put both the Byshopricks into one and gave him beath together Wine and wife are to mee as Bath and Wells Let me have beath as the Scotchman said VIC Go your wayes go Wer it not that you cast a glance of your eye now and then upon me when you ar in your pulpet you would be but a dry preacher T is even so Madam LA. Even so be it THIRD DIALOGUE VIC LO I com according as it is written Psa 40.9 Dear Madam good morrow to your Lap. It seemes I am the first to day somewhat earlier than ordinary but so it is written Thou shalt heare my voyce betimes in the morning Psa 5. O Sr Harry wellcom wellcom you could not stay long from us when both the spirit and the bride say Com Rev. 22. I le be the spirit for once especially when I am got up in a morning out of my bed And why not I pray you sith the very ruler of darknes when people are got up for conformities sake transforms himself into an angel of light 2. Cor. 11.14 KN. Health and happines attend my noble Lady this day and ever It pleases my eye Madam to behold the chear of your countenance this morning wch seems to promis to my purposes a good succes LA. I doubt not of good successe both to my wishes and your own if you will but relent a little of that hardnesse and obstinacy is in a manner naturall unto Papists I would not Sr Harry proceed so rigorously as to request you all at once to abjure the whole body of popery but to let fall at first the super fluous parts of it that do hāg looser on and be of least concernment and use and to stand so disposed as to think obstinacy unhandsom in any thing Papists say truely that they are built on a rock I think all their whole church is rock for one may as soon wth his teeth bite off a piece of marble as wrest from them any of their very least opinions so firm tenacious and obstinat ye be all of you Nay to save a whole Kingdom you will relent nothing at all What a masse of money did Harry the eigth spend for six yeares together in Embassadours and agents in Italy France Spain and Germany to procure the testimonys of Universityes and yet he was not able either for love or money although he were a magnanimous noble Prince to purchase so much as the hands or consent of any one University for the lawfulnesse of his affection to his sweet Lady Anne Bullen And the popes Cardinals although they received no small weight of good English gold from our Princely Harry insomuch that they could have wisht he had had his fill of her yet would they not be brought by any means to say he might lawfully do it Your Popes themselvs tho I confes they have been many of them very holy and learned personages yet som of them hav been known to be as bad as the worst and yet even thes have been as Zealous of the integrity of their faith as the greatest Saints and would sooner do ill than say it might be done Simony Pride Gluttony known and acknowledgd sins these some of them would act of their own accord but all the power of earth summond together should not force any of them to abrogat one article of their faith or traditions though it were but the sprinckling of holy water I read not long ago in an authentick story that the nobls and Prelats of England perceiving the resolution rage of K. Harry upon the forementiond affront certified the Pope by a privat Embassadour that if he did not some what relent and condescend to the Kings desires the whole frame of Catholik Religion in England wch already crackt would be utterly overthrown the nobility disgraced monasterys ruind Byshops deposed thousands imprisond and perhaps martyrd and the whole land undon To wch the pope replied frantick man as he was though the whole body of Christs church should be destroyed yea tho heaven and earth should mingle together in its old Chaos of confusion yet would he not declare that lawfull wch in conscience he thought was not so What a crabbed perversnesse was this He was certainly no Gentleman S ◠Harry that would not be perswaded tho heaven and earth should come together to chang his judgment KN. To be obstinat and heady in our own proper opinions is oftimes unseasonabl and unhandsom But the tradition wch the Church preservs is the very depositum of our B. Saviour whether it concern faith or manners practicall or speculativ beleef and no conceptions of privat or human judgments and therfor in al honesty to be preserved entire by the trustee of our Lord who committed it unto his church wth this caution that not one jota or apex therof should be altered And therfore that Pope who would not declare against his conscience although heaven and earth should com together did no more than what his Lord and Maister had said before him Heaven and earth shall pass away my word shall not pass not one jota orapex therof Luc. 21. And it was a doubl madnes in Harry the eigth doing himself evil to expect the church of God should say it was good Nor be there Madam in Faith any superfluous parts but the whole body of it hangs so cōcatenated and cemented together that the taking away of any one particl would ruin the whole fabrick nor will you find in faith any portion less strong than another but al equally invincible Som may be more leading points wherupon others depend and more materiall in their quality but in respect of our beleef the least hath as much firmnes of truth as the greatest And wtsoever sophistry may seem to shake any one apply the like engin to any other and in shall do as much that is to say in very truth nothing at al whatsoever it may appear to do in self beguiling minds Wherfore Madam bereaving me of any of my faith you rob me of all for it is an uncontroulable rule in faith what the Apostle also does as in a good sense it may be applied unto manners Qui delinquit in un◠factus est omnium reus Jam. 2.10 He that fails in one is made guilty of all This you would easily understand if you would consider how we receivd our faith and Christian doctrin For it was all equally handed to us at once and that from the autority of one and the same originall and it was extant in the world before any Scriptures were pend And these sacred Scripturs and other pious Books and also all generall councells that hav ever been celebrated in the Church were formed afterwards directed swayed rectified and ordered by this rule of Traditional doctrin committed to the Church and kept by her So that issuing conformably from one and the same sours all points of faith have an equall proportion of truth however they may differ in their own
