in the Church of England and in exclaiming against his Adversaries for falling foul upon what he calls the best of Institutions As if either of them were against that which their own Church encourages and which the Preacher himself calls a wholesome Discipline But the beginning of the Paragraph shews what Confession the Preacher thus Censures viz. Auricular Confession as it is practiced in the Church of Rome at this day that Confession which the Apologist elsewhere describes from themselves that requires beforehand a diligent Examination of the Conscience about all and singular mortal Sins even the most Secret with all their circumstances so far as may change the nature of the Sin and then to discover all those they can call to mind to the Priest from whom they expect Absolution and without which Absolution is not to be expected nor can they have any benefit of the Absolution It 's of this the Preacher saith That the Consequence of it is to run an apparent hazard of being undone in many Cases by Knaves for Interest or by Fools out of Levity and Inconstancy and a blabling Humor that lets them into the Secrets of Families c. Besides instead of keeping up a wholesome Discipline it 's the way to corrupt it and tends to the debauching both Laity and Clergy in as many ways as there are Sins to be committed when the Confessor and the Penitent begin to discover and understand one another And this the Apologist confirmed from the Complaints made by good Men of their own Communion from the shameful Cases to be found in their Casuists from the Bulls of Popes Contra solicitantes in Confessione And of which I find a late Instance Tenth Character of a Pulpit-Papist The Churches Interest is the Center of their Religion and their Consciences turn upon the same Pin. Every thing is Pious Conscientious and Meritorious that makes for their Cause What is said as to the first of these by the Apologist That the Churches Interest is the Center of their Religion Our Author has not thought fit to recite and much less to confute As to the latter the Apologist produced a Constitution of the Jesuits but this the Sayer saith is a wrested Interpretation contrary to its plain meaning But why then did not our Author venture to assign this plain meaning of it and to shew the meaning the Apologist thought belong'd to it to be thus wrested Who without doubt would have thought one good Argument of much better Authority than a hundred bare Affirmations tho never so positive But he has two things yet in reserve 1. That after all the Apologist can say He cannot but own it to be a received Maxim among all even the loosest of our Divines and Casuists That no Evil is to be done that God may come of it To speak ingenuously I do not find him so forward to own it but if he did as we cannot think they will interminis run so counter to the Apostle yet the Question is what is Evil and Good and whether that is not Good which makes for their Cause or whether the making for the Cause makes not that which was Evil to be Good. And if so our Author doth but beg the Question 2. He appeals to his Catholicks of this Nation who quitted all rather than do an ill thing take Oaths Tests or go to Church against their Conscience The main part of this lies in the last words against their Conscience for else that many of them did take Oaths go to Church receive the Sacrament is I suppose out of Question Eleventh Character of a Pulpit-Papist This he breaks into four parts 1. He changes Scripture into Legends Hereby the Apologist shew'd was understood either that the Legends are of as good Authority in the Church of Rome as Scripture or that in their publick Offices they used Legends where they should have used the Scripture He shews there is too much occasion given for the former amongst them as when they own in their publick Offices that St. Bridget's Revelations came immediately from God to Her. But here our Author interposes and saith How does the Papist change the Scripture into Legends when he 's commanded by his Church to own the Scripture as the Word of God But if he owns the Scripture as the Word of God because it 's commanded by his Church then wherein is the difference if he be commanded by his Church to believe a Legend to be of Divine Revelation Our Author would have done a kind part if he had set us right in this matter between Divine Revelation and Divine Revelation between the Revelation for Scripture and the Divine Revelation for the Legends But he saith for all this a Person is not alike obliged to assent No! altho the Church requires it But that saith he the Church doth not for tho he may read Legends if he pleases yet he is not bound by his Church or Religion to give assent to or believe any one passage in any one Legend whatsoever If he has no better Authority for the latter Branch than the former for he is not bound to assent than for he may read them if he pleases his Cause is uncapable