they saw good c. To be brief with you on this point if you speak here of particular Persons in our Church it is utterly false since they are all obliged to believe that to be the Canon of Scripture which is set down in the Articles of our Church and there is not one Man of our Church that is at liberty to believe which he pleases and to reject which he pleases from being Canonical Scripture to him and for Traditions received in the Church no particular Man hath any more power over them than over the number of the Canonical Books But if you speak of our Church it self here which your words without stretching will not bear it is as false of Her since she believes and delivers those Books onely as Canonical which the Primitive Church believed and delivered down to her as such She rejects none as Apocryphal which were not also rejected as such by the Primitive Church as the Famous and most Learned Bishop Cosin hath most incomparably proved it for her in that his excellent Scholastick History of the Canon of Scripture And for Traditions she rejects none but such as have no evidence nor probability of their ever having been of use in the Primitive Church or such as are of no moment in which case I never saw reason why the National Church of England hath not as much Authority herein to judge of these things as the Church of Rome her self who for example sake hath left off giving the Communion to Infants tho' a Tradition of the Catholick Church So that I cannot for my Life see what you would fain tho' most ridiculously deduce from hence that all with us resolved it self into the Judgment of a Private Spirit pag. 3. and must be I suppose you mean the Private Spirit must be tho' your words are far from bearing it the chief or rather onely support of your Protestant Faith c. Since it is so palpably false as I have just now shewn nothing as to matters of Faith Discipline or Church Communion among us being either left to or guided by or depending upon any Man how great or how learned soever his private Spirit and so ridiculous that I could not forgive it any Man that had not abstracted himself from his reason but to doe you right you have almost a mind to come off it with your Methought and I am content without being angry that it should pass for your thought the abstracted-no-Religion Man's You go on to shew that you could not persuade your self that Scripture alone could be the Judge of Controversies pag. 3. and resolve your doubts when the Private Spirit was made the Judge of Scripture c. Let the private Spirit be excluded will you admit it then will you allow the Representative Church of England to interpret in new Emergencies which fell not within the care of Antiquity and the Four General Councils If you admit this there need be no dispute since long before your doubts the Church of England hath by publick Authority interpreted the Scripture in all matters of Faith and Discipline and tied up all her Members hath in all the points of Controversie betwixt us and Rome determined that the sense of the Scripture is directly against them and for us If you will not admit it I should be glad to see one reason against it that would not as fully fly in the face of the Church of Rome As to the Mischief upon this Principle of the Private Spirit pag. 3 4. the Wars and Murders c. You ought to have remembred that that Principle was not set up by but against the Church of England and that it was not the Church but the direct and sworn Enemies thereof that committed all those outrages you cannot be ignorant that it was She only that suffered during that Rebellion and Schism and therefore it is most unjust in you to insinuate as if She was cause of all that distraction whereas nothing is more apparent than the contrary to it And as to your Tanrum Religio c. I challenge you to shew any one Principle of the Church of England that encourages or does but glance towards Rebellion Sedition or disturbance of either Church or State This I 'll promise you for every one I 'll shew you Ten of your new Church I 'll shew you Councils for it your own most famous of all the European Councils the Fourth of Lateran leading the Van. Your Popes deposing Princes pag. 84. giving away their Kingdoms as they have done ours more than once setting up in Rebellion Son against Father I 'll shew you the Rebellious Holy League in France one King most barbarously Murdered by it a Pope Sixtus Quintus in a set Speech commending the Paricide the Sorbone it self making Rebellious Decrees against the Two Harries of France both Massacred by their Catholick as they call themselves Subjects but enough of this wherein you know or at least should that we have infinitely the advantage of your new Church as to Principles of Loyalty The result it seems of your Inquiry and search among us was that you could not comply with common reason if you did not disclaim the Judgment of your own or any Man 's private Spirit c. pag. 4. I have upon this but one Question to ask you and that is how you came to be a Roman Catholick if you disclaimed your own reason or private Spirit pray who chose your guide or Church for you if you disclaimed every ones else pray tell us how any Body else could doe it for you But notwithstanding this your disclaiming we find you busie enough up and down the Book acting as if you never had done any such thing discovering judging complying contemplating searching and Forty such expressions which used to denote the exercise of a Man's private Judgment and Reason CHAP. V. His Method farther exposed