect the defect of the Minister secondly that their practice of muttering the words in a Language unknown to the People and in a voice not audible especially in the consecration of the Eucharist is more subject to errors and fraud then the way of our Church where the Minister is to pronounce loudly and intelligibly the words of the form But chiefly touching the subject of our present discourse from which our Adversary seems willing to divert I mean the use and Adoration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist who run more hazard the Papists or we In case a defect should happen touching the consecration we enjoy the fruit of a spiritual Communion and are not at the loss that Papists are in the like case who make the main fruit depend upon the real and corporal presence of Christ in the host We run no danger of Idolatry material or formal giving the worship of Divinity to a thing that is not God as Papists do giving that kind of worship to any host reputed to be duly consecrated which if it happens not to be so indeed their act of worship is at least a material Idolatry in their own confession and to expose themselves to a known danger of committing such kind of Idolatry cannot chuse but be criminal as it is generally reputed to be a sin for one to expose himself to a danger of committing a sin The parity of one honoring his Father not knowing certainly him to be his true Father is impertinent and undecent A bad opinion he must have of his Mother who doubts his reputed Father to be such in truth But what if he were in a material error it is not a sin but a duty to pay respect unto him that adopts or owns him for a Son I will conclude this matter with letting Mr. I. S. see his rashness in pretending I was rash in saying its intolerable boldness in some of his fellows to say there is the same reason for the adoration of the host as for adoring Christs Divinity And he pretends I should seem thereby not to understand their doctrine Sir I am not to enter with you in comparison which of us understands better the Doctrine of both Churches what I see evidently is that either you do ignorantly misunderstand or maliciously misrepresent the state of the Question that wanting an answer to my Arguments in their proper terms you may fashion them so as your impertinent Discourses may seem to strike at something which is properly hostem tibi
of those who are to be saved but not without some note of infamy And a little after he added these words Sunt enim in Ecclesiâ credentes quidam acquiescentes divinis praeceptis erga servos Dei officiosi religiosi ad ornatum Ecclesiae vel ministorii satis promti sed in conversatione propriâ impuri obscoeni vitiis involuti nec omnino deponentes veterem hominem cum actibus suis Istis crgo Christus Jesus salutem concedit sed quandam infamiae notam non evadunt There are in the Church some believers and honorers of his Servants and ready to contribute towards the decency of his Service in the Church but in their private life impure and liable to vices not putting off altogether the old man with his works To these therefore Christ Jesus allows Salvation but they shun not a certain note of infamy According to this doctrine of Origen some may depart this life in state of Salvation and be received in Heavenly bliss tho with some blemishes of smaller guilt not inconsistent with Gods amity but occasioning a decrease in their degree of Glory and therefore capable of a pardon of such blemishes or imperfections even in Heaven if so your Text mentioning a pardon of sins in the other life doth not evince the existence of Purgatory If you say that Origen has erred herein as I conceive you will then first think it not a scandal to say that some one or other of the ancient Fathers should err Secondly acknowledg therein a fault of your Church in making choice of the foresaid words of Origen for Gloss ordinary of the above-mentioned passage of Joshua with the Gibeonites and conclude from all that this subtilty which clearly solveth your strongest Argument for Purgatory out of the New Testament is no invention of mine but a doctrine of a very learned Father of the ancient Church approved and received by yours modern with so public a qualification as to take it for an ordinary Gloss upon the fore-mention'd passage of Scripture CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain Mr. I. S. makes sure account he found Purgatory in the Apostles Creed where it is said He descended into Hell And what if you are told those words were not in the Apostles Creed from the beginning and that the first time and place they were used in it was in the Church of Aquilcia some four hundred years after Christ that they are not expressed in those Creeds which were made by the Councils as larger Interpretations of the Apostles Creed not in the Nicene or Constantinopolitan not in that of Ephesus or Chalcedon not in those confessions made at Sardica Antioch Seleucia Syrmium not in the Creed expounded by St. Austin de fide Symbolo And * Ruffin in Expositione Symboli Râ—ffinus saies that in his time it was neither in the Roman or Oriental Creeds Sciendum sanè est quod in Ecclesiae Romanae Symbolo non habetur additum descendit ad inferna sed neque in Orientis Ecclesiis habetur hic sermo It is certain saith he that the Article of the descent into Hell was not in the Roman or any of the Oriental Creeds It is not mentioned in several Confessions of Faith delivered by particular persons Not in that of Eusebius Caesariensis presented to the Council of Nice nor in that of Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra delivered to Pope Julius nor in that of Acatius Bishop of Caesarea delivered to the Senate of Seleucia nor in others mentioned by the learned Bishop of Chester Dr. Pearson in that his grave and judicious exposition of the Creed writing upon the fifth Article of it I am perswaded this will appear strange unto you and tho sufficient to weaken the force of your Argument grounded upon the foresaid words of the Creed my Answer will not rely upon it I allow the said words to belong to the Catholic Creed long time