they exalted that of the right hand to depress the left in these later times they exalt the vertue of the left hand to depress the right Thus marriage is good and continence also is good they are both good Nay S. Paul sayes that continence is better or the vertue of the right hand For he that is unmarried only cares sayes he how to serve God well and pleas him but he that is married is solicitous for many worldly affairs concerning his wife and children and so is distracted and divided two wayes To exalt then the one of these two which are both good things unto such a monopoly of goodnes and excellency that the other shall be thought unlawful and evil this is doctrina daemoniorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Thus faith is good and other works of piety justice and sobriety unto which Christ and his apostles exhort us are good also and necessary and healthful He therfor that so magnifies the one as to evacuate the other teaches doctrinam daemoniorum the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning Meat is good and fasting is good good to eat with thanksgiving and good in times and occasions to abstain But that man who so exalts the one as to exclude the other out of Christianity is a seducer and teaches the doctrin of demons So likewise doth he who either so highly magnifies free will as to exclude Gods grace or so defends grace that he abolishes all concurrence of free will unto works of piety and merit teach both of them equally the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning In a word not to mention more examples wherin I might be copious so to commend continence as to make marriage unlawful is the doctrin of demons who were cunning seducers from the beginning And so again to set up marriage as to teach continence to be both sinful and impossible is the doctrin both of demons and devils too implacable enemies both to truth and continence And Christ is equally crucified between both the theeves Ch. 18. from page 410. to 420. Begins to justifie the departure or schisme of the English from the Roman Church as good and lawful For if Schisme saith he be a crime it lies upon the Church not which separated but which gave the caus of separation the Roman not the English Church Causal schisme which gives the occasion bears all the blame but formal schisme which separates from an offensive society is an action of necessary vertue Nor can there be quoth he any necessity of communicating with others in wicked actions but a necessity rather of going out of Babylon Nor does every schisme turn the Church of Christ into a synagogue of Satan but only schisme in sundamentals which fundamentals he saith elswhere are as clear and perspicuous to all men as that twice two make four These Sir be his capital assertions in this chapter which how little they will serve his purpos against the Roman Church he that seriously reads your book against which this reply is made will soon perceiv But how much they will disadvantage him before the Presbyterian Quaker and other wayes here in England who separating from our English Church do thus justifie their schisme either by mincing the fault or laying it upon her from whom they have revolted it behoovs him well to consider Ch. 19. from page 420 to 428. Endeavours yet more to diminish the fault and justifie the secession Schisme saith he that proceeds from weaknes in persons that desire to know the truth and endeavour after it is free from crime And again External unity is not essential to the Church And schisme that is contrary to that unity divides not from Christs body in things absolutely necessary to be united but only in things not so necessary as in the same liturgies or ceremonies about matters not fundamental wherein an union is neither necessary nor yet possible This is I am sure the voice of a Presbyterian and no Prelatick Protestant as Whitby speaks himself to be And if it be indeed the sence of our English Church as her spokes-man here would make us beleev it is then are surely our English Byshops in charity all obliged earnestly to intercede with his royal Majesty who for civil respects hath forbidden all meetings out of ordinary Churches and Chappels that the poor Quaker who endeavours after truth and light with an innocent and unfeigned heart may be permitted for religious respects to meet at Bull and Mouth and other such like places where they may think fit being now resolved never to resort more to Protestant Steeple-houses or to any of their liturgies or ceremonies which communion is neither necessary unto any unity any substantial unity in Christs body nor yet possible that they may declare amongst themselvs the sons of light the power and truth in simplicity of heart without impeachment of the wicked Ch. 20. from page 428. to 448. Falls again to speak against Infallibility which he had battered before in his whole 9 chapter of above 30 pages and that with as much earnestness here as if nothing had been yet said of it But this chapter was written haply by som other hand which knew not what the former had performed till coming together both of the papers to the Press it was perceived they might both pass And here all general Councels and their determinations are disabled as destitute of any assurance of truth Is this Infallibility quoth he out of Chillingworth in the Councel alone or Pope alone c. What shall we do if they run counter c. To whom must we hearken when many pretend to the Popedom c. What if the Popes misdemeanour be the thing to be judged c. How can we be assured that any one is true Pope not Symoniacally ordained not illegally elected not invalidly baptised c. which are saith he uncertainties propounded by Mr. Chillingworth not possible to be resolved This kind of discours fills up this whole chapter By vertue of these uncertainties we can never tell whether Mr. Whitby be any minister or no or whether he be a Christian or so much as a Whitby If titulus coloratus and moral evidence may not suffice us we can be sure of no authority either spritual or civil in this world And if any one should learn by this wise master thus to except against the obliging power of acts and decrees of King or Parliament Is that power in the King alone or in the Parliament alone c. What if they run counter c. What if they should not be rightly chosen c. would he not talk as wise as this man and his little Doctor Chillingworth It ought to suffice an honest man and a good subject that an authority is set over him and peaceably accepted whom he ought indefinily to obey not only for wrath but conscience It is not his part to weaken due
1 a greater assistance of the Spirit of God 2 greater means of finding out the truth 3 better reason of discovering what is the opinion of the whole Church 4 an authority delegated from Christ to decide controversies After all this and with all this it is neither impossible with him nor unprobable that general councels may erre even in fundamentals which himself affirms as perspicuous as if they were writ with a sun-beam as clear and evident as that twice two make four Prelates Christian Prelates these must be the only natural fools of the world Ch. 22. from page 456. to 465. Descends to Patriarchal Councels which saith he may be disobeyed and rejected becaus such conventions are fallible and may obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon the world and that a judgment of discretion is to be allowed unto private men whether they are to submit to their determinations or no. This whole chapter might well have been spared For if a greater much more may a particular and lesser Church obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon men But Mr. Whitby is desirous that all should be made plain and not any rub lie in the Presbyterian and good Quakers way when he shall plead an excuse for his separation from a Metropolitan Church here in England which he hath made with a judgment of discretion here allowed him Ch. 23. from page 465 to 478. Sayes that the Protestant never separated from the internal communion of the universal Church which unity is only essential but only from external union with som And such an union external with any Church on earth is no wayes necessary to any ones being a member of the Church Why then is the poor Quaker so grievously persecuted imprisoned and beaten only for separating from an external communion with other Protestants Especially since he separates from it for no other end but to have the internal communion in pure faith and light and grace and charity more perfect Let any man read the Quakers books which are now not a few and see if they speak not for themselvs as Whitby here does for his own caus But the profest errours of the Roman Church justifie the Protestant separation And does not the Quaker justifie his separation both from Roman and Protestant too by the same argument of notorious abuses errours sins falsities disorders superstitions excesses of ministers priests byshops deanaries chapters lawn sleeves universities and steeple-houses Ch. 24. from page 478 to 494. Endeavours finally to justifie the English reformation upon the account that it was made here by the supream magistrate who may reform the Church either with a Synod or without it And that supream power I hope then may be permitted to set up the Presbyterian or Quaker at least to give them freedom of Conscience if himself pleas without any bishops consent no man daring to gain-say or murmur against it which not a few do heartily wish to see in this Land Ch. 25. with the Appendix from p. 494 to 512. Prescribes conditions and forms of disputing and replying with som additions to his former discourses Thus have you Sir the particular design of each several chapter of Mr. Whitby's book the negative part wherof denies your Church and the positive betrayes his own Why he gainsayes yours it is not hard to read But why he should so much endanger his own I cannot so easily say whether it be ignorance malice or necessity moves him to it Surely no Son of the English Church as Whitby professes himself to be could thus open a gap for the incursion of all sects who are now ready to swallow her up if he be in sound sences but he must either not have what he may or not will what he should or not know what positively he ought to affirm and teach for her better preservation This book of Whitbies can never bring any man to that Church nor keep any in that is there If an enemy attempt the subversion of a hous it may chance to scape But if the owner and inhabitant begin once to pull it down himself he that passes by may not improbably conjectur it will not long stand Well may the Church of England take up that heavy complaint against this her either ignorant or malicious son If an enemy had don me mischief I could have endured it And if one who openly hated had maligned me I could have kept my self from him But thou man thou my intimate friend thou my leader and acquaintance Thus unworthily to be betrayed by her own White boy must be no small aggravation to the mothers sorrow I might easily gather out of Whitbies own words consequently put together a compleat play for all the several wayes that are now of late risen up against our English Church even so compleat that they never have nor ever need to say more This sad fate accompanies erroneous wayes that even in defending they destroy themselvs If witty Presbyterians assisted him in his book they did their own work not his And if he did it himself by som Presbyterian principles received accidentally from them he hath don therby not his own work but theirs Notable is this Gentlemans art in citing of authorities which he does in most of his chapters against the points of catholik beleef which are either not expressed in his book where they may be found or not there found where they are exprest or express no such thing as he cites them in his book to utter I had in my chamber but one of those many authors which Whitby cites for himself and I found in it all this to be true But this Sir to spare here partly the mans modesty and partly my own pains and expence of time I now omit And indeed what would it avail to give you or the world to understand that Whitby never read the authors himself cites or understood not or wilfully wrested them Let him live and learn And God give him grace to make use of his time to his own advantage This thing I may assure you of that Whitby is an enemy not only to Catholiks but Protestants also of all profession here in England or if you had rather have me so speak an equal friend to all For he will not have the Church of Christ to be any organical body as he calls it or company of people linked together in Sacraments lyturgy beleef and government but to be only such and all such people who hold God and a life to com and som other fundamentals which he names not himself all of them and therfor as I suppose leavs unto others each man as he pleases to determin Nor will he have men bound either to an internal beleef or any exteriour conformity to any Church This himself avers in many several places of his book that we may not miss his meaning This new way of his I think he borrowed of som French Hugonots For all the wayes that be here now in England concur each
