of the Church of England wanted the true Faith if so you are not then so charitable for all your Pretences as you might be and a little petition that true Faith as well as true Charity may possess our hearts would not be so very much or so troublesome for you now you are on your Rock to put up for us But perhaps your opinion is that our Faith is good enough in this Church onely that we are an ill-natured uncharitable Church and therefore want such an Oratour as you to obtain for us the Gift of Charity But do we want Charity so much more than our neighbours at Rome God will one day judge and let the world doe it in the mean time whether we or they want it more they that damn all besides their own Church or we that hold that even they may be saved And for our Faith neither shall we need to flatter our selves by and by we shall be called to account by you about it and proved to our sorrow to want that altogether as much as Charity so that in the mean time how are you the compassionate and charitable Man 'T is no wonder that one that hath made so great a mistake as to say there is no Vnity among the Reformed Communions should make such adoe to make the Church of Rome appear great by reckoning up all the Vniversities Bishopricks c. that own and submit to the Pope's Jurisdiction I have not so much time to trifle away as to examine whether your Muster be right all that it proves is that a great many Churches that by the Rules of Christianity and by the ancient Laws of the Catholick Church were free and independent do now labour willingly or unwillingly I do not pretend to know under the Vsurpation of the Church of Rome and her Vniversal Bishop which Title Gregory the Great himself a Bishop of that See thought Antichristian When you reckon Sicily and its Bishops you ought to have remembred that they have a Supreme Head of their own the King of Spain who is therefore once a year excommunicated by the other Supreme Head at Rome but for quietness sake as constantly the next day absolved who acts as supremely and Independently there as the Pope himself does in Rome or any part of Italy But this perchance you did not know and therefore 't would be very unreasonable to expect a true account of it from you CHAP. IX A Digression wherein is proved that the Church of Rome is a particular Church and that the Vnity among the Primitive Churches was in Faith onely YOUR next design if I understand you right is to prove the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome But before I undertake to talk with you about that I will take leave to make a Digression the Design of which shall be to shew you that I may not be onely employed in pulling down what you build how much you have been mistaken about your Notion of the Catholick Church and how miserably that Definition of S. N. or rather the Romish Missionaries have imposed upon you I will contract it as much as I can and care not how short I am so that I be but clear and intelligible The things therefore I propose to make appear are these First That the Church of Rome in the Primitive times was looked upon to be as particular a Church as any other then in being Secondly That as an Vnity in Faith was always required in every Particular Church to make it a true branch of the Catholick Church so there were in those Primitive times always found and always allowed of differences as to Practices Ceremonies Discipline and such things between the several particular Churches without any breach of Catholick Peace and Vnity 1. The first of these I am almost as much ashamed to attempt as to prove that I had a Mother it is so plain and visible through all Antiquity that I admire any Man that owns his Reason can in the least question the Church of Rome's being as Particular a Church as any of its neighbours such I am sure St. Paul thought it to be when he wrote his Epistle from Corinth to that Church and such St. Clemens knew it certainly to be when he writes in the name of the Church settled at Rome the famous Epistle to the Church of Corinth the Epistle St. Ignatius wrote to it just before his Martyrdom there does equally prove it with the other two and not one syllable is there to be met with in these three best Monuments of Antiquity as far as I can see that does at all advance her above the common level of the other her sister Churches or in the least hint her any ways being the Mistress or Mother of them all as the late and our modern Wise-men are pleased to say she is but for proving it are willing to be excused I question not but what I have cited out of St. Irenaeus proves the sentiment of him and his time to have been that she was a particular Church among the rest in the world he was certainly of this opinion S. Iren. con Haer. l. 3. c. 3. when telling the Hereticks that it would be too tedious to reckon up the Successions of ALL the CHURCHES he puts down that of Rome which he could not have done had not she been one of those All he there mentions I will but produce one more upon this too evident a point Tertullian d Edant ergo Origines Ecclesiarum suarum evolvant ordinem Episcoporum suorum ita per Successiones ab initio decurrentem ut primus ille Episcopus aliquem ex Apostolis vel Apostolicis viris c. habuerit auctorem antecessorem Hoc enim modo Ecclesiae Apostolicae census suos deferunt sicut Smyrnaeorum Ecclesia habens Polycarpum ab Joanne conlocatum refert Sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit proinde utique ceterae exhibent c. Tertull. de Praescript c. 32. Edit Franck. 1597. who challenging the Hereticks to shew the Original of their Churches the Succession of their Bishops in a direct line from either an Apostle or an Apostolical Person that always kept within the Vnity of the Church tells them the Apostolical Churches could doe this for example the Church of Smyrna that had Polycarp placed there for their first Bishop by St. John the Church of Rome that had Clemens ordained by St. Peter and for the rest of those Churches that they did the same 2. I 'll pass now to the second point to shew That as an Vnity in Faith was always required in every Particular Church to make it a true part of the Catholick Church so there were in those primitive times always found and always allowed of Differences as to Practice and Ceremonies Discipline and such things between the several particular Churches without any breach of Catholick Peace and Unity As to the Vnity by Faith I need not much if at all
and Paul at Rome and that I might be as safe in any of them all as in that at Rome since they and Rome had the same Faith as (c) Cont. Haer. l. 1. c. 2 3. Edit Feuard 1625. Irenaeus says delivered to them and had a Ministry settled by Apostles among them I wish I might be so happy as to have a satisfactory Answer to these Queries from you or any one else But for the present you are too busie having got the Text that the Gates of Hell should not prevail which Text by the bye how came you to interpret of a Church since if you disclaim your private Judgment it does for any thing you can know relate to something else You are sure upon it that Christ hath a Church that that Church has but one Faith which I have already told you our Church does not deny And now you wanted nothing to find firm footing sure footing you should have called it for Mr. Serjeant's sake but to discover pag. 4. whether the Church from her Original was the Commissioned Interpreter of the Sacred Writings c. One would expect here in a thing of that moment some well managed Reasons from Scripture Reason and the Consent of Antiquity to prove that the Church of Rome which you cannot deny that you mean here was this Commissioned Interpreter but instead of that you think you do it cleverly enough by insinuating that without it there would be no end of Controversies which is not proving but begging As to the choice of a Hundred Faiths without such an Interpreter which you say you saw you might have if you mean in the Church of England pag. 5. and that you must mean having already set aside all other Communions and being now employed in the examining whether of the Two Churches the Church of England or Rome you might be safe with I am obliged to tell you that there are no fewer than Ninety Nine mistakes in this short Sentence since the Faith of the Church of England is but one and as much one as that of the Church of Rome her self But for all this talk you have not got to your Church yet pag. 5. which must be Visible to wave needless Disputes such the Church of England is as well as the Church of Rome And now you want nothing but a definition of her which you complain you could not get among us and therefore was forced to go to the Books of Catholicks As to the complaint I answer that you needed not to have gone to the Catholicks as you call 'em since the Church of England's definition in her Articles will I think satisfie any reasonable Man while (d) Article 19. it defines the Visible Church of Christ to be a Congregation of Faithfull here Hereticks and Schismaticks are both excluded Men in which the pure Word of God is Preached and the Sacraments be duly Ministred according to Christ's Ordinance and that must be by lawfull Pastors in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same You could not but know of this Definition of the Church of Christ you had done well to have shewn particularly wherein it failed of separating Hereticks or Schismaticks from being either Flock or Shepherds in the Church But no Ignorance is comparable to that which is affected And since you would not be contented with ours I 'll e'en try S. N's and see what reason it has to be prefer'd to that of the whole Church of England The Church of Christ is one Society or company of Men. S. N. Ch. of E. S. N. The Visible Church of Christ is a Congregation Linked and combined together in the same Profession of Christian Faith. Of Faithfull Men. Ch. of E. S. N. Ch. of E. And use of Sacraments under lawfull Pasters And the Sacraments be duly Administred according to Christ's Ordinance Thus far we agree as for S. N's addition of those Pastors also under one Supreme Head Pastor or Conservator pacis veritatis do you or he prove it and then put it into the Definition it s being there now is no proof of the Truth of it However you I perceive were satisfied with it and think this Definition hath brought you to the Rock hath done your business for you I have often heard indeed of Men disputed into a Church of Men cajoled and of others threatned or frighted into a Church but