and will not give us the least intimation of their Dogm's wherein his schemes did agree with theirs yet I think it very probable that he might light upon some of the same thoughts with them because I find a wonderfull agreement between the Followers of those two and this Gentleman For they had no reverence at all for Scripture and very small regard to Reason sometimes they would throw away Ed. Erasmi Basil 8vo 1571. and easily reject a great part of Scripture Iren. lib. 3. cap. 11. and at other times they would receive all Iren. lib. 3. cap. 12 pag. 302. but upon this condition that they might interpret it they made novel Inventions to be great and necessary Articles of Faith Id. lib. 3. cap. 11. p. 288. In tantum processerunt audaciae uti quod ab his non olim conscriptum est veritatis Evangelium titulent in nihilo conveniens Apostolorum Evangeliis they had a profound veneration for Authority and entirely submitted themselves to the Doctrines of Ebion and Cerinthus for they supposed that these men had a secret or mystery derived down by Tradition to them which alone was able to fix the sense of Scriptures and therefore whenever an Argument was directed against them out of Scriptures they still brought it to this Tradition without this they undervalued and slighted all the Scriptures and were the Inventers of the chiefest Arguments against them that our Authour and his Friends at this day do use All this will appear Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. if we look upon Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 2. Cum ex Scripturis arguuntur in accusationem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum quasi non rectè habeant neque sunt ex Authoritate quia variè sunt dictae quia non possit ex his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciunt Traditionem non enim per literas traditam illam sed per vivam vocem and then farther toward the latter end of that Chapter they challenge something that speaks the great confidence they had in their way perhaps as much as the Infallibility of a Guide se indubitatè incontaminatè sincerè absconditum scire Mysterium The proceedings of those men are so like to the method of our Authour that I do not in the least wonder if he found in his Schemes something very agreeable to their Doctrines Some mens brains for all what that learned Spaniard teaches may be exactly of the same temper and consequently their wits of the same height I have heard of a fool who by thinking the very same thoughts with his Brother could find him out when all the wise men in the Town could not do it Thus far therefore I will be obliging to our Author and give him more credit than I will upon some other occasions I will though with some reluctancy of reason believe that whilst he was reading the Scriptures some thoughts might come into his mind agreeable enough with some of those that Ebion and Cerinthus had But after this high civility allowed him I hope he will not impose upon my Faith so far as to require me to believe that he found any thing in the Holy Scriptures that agreed with the idle whimsies and mad dreams and blasphemous prate of his two other friends Nailor and Muggleton This is such an impudence as R. C's aswell as Protestants must abhor all Popes and Councils that have ever been with wrath and indignation would have detested any man that should have dared to put so profane and vile a scandal upon those sacred writings What Anathema's would the Council of Trent have thundred out against Luther if ever he had wrote or spoken any thing so base as this It is certain that there is nothing in Scripture that can in the least seem to favour the blasphemies of those two wretches and I am unwilling to think that there was any thing in our Authour's schemes that would deserve the punishment which they justly suffered It is possible that he might have been of their acquaintance and have had very particular respects for their persons and so he might be over-easie to think that some of his thoughts might be like unto theirs This I am willing to guess because I can with confidence presume that he has kept very ill Company for though his natural temper carries him to speak soft and smooth things yet in spight of nature he is forced to be rude and saucy For why cannot he write a Book without pointing his discourse at the breasts of the Right Reverend Fathers of our Church why does he treat them with contempt and scorn why does he presume to daule 'em to twitch 'em by the Nose and pull 'em by the Beard and stand over 'em with Fescue and Ferula and tell 'em that here they were out and there they were out and that here and there and at every point he can instruct them All this comes from want of manners and good converse Muggleton would have done the same and so would Nailor and none but such as they For certainly a respect is due to them for their Character and a respect is due upon their Personal accompt they