excellent saying of S. Cyprian to prove that the Church was intrusted to the apostles in common and that no one apostle exercised a power over another The text of S. Cyprian runs thus Our Lord said to Peter Vpon this rock will I build my Church and again feed thou my sheep Vpon the one Him Christ builds his Church and unto Him he commends his sheep to be fed And although after his resurrection he gave to all his apostles equal power and said as my father sent me so I send you yet that he might manifest unity he constituted one chair and by his authority disposed the origen of unity beginning from one The other apostles are the same that Peter was c. But the beginning comes from unity the primacy is given to Peter that one Church of Christ and one flock of Christ may be monstrated Thus St. Cyprian testifies of the apostles that although they were all equal in their spiritual commission of Gods word and Sacraments yet were they brought to an unity by the government of one superiour and one chair which oversaw them all And is this a fit place to prove that the Apostles had no superiour over them which expresly testifies that they had one In the same manner doth our Disswader deal with the other testimonies But I have been too long upon this point Here is enough Sir to let you see what I said in the beginning of this discours that your Disswaders reasons are senceles his testimonies either impertinent or manifestly against himself and his whole talk and doctrin contrary to the laws and constitutions of our own Protestant English Church § 11. Which concludes the novelties Gives notice of nine other popish novelties Saints invocation Scripture-insufficiency absolution before pennance Priests confirmation nine-penny-masses circum gestation of Eucharist intention in Sacraments mass-sacrifice and communionless mass After your Disswader has mentioned these to show the fertility of his brain he sayes nothing of them at all but only that they be also innovations and thence concluds that the Roman Religion is neither old nor primitive nor catholik and that it is easier for Protestants to tell where their religion was before Luther then for Papists to tell where their religion was before Trent And that when the enemy had sowed these tares and honest men in the Church durst not complain then England and other nations by the glass of Scriptur reformed to pure antiquity preferring a new cure before an old sore In the beginning of the section it was a new sore in the end it is an old sore so long time was he a writing this one no-section And he has so ordered the busines that it will be hard now for Papists to show their Religion before Trent although he has neither deduced the original of these nine or his other ten novelties from Trent nor can ever show that these or they are the Papists religion For as he has handled them ther is not one of them any part of their Religion much less doth their religion consist in them His first busines of the power of making articles sect 1. is so far from religion that it is not so much as the philosophy of any one school in the Catholik world His leash of new articles sect 2. is partly a fond dream and partly an erroneous vision of his own His discours of Indulgences sect 3. is utterly besides the purpos and what ther is of Catholik faith in it he allows himself as ancient 4. His talk of Purgatory is so ridiculously absurd that granting all that Roman faith teaches to be both ancient and universal he yet sayes at random that Roman faith is not that and yet never speaks himself what that Roman faith is 5. In Transubstantiation he wholly playes with the word which he knows when it came in wholly neglecting the thing it self and brings a multitude of Popish Doctours that own it not for their faith and not any one popish man or woman that own it he sayes it was defined in the Lateran Councel first and yet is not that which was defined in the Lateran Councel and never speaks what this thing is which notwithstanding he will have called Popery 6. The busines of half-communion as he calls it is no Popery at all that is to say no Catholik faith but a custom only in the exercise of their religion and that neither universal for time or place And although Catholiks beleev that it is not necessary to communicate in both kinds yet do they not beleev that it is necessary to communicate only in one kind either this kind or that but have used all the three wayes 7. His discours about service in an unknown tongue is a like mistake taking custom for religion and discipline for doctrin and he perverts and falsifies the custom too saying that Papists understand not their own prayers nor know what they ask of God 8. His talk of images passes by all the use of them that religion requires and is wholly taken up in some school disputes and his own lies 9. His exceptions against the pictures of the Trinity with so many eyes and noses and faces in a knot is as much popery as Euclids book de Triangulis 10. His section about the sovereignty of one byshop over all Christians had been about popery and catholik religion indeed if he had handled it right but as his reasons are fond and autorities fals so he mistakes the very thing it self imagining that papists beleev that spiritual supremacy to be tied to the walls of Rome which is no faith of theirs and consequently none of their popery And so none of his sections nor any part of his discours touches either all or any part of Papists religion And is not this a doughty piece of work to prove popery by which all his readers understand the Roman Catholik religion to be neither old nor primitive nor apostolical How he would have handled the other nine points becaus he says nothing of them I will not trouble my self to read But I am sure that seven of the nine have not any relation to Catholik religion all of them I mean besides Saints invocation and the Sacrifice of the Mass What Councel hath determined or what Catholik beleevs that the sacred scripture is insufficient or that absolution ought to be given before pennance or that single priests are to confirm or that masses are to be sold for nine pence or circum gestation or any such intention in sacraments as to damn folks which the Disswader here speaks or that mass is to be without communion And I may now think if he had spoke of the other two Saints invocation and Sacrifice he would even there also have mistaken and strayed For he has so behaved himself hitherto as though he were resolved not to speak any one word true or to the purpos And yet he would seem to do it perhaps on the same motive that Sir Toby Matthews
if I any where hint at such a thing is this If the Scriptur be in two hands for example of the Protestant Church in England and of the Puritan who with that scriptur rose up and rebelled against her can the scriptur alone of it self decide the busines how shall it do it has it ever don it or can that written word now solitary and in private hands so settle any in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future generations shall question it or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it This Sir is the case unto which you do neither here nor in all your whole book speak one word And what you speak otherwis of the Scripturs excellency I allow it for good What is not against me is with me But no law whatsoever whether divine or humane can be a sufficient rule to men if no judge oversee it Ninth The Pope is a good man and seeks nothing but our good This also I no where aver I might mention the care and industry of that Sea and affirm it to be unworthily traduced But I never saw any Pope nor have I any such acquaintance with him as to know whether he be a good man in your sence or no free from pride anger covetousnes c. though in charity I do not use to judg hardly of any body Much less could I say that he whom I know to have a general solicitude for all Churches seeks nothing but our good Sir if I had pondered my words in Fiat Lux no better than you heed yours in your Animadversions upon it they might even go together both of them to lap pepper and spice or som other yet more vile employment Tenth that the devotion of Catholiks far transcends that of Protestants But Sir I never made in Fiat Lux any comparison between their devotions nor do I remember that I ever so much as mentioned the devotion of Protestants But you are the maddest Commentatour I have ever seen you first make the Text and then Animadversions upon it Here at length you conclude your chapter and would say you your book also if you had none to deal with but ingenious and judicious readers It seems what follows is for readers neither judicious nor ingenious And becaus I knew you took me for one of those I went on in my view Indeed had I not undertaken to give you an account of your whole book I could have been well content to stop here with ingenious and judicious readers and look no further Doubtles in this affair good wits will jump You would write no more had you none but judicious readers and these will read no more becaus they are judicious But I poor ass must jogge on 3 ch from page 110. to 119. Your third chapter concerns my preface which in part you allow and partly dislike And I am equally content with both 4 or 5 ch from page 119. to 148. Your fourth chapter by mistake of press is named fift and so I must here call it It begins my book and takes up five of my paragraffs at once You have loitered long about the gate like a trifling idlesbee and means now it seems when you come to my own words to go nimbly over them as of lesser concernment than your own forestalled conceits which you have hitherto made sport with You first set up a may pole and then danced about it and now at length half tired and almost out of breath you come home to me My first paragraff about Diversity of feuds you do not much except against But I see you do not affect the schoolmen haply for the same reason the French love not Talbot having been used in their infancy to be frighted with that name However you think I have good reason to make honourable mention of them becaus they were say you the hammerers and forgers of Popery Alas Sir I see that anger spoils your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth chapter of that very book of your Animadversions you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundred of years before any schoolmen were extant You check me also for saying that reformation of religion is pretended by emulous Plebeians as though say you Hezekiah Josiah and other good Kings and Princes also of our own were emulous Plebeians But Sir when I say in Fiat Lux p. 20. what glory the emulous Plebeian sees given to higher spirits c. I only speak of the times of vulgar insurrection against autority as all men see except your self who will not My second paragraff of the Ground of quarrels you like well enough and explicate it with a text to help me out I could not haply tell how to cite James the fourth chapter the first and second vers of that chapter without your help However it is kindnes though it be but cours as Sir Thomas Moor told his maid when she kist him as he was going to execution and so I take it My third paragraff about nullity of title would you think every period of it confute my self But that saying of S. Paul An à vobis verbum Dei processit an ad vos solos pervenit which I make use of to stop the mouths of all vitilitigatours in religion was cited by me you think in an unhappy hour becaus say you ther is not any one single text of scriptur more fatal to papal pretensions And why so Sir Becaus the Gospel you say came to Rome as well as it came to us here in England And this is all you say to prove that text to be so fatal to papal pretensions To this Sir I have already told you that it came not to us as it came to Rome and now I tell you again that it came to us from Rome and not to Rome from us And therfor is that text fatal to us not to them It may open their mouths but I am sure it stops ours Heats and resolutions the subject of my fourth paragraff which your self will not countenance you will not permit me to dislike You may talk against them and I may not But I may be excused for I knew not then such a man of art as your self would speak of that he understood better then I do The motives of moderation in my sixt paragraff you laugh at and I will not stop your merriment But in all this say you Fiat Lux hath a secret design which your eagle-sighted eye has discovered And in vain is the net spread before the eyes of a thing that hath a wing And I must know that the authour of Animadversions is that thing that hath a wing 6 ch from page 148. to 177. Your sixt chapter which meets just with my sixt paragraff of the Obscurity of God in the beginning where you declare the sufficient knowledg we have of God by divine revelation whereunto by our humble beleef we have subscribed our
