Now how comes his Zealous Brother's Cant to be an Answer to all this I know not I must confess how to imagine any Dissenter to be so ridiculous as to object against us what the Representer makes him to Object And without Flattery or Fawning I may safely affirm that there are not many who do it But suppose there should will such their Objections prove against the First particular above mentioned that we charge Papists with what we deny we charge them with Or against the Third That allowing them to maintain and practise what themselves acknowledg that they maintain and practise we ought to comply with Popery I think that no Man in his Wits will assert this And therefore we may justly ask what is to be done with all that has been said upon these particulars and whether there not having been any ting that is material urged against them does not imply that there is nothing material to be urged and consequently if the Answerer had not some Reason to say that the matter was driven as far as it will go As to the second particular viz. that several things which we are said falsly to charge them with are maintained and defended by them This indeed the Character which he made little more than in Jest for his Zealous Brother doth seem more directly to oppose And yet it might be easily answered that this Brother in his Zeal might urge what was False against Vs tho we urged nothing but what was True against the Papists Which with a great deal more the Answerer offered to the consideration of the Representer and he is now told that he pssed over this same charge upon the Church of England with a Light Touch c. And much adoe there is because he was not for pursuing every new Game but for keeping to the old Scent P. 3 4. For what could possibly come more cross to the Representer than that after all his Doubling and Shifting he should start new Game for us and yet we should be for keeping to the old Scent And therefore I do not wonder to hear him complaining in this manner And is it possible then that the Disputing humour is so soon off We have heard of nothing hitherto so much as of Disputes and yet the Answerer is as unwilling to Dispute as the Representer Here 's not a word now of Disputing And is it not strange that be should draw me out to Dispute and when his own Turn comes of Disputing he should let the matter Fall because forsooth he 'll keep to his old Scent Now really this would almost perswade a Man to let him go for good and all as he might have done if he had observed but a little moderation But he gives it out that in his Brother's Character of the Church of England Almost every Point urged with the same Proofs of Scripture and Reason which Protestants produce against the Papists That there is scarce an Argument in the Character but is exactly parallel to what the Church of England uses in her Defense against Popery that the Grounds of the Arguments are the same the manner of urging them the same the Maxims on which they stand the same and then the Reasons which press them home are they not the very same which the Answerer himself in his former Discourse urges against him And he turns it upon his Answerer That a little prudence would serve him to say nothing in such a Cause as will admit no better a Defence This I must needs say is a little too tyrannical in a Representer under his Circumstances and would tempt a Man against his own Inclinations to follow him a little farther now under his new Shape I tell him therefore in the first place that a close Disputant would have pressed him to shew that the Reasons upon which we proceed in our manifold Charge against the Papists are false and unsatisfactory and not have suffered him to run out into an Inquiry whether the Reasons upon which his Zealous Brother proceeds against us be the same with them or no. Or if this were to be allowed him we might be well excused from answering him in this matter since the particular Controversies which the Church of England hath with the Dissenters have been managed on her behalf not so long since that it should be forgotten and the difference of the Case between the Separation of Protestants from the Church of Rome and of Dissenters from the Church of England was shewn after all and that in very good earnest For this being not taken notice of by Representer it might very well set off our Debt to him for a Charge upon the Church of England which himself meant little more than in jest Besides altho he glories in this Charge more than in all his other Performances yet since he frequently intimates that he intended no more by it than to Ridicule our Charge against the Church of Rome 't is all one as if he had given it under his hand that his Cause is more safe by ridiculing what we say than bye replying to it like a Disputant Now on the other hand we think our Charge must needs have been carefully laid and well defended if at last it wlll admit of none but Ridiculing Replies And so we might without much danger leave things as they are and put it to the venture whether the World will not think so too But because he boasts so very much that this Discourse which he has composed for the Brother is not yet sufficiently answered and as some think he may grow a little popular by it I care not if I go on with him in some part of his own way and in compliance with the Opinion of others inquire into the difference of those Objections upon which we proceed against the Church of Rome from those upon which his zealous Brother proceeds against the Church of England 1. I grant that our Prelates have Revenues and I believe Coaches Miters Crosiers and Copes Now if there be any reason why his Brother calls these Popish 't is this that these things were not in use in our Saviour's and in the Apostles times But when did we ever object against any thing that is meerly circumstantial amongst them as these things are that it was not used in our Saviour's or in his Apostles Times Have we not said it a thousand times that we like nothing the worse because the Papists approve it provided it be useful nay if it be innocent and harmless As for their Ornaments and Ceremonies where does any one find that in the Controversies now on foot betwixt us we do at all insist upon them Tho we cannot but think many of them to be neither grave nor decent their Number too great and too much Religion placed in them by some People So that tho there is scarce an Argument in the Character but exactly parallel to what we use and tho ALMOST EVERT Point is urged with the
he does not so much as make it appear that this Archbishop pretends the Extravagancies for which he brings those Authorities to be Articles of Faith in the Church of Rome But how far their Church is chargeable with the several Extravagancies of their Authors and what use we may and ought to make of their Divines and Casuists c. in the Controversies now on foot the Representer has been already told very distinctly Pap. not Mis rep by Prot p. 67 68 69. and when he thinks fit to Reply he shall not want an Answer Answ to Pap. Prot. p. 9. In the mean time to convince us of the unwarrantableness of this method and what a wretched thing it is to charge private Doctrines upon a Church as Articles of her Faith he brings in a Popish Preacher inveighing against the ill Manners and especially the disloyalty of Protestants upon one passage in the Decay of Christian Piety P. 30 31 32. another in Sir R. Baker and a third in Jovian Now I say let them who do thus argue against the Church of Rome as he makes his Popish Preacher to inveigh against us let them I say take the shame of it But for any thing that he has done hitherto the men are yet to be found out though I do not know but upon very diligent search some one such or other may be taken amongst us and when that happens he shall go for me and keep company with that once Protestant who believed the Sermons of the Papists were made in a language unknown to the People Now he confesses all this Harangue to be a piece of Sophistry which he has put into the mouth of a Popish Preacher P. 33. Which is enough for me and I am not at all moved hy his pretending this was done to make us ashamed of practising it in good earnest as he has seen and heard that we do For this is a reason I am now pretty well used to it being the very same wherewith he defends that ridiculous Sermon which he composed for the Zealous Brother And therefore I shall even pin this Harangue to the remainder of that Brother's Sermon that when one is called for the other may not be forgotten And so at last we come to Mis-representing in relation to some matters of Fact and History and here he hopes the Reader will discover notable things The first Mis-representation of this Kind in which he instances was the Misrepresenting of the Rich Hangings the Massy Plate and other things which Adorned the Altars in the times P. 33. before the Reformation the Candlesticks Crucifixes and Shrines Three Episcopal Houses with Four or Five Churches c. For these were Represented as Superstitious or Superfluous and forthwith were immediately blown up Now a man shall not presently find how this comes to be Mis-representing the Papists in relation to some matters of Fact and History He names but one Protestant speaking of these things viz. Dr. Heylin and he too is brought in agreeing with the Representer in charging those doings upon Covetousness Ambition and Envy nor is any other Cited as contradicting him Was not the Representer full of choler and bitterness that he must needs ease himself whether it be in fit place or not I see the bottom of this business plainly enough If that Reformation of Doctrine and Worship which our Church made be not blackened enough already he is resolved to charge upon it all the faults of the great Men that made advantages by the Change But must the Vices of the States-men in those days necessarily affect the Reformation Why then must not the Vices of Popes affect Popery If he has a mind to it let him represent the former ten times worse then they were and when he has done I will shew him as many Popes Represented by their own Historians as really bad as he has made those by Fiction and this too by Historians of no less Credit amongst them then Dr. Heylin is with us The Representer owes us a good Turn and if he can but bring in the word Misrepresenting 't is all the pertinence he cares for though it be Misrepresenting Plate and Hangings Again P. 34. because he fancies that King Henry the Eighth made way for Protestantism to enter into the World in which however he is mistaken he taxes him boldly of Vile Extravagancies the respect that is due to Crown'd Heads no nor the consideration of that Line in which this Prince stood amongst them being not able to restrain him But where is the Misrepresentation complain'd of Certainly the Popes Power here might be an Vsurpation though the motive upon which Henry the Eighth threw it quite off as it had been curbed by his Predecessors before should not prove the best in the World But let the Representer here also use his liberty of rendring him as odious as he can remembring all the while that the Faults of that Prince reflect no less dishonour upon the Church of Rome then upon the Church of England as 't is now Reformed For 't is certain that in all other points he was a Papist excepting that only of the Supremacy unless the Representer will say that the whole of their Religion is in effect this that the Pope should be all in all in the Dominions of every Christian Prince in the World Luther comes next upon the File for Marrying a Nun contrary to his Vow of Chastity P. 34. By which he means a Vow of Caelibacy as if the Marriage Vow were not a vow of Chastity too But do not their own Divines say that the vow of Continency may be dissented with And has not the Pope dispensed in greater matters Had Luther marryed with his Dispensation he had it seems committed no fault at all And we are apt to think that if notwithstanding his Vow he had good reason to marry he might do it safely enough without the Popes Dispensation But where 's the Mis-representation now Why here 's a Vow of Continency Represented as a rash and inconsiderate Vow and this is Mis-representing Papists in relation to matters of Fact and History And thus also honest Sir William Mis-represented Chalices P. 35. Crosses Images nay Guineas c. Into Popish Trinkets and Trumpery and made them fit for seisure But I say neither was Sir William honest in doing it nor the Representer over wise in mentioning it here His next Fling is at Sir Richard Baker who upon the Executions of several great Men in Queen Mary's Reign chanced to say according to his wonted Eloquence Now the Cataracts of severity will be opened that will make it rain Blood Well but to bring off honest Sir Richard for once he does not say that this severity was Tyrannical or Unjust for if he had certainly the Representer had brought us all under the lash for it But the ends of these great People being Tragical he thought good to set the matter off with a
