Disputation upon those terms which you propose That is â—…o accept of the Arch-Bishop of Paris and his Coadjutor two persons interessed for competent Judges I am as confident of the contrary that they would rather chuse to suffer than wrong their Cause so much Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora It were a readier way for them and but the same in effect to subscribe to a blank paper and to submit without Disputation Fifthly suppose all this notwithstanding such a Conference should hold what reason have you to promise to your self such success as to obtain so easy a Victory You have had Conferences and Conferences again at Poisye and other places and gained by them just as much as you might put in your eye and see never the worse When Conferences are onely made use of as Pageants to grace the Introduction of some new Proselite and to preserve his Reputation from the aspersion of Desultorious Levity they seem much more efficatious than they are As they know well enough who are privie to what is acted in the withdrawing Room The time was when you have been as confident in a contrary Opinion that such a Free Conference would have sealed the Walls of Rome and levelled the Popes Triple Crown Sixthly whether the Ministers â—…hould accept of such a partial unequall Conference or not or whatsoever should be the succes thereof you trespas too boldly upon his Majesties patience to dictate to him so pragmatically so Magisterially what he should do or would do in such a case which is never like to be Doth his Fathers constancy en ourage you to believe that he is a Reed shaken with the Wind Qui pauca considerat sacile pronunciat He that weighs no more Circumstances or Occurrances than serve for the advancement of his Design pronounceth sentence easily but temerariously and sor the most part unsoundly When such a thing as you dream of should happen it were good manners in you to leave his Majesty to his Christian Liberty But to trouble your self and others about the Moons shining in the water so unseasâ—…nably so impertinently or with what will come to pâ—…ss when the sky falls is unbeseeming the Counseller of a King Lastly consider how your Pen doth over-run your Reason and over-reach all grounds of probability to ascribe unto his Majesties chang such an infallible Iâ—…fluence upon all Protestants as to reduce them to the Roman Communion not onely his own subjects but Foreiners His blessed Fathers example had not so much influence upon the Scots his Native Subjects He was no Changling indeed neither to the right hand nor to the left Henry the Fourth his Grandfather did turn indeed to the Roman Church Had his change any such influence upon the Protestant party in France I know no followers such a change would gain him but I foresee cleerly how many Hearts it would lose him Certainly Sir if you would do a meritorious piece of service to his greatest Adversaries you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly than to see you successfull in this undertaking I have done with your Proposiâ—…ion He that compares it and your Demonstration together will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight As a Motive to his Majtsties Conversion you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation and desire that it may appeare un to the World under his Royal name I meddle not with your Treatise some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough But how can h s Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his judgement against his Conscience so contrary to the doctrin of the Church of England not onely â—…nce the Reformation but before About the year seven hundred The Body of Christ wherein he suffered and his Body Conseorated in the Host differ much The Body wherein he suffered was born of the Virgin consisting of flesh and bones and humane members his Spiritual body which we call the Host â—…onsists of many Grains without blood bones or human Members wherefore nothing is to be under stood there Corporally but all Spiritually Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Falth nor a point of Faith in those daies You charge the Protestants in divers places That they have neither Church nor Faith but have lost both And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it But your Demonstration is a meer Parologism You multiply your Terms you confound your terms you chang and alter your Terms contrary to the rules of right arguing and vainly beat the air concluding nothing which you ought to prove nothing which your Adversary will deny You would prove that Protestants have no Church That you never attempt Bâ—…t you do attempt to prove how pittifull God knowes that they are not the onely Church that is the one Holy Catholique Church This they did never affirm they did never think It susficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church more pure more Orthodox more Catholique than the Roman alwaies professing Christ visibly never lurking invisibly in another Communion which is another of your mistakes I should advise you to promise us no more evident Demonstrations either your skill or your luck is so extremly bad In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority and Revelation and deposited with the Church All that is true But that which you add that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church By this Church understanding the Church of this Age and which is yet worse the Church of one place and which is worst of all the Bishop of that one Church is most false And so is that which you add that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings which makes so many differences among them Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith It cannot be the foundation of Faith Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith both with you and us but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason We have this Advantage of you that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular error that full and free and universal assent which we give to holy Scripture and to all things therein conteined is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error which we hold unwittingly and unwillingly against Scripture But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties whether this man be Pope or not whether this Pope be Judge or not whether this Judge be infallible or not and if infallible wherein and how far the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain The stricter the adherence is to a false
uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeth away our error in superstruction And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths and doubles the guilt of your errors I will by your leave requite your demonstration and turn the mouths of your own Canoâ—…s against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolical Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolical Succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars and Substitutes as to their Jurisdiction The Apostolical Regiment by erecting a visible and Universal Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolical Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholick Apostolick Church Again That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into Humane infallibility or the Infallibilitie of the present Church without knowing or according what that present Church is whether the Virtual or the representative or the essential Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into the Infallibility of the present Church not knowing or not according what that present Church is whether the Virtual Church that is the Pope or the Representative Church that is a general Council or the Essential Church that is the Church of Bâ—…lievers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a General or Provincial Council Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope that this infallibility is fixed to his Chair But of all other Judgements that is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papal Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chà ir hath not been filled by a right Pope these last hundred years These are no other but your own Mediums Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholick you promise him restitution to his Kingdoms Great undertakers are seldom good performers when you are making your Proselytes you promise them golden Mountains but when the work is done you deal with them as he did with his Saint who promised a Candle as big as his Mast and offered one no bigger than his finger Do you however think it reason that any man should change his Religion for temporal respects though it were for a Kingdom Jeroboam did so you may remember what was the success of it You propose this as the readiest means to restore him Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs look upon it as the readiest way to ruin his hopes by the alienation of his friends by the confirmation of his foes and in some sort the justification of their former feigned fears Do you think all Roman Catholick Princes desire this change as earnestly as your self Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith The Sword distinguâ—…sheth not between Protestants and Papists But what is the ground of this your great Confidence no less than Scripture Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of it and all other things shall be added unto you You say the word of God deceives no man True but you may deteive your self out of the word of God The Conclusion alwaies follows the weaker part such as this are commonly your mistaken grounds when they come to be examined The text saith Seek the kingdom of God You would have his Majesty deseâ—…t the kingdom of God The promise is of all things necessary or convenient you will be your own Carver and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions The promise is made as all tempral promises are with an implicite exception of the Cross unâ—…ess God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us He that denies us gold and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold that denies a temporal Kingdom to give an eternal doth not wrong us Tâ—…s was out of your head That the Scots had an antienter Obligation to fidelity towards his Majesty and that Royal Family than the English is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of I think I may safely adde than any Nation in Europe or in tâ—…e known world to their Prince his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line that hath swayed the Scepter of that Kingdom successively The more the pitty that a few treacherous Shebas and a pack of bawling seditious Orators under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion to the extreme scandal of all honest professors should be able to overturn such an antient fabrick and radicated succession of Kingly Government But take heed Sir how you beleeve that any ingagement of the Presbyterian faction in Scotland proceeded either from conscience or gratitude or fidelity or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne No no their hearts were double their treaties on their parts were meer treacheries from the beginning I mean not any of those many loyal patriots that never bowed their knees to Baal-berith the God of the Covenant in that Nation Nor yet any of those serious converts that no sooner discoveâ—…ed the leger de main of a company of canting impostors but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition with the hazard of their own lives and estates Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber by some stronger spels of disciplinarian charmers but did yet later open their eyes and come in to do their duties at the sixth or ninth hour All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties And let their memories be daily more and more blessed But I mean the obstinate Ring-leaders and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes and the setters up of that mishapen Idol It is from these I say that no help or hope could in reason be expected They who sold the Father and such a Father were not likely to proove loyal to the Son They who hanged up one of the most antient Gentlemen in Europe the gallant Marquâ—…ss of Montrose being then their lawful Vice-roy like a dog in such base and barbarous manner together with his Maâ—…esties Commission to the publike dishonour of
