with any of those horrid Works of Darkness whereof many of its Professors and the Religion it self are accused And this may serve for my old Friends Now as for your self and all other candid disinterested Persons I know it will be satisfactory to put you in mind that to impute my Proceedings to the frowning of the Times on that Party is Fallacia non Causae pro Causa a Mistake of the Adjunct or Circumstance of Time for the Principal Motive The Conversion of a Sinner is the Work of Omnipotence who as he is most free in all his Actions ad Extra so especially in the reclaiming of a strayed Sheep He is no wayes tied up to the Circumstances of Whom How Where or When. Nescit tarda Molimina Spiritûs Sancti Gratia sayes S. Bernard And if he were graciously pleased more effectually to touch my Heart now than at any other time and times of Affliction are his especial Seasons Afflictio dat Intellectum Cum Occideret eos c. I know no other Account can be given of it than that of our B. Saviour Even so Father for so it seemed Good in thy Sight Nay I have before demonstrated that these Thoughts have been long hovering in my Mind though perhaps they had not been altogether so suddenly declared but out of a deep Resentment of the Dangers of any further neglecting the Divine Call and a seasonable Desire to Testifie to the World my perfect Abhorrence of such desperate Practices and Principles which I am convinced are pernicious both to Publick Polity and Civil Society And I hope none can reasonably be angry that I have gained more Experience now I am thirty six years old than I had when I was but twenty These are the Principal Matters I thought worth your Knowledge at present wherein I protest before God and Man that I have no other Design but the Quiet of my Conscience and the Salvation of my Soul And when I have given a publick Tolerable Account of this Affair I will take my leave of this Noble Science of Controversie as Mr. Serjeant calls it having alwayes been more addicted to Ascetick Theology and sit down with Divine Anselm's Resolution Quid restat per Totam Vitam meam nisi ut Defleam Totam Vitam meam Crosses and Afflictions are no more than I expect and deserve having hitherto been so little acquainted with them The Wise man hath read my Doom to me Fili accedens ad servitutem Dei praepara Animum tuum ad Tentationem As for the sincerity of my Resolutions I can but Appeal to that Great Searcher of Hearts and Tryer of Reins And though some Folk talk of Dispensations from Rome for the taking All Oaths and Complying with All Externals and no meaner a Person than the Author of the Difference between the Church and Court of Rome out of Arch-Bishop Spotswood's History mentions some such like thing practised in Scotland yet with submission to the Learned Author I conceive there is no such matter since the Pope himself could never be induced to Approve even the single Oath of Allegiance but expresly condemned it and severely prohibited the taking of it as containing saith he divers Points contrary to Salvation And moreover put case any thing of that nature were in Being I here solemnly Avow that I disown all such Pretended Authority One Circumstance not very Material I confess but I would not too much swerve from the Accurate Exactness of Writers of Epistles Apologetical though Mr. Cressey observe it in the Beginning and I in the Conclusion must not be forgotten and thus it is To you above all Persons living I have an Obligation to recurr in Spiritual Concerns for I am your Parishioner Holborn having been the place of my Nativity I have nothing more but with all Respect and Gratitude to assure you I am Reverend and Honoured Sir Your most obliged and Humble Servant T. S. December 15. 1678. Several Weighty CONSIDERATIONS Humbly Recommended To the Serious Perusal of ALL especially the Roman Catholicks of England IT is a very good Rule prescribed by some Spiritual Writers That in Converse we should rather discourse of Things than Persons And I intend as much as the Matter will permit to observe it in this subsequent Treatise carefully avoiding all personal Reflections especially upon such as are living and shall only bring some Doctrines and Practices to the Test which though they pass for currant with many will yet be found adulterate and contrary to Holy Scripture the best Genuine Antiquity and Right Reason highly scandalous to the Christian Religion in General destructive of Civil Government fatal to Humane Society and very pernicious both to the Spiritual and Temporal Concerns of the Practisers even in their private Capacity In short I shall very plainly and briefly endeavour to make good two Assertions 1. That there is no sufficient Ground for any one to forsake the Communion of the Church of England and incorporate with that of Rome 2. That there