Image of God in the world and upon the matter the only troublers of humane Society But the moderation which the Gospel requireth ariseth and proceedeth from the Principles of Vnion with Christ before mentioned which is that that proves us Disciples of Christ indeed and will confirm the mind in suitable actings against all the provocations to the Contrary which from the infirmities and miscarriages of men we are sure to meet withall Neither doth this at all hinder but that we may contend earnestly for the Truth delivered unto us and labour by the wayes of Christ's appointment to reclaim others from such opinions wayes and practises in and about the things of Religion and worship of God as are injurious unto his Glory and may be destructive and pernicious to their own souls Neither doth it in the least put any discouragement upon endeavours to oppose the impiety and Prophaneness of men in their corruption in life and Conversation which certainly and unquestionably are inconsistent with and destructive of the Profession of the Gospel let them on whom they are found be of what party Church or way of Religion they please And if those in whose hearts are the wayes of God however diversifyed among themselves by various apprehensions of some Doctrines and Practises would sincerely according to their Duty set themselves to oppose that prophaneness wickedness of Life or open vitiousness of Conversation which is breaking in like a flood upon the world and which as it hath already almost drowned the whole glory of Christian Religion so it will undoubtedly if not prevented end in the woful calamity and finall ruine of Christendome they would have less mind and leasure to wrangle fiercely among themselves and breathe out destruction against one another for their mistakes and differences about things which by their own experience they find not to take off from their Love to Christ nor weaken the obedience he requires at their hands But whilest the whole power of Christianity is despised Conversion to God and separation from the wayes of the perishing World are set at nought and men think they have nothing to do in Religion but to be zealously addicted to this or that party amongst them that profess it it is no wonder if they think their chiefest Duty to consist in destroying one another But for men that profess to be leaders and guides of others in Christian Religion openly to persue carnall and worldly interests greatness wealth outward Splendour and Pomp to live in Luxury and pride to labour to strengthen and support themselves by the adherence of Persons of prophane and wicked lives that so they may destroy all that in any opinion differ from themselves is vigorously to endeavour to drive out of the world that Religion which they profess and in the mean time to render it so unomely and undesirable that others must needs be discouraged from its embracement But these things cannot spring from the Principles of Protestants which as I have manifested lead them unto other manner of actings And it is to no purpose to ask why then they are not all affected accordingly For they that are not so do live in an open contradiction to their own avowed Principles which that it is no news in the world the vicious lives of many in all places professing Christianity will not suffer us to doubt For though that Religion which they profess reacheth them to deny all ungodliness and wordly lusts to live soberly and righteously and godlily in this present world if they intend the least benefit by it yet they will hold the profession of it in a contrary practise And for this self-deceiving attended with eternall ruine many men are beholding unto such notions as yours about your Church securing Salvation within the pale of its externall Communion laying little weight on the things which at the last day will only stand them in stead But for Protestants setting aside their occasionall exasperations when they begin to bethink themselves they cannot satisfie their own Consciences in a resolution not to love them because of some differences whom they believe that God loves or may love notwithstanding those Differrences from them or to renounce all Vnion with them who they are perswaded are united unto Christ or not to be moderate towards them in this world with whom they expect to live for ever in another I speak only of them on all sides who have received into their hearts and do express in their lives the Spirituall Power and energy of the Gospel who are begotten unto Christ by the Word of Truth and have received of his Spirit promised in the Covenant of Grace unto all them that believe on him For not to dissemble with you I believe all others as to their present state to be in the same condition before God be they of what Church or way they will though they are not all in the same condition in respect of the means for their Spirituall advantage which they enjoy or may do so they being much more excellent in some Societies of Christians than others This then to return is the Principle of Protestants derived down unto them from Christ and his Apostles and hereby are they eminently furnished for the exercise of that moderation which you so much and so deservedly commend And more fully to tell you my private judgement which whether it be my own only I do not much concern my self to enquire but this it is Any man in the world who receiveth the Scripture of the Old and New Testament as the Word of God and on that account assents in generall to the whole Truth revealed in them worshipping God in Christ and yeelding obedience unto him answerable unto his light and Conviction not contradicting his profession by any practise inconsistent with true piety nor the owning of any opinion or perswasion destructive to the known fundamentals of Christianity though he should have the unhappiness to dissent in some things from all the Churches that are at this day in the world may yet have an internall supernaturall saving Principle of his faith and obedience and be undoubtedly saved And I am sure it is my Duty to exercise Moderation towards every man concerning whom I have or ought to have that Perswasion 2. Some Protestants are of that judgement that externall force ought to have no place at all in matters of faith however Laws may be constituted with Penalties for the preservation of publick outward order in a Nation most of them that Hareticidium or putting men to death for their misapprehensions in the things of God is absolutely unlawfull and all of them that Faith is the Gift of God for the communication whereof unto men he hath appointed certain means whereof externall force is none Unto which Two last Positions not only the greatest Protestant but the greatest Potentate in Europe hath lately in his own words expressive of an heavenly benignity towards mankind in their infirmities declared his
gathered out of your Fiat which you thus lay down It is say you frequently pleaded by our Author that all things as to Religion were ever quiet and in 〈◊〉 before the Protestants Relinquishment of the Roman Sea That ever is your own addition but let it pass what say you hereunto This Principle you pretind is drawn out of Fiat Lux not because it is there but only to open a door to your self to exspatiate into some wide generall discourse about the many wars distractions alterations that have been aforetime up and down in the world in some severall Ages of Christianity And you thereforê say it is frequently pleaded by me because indeed I never spake one word of it and it is in truth a false and fond Assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with the Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account S r I take you to be the Author of Fiat Lux and if you are so I cannot but think you were a sleep when you talk'd at this rate The Assertion is false and fond you speak not one word of it Pray S r take a little advice of your Son Fiat not to talk on this manner and you will wonder your self how you came to swallow so much confidence as in the face of the world to vent such things as these He tells us from you p. 234 235 236. Chap 4. Ed. 2. that After the conversion of this Land by the Children of blessed S t Benet notwithstanding the interposition of the Norman Conquest that all men lived peaceably together without any the least disturbance upon the account of Religion untill the end of King Henry the eighth's raign about five hundred years after the Conquest See also what in generall you discourse of all places to this purpose p. 221 222 And p. 227. you do in express terms lay down the position which here you so exclaim against as false and fond but you may make as bold with it as you please for it is your own Never had this Land say you for so many hundred years as it was Catholick upon the account of Religion any disturbance at all whereas after the exile of the Catholick belief in our Land from the period of King Henry the seventh's Raign to these dayes we have been in actuall disquiet or at least in fears Estne haec tunica filii tui Are not these your words Doth not your Son Fiat wear this livery And do you not speak to this purpose in twenty other places Is it not one of the main suppositions you proceed upon in your whole discourse You do well now indeed to acknowledg that what you spake was fond and false and you might do as much for the most that you have written in that whole discourse but now openly to deny what you have asserted and that in so many places that is not so well done of you There are S t many wayes to free your self from that dammage you feel or fear from the Animadversions When any thing is charged on you or proved against you which you are not able to defend you may ingenuously acknowledg your mistake and that without any dishonour to you at all Good men have done so so may you or I when we have just occasion It is none of your Tenents that you are all of you Infallible or that your personall mistakes or miscarriages will prejudice your Cause Or you might pass it by in silence as you have done with the things of the most importance in the Animadversions and so keep up your reputation that you could Reply to them if you would or were free from flyes And we know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Menander speaks Silence is with many the best Answer Or you might attempt to disprove or answer as the case requires But this that you have fixed upon of denying your own words is the very worst course that you could have chosen upon the account either of Conscience or Reputation However thus much we have obtained One of the chief pretences of your Fiat is by your own confession false and fond It is indeed no wonder that it should be so it was fully proved to be so in the Animadversions but that you should acknowlâ—dge it to be so is somewhat strange and it would have been very welcome news had you plainly owned your conviction of it and not renounced your own off-spring But I see you have a mind to the benefit you aymed at by it though you are ashamed of the way you used for the obtaining of it and therefore adde That neither you nor I can deny that such as keep the unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out on that account But this on the first consideration seems to mee no very singular Priviledge me-thinks a Turk a few an Arian may say the same of their Societies It being no more but this So long as you agree with us you shall be sure to agree with us They must be very unfriendly minded towards you that will call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into question Yet there remains still one Scruple on my mind in reference unto what you assert I am not satisfied that there is in your Church any such unity of faith as can keep men from falling out or differing in and about the Doctrines and Opinions they profess If there be the children of your Church are marvellous morose that they have not all this while learned to be quiet but are at this very day writing volumes against one another and procuring the Books of one another to be prohibited and condemned which the writings of one of the learnedest of you in this Nation have fately not escaped I know you will say sometimes that though you differ yet you differ not in things belonging unto the unity of faith But I fear this is but a Blind an Apron of Fig-leaves What you cannot agree in be it of never so great importance you will agree to say that it belongs not unto the unity of faith when things no way to be compared in weight and use with them so you agree about them shall be asserted so to do And in what you differ whilest the scales of Interest on the part of the combatanfs hang eeven all your differences are but in School and disputable points But if one party prevail in Interest and Reputation and render their Antagonists inconsiderable as to any outward trouble those very Points that before were disputable shall be made necessary and to belong to the Vnity of Faith as it lately happened in the Case of the Jansenists And here you are safe again The Unity of the Faith is that which you agree in and that which you cannot agree about belongs not unto it as you tell us though you talk at another rate among your selves But wee must think that the Unity of
nature and causes of things here below though they know well enough that there was never any agreement amongst the wisest and severest that at any time have been engaged in that disquisition nor is it likely that ever there will be so And herein they can countenance themselves with the difficulty obscurity and importance of the things inquired after But as for the high and heavenly mysteries of the Gospel the least whereof is infinitely of more importance then any thing that the utmost reach and comprehension of humane wisdom can attain unto they may be neglected and despised because there are contentions about them Hic nigrae succus loliginis haec est Erugo mera The truth is this is so far from any real ground for any such conclusion that it were utterly impossible that any man should believe the truth of Christian Religion if he had not seen or might not be informed that such contention and differences had ensued in and about it for that they should do so is plainly and frequently foretold in those sacred oracles of it whereof if any one be found to fail the veracity and authority of the whole may justly be called into question If therefore men will have a religion so absolutely facile aud easie that without diligence endeavour pains or enquiry without laying out of their rational abilities or exercising the faculties of their souls about it without foregoing of their lusts and pleasures without care of mistakes and miscarriages they may be securely wrapt up in it as it were whither they will or no I confess they must seek for some other where they can find it Christianity will yield them no relief God hath not proposed an acquaintance with the blessed concernments of his Glory and of their own eternal condition unto the sons of men on any such terms as that they should not need with all diligence to employ and exercise their faculties of their souls in the investigation of them in the use of the means by him appointed for that purpose seeing this is the chiefest end for which he hath made us those souls And as for them who in sincerity give up their minds and consciences unto his Authority and guidance he hath not left them without an infallible dâ—rection for such a discharge of their own duty as is sufficient to guide and lead them in the middest of all differences divisions and oppositions unto rest with himself and the difficulties which are cast upon any in their enquiring after truth by the errour and deviation of other men from it are all sufficiently recompenced unto them by the excellency and sweetness which they find in the truth it self when sought out with diligence according to the mind of Christ. And one said not amiss of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dare say he is the wisest Christian who hath most diligently conâ—idered the various differences that are in and about Christianity as being built in the knowledge of the truth upon the best and most stable foundations To this end hath the Lord Jesus given us his holy word a perfect and sure Revelation of all that he would have us to believe or do in the worship of God This he commands us diligently to attend unto to study seach and enquire after that we may know his mind and do it It is true in their enquiry into it various apprehensions concerning the sense and meaning of sundry things revealed therein have befallen some men in all ages and Origen gives this as one occasion of the differences that were in those dayes amongst Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 3. Con. Celâ— 1. When many were converted unto Christianity some of them variously understanding the holy Scripture which they joyntly believed it came to pass that heresie ensued For this was the whole rule of faith unity in those dayes the means for securing of us in them imposed on us of late by the Romanists was then not heard of not thought of in the world But moreover to obviate all danger that might in this matter ensue from the manifold weakness of our minds in apprehending spiritual things the Lord Jesus hath promised his holy spirit unto all them that believe in him and ask it of him to prevent their mistakes and miscarriages in the study of his word and to lead them into all that truth the knowledge whereof is necessary that they may believe in him unto the end and live unto him And if they who diligently and conscientiously without prejudices corrupt ends or designs in obedience to the command of Christ shall enquire into the Scriptures to receive from thence the whole object of their faith and rule of their obedience and who believing his promise shall pray for his Spirit and wait to receive him in and by the means appointed for that end may not be and are not thereby secured from all such mistakes and errours as may disinterest them in the promises of the Gospel I know not how we may be brought unto any certainty or assurance in the Truths of God or the everlasting consolation of our own souls Neither indeed is the nature of man capable of any further satisfaction in or about these things unless God should work continual miracles or give continually special revelations unto all individuals whch would utterly overthrow the whole nature of that faith and obedience which he requires at our hands But once to suppose that such persons through a defect of the means appointed by Christ for the instruction and direction before mentioned may everlastingly miscarry is to cast an unspeakable reproach on the goodness grace and faithfulness of God and enough to discourage all men from enquiring after the truth And these things the Reader will find further cleared in the ensuing discourse with a discovery of the weakness falseness and insufficiency of those rules and reliefs which are tendred unto us by the Romanists in the lieu of them that are given us by God himself Now if this be the condition of things in Christian Religion as to any one that hath with sincerity consulted the Scripture or considered the Goodness Grace and Wisdom of God it must needs appear to be it is manifest that mens startling at it or being offended upon the account of divisions and differences among them that make profession thereof is nothing but a pretence to cloke and hide their sloth and supine negligence with their unwillingness to come up unto the indispensable condition of learning the truth as it is in Jesus namely obedience unto his whole will and all his commands so far as he is pleased to reveal them unto us With others they are but incentives unto that diligence and watchfulness which the things themselves in their nature high and arduous and in their importance of everlasting moment require at your hands Further on those who by the means formentioned come to the knowledge of the truth it is incumbent according as they are
they seek to promote what can rationally be concluded but that they not only disbelieve themselves what they outwardly profess but also esteem it a fit mask and cover to carry on other interests of their own which they prefer before it and what can more evidently tend unto its disreputation and disadvantage is not easie to conceive Such is the course here fixed on by you It is the Religion of Christ you pretend to plead for and to promote but if there be a word true in it the way you take for that end namely by openly false accusations is to be abhorred which manifests what regard unto it you inwardly cherish And I wish this were only your personall miscarriage that you were not encouraged unto it by the Principles and Example of your chiefest Masters and Leaders The learned Person who wrote the Letters discovering the Mystery of Jesuitisme gives us just cause so to conceive for he doth not only prove that the Jesuits have publickly maintained that Calumny is but a veniall sin nay none at all if used against such as you call Calumniators though grounded on absolute falsities but hath also given us such pestilent instances of their practice according to that Principle as Paganisme was never acquainted withall Lett. 15. In their steps you set out in this your first Reason wherein there is not one word of truth I had formerly told you that I did not think you could your self believe some of the things that you affirmed at which you take great offence but I must now tell you that if you proceed in venting such notorious untruths as here you have heaped together I shall greatly question whether seriously you believe that Jesus Christ will one day judge the world in righteousness For I do not think you can produce a pleadable dispensation to say what you please be it nere so false of a supposed Heretick for though it may be you will not keep faith with him surely you ought to observe truth in speaking of him You tell us in your Epistle to your Fiat of your dark obscuirity wherein you dye daily but take heed S r least Indulgentem tenebris imaeque recessis Sedis in aspectos Caelo radiisque Penates Servantem tamen assiduis circumvolet alis Saevadies animi scelerúmque in pectore dirae Your next Reason is Because he talks of Swords and Blood Fire and Fagot Guns and Duggers which doth more than show that he hath not let go those hot and furious imaginations But of what sort by whom used to what end Doth he mention any of these but such as your Church hath made use of for the destruction of Protestants If you have not done so why do you not disprove his Assertions If you have why have you practised that in the face of the Sun which you cannot endure to be told of Is it equall think you that you should kill burn and destroy men for the profession of their faith in Christ Jesus and that it should not be lawfull for others to say you do so Did not your self make the calling over of these things necessary by crying out against Protestants for want of moderation It is one of the priviledges of the Pope some say to judge all men and himself to be judged by none but is it so also that no man may say he hath done what all the world knows he hath done and which we have just cause to fear he would do again had he power to his will For my part I can assure you so that you will cease from charging others with that whose guilt lyes heavier upon your selves than on all the professors of Christianity in the world besides and give any tolerable security against the like practices for the future I shall be well content that all which is past may be put by us poor worms into perpetuall oblivion though I know it will be called over another day Untill this be done and you leave off to make your advantages of other mens miscarriages pray arm your selves with patience to hear sometimes a little of your own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said wise Homer of old and another to the same purpose He that speaks what he will must hear what he would not Is it actionable with you against a Protestant that he will not take your whole Sword into his bowels without complaining S r the Author of the Animadversions doth and ever did abhorre Swords and Guns and Crusadoes in matters of Religion and Conscience with all violence that may tantamount unto their usuall effects He ever thought it an uncouth sight to see men marching with Crosses on their backs to destroy Christians as if they had the Alcoran in their hearts and therefore desires your excuse if he have reflected a little upon the miscarriages of your Church in that kind especially being called thereunto by your present contrary pretences Quis tulerit Graculos de seditione querentes and Major tandem porcas insane minori It were well if your wayes did no more please you in the previous prospect you take of them than they seem to do in a subsequent reflection upon them But this is the nature of evil it never comes and goes with the same appearing countenance not that it self changeth at any time for that which is morally evil is alwayes so but mens apprehensions variously influenced by their affections lusts and interests do frequently change and alter Now what Conclusion can be made from the premises rightly stated I leave to your own judgement at your better leasure Thirdly You adde Your prophetick assurance so often inculcated that if you could but once come to whisper me in the ear I would plainly acknowledge either that I understand not my self what I say or if I do believe it not gives a fair character of these fanatick times wherein ignorance and hypocrisie prevail'd over worth and truth whereof if your self were any part it is no wonder you should think that I or any man else should either speak he knows not what or believe not what himself speaks That is a man must needs be as bad as you can imagine him if he have not such an high opinion of your ability and integrity as to believe that you have written about nothing but what you perfectly understand nor assert anything in the persuit of your design and interest but what you really and in cold blood believe to be true All men it seems that were no part of the former dismall tempest have this opinion of you Credat Apella If it be so I confess for my part I have no relief against being concluded to be whatever you please Sosia or not Sosia the Law is in your own hands and you may condemn all that adore you not into Fanaticisme at your pleasure but as he said Obsecro per pacem liceat te alloqui ut ne vapulem if you will but grant a little truce from this severity I doubt not but
