if Doulia or Hyperdoulia belong to them or any of them much more is due to Christ who if he be not God equal with the Father yet is far above all Angels Principalities and Powers and every name which is named in Heaven and Earth besides we have clear Text that we should Honour the Son even as we do Honour the Father and not the least intimation in Scripture we should so Honour the Angels but on the contrary that all Angels should Worship him in that he by Inheritance hath obtained a more excellent name than they It is altogether unnecessary to multiply Quotations from the Ancients or to cite those numerous places which are to be found in the Writings of the Fathers of the Catholick Church to prove what the Doctrine and Practice of the Catholick Primitive Church hath been in this instance it is sufficient for the satisfaction of any considerate disinterested person to let him know that the Testimonies which the Protestants have produced from them are so forcible that the great Cardinal (o) Never any Author before him had invenred those Authors Ep. ad Bell. See Bellarmin's life l. 2. c. 7. R. 3. Perron hath confessed he was forced to strain his Invention and great Parts to frame Answers to them and when he had racked them to the height all that he could Apologetically feign in excuse of the present Practice of the Romish Church was to accuse and impeach the Fathers of deep dissimulation and Imposture For first (p) Upon the Head of Invocation of Saints p. 1044 1045. he saith The Fathers in their Writings against the Gentiles said those things not which they did believe but dissembling and disguising their Practice said those things which served their cause to refute the Gentiles Objections This Scandalous Imputation is enough to crack their Credits for ever in the judgment of honest minds for who will ever believe them who for a colour to their cause are so wicked as to speak Lies in hypocrisy or ever esteem them as the chiefest Apologists and choicest Advocates of Christianity who were egregious Prevaricators and mean contemprible Proctors in their own and the Churches concern Or who will ever rely upon their Testimony who were so weak and sottish as to attempt the dissembling of that which could not be concealed and the disguising of that which could not be denied or evaded For the Gentiles as they were Artists enough to find out any Sophistical shufflings in their discourses and disputes against them so they were malicious and active Adversaries having their Spies and Trapanners abroad to give them intelligence of the Christians Practice both in their Civil and Religious Conversation and if these failed there were too many lapsed Christians who would inform them to the full and too many false Brethren who industriously pretended to Christianity that thereby when occasion served they might accuse them to the Higher Powers such as those of the Circumcision were in the Apostles time who were unawares brought in and came in privily as Spies Gal. 2. and after Ages have been all out as bad if not worse after Nero's Reign In the second place the Cardinal tells us The Fathers in their Writings against the Heathens declined to speak of the Churches Prayers lest the Gentiles might think there were some appearance of conformity though but false and fallacious betwixt the Churches Practice herein and that of the Heathen and thereby take an occasion though upon no just ground to retort upon their Practice This insimulation is somewhat more modest or less irreverent than the former but as false and fallacious For SECT III. 1 THE Fathers in their Writings to the Heathens did not decline but declare what the Churches Prayers were both for matter and form witness Just (q) Apol. 2. Clem. Alex. l. 7. Strom. p. 717. Tert. Apol. c. 30. p. 27. de Oâ—at Domini c. 1 12. Mart. Clem. Alex. and Tert. and it appears from Flinies Epistle to the Emperour Trajane The Heathens were well accquainted with the Christians Practices in their Assemblies in this therefore the Cardinal dissembleth and in the next Period of his Sentence he disguiseth and glosseth the matter For 2 The Churches Prayers then were not the same with those now in use in the Romish Church as he fallaciously suggesteth but perfectly Protestant as the Prayers of the Holy Martyr Policarp recited in Eusebius lib. 4. c. 15. to which may be added that when the People of Smyrna desired to have the Body of their Martyred Bishop for its Burial the Jews perswaded the Governour not to grant their Request upon this unworthy pretence the Christians would Worship it to which false suggestion the Christians replied We can never be induced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Worship any other with Religious Adoration but Christ him we adore others we worthily love and respect This Protestation was thus