inform his indifferent Reader of the sence of those hard places do but make the understanding thereof the more intricate and that the Commentary is not less obscure than the Text and nothing is more wonderful than that the illustration he makes to facilitate the understanding of what is conceived obscure by the Prayer in our Churches Liturgy which he says was borrowed from the Roman and I say was translated out of our own Lord from whom all good things come grant us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding we may perform the same I say it is strange that he does not so far discern that this Prayer is so easie that no one pretends not to understand the perfect meaning and extent thereof whereas he cannot but know that some men of more than common understanding profess not to comprehend the other and therefore it is too magisterial a determination that whosoever hath not a capacity to understand Sancta Sophia is an enemy to mental Prayer which no body can be who understands it or in the least degree hath endeavoured to practise it Since it is the best if not the only way to keep the mind fixed upon the subject it is solicitous for and the object to whom the Prayers are directed which in the loud pronunciation of many words is it may be to many men the most difficult thing in the sacrifice of Prayer especially if there be any affectation of words which insensibly carries the mind away from what it should be intent upon and the least moment of diversion puts a period to mental prayer which without any sensible motion hath a vehemence that cannot bear interruption and as little any prescription of method from another man To the personal reflexions and invectives against the Doctor fuller of causeless passions and of bitterness and virulence than I have ever observed in so little room in any book I shall answer in a more proper place anon After Mr. Cressy hath spent many pages in commending to his friends the having a good opinion of Visions and Revelations and Miracles and very pathetically advises them to read the Histories of the lives of Saints which the more they have done they may probably be the less inclined to conform to his opinions he professes that the only ground of the Catholicks faith is divine Revelation made to the Church by Christ and his Apostles and conveyed to posterity in Scripture and Tradition and we say that the ground of the Faith of the Church of England is the same leaving out the two last words and tradition not that the Church of England is an enemy to or disclaims the use of tradition but is not guided and governed by it by reason of the incertainty of it Where the tradition is universal and uncontradicted we have as much resignation to it as they have and therefore we do acknowledge the reception of the Scripture to be by unquestionable and never doubted tradition and that having thereby received it it hath in it self enough to convince the Reader that it could not be formed and invented by the wit of man nor that it hath not been disguised or corrupted by the malice of man and so we are possessed of the Scriptures by the same tradition that they are and whatever they believe by as confessed a tradition we believe likewise as well as they But when they urge many things as necessary to be believed by the authority of tradition we do not reject the authority but deny the tradition and say there is no tradition that will warrant it and how fallible that pretence is needs no other manifestation than that controversie of the observation of Easter which continued half a hundred years only upon the point of tradition with so much bitterness and animosity the Greek Church alledging that tradition was for them and the Roman Church the contrary and if tradition was so doubtful a guide in those Primitive times when so few years had run out what must it be now when five times as many are since expired They therefore do not deal ingenously who amuse their auditors with telling them that we reject all tradition consider not antiquity submit to no authority but every man chuses a Religion according to his own spirit Whereas they well know that the Church of England doth as much respect tradition when it is agreed upon as all evidence must be that is submitted to and requires as much subjection to authority and leaves as little to the private fancy and imagination of men and pays as much reverence to the primitive Fathers where they concur together in opinion as the Church of Rome doth but denies any subjection to that Church and believes that her own children with others she meddles not should have the same reverence for her determinations as those others have for the Roman since her determinations are made with as much regularity as lawful authority and with the unanimous advice of as learned men as by the others of which we shall say more in the conclusion of this discourse If Mr. Cressy was not very confident that all for whom he writes will confidently believe all he says and had not a marvellous contempt of all other persons he would not so positively say That when examination is made of miracles in order to the Canonization of any Saint the testimony of women will not be received pag. 68. and gives the reason for it because naturally imagination is stronger in them than judgment and whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily concluded by them to be true which may likewise be the reason that his beloved Sancta Sophia is so much valued by women and his Miracles so much believed by them only and neither the one or the other in any degree regarded by any learned men of the Roman Church But his averment that the testimony of women is rejected in those cases is without any ground Was not the single testimony of the Nurse the only evidence of the first miracle that was wrought by his adored S. Benedict in the mending the Sieve or putting together the broken pieces of the Earthen pot If he were much conversant in the acts of Canonization as he ought to be before he publishes the Rules observed there he would have found that the seventh miracle wrought by Philip Nereus the Founder of the order of the Oratorians for which he was Canonized was that he cured diseases oftentimes by his word as particularly in the case of Maria Felici à Castro in Monasterio Turris speculorum Moniali quae continua febri correpta Philippo jubente statim convaluit And his eighth was that he cured many sick people meerly by his apparition Ac Drusilla Fantina quae praecipiti casuprostrata ac horribili capitis oculorum totius corporis collisione semiviva jacens tribus Philippi apparitionibus mirabiliter
the infancy of the Church and did no great harm No doubt S. Paul wished that all who were to preach Christ had had the same thoughts and had used the same words and had had the same affection towards each other which unity would much have advanced the propagation of Christianity but he knew that was impossible and that different apprehensions and different conceptions must be always attended with difference of expressions whilst the birth and life and death and resurrection of Christ was taught though they who preached him had their own passions and prejudices towards each other he was still glad that the number of the Christians were increased There may be much good done in the world without taking its rise purely from Conscience and only to please others or to imitate others and the like may be done to anger and to cross and contradict other men and though the Authors of that good have lost their reward yet there is matter of rejoycing still that good is done It is very well worth our reflexion how little pains our Saviour took who well foresaw what disputations would arise concerning Religion to the end of the world to explain any doctrinal points or indeed to institute any thing of speculative doctrine in his Sermon upon the Mount which comprehends all Christianity but to resolve all into practice and his Apostles though they met with a world of questions and disputes and in the highest points of the mystery of Religion were very short in their answers and determination and left no room for any contention in the understanding upon any matter of faith it depending purely upon believing what was past and done