received in the Church and embraced by that of England But I deny your inference from those words of the Creed in favor of your doctrine of Purgatory to be pertinent He descended into Hell I believe he did But not into the Hell of the damned say you for all Christians abhor the Blasphemy of Calvin that saies Christs Soul suffered the pains of the damned What then therefore he descended into Purgatory I am sure the more learned and pious men of your Communion will abhor this consequence I never heard any of them say that descent of Christ should have bin to Purgatory First because under the notion of Hell they never understood Purgatory Secondly if you mean he should descend thither suffering the pains of that place it s no less blasphemous then that you call Blasphemy in Calvin for if we believe your Authors the pains of Purgatory are the same with those of Hell and inflicted by the same Ministers of divine Justice that punish the damned souls in hell If you say he descended thither triumphant and glorious without suffering the pains of that place to purposes of divine Providence not manifested to us you may say without any Blasphemy he descended the same manner into the Hell of the damned triumphant and victorious without prejudice to his glory and honor as the Divinity of Christ is there still without prejudice to his glory why may not his Soul be there for a short time with the same immunity and to the same purpose of triumphing over Hell and his Enemies And the words of the Creed being capable of this Exposition more literal and obvious what need is there of your new Invention of Purgatory unknown to Primitive Christianity for the right understanding of that Article of our Creed CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church WHEN first I came to examin the grounds of the doctrine of Indulgence used in the Roman Church I confess I was astonished to see how little ground they could shew in the Fountains of divine Faith for this mystery of the Romish belief of so great noise and so much use among them I thought it a strong negative argument against such a dectrine not to be contained in the Word of God that two so great Champions of the Roman Church Cajetan and Suarez both emploied by public authority to defend this doctrine should not meet with any convincing testimony of it in divine Scripture as both do confess plainly Both do examine the two chief Testimonies alledged for this doctrine the first out of John 20.23 Whose soever sins you remitt they are remitted to them The second out of Matth. 18.18 Whatsoever you shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever you shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And both do acknowledg them not to convince the doctrine of Indulgences as now practised in the Roman Church Cajetan tom
with the autority of it which we have sufficiently proved not to be infallible And by this Reader you may see how rashly Mr. I. S. says I did most falsly aver that Suarez is not so certain whether the power of absolving given to the Church did extend to the profuse grant of Indulgences practised at present by the Roman Church Let the Learned Reader reflect upon Suarez his discourse upon this subject in the place forementioned and he shall find how farr he is from any certainty that this doctrine is grounded upon Scripture and primitive Antiquity but shall find that he only believes it as Scotus did that of Transubstantiation Non propter rationes quae non cogunt not in force of arguments alledged for it which are not convincing but for the autority of his Church And mark Reader that so great men as Cajetan and Suarez being employed by public autority in defending this doctrine after bestowing all their Learning and no small labor in procuring to establish it we find them confess they have nothing to say seriously for it but what the Collier for his Faith viz. that he believed as the Church believes And here also they mistake the true notion of the Church and autority of it a mistake in truth more tolerable in a Collier then in men of the Learning and repute of Cajetan and Suarez But such is the condition of their cause that it could not be defended better and such was their engagement that they must defend it by right or wrong I conceive my Antagonist complaining that I have neglected him in this Chapter and I confess freely I delight more in dealing with people of that Learning and ingenuity I see in Cajetan and Suarez then with Mr. I. S. but being we are debtors to all I will give a turn to him also upon this subject and it will be in the next Chapter CHAP. XXIX The unhappy success of Mr. I. S. his great boast of skill in History touching the Antiquity of Indulgences discovered IN the 90th page of my former Discourse speaking of the Antiquity of Indulgences I mentioned that the first notice I had of the grants of them after the manner now used is that of Gregory the VII given to those of his party who would fight against the Emperor Henry III. by error of the Printer IV. in the year 1084. which Baronius relates from his Penitentiary in which was promised remission of all their sins to such as would venture their lives in that holy War for which I quoted Baronius his Annals upon the foresaid year 1084. num 15. Here Mr. I. S. enters in triumph and declares that if I have no more skill in Divinity or moral Theology then I seem to have in History I am but a fresh-water Scholar as for Controversie saies he my Treatise shews well what I know of it Be it so Sir let me have truth on my side as I hope will appear by this Treatise and make you much of your skill in the mean while let us examine how much it is in the present point of History wherein you pretend to be most Magisterial First you mistake most absurdly the state of the Question as is usual with you and where I speak of Indulgences given by Gregory the Seventh to those of his party who would fight against the Emperor Henry the Third you report such Indulgences to be given by the said Gregory to Henry to encourage him and the Christians to war against the Saracens Whoever did read the History of that