Rome was from the beginning reckoned a particular Church I think is as plain as that Rome is in Italy I have proved it so fully above that I almost loath such a ridiculous subject of discourse pag. 17. And your Authorities from Pacian and Cyril of Jerusalem are not one jot to your purpose if you intend them to confirm that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church all that they say or prove being that Catholick is the Sirname of true Christians and that every one should enquire for and unite with the Catholick Church into whatsoever place he comes Now what is this to the Church of Rome here is no mention of her here not a syllable to determine that she is the Catholick Church to unite with which these two Fathers are carefull to advise These things you tell us gave you some small encouragement to betake your self to that Communion that was both Christian and Catholick c. for which very reason you needed not have left the Communion of the Church of England which is both Christian and Catholick You ought to dislike Papist upon the same ground you dislike Protestant and if Christian was too large for you you needed not to leave the Church of England to be both Catholick and Christian the Church of England denominates her self from no particular Persons good or bad but is a True Church having lawfull Pastors and a Catholick Faith. You next say you cannot imagine why Protestants should so decline the Title of Catholick you mean or suffer it with so much silence to be laid aside unless it be pag. 18. because it imports a Faith spread throughout the World which they very well know would be utterly impossible to prove their Protestant Faith ever was c. Whether this passage is more ridiculous or false I must own that upon the sudden I cannot tell if you mean here as you ought the Church of England as you must to be consistent with your self having a good while ago cast off all the other Reformed Communions nothing can be more false and ridiculous since twice a Day we use it constantly in our Service and surely you will not be so extravagantly unreasonable to say we do not Mean or Pray for our selves when we Pray for the Good Estate of the Catholick Church So that our decling the Title and suffering it with so much silence to he laid aside must be put to the account of the grosser sort of Untruths And we need not wonder that you would offer a false reason for a false thing our Faith and the Faith of all the Reformed Churches having been already proved to be Catholick and therefore your utterly impossible to prove it to be a Faith spread throughout the World must be put up on the same account Nor is there ever a Member of the Church of England of any Learning that I ever met with or heard of that either declined the Title of a Reformed Catholick or was not ready onely to profess but also to prove that by being a Son of the Church of England he was a Member of a Catholick Church As to what you add about the other Adjunct in our ours I say of the Church of England as well as yours at Rome Creed Apostolical that you saw less reason for their claim to that and to give them their due they were more modest than much to insist upon it c. This Sentence is Brass every bit of it for if you mean the Church of England here I am astonished to think you should have so little Conscience or so little Modesty to publish such a gross untruth in the face of a Church that is so far from not insisting on the Title of Apostolical that it denounces every person excommunicate that shall dare to say the Church g Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Church of England by Law established under the Kings Majesty is not a TRUE and an APOSTOLICAL CHURCH teaching and maintaining the DOCTRINE of the APOSTLES let him be Excommunicated â—pso facto and not restored but onely by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of this his WICKED ERROUR Can. 3. of the Synod in 1603. of England is not an Apostolical Church and calls such an affirmation an impious Errour But if you are resolved to carry things at this rate by brazening us down 't is to no purpose to contend with you I must needs tell you that you might as well have published to the World that the Church of England hath no Creed in her publick Service nor believes a Trinity nor hath any Bishops to preside ovâ—â— her as this of her neither having nor pretending to Apostolical Faith and Succession If you include also the rest of the Reformed Churches you might easily know that there is no thing they so much insist upon as the proving their Faith and Practices to be purely Apostolical and therefore their Churches to be such so that neither are they so modest as not to insist on their being Apostolical as to the want of Succession among them that you object against 'em and they do not deny you your self have furnished them with an answer to your Party from St. Ambrose's words Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri Fidem non habent de Poenit. l. 1. c. 6. that they enjoy not the inheritance or Succession of Peter who have not the Faith of Peter But here you have a mind to make the Church of England to be of your opinion that is that the foreign Reformed Churches have no true Ministers because those that come out of France with the Title of Ministers are not allowed to exercise their Ministry before they receive the Orders of the Church of England pag. 19. c. It is true they are not allowed to have a Cure of Souls here without the taking of Episcopal Orders because it is