materiall weight The intrinsecall valiew of some articles may infer more of necessity and obligation to an explicit beleef and practis but the least and smallest points do wth as much right as the greatest exclude a positiv misbeleef I am not bound to know or practis all things of the churches doctrin but I am bound not to disallow condemn or reject any of her traditionall Christianity has been equally handed from age to age unto us He that formally rejects any thing of this as fals doth vertually deny all the rest sith one and the same veracity deliverd all No mans privat reason invented any part of my beleef and therfor no mans reason can reject it Nay the highest points ar oftimes most contingent and consequently the least capable of a proof as Gods incarnation passion and resurrection and if mans conceits be once permitted to intermedle determin of the lesser or greater probability of points and cast away at his pleasur what himself thinks unlikly he will undoutedly go on from one negation to another till all be overthrown It may chance that in discoursing I may say somtime that all the articles of our Catholik faith be taken out of Scriptur wherin they be implicitly contained But in this I do but speak wth the vulgar and according to the capacity of hearers and t is indeed true in this sens for that all Catholik beleef is conformable to those sacred writings But in very truth to speak with wise men as well as we do think and ever shall beleev wth them the Scripturs themselvs those I mean principally wch make up the new Testament were drawn by the rule of our traditionall doctrin explicit faith and not our explicit faith gathered out of them This may appear by part of my former discours wherein I declared that the penning of Scripturs was meer accidentall and casuall and that all our traditionall faith was more ancient than Scriptur and altogether independent of it So that Scriptur and tradition go indeed hand in hand together as a joint rule of faith yet so as that Scriptur gives tradition the right hand as being its elder and judg of it self aswell as as cojudg wth it of all other doctrins For both Gospells and Epistles written in Apostles name were so far approved or rejected by the Church however they came equally armed wth Apostolicall names prefixt before them as they were found consonant or dissonant to the churches tradition For ther were more Gospells written than the four we hav and far more Epistles than thos the church admitted to her cannon And this is the reason why the Apostles themselvs and Disciples met together to try whether the preachings and writings of all their missionaries were punctually conformable to the tradition they had received from wch meeting S. Paul himself though an Apostle not of men neither by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father Gal. 1.1 Yet would he not be exempted from that meeting After three years saith he I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode wth him fifteen dayes Gal. 1.18 Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem wth Barnabas and took Titus wth me also And I went up by revelation and comunicated unto them that Gospell wch I preach among the Gentiles but privatly to them wch wer of reputation least by any means I should run or had run in vain Gal. 2.1.2 By wch I think it may be gathered that the church is above the Scriptur and of greater autority than either Paul or Barnabas or any wtsoever single man and member of the Church sith she judges every ones doctrin to the approbation or rejection of it For a judg is more noble than the thing wch is subject to his censur the rule than the thing examined and ruled by it and to giv an approbation is in that formality more excellent than to receiv it Neither was ever any generall councell cald together to teach the church her doctrin But upon the rising of heresys judging by the rule of their tradition the Prelats in councell confirmd the Catholiks in the way they found them in and declared against hereticall innovations that they might desist from further commotion This rule of tradition found in the hands practis of Christians disperst over the earth left them by their forfathers could not fail so long as it was found universally agreeing in the whole Catholik body wch is animated by the spirit of infallibility especially being strengthened by testimony of Apostolicall writings wch were nothing but a part of the churches tradition coppied out or the fathers that succeeded them or other monuments that were yet remaining amongst them As for example the Christians found an injunction of praying for the dead upon the very wals windows gravstones and monuments of their deceased forfathers commended also unto them both by teachers their living books and by books their dead teachers and all children found their parents in the beleef and practice of it And therfor it was concluded that it could be no other than as it was thē esteemd an article of pure Christianity sith the whol body of Christians then present held it so their forgoers and fathers deliverd it sacred Scriptures sufficiently insinuated it Catholik writings and monuments confirmd and comended it unto them So that Madam that piece of popery you would take from me being a part of this Catholik tradition will