is all Reason imaginable both for such as have been educated in the Roman Communion to Reform and for such as have unwarily ingaged with her to Return This was the happy Result of these following Considerations upon my own Heart And it shall be my Prayer that they may have the same Blessed Effect in the impartial Perusers of them The sacred Oracles of the Holy Scriptures deservedly Command our first Inquiry We have Cardinal Bellarmine's own Concession that in the grand Question of the Church the Scripture is better known than the Church Consequently then not only her Authority but her very Being must be subordinate to it And therefore in the first place let us see what Sentiments the Church of England hath of these Heavenly Records and whether Hers or those of the Roman Church be more Consonant to Pure Antiquity Reason and Holy Writ it self All Protestants and particularly the Church of England Artic. 6. look upon the Holy Scriptures to contain all things necessary to Salvation so that whatever is not read in them or cannot be proved from them is not to be Imposed on any to be received as an Article of Faith or a Necessary Requisite to Salvation Whence it appears that they take Them to be the Onely Complete and Adequate Rule both of Faith and Life sufficiently intelligible and easie in matters that concern what is simply necessary to make us Good and Happy They consequently hold that since Holy Scripture is the Rule of our Faith it must have an exact Proportion to that whereof it is a Rule So that Matters of Faith are not to be extended beyond this Rule nor can any unwritten Traditions any way be pretended to appertain to the Substance of Faith Moreover the Rule being the Idea Model and great Exemplar of what is regulated by it it is in order of Nature before the thing so regulated And if the word of God be antecedent of Faith it self it must likewise precede the
richly in all Wisdom teaching and admonishing one another Theodoret before cited gives this Account of his Times You shall every where see these Points of our Faith to be known and understood not only by such as are Teachers in the Church but by Smiths Weavers and all kinds of Artificers yea all our Women not only such as are Book-learned but also by them who get their Living by the Needle Maid servants and Waiting-women and not Citizens only but Husbandmen are very skilful in these things You may hear among us Ditchers and Neat-herds discoursing of the Trinity and the Creation And that the Laity were thus familiar with the Bible may evidently be made out in that Nectarius of a Judge was made Bishop of Constantinople St. Ambrose of a Secular Deputy Bishop of Milan Gregory the Father of Nazianzen of a Lay-man was made a Bishop Origen from a Child was Learned in the Scriptures and to the great Joy of his Father Leonides a Holy Martyr often questioned with him concerning the meaning of difficult places Macrina St. Basil's Nurse taught him the Scriptures when he was very young and Gorgonia the Sister of St. Gregory Nazianzen was rarely well experienced in them I will wind up this Argument with declaring what was St. Jerom's mind in so Weighty a Business He besides his Writing to divers Women as Eustochium Salvina Celantia c. commending their Labours in the Scriptures and encouraging that study speaking of the Noble Roman Lady Paula in the Epitaph he made upon her he extolls her for imposing a daily task of reading the Scriptures on her Companions and Maids But more signally in an Epistle to Leta he gives her these Directions for the Education of her little Daughter Let the Child be deaf in hearing of light Musical Aires but cause her every day to render a task of the Flowers of Holy Scripture Let her not be sought for in the press of secular People but in the Closet of the Scriptures asking Counsel of the Prophets and Apostles concerning Spiritual Nuptials Let her first learn the Psalter and with those Heavenly Songs wean her self from light Sonnets Then let her be taught to Govern her Life out of Solomons Proverbs and repair to Job for Examples of Vertue and Patience Let her then come to the Evangelists and never lay those Books out of her hands With these she must joyn the Acts of the Apostles c But let her be cautious in Apocryphal Books and if she read them let her understand that they are not those Author's whose Names they carry and that many things faulty are mix'd with them and it is no small Wisdom to sind Gold among Dross To which excellent Advice let me onely subjoyn what I find scattered up and down in S. Augustin viz. To read plain Passages first and heartily to practise what we understand and as for obscure Places Prophecies Genealogies and Mysteries whereof we shall never be demanded an Account at the Day of Judgment let us leave it to the Divine Pleasure