Laws to her self any more than about those things that are expresly either commanded or forbidden else there would be mad work in the World Where doth Mr. D. find family Prayer or infant Baptisme or the observation of the Lords days expresly either forbidden or commanded in Gods word He will say that the Church may make Laws about these I grant she may but no other than what she can make about things either commanded or forbidden expresly So that he wrongeth not only our own Church but all Reformed Churches in affixing such a principle to them Dr. Heylin ascribes to Calvin a quite contrary principle Hist of Presb. 238. That in carrying on the work of a Reformation there is not any thing to be exacted which is not warranted and required by the word of God that in such cases there is no Rule left for worldly wisdom for moderation and compliance but all things to be ordered as they are directed by his will revealed Page 241. He makes this Calvins rule and Martyrs judgment to be grounded on it That nothing should be acted in a Reformation which is not warranted expresly in the word of God Are East and West more opposite than Dr. H. and Mr. D. yet neither truly represents the opinion of the Reformed I beseech those who are at leisure and have well studied the point to state plainly and clearly unto us the due matter of Ecclesiastical Laws and to show us the meaning of the term indifferent so frequently made use of in this Controversy for it seemeth somewhat an uncouth assertion that Church governors may command all things that are usually called indifferent for then many of their Laws would be very contemptible The old definition of things Adiaphorous was that they were things neither commanded nor forbidden this definition seemed to me innocent enough but of late there are Divines sprung up that say the highest acts of love to God are not commanded neither I trow are they forbidden must we call them then things indifferent And hath the Church power to determine who shall put forth those Acts and how often they shall be put forth It may be Mr. D. thinks the highest acts of love are commanded and so do I but he had best not to be too forward in publishing that notion P. 99. He falls into an high commendation of the Bohemian Churches as he doth also in many other Pages of his Book this is little to the advantage of our Church for if that Church be to be imitated we must have lay Presbyters and lay Presbyteresses also Pastors of Parishes must confirm people must come under examination every time they receive the Sacrament we must have no dancings and we may have particular Synods without a Bishop if we communicate the acts thereof presently to the absent Bishops and we must have none brought into Communion but those who are willing and yet we here can by censures if we please make Papists communicate with us or else have them excommunicated and clapt into Prison P. 107. He gives the Presbyterians lame Cause a cruth For he saith God only hath power to bind the Conscience immediately ask him when mens Consciences are bound immediately he tells you when humane Laws and Constitutions are thrust upon men as if they were Divine Here will the Presbyterian say Episcopacy which is but an humane institution is thrust on us as Divine and not only as good and profitable therefore unless we will give men jurisdiction over our consciences we cannot conform Mr. D. cannot bring himself off here but by maintaining that Episcopacy is a Divine institution and it would be too great impudence to say that in so saying he should not contradict every reformed Church almost besides our own P. 118. He mentions the sending of a Printed Copy of the Acts of the Synod of Dort to King James Prince Charles Archbishop of Canterbury by Festus Hommius this is to rub a sore place and to tell the World that we who now suffer our Divines and Students to bespatter that Synod did once well approve of its decisions P. 126. He mentions a Letter of Monsieur le Moine out of which he saith he will set down as much as fits his present design what doth he set down Why Page 136. That the English have a natural fierceness and withal a natural inclination to superstition Is this for Mr. Durells design to blaft the people of that nation where he hath been so highly preferred Are we indeed fierce and superstitious Naturally fierce and naturally Superstitious What kind of superstition is it to which we are so naturally inclined that so we may know how to enquire after the cure of so dangerous a disease It is no matter if we may believe Mr. Moine to enquire further let but Episcopal Authority be established that will keep us from going beyond our bounds Very good but by whom shall this Episcopal Authority be managed By English men I hope but how then can we be assured that their natural fierceness and inclination to superstition will not remain in them We never could observe that a mans being constituted a Bishop did make him less fierce or superstitious any more than less an English man Perhaps this Learned Predicant would have all our Divines come and study in France that they may lose their disease of superstition as sometimes they do their Consumptions in so refined an Air but that Plot will not take He hath another argument for Episcopacy it cannot enter into a rational mans imagination that a great Kingdom should come by custom to be content to see its Bishops no more having honoured and reverenced them for the space of 1400 Years If this be so then may the Bishops be secure we are so