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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87879	An answer to the Marques of Worcester's last paper; to the late King. Representing in their true posture, and discussing briefly, the main controversies between the English and the Romish Church. Together with some considerations, upon Dr Bayly's parenthetical interlocution; relating to the Churches power in deciding controversies. To these is annext, Smectymnuo-Mastix : or, short animadversions upon Smectymnuus in the point of lyturgie. / By Hamon L'Estrange, Esqr.	L'Estrange, Hamon, 1605-1660.	1651 (1651)	Wing L1187; Wing L1191; Thomason E1218_2; ESTC R202717	68,906	120

weak finite and erring men still their Canons are no Articles of Faith their Decrees no infallible Rules Not so in the primitive Church I am assured by the confession of both sides Augustine being to dispute with Maximinus his first demand was Dic mihi fidem Rehearse to me thy faith the subtle Heretique supposing Augustine would urge the Nicene Creed against him reply'd I believe as the Councel of Ariminum believes but finding after that Augustine would not take this for an Answer says further I did not plead the Councel of Ariminum to excuse my opinion but to shew the Authority of the Fathers who according to Scripture delivered to us a Confession of Faith which they had out of the Scripture Augustine perceiving Maximinus let go the Councel of Ariminum was resolved to stand as little upon the Councel of Nice but closed with him thus Neither ought I to produce the Councel of Nice against thee nor thou that of Ariminum against me I am not bound to the authority of this nor thou of that let us in our conflict urge the authority of scripture witness indifferent to both and not peculiar to either See here the Orthodox and Heretique both compromise to abide the order of Scripture and both wave the Authority and Judgement of two General Councels which certainly they would not have done had they reputed them infallible and a Judge not infallible shall rule no Faith of mine But the Doctor tells us page 79. His Society of Men must be such as can say It seemed good unto us and to the holy Ghost Now Doctor you speak to the point indeed that Society of Men that Church would I fain see but are you well advised what you say If yea then it must seem good to the holy Ghost because so to us whereas the first form if he ever promised to be there with infallible assistance I dare take his word for it but had it to the holy Ghost first and then to us But assign the holy Ghost what place ye please if he be there 't is all I look for and I will not take yours unless you shew me that promise which hitherto you have not done But we will not part so neither admit for once you finde the Church you so hunt for and a spirit of infallibility directing her in that Councel must and will all Controversies presently cease Certainly no such matter for may not perverse spirits wrest to their own destruction what the holy Ghost shall declare in a General Councel as well as what he hath delivered in the sacred Scripture Did not the Nestorians vouch for their Heresie the Authority of the Councel of Nice as General a Councel and as much endowed with the holy Ghost as ever any since that of Hierusalem was or I believe shall be Nor do I speak onely of what the malice of Satan sowing Tares and man's crooked untoward will a soil proper for them may produce for the holy Ghost speaks in a manner signanter and expresly there must be notwithstanding such assistance Controversies still For if there must be Heresies there will be without controversie Controversies still and that Heresies must be the holy Ghost tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. So that the revenue and product of all I have said is this That the true Church hath not the supreme Judicature over Questions of Faith and if she had yet Controversies would and must still continue and all this I hope I have not onely said but proved I confesse ingeniously sure he meant ingenuously for there was no great wit in his confession that there is not a thing that I ever understood lesse than that Assertion of the Scriptures being Judge of Controversies though in some sort I must and will acknowledge it The Doctor was here going a step beyond the Papists themselves who all hold the Scriptures to be an infallible Rule but resum'd himself and modifieth his speech with an acknowledgement of it to be so in some sense but in what he thought us not worthy to know Nor since he is so reserved will we much inquire because when known it can extend little to our satisfaction But though we must not know in what sense it is sole Judge yet in what it is not he tells us and that is Not as it is a Book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civil Differences The Law shall be Judge between us we do not meane that every man shall run unto the Law-books or that any Lawyer himself shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possesse himself of the thing in question without a legal Triall by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose How the Doctor thinks he hath nickt it and yet I fear he is so far from hitting the White as he hath mist the But For first the Comparison is extremely wide Things ad extra and what are without us may be stated and determined by civil Judicatories but Faith is a thing mixt of the understanding and the will over which none can claim Jurisdiction Man may adjudge away my Land my Faith he cannot and therefore I must say with the Poet Hane animam concede mihi tua eaetera sunto Secondly in civil Differences will the Doctor say that the Judges decide the Question or the Law For if the Judgement be given according to the Law then the Law is the Judge I take it and if contrary to Law or not according to it he who so determineth is not a Judge but an Arbitrator Our Law judgeth no man c. saith Nicodemus there the Law was the Judge And though with us in England the Law is a kinde of Craft or Mystery full of Quirks and Intricacies yet in other places as in Denmark Onely the Parties at variance plead their own Cause and then a Man stands up and reades the Law and there 's an end for the very Law-book is the onely Judge saith my royal Author and adds Happy were all Kingdoms if they could be so Lastly where the Doctor saith It is not our meaning that every man shall run unto the Law-books We will though not yield it yet suppose it so in other Differences but in Divinity it is clearly otherwise for there is an expresse Command given by Christ himself not to the Pharisees onely but generally to all Search the Scriptures and it were a meer mockery in our Saviour to bid us Reade the Scriptures if they were like Caligula's Laws written in so smal an hand that we cannot reade them or in so obscure words as we cannot without the help of the Church in matters of Salvation understand them In like manner saving knowledge and divine Truths are the Portion that all God's Children lay fast claim to yet they must not be their own Carvers though it be their own meat that is before them whilest they have a Mother at the Table It is no Argument of ill