in a short time to take off from your keenness in the management of this Charge For I hope you will allow that a man may speak the truth without being a Fanatick truth may get hatred I see it hath done so but it will make no man hatefull Without looking back then to your Fiat Lux I shall out of this very Epistle give you to see that you have certainly failed on the one hand in writing about things which you do not at all understand and therefore discourse concerning them like a blind man about colours and as I fear greatly also on the other for I cannot suppose you so ignorant as not to know that some things in your discourse are otherwise than by you represented Nay and we shall find you at express contradictions which pretend what you please I know you cannot at the same time believe Instances of these things you will be minded of in our progress Now I must needs be very unhappy in discoursing of them if this be Logick and Law that for so doing I must be concluded a Fanatick Fourthly You adde Your pert Assertion so oft occurring in your Book that there is neither reason truth nor honesty in my words is but the overflowings of that former intemperate zeal whereunto may be added what in the last place you insist on to the same purpose namely that I charge you with fraud ignorance and wickedness when in my own heart I find you most clear from any such blemish I do not remember where any of those expressions are used by me that they are no where used thus altogether I know well enough neither shall I make any enquiry after them I shall therefore desire you only to produce the instances whereunto any of the censures intimated are annexed and if I do not prove evidently and plainly that to be wanting in your discourse which is charged so to be I will make you a publick acknowledgement of the wrong I have done you But if no more was by me expressed than your words as used to your purpose did justly deserve pray be pleased to take notice that it is lawfull for any man to speak the truth And for my part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said in Lucian I live in the Countrey where they call a Spade a Spade And if you can give any one instance where I have charged you with any failure where there is the least probability that I had in my heart other thoughts concerning what you said I will give up my whole interest in this cause unto you Mala mens malus animus You have manifested your conscience to be no just measure of other mens who reckon upon their giving an account of what they do or say So that you have but little advanced your Charge by these undue insinuations Neither have you any better success in that which in the next place you insist upon which yet were it not like the most of the rest destitute of truth would give more countenance unto your reflection than them all It is that I give you sharp and frequent menaces that if you write or speak again you shall hear more find more feel more more to your smart more than you imagine more than you would which relish much of that insulting humour which the Land groaned under I suppose no man reads this representation of my words with the addition of your own which makes up the greatest part of them but must needs thinks that you have been sorely threatned with some personall inconveniencies which I would cause to befall you did you not surcease from writing or that I would obtain some course to be taken with you to your prejudice Now this must needs savour of the spirit of our late dayes of trouble and mischief or at least of the former dayes of the prevalency of Popery amongst us when men were not wont in such cases to take up at bare threats and menaces If this be so all men that know the Author of the Animadversions and his condition must needs conclude him to be very foolish and wicked foolish for threatning any with that which is as far from his power to execute as the person threatned can possibly desire it to be wicked for designing that evil unto any individuall person which he abhorres in hypothesi to be inflicted on any upon the like account But what if there be nothing of all this in the pretended menaces What if the worst that is in them be only part of a desire that you would abstain from insisting on the personall miscarriages of some that profess the Protestant Religion lest he should be necessitated to make a diversion of your Charge or to shew the insufficiency of it to your purpose by recounting the more notorious failings of the Guides Heads and Leaders of your Church If this be so as it is in truth the whole intendment of any of those expressions that are used by me for the most part of them are your own figments whereever they occurre what Conclusion can any rationall man make from them Do they not rather intimate a desire of the use of moderation in these our contests and an abstinence from things personall for which cause also fruitlesly as I now perceive by this your new kind of ingenuity and moderation I prefixed not my Name to the Animadversions which you also take notice of than any evil intention or design This was my threatning you to which now I shall adde that though I may not say of these Papers what Catullus did of his Verses on Rufus Verum id non impunè feceres nam te omnia secla Noscent qui sis fama loquitur anus Yet I shall say that as many as take notice of this discourse will do no less of your disingenuity and manifold falshood in your vain attempt to relieve your dying Cause by casting odium upon him with whom you have to do like the Bonassus that Aristotle informs us of Hist. Animal lib. 9. cap. 24. which being as big as a Bull but having horns turned inward and unusefull for fight when he is persued casts out his excrements to defile his persuers and to stay them in their passage But what now is the End in all this heap of things which you would have mistaken for Reasons that you aym at it is all to shew how unfit I am to defend the Protestant Religion and that I am not such a Protestant as I would be thought to be But why so I embrace the Doctrine of the Church of England as declared in the 29 Articles and other approved publick writings of the most famous Bishops and other Divines thereof I avow her rejection of the pretended Authority and reall Errours of the Church to be her duty and justifiable The same is my judgment in reference unto all other Protestant Churches in the world in all things wherein they agree among themselves which is in all things necessary that
most would do so still did they not judge the evil remediless And if the state of things be in your Catholick Countreys between the Gentry and Clergy as you inform us I fear it is not from the learning of the one but the ignorance of the other And this you seem to intimate by rejecting learning from being any essentiall complement of their profession wherein you do wisely and what you are necessitated to do for those who are acquainted with them tell us that if it were you would have a very thin Clergy left you very many of them not understanding the very Mass Book which they daily chaunt and therefore almost every word in your Missalc Romanum is accented that they may know how aright to pronounce them which yet will not deliver them from that mistake of him who instead of Introibo ad altare Dei read constantly Introibo ad tartara Dei Herein we envy not the condition of your Catholick Countreys and though we desire our Gentry were more learned than they are yet neither we nor they could be contented to have our Ministers ignorant so that they might be in veneration for that Office sake which they are no way able to discharge As to what you affirm concerning England and our usage here in the close of your Discourse it is so utterly devoid of truth and honesty that I cannot but wonder at your open regardlesness of them Should you have written these things in Spain or Italy where you have made pictures of Catholicks put in Bears skins and torn with Dogs in England Eccles. Ang. Troph concerning England and the manners of the Inhabitants thereof you might have hoped to have met with some so partially addicted unto your faction and interest as to suppose there were some colour of truth in what you averre But to write these things here amongst us in the face of the Sun where every one that casts an eye upon them will detest your confidence and laugh at your folly is a course of proceeding not easie to be paraleled I shall not insist on the particulars there being not one word of truth in the whole but leave you to the discipline of your own thoughts Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum And so I have done with your Prefatory Discourse wherein you have made it appear with what reverence of God and love to the Truth you are conversant in the great concernments of the souls of men What in particular you except against in the Animadversions I shall now proceed to the consideration of CHAP. II. Vindication of the first Chapter of the Animadversions The method of Fiat Lux. Romanists doctrine of the Merit of Good Works IN your exceptions to the first Chapter of the Animadversions pag. 20. I wish I could find any thing agreeable unto Truth according unto your own Principles It was ever granted that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but alwayes to fail and faigne at pleasure was never allowed so much as to Poets Men may oftentimes utter many things untrue wherein yet some principles which they are perswaded to be agreeable unto Truth or some more generall mistakes from whence their particular assertions proceed may countenance their consciences from a sense of guilt and some way shield their reputation from the sharpness of censure But willingly and often for a man practically to offend in this kind when his mind and understanding is not imposed upon by any previous mistakes is a miscarriage which I do not yet perceive that the subtilest of your Casuists have found out an excuse for Two Exceptions you lay against this Chapter in the first whereof by not speaking the whole Truth you render the whole untruth and in the latter you plainly affirm that which your eyes told you to be otherwise First you say I proposed a dilemma unto you for saying you had concealed your method when what I spake unto you was upon your saying first that you had used no method and afterwards that you had concealed your method as you also in your next words here confess Now both these being impossible and severally spoken by you only to serve a present turn your sorry merriment about the Scholler and his eggs will not free your self from being very ridiculous Certainly this using no method and yet at the same time concealing your method is part of that civil Logick you have learned no man knows where You had farre better hide your weaknesses under an universall silence as you do to the most of them than expose them afresh unto publick contempt trimmed up with froth and trifles But this is but one of the least of your escapes you proceed to downright work in your following words Going on you deny say you that Protestants ever opposed the merit of Good works which at first I wondred at seeing the sound of it hath rung so often in my own ears and so many hundred Books written in this last Age so apparently witness it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusall of your Book that you neither heed what you say nor how much you deny at last giving a distinction of the intrinsick acceptability of our works the easier to silence me you say as I say Could any man not acquainted with you ever imagin but that had denied that ever Protestants opposed the merit of Good works you positively affirm I did so you pretend to transcribe my own words you wonder why I should say so you produce testimony to disprove what I say and yet all this while you know well enough that I never said so have a little more care if not of your Conscience yet of your Reputation for seriously if you proceed in this manner you will lose the common Priviledge of being believed when you speak truth Your words in your Fiat Lux p. 15. ed. 2. are that our Ministers cull out various Texts out of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans against the Christian doctrine of Good works and their merit wherein you plainly distinguish between the Christian Doctrine of Good works and their merit as well you may I tell you pag. 25 26 that no Protestant ever opposed the Christian Doctrine of Good Works Here you repeat my words as you pretend and say that I deny that any Protestant ever opposed the Merit of Good works and fall into a fained wonderment at mee for saying that which you knew well enough I never said For Merit is not the Christian but rather as by you explained the Antichri-christian Doctrine of Good works as being perfectly Anti-Evangelicall What Merit you will esteem this Good work of yours to have I know not and have in part intimated what truely it doth deserve But you adde that making a distinction of the intrinsick acceptability of works you say as I say What is that I pray do I say that Protestants oppose the Christian Doctrine of Good Works as you say in your Fiat or do I say that
Apostasie also For why must that needs be the notion of these termes in the division you made that you now express Is it from the strict sense and importance of the words themselves or from the Scripturall or Ecclesiasticall use of them or whence is it that it must be so and that it is so None of these will give you any relief or the least countenance unto your fancie Both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in themselves of an indifferent signification denoting things or acts good or evill according to their accidentall limitations and applications It is said of some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will depart from the faith 1 Tim. 4. 1. And the same Apostle speaking of them that name the name of Christ sayes let every one of them depart from iniquity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 2. 19. so that the word it self signifies no more but a single and bare departure from anything way rule or practice be it good or bad wherein a man hath been ingaged or which he ought to avoid and fly from And this is the use of it in the best Greek Authors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are such in Homer who are farre distant or remote on any account from any thing or place And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Aristotle things very remote To leave any place company thing Society or Rule on any cause is the common use of the word in Thucydides Plutarch Lucian and the rest of their companions in the propriety of that language Apostasia by Ecclesiasticall writers is restrained unto either a back sliding in Faith subjective and manners or a causeless relinquishment of any Truth before professed So the Jews charge Paul Acts 21. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou teachest Apostasie from Moses Law Such also is the nature of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a speciall option choyce or way in profession of any Truth or Error So Paul calls Pharisaisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 26. 5. the most exact heresie or way of Religion among the Jews And Clemens Alexandrinus Strom lib. 8. calls Christian Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the best Heresie And the great Constantine in one of his Edicts calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick or generall Heresie and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most holy Heresie The Latines also constantly used that word in a sense indifferent Cato faith Cicero est in ea heresi quae nullum orationis florem sequitur The words therefore themselves you see are of an indifferent signification having this difference between them that the one for the most part is used to signifie the Relinquishment of that which a man had before embraced and the other a choice or embracing of that which a man had not before received or admitted And this difference is constantly observed by all Ecclesiasticall writers who afterwards used these words in the worst or an evill sense so that Apostasie in this appropriation of it denotes the relinquishment of any Important Truth or way in Religion and Heresie the choice or embracement of any new destructive Opinion or Principle or way in the profession thereof A man then may be an Apostate by partiall Apostasie that is depart from the Profession of some Truth he had formerly embraced or the performance of some duty which he was engaged in without being an Heretick or choosing any new opinion which he did not before embrace Thus you signally call a Monke that deserts his Monasticall Profession an Apostate though he embrace no opinion which is condemned by your Church or which you think hereticall And a man may be an Heretick that is choose and embrace some new false opinion which he may coyn out of his own imagination without a direct renunciation of any Truth which before he was instructed in And this is that which I intended when I told you that your Church is fallen by partiall Apostasie and by Heresie Shee hath renounced many of the important Truths which the old Roman Church once believed and professed and so is fallen by Apostasie And she hath invented or coyned many Articles pretended to be of faith which the old Roman Church never believed and so is fallen by Heresie also Now what say you hereunto Why good S r in this division Apostasie is set to express a totall relapse in opposition to Heresie which is the partiall But who gave you warrant or leave so to set them It would it may be somewhat serve your turn in evading the Charge of Apostasie that lyes against your Church but Good S r will not prove that you may thus confound things for your advantage Idolatry is Heresie and Apostasie is Heresie and what not because you suppose you have found a way to escape the imputation of Heresie I say then yet again in answer to your enquiry that your Church is fallen by Apostasie in her relinquishment of many important truths and neglect of many necessary duties which the old Roman Church embraced and performed That these may be the more evident unto you I shall give you some few instances of your Apostasie desiring only that you would grant me that the primitive Church of Rome believed and faithfully retained the doctrine of truth wherein from the Scripture it was instructed That Church believed expresly that all they who die in the Lord do rest from all their labours Rev. 14. 8. which truth you have forsaken by sending many of them into the flames of Purgatory It believed that the sufferings of this life are not worthy of the glory that shall be revealed in us Rom. 8. 18. Your Church is otherwise minded asserting in our works and sufferings a merit of and condignity unto the glory that shall be received It believed that we were saved freely by grace by faith which is not of our selves but the gift of God not by works left any one should boast Eph 2. 8. Tit. 3. 5. and therefore besought the Lord not to enter into judgement with them because in his sight no flesh could be justified Psal. 130. 4. 143. 2. And you are apostatized from this part of their faith It believed that Christ was once only offered Heb. 10 12. and that it could not be that he should often offer himself because then he must have often suffered and died Heb. 9. 25. Which faith of theirs you are departed from It believed that we have one only Mediatour and Intercessour with God 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Joh. 2. 2. Wherein also you have renounced their perswasion as likewise you have done in what it professed that we may invocate only him in whom we do believe Rom. 10. 14. It believed that the Command to abstain from Meats and Marriage was the doctrine of Devils 1 Tim. 4. 1 2. Do you abide in the same faith It believed that Every soul without exception was to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13. 1. You will not