accustomed to love them that we cannot be content to be without them and have been a great Kingdom and honoured and reverenced them 1400 Years Where may we that live in England find these things recorded concerning our selves for the Histories we read usually do not make us a great Kingdom but many petty Kingdoms 1400 Years ago If ever any made their ungratefulness notorious certainly they are the English opposers of Episcopacy who will not consider that they owe their Reformation to the care and zeal of their Bishops who did so wonderfully well repurge the Church of England an hundred years ago and so happily set up the holy truth again in its genuine lustre But this is not all they owe unto them they owe them also their Christianity For whether it was brought over into England by Joseph of Arimathea or by Simon Cannaeus or by St. Paul or by St. Peter or by Luke disciple of Philip or by Phaganus and Perusianus in the time of King Lucius it is constant that it was done by the Ministry of Bishops and that they are endebted to their charity zeal and abilities for the holy Reformation they now enjoy Do we indeed owe our late Reformation from Popery
concerning the Minister thereof Presbyterians say That no Law of God hath appropriated it to a Bishop strictly so called If Mr. D. can shew us any such Law or if he can prove that in all or in any Reformed Church a meer Presbyter is not accounted to have power to confirm as well as to baptize he shall do something let him therefore shew himself a man and undertake this work and when he hath his hand in let him also wipe off a blot thrown upon the Church of England and Geneva by Dr. Heylin with the Pen of a virulent Papist VVilliam Reynolds History of Presby pag. 283. viz. That 1576 the Common-prayer-Book was Printed by Richard Jugg the Queens Printer the whole order of private Baptism and confirmation of Children being omitted which omission was designed to bring the Church of England into some Conformity to the desired Orders of Geneva Pag. 47. he is so prodigal of his Ink and Paper as to tell us That in all reformed Churches Matrimony is celebrated in the publick Congregation and by the Minister This may be true of all reformed Churches in reference to their own Members at least I hope it is but if he should intend to assert That Reformed Churches allow not that any who are constant livers in the same Cities with them shall be married otherwise than by the Ministers and in the Church he is mistaken Yet let it be supposed that Papists dwelling with Protestants are forced to marry in the Church and to make use of a Minister what is this to the Presbyterians The composers of the Directory say VVe judge it expedient that Marriage be solemnized by a lawful Minister of the word that he may counsel them and pray for them In the said directory care also is taken that before any marriage the persons intent of marriage be published by the Minister three several sabbath days in the congregation at the place or places of their most usual and constant abode respectively and all Ministers are to have sufficient testimony of this publication before they proceed to solemnize Marriage By the Liturgy also sufficient provision is made that of all that are to be married the Bannes be published in the Church three several sundays or Holy days in the time of Divine service but any one that hath mony may have a licence to be Married without any such publication of Bannes by which means great inconveniences have arisen in Church and State Care also is taken by the 62 Canon of 1603. That none shall be married unless the Parents or Governors of the parties to be married being under the age of twenty one shall either personally or by sufficient testimony signifie their consent given to the said marriage The directory is somewhat more strict requiring that persons though of age shall be bound to have a Certificate of their Parents consent if it be their first marriage And really it seems but rational that a man and a woman though of the age of Thirty if never married before should be bound to signifie their Parents consent before any Minister adventure to marry them The greatest differences I find among Protestants about Marriage are reducible to Two Heads 1. We say here in England That though Children he bound to ask the consent of Parents yet if the marriage be made no such consent asked or obtained the marriage is valid fieri non debet factum valet is our Rule but beyond Seas such marriages are by many held to be void and of no effect Mr. D. hath so many obligations laid on him by our Church that it would be but gratitude to take her part and to answer the Arguments of Dissenters 2. Our Church hath thought meet to prohibit marriage for certain times and seasons which are particularized in our common Almanacks Other Churches leave it free to persons to marry all the year about to these the Presbyterians joyn themselves they say marriage is not to be forbidden at any time unless on such days in which God calls to fasting weeping mourning to confirm them in this opinion they had the judgment of a whole Convocation in England assembled in the year 1575 agreeing That Bishops should take order that it be published and declared in every Parish Church within their Diocesses that marriage might be solemnized at all times of the year but though the Church thought meet to put this Article into the Book the Head of the Church Q. Elizabeth did not so think and therefore suffered it not to be Printed Dr. Heyl. Hist of Presb. 