in them and after the Se◠Apostolique But as ve◠quivocally use the term Episcopacy as signifying your nothing so I must deny it and connumerate it with your errours Again you strike upon Tradition for your Episcopacy wherein you commit a great soloecism in Divinity If it had been for Episcopacy in it self without restriction to your Idol you had come home indeed but as it was presented in your pide-coloured tincture it was never amongst the Ancient except Colythus and his complices might be admitted into the head of your list from whom you have an Jschyrian generation of Priests which S. Athanasius and as he assures us the generall Councell and I am sure the whole Church ever since condemned for spurious But in good earnest it is strange to see with what modesty you esteem a meer pretences for as much as concerns your Episcopacy of fifteen hundred years possession to be an invincible plea in this point and a reall and clear prescription for so many ages shall not hold for all others as most undoubtedly there was not any considerable opposition against Masse till Calvins time Luther was not so impudent as to take it away and how he fared in the sense of the whole Church we all know and so for many more high Articles of which I speak afterward wherein you are fallen All men carefull of their souls will sadly consider this It was truly and usually said of an eminent Bishop of your Order that he was Puritanus tantùm non in Episcopatu The same is as truly said of these pretenders to Episcopacy that they condemn Antiquity in all things except Episcopacy If novelty be not lawfull in this why in all other doctrines which you relinquisht against Antiquity It 's not Antiquity but fancy and ambition you follow els a true Syllogism in the same form will always conclude You put me in mind of the Asse who wresting Orpheus his sharp out of Apollo's hand played so ill-favouredly that the very dogs barked at him I will not be thought to apply this to you yet I must needs say that you begin to wrest our divine Arguments out of our hands and ye handle them so unhandsomly and jarringly from all our and your principles that all sorts of men will see whence and how injuriously you take them You go on 1. Would give such advantage to the Papists who usually object against us and our Religion the contempt of antiquity and the love of novelty that we should not be able to wipe off the aspersion 2. Would so diminish the just authority due to the consentient judgment and practise of the universall Church the best Interpreter of Scriptures in things not clearly exprest Reader observe what necessity there is for all sorts of Christians to recurre to Tradition for Lex currit cum praxi that without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely practised by us when by the Socinians Anabaptists and other Sectaries we should be called upon for our proofs As namely sundry Orthodoxall explications concerning the Trinity and Coequality of the persons in the Godhead against the Arians and other Heretiques the number use and efficacy of Sacraments the Baptizing of Infants National Churches the observation of the Lords day and even the Canon of Scripture it selfe 3. In respect of our selves we are not satisfied how it can stand with the Principles of Justice Ingenuity and Humanity to require the extirpation of Episcopall Government unlesse it had been first clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to be sincerely and really endeavoured by us To the first Indeed you cannot wipe off the aspersion no more then a Blackmore his colour You have given us a strange advantage and in this one passage put an affront upon all your former abettors An eminent person of your order being urged with the antiquity of our tenets replied that if things were to be salved by antiquity then sin would challenge great pre-eminency Thus far hath this plea been derided by you I could fill and foul many sheets in giving a syllable of your Authors for this Yet all antient Fathers and Councells esteemed this an infallible Plea and therefore the Nicene Fathers as appears in Athan. his Epistle of the Nicene Decrees cryed Ecce nos demonstramus istiusmodi sententiam à patribus ad patres quasi per manus traditam esse They esteemed it enough to shew a constant descent of their faith and this is our challenge against you To the second I see you forget that your 6.20.21 Articles exclude all orall Traditions it hath been the maine pretended cause of scandall and as ye have judg'd it most fundamentall that Catholiques plead a necessity of Apostolicall I raditions with the divine Scriptures Have not all the books of your Writers to this day been filled in proofe of the sufficiency of Scriptures and yet now even in the highest points of Christian Doctrine you acknowledge a necessity to have recourse to Tradition what man could have read this your second reason and not have conceived that this Praelatike slip had been again inserted into the old incorruptible Trunk or Body of the Catholique Church but the truth is that self-interest compells you to speak truth against your old Doctrines