be as hardly wrested from me as the Gospell it selfe wch the same tradition has deliverd as a coppy conformable for so much as it is unto it selfe the first and universall rule of faith by wch pape himselfe and all generall councells are guided so subject unto it that they can act nothing against it as may appear by the proceedings of the Catholik church from its very first birth and uprising unto this present day Pope Iohn the 22d. a learned man much given to reading found in many places of the Greek and Latin fathers as also in texts of sacred Scriptur as he conceived that the souls of Christians deceased went released out of purgatory thence into some place of repose on this side heaven and eternall bliss where they expected the consummation of their number that all the Catholik body might at the end of the world enter paradis together This opinion by the multitud of autoritys and arguments appeard unto him so probable that he sent it to some Christian Universitys to have their judgment if that were not indeed Christian beleef But they rose up against it and rejected it as dissonant to tradition For the Pape tho he be Overseer of the whole church yet being but one single man he cannot of himself discern the universality of a tradition so well as the whole Catholik body may do and therfor he never defines faith but with that Body conciliarly assembled and if himself i th interim should light upon an opinion how probable soever it
Scriptures as our boyes and girles do at schoole judging the sense comprehended as soone as the sillables be speld I speak not to such Greater divines to whome I speak must and will acknowledg that the Scriptures be often argumentative passing from one point to another wthout giving any doctrinall notice therof This will make the reader hable to continuall mistakes whiles he conceivs the writer to go still along upon the same subject whereas he is past over to a new or a contrary one As also in the Psalmes canticles Prophecies t is very familiar wth those holy men under one the same number person to act themselvs in one verse God or his church in the other imediately succeeding in one half line to decipher things present in the other conjunctivly connext things onely to come and not appliable to wt was then in hand tho the speech be united The good Eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles was it seems adviced hereof when reading the Prophesy of Isaias he asked Philip of whome doth the Prophet speak this verse he was led as a sheep to the slaughter of himself or of some other man Act. 8.34 Again in the whole course of scriptur a man may meet wth propositions here and there desperst wch being taken apart from the other discours and according to their own bare sound are quite opposite to other formal assertions in the same book nay to the very drift and intention of the Authour as will soon appear unto him that shall make an analysis of the whole book such be the semisentences depraved texts and ill applied autorities used by sectaries For example in that sublime and learned Epistle of S. Paul written to the Romans our people of England do cull out many places for the solesufficiencie of faith against the necessity merit of good works wch is as far from the dift and intention of the Apostle as hell is from heaven and unbeseeming such a Catholick doctour as S. Paul was to write to such a Catholik place as Rome The busines and occasion of the letter was an emulation risen in Rome betweene the converted Jewes and the converted Gentiles those who had been made Christians from Iewes disabling the Gentiles as being ever aliens from God wheras the Iewes converted were first Gods servants under Moses then under Christ and so pleasing God in the whole course of their linage by their good conversation according to the law they used the Gentils on the other side diminisht the Iewes for that themselves by the very light of reason doing wt they could was a law to themselvs and so far pleasd God that he therfore brought them equally wth the Iewes unto the light of Gospell wch the Iewes indeed deservd not sith they had murderd the Messias and Lord of glory This childish emulation arising haply upon some slight word at their meetings proceeded so far that it brake forth into open rancour one against another insomuch that their Priests and Pastours who were amongst them could not well allay it Wherfore S. Paul notice therof being given to him wrote that letter of his to them wherin he layes about him now at the Iewes then at the Gentils confuting their pride and folly and giving them both to understand that neither of them had aught to boast of sith God of his free mercy had equally cald them both to the saving faith of Gospell and made them Christians and therfore that they should all live together in humility peace and brotherly charity This is the scope and subject of that sacred and most Catholik Epistle so wretchedly abused by our pittifull Sectaries who understanding nothing of the Apostles purpose deprave him as they do other scripturs to their own ruin And t is an odde kind of riddle that Catholik divines who do onely understand the scriptures should affirm them to be hard and difficil to understand heretiks who understand them not at all should maintaine them to be easy