and of which they received unquestionable evidence but in the application of this faith to practice they were large in their discourses and clear to remove all doubts they had observed into how many Schisms and Sects the Church of the Iews had run by their several interpretations of the Law and the Prophets of both which they had all equal veneration and from both gathered arguments enough to found an animosity against each other that vented it self in all the acts of uncharitableness and denunciation of Hell-fire to their opponents and they did all they could that the Gospel and the professors thereof might not be exposed to the like mischiefs by the same disputations Men might set their wits on work to raise doubts and scruples and improve them to what degree they please by the subtilty of their own invention they were difficulties of their own making not finding Christ and his Apostles left their Declarations of what we are to believe and what we are to do so clearly stated that we cannot dangerously mistake and so much the more clearly by informing us what we are not to believe and what we are not to do by the obligations of Christianity and as they did no doubt foresee the weakness and the wilfulness of the succeeding times and that men would make use of the Scriptures themselves to the prejudice of Religion they took care that they might know that there is much in them above their understanding and that they should govern themselves by what is easie plain to be understood therein and above all that they should not presume to censure and judge those who differ from them in their opinions because Christ hath reserved all those differences to be determined by himself and except it were inflicting Ecclesiastical censures upon corruption of manners and transgressing against Christian duties It was some Ages before the Church expressed any great severity upon differences in opinions and used such circumspection in the expressions upon their determinations as rather pleased all persons concerned than strictly defined the matter in controversie The Primitive Church never prescribed any other rule to themselves to judge by than the sacred Scriptures by consent of which they made all their definitions and determinations and as no man yet at least with any countenance of authority hath pretended to understand the intire meaning of any one of the Prophets so it was some time a long time before the Revelation of S. Iohn was received into the Canon of the Church for the difficulty of it and whosoever hath since undertaken to understand it hath received more censure than approbation from pious and learned men nor have they attained to credit enough to be believed Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength is very good counsel and proportioned to mens different faculties and understandings he that is stronger than I may search for things that are too hard for me and there is no harm in that search but I who am weaker am in no degree obliged to make that search nor shall fare the worse because I am so weak The Dialogue between the Angel and the Prophet Esdras may be very good Divinity thoughs it be contained in the Apocrypha He that dwelleth above the Heavens may only understand the things that are above the heighth of the Heavens The more thou searchest the more thou shalt marvel for the world hasteth fast to pass away and it cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in time to come Let us endeavour to do the things which we are plainly enjoyned to do and which we can very well comprehend at least let us forbear doing any thing which we are as plainly forbidden to do and we shall in due time obtain those things which for the present we cannot comprehend It hath been an artifice introduced to perplex mankind and to work upon the conscience by amusing and puzling the understanding to perswade men to believe that there is but one Church and one Religion in which men may be saved that by their confident averring themselves to be that Church and of that Religion others may be prevailed with to be of their party and they who with most passion abhor their presumption and so withdraw from their Communion adhere to the same unreasonable conclusion and will not suffer them to be a Church at all or capable of salvation and form their own Church upon those principles only which most contradict the other whereas there is room enough in Heaven for them all and we may charitably and reasonably believe that many of all Christian Churches will come thither and that too many of every one of them will be excluded from thence There is indeed as was said before but one faith which no authority upon Earth can change or suspend or dispence with but Religion which is the uniting or the being united of pious men in the profession of that Faith may be exercised in several and different forms and ways and with several ceremonies according to the constitutions and rules of the several Countries and Kingdoms where it is practised and there are so many Churches united in one and the same faith and methinks the very stile
that he says is not to be imputed to want of authority in the Pope but to the unruliness of mens passions and pride and I say it serves the Doctor 's turn if his authority be not such as can curb and suppress the unruliness of the passions and pride of his own Subjects He will not understand how the Doctor can say that the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but such as have testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self and in other things she requires subscription to them not as Articles of Faith but as inferiour truths which she expects submission to in order to her peace and tranquillity Mr. Cressy is the only man alive that can find obscurity in this clause and I confess his exception to it is so obscure that I will rather rely upon the Readers understanding of the most exact plainness of it than inlarge my self in any explanation and I wish that he could say as much for the Church of Rome that it makes no Article of Faith but such as have the testimony and approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages our complaint is that he multiplies articles of faith to that degree that he will not suffer us to be saved for believing all that most Christians believed for a thousand years together without the least doubt of their Salvation nor will he yet let us know the full extent he would have our faith reach to for we are no less obliged to submit to what he or his Successors shall declare hereafter to be matter of faith than to what is at present contained in the whole Canons of the Council of Trent which makes it absolutely necessary for the peace of Conscience as well as the peace of Kingdoms to protest against and as far as in us lies to restrain that exorbitant authority but of all arguments it is a most pleasant one that if the Church of England believes nothing as of faith but what the Popes and Church of Rome do likewise believe Therefore it follows that the Church of Rome notwithstanding its Idolatry Fanaticisme c. failes in no necessary point of faith which would be true if it added nothing to that confessed faith that must destroy it He then involves himself in his old circle of the Churches authority and of that Churches being the Church of Rome and of the residence of that authority being in the Person of the Pope which whosoever refuses to submit to must be an Heretick to all which enough hath been said before nor can I enlarge upon it without saying somewhat that I have said before which I have no mind to do We come now to the Seventh and Eighth Chapters concerning Penance c. upon which I shall enlarge the less because the Church of England is so far from condemning Confession or Penance that it uses and commends both and upon Confession always satisfaction is enjoyned there as much as in the Church of Rome it is true that with us it is not so positively enjoyned that is men are not compelled to it nor are those forms used in ours or those interrogatories administred by which those secrets are extorted from Men and Women which they would willingly conceal and which may lawfully be concealed as in their Church but Penitents are lest to their own liberty and their