expressly provided by Act of Parliament among us that no one shall have such a Cure of Souls without Episcopal Orders which Act you know was fully designed against our home Dissenters who had opportunities of Episcopal Orders at home not against them who could not have them at home with whom also we had nothing to do But since no exception was made in the Act for them the Church cannot dispense with an Act of Parliament in their favour However that she allows theirs to be true tho' imperfect Churches is hence plain because her Members in their Travels communicate with those Churches which thing she would never permit had they no Ministry it was the Practice of our Exiles in France during the long Rebellion and Dr. R. Watson hath lately put forth the most Learned and most Religious Bishop Cozin who was one of those noble exiled Confessors his Defence of their communicating there with Geneva rather than Rome So that your Argument fails you also here CHAP. XV. More of his foul Aspersions on the Church of England exposed and
they saw good c. To be brief with you on this point if you speak here of particular Persons in our Church it is utterly false since they are all obliged to believe that to be the Canon of Scripture which is set down in the Articles of our Church and there is not one Man of our Church that is at liberty to believe which he pleases and to reject which he pleases from being Canonical Scripture to him and for Traditions received in the Church no particular Man hath any more power over them than over the number of the Canonical Books But if you speak of our Church it self here which your words without stretching will not bear it is as false of Her since she believes and delivers those Books onely as Canonical which the Primitive Church believed and delivered down to her as such She rejects none as Apocryphal which were not also rejected as such by the Primitive Church as the Famous and most Learned Bishop Cosin hath most incomparably proved it for her in that his excellent Scholastick History of the Canon of Scripture And for Traditions she rejects none but such as have no evidence nor probability of their ever having been of use in the Primitive Church or such as are of no moment in which case I never saw reason why the National Church of England hath not as much Authority herein to judge of these things as the Church of Rome her self who for example sake hath left off giving the Communion to Infants tho' a Tradition of the Catholick Church So that I cannot for my Life see what you would fain tho' most ridiculously deduce from hence that all with us resolved it self into the Judgment of a Private Spirit pag. 3. and must be I suppose you mean the Private Spirit must be tho' your words are far from bearing it the chief or rather onely support of your Protestant Faith c. Since it is so palpably false as I have just now shewn nothing as to matters of Faith Discipline or Church Communion among us being either left to or guided by or depending upon any Man how great or how learned soever his private Spirit and so ridiculous that I could not forgive it any Man that had not abstracted himself from his reason but to doe you right you have almost a mind to come off it with your Methought and I am content without being angry that it should pass for your thought the abstracted-no-Religion Man's You go on to shew that you could not persuade your self that Scripture alone could be the Judge of Controversies pag. 3. and resolve your doubts when the Private Spirit was made the Judge of Scripture c. Let the private Spirit be excluded will you admit it then will you allow the Representative Church of England to interpret in new Emergencies which fell not within the care of Antiquity and the Four General Councils If you admit this there need be no dispute since long before your doubts the Church of England hath by publick Authority interpreted the Scripture in all matters of Faith and Discipline and tied up all her Members hath in all the points of Controversie betwixt us and Rome determined that the sense of the Scripture is directly against them and for us If you will not admit it I should be glad to see one reason against it that would not as fully fly in the face of the Church of Rome As to the Mischief upon this Principle of the Private Spirit pag. 3 4. the Wars and Murders c. You ought to have remembred that that Principle was not set up by but against the Church of England and that it was not the Church but the direct and sworn Enemies thereof that committed all those outrages you cannot be ignorant that it was She only that suffered during that Rebellion and Schism and therefore it is most unjust in you to insinuate as if She was cause of all that distraction whereas nothing is more apparent than the contrary to it And as to your Tanrum Religio c. I challenge you to shew any one Principle of the Church of England that encourages or does but glance towards Rebellion Sedition or disturbance of either Church or State This I 'll promise you for every one I 'll shew you Ten of your new Church I 'll shew you Councils for it your own most famous of all the European Councils the Fourth of Lateran leading the Van. Your Popes deposing Princes pag. 84. giving away their Kingdoms as they have done ours more than once setting up in Rebellion Son against Father I 'll shew you the Rebellious Holy League in France one King most barbarously Murdered by it a Pope Sixtus Quintus in a set Speech commending the Paricide the Sorbone it self making