called A Manuduction or Introduction unto Divinity containing a Confutation of Papists by Papists c. by Tho. James Doctor of Divinity late fellow of New-Colledge in Oxford and Sub Dean of the Cathedral Church of Wells printed at Oxford 1625. The Book is full of great Learning and Dedicated to the then Lord Keeper Bishop of Lincoln And there under his third proposition viz. the King is not Subject to any Foreign Iurisdiction he tells us in p. 40. that K. Henry the 8th being at Variance with the Pope a Parliament was called within two years and a Motion was made therein that the King should be declared Head of the Church But his Majesty refused till he had Advised with his Universities of that point And whilst the Parliament Sate God in whose Hand the Hearts of Princes are so disposing it the King reflecting belike on Wickliffs former Articles directing his Letters to the University of Ox. about Electing the Bp. of Lincoln into the Chancellorship of the University of Oxford in the room of Arch-Bishop Warham lately Deceased After the Accomplishment whereof saith the King our Pleasure and Commandment is that ye as shall beseem Men of Vertue and profound literature diligently intreating examining and discussing a certain question sent from us to you concerning the Power and Primacy of the Bishop of Rome send again to us in writing under your common Seal with convenient Speed and Celerity your mind Sentence and assertion of the Question according to the mere and sincere Truth of the same willing you to give Credence to our Trusty and Well-beloved this bringer your Commissary As well touching our further pleasure in the premisses as for other matters c. Given under our Signet at our Mannor of Greenwich the 18 th Day of May. 'T is there said in the Margent Ex Registro Act. in archivis Academiae Oxon. Ad Ann. Dom. 1534. p. 127 c. The Doctor then thus goeth on Upon the Receipt of these Letters the University at that time for ought we know consisting all of Papists being assembled in Convocation Decreed as followeth That for the Examination Determination and Decision of this question sent unto them to be Discuss'd from the Kings Majesty whether the Bishop of Rome had any greater Jurisdiction Collated upon him from God in the Holy Scripture than any other Foraign Bishop that there should be Deputed thirty Divines Doctors and Batchelors of Divinity to whose Sentence Assertion or Determination or the greater part of them the Common Seal of the University in the Name thereof should be annexed And then sent up to his Majesty And the 27 th of June in the year of our Saviour 1534. this Instrument following was made and sent up Sealed with the Common Seal of the University The Instrument it self is in Latin but is in English thus To all the Sons of our Mother the Church to whom these present Letters shall come Iohn by the Grace of God Chancellour of the Famous University of Oxon and the whole Assembly of Doctors and Masters Regents and not Regents in the same greeting Whereas our most Noble and Mighty Prince and Lord Hen. the 8 th by the Grace of God of England and France King Defender of the Faith and Lord of Ireland upon the continual Requests and Complaints of his Subjects Exhibited unto him in Parliament against the intolerable exactions of Foreign Jurisdictions and upon divers Controversies had and moved about the Jurisdiction and Power of the Bishop of Rome and for other divers and urgent Causes against the said Bishop then and there expounded and declared was sent unto and humbly desired that he would provide in time some fit Remedy and satisfie the Complaint of his dear Subjects He as a most prudent Solomon minding the good of his Subjects over whom God hath placed him and deeply pondering with himself how he might make good and wholsom Laws for the Government of his Common-Wealth and above all things taking care that nothing be there resolved upon against the Holy Scriptures which he is and ever will be ready to Defend with Hazard of his Dearest Blood out of his deep Wisdom and after great pains taken hereabouts hath Transmitted and sent unto his University of Oxon a certain question to be Disputed viz. whether the Bishop of Rome hath any greater Jurisdiction granted to him from God in the Holy Scriptures to be exercised and used in this Kingdom than any other Foraign Bishop and hath commanded us that disputing the question after a diligent and mature Deliberation and Examination of the premisses we should certifie his Majesty under the Common Seal of our University what is the true meaning of the Scriptures in that behalf according to our Judgments and Apprehensions We therefore the Chancellor Doctors and Masters above Recited daily and often remembring and altogether weighing with our selves how good and godly a thing it is and Congrous to our Profession befitting our Submissions Obediences and Charities to foreshew the way of Truth and Righteousness to as many as desire to tread in