THE LATE ACT OF THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD Examined OR The OBIT of Prelatique PROTESTANCY Occasioning the Conversion of W.R. Sometimes of EXETER Colledge in OXFORD to Catholique UNION PSAL. 118.59 Cogitavi vias meas converti pedes meos in Testimonia tua St. Ambr. Ep. 31. ad Valent. Erubeseat senectus quae se emendare non potest nullus pudor est ad meliora transire Printed at Roven 1652. A NARRATIVE Of the Motives and Effects of this Treatise Learned READER IT hath beene a no lesse famous then celebrated Custome amongst the Ancients for Converts to write Apologies or some kinde of Literary Expressions of their Inductives to Matriculation into the Wombe of Christs Church as St. Justin Martyr Arnobius and the rest who of Heathens became Christians Great Origen and St. Augustine who from siding with Herctiques became Catholiques Hence I esteeme it my duty to addresse some Reason to the World why I left that Body of Christians where I had beene Baptiz'd and Educated and now incorporate my selfe to the Roman Catholique Church from which our Nation had this last age divided it selfe After my younger Studies in the University of Oxford I endeavoured to season my selfe in our greatest Authours as Bishop Juell Bishop Morton the last Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop Usher with Field White and the rest whose Apothegmes I received as Oracles without dispute and by the poursuite of them I began much to admire our Doctrines and no lesse to disesteeme the Roman Catholique But upon further growth in yeares with Themistocles I attempted to reach higher and entring though with great tendernesse to examine our Tenets and Proofes very speciously alleadged out of antiquity I found so many adulterated Texts of holy Fathers especially in Bishop Iewell and Bishop Morton so many to speake modestly misinterpreted in the rest of which I may opportunely give a list that I could not but blush to finde our main Pillers so stramineous in their very foundations Hence what curiosity had first invited now Conscience enforc'd mee earnestly to a serious and deeper search wherein I resolved with Cato not to be ashamed to Learne as hee Greeke So I Latine not according to the vulgar stile but the old pure Roman Language expressed in St. Hierome St. Augustine and the rest of those Professours of Christian Rhetorique neither did I omit with old Plato to peragrate Greece Aegypt and the Easterne parts to finde any holy Gymnosophists who could embowell not nature but the Sacred Mysteries of Christianity which I found not sufficiently dived into at home In my returne from this Sedentary Pilgrimage wholy settled by the re-searches of Antiquity in the truth of the Roman Church and her Tenets I fell upon this Act of the Convocation-House the Discussion whereof I present to all understandings not bias'd with the Praejudice of Customes Education or Ambition that they may judge out of this Summary what might be said if I should expatiate upon this subject I blush not to publish the impulsive cause of my actuall Conjunction to our old Roman Mother Church to be from this Act of the Convocation for though I was before fully satisfied of those old Tenets in a Speculative sense yet in reduceing my selfe to the Practicall part or profession of them I found many Phanatique Bug-beares till hapning upon this Act composed by a great Body of our most learned men and evidently seeing the inconsistency of the Doctrine here asserted especially concerning the necessity of Traditions with our former Tenets and Positions against Catholiques I was inavoidably compelled to an actuall and humble Submission of my will as well as of my judgement to the obedience of the Church And in this my voluntary retirement from the World I found unâ—xpectedly in these Forraine parts diverse of both our Universities to have taken the rise of their Conversions from the same ground and to have prevented mee in their Resolutions herein which made mee more thankfully to admire the Divine Providence in the secret conduct of Soules culled out for himselfe Master Gregory a very learned person and my contemporary in Oxford in his Preface to his Opuscula page 17. hath this ingenuous acknowledgement I am sorry sayes hee I have so much to accuse my Natition of that ever since the Times of Henry the eighth they should goe about in a Maze of Reformation and not know yet how to get either us or themselves out And truly who ever does well consider this Act of Convocation and the sad consequences of it will conclude with mee that there is but one way to get out of this Maze and that is by an humble returne to our Mother the Catholique Church which the dazled Eyes and selfe-bias'd Judgements of the contrivers of that Act could not then discerne But this short Examination of it may I hope contribute something towards their illumination From Paris this 1. of July 1652. Stilo loci W. R. The OBIT of Prelatique Protestancy OR The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation house at Oxford 1. of June 1641. Conteining their reasons against the Scottish Covenant and Presbytery CHymists amongst Physitians desire so far to reforme the Doctrine and Discipline of the Galenists that they neither observe the same Method nor druggs in their Cures as appeares in Paracelsus Crollius Helmontius and others nay they would willingly so far be thought to differ from them as that out of that respect they assume another name and therefore commonly style themselves Phylosophos per ignem Fiery that is hot spirited Phylosophers And truly when I looke upon this Consult and Result of the Convocation house Consisting of Masters Schollars and other Officers Members of the Vniversity as you profess I conceive you have endeavoured so far to reforme the Doctrine and manners of all others that you neither agree with them who would be esteemed reformed Churches nor with their and your Mother Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Disscipline Nay ye have gone so far with the Chymists that ye will not retaine the common name of all the Moderne Reformers as your later Masters professe in which all your Progenitors vaunted namely under the Notion of Pretestants but ye style your selves here Christians or Protestants with this distinctive appellative of the Church of England Others deny the name wholy as in our daily congresses we experience so that the more Unigenious name is Puritan which is also more uniforme to the Chymists hot spirited Phylosophy As therefore ye are seperate in place so in nature and name from all who rightly or falfly acknowledge Christ whence at the most according to your owne principles ye are but Anologically I feare I might better say equivocally Christians as it signifies a body of people uniformly professing Christ with the Universall Church So that what Celsus improperates in Origens third booke would surely come home to you Nec jam quicquam preter nomen eis commune superesse si tamen