rendered in the (r) Ex passionario M. S. 7 Cal. Febr. in Bibl. Eccl. Sarisb Dom. Rober. Cottoni Latine Edition Nunquam Christum c. We Christians can never forsake Christ who did vouchsafe to suffer so great things for our Sins nor impart precem Orationis the Devotion Religion or Supplication of Prayer to any other and accordingly as it was thus Translated it was publickly read in all the Churches of the West 3. If they did forbear to speak of the Churches Prayers lest the Gentiles should retort it upon them then because the Gentiles had good intelligence of their Practice as hath been proved but never did retort it upon them it may safely be concluded their Practice was not the same with that of the present Romish Church and that Reason assigned by some Pontificians why in the Apostles time they and their Disciples abstained from this Practice cannot hold unless we take in the Three hundred years succeeding for so long time did the Christians and Heathens live promiscuously as Fellow Subjects to the same Higher Powers and the Heathens knew what the Christians practised during which space of time if that had been the Churches Practice which is surmised by the Romanists the Heathen would have looked upon it with jealousy as a politick trick cunningly contrived by the Christians to set up a new modelled Court of Requests and take just occasion thereby to retort upon their Practice which because they did not therefore so long time there was no such practice in the Church But if their and the Cardinal's reason be good it will render the Romanists very imprudent or uncharitable or both in that when they endeavour the Conversion of the Heathen to their Church they do not conceal and forbear this so suspicious and offensive Practice to them 4. The Cardinal dissembleth in that he pretends there is but some appearance of Conformity betwixt the Practice of the Romish Church and their Heathen Ancestors For if we may believe the reports and complaints of some learned Romanists the Practice of the common
nature and kind so they shall have distinct natural qualities and operations for then the Angels shall remain as they are more Spiritual substances the Saints departed shall have Bodies though these also in some respect Spiritualized and incorruptible but some only and these specified and intimated in the Context in that Spiritualized state they shall not need Matrimony for the propagation of their kind nor Food for the preservation of their numerical persons as Alphonsus (k) Alphonsus à Castro l. 3. c. haer Jansen Harm Evaug c. 117. a Castro and Jansen understand the words and so they shall be as the Angels or equal to them in being the Children of God for that they are Children of the Resurection which in effect amounts to this they as the Angels shall be free from all the necessities of a temporal human life and from all material and corporeal affections and which is more shall be equal to the Angels in the participation of eternal bliss and the immovable possession of that Inheritance which is incorruptible undefiled and fadeth not away and reserved for them Again they produce Rev. 5.8 four and twenty Elders fell c. but Viega Lyra and Haimo will tell them these four and twenty Elders are not the members of the Church Triumphant Saints reigning in Heaven but of the Church Militant and principally the Pastors (l) Viega in Apoc. c. 4. Lyr. in 8. pl 1. and Bishops thereof And lastly they cite Rev. 8.4 but several of their learned Expositors will satisfie them that that Angel is Christ Albert. Viega Hug. Card. (m) Haimo in loc Aug. Hom. 4. in Apocal. Neither were these Supplications for Pardon and Grace but for Thanksgivings for the redemption of the World as appears by ver 9 and 13. August Hom. 6. in Apocal. Haimo the Glosses and Diouys Carthus saith the Catholick Doctors understand it so SECT II. IT is unpractical Indeed the Tridentine Assemblers affirm it is a good and profitable Practice to Invocate Angels and Saints departed and their great reason of this their affirmation is that it is a Custom received from the Apostles and perpetually hath been retained in the Church of God and agreeable hereunto it is so resolved in the Roman Catechism Par. 2. c. 2. Sect. 5. p. 297. and yet it is most evident that St. Paul when he instructed the Christians of his time in the Duty of Prayer not only for the Substance thereof but descending to a consideration of its convenient circumstances never hinted the expediency of this so supposed profitable Practice which certainly he would not have omitted if he had entertained such a conceit of the profitableness of this Duty as the Romanists do For he professeth that he kept nothing back that was profitable to the Asians during the time of his residence with them but that publickly and privately which is all one with in