THE VICTORY OF TRUTH FOR The Peace of the CHURCH To the King of GREAT BRITAIN To invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick Faith By Monsieur De la Militiere Counsellour in Ordinary to the King of France With an Answer thereunto Written by the Right Reverend John Bramhall D. D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry Printed at the Hague 1653. To the King of Great Britain to invite his Majestie to embrace the Catholick Faith SIR THE Wisedome of Gods Counsels is far above the prudence of men who are altogether void of the knowledge of his grace One sort who know neither God nor his providence look upon all the events of humane life as if they happened by chance They imagine that that which we call good luck or ill luck hath no other cause than hazard and that which every mans prudence or imprudence brings to the conduct of his life Others who acknowledge a Divine providence but onely after the manner that God hath manifested it to the world by the instructions and judgements of his Law think that all the goods which heap prosperities upon them are the effects and testimonies of the favour where with God cherisheth those that are his And that the Ils that oppress mans life with miseries are arguments of the anger and hatred of God upon those he handles after that manner But Christians to whom God hath revealed by the Gospel the counsel of his mercy in Jesus Christ know that in his Cross on which for satisfying the Justice of of the Law he hath bore the pain of our sinnes he hath changed for those he calls to his Communion the use of Afflictions And that he imployes them first to humble them and acknowledge their sin that they may desire deliverance to the end they may come by this way to the Faith of his grace which doth deliver them And when they are entred into Communion with him by faith and that the exercise of the same afflictions accomplisheth in them the work of his grace in giving them by his consolation in their patience the hope of the glorious happiness which he hath promis'd them and which carries over all their affections to the loving of him Those therefore that have this faith and this hope are of a judgement far differing from the opinion of men of the world upon the event of Goods and Evils which accompany mans life Considering Sir the present fortune of your serene Majestie far removed from the Majestick condition of your Birth I humble my self with you in the sight of the powerful hand of God who is the onely Judge and onely Master of Monarchs to ascend by the steps whereto the Gospel addresses us even into the counsel of his infinite mercy And I find there that the disaster of this great calamity which environs you is a work of the wisdome of the King of Kings who will shew in you whom he hath honoured with his Unction and his Image an admirable effect of his grace and of his power I say Sir that under the Cloak of so many sad adventures which try you by revolutions so strange that all the Universe doth tremble the King of Heaven and of the Earth who hath humbled himself for you infinitely more low than you are draweth himself near unto you He comes to take you by the hand not onely to reâ—…stablish you in your Throne but to make you sit in his that you may reign with him eternally after you have imployed the Scepter which he shall put again into your hand to re-establish his Kingdome among your people It is very easy for me Sir to give you a reason of this judgement I make of thaâ—… of God upon your sacred Person and to explicate unto you not onely the causes and effects of the ill which is come upon you but also the way the use and the success of the remedy which the hand of God will give you to accomplish in you this work of his mercy If we seek the Cause for which we behold that the hand of God hath made it self so grievously heavy upon the sacred head of the King your Father and which pursues yet after him your Royal Person with so many sinister accidents which hath caused this great desolation to come upon all your Kingdomes this confusion and this subversion of their peace and former prosperity this change into which they are so blindly precipitated to part with the form of Government that God had established amongst them under which they had lived so happily for so many Ages past to become slaves of the yoke which the armed hand of a Tyrant hath put upon their head under the false name of Liberty it will be very easy for us to find the Cause and to acknowledge it by the Effects You are not ignorant Sir and all the world knows it with you that the subject for which this Paricidal Parliament hath so cruelly persecuted the King your Father hath been the Ecclesiastical Government of which they desired to change the form by abolishing Episcopacy and suppressing the Liturgie and the Ceremonies by which the Protestants of your Kingdome had yet retained some image of the Catholick Church Those which they call Puritans and Presbyterians who would live under the form of the Genevian Discipline could not endure the form of that Antient Order which the Royal Authority had retained as instituted by Divine Authority and for this very thing necessary for its conformity to preserve in Christian Estates the form of a Monarchical Government From thence it is come that the Puritan and Presbyterian Faction hath conceiv'd and alwaies kept in its breast an implacable hatred against Monarchical Government by reason of their aversion from the Episcopal That which the prudence of King James your Majesties Grandfather Sir having judiciously taken notice of did as wisely inform his posterity by an express Book to take heed of it And this King knowing Church as well as State matters foreseeing the inconvenience that might arise expressing from his mouth that which touched him at the heart had this familiar speech No Bishop no King which is become a lamentable Prophesie under his Successour But O good God! what Successour Such an one certainly that had neither cause nor pretext capable to stir up the hatred of Subjects against a King so merciful so just and so loyal so amiable to his People so venerable to his Neighbours that upon this onely prejudication wherein the Puritan Faction had instructed them in making them believe that under that Form of Government and Antient Service the King and the Bishops had an intention to re-establish in the Realm the Catholick Religion This is the poyson which the Puritan Faction hath blown into the hearts of the People to fill them with hatred against a King so love-worthy And this Republican Parliament endeavouring to erect it self in a Sovereign Authority by annihilating that of the King hath not thought any occasion more favourable to
but that you may perceive the sin whereof it is the off-spring that you may draw your self from the one and from the other by the knowledge which he gives you of the horrour you should have for the Cause by the grief you resent by its Effect You shall see it Sir clearly enough by the consequents of the Maxims upon which the Authors of the Reformation which your Fathers embraced have laid their Foundations The Foundations of the Reformation of Calvin are laid upon these two Maxims which he and all those which have forsook the Church as himself hath delivered as indubitable to the People which have followed him The first is That the Church was fallen into ruine and desolation by Errour in its Faith by Idolatry in its Service and by Tyrannie in its Government The second That to reform and re-establish it â—…n its Original Purity the Faith of its Doctrine of its Service and of its Government was to be reduced to the onely precepts of the Scripture ' of the sense whereof every Believer ought to be Judge for his own proper salvation by the light of the Holy Ghost which conducts him They saw that if they did not suppose these Maxims for the causes of their Reformation they could not pretend any which might oblige them to forsake the Church which they had a mind to leave that they might frame a Contrary Party and make war against her For they could not deny the Church from which they separated the Title of the True Church but in accusing of it as they have done of Errour Idolatry and of Tyrannie And if we suppose this accusation for true they could not bring in the necessity of a Separation to make their Reformation but in excluding the Authority of Tradition and the Judgement of the Church and by reducing the rule of the Reformation to the Scripture it self interpreted by every mans Judgeâ—…ent Your Majestie Sir shall now see that of those Maxims which the Bishops of your Realm already become Schismaticks receiv'd for the causes of the Reformation which they admitted there was first of all Formed the Sect of Puritan-Presbyterians against the Protestant-Episcopalians who could not subsist against them upon the Foundation of these Maxims And that at length the Brownists the more Reformed Puritans did raise themselves upon the same Foundations who have since begot the Independents for the ruine of the Presbyterians by the same reasons by which the others had ruined the Protestants and Episcopacy and with Episcopacy Royalty it self In such sort that all this dreadful disorder which makes your Kingdoms to be a Chaos of lamentable disorder in which your authority finds it self put out comes from these Principles of Reformation which are the natural source thereof That this is so your Majestie Sir may clearly perceive it When the Bishops consented to these Principles of Reformation they abandoned by them the Faith of the Catholick Church concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass concerning Transubstantiation in the holy Eucharist concerning the number and vertue of the seven Sacraments concerning Justification real and inherent in the faithful and of their Merits and the Invocation of Saints concerning Prayer for the Dead and of Purgatory concerning the Authority of the Pope and of the adhering of all the Faithful to the See of St. Peter at Rome But they retain nevertheless the Episcopal Dignity and Authority with a part of the Liturgie and Ceremonies of the Catholick Church But the Puritan-Presbyterians have cast away all Form of Hierarchy and community of the Liturgie and Ceremonies with the Church of Rome as pernicious remainders of the Papal Tyrannie and Idolatry as they call them That they might oppose both Parties according to the first Maxim of their Reformation they brought in a Form of Government altogether novel and composed a Form of Service altogether new Upon which they have had so much advantage against the Protestants in combating them with the reasons of their common Principles and in stirring up the People heated with the zeal of Reformation that it was impossible for them to subsist if the Puritans could but once be supported by the Authority of Parliament against the Authority of the King who onely did support the Protestant Cause not by arguing but by command For Controversy by their Principles was all for the Puritans against the Protestants Could they without Tradition and by the holy Scripture alone interpreted by the judgement of every one find Episcopal Dignity and its Authority with distinction and superiority of power above the other Pastors and Ministers They could certainly without doubt by the Authority of the holy Scripture assisted by Tradition which declares the lawful sense But in doing this the victory which it gives them obligeth them to consent likewise to the Authority and Primacy of the Pope for the Government of the Universal Church as founded in the Primacy St. Peter receiv'd in the College of the Apostles as well for the Form of the Government of the Universal Church as of every particular Church from whence every Bishop derives his Authority Then thus it must be either that the Protestants abandon Episcopacy as a seed of Tyrannie and become Presbyterians or in retaining it to enter again into the Communion of the Pope and Bishops who adhere to him Though there be no need to speak here that their sole Division makes it impossible for them to subsist by the reason which the great Bishop and Martyr St. Cyprian represents to all Bishops in declaring the obligation they have strongly to retain the Unity of the Church by the not to be divided Unity of Episcopacy whereof every one doth solidly possess his share Upon which he admonisheth them that if any one goes to separate himself it shall happen unto him as to a Beam drawn from the body of the Sun which shall have no more part through its division in the unity of the light which continues in the body As to a Bough broken from the Tree which shall spring no more having no more share in the sap which remains in the body and in the root of the Tree Even like a Rivolet cut off from the Fountain which will dry up having no more to do with the course of the water which runs from the Spring This is that also Sir which your Bishops cannot avoyd It must be that being separated from the Mother-Church they should be extinguished and should vanish away as it s come to pass It must be that their very pain â—…as the proper work of the cause of â—…hier errour That their Reformation made them lose their Form But if the Puritans have had this advantage upon the Protestants by the Common Principles of their Reformation that which the same Principles have given the Brownists to withdraw themselves from the Puritans of the Genevian Discipline in the more exact purity which their spirit Interpreter of the sense of the Scripture suggests unto them is yet more great Behold