Tragical or as the Representer calls it a pat phrase without any futher design And then as for the other Blood spilt in Queen Marys Reign which he seems to charge altogether upon Provocations Tumults Seditions and Rebellions he is guilty of the same fault which he accuses Protestants of viz. Of Representing things by halves Were none put to death in those days but for such causes Were Cranmer Ridley Latimer Taylor and almost all the 300 spoken of burnt for Heresy or not Was not the Question concerning the Sacrament of the Altar the burning Question For those that were guilty of the Abuses he mentions they might thank themselves we defend them not But what colour is there for Representing all as such And why will the Representer put us upon talking of these things who had said nothing of them if he had not forced us to it in our own defence But to see now how much there goes in the telling a story Queen Elizabeth put to death as he says P. 36. Two hundred Persons upon the score of Conscience without any actual Crime or Misdemeanour against the Ancient Statutes of the Land Two hundred Persons Truly I do not know but in her long Reign of about 40 Years so many might be put to death But I wish the Representer since he pronounces in general with so much confidence had named One or Two that were put to death upon the score of Conscience and likewise what point of Conscience it was However something is necessary to be said in general Answer to that Charge which he plainly intends though he would not plainly speak it out In short therefore about ten Years after the Queen came to the Crown Pope Pius Quintus sends over his Bull for the Excommunicating and Deposing her upon which followed the Statute against the Execution of it Which yet did not hinder several Priests and Jesuits from trying to have it Executed in pursuance whereof the Queens Life was more then once in danger And therefore when no other Remedy would serve the turn all Popish Priests of the Queens Subjects were banished under the Penalty of Treason and had forty days given them to prepare for departing This Law was made at least twelve years I believe more after the Popes Breves were sent hither And upon this Law some Priests that were afterwards found here were Executed and some were not who though coming into England contrary to the Law yet withal giving security for their dutiful Behaviour to the Queen were without changing their Religion set at liberty For if we may believe one that knew these things better then the Representer seems to do though our Princes judged it necessary for their own safety that this Law should continue in force yet to avoid the doing of any thing that looked like putting men to death upon the score of conscience they qualified the rigour of it by their own Mercy where a Treasonable design did not otherwise appear For when Goodman a Jesuit was Reprieved by King Charles the 1st An. 1640. Jan. 25. and the King was Expostulated with by the Parliament about it he signified the cause to be this that Goodman had been found guilty merly as being a Priest which was the reason of the King's mercy and that in this clemency he did but follow the examples of his Father King James and of Queen Elizabeth Now whether we should believe King Charles the Martyr or our Representer I leave others to judge This general account may serve for his general charge and I do not think fit to run out into more particulars unless the Representer gives occasion but I leave him to consider better of these things And when he has done it he may perhaps feel a little shame for having said just before in the Case of Queen Mary Now one would think to be just to Crowned Heads the Blood should not be exposed alone to the People but likewise the Occasions and Provocations given And in Queen Elizabeth's case I will adde And the mercy also that was s hewn notwithstanding those Occasions and Provocations that were given her But whereas he calls the Law we speak of a Law of her own contriving a Law so cruel that the like is scarce to be found among the Mahometans who though they have conquered many Christian Nations yet never as he has heard of made it Treason for their Natives to profess their own Religion or maintain their Pastors To let pass the Misrepresentation he insinuates of making it Treason to profess their own Religion it would almost tempt a man to search the Records of old Time to see if something has not passed in the World as cruel as this Law if it had been executed to the utmost rigour For why should Queen Elizabeth under whose Reign our Nation purchased some Glory abroad suffer now at home the imputation of being the most Tyrannical Prince that ever was in the World beyond the examples of Mahometans and of Mahometans too in their severity towards the Christian Nations which they have Conquered why this is strange indeed and not to be taken upon the Representers word For there are Annals that speak of a certain Law not indeed for the Banishing of people upon the score of Conscience but the keeping of them at home to be tormented for their Conscience Had they been suffered to use the Liberty that our Saviour once gave of Flying into another Country when they were Persecuted in their own it had been a favour in comparison to the restraint and Death had been a mercy to the Vexations they endured The like to this indeed is scarce to be found even amongst those whom the Representer speaks of And which made the case yet harder this People had not deserved ill of the State they neither sided with Forreign Powers nor with Domestic Rebels nay they had behaved themselves so well that there was nothing but their Vertue to make them feared But Histories say that those of them who escaped by miracles of Providence were well received everywhere and especially by a Prince who was not of their Religion but yet to his immortal Glory gave them Refuge and Relief in his own Countries As to the Powder Plot which he next mentions His insinuation concerning my Lord Cecil has been so often exposed and if it were true is so unable to lessen the guilt of those that were concerned in it that I see no reason why I must needs enter into that History We do not charge all of that Communion with it but we have reason vehemently to suspect all that went about to excuse and positively to condemn all that thought fit to praise the Traytors But if we should have charged as he pretends we do the Church of Rome with this Treason yet I am confident the Rebellion of the West stands not altogether so fair to be imputed to the Church of England For surely there was no Act of this Church for the
Consciences c. 2. Whereas the Answerer excepted against his Representing Part wherein he pretends to keep to a Rule That the Representer shewed no Authority that he a private Man had to interpret the Rule in his own Sense against the Judgment of Great Divines as in the Question of the Popes Personal Infallibility and against the Determinations of Popes and Councils as in the Question concerning the Deposing Power The Representer replies That he followed the Council of Trent P. 5 6. which he does not interpret but takes in the Sense of the Catechism That he also kept to Veron's Rule of Faith and to the Bishop of Condom's Exposition so highly approved by Pope and Cardinals c. As to the Instances having first ran to the Book for two more he comes back with them to the two that were mentioned and replies 1. That whereas he limited the power of the Saints to help us to their prayers he followed the Council and the Catechism P. 7 8. 2. and the Bishop of Condom That he did not qualifie the Doctrine of Merit without Authority since it is so qualified by Trid. Sess 6. Can. 26. 3. That the Popes Personal Infallibility is not determined by a General Council 4 That the Deposing Power was never established under an Anathema as a Doctrinal Point P. 9 10. and those two are therefore no Articles of Faith 3. He makes these Reflections upon the Answerers proceeding in the Book That he either 1. owns part of the Representers Doctrine to be the established Belief of the Church of England P. 11. Or 2. Does without good Reason deny part of it to be the Doctrine of the Roman Church appealing from the Definitions of their Councils and sense of their Church either to some Expressions found in old Mass-Books and Rituals c. Or to some external Actions in case of Respect shewn to Images and Saints as Bowing Kneeling c. Or finally P. 12. to private Authors P. 13 14. Upon which follows a grievous Complaint of Misrepresenting upon the last account 4. From hence he goes back to the Answer to the Introduction where he was charged for saying That the Popes Orders are to be obeyed whether he be infallible or not P. 15 16. From whence it follows That Papists are bound to Act when the Pope shall require it according to the Deposing Power He replies That he gives no more to the Pope than to Civil Soveraigns whose Authority is not so absolute and unconfined but to some of their Decrees there may be just exception 5. From hence he flings again into the middle of the Book P. 16. and blames the Answerer for scouting amongst the School-men till the Question about Dispensations to Lye or Forswear was lost and that he offered no proof That the Dispensing Power was to be kept up as a Mystery and not used but upon weighty Causes Then he leaps into the Chapter of Purgatory P. 17. and affirms That St. Perpetua's Vision is not the Foundation of Purgatory P. 18. but only used by him as a Marginal Citation amongst many others Then a Complaint of Misrepresentation again and because Complaints are not likely to convince us Let us says he depend upon an Experience P. 19. Do but give your Assent to those Articles of Faith in the very Form and Manner as I have stated them in the Character of a Papist Represented and if you are not admitted into our Communion I 'le confess that I have abused the World Thus far the Reflections It is now time to compare Things and to see how much of the Cause is left standing I pass it by that the Answer to the Introduction See for this Answ to Pap. Protest p. 128. upon which the Representer spent his main Strength is in many most material Points untouch'd by the Reflections But this is a small Matter For 1. He has dropt the defence of his Double Characters his Representations and Misrepresentations For instead of going on with his Adversary in those Thirty Seven Points with which himself led the way he does nothing but nibble about Three or Four of them and that without taking notice of the tenth part of what was said by his Adversary to fix the true state of the Controversie even about them He has indeed thrown about four Loose General Exceptions amongst the Thirty Seven Chapters in which the Answerer Represented the several Doctrines and Practises of the Church of Rome but he has not with any one of these Exceptions come up fairly to what the Answerer has said upon any one particular Point And therefore I add 2. That for any thing our Representer has done to shew the contrary the Answerer has truly Represented the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome And then we have great Encouragement to turn Papists since the Representer tells us That if the Answerer has truly Represented the Doctrines of the Church of Rome He the Representer would as soon be a Turk as a Papist 3. He has absolutely dropt the defence of all his own Arguments not so much as pretending to shew where the Answers went upon a wrong State of the Question no nor trying to reinforce his Arguments where the State of the Controversie was agreed upon on both sides So that for ought I can see the Representer fell sick of his Thirty Seven Chapters all at once both as to matter of Representation and Dispute And this I think was pretty well for the First Reply The Second Answer to the Representer being a Reply to His Reflections BUT we are to thank the Reflections for one good Thing and that is for the Answer which they drew from another Learned Hand under the Title of a Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants In which I shall make bold to leave out several Material Points which the Answerer offered too Consideration and take notice of no more than what I think may serve to shew with what Sincerity on the One Side and Insincerity on the Other this Controversie has been managed Wherefore 1. Whereas the Representer chose to justify his complaints of Misrepresentation not by taking the first Answerers Representations into examination but by referring us to other Books and to Sutcliff's sharp censures of Popery The second Answerer consider'd that the Representer called the Censures which Protestants puts upon the Avowed Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome Misrepresentations which was in the first Book discernible enough and spoken of in the Answer to it but was so grosly owned in his second Book that no man could now doubt of it For he made his Answerer guilty of Misrepresentation for saying That we cannot yield to that Popery which the Representer himself allows without betraying the Truth c. A Papist not Misrepr p. 4. This Answer therefore blames him for putting into the Protestant Representations of Popery those faults which we find and those ill consequences which
we charge upon Popery as if we would make the World believe that Papists think as ill of what themselves profess and practice P. 5. as we do And much more for putting these consequences as owned by Papists in the Front of the Protestant Characters of them as if we pretended they were the First Principles of Popery As for the Doctrines and Practises of the Roman Church which we charge them with the Representer generally owned them but he disowned as he easily might the belief of those Consequences and Interpretations which we charge upon them And therefore his putting them into the Protestant Characters of a Papist was his own Artifice of laying the fouler colours upon Popery on the one side that it might look the fairer when he took them off on the other Now to prevent these Deceits for the future this Answer goes through the Thirty seven Articles again P. 6. to p. 40. to shew under each Head what we charge upon them as their Doctrines and Practises which is properly matter of Representation And likewise what we charge upon such Doctrines and Practises which is properly matter of Dispute By the confounding of which two things the Representer had made a colour for his unjust complaints of Misrepresentation 2. Whereas he pretended that he never delivered his own private sense and opinion in Representing a Papist P. 44 45. the Answerer replies that he certainly does so when he determines concerning Questions which are disputed among themselves whether they be Articles of Faith or not and that the Catechism may be interpreted by a private spirit as well as the Council That Veron's Rule had no more Authority than the Representer's Characters That Bellarmines Controversies had attestation from the Pope as well as the Bishop of Condom's Exposition And that Canus himself who is referred to by the Representer acknowledges that the Popes approbation is not always to be accounted the judgment of the Apostolick See As to the Instances The Answerer shews P. 45 46. I. Of his limitting the Power of the Saints to their Prayers That no such limitation of their Aid and Assistance is to be found in the Council That the Representer would take no notice of what his first Answerer had said to shew that no such limitation was intended in the Council or the Catechism And that he did not find this limitation in the Bishop of Condom P. 12 13. 