in and by the Church of Rome especially since Trent-Council assembled and ended above your hundred years ago is inconsistent with and destructive of this individual Headship true Faith and Church-constitution being nothing else but an Anti-christian miscellany and compound oppositum in apposito of God and the Creature God-man and meer-man in the most material points and principles of Christianity the Persons of both in point of Worship the Power and Authority of both in matters of Faith the Righteousness and Merit of both in point of Satisfaction and Justification the Wills of both in the act of Conversion the Intercession of both in the great office of Mediation yea an universal co-equivalency or equal concurrence of Worth Vertue and Efficacy from both throughout the whole business of Redemption and Salvation especially from Christ and the Virgin Mary constituted therein Corredemptress with her Son and Saviouress a latere as if her Brests as well as his Sides had been no less then sacramental and the Mothers Milk and the Son's Blood equally saving Moreover to prosecute this Religious medley God and the Creature in the Decalogue Christ and the Church in the Creed Scripture and Tradition in the Canon Pater-Noster and Ave-Maria in the Litany Sacrament and Sacrifice in the Supper c. all so many Riddles in the Mystery of Iniquity A Religion consisting of such Trent-Forge-Principles and Practices as these viz. In point of Doctrine Papal Supremacy and Authotity Church Infallibility unwritten Traditions equall'd in authority with the Holy Scriptures the doctrine of Man's free-Will in opposition to God's Free-Grace the Doctrine of Perfection of Merits Pardons and Indulgences redounding from a surplusage of Works of super-erogation and satisfaction as they are termed as if any meer Man could fullfill in obedience beyond what the Law requires and satisfy in penance beyond what Sin deserves a rare Religion the doctrine of Purgatory and Souls Departed the doctrine of Mass-service and Transubstantiation the Consecrating Priestling turning a petty Creator as is supposed converting sacramental Forms into real Substance and Commemoration into Expiation celebrating Christ's Death with his death as well as with his own in destroying instead of discerning the Lord's Body yea both Saviour and Sacrament at once the doctrine of Ministration in an unknown Tongue by means whereof they do most sacrilegiously robb the Children of their Bread in the Scriptures as they do of the Cup in the Supper and many more such like Doctrines not of men onely but of Divels which I list not to dwell upon the Subject being so Frightful In point of Worship Idolatry and Imagery Superstition Saint-Worship c. In point of Polity absolute Tyranny the Keys turned into a Sword sufficiently exercised and dearly experienced throughout the World upon Princes-Crowns their Subjects-Consciences and Protestant-Blood in sanguinary Lawes a bloody Inquisition direful Anathemaes execrable Massacres rageing Persecutions c. the violent Calentures of that Torrid Zone The Religion in fine of that Church which is in Doctrine damnably Heretical in Worship grossely Idolatrous in Polity and Government intollerably Tyrannical in all palpably Antichristian opposite to and virtually destructive of Christs fundamentality and headship in his Person or Natures in his Offices in all their parts in his States in his vertues merits graces priviledges Institutions and ordinances c. in one or more or all of those and consequently destruction of the Catholick Faith and Religion by Himself and his Apostles and the whole successive series of Christians throughout the World professed and practised and finally of the truth of a Christian Church his Body all in effect nullified thereby yea and a false head other foundation and another name being substituted in opposition to the true the Religion I say professed and practised in the Church of Rome and that Church her self especially since Trent-Council being such as is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 described it followeth by necessary consequence that the separation of the Church of England both primitive in her first Reformers and present in their Successours persisting in that happy divorce from her and embodyed into a contradistinct but true Church under Christ the onely true Head in a Joynt profession of his Faith the true Religion is so far from being Schismatical this being ever a causeless and groundless separation in or from matter of true Religion in a true Church that on the contrary it is righteous and Justifyable yea absolutely necessary by the authority of that Law whereby we are strictly commanded to renounce and abjure her society upon peril of sharing in her Plagues from which Good Lord deliver us Sir if in this short defence of our Reformation which it is like may seem a kind of morose Tragedy to an airy Mercurius but that I aim at a further goal you think I have falsified or misrepresented any principle of the Romish Church charge me with it and spare not and if I do not Justify what I have asserted brand me for as great a slanderer as your self Again Sir True Religion being that onely of which the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth is the Author the Holy Scriptures the Word of Truth is the Rule and the Holy Church whereof our Church of England is part the Pillar and Ground of Truth is the publick Trustee Keeper and Conservatory as Pillars or Tables are of affix'd Papers and Proclamations to wit modo forensi non