Gregory and his fierce persecution of the said Emperor to the end of his life even as his own Historians Platina and Baronius more biassed to him do report will more easily believe that Gregory should favor the Turk against Henry then uphold Henry against any Adversary If ever you had any tincture of the History of Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh how could you fall into so ridiculous an equivocation as to conceive him granting Indulgences in favor of the Emperor Henry III. If you did read my Discourse speaking expresly of an Indulgence granted to those that would fight again the Emperor how come you to pervert the narrative so absurdly as if I should have spoken of an Indulgence given in favor of that Emperor You say that the Indulgence I speak of nor any other to any such purpose was not granted by Gregory the Seventh but by Vrban the Second Read the place I quoted of Baronius upon the year 1084. numb 15 there you shall find Gregory the Seventh employing Anselm Bishop of Luca to publish Indulgences for all those that would fight in his quarrel against the Emperor Henry the Third And continuing your strange equivocations you speak of Indulgences given by Vrban the Second to the same Henry the Third but it was not to him he gave them but to Alexius Emperor of Constantinople as Baronius relates at the year 1095. numb 3. You speak of Indulgences granted by Leo the Third anno 847. but it was not Leo the Third but Leo the Fourth that reigned then and when Suarez finds not him nor any other giving Indulgences of so ancient date sure I am you never found them upon any warrantable account To one notice of Indulgences I will help you out of Baronius preceding that I mentioned of Gregory the Seventh given to them that would fight against the Emperor Henry the Third in the same year 1084. which I allow you to take for the genuine origin of your present practice of Indulgences given by profane Cardinals Creatures of Pope Guibert called Clement the Third Competitor of Gregory the Seventh of which kind of Cardinals Baronius in the foresaid year numb 9. giveth this account Erant enim cives Romani Vxorati sive Concubinarii barbati Mitrati peregrinis oratoribus praecipue vero multitudini rusticanae Longobardorum mentientes asserentes se Cardinales Presbyteros esse quique oblationibus receptis Indulgentiam remissionem omnium peccatorum usu nefari◠impudenter praestabant hi occasione custodiendae Ecclesiae consurgentes intempestae noctis silentio intra citra candem Ecclesiam impunè homicidia rapinas varia stupra diversa latrocinia exercebant There were saies he Roman Citizens either married or retaining Concubines shaven and wearing Mitres imposing upon forreign Embassadors but especially upon the rude multitude of Longobards that they were Presbyter Cardinals and who receiving offerings did impudently bestow Indulgences and remission of all sins these under pretext of defending the Church rising in the deep silence of the night did commit within and about the Church without hindrance horrible murders robberies and diverse sorts of whoredoms and luxuries Who were better Popes or better men Guibert and his Cardinals or Hildebrand and his as I do not know so I will not dispute but conclude that such Indulgences as these were given in Rome by relation of their own hired Historian and let the Reader see how unhappy Mr.
and the meaning of them then when he hears the same Psalm without understanding the words or sense of them Your comparison of a Polander presenting a Petition in English to the King of England which himself doth not understand doth aggravate your crime and publish the misery of the People abused by you Would not that Polander wish to know the English tongue for acting in his own cause and to be sure he was not abused by a Notary who possibly might have framed a Petition for him to the King for hanging his Father or Mother for Traitors If the King did understand the Polish Language as well as the English were it not a madness in the said Polander to have his Petition penn'd in a Tongue he doth not understand with the foresaid disadvantages being able to do it in his own Tongue with the contrary advantages What madness then is it in your People to frame their Praiers in a Tongue unknown to them to speak like Parrots without feeling or knowing what they say and exposed to the danger of being abused by a knave teaching them or reading before them blasphemous words in which they are to join with him bâ— their Amen And in case the Praier be good that is read before them what proportion can it have with elevating the minds of the People to a conjunction in sense with the Minister if they do not understand what he says And thus ill it go's with you even for the act of praying in your Liturgy which you allow to be an elevation of the mind to God Even in this point I have your own judgement against you and so may return your text upon you saying Ex ore tuo te judico serve nequam But what of the second part of the Liturgy above mentioned containing a speech of God to the People by the Epistles Gospels Psalms and other sacred Lectures directed to the Spiritual direction and food of their Souls can this end be compassed without sense and feeling in the People of what is said to them You confess that S. Paul 1. Cor. 14. prohibits preaching to the People in a Tongue unknown to them and are not those sacred Lectures a kind of preaching exhortation and instruction of the People and the best that can be as proceeding immediatly from God himself Then you act against the Apostles order by your own confession proposing such exhortations to the People in a Tongue unknown to them and so your text returns upon you here in full measure Ex ore tuo te judico serve nequam It is a discredit to a cause so clear to make more delay upon it but let the World cry against the tyranny you use this way with Souls in depriving them of their Spiritual food What you say of submitting your judgment herein to the Church is idle and absurd when our present business is to rebuke the abuses and corruptions of your Church the causes of our dislike