her steps and with a good sure and quiet Conscience to Anchor themselves upon Gods Word We could not but endeavour our selves with all the possible care that we could devise to satisfie so Just and Reasonable a Request of so great a Prince who next under God is our most Happy and Supream Moderator and Governor Taking therefore the said question into our Considerations with all Humble Devotion and due Reverence as becometh us and Assembling our Divines together from all parts taking time enough and many days space to Deliberate thereof diligently religiously and in the fear of God with zealous and upright Minds first searching and searching again the Book of God and the best Interpreters thereupon disputing the said questions Solemnly and Publickly in our Schools have in the end unanimously and with joynt consent resolved upon the Conclusion that is to say That the Bishop of Rome hath no greater Jurisdiction given unto him in Scripture than any other Bishop in this Kingdom of England Which our Assertion Sentence or Determination so upon deliberation maturely and throughly discussed and according to the Tenor of the Statutes and Ordinances of this our University concluded upon publickly in the Name of the whole University we do pronounce and testifie to be sure certain and consonant to the Holy Scripture In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be written Sealed and ratified by the Seal of our University Given in our Assembly House the 27 th of the Month of Iune in the year of Christ 1534. I took care formerly to satisfie the Curious by my taking a Copy of this Rescript out of the Records in the Registry of the Vniversity of Oxford and which I not being able at present to find among my Papers have sent you this English Translation of it as Printed in that Book of Dr. Iames's That Book of his any one may see in the Catalogue
above them to him I commit you and in him I am Your Affectionate Friend and Servant ANGLESEY Memoirs Of the Late Earl of Anglesey c. SIR I Have not that time I wish to thank you particularly enough for your Discourse in a Letter to me and writ to me when I was Lord Privy Seal on the Occasion mentioned in your Preface I am so much a lover of my Country that I would be content to have all the Dirt and Shamm again thrown on me by any such Infamous Witness as He was if it might Occasion the Enriching it with the Treasure of such an other Discourse I did not account it a Solamen that not only the Earl of Peterburgh but his Majesty were participants with me in the Calumnious Affidavit Published against me but was sorry and ashamed for the Effrontery of the Infamous Swearer extending it self so far and likewise glad that after I was sufficiently vindicated by your Pen you took the pains so Learnedly to State the Notion of Infamous Witnesses for Illuminating the Age therein I know that in the Hot times of the Martyrocracy as you call it it would not have been for the Advantage of my self or others so unworthily then treated by it for you to have then used Personal Invectives to have rendred any Witness more odious and when likewise it would have proved more dangerous to you than Scandalum Magnatum You having mentioned what Authority of Testimony or real Weight and Worth there should be to Convict a person of such Authority and that Diamonds are not to be Cut but with the dust of Diamonds and that it is not for nothing that the Scripture Cautions the not receiving an Accusation against an Elder but by two or three Witnesses and how the Canon Law requires 72 Witnesses to Convict a Cardinal Bishop accused of any Crime but Heresie and 26 to Convict a Cardinal Deacon and 7 to Convict any Clerk did afterward very justly commend our Iudges for having at a known Tryal acquainted the Iury that they are carefully to weigh the Credibility of Witnesses Pardoned for Perjury and did learnedly shew out of the Canonists and Schoolmen that the Pope himself with the plenitude of his pretended Monarchical Power cannot by his Pardon wash away the infamia facti and thereby did sufficiently rescue my self and other Honest Men from the foul Hands of Infamous Witnesses And that one Notion of yours though softly insinuated and with the Gentleness of a Philosopher that a Man Pardoned for Infamy is to be allowed as a Credible Witness only after it hath been found that he hath acquired anhabit of Virtue by the Series of many Actions in the following part of his Life no Man being supposed able in a desultory way to leap out of a rooted habit of Vice into an Heroical Habit of Virtue and so è contrà was in effect a Thunderclap against the Testimony of the Infamous Person who Slandered me by his Affidavit and which too might serve to Deter all Infamous Persons in that Conjuncture from daring to try to run Men of probity down with the noise of Shamme And your afterwards rendring such Persons capable of being Accusers in the point of Treason and even as Hereticks are allowable by the