one another whence is it that we all conspire to hate condemn and rail against the Catholik Church having as much cause to inveigh against one another and let her alone as to rail against her alone and applaud one another This is a shrewd sign we ar all rebels to that one Church and hav no truth amongst our selvs For one truth is opposit to twenty falshoods and these falshoods however they be contrary to one another that one primary truth still stands against them all Catilin and Cethegus and the other conspiratours against Rome their mother City could fall out one amongst another tho they jointly resisted her and she as indifferently confronted them all Besids these reformers must needs be liars all of them if we may beleeve any of them For as they did most vehemently inveigh against that part of popery wch themselves rejected so did they tooth and nail defend the purity of that portion they still retaind wch by the succeeding reformers was deeply censurd and condemnd And so from the very first to the last they still condemned one another for wt they retaind as the Church of God condemnd them all for wt they rejected Who shall unfold this riddle or tell me in wch reformation the truth lies Surely in non of them if by the mouth of two witnesses a truth may be established for ther is ever the Catholik Church and one reformation against the judgment of any other reformation every sect hath still the Church against her for one and some other sect if not all other reformations besides Ar all thes men sent from God for one and the same thing yet all fail in doing it and al condemnd by one another in the deed Still wt any one of them casts away is popery and what he keeps is the sincere word and will of God tho not only the Church that censurs them all together but even all other reformations say the contrary So that if we put all judgments together ther will result thus much That the Catholik on the one side all sectaries of severall opinions on the other they be all Papists and differ but secundum magis minus So that the Roman is a Catholik Papist and all the rest be heretick Papists but Papists all For every sect is condemnd by his fellowes of some popery and the Church as the source of all And indeed all sects do retain som thing more or les of that religion and faith wch our land received at first from the pape and wtsoever positive doctrin they still keep they had it onginally from him At least they keep all of them the Bible eyther whol or in part wch is the great book of the pope wch he ever sends wth his missioners since he orderd and canonised it to any nations conversion as conformable to the great rule of Christian faith wch is tradition And consequently if the Papist be a child of Antichrist all sectaries are no other so far as they be Christian or have any thing of Christianity amongst them onely wth this difference that the mark of the beast if he be a beast is lesse in som than it is in others but t is in the for heads of all so many as be baptised and beleeve in Christ by his means and missioners and by the Sacraments and precepts they had originally from him VIC The Lord shield us from the fiend of darknesse the pope upon my forehead the Bible the popes and all we Papishes confute him husband some way or other if this be true hee l not fear texts at all LA. S. Harry you have brought things about very strangly Can you think ever to perswade us that we have any thing of popery in us KN. Assuredly you have so much as is not yet clipt of by reformation be it more or les And this discours I have faln upon insensibly to mitigat the strang rancour against Catholik religiō wch people conceiv by contagion of custome and not any true knowledg they have thereof and the pleasing opinion each one fosters of the reformation himself is part of Take the four generall opinions that be now in England the Catholick the Protestant Presbyterian and independent Consid er seriously and you shall find that as they be antecedent in time so still the succeeding is but a deficiencie from the foregoer and the last the greatest negation of the positions laid by the first yet still what he holds positively he hath it from him and the first wch is the Catholik had all his whole positive faith from the Pope as himself professes and our own histories witnesse part whereof was cut of by the Protestant as the Presbyterian after him took away some things wch the Protestant still retaind and the Independent others wch the Presbyterian kept He is very ignorant in history that discerns not by his reading how the Catholik now existent in England retains universally all the points of faith wch were brought hither into England at its conversion from paganisme by S. Austin and other good children of blessed S. Bennet sent hither to that purpose by Pope Gregory eleaven hundred years ago concerning priests altars sacrifices the reall presence merit of good works consecrations pennances purgatory lents pilgrimages popes supremacy and the rest to the least iota of wt they then received Nor hath he any parcell of faith either over or under wt he received then so that the Catholik is a papist in print and a legitimat child of that venerable pastour A thousand years after the Saxes or English-mens conversion and the unanimous profession of the Catholik faith all that while in an unluky ho wt rises Luther who having been himself born and and bred up in the bosome of the Church through the instigation of Satan and his two instruments pride and lust apostatised from the Church and made a reformation as he called it wherunto the worst of people at first adhered altho now both wise and honest minded people go along wth it not so much by their own choise as unfortunate custome This protestancy took away at once almost three parts of the Churches practicall doctrin retaining the speculative Within the compasse of ten years it had run into severall divisions or subreformations in Germany Holland Switzerland and Geneva Upon Harry the eights schism and afterward these people of severall Reformations cam flocking over into England by whos severall directions to pleas all parties was made up that miscellan of the English protestancy by rejection of severall points of the Catholik faith then in our land some according to Luther others according to Calvin Swinglius the rest together wth an establishment of an apish prelacy in stead of the Catholik one wch had beene overthrown for the security of the state and of the fond Church they had then set up the other few remainds of our Catholik faith now wholly dismembred yet standing as the base of this