of his support For how can he be at Liberty whether he will read hear them if he pleases when they are inserted into the Body of their Church-Service and are Lessons chosen out for their Instruction And he can as little say they are not obliged to Assent to them when the Church it self saith in its publick Office They come immediately from God. Is it at last all come to this that when things are instituted by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost as the Orders of St. Benedict and were received from the Holy Ghost as the Rules of those Orders and that the Popes were moved by the Holy Ghost as in ordaining some Festivals and declar'd others to be divinely inspired as St. Brigit and St. Catherine and to come immediately from God as their Offices Is it all I say come to this that he is not bound to give assent to or believe any one Passage in any Legend whatsoever Nor so much as to believe any one to be a Saint their Church has Canonized no not St. Brigit St. Catherine nor even the Great Xaverius For tho some pretended Reformers as he calls them have been so easy and forward it seems as to have judged those things worthy of Credit which he was Canonized for yet no Member of the Church of Rome is bound to assent or believe but he may believe as well as read the Legends of them if he pleases and if he pleases he may forbear and suspend And this our Author doth abundantly confirm by approving what the Apologist produced out of Bellarmin and Canus That all things contained in the Lives of the Saints tho mentioned even in the Canonization depend upon human Testimony as to matters of Fact and consequently are subject to
of it For thus he saith If any make Exceptions against the Character of a Papist thus disguis'd as 't was drawn there in the Papist Misrepresented I 'le never quarrel upon that score let that be raz'd out But however tho he thus drops his own Apprehensions as well as he had his 37. Points of Representation and at once gives away half his Labour yet like a true Master of Defence he mounts the Stage again and renews the Fight for by the help of some Pulpit-Sayings he thinks he has given life to his otherwise dying Cause Let that saith he be raz'd out and these others take place which 't is likely are more Authentick What! more Authentick than his own Apprehensions O yes for its such a Popery and such a Papist as is describ'd by Ministers in their Pulpits In which there are many things charged upon them without either Truth and Sincerity and consequently 't is not without grounds they complain of Misrepresenting 1. But why the Pulpits Are not the same things in Books of Controversy and are they not there more fully explain'd and debated Thither therefore in reason we ought to be sent to understand how the Protestants Represent the Papist But then our Author had not had the opportunity of exclaiming against those high Places as he Phrases it from whence it seems they have received no little Damage or which is worse he had been engaged in a Dispute which is not his Province as he tells us p. 28. 2. But if some Pulpits have misrepresented them in some cases what is that to the Pulpits in general What is that to our Church He has been already told that we are far from defending such Misrepresentations if such there be That which we adhere to is the Doctrine and Sense of our Church as it is by Law established and what Representations are made agreeable thereto we undertake to defend and no other Can he think we are any more concern'd in the mistakes or infirmities of others then he thinks himself to be in the loose and extravagant opinions of their own Doctors Schoolmen and Casuists And is it not reasonable he should allow the same Law to others he is forced so frequently to plead in his own defence 3. But further supposing that some of the Pulpits have Misrepresented the Papist in some points and in those points he disclaims yet are there no points besides they differ in And if these were set aside would the Church of England and Rome be one What thinks he of the many points I find in the same Sermons he quotes that he civilly passes by Such as these That the Church of Rome is alone the Catholick Church out of which is no Salvation That the Pope is the Universal Head of that Church That that Church is Infallible What thinks he of Transubstantiation Purgatory Invocation of Saints Communion in one kind Divine Service and Scriptures in an Unknown Tongue Merit and Works of Supererogation the Worship of Images Implicit Faith Indulgences Deposition of Princes c. Lastly What thinks he of the great point he all along omitted as he is charged that a Papist doth not only believe the Doctrines defin'd in the Council of Trent to be true but also to be necessary to Salvation Are not these the Doctrines of the Church of Rome And are not the Pulpits as much employ'd in confuting these as those of praying to Images and putting their trust in