faggot guns and daggers do more then show you have not yet let go those hot and surious imaginations It is a phrase so ordinary with you that when another writer of your own judgment would have told me that my words are false or besides the purpos or the like you in a phrase of your own tell me still that I speak guns and daggers If he mean say you of me p 27. that ther is in good works an intrinsecal worth c. he speaks daggers and doth not himself beleev what he sayes And again p. 94. For men to come now in the end of the world and tell us That we must rest in the autority of the present Church c. is to speak daggers and swords to us upon a confidence that we will suffer our selves to be befoold So likewise p. 340. He tells us say you of me it is good to prefer a Translation besore the Originals What shall we do with those men that speak such swords and daggers and are well neither full nor fasting I pray Sir where did you borrow this trope had you it from the school of Aristotle or Mars his camp Thirdly your prophetick assurance so often inculcated that if you could but once com to whisper me in the ear I would plainly acknowledge either that I understand not my self what I say or if I do beleev it not givs a fair character of those fanatick times wherin ignorance and hypocrisy prevailed over worth and truth wherof if your self wer any part it is no wonder you should think that I or any man els should either speak he knows not what or beleev not what himself speaks It was the proper badg of those times when after the alarm sounded in the Pulpit that our people therupon went forth in troops to battle neither did the peasant understand nor the man in black beleev although the sound rung generally in their ears that it was the sword of the Lord and of Gideon which they brandisht against the loyal band their foes Measuring me it seems by your self you tell me no loss than seaven times in your book that I beleev not and I think seaventy times that I understand not what I speak my self It is a kind of charity in you to think your neighbour is as you know your self to be But I do not much care for that charity except you were better than I find you are Fourthly your pert assertion so often occurring in your book that ther is neither reason truth nor honesty in my words is but the overflowing of that former intemperat zeal and the more frequent it occurs the less approbation it will find Fiftly your sharp and frequent menaces that if I write or speak again I shall hear more find more feel more more to my smart more than I imagin more than I would rellishes too much of that insulting humour our bleeding Land then groaned under the many years of our anarchical confusion Sixthly the absence of your name in the frontispiece of your book which I have never before observed in all my life of any Protestant writer that hath ever in my time set forth a book here in England against Popery givs no small suspicion that the Authour of our Animadversione is no such Protestant as he would be thought to be Lastly that I may omit other special reasons your other general trick of charging me then most of all with sraud ignonorance and wickedness when in your own heart you find me most clear from any such blemish thereby to put a vail upon your own caus which would otherways be disparaged makes me smell a fox a notorious one Sic notus Ulysses This has been too often acted here in England to be soon forgotten The better the caus the lowder still was the cry against those who stood for it that the blustering nois of calumnies might drown all report of their innocence And by all this I cannot Sir but suspect that if the description of Popery your Animadversions givs us be right you are a Papist your self and no true Protestant a notorious Papist But as it is so let it be Thus much I only tell you that you may see I am neither neglective of your book nor idle but have perused and read it over And although what for the threats of your Animadversions and what for the reasons of my own Fiat I may not enter into controversie yet I hope I may let you know that I have seen your work And that you may the better credit me I will give you a short account of it first in general then in particular And this is all I mean here to do The whole design of Fiat Lux you do utterly mistake throughout all your book of Animadversions so that you conceiv that to be a controversy which is none that to be absolutely asserted which is but hypothetically discoursed out of the exceptions of other men that to be only for one side which is indifferently for all although I speak most for them that are most spoken against and am in very deed absolutely against all speaking quarrelling disputing about Religion If you will but have patience to hear my purpos and design which to all men not interested and blinded with a prejudice is clear enough relucent in the whole context of my Fiat what I say will easily appear to your self Fiat Lux sayes one thing and supposes it another thing he desires and aims at that he dislikes this he commends We are at this day at variance about Religion this Fiat Lux supposes But it were better to have peace this he aims at and desires And both these things are intermingled up and down in my book according to that small faculty that God hath given me though not according to the usual method that is found now adayes in books Here Sir in few words you have the summe of my Fiat And I hope you will grant that to be the scope of my book which I made it for That we are now at variance is most clear and certain by me supposed and not to be denied And that it were better to have peace is as absolutely expedient as the other is evidently true These then being things both of them which no man can resist either by denying the one or disliking the other I thought them better intermingled then set apart and with more reason to be supposed then industriously proved Yet to superinduce a disposition unto peace my only work was to demonstrate an uselesnes an endlesnes an unprofitablenes of quarrels which I laboured quite through my book beginning it with an intimation of our quarrels which St. Paul calls the fruits and works of the flesh and ending it with a commendation of charity which is the great fruit and blessing of Gods holy Spirit Now the easier to perswade my Countreymen to a belief both of the one and the other first is insinuated in Fiat Lux both the ill grounds and