Canonists to accuse a Pope of Heresy was enough pleasing to me As were likewise the Curious and Soft strokes of your Rhetorick and Reason in the following Page when on the grounds of the dark Colours of such Persons in general who cheated their Countrymen by Retail and who had long acted only Devils parts on the Stage of the World and been Malefactors you lay the bright ones of saving their Country by Whole-Sale and being Benefactors c. and whereby as I may say you have in effect gilded the Pillory for them and have added to the number of the Spectators of their shame and by those soft strokes provided for the Deletion of that Government of the Witnesses better than the most bold touches could then have done That Empire of theirs which you then weighed hath been since naturally destroyed And your having mentioned such having long acted the Parts of Devils brings into my mind what I somewhere met with Cited out of Melchior Adam's Livâ—s of the German Divines and with which I shall here Divert you as you have me with some apposit pleasant passages in your Letter Namely that Bucholeer said by way of Counsel to one of his Friends going to live at Court Fidem Diabolorum tibi commendo c. and take heed how you believe Men's promises there otherwise than warily and with fear Your weighty Notion of the Incredibility of any things sworn being to be much regarded in the Depositions of the most Credible Persons inclined me to a necessary Caution and Fear as to the Truth of those Oaths assertory when both Incredible Persons Swearing and Incredible things Sworn were in the Case I was therefore without any fear as I may say an Athanasius against the World of our three Estates when I did as you mention publickly give my Vote that there was no such IRISH PLOT as was Sworn by the Witnesses And what my Sense was of any Irish or English Papists PLOT I shall not here take occasion to express but yet as to some persons Convicted of the Popish Plot in England upon the Oaths of Witnesses who appeared in the Eye of the Law then probi legales homines I was so fearful of the Defects of some Witnesses and their sayings that I being then Lord Privy Seal interceded as earnestly as I could with the King my Master to grant his Pardon particularly in the Case of Mr. Langhorne and the Titular Arch-Bishop Plunkett and was as Active as any in the House of Lords in Exploding the Infamous Accusation of the most Vertuous then Queen Consort And though in the unfortunate Lord Staffords Case I going Secundum allegata probata I gave my Judgment as I did yet his late Majesty did publicly acknowledge that I was an Importunate Solicitor with him for his Lordships Pardon as well as for the Pardon of Langhorne and Plunkett above mentioned And you have done me but Iustice in mentioning that I interceded with his late Majesty for the Releasing of all Lay and Clerical Papists whatsoever out of the Prisons who were not charged with the Popish Plot And which I moved to his Majesty in the warmest time of the late Hot Conjuncture I was always of your Mind in what you mention that 't is easier to give our Account to God for Mercy than Iustice and do more thank you for the Representing my Habitual and Natural Inclination to do all the good I can to all Mankind and to make every miserable Man I know and cannot help yet sure of my Compassion than for your having ventured by your kind Opinion to Multiply or Magnifie any intellectual Talents in me I easily foresaw at that time that my then shewing the Humanity of
wrote And I believe had not a Learned and Prudent Friend of mine of the Church of England told me that my being thus accessory to the publishing of your Fathers Laudatory Acknowledgments of my performance was as much consistent with the Laws of Modesty as is many grave and wise Authors prefixing Commendatory Verses or Prose-testimonials from others before their works and for which purpose he told me of Mr. Hobbes having before a philosophical and political Work of his printed some excellent verses of Dr. Bathurst and of Dr. Templer having printed some of another before his admirable Confutation of Leviathan and withal represented it to me that I was in Conscience bound to the supporting the Honour of our Church by the publishing the New Matter contained in your Fathers Book against popery and likewise to the supporting the Justice of our Compassion for the sufferings of our Brethren in France by the Bigottry of the French Clergy upon the account of their not owning the Faith of the Council of Trent your Fathers Book beyond all other Writings published so clearly shewing it out of the most Authentick Histories that that Council was never published and received in France I should have been inclined to have Transmitted this incomparable Discourse of his Lordship to have lived only in the Archives of the Oxford-Library And so chiefly by the weight of this latter Consideration I have held my self obliged to make it publick And I doubt not but all protestants and especially our Divines of the Church of England will bid it welcome to the World But My Lord I am to crave your Lordships Pardon for thus long detaining your thoughts from the Great and Noble ones of your Fathers in the following Discourse and will no longer offend therein than by Subscribing my self My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and most Humble Servant P. Pett July 17. 