them and the other Follies and Abominations as he calls them charged on his Church And do not the Protestants think as ill of those points he owns as of those he disclaims 4. But how come they of the Church of Rome to start this charge of Misrepresentation who are of all Churches in the world the most guilty of it Or how comes our Author to continue it who neither durst so much as vindicate others or himself when convicted of it The learned Author of the View enter'd the Field and threw down the Gantlet but our Author fairly slinks aside and leaves his Brethren to sink under the imputation of the soulest Misrepresentations And this is not to be wonder'd at when he has not one word of Reply to all the Accusations of that kind there produced against himself And yet to give a further Specimen how far this disingenuous quality has prevail'd upon his temper he still proceeds in the same course and to be quit with the Pulpits which he saith are forward in making characters of the Papists he is as forward in making characters of the Pulpits The business of so many Pulpits ten thousand open every week he saith is chiefly to make exceptions pick holes quarrel ridicule and the more excellent they are at their work the more they gain upon their Auditory And that he may not be wanting he will be at his Plots too and follow what he calls Oat's Divine way of Information He had tried once before to form a design of this kind when he would have Sermons preach'd many years ago against Popery to contain severe reflections upon his present Majesty But that he was soon made sensible of and has not a syllable to excuse And yet he will be again at his Innuendo's for thus he lays the Scene Methinks the Pulpits saith he should be more tender of their Soveraign than to venture upon the same Method which he before charges them with with the Son which prov'd so fatal to the Father and dangerous to the Brother But I fear the excess of jealousie for their Religion puts them upon being too bold with their Prince and that by a just judgment of Heaven they are blindly practising the very principles they have so often charged upon the Papists making their Churches Interest the center of their Religion Preaching Faction instead of Faith c. Such expressions as these are not thrown out at all adventure and we may soon guess what they tend to and it 's a fair warning Thus far for the Pulpits but to shew what a Talent he has at Character-making he will furnish us also with that of the true Son of the Church of England viz. A Genuine Son of the Church of England is to have a good stock of this implicit Faith by him and to believe and speak though he knows nothing at all Again This is to the Protestant Tune If a man can't tell how to run down Popery though he knows nothing of it he 's no true Son of the Church of England So that quarrelling and ridiculing is the work it seems of the Preachers and a delight in it the temper of their Auditors and to speak all at once Ignorance and Arrogance Slander and Impudence are in his opinion the Ingredients of a true Son of the Church of England This is the faithful Representer the soft Adviser the prudent Cautioner the impartial Character-maker the Preacher of Charity the Detecter of Impostures
Pulpit-Popery TRUE POPERY BEING AN ANSWER To a BOOK Intituled PULPIT-SAYINGS AND IN VINDICATION OF THE APOLOGY for the PULPITS AND THE STATER of the CONTROVERSIE against the REPRESENTER LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by Randall Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCLXXXVIII THE CONTENTS THE whole Controversy is resolv'd into the Author himself Page 1. The Vnreasonableness of charging Misrepresentation on the Pulpits p. 2. None more guilty of Misrepresentation than those of the Church of Rome and our Author in particular p. 3 4. Our Author's mistake in framing Characters p. 6. Character I. About the Popish-Plot p. 7. Character II. About the Murther of K. Charles the 1st with an Answer to the Challenge p. 8. Character III. About the Fire of London ibid. Character IV. Of Popish Emissaries p. 9. Character V. Of the Divisions and Fanaticism in the Church of Rome p. 12 15. Character VI. Of a proper Propitiatory Sacrifice in the Sacrament p. 17. Mr. Thorndike Vindicated p. 18. Of a Sacramental Presence and breaking of a true Body p. 20. Character VII Popery puts out the understanding of those of her Communion p. 21. The Difference betwixt the Severity of the Church of England and Rome p. 23. The Absurdity of Auricular Confession p. 24. In Transubstantiation they renounce their Senses p. 25. The Popish-Plea That Hearing is for Transubstantiation ibid. The Pope alone cannot Err and all others cannot but Err. p. 26. Character VII Of Praying and Prophesying in an Vnknown Tongue p. 27. Of the Sense of Prophesying p. 29. Of the ill Vse made of Auricular Confession p. 30. Character IX Of Saints Canonized for Money and Treason