must confess I never heard of any before you definitioned into a Church and truly it looks surprizing that a Man should like a Church for a Definitions sake Suppose your Definition prove false are you resolved to leave that Church and go to another that hath a better Definition If this be your Humour the Sophisters would be too hard for you and lead you into an endless Maze Satisfied however you are at present and so overjoyed at this Definition that you forgot what was necessary for it and that was to prove and to confirm it instead of which you fall into extravagant Praises and a hurry of Words and Ecstasies to no purpose whereas you neglect to prove First that this is a true and regular Definition and Secondly that it does belong to the Church of Rome so called exclusive of all other Had you done this pag. 6. you had acted like a Scholar whereas the other rable of discoveries and abused Psalms prove nothing at all and would far better have become some Woman or Poet-Convert than you who should prove these things and let them which can doe no better admire After your fit of Ecstasies is over you seem something willing to afford us some Testimonies of Antiquity to what purpose I must now inquire that so we may avoid Confusion and I may shorten my Answers But here according to my own design I must take leave of your Method of resolving your self in your doubts being arrived at that which I took leave for order and clearness sake to call the Reasons of your Conversion which convinced you so far as to leave our Communion and to espouse that of Rome I will take leave of it with this Complement that it really is the most admirable one I ever heard of for a Clergy-Man of above Threescore CHAP. VI. His Proofs of a Monarchical Church under one Supreme Head from Scripture Answered THE Fruit of your noble Method and the effect of all your Search hitherto hath been as far as I can perceive that you have met with a Definition that pleases you Now except you take S. N. to be as infallible in making of Definitions as the Pope is said by some and perhaps believed by you to be in making of Canons for the Church and that you ought to submit to his Definition just as you do to the Popes Decrees with all submission without any scruple or examination you know it will be expected from you to prove this his Definition to be true I cannot dare to think you so
much a Madman as to believe S. N's Infallibility at Definitions and therefore now do wait for your proof of these two things First That this your espoused Definition is true that is that Christ his Catholick Church is Monarchical and governed supremely by one chief Pastor pag. 6. his Generalissimo a very fit Title in a literal sense for some of your Popes or Vicegerent here on Earth and Secondly That this Definition doth belong to the Church of Rome and not to the Church of England Do but prove me the first and I 'll forgive you the trouble of proving the Second and bestow it on you as a just reward for your pains about the first But before we begin I must desire you to remember not to confound Particular Churches with the Catholick Church and not to take that as said of the one which does certainly belong to the other You begin your Proofs with Scripture which a Man may easily see is not at all on your side you give us thence so few and those nothing to the purpose For as to the first out of Acts the Second pag. 7. Verse 1. how that which is onely an Historical Relation should be a Heavenly Representation I cannot imagine No Body will deny that they that meet as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you falsly quote it and as ill translate it at the same work should be as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one accord or of one mind and which is more that every Particular Church over the World should be as to the Rule of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one mind but I can never believe that for this reason they are can or ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always meet at the same place which your use of it would insinuate and must require the one as well as the other for your purpose But what this is to a Monarchical Church with a supreme Head I cannot guess nor your other from St. Pauls frequent Injunctions to his several Plantations that they should be all of one mind pag. 7. and speak the same things You had done well to have quoted some passages to have illustrated what you say or at least to have put down some references in the Margin but this alas was not convenient then even those that swallow what you say without examining could not avoid seeing the Fallacy for whereas St. Paul writing to Particular Churches exhorts them to be at Vnity among themselves you would fain turn it as if he should exhort them as to all particulars and circumstances to be at Vnity or to have the same with the other Churches as if writing to Ephesus for example he should exhort them to be of the same mind and to speak the same things with the Church of Corinth with the Church at Thessalonica c. Shew this and I 'll yield the point but remember that if you mean of the same mind and to speak the same things as to matters of Faith this as it need not be proved no Body gainsaying it so it does no ways serve what you cited it for to prove a Monarchical Church It cannot appear otherwise than very strange to all considering Persons that these People should generally with so much confidence affirm that our Saviour left his Church in such a condition with a Supreme Vicegerent over it and yet like you when they should come to make the thing apparent from the History of those first times penned in the Gospels Acts and Epistles are forc'd to drop the proof of it and to impose upon their Readers a scrap or two out of those writings not one jot to the purpose oftentimes You will easily find that I mean this of you and I must needs say that these your two useless proofs I mean Quotations for they are far from Proofs forced me upon this Remark CHAP. VII His Arguments for a Monarchical Church out of Antiquity refuted ONE comfort however you seem to promise us that you will make your Reader amends by your Testimonies out of the Fathers for your being so short and so destitute of 'em from Scripture You begin them in a quaint stile which I believe you took for a pretty fancy pag. 7. I followed say you I must confess a loof off her the Kings Daughter all glorious within Companions that followed her c. This passage is one of the pleasantest that I ever met with and the fullest of Figure I must profess till I saw your Book I always took St. Dennis Ignatius Irenaeus c. for Members of the Church and never in the least dreamed that these persons were her Companions or the Virgins that are her Fellows and I must own that it is the first time I ever heard of a Members being a companion to the Body or that a Man without the breach of common sense may say that his Hand or Foot is a Companion of his Body But you Sir had been contemplating just before the ravishing Beauty of the Kings Daughter all glorious within and the Virgins that be her Fellows and Companions did so run in your head that 't is no wonder you mistook Dennis the Areopagite and the rest you mention after him for the Queens Companions At present however we must let them pass as such whom you followed you tell us and lissened what they said of her and overheard First Dionysius the Areopagite St. Pauls Scholar Secondly Clemens Romanus c. 'T is commonly said it's ominous stumbling at the Threshold and a bad presage to trip at the first attempt and this truly is your very case for it is a great mistake you should overhear either of them two using those passages you mention since neither of them ever said the things St. Dennis having never left any thing writ at all nor St. Clemens any thing besides his two allowing the fragment of the Second to be his Epistles So that your two first quotations are pitifull Forgeries as I shall hereafter prove but granting the passages were true and as old as you would have 'em pag. 7. they are not one jot to your purpose The first of 'em saying onely that the Apostles desired their followers by their Instructions might be partakers of the Divine Nature the latter that Bishops should observe the Orders left by the Apostles pag. 8. both which are nothing to the purpose of a Monarchical Church but prove the contrary if it were worth the while to shew it Ignatius Saint and Martyr is the next you produce pag. 8. from him you tell us that People in all things should submit to their Bishop that no Man can be partaker of the Eucharist that abstains from the Bishops Altar A Man would guess by these passages that you had already forgot what you were about to prove You were to prove that Christ lest his Church under one
particular Governour and here you prove that People must be dutifull to their Bishops pag. 8. Ay but say you St. Ignatius tells us there is but one Altar and one Bishop as also that there ought to be but one Church and one Faith which is in Christ c. and that surely is to the purpose This I utterly deny I grant indeed St. Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians not as you have mistaken it to the Philippians to which Church he wrote no Epistle tho' some have coined one for him doth speak of one Altar and one Bishop and you had done fairly to have cited the passage at large as you did the other two nothing to the purpose but this is a certain sign that runs almost through your Book that where you onely hint or quote half or put an c. in the middle of a Sentence there all things will not be found fair The passage then is this (a) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Ignat. Ep. ad Philadelph Edit J. Vossii Be carefull therefore saith he speaking to the Philadelphians to make use of this one Eucharist for there is but one Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one Cup to Communicate to us or unite us to his Blood one Altar as but one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons my fellow-servants that whatever ye do ye may act according to Gods appointment Now this passage is so far from proving what you would have it that there is but one Supreme Bishop who you say is he of Rome that it asserts the direct contrary for if it proves as you say it does that there is but one Altar and one Bishop I am as certain that it proves that one Bishop to be the Bishop of Philadelphia and that one Altar to be this Bishops since he exhorts these Philadelphians to make use and keep to that Eucharist that was to be received from that one Altar that did belong to that one Bishop and that one Bishop I am sure was the then Bishop of Philadelphia I will not urge upon you any place of Ignatius but will onely say and will be at any time ready to prove that he that cites Ignatius for a defender of a Monarchical Church under one Head on Earth either hath not read Ignatius or does not understand him What you urge from St. Cyprian is to no purpose since every one owns that every Member ought to keep the Vnity of that Church to which he doth belong and that no Man that is disobedient to the Church his Mother will ever have God for his Father Nor your long quotation from St. Irenaeus where your faculty of translating appears to be none of the best pag. 8. This Preaching and this Faith when the Church had heard spread through the whole World she diligently keeps as it were dwelling in one House to wit having one Soul and one Heart c. which give me leave to alter a little to St. Irenaeus his good sense and then you shall have my Answer about it The Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith although she be dispersed over the whole World yet keeps and preserves them as diligently as if she were confined to or did Inhabit a single House and she doth believe them without any difference or disagreement as tho' she had but one Soul and but one Heart and accordingly doth both preach teach and deliver these things these Articles of Faith as if she had but one Mouth c. Of all the passages in Antiquity I wonder what ill Fate put this piece of St. Irenaeus in your way had you considered it well I am sure we should not have met with it in your Book since it does perfectly ruine the whole design of this part of your Book for whereas the benefit you intended from it was to help you to prove that the Church of Christ is Monarchical under a single head there is nothing less here and every thing contrary for as it speaks of the Catholick Church as one through this Vnity of Faith so it proves what we of the Church of England so much contend for that the Particular Churches of Germany Spain France Aegypt and the East of Lybia Jerusalem Rome and the rest do make up this Catholick Church without the least hint of a Head over them all or of any other Vnity than that of Faith the Light that doth like the Sun equally enlighten every where You will say perhaps that the Church of Rome is not expressly mentioned here and that probably it is because all these Particular Churches mentioned are the several parts of her Body which really is the same as the Catholick Church But to spoil this groundless Pretence neque haequae in Medio Mundi sunt constitutae not to insist on it that by the Churches constituted in the middle of the World in this passage She as well as Jerusalem and the Churches betwixt them is certainly intimated I desire you but to peruse the Third Chapter of his Third Book against Heresies Having in the beginning of this Chapter urged against the Hereticks that none of the Apostles delivered to the Bishops their Successours any such things as they impiously taught and that he could shew this from the Successions in all the Churches he thus addresses them b Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine Omnium Ecclesiarum enumerare Successiones Romae fundatae constitutae Ecclesiae Traditionem c. St. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. contr Haeres Edit Feuardent 1625. But because it is too tedious in such a Volume as this is to reckon up the Successions of all Churches c. he then reckons up that of the very great and very ancient Church founded at Rome by St. Peter and St. Paul c. If this passage do not prove the Church of Rome to be one of all those Churches and as Particular a Church as any of the rest I will for the future as you did abstract my self and deny my Eyes as well as my Reason What you quote from Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian two of whose passages are part falsly pag. 9. and part lamely translated are nothing at all to your purpose they only speak of the Catholick Church as one through the Vnity of Faith not a word of the Church of Rome or of her being that one Church under one Head Bishop The same advantage and no more doth that from St. Chrysostom afford you pag. 9. which says The Apostle calls it the Church of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he may shew it may be reduced into one which with your leave I would express thus to shew or having shewed that it ought to be at Vnity c. All which is no more than what the Members of the Church of England have said a Hundred Thousand times that every Church as well as that at Corinth ought to be at Vnity You
if there were Errours fit to be thrown out of our Church you your self I am sure your Learned Men will grant that no Ordination can prejudice or hinder such a Rejection of Errours That there were such Errours crept in which ought to be cast out and were at our Reformation is what our Church-Men a Hundred times over have invincibly proved As to the Rule you bring from St. Ambrose that they enjoy not the Inheritance of Peter pag. 20. who receive not the Faith of Peter we are very ready to join issue with you or any of your Church upon it and I question not before you and I part on this subject to ruine the Papal and Roman Succession by your own Rule to wit by proving that they have receded from the Faith of Peter and the whole Primitive Church We readily own that a true and Apostolical Mission pag. 20. Commission and Ordination are considerable particulars and are as ready any time to assert that our Church hath them and to prove it against you at any time if you have a mind to undertake this point against her CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist put down Mr. Scl. 's Reasons from Scripture for Transubstantiation answered HAving traced you hitherto and found all your Attempts vain and your Reasons to no purpose which you took so much pains to scrape together to have proved that our Saviour Christ left his Catholick Church in a Monarchical State under a Particular Vicegerent and that that Vicegerent was the Bishop of Rome and his Church the Catholick Church And having shewn all your Attacks against and Remarks upon the Church of England to be very vain extremely abusive and extravagantly ridiculous I have now onely your last your great Reason to examine wherein you make an effort to prove that her Faith concerning the Eucharist is contrary to that of the Catholick Church If you could have proved this I must confess your forsaking our Communion would have been much more reasonable and therefore I question not but that as you have mustered up abundance of Authorities so you have done all you can to make them speak and declare against us but to how little purpose you have made all this noise and ado about this point also is what I shall quickly see Before I enter on your particular proofs I have a fresh complaint to make that you have not used herein that Ingenuity that would have become a Scholar one might very rationally have expected that as your Intentions were to prove against the Church of England that her Faith was as to the Eucharist false and corrupt so you would have set down what that her Faith is This would have looked like fair and ingenuous dealing first to have put down her Faith about the Eucharist and then to have shewn how contrary it was to Scripture and to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity If you reply to this my Complaint that her Faith is so well known that you needed not put it down together but that you have occasionally done it up and down these Authorities I must tell you that by the account you give of it occasionally one would be persuaded that it is far from being so well known I am sure that slender account or rather hints that you so often intersperse about it are utterly false and very foolish so that if any one should take an account of our Churches Faith from you and whom can they better take it from than one that was so lately a Minister among us they must believe that we hold the Eucharist to be mere figures mere representations and bare signs for that is the most you allow us to make of it that I can meet with in your Book all which how far it is from Truth I shall quickly shew you Well then since you had not the Ingenuity to put down an Account of the Church of England's Faith about the Eucharist I must that so I may the better examine the Proofs you bring and any one may compare the Authorities you quote and our Faith together and thereby more impartially judge and more readily discover whether Antiquity fairly laid down speak for or against us Concerning this Sacrament the Church of England in her 28th Article of Religion delivers her Opinion thus The Supper of the Lord is not onely a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Bloud of Christ After which having declared her self against Transubstantiation as repugnant to plain Scripture and to the nature of a Sacrament and against any Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Bloud in the Declaration about kneeling at the end of our Communion-Service in our Liturgy she goes on in this Article to declare that The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the Mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith which last expressions exclude the wicked from partaking of Christ's Body and allow them barely the Sign or outward part of the Eucharist In the Publick Catechism in the Liturgy having taught her Catechumens that there are two things in each of the Sacraments the outward Sign and the inward spiritual Grace she teaches them to answer that the outward part of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Bread and Wine and that the inward part or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithfull in the Lord's Supper These passages are sufficient to shew that our Church holds a real but not carnal a Spiritual and Heavenly but not Corporal Participation of Christ's Body and Bloud which tho' locally and naturally in Heaven is yet after a Mystical and Supernatural way communicated to the Faithfull not by the mouth of the Body but by that of Faith. Thus much for her Sentiment concerning this Sacrament pag. 20. now I must try your Reasons against it You tell us that you had been a long time greatly concerned for the Interpretation of but five small words of our Saviour c. The result of your concern I suppose was that those five words I doubt we shall find more than five or double five concerned in this business are to be taken in a literal sense and that which you offer for proof of it is this First Because this Sacrament was his last Will and Testament which ought not to be worded obscurely or doubtfully to prevent quarrels and divisions Secondly Because this Will is repeated by so many of his Apostles without the least variation or caution against the
