his many filthy adulteries drunkennesses cheats slanders murders or the like although by Gods grace he should find 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 Doctoars 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 immediately 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 affections 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 Tertallian 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 fan 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 Later an 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 fordid 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
man thus to disable his own chief prelate before his face and say peremptorily that a Metropolitan can do nothing that 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
they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may 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 Siry 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
Caterum vacua res quod est phantasma figur am capere non posset c. And Ministers are grosly deceived to think the Fathers speak of a figure or trope in Rhetorick it is manifestly apparent they speak of a figure in nature that figure or shape which accompanies natural things which in this mysterious Sacrament is made by the power of God to accompany another substance So that here the appearance of natural bread is no more the figure of bread as naturally it is but the figure now of our Lords blessed body couched by the power of God under that appearance which is naturally the figure of wine and bread And a figure of the body it could not be unless the substance of that body were really and truly there under that figure or appearance Figura non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus But in Peter Lumbards time Transubstantiation was so far from being an article of Catholik faith that they did not know whether it were true or no as appears by the same authour in his 4. book and eleventh distinction so that it made haste to pass in the Lateran Councel for faith which about fifty years before in Lumbards time was but a new disputable opinion Your Disswader had done wisely if he had produced for himself as frequently he does only some obscure authours which seldom fall into mens hands But Peter Lumbard the master of sentences is an authour so known by all and in every mans hand that your Disswader had he not utterly abandoned both honesty and reason too had never mentioned him For this great master from his eight to the fourteen distinction of his fourth book doth with all solidity and art so declare and confirm the real presence in this Sacrament of the Altar and the conversion of the elements by Gods powerful word into the very substance of our Lords body as a great article of ancient Christian faith that nothing can be said either more solidly or with more earnest resolution But Quem Deus vult perdere dementat After your Disswader had wilfully thrown away his honesty God in his just judgment so darkened his reason that he could not so much as heed what he said There I say that learned Catholik Doctour does industriously and in a copious manner in thirty whole pages together according to the edition I have by me printed at Colen both declare and establish that Catholik Christianity of the real presence and transmutation of the elements into Christs sacred body answering and clearing many things which hereticks and pagan philosophers might object against it And your Disswader takes hold of one of the philosophical objections which the great master presently solves for an argument of the masters own doubting although he could not but see him assert declare and establish the contrary the real presence I mean and miraculous mutation of the elements into the substance of our Lords slesh and blood in all that his copious and learned discours both before and after that objection O unhappy Kingdom of ours by these lying fals teachers so wofully misled This one only passage which any one that hath but a mediocrity of learning may see with his own eyes may suffice to show what a man your Disswader is and how little to be credited But whom God will overthrow for his grand misdemeanours him he in his justice blindeth I could find in my heart to give here an abridgment of all that great masters discours concerning this Sacrament of the altar as he there calls it But it is somwhat besides my way and I have already been too long Qui legit intelligat The great weight and importance of this business hath made me speak somthing more of it than I shall of other things That I may therfor here recapitulate in brief what I have hitherto said to manifest your Disswaders insignisicancy and to speak plainly his impertinency in this point First he is faulty in that he never declares this busines of Transubstantiation what it is or what it means in the beleef and judgment of that Roman Church he opposes Secondly that he makes all the Popish Doctours which he mentions concerning it to speak against it and to disown it whatever he meant by it and not any one of them to speak for it or profes it And how then is it Popish or Popery Thirdly that he sayes in the beginning of his section that the piece of Popery he here writes against was first determined in the Councel of Later an and yet but two pages after forgetting himself he sayes that the opinion was not determined in the Later an as it is now held in Rome and yet never expresses how it is now held in Rome or what that is which is now held in Rome contrary to the Councel or by whom or in what manner Fourthly becaus the busines of the real Presence which Protestants love to call Transubstantiation that they may play with that fine long gingling word as children with a rattle is not touched at all by him And yet that is all the substance of Popery in this point which that Berengarius the heretick together with his associates might fully acknowledg without any slight of the manifold evasions used by him this word was invented by the Prelates of the Councel as was Consubstantiation by those of Nice for a firmer establishment of Catholick Tradition and ancient truth So that your Disswader here touches but the lid and rind not the heart and substance of Popery which he is afraid indeed to deal with And being weak in sence he playes with words §. 6. Which is against Popish Communion Sayes that the half-communion is another Innovation in Popery swerving from the Apostles practice and Christs Institution as appears in the Popish Councel of Constance where it is decreed though Christ instituted and primitive Christians received in both kinds yet that no Priest under pain of Excommunication should communicate the people under both kinds which is a bold affront to Christ himself although even their own Cassander and Aquinas teach that to be the ancient custom of the Church and Paschasius resolves it dogmatically that the one is not to be communicated without the other This busines Sir is more amply discussed and cleared in my Fiat Lux which you have by you If you do but read that I shall have here less to say But know Sir that this busines touches not any unalterable dogme of faith but an alterable use and practice as shall be declared by and by and therfor is it not to be called Popery upon that account And a change in such things is so far from blame that it is oftentimes necessary so long as the substance of Religion is preserved intire as here it is Christians are to fast after the departure of the Espouse and set times therfor to be appointed that such a good work be not in the Church of God utterly neglected yet the dayes and