season and out of season he taught them Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ now because it is impossible to make it appear by any one instance that either he taught this Doctrine of Invocating the Blessed Spirits or prescribed the Practice or ever exemplified it to them by his own usage it necessarily follows he never deemed either the Doctrine or Practice to be any profitable Duty or any part of Repentance towards God or of Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ But as it was no Apostolical practice so neither could it be the constant Custom of the Church in the Primitive succeeding Centuries For the Doctrine and the present Practice of the Church of Rome being grounded on this supposition that the Saints departed do now Reign in Heaven and enjoy the Beatifical Vision whereby they are capacitated to have cognizance of the Devotions of their humble Petitioners those Primitive Doctors who did peremptorily deny the supposition cannot be supposed to assert the Doctrine and Practice founded thereupon because he that denies the supposition must consequently deny the Doctrine and Practice established upon it unless he be presumed to be so inconsiderate and interested as to believe and act contrary to his received Principles and it is hardly to be believed that those ingenious Romanists who profess great reverence to antiquity will think so hardly of the ancient Fathers Now Learned Romanists do confess that Eighteen Catholick Doctors and Fathers of the best note both of the Western and Eastern Church have constantly affirmed the Saints departed do not enjoy the Beatifical Vision but after death are kept in certain hidden receptacles in Rest and Peace till the General Resurrection and they were great names who are confessed to be of this opinion viz. Clem. Rom. Just Mart. Orig. Tert. Ambr. Lact. Hil. Chrysost Prud. Theod. Theod. Theoph. Euih Oecum Ar. Caesar and Bernard Neither could those eminent Fathers who from the Catholick Practice of Invocating God by his Son Jesus Christ and praying in the Holy Ghost be supposed to Invocate the Blessed Saints because they concluded from this Practice the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost disputing against the Arrians and Macedonians viz. Catholicks did Pray unto them the force of which argument depended upon a received rule among them that God alone was to be Invocated neither could those Ancients have justly condemned the Arrians of Idolatry for Invocating Christ whom they conceived to be a Creature but that they had resolved that no Creature was capable of the Divine honour of Invocation But both Bellarm. and (n) Vide Infra Petavius confesseth we must not say their Argument was weak and inconclusive and it was so if a distinction would have invalidated it for then the Arrians would by such evasion have worsted the Catholicks because they could have retorted upon them with great advantage For if the Catholicks had practiced this invocation of the Blessed Spirits the Arrians would have galled them with this return You Catholicks or who would be reputed so charge us with the guilt of Idolatry in that we Pray to Christ whom we judg a Creature whereas you give the same honour to Blessed Spirits the Angels and Saints departed and therefore take the guilt home to yourselves and object not that to us wherein you your selves are more criminal if the Catholicks had replied in excuse of this their Fact as the Romanists now do We indeed Invocate those Creatures with indirect subaltern and relative Prayer but direct soveraign and final we render to God only and when we Pray to him we have more high and hohourable Conceptions of his Divine Majesty than we have to those Creatures when we Pray to them The Arrians would have smartly rejoyned even so do we Invocate Christ and in our inward thoughts we honour him above all other Creatures and we have better reason to Invocate Christ than you have to Invocate Angels or Saints departed because confessedly Christ is superiour to them and deserveth greater Honour than they can expect or is due to them
no Church The step to Christian and Catholick Belief is the well-grounded Credibility excluding all prudent doubts of the Clergy we have the same of the Church and of the Faith and Doctrine proposed by its testimony and the true Faith admits of no such doubts Therefore Protestants before they can prudently believe themselves to have true Faith or be in the Catholick Church must clear all the doubts objected against their Ordination For though any Person shall not be convinced of the Nullity of their Ordination yet he cannot but harbour a prudent doubt thereof there being so many Reasons and Motives for it Now to Receive Sacraments from Priests of so doubtful Authority is without doubt a damnable Sacriledg it being in the highest