VETERES VINDICATI IN AN Expostulatory Letter TO Mr. SCLATER of PVTNEY UPON HIS CONSENSVS VETERVM c. WHEREIN The Absurdity of his Method are shewn The Weakness of his Reasons are shewn His false Aspersions upon the Church of England are wiped off and her FAITH concerning the EUCHARIST proved to be THAT of the PRIMITIVE CHURCH Together with Animadversions on Dean Boileau's French Translation of and Remarks upon Bertram King Charles the Martyr to the Prince 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 27. But if you never see my face again I do Require and intreat you as your FATHER and your KING that you never suffer your heart to receive the least check against or Disaffection from the TRUE RELIGION established in the CHURCH of ENGLAND I tell you I have TRYED IT and after MUCH SEARCH and MANY DISPUTES have concluded IT to be BEST in the WORLD not onely in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the POMP of SUPERSTITIOUS TYRANNY and the MEANNESS of FANTASTICK ANARCHY LONDON Printed for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall. 1687. IMPRIMATUR Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep Cantuar. à Sacr. Domest Ex Aedib Lambeth Apr. 7. 1687. TO THE READER IT is not material to thee to know what were the particular Reasons that put me upon answering this Book of Mr. Sclater whether it were a Challenge or a Request both or neither such as it is it was designed for a Vindication of our most Holy Mother the Church of England from those very silly and very false Aspersions cast upon her by Mr. Sclater up and down his Book I hope no one will think that I have been too sharp upon him I am certain his behaviour in his Book was so very extravagant and his abuses so open and so intolerable that I can assure the Reader that it was with trouble that I did restrain using oftner a just Indignation There is no one that reads him who had he been to examine his Quotations as I obliged my self for t he most of them would not I think have been as sharp upon him as I have any where been It would have stirred up a very meek man's Indignation to have been served as he did me his Reader with his Quotation from Hilary pag. 38. where having by chance cast my eye on the first part of the passage set down by him I went hunting for the rest of it as it stood in his Book quite through St. Hilary's whole Book from thence and little dreamed of what I was very angry to find that I was to look backwards in St. Hilary for the other two parts of that passage There are other dealings in his Book much more provoking than this However if any one think I am too severe upon him I must onely say that it is perchance more pardonable in me than in another not that I have any personal quarrel against Mr. Sclater whom I am morally certain I never spoke with in my life but upon another account One short Address I cannot avoid the making here to my Brethren of the Clergy who have not opportunities of a full examination of these Controversies in Antiquity it self that they would beware for Mr. Sclater's sake of taking things too much on trust from our Romish Adversaries or of relying too much on some extraordinary passages out of the Fathers This Address I make because I have been informed that this unhappy man was very much imposed upon and perhaps almost perverted by that passage out of St. Chrysostome about St. Peter's having the Care of the whole Church committed to him which passage therefore I was the more carefull to examine and to confute it that some may see how unsafe it is to rely on scraps of Fathers about these Things and how little they ought to value even the most favourable place out of Antiquity for Popery since the stress of all Antiquity is directly against it as our excellent Writers have abundantly shewn and even such as I are able to shew AN EXPOSTULATORY LETTER TO Mr. EDWARD SCLATER of PVTNEY SIR THE expectation that some person of more leisure and better abilities would have condescended to the trouble of examining this your Treatise was the sole reason that hindred your receiving this sooner from me I am very certain there is nothing in it either so strong or so well managed that could affright any such from bringing your Book to account and therefore I must impute their neglect herein to another cause which I believe you are not at all desirous to hear mentioned by me I am sure I have the opinion of some and those learned persons to confirm me in this my belief 'T is for your own sake therefore chiefly and for those Readers who may possibly be startled at the Title of your Book that I undertake to examine it and to oblige you and them to see how very little reason you had or they to be mov'd by it to call your Book Consensus Veterum and what a miserable mistake you have made in this your forsaking the Communion of your Mother the Church of England and falling to that of Rome I hope you will not be angry that I take the same liberty to examine your method in this Change that you say you did to examine that of our Church One thing I 'll promise you which I am persuaded I shall in the examining of your reasons find you very often faulty in that I will constantly as to my Proofs and Authorities use all the fairness and ingenuity that becomes a Scholar or a Christian herein The Cause of the Church of England is so infinitely better and more steady than that you have so lately espoused that it would be as extremely imprudent as unjust to practise the contrary in the defence of her as she does not need so I am sure she does abhor and is far from admitting any indirect or fraudulent management of her Cause I shall therefore without any farther Preface prosecute my design and begin with your Preface which presents the Reader with a needless Apology about the Plural Title of your Tract for if those other quotations and proofs about the true Catholick Church and the Supremacy of St. Peter and the Bishops of Rome were of any force with you they deserve their place in the Plural Title of your Book if they were not yet that other about the Eucharist though with you All in All can be but one how great soever How Transubstantiation concludes Communion under one species I cannot understand since if Transubstantiation was always the Opinion of the Catholick Church as you affirm it was from the very beginning it would have concluded then as well as now which I am sure it did not for besides our Saviour's Institution in both kinds and his Precept as strict for either of
them singly as for both together his most severe imposition of both Joh. 6.53 we can shew you herein the Obedience of the Catholick Church for above a thousand years who were so humble and so respectfull also as not to think themselves either wiser than our Saviour or above his express commands herein Afterwards indeed one part of the Catholick Church grew more knowing and the Council of Constance maugre our Saviour's express command to be seen in the Gospels and very particularly in St. Paul denied one half of the Communion 1 Cor. 11.24 25. the Cup to the Laity and so that Church continues ever since to do Among those several Arguments or Reasons mustered up by Gerson at the Command and for the Defence of this bold Council I do not remember one that is not either ridiculous in it self or highly reflecting upon our blessed and most wise Saviour's prudence or foresight But to pass by this and your Argument from the 6th of S. John which I shall remember when I come to that point in your Book methinks your assuring your self that if your former Faith was not right in this the Eucharist it was wrong in all controverted Particulars c. is none of the clearest Inductions and would have appeared something too bold had you not helped it out a little with what I suppose you have heard some of your new Church say that that Church hath the same Authorities and Traditions for them as for this c. which I think to be one of the greatest truths in your Book and I do assure you that I am perfectly of the same opinion that the Church of Rome hath the same neither better nor worse Authorities and Traditions for all the Points controverted betwixt the Church of England and her that she hath for Transubstantiation which I question not to shew when I come to that point to be either very bad or none at all Whether you have wrought in this your search according to the directions of the Church of England will be better seen when we come to your Proofs themselves I cannot pass the Canon of our Church you have quoted here without making two short Remarks from it The first of which is Imprimis vero videbunt ne quid unquam doceant pro Concione quod à populo religiose teneri credi velint nisi quod consentaneum sit Doctrinae veteris aut Novi Testamenti quodque ex illâ ipsâ Doctrinâ Catholici Patres Veteres Episcopi collegerint c. Liber Canon Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1571. Titulo Concionatores How little our Church is a favourer or encourager of the Private Spirit you talk so often about or of private Interpretations when she doth not allow the Guides of the Parochial Churches themselves to teach any thing for Faith in their Sermons which is not agreeable to the Doctrine of the Old and New Testament and the Interpretations of Catholick Antiquity 2. That it is a most false as well as a most ridiculous Assertion of your new Brethren of the Church of Rome who say our Church slights and rejects the Fathers because they are all against her and that she owns they are all against her for a clear Contradiction to which I would but desire of any Romanist to reade this short Canon of a Synod of ours in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth seriously over and to consider it and I do not question if he would but speak plainly herein as every ingenuous man ought that he would own such Assertours to be guilty of a downright Calumny For your Conditional Thanks that you seem willing to bestow on the Church of England for her Directions she can have no reason to expect any from you since I am pretty well assured that you