his grace of Canterbury hath no jurisdiction I know and am fully assured ther is not one of those poor catholik priests who were lately banished out of England but would have defended even to extremity if need were this one most certain verity That a Metropolitan hath a jurisdiction as solid and good a jurisdiction over byshops as any these can have or plead for over parish priests And by as firm and good and ancient law is the one established as the other and indeed by the very same whilst a minister of his own presumes to tell the Arch-byshop his own prelate to his face that he hath no jurisdiction at all His 9 ch from page 91. to 169. Is wholly fanatick There he tells us plainly That neither Convocations Byshops nor Parliaments are judges of our faith That the English Church doth not punish for difference in opinions nor require that all should beleev as she beleevs or submit to her determinations but leaves every man to the liberty of his own judgment so he do not make factions against her Who ever urged men saith he to beleev as the Church beleevs p. 101. Also that no decrees of any Church are further to be admitted then they appear to particular mens judgments to agree with scriptur That every private man must make use of his own reason to judg or reject doctrin and rites propounded though scriptur be his guide That the business must there end without resigning to any further authority which is all as fallible as we be our selves That points fund amental are as perspicuous as the sun-beam and points not fundamental the Church doth not determin them and if any dispute should rise about them she silences indeed but expects not her children should be of her opinion only would not have them gainsay her That that Church does but mock us which expects a beleef to her proposals becaus she pretends to guide her self by scriptur For if scriptur must bend to their decrees and we must have no sence of scriptur but what they think fit then their decrees and not scriptur is our last rule And it is a pretty devise quoth he first to rule the rule and then be ruled by it c. Can a good Quaker say more for himself or desire more to be said for him If we be not bound to beleev we are not bound to hear Nay we are bound not to hear any such Church lest we should chance to beleev what aforehand we condemn and they themselvs dare not justifie He hath much of this talk up and down in his book Faith saith he p. 439. cannot be compelled By taking this liberty of discretion from men we force them to becom hypocrits and so profess outwardly what inwardly they disbeleev And again p. 450. We allow not any man openly to contradict the Churches decrees But when he thinks contrary to the determination of our Church he must keep his judgment to himself only refusing obedience with all humility till he be better informed No fanatick will desire to refuse obedience any longer Thus doth this champion deliver up himself and Church unto the will and disposal of all whatever sects and cares not so he may avoid catholik obeysance to make himself a prey to those who upon these grounds here laid down will soon turn him out of Church and pulpit too and strip him not only of his cloak but his coat also At last he answers the catholik arguments for the Churches assured and infallible guidance just as he did before your others for supremacy Seeing him there you see him every where Finally he brings in for a certain testimony of the Churches liability to errour the two opinions so rife in old time about communicating infants and the Millenaries thousand years of blessedness with Christ in this world after dooms-day Which are both of them now condemned saith he by a contrary beleef and practice of the present Church although they were held by not a few very antient Fathers in the primitive times And in this he triumphs exceedingly Surely without caus I should think Those primitive doctors we may be assured knew somthing more then their Catechism and committed to writing somthing of that they conceived beyond their Christian faith as well as the present Fathers and Doctors of the Church now do And if there were so great varieties of opinion among them concerning those two things as there are now adayes among catholik doctors about a thousand others it is a sign that those two points did not belong to their Catechisme of faith then assuredly known but only to scholastical Theology especially sith they had neither clear scriptur or general councel nor assured tradition for either side And it is of no moment that som of them should be so confident of their opinion as to think it to be a right firm Christian beleef For so I have heard my self many a school Divine in catholik countreys to say of his Thesis or school position the better to countenance his own divinity that it was either faith or very near it Besides I do not know that the present Church hath ever declared in any cannon of her faith either that the faithfull shall not reign upon earth a thousand years with Christ after dooms-day or that we may not communicate the Eucharist to children although this last is declared not necessary His 10 ch from page 169. to 180. Is against prayer for the dead and Purgatory Where both by the testimonies which you Sir do cite in your book and by the authorities he brings himself Mr. Whitby acknowledges that praying and offering for the dead is a very ancient and general custom amongst Christians Nay that S. Paul himself prayed for his deceased friend Onesiphorus This I say he plainly grants p. 182. But he addes that all this does not infer Purgatory or that Purgatory is a place under ground near hell where is fire and darknes or that all are in pain and torments there And so he pusles to the end of his chapter acknowledging faith and denying only theology For whether Purgatory signifie any one place as our imagination is apt to fancy or only a state and condition of som souls departed out of this visible world I see Mr. Whitby understands not that it is no Christian faith but a meer scholastical divinity But that our prayers offerings penances and good deeds do benefit the souls deceased this the very testimonies cited by Mr. Whitby himself as they do sufficiently evince so do they confirm catholik faith though they touch not upon theology at all And so while he oppugns the divinity of som catholiks he establishes the catholik faith of all Divines In the interim he ought to remember although in this he often forgets himself that by the very testimonies not only which you Sir do bring for Purgatory but those also which Mr. Whitby has against it we may see manifestly that our Protestant Church hath
supererogation above what I needed will somwhat inlighten you to discern the goodnes and necessity of my consequence If the Papist who first brought us the news of Christianity be now becom odious then may all Christianity at length be thought a Romance c. Religion like a hous if a breach be once made and not repaired to former unity will by degrees all moulder away till no one room be left intire 7 ch from page 177. to 188. Your seventh chapter finished in five leafs runs or flies over two or three of my paragraffs at once which make up above fifty pages concerning the obscurity of Nature and Providence All which discours of mine is you say nothing to my purpos but foisted in for a blinde to entertain my readers But Sir those judicious readers you lately left behind you who discern my purpos better than I see you do will tell you that it is so much to my purpos that nothing could be more At least you let all pass without either censure or commendation till you meet happily at length with a word or two of mine let fall in my ninth paragraff called Help about scripture This makes your heart leap it is a common place you know how to sport in and you never meet with that sound but it makes you dance Your chapter then which is written against all my philosophical discours of nature and providence is called scripture vindicated as though I had industriously wrote against scripture And therin you sweetly dilate upon the excellency and goodnes of the word of God as if I had any way diminished it or wrote against it just according to the tone of our late dismal times Lord I am for thy caus Lord I am left alone to plead thy caus Lord against thine enemies But Sir the few words I there speak only incidentally in the end of that my paragraff called Help concerning the surmises that men have about scriptur as they be but a small part of the many which I know to be now vented up and down the land in this our present state of separation one from another so if I had not given som touch of them in that metaphysick abstracted discours of Fiat Lux which proceeds as I have said upon a supposition of our chusing and making religions here in England at pleasur unto endles differences and divisions it had been a maimed and imperfect work and no wayes satisfactory unto those judicious readers unto whom I write though you do not And I cannot but tell you what soever you think of your self you are in truth except you dissemble and mistake on purpos but a weak man to take that as spoken absolutely by me and by way of positive doctrin which I only deliver upon an hypothesis apparent to all the world besides your self You would make a mad commentatour upon Solomons Ecclesiastes I speak upon a supposition of doubting which these times have brought upon us of interpreting accepting rejecting framing forging religions and opinions to our selves and you reply against me words and discourses that presuppose an assent of beleeving If a man beleev he cannot doubt And if he doubt not of the scriptures truth he cannot make exceptions against any of its properties But if any begin to question this or that or other part of doctrin contained in scriptur and delivered by those who first brought it as every one does who swerves from the Church he found himself in then I suppose such a one doubts And being now thereby separated from that body of beleevers to which he before by faith adhered he cannot now left to himself but proceed if he give attendance to the conduct of his own surmising thoughts to more suspicions then I was willing to express But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of scriptur I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to com I have conversed with the Roman catholiks of France Flanders and Germany I have read more of their books both histories contemplatives and scholastick divines than I beleev you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the devotion both of common people colledges of sacred priests and religious houses I have communed with all sorts of people and perused their councels And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to scriptur is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish holy writ Let us not wrong the innocent The scriptur is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their caus when he sees time 8 ch from page 188 to 198. In your eight chapter which falls upon my paragraff of Reason you are absolutely in a wood and wonder more then ordinary how that discours of mine concerning reason to be excluded from the imploiment of fraeming articles of religion can any wayes concern Protestants or be a confutation of Protestants As though Fiat Lux were written to any such concernment against Protestants Your head is so full it seems of that controverting faculty for Protestants against Papists that if Popery be but mentioned in a book without an epithet of detestation you conclude presently that the book is written for Popery against Protestants And if every thing therin contained answer not the idea of your brain then it is impertinent with you it is silly it is besides the purpos And this censur you have given still as you have gone along all my whole book hitherto of every part and parcel of it even from my preface to this present paragraff of Reason You cannot see how all that vain flourishing discours of mine concerning diversity of feuds ground of quarrels nullity of title heats and resolution motives to moderation obscurity of God natur and providence or the like should confute Protestancy or any way concern Protestants And therfor it is wholly impertinent Thus the famous Knight when he had once conceived an idea of his own errantry every flock of sheep must be an army and every wind-mill a giant or els it is impertinent to Don Quixot 9 ch from page 198 to 213. Your ninth chapter upon my paragraff of Light and Spirit is wholly spent neglecting all my other discours in solving the Jewish objection which I answer my self And if you have added any thing better than mine I shall be thankful for it as soon as I see it But I fear your vaunting flourishes about scriptur which you love to talk on will not without the help of your Credo and humble resignation solve the argument which that you may the eassier be quit of you never examin but only run on in your usual flourishes about the use and excellency of Gods word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit
one unto a body an organical body not only Roman Catholiks but our English Prelacy and Presbyterians too Yea the very Quakers to my knowledg esteem none to be so much as Christians who assemble not with them And they have with them som ministers of the gospel too though extemporary ones A wary reader may obsery by the sole mirrour of this book of Whitbies which is a collection of most of the chief authors that have written against Popery since the Reformation how unsettled all Protestants be in all the controverted points of religion wherof ther is not any one by som of them denied but is by som others of them affirmed They know what Church to oppose but how much of her doctrin they should evacuate they could never yet unanimously agree nor what answer to fix steadily to any Catholik ground He will find also amongst other things that our present Protestants now adayes do generally swerv from the first reformers almost in all points both of disciplin and faith about supremacy good works free will possibility of keeping Gods commands the real presence prayer for the dead tradition c. which former Protestants for the first forty years would not abide to hear of but now they are all in a manner so allowed by most Protestants that there appears little difference between their way and catholik faith but only that this stands unchanged the other may alter again to morrow Indeed every Protestant writer is in one thing or other a new reformer as Whitby is here And every half-score years brings forth new scenes nor is there any now that heeds any Protestant writer that is gon if he speak contrary to him though he were never so eminent even in the very point and busines of Reformation This is enough for Whitby I heard Sir above half a year ago that Dr. Barlow had made ready for the Press another book of his own against Mr. Cressy and therfor deteined this my letter with me till I might give you an account of his with it Truly Sir I watched as earnestly for it as any cat watches for a mous But it will not yet appear In the interim one Mr. Stillingfleet has lately written a great book against Popery even so big a book in folio that none may buy it but only such as hate Popery more than they love sixteen shillings And he also proceeds this new french Hugonot way insisted on by Whitby He is only for a Church diffusive that holds fundamentals what ever they be and makes no account of any Church organical Wherby he utterly disables not the Roman Hierarchy only but even our English Protestant Church and government if men do but understand what he sayes And yet this man is mightily applauded by our English byshops which I cannot but marvel at and do thence conclude that they all begin now to think our English Church it self that it may be made good must be pulled down Councels he holds with Whitby that they can have no autority to move our assent although they be general as ther has never been any he sayes these thousand years And what is ther then for Gods sake shall move the Presbyterians Independents and others here in England to approve of the constitutions and government of our English Church set up by a far lesser assembly In a word this whole book of Stillingfleets is a large discours against a Theological argument of some Catholik disputant The argument it seems was this Christian faith cannot be divine except it have its birth from an infallible proposer and consequently the Church must either be infallible or els our faith is not divine The answer of this argument is the very life and vitals of Mr. Stillingfleets whole book That same argument of the Catholik Gentleman is indeed a pretty theological ratiocination and Stillingfleets answer evasions and distinctions both concerning the argument in general and all the particulars it runs into are not unwitty But this is no part of our busines Alas we in our controversies about religion are not come thus far Such a discours had been handsomly fitted to theologicall schools and very proper amongst learned divines there but here not so What is it to our busines in hand whether faith can or cannot be divine except the proposer be infallible and as it were divine This is a meer theological dispute And he that answers Stillingfleets book defends not faith immediately but an argumentators syllogisme Religion indeed as soon as ever it is questioned or disputed runs presently into Philosophy And therin if great heed be not taken it is quite lost And thence it comes to pass that most part of our controversie books is about school philosophy and human reasonings I blame not the Catholik Gentleman who ever he was for his argumenting Nor will Stillingfleet be blamed for defending his place But I let my countreymen spectators of the contest understand that in deed and truth so often as we dispute we are beyond the busines All writers of controversie speak more then faith when they either defend or oppose it And in reading controversies we see not so much the nature of the faith as the wit of him who opposes or defends it and so much this some times that the other is nothing at all discerned This the world must know and understand well or els they will be miserably mistaken as indeed I see all men are When two lawyers plead about a case of right perhaps three hours together all that three hours talk is not law or the right they talk of but only their ratiocinations about it And such are all our controversies about religion And he does best therin who still puts his adversary in mind what is his talk and what is the faith they talk of But he that defends both of them equally forgets himself And thus I see that generally men do miscarry on both sides the Protestant by calling that Romanish doctrin which is but a Catholiks discours for it and the Catholik by maintaining that talk of his which it is not a pin matter whether it stand or fall For faith is firm and constant though all my talk for it be miserably weak Now all the whole busines of faith which Stillingfleet and his adversary talk of is as I take it only this That the Church of Christ hath by Gods divine promis of being ever with her a power to oblige her subjects to hear and obey her if they mean to be happy in their way The Catholik affirms this Stillingfleet with his Protestants deny it And this is all the faith that is in it which is not here touched And a theological busines of Infallibility only spoke of And therfor Stillingfleet is much to blame when he speaks so often in his book of the Romanists way of resolving faith the Romanists arguments for their faith the Romanists doctrin about infallibility not divine but as it were divine the Romanists tenet about
