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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48813	An answer to the Bishop of Oxford's reasons for abrogating the test impos'd on all members of Parliament anno 1678, Octob. 30 in these words, I, A.B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testifie, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ at, or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever, and that the invocation of adoration of the Virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Dais, as they are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous / by a person of quality.	Lloyd, William, 1627-1717.	1688 (1688)	Wing L2673; ESTC R977	35,814	60

Ministery of Angels or by immediate Inspiration given to Holy Men Prophets and Apostles and consigned by them into the Holy Writings we call Scriptures All which after Revelations are to be tryed and Tested by their compare with and Agreement to former Revelations as is most manifest in all parts of Scripture and by the constant and continual Appeal of the Old Testament to the New So that this prerogativ'd Legislative Church that is pleaded into so high and rampant a Power that All-seeming wavings of its Authority must be an Invasion of Christ's Kingdom a Deposing of Him an affronting his Commission smells strong of the Pride and Ambition of that City which first as a City and then as a Church hath always aspir'd to have a Kingdom over the Kings of the Earth as also of the Luciferian Ascent of the Beast that carries it with and upon which I doubt not the Sacriledge and Blasphemy will be found Who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped who sitteth in the Temple of God shewing Himself that he is God. But to us there is but one Law-giver who is able to save and to destroy One Father who is in Heaven One Master who is Christ and all we are Brethren One Legislative-Lord and the chiefest in his Church are Servants Ministring his Word in the Scriptures the onely law of Divine verities And therefore in this Prerogative-sense dare not receive the title of Masters or Fathers nor can those who receive the Law of Christ made evident from the Scriptures to be his Law by their Ministry upon such Ministration yield them therefore the Names of Masters or Fathers in a Legislative sense For they know they ought to Preach Christ the Lord and themselves onely Servants for Christ's sake that they have no Dominion over the Faith of Christians who are however called the Laity yet are Christ's Clerus but only are Ensamples of the Flock who attends the motion of the Chief Shepherd the Lamb Christ Jesus whithersoever he goes and will not follow Strangers Princes and States by Light offer'd them by the Ministerial labours and services of the Bishops and Elders of the Church who labour in the word and Doctrine are to direct their Power according to that Light they receive by such Ministrations but together and not without their own search into Scriptures and constant meditation therein And the People are to obey in Agreement with that Law and word of Christ which they are to know for themselves in that Light diffus'd by the preaching of the word to them in season and out of season which I say they are to know for themselves and not others for them by the deep research of their own minds into Scripture to see whether those things are so or not For wisedom hath written to them even to them as may be seen by all the Epistles of the Apostles that they might know the certainty of the words of truth and have their trust in the Lord and not an Implicit Faith in Men and might be able by Apologies for the hope that is in them to answer the words of Truth to those who send to them either in a way of advice or challenge Whatever is contrary to this undoubted evidence of the Word of God and sound Reason seeing every one must give an account of himself to God as well as those who are set over them who by faithfull Offers of Truth discharge themselves whatever I say is so propos'd as by a Catholick Church and its prerogative I affirm savours of that intoxicating Cup of Abominations in the hand of that Sorceress that calls her self the Mistress of Churches and would Sit the Lady of the Christian World and of the power that bears it who under pretence of the Kingdom of Christ undermines it and hath in the unsearchable Judgment of God delay'd thus long its appearance to all the World and is the Baalam lofty Prophet of that Romish Pergamus 2. The pretended practice of the Church of God in all Ages can give no presidency in this Case beyond what is thus asserted For in the times of the Old Testament Religious Princes did by the general advice and Doctrine of the Prophets and of those Priests who kept their Faith to the Law of God themselves govern and reform according to that of which each King was to have a Copy Written by himself which was to be with him and he was to read it all the days of his Life That he might Learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep his Laws And whereas in that precedent Law enquiry of the Priest in the place God should choose was commended it plainly insinuates the divine Responses God gave at that time by the Vrim and Thummim immediately from himself were intended but yet all was to be founded in the Written Law there all was to be shown and from thence to be learnt or not to be receiv'd no not under a power of seeming Miiracles Deut. 12. In the first times of Christianity for three hundred years there were