this blow hath struck you under the fifth rib and like the poor Pilgrime of Hiericho layed you wholly on your backs as objects of pity You specifie here many of the highest mysteries and to omit the rest you acknowledge that the Orthodox explication of the B. Trinity cannot be had from the Scripture alone without the Church Have not we then reason to confesse the Scripture alone not sufficient If you did stand to this truth there had not been such subdivisions of sects who deny the B. Trinity amongst you I have not indeed heard of many who embrace Arrius his Tenet that is that the Son is God but not co-eternall with the Father nor equall to him as Athanasius shews that he held but there are under the latitude of the Praelatique party who with Paulus Samosatenus Corpocras c. call in question his Deity and restraine him to his humanity and hence some eminent persons taking scandall left you and are joyn'd to the Catholike Church Nay you are not ashamed to run though vainly to Traditions for the chiefest grounds of your own Praelative Sect herein confessing that Scripture cannot reach them But to leave this to your selves let me instance more of our Doctrines which you most calumniate What more universal Tradition was extant then Masse that is the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ offered daily and perpetually for the living and the dead Read Mr. Perkins his Problemes he tells you that it was universally believed that Christ gave his true Body and Bloud at his last Supper Ask all the Liturgies since Christ In like manner read them for Jnvocation of Saints and Prayers
THE LATE ACT OF THE CONVOCATION AT OXFORD Examined OR The OBIT of Prelatique PROTESTANCY Occasioning the Conversion of W.R. Sometimes of EXETER Colledge in OXFORD to Catholique UNION PSAL. 118.59 Cogitavi vias meas converti pedes meos in Testimonia tua St. Ambr. Ep. 31. ad Valent. Erubeseat senectus quae se emendare non potest nullus pudor est ad meliora transire Printed at Roven 1652. A NARRATIVE Of the Motives and Effects of this Treatise Learned READER IT hath beene a no lesse famous then celebrated Custome amongst the Ancients for Converts to write Apologies or some kinde of Literary Expressions of their Inductives to Matriculation into the Wombe of Christs Church as St. Justin Martyr Arnobius and the rest who of Heathens became Christians Great Origen and St. Augustine who from siding with Herctiques became Catholiques Hence I esteeme it my duty to addresse some Reason to the World why I left that Body of Christians where I had beene Baptiz'd and Educated and now incorporate my selfe to the Roman Catholique Church from which our Nation had this last age divided it selfe After my younger Studies in the University of Oxford I endeavoured to season my selfe in our greatest Authours as Bishop Juell Bishop Morton the last Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop Usher with Field White and the rest whose Apothegmes I received as Oracles without dispute and by the poursuite of them I began much to admire our Doctrines and no lesse to disesteeme the Roman Catholique But upon further growth in yeares with Themistocles I attempted to reach higher and entring though with great tendernesse to examine our Tenets and Proofes very speciously alleadged out of antiquity I found so many adulterated Texts of holy Fathers especially in Bishop Iewell and Bishop Morton so many to speake modestly misinterpreted in the rest of which I may opportunely give a list that I could not but blush to finde our main Pillers so stramineous in their very foundations Hence what curiosity had first invited now Conscience enforc'd mee earnestly to a serious and deeper search wherein I resolved with Cato not to be ashamed to Learne as hee Greeke So I Latine not according to the vulgar stile but the old pure Roman Language expressed in St. Hierome St. Augustine and the rest of those Professours of Christian Rhetorique neither did I omit with old Plato to peragrate Greece Aegypt and the Easterne parts to finde any holy Gymnosophists who could embowell not nature but the Sacred Mysteries of Christianity which I found not sufficiently dived into at home In my returne from this Sedentary Pilgrimage wholy settled by the re-searches of Antiquity in the truth of the Roman Church and her Tenets I fell upon this Act of the Convocation-House the Discussion whereof I present to all understandings not bias'd with the Praejudice of Customes Education or Ambition that they may judge out of this Summary what might be said if I should expatiate upon this subject I blush not to publish the impulsive cause of my actuall Conjunction to our old Roman Mother Church to be from this Act of the Convocation for though I was before fully satisfied of those old Tenets in a Speculative sense yet in reduceing my selfe to the Practicall part or profession of them I found many Phanatique Bug-beares till hapning upon this Act composed by a great Body of our most learned men and evidently seeing the inconsistency of the Doctrine here asserted especially concerning the necessity of Traditions with our