you without manifest wrong to your selves Consciences Reputation and Estates to reforme your Doctrine How was it lawfull for the first Broachers of your Articles to pretend Reformation of the Doctrines they had sworne unto under us did not they beare false witnesse against themselves and are not you their issue conceived in Perjury It is ingenuously done of you to confesse you had a very considerable Eye to the losse of your Estates in refusing the Covenant though experience now teacheth you that the Covenanters themselves are not exempted from that losse Non est consilium contra Dominum your policies did not succeed How free were Catholiques from this Avarice They prodigally exposed all rather then to grate upon their Consciences This was not obstinacy but constancy like the old Christians in S. Basiles time who would not admit the change of a particle superest disserere de Syllaba oum unde caeperit c. No change of Faith with them 2. Catholiques were forced as much as in you lay to condemne what they were not nor yet are convinced of in their Judgements that the former that is the old Catholique Doctrines are not agreeable to Gods Word Wee must therefore cry aloud with Tertullian de Pres c. 3. against Hermogenes Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officinae c. Shew us where it is written that we must forsake stated truths for your variable conceits altogether disagreeing from Gods word This plea will destroy you wholy and with all Justice restore us at least to a quiet condition under the Profession of our old Tenets Ptolomey though of a different profession to both parties was thought capable to determine the Schismaticall Controversie of the two Temples of Hierusalem and Garizim 3. Catholiques did not onely believe but knew that their Doctrines were much better and more agreeable to the Word of God and the practise of the Catholique Church then your fancies And yet were compelled either to sweare to them or lose all Wise men do not onely provide for the present in making Lawes but foresee and prevent future and as much as may bee even possible dangers Had yee consulted with old Lycurgus hee found other wayes to perennize his owne Lawes and perswade an Opinion of their Divine Origen but your Eutopia hath destroyed it selfe by your owne Fundamentall Lawes they are now with full force retorted upon your selves as all men see and consequently enforce your ruine for want of Foundation Besides the falsity of your Doctrines in themselves you have all the outward Habiliments of Sectaries by which the old Church of Christ discovered their Novelties Athanasius destroyes Arianisme in his Tract of the Synods of Arimine and Seleucia by this most certaine Argument Vrsacius Valens Geminius cum caeteris suis Gregalibus id fecere quod antea nec factum nec auditum est apud Christianos Cum enim Scripsissent eam fidem quam voluerunt addidere Consulatum mensem diemque ejus temporis ut omnibus prudentibus palam facerent non olim sed nunc demum eorum fidem sub Constantio initium accepisse Thus S. Basil Ep. 82. and the rest confuted Heresies even by this Extrinsecall consideration and it was alwayes amongst Christians esteemed sufficient to assigne the Consulship the time and day of their Subscriptions Which of you or us cannot retrive your forme of Faith not onely to the reigne of which Prince but of the Lord Major under whom it began even with as much ease as this Act of the Convocation The Pithagorians did use to build Hearses for such who should apostatize from Philosophy esteeming them no better then dead men How much more should some such course bee taken for those who forsake Christian Philosophy and turne to Heresies and Errors I wonder you doe not blush to pretend the practise of the Catholique Church Here is repugnantia in adjecto as Logitians speake a Catholique Church confined to England you pretend no further then England for you say true Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Indeed this Iland hath beene stiled Orbis Britannicus a World by it selfe but it is a very little Catholick Church which encompaseth not this very Iland For Scotland is excluded by your own Confession So that if this Iland were the World it is not Catholique The reason why at Antioch the Name of Christians was added as a Surname to the Believers in Christ St. Athanasius in a Disputation against Arius sets downe to bee because they were before called Disciples which Name also Dositheus one Judas and others as well false as true Teachers gave to their Disciples and therefore the Apostles for distinction would have their Disciples to be surnamed Christians which was prophecied by Isaias e. 62. Servientibus mihi vocabitur novum nomen c. yet afterwards Heretiques abusively tooke this Name also and rendred it execrable to the Pagans by their ill lives and abominable Doctrines as Tertullian demonstrates in his Apologetico Whereupon the celebrated adjunct of Catholique was taken up and appropriated to Orthodox Christians against the Marcionites Harpocratians and after the Donatists and the rest of which also they were ambitious as appeares often in St. Augustines Collations with them even by as much title as you peruse him and acknowledge your selves non Suited the reason of this attribute was universality as Origen declares in his Dialogue and all the ancient testify Pacianus wrote a whole Treatise of the very Name Catholique which is yet extant though hee lived somewhat before St. Hierome Out of these examine your Title and you will finde it vaine trie it by this test and learne to renounce what yee have unjustly usurped Your last plea of perjury was not admitted to Catholiques who adhered to their first Tenents in the generall revolt of this Country yet you urge it handsomly to convince all your Brethren of high perjury in taking such an Oath which you your selves judge to be false since yee deny that there is such a power in Parliaments as yee said above and consequently in the Crowne being all the pretence you alleadge for it was from Parliaments This point of forcing mens Consciences with Oathes in matter of beliefe is excellently declared in a Letter written by Sir Alexander Irving a Scot dated the 20. Jan. 1651. to the Presbytery of Aberdeen and since Printed by authority to bee greater then any other tyranny namely to make men sweare that they believe what the imposers know or may presume they doe not thinke This is a sure way to send the swearers to the Devill especially if to compleat their Malice the Imposers should presently kill them as I hear of a Varlet who out of revenge made a wretch first forsweare his Religion and then instantly stabd him lest he should live and repent I could wish you others would vouchsafe to reade not our Schoolmen that were too much labour but our Summists at least to learne what
vel hoc prae pudore relinquitur Let us proceed to particulars Your first Paragraph is of the first Article of the Covenant 1. Wherein first we are not satisfied how we can with Judgement sweare to endeavour to preserve the Religion of another Kingdome whereof as it doth not concerne us to have very much so we professe to have very little understanding 2. Which so far as the occurrents of these unhappy times have brought it to our knowledge and we are able to judge as in three of the foure specified particulars viz. Worship Discipline and Government much worse and in the fourth that of Doctrine not at all better then our own which we are in the next passage of the Article required to reforme Blessed Saint Paul was much of another spirit he earnestly professeth a most hearty sence of the welfare of all Churches he hath a Sollicitous care of all he cryes out Who is weake and I not weake who is offended and I burne not 2 Cor. 11.28 He is highly sensible not onely of all Churches but persons See him 1 Cor. 1.10 how carefull he is to have all speak the same thing and that there be no division amongst them but that they be perfectly joyned together in the same minde and in the same judgement Reade him in all his Epistles see how he and his fellow labourers even anxiously esteemed themselves concerned in all the Churches progresse in true Doctrine and practise See what he sayes to the Romans Chap. 12. the aime of his Doctrine is that we must rejoyce with the joyfull weep with the sad we must mutually feele each others passions