how they combat the one party against the other and the victory of the last The Puritans of the Genevian Discipline have determined of Articles of Faith and have form'd their Confession to which they oblige all those that receive their Communion But this Law which prescribes by Authority a common belief among all the Communicants cannot agree with the judgement â—…at every Believer can and ought to make of the sense of the Scriptures by the assistance of the Holy Ghost according to the second common Maxim of their Reformation For if one supposes it true no other Authority can bear rule over the Conscience nor prescribe it any thing beyond the sense that the Spirit suggests to it in the interpreting of the Scripture Upon which the Brownists also set upon the Presbyterians by all the same Authorities upon which they have founded theirs to separate themselves from the Church and abandon its determinations They maintain That to oblige the Faith of faithful men to a formular confession which can have no other than an humane authority is to bring them forthwith under the Papal Tyrannie from which the Holy Ghost hath freed them Against this the Calvinists have no reply which doth not wound themselves with their own hands and which is not their condemnation pronounced by themselves For they can answer nothing pertinently if they do not borrow the reasons the Church hath against them So God perpetual Protector of his Church causes her Enemies to pronounce her Victory with their own mouths whilst that they issued from the teeth and the mouth of the Serpent to make war with her do wage it among themselves and kill one another From these Brownists as your Majestie Sir knows much better are come the Independents which are not risen but since the advantage the Puritan-Presbyterians had upon the Protestants by the Authority of the Parliamentiers It is those that have produced this false-prophet of blood and slaughter to end this last Act of Infernal Reformation that he himself preaches to his Musulmans with his Sword in his hand after he hath broke the Cross and changed the Episcopal Crosier into a Murtherer's Axe By this same spirit of the Brownists in which he hath been originally instructed by using Disputes he deduces Fundamental Maxims of the common Reformation among them he wars against the Presbyterians with much more advantage than he did against the Protestants From whence he promises himself to make them all submit to his opinion which is an indifference of all opinion of Religion Which shall fall out without doubt according to his own mind if they will follow the Consequences of their own Maxims For the reason of which he gives liberty to every man to believe and prophesie that which they think the Spirit suggests to them But he thinks in making these People separated from the Church taste the Liberty of Conscience he shall rally all their different Sects into one Body to set them against the Body of the Catholick Church to the end he may destroy the Pope and the Bishops that conduct her and may exterminate the Kings that defend her He calls that the great work of God He assures the success to all them that follow him by the revelations which he makes them believe he had at his Fasts his Prayers and his reading the holy Scriptures But it is no marvel he can assemble such a number of Followers by the arguing of their Maxims For since they had already produced these different bodies of reform'd Battalions and reforming even to infinity Protestants Presbyterians and Brownists who in a perpetual war cannot agree among themselves He comes further as more fit to serve himself of their Maxims to put them to the Ho there by the indifference and by abolishing all Lawes that rule upon the Conscience and leaving every mans thoughts free and the liberty to prophesie and interpret the Scriptures according to the sense his spirit dictates to him For as to the remainder he troubles not himself to see by this spirit the prodigious number of Sects and Insects to swarm about who daily vomit for more monstrous opinions than caâ—… come from the bottomless pit For lâ—… there be what difference there will among them they all agree in his indifferency By this Catastrophe of the Reformation undertaken by those that havâ—… divided the Church in these latter Ages you see Sir what hath been both thâ—… Design and Genius This is not I thaâ—… represent the truth of it to you God hath set it before your eyes or I may rather say in your heart written in Characters which shall never be blotted out And to write them with his own hand he himself is descended from Heaven environed with the fire and thunder of his anger which appears enlightned upon you But from the middle thereof you hear the voyce of his mercy recalling you to him and declaring to you that all this he hath done to let you know the sins of your Fathers by drawing you out of them that he may call you back into his Church where all benediction shall be given you For true Piety and Religion whereof she hath been made the Guardian finds there as the Apostle speaks the promises of present life and of that which is to come And your Faith which God will work in you by the vertue of the Cross in the present affliction wherein you are submitting all your desires to the Wisdome of his Counsel and power of his strength shall meet there the comfort of your patience conformable to the hope you shall put in him You will say then Sir when you consider your self and the work that God shall have wrought in you That the Wisdome of the Judgements of God is without bottome That the Knowledge thereof is very difficult That it is impossible to find it out if he himself doth not manifest it He will manifest it to you Sir and you may see it if you consider the great abyss that was between you and God how far you were drawn from him before he came to you after thiâ—… manner and drew himself near to you that he might draw you to him When the King your Father had the Crown upon his Head and was sitting upon his Throne in the middle of his flourishing Kingdomes in the abundance of all prosperity and glory And that you Heir to this Majestie and Royal Pomp bred up your spirit among these mundane delights of the desire and hope of adding to the lustre of your Grandfathers the splendor of your brave Actions wherewith your politick and military virtues should adorn your life and the Historie of your Reign What 's this then when all the reasons of State as well as those wherewith your Conscience had been onely instructed would have kept you engaged in this new Religion the errour whereof you have suckt in with the milk of your infancy your eyes and your ears should have been capable of seeing and hearing the
Truths which now make known to you the fault and the condemnation which God by the wisdome and power of his Judgements hath drawn from it self and his proper works that you may feel the effects How should you have been able to have discovered under this fair shew of Reformation whereof she hath taken the Title under this splendid lustre which she hath put upon her face of Knowledge and Eloquence the gifts whereof shine in her Doctors and Ministers of the reading and particular regard she commands them to have towards the holy Scriptures of the familiar Texts which adorn their Pastors Discourses and Preachings of the popular exercises of her Psalms and Canticles of the Prayers and Orisons which are extracted and interwoven with the Understanding which gives consolation Should you have been able to have discovered I say that under this appearance of Piety she had dis-avow'd her strength if God had not at present let you see it in the works of horrour and confusion deadly to Christian piety and charity destructive to all Form of Religion Enemies to all Order of God which she hath produced by the consequences of her Fundamental Maxims Sir Had your Majestie taken notice of the imposture and deceit which the Father of Lyes hath hidden under these Baits that they themselves whom he made the first Instruments and Authors of the division of the Church did not perceive for they would have abhorred it had they known it would have been such This is then truly the great work of God whereof this false prophet understands not the reason when he speaks thus God hath certainly done this work And God hath raised him up himself to put this confusion among them which have forsaken the Unity of the Church in dividing themselves into a thousand Sects of which they acknowledge at present that no one can call himself the Church For the Sect of the Protestants cannot pretend to it since she her self subsists no more but that every one sees her justly perished by the same Maxims that separated her from the Church and that the Presbyterians which seduced them have now destroyed them Nor the Sect of the Presbyterians which is under the yoke of the Independents who cut their throats with the same Swords wherewith they warred against the Church For they brought them by their own Maxims to renounce all Discipline all Government all Law and all Rule of Unity and by consequence all Form of the Church This cursed Cham hath then discovered his Father's filthiness that is to say of the first Author of this pretended Reformation who being drunk with the wine of his errour did not himself know â—…t But if God pleases the impudence of his brazen face who hath lost all shamefac'dness being not afraid to discover by his Independence the Foundations of this preposterous Reformation shall now touch his brethren with compunction and shame that they may return to their common Father He will cause the Presbyterians and Protestants to understand that it was the spirit of senslesness and errour which made Luther conceive and undertake the design of dividing the Church under pretext of a false Reformation From whence they will perceive if they can but come to themselves that one ought not to desire neither that any one can do any thing true or lawful but in the union and by the consent of the Church and the rule of Tradition which she hath receiv'd from the Apostles and conserved by a continued succession As God Sir draws light out of darkness so your Majestie sees that he makes your salvation to come out of your calamity But this is not for you alone That which he will do in your Person he will bring to pass in all your Kingdomes by your Person And not onely in all your Kingdomes but in all the places and in all those which are separated from the Church as your Kingdomes are That which you have singular in this cause is by being the greatest King of the party divided from the Church and that your Kingdomes are the greatest and most flourishing Estate that hath receiv'd this novelty of Religion where she hath found the most powerful Sanctuary and where she hath planted her seat the most eminent and most assured This is likewise a reason why God hath put her into this confusion in destroying her by the different Sects which she her self hath ingendred that all the world may know the spirit of errour from whence she hath taken her Original For all the world at present sees what this spirit is and its nature if it is the Spirit of Christ it is the Spirit of peacâ—… and truth if it be the spirit of Satan it is the spirit of trouble and errour which hath raised the trouble and errouâ—… which rules at present in your Kingdomes Since such is the spirit of this new Reformation and its Maxims such arâ—… its works that are at this day discovered and made evident who is that man that can defend it that can preserve iâ—… in his conscience that can have reposâ—… or comfort in his soul by adhering to it There 's no more need of Disputes or Arguments to convince it She is convinc'd by her self according to the character the Spirit of God hath stamp'd upon the Heretical man by the Pen of the Apostle St. Paul who commands us to depart for these reasons There is saith he a perverted spirit that is condemned by it self This is the imagâ—… that all the world doth see at present in this Reformation and its Genius But there rests now one thing to do which is to apply this remedy of Salvation to the Conscience of the People seduced by the errour There is no more to do than to anoint the wound the Scorpion hath made with the oyl where it hath been bruised For the way to heal them is now very easy by reason their Reformation hath receiv'd such a miserable success There is nothing more easy than to make the People know thereupon by the conviction of their Pastors upon the very Foundations and Maxims of their Reformation that they have neither Church nor Faith But then when they supposed contrary to the promise of Jesus Christ the Church was fallen into ruine for pretext of reforming it they have not been able to form an other which hath the conditions of the true Church but an infinity of different and contrary Sects among them none of which can be the Church but in rejecting the authority of Tradition for interpreting the Scripture and the judgement of the Church for the declaration of her Faith They have abandoned the Unity of the Faith that every one might abound in his own sense by the different opinions they have conceived That which of necessity must cast them as it is come to pass into the Independence of all rule and the indifference of all opinion in Religion And as modesty to accuse the Church of Errour in all the Ages hath been the
