it if thy use the means by him appointed to come unto a right understanding of it They suppose that what is not taught therein or not taught so clearly as that men who humbly and heartily seek unto him may know his mind therein as to what he requireth of them cannot possibly be the necessary and indispensable Duty of any one to perform They suppose that it is the Duty of every man to search the Scriptures with all diligence by the help and assistance of the means that God hath appointed in his Church to come to the knowledg of his mind and will in all things concerning their Faith and Obedience and firmly to believe and adhere unto what they find revealed by him And they moreover suppose that those who deny any of these Suppositions are therein and so farre as they do so injurious to the Grace Wisedem Love and Care of God towards his Church to the Honour and perfection of the Scripture the Comfort and establishment of the Souls of men leaving them no assured Principles to build their Faith and Salvation upon Now from these Suppositions I hope you see that it will unavoidably follow that the Scripture is able every way to effect that which you deny unto it a sufficiency for For where I pray you lyes its defect I am afraid from the next part of your Question Has it ever done it that you run upon a great mistake The defect that follows the failings and miscarriages of men you would have imputed unto the want of sufficiency in the Scripture But wee cannot allow you herein The Scripture in its place and in that kind of Cause which it is is as sufficient to settle men all men in the Truth as the Sunne is to give light to all men to see by But the Sunne that giveth light doth not give eyes also The Scripture doth its work as a Morall Rule which men are not necessitated or compelled to attend unto or follow And if through their neglect of it or not attendance unto it or disability to discern the mind and will of God in it whether proceeding from their naturall impotency and blindness in their laps'd condition or some evil habit of mind contracted by their giving admission unto corrupt prejudices and Traditionall Principles the work be not effected this is no impeachment of the Scriptures sufficiency but a manifestation of their weakness and folly Besides all that unity in faith that hath been at any time or is in the world according to the mind of God every Decision that hath been made at any time of any difference in or about Religion in a right way and order hath been by the Scripture which God hath sanctified unto those ends and purposes And it is impossible that the miscarriages or defects of men can reflect the least blame upon it or make it esteemed insufficient for the end now enquired after The pursuit then of your Enquiry which now you insist upon is in part vain in part already answered In vain it is that you enquire whether the written Word can settle any man in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future Generations shall question For our enquiry is not after what may be or what shall be but what ought to be It is able to settle a man in a way that none ought to question unto the worlds end So it setled the first Christians But to secure us that none shall ever question the way whereinto it leads us that it is not designed for nor is it either needfull or possible that it should be so The Orall preaching of the Sonne of God and of his Apostles did not so secure them whom they taught The way that professed was every where questioned contradicted spoken against and many after the profession of it again renounced it And I wonder what feat you have to settle any one in a way that shall never be questioned The Authority of your Pope and Church will not do it Themselves are things as highly questioned and disputed about as any thing that was ever named with reference unto Religion If you shall say But yet they ought not to be so questioned and it is the fault of men that they are so You may well spare me the labour of answering your Question seeing you have done it your self And whereas you adde or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it when the very preceding words do not speak of a mans own setting but of the Scriptures setling the man only embracing what that setleth and determineth It is answered already that what is so setled by the Scripture and received as setled cannot justly be questioned by any And you insinuate a most irrationall Supposition on which your Assertion is built namely that Errour may have as much probability as Truth For I suppose you will grant that what is setled by the Scripture is true and therefore that which dissents from it must needs be an errour which that it may be as probable indeed as Truth for we speak not of appearances which have all their strength from our weaknesses is a new notion which may well be added to your many other of the like rarity and evidence But why is not the Scripture able to settle men in unquestionable Truth When the people of old doubted about the wayes of God wherein they ought to walk himself sends them to the Law and to the Testimony for their instruction and settlement Isa 8. 20. And we think the counsell of him who cannot deceive nor be deceived is to be hearkned unto as well as his command to be obeyed Our Saviour assures us that if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets and take direction from them for those wayes wherein they may please God they will not do it whatsoever they pretend from any other means which they rather approve of Luk. 16. 29 31. Yea and when the great Fundamental of Christian Religion concerning the Person of the Messiah was in question he sends men for their settlement unto the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. And we suppose that that which is sufficient to settle us in the foundation is so to confirm us also in the whole superstructure Especially considering that it is able to make the man of God perfect and to be thoroughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. What more is required unto the settlement of any one in Religion wee know not nor what can rationally stand in competition with the Scripture to this purpose seeing that is expresly commended unto us for it by the Holy Ghost other wayes are built on the conjectures of men Yea the Assurance which we may have hereby is preferred by Peter before that which any may have by an immediate voyce from Heaven 2 Pet. 1. 19. And is it not an unreasonable thing now for you to come and tell us that the Scripture is not sufficient
The Councell of Pisa deposed Gregory the twelfth and Benedict the thirteenth for Schismaticks and Hereticks The Councell of Constance accused John the twenty third of abominable Heresie Sess. 11. And that of Basil condemned Eugenius as one à fide devium pertinacem Haereticum Sess. 34. an erroneous Person and obstinate Heretick Other instances of the like nature might be called over manifesting that your Popes have erred and been condemned as persons erroneous and therein the Principle of their In fallibility I would be unwilling to tire your patience yet upon your reiterated desire I shall present you with one Instance more and I will do it but briefly because I must deal with you again about the same matter 5. Your Church is fallen by Idolatry as otherwise so in that Religious Veneration of Images which she useth whereunto you have added Heresie in teaching it for a Doctrine of Truth and imposing the belief of it by your Tridentine Determination on the Consciences of the Disciples of Christ. I know you would fain mince the matter and spread over the corrupt Doctrine of your Church about it with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 silken words as you do the Posts that they are made of with Gold when as the Prophetspeaks of your predecessors in that work you lavish it out of the bagge for that purpose But to what purpose Your first Councell the second of Nice which yet was not wholly yours neither for it condemns Honorius calls Thâ—rnsius the Oecumenicall Patriarch and he expounds in it the Rock on which the Church was built to be Christ and not Peter your last Councell that of Trent your Angelicall Doctor Thomas of Aquine your great Champions Bellarmine and Baronius Suarez Vasquez and the rest of them with the Catholick practise and usage of your Church in all places declare sufficiently what is your faith or rather misbelief in this matter Hence Azorius Institut Lib. 9 cap. 6. tells us that Constans est Theologorum sententia Imaginem èodem honore cultu coli quo colitur id cujus est Imago It is the constant judgement of Divines that the Image is to be worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whose Image it is The Nicene Councell by the instigation of Pope Adrian Anathematizeth every one who doth but doubt of the Adoration of Images Act. 7. Thomas contendeth that the Cross is to be worshipped with Latria p. 3. q. 25. a. 4. which is a word that he and you suppose to express Religious worship of the highest sort And your Councell of Trent in their decree about this matter confirmed the Doctrine of that Lestricall convention at Nice whose frauds and impostures were never paralleled in the world but by it's self And do you think that a few ambiguous flourishing words of you an unknown person shall make the world believe that they understand not the Doctrine and Practise of your Church which is proclaimed unto them by the Fathers and Mâ—sters of your perswasion herein and expressed in practises under their eyes every day Do you think it so easie for you Cornieum oculos configere as Cicero tells us an Atturney one Cn Flavius thought to do in going beyond all that the great Lawyers had done before him Orat. pro Muraena We cannot yet be perswaded that you are so great an Interpreter of the Roman Oracles as to believe you before all the Sages before mentioned to whom hundreds may be added And what do you think of this Doctrine and Practise of your Church Hath it been opposed judged and condemned or no The first Writers of Christianity Just In Martyr Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Arnobius Lactantius utterly abhorred the use of all Images at least in Sacris The Councell held at Elibâ—ris in Spain twâ—ve or thirteen years before the famous Assembly at Nice positively forbid all use of Pictures in Churches Can. 36. Plaquit Picturas in Ecclesia esse non debâ—re ne quod colitur adoratur in parietibus depingatur The Councell resolved that Pictures ought not to be in Churches that 〈◊〉 which is worshipâ—d and adored be not painted on walls Cyprian condemns it Epist. ad Demetriad And so generally do all the Fathers as may be gathered in the pittifull endeavours and forgeries of the second Nicene Councell endeavouring to confirm it from them Epiphanius reckons it among the errors of the Gnosticks and himself brake an Image that he found hanging in a Church Epist ad Johan Hierosol Austin was of the same judgement see Lib. de moriâ— Eccles. Cathol cap. 34. Your Adoration of them iâ— expresly condemned by Gregory the great in an Epistle to Serinus Lib. 7. Ep. 111 and Lib. 9. Epist. 9. The Greek Church condemned it in a â—ynod at Constantinople an 775. And one learned man in those last dayes undertaking its defence and indeed the only man of learning that ever did so untill of late they excommunicated and cursed him This was Damascenus concerning whom they used those expressions repeated in the second Nicene Councell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unto Mansour of an evil name and in judgement consenting with Saracens Anathema To Mansour a worshipper of Images and writer of Falshood Anathema To Mansour contumelious against Christ and traytor to the Empire Anathema To Mansour a teacher of impiety and perverse interpreter of Scripture Anathema Synod Nic. 2. Act. 6. For that it was Johannes Damascenus that they intended the Nicene Fathers sufficiently manifest in the Answer following read by Epiphanius the Deacon And this reward did he meet withall from the seventh Councell at Constantinople for his pains in asserting the veneration of Images although he did not in that particular pervert the Scripture as some of you do but laid the whole weight of his opinion on Tradition wherein he is followed by Vasquez among your selves Moreover the Western Churches in a great Councell at Frankeford in Germany utterly condemned the Nicene Determination which in your Tridentins Convention you approve and ratifie An. 794. It was also condemned here by the Church of England and the Doctrine of it fully confuted by Albinus Hoveden Annal. an 791. Never was any Heresie more publickly and solemnly condemned than this whereby your Church is fallen from its pristine purity But hereof more afterwards It were no difficult matter to procced unto all the Chief ways whereby your Church is fallen and to manifest that they have been all publickly disclaimed and condemned by the better and founder part of Professors But the Instances Insisted on may I hope prove sufficient for your satisfaction I shall therefore proceed to consider what you offer unto the remaining Principles which I conceived to animate the whole Discourse of your Fiat Lux. CHAP. V. Other Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Things not at quiet in Religion before Reformation of the first Reformers Diparture from Rome no Cause of Devisions Returnal unto Rome no means of Union YOu proceed unto the fourth Assertion
