Bishops challenge as their Right To let him see how loosely he manages this debate betwixt us I can with putting in two or three necessary words subscribe to all our Compiler says for the Pope and yet be as far from owning the Popes Supremacy as the Church of England is or ever was The Fathers teach says our Compiler (a) Nubes Testium p. 22. that Christ Built his Church upon Peter So say I too if by Fathers here be meant two or three of them and not the Fathers unanimously as he hath it before or generally That the Bishop of Rome is the Successor of Saint Peter is what I can also grant and that that See is the Centre of the Catholick Communion if I may but put in here what is absolutely necessary while possessed by an Orthodox Bishop and that whosoever separates himself from it I add professing the true Faith and possessed by a Catholick Bishop is guilty of Schism I CAN I SAY SUBSCRIBE THOUGH I DO NOT TO ALL This without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy All that our Compiler puts down here reaching no farther than a Primacy of Order does not at all suppose in the Popes any Jurisdiction or Authority over the Catholick Church Having dispatched my Vindication against the Charge of the three first Articles of Popery I come now to examine the fourth which doth charge me with doubting whether there be really any Controversy about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England Well then are these my expressions in the place quoted Or is this the sense of them there I must profess to the world that had I not already discovered the cheats of the malicious Representer in the former Articles I could not have believed that any person of common sense or learning would have been guilty of such tricks I had the same occasion in my chapter about the Tradition that I had in the former chapter about Supremacy of shewing how loose a Writer our Compiler is and exposing him for putting that down as an account of the Controversy which I could subscribe to if taken in that sense which the words would fairly bear and yet be never the nearer to Popery than I now am or ever intend to be Upon this coming to examine what he had put down at the Head of his Collections about Tradition I have these expressions To state therefore the Controversy about Tradition if there really be any betwixt us he should not have put down that for the account of the debate herein betwixt us which is agreed to by both sides nor should have omitted that wherein WE REALLY DISAGREE and that is about the Scriptures being a certain and Perfect Rule of Faith WITHOUT THE HELP of TRADITION which the Council of Trent hath made to be of Equal Authority with the Scripture One would think such clear expressions as these would have prevented my being accused of doubting whether there really be any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England but no clearness it seems can be protection against the Malice of such an Adversary as is fallen upon me and therefore he puts down those expressions as mine doubting whether there be really any Controversie about Tradition betwixt the Church of Rome and the Church of England when in that very paragraph I say that We meaning the Churches of England and Rome Really Disagree about Tradition's being part of the Rule of Faith. And therefore any other Reader less spiteful than my angry Adversary would easily have seen and observed that the expression in the beginning of the paragraph if there really be any was used and intended for an allusion to that state of the Controversie which had been set down by the Compiler about Tradition and ought not to be wire-drawn to make me doubt that in the beginning of the paragraph the contrary to which I did directly assert within three lines after The fifth Article of the charge against me is that I did say that the Tradition of the Catholick Church is to be received and the sixth is of the same kind that I confessed there That by Tradition we receive the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Suppositious Writings I do freely own that these are my expressions in that place and these I am sure are far from looking like Popery if I that wrote them may be allowed to tell in what sense I did mean and intend them All the service that my Adversary could expect from the citing and insisting upon them was onely to amuse the common Readers with the Word Tradition that they not understanding the Ambiguity of the Word nor in what several senses the Word Tradition was used might be tempted to believe that I was for setting up there that Tradition which they used to hear preached against so much by the Clergy of the Church of England By Tradition here which I said we receive or admit of I did not mean that Tradition which is set up as part of the Rule of Faith in the Church of Rome nor did I any more mean Tradition as it is taken for any Doctrine of the Church of Rome which they say was from the beginning delivered to them All that I meant by Tradition there was no more than the bare means of delivering down to us the Word of God and any Rites or Customs in the Ancient Church When I said therefore that by this Tradition we received the Holy Scriptures and know how to separate the Scriptures from Apocryphal or Supposititious Writings The full and clear meaning of those expressions was that the Canonical Books of the Holy Scriptures or to speak to the meanest capacity that the Bible was delivered down from time to time and from hand to hand in all Ages unto us that we did receive them from our Forefathers in the Church as they had received them from theirs up unto the beginning and that since they delivered down to us onely those Books which the Church of England does believe and admit for the Word of God we do thereby know that no other Books could be part of the Scriptures which were not handed down to us for such This is as much as I need to offer either in Vindication of my self or explication of my words when I spoke of Tradition but because I cannot clear my innocence too much herein I will shew the world that I had very good Vouchers for every word that I said thereabout and will produce the sense of Arch-Bishop Usher who never was thought by any Sort of Protestants to be any ways inclineable to or guilty of Popery This most learned Prelate in his Reply to the Jesuits Challenge hath these words about (b) p. 35. Tradition This must I needs tell you before we begin that you much mistake the matter if you think that Traditions of all sorts promiscuously are struck at