walk in the steps of their faith herein It believed that all Image-worship was forbidden Exod. 20. And whether you abide in the same perswasion we shall afterwards examine And many more instances of the like kind you may at any time be minded of You hast to that you would fain be at which will be found as little to your purpose as those whose consideration you so carefully avoid You say Did she fall by Heresie in adhering to any errour in Faith contrary to the approved doctrine of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholick Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto S r I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that doth not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is them might you find some one or other more generall Church if any there were to judge her some Oecumenicall Councell to condemn her some Fathers either Greek and Latin expresly to writs against her as Protestants now do some or other grave Authority to censure her or at least some company of Believers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell None of which since you are not able to a assign wherein you have spoken more rightly than you were aware of for not to be able to assign none of them infers at least an ability to assign some if not all of them my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was Answ. 1. You represent my Answer lamely I desire the Reader to consult it in the Animadversions pag. 66 67 68. What you have taken notice of discovers only your fineness in making Heresie an adherence to an errour in faith contrary to the doctrine of the Church and your selves the Church whereby you must needs be secured from Heresie though you should adhere to the most hereticall Principles that ever were broached in the world But nothing of all this as I have shewed will be allowed you 2. As we have seen some of the Reasons why you were so unwilling to try the Cause of your Church on the heads of Idolatry and Apostasie so here you discover a sufficient Reason why you have passed over your other head of Schism in silence You avow your self one of the most schismaticall Principles that were ever adhered unto by any professing the name of Christ. The Roman Church and the Catholick are with you one and the same Is not this Petilianus his in parte Donati nay Basilides his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Heres 4. We only are men all others are Dogs and Swine Macte virtute If this be not to shew modcration and to persue reconciliation at once to shut out all men but your selves from the Church here and consequently Heaven hereafter what can be thought so to be In earnest S r you may talk what you please of moderation but whilest you avow this one wretched schismaticall Principle you do your endeavour to exclude all true Christian moderation out of the world 3. Why do you conclude that your Query is not answered Suppose one Question could not be answered doth it necessarily follow that another cannot I suppose you take notice that this is another Question and not that at first proposed as I told you before Your first enquiry was about your Churches crime this is about her conviction and condemnation and your Conclusion hath no strength in it but what is built on this unquestionable Maxim that None ever offended who was not publickly judged as though there were no Harlot in the world but those that have been carted It is enough S r that her condition is sub judice as it will be whether you or I will or no and that there is not evidence wanting for her conviction nor ever was since her fall though it may be it hath not at all times been so publickly managed And yet so vain is your triumphant Conclusion that we rest not here but prove also that she hath been of old judged and condemned as you will hear anon And thus I have once more given you an Answer to your enquiry how your Church fell namely that she hath done so by all the wayes and means by which it is possible for a Church to fall She failed under the just hand of God when the persons of that Vrbick Church were extirpated partly by others but totally by Totilas as the Brittish Church in England fell by the sword of the Saxons She hath fallen by Idolatry and corruption of life as did the Church of the Jews before the Captivity She hath fallen by her relinquishment of the written Word as the only rule of faith and worship and by adhering to the uncertain traditions of men as did the Church of the Jews after their return from captivity She hath fallen by Apostasie in forsaking the profession of many important truths of the Gospel as the Church of the Galatians did for a season in their relinquishment of the doctrine of Justification by grace alone She hath fallen by Heresie in coyning new Articles of faith and imposing them on the consciences of the Disciples of Christ as the Montanists did with their new Paraclete and rigid observances She hath fallen by Schisme in her self as the Judaical Church did when divided into Essenes Sadduces and Pharisees setting up Pope against Pope and Councell against Councell continuing in her intestine broils for some ages together and from all others by the wretched Principle but-now avowed by you as the Donatists did of old She hath fallen by Ambition in the Hildebrandine Principle asserting a Soveraignty in the Pope over the Kings and Potentates of the earth whereof I can give you no precedent instance unless it be of him who claimed the Kingdomes of the world to be his own and boasted that he disposed of them at his pleasure Mat. 4. And now I hope you will not take it in ill part that I have given you a plain Answer unto your Question which as I suppose was proposed unto us for that end and purpose But although these things are evident and sufficiently proved yet I see nothing will satisfie you unless we produce testimonies of former times to manifest that your Church hath been arraigned judged condemned written against by Fathers Councils or other Churches Now though this be somewhat an unreasonable expectation in you and that which I am no way bound unto by the Law of our Discourse to satisfie you in yet to prevent for the future such Ivasions as you have made use of on all occasions in your Epistle I shall in a few pregnant and unquestionable Instances give you an account both when how and by whom the falls of your Church have been
observed reproved condemned and written against Only unto what shall be discoursed unto this pnrpose I desire liberty to premise these three things which I suppose will be granted Dabitur ignis tamen et si ab inimicis petam The first is that What is by any previously condemned before the embracing and practice of it is no less condemned by them than if the practice had preceded their condemnation Though you should say that your avowing of a condemned errour would make it no errour yet you cannot say that it will render it not condemned for that which is done cannot be undone say you what you will Secondly that Where any opinion or practice in Religion which is embraced and used by your Church is condemned and written against that then your Church which so embraceth and useth it is condemned and written against For neither do Protestants write against your Church or condemn it on any other account but of your opinions and practices and you require but such a writing and condemnation as you complain of amongst them Thirdly I desire you to take notice that I do not this as though it were necessary to the security and defence of the Cause which we maintain against you It is abundantly sufficient and satisfactory unto our consciences in your casting us out from your communion that all the wayes whereby we say your Church is fallen from her pristine purity are judged and condemned in the Scripture the Word of truth whither we appeal for the last determination of the differences between us These things being premised to prevent such evasions as you have accustomed your self unto I shall as briefly as I can give you somewhat of that which you have now twice called for 1. Your Principle and Practise in imposing upon all Persons and Churches a necessity of the observation of your Rites and Ceremonies Customes and Traditions casting them out of Communion who refuse to submit unto this your great Principle of all the Schisms in Europe was contradicted written against condemned by Councels and Fathers in the very first instance that ever you gave of it Be pleased to consider that this concerns the very Life and Being of your Church For if you may not impose your Constitutions observances and customes upon all others actum est there is an end of your present Church State Let us see then how this was thought of in the dayes of old Victor the Bishop of Rome An Dom. 96. condemns and excommunicates the Churches of Asia because they would not joyn with him in the Celebration of Easter precisely on the Lords day Did this practise escape uncontrolled He was written against by the great Irenaeus and reproved that he had cast out of Communion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whole Churches of God for a triviall cause His fact also was condemned in the justification of those Churches by a Councell in Palestine where Theophilus presided and another in Asia called together for the same purpose by Polycrates Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 5. cap. 22 23 24 25. This is an early instance of a considerable Fall in your Church and an open opposition by Councels and Fathers made unto it And do not you S r deceive your self as though the fact of Victor were alone concerned in this censure of Irenaeus and others The Principle before mentioned which is the very life and soul of your Church is condemned in it It was done also in a repetition of the same Instance attempted here in England by you when Austine that came from Rome would have imposed on the Brittish Churches the observation of Easter according to the custome of the Roman Church the Bishops and Monks of these Churches not only rejected your Custome but the Principle also from whence the attempt to impose it on them did proceed protesting that they owned no subjection to the Bishop of Rome nor other regard than what they did to every good Christian. Concil Anglican p. 188. 2. Your Doctrine and Practise of forcing men by carnall weapons corporall penalties tortures and terrors of death unto the embracement of your profession and actually destroying and taking away the lives of them that persist in their dissent from you is condemned by Fathers and Councels as well as by the Scriptures and the light of Nature its self It is condemned by Tertullian Apol. cap. 23. Videte saith he ne hoc ad irreligiositatis elogium concurrat adimere libertatem Religionis interdicere optionem Divinitat is ut non liceat mihi colere quod velim sed cogar colere quod nolim with the like expressions in twenty other places All this externall compulsion he ascribes unto profaneness So doth Clemens Alexand. Stromat 8. So also did Lactantius all consenting in that Maxim of Tertullian Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio The Law of Christ revengeth not its self with a punishing sword The Councell of Sardis Epist. ad Alexand. expresly affirms that they disswaded the Emperour from interpesing his Secular power to compell them that dissented And you are fully condemned in a Canon of a Councell at Toledo Cap. de Judae distinc 45. Praecipit sancta Synodns nemini deinceps ad credendum vim inferre cui enim vult Deus miseretur quem vult indurat The holy Synod commandeth that none hereafter shall by force be compelled to the faith for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth Athanasius in his Epistle ad Solitar falls heavily on the Arians that they began first to compell men to their heresie by force prisons and punishments whence he concludes of their Sect atque ita seipsam quam non sit pia nec Dei cultrix manifestat it evidestly declares it self hereby to be neither pious nor to have any reverence of God In a Book that is of some credit with you namely Clemens his Constitutions you have this amongst other things for your comfort 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ left men the power of their wills free in this matter not punishing them with death temporall but calling them to give an account in another world And Chrysostome speaks to the same purpose on Joh 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He asked them saying Will you also go away which is the Question of one rejecting all force and necessity Epiphanius gives it as the character of thesemi-Arâ—ians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They persecute them that teach the Truth not confuting them with words but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds wars and swords having now brought destruction not to one City or Countrey alone but to many Neither can you relieve your selves by answering that they were true believers whom they persecuted you punish Hereticks and Schismaticks only for they thought and said the same of themselves which you assert in your own behalf So Salvian informs us Haeretici sunt sed non scientes denique apud nos sunt Haeretici apud se non
end doth so absolutely moralize an action that it of its self should render it good or evil Evil it may but good of its self it cannot For Bonum oritur ex integris causis malum ex quolibet defectu Rectifying the intention will not secure your morality And yet also on second thoughts that I see not much difference between the ends that Celsus proposed unto himself upon his generall Principle and those that you propose to your self upon your own as well as the way whereby you proceed is the same But yet upon the accounts before mentioned I shall free you from your fears of being thought like him 3. When Protestants preach against our Divisions they charge them upon the Persons of them that are guilty whereas you do it on the Principles of the Religion that they profess so that although you may deal like Celsus they do not 4. The scurrilous Sarcasm wherewith you close your Discourse is not meet for any thing but the entertainment of a Friar and his Concubine such as in some places formerly men have by publick Edicts forced you to maintain as the only Expedient to preserve their families from being defiled by you 5. Let us now pass through the Instances that you have culled out of many charged upon you to be the same with those of Celsus concerning which you make such a trebled Outcry does he does he does he The first is Doth Fiat Lux lay the cause of all Tumults and Disorders on Protestants clames licet mare coelo confundas Fiat Lux doth so chap. 4. § 17. p. 237. § 18. p. 242 243. § 20. p. 255. and in sundry other places You adde Doth he charge Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make way for other revolts He doth so and that frequently chap. 3. § 14. p. 187 c. Doth he you adde gather a Rhapsody of insignificant words as did Celsus I say he doth in the pretended plea that he insists on for Quakers and for Presbyterians also chap. 3. § 13. p. 172 173 c. Again Doth he manage the Arguments of the Jews against Christianity as was done by Celsus He doth directly expresly and at large chap. 3. § 12. p. 158. c. I confess because it may be you know it not you might have questioned the truth of my parallel on the side that concerned Celsus which yet I am ready at any time if you shall so do to give you satisfaction in but that you would question it on your own part when your whole discourse and the most of the passages in it make it so evident I could not foresee But your whole Defence is nothing but a noise or an outery to deter men from coming nigh you to see how the Case stands with you It will not serve your turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you must abide by what you have done or fairly retract it In the mean time I am glad to find you ashamed of that which elswhere you so much boast and glory in With the sixth and seventh Principles mentioned by me you deal in like manner You deny them to be yours which is plainly to deny your self to be the Author of Fiat Lux. And surely every man that hath once looked seriously into that Discourse of yours will be amazed to hear you saying that you never asserted Our Departure from Rome to be the Cause of the Evils among Protestants or that There is no Remedy for them but by a Returnal thither again which are the things that now you deny to be spoken or intended by you For my part I am now so used unto this kind of Confidence that nothing you say or deny seems strange unto me And whereas unto your Denial you adde not any thing that may give occasion unto any usefull Discourse I shall pass it by and proceed unto that which will afford us some better advantage unto that purpose CHAP. VI. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of th◠Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed THe eighth Principle which way soever it be determined is of great importance as to the Cause under debate Here then we shall stay a while and examine the difficulties which you labour to entangle that Assertion withall which we acknowledge to be the great and Fundamentall Principle of our Profession and you oppose The Position I laid down as yours is That the Scripture on sundry accounts is in sufficient to settle us in the Truth of Religio◠or to bring us to an agreement amongst our selves Hereunto I subjoyned the four heads of Reasons which in your Fiat you insisted on to make good your Assertion These you thought meet to pass by without reviving them again to your further disadvantage You are acquainted it seems with the old Rule Et quà Desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit The Position its self you dare not directly deny but yet seek what you can to wave the owning of it contrary to your express Discourse Chap. 3. § 15. p. 199 200 c. as also in sundry other places interwoven with expressions exceedingly derogatory to the Authority Excellency Efficacy and fullness of the Scripture as hath been shewed in the Animadversions But let us now consider what you plead for your self Thus then you proceed You speak not one word to the purpose or against me at all if I had delivered any such Principle Gods Word is both the sufficient and only necessary means of both our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as Vertue But the thing you heed not and unto which I only speak is this that the Scripture be in two hands for example of the Protestant Church in England and of the Puritan who with the Scripture rose up and rebelled against her Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business How shall it do it has it ever done it Or can that written Word now solitary and in private hands so settle any in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future generations shall question it or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it This is the Case unto which you do neither here nor in your whole Book speak one word and what you speak otherwise of the Scriptures excellency I allow it for Good 1. Because you are not the only Judge of what I have written nor indeed any competent Judge of it at all I shall not concern my self in the Censure which your Interest compells you to pass upon it It is left unto the thoughts of those who are more impartial 2. Setting aside your Instance pitched on ad invidiam only with some aequivocall expressions as must needs be thought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very artificially to be put into the state of a Question and that which you deny is
this that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God the Scripture is not sufficient for the Vmpirage of that Difference so that they may be reconciled and center in the Profession of the same Truth I wish you would now tell me what discrepancy there is between the Assertion which I ascribed unto you and that which your self here avow I suppose they are in substance the same and as such will be owned by every one that understands any thing of the matters about which we treat And this is so spoken unto in the Animadversions that you have no mind to undertake the examination of it but labour to divert the discourse unto that which may appear something else but indeed is not so 3. For your Distinction between Protestants and Puritans in England I know not well what to make of it I know no Puritans in England that are not Protestants though all the Protestants in England do not absolutely agree in every punctilio relating to Religion nor in all things relating unto the outward worship of God no more than did the Churches in the Apostles dayes or than your Catholicks do You give us then a Distinction like that which a man may give between the Church of Rome and the Jesuits or Dominicans or the Sons of S t. Benet or of S t Francis of Assize A Distinction or Distribution of the Genus into the Genus and one Species comprehended under it as if you should have said that Animal is either Animal or Homo 4. Though I had rather therefore that you had placed your Instance between the Church of Rome and Protestants yet because any instance of Persons that have different Apprehensions about things belonging to the worship of God will suffice us as to the present purpose I shall let it pass Only I desire you once more that when you would endeavour to render any thing way or acting of men odious that you would forbear to cast the Scripture into a Copartnership therein which here you seem to do The Puritan you say with the Scripture rose up and rebelled Rebellion is the name of an outragious Evil such as the Scripture giveth not the least Countenance unto And therefore when you think meet to charge it upon any you may do well not to say that they do it with the Scripture It will not be to your comfort or advantage so to do This is but my advice you may do as you see cause Tales Casus Cassandra canebat 5. The Differences you suppose and look upon as undeterminable by the Scripture are about things that in themselves really and in truth belong unto Christian Religion or such as do not so indeed but are only fancied by some men so to do If they are of this latter sort as the most of the Controversies which we have with you are as about your Mass Purgatory the Pope we account that all Differences about them are sufficiently determined in the Scriptures because they are no where mentioned in them And this must needs be so if the Word of God be as you here grant the sufficient and only means both of our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as in Vertue S r I had no sooner written these words in that haste wherein I treat with you but I suspected a necessity of craving your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession For whereas you had immediately before set down the Assertion supposed to be yours about the Scriptures you adde the words now mentioned Gods Word is the sufficient and only means of our Conversion and Settlement in the Truth I did not in the least suspect that you intended any Legerdemain in the business but that the Scripture and Gods Word had been only various denominations with you of the same precise Thing as they are with us Only I confess at the first view I wondred how you could reconcile this Assertion with the known Principles of your Church and besides I knew it to be perfectly destructive of your design in your following Enquiry But now I fear you play hide and seek in the ambiguity your Church hath put upon that Title Gods Word which it hath applyed unto your unwritten Traditions as well as unto the written Word as the Jews apply the same term unto their Orall Law And therefore as I said before I crave your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession wherein I fear I was mistaken and only desire you that for the future you would speak your mind plainly and candidly as it becomes a Christian and Lover of Truth to do But my Assertion I esteem never the worse though it have not the happiness to enjoy your approbation especially considering that in the particular Instances mentioned there are many things delivered in Scripture inconsistent with and destructive of your notions about them sufficient to exterminate them from the Confines of the City of God 6. Suppose the matters in difference do really belong unto Religion and the worship of God and that the Difference lyes only in mens various Conceptions of them you ask Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business What do you mean by alone of its self If you mean without mens application of themselves unto it and subjecting of their Consciences unto its Authoritative decisions neither it nor any thing else can do it The matter its self is perfectly stated in the Scripture whether any men take notice of it or no but their various apprehensions about it must be regulated by their applications unto it in the way mentioned On this only Supposition that those who are at variance about things which really appertain unto the Religion of Jesus Christ will refer the determination of them unto the Scripture and bring the Conâ—eptions of their minds to be regulated thereby standing unto its Arbitriment it is able alone and of its self to end all their differences and settle them all iu the Truth This hath been proved unto you a thousand times and confirmed by most clear Testimonies of the Scripture its self with Arguments taken from its Nature Perfection and the End of its giving forth unto men as also from the practise of our Lord Jesus and his Apostles with their directions and commands given unto us for the same Purpose from the Practise of the First Churches with innumerable Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Doctors Neither can this be denied without that horrible Derogation from its Perfection and Plenitude so reverenced by them of old which is objected unto you for your so doing Protestants suppose the Scripture to be given forth by God to be unto the Church â—a perfect Rule of that Faith and Obedience which he requires at the hands of the sons of men They suppose that it is such a Revelation of his Mind or Will as is intelligible unto all them that are concerned to know
