in and by the Church of Rome especially since Trent-Council assembled and ended above your hundred years ago is inconsistent with and destructive of this individual Headship true Faith and Church-constitution being nothing else but an Anti-christian miscellany and compound oppositum in apposito of God and the Creature God-man and meer-man in the most material points and principles of Christianity the Persons of both in point of Worship the Power and Authority of both in matters of Faith the Righteousness and Merit of both in point of Satisfaction and Justification the Wills of both in the act of Conversion the Intercession of both in the great office of Mediation yea an universal co-equivalency or equal concurrence of Worth Vertue and Efficacy from both throughout the whole business of Redemption and Salvation especially from Christ and the Virgin Mary constituted therein Corredemptress with her Son and Saviouress a latere as if her Brests as well as his Sides had been no less then sacramental and the Mothers Milk and the Son's Blood equally saving Moreover to prosecute this Religious medley God and the Creature in the Decalogue Christ and the Church in the Creed Scripture and Tradition in the Canon Pater-Noster and Ave-Maria in the Litany Sacrament and Sacrifice in the Supper c. all so many Riddles in the Mystery of Iniquity A Religion consisting of such Trent-Forge-Principles and Practices as these viz. In point of Doctrine Papal Supremacy and Authotity Church Infallibility unwritten Traditions equall'd in authority with the Holy Scriptures the doctrine of Man's free-Will in opposition to God's Free-Grace the Doctrine of Perfection of Merits Pardons and Indulgences redounding from a surplusage of Works of super-erogation and satisfaction as they are termed as if any meer Man could fullfill in obedience beyond what the Law requires and satisfy in penance beyond what Sin deserves a rare Religion the doctrine of Purgatory and Souls Departed the doctrine of Mass-service and Transubstantiation the Consecrating Priestling turning a petty Creator as is supposed converting sacramental Forms into real Substance and Commemoration into Expiation celebrating Christ's Death with his death as well as with his own in destroying instead of discerning the Lord's Body yea both Saviour and Sacrament at once the doctrine of Ministration in an unknown Tongue by means whereof they do most sacrilegiously robb the Children of their Bread in the Scriptures as they do of the Cup in the Supper and many more such like Doctrines not of men onely but of Divels which I list not to dwell upon the Subject being so Frightful In point of Worship Idolatry and Imagery Superstition Saint-Worship c. In point of Polity absolute Tyranny the Keys turned into a Sword sufficiently exercised and dearly experienced throughout the World upon Princes-Crowns their Subjects-Consciences and Protestant-Blood in sanguinary Lawes a bloody Inquisition direful Anathemaes execrable Massacres rageing Persecutions c. the violent Calentures of that Torrid Zone The Religion in fine of that Church which is in Doctrine damnably Heretical in Worship grossely Idolatrous in Polity and Government intollerably Tyrannical in all palpably Antichristian opposite to and virtually destructive of Christs fundamentality and headship in his Person or Natures in his Offices in all their parts in his States in his vertues merits graces priviledges Institutions and ordinances c. in one or more or all of those and consequently destruction of the Catholick Faith and Religion by Himself and his Apostles and the whole successive series of Christians throughout the World professed and practised and finally of the truth of a Christian Church his Body all in effect nullified thereby yea and a false head other foundation and another name being substituted in opposition to the true the Religion I say professed and practised in the Church of Rome and that Church her self especially since Trent-Council being such as is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 described it followeth by necessary consequence that the separation of the Church of England both primitive in her first Reformers and present in their Successours persisting in that happy divorce from her and embodyed into a contradistinct but true Church under Christ the onely true Head in a Joynt profession of his Faith the true Religion is so far from being Schismatical this being ever a causeless and groundless separation in or from matter of true Religion in a true Church that on the contrary it is righteous and Justifyable yea absolutely necessary by the authority of that Law whereby we are strictly commanded to renounce and abjure her society upon peril of sharing in her Plagues from which Good Lord deliver us Sir if in this short defence of our Reformation which it is like may seem a kind of morose Tragedy to an airy Mercurius but that I aim at a further goal you think I have falsified or misrepresented any principle of the Romish Church charge me with it and spare not and if I do not Justify what I have asserted brand me for as great a slanderer as your self Again Sir True Religion being