of it CHAP. XXXXII. The cruelty of the Roman Church in prohibiting the reading of Scripture to the people and their common pretence of Sects and Divisions arising among Protestants refuted FRom the page 101. of my former Discourse I declared the cruelty used with the faithful people in prohibiting them the reading of Scripture which is the food of their Souls how contrary that is to the doctrine of Scripture it self often inviting us to the reading of it and to the doctrine and practice of the Fathers and people of the Primitive Church To all which Mr. I. S. replies that the fruit we have in the Protestant Church of permitting the people to read the Bible is the variety of Sects sprung from the reading of it But this you may tell better to others then to me that know now matters go on both sides and am certain that there are more divisions in several Societies of your Communion both in Doctrine and in Ceremonies then in the Protestant Church He that knows the differences of opinions betwixt Jesuists and Dominicans each one condemning the other of heresie and doctrines destructive of good life and of the merits of Christ and the great difference in Rites and Ceremonies used among them will clearly see they differ more in all the one from the other then the Orthodox Protestants do from any other Congregation of Christians in the Reformed Church Their differences are not in matters so fundamental and necessary to Salvation and a good Life as those of the dissenting Romish Societies Their censures of one another are not so heavy yea the very stating of their Questions on both sides do declare so much both supposing they are touching things indifferent the Dissenters or Non-conformists pretending that the points in Debate being only Ceremonial and indifferent not essential to Salvation or good life ought not to be forced upon them The Orthodox alledging that very thing to render Dissenters criminal that the things ordered being of their own nature indifferent and not opposite to Gods Law there is a necessity upon them of obeying lawful Autority ordering such matters So much we may say in relation to Rites and Ceremonies that there is not near so great a diversity in them used by Orthodox Protestants and other Congregations dissenting as there is in the Ceremonies and Rites used in Colledges of Jesuites and Convents of Dominicans Carmelites Franciscans Carthusians and other very many Societies differing both in Habit Diet Rites and Ceremonies one from the other All these differences both of Doctrine and Rites the Pope can wink at provided they agree in paying obedience to him and advancing his quarrel The great Union required by the Church of England makes meaner dissentions appear more sensible and greater would the Dissentions and Errors be if the light of holy Scriptures were removed for St. Hierome saith that infinite evils do arise from ignorance of Scripture from hence saith he most part of Heresies have come and so they are of their own nature and well used not a cause of Dissentions and Errors but a cure of them And therefore the Roman Church being resolved not to be cured of her corruptions decreed the Scriptures to be removed from the eies of the people as appears by the Council of Bishops mentioned by Dr. Stillingfleet and by other grave Writers of whose Autority you doubt And what need we the Autority of that Council for a thing that we see with our eies and ordered by the Council of Trent by Pius IV. Clement the VIII and Alexander the VII in the places alledged in the page 100. of my former Discourse CHAP. XXXIII Mr. I S. his Engagement touching the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and the practice of Confession confuted FOR instance of the cruelty of the Romish Church in pressing upon the belief of the faithful things uncertain and repugnant to their judgment I made a brief mention of the opinion about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary how they make people swear to
defend it and debar from offices and preferment such as will not take such oaths And Mr. I. S. must enter into a formal dispute upon the point The testimony of S. Paul saying Rom. v. that all men sinned in Adam and consequently the Virgin Mary with the rest he values nothing It is a general rule saies he capable of exception but gives us no testimony to prove the Virgin was excepted from that rule He admits that Christ was Universal Redeemer and died for all men but thinks it not a consequence that the Virgin should have bin redeemed or drawn but only preserved from sin and so the consequence of St. Paul was not legal saying 2 Cor. v. 14. If one died for all then were all dead or if if it be legal sure the Virgin was dead by Original sin as the rest or else all were not dead You say it is not unlawful in a community to require certain conditions from such as will be members of it and so may require of them engagement to defend the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary To demand conditions not including a disturbance of conscience nor occasioning dissimilations may be lawful not so to require conditions contrary to a mans conscience and judgment which was our case You say the Oath of Supremacy in opinion of Papists is an heresie why then is it required from me I answer it is only folly or malice can make it appear such as I have declared in the 18. Chapter and the Law is not to be regulated by such passions I gave likewise a short touch to the cruelty used with consciences in the practice of Consession as well in the manner of its exercise as the frequent reservation of cases And here Mr. I.S. must enter again into the deep of the dispute whether Confession ought to be admitted which was not the case in as much as the Church of England doth not only admit but commend and enjoin the practice of Confession in necessary occasions tho not the unnecessary and pernicious superstructures of the Roman Church touching the mode prescribed and the reservation of cases occasioning lamentable perplexities and desperate melancholies of Souls whereof I could declare miserable instances if certain