probabilities acknowledged and lastly an impossibility of ever bringing our debates to a conclusion either by light or spirit reason or scriptur texts so long as we stand separated from any superiour judicative power unto which all parties will submit is I think with a strong probability if not demonstrative evidence concluded And therfor is it thought by Fiat Lux to be more rational and Christian-like to leav these endles groundles and ruinous contentions and resign our selvs to humility and peace This is the design and whole summe of my book And although I speak up and down here for Papists there for Protestants elswhere for Presbyterians or Independants commonly out of the very discourses they make for themselvs yet do I not defend either their wayes or their arguments Nor do I teach any doctrin at all or hold there any opinion But I only giv to understand in that one little book what is largely discoursed in a hundred That all parties do make out to themselves such a probability which as it stands joyned with the actours resolution and separated from any superiour visible power to which they will submit can never be subdued And hath not long experience proved this as true as any thing els What then is ther in Fiat Lux that can be denied Is it not evident that we are now at variance and too long indeed have been Is it not also clear that peace charity and neighbourhood is better then variance dissention and wars Do not parties strongly plead for themselvs so far perswaded each one that himself is in the right that he will not yield the truth to be with any but himself Is not all this evident I am sure it is and all England will witnes it And if any one should be able to evince that any reasonings made in Fiat Lux either for Papists Protestants or others be not certain or perhaps not probable yet he does nothing except he be able to prove likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to those that use them whether Protestants or Papists which he can no more do than he can pull a star out of the firmament I say Sir again and mark I pray you what I say If you should chance to evince that the reasons brought by Fiat Lux either for the doctrin or practises of Papists or others be either not probable or untrue yet is your labour all in vain except you be able to demonstrate likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to Papists and others who use those reasons which you can no more do then any thing that is absolutely impossible By this time Sir you may discern how hard it is to deal with Fiat Lux and impossible to confute him Sith he speaks nothing but what is as clearly true and evident as what we see at mid-day Nor do I in this any way exalt the ability of the Authour whom you are pleased so much and frequently to disable A Tom-fool may say that which all the wisemen in the world cannot gain-say as he did who said the Sun was higher at noon than any other hour of the day It was Fiat Lux his fortune rather then chois to utter words which will no sooner be read than acknowledged And it was your misfortune Sir to employ your greater talents in refuting evident truths perhaps for no other reason but becaus they issued from the pen of a man who is not so great a friend to faction as you could wish And although you proceed very harsh and furiously yet am I verily perswaded you now discern though too late for your credit that you had all this while according to our English proverb good Mr. Doctor a wrong sow by the ear Thus far in general Now briefly to give you som account in particular You spend four Chapters and a hundred and eighteen pages which is the fourth part of your book before you com to the first line and paragraff of mine The applaus and honour of this world c. And it is not unwittily done For being to be led as you heavily complain out of your ordinary road of controversies by the wilde chase of Fiat Lux it behoved you to draw som general common places of your own for your self to walk in and exercise your rhetorick and anger before you pursue a bird that flies not you say in any usual tract Preface from page 1. to page 19. Your preface wherin you speak of my subtilty and your own pretence affords me nothing but the beginning of your own mistake which will run quite through your book 1 Chap. from page 19. to 29. Your first chapter beats me about the pate for saying that I conceal my method with a terrible syllogistical dilemma He that useth no method say you cannot conceal it and if he hath concealed it he hath used one But I must pass by store of such doughty stuff being only fit for the young Oxford Schollar who being com home to take air would prove before his father and mother that two eggs were three Then going on you deny that Protestants ever opposed the doctrin and merit of good works which at first I wondered at seeing the sound of it has rung so often in mine own ears and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witnes it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusal of your book that you neither heed what you say or how much you do deny But you perhaps love to talk of them better than your fore-fathers did though your thoughts be all the same And you will all equally bless your selvs from building of Churches as the Papists have don however your prattle goes 2 Chap. from page 29. to 110. Your second