end doth so absolutely moralize an action that it of its self should render it good or evil Evil it may but good of its self it cannot For Bonum oritur ex integris causis malum ex quolibet defectu Rectifying the intention will not secure your morality And yet also on second thoughts that I see not much difference between the ends that Celsus proposed unto himself upon his generall Principle and those that you propose to your self upon your own as well as the way whereby you proceed is the same But yet upon the accounts before mentioned I shall free you from your fears of being thought like him 3. When Protestants preach against our Divisions they charge them upon the Persons of them that are guilty whereas you do it on the Principles of the Religion that they profess so that although you may deal like Celsus they do not 4. The scurrilous Sarcasm wherewith you close your Discourse is not meet for any thing but the entertainment of a Friar and his Concubine such as in some places formerly men have by publick Edicts forced you to maintain as the only Expedient to preserve their families from being defiled by you 5. Let us now pass through the Instances that you have culled out of many charged upon you to be the same with those of Celsus concerning which you make such a trebled Outcry does he does he does he The first is Doth Fiat Lux lay the cause of all Tumults and Disorders on Protestants clames licet mare coelo confundas Fiat Lux doth so chap. 4. § 17. p. 237. § 18. p. 242 243. § 20. p. 255. and in sundry other places You adde Doth he charge Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make way for other revolts He doth so and that frequently chap. 3. § 14. p. 187 c. Doth he you adde gather a Rhapsody of insignificant words as did Celsus I say he doth in the pretended plea that he insists on for Quakers and for Presbyterians also chap. 3. § 13. p. 172 173 c. Again Doth he manage the Arguments of the Jews against Christianity as was done by Celsus He doth directly expresly and at large chap. 3. § 12. p. 158. c. I confess because it may be you know it not you might have questioned the truth of my parallel on the side that concerned Celsus which yet I am ready at any time if you shall so do to give you satisfaction in but that you would question it on your own part when your whole discourse and the most of the passages in it make it so evident I could not foresee But your whole Defence is nothing but a noise or an outery to deter men from coming nigh you to see how the Case stands with you It will not serve your turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you must abide by what you have done or fairly retract it In the mean time I am glad to find you ashamed of that which elswhere you so much boast and glory in With the sixth and seventh Principles mentioned by me you deal in like manner You deny them to be yours which is plainly to deny your self to be the Author of Fiat Lux. And surely every man that hath once looked seriously into that Discourse of yours will be amazed to hear you saying that you never asserted Our Departure from Rome to be the Cause of the Evils among Protestants or that There is no Remedy for them but by a Returnal thither again which are the things that now you deny to be spoken or intended by you For my part I am now so used unto this kind of Confidence that nothing you say or deny seems strange unto me And whereas unto your Denial you adde not any thing that may give occasion unto any usefull Discourse I shall pass it by and proceed unto that which will afford us some better advantage unto that purpose CHAP. VI. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of th◠Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed THe eighth Principle which way soever it be determined is of great importance as to the Cause under debate Here then we shall stay a while and examine the difficulties which you labour to entangle that Assertion withall which we acknowledge to be the great and Fundamentall Principle of our Profession and you oppose The Position I laid down as yours is That the Scripture on sundry accounts is in sufficient to settle us in the Truth of Religio◠or to bring us to an agreement amongst our selves Hereunto I subjoyned the four heads of Reasons which in your Fiat you insisted on to make good your Assertion These you thought meet to pass by without reviving them again to your further disadvantage You are acquainted it seems with the old Rule Et quà Desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit The Position its self you dare not directly deny but yet seek what you can to wave the owning of it contrary to your express Discourse Chap. 3. § 15. p. 199 200 c. as also in sundry other places interwoven with expressions exceedingly derogatory to the Authority Excellency Efficacy and fullness of the Scripture as hath been shewed in the Animadversions But let us now consider what you plead for your self Thus then you proceed You speak not one word to the purpose or against me at all if I had delivered any such Principle Gods Word is both the sufficient and only necessary means of both our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as Vertue But the thing you heed not and unto which I only speak is this that the Scripture be in two hands for example of the Protestant Church in England and of the Puritan who with the Scripture rose up and rebelled against her Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business How shall it do it has it ever done it Or can that written Word now solitary and in private hands so settle any in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future generations shall question it or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it This is the Case unto which you do neither here nor in your whole Book speak one word and what you speak otherwise of the Scriptures excellency I allow it for Good 1. Because you are not the only Judge of what I have written nor indeed any competent Judge of it at all I shall not concern my self in the Censure which your Interest compells you to pass upon it It is left unto the thoughts of those who are more impartial 2. Setting aside your Instance pitched on ad invidiam only with some aequivocall expressions as must needs be thought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very artificially to be put into the state of a Question and that which you deny is
this that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God the Scripture is not sufficient for the Vmpirage of that Difference so that they may be reconciled and center in the Profession of the same Truth I wish you would now tell me what discrepancy there is between the Assertion which I ascribed unto you and that which your self here avow I suppose they are in substance the same and as such will be owned by every one that understands any thing of the matters about which we treat And this is so spoken unto in the Animadversions that you have no mind to undertake the examination of it but labour to divert the discourse unto that which may appear something else but indeed is not so 3. For your Distinction between Protestants and Puritans in England I know not well what to make of it I know no Puritans in England that are not Protestants though all the Protestants in England do not absolutely agree in every punctilio relating to Religion nor in all things relating unto the outward worship of God no more than did the Churches in the Apostles dayes or than your Catholicks do You give us then a Distinction like that which a man may give between the Church of Rome and the Jesuits or Dominicans or the Sons of S t. Benet or of S t Francis of Assize A Distinction or Distribution of the Genus into the Genus and one Species comprehended under it as if you should have said that Animal is either Animal or Homo 4. Though I had rather therefore that you had placed your Instance between the Church of Rome and Protestants yet because any instance of Persons that have different Apprehensions about things belonging to the worship of God will suffice us as to the present purpose I shall let it pass Only I desire you once more that when you would endeavour to render any thing way or acting of men odious that you would forbear to cast the Scripture into a Copartnership therein which here you seem to do The Puritan you say with the Scripture rose up and rebelled Rebellion is the name of an outragious Evil such as the Scripture giveth not the least Countenance unto And therefore when you think meet to charge it upon any you may do well not to say that they do it with the Scripture It will not be to your comfort or advantage so to do This is but my advice you may do as you see cause Tales Casus Cassandra canebat 5. The Differences you suppose and look upon as undeterminable by the Scripture are about things that in themselves really and in truth belong unto Christian Religion or such as do not so indeed but are only fancied by some men so to do If they are of this latter sort as the most of the Controversies which we have with you are as about your Mass Purgatory the Pope we account that all Differences about them are sufficiently determined in the Scriptures because they are no where mentioned in them And this must needs be so if the Word of God be as you here grant the sufficient and only means both of our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as in Vertue S r I had no sooner written these words in that haste wherein I treat with you but I suspected a necessity of craving your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession For whereas you had immediately before set down the Assertion supposed to be yours about the Scriptures you adde the words now mentioned Gods Word is the sufficient and only means of our Conversion and Settlement in the Truth I did not in the least suspect that you intended any Legerdemain in the business but that the Scripture and Gods Word had been only various denominations with you of the same precise Thing as they are with us Only I confess at the first view I wondred how you could reconcile this Assertion with the known Principles of your Church and besides I knew it to be perfectly destructive of your design in your following Enquiry But now I fear you play hide and seek in the ambiguity your Church hath put upon that Title Gods Word which it hath applyed unto your unwritten Traditions as well as unto the written Word as the Jews apply the same term unto their Orall Law And therefore as I said before I crave your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession wherein I fear I was mistaken and only desire you that for the future you would speak your mind plainly and candidly as it becomes a Christian and Lover of Truth to do But my Assertion I esteem never the worse though it have not the happiness to enjoy your approbation especially considering that in the particular Instances mentioned there are many things delivered in Scripture inconsistent with and destructive of your notions about them sufficient to exterminate them from the Confines of the City of God 6. Suppose the matters in difference do really belong unto Religion and the worship of God and that the Difference lyes only in mens various Conceptions of them you ask Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business What do you mean by alone of its self If you mean without mens application of themselves unto it and subjecting of their Consciences unto its Authoritative decisions neither it nor any thing else can do it The matter its self is perfectly stated in the Scripture whether any men take notice of it or no but their various apprehensions about it must be regulated by their applications unto it in the way mentioned On this only Supposition that those who are at variance about things which really appertain unto the Religion of Jesus Christ will refer the determination of them unto the Scripture and bring the Conâ—eptions of their minds to be regulated thereby standing unto its Arbitriment it is able alone and of its self to end all their differences and settle them all iu the Truth This hath been proved unto you a thousand times and confirmed by most clear Testimonies of the Scripture its self with Arguments taken from its Nature Perfection and the End of its giving forth unto men as also from the practise of our Lord Jesus and his Apostles with their directions and commands given unto us for the same Purpose from the Practise of the First Churches with innumerable Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Doctors Neither can this be denied without that horrible Derogation from its Perfection and Plenitude so reverenced by them of old which is objected unto you for your so doing Protestants suppose the Scripture to be given forth by God to be unto the Church â—a perfect Rule of that Faith and Obedience which he requires at the hands of the sons of men They suppose that it is such a Revelation of his Mind or Will as is intelligible unto all them that are concerned to know
endeavours of men in their sleep wherein great workings of spirits and Fancy produce no effects I confess notwithstanding all this others may be moderate towards you I judg it their duty so to be I desire they may be so but how you should exercise moderation towards others I cannot so well discern Only as unto the former so much more am I relieved as unto this Principle from the perswasion I have of the candour and ingenuity of many individuall Persons of your Profession which will not suffer them to be captivated under the Power of such corrupt prejudices as these And for my part if I could approve of externall force in any Case in matters of Religion it would be against the promoters of the Principle mentioned Cogendus In mores hominemque Creon When men under pretence of Zeal for Religion depose all sense of the Laws of Nature and humanity some earnestness may be justified in unteaching them their untoward Catechisms which lye indeed not only against the design Spirit Principles and letter of the Gospell but Terrarum leges mundi foedera the very foundations of Reason on which men coalesce into civill society But as we observed before out of one of the Anfients Force hath no place in or about the Law of Christ one way or other That which gave occasion unto this Discourse was your insinuation of the Scriptures Insufficiency for the settlement of men in the Unity of Faith the contrary whereof being the great Principle of Protestancy I was willing a little to enlarge my self unto the consideration of your Principles and ours not only with reference unto the Vnity of Faith but also as unto that moderation which you pretend to plead for and the want whereof you charge on Protestants premising it unto the ensuing discourse wherein you will meet with a full and a direct Answer unto your Question CHAP. VII Vnity of Faith wherein it consists Principles of Protestants as to the setling men in Religion and Vnity of Faith proposed and confirmed THe next thing proposed as a Good to be aymed at is Vnity in Faith and settlement or infallible assurance therein This is a Good desireable for its self whereas the moderation treated of is only a medium of relief against other evils untill this may be attained And therefore though it be upon supposition of our Differences earnestly to be endeavoured after yet it is not to be rested in as though the utmost of our Duty consisted in it and we had no prospect beyond it It is a Catholick Vnity in Faith which all Christians are to aym at and so both you and wee profess to doe only wee differ both about the Nature of it and the proper means of attaining it For the Nature of it you conceive it to consist in the explicit or implicit belief of all things and Doctrines determined on taught and proposed by your Church be believed and nothing else with faith supernaturall but what is so taught and proposed But this description of the Vnity of Faith wee can by no means admit of 1. Because it is Novel it hath no footstep in any writings of the Apostles nor of the first Fathers or Writers of the Church nor in the practice of the Disciples of Christ for many Ages That the Determination of the Roman Church and its proposall of things or Articles to be believed should be the adequate Rule of Faith unto all Believers is a matter as forreign unto all Antiquity as that the Prophesies of Montanus should be so 2. Because it makes the Unity of Faith after the full and last Revelation of the Will of God flux alterable and unstable lyable to increase and decrease whereas it is uniform constant alwayes the same in all Ages times and places since the finishing of the Canon of the Scriptures For we know and all the world knows that your Church hath determined many things lately some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were but yesterday to be believed which its self had never before determined and so hath increased the Rule of Faith moved its Center and extended its Circumference and what she may further determine and propose to morrow no man knows and your duty it is to be ready to believe whatever she shall so propose whereby you cannot certainly know unto your dying day whether you do believe all that may belong to the Vnity of Faith or no. Nay 3. your Church hath determined and proposed to be believed express Contradictions which Determinations abiding on record you are not agreed which of them to adhere unto as is manifest in your Conciliary Decrees about the Power of the Pope and the Councill unto which of them the preheminence is due Now this is a strange Rule of the Unity of Faith that is not only capable of encrease changes and alterations so that that may belong unto it one day which did not belong unto it another as is evident from your Tridentine Decrees wherein you made many things necessary to be believed which before were esteemed but probable and were the subjects of Sophisticall altercations in your Schools but also comprizeth in its self express Contradictions which cannot at all belong unto faith because both of them may be false one of them must be so nor to Vnity because Contrary and adverse 4. Whereas holding the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace or the Unity of faith is so great and important a Duty unto all Christians that they can no way discharge their Consciences unto God without a well grounded satisfaction that they live in the performance of it this description of its Nature renders it morally impossible for any man explicitly to know and that only a man knows which he knows explicitly that he doth answer his Duty herein For 1. the Determinations of your Church of things to be believed are so many and various that it is not within the Compass of an ordinary Diligence and ability to search and find them out Nor when a man hath done his utmost can he obtain any tolerable security that there have not other Determinations been made that he is not as yet come to an acquaintance with all or that he ever shall so do and how in this Case he can have any satisfactory perswasion that he keeps the Unity of Faith is not as yet made evident 2. In the Determinations he may meet withall or by any means come to the knowledge of he is to receive and believe the things determined and proposed unto him in the sense intended by the Church or else he is never the nearer to his end But what that sense is in the most of your Churches proposals your Doctors do so endlesly quarrell among themselves that it is impossible a man should come unto any great Certainty in his enquiry after it yet a precise meaning in all her proposals your Church must have o◠she hath none at all What shall a man do when he comes