they at one time or other trip and fail And particular mens failings are to be rectified by the straightnes and integrity of the General Canon but they are not to be esteemed that Canon as your Doctor Taylor not inclined to mend things but marre them rather would here have them to be thorowout this whole book of his Disswasive where whatever he can read or hear of amongst the writings of any one in the Catholik world that may either swerv or be wrested from the universal judgment and beleef of Papists that he calls Popery and what they speak that the Roman Church must pretend O the strange perversness and wickedness of mans heart And yet this book of his thus made up has carried away not the weaker sort of men only but it seems has made even your discretion Sir to stagger For when I gave you lately a visit I perceived within a while that I had but gon forth to see a reed shaken with the wind What the Church can do is but one of the Questions of School-divinity and no Catholik faith Consequently no Popery And if two or three in the Schools should chance to aver this power in the Church where more then two or three thousands deny it why should not the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours be esteemed Popery as well as that of only three Whilst all of them agree in their faith which is that the Church hath a power authoritatively to decide controversies and dispute only of a further power then their faith reaches unto I should think that the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours is rather to be esteemed Popery if one of them must be called so rather then the single opinion of two or three if any such be to the contrary But truth is ther is no such opinion of any one I know to the contrary Nor does Turrecremata nor any els teach that the Church hath power to make new articles in that sence your Dr. Taylor means who therby would infer that Catholik faith is therfor not primitive but new Nay it is rather Popery and a part of Catholik faith that no new articles can be made For General Councels have determined that nothing is to be beleeved or held but id quod traditum est that which has been received from Christ and his Apostles Nor can the Religion otherwise be the faith of Christ or Christian Religion Sir if you do but seriously peruse the last one general Council which all Protestants hold to be rank popish that I mean which was kept at Trent you will find that they testifie almost in every Session and profes to make all their determinations according to that which had been delivered according to that they had received according to that which had been conserved by continual succession to that which was conformable to Apostolical tradition to that which had been perpetually and uninterruptedly retained to that which ancestours profest to that which the Church of God ever taught ever understood ever beleeved that which hath been received down by hands that which was the ancient judgment and custom that which has been approved since the apostles dayes c. These are all the very words of the Councel in several of their Sessions And shall a Doctor Taylor com now after all this and tell the world that Popery is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive and that Papists pretend to make new faith c. after a general Synod which all Protestants look upon as the most popish Councel that ever was and that too the last and nearest to us hath so manifestly so pathetically so generally profest the contrary What should we say to such a Doctor And other general Councels in like manner never determined any thing for the quieting of dissentions for which end they met together but what was latent at least in the seed of Christs word and so no new article in this Doctours sence as did that Councel for example which determined two wills in Christ which was no new article becaus the former old faith which had made known two perfect natures in our Lord the one divine the other humane apparently dictated that truth against all those who would acknowledg but one will in him And this being defined by the Councel received a new strength against a novel heresie but not a new birth For this caus Councels do not determin the varieties that are in Schoolmen becaus these are superstructures and none of them more latent in ancient tradition than is the opinion that is opposit to it But Turrecremata Triumphus Ancoran and Panormitan teach that the Church can make new articles If they should say any such thing I have already made it enough evident that it cannot be thence inferred to be popery or any part of popery But what if they speak no such thing What shall we think then of this your Dr. Taylor Turrecremata in the place cited by him never so much as dreamed as any man may there see that the Pope is the rule of faith as the Doctour would have him speak but in that whole chapter labours only to shew that it belongs to him principally to regulate disputes in faith as being the chief Prelate In the like manner does he most unworthily abuse the other three brought by him as witnesses that the Pope can make new Creeds and new faith wheras Panormitan teaches expresly that he cannot make but only declare faith Ancorano sayes the like adding that what he so declares may be new to us though not in it self and Triumphus no less manifestly speaks in the very place cited by him that ther is one and the same faith in the ancients and moderns and that in our holy Creed are inserted all those things which universally pertain to Catholik faith although he say withall which is also very true that to adde explicate or declare a truth which is contained in holy Scripture hath alwayes been lawful for the Church But is this to make new faith which is not Apostolik and primitive as this your Doctour would have them to assert Do you Sir your self judg And him that thus abuses the world God Almighty judg So that when we come to the close of all ther is not any one Catholik Doctour that ever said that the Church can make new articles of faith in Doctour Taylors sence Why then did Pope Leo the 10. condemn Luther for denying the Pope to have this power Neither did Luther or Pope Leo ever dream of any such thing For Luther wholly busied himself about his old Catholik Religion from which he had revolted which he called an Egyptian darkness that had overspread the earth even from the Apostles dayes and never thought of this school question which in his dayes was not heard of And he denied the then present Pope who was Leo the tenth to be any judg in those Controversies of Religion or to have any power statuendi of deciding or
first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans who inhabited this Land before us differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christned long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented by him as your cavil fondly imagines but owned professed and put in practice by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes If Rome first taught us Christianity she may then rather plead a power to guide us than we her This or some such like thing I might speak and rationally speak it But that we or any other should be obliged still to abide or rather to follow them who first taught us Religion though they should themselvs forsake their own doctrin as you would make me speak is a piece of folly never came into my thoughts And you may be ashamed to put it upon me Why do you not set down my own words and the page of my book where I delivered this principle My third must be The Roman Religion is still the same This also I do no where formally express nor enter into any such common place You will say I suppose it But doth this justifie you who say here that I assert it as a principle let it then be supposed for I do indeed suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstrativly proved a hundred times over You deny it has bin proved why do you not then disprove it Becaus you decline say you all common places Very good so do I let us com to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostasie heresie or schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any casual or natural downfall or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes You adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schism licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good Sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy or partial apostasy in adhering to any error in faith contary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find som one or other more general Church if any ther were possitively to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell Since you are no wayes able to assign any of these particulars my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that have been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account If you had either cited the place or set down my own words they would have spoke their meaning I might say perhaps that our Land had no part of those disturbances upon the account of religion all the thousand years it was Catholik which it hath suffered in one age since or the like But that all
not to heed any thing that may hinder your flourishes But Sir if you were kept up in a chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your aery vaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold had made an end of you But I beleev you love not such dry blows however you may be delighted with pen encounters at a distance where after your suppositum has been well inspired with the warm spirits blown hither out of the fortunate islands you may cavil revile and threaten at your pleasure and knock down the shadow of your adversary which your own spirits have raised up and presented to you in your chamber 10 ch from page 213 to 228. Your tenth chapter runs over two of my paragraffs which speak the plea of Independents Presbyterians and Protestants That you esteem idle the other sensles the last insufficient And to make this last good you endeavour to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat Lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England they were forced for their own preservation against Puritans to take up som of those principles again which former Protestants had sast down for Popish as is the autority of a visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between clergy and laiety c. Here first you deny that those principles are popish But Sir ther be som Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jury I have other things to do than to fill volums with useles texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers and catholik divines and councels Then secondly you challenge me to prove that those principles were ever dented by our prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therfor bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants becaus I say that our prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond the seas before our prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that out prelate Protestant affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied you bid me prove that our prelate Protestant ever denied them Thus you contradict what I say is pleaded against our prelate Protestant And again you do as stiffly gain-say what I plead for him my self You laugh at me even with head and shoulders and tell me that the prelate-Protestant has far better arguments for themselvs then either mine is or any I can bring nor do they need the help of such a weak logician as my self in this their caus Sir give me leav to tell you here once for all that I thought it sufficient for my design to set down either for Papist or Protestant when occasion required such reasons as appeared plausible to my self and to say all for them that can be said was neither the work of my small ability nor any purpos of my design And it is enough to me that I know no better But let us see what my argument is and how you crush it The Church say I must have a byshop or otherwise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first c. This that you may evacuate you tell me that the Church hath still the same head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and laws and is man-God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible bishop to be that head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and yet not the same Thus you speak But Sir I cannot in any reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true logick of the identity of the head than I do of the identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation com who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind becaus they adhere to the same principles of faith And as the body is of the same kind though not numerically the same so do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other beleeving men is departed hence to the glory of his Father that the Church should still have a head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or els say I she cannot be completely the same body or a body of the same kind she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible byshop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God but this man-hood is now separate nor is he visibly now present as man which immediately headed his beleevers under God on whose influence that natur depended His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in it self but in order also to his Church as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner beleeved but the natur delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples is now utterly withdrawn And if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then nor is she the same polity or body she was before Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labour so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of the invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior direction and government to his Church Pray tell me is
he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man and Presbyterian Ministers are as needless as either Catholik or Protestant byshops On the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole Kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the Kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not onely by one but several acts and constitutions both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher than the byshops who by the law is under both King and byshop too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakned by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian King of any Kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reasons Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the lips of the king or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom Kings themselvs remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his Majesties autority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the Kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman Catholiks as to any Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his Majesties judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught
by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their King in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or the other various constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justifie it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy-men under the King In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the King For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The King is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his authority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the King the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direction is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as supream governour though himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the King succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their leige sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperours and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their Kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganism they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not only their temporal contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And Kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of worldly senatours enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielden under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact speciall and particular laws answerable to the genetal rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto discovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselvs to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people who were of that Church The chief byshop is an Aaron and