that onely of which the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth is the Author the Holy Scriptures the Word of Truth is the Rule and the Holy Church whereof our Church of England is part the Pillar and Ground of Truth is the publick Trustee Keeper and Conservatory as Pillars or Tables are of affix'd Papers and Proclamations to wit modo forensi non architectonico derived and delivered as is above-said to her from the Apostles and to them by Christ from God himself And the Reformed Religion Faith Doctrine and substantial Worship professed and practised in and by the Church of England being such as may appear from her publick tests and monuments especially the three Creeds Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian and her doctrinal Articles unanimously agreed upon in two several Convocations viz An. Dom. 1562 and 1604 c. compared with the Sacred Canon whose test and trial in the Case she is willing to undergo It follows that the Reformed and onely reforming Religion professed and practised in and by the Church of England is the onely true Religion which when you assault with Argument as now you undermine by Stratagem you shall be dealt withall Moreover Sir The Church of England is no less satisfied in her Clergy then in her Religion that as God hath by a Law of as long duration as that of Sun and Moon in the ordinary course of his Providence appointed to publish and propagate his Truth and instruct his Church by a constant series and succession of persons of holy Order and Office authorised and qualified thereunto so her Clergy is such having derived their orders together with their Religion ex traduce Apostolica from the original Seminary Founders of Christianity in England who are recorded in History the monumental Memory and best Intelligencer in such cases to have been Apostles or Men Apostolical whether Philip or Joseph of Arimathea sent by him as Tertullian
dull obtuse emasculate c. quick Mercurial brisk acute witty pregnant Spirits and all Specimens of Ingenuity and Sagacity to the honour of the Academy the Church the Nation and emulation of Forreigners and I believe the prudent Governours of either Vniversity will hardly be perswaded by all your flexanimous Rhetorick as your dear Amasio accoasts you or Logick either to alter their Method in the former or not to cherish the latter But to render you more ridiculous Sir than you can the Clergy contemptible English Exercises in an Academick Diatribe pudeat haec opprobria nobis What though the Clergy preach in English to their people Must therefore that choice time or any considerable part of it which should be to the greatest advantage husbanded and improved in the acquiry of their due Ministerial preparatives and provisions of Literature be spent upon their Mother-Tongue Impertinent The Rules and Methods of Oratory the Arts and Arguments of perswasion are by you confessed to be the same in all Languages And surely he hath but a very incompetent Dose and use of Reason who cannot accommodate the same to any Scope Theme or purpose pro re nata upon all emergent occasions in any Language whatsoever he is once Master of And as for those Strains and Delicacies of Wit you speak of they are 1. Juvenile Elaes the laudable products of a Youthful Fancy 2. The frequent Preludes of more than ordinary sagacity and pregnancy of Spirit in the years of maturer consistency and 3. In case at any time over-luxuriant beyond the bounds of Modesty and a Trespass in Ethicks yet easily corrigible by a riper discretion and all to the greater experienced advantage in the whole Trinity of Professions Law Physick and Divinity and what expence and exhaustion of Academick Spirit must needs ensue upon the draining of this Cephalick Vein is easily discernable For that Axion of yours that Rope-Dancers in the Schools Let. 2. p. 104. oft-times prove Jack-puddings in the Pulpit I suspend a Reply till I be better informed from the Doctor of the Stage to whom you do so often refer me and his Puppet But to go on what a strange hysteron-proteron like the rest of your ribble-rabble have you committed in recommending the teaching and learning of Mathematicks and Philosophical Lectures the prime Delicacies of Wit to the lower-Form Grammar-Schools and English Exercises nay a Caput mortuum and dispirited Muse to the Vniversities Yea and a Solâ—cisme in Morals to boot in a petulant criminating of the want of both ridiculous Again what more obvious than a wicked project of destroying those grand Seminaries of Learning and consequentially Religion the Clergy in the Academy the Mother in the Nurse the Church of England in her Vniversities c. A compendious way I confess For to what purpose as to the Concern of the Clergy are Vniversities either founded or resorted to if English Exercise must be their great Academick Discipline and emprovement in their Native tongue the highest Acquist which the world be Judge doth nothing so well beseem an Alma Mater Academia as your little house by the Church-yard or the Ferula of your pitiful construing Master I am ashamed to say Nurse Mother or School-dame So that your Ironick Conjugates Vniversity-Scholar