no Christian Magistrates who would wait for the Churches Oracle's But for the Determination of the Church without a Lay-Concurrence it is most apparently opposite to that grand instance of the first Council wherein the people if any distinguishingly styl'd the Church and who made most manifestly one of the Estates if I may so express it in the whole Conciliary management The Apostles the Elders the Brethren and the whole Consultation and Determination mov'd upon the Poles of express Scripture as will be most visible to any enquirer into those Conciliary Acts For he that runs may read Acts 15. In the days of that first and most Religious Emperour Constantine although he as all pious Princes and Christians would receiv'd light from the Ministers of sacred truth yet so that he us'd his own Judgment together with it deploring the weaknesses he observ'd among these who seem'd to be pillars of light but yet it must be acknowledg'd that that Apostasie the Mystery of iniquity that began to work in the Apostles days was well grown up and advanc'd and a Legislative Church was Towring up its Power in the Christian World at that very time But it is undoubted There is nothing so Ancient as Divine Truth in the Law and in the Testimony consenting with that Law of Reason Engraven in man's Heart and to these we must goe Fot whatsoever speaks not according to these there is no Morning to it nor from it but a Night even to a Midnight ensues upon it what Antiquity soever it pretends to 3. That I may yet give a more direct Answer to this Reason the Test-Act is not a Law of an Ecclesiastick Nature For it is onely an Exploration and Touch upon Persons whether they are Romanists or not it is no Canonical Determination of the Point of Transubstantiation it binds no Decree with a Spiritual or Ecclesiastick Anathema or Excommunication which are of

holds it not onely for himself but for that whole Estate the whole being acknowledg'd in every Member And particularly sitting and voting in the Higher House of Parliament which is therefore with Honour to that Estate call'd the House of Lords is acknowledged to be the just Right of Peerage without any Infraction upon the Right it self 3. Even those Noble Lords who do refuse or do not actually submit to the taking the Test have yet their Right of Birth Blood or other Title preserv'd undisputed and inviolate as it is such a Right and on such a Claim and therefore whenever they please to accept it on that Condition there is no demur upon their Right But untill they so accept their Right is in a kind of Abeyance and Custody of Law for them and never dyes or is extinguisht 4. The Suspension in the mean time amounts no higher to the Defalcation of the Priviledge nor indeed so high than the Minority of such Noble Persons which cause 's a Suspension of that Priviledge of voting in Parliament till they are of Age which is not at their pleasure but requires the natural Course of Time to advance them to it whereas in this case they may in Construction of Law every day remove the Obstruction and enjoy their Right seeing the Claim is always allow'd and own'd and the Law takes no notice of the Reasons of their refusal 5. This is made most evident in that all other natural Rights of their Peerage are notwithstanding the Suspension of this particular Branch continued to them 6. It is most undeniable their Right of Blood or other Claim to the Priviledge of Parliament is unmoved because not their taking the Test but that precedent and still continuing just Right gives them a perfect enjoyment of that particular Priviledge whenever they take the Test. Which is I hope a full Vindication of the natural Rights of Peerage from being utterly destroyed seeing it is onely one Branch that is in Question and that is onely suspended or rather deposited in trust with the House of Peers and no way destroy'd or extinguish'd 2. I come therefore to make good in the second place that the Birth-Right os the English Nobility is not turn'd into a Precarious Title nor that which in former Ages was forfeited onely by Treason is now at the mercy of every Faction or every Passion in Parliament For that can never be Precarious nor at such mercy which subsists and rests upon the common Base of the whole World for its security and that is the Law of self-preservation For when a Parliament consists of Two Houses and the Vpper House of Two Estates each Estate a Convention as is to be always presumed of the wisest and most honourable Persons of a whole Nation the Lower House hath always upon all their Proposals or Offers at any Bill the curb and restraint that this is to pass the Vpper House or House of Lords and therefore cannot rationally so much as essay them with any Law that would destroy the Rights of their Peerage But suppose the House of Commons should make so unreasonable an attempt it can never be imagin'd so intelligent a Body always provident and watchfull so naturally sensible of Honour and of their own Interest should either be impos'd upon or drawn by whatsoever motives to consent to the Destruction of their very Constitution there being no stronger Passion or more binding Cement than that of self-preservation And yet the preparation of the Two Houses for the bringing forth a Law does but form the Materials that they may be presented to the Royal Assent to to give them the form and life who as the common Father of the Countrey will judg of all Bills whether they are the Products of Passion or Faction and so they either live or are