every Christian king a Joshua And as it is a content and support to Aaron to have a Joshua with him to fight Gods battles and keep the people in awe so is it not a little comfort to Joshua to have an Aaron by him with whom he may consult And indeed no kingdom can have a perfect accomplishment without the presence of these two swords civil and spiritual Ecce duo gladij hic satis est And although Christians even at this day when any heresy or novelty arises have still recours unto the same head of their religion for a decision of the doubt whom they consulted before for as the channel of Christianity is and must be still the same so must the spring-head be the same also yet when the thing is once decided they have none but kings and governours under him to see the direction executed as the only overseers with coactive power to do it And thus you see in brief how the Pope is head of the Church and the King head likewise and both immediately under God but with this difference that the king only governs Christianity established in his own royalty by law the Pope without further law rules and guides all the streams and rivulets of religion where ever it flows He is head of primary direction the king of sovereign execution he of guidance and spiritual autority only the king of civil and natural power invested in his place and dignity from God above to maintain any laws as well purely Christian as civil which himself shall accept establish and promulgate The Pope perswades but the King commands and although the Pope should formally command yet vertually and in effect such a command amounts only to a perswasion and he that obeys not feels no smart for it except the king be pleased to espous his caus and punish the contumacious which if he justly do then have kings a just autority in those affairs if otherwise then hath the Pope no means of help or defence in this world any more after the conversion of kings than before it and help himself he cannot any other way than only by putting people out of his communion who care not for it The Pope is obeyed for conscience and love only to his religion the King for wrath and conscience too the Pope delivers the rule but in general only and blunt on one side the King particularises it and gives it an edg the Popes headship is exercised in Ought and Should be the Kings is Will and shall be the Pope directs but the King compells the Pope secludes the contumacious from heaven which he that beleevs not feels not the King over and above that cuts off malefactors from the face of the earth too and they shall be made by feeling to beleev it And these two defend and secure one another and keep both Christians and their faith inviolate And while Christians themselvs do both tenderly love their Pape and chief pastour and spring-head of their religion which is beleeved beyond him to flow invisibly from God the great ocean of truth and withall do honor fear and observ their King and princely governour who only bears the sword of justice and not in vain to take revenge upon all those whom the love of religion and spiritual sword of their pastour will not keep in awe they do their duty as they ought and shall finde happines therein I must make haste and can say no more at present to this busines which as I have told you is somewhat besides my purpos Only one thing I must needs tell you before I pass on Although a King is in a good and proper sence stiled head as well of Church as State within his own dominions as for all coersive power therein yet head of the Church absolutely or head of primary direction in faith is so proper to the chief Prelate that no man upon earth besides himself hath ever so much as pretended to it and that for five reasons First becaus head of the Church absolutely intimates an universal right over the guidance of religion not in one kingdom only but all where ever that religion is And the King of France for example neither did nor can pretend to be head of the Church of England much less of Hungary Spain Africk Italy Greece Asia c. Yet such a head there must needs be to the end the Church may be one mystick body at unity in it self And that head must be unlimited to time and place as the Church it self is ever permanent and universally spread nor must the government alter as governments of particular kingdoms do Secondly head of the Church absolutely involves a primacy both of conveighing and interpreting faith and all princes in Europe received their faith at first from priests who sent for that end from their spiritual superiour converted their kingdoms but they never gave faith either to them or their pastour Thirdly he that is head of the Church absolutely must be of the same connatural condition with the whole hierarchy to confirm baptise ordain preach attone the almighty by sacrifice impose hands segregate men from their worldly state unto his own spiritual one and in a special manner to exercise those priestly functions unto which he segregates them Fourthly head of the Church absolutely is to be indifferent unto kingdoms and all sorts of government as the religion also is and keep it like it self in all places unaltered in its nature however in its general dictates it may concur to the direction and good of all people and governments And therefor he cannot be confined to one place or government but must be as it were separate and in a condition indifferent to all as a general by shop whose sole care is to heed those eradiations of faith spread up and down the world may be and is when princes heed but their own particular kingdoms and care not how religion goes in another any more then their wealth or polity Thus the sun-beams though they fall upon several soils diversly affected yet they keep their own nature unaltered by vertue of one general fountain-head of light which is indifferent to every kingdom and dispenses distributes and keeps the raies unchanged The ends and wayes of religion are quite of another nature from all worldly businesses and therfor require a particular superintendent set apart for them as indeed they ever have had since the time of religions first master who as he did educate his in order to a life eternal in a government apart being himself a man distinct from Caesar so used he to speak of religious duties as separate and differing from others Reddite saith he quae Caesaris sunt Caesari quae Dei Deo In very truth the Church and Christianity as it is a thing accidental to all worldly states so is it superinduced upon them as an influence of another rank and order unto a particular end of future bliss whereas all states do
the dignities glory and revenues of their prelates when they could not otherwise get them into their own hands by their lamentable tones in Eloimi raised up the people of the land to further their design This trick of theirs they learned from wolves For these when they spy a waifaring man whom they would devour and yet by a narrow search perceiv him to be too strong for them starting aside upon som hillock there set upon their tails they howl for help And if any will not beleev Fiat Lux that such be the fruits of disputes and controversies and such their nature and genius let them beleev the Authour of Animadversions who as he sayes what he pleases and denies what he lists so to his frequent reproaches villifications and slanders he adjoyns his own Menaces of terrour to make my words good and justify Fiat Lux. You frequently threaten me that if I write again I shall hear more far more than you have said in your Animadversions but I promis you Sir if you write again you shall never hear more from me For now the flies begin to com into my chamber which may haply expect I should heed their flight and hearken to their buzz and I must not leav those greater employments to look upon your Animadversions or any your other books Farewell Given this V. of the Ides of April in the year of our Lord MDCLXIII J. V. C. EPISTOLA AD CROESVM AGAINST Mr. Whitby The occasion of this second Epistle Doctour Pierce had preached a Sermon in the Court upon that text In the beginning it was not so from whence he took occasion to speak of Popery which in this and that and the other particular he said in the beginning was not so and consequently all of it a novelty This sermon was afterwards printed and not a little applauded by those who are taken with such airs Mr. Cressy a Catholik Gentleman the Authours friend then sojourning in London wrote a book called Catholik doctrin no novelties in confutation of that Sermon and went presently away to Paris But after his departure Mr. Whitby set forth a huge bulk of a book against Cressy The Authour in this his epistle gives notice to Mr. Cressy his friend then in France of the contents and tenour of that his adversaries book Epistola ad Croesum against Mr. Whitby SIR IT is now about a year since Dr. Pierce made his pretty featous Sermon in the Court where by vertue of those few words of his text In the beginning it was not so Matth. 19.8 he confuted all Popery in the space of one hour as a meer bundle of novelties The Treatise you left here in the hands of som friends before your departure to Paris to prove against the tenour of the said Sermon That Catholik doctrines are no novelties printed afterward by I know not what good hand gave us here in England after your departur a great deal of good satisfaction This book of yours about a moneth or two after it was extant was seconded by another against Dr. Pierce penned by Jo. Sim. a small but a very quick and lively piece to invalidate his reasons So that Pierce had now two adversaries against him The latter J. S. hears not yet of any reply But your book Sir is lately answered not by Dr. Pierce himself who hath other irons in the fire and meets now with somthing in his own life which in the beginning was not so but by one Mr. Daniel Whitby a young man of a forward spirit and possest as it seems of a fair reformed library who hath undertaken or is willing atleast to undergo the quarrel This book of Whitbyes wherof my antient love and friendship hath here invited me to give you a brief account is a great volum of 512 pages so fruitful is the seed of controversie when it is once sown to increase and multiply A compendium it is I think of his whole library Whether this book of his be made up all by one hand by reason of the unity of the name and diversity of stiles discerned in it is not easy to guess But that Mr. Whitby if he had many coadjutors with him either in his own chamber or abroad should by their mutual consent alone reap the honour of all their labours wherof his own part may haply be the least you need Sir neither grutch nor fear nor envy nor any way dislike The book is of that natur that it more behoovs it should be thought to issue from one young head then many old ones that the insufficiency when it shall appear may be rather attributed to the weaknes of the Author then caus he pleads for Of this Sir I may out of Whitbyes own words in his Epistle Dedicatory and the whole progres of his book assure you that this volume of his is wholly made up of the many several replies of divers Protestant writers who have stretcht their wits to the utmost in this last age to evacuate the Catholik faith and all their grounds autorities and reasons for it not only such as have written here in England which are not a few but those also beyond the seas who are all met friendly here together though never so much differing in their wayes twenty at least or thirty of the chiefest to help to make up Mr. Whitbies book These writers he tells us in his Epistle som of them who they be Hammond Field Salmasius Baron Usher Fern Dally Taylor Crackanthorp Hall Andrews Calixtus Plessis Chamier and Chillingworth But he does not there mention Pareus Blondel Baxter and several others whom in the context of his book he makes as much use of as any of those he there honours with the title of Champions with whose sword and buckler he means to defend himself and knock you down You may easily guess the reason Although indeed even Chamier Plessis and Dally his first and chiefest three wer as great Puritans as Baxter Pareus or Blondel and no less enemies to the English Protestant then Roman Catholik Church And Baxter himself if he will but do so much as dye shall seven year hence if not sooner be put into the next calendar and sit among the Champions of the English Church cited no more then as guilty of faction and heresy but as a Protector and Patron of the truth famous Baxter incomparable Baxter So p. 230. he cites Dr. Reynolds as a great Champion of his Church who was indeed a Champion of the Puritans against it Every non-Papist is a good Protestant especially when he is dead When they fight for their wives and children against catholik traditions and faith then are they all holy zealous champions But they are damned and swerv notoriously from the truth if they may be themselvs beleeved when they contest with one another which ever happens after the first great victory with the common enemy obtained One thing is singular in this book of Whitbies that he frames no answers out of any
much swerved from the ancient primitive practice of former Christians For Protestants have neither priests nor altars nor offerings nor sacrifice nor satisfactions nor expiations for the dead which those authorities speak of Ch. 11. from page 188. to 203. The real presence under the elements of the Eucharist Mr. Whitby here will not by any means endure And he hath one shield of a word which consists of almost as many syllables as Ajax his buckler of bulls hides to repell all autorities that may witness it Representatively that is the word Thou seest saith St. Chrisostom upon the altar the very body which the wise-men saw and worshipped Representatively saith Whitby Again The most precious thing in heaven I will shew thee upon earth saith the same father It is shewed representatively saith Whitby it is seen representatively I dare not adore the earth saith St. Augustin and yet I have learned how the earth is to be adored becaus flesh is of the earth and our Lord gave us his flesh to eat which no man eats except he first adore It is Christ saith Whitby who is adored representatively And if any words will not bear that distinction then are they all spurious Nay if any should say expresly that not only Christ in heaven but his very Sacrament is worshipped this man will tells us presently who hath as many shifts in readiness where one will not serv his turn as Achelous had to slip out of the hands of Hercules that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and adoro have other significations But he has poor man no very good memory For after he had in this one chapter spent many of his pages to show that the real presence was not the former faith of Christians and that they never adored the Eucharist he lets fall a word by chance in the very close which spoils all by giving us to understand that this was so universal a beleef and practis among Christians that it came even to the notice of Infidels and that it was withall of so great concernment amongst beleevers that it expressed their whole religion as the abridgment of their faith and great capital work of their devotion Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis It was the speech of Avicen saith Whitby although I think it was Averroes who well enough understood both of them the natur of Christian religion not only by what they saw themselves but what they had read from more ancient writers both Christian pagan and Mahometan up and down the world concerning the religion of Christians Since the Christians worship that which they eat saith that Infidel let my sould be with Philosophers Ch. 12. from page 203. to 218. Labours much for the general use of the Cup in all Communions But neither does Mr. Whitby nor can he distinguish as appears by his discours wherein he sayes that otherwise ther would not be a representation of Christs death which is the wisest word he speaks in all this whole chapter I say he knows not and cannot distinguish that ther is in that one Eucharistian liturgy a double action the one of sanctifying and offering to God the other of giving or communicating to the people In the sanctifying and offering of the sacred simbols does only the sacrifice which is a representation of Christs death consist But the communicating of these symbols to the people is only a consequent of the former and no formal representation of our Lords death at all But he does not know and you need not heed what he sayes The concomitance of our Lords body and blood where ever it be in any one or other of the species or symbols which may enough justifie communion in one kinde he tells you very roundly it is a figment But if he had heeded the very practis of his own Church which indeed he never does he would have forborn those words For when the Protestant minister gives the people first the bread and sayes Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed upon him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving Do not the ministers words there imply a concomitance before the cup come even as perfect a concomitance as you Sir can plead for I think they do For surely they intend not to feed only upon one half of him Chap. 13. from page 218 to 230. Declares that alms-deeds and preaching of the Gospel is a sacrifice But the Eucharist he will not allow to be any true sacrifice at all Although to put by your arguments and solid reasonings for it he grants it may be called a Symbolical sacrifice And so he has caught hold of another distinction which runs quite through this matter or rather put the same distinction into other characters And if any ancient writers as ther are enough do give testimony that our Lords body and blood in the Eucharist is offered immolated and sacrificed on Christian altars by the priest for our attonement It is to be understood saith Whitby to be offered symbolically immolated symbolically sacrificed symbolically figuratively significatively representatively And though you beat his head never so much with your autorities and reasons so long as symbolically remains there you do but beat the air But where are any altars in our English Churches or any sacrifices offered or immolated theron And how comes it to pass that all these hundred years of our separation from Roman unity our people have never been told that they have priests still amongst them and altars and sacrifice although they be but symbolical ones symbolical sacrifice symbolical altars and symbolical priests For sacrifice is the very form and essence of all religion And they that know so much would have been much satisfied to hear that they have yet a sacrifice at least a symbolical sacrifice amongst them I will be bold to say that not one man of a million has ever heard of any such thing in an English pulpit or ever read it in a catechism The minister of the word and word of the minister that is all we ever hear of But it is thought perhaps that symbolical Priest would make but a jarring sound like two voices in a defective octave which have a semblance and shadow of a perfect concord but coming short of it produce the harshest and worst of discords in our ear That our Lords death upon the Cross was a true and real sacrifice to God for mankinde all Catholiks know well enough and our Ministers need not put them in minde of that which already they beleev But as the sacrifices of the old law were instituted by almighty God to be often iterated before the passion of the great Messias for a continual exercise of religion in order to his future death So did the same Lord for the very same purpos of religious exercise institute another to be iterated after his death unto which once past it was to have reference as the former had a