architectonico derived and delivered as is above-said to her from the Apostles and to them by Christ from God himself And the Reformed Religion Faith Doctrine and substantial Worship professed and practised in and by the Church of England being such as may appear from her publick tests and monuments especially the three Creeds Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian and her doctrinal Articles unanimously agreed upon in two several Convocations viz An. Dom. 1562 and 1604 c. compared with the Sacred Canon whose test and trial in the Case she is willing to undergo It follows that the Reformed and onely reforming Religion professed and practised in and by the Church of England is the onely true Religion which when you assault with Argument as now you undermine by Stratagem you shall be dealt withall Moreover Sir The Church of England is no less satisfied in her Clergy then in her Religion that as God hath by a Law of as long duration as that of Sun and Moon in the ordinary course of his Providence appointed to publish and propagate his Truth and instruct his Church by a constant series and succession of persons of holy Order and Office authorised and qualified thereunto so her Clergy is such having derived their orders together with their Religion ex traduce Apostolica from the original Seminary Founders of Christianity in England who are recorded in History the monumental Memory and best Intelligencer in such cases to have been Apostles or Men Apostolical whether Philip or Joseph of Arimathea sent by him as Tertullian
Hieragonisticon OR CORAH'S DOOM BEING AN ANSWER To Two Letters of Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion In Vindication of the Contemned By way of Epistle to the Author of the said Enquiry Contra Rationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturam nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus London Printed by Tho. Milbourn for Dorman Newman at the Kings-Armes in the Poultry 1672. An Answer to two Letters of Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion in Vindication of the Contemned By way of Epistle c. SIR THe Reformed Religion and Clergy England's Glory being by you betrayed to Contempt under pretence of an amicable Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of it which I here offer to make good I cannot conceive how I may better manage my vouch'd Vindication of both then 1. By Vnriddling the mystery of your Inquest to the Laity and 2. By answering to your Process form'd in it against Religion and Clergy This therefore is the method which I will observe in the present Contest which had I reckoned it Certamen de Oleastro a debate about matters of no greater consequence than are Achilles's Toes the Graecian's Boots or Neapolitan Chesnuts c. I had never I assure you contrasted you in to your the worlds or my own trouble As touching the First General viz. the Vnriddling of the Mystery and detecting of the stratagem project and imposture of your Inquisition and that in order to the prepossessing and guarding of the Laity against it This Sir I will endeavour by way of distinct gradual paragraphs commenced not a Nannaco from Adam or the Prae-adamites nor yet from your great Mormo Belshazzar but from the very Genealogy of the Christian Religion by you impeached thence proceeding ab Equis ad Asinos till in fine Sphinx do upon the matter become his own Oedipus and your Riddle whether one in the Mystery of Iniquity or not the Reader shall be Judge as legible as that plain truth as great a one as any that occurrs throughout your whole Rhapsody namely Let. 2. pag. 10 that there is a near relation between Atheisme and Contempt of the Clergy wherein let me tell you you have in a manner prophesied your own doom as Caiaphas did our Saviour's unawares First then Sir The Christian Faith or Religion is That which God the Father the original Author of Truth as well as Being hath delivered to his Son his Son to his Apostles his Apostles to his Church the primitive to succeeding Churches and all to their respective Members and Matriculates This is a prescript of the learnedst Apologist and Defender of the Faith that ever the Church enjoyed namely the great Tertullian and with me a grand piece of Orthodoxy Again Sir This Religion thus conveyed from God the Father by his Son to his Apostles and by the intermediation of both to his Church hath been in all the successive Ages thereof from the Apostles downwards to this present time and will be to the end of the world published preached and propagated by a constituted Hierarchy or continual Series of persons of holy Order and Office duly authorized and qualified thereunto stiled the Lights of the World the Stewards of Divine Mysteries the Embassadours of Christ the Pastors Teachers Guides Angels and Overseers of the Church For this Sir besides its congruity to the principles of general Equity I would produce Scripture-Arguments but that I fear lest they might share in the common lot of sacred Promises Precepts Narratives c. by your over-daring Witt facetiously abused sacra sacris Hence Sir it follows Thirdly There cannot be a more compendious method or stratagem devised for propagating of any sinister innovation or revolution Pagan or Papal in matter of Religion and the most Atheistick Idolatrous loose licentious principles and practices whatsoever even to an universal re-paganizing of a Nation than either by utterly subverting of an Orthodox Clergy therein or else by rendering it useless and unserviceable For if either the Persons of