2. Of Merit That the Twenty sixth Canon of the sixth Session mentions nothing of it and that it is clear from Chap. 16. of that Session That they make Good works truly and properly meritorious of Eternal Life tho they grant the Grace of God and the Merits of Christ to be the cause of their own Merits Finally That the Answerer did not Appeal to the Thirty second Canon to oppose the Representer's Qualification of the Doctrine of Merit P. 46. P. 47 48. and was therefore unconcern'd in his defence of it 3. As to the Pope's Personal Infallibility That he denies it to be of Faith and makes it but a School point whilest there are as many who deny it to be a School point and make it a matter of their Faith That the want of positive Determination by a General Council does not prove it to be no matter of Faith because neither the Infallibility of a General Council nor of the Church is positively determined by a General Council That if Infallibility must be somewhere amongst them they have the best Reason that place it in the Pope 4. As to the deposing Doctrine P. 49. the Answerer shewed largely and clearly That Articles of Faith may be and have been decreed without Anathema's That the deposing Decree includes a Doctrinal point P. 54. P. 56. That if it were meerly a point of Discipline and Government they must either acknowledg it Lawful for the Church to depose Heretical Princes or consent that the Church is not secured from making wicked Decrees in things that concern the whole Christian World That when the Representer says That some Decrees of Trent are not universally received he does not tell us that the Council had no Authority to make them and to oblige Princes to receive them And lastly That the Pope's letting so many asserters of the No-deposing Power to pass without any censure of Heresy P. 57. does not argue a change of their Doctrine but only of the Times 3. To the Representer's Reflections upon the Answerer's way of proceeding as that 1. He owns in some part the Representer's Doctrine to be the established Doctrine of the Church of England The second Answerer charges him with foul Misrepresentation upon this account in as much as the first Answerer owned nothing which is peculiar to the Faith of a Papist as distinguished from thr common Faith of Christians and that the Representer might as well have said P. 59 60 61. That because Protestants own that Christ is to be worshipped therefore they in part own the Doctrine of the Church of Rome That Christ is to be worshipped by Images And this he shewed to be the very case in every one of those six or seven Points which the Representer only named but did not think fit to insist upon to shew how his Reflection was applicable to them 2. And that the first Answerer appealed from the definitions of their Church c. 1. To some Expositions found in old Mass-Books and Rituals P. 62. This Answerer says that he could find but one Instance of this relating to the Worship of the Virgin Mary viz. that scandalous Hymn O Felix Puerpera c. But that their Church is accountable for her old Missals which were the allowed and established Offices of Worship That even this has never been condemned but that Monsieur Widenfelts Book was condemned at Rome which was writ to bring the people to a bare Ora pro Nobis P. 63. to the Blessed Virgin 2. To some external Action as in case of respect shewn to Images and Saints To this the Answerer says That the Representer brings in this Exception without taking the least notice of what his first Adversary said concerning external Adoration P. 63 64. That it is a part of Divine Worship and that the Council of Trent requires it should be given to Images He shews further That since there is such a thing as external and visible Idolatry an Idolatrous action is nevertheless such P. 65. for the intention of him that is guilty of it not to commit Idolatry P. 66. That the worship of the Invisible Inhabitants of the other World tho with such external acts as may be paid to creatures has always been accounted Religious Worship That as the Degrees of Civil honour are distinguish'd by the sight of the Object So one certain distinction between Civil and Religious is P. 67. that the worship of an Invisible Object is always Religious and that to Worship
the Image of an Invisible Being must therefore be Religious Worship also because 't is referred to the Prototype 3. To the sentiments of private Authors And here the present Answerer challenges him to give one instance wherein the Judgment of private Authors was as he pretended set up against the declared sense of their Councils and Church And moreover shews what use was made of private Authors by particular Instances P. 68 69. and that sometimes recourse is necessary to be had to them and to the general practice of their Church to know the sense of their Church 4. Whereas the Representer avoided the charge of their being obliged by his Doctrine to obey the Pope when he commands them to act in pursuance of the Deposing Power by pretending that the Decrees of Popes may be excepted against no less than the commands of Civil Soveraigns as the case may be The Answerer does acknowledg this Reply to be good P. 58. if the Representer be sincere in the Application and will grant the Deposing Decree to command a Sin and that Bellarmin and Canus were mistaken in asserting That Popes and General Councils can make no sinful Decrees relating to the whole Church 5. To the complaint of discoursing upon Dispensations out of the Schoolmen and bearing the Reader into a belief that the Dispensing Power was kept as a Mystery to be used upon weighty occasions c. the present Answer saies That there was reason for the former this being one of the Instances wherein the whole sense of their Church is not to be had but from the Practices of Popes and the Opinions of their Great men To the latter That their own Doctors had declared it as the Answerer had shewn before he said it himself Then as to St. Perpetua's Vision That if he did not think it gave some credit to the Doctrine of Purgatory it was mentioned by him to no purpose Finally to the Representer's Invitation of us to come over to their Church upon his Terms with promise of Acceptance the Answerer returns That he must like their Faith better first And certainly the Invitation was something unseasonable before the Representer had answer'd our Reasons against that Popery which himself allows And this for the second Answer The Second Reply of the Representer being an Answer to a Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants THE second Reply comes forth under the Title of Papists Protesting against Protestant Popery Pap. Prot. p. 4 In which the Representer beginning with a defence of himself as to his construction of the wilful mistakes see before p. 8. which if he pleases shall be forgotten from this time forward falls a wondring that there should be such a noise about exposing of their Doctrines to open view declares that tho he discovered what he thought and sometimes said briefly why yet he made not disputing his business and knows not how this should be taken as a piece of controversy against the Church of England which he had not charged with Misrepresentation nor any body else but those only in general that are guilty He complains that his second Answerer makes that which they call Misrepresentation to be in all the material points P. 6. a Representation of the avowed Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome and protests That if Popery be guilty of what he saies it cannot enter into his thoughts there 's any room for it in Heaven For the very Title of his Book is a condemnation of the Religion to all those horrid shapes it has been at any time exposed in by the Members of the Reformation P. 7. And so is his pretence that We charge Papists with nothing but what they expresly profess to believe and what they practice But since they must not learn what Papists believe from the Council and the Catechism but from the Writings and Sermons of Protestants he is resolved to give us a taft of their way of Representing Popery and therefore 1. He recites several passages wherein Popery is Misrepresented as he will have it out of a Book of John sometime Lord Archbishop of York and a Book of Dr. Beard P. 9. to p. 17. and Sutcliffs Survey and the Book of Homilies And in conclusion he tells us That this is the Protestant Popery which since he protests against no less than the Answerer Protestants and Papists may now go shake hands and What â— possibility is there of farther divisions But if this be intended for a true Representation of Popery Roman Catholicks suffer under the greatest injustice imaginable And then follows a vehement expostulation against the iniquity of such Misrepresentation P. 18. And whereas the Answerer blamed him for putting into the Protestant Character of a Papist those ill consequences we charge upon their Doctrines and Practices as if we pretended that they think of their own profession and practice just as we do P. 20. He Replies That this is a pretty speculative quarrel and a quaint conceit but lost sor coming in a wrong place For the Representer's business was to draw the Character of a Papist as it lies in the Peopels Heads who when they hear one declaiming against Popery do not distinguish between Antecedents and Consequents between the Doctrine of the Papists and the fault we find with it but swallow down all in the lump and whoever supposes otherwise must conclude them to be better at separating than the Chymists and that in subtle Distinctions they are able to out-do Aristotle himself P. 22. This is in short what he says with much circumstance and no little contentment for four Pages together and 't is all that he thinks sit to return to his Answerers careful distinction between matters of Representation and of Dispute through all the Particulars For though he confesses 't is Learnedly done yet the almost Forty Pages about it might have been spared because this Distinction is not to be found in the Notion the people have of Popery P. 23. For the rest about his denying the Belief of our Interpretations and the two other Particulars p. 24. They are so little to the Purpose that I can afford them no room in this Abstract and he that will not take my Word for it may go to the Answer to Pap. Prot. p. 20 21. and there satisfie himself 2. To his Adversaries Question Whether the Catechism may not be expounded by a private Spirit as well as the Council He says Thus a Question or two is a full Confutation of the Reflecter To the Testimony of Canus That that is not to be accounted the Judgment of the Apostolick See which is given only by the Bishop of Rome privately maliciously and inconsiderately P. 25. c. He replies That so Reverend an Authority as that of the Bishop of Condom is not to be thus overthrown since his Exposition was examined with all due Deliberation approved with all Solemnity P. 26. c. and recommended by
his Holiness to be read by all the Faithful Upon which occasion he puts himself into some Heat That we who protest against their Religion should pretend to understand it better than a Catholick Prelate eminent in the Church c. and than thos e who depend upon it for their Salvation P. 27. As to the Instances and 1. Of the Invocation of Saints he says Their Aid and Assistance is limited to their Prayers by the Bishop of Condom and cites the place but to what his Adversary said concerning the Intention of the Council and of the Catechism in this Matter he says nothing The Instance of Merit he passes by But 2dly P. 28 29. and 3dly As to the Popes Personal Infallibility and the Deposing Power he â—pleads the Authority of the Bishop of Condom that they are no more than matters of School-Debate and as if he had been in good earnest at first he does again promise we shall be admitted into his Church without the belief of these Articles So that he has every way Represented the Faith of a Papist aright and now has found out something in his Adversary to be answered with a smile That a Protestant should understand the Faith of a Papist better than the Papist himself does P. 30. And thus all being guarded by the Bishop of Condom's Authority and his own Proposal it was his mere Civility to take any notice of his Adversaries answers to his Argument about the Deposing Power from the want of an Anathema to the Decree And so he replies 1. That every thing is not an Article of Faith which is declared in a General Council without an Anathema 2. That to decree what shall be done P. 30 31. does not include a Virtual Definition of Doctrine as he thinks his Adversary himself shewed under the next Particular from the Council of the Apostles at Hierusalem 3. That the Deposing Decree does not relate to things necessary to Salvation P. 32. nor concerns the whole Church And whereas his Adversary imputes the Escape of those that oppose this Decree to a Change of Times and the Popes want of Power he tells us That Oracles are ceas'd now-a-days 3. As to Veneration of Images he says That although Acts of Honour expressed to any Image that has Relation to some Invisible Being be supposed a Religious Honour yet all religious Respect and Honour is not so a Divine Honour P. 33. as to make a God constructively of the thing to which it is paid Otherwise Bowing to the Altar and to the Name of Jesus cannot be excused P. 34. since these things relate to the Invisible Inhabitants of the other World nay All religious Respect besides to God must then be constructive Idolatry P. 35. Therefore as the different Kinds and Degrees of Civil Honour are distinguished by the sight of the Objects tho the External Acts are the same so the different Kinds and Degrees of Religious Honour are distinguished by the Intention of the Givers and by Circumstances He says further as to the unalterableness of the Nature of Actions determined by a Law P. 36. That if this makes the Intention of doing no evil in Bowing or Kneeling to an Image unable to excuse those from sin who do this forbidden thing this strikes as severely at Bowing to the Altar and Kneeling to the Sacrament as at them since the Actions forbidden are the same part of Divine Worship in both Cases Finally P. 36 37. That a Quaker may justifie his Tea's and Nays by his Adversaries Rule That no Intention can alter the Nature of Actions determined by a Divine Law since it is said Matth. 5.34 Swear not at all but let your Communication c. And now to give him his due setting aside the frivolous Instance of the Quakers he has in this Particular come up fairly to his Adversary and said what deserves to be considered Then he concludes with two or three Requests which he hopes are not unreasonable to which his Adversary gave such reasonable Answers that we have heard of them no more since that time See Ans to Pap. Prot. p. 124 125. and therefore we have no reason to be troubled with them here And so let us now come to a Reckoning 1. He grants his Adversaries Distinction throughout between matters of Representation and matters of Dispute which Distinction since himself did not observe he either wanted the Skill or the Honesty of a Representer 2. The Defence of his Argument That the Popes Personal Infallibility is not of Faith from no General Council's having determined it is dropt 3. He will not be brought to say Whether the Council of Trent had or had not Authority to oblige Princes to receive those Decrees which are not universally received and so the Defence of his Argument from some Decrees not being received is dropt 4. His solemn Cavil That the First Answerer owned some part of his the Representer's Doctrine to be the Established Doctrine of the Church of England and his Objection against him for appealing to old Mass-Books and Rituals and that other for appealing to private Authors are all three dropt 5. He will not say that the Deposing Decree commands a Sin and to his Defence of himself against his first Answerer's Charge That by his Principles he is bound upon the Pope's command to act according to the Deposing Power is dropt 6. His complaints against his first Answerer's Representing the matter of Dispensations and his note upon St. Perpetua's Vision are dropt But his Invitation of us to come over to the Church of Rome upon his Terms is not dropt for we thank him he has invited us again The Third Answer to the Representer being An Answer to a Papist Protesting against Protestant Popery To the Representer's wonder That such ado should be made about his First Book the Answerer sales P. 1. That a Misrepresenter is so foul a character that no man can wonder if we think our selves concerned to wipe it off which surely may be done without offence to any but those that meant us in the general Accusation To his complaint that the Answerer makes All that which they call Misrepresentation to be in all the material points a Representation of the avowed Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome he saies That he has done him all the service he can in distinguishing between matters of Fact wherein if we charge them wrong we do indeed Misrepresent them and matters of Dispute in which if we should charge them wrong it is not Misrepresentation but merely a wrong Judgment upon what they profess and practice P. 2. And he had already shewn That all matters of Fact excepting some few points in the Character of a Papist Misrepresented are confessed and defended in the Character of a Papist Represented Now Representation or Misrepresentation is properly about matters of Fact But as for the Consequences we charge upon their Doctrines and Practices
