Doctrine of our Church that there is no necessity of express Scripture for the Constitutions and Practices which she enjoyns in order to the more regular and decent service of God. But before my Adversary ends his Letter I am brought in again as if I had said that we espouse a Tradition which authorises Constitutions and Practices without any Authority of the Written Word but I would fain know where it was that I said this I said the Church taught that there was no necessity of Express Scripture and here it is come to no Scripture at all for that is the place the Representer alludes to I must therefore ask him seriously whether these two be the same and whether there is no difference between not express Scripture and no Scripture at all could this Adversary shew that there is no medium betwixt Express Scripture and no Scripture at all it would have served for some excuse for him but since that is impossible to be shewn all people owning that what is onely implyed or ordered in general terms or may be deduced by rational consequence thence is said to be founded on Scripture and to have the authority thereof as well as that Doctrine which is delivered the most plainly or expresly there I must accuse my Adversary of very great disingenuity here who does so injuriously turn the not requiring express Scripture into the not requiring any Scripture Malice it seems will put men that are set upon revenge on doing the most unlawful things and quite perverting the words of their Adversary and making them say what they never did nor thought on the Representer otherwise could not but have seen how great a wrong he was doing me there and his Conscience must have upbraided him with a deliberate abusing and perverting my words but against that home-enemy he seems to be provided with armour of Proof The next Article of Popery laid to my charge is for asserting That the Tradition of Antiquity is highly useful and necessary for the Interpretation of Points of Faith. I cannot see how this comes to be Popery any more than the last Article that I was charged with my Adversaries business here seems to be only to amuse the Multitude with the word Tradition and therefore my care needs onely be employed for the acquitting of my self to let the world see all that I or others mean by the Tradition mentioned here By Tradition here I meant nothing else than those Interpretations of difficult places of Scriptures and explications of points of Faith which we meet with in the Fathers from the first Century downwards Such Interpretations whether received from those before them or found out by their own industry and comparing of one part of Scripture with another we do embrace as transmitted from them unto us in their Writings and look upon such Interpretations as very good Guides and necessary Assistances to prevent our falling into Error by letting us see how from time to time such a Point of Doctrine or such a Text was taken by the generality or unanimous Consent of Fathers in such a determinate sense We have very great reason to value the Fathers upon this very account because they afford us such evidences against those Doctrines the Church of Rome would obtrude upon us It cannot but be very great pleasure to find that the Texts of Scripture which are alledged by the Romish Writers for some of their particular Doctrines are interpreted generally in a sense quite contrary by the Primitive Fathers I am sure that the Texts of Scripture alledged for that great fundamental Article of Popery the Pope's Supremacy by the Romish Writers are interpreted by the generality and almost unanimous Consent of the Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers in a sense quite contrary to that which the Romanists urge them for I am very well assured that in very many other Points of Doctrine we are able to shew that the Generality of Fathers did not interpret the Texts of Scripture upon which the Romanists found them in that sense which they contend for and I do believe that we may extend it to all points of Doctrine grounded upon Texts of Scripture which are under debate betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome If it be Popery then to value and embrace those Interpretations which are delivered to us from the Fathers and which are the Best Evidences next to the Holy Scriptures themselves of the falshood and unreasonableness of the several Points of Popery and which will assist us to ruin those groundless Doctrines I am content to be a Papist in this Article but am affraid I shall never be looked upon as one jot more a Catholick for it I will pass on to the next charge the Tenth Article of my Popery which in my Adversaries Letter runs thus that He Honours the Saints in observing days in honour of them But how comes it to be here He honours when I said plainly enough that WE that is the Church of England do it If there be any Popery in this charge why is it laid to me as if I were delivering there onely my own Judgment or Practice and not to the Church of England whom I spoke of expresly there But the Man begins to draw low and to be put to all his Shifts to make up a Catalogue of Popery against me that might make some show and therefore since I proved so ill natured in the rest of my Book as to give him no advantage against me He very wisely charges that as my own and an Article of my Popery which is the avowed and most known Practice of the best Reformed Churches in the World. It is very well known that not onely the Church of England but the best Reformed Churches abroad do observe dayes in honour or memory of the Saints departed who do at the same time detest and abhor the putting up of prayers unto them or praying to them for to be made partakers of their Merits He that will take the pains to look into the Liturgy of the Church of England may quickly see what honour it is that our Church payes to the Saints that it is no other nor no more than to Bless God for his manifold Gifts and Graces unto them whereby they were enabled to be glorious Examples of Holiness to the World and strengthened in any Troubles or Fiery Trials to pass through them with a Christian Courage and Resignation and to pray unto him that we may have Grace to direct our Lives after their good Examples This is all that our Church doth practice in her Liturgy and all that she requires in the Sermons on those Festival Days is that the Example of the Servants of God and particularly of that Saint whose memory is celebrated that day may be set forth in the best manner that so the Congregation may be persuaded to direct their Lives also in the same good and holy paths But tho this be all that the Church