believed to belong to the Unity of Faith Lastly The Determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient Cause of your Unity now these not being absolutely infallible leave it like Delos flitting up and down in the Sea of Probabilities only This we shall manifest unto you immediately at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons nor slable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her Determinations At present it shall suffice to mind you that she hath Determined Contradictions and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by namely by Councils confirmed by Popes and an infallible determination of Contradictions is not a Notion of any easie digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits We confess then that we cannot agree with you in your Rule of the Unity of Faith though the thing its self we press after as our Duty For 2. Protestants do not conceive this Vnity to consist in a precise Determination of all Questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging unto the Faith whether it be made by your Church or any other way Your Thomas of Aquine who without question is the best and most sober of all your School Doctors hath in one Book given us 522 Articles of Religion which you esteem mraculously stated Quot Articuli tot Miracula All these have at least five Questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them which amount unto 2610 Conclusions in matters of Religion Now we are farre from thinking that all these Determinations or the like belong unto the Unity of Faith though much of the Religion amongst some of you lyes in not dissenting from them The Questions that your Bellarmine hath determined and asserted the Positions in them as of faith and necessary to be believed are I think neer 40 times as many as the Articles of the antient Creed of the Church and such as it is most evident that if they be of the nature and importance pretended it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the Vnity of Faith That a man believe in generall that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God and that all things proposed therein for him to believe are therefore infallibly true and to be as such believed and that in particular he believe every Article or point of Truth that he hath sufficient means for his instruction in and conviction that it is so revealed they judg to be necessary unto the holding of the Unity of Faith And this also they know that this sufficiency nf means unto every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures extends its self unto all those Articles of Truth which are necessary for him to believe so as that he may yield unto God the obedience that he requireth receive the holy Spirit of promise and be accepted with God Herein doth that Vnity of Faith which is amongst the Disciples of Christ in the world consist and ever did nor can do so in any thing else Nor doth that variety of Apprehensions that in many things is found among the Disciples of Christ and ever was render this Vnity like that you plead for various and incertain For the Rule and formall Reason of it namely Gods Revelation in the Scripture is still one and the same perfectly unalterable And the severall degrees that men attain uuto in their Apprehensions of it doth no more reflect a charge of variety upon it than the difference of Seeing as to the severall degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes doth upon the Light given by the Sunne The Truth is if there was any common measure of the Assents of men either as to the intension of it as it is subjectively in their minds or extension of it as it respecteth Truths revealed that belonged unto the Vnity of Faith it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world at least that any such thing should be known to be Only this I acknowledg that it is the Duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the Truths revealed in the word of God wherein the Glory of God and the Christians Duty are concerned as also to a joynt consent in Faith objective or propositions of Truth revealed at least in things of most importance though their faith subjective or the internal assent of their minds have as it will have in severall Persons various degrees yea in the same Persons it may be at different seasons And in our labouring to come up unto this joynt-acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed Truths consists our endeavour after that perfection in the Vnity of Faith which in this life is attainable as our moderation doth in our walking in peace and love with and towards others according to what we have already attained We may distinguish then between that Unity of Faith which an interest in gives Vnion with Christ unto them that hold it and Communion in Love with all equally interested therein and that Accomplishment of it which gives a sameness of Profession and consent in all acts of outward Communion in the worship of God The first is found in and amongst all the Disciples of Christ in the world where-ever they are the latter is that which moreover it is your Duty to press after The former consists in an Assent in generall unto all the Truths of God revealed in the Scripture and in particular unto them that we have sufficient means to evidence them unto us to be so revealed The latter may come under a double consideration for either there may be required unto it in them who hold it the joynt perception of and assent unto every Truth revealed in the Scripture with an equall degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception and it is not in this life wherein the best of us know but in part attainable or only such a concurrence in an assent unto the necessary Propositions of Truth as may enable them to hold together that outward Communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned And this is certainly attainable by the wayes and means that shall immediately be layed down And where this is there is the Vnity of Faith in that compleatness which we are bound to labour for the attainment of This the Apostolicall Churches enjoyed of old and unto the recovery whereof there is nothing more prejudiciall than your new stating of it upon the account of your Churches Proposals This Unity of Faith we judg good and necessary and that it is our Duty to press after it So also in generall do you It remains then that we consider what is the way what are the means and Principles that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it that is in answer
to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
quiver are these arrows taken Is this fair sober Candid Christian dealing have you no way to defend the Authority of your Church but by Questioning the Authority of the Scripture Did ever any of the Fathers of old or any in the world before your selves take this course to plead their interests in any thing they professed Is this Practice Catholick or like many of your Principles singular your own Donatisticall Is it any great sign that you have an interest in that living Child when you are so ready he should be destroyed rather than you would be cast in your Contest with Protestants 2. Do you think that this course of proclaiming to Atheists Turks and Pagans that the Scripture which all Christians maintain against them to be the Word of the Living GOD given by inspiration from Him and on which the Faith of all the Martyrs who have suffered from their opposition rage and cruelty and of all others that truly believe in Jesus Christ was and is founded and whereinto it is resolved hath no Arguments of its Divine Original implanted on it no lines of the Excellencies and Perfections of its Author drawn on it no power or efficacy towards the Consciences of men evidencing its Authority over them no ability of its self to comfort and support them in their tryals and sufferings with the hope of things that are not seen Is this think you an acceptable service unto the Lord Christ who will one day judg the secrets of all hearts according unto that Word or Is it not really to expose Christian Religion to scorn and contempt And do you find so much sweetness in Delus an Virtus quis in hoste requirat as to cast off all Reverence of God and his Word in the pursuit of the supposed Adversaries of your earthly Interests 3. If your Arguments and Objections are effectuall and privalent unto the end for which you intend them will not your direct issue be the utter overthrow of the very foundation of the whole Profession of Christians in the world And are you like Sampson content to pull down the house that must fall upon your selves also so that you may stifle Protestants with its sall It may be it were well you should do so were it an house of Dagon a Temple dedicated unto Idols but to deal so with that wherein dwels the Majesty of the Living GOD is not so justifiable It is true Evert this Principle and you overthrow the foundation on which the faith of Protestants is built but it is no less true that you do the same to the foundation of the Christian Faith in generall wherein wee hope your own concernment also lyes And this is the thing that I am declaring unto you namely that either you acknowledg the Principles on which Protestants build their Faith and Profession or by denying them you open a door unto Atheism at least to the extirpation of Christian Religion out of the world I confess you pretend a relief against the present instance in the Authority of your Church sufficient as you say to give a Credibility unto the Scriptures though its own self-evidencing Power and Efficacy with the Confirmation of it by Catholick Tradition exclusive to your present suffrage be rejected Now I suppose you will grant that the Prop you supply men withall upon your casting down the foundations on which they have laid the weight of their eternall Salvation had need be firm and immoveable And remember that you have to do with them who though they may be otherwise inclineable unto you Non tamen ignorant quid distent aera a lupinis and must use their own judgement in the Consideration of what you tender unto them And they Ask you 1. What will you do if it be as you say with them who absolutely reject the Authority of your Châ—â—ch which is the condition of more than a moyety of the Inhabitants of the world to speak sufficiently within compass And 2. What will you advise us to say to innumerable other Persons that are pious and rational who upon the meer consideration of the lives of many of the most of the guides of your Church your bloody inhumane practices your pursuit of worldly carnall designs your visible secular interest wherein you are combined and united cannot perswade themselves that the Testimony of your Church in and about things that are invisible spirituall heavenly and eternall is at all valuable much less that it is sufficient to bear the weight you would lay upon it 3. Was not this the way and method of Vaninus for the Introduction of his Atheism first to question sleight and sophistically except against the old approved Arguments and Evidences manifesting the beeing and existence of a Divine self-subsisting Power substituting in their room for the confirmation of it his own Sophisms which himself knew might be easily discussed and disproved Do you deal any better with us in decrying the Scripture's self-evidencing Efficacy with the Testimony given unto it by God himself substituting nothing in the room thereof but the Authority of your Church A man certainly can take up nothing upon the sole Authority of your Church untill contrary to the pretensions Reasons and Arguments of far a greater number of Christians than your selves he acknowledge you to be a true Church at least if not the only Church in the world Now how I pray will you bring him into that state and condition that he may rationally make any such judgement How will you prove unto him that there is any such thing as a Church in the World that a Church hath any Authority that its Testimony can make any thing credible or meet to be believed You must prove these things to him or whatever assent he gives unto what you say is from fanaticall credulity To suppose that he should believe you upon your word because you are the Church is to suppose that he believes that which you are yet but attempting to induce him to believe If you persist to press him without other proof not only to believe what you first said unto him but also even this that whatever you shall say to him hereafter that he must believe it because you say it Will not any rationall man nauseate at your unreasonable importunity and tell you that men who have a mind to be befooled may meer with such Alchymisticall pretenders all the world over Will you perswade him that you are the Church and that the Church is furnished with the Authority mentioned by rational Arguments I wish you would inform me of any one that you can make use of that doth not include a Supposition of something unproved by you and which can never be proved but by your own Authority which is the thing in Question or the immediate Authority of God which you reject A number indeed of pretences or it may be Probabilities you may heap together which yet upon examination will not be found so much neither unless a