we must be deeply concerned in our Brethrens spirituall affaires chiefly but ye contrariwise professe not to be so much concerned in preserving the Religion of your Neighbour Church Solomon would have judg'd your title surreptitious with the pretended Mothers who was contented to have the Child quartered so that she might rob the true Mother of her infant ye caused indeed the breach in Scotland from their Mother of Rome having done that you professe your selves now not much concern'd to preserve her in any Religion Ye could not have used any Arguments more forcible to prove your selves not true lively Members of Christs great Spirituall body since it is cleare by your profession here that you are not vegitated with the common spirit of it for ye are not concerned c. Contrary to Saint Pauls teaching 1 Cor. 14.33 where he professeth to teach peace of Doctrine in all Churches Ye professe also that you differ from them in Worship Discipline and Government The Philosophers at Athens however different in their Schooles touching their opinions of the Deity Providence c. as appeares in the tenents of the Platonists Stoiques and Peripatetiques yet in their Temple touching Worship Discipline and Government did far more agree then you meeting quietly at their common oblations to God which ye professe not to be amongst you Have ye not in this undeniably abolished one Article of the Creed which is Communion of Saints and consequently taken away your very pretence to a Church Externall Communion consists in uniformity of Worship Discipline and Government most especially indeed in Worship and in this as you are seperated from Rome and their whole Communion so ye are as you professe from your neighbouring Churches whence it followes you are not a true Church of Christ I speak not this as if I were at all scandalized at your breaches Aristotle treating of Beasts calls a Wolfe though a Pestilent creature animal generosum because it will not be made tame I can say no lesse of you it is generous not to degenerate all your predecessours disagreed with each other as Luther Zuinglius Calvin and the rest Tertullian not far from the end of his treatise of Praescriptions will rub you hard upon the gills Mentior si non etiam à regulis suis variant inter se dum unusquisque proinde suo arbitrio modulatur quae accepit quemadmodum de arbitrio ea composuit illi quae tradidit c. It hath beene alwaies the custome from the beginning that you thus vary from one another and yet Tertullian speaks of it as a thing most ridiculous I lye saith he if it be not true that they differ from their owne rules c. he was afraid that future ages would not beleeve so prodigious a thing but succeeding ages make it appeare even to children Ye have therefore just title not onely to the Wolfe in this point of generosity but to the Foxes under Sampson in biting each other with all virulency and yet agree in your tailes by firing all behinde you which is Gods Church It 's Cato's aphorisme opertet mendacem esse memorem You have been also observed to have been in divers tales At the first under Henry the 8. your rule was to adhere to holy Scriptures determination of the Primitive Church or Generall Councells held before the last 600. yeares as appears in the Articles of union betwixt you and the Germans In B. Jewells time you confined your selves to the first 600. yeares After in Perkins time to the first 400. yeares and now in D'allie to the Apostles only And so by degrees you creep to your invisibility where every one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Son without a Father For the Doctrine you adde as followes Wherein if hereafter we shall find any thing as upon farther understanding thereof it is not impossible we may that may seeme to us savouring of Popery Superstition Heresie or Schisme or contrary to sound Doctrine or the Power of Godlinesse We shall be bound by the next Article to endeavour the extirpation after we have bound our selves by this first Article to the preservation thereof Wherein we already finde some things to our thinking so far tending to superstition in accounting Bishops Anti Christian and indifferent Ceremonies unlawfull and Schismes in making their Discipline and Government a marke of the true Church and the setting up thereof the erecting of the Church of Christ that it seemeth to us more reasonable that we should call upon them to reforme the same then that they should call upon us to preserve it Here you have toucht the matter againe more deeply to the quick your quarrels in Doctrine are of no lesse nature then of Superstition and Schisme Thus Presbytery and Prelacy are at open wars We heard of the Heralds at armes menacing mutuall defiance at the Scotts first entring our Countrey yet there were hopes of an attonement but this Covenant hath rendred them irreconcileable Tertullian in his book of Prayer propounds a question worth your knowing Quale sacrificium est à quo sine pace receditur No peace no Sacrifice He indeed insinuates an old and constant custome of the Catholick Church in a religious embrace of each other in time of Masse which he here calls Sacrifice signifying the charity which should be amongst Christians but you have professedly
further they think it necessary to confirme what they teach by their blood and therefore will not desist This Paraphrase comes not yet home Ye are ambitious to challenge Martyrs in confirmation of your Prelatique Protestancy but how unhappily let all men witnesse even by Master Foxes adulterate Monuments For first never any dyed for the whole complex or the Encyclopedia of your 39. Articles the confession whereof renders an adequate Praelatist this is cleere in all Histories the truth is it would have argued a phrensie to maintaine those Articles by death which were only made to maintaine you in life Againe no man in his wits would expose himself even to danger of death for matter of opinion which must needs involve uncertainty neither doe your Articles mount any higher as Chilingworth ingenuously confesseth therefore ye all professe a fallibility in your owne decrees which is consequent enough In some of your Articles you agree with us so that if any of yours should dye for those we might if it were worth the while challenge such as well as you but Saint Paul to the Cor. 1. Chap. 13. Tertul. against Marian lib. 4. Saint Cipr. to Antoniatus Ep. 52. To Cornelius Ep. 54. c. S. Aug. against the Donatists and all the rest assure us that Esse Martyr non potest qui in ecelesia dei non est No member of Gods Catholique Church no Martyr and hereupon the Novatians though sharply persecuted by Macedonius for the same Doctrine concerning the Blessed Trinity for which the Catholiques also were yet the Christian world never esteemed them Martyrs Out of this ground it arose that none could be acknowledged or venerated as Martyrs except the Bishop of the place had fignifyed by writing to the Primate all particulars in the processe and then he declared them to be such as appeares in S. Aug. Brevic. Collat. diei 3. cap. 13. where he shewes how Secundus Bishop of Trigisitan in Numidia signified to Mensurius Bishop and Primate of Carthage the particular passages of such who had been put to death because they would not obey Dioclesians Proclamation in delivering the Sacred Bookes into their profane hands and Mensurius declared them worthy to be celebrated as Martyrs but to others who had suffered under the same pretence yet for other defects hee denied that honour as appeares there This solemne Act of Declaration was afterwards transferr'd and limited to the Pope being conceived a businesse of high concernment to the whole Church Truly the Church hath beene alwayes so tender in this that Councels as Eliber Can. 60. assume this authority to themselves and prescribe Rules in it as there if a Christian should be put to Death for having broken Idols it is forbidden that hee be accounted a Martyr It must bee done with due circumstances And the case of St. Abda comes home to it hee had pulled downe an Idolatrous Temple for which Christians commended him not but his refusall to rebuild the Temple was judged cause enough of Martyrdome as Theodor. l. 5. c. 38. shewes There might be rashnesse in the first but surely the re-building of an Idolatrous Temple had beene impiety and therefore was noble to die for it But if you will know what is required to be esteemed a Martyr in the sense of Catholiques advise with our Authors especially St. Thomas 2.2 q. 124. a. 40. 