own method of drawing such information and comfort from their Confessors as they believe most useful to them which was the original end of Confession and from which very many good Catholicks believe there is at present too great a deviation God forbid the integrity and piety of any Church should be suspected much less condemned for the evil livers who remain within the pale of it No Church hath ever yet nor any will ever be but the triumphant without abundance of them yet it being the principal end and the most manifest perfection of Religion to introduce an innocence of life and a sincerity of manners into all those who profess it all Churches cannot too severely affect that Discipline which hath the greatest operation upon the lives and actions of their Children whether there are not some corruptions creeped into the common practice of auricular Confession whether the ordinary customary Confessors are not too remiss or over curious in examining and consequently in informing their Penitents or too easie and perfunctory in their absolutions will not become me to determine but Mr. Cressy well knows that very many learned and pious Catholicks do publickly lament the scandalous corruptions which have been practised and countenanced in that vital part of their Religion Who those Apostates from the Catholick Church are who have left their Monasteries out of carnal liberty and carnal lusts I am not at all informed but if they are so carnally minded I doubt some of them may be instructed by him to ask him how he forgot what he had formerly believed and whether he was in a moment inspired to answer to a new Catechisme full of new Articles of Faith If conscience hath had no influence upon them they have been very weak and not Roman Catholicks enough to be tempted by the Woman since they might have had the full use of her with much more good husbandry and less guilt without leaving their Monasteries for it is a ruled and a vowed case by most if not all their Casuists that fornication is a less sin than marriage and the reason they give is that the last is living in perpetual adultery Whoever hath lived in those places which are most inhabited by Religious Men is very little conversant with the Catholick same if he doth believe the major part of Religious Men to be enough mortified against that liberty though no doubt very many of them have subdued the temptation and it will not only be charity but common justice to think that those Apostates over whom Mr. Cressy so much infults have been governed by their Conscience since it was hardly possible they could be invited by the Woman having enough of that Sex at their devotion without the obligation and impediment of marriage and till Mr. Cressy informs us why Monasteries are better Schools of Holiness and Devotion than our Colledges are whose Discipline is as severe admitting cleanliness be to be preferred before slovenlines and doctrine much stricter enough hath been already said for their vindication and need not be repeated I think I understand the excuse that Mr. Cressy makes for the notorious transgressions which have been in the matter of confession and absolution in reference to which he says the Doctor is not ignorant that not very long since among several dangerous positions collected out of some modern Casuists such scandalous relaxations in administring the Sacrament of Penance had a principal place all which were not only condemned by the Bishops of France almost in every Diocess but also a Book the Author of which
damnation and truly the manner of his excusing his so brief answering his Book that is his not answering it at all is very well worth the taking notice of It may be the Doctor was conscious to himself of having said many particulars throughout his Book which had not been urged above thirty years since and upon the petulancy of Mr. Cressy and some other of his friends were now become necessary to be pressed and therefore was so wary as to quote Catholick Authors to justifie all that he alledged the controversie being upon matter of fact which need no other proof on his side than the authority he cited and which in truth is not capable of any other answer but that he hath alledged somewhat that is not true But that he says plainly he will not examine for he observes in the Doctors Book a world of quotations out of Authors he never saw nor intends to see containing many dismal stories and many ridiculous passages of things done or said by several Catholicks in former and some in later times He says If he had a mind to examine and say something in answer to them an impossibility of finding out those Authors must have been his excuse but he hath a better excuse than that for if the Doctor would have lent him those Books out of his Library he should have thanked him for his civility but should have refused to make use of his offer for to what purpose would it have been to turn over a heap of Books to find out quotations in which neither the Church or himself is concerned Not concerned he says though they had been opinions or actions even of Popes themselves it is to him all one whether his allegations be true or false c. pag. 172. which is one of the most haughty resolutions and declarations for a man who doth in the next page call for an applause for having so clearly overthrown his adversary that hath been heard of all those quotations are the testimonies of Catholick writers which prove somewhat that Mr. Cressy denies or contradicts somewhat that he and his friends have confidently affirmed and by doing so have obliged him to produce that evidence the truth whereof he will not vouchsafe to examine because it is all one to him whether the allegations be true or false An admirable answer He thinks it very reasonable to magnifie his Religion upon visions and apparitions and miracles but cares not for quotations out of Catholick Authors of dismal stories and many ridiculous passages of things said and done by Catholicks which are therefore cited toprove the frequent and common delusions in those visions and apparitions and miracles it 's all one to him whether these allegations be true or false That is very strange if he should say that in all times the Popes have constantly been the protectors of all vertue and chastity can any answer be more pertinent than the testimony of all the Catholick writers of that time that after a world of other impieties committed by him a Gentleman of Rome found Pope Iohn the Twelfth in bed with his wife and killed him Can it be all one to him whether this allegation be true or false Is it possible that he is not concerned in the opinion and actions of Popes whose persons he declares as a point of Catholick Religion to be necessarily believed to be the conservators of the purity of Religion and the determiners of any Heresie that shall arise or start up and he hath still that comfort that he is assured That never Pope yet how wicked soever did bring any Heresie into the Church now is not he concerned though I cannot blame him for not daring to peruse or examine the Records of such deviations when he is put in mind of Pope Liberius who though he did not bring Arrianism into the Church did support and maintain it when he found it there and being Pope became Arrian which may periwade a man to believe that our Saviour did not depute him as his deputy to determine controversies in Faith These and much other vexations of this kind he preserves himself from by his firm resolution not to examine any of the Doctors quotations but whether he be so absolutely unconcerned in them whether they be true or false shall be left to his own party to judge Nothing will concern Mr. Cressy unless the Doctor will undertake to demonstrate that it is unlawful or but considerably dangerous to be a member of a Church where any persons do or have lived who have been obnoxious to errors or guilty of ill actions and in this he hath wisely provided for his own ease for he is sure the Doctor will not undertake to make any such demonstration and yet it may be it is one of the best arguments by which he hath gained most of the Proselytes he hath made There is great difference as hath been said before between remaining in a Church where many errors are received and practised