have not observed her Directions and therefore can owe her none on that account and for your Conditional Prayers for the Teachers of her Communion c. I can assure you that they are by her Injunctions and without any conditions not behind-hand with you in such civilities since thrice a week at least they are commanded in the Litany to put up constantly a Petition for you and such as you Galatinus and his Rabbins I shall refer to their place in your Book to which I shall now pass finding nothing farther in your Preface that may not be better considered in the Answers to the Particulars of your Book CHAP. I. The Method of the Answer and a Consideration of Mr. Sclater's Reasons of doubting in our Communion BEfore I undertake the Particulars of your Book I cannot refrain the making a complaint to you that you have not put your writing into a Method becoming a Scholar but have managed your reasons so confusedly and passed so abruptly from one head to another that it is sometimes difficult to know which of your points you are then about Method and clearness and a fair transition from one part of a Discourse to another were never counted trifles nor ever thought unworthy the care of any one Writer that did desire either to instruct or to convince his Readers That I may avoid therefore my self what I am forc'd to rereprehend in another I shall in this my Expostulation confine my self to and direct my self by these Rules 1. To consider the Reasons of your doubting during your continuance in our Communion whether you were in the right way and of a true Church 2. The Method you used for the resolving your self in your doubts 3. The Reason or Reasons that convinced you so far as to leave our Communion and to espouse that of the Church of Rome I do not believe I can wrong your Book in taking such a Method or disoblige you or any one else that may read this As to the first head then the Reasons of your doubting one might with reason have expected that you would a little more have enlarged your self in a thing the right managing of which was of so infinite concern or at the least that you would have afforded the World tho' but one Reason that might have given satisfaction That which you have put down I mean the Text from S. Paul Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall I am sure cannot since that Text may as well serve against the approaching Easter as it did against the last and you may as well use it now as you did then and should a giddy mind possess you and hurry you next to Socinianism then to the Anabaptists and herd you at last among the Quakers no body could refuse you your Motto and Let him that thinketh he standeth c. would serve you in as much stead for any of them as it did now Without any satisfaction at all therefore about the reasons of your doubt which I wish we had had faithfully set down that so the World might not take that leave it does now of judging what it pleases concerning the true reasons of your
they saw good c. To be brief with you on this point if you speak here of particular Persons in our Church it is utterly false since they are all obliged to believe that to be the Canon of Scripture which is set down in the Articles of our Church and there is not one Man of our Church that is at liberty to believe which he pleases and to reject which he pleases from being Canonical Scripture to him and for Traditions received in the Church no particular Man hath any more power over them than over the number of the Canonical Books But if you speak of our Church it self here which your words without stretching will not bear it is as false of Her since she believes and delivers those Books onely as Canonical which the Primitive Church believed and delivered down to her as such She rejects none as Apocryphal which were not also rejected as such by the Primitive Church as the Famous and most Learned Bishop Cosin hath most incomparably proved it for her in that his excellent Scholastick History of the Canon of Scripture And for Traditions she rejects none but such as have no evidence nor probability of their ever having been of use in the Primitive Church or such as are of no moment in which case I never saw reason why the National Church of England hath not as much Authority herein to judge of these things as the Church of Rome her self who for example sake hath left off giving the Communion to Infants tho' a Tradition of the Catholick Church So that I cannot for my Life see what you would fain tho' most ridiculously deduce from hence that all with us resolved it self into the Judgment of a Private Spirit pag. 3. and must be I suppose you mean the Private Spirit must be tho' your words are far from bearing it the chief or rather onely support of your Protestant Faith c. Since it is so palpably false as I have just now shewn nothing as to matters of Faith Discipline or Church Communion among us being either left to or guided by or depending upon any Man how great or how learned soever his private Spirit and so ridiculous that I could not forgive it any Man that had not abstracted himself from his reason but to doe you right you have almost a mind to come off it with your Methought and I am content without being angry that it should pass for your thought the abstracted-no-Religion Man's You go on to shew that you could not persuade your self that Scripture alone could be the Judge of Controversies pag. 3. and resolve your doubts when the Private Spirit was made the Judge of Scripture c. Let the private Spirit be excluded will you admit it then will you allow the Representative Church of England to interpret in new Emergencies which fell not within the care of Antiquity and the Four General Councils If you admit this there need be no dispute since long before your doubts the Church of England hath by publick Authority interpreted the Scripture in all matters of Faith and Discipline and tied up all her Members hath in all the points of Controversie betwixt us and Rome determined that the sense of the Scripture is directly against them and for us If you will not admit it I should be glad to see one reason against it that would not as fully fly in the face of the Church of Rome As to the Mischief upon this Principle of the Private Spirit pag. 3 4. the Wars and Murders c. You ought to have remembred that that Principle was not set up by but against the Church of England and that it was not the Church but the direct and sworn Enemies thereof that committed all those outrages you cannot be ignorant that it was She only that suffered during that Rebellion and Schism and therefore it is most unjust in you to insinuate as if She was cause of all that distraction whereas nothing is more apparent than the contrary to it And as to your Tanrum Religio c. I challenge you to shew any one Principle of the Church of England that encourages or does but glance towards Rebellion Sedition or disturbance of either Church or State This I 'll promise you for every one I 'll shew you Ten of your new Church I 'll shew you Councils for it your own most famous of all the European Councils the Fourth of Lateran leading the Van. Your Popes deposing Princes pag. 84. giving away their Kingdoms as they have done ours more than once setting up in Rebellion Son against Father I 'll shew you the Rebellious Holy League in France one King most barbarously Murdered by it a Pope Sixtus Quintus in a set Speech commending the Paricide the Sorbone it self making Rebellious Decrees against the Two Harries of France both Massacred by their Catholick as they call themselves Subjects but enough of this wherein you know or at least should that we have infinitely the advantage of your new Church as to Principles of Loyalty The result it seems of your Inquiry and search among us was that you could not comply with common reason if you did not disclaim the Judgment of your own or any Man 's private Spirit c. pag. 4. I have upon this but one Question to ask you and that is how you came to be a Roman Catholick if you disclaimed your own reason or private Spirit pray who chose your guide or Church for you if you disclaimed every ones else pray tell us how any Body else could doe it for you But notwithstanding this your disclaiming we find you busie enough up and down the Book acting as if you never had done any such thing discovering judging complying contemplating searching and Forty such expressions which used to denote the exercise of a Man's private Judgment and Reason CHAP. V. His Method farther exposed and the ridiculous Fruits of it THE Fruit of all your search hitherto hath been onely to find pag. 4. or at least to mistrust the ground you stood upon somewhat unsure c. What ground it was you then stood upon I cannot guess since before this you had abstracted your self from Religion and supposed your self as of no Religion so most certainly of no Church But all this is assuredly but a figure to bring in the Rock the Rock you think you were got upon when once a Romanist If I might have had a word with you before you had mounted your Rock for now I am afraid there is no speaking with you I would onely have been informed by you whether there is but one Rock and whether I must give (a) Orig. Hom. 1. in Matth. Origen the lie who tells me that all the Apostles were Rocks as well as Peter and what I must say to (b) Prescript c. 32. 36. Edit Franck. 1597. Tertullian and others that tell me other Apostles planted Churches as well as Peter