1693. From my Tusculanum Totteridge Iuly 18. 1683. Sir Peter Pett I Obeyed your Commands in giving the great Sr. George Ent a taste of my villa fare I hope you seasoned it with your wonted good discourse I envy you nothing of your Happiness but that I had not a part in it for I delight in nothing more than such Company from whom I ever part the better and the wiser I acknowledge the favour in the two Sheets you sent me which were so far from satisfying me that they served but to whet my appetite to desire that you would after so long an expectation given ultimam manum ponere to that work wherein you do pingere aeternitati and from which it is pitty the publick should be with-held longer I remember after Cicero's incomparable parts and learning had advanced him in Rome to the highest Honours Offices of that famous Common wealth that by Caesars Vsurpations upon the publick there was no longer place either in the Senate or Hall of Iustice for the Romanum Eloquium he had made so much his Study and wherein he had before Caesar himself shewed how much he excelled he betook himself wholy to the common consolation of wise Men in distress the use and practice of Philosophy and therein with an industry and stile answerable to the diviness of the purpose undertook for the benefit of all Ages the most Religious and Sacred part of Philosophy the Nature of the God-Head wherein amidst a cloud of various and opposite errours and the thick darkness of a benighted ignorance he acquitted himself to admiration insomuch that I may account him as some great Authors have done the Divine Philosopher as well as Seneca And if I had reason to doubt what his opinion might be concerning a Deity or whether his works evince not the true Deity and Religion yet I am sure they tend strongly to the overthrowing the False Which the very worshippers of those ignoti Dei were so sensible of that they conspired the Destruction of this work of his insomuch that in the Reign of Dioclesian that great Bigott as I may call him of the Heathenish Idolatry and the Enemy of the Christian Religion these three Books De naturâ Deorum and his other two of Divination were publickly burnt in company with the writings of the Christians Anno Christi 302. as most famous Chronologers and others have recorded In particular Arnobius sharply tho then no Christian inveighs against the burners of these Books of Cicero in these words viz. But before all others Tully the most Eloquent of the Romans not fearing the imputation of Impiety with great Ingenuity Freedom and Exactness shews what his thoughts were and yet saith he I hear of some that are much transported against these Books of his and give out that the Senate ought to Decree the abolishing of them as bringing countenance to the Christian Religion and impairing the Authority of Antiquity rather said he if you believe you have ought certain to deliver as to your Deities convince Cicero of Error confute and explode his evil Doctrine For to destroy Writings or go about to hinder the common Reading of them is not to defend the Gods but to be afraid of the Testimony of Truth Thus far Arnobius And I could not leave Cicero and his Books in a more illustrious place than amidst those bright flames wherein the Divine writings were consumed For what greater Honour than for him to be joyned with Christ in the same cause and punishment I should not have so far advanced the pattern of Cicero in a Christian Kingdom but that we are so far degenerated from the primitive ones that Tullyes Morality if not Divinity goes beyond us When the Age is Receptive of better examples though you need them not I should willingly insinuate them to others Now if by the beginnings of Persecution in France and other parts and the dangerous Divisions and Circumstances at home we seem to be hurrying to the like sad times you may guess what makes me embrace so much a Country life as Cicero did and that from the Noise and Contrivances of a croud in the City I am retired to the sweet quiet of a Tusculanum and to converse with the dead qui non mordent and if I declare I should be glad among the Tombs of such company as you and other my good friends that perhaps in kindness to me think me wanting there you will believe me no ill chooser for my self and I hope squander away some time upon a friend You see I give a beginning to our entercourse wherein you were not wont to flinch and when you write to Bugden pray let the Learned and good Bishop know I am as much his as ever tho the whole Body of Papists seem now to be confuting his before Iudged irrefragable Book and bring in the protestants by Head and Shoulders to what he evinced were their Maxims and practice so that now Mutato nomine de nobis fabula narratur But the God of truth in the thing wherein they deal proudly and falsly will shew himself