either to reveal them to us or reserve them still Concealed since our Saviour told his own Disciples that it was not for them to know the Times and Seasons but plainly informed them that he who did his Will should know of his Doctrine whether he spoke from God or from himself The same Father acquaints us with the admirable Commixture of Plainness and Obscurity in the Holy Scripture that hereby Wanton Wits are wholsomely curbed Weak Wits cherished and Great Wits delighted and that nothing of highest Importance is so perplexedly delivered in one Place but it is as plainly set down in another I have inlarged a little more than I intended on this Theme because I am verily perswaded that if the Sober Judicious Roman Catholicks of this Nation would be induced but for Tryal sake a while to intermit some of those Dry Insipid Devotions which take up so much of their Time and exchange them for a Pious Humble conversing with God's Word they would soon be out of Conceit with what they are now so fond of and discover the sandy Foundation of many of their Principles and perhaps at last become of that good Abbots mind who was Unkle to Arch-Bishop Whitgift and was often heard to complain that their Religion must needs at last fail because he found no ground for it in Gods Word Having considered hitherto the great Rule of our Faith and Life we will now descend to that Article of our Creed which makes such a noise in the World I mean the Holy Catholick Church which omitting the various Acceptations of the Word Church as to our present Purpose is nothing else but a Company of People united in the Profession of the True Faith of Christ and due Use of the Sacraments I am not ignorant that the Papists would fain foist in another Requisite to wit Vnder the Obedience of the Bishop of Rame the only Vicar of Christ upon Earth But to omit many other Absurdities I shall only instance at present in two that hereby they exclude Universality which they put down as an Essential Note of the True Church and Charity which I am sure is a certain Badg of Christ's true Disciples For by this very Clause they very ridiculously obtrude less than a fourth part for the Whole and by excommunicating all the rest from the Pale of the Church as much as in them lies very mercifully Doome greater more antient and better Churches than themselves to everlasting flames To make this good we will take our Measures by the Judicious Observation of Sir Edwyn Sands who in his Survey of Europe assures us that the Greek Church in Number exceeds any other and the Protestants in Multitude and extent of Territory fall very little short of those that are under the Papal Yoke So that here we have two four Parts To which add all the Oriental Christians and those in the Vast Empire of Prester John or the Abyssines who are all out of the Roman Communion and questionless we shall find another fourth Part. And thus we have three to one even in the point of Universality I will put this out of all dispute by a particular Induction In Asia we have Multitudes of Christians who have nothing to do with the Pope Those of Palestine are subject to the Patriarch of Jerusalem the Syrians under him of Antioch the Armenians and Georgians have their own Patriarchs The Circassians and those of the lesser Asia are under him of Constantinople The Jacobites and the Christians of St. Thomas have also their peculiar Patriarchs In Africa where we find any steps of Christianity the Egyptians and Cophtes are under the Patriarch of Alexandria the Ethiopians or Abyssines which are innumerable are under their own Governours Ecclesiastical In Europe the Greeks submit to the Patriarch of Constantinople The spatious Empire of the Russians hath a Patriarch at Mosco The Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Denmark Swedeland and the
The Sincere Popish Convert Or a brief Account of the REASONS WHICH Induced a Person who was some Years since seduced to the ROMISH CHVRCH to relinquish Her Communion and return into the Bosom of the Church of England WHEREIN THE Holy Scriptures Are clearly proved to contain all things which are necessary to be Believed and Practiced by Christians in order to their Salvation and are justly Vindicated from those odious Imputations which the Papists profanely cast upon them WITH An Epistle to the Reverend and Learned Dr. Stillingfleet Dean of St. Paul's I verily thought with my self that I ought to do many things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth Act. 26.9 He is not joyned to the Church who is departed from the Gospel S. Cypr. de Lapsis LONDON Printed by J. Grover and are to be sold by Norman Nelson at Gray's Inn-gate 1681. TO THE Right Reverend and Honourable HENRY LORD BISHOP of LONDON Dean of His Majesties Chapel and one of his most Honourable Privy Council My