and the ridiculous Fruits of it THE Fruit of all your search hitherto hath been onely to find pag. 4. or at least to mistrust the ground you stood upon somewhat unsure c. What ground it was you then stood upon I cannot guess since before this you had abstracted your self from Religion and supposed your self as of no Religion so most certainly of no Church But all this is assuredly but a figure to bring in the Rock the Rock you think you were got upon when once a Romanist If I might have had a word with you before you had mounted your Rock for now I am afraid there is no speaking with you I would onely have been informed by you whether there is but one Rock and whether I must give (a) Orig. Hom. 1. in Matth. Origen the lie who tells me that all the Apostles were Rocks as well as Peter and what I must say to (b) Prescript c. 32. 36. Edit Franck. 1597. Tertullian and others that tell me other Apostles planted Churches as well as Peter
Sunday before it and therefore must have been a Minister of the Church of England on the one Sunday and a Member of the Church of Rome on the next during the time betwixt which two Sundays I am certain you are far from being able to have considered and examined the Merits of the two Churches you are not so quick a Man pag. 2. for all your pretended discovering at first sight that all other Communions were evidently confusion But allowing that during this search you onely Ex hypothesi put your self in such a state without leaving actually our Communion till your Method and Reasons were over and satisfactory it was a very odd Method for a Man that had been so long a Minister and was so old a Man and would much handsomer have become you were you coming over from Paganism or Mahometism than from one Church that evidently hath the Catholick Faith to another Whichsoever of the two Senses was that which you designed I am certain that the first was fit onely for a Madman and the other almost as much unbecoming an old Clergy Man who after Threescore as I believe you are falls to abstracting and doubting and supposing as if he had been in a Dream all the rest and best part of his Days since he was in Orders and at last when others being to dote he begins to doubt to search and to make saving discoveries CHAP. IV. The Confusion of his search and the Absurdity of it shewn NOtwithstanding the Inconsistences in this your tale which are so many as would almost ruine any ones having the least value for your Book or for the Reasons and Arguments in it I must follow and see how dexterously you managed or how well you used this your wonderous Method pag. 2 3. Vpon a reserved Principle say you that Christ hath a Church upon earth in my inquiry amongst my Brethren of the Church of England who were as much your Brethren in this state and no more than they are Hobbes's or Spinoza's I gave most attention to those teachers or writers that had most reverence for Church Authority c. I appeal to any Man of sense whether this passage does not favour much more of a Man already a Papist than of a mere Seeker but to pass that Pray Sir what did you want or what was you inquiring for was it for the Catholick Church or for a particular Communion wherein you might be safe if for the Catholick Church you needed not to be curious whom you inquired of among our Teachers and Writers since the meanest of them could readily have told you that the Catholick Church is made up of all the Particular Churches planted in the four quarters of the World holding from Christ the onely Head of her the true Faith and Catholick Vnity so that if you intended to find where she was fixed that so you might in necessity tell her your grievances she is confined to no place pag. 5. being a Diffusive Body throughout the World. If you wanted a Particular Communion a true Member of the Catholick Church wherewith to communicate and upon which to trust your Salvation the Church of England Particular as to place Catholick as to Faith and Doctrine is such so that your inquiry might here have ended since if you were a true Member of Hers you were at the same time as true a Member of the Catholick Church Here I must take occasion to tell you that you seem by your Abstracting your self from your self to have wilder'd your self and thence to have confounded the Notions of the Catholick and Particular Churches while from our Saviour's promise that the Gates of Hell should never prevail against the Catholick Church you argue the Church must be one which no Body denies that it must have one Faith which no Body denies neither and that it must by virtue of Christ's promise perpetually abide in this one Faith nor is this denied any more than the other two by any of our Church and what have you got hence onely that Christ hath and will always have a true Church upon Earth which I know no Body ever denied But here is the grand pinch and what one may easily see you aim at and that is to have this Catholick Church and the Church of Rome to be all one and the same which we shall see how you prove by and by In the mean time I must return to you where I left you quarrelling with our Church-men and see whether I can make an end of the Quarrel You say that you found that those of our Church that had most Reverence for Church Authority meant onely their own c. You had done the World a great kindness if you had told who they were you inquired of and what were the Queries you put to them I hope if you asked after the Catholick Church they did not tell you that the National Church of England was the whole Catholick