which infers a worship of God in it not by it Chap. 15. from page 247 to 273. Is very earnest for scriptur and liturgy in a vulgar tongue This plea of Protestant ministers makes a plausible sound And they know it well enough For it was the first thing that by their rhetorical colours cast upon it commended them to the people after the Apostacy of the first reformers by whose perswasion the people was then made to beleev they should now be as gods all of them knowing good and evil The word of God saith Whitby is kept from the knowledge of the vulgar people in the Roman Church And thus they all say and ever will say be they never so much satisfied by Catholik writers to the contrary becaus it is to their own advantage it should be so thought in England and all other places where Protestants have invaded and now actually sit upon the Catholick Clergies benefice and byshoppricks But is ther any part or particle of Christian faith or religion or of the word of God that is kept from Catholiks or not made known to them in Books Catechismes Sermons all in their own language and in daily practis of that Church wherof they are members Do they not hear and read and see all the mysteries of our Christian faith Christ our Lords birth and passion resurrection and ascension into glory what he acted what he suffered what he taught what he constituted and ordained for our salvation what we are to hope what to beleev what to practice in order thereunto set before their eyes not only by continual sermons made to them all over the catholik world in their own vulgar tongue but by their Gospels and Epistles which they have lying by them collected for the cours of the whole year and translated into their own language together with several pious treatises and meditations upon all these rules and mysteries of faith unto so ample use that if they do but walk accordingly which is all that religion intends they cannot miss salvation Is not all this Gods word It is nothing els And what is ther more of the word of God except we will count letters and syllables The word of God then is not kept from the knowledg of the vulgar people in the Roman Church But why have they not the Bible translated as it lies in all languages where catholik faith is profest Becaus it is obscure as it lies in that short and ambiguous phrase and under so many several tropes of rhetorick and schemes also of logick wherin it was wrote apt therby to be perverted and misunderstood as we see by experience to be true unto endles factions Nor does the word of God consist so much in letters and syllables as in the marrow and meaning of his will And not the sence and meaning but the letter of the scriptur is that which makes hereticks But is not that the word of God which is kept from the people It is the word of God but not kept from the people For it is but the same with that which is delivered and made known unto the people So much as it contains whatever it be either of faith or morality either of what is to be beleeved or hoped or practised they have it all but disintangled from those artificiall schemes of logick and rhetorick wherof the holy writ is fuller then any book was ever writ by man which there inwrap and render it obscure Ther is no instruction no rule of piety no particle of comfort either for this world or the other in St. Pauls epistles for example but Catholiks have it they read it in their own language if they be able to read they know it all And they have it in a better and more facil manner then they could find it out by perusing those high theological discourses of his which the learnedst of men can hardly and very hardly understand The like I say of other portions of holy writ Only the disputative part with the interwoven systems of rhetorick this may exercise great and more sublime divines who by help of their various litterature may consider not only the plain truths therin contained which are common to them with other vulgar beleevers but the nature of the Metonymies Synechdoche's Metaphors together with the several modes of argumentation refutation objections and inopinate transitions in the context This if my adversary OeN had understood it had saved one fourth part of his Animadversions upon Fiat Lux and Whitby here had been utterly silent But it is their only advantage both in this and other controverted points of faith with Roman Catholiks either to be ignorant or dissemble their knowledg And therfor I have good reason to think they will never seem to understand But God grant they may The wonder is that English Protestants should still be as fiercely eager in this point when they write controversies as ever they were when they do themselves most heartily repent I have heard several great clergy-men amongst them speak it that they had ever given the Bible in that short ambiguous phrase it is penned into the hands of people in their own tongue to be thus perverted as it is every one his own way unto endles and irreconcilable schismes It would glad their hearts no doubt to see the Roman Church do indiscreetly as they have don But that will never be Holy catholik Church has revealed translated and several wayes made known the will of God to her people appointing most divine wayes and methods such as she had her self received from God to inure and keep them in the practis of that their holy faith And the disputative and sublimer divinity or as I may so speak the philosophical part of holy writ such as can may read on Gods name and the Church will commend them for it while these with all the rest attend unto those duties and good works every one in his calling which their holy faith prescribes These are and ever were the wayes and method of the now present and ancient catholik Church most wise and holy And her subjects and beleevers have profited therby many thousands of them unto angelical sanctity and all of them unto somthing more than otherwise they would have had whilst others that swerv from these wayes promote themselvs unto wildness and schisme without end missing indeed the word of God in the very scripture they read and never attaining to the true life and power in that form of words which they use not unto intended sanctification but by their own misinter pretations wrest and deprave daily unto their own destruction Nor will people be ruled now by their ministers but thinking it their own right to interpret as they pleas make it their only work to read and cant sentences and coin opinions as they list Excepting only this one fruit of our vulgar reading of scripture as it lies which in all mens judgments is an evil fruit I do not see nor
1 a greater assistance of the Spirit of God 2 greater means of finding out the truth 3 better reason of discovering what is the opinion of the whole Church 4 an authority delegated from Christ to decide controversies After all this and with all this it is neither impossible with him nor unprobable that general councels may erre even in fundamentals which himself affirms as perspicuous as if they were writ with a sun-beam as clear and evident as that twice two make four Prelates Christian Prelates these must be the only natural fools of the world Ch. 22. from page 456. to 465. Descends to Patriarchal Councels which saith he may be disobeyed and rejected becaus such conventions are fallible and may obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon the world and that a judgment of discretion is to be allowed unto private men whether they are to submit to their determinations or no. This whole chapter might well have been spared For if a greater much more may a particular and lesser Church obtrude heresies and unlawful practises upon men But Mr. Whitby is desirous that all should be made plain and not any rub lie in the Presbyterian and good Quakers way when he shall plead an excuse for his separation from a Metropolitan Church here in England which he hath made with a judgment of discretion here allowed him Ch. 23. from page 465 to 478. Sayes that the Protestant never separated from the internal communion of the universal Church which unity is only essential but only from external union with som And such an union external with any Church on earth is no wayes necessary to any ones being a member of the Church Why then is the poor Quaker so grievously persecuted imprisoned and beaten only for separating from an external communion with other Protestants Especially since he separates from it for no other end but to have the internal communion in pure faith and light and grace and charity more perfect Let any man read the Quakers books which are now not a few and see if they speak not for themselvs as Whitby here does for his own caus But the profest errours of the Roman Church justifie the Protestant separation And does not the Quaker justifie his separation both from Roman and Protestant too by the same argument of notorious abuses errours sins falsities disorders superstitions excesses of ministers priests byshops deanaries chapters lawn sleeves universities and steeple-houses Ch. 24. from page 478 to 494. Endeavours finally to justifie the English reformation upon the account that it was made here by the supream magistrate who may reform the Church either with a Synod or without it And that supream power I hope then may be permitted to set up the Presbyterian or Quaker at least to give them freedom of Conscience if himself pleas without any bishops consent no man daring to gain-say or murmur against it which not a few do heartily wish to see in this Land Ch. 25. with the Appendix from p. 494 to 512. Prescribes conditions and forms of disputing and replying with som additions to his former discourses Thus have you Sir the particular design of each several chapter of Mr. Whitby's book the negative part wherof denies your Church and the positive betrayes his own Why he gainsayes yours it is not hard to read But why he should so much endanger his own I cannot so easily say whether it be ignorance malice or necessity moves him to it Surely no Son of the English Church as Whitby professes himself to be could thus open a gap for the incursion of all sects who are now ready to swallow her up if he be in sound sences but he must either not have what he may or not will what he should or not know what positively he ought to affirm and teach for her better preservation This book of Whitbies can never bring any man to that Church nor keep any in that is there If an enemy attempt the subversion of a hous it may chance to scape But if the owner and inhabitant begin once to pull it down himself he that passes by may not improbably conjectur it will not long stand Well may the Church of England take up that heavy complaint against this her either ignorant or malicious son If an enemy had don me mischief I could have endured it And if one who openly hated had maligned me I could have kept my self from him But thou man thou my intimate friend thou my leader and acquaintance Thus unworthily to be betrayed by her own White boy must be no small aggravation to the mothers sorrow I might easily gather out of Whitbies own words consequently put together a compleat play for all the several wayes that are now of late risen up against our English Church even so compleat that they never have nor ever need to say more This sad fate accompanies erroneous wayes that even in defending they destroy themselvs If witty Presbyterians assisted him in his book they did their own work not his And if he did it himself by som Presbyterian principles received accidentally from them he hath don therby not his own work but theirs Notable is this Gentlemans art in citing of authorities which he does in most of his chapters against the points of catholik beleef which are either not expressed in his book where they may be found or not there found where they are exprest or express no such thing as he cites them in his book to utter I had in my chamber but one of those many authors which Whitby cites for himself and I found in it all this to be true But this Sir to spare here partly the mans modesty and partly my own pains and expence of time I now omit And indeed what would it avail to give you or the world to understand that Whitby never read the authors himself cites or understood not or wilfully wrested them Let him live and learn And God give him grace to make use of his time to his own advantage This thing I may assure you of that Whitby is an enemy not only to Catholiks but Protestants also of all profession here in England or if you had rather have me so speak an equal friend to all For he will not have the Church of Christ to be any organical body as he calls it or company of people linked together in Sacraments lyturgy beleef and government but to be only such and all such people who hold God and a life to com and som other fundamentals which he names not himself all of them and therfor as I suppose leavs unto others each man as he pleases to determin Nor will he have men bound either to an internal beleef or any exteriour conformity to any Church This himself avers in many several places of his book that we may not miss his meaning This new way of his I think he borrowed of som French Hugonots For all the wayes that be here now in England concur each
fundamentals the Romanists motives of credibility the Romanists doctrin about the material and formal object of faith c. For all this and several such like talk is but the theological discours of that Catholik Gentleman and of it self no Romanists doctrin at all For I know well enough what Stillingfleet means and would have meant by Romanists doctrin And all his Protestant readers understand therby only Catholik religion and he knows it well enough I should take it ill and be sorry and look upon it as an injury to the Church of God if any one should call my way of defending her faith the Romanists way or my talk the Romanists doctrin however the thing it self defended or excused by me is Roman or Catholik faith The Church has no one way but several methods and several schools and several wayes to declare and explicate and defend her religion And every writer does it according to his personall endowments and judgment some better some wors though the religion so explicated defended and declared be still and ever one and the very same And if indeed I had been to speak in that busines I should never have made any such argument as that Catholik Gentleman did nor will another man think himself obliged to discours as I do although he and I defend both of us the same thing This if Mr. Stillingfleet consider as he ought he will soon perceiv his own pittiful childishnes But thus Doctour OeN dealt with me to my very great pitty and regret Ever and anon Is this your Roman doctrin quoth he Who would have thought that the Romish Church should dare to utter so wicked blasphemies c. First misinterpreting my words and calling that a doctrin which was none at all but only a prosopopy of atheistical objections and then stiling that a Roman doctrin which was but the talk of a particular man So that what he called Roman doctrin and Romish doctrin was neither Romish nor doctrin neither But ministers care not what they say And so much the more wary does it behove all men to be who deal with them Too much care cannot be taken with such men who either cannot or will not distinguish between general faith and particular mens doctrin between religion and several school-methods of defending it between the faith of the whole Church of God and discourses of writers concerning it So ignorant they are all of them or wilfully malicious I find in my heart even a longing desire to expres to you in particular the various shifts and misdemeanours of Stillingfleet But here is now no time or place for it and such a thing if it were done would be but of little use to morrow I mention him only to let you know how much the French Hugonot religion begins here to prevail by means of Whitby Stillingfleet and others to the overthrow of our own Protestant Church here establisht and to let posterity who shall haply see any of these small writings have some little glimmerings of these our present times They doubtles will be glad to see the general cours of things now done even as we are to read the wayes of former reformers although neither we nor they can take any great pleasur in any long particular narrations of their fallacies either against logick or morality when the men are once past and gone Dr. Jeremy Taylor hath also put forth lately a very bitter insulting injurious book against Catholik religion which he calls a Disswasive from Popery Reddet illi dominus secundum opera ejus And God will bless his Catholik beleevers who trust in him and walk according to their holy rule in his fear and love unblamable the very contumelies of adversaries working at length to their greater good And I beseech God who revives all things and Jesus our Lord who gave his testimony under Pontius Pilate a good confession that they may ever observ the commandments of God and the Church his Spous possessing their souls in perfect patience unreprovable unto the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord whom in his own times will the blessed God shew forth the only potent one the King of kings and Lord of Lords who alone hath immortality and inhabits light inaccessible whom no mortal man hath ever seen nor yet can see him to whom be all honour domimion and power for evermore Amen This is the earnest desire and prayer of Sir Your real friend J. V. C. Given in the Nones of March 1664. EPISTOLA AD AMPHIBOLVM AGAINST Dr. Taylor The occasion of this Epistle THe first epistle was written to an adversary the second to a friend this third to a neuter who after he had began to think more moderately of Catholik religion returned upon his reading of Dr. Jeremy Taylor his Disswasive from Popery to his former misconceit And he is by this Epistle given to understand that the said Disswasive is of that nature that it can have no such force upon any judicious man Sermo Horatianus inter Davum Herum D. IAmdudum ausculto cupiens tibi dicere servus Pauca reformido H. Davusne D. Ita Davus amicum Mancipium Domino frugi quod sit satis hoc est Vt vitale putes H. Age libertate Decembri Quando it a majores voluerunt utere Narra D. Pars hominum vitiis gaudet constanter urget Propositum pars multa natat modo recta capessens Interdum pravis obnoxia H. Non dices hodie quorsum haec tam putida tendunt Furcifer D. Ad te inquam H. Quo pacto pessime D. Laudas Fortunam mores antiquae plebis idem Si quis ad illa Deus subitò te agat usque recuses Aut quia non sentis quod clamas rectius esse Aut quia non firmus rectum defendis haeres Nequicquam coeno cupiens evellere plantam Non horam tecum esse potes non otia recte Ponere teque ipsum vitas fugitivus erro H. Vnde mihi lapides D. Quorsum est opus H. Vnde sagittas Aut insanit homo aut versus facit Ocyus hinc te Ni rapis accedes opera agro nona Dunano Epistola ad Amphibolum against Doctour Taylor SIR YOu were pleased to say upon your reading of Fiat Lux that Popery may for ought you knew be more innocent then commonly it is reputed and no wayes so odious as some would make it But now upon the reading of Dr. Taylor 's Disswasive which you desire me to peruse I perceiv you look towards your former thoughts concerning this maligned Popery and invite them home again To deal freely with you I was amazed my self at the reading of that book though not Sir with your amazement but another of my own You startled at Popery whose uglines was there set before your eyes with such fresh colours I at those ugly colours which so injuriously defaced that Religion that most innocent Religion which under the name of Popery lies here traduced by