are men of excellent worth and great learning prudence piety and integrity and so conspicuously eminent in all these that our Authour is not able to match them in any one Countrey though he take as large a view of Bishops as he does of Conversions in his 14th page through Europe Asia Africa and America But when Reason and the Holy Scriptures are to be thrown down it is no great wonder if the Bishops of the Church of England fall with them I begin to be warm and you my Friend may be offended at it yet allow a little to a just indignation it may well move a man of a cold complexion to see a pert unknown come up so briskly to the heads of our Reverend Fathers and Address to them in a formal speech intimating thousands of mistakes miscarriages and errours in them and yet in all that speech the man says nothing but what is old and dull and flat insipid stuff all and every thing in it has been answer'd five hundred times since the Reformation and at least twenty within these two years This looks like perverse stupidity for men to pretend to be writers when they do not reade if our Authour had read the late Books by this writing he gives plain proof that his Reason serves as little in drawing up Plea's for Authority as it did before in making Schemes of Christian Doctrine out of the Scriptures All that he says is this that he heartily wished that God would have pleased to have left us some unerring Authority and Sovereign Guide p. 6. and then that God has not left the World without Government and given us Laws without lawfull Judges and Interpreters p. 10. From thence he presumes that there is such a thing and resolves to go in quest after it he
a certain Spanish Don P. 7. he treads out the ground measures the length of his Weapon makes a Speech and would tempt a man to think he is resolved to fight but he withdraws safely and calls in two others to engage a desire he has to see the Holy Scriptures and Athanasius his Creed to combat one another for his divertisement Now which of these two he is for he says not nor yet seems to guess which would have the better in case of a Contrast But alass this man mistakes those two are Friends and if there were any difference between that Creed and the Holy Scriptures Athanasius if he were now alive would be the first man to declare against that Creed it is certain he learnt and sounded all his Doctrines upon those no man read them with greater care and attention no man cites them oftner or with greater veneration Whether our Authour knew this or no I cannot tell but after all his preparatory flourishes he gives no more than this dry insipid request to the Fathers of our Church that they would not tell him that every Christian suppose every Baker Shoemaker or Cobler upon a sincere perusal of this Holy Book would certainly have composed the Creed of Athanasius Now this is a thing which never was spoken either by Bishop Presbyter or Deacon or Parish Clerk Can any Reverend Bishop be presumed to think and say that the great Athanasius had not more wit and reason more art more skill in Consequences than every Cobler and Tinker or than this Man 's two Friends Nailor and Muggleton it is prodigious to think how men dote that undertake to write Books against Reason But whatever this Man does or can say most certain it is that if Athanasius was the Composer of this Creed he did it upon a sincere perusal of the Holy Scriptures by the power of a good Reason and by the skill which he had in Consequence As for Authority of Pope or Council he had none for this Composition this Creed lay in obscurity and was unknown in the Church long after the days of Athanasius and as it was composed at first so it was brought into the use of the Church afterwards for some time without any considerable Authority morely by the private reason of some that were little more than private Men. Thirdly In the next place our Authour sets down some matters of Faith great and necessary Articles P. 7. as he calls them and these are the Mystery of the Incarnation the Doctrines of the Trinity Consubstantiality Transubstantiation Predestination and Free-will These he examined by his Reason but he does not tell us what account his Reason gave of them It is possible after a sincere perusal of the Holy Scriptures that he might find great reason to believe the Incarnation of our Lord and the Doctrine of the Trinity and by consequence that of Consubstantiality and something of a Predestination and it is possible that from thence he found no reason to believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation for herein many other Mens Reasons would agree with His. This he does not tell us but yet this I will presume in favour to him that he does not think that the Fathers in the Council of Nice and those in the after Councils who fixed the Doctrine of the Trinity and Consubstantiality I say he does not think but that they made their Determinations with highest reason