by our Religion We willingly acknowledge that the word of God which by some of the Apostles was set down in writing was both by themselves and others of their fellow-labourers delivered by word of mouth and that the Church in succeeding ages was bound not only to preserve those sacred writings committed to her trust but also to deliver unto her children vivâ voce the form of wholsome words contained therein Traditions therefore of this nature come not within the compass of our controversy the question being betwixt us de ipsâ Doctrinâ traditâ not de tradendi modo touching the substance of the doctrine delivered not of the manner of delivering it Again it must be remembred that here we speak of doctrine delivered as the word of God that is of points of religion revealed unto the Prophets and Apostles for the perpetual information of Gods people not of rites and ceremonies and other ordinances which are left to the disposition of the Church and consequently be not of divine but of positive and humane right Traditions therefore of this kind likewise are not properly brought within the circuit of this question Thus that most learned Man whose Authority is so deservedly great in the world The Seventh Article of Popery is that I said there that I was willing and ready to receive any Doctrine not written that hath as perpetual unanimous and certain a Tradition as the Scripture and that I onely wait for the proving this and then I am ready to embrace all the Doctrines of Popery As for those last words and then he is ready to embrace all the Doctrines of Popery which are maliciously put in the Italick Character that so they might be thought by the Reader to be my own words I have no such expressions there and these are onely the Representer's consequence draw from what I had said there that we onely wait for their proving that any of those Doctrines they would obtrude upon us have been thus universally delivered But his business here was to make the passage look as invidious as he could and therefore he was so very careful to put his own Consequence down in the most odious terms that he could devise The former part of the Accusation about my professed readiness to receive any Doctrine not written that hath as perpetual unanimous and certain a Tradition as the Doctrines written in Scripture have I do readily own and plead guilty unto it since I am very well satisfied that my Religion as a Member of the Church of England is not in danger of being shockt or endangered by it I do still say that I am now ready to receive any such unwritten Doctrines which expressions of mine as well in my Book as here are far from supposing that the Church of England wants any necessary means of Salvation or that there are in any other Church any such unwritten Doctrines so qualified for a Christian's Reception as I there require but they do on the contrary suppose that the Church of Rome is not able to shew for any one point of Religion which they would obtrude upon us such a perpetual unanimous and certain Tradition as I do demand for it I used those words there because I did not onely believe but was fully persuaded that it is impossible for the Church of Rome to prove in that Method any of their Doctrines which are refused by us and if it be impossible I suppose I am in no very great likelihood of ever becoming a Roman Catholick while I make a thing impossible to them the condition of my ever becoming a member of their Church The eighth Article of Popery is my saying that there is no necessity of Express Scripture for the Constitutions and practices which his Church enjoyns in order to the more regular and decent service of God. But how comes this to be an Article of Popery against me And how comes this to be christened Popery Hath it not always been the Doctrine of the Reformed Church of England Is not this a Doctrine common to all persuasions of Christians in the world I cannot but look upon the Representer in great pain and concern to muster up a set of Articles of Popery against me that is forced to make a false muster and to call that Popery which in reality is not His weakness is as visible as his malice in this affair as his malice put him upon making me odious by drawing up a charge of Popish Principles against me so his weakness did in this place betray him into a miscalling that Doctrine Popery which is common to all sorts of Christians The Church of England hath professed this as her sense all along that there is no necessity of Express Scripture for her Constitutions and Orders for the more regular and decent Service of God but that these things are commanded onely in general and the particular determination thereof left to the Governours of the several Churches Nor is the Church of England alone nor the onely Church among the Reformed of this persuasion