and compleat that is sufficient to enable a man to know so much of God his Mind and Will and to direct him so in his Worship and Obedience unto him as that he may please him here and come to the fruition of him hereafter it must needs become an evident means of deceiving him and ruining him and that to all eternity And the least fear of any such event overthrows all the notions which he had before entertained of those blessed Properties of the Divine Nature and so consequently disposeth him unto Atheism For if a man hath once received the Scripture as the Word of God and that given unto him to be his guide unto Heaven by God himself if one shall come to him and tell him Yea but it is not a perfect Guide but though you should attend sincerely to all the Directions that it gives you yet you may come short of your Duty and Expectation you may neither please God here nor come to the fruition of Him hereafter In case he should assent unto this suggestion can he entertain any other thoughts of God but such as our first Parents did when by attendance unto the false insinuations of the old Serpent they cast off his Soveraignty and their dependance on him Neither can you relieve him against such thoughts by your pretended Traditionall supply seeing it will still be impossible for him to look on this Revelation of the Will of God as imperfect and insufficient for the End for which it plainly professeth its self to be given forth by him without some intrenchment on those notions of his Nature which he had before received For it will presently occurr unto him that seeing this way of revealing himself for the Ends mentioned is good and approved of Himself so to be if he hath not made it compleat for that end it was either because he could not and where then is his Wisdome or because he would not and where then is his Love Care and Goodness and seeing he saith he hath done what you would have him to believe that he hath not done where is his Truth and Veracity Certainly a man that seriously ponders what he hath to do and knows the vanity of an irrationall fanatical Credo will conclude that either the Scripture is to be received as Perfect or not to be received at all 2. Protestants conclude hence That the Scripture given of God for this purpose is intelligible unto men using the means by God appointed to come to the understanding of his Mind and Will therein I know many of your way are pleased grievously to mistake our intention in this Infêrence and Conclusion Sometimes they would impose upon us to say that All places of Scripture all words and sentences in it are plain and of an obvious sense and easie to be understood And yet this you know or may know if you please and I am sure ought to know before you talk of these things with us that we absolutely deny It is one thing to say that all necessary Truth is plainly and clearly revealed in the Scripture which we do say and another that every text and passage in the Scripture is plain and easie to be understood which we do not say nor ever thought as confessing that to say so were to contradict our own experience and that of the Disciples of Christ in all ages Sometimes you faign as though we asserted all the things that are revealed in the Scripture to be plain and obvious to every mans understanding whereas we acknowledge that the things themselves revealed are many of them mysterious surpassing the comprehension of any man in this world and only maintain that the propositions wherein the Revelation of them is made are plain and intelligible unto them that use the means appointed of God to come to a right understanding of them And sometimes you would commit this with another Principle of ours whereby we assert that the supernaturall Light of Grace to be wrought in our hearts by the Holy Ghost is necessary to give unto us a saving perception and understanding of the Mind of God in the Scripture for what needs such speciall assistance in so plain a matter as though the asserting of perspicuity in the object made ability to discern in the subject altogether unnecessary Or that he who affirms the Sun to give light doth at the same time affirm also that men have no need of eyes to see it withall Besides we know there is a vast difference between a notionall speculative apprehension and perception of the meaning and Truth of the Propositions contained in the Scripture which we acknowledge that every reasonable unprejudiced Person may attain unto and a gracious saving spirituall perception of them and assent unto them with faith Divine and Supernatural and this we say is the especiall work of the Holy Ghost in the hearts of the Elect. And I know not how many other exceptions you make to keep your selves from a right understanding of our intention in this Inference but as your self elsewhere learnedly observes who so blind as he that will not see I shall therefore once more that we may proceed declare unto you what it is that we intend in this Assertion It is namely that the things which are revealed in the Scripture to the end that by the belief of them and obedience unto them we may please God are so proposed and declared that a man any man free from prejudices and temptations in and by the use of the means appointed him of God for that purpose may come to the understanding and that infallibly of all that God would have him know or do in Religion there being no defect or hinderance in the Scripture or manner of its revealing things necessary that should obstruct him therein What are the means appointed of God for this purpose we do not now enquire but shall anon declare What defect blindness or darkness there is or may be in and upon the minds of men in their depraved lapsed Condition what disadvantages they may be cast under by their prejudices Traditions negligences sins and prophaneness belongs not unto our present disquisition That which we assert concerns meerly the manner of the proposall of the Truths to be believed which are revealed in the Scripture and this we say is such as that there is no impossibility no nor great difficulty but that a man may come to the right understanding of them not as to the comprehension of the things themselves but the perception of the sense of the Propositions wherein they are expressed And this Assertion of ours is as the former grounded on the Scripture its self See if you please Deut. 30. 11. Psal. 1. 19. 9. and 119. 105. Prov. 6. 22. 2 Cor. 4. 3. 2 Pet. 19. And to deny it is to pluck up all Religion by the roots and to turn men loose unto Scepticism Libertinism and Atheism and that with such an horrible reproach unto God
involve the whole interest of Christianity in its ruine Where is the defect where the hinderance why all men upon these Principles however differing at present may not come to a full Settlement and Agreement I hope you will find none but what are in them selves and for them ipsi-viderint the Scripture is blameless Here is Certainty of Revelation from God Fullness of that Revelation as to our Duty Clearness and perspicuity for our understanding of it Means appointed and sanctified for that end what I pray is wanting All Truths wherein it is the Duty of men to agree are fixed and stated so that it can never be lawfull for any man in any generation to call any of them into question plain and evident that no man can mistake the mind of God in them in things wherein his Duty is concerned without his own crime and guilt You will say then it may be But why then do not men agree why do you not agree among your selves but I would hope that it is scarcely possible for any man to be so ignorant of the Condition of mankind and amongst them of the best of men as seriously to ask this Question Are not all men naturally blind in the things of God Do not the best of men know only in part have not the different tempers constitutions and Educations of men a great influence upon their understandings and judgements Besides do not Lusts Corruptions Carnall Interests and Respect unto Worldly things bear sway sin the minds of many that profess Christian Religion Are not many prepossessed with prejudices traditions customes and usages against the Truth And are not these things and the like sufficient to keep up variance in the world without the least suspition of any disability in the Scripture to bring them to an holy agreement and immoveable Settlement Neither is there any other way for men to come unto Settlement and Agreement in Religion according to the mind of God but that only which hath been now proposed and this they will come unto when all men shall be perswaded to captivate their understandings to the obedience of Faith I deny not but that by outward force and compulsion by supine negligence of their own concernments by refusing to btehink themselves and such other wayes and means some men may come to some Agreement amongst themselves in the things of Religion But this Agreement we say is not of God it is not built upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of faith towards God and so is of no esteem with him That such is all the Vnity which on your Principles you are able to bring men unto wee shall manifest in our next Discourse For the present I dare challenge you or any man in the world to question or oppose any one of the Principles before laid down and which whilest they stand firm it is evident unto all how the Scripture is able to seâ—tle men unquestionably in the Truth and that for ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall close this Discourse with a passage out of Chrysostome which fully confirms all that I have asserted it is in Homil 33. in Act. Apost Chap. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What shall wee say unto the Gentiles A Gentile cometh and faith I would be a Christian but I know nat unto whom amongst you I should adhere Let us hear the reasons of his haesitation saith hee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There are many contentions seditions and tumults amongst you what opinion to choose I know not every one sayes I am in the Truth and I am utterly ignorant of what is in the Scripture about these things Do you know whose Objections these are and by whom they have been lately mannaged Will you hear what Chrysostome answers Saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This makes wholly for us for if wee should say that wee believe on probable reasonings thou maist justly be troubled but seeing wee profess that we believe in the Scriptures which are plain and true it is easie for thee to judg and determine He that yeilds his consent unto them he is a Christian and he that contends against them is farre from the Rule of Christianity And in the process of his Discourse which is well worth the perusall before you write any more familiar Epistles he requires no more of a man to settle him in the Truth but that he receive the Scripture and have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a mind and judgment to use in the consideration of it It remaineth now that wee consider what it is that you propose unto men to bring them unto a Settlement in Religion and all Christians to the Vnity of Faith with the Principles that you proceed upon to that purpose which because I would not too far lengthen out this Discourse I shall refer to the next Chapter CHAP. VIII Principles of Papists whereon they proceed in bringing men to a Settlement in Religion and the Vnity of Faith examined YOur Plea to this purpose is blended with a double pretence of Pope and Church Sometimes you tell us of the Pope and his succession to S t Peter And sometimes of the Church and its Authority Sometimes you speak as if both these were one and the same And sometimes you seem to distinguish them Some of you lay most weight upon the Papall suceession and Infallibility and some on the Churches Jurisdiction and Authority I shall crave leave to take your pleas a-sunder and first to consider what force they have in them as unto the End whereunto they are applied severally and apart and then see what in their joint concurrence they can contribute thereunto And what ever you think of it I suppose this course of proceeding will please ingenuous persons and Lovers of Truth because it enables them to take a distinct view of the things whereon they are to give judgment Whereas in your handling of them something you suppose something you insinuate something you openly averr yet so confound them with other heterogenious Discourses that it can hardly be discerned what grounds you build upon A way of proceeding which as it argues a secret guilt and fear of bringing forth your Principles to Light so a gross kind of Sophistry exploded by all Masters of Reason whatsoever They would not have us fumum ex fulgore sed ex fumo dare lucem darken things clear and perspicuous in themselves but to make things dark and confused perspicuous And the Orator tells us that Epicurus his discourse was ambiguous because his Sententia was inhonesta his Opinion shamefull And to what purpose should any one contend with you about such generall ambiguous expressions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall then begin with the Pope and his Infallibility because you seem to lay most weight thereon and tell us plainly pag. 379 of your Fiat Edit 2 d That if the Pope be not an unerring guide in Affairs of Religion all is lost
God in his Word than unto these Principles of yours is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholick Church that is of Christianity for they are the same To make good your judgement and censure then you vent endless Cavils against the Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scriptures pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their viâ—dication This rope of Sand composed â— false suppositions groundless presumptions inconsequent inferences in all which there is not one word of infallible Truth at least that you can any way make appear so to be is the great Bond you use to gird men withall into the Unity of Faith In brief you tell us that if wee will all submit to the Pope wee shall be sure all to agree But this is no more but as I have before told you what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition It is not a meer agreement wee aym at but an agreement in the Truth not a meer Vnity but a Unity of Faith and Faith must be built on Principles infallible or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not Faith carnall imagination not Christian belief otherwise wee may agree in Turcism or Judaism or Paganism as well as in Christianity and to as good purpose Now what of this kind do you tender unto us Would you have us to leave the sure word of Prophesie more sure than a voyce from Heaven the Light shining in the dark places of this world which wee are commanded to attend unto by God himself the Holy Scripture given by Inspiration which is able to make us wise unto Salvation the Word that is perfest sure right converting the Soul enlightning the eyes making wise the simple whose observation is attended with great reward to give heed yea to give up all our Spirituall and eternall concernments to the credit of old groundless uncertain Stories inevident presumptions fables invented for and openly improved unto carnal secular and wicked ends Is your request reasonable Would wee could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter especially considering â—the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your Principles unto Christianity in generall For if it be so that S t Peter had such an Episcopacy as you talk of and that a continuance of it in a Succession by the Bishops of Rome be of that indispensable necessity unto the preservation of Christian Religion as is pretended many men considering the nature and quality of that Succession how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed what place formerly popular Suffrage and the Imperial Authority have had in it how it came to be devolved on a Conclave of Cardinals what violence and tumults have attended one way what briberies and filthy respects unto the lusts of unclean Persons the other what Interruptions the Succession it self hath had by vacancies Schisms and contests for the place and uncertainty of the Person that had the best right unto the Popedome according to the customes of the dayes wherein he lived