chapter collects out of Fiat Lux as you say ten general conclusions spread all over like veins and arteries in the body of that my book And this you do that you may make your self a campus Martius to sport in without confinement to my method But you name not any page of my book where those principles may all or any of them be found And you do wifely For in the sence those words do either naturally make out or in which you understand them of all the whole ten I cannot own any one for mine own set down in my book The first of my principles must be this That we received the Gospel first from Rome In your sence I never spoke this We that is we English first received it thence But you talk against it as if I meant that Brittans had it first from Rome We had it not first from Rome say you but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestin as Fiat Lux himself acknowledges Sir if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean in your contradictory fals sence but in his own true one We that is we Englishmen the now actual inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received
the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the in-numerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorious crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrin of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head any thing he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may be thought worthy of the dignity and wealth he has now obtained in another slipt our of it But concerning the way he takes to
they heed not at all however your Disswader imagines any natural similitude in any of their pictures If they be so made as to raise the fansie to thoughts above and the love and vertues that may bring us thither they care not whether for example Saint Bennet were a man just of that complexion or Christ their Redeemer of those direct features the limner has given him They come not into their Churches nor do they cast their eyes upon their pictures for any such end And if God the Father be represented to their eyes as he is to their ears when he is called Father I see no harm in it If we may use such a form of words when we speak to God as this world we live in may afford our ears why may not the eyes have such an answerable form too But this is a busines which your Disswader if he were a Catholik might well propound in the next general Councel and do otherwise in the mean time if so he please in his own Diocess For neither books nor picturs can be used in any Diocess but what the Ordinary of the place allows And the Byshop still guides himself by the general doctrin and discipline the faith and custom the tradition and laws of the Church in the whole mannagement of his care And when these do not clearly descend to any particular which he is to deal with he uses therin his own discretion going that way if he do well that he findes comes nearest to the rule as temporal superiours also do in their affairs O but the Roman Church with much scandal and against nature and the reason of mankind in their mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot And do they so I have seen I think as many Catholik countreys and mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels as your Disswader ever did and yet I never saw any such picture therin all my life He has been it seems an earnest pryer into the front and faces of books But did he not mistake troâ—… you and take some fortune-book written in old letters for a mass-book and thence conclude that all breviaries and mass-books portuises and manuels were stored with such â—…gures However it were the picture was to blame For three noses and three faces ought to have more than four eyes And if ther were but four eyes I cannot see how ther should be three whole faces although ther were there three noses in it But this is as good stuff and as true and as pertinent too as any other part of this his book which he calls a Disswasive from Popery § 10. Which is against Papal authority Sayes that the Popes universal byshoprick is another novelty though not so ridiculous yet as dangerous as any other And a novelty it is for Christ left his Church in the hands of the Apostles without any superiority of one above another And in the Councel of Jerusalem James and not Peter gave the decisive sentence Christ sent all his Apostles with the same whole power as his Father sent him Therfor S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock And well said S. Cyprian that the Apostles were all the same that S. Peter was And this equality of power must descend to all byshops who succeed the Apostles in their ordinary power as embassadours for Christ So then by the law of Christ one byshop is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops Beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepheard and byshop of souls Under him every byshop is supream in spirituals and in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ And that this was ever beleeved in ancient times is proved by Pope Eleutherius his epistle to the byshops of France by S. Ambrose S. Cyprian Pope Symmachus S. Denyse Ignace Gelasius Jerom Fulgentius and even Pope Gregory the great Wherfor S. Paul expressy sayes that Christ appointed in his Church first Apostles but not S. Peter first Nor did Peter ever rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostom witnesses And it is even confest by som of the Romish party that the succession is not tyed to Rome as Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius Nor was any thing known therof in the primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen and all byshops treated with the Roman byshop as with a brother not superiour and a whole general Councel gave to the byshop of C. P. equal right and preheminence with the byshop of Rome Finally Christ gave no commandment to obey the byshop of Rome and probably never intended any such thing A man would surely think Sir that this nail is knocked in to the head What could be said more But to be brief with you If all the other sections of this your Disswasive have said nothing this I may say speaks somthing wors than nothing For his reasons are senceles his testimonies either impertinent or manifestly against himself and his whole discours contrary to the laws and constitutions of our English Protestant Church To begin with the last whether you look upon the statutes and acts of Parliament wherby our English Church and government were first settled in England upon the reformation in the dayes of Edward the sixth and afterwards ratified or the articles canons and constitutions that were agreed upon by the byshops and clergy and confirmed both by King Edward Queen Elizabeth King James and our good King Charles we shall clearly see that our English Protestant Church and government is Monarchical and that byshops are as much subjected to their Arch byshops as Ministers to Byshops and Arch-byshops in like manner to the King in whom the Episcopal power is radical and inherent and in whom is the fulness of ecclesiastical authority and from whom byshops do receiv their place authority power and jurisdiction And that Parson Vicar or other Doctour who shall write or speak contrary to this by the constitutions and canons ecclesiastical made in the time of our late good King Charles he is to be suspended and by the Canons and constitutions ecclesiastical made and confirmed in the Reign of King James he is excommunicated ipso facto and by the laws of Queen Elizabeth and King Edward to be further punished How comes it then that this your disswading Doctour utterly dissolves all this frame of government under pretence of talking against papal power as contrary to the mind and will of Christ which will and mind is notwithstanding most resolutely asserted by the constitutions and laws of this our very English Church and Kingdom which rejected indeed the Roman seat and person but retained still the power and ordination of Church-government which finally rested now no longer in any Roman byshop but in our own princely monarch If any will but take the pains to look upon our constitutions
see and enjoy the God of glory who is in heaven Both these things are possible and whether it be this or that they must needs be both so potent and good as to be able and willing when they see time to assist and help them in their afflictions and need whose angels they are either by praying for them in general or in particular or by strengthening comforting protecting their persons And lastly poor man may comfort himself in this invisible assistance whatever it be and however it be wrought without making those angels his gods or relying upon them as his final end And all this must be intended by our Lord and Saviour in that his comfortable ratiocination I should think if it conclude any thing If they be not there insinuated it is very hard to say what it may conclude If the angels do neither pray for us nor any way assist and help us nor we can without danger of sin rely on any such assistance then surely to say Let none abuse my little ones for their angels c. would be a ratiocination as impertinent as to say Let none abuse c. for the North and South poles are half the heavens distant and far more dangerous For man could hardly be perswaded by such a speech to put any trust in that distance of the poles as here he cannot but be moved to take comfort in that acquaintance and nearnes we have with angels which any way to rely on Mr. Whitby tell us is to rest in them as our final end and make them our gods I could wish Mr. Whitby would first consult his own reason whether any way to rely on the comfort of second causes visible or invisible infer necessarily that we do rely upon them as our ultimate end and make them our gods as he affirms more then once in this his 16 chapter And again I desire him that he would be more wary and take heed how he speaks against the angels of God and deride those hosts of heaven in whom our Lord Christ advised us if I understand him right to take comfort lest they strike him as som others they have don with sudden death Poor Catholiks are yet in their pilgrimage and place of sufferance who must therfor patiently endure all scoffs contumelies and slanders for their futur merit But the Angels of God are in glory and blessed and therfor not to be blasphemed or mockt at by insolent dust or their protection and assistance to be slighted What is the essence of Angels what their presence or how great their power we cannot here under our thick corporeal veil conceiv They may for ought we can tell be as compleatly present all at once both here on earth and heaven too unto any effect of