Canon Law giving the Pope a power to receive Appeals from the Dominions of Soveraign Princes and States Mastertius in his Book de justitiâ Legum Romanarum in the Summaries of his 20 th Chapter sets it down That 1. Ridetur Pontifex ab ipsâ Romanâ Curiâ 2. Credentes Constitutioni Pontificis a Regibus liberisque populis laesae Majestatis damnantur 3. Iterum dissentit a Pontifice Romana Curia 4. Mira pontificis caecitas notatur 5. Intellectus L. à proconsulibus 19. Cod de appellat 6. Ius Canonicum malè damnat in expensas tantum appellantem perperam Under which he saith Infelix fuit Romanus Praesul in Cap. 7. Cap. de priore 31. Cap. Ad audientiam 34. Cap. dilecti 52. Ext. de appellat quibus constituit adversus L. Imper. in princip D. de appellat licere pulsatae parti relictis medijs pontificalem cognitionem invocare nam ipsa Romana Curia id Iuris tanquam omnem bonum ordinem invertens ex merâ dissentiendi libidine promanans explosit neque procedit Canonistarum glossema quo videtur id constituisse pontifex ob specialem suae sedis praerogativam quâ fidelium omnium competens est Iudex Cap. si duobus 7. ibi D. D. ext de appellat Concil Trident. sess 24. Cap. 20. de reformat Nam cum id falsum sit totius Christiani Orbis Reges liberique populi laesae Majestatis reos agunt qui vel immediatè vel ab ipsorum sententiâ ad pontificem praesumunt appellare Eodem candore defert appellationi rei minimae iterum reluctante Romanâ Curiâ requirente ut litis aestimatio sit ut minimum coronatorum decem Praesec in praxi Episcop p. 2. Cap. 4. Art 15. N. 8. Mechlinensi 50. Flor. D. Zypaeus de Iure Pontif. novo tit de appellat N. 8. Mihi videtur quod pontifex de industria se voluerit risui propinare nam hic defert appellationi rei minimae suprà relictis mediis implorationi Pontificialis auditorij evocando Belgam aut Anglum in Causâ aliquorum obolorum ad urbem Romanam experiundi sui Iuris gratiâ But there is another use we may now well make of the publication of this Rescript of the Vniversity of Oxon and that is to observe how awkwardly and unseasonably the Author of The Papist Misrepresented and Represented hath thought fit to Represent the Pope as now deducing a Claim to a Higher Power here by the Word of God than what our Roman-Catholick Universities allowed him in Henry the 8 th's time For in his 18 th Chapter he tells us That the Papist believes that there is a Pastor Governor and Head of Christs Church under Christ to wit the Pope or Bishop of Rome who is the Successor of St. Peter to whom Christ committed the Care of his Flock c. and now believing the Pope to enjoy his Dignity he looks on himself obliged to shew him the Respect Submission and Obedience which is due to his place And afterward in this manner is he ready to behave himself towards his CHIEF PASTOR with all Reverence and Submission never scrupling to receive his Decrees and Definitions such as are issued forth by his Authority with all their due Circumstances and according to Law in the concern of the whole Flock His Answerer doth well reply to him in that point and with a Candour suitable to the Pacifick State of the Realm you have predicted under any Prince of the Roman-Catholick Communion say viz. How doth it appear that Christ ever made St. Peter Head of the Church or committed his Flock to him in contradistinction to the Rest of the Apostles This is so far from being evident by Scripture that the Learned Men of their Church are ashamed of the places commonly produced for it c. And afterward saith ' We need not insist on the Proof of this since the late mentioned Authors of the Roman Communion have taken so great pains not only to prove the Popes Supremacy to be an Encroachment and Usurpation in the Church but that the laying it aside is necessary to the Peace and Unity of it And until the Divine Institution of the Papal Supremacy be proved it is to no purpose to debate what manner of Assistance is promised to the Pope in his Decrees It was I think an undertaking that none but a very Sanguine Man could suppose fesable to engage us to believe in this Age that the Pope was by Divine Right Head of our Church under Christ. I say in this Age so generally Learned and when a Layman furnished but with an ordinary Library can shew that the Churches of the Brittish Islands England Scotland and Ireland as my Lord Primate Bramhal shews in Chap. 5. of his Iust Vindication of the Church of England by the Constitution of the Apostles and by the Solemn Sentence of the Catholick Church are exempted from all Foreign Iurisdiction and that if it be objected that the Bishop of Rome was ever our Patriarch that all Patriarchal Jurisdiction is of Human Institution and