and that many of the Persons who have had a place in the pretended Succession have been plainly men of the world such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ yea open enemies unto his Cross would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many Ages ago in the world which certainly would not much promote the Settlement in Truth and Unity of Faith that we are enquiring after And this is the first way that you propose to supply that Defect which you charge upon the Scripture that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about Religion and settle them in the Truth And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men unto a Certainty and Scttlement in the Truth you need not despair of compassing and thing that you shall have a mind to attempt But you have yet another Plea which you make no less use of than of the former which must therefore be also now you have engaged us in this work a little examined This is the Church its Authority and Infallibilâ—ty The truth is when you come to make a practical Application of this Plea unto your own use you resolve it into and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope in whom solely many of you would have this Authority and Infallibility of the Church to reside Yet because in your mannagement of it you proceed on other Principles than those before mentioned this pretence also shall be apart considered And here you tell us 1. That the Church was before the Scripture and giveth Authority unto it By the Scriptures you know that wee understand the Word of God with this â—ne Adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment We do not say that it belongs unto the Essence of the Word of God that it be written Whatever is spoken by God wee admit as his Word when wee are infallibly assured that by Him it was spoken and that wee should do so before himself doth not require at our hands for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name Therefore wee grant that the Word of God was given out for the Rule of men in his Worship two thousand years before it was written but it was so given forth as that they unto whom it came had infallible assurance that from Him it came and his Word it was And if you or any man else can give us such assurance that any thing is or hath been spoken by him besides what we have now written in the Scripture wee shall receive it with the same faith and obedience wherewith wee receive the Scripture its self Whereas therefore you say That the Church was before the Scripture if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world before the word of God was written wee grant it true but not at all to your purpose If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God which at an appointed time was written it may possibly be wrested unto your purpose but is farre from being true seeing the Church is a society of men called to the knowledg and worship of God by his Ward They become a Church by the call of that Word which it seems you would have not given untill they are a Church of Effects produce their Causes Children beget their Parents Light brings forth the Sunne and Heat the Fire So are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church whereof the Pope is the Corner stone So was the Judaical Church before the Law of iâ— constitution and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded and the Word of Command by which it was edified In brief from the day wherein Man was first created upon the earth to the days wherein we live never did a Person or
it partly in a repetition in other words of what you had before insisted on The former I shall no further endeavour to disturb your contentment in It is a common error Neque est quisquam Quem non in aliquare videre Suffenum Possis I am not your Rivall in the admiration of it and shall therefore leave you quietly in the embracements of your Darling And for the latter we have had enough of it already and so by this time I hope you think also The close only of your Discourse is considerable and therefore I shall transcribe it for your second thoughts And it is this But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of the Scripture I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to come I have conversed with the Roman Catholicks of France â—â—anders and Germany I have read more of your Books both Histories Contemptative and Scholastical Divines thâ—n I believe you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the Colledges of Sacred Priests and Religious houses I have communed with all sort of people and perused their Counsells And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to Scripture is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish Holy Writ Let us not wrong the innocent The Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their Cause when he sees time What you mention of your own diligence and atchievements what you have done where you have been what you have seen and discoursed I shall not trouble you about It may be as to your souls health Tutior poter as esse domi But yet for all the report that you are pleased to make of your self it is not hard to discern that you and I Nec pondera rerum Nec momenta sumus And notwithstanding your Writings it would have been very difficult for any man to have guessed at your great reading had you not satisfied us by this your own information of it It may be if you had spared some of the time which you have spent in the reading of your Catholick Books unto the study of the Scripture it had not been unto your disadvantage In the mean time there is an Hyperbole in your confidence a little too evident For it is possable that I may and true that I have seen more of your Authors in half an hour then you can read I think in an hundred years unless you intend alwayes to give no other account of your reading then you have done in your Fiat and Epistola But we are weary of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quin tu alium quaer as quoi centones farcias But to pass by this boasting there are two parts of your Discourse the one concerning the faith the other expressing the Charity of Roman Catholicks The first contains what respect you would be thought to have for the Scripture the latter what you really have for all other Christians besides your selves As to the former you tell me that I speak of the Papists contempt of the Scripture and desire me to abstain from it for the time to come Whither I have used that expression anywhere of contempt of the Scripture well I know not But whereas I look upon you as my friend at least for the good advice I have frequently given you I have deserved that you should be so and therefore shall not deny you any thing that I can reasonably grant and whereas I cannot readily comply with you in your present request as to the alteration of my mind in reference unto the respect that Papists bear unto the Scriptures I esteem my self obliged to give you some account of the reasons why I persist in my former thoughts which I hope as is usual in such cases you will be pleased to take in friendly part For besides Sir that you back your request with nothing but some overconfident asseverations subscribed with teste meipso I have many reasons taken from the practice and Doctrine of your Church that strongly induce me to abide in my former perswasion As 1. You know that in these and the neighbouring Nations Papists have publickly burned the Scriptures and destroyed more Copies of them then ever Antiochus Epiphanes did of the Jewish Law And if you should go about to prove unto me that Protestants have no great regard to Sacred Images that have been worshipped because in these and the neighbouring Nations they brakes and burned a great number of them I should not readily know what to answer you Nor can I entertain any such confidence of your abilities as to expect from you a satisfactory answer unto my instance of the very same nature manifesting what respect Papists bear unto the Scriptures 2. You know that they have imprisoned and burned sundry persons for keeping the Scripture in their houses or some parts of them and reading them for their instruction and comfort Nor is this any great sign of respect unto them no more then it is of mens respect to treason or murder because they hang them up who are guilty of them And 3. Your Church prohibiteth the reading of them unto Lay-men unless in some special cases some few of them be licenced by you so to do and you study sweat for arguments to prove the reading of them needless and dangerous putting them as translated into the Catalogue of Books prohibited Now this is the very mark and stamp that your Church sets upon these books which she disapproves and discountenanceth as pernicious to the faithful 4. Your Councel of Trent hath decreed that your unwritten Traditions are to be received with the same faith and veneration as the Scripture constituting them to be one part of the Word of God and the Scriptures another then which nothing could be spoken more in contempt of it or in reproach unto it For I must assure you Protestants think you cannot possibly contract a greater guilt by any contempt of the Scripture then you do by reducing it into order with your unwritten Traditions 5. You have added Books not only written with an humane and fallible Spirit but farced with actual mistakes and falshoods unto the Canon of the Scripture giving just occasion unto them who receive it from you only to question the Authority of the whole And 6. You teach the Authority of the Scripture at least in respect of us which is all it hath for Authority is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must regard some in relation unto whom it doth consist depends on the Authority of your Church the readiest way in the world to bring it into Contempt with them that know what your Church is and what it hath been And 7. You plead that it is very obscure and unintelligible of its self and that in things of the
greatest moment and of most indispensible necessity unto Salvation whereby you render it perfectly useless according to the old Rule Quod non potest intelligi debet negligi it is fit that should be neglected which cannot be understood And 8. There is a book lately written by one of your party after you have been frequently warned and told of these things entituled Fiat Lux giving countenance unto many other hard reflections upon it as hath been manifested in the Animadversions written on that Book 9. Your great Masters in their writings have spoken very contemptuously of it whereof I shall give you a few instances The Council of Trent which is properly yours determines as I told you that their Traditions are to be received and venerated pari pietatis affectu reverentia with an equal affection of piety and reverence as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament which is a setting up of the Altar of Damascus with that of God himself in the same Temple Sess. 4. Dec. 1. And Andradius no small part of that Convention in his defence of that Decree tells us that cum Christus fragilitati memoriae Evangelio scripto succurrendum putavit it a breve compendium libris tradi voluit ut pars maxima tanquam magni precii thesaurus traditionibus intimis Ecclesiae visceribus infixis relicta fuerit As our Lord Christ thought meet to relieve the frailty of memory by the written Gospel so he would have a short compendium or abridgement committed unto books that the greatest part as a most precious treasure might be left unto Traditions fixed in the very inward bowels of the Church This is that cordial and absolute respect even unto admiration that your Catholicks bear unto the Scripture And he that doth not admire it seems to me to be very stupid It contains some small part of the mysteries of Christian Religion the great treasure of them lying in your Traditions and thereupon he concludes Canonem seu Regulam fidei exactissimam non esse Scripturam sed Ecclesiae judicium that the Canon or most exact Rule of Faith is not the Scripture but the judgement of the Church Much to the same purpose as you plead in your Fiat and Epistola Pighius another Champion of your Church Ecclesiast Hierarch Lib. 1. c. 4. after he hath given many reasons to prove the obscurity of the Scripture with its flexibility to every mans sense as you know who also hath done and referred all things to be determined by the Church concludes Si hujus Doctrinae memores fuissemus haereticos scilicet non esse informandos vel convincendos ex Scripturis meliore same loco essent res nostrae sed dum ostentandi ingenii eruditionis gratia cum Luthero in certamen discenditur Scripturarum excitatum est hoc quod proh dolor nunc videmus incendium Had we been mindful of this Doctrine that Hereticks are not to be instructed nor convinced out of the Scriptures our affairs had been in a better condition then now they are but whilest some to shew their wit and learning would needs contend with Luther out of the Scriptures the fire which we now with grief behold was kindled and stirred up And it may be you remember who it was that called the Scripture Evangelium nigrum and Theologiam atramentariam seeing he was one of the most famous champions of your Church and Cause But before we quite leave your Council of Trent we may do well to remember the advice which the Fathers of it who upon the stirs in Germany removed unto Bononia gave to the Pope Julius the third which one that was then amongst them afterwards published Denique say they in their letters to him quod inter omnia consilia quae nos hoc tempore dare possumus omnium gravissimum ad extremum reservavimus Oculi hic aperiendi sunt omnibus nervis adnitendum erit ut quam minimum Evangelii poterit praesertim vulgari lingua in iis legatur Civitatibus quae sub tua ditione potestate sunt sufficiatque tantillum illud quod in missa legi solet nec eo amplius cuiquam mortalium legere liceat Quam diu enim pauculo illo homines contenti fuerunt tam diu res tuae ex sententia successêre â—aedemq in contrarium labi caeperunt ex quo ulterius legi vulgo usurpatum est Hic ille in summa Est liber qui praeter caeteros hasce nobis tempestates ac turbines conciliavit quibus prope abreptisumus Et sane siquis illum diligenter expendat deinde quae in nostris fieri ecclestis consueverunt singula ordine contempletur videbis plurimum inter se dissidere hanc doctrinam nostram ab illa prorsus diversam esse ac saepe contrariam etiam Quod simul atque homines intelligant à docto scilicet aliquo adversariorum stimulati nou ante clamandi finem faciunt quam rem plane omnem divulgaverint nosque invisos omnibus reddiderint Quare occultandae pauculae illae chartulae sed abhibita quadam cautione diligentia ne ea res majores nobis turbas ac tumultus excitet Last of all that which is the most Weighty of all the advices which that at this time we shall give unto you we have reserved for the close of all Your eyes are here to be opened you are to endeavour with the utmost of your power that as little as may be of the Gospel especially in any vulgar tongue be read in those Cities which are under your government and Authority but let that little suffice them which is wont to be read in the Mass of which mind you also know who is neither let it be lawful for any man to read any more of it For as long as men were contented with that little your affairs were as prosperous as heart could desire and began immediately to decline upon the custome of reading any more of it This is in brief that book which above all others hath procured unto us those tempests and storms wherewith we are almost carryed away headlong And the Truth is if any one shall diligently consider it and then seriously ponder on all the things that are accustomed to be done in our Churches he will find them to be very different the one from the other and our Doctrine to be divers from the Doctrine thereof yea and oftentimes plainly contrary unto it Now this when men begin to understand being stirred up by some learned man or other amongst the adversaries they make no end of clamouring until they have divulged the whole matter and rendred us hateful unto all Wherefore those few sheets of Paper are to be hid but with caution and diligence least their concealment should stir us up greater troubles This is fair and open being a brief summary of that admiration of the Scriptures which so abounds in Catholick Countreys That Hermannus one of some account in your Church affirmed that the