Rebellious Decrees against the Two Harries of France both Massacred by their Catholick as they call themselves Subjects but enough of this wherein you know or at least should that we have infinitely the advantage of your new Church as to Principles of Loyalty The result it seems of your Inquiry and search among us was that you could not comply with common reason if you did not disclaim the Judgment of your own or any Man 's private Spirit c. pag. 4. I have upon this but one Question to ask you and that is how you came to be a Roman Catholick if you disclaimed your own reason or private Spirit pray who chose your guide or Church for you if you disclaimed every ones else pray tell us how any Body else could doe it for you But notwithstanding this your disclaiming we find you busie enough up and down the Book acting as if you never had done any such thing discovering judging complying contemplating searching and Forty such expressions which used to denote the exercise of a Man's private Judgment and Reason CHAP. V. His Method farther exposed and the ridiculous Fruits of it THE Fruit of all your search hitherto hath been onely to find pag. 4. or at least to mistrust the ground you stood upon somewhat unsure c. What ground it was you then stood upon I cannot guess since before this you had abstracted your self from Religion and supposed your self as of no Religion so most certainly of no Church But all this is assuredly but a figure to bring in the Rock the Rock you think you were got upon when once a Romanist If I might have had a word with you before you had mounted your Rock for now I am afraid there is no speaking with you I would onely have been informed by you whether there is but one Rock and whether I must give (a) Orig. Hom. 1. in Matth. Origen the lie who tells me that all the Apostles were Rocks as well as Peter and what I must say to (b) Prescript c. 32. 36. Edit Franck. 1597. Tertullian and others that tell me other Apostles planted Churches as well as Peter
particular Governour and here you prove that People must be dutifull to their Bishops pag. 8. Ay but say you St. Ignatius tells us there is but one Altar and one Bishop as also that there ought to be but one Church and one Faith which is in Christ c. and that surely is to the purpose This I utterly deny I grant indeed St. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians not as you have mistaken it to the Philippians to which Church he wrote no Epistle tho' some have coined one for him doth speak of one Altar and one Bishop and you had done fairly to have cited the passage at large as you did the other two nothing to the purpose but this is a certain sign that runs almost through your Book that where you onely hint or quote half or put an c. in the middle of a Sentence there all things will not be found fair The passage then is this (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Ignat. Ep. ad Philadelph Edit J. Vossii Be carefull therefore saith he speaking to the Philadelphians to make use of this one Eucharist for there is but one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one Cup to Communicate to us or unite us to his Blood one Altar as but one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons my fellow-servants that whatever ye do ye may act according to Gods appointment Now this passage is so far from proving what you would have it that there is but one Supreme Bishop who you say is he of Rome that it asserts the direct contrary for if it proves as you say it does that there is but one Altar and one Bishop I am as certain that it proves that one Bishop to be the Bishop of Philadelphia and that one Altar to be this Bishops since he exhorts these Philadelphians to make use and keep to that Eucharist that was to be received from that one Altar that did belong to that one Bishop and that one Bishop I am sure was the then Bishop of Philadelphia I will not urge upon you any place of Ignatius but will onely say and will be at any time ready to prove that he that cites Ignatius for a defender of a Monarchical Church under one Head on Earth either hath not read Ignatius or does not understand him What you urge from St. Cyprian is to no purpose since every one owns that every Member ought to keep the Vnity of that Church to which he doth belong and that no Man that is disobedient to the Church his Mother will ever have God for his Father Nor your long quotation from St. Irenaeus where your faculty of translating appears to be none of the best pag. 8. This Preaching and this Faith when the Church had heard spread through the whole World she diligently keeps as it were dwelling in one House to wit having one Soul and one Heart c. which give me leave to alter a little to St. Irenaeus his good sense and then you shall have my Answer about it The Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith although she be dispersed over the whole World yet keeps and preserves them as diligently as if she were confined to or did Inhabit a single House and she doth believe them without any difference or disagreement as tho' she had but one Soul and but one Heart and accordingly doth both preach teach and deliver these things these Articles of Faith as if she had but one Mouth c. Of all the passages in Antiquity I wonder what ill Fate put this piece of St. Irenaeus in your way had you considered it well I am sure we should not have met with it in your Book since it does perfectly ruine the whole design of this part of your Book for whereas the benefit you