Church If you asked after a Particular Church surely you cannot blame them for asserting the Authority of their own Church When you put the same Queries to the Romish Teachers or Writers did they reject their own Church's Authority did not they mean their own when they would persuade you to their Communion as much as our Men did that of our Church when you inquired among them where then is the fault what would you have had 'em to doe to please you would you have had them to say that the Church of England is the Catholick Church which no one that hath any sense can say of Her any more than of the Church of Rome would you have had 'em to say that they had a Church indeed but that either she had no Authority or that no Body need to submit to it which none but a mere Ignoramus could say This Sir is perfect Trifling this is to write a Book and yet not to know what one wants or what he would have I wish to God you had reserved when you were abstracting your self a little Logick that a Man might have known what you meant here and where one might have you that so when a Reader thinks by your Words and by Connexion that you are talking of the Catholick Church you may not come off with a Pish the Man understands me not I was speaking of Particular Churches I wish you had licked this your confused piece into a little better Method and had bestowed on it a little thing called Intelligibility but perhaps you thought such a stile fittest for a Man that was going to write about Transubstantiation You are as little pleased with them when you say they held the Scriptures in high esteem you might without a falsity have added in far greater than the Church of Rome does of which you now are though under that Notion they understood no more pag. 3. than what themselves were pleased to allow to be Canonical admitting also some Traditions but taking and refusing as
and Paul at Rome and that I might be as safe in any of them all as in that at Rome since they and Rome had the same Faith as (c) Cont. Haer. l. 1. c. 2 3. Edit Feuard 1625. Irenaeus says delivered to them and had a Ministry settled by Apostles among them I wish I might be so happy as to have a satisfactory Answer to these Queries from you or any one else But for the present you are too busie having got the Text that the Gates of Hell should not prevail which Text by the bye how came you to interpret of a Church since if you disclaim your private Judgment it does for any thing you can know relate to something else You are sure upon it that Christ hath a Church that that Church has but one Faith which I have already told you our Church does not deny And now you wanted nothing to find firm footing sure footing you should have called it for Mr. Serjeant's sake but to discover pag. 4. whether the Church from her Original was the Commissioned Interpreter of the Sacred Writings c. One would expect here in a thing of that moment some well managed Reasons from Scripture Reason and the Consent of Antiquity to prove that the Church of Rome which you cannot deny that you mean here was this Commissioned Interpreter but instead of that you think you do it cleverly enough by insinuating that without it there would be no end of Controversies which is not proving but begging As to the choice of a Hundred Faiths without such an Interpreter which you say you saw you might have if you mean in the Church of England pag. 5. and that you must mean having already set aside all other Communions and being now employed in the examining whether of the Two Churches the Church of England or Rome you might be safe with I am obliged to tell you that there are no fewer than Ninety Nine mistakes in this short Sentence since the Faith of the Church of England is but one and as much one as that of the Church of Rome her self But for all this talk you have not got to your Church yet pag. 5. which must be Visible to wave needless Disputes such the Church of England is as well as the Church of Rome And now you want nothing but a definition of her which you complain you could not get among us and therefore was forced to go to the Books of Catholicks As to the complaint I answer that you needed not to have gone to the Catholicks as you call 'em since the Church of England's definition in her Articles will I think satisfie any reasonable Man while (d) Article 19. it defines the Visible Church of Christ to be a Congregation of Faithfull here Hereticks and Schismaticks are both excluded Men in which the pure Word of God is Preached and the Sacraments be duly Ministred according to Christ's Ordinance and that must be by lawfull Pastors in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same You could not but know of this Definition of the Church of Christ you had done well to have shewn particularly wherein it failed of separating Hereticks or Schismaticks from being either Flock or Shepherds in the Church But no Ignorance is comparable to that which is affected And since you would not be contented with ours I 'll e'en try S. N's and see what reason it has to be prefer'd to that of the whole Church of England The Church of Christ is one Society or company of Men. S. N. Ch. of E. S. N. The Visible Church of Christ is a Congregation Linked and combined together in the same Profession of Christian Faith. Of Faithfull Men. Ch. of E. S. N. Ch. of E. And use of Sacraments under lawfull Pasters And the Sacraments be duly Administred according to Christ's Ordinance Thus far we agree as for S. N's addition of those Pastors also under one Supreme Head Pastor