ibid. Of Praying to a Crucifix p. 31. Auricular Confession tends to the debauching Laity and Clergy And of Confession in the Church of England p. 32. Character X. The Churches Interest the Centre of their Religion p. 33. Character XI Of the Legends in the Church of Rome p. 34. Of the turning Sacraments into Shews p. 37. Of Preaching Purgatory instead of Repentance p. 38. And Faction instead of Faith. p. 39. Of the Preachers in the Holy League p. 40. Character XII Of Alms in the Church of Rome p. 40. Of Exorcisms p. 41. Of the Difficulty of knowing the Doctrine of the Church of Rome p. 42. Of compounding for unforsaken sins p. 43 45. Dr. T. Translation of Poenitentia Vindicated p. 44. Indulgences for Thousands of years to come p. 46. Indulgences not a Relaxation of Canonical penances p. 48. Character XIII If a Papist be false and deceitful yet Euge c. p. 49. No man can be a Papist but he that 's blinded by Education c. p. 50. About Picturing the Divinity ibid. Of Praying to an Image p. 52. Of Worshipping Bread and Wine as God p. 53. Of the Passion of Christ taking away the guilt and not the punishment ibid. Of the Non-necessity of Repentance till the point of death ibid. Bare saying of Prayers without attendance to what they say is sufficient to Divine Acceptance p. 54. Of Prayers in an Vnknown Tongue and the Translation of the Mass-Book p. 55. Character XIV They take away the second Commandment p. 56. 'T is not necessary to be sorry for the sin but the penance p. 57. An Indulgence serves instead of a Godly life ibid. Auricular Confession the great Intelligencer p. 58. Ignorance the Mother of Devotion ibid. They must submit to an Infallible Judg so as to believe Vertue to be bad and Vice good p. 59. Their Clergy must lead a single life whether honestly or no it makes no matter p. 60. Of the several Artifices used by our Author p. 64. Of his Reply to the Answerer of his Reflections p. 65. His appeal to the Lives of Papists amongst us shew'd to be impertinent ibid. A further Account of his Artifice p. 67. His Answers all along insufficient p. 70. Of his insincerity in the offers he makes to receive us into his Church upon the Representing Terms and detesting some Principles and Practices charged upon the Church of Rome p. 71 72. ADVERTISEMENT TRansubstantiation contrary to Scripture or the Protestant's Answer to the Seeker's Request The Protestant's Answer to the Catholick Letter to the Seeker Or a Vindication of the Protestant's Answer to the Seeker's Request An Apology for the Pulpits being in Answer to a late Book Intituled Good Advice to the Pulpits Together with an Appendix containing a Defence of Dr. Tenison's Sermon about Alms in a Letter to the Author of the Apology ERRATA PAg. 22. l. 5. r. 15. p. 33. l. 35. r. in terminis p. 41. l. 6. a bringing p. 43. l. 2. r. saith he Pulpit-POPERY True POPERY IN ANSWER TO Pulpit-Sayings WHEN the Author of the Pulpit-Sayings first appeared in the World he undertook to shew what the Papist is not or how he is Misrepresented and what he really is and how he is to be Represented The first he tells us He exactly describ'd according to the Apprehension he had when a Protestant And the latter he represents according to his own private Opinion when a Papist as he is told So that in the issue the whole is resolv'd into himself Thus it was and thus he still maintains the Humour for what are the Characters he gives of a Papist but for the most part the fruits of his own Imagination And what doth he bring to confirm it but it is the Papist I am What course doth he take to confute his Adversaries to confront their Authorities but if that be a Papist I am none I profess I renounce such Popery Nay as if he acted sub sigillo Piscatoris and had by Deputation the Authority of the Chair to determine and renounce and the Keys of St. Peter to bind and loose to let in and out of their Communion as he sees fit he assures us that whoever will be a good Papist must disclaim every point that is here set down by the Pulpits as Articles of Religion And again the Papist Represented I own it it 's the Papist I am and whoever assents to that Character in that very Form of the Papist Represented has done what is required as to those particulars to be made a Member of our Communion So that if I declare I profess I renounce on one side and I am I do own on the other is sufficient to determine the Point and will be taken for an Answer by his Adversaries there is no more to be said But though our Author may suitably enough to the temper of the Church he is now of be thus assuming and dogmatical and may for ought we know thus expound transform and determine with Allowance yet there is no reason why he should prescribe to the Church he has forsaken and that his Apprehensions be taken for the Apprehensions of all of that Communion This he now thinks a little unreasonable and could be content for once to own it if his present Undertaking be allowed to come in the place