worst effects of feuds then is the plea of parties specified their probabilities acknowledged and lastly an impossibility of ever bringing our debates to a conclusion either by light or spirit reason or scriptur texts so long as we stand separated from any superiour judicative power unto which all parties will submit is I think with a strong probability if not demonstrative evidence concluded And therfor is it thought by Fiat Lux to be more rational and Christian-like to leav these endles groundles and ruinous contentions and resign our selvs to humility and peace This is the design and whole summe of my book And although I speak up and down here for Papists there for Protestants elswhere for Presbyterians or Independants commonly out of the very discourses they make for themselvs yet do I not defend either their wayes or their arguments Nor do I teach any doctrin at all or hold there any opinion But I only give to understand in that one little book what is largely discoursed in a hundred That all parties do make out to themselves such a probability which as it stands joyned with the actours resolution and separated from any superiour visible power to which they will submit can never be subdued And hath not long experience proved this as true as any thing els What then is ther in Fiat Lux that can be denied Is it not evident that we are now at variance and too long indeed have been Is it not also clear that peace charity and neighbourhood is better then variance dissention and wars Do not parties strongly plead for themselvs so far perswaded each one that himself is in the right that he will not yield the truth to be with any but himself Is not all this evident I am sure it is and all England will witnes it And if any one should be able to evince that any reasonings made in Fiat Lux either for Papists Protestants or others be not certain or perhaps not probable yet he does nothing except he be able to prove likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to those that use them whether Protestants or Papists which he can no more do than he can pull a star out of the firmament I say Sir again and mark I pray you what I say If you should chance to evince that the reasons brought by Fiat Lux either for the doctrin or practises of Papists or others be either not probable or untrue yet is your labour all in vain except you be able to demonstrate likewise that they are not probable to Fiat Lux or to Papists and others who use those reasons which you can no more do then any thing that is absolutely impossible By this time Sir you may discern how hard it is to deal with Fiat Lux and impossible to confute him Sith he speaks nothing but what is as clearly true and evident as what we see at mid-day Nor do I in this any way exalt the ability of the Authour whom you are pleased so much and frequently to disable A Tom-fool may say that which all the wisemen in the world cannot gain-say as he did who said the Sun was higher at noon than any other hour of the day It was Fiat Lux his fortune rather then chois to utter words which will no sooner be read than acknowledged And it was your misfortune Sir to employ your greater talents in refuting evident truths perhaps for no other reason but becaus they issued from the pen of a man who is not so great a friend to faction as you could wish And although you proceed very harsh and furiously yet am I verily perswaded you now discern though too late for your credit that you had all this while according to our English proverb good Mr. Doctor a wrong sow by the ear Thus far in general Now briefly to give you som account in particular You spend four Chapters and a hundred and eighteen pages which is the fourth part of your book before you com to the first line and paragraff of mine The applaus and honour of this world c. And it is not unwittily done For being to be led as you heavily complain out of your ordinary road of controversies by the wilde chase of Fiat Lux it behoved you to draw som general common places of your own for your self to walk in and exercise your rhetorick and anger before you pursue a bird that slies not you say in any usual tract Preface from page 1. to page 19. Your preface wherin you speak of my subtilty and your own pretence affords me nothing but the beginning of your own mistake which will run quite through your book 1 Chap. from page 19. to 29. Your first chapter beats me about the pate for saying that I conceal my method with a terrible syllogistical dilemma He that useth no method say you cannot conceal it and if he hath concealed it he hath used one But I must pass by store of such doughty stuff being only fit for the young Oxford Schollar who being com home to take air would prove before his father and mother that two eggs were three Then going on you deny that Protestants ever opposed the doctrin and merit of good works which at first I wondered at seeing the sound of it has rung so often in mine own ears and so many hundred books written in this last age so apparently witnes it in all places till I found afterwards in my thorow perusal of your book that you neither heed what you say or how much you do deny But you perhaps love to talk of them better than your fore-fathers did though your thoughts be all the same And you will all equally bless your selvs from building of Churches as the Papists have don however your prattle goes 2 Chap. from page 29. to 110. Your second chapter collects our of Fiat Lux as you say ten general conclusions spread all over like veins and arteries in the body of that my book And this you do that you may make your self a campus Martius to sport in without confinement to my method But you name not any page of my book where those principles may all or any of them be found And you do wisely For in the sence those words do either naturally make out or in which you understand them of all the whole ten I cannot own any one for mine own set down in my book The first of my principles must be this That we received the Gospel first from Rome In your sence I never spoke this We that is we English first received it thence But you talk against it as if I meant that Brittans had it first from Rome We had it not first from Rome say you but by Joseph of Arimathea from Palestin as Fiat Lux himself acknowledges Sir if Fiat Lux say both these things he cannot mean in your contradictory fals sence but in his own true one We that is we Englishmen the