50. and our other Divines If you will further know the great tendernesse the universall Church hath used in recording admitting the Gests of her undoubted Martyrs read the 6. Gen. Councell Can. 63. which will tell you that the Roman Church will not permit the Acts of Martyrs to be read which have beene written by Heretiques nay the councell will have such Records to be burnt In some Articles you agree with the Presbyterians in others with the Independents If any have dyed for either of these each of them may come in as well as you and yet these consequent to your Principles yee esteeme Separatists that is not capable of being Martyrs Againe in some Articles you differ from us and them which are the peculiar Tenents of Praelatisme and for these they and wee know that never any Man dyed namely for your Episcopacy and the adherent Doctrines Therefore without doubt yee have no Martyrs no not so much as Pseudo-Martyrs Secondly you your selves in time of your Espiscopall Raigne cast many besides Catholiques Presbyterians and Independents into Dungeons where they dyed beggard Families with oppressures wherewith they famisht cut off Eares and banisht such who adored not your Episcopall Idoll And may not these joyne issue upon a farre greater title to Martyrdome then you That the Prelatists had almost intreated the common people into a beliefe of this Fancy I wonder not For if wee looke back to the Donatists who most of all represent them as being zealous Prelatists they were so ambitious of this honour that many cast themselves into Precipices and other wayes sought their owne Death upon this pretence as Optaetus Milevitanus St. Augustine and diverse others relate I leave you to tell us whether some of your party have not done the like in our memories The renowned Apollinaris in Eusebius l. 5. c. 15. saith of the Cataphrygeans or Montanists that when all their Arguments were confuted and they driven to a non plus they left disputing by way of Reason and produced their Martyrs as proofe enough of their errours Truly the Prelatists being reduced to a losse in point of reasoning for they have already confessed their domestique inconsistencies now as yee see they begin with them to challenge Martyrs whom they would take up from all hands but if wee deplume them by giving to each part their own as I have toucht wee shall leave them as naked in point of Martyrs as Plato's Cock in point of being a man We might wonder that in every clause even in this your fainting condition you still strike at the poore Catholiques Wormes troden will shew their heads for defence truly you seeme to be much of the nature of Foxes whose antipathy is so great against innocent Lambes that their Skinnes made into Drummes will by invisible beames or spirits endeavour the breaking of a Drum made of Lambs Skin But it recoyles upon you this Drum being well beaten will with innocency destroy your rangling and jangling dissonancies You force us to sharpen our Pens and against our inclination to give our Inke a tincture of Gall lest wee should not seeme sensible of your frequent scornes in this Act. It was S. Hierem S. Augustines case in their conflicts with the Donatists Pelagians and the rest S. Augustine tell us of a House infested with evill spirits for remedy whereof hee sent some of his Monkes to say Masse which presently dispelled the Divells it would be no lesse efficatious now against all ill spirits who infest Gods Servants in their quiet attending to his Service The holy Masse is able to humble those
fictitious Priests in Iamblicus in his Treatise of Mysteries who threatned the Gods to breake the Heavens and reveale Isis her Secrets to stop the Egyptian Sacred Ship c. you seeme to threaten Gods Ship which is his Church c. but all signifie your imminent destruction Your second Reason is also considerable that wee know not what your Religion is since you your selves cannot yet agree on it nor indeed know where to stay since yee left us you rightly conclude this and the changes of your Articles of Beleife even in the highest mysteries of Doctrine as of Predestination finall Apostacy from grace and the rest c. too too abundantly declare that hitherto you have wandered in false and strange Doctrines A miserable condition for all your Proselites now after so many years to be to seeke Reasons in point of Doctrine why yee left us and yet severely punished us to bloud for not following you Yee assumed to your selves a magisteriall power of dictating Divinity to your followers and yet you are not agreed upon your owne Tenets this is like Peter Martyr in Oxford who sent to the Parliament to know how hee should expound Hoc est corpus meum to his auditors Thus your own practises discover and destroy your designes every proposition used in your Pulpits against us was Demonstratio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no reason durst be offred against it and yet now you have destroyed all your selves Touching your additionall Reason of our charging you with embracing a Parliament Religion Can you your selves call it any other then Parliamentary I wonder yee boggle at this did not a Parliament lay the first Stone when Hen. the 8. made his breach from Rome which yee cite after in your Paragraph to the Oath of Supremacy did it not in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth augment that breach in abolition of Masse c. Is not the Supreame power over all Doctrines by severall Acts transferred by Parliament to the Imperiall Crowne of this Realme cited in the same Paragraph was it not also re-established by King James in the Parliaments and so ever since continued to your great griefes All men know the passages of this Is there any thing believed to this day any further then setled by Parliament as you in your next number 2. confesse Nay doe not your posteriour Writers professe that settlement of Religion is solely to be had from the civill Power And upon this ground they teach that Inhabitants in any Countrey should follow the Religions how often soever changed there which was the antiquated impiety of Celsus strengthned by him in many examples and strongly confuted by Origen fol. 484. c. 2. Upon which supposition wee might come at last to worship a 〈◊〉 insteed of GOD as the Aegyptians did by Origens relation fol. 485. c. 1. But to prevent such absurdities the Prophet Isay 49.43 foretelling the times and Method of Government under Christianity and the Churches Supremacy as condistinct to temporall principality saith Kings shall bow down to her with their Face toward the Earth and lick up the dust of her Feete which surely will reach to a submission in Doctrines but this concernes not your imaginary Church the Prophet who foretold Christs comming and his true Churches Birth and Progresse never dreamed of such a Hypocentaur as