those Sacred Stewards Teachers Guides and Supervisers be removed or which is all one as to use and serviceableness in the Church their authority rebated and infringed those Lights either quite exstinct or at leastwise eclipsed those sacred Pipes cut or stop't c. what other can the sequel be then gross Ignorance And what may not be obtruded upon an Ignorant Laity of all that the arbitrary Lawes and lusts of their new Masters to whose service and blind obedience they are now most humbly envassal'd shall impose their swallow being sufficiently prepared by this time not for their Gnats only Tushâ— that 's ordinary with the blind to a proverb but for their Camel the Beast himself for a nauseous deadly Crambe a blasted Nehushtan for Stocks Stones Idols Images and what you will even to an unknown God! which undoubtedly is the reason why Satan his Accomplices have in most of the Catastrophes that have befallen the Church still commenced the tragedy from the Ministry witness both history and experience addressing all their power and policy to an utter either extirpation or exauctoration of the same This Sir I have likewise adopted into my Creed as following consequentially from the former Fourthly The most artificial and expedite way either to destroy the Clergy or which is much the same to render it useless and unserviceable to the Church as this is to destroy Religion is to expose and betray it to misprision and Contempt in the Laity This Sir I take to be as high a strain of Politicks as ever Socinian Loyolite or Jesuited Pandor throughout the world could write himself master of and indeed a very sacra anchora in the Romish Sea for all other artifices failing Enchantments Arguments Anathemaes Menaces Massacres Altar-Coals the Learned Quill the Charming Cup the sacred Key the thirsty Sword c. inter sacrum saxum Ahab's prejudice will do the business The Jesuite's Powder-Plot An. Dom. 88. was a shrewd stratagem as being levelled at the Community in Ruler and Representative where each unite stands for thousands universally devoted to a tout a coup such an epitomised stroke upon the English as the enraged Caligula imprecated to his offending Romanes without the trouble of a repetition But now those Ghostly Politicians are taught by experience that sacred enterprizes never luck more prosperously then when managed surdo verbere and that the Serpent is far more serviceable in the cause then the Dragon as acting with less noise greater execution Once throughly leaven an ungovernable Laity with contempt and prejudice against their Clergy and what the consequents hereof might prove may be perceived without a prospective-glass this active ferment will doubtless by degrees foment the whole mass of Blood and Spirit with which it once incorporates to an utter rejection of that which it ought if call'd for to be expended in defence of and thus
means methods helps c. conducing hereunto with due explication and application of the same accoâ—â—â—ng to the acroamatick rules of that Divine art must needs be in foro Ecclesiae saving Preachers at leastwise no Hinderers of Salvation As That the condition of all mankind by nature is a state of sin and misery consisting in the loss of beatifick friendly union and communion with God the sum of all created happiness and the incursion of his wrath curse and all the accumulative misery attending his violated Law both in this world and that which is to come That there is no possible way of escape or recovery out of this condition without a Mediator or Redeemer interposing as a third person between God and the Delinquent partly by reason of that infinite both disproportion and opposition distance and repugnance between the two parties and partly by reason of the Sinners own invincible insufficiency hereunto That this only Mediator Redeemer and Saviour is the Christian 's Messias and Immanuel the Son of God incarnate in a true Humane Nature assumed into personal subsistence with the Godhead as being of all persons in Heaven and Earth and indeed a kind of compend of both alone qualified for such a negotiation his twofold-Nature Divine and Humane his threefold Office Kingly Priestly and Prophetical his twofold state of Humiliation and Exaltation his manifold Vertues especially his Spirit and Merit his Laws Ordinances and Institutions c. all co-effectual herein That true Faith namely that sacred principle and habit whereby we not only assent to Christ's Revelation of himself but receive and embrace his Person upon his own terms as therein offered and revealed together with true Repentance another pious qualification in turning from sin to God out of a due sense of the hainousness as well as danger of the Offence and Mercy through Christ in the Offended with firm resolutions and endeavours of amendment are the conditions necessarily required in and of all that partake of this Saviour and Salvation That Good Works or the acts of sincere and conscionable Obedience performed to the Moral Law are the necessary and inseparable testificats proofs and evidences of that Faith and Repentance the Decalogue being ever the best justification of the Creed That the Word Sacraments Prayer but your Heathen's touch of Devotion will not serve turn and the like are to be pursued as the ordinary means and methods instituted and appointed of God for the producing of that Faith Repentance and Obedience And Methinks I have waded through great Mysteries in a little time and if I gain a Proselyte by the means my labour is well bestowed Amen say I 't is pity Witt