and ill actions are committed and leaving and renouncing a Church upon pretence of some errors in it to run into another Church which hath the same or greater errors But the difference is yet greater between errors in a Church and errors of a Church errors and vices committed and practised in a Church and errors and vices committed and practised by a Church such as the Church it self knows to be errors and many men believe the Church of Rome guilty of many of those I will not mention the common objection of the worshipping of Images which the Church carefully difclaims and takes it very ill that any Catholick should be thought so brutish as to worship and Image in wood or stone and yet the sufficient evidence of that brutality prevailed with some Emperors and General Councils utterly to suppress them and take them out of all Churches and very pious and learned Catholicks have since and still do very heartily with that they were abolished for the scandal it brings upon the Church For let that declare what it will nothing is more notorious than that more than the common people do literally and really pay adoration to the very Image nor are they without reason to perswade them that there is a peculiar vertue in it for why should the Saint be more propitious in one place than another if the address were only to the Saint and not some advantage in the Image it self Why should so many more miracles be done by our Lady in one place than another insomuch as there is no Catholick Province but hath distinct Images of her which receives more remarkable visits than others and works more wonderful effects Who can read the life of S. Bernard and find him with that fervour and vehemence in his devotion before a Crucifix that the Image bowed it self and with both the arms imbraced him and then returned to the stiffness of its posture This is testified in the most authentick account the Church hath of his
lewd seditious Books are sold as that none such may be printed And if this kind advertisement of Mr. Cressy hath that operation upon the Magistrates of all sorts both the Printers and Sellers and it may be the Buyers of the multitude of Popish Books which are every day vented with as much freedom as the Book of Common-Prayer they of his own Religion will have new cause to celebrate his prudence and acknowledge the great advantage he hath brought to their cause by his pen as he hath to their persons by his modesty and his manners Mr. Cressy comes at last after very much passion and much more virulence against the poor Protestants than the Doctor hath expressed against the Roman Catholicks to a matter of importance indeed in which he believes which might have kept him from triumphing so soon he is absolute master of the field and that is to peace and unity which he says is more fit to be the subject and argument of writings composed by Ecclesiastical persons that is unity of faith and doctrine pag. 102. and in truth whoever is really an enemy even to that unity of faith and doctrine how hard soever to be attained must be an enemy to mankind but I must tell him too that the writings of Ecclesiastical persons have not hitherto in any age contributed to the production of that unity I mean such who have a pride petulancy of understanding obstinacy of will that will suffer nothing to be called peace and unity but a prostration of all other men to their dictates Mr. Cressy and his Ecclesiastical Friends affect and insolently prescribe a unity that is neither practicable nor desirable and there are other Ecclesiastical persons as humorous who are such enemies to unity that they think it not necessary to peace especially in Ecclesiastical matters that is in matters of Religion all men may think and speak and do what they please and upon the irrationality of these last the former impute all the folly and all the madness that would introduce the most uncontroulable confusion to those who observe order and discipline with more regularity and obedience than any of the pretenders will do It must not therefore be the Ecclesiastical persons who have given each other too ill words to be of one mind who can procure this unity of faith and doctrine that must constitute this peace but it must be the writings and actions of Magistrates who by the execution of those Laws and rules which the wisdom of the State for which they are made have provided for that purpose can infallibly establish that unity and peace that is necessary for it Magistrates who do not pretend any jurisdiction out of their own limits nor will suffer those who live within it to be disobedient much less to revile the Laws which are provided for the publick peace Where there are no Laws confusion is necessary and natural and where the Laws are not executed it is as unavoidable and in some degree necessary So that where unity is not as much provided for as is necessary for peace it is the Magistrates fault and not the fault of Ecclesiasticks who can only prosecute it by the ways prescribed by the Laws I say where unity is necessary for nothing is more mistaken or more misapplied than this precious word Unity Who doth not know or hath not had it frequently in his observation that men who have the same end affect several ways which lead to that end and he who goes the farthest way about may possibly come sooner to the end than he that believes he goes more directly to it However if he comes thither later he is liable to no other reproach than being laughed at for being longer upon the way than he needed to have been I knew two Gentlemen of good quality and fortunes one of which I think is still living who were very near neighbours in Berkshire and lived in that good correspondence and conversation as persons of quality and authority in their Country use to do they had both very frequent occasions to ride to London and the house of one of them was the confessed way of the other thither but the difference was whether from thence the nearest way was by Windsor or by Maidenhead and in that they were so great Opiniators that they still parted at the door and one took the one way and the other that which he conceived to be nearest and in twenty years they never made the journey together How light soever the instance seems to be it will be found fit enough to be applied to very many differences of opinion which by the excess of fancy on the one side and the defect of judgment of the other are blown up into a magnitude that dazles the eyes of too many spectators and for the determination of the rest there wants not a submission and obedience to authority the difference only is where that authority is placed to which obedience ought to be paid We of the Church of England hold ours to be due to the King the Church and the Law Mr. Cressy would have us pay it to the Pope which we cannot submit to not because he is fallible but because he is not a Magistrate who hath any jurisdiction over us In matters that concern Religion we resort to the Articles of the Church which we are obliged to conform to He would have us observe the Canons of the Council of Trent which we are forbidden to do and he as an English Catholick is not bound to upon which we shall enlarge hereafter and this election to believe that the Church of England which flourishes at least as much in learned and pious men as any Church of the world can better direct English-men in the way to Heaven than the Church of Rome is the greatest use we make of our reason which is not like to deceive What that union is that was intended certainly by our Saviour when he left his Church established under spiritual Governours will best appear by the rules he prescribed and the directions he gave in order thereunto which we may lawfully believe he never intended for such a unity as Mr. Cressy and his friends dream of and that he foresaw the same could never be and depended more upon what was necessary towards it upon the civil Magistrates than upon the Ecclesiastical power He prescribed the essential principles himself of that Religion which he intended should be established and left persons trusted by him who not only knew his mind but knew all things which are necessary to be known for the accomplishment of it And no temporal or spiritual authority under Heaven hath power to alter any thing that was setled by him or his Apostles who were the only Commentators intrusted by him to explain whatsoever might seem doubtful in what himself had said and they performed their parts with that plainness in what is necessary that there remains no difficulty to men