still-born When all Laws are therefore thus winnow'd and sifted through these several Explorations of Persons suppos'd to have all manner of Talents for judging and the quickest Resentments of their own Interest and Concernment whether as the Lower or Higher Body of a Nation whether Civil or Ecclesiastick and then shall all meet in the common Head who sees and feels for the whole it is very adventurous to impute such Enactions to the Faction or Passion of a Parliament Seeing this must needs be the firmest Foundation humane Affairs can be entrusted to in this World viz. the Law of self preservation ballanc'd by King Lords and Commons e're any thing becomes a Law. And although it is true the influence of the Supreme Prince the Genius and Temper of an Age or particular Inclination of Times the Configuration of various Co-incidents may preponderate to the worse in some Laws yet there must be submission to suffering even when Conscience or Reason countersways that which we call Active Obedience to such Laws or all Government must be unhinged and fall And seeing it is acknowledg'd there may be a Forfeiture by Treason of the Rights of Peerage and that it hath been in the Power of Parliaments to declare the nature and kinds of Treason there is nor can be greater danger to the Peerage in trusting themselves with the Suspension of one Branch of their Right than in trusting themselves with the whole of those Rights and it is very rare that humane Nature specially such sapient and honourable part of it conspire with a Faction or Passion against themselves or receive a precedent srom a partial Infringment of their Rights to destruction of the whole seeing if so great an Estate hath overseen in a lesser concern it is to be concluded it will be the more jealous after and where the whole is in danger and so there is no more consequence from the Precedent of the Test-Law which is either unawares or by the sorce of Truth or of meer Grace it being unlike the rest of this Discourse granted by the Reverend Authour to have been usefull in its season than from a necessary and prudent opening a vein to conclude the Person that consents to the one will therefore consent to the letting out the whole Mass of Blood. And lastly after all that hath been said the Instances this Authour gives of the first Transubstantiation-Test and the Protestation or Test of Loyalty in which the priviledge of Peerage was so carefully provided for against injury by either of those Tests do rather strengthen than weaken what hath been insisted on for it confirms how quick of apprehension the House of Peers have always been in that point and therefore they would not suffer their own Peerage to fall under any Eclipse sooner than they found absolute necessity and such a good arising as would compensate any so much as Parenthesis of the full Beams of that Glory on any of their Members and so that it should be no more than a Parenthesis till such Members mov'd themselves to such a position that no part of their Orb of Honour should be unenlighten'd But in the other Test

Attyr'd it in the sincere honest mind and the intelligent Christian leaving all the cramping Difficulties of Transubstantiation to its Slaves can declare freely with the Test There is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of Bread and Wine in the Lord's Supper into the Body and Blood of Christ. Whatever spiritual Communion there may be between Christ in his Death and the true Believer is most humbly in the mean time owned and prayed for which is the first thing that was to be shewn The second Head is That the very point of Transubstantiation is of all others the most reasonable to settle the Test upon and the more reasonable in all regards because of the so exceeding difficulty of the Notion 1. What can a civil Power have greater indignation against or be more willing to settle upon as an exclusive Test of all from places of Honour Trust and Power than the being Vassals to such an Imposture as destroys all the Truth and Certainty that is in the World Who can be believ'd upon Oath which the Apostle says is the end of all strife if there be no more credit to sense then that Bread may be a Humane Body and Wine Blood though it hath all the evidences to sense possible it is what it judges it to be and that is Bread And what more heed can be given to Reason if its main Foundations can be thus overturn'd so that all the principles of Government and humane Converse are overthrown What may not such Bigots be screwed into who leave themselves naked of the defences of Sense and Reason at the Command of a tyrannic Church and Pope and become meer Tools in such Hands Who can concredit to them the Interest of their Country who couch down like Asses under such a Burden and especially for a Notion so dark and slippery that no one knows where to have it And what would become of humane Commerce if such Things multiplied 2. Upon Transubstantiation the Test-Act doth most deservedly fall because when the foundations of general Reason and common Sense are laid Religion and the Reason and Honour of that as it is National comes next to be consider'd that it may bear up it self and invite both the People of the Nation and even the Nations round about to a just veneration of it But Transubstantiation being made the great and most tremendous Mystery of the Roman Religion yet carrieth in the very judgment of sense the Countenance mean and appearance of the most notorious Cheat and Juggle that the Name of Religion ever offered