witty jest and jeer and so having given it a flap with a fox tail they pass on soberly to other matters in hand as is commonly done in the pulpits of witty preachers or if they handle it more seriously they do either for their own advantage mistake the doctrin or the proofs they bring against it whether through fraud or ignorance 't is hard to say and the foundations of catholick religion which be tradition and scripture they do so variously expound in severall times and places that one text shall have twenty several interpretations which if they be not catholick pass all for good here and at one time an autority of a father or councel shall be accepted and diversly interpreted in another time and place quite rejected now one piece of catholick doctrine shall be vehemently cryed down and at another time taken up again and maintained and at one and the same time in several parts of the world twenty points for example of catholick faith shall all of them be somewhere received and somewhere rejected amongst Protestants for they being still their own maisters may choos and throw away what they pleas and as long as they list without controul wheras the Romans keeping still one and the same treasury of religion and faith afford matter for them all either to take or leave either to approve or laugh at as they lâ—st as a well furnished table affords wanton children both what they may feed upon themselves and what being full they may spoil and play with and cast to the dogs §. 15. Scripture ANd whence com all these divisions only from this that every man hath a reason an interpretation a light a spirit of his own by which the bible which is now in all mens hands is made to speak what we pleas and our thoughts and tongues are our own what lord shall us controul This is a sad case while all of us upon those only motives which all men may take up at any time to abuse his innocent neighbour proceed to mutual hostility without end The very books that have been written against Roman catholick this last hundred years as they be furious and virulent so be they also so many and various that they would if they were all brought together fill up the Tower of London and by them have people been inflamed to such a height against the Romans that their bodies dignities honours fame houses and goods have been ineffably harrassed to this day And yet no body can say what ill that religion ever did in the world until Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected and persecuted and when we have laid them in the dust we fly upon one another and pull and tear upon the same motiv all that stands in our light Reflect countrimen upon your selves shall we continue in a contest that can never possibly be ended and being prosecuted to the utmost must needs infer a general ruin upon all for whatsoever we say against any one may be said by any other against our selves and proved by the same argument and the same thing may be done to us upon the same account we do it to another All appellation to a visible judg is by anticatholicks jointly excluded and to the Roman catholick with whom unity hath ever dwelt we will not return nor can it be yet expected for the general disrepute unto that way hath so filled our ears and hearts that hating the very name of Papist we have not power to consider soberly what their religion may be Nay we are verily perswaded even from our nurses milk that Protestants are the only professors and Papists enemies to the gospel although to all the world besides the gospel is well enough known to be the Roman catholicks own and sole religion by which they walked and lived here in England many hundred years unto a fruitfulnes of all good works before Protestancy appeared and we pretend to fight against them only for the gospel and with the gospel whiles they forsooth are beleeved to have nothing at all to defend themselvs but a little traditional trumpery of mans inventions with a greater heap of vices of their own And upon this account proceed all our books that are written against Papists and popery in effect like unto that picture that was carried not long ago up and down the Protestant world wherein was drawn a fair ballance as a type of the two religions in whose left hand scale hanged beads girdles cardinals caps monks hoods fryars cowles disciplines crosses to signifie Popery in the other a fair great Bible to signifie Protestancy which hanging upon the ground quite weighed up the other scale into the air as light as very vanity And so credulous is the generallity of mankind that by such toies as these we are carried away unto not onely a dislike but even the highest detestation and contempt of a sacred religion without further examination But what do I speak of the generallity of the vulgar Even our sober and most judicious men who in other things speak and think like oracles in this busines of popery are not abashed to speak like children that talk of hobgoblings in the dark so prevalent is a prejudice brought upon us by the virulent impression of often iterated calumnies Nor are we able by the restraint of this great prejudice either to read the books or ponder seriously the reasons of our catholick neighbours for their faith Yea I have heard som Protestants in other things most wise and judicious to say openly