now actual inhabitants of this Land and progeny of the Saxons received first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans who inhabited this Land before us differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christned long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented by him as your cavil fondly imagines but owned professed and put in practice by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes If Rome first taught us Christianity she may then rather plead a power to guide us than we her This or some such like thing I might speak and rationally speak it But that we or any other should be obliged still to abide or rather to follow them who first taught us Religion though they should themselvs forsake their own doctrin as you would make me speak is a piece of folly never came into my thoughts And you may be ashamed to put it upon me Why do you not set down my own words and the page of my book where I delivered this principle My third must be The Roman Religion is still the same This also I do no where formally express nor enter into any such common place You will say I suppose it But doth this justifie you who say here that I assert it as a principle let it then be supposed for I do indeed suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstrativly proved a hundred times over You deny it has bin proved why do you not then disprove it Becaus you decline say you all common places Very good so do I let us com to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostasie heresie or schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any casual or natural downfall or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes You adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schism licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good Sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy or partial apostasy in adhering to any error in faith contary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that does 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 but as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find som one or other more general Church if any ther were possitively to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell Since you are no wayes able to assign any of these particulars my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that have been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account If you had either cited the place or set down my own words they would have spoke their meaning I might say perhaps that our Land had no part of those disturbances upon the account of religion all the thousand years it was Catholik which
it hath suffered in one age since or the like But that all things should ever be at quiet throughout the world that ther should no heresies rise no seditions no wars any where this is a fansy that was never in my head and I wonder how it should drop into my paper But you are a martial man and resolved to bring me in with pikes and guns as the red-coat souldiers did the Cavaliers in the time of our late anarchy to suffer not only for the good they acted but for the ill they never thought of Fift must be that the first reformers were most of them contemptible persons their means indirect and ends sinister Where is it Sir where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible or their means indirect or ends sinister Where do I say all this Do I speak any word of Reformers of Religion in general as you make me to do But this you adde of your own in a vast universal notion to the end you may bring in the apostles and prophets and kings into the list of persons by me surnamed contemptible and liken my speech who never speak any such thing to the sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphiry Julian and other Pagans So likewise in the very beginning of this your second chapter you spend four leaves in a parallel betwixt me and the pagan Celsus wherof ther is not any one member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the caus of all the troubles disorders tumults wars within the nations of Europe upon the Protestants Doth he charg the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a rapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the argument of the Jews against Christ c. So doth Celsus who is confuted by learned Origen c. Where does Fiat Lux where does he does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to embroil and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order to unity and peace which is the end of my discours But must I therfor be Celsus Did Celsus do any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralises and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of factor is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions wars and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therfor be every one of them a Celsus a pagan Celsus what stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aim at your own glory coms in the reer If I be Celsus the pagan Celsus then must you forsooth be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen That is the thing Pray Sir it is but a word let me me advise you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not she like it perhaps so well that her husband should be Origen My sixt principle must be That our departure from Rome hath been the caus of all our evils This is but the same with the fourth in other words but added for one to make up the number And it