what and you seem both in your Fiat and in your Epistola to obscure it as much as you are able 1. You call it an incruent Sacrifice which 1. Shews only what it is not and that in one only instance which is a very lame description of any thing and this also may be affirmed of any Metaphorical Sacrifice what ever as offering unto God the calves of our lips it is an incruent Sacrifice 2. Your Expression implyes a contradiction Every proper Propitiatory Sacrifice was bloody and an incruent proper Sacrifice such as you would have this to be is a proper improper Propitiatory Sacrifice 2. You say it was instituted by our Lord to figure out his Passion 1. This is a weighty proof of what you have in hand being the only thing to be proved 2. I suppose in the examination of it it will appear that you Sacrifice that very body and blood of Christ in your own conceits which himself offered unto God and how you can make any thing to be a figure of it self as yet I do not perfectly understand 3. That the Lord Christ appointed the Sacrament of his body and blood and our Eucharistical Sacrifice therein to be a Commemoration of his death and Passion is the Doctrine of Protestants where with your Sacrifice hath a perfect inconsistency as we shall find in the Consideration of it This is the substance of what you are pleased to acquaint us with about this great business of our Religion But because you shall perceive that it was not without good grounds and reasons that I affirmed the Scripture to be utterly silent of this that you make the great work of Christianity I shall a little further enquire after the nature of it that I mean which by you it is fancied to be for it is a mere creature of your own imagination 1. You alwayes contend that it is a proper Sacrifice which you intend The first Canon of your Council accurseth them who deny it to be verum proprium Sacrificium a True and proper Sacrifice wherein as they say before Christus inimolatur Christ is Sacrificed Many things in the New Testament in respect of their Analogy unto the Institutions of the old are called Sacrifices even almost all spiritual actions that are acceptable unto God in Christ. The preaching of the Gospel unto the conversion of sinners is termed Sacrificing Rom. 15. 16. So is Faith it self Phil. 2. 17. So Prayers and Thanksgiving are an oblation Heb. 5. 7. chap. 13. 15. and good works are called Sacrifices Heb. 13. 16. Phil. 4. 18. And our whole Christian Obedience is intimated by Peter so to be In the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is that you seek for your Sacrifice And if you would be contented to call it and esteem it so upon the account of its comprizing some of the things before mentioned or meerly as a spiritual action appointed by God and acceptable unto him there would be an end of this contest But you must have it a proper Sacrifice like those of Aaron of old not a remembrance of the Sacrifice of Christ but a Sacrifice of Christ himself wherein Christus immolatur Christ is sacrificed as the Council speaks 2. The Secrifices of old were of two sorts 1. Eucharistical or Oblations of the fruits of the earth or other things whereby the Sacrificers acknowledged God as the Lord and Author of all good things and mercies with thanksgiving 2. Propitiatory for the atoning of God the reconciling him unto sinners for the turning away of his wrath and the impetration of the pardon of sin This was done typically and Sacramentally by virtue of their respect unto the oblation of Christ by the old bloody Sacrifices of the Law really and effectually by that bloody Sacrifice which the Lord Jesus Christ once offered for all Now because in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is our Duty to offer up unto God our thankeful prayers for his unspeakable love in sending his only Son to dye for us we do not contend with any who on that accont and with respect unto that peculiar act of our duty in it shall call it an Eucharistical Sacrifice yea affirm it so to be But you will have it a propitiatory Sacrifice a Sacrifice of Atonement like that made by Christ himself a Sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead making reconciliation with God obtaining Pardon of sin and eternal life things peculiar to the one Sacrifice of Christ in his death and passion 3. Though you usually exclude the communion from it wherein you do wisely that it may have no affinity with the Institution of Christ yet you do not precisely determine your Sacrifice unto any one act or action in your Mass but make it comprize the whole with the manner of its celebration from the first setting forth of the Elements of bread and wine mixed with water unto the end of the Offertory after their Transubstantiation and religious adoration thereupon and their offering up unto God the body and blood of Christ under the accidents of bread and wine The presentation of the bread and wine you would prove to belong unto your Sacrifice from the example of Melchisedeck Your Transubstantiation is also of the essence of it for it is required in a Sacrifice sayes your Bellarmine that the sensible thing to be offered unto God be changed and plainly destroyed de Miss Lib. 1. cap. 2. which you esteem the substance of your bread and wine to be in your Transubstantiation Your religious adoration of the consecrated â—â—st belongs also unto it for that in the Canon of the Mass immediately ensues your Transubstantiating Consecration before the oblation it self and so must necessarily be a part of your Sacrifice Your offering up unto God of Jesus Christ praying him to accept of him at the Priests hands supra quae propitio sereno vultu respicere digneris accepta habere belongs also unto it So doth your direction of it to the propitiating of God and the expiation of the sins of the Quick and the Dead The Ceremonies also wherewith your Masse is celebrated as I suppose most of them belong to your Sacrifice and those who believe them not to be duties of Piety are accursed by your Council of Trent The Priests eating of the Host belongs to the Sacrifice yea saith Bellarmine it is pars essentialis Sacrificii though not tota essentia an essential part of the Sacrifice though the whole Essence of it doth not consist therein I know you are at a great loss and variance among your selves to find out what it is that is properly your Sacrifice or wherein the essence of it doth consist Some of your discrepant opinions are given us by your Azorius Lib. 10. Chap. 19. Sunt saith he qui putant rationem sacrificii totam constitui in verbis precibus ceremoniis ritibus qui in consâ—oratione adhibentur eo quod Sacrificii ratio inquiunt nequit in
that of Christ himself is very apt to take off the minds and confidence of men from that one Sacrifice performed so long ago which they have not seen and to fix them on that which their eyes daily look upon as the praesens numen that they can immediately apply themselves unto Thus they fear that insensibly all faith of the true Propitiation wrought by Christ is obliterated and that which they think an Idol set up in the room of it 10. And which further troubles them they are jealous that by this your fiction you quite overthrow the Testament of Christ which certainly no man ought to endeavour the disannulling of For whereas in this Sacrament believers come to receive from him the great Legacy of his body and blood with all the fruits of his death and Passion you direct them to be offering and Sacrificing of them unto God which quite alters the Will of our great Testator And very many other things there are wherein your Countreymen affirm that your Sacrifice is contrary to the faith wherein from Scripture they have been instructed and that in things of the greatest importance to their Consolation here and Salvation hereafter II. Neither is this all your request also lies cross to your Reason no less then to your Faith For your Sacrifice cannot be performed without a Supposition of a change of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the body and blood of Christ and the substance of that body and blood in every consecrated Host under the species of Bread and Wine Christ himself alive being in every Host and every particle of it Hence many things they say ensue which no man can possibly admit of without offering violence unto the main Principles of that Reason whereby we are distinguished from the beasts that perish Some few of them may be instanced in 1. Accidents subsisting without a Subject follows hence necessarily in the first place so that there should be whiteness and nothing white length and nothing long bredth and nothing broad weight and nothing heavy For all these accidents of Bread remain when you would have them say that the bread is gone so that there is left a white sweet long broad heavy nothing This your Countreymen cannot understand 2. Besides they say you hereby teach them that one and the same body of Christ which is in heaven is also on the Altar not by an impletion of the whole space between heaven and earth that some part of it should be in heaven and some on earth but that the one body which is in heaven and whilest it is there is also on the Altar in the Accidents of Bread which upon the matter is that one and the same body is two yea an hundred or a thousand according as in the Mass you are pleased to multiply it Now that one and the same body should be locally divided or separated from its self that whilest that one body is on the Altar that other one body which is the same should be in heaven your Countreymen think to imply a Contradiction 3. And so also they do that a body should be in any place and yet not as a body but as a Spirit For whereas you say that whole Christ is contained under each Species of Bread and Wine and under every the most minute part of either Species as your Council speaks you make the body of Christ to be whole in the whole and whole in every part when the very nature of a body requires that it have partes extra partes its parts distinct from one another and those occupying their distinct particular places But you make the body of Christ neither to be compassed in nor to fill the place wherein it is that is to be in a place and not to be in a place For if it be a body and be under the Species of bread and wine upon the Altar it is in a place and if it be not comprehended in that space where it is and doth fill it it is not in a place and therefore is there and is not there at the same time 4. And moreover we all know that the Consecrated wafer bears no proportion to the true natural body of Christ and yet this is said to be contained under that So that the body contained is much greater and farther extended then the body that contains it or the space wherein it is for it is so under the Host as not to be elsewhere unless in another Host. 5. Nâ—y it is in every minute part of the Host which multiplies contradictions in your Assertion 6. Of the same nature is it that you are forced to feign the same body in 10000. distant places at the same time and that with all contradictory adjuncts and affections Now your Countreymen think that these and innumerable other consequences of your Transubstantiation which you presuppose to your Sacrâ—fice or rather make it a principal part thereof are such as overthrow the whole order of nature and being of things and leave nothing certain among the Sons of men III. Their sense is equally engaged against you with their Reason Your Host is visible tangible gustible when they see it they see bread when they feel it they feel bread when they taste it they taste bread and yet you tell them it is not bread whom shall they believe if things be not as they see them feel them taste them it may be they are not men nor do go on their feet but are deceived in all these things and suppose they see perceive and understand what they do not You tell them indeed that the bread is changed into the body of Christ that body that was born of the blessed Virgin and was crucified at Jerusalem that all taste length breadth weight is taken away from it and that the taste and weight of the bread is continued which are the things they see feel and taste but they likewise tell you that your perswasion is an inveterate prejudice which you have blindly captivated your minds unto and that if you would but give your selves the liberty of exercising any reflex thoughts upon your own acts you would find that upon the suppositions you proceed on you have not any just grounds to conclude your selves to be living men For you teach men to deny and question all that from Reason or Sense you can insist upon to prove that so you are Ou these and the like accounts the Encomiums you give of your Sacrifice will scarce prevail with your Countreymen to relinquish all the worship of God wherein they find daily comfort and advantage to their souls for the embracement of it CHAP. 20. Of the Blessed Virgin UNto the sixteenth Chapter of the Animadversions directed to your Paragraph of the Blessed Virgin you can find it seems nothing to say and therefore betake your self to clamorous revilings All that you say in your Fiat on this head is but an heap of false accusations