Lord I Have some Years since met with a Prophecy and many talk of such things at this Time which may yield a little Comfort in this Day of our Visitation The Original it self I have not seen but it is taken out of Telesphorus de Tribulat and thus cited by Dr. John White Antichristus non poterit subjugare Venetias nec Parisios nec Civitatem Regalem Angliae The Memorable Baffle that the Venetians gave to Paul the Fifth the frequent Picqueering of the Sorbon with the same See may in part Justifie But the Wonderful Preservations both Antient and Modern of this Kingdom and Metropolis from the Restless Attempts of many of that Faction will I hope Evince its Probability How Instrumental your Lordship hath been towards that Security and Happiness we yet Enjoy how Indefatigable your Pains how Undaunted your Courage in the most Critical Conjunctures is with Gratitude and Applause proclaimed to the World not only by your own Large and Numerous Flock but by the Loud Acclamations of the Whole Nation And though I never was so fortunate as to be an Eye-witness of those Heroick Vertues which daily Influence Your Charge rendring You so Amiable to the Churches Friends and at the same time so Formidable to her Enemies yet that Universal Character which is every where given of You engages me to look on you as no less than a Person in whom Concentre those Requisites which some Criticks in Morality how justly I dispute not have exacted to make up a Compleat Christian They are these The Orthodox Faith and Loyalty of a true English Protestant the Zeal and Good Works of a Roman-Catholick the Gratious Words and Painful Preaching of a Puritan And all these Inculcated by your Life as well as Injunctions on your most Learned and Religious Clergy But I must remember my self at the Judges Barr and not at the Heralds Office and that this Paper attends You as a Petition and not as a Panegyrick Your most Gracious Approbation of my Desires intimated to you by the Reverend Dean of St. Pauls Invites the one as Your undoubted Worth and Honour Extorts the other Vouchsafe then my Lord to Accept into the Arms of your Noble Charity what is penn'd purely with a Spirit of Charity They are such Reflexions as Reclaimed my self and may with Gods blessing contribute to the Reducing of some others as unwarily mis-led as I was To which purpose I endeavour Brevity and Perspicuity designing this Discourse for the Vulgar the Learned have richer Mines to recurr to and therefore waving that Accurateness of Method and Expression which Your Lordships Judicious Eye may expect but neither my Intent the present Affliction I lye under the unsettledness of my Affairs nor Absence from my Books all which afford not that Tranquillum Scribentis otia will admit However when all Athens was Busie and in Motion the Cynick for Company would needs rowl about his Tub. And if so obscure a Person as my self intrude into the Crowd of those Many Able Contenders for the Faith once delivered to the Saints which daily almost appear upon the Stage I have St. Augustines Advice for my Apology De Trinit l. 3. c. 3. In places infected with Heresie all men should write that have any faculty therein though it were the same thing in other words that all sorts of People among many Books might light upon some and the Enemy in all places might find one or other to encounter him Besides I thought this the best Expedient Publickly to testifie my Sincere Re-union to that Church in which I received my Baptism and Education and how faithfully I am and resolve by Gods Grace to continue My Lord Your Lordships most Humble and Obedient Servant T. S. AN EPISTLE From a Late Roman Catholick To the Very Reverend Dr. EDWARD STILLINGFLEET Dean of St. Pauls c. Very Reverend and Honoured Sir THough I am not altogether Ignorant of your Person yet my chief Acquaintance is with those Learned Works of Yours the best Representative wherewith you have enriched this Age obliged the Church of England and I speak it experimentally given the greatest Satisfaction to ingenious Minds that sober and unaffected Reason I do not mean such stuff as Mr. White 's and Mr. Serjeant's Demonstrations can possibly perform And thus Sir I have been your most intimate Friend and Servant these seven or eight years All which space I have been a very attentive Spectator of your famous Encounters and to my Comfort seen single Truth and modest Reason combate with whole Troops of Old Subtle Confident Cholerick and I may add Malicious Adversaries And I hope I shall have Cause to bless God to all Eternity and thank you for so Glorious a Sight But before I return my full Acknowledgments to you I must crave Leave to give you a Short but True Narrative only be pleased not to believe it as you style Mr. Cressey's a Legend of my self I had my Education in one of the chiefest