Vniversity-Learning Academick Youngster c. I take to be but verbal tests of your Weigelian project whereby you study to drain and exhaust those Fountains which your Masters tell you upon experience you cannot so immediately poyson till at last like bemudded low-water-Nilus they produce nothing but Monsters like your self and Enemies to Learning Religion Church and State who I hope may be by Sword or Key in due time animadverted upon accordingly if the School-Fry or the Academick Youngsters as you call them prevent not that piece of Justice and then Asinus inter Apes Lastly Sir ad hominem as before one ground of the Contempt of the Clergy you alledge to be their Ignorance that you may demonstrate their Ignorance in the Church you quarrel their Education in the Vniversity here all that you criminate is want of English Exercises and Delicacies of Wit or which is all one too much Wit Latine and Greek c. in Academick Exercises now your Argument then the Clergy is both too much exercised and expert in Latine and Greek c. or too little in the English and also too witty in the Vniversity ergo ignorant in the Pulpit Rare Consequence There they are Sophies but here very Morio's I promise you Sir if by your Logick you can prove Ignorance by its opposite Wit and Learning I would advise you to Hackney out your Cerebellum to better advantage than here you have done and so I have passed your second Stage We are now arrived at your ultima Thule Master Inquisitor the very last and chief Stage in your whole Circuit namely the Pulpit where I find the poor Clergy empannell'd in Wainscot and their supposed Ignorance charged from Effects as before from its Causes especially in the prime Ministerial Act and Exercise of Preaching which though together with that of Prayer I have before sufficiently vindicated yet I will now give brief Answer to your chief Allegations in matter of Fact Your First Exception Sir is formed against such Preaching as is either mountingly eloquent Let. 1. p. 38 c. or profoundly learned where ad hominem I must be your Monitor at the very first Oportet Mendacemesse memorem Remind your self Sir that the grand design of your Inquest is to detect the Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy alias to betray them to it the chief ground hereof by you alledged is their Ignorance and thus you attaint them de capite especially in the chief Official Act of Preaching as that which is chiefly apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed And yet is your first Exception this dis unctive Preaching either mountingly eloquent or profoundly learned What! the Preaching both eloquent and learned nay in both superlative and yet the Preacher ignorant How inconsistent are you with your self Unless you understand St. Paul's Antiperistasis in the case as if much Learning and Eloquence had caused a Dotage in the Clergy but as I said above Tongue-trip is Gods Will your own Speech all along bewraying of you as the Ass you know as well as his Master spoke against his own Genius But now what Reader can so far prostitute or debauch his Reason as to reckon your Ishmael-like Tongue any Slander in anothers Credit since you all along do so foully betray your own Under this Head you criminate the checkering and besprinkling of Sermons with Greek Latine and Hebrew which yet provided the Citations be pertinent not over-numerous and pro hic nunc conducive to the magnifying of the Office more than of the Person is justifiable by the same Authority that the Apostle Paul quoted Heathen-Greek out of Aratus to the Athenians out of
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Treasure h d in a Field which you would call a going far and deep and add possibly but we soon come above 〈◊〉 again for the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Merchant-man c. And again which hath very little or no resemblance of the former Likenesses the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Net c. So that if a Mortal might dare to presume upon facetious disporting with Sacred Scripture it were easie to recapitulate viz. that in a very little compass namely that of one short Sermon the Kingdom of Heaven is a Sower a Grain of Mustard-seed Leaven a Treasure a Merchant-man a Net Now Sir if you reckon this matter of Contempt in our Saviour declare your self streight be no longer Atheist in disguise If not then neither is it such in his Ministers conforming to such a Pattern or in your own Language guided by his Preaching and Directions therefore ab absurdo if my reason may not convince you let your own upon recollection but if you be neither convicted by argument nor confounded otherwise for my own part I expect no other but that the world at leastwise this part of it England will experience your Enquiry into the grounds and occasions of the contempt of Religion and Clergy alias an exposal of both to it to have been but a prologue to a higher or further Province There are two Books Sir which in laboris compendium you refer your Reader to the one entituled a Friendly Debate the other Flames and Discoveries your Oracles possibly but 't is all one what your other Readers may do herein I know not