your communion whilest you impose upon them a necessity of Celebrating the worship of God in a tongue unknown unto them amongst whom and for whose sâ—ke it is publickly celebrated The reasons you subjoyn to the concession you mention I presume are your own they are like to many others that you make use of The best sense of the entrance of your words that I can make is in that description they afford us of the worship of your Church as to the peoples concernment in it The words of it may â—it perching upon your lips as on the tongue of a Parrot or it may be may be got by heart or as we say without Book when the sense of them affects not your minds nor understandings at all If in these vain loose expressions you design any thing else it seems to be an opposition between reading and studying the Scriptures or joyning with understanding in the prayers of the Church the things under Consideration and the getting of the power of the word of God to dwell in the heart which is skilfully to oppose the means and the end and those placed in that relation not only by their natural aptitude but also by Gods express appointment and command So wisely also do you oppose reading and doing in general as though reading were not doing and a part of that obedience which God requires at our hands and a blessed means of helping and furthering us in the remainder of it For certainly that we may do the will of God it is required that we know it And what better way there is to come to the knowledge of the will of God then by reading and me litating in and upon the word of Truth wherein he hath revealed it with the advantage of the other means of his appointment for the same end in the publick preaching or proposition of it I am not as yet informed And I wish you had acquainted us with those two words of our Saviour and that one of the Apostle wherein they give us a Compendius of all Divine Truths For if it be so I am perswaded you will be to seek for your warrant in imposing your long Creeds and almost Volumes of Propositions to be believed as such But you cannot avoid mistakes in things that you might omit as not at all to your purpose Our Saviour indeed gives us the two general heads of those duties of Obedience which are required at our hands towards God and our Neighbours and the Apostle shews the Perfection of it to consist in Love with its due exercise but where in two or three words they give us the Compendium of all Divine Truths which we are to believe that we may acceptably perform the Obedidience that in general they describe we are yet to seek and shall be so for any information you are able to give us In your following Discourse you make a florish with what your Church hath in Gospels Epistles Good books Anniversary observations and I know not what besides But Sir we discourse not about what you have but what you have not nor will have though God command you to have it and threaten you for not having it You have not the Scripture ordinarily in a language that they can understand who if they are the Disciples of Christ are bound to read study and meditate in it continually which are therefore hindred by you in the discharge of their duty whilest you neither enter into the Kingdom of heaven your selves nor suffer them that would Nâ—y you have burned men and their Bibles together for attempting to discharge that duty which God requireth of them and wherein so much of their spiritual advantage is enwrapped Neither have you the entire worship of God in a tongue known to the people whereby they might joyn in it and pray with understanding and be edified by what they hear which the Apostle makes the end of all things done or to be done in publick Assemblies but are left to have their brutish affections led up and down by dumb shews pestures and gestures whereunto the Scripture and Antiquity are utter strangers These things you have not and which renders your Condition so much the worse you refuâ—e to have them though you may though you are entreated by God and man to make use of them yea where great and populous nations under your power have humbly petitioned you that by your leave and permission they might enjoy the Bible and that Service of God which they could understand you have chosen rather to run all things into confusion and to fall upon them with fire and sword then to grant them their request O curvae in terris animae caelestium inanes But you add Besides what you mention what can promote your Salvation for say you What further Good may it do to read the letter of St. Paul ' s Epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein Questions and Cases and Theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingenuously and without heat what more of Good could acrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practice then by the conceived substance of Gods will unto me and my own duty towards him Sir I shall deal with you without any blameable heat yet so as he deserves to be dealt withall who will not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord. And 1. who taught you to make your apprehensions the measure of other mens faith and practice If you know not of any thing needfull to promote Salvation but what you reckon up in the usage of your Church hinder not them that do It is not so much your own practice as your Imposition of it on others that we are in the consideration of Would it worth suffice you to reject as to your own interest the means appointed of God for the furtherrance of our Salvation and that you would not compell others to joyn with you in the refusal of them Is it possible that a man professing himself a Divine a Priest of the Catholick Church an Instructor of the Ignorant an undertaker to perswade whole Nations to relinquish the way of Religion wherein they are engaged to follow him and his in wayes that they have not known should profess that he knows not of what use unto the promotion of the Salvation of the Souls of men the use of the whole Scripture given by inspiration of God is Be advised not to impose these conceptions of your fancy and mind as it seems unexercised in that heavenly treasury on those who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses exercised therein so as to be able to discern between good and evil It no other reason can prevail with you I hope experience may give you such a despair of success as to cause
the people from their Captivity they began to lose the purity of their own tongue and most of them understood the Syrochaldaean wherein about that time some small parts of the Scripture also were written In no long process of time a great portion of them living scattered in the Provinces of the Macedonian Empire and therefore called Hellenists used and spake the Greek tongue their own ceasing to be vulgar unto them All these both in private and in their publick Synagogne Worship made use of a Translation of the Scripture into Greek which was now become their vulgar tongue and that made either by the LXXII Elders sent from Jerusalem to Ptolomy Philadelphus or which is more probable by the Jews of Alexandria unto which City multitudes of them repaired the Nation being made free of it by its founder or it may be some while after by the Priest Onias who lead a great Colony of them into Aegypt and there built them a Temple for their Worship So did these Hebrews make use of a Translation when their own tongue ceased to be vulgar unto them The monster of serving God by rational men with a tongue whereof they understand never a word was not yet hatched The other portion of the people who either lived in Palestina or those parts of the East where the Greck tongue never prevailed into common use so soon as their language began to be mixed with the Syrochaldean and the purity of it to grow into disuse made use constantly of their Targums or Translations into that tongue Neither can it be proved but that the Jerusalem Jews understood the Hebrew well enough until the destruction of the City and Temple by Titus So that from the Church of the Jews you cannot obtain the least countenance to your practice And there lyes in Gods dealing with them a strong Argument and Testimony against it For if God himself thought meet to intrust his Oracles unto his People in that language which was common unto them all hath he not tanght us that it is his Will they should still be so continued And is there not still the same reason for it as there was at first 2. Farther the practice of the Latin Church is unavoidably against you For whereas the Scripture was no part of it written in Latin which was their vulgar tongue it it was immediately both Old Testament and New turned thereinto and therein used as in their publick Worship so by private Persons of all sorts upon the encouragement of the Rulers of it And no reason of their translation of it which they made and had from time immemorial can possibly be imagined but only the indispensible necessity which they apprehended of having the Scripture in a Language which the People did generally speak and understand 3. The case was the same in the antient Greek Church The New Testament was Originally written in their own vulgar tongue which they made use of accordingly And as for the old they constantly used a Translation of it into the same dialect So that it is impossible that we can obtain a clearer suffrage from the Antient Churches both Jews and Christians and these both of Latins and Greeks in any thing then we have against this custom of your Church But these languages you say have ceased to be vulgar for some thousand years to your knowleage Bona verba You know much I perceive yet not so much but that it is possible you may sometimes fail in your Chronological faculty Pray how many thousand years is it think you since Christs birth now this year 1663. or since the ruine of the Greek or Latin Empire and therein the Corruption of theiâ— Languages I believe you will not find it above three or four thousand at the most upon your next Calculation though I can assure you an ingenuous Person told me he thought from the manner of your speaking you might guess at some nine or ten What then Was the Bible say you put into other vulgar tongues when they ceased to be vulgar Yes by some they were Hierom translated it into the Dalmatian tongue Vlphilus into the Gotish Beda a great part of it into the Saxon and the like no doubt was done by others The Eastern Countreys also to whom the Greek was not so well known had Translations of their own from the very beginning of their Christianity And for the rest shall the wretched negligence of men in times of confusion and ignorance such as those were wherein the Greek and Latin tongues ceased to be vulgar prescribe a Rule and Law unto us of practice in the worship of God contrary to his own direction the nature of the thing its self and the example of all the Churches of Christ for five hundred years For besides that in the Empire it was alwayes used and read in the vulgar tongues those Nations that knew not the two great Languages that were commonly spoken therein from the time that they received the Christian faith took care to have the Scriptures translated into their Own mother tongue So Chrysostom tells us that the Gospel of John wherein occasionally he especially instanceth was in his dayes translated into the Syrian Egyptian Indian Persian and Ethiopian Languages Hom. 1. in John But you say Did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians Greek or Latin ever deliver it transtlated to the generality of the People or use it in their Ser vice or command it so to be done as a thing of General concernment so far is it from that that they would never permit it But you do not sufficiently consider what you say The Hebrew Church had no need so to do God gave the Scripture unto it in their own mother tongue and that only And they had no reason to translate it out of their knowledge and understanding The Greek Church had the New Testament in the same manner and the Old they translated or delivered it so translated by others unto the generality of the people and used it in their Service The Latin Church did so also The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament also being originally written in Languages unknown vulgarly unto them they had them translated into their own common tongue for the generality of the People and used that Translation in their Publick Service The same was the practice of the Syrians and all other Nations of old that had a language in common use peculiar to themselves All your Plea ariseth from the practice of some who through ignorance or negligence provided not for the good and necessity of the Churches of Christ when through the changes and confusions that happened in the world the Greek and Latin tongues ceased to be vulgar which how many thousand years ago it was you may calculate at your next leisure This is that which in them we blame and in you much more because you will follow them after you have been so frequently admonished of your miscarriage therein for
here you give us two Languages the Syriack and Assyriack which names in the Original differed but little in sound but the languages themselves did as much in nature as French and English And the Syriack you tell us was that which is now so peculiarly called but what the Assyriack was you tell us not but only that when the Princes perswade Rabshakeh to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aramith he intended an Assyrian language that was not Syrian The boys that grind colours in our Grammer Schools laugh at these Mormoes 8. Neither do you know well what you say when you affirm that the Language of Christ and his Apostles was the same that was ever since called the Syriack for the very instance you give manifests it to have been a different dialect from it the words as recorded by the Evangelists being absolutely the same neither with the Hebrew nor Targum nor Syriack Translation of the Old Testament That wherein we have the Translation of the Scripture and which prevailed in the Eastern Church being a peculiar Antiochian dialect of the old Aramaean Tongue And that whole language called the Syriack peculiarly now and whereof there were various dialects of old seems to have had its beginning after the Jews return from their captivity being but a degenerate mixture of the Hebrew and Chaldee whereunto also after the prevalency of the Macedonian Empire many Greek word were admitted and some Latine ones also afterwards 9. You advantage not your self by affirming that Assyria and Syria were several Kingdoms For as Strabo will inform you they were both originally called Syrian and indeed were one and the same until the more Eastern Provinces about Babylon obtaining their peculiar denominations that part of Asia which contains Comogena Phaenicia Palestina and Coelosyria became to be especially called Syria Originally they were all Aramites as every one knows that can but read the Scripture in its Original Language And now I suppose you may see how little you have advantaged your self or your cause by this maze of mistakes and contradictions For no errour can be so thick covered with others but that it will rain through The Jews you suppose to have lost their own language in the dayes of Hezekiah and to have spoken Syriack the Syrian and Assyrian to have been languages as far distant as French and English that when the Princes entreated Rabshakeh to speak the Syrian language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they intended not the Syrian Language which was indeed the Jews but the Assyrian quite differing from it and so when they desired him not to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you suppose them to have desired him not to speak in the Jews language but to speak in the Jews language which you say was the Syriack And sundry other no less unhappy absurdities have you amassed together But you will retrive us out of this Labyrinth by a Story of what a Greek Biship did and said at Paris in the presence of Doctor Cousins now bishop of Durham how he refused the Articles of the English Church and did all things according to the Roman mode asserting the use of Liturgies in the vulgar Greek Unto which I shall say no more but that it was at Paris and not at Durham Graeculus esuriens in caelum jusseris ibit I have my self known some eminent members of that Church in England two especially one many years ago called Conopius who if I mistake not upon his return obtained the honour of a Patriarchate being sent hither by the then Patriarch of Constantinople the other not many years ago called Anastatius Comnenus Archimandrite as his Testimonials be spake him of a Monastry on Mount Sinai Both these I am sure made it their business to inveigh against your Church practices having the Arguments of Nilus against your Supremacy at their fingers ends And if the Greek Chruch and you are so well agreed as you pretend why do you censure them as Hereticks and Schismaticks and receive only some few of them who are runnagates from their own Tents What may those whom you proclaim to be your enemies expect from you when you deal thus severely with those whom you give out to be your friends But as for this matter of the Scripture and prayers in an unknown tongue though they transgress not with so high an hand as you do the old Greeks being not so absolutely remote from the present vulgar as the Latine is from our English and the Languages of diverse other Nations whom you compell to your Church Service in that toague and besides they have the Scripture translated into their present vulgar tongue for the use of private persons yet we approve not their practice but look upon it as a great means of continuing that ignorance and darkness which is unquestionably spread over the major part of that Church which in some places as in Russia is to such a degree as to dispose the people unto Barbarism We know also that herein they are gone off from the constant and Catholick usage of their forefathers who for some Centuries of years from the dayes of the Apostles themselves who planted Churches amongst them both had the Bible in their own vulgar Tongue and made no use of any other in the publick Service of their Assemblies And that their example in your present degenerate condition which in some things you as little approve of as we do in others should have any great power upon us I know as yet little reason to judge Your last attempt in this matter is to vindicate what you have said in your Fiat as you now affirm That the Bible was kept in an Ark or Tabernncle not touched by the people but brought on t at times to the Priest that he might instruct the people out of it To which you say I answer That the Ark was placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum which was not entred into but by the Priest and that only once a year And Reply But Sir I speake not there of any Sanctum Sanctorum or of any Ark in that place was there or could there be no more Arks but one If you had been only in these latter days in any Synagogue or Convention of the Jews you might have seen even now how the Bible is still kept with them in an Ark or Tabernacle in imitation of their forefathers when they have no Sanctum Sanctorum amongst them You may also discern how according to your custome they â—ringe and prostrate at the bringing out of the Biblt which is the only solemn adoration left amongst them there be more Arks then that in the Sanctum Sanctorum if I had called it a Box or a Chest or a Cupboard you had let it pass but I used that word as more sacred The oftener that you touch upon this string the harsher is the found that it yields I would desire you to free your self from the unhappiness of supposing