intended from it was to help you to prove that the Church of Christ is Monarchical under a single head there is nothing less here and every thing contrary for as it speaks of the Catholick Church as one through this Vnity of Faith so it proves what we of the Church of England so much contend for that the Particular Churches of Germany Spain France Aegypt and the East of Lybia Jerusalem Rome and the rest do make up this Catholick Church without the least hint of a Head over them all or of any other Vnity than that of Faith the Light that doth like the Sun equally enlighten every where You will say perhaps that the Church of Rome is not expressly mentioned here and that probably it is because all these Particular Churches mentioned are the several parts of her Body which really is the same as the Catholick Church But to spoil this groundless Pretence neque haequae in Medio Mundi sunt constitutae not to insist on it that by the Churches constituted in the middle of the World in this passage She as well as Jerusalem and the Churches betwixt them is certainly intimated I desire you but to peruse the Third Chapter of his Third Book against Heresies Having in the beginning of this Chapter urged against the Hereticks that none of the Apostles delivered to the Bishops their Successours any such things as they impiously taught and that he could shew this from the Successions in all the Churches he thus addresses them b Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine Omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare Successiones Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae Traditionem c. St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. contr Haeres Edit Feuardent 1625. But because it is too tedious in such a Volume as this is to reckon up the Successions of all Churches c. he then reckons up that of the very great and very ancient Church founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul c. If this passage do not prove the Church of Rome to be one of all those Churches and as Particular a Church as any of the rest I will for the future as you did abstract my self and deny my Eyes as well as my Reason What you quote from Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian two of whose passages are part falsly pag. 9. and part lamely translated are nothing at all to your purpose they only speak of the Catholick Church as one through the Vnity of Faith not a word of the Church of Rome or of her being that one Church under one Head Bishop The same advantage and no more doth that from St. Chrysostom afford you pag. 9. which says The Apostle calls it the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may shew it may be reduced into one which with your leave I would express thus to shew or having shewed that it ought to be at Vnity c. All which is no more than what the Members of the Church of England have said a Hundred Thousand times that every Church as well as that at Corinth ought to be at Vnity You
if there were Errours fit to be thrown out of our Church you your self I am sure your Learned Men will grant that no Ordination can prejudice or hinder such a Rejection of Errours That there were such Errours crept in which ought to be cast out and were at our Reformation is what our Church-Men a Hundred times over have invincibly proved As to the Rule you bring from St. Ambrose that they enjoy not the Inheritance of Peter pag. 20. who receive not the Faith of Peter we are very ready to join issue with you or any of your Church upon it and I question not before you and I part on this subject to ruine the Papal and Roman Succession by your own Rule to wit by proving that they have receded from the Faith of Peter and the whole Primitive Church We readily own that a true and Apostolical Mission pag. 20. Commission and Ordination are considerable particulars and are as ready any time to assert that our Church hath them and to prove it against you at any time if you have a mind to undertake this point against her CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist put down Mr. Scl. 's Reasons from Scripture for Transubstantiation answered HAving traced you hitherto and found all your Attempts vain and your Reasons to no purpose which you took so much pains to scrape together to have proved that our Saviour Christ left his Catholick Church in a Monarchical State under a Particular Vicegerent and that that Vicegerent was the Bishop of Rome and his Church the Catholick Church And having shewn all your Attacks against and Remarks upon the Church of England to be very vain extremely abusive and extravagantly ridiculous I have now onely your last your great Reason to examine wherein you make an effort to prove that her Faith concerning the Eucharist is contrary to that of the Catholick Church If you could have proved this I must confess your forsaking our Communion would have been much more reasonable and therefore I question not but that as you have mustered up abundance of Authorities so you have done all you can to make them speak and declare against us but to how little purpose you have made all this noise and ado about this point also is what I shall quickly see Before I enter on your particular proofs I have a fresh complaint to make that you have not used herein that Ingenuity that would have become a Scholar one might very rationally have expected that as your Intentions were to prove against the Church of England that her Faith was as to the Eucharist false and corrupt so you would have set down