or Conservator pacis veritatis do you or he prove it and then put it into the Definition it s being there now is no proof of the Truth of it However you I perceive were satisfied with it and think this Definition hath brought you to the Rock hath done your business for you I have often heard indeed of Men disputed into a Church of Men cajoled and of others threatned or frighted into a Church but must confess I never heard of any before you definitioned into a Church and truly it looks surprizing that a Man should like a Church for a Definitions sake Suppose your Definition prove false are you resolved to leave that Church and go to another that hath a better Definition If this be your Humour the Sophisters would be too hard for you and lead you into an endless Maze Satisfied however you are at present and so overjoyed at this Definition that you forgot what was necessary for it and that was to prove and to confirm it instead of which you fall into extravagant Praises and a hurry of Words and Ecstasies to no purpose whereas you neglect to prove First that this is a true and regular Definition and Secondly that it does belong to the Church of Rome so called exclusive of all other Had you done this pag. 6. you had acted like a Scholar whereas the other rable of discoveries and abused Psalms prove nothing at all and would far better have become some Woman or Poet-Convert than you who should prove these things and let them which can doe no better admire After your fit of Ecstasies is over you seem something willing to afford us some Testimonies of Antiquity to what purpose I must now inquire that so we may avoid Confusion and I may shorten my Answers But here according to my own design I must take leave of your Method of resolving your self in your doubts being arrived at that which I took leave for order and clearness sake to call the Reasons of your Conversion which convinced you so far as to leave our Communion and to espouse that of Rome I will take leave of it with this Complement that it really is the most admirable one I ever heard of for a Clergy-Man of above Threescore CHAP. VI. His Proofs of a Monarchical Church under one Supreme Head from Scripture Answered THE Fruit of your noble Method and the effect of all your Search hitherto hath been as far as I can perceive that you have met with a Definition that pleases you Now except you take S. N. to be as infallible in making of Definitions as the Pope is said by some and perhaps believed by you to be in making of Canons for the Church and that you ought to submit to his Definition just as you do to the Popes Decrees with all submission without any scruple or examination you know it will be expected from you to prove this his Definition to be true I cannot dare to think you so
much a Madman as to believe S. N's Infallibility at Definitions and therefore now do wait for your proof of these two things First That this your espoused Definition is true that is that Christ his Catholick Church is Monarchical and governed supremely by one chief Pastor pag. 6. his Generalissimo a very fit Title in a literal sense for some of your Popes or Vicegerent here on Earth and Secondly That this Definition doth belong to the Church of Rome and not to the Church of England Do but prove me the first and I 'll forgive you the trouble of proving the Second and bestow it on you as a just reward for your pains about the first But before we begin I must desire you to remember not to confound Particular Churches with the Catholick Church and not to take that as said of the one which does certainly belong to the other You begin your Proofs with Scripture which a Man may easily see is not at all on your side you give us thence so few and those nothing to the purpose For as to the first out of Acts the Second pag. 7. Verse 1. how that which is onely an Historical Relation should be a Heavenly Representation I cannot imagine No Body will deny that they that meet as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in one place not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as you falsly quote it and as ill translate it at the same work should be as the Apostles then were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one accord or of one mind and which is more that every Particular Church over the World should be as to the Rule of Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one mind but I can never believe that for this reason they are can or ought to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 always meet at the same place which your use of it would insinuate and must require the one as well as the other for your purpose But what this is to a Monarchical Church with a supreme Head I cannot guess nor your other from St. Pauls frequent Injunctions to his several Plantations that they should be all of one mind pag. 7. and speak the same things You had done well to have quoted some passages to have illustrated what you say or at least to have put down some references in the Margin but this alas was not convenient then even those that swallow what you say without examining could not avoid seeing the Fallacy for whereas St. Paul writing to Particular Churches exhorts them to be at Vnity among themselves you would fain turn it as if he should exhort them as to all particulars and circumstances to be at Vnity or to have the same with the other Churches as if writing to Ephesus for example he should exhort them to be of the same mind and to speak the same things with the Church of Corinth with the