might have quoted our Collect for all Conditions of Men O God the Creatour and Preserver of all Mankind p. 9. c. instead of the passage out of Theodoret onely you had a mind to shew your great reading otherwise ours would have served you to all the purposes this can they both saying the same thing that is not one syllable to your intentions p. 10. St. Ambrose's and St. Hierome's are just the same speaking that which none of our Church can deny every member of it doth believe that there is one Catholick and Apostolick Church and at the same time is as ready to profess that he doth no more believe than any of the Primitive Christians ever did that the Church of Rome is that Church or that that one Catholick and Apostolick Church is governed by one Supreme Pastour the Bishop of Rome which was the thing you were to prove but how little you have performed it I dare appeal to any one that would but as he reads consider and compare your quotations and what I have said upon them More Testimonies it seems you could have given us p. 10. but you say it were too tedious either to write or reade c. There is another reason why they would be tedious and that is because if they are no better than these we have had already they would have been nothing to the purpose and to say those Testimonies you have presented us are not the best would be to disparage your prudence and parts which we need not doe One more however you cannot refrain giving us for good omens sake that of Constantine the Great whose Zeal for the Vnity of the Catholick Church and his most earnest endeavours for the peace thereof all know and admire and therefore 't was needless to recite since it hath not one syllable to your business which was not to prove what both sides affirm that there is a Catholick Church but that the Church of Rome is that Catholick Church governed by one Supreme Pastour Quod restat probandum aternùm restabit One thing I must desire of you by reason of these passages that if ever you set up again for a Writer you would either tell us what Editions the Books are of which you quote or name the Books you pick'd 'em out of you cite the 62d Chapter Valesius's Edition says it 's the 64th you quote the 63d and he says it 's the 65th Chapter of Eusebius's 3d Book of the Life of Constantine CHAP. VIII The Ridiculousness of his Attempt against Protestant Communions exposed and an Vnity of Faith among them proved HERE pag. 10. as tho' you had done wonders by your Authorities you not without a secret vain-glory say What would I have once given to have found such an Vnity amongst Protestants to have England Scotland Denmark Zwethland Geneva Zurick c. thus Unius Labii nay to have found but one County in my own dear Countrey or perhaps one single Family so united a Brotherhood c. I wish Sir that it might have been my good fortune to have met you sometime with money in your Pocket in this generous mood I do assure you that I would have been reasonable and for one Guinea would have proved it to you or have forfeited 40 that all these Churches you have reckoned up in the North and Western parts of Europe are as much Vnius Labii as all the Proofs you have tack'd together do either prove or require for to repeat the substance of them there is none of them all doth either prove or offer at it that all the Particular Churches of Christ should have the same Customs Rites Ceremonies and Discipline without any difference one from another That which they prove and indeed there is but one that doth it clearly that from Irenaeus is that the Vnity of the Catholick Church dispersed throughout the world or which is the same thing of all the Particular Churches every where which do make up the Catholick Church was in and from the one Faith which she had from the Apostles and this Faith was that which we call the Apostle's Creed a Summary of which St. Irenaeus having set down in the short Chapter immediately before this out of which you have your quotation begins this Chapter as you have quoted that the Catholick Church having received this Preaching and this Faith to wit included in the Apostle's Creed doth preserve it and teach it inviolably c. and at the end of this same Chapter c Et neque qui valde praevalet in Sermone ex iis qui praesunt Ecclesiis alia quam haec sunt dicet Nemo enim super Magistrum est neque infirmus in dicendo deminorabit Traditionem Cùm enim una eadem fides sit neque is qui multum de ea potest dicere amplius Lampliat neque is qui minus deminorat S. Iraen c. Haer. l. 1. c. 3. Edit Feuard he tells us that the Church was so much Vnius Labii as your phrase is in this Faith that neither He that was more eloquent among the Pastours of the Church will say or teach any things different from these Articles of Faith for no Man is above his Master nor he that is less expert will diminish any thing from this Faith delivered or Tradition For since the Faith is one and the same neither he that can say most about it doth add any thing to it nor he that can say least doth take any thing from it This Faith then to use St. Irenaeus's simile like the Sun Ibidem enlightens all parts of the world shines to them all and doth influence all with her one Faith as with a common heat and makes all that embrace it throughout the world to become the constituent parts of the Catholick Church By this time I do not question but that you think your Guinea might have been in danger since no man that hath common sense can deny that the Churches of England Denmark Swedland and the rest are Vnius Labii in this Faith which is equally embraced and professed by them and therefore hath the same influence over them that it had over the several Churches in St. Irenaeus his time to make them true Members of the Catholick Church So that as all your money would have been lost on this account so your Pity over your own dear Countrey is not onely lost but childish and ridiculous too and would far handsomer have become a Woman that never saw farther than her Psalter than you that pretend to such a large knowledge in Fathers and Divinity But tho' your Pity were lost pag. 10 11. you are resolved your Countrey shall not want your hearty prayers that true Charity may possess their hearts and that there may be a most holy love planted and reigning in their hearts for ever c. I used to think it was the opinion of the Church of Rome and her Party that we
that one might expect from its having such an Vniversal Dictator over it I trow not for did you never hear of that long bandying which perhaps is not ended about the Immaculate Conception nor of the violent Feuds betwixt the Jansenists and Molinists which for all the Popes determination continue to this Day Is that whole Community agreed about the Infallibility How is it then that some are for the Personal Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome as such some that He is so onely in Cathedra some that onely a General Council is such Are they agreed about his Jurisdiction How is it then that some put him under and others above a General Council Is his Supremacy determined wherein it doth consist Whence is it then that the Clergy of France so lately made Determinations for the Limitation of it 1682. and to deny his Deposing Power or Medling in Temporals And the Clergy of Hungary under the Arch-Bishop of Gran did 1684 Condemn the Determinations of France to omit the Inquisition of Toledo doing the same thing against them What was the reason that the Pope who is Dictator and might with a word as such silence these Quarrels suffers these contrary Determinations but that he hath wit enough to know that he is not so much a Dictator as Mr. Sclater makes him in France and that his Bulls would signifie no more there about these things than they did about the Regale Are not the Professed Members of that Communion for all their Dictator still quarrelling and bandying one against another witness the Satyrs and virulent Libels betwixt the Jesuites and the Carmelites to pass by the more personal ones betwixt Maimbourgh and Schelstreat betwixt Alexander Natalis and D'enghien betwixt Arnauld and Malebranch I will but ask you one question why all F. Alexandre Noel's Books wherein he hath done all he can to vindicate their Religion were all condemned to the Fire not excepting one by this Pope's Breve in Eighty Four. I doubt we shall find that Doctors differ about the deposing Power and the Popes Supremacy in the bosome of the Church of Rome it self and that the French did not submit quietly to the Condemnation of their Determinations by the Clergy of Hungary These things perchance are most of 'em news to you and therefore you cannot be blamed for thinking or writing that they are at Vnity under their Dictator at Rome because you knew no better but if you be angry and say you did know them I desire to know how you could say that the Members of that Church do submit to that Dictator and are at Vnity under him whereas the Instances I have given are more than enough to convince that what you have written is but a Dream and your own confident mistake CHAP. II. Arguments from the Three first Centuries and the beginning of the Fourth for St. Peter's Supremacy answered TO leave this and proceed in your Book your business being as I told you above to prove that Christ left his Church in a Monarchical State under the sole ordering of St. Peter at first to be continued after his decease under the successive Bishops of Rome It is strange to see how confusedly you go about it but much stranger that you should begin with St. Dennis and not with the Scripture But I am afraid this Book it self as well as the private Spirit that used to sense it are now distasted by you alike and that it is look'd upon as a far more dangerous than usefull Book and so fittest to be set aside where there is no absolute necessity of bringing it upon the Stage For your Testimony from St. Dennis you know my mind already pag. 11. and we shall have occasion by and by to talk a little more about him pag. 11. St. Irenaeus his Testimony had come in I think a little better under your last Head among your Testimonies for the Vnity of the Catholick Church But how it proves St. Peters Supremacy I cannot devise except you can prove that St. Peter and St. Paul were but One Individual and make them two into one Man as p. 76. you have made Scotus Erigena into two Nor is there a word here about Supremacy all that Irenaeus saith is g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. Romae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iren. c. Haer. l. 3. c. 3. Edit Feuard that St. Peter and St. Paul by their joint endeavours having founded that Church made Linus Bishop there c. which place seems to if it really do not exclude St. Peters being Bishop there himself at all so far is it from proving his Supremacy But if it will not serve for this purpose le ts see what it will do for to prove the Catholick Church to be Monarchical and no other than the Church of Rome You found say you Irenaeus I 'll venture to put in saying for without it or such a word I must confess that I cannot make English out of your Period that it was of necessity that every Church should agree with the Church of Rome c. Your translation here I cannot admit for convenire ad hanc Ecclesiam is surely to come up to this Church the reason of which St. Irenaeus makes the potentior Principalitas which I wonder you should omit in your Translation the more powerfull Principality the Supreme Civil Government Rome then being the Imperial City of the World and the Seat of the Senate and chief Judicatures which must of necessity bring People Christians as well as others thither from all parts and therefore make the Church of Rome a most visible and eminent Church and so the fittest for St. Irenaeus his design against the Hereticks when he had obliged himself to reckon up the Succession of one among the several Apostolical Churches of the World. I am not ignorant your now party are very earnest upon this place and very desirous to have it believed that by potentior Principalitas here is meant the Dignity and Jurisdiction of the Church at Rome over all other Churches and that therefore they should resort to her as to their Head and Mistress But not to insist on the Inconsistency of such a sense of these words with all the accounts we have of this and the rest of the Apostolical Churches from the purest Antiquity which I could easily shew had I room here I onely ask them what every Church was to go thither for Was it for the Catholick Faith that St. h Traditionem igitur Apostoloru◠in toto mundo manifestatam in Omni Ecclesiâ adest perspicere omnibus qui c. Iren. con Haer. l. 3. c. 3. Irenaeus assures us they every one had at home the Apostles after their Churches planted delivering to them the true Faith which then was kept as he assures us inviolably by them and therefore no need to go to Rome for it Was it for Discipline There was as little need for their going about this as for the other