has been made to all sorts of Protestants to produce even Ten Papists I may say Two that in all that Confusion of Civil Wars ever drew Sword against him I shall not here offer him the Instances of Capt. Tho. Preston and Capt. Wright mentioned in Foxes and Firebrands both because they served under Oliver and also because it 's one of his Street-Pamphlets as he calls them but shall lay before him undeniable Authorities Such is that of the Royal Martyr himself who in a Declaration of his saith All men know the great number of Papists which serve in their Army Commanders and others We are confident a far greater number of that Religion is in the Army of the Rebels than our own The other shall be that of Rob. Mentet de Salmonet a Secular Priest who in his History of the Troubles of England saith That at the Battel of Edge-hill several Priests were found slain on the Parliament side For although in their Declarations they called the King's Army a Popish Army thereby to render it odious to the people yet they had in their Army two Companies of Walloons and other Roman Catholicks The Book perhaps may not lye in every ones way but the passage is transcribed into Sir William Dugdale's View of the late Troubles in England P. 564. An. 1642. As for the Authority of the French Preacher let it be as it will but I think it would have been a greater satisfaction to the World if they had accepted his Challenge Printed and Reprinted and questioned him for it when alive rather than after his death to appeal to Protestants whether it be not a Fable Third Character of a Pulpit-Papist The Papists were the Instruments in the Fire of London c. This he charges upon the Preacher as an Aggravation of his Misrepresentation That he should vent this almost Twenty years after 1683 when the whole matter had been throughly consider'd And tho there were no other grounds whereon to build this charge besides the clamour and affected jealousies of the people and the confession of a distracted man whose Religion was not much of any kind but still professedly a Protestant Yet upon these grounds c. I am not so well acquainted with the History of this as to know when this whole matter was througly consider'd And it 's likely the Preacher was as ignorant as I am Nor do I know upon what grounds he proceeded but tho it might be as our Author saith That the distracted Man's Religion was not much of any kind yet I have been assured upon good grounds that he did not dye a Protestant Fourth Character of a Pulpit-Papist The Papists have their Emissaries up and down to preach Schism and Sedition into the Peoples ears By such Arts as these they insinuate themselves among the poor deluded People of our separate Congregations and joyning with them in their Clamours against the Church of England crying it down for Superstitious and Popishly affected they pass for gifted Brethren and real Popery is carry'd on by such Disguises Here our Author first of all inveighs against the thing and then against the Pulpits for charging it upon them Here saith he the Papists are set forth in a Sermon before the Honourable the Judges as great Hypocrites Religious Cheats and Impostors A foul Crime and if true sufficient to cast the Papists he should say such spiritual Factors out of the number of Christians but if false and not as here set out as sufficient on the other side to bring the Pulpits under that as black Character of Misrepresenting This is indeed to come up to the point and I shall readily close with him upon it The Apologist to shorten his Work and to take down the Confidence of the Adviser without bearing too hard upon the Party contented himself with pointing his Adversary to three or four Authors for Information in this Case such as the Quaker Vnmask'd the New Discovery the false Jew and Foxes and Firebrands Now to this he replies Who would not have expected that the Answerer would have spent a few Lines in making good such Authorities and proving them to be Authentick beyond Exception And then after his manner breaks forth into a wonderful Exclamation Good God! that Men should pretend to teach their Auditory the Gospel and when they are thus challenged in a particular of this Moment then to fly to Foxes and Firebrands and laying by the Scripture take Refuge in Libels and Street-Pamphlets Now who would not have expected that he would have spent a few Lines in disproving these Authorities If he could have done this he had done somewhat but it 's easier to call a thing a Libel than to prove it Well! What is the proof he expects That it be Authentick beyond Exception But when shall it pass for Authentick beyond Exception Nothing less it seems than Scripture is sufficient For saith he when they are thus challenged laying by the Scripture they take refuge in Libels and Street-Pamphlets Here I must ingenuously confess that we are at a loss and that we read no more in the Scripture