Church at Thessalonica c. Shew this and I 'll yield the point but remember that if you mean of the same mind and to speak the same things as to matters of Faith this as it need not be proved no Body gainsaying it so it does no ways serve what you cited it for to prove a Monarchical Church It cannot appear otherwise than very strange to all considering Persons that these People should generally with so much confidence affirm that our Saviour left his Church in such a condition with a Supreme Vicegerent over it and yet like you when they should come to make the thing apparent from the History of those first times penned in the Gospels Acts and Epistles are forc'd to drop the proof of it and to impose upon their Readers a scrap or two out of those writings not one jot to the purpose oftentimes You will easily find that I mean this of you and I must needs say that these your two useless proofs I mean Quotations for they are far from Proofs forced me upon this Remark CHAP. VII His Arguments for a Monarchical Church out of Antiquity refuted ONE comfort however you seem to promise us that you will make your Reader amends by your Testimonies out of the Fathers for your being so short and so destitute of 'em from Scripture You begin them in a quaint stile which I believe you took for a pretty fancy pag. 7. I followed say you I must confess a loof off her the Kings Daughter all glorious within Companions that followed her c. This passage is one of the pleasantest that I ever met with and the fullest of Figure I must profess till I saw your Book I always took St. Dennis Ignatius Irenaeus c. for Members of the Church and never in the least dreamed that these persons were her Companions or the Virgins that are her Fellows and I must own that it is the first time I ever heard of a Members being a companion to the Body or that a Man without the breach of common sense may say that his Hand or Foot is a Companion of his Body But you Sir had been contemplating just before the ravishing Beauty of the Kings Daughter all glorious within and the Virgins that be her Fellows and Companions did so run in your head that 't is no wonder you mistook Dennis the Areopagite and the rest you mention after him for the Queens Companions At present however we must let them pass as such whom you followed you tell us and lissened what they said of her and overheard First Dionysius the Areopagite St. Pauls Scholar Secondly Clemens Romanus c. 'T is commonly said it's ominous stumbling at the Threshold and a bad presage to trip at the first attempt and this truly is your very case for it is a great mistake you should overhear either of them two using those passages you mention since neither of them ever said the things St. Dennis having never left any thing writ at all nor St. Clemens any thing besides his two allowing the fragment of the Second to be his Epistles So that your two first quotations are pitifull Forgeries as I shall hereafter prove but granting the passages were true and as old as you would have 'em pag. 7. they are not one jot to your purpose The first of 'em saying onely that the Apostles desired their followers by their Instructions might be partakers of the Divine Nature the latter that Bishops should observe the Orders left by the Apostles pag. 8. both which are nothing to the purpose of a Monarchical Church but prove the contrary if it were worth the while to shew it Ignatius Saint and Martyr is the next you produce pag. 8. from him you tell us that People in all things should submit to their Bishop that no Man can be partaker of the Eucharist that abstains from the Bishops Altar A Man would guess by these passages that you had already forgot what you were about to prove You were to prove that Christ lest his Church under one
it is a pitifull forged nonsensical piece of stuff that you would here impose on us for the Venerable St. Athanasius To wave Dr. Cave and our own Writers who make and prove it to be a forgery your own great m De Scriptoribus Eccles in Athanasio Bellarmine and Baronius had the same opinion of it the latter of whom as you may see in Bellarmine de Script Eccl. in Gratiano hath quite ruined it And here I cannot but admire that you should offer to put off such pitifull obsolete stuff in a Nation that hath so vast a number of learned men and thereby to make your self ridiculous and contemptible when such learned men as Baronius and Bellarmine who had as much zeal as any for the Chair at Rome and more learning than 40000 had already baffled the forgery and caused it to be hist off the stage But such stuff it seems will down with you and so doth that which is as bad you may easily guess what it is I mean. CHAP. XII His Arguments from the Fourth Century for St. Peter's Supremacy refuted WHAT you wanted of evidence from the three first Centuries of the Church which are far from affording you any Practice of such a Supremacy or any hints of there being any such thing settled at Rome but all speak the direct contrary to it as I could very easily shew you think to make up from little scraps of Fathers of the fourth and fifth Centuries whose Rhetorical and honorary Expressions ought not to be taken in a strict literal sense because otherwise it were easie to make them contradict themselves nay altogether unavoidable to prevent it The Instance shall be in St. Hilary whom you first quote pag. 12. He tells us say you Christ gave St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and that he built his Church upon him and yet in another part of his Works n Super