not to heed any thing that may hinder your flourishes But Sir if you were kept up in a chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your aery vaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold had made an end of you But I beleev you love not such dry blows however you may be delighted with pen encounters at a distance where after your suppositum has been well inspired with the warm spirits blown hither out of the fortunate islands you may cavil revile and threaten at your pleasure and knock down the shadow of your adversary which your own spirits have raised up and presented to you in your chamber 10 ch from page 213 to 228. Your tenth chapter runs over two of my paragraffs which speak the plea of Independents Presbyterians and Protestants That you esteem idle the other sensles the last insufficient And to make this last good you endeavour to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat Lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England they were forced for their own preservation against Puritans to take up som of those principles again which former Protestants had sast down for Popish as is the autority of a visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between clergy and laiety c. Here first you deny that those principles are popish But Sir ther be som Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jury I have other things to do than to fill volums with useles texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers and catholik divines and councels Then secondly you challenge me to prove that those principles were ever dented by our prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therfor bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants becaus I say that our prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond the seas before our prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that out prelate Protestant affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied you bid me prove that our prelate Protestant ever denied them Thus you contradict what I say is pleaded against our prelate Protestant And again you do as stiffly gain-say what I plead for him my self You laugh at me even with head and shoulders and tell me that the prelate-Protestant has far better arguments for themselvs then either mine is or any I can bring nor do they need the help of such a weak logician as my self in this their caus Sir give me leav to tell you here once for all that I thought it sufficient for my design to set down either for Papist or Protestant when occasion required such reasons as appeared plausible to my self and to say all for them that can be said was neither the work of my small ability nor any purpos of my design And it is enough to me that I know no better But let us see what my argument is and how you crush it The Church say I must have a byshop or otherwise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first c. This that you may evacuate you tell me that the Church hath still the same head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and laws and is man-God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible bishop to be that head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and yet not the same Thus you speak But Sir I cannot in any reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true logick of the identity of the head than I do of the identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation com who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind becaus they adhere to the same principles of faith And as the body is of the same kind though not numerically the same so do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other beleeving men is departed hence to the glory of his Father that the Church should still have a head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or els say I she cannot be completely the same body or a body of the same kind she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible byshop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God but this man-hood is now separate nor is he visibly now present as man which immediately headed his beleevers under God on whose influence that natur depended His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in it self but in order also to his Church as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner beleeved but the natur delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples is now utterly withdrawn And if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then nor is she the same polity or body she was before Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labour so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of the invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior direction and government to his Church Pray tell me is
he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man and Presbyterian Ministers are as needless as either Catholik or Protestant byshops On the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole Kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the Kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not onely by one but several acts and constitutions both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher than the byshops who by the law is under both King and byshop too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakned by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian King of any Kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reasons Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the lips of the king or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom Kings themselvs remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his Majesties autority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the Kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman Catholiks as to any Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his Majesties judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught
by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their King in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or the other various constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justifie it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy-men under the King In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the King For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The King is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his authority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the King the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direction is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as supream governour though himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the King succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their leige sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperours and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their Kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganism they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not only their temporal contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And Kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of worldly senatours enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielden under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact speciall and particular laws answerable to the genetal rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto discovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselvs to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people who were of that Church The chief byshop is an Aaron and
every Christian king a Joshua And as it is a content and support to Aaron to have a Joshua with him to fight Gods battles and keep the people in awe so is it not a little comfort to Joshua to have an Aaron by him with whom he may consult And indeed no kingdom can have a perfect accomplishment without the presence of these two swords civil and spiritual Ecce duo gladij hic satis est And although Christians even at this day when any heresy or novelty arises have still recours unto the same head of their religion for a decision of the doubt whom they consulted before for as the channel of Christianity is and must be still the same so must the spring-head be the same also yet when the thing is once decided they have none but kings and governours under him to see the direction executed as the only overseers with coactive power to do it And thus you see in brief how the Pope is head of the Church and the King head likewise and both immediately under God but with this difference that the king only governs Christianity established in his own royalty by law the Pope without further law rules and guides all the streams and rivulets of religion where ever it flows He is head of primary direction the king of sovereign execution he of guidance and spiritual autority only the king of civil and natural power invested in his place and dignity from God above to maintain any laws as well purely Christian as civil which himself shall accept establish and promulgate The Pope perswades but the King commands and although the Pope should formally command yet vertually and in effect such a command amounts only to a perswasion and he that obeys not feels no smart for it except the king be pleased to espous his caus and punish the contumacious which if he justly do then have kings a just autority in those affairs if otherwise then hath the Pope no means of help or defence in this world any more after the conversion of kings than before it and help himself he cannot any other way than only by putting people out of his communion who care not for it The Pope is obeyed for conscience and love only to his religion the King for wrath and conscience too the Pope delivers the rule but in general only and blunt on one side the King particularises it and gives it an edg the Popes headship is exercised in Ought and Should be the Kings is Will and shall be the Pope directs but the King compells the Pope secludes the contumacious from heaven which he that beleevs not feels not the King over and above that cuts off malefactors from the face of the earth too and they shall be made by feeling to beleev it And these two defend and secure one another and keep both Christians and their faith inviolate And while Christians themselvs do both tenderly love their Pape and chief pastour and spring-head of their religion which is beleeved beyond him to flow invisibly from God the great ocean of truth and withall do honor fear and observ their King and princely governour who only bears the sword of justice and not in vain to take revenge upon all those whom the love of religion and spiritual sword of their pastour will not keep in awe they do their duty as they ought and shall finde happines therein I must make haste and can say no more at present to this busines which as I have told you is somewhat besides my purpos Only one thing I must needs tell you before I pass on Although a King is in a good and proper sence stiled head as well of Church as State within his own dominions as for all coersive power therein yet head of the Church absolutely or head of primary direction in faith is so proper to the chief Prelate that no man upon earth besides himself hath ever so much as pretended to it and that for five reasons