beginning to make the Authors of this Reformation agree that the Church remained pure in Faith during the time of the four first general Councils they have afforded us a way by this to disabuse the People they do abuse when they accuse the Church at this day of Errour in the heads of her Faith which they have rejected For they can no longer avoyd falling into a manifest contradiction of the sense which they impute to the antient Fathers in points of Faith which are in controversy between us They cannot brand the Church at this day for having a different opinion in Faith from the Antient Church without cutting their throats with their own proper contradictions upon the opinion they attribute to the Faâ—…hers So that there is nothing more to do for the informing the People separated from the Church of the truth and obliging them to enter again into her than to make them understand the cheat wherewith they have been surprized under the name of Reformation by convincing in their presence their Ministers of an evident contradiction of themselves by the consequences of the Fundamental Maxims of their Reformation From whence results the indubitable Demonstration which proceeds from the spirit of lying and errour If it please your Majestie Sir to imploy this way for your instruction and the satisfaction of your Conscience that your Conversion and return to tâ—… Church may both open the hearts and the way for all the rest to follow your example You cannot do it morâ—… solemnly or commodiously than in thâ—… place wherein you are at the present We have in this place five Ministers of the Communion separated from the Catholick Church who have gotten themselves as much credit and authority through the esteem of their sufficiency and reputation of their zeal as any that are in their whole body Your Majestie Sir may easily obtain of the King your good Brother and Friend that they be called by his Authority to come with all those of their Communion wherewith they would be assisted and appear in presence of Monsieur the Archbishop of Paris and Monsieur his Coadjutor and the Catholick Doctors which he shall please to bring with him And there Sir you Majestie being present to speak and answer with all security and liberty that which their spirit and conscience doth suggest to them upon the evident contradictions of the principles and consequences of their Reformation that in all their different Sects which have for saken the Church under this pretext there is neither Church nor Faith And that upon the Points of Faith where they have accused the Church of Errour and have taken the opportunity to separate themselves from her they are likewise separated from the Communion of the Church of all Ages So that they cannot any waies accuse us of diversity of opinion with the Antient Church but that they again fall into an evident contradiction of themselves as well as of the Antient Fathers and of us These Ministers Sir will deny neither the desire of your Majestie nor the Commandment of the King your good Brother to render the duty both to their charge and to their conscience unless they 'll wirness by their denial the open forsaking which they make oâ—… their cause and the condemnation which they themselves pronounce in their hearts But they 'll love rather as I think ingenuously to present themselves to yield to the truth which they cannot contradict than to incurr the blame of being acknowledged formal enemies of the peace and re-union of the Church through the perversness of an obstinate Faith I know not what to think that they should rather love to fling themselves headlong with their people into the confusion and disorder of Independency and indifference of all opinion in Religion than to avouch the errour and blindness of those who were the first Egressors from the Church by these Maxims which have cast by their consequenc s their Followers into this abyss of irreligion whereinto we see them at this present fallen And when the Ministers would let themselves be carried away to so unlucky a thought I do no waies believe that in France the People would follow them and adhere to their opinions This is wherefore Sir I dare hope that the Ministers which are in Paris being obliged by the desire of your Majestie and the will of their Sovereign to submit to this Law which their own Conscience imposes on them for the satisfaction of their own People for the People will have no less affection and will be no less desirous to see the success of the appearance of their Ministers and the answer they shall make will yield to it and will rather choose to walk in the way of honour and a good conscience than basely to appear desertors at one and the same time both of their Cause and good Faith Whatsoever comes to pass Sir and whatsoever they do whether they follow the motion of the Spirit of Peace and Truth or whether the Spirit of Pride suggest unto them to avoyd and fly both the one and the other youâ—… Majestie shall alwaies have all full satisfaction for departing from the errour which you shall see forsaken or condemned by its own Ministers and entring into the Church which is the Pillar of Truth and Rock of Ages against which you see all the sail of different Sects running at every wind of Doctrine through the deceit of them that conduct them to break and shipwrack â—…hemselves And then when your Majestie shall be entred into the Church after this manner and when all the world shall see that the desire to glorifie God by the searching for the Truth by the repose of your Conscience and by the love of your Salvation shall have been your whole motive You need not doubt Sir but your example will make the like impression in all the souls that are touched with the fear of God You need not doubt Sir for so much as God hath elevated your Majestie in birth and eminent dignity above the rest â—…hat are in the Communion wherein â—…ou have lived They all seeing these â—…ircumstances of your change and enâ—…rance into the Sanctuary of the Church â—…pon the wings of the victory of Truth â—…hich carries you thither alone will â—…e stirred up to give glory to God for â—…he same causes for which you shall be â—…endred to him It concerns you then Sir to make â—…our entrance by this means and that â—…ou serve your self of this way to adâ—…ress your self thither to the end your â—…onversion and return to the Church â—…ring to her with you by the solemn â—…onviction of the errour which hath â—…ismembred her not onely those which â—…he division of your Fathers hath torn â—…rom her but also all the rest which â—…he same cause hath separated For by â—…he power which Truth hath upon the Conscience of men when it is apparent here is no doubt but it will come to â—…ass after this manner When the People shall
see that thâ—… Ministers called in the presence of youâ—… Majestie either by their avowing of thâ—… truth or refusal to appear shall havâ—… been themselves the Ministers of youâ—… Conversion every one will â—…nter up on the examination of the causes anâ—… reasons of the Truth which shall havâ—… moved you thither which shall have noâ—… less vertue to make the like impression in their souls by the same means For whether the Ministers do sincerely yield to the Truth which they will not know how to contradict or whether they condemn themselves by their refusal of an ingenuous proceeding the event of their Convocation shall be alike and universal in all places where the same way to call back the People to the Church shall be practised There are no Ministers in France will know what to answer when those of Paris shall be made dumb No others will by any manner of means dispute them concerning their sufficiency But if they are wanting to the duty of a good Conscience you may easily meet many more ingenuous who will no waies refuse to acknowledge the Truth By this way the People who seek nothing but their salvation and who have no interest more pretious will be ravished to see themselves at last by a plain solid and sincere instruction upon the true understanding of matters of the Catholick Faith drawn from this Labyrinth of disputes which are given them for matter of Reformation no less Enemies to Piety than Christian Charity For this effect Sir desiring to be assisting to the design of making the People see by the conviction of their Ministers that being separated from the Church under this pretext of Reformation they are left by that means without Faith and without the Church And then when one perswades them that in the Questions controverted iâ—… Faith the Church teaches contrary to what the Antient Church hath believed those that accuse them cannoâ—… do it but by a formal contradicting botâ—… the holy Fathers and themselves which is a necessary argument of lying and errour I here put forth into the light a little Treatise wherein these two Truthâ—… are rendred evident They have formed no Controversy more important according to their own opinion than that of Transubstantiation in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist They accuse us for having Introduced by the truth of this change the necessity of adoring Jesus Christ in this Sacrament or the Sacrament it self which we maintain to be Jesus Christ himself They impute unto us that in this we have altered the Faith of the Antient Church to whom they say both this change and the adoration of the Sacrament hath been unknown They make this the principal cause forsooth of their sole necessity of separating themselves from us And being not able to deny that the whole Antient Church did solemnly offer the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to God his Father according to his institution in the holy Eucharist they also cloak their difference in this subject from the Antient Church and from us with this That the Antient Church did not believe as they presume Transubstantiation with us nor by consequence the Sacrifice as we do saying That to this subject as they reject in our belief Transubstantiation so they have for the same reason likewise abolished the Sacrifice which the Church celebrates at this present I have made it evident Sir that the Faith of the Church at this day is conformable to the Antient upon this change in a Book which I have published against the defences brought by Minister Aubertin upon the passages of the holy Fathers in his Book of the Eucharist I have reduced the demonstration of the Truth to this point viz. That all the holy Fathers have believed that by the change which interposes it self in this Sacrament there is rendred the same Flesh and the same Blood of Jesus Christ received by the mouths of Believers whereof Jesus Christ speaks in St. John where he commands us to eat and drink them that we may have eternal life The Minister hath not been able to contradict this truth but in formally contradicting the sense which the Authors of his opinion before him have attributed to the Fathers as conformable to them and in making the sense of the Fathers formally contrary to that of Jesus Christ and that which he attributes to them formally contrary to the true sense which they have and do declare in clear and express words I have convinced him by the proof of an evident demonstration in this little Treatise And if he be called to answer upon this conviction the Truth will be found to be victorious either by his good or his evil Faith And as their Consciences tell them and bite them for having introduced by their Reformation all Opinions equally contrary to the Faith of the Church of all Ages When they see themselves reduced to this extremity they cast themselves into the retrenchment of their Fundamental Maxims which is to admit of no rule of Faith but that of the Scripture interpreted by every mans reason Upon that I have convinced them by a Demonstration without Reply that by the design of their Reformation founded upon the use of this rule they have lost both the Church and Faith Which they must avouch if they be called to answer there or that the Truth shall conserve its advantage by the refusal they shall make I most humbly intreat your Majestie Sir that you will be pleased to let this little work have the glory to appear to the World under your Royal Name for a prop which will be able to serve your Faith as an Instrument of the Truth the Victory whereof ought happily to gain you to the Church And by gaining you to bring with you her Peace and re-union of all the Parties that are divided from her For assuredly this grace of Heaven is not far from us if we our selves do not draw our selves back And I am certain that if it please the prudence of the Bishops which the Holy Ghost hath established for the conduct of the Church as I hope they will be pleased to serve themselves towards the People that have abandoned their Crosier of the way that I propose and present to your Majestie they shall see without much pain and in a little time the strayed Sheep returning to them by the very hand of those which keep them withdrawn from their Sheepfolds For in effect when the evidence of this demonstrated Truth shall once have taken its place by the sweetness of the amiable conferences where she ought to be treated with all sincerity and liberty in the spirit of all our separated Brethren as well Ministers as People they will consent with joy to re-enter into the Catholick Church So much the more willingly that by the reasons of the truth of her Faith acknowledged conformable to the Tradition of all Ages they shall so acknowledge her in all her parts to be the True Seed from
which the Holy Spirit hath caused Piety and Charity to spring flourish and fructifie in Believers From whence it follows by the same reason that the true and lawful Reformation which all good men of the Church desire in the Church doth depend no otherwise than upon the understanding and practice of these same Truths by the duty to which they address all Believers in the different vocations whereto God calls them In all which the end which is proposed them is no other than to live united among them and with Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Ghost to serve God under the obedience of the Government which he hath put into the hands of the Bishops which feed the Flock with an unanimous consent under the Authority of the espeâ—…ial Chair of St. Peter established at Rome by two Principals of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul from which whosoever separates himself is a Schismatick and out of the Communion of the Church Upon this Sir I am imboldened to speak for this last time to your Majestie that as you may if you will by the way which I propose to you lay the Foundation of this work by your Conversion and entrance into the Catholick Church You will find also that the success shall be in the hand of God the indubitable way of re-establishing you in your Throne Certainly all will agree with me that this work is upon such conditions that if it had receiv'd its accomplishment in Paris with the Ministers and People separated from the Church there 's no place in all France wherein they would refuse to do the like And if once the love of the Peace and re-union of the Church had thus gained the heart of our separated Brethren which are in this Kingdome acknowledging in this manner that the onely safe and necessary Reformation ought to be this which by the truth of the definitions of the Faith of the Church in her Doctrine in her Service and in her Government shall re-establish a Christian life among Christians the other People and Pastors and the Pastors for the love and by the very motion of the People which are in the same Communion in other parts of Europe will without doubt