degree against the light of Right Reason and Rule of Faith to expose the Reverence of the Sacraments and Remedy of our Souls to so manifest an hazard SECT V. J. S. THis Conclusion is of the same temper with the Premises these were a confused heap of Incredibles Improbables and Impossibles this is a wild distempered Sorites carried on with an affected Obscurity to distract and amuse the Reader by multiplying confounding and changing the Terms hudling up many Conclusions in this one If St. Hierome by Church meant the Vniversal Church this always has now hath and ever will have Bishops as Sacerdotes signifies with him but if he spoke of a particular Church then his is not is not to be taken absolutely but respectively not simply to deny it's being and existence but it 's integrity and complement viz. there is no through complete Church which hath not Bishops For we read in the Ancients of some Churches that had received 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fulness of Dispensations and of others which had not attained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the complement of Necessaries though in St. Hierom's time all Churches were complete that he might truly affirm there was no Church without a Bishop But it may fall out also that all the Bishops of a well-formed complete Church may dye or by Persecution be so Scattered that they dare not appear or by an Infidel Conquerour be Banished or Murthered but if the remaining Christians in this distressed condition keep their first Faith they are in a salvable state and continue true members of the Vniversal Church as those Roman Converts were who believed upon St. Peter's first Sermon Act. 2. which was long before St. Peter came to Rome Rom. 16.7 2. He suggests It is impossible they should c. For once he guesseth right It is impossible any Church of one denomination can be the true Catholick Apostolick Church that is in the usual sense of the Romanists the Vniversal as it is impossible for a Part to be the Whole or their Catholick Church which is not the fourth part thereof to be Vniversal as they by their common restriction assume but it is possible a particular Church may be a true Catholick and Apostolick Church and the true Catholick and Apostolick Church of such a Nation For the Title Catholick is either taken properly for the Vniversal Church which is the Congregation of all Believers dispersed over all the World in opposition to the Herds of Jews Pagans and Infidels and then it is a contradiction to apply or appropriate it to any particular Church as the Romanists industriously do to huckster off their false Wares which otherwise would stick on their hands or else it is used in the more common signification of an Orthodox Church which participates in the true Faith with the Vniversal Church in a contradistinction to the Conventicles of all Heretical Blasphemers In this Notion the Protestant Church of England is not only a Catholick and Apostolick Church but in due Form of construction the true Catholick and Apostolick Church of England as several particular Churches viz. Rome Carthage c. have been honoured with the Title of the Catholick Church of those respective Nations (k) For as the Roman Church was called the Catholick Church of Rome Leo Ep. 12. So that of Antioch the Catholick Church of Antioch Conc. Constant 5. Act. 1. That of Carthage the Catholick Church of Carthage Aurel. Epist Eccl. Cathol Carthag So Polycarp was the Bishop of the Catholick Church of Smyrna Euseb lib. 4. hist c. 14. And that famous Epistle to the Smyrnians was directed to all the Holy and Catholick Churches id ib. in Princ. Greg. Naz. the Bishop of the Catholick Church of Constantinople in his last Will and Testament witnessed by four Bishops of their several Catholick Churches as of Iconium c. Provinces and Dioceses 3. His doubts and uncertainties have a rare virtue perhaps they may work strongly on weak minds they can demonstrate This is the noble demonstrating faculty of Romish Traditors they can raise doubts and uncertainties where there are none and by their Magick demonstrate first that the Protestant Church is not the Vniversal and then it is no Church first absurdly without Proof suppose the Nullity of its Ordinations and thence conclude the Nullity of its Christianity The best is this is but one Doctors opinion if more there be yet all his Colleagues are not so Magisterial in their nullifying Sentence The Bishop of Chalcedon is more solid and Prudent Persons (l) As Bishop Bramhal cites Reply to the Survey p. 33. saith he living in the communion of the Protestant Church if they endeavour to learn the truth which if they do not they are neither good Protestants nor good Christians and are not able to attain unto it but hold it implicitely in the preparation of their minds and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it they neither want Faith nor Church nor Salvation which elsewhere he confirms by this reason A Church may be Heretical and Schismatical really yet morally a true Church because She is (m) Bishop of Chalced. Survey c. 2. Sect. 4. invincibly ignorant of her Heresy and Schism Pope Innocent was so much offended at the irregularities of the Spanish Ordinations in his time that at first he inclined to null them but upon better thoughts be forbore declaring that for the number of those who were faulty therein he would not question nor doubt of any of them any ways passed but rather leave them to Gods Judgment Epist ad Conc. Tolk Car. sum Conc. p. 270. 