comes to the Church of England and demands it there they deny that they have any such Authority Not content with that he puts himself to the trouble to prove it p. 11. he goes to the Church of Rome they say they have it p. 12. and he presently believes them and after a few rubs removed out of his way he reviews Bellarmine's marks and signs of a true Catholick Church and by them endeavours to shew that there is such an unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide in the Church of Rome Now all this is nothing but a plain begging of the Cause or a discovery how little he knows in this Controversie for certain it is that the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches ever since the Reformation have demanded and most earnestly required one plain positive proof that ever God Almighty or our Blessed Lord did ever appoint any such Sovereign Guide and unerring Authority in the Church But they could never receive any plausible Answer to it by all the ways whereby a Negative can be proved they have shewed that there is no such order or appointment in it Nay lately some Writers have asserted with good reason that such a thing is not agreeable to the methods that God has us'd in the Government of the World and that it would not be of any considerable use to the advancement of piety or any eminent vertue amongst men and that the pretence of it serves onely to support an unreasonable Usurpation over the Church of Christ Great Volumes and strong Arguments remain unanswer'd and yet at this time of the day the dull and stale old accompts of it without any new ornaments or new force are sent abroad without any ground or hope of victory to vindicate the interests of it This deserves a sharper Censure than I will give but yet I would have our Authour know that a New Convert to his Old Friends the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus might have alledged in his behalf all that which our Authour here does and that to as much purpose he might have said that he had wished that God had left an unerring Authority in his Church and that God had not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters and that therefore he presumed that such an Authority was somewhere to be sound As for Irenaeus his Church and those in Communion with it they did not in the least pretend to it but the followers of Ebion and Cerinthus did fully and loudly challenge it and therefore his Reverend Fathers Irenaeus and the rest of the Orthodox Bishops must have him excused for he will rather put himself under an unerring Authority than trust to the Guidance of Those that confess themselves to be no more than fallible men But to let that pass P. 13. the next thing we find in our Authour is Bellarmine's Notes of a true Church I suppose he puts them down to encrease the bulk of his Book He could not but know that they are of no Authority with us And Answers are given out to each of them in their Order He might have added strength and force to them whilst they are so briskly attacked but he has no pretence to build upon them or defend himself by them But besides he of all men living has the least right to expect any advantage from them because the chiefest of these Notes are grounded on sayings of the Prophets and he that has so far depreciated the true value of the Five Books of Moses p. 6. will hardly persuade another that he gives any great credit to the writings of the Prophets He there gives us an objection against the Pentateuch P. 6. from the supposed intermedlings of Esdras but does not well reflect that he derives that objection by several Medium's from the Samaritans who were the first and are at this day the chiefest Adversaries and greatest Calumniatours of Esdras Now these very men keep close to the Five Books of Moses and for this they offer some pretences of reason but our Authour without any reason at all would make advantage by the Prophets and throw contempt upon Moses and all this by virtue of the credit which he seems to give to the objections made against Esdras by the Samaritans But Most certainly in this he acts beyond his skill and talks without book for be it what it will Bellarmine's Notes are of no use to him and can do him as little service as that formidable force of Pagans and Turks and I know not how many Nations which he brings in to his assistance p. 11. where he himself says he has no Adversary It is well for him that that impertinency and this did not come together into his head at the same time for if he had thought but as much of the Pagan as he does of the Atheist and Theist perhaps his reason might have been as favourable to them as it was to those others p. 4. and then if Bellarmine's Notes had come into his way who knows but that the man might have turn'd Convert again and wrote another Book of the motives for his reconciliation to old Paganism for methinks it is very probable that our Authour might have found these amongst the Pagans Vniversality and Visibility Vninterrupted continuance and Succession till the days of Constantine lastly Vnity and Vniformity he might have seen