by the Statute of 35 C. 1. it was declared that the Holy Church of England was founded in the State of PRELACY not of Papacy within the Realm of Eng. not without it by the Kings and Peers thereof not by the Popes and when in the time of our late Civil Wars the Presbyterian and Independent Divines had by their Claims of Ius Divinum for their Models of Church-Government so much exercised the understanding of the People in general that at the time of his late Majesties Restoration restoring to our Church the best Constituted Government in the World many of our Virtuosi and Latitudinarians could not be brought expresly to own its excellence on an Universal Ius Divinum praeceptivum and would say that in any Church Government that by Divine Right would bind all Churches there must be not only praxis but institutio apostolica The Pryers into the Rabbinical Learning of the Iews have not been forced more to observe their Criticising on the Divinity of the Fire which burn'd the Sacrifices on the Brazen Altar as coming from Heaven both when the Tabernacle was erected and when the Temple was built and making the fire in the first Temple to be Divino-Divinus altogether Holy and the fire in the second Temple to be Divino-Humanus Human Holy as being kindled as our fire though still kept in as the fire of the first Temple was and the third fire that Nadab and Abihu offered to be Humanus and likewise called by them alienus as strange fire then the Readers of the late Controvertists of the Ius Divinum of several Forms of Church-Government among us have been forced to take notice of their nicety in distinguishing it And now after the Bishop of Rome had before Henry the 8 th's time made the figure of the fire Divino Humanus and whose Authority was then Extinguished for so the Style runs of the Act of
to say of the Pope in the case as any could think the Destroying of a City where the Majority were Rebels when decree'd by a Soveraign Prince No doubt but to all Loyal Roman Catholicks who are willing on all occasions to testify their Loyalty by the opposing that Irreligionary part of Popery as you call it which refers to the Vsurpations of the Papaute and to its pretended Universal Monarchy the Publishing of this or any Tenet that sheweth the Absurdity of the Popes claiming such a Power cannot be unwelcom And as you have well urged it that the Canon Law was never in Gross received in Eng. in the time of our Roman Catholick Ancestors so it would be a vain expence of time to shew that this particular Canon Si Audieris never was and that Malicious and Voluntary Burning of Houses being an Hostile Action is presumed in our Law to be done for Revenge and as by an Enemy to Consume the same by Fire in time of Peace Any such Foraign power would by our Roman Catholick ancestors have been Presently Adjudged to come under the Notion of what I before referred to as Ignis Alienus and of outraging our Country Modo guerrino and the very claim thereof in the Canon Law cannot but make all considerate and Loyal Roman Catholicks startle at the thought of the Extravagance of the former papal Vsurpations in the world abroad But you have from p. 259. to 265. with so much Candour and Fairness discoursed of this Savage Tenet in the Canon Law that you have saved any one else much of his Labour in doing it and I could wish that all Writers of Religionary Controversie would proceed by such your Measures of thinking themselves Morally obliged to say all that the matter will fairly bear on both sides And I accord with you in Judging any writer to be a kind of Falsarius who doth not so And am glad that you having so Justly branded that poor partial way of Writing wherein too many Protestant as well as Popish Authors have appeared so defective you have afforded the Age so fair a Specimen of Writing with Morality about a Tenet very unmoral and in so Cool and Dispassionate a manner of a Tenet so fiery I am not now to tell you what you have so long known of me viz. That I never was a Lover of the Canon Law And that though I always had a great Honour for the Principles of Nature and Reason appearing in the Civil Law yet as I never thought better of the Canon Law than Albericus Gentilis did in his 9 th Chapter and Second Book De Nuptijs where he saith sed hoc jus brutum barbarum sanè est natum in tenebris Saeculorum Spississimis productum a Monacho Tenebrione c. So my finding particularly Cyprian so miserably abused in the Canon of Si audieris hath made me the more to Nauseate it For it is evident that the place in Cyprian doth not prove what Gratian proposeth viz. That a whole City now under the Gospel may be burned for a few Hereticks inhabiting in it 'T is plain that Cyprian's design there is to encourage all good Christians rather to suffer Martyrdom than to commit Idolatry by Worshipping other Gods that being the Title and Subject of the Epistle De exhortatione Martyrij and in order to this he shews Gods great Hatred and severe punishing of Idolatry Namely from Deut. 1◠6 the which making nothing for that Monks purpose he wisely leaveth it out of his Canon and from v. 12 th and 13 th of that Chapter viz. If thou shalt hear say in one of thy Cities which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there certain Men the Children of Belial are gone from among you and have withdrawn the Inhabitants of their City saying let us go and serve other Gods c. 