is you say every where spread over the face of Fiat Lux. Sir you may say what you pleas to be in his face but I know best what is in the heart and bowels both of Fiat Lux and his Authour And sure I am this never came into my thoughts Our dissentions in faith may well multiply as we see with our eyes they do by our further departur from unity and this may caus much evil But the branches of our too too manifold evils found among the sons of men spread all as Fiat Lux also speaks from that fertil root of our innate concupiscence which by evil customs rises up into a thick bole of vitious inclinations while we study not to impair but rather to augment and nourish it However I must give you leave to number this among my silly principles to the end you may talk more copiously of the disputes and wars and broils that are and have been in several parts of Christendom and fall again into your much affected and often iterated strain So the Pagans judged the Primitive Christians c. And I must still be the Pagan and you the Primitive Christian. Seventh is There is no remedy of our evils but by a returning to the Roman Sea This and the principle foregoing had not you warily cloven a hair had been all one and both are equally mine But Sir that may remedy our difference in faith which neither can nor will prevent varieties in philosophy or other worldly judgements nor considering the infinite diversity of mens humours is there any one thing equally prevalent with all men and at all times to the like good effect and if it do certainly help one evil it is not therfor a remedy for all But it seems you have yet a little more mirth and choller to vent and therfor I must permit you to adde this principle for mine that you may smilingly consider how the Romans should cure our evils that cannot prevent disorders differences and sins amongst themselvs I can tell you Sir another remedy of our evils that we suffer about dissentions in Religion besides that If the King and Parliament would pleas to give back all the ecclesiastical livings into the hands of secular gentlemen who out of a blind zeal as you phrase it gave them up aforetime unto the pious uses of spirituall men now no more extant all our controversies and the evils thence ensuing would soon ceas Even you zealous Sir would be then as quiet as a wolf tumbled into a pit-fall Other remedies I could yet acquaint you with more than one or two If you did Sir really and not in words only acknowledge any one superiour governour in the land unto whose power and judgment you would heartily all of you resign the word of that Oracle would solve all doubts and end all your quarrels But you will never do it The very genius of the Reformation is wholly set against it The eight follows That Scriptur on sundry accounts is insufficient to settle us in the truth And in this you flourish and triumph most copiously for fifteen pages together as the champion of the word of God But Sir you speak not one word to the purpos or against me at all if I had delivered any such principle which I never did Gods word is both the sufficient and only necessary means both of our conversion and settlement as well in truth as vertue
These few words Sir which I have bestowed upon you by way of supererogation above what I needed will somwhat inlighten you to discern the goodnes and necessity of my consequence If the Papist who first brought us the news of Christianity be now becom odious then may all Christianity at length be thought a Romance c. Religion like a hous if a breach be once made and not repaired to former unity will by degrees all moulder away till no one room be left intire 7 ch from page 177. to 188. Your seventh chapter finished in five leafs runs or flies over two or three of my paragraffs at once which make up above fifty pages concerning the obscurity of Nature and Providence All which discours of mine is you say nothing to my purpos but foisted in for a blinde to entertain my readers But Sir those judicious readers you lately left behind you who discern my purpos better than I see you do will tell you that it is so much to my purpos that nothing could be more At least you let all pass without either censure or commendation till you meet happily at length with a word or two of mine let fall in my ninth paragraff called Help about scripture This makes your heart leap it is a common place you know how to sport in and you never meet with that sound but it makes you dance Your chapter then which is written against all my philosophical discours of nature and providence is called scripture vindicated as though I had industriously wrote against scripture And therin you sweetly dilate upon the excellency and goodnes of the word of God as if I had any way diminished it or wrote against it just according to the tone of our late dismal times Lord I am for thy caus Lord I am left alone to plead thy caus Lord against thine enemies But Sir the few words I there speak only incidentally in the end of that my paragraff called Help concerning the surmises that men have about scripturs as they be but a small part of the many which I know to be now vented up and down the land in this our present state of separation one from another so if I had not given som touch of them in that metaphysick abstracted discours of Fiat Lux which proceeds as I have said upon a supposition of our chusing and making religions here in England at pleasur unto endles differences and divisions it had been a maimed and imperfect work and no wayes satisfactory unto those judicious readers unto whom I write though you do not And I cannot but tell you whatsoever you think of your self you are in truth except you dissemble and mistake on purpos but a weak man to take that as spoken absolutely by me and by way of positive doctrin which I only deliver upon an hypothesis apparent to all the world besides your self You would make a mad commentatour upon Solomons Ecclesiastes I speak upon a supposition of doubting which these times have brought upon us of interpreting accepting rejecting framing forging religions and opinions to our selves and you reply