charge either Disputant or Writer with teaching what he does onely grant for Argument sake and with believing what he meerly supposes for the same purpose and yet this is my Case in that Accusation I was in that chapter of my Book out of which these passages are taken shewing what a disingenuous sort of an Adversary I had to deal with there how he when he came to treat of the Popes Supremacy instead of putting down a just and fair account of the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome did onely mention two or three trifling things which any one with adding onely to them two or three necessary words might grant and yet be as far as any one ever was from believing the Supremacy of the Popes of Rome That I might therefore expose him and shew the great looseness and craft with which he wrote I did in that place undertake to prove it in particular and went through all the Heads of that chapter still telling him at every one of them that I could grant it and yet continue without any obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy What I had said there and granted as is usual in all Writers meerly for to expose my Adversary this Letter-Writer hath by sleight of hand turned into honest confessions and makes me assert in the Letter what I had onely supposed in the Book Whosoever will look into that page of my Book will quickly see how extravagantly abusive and false this charge in the Letter upon me is and how very disingenuous and malicious that person must be that would from thence affix to me as an Assertion about the Bishop of Rome's Succession and Unity that which was onely a School-Concession for Argument sake And tho this answer is sufficient with all persons of sense to convince them what a Jugling Adversary I have yet there is an Expression in that very paragraph which does express as plainly as words can my denyal of and disbelief of any of those things that He lays to my charge in the Letter as fair Concessions of my Opinion about the Bishop of Rome for immediately after those passages set down in the Letter I have these very words I can I say subscribe THOUGH I DO NOT to all this without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy And here I cannot but appeal to the world to judge betwixt me and this Jugling Adversary whether any one could express his meaning more plainly and his dissent more fully than I have done in that place and whether that Adversary must not be devoid of all Honesty Sense or Conscience that would notwithstanding such a direct denyal of mine expressed there charge me with believing and granting that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter's Successor that he is the Centre of Catholick Communion and that it is Schism to separate from his See. Had my stile been obscure and my expressions been intricate and those words which did declare my direct disbelief of those things at some great distance three or four pages off for example from those quoted by the Representer there might have been some small pretence some little colour for the knavery used here by him but there was no ground for any such Plea for the Expressions and stile are plain enough there and the words though I do not are in the very next line to his last quotation and it is impossible but he should both see them and read them too With what conscience then could any man read those words and yet have the forehead from the very same page to bring me in as believing the direct contrary I am so far from thinking that any Christian would be guilty of such a deliberate and injurious imposture that I believe both Turks and Heathens would abhor and detest the being guilty of such a malicious Forgery As for that good Opinion of the Pope which this Jugler mentions afterwards in the Letter as mine I think I have sufficiently evidenced to the world in that second Chapter of my Answer to the Compiler how little a Friend to or favourer of the Popes Pretensions I am If to shew that there is no ground or Authority from Scripture for his claims to Supremacy if to shew that there is no ground for the Pretended Supremacy from the Laws and Canons of the Universal Church for the first six hundred years after Christ and to back this with Three Challenges to all the Romish Priests in England to name one Canon in the Code of the Universal Church that does either constitute or assert or suppose the Bishop of Rome to be that Head and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church which their General Council of Florence defined him to be if to shew I say all these things be a discovery of a mans good Opinion of the Pope I do here own that I have as good an Opinion of the Pope as any Person within the four Seas But I am afraid that I never shall have either favour or thanks for my good Opinion of the Pope And however the Representer who I believe read that chapter thorough does tell the world of his meeting with my good Opinion of the Pope in that Book I am very fully persuaded that he does no more believe himself that I have any good Opinion of the Pope than I believe that he is at this Instant in Japan But when a mans hand is in at such sort of writing and when he is resolved to blacken his Adversary but wants Matter and Ground for such Calumnies He must eâ—en do as my Adversary does invent himself what he would fain have found in his Adversaries Work and charge him with saying that in his Work which he does not nay which he expresly denies I think I have fully vindicated my self from the charge about the Pope himself against me and exposed enough the notorius Calumny of the Representer upon this Point However lest any Reader should not sufficiently apprehend the first part of my Answer to this Calumny and lest any of the Representers Friends should deny the Proof of the deliberate Falsification of my meaning because the passage is not set down and they converse commonly with those who either have not or will not or it may be must not look into my Book it self I will transcribe those two whole paragraphs thence which are the Subject of his Charge and my Answer and they are these in the beginning of my Second Chapter concerning the Popes Supremacy p. 8. Our Compiler being now come to a Point of debate doth not forget his art of palliating which was so serviceable to him in his Misrepresentations and Representations of Popery He cannot but know and therefore ought to have avoided it that this loose talk about Successor of Peter and Centre of Catholick Communion does not reach the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome nor fully and fairly declare what Power Jurisdiction and Authority in and over the Catholick Church those