282 283. Object Ay but there are some who scruple the Ring in Marriage which Mr. D. saith is used in Hessen Poland Lithuania Sol. If there be any such the more is the pity for rational ground of scruple there is none any more than there is to scruple taking seisin by a Turf Nor do I know any one Presbyterian now living that doth scruple the use of a Ring in Marriage Pag. 48. we are informed by Mr. D. That in most places of the Reformed Churches they have Funeral Sermons in Hungary and Transilvania two or three in Bohemia but one and that at the Grave As if he would suggest to us that either Presbyterians are against Funeral Sermons or the Episcopal extreamly for them whereas the truth is there never were more Funeral Sermons than in those days when the Presbyterians had their Churches and Pulpits and now that they are thrust out when any one of them dye 't is seldom but some body is hired to Preach a Sermon I say hired for they are as rare as Black Swans that will Preach a Funeral Sermon under an Angel or a Noble And whereas he tells us ibid. of the Minister with singing Boys going before the Corps he knows that in England we have singing Boys but in few places scarce any where but in Cathedrals which do not use to send their singing Boys to go before the Corps at every Funeral Civil respects or differences at Burials may be suted to the rank and condition of the party deceased whiles he was living as for the Religious part of Funerals why should it not be alike to all that have attained like precious faith Doth Mr. D. know any Churches where only the moneyed Christians are honoured with Sermons the poor being laid in their graves without any If he did not why would he lay open the nakedness of his Fathers why would he tempt strangers to think that with them there is respect of persons The Scots say Either let us have Sermons at all Funerals or at none so say the Hollanders so I suppose the French either say or think But Mr. D. Page 49. quotes a scrap of a Letter from Monsieur Drelincourt saying I am so far from allowing the custom of the Reformed Churches of this Kingdom where the Ministers are silent at dead mens Burials that I would think it unsufferable were it not for the condition under which we live I believe Mr.
that are more skilful in Church-History than this Monsieur P. 103. The Church of England is be-lied for of her it is said that she holdeth subordination of Ministers in the Christian Church to be of Apostolical nay of Divine Institution having as she conceiveth for grounds of this her judgment beside Scripture the practice of the holy Apostles in their times of the Universal Church ever since until this latter age and which is more of Christ himself who ordained the Apostles and the Seventy in an imparity as two distinct Orders of Ministers in his Church yet notwithstanding she doth but simply assert the lawfulness of her own Government Certainly this man doth not pretend to know the conceptions of our Church till they be discovered and the Church hath no where declared her conceptions to be these That subordination of Ministers beside Scripture is grounded on the practice of the Apostles and of Christ himself The practice of the Apostles and of Christ is not beside Scripture but recorded in Scripture nor doth the Church any where say that Christ instituted the Apostles and the Seventy as two distinct Orders of Ministers in his Church if she do then Dr. Hammond did not know her mind or else plainly contradicts her P. 144. contains no fewer than four calumnies against Presbyterians which must be manifested in their order 1. The Presbyterians had no set-forms nor indeed would receive any whether for Common-prayer or for administration of Sacraments Matrimony c. I believe some Presbyterians had set-forms for all these and I am sure they do not account it unlawful to receive set-forms for any of these only they may and some of them do judge it inexpedient to have Ministers so tied up in all these as never in the least to vary either by addition or substraction I never heard of Presbyterian that administred Baptism in any other form of words than those appointed in the Liturgy I baptize in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost nor the Lords Supper in any other form of words but what is Scriptural nor Marriage but in a set-form either that in the Common-prayer-book or that in the Directory 2. For a long time many of them had left off the use of that very form our Lord hath taught us p. 37. He had said That most if not all Directorians had left out of their Service for a long time that most complete most divine form of prayer Mr. Paget Mr. Ball Mr. Hodges have printed Apologies for the use of the Lords prayer hundreds of those who now suffer deprivation have thousands of witnesses that they have used it in their Churches and in their Families on Sundays on Fasting-days and yet they must have this filth thrown into their dish However on this occasion let us try what Mr. D. can say Suppose some Presbyterians had never used this prayer in the Pulpit but only at the Lords Supper had they not president in the ancient Church to justifie them in so doing yea suppose some should say that it were no sin never to use this prayer provided a man took it as the pattern of his prayer how would Mr. D. stop their mouths and prove them transgressors In his Sermon p. 26. he brings the words Luke 11. When ye pray say and this place is commonly urged but perhaps is not so strong as some imagine it to be at least when managed