what that her Faith is This would have looked like fair and ingenuous dealing first to have put down her Faith about the Eucharist and then to have shewn how contrary it was to Scripture and to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity If you reply to this my Complaint that her Faith is so well known that you needed not put it down together but that you have occasionally done it up and down these Authorities I must tell you that by the account you give of it occasionally one would be persuaded that it is far from being so well known I am sure that slender account or rather hints that you so often intersperse about it are utterly false and very foolish so that if any one should take an account of our Churches Faith from you and whom can they better take it from than one that was so lately a Minister among us they must believe that we hold the Eucharist to be mere figures mere representations and bare signs for that is the most you allow us to make of it that I can meet with in your Book all which how far it is from Truth I shall quickly shew you Well then since you had not the Ingenuity to put down an Account of the Church of England's Faith about the Eucharist I must that so I may the better examine the Proofs you bring and any one may compare the Authorities you quote and our Faith together and thereby more impartially judge and more readily discover whether Antiquity fairly laid down speak for or against us Concerning this Sacrament the Church of England in her 28th Article of Religion delivers her Opinion thus The Supper of the Lord is not onely a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Bloud of Christ After which having declared her self against Transubstantiation as repugnant to plain Scripture and to the nature of a Sacrament and against any Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Bloud in the Declaration about kneeling at the end of our Communion-Service in our Liturgy she goes on in this Article to declare that The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the Mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith which last expressions exclude the wicked from partaking of Christ's Body and allow them barely the Sign or outward part of the Eucharist In the Publick Catechism in the Liturgy having taught her Catechumens that there are two things in each of the Sacraments the outward Sign and the inward spiritual Grace she teaches them to answer that the outward part of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Bread and Wine and that the inward part or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithfull in the Lord's Supper These passages are sufficient to shew that our Church holds a real but not carnal a Spiritual and Heavenly but not Corporal Participation of Christ's Body and Bloud which tho' locally and naturally in Heaven is yet after a Mystical and Supernatural way communicated to the Faithfull not by the mouth of the Body but by that of Faith. Thus much for her Sentiment concerning this Sacrament pag. 20. now I must try your Reasons against it You tell us that you had been a long time greatly concerned for the Interpretation of but five small words of our Saviour c. The result of your concern I suppose was that those five words I doubt we shall find more than five or double five concerned in this business are to be taken in a literal sense and that which you offer for proof of it is this First Because this Sacrament was his last Will and Testament which ought not to be worded obscurely or doubtfully to prevent quarrels and divisions Secondly Because this Will is repeated by so many of his Apostles without the least variation or caution against the
Matth. 16.13 14 c. wherein the discourse of our Saviour with his Disciples and his gift of the keys to Peter is recorded speaking to his Disciples as invested already with this power of binding and loosing t S. Matt. 18.17 18. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publicane verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound c. and whatsoever ye shall loose shall be loosed in heaven which place with me puts it past all doubt that the rest of the Apostles were equally concerned in that speech of our Saviour's to St. Peter and thereby had equal power But if they will not allow this place to suppose a power already given they will not dare to deny that it doth confer so that if he had the power given to him particularly in the Sixteenth Chapter of this Gospel they all have it now in the Eighteenth and thereby the same Jurisdiction and Authority in the Church which quite destroys all you have been hitherto about which was indeed to prove St. Peter had the same Supremacy invested on him by our Saviour which the Bishops of Rome do since from him exercise and enjoy But how little you have performed I dare appeal to any indifferent person to your own self if you will but compare your papers and mine together so that I might save my self the trouble to try what you say about that Primacy not dying with Peter but I will not lest you should say I left that part unanswered CHAP. XIII Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter answered the Proofs out of St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy fully confuted YOUR Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter are few and which is worse nothing to your purpose pag. 13. since they are far from proving what you desire but you ought to have remembred that it is not onely your Task to prove that there was such a