First becaus head of the Church absolutely intimates an universal right over the guidance of religion not in one kingdom only but all where ever that religion is And the King of France for example neither did nor can pretend to be head of the Church of England much less of Hungary Spain Africk Italy Greece Asia c. Yet such a head there must needs be to the end the Church may be one mystick body at unity in it self And that head must be unlimited to time and place as the Church it self is ever permanent and universally spread nor must the government alter as governments of particular kingdoms do Secondly head of the Church absolutely involves a primacy both of conveighing and interpreting faith and all princes in Europe received their faith at first from priests who sent for that end from their spiritual superiour converted their kingdoms but they never gave faith either to them or their pastour Thirdly he that is head of the Church absolutely must be of the same connatural condition with the whole hierarchy to confirm baptise ordain preach attone the almighty by sacrifice impose hands segregate men from their worldly state unto his own spiritual one and in a special manner to exercise those priestly functions unto which he segregates them Fourthly head of the Church absolutely is to be indifferent unto kingdoms and all sorts of government as the religion also is and keep it like it self in all places unaltered in its nature however in its general dictates it may concur to the direction and good of all people and governments And therefor he cannot be confined to one place or government but must be as it were separate and in a condition indifferent to all as a general by shop whose sole care is to heed those eradiations of faith spread up and down the world may be and is when princes heed but their own particular kingdoms and care not how religion goes in another any more then their wealth or polity Thus the sun-beams though they fall upon several soils diversly affected yet they keep their own nature unaltered by vertue of one general fountain-head of light which is indifferent to every kingdom and dispenses distributes and keeps the raies unchanged The ends and wayes of religion are quite of another nature from all worldly businesses and therfor require a particular superintendent set apart for them as indeed they ever have had since the time of religions first master who as he did educate his in order to a life eternal in a government apart being himself a man distinct from Caesar so used he to speak of religious duties as separate and differing from others Reddite saith he quae Caesaris sunt Caesari quae Dei Deo In very truth the Church and Christianity as it is a thing accidental to all worldly states so is it superinduced upon them as an influence of another rank and order unto a particular end of future bliss whereas all states do
easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselvs in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jew◠〈◊〉 into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Litâ—… out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questions were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prelate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any other language but Latin before Edward the sixt dayes
except haply the Psalter which the Saxons and almost all people have ever had in their own tongue being a chief part of Christians devotion nor in Brittish or Welch before the byshop of S. Asaphs translation And yet the people all that while wanted no know-knowledge of Gods will or comfort of his word You mightily insult over me in your 336 page for saying that the bible was kept by the Hebrews in an ark or tabernacle not touched by the people but brought out at times to the priest that he might instruct the people out of it Here say you the authour of Fiat Lux betrayes his gross ignorance and somthing more for the ark was place in sanctum sanctorum and not entered but by the priest only once a year wheras the people were weekly instructed But Sir do I speak there of any sanctum sanctorum or of any ark in that place Was ther or could ther be no more arks but one If you had been only in these latter dayes in any synagogue or convention of Jews you might have seen even now how the bible is kept still with them in an ark or tabernacle in imitation of their fore-fathers when they have now no sanctum sanctorum amongst them You may also discern how according to their custom they cringe and prostrate at the bringing out of the bible which is the only solemn adoration left amongst them and that there be more arks than that in sanctum sanctorum If I had called it a box or chest or cupboard you had let it pass But I used the word Ark as more sacred 19 ch from page 365. to 386. I discerned in your nineteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Communion in one kind a somwhat more than ordinary swelling choller which moved me to look over that my paragraff afresh And I found my fault there is in it so much of Christian reason and sobriety that if I had since the time I first wrote it swerved from my former judgment of the probability I conceived to be in that Roman practis of communicating in one kind I had there met with enough to convert my self And therfor wondered no more that you should load me so heavily with your wonted imputations of fraud ignorance blasphemy and the like I ever perceiv you to be then most of all passionate when you meet with most convincing reasons When the exorcist is most innocent his patient they say then frets and foams and curses most Ther is not a word in this your chapter which is not by way of anticipation answered in that my § of Fiat Lux against which you write 20 ch from page 386. to 402. Ther is in your twentieth chapter which prosecutes my paragraff of Saints or Hero's one word of yours that requires my notice I say in that my paragraff that the pagans derided the ancient Christians for three of their usages First for eating their own God Secondly for kneeling to the Priests genitals Thirdly for worshipping an asses head This last you except against and impute my story to my own simplicity and ignorance if not to somthing wors for that imputation say you was not laid upon Christians at all but only upon Jews as may be seen in Josephus c. But Sir you may know that in odiosis the primitive Christians were ever numbred among the Jews and what evil report lay upon these was charged also upon them though somtimes upon another ground And although Josephus may excuse the Jews and not the Christians yet a long while after his time if not even then also that slander was generally all over the pagan world charged upon Christians also as may be read in Tertullian and other ancient writers yea and very probably by the very Jews themselvs who bitterly hated them cast off from themselvs upon the poor Christians on another account which I specified in Fiat Lux. And through the whole Roman Empire did the sound of this scandal ring up and down for som ages together Insomuch that Tertullian himself conceited that as the Christian religion was derived from the Jews so likewise that the imputation of the asses head first put upon the Jews might from them be derived upon Christian religion And the same Tertullian in his Apologetick addes these words The calumnies saith he invented to cry down our religion grew to such excess of impiety that not long ago in this very city a pictur of our God was shown by a certain infamous person with the ears of an ass and a hoof on one of his feet clothed with a gown and a book in his hand with this inscription This is Onochoetes the God of Christians And he addes that the Christians in the city as they were much offended with the impiety so did they not a little wonder at the strange uncouth name the vaillain had put upon their lord and master Onochoetes forsooth he must be called Onochoetes And are not you Sir a strange man to tell me page 393. that what I speak of this business is notoriously fals nay and that I know it is fals and I cannot produce one authentick testimony no not one of any such things But this is but your ordinary confidence 21 ch from page 402. to 416. I must not marvel that my following paragraff called Dirge is so wantonly plaid upon in your one and twentieth chapter You think of no body after they are dead nor does it at all concern you whether they be in hell or heaven or som third place or not at all But Sir were not all the ancient monuments of the foundations of our churches colledges and chappels in England now destroyed you would find your self with that wretched opinion of yours absolutely incapable to enter upon any benefice cure or employment in this land But the times are changed and you have nothing now to do but to eat drink and preach for to morrow you shall dye 22 ch from page 416 to 435. In your two and twentieth chapter which is of the Pope you do but only repeat my words and not understand and deny and laugh 23 ch from page 435. to Finis Your last chapter is upon my paragraff of Popery wherin I set down eleven other parcels of catholik profession all of them innocent unblamable and sacred You only bite at the first of them and having it seems enough filled your self with that your wearied bones go to rest With Mas comedido the title of my last paragraff you meddle not at all It is doubtless to you who understand not the English word Messach another Gnostick Paldabaoth But I would you had Mas comedido by heart You cannot but marvel that I have taken so little notice all this while of your only one strong and potent Argument your stout Achilles that meets me in every paragraff and period and beats me back into the walls of Troy Wherever I am whatsoever I say your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is upon me All
authorative Mr. Whitby hath seen perhaps som elderly cockerel to part the frayes of younger chickens and thinks tribunals of byshops do no more The Pope it seems was ever a loving brother at least still ready to decide the frayes of all Churches and Byshops upon all occasions which was a pious and good work and not belonging to Antichrist He would do well Sir to part this fray of yours with Mr. Whitby which otherwis will never be ended Is the Roman Patriarch said to have the care of all the Churches Any one saith Whitby may have that repute for he that serves one Church serves all And if Whitby get but the cure of any one little Chappel here in England though it be but to read prayers in an hospital he must then be beleeved to have the solicitude of all the English Churches upon him In brief doth S. Chrysostom to declare a supremacy among the apostles affirm that St. James obtained the throne of Jerusalem but St. Peter was constituted master and teacher not of one throne but of the whole world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That text sayes he is in all likelihood by negligence of transcribers or som other way mistaken However it makes nothing for supremacy were not all the apostles so He gathers they were all so becaus the peculiarity of the title master and teacher of the whole world is there attributed unto one exclusively to all the rest Every minister is a byshop or overseer if we mind only the signification of the word but is he therfor so in the whole meaning and peculiarity of the title Finally doth our Mr. Whitgift acknowledg that the apostles were all equal as to their function not as to government equal quoad ministerium not quoad polititiam which is a plain and manifest assertion Sir of the supremacy you plead for What is this saith Whitby to the purpos He findes never a word in that speech of Dr. Whitgift which begins with s. u. p. and therfor cries out What is this to the purpos what is this to supremacy You must not expect Sir that in the succeeding chapters I should give you any more account of the particular quicknesses of your adversary They are all like these which I have here briefly hinted to you in this first controverted point of Supremacy only that you may see that he or the several champions rather which he makes use of have more distinctions than one But by such evasions distinctions and shifts wherewith most men are now made so acquainted that they can use them nimbly against any laws and authorities either divine or humane are the people of our distressed Kingdom carried up and down like a cork in water or gossimor in the air with every wind and billow of a fancy now here now there being