I will presume too that he thinks that the Fathers in the Lateran and Tridentine Councils had reason to determine the Doctrine of Transubstantiation for though we think that in these two later Councils the generality acted by false reasons by prejudice and by worldly interest yet we do not doubt but they all and every one of them pretended to act with reason for certain it is that the private reason of any single man is a much better guide than the private Spirit of a Quaker or any other for a Reason may be urged and is upon information to be corrected but the pretence to the Spirit is not But if the majority of those Fathers at the Council of Nice were able by Scripture and Reason to establish those Doctrines of the Trinity and Consubstantiality to be Articles of the Christian Faith I know not why our Authour since he has the same Scripture and like Reason might not have done the same Sure I am that after this Council Athanasius pleaded much in the defence of the truth of these Doctrines and that not from the Authority of the Council but from the true sense and meaning of the several Texts Sozom. lib. 7. cap. 12. the same way of arguing was used in the first Constantinopolitan Council and so it continued till Theodosius by advice of Nectarius which he received from Sisinnius took another method After these doughty performances P. 8. our Authour comes in the next place a little more closely to Scripture or the sacred Records of Christian Religion and sets his reason to search and examine them and if possible to draw from thence a scheme of Christian Doctrine But here it seems his Reason was jaded and tyred out much more than in all the rest of his Disquisitions perhaps he found not there any thing like to the Doctrines that make up the Apostles Creed He does not tell this though he ought to have done it if he had compared his scheme with it But he tells us that he disagreed from all Churches the Church of England in her 39 Articles P. 8. and all the Catechisms of Catholicks Calvinists Lutherans and Socinians I was pleased that in his opinion the Doctrine of the Church of Rome did no more agree with Scripture than that of the Church of England But though I was pleased in this yet I was not very confident of any advantage from it because our Authour oft queries and seems to doubt whether his Reason does not much differ from other Mens I know that God Almighty has given different Talents to Men for Heads and Brains and Wits as well as Hearts are not alike in every Man I am sure the Ancients by virtue of plain honest reason were able to find the Christian Doctrine in the Holy Scriptures so did St. Irenaeus St. Athanasius St. Hierome St. Chrysostome St. Augustin and the rest This was a light to their feet and a lamp to their paths sufficient to satisfy those good men in matters of Faith and as this Man speaks in the great and necessary Articles But though this Man could not find the Christian Doctrine there yet it seems that he thought that he found something there that pretty well agreed with the dreams of Ebion and Cerinthus and with those of his dear Friends P. 8. Nailor and Muggleton The first of these I am much enclined to believe and if I were as impertinent as He is perhaps I might give some evidence of the second As for Ebion and Cerinthus this Gentleman is too close
the good rules and instructions that are in it and for this end it is read in the Church of England It is something more and to be hinted here Concil Laod. Can. 60. that the Laodicaean Council expresly requires that no Books be read in the Church but those that we accompt in strict sense Canonical Can. 60. And in the Canon 59. of that Council it is absolutely forbidden that any private Hymns or Psalms that is such as have been made by private Persons since the consignation of the Canon of Scripture should be used in Churches Now if our Authour knows his Breviary and allows any Authority to these Councils He may have more reason to object against the Church of Rome for having so many private Hymns in their Service than against the Church of England for having so few Books in that which is properly called the Canonical Scriptures This bye-consideration might have given some stop to a man that was not resolved to run too fast from his Church 3. But he mentions a third Doctrine determined in ancient Councils against us P. 20. and that is concerning the unbloudy Sacrifice now this is for want of matter to give words it is certain that the Church of England at the end of the Communion-service in the last Collect teaches us to pray to God that he would accept this our Sacrifice and our Authour knows that it never owned any Sacrifice but an unbloudy Sacrifice to be offered there I wish our Authour had told us whether the Sacrifice which the Church of Rome pretends to offer be bloudy or unbloudy They tell us ordinarily that there is bloud on the Patten and bloud in the Cup bloud with the Body