that as for Papists he loved their persons but their religion he hated in his heart the reason is clear he knew the one and not the other And as we do all of us by this old imbibed prejudice detest Popery though we know not what it is so by any new-received dislike when we have once bodied with any one faction we revile all the rest and none will yield to another although in all reason that religion that hath precedency of time with all the other helps any juniour way can pretend unto might one would think have so much if not precedency yet equallity of respect as not to be by a way that is new in the world so bitterly reviled especially when all that venemous bitterness which by any junior sect is cast upon his foregoer may and is as heavily thrown upon himself by his successour But thus rancour and malice spreads abroad in our hearts and whole kingdom against his rule and doubtles to his great displeasure who carefully obliged us to the contrary rules of love and which is to be lamented the first sours and origin of all these defamations is the Pulpit where both by word and example we are taught to defame and hate even those we do not know We may fear som great curs lies upon our poor nation for these our unnatural disorders even so far as to blind us that we cannot see the truth Unto his dogs set upon
experience hath proved it for every one hath a text both to defend himself and oppose his neighbour whether it be in earnest or as it often happens in sport and jest whether wrong or rightly applied Nor can the Bible be well translated for the original carries oftentimes so great a latitude and amplitude of senses that it cannot be brought into a vulgar tongue without confineing the signification to the great alteration and perhaps subversion of the holy penmans intention Besides when men write or speak with a special peculiarity of spirit as all indeed do but those holy writers much more this genius of theirs is so lapt up in their own words or sounds that by transmigration out of the coverture in which that Spirit was born and bred as a snail in her shell it doth in a manner quite expire and vanish We find daily that books translated out of one tongue into another lose much of their connatural grace and sweetness if not all the whole genuine power and life they carried in their own character So ticklish and volatile a thing is that hidden genius couched in the rinde of mens words Nor is a man better known by his face than writings I mean if he draw his discours and sens out of his own bowels for otherwise if he be only a book botcher or collectour out of other authours it will signifie little which I take to be the reason why many spiritual books written in these times out of antient contemplatives although the matter is the same and the language mended yet be they in these penmen but dry unsavory stuff which in the first authour was a fragrant ravishing devotion the good things therin contained have by their transmigration lost their own spirit and the latter authour if so I may call him had not another to give them answerable to their nature By all this I would say thus much that the Bible translated out of its own sacred phrase into a prophane and common one loses both its own property and amplitude of meaning and is likewise devested of its peculiar majesty holines and spirit which is reason enough if there were no other why it should be kept inviolate in its own stile and speech Sacred doctrin like the persons is not to pass de domo in domum but remain under that roof which first covered them And as for peoples instructions it is as I said before to be made by the priests and pastours of the religion on whose lips the sacred knowledg hangs and thence drops down upon the assembly out of that book according to occasion and times as holy Church whole book that is shall judge it fit We commit not to children the whole pot of honey whereby they may surfeit and hurt themselves but give them only some few drops upon a stick of licoras so much as they can digest and make use of for their health And if the book wherin religious rites be grounded lawfully may and in reason ought and in practise ever hath been kept segregated in a language not common to vulgar ears much more are the sacred solemn rites themselvs to be performed in a tongue that is segregated from common use answerable to the Book according to which they be executed which custom as it renders that great Act more majestick and venerable so doth it carry with it much of convenience and no inconvenience at all For thus the Church all over the world as opposite to Babel wherein were so many divisions of tongues shall as in heart and faith so also in lip and language be unanimous and linked together and the great work of Religion wherein all Christian people from one coast of heaven to another do unanimously conspire be so uniformly executed that men may in all places of the world meet with their own Christian Church in one mode and fashion both to acknowledg and joyn with it in their orisons Nor could otherwaies any one priest serve in several countries or administer presently in a place which himself or others with him had converted for which caus men studying to get that one language which is stretched as large and wide as is the catholick Church