removed once from their ancient stability unto endles disquiet Cannot a man in this manner and method evacuate slight and frustrate every thing What authority law or custom either human or divine can stand in force if it may be thus by Whitbean Sophomorismes laughed out of countenance I will be bold to say that the witty Presbyterian does more substantially refute all prelatick principles and practices then these answer the Roman Nay these in answering the Roman have made way for the Presbyterian And yet they will still be scribling But you must know Sir withall that Mr. Whitby in his intervals or cooler moods allows the Roman Patriarch a priority of order and honour although he will not afford him any autority or jurisdiction A 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or uppermost seat he shall have although no supremacy or power For he sayes p. 52. The byshop of Rome was to do it judg causes he means receiv appeals and the like more especially for the dignity of his seat which made him prime in order or Byshops And again p. 66. St. Basil calling the Byshop of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the head or apex of Western Byshops makes him only saith he the chief in order and most eminent Byshop of the West which title we can very well allow him So that the Pope if he should come hither to us either for love or hospitality although our byshops will not allow him authoratively to visit keep chapter make laws or punish any of them for transgressing the ecclesiastical cannons yet will they give him a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and suffer him if Mr. Whitby be any legal master of ceremonies to sit at the upper end of the table And St. Peter it seems had no more Nor had he any power so much as to command any man to rise from the table if he behaved himself unmannerly at his meat And such a precedency he allows his own chief Superiour the Arch-byshop of Canterbury and no more A Metropolitan saith he p. 23. hath no jurisdiction over byshops He can do nothing c. And again page 33. His grace of Canterbury hath no power of jurisdiction over byshops And this he speaks boldly although he assert withall that a byshop hath jurisdiction over parish-priests and these over their parishioners So that according to Whitby that autority dignity and power which is in the lowest must be wanting in the highest degree of hierarchy which must if this be true end with power and begin with feeblenes contrary both to common reason and that famous speech of learned Porphyry In summis est unitas cum virtute in infimis multitudo cum debilitate Mr. Whitby has no hope perhaps ever to be made Metropolitan although he may possibly see himself a byshop and will not therfor devest himself aforehand of the dignity he may one time or other arrive at although the for call the grapes he has no hopes to reach unsavory and sowre stuff But his grace of Canterbury hath he no jurisdiction Mr. Whitby over byshops What law custom or tradition gives byshops a power over parish-priests which allows not a Metropolitan as much over byshops And if he have only a precedency of place then can these have no more And it is as easie to say the one as the other And is all our hierarchy com only to a precedency of honour Here will be fine work for a Quaker who will as resolutely deny the honour as you the power How coms that eminent person to be stiled his grace of Canterbury but only for his power dignity and jurisdiction over the venerable byshops And this power and dignity hath I am sure belonged to the See of Canterbury ever since the first planting of Christianity among the English which inables that byshop to make laws to visit his province to call together his byshops to censure to punish even Prelates themselves if they transgress the cannons which is as much as any byshop can do to his parish priests Is it not a strange presumption in a young man thus to disable his own chief prelate before his face and say peremptorily that a Metropolitan can do nothing that
which infers a worship of God in it not by it Chap. 15. from page 247 to 273. Is very earnest for scriptur and liturgy in a vulgar tongue This plea of Protestant ministers makes a plausible sound And they know it well enough For it was the first thing that by their rhetorical colours cast upon it commended them to the people after the Apostacy of the first reformers by whose perswasion the people was then made to beleev they should now be as gods all of them knowing good and evil The word of God saith Whitby is kept from the knowledge of the vulgar people in the Roman Church And thus they all say and ever will say be they never so much satisfied by Catholik writers to the contrary becaus it is to their own advantage it should be so thought in England and all other places where Protestants have invaded and now actually sit upon the Catholick Clergies benefice and byshoppricks But is ther any part or particle of Christian faith or religion or of the word of God that is kept from Catholiks or not made known to them in Books Catechismes Sermons all in their own language and in daily practis of that Church wherof they are members Do they not hear and read and see all the mysteries of our Christian faith Christ our Lords birth and passion resurrection and ascension into glory what he acted what he suffered what he taught what he constituted and ordained for our salvation what we are to hope what to beleev what to practice in order thereunto set before their eyes not only by continual sermons made to them all over the catholik world in their own vulgar tongue but by their Gospels and Epistles which they have lying by them collected for the cours of the whole year and translated into their own language together with several pious treatises and meditations upon all these rules and mysteries of faith unto so ample use that if they do but walk accordingly which is all that religion intends they cannot miss salvation Is not all this Gods word It is nothing els And what is ther more of the word of God except we will count letters and syllables The word of God then is not kept from the knowledg of the vulgar people in the Roman Church But why have they not the Bible translated as it lies in all languages where catholik faith is profest Becaus it is obscure as it lies in that short and ambiguous phrase and under so many several tropes of rhetorick and schemes also of logick wherin it was wrote apt therby to be perverted and misunderstood as we see by experience to be true unto endles factions Nor does the word of God consist so much in letters and syllables as in the marrow and meaning of his will And not the sence and meaning but the letter of the scriptur is that which makes hereticks But is not that the word of God which is kept from the people It is the word of God but not kept from the people For it is but the same with that which is delivered and made known unto the people So much as it contains whatever it be either of faith or morality either of what is to be beleeved or hoped or practised they have it all but disintangled from those artificiall schemes of logick and rhetorick wherof the holy writ is fuller then any book was ever writ by man which there inwrap and render it obscure Ther is no instruction no rule of piety no particle of comfort either for this world or the other in St. Pauls epistles for example but Catholiks have it they read it in their own language if they be able to read they know it all And they have it in a better and more facil manner then they could find it out by perusing those high theological discourses of his which the learnedst of men can hardly and very hardly understand The like I say of other portions of holy writ Only the disputative part with the interwoven systems of rhetorick this may exercise great and more sublime divines who by help of their various litterature may consider not only the plain truths therin contained which are common to them with other vulgar beleevers but the nature of the Metonymies Synechdoche's Metaphors together with the several modes of argumentation refutation objections and inopinate transitions in the context This if my adversary OeN had understood it had saved one fourth part of his Animadversions upon Fiat Lux and Whitby here had been utterly silent But it is their only advantage both in this and other controverted points of faith with Roman Catholiks either to be ignorant or dissemble their knowledg And therfor I have good reason to think they will never seem to understand But God grant they may The wonder is that English Protestants should still be as fiercely eager in this point when they write controversies as ever they were when they do themselves most heartily repent I have heard several great clergy-men amongst them speak it that they had ever given the Bible in that short ambiguous phrase it is penned into the hands of people in their own tongue to be thus perverted as it is every one his own way unto endles and irreconcilable schismes It would glad their hearts no doubt to see the Roman Church do indiscreetly as they have don But that will never be Holy catholik Church has revealed translated and several wayes made known the will of God to her people appointing most divine wayes and methods such as she had her self received from God to inure and keep them in the practis of that their holy faith And the disputative and sublimer divinity or as I may so speak the philosophical part of holy writ such as can may read on Gods name and the Church will commend them for it while these with all the rest attend unto those duties and good works every one in his calling which their holy faith prescribes These are and ever were the wayes and method of the now present and ancient catholik Church most wise and holy And her subjects and beleevers have profited therby many thousands of them unto angelical sanctity and all of them unto somthing more than otherwise they would have had whilst others that swerv from these wayes promote themselvs unto wildness and schisme without end missing indeed the word of God in the very scripture they read and never attaining to the true life and power in that form of words which they use not unto intended sanctification but by their own misinter pretations wrest and deprave daily unto their own destruction Nor will people be ruled now by their ministers but thinking it their own right to interpret as they pleas make it their only work to read and cant sentences and coin opinions as they list Excepting only this one fruit of our vulgar reading of scripture as it lies which in all mens judgments is an evil fruit I do not see nor
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
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