would seem to say something when he knew he had nothing to say to the purpose 2. He shews that the Decree of the Council at Hierusalem did include a Virtual Definition of Doctrine And 3. That the Deposing Decree concerns the whole Church and if it be a wicked Decree that it relates to a thing necessary to Salvation by commanding to do that which it is necessary to Salvation not to do and therefore he expects the Representers further Consideration of his three Answers 3. Concerning the Worship of Images the Representer bids so fair for a Dispute that the Answerer took the occasion and examined not only what the Bishop of Condom hath delivered upon it but the several ways of stating it by their Divines shewing that their Images are Representatives to receive Worship in the Name and Stead of the Prototype that in this Notion Image-Worship is condemned in the Scripture and in what the evil of it consisted a more particular Abridgment of that just Discourse upon this Subject I cannot make without either wronging the Answerer or detaining the Reader here too long and therefore I refer him also to the Book it self for an Answer to the Charge upon Bowing towards the Altar P. 83. c. P. 106 c. And to the Apology for Image-Worship from the Degree of the Honour that is given to Images And to the Representers Objections against that way of distinguishing Religious from Civil Worship by making that to be Religious P. 37 38,39 40. which is given to the Invisible Inhabitants of the other World P. 123. and likewise to the pretended Parity of Reason in the Quakers Case And thus much may serve for the Answer to Papists Protesting against Protestant-Popery The Third Reply of the Representer in Return to the Foregoing Answer THE Representer finds as little Comfort in Protesting as Disputing and so falls to Accommodate the Difference between the Representer and the Answerer and calls his Work an Amicable Accommodation For now he grants the Protestants are not guilty of Misrepresentation in a strict and proper Sense P. 1. 2. and is very sorry that he and his Answerer understood one another no better before He thinks indeed it was his Answerer's Fault not to conceive him right at first and that if his Book had never been Answered the Peace had never been broke but he is perswaded the Difference may be yet compounded P. 3. For the Case at first was no more than this That he perceiving the Unchristian Hatred which grew in the Vulgar upon that false Notion of Popery P. 4. which our Misconstructions c. had drawn in their Imaginations He I say Good Man No less in Charity to Protestants than in Justice to Papists drew his Double Characters to shew how Popery is Misrepresented P. 5. But then comes an Adversary and says He has proved that the Character of a Papist Mispresented contains nothing in it which in a strict and proper Sense can be called a Misrepresentation Now really he never meant to Fight for a Word and had he but imagined that his Adversary had contended for no more P. 6. he would have spared him the Charges and Sweat of laying down his Proofs the second time Wherefore to end the strife he solemnly declares that the Title of the Papist Misrepresented is not to be taken in its strict and proper Sense as Misrepresenting signifies only downright Lying or falsly charging matter of Fact the whole Character being not indeed of this Nature but in its larger or less proper Sense as it comprehends both Lying Calumniating Misinterpreting Reproaching Misconstruing Mis-judging and whatever else of this kind But that we may know what a Lover of Peace he is he must assure the Answerer That this Condescension is purely out of good Nature P. 7. for betwixt Friends he does not think the Answerer has advanced any thing that has the Face of a proof That there can be no Misrepresenting where there is an Agreement about matter of Fact Representing he says P. 8 being nothing more than shewing a thing as it is in it self as many ways as a thing can be shewn otherwise than 't is in it self so many ways may it be properly Misrepresented so that the Description must agree with the Thing not only in Matter of Fact but likewise in Respect of Motive Circumstance Intention End c. But according to the Awswerers Rule had the two Tribes and an Half P. 9. been declared Guilty of setting up Altar against Altar and Hannah been set out amongst her Neighbours for a Drunken Gossip here had been no Misrepresentation because of some Matter of Fact in the Case The Elders too that offered Proof against Susanna since they saw her in the Garden c. P. 11. were no Misrepresenters Nor the Jews against our Saviour nor Infidels against the Apostles and Christians nor shall any be excluded from a share in this Favour but they that have Malice enough to Calumniate but want Wit to give a Reason for what they do c. So much was the Representer overcome with pure good Nature that for Peace sake he would yield to a Principle that can do such things as these if his Word may be taken for the Reason but we have another Reason in the Wind presently For if this same Principle which he has ordered to protect the lewdest Defamations and Perjuries will but do its Office upon the Church of England he has had his Reward And so he shews what execution he can do in the Mouth of some Zealous Brother whose Honour and Interest engages him to set out the Church of England as we Represent the Church of Rome To which Purpose he puts a Sermon into his Mouth which whether it be a Copy or an Original the Dissenters may say when they please But the Heads of it are such as these After a solemn Preface of Exhortation to keep out of the Swing and the Sweep of the Dragons Tail he lays down his Doctrine P. 13 14. That the Church of England Mens Marks are the Marks of the Beast which he proves by the large Revenues and State of their Prelates P. 15. who wear the Miter and the Crosier upon their Coaches while they Live and upon their Tombs when they are Dead P. 16. By the Weekly Bill of London which shews that Mary has Nineteen Churches and Christ but Three by the Pictures in their Bibles and Common-Prayer-Books and by many other Marks as good as these P. 17 18 c. which because they stick fast to us as he thinks for any thing the Answerer has said must come over again in another place and therefore the less Repetition shall serve now Sermon being done he asks whether this be Misrepresenting in a strict and proper Sense and if not P. 34. he is contented that the Word Misrepresenting in his Book should not be taken so i.
e. for downright Lying but as we heard before for wry Interpretations weak Reasonings c. And here ends the Amicable Accommodation For his picking up New Misrepresentations he says he did it to shew that the former were not his own childish Conceits For leaving out the Authorities of the Arch-Bish p of Yâ—rk that this makes nothing against him because the Question is not What some private Authors say P. 35. but What the Church believes P. 36. whose Faith cannot be fairly Represented from their Books though published by the Authority of Superiours For producing what Sutcliff laid to their Charge without producing his Reasons that his Reasons were none of the Representers concern P. 37. because they nothing belong to Representing nor has the Answerer put his Approbation to them He charges the Answerer with leaving out propter Deum in a Citation out of the Pontisical and this because the Words were not for his purpose In Conclusion he is resolved not Dispute since the Answerer knows no Reason for all this Dispute p. 26. and he cares not whether the Answerer likes his Religion or not P. 38. He will be no other than a Representer still for We wise Converts do not love to go out of our way but upon very good Grounds The Bishop of Condom has undertaken his own Vindication P. 39. and if he does but come off as well as the Representer and 't is strange if he should not let Bellarmine and other Eminent Approved Authors say what they can he has no Concern in it but his Representation and the Bishops Exposition are the Authentick Rule for the Exposition of the Council of Trent for the embracing the Catholick Faith as Expounded by one and Proposed by the other is sufficient for a Person to be received into the Communion of their Church P. 40. We are now coming to the Foot of the Account for besides other Particulars of less moment that are dropt 1. Whereas his only Reply to the clear and particular Distinctions of his Answerer between Matters of Representation and Matters of Dispute was this That these Matters did not and could not lye in Vulgar Heads with that Distinction his Defence of that Reply and consequently of his confused and deceitful way of Representing is wholly Dropt 2. The Defence of his Arguments That the Deposing Power is no Article of Faith is now at last wholly Dropt 3. His Defence of the Worship of Images against his Adversary's Discourse is Dropt or to use his own Words her took the Freedom gravely to turn over his Answerers Occasional Pages about it P. 39. And now if the Reader will please to put all together he will find by an easie Computation That this was the poor Remainder of a Controversie begun by the Representer upon no less than Thirty Seven Articles So that these Points having had the hard Fate to be served by the Representer as their Fellows were before I reckon that he has Dropt and Dropt till the whole Cause is Dropt at last but this is one of those Things in which he is not concerned for though the Papist Misrepresented and Represented be in a very forsaken Condition yet himself the Representer was never more diverting nor in better Humour all his Life And who can blame a Man for not being sorry for what can ne're be helpt And therefore since he sped no better with his Grave Undertaking it was not amiss to call a merry Cause upon Misrepresenting in a strict and proper Sence and to bring in a Phanatick Representing the Church of England in a Ridiculous Sermon The Fourth Answer to the Representer being An Answer to the Amicable Accommodation THE Answerer has no Reason to be displeased that the Representer now grants we do not Misrepresent the Papists in a strict and proper sense P. 4. viz. by Imputing such Doctrines to them as they do not own But he saies that the Design of the Representer in his First Book was to perswade our people that we were such Misrepresenters but that failing in the performance he would now make good his Title of Misrepresenting in a less proper sense P. 6. inasmuch as he thinks we do unjustly condemn the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome But why he should tax us for this at all the Answerer wonders and that very justly one would think because the Representer has sometime since disclaimed Disputing without which it cannot be seen whether we be Misrepresenters or not in this less proper sense And therefore he tells him That if he will vindicate the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome he must quit his retreat of Character-making P. 8. and fall to Disputing as their Fathers did in which he is ready to joyn issue with them But that it was by no means civil to charge us with Lying how prudent soever it might be upon another account since if he proceeds in this way he may be secure that no civil person will care to dispute with him Now whereas the Representer did in effect recall his grant by attempting to prove largely That there may be a Misrepresentation where there is an Agreement about the matter of Fact because there may be Mispresentation upon other accounts viz. in respect of Motive Circumstance Intention End c. Here the Answerer shews that these things do indeed belong to true Representing but that they were too nicely distinguished by the Representer from matter of Fact for he had given him no occasion for the Distinction since he had considered these things in those matters which he charged upon the Church of Rome For Instance That not only Worshipping of Images but the Worshippers Intentions and all other circumstances without which the Nature of the Fact cannot be throughly understood were taken into consideration Then he shews through all the Representer's Instances That Misrepresentations were in Matters of Fact P. 12. but wonders why he did not produce one Instance of the like nature out of his Answers if he thought there were any For what could he gain by shewing That in such and such cases others have been Misrepresenters unless he proved withal that we were Misrepresenters in like cases His instances shew that they who tell a piece of a Story may Misrepresent but not that they do so who faithfully relate the whole matter of Fact with all its circumstances which is our case and he has not produced one example to the contrary tho so to have done had been more to his purpose than all his other Instances In short this matter was so fully Answered that when we hear next of the Representer we do not find one word more about it To the Zealous Brothers Harangue he saies tho it be granted that the Dissenters Misrepresent our Church yet this does not prove that we Misrepresent the Church of Rome and therefore this is nothing but a device to get rid of us P. 15.