'T is therefore plain that this severe Law concerned only the Cities of Israel the words in that Text being One of THY Cities which the Lord thy God hath Given THEE And as the Law under that penalty was given only to the Iews in Canaan so it obliged them only and not any other People of any other Country Moreover as to the Words in the Text viz. withdraw the Inhabitants of their City and which Gratian thought fit to leave out they may be said to be Indefinite and may mean all the Inhabitants And then it was evidently Just to kill them all according to the words in Cyprian Etiam si universa Civitas consenserit ad idololatriam But if the Major part be not indeed meant then if you will consult Ainsworths excellent Commentary on Deut. 13. v. 12 13. you will find that the Doctors among the Iews say that if a Major part of the City be drawn to Idolatry then that Major part shall be slain and the City be burned But if the Minor part only be drawn to Idolatry then they say that Minor part shall be Slain but the City shall not be burnt This the Iewish Doctors who understood that Text much better than Gratian or Iohn Semeca his Glossator took to be the meaning of that Text and so likewise many Learned Christians did Cyprian then having shewn how great a Sin Idolatry was and how hateful it was to God he adds Si ante Adventum Christi Circa Deum Colendum Idola Spernenda haec precepta servata sunt quanto magis post adventum Christi servanda sunt But we know Mosaical precepts are either De officijs or de poenis And as to the former namely Moral Offices or Duty to God and our Neighbour Of precepts for these Cyprian says that if they were observed before Christ then quantò magis post adventum Christi c. who had in his Sermon on the Mount fully explained and given us the true meaning of them And the clearer understanding of any Laws doth certainly induce a stronger Obligation from them And hence it is that Cyprian thinks truly that Christians are more strictly obliged to observe the Moral Law than the Iews were But the Laws de paenis supplicijs Cyprian doth not at all mention nor in that place intend or mean For Christians are not bound to inflict the same punishments on the Transgressours of the Law to which the Iews by the Mosaical Law were bound For to the Iews Adultery or breach of the Sabbath were Capital Crimes But not so among the Christians Theft was not Capital by Moses his Law Yet by the Law of England it is By the Iews Law it was an Eye for an Eye and a Tooth for a Tooth but our Blessed Lord declares against that severity as not to be used amongst Christians And yet our Monarchus Tenebrio would have Cyprian understood de poenis and against Truth and the Sense of Cyprian concludes that because Idolatry was by the Iews Law punished with Death therefore it should be so punished since Christ under the Gospel Gratian ends his
live in Bondage I am far from desiring to entrench on this liberty for Papists in matters or Tenets properly denominable by the Term of Religionary ones according to the expression by you frequently used and do suppose though there were no such thing in the World as a Pope or Patriarch that the Religionary Tenets of Transubstantiation and Purgatory c. may continue to be believed by many and if any one shall contrary to the Sense of the Government and of Acts of Parliament in Henry 8 ths time believe as the Representer doth that the Bishop of Rome hath here in Spirituals more power by the Word of God than other Foraign Bishops I shall not endeavour by any severity to impose on him the contrary Belief But yet shall still by virtue of that Sacred Word think my self bound and that particular passage in it cited by Dr. Iackson not to be a Servant of Men as to any Doctrinal Impositions and to forbear external Communion with any Church that would impose upon my Belief I know of none of the Church of England who hath avowed the practice of more Indulgence to Papists in the Confession of their Religionary Principles than I have done And I thank God that my practice in this kind hath not been by Fits or Starts or Turns of Times or Humours but that my Life hath in this Point of doing Just and Charitable Offices to all Consciencious and Loyal Papists been as I may say a Thred even spun upon every Wheel of Providence Your self can tell of the Signal good Offices I did to many Papists and to others that a Clamorous Common Fame would have run down as Popishly Affected when you applyed to me then in their behalf during the Season of some of the late