you had framed which neither was Catholique nor Protestant I conceive it therefore the noblest pretence you have to pleade your Origin from a Parliament which being supposed you will easily finde the way of your Reformation and destruction to bee equally authenticall because by Act of Parliament warranted by that Rule Per easdem causas aliquid resolvitur per quas componitur but because this is a Rule amongst Lawyers whom you esteeme no Friends to Athens I doe not urge it onely remember it is the same way and as far from your Colledges to the Convocation House as from thence to your Colledges and all is done You go on in your Reasons 3. By a tacite acknowledgment that there is some thing in the Doctrine and worship whereunto their conformity hath beene required not agreeable to the Word of God and consequently justifying them both the one in his Recusancy the other in his separation You well conclude this for indeed it followes very evidently being necessarily and virtually included in the premises If your forme of Faith must be changed surely it convinces that wee not you have beene in the right agreeably to Gods Word which can not change So that it is cleare that you are the Separatists being changed in Doctrine and worship yet here you very prodigally call others Separatists as not agreeing with your fancies Why the Independent party should be styled Separatists by you of the Prelatique I know not The Independents indeed justly Separated from you and you unlawfully from us Why a just Separation from you should make these to be Sectaries as you often stile them or Separatists and your unlawfull separation not more strongly conclude against your selves who first separated from your true Mother they from an Adulteresse Let all men judge I feare you have forgotten the Ante-Predicaments and the Rules of denomination you have hitherto done with us as the Gentiles did with old Christians when they appointed some upon their Theaters to imitate their Religious Acts in derision of Christians as Eusebius and the rest relate But God sometimes even miraculously turned their jests into earnest as Baron To. 2. a. 303. and elsewhere shewes in the case of Ardalion and Genesius and S. August Ep. 67. of Dioscorus You have acted our parts at your pleasure in your Pulpits hitherto and yee have taught others to doe the like to you many of yours with Genesius and some of your Dioscorists the Arch Players of deriders have become serious imbracers of Catholique truth It is the greatest harme we wish you all Nicetas Choniates in his Annals under Manuel Comnenus tells of a Magician who had so farre dementated a poore Waterman that hee broake in pieces his Boat full of Pots and Pans and such like Vessells of Earth The poore man seemed to see a horrible Serpent creeping towards him which hee endeavouring to kill broke all and then the Serpent vanished This was done in sight of all at Court Methinks much after this manner you have beene dementated to breake your selves off from all Communion with others esteeming all Separatists where as indeed you made all the breaches and even in all our sights and at the Court as that poore man did still thinking to preserve your selves by that which was your ruine But you goe on 4. By an implyed Confession that the Lawes formerly made against Papists in this Kingdome and all punishments by vertue thereof inflicted upon them were unjust in punishing them for refusing to joyne with us in that forme of worship which our selves as well as they doe not approve of Thus far you rightly observe And surely it concernes you to thinke
in them and after the Se◠Apostolique But as ve◠quivocally use the term Episcopacy as signifying your nothing so I must deny it and connumerate it with your errours Again you strike upon Tradition for your Episcopacy wherein you commit a great soloecism in Divinity If it had been for Episcopacy in it self without restriction to your Idol you had come home indeed but as it was presented in your pide-coloured tincture it was never amongst the Ancient except Colythus and his complices might be admitted into the head of your list from whom you have an Jschyrian generation of Priests which S. Athanasius and as he assures us the generall Councell and I am sure the whole Church ever since condemned for spurious But in good earnest it is strange to see with what modesty you esteem a meer pretences for as much as concerns your Episcopacy of fifteen hundred years possession to be an invincible plea in this point and a reall and clear prescription for so many ages shall not hold for all others as most undoubtedly there was not any considerable opposition against Masse till Calvins time Luther was not so impudent as to take it away and how he fared in the sense of the whole Church we all know and so for many more high Articles of which I speak afterward wherein you are fallen All men carefull of their souls will sadly consider this It was truly and usually said of an eminent Bishop of your Order that he was Puritanus tantùm non in Episcopatu The same is as truly said of these pretenders to Episcopacy that they condemn Antiquity in all things except Episcopacy If novelty be not lawfull in this why in all other doctrines which you relinquisht against Antiquity It 's not Antiquity but fancy and ambition you follow els a true Syllogism in the same form will always conclude You put me in mind of the Asse who wresting Orpheus his sharp out of Apollo's hand played so ill-favouredly that the very dogs barked at him I will not be thought to apply this to you yet I must needs say that you begin to wrest our divine Arguments out of our hands and ye handle them so unhandsomly and jarringly from all our and your principles that all sorts of men will see whence and how injuriously you take them You go on 1. Would give such advantage to the Papists who usually object against us and our Religion the contempt of antiquity and the love of novelty that we should not be able to wipe off the aspersion 2. Would so diminish the just authority due to the consentient judgment and practise of the universall Church the best Interpreter of Scriptures in things not clearly exprest Reader observe what necessity there is for all sorts of Christians to recurre to Tradition for Lex currit cum praxi that without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely practised by us when by the Socinians Anabaptists and other Sectaries we should be called upon for our proofs As namely sundry Orthodoxall explications concerning the Trinity and Coequality of the persons in the Godhead against the Arians and other Heretiques the number use and efficacy of Sacraments the Baptizing of Infants National Churches the observation of the Lords day and even the Canon of Scripture it selfe 3. In respect of our selves we are not satisfied how it can stand with the Principles of Justice Ingenuity and Humanity to require the extirpation of Episcopall Government unlesse it had been first clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to be sincerely and really endeavoured by us To the first Indeed you cannot wipe off the aspersion no more then a Blackmore his colour You have given us a strange advantage and in this one passage put an affront upon all your former abettors An eminent person of your order being urged with the antiquity of our tenets replied that if things were to be salved by antiquity then sin would challenge great pre-eminency Thus far hath this plea been derided by you I could fill and foul many sheets in giving a syllable of your Authors for this Yet all antient Fathers and Councells esteemed this an infallible Plea and therefore the Nicene