villifie the Roman faith and Church which is indeed the comm on road of all her adversaries I shall speak more fully if I have time by and by Now I hasten to his text which I shall give and my own judgment of it very briefly § 1. Which is about Novelties in general Sayes that the Protestant hath the word of God and Gospel and Apostles writings and if need be the four first general Councels and cannot be therfore doubted to be Apostolical but the Roman Church cannot so much as pretend that all her Religion is primitive since she pretends a power of making new articles of faith for Turrecremata Triumphus Ancorano and Panormitan affirm she can do it And this power Pope Leo the tenth challenged when he condemned Luther for denying him to have it To further this their pretended power the Papists corrupt and alter the Fathers works insomuch that Saurius the correctour of the Press at Lions complained to Junius that he was forced to blot out many sayings of St. Ambrose which had been in a former edition printed there For this care of purging Catholik writers Sixtus Senesis commends Pope Pius Nay they correct the very Indexes made by Printers as those of Probens and Chevallonius Thus the Doctour begins his book and I cannot but commend his wit For he wisely assumes that to himself which is the very one great busines wherin every particular controversie sticks and which if it were once agreeed on would put an end to all controversies that either now are or ever shall be in the world For they all com at length to this question which of the many Professours of Christianity now so much divided in their wayes have the Gospel and word of God on their side in this that and the other particular We saith Dr. Taylor we Protestants have the word of God we have the Gospel of Christ we have the Apostles writings with us and for us and therfor our Religion is for certain both ancient primitive and Apostolical This is Sir a very good consequence That Religion must needs be ancient which hath God for his Author that must be a primitive Christianity which Christ founded and what the Apostles writings confirm must needs be Apostolical faith But is it proved here by the Doctour that Protestants and not Catholiks have the word of God and of Christ and of his Apostles on their side No it is all supposed and his whole endeavour is to tell us that the religion which issued from God and Christ and his holy Apostles must needs be Apostolical primitive and ancient He supposes Protestancy as distinct from Catholik faith to have com all of it from those divine hands which is the only thing to be proved and declares at large that a religion which came from such hands must needs be ancient and primitive which is a thing no man can ever doubt It is certain and manifestly known that Protestants received both Law and Gospel and Apostles writings from the hands of Roman Catholiks who had kept and canonized and lived by those rules fifteen hundred years before Protestancy rose up in the world and all the whole hundred years since The only question is about the sence and mind of that holy writ in the many particular points now controverted in the world He has the law that has the mind and purpos and meaning of the law not he that hath the form of words without it This is the great business and the very extract and quintessence of all controversies which your quick Doctour assumes as granted on his side without any more ado We saith he we Protestants have the Law and Gospel and Apostles writings and the old Councels too if need be and therfor is not the ancientness of our Religion to be doubted But the Papists what of them the Papists Religion cannot so much as be pretended to be Apostolical old or primitive Why so Have not they the law and Gospel and Apostolical writings He does not plainly say they have not but he hopes his reader will think so What then of the Papists They saith he can make new Articles and therfor cannot their Religion be antient Sir although they could make new articles so long as they do not their Religion may be old still for all that A man may live in an old house although he be able to build a new one And this seems indeed to be the case here For the Disswader in confirmation of his speech brings in although unjustly the testimony of som Catholik Doctours who should say The Church can make new Articles but not one that sayes she has made any That I may yet go further although the Church should make new obliging Articles so long as these do not contrary the former but declare them more amply in such and such circumstances they annull not but rather confirm and explicate the old ones Is not our Law the same old Law of England and we the same polity our fore-fathers were although the King and Parliament upon occasion of new disorders make new acts and statutes continually But let us go on yet one step more The Roman Church does plead Sir whatever your Disswader would have you think that her religion is Catholik Apostolik and primitive becaus all her Councels by which that Church is governed have openly and continually declared when they came together to decide any affair which had raised new disturbance in the Christian world that they must firmly adhere to that which is Primitive to that which is Apostolical to that which is Catholik to that which has been delivered and received from fore-fathers And by that rule they decided the difference How then can this Church pretend to make new Articles Does your Doctour bring any General Councel which is the loud voice of that Church or any Tradition which is the Churches still voice to speak it No not any at all But this he ought to have done if he would prove that Church to pretend any such power What then Wy Turrecramata and som other doctours sayes she can do it But Sir if some one or other clergy-man should think that the Church can make new articles does it therfor follow that the Church it self does pretend any such power Surely the voice of one or two Ministers here in England cannot in reason be thought the voice of our whole Protestant Church especially when they speak against the tenour of her doctrin and practice But your Disswader has been many years picking in cobweb holes and obscure writings that he might where he could find any half sentence apt to be wrested from the common judgment of Catholik Religion mark that out for Popery to the end it may be thought either naught or new This is the chief ingredient of your Disswaders Policy Catholik Doctours Sir though they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may
defend all the new curious and scandalous questions and to uphold the gainfull trade Thus heavily poor man does your Disswader complain of the Councels silence in those philosophical points neither resolving the doubts nor so much as explicating the terms therof that he might understand what is superstitious and what is scandalous and what they mean by Indulgence and what by curious and the like hard words i th' interim while the Councel sends him to school to learn the meaning of those hard words and the result of those disputes which belonging not to faith make little to edification and from whence no accession to piety can be made nor indeed any useful knowledg all your Disswaders sport is spoiled And he has som reason indeed to complain and weep But I pray you Sir consider If I have a releasement granted me from som temporal penalties due to my misdoings what does it concern me to know whether that releasement be a substance or an accident whether it be in the predicament of quantity or quality whether it be a solution or absolution whether it be from power or bounty whether it issue as out of a treasure or from a tribunal or the like The Schoolmen whence your Doctour picked those curious questions would I am sure have acquainted him with their opinions concerning all such things if he had staid to read their answers But he was in haste and indeed it concerned him not to know their resolution He had enough to pick out their philosophicall prattle in the general heads of it which becaus it is found in the school-books of such as are Catholik beleevers he makes no doubt but the very naming of it will suffice to perswade the Land that it is all popish doctrin and Popery and that Papists cannot agree in it and that it is new Indeed Sir he has great need to go to school to those Doctours not only to hear their resolutions but to understand the very terms of the question For had he known what those very words of solution and absolution mean he had never added that absurd interpretation of his own which he give p. 20. It is a very strange thing saith he a solution not an absolution that is the sinner is let go free without punishment in this world or world to come a wise interpretation of a pittiful Divine But I cannot stand here to give notice of his special mistakes simple inferences vain insultings and particular falsifications all which are gross and various I do only assure you Sir that if he mean by Popery the Religion and faith of Roman Catholiks concerning this busines of Indulgences in one period above named he approves establishes and ratifies it all And in all the rest he sayes nothing against it and indeed nothing at all to it For the subtile curious theories that are made by wits upon this subject over and above what their faith extends unto as well as in all other things even from the worlds first creation to its final consummation all whatever is contained in the whole Bible about which they have raised many thousands of disputes over and above that which is there plainly delivered by their faith these for such as are at leasure and love them may serve for Academick exercise and discours The disorders and abuses that have been in this as well as other affairs all good men and sacred Councels have laboured to their power to suppress and rectifie And are ther not abuses of all kinds in the Protestant world notwithstanding any endeavors to the contrary But the faith that is in this point and all the whole practice of it Catholiks still hold and Protestants have forsaken it For these have neither confession of sins nor pennance for those sins confest nor indulgence of any such pennances injoyned as Catholiks have Indeed the Prelat Protestant keeps still one ancient custom of commuting as they call it which is but a new word for Indulgence when the pennance of standing in a white sheet for one kind of sin imposed is upon som considerations released For although the Reformation have taught that Matrimony is no Sacrament but a meer secular contract yet Ministers I know not how keep still that Spiritual Court as they call it unto themselves as being it seems the only men that are able to judg in those affairs But there be other sins that require pennance and satisfaction besides that one and other pennance besides a white sheet to be commuted § 4. Which is about Purgatory Sayes that Purgatory is another ill novelty both becaus the Greek Fathers never make any mention of Purgatory and also becaus the doctrins on which it is built are either fals or at least dubious as that there is distinction betwixt mortal sins and venial that sin may be taken away the obligation to punishment remaining that God requires of us a full exchange of pennances for the pleasure of sin notwithstanding Christ suffering for us But Papists are deceived in this point upon two mistakes the first wherof is that ancient Fathers used to pray for the dead but they prayed not in relation to Purgatory and so the Church of England allows to pray for the departed namely as the Fathers did The second is that the Fathers speak of a fire of purgation after this life which was but an opinion of such a thing after the day of judgment And this is also refuted by those other Fathers who hold the souls to be kept in secret receptacles untill dooms-day which opinion cannot stand with Purgatory Beside St. Austin in his time doubted whether Purgatory was or no. And though ancient Fathers speak much of intermedial states and purgations and fires and common receptacles and delivery of souls yet they never agreed throughout with the Church of Rome But Papists have been brought into this beleef by frightful relations of apparitions which the wiser sort beleev not And Tertullian denies that the souls of the dead do ever appear How the Greek Church denies this purgatory doctrin appears in the Councel of Florence Moreover S. Cyprian and others teach against it that after death is no place for pennance no purgation and no less holy scripture who saith Blessed are those who dye in the Lord. What a rapsody of stuff is here Papists gathered this doctrin of Purgatory out of fals grounds Papists have been frighted into this doctrin of Purgatory by apparitions The Fathers speak of a fire of purgation after this life but they meant not as Papists do The Fathers held secret receptacles for souls until dooms-day but that cannot stand with Papists Purgatory though they speak much of intermedial states yet that does not agree throughout with the Roman doctrin of Purgatory And blessed are the dead for they â—est from their labours Blessed surely had your Disswader been if he had rested from his labours too Sir if your Disswader had meant to say any thing to the purpos in this affair he