throughout the world have in all places one tongue and that no hard one to convers withall which did not the Church use it in her rites would in time be utterly neglected The Hebrew Church being immured in one Kingdom had not those many reasons which her younger sister whose territories are extended from East to West hath to keep her rites in a language differing from the vulgar and yet she did so Inconvenience in this practis there can be none assigned but only this that if the latin tongue be used at the altar then cannot the vulgar people understand what is said But this is not of any moment For first the people have all the whole scope and purpose and frame of sacred liturgy set down in their own prayer-books and if they will in their hearts and mind whereby they may if they pleas as equally conspire and go along with the priest in their devotions as if he spake in the mother tongue Secondly catholick people come together not for other busines at the Mass but only with fervour of devotion to adore Christ crucified before them and by the mediation of that sacred blood to pour forth their supplications for themselvs and others which being don and their good purpos of serving and pleasing that holy Lord that shed his blood for us renewed they depart in peace This is the general purpos of the Mass so that eyes and hands to lift up knees to bow and hearts to melt are there of more use than ears But thirdly there is no need at all for the people either to hear or understand the Priest when he speaks and prayes and sacrifices to God in their behalf Sermons to the people must be made in the peoples language but prayers presented to God for them if they be made in a language that God understands it is enough This was well enough conceived by the whole congregation of Israel who commonly stood in vaste multitudes without in a large outward court when the priest entered his sanctum sanctorum to offer and pray for them who all the while were so far from hearing that they could not see him this if any doubt he may both discern it in the old law and in our gospel too where Zacharias is said to be praying at the altar when all the people stood without Why then may not the younger sister Church of Christians likewise pleas and pacify her heavenly father with sacred words and rites addressed unto him in the behalf of the people although these do not understand nay not so much as hear what is said And what matters it if I pray for a friend whether he hear me or no so that God unto whom I pray do hear and accept of my humble addresses St. Paul wrote to Rome from
liars so that you must take it then upon the credit of those who by your own principles may as well deceive you as you me Can you tell who wrote that book O yes you name me presently twenty several persons which you can no more prove to be authours of the books than any thing contained in the writings although their names may be there prefixed Those persons at least as they were men of several conditions priests kings lawyers poets historians fishermen doctours so did they live in several times and places of the world and differ both in these things and also in their very stile and manner of writing as much as any can do A brachman in India teacher of morality two thousand years ago William the conqueror King of England six hundred years ago dictatour of our law and our Sir Kenelm Digby Knight and Philosopher lately author of a Natural Philosophy Do these three differ any more then St. John Moses and Salomon either for time place condition or stile of writing I trow not how then came all those with so much diversity of their own to write the word of God more than these and how they and no other Who first gave them their autority or was it given or onely declared and by what power and vertue could it be declared by any that knew them not and lived so long after them How com laws poems sermons histories letters visions so many several fansies in such diversity of composure to be dictated from one divine hand and how do they conspire together in such variety of times to make at length one vlume of faith And yet too they must not all be either of signification or validity just as they lye and sound but some in this manner some in that Moses law must not bind in its judicial or ceremonial part which makes up in a manner all the whole Pentateuch but onely in the truth of story and morality some books must be taken according to the literal sense and not in any mystical one some in the mystery and not the letter and som again according to both What shall guide us in these things a parable must not be looked on as a story nor yet morallised in all its pars but onely in the capital intention no words must be culled forth to prove any thing out of the road of his mind and purpose who spake them no axiom of holy writ is to be taken by halves nor yet in any sense was not thought of by the authour an objection is not to be proposed for a conclusion nor any trope or metaphor perverted all words must speak to the writers scope not against it as he made them to do who brought texts against veneration of Saints out of St. Jo. Chrysostoms speeches made expresly in honour of them and others against monarchy drawn out of the book of Kings and many such like cautions there be I cannot now think