of very competent ununderstandings and it is as plain that they did not affect such a unity in opinions as these men would perswade us If we will believe our Saviour himself even after his Resurrection He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved What is this precious belief that is required with such an inestimable benefit and reward Nothing but the Resurrection he that believeth the Resurrection and is baptized into that faith shall be saved The only cause of our Saviours appearing at that time was only to upbraid his Disciples with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen he was not offended with them for not believing it upon the word of several of the Prophets nor upon his own having so often and so clearly declared to them that he should rise and even the time when how essential a point soever it was in the Religion he had planted it had such a repugnancy to humane reason and understanding which he never intended they should devest themselves of that he was not angry that they did not suddenly believe it He well remembred that Iohn the Baptist who could not but know much of Christ when he first saw him and said I have need to be baptized of thee and comest thou to me and when at his Baptism which out of obedience he administred to him the Heavens were opened and the spirit of God descended like a Dove and lighted upon him and a voice from Heaven said This is my beloved Son c. Yet after all this S. Iohn was so far from being clearly confident that he whom he had baptized was really our Saviour that being in prison and hearing of the works done by him he sent two of his Disciples asking him Art thou he that should come or do we look for another And after S. Peter had confessed that he was Christ the Son of the everliving God and had seen him together with Iames and Iohn transfigured upon the Mountain and had heard the voice from the cloud This is my beloved Son yet neither of them could understand what the rising from the dead should mean And S. Luke tells us that when our Saviour informed the whole twelve at his going up to Ierusalem of all things that were written by the Prophets concerning him and which were then to be accomplished That he should be delivered to the Gentiles and should be mocked and spightfully intreated and spitted on and that they should scourge him and put him to death and the third day he should rise again They the whole twelve understood none of these things and this saying was hid from them neither knew they the things which were spoken Christ himself thought it not fit to explain that most important point to them well knowing that in that point of his Resurrection they must have another assistance to their faith than his own words could give them and therefore we see how long it was before that Article could gain belief even after his actual Resurrection and how there he condescended to convince their senses in all circumstances before he could obtain their belief in that point which concerned them more than all the rest nor could less than the descent of the Holy Ghost finish that part of the Creed and propagate that doctrine But when he had vouchsafed after his Resurrection to be seen and to be conferred with taken the way to satisfie their senses which could not be deceived and which could not but challenge and compel their belief that they should not yet believe seemed obstinacy and perverseness it was not only infidelity but ill nature incivility and hardness of heart want of that charity which he had so often and so solemnly enjoyned them to practise not to believe those who had seen him and whom he had sent to inform them This was a countermine to blow up the doctrine of his Resurrection if men contemned the only evidence that could be given of it if they resolved they would not believe them who had seen him dead and buried and seen him after he was risen they might as well not believe their own eyes when themselves should see him that he added a terrible commination to his short Creed He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Now they knew the reward and the penalty they might chuse for themselves S. Paul did inlarge this Creed very little in his gloss upon it If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Iesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved We must publickly own and avow our faith not dissemble our Christianity out of any worldly consideration out of hope to gain or out of fear of danger S. Peter never denied his faith in Christ lost nothing of his reverence for him he did only not confess with his mouth his relation to him denied he had been in his company without the least disaffection in his heart and it cost him so many tears and remains as a brand upon him to the end of the world of his unkindness to his master his following him that he might see what they would do to him and be at hand to assist him if he stood in any need of his service when all the rest left him to provide for their own security could not expiate for not confessing his relation to him though impertinently urged by those who had no authority to make the enquiry we must always confess with our mouth acknowledge that he is the Son of God we must believe the History of his Nativity of his Passion and of his Resurrection all which he hath manifested unto us himself we have it from his own mouth and we have done our part If an exact knowledge in all particulars contained in Scripture were required from us or if it had been in any great degree necessary there would have been more pains and care taken by the Apostles who were enlightened to make a short Commentary upon the whole Christian faith by Gods own spirit and were endued with the spirit of Prophecy and so could foresee what doubts were most like to arise by the excess of wit as well as the weakness of our understanding to have determined defined those things in defining and determining whereof so much time hath been since spent and so much uncharitableness infused into the hearts of men so that instead of learning more of what Christ would have us know we have almost unlearned all that he would have us do yet S. Paul as if he foresaw that that Original corruption and itch of knowledge would be propagated by the curiosity of mankind begun his preaching in his masters method that they might not be terrified with any imagination of the difficulty of his doctrine he declared that that which may be known of God
was manifest to them for God had shewed it to them There are no doubt many things fit to be known and which we should be the better for knowing which are not so manifest but it is not so necessary if it be not manifest and it is very observable that when he tells them what became of those under the Law and the sins of the Gentiles who did not like to retain God in their knowledge he mentions not what false opinions grew up amongst them by reason of their not retention of him in their knowledge but that God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which were not convenient Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to Parents He doth not so much as mention their Idolatry in that place because it was matter of opinion which was the greatest contradiction of the Majesty of God but those vices which had proved destructive to all humane relation and society and the same Apostle finding still that the infant Christians perplexed themselves with many difficulties between the Law and the Gospel took the pains as Moses had done to abridge the obligations of the Law as was mentioned before to abridge the Religion of the Gospel If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Iesus aud shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved He that cordially believes the History of our Saviour That he was the only begotten Son of God that he suffered death for the sins of mankind and that after he was put to death and buried he rose the third day the birth and death and