by throwing us upon the Dissenters But we are not for pursuing every New Game P. 16. but will keep to our old scent And yet he has made the Dissenter say such silly things of us as no Dissenter will own unless he has heard them among the Quakers This the Answerer plainly shewed through almost all his Fifteen particulars of the Charge against the Church of England and by the way where it was any thing needful he taxed the unreasonableness and folly of the Charge which yet was more than he was bound to since if it came to the Trial we have some reason to think that there is not a zealous Brother in England no nor Friend neither but would be ashamed to own it So that this design of Representing and Misrepresenting to which I may add the Representer's yielding in pure good Nature that henceforth Misrepresenting shall be understood in its less proper sense ends only in Ridiculing the Church of England with which we are content if they will permit us truly to Represent theirs To what the Representer offered for seeking out new Misrepresentations the sum of what is Answered is this That it is in the main agreed what the matters of Fact are with which the Papists may be charged and since these only are the proper Subject of Representation the ill consequences which Protestants have urged against their Doctrines and Practices ought not to have been put into the Character of a Papist Misrepresented P. 24. unless he could shew that we say that Papists do believe those Consequences And therefore the Representer vainly endeavours to excuse himself for putting them into that Character by hunting about for new pretended Misrepresentations to imploy his Answerer withal This I gather to be the Answerer's sense from his reference to what he had proved before As to the Archbishop of York the Answerer saies he did not Misrepresent the Church of Rome in saying that Stapleton said P. 25. We must simply believe the Church of Rome whether it Teach True or False The most that can be made of it is That according to one of their allowed Doctors Thus a Papist must believe And therefore if it be a Misrepresentation of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome Stapleton is to be thanked for it in the first place for saying so and in the next the Church of Rome for allowing him to say so and then the Arch-Bishop for reporting what he said tho he does not say that one Doctor may make Doctrines for the Church of Rome The Case of Mr. Sutcliff he says is different and he shews that he expresly distinguishes between what the Papists teach P. 26 27. and what himself concludes from such Doctrines and therefore that he does not Misrepresent the Papists So that how little soever the Representer thought himself concerned in Sutcliff's Reasonings because Reasoning belonged not to a Representer yet surely it belonged to a Representer to distinguish beween the Doctrines we charge upon the Papists on the one side and the Arguments we bring against these Doctrines on the other To the Charge of omitting to render propter Deum into English He says It was omitted he knows not how or why but very jus tly blames the Representer for insinuating that it was dishonestly omitted since it was the whole Design of that Discourse about the Worship of Images P. 28. to shew that Image Worship is Evil tho God was worshipped by it I will upon this occasion add that the Answerer could not but know his own foul Dealing in this Charge which is so very manifest that this Injustice if there were nothing else does assure me that he must make another Change before we can expect much sincerity from him With like honesty he disingages himself from all Obligation to dispute concerning the Worship of Images c. 1. Because the Answerer knows no Reason for all this Dispute which words did not at all relate to that Dispute but to the Question about the Bishop of Condom's Authority 2. He was never concerned whether the Answerer liked his Religion or not But if he could have answer'd that Discourse all that the Answerer could have said would not have hindred him P. 29. For the Rest the Answerer says that the Representer and the Bishop of Condom reason'd and argued at first as well as Represented and since their Representation is offer'd as a Rule by which we may be taken into the Roman Church they were the more concern'd to justify their own Reasonings P. 30. which since it is declined our People will be apt to think why Papists decline the Dispute who are never known to avoid Disputing when they think they can get any thing by it And thus the Answerer takes leave of the Representer believing that this Matter is driven as far as it will go The Fourth Reply of the Representer in behalf of his Amicable Accomodation THis last Reply is made up 1. Of insulting over the Answerer for offering no more than he did in Answer to the Zealous Brother's Sermon against the Church of England 2. Of more and more out-cries upon the Protestants for Misrepresenting the Papists But the Particulars that come under these Heads together with his Reflections by the bye will be best produced in the following Answer where I shall consider what Reason he has for this kind of proceeding The Fifth Answer to the Representer in Return to his last Reply IF the Seven and Thirty lost Points had been recovered the Representer could not have entered the Lists with more seeming satisfaction in himself than he shews in his last Reply But he has made a shift to forget them and that 's as good What the Answerer said that the Matter was driven as far as it would go whatever the Representer imagines I find still to be true For with reference to the chief matter of Dispute betwixt us we are parted and I think never like to meet any more about it Indeed as to the manifold Charge sunâ—â—ed up against the Church of England that matter as he truly observes is not driven as far as it will go And it seems he intends to drive it farther and farther But why that should ever come to be a matter of Debate betwixt us any one who considers the Controversy from first to last must needs wonder The Design of what has been said on behalf of the Church of England has been to make evident these three Things 1. That we do not charge the Papists with some things which the Representer will have us to charge them with 2. That some things which he faith we falsly charge them with are maintained and practised by them 3. That allowing them to maintain and practise only what themselves acknowledg that they do maintain and practise yet there are sufficient Reasons why we cannot comply with Popery altho refined after the newest Fashion This is the sum of what has been argued on our side
same Proofs c. yet surely the First Point is none of them And therefore let 's try the next 2. It is objected against us that we make Gods of dead Men and this is proved by the weekly Bills of Mortality where our Churches are called by the same Titles that they had in times of Popery Now if by making Gods of dead Men be meant making the Saints so many Independent Deities there is then a great deal of difference between what the Zealous Brother objects against us and what We object against the Papists as well as between the Reasons of our Objections For we never object this against them But if by this Expression be meant giving that Worship to the Saints which belongs only to God and our Saviour we then allow our Objection to be the same but do think that we have much better Reasons to object this against the Papist than that of a weekly Bill of Mortality For we appeal to the Publick Addresses which are made to Virgin Mary and other Saints with all the Circumstances of External Adoration to their Litanies and to the Hymns of their establish'd Offices wherein they are often in voked after the same manner as God himself is to their appropriating to particular Saints distinct Powers of doing good to their Worshippers to their Acknowledgment that the Saints are Mediators of Intercession to the Prayers that are made to them in all places as if they were omnipresent to the Sense also of their Council of Trent that they are to be prayed unto with mental as well as vocal Prayer as if they knew our Hearts All which I hope is something more than that in the weekly Bill of Mortality and in common Conversation we call our Temples by the same Names they formerly had And yet the Representer asks Wherein have I Ridiculed the Church of England I have done no more in my Character against her then what they have been doing these hundred and fifty Years against the Church of Rome so that it seems we have for these hundred and fifty Years charged them with Worshipping the Saints upon no better grounds then their weekly Bills of Mortality Only saith he what I have done in a kind of jest and without endeavouring to delude any body with such kind of Sophistry they have been doing in the greatest earnest and by it making good their Cause So that he confesses his Charge upon our Church to be carried on with a kind of Sophistry only what he has done in a kind of jest we have been doing against them in the greatest earnest i. e. we have in good earnest charged the Church of Rome with giving that Worship to Saints which belongs to God only upon nothing else but the Titles of Churches such as ours have in the Bills of Mortality But surely his greatest Sophistry of all lies in this that he endeavours to delude People into this Opinion which yet if he could he must delude them into another Opinion too that Bellarmin and all the famous Champions of old Popery were a company of Fools to be at so much Sweat and Charges to maintain the Worship of Saints and to defend it as they have done when they could so easily have denied it For that nothing is easier than to make good our disowning it against the ground upon which he charges us with it I shall presently make appear To let pass his Suggestion that the London Churches were first built by the Papists his adding that we rebuilt them with the same Titles Invocations and Dedications which they use shews how little he is to be trusted in a Question of Antiquity who talks so carelesly of things that are notorious in our own Days Our Fathers indeed found the Titles convenient enough and the Churches themselves reasonable good Churches and retain'd them both But when we raised them out of their Ashes we dedicated them to no Saint whatever has been done in this kind formerly nor have we since invocated any Saint in any one of them but we keep the Titles still And does our new Representer expect that we should Answer such Objections as these At least I desire him not to think that we will make a practice of it Must our retaining these Titles necessarily infer a virtual Dedication of our Temples to those Saints by whose Names they are distinguished from one another But what if we had called them by the Names of those Streets only where they stand had they then been dedicated to the Honour of the Streets We say that the Hundred Thirty and Two Churches here which are known by the Names dead Men and Women are with us God's Houses and dedicated to his only Service no less than the Five that are distinguished by the Names of Christ and the Trinity And me thinks so acute a Disputant as he is grown might have seen that the Title of one Church distinguishing it from the rest does not shew who is served and worshipped there when the same Service and Worship is used in all of them That which we blame them for is that they continue to worship Dead Men and Women in those Churches which bear their Names and in those which do not For if in Christ's Church they call upon the Blessed Virgin tho the Church has its Title from Christ yet 't is a House of Prayer to Her as well as to Him And if in the Churches which are known by her Name we call upon God only and worship him alone they are his Houses intirely and none of Hers. But after all where does the Answerer press him with the Titles of their Churches And yet the Reasons which press home the Arguments are they not the very same which the Answerer himself urges against him the Representer 3. I confess that I have seen Pictures in some English Bibles and Common-prayer Books and Moses and Aaron painted on each side of the Commandments upon some of our Altar pieces which things how they have crept in amongst us I cannot tell for they have no publick Authority from our Church The Answerer made his guess and perhaps it will not be easy to mend it But upon this great Occasion the Representer has brought in his Rigid Brother making us worse than the Papists themselves forgetting that he undertook to represent us not altogether so Bad and therefore he should at least have corrected himself in this manner Indeed Beloved I told ye at first that these Church-of-England-Men are within the Swing of the Dragon's Tail but I had not lied to say that they are under the Feet and the Belly more than the Papists themselves are For the Papists do no more towards the placing of Image-Worship in the Word of God than by a cleanly conveyance of that Commandment which forbids it out of the way But these Church-of England-Men as they are called have given that Abomination of Images themselves a place in every Leaf of their Bible in the very