due considerations did not make me supersede enlarging upon this kind of matter Only I will reflect upon a new addition of rigoâ— brought in by Mr. I. S. of which he will have St. Augustin to be Author that the quality of the sin the place time continuance and diversity of persons must be specified This makes me doubt and wonder what kind of person my Antagonist is whether ever he was bred among learned men of the Roman Church or did read their Books for certainly any of them that has but the least tincture of moral Theology will think strange of this paradox That the place and time of sins are to be declared as also the diversity of persons being of the same kind or species But of these kind of lapses Mr. I. S. his Theology makes no scruple if â—e were better acquainted with the practice of Doctors in the Roman Church he would not fetch up doctrines of Fathers opposite to the present practice of that Church If he did but sit certain hours of the day from St. Lukes to May-day or thereabouts in the Halls of Divinity of the Colledges of Palentia and Tudela where he saies no Divinity was ever taught he would learn that it is not the duty of a Penitent to specifie in his Confession the time place and diversity of persons wherein and wherewith his sins were committed and they would tell him that if St. Augustin said the contrary it was one of his errors and a doctrine now out of date But Mr. I. S. is of a stronger stomach can swallow by the gross and cares not so much for chawing or mincing distinctions of doctrines CHAP. XXXIV A reflection upon the many falsities impertinences absurdities and hallucinations of Mr. I. S. his Book which may justifie a resolution of not mis-spending time in returning any further reply to such writings and a conclusion of the whole Treatise exhorting him to a consideration of his miserable condition in deceiving himself and others with vanity Mr. I. S. concludes his Book as he began and did proceed in it pouring out a shower of falsities non sense impertinences and hallucinations of which I will give some testimonies here whereby the Reader may see with how much reason I may resolve not to spend precious time in further answering to or taking notice of such faulty writings The very first words of his Dedicatory Epistle to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland contains a heap of the said faults and falsities He calls his Book A Vindication of both Churches which a viper has endeavoured to bite c. he may better call it an affront of both Churches of the Protestant for the rude injuries offer'd to her of the Popish for having no better defense of her cause to exhibit With what truth or propriety can he say that I endeavor'd to bite both Churches As for the Protestant I gave sufficient testimony of my endeavors to make the world know that in her is professed the true Primitive Catholic Apostolic Faith and therefore is the surest way to Salvation and as for the Roman Church from which I received the belief of a Christian if the matter be well considered I will make good I have not bin a Viper but a dutiful and truly loving Child and more dutiful and true then Mr. I. S. If a Mother infected with a pestilent canker had two sons of which the one knowing the remedy would apply it tho with reluctancy and displeasure of the infected Mother and the other not to displease his Mother would feed the sickness with lenitives or soothing pleasing the Mother but feastering her wound and hastening her ruine which of both do you think were the more truly dutiful and loving Child Certainly the former who would apply a healing hand to the Mother tho against her will This is the difference betwixt you and me I saw that Mother at whose breast I did suck the belief of a Christian and therefore cannot chuse but revere and love her as a Mother sicken of a pestilent canker I tried to apply some beginnings of a remedy and finding her impatient of cure while in her reach I betook me to a distance whence I might apply the cure letting her know that her Innocations proceeding from Ambition and Aâ—aâ—ice are cause of her Pestilent disease that renders her odious to God and men She should return therefore to her former innocency and holiness practiced by St. Peter and his Successors for many Ages which rendred them glorious and venerable to all the world when their study was not to make Princes of Nephews and Nieces and of Peasants Heroes pretending to that end to make all mankind tributary to their power and riches but to purchase heaven for themselves and for
others with a contemt of the earth Soon after he saies I should have taught That there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church without telling where or when I did deliver such a doctâ—ine as indeed he could not do I professing every day my belief in the Catholic Church and protesting I do and will live and die in it If by Catholic Church he means only the Popish or Roman it s a foul abuse of terms especially speaking to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or to any other of sense in a polemic discourse and even speaking of the Roman or Popish Church it is another great piece of untruth to say I should have taught that none may be saved in it as may appear by the second Chapter of this Treatise It s another wilful or rude mistake whereinto he falls very often that by Roman Church I should understand the Diocess of Rome of which I never took any notice or regard in my discourse which was of the Roman Church as opposiâ—e to the Reformed and so containing the whole congregation of men subject to the Pope of Rome and it is to me a wonder that this great pretender to skill in Controversies should not know before now that to be the meaning of the Roman Church in Controversies of this kind What shall I say of his pitiful spite and envy in his Preface to the Reader pretending to rob me of those titles my Emploiments gave me so public and known as appears in the Preface of of this Treatise without shame to be convinced of palpable untruths What of his rashness and rudeness in fixing for a Thesis or Title to the eighth Chapter