resurrection of Christ hath faith sufficient to salvation and all that is absolutely necessary to be believed lies within that narrow compass Notwithstang the clearness of which definition and authority of the Apostle the wit of men and even the zeal of Religion produced many differences of opinion and much faction amongst the believers many men thinking that this excellent foundation would very well support this manner of building and others that it would as well or better bear another sort of building rather this deduction than that would result from the same proposition S. Paul still adhering fast to the foundation without much examining the superstructures tells them Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Iesus Christ If they would keep themselves steddy to that foundation let their superstructures be of gold or silver precious stones wood hay or stubble let their conceptions or deductions be of the finest allay the more probable and rational or more gross and irrational there will at last be such an examination of every one of them that the truth shall appear and be made manifest but for their comfort to abate the superciliousness of him who hath more reason to think himself in the right and to raise the spirits of them who may be terrified with the consequence of being in the wrong he tells them that they who have done their work best raised such doctrine upon and from the foundation as will endure the trial that doctrine shall stand and they shall receive a reward and that they who have built less skilfully raised imaginations too large or contracted opinions too narrow to be supported upon that foundation their doctrine shall not subsist their opinions shall be disavowed and condemned yet because they departed not from the foundation let their mistakes and errors in judgment be what they will they themselves shall be saved nor did he think the determination of those buildings how different soever and vile the materials might seem to be were proper for the judgment of any but the Master-builder the Architect who had directed the foundation who could only judge whether there were malice or hypocrisie in preparing such superstructures to rest upon that foundation Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come Whosoever takes upon him to judge before presumes to judge before the cause is ripe for judgment which is not only beside the office of an upright Judge but against the rules of Justice and it was very good husbandry as well as wisdom in the Master in the parable who though he saw the Tares Tares not grown up by chance out of the rankness of the soil but Tares maliciously and industriously sown by the labour and craft of an Enemy would not suffer his active servants to pull them up he rejected the providence Nay lest whilst you gather up the Tares ye root up also the Wheat with them let them both grow until the Harvest And lest men should think by the ripeness of the Tares that the harvest was come our Saviour himself interprets his own parable The Harvest is the end of the world and the Reapers are the Angels an unskilful hand will mistake the Wheat for Tares and a rude passionate hand will for expedition pull up both that he may be sure he hath destroyed one unskilful and unlearned men may believe that to be an error which in truth is none but enough consistent with the truth and angry men will not enough consider if it be in truth an error what root it may have taken from some unquestionable truth and how far it may have insinuated it self into the minds of good and pious men which ought to be undeceived by application and gentle remedies and by time but will violently tear it from the hold it had and make a greater wound than they found disturb the peace of a Kingdom rather than connive at an error till it be ripe and the mischief thereof fully discovered and when the malice of the disease is evident proportionable remedies may more easily be found Our Saviour was not more careful of the season than of the Reapers the season is the end of the world the Reapers are the Angels dispassionate and unpartial Reapers who understand the nature of the Tares and the hurt they have done to the Corn. It is a complaint and observation as ancient as S. Gregory Quam multi sunt fidelium qui imperito zelo succenduntur saepe dum quosdam quasi Haereticos insequuntur haereses faciunt Charity and discretion can only preserve men from splitting upon those rocks and the time prescribed in the parable can only determine all disputations It seems an expression of a wonderful latitude which S. Paul uses to the Philippians Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will what then Notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce S. Paul found opposition and contradiction as all other Preachers have done since even from some other Apostles and Disciples emulation was a strong passion and well grown in
Church from the corruption of Doctrine and contentions and contradictions in the practice of Religion as any exorbitancies in state is so far from being soveraign that he holds upon the matter the little authority he hath in other things but precariò of him who hath the exercise of the other jurisdiction And as this mischief and confusion is very demonstrable to all men who understand the foundation and rules of Policy and Government so the benefits which accrew from this distinction are not discernable by the eyes of reason or of faith Temporal Princes and Kings cannot have authority to change Religion nor are qualified to perform the Offices and functions of Religion that 's true Nor hath any Ecclesiastical and Spiritual power authority to change Religion The Pope whom some Men call the Church nor a General Council which no doubt is the most natural representative of the Universal Church doth not pretend that they can change Religion Our Saviour left our Religion intire and the Apostles left all things so plain which he directed that no power under Heaven can add to or take from that body of Religion which they commended to all Christians nor can it be more reasonably imagined that God will suffer any Christian state to make such an alteration than that the Universal Church shall fall away from being Christian but if Christianity were deposited with one Church-man or any body of Church-men we have too much reason to apprehend what would become of it by the progress Arianisme once and other Heresies too made in the World by possessing many great and learned Men even of the Fathers themselves So that we may say that the purity of Christian Religion hath been in truth preserved by the piety of Princes with the advice and assistance of their National and Ecclesiastical Councils more than by any spiritual authority Religion it self then must not cannot be changed but the advancement of it the information in it the exercise and practice by which it is best to be made manifest cannot be so well provided for as by that supreme soveraign authority to which God hath intrusted the peace and prosperity of a Nation which best knows how to establish such formes and ceremonies and circumstances in what pertains to Religion as are most agreeable to the nature and inclination and disposition of a people A conformity in humours and in manners is a great introduction to conformity in Religion and will not suffer the pride and affectation and singularity of any man to contradict the order established This Soveraign Authority knows best how to preserve Peace in which the being of a Nation consists and how to reform errors which are grown and prevent those which are growing by such ways as may not disturb that peace and such errours as are grown too obstinate are too deep rooted to be pulled up without shaking the whole peace of the Kingdom he will let alone drawing by degrees such nourishment from it as most cherishes it until a fitter season for the intire cure of it No Reformation is worth the charge of a Civil War Nor was it a light reproach which Seneca charged upon Sylla Qui patriam durioribus remediis quam pericula erant sanavit The Remedy was worse than the Disease and God knows Christianity hath paid very dear for the too hasty and passionate application of remedies to very confessed diseases when the disease was