there too that which they call a High-Priest and Holy Altar and a Holy Sacrifice Miracles and Religious Colleges and Abstinence P. 14. and vowed chastity and a great many Doctrines Authoritatively imposed and universally received throughout the World I will presume this Gentleman never read either Pausanias or Zozimus or the Epistles of Symmachus and it is happy for him that he did not I will venture the little skill that I have that any impartial Reader shall find better flourishes sairer turns of the Pen and more appearance of Argument in that Speech which Symmachus makes to the Emperour Valentinian Theodosius and Arcadius in the Name of Rome Pagan than our Authour gives us here against the Church of England to our Bishops Now if these little thoughts governed him in the change of one Religion it is well for him that he never ingaged in the consideration of the other But our Authour has Bellarmine's Notes and he will make something of them by virtue of them he says he sound what he was resolved to find before the true Catholick or one Church that may be said to be true in opposition to all others Now upon this foundation he builds apace P. 15. 1. That this being one Body must have one Head upon Earth and he after our Saviour's Death was St. Peter and after St. Peter's his Successours and they are the Bishops of Rome and those are every one of them in their several times not only Successours to St. Peter P. 16. but Christ's Vicegerents This their Authority he says has been owned
Sticklers for Roman Authority and Infallibility and that in a time when he contended most earnestly to bring in peace and good temper amongst Christians and had endeavoured passionately to persuade men to lay aside ill Language and odious Names such as one Party threw at another all which he says were cast up out of Hell such as these Papists Antichristians Ministers of Satan and on the other side Hereticks Schismaticks Apostates Though he heartily wish'd these Names out of the World yet he could be content that two or three of them were always ready to be thrown in the teeth of such Persons as our Authour would seem to be This remark I give to shew our Authour that I do not set down the Sayings and Opinions of others without considering first what weight and stress is to be laid upon them For I must consess that it is to me a scandal and matter of offence to find this Set of Authorities which our Authour uses in the same order and in the same words in another late Book intitled Pax vobis this seems to speak that the Authours of both these transcribed and never considered what force was in their Citations Is this fair dealing with a Man 's own Conscience or with his Readers when he is weighing of Religions and offering motives of Reconciliation either to himself or to others to act thus supinely This is worse than to take a journey to Edinburgh upon the next Hackney and never consider whether he be a Jade or no. A journey to Heaven is long to be sure of greatest importance He that takes up a new Religion to carry him thither had need use eyes and ears and heart and head too St. Paul had reason when he advised us to work out our Salvation with fear and trembling but all men will not doe this they are in too much haste They that take satisfaction without reason and in spite of reason change their Religion cannot act with that caution which the great Apostle requires If I am not much out in my guess which I must leave to the Reader 's judgment when he has compared this Set of Citations with those in Pax vobis Pag. 70 71. we have here one of the most wretched Pleas that ever was used by a Writer It is not more than this I have met with some sayings of Men whom I care not for when or where or to what end they were spoken I never considered nor yet whether upon second thoughts they did not retract them my judgment concurs with them therefore I have found that lawfull Supreme Authority I searched for and where this Authority is there is Infallibility That is the first Motive to persuade that the Roman Catholick Church has Supreme Authority over all and Infallibility in the exercise of it He should now proceed to a second But instead of that we have Pag. 24 25 26 27. a discourse upon a new Subject so far is our Authour from making these Doctrines to appear reasonable that for so long together he 'll e'en let them shift for themselves his present business is to talk and talk he will of Separation or how the Church of Rome can be said to have separated either from her self or from the Catholick Church either whole or part and where that whole or part remained from whence the Church of Rome separated and then again where she remained and where she may be found and here he is urgent and importunate and will have an answer and that from the Bishops themselves for he comes up closely to the beards of them and tells them In good faith Fathers my Salvation is highly concern'd in this question and I must be satisfied He prevents them from giving such and such answers and swaggers it bravely out in these words I 'll sooner suffer my self to be knockt down