Again we see that scriptur ever anon takes up figures allegories and parables wherin are inclosed truths of a differing strain to wt the letter relates This will caus an obscurity almost invincible For who can look through a veyl none surely but the church and church men singularly assisted and inspired so S. Paul lookt through the story of Sara and Agar and perceivd the two churches decipherd therin Gal. 4. And this custom is it seems so frequent in Scriptur that the same Apostle gives a caution against too much adhereing to the bark and letter of sacred scriptur averring peremptorily that the letter kills but the spirit or meaning couched under the letter that is life 2. Cor. 3. For that the bare letter of the history too much insisted upon will often lead if not to a contrary errour vet besides the intended truth Besides the same phrase or letter is used in scriptur somtimes one way somtimes another as sin not to stand upon further exemplification is taken commonly for an offens and yet somtimes again for an expiation therof 2. Cor. 5.21 wth is almost contrary Somthings in scriptur are spoken of God according to his essence wch wthout good heed may prejudice the right beleef of a trinity some things of Christ according to his humanity wch may dâ—sh the conceit of the diety in him som things of the church triumphant wch may falsly be applied to the militant somthings of the Messias his second coming wch may be a stumbling block to the truth of his first And contrary All these things have caused errours mistakes and heresies in the world And may still do the like if private judgment have free and uncontroulable dominion over the letter and text of scripture to interpret it at pleasur Lastly sacred scriptur being a masse or body of writing both made up by severall Authours and a miscellan of severall kinds of words histories and lawes under a figure histories and lawes wth out figure or dogmaticall Prophesies of severall stiles or phrases and all of them obscure and parabolicall prudentiall Proverbs close coucht together and so antimetrically sited that rare wits can search into their depth Psalms and canticles so highly elevated above ordinary conceit that for aught I see they may suffice to amuse the understandings of all ages parables not yet fully explicated and dogmaticall Epistles of the good Apostles wch if they be taken so far as may concern pure Christianity wthout their economicall morall and politicall precepts wch be easy and well enough known wthout them are enough to exercise the understandings of mankind Scriptures I say made up of all these severall ingredients argue first that they were never pend to teach us our faith but for a meer help of meditations for exhortation incitement of devotion and piety in people already beleeving Secondly that it would be a lost labour to go cull our beleef out of theÌ„ where no such purpose is intended no method used
right in all my thoughts and actions and therfor indeed when they be presented to you they com not as offerings of worth but of duty though I should my self take most pleasur in duty that is serviceable Altho Sr I had not a motiv of obligation the great temperance and moderation I have observed in you such as I have seldom seen in young Gentlmen of your age your retired disposition self sufficiency to live contentedly in your own breast whilst others wth much expens of time seck themselvs abroad would hav invited me to the boldnes of this addres for books love to be presented to the hands of such as will peruse them Wch way soever your inclination bends in matter of Religion either my Knights discours will answer to it or at least the reasonings of his three opponents against him either his valour in the defence of his Religion or his fall from it Three things I have mainly aimed at in these conferences that they should be useful familiar and new Usefull and beneficiall both by the choise of a grave and weighty subject such as is Religion and vertue also by a rational vindication defence therof Familiar and easy both by an ordinary form of words natural and proper to the language wherin they be written and by the easy flowing strain wthout any logical collection of syllogism or citation of authours autority of Latin sentences Unusuall and new both by handling such things as have not yet at least for aught I know been treated of by abstaining both from all common places heads of controversys well have been already over and over and more than enough discust and also from the ordinary way of handling them if they do chance as in the fift Dialog they do to light in my way For we find that a crambical repetition of the same things brings a nauscousnes upon men how important soever the things in themselvs may be peopl also are now run into new ways of errour and ther for new ways must be thought on to reduce them This purpos of mine I am sure is good but God knows how far I have hit it Wher any man that is my friend perceivs me to fail let him not spend time in vain to chide and censur me but help me for his helping hand I do humbly crave of him if he be an enemy let him use his discretion If I find these three Dialogues pleas I shal be encouraged to bring up the arrear The book is perfect already of it self yea each particular Dialogue is a book