not ripe for the remedy nor the remedy proportioned to the disease State surgery cannot be used with too much caution nor are the wounds and sores of it cured at once or with one kind of medicine but the lenitives and corrosives must be applied successively and if the first will do it there cannot be too little used of the latter No sore is so ill cured as that which is hastily cured There is no necessity nor convenience that the outward exercise and forms of Religion be the same in all climates and in all Countries Nay it is very necessary that it be different according to the natures and customes of the people It would be very incongruous where genuflexion is neither the posture of reverence or devotion to introduce a command for kneeling and there are many particulars worthy of the same consideration They do equally mistake who believe that the out-works of Religion must be equally with the same passion guarded and preserved as the walks themselves that no form or ceremony or circumstance in Religion may not be altered or parted with more than the faith it self and they who would be always mending and altering and reforming according to every model description they meet with as a thing indifferent and only to please the fancies of men where there is no indifference there may be alterations made by and according to the wisdom of the Government and as the good Order and peace of the Nation requires and with the same gravity and deliberation as all other mutations and provisions are made but there must be out-works still and such as may secure the walls from rude approaches every fanciful Engineer must not demolish the out-works upon pretence they are too high or too irregular nor must the decency of the prospect so much transport others as not to suffer the least alteration in them though thereby the walls would be the better garded No one Classis of men will dispassionately weigh all necessary consideration in this matter but that authority which must provide for the publick peace is the most competent provider for this branch of it It is no irreverence to the purest times to believe that in the first plantation of Christian Religion I speak not of infusion of Christian Religion into the Apostles and the inspiration by the Holy Ghost but of the plantation of it by the Apostles and those who succeeded them by the strength of their reason and the powerful effects of their lives and actions the same method and order and application was used and observed as is in other Plantations The Sun and the Soil are first consulted and husbandry practised accordingly in the sowing of Seeds or setting of Plants and that husbandry altered and improved according to seasons and upon observation and experience what is most like to advance the Plantation If ever the Spaniard loses the West Indies which it is probable enough he will do it will be by his positive and rigorous adhering to the same rules which were most prudently established by Philip the Second upon the first conquest of that Empire and under which the Infant Plantation prospered exceedingly and not admitting any such material alterations since as would produce more benefit and advantage now than the other did then and which time and the people will make if the policy of the Government do not first introduce it and then it is very hazardous that the presumption of doing it will shake off that authority that should have done it It may be observed in the
Indulgence to obtain which they visit such and such places and Churches so many times and in this expedition people of both sexes the lame and the blind tire themselves when whoever can read Latin finds that if he complies with the Precepts and Injunctions which are the conditions of every Indulgence of hearty repentance of all their sins and a sincere amendment of life and the like he shall be sure to enjoy all the benefits and more than are promised by that Indulgence though he should lie in his bed whilst others make those perambulations and yet this kind of fatuity is the ground of all those Indulgences and of the Pilgrimages which are undertaken except for Penance whereas if the conditions be performed they have no need of the Indulgence and if they be not they have no benefit by it though it costs even the poorest people some money which they cannot well spare in most places Mr. Cressy is not so sturdy a maintainer of all the points in difference with the Roman Church but he would willingly part with the Prayers in an unknown tongue though he says there is scarce a rustick so ignorant but well understands what the Priest does through the whole course of the Mass but I must confess my self so much more ignorant than his Rustick that though I have seen many Masses I never heard any nor saw any Congregation so intent as if they did desire to hear any thing that is said but whisper and talk and laugh except only at the Elevation and if the Congregation be great especially at a high Mass it is hardly possible that any considerable number of them can understand one word that is spoken nor is it held necessary for as the Priest takes more than ordinary care by an affected and industrious pronunciation not to have what he says understood so the people generally think themselves only concerned in being present and that it is not necessary for them to hear or understand what is spoken because all that relates to them is done and completely performed by the Priest He confesses that it was far from being the Churches primary intention that the publick office should be in a tongue not understood by the people for it was at first composed he says in the language generally spoken and understood through Europe by which I suppose he means the Latin tongue in which he is much mistaken both that Latin was generally spoken and understood through Europe I am not sure that it was the language of all Italy it self or that in the first composing of Liturgies they were all one and the same or in one Language In the East and throughout the Greek Church we are sure they had and still have different Liturgies and we have no reason to believe that in the Latin Church the Liturgies were the same throughout the West but were such as the Bishops allowed or made for their own Dioceses We know that the British Church retained its Liturgie for many years and that it was near if not above one thousand years for it was not till the time of Gregory the Seventh before Spain parted with the Gothish Liturgie and accepted that from Rome and how many alterations have been since made in it is known to all who will inform themselves and after all I think S. Ambrose's Missal is still retained in Milan notwithstanding the Bull of Clement the Eighth and of the succeeding Popes and therefore I cannot doubt but that and very many particulars in common practioe are parts of that Religion of State which may without breach of charity or unity be altered and reformed by the Soveraign in such order as such mutations are made for the advancement of Gods service in such a Kingdom or Province for which it is made But Mr. Cressy would find himself as much deceived even in the making up that breach if the Popes consent be necessary to it as he was formerly in his draught of a protestation or subscription for the fidelity of the English Catholicks yet we know that Pope Pius in the beginning of Elizabeth's Reign was very willing to have dispensed with the usage of the English Liturgie the Communion in both kinds and whatever else was practised in that Church upon condition that the Popes authority and supremacy might have been resetled in that Kingdom which he knew would be a good bargain and enable him to undo all the rest when he should think it necessary but Mr. Cressy would have proceeded more warily if he had before he left the Church in which he was first ordained a Priest procured a Reformation in those two particulars for which he is now so willing to compound Indulgences and the praying in an unknown tongue which are greater blemishes in the Church he hath betaken himself into than all he hath left in that which he is departed from We are come at last to the Doctors exception against the Church of Romes denying the reading of the Bible indifferently and with this exception