with a true Protestant Flayl than with such a Protestant Answer and at last he adds from this reasonable and important request you shall never beat me whilst I live The Man grows warm and it is well for some that they are out of his way who knows what he may doe The occasion of all this noise and clamour he gives us in the 24th Page in these words You had often told me that She the Church of Rome had fallen from her primitive purity and separated her self from the one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church Answer to Protestant Queries p. 10. declared also to be Antichristian and the true Church latent and invisible by that famous Napper to King James Brocard Fulk Sebast Francus Hospinian and many others Now what is all this to the Bishops of the Church of England must they answer for every thing that has been said by Fulk and Brocard and Napper or as you call him that famous Napper I pray how famous is he has any of the Bishops of England cited him these forty years does any of this Church reade him or depend upon him if your studies have been upon such Authours the Church of Rome have no great prize of you and these Motives as bad as they are were good enough to make you a Convert But yet there remains one Expression cited out of a little Book which it may be few of the Bishops of England ever saw but yet they must give an accompt of it and all the consequences he can gather from it for he says p. 26. his Salvation is highly concerned in it And it is a reasonable and important request And must the Bishops of England be accomptable for every little writing which they know nothing of would the Bishops of Rome think it fair that all the impertinences of our Authour should be charged upon them certainly no. But he argues that if the Church of Rome was once a pure and uncorrupted Church she remains so still for she can neither separate from her self nor from the Catholick Church Now if this Argument be good he himself is bound to answer for all the consequences that can come from a presumed separation either from it self or from the Catholick Church for we have oft proved and are always ready to prove that the Church of Rome is not the same as to purity and incorruption which it was It is changed it is altered multitudes of Innovations have overspread it and great numbers of Errours by little and little as Cassander says have crept in and prevailed over it But yet for all that we own and assert that there is a Church of Rome as well as a Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch and that though this as well as they have erred not onely in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith So speaks the Church of England in her 19th Article And if she be a Church she must be a Member of the Catholick Church for every part must be contained in the whole None of us doubt but that the Church of Rome receives all the Canonical Scriptures that we
to be contested and the other was thought tolerable by Honorius and Felix and the best of those that were busied in the conversion of the English It is deplorable to think that for the sake of these the English Christians should lose their Teachers who if we believe Bede's accompt were most extraordinary Persons of great piety severe vertue and most sincere goodness Bede lib 3. cap. 26. Bede says Quantae parcimoniae cujusque continentiae fuerit ipse Colmannus cum Praedecessoribus suis testabatur etiam locus ille quem regebat ubi abeuntibus eis exceptâ Ecclesiâ paucissimae domus repertae sunt c. They were Men of great self-denial they had a good Church for the service of God but very few Houses for themselves and those onely such as necessity of living did require they had no money or stock but in Beasts what money the rich gave unto them they presently distributed to the poor and they had no need of any for the great ones who came to their Church came thither for no other cause but to say their Prayers and to hear the Word of God and if the King himself came thither he said his Prayers and away he went or if he wanted a refection he and his Attendants were content to partake of the daily Provision for the fraternity of their House The whole care of these Teachers was to serve God and not the World to provide for the Heart and not for the Belly from whence it came to pass that Religion was then in great veneration whereever a Clerk or a Monk came he was received by the People as the Servant of God If they saw him on the road they ran to him and rejoyced in the humblest posture to receive his blessing They attended to his Instructions and Exhortations and every Lord's Day they came in crowds either to the Church or to their Monastery to learn the Word of God If a Priest came by chance into a Village the People gathered together and took care that they might hear the Word of Life from him For upon no other accompt did the Priests or Clerks go abroad but to preach to baptize to visit the Sick and to take care of Souls and so far were they from designs of worldly greatness that they would not accept of Estates and Lands to build Monasteries upon them