39. Wherfore brethren covet to prophesie and forbid not to speak with tongues 40. Let all things be done decently and in order Thus runs this fourteenth Chapter in your own translation And if it do nothing at all concern Church-service why should the Roman Liturgy be reconciled to it any more than adultery to the third commandment Or what disparagement is it to this service that it cannot be reconciled to that law which no way concerns it If it do concern Church-service then must all the Common prayer and Service of our Protestant Church of England be abolished being as irreconcileable to this rule as you say adultery is to the seventh Commandment Say which you please If it concern not any Church-service you justifie as to this account the custom of the Roman Church if you say it do you condemn your own Truth is the Spirit of our Lord magnified his primitive Church when it began to spread and appear in the world with many particular graces that the Jew and Pagan might discern in it somthing extraordinary and by that exteriour sign be induced to beleev that the founder of that Religion was no ordinary person as gift of miracles tongues and prophesies The new converts of Corinth seemed to be more pleased with the gift of tongues than any other and when they met together fell a gabling all at once not two or three only but more and perhaps the greatest part of them all at one and the same time as the Apostle here intimates v. 23. one for example in the Congo language the other that of Mexico one Ethiopian the other Arabian one the Indian another the Slavonian and none understood another nor could well hear one another for the confused noise as we may gather by v. 2. and v. 11. and so became barbarians to one another This gift then and special grace of Gods Spirit though it might astonish a Pagan that should look upon them which was all that holy Spirit intended by it yet it could not edifie him any further or move him if he should be left to himself to think otherwise of them than that they were a company of mad gabling distracted people especially when he considered that some of them seemed to exhort some to sing some to pray and all in a cluster at one and the same time no man heeding the other or understanding a word he said if he should And this disdorder the Apostle here labours to rectifie in this whole fourteenth chapter And it is manifest that the apostle here neither spake nor thought of any Church-service either in one language or other but only of that temporal gift which is now past away long ago with the people that had it Nor can it prudently be applied to any Church-service that I know in the world For there is no such doing any where Much less can it relate to any custom of the Roman Church where all the people are devoutly praying to one and the same God in quiet and silence both in spirit and understanding heart and mind too the priest knowing what himself speaks or prayes and the people understanding both what he acts and does in their behalf and his own and what also they beg of God themselves either with words or without them So that here is no kind of parity at all Nay if neither the Priest did understand himself what he speaks nor the people what they pray both which are absolutely fals yet would the Apostle allow even that as a good custom though not so perfect so long as the words contained piety and the heart stood piously affected in pronouncing them He that speaketh in an unknown tongue saith he v. 2. speaketh not to men but to God and though man understand not yet in spirit he speaketh mysteries And again v. 4. he saith that such an one edifieth himself and v. 14. he teaches that such a ones spirit prayeth though his mind or understanding doth not and v. 17. that he gives thanks well With these of our learned Apostle your Disswaders words throughout this his section are I am sure absolutely irreconcileable For he saith such an one prayes only with his lips and not in spirit that there is neither affection nor edification in any such prayer and that the heart and spirit sayes nothing and asks for nothing and so receives nothing which Salomon calls the sacrifice of foools thus speaks your Disswader quite contrary to Apostolical sobriety And not that custom I should think but your Disswaders invectives against it are irreconcileable with this fourteenth chapter Saint Paul sayes that such a one prayes in spirit the Disswader that he prayes onely in his lips Saint Paul that he edifies himself the Disswader that his soul has no benefit and that there is neither edification nor affection or any good by such prayers Saint Paul that he prayes well and gives thanks well the Disswader that he does ill But I need not stand upon this now There is no such thing in the use of the Roman Liturgy where priests and people pray both in spirit and mind too both with heart and understanding also Only let me tell you thus much that St. Paul in one verse of this chapter checks your Disswader and all his whole discours in this section Linguis loqui nolite prohibere saith he v. 39. Do not forbid to speak with tongues But your Disswader forbids and labours here might and main against it Doth the Apostle speak here of Church-service or not If he do then Church-service in an unknown tongue is allowed if he do not then one of this chapter is against Church-service in an unknown tongue Surely your Disswader did never ponder these things as he ought Nay if this discours of the Apostle concern Church-service so that your Disswader hence may rightly gather that the popish Mass in an unknown tongue is irreconcileable with it I may upon the same ground prove more strongly that S. Paul would have the popish Mass in an unknown tongue to be practised Volo omnes vos linguis loqui saith he v. 5. I will that ye all speak with tongues or I would that you all spake with tongues which is according to your Disswaders meaning I will have you all turn Papists or I would ye were all turned Papists But lastly if this 14. chapter to the Corinthians be to be understood of Church-service and Church-preaching and Church-praying as this disswading Doctour would have it then Sir must our Protestant pulpits and service-pews all down and the Quakers way must come up infallibly For what saith the text here Sive lingua quis loquitur secundum duos aut ad multum tres per partes unus inter pretetur si autwm non fuerit interpres taceat in ecclesia sibi autem loquatur Deo Prophetae autem duo tres dicant caeteri dijudicent Quod si alii revelatum fuerit sedenti prior taceat Potestis enim omnes
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
and statutes he will soon find all this to be most true This your Disswader in despight of all our laws to the contrary will have the government of Christs Church not to be monarchical but a pure aristocracy ruled by a company of byshops standing like a company of trees all in a row one by another but no one between the other and heaven An order he admits or precedency according as I suppose as one begins to count or number them but no jurisdiction no power no autority no superiority of any one over the rest One byshop sayes he is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops Beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepherd and byshop of souls Vnder him every byshop is supream in spirituals and in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ But the laws of the land and constitutions of our English Protestant Church teach us on the contrary that one byshop is superiour to another and he therfor called an Arch-byshop and that according to Christ ther is a head both of Byshops and and Arch-byshops so that ther is one other step yet before you rest in the great shepherd and byshop of souls even he who is under Christ supream head and governour of his Church in these his Majesties realms of England Scotland and Ireland and that under Chirst every byshop is not supream in spirituals or in all power mark I say he is not supream in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ The statutes and acts of parliament are in every mans hands to look into But the canons and ecclesiastical constitutions becaus they are not so obvious I shall name one or two of them to justifie this my speech In our canonical law made in Kings Edwards dayes ther is an act tit 189. De officio jurisdictione omnium judicum which speaks thus Si episcopus suerit negligens in administrandâ justitiâ pertinet ad ejus Archiepiscopum ipsum compellere ad jus dicendum illique terminum praescribet quem si non observaverit absque legitimo impedimento non modò censuris ecclesiasticis puniet verum in astimationem justam litis damnabit It is manifest by this canon that every byshop is not supream but that one is superiour and head over the other so far as to compel and punish him which cannot justly be done without autority and power Ther is another canon or law yet more full than this tit 92. De ecclesia ministris ejus which speaks thus Omnia quae de Episcopis constituta sunt ad se pertinere Archiepiscopi quoque agnoscant Et praeter illa munus illorum est in suâ provinciâ episcopos collocare cum à nobis saith the King electi fuerint Vtque totius provinciae suae statum melius intelligat Archiepiscopus semel provinciam suam universam si possit ambibit visitabit Et quoties contigerit aliquas vacare sedes episcopales episcoporum locos non modo in visitatione sed etiam in beneficiorum collocatione omnibus aliis functionibus ecclesiasticis implebit Quin ubi episcopi sunt si eos animadvertat in suis muneribus curandis praesertim in corrigendis vitiis tardiores negligentiores esse quà m in gregis Domini praefectis ferri possit primum illos paterne monebit Quod si monitione non profuerit illi jus esto alios in eorum loco collocare Appellantium etiam ad se querelas causasque judicabit Episcopi suae provinciae si qua de re inter se contenderint aut litigarint judex finitor inter eos esto Archiepiscopus Ad haec audiet judicabit accusationes contra episcopos suae provinciae Ac denique si ullae contentiones aut lites inter episcopum archiepiscopum ortae fucrint nostro judició saith the King who ratifies these ecclesiastical canons and puts them forth in his own name cognoscentur definientur Archiepiscopi quoque munus esto synodos provinciales nostro jussu convocare By this constitution or canon one of those canons on which our very English Protestant Church is founded it manifestly appears that an Archbyshop or in plain English a prime byshop or chief byshop is not a name only of order or decent precedency as your Disswader here speaks but of dignity autority power superiority and jurisdiction over byshops And he is as much above them as other ordinary byshops are above a Presbyter or parochial minister For in administring Sacraments and preaching Gods word every minister is impowred as fully as any byshop but the government of ministers or presbyters within the Diocess is proper only to one who therfor has the name and title of byshop which signifies an Overseer of the rest This byshop admits of presbyters into a parish and when any parish is vacant he sees that one be put in if any be careles and negligent in the duty of his parish he first advises him like a father and if he will not amend his manners he puts him out and furnishes the place with a better pastour he judges the complaints between parishioners and parsons or between parsons or presbyters among themselves and decides them he visits and keeps chapter or should do at least and finds and speaks and punishes their faults All these things are contained in the office of a byshop which therfor argue him to have an autority power or jurisdiction over other Presbyters or pastours within his Dioces although he be a presbyter or pastour himself and a chief one too that is to say with a more ample and large autority then any one of those who be under him hath given them and therfor called a byshop or overseer by way of eminence And if all these things do as needs they must argue not only an order or bare precedency but a jurisdiction and power of a byshop over other presbyters then must they needs conclude the same power to be in one byshop over another in him namely who by way of eminency is called the byshop or archbyshop or prime byshop amongst the rest who is as truly the byshop of byshops as these are overseers of presbyters For this prime byshop is declared by the abovesaid canon to be enabled by vertue of his office to have all the power and charge that other byshops have and then over and above that first to place the byshops elect and seat them each one in their provinces then to go over and visit the whole province authoritatively which none of the byshops under him can do thirdly to see vacant seats supplied fourthly if such byshops as he shall find slow and negligent in their duty after a fatherly admonishment mend not to put others in their place fiftly to judg the complaints and causes of such as appeal unto him from their own byshops sixtly to decide the controversies that may happen between one byshop and another seventhly
