Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
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A57744
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The late act of the convocation at Oxford examined: or, The obit of prelatique Protestancy: occasioning the conversion of W. R. (sometimes of Exeter Colledge in Oxford) to Catholique union
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Rowland, William.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing R2075; ESTC R219949
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37,064
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142
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in them and after the Se◠Apostolique But as ve◠quivocally use the term Episcopacy as signifying your nothing so I must deny it and connumerate it with your errours Again you strike upon Tradition for your Episcopacy wherein you commit a great soloecism in Divinity If it had been for Episcopacy in it self without restriction to your Idol you had come home indeed but as it was presented in your pide-coloured tincture it was never amongst the Ancient except Colythus and his complices might be admitted into the head of your list from whom you have an Jschyrian generation of Priests which S. Athanasius and as he assures us the generall Councell and I am sure the whole Church ever since condemned for spurious But in good earnest it is strange to see with what modesty you esteem a meer pretences for as much as concerns your Episcopacy of fifteen hundred years possession to be an invincible plea in this point and a reall and clear prescription for so many ages shall not hold for all others as most undoubtedly there was not any considerable opposition against Masse till Calvins time Luther was not so impudent as to take it away and how he fared in the sense of the whole Church we all know and so for many more high Articles of which I speak afterward wherein you are fallen All men carefull of their souls will sadly consider this It was truly and usually said of an eminent Bishop of your Order that he was Puritanus tantùm non in Episcopatu The same is as truly said of these pretenders to Episcopacy that they condemn Antiquity in all things except Episcopacy If novelty be not lawfull in this why in all other doctrines which you relinquisht against Antiquity It 's not Antiquity but fancy and ambition you follow els a true Syllogism in the same form will always conclude You put me in mind of the Asse who wresting Orpheus his sharp out of Apollo's hand played so ill-favouredly that the very dogs barked at him I will not be thought to apply this to you yet I must needs say that you begin to wrest our divine Arguments out of our hands and ye handle them so unhandsomly and jarringly from all our and your principles that all sorts of men will see whence and how injuriously you take them You go on 1. Would give such advantage to the Papists who usually object against us and our Religion the contempt of antiquity and the love of novelty that we should not be able to wipe off the aspersion 2. Would so diminish the just authority due to the consentient judgment and practise of the universall Church the best Interpreter of Scriptures in things not clearly exprest Reader observe what necessity there is for all sorts of Christians to recurre to Tradition for Lex currit cum praxi that without it we should be at a loss in sundry points both of faith and manners at this day firmly believed and securely practised by us when by the Socinians Anabaptists and other Sectaries we should be called upon for our proofs As namely sundry Orthodoxall explications concerning the Trinity and Coequality of the persons in the Godhead against the Arians and other Heretiques the number use and efficacy of Sacraments the Baptizing of Infants National Churches the observation of the Lords day and even the Canon of Scripture it selfe 3. In respect of our selves we are not satisfied how it can stand with the Principles of Justice Ingenuity and Humanity to require the extirpation of Episcopall Government unlesse it had been first clearly demonstrated to be unlawfull to be sincerely and really endeavoured by us To the first Indeed you cannot wipe off the aspersion no more then a Blackmore his colour You have given us a strange advantage and in this one passage put an affront upon all your former abettors An eminent person of your order being urged with the antiquity of our tenets replied that if things were to be salved by antiquity then sin would challenge great pre-eminency Thus far hath this plea been derided by you I could fill and foul many sheets in giving a syllable of your Authors for this Yet all antient Fathers and Councells esteemed this an infallible Plea and therefore the Nicene Fathers as appears in Athan. his Epistle of the Nicene Decrees cryed Ecce nos demonstramus istiusmodi sententiam à patribus ad patres quasi per manus traditam esse They esteemed it enough to shew a constant descent of their faith and this is our challenge against you To the second I see you forget that your 6.20.21 Articles exclude all orall Traditions it hath been the maine pretended cause of scandall and as ye have judg'd it most fundamentall that Catholiques plead a necessity of Apostolicall I raditions with the divine Scriptures Have not all the books of your Writers to this day been filled in proofe of the sufficiency of Scriptures and yet now even in the highest points of Christian Doctrine you acknowledge a necessity to have recourse to Tradition what man could have read this your second reason and not have conceived that this Praelatike slip had been again inserted into the old incorruptible Trunk or Body of the Catholique Church but the truth is that self-interest compells you to speak truth against your old Doctrines this blow hath struck you under the fifth rib and like the poor Pilgrime of Hiericho layed you wholly on your backs as objects of pity You specifie here many of the highest mysteries and to omit the rest you acknowledge that the Orthodox explication of the B. Trinity cannot be had from the Scripture alone without the Church Have not we then reason to confesse the Scripture alone not sufficient If you did stand to this truth there had not been such subdivisions of sects who deny the B. Trinity amongst you I have not indeed heard of many who embrace Arrius his Tenet that is that the Son is God but not co-eternall with the Father nor equall to him as Athanasius shews that he held but there are under the latitude of the Praelatique party who with Paulus Samosatenus Corpocras c. call in question his Deity and restraine him to his humanity and hence some eminent persons taking scandall left you and are joyn'd to the Catholike Church Nay you are not ashamed to run though vainly to Traditions for the chiefest grounds of your own Praelative Sect herein confessing that Scripture cannot reach them But to leave this to your selves let me instance more of our Doctrines which you most calumniate What more universal Tradition was extant then Masse that is the propitiatory Sacrifice of the Body and Bloud of Christ offered daily and perpetually for the living and the dead Read Mr. Perkins his Problemes he tells you that it was universally believed that Christ gave his true Body and Bloud at his last Supper Ask all the Liturgies since Christ In like manner read them for Jnvocation of Saints and Prayers