the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the in-numerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorious crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrin of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head any thing he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may be thought worthy of the dignity and wealth he has now obtained in another slipt our of it But concerning the way he takes to
villifie the Roman faith and Church which is indeed the comm on road of all her adversaries I shall speak more fully if I have time by and by Now I hasten to his text which I shall give and my own judgment of it very briefly § 1. Which is about Novelties in general Sayes that the Protestant hath the word of God and Gospel and Apostles writings and if need be the four first general Councels and cannot be therfore doubted to be Apostolical but the Roman Church cannot so much as pretend that all her Religion is primitive since she pretends a power of making new articles of faith for Turrecremata Triumphus Ancorano and Panormitan affirm she can do it And this power Pope Leo the tenth challenged when he condemned Luther for denying him to have it To further this their pretended power the Papists corrupt and alter the Fathers works insomuch that Saurius the correctour of the Press at Lions complained to Junius that he was forced to blot out many sayings of St. Ambrose which had been in a former edition printed there For this care of purging Catholik writers Sixtus Senesis commends Pope Pius Nay they correct the very Indexes made by Printers as those of Probens and Chevallonius Thus the Doctour begins his book and I cannot but commend his wit For he wisely assumes that to himself which is the very one great busines wherin every particular controversie sticks and which if it were once agreeed on would put an end to all controversies that either now are or ever shall be in the world For they all com at length to this question which of the many Professours of Christianity now so much divided in their wayes have the Gospel and word of God on their side in this that and the other particular We saith Dr. Taylor we Protestants have the word of God we have the Gospel of Christ we have the Apostles writings with us and for us and therfor our Religion is for certain both ancient primitive and Apostolical This is Sir a very good consequence That Religion must needs be ancient which hath God for his Author that must be a primitive Christianity which Christ founded and what the Apostles writings confirm must needs be Apostolical faith But is it proved here by the Doctour that Protestants and not Catholiks have the word of God and of Christ and of his Apostles on their side No it is all supposed and his whole endeavour is to tell us that the religion which issued from God and Christ and his holy Apostles must needs be Apostolical primitive and ancient He supposes Protestancy as distinct from Catholik faith to have com all of it from those divine hands which is the only thing to be proved and declares at large that a religion which came from such hands must needs be ancient and primitive which is a thing no man can ever doubt It is certain and manifestly known that Protestants received both Law and Gospel and Apostles writings from the hands of Roman Catholiks who had kept and canonized and lived by those rules fifteen hundred years before Protestancy rose up in the world and all the whole hundred years since The only question is about the sence and mind of that holy writ in the many particular points now controverted in the world He has the law that has the mind and purpos and meaning of the law not he that hath the form of words without it This is the great business and the very extract and quintessence of all controversies which your quick Doctour assumes as granted on his side without any more ado We saith he we Protestants have the Law and Gospel and Apostles writings and the old Councels too if need be and therfor is not the ancientness of our Religion to be doubted But the Papists what of them the Papists Religion cannot so much as be pretended to be Apostolical old or primitive Why so Have not they the law and Gospel and Apostolical writings He does not plainly say they have not but he hopes his reader will think so What then of the Papists They saith he can make new Articles and therfor cannot their Religion be antient Sir although they could make new articles so long as they do not their Religion may be old still for all that A man may live in an old house although he be able to build a new one And this seems indeed to be the case here For the Disswader in confirmation of his speech brings in although unjustly the testimony of som Catholik Doctours who should say The Church can make new Articles but not one that sayes she has made any That I may yet go further although the Church should make new obliging Articles so long as these do not contrary the former but declare them more amply in such and such circumstances they annull not but rather confirm and explicate the old ones Is not our Law the same old Law of England and we the same polity our fore-fathers were although the King and Parliament upon occasion of new disorders make new acts and statutes continually But let us go on yet one step more The Roman Church does plead Sir whatever your Disswader would have you think that her religion is Catholik Apostolik and primitive becaus all her Councels by which that Church is governed have openly and continually declared when they came together to decide any affair which had raised new disturbance in the Christian world that they must firmly adhere to that which is Primitive to that which is Apostolical to that which is Catholik to that which has been delivered and received from fore-fathers And by that rule they decided the difference How then can this Church pretend to make new Articles Does your Doctour bring any General Councel which is the loud voice of that Church or any Tradition which is the Churches still voice to speak it No not any at all But this he ought to have done if he would prove that Church to pretend any such power What then Wy Turrecramata and som other doctours sayes she can do it But Sir if some one or other clergy-man should think that the Church can make new articles does it therfor follow that the Church it self does pretend any such power Surely the voice of one or two Ministers here in England cannot in reason be thought the voice of our whole Protestant Church especially when they speak against the tenour of her doctrin and practice But your Disswader has been many years picking in cobweb holes and obscure writings that he might where he could find any half sentence apt to be wrested from the common judgment of Catholik Religion mark that out for Popery to the end it may be thought either naught or new This is the chief ingredient of your Disswaders Policy Catholik Doctours Sir though they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may
determining in such affairs Nor is ther any the least mention either in Luther's resistance or Leo his censure about constituting new articles but only deciding the old which Luther would have thought to be erroneous however strengthened by antiquity and from which old errours he would make himself a reformation and innovation by the right which was in himself not subjected to any man no not to the Pope himself in those affairs Is this a mistake think you in your Disswader or somthing wors Truly I cannot think he was so ignorant The like insincerity doth this your Disswader exhibit in all that his talk of the Catholiks dealing with the Fathers works and the indexes or tables adjoyned to them jumbling his words so confusedly together that his reader might beleev that to be don to the Fathers writings themselvs which the Churches care provided to be done to the false glosses tables and indexes annexed to those writings and that to be taken out of those writings which ever was and still is in them and Printers and Correctours complaining of that fault of making alterations in the Fathers Editions which they did not so much as think of Which is a most stupendious insincerity And thus saith he are the Fathers maimed and curtailed by Papists insomuch that Sixtus Senensis praises Pope Pius 5. for this his car ein purging the Fathers works I say this whole talk of his is most prodigiously unjust For that Index Expurgatorius extended not to any writings or works of the Fathers but only to the marginal notes and false glosses and indexes or tables put to them by the hereticks and therfor are Tertullian Origen and some others still printed intire though ther be not a few things in them contrary to Catholik faith And this the very words of Junius a Correctour of a Press cited by the Doctour clearly intimates What saith he Papists dare not do with the Fathers they practise upon us he means Protestant printers and writers and with their little forks thrust out our annotations in the margent and our sayings in the indices although they be consonant to the Fathers minds But saith he this care was so great in Pius 5. that Sixtus Senensis commends the Pope for his industry in purging the Fathers works He did so indeed but if the Doctour had spoken out the sentence he had betrayed his own false heart which he would not willingly do Expurgari saith Senensis emaculari curasti omnium Catholicorum Scriptorum ac praecipue veterum Patrum scripta haereticorum aetatis nostrae faecibus contaminata venenis infecta Your Doctour our Disswader makes Senensis praise the Pope for his purging the Fathers as though he had scowred and scraped off the substance whereas he commended him only for his care in cleansing them from the infectious notes and glosses superadded to them by the hereticks of our times But Sir that I may tell you once for all The falsifications of Authours perverted by this your Disswader are so many so notorious and gross ones that in the very relating them I shall tire both my self and you My design is only to let you know that this whole work of his Disswasive from Popery if the proofs and citations he brings for his talk were true as they are all false signifies nothing at all Two worthy Catholik Gentlemen have discovered by the help of the Libraries in London and Oxford so many most gross falsifications one of them a hundred and fifty the other yet more and greater that it cannot but amaze an honest minded reader to behold them Pray read them Sir and ponder seriously and so rid of that trouble I shall make the more haste in my own design It was their endeavour it seems to show him to be dishonest mine is only to prove him impertinent God reward them for their pains and help me in mine For my hand denies me now his office not able to write with that facility it was wont But becaus I saw no abler pen to appear as I thought they would in the confutation of this slanderous book I judged it my part Sir to give you som general hints of light concerning it till there might issue som more plenary confutation by a better hand And here Sir you must know too that I had no sooner finished this my Epistle but that I understood of another book against this Doctour Taylors Disswasive a very solid book written by Ja. Ser. in order to his own book called Sure-Footing lately set forth which made me doubt for a while whether I should let this of mine appear especially when I considered the industry care and solidity of those three men the last wherof had so taken up what the other two had left for me to say and so utterly confounded this Disswasive that I might well be silent But I remembred a story which I had sometime read in holy writ of Joas the King of Israel who coming to visit Elizeus the Prophet when he lay sick on his death-bed was bid by him for his encouragement against his enemies to strike the ground with the javelin he had in his hand Joas at his word struck the floor three times But the holy man of God was angry with him and said If thou hadst struck five or six or seven times thou hadst smote Syria even to an utter consummation but now thou shalt smite it but thrice So very faulty is this Disswasive that it cannot be smote too often even to an utter consummation § 2 Which is about a leash of new Articles Sayes that in the Church of Rome faith and Christianity encreas like the moon and that ther be now two new articles of faith a coining namely the immaculate Conception and the Popes being above the Councel and one other lately produced in the Councel of Trent sess 21. which is That although the antient Fathers did give the Communion to Infants yet they did not beleev it necessary to salvation Which decree is saith he beyond all bounds of modesty and evident truth Here your Doctour tells news of one Article lately made and two more a coining which will shortly be out of the mint both which news he knows but we know not Indeed Sir this section belongs more to a writer of Diurnals or weakly Intelligencer than to a Doctour of Divinity And therfor at the reading of it I turned suddenly to the frontispiece of the book to see whose Imprimatur it had to it And I found it licensed not by Mr. l' Estrange but Geo. Stradling First then he tells us news to come and then news past A pair of faith articles are now he saith in the mint and will shortly come forth The Virgins immaculate Conception and the Popes being above a Councel But how can your Disswader say that these two are shortly to com forth wheras in this very section he tells us a little afterward that the Councel of Basil decreed the second Article against the
discretionis pervenerint necessariam esse Eucharistiae communionem anathema sit And this is all the articles of faith determined in that Councel upon this affair wherein the faithful are forbid to hold that the Communion of Infants is necessary to salvation If any one sayes the Councel shall say that communion of the Fucharist is necessary to babes before they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema And this doctrin I am perswaded your Disswader himself holds for good But this would not make him sport enough And therfor he lets pass the Canon or Article of faith and speaks of the doctrin or Declaration of it which is not propounded for faith at all to any beleever although all Catholiks that know it adhere to it as good and solid And this is his first legerdemain to propound that for an Article of faith which is only a doctrin or declaration of faith His next trick is to make it run short like a Canon of faith wheras it is a large and serious explication wherein those words he catches at are so connexed with others that their rationality there appears which here is hid Third is that he makes it the Councels busines to determin only a matter of fact of the ancient Fathers not beleeving infants communion necessary though themselves used it which was none of the Councels intention but insinuated only by way of anticipation to cut off the arguments of hereticks who strengthned their errour about the necessity of infants communion by example of the ancient Fathers who practised it Denique eadem sancta Synodus docet parvulos usu rationis carentes nulla obligari necessitate ad Sacramentalem Eucharistiae Communionem Siquidem per Baptisms lavacrum regenerati Christo incorporati adeptam jam filiorum Dei gratiam in illa aetate amittere non possunt Neque ideo tamen damnanda est antiquitas si eum morem in quibusdam locis aliquando servavit Vt enim sanctissimi illi Patres sui facti probabilem causam pro illius temporis ratione habuerunt ita certe eos nulla salutis necessitate id fecisse sine controversia credendum est Thus speaks the Councel in their doctrin or declaration of that Article of faith Siquis dixerit But enough of this busines And although your Disswaders talk deserv it not yet your own satisfaction concerning these three novelties here specified becaus I thought it might haply require what I have said therof pray take it in good part And be assured that faith and Christianity in the Roman Church increases not like the moon although out of that Church it decreas indeed like the moon in her wain daily and in all Reformations to the wors § 3. Which is about Indulgences Sayes that the doctrin of Indulgences is wholly new and unknown to antiquity as Antonius Prierias Byshop Fisher Agrippa and Durandus Popish doctours do acknowledg And hence it is that Gratian and Magister sententiarum both of them eminent doctors among the Papists have not a word of them Indeed in primitive times when the Byshop imposed several pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the penitent and relax som remaining parts of his pennance But the Roman doctrin of Indulgence is another thing They talk of Jubilees and treasure of the Church and pilgrimages which ancient Fathers either speak against or never heard of In fine theirs is becom a doctrin of solution not absolution that is the sinner is to go free without any punishment which is destructive to true repentance and right hope to Christs merits and free pardon nourishes pride and brings in money condemned by holy Scriptures and ancient Fathers who teach repentance reducing to a good life faith in Christs merits and hope in his promises Neither can any Papists tell what they are the better for their Indulgences or whether they be absolutions or compensations whether they take off actual pennances or potential such as be due in the court of man or of God whether they avail if the receiver do nothing for them or not whether they depend only of Christs satisfaction or the Saints likewis And therfor the Councel of Trent durst determin nothing about all these things but contented themselves only to declare this That ther is in the Church a power of granting Indulgences advising Catholiks to set other superfluous and curious questions aside Sir if I had had the opportunity to print the four paragraffs which to lessen the book I left out of my Fiat Lux becaus one of them was about Indulgence I should need to say the less to this section wherin I must notwithstanding be brief that I may speak somwhat also to those that follow Three things are in this his third section confusedly jumbled together by your Disswader concerning this busines of Indulgence Faith School-philosophy and Abuses Catholik faith and Tradition he sets down himself p. 17. and acknowledges it for good Now lest the Roman Emissaries saith he should deceiv any of the good sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the primitive Church when the Byshop imposed severe pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the Penitent and relax som of the parts of his pennance and according to the example of S. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease lest they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow These are his words And in them he hath set down exactly not only the faith but all the faith of Roman Catholiks in this point to stop the mouths of Roman Emissaries which faith and practise he acknowledges also expresly to be antient and primitive And thus much he would have us beleev that Protestants hold and allow although not their books and writings only which manifestly gainsay it but their very practise which hath long ago abandoned and is now utterly ignorant either of confession or pennance or relaxation or indulgence and the very Articles of the English Protestant Church refute him But he that writes against Popery need not heed what he sayes If another say the contrary so that he speak against Popery too they will both pass for good But the Papists saith your Disswader they are quite gone from this primitive way their doctrin of Indulgence is another thing quite another thing And then jumbles together heaps of their school-disputes about solutions absolutions compensations relaxations and such like stuff which together with som abuses that time has brought forch as well in that as other affairs and which Councels and Pastours have in all ages endeavoured to rectifie must make up a Miscellan which he would have to be thought the
Popery of this busines Good Lord Is this ignorance in your disswading Doctour or illud quod dicere nolo He acknowledges manifestly that the Councel of Trent decided no more than that very Tradition which the Church hath kept in all ages acknowledged here by the Disswader himself to be primitive Nor can he bring any Catholik Councel that hath decided any more or any Gospel or Tradition for more If school-divines questions that are raised beyond faith in this point as well as hundreds of others may suffice to infer that Roman Catholiks are departed from the ancient primitive way although they keep it â—…e may as well say they are departed from the old faith of the Trinity Creation Incarnation Sacraments Resurrection Justice Grace and the whole contents of the old and new Testament For though they keep the ancient faith concerning all these things yet have their schoolmen raised many hundreds nay thousands of questions and conclusions beyond that faith that be variously agitated in the schools amongst them Your Disswaders craft lies in this that whilst he brings in here these school-disputes for popish faith and popery and points out eminent Doctours amongst Papists who witnes these fancies to be new and unknown to antiquity as Antonius Prierias Fisher Durandus Maironis Cajetan and the Councel of Trent either not able or not willing to determin them he hopes his reader will easily beleev without much labour of his that Popery is not only a new foppery but a confusion inextricable This is his drift not only in this section but all his whole book But he is intangled in his own snare For if neither the Councel of Trent determined those things nor yet any other Councel in the Catholik world nor any ancient Tradition delivered nor her Doctours acknowledg them then is ther not any popery therin nor is popery any such thing Wherfor your Dissawader is very angry with the Councel of Trent for that they would not there either justifie the abuses or determin the school-disputes in that point but rather condemned the one and exploded the other I will set down the Councels decree word for word that you may see without any further discours of mine how much your Doctour has abused his reader It runs thus Cùm potestas conferendi indulgentias à Christo Ecclesiae concessa sit atque hujusmodi potestate divinitus sibi traditâ antiquissimis etiam temporibus illa usa fuerit sacrosancta Synodus Indulgentiarum usum Christiano populo maximè salutarem sacrorum Conciliorum autoritate probatum in Ecclesia retinendum esse docet praecipit eosque anathemate damnat qui aut inutiles esse asserunt vel eas concedendi in Ecclesia potestatem esse negant In his tamen concedendis moderationem juxta veterem probatam in Ecclesia consuetudinem adhiberi cupit ne nimia facititate Ecclesiae disciplina enervetur Abusus verò qui in his irrepserunt quorum occasione insigne hoc Indulgentiarum nomen ab haereticis blasphematur emendatos correctos cupiens praesenti decreto generaliter statuit pravos quaestus omnes pro his consequendis unde plurima in Christiano populo abusuum causa fluxit omnino abolendos esse Caeteros vero qui ex superstitione ignorantia irreverentia aut aliunde quomodocunque provenerunt cùm ob multiplices locorum provinciarum apud quas hi committuntur corruptelas commodè nequeant specialiter probiberi mandat omnibus Episcopis ut diligenter quisque bujusmodi abusus Ecclesiae suae colligat eosque in prima Synodo Provinciali referat c. Thus the holy Councel condemns and labours with all fatherly and pastourly care possible to prevent and amend the abuses which your Disswader here sets down as one part of Popery in this point and the school-philosophy which he makes the other part therof the self same Councel explodes in their decree of Purgatory which your Disswader calls the mother of Indulgences Praecipit sancta Synodus Episcopis saith the Councel ut sanam doctrinam à sanctis Patribus sacris Conciliis traditam à Christi fidelibus credi teneri doceri ubique praedicari dìligenter studeant Apud rudem verò plebem difficiliores ac subtiliores quaestiones quaeque ad aedificationem non faciunt ex quibus plerumque nulla fit pietatis accessio à popularibus concionibus secludantur Incerta item quae specie falsi laborant evulgari ac tractari non permittant Ea vero quae ad curiositatem quandam aut superstitionem spectant vel turpe lucrum sapiant tanquam scandala fidelium offendicula prohibeant I would we could see our English Byshops meet together in a Councel and make such pious and fatherly provisions against scandalous books seditious sermons and vicious customs as this Popish Councel has don They would then give som help to temporal authority and not lay all the burthen upon their shoulders whilst themselvs sit like drones in their fat benefices and do nothing But here you may see Sir that all that which your Disswader makes here to be Popery abusive customs and school-philosophy is by a general Popish Councel expresly excluded from it What strange kinde of audacity is this to call that Popery or Catholik faith which Catholik Doctours deny Catholik Councels exclude and Catholik Professours never think of But what your Disswader knows to be new he first puts that upon Papists for their faith and then tells them that their faith is new And your Disswader as I told you before is much troubled and murmurs bitterly against the Councel of Trent for that they would not determin those philosophical subtilties whether Indulgences be solutions or absolutions whether donations or compensations whether for potential or actual pennances whether in the Court of God or man whether out of the treasure of Christ or Saints whether upon condition of doing somthing or nothing The Councel quoth he slubbereth all the whole matter both in the question of Indulgences and Purgatory in general and recommendatory terms affirming that the power of giving Indulgence is in the Church and that the use is wholesom and that all hard and subtile questions concerning Purgatory which although if it be at all it is a fire yet is it the fuel of Indulgences and maintain them wholly and all that is suspected to be false and all that is uncertain and whatsoever is curious and superstitious scandalous or for filthy lucre be laid aside And in the mean time they tell us not what is and what is not superstitious nor what is scandalous nor what they mean by the general term of Indulgence And they establish no doctrin neither curious nor incurious Nor durst they decree the very foundation of this whole matter the Churches treasure neither durst they meddle with it but left it as they found it and continued in the abuses and proceed in the practice and set their Doctours as well as they can to
mercy at his last hour These if I could stand to enlarge my self upon them being themselves Christian Traditions and Apostolical doctrin might in som sence be said to be the grounds of expiatory penalties after this life commonly called Purgatory But those others which your Disswader mentions are but som congruities latelier put together by Doctours to clear unto unstable Christians as far as they may be able the rationality of their Christian Tradition concerning expiations after this life which Preachers in their sermons and Doctours in their chairs usually invent and utter as well in this affair as other businesses of faith som with more firmitude and som with less according to their learning and capacity I say they are congruities for it and good ones too but no grounds of it For faith is not deduced by reasons or drawn from premises or concluded from grounds And although this faith be manifold and about sundry matters as the Creation Redemption Justification Resurrection and the like yet all these particular faiths depend immediatly like several raies on one sun upon the one only authority and truth of the first Revealer which is the foundation and ground of all And if those above-named assertions be no grounds of this faith concerning future expiations much less is that true and firm tradition Blessed are those that dye in our Lord any ground against it For they are happy and happy that ever they were born who dye in our Lord that is to say in his faith and fear in his love and grace But ther are as many degrees of dying in our Lord as ther be varieties of the lives and actions of those that dye in him And they all rest from the labours of this life and som also are freed from the pains of the other who depart hence in a more complete reconciliation with him § 5. Which is about Transubstantiation Sayes that Transubstantiation is another novelty in the Roman Church so much a novelty that we know the very time of its birth and how it was introduced For Scotus Occam Biel Fisher Bassolis Cajetan Melchior Caen acknowledg that it is not exprest in Scripture and in Peter Lombards time they knew not whether it was true or no. Durandus a good Catholik after the Lateran Councel where it was first declared said it was not faith as Scotus sayes it was no faith before it Nor did the Lateran Councel determin that which now the Roman Church holds which doctrin of theirs is a stranger to antiquity as Alphonsus à Castro acknowledges and the same is made good by the testimonies of Tertullian Justin Martyr Eusebius Macarius Ephrem Gregory Nazianzen Chrysostom Austin the Canon law it self Theodoret and Pope Gelasius who all witness that the bread is our Lords body spiritually And your Disswader therfor advises his charge to take heed they be not led away by rhetorical words to beleev the Roman doctrin which is an innovation and dangerous practice about which they make many foolish questions as whether a mouse may run away with her maker whether a Priest is the Creatour of God c. In fine Transubstantiation is absolutely impossible For Christs glorious body cannot be broken nor yet the mere accidents nor one body multiplied as be many wafers and it is against the demonstration of our sences Sir I know well enough that Tertullian Justin Martyr Eusebius Macarius Ephrem Gregory Nazianzen Theodoret Chrysostom and S. Austin were all of them not only Roman Catholiks but Catholik priests too and could easily prove it But if your Disswader should have the confidence to deny that I hope yet he will grant me that Scotus Occham Biel Bassolis Cajetan Melchior Caen Durand and Alphonsus à Castro Papish School-men and Doctours of the Church and Friars were all such and as for Bishop Fisher Peter Lombard and Pope Gelasius these I may almost presume he will let pass for Papists What is then this Roman doctrin which so many Roman Doctours whereof each one had such a multitude of disciples and followers in the Catholik world do not so much as acknowledg Where shall we finde it For your Disswader names heaps of Popish Doctours that deny it and not any one that owns it nor ever so much as tells us what it is What strange kind of proceeding is this Nay in the beginning of the section he tells us that this Popery of Transubstantiation is so new that it is well enough known to have begun in the Councel of Lateran and yet in the middle of the very same section sayes expresly that the opinion was not determined in the Lateran Councel as it is now held at Rome The Popery or popish doctrin of Transubstantiation now held at Rome it is very well known to all saith he that it had its first beginning in the Lateran Councel and yet addes that the opinion was not determined in the Lateran Councel as it is now held at Rome What opinion Sir was determined in the Lateran Councel and what is that which is now held at Rome Does not your Disswader speak of the doctrin now held at Rome when beginning his section he speaks thus The doctrin of Transubstantiation is so far from being Primitive and Apostolick that we know the very time it began to be owned publickly for an opinion and the very Councel in which it passed for a publick doctrin which Councel two or three lines afterward he sayes was the Councel of Lateran under Pope Innocent the third twelve hundred years after Christ And against that new doctrin which began he sayes twelve hundred years after Christ and thereby convicted of novelty he writes this his whole section What means he then in the name of God but only two pages after namely p. 39. to say that the opinion was not determined in the Lateran as it is now held at Rome Is that opinion now held at Rome younger or older than the Councel Lateran and when began that opinion held at Rome or was it from the beginning And against which of the opinions does he speak in this section For against both of them together he cannot The very head and principal and as it were the summe of all his discours in this section The doctrin of Transubstantiation is so far from being Primitive and Apostolick that we know the very time it began and the Councel it passed for a doctrin c. It was but a disputable question till the Councel of Lateran in the time of Pope Innocent 1200. and more after Christ c. This I say cannot agree with the doctrin now held at Rome which he sayes afterward is another thing from that which was determined in the Councel of Lateran If then this parcel of Popery which he sayes in one place is not that which was determined in the Councel of Lateran and in another place is that which was determined in the Councel of Lateran be the matter and subject of his discours in this section ought he