Matth. 16.13 14 c. wherein the discourse of our Saviour with his Disciples and his gift of the keys to Peter is recorded speaking to his Disciples as invested already with this power of binding and loosing t S. Matt. 18.17 18. And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the Church but if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen man and a Publicane verily I say unto you whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound c. and whatsoever ye shall loose shall be loosed in heaven which place with me puts it past all doubt that the rest of the Apostles were equally concerned in that speech of our Saviour's to St. Peter and thereby had equal power But if they will not allow this place to suppose a power already given they will not dare to deny that it doth confer so that if he had the power given to him particularly in the Sixteenth Chapter of this Gospel they all have it now in the Eighteenth and thereby the same Jurisdiction and Authority in the Church which quite destroys all you have been hitherto about which was indeed to prove St. Peter had the same Supremacy invested on him by our Saviour which the Bishops of Rome do since from him exercise and enjoy But how little you have performed I dare appeal to any indifferent person to your own self if you will but compare your papers and mine together so that I might save my self the trouble to try what you say about that Primacy not dying with Peter but I will not lest you should say I left that part unanswered CHAP. XIII Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter answered the Proofs out of St. Chrysostome for St. Peter's Supremacy fully confuted YOUR Arguments for the Primacy not dying with Peter are few and which is worse nothing to your purpose pag. 13. since they are far from proving what you desire but you ought to have remembred that it is not onely your Task to prove that there was such a Primacy and that it was not to die with St. Peter but that it was to descend to the successive Bishops of Rome after his decease and not to any of the Apostles nor to the Bishops of Antioch But since I perceive we shall find the first to wit of proving the Primacy not to die with St. Peter too many for you it would be cruel to put you upon proving any of the other for as to that proof out of the Epistle of St. Hierome to Demetrias all it proves is that Innocentius was Anastasius's Successour in the Apostolical Chair at Rome now if you cannot prove hence pag. 14. either that this was the sole and onely Apostolical Chair or that it was always the chief and governing Chair of the Catholick Church every one will see that you alledged a place nothing to the purpose having not a word of St. Peter in it that you cannot shew either of them is what I to prevent your trouble of inquiring among your people about it will make appear in a very few words That the Apostolical Chair at Rome is not the onely Chair in the Church Catholick v Percurre Ecclesias Apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc Cathedrae Apostolorum suis locis praesidentur proxima est tibi Achaia habes Corinthum Philippos Thessalonicenses Ephesum Romam Tertull. de Praescript contr Haeret. c. 36. Edit Junii Franekerae 1597. Tertullian is demonstration Run over saith he the Apostolical Churches in which the very Chairs the Apostles used are to this day presided in by the Bishops in their several places and then he reckons Corinth and Philippi and Rome it self among the rest That it was not originally the chief or governing Chair is as plain from the account we have in Euscbius from x Pest servatoris Ascensum Petrum Jacobum Joannem quamvis Dominus ipsos caeteris praetulisset non idcirco de primo honoris gradu inter se contendisse sed Jacobum cognomine Justum Hierosolymorum Episcopum elegisse Clemens apud Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 1. Edit Vales Clemens his Sixth Book of Institutions That after our Lord's Ascension Peter James and John tho' preferred not Peter alone by our Lord above the rest of the Apostles did not thereupon contend among themselves for the first place of Honour but chose James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem Whose Chair I am sure this passage makes Primus Honoris Gradus the chief Cathedra in the world Having thus spoiled this your proof your next will give me the less trouble pag. 14. wherein St. Hierome tells Damasus that in this miserable condition of the Eastern Churches being over-run by Heresies he would stick to St. Peter 's Chair and that Faith commended by St. Paul c. which passage would have cleared it self had you but been so just as to have translated the very next words which bring us St. Hierome's reason for this his resolution of slighting all Hereticks and communicating with the Apostolical Chair at Rome because he had in that Church been first made a Christian Inde nunc meae animae postulans cibum unde olim Christi vestimenta suscepi Hieron Ep. Damaso and therefore thence would receive the spiritual food for his Soul. Had you Mr. Scl. but made St. Hierome's resolution your own you had never fallen from the Catholick Apostolical and Orthodox Communion of the Church of England unto that of In the mean time remember that you have not proved either a Primacy or a Succession in it for the Bishops of Rome In the next place as tho' conscious to your self that you had done nothing hitherto and that your Arguments for the Supremacy and then for the Succession were too weak you fall again to the proving that St. Peter was Supreme O incomparable Method and are now resolved to doe it to purpose But how out of St. Chrysostome's Homilies and Comments There is no one that hath looked tho' but a little into that Father that will not smile at this your attempt However you tell us and no body will deny it that he gives St. Peter extraordinary and noble Titles pag. 15. that he calls him Prime Leader of the Apostles the head of Orthodoxy the great High-Priest of the Church the Pillar of the Church the Head of the Chorus of the Apostles and says that He took the charge of the whole Church throughout the World c. I have onely this question to put to you whether you take St. Chrysostome as to these passages concerning St. Peter the greatest as well as the clearest of which for your purpose I have here set down in a strict literal sense if you own it as you seem to do by placing them here for such a purpose I must then plainly tell you that you doe a very great wrong to this Holy and learned Father than whom no one perchance ever gave
Rome was from the beginning reckoned a particular Church I think is as plain as that Rome is in Italy I have proved it so fully above that I almost loath such a ridiculous subject of discourse pag. 17. And your Authorities from Pacian and Cyril of Jerusalem are not one jot to your purpose if you intend them to confirm that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church all that they say or prove being that Catholick is the Sirname of true Christians and that every one should enquire for and unite with the Catholick Church into whatsoever place he comes Now what is this to the Church of Rome here is no mention of her here not a syllable to determine that she is the Catholick Church to unite with which these two Fathers are carefull to advise These things you tell us gave you some small encouragement to betake your self to that Communion that was both Christian and Catholick c. for which very reason you needed not have left the Communion of the Church of England which is both Christian and Catholick You ought to dislike Papist upon the same ground you dislike Protestant and if Christian was too large for you you needed not to leave the Church of England to be both Catholick and Christian the Church of England denominates her self from no particular Persons good or bad but is a True Church having lawfull Pastors and a Catholick Faith. You next say you cannot imagine why Protestants should so decline the Title of Catholick you mean or suffer it with so much silence to be laid aside unless it be pag. 18. because it imports a Faith spread throughout the World which they very well know would be utterly impossible to prove their Protestant Faith ever was c. Whether this passage is more ridiculous or false I must own that upon the sudden I cannot tell if you mean here as you ought the Church of England as you must to be consistent with your self having a good while ago cast off all the other Reformed Communions nothing can be more false and ridiculous since twice a Day we use it constantly in our Service and surely you will not be so extravagantly unreasonable to say we do not Mean or Pray for our selves when we Pray for the Good Estate of the Catholick Church So that our decling the Title and suffering it with so much silence to he laid aside must be put to the account of the grosser sort of Untruths And we need not wonder that you would offer a false reason for a false thing our Faith and the Faith of all the Reformed Churches having been already proved to be Catholick and therefore your utterly impossible to prove it to be