Fathers as appears in Athan. his Epistle of the Nicene Decrees cryed Ecce nos demonstramus istiusmodi sententiam à patribus ad patres quasi per manus traditam esse They esteemed it enough to shew a constant descent of their faith and this is our challenge against you To the second I see you forget that your 6.20.21 Articles exclude all orall Traditions it hath been the maine pretended cause of scandall and as ye have judg'd it most fundamentall that Catholiques plead a necessity of Apostolicall I raditions with the divine Scriptures Have not all the books of your Writers to this day been filled in proofe of the sufficiency of Scriptures and yet now even in the highest points of Christian Doctrine you acknowledge a necessity to have recourse to Tradition what man could have read this your second reason and not have conceived that this Praelatike slip had been again inserted into the old incorruptible Trunk or Body of the Catholique Church but the truth is that self-interest compells you to speak truth against your old Doctrines this blow hath struck you under the fifth rib and like the poor Pilgrime of Hiericho layed you wholly on your backs as objects of pity You specifie here many of the highest mysteries and to omit the rest you acknowledge that the Orthodox explication of the B. Trinity cannot be had from the Scripture alone without the Church Have not we then reason to confesse the Scripture alone not sufficient If you did stand to this truth there had not been such subdivisions of sects who deny the B. Trinity amongst you I have not indeed heard of many who embrace Arrius his Tenet that is that the Son is God but not co-eternall with the Father nor equall to him as Athanasius shews that he held but there are under the latitude of the Praelatique party who with Paulus Samosatenus Corpocras c. call in question his Deity and restraine him to his humanity and hence some eminent persons taking scandall left you and are joyn'd to the Catholike Church Nay you are not ashamed to run though vainly to Traditions for the chiefest grounds of your own Praelative Sect herein confessing that Scripture cannot reach them But to leave this to your selves let me instance more of our Doctrines which you most calumniate What more universal Tradition was extant then Masse that is the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ offered daily and perpetually for the living and the dead Read Mr. Perkins his Problemes he tells you that it was universally believed that Christ gave his true Body and Bloud at his last Supper Ask all the Liturgies since Christ In like manner read them for Jnvocation of Saints and Prayers
for the Dead Nay that you may be assured ask a Heathen Historian Ammianus Marcellinus he will secure you that Christian Religion teacheth Cultum Sanctorum and to make addresses to them as he writes to Valentinian If you bad yet rather have a Schismatique of your owne stamp ask Lucilla a Patroness of the Donatists in lib. 1. of Optatus Millevitan As for prayers for the dead in order to remission of debts after this life before that great day of generall goal-delivery or last fiery purgation it was as I conceive practised always according to the sense of the Church universall by the East and West and judged very profitable by them all To omit particular Greek and Latine Fathers it seemeth in the Councell of Florence to be the sense of the Greek and Latine Church as appears in the narration of the whole dispute printed at Leiden in Holland and the definition of the Councell it self seems to come exceeding home where in defining what souls come to heaven before the day of Iudgment for that is the question there decided the Fathers spake thus Illorum etiam animas qui post baptismum susceptum nullam omnino peccati maculam incurrerunt illas etiam quae post contractam peccati maculam vel in suis corperibus vel eisdem exuti corporibus prout dictum est superius sunt purgatae in coelum mox recipi c. Here they suppose some souls to be purged before the last day els the discourse is not consequent nor to the purpose Which also is cleare in Pope Benedict XI his Extravagant which begins Benedictus Dens c. where defining the same truth agitated under John 22. his words are Si tum erit aliquod purgabile in eisdem lamen post mortem suam purgabunt c. etiam ante resumptionem suorum corporum judicium generale c. erunt in coelo c. He defines that some will be purged before the retaking of their bodies and the generall judgment and will go to heaven This definition opens fully the sense of the definition of Florence which is made in conformity to this and almost in the very same words so that I do not easily see what can be desired more The sense of the old Church S. Augustine declares in his Enchyridion to Laurence where speaking of such souls he saith quanto magis minúsve bona pereuntia dilexerunt tanto tardiùs citiusque salvari This clears all It s true he leaves the fire of Purgatory somewhat disputable which is not yet desined but he clears the meaning of Christians in their durance there and indeed tells us what the old Fathers and Liturgies and Councells signified in their degrees and practises of helping the dead by suffrages which was that answerably to their demerits they might tardiùs citiusve salvari There were many Foundations in this Nation made piously by your and our Predecessouis for the dead which you perverted to prophane uses as maintaining wives and children with manifest neglect and even professed contempt of praying for the dead as holding it unprofitable and uselesse contrary to all antiquity wherein you committed theft and sacriledge according to the Canons Concilii Vasensis Amico quippiam rapere furtum est ecclesiaâ— fraudare sacrilegium and the Canon spea â—s of this very matter largely And the fourth Councel of Carthage c. 95. saith Qui oblationes defunctorum aut negant ecclesiis aut cum difficultate reddunt tanquam egentium necatores excommunicentur They are excommunicated as murtherers Other Synods are as severe which I omit these signifying sufficiently the sense of the old Church See your friends of Magdeburg for these and for the rest of the Doctrines wherein you differ from us whether antiquity did not ackdowledge them Ask B. Vsher and the rest who have any ingenuity amongst you whether the Popes Supremacy was not acknowledg'd Read the history of the famous Dionisius Bishop of Corinth in Eusebius and S. Hierome who lived under Antoninus Verus you know how neere this was to the Apostles you will conclude of how great authority the Popes of Rome were in those first daies when their commands signified in their Epistles were even amongst the Greeks published in the Churches in time of Divine Service by the Bishops and S. Epiphanius in Panar heresi 30. against the Ebions witnesseth that S. Clement his Encycles were solemnly read in Churches which was an act of high reverence far from your scorn of that Supreme Seat See for this and all other points even all true Generall Councells to this day they will let you see clearly Ask Perkins and your most eminent Writers whether almost all the Tenents for which you separte from us were not held above 1300. years If Traditions prove Episcopacy they will as well prove the rest Truly this sole Paragraph destroyes all your Praelatique Protestancy and renders you to your first condition of invisibility where ye lay for 1500. years hidden not in Abrahams bosome But if you can faine any existence it must be in some occult receptacles or crany holes of your own fancies Plato's Ideas though fanatique enough never reacht you but Luther being in drink and his fancy weakned first began to dream