Bishops challenge as their Right To let him see how loosely he manages this debate betwixt us I can with putting in two or three necessary words subscribe to all our Compiler says for the Pope and yet be as far from owning the Popes Supremacy as the Church of England is or ever was The Fathers teach says our Compiler (a) Nubes Testium p. 22. that Christ Built his Church upon Peter So say I too if by Fathers here be meant two or three of them and not the Fathers unanimously as he hath it before or generally That the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Saint Peter is what I can also grant and that that See is the Centre of the Catholick Communion if I may but put in here what is absolutely necessary while possessed by an Orthodox Bishop and that whosoever separates himself from it I add professing the true Faith and possessed by a Catholick Bishop is guilty of Schism I CAN I SAY SUBSCRIBE THOUGH I DO NOT TO ALL This without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy All that our Compiler puts down here reaching no farther than a Primacy of Order does not at all suppose in the Popes any Jurisdiction or Authority over the Catholick Church Having dispatched my Vindication against the Charge of the three first Articles of Popery I come now to examine the fourth which doth charge me with doubting whether there be really any Controversy about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England Well then are these my expressions in the place quoted Or is this the sense of them there I must profess to the world that had I not already discovered the cheats of the malicious Representer in the former Articles I could not have believed that any person of common sense or learning would have been guilty of such tricks I had the same occasion in my chapter about the Tradition that I had in the former chapter about Supremacy of shewing how loose a Writer our Compiler is and exposing him for putting that down as an account of the Controversy which I could subscribe to if taken in that sense which the words would fairly bear and yet be never the nearer to Popery than I now am or ever intend to be Upon this coming to examine what he had put down at the Head of his Collections about Tradition I have these expressions To state therefore the Controversy about Tradition if there really be any betwixt us he should not have put down that for the account of the debate herein betwixt us which is agreed to by both sides nor should have omitted that wherein WE REALLY DISAGREE and that is about the Scriptures being a certain and Perfect Rule of Faith WITHOUT THE HELP of TRADITION which the Council of Trent hath made to be of Equal Authority with the Scripture One would think such clear expressions as these would have prevented my being accused of doubting whether there really be any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England but no clearness it seems can be protection against the Malice of such an Adversary as is fallen upon me and therefore he puts down those expressions as mine doubting whether there be really any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England when in that very paragraph I say that We meaning the Churches of England and Rome Really Disagree about Tradition's being part of the Rule of Faith. And therefore any other Reader less spiteful than my angry Adversary would easily have seen and observed that the expression in the beginning of the paragraph if there really be any was used and intended for an allusion to that state of the Controversie which had been set down by the Compiler about Tradition and ought not to be wire-drawn to make me doubt that in the beginning of the paragraph the contrary to which I did directly assert within three lines after The fifth Article of the charge against me is that I did say that the Tradition of the Catholick Church is to be received and the sixth is of the same kind that I confessed there That by Tradition we receive the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Suppositious Writings I do freely own that these are my expressions in that place and these I am sure are far from looking like Popery if I that wrote them may be allowed to tell in what sense I did mean and intend them All the service that my Adversary could expect from the citing and insisting upon them was onely to amuse the common Readers with the Word Tradition that they not understanding the Ambiguity of the Word nor in what several senses the Word Tradition was used might be tempted to believe that I was for setting up there that Tradition which they used to hear preached against so much by the Clergy of the Church of England By Tradition here which I said we receive or admit of I did not mean that Tradition which is set up as part of the Rule of Faith in the Church of Rome nor did I any more mean Tradition as it is taken for any Doctrine of the Church of Rome which they say was from the beginning delivered to them All that I meant by Tradition there was no more than the bare means of delivering down to us the Word of God and any Rites or Customs in the Ancient Church When I said therefore that by this Tradition we received the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Supposititious Writings The full and clear meaning of those expressions was that the Canonical Books of the Holy Scriptures or to speak to the meanest capacity that the Bible was delivered down from time to time and from hand to hand in all Ages unto us that we did receive them from our Forefathers in the Church as they had received them from theirs up unto the beginning and that since they delivered down to us onely those Books which the Church of England does believe and admit for the Word of God we do thereby know that no other Books could be part of the Scriptures which were not handed down to us for such This is as much as I need to offer either in Vindication of my self or explication of my words when I spoke of Tradition but because I cannot clear my innocence too much herein I will shew the world that I had very good Vouchers for every word that I said thereabout and will produce the sense of Arch-Bishop Usher who never was thought by any Sort of Protestants to be any ways inclineable to or guilty of Popery This most learned Prelate in his Reply to the Jesuits Challenge hath these words about (b) p. 35. Tradition This must I needs tell you before we begin that you much mistake the matter if you think that Traditions of all sorts promiscuously are struck at