of his Book That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it that they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets Of his prosane policy in accusing me of indiscretion in delivering what I knew to be truth touching the Salvation of Protestants when I was on the Romish side as mentioned in the fourteenth Chapter What of his blasphemous impiety in saying that no Text of Scripture tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it Nay further against the Gospel it self he pronounceth this horrible Blasphemy That not only we are unsure of the Infallibility of the Gospel but that we are assured it is not infallible And this hellish conception of his own he must father upon the Protestant Church saying it s the common doctrine of it that it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments the falsehood of which maliâ—ious imposture I have declared above in the 8th Chapter of this Treatise What of his boldness in challenging me and all Protestants to answer his ridiculous and silly Sophisms with undertakings that they shall never be answered as appears in the eighteenth Chapter touching Transubstantiation and in the twenty sixt touching Purgatory in denying that Scotus Ocham and other Schole-men should deâ—lare Transubstantiation not to be proved out of Scripture as above declared chap. 20. As a so in denying that Costerus should say it is the common opinion of Romish Divines that the Image of God and Christ is to be adored by the worship of Latria as above mentioned Ch. 23. What of his terrible Hallucination in matter of History touching Indulgences declared in Chapt. 29. appearing in every word ridiculously mistaken when he pretends to be most magisterial in correcting mistakes of his Adversary And carrying on constantly to the end this spirit of Untruth Hallucination and Impropriety of terms he concludes his Book with telling me I know in my conscience the Church of Rome is not guilty of the errors I attribute to her for cause of my separation from her How came you Sr to know the interior state of my conscience You tell me I know the Popes Supremacy in temporal affairs over Princes was no article of Faith but a Schole question That the Popes infallibility was but an opinion of some Divines As to the Popes Supremacy I have declared above c. 25. what little comfort is left to Princes by that distinction of the Popes Supremacy in spirituals from that of his power in temporals whereas he backs his spiritual power with a temporal to the ruin and deposing of all Princes and Emperors that resist him The only case of furious Hildebrand with the Emperor Henry the 3d as related by his own most friendly Historians even Baronius is apt to strike a horror into any human heart and a terror into Princes and people if the unspeakable arrogance of the Roman Court should not be bridled As for the Popes Infallibility I have declared above in the 3d Chapter how impertinent your distinction of Pope alone from Pope and his Council together is to escape the force of my Arguments in the present Controversy How falsly you say I should speak only of the Infallibility of the Pope alone my Arguments proving he is fallible still whether alone or in a Council depending upon him as that of Trent You tell me I left the Roman Church because I saw the Bible prohibited in it to the People and the Liturgy performed in an unknown Language But tho that is a great crime of the Roman Church as I have declared in the precedent Chapter it was not the only cause others several grievous I produced more immediatly touching my own concern and daily practise wherein I could not continue with quiet or safety of Conscience You tell me I forsook a Church honored with many Saints for the Protestant Church whereof there was never yet any Saint If this be true S. Peter and S. Paul and the rest of the Apostles were no Saints for I am certainly perswaded they were of the Church that I am of their Doctrine and their Faith and no other being taught in it But you speak with the vulgar of Protestants as condistinct from Roman Catholics Well and how come you to know that none of them was ever a Saint Were you in the hearts of all or did you sit in the Tribunal of God to know what degree of grace they had in his Soveraign inscrutable judgement What is rashness if this be not But you have titular Saints who have purchased that calling by public authority as Dukes Earls and Knights do purchase theirs of such we have none Then you speak of titular Saints not of real ones and upon this account you may not expect to win me from the Protestant Church to yours I hear of some Sectaries about us I know not where who style all of their Congregation Saints to this degree of Sanctity your Church did not aspire yet then if I am to remove to a Church of more titular Saints to these Sectaries I am to go not to you But you speak of Saints that come to Heaven and thither none may come but under the conduct of the Roman Pope he hath the keys of Heaven and none may go
thither without his leave I heard of some Popes that were kept out themselves from entring thither and I have great reason to believe it was so and to fear that I following their conduct may have the like repulse It is one of your damnable errors and not the least cause of my discontent with you to say that none may be saved without paying obedience to the Pope of Rome a spark of Hell-fire which kindled and conserves the miserable combustions and distractions of Christendom the bloody Massacre of so many thousands of Men and the desolation of so many noble Kingdoms and Provinces a monstrous Paradox cut out to the measure of the unmeasurable Ambition of the Roman Pope and his Court to force all the World with the fright of everlasting fire adding to it the power of the Sword where he can to resign up their obedience and contribute their wealth and liberties to the support of that power and grandeur the greatest that ever was entertained in the fancy of man if men were so mad as to yield to the proposals of the Pope and his Emissaries To diminish the heat of this hellish Ambition the Seminary