believed to belong to the Unity of Faith Lastly The Determinations of your Church you make to be the next efficient Cause of your Unity now these not being absolutely infallible leave it like Delos flitting up and down in the Sea of Probabilities only This we shall manifest unto you immediately at least we shall evidence that you have no cogent reasons nor slable grounds to prove your Church infallible in her Determinations At present it shall suffice to mind you that she hath Determined Contradictions and that in as eminent a manner as it is possible for her to declare her sense by namely by Councils confirmed by Popes and an infallible determination of Contradictions is not a Notion of any easie digestion in the thoughts of a man in his right wits We confess then that we cannot agree with you in your Rule of the Unity of Faith though the thing its self we press after as our Duty For 2. Protestants do not conceive this Vnity to consist in a precise Determination of all Questions that are or may be raised in or about things belonging unto the Faith whether it be made by your Church or any other way Your Thomas of Aquine who without question is the best and most sober of all your School Doctors hath in one Book given us 522 Articles of Religion which you esteem mraculously stated Quot Articuli tot Miracula All these have at least five Questions one with another stated and determined in explication of them which amount unto 2610 Conclusions in matters of Religion Now we are farre from thinking that all these Determinations or the like belong unto the Unity of Faith though much of the Religion amongst some of you lyes in not dissenting from them The Questions that your Bellarmine hath determined and asserted the Positions in them as of faith and necessary to be believed are I think neer 40 times as many as the Articles of the antient Creed of the Church and such as it is most evident that if they be of the nature and importance pretended it is impossible that any considerable number of men should ever be able to discharge their duty in this business of holding the Vnity of Faith That a man believe in generall that the holy Scripture is given by inspiration from God and that all things proposed therein for him to believe are therefore infallibly true and to be as such believed and that in particular he believe every Article or point of Truth that he hath sufficient means for his instruction in and conviction that it is so revealed they judg to be necessary unto the holding of the Unity of Faith And this also they know that this sufficiency nf means unto every one that enjoys the benefit of the Scriptures extends its self unto all those Articles of Truth which are necessary for him to believe so as that he may yield unto God the obedience that he requireth receive the holy Spirit of promise and be accepted with God Herein doth that Vnity of Faith which is amongst the Disciples of Christ in the world consist and ever did nor can do so in any thing else Nor doth that variety of Apprehensions that in many things is found among the Disciples of Christ and ever was render this Vnity like that you plead for various and incertain For the Rule and formall Reason of it namely Gods Revelation in the Scripture is still one and the same perfectly unalterable And the severall degrees that men attain uuto in their Apprehensions of it doth no more reflect a charge of variety upon it than the difference of Seeing as to the severall degrees of the sharpness or obtuseness of our bodily eyes doth upon the Light given by the Sunne The Truth is if there was any common measure of the Assents of men either as to the intension of it as it is subjectively in their minds or extension of it as it respecteth Truths revealed that belonged unto the Vnity of Faith it were impossible there should be any such thing in the world at least that any such thing should be known to be Only this I acknowledg that it is the Duty of all men to come up to the full and explicit acknowledgment of all the Truths revealed in the word of God wherein the Glory of God and the Christians Duty are concerned as also to a joynt consent in Faith objective or propositions of Truth revealed at least in things of most importance though their faith subjective or the internal assent of their minds have as it will have in severall Persons various degrees yea in the same Persons it may be at different seasons And in our labouring to come up unto this joynt-acknowledgment of the same sense and intendment of God in all revealed Truths consists our endeavour after that perfection in the Vnity of Faith which in this life is attainable as our moderation doth in our walking in peace and love with and towards others according to what we have already attained We may distinguish then between that Unity of Faith which an interest in gives Vnion with Christ unto them that hold it and Communion in Love with all equally interested therein and that Accomplishment of it which gives a sameness of Profession and consent in all acts of outward Communion in the worship of God The first is found in and amongst all the Disciples of Christ in the world where-ever they are the latter is that which moreover it is your Duty to press after The former consists in an Assent in generall unto all the Truths of God revealed in the Scripture and in particular unto them that we have sufficient means to evidence them unto us to be so revealed The latter may come under a double consideration for either there may be required unto it in them who hold it the joynt perception of and assent unto every Truth revealed in the Scripture with an equall degree of certainty in adherence and evidence in perception and it is not in this life wherein the best of us know but in part attainable or only such a concurrence in an assent unto the necessary Propositions of Truth as may enable them to hold together that outward Communion in the worship of God which we before mentioned And this is certainly attainable by the wayes and means that shall immediately be layed down And where this is there is the Vnity of Faith in that compleatness which we are bound to labour for the attainment of This the Apostolicall Churches enjoyed of old and unto the recovery whereof there is nothing more prejudiciall than your new stating of it upon the account of your Churches Proposals This Unity of Faith we judg good and necessary and that it is our Duty to press after it So also in generall do you It remains then that we consider what is the way what are the means and Principles that Protestants propose and insist upon for the attainment of it that is in answer
we also do Strom. 4. To this purpose speaks Salvianus de Gub. Lib. 3. Alia omnia idest humana dicta argumentis testibus egent Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them the Word of God is witness to its self For whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospell or things preached from it yet as to the belief of the Scripiure with faith Divine and Supernaturall to be the Word of God they required but these two things 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needfull for an indemonstrable Principle from which and by which all other things are to be demonstrated And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it Thus Austin in his Confessions Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi ô Domine Deus non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos sed eos qui non crederent new audiendesesse siqui mihi forte dicerent Unde scis illos libres unius veracissimi Dei Spirituesse humano generi ministratos idipsum enim maximè credendum erat O Lord God thou hast perswaded me that not they who believe thy Books which with so great Authority thou hast setled almost in all Nations were to be blamed but those who believe them not and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance to say unto me Whence dost thou know those Books to be given out unto mankind from the Spirit of the only True GOD for that is the thing which principally was to be believed In which words the holy man hath given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that Question which some used it seems in his dayes A great Testimony of the Antiquity of your Principles Adde hereunto what he writes in the 11 th Book and 3 d Chapter of the same Treatise and wee have the summe of the Resolution and Principle of his Faith Audiam saith he intelligam quomodo fecisti Coelam terram Scripsit hoc Moses scripsit abiit transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est nam si esset tenerem eum rogaremeum per Teobsecrarem ut mihi ist a paâ—derct praberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ere ejus At si Hebraea voce loqueretur frustra pulsaret sensum meum nec inde mentem meam tangeret si autem Latinè scirem quid diceret sed Unde scirem an verum dicoret quod si hoc scirem num ab illâ— scirem Intus utique mihi intus in domicilio cogitationis nec Hebraea nec Graeca nec Latina nec barbara verityas sine oris linguae organis sine strepitu syllabarum diceret verum diâ—it ego statim â—â—tus confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem Verumolits Cum ergo illum interrogare non possim Te quo 〈◊〉 vera dixit Veritas rogo Te Deus meus rogo partepeccatis meis qui illi servo tuo dedisti haec dicere 〈◊〉 mihi haEc intelligere I would bear and understand O Lord how thou hast made the Heavens and the earth Moses wrote this he wrote it and is gene and he is gone to Thee For now he is not present with mee if he were I would lay hold on him and ask him and beseech him for thy sake that he would unfold these things unto me and I would cause the ears of my body to attend unto the words of his mouth But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense and my mind within would not be affected with it If he speak in Latine I should know what he sayed but whence should I know that he spake the Truth should I know this also from him The Truth that is neither Hebrew Greck Latine nor expressed in any Barbarous Language would say unto me inwardly in the dwelling place of my thoughts without the organs of mouth or tongue or noyse of syllables He speaks the Truth and I with confidaence should say unto him thy servam Thou speakest the Truth Seeing therefore I cannot enquire of him I beseech Thee that art Truth with whom he being filled spake the Truth I beseech thee O my God pardon my sinnes and thou who gavest unto him by servant to speak these things grant unto me tounderstand Thus this holy man ascribes his assent into the one unquestionable Principle of the Scripture as to the effecting of it in himself to the work if Gods Spirit in his heart As Basil also doth on Psal. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith which draws the soul unto consent above the efficacy of all rational wayes or methods of perswasion Faith that is wrought and begotten in us not by geometricall enforcements or demonstrations but by the effectuall operations of the Spirit And both these Principles are excellently expressed by one amongst your selves even Baptista Mantuanus Lib. de Patientia Cap. 32 33. Saepenumerò faith he mecum cogitavi Unde tam sâ—adibilis esset ista Scriptura ut tam potenter insluat in animos auditorum unde tantum habeat energiae ut non adopinandum sed ad solidè credendum omnes inflectat I have often thought with my self Whence the Scripture is so perswasive whence it doth so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers whence it hath so much efficacy that it should incline and bow all men not to think as probable but solidly to believe the things it proposeth Non saith he est hoc imputandum rationum evidentiaequas non adducit non artis industriae verbis suavibus ad persuadendum accommodatis quibus non utitur It is not to be ascribed unto the evidence of Reasons which it bringeth not neither to the excellency of Art sweet words and accommodated unto per swasion which it makes no use of Sed vide an id in causa sit quod persuasi sumus eam à prima veritate flâ—xisse But see if this be not the Cause of it that wee are perswaded that it proceeds from the prime Verity He proceeds Sed unde sumus ita persuasi nisi ab ipsa quasi ad ei credendum non sua ipsiâ—â— trahat Authoritas Sed unde quaeso hanc sibi Authoritatem vindicavit Neque enim vidimus nos Deum concionantem scribentem docentem tamen ac si vidissemus credimus tenemus à Spiritu Sancto fluxisse quod legimus Forsitan
fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam major majorem maxima maximam Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo And again Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Natur â sublimius idest inspiratio facta divinitus divinae irradiation is influxus certus But whence are wee perswaded that it is from the First Verity but from it Self It s own Authority draws us to believe it But whence obtains it this Authority â— we see not God preaching writing teaching but yet as if we had seen him we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering unto it that the Truth in it is more solid though not more clear than in any other way of proposall and all truth hath a power to incline unto belief the greater the Truth the greater its power and the greatest Truth must have the greatest power so to incline us But why then do not all believe the Gospell I answer because all are not drawn of God There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than Nature that is the Divine Inspiration from whence it is and the Divine Irradiation wherewith it is accompanied This is the Principle of Protestants The Sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first Verity this it manifests by its own Light and Efficacy and we are enabled to believe it by the effectuall working of the Spirit of God in our hearts Whence our Saviour asks the Jews Joh 5. If you believe not the writing of Moses how will you believe my words They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture upon the Authority that it hath in its self would not believe if Christ should personally speak unto them So saith Theophylact on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Protestants believe and profess that the End wherefore God gave forth his Word by Inspiration was that it might be a stable Infallible Revelation of his mind and will as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him with that Worship and Obedience which he requireth of them that so they may please him in this world and come unto the fruition of him unto all eternity God who is the formal object is also the prime Cause of all Religious worship What is due unto him as the first Cause last End and Soveraign Lord of all as to the substance of it and what he further appoints himself as to the manner of its performance suited unto his own Holiness and the Condition wherein in reference unto our Last end we stand and are making up the whâ—le of it That he hath given his Word to reveal these things unto us to be our Rule Guide and Direction in our wayes walkings and universal deportment before him is as I take it a fundamentall Principle of our Christian Profession Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it I shall not need therefore to adde any thing in its Confirmation but only mind you again that the calling of it into question is directly against the very heart of all Religion and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians or ever were so Yea and it must be granted or the whole Scripture esteemed a Fable because it frequently declares that it is given unto us of God for this End and Purpose And hence do Protestants inferre two other Conclusions on which they build their Perswasion concerning the Vnity of Faith and the proper means of their Settlement therein 1. That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way compleat namely with respect unto that end whereunto of God it is designed A Perfect and compleat Revelation of the Will of God as to his Worship and our Obedience And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned should not have that sacred Reverence for the Wisdome Goodness and Love of its Author unto mankind as freely to assent unto this Inference and Conclusion He is our Rock and his work is perfect And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word by a supply unto it he hath strictly forbidden them any such addition Deut. 4. 2. 12. 12. Prov. 30. 6. Which if it were not compleat in reference unto its proper End would hold no great correspondency with that Love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him I suppose you know with how many express Testimonies of Scripture its self this Truth is confirmed which added unto that light and evidence which as a deduction from the former fundamental Truth it hath in its self is very sufficient to render it unquestionable You may at your leasure besides these forenamed consult Psal. 19. 8. Esa. 8. 20. Ezek. 28. 18. Mat. 15. 6. Luk. 1. 3 4. ch 16. 29 31. ch 24. 25 27. Job 5. 39. ch 20. 10 Act. 1. 11. ch 17. 2 3. ch 20. 27. chapt 26. 22. Rom. 10. 17. ch 15. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gal. 1. 8. Eph. 2. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Rev 22. 18. For though Texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one anothers heads as you talk in your Fiat yet they are for us to use and insist on in the Confirmation of the Truth if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles for our warrant And it were endless to recite the full and plain Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Councels to this purpose Neither is that my present design though I did somwehat occasionally that way upon the former Principle It shall suffice me to shew that the deny all of this Assertion also as it is inferred from the foregoing Principle is Prejudiciall if not pernicious to Christian Religion in Generall The whole of our Faith and Profession is resolved into the known Excellencies and Perfections of the Nature of God Amongst these there are none that have a more immediate and quickning influence into them than his Wisdom Goodness Grace Care and Love towards them unto whom he is pleased to reveal himself Nor is there any property of his Nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony unto And all of them doth he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signall manner in that Revelation which he hath made of himself his Mind and Will therein I suppose this cannot be denied by any who hath the least sense of the importance of the things revealed Now if the Revelation made for the End before proposed be not perfect