the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas do altogether concur with Her in this and so do all the Greek Eastern and Southern Churches not one of which doth require express Texts of Scripture for the several Ceremonies and Constitutions in their Churches for the more decent service of God but look upon a general Commission to the Church from the Word of God to enable and empower them to provide and order the particular Modes and Practices Nay our Dissenters themselves notwithstanding their too great rigidness in many things cannot but subscribe the Doctrine I set down above since they do not pretend to shew express Scripture for the several Orders made among them in relation to the Circumstances of Time Place Postures and Gestures used in the Service of God. Since then what I said above and was accused of Popery for it proves to be a Doctrine equally espoused by all Persuasions of Christians as well as by the Church of Rome I would fain know by what Art this is to be made Popery we may as well and with as great reason call the Doctrine of the Incarnation or of the Resurrection of our blessed Saviour Popery as that Doctrine about the no necessity of express Scripture for Ecclesiastical Constitutions since they are no more the general Belief of all Christians than this last mentioned Doctrine is This Charge then ought to have been omitted since what I have said above is so far from being one of my Articles of Popery that it is no Popery at all but a Doctrine assented to by the generality of the Christian World. Before I go on to the next Article I must consider what he hath further to object against me in this Point Here I am accused as if I had spoken onely my own sense and thereby given occasion to my Adversary to post me up as a Papist or Popishly inclined for it whereas I said plainly that it was the
Doctrine of our Church that there is no necessity of express Scripture for the Constitutions and Practices which she enjoyns in order to the more regular and decent service of God. But before my Adversary ends his Letter I am brought in again as if I had said that we espouse a Tradition which authorises Constitutions and Practices without any Authority of the Written Word but I would fain know where it was that I said this I said the Church taught that there was no necessity of Express Scripture and here it is come to no Scripture at all for that is the place the Representer alludes to I must therefore ask him seriously whether these two be the same and whether there is no difference between not express Scripture and no Scripture at all could this Adversary shew that there is no medium betwixt Express Scripture and no Scripture at all it would have served for some excuse for him but since that is impossible to be shewn all people owning that what is onely implyed or ordered in general terms or may be deduced by rational consequence thence is said to be founded on Scripture and to have the authority thereof as well as that Doctrine which is delivered the most plainly or expresly there I must accuse my Adversary of very great disingenuity here who does so injuriously turn the not requiring express Scripture into the not requiring any Scripture Malice it seems will put men that are set upon revenge on doing the most unlawful things and quite perverting the words of their Adversary and making them say what they never did nor thought on the Representer otherwise could not but have seen how great a wrong he was doing me there and his Conscience must have upbraided him with a deliberate abusing and perverting my words but against that home-enemy he seems to be provided with armour of Proof The next Article of Popery laid to my charge is for asserting That the Tradition of Antiquity is highly useful and necessary for the Interpretation of Points of Faith. I cannot see how this comes to be Popery any more than the last Article that I was charged with my Adversaries business here seems to be only to amuse the Multitude with the word Tradition and therefore my care needs onely be employed for the acquitting of my self to let the world see all that I or others mean by the Tradition mentioned here By Tradition here I meant nothing else than those Interpretations of difficult places of Scriptures and explications of points of Faith which we meet with in the Fathers from the first Century downwards Such Interpretations whether received from those before them or found out by their own industry and comparing of one part of Scripture with another we do embrace as transmitted from them unto us in their Writings and look upon such Interpretations as very good Guides and necessary Assistances to prevent our falling into Error by letting us see how from time to time such a Point of Doctrine or such a Text was taken by the generality or unanimous Consent of Fathers in such a determinate sense We have very great reason to value the Fathers upon this very account because they afford us such evidences against those Doctrines the Church of Rome would obtrude upon us It cannot but be very great pleasure to find that the Texts of Scripture which are alledged by the Romish Writers for some of their particular Doctrines are interpreted generally in a sense quite contrary by the Primitive Fathers I am sure that the Texts of Scripture alledged for that great fundamental Article of Popery the Pope's Supremacy by the Romish Writers are interpreted by the generality and almost unanimous Consent of the Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers in a sense quite contrary to that which the Romanists urge them for I am very well assured that in very many other Points of Doctrine we are able to shew that the Generality of