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 after supper becaus it would as much have inferred the Protestant practice to be against Christs institution as the Popish is and so his talk would either have been of no value or against himself Thirdly whereas the Councel declared only against the opinion which those Hereticks had of the necessity of those two circumstances and corresponding practice he makes them to condemn not their necessity but the circumstances themselves which the Councel never thought of Fourthly he delivers that Councels declaration against those circumstances as if it had been a dogme of faith and consequently Popery or Catholik Religion wheras it was delivered in order to the circumstances themselves but as a temporal law and decree though in order to the necessity of those circumstances it be a constant Catholik truth And therfor the Councel of Basil which a little after determined the same doctrin namely that Priests are not bound to communicate the people in both kinds whereof they also give their reason quia certa fide tenendum est quod sub specie panis non tantum caro sub specie vini non sanguis tantum sed sub qualibet specie Christus totus continetur sess 30 yet they allowed the Bohemians and Moravians who desiring to submit to the Catholik Church and yet in their weaknes could not comply with that custom to be communicated in both kinds These four are shifts of much insincerity but I must bear with him His other authorities against this Catholik custom now generally in use may be easily understood by what I have hitherto spoken what they mean But that of Paschasius I cannot but give you notice of it For Paschasius speaking of one certain ceremony in the Priests celebration of Mass wherin he drops a piece of the host into the consecrated chalice Very rightly saith he is the flesh sociated with the blood becaus neither the slesh without the blood c. And a little after Therfor saith he they are well put together in the chalice becaus from one cup of Christs Passion c. From those words which speak only the Priests action in the sacrifice of Mass your Protestant Disswader would prove his communion of people in both kinds of which Paschasius neither spoke nor thought Is he not hard put to it think you or is he ignorant rather of what he speaks But he is gon to his next section and I must follow him §. 7. Which is against Service in an unknown Tongue Sayes that the Roman Church offends no less in another of their Novelties of using an unknown tongue in their Service which use can no more be reconciled with Saint Pauls fourteenth chapter to the Corinthians than adultery with the seventh Commandment and Origen Ambrose Basil Chrysostom Austin Aquinas also and Lyra speak all against it no less also the Civil and Canon Law Indeed what profit can he receiv who hears a sound and understands it not a dumb Priest would serve as well for God understands his thoughts The popish people that pray in their churches they know not what can have no affection becaus they have no understanding of their own prayers Therfore let every tongue prais the Lord. Here the Disswader that he may the better express the confusion and darknes that is in this popish custom which he means here to speak against uses a confused and dark speech of his own and confutes it rather by emblem than reason His reader no doubt will imagin or els the Disswader fails of his end that Roman Catholiks do not understand their own prayers in the Church that God is not praised by them in every tongue that they are not at all edified by their Liturgy or Mass that they joyn not their desires nor understand what they say or ask of God that their heart sayes nothing nor asks for nothing and therfor receivs nothing that they understand not in particular what they should desire or beg of God that their own souls have not any benefit by their prayers and that the Church will not suffer them to be brought out of their intollerable ignorance All these things are jumblingly said and asserted in this his section against the Roman liturgy must as he hopes be beleeved by his reader But ther is not a Roman catholik in the world however ignorant and simple he be but will be ready to tell your Disswader to his face that ther is not of all this any one word of it true But he imagines that Roman Catholiks come to Church like Protestants there standing or sitting and looking upon one another till a black-coat comes to read som prayers in their ears But in this he is grosly mistaken as all Catholiks know though others do not They have their obsecrations their meditations their postulations their psalms their ejaculations which humbly upon their knees they pour forth to their Redeemer both while their priest is with them at the altar and before and after too Nor is there a blesseder sight to be seen on earth than devout Catholicks in a Church wheras others stand or sit gazing about till the Parson comes to make use of their ears neither heart nor lip nor hand nor knee nor breast being to them of any use And this every one would understand as well as I if he understood Catholik customs and religion as I do Nor does the Priest come to the altar to teach the people what they should say but to pray and make an atonement for them And in his confession entrance hymn of glory to God on high prayer epistle and gospel and his whole work of consecration and offering they go along with him in their meditations humiliations and requests understanding all the whole matter and busines of that heavonly devotion though they hear not his particular words which it would be all one to them whether they were in latin or in the mother tongue I know alas I speak but in vain to such as are brought up in another way and by fallacious slights of ministers are lead into a misconceit of the ancient religion of this Land which till they see it again they can hardly ever rightly understand Prejudice is a lettance almost unremovable And it concerns ministers that such a prejudice should be continually rivetted into peoples minds who must either be deceived or ministers undone But he that sees Catholik people at their devotions and Protestants at theirs would if he be any wayes disinterested conclude with himself that Catholik people serv God in earnest Protestants but in jeast Truth is the Catholik Liturgy is only a representation of Christs death and passion which our Lord appointed should be exhibited to the eyes of his beleevers so long as the world shall last that coming still together they may worship there their crucified Lord and pour forth