Free-Schooles in London under the Care of a very able Instructor and by him was fitted for the Vniversity But about a year before my advancing thither it happen'd that an ancient Gentleman came frequently to divert himself in a Walk that was near the School and so took Occasion to discourse with divers of the Lads I being the Head of the School at that time he pretended a particular Complacency though I know not why in my self He never conferred about any Point in Religion but still entertained me with speaking Latin which he did very fluently and politely and his constant Discourse was about the rare Method of Education used beyond Sea the great Number of their Students the Diligence of their Tutors the Exactness of their Discipline and much more to the like Effect What this Conversation would have produced at last I know not But the chief Master of the School perceiving me often with him at last forbad me his Company and told me
and Charity the same Heavenly Example one worship in Spirit and in Truth one Communion or Communication of the Members which is the Unity of that Church which includes all the Faithful from the beginning of the World to the end c. In short such an Unity as the Holy Scriptures require in being derived from one beginning which is the Holy Ghost who as one Soul quickens and moves all the Parts in having one Head which is Jesus Christ and in being but one Body partaking the same Doctrine Sacraments and Worship of God This Unity by God's Grace all true Protestants breath after as may apparently be evinced by the Harmony of their Confessions although in points of smaller importance there may be some little differences and most of their Dissentions are rather Verbal then Real As to the Sanctity of that Church let but the Lives of the Roman Bishops be perused written by their own Authors a noysomer Sink and Kennel of Abomination can never be raked up in all Antiquity some Atheists some Conjurers some Adulterers Murderers Incestuous Sodomites Simoniacks and what not the manners and conversation of their Clergy Religious Men and women so heinously tax'd and inveigh'd against by those Famous Writers of their own side S. Bernard Nic. Clemangis Alvar Pelagius Claud. Espencaeus c. and at least they will have little cause so boldly to challenge and appropriate it to themselves above all their Neighbours These things are sufficiently known to any that have viewed their Doctors or conversed even with their Modern practices though themselves are very much amended since the Reformation But I love not to tell stories out of the School and I promised at first to refrain from personal Reflections There are Books enough on this Subject and the World talks sufficiently loud of it If all the precedent Prerogatives signifie nothing at last we must be overborn by whole Legions of Innumerable Miracles that are obtruded upon our Credit But so spurious so ridiculous so impious many of them that the more modest and discreet among themselves dare not own them Their best Writers affirm That Miracles are not necessary for the Being of a Church but onely for the Begetting of a new Faith or an Extraordinary Mission Nay I may add not for an Extraordinary Mission neither as we may see in many of the Prophets of the Old Testament of whose Miracles not one word is mentioned Nor are they at all to be expected from or by the Protestants who neither profess a new Faith nor an Extraordinary Mission The Miracles of our Saviour his Apostles and the first Age of the Church are sufficient Seals to the Doctrine they own And as for those so importunately urged by the Romanists they are but too often convinced to be meer juggles contrivances for filthy Lucre Sleights to uphold some gainful Doctrine or to advance the reputation of some particular place or Religious Order done in a Corner of a far different Nature from those of our B. Saviour and rather of the same stamp with those the Apostle speaks of 2 Thess 2.9 belonging to him who comes with all Power and Signs and Lying Wonders and Revel 13.13 who doth great Wonders so that he makes fire come down from Heaven on Earth in the Sight of Men. A man that duly ponders the most palpable Cheats and Impostures of this kind dailypractised in the Church of Rome for these By-Respects would almost be of Mr. Chilling-worth's mind that it cannot be sufficiently made out that ever so much as a Lame Horse was cured by way of Miracle in confirmation of any Popish Tenet Some insist much on the Outward Prosperity Pomp Splendour and Magnificence of their Church To this the Wise Man hath given an answer Eccles 9.1 Our Works are in the hand of God and no man knows either Love or Hatred by all that is before him Nay our Saviour puts it down as a Mark of the false Church Joh. 16.20 Verily I say unto you that you shall weep and lament but the World shall rejoyce It remains then that the onely Certain and Evident marks of a True Apostolical Church are The Sincere Preaching of God's Word and a Due Administration of the Sacraments To which may be annexed Ecclesiastical Discipline but this is reducible to the other two These are All that the Holy Scriptures afford us Matth. 