of the miseries of Christendom I have contributed with my endeavors even while I was among you using only the armor of principles learned in your own Scholes and declaring that the practise of the Emissary Sycophants of the Roman Court is contrary not only to the intrinsic rules of Christian doctrine but to the very professed tenets of the Romish Church I do not say of the Romish Court for tho both corrupt they have their different waies and to conform with the tenets of the Roman Church was not thought sufficient in me if I did not also fashion my doctrine to the interest of the Roman Court and to the extension of the grandeur of it which is the want of policy or prudence Mr. I. S. accused me of as before mentioned I will continue now with more liberty and resolution the same endeavors of letting the World know how false and pernicious this doctrine is how great the disingenuity of Romish Emissaries in publishing and preaching it to the People contrary to truth and their own knowledg to win Proselytes by frights to the Romish faction but it shall be in the Schole language and style to make it more universal not in the Vulgar to shun dealing with quiblers and cavillers such as I find you to be Mr. I. S. What you are in your person I know not certainly but your style and mode of discourse fashioned to a vulgar humor with a total neglect of what learned and serious men may think of it makes me conceive you may be one of those Preachers I saw in Pulpits with a dead mans skull in their hand or the picture of a Devil or a damned Soul surrounded with flames and girded with Snakes and Toads moving the Vulgar with tragic cries and antic gestures to sighs and sobs and knocking of their breasts while those of more sense and discretion did exercise their patience and bite their lips to refrain laughing at showers of non-sense powred down with confidence He that will reflect seriously upon the passages of your discourse I pointed at in this Chapter and many others of the like sort to be seen in your Book will see I do you no injury in this Character I give of your writing resolving to take no notice of any I shall see for the future of this kind being desirous to make better use of the time God is pleased to lend me then to spend it in shifting such trifles Here I will add one argument more of this mans weakness and peevish temper that finding me refuting briefly a reply of Becan to an argument I was urging and not understanding the drift of my argument or wanting an answer he only says that he knows not why I mentioned Becan if it be not to let men know that I am acquainted with the Books of great Divines Such as are acquainted with Scholes and Books of Divinity do know for what kind of Dïvines the Summary Theology of Becan was made for such as have not time or other requisits to go deeper Truly when I take points of Divinity in hand to resolve upon them I am not wont rest upon the Memorandums of Becan I allow Mr. I. S. the glory of being more conversant in this Writer And indeed I find them svmbolize in one thing which is to put off pressing arguments of their Adversaries with a flout or sarcasm fitted more to a vulgar applause than to the satisfaction of solid understandings This I observed sometimes in Becan which made me regard him less but very often in Mr. J. S. Another proof of the mans truth and talent is to say that all the arguments contained in my discourse are found in Bellarmin as also the answers of them with which I ought to have bin contented without giving him the trouble of answering me Say you so Sr then the answers you return to me either are of Bellarmin or of your own making if of Bellarmin your cause is desperate when your ablest Champion could produce no better defence of it if of your own making you have betrayed your trust in building the credit of your cause upon so weak a ground and not producing the soundest reasons that were for it in an occasion of so great expectation for certainly he must be very blind that will not see by what is said in this Treatise that your answers are very weak impertinent and often ridiculous But of all this you have an excuse in the condition of your cause The greatest wits are too weak to support it Look upon Scotus in 4. dist 10. q. 3. shivering the arguments of Aquinas and others in favor of Transubstantiation and you will see wit and learning triumph in his discourses Look upon the same Scotus engaged in defending Transubstantiation to comply with the Lateran Council against his own fentiments as he confesses and you will find him ridiculous as may appear by what I related of him above chap. 23. How strong and formal is Suarez in defence of Christian verities against Infidels how faint and wavering in the defence of Purgatory Indulgences c. as seen above chap. 31. It s a complaint grown very common among your party against Bellarmin that the Arguments he objects against the Romish Tenets are stronger then his Answers to them and certain I am it was not for want of wit or will in him to advance the Roman interest it was the condition of the Cause You brag of Austerities used by some orders of the Roman Church If this be a rule of perfection Pagans there be that exceed you in it afflicting their bodies with desperate Austerities even to the destruction of soul and body together It is one of your calumnies to say Protestants should condem fasting and corporal afflictions discreetly used and without Hypocrisy to curb the lust of the