Narratives and I am able further to do you the Justice as to remember what you have long ago told me and what I had reason to believe that when the figure you made in another of his Majesties Realms allowed you Virtute officij to have made many thousands of them groan under the Burden of the Penal Laws you held your self in Conscience obliged not to do it but on the contrary to rescue them from the least Hardship thereby But I shall here take occasion to tell you that I have scarce in any thing more shewed my Friendliness to the Persons of some of my Roman Catholick Friends than by my Advice to them that they would apply to the Writers of their Church to forbear troubling our English World with new Models of Reconciliation of Churches And indeed Nature doth now Loudly enough tell us that the Real Peace of Kingdoms ought not to be troubled by projects of a Chimerical one between Churches The best Men are Reconciled to one another and the Reconciling of all the worst Men in the World together would make their Association more troublesom to Mankind And when we know that the Bigots of the Church of Rome can stir no further from the Councel of Trent than our Soldiers in Africa could from their Garrison of Tangier before the Peace there is no thinking of their Travelling far to meet us And if any one suppose that they would meet us half way yet notwithstanding he might likewise according to the Principles of Nature suppose that the other Moiety of the Theological Controversies not agreed in would occasionally render Mens Spirits more Tempestuous toward each other and the publick as we usually see Storms to be most violent about the Season of the Equinoctial Moreover they who give themselves the Office of Reconcilers general or intrude into the Station of the Publick Mediators appearing thereby hot and unquiet in their own tempers rendring themselves always liable to disquiet from abroad by attacks from all parties are of all Men the most unlikely to be universal Peace-Makers or to gain any Blessing by being such And as you have in your Discourse Studiously declined the use of the little Names of Distinctions of three differing Parties in the State so shall I likewise do but can easily give you occasion to guess which of them refers to Men most Hated and most Impolitick by Minding you how the Systematical Writers of Politicks do often call neuters Middle Region Men and such as being Lodged in the Middle Rooms are annoyed with the droppings from above and smoak from below You have expressed your self in your Preface and Discourse as so much agreeing with me in this Subject that I shall be but Just to you in owning my Belief that your varying from some of the Measures of the Church of England in some Points tended not to encourage others to undertake the Thankless Office of being Match-Makers of Churches I know very well what my Lord Primate Bramhall in order to shewing that the Sons of the Church of England are not Slaves to its Articles saith In his Iust Vindication of the Church of England and how Mr. Chillingworth in his Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation tells us that by the Religion of Protestants he understands not the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melanchton nor the Articles of the Church of England c. But that wherein they all agree and which they all Subscribed c. as a perfect Rule of their Faith and Actions that is the Bible the Bible I say the Bible only is the True Religion of Protestants c. And therefore what ever freedom you justly claim by the Charter of the Bible to confess any Religionary Tenets however different from those I own I am not to envy you But do know that I am bound to pitty you or any else of Mankind that I shall think to err therein though it should be in any Religionary Tenet of Popery it self or in the Power of the Bishop of Rome in Imposing Creeds or Rules of Divine Worship on Men by Divine Right as part of your Description of Popery runs and as to which I think there may be occasion in your Review of it to avoid giving more Offence both to the Church of England and that of Rome thereby than you perhaps intended I have observed a late French Writer to avoid the Censure of describing the Communion of the Church of Rome or the Faith of that Church by a doubtful Name having used the Term la Catholicitè But as to your Description of Popery I may mind you that according to your Quotation in p. 318. out of Ames of the Seven Venetian Divines who in that most Iudicious Tractate of theirs as Ames calls it of the Papal Interdict affirmed that a Christian ought not to obey any Command of the Popes unless he had first examined the Command as far as the Subject Matter required whether it were convenient lawful and Obligatory and that he Sins who Implicitly obeys it those Divines though adhering to la Catholicitè firmly enough did thereby throw off the Power of the Bishop of Rome in imposing Creeds and Doctrines and Rules of