Assemblies would not drop one word of any indignity shewed to any of their sacred images when they pass not by their wrath against their houses goods and cattel Such things are fond to imagine 2. Many of the Antients do note it as an abomination in some of the first Hereticks that they had introduced the use of Images into their worship with the adoration of them Theodoret. haeret sub lib. 1. tells us that Simon Magus gave his own image and that of Selene to be worshistped by his followers And Iraeneus Lib. 1. cap. 23. that the followers of Basilides used images and invocations and cap. 24. that the Gnosticks had images both painted ones and carved and that of Christ which they said was made originally by Pontius Pilate and this they adored And so doth Epiphanius also Tom. 2. lib. 1. Haer. 27. Carpocrates procured the images of Christ and Paul to be made and adored them and the like is recorded of others Now do you think they would have observed and reproved this practice as an abomination in the haereticks if there had been any thing in the Churches usage that might give countenance thereunto or at least that they would not have distinguished between that abuse of images which they condemned in the hereticks and that use which was retained and approved among themselves But they are utterly silent as unto any such matter contenting themselves to report and reprove the superstition and idolatry of the Hereticks in their Adoration of them But this is not all 3. They positively deny that they had any images or made any use of them and defend themselves against the charge of the Pagans against them for professing an imageless Religion Clemen Alexand. Strom Lib. 6. plainly and openly confesseth and testifieth that Christians had no Images in the world And in his Adhortat ad Gent. he positively asserts that the arts of Painting and Carving as to any religious use were forbidden to Christians and that in the worship of God they had no sensible image made of any sensible matter because they worshipped God with understanding What was the judgement of Tertullian is known from his book de Idololatria from whence if we should transcribe what is argumentative against image worship very little would be remaining But of all the Antients Origen doth most clearly manifest what was the doctrine and practice of the Church of God in his dayes as in other places so in his seventh book against Celsus he directly handles this matter Celsus charged the Christians that they made use of no images in the worship of God telling them that therein they were like the Persians Scythians Numidans and Seres all which impious nations hated all images as the Turks do at this day To which discourse of his Origen returning answer grants that the Christians had no images in their sacred worship no more then had the Barbarous nations mentioned by Celsus but withall adds the difference that was between those and these and tells you that their abstinence from Image worship was on various accounts And after he hath shewed wherefore those Nations received them not he adds that Christians and Jews abstained from all sacred use of Images because of Gods command Thou shalt fear as he reads the text the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve and thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath and adds that they were so far from praying to the images as the Pagans did that saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing expresly commanded in the Nicene Conventicle we do not give any honour at all to Images least we should give countenance to the error of ignorant people that there were somewhat of Divinity in them with very much more to the same purpose expresly condemning all the use of Images in the worship of God and openly testifying that there was no such usage among the Christians in those dayes heard of in the world Arnobius or Minutius Faelix acknowledgeth the same Cruces nec colimus nec optamus we do no more worship Crosses then desire them and grants that Christians had nulla note simulachra because no image could be made to or of him whom alone they worshipped What was the judgement of the Elibertine Council I have before told you Lactantius in his Institut ad Constant. lib. 2. by an happy anticipation answers all the arguments that you use to this day in defence of your image worship and concludes peremptorily that where there are any Images there is no Religion shewing how perverse a thing it is that the image of a dead man should be worshipped by a living image of God The time would fail me to relate the words of Eusebius Athanasius Hilarius Ambrosius Cyrillus Chrysostome Epiphanius Hierom Austin and others to the same purpose I cannot but think that it is fully evident to any one that consults antiquity that the image use and worship which is become the Tessera of your Church Communion by your espousing the Canons and Determinations of the second Nycene Synod was in part utterly unknown unto and in part expresly condemned by the whole Primitive Church for 600. years after Christ and that you have plainly by your Tridentine decree and Nicene Anathematismes cut off your selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and all particular Assemblies that worship him in sincerity for the space of some hundreds of years in the world Thus things went in the Church of God before your Nicene Convention How did they succeed afterwards did image worship presently prevail upon their determinations or was that then the faith of the generality of the Church of Christ which was declared by the fathers of that Convention nothing less no sooner was the rumor of this horrible innovation in Christian Religion spread abroad in the world but that upon it there was a full assembly of 300. Bishops of the Western Provinces assembled at Franckeford in Germany wherein the superstition and folly of the Nicene Assembly was layed open their Arguments confuted their determinations rejected and image worship absolutely condemned as forbidden by the word of God and contrary to the Antient constant known practice of the whole Church of God And now Sir as I said you may begin to see what you have to do if you intend to speak any thing to the purpose concerning your figures and Images You must take the Decree of your Council of Trent and the Nicene Canons therein confirmed and prove confirm and vindicate them from the opposition made to them by Tertullian Arnobius Origen Lactantius the Synod of Franckeford and others of the Antients innumerable by whom they are rejected and condemned and yet when you have done so if you are able so to do your work is not one quarter at an end You can make nothing of this business untill you have confuted or burned the
Scripture it self wherein your Images making and Image worship is as fully condemned as it is possible any superstition or Idolatry should be Your present loose discourses whereby you endeavour to possess the minds of unwary men that you do not do that which indeed you do every day and which almost all the world know that you do and which you curse others for not doing will not with considering persons redound at all unto your advantage 2. That you may the better also discern what is incumbent on you and expected from you the next time you talk of figures I shall make bold to mind you of what is the Doctrine of the chief Masters and Instructors of your Church from whence certainly we may better learn what the Doctrine and practice of it is then from one who discovers enough in what he sayes and writes to keep us from laying any great weight on his authority Now I confess that you do in this as in sundry other points of your Religion give us an egregious specimen of that consent and unity among your selves which you so frequently boast of Raphael de Torre in his Sum. Relig. Quaest. 94. Artic. â— disput 6. dub 5. gives us an account of five several opinions maintained by your Doctor in this matter of all which he rejects that only of Durand and some others affirming that images are not worshipped properly but only improperly and abusively as rash and savouring of heresie The same doth Bellarmine also and the Truth is that that opinion of Durrand Gerson and same others is plainly condemned by the Tridentine Decree as hath been already declared The Authors of the other four opinions though they differ among themselves and have several digladiations about sâ—me expressions and distinctions framed meerly in theâ—r own imaginations agree well enough that Images are religiously to be worshipped Worshipped religiously they are to be but whither per se and absolutely directly and ultimately whither with the same kind of worship wherewith that is to be worshipped which they represent they are not so fully agreed as might be desired in a matter of this importance For it is justly to be feared that whilest your Doctors are wrangling your people are committing as gross Idolatry as any of the Heathen were guilty of In the mean time the most prevalent Opinion of your Doctors is that of Thomas and his followers that images are to be adored with the same kind of worship wherewith that which they represent is to be worshipped And therefore whereas the Lord Christ is to be worshipped with Latria that which is peculiar in your judgement to God alone it follows saith he that his image is to be worshipped with the same worship also And as some of your learned men do boast that this indeed is the only approved opinion in this matter in your Church so the truth is if you will speak congruously and at any consistency with your selves it must be so For whereas you lay the foundation of all your worship of them be it of what fort it will in that figment that the honour which is done to the image redounds unto him whose image it is if the honour done to the image be of an inferior sort and kind unto that which is due unto the exemplar of it by referring that honour thereunto you debase and dishonour it by ascribing less unto it then is its due If then you intend to answer just expectation in this matter the next time you speak of figures pray consider what your Thomas teacheth as the Doctrine of your Church 3. p. q. 25. ae 3. which Azorius sayes is the constant judgement of Divines lib. 9. cap. 6. As also the exposition of the Tridentine Decree by Suarez Tom. 1. d. 54. § 4. Vasquez Costerus Bellarmine and others And 3. You may do well to consider the practice and usage of your Catholick people all the world over especially in those places where you have preserved them from being disturbed in their Devotion by the Arguments and exceptions of Protestants as also the direction that is given them for the exercise of their Devotion in that prescription of Rites and prayers which is afforded unto them Is not your bowing kneeling creeping kissing offering singing praying to the Cross and images notorious yea your placing your trust and confidence in them Yea have you omitted any of the abominations of the heathen that you have not acted over again to provoke the Lord to anger And 4. Do you think to relieve them from the guilt of Idolatry by a company of distinctions which neither they nor you understand The next time you see one of your Catholicks worshipping an image upon his knees I pray go to him and tell him that he must worship the Image with dulia or superdulia but not with latria or if with latria yet not by its self and simply but after a sort analogically and reductively or that he is about a double worship one terminated in the image and the other passing by it unto the examplar of it and you will find what thanks he will give you for your good instruction And how small a portion are these of that Mass of distinctions which you have coyned to free them from Idolatry who worship Images who all the while understand not one word of what you intend by them nor can any rational man reduce them unto any thing intelligible Sir In this matter of images you talk of coming up close to your business and I was willing to take a little pains with you to direct you in your way that having a mind to your work as you seem to pretend you may not mistake and wander away from your duty but address your self unto that which you undertake and which is expected from you You are to prove that there is a necessity of receiving the use of images in the worship of the Church so that whosoever doth not admit them is to be cast out of the Communion thereof and 2. That these Images so received are to be worshipped and adored with religious veneration if not with the very same worship that is due to the Persons represented by them yet with that which redounds unto them and that not only by the outward gesture of the body but the inward motions of the mind And when you shall have proved that the Doctrine and practice of your Church in this matter of making and worshipping Images is not contrary to the Scripture or was ever received or approved by the primitive Church for six hundred years I will promise you setting aside all other Considerations immediately to become a Papist for the present I see no cause so to do and shall therefore return to consider what you here say for the further adorning of your pictures The first thing you reflect upon is my censure of that passage in your Fiat that the sight of Images in the Church is apt to cast the minds of