himself as that nothing more abominable can be invented The Devil of old being not able to give out certain Answers unto them that came to onquire about their Concernments at his Oracles put them off a long time with dubious aenigmaticall unintelligible Sophisms But when once the world had by experience study and observation improved its self into a Wisdome beyond the pitch of its first rudeness men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood This made the Devil pluck in his horns as not finding it for the interest of his kingdome to expose himself to be scoffed at by them with whose follies and fanaticall credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood he had for many generations sported himself And do they not blasphemously expose the Oracles of the true holy and living God to no less contempt who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scare-crow of obscurity or their not being intelligible unto every man by the use of means so far as he is concerned to know them and the mind of God in them And herein also Protestants stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them 4. Protestants believe that it is the Duty of all men who desire to know the will of God and to worship him according unto his mind to use diligence in the improvement of the means appointed for that end to come unto a right and full understanding of all things in the Scripture wherein their faith and obedience are concerned This necessarily follows from the Principles before laid down Nor is it possible it should be otherwise It is doubtless incumbent on every man to study and know his Duty that cannot be a mans Duty which he is not bound to know especially not such a Duty as whereon his eternall welfare should depend And I suppose a man can take no better Course to come to the knowledge of his Duty than that which God hath appointed for that purpose The Commands and Exhortations which we have given us in the Scripture for our Diligence in this matter with the Explications and improvements of them in the Writings of the Fathers are so obvious trite and known that it were meer loss of time to insist on the Repetition of them I suppose I should speak within compass if I should say that one Chrysostome doth in a hundred places exhort Christians of all sorts to the diligent study and search of the Scriptures and especially of the Epistles of Paul not the most plain and easie part of them I know the practise of your Church lyes to the contrary and what you plead in the justification of that practise but I am sorry both for Her and you both for the contrivers of and consenters unto this abomination and I fear what your accounâ— will be as to this matter at the last day God having granted the inestimable benefit of his Word unto mankind revealing therein unto them the only way by which they may attain unto a blessed eternity Is it not the greatest ingratitude that any man can possibly contract the guilt of to neglect the use of it What then is your Condition who upon sleight and triviall pretences set up your own Wisdome and Authority against the Wisdome and Authority of God advising and commanding men upon the pain of your displeasure in this world not to attend unto that which God commands them to attend unto on pain of his displeasure in the world to come So that though I confess that you deny this Principle yet I cannot see but that you do so not only upon the hazard of your own souls and the souls of them that attend unto you seeing that if the blind lead the blind both must fall into the ditch but also that you do it to the great prejudice of Christian Religion in the very foundations of it For what can a man rationally conclude that shall see you driving all Persons and that on no small penalties excepting your selves who are concerned in the conspiracy and some few others whom you suppose sufficiently initiated in your Mysteries from the reading and study of those Books wherein the world knows and your selves confess that the Arcana of Christian Religion are contained but that there are some things in them like the hidden Sacra of the old Pagan Hierophants which may not be disclosed because however countenanced by a remote veneration yet are indeed turpia or ridicula things to be ashamed of or scorned And the Truth is some of your Doctors have spoken very suspiciously this way whilest they justifie your practise in driving the people from the study of the Scripture by intimations of things and expressions not so pure and chast as to be fit for the knowledge of the promiscuous multitude when in the mean time Themselves or their Associates do publish unto all the world in their rules and directions for Confession such abominable filth and ribaldry as I think was never by any other means vented amongst mankind 5. Protestants say that the Lord Christ hath instituted his Church and therein appointed a Ministry to preside over the rest of his Disciples in his Name and to unfold un to them his mind and will as recorded in his Word for which end he hath promised his presence with them by his Spirit unto the end of the World to enable them in an humble dependance on his assistance to find out and declare his Commands and Appointments unto their brethren This Position I suppose you will not contend with us about although I know that you put another sense upon most of the terms of it than the Scripture will allow or wee can admit of These are the Principles of Protestants this is the Progress of their Faith in coming unto settlement and assurance These are their Foundations which are as unquestionable as any thing in Christianity the most of them your selves being judges And from them one of these two things will necessarily follow Either that all men unto whom the Word of God doth come will come to an agreement in the Truth or the Unity of Faith or Secondly That it is their own fault if they do not so do For what upon these Principles should hinder them from so doing All saving Truth is revealed by God in the Scripture unto the end that men may come to the knowledge of it It is so revealed by Him that it is possible and with his assistance easie formen to know aright his Mind and Will about the things so revealed and be hath appointed regular wayes and means for men to wait upon him in and by for the obtaining of his assistance Now pray revive your Question that gave occasion unto this discourse however men may differ in Religion why is not the Scripture sufficient to bring them unto an agreement and settlement Take heed that in your Answer you deny not some Principle that will
God in his Word than unto these Principles of yours is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholick Church that is of Christianity for they are the same To make good your judgement and censure then you vent endless Cavils against the Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scriptures pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their viâ—dication This rope of Sand composed â— false suppositions groundless presumptions inconsequent inferences in all which there is not one word of infallible Truth at least that you can any way make appear so to be is the great Bond you use to gird men withall into the Unity of Faith In brief you tell us that if wee will all submit to the Pope wee shall be sure all to agree But this is no more but as I have before told you what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition It is not a meer agreement wee aym at but an agreement in the Truth not a meer Vnity but a Unity of Faith and Faith must be built on Principles infallible or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not Faith carnall imagination not Christian belief otherwise wee may agree in Turcism or Judaism or Paganism as well as in Christianity and to as good purpose Now what of this kind do you tender unto us Would you have us to leave the sure word of Prophesie more sure than a voyce from Heaven the Light shining in the dark places of this world which wee are commanded to attend unto by God himself the Holy Scripture given by Inspiration which is able to make us wise unto Salvation the Word that is perfest sure right converting the Soul enlightning the eyes making wise the simple whose observation is attended with great reward to give heed yea to give up all our Spirituall and eternall concernments to the credit of old groundless uncertain Stories inevident presumptions fables invented for and openly improved unto carnal secular and wicked ends Is your request reasonable Would wee could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter especially considering â—the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your Principles unto Christianity in generall For if it be so that S t Peter had such an Episcopacy as you talk of and that a continuance of it in a Succession by the Bishops of Rome be of that indispensable necessity unto the preservation of Christian Religion as is pretended many men considering the nature and quality of that Succession how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed what place formerly popular Suffrage and the Imperial Authority have had in it how it came to be devolved on a Conclave of Cardinals what violence and tumults have attended one way what briberies and filthy respects unto the lusts of unclean Persons the other what Interruptions the Succession it self hath had by vacancies Schisms and contests for the place and uncertainty of the Person that had the best right unto the Popedome according to the customes of the dayes wherein he lived and that many of the Persons who have had a place in the pretended Succession have been plainly men of the world such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ yea open enemies unto his Cross would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many Ages ago in the world which certainly would not much promote the Settlement in Truth and Unity of Faith that we are enquiring after And this is the first way that you propose to supply that Defect which you charge upon the Scripture that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about Religion and settle them in the Truth And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men unto a Certainty and Scttlement in the Truth you need not despair of compassing and thing that you shall have a mind to attempt But you have yet another Plea which you make no less use of than of the former which must therefore be also now you have engaged us in this work a little examined This is the Church its Authority and Infallibilâ—ty The truth is when you come to make a practical Application of this Plea unto your own use you resolve it into and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope in whom solely many of you would have this Authority and Infallibility of the Church to reside Yet because in your mannagement of it you proceed on other Principles than those before mentioned this pretence also shall be apart considered And here you tell us 1. That the Church was before the Scripture and giveth Authority unto it By the Scriptures you know that wee understand the Word of God with this â—ne Adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment We do not say that it belongs unto the Essence of the Word of God that it be written Whatever is spoken by God wee admit as his Word when wee are infallibly assured that by Him it was spoken and that wee should do so before himself doth not require at our hands for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name Therefore wee grant that the Word of God was given out for the Rule of men in his Worship two thousand years before it was written but it was so given forth as that they unto whom it came had infallible assurance that from Him it came and his Word it was And if you or any man else can give us such assurance that any thing is or hath been spoken by him besides what we have now written in the Scripture wee shall receive it with the same faith and obedience wherewith wee receive the Scripture its self Whereas therefore you say That the Church was before the Scripture if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world before the word of God was written wee grant it true but not at all to your purpose If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God which at an appointed time was written it may possibly be wrested unto your purpose but is farre from being true seeing the Church is a society of men called to the knowledg and worship of God by his Ward They become a Church by the call of that Word which it seems you would have not given untill they are a Church of Effects produce their Causes Children beget their Parents Light brings forth the Sunne and Heat the Fire So are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church whereof the Pope is the Corner stone So was the Judaical Church before the Law of iâ— constitution and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded and the Word of Command by which it was edified In brief from the day wherein Man was first created upon the earth to the days wherein we live never did a Person or
Church yield any obedience or perform any acceptable worship unto God but what was founded on and regulated by his Word given unto them antecedently unto their obedience and worship to be the sole foundation and Rule of it That you have no concernment in what is or may be truly spoken of the Church we shall afterwards shew but it is not for the interest of Truth that wee should suffer you without controul to impose such absurd notions on the minds of men especially when you pretend to direct them unto a Settlement in Religion Alike true is it that the Church gives Authority unto the Scripture Every true Church indeed gives witness or Testimony unto it and it is its Duty so to do it holds it forth declares and manifests it so that it may be considered and taken notice of by all which is one main End of the Institution of the Church in this world But the Church no more gives Authority to the Scripture than it gives Authority to God himself He requires of men the discharge of that Duty which he hath assigned unto them but stands not in need of their suffrage to confirm his Authority It was not so indeed with the Idols of old of whom Tertullian said rightly Si Deus homini non placuerit Deus non erit The reputation of their Deity depended on the Testimony of men as you say that of Christ's doth on the Authority of the Pope But I shall not farther insist upon the disprovement of this vanity having shewed already that the Scripture hath all its Authority both in its self and in reference unto us from Him whose Word it is and wee have also made is appear that your Assertions to the contrary are meet for nothing but to open a door unto all Irreligiousness Prophaneness and Atheism so that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing sound or savoury nothing which an heart carefull to preserve its Loyalty unto God will not nauseate at nothing not suited to oppugn the fundamentals of Christian Religion in this your Position This ground well fixed you tell us 11. That the Church is infallible or cannot erre in what she teacheth to be believed And we ask you what Church you mean and how far you intend that it is infallible The only known Church which was then in the world was in the Wilderness when Moses was in the mount Was it infallible when it made the golden Calf and danced about it proclaiming a feast unto Jebovah before the Calf was the same Church afterward Infallible in the dayes of the Judges when it worshipped Baalim and Aftaroth or in the dayes of Jeroboam when it sacrificed before the Calves at Dan and Bethel or in the other branch of it in the dayes of Ahaz when the High-Priest set up an Altar in the Temple for the King to offer Sacrifice unto the gods of Damascus or in the dayes of Jehoiakiâ— and Zedekiah when the High-Priest with the rest of the Priests imprisoned and would have slain Jeremiah for preaching the word of God or when they preferred the worship of the Queen of Heaven before that of the God of Abraham Or was it infallible when the High-Priest with the whole Councel or Saâ—edrim of the Church judicially condemned as far as in them lay their own Messias and rejected the Gospel that was preached unto them You must inform us what other Church was them in the world or you will quickly perceive how ungrounded your generall Maxim is of the Churches absolute infallibility As farre indeed as it attends unto the Infallible Rule given unto it it is so but not one jot farther Moreover we desire to know What Church you mean in your Assertion or rather what is it that you mean by the Church Do you intend the Mystical Church or the whole number of Gods Elect in all Ages or in any Age militant on the Earth which principally is the Church of God Ephes. 5. 26 Or do you intend the whole diffused body of the Disciples of Christ in the world separated to God by Baptism and the Profession of saving truth which is the Church Catholick visible Or do you mean any particular Church as the Roman or constantinopolitan the French Dutch or English Church If you intend the first of These or the Church in the first sense we acknowledge that it is thus far infallible that no true member of it shall ever totally and finally renounce lose or forsake that faith without which they cannot please God and be saved This the Scripture teacheth this Austin confirmeth in an bundred places If you intend the Church in the second sense we grant that also so far unerring and infallible as that there ever was and ever shall be in the world a number of men making Profession of the saving Truth of the Gospel and yielding professed subjection unto our Lord Jesus Christ according unto it wherein consists his visible Kingdome in this world that never was that never can be utterly overthrown If you speak of a Church in the last sense then we tell you That no such Church is by virtue of any Promise of our Lord Jesus Christ freed from erring yea so farre as to deny the fundamentals of Christianity and thereby to lose the very being of a Church Whilst it continues a Church it cannot erre fundamentally because such Errours destroy the very being of a Church but those who were once a Church by their failing in the Truth may cease to be so any longer And a Church as such may so fail though every Person in it do not so for the individual members of it that are so also of the Mysticall Church shall be preserved in its Apostasie And so the Mysticall Church and the Catholick Church of Professors may be continued though all particular Churches should fail So that no Person the Church in no sense is absolutely freed in this world from the danger of all errours that is the condition wee shall attain in Heaven here where we know butin part wee are incapable of it The Church of the Elect and every member of it shall eventually be preserved by the power of the Holy Ghost from any such errour as would utterly destroy their Communion with Christ in Grace here or prâ—vent their fruition of him in Glory hereafter or as the Apostle speaks they shall assuredly be kept by the Power of God through faith unto salvation The Generall Church of Visible Professors shall be alwayes so farre preserved in the world as that there shall never want some in some place or other of it that shall profess all needfull saving Truths of the Gospel in the belief whereof and obedience whereunto a man may be saved But for Particular Churches as such they have no security but what lyes in their diligent attendance unto that Infallible Rule which will preserve them from all hutfull Errours if through their own default they neglect not to keep close unto it And your
Totilas Besides if we that are now Inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached unto our own Progenitors in a direct line ascending this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian Religion and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the Antient Britains Such pittifull trifles are you forced to make use of to give countenance unto your cause But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated unto the Saxons from Rome in the dayes of Pope Gregory which yet indeed is not true neither for Queen Berta with her Bishop Luidhardus had both practised the worship of Christ in England before his coming and so prepared the people that Gregory sayes in one of his Epistles Anglorum gentem voluisse fieri Christianam What will thence ensue why plainly that we must be all Papists or Atheists and esteem the whole Gospel a Romance But why so I pray Why the Categorick Assertions are both clear namely that the Pâ—pist first brought us the news of Christianity and that Papists are now odious But how comes this about we were talking of Gregory and some that came from Rome in his dayes And if you take them for Papists you are much deceived Prove that there was one Papist at Rome in the dayes of that Gregory and I will be another I mean such a Papist as your present Pope is or as your self are Do you think that Gregory believed the Catholick Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope the doing whereof in an especial manner constitutes a man a Papist If you have any such thoughts you are an utter stranger â—o the state of things in those dayes as also to the writings of Gregory himself For your better information you may do well to consult him lib. 4. Epist. 32 36 38. And sundry other instances may be given out of his own writings how remote he was from your present Popery Irregularities and superstitious observations were not a few in his dayes crept into the Church of Rome which you still pertinaciously adhere unto as you have the happiness to adhere firmely unto any thing that you once irregularly embrace But that the main Doctrines Principles Practices and Modes of Worship which constitute Popery were known admitted practised or received at Rome in the dayes of Gregory I know full well that you are not able to prove And by this you may see the Truth of your first Assertion that Papists brought us the first news of Christianity which you do not in the least endeavour to prove but take it hand over head to be the same with this that some from Rome preached the Gospel to the Saxons in the dayes of Gregory which it hath no manner of affinity withall Your second true Assertion is that the Papist is now become odious unto us but yet neither will this be granted you Popery we dislike but that the Papists are become odious unto us we absolutely deny Though we like not the Popery they have admitted yet we love them for the Christianity which they have retained And must not that needs be a doubty Consequence that is enduced out of Principles where in there is not a word of truth Besides I have already in part manifested unto you that supposing both of them to be true as neither of them is yet your Consequence is altogether inconsequent and will by no means follow upon them And this will yet more fully appear in an examination of your ensuing Discourse That which you fix upon to accept against is towards the close of my Discourse to this purpose in these words as set down by you pag. 40. Many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the Commission of Christ. The truth of this Assertion I have newly proved again unto you and have exemplified it in the instance of Papists bringing the first news of Christianity to any place which is not impossible but they may do though to this Nation they did not I had also before confirmed it with such reasons as you judged it best to take no notice of which is your way with things that are too hard for you to grapple withall I must I see drive these things through the thick obstacles of your prejudices with more instances or you will not be sensible of them What think you then of those who received the first news of Christianity by believers of the circumcision who at the same time taught them the necessity of being circumcised and of keeping Moses Law were they not bound afterwards upon the discovery of the mistake of their teachers to retain the Gospel and the truth thereof taught by them and to reject the observation of Mosaical rites and observations or were they free upon the discovery of their mistake to esteem the whole Gospel a Romance What think you of those that were converted by Arians which were great multitudes and some whole Nations were not those Nations bound for the Love of Christ by his word to retain their Christianity and reject their Arianisme or must they needs account the whole Gospel a fable when they were convinced of the Errour of their first teachers denying Christ Jesus in his Divine nature to be of the same substance with his Father or essentially God! To give you an instance that it may be will please you better There are very many Indians in New England or elsewhere Converted unto Christianity by Prote stants without whose instruction they had never received the least rumor or report of it Tell me your judgement if you were now amongst them would you not endeavour to perswade them that Christian Religion indeed was true but that their first Instructers in it had deceived them as to many particulars of it which you would undeceive them in and yet keep them close to their Christianity And do you not know that many who have in former dayes been by Hereticks converted to Christianity from Paganism have afterwards from the Principles of their Christianity been convinced of their heresie and retaining the one have rejected the other It is not for your advantage to maintain an opposition against so evident a Truth and exemplified by so many instances in all ages I know well enough the ground of your pertinaciousness in your mistake it is that men who receive the Gospel do resolve their faith into the Authority of them that first preach it unto them Now this supposition is openly false and universally as to all persons what ever not divinely inspired yea as to the Apostles themselves but only with respect unto their working of Miracles which gave Testimony unto the Doctrine that they taught Otherwise Gods Revelation contained in the Scriptures is that which the