not in plain terms to have told us what this piece of popery is that we may know what he speaks of Surely he ought If it neither be owned by so many popish doctours which here he names and names not any one popish doctour that owns it if it neither be determined in the Councel of Lateran nor he himself can name any other Councel wherein it was lately or otherwise determined how is it Popery What doctours own it What Councel has declared it What people profes it And what is that thing they should profes declare or own What is it I say This he ought to have spoken openly sincerely and plainly And yet he endeavours not at all which he should one would think have principally heeded either to set down what doctours own it or what it is they own but spends his whole time in telling us only of a great company of popish doctours that like not of that Roman doctrin which he never declares himself what it is And then exhorts all his charge and all good people to take heed of that Roman doctrin that scandalous doctrin that blasphemous novelty which was determined in the Councel of Lateran and yet is another thing from that which was determined in the Councel of Lateran not any part of Catholik beleef until that Councel nor yet esteemed to belong to faith after that Councel by the greatest of popish doctours about which they make many foolish questions as whether a mouse may run away with her maker c. Sir your Doctour who pretending a Disswasive from Popery by which he doubts not but his reader will understand the Roman Catholik faith never meant to touch at all their real Religion which is universally in their hearts and hands and no power of man is able to confute but either som obscure parcels of philosophy or abuses of men which he is better able to make sport withall was fallen here it seems upon the Catholik faith afore he was aware And therfor he suddenly drew back and so blundered up and down in the affrightment that he seems neither to know what to speak nor against what he is to speak of The Roman doctrin of Transubstantiation was first determined in the Lateran Councel The opinion was not determined in the Lateran Councel as it is now held in Rome What would this man have What does he speak of What opinion is that which is now held in Rome differing from that of the Lateran Councel What is that doctrin of the Lateran Councel differing from that is now held in Rome What is that Rome the Church of Rome or Court of Rome the City of Rome or schools in Rome And is it in all Rome or som particular streets or parishes or schools or shops And how do they hold it with their hands or teeth or pens or hearts as a matter of faith or busines of dispute as delivered to them or invented by them in their confession of Religion or profession of Philosophy These things ought all of them to have been exprest that we might rightly understand who in Rome hold it and how they hold it and what is that same It they hold But your Disswader hopes that upon those general words of his The opinion was not determined in the Lateran Councel as it is now held in Rome his unwary reader will be bold to think more than he dares himself utter And perhaps he is not deceived For few readers are wiser than their book But the Romans make many foolish and blasphemous questions about it The more blasphemous and foolish they who urge them to it if any one amongst them have resolved such doubts as infidelity in derision of holy things hath raised They who aforetime denied Gods Incarnation gave occasion of as foolish and blasphemous disputes as any these be And if any then studied to give an answer to such sordid unmanly and scurrillous opposition although they might fail in discretion yet their heart was innocent and intention good The busines which I suppose your Doctour would be at here is the real presence of our Lords blessed and glorious body under the species of corruptible elements which is one of the paragraffs I left out of my Fiat And I am sorry now with all my heart it was left out becaus here is no time or place to treat of it as that great and weighty subject would require Neither is it my intention here to declare the old Christian Tradition but only to give you Sir to understand that this Disswader though he may hurt his unwary reader yet he nothing at all indammages the old Catholik faith by any words of his which speak it to be new Large volumes have been written upon this subject enough to satisfie any moderate well disposed mind qui legit intelligat Let me only give you notice Sir that this parcel of Christian faith now abolisht here in England was so antient that the very old Pagans and Jews derided the primitive Christians above a thousand years ago for their worshipping a breaden God as they pleased then and the infidels of our times are not ashamed now to misname that sacred mystery It was so universally beleeved that their adversaries by that one only mark expressed as it were in short the very substance of their Religion Since the Christians adore that which they eat said one of the Infidel writers well enough acquainted with the cours of Christian Religion let my soul be with Philosophers It was so sure and undoubted in their hearts that som ancient holy Fathers have elucidated the mystery of the Incarnation by this of the real presence in the Eucharist as the more manifest It was so grave and solemn that all the Churches or Temples in the Christian world were built principally for it and the devotion of those times studied to erect them with a strength and magnificence answerable as far as they could to the majesty of that divine mystery It was such a princely leading point of faith that it drew all other pieties after it frequent prayers and meditations alms-deeds contrition for sins singing of psalms hymns and canticles in the Quire before that presence in the Altar Confessions Sermons Catechise Processions Fasts Festivals and all that real fear and love of God that has been ever found in Christian hearts Finally it is the very legacy of Jesus Christ the holy One to his Spouse the Church whereby he proved himself both to be a poor and most loving and also omnipotent Espouse Another man might leave wealth and possessions but though he be never so kind and loving he cannot leave his body to his wife to remain ever with her for exercise of her love for comfort of her heart and glorifying of her soul by vertue wherof she should be raised up to follow and joyn with him in the eternal glory of another world This was a Testament only fit for Jesus Prince of Angels and men to make And this
de lapsis has much to the same purpos giving us also to understand by his testimony that those ancient Christians for fear of death and the grievances of persecution had usually the Sacrament kept by them in a Repository or Ark in their houses which with all devout reverence when they were necessitated to it they put with their own hands into their mouths and participated on such like occasion although by general custom it used to be put into their mouths by the hands of Priests And he relates amongst other things a frightful story of a certain woman who for fear or other weaknes had complied to the idol sacrifices and when she came home to repent and humble her self in her Oratory and by holy communion both to expiate that her transgression and strengthen her against the like temptation as soon as she had opened her Ciborium or Pixis wherein the body of her Lord and Redeemer was kept a terrible flash of fire issuing thence upon her did so affright her that she durst not touch it Quandam saith he mulierem sacrificiis idolorum contaminatam cum Repositorium seu Arcam suam in quâ sanctum Domini posuerat manibus pollutis tentasset aperire ignis efflans eam terruit nec tangere erat ausa This and much more might be brought to witnes that primitive Christians thought themselves completly communicated in one kind and this very kind that is now in use amongst Catholiks But I must come to your Doctour Half-Communion saith he is another Popish novelty wherby they deprive the people of Christs blood Sir if they eat in memory that Christ died for them which they do and which in all Protestancy makes a perfect communion how are they deprived of his blood Can they beleev his death and passion without faith of his blood shed for them But they ought to have wine as well as bread So they have as much as the Disswader and his Church allows their people wherby they may feed upon Christ who shed his blood for us in their heart by faith with thanksgiving and which as your Disswader here speaks may make Christs body and blood present to them by sacramental consequence And how is it then a half-communion O but the wine is not the blood of Christ Not carnally as your Disswader speaks of his Sacrament but it is so by sacramental conseqence It is as much then as yours the blood of Christ And how is it then a half-communion and yours a whole one O but their bread is beleeved to be the body of Christ So it is but yours is not And therfor if theirs be but a half-communion yours is none at all But how good Doctour Disswasive is half-communion either new Popery or old Popery or any Popery at all Roman Catholiks or Papists use no such word nor do they own any such thing as Half-Communion They beleev and call it a whole Communion Is it lawful for you to forge a Popery of your own and then put it upon them who neither in thought word or any of their writings profess any such thing But is not Communion in one kind all one with Half-Communion No Sir it is not all one It differs as much as half and whole And that I think is somthing It is a whole Communion Sir both in the tenour of their beleef and according to that of yours And why then should you call it a half-communion According to theirs whole Christ is equally present under either of those figures or appearances and therfor according to their faith it is a whole Communion And according to yours it is no less When you your selves give the bread to your people and say Take this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed upon him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving you do not intend I suppose nor do the people mean to feed only upon one half of him Why then would your Disswader injuriously misname that a half-communion which in all opinions is a whole one Neither Catholiks nor Protestants feed upon the signs but thing signified This difference too there is that Catholiks have all the mystery of the passion represented to them in their sacrifice and the presence of the whole Lord in their Communion But Protestants have no such thing although the mystery be preacht to them And therfor is the Catholik not a half but whole Communion and that of the Protestants may well be doubted whether it be any Communion at all though it be a whole Sermon For how can any one discern the Lords body there where in reality it is not If your Disswader had a candour becoming a gentleman he would neither falsifie the wayes nor misname the practice of any Religion But be it as it is Since Papists as he will have them called have equally used the Communion in the liquid kind alone as this in only the other why should he call one of them more than the other by the name of Popery And why is not Communion in both kinds which he acknowledges to have been more in use amongst them and proves it by the testimony of their own popish doctours be rather Popery than either of the other O but this half-communion began but in the Councel of Constance I have sufficiently shown you Sir that the custom was in the world before the City of Constance knew what Christianity were And even this Councel of Constance is perverted by the Disswader too as if he had sworn to act nothing sincerely That busines in the Councel was thus Petrus Dresdensis and other associates of Huz had taught publickly and with much scandal that the Eucharist is necessarily to be given to lay-people after supper and in both kinds This doctrin and practice of theirs was censured by the Councel which at one and the same time declared those two circumstances of communicating in both kinds and after supper not to be of necessary obligation because the Canons and approved ancient custom of the Church had never looked upon those two circumstances as of necessity to be observed But what does your Disswader here First he sets down the Councels resolution in direct opposition to Christ Whereas Christ instituted c. yet we command contrary c. as though the Councel had absolutely annulled Christs institution which notwithstanding they acknowledg and allow for good and only declare the two said circumstances in that institution of our Lord not to be of that necessity as the substance of the institution it self giving for their reason for it which your Disswader thinks not good to take notice of that the Canons and ancient custom of the Church had sufficiently made manifest that those two circumstances of communicating at night and in both kinds were not necessary by allowing the contrary practice in primitive times Secondly whereas the Councel joyned both the circumstances together namely of communicacating in both kinds and after supper he quite leaves out that of receiving
that it excites holy and heavenly affections yet in its proper sence it is the effect of sermons and good preachers edifying the people by their holy lives and wholsom doctrin unto an emulation and care of observing what those people see and hear so frequently taught and practised by their pious preachers Those words of S. Chrysostom If one speak in an unknown tongue he is a barbarian to himself and others are absolutely true For so if an Embassadour or any other here in England should chatter words which neither himself nor others understand he would be a barbarian both to others and to himself too But when your Disswader sayes that S. Chrysostom spake so in order to a form of prayer and urging the Apostles precept for it he wrongs him wretchedly For he does it not nor can such a saying have any place in such a busines For the priest speaks not in his liturgy to the people as your Disswader simply imagines but to God where both speaker and hearer understand But the testimony of Lyra who is made to say that in the primitive Church all things were done in a vulgar language is falsified in the very substance For he sayes not omnia all things but communia common things some parts in Baptism where the godfather or godmother makes a profession of faith somthing in churchings of women benedictions marriages and such like as is yet in use amongst Papists at this day were so done So that all the contents of this section the testimonies your Disswader brings against this Catholik custom and your Disswaders own insultings which I set down in the beginning together with his glosses upon those testimonies are either absolutely fals or totally impertinent and in one word unconscionably slaunderous But it is as possibly saith he to reconcile adultery with the seventh Commandment as Church service in a language not understood to the fourteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians And is it so Let us look then into that strange fourteenth Chapter and see what it sayes 1. Follow after charity and desire spiritual gists but rather that you may prophesie 2. For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God for no man understandeth him however in the spirit he speaketh mysteries 3. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification exhortation and comfort 4. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself but he that prophesieth edifieth the Church 5. I would that you all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues except he interpret that the Church may receive edifying 6. Now brethren if I come unto you speaking with tongues what shall I profit you except I shall speak to you either by revelation or by knowledg or by prophesying or by doctrin 7. And even things without life giving sound whether pipe or harp except they give a distinction of the sound how shall it be known what is piped or harped 8. For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself for battle 9. So likewise you except you utter by the tongue words easie to be understood how shall it be known what is spoken for he shall speak unto the air 10. Ther are it may be so many kinds of voices in the world and none of them are without signification 11. Therfor if I know not the meaning of the voice I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian to me 12. Even so ye forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts seek that ye may excell to the edifying of the Church 13. Wherefor let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret 14. For if I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayes but my understanding is unfruitful 15. What is it then I will pray with the spirit I will pray with the understanding also 16. Els when thou shalt bless with the spirit how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen to thy giving of thanks seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest 17. For thou verily givest thanks well but the other is not edified 18. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all 19. Yet in the Church I had rather speak five words with my understanding that by my voice I might teach others also than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue 20. Brethren be not children in understanding howbeit in malice be ye children but in understanding men 21. In the law it is written with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people and yet for all that will they not hear me saith the Lord. 22. Wherfore tougues are for a sign not to them that beleev but to them that beleev not but prophesying serveth not to them that beleev not but to them who beleev 23. If therfor the whole Church be come together in som place and all speak with tongues and there come in those that are unlearned or unbeleevers will they not say that ye are mad 24. But if all prophesie and there come in one that beleeveth not or one unlearned he is convinced of all he is judged of all 25. And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth 26. How is it then brethren when ye come together every one of you hath a psalm hath a doctrin hath a tongue hath a revelation hath an interpretation let all things be done to edifying 27. If any man speak in an unknown tongue let it be by two or at the most by three and that by cours and let one interpret 28. But if there be no interpreter let him keep silence in the Church and let him speak to himself and to God 29. Let the prophets speak two or three and let the other judg 30. And if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by let the first hold his peace 31. For ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted 32. And the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets 33. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all Churches of the Saints I teach 34. Let your women keep silence in the Churches for it is not permitted to them to speak but they are to be under obedience as also saith the law 35. And if they will learn any thing let them ask their husbands at home for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the Church 36. What came the word of God out from you or came it unto you only 37. If any think himself a prophet or spiritual let him acknowledg that the things I write unto you are the commandments of God the Lord. 38. But if any be ignorant let him be ignorant