as they manage it for I ask What is the meaning of When ye pray say Is the meaning When ye pray say after this manner or say these words 〈◊〉 but after this manner then the sword is not long enough to reach Mr. Ainsworth and his disciples for they pretend to say after that manner and not to conceal any part of the truth the Syriack translation in Luke requires it to be rendred sic or ad hunc modum estote dicentes but let the words mean say these words then I ask Whether the words in St. Matthew or St. Luke If the words that occur in Luke then we have no precept for the Doxology as it is in Matthew And really I have wondred what they meant who were wont to say at the conclusion of their Pulpit-prayers In his name and in his words we further pray saying as he hath taught us and yet had never satisfied themselves that the Doxology which they constantly in that case used was of our Lords own inditing There is reason saith Dr. Hammond to believe that the words of Doxology came in out of the Greek Liturgies and that the ancientest Greek Copies have them not Pract. Cat. lib. 3. sect 2. Grotius had said as much before Those who believe these two Learned men had need alter the form of words with which they usher in the Lords Prayer 'T is not safe to ascribe to Christ any thing but what is his but how shall a man know that the copies in which the Doxology is wanting are the most ancient Erasmus saith he found the Doxology in all the Greek Copies Lucas Brugensis that it was in all the Greek Parisian Copies but one And if one look into the various readings collected in our late Polyglot Bibles he shall find the Copies that want these words of Doxology to be but few wherefore Grotius hath got no credit by saying Seeing that they are not extant in the most ancient Greek Copies but are extant in the Syriack Arabick and Latin Context we may learn not only that the Arabick and Latin Version but also the Syriack was made after that the Liturgy of the Churches was brought into a certain form For the Doxology is not in some Arabick Versions not in that which is inserted into the Polyglot Bibles If the Syriack and Arabick which Grotius saw had put in the Doxology out of the Greek Liturgies why did they not also put it in in the Gospel of Luke unless it could be made appear that the Greek Liturgies varied I know not how he can answer this question Let me add this caution to young Scholars that they be not too hasty to give credit to every Copy that some men magnifie That Syriack Translation which is followed in the New Testament in our Polyglot Bibles if it were the ancientest would be a good argument of the Antiquity of Festivals or Holy-days but the Translation which Immanuel Tremelius followed for ought I know may be much ancienter and in it there appeareth no such distinction of days To return to St. Luke if his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import that we must use his very words in Greek or words in our language as near as may be to his then must we not follow our Liturgy for though it sometimes inserts the Doxology and sometimes omits it yet it never translateth the Lords Prayer according to St. Luke Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us is not to translate but paraphrase on St. Luke It is
Arch-Deacons and such as were chosen by the respective Chapters of each Cathedral it might then be a Representation of the Cathedral Ministers but not of the Ministry of England and that I make good by two Parallels The first shall be betwixt our Convocation and the Council of Trent many sober and moderate Papists accused this to be a pack'd Assembly a Representation of not the Catholick Church but the Court of Rome because the greatest part of it were of the Popes Faction and depended wholly upon him So the major part of our Convocations were of the Bishops Faction and minded chiefly the interest of Cathedrals and therefore were not a Representative of all the Ministers in England I shall exemplifie this by instancing in the Diocess of Bathe and Wells wherein I lived In this there were Members of the lower house of Convocation one Dean three Arch-Deacons and one chosen by the Chapter of Wells and to ballance these there were but two Clarks chosen by the Ministry of the whole Diocess Now what impartial man but will determine that these seven could be no due representation of the Ministers of the Diocess of Bathe and Wells as long as five of them were Members of the Cathedral in whose Election the Ministers of the Diocess had no hand at all A second parallel shall be betwixt our Convocation and a civil Assembly wherein we will suppose that the Prince chuseth three hundred who are his Courtiers or else such as have their dependance either wholly or in great part upon him and the Nation chuse only a hundred you may call this Assembly a Parliament or what you will but surely no rational man can think it to be a representation of the Nation and as irrational were it to call the Convocation a representation of the Ministers of England seeing those chosen by the Ministers were an inconsiderable part of the Convocation Mr. D. belongeth to a Cathedral nay as report goes to several Cathedrals and therefore he had done but a piece of gratitude to vindicate the Church from the Arguments of a backslider from Conformity Well let him mean what he will by his Holy Church of England we are told that he himself is Presbyter of this Holy Church of England and that is a strange and very unusual phrase Dr. Hammond who deserved well of the