Fathers did not interpret the Texts of Scripture upon which the Romanists found them in that sense which they contend for and I do believe that we may extend it to all points of Doctrine grounded upon Texts of Scripture which are under debate betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome If it be Popery then to value and embrace those Interpretations which are delivered to us from the Fathers and which are the Best Evidences next to the Holy Scriptures themselves of the falshood and unreasonableness of the several Points of Popery and which will assist us to ruin those groundless Doctrines I am content to be a Papist in this Article but am affraid I shall never be looked upon as one jot more a Catholick for it I will pass on to the next charge the Tenth Article of my Popery which in my Adversaries Letter runs thus that He Honours the Saints in observing days in honour of them But how comes it to be here He honours when I said plainly enough that WE that is the Church of England do it If there be any Popery in this charge why is it laid to me as if I were delivering there onely my own Judgment or Practice and not to the Church of England whom I spoke of expresly there But the Man begins to draw low and to be put to all his Shifts to make up a Catalogue of Popery against me that might make some show and therefore since I proved so ill natured in the rest of my Book as to give him no advantage against me He very wisely charges that as my own and an Article of my Popery which is the avowed and most known Practice of the best Reformed Churches in the World. It is very well known that not onely the Church of England but the best Reformed Churches abroad do observe dayes in honour or memory of the Saints departed who do at the same time detest and abhor the putting up of prayers unto them or praying to them for to be made partakers of their Merits He that will take the pains to look into the Liturgy of the Church of England may quickly see what honour it is that our Church payes to the Saints that it is no other nor no more than to Bless God for his manifold Gifts and Graces unto them whereby they were enabled to be glorious Examples of Holiness to the World and strengthened in any Troubles or Fiery Trials to pass through them with a Christian Courage and Resignation and to pray unto him that we may have Grace to direct our Lives after their good Examples This is all that our Church doth practice in her Liturgy and all that she requires in the Sermons on those Festival Days is that the Example of the Servants of God and particularly of that Saint whose memory is celebrated that day may be set forth in the best manner that so the Congregation may be persuaded to direct their Lives also in the same good and holy paths But tho this be all that the Church
of England doth practise or allow yet He is for proving that I am for doing more He says that I seem to grant all that is produced in Nubes Testium upon that Subject one of whose Instances was their celebrating the Saints Memory with a Religious Solemnity so to be Partakers of their Merits This charge I can answer in a very few words that I neither did grant all he collected in the Nubes Testium upon that Subject nor seemed to grant it And which is more that I could not since I do not believe that the most Holy Men have any Merits or that if they had that others can after their decease be either helped by them or be made Partakers of them by celebrating their Memories even with the most Religious Solemnity The next Article of Popery is so very ridiculous that it is not worth the putting down or giving one word of Answer to it but I must not omit it lest I be upbraided and told that I had the cunning to slip over those points which would discover me most and lay me open to the world It shall not then be put out of its place or thrown quite away but shall have its turn In this Eleventh Article I am accused of saying that it is generally piously believed that the glorified Saints do intercede for the Church Militant I would fain know what all this is to me am I to be the Generality of Christians Or am I to answer for what other people believe I speak there of a General Belief and have not put down one Syllable of my own persuasion herein and yet this disingenuous Adversary is for fixing all this upon me and puts it down as my own Opinion or to no purpose at all If he puts it down for my persuasion he plays false since I do not hint one syllable of my sense about it and if it be as it really is to no purpose there it is very ridiculous and ought to be contemned as such and the Author of it for his Pains The twelvth Article is that I should say that the Honour which in Primitive times was paid to the Memories of Saints was nothing but what was highly just and that herein they are imitated by us as well as by any other Christians I do own that these are my own expressions or my sense if by Primitive times be intended onely the Three first Centuries of the Church of whose Ages I there spoke but how comes this Article over again this is the very same with the Tenth Article and hath been sufficiently answered there when I shewed what honour it was that our Church did pay unto the Memories of the Saints But this Scarcity of matter is a troublesom thing and therefore the poor man is forced to come with the Old Article over again but tho he be so impertinent with his second Edition of the Article I will not be so in transcribing my Answer to that 10th Article hither I could however be almost willing to shew how all that the Church of England practises and requires as to the Memories of Saints is the very same that was practised nay all that was