much the odds of Rome M. We hold that every Minister of the Church especially the supreme Minister or Head thereof should be in a capacity of fungifying his Office in preaching the Gospel c. you deny it How his Lordship makes the Church do Penance and puts her head and heels together for how the supreme Head can properly be a Minister of that Church whereof it is Head passeth my understanding what our Church denieth is this It is not lawfull for any man to take upon him the Office of publique Preaching or ministring the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same And this is all his Lordship's Text urgeth M. Nor we onely deny it saith the Marques but so as that our Church hath maintained and practised it a long time for a Woman to be Head or supreme Moderatrix in the Church and many have been hanged drawn and quartered for not acknowledging of it I have read indeed of some such Women as his Lordship speaks of one in Revel. 17. 1. and by her fine cloaths vers. 4. she should be a Queen and as a Queen I am told she sits chap. 18. vers. 7. I will not say what that Queen is for fear I procure my self ill will Another who first made Rome the Mother-church And another in England called Qu. Mary who used that Title of Head of the Church and no offence taken at it having been conferr'd upon her Father by Act of Parlament in the time of Popery but her Sister Elisabeth thought it enough to be called supreme Governess who were martyr'd for not acknowledging her so neither can I nor doth his Lordship tell I shall say little to his Lordship's points of Absolution and Confession their practise is very antient and commendable and as in other cases our Church leaves them arbitrary so in some she injoyns them For Absolution you may see her form prescribed in the Liturgy in the Visitation of the Sick for Confession the Rubrick Paragraph 2. before the Communion M. We hold men may do Works of Supererogation this you deny Had not Supererogation or Superarrogancy rather been a saucy and malepert Tenet it might have given in good manners the Possibility of keeping the Commandments to have been before it for sure we should in reason be out of Gods debt before we bring him into ours But we must take it as we finde it nor am I ashamed to own what our Church holds viz. Voluntary Works besides over and above God's Commandments which they call Works of Supererogation cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety and she reasons from Christ saying plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you say We are unprofitable Servants His Lordship voucheth onely one single Text and that of the Vow as he takes it of single life But I observe All hear not that saying but they to whom it is given so then it is a gift if we return no more than was given where 's the Supererogation and whereas the Marques tells us it is no Commandment had he consulted with the Greek Grammar he would have found {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} let him receive it in the Imperative Mood and therefore Athanasius calleth it Caeleste aeternae virginitatis mandatum the heavenly commandment of perpetual virginity The Fathers were I grant much enamored with the vow of continency as a condition of life more agreeable to the service of God than the coupled state usually is but they never thought it a work meritorious much less able to supererogate at God's hand If they held any such opinion the Marques should have told us their words for the places urged and quoted demonstrate no such thing M. We say we have free will you deny it Our Church saith We have no power to do goodworks pleasant and acceptable to God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will So then we deny not all free will not a free will to evil but to good for the Apostle speaking of us in an unregenerate state saith When we were dead in sin God hath quickened us together with Christ so that there is death first a total disability in us to good then there is the new birth quickned with Christ without this we live neither the life of faith nor of works not of faith for Whosoever believes is born of God 1 John 5. 1. not of works for Whosoever loveth is born of God also 1 John 4. 7. His Lordship's three Texts oppose not what we say 1 Cor. 7. 37. The Apostle speaks of a thing in its own nature indifferent and in such things free will we deny not Deut. 30. 11. Though Life and Death be there propounded to our choice yet doth it not follow that the power of chusing Life and Death is our own and if any say with Pelagius a God would not command what he knew we could not perform my Answer is with Augustine q God commands some things more than we can do to teach us what we are to crave at his hands Matth. 23. 37. We reade that the children of Jerusalem would not be gathered together which argueth a perversity and freeness of will to disobey Christ to obey him no power at all of our selves But there might saith his Lordship have been a willingness as well as an unwillingness else Christ had wept in vain True and there had been a willingness no doubt had God will'd their gathering by his secret and efficacious as well as by his revealed wil To his Fathers A folly it is to deny they many of them exprest themselves somewhat loosly in this point having to deal with those Philosophers who held the fatal necessity of all things went so far on the other side in advancing free will as they were in the ditch of error before they minded it yea Austin himself was a while in it till Pelagius with his Heresie roused him to look up and discover where he was Austin being awake first cals up the Church who upon serious consideration finding her Doctrine in this particular warped somewhat from the Truth by the heat of Disputation sets all those right in two eminent Councels first of Milevis where she saith a God saith not it is harder for you to do without me John 15. 5. but without me ye can do nothing at all Then that of Orange b It is the gift of God when we turn away our steps from wickedness We hold it possible to keep the Commandments you hold it impossible We do not hold it impossible to keep the Commandments we have kept them all we hold it is possible for some of them by some to be lost for we miss the second out of the first Table in the Popish Bibles but as touching observing the