of What autority or rule shall conduct us in all these uncertainties The Catholick indeed has one by which he passes on uniformly and quietly in the course of his religion as the sun in the firmament without noise or trouble but others jumble and justle one against another like coaches in a street O the Scripture and truth therein contained will discover it self Does it not very fairly whiles we are all of us together by the ears not for the Bible but with it You must beleeve What should I beleev and why I expect a perswasion to beleev not a command and to hear not that I must beleev but what and not onely what to credit but why and wherefore O but you may discern in these writings the very marks of Gods hand appearing Though there be such marks yet it seems by our many divisions we cannot read of our selves what those marks would have or what Church and doctrin they would establish and to whom can those marks appear to be Gods but to them only who have seen Gods hand aforetime or stood by him when he wrote Porphirius was as good a marks-man and understanding Philosopher as perhaps ever was and yet he deserted Christianity and all the whole Bible for want of the marks of divinity in it as others for the same reason have at times rejected many particular books I justifie neither him nor them but only speak thus much to show how instable a thing man is when he relyes upon his own judgment Have not we known wicked hypocrites to speak as fine words as any be in scriptur and by those their marks to deceiv many and I doubt not but Antichrist when he appears will do so But how came this book into England for it was not it seems any part of it written here It was brought hither you will say at the lands first conversion all of it together in one volume If this be true as true indeed it is then we had it from the Pope of Rome whether we speak of the conversion of Englishmen or Brittons And shall I build my beleef upon the autority of a book if indeed it could make it out sent us from him whom our own ministers do publickly proclaim to be an impostour and antichrist or can I in reason so condemn him and not suspect it If he did not onely present it us but made his catholick beleevers with so much labour and industry to transcribe it all the world over before printing was invented as a sacred and venerable thing a man might think in reason there were somthing in it to favour him and his religion which being once accepted under the notion of divine writings men would not easily dare to contradict and nothing at all against him O but the Pope did not make the book nor any of his predecessors This is more than either you or I can prove sith that book so much of it as belongs to Christianity was never found in our countrey but as taken and sent from him and it is no hard matter to make a book for my own ends and for its ampler autority to father it upon some renowned person the better to promote my design Truly such places as speak so plainly the Churches autority the real presence absolution of sins by man episcopal government and the like papal doctrin are apt enough to suggest such thoughts and some of our first reformers upon that very account did shrewdly suspect and were not afraid to say it that the Pope had at least a finger in many such like places which he might in their opinion easily do when he had once overwhelmed the earth with his mists of errour and made the people so credulous that he might do what he pleased And if I do indeed think the Pope to be Antichrist and a seducer I cannot rationally beleev or trust unto any book he sends me more than I do to his doctrin which he sayes is there grounded sith I have indeed but his word for the autority of
wonder take any one kingdom under his spiritual jurisdiction and they shall remain a hundred yea thousand years in all peace and unity upon religions account But let that kingdom once divide and separate from him and presently all those very self same byshops who before in their subordination to the Pope easily mannaged the peoples consciences and kept them in a most orderly peaceablenes not know in their separation from him which way to turn themselves but that heresies and schismes will rise and augment themselves without end in despight of all their power and endeavours as if unity and truth and peace were tied to the Popes chair Those that understand not catholick religion have stood many of them exceedingly amazed at this consideration and not without caus for whence can this happen It is not becaus Popes are all saints and only they for the venerable and renowned priests under him and great multitudes of people about him in all nations which shine like stars in the firmament may be without controul as good and holy many of them as himself and although Popes be for the most part very good civil and discreet men yet if it should happen that som one be no better than he should yet even that man shall be as zealous of unity in religion and preserv it as exactly as the best which exalts our wonderment unto such a height that we are even forced to acknowledg that there is some great secret in this business not easily to be resolved for all other byshops and princes the more worldly and sensual they be the less care have they of their flock and people If we shall say