of England doth practise or allow yet He is for proving that I am for doing more He says that I seem to grant all that is produced in Nubes Testium upon that Subject one of whose Instances was their celebrating the Saints Memory with a Religious Solemnity so to be Partakers of their Merits This charge I can answer in a very few words that I neither did grant all he collected in the Nubes Testium upon that Subject nor seemed to grant it And which is more that I could not since I do not believe that the most Holy Men have any Merits or that if they had that others can after their decease be either helped by them or be made Partakers of them by celebrating their Memories even with the most Religious Solemnity The next Article of Popery is so very ridiculous that it is not worth the putting down or giving one word of Answer to it but I must not omit it lest I be upbraided and told that I had the cunning to slip over those points which would discover me most and lay me open to the world It shall not then be put out of its place or thrown quite away but shall have its turn In this Eleventh Article I am accused of saying that it is generally piously believed that the glorified Saints do intercede for the Church Militant I would fain know what all this is to me am I to be the Generality of Christians Or am I to answer for what other people believe I speak there of a General Belief and have not put down one Syllable of my own persuasion herein and yet this disingenuous Adversary is for fixing all this upon me and puts it down as my own Opinion or to no purpose at all If he puts it down for my persuasion he plays false since I do not hint one syllable of my sense about it and if it be as it really is to no purpose there it is very ridiculous and ought to be contemned as such and the Author of it for his Pains The twelvth Article is that I should say that the Honour which in Primitive times was paid to the Memories of Saints was nothing but what was highly just and that herein they are imitated by us as well as by any other Christians I do own that these are my own expressions or my sense if by Primitive times be intended onely the Three first Centuries of the Church of whose Ages I there spoke but how comes this Article over again this is the very same with the Tenth Article and hath been sufficiently answered there when I shewed what honour it was that our Church did pay unto the Memories of the Saints But this Scarcity of matter is a troublesom thing and therefore the poor man is forced to come with the Old Article over again but tho he be so impertinent with his second Edition of the Article I will not be so in transcribing my Answer to that 10th Article hither I could however be almost willing to shew how all that the Church of England practises and requires as to the Memories of Saints is the very same that was practised nay all that was practised by the Primitive Christians in the three first Centuries but since this would take up much more room than I can afford it here I will onely mention that famous Instance of the Church of Smyrna how they were resolved to Commemorate their Martyred Bishop S. Polycarp As for worshiping him much less his Reliques or of praying to him as an old translation of that Churches Epistle hath it They inform the Christians of Lyons and the whole world that they did detest the doing or thoughts of it that they onely loved his Memory for that very great good will which he had shewn to his heavenly King and Master and therefore did resolve to celebrate with Joy and Praises the Birth-day as the Church did then call the day of Martyrdom of this Saint in Memory of him and such as had finished their courses like him and for an incitement and preparation to all that were to combate in such bloudy encounters Here is no mention either of Hymns or Prayers offered up to the Saint himself and reason good since these were then and long after and ought always to be looked on as Peculiar to the God of Heaven alone The thirteenth Article of Popery is that I say that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with respect and Veneration and believed that God often wrought Miracles by them and that they might do it too Thus the Representer hath drawn up the Charge and this he hath done very like himself that is with more sleight and cunning than any Honest person would use For first he puts down as my words that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with Respect and Veneration and believed that God often wrought Miracles by them whereas they are not my words but his own he had said them in the Nubes Testium and I did grant them that so I might the better shew that granting such things were done then this did not defend or countenance the present Practices of the Church of Rome towards Reliques However for that my granting and allowing of them he hath made them mine whereas had any other person of Sense or Conscience been to have mentioned those Expressions he would have put them down as said by the Representer himself and only granted by me He next lays the charge as if I had said that the Fathers indefinitely kept the Reliques of Saints and by this the Reader must understand if he pleases that I said that the Fathers in general did it even the first Fathers of the three first Centuries but this is as disingenuous as the rest of his Accusations for when I did grant his saying that the Fathers kept the Reliques I did not grant it of the Fathers indefinitely but did particularly specifie what Fathers Practice I granted it to be and did limit it to the Fathers of the latter Ages by which I mean the latter end of the fourth and the fifth and following Centuries as any one that will but peruse that one page out of which it is quoted must necessarily see As to the Charge then taken all together I had so fully expressed my Sense and my Mind in that Chapter that he carps at that I think I need to use no other words to clear my self and answer the Charge of Popery than those I had put down in that place Speaking in that Chapter of the great difference betwixt what was practised in the fourth and fifth Centuries of the Church in relation to Reliques and what is practised now by the Church of Rome I have these words I need not examine by retail his Testimonies from the latter end of the fourth and sifth Centuries the design of which he himself makes only to prove that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with Respect and Veneration and believed that God often