do the same thing Think you Sir that if your Subjects of Scotland and those which are in England and Ireland faithful and affectionate to your Crown and Person seeing the success of this project hapned in France to which your Conversion shall have given the beginning and motion they will resist the call of the same grace and that they can be able to find in their hearts in their mouths and in their hands either reason or means for to hinder themselves to follow that which all those of their Communion shall have done here And after this will you doubt that the blessing of God who is never wanting to his promises will not accomplish in you fully that which he hath promised to those that believe in him by the mouth of his own Son when he tels them Search the Kingdome of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you Will you doubt that in thus searching of his Kingdome you shall not find also your own And that Heaven will not likewise render unto you upon the Earth this temporal recompence for a token of that you shall have sought and which you shall receive in Heaven for eternity Yes Sir the Word of God deceives no man it is more firm and immovable than the Heaven and the Earth for the one and the other shall vanish away but one sole Iota of the Word uttered from the mouth of the Son of God shall not pass away When I tell you these things founded upon the Truth which he hath spoken unto us believe that this is he himself that addresses them to you by my mouth It is he himself that calls you It is he himself that stretcheth forth his hand towards you It is he himself that by his hand hath conducted you for this end to the place where you are Recollect again your self upon all the thoughts of your heart since the time your Majestie parted from hence to the time your Majestie returned back Think upon all that you have been willing to do and upon all that which it hath pleased God to do with you For he hath done all the things both what you see and what you suffer upon your Person and upon your Estate He hath put you into the Estate you are to make you understand his voyce and for to oblige you to say to him Lord what wilt thou that I do You have thought to be able to reascend upon your Throne by the means of those of your Subjects who appear'd to retain for you and for your Crown that fidelity to which a more antient Bond held them obliged more straitly than all others God would not have it so They had a design to bind your Conscience to the Lawes of their Reformation by an oath to observe the conditions of their Covenant and by abjuring your opinions that drew more near the Catholick Religion They hoped by this means that in conserving upon your head some Form at least apparent of the Royal Government under which they had so happily obeyed your Fathers for so many Ages they should avoyd the falling under the slavage of the Tyrannie which is called Cromwel's Commonwealth And that they should defend by this way the factiousness of their Religion from giving place to his Independency What is it come to God hath destroyed all their Counsels He hath routed all their Armies by the Arm of this False-prophet by whose mouth he convinces and confounds in the face of their Ministers by mouth and by writing the rules of their Covenant by the proper Maxims of their Reformation God hath delivered them into his hands and imposed upon them the yoke of his absolute domination They must now submit to the Lawes of his Independency and of his Common-wealth the name whereof serves for a Masque to his Tyrannie But God hath delivered you Sir and by a conduct of his Providence full of trembling and admiration he hath withdrawn your Sacred Person from a thousand dangers which threatned it from the fury and cruelty of this Monster who spared neither the force of Iron nor the value of Gold to find the means of violently taking away your life You have seen Sir the anger of God to descend upon your head who according to the terms of the Scripture hath loosned the Belts of Kings and bound their Reins with Cords You have seen his Arm armed with his rage to defeat your Armies Combating at their head you have done bravely with your hand and with your courage all that the generosity of a valiant and magnanimous Prince could do to associate Victory to the justice of your Arms. You have there shed your Blood and seen that of your faithful Subjects to stream through the fields covered with their bodies
Your valour and their unfearful hearts had for a time gotten the advantage of the great number of your Enemies who saw themselves ready to turn their backs But the chance of Arms turning in an instant for them this ill hap fatal to your Crown ravishd from you in this last Conflict according to humane appearance both the way and hope of recovering it But God hath waies unknown to men and his waies are not our waies It is in our weakness that he magnifies his strength and in our lowliness that he makes his height to be seen Then when you were thus deprived of your Forces and all humane means of safety taken from you he came to you under another visage and armed you with a sense of hardiness and resolution which was above the spirit of a man for the Party which you made choyce of for your security You resolv'd with your self to seek it by exposing your sole Person in the solitariness of waies and in the desert of Forrests to the hazard of a thousand sad Accidents after you had hidden all the Marks of that Majestie which is born with you under a form borrowed from the most base condition that the eyes of the People which owe you after God the second homage might not know what you truly were You have passed after this manner without astonishment and without fear across a thousand objects which the imagination at every step presented to you It is there where you acknowledged God had incamped his Angels about you for your guard and for your defence It is there where he made a simple Peasant and an infirm Woman the very Angels of his assistance for to be your guide giving to the simplicity of the one and to the frailty of the other prudence and resolution necessary to conduct you with as much judgement as sincere loyalty and to bring you as a stranger and unknown person both the object of every mans scorn and disdain into the Capital City of your Ancestors Inheritance It is there where before fearing by reason of the Orders set forth against your life and for discovering you the meeting so many faces that would regard yours the hand of God hath withdrawn the eyes of all those who had a heart to hurt you And he hath opened them to him alone for to acknowledge you who without being prevented either by a fore-sight or expectation of you became the Angel of your conduct for your crossing the Seas descending upon our Banks and moreover rendring you to the eyes of the Queen your dear Mother to whom your presence hath caused a greater cessation of grief and rendred a greater joy than you did at your Birth God hath then after this manner Sir made you to return hither into the Bosome wherein your Majestie hath begun to live to the end he may give you a new one by your being born again into the spiritual Bosome of your eternal Mother You may see the conduct and counsel of God who calls you to him by a call so marvelous having heard the prayers and vows the sighs and tears of this Catholique Princess to give her the joy to see you rendred a partaker of the greatest graces she hath received from God and which she hath implored for you ever since your Birth without ceasing Since she is the Daughter of Henry the Great the Glory of most Christian Kings she implores of God for you the inheritance of that grace he received from his hand which set him at one and the same time time both in the Church and upon the Throne Her faith implores it her patience hopes it and her piety shall obtain it This is the consolation she sighs after for restoring her from so many bitter afflictions which she hath suckt in at leisure and that the hand of God hath poured upon her in his Sons Chalice by which he proves the constancy of those who love him To the tears of this desolate Princess I adde Sir the Innocent Blood shed before God by the King your Father whom I think I may be able without fear to stile happy For if we look upon the cause of his death he hath been persecuted and cruelly â—…ain being able to avoyd the one and the other from the hands of his Enemies if he would have submitted his Conscience to their Covenant and consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy But he hath loved rather to glorifie God by the confession of a good Conscience and for supporting a Dignity which he hath believed to have been instituted by God according to the opinion of the Catholique Faith Certainly we ought to believe that it is to this Faith which he hath preferred before the greatest things in the world which we must rehears acknowledge for the fruits Piety Humility Patience Constancy Resignation to the will of God submission even to that of men for the love of God which we have seen in him and which his persecution suffering prison unworthy intreatings criminal proceeding degradation condemnation the horrour and cruelty of his punishment like to which the Sun did never yet see an example on the Earth have rendred him more illustrious and more bright shining than the light of the Sun it self We may say that that firmness of this faith hath been in his heart a secret work of God for reuniting him in this trial of the last moments of his life to his Catâ—…olique Church in the number of his faithful Elect many of which saith St. Austin invisibly belong to the Church though they are not rendred members visibly And we ought to believe that this Crown which he hath gained by the constancy of his faith hath been woven for him by the hands of Jesus Christ the King of Kings hearing the prayer and intercession of the most happy Queen his Grandmother who hath in the same manner shed heâ—… blood and given up her soul into the hands of God by one and the same punishment with a faith and constancy not to be imitated for the Catholique Faith which was the very cause of the hatred and persecution she received from her people and most near Kinswoman from whom the succession of the Crown belonged to her For the prayers of the most happy Martyrs in Heaven tends to obtain continually of God by Jesus Christ the accomplishment of the same grace they have received here below imploring it for those that have need to the end that their Faith may be also consummated by a perfect Charity This is the grace Sir you shall make trial of when your Majestie shall attain this Faith by your reunion with the Church You shall feel likewise the effect of the prayers and intercession this glorious Princess makes to God for you by Jesus Christ to the end that when you shall be restored to his Church the Throne unâ—…ustly taken away both from her and from you shall be rendred to you in the middle of your Subjects there to establish by the same
or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Aduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture we determine not Motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus This was the belief of the Primitive Church this was the Faith of the antient Fathers who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo which edifie not but expose Christian Religion to contempt We know what to think and what to say with probability modesty and submission in the Schools But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height not dâ—…ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erudâ—…ta est inscitia O! how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of general sufficient saving Truth which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace to shew that the deluge of Ecclesiasticall division is abated without â—…ading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomachies wherof cometh envy strife raylings evil surmisings perverse disputings Old Conâ—…roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies and yet more Controversies as Circles in the â—…ater do produce other Circles Now especially these Scâ—…olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable when Zenos School is newly opened in the World who sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology Morality and Policy are undermined and ready to be blown up Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes or their Ministers have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome it becometh well all good Christians and Subjects to leave their litigious Qâ—…estions and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coles of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit when his head was extremely distempered he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end But that which createth this troâ—…ble to you and me at this time is your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph unless the King of great Britain and all his subjects yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot Neither do you only desire this but augurate it or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done for you tell him that his â—…ies and hiâ—… ears do hear and see those Truths which make him to know the Faulâ—…s of that new Religion which he had suckâ—… with his milk you set forth the causes of his Conversion The tears of his Mother and the Blood of his Father whom you suppose against evident truth â—…o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his conversion which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton If your Charity be not to be blamed to wish no worse to another than you do to your self yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection without his licence and against his Conscience Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many Subjects If you did why would you insist in the same steps to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them If your intention be only to invite his Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self unles you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation Mark it well neiâ—…her Name nor thing His Majesty doth â—…rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ He embraâ—…eth chearfully whatsoever the holy Aâ—…ostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholick Church excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith neither his Reason nor his Religion nor his Charity will suffer him to listen unto you The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of â—…aith to make him a good Caâ—…holick More than this your Romane Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Concill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third general Councill that of Ephesus which deâ—…eed that it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill And that whosâ—…ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Lay-men anaâ—… hematised Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fatâ—…ers did which nons will say to have been insufficient except they be mad as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Some things are de Symbolo some things are contra Symbolum and some things are onely praeter Symbolum Some things are contained in the Creed either expressly or virtually either in the Letter or in the Sense and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Procession of the Holy Ghost The Addition of these was properly no no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Occumenical Council can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly some things are contra symbolum contrary to the Symbolical Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not onely unlawful but heretical also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not
gifts of Enemies are no gifts If such as these are all your courtesies you may be pleased to take them again Our first Reformers might safely swear upon any Gospel old or new that they meant no such thing And we may as securely swear upon all the books of God old or new that there is no such thing But why our Gospel should be younger or newer than Sixtus Quintus his Gospel or Clemens Octavus his Gospel passeth my understanding and yours also Comparisons are odious therefore I will not say that the true English Protestant standing to his own grounds is the best subject in the world But I do say that he is as good a subject as any in the wortd and our principles as Innocent and as auxiliary to civil Government as the maxims of any Church under Heaven And more than yours where the clashing of two Supreme Authorities and the exemption of your numerous Clergy from the Coercive power of the Prince and some other novelties which I forbear to mention do alway threaten a storm Tell me Sir if you can what Church in Europe hath declared more fully or more favourably for Monarchy than the poor Church of England That the most high and sacred Order of Kings is of Divine Right being the Ordinance of God himself founded in the prime Laws of Nature and clearly established by express Texts both of the old and new Testament Moreover that this power is extended over all their Subjects Ecclesiastical and Civil That to sâ—…t up any Independent coactive power above them either Papal or popular either directly or indirectly is to undermine their great royal Office and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Ordinance which god himself hath established That for their subjects to bear Arms against them Offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatsoever is to resist the powers which are ordained of God And why do you call our Reformation Calvinistical contrary to your own Conscience contrary to your own confession That in our Reformation we reteined the antient Order of Episcopacy as Instituted by divinâ—… authority and a Liturgy and Ceremonies whereby we preserved the face or Image of the Catholick Church And that for this very causâ—… the disciplinarians of Geneva and the Presbyterians did conceive an implacable hatred against the King for the Churches sake and out of their aversion to it Did they hate their own Reformation so implacably If these things be to be reconciled reddat mihi minam Diogenes He that looks more in disputation to the Advantage of his party than to the Truth of his grounds had need of a strong memory We reteined not onely Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies but all things else that were conformable to the Discipline and publick service of the Primitive Church rightly understood No Sir we cannot pin our faith upon the sleeve of any particular man as one used to say We love no nismes neither Calvinism nor Lutheranism nor Jonsenianism but onely one that we derive from Antioch that is Christianism We honour Learning and Piety in our fellow servants but we desire to wear no other badge or Cognizance than that we received from our own Master at our Baptism Bucer was as fit to be Calvins Master as his Scholar So long as Calvin continued with him in Germany he was for Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies and for assurance thereof subscribed the Augustane Confession and his late learned Successor and assertor in Geneva Monsieur Deodate with sundry others of that Communion were not averse from them Or why do you call Reformation blind It was not blindness but too much affectation of knowledge and too much peeping into controverted and new fangled Questions that hath endamaged our Religion It is you that teach the Colliers Creed not we Howsoever you pretend to prove that our Reformation was the ruin of the Church and Common-wealth wee expect you should endeavour to prove it You cannot so far mistake your self as to conceive your authority to be the same with us that Pythagoras had among his Scholars to have his Dictates received for Oracles without proof what did I say that you pretend to prove it That 's too low an expression you promiâ—…e us a demonstration of it so lively and evident that no reason shall be able to contradict it Are you not afraid that too much expectation should prejudice your discourse by diminishing our applause Quid tanto dignum feret hiâ—… proneissor hiaâ—…u Do you think of nothing now but Triumphs Lively and evident demonstration not to be contradicted by reason is like the Phenix much talked of but seldom seen Most men when they see a man strip up his sleeves and make too large promises of fair dealing do suspect jugling No man proclameth in the Market that he hath rotten wares to sell And therefore we must be careful notwithstanding your great promises to keep well Epicharmus his Jewel Remember to distrust By your permission your glistering demonstration is a very counterfeit not so valuable as a Bristol Diamond when it comes to be examined by the wheel Sometimes nothing is more necessary than Reformation Never was house so well builded that now and then needed not reparation Never Garden so well planted but must sometimes be weeded Never any order so well instituted but in long tract of time there will be a bending and declining from its Primitive perfection and a necessiâ—…y of reducing it to its first principles Are your Houses of Religion which are Reformed therefore the less Religious Why then did all the Princes and Common-wealths in Europe Yea the Fathers themselves in the Council of Trent cry out so often so earnestly for a Reformation yet were forced to content themselves with a vain shadow for the substance as Ixion embraced a Cloud for Juno or Children are often stilled with an empty bottle But Reformation is not agreable to all persons Judas loved not an Audit because he kept the Bag. Dull Lethargick people had rather sleep to death than to be awaked and mad phrenetick Bigots are apt to beat the Chirurgion that would bind up their wounds but none are so a verse from Reformation as the Court of Rome where the very name is more formidable than Hannibal at the Gates yea than all the five terrible things No mervail they are afraid to have their Oranges squeesed to their hands if they were infallible as they pretend there was no need of a Reformation we wish they were but we see they are not On the other side it cannot be denyed that Reformation when it is unseasonable or inordinate or excessive may do more hurt than good when Reformers want just Authority or due information or have sinister ends or where the remedy may be of worse consequence than the abuse or where men run out of one extreme into another therefore it is a rule in prudence Not to remove an ill custom when it is well setled unless it
bring great prejudices and then it is better to give one account why we have taken it away than to be alwaies making excuses why we do it not Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion and lessen the credit of antient truths Break Ice in one place and it will crack in more Crooked sticks by bending streight are sometimes broken into two There is a right mean between these extremes if men could light on it that is neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers out of a doating affection to the body that is neither to destroy antient Institutions out of a zealous hatred to some new abuses nor yet to doat so upon antient Institutions as for their sakes to cherish new abuses Our Reformation is just as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth as the building of Tenderden Steepl was the cause of Goodwins Sands or ruin of the Country thereabouts because they happened both much about the same time Careat successibus opto May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden ruins the good Herbs It hath ruined the Church just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthful purgation It hath ruined the Common-wealth just as pruning â—…f the Vine ruins the Eâ—…m No no Sir Our sâ—…fferings for the Faith for the Church for the Monarchy do proclame us Innocent to all the world of the ruin either of Faith or Church or Monarchy And in this capacity we choose rather to steâ—…ve as Innocents 〈◊〉 to swim in plenty as Nocents But this is but one of your doubles to kâ—…ep us from the right form It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith It is your Papal Court that hath ruined the Church It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporal persons in order unto spiritual ends of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Allegeance of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction of the lawfulness of murthering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes of aequivocation and the like that first infected the world to the danger of Civil Government Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church at any time much less at this time when they are much faln from their former credit neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions destructive to all civil societies have been transplanted by our Sectaries and taken too deep root in our quarters but never by our fault If God should grant us the benefit of an Oecumenical or Occidental Council it would become both you and us in the fiâ—…st place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch You say our Calvinistical Reformation so you are pleased to call it as would have it for the moderate and and orderly Reformation of England was the terror and eye-sore of Rome is founded upon two maxims The one that the Church was faln to ruin and desolation and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny This is neither our foundation nor our superstruction neither our maxim nor our Opinion It is so far from it that we hold and teach the direct contrary First that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universal Church that though the rain descend and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon it yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation because it is builded upon a Rock Secondly we beleeve that the Catholick Church is the faithfull Spouse of Christ and cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is spiritual Adultery Thirdly we never said we never thought that the Occumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny It is principled to suffer wrong to do none and by suffering to Conquer as a flock of unarmed Sheep in the midst of a company of ravenous Wolves A new and unheard-of kind of warfare as if one should throw an handful of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms â—…f your language in which by the Church you aâ—…waies understand the Roman Church making Roman and Catholick to be Convertibles As if Christ could not have a Church nor that Church any privileges unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them There is a vast difference between the Catholick Church and a Patriarchal Church The Catholick Church can never fail any Patriarchal Church may Apostate and fail We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed But supposing that which we can never grant the Catholick Church and Roman Church were Convertibles yet still you do us wrong First we do not maintain that the Roman Church it self is faln to ruin and desolation we grant to it a true metaphysical being though not a true moral being we hope their errors are rather in superstructures than in fundamentals we do not say that the Plants of saving truth which are common to you and us are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church but we say that they are over-grown with weeds and in danger to be choked Next for Idolatry whether and why and how far we accuse your Church of it deserves further Consideration First you agree with us That God alone is the Object of Religion and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him that God alone is to be invocated absolutely or ultimately that is so as to grant our requests and fulfil our desires by himself and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers but joynt petitioners with us and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace Secondly we profess as well as you that there is a proportionabâ—…e degree of honour and respect due to every creature in Heaven and Earth according to the dignity of it and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit than to a mortal man But withall we adde that this honour is not servitutis but charitatis not of service as to our Lords and Masters but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow-servants of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent Thirdly we agree in this also that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend or noble benefactor to his posterity to his memory to his Monument to his Image to his Reliques to every thing that he loved or that pertained to him even to the Earth which he did tread upon for his sake Put a Liefhebber or Virtuoso among a company of rare pictures and he will pick out the best pieces for their