concomitanter for the benefit of the Laity and bloud in the Cup to the satisfaction of the Priest I think both these are offered up according to their Doctrine as a Sacrifice propitiatory for the dead and the living They that believe Transubstantiation must believe that one part of the Sacrifice is really bloud and nothing else but bloud and they may be concern'd to call it a bloudy Sacrifice but not at all to call it unbloudy Pope Vrban the Fourth seems to have been of this mind when he instituted the great Feast of the Body of Christ commonly called Festum Corporis Christi For he did it upon this occasion that a certain Host being broken by the Priest either bled or shed drops of bloud they say miraculously but how or whether true or no we know not Now this I presume may be call'd a bloudy Host or Sacrifice Brietius Ann. 1264. in these words tells us the story Vrbanus quartus ex occasione miraculi de Eucharistia Briet Annal. in An. 1264. Hostiâ à Sacerdote fractâ reddente sanguinem Festum Corporis Christi instituit The institution of this Feast was to give honour to the Host and that not as unbloudy but as bloudy and it was to insinuate this Doctrine that all the other Hosts have bloud with them as well as this though the bloud does not always appear But as they say then it did and if so it came in seasonably to confirm the Doctrine of the Lateran Council about Transubstantiation and that which soon follow'd after it the communicating of the Laity in one Species So happy was the Church of Rome then to have a Miracle or the story of a Miracle to come in at the nick of time to patronage that which old Councils and old Fathers and sense and reason and all that is in man must have disclaim'd and oppos'd But now after all this our Authour is most unlucky to put us in mind of the true ancient Catholick Doctrine and to summon up old Councils in the defence of a word which we accept and use with submission and that most properly we believe the holy Eucharist to be a Sacrifice and that in plain and strict sense an unbloudy Sacrifice and so as the ancient Councils and Fathers did we call it And though the Doctours of the Church of Rome use the same word yet when they reflect upon the Doctrine of their own Church they must explain themselves by a much harder figure than we use when we interpret the words of our Saviour's Institution But yet our Authour will have the Councils against us and he tells us of a Council at Constantinople which he says was a thousand years agoe and that it seems used these words and so do we those old Councils are better Friends to the Protestant Doctrines than he is aware of for the Protestants studied them and learnt of them and took their rules and measures in the Reformation as near as they could after the holy Scriptures from them Then he cites the ninth Council of the Apostles now I wish he had told us whether this was a thousand or fifteen hundred or two thousand years agoe I thought at first he meant the 15th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles But our Authour has declar'd so much against the Scriptures that we can never hope to find his sense there it is possible he means the ninth of the Apostolick Canons And that is as little to his purpose as the ninth Council of the Apostles to be sure it speaks nothing against the interest of the Church of England and nothing to the advantage of the Church of Rome Thus it is and will be as often as men adventure to write Books without skill 4. P. 20. The fourth point our Authour gives us as determined in Councils is that of the veneration and worship of Saints Relicks as also of Martyrs and holy Images which he says was according to Apostolical Tradition established in the second Council of Nice with the general concurrences of ancient Fathers This Council indeed speaks to the point for which it is alledged but because our Authour is pleas'd to fortify it with concurrences I 'll give him account of some other Councils that as to time do almost concur with this they treat upon the same subject and determine as resolutely and when he has ballanced all the concurrences together perhaps he may find as little pleasure in this allegation as in all the rest The first Council that ever determined any thing about the worship of Images was at Constantinople Anno 754. * See the Acts of the second Nicene Council in Binnius p. 621. Col. Edit Ann. 1618. This called it self the seventh general Council and so it was esteemed for thirty years after This condemned the worship of Images and declared that it was abominable that Images were Idols and the Worshippers of them Idolaters and that all and every Image was to be thrown out of Christian Churches and they spake as high in this way as any have done since the Reformation †See Binnius his Collection as before and Balsamus and Zonaras on the 7th and 9th Canons of the second Nicene Council This appears by the Acts and Canons of the second