where they were not constrained by more than ordinary instance from the Secular Powers This accompt Bede no Friend to them but to the adverse Party gives of them and therefore it must be presumed to be true Those Scots or Irish then were most admirable Persons great Examples of Vertue and Piety a blessing of God and an honour to a Nation But such was the weakness or the humour of those times that all these were to be thrown out to make way for the reception of a few Romish Usages Wilfrid had the ascendant Bede lib. 5. cap. 20. and he would have it so And good St. Chad amongst the rest was forced to leave the Bishoprick of York that Wilfrid by virtue of the Power and Authority of that Seat might be better inabled to carry on his Reformation according to his new Designs and Projects This Story deserves some Remarks and Considerations and if the present Romanists would reflect upon it they will find cause to cease their boasts of the performances of their Predecessours in the conversion of the English Nation I will add one thing that as Augustine had no great success in his business so neither had Wilfrid in his For he was twice thrown out of his Bishoprick and twice went to Rome to make Complaints and though he was a Man of Parts and had a zeal for that which he thought good yet the effects of his tumultuousness followed him and he that gave troubles to others had troubles himself One Passage farther there is in Bede that must not be omitted that is concerning Theodore his election to be Archbishop of Canterbury and his mission hither it seems Egbert King of Kent and Oswi King of the North-Humbrians had agreed after the death of Deusdedit to send Wighart to Rome to be consecrated there and that some considerable time after the Bishoprick had been void Bede lib. 4. cap. 1. Cessante non pauco tempore Episcopatu Wighart dyed of the Plague at Rome Vitalian then Pope considers whom to send over in his stead he thought first of one Adrian who refused the Archbishoprick and commended one Andrew who likewise refused then Theodore was thought of and approved yet Theodore could not be consecrated till he had received a new Tonsure Bede says he was born at Tharsus in Cilicia and had the Tonsure of St. Paul after the manner of the Orientals Habuerat Tonsuram more Orientalium Sancti Pauli Apostoli And therefore he was stayed at Rome though the English Nation much wanted their Archbishop four months till his Hair was grown that the Crown of St. Peter might be rightly shorn on his Head quatuor expectavit menses donec illi coma cresceret quo in coronam tonderi posset It seems the same temper that Wilfrid brought into England was then regnant at Rome and a great stress was laid upon the right Cut and wonderfully accurate they were in distinguishing the Tonsure of St. Peter from that of St. Paul and of Simon Magus as Bede shews And Mr. Cressey in his Church-history Bede lib. 5. cap. 22. Cressy 's Hist lib. 16. cap. 18. n. 17. after a punctual relation of the state of this worthy Controversie expresly says That the Popes of this age took care that St. Peter 's Tonsure should onely be received in Britain This speaks how vain and trifling the Romans then were and it is amazing to compare the thoughts and designs of these with the accompt that Bede gives of those excellent Scots who were forced to leave England for their sakes But Theodore as he had been used himself so he was forced to treat others his first great business was to secure the two Points of Easter and Tonsure and he durst not but doe it for he had a Spy over him to watch his motions and to urge him to keep close to the present humour of Rome Bede tells us that Adrian came over with him ut ei Doctrinae Cooperator existens diligenter attenderet Bede lib. 4. cap. 1. ne quid ille contrarium veritati fidei Graecorum more in Ecclesiam cui praeesset introduceret Here we may observe the vast difference between the Counsels and Designments of Gregory the Great and those of Pope Vitalian Gregory encourages and exhorts his Missionary Augustine to gather and take up in every Countrey any Usage or Practice or Mode or Form that is pious and religious and to the glory of God and to have no regard for Places but Things no more for the Usages of Rome than for those of France But Vitalian ties his Missionary Theodore to keep close to
all the ways and methods of Rome He would have him shew Rome in every thing he did and to be intirely of the Roman cut He was altogether for place and not for thing He had no concern for what was pious and what religious and what of good use in other Places He was for that onely which was done at home And though Christianity was once most pure and most gloriously had flourished in the Eastern Churches yet he particularly cautioned and provided that Theodore should lay aside his first Works and the Institutions of his Fathers and the Traditions of the East and intirely govern himself according to the Usages of Rome Now the effect of this is most remarkable though Theodore submitted to all this and came with resolution to please them whose Creatures he was yet