Word of God which is the greatest Argument of Soveraign Honour Nay in some of their Bibles you shall find Moses and Aaron stand in the very next Leaf to the Ten Commandments which what is it Beloved but a Defiance to the Second Whereas the Papists being more modest than to affront it have put it away far from them But this is not all my Brethren for they pray to their Pictures for if you but look over their Shoulders you 'l see their Pictures in the very heat of their Devotion under their very Eyes in the Leaves of their Common-Prayer Books And therefore mark me now Beloved if we must believe our own Senses they pray to the Pictures and to the Leaves and to the Idol Common-Prayer Books and all This indeed had been something like and would have pieced well with what follows that our Altars have their Images too and that in a more profane way than the Papists c. Well but let us suppose our Church bound to answer for these Pictures and for Moses and Aaron c. Are we enjoyned to pay them any Worship as they of the Romish Communion are obliged to pay to their Images The Council of Trent has determined That due Honour and Veneration must be given to Images and that the Honour which is given to them is referred to the Things which they represent Has the Church of England done any thing like this We read of several Prayers used at the Consecration of Images amongst them But whoever heard of any such thing practised at the setting up of Moses and Aaron We know that they walk many Miles in Pilgrimage to particular Images and that they think much more good is to be expected from some than from others But who ever thought so among us or imagined that the Pictures of Moses and Aaron in Cornhill were more to be honoured than those in Woodstreet or in any other place So that how silly soever the Zealous Brother may appear to be in imputing to us upon such frivolous grounds the worship of Images I am sure that he who made the Harangue for him is either much more so or something that is worse in pretending that when we urge the same against the Papists the Reasons we go upon are no better than his But we do at least make Images and Pictures which the second Commandment expresly forbids as he makes his Brother say And now a Reason of the Answerer is produced that no Intention can alter the nature of Actions which are determined by a Divine Law I would therefore know of him whether there be or be not good reason to make us certain that the second Commandment does not absolutely forbid the making of Images and Pictures but only with reference to worshipping them If there be no good Reason for it let him then tell me whether any Intention can justify the making of Images against an absolute Law to the contrary If there be let him then but confess what he thinks of this Objection that he has put into his Brother's Mouth and there 's one labour saved I confess it were not ill for him if some Intention might justify the breaking of the ninth Commandment for he pretends that the New Common-Prayer-Books do not profess that hatred to Image-Worship which the Old ones did When in the Commination to which he refers the very first instance runs thus Cursed is the Man that maketh any carved or molten Image to worship it Does he think that his Dissenting Brother must answer for these things 4. Neither is he more Just to us in making his Zealous Brother to object against us that we worship Saints and Angels For to pass by the Argument about erecting Temples to them to which we have already spoken Is our giving Thanks to God upon set Days for such eminent Examples of Faith and Vertue as the first Propagators of the Gospel were Is our commemorating their Patience and all their other Divine Graces to excite one another to the Imitation of them Is our Praying to God that we may be Followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherit the Promises Is this I say any thing like to what the Council of Trent declares That they think wickedly who deny that Saints are to be Invoked Is it of the same nature with owning them to be Mediators of Intercession the same with putting up them that sort of Petitions which are fit to be offered to God only Or does our Praying upon St. Michael's Day that by God's appointment his holy Angels may succour and defend us come near even so much as to one single Holy Michael Pray for us which Form of Words tho much inferiour to what is sometimes used in the Church of Rome we never dare to venture upon because we cannot make Addresses either to him or to any other Angel or Saint but by interpretation we must ascribe the Divine Attribute of Omnipresence to them and for many other Reasons which yet we have not been able to get an Answer to from these Men. But he says that we Pray on St. Michael's Day as if God were not able to defend us and therefore we seek shelter under the Angel's Wings And this surely is to worship Angels By like reason if we pray for our Daily Bread we pray as if God were not able to preserve us without it And this would be to worship Bread The Representer makes too bold with his Zealous Brother and with us too if he would have it thought that we reason against them at this rate But by this time I hope he sees to how little purpose he applies that of the Answerer to this matter viz. that All worship of Invisible Beings is Religious Worship c. For as yet he has not proved that we worship Saints or Angels and if he has done his best towards it here I will be bold to say that he knows he cannot prove it against us as we can against them if there were any need of it But there is no need of it because they confess it 5. As for what is objected about our Idolatry in Receiving the Sacrament if I did not know the Prompter I should be ashamed to find it amongst such Instances as are said to be built upon the same Maxims that our Objections against the Papists are For how far soever We and the Zealous Brother might in other cases be said to agree in the Reasons of what we Object I am sure it is most unreasonable to say we agree in this For do we as the Papists hold that the Bread and Wine are changed into the natural Body and Blood of Christ Do we require any worship to be paid to the Elements after Consecration Do we elevate or carry them about on purpose to have them adored by the People Nay with reference to our receiving the same in the posture of Kneeling is it not as fully as can be declared That what posture is meant for a
signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ to all worthy Receivers That no Adoration is hereby intended for that the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural Substances and the Natural Body and Blood of our Saviour are in Heaven and not here Which Declaration is the more significant one would think as being made by our Church in Opposition to those who do Adore the Sacrament Especially since it was not the posture of Kneeling when the Sacrament is received which of it self could make such a Declaration needful but the Scandal which they give to the World who Adore it Had this been considered by the Representer his Brothers Zeal might well have been spared in saying They may say they do not pay Religious Worship to the Bread and Wine and Honour the Sacrament as God But what must we not believe our senses in so plain a Case Or else his Zeal should not have stopt here but carried him a little farther to appeal to his own Eyes that we honour the Patin and Chalice as Gods too by falling down to them on our Knees for this is as plain a Case as the other and our Church has made no Declaration against it in solemn and particular Terms neither as it has against the Adoration of the Bread and the Wine But I guess that the Zealous Brother when he is once at liberty to speak for himself will confess that he sees neither the one nor the other and that it is no affront to his Eyes to acquit us of Adoring the Sacrament and to yield that when we receive it we Adore God and him only in a posture which as we think well becomes the thankful Receivers of such Holy Mysteries However tho we it seems must not be believed when we say that we do not adore the Sacrament at all yet we will not be so hard to the Church of Rome but believe her telling us that she does Adore the Sacrament and that with Divine Honour too And when the Zealous Brother gets our Church at any Advantage like this or can find out any practices amongst us like those above mentioned we shall hear him I doubt not speaking to better purpose for himself than as his Brother here has taught him And now I think I have omitted nothing in the first Five of the Fifteen Parallels that required the least notice but have rather ventured being laugh'd at by the Representer for giving any serious Answers where he meant only to Ridicule But by this he may see what little reason there was to Crow over his Adversary as he does upon this occasion which was all that I intended And therefore since it is needless to drive the Parallel any farther with that circumstance which I have hitherto used I must not do a needless thing which according to one of his weighty Observations would be Six-pence a piece more for the Curious Especially since the Answerer has done Reason enough to the remaining Particulars For tho the Representer to save himself from any further Reply comes off with telling him that he answered the whole charge with The Dissenters never charged us with this or that c. and nothing else yet the Reader will find more said than this comes to if he will consult the Answer it self instead of taking the Representers word But I hope Five of his Particulars have been handled his own way And now I offer him this either in full Satisfaction or in part of Payment let him chuse as he likes 't is all one to his Humble Servant And therefore if he will please to call upon me for Arrears I promise him that our calling upon the Birds the Beasts and the Fishes shall not be forgotten nor our crying out to Dead Men in our most solemn Devotion nor the Apochrypha in the Liturgy nor the Rochet the Alb and the Tunicle nor any thing else which yet wants a Vindication as he says But to return him one of his familiar Phrases I shall take occasion of playing him the same Tune over again as distinctly upon the remaining Ten as he has had it already upon his first Five Particulars And now let us go on with his Reply in which the next thing I observe is that he will needs have the Answerer to bid fair for the good opinion of Dissenters and to curry closely with the Dissenters and to throw those scandals upon his own Church in good earnest Pag. 5. which the Representer did little more than in jest If the Representer could have turned his Adversaries Pen against the Dissenters there are some would have had a better opportunity of currying closely with the Dissenters and I shall tell him who they are before I have done with him But it seems we are not for doing every good thing in the very nick when he would have it done And so to be revenged on us we must be represented as currying with the Dissenters which yet we are as far from when we own our Agreement with them in those many things which they no less than we object against the Papists as from currying with the Papists when we confess that we agree with them in those fewer things that are to be objected against the Dissenters And yet currying with the Dissenters is not so great a Fault but he could tell them upon the Spot how their Sufferings are at an end now our Churches power has been something check'd Pag. 5. which he thinks they may Reflect upon But if the Representer would win their good opinion he should of all things beware of putting them in mind to Reflect lest when they begin to Reflect upon those things of which he speaks they should chance to Reflect upon other things of which he speaks not Me thinks too I may reasonably suspect a little currying of the Representer in what comes next For whereas the Answerer thought the Dissenters too wise and cautious to take Characters of us from Their own open and professed Enemies for that was his plain meaning the Representer understands him as if he had meant our i.e. the Church of Englands profest Enemies Pag. 6. and then hopes that our People will henceforth be so wise as not to take Characters of Popery from us who are as he says Enemies to Papists But whether he was resolved to make this mistake for the sake of the neat Turn or to save himself from saying whether he was Friend or Enemy to the Dissenters I leave him to resolve But I hope he does not expect that I should take notice of every such little Reflection as he knows this to be And yet I must needs vindicate the Answerer from that Charge that whereas the Representer granted that his Protestant Character of a Papist was not made up wholly of down-right Lies the Answerer stretches this Courtesy with a witness Pag. 9. Pag. 10. and concludes that we have the Representer's word for it
Consequence it would go hard if they did not acquit them of the Fact too and therefore whether he put the Denying of the Consequence into the Papist's Character with an honest Design at least whether he had any reason to object against the distinct proceeding of the Answerer I dare almost now appeal to himself But as I observed before the Answerer made him ashamed of imputing this kind of madness to the People and so we heard no more of it in his next Reply But yet the Interest we are said to have in the People must still be imputed to their madness And what madness is it now Why they cannot distinguish between Real and Artificial Monsters Which is as much as to say that we have made the Papists Monsters by telling notorious Lies of them and the People are so mad that they cannot find it out But may not I take my turn now to ask Where 's Christianity all this while where 's Truth and Charity Why must we be branded with the Imputation of Falshood and Calumny and our Christian Brethren treated in that manner as if they were mere stupid Creatures and more fit to herd with Beasts than to live amongst Men As for our selves being thus urged we beg leave to appeal to All that know us whether this odious Character be any way suitable to our Conversation and then whether we have deserved it for the management of this Controversy in particular we appeal to the World We appeal to all Men of Sincerity and Understanding what colour of Reason the Representer had here to ask Why praying to Images leave to Sin for Mony Forgiveness without Repentance c. should be urged against them to make them the Object of Hatred and the Subject of popular Fury Have not his Answerers more than once published clearly and distinctly what we do and what we do not charge them with in every one of these Respects Has he convinced them of any Insincerity nay of any mistake in the stating of these things Has he taken notice of any thing they have said about them Why would he not be brought to confess the Justice of our charging them so far as we have done and our Justice to them in charging them no farther or at least to confute us by shewing wherein we had done unjustly What other Construction now can Truth and Charity make of these Proceedings but that he would not confess that we do them no wrong and yet could not prove that we do But then certainly he should at least have been silent and not go on as he does to declaim against us as if he really believed we were those odious Misrepresenters and Falsifiers which he would have the World believe that we are He says indeed that the Answerer unhappily takes it to himself as if He and His were arraigned of Lying and Calumny c. whereas the Representer spoke only in