and imbecility that they cannot do these things this the divine providence hath brought to passe by the predictions of the Prophets by the humanity and Doctrine of Christ by the voyages of the Apostles by the Contumelies crosses bloud and death of Martyrs by the laudable and excellent lives of Saints and by miracles done at convenient times in all those things worthy of so great matters and vertues When therefore we see so great help and assistance from God and so great fruit and increase thereby shall we make any doubt or question at all of retyring into the bosome of that Church which even to the confession and acknowledgement of mankind from the See Apostolique by succession of Bishops hath obtained the soveraignty and principall authority Heretikes in vain barking round about it and being condemned partly by the judgement of the people themselves partly by the gravity of Councells partly also by the majesty and splendor of miracles unto which not to grant the chief place and preheminence is either indeed an extream impiety or a very rash and dangerous arrogancy for if there be no certain way for the minds of men to wisdome and salvation but when faith prepareth and disposeth them to reason what is it els to be ungratefull unto the divine Majesty for his aid and assistance but to have a will to resist an authority which was gained and purchased with such labour and pains and if every art and trade though but base and easie reqires a teacher or Master that it be learned and understood what greater expression can there be of rash arrogancy and pride then both to have no mind to learn the booke of the Divine mysteries from their Interpreters and yet to have a mind to condemn the unknown Thus far this glorious Saint Here we see how highly necessary blessed S. Augustine judged it for all Christians to adhere to the Catholique Church in all points of belief which he declares here to be the Roman Church that is to say that universall multitude of Christians which acknowledgeth Rome for their head whose authority as he saith is confirmed by consent of Nations Councells and Majesty of Miracles Was ever your fictitious Church thus adjusted Here great S. Augustine puls down sails and of a Master glories to become a Scholler Whence we learn that if an Origen the crums of whose plenty rendred Clemens Alexandrinus rich in the esteem of all or an Apollinarius with his conquests against Porphyry and other enemies of Gods Church or any other prodigious Comets of wit and learning or whatsoever posteriour Masters who can be but pedants to the former should presume to teach the Church or to question her Magisteriall Dictates or Conciliary Decrees we must say with Vinc. Lyr. ca. 10. that with the Church we ought to receive Doctors and not with Doctors to forsake the faith of the Church Could we attaine to S. Paulins contempt of our selves we should not at so high a rate as to the prejudice of Gods Church and his divine truths sell our raw conceits S. Hierome and S. Augustine made high esteem of his learned and pious Epistles and S. Amand kept them as Diadems in his Storehouse whereof he sent to S. Paulin a fardle to which he replies Legimus in tergo epistolae annotationem epistolarum quas meas esse indicatis nam verè prope earum omniumimmomor eram ut meas esse non recognoscerem nisi vestris literis credidissem unde majus accepi documentum charitatis vestrae quia plus me vobis quà m mihi notum esse perspexi If he had been tickled with our vanity he would have kept a better bed-roale of his writings in his memory then to borrow and even unwillingly from S. Amand a knowledge of his own works Here is no danger of recalcitration in order to the holy Churches great treasury opportunely dispensed and humbly received by her learned children S. Paul our Grand Master puts all Doctrine and Doctors to the test thus If any preach unto you otherwise then you have received be he accursed It 's high time therefore to leave Pope Celestine his golden rule celebrated in Lirinensis let novelty cease to molest antiquity for whosoever he is or of whatsoever eminency for learning or sanctity he seems to be if he introduceth novelty alienus est prophanus est hostis est he is a wolfe in a sheeps cloathing What greater expression can there be of rash Arrogancy and pride c. as S. Augustine hath taught us FINIS A cursory Animadversion upon Henry Fernes Treatise of the Division between the English and Romish Church upon the Reformation IF I had not seen the two Capitall letters D. D. in the title page of his Treatise I should have esteem'd 〈◊〉 not worthy taking more notice â—f then of a scurrilous Pamphlet neither dare I play the Cabalist to â—ive the divers significations of those Hieroglyphicks but reading them without notes they import Doctor of Divinity the Preface a Country Sermon which ever must have a fling at the Papists neither that nor the ensuing discourse is ad Clerum els they would more savour of the Doctor according to the antientstle of the University In his said preface to take notice first of some of his calumnies there he falls into these expressions All the Christian world sees how long the poor distressed Eâ—stern Church has lain under that heavy condition unpitied by them of the Romish Communion and how they have stood affected to us since our Reformation has sufficiently appeared by their several practises against us what hand they had in our present troubles is not unknown to some what joy they now take in them let their own hearts tell them c. His chiefe ayme in the book is to shew that the arguments which they use to condemn the Independents are not retortable upon themselves by us and what greater use of reason they grant to their Proselites then we All which he labours for in the seventh and the ensuing Sections till the thirteenth wherein verily he is so unhappy that any child may return his arguments with great advantage His result being this that private judgement or judgement of discretion which he allows to private men must submit to the publique els the power of Jurisdiction must proceed to judge censure and cast out the disobedient and therefore he exacts even in case of errour all externall peaceable subjection Did ever the Roman Church go thus far was there ever challenged any higher captivation of understanding then that every one should submit to the publique Was ever externall subjection exacted in point of error which this D. D. wil have in his Church Further the Independents whom he involves with Sacrilegists he wil have inexcuseable in their breach from them because it was not warranted by a Nationall Synod as theirs which how untrue it is all know for all the Bishops of this Nation were excluded and imprisoned when the Doctors