of you though confusedly I know many of you are well acquainted with Gyges his Ring which renders you invisible at pleasure but you have not the perfect use of it els you could as well make your selves visible to all the world Your old friend B. White and B. Vsher laboured much to get this art but unsuccessefully I must needs touch this main point a little farther I more commend Monsieur D'ally Chillingworth and all his schools ingenuity who though they enervate the grounds of Christianity yet they far more consequently deny the Fathers to have that authority which Catholiques and the General Councells universally give them in clearing points of faith as in the first four where they were alledged examined and accordingly Faith declared by their authorities and so in every Councell hitherto in point of Christian Doctrine then you who play fast and loose Here you pretend necessity and high authority for Tradition which must needs be conveighed by them to us and in all your works as I have noted and as all know you have cryed out against it as not being necessary Thus you fight and contradict each other and your selves in these fundamentalls I remember Plato in his Timaeo tells of an Aegyptian Priest who thus spoke to Solon O Solon Solon vos quidem Graeci pueri semper estis senex autem Graecorum nemo nulla est enim apud vos disciplina quae senio incanuerit Will not this come home to you if your years are to be numbred with the continuance of your doctrines surely you will never be very aged Since you have toucht this point of the Fathers let me put in one observation whereby any ignorant person may judge whether the Fathers of how great or
supposed a Bishop at Rome from whom they might seem still to descend wherein they did more wisely then you who judge him Antichrist who is your Head according to your own Tenets but you could never clear this imaginary title even of your Ministery For first though your Record were true as touching the matter of fact in the Ordination of Archbishop Parker which will never be cleared for it is gathered out of Stow 1. Eliz. Holinshed and other Protestant Historians that Parker and the rest of your first pretended Bishops were Bishops in your account before these Consecrators returned into England having run away in Q. Maries reigne therfore not ordained by them and by consequence the Record cannot be true Yet if it were there are many titles will render all invalid especially as touching the pretended Ordainers Ordinations Hodgkinson was one of the 26. who were instituted in the time of Henry the 8th his Schism if he were ordained it was by the new form which Sanders saith the King newly prescribed to Bishops and consequently of no effect Barlow was elected of Asaph and nominated Menevensis but no man hath hitherto prov'd that he was at all ordained Scory and Coverdal were elected under Edw. 6. but not ordained by a lawfull Bishop as that diligent and neer neighbour to those times Sanders shewes Landaff indeed was a true Catholike though pusillanimous Bishop but being threatened excommunication by Bonner Bishop of London if he should ordain them he feigned himself sick and declined the matter And it must be highly considerable that Bishop Oglethorp Bishop of Carlisle Kitchin Bishop of Landaff and other Bishops never acknowledged them as validly ordained Yet if all were true since some eminent Divines hold that to ordain is an act of jurisdiction and almost all hold that jurisdiction at least in the exercise is lost by deposition or excommunication the title of your succession cannot be certain Secondly You should be well read in the opinion of Armachanus Panormitanus Delphinus which Scotur is thought to hold probable and Durand will not have to be erroneous out of S. Hierome which if supposed would crush you wholly I only propound this to you as being consonant to your doctrine in this Act in the Paragraph concerning Episcopall Government and destructive to your succession because by this opinion all titles except divine which your Act challengeth not are surely lost because as Tertul in the place cited saith Ordinationes eorum temerariae leves inconstantes wanting divine foundation they must needs totter Thirdly the confusion at the Nags head witnessed by such who were present and afterward suffer'd severe imprisonment for their conscience must needs make a considerable argument for your nullity these aver'd that Landaff having withdrawn himself Scory was suffected Ordainer who laying his hands over their heads with the Bible said Take power to preach the word of God sincerely So that he doing it alone and in this only form nothing was done which will convince a nullity in all your first pretended Bishops and consequently in all those who have been ordained by them which renders the whole to be invalid because it cannot appeare that the sequent Ordainers were not descended from these Parliamentary Bishops as Sanders calls them in that they supplicated the Parliament to confirm them and to supply what was wanting according to holy Churches Doctrine and practise Lastly Christian Divinity teacheth us that in the matter of Sacraments all are obliged to follow the more certain opinions and to leave the less probable whence it follows that all your Proselites are bound though there were some probability for your Ordination to leave you and return to us where it is unquestionable according to your confessed Principles Hence it appears in what a dangerous praecipice all souls are who depend on you for Sacraments since your title at the best is uncertaine and how secure are those of our Communion even according to your principles since all you pretend is from us yet I know not whence somwhat you seemed also to have in point of Jurisdiction which belong'd to true Episcopacy and this you exercised with unexemplar severity by imposing Oaths ex Officio the like not only praeter but contra Canonicall burthens extremely hard to all who did not even superstitiously adhere to you and these your proceedings were judg'd highly prejudiciall to the last King But to return to your proposition it would admit a greater truth being modified according to your intention with that which Logicians call a simple conversion thus no King no Bishop for this you need not argue ab authoritate al of us wil grant it in order to you and out of this self-interest I should almost conceive you wish the one with the other but not a King without a Bishop Your whole discourse inclines to this And for the former Aphorism indeed your reformed Episcopacy had no such influence upon the people as to conclude no Bishop no King their uxorious complexion rendred them too vulgar and contemptible You pretend indeed much zeale for the late King especially lest he should be perjured in violating his oath of preserving your Priviledges But it is conceived to be a fallacy of non causa pro causa and grounded not upon amor amicitiae but concupiscentiae that is you loved him for your own sakes you would not have him forsweare lest you lose all So you are tender against sacriledge wheras none are ignorant that your Reformation was grounded upon it the ruinous walls of houses dedicated to Gods service witnesse it and the Bishopricks of Oxford Peterborough Bristol Chester and Glocester were wholly founded upon Church-rapine But as in the former so in this you are suspected to seek quae vestra sunt non quae Jesu Christi Finally ye add We hope we shall be the lesse blamed for our unwillingnesse to have any actuall concurrence in the extirpating of Episcopall Government seeing of such extirpation there is no other use imaginable but either the alienation of their revenues and inheritances which how it can be severed from sacriledge and injustice we leave others to find out or to make way for the introducing of some other form of Church-Government which whatsoever it shall be will as we think prove either destructive of and inconsistent with Monarchicall Government or at leastwise more prejudiciall to the peaceable orderly and effectuall exercise thereof then a well regulated Episcopacy can possibly be These were the last words of the dying Praelacy and Praelatique Protestancy And truly the conjunction of them is so weak as being drawn à Posteriori and from very remote and extrinsecall topicks that they declare your cause desperate Alas why would you trouble your selves us and the world with a tedious contrast about a pure fanatique Idol which as in this upshot appears had never any reall foundation but only civitas solis a pretty invented Eutopia in the Sun where none but Knights