general without so much as hinting upon any party or person in particular But surely when after the first Answer that was made in behalf of the Church of England the Representer without telling us the particulars why could yet declare that he would be a Turk as soon as a Papist if the Answerer had rightly represented Popery we must have as little understanding as he allows to the Mobile not to find that we are principally intended in these general Declamations He thinks the Answerers over sollicitude to prove his Innocence may in some breed a suspicion of his Guilt But whether it be Innocence or Guilt that makes us sollicitous to clear our selves we may now leave the World to judg One thing I take it is easy to be discerned that tho our Adversary Rowls in Figures to heighten the injustice under which He and His have suffered by Misrepresentations yet he throws the Guilt so faintly upon the Church of England as if he were conscious of being unjust to us all the while As for the People of our Communion whom he complements under the Title of the Mobile we may say without vanity that how scornfully soever the Representer treats them we shall never be ashamed to compare them with their Neighbours and that it would be a better World for the Representer if they were as ignorant and stupid as he would have them thought to be But no more of what he has said in this fit of Anger for here 's a sudden change and now behold him the gayest and merriest Man alive He fancies the Answerer left him to wonder who those We are that are not Misrepresenters in a strict and proper notion of Misrepresenting i.e. who do not belye the Papists For indeed he would gladly know who those We are that he might return them his thanks for this so kind Office Did he but know the Men he would never permit them to lye obscured under the general name of We. No he would particularize them to the World For why are not such Men Prodigies of Truth Honesty and Justice Men that never misrepresented the Papists Why these are admirable Men indeed and not to be heard of every day Now really this with all that belongs to it is allowed to be very well for the kind and so much the better because it more and more appears that tho he can be angry without a cause yet a small matter will please him again For he is delighted beyond measure with wondring who these We are and wishes there be no mistake in it and makes it hard to imagine who they should be But I 'le warrant him he has 'em presently as hard as it is For in the very next place he tries whether the Answerer by his We should mean We Protestants And that is a pretty near guess for the First But then alas who can believe it that We Protestants should be no Misrepresenters He for his part would willingly give something for the sight of the Man that thinks so who would be the greatest Misrepresenter of All in vouching for the Truth of All that has been invented against the Papists these hundred and forty years Why then surely they are not We Protestants But for all that upon consideration he thinks he may take it for granted that they are We Protestants For the Answerer vindicates Protestants and for himself one may swear he 's a stanâ—h True Protestant â—s never scrupling at any thing that 's for running down the Papists tho it be currying favour with and colloguing the Fanaticks And thus the Answerer coming cross in his way his Fit takes him again for he cannot abide the Answerer and so there 's and end of his Mirth And now in sober sadness we must suppose that the Answerers We are We Protestants For which reason the Representer begins the World again and is resolved to prove out of the Sermons and Books of Protestants that We Protestants are Misrepresenters And so he falls to work about it in good earnest through the remaining part of his Book Now
Excommunicating and Deposing of the King but it was the fight of the Pope's Brief to such a purpose as that inspired one of the Traytors as himself confessed with those thoughts that at last setled upon the Powder Plot. And I think it was a Church of England Parliament and a Church of England Army that so loyally served his Majesty upon that occasion in the West But let the Representer shew if he can that the Papists were as serviceable in the prevention of the Powder Plot. We are now drawing to an end of a tedious Complaint which surely cannot last much longer when he is fain to spin it out with a story of the long divilish Knives which Papists were said to procure for cutting of the Protestants Throats P. 39. For I am so perfect a stranger to the least report of this matter till I met with it here that I can say nothing to it As for the Fire of London that I confess I have heard of and likewise that many charged it upon the Papists now for those that did so I hope I may without offence offer that excuse for their credulity which I take a hint of from the Representer himself It could not be expected but that the grief of so undoing a Calamity in vast numbers of suffering People should discharge it self in accusing those as the Authors of it who as they believed were well pleased with it As for the Representer what his thoughts are towards London he has given us plainly to understand in calling it a Protestant Sodom which Heaven consumed Now I dare say this was not meant for a lamentation over the sins and sufferings of the City But if men will go on to insult at this rate they should however be less clamorous against those mistakes of which the greatest occasions are given by themselves Then as to that which he calls a Monsieur's Invention They that gave credit to it have this to say for themselves That Du Moulin's public offer to make full proof of his story when Authority should require it stood many years even to the day of his death which was no improbable argument that he was provided with reasonable good testimony though it was not thought fit to call upon him for it This may be said to shew that if there were never so many that swallowed the story yet this was no reason for the Representers furious exclamations For I am by no means satisfied that they who believed it did so in defiance to all their Senses for though there were Actors and Contrivers of the Murder of King Charles the First as public as the noon-light yet I do not feel any such contradiction in supposing that some Contrivers there might be who were not as public as the noon-light And when the Representer thinks of it better he will say so too unless he will say that because the Contrivers of that dark Treason of the Powder Plot were at last as public as the noon-light therefore that it was in all likelihood a Contrivance too of the good Lord Cecil cannot be credited but in defiance to all our Senses And yet after all how does it appear that we have laid any such stress upon Du Moulin's Relation as the Representer intimates For my own part in all the conversation I have had amongst Protestants I can remember nothing concerning it but that it has been sometimes a little wondered at that he was never required to prove his story And therefore I doubt the Representer has here plaid the part of an unwise man in reviving a story to the disadvantage of the Papists which died with the first report of it as we thought at least for unless the Representer thought we had some reason to believe it why should he go about to complain that we do believe it I think we have been more Just to his Party than he has For our sense as to this matter is that since now the story is not capable either of being proved or disproved it is to be let fall and the World is no more to be troubled about it though whilst Du Moulin was alive it was not to be expected but that one or other would be harping upon it At last he comes to the Garagantua Mis-representation of them all that is P. 40. the Divine Oates with his Popist Plot. And here as from a Castle where he is safe from all possbility of Assault he bids defyance to us with all the Rhetoric that Anger and Scorn can inspire a man withal But because he lets fly at the Pulpits for this and so makes the Clergy to have given what Authority they could to Oates his lyes from their Pulpits I must needs change a word or two with him about that in our own Defence and tell him that neither is himself of that Credit nor the thing it self so likely but that it stood in great need of particular proofs I know not but that amongst Ten thousand Men here and there one might deliver the news of the Pilgrims and the Black Bills from the Pulpit But I never heard of any that did and I almost think that if the Representer had known a few Instances of this Kind out they had come if it had been for nothing but to support the Credibility of his general Accusation And to go further with him whereas he confidently says that the WHOLE Plot was received with that welcome and Credit that what would have been questioned in the very Scripture was entertained without any scruple I will make bold to ask him by whom it was entertain'd did himself believe the whole Plot while he was a Protestant If he did undoubtedly we have not lost one of the wisest of our Party If he did not neither did any body else that ever I could hear of though perhaps many might believe more then was true But for a more particular account who believed much who little who nothing at all of Oates his Discoveries and the reasons of the several Opinions he must excuse me for that I am resolved not to be drawn in Nor have I lately spoken with every Man in the Nation And 't is onely for a Representer to talk of these matters and to pronounce generally without exception though he does it also without examination of the particulars before hand Thus far I have waited upon the Representer in examining the Reasons upon which he pretends that we use I know not how many Methods to Mis-represent Papists though it has been every step out of the way For if all had been true that he pretends what is all this to the Defence of his Thirty Seven Chapters What is it to his Answerers who had no more to do then to rid their hands of those Thirty-Seven Chapters And they have done it so effectually that the Representer has thought good to rid his hands of them too But I think by this time it may appear that he has all this while given us just
wonder therefore that he comes afterward and puts us upon the same File with Turks and Heathens As the Turks are divided and subdivided among themselves so are the Protestants The Turks wheresoever they come demolish Churches destroy Crosses and beat down and break Altars P. 37. and Images so do the Protestants The Turks cannot abide Praying to Saints no more can the Protestants The Turks love not Beads nor Holy Water no more do the Protestants The Turks above all things hate the most Holy Sacrifce of the Mass and so do the Protestants which alone is enough to shew that in their Religion or Belief they are like Turks and Heathens This I think may serve at least to set against the Bishop of Kilmor's Parallel Though I ought to ask the Bishops Pardon for making the Comparison For as to that Parallel between Protestants and Turks it is not in every particular true for Protestants do not demolish Churches wheresoever they come nor break down Altars nor destroy Crosses nor always Images And as to the particulars that agree to both how much malice soever there may be I am sure there is little Wit in putting them and us together upon these Accounts For certainly we are no more obliged to do any ill things because the Turks themselves forbear them then we are obliged to forbear any useful or innocent Customs merely because the Papists use them Had this Reconciler shewn our Agreement with the Turks in some Practices that we could not but confess they are to blame for this indeed had been a shrewd Instruction to us to amend that in our selves which we cannot but condemn in People so grosly deceived as they are Now this it was that the Bishop of Kilmore did in that Comparison of the Papists Worshipping their Tutelar Saints with the Heathens Worshipping their Petty Gods The Papists do with us justly condemn these Practices of the Heathens The Bishop only desires them being thus prepared to look at home But to infer that in our Religion we are like Turks and Heathens because we forbear those things which the Turks are to be justified in not doing is a Mis-representation of us upon so wry an Inference that if there be not want of Wit to excuse it it will be found equivalent to a down-right Mis-representation which the Genius of this Author as it appears by the particulars of this Book makes me fear it is And of a great many particulars which I might note there is one not to be let pass and that is P. 16. that he does in very good earnest affirm that we adore the Sacrament though the Representer would be thought to charge us with it little more then in Jest. For says the Reconciler Though they say thus of us for Worshipping of Images yet they can dispense with themselves in Worshipping their Sacrament And if this be not jesting 't is something a great deal worse for it is as notorious that we do not Worship the Sacrament as it is that the Papists do But to go on with him a little farther Their Preachers faith he what are they forsooth Intruders Thieves and Robbers Hypocrites Ravenous Wolves and Murderers Sons of Belial False Prophers P. 51. and Priests of Baal which is their Heresy Rebellion and Stubbornness against the Church And if the Preachers be so What must the Hearers be Why sure enough they shall both fall into the Ditch of Everlasting burning Brimstone and Fire c. Vnless they be Converted do Penante and live in the Church Now this way of Mis-representation by railing at and damning us is as crafty a method as any they have to imprint upon weak minds an incurable prejudice against our Communion For when we are confidently represented as damnable Wretches that shall certainly be Damned if we continue Protestants especially by Men that at other times talk demurely and always look gravely when they give us these good words it cannot be expected but that some or other should believe there is more then ordinary Reason for it though they are not able to find it out We may say what we will in our own Defence let but these Men go on to say still that we are Damned and the very noise and din of these words and the like shall make them deaf to all the Reasons we can bring And therefore every degree of this dealing is to