4. But saith he a solid doubt c. This is not Universally true for a Church which hath a doubtful Clergy by irregularities of Ordination if She contend for that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints and cannot avoid those irregularities through not a pretended or contracted but a real necessity is a true part such an irregularity not absolutely and totally Un-Churching her of the true Catholick Church True but not Complete not Complete because it wants that which is required to the Integrity and Perfection of a Church yet True because it hath all things essential to
distance that he would pray for him because he knows it is impossible he should hear him nor can it be supposed that any man though standing by can know the Heart of men when they utter nothing with their Tongue to interpret it In sum no man ever directed his mental Prayers to another nor his vocal to another as far distant from him as London is from Rome But to return then to acknowledg such an excellency in the Celestial Creatures as to apprehend the mental Prayers of mortal men or the sincerity of their vocal either by their original Power or by any derivative as it is an Irrational conceit in it self there being no reason to warrant it nor ground of reason to countenance it so it is injurious to God 1. It is Injurious to God in respect of his Omniscience for he even he only knoweth all the hearts of the Children of men 1 Reg. 3.39 and this both collectively and distributively and this also with reference to their Prayers and Supplications v. 38. both their publick and private Prayers both mental the cries of the Heart and vocal expressed in Words to which the truth of the Heart for God requireth truth in the inward Parts and will be Worshiped in Spirit and truth with activity and sincerity must be adjoyned to make it an holy acceptable reasonable service of God and then both kinds are only to be presented to him because he only knoweth the Heart when the mind is secretly elevated to God and the truth of the Heart when it is notified by Words because he only knoweth whether there be an Act of Conformity betwixt the Words and the Heart I the Lord search the Heart I try the Reins Jer. 17.10 challenging thereby this priviledg as a peculiar to himfelf neither will their futerfuge any way clear them viz. that God only naturally knoweth the Heart of the Petitioner but Angels and Saints departed by a derivative Power having it communicated to them either by way of Revelation from God looking upon him as a voluntary Glass who makes the Prayers of Supplicants known to them when he pleaseth or by the Vision of God looking upon him as a Natural Glass that reveals all that God knows without any choice or act of his Will for these are frivolous suggestions having neither Reason nor Revelation to support them for it without all ground limits a proposition which in the Scripture is delivered in universal terms and to admit such limitations of universal propositions without great evidence that the nature of the subject requires them or that such from other places of the Scripture may be deduced and inferred is Irrational because the proposition would not be absolutely true but true only with a restriction but the vanity of these speculations vvill further appear by these Considerations 1. The Romanists themselves cannot agree which of these ways they propose are to be taken and dispute them by multiplicity of Questions as whether God immediately by himself give the Blessed Spirits the knowledg of our Prayers or by the Ministry of others if by others then whether by the Angels that attend us or the Spirits of just men that go from hence and inform the Saints in Heaven what our Prayers are if immediately by himself then whether directly and formally seeing in him what is in the Creature and if so then whether instantly upon their Glorification and admission into Heaven or successively seeing by virtue of his Vision one thing after another in the Creature or only accidentally that is God lets them know our Prayers so far forth as it pleaseth him by his peculiar will to notify unto them