Hierarchy in his Title page of his Dissertations calls himself Presbyterum Anglicanum and yet he was born in England and ordained in England and by an English Bishop John Durell was born in Jersey ordained in France and by a Scotish Bishop and yet he calls himself Ecclesiae Anglicanae Presbyterum I doubt if things were throughly searched into he would appear to be no English Presbyter for we admit no Presbyters but those who are canonically ordained i. e. by a Bishop you 'l say Mr. D. was ordained by a Bishop and he tells you the name of the Bishop and his title I know he doth but I ask who made him a Bishop and a Presbyter I much fear we shall find him one that was never ordained Presbyter but by Presbyters or by those who had been themselves created Presbyters by meer Presbyters though consecrated in England by Bishops and if so then vitium primae concoctionis non corrigitur in secundá aut tertiâ Let him well consider this and if occasion be get himself re-ordained by some Bishop of English Blood and Ordination else any one who envies him his preferments may chance to pick a hole in his coat If he know not the Pedigree of the Scotish Bishops it is in brief thus In the year 1610 King James sent for Mr. John Spotswood Mr. Gawen Hamilton Mr. Andrew Lamb into England that an Episcopal Character might be imprinted on them to that end he issued out a Commission under the great Seal of England to the Bishops of London Ely Wells and Rochester requiring them to proceed to the Consecration of three Scotch-men designed to be Bishops which Consecration they did perform accordingly Octob. 2◠1610. But Bishop Andrews moved a scruple how the persons to be consecrated were capable of Episcopal Consecration seeing none of them had been formerly ordained Priests Dr. Heylin tells us Hist of Pres p. 387. The scruple was removed by Archbishop Bancrost alledging that there was no such necessity of receiving Priesthood but that Episcopal Consecrations might be given without it but he neither tells us the Objection nor Answer aright the Objection was That the three Scots could not be consecrated Bishops because they had never been made Presbyters but by Presbyters to which Bancroft replyed That the Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters was valid But our present Bishops are not of the same mind and therefore before they would consecrate Mr. James Sharp they first ordained him Deacon then Priest and this they did not out of a pike or spleen against the man but from judgement conceiving he would not ordain others legitimè unless he were so ordained such as are by him ordained are capable regularly of preferment among us but so are not any of the former brood of men that were ordained by Scotch Bishops This discourse is only designed to keep Mr. D. from despising the Presbyterians too much to which he would be tempted if he should conceive himself to stand on a basis as firm as some of his fellow Prebends I advise him also not to be too forward to publish to the world how he hath let the Ministers of forreign Churches Preach in his Church at the Savoy for doubtless it is against the Act of Uniformity to let them Preach though but occasionally in that Church unless they have been ordained by some Bishops because that Church at the Savoy hath submitted to the Bishop of London as Pastor and so hath not the immunities that other French Churches may claim and do claim As to the Book it self common fame spreads abroad that an Answer in Latin is preparing for it We must expect and see what kind of thing it will be for we may well conceive it will discover Mr. D. to be John lack-Lack-truth John Lack-modesty Certain I am there be School-boys in England that can discover him to be no familiar of Priscian we lay-men can manifest that he had no regard to truth and for modesty he doth all-along bid defiance to it The Reverend Gisbert Voet Professor of Vtrecht of eminent learning and piety the only surviving member of the Synod of Dort is with him but a pitiful fellow He dares venture to censure Thomas Gataker than whom England scarce ever had either a more exact Critick or accomplished Divine Nay that you may see his pride to the full he was not ashamed to tell an Honourable person of this Nation that one reason which moved him to fall upon Mr. Baxter was because the Latin Apologist for the Nonconformists had represented him as no equal match for Mr. Baxter Could you think it possible that Mr. D. should conceit
more but that it is possible that all his pretended zeal for the Fathers may be without any great knowledge of them What the course of his Studies hath been I know not his friends were wont to think that his genius led him rather to School-men than Fathers if it did so he is not the worse to be liked for of the two a Minister who hath the cure of souls may better want Patristical than Scholastical Theology I suppose it would a little discompose his gravity to be catechized any whit strictly concerning the age stile and design of some of the Fathers whom he undertakes to defend if in this I be mistaken the matter is not great for I design it only to keep our Priests from boasting of a false gift 2. I never yet in all my life met with any person of any perswasion whatsoever that would recede from any opinion he had at first imbibed because one or more Fathers were against him We all first take up our opinions from the Catechisms or Confessions that are authorized in those Churches of which we are members and many that I say not most go all their