Mr. Cressy makes himself very merry as if the principles of the Religion of the Church of England must fall to the ground or as he says utterly go to wrack if that liberty were denied for how then should every sober enquirer into Scripture frame a Religion to himself And so pleases himself with endeavouring to perswade others contrary to his own conscience that every one of the Church of England hath liberty to frame a Religion to himself whereas he well knows that every member of the Church of Rome hath as much liberty to frame a Religion to himself as any one of the Church of England hath who is as much obliged to conform himself to the doctrine of that Church as the other is to that of Rome And for the opinion it hath of the Scripture it answers for it self in these words Article Sixth Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary for salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation How will this serve his turn to frame a Religion to himself But then he recreates himself with a Dialogue which he makes between the Doctor and one of his Parishioners which if he pleases is his own case whilst he triumphs in his conquests of those poor people which he perverts what do those simple creatures know of the authority of the whole Church when he amuzes them with points of Controversie of good works and of Christs very flesh and blood in the Sacrament contrary to the very evidence of all his senses to which all miracles have been subjected have those people any other knowledge or information of the sense of the Catholick Church than from him and would it not better become them to answer him that in those points they would chuse rather to believe their own Minister to whom
life but there are too many particulars in the lives of the Saints to charge the Church with believing and therefore it may be wondered at that they are so much countenanced But the instance I would insist upon is our Ladies House at Lauretta which is alledged to have remained still at Nazareth till after the year twelve hundred time enough to have reduced the greatest Palaces into dust but that after that time some Catholick writers name the year when it begun its journey it was taken by Angels the very house in which the lived and had received the salutation from the Angel and carried to a mountain in Dalmatia and at three stages more whereof one was a wood belonging to a widow named Lauretta many years rest intervening it was brought to and left in the place where it now stands and where it is covered with the most rich and very beautiful Church which for the good widows sake in whose wood it rested some years is called Lauretta and where her Image and her House receives visits and very rich presents from all parts where the Catholick Religion is professed for the reception and entertainment whereof a good Town is built several Religious houses Pilgrimages made thither from far and near and hereby that people may without going so far as Nazareth see the house of our Ladies abode the Church in Plate and Jewels is richer than any other in the world not to speak of the incredible number of miracles which have been wrought there since the miraculous coming of that Cottage thither I dare not ask Mr. Cressy whether he doth believe this wonderful voyage or progress because I dare not say he doth not since he hath brought his reason and his judgment into such a marvellous captivity but I would presume to ask whether the Church as it can be contracted into that denomination for if the Pope be enough the Church to declare Heresies and determine controversies which are yet undetermined methinks he should be Church enough to answer questions and in this particular he is more concerned for being a Soveraign temporal Prince in his own Dominions as well as the Supreme Prelate he is in some degree answerable for the discretion and the good manners as well as the Religion and the Faith of his subjects May we ask whether it may be presumed that he and his Consistory with which he consults in matters of importance that he doth believe this miracle or may it be presumed he doth not To say he doth believe it is to accuse him of such an impotency of understanding as the most illiterate Frier is hardly guilty of as to imagine that a thing so monstrous in nature and so impertinent as to any pious or prudent effect can be true To say that God can do as much is an answer that may as well support the most notorious fiction that is in Ovid's Metamorphosis and it may be as well replied that God if he had done it would have provided some such witnesses in the way as should have made it manifest that he had done it whereas they who have been at so prodigious a charge in beautifying and enriching that little mansion have not yet been able to purchase one Record of so long a voyage but satisfie themselves that they who take the pains to come thither do easily believe it whereas more go thither to see those who do pretend to believe it than to see the Relique that draws men thither I never spoke with any Roman Catholick who knew so much of the story as I have here mentioned for most that have been there or have heard of the stories of it have heard no more than that our Ladies own House is there and for ought they know Nazareth may be within three miles of it who hath pretended to believe it he was not bound to it it was not of Divine faith it might be of humane and Historical faith I ask him whether he believes it as much as he doth that Iulius Caesar was Emperor of Rome That he cannot say neither In a word most Catholicks laugh at it as much as I do and many of them are as angry at it so that I suppose it may become us to conclude that the Pope doth not believe it to be true or rather that he knows it to be a fiction and if that be so with what conscience and sincerity can he suffer or indeed permit such a Pageantry to be acted in his Territories to the delusion of so many millions of Christians and to the scandal and opprobrium of Religion in exposing the dignity of the Mother of our Lord to so much derision only for his own benefit and advantage for it 's no small revenue that accrews to the Pope's Exechequer by the visitation and adoration of that Mansion of our Lady Many come to Rome in a year for no other reason than that they may worship our Lady at Lauretta and many go thither immediately without going to Rome as lately a great Ecclesiastical Prince did and returned without so much as seeing the Pope after he had for the cure of his Hypochondriack indisposition liberally presented our Lady with as many Jewels as are worth above five thousand pounds Sterling which she could not but receive very graciously yet his infirmity hath encreased ever since though it may be his Present hath much added to the devotion of the place for the fight of the richness of the Copes and Plate and other Utensils is a great part of the business of the Visitants Though it was a very pertinent scoffe upon the occasion that was used by a Legate in France who was afterwards Pope himself when he passed in state through that Kingdom and found all passages thronged with people who upon their knees implored and expected his benediction he repeated it often with the usual ceremony of making the sign of the Cross with these reiterated words Sivulgus vult decipi decipiatur however I say it might be a proper benediction for such occasion in the high-way yet to induce men to so solemn Pilgrimages and to the performance of so solemn acts of devotion there ought to be some such solid and substantial foundation of it as may be a support to real piety which can hardly be imagined in this case and I cannot tell whether it were not rather to be wished that the Pope and Cardinals and Prelates of the Roman Court did at the expence of their reputation really believe all that Machine than suffer it to be shewed without their own believing it at the expence of their sanctity at least of their ingenuity Nor could it seem strange to any man if an honest man of a good understanding who hath not been moped in his education with such discourses and hath in the pursuit of his own satisfaction fallen into some doubts of things practised in his own shall if he had no other exception to it refuse to cast himself into