because God is a free Agent respectu omnis actionis ad extra In respect of every external action And further they which pitch upon any of these ways take them only for the more probable and it is somewhat odd to found an Article of Faith and a Catholick profitable Duty upon such unprovable speculations and it is very hard to believe that the seeming Opinions of men brought in with Ifs and And 's and Metaphysical niceties can be of sufficient strength to support an Article of Faith or commend a Catholick profitable Practice 2. This is certain the one way destroys the other If by Vision then not by Revelation if By Revelation then not by Vision if the Natural Glass will serve the Voluntary is needless if the Voluntary be required then the Natural doth not do the work for God in their opinion doth not multiply forms without necessity nor doth any thing frustraneously but God doth not impart the knowledg of our Prayers either the one great way or the other 1. Not by Revelation for confessedly there is no Revelation unless a Legendary will pass currant or some ostensions as they call them may be allowed for this conceit that the Blessed Spirits know our Prayers and Hearts by Revelation 2. The poor Petitioner must be at a loss and stand if this way be supposed because he cannot be assured that God is pleased to reveal his Prayers to them and he is sure if God do not they can take no notice or cognisance of them and so their Prayers become fruitless and unprofitable because he knoweth not whether God will reveal his Prayers and if he do how far 3. How can they be proper Mediators for men who cannot know what men desire of them without the Mediation and interposition of another viz. God and why should we be perswaded to go thus about when we may go streight forward to God and his Son Jesus who needs no Mediator to inform him 4. What a strange circular motion must be observed in following this way first the Petitioner must make his suit to Angels and Saints then God must reveal them and their contents to the Angels or Saints if he please or else they are for ever ignorant of them then the Angels and Saints must back again and present them to God but if the Petitioner mistake his Angel Guardian or Tutelar Saint as very likely he may then it is to be doubted whether the Angel or Saint will own the Client though God should reveal his Prayer 2. Not by virtue of the Beatifical-Vision the other supposed way For 1. The Scripture saith No man knoweth the things of God the purposes and thoughts but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2.11 which the Apostle inferreth from this reason and ground the secrets of the Heart of man no man knows but the Spirit of of man which is in him upon which he concludes therefore none knows the things of God but the Spirit of God and therefore neither Angels nor Saints though they enjoy the Beatifical Vision which doth not confer on them the knowledg of the things of God for this we know that the Angels did not know the Mysteries of the Gospel those great things of God till made known to them by the Church Eph. 2.10 1 Pet. 1.12 2. The Angels and Saints
he had been a Rebel and a Traitor and therefore deserved not the Honour of Martyrdom whereupon they procured the Kings Injunction to blot out his name out of all Publick Prayers Hours and Missals to demolish his Shrine and Picture Erected at Canterbury and strictly forbad any to call him (h) Hist Conc. Trent fol. 87. Saint and Martyr Other Pontificians there be who although they resolve the Pope may err in matters of Fact yet will not endure to hear that he can err in his Canonizations which is very strange because the inerrability of his Canonizations depends wholly or chiefly on matters of Fact but their Reason is remarkable which is this for (i) Particularly Catherinus advers nova dogm Cajet p. 125. say they if any one Saint Canonized by the Pope may be called in question then all the Saints which have been or shall be Canonized by the Pope may be doubted of and then no man can invocate or worship them without peril of Idolatry Then let Cajetan and Canus be taken at their words that the Popes Canonization is subject to Error and thank we Catherinus and Bell for their inference and conclude from both laid together that because many Canonized by the Pope have been doubted of as Tho. Becket St. Francis St. Dominick St. Ignatius Loiola and Father Henry Garnet c. therefore all the Pope hath Canonized may be doubted of and therefore none of them can be Invocated without peril of Idolatry But then how comes the Invocation of a doubted Saint to be Idolatry this cannot be unless the Invocation of all Saints be Latria for Doulia as it is by the Romanists contradistinguished to Latria is not contradictorily opposed to Idolatry Latria is for as Latria imports the Honour