to judg the accusations that are against any byshop lastly to call synods and there conclude and decide what may seem best for the welfare and spiritual government of his province Are these the works of authority power and jurisdiction yea or no If they be not how can any autority or power be proved For all power is proved by its act or how in particular may it appear that byshops have any autority over their presbyters or ministers But if they be then is ther more than a precedency or order amongst byshops then did not Christ leav his Church in the hands of the Apostles without any superiority of one above another as this Disswader talks For the laws and consticutions of this our Church and Kingdom do publikly attest that this our English Church is settled according to the will of Christ by archbyshops and byshops which is absolutely true then also did not Christ send all his apostles with the same whole power then were not all the apostles the same that Peter was then did not an equality of power descend from the apostles to all byshops then is there a step beyond the ordinary byshop nay two steps before you come to rest in the great shepherd and byshop of souls then under Christ is not every byshop supream in spirituals nor yet in all the power which to any byshop is given by Christ all this I say is true whatsoever your Disswader talks against not only the Catholik Church and government which was here for above a thousand years together in England but against the very frame and constitution of his own Protestant Church wherof he is himself an unworthy member But ministers when they begin to talk against popery they are so heedlesly earnest that they knock out their own brains and either to get a benefice or honour in it they destroy their own Church that gives it them I can no more wonder now that such an one as Whitby in his book written against worthy Cressy should say so peremptorily that an archbyshop hath no power or autority and that his grace of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction as he there talks impar congressus Achilli since a man of such renown as Doctor Taylor should speak the same here and give the Presbyterians and other Sectaries in the Land such a fair occasion and president to undermine and overthrow that Church which is but lately lift out of the ruins of their hands The same argument that proves the byshop an ordinary byshop to be under none but immediately under Christ will prove as much for a single Presbyter or Presbyterian And it is already done by the subtle pen of John Bastwick in his Apologeticus as praesules Anglicanos which book is so strongly written both against Popish and Protestant Prelacy too that upon the grounds on which all Protestants go it can never be answered and upon the grounds Doctour Taylor here layes it is all of it in a manner confirmed and made good What a strange madnes is it for any one that he may seem to weaken another Church to overthrow his own Truth is here is no tye in England that any one will be held with The scriptur is in every mans bosom to make what he will of it Ancient canons customs and councels they slight as erroneous Their own constitutions and statutes they do not so much as heed What can be expected from hence but eternal dissention and wars Nay the minister to get his orders and benefice the bishop to enter into his See make a solemn protestation of obedience and subjection When they have got their ends they wipe their mouths and so far forget what they have done that they write and act presently as if they had never thought any such thing See here the form of consecration of byshops prescribed and used by our English Protestant Church In the name of God Amen I N. chosen byshop of the Church or See of N. do profess and promise all due reverence and obedience to the archbyshop and to the Metropolit an Church of N. and to their successours So help me God through Jesus Christ Where reverence subjection and obedience is due on one side there must needs be autority power and jurisdiction on the other And that man who hath One set over him with such an authority under Christ cannot be immediately under Christ himself and if he affirm he is so then ipso facto doth he reject and rebel against that autority which in words he acknowledged This is Dr. Taylors case who teaches here that byshops are successours of the Apostles and that ther was no superiority amongst the Apostles that by the law of Christ one byshop is not superiour to another that Christ made no head of byshops that beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepherd and byshop of souls c. What is this but to reject all obedience and loyalty solemnly vowed and promised and to rebell against all the laws and constitutions of his own Church and finally which is wors than all the rest to give an example to disaffected ministers of doing the like But how does he prove all this very copiously both by reasons of his own and autorities of other men Only the mishap is those signifie nothing at all for him these very much against him But what are his reasons Byshops are the Apostles successours and ther was no superiour amongst the Apostles Mr. Bastwick and such as he will tell you Sir that priest minister and byshop were but several synonomous words for one and the same thing upon divers respects so that it is to be feared your Disswader hath proved too much here and hath spoken against himself but if he hath not proved too much he hath proved nothing I am sure there was a superiority amongst the Apostles and shall demonstrate it by and by as well as I can In the mean time how prove you ther was none Christ sent all his apostles with the same whole power his father sent him Good Sir our Lord sayes indeed as my father sent me so do I send you giving them a legal commission from him as himself had from God his eternal Father But that he sent them every one with the same whole power that is so to teach and govern that they should be subject to no one amongst them these are your Disswaders words cast in by fraud and fallacy and no autority evangelical and therfor prove nothing Nay if Christ had so sent his Apostles every one with the whole power of governing in himself then had he changed his fathers commission For he was sent himself to be one head and governour and yet he had then constituted many But how can you dream good Doctour that Christ sent his apostles each one with all his whole power he had received from God since the very chiefest of his power which is to confer grace upon the ministerial acts of his words and
sacraments can not be given to man You see how fondly as well as falsly you have foisted in these words with all his whole power What follows next S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock Pray Sir how many byshops were ther do you think in that one no huge town of Miletum Bastwick brings this for a proof that byshops and priests were all one thing in those dayes And if it be otherwise the times are much changed Then many byshops served one town now many towns will hardly serve one byshop But you cut off the sentence Sir that it may sound better for your purpos and which is wors change it too The Apostle charges them to attend to themselves and all the flock wherin the holy Ghost hath constituted them overseers Which last words becaus they limit both their care and your own argument you thought it prudence to leav them out Pray Sir would you have any byshop to enter upon anothers Diocess What then would you have here when you make S. Paul bid the pastors all of them to feed all the whole flock without any restriction In all your heats remember still your self Go on The equality of power must descend to all byshops who are their successours I can easily grant you that they have all of them equal power of administring Sacraments and looking to their flock every one within his own precincts And this is all your discours infers But an equality of power over one another was neither amongst the Apostles nor yet here in our English byshops nor ever in the Church of God How do you prove that By the law of Christone 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 Vnder him every byshop is supream This argument is in a mood and figure called Ita dico You say so and the statutes and canons of the Church of England say no. Whom shall we beleev I alwayes prefer a Church before any one Church-man though he be in her when he is against her But S. Paul sayes expresly that Christ appointed in his Church first apostles but not S. Peter first I marry Sir now we are come to an argument indeed And it runs thus According to S. Paul the apostles were the first rank or dignity in the Church but S. Peter was none of that rank or dignity therfor he could not be first Was not S. Peter then one of the apostles or will you make it run thus The apostles were the first rank or dignity in the Church but S. Peter was not that rank or dignity therfor he was not first This is indeed the surer way Becaus no one man can be reckoned for a rank or dignity or so many persons in the plural number This is an argument never yet thought of in Oxford or Cambridg to prove they have no superiour either over all or over any one Colledge Not over all For ther be first Colledges then Halls then Inns c. therfor the Vice-Chancellour is not first Not over one Colledge For ther are first Fellows then Schollars then Pensioners c. and therfor Mr. such a one who is neither fellows schollars nor pensioners is not first So here Christ saith S. Paul set in his Church first of all apostles therfor saith our learned Doctour not first S. Peter and secondarily apostles but all the apostles were first The apostles were the first rank of dignity good Sir but that rank had order in it too And so ther might be place for a first man even in the first rank But Peter did never rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostome witnesses He ruled then good Sir it seems he ruled then Will you bring this for an argument of his not ruling You are shrewdly put to it in the mean time And if he ruled and governed and mannaged all by common councel he was the better superiour for that but not therfor no superiour Will you admit no rulers but tyrants who do all by their own will But even some of their own popish writers do grant that the succession is not tied to Rome as Cusanus Soto Canus Driedo Segovius What does that opinion of theirs if they did say so prove against the sovereignty of one byshop over the rest which is the only thing now in hand wherever he reside I cannot in reason be thought to speak against our English monarchy although I should haply say that the King is not bound to reside still at Westminster The papal pastour hath ever since S. Peters time ever resided yet in that Roman Diocess which Catholiks do indeed consider as a thing somwhat strange since all other apostolical Sees besides that are failed and gone but no man knows the disposition of divine providence here on earth for future times Perhaps that Roman See I mean the particular Roman Diocess shall so remain to the worlds end and perhaps again it may not And if it should not or if that whole City should be destroyed or Christian Religion in it or if the City and all the whole Kingdom of Italy should lye under the ocean quite overwhelmed and drowned yet so long as the world lasts ther shall be a Church of Christ on earth and so long as ther is a Church ther will be one supream pastour of it where ever he reside And this is that which som Catholik doctours mean when they say that the succession is not tied to Rome What doth this make to your purpos Mr. Disswader Go on then No papal sovereignty was thought of in primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen Does an opposition infer a nullity of power Then Sir ther would be no power upon earth either ecclesiastical or civil which are all resisted one time or other Was there no royalty or byshops in England so much as thought of thirty years ago when they were both of them more than opposed by the rabble What miserable shifts are these You may find and I am confident you do find and know well enough that even in those times you speak of and before and after them the papal power was acknowledged and reverenced by the whole world and yet you will take advantage of a dispute that happens more or less in all ages to say against your conscience and from thence infer that the papal power was not so much as thought of in those primitive times God keep you Sir from contesting with any of your servants For if you do this argument of yours will prove that your autority in your own hous was not so much as thought of in those dayes either by you or them or any els Have you any thing els to say A general Councel of Chalcedon gave to the byshop of C. P. equal rights and preheminence with the byshop of Rome What general Councel was that and