against me words and discourses that presuppose an assent of beleeving If a man beleev he cannot doubt And if he doubt not of the scriptures truth he cannot make exceptions against any of its properties But if any begin to question this or that or other part of doctrin contained in scriptur and delivered by those who first brought it as every one does who swerves from the Church he found himself in then I suppose such a one doubts And being now thereby separated from that body of beleevers to which he before by faith adhered he cannot now left to himself but proceed if he give attendance to the conduct of his own surmising thoughts to more suspicions then I was willing to express But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of scriptur I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to com I have conversed with the Roman catholiks of France Flanders and Germany I have read more of their books both histories contemplatives and scholastick divines than I beleev you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the devotion both of common people colledges of sacred priests and religious houses I have communed with all sorts of people and perused their councels And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to scriptur is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish holy writ Let us not wrong the innocent The scriptur is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their caus when he sees time 8 ch from page 188 to 198. In your eight chapter which falls upon my paragraff of Reason you are absolutely in a wood and wonder more then ordinary how that discours of mine concerning reason to be excluded from the imploiment of framing articles of religion can any wayes concern Protestants or be a confutation of Protestants As though Fiat Lux were written to any such concernment against Protestants Your head is so full it seems of that controverting faculty for Protestants against Papists that if Popery be but mentioned in a book without an epithet of detestation you conclude presently that the book is written for Popery against Protestants And if every thing therin contained answer not the idea of your brain then it is impertinent with you it is silly it is besides the purpos And this censur you have given still as you have gone along all my whole book hitherto of every part and parcel of it even from my preface to this present paragraff of Reason You cannot see how all that vain flourishing discours of mine concerning diversity of feuds ground of quarrels nullity of title heats and resolution motives to moderation obscurity of God natur and providence or the like should consute Protestancy or any way concern Protestants And therfor it is wholly impertinent Thus the famous Knight when he had once conceived an idea of his own errantry every flock of sheep must be an army and every wind-mill a giant or els it is impertinent to Don Quixot 9 ch from page 198 to 213. Your ninth chapter upon my paragraff of Light and Spirit is wholly spent neglecting all my other discours in solving the Jewish objection which I answer my self And if you have added any thing better than mine I shall be thankful for it as soon as I see it But I fear your vaunting flourishes about scriptur which you love to talk on will not without the help of your Credo and humble resignation solve the argument which that you may the easlier be quit of you never examin but only run on in your usual flourishes about the use and excellency of Gods word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew
fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their King in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or the othervarious constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justifie it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy-men under the King In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the King For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The King is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his autority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the King the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direction is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as fupream governour though himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the King succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their leige sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperours and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their Kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganism they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not only their temporal contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And Kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of wordly senatours enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielden under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact speciall and particular laws answerable to the general rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto difcovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselves to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people
they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may they at one time or other trip and fail And particular mens failings are to be rectified by the straightnes and integrity of the General Canon but they are not to be esteemed that Canon as your Doctor Taylor not inclined to mend things but marre them rather would here have them to be thorowout this whole book of his Disswasive where whatever he can read or hear of amongst the writings of any one in the Catholik world that may either swerv or be wrested from the universal judgment and beleef of Papists that he calls Popery and what they speak that the Roman Church must pretend O the strange perversness and wickedness of mans heart And yet this book of his thus made up has carried away not the weaker sort of men only but it seems has made even your discretion Sir to stagger For when I gave you lately a visit I perceived within a while that I had but gon forth to see a reed shaken with the wind What the