wthout dependance of another but the Papist yeelds not till the last where he submits either to the understanding of his two opponents or to the will of his Lady either to the great beauty of theyr reason or to the reason of her great beauty The parson is absent in the last Dialog but the Vicares fights it out to the last and leavs not the field till she see the Knight prostrated at the Ladys feet whose constant champion she was So that the papists overthrow must indeed be attributed to the Vicaresses valour who therfor fell becaus she disputed according to that kind of demonstration Artistotle makes mention of Sol lucet quia Socrates ambulas Noble Sr continue still to love him whose gratest pleasur is to serv you J. B. V. F. C. THE FIRST DIALOG LADY I have Sr Harry according to my promis brought here a worthy Divine to inlighten you in the way of truth to the end that the lettance of popery removd we may at length com to that period you have so earnestly and so long desired For I am resolvd before the conclusion of any such match either wth your self or any other so to provide aforehand that I may meet wth nothing afterwards to disturb my union repos and peace with him I wed my self VICARES So indeed it is written In the beginning God made heaven and earth And then afterwards he gav himself rest Gen. 1. LADY Your birth and breeding Sr is noble your person pleases me well and your natur is very agreable I lov your deportment your spirit is very pregnant and its endowments numerous your conditions all good your fortun is plausibl and kinred renownd your knowledge and activity equally high and comendable your conversation towards all men sober prudent and sincerly just Onely one things spoils all your other good qualitys you are a Papist VICARE It spoils all indeed according as t is written One knot of dead flies spoils a whol box of ointment Eccl. 10. LADY To deal sincerly with you I lov not popery this you must renounce or me If som few conferences with this worthy orthodox may avail to that purpos your conversion once effected I am yours KNIGT Madam I shall be willing to learn very glad you may be sure to gain two paradises at once MINISTER Well Sr I will show you in scriptur that ther is not in the whol word of God any such thing as Masses Popes Breviaries Missals Monks Cardinals Nuns Beads Liturgy Shrines Altars Vows Indulgences Lents Purgatory Dirges Priests Free-will Rosarys Merit Jesuits and the rest of popish medly VICARES Well don sweet-heart lay his load upon him that he may feel it and couch under it for so it is written Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens Gen. 49. You use to say that Issachar it Greek for a papist and the two burdens a pair of panniers fild with popish trumpery LADY Fair and softly good D that we may not irritat but heal Proceed we step by step that my good Knight may chearfully accompany us in our conference beginning first with generalitys Sr. Harry you must not be obstinat in old errours but be willing upon good sufficient motivs to leav any whatsoever opinion be it never so antient T is antiquity keeps you hood winkt VICARES Old things ar past away behold all things ar becom new saith the Scripture 2 Cor. 4. MINISTER The multiform grace and industry of severall reformers raised by the Lord have brought things to light wch wer hidden in former ages And you may see daily new discoverys made both by particular persons and parlaments Luthers lamp that was first held up in the midst of darknes reveald very much of truth afortime unknown but after him severall other torches lighted at his opend yet more in severall Christian Countries I need not travell far to show you this Our English writers from Harry the eight unto this present day will make it sufficiently manifest unto you if you could peruse them how that still the succeeding Doctours added ever new degrees of light to the discoverys of forgoing divines Parlaments in the sam manner did not all at once remov superstition out of the land but perfected the work of reformation by degrees wch is indeed a progres most conformable both to to natur and art Room was not built in a day nor will it in
places are found ther is either an entire Altar stone or some remnants or signes of it This sacred Synaxy was the only thing that brought Christians together in times of hottest persecution at wch most of our Christian Martirs were taken And yet notwthstanding others could not forbear for that they could not have that comfort any other way nor yet were they able to live wthout it As appears in the Acts and processe of our ancient Martirs particularly the proconsulary Acts of S. Saturnin Wher we read that when the pagan emperours had given a comand that no Christian should dare to be present any more at their Mass wch the Christians at that time called their Dominicum the martirs replied sine Dominico esse non possumus we cannot live wthout Mass And therfore S. Saturnin being askt by Analin the proconsul whether he had been at Mass he answered Christianus sum as if he had said being as I am a Christian I cannot do otherwise t is Christianity t is my very life and being If all the Religion of those ancient Christians had been onely a little bearing or reading and their onely work to beleev in Christ they had never needed