faith of men is formally and ultimately resolved into so that what ever Propositions that are made unto them they may reject unless they do it with a non obstante for its supposed Revelation the whole Revelation abides unshaken and their saith founded thereon But as to the Persons who first bring unto any the tidings of the Gospel seeing the faith of them that receive it is not resolved into their Authority or Infallibility they may they ought to examine their proposals by that unerring word which they ultimately rest upon as did the Beraeans and receive or reject them at first or afterwards as they see cause and this without the least impeachment of the truth or Authority of the Gospel its self which under this formal consideration as revealed of God they absolutely believe Let us now see what you except hereunto First you ask What love of Christs dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choose and reject at your own pleasure Ans. None nor was that at all in question nor do you speak like a man that durst look upon the true state of the Controversie between us You proclaim your cause desperate by this perpetual tergiversation The Question is whither when men preach the Gospel unto others as a Revelation from God and bring along the Scripture with them wherein they say that Revelation is comprized when that is received as such and hath its authority confirmed in the minds of them that receive it whither are they not bound to try all the teaching in particular of them that first bring it unto them or afterwards continue the preaching of it whither it be consonant to that Rule or Word wherein they believe the whole Revelation of the will of God relating to the Gospel declared unto them to be contained and to embrace what is suitable thereunto and to reject any thing that in particular may be by the mistakes of the teachers imposed upon them Instead of believing what the Scripture teacheth and rejecting what it condemns you substitute choosing or rejecting at your own pleasure a thing wherein our discourse is not at all concerned You adde What Heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the Love of Christ and Commission of Christ for what he did What then I pray may not others do a thing really upon such grounds as some pretend to do them on falsly may not a Judge have his Commission from the King because some have counterfeited the great Seal May not you sincerely seek the good and peace of your Country upon the Principles of your Religion though some pretending the same Principles have sought its disturbance and ruine If there be any force in this exception it overthrows the Authority and Efficacy of every thing that any man may falsly pretend unto which is to shut out all order Rule Government and vertue out of the world You proceed How shall any one know you do it out of any such Love or Commission sith those who delivered the Articles of saith now rejected pretended equal love to Christ and Commission of Christ for the delivery of them as any other I wonder you should proceed with such impertinent enquiries How can any man manifest that he doth any thing by the Commission of another but by his producing and manifesting his Commission to be his and how can be prove that the doth it out of Love to him but by his diligence care and conscience in the discharge of his Duty as our Saviour tells us saying if you love me keep my Commandments which is the proper effect of love unto him and open evidence or manifestation of it Now how should a man prove that he doth any thing by the Commission of Christ but by producing that Commission that is in the things about whâ—ch we treat by declaring and evidencing that the things he proposeth to be believed are revealed by his spirit in his word and that things which he rejects are contrary thereunto And what ever men may pretend Christ gives out no adverse Commissions his word is every way and everywhere the same at perfect harmony and consistency with its self so that if it come to that that several Persons do teach contrary doctrines either before or after one another or together under the same pretence of receiving them from Christ as was the case between the Pharises of old that believed and the Apostles they that attend unto them have a perfect guide to direct them in their choice a perfect Rule to judge of the things proposed As in the Church of the Jews the Pharises had taught the people many things as from God for their Traditions or Oral Law they pretended to be from God Our Saviour comes really a teacher from God and he disproves their false Doctrines which they had prepossessed the people withall and all this he doth by the Scripture the Word of Truth which they had before received And this Example hath he left unto his Church unto the end of the world But you yet proceed Why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of something else when this Love of Christ which is now crept into the very out side of our lips is slipt off from thence Do you think men cannot find a cavil against him as well as his Law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches You are the pleasantest man at a disputation that ever I met withal haud ulli veterum virtute secundus you outgo your masters in palpable Sophistry If we may and ought for the Love of Christ reject errours and untruths taught by fallible men then we may reject him also for the love of other things Who doubts it but men may if they will if they have a mind to do so they may do so Physically but may they do so Morally may they do so upon the same or as good grounds and reasons as they reject errours and false worship for the sake of Christ With such kind of arguing is the Roman Cause supported Again you suppose the Law of Christ to be rejected and therefore say that his Person may be so also But this contains an application of the general Thesis unto your particular case and thereupon the begging of the thing in Question Our enquiry was general Whither things at first delivered by any Persons that preach the Gospel may not be rejected without any impeachment of the Authority of the Gospel it self Here that you may insinuate that to be the case between you and us you suppose the things rejected to be the Law of Christ when indeed they are things rejected because they are contrary to the Law of Christ and so affirmed in the Assertion which you seek to oppose For nothing may be rejected by the Commission of Christ but what is contrary to his Law The truth is he that rejects the Law of Christ as it is his
then that of any of them And therefore on what terms and reasons soever a man may relinquish the opinions and renounce the Communion of any other Church upon the same may he renounce the Communion and relinquish the Opinions of yours And if there be no reasons sufficiently cogent so to deal with any Church whatever I pray on what grounds do you proceed to perswade others to such a Course that they may joyn with you Dicisque facisque quod ipse Non Sani esse hominis non sanus juret Orestes To disintangle you out of this Labyrinth whereinto you have cast your self I shall desire you to observe that if the Lord Christ by his Word be the Supream Revealer of all Divine Truth and the Church that is any Church whatever be only the Ministerial proposer of it under and from him being to be regulated in all its propositions by his Revelation if it shall chance to propose that for Truth which is not by him revealed as it may do seeing it hath no security of being preserved from such failures but only in its attendance unto that Rule which it may neglect or corrupt A man in such a Case cannot discharge his Duty to the Supream Revealer without dissenting from the Ministerial proposer Nay if it be a Truth which is proposed and a man dissent from it because he is not convinced that it is revealed he is in no danger to be induced to question other Propositions which he knows to be so revealed his faith being built upon and resolved into that Revelation alone All that remains of your discourse lyes with its whole weight on this presumption because some men may either wilfully prevaricare from the Truth or be mistaken in their apprehensions of it and so dissent from a Church that teacheth the truth and wherein she so teacheth it without cause therefore no man may or ought to relinquish the errors of a Church which he is really and truly convinced by Scripture and solid reason suitable thereunto so to be An inference so wild and so destructive of all assurance in every thing that is knowable in the world that I wonder how your Interest could induce you to give any countenance unto it For if no man can certainly and infallibly know any thing by any way or means wherein some or other are ignorantly or wilfully mistaken we must bid adiew for ever to the certain knowledge of any thing in this world And how slightly soever you are pleased to speak of Scripture Light Spirit and Reason they are the proper names of the wayes and helps that God hath graciously given to the sons of men to come to the knowledge of himself And if the Scripture by the assistance of the Spirit of God and the light unto it communicated unto men by him be not sufficient to lead them in the use and improvement of their Reason unto the saving knowledge of the will of God and that assurance therein which may be a firm foundation of acceptable obedience unto him they must be content to go without it for other wayes and means of it there are none But this is your manner of dealing with us All other Churches must be sleighted and relinquished the means appointed and sanctified by God himself to bring us unto the knowledge of and settlement in the Truth must be rejected that all men may be brought to a fanatical unreasonable resignation of their faith to you and your Church if this be not done men may with as good reason renounce Truth as Error and after they have rejected one error be inclined to cast off all that Truth for the sake whereof that error was rejected by them And I know not what other inconveniences and mischiefs will follow It must needs be well for you that you are Gallinae filius albae Seeing all others are Viles pulli nati infelicibus ovis Your only misadventure is that you are fallen into somewhat an unhappy age wheréin men are hard-hearted and will not give away their Faith and Reason to every one that can take the confidence to beg them at their hands But you will now prove by instances that if a man deny any thing that your Church proposeth he may with as good reason deny every Truth whatever I shall follow you through them and consider what in your matter or manner of proposal is worthy that serious perusal of them which you so much desire To begin See if the Quakers deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of Baptisme as you the efficacy of Absolution See if the Presbyterians do not with as much reason evacuate the Prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy All things it seems are alike Truth and Error and may with the same reason be opposed and rejected And because some men renounce errors others may on as good grounds renounce the Truth and oppose it with as solid and cogent reasons The Scripture it seems is of no use to direct guide or settle men in these things that relate to the worship and knowledge of God What a strange dream hath the Church of God been in from the dayes of Moses if this be so Hitherto it hath been thought that what the Scripture teacheth in these things turned the scales and made the embracement of it reasonable as the rejection of them the contrary As the woman said to Joab They were wont to speak in old time saying they shall surely ask counsel at Abel and so they ended the matter They said in old time concerning these things To the Law and the Testimonies search the Scriptures and so they ended the matter But it seems tempora mutantur and that now Truth and Falsehood are equally probable having the same grounds the same evidences Quis leget haec min tu istud ais Do you think to be believed in these incredible figments fit to bear a part in the stories of Vlysses unto Alcinous Yet you proceed See if the Socinian Arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the Eucharist But where did you ever read any Arguments of ours against the Eucharist Have you a dispensation to say what you please for the promotion of the Catholick Cause Are not the Arguments you intend indeed rather for the Eucharist then against it Arguments to vindicate the nature of that holy Eucharistical Ordinance and to preserve it from the manifold abuses that you and your Church do put upon it That is they are arguments against your Transubstantiation and proper sacrifice that you intend And will you now say that the Arguments of the Socinians against the Trinity the great fundamental Article of our Prosession plainly taught in the Scripture and constantly believed by the Church of all Ages are of equal force and validity with those used against your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Mass things never mentioned no not once in the whole Scripture never heard of nor believed by the Church of old and
destructive in your reception unto all that reason and sense whereby we are and know that we are men and live But suppose your prejudice and partial addiction unto your way and faction may be allowed to countenance you in this monstrous comparing and coupling of things together like his who Mortua jungehat corpora vivis is your inference from your enquiry any other but this that the Scripture setting aside the Authority of your Church is of no use to instruct men in the Truth 〈◊〉 all things are alike uncertain unto all And 〈◊〉 you farther manifest to be your meaning in your following enquiries See say you if the Jew do not with as much plaufibility deride Christ as you his Church And would you could see what it is to be a zealot in a faction or would learn to deal candidly and honestly in things wherein your own and the souls of other men are concerned Who is it amongst us that derides the Church of Christ Did Elijah deride the Temple at Jerusalem when he opposed the Priests of Baal or must every one presently be judged to deride the Church of Christ who opposeth the corruptions that the Roman faction have endeavoured to bring into that part of it wherein for some ages they have prevailed What Plausibility yon have found out in the Jews derision of Christ I know not I know some that are as conversant in their writings at least as you seem to have been who affirm that your arguings and revilings are utterly destitute of all plausibility and tolerable pretence But men must have leave to say what they please when they will be talking of they know not what as is the case with you when by any chance you stumble on the Jews or their concernments This is that which for the present you would perswade men unto That the Arguments of the Jews against Christ are as good as those of Protestants against your Church credat Apella Of the same nature with these is the remainder of your Instances and Queries You suppose that a man may have as good reasons for the denyal of Hell as Purgatory of Gods Providence and the Souls Immortality as of any piece of Popery and then may not want appearing incongruities tautologies improbabilities to disenable all Holy Writ at once This is the condition of the man who disbelieves any thing proposed by your Church nor in that state is he capable of any relief Fluctuate he must in all uncertainties Truth and error are all one unto him and he hath as good grounds for the one as the other But Sir pray what serves the Scripture for all this while Will it afford a man no Light no Guidance no Direction Was this quite out of your mind or did you presume your Reader would not once cast his thoughts towards it for his relief in that maze of uncertainties which you endeavour to cast him into or dare you manage such an impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of God as to affirm that that Revelation of himself which he hath graciously afforded unto men to reach them the knowledge of himself and to bring them to settlement and assurance therein is of no use or validity to any such purpose The Holy Ghost tells us that the Scripture is profitable for doctrine and instruction able to make the man of God perfect and us all wise unto salvation that the sure Word of Prophecy where unto he commands us to attend is a light shining in a dark place directs us to search into it that we may come to the acknowledgement of the Truth sending us unto it for our settlement affirming that they who speak not according to the Law and the Testimonies have no light in them He assures us that the word of God is a light unto ou◠feet and his Law perfect converting the soul That it is able to build us up and to give us an inheritance among all them that are sanctified that the things in it are written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing we may have life through his name See also Luke 16. 29 31. Psal. 19. 18. 2 Pet. 1 19. John 5. 39. Rom. 15. 4. Heb. 4. 12. Is there no truth in all this and much more that is affirmed to the same purpose or are you surprized with this mention of it as Caesar Borgia was with his sickness at the death of his father Pope Alexander which spoiled all his designs and made him cry that he had never thought of it and so had not provided against it Do you not know that a volume might be filled with Testimonies of antient fathers bearing witness to the sufficiency and efficacy of the Scripture for the settlement of the minds of men in the knowledge of God and his worship Doth not the experience of all Ages of all places in the world render your Sophistry contemptible are there not were there not millions of Christians alwayes who either knew not or regarded not or openly rejected the Authority of your Church and disbelieved many of her present proposals who yet were and are stedfast and in moveable in the faith of Christ and willingly seal the Truth of it with their dearest blood But if neither the Testimony of God himself in the Scriptures nor the concurrent suffrage of the antient Church nor the experience of to many thousands of the Disciples of Christ is of any moment with you I hope you will not take it amiss if I look upon you as one giving in your self as signal an Instance of the power of prejudice and partial addiction to a party and interest as a man can well meet withall in the world This discourse you tell me in your close you have bestowed upon me in a way of supererogation wherein you deal with us as you do with God himself The Duties he expresly by his commands requireth at your hands you pass by without so much as takeing notice of some of them and others as those of the second Command you openly reject offering him somewhat of your own that he doth not require by the way as you barbarously call it of Supererogation and so here you have passed over in silence that which was incumbent on you to have replyed unto if you had not a mind vadimonium deserere to give over the defence of that Cause you had undertaken and in the room thereof substitute this needless and useless diversion by the way as you say of Supererogation But yet because you were to free of your Charity before you had payed your debts as to bestow it upon me I was not unwilling to require your kindness and have therefore sent it you back again with that acknowledgement of your favour where with it is now attended CHAP. 13. Faith and Charity of Roman Catholicks YOur following Discourse pag. 44 45. is spent partly in the Commendation of your Fiat Lux and the Metaphysical abstracted scourses of
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
Ostorius in the dayes of Nero upon the Conquest of Boadicia Queen of the Iceni and fully subjected in its remainders unto the Roman Yoak and Laws after some struglings for liberty by Julius Agricola in the dayes of Vespatian as Tacitus assures us in the life of his Father in Law In this Estate Brittan continued under Nerva and Trajan the whole Province being afterwards secured by Hadrian from the incursion of the Picts and other barbarous Nations with the defence of his famous walls whereof Spartianus gives us an account In this condition did the whole Province continue unto the death of Commodus under the rule of Vlpius Marcellus as we are informed by Dio and Lampridius This was the state of affairs in Britain when the Epistle of Eleutherius is supposed to be written And for my part I cannot discover where this Lucius should reign with all that Soveraignty ascribed unto him Baronius thinks he might do so beyond the Picts wall which utterly overthrows the wholy story and leaves the whole Province of Brittan utterly unconcerned in the coming of Fugatius and Damianus into this Island These are some and many other reasons of my suspition I could add manifesting it to be far more just then yours that I had no reason for it but only because I would not acknowledge that any good could come from Rome Let us now see what you further except against the account I gave of the progress and declension of Religion in these and other Nations You add then say you succeeded times of Luxury Sloth Pride ambition scandalous riots and corruption both of faith and manners over all the Christian world both Princes Priests Prelates and people But you somewhat pervert my words so to make them lyable unto your exception for as by me they are layed down it seems you could find no occasion against them I tell you p. 253. that after these things a sad decay in faith and holiness of life befell professors not only in this Nation but for the most part all the world over the stories of those dayes are full of nothing more then the Oppression Luxury Sloth of Rulers the pride ambition and unseemly scandalous contests for preheminence of Sees and extent of Jurisdiction among Bishops the sensuality and ignorance of the most of men Now whether these words are not agreeable to Truth and Sobriety I leave to every man to judge who hath any tolerable acquaintance with History or the occurrences of the Ages respected in them Your reply unto them is not a grain of virtue or Goodness we must think in so many Christian Kingdoms and Ages But why must you think so who induceth you thereunto when the Church of Israel was professedly far more corrupted then I have intimated the state of the Christian Church in any part of the world to have been yet there was more then a grain of virtue or goodness not only in Elijah but in the meanest of those seven thousand who within the small precincts of that Kingdom had not bowed the knee to Baal I never in the least questioned but that in that declension of Christianity which I intimated and remission of the most from their pristine Zeal but that there were thousands and ten thousands that kept their integrity and mourned for all the Abominations that they saw practiced in the world Pray reflect a little upon the condition of the Asian Churches mentioned in the Revelation The discovery made of their Spiritual State by Christ himself chap. 2. 3. was within less then forty years after their first planting and yet you see most of them had left their first love and were decayed in their faith and Zeal In one of them there were but a few names remaining that had any life and integrity for Christ the body of the Church having only a name to live being truly and really dead as to any acts of Spiritual life wherein our Communion with God consists And do you make it so strange that whereas the Churches that were planted and watered by the Apostles themselves and enriched with many excellent Gifts and Graces should within the space of less then forty years by the Testimony of the Lord Christ himself so decay and fall off from their first purity faith and works that other Churches who had not their advantages should do so within the space of four hundred years of which season I speak I fear your vain conceit of being rich and wanting nothing of Infallibility and impossibility to stand in need of any Reformation of being as good as ever any Church was or as you need to be is that which hath more prejudiced your Church in particular then you can readily imagine And what I affirmed of those other Churches I know well enough how to prove out of the best and most approved Authors of those dayes If besides Historians which give sufficient Testimony unto my observation you will please to consult Chrysostome Hom. 3. de Incomprehens Dei natur Hom. 19. in Ac. 9. Hom. 15. in Heb. 8. and Augùstin lib. de Fid. bon op cap. 19. you will find that I had good ground for what I said And what if I had minded you of the words of Salvian de provid lib. 3. Quemcunque invenies in Ecclesia non aut â—briosum aut adulternus aut fornicatorem aut raptorem aut ganeonem aut latronem aut homicidam quod omnibus potius est prope haec cuncta sine fine Should I have escaped your censure of giving you a story false and defamatory loaden with foul language against all Nations ages and conditions that none can like who bear any respect either to modesty Religion or Truth ne saevi magne Sacerdos What ground have you for this intemperate railing What instance can you give of any thing of this nature What expression giving countenance unto this severity If you will exercise your self in writing Fiats you must of necessity arm your self with a little patience to hear sometimes things that do not please you and not presently cry out defamations false wrath foul language c. I suppose you know that not long after the times wherein I say Religion as the power and purity of it much decayed in the world that God brought an overflowing scourge and deluge of Judgements upon most of the Nations of Europe that made Profession of Christianity What in sadness do you think might be the cause of that dispensation of his Providence Do you think that all things were well enough amongst them and that in all things their wayes pleased God is such an apprehension suitable to the Goodness Mercy Love and faithfulness of God or must he lose the glory of all his properties in the administration of his righteous Judgements rather then you will acknowledge a demerit in them whom he took away as with a Flood So indeed the Jews would have had it of old under their sufferings but he pleaded and vindicated the equality