practised by the Primitive Christians in the three first Centuries but since this would take up much more room than I can afford it here I will onely mention that famous Instance of the Church of Smyrna how they were resolved to Commemorate their Martyred Bishop S. Polycarp As for worshiping him much less his Reliques or of praying to him as an old translation of that Churches Epistle hath it They inform the Christians of Lyons and the whole world that they did detest the doing or thoughts of it that they onely loved his Memory for that very great good will which he had shewn to his heavenly King and Master and therefore did resolve to celebrate with Joy and Praises the Birth-day as the Church did then call the day of Martyrdom of this Saint in Memory of him and such as had finished their courses like him and for an incitement and preparation to all that were to combate in such bloudy encounters Here is no mention either of Hymns or Prayers offered up to the Saint himself and reason good since these were then and long after and ought always to be looked on as Peculiar to the God of Heaven alone The thirteenth Article of Popery is that I say that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with respect and Veneration and believed that God often wrought Miracles by them and that they might do it too Thus the Representer hath drawn up the Charge and this he hath done very like himself that is with more sleight and cunning than any Honest person would use For first he puts down as my words that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with Respect and Veneration and believed that God often wrought Miracles by them whereas they are not my words but his own he had said them in the Nubes Testium and I did grant them that so I might the better shew that granting such things were done then this did not defend or countenance the present Practices of the Church of Rome towards Reliques However for that my granting and allowing of them he hath made them mine whereas had any other person of Sense or Conscience been to have mentioned those Expressions he would have put them down as said by the Representer himself and only granted by me He next lays the charge as if I had said that the Fathers indefinitely kept the Reliques of Saints and by this the Reader must understand if he pleases that I said that the Fathers in general did it even the first Fathers of the three first Centuries but this is as disingenuous as the rest of his Accusations for when I did grant his saying that the Fathers kept the Reliques I did not grant it of the Fathers indefinitely but did particularly specifie what Fathers Practice I granted it to be and did limit it to the Fathers of the latter Ages by which I mean the latter end of the fourth and the fifth and following Centuries as any one that will but peruse that one page out of which it is quoted must necessarily see As to the Charge then taken all together I had so fully expressed my Sense and my Mind in that Chapter that he carps at that I think I need to use no other words to clear my self and answer the Charge of Popery than those I had put down in that place Speaking in that Chapter of the great difference betwixt what was practised in the fourth and fifth Centuries of the Church in relation to Reliques and what is practised now by the Church of Rome I have these words I need not examine by retail his Testimonies from the latter end of the fourth and sifth Centuries the design of which he himself makes only to prove that the Fathers kept the Reliques of Saints with Respect and Veneration and believed that God often
all that he did pray for I am no more able to defend it than I could the Prayers of any man whom God had blessed with Children and Heirs to his name and his Estate if he should be importunate with God that he would bestow the blessing of Children upon him and bestow in his mercy but one Son upon him to keep up his family and his name I do not mention these things to expose those two venerable Fathers but to vindicate the Practice of my Mother-Church in relation to these things I think those that dye in the Lord have no need of our Prayers and that those that dye in his disfavonr can receive no benefit by them The fifteenth Article against me is that I say that it is the Opinion of his Church that Christs Body is really present in the Eucharist This charge is as ridiculous as any of the rest for if the real presence be the Opinion of our Church how comes it to be one of my Articles of Popery Could this unreasonable Adversary have shewn that the Real Presence is not the Opinion of our Church but onely of the Church of Rome and that I was a believer of such a real Presence his charge against me of a Popish Opinion herein would have been most justly laid But he neither offers to prove that our Church is not of that Opinion nor is he at all able to do it and yet I must be a Papist notwithstanding I believe with our Church whose real Presence is far from looking like Popery since she hath so often and so fully declared that by real here is only meant a spiritual not corporeal or natural Presence of Christs Body Nay in that very place where I said it was the Opinion of our Church that Christs Body was really present in the Eucharist I gave also the reason of that Opinion because we believe as my words (c) p. 65. there are that the consecrated Elements do by the Appointment of God communicate to every faithful Receiver the Body and Blood of Christ which is no more than what S. Paul hath said in other words before us when he tells the Corinthians that the Bread which he and they broke was a Communion of or did communicate to them the Body of Christ and that