to expose their lives for that for Reformers do not think themselvs bound under sin to hear any body sith they beleev already wch is all that is necessary to salvation We cannot live wthout absolution and Mass they may live wthout a pratling preacher wch most of them do but censur and none of them be advanced by him either in their faith or good works onely their ear is somtime tickled a little wth a witty actour in the pulpet as there be indeed som of them so ingenious that t is as much pleasur to hear them speak as Ben. Iohnsons Catilin or Sejanus By all this discours I would infer that hearing or preaching the word is not the sole act of Christian Religion nor yet the main and principal act therof sith of its own natur it is but a preparativ and disposition to some further work and the disposition is ever les noble than the form it disposes unto And if it dispos unto no other thing as Reformers preaching does not then is in no Religion at all but a meer mockery This was my first thesis My other was that a man may all his life time either read or hear the word and yet at length be undon both for his sin and infidelity if in any one thing he misbeleev or fail LA. If we let you alone Sr Harry you wil not com to a period wthin your time the glas is run KN. I will dispatch in a word VIC Do so Sr Harry for it is written In a multitud of Words ther wants not sin but be that refrains his lips is wise Prov. IC KN. That any one errour in faith suffices for destruction altho a man otherwise beleev the story of Gospel is apparent in reason For all the Articles of faith being received upon one and the same motiv wch is the verity of the revealer the formal deniall of any one must needs be a vertuall deniall of all and consequently the destruction of faith wthout wch no man can be saved Wherfor S. Paul is bold to condemn Hymeneus Philetus known Christians for one onely errour Shun saith he prophane and vain bablings for they wil increas unto more ungodlines And their word wil eat as doth a canker of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus who have erred from the truth saying that the resurrection is past already overthrow the faith of some 2. Tim. 2.16 By this example we see that one errour overthrowes faith And yet t is worth noting too that the errour those two are condemned for is not any thing formally opposit to Scriptur for Christ told his disciples of a resurrection to come but did not say that in Hymeneus his time it was not past but their mistake and misdemeanour was merely against the judgment of the church whose Priests expounding Scriptur told them that the resurrection was not then past and yet they would not be quiet notwthstanding nor resign their judgment Another like president we have in his other Epistle wher he saith The younger widdows refuse for when they begin to wax wanton against Christ they will marry having damnation becaus they have cast of their first faith 1. Tim. 5.11 Tho marriage be in it self lawfull yet undertaken against the churches autority as it is it self a mortal sin so is it a casting off and a destruction of all faith And yet those widdows were beleevers and fil devotes too such as lookt to the dressing of their churches and Altars washing of their sacred vestments arâ—â— other works of charity As for mortall sin that any one will ruin the soul even of a beleever appears by the tenour of the whole new Testament especially of S. Pauls Epistles wherin he dehorts the Christians in Rome Corinth Ephesus and others from sin in generall each mortall sin in particular because the wager of sin is death neither adulterers theeues or murderers shall ever enter into the Kingdom of God of Christ Wch exhortatioÌ„ had been of no valiew and nothing to the purpose if sin had been nothing prejudiciall to one that beleeveth By this account a man may both hear read Scriptur all his life time and yet be condemnd at length both for sin and infidelity if he do not adhere closely to all truths revealed by the church and use all Sacraments and helps of salvation she propounds LA. This point requires further discussion than we have now time for And my servant hath put me in mind that dinner is brought up Wherfor break of and le ts go in MIN. Let 's in le ts in to the great work where we shall meet wth an abstract of Metaphysiks In vino veritas in pane unitas in carne bonitas Nay ther 's divinity Sacraments too Le ts in good Sr Harry on my conscience I have such a gaping appetite I could swallow a camell KN. Me thinks Dr we ar at a good feast already according to those sacred words My meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work Ioh. 4. MIN. After two or three cups of wine Sr Harry I le repeat over all this discours of yours and refute it to the full Foecundi calices It was the first best miracle Christ ever did to turn water into wine I would he had turnd a little more of it VIC O Husband sweet wine and fair women are seldom found in the same countrey Content your self you had better have me wth a pot of your ale than a french face wth a whole Butt of claret Go to now MIN. That 's right too But did you never hear wt the Scotch-man said to King James when he askt him wch Byshoprick he would have Bath or Wells Marry beath beath quoth the Scotch-man The King for the conceit