former Tenets and Positions against Catholiques I was inavoidably compelled to an actuall and humble Submission of my will as well as of my judgement to the obedience of the Church And in this my voluntary retirement from the World I found unâ—xpectedly in these Forraine parts diverse of both our Universities to have taken the rise of their Conversions from the same ground and to have prevented mee in their Resolutions herein which made mee more thankfully to admire the Divine Providence in the secret conduct of Soules culled out for himselfe Master Gregory a very learned person and my contemporary in Oxford in his Preface to his Opuscula page 17. hath this ingenuous acknowledgement I am sorry sayes hee I have so much to accuse my Natition of that ever since the Times of Henry the eighth they should goe about in a Maze of Reformation and not know yet how to get either us or themselves out And truly who ever does well consider this Act of Convocation and the sad consequences of it will conclude with mee that there is but one way to get out of this Maze and that is by an humble returne to our Mother the Catholique Church which the dazled Eyes and selfe-bias'd Judgements of the contrivers of that Act could not then discerne But this short Examination of it may I hope contribute something towards their illumination From Paris this 1. of July 1652. Stilo loci W. R. The OBIT of Prelatique Protestancy OR The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation house at Oxford 1. of June 1641. Conteining their reasons against the Scottish Covenant and Presbytery CHymists amongst Physitians desire so far to reforme the Doctrine and Discipline of the Galenists that they neither observe the same Method nor druggs in their Cures as appeares in Paracelsus Crollius Helmontius and others nay they would willingly so far be thought to differ from them as that out of that respect they assume another name and therefore commonly style themselves Phylosophos per ignem Fiery that is hot spirited Phylosophers And truly when I looke upon this Consult and Result of the Convocation house Consisting of Masters Schollars and other Officers Members of the Vniversity as you profess I conceive you have endeavoured so far to reforme the Doctrine and manners of all others that you neither agree with them who would be esteemed reformed Churches nor with their and your Mother Church of Rome either in Doctrine or Disscipline Nay ye have gone so far with the Chymists that ye will not retaine the common name of all the Moderne Reformers as your later Masters professe in which all your Progenitors vaunted namely under the Notion of Pretestants but ye style your selves here Christians or Protestants with this distinctive appellative of the Church of England Others deny the name wholy as in our daily congresses we experience so that the more Unigenious name is Puritan which is also more uniforme to the Chymists hot spirited Phylosophy As therefore ye are seperate in place so in nature and name from all who rightly or falfly acknowledge Christ whence at the most according to your owne principles ye are but Anologically I feare I might better say equivocally Christians as it signifies a body of people uniformly professing Christ with the Universall Church So that what Celsus improperates in Origens third booke would surely come home to you Nec jam quicquam preter nomen eis commune superesse si tamen
further they think it necessary to confirme what they teach by their blood and therefore will not desist This Paraphrase comes not yet home Ye are ambitious to challenge Martyrs in confirmation of your Prelatique Protestancy but how unhappily let all men witnesse even by Master Foxes adulterate Monuments For first never any dyed for the whole complex or the Encyclopedia of your 39. Articles the confession whereof renders an adequate Praelatist this is cleere in all Histories the truth is it would have argued a phrensie to maintaine those Articles by death which were only made to maintaine you in life Againe no man in his wits would expose himself even to danger of death for matter of opinion which must needs involve uncertainty neither doe your Articles mount any higher as Chilingworth ingenuously confesseth therefore ye all professe a fallibility in your owne decrees which is consequent enough In some of your Articles you agree with us so that if any of yours should dye for those we might if it were worth the while challenge such as well as you but Saint Paul to the Cor. 1. Chap. 13. Tertul. against Marian lib. 4. Saint Cipr. to Antoniatus Ep. 52. To Cornelius Ep. 54. c. S. Aug. against the Donatists and all the rest assure us that Esse Martyr non potest qui in ecelesia dei non est No member of Gods Catholique Church no Martyr and hereupon the Novatians though sharply persecuted by Macedonius for the same Doctrine concerning the Blessed Trinity for which the Catholiques also were yet the Christian world never esteemed them Martyrs Out of this ground it arose that none could be acknowledged or venerated as Martyrs except the Bishop of the place had fignifyed by writing to