after Luther's opposition against the Church of Rome either found them or pretended to find them in some German Library and sent them to Peter Crabb who printed them in the Year 1537. and annexed them to the rest of the Councils as if they had been the true Acts of that Lateran Council for which he had no Authority but what he received from Cochlaeus 2. They are so ill put together that every man who reads them must misdoubt them For some of them are in the style of Conciliary Acts and others speak after the manner of a Narrator who tells what was done in a Council Thus speaks the 11th 33d 39th 51st 61st In the 11th we find these words In Lateranensi Concilio piâ fuit institutione provisum 33. Evectionum personarum mediocritatem observent in Lateranensi Concilio definitum 39. De multâ Providentiâ fuit in Lateranensi Concilio prohibitum See the rest and you will find that these and those words there used speak plainly that these are not Canons of a Council Hist of the Irish Remonst pag. 66. From these and other Arguments Peter Walsh has well guessed That the words of Matthew Paris who says that Innocent proposed 70 capitula to the Fathers of this Council which to some did seem easie and to others burthensome gave occasion to some Collector to put together what he found in the Decretals under the name of Innocentius in Concilio Lateranensi and give to his Collection the Name of the Acts of the Lateran Council it is plain that Gregory IX who put out the Decretals did allow the same Authority to the Acts of a Pope and especially his Vncle this Innocent III. as if they had been the Acts of a Council And his Propositions in the Lateran Council though never accepted or agreed to by the Council would have as much Authority as the rest of the Decretals have III. But then thirdly it is to be observed farther That whether these reputed Canons were Propositions of Pope Innocent or real Acts of the Council yet no great stress can be laid upon them because all things were then done in extraordinary haste We cannot at this day learn from any man that in this Council there was any such thing as deliberation or consulation no argument was used either pro or con no reason offered no objection removed not a word is mentioned what this or that or the other man said All things past in a huddle after a quite different manner from what was used by the Apostles in their Council Acts 15. But more closely to our present business as to Transubstantiation the Doctrine of which our Authour says was here confirm'd Briet Annales in An. 1215. and Brietius says that the Name of it was here admitted in eo Nomen Transubstantiationis admissum fuit it is to be observed that if we speak strictly the very Name of Transubstantiation is not to be found in all the Council and there is but one Passage in it that refers either to the Name or Doctrine Cabassutius a Roman Catholick in his last Collection of Councils found so little of it that in his Notes upon this Council he has not one remark upon this Point Nor yet has Labbè any thing considerable of it though he takes in the Notes of Binnius and gives us the Errours of Almaric which gave occasion to this Doctrine yet the truth is something of it is in this Council in the first Canon of it But it comes in so sneakingly and so unlike to a Conciliary Act determining a Doctrine de fide that an easie Reader might not observe it and the more accurate would have no great regard for it It seems to be slurred upon the World or design'd to pass like a whisper thorough artificial conveniences where they that are near shall perceive little of it but at distance it will be noisie and loud The words in the first Capitul are these Vna verò est fidelium universalis Ecclesia extra quam nullus omnino salvatur In qua idem ipse Sacerdos Sacrificium Jesus Christus cujus corpus sanguis in Sacramento Altaris sub speciebus panis vini veraciter continentur Transubstantiatis pane in corpus vini in sanguinem potestate divinâ ut ad perficiendum mysterium unitatis accipiamus ipsi de suo quod accepit ipse de nostro These are the words and besides these we have nothing that refers to this matter in the whole Council and all that we have is no more than one barbarous word hooked in by a Parenthesis without any explicite and determinate sense Now this is surprizing and amazing that Christians should be obliged and that with peril of damnation to believe a Doctrine so difficult and so incredible as that of Transubstantiation and that onely by virtue of a word that seems to be slurred upon them must we for this deny our Senses and our Reasons and forget our selves to be Men must this be accounted Authority sufficient to awe Consciences and subjugate Faith and captivate Understandings God Almighty never did this and the Blessed Jesus spake plainly and fully whenever he required obedience under such severe penalties If Transubstantiation be de fide necessary to be believed in order to