Parisian Doctors in their Declaration against the forementioned Thesis of Clermont Colledg presented to all the Bishops of France extant in the hands of many both in French and English And if their reason exhibited for their censure be considered well we shall find it to comprehend Mr. I. S. his opinion no less then that of the Clermont Jesuits since both the one and the other do bottom the pretended Infallibility of their Church upon the Popes Autority whether in a Council or out of it and so the reason of the Parisian Divines doth conclude in either case that it is a Blasphemy injurious to Jesus Christ to ascribe to the Pope that Infallibility which Christ alone possesses and that men should render that Supreme Cultus of Divine Faith to the words of the Pope which is only due to the word of God The allegations of our Adversary for obedience due to the Church as to Christ and of promises made of the assistance of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles and the Church governed by them will appear very impertinent to his purpose in favor of the Pope and his faction when we come to examine the Texts alledged for which I will assign the Chapter following In the mean time we may conclude from what is said in this Chapter That to ascribe Infallibility to the Pope is Blasphemy in the opinion even of Popish Doctors and Mr. I. S. his pecular way of defending that tenet declared for heretical by Doctors of his own party which was my present undertaking To which may be added the opinion of Mr. * Tabul Suff. cap. 19.20.21 Thomas White of the same Communion whose whole Book called his Tabulae suffragiales is purposely designed against this doctrine of the Popes personal Infallibility affirming it to be not heretical but Archiheretical and that the propagating of this doctrine is in its kind a most grievous sin so weary men of Learning and Parts begin to grow of this intolerable Arrogance of the Roman Church or Court and of their Flatterers CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected OUR Adversary certainly never look'd into the Bible for the Texts he alledges for the Infallibility of his Church but snatch'd them out of some of his old Controvertists whose custom is to clip and cut Scripture to their own pretences without regard of their true meaning Or if he has seen them with their contexts he has bin strangely dull in not perceiving the right sense of them very obvious to any ordinary good understanding or malicious in misrepresenting the meaning of them This is especially seen in his Allegation of these words Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come whom I will send from my Father the spirit of truth he will give testimony of me and ye will give testimony This he will have us take for a certain testimony of the Holy Ghosts assistance promised to his Church If he did see the half verse immediatly following which he left out or his Tutors cut off he would find that these words were spoken to the Apostles with circumstances making them impossible to be applied to his Church The verse restored to its integrity saies thus And ye also shall bear witness because ye have bin with me from the beginning What man in his senses would think those words appliable to the Council of Trent Were the Fathers of that Council with Christ from the the beginning was the Holy Ghost not yet descended He confirms further his opinion out of Acts the XV. 28. where the Council of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem deciding the controversy concerning Circumcision delivers their opinion thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us signifying that the Holy Ghost did assist them and that grounded on the words aforesaid of our Saviour Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come he shall give testimony of me and you shall give testimony of me If that be the ground of the Apostles Phrase we have seen before to whom that promise was given whether to the Apostles alone or the Bishops of Rome to be for ever We have seen that the Text in its integrity cannot be applied to the latter But Mr. I. S. of his own autority declares that promise was made by Christ not only to the Apostles but to the Roman Church for ever And to make this latter Text sound somthing like to his purpose he patches it up with a piece of a verse fetch'd out of Matth. XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world This usual art of theirs of cutting from the Texts what is against their purpose and patching them with other words far fetch'd that may have a gloss or appearance of their pretention may be practiced with more safety in conversation or in a Sermon to a vulgar Auditory then in a serious debate by print exposed to a strict examen This is a cheat like that used in Italy with rotten Apples to set them out for sound They cut off the rotten pieces and glue together the sound fragments to an appearance of a fair Apple but being handled more close it falls in pieces and discovers the cheat This abominable Legerdemain is too often seen in their Pulpits fathering upon the Gospel forsooth most execrable Blasphemies extolling their several new Saints to whom they would gain devotion and by that devotion mony to their Coffers above the Apostles above the Angels above Christ and all that is in heaven to the perpetual scandal of the discreet part of their own flock and edification of none All is sanctified with them by repeting at the end of every desperate discourse some words of the Gospel as a burden of the song tho with no relation in its sense to their purpose This is the art Mr. I. S. useth with the testimony related of Acts XV. touching the assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Council at Jerusalem grounded as he confesses upon the aforesaid Text of John XV. 26. declared to relate only to the Apostles then present and Mr. I. S. of his own head will have it extended to the Roman Church for ever and his Interpretation must be taken for Canonical Scripture by closing it up with this fragment of the twentieth verse of Matthew the XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world The Text he corrupts and cuts off Matth. XXVIII contains a promise of Christ to the Apostles and Church founded and Faith preached by them that he will assist them for ever saying I am with you all the daies until the consummation of the world St. Hierom better then Mr. I. S. will tell us the meaning of these words glossing thus upon them qui usque ad consummationem seculi cum discipulis se futurum esse promittit illos ostendit semper esse victuros se nunquam à credentibus recessurum In these words our Saviour promises to his Disciples life everlasting and to the Church founded by them and to all true believers in him his