humane superstructur Under this Protestant prelacy differing from all other reformations in the world bred the Puritan who was so chekt kept under all the raigne of K. Iames that when he came to be teemd forth by strength of natur and multitud of seed he was born double and came two forth together the younger brother supplanting the elder and thrusting himself into his place even in that instant that the elder had eat himself a passage through his Protestant mothers bowells This was the Presbyterian and Jndependent both rejecting somthing of that had been conveyed to them by the Protestant but the Independent more than the other But what either of them kept he received it by the Protestant as the Protestant had done from the Catholik the sole universall Professour of the whol Christian faith Now then the whol body of Christian faith and doctrin kept by the Catholik as it was wholly receivd at first from the pope the generall father of the Christian church so must it needs be all indifferently Papisticall upon that account and not that part onely wch a Reformer dislikes and calls so and consequently every parcell therof retaind by any Reformer is as properly Papisticall as wt he rejects and altho he cals it not so yet t is so stiled by another Reformer who likes not to retain it as he does and for no other reason but because as it issued so is it maintaind and practised by the popish Church wch reason holds good as well in him that likes it as him thy likes it not By this rule it will follow irrefragably that all the four professours be papists as also be all others who professe Christianity upon the face of the whole earth either in whole or part aswell those that keep their whole faith entire and respect the Pape as they that retain onely some part and defy him for ingratitud and pride can exempt no man from the denominatiō so long as he still beleeves or practises any part of that Christianity has been handed to him from the Pope and Popish Church as all men in England I am sure do and to avoid all further cavill t is solely of them I now speak If four or five generations of men arising from one stock should be all of them shorter by the head one than another the first generation completely resembling the father the second les by the head than he and the third yet less by the head than the former his imediate progenitour so to the last in like manner It would be ridiculous for the last descendents because they want much of the person statur of the first originall or stock to deny that they have therfore any thing of him or from him speaking against those severall inches they have not at the same time to magnifie the few inches wch they have and blaspheme him from whence they have received them And yet this is directly the case of all reformers and reformations to boast of the Christianity they keep and villify that part they reject as superstitious and popish whereas both wt they reject and wt they keep did descend equally and indifferently from the Popish or Catholick Church And if our English sectaries should render up to the Pope and Popish Church all they have had from her I do not know any one positiv point of Christianity speculativ or practicall they should have remaining except that harmonious song of mellifluous Robin red breast Preserv us Lord. Thus much may suffice to show that all England be Papists some Catholick Papists other heretick Papists but Papists all Sith every part of Christian faith brought altogether in one entire body of doctrine by a messenger of Pope Gregory to the English at our conversion from paganisme was equally papisticall equally received in the Catholik church and with the like indifferency communicated to our land from her Head and Pastour And the having of it more or less maks som less papists than others but not no papists Even as in musick if a sem breef be a full time a minnom tho it be but half so much is a notion of time so is likwis a crotchet tho it be but half a minnom and a quaver wch is but half a crotchet so that a minnom is half a sem breef a crochet the fourth part and a quaver tho it be but the eight part yet a part it is and nothing els Even so be thes four severall religions in England every one of them either complet popery or part of it the Catholick as it were a seem breef the protestant a minnom the Presbyterian a a crochet and the Independent a quaver And truly to keep one piece of popery and reject others deliverd by the same hands and upon the very selfsame grounds seems to me neither a safe cours nor yet a reasonabl proceeding For the whol stream of Christian doctrin was deliverd unto us as issuing indifferently from a divin originall and if this report be true no man may tampar or meddl at all in that sacred issue of divin will as I have already shown if fals t is all equally to be rejected and paganism or atheism to succeed in its place But our reformers will have that to be popery or human wch any of them rejects wthout ever rendring a reason therof to satisfy any moderat and indifferent man sith what ever they say against any one thing may be as well applied to any other Nor is religion like philosophy to be held by the propability it carrys in our understanding for then it wer not faith but reason nor should our understandings be otherwis captivated to divin revelations that to human positions or subjected to God more than to man And yet again if probability should carry it a wise judicious man that is unprejudiced in his judgment shall I am comfident find more difficulty to beleev the very history of the Bible than any articl of the Catholik religion rejected by reformers and as much reason to keep all articles as any But sith reformers will have that popery wch any of them rejects that he retains pure Gospell I for my part grant both But then I make no difference at all betwixt popery and pure Gospell nay the Gospell is so far pure as it is conformable to popery the traditionall doctrin of the Catholik church wch is the rule and square of all preachings Writings Letters Sermons Epistls Gospell andall And therfor that any reformation in religion is a purification of the Gospell from popery taken in your sens that is to say from human inventions superstitions and errours this I must flatly deny or that the popery men exclaim against is any such thing And as I can never my self be perswaded to the contrary so me thinks I should perswade even you my dear Lady and you also Mr Parson with your witty bedfellow to be of my mind VIC Who I God forbid Let them cleav