28.19 Go and Teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to chserve all things whatever I have commanded you Act. 2.42 And they continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrin and Fellowship and in Breaking of Bread and Prayers Having thus survey'd the Roman Church in general it will hardly be thought Good Manners if we neglect his Holiness the Pope in particular or as some are pleased to flatter him The Church Virtual For what ever stirr and bustle they make about the Church their Mother the plain English of their meaning is nothing but the Pope their Father It is the express Doctrin of S. Thomas Aquinas and his Doctrin in that Church is little less than Canonized 2.2 q. 1. a. 10. that the making of a true Creed belongs to the Pope as all other things do which belong to the Whole Church and that the Whole Authority of the Universal Church abides in him 2.2 q. 12. a. 2. Thus as they take all Authority and Sufficiency from the Scripture and give it to the Church so all the Churche's Authority they attribute to the Pope Gregorius de Valentia one of the Learnedst Jesuits tells us plainly That by the Church they mean Its Head that is to say the Roman Bishop in whom resides the full Authority of the Church when he pleases to Determin matters of Faith whether he doth it with a Council or without Bellarmine teaches that the Pope himself without any Council may decree matters of Faith Bannes affirms that the Authority of the Universal Church the Authority of a Council and the Authority of the Pope are one and the same thing The Canon Law in Sext. Extrav Johan 22. c. Cum inter in Gloss speaks thus It is Heresie to think Our Lord God the Pope may not Decree as he doth And Distinct 19. in Canon His Rescripts and Decretal Epistles are Canonical Scripture All which passages clearly convince us what is the meaning of those perpetual Braggs of the Catholick Church His Holyness must excuse me if being no Courtier I address not my self to him in the phrase of the Roman Inscription to Paul the V. yet to be seen in that City saluting him as a Vice-God and the Stout Assertor of the Pontifical Omnipotency or as the Gloss of the Canon Law in their last and best Editions viz. the Roman 1580 and Parisian 1612. Our Lord God the Pope Waving therefore these Ceremonies I shall summarily consider his Authority both what he pretends to and what it really is And here starts forth a material
Faithful themselves and if the Faithful then must it have Preheminence before the Church it self which is nothing else but the Congregation of the Faithful Thus the Church of Rome will evidently fall short of that Prerogative she so presumptuously arrogates of being both Before and Above the Scripture Again a Rule consisting in Indivisibili as we say i. e. being of that Nature that it is not to be inlarged or diminished how guilty are they who either make Additions to or Substractions from it Both which the Roman Church practiseth as de facto will be manifest in the Sequele of this small Tract In Fine they hold the Word of God written to be that one infallible entire Rule whereby all men Learned and Unlearned may in all necessary and fundamental Points of Faith and Manners be sufficiently instructed what is to be embraced for True and Good That it is a Rule most Certain Plain Universal Impartial not addicted to one Side more than another which neither Pope Conclave nor Councel can so much as pretend to of Power and Authority able to convince the Consciences of such as use it and from which there can be no Appeal And the only Cause why any miss of the True Faith is because they do not sincerely seek and find out this infallible Rule or having found it will not with an obedient Mind captivate their Understanding but have Access to it with Pride Curiosity Prejudice or some other unmortifyed Lust or Impediment More especially the Church of England besides that high Veneration that she her self hath for these sacred Books labours to confirm and root the same in the Hearts of her obedient Children by her Devout Practice For to omit the Frequent Laborious and Judicious Preaching and Expounding of them in this Church she hath so prudently disposed of her publick Liturgy that every day some Part and Portion of both Testaments is appointed to be read The whole Book of Psalms is gone through once a Moneth the Old Testament once and the New thrice every year with other most excellent Exercises of Piety