Platin. vita Gregor 6. Sigon de Reg. lib. 8. From that time forward untill the Reformation no one age can be instanced in wherein great open and signal opposition was not made unto the Papal Authority which you seek again to introduce The instances already given are sufficient to convince the vanity of your pretence that never any opposition was made unto it Of the same nature is that which you nextly affirm of all the Bishops and Priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world by an hundred experiments acknowledging the supream spiritual Authority of the Roman Patriarch I must I see still mind you of what it is that you are to speak unto It is not the Patriarchate of your Pope with the Authority Priviledges and preheminences which by virtue thereof he layes claim unto but his singular succession to Christ and Peter in the absolute Headship of the whole Catholick Church that you are treating about Now supposing you may be better skilled in the affairs of the Eastern Church then for ought as I can yet perceive you are in those of the Western let me crave this favour of you that you would direct me unto one of those hundred experiments whereby the acknowledgment you mention preceding the Conversion of the Nothern Nations may be confirmed It will I confess unto you be a singular kindness seeing I know not where to find any one of that nature within the time limited noâ— to tell you the Truth since unto this day For I suppose you will not imagine that the faigned Prosessions of subjection which poverty and hopes of supplies from the Court of Rome hath extorted of late from some few mean persons whose Titles only were of any Consideration in the world will deserve any place in this disquisition Untill you are pleased therefore to favour me with your information I must abide in my ignorance of any such experiments as those which you intimate The Artifices I confess of your Popes in former dayes to draw men especially in the Eastern Church to an acknowledgement of that Authority which in their several seasons they claimed have been many and their success various Sometimes they obtained a seeming compliance in some and sometimes they procured their Authors very shrewd rebukes It may not be amiss to recount some of them 1. Upon all occasions they set forth themselves the dignity and preheminence of your See with swelling Encomiums and Titles asserting their own Primacy and Power Such self assumings are many of the old Papal Epistles stuffed withall A sober humble Christian cannot but nauseate at the reading of them For it is easily discernable how Antievangelical such Courses are and how unbecoming all that pretend themselves to be Disciples of Jesus Christ from these are their chiefest Testimonies in this Case taken and we may say of them all they bear witness to themselves and that contrary to the Scripture and their witness is not true 2. When and wherever such Letters and Epistles as proclaimed their Priviledges have been admitted through the inadvertency of Modesty of them to whom they were sent unwilling to quarrel with them about the good opinion which they had of themselves which kind of entertainment they yet sometimes met not withall the next successors allwayes took for granted and pleaded what their predecessours had presumptuously broached as that which of right and unquestionably belonged unto them And this they made sure of that they would never lose any ground or take any one step backwards from what any of them had advanced unto 3. Wherever they heard of any difference among Bishops they were still imposing their Vmpirage upon them which commonly by the one or other of the parties at variance to ballance thereby some disadvantages that they had to wrestle withall was admitted yea sometimes they would begin to take part with them that were openly in the wrong even Hereticks themselves that they might thereby procure an address to them from others which afterwards they would interpret as an express of their subjection And wherever their Vmpirage was admitted they were never wanting to improve their own interest by it like the old Romans who being chosen to determine a Controversie between other People about some lands adjudged them unto themselves 4. If any Person that was really injured or pretended so to be made any Address unto them for any kind of Relief immediately they laid hold of their Address as an Appeal to their Authority and acted in their behalf accordingly though they were sometimes chidden for their pains and advised to meddle with what they had to do withall 5. Did any Bishops of note write them Letters of respect presently in their rescripts they return them thanks for their profession of subjection to the See Apostolick so supposing them to do that which in truth they did not they promise to do for them that which they never desired and by both made way for the enlargment of the confines of their own authority 6. Where any Prince or Emperour was entangled in his affairs they were still ready to crush them into that condition of trouble from whence they could not be delivered but by their assistance or to make them believe that their adherence unto them was the only means to preserve them from ruine and so procured their suffrage unto their Authority Unto these and the like heads of Corrupt and sinful Artifices may the most of the Testimonies commonly pleaded for the Popes Supremacy be referred By such wayes and means hath it been erected Yet far enough from any such prevalency for seven hundred years as to afford us any of the experiments which you boast of The next thing you except against in my story is my affirming that Austin the Monk who came hither from Rome was a man as far as appears by story the little acquainted with the Gospel In the repetition of which words to keep your hand in ure you leave out that expression as far as appears by the story which is the evidence whereunto I appeal for the Truth of my Assertion and add to aggravate the matter the word very very little and then add here is the thanks that good St. Austin hath who out of his love and kindness entred upon the wild forrest of our Paganism with great hazards and inexpressible sufferings of hunger cold and other corporal inconveniencies But in the place you except against I acknowledge that God made him a special instrument in bringing the Scripture or Gospel amongst us which I presume also he declared according to the light and ability which he had But you are your own Mothers Son nothing will serve your turn but absolute most pure and perfect For what I have further intimated of him there are sundry things in the History of his coming hither and proceedings here that warrant the suggestion The Questions that he sent for Resolution unto Gregory at Rome discover what manner of man he
as much as he is partaker with him of all the same Divine properties and excellencies and morally in his whole Person God and man as Mediator in that the Love Grace Will and Wisdom of the Father are in him fully represented unto us and not in the outward Lineaments of his humane nature Esa. 52. 53. And what is all this to your Images that give us the shape and form of a man and of what individual person neither you nor we know 4. And is it not a fine business to talk of seeing the face of God which shone forth in Christ in a carved image or a painted figure Is not this to confess plainly that your Images are teachers of Lyes 5. Your Logick is like your Divinity Inartificial argument or Testimony you use none in this place and I desire you would draw your Discourse into a Syllogisme Christ is the brightness of the Glory of God God shews us his face in him therefore we ought to make Images of wood and stone caved and painted and set them up in Churches to be adored 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And hereby you may also discern what is to be judged of your defence of what you had affirmed in your Fiat namely that we had a command that we should have Images and a command that we should not have Images which I never imagined that you would put upon a various â—ection of the Text and thought it sufficient to manifest your failing to intimate unto you the express preciseness of the prohibition with which your fancied command for Images is wholly inconsistent God hath strictly forbidden us to make any Image either of himself or of any other person or thing to adore or worship it or to put it unto any use purely religious This is an everlasting Rule of our Obedience His own making of Cherubims and placing them in the most holy place whilest the Judaical Oeconomy continued gives us no dispensation as to the obedience which we owe to that Command and rule whereby we must be judged at the last day Your last exception is layed against what I affirmed concerning the Relation you fancy between the Image and its prototype whereby you would excuse the honour and worship which you give unto it which I said is a meer effect of your own imagination To which you reply that speaking of a formal representation or relation and not of the efficient cause of it you cannot but wander at this illogical Assertion But sir this your formal representation or relation which you fancy must have an efficient cause and hath so a real one if it be real an imaginary one if it be fictitious and this I enquired after and I think it is not illogical to affirm that the relation you pretend is fictitious because it hath no cause but your own imagination on which alone it depends A divine institution constituting such a relation you have none nor doth it ensue on the nature of the thing it self For the carving of a stock into the likeness of a man gives it no such relation to this or that individual man as that which is done unto the one should have any respect unto the other But you add Is the picture made by the spectators imagination to represent this or that thing or the imagination rather guided to it by the picture By this Rule of yours the image of Caesar did not my imagination help it would no more represent a man then a mouse But you quite mistake the matter the relation you fancy includes two things first that this Image represents not a man in general but this or that individual man in particular and that exclusively to all others for instance Simon Peter and not Simon Magus who was a man no less then he or any other man whatever Now though herein the imagination may be assisted when it hath any certain grounds of discerning a particular likeness in an image unto one man when he was living more then to another yet you in most of your images are destitute of any such assistance You know not at all that your images represent any thing peculiar in the persons whereof you pretend them to be the images which sufficiently appears by the varity that is in the images whereby you represent the same Person even Christ himself in several places So that though every man in his right wits may conceive that an Image is the image of a man and not of a mouse yet that it should be the image of this or that man of Christ himself or Peter he hath no ground to imagine but what is suggested unto him by his imagination directed by the circumstances of its place and Title When Clodius had thrust Cicero into banishment to do him the greater spite he demolished his house and dedicated it as a devoted place to their Gods setting up in it the image of the Goddess Libertas The Orâ—tor upon his return in his Oration ad Pontifices for the recovery of his house to overthrow this pretended dedication and devotion of it pleads two things first that the Image pretended by Clodius to be the Image of Libertas was indeed the Image of a famous or rather infamous whore that lived at Tanager had this dedication passed I wonder how this Image could have any relation unto Libertas but by vertue of the imagination of its worshippers when in very deed it was the Image of a Tangraean whore And the same Orator tells us of a famous Painter who making the picture of Venus and her Companions for their Temples still drew them by some Strumpet or other that he kept company withall And whither you have noâ— been so imposed upon sometimes or no I very much question In which Case nothing but your imagination can free you from the worship of a quean when you aime your devotion another way Again he pleads that the dedication of that Image was not regularly religious nor according to that institution which they esteemed Divine whence no sacredness in it could ensue and want of institution which may be so esteemed is that also which we object against your dedication of Images For besides a relation to this or that Individual person which as I have shewed the most of your Images have not but what in your fancy you give unto them which is natural or Civil you fancy also a religious relation a sacred conjuction between the Image and Prototype so that the worship yielded to the one should redound to the other in a religious way And this I say is also the product of your own fancy If it be not I pray will you assign some other cause of it for to tell you the truth excluding divine Institution which you have not other I can think or none And if you could pretend Divine Institution constituting a sacred relation between Images and their prototypes yet it would not presently follow that they were to be worshipped no not supposing
the Prototypes themselves to be the proper objects of religious adoration which as to the most of them you know we deny unless you have also a Command to warrant you For there is 〈◊〉 Institution of God himself a Sacramental 〈◊〉 bâ—â—ween the water in Baptism and the 〈…〉 and yet I do not know that you plead that the water is to be worshipped And thus is it as to your wooden Cross you put two sticks a cross and worship them you take them asunder and burn them it is the very instance of your Nicene Council for so they repeat the words of Leontius and approve them Act. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whilest the two sticks of the Cross are put together or compacted I adore that figure for Christs sake who suffered thereon but when they are separated I cast them away and burn them a pretty course whereby a man may keep a sacred fire and worship all his wood pile before he burns it And all this you are beholding unto your imagination for We have done with your exceptions and pleas and I dare leave it to the Conscience and judgement of any man fearing God and not captivated under the power of prejudices and a vain conversation received by tradition from his Fathers whither your pretences are sufficient to warrant us to break in upon those many and severe interdictions of God lying expresly in the letter against this usage and practice and so apprehended in their intention by the whole primitive Church In the Command its self we are forbidden to make to our selves that is in reference unto the worship of God treated of in that precept not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sculptile a graven Image but also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 any kind of likeness of anything in heaven earth or sea so as that a man should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bow down adore or venerate them or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 serve them with any sacred veneration And the natural equity of this precept was understood by the wisesâ— of the Heathen For not only doth Tacitus witness that the antient Germans had no Images of their Gods but it is known that Nama Pompilius the Roman Solon admitted not the use of them Seneca decryes them Epist. 33. and Macrobius denies that antiquity made any image to the most high God What Silius Persius and Statius observed to the same purpose I have shewed elsewhere And from this Principle Paul pleads with the Athenians that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was not to be represented with images of Gold and Silver or carved stones Neither doth God leave us under this interdiction as proceeding from his Soveraign Authority but frequently also shews the reasonableness of his will by asserting the Incomprehensibility of his nature and minding us that in the great manifestation of his glory unto the people they saw no manner of likeness or similitude which should have been shewed unto them had he been by any sensible means or matter to be represented And yet Sir all this will not deter you from making Images and various Pictures of God himself and the blessed Trinity Indeed you say you do not do it to represent the essence and nature of the Invisible God but only some divine manifestations of his excellency or presence so that those images are only metaphorical But you venture too boldly on the Commands of God with your cobweb distinctions nor do you difference your selves hereby from the more sober Heathen who openly professed that in their many names and images of God they had no design to teach a multiplication of the Divine essence but only to represent the various properties and excellencies of that one Deity which they adored as Lactantius will inform you Neither I fear do you consider aright or sufficiently esteem the scandal that by this means you cast before the Jews and Turks who abhor the worship of God amongst you upon the account of your Images and Christians also kept from participating in their Sacra by this means Lampridius tells us in the life of Alexander Severus that Hadrian the Emperour erected Temples in sundry Cities without Images in them untill he was forbidden by the Soothsayers affirming that this was the only way to make all men become Christians as though the weight of the Controversie between Christians and Pagans had turned on this hinge whither God were to be worshipped in Images or no. As for other Images and Pictures which may as to a civil use be made which you set up in your Churches to be adored and venerated is not your Doctrine and practice a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a will worship condemned by the Apostle Col. 2. 23. A worship destitute of Institution promise command or any ground of acceptance with God A worship wherein you do what is right in your own eyes like the people in the wilderness and not that only which is commanded you which God complains of and reproves Deut. 12. 8 23. And besides you are conversant in a will worship of a most dangerous importance wherein you ascribe the honour that is due unto God alone unto that which by nature is not God which is downright Idolatry I know how you turn and wind your selves into various forms and multiply unintelligible distinctions to extricate your selves out of the â—nare that you wilâ—ully cast your selves into But you all agree well enough in this if your Nicene and Trent Councils your Baronius Vasquez Suarez and other great Masters of your Sacrâ— may be believed that they are to be adored and worshipped that is with adoration religious which what ever you may talk of its modes or distinguish about its kind is to give the honour due to God alone unto 〈◊〉 and stones And the best security you have to free you from the horrible guilt of Idolatry lyes in the pretended conjunction and religious relation that is between the image and its Prototype which is plainly imaginary and fictitious And now Sir I hope I shall obtain your excuse for having drawn forth this discourse unto a length beyond my intention your self having given me the occasion so to do by pretending that you would upon this head of Images come up close unto me which caused me to give you a little tast of what entertainment you are to expect if you shall think meet to continue in the same resolution CHAP. 22. Of Latine Service THe 18. Chapter of the Animadversions about Tongues and Latine Service is your next task Of this you say that it hath some colour of Plausibility but because I neither do nor will understand the Customes of that Church which I am so eager to oppose all my words are but wind Answ. No such thing as plausibility was aimed at in any part of that Discourse It was the Promotion or defence of Truth which was designed throughout the whole and nothing else For that are all things to be done and nothing against it What you are