and imbecility that they cannot do these things this the divine providence hath brought to passe by the predictions of the Prophets by the humanity and Doctrine of Christ by the voyages of the Apostles by the Contumelies crosses bloud and death of Martyrs by the laudable and excellent lives of Saints and by miracles done at convenient times in all those things worthy of so great matters and vertues When therefore we see so great help and assistance from God and so great fruit and increase thereby shall we make any doubt or question at all of retyring into the bosome of that Church which even to the confession and acknowledgement of mankind from the See Apostolique by succession of Bishops hath obtained the soveraignty and principall authority Heretikes in vain barking round about it and being condemned partly by the judgement of the people themselves partly by the gravity of Councells partly also by the majesty and splendor of miracles unto which not to grant the chief place and preheminence is either indeed an extream impiety or a very rash and dangerous arrogancy for if there be no certain way for the minds of men to wisdome and salvation but when faith prepareth and disposeth them to reason what is it els to be ungratefull unto the divine Majesty for his aid and assistance but to have a will to resist an authority which was gained and purchased with such labour and pains and if every art and trade though but base and easie reqires a teacher or Master that it be learned and understood what greater expression can there be of rash arrogancy and pride then both to have no mind to learn the booke of the Divine mysteries from their Interpreters and yet to have a mind to condemn the unknown Thus far this glorious Saint Here we see how highly necessary blessed S. Augustine judged it for all Christians to adhere to the Catholique Church in all points of belief which he declares here to be the Roman Church that is to say that universall multitude of Christians which acknowledgeth Rome for their head whose authority as he saith is confirmed by consent of Nations Councells and Majesty of Miracles Was ever your fictitious Church thus adjusted Here great S. Augustine puls down sails and of a Master glories to become a Scholler Whence we learn that if an Origen the crums of whose plenty rendred Clemens Alexandrinus rich in the esteem of all or an Apollinarius with his conquests against Porphyry and other enemies of Gods Church or any other prodigious Comets of wit and learning or whatsoever posteriour Masters who can be but pedants to the former should presume to teach the Church or to question her Magisteriall Dictates or Conciliary Decrees we must say with Vinc. Lyr. ca. 10. that with the Church we ought to receive Doctors and not with Doctors to forsake the faith of the Church Could we attaine to S. Paulins contempt of our selves we should not at so high a rate as to the prejudice of Gods Church and his divine truths sell our raw conceits S. Hierome and S. Augustine made high esteem of his learned and pious Epistles and S. Amand kept them as Diadems in his Storehouse whereof he sent to S. Paulin a fardle to which he replies Legimus in tergo epistolae annotationem epistolarum quas meas esse indicatis nam verè prope earum omniumimmomor eram ut meas esse non recognoscerem nisi vestris literis credidissem unde majus accepi documentum charitatis vestrae quia plus me vobis quà m mihi notum esse perspexi If he had been tickled with our vanity he would have kept a better bed-roale of his writings in his memory then to borrow and even unwillingly from S. Amand a knowledge of his own works Here is no danger of recalcitration in order to the holy Churches great treasury opportunely dispensed and humbly received by her learned children S. Paul our Grand Master puts all Doctrine and Doctors to the test thus If any preach unto you otherwise then you have received be he accursed It 's high time therefore to leave Pope Celestine his golden rule celebrated in Lirinensis let novelty cease to molest antiquity for whosoever he is or of whatsoever eminency for learning or sanctity he seems to be if he introduceth novelty alienus est prophanus est hostis est he is a wolfe in a sheeps cloathing What greater expression can there be of rash Arrogancy and pride c. as S. Augustine hath taught us FINIS A cursory Animadversion upon Henry Fernes Treatise of the Division between the English and Romish Church upon the Reformation IF I had not seen the two Capitall letters D. D. in the title page of his Treatise I should have esteem'd 〈◊〉 not worthy taking more notice â—f then of a scurrilous Pamphlet neither dare I play the Cabalist to â—ive the divers significations of those Hieroglyphicks but reading them without notes they import Doctor of Divinity the Preface a Country Sermon which ever must have a fling at the Papists neither that nor the ensuing discourse is ad Clerum els they would more savour of the Doctor according to the antientstle of the University In his said preface to take notice first of some of his calumnies there he falls into these expressions All the Christian world sees how long the poor distressed Eâ—stern Church has lain under that heavy condition unpitied by them of the Romish Communion and how they have stood affected to us since our Reformation has sufficiently appeared by their several practises against us what hand they had in our present troubles is not unknown to some what joy they now take in them let their own hearts tell them c. His chiefe ayme in the book is to shew that the arguments which they use to condemn the Independents are not retortable upon themselves by us and what greater use of reason they grant to their Proselites then we All which he labours for in the seventh and the ensuing Sections till the thirteenth wherein verily he is so unhappy that any child may return his arguments with great advantage His result being this that private judgement or judgement of discretion which he allows to private men must submit to the publique els the power of Jurisdiction must proceed to judge censure and cast out the disobedient and therefore he exacts even in case of errour all externall peaceable subjection Did ever the Roman Church go thus far was there ever challenged any higher captivation of understanding then that every one should submit to the publique Was ever externall subjection exacted in point of error which this D. D. wil have in his Church Further the Independents whom he involves with Sacrilegists he wil have inexcuseable in their breach from them because it was not warranted by a Nationall Synod as theirs which how untrue it is all know for all the Bishops of this Nation were excluded and imprisoned when the Doctors