hanc igitur Confessionis Petram Ecclesiae aedificatio est Haec Fides Ecclesiae fundamentum est Hilarius de Trinit l. 6. this Father makes the Confession it self as most of the Fathers doe the Rock on which our Saviour built his Church If you will then take the words you quote in a strict sense and I take those that I quote in as strict and literal St. Hilary I perceive is like to suffer betwixt us and be made directly to contradict himself As to the keys that I 'll answer anon As we served St. Hilary so we must Epiphanius about the Rock whom you quote making St. Peter pag. 13. the first of the Apostles the firm Rock upon which God's Church was built Him e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan adv Haeres L. 2. Tom. 1. p. 500. Edit Petav. I quote also making St. Peter's Confession not his person the foundation of the Catholick Church I must confess that it is purely necessity that forces me or any of our Church to shew these incoherences in the Fathers if taken in a rigid literal sense whereas allowing them a latitude befitting Homities not Controversies Rhetorical Amplifications not close inartificial Discourses they are consistent enough And so for St. Ambrose saying Christ left St. Peter as it were the Vicegerent or Deputy of his Love to us pag. 13. in another place He makes this very o Statim loci non immemor sui primatum egit primatum Confessionis utique non honoris primatum Fidei non Ordinis S. Ambros de Incarnat c. 4. Primacy a Primacy of Confession not of Honour of Faith not of Order which expressions of his together with the perfect silence of Scripture and Prime Antiquity as to the thing make me I must confess neither Proselyte to subscribe to pag. 13. nor an Admirer of what you quote from St. Hierome that although God's Church was not so altogether founded upon St. Peter but that the other Apostles also had a share with him in the Office with your leave from your own Margin I translate that all the Apostles were equal in the foundation did equally receive the power of the keys which expressions by the bye as they contradict your own Testimonies from St. Hilary and Epiphanius so they ruine your pretensions for the Papal Supremacy of Jurisdiction yet one is chosen amongst the Twelve that a Head being placed over all occasion of Schism might be taken away I will but urge one place of Scripture why I think I ought not to subscribe to it and that is Acts 8.14 Now when the Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received by the Ministery of Philip the word of God they sent unto them Peter and John which had Peter been their Head their Prince their General as others call him would have looked just as well and not a jot less as if the College of Cardinals upon any important business into France should delegate and send the Pope and the Dean of their College thither But to pass these Objections and to admit St. Hierome's assertion pag. 13. it nor that from Optatus concerning the Prima Cathedra prove any thing more than a Primacy of Order which our Church I believe will not deny to the Bishop of Rome but that 's not the thing will or ever hath for these eight or nine hundred years contented them they are for a Supremacy of Jurisdiction as well as a Primacy of Order their chief ground for which pretension is as I take it the investing St. Peter their Predecessour with the power of the keys the thing I shall according to my promise undertake here the consideration of The dispute betwixt us about it is not whether the keys were given to St. Peter which no body of our Church did ever deny but whether he received them in his own person for his particular use and trust exclusively to all the rest of the Apostles That he did not receive them in his own person is plain from and the Judgment of Antiquity to you I need onely urge your own Testimony from St. p Cuncti claves regni coelorum accipiant ex aequo super eos Ecclesiae fortitudo solidetur L. 1. adv Jovin c. 14. Hierome who makes the Apostles equally to receive the power of the keys and to be equal in the foundation of the Catholick Church for others sake I might urge St. Cyprian q Vnus pro omnibus loquens Ecclesiae voce respondens S. Cyprian Ep. 59. Edit Oxon. who makes St. Peter the mouth of them all and to make that Confession upon which the keys were bestowed in the name of the Church St. Augustine r August Ep. 165. Edit Frob. who is of the same opinion and others but I had rather recur to Scripture it self where I think it is evident enough that he did in the name and for the use of them all receive those keys This I prove from St. Matthew who brings in our Saviour within two Chapters from that ſ
if there were Errours fit to be thrown out of our Church you your self I am sure your Learned Men will grant that no Ordination can prejudice or hinder such a Rejection of Errours That there were such Errours crept in which ought to be cast out and were at our Reformation is what our Church-Men a Hundred times over have invincibly proved As to the Rule you bring from St. Ambrose that they enjoy not the Inheritance of Peter pag. 20. who receive not the Faith of Peter we are very ready to join issue with you or any of your Church upon it and I question not before you and I part on this subject to ruine the Papal and Roman Succession by your own Rule to wit by proving that they have receded from the Faith of Peter and the whole Primitive Church We readily own that a true and Apostolical Mission pag. 20. Commission and Ordination are considerable particulars and are as ready any time to assert that our Church hath them and to prove it against you at any time if you have a mind to undertake this point against her CHAP. XVI The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Eucharist put down Mr. Scl. 