to the World for there being a most contemptible poor and low outside onely without the least of Power or Puissance or any the thinnest resemblance of a Miracle demands a Belief of the Highest and most constant Miracle daily to be performed by the most Profligate oftentimes and most Ignorant of Mankind and depending upon their Intention too which may defeat the Miracle All this dishonours the very Name of Christian Religion and is so heavy and intollerable a Gabel Excise and Tax upon the Religious Sense of Mankind as must needs eat out the whole Life Power and Reverence of it And therefore it is worthy the Notice Prevention and Correction of so grand an Assembly as the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the Nation met in Parliament and the Seclusion of all Persons from so sage and awful a Convention who are under so great a Slavery as not to renounce it For as Moses testifies The wife Laws of a Nation in Religion give it an Estimation of a Wise Great and Honourable Nation If therefore a Parliament secures the Rights and Properties of the Nation from any Impositions upon their Estates but with their own Consent How justly may it doe the same against any Illegal Impositions upon their Faith And whereas this Transubstantitaion is attempted to be brought into Parallel and placed in the Rank of other great Mysteries of the Christian Religion as of the Blessed Father Son and Spirit One God of the Hypostatical Vnion and Incarnation of Jesus Christ besides the Intrinsick difference of the one and of the other There is this vast distance That those Supreme Revelations are Heavenly Divine retir'd in Meditation Holy Rational Discourse and Spiritual Adorations But this of Transubstantiation while it does nothing offers nothing to Sense to Reason or so much as to Faith from Divine Revelation but by Gross Letter a Figurative Spiritual Proposition into condensating pressing and incrassating it pretends to a real Operation or conversion of Bread into the Body without any such thing But yet as if such a thing were seen to be indeed done Mercenary Priests play all the Tricks of Gesture Posture Elevation Geniculation with the whole Train of Attendant Frauds too many to be mention'd upon the Score of a dull coarse Cheat even in Handicraft and Legerdemain in Mechanicks All which Imposture is indeed not onely Morally but Naturally impossible ever to be understood 3. It ought above all other Points in Popery to be the Subject of a Test-Act because it hath above all other Points of Popish Falshood been made the Test of Vassalage and Slavery and as it were that very Mark of the Beast joyn'd with the Idolatrie of Adoration and Image-Worship and of the Receiving his Name and Worshipping his Image which all must receiv or be kill'd and none must buy or sell that the Psuedo Spiritual Excommunication may be pursued with secular Anathema's upon all who will not bear this Cognisance of the Bestian Usurpation In short This hath been the central Point from which and into which have Flowed all the Cruelties Persecutions Massacres deluges of Bloud that have been pour'd out Bloud of Men Women and Children Sacrific'd at this Altar that have made it indeed an Altar of Bloud an Altar where real Flesh and Bloud have been Offered and to say The Bread and Wine have been so Transubstantiated into the Body and Bloud of Martyrs were much nearer Truth Here have been the so-much unheard-of Barbarities and Inhumanities that would make a Historie of Transubstantiation Truth indeed could it be had worth th' having to justifie the Test and such a one that certainly could never upon the Account of so blessed a Religion and of a Sacrifice of such infinite Grace as that of Jesus Christs Offering himself once for all for Mankind have entred into the Heart of any Man were it not that such a very detestable Bestial Power that bears at this very time and hath long born a Citie or False Church in which wil be found the Bloud of Prophets and Apostles and that is Drunk with the Bloud of Saints and of the Martyrs of Jesus is made known unto us in the Revelation Now all this is matter of known Historie and of evident Fact How justly therefore is Power and Trust endeavour'd to be surprized by a Protestant Parliament from such hands that dare not disown Principles so doub le dyed in

much restored as among the Jews and enforced with further Positive and Ceremonial Sharpness of Laws the Rigors on Offenders were so great as the Bishop has Recounted But yet the mercy of the Gospel and of Christian Religion is such that although in Governments able and equal for it there ought to be no abatement of Severity against the Sin it self yet there is by Christ a Relaxation as to Persons Lives where the most guilty Circumstances of Presumption Obstinacy Danger of bad Example do not inflame the Account of the Evil All means of Conversion and Reformation being first used which is a great justification of the lawfulness and necessity of the Test in a Protestant Government Nevertheless the generality of the Sin hath been at no time too big for Divine Vengeance but that it hath appeared from Heaven upon Idolatrous Powers and Nations when he saw good And the time is approaching when a better State of the renewed World growing on will by degrees but with signal Vials powred out upon the whole Race of Idolaters and their Idolatries make way for the perfection of that Renovation and such a thing as Idolatry will not in one single example be endured For Satan that old Serpent that hath deceiv'd