a Faith spread throughout the World must be put up on the same account Nor is there ever a Member of the Church of England of any Learning that I ever met with or heard of that either declined the Title of a Reformed Catholick or was not ready onely to profess but also to prove that by being a Son of the Church of England he was a Member of a Catholick Church As to what you add about the other Adjunct in our ours I say of the Church of England as well as yours at Rome Creed Apostolical that you saw less reason for their claim to that and to give them their due they were more modest than much to insist upon it c. This Sentence is Brass every bit of it for if you mean the Church of England here I am astonished to think you should have so little Conscience or so little Modesty to publish such a gross untruth in the face of a Church that is so far from not insisting on the Title of Apostolical that it denounces every person excommunicate that shall dare to say the Church g Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Church of England by Law established under the Kings Majesty is not a TRUE and an APOSTOLICAL CHURCH teaching and maintaining the DOCTRINE of the APOSTLES let him be Excommunicated â—pso facto and not restored but onely by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of this his WICKED ERROUR Can. 3. of the Synod in 1603. of England is not an Apostolical Church and calls such an affirmation an impious Errour But if you are resolved to carry things at this rate by brazening us down 't is to no purpose to contend with you I must needs tell you that you might as well have published to the World that the Church of England hath no Creed in her publick Service nor believes a Trinity nor hath any Bishops to preside ovâ—â— her as this of her neither having nor pretending to Apostolical Faith and Succession If you include also the rest of the Reformed Churches you might easily know that there is no thing they so much insist upon as the proving their Faith and Practices to be purely Apostolical and therefore their Churches to be such so that neither are they so modest as not to insist on their being Apostolical as to the want of Succession among them that you object against 'em and they do not deny you your self have furnished them with an answer to your Party from St. Ambrose's words Non habent Petri haereditatem qui Petri Fidem non habent de Poenit. l. 1. c. 6. that they enjoy not the inheritance or Succession of Peter who have not the Faith of Peter But here you have a mind to make the Church of England to be of your opinion that is that the foreign Reformed Churches have no true Ministers because those that come out of France with the Title of Ministers are not allowed to exercise their Ministry before they receive the Orders of the Church of England pag. 19. c. It is true they are not allowed to have a Cure of Souls here without the taking of Episcopal Orders because it is expressly provided by Act of Parliament among us that no one shall have such a Cure of Souls without Episcopal Orders which Act you know was fully designed against our home Dissenters who had opportunities of Episcopal Orders at home not against them who could not have them at home with whom also we had nothing to do But since no exception was made in the Act for them the Church cannot dispense with an Act of Parliament in their favour However that she allows theirs to be true tho' imperfect Churches is hence plain because her Members in their Travels communicate with those Churches which thing she would never permit had they no Ministry it was the Practice of our Exiles in France during the long Rebellion and Dr. R. Watson hath lately put forth the most Learned and most Religious Bishop Cozin who was one of those noble exiled Confessors his Defence of their communicating there with Geneva rather than Rome So that your Argument fails you also here CHAP. XV. More of his foul Aspersions on the Church of England exposed and
guilty of such pitifull stuff look at it again Mr. Sclater fetch down your Dictionary and try again at it and see whether you that translate but at this rate be fit to set up for a Book-writer and a Manager of Controversies and a Balancer of the Merits of the two Churches I am ashamed that any Man our Church should either have so little brains or so little honesty but to let your Translation alone Rupertus does confirm my reason for the determining This to mean This Bread when he says This saith our Saviour that is This Bread is my Body or my Flesh CHAP. XVII His false Slander of our Church and his foolish Observation about Judas shewn I Must next consider what you have of Argument in your Preface where you would have us believe that the sixth Chapter of St. John's Gospel is to be taken in a literal sense but since you were not at leisure to offer any Proof for it I need spend no time to answer one thing I must examine there and that is the danger you said you must live and die in under the denial or but doubting of so great a Truth Pref. in Communion with those that said How can this Man give us his Flesh to eat And doth our Church say so that our Saviour cannot give us his Flesh to eat How is it then that in the Prayer We do not presume c. she orders her Communicants to pray to our Gratious Lord to grant to them so to eat the Flesh of his dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his Bloud that their sinfull Bodies may be made clean by his Body and their Souls washed through his most pretious Bloud c. That in the Prayer of Consecration the same Petition is put up to omit any more places This Sir is very provoking and highly unjust that a Man who hath perchance a hundred times used these very Prayers who did last Palm-Sunday use them reade them when he administred the Eucharist to the Parishioners of Putney should in the face of the Sun in our own Nation in our own Language publish so gross and Vntruth and affix so false a Scandal upon our Church as to say she affirms our Saviour cannot give us his Flesh to eat If these and such be the Fruits of your Conversion sit anima mea cum Philosophis rather than with such Christians Do not think to bring off your self with saying that our Church denies that any one can eat the Flesh of Christ in that sense which those people meant it that spoke these words that will not doe your business since that Church whereof you now are for all its belief of Transubstantiation abhors the Capernaitical sense of these words as much as we and are ready to say with us that our Saviour cannot and does not give us his Flesh to eat in that carnal sensual abominable manner that these Capernaites talked of Your next Observation in your Preface that Judas was one of the Disciples that went back and walked no more with our Saviour is I must confess a rarity which hath escaped I believe all our Commentatours but will your pretty and spitefull Observation hold Matth. 26.23 25. how is it then that we meet with Judas in our Saviour's dish the very night before he was Crucified I know no other fetch that you can have to save your ingenious Observation besides that of a Gentleman who in a dispute holding that Abraham was justified by Faith and being pressed by the Opponent with that of St. James that Abraham was justified by Works saved his bacon by saying that there were perhaps two Abrahams and so you may gravely say that there were two Judas Iscariots CHAP. XVIII His Authorities from Galatinus and the Spurious Liturgies for Transubstantiation rejected and the reason of it His railing and Absurdities about these and other Spurious Pieces examined and exposed NOW we are come to your main Battel where like as the Turks are said to have had a sort of Souldiers called as I remember Asaphi whom they set in the front of their Battel to dull and evigorate their enemies by their cutting down of these dull Souls so you have placed Galatinus and his Rabbins in your front to hinder your Adversaries falling with too much stomach upon your main Body You saw it necessary however in your Preface to bespeak your Reader in favour of Galatinus Preface that he was always accounted a very learned Man. You had done well to have quoted some people on your side here because your bare word will not pass with me nor with any one else that will take the pains to reade our two papers I am sure he shewed neither Learning nor Honesty in those passages you quote from him See Dr. Cave's Chartophylax in Galatino p. 336. since he stole them from Porchetus Salvaticus without owning in the least whence he had them and for the Passages and Rabbins themselves it is the Opinion of Learned Men that there were neither such Rabbins nor such Works of theirs as to these things but that they are the Pious Frauds of Porchetus and others So that I need not trouble my self but set aside this forged stuff your calling them Prophetick pag. 21. and abusing the place of St. John of the Spirits blowing where it listeth c. would in any other sort of People have been called Enthusiasm and downright Fanaticism And truly you put in as fair for a touch of the latter as your veriest Enemy could desire when instead of Argument you vent your Anger and instead of reasoning fall into downright railing against the Impious Ambition and unlimitted appetite of rule of the Private Spirit which would fain soar above the Heavens and make it self Lord even of the Writings of God also Her private Glosses imperious Sentiments and contradictory Interpretations like the Victorious Rabble of the Fishermen of Naples riding in Triumph and trampling under their feet Ecclesiastical Traditions Decrees and Constitutions Ancient Fathers Ancient Liturgies the whole Church of Christ c. But pray Sir if your Catholick fit be over who is it that hath or own this Private Spirit you have been venting so much Spleen against If you designed it for a Character of the Church of England which I believe you did I am obliged to tell you that it is a most impudent and a most false Slander Do but look into that Canon of our Church which you your self quoted See the Canon it self and the Remarks above p. 2. and those little Remarks I made upon it do but peruse again what I said above as to our Church tying up and obliging all her Members by her Articles without leaving any of those things to a Private Spirit and then look at what your bitter Pen hath here vented if it do not make you eat up these Cholerick Nonsensical Words and recant this Scandal upon an Apostolical Catholick Church I must then tell you