proper to God only so Idolatry consists in the exhibition of that Honour to that which is not God but Doulia according to them is not part of Religious Worship due only to God and therefore the erroneous Supplicant who pays this Homage of Doulia to a doubted Saint instead of an undoubted one which doubted Saint he believes a real one may fall under the censure of Folly Rashness or Errour but the well meaning Petitioner in this case who makes his addresses to a mistaken Advocate and with relative Worship only according to their Principles cannot lie under the guilt of Idolatry because in their account the conception and intention abates it and to attribute Doulia or Relative Worship is not Idolatry if it be the Sin lies at their doors who confessedly Practice it To Conclude It is therefore the most prudent and profitable course to follow the advice which the Holy Martyr St. (k) Ep. ad Philadelph Ignatius gave to the Virgins of his time and by consequence to all who profess the name of Christ viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O ye Virgins have Christ alone in your eyes and his Father in your Prayers being enlightned by the Spirit which in effect is an exhortation to all who are Baptized according to the form of the Institution for being enlightned and being Baptized are still Synonyma's both in Scripture and Primitive Antiquity and therefore the advice concerns all Christians as well as those Virgins and so Epiph. 79 Haeres 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore Glory be to God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost three Persons one God For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever AMEN Lact. lib. 4. de Vir. Sap. c. 22. Quanquam apud bonos Judices satis habeant firmitatis vel Testimonia sine Argumentis vel Argumenta sine Testimoniis nos tamen non contenti alterutro sumus cum suppeditet nobis utrumque nè cui perversè ingenioso aut non intelligendi aut contra disserendi locum relinquamus Aug. de Trin. l. 4. c. 6 Contra rationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturas nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit THE JESUITS LETTER Hon. c. THere have been many Discourses betwixt us for matter of Religion wherein little profit did accrue in regard of my inabilities having to deal with a person of your Knowledg and Parts so fully accomplished and fraught with Arguments But seeing the true Religion is the sole mark we ought to aim at the disquisition thereof cannot be too much searched and I am confident you wish and desire my eternal good and in the integrity of my heart I wish the same to you wherefore I shall only desire to receive solution to two Questions and I shall totally decline to scruple all others the Questions are these 1. To nominate the Professors of the Protestant Faith successively since the Apostles 2. To evidence that the English Clergy hath a lawful Mission for it is said No man taketh this Honour upon him but he that was called and Faith cometh by hearing The holy Scripture doth fully express that upon the Walls of Jerusalem Watch-men should be day and night for ever that the Word should not depart out of the mouth of his Seed for ever our Blessed Saviour saith Go tell the Church and that he would be with them to the end of the World which is not verified unless there were such persons in the World Answer to the first Question 1. IS it not sufficient Protestants prove their Faith Apostolical from the Monuments and Records of the Apostles were not the Apostles assisted by the HOLY SPIRIT in an higher manner and measure than any of their Successors can pretend to did not they deliver the whole will of GOD by their Preaching while they lived and by their Writings for ever and are not their Writings as clear and comprehensive and more authentical than any of those of the following Pastors and Doctors are not the Decrees of Councils and Works of the Fathers as liable if not more to fraud and forgery to misinterpretations and wrestings as the holy Scriptures Is there any Record or Writing extant which can equally pretend to Apostolical and Original Tradition or hath such an universal and constant attestation as the HOLY BIBLE I conceive the Apostolical Writings are the best evidences of Apostolical Doctrine and in causes of Religion judg them Criminals who decline a Trial by them but since this way of Probation will not please you a shrewd suspition all is not right with you I add further 2. Supposing not granting Protestants were not able to nominate the successive Professors of their Faith since the Apostles would this conclude them Hereticks and their Faith not Apostolical no sure for suppose we one Philosopher to hold all the opinions of Plato another those of Aristotle would you determine the one not to be a Platonist the other not an Aristotelian because neither of them could present you with a list and line of successive Academicks and Peripateticks this among Philosophers would be adjudged irrational But where hath Christ or his Apostles