the Nations into it so long will be seal'd up into his own Abyss at the same time But this hath been by way of Digression It is time to return now to the just Remarks that are to be made upon the Bishop's Discourse upon Idolatry so contriv'd as to lead the Unthinking yea the not closely observant Reader thorough a Variety of Matter far off from suspecting the Roman Worship of Idolatries where yet Scripture-Prophesie hath settled it upon its own Base in that Land that is Spiritually called Shinar or Mystical Babylon His Discourse indeed is blended sometimes with better that it may convey more Artificially the intollerably bad sometimes with things doubtful and uncertain that the notoriously False may hope to skulk among them I cannot according to the brevity I have resolv'd retail to the Reader so ambagious or tedious an Account of Idolatry There are two things among his own Notions that if he had taken his Measures by they would have steerd him much better viz. First The observation of the Great Care God took by all his Dealings with his People Descendants from Abraham to secure them by the Mosaick Mediatorship in the acknowledgment of the One God Creator of Heaven and Earth the Universal and most Natural Standard against Idolatry together with those particular assurances of himself to them by his Covenant with Abraham by bringing them out of the Land of Egypt speaking to them out of the Cloud and Fire on Mount Sinai by his filling the Tabernacle with his Glory which is especially to be remark'd both in Moses's Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple as being the true Reason of the Worship toward the Holy of Holies And Secondly the observation of the Sabbath as a peculiar Commemoration of the Creation as also of the further Manifestation of the same true God Creator of Heaven and Earth who was so particularly the God of Abraham's Posterity Had these two Observations together with the Types which the Episcopal Author with Dr. Spencer and other Learned men not without Reason make Fences between Israel and the Idolatrous Nations and their Idolatries or as the Apostle calls it Partition-Wall these would have led to the One Mediator Jesus Christ Who is that very Propitiation and Mercy-Seat of which that in the Holy of Holies was but the Type and for which Type sake the Shecinah or Glory once came and sate in its filling the Temple as between the Cherubims or Attendant Angels Simbolycally Represented in an Adoring Posture stooping down and prying upon the Mercy-Seat as that Type of Christ as the Apostle Peter alludes 1 Pet. 1.12 Worshipping but the Spirits whom they resemble would have abhor'd to be Worshipped As he most injuriously to Truth would bear his Readers in hand if they would be deceived by him Now as Redemption parallell's Creation so the One Mediator the One God as our Lord himself teacheth This is Life Eternal to know Thee the onely true God and whom thou hast sent Jesus Christ and so the Apostle tells us There are Gods many and Lords many in the World Counterfeits of the One God and One Mediator As the Heathenish Gods and Baalim or Daimons who were esteem'd a middle Region of Gods or Mediators But to us saith he There is but One God the Father of Whom are all things and we in or for or unto him and One Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him So to Timothy There is One God and One Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Jesus which one God is now known to us as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which Title drinks up as the Antitype doth the Type of the former Titles of the God of Abraham c. of the God that brought from Egypt that sits between the Cherubins that Title indeed of Creator Lord of Heaven and Earth is not in the least ececlips'd but shines together upon and with and in the Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ. And as a Testimony and standing Plea of all this the Sabbath of Creation is remov'd from the Seventh into an Union with the First Day the Sabbath of Redemption or Lord's Day Thus there is as the Apostle John speaks the true God and eternal Life in the very mention of which as foreseeing the great Antichristian Idolatry coming upon the Christian World in other Mediators the same thing with other Gods he makes the Conclusion and Farewel of his Epistle little Children keep your selves from Idols and seal's it with a passionate Amen Now this One God and this one Mediator we are to worship and only to know and only to serv all introducing other Mediators either of Man or of other Creatures as in honour to God to worship Him or Jesus Christ by them join'd with some Ceremonies of a Service as Kneeling Bowing Incensing Invoking c. is Idolatrous And now to draw the whole matter of Idolatry to a conclusion I confess it seems necessary that whoever takes the Test being as the Bishop truly observes of the Alloy of an Oath it is necessary he should take it in Judgment as well as in Righteousness and in Truth That any one may so do it he must carry about him a Gauge or certain Notion of Idolatry and some general knowledge of the Usages of Rome as to the Invocation of the Virgin of Saints the adoration of them in their Images with the Sacrifice of the Mass which by a little enquiry will be easily known if it can be at all unknown to any Persons who can be suppos'd to have possible obligation to take the Test For the Roman Church does not hide its Sin but carries the Title on its Forehead the Title its Idolatrous Fornications and its