Church can do is but one of the Questions of School-divinity and no Catholik faith Consequently no Popery And if two or three in the Schools should chance to aver this power in the Church where more then two or three thousands deny it why should not the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours be esteemed Popery as well as that of only three Whilst all of them agree in their faith which is that the Church hath a power authoritatively to decide controversies and dispute only of a further power then their faith reaches unto I should think that the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours is rather to be esteemed Popery if one of them must be called so rather then the single opinion of two or three if any such be to the contrary But truth is ther is no such opinion of any one I know to the contrary Nor does Turrecremata nor any els teach that the Church hath power to make new articles in that sence your Dr. Taylor means who therby would infer that Catholik faith is therfor not primitive but new Nay it is rather Popery and a part of Catholik faith that no new articles can be made For General Councels have determined that nothing is to be beleeved or held but id quod traditum est that which has been received from Christ and his Apostles Nor can the Religion otherwise be the faith of Christ or Christian Religion Sir if you do but seriously peruse the last one general Council which all Protestants hold to be rank popish that I mean which was kept at Trent you will find that they testifie almost in every Session and profes to make all their determinations according to that which had been delivered according to that they had received according to that which had been conserved by continual succession to that which was conformable to Apostolical tradition to that which had been perpetually and uninterruptedly retained to that which ancestours profest to that which the Church of God ever taught ever understood ever beleeved that which hath been received down by hands that which was the ancient judgment and custom that which has been approved since the apostles dayes c. These are all the very words of the Councel in several of their Sessions And shall a Doctor Taylor com now after all this and tell the world that Popery is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive and that Papists pretend to make new faith c. after a general Synod which all Protestants look upon as the most popish Councel that ever was and that too the last and nearest to us hath so manifestly so pathetically so generally profest the contrary What should we say to such a Doctor And other general Councels in like manner never determined any thing for the quieting of dissentions for which end they met together but what was latent at least in the seed of Christs word and so no new article in this Doctours sence as did that Councel for example which determined two wills in Christ which was no new article becaus the former old faith which had made known two perfect natures in our Lord the one divine the other humane apparently dictated that truth against all those who would acknowledg but one will in him And this being defined by the Councel received a new strength against a novel heresie but not a new birth For this caus Councels do not determin the varieties that are in Schoolmen becaus these are superstructures and none of them more latent in ancient tradition than is the opinion that is opposit to it But Turrecremata Triumphus Ancoran and Panormitan teach that the Church can make new articles If they should say any such thing I have already made it enough evident that it cannot be thence inferred to be popery or any part of popery But what if they speak no such thing What shall we think then of this your Dr. Taylor Turrecremata in the place cited by him never so much as dreamed as any man may there see that the Pope is the rule of faith as the Doctour would have him speak but in that whole chapter labours only to shew that it belongs to him principally to regulate disputes in faith as being the chief Prelate In the like manner does he most unworthily abuse the other three brought by him as witnesses that the Pope can make new Creeds and new faith wheras Panormitan teaches expresly that he cannot make but only declare faith Ancorano sayes the like adding that what he so declares may be new to us though not in it self and Triumphus no less manifestly speaks in the very place cited by him that ther is one and the same faith in the ancients and moderns and that in our holy Creed are inserted all those things which universally pertain to Catholik faith although he say withall which is also very true that to adde explicate or declare a truth which is contained in holy Scripture hath alwayes been lawful for the Church But is this to make new faith which is not Apostolik and primitive as this your Doctour would have them to assert Do you Siry your self judg And him that thus abuses the world God Almighty judg So that when we come to the close of all ther is not any one Catholik Doctour that ever said that the Church can make new articles of faith in Doctour Taylors sence Why then did Pope Leo the 10. condemn Luther for denying the Pope to have this power Neither did Luther or Pope Leo ever dream of any such thing For Luther wholly busied himself about his old Catholik Religion from which he had revolted which he called an Egyptian darkness that had overspread the earth even from the Apostles dayes and never thought of this school question which in his dayes was not heard of And he denied the then present Pope