perceiving or operating as a man is present within the four walls of his chamber At least if our Lord whom we pretend all of us equally to beleev hath so clearly allowed us to support our selves in their assistance however it be wrought no man I should think who bears the name of Christian can with any modesty affirm as Whitby does here that they neither pray for us in heaven nor assist us on earth nor that we can any way support our selvs in any comfort from them without making them our gods Ch. 17. from page 369 to 410. Is very bitter against the celibacy and single life of priests and exclaims on the contrary with very broad language that you may see he is very sensible of what he sayes against the uncleannes of the clergy not excepting any nor allowing so much as a possibility to do otherwise And I doubt not saith he p. 378. whether such advocates of Celibacy as M. C. if strict inquiry were made might not be often found where the Card. of Crema was Where that man was found I do not know In all likelihood it was in som place where Jobs asses use to graze for he lately made you Sir one of them Good Sir do not hate the man as he deservs but pitty pardon and pray for him He has mocked away his own angel-guardian and cannot therfor be civil towards men Mr. Whitby understands not the several wayes and means prescribed by catholik religion as a preservative against the incursions of that or any other sensual temptation He is unacquainted either with their frequent fastings or disciplines or hair-cloth or continual and hourly exercise of psalms hymns and canticles which take up in a manner all the whole life of the Roman Clergy That man who uses heartily such like exercises commended by catholik religion will easily subdue any whatever temptation if ever it should assault him as they know well enough who practis that their religion seriously and prevent oftentimes its very assault But if any will be so forgetful of his own welfare as utterly to neglect those sacred means he may fall deservedly into a lower religion and becom a Whitby Ministers are either in bed with their wives or thinking haply after one when the catholik clergy if they correspond with their duty and calling are watching and saying their sacred mattins which consist of many divine lessons psalms anthems responsories hymns canticles which put divine and spiritual thoughts into their minds When ministers are feasting they fast When they are caressing their mistrisses these chastise their body with disciplines When they got out of their beds are at their mornings draught these are saying their Lauds and Prime and devoutly disposing themselves by prayer and meditation upon their knees unto their sacred liturgy When they are eating and drinking and mannaging worldly affairs about their wives and children these are at their Sext and None and Vespars and Compline that they may fulfill their daily task of prayers and devotions to their Redeemer I say no more but of this I am and will be consident that if Mr. Whitby had ever practised or seen the lives and conversations of Roman Priests those visible angels of God or been otherwise acquainted therewith he would not have so boldly affirmed as he does even against the very tenour of gospel which saith that som are made eunuchs by men and som again make themselvs so for the kingdom of heaven that it is impossible to be chast Nor would he so universally calumniat all professours of chastity for the wickednes of som few who have in som particular ages and places given offence by their evil lives unto Catholiks whose testimony Mr. Whitby uses against them But commonly men judg of others as they act themselvs And he that keeps himself chast will in charity think so of other men When you say Sir and all catholiks with you that it is indeed a doctrin of devils both pernicious and fals to forbid marriage absolutely as evil and unlawful in it self as did the Encratites Montanists Marcionites and Manichees but yet relatively and upon som particular account may som persons notwithstanding be withheld from marriage for diviner
purposes as catholik Church uses For so the women which were particularly addicted to the service of the altar St. Paul would have them to be elderly and mature lest being young they should grow wanton from Christ and desire to marry This distinction will in no wise serv Mr. Whitby For saith he with his reverend Hall the doctrin thus stigmatised by the apostle as the doctrin of Devils is in general of such as do forbid marriage and not upon this or that particular account And the act is all one whether the prohibition be relative or absolute as poison is poison whether absolutely or conditionally taken Thus speaks Whitby with his reverend Hall thence inferring if I understand him that it is as full and truly the doctrin of devils to forbid marriage to any one upon any account of serving God more purely and the like as it is to forbid it absolutely as evil and unlawful in it self as poison c. But is this true Poison conditionally taken or taken upon condition either of a preservative against it or of som diseas whereof it is a proper remedy may not poison or hurt the man that takes it but rather help perhaps and cure him And if it do not poison but help then is it no poison to him but physick And do they forbid marriage as in it self unlawful who