being a learned stout and most reverend Prelate he was forced in a little time to run into open opposition against Rome For Wilfrid the great Stickler for Roman Fashions indeavoured to outdoe him and would always be one step beyond him in the way of Romanizing He could not consecrate a Bishop but Wilfrid had something to say against it nor make a Synodal Constitution but he had much to fault in it And so troublesome he was that Theodore was forced to throw him out of his Bishoprick upon this Wilfrid appealed to Rome and got the Pope's Bull for his resettlement yet Theodore would not reverse his Sentence and King Egbert added a second of Banishment against him And neither would obey although the Pope threatened deprivation and excommunication to all those that would not receive him Indeed in the second year of Alfrid he returned again but soon was banished again and then again he appealed to Rome and though he had favour there yet he received no benefit from it here For Wilfrid himself being summoned to appear at a Synod upbraided the English Bishops That they had opposed the Pope's Command for two and twenty years and wondered that they durst prefer the Constitutions of Theodore before the Bull of the Pope But for all his talk the Synod had no more regard for the Bull than the King or the Archbishop had for they added a third Sentence of Excommunication against him and his Adherents And as long as Theodore lived this Papal Bull was not in the least regarded but Wilfrid the great Romanizer Innovator and Reformer who had vanquished the good and truly Christian Scots or Irish and thought he merited much in his Contests about Easter and Tonsure found himself sufficiently beaten by one who was a mere Creature of Rome All this may be seen in Bede Bede lib. 5. cap. 20. and in the Life of Wilfrid written by Stephen Heddius This short Narration may deserve some few thoughts from any candid Reader whether he be Papist or Protestant Romanizer or Catholick and what is more than all those names plain Christian Here any one may see something of the first Christianity and something of that which was superadded to it the first most venerable and good the other vain and trifling In the Advices of Gregory to Augustine and in the Lives and Practices of Aidan Finan and Colman we have a most generous sense of Piety and Religion and noble Designments most agreeable to those of our Saviour and his Apostles In the Aims of Augustine Wilfrid and Vitalian we have that which is low and mean great values put upon little things The Name of St. Peter oft used and nothing else the Soul and Temper of him seems totally to be laid aside Great noise and stir and confidence imployed to advance that which was of no use and the same Arts ingaged in the Service which the great St. Augustine and St. Aug. Ep. 86. Casulano Ambrose despised and trampled upon when they found them formerly appearing in like cases Besides we may here see what mischiefs have come from those Men who have made it their business to subject the Faith and Worship of Christians to the Determinations and Usages of one City Wilfrid certainly gave much trouble and great disturbance to Theodore to King Egbert to King Alfrid to England to Rome and all this to very little purpose If any one now has a mind to satisfy himself in the difference between the old Catholick and the old Romanizer he may compare the accompt which Bede gives of Colman and his Predecessours Bede lib. 3. cap. 26. with the Elogium which he gives of Acca Bede lib. 5. cap. 21. Wilfrid's Successour the first of these I have translated and the other our Adversaries may doe when they think good THE END Some Books lately Printed for Brab Aylmer A Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy to which is added A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Church By Dr. Isaac Barrow A Discourse against Transubstantiation By Dr. Tillotson A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome A Discourse of the Communion in One Kind In Answer to a Treatise of the Bishop of Meaux ' s. A Discourse against Purgatory A Request to Roman Catholicks to Answer the Queries upon these their following Tenets viz. § I. Their Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue II. Their taking away the Cup from the People III. Their with holding the Scriptures from the Laicks IV. The Adoration of Images V. The Invocation of Saints and Angels VI. The Doctrine of Merit VII Purgatory VIII Their Seven Sacraments IX Their Priests Intention in Baptism X. The Limbo of unbaptized Infants XI Transubstantiation XII The Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass XIII Private Masses XIV The Sacrament of Penance XV. The Sacrament of Marriage with the Clergies Restraint therefrom XVI Their Sacrament of Extream Unction XVII Tradition XVIII That thread-bare Question Where was your Church before Luther XIX The Infallibility of the Pope with his Councils XX. The Pope's Supremacy XXI The Pope's Deposing Power XXII Their Uucharitableness to all other Christians Now in the Press A Discourse of the Sacrifice of the Mass In 4o.