the Cup of Blessing was a Communion of the Blood of Christ 1 Cor. 10.16 The last Article of Popery against me is of the same nature with the former that I do confess That that consecrated Food is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ I do own that I did grant those words as taken out of Justin Martyr but had my Sly Adversary but had the Honesty to have put down the words that do immediately follow there I am sure that this would either not have been put down as an Article of my Popery or that my Accuser would have been hist at by all men for his folly in charging me with it since immediately after those words I did express my self thus We have already granted that it is to wit that the Consecrated Food is the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ however to corroborate what we said above it is evident to a Demonstration that this consecrated Food was still Bread and not transubstantiated into the natural Body and Blood of Christ because S. Justin says at the same time and in the same sentence that our Bodys are Nourished by that very consecrated Food to affirm which of the Natural Flesh of Christ is impious and detestable Thus I have gone through and fully answered this large Charge of Popery against me and since he was not satisfied in the Letter to set them onely once down but does for the greater security of effecting his designs against me repeat them in short before he ends his Letter I will do the same here by my Answers unto them The first charge therefore in three Articles about the Pope and the fourth about Tradition I have shewn to be as Notorious and Scandalous a Falsification of a mans words and meaning as the greatest Cheat in the world could be guilty of that the six next can be called Popery onely by the same Figure that we would call the Belief of Christs Resurrection Popery because all Christians in the world believe it as well as the Church of Rome which is a thing so horridly foolish as no one but he that hath more Malice than Wit or Logick in his head could be supposed guilty of and for the last six they are most falsely nicknamed Popery and most ridiculously laid to my particular charge except this Malicious Adversary can shew that to make a thing Popery it is necessary that it be believed and practised by all Churches that are against as well as for the Church of Rome and that I am the Generality of Christians or at least the whole Church of England If ever Rage and Folly Malice and Weakness were equally discovered to the world it certainly was in this wretched Letter wherein all the care seems to be either to pervert my words and falsifie my meaning or to put down that as said by me which was not so as meant by me that was not so and as said by me in particular which was common unto all Christians Notwithstanding this injurious usage of me yet I cannot but thank the Representer for it since he hath by this Letter discovered to the world what sort of person he is and thereby given warning to the world to have a care how they believe One that will be guilty of such dishonest things He may write on as long as he pleases but this usage of me will I question not prevent his doing any mischief by it since Men are for reading those Books onely wherein they have reason to expect Truth Candor and Integrity and are always upon their guard against if they vouchsafe to read an Author that can and does write without any concern for Truth Conscience or Honesty I will before I conclude make one short address unto the Dissenters that they would have a care how they suffer themselves to be imposed upon in these things I know this Author makes it his great care to keep them still aloof off the Church of England and therefore is upon every occasion nay without any occasion still putting them in mind of the late Execution of Penal Laws and how they were harassed by them But can they believe after all this that this man is their real Friend whose Principles and Practices look quite another way I think his affixing this most false and injurious Letter unto some of them is a fair warning how much real kindness he hath for them who was so very desirous to have this Letter thought by all people to be theirs which is made up of nothing else but folly falshood and slander What is this but to have the world to believe that the Dissenters are still the same foolish false and slanderous people that most of his Church did use to think them and I am affraid do still continue to do I will trouble them no further but request this at their hands that they would make it their Prayer to God that they never may be guilty of the dishonouring of God by affording their helping hand to the ruine of the Protestant Religion FINIS
charge either Disputant or Writer with teaching what he does onely grant for Argument sake and with believing what he meerly supposes for the same purpose and yet this is my Case in that Accusation I was in that chapter of my Book out of which these passages are taken shewing what a disingenuous sort of an Adversary I had to deal with there how he when he came to treat of the Popes Supremacy instead of putting down a just and fair account of the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome did onely mention two or three trifling things which any one with adding onely to them two or three necessary words might grant and yet be as far as any one ever was from believing the Supremacy of the Popes of Rome That I might therefore expose him and shew the great looseness and craft with which he wrote I did in that place undertake to prove it in particular and went through all the Heads of that chapter still telling him at every one of them that I could