they heed not at all however your Disswader imagines any natural similitude in any of their pictures If they be so made as to raise the fansie to thoughts above and the love and vertues that may bring us thither they care not whether for example Saint Bennet were a man just of that complexion or Christ their Redeemer of those direct features the limner has given him They come not into their Churches nor do they cast their eyes upon their pictures for any such end And if God the Father be represented to their eyes as he is to their ears when he is called Father I see no harm in it If we may use such a form of words when we speak to God as this world we live in may afford our ears why may not the eyes have such an answerable form too But this is a busines which your Disswader if he were a Catholik might well propound in the next general Councel and do otherwise in the mean time if so he please in his own Diocess For neither books nor picturs can be used in any Diocess but what the Ordinary of the place allows And the Byshop still guides himself by the general doctrin and discipline the faith and custom the tradition and laws of the Church in the whole mannagement of his care And when these do not clearly descend to any particular which he is to deal with he uses therin his own discretion going that way if he do well that he findes comes nearest to the rule as temporal superiours also do in their affairs O but the Roman Church with much scandal and against nature and the reason of mankind in their mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot And do they so I have seen I think as many Catholik countreys and mass-books and breviaries portuises and manuels as your Disswader ever did and yet I never saw any such picture therin all my life He has been it seems an earnest pryer into the front and faces of books But did he not mistake troâ—… you and take some fortune-book written in old letters for a mass-book and thence conclude that all breviaries and mass-books portuises and manuels were stored with such â—…gures However it were the picture was to blame For three noses and three faces ought to have more than four eyes And if ther were but four eyes I cannot see how ther should be three whole faces although ther were there three noses in it But this is as good stuff and as true and as pertinent too as any other part of this his book which he calls a Disswasive from Popery § 10. Which is against Papal authority Sayes that the Popes universal byshoprick is another novelty though not so ridiculous yet as dangerous as any other And a novelty it is for Christ left his Church in the hands of the Apostles without any superiority of one above another And in the Councel of Jerusalem James and not Peter gave the decisive sentence Christ sent all his Apostles with the same whole power as his Father sent him Therfor S. Paul bid the byshops of Miletum feed the whole flock And well said S. Cyprian that the Apostles were all the same that S. Peter was And this equality of power must descend to all byshops who succeed the Apostles in their ordinary power as embassadours for Christ So then by the law of Christ one byshop is not superiour to another Christ made no head of byshops Beyond the byshop is no step till you rest in the great shepheard and byshop of souls Under him every byshop is supream in spirituals and in all power which to any byshop is given by Christ And that this was ever beleeved in ancient times is proved by Pope Eleutherius his epistle to the byshops of France by S. Ambrose S. Cyprian Pope Symmachus S. Denyse Ignace Gelasius Jerom Fulgentius and even Pope Gregory the great Wherfor S. Paul expressy sayes that Christ appointed in his Church first Apostles but not S. Peter first Nor did Peter ever rule but by common councel as S. Chrysostom witnesses And it is even confest by som of the Romish party that the succession is not tyed to Rome as Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius Nor was any thing known therof in the primitive times when the byshops of Asia and Africa opposed Pope Victor and Pope Stephen and all byshops treated with the Roman byshop as with a brother not superiour and a whole general Councel gave to the byshop of C. P. equal right and preheminence with the byshop of Rome Finally Christ gave no commandment to obey the byshop of Rome and probably never intended any such thing A man would surely think Sir that this nail is knocked in to the head What could be said more But to be brief with you If all the other sections of this your Disswasive have said nothing this I may say speaks somthing wors than nothing For his reasons are senceles his testimonies either impertinent or manifestly against himself and his whole discours contrary to the laws and constitutions of our English Protestant Church To begin with the last whether you look upon the statutes and acts of Parliament wherby our English Church and government were first settled in England upon the reformation in the dayes of Edward the sixth and afterwards ratified or the articles canons and constitutions that were agreed upon by the byshops and clergy and confirmed both by King Edward Queen Elizabeth King James and our good King Charles we shall clearly see that our English Protestant Church and government is Monarchical and that byshops are as much subjected to their Arch byshops as Ministers to Byshops and Arch-byshops in like manner to the King in whom the Episcopal power is radical and inherent and in whom is the fulness of ecclesiastical authority and from whom byshops do receiv their place authority power and jurisdiction And that Parson Vicar or other Doctour who shall write or speak contrary to this by the constitutions and canons ecclesiastical made in the time of our late good King Charles he is to be suspended and by the Canons and constitutions ecclesiastical made and confirmed in the Reign of King James he is excommunicated ipso facto and by the laws of Queen Elizabeth and King Edward to be further punished How comes it then that this your disswading Doctour utterly dissolves all this frame of government under pretence of talking against papal power as contrary to the mind and will of Christ which will and mind is notwithstanding most resolutely asserted by the constitutions and laws of this our very English Church and Kingdom which rejected indeed the Roman seat and person but retained still the power and ordination of Church-government which finally rested now no longer in any Roman byshop but in our own princely monarch If any will but take the pains to look upon our constitutions
flitted from the richer byshoprick of Durham to that of York becaus as he himself gave the reason he wanted Grace But Doctor Taylor must remember his own doctrin that an Archbyshop although he have Grace yet he has no jurisdiction with it and it is a question whether is better to have power without grace or grace without power He is well enough as he is if he could be content But ambition and covetousnes will know no bounds And as your Doctor in this his Disswasive prattles about a Popery which is no part of Catholik religion so does he wholly pass by their chief religion which is in a manner their whole popery and all their religious customs attending it not that only which the first reformers allowed of as their faith of one God all powerfull most wise and good who made all things visible and invisible and by his providence conserves them in their being who in the fulnes of time sent his beloved son to reconcile the world to himself c. but that also which they rejected and principally inveighed against as first internal sanctification and renovation of our spirits which was the end of Christs appearing in the world the efficacy of his grace in our hearts and the intention of his counsels and laws secondly the comfort merit and necessity of good works unto which holy gospel by all sweet promises invites us Gods holy spirit moves the very excellency of mans nature and condition suggests the name and profession of Christian calls for and future happines requires These by the first Protestants were all cried down as mortal sins and of no value at all in the eyes of God by which doctrins they debauched mankind and made men so dissolute careless and licentious that if good nature right reason and the gracious working of God in our hearts had not more force upon some than the principles of the first Protestancy earth had become a meer hell by this Thirdly he passes by the priesthood altar and sacrifice which Christ our Lord instituted for our daily atonement in the figuration of his holy passion at which old Christians with all fear and reverence offered up their daily praises requests and supplications to God for themselves and allies and whole Church of Christ for all distressed persons for kings and princes and for all men that we may lead a quiet and godly life in this world Fourthly the seven sacraments of Christs which are so many conduits of sanctification for our several necessities and for all conditions of men and for all degrees of spiritual comforts Fifthly the obligations of vows which any shall freely make for Gods glory and his own advancement in piety in continency in charity and the blessed condition of singing and praising God in monastical retirement Sixtly the communion and union of the whole body of Christians under one visible pastor by whom they are aptly knit and compaginated together into one flock and body of Christ however they may differ otherwis in countrey language laws civil government and other affections Sevently the marks of the true Church and the autority she hath to keep her people in unity of faith and observance of their Christian duties Eightly the danger of original sin and actual transgressions which however we may have heard of Christian faith and beleev it to be true may notwithstanding exclude us eternally from the bliss of heaven now opened to beleevers such as by mortifying ungodly lusts shall render themselves conformable to their Lord and head who is ascended into heaven and gone before to prepare there a place for them in bliss with himself Ninthly the necessary concurrence of Gods grace and mans will unto his justification and sanctity and future glory in him Qui creavit te sine te non salvabit te sine te as good S. Austin speaks Tenthly the necessity and great benefit of prayer alms-deeds and fasting which is practised in the Catholik Church and commended to all as worthy fruits of that religion which labours to root out pride of life concupiscence of eyes and concupiscence of flesh thereby and our obligation to exact justice in all our contracts and dealings with our neighbour Eleventhly the danger of living and dying in sin to such as profess Christianity and uselesnes of faith without the good works of grace attending it Twelftly the possibility of keeping Gods commandments with the assistance of his grace Lastly not to mention more the great duty incumbent upon all Christians when led away by the deceit of Satan flesh and this wicked world they shall chance to have strayed from their holy rule to set all streight again by humble confession restitution and other penal satisfactions for their fault These and such like principles of ancient Christianity our first reforming Protestants Luther and Calvin with other their companions all apostate priests from the mother Church so stifly cryed down as notorious popery that they have thereby corrupted the whole world But your Doctour in this your Disswasive from Popery for reasons best known to himself takes no notice of them at all Protestant writers however loth to practise them yet ashamed they are now to speak against good works as their fore-fathers did Indeed every one of them that upon the hope of a richer benefice writes against Catholik Religion makes both a new Popery and a new Protestancy too and while they speak in general against that they may say in particular of this what they pleas For Protestants had never any Councel to make them all agree how much of Popery they should reject or what they should positively establish nor ever will nor can have nor do they care so they keep but their livings and places that they have extorted from Catholik hands which they know they cannot keep except by libelling against Popery they get the power of the land honester and better men then themselvs to back and support them in their wayes whether any thing be ever settled or no. I should also here set down the substantial customs of Catholik Christians in their chappels and churches oratories and private houses wholly neglected by the Disswader though they be in the hearts and hands of them all throughout the whole earth If he had declared either their substantial faith or customs he had lost his credit with some but he had saved his own soul which now is becom as black as hell with slaunders lyes and uncharitable depravations both of their customs and immaculate Religion What he can pervert and make sport with that he puts upon them for popery and what he cannot that must be thought no popery at all But this I cannot now insist upon My letter is already grown too long ANd yet I cannot but give you notice Sir that even these things specified here by your Disswader for popish novelties as they are rightly understood in the catholik sence and meaning Indulgences the real presence under the apperances or species of
festum admodum solennem ad celebrandam dedicationem templi indixit Cent. 4. coll 452. Templorum recens extructorum consecrationes exornationes superbas aliaque superstitiosa quorum maximam partem Constantinus excogitavit in multas ecclesias propagavit coll 497. Christianos in templis nondum consecratis non convenisse clarè indicat Athanasius coll 408. Accensiones candelarum interdiu in templis Constantinus instituit coll 497. Plane simili superstitione Constantinus reliquias quasdam de cruce ab Helenâ repertâ Constantinopolinin dicitur transtulisse ut esset ejus urbis conservatrix coll 1529. Caeperunt hoc saeculo primùm sub Constantino loca terrae sanctae c. in pretio haberi c. Helena mater imperatoris mulier superstitiosa illuc profecta est adorandi causâ coll 457. Secunda Synodus celebrata est Constantini imperatoris Sybvestri tempore c. ubi can 2. dicitur Assumi aliquem ad sacerdotium in vinculo conjugii constitutum nisi fuerit promissa conversio non oportet coll 704. Fuisse etiam ante Constantinum virgines seu mulieres continentes castitatem perpetuam professas ex libro quarto Fusebii de vita Constantini apparet ubi magnopere approbasse disciplinam ejusmodi imperatorem Constantinum affirmat adeo ut frequenter eorum contubernium adierit Helenam vero Constantini matrem Hierosolymis virgines Deo sacras reperisse Socrates testatur quarum professionem usque adeo probarit ut ministram illis sese praebuerit coll 467. Monachi per Syriam Palestinam Bythiniam reliqua Asiae loca sub Constantino magno coll 1294. Notum est quam reverentiam observantiam episcopis habuerit Constantinus in Synodo Nicaena ubi nec consedere prius quam episcopi annuissent voluit coll 460. Ad poenitentiam admoneri homines spem verò remissionis non à sacerdotibus sed 〈◊〉 ipso Deo expectaâ—e c. Cù haec dixisset Acesius subjunxit imperator Pone scalam ô Acesi solus ascende in coelum coll 653. Turba frequens preces cum fletu pro animâ imperatoris fudit coll 454. Thus Frigivillaeus Gauvius Constantinus tribuit Romano episcopo primatum ante omnes And again Ex eo apparet satale fuisse ut Constantinus daret potestatem bestiae quâm statim Julius exercuit Nam etiam Constantinus magnus ferebat arma draconis in insignis suis c. ita ut ipse sit draco qui dedit potestatem bestiae typus draconis serpentis antiqui Apoc. 13. qui bestiae potestatem dedit These words are in his Palma p. 34. And the same Centurists learned and industrious Protestants do manifesty acknowledg although they also dislike it even in that fourth age above thirteen hundred years ago when the Christian Church first lift up her head in the world all in a manner practices beleef and rites yet held in the Roman Church and utterly now abolisht by the Protestant reformation as then in vogue amongst the prelates and people of those times for example the Primacy of the byshop of Rome deduced by divine right from that of S. Peter coll 515.551.556.458 the single life of Priests 616.486 the sumptuousnes of consecrating Churches and celebrating Masses in hallowed places 497. the rites used in ordination of deacons subdeacons acolytes exorcists readers door-keepers and in the unction and consecration of Priests 873 874.435 ecclesiastical vestments the alb the stole Dalmatick cope mytre 504.876.835 saying of prayers upon little stones or beads coll 1329. worshipping and estimation of the Cross 302. praying towards the East 432. canonical hours 433. mattins in the night 459. solemn funeral rites and prayer for the souls of the deceased 453 454 455. Priests blessing of the bride and bridegroom after marriage 453. prohibition of marriage as well as eating of flesh in Lent 453.441 consecration of monks and monasteries 466. vowed chastity poverty and abstinence anchorets hermits their cells and austerity of life 470.488.300 301.471.474 Images in the Church and candles there burning in the day time 409 410. solemn translation of Saints relicks and placing them under the altar with pilgrimages to them wherat sick persons were miraculously cured 456 457.602 consecration of baptismal water and confirmation by a byshop with chrysme 415.420.865 sign of the cross in baptisme and exorcismes 421.417 Free-will interiour justification and merit of good works 291 292 293. confession of sins to a priest pennance and absolution with imposition of hands 425.834 unwritten traditions 299. invocation of Saints 295. Purgatory 304. altars consecrated with the sign of the cross and chrisme called the sâ—at of Christs body and blood 409. real presence and transubstantiation 209.985 the reservation of that sacrament and offering it up a sacrifice to God propitiatory both for the living and dead 427.430.985 challice coverings and holy vessels which lay people might not touch 490.835 mixtur of water with wine in the chalice in time of consecration 480. In a word all things which the Roman Catholik Church now beleevs and practises contrary to themselves are acknowledged by those learned Protestants in that fourth age to be so spread over the face of Christianity that many others of the same beleef with them have not feared to say that the Church in those dayes when she first lift up her head in the world was Antichristian and Papistical Popery then is no such novelty as Dr. Taylor imagines or would have us at least imagin it to be The Disswasives second Chapter That the Church of Rome uses doctrins and practices that are directly or by consequent impious and give warranty to a wicked life IS declared in 12. Sections For the Roman doctrin teaches saith he that a sinner is not bound presently to repent and that contrition is of it self of no value Sect. 1. Teaches also a confession that is frivolous and either of ill or no consequence sect 2. Teaches a pennance that is ineffective sect 3. Teaches Indulgences of no use sect 4. Teaches other assertions attending hereon both fals and wicked as that a habit of sin is no sin and that one sin is venial another mortal sect 5. Teaches that a probable opinion may safely be followed sect 6. Teaches fond battologies and prayers without attention sect 7. Teaches prayer to dead men sect 8. Teaches fond and wicked exorisations and incantations sect 9. Teaches new Sacraments without warrant sect 10. Teaches image-worship against good life and vertue sect 11. Lastly teaches the abuse of faith hope and charity And so is demonstrated your Disswaders second plea against Papists But to answer all this in a word The Roman Church or Catholik faith teaches none of this His third Chapter That the Roman Church teaches doctrins destructive of Christian society and monarchy IS shown in three sections First she teaches it is lawful to lye and speak falsities Secondly she does intollerable prejudice to government by exemption of Clergy Thirdly subjects Princes to the Pope and separateth wives from husbands and