that these be the great powers of God upon him the doubt is at an end and a reason appears why people do fear so much to be excluded his communion if this be not admitted I am at a loss and can find no reason why a good king and true head of his Church if himself or the people can make him so should not be able by his acknowledged autority and sword to keep his own subjects in an unity of faith and peace as well as a bad Pope for so we beleev them all to be and pretended head keeps together other mens subjects of different manners and languages without sword or axe or corporal rods only by the meer love of his communion and fear they have to lose it Nor can we say that new opinions about religion are never broacht among catholiks for this as it cannot be expected amongst so many millions of great wits and spirits that be amongst them up and down the world so is it so far from being true that all the heresies that have rose in Christianity were invented ever by some catholick I mean that had been formerly such for his opposition to and apostacy from his general Pastour makes him ceas to be catholick any longer and generally by priests who preferring their own judgments before their pastours and the tradition they had hitherto walked by in the pride of their hearts led people after them out of the fold of the Church And whoever does so puts himself by his own autority in locum Petri and is to be looked upon by all good Catholicks who have care of their own salvation as a dangerous guide Thus did first begin our own Protestancy by Martin Luther Calvin and other fallen priests and the fall of murmuring Judas from the colledg of apostles of contesting Adam and Eve from the bliss of paradise of dissenting Lucifer and his angels from heaven who are said to dispute with Michael and his angels as Luther did with Eckius and his fellow Catholicks signifie nothing else But what does the Pape or Christian pastour do in this case When the tumult is once raised and a disorder begun in any part of his flock by som proud turbulent spirit amongst them the Pape first whistles him and his fellow petulcous rams into order by charitable admonition which still increases lowder by degrees and if this will not serv but that they will still be refractory he casts in his shepheards crook amongst them and divides the turbulent from the peaceful and so the infection stayes The disquiet ones being driven out depart in a rout together but within a while they separate and walk by sixes and seavens and subdivide at length so often that at last they go single whiles every sheep amongst them will be a ram and every ram a shepheard But the other quiet ones that hear the voice of their sheapherd and follow him in peace as becoms sheep to do enjoy all happines and spiritual content amongst themselvs to the unspeakable comfort of their souls under him whom Christ the great Messias hath set over them and this is called the Catholick flock which for the love they bear to their honoured pastour and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we commonly call Papists and somtimes becaus they will not forsake either their sheapheard or divine pastures of truth and sacraments wherein they have been brought up when we would speak more civilly we call them Recusants If any one shall think I speak too much in favour of catholick religion let such know that I favour nothing but truth and peace and it is the part of an ingenuous and well bred nature to support what he can the weaker side especially if he know it to be innocent and injuriously opprest as it often happens in this world that the stronger in right may be the weaker in repute Nor can any fewd amongst us ever be ended which is the thing I aim at so long as errour and injustice are maintained And although we quarrel furiously one with another yet considering that our strifes amongst our selves proceed upon the very same grounds and motives we pretend all of us to have against the general adversary we all hate till this capital dislike of Popery be diminished our other fewds must needs be kept alive No peace amongst our selves till we revoke our words and ill deeds against our innocent neighbours and at last comply charitably with them against whom our first dissention sprang up in this land Ephraim is against Manasses and Manasses against Ephraim but both against Juda and becaus they are both against Juda their lawful superiour therefor are they so furiously bent against one another whiles Ephraim to be in Juda's place who is thrust out by both parties labours to depress Manasses and Manasses for the same reason to trample upon Ephraim Thus is Presbyterian against Independent and Independent against Presbyterian but both against the Papist Protestant against Puritan and Puritan against Protestant but both against the Catholick And as soon as the Protestant had by violence supplanted and cast his Roman-neighbours out of all their dignities honour and livelihood the rancour had utterly ceased had not the Puritan rose up out of the Protestant bowels and subverted him by the same means he had used to his catholick foregoers and