Caterum vacua res quod est phantasma figur am capere non posset c. And Ministers are grosly deceived to think the Fathers speak of a figure or trope in Rhetorick it is manifestly apparent they speak of a figure in nature that figure or shape which accompanies natural things which in this mysterious Sacrament is made by the power of God to accompany another substance So that here the appearance of natural bread is no more the figure of bread as naturally it is but the figure now of our Lords blessed body couched by the power of God under that appearance which is naturally the figure of wine and bread And a figure of the body it could not be unless the substance of that body were really and truly there under that figure or appearance Figura non fuisset nisi veritatis esset corpus But in Peter Lumbards time Transubstantiation was so far from being an article of Catholik faith that they did not know whether it were true or no as appears by the same authour in his 4. book and eleventh distinction so that it made haste to pass in the Lateran Councel for faith which about fifty years before in Lumbards time was but a new disputable opinion Your Disswader had done wisely if he had produced for himself as frequently he does only some obscure authours which seldom fall into mens hands But Peter Lumbard the master of sentences is an authour so known by all and in every mans hand that your Disswader had he not utterly abandoned both honesty and reason too had never mentioned him For this great master from his eight to the fourteen distinction of his fourth book doth with all solidity and art so declare and confirm the real presence in this Sacrament of the Altar and the conversion of the elements by Gods powerful word into the very substance of our Lords body as a great article of ancient Christian faith that nothing can be said either more solidly or with more earnest resolution But Quem Deus vult perdere dementat After your Disswader had wilfully thrown away his honesty God in his just judgment so darkened his reason that he could not so much as heed what he said There I say that learned Catholik Doctour does industriously and in a copious manner in thirty whole pages together according to the edition I have by me printed at Colen both declare and establish that Catholik Christianity of the real presence and transmutation of the elements into Christs sacred body answering and clearing many things which hereticks and pagan philosophers might object against it And your Disswader takes hold of one of the philosophical objections which the great master presently solves for an argument of the masters own doubting although he could not but see him assert declare and establish the contrary the real presence I mean and miraculous mutation of the elements into the substance of our Lords slesh and blood in all that his copious and learned discours both before and after that objection O unhappy Kingdom of ours by these lying fals teachers so wofully misled This one only passage which any one that hath but a mediocrity of learning may see with his own eyes may suffice to show what a man your Disswader is and how little to be credited But whom God will overthrow for his grand misdemeanours him he in his justice blindeth I could find in my heart to give here an abridgment of all that great masters discours concerning this Sacrament of the altar as he there calls it But it is somwhat besides my way and I have already been too long Qui legit intelligat The great weight and importance of this business hath made me speak somthing more of it than I shall of other things That I may therfor here recapitulate in brief what I have hitherto said to manifest your Disswaders insignisicancy and to speak plainly his impertinency in this point First he is faulty in that he never declares this busines of Transubstantiation what it is or what it means in the beleef and judgment of that Roman Church he opposes Secondly that he makes all the Popish Doctours which he mentions concerning it to speak against it and to disown it whatever he meant by it and not any one of them to speak for it or profes it And how then is it Popish or Popery Thirdly that he sayes in the beginning of his section that the piece of Popery he here writes against was first determined in the Councel of Later an and yet but two pages after forgetting himself he sayes that the opinion was not determined in the Later an as it is now held in Rome and yet never expresses how it is now held in Rome or what that is which is now held in Rome contrary to the Councel or by whom or in what manner Fourthly becaus the busines of the real Presence which Protestants love to call Transubstantiation that they may play with that fine long gingling word as children with a rattle is not touched at all by him And yet that is all the substance of Popery in this point which that Berengarius the heretick together with his associates might fully acknowledg without any slight of the manifold evasions used by him this word was invented by the Prelates of the Councel as was Consubstantiation by those of Nice for a firmer establishment of Catholick Tradition and ancient truth So that your Disswader here touches but the lid and rind not the heart and substance of Popery which he is afraid indeed to deal with And being weak in sence he playes with words §. 6. Which is against Popish Communion Sayes that the half-communion is another Innovation in Popery swerving from the Apostles practice and Christs Institution as appears in the Popish Councel of Constance where it is decreed though Christ instituted and primitive Christians received in both kinds yet that no Priest under pain of Excommunication should communicate the people under both kinds which is a bold affront to Christ himself although even their own Cassander and Aquinas teach that to be the ancient custom of the Church and Paschasius resolves it dogmatically that the one is not to be communicated without the other This busines Sir is more amply discussed and cleared in my Fiat Lux which you have by you If you do but read that I shall have here less to say But know Sir that this busines touches not any unalterable dogme of faith but an alterable use and practice as shall be declared by and by and therfor is it not to be called Popery upon that account And a change in such things is so far from blame that it is oftentimes necessary so long as the substance of Religion is preserved intire as here it is Christians are to fast after the departure of the Espouse and set times therfor to be appointed that such a good work be not in the Church of God utterly neglected yet the dayes and