at which even the Romanists themselves can take no just Exception and a very great Author affirms that a modern Pope would have approved the whole Service-Book had his Authority but been acknowledged which discreet Course cannot but afford much heavenly Instruction and Consolation to the constant Attenders on such Blessed Opportunities But what saith the Church of Rome all this while in this Business In her Tridentine Council Sess 4. Can. 1. She expresly Decrees that unwritten Traditions are of equal Authority with the written Word that they are to be received with the same Reverence and Affection And Cardinal Hosius who was one who in the Popes Name presided at that Council defends that most Blasphemous Speech of Wolfangus Hermannus that the Scripture is of no more Authority than Esop's Fables but for the Churches and Popes Approbation lib. 3. de Authorit Script The Council of Basil would fain perswade us that the Churches Acts and Customs must be to us instead of the Scriptures Instar habeant Sacrarum Scripturarum for that the Scripture and Churches Customs both require the same Affection and Respect Indeed I find the Romish Doctors in nothing more fluent than in degrading and vilifying the Scriptures Our Country man Dr. Stapleton positively affirms that the Church hath Authority to put into the Number of Books of Scripture and to make Canonical the Writings of Hermes and Constitutions of Clemens two famous Counterfeits and that then they would have the same Authority which other Books have canonized by the Apostles themselves Some call them a Nose of Wax to be wrested any way Cardinal Cusanus blushes not to write that the Scriptures are fitted to the time and variously understood the sense thereof being one while this and another while that according as it pleases the Church to change her Judgment Some teach that the Scripture is not simply necessary that God gave it not to the People but to the Doctors and Pastors and that we must live more according to the Dictates of the Church than the Scripture Eckius the great Antagonist of Luther would make us believe that Christ never gave any Command to his Apostles to write any thing Which yet seems very odd when such an express Injunction was lay'd on S. John to write that mystical Book of the Apocalypse which certainly is not more conducing to the Churches Edification than our B. Saviour's Sermon on the Mount and the many other practical Discourses both of himself and his Disciples In a word the most ingenuous and civil among their Writers think they have pay'd all due Respect to Holy writ when they term it a Dumb Judge Dead Ink or Ink shaped into various Forms and Characters Notwithstanding which I humbly conceive that let an Indifferent Person open the Bible and the Canons of the Council of Trent together and he will receive at least as clear and full Satisfaction from the Bible as from the other unless we will impiously deny Almighty God the Faculty of expressing his holy Will and Pleasure as intelligibly as frail Men can theirs or without any shew of Reason affirm with a late Divine that Religion it self was never fully setled till that upstart Conventicle Conformable to the Sentiments are the Practices of that Church in keeping the Bible lock'd up in an Unknown Tongue from the Use of the Vulgar Clement the Eighth very strictly orders all Vulgar Translations to be put into the Index of Prohibited Books And in Italy and Spain and wherever the Inquisition hath the least Jurisdiction the very keeping of them is a Crime no less than Capital It is true where the Reformation hath got any footing Faculties are sometimes granted to read a Translation but clog'd with so many Proviso's and various Cautions and their Spiritual Guides give so small Encouragement to it that it seems rather a Trick to stop the Mouthes of their Adversaries when they Object the Prohibition of Reading Scripture than any real Intention of Promoting so Pious an Exercise among their Devotes Besides their other Forms of Devotion Rosaries or saying over the Beads after divers Methods our Ladies Office Prayers for the Dead Manuals the long Litanies of Saints hearing of Masses reading of Legends c. are in so great Vogue and take up so considerable a Time that I scarce see how any can be allotted for that contemned Employment of studying Gods Word which ought to be the Meditation of every good Christian Day and Night Indeed this neglect to say no worse of Holy Scripture is so notorious among and so peculiar to those of that Way and the Ignorance not only of the Laity but of divers of the Clergy in that kind of Learning especially is so gross that it would be a Work of Supererogation to attempt the proof of it Their Doctors generally pretending Translations of Scripture to be the cause of all Heresies and Phanaticism