of such Emissaries as Faithful Commin and Thomas Heth than he does of the Miracles of Xaverius or the Revelations of St. Bridget and the Extasies of Magdalen de Pazzi But did ever any man in the World before our Author put a case upon this issue and require Scripture-proof for matters of Fact or charge his Adversary with laying aside Scripture because he brings not Scripture to prove it But supposing they have as good Authority as what they can produce for the Legends of their Church will it not be as Authentick Let us therefore proceed as he calls it to the Examen The first Book which he has a particular pique against is what is call'd Foxes and Firebrands which is full of Relations of this kind There we read of one Faithful Commin a Dominican who in the year 1567. came over to England pretending to be a Protestant refused to be present at the Prayers of the Church alledging that they were but the Mass translated had a separate Congregation prayed for hours together with much Groaning and many Tears and in his Sermons spoke as much against Rome and her Pope as any of the Clergy as he pleaded before the Queen and Council And yet all this while acted a part to delude the People and do Service to his Church This Narrative is an Extract out of the Memorials of the Lord Cecil and was transmitted to Bishop Vsher and among his Papers came into the hands of Sir James Ware late one of His Majesties Privy Council in Ireland and published by his Son Robert Ware Esq In the next year 1568. there was another of our Author's Impostors detected Thomas Heth a Jesuit who pretended much to spiritual Prayers declaiming against Set-Forms and when brought before the Bishop of Rochester said he thereby endeavoured to make Religion the purer and
that the Faithful ought to be in nothing more solicitous than to take care to expiate their Soul by Confession Is it because it 's called whispering For what then serve their Boxes and why is it call'd a Seal Is it because of the easiness of it That is the case at the last For saith he every one will see how insincere this Preacher was in saying that a man unlades himself c. To make his Followers believe the Papists to be so sottish as to think their sins forgiven by a whisper only He may e'ne turn his anger upon his own Church for teaching this Doctrine for from thence the Preacher learn'd it which saith The Sacrament of Confession was graciously instituted on purpose to supply the place of Contrition For further proof of this I remit the Reader to the Apology Assertion 21. 4. Of Transubstantiation where men must renounce all their Five Senses at once Here the Apologist charged our Author with a small Falsification which indeed he has now mended but not acknowledged But he will make up that defect by the force of his Argument for now he seriously undertakes to prove that in Transubstantiation they don't renounce all their Five Senses As for three of them he has nothing to say but then Sight and Hearing are so far from being against that they eminently serve for the proof of it As how If saith he we follow our Hearing which is the sense by which Faith comes we are oblig'd to believe it Christ's words expresly signifie and declare the Sacrament is his Body These words we hear deliver'd by those whom he has appointed to Teach and Instruct the Flock to wit the Pastors of the Church these words we see likewise and read in Holy Scripture So that if we follow our Ears and our Eyes directed by the Word of God we are bound to believe this Mystery and consequently do not Renounce all our Five Senses at once Well! but do we hear Christ thus declaring No but we hear the Church Has the Church then such an Organical voice to speak as we have Ears to hear No but the Church teaches by its Pastors But are the Pastors we hear all Infallible in their Teaching And are we to believe them although they teach contrary to sense and reason There indeed he has lost the Case But however he brings in Sight to his relief For these words saith he we see likewise and read in Holy Scripture And whilst we let both our Senses and Reason be immediately directed by God's Word which is Infallible we more reverence the Scriptures and believe upon better Grounds than the Protestants Thus we are at last led to a Private Spirit and the Protestant way of resolving Faith into the Scriptures without need of any Infallible Interpreter For 't is but letting our Senses and Reason be immediately directed by God's Word which is Infallible and we may soon be satisfied I heartily thank our Author for this free Concession for these are the Grounds Protestants do believe upon But yet he will needs have it that they believe upon better Grounds than the Protestants This I am apt to think he will no more be able to prove than that they Reverence the Scriptures more than Protestants However this he attempts and gives this reason for that Protestants let natural Objects ever