do relatively prohibit it Or is it equally the doctrin of devils to withhold it as unlawful to all or only to som upon a special occasion Do they condemn it in it self who withhold it in relation to som times or persons That I may omit other several reasons which may convince this assertion of folly and falsehood how coms our Church of England to forbid marriage in Advent and Lent and som other times of the year Is not this a relative prohibition And doth our Church of England therfor absolutely forbid it in it self becaus she relatively forbids it I am sure the prohibition is as much relative to forbid marriage to all persons at som times as to forbid it to som persons at all times And if the doctrin be stigmatized in general upon what account soever it run then doth the Church of England hold and teach the doctrin of devils when upon this or that particular account she prohibits marriage although she absolutely allows it as the Roman Church does The rubrick of our English Church now put into our Almanack runs thus Times prohibiting Marriage Marriage comes in the 23 of January and by the 7 of February it goes out again until Low Sunday at which time it coms in again and goes not out till Rogation Sunday from that time it is unforbidden until Advent Sunday But then it goes out and coms not in again till the 23. of January following All which in the phrase of Dr. Pierce and Whitby his champion runs thus Times commanding the doctrin of devils The doctrin of devils goes out the 23 of January and by the 7 of February it comes in again until Low Sunday at which time it goes out again and coms not in till Rogation Sunday from that time it goes out until Advent Sunday But then the doctrin of devils coms in and it goes not out again till the 23 of January The same is also to be said about abstaining from flesh in Lent For this prohibition is equally stigmatized by the same Apostle in the very self-same text as the devils doctrin And a dispensation to eat flesh in Lent cannot be obtained in our Byshops Courts without a sum of moneys and generally to abstain from the doctrin of devils we give an angel either a gold angel or a silver one Truth is it is no devils doctrin or evil counsel to refrain either from flesh or marriage or any way to bridle and mortifie our carnal appetites which our holy apostles have counselled us carefully to do but a blessed angelical conversation For the angels of God saith Christ our Lord do neither marry nor are given in marriage And the flesh of bulls and goats neither doth God nor his angels feed on And both the counsel and practis of Christ and his apostles lead us that way When the Bridegroom is taken away then saith Christ shall my disciples fast that is they shall then enter upon their austerities of life after their solemn profession in Pentecost which now in their noviceship I will not put upon them while they are yet weak in faith Unto those very same disciples he also perswaded continence and coelibacy both by his own example and words of counsel And devils are all friends to the contrary uncleannes and gluttony But why then are these two abstinencies so opposite both of them to the devils will and inclination called by St. Paul Doctrina daemoniorum wheras devils were never known to move any man to those abstinencies but rather to the contrary excesses being enemies themselvs to all cleanlines temperance Doth the devil approve of that which our Lord advises us to follow Or does he labour to promote Christs counsel and practis No in no wise But whatsoever he may pretend of good he ever does it to som evil end and for snares and subversion He likes not of continence he loves not temperance he hates cleanlines But so to praise that which himself indeed dislikes and perswade men to beleev that such an act of high vertue and counsel is also of such necessity that no man can be a Christian without it This is one of his demoniacal subtilties The Greek hath two several words to expres those evil spirits in general Daemonium and Diabolus the one speaks his crafty subtilties the other his malicious will But we in English have but one and it renders properly the last For the old Saxes our forefathers called that evil spirit Deuvill or Doill which relates to the will or practice But Daemonium or Daemon for which we have no English word has a reference to the understanding and to the perverting of it And it signifies intelligent or knowing Now this doctrin of abstinence from meats and marriage as things unlawful is called by St. Paul doctrina daemoniorum the doctrin of daemons or of those evil spirits not as they are wicked practisers but cunning seducers not as they corrupt the will but delude the understanding They hate continence and never have or will move any man towards it But if under colour of its excellency they could once perswade men to beleev that salvation is not possible for married people as in primitive times of Christianity they did then have they acted the part of demons or cunning seducers indeed and brought much ruin and disorder and snares upon the Christian world which it is indifferent to them what way it suffer so it receiv a dammage This craft of demons consists generally in this that to make themselvs and temptations plausible they still advance one ability or vertue to depress another In primitive times of the Church