should perish The Publican two I say of such fundamental truths as these represented in this Scheam with due explication and application of the same must needs I think if there be any such in the world be an edifying and saving way of preaching not a hinderance but furtherance of Salvation And to apply That the usual preaching in the Church of England is such saving preaching as well as her Preachers both her first Refromers and their Successors infinitely emproved Answ pag. 25. since the High-Sheriff's Sermon in St. Marie's Pulpit at Oxford in point of Order and Office sufficiently authorised and the Religion by them purged and preached and in community with the People joyntly professed and practised truly Catholick-Apostolick She Sir is very well satisfyed and like to be dayly more and more confirmed in it I hope unless better Authority be offered for an innovation in either Creed or Clergy than what hath ever as yet appeared on this side the Sea or to some of us beyond it from the Learned'st either Men or Books But I 'll assure you for your comfort you have little reason to hope ever to see such days of vertue What! and yet our usual Preaching Folly and a hinderance of Salvation God forbid Sir If I have failed in the premisses disprove them if not pray deny not the conclusion but this is antiquated game 't is ordinary with the Old Serpent to act the Diabolus where he cannot be Apolyon accuse what he cannot destroy when as after a great expence of Venom and Subtilty he cannot thanks be to God either Vnminister our Clergy nor Vn-church our Laity to the ruine of the whole he cunningly playes his after-game in traducing all our Church as Apostate our Religion as Heresy our Discipline as Schism our usual Preaching as Folly and a hinderance of Salvation and Sir supposing I grant part of your charge that the Preaching of the first Reformers of our Church and what is usual in it at present was is the foolishness of preaching what then such was that of the very Apostles yet saving to them that believed and why not ours theirs notwithstanding the Folly charged upon it by the Greeks saving and ours because of the same charge from a Grecizer damning destructive a hinderance of Salvation Segnior no but to read your destiny in theirs by the same Oracle if the usual preaching in our Church be Foolishness it is to them that perish Foolishness and between Convert and Castaway I know and you will find no middle Limbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then who fool twice or worse Your own dear Minion with whom I will conclude this particular hath told you the same upon the matter in a more intelligible language plain English instead of Greek and that in a cornute and thereby indeed he pusheth you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but fool-hardy takes no warning Answ pag. 80. either you expect saith he that your Reader should believe nothing of what you say throughout your Letters and then you play the Fool and write to no purpose or you would have him believe all and then you do little better than 'twere almost actionable had I not a precedent for it play the Knave And now Sir By way of reflection upon the whole in order to a conclusion of this general What Reader that is not either prepossest with your poysonous Principles and prejudiced or else wholly stupified and insatuated when he shall recollect within himself and duly weigh the premisses What Reader I say thus qualified and considerate will not readily Joyn issues with me in this conclusion viz. that the scope project and designe of your Letters of Enquity can be no other then instead of the pretended redress of the Contempt of the Reformed Religion and Clergy to expose and betray both to it and by meanes thereof propagate what your Rhapsody abounds withall most pestilent and licentious Principles and Practices Atheisme Libertinisme preparatives to Popery Sensuality and what not to the utter subversion of both though you have Politician-like for cautelous Guards to the designe observable throughout your Epistles which I here note once for all cunningly interwoven Sly insinuations with dextrous retrieves prologues from Pilate and Epilogues from the Harlot washing your Hands with the one as if
that it is most observable in the support preservation and maintenance of a poorer Clergy and that a poor Clergy is no just object of Contempt in the Laity else Christ himself and his Apostles and both Primitive and Modern most eminent propagators of the Christian Faith might pari jure share therein As touching the second Sir It is soon resolved that the poorer sort of the Reformed Clergy is partly through the corruption of Man's heart partly through instigation from Satan and Hell-inspired Atheists Socinians Jesuits and Jesuited persons and all such Cinifloes using ostentative braggs and insinuations about the full Coffers spread Tables costly Apparel Honorary Titles Grandure and Magnificence not only of the Primates and Optimates of Church and State but of most orders of men but especially amongst their Simiae in purpura beyond the Channel over and above what the inferiour Clergy hath de facto which is matter of grief and condolency exposed to contempt in the Laity but quid ad Rhombum Sir Doth matter of fact prove right in either Law or Logick or are they therefore to yours or suppose they were blessed with the splendour and magnificence here mentioned would this secure them from yours or a Laicks lash no! flegm would then ferment into choler contempt into grudge emulation and