given us such assurance of his love or done so much for us as Christ. No Saint is so willing or able to help us as Christ. And secondly we have no command from God to invocate them So much your own Authors do confess and give this reason for it Lest the Gentiles being converted should belâ—…eve that they were drawn back again to the worship of the Creature But we have another command Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee We have no promise to be heard when we do invocate them But we have another promise Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name ye shall receive it We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them but rather the contrary See thou do it not I am thy fellow-servant worship God We have no cerâ—…ainty that they do hear our particular prayers especially mental prayers yea a thousand prayers poured out at one Instant in several parts of the world We know what your men say of the gâ—…ass of the Trinity and of extraordinary Revelations But these are bold conjectures without any certainty and inconsistent the one with the other We do sometimes meet in Antient Authors with the Intercesfion of Saints in General which we also acknowledge Or an oblique invocation of them as you term it that is a prayer directed to God that he will hear the intercession of the Saints for us which we do not condemn Or a wish or a Rhetorical Apostrophe or perhaps something more in some single Antient Author But for an Ordinary Invocation in particular necessities and much more for publick Invocation in the Liturgies of the Church we meet not with it for the first six hundred years or thereabouts All which time and afterwards also the common principles and tradition of the Church were against it So far were they from obtruding it as a necessary fundamental Article of Christian Religion It is a common fault of your wriâ—…ers alwaies to couple Prayer for the Dead and Purgatory together as if the one did necessâ—…rily suppose or imply the other In whose steps you tread Prayer for the Dead hath often proceeded upon mistaken grounds often from true grounds both inconsistent with your Purgatory Many have held an Opinion that though the souls were not extinguished at the time of their separation from the body yet they did lye in secret reâ—…eptacles in a profound or dead sleep untill the Resurâ—…ection doing nothing suffering nothing in the mean time but onely the delay of their glory Others held that all must pass through the fire of Conflagration at the day of judgement These opinions were inconsistent with your Purgatory yet all these upon these very grounds used Prayer for the Dead Others called the merâ—…ifull Doctors held that the very pains of Hell might be lessened by the prayer of the living Such a prayer is that which we meet with in your own Missal O King of Glory deliver the souls of all the faithfull deceased from the pains of Hell from the deep Lake from the mouth of the Lion that is the Devil that the bottomless pit of Hell do not swallow them up A man may lawfully pray for that which is certain if it be to come but one cannot lawfully pray for that which is past The souls which are in Purgatory by your learning are past the fear of Hell Nor can this petition be any waiâ—…s so wrested as to become appliable to the hour of death This prayer is not for the man but for the soul separated nor for the soul of a sick man or a dying man but for the souls of mâ—…n actually deceased Certainly this prayer must have reference either to the sleeping of the souls or to the pains of Hell To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation Neither are you abâ—…e to produce any one prayer publick or private neither any one indulgence to that purpose for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory in all the Primitive times or out of their own antient Missals or Records Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us as Articles of Faith which the greatest part of the Catholick Church never received untill this day Moreover though the sins of the faithfull be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death yet the publick promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come Though their â—…ouls be alwaies in an estate of blessedness â—…yet they want the consummation of this blessedness extensively at least untill the body be re-united unto the soul and as it is piously and probably believed intensively also that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God as it shall have hereafter Then what forbids Christians to pray for this publick acquittal for this Consummation of blessedness So we do pray as often as we say thy Kingdome come or come Lord Jesus come quickly Our Church is yet plainer That we with this our Brother and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name may have our perfect Consummation of blessedness in thy everlasting Kingâ—…me This is far enough from your more gainfull prayers for the dead to deliver them out of Purgatory Lastly concerning the Authority of the Pope It is he himself that hath renounced his lawfull Patriarchal Authority And if we should offer it him at this day he would disdain it VVe have onely freed our selves from his tyrannical usurped Authority But upon what terms upon what grounds how far and with what intention we have separated our selves or rather have suffered our selves to be separated from the Church of Rome you may find if you pâ—…ease in the Treatise of Schism I cannot choose but wonder to see you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case who separated himself from you as well as we in the daies of a much better Bishop than we and upon much weaker grounds than we and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils He liked not the swelling Title of Bishop of Bishops nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrifie another into â—…edience No more do we He gave a primacy or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter as Principium unit at is so do we But he believed that every Bishop had an equall share of Episcopal power so do we He provided a part as he thought fit in a Provincial Council for his own safety and the safâ—…ty of his Flock so did we He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Collegue and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a Letter from such as had been â—…ensured by the African Bishops In Saint Cyprians sense you are the Beam that have separated you selves from the body of the Sun you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain It is you principally you that have divided
make it an easy worke to effect which there needs no Disputation but only to behold the Hereticall Genius of our Reformation which is sufficiently condemned by it self if men will onely take the pains to compare the Fundamentall Principles thereof with the Consequences Great Houses and Forts are builded at an easy charge in Paper When you have consulted with your Aâ—…chitects and Enginiers you will find it to be a work of more difficuâ—…ty And your Adversaâ—…ies Resolution may teach you to your cost what it is to promise to your self suâ—…h an easy Conquest before the Fight and let you see that those golden Mountains which you phantasied have no subsistance but in your Brain and send you home to seek that selfConviction there which you sought to fasten upon others When you are able to prove your Universal Monarchy your new Cannon of Faith your new Treasury of the Church your new Roman Purgatory whereof the Pope keeps the Keyes your Image worship your Common-Praiers in 〈◊〉 toung unknown your deteining of the Cup from the Laity in the publike Administration of the Sacrament and the rest os your new Câ—…eed out of the four first General Councils or the Universal Tradition of the Church in those daies either as principles or Fundamental Truths which you affirm or so much as ordinary points of Faith which we deny we will yield our selves to be guilty both of Contradiction and Schism Untill you are able to make these Innovations good it were best for you to be silent and leave your vaporing Desparate undertakings do easily forseit a mans Reputation Now are we come to the most specious piece of your whole Epistle that is the Motion or proposition of a Conference by Authority of the King of France at the instance of the King of great Britain before the Arch-Bishop of Paris and his Coadjutor between some of your Roman Catholike Doctors and the Ministers of the Reformed Church at Paris whom you do deservedly commend â—…or their sufficiency and Zeal You further suppose that the Ministers of the Reformed Church will accept of such a Disputation or by their Tergiversation betray the weakness of their Cause And you conclude confidently beyond â—…upposition that they will be conâ—…uted and convicted and that their conversion or conviction will afford sufficient ground to the King of Great Britain to embrace the Communion of the Roman Catholike Church And that his conversion will reduce all conscientious Protestants to Unity and due obedience I will contract your larger Palm to a Fist. If the King of Great Britain desire a solemn Conference the King of France will enjoyn it If he enjoyn it the Ministers will accept it It they do accept they are sure to be convicted If they be convicted the King of Great Britain will change his Religion If he 〈◊〉 his Religion all conscientious Pâ—…nts will be reduced And all this 〈◊〉 be done not by the old way of Dâ—…ting No take heed of that the burnt Child dreads the fire But by a proper new way of refuting old Protestant Principles by new Independent Practises Why was this Remedy found out no sooner This might have eased the Cardinals in their Consultations about propagating the Faith This might have saved Cardinal Allen all his Machiavillian Instructions to his English Emissaries This may in a short time â—…vrne the Inquisitors out of their employment for want of an Object and not leave such a thing as Hereticall pravity in the World How must men praise your Fortune and applaud your Invention But stay the second thoughts are wiser what is this Chain supposed to be of Adamant should prove a rope of Sand And so it is I have seen a Sorites disgraced and hissed out of the Schools for drawing but one lame leg after it this is foundred of all four from the begining to the end there is nothing in it but future Contingents which are known only to God noâ—… one Grain of necessary Truth First Sir be not angry if a man take away the subject of your whole discourse It is but your officiousness the King desires no such Conâ—…erence Let them desire Conferences who waver in their Faith All these blustering Stormes have radicated him deeper in his Religion And chiefly that which you make the chiefest motive to his Apostating the Martirdom of his Royall Father and an hereditary love to that Church which he hath 〈◊〉 with his Blood Secondly if his Majesty should incline to such a Conference do you think he would desert the English Clergy who have forsaken their Country their Friends their Estates out of their Conscience out of their dâ—…ty to God and their Soveraign who understand the constitution oâ—… the English Church much better than your self or any Forrainers how susficent soever and cast himselâ—… wholy upon Strangers whose Reformation you say is different from that of England in the points of Episcopacy Liturgy and the Ceremonies of the Church Say what was the Reason of this gross Omission were you afraid of that Image of the Church as you call it in a sleighting manner which they retained Oâ—… did you not think any of the English Nation worthy to bear your Books at a Conference It hath been otherwise heretofore and you will find it otherwise now when you come to prove it I know not whether England hath been more fortunate or unfortunate since the Reformation in breeding as many able Pâ—…lemique Writers on both sides as any Nation in Europe Stapleton Harding Parsons Sanders Reynolds Bishop c. for the Roman Church Jewell Andrews Abbot Lawd White Field Montague Reynolds Whitaker c. for the English Church I forbear to name those that are living and many mo e who come not short of these if they had pleased to communicate their Talents to the World This is such a câ—…ntumely that 〈◊〉 upon the Nation and you must be contented to be told of it Thirdly how are you sure that the King of France and his Counsell would give way to such a publike Conference Private Insinuations use to prevail much when a man may Lavere tack to and again to compass his Ends. Auâ—…hority or the Sword may put an end â—…o Controversies But publike Conferences for the most part do but start new Qâ—…estions and revive old forgotten Animosities What were the Donatists the better for the Collation at Carthage The Mind of a man is generous and where it looks for Opposition it fortifies it self against it Urban the Eighth was the wisest Pope you have had of late who by his Moderation and Curtesie cooled much of that Heat which the violence of his Predecessors had raised against the Court of Rome The mild beaâ—…es of the Sun were more prevalent than the blustring Blasts of the North Wind. Multiplying of Words more commonly engenders strite than peace Fourthly upon what Grounds are you so confident that the Ministers of the Reformed Church would admit of such a publike