's Reasons from Scripture for Transubstantiation answered HAving traced you hitherto and found all your Attempts vain and your Reasons to no purpose which you took so much pains to scrape together to have proved that our Saviour Christ left his Catholick Church in a Monarchical State under a Particular Vicegerent and that that Vicegerent was the Bishop of Rome and his Church the Catholick Church And having shewn all your Attacks against and Remarks upon the Church of England to be very vain extremely abusive and extravagantly ridiculous I have now onely your last your great Reason to examine wherein you make an effort to prove that her Faith concerning the Eucharist is contrary to that of the Catholick Church If you could have proved this I must confess your forsaking our Communion would have been much more reasonable and therefore I question not but that as you have mustered up abundance of Authorities so you have done all you can to make them speak and declare against us but to how little purpose you have made all this noise and ado about this point also is what I shall quickly see Before I enter on your particular proofs I have a fresh complaint to make that you have not used herein that Ingenuity that would have become a Scholar one might very rationally have expected that as your Intentions were to prove against the Church of England that her Faith was as to the Eucharist false and corrupt so you would have set down what that her Faith is This would have looked like fair and ingenuous dealing first to have put down her Faith about the Eucharist and then to have shewn how contrary it was to Scripture and to the unanimous Consent of Antiquity If you reply to this my Complaint that her Faith is so well known that you needed not put it down together but that you have occasionally done it up and down these Authorities I must tell you that by the account you give of it occasionally one would be persuaded that it is far from being so well known I am sure that slender account or rather hints that you so often intersperse about it are utterly false and very foolish so that if any one should take an account of our Churches Faith from you and whom can they better take it from than one that was so lately a Minister among us they must believe that we hold the Eucharist to be mere figures mere representations and bare signs for that is the most you allow us to make of it that I can meet with in your Book all which how far it is from Truth I shall quickly shew you Well then since you had not the Ingenuity to put down an Account of the Church of England's Faith about the Eucharist I must that so I may the better examine the Proofs you bring and any one may compare the Authorities you quote and our Faith together and thereby more impartially judge and more readily discover whether Antiquity fairly laid down speak for or against us Concerning this Sacrament the Church of England in her 28th Article of Religion delivers her Opinion thus The Supper of the Lord is not onely a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death Insomuch that to such as rightly worthily and with Faith receive the same the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Bloud of Christ After which having declared her self against Transubstantiation as repugnant to plain Scripture and to the nature of a Sacrament and against any Corporal Presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Bloud in the Declaration about kneeling at the end of our Communion-Service in our Liturgy she goes on in this Article to declare that The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the Mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith which last expressions exclude the wicked from partaking of Christ's Body and allow them barely the Sign or outward part of the Eucharist In the Publick Catechism in the Liturgy having taught her Catechumens that there are two things in each of the Sacraments the outward Sign and the inward spiritual Grace she teaches them to answer that the outward part of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is Bread and Wine and that the inward part or thing signified is the Body and Bloud of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the Faithfull in the Lord's Supper These passages are sufficient to shew that our Church holds a real but not carnal a Spiritual and Heavenly but not Corporal Participation of Christ's Body and Bloud which tho' locally and naturally in Heaven is yet after a Mystical and Supernatural way communicated to the Faithfull not by the mouth of the Body but by that of Faith. Thus much for her Sentiment concerning this Sacrament pag. 20. now I must try your Reasons against it You tell us that you had been a long time greatly concerned for the Interpretation of but five small words of our Saviour c. The result of your concern I suppose was that those five words I doubt we shall find more than five or double five concerned in this business are to be taken in a literal sense and that which you offer for proof of it is this First Because this Sacrament was his last Will and Testament which ought not to be worded obscurely or doubtfully to prevent quarrels and divisions Secondly Because this Will is repeated by so many of his Apostles without the least variation or caution against the