your communion whilest you impose upon them a necessity of Celebrating the worship of God in a tongue unknown unto them amongst whom and for whose sâ—ke it is publickly celebrated The reasons you subjoyn to the concession you mention I presume are your own they are like to many others that you make use of The best sense of the entrance of your words that I can make is in that description they afford us of the worship of your Church as to the peoples concernment in it The words of it may â—it perching upon your lips as on the tongue of a Parrot or it may be may be got by heart or as we say without Book when the sense of them affects not your minds nor understandings at all If in these vain loose expressions you design any thing else it seems to be an opposition between reading and studying the Scriptures or joyning with understanding in the prayers of the Church the things under Consideration and the getting of the power of the word of God to dwell in the heart which is skilfully to oppose the means and the end and those placed in that relation not only by their natural aptitude but also by Gods express appointment and command So wisely also do you oppose reading and doing in general as though reading were not doing and a part of that obedience which God requires at our hands and a blessed means of helping and furthering us in the remainder of it For certainly that we may do the will of God it is required that we know it And what better way there is to come to the knowledge of the will of God then by reading and me litating in and upon the word of Truth wherein he hath revealed it with the advantage of the other means of his appointment for the same end in the publick preaching or proposition of it I am not as yet informed And I wish you had acquainted us with those two words of our Saviour and that one of the Apostle wherein they give us a Compendius of all Divine Truths For if it be so I am perswaded you will be to seek for your warrant in imposing your long Creeds and almost Volumes of Propositions to be believed as such But you cannot avoid mistakes in things that you might omit as not at all to your purpose Our Saviour indeed gives us the two general heads of those duties of Obedience which are required at our hands towards God and our Neighbours and the Apostle shews the Perfection of it to consist in Love with its due exercise but where in two or three words they give us the Compendium of all Divine Truths which we are to believe that we may acceptably perform the Obedidience that in general they describe we are yet to seek and shall be so for any information you are able to give us In your following Discourse you make a florish with what your Church hath in Gospels Epistles Good books Anniversary observations and I know not what besides But Sir we discourse not about what you have but what you have not nor will have though God command you to have it and threaten you for not having it You have not the Scripture ordinarily in a language that they can understand who if they are the Disciples of Christ are bound to read study and meditate in it continually which are therefore hindred by you in the discharge of their duty whilest you neither enter into the Kingdom of heaven your selves nor suffer them that would Nâ—y you have burned men and their Bibles together for attempting to discharge that duty which God requireth of them and wherein so much of their spiritual advantage is enwrapped Neither have you the entire worship of God in a tongue known to the people whereby they might joyn in it and pray with understanding and be edified by what they hear which the Apostle makes the end of all things done or to be done in publick Assemblies but are left to have their brutish affections led up and down by dumb shews pestures and gestures whereunto the Scripture and Antiquity are utter strangers These things you have not and which renders your Condition so much the worse you refuâ—e to have them though you may though you are entreated by God and man to make use of them yea where great and populous nations under your power have humbly petitioned you that by your leave and permission they might enjoy the Bible and that Service of God which they could understand you have chosen rather to run all things into confusion and to fall upon them with fire and sword then to grant them their request O curvae in terris animae caelestium inanes But you add Besides what you mention what can promote your Salvation for say you What further Good may it do to read the letter of St. Paul ' s Epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein Questions and Cases and Theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingenuously and without heat what more of Good could acrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practice then by the conceived substance of Gods will unto me and my own duty towards him Sir I shall deal with you without any blameable heat yet so as he deserves to be dealt withall who will not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord. And 1. who taught you to make your apprehensions the measure of other mens faith and practice If you know not of any thing needfull to promote Salvation but what you reckon up in the usage of your Church hinder not them that do It is not so much your own practice as your Imposition of it on others that we are in the consideration of Would it worth suffice you to reject as to your own interest the means appointed of God for the furtherrance of our Salvation and that you would not compell others to joyn with you in the refusal of them Is it possible that a man professing himself a Divine a Priest of the Catholick Church an Instructor of the Ignorant an undertaker to perswade whole Nations to relinquish the way of Religion wherein they are engaged to follow him and his in wayes that they have not known should profess that he knows not of what use unto the promotion of the Salvation of the Souls of men the use of the whole Scripture given by inspiration of God is Be advised not to impose these conceptions of your fancy and mind as it seems unexercised in that heavenly treasury on those who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses exercised therein so as to be able to discern between good and evil It no other reason can prevail with you I hope experience may give you such a despair of success as to cause
guilty Person hired to fight with wild beasts and to cousin their rage proposed a Picture with this Inscription Ononychites the God of the Christians he had Asses ears hoofed on one foot carrying a Book and in a gown we laughed at the name and shape but they ought immediately to have adored this double shaped Deity who have received Gods mingled with Doggs and Lyons heads You see how well you have given us the words of Tertullian which you pretend to do saying he adds these words But I confess though he sayes no such matter it is like enough he would have wondred at the name of Onochoetes had the villain given it unto his picture For neither he nor any man else knows what it should mean He knew well enough what Ononychites signified and laughed at it It is but Asinungulus which it may be comes neerer their understanding I confess some would read it Onochoerites as if it were compounded of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of those words of Epiphanius concerning the Gnosticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Some say their Sabaoth had the form of an Ass seme of a Hogg But Tertullian in the description of the Picture mentions no part of a Hogg nor rejects the abomination of the Gnosticks as was the manner of the Christians when charged with their silliness and folly as may be seen abundantly in Origen against Celsus But who or what your Onochoetes should be no man knows But see your further unhappiness You prove not by your Quotation that which no man denyes namely that the Christians also were charged with the worship of an Asses head which if you had but looked into Tertullian himself you must have found him expresly affirming it in the beginning of that Chapter from whence your story is taken Much less do you prove any thing of the Christians placing the head and half Portraicture of our Saviour upon their Altars before or in the dayes of Constantine which was that alone that was incumbent on you to have done And now to give a brief view of that whole Portraicture that you have drawn of your self in your Epistle I shall only mind you of those words of mine that your Assertions were notoriously false and that you could not produce so much as one Testimony of any such thing were not by me used at all in reference unto the Pagans charge upon the Christians for worshipping an Asses head but unto what you said about the use of the Picture of Christ on the Altars of Christians with the rise of the charge mentioned from thence This you know to be so for my words must needs lye before you in your attempt for a reply unto them and finding them to be true and that you were not able to produce one Testimony no not one in the confirmation of what you had written you pretend them now to be spoken in reference unto that whereunto you know they did not at all relate the thing it self being acknowledged by me This dealing becomes not any man pretending to ingenuity or professing Christianity What remains of your Epistle is Personal Men are busie and not so far concerned I am sure in me nor I am almost perswaded in you as to trouble themselves with the perusal of what belongs unto us personally For my part I know it is my duty in all things especially in those that are of such near concernment unto his Glory as are all his Truths and Worship to commend my conscience unto God and to be conversant in them in simplicity and godly sincerity and not in fleshly wisdom not corrupting the word of Truth nor lying in wait with any subtile sleights to deceive And this through his Grace I shall attend unto whatever reward I may meet withal in this world For I know in whom I have believed who is able to keep that which I desire to commit unto him And for your part I desire your prosperity as my own I rejoyce in your quiet and shall never envy you your liberty and do pray that you may receive Grace Truth and Peace from him who alone is able to bestow them on you FINIS
And what was herein done or spoken amiss as yet I cannot discern But I am perswaded that if you had not supposed that you had some of little judgement and less ingenuity to give satisfaction unto you would never have pleased your self with the writing of such empty Trifles in a business wherein you pretend so great a concernment Pag. 31. You observe that I say the Schoolmen were the hammerers and forgers of Popery And add Alas Sir I see that anger spoyls your memory for in the twelfth and thirteenth Chapter you make Popery to be hammered and forged not a few hundreds of years before any Schoolmen were extant And thorefore tell me that I hate the Schoolmen as the Frenchmen do Talbot for having been frightened with them formerly Sed risu inepto res ineptior nulla est I confess the language of your Schoolmen is so corrupt and barbarous many of the things they sweat about so vain curious unprofitable their way of handling things and expressing the notions of their minds so perplexed dark obscure and oftentimes unintelligibe divers of their Assertions and suppositions so horrid and monstrous the whole system of their pretended Divinity so aliene and forreign unto the mysterie of the Gospel that I know no great reason that any man hath much to delight in them These things have made them the sport and scorn of the learnedest men that ever lived in the Communion of your own Church What one said of old of others may be well applyed unto them Statum lacessunt omnipotentis Dei Calumniosis litibus Fidem minutis dissecant ambagibus Vt quisque est linguar nequior Solvunt ligantque quaestionum vincula Per Syllogismos plectiles Indeed to see them come forth harnassed with Syllogismes and Sophisms attended with Obs and Sols speaking part the language of the Jews and part the language of Ashdod fighting and contending amongst themselves as if they had sprung from the teeth of Cadmus Serpent subjecting all the properties decrees and actions of the holy God to your profane bablings might perhaps beget some fear in the minds of men not much guilty of want of Constancy as the sight of the Harpyes did of old to Aenaeas and his Companions of whom they gave that account Tristius hand illis monstrum nec saevior ulla Pestis ira Deum Stygiis sese extulit undis Viaimus subita gelidus formidine sanguis Diriguit cecidêre animi But the Truth is there is no real cause of fear of them They are not like to do mischief to any unless they are resolved aforehand to give up their faith in the things of God to the Authority of this or that Philosopher and forego all solid rational consideration of things to betake themselves to Sophistical canting and the winding up of subtilty into plain non-sence which oftentimes befalls the best of them Whence Melchior Canus one of your selves sayes of some of your learned Disputes Puderet me dicere non intelligere si ipsi intelligerent qui tractarunt I should be ashamed to say I did not understand them but that they understood not themselves Others may be entangled by them who if they cannot unty your knots they may break your webbs especially when they find the Conclusions as oftentimes they are directly contrary to Scripture right reason and natural sense it self For they are the genuine off-spring of the old Sophisters whom Lucian talks of in his Menippus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and tells us that in hearing the Disputations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That saith he which seemed the most absurd of all was that when they disputed of things absolutely contrary they yet brought invincible and perswasive reasons to prove what they said so that I durst not speak a word against him that affirmed hot and cold to be the same although I knew well enough that the same thing could not be hot and cold at the same time And therefore he tells us that in hearing of them he did like a man half asleep sometimes nod one way and sometimes another which is certainly the deportment of the generality of them who are conversant in the wrangles of your Schoolmen But whatever I said of them or your Church is perfectly consistent with its self and the Truth I grant that before the Schoolmen set forth in the world many unsound opinions were broached in and many Superstitious practices admitted into your Church and a great pretence raised unto a Superintendency over other Churches which were parts of that Mass out of which your Popery is formed But before the Schoolmen took it in hand it was rudis indigestaque moles an heap not an house As Rabbi Juda Hakkadosh gathered the passant Traditions of his own time among the Jews into a body or Systeme which is called the Mishnae or Duplicate of their Law wherein he composed a new Religion for them sufficiently distant from that which was professed by their fore-fathers so have your Schoolmen done also Out of the passant Traditions of the dayes wherein they lived blended with Sophistical corrupted notions of their own countenanced and gilded with the sayings of some Ancient Writers of the Church for the most part wrested or misunderstood they have hammered out that Systeme of Philosophical Traditional Divinity which is now enstamped with the Authority of the Tridentine Council being as far distant from the Divinity of the New Testament as the Farrago of Traditions collected by Rabbi Juda and improved in the Talmuds is from that of the old Pag. 33 34 35. Having nothing else to say you fall again upon my pretended mistake of considering that as spoken absolutely by you which you spake only upon supposition and talk of Metaphysical Speculations in your Fiat which you conceive me very unmeet to deal withal and direct me to Bellarmines Catechism as better suiting my inclination and capacity But Sir we are not wont here in England to account cloudy dark Sophistical declamations to be Metaphysical Speculations nor every feigned supposition to be a Philosophical abstraction I wish you would be perswaded that there is not the least tincture of any solid Metaphysicks in your whole Discourse It may be indeed you would be angry with them that should undeceive you and cry out Pol me occidistis amici Non Servâstis As he did Cui demptus per vim mentis gratissimus Error You may perhaps please your self with conceits of your Metaphysical atchievements but yonr friends cannot but pitty you to see your vanity The least youth in our Vniversities will tell you that to make a general Supposition true or false and to flourish upon it with words of a seeming probability without any cogency or proof belongs to Rhetorick and not at all to Metaphysicks And this is the very nature of your Discourse Nor do I mistake your aim in it as you pretend I grant in the place you would be thought to reply unto though you speak not one word to
the purpose that your enquiry is after a means of setling men in the Truth upon supposition that they are not yet attained thereunto and you labour to shew the difficulty that there is in that attainment upon the account of the insufficiency of many mediums that may be pretended to be used for that end In answer unto your enquiry I tell you directly that the only means of setling men in the Truth of Religion is Divine Revelation and that this Revelation is entirely and perfectly contained in the Scripture which therefore is a sufficient means of setling all men in the Truth Suppose them rasae tabulae suppose them utterly ignorant of Truth suppose them prejudiced against it suppose them divided amongst themselves about it the only safe rational secure way of bringing them all to settlement is their belief of the Revelation of God contained in the Scripture This I manifested unto you in the Animadversions whereunto you reply by a commendation of your own Metaphysical Abilities with the excellencies of your Discourse without taking the least notice of my answer or the reasons given you against that Fanatical groundless credo which you would now again impose upon us CHAP. 12. False Suppositions causing false and absurd consequences Whence we had the Gospel in England and by whose means What is our Duty in reference unto them by whom we receive the Gospel PAg. 36. You insist upon somewhat in particular that looks towards your purpose which shall therefore be discussed for I shall not willingly miss any opportunity that you will afford me of examining what ever you have to tender in the behalf of your dying Cause You mind me therefore of my answer unto that discourse of yours If the Papist or Roman Catholick who first brought us the news of Christianity be now become so odious then may likewise the whole story of Christianity be thought a Romance You speak with the like extravagancy and mind not my Hypotheticks at all to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of Art to do but neglecting my Consequence which in that Discourse is principally and solely intended you seem to deny my Supposition which if my Discourse had been drawn into a Syllogisme would have been the Minor of it And it consists of two Categories First That the Papist is now become odious Secondly That the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity The first of these you little heed the second you deny That the Papist say you or Roman Catholick first brought Christ and his Christianity into this Land is most untrue I wonder c. And your reason is because if any Romans came hither they were not Papists and indeed our Christianity came from the East And this is all you say to my Hypothetick or conditional ratiocination as if I had said nothing at all but that one absolute Category which being delivered before I now only suppose You use to call me a Civil Logician but I fear a natural one as you are will hardly be able to justifie this notion of yours as artificial A Conditional hath a verity of its own so far differing from the supposed Category that this being false that may yet be true For example if I should say thus A man who hath wings as an Eagle or if a man had wings of an Eagle he might flye in the ayre as well as another Bird and such an Assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man hath not the wings of an Eagle The substance of this whole Discourse is no more but this that because the Inference upon a Supposition may be a Consequence Logically true though the Supposition be false or faigned therefore the Consequent or thing inferred also is really true and a man must fly in the ayre as you say like another Bird. But Sir though every Consequence be true Logically that is lawfully inferred from its premises be they true or false and so must in Disputation be allowed Yet where the Consequent is the thing in Question to suppose that if the Consequence be lawfully educed from the premises that it also must be true is a fond surmize And therefore they know qui nondum aere lavantur that the way to disappoint the conclusion of an hypothetick Syllogisme is to disprove the Category included in the supposition when reduced into an Assumption from whence it is to be inferred For instance if the thing in question be Whether a man can fly in the ayre as you say like another Bird and to prove it you should say if he has wings he can do so the way I think to stop your progress is to deny that he hath wings And if you should continue to wrangle that your Inference is good if he hath wings he may fly like another Bird you would but make your self ridiculous But if you may be allowed to make false and absurd suppositions and must have them taken for granted you are very much to blame if you inferr not Conclusions unto your own purpose And this in general is your constant way of dealing unless we will allow you to suppose your selves to be the Church and that all the excellent things which are spoken of the Church beloog unto you alone with the like groundless presumptions you are instantly mute as if there had appeared unto you Harpocrates digito qui significat St. But if in the case in agitation between us I should permit you without controul to make what suppositions you please and to make Inferences from them which must be admitted for truth because Logically following upon your suppositions what man of Art I might have appeared unto you I know not I fear with others I should scarcely have preserved the reputation of Common sense or understanding And I must acknowledge unto you that I am ignorant of that Logick which teacheth men to suffer their Adversaries to proceed and insert upon absurdities and false suppositions to oppose the Truth which they maintain And yet I know well enough what Aristotle hath taught us concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which part of his Logick you seem to have been most conversant But let us once again consider your ratiocination as here you endeavour to reinforce it Your supposition you say includes these two Categories First that the Papists are become odious unto us Secondly That the Papists delivered us the first news of Christianity Well both these propositions I deny Papists are not become odious unto us though we love not their Popery Papists did not bring us the first news of Christianity This I have proved unto you already and shall yet do it further Will you now be angry and talk of Logick because I grant not the consequent of these false pretensions to be true as if every Syllogisme must of necessity be true materially which is so in form But yet farther to discover your mistake I was so willing to hear you out unto the utmost of