but for my self I think I shall hardly dare to meddle with them I have so much of you As for the former I understand there is a Cerberus in the case and I list not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for the latter Flamma fumo proxima and sire and smoak are terrible things especially when more from the Pit then from the middle Region more plague then meteor But Sir if your ignis fatuus must have sacred fuel to feed it withal why is it the English Clergy and their Preaching rather then the Romish which is known to abound with all manner of blasphemy folly and impertinencies witness their own Innocent the third his misteries of the Mass Durand's Rational Tolet and Titleman c Did ever English or Resormed Divine commit such a ridiculous impertinent blasphemous gloss upon Holy Scripture as is that to instance but in one for I long to be rid of them and you both of one of their very Cardinals Barronius by name upon those verses in the eight 〈◊〉 relating to the Messiah Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thine hands thou hast put all things under his feet all Sheep and Oxon y a and the Beasts of the Field the Fowles of the Air and the Fish of the Sea c. Now observe Reader Cardinal Points Thou hast put all things under his feet that is under the seet of the Pope of Rome Sheep that is Christians Oxen that is Jews and Hereticks Beasts of the Field that is Pagaus Fowles of the Air that is Angels Fishes of the Sea that is Souls in purgatory Do more artificial and ingenious 〈◊〉 occurr in all your Rhâ—psody then these but I am weary of them and you both Therefore Sir by way of recapitulation which is the other thing that I propounded to sum up the whole The Clergy of the Church of England hath been by you charged with Ignorance as the just ground of Contempt that you might prove them ignorant you criminate something in the Grammar Schools something in the Vniversities something in the Pulpits in Grammar-Schools the not reading of English Authors and the not reading of Philosophical Authors and Mathematicks c. the former whereof is fitter for a Domestick nursery the latter fitter for an Academy In Vniversities want of English that is nothing but Latine Greek c. exercises and the delicacies of Academick Wit In the Pulpit and Minister's last Edition either superlatively cloquent or profoundly learned Preaching partly partly Preaching by way of ridiculous impertinent Metaphor Similies and such like things as might procure Contempt to the Preacher and the Religion by him professed Of the allegations produced in matter of fact two parts of three are acquitted as either at least justifiable or highly laudable and matter of applause rather then of Contempt yea and the tertia third or only one part that is confessed peccant and faulty not customary neither and besides attended with vertues which may procure more credit and honour than the defects can possibly disparagement or contempt all which duely considered your Reader be judge what do all your arguings reprove The other part of my Province I will quickly dispatch As touching the Poverty of the Clergy I will briefly enquire Sir 1. Whether Poverty be a ust ground of the contempt of the Clergy 2. Whether Poverty be an actual occasion of this Contempt And 3. VVhether Poverty and Contempt may admit of any redress As for the former That the Clergy is upon the account of poverty therefore de â—ure Contemptible is most justly denied else Christ himself the Antesignan and Head of the Clergy and the Apostles his Associates had been de jure contemptible for the former though Lord of all had not where to lay his head insomuch that when he had occasion to pay a little Tribut e he was fain to be at the expence of a miracle for it the latter by the very Laws and Terms of Discipleship nor Silver nor Brass to buy necessaries for themselves nor yet Scrip to receive the charitable benevolence of others both briefly in extraction relations possessions c. very poor What and therefore justly contemptible nay on the contrary 2. It hath ever been matter of sacred veneration towards the Christian Religion glory to its Author and Promoters and wonder to a perfect consternation and amazement in its Adversaries that it hath been founded and propagated preserved and maintained by the poorer predicament and order of mankind who would ever have thought that a poor Duo-decemvirate poor in extraction relations possessions number power and policy Twelve inconsiderable Mechanicks within the space of Forty years would have proved such absolute conquerours of the greatest part of the known world in subduing the same to and by the Christian Faith Though their opponents were numerous potent and politick Verba leguntur piscatorum colla subduntur Oratorum said St. Augustine Fisher-men prove Fishers of men a canting quibble but that it is warranted by a jure Divino catching Imperial necks in their book subduing Scepters to Christs Standard the Cross I shall not need here to mention the succeeding Propagators of the same Faith Primitive nor Modern the poor of Lyons Paterius Humilists Waldenses Albigenses c. Nor yet our own siâ—seâ— Reformers in whom a Divine