Salvation certainly we ought to have better grounds for it than the Lateran Council can give For any indifferent Person would require in such a case as this that the Fathers of the Council should have used all application of mind care and industry and hearty humble prayer to God for his direction before they had determin'd such a Point and laid such a burthen upon Christians but of this kind there was nothing done there IV. I add farther that as there appears but little ground for any man to believe Transubstantiation by virtue of the Lateran Council so there is much less for an English-man to receive either that or any other Doctrine in the Name and by the Authority of it An English-man can scarce think of it without wrath and indignation For this was called in the Year 1215. about two years after the great mortification of our King John by this Pope Innocent III. one of the great reasons for it was to shew to the World the Pope's Victory and England's Slavery From thence it was that he wrote his Letter to tell the Barons In additionibus ad Concilium Lateran quartum in Editione Labbeanâ Annales Monast Burton Edit Oxon. pag. 263. that England was his and the King his Vassal Here it was that he expanded his Plumes and shewed his pride and his glory Here he made known to the World that Pandulphus did not go beyond commission when he told King John that he ought to obey his Lord the Pope tam in terrenis quà m in spiritualibus as well in earthly matter as in spiritual nor yet acted beyond commission when he stressed this unhappy Prince so far that he was forced to resign up his Kingdoms
to the Pope and could not be resetled in his Rights till he had submitted to become tributary Vassal and Liege-man to this Pope and his Successours and untill he had taken that slavish base Oath Annales Monast Burton p. 270. which was framed in the same words wherewith Vassals and Villains were wont to bind themselves to their proper Lords which may be seen with many other strange Clauses contained in it in the Annals of Burton Monastery p. 270. Oxford Edition That all these things were done by command appears by the Acts or Propositions of Pope Innocent in this Lateran Council Here he breathes in the Spirit of a Conquerour and speaks as Universal Monarch of the World he gives and takes away at pleasure and makes Laws for the keeping or forfeiting Estates He tells what Princes shall be deposed and when and how far their Subjects shall be free to make head against them Vide Addit ad Concil Lateran quartum in Edit Labb and upon occasion not onely to depose but to kill them There he actually determined of the Rights to the Empire in the Cause depending between Otho and Frederick and there he gave away the Estate Lands and Possessions of Raimundus Count of Tholouz to Simon Mountford And as he dealt with Princes so he did with private Persons for there be adjudged the Estates of all Persons to be liable to forfeiture and confiscation upon such faults committed and not onely theirs but those of their Abettors Harbourers or Receivers of them as appears not onely in the Council but in the Decretals lib. 5. tit 7. cap. 13. All this he did and it will be no wonder that he did all this if we consider how much his mind was elevated by his victory over King John and to what a degree of pride and haughtiness he was grown indeed it was so much that no words can express it except his own In Bibliotheca Cottoniana sub Effigie Cleopatrae E. 1. And whoever consults that remarkable Rescript of his to King John and his Heirs wherein he sets down his Title to England in perpetuam rei memoriam may see a sufficient foundation to expect all the rest of those Actions which insued afterwards This may be said of him that he was so far just that he was not partial to any but he treated all alike for as he trampled upon Princes and Laity so he most tyrannically and insolently treated the Clergy too For in the Year 1216. as we see in the Chronicle de Mailros Chronica de Mailros p. 194. Edit Oxon. pag. 194. Oxford Edition we have a strange complaint of the Religious against him that he went beyond all Rule and Order Law and Canon Inauditam inusitatam Dominus Papa Legato concesserat autoritatem faciendi videlicet ut ita dicam quicquid animo ipsius sederet in Clero Populo per Angliam Scotiam Wales constituto transponendi deponendi alios ponendi suspendendi excommunicandi absolvendi Episcopos Abbates alios Ecclesiarum Praelatos Clericos This I presume made Matthew Paris give him that Character f. 245. as a thing well known by the experience of Prince and People Noverat Rex multiplici didicerat experientiâ quòd Papa super omnes mortales ambitiosus erat superbus pecuniaeque sititor insatiabilis ad omnia scelera pro praemiis datis vel promissis cereus proclivis Now such a Man as this is wants a great deal of advantage which another in his place might have had in order to the giving credit or authority to his Actions