world know to have been none of yours VVhat Faith he professed living he confirmed dying In the Communion of the Church of England he lived and in that Communion at his death he commended his soul into the hands of God his Saviour That which you have confessed here concerning King Charls will spoil your former demonstration that the Protestants have neither Church nor Faith But you confess no more in particular here than I have heard some of your famous Roman Doctors in this City acknowledge to be true in general And no more than that which the Bishop of Chalcedon a man that cannot be suspected of partiality on our side hath affirmed and published in two of his Books to the world in Print That Protestantibus credentibus c. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church if they endeavour to lâ—…arn the truth and are not able to attain unto it but hold it implicitely in the preparation of their minds and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it which all good Protestants and all good Christians are they neither want Church nor Faith nor Salvation Mark these words well They have neither Church nor Faith say you If they be thus qualified as they all are they want neither Church nor Faith nor Salvation saith he Lastly Sir to let us see that your intelligence is as good in Heaven as it is upon Earth and that you know both who are there and what they do you tell us That the Crown and Conquest which his late Majestie gained by his sufferings was proâ—…ured by the intercession of his Grandmother Queen Mary We should be the apter to believe this if you were able to make it appear that all the Saints in Heaven do know all the particular necessities of all their posterity upon Earth St. Austin makes the matter much more doubtfull than you that 's the least of his Assertion or rather to be plainly false faâ—…endum est nescire quidem â—…ortuos quid hic agatur But with presumptions you did begin your Dedication and with presumptions you end it In the mean time till you can make that appear we observe that neither Queen Maries constancy in the Roman Catholick Faith nor Henry the Fourths change to the Roman Catholick Faith could save them from a bloody end Then by what warrant do you impute King Charles his sufferings to his errour in Religion Be your own Judge Heu quanta de spe decidimus Alas from what hopes are we fall'n Pardon our errour that we have mistaken you so long You have heretofore pretended your self to be a moderate person and one that seriously endeavoured the reuniting of Christendome by a fair Accommodation The widest wounds are closed up in time and strange Plants by Inoculation are incorporated together and made one And is there no way to close up the wounds of the Church and to unite the disagreeing members of the same mystical body Why were Caleb and Joshua onely admitted into the Land of promise whilst the carkasses of the rest perished in the VVilderness but onely because they had been Peace-makers in a time of Schism VVell fare our learned and ingenuous Country-man St. Clara who is altogether as perspicacious as your self but much more charitable You tell us to our grief that there is no accommodation to be expected that Cardinal Richelieu was too good a Christian and too good a Catholique to have any such thought that the one Religion is true the other false and that there is no society between light and darkness This is plain dealing to tell us what we must trust to No Peace is to be expected from you unless we will come unto you upon our knees with the words of the Prodigal Child in our mouths Father forgive us we have sinned against Heaven and against thee Is not this rare Courtesie If we will submit to your will in all things you will have no longer difference with us So we might come to shake a worse Church by the hand than that which we were separated from If you could be contented to wave your last four hundred years determinations or if you liked them for your selves yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches If you could rest satisfied with your old Patriarchal power and your Principium unit at is or Primacy of Order much good might be expected from free Councils and Conferences from moderate persons And we might yet live in Hope to see an Union if not in all Opinions yet in Charity and all necessary points of saving truth between all Christians to see the Eastern and Western Churâ—…hes joyn hand in hand and sing Ecce quà m bonum quam jucundum est habitare fratres in unum Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity But whilst you impose upon us daily new Articles of Faith and urge rigidly what you have unadvisedly determined we dare not sacrifice Truth to Peace nor be separated from the Gospel to be joyned to the Roman Church Yet in the point of our separation and in all things which concern either doctrine or discipline we profess all due obedience and submission to the judgement and definitions of the truly Catholique Church Lamenting with all our hearts the present condition of Christendome which renders an Oecumenical Council if not impossible mens judgements may be had where their persons cannot yet very difficult wishing one as general as might be and untill God send such an Opportunity endeavouring to conform our selves in all things both in Credendis Agendis to whatsoever is uniform in the belief or practice in the doctrine or discipline of the Universal Church And lastly holding an Actual Communion with all the divided parts of the Christian world in most things in voto according to our desires in all things FINIS Plut. Sir Henry wotton No differences in the Church directly about the Sacrament for the first 800 years 1 Cor. 11. Theod. ex Ignatio Leo. Ser. 4. de Quad. Epiph. hâ—…r 30. 46. Aug. l. de Hâ—…re c. 64. â—…el l. 1. de Sac. Euch. 〈◊〉 1. Bel. ibid. Syn. Nic. 2 Act 6. Disp. 179. c. 1 Yet different Observations And different expressions The first difference about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament Exact Syn. Rom. sub Nich. 2. Dâ—… Cons. dist 2 cap. Egâ—…â—…er Alex. Gab. Bonâ—…v c. Scot. in 4. sent dist 11. q. 3. T. 3. q. 75. d. 81. c. 1. The determination of the manner of the presence opened a flood-gate to a Deluge of Controversies Lib. de câ—…r Theol. Schol. Gloss. de Con. d. 2. cap. Timâ—…rem Guidmâ—…nd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de ver Vasq. disâ—… 184. 6. 8. Uasq T. 3. q. 75. d. 181 c. 4. Bel. l. 3. de Euc. c. 3. in fine In 4 d. 44 q. 7. art 〈◊〉 q. 3. I. ib. 4. de Euch. c. 25 Chap. 27. Conc. Uien Bâ—…ll 4. de
their King in the chief City of that Kingdom in a time of Treaty They who purged the Army over and over as loth on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty or loyalty in it who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Souldiery lest he should grow too popular They who after they had proclamed to the world his Title and right to that Crown yet sought to have him excluded from the benefit of it and from the execution of his Kingly Office until he should abjure his Religion cast dirt upon his Parents alienate his loyal subjects and ratifie the usurpations of his Rebels These these I say were most unlikely persons to be his restorers Was it ever heard before that subjects acknowledged a Soveraign and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights until he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes Others may be more severe in their judgements but I for my part could be well contented that God would give them the Honour to be the repayrers of the breach who have been the makers of the breach to be the restorers of Monarchy who have been the ruiners of Monarchy to be the re-establishers of peace who have been the chiefest Catalines and promoters of VVar. But that can never be whilst they justifie their former rebellious practises and after they have eaten and devoured wipe their mouths and say what have we done until they acknowledge their former errors Repentance onely is able to knit the broken bone why should they be more afraid to confess their faults and shame the Devil than to commit them Yet I cannot say with you that this hath robbed his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery VVe may not limit God to any time who commonly with-holds his hâ—…lp until the Bricks be doubled until the edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servant that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself VVe may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court God did forget him when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph then God remembred him God hath nobler wayes of restitution than by Battails and bloudshed that is by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness I confess his Majesties resolution was great so was his prudence that neither fear which useth to betray the succours of the soul nor any indiscreet Action or word or gesture in so long a time should either discover him or render him suspected VVhen I consider that the Heir of a Crown in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding whom all mens eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun of no common features or physiognomy at such time when he was not onely believed but known to be among them when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spys to search him and every Port and Inne full of Officers to apprehend him I say that he should travail at such a time so long so far so freely in the sight of the Sun exposed to the view of all petsons without either discovery or suspition seems little less than a miracle That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness as the â—…yes of the Sodomites that they could not find Lots door or the Syrian Souldiers that were sent to apprehend Elisha This strange escape and that former out of Scotland where his condition was not much better nor his person much safer do seem strangely to presage that God hath yet some great work to be done by him in his own due time You attribute this rare deliverance and the hopes of his conversion in part to the prayers and tears of his Mother prayers and tears were the onely proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother for the Son of her desires are most powerful As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica for St. Austine her Son fieri non pâ—…tuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed God sees her tears and hears her prayers and will grant her request if not according to her will and desire we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudicial to our selves and our friends yet ad utilit atem to his Majesties greater advantage which is much better She wisheth him a good Catholick and God will preserve him a good Catholick as he is We do not doubt but the prayers of his Father who now follows the Lamb in his whiâ—…es for his perseverance will be more effectual with God than the prayers of his Mother for his change Your instance of his Majesties Grandfather your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite or fit for your purpose He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people you would perswade his Majesty to turn from his people and to cast away his possibilities of restitution that is to cut off a natural leg and take one of wood To the tears of his Mother you adde the blood of his Father whom you justly stile happy and say most truly of him that he preferred the Catholick Faith before his Crown his liberty his life and whatsoever was most dear unto him This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life to unite him to the Roman Catholick Church but openly during his whole Reign all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholick Church Yet you are so extremely partial to your seif that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholick Church as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world An old pious fraud or artifice of yours learned from Machiavel to gain credit to your Religion by all means either true or false but contrary to his own profession at his death contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murther Upon a vain presumption that Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla pareret filium And because you are not able to produce one living witness you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted do belong invisibly to the Church Yea and before they were born also But St. Austine neither said nor thought that after they are converted they make no visible profession or profess the contrary to that which they beleeve Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church not with borrowed but with stollen Saints VVhom all the