be condemned in any party wherever it is found because it is a way to work upon the Passions and Imaginations of People and instead of directing it does but confound their Judgment But I must needs say we have suffered under this injustice by those of the Church of Rome beyond any examples that I have yet seen Of which I will give the Representer one instance so remarkable that it may serve instead of a great many Mr. Harding who had to do with no less a Man than Bishop Jewel thought fit to use us in this Fashion Confut. Fol. 202. as follows Ye are moved by the Instinct of Satan the Devil hath you fast bound and ye are the Children of the Devil Ye are the limbs of Antichrist Our Church he calls the Synagogue of Antichrist and Lucifer and we are no better with him then Prophane Hell-hounds F. 195. Wicked Cains brood Turkish Huguenots worse then Infidels nay he says that the Fiends of Hell begat Lutherans and Calvinists and that we would say if we durst that Christ is the Abomination of Desolation F. 194. F. 225. and that Antichrist is the true God And then I think he had reason to say That the Devil coming from Hell hath carried us away Thus in his Rejoynder he bids the Hell-hounds of Zuinglius and Luther 's Litter Rejoynd p. 178 207 111. bark until their bellies break and calls the Defender one that is like a mad Dog and for all this tells him that he will leave his Vile Eloquence to himself the Defender He that has a mind to see more of this may find two Pages in Folio full of it just before the Preface to the Bishops Defence of his Apology Now it is easie to Judge what effects this kind of Eloquence will work upon weak minds especially when he that uses it has the Face to say as Harding did in the Preface to his Confutation The manner of writing which I have here used in Comparison of the Adversaries is sober soft and gentle and in respect of their heat bitterness and railing as many tell me over-cold sweet and mild I do not say that they never speak of us but in this strain for I do well remember that the Apology for the Papists which came out about Six or Seven Years after the Restoration treats us after another manner I mean Vs of the Church of England for then it could call us Men Brethren and Fathers and would fain unite them and us together against the Fanatics For why then we were some-body and it was not amiss
to curry with us But there was a time when we indeed were as no-body and then the Dissenters were worth being curried with insomuch that Dr. Holden who was always esteemed by us as a person of the best temper and truest moderation among them could not forbear shewing the difference he put between them and us even where there was no necessity at all so to do but the mere necessity of currying For to a Discourse concerning Infallibility in Religion Printed at Amsterdam 1652. Dr. Holden gave his approbation in these words amongst others That the Book demonstrated the false Foundations of the Presbyterian Consistory of the Socinian Ratiocination of the Independents Private Spirit and of the ERRONEOVS OR RATHER NO GROVNDS OR PRINCIPLES OF THE LATE PARTICVLAR ENGLISH PROTESTANT SCHISMATICAL STNAGOGVE But why are the several Dissenters so softly and gently touched Presbyterian Consistory what harm in a Consistory or in Ratiocination Nor is much anger expressed in giving the Private Spirit to the Independents Why surely these are all complemented in comparison to the Church of England which is the Particular English Protestant Schismatical Synagogue of Erroneous or rather of no Grounds or Principles at all But why this difference I say Why nothing is plainer it was then THE LATE Church of England But when the Apology came forth it was then the Present Church of England again Then was Then and Now was Now. Thus we are used by some of the very best of them But to return to our Reconciler He wisely considered that we might take sanctuary in the Bible against the hard words and reproaches they persecute us with and therefore to spoil that retreat he will not allow that we have the Word of God amongst us for thus he faith The Protestants or Sectarian Bible is defective therefore evil and consequently not the Word of God for besides what we have above said almost every year they correct it and mend it chop it and change it as do their Almanacks adding thereunto what they will and subtracting what they please This is such Mis-representing that I had rather the Representer should give the proper name to it then do so my self Nay if this man were to be believed we make such material alterations in the Version or Edition of our Bible every year as infers a necessity of altering our Religion upon it the Bible being the ground of our Religion for says he Neither do they change their Bible onely but also their Religion and Fashion thereof grounded on it If then every following years Bible be better then the former Recon p. 38. why may not the next years Bible be better then this year and so to the end of the World and in the mean time the Sectarian Bible never be perfect or better then a yearly Almanack not so good as an Almanack for Ever as is Erra Pater or the Shepherd's Prognostication or Seaman 's Calendar Why then should it be more the Word of God then Aesop 's Fables or the Turkish Alcoran One would think now that he had done his worst against our Bible but he understood his trade better then so therefore because this calumny needed it very much he was resolved to help it with a good share of that confidence which I observed before was peculiar to these men For as if he had been yet over cold sweet and mild he mends the matter by saying that our Bible is worse then Aesop 's Fables it is Diabolical Inventions and Heretical labors and a Sacrilegious Instrument to deceive and damn all such poor Souls as believe it P. 41. and therefore worthy to be burnt with Fire in the middle of the Market at noon and let all the people say Amen so be it This was a good hearty man I warrant him and would not willingly lose his business by doing it by halves I should now have done with him but that I find him afterwards imposing upon his Reader with as shameful a Down-right Mis-representation of us as ever was invented P. 50. For says he of our Clergy All their Mission was either the inspiration of a Spirit they know not what or the Commission of a Child or the Letters Pattents of a Woman or the illicit and invalid ordination or mission of or by one Scory an Apostate Monk who ordained the first Bishops at the Nagg's-head in Cheapside in Queen Elizabeth 's time Now I would desire the Representer to consider with himself how he would have set us forth to the World if we had invented the story of Pope Joan as they have done this of the Naggs-head Ordination Why surely he would have mustered up all his Figures to represent us as the lewdest Varlets upon the face of the Earth But though we have received that story from their own Authors and know what advantages to make of it if we needed them yet we are very willing to hear what any learned man can say to disprove it and to allow all reasonable presumptions against it Of our Adversaries we beg none of this candor and desire no more of them then not to tell tales of us of their own invention As to this Nagg's-head business I ask the Representer two things one is Whether himself believes it the other Whether they have not commonly and boldly reported it up and down amongst us Let him then remember how he declaimed against us for creating in the people such an aversion to Popery which he did not wonder at because he considered that ten thousand Pulpits have been for many years declaiming against them Reply p. 43. where every man has had a liberty of exposing them as he pleased c. Well but what must we have expected by this time if the Ten thousand Pulpits had been all this while at their Service when they have not been afraid to publish such scandalous untruths againsst us even whilsst they had not all the liberty of doing as they please which he imagines we have taken If they take this freedom of telling of Tales even here amongst us without any colour of proof and against the Testimony of unquestionable Recods we may I think without Uncharitableness guess that where they are under no restraint they represent our Doctrines as they please and charge them with what Consequence and Interpretations they please and expose our Practices as they please c. And make Narratives of us as they please and make us as guilty as they please and have made Truth and Gospel of any thing against us as they please And when I consider these things I cannot wonder that in some parts of Spain where the Mis-representing Trade has gone rarely forward they are made to believe that we English since we turn'd Heretics are grown Satyrs and have gotten Horns and Tails I am now something weary of this unprofitable Labour and shall therefore add but one thing more which is That some of them are wont to Reproach their Adversaries
say written in the Representer's strain had he said any thing like making the King 's Capital City a Protestant Sodom and the Fires of Southwark and the Temple our Evangelical Proofs against the Papists and the Preachers Theme the alarum to keep the drowsie Flook from nodding had he set the Representer any example of such unhandsome levities as these are and which to say no more are hardly tolerable upon the stage then indeed the justice of his charge would not have born him out in his management of it But when that excellent man had charged them with no more then what he has terribly proved and that is Palliating or with no more then what is flagrant in their last pieces viz. Want of Fairnese and Civility c. in a word with no more then what is true and this without virulency or so much as levity of expression for which I leave the World to judge by those very phrases which the Representer has picked out of his last Book and yet for this his Pen must be said to be steeped in Gall and his Antagonists exposed under the most odious character imaginable I might well make more but I cannot make less of it then that some men are very much exasperated by being shewn to themselves And now if I had a mind to take every occasion he has given no small one by bringing in that Parable in the Scripture Of the Trees chusing a King to illustrate his own seriousness in the Drolling Sermon he composed for the zealous Brother But I forbear at present because he pretends to forbearance too For the advice that he has given the forementioned Author I do acknowledge that it were very good but that it wants pertinence and occasion and for that reason looks more like an unjust Accusation then a charitable Admonition But if he thinks good counsel is always to be received with thanks I say to him what he says to our Expositor Let him turn to such of his own Communion who have given bad examples in the business of Mis-representing And let him too that gives good advice take it also which though it be not so easie it will yet be better for him But above all things Let him endeavour that their Arguments and Methods for the defeating of Protestants be not such as any Jew may take to strike at Christianity and every Athiest to make a sham of all Religion Which advice is so good that 't is pity it should be lost upon those that need it not and therefore I desire him to recommend it to the Author of the Parallel between the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Let the Representer do his duty well upon this occasion and I can hereafter tell him of others wherein his interest will prevail more then mine But because the Representer is sincerely of our Expositor's mind That this way of handling Controversies doth rather exasperate then heal our Divisions I will tell him an effectual way to prevent it Let them Represent their Religion like men that are not afraid to let the people know the bottom of it and when they offer to defend their Doctrines let them not pretend to go on with their first undertaking when they leave it and fall into Invectives against their Adversaries for if they would honestly confess that their business is to make us look as odiously as they can they should for me go on in this way till they are weary without any recrimination If the Representer desires also that these Controversies may have an end let him perswade his Friends not to produce testimonies out of the Fathers for Popery without taking notice of the Answers that have been so often made to them Which advice if it had been given and taken we had not seen the Consensus Veterum and the Nubes Testium Let them not furnish out Books with Arguments that have been often offered and as often answered but take the Controversie where it was left by their Predecessors and ours and then go on with it if they can which had been very good advice to Mr. Clenche Let them not begin all over again to spin out the time and to make our Disputes endless Let them write and do like men that hope to gain upon the World by Reason and Argument As for our parts we shall be careful to follow his last Advice and to prove our selves true Members of the Church of England not onely by maintaining the Truth which She hath taught us but by practising those Principles and that Loyalty which we Preach that as we are sensible to whom we owe the Liberty we enjoy so we may approve our selves not altogether unworthy of it but be always able to give some good account of our selves with respect to these Controversies both to God and the King THE END THE Dâ—ctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome truely Represented in Answer to a Book intituled a Papist Mis-represented and Represented c. Quarto An Answer to a Discourse intituled Papists Protesting against Protestant Popery â—eing a Vidication of Papists not Misrepresented by Prâ—â—â—â—tants and containing a particular Examination of Mons 〈…〉 â—â—aux late Bishop of Condom his Exposition of 〈…〉 of the Church of Rome in the Articles of â—â—â—ocation of Saints and the Worship of Images occasioned by that Discourse Quarto An â—nswer to the Amicable Accomodation of the Difference between the Representer and the Answerer Quarto Bishop Wilkin's Fifteen Sermons Octavo Sermmons and Discourses some of which never before printed the third Volume By the Reverend Dr. Tillotson Dean of Canterbury A Manuel for a Christian Souldier Written by Erasmus and Translated into English Twelves Printed for W. Rogers