grant it and yet continue without any obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy What I had said there and granted as is usual in all Writers meerly for to expose my Adversary this Letter-Writer hath by sleight of hand turned into honest confessions and makes me assert in the Letter what I had onely supposed in the Book Whosoever will look into that page of my Book will quickly see how extravagantly abusive and false this charge in the Letter upon me is and how very disingenuous and malicious that person must be that would from thence affix to me as an Assertion about the Bishop of Rome's Succession and Unity that which was onely a School-Concession for Argument sake And tho this answer is sufficient with all persons of sense to convince them what a Jugling Adversary I have yet there is an Expression in that very paragraph which does express as plainly as words can my denyal of and disbelief of any of those things that He lays to my charge in the Letter as fair Concessions of my Opinion about the Bishop of Rome for immediately after those passages set down in the Letter I have these very words I can I say subscribe THOUGH I DO NOT to all this without any Obligation in the least of believing the Popes Supremacy And here I cannot but appeal to the world to judge betwixt me and this Jugling Adversary whether any one could express his meaning more plainly and his dissent more fully than I have done in that place and whether that Adversary must not be devoid of all Honesty Sense or Conscience that would notwithstanding such a direct denyal of mine expressed there charge me with believing and granting that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter's Successor that he is the Centre of Catholick Communion and that it is Schism to separate from his See. Had my stile been obscure and my expressions been intricate and those words which did declare my direct disbelief of those things at some great distance three or four pages off for example from those quoted by the Representer there might have been some small pretence some little colour for the knavery used here by him but there was no ground for any such Plea for the Expressions and stile are plain enough there and the words though I do not are in the very next line to his last quotation and it is impossible but he should both see them and read them too With what conscience then could any man read those words and yet have the forehead from the very same page to bring me in as believing the direct contrary I am so far from thinking that any Christian would be guilty of such a deliberate and injurious imposture that I believe both Turks and Heathens would abhor and detest the being guilty of such a malicious Forgery As for that good Opinion of the Pope which this Jugler mentions afterwards in the Letter as mine I think I have sufficiently evidenced to the world in that second Chapter of my Answer to the Compiler how little a Friend to or favourer of the Popes Pretensions I am If to shew that there is no ground or Authority from Scripture for his claims to Supremacy if to shew that there is no ground for the Pretended Supremacy from the Laws and Canons of the Universal Church for the first six hundred years after Christ and to back this with Three Challenges to all the Romish Priests in England to name one Canon in the Code of the Universal Church that does either constitute or assert or suppose the Bishop of Rome to be that Head and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church which their General Council of Florence defined him to be if to shew I say all these things be a discovery of a mans good Opinion of the Pope I do here own that I have as good an Opinion of the Pope as any Person within the four Seas But I am afraid that I never shall have either favour or thanks for my good Opinion of the Pope And however the Representer who I believe read that chapter thorough does tell the world of his meeting with my good Opinion of the Pope in that Book I am very fully persuaded that he does no more believe himself that I have any good Opinion of the Pope than I believe that he is at this Instant in Japan But when a mans hand is in at such sort of writing and when he is resolved to blacken his Adversary but wants Matter and Ground for such Calumnies He must eâ—en do as my Adversary does invent himself what he would fain have found in his Adversaries Work and charge him with saying that in his Work which he does not nay which he expresly denies I think I have fully vindicated my self from the charge about the Pope himself against me and exposed enough the notorius Calumny of the Representer upon this Point However lest any Reader should not sufficiently apprehend the first part of my Answer to this Calumny and lest any of the Representers Friends should deny the Proof of the deliberate Falsification of my meaning because the passage is not set down and they converse commonly with those who either have not or will not or it may be must not look into my Book it self I will transcribe those two whole paragraphs thence which are the Subject of his Charge and my Answer and they are these in the beginning of my Second Chapter concerning the Popes Supremacy p. 8. Our Compiler being now come to a Point of debate doth not forget his art of palliating which was so serviceable to him in his Misrepresentations and Representations of Popery He cannot but know and therefore ought to have avoided it that this loose talk about Successor of Peter and Centre of Catholick Communion does not reach the Pretensions of the Bishops of Rome nor fully and fairly declare what Power Jurisdiction and Authority in and over the Catholick Church those