And if a Council under him be intirely inslaved to him and so much at his dispose that it does not ap pear to posterity that any one man in it did upon the place speak a word either for or against the presumed Acts of it and if yet it be at least probable that all those Acts were not Conciliarily past but mere Propositions of the Pope himself without any consent approbation or regular determination of the Council I think no man living can look upon himself as concluded by them or under an obligation from them But an English-man must have an inward reluctancy and abhorrence to see his Faith increased and his Creed inlarged and himself put into a new danger of being adjudged a Heretick by a sleight and trick of that Man who with intolerable pride and insolence trampled upon the Crown and Dignity of a King of England and as soon as he had done that with an unheard-of confidence challenges to make Laws about Kingdoms Estates and Patrimonies wherein he subjects them to forfeiture and confiscation upon the accompt of Heresie And at the same time he slurs in a word to a pretended Canon that requires a Doctrine to be believed against all sense and reason and such as will indanger all men that are willing to act rationally and discreetly according to their best wits that God hath given them to be adjudged and condemned for Hereticks This certainly must appear hard to English-men to have their Estates brought into such perils and hazards especially since they learn from one of their own Countrey Mat. Paris who was a Monk and so bound to great regards for a Pope and wrote in the Year 1254. that this Innocent was not onely intolerably ambitious but infinitely covetous and so may be presumed really to design and aim at forfeitures and not near so much to regard the clearing and setling the Christian Faith as to make a gin and a trap to catch People and seise upon their Estates under the name of Hereticks He that observes how sneakingly that Word comes into the first Capitulum of the reputed Lateran Council may easily persuade himself of the likelihood of some of these thoughts And if any one shall rub up his memory and add to these the fineness and great management of Rome when they made the Canons of the Sardican Council to pass in the World under the name of the Nicene And in opposition to a plain manifest discovery of the Errour yet to this day to bear up so high as to challenge some great Authority unto them whereas in their own nature they can deserve but very little being made by the broken remains of a Council when the greatest numbers were gone and none remained but the fast Friends and Dependants upon Rome And to this let him add the Remarks that Father Paul gives upon the first Act of the Council of Trent wherein those words Proponentibus Legatis were so closely couched and so supinely passed that few heard them and fewer apprehended the consequences of them yet all the insuing Determinations of that Council were intirely guided and governed by the fatal Powers of them He that thinks of these and many other such like things may apprehend that there is such a thing as art and sleight in the World and if he does that he will not be over
forward to give any extraordinary Authority to such a Lateran Council intirely governed by such a Man as Pope Innocent III. especially in such a Doctrine which it self durst scarcely speak out but imposeth upon you in it by giving you onely one Word and that a barbarous one in all the presumed Acts of it And that comes in as it were by surprize and most amazing without any deliberation or consultation but you have it there before you in the reading of it can be aware and perhaps too before the Fathers who were convened in that Council themselves could be These Considerations I think sufficient to persuade any man to think himself under no great obligation to believe Transubstantiation by virtue of the Authority of this Council and I presume it will least of all affect the Faith of an English-man I shall onely add one thing more concerning this Lateran Council which some perhaps may think worthy of a remark and that is this This Lateran Council was not onely famous for new Doctrine Addit ad Concil Later quartum Edit Labb but new Doctours For here we find not onely Transubstantiation but St. Dominick He was at this Council And he and that Doctrine were in one and the same condition there in a like obscurity something perhaps but not much taken notice of but he and that went on from thence to be most conspicuous and remarkable They for some time after gave the great noise and talk to the World whereever Transubstantiation came the Fathers of the Inquisition who were the Order of Dominicans soon followed after and those Persons that were not subdued under the power of that Doctrine were sufficiently awed by the Terrour of these Fathers For whereas the Senses of Men were obstinate and refractary against their espoused Doctrine those