days by an implicit faith believing as the Church believes and as their Ministers do Preach never taking pains to search whether they agree to the Canon of Faith Popish Divines think that their Church cannot err and so strain all their learning and diligence to defend what she hath determined all that call themselves Protestants say they ought to use their judgement of discretion though they may be bound if in some comparatively less matters they have knowledge different from the Church in which they are Ministers to have it to themselves This is truth but the men who do conscientiously and impartially make use of their judgement of discretion are not very many they are very soon tyed up by subscriptions and account it not for their credit to recede from them if in disputation they be pressed with the authority of the Fathers or ancient Doctors they either bluntly declare that they little regard them or else find out some plausible salvo or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to elude them 1. Some will flatly declare that they do not much matter what mind the Fathers are of The great Patron of Ubiquity Jacobus Andraeas is reported by Scultetus in his Nuncupatory to his Medulla not to value the Fathers at all Athanasius with him was Sathanasius Vigilius Dormilius and all the Patres he would in contempt call Matres that is I suppose weak and silly creatures unfit to be used as guides and directors in matters of Religion The Papists themselves as great a shew as they sometimes make of Fathers do at other times use language not much more civil concerning them Was it not a Pope of Rome that declared his esteem of the learning of Thomas Aquinas to be so great that he doubted not to give unto him the first place after the Canonical Scripture Such a Speech is fathered upon one of the Innocents by Augustin Hunne if I may credit Dr. G. Abbot against Hill Pag. 426. and I suppose I may well credit him because I find as much in Alvarez de Auxiliis lib. 1. pag. 52. Indeed to almost all truly and throughly Popish Writers the Fathers are but Children his Holiness as they call him is all in all with them Suarez in 3. Com. 1. qu. 2. not 2. disp 42. sect 1. saith The definition of the Pope is altogether true and if it should be contrary to the sayings of all Saints it were to be preferred to them Bellar. lib. 4. de Pon. cap. 5. If the Pope should err by commanding vices or prohibiting vertues the Church would be bound to believe vices to be good and vertues bad unless she would sin against her conscience Cornelius Mus in his Comments on the Romans p. 606. e. g. I to confess ingenuously would more believe the Pope alone in those things which concern the mysteries of faith than a thousand Austins Hieroms Gregories c. because the Pope in matters of faith cannot err Much such ranting stuff I could quote did I count it needful but indeed it is not needful for his Holiness takes upon him to have a power to correct Fathers that they may just fit and suit the present state of his Church By the Constitution of Sixtus the Fifth care is taken to set out Fathers free from the corruptions they have contracted by coming through the hands of Hereticks but with this proviso That if any more weighty doubts and difficulties shall happen in the authority of old Books in the correction and emendation of books things being first examined in the Congregation they should be referred to him that in variety of readings he might determine that by a special priviledge granted to his See which was most consonant to orthodox verity and lest we should think that the Pope must determine nothing of his own head but after he hath taken great pains hear Gregory de Valentia Analysis fidei lib. 8. p. 70. Non est ratio ulla firma quamobrem existimare debeamus studii diligentiam Pontifici esse necessariam sive in definiendo studium adhibeat sive non adhibeat infallibiliter certe definiet But this it may be is said but by one and a long time since not so we shall find our Countrey-man Thomas Bacon or Southwell in his Analysis fidei saying as much But do not Calvinists as much set at naught the Fathers when they make not for them Ans So they are charged to do by Papists and the Remonstrants and their adherents Campian saith Causaeus called Dionysius the Areopagite a doting old man but Dr. Humphred denies him to have used any such broad language even of the pretended Dionysius De Patribus p. 520 c. Grotius also gives them such a bob pag. 15. Piet. Illus Ordin Hollandiae but quoteth no Author that gave him any occasion to vent such a reproach 2. Some hating to speak contemptibly of the Fathers will civilly put off their authority either by putting another sense on their words than is commonly given or by blaming the edition or the translation or by opposing one Father to another or the same Father to himself or by saying that he relates the opinion of others So that they do by them just as they do at Oxford by Aristotle his authority must not be denied in disputations under a penalty appointed by the Statutes yet any one in Paervisiis or Augustinensibus holds the opinion that he best liketh how contrary soever it be to Aristotle and if Aristotle be urged against him Loquitur ad modum vulgi disputative non doctrinaliter c. serves well enough to put him by and shift him off The day is yet I suppose to come that ever any Scholar in disputation said I find that Aristotle is against me and therefore I do revoke and recall my opinion promising to be of another mind for the future If