Primacy and that it was not to die with St. Peter but that it was to descend to the successive Bishops of Rome after his decease and not to any of the Apostles nor to the Bishops of Antioch But since I perceive we shall find the first to wit of proving the Primacy not to die with St. Peter too many for you it would be cruel to put you upon proving any of the other for as to that proof out of the Epistle of St. Hierome to Demetrias all it proves is that Innocentius was Anastasius's Successour in the Apostolical Chair at Rome now if you cannot prove hence pag. 14. either that this was the sole and onely Apostolical Chair or that it was always the chief and governing Chair of the Catholick Church every one will see that you alledged a place nothing to the purpose having not a word of St. Peter in it that you cannot shew either of them is what I to prevent your trouble of inquiring among your people about it will make appear in a very few words That the Apostolical Chair at Rome is not the onely Chair in the Church Catholick v Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur proxima est tibi Achaia habes Corinthum Philippos Thessalonicenses Ephesum Romam Tertull. de Praescript contr Haeret. c. 36. Edit Junii Franekerae 1597. Tertullian is demonstration Run over saith he the Apostolical Churches in which the very Chairs the Apostles used are to this day presided in by the Bishops in their several places and then he reckons Corinth and Philippi and Rome it self among the rest That it was not originally the chief or governing Chair is as plain from the account we have in Euscbius from x Pest servatoris Ascensum Petrum Jacobum Joannem quamvis Dominus ipsos caeteris praetulisset non idcirco de primo honoris gradu inter se contendisse sed Jacobum cognomine Justum Hierosolymorum Episcopum elegisse Clemens apud Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 1. Edit Vales Clemens his Sixth Book of Institutions That after our Lord's Ascension Peter James and John tho' preferred not Peter alone by our Lord above the rest of the Apostles did not thereupon contend among themselves for the first place of Honour but chose James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem Whose Chair I am sure this passage makes Primus Honoris Gradus the chief Cathedra in the world Having thus spoiled this your proof your next will give me the less trouble pag. 14. wherein St. Hierome tells Damasus that in this miserable condition of the Eastern Churches being over-run by Heresies he would stick to St. Peter 's Chair and that Faith commended by St. Paul c. which passage would have cleared it self had you but been so just as to have translated the very next words which bring us St. Hierome's reason for this his resolution of slighting all Hereticks and communicating with the Apostolical Chair at Rome because he had in that Church been first made a Christian Inde nunc meae animae postulans cibum unde olim Christi vestimenta suscepi Hieron Ep. Damaso and therefore thence would receive the spiritual food for his Soul. Had you Mr. Scl. but made St. Hierome's resolution your own you had never fallen from the Catholick Apostolical and Orthodox Communion of the Church of England unto that of In the mean time remember that you have not proved either a Primacy or a Succession in it for the Bishops of Rome In the next place as tho' conscious to your self that you had done nothing hitherto and that your Arguments for the Supremacy and then for the Succession were too weak you fall again to the proving that St. Peter was Supreme O incomparable Method and are now resolved to doe it to purpose But how out of St. Chrysostome's Homilies and Comments There is no one that hath looked tho' but a little into that Father that will not smile at this your attempt However you tell us and no body will deny it that he gives St. Peter extraordinary and noble Titles pag. 15. that he calls him Prime Leader of the Apostles the head of Orthodoxy the great High-Priest of the Church the Pillar of the Church the Head of the Chorus of the Apostles and says that He took the charge of the whole Church throughout the World c. I have onely this question to put to you whether you take St. Chrysostome as to these passages concerning St. Peter the greatest as well as the clearest of which for your purpose I have here set down in a strict literal sense if you own it as you seem to do by placing them here for such a purpose I must then plainly tell you that you doe a very great wrong to this Holy and learned Father than whom no one perchance ever gave
confuted YOU are next resolved to have a little fling at the Church of England about her Orders which you say pag. 19. they of that Church very much endeavour to prove and fain would have confest to be received from undoubted Bishops of the Church of Rome But here your heart failed you and this is all you have to say against our Orders which is nothing at all since we are much abler and as ready to prove the Legitimacy of our Orders as you can those of your Pope himself this is to bark when you dare not come near to fasten but if you have a mind to shew your parts upon this subject do but undertake and answer Arch-Bishop Bramhals Confutation of the Nags-head Ordination c. and I 'll do as I hear you have renounce my Orders But Alas Sir I might as well put you upon carrying Westminster Abby to Putney as upon the Answering that Vnanswerable Book After the civil hint that the Church of England hath no true Orders you are for making her amends out