have confessed Imposition of Hands and the solemn words of Investiture Receive ye the Holy Ghost The Scripture knows no other Essentials but these which is also acknowledged by some of your Learned Partizans and these are constantly used by our Bishops who received their Ordinations from their Predecessors by an uninterrupted line of succession whether from British or French or Roman Bishops is not material because each of these had their Mission in your expression by a continued succession from the Apostles who planted the Faith and laid hands on their first Successors of these Nations Cardinal Pole the Papal Legat by his Dispensation and Pope Paul the 4th by his Ratification setled the Ordinations in King Edw. the 6th his Reign with this only Proviso that those then so Ordained would return to the Vnity of the Church that 's sure in their and your sense to adhere to the Pope and acknowledg his begged Sovereign Monarchical Power This they could not have granted neither would they if they had suspected any defect in the Essentials of their Ordination It is not in the power of the Pope or Cardinals to ratify their Orders who had none or dispence with them to execute any Function in the Church who had no Authority from Christ or his Apostles for it if they did your Church hath concluded the Act sacrilegious and null if we may believe some of your Controvertists 2. By the Constitutions of the Church what hath been universally observed and was decreed by the Councel of Carthage in St. Aug. time hath been and is still retained in the Church of England 3. By the Laws of the Kingdom both this and the others will appear by the Records upon both these accounts Bishop Jewel defended this Church against Mr. Harding Fol. 129. I am a Priest by the same Order c you were and after our Bishops succeed the Bishops before our days being Elected Confirmed Consecrated and admitted as they were Mr. Mason hath proved this beyond all cavil your own Associates Mr. Higgins Mr. Hart Father Garnet and Father Old-corn took the pains to search the Registers and after that Arch-Bishop Abbot caused them to be shewed to four more who after they had perused did acknowledg them Authentical and undeniable Ex abundanti Cudsemius the Jesuit Lib. 11. de Desp Cal. causa hath freely confessed the English Nation are not Hereticks because they remain in a perpetual succession of Bishops Monsieur Militiere in his Letter to his Majesty Charles the Second hath declared the same Lastly look to your own Succession in which by your own Laws there be several Nullities by Vacancies Schisms and Simonies which if they were fully charged upon you would puzzel you to clear Having dispatched your Questions the Texts of Scripture are to be considered No man taketh this Honour c. True but this Honour is to be had in any Apostolical Church as well as yours which hath Elder Sisters particularly the British here in England confitente Baronio Faith cometh c. Very good But the Object of Hearing is not the Pope's decrees or Trent definitions but the word of Faith as before Gal. 118. The rest were true before there was a Church at Rome were true when she became an holy Church are true now it is an unsound rotten member of the Church would be eternally true if there were no Church at Rome nor Roman Bishop The Church shall not fail but Christ never setled this priviledg on the Roman or any Church of one denomination Christ's Church never faileth so long as there are Confessors through the World who contend for the Faith once delivered to the Saints BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS FINIS Some Books Printed for Henry Brome in Defence of the Church of England since the Year 1666. A Companion to the Temple or an Help to Devotion being an Exposition on the Common-Prayer in two Voll By Tho. Comber A. M. Lex Tallionis or an Answer to Naked Truth The Popish Apology reprinted and Answered A Seasonable Discourse against Popery and the Defence on 't The Difference betwixt the Church and Court of Rome considered Considerations touching the true way to suppress Popery to which is added an Historical Account of the Reformation in England Friendly Advice to the Roman Cath. of England enlarged Dr. Du Moulin's Answer to the Lord Castlemain his Papal Tyrannie in England With two Sermons on Novemb. 5th Fourteen Controversial Lords for and against Popery in quarto Beware of two Extremes Popery and Presbytery octav The Reformed Monasterie or the Love of Jesus or a Sure Way to Heaven A Guide to Eternitie by John Bona. Extracted out of the Writings of the Holy Fathers and Ancient Philosophers