Men made use of one Sense to oppose all the rest for by Rods and Scourges and Burnings they so affected the Sense of feeling that this in a most compendious way stilled and silenced all the others Thus Transubstantiation grew great And he that would argue for it from the Authority of the Lateran Council does but trifle it is and must and can be no otherwise prevalent than by the Authority of these Dominican Fathers The Order of these was confirmed the year after this Lateran Council and that by Innocent III. Thus effectually did this Pope doe his business when he made a new Doctrine and a new Law he provided a new Order of Men and a new Office to promote it and it is no wonder if by so doing he brought a new face of Christianity into the World Briet Annales in An. 1216. This Monsieur Briet says in his Annals in his remark upon the Order of Dominicans and the Franciscans An. 1216. Aliam Christianitati faciem induxit And I easily believe him that the Christianity which began to appear and was most visible in the World soon after this Lateran Council was as different from the Primitive Christianity as St. Dominick was distant in time from St. Peter or as his Rules were different from those in St. Peter's Epistles Now I have done with our Authour's Allegations from Councils And here according to fashion I might be tempted to talk a little of victory and tell my Reader what I think I have done But here I am stopped for our Authour has possest himself of this Post He has given us in the next Paragraph p. 21. such a Jargon of words that are designed to speak a victory but most certainly shew an intolerable vanity that I cannot imitate him For after he had reflected upon his doughty performances How he had found the Pope's Supremacy in the Council of Chalcedon and the Books called Apocrypha put into a higher rank than we place them as he thought by the Council of Carthage And the unbloudy Sacrifice decreed by the ninth Council of the Apostles And the adoration of Images established in the second Council at Nice with the general concurrences of Ancient Fathers And Transubstantiation owned and confirmed by 1300 Fathers in the great Lateran Council and he might as well have said 13000 and all to like purpose whilst never a man amongst them spake one word either to prove or disprove or approve that or any other Doctrine in the Council as far as it appears And after that he had remarked that all these Doctrines and I presume he means the Lateran Council too were brought into England by Augustine the Monk which Council was not in being till more than six hundred years were past after the death of Augustine When I say our Authour had seen that he had done all this he smiled and cockt his Beaver and admired his Atchievements and then forthwith speaks his glories in these words which I will set down here in perpetuam rei memoriam that all such Conquerors as he is may never want words wherein to express their glories or their follies Thus he says Indeed P. 21. Fathers when I had diligently examin'd this truth and found it most evident beyond the possibility of any just or reasonable contradiction I was much scandaliz'd at the disingenuity of your Writers who whilst they accuse others of fallacy imposture and impudence dare advance so great and demonstrable a falshood in matter of fact that nothing but ignorance can excuse them so they expose themselves to the greatest censure of rashness and indiscretion as uncharitable and unjust to those whom they call their Enemies as also unsafe and abusing the credulity of their Friends I admired to see these words in this place and am yet puzzled to think what could just now inspire him with all this puffiness He knew that he had never read one of these Councils and that he had transcribed from others without skill or care and he could not but know that some of his Allegations are most trite and common and answer'd most sully and largely by numberless numbers Why then does he seem here thus to admire his Acts and put down such an extravagant rant I cannot but think that the spirit of his old Friends Nailor and Muggleton came in to his assistence at the Writing of this Perhaps it is a Flower borrowed from some of that sort of Persons to adorn and imbellish a Book It is here I am sure out of its place altogether groundless and senseless and gives us one Argument more of the mighty powers of Face and what great expectances there are from it I do much believe that our Authour may hope for more success from that one Paragraph than from all his Allegations out of Councils Our Authour in the next Paragraph tells us he designs to be brief and therefore laying aside other Controversies he will insist onely upon two and they are these I. P. 22. The Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church II. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation The First of these I shall consider and leave the Second to others who both have