of Reverence to her by proving that she is a very Nonsensical foolish Church which you attempt by two small you have a kindness still for her or else we might have had four perhaps ten great Observations Your first is That this reduces the Catholick Church into a narrow corner of the World Toto divisos orbe Britannos 1 Obs pag. 19. and as small a handfull in that narrow Corner c. But pray Mr. Sclater how are we got hither What is this This that reduces the Catholick Church c. Hath the Church of England denied the foreign Reformed Churches to be true Churches Pray shew us where But suppose she had this will not prove that the Catholick Church is reduced into this narrow Corner of the World except you shew that she hath also denied the Church of Rome and those Churches that submit to her to be true Churches Nor this neither will not confirm your Observation supposing the Church of England had rejected both the foreign Reformed and Vnreformed Churches out of the Catholick Church since you have surely heard of such a Church as the Large Greek Church under the Four Patriarchs of the Russian Church of the vast Aethiopian Church of the Armenian and of the Nestorians to omit others Have you or can you prove that the Church of England hath excluded all these also from being Parts or Members of the Catholick Church If you cannot how doth she confine the Catholick Church here or what contradiction is she guilty of that abhors the thought of such a thing as you would fasten upon her I cannot refrain shewing a just resentment here and therefore must tell you that this your Observation is the most disingenuous and the most foolish that I ever met with in my Life and that I could never have suspected that any Man that had common sense and pretended to Conscience could have been guilty of so foul a thing had I not met with it in this Book And just such stuff as this is the Remark in this Observation upon our Church that she is pleased in order to avoid the Word Catholick to call it an Vniversal Church c. Who would expect that a Man that hath been a Minister in our Church these Thirty Years that hath used our Service perchance a Thousand times should make such a strange Remark hath our Church as you say she hath in order to avoid the Word Catholick struck it out of that Translation of the Apostles Creed which she appoints in her Liturgy Hath she struck it out and put in Vniversal in the Four places it used to occur in in the Creed of St. Athanasius Is it gone out of the Nicene Creed she appoints Pray get some Body to look those Three Creeds for you A Man would believe you had not seen a Common-Prayer-Book these Thirty Years or pass a much severer Sentence upon you Doth not the Church of England command its Daily Vse in the General Collect which we daily put up for the good Estate of the Catholick Church And further she is so far from altering or endeavouring to avoid as you most falsly would observe she doth the Word Catholick See Bishop Sparrows Collection of Canons c. that whereas in the Injunctions of King Edward the Sixth 1547. the Form of bidding the Common-Prayers before Sermon begun thus You shall Pray for the whole Congregation of Christ's Church and c. in those of Queen Elizabeth 1559 and in the 55th of the Canons Ecclesiastical of the Synod under King James the First 1604. the Word Catholick is put in and every Minister is commanded to begin his bidding of Prayer in these very words Ye shall Pray for Christs Holy Catholick Church c. Nay you your self used the term Catholick while you continued and as a Member of our Church on last Palm-Sunday at Putney Church or else you broke our Church Laws So that I cannot now avoid the asking you your self what you now think of this your Remark and whether you had not saved your self a disparagement had you had the good fortune not to have put it down You have a Second Remark much akin to the First in which you profess you can no more tell how she can be the Catholick Church than she is able to find her self in the innumerable huddle of ten times Ten more Dissenters Dissemblers and Indifferents pag. 19. than her number is able to make c. How you come to know the number of those that hold Communion with the Church of England to be so very small is matter of wonder to me but if I should say that your Calculation is most intolerably false I am sure you cannot disprove me since I am certain I have truth and the common Judgment of all unprejudiced Men on my side that Calculating the numbers of the several Parishes thro' England there are one with another Ten I may I believe safely say Twenty times more that hold Communion with the Church of England than dissent from it As for Dissemblers and Indifferents how you come to know Mens Hearts so well is owing more to your new than old Religion which would have taught you more Prudence about such things After you have come off so wretchedly with your first Observation no Body will expect wonders from your second which is 2 Obs pag. 20. That you should have had the better Opinion of this handfull as you ridiculously call the Church of England if their Faith had been conformable to the Faith of those Bishops from whom their Bishops had their Mission c. That our Bishops have their Mission from Rome is what we utterly deny that they were some of 'em in the beginning of the most necessary Reformation ordained by those that held with the Church of Rome in her corrupt Faith and Practices is what we do not deny This however we say cannot prejudice our Reformation since