about Mysteries of their Faith have the direction of their Senses in which they are so often deceived rather than the Word of God which cannot deceive them But where has the Word of God taught us that we are not to judg of Natural Objects by those Senses which he has given us to judg of Natural Objects by Will he undertake to provâ— this also When he himself acknowledges that to frame a judgment of the nature or substance of a thing we must depend upon the information of sense and that the common and natural way is to judg according to the relation the senses give from the external and natural accidents of the thing And now is not a Wafer a Sensible Object and are we not to judg of it according to the Relation the Senses give of it and from its external and natural accidents How will our Author salve this difficulty That he proceeds in after this manner But if we desire to frame a true judgment as if the other was a false one of what is the Nature and Substance of such an Object not according to a Natural Being but according to the Divine Power and what it may have of Supernatural the Senses ought not to be laid aside but we must consider here too the information these give not now from the Natural Accidents but from the Word of God. I should have thought the Conclusion to be infer'd from hence would rather be the Senses ought to be laid aside forasmuch as we are not in such case to judg of the Natural Accidents according to what they report For I must confess he is one of the first I have met with that has improved the Argument this way and that appeals to the Senses for the proof of Transubstantiation which their Church so cautiously warns them against in this matter But he will illustrate this by an instance in another matter A Friend saith he sends me a transparent Stone of which when I would make a judgment I cannot do it without the information of my Senses These may inform me two ways either by looking upon the thing it self or by reading the Letter sent along with it or the report of the Bearer If I take the information of my Senses from the view of the Stone I judg it to be a pebble if from the Letter wrote by an excellent Artist and the Bearer a skilful Jeweller I judg it to be a true Diamond upon their authority and greater skill Now in which judgment of these ought I to acquiesce Certainly in this last and yet in so doing I hope I should not renounce all my Five Senses at once So since my Senses assure me from Scripture and the Pastors of God's Church that the Sacrament is Christ's Body I am bound in reason to judg of it so rather than from the Natural Accidents to judg it to be Bread So that in thus believing this Mystery we do not renounce but follow our Senses But his Instance reaches not the Case 1. Because the judging whether a Transparent Stone be a Counterfeit or a Diamond is not a matter of mere sense but judgment skill and experience and belongs to an Artist But Sense will teach every one whether it be a Stone or a Pea hard or soft transparent or opacous But now the Case before us is whether what we see is a bit of Bread or the Body of a Man whether it 's broken or whole c. And therefore to put the case right and make it parallel he must suppose the Stone to be a known Diamond as known to him it 's sent to as to
Error This saith he proves they are not bound to believe I grant it as far as that goes but then they are not bound to believe what their Church Representative doth declare to be of Divine Revelation and to come immediately from God. Let him take which he pleases if that will content him But if in the mean time their Church contradicts her self and owns that at one time to be Divine Revelation which at another time has only human Testimony is the Apologist bound to reconcile her to her self Surely that is an Office becoming our Author himself And till he has done it he must excuse us if we a little doubt of the certainty of Faith so much magnified in their Church Here our Author concludes this matter but the Apologist went on to the latter Branch that in their publick Offices they often use Legends instead of Scripture and have put out Scripture to bring in Legends This he proves from the design of Cardinal Quignonius who in the Reformation of the Breviary put Scripture instead of Legends but that was condemn'd and the Office so far brought back to its former state This was so full a proof of what the Preacher suggested that our Author thought it best to let it drop But if he will see the Character of the design against he writes again let him peruse the Cardinal's Preface or consult Espencaeus in Tom. 1. Digress l. 1. c. n. p. 156. which thus concludes of the former Breviary That many of the Histories of the Saints were so ill chose that sometimes they begat Contempt and Laughter at the reading of them This puts me in mind of a debt I am in to our Author at his fourth Character who there tells us that he cannot but