the Primate all particulars in the processe and then he declared them to be such as appeares in S. Aug. Brevic. Collat. diei 3. cap. 13. where he shewes how Secundus Bishop of Trigisitan in Numidia signified to Mensurius Bishop and Primate of Carthage the particular passages of such who had been put to death because they would not obey Dioclesians Proclamation in delivering the Sacred Bookes into their profane hands and Mensurius declared them worthy to be celebrated as Martyrs but to others who had suffered under the same pretence yet for other defects hee denied that honour as appeares there This solemne Act of Declaration was afterwards transferr'd and limited to the Pope being conceived a businesse of high concernment to the whole Church Truly the Church hath beene alwayes so tender in this that Councels as Eliber Can. 60. assume this authority to themselves and prescribe Rules in it as there if a Christian should be put to Death for having broken Idols it is forbidden that hee be accounted a Martyr It must bee done with due circumstances And the case of St. Abda comes home to it hee had pulled downe an Idolatrous Temple for which Christians commended him not but his refusall to rebuild the Temple was judged cause enough of Martyrdome as Theodor. l. 5. c. 38. shewes There might be rashnesse in the first but surely the re-building of an Idolatrous Temple had beene impiety and therefore was noble to die for it But if you will know what is required to be esteemed a Martyr in the sense of Catholiques advise with our Authors especially St. Thomas 2.2 q. 124. a. 40. 50. and our other Divines If you will further know the great tendernesse the universall Church hath used in recording admitting the Gests of her undoubted Martyrs read the 6. Gen. Councell Can. 63. which will tell you that the Roman Church will not permit the Acts of Martyrs to be read which have beene written by Heretiques nay the councell will have such Records to be burnt In some Articles you agree with the Presbyterians in others with the Independents If any have dyed for either of these each of them may come in as well as you and yet these consequent to your Principles yee esteeme Separatists that is not capable of being Martyrs Againe in some Articles you differ from us and them which are the peculiar Tenents of Praelatisme and for these they and wee know that never any Man dyed namely for your Episcopacy and the adherent Doctrines Therefore without doubt yee have no Martyrs no not so much as Pseudo-Martyrs Secondly you your selves in time of your Espiscopall Raigne cast many besides Catholiques Presbyterians and Independents into Dungeons where they dyed beggard Families with oppressures wherewith they famisht cut off Eares and banisht such who adored not your Episcopall Idoll And may not these joyne issue upon a farre greater title to Martyrdome then you That the Prelatists had almost intreated the common people into a beliefe of this Fancy I wonder not For if wee looke back to the Donatists who most of all represent them as being zealous Prelatists they were so ambitious of this honour that many cast themselves into Precipices and other wayes sought their owne Death upon this pretence as Optaetus Milevitanus St. Augustine and diverse others relate I leave you to tell us whether some of your party have not done the like in our memories The renowned Apollinaris in Eusebius l. 5. c. 15. saith of the Cataphrygeans or Montanists that when all their Arguments were confuted and they driven to a non plus they left disputing by way of Reason and produced their Martyrs as proofe enough of their errours Truly the Prelatists being reduced to a losse in point of reasoning for they have already confessed their domestique inconsistencies now as yee see they begin with them to challenge Martyrs whom they would take up from all hands but if wee deplume them by giving to each part their own as I have toucht wee shall leave them as naked in point of Martyrs as Plato's Cock in point of being a man We might wonder that in every clause even in this your fainting condition you still strike at the poore Catholiques Wormes troden will shew their heads for defence truly you seeme to be much of the nature of Foxes whose antipathy is so great against innocent Lambes that their Skinnes made into Drummes will by invisible beames or spirits endeavour the breaking of a Drum made of Lambs Skin But it recoyles upon you this Drum being well beaten will with innocency destroy your rangling and jangling dissonancies You force us to sharpen our Pens and against our inclination to give our Inke a tincture of Gall lest wee should not seeme sensible of your frequent scornes in this Act. It was S. Hierem S. Augustines case in their conflicts with the Donatists Pelagians and the rest S. Augustine tell us of a House infested with evill spirits for remedy whereof hee sent some of his Monkes to say Masse which presently dispelled the Divells it would be no lesse efficatious now against all ill spirits who infest Gods Servants in their quiet attending to his Service The holy Masse is able to humble those