your Inquisition re-authorised for inspection into the grounds and occasions of the envy as now of the contempt of the Clergy there is a remarkable instance of this amongst our Neighbours where a Franciscan Hackney that is in plain English Sir good bare Ten-Toes was once a Proverb but now forsooth the Gentlemen of that order instead of vowed bare footing of it as heretofore in journying are mounted upon the best Horses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with attendance better befitting their Nobless than a Monkish Tenebrio to a most rancide grudge and inveteracy both in the Laity and other Religious orders But since you can only understand matter of fact here not matter of right that as ignorance is a just ground of Contempt of the Clergy so poverty is a tempting occasion to it I proceed As touching the last particular Sir The poverty of the Clergy and upon this occasion actual but wicked and unjust contempt in the Laity being both supposed the next thing to be enquired into is whether this same Poverty and Contempt the disease and symptome be capable of a remedy now That it is most congruous to the Law of God Nature and Nations that some competent provisions be made for the Ministers of the Gospel is I think a generally confessed case though I will not dispute the mortality of a decimal provision or tithe yet I assert the natural equity of a competent one as the holy Scripture hath before me in that very natural principle The Labourer is worthy of his hire And what ample provisions were made by God for the Priests and Levites of old is sufficiently attested in holy Writ and by you well asserted utinam sic semper errasset Bellarminus together with the reasons thereof which I am sure are moral however the particular definite way of raising of those provisions be ceremonial and antiquated viz. that they might closely and composedly attend the Service of God and his Church and studies relating thereunto without distracting cares and solicitude about the urgent concerns of back and belly and necessary supports of humane life and you may guess Sir what a miserable pinching thing that is res angusta domi and also that they might be capable of administring to the necessities of others in charitable offices as occasion should offer or require a great both encouragement and ornament of piety I add a third reason peculiarly suited to the Horizon of our Church namely that after domestick exigencies and charitable offices satisfied some little surplusage might accrue for a petite subsistence to a surviving Consort Sir my Muse flaggs my heart akes when I consider that in England England a Land of plenty a poor Ministers Widow is become a very Proverb bâ—â— what will no lesssuit Jeremiahs Lamentations then Solomons Parables now what a sad thing is it that he who devotes himself to spend and be spent in the service of God his Church and the Souls of others should be able to entitle the companion of his own life that ended to no more than an Ecclesiastick plea for an Alms a poor Ministers Widow and that the surviver of him who serves at the Altar should be enforced to beg at the Door a Lamentation and let it be for a lamentation Now for a remedy and redress of the whole the Poverty of the Clergy male and female and contempt of them hereby too truely though unjustly occasioned in the Laity whom can or ought we to make applications to but our State-Physicians namely his Majesty in conjunction with a wise prudent considerate Parliament all joyntly spirited hereunto from a generous zeal for the glory honour and renown here endangered of their Clergy and Religion that Church of whom they own themselves Sons and that Faith of which they profess themselves Defenders what the method of redress or expedient in the case should be must as reason good be left to their own prudential contrivance but I presume I may use the same liberty so I do the modesty that your self Well then The Lucrative Arts and Stratagems of the Church of Rome as the Ghostly authority and infallibility of the Pope their fundament al cheat their monopoly of merits and indulgences miracles auricular confession absolutions pardons penance purgatory canonization of Saints the Wafer-God for there they can make not only Saints but a God Let. 1. p. 98 99 100. c. at pleasure vowed Celibacy the denial of marriage to their Clergy and such like artifices some whereof are by you recounted all sacrificed to Mammon or the Money-God those and the like I say are and I hope will be by both Church and State of England eternally adjudged antichristian which if you or any advocate in your behalf will undertake to disprove me in so it be with more argument and less flashy Theatrical wit then you use in your Letters it is like I may procure some who pro tenui tate your Academick Youngster's conge will try it out with you at the two-edged Sword Again the method of reducing and levelling Episcopal and Cathedral or Collegiate Revenues and all other Ecclesiastical preferments and possessions to a commonmage were such a motion as nothing less then the Acts of the Apostles could render unpardonable besides the danger of an Ignis sacer in the case and I am terribly afraid of St Anthony Once more your Astraea's return or restitution of such Tithes and Church-Rents as former Kings and Parliaments especially the great Church-Publican King Henry the Eight thought good upon what prudential considerations it is not meet that you or I should dispute to impropriate to the Crown or State which might happily prove as