admire some Protestant Preachers Writers and otherwise sober Lay-men of late who take upon them to ridicule and slightingly to wonder at the Papists for this their fond credulity forsooth in relation to old Legends and Modern Lives of the Saints This I admir'd at in him because I find some Popish Preachers Writers and otherwise sober Lay-men that are as hard to believe as the Protestants and think as meanly of them Attend we to Ludovicus Vives a man as I have heard saith Espencaeus when he quotes him out of all suspicion of an irreligious mind who saith In writing the Lives of the Saints every one writ as he was affected so that his Inclination not Truth did draw out the History How unworthy of the Saints and Men is the History of the Saints which they call the Golden Legend since it 's writ by a man of an Iron Mouth and a Leaden Heart And again There have been men who esteemed it for a great piety to devise little Lies for Religion But here this good man needs a little correction for if a good end be in prospect inventions of men how incredible soever may in our Author's opinion be allowed as he suggests For saith he there is scarce any thing in all those Books objected upon this score against the Papists whether Ancient or Modern Legends but however incredible it may appear yet generally is all in order to a good end and the working Christian effects in the Reader Here is now a Gate of Mindus sufficient to let in the whole Shoal of not only the Mendaciola of Vives but all the Heroical Fictions of Ecclesiastical Quixotism and to make them to become Authentick But because our Author is so grave upon this Argument that I doubt he may be in earnest let me for once recommend to him some few instances for an Exercise of his Talent this way to shew how they serve a good End and raise the Admiration of God's Power Goodness and Mercy Doubtless he will quit himself exceeding well if he can inform us where the great spiritual Advantage is in the Relations of St. Aldern's and Deicoala's hanging their Garments upon the Sun-beams of St. Kentigern's setting a Robin Red-breasts Head to its Body of St. Odoaceus's turning a Pound of Butter into a Bell of St. Mochua's hindring by Prayer the poor Lambs from Sucking their Dams I might run into a Volume upon this Theme if it were worth the while But I suppose these may serve for the present to entertain his thoughts and to shew the Reader how impertinent his Vindication of their Legends is These are of the number of those which Quignonius saith are the Subject of Scorn and Coâ—tempt but here are others which are so inconsistent with true Religion that their Driâ—do concludes they were devised by Hereticks as when the Saints are said in the Agony of Death to have warned or requir'd that when translated out of this World they should be worshipp'd and be invoked in Afflictions and Dangers It being not likely that these holy Men while in this World should be solicitous of these Humours who should rather pray with David Enter not into Judgment with thy Servant O Lord. 2. He changes Sacraments into Shews Priests into Puppets Of this the Apologist produced his Instances as 1. When they shew the Cup to the Laity but suffer them not to partake of it 2. When in their Solitary Masses the Priest alone Communicates and the People are only Spectators of the Solemnity a Practice that the Council of Trent approves of and commends 3. When the Host is elevated at Mass for Adoration 4. When it 's carried about in publick Processions In which cases the Sacrament is only shew'd to the People and is contrary to the end for which it was instituted For as it was to be in Remembrance of Christ so it was to be partook of and by partaking of which we do shew forth his Death 1 Cor. 11.26 But to shew the Sacrament and not to partake of it is to change the Sacrament into a shew To this our Author replies Might not a Jew here step in and with this Argument pretend that Christ crucified was another shew upon Calvary but all this is nothing but a method to teach Atheists how to make the greatest Mysteries of Christianity ridiculous As if Christianity in its first Institution was a ridiculous thing and he that will bring it back to its first State and have the Sacrament only so Administred and used only to those ends for which it was ordain'd must expose the Mysteries of it to the Scorn of Atheists Cannot Christianity subsist or the Mysteries of it be sacred without we depart from the Simplicity and Purity of it and set up new Institutions or give new Ends to those Institutions And because we are for partaking of it and not making it an empty shew because we are for the People's partaking of it as well as the Priest and for their partaking of it in both Kinds and not in one according to the Primitive Institution Must we teach Atheists a method how to make the Mysteries of Christianity ridiculous And because we declare against their Elevations and