be renewed so long as heresies are suffered to sport and spawn they only stay so long that their number may sufficiently increas for as for every individual person he is furnished strong enough in his very first being to skirmish and comes forth even out of the womb with an alarm and open defiance as the progeny that rose out of Cadmus his serpents teeth that were sowen in the earth came up all of them with nodding crests and shaking spears and as soon as they got their foot above ground fell a fighting And this is the state of things in our kingdom when lo most happily returns our glorious son to dissipate these mists King Charls the second to his own home after his too too long absence and retirement from the hands of our violent rage whom God inspire and strengthen that he may be able if possibly it may be according to his own hearts desire to pacify quiet and content us all But this I am sure can never be done had he ten times the wisdom of Salomon and the excellency of all the worthies of the world couched up together in his princely breast and his own worth is reported without any help of other title to deserv an empire whiles we desire contradictory things and will not rest if we have them not nor yet will submit unto his autority and reason who studies only our good and makes use of all the wisdom in the land to effect it Let there be but only two men whereof the one will have serene weather the other rain in one and the same time and place and I do not see how God himself except he chang their minds can pleas them both By this narration we may see when these divisions about religion came first into England what fruits they have had how they have grown and increased and what to judg of books and sermons that cast so much odium upon another It is very brief indeed considering the amplitude of the matter but I only intended to set it before my countrimen as a small plate of anchovies or cavearr to sharpen the appetite unto a further inquest after truth which all these several wayes pretend to exhibit And if my reader be cautious he may easily discern a reason why all these sects are so boisterous one against another and every one of them against the Roman catholick Ismael disturbed the whole hous and was ever quarrelling and bustling against Isaac The reason is the same both here and there Ismael was a natural son and Isaac the legitimate heir and natural sons be generally seditious violent and clamorous As Ismael therefor was Isaack his natural brother so is a protestant minister but the bi-blow of a legitimate catholick priest the Presbyterian likewise to him and so forward till you come to the Quaker who was begot by a delusion and brought into the world by a fright his hand is against every man and every mans hand against him The remedy and only means of peace is Ejice ancillam cum puero suo §. 21. Discovery IT may by what I have said without any further argumentation appear sufficiently that all anticatholick wayes are equally innocent But it will not yet be so clearly acknowledged that the catholick also is absolutely unblamable except I wipe off som few spots and blemishes which we conceiv all of us to be in that religion especially the vulgar gross ones about mass images service in the latin tongue communion in one kind saints praying for the dead and the respect and dignity of him we all hate the Pope When I have done this I shall then I hope have set the ballance straight and made popery appear equally as plausible innocent and unblamable as any protestancy These few prejudices once removed the light of a right understanding will easily spring up by vertue of what I have said already and what thence will offer it self to every unprejudiced eye and judgment in the land This that I may effect with more delight to my reader I will mix it with the occasion of the knowledg I have got of popery being my self neither born in a popish land nor popish family About six or seven years old I began both by the speech and gestur of my parents to understand the story of their misfortune which had happened it seems by the popery of my grandfather so far impeacht about the rising of the Earls in the north that he lost estate and life at which my father then a young stripling being affrighted betook himself to his feet and fled away not staying till he came to the borders of Nottingham and Leicestershire where he ended his dayes I could not even then but weep of times to see my father sigh so frequently and deeply which yet he seemed to do in great fear and secresy as I even then discerned nor did I ever speak word of it all my life till now after forty years that I find my self past either hopes or fear of many thing in this world But I could not tell all the while of my youth whether I should be angry at Popery or those that persecuted it although I remember I had a tender respect for it when I heard my father say People were better in Popery than we be now yet still he added with a sigh in the close I know not what to think of it But by this means I contracted a kind of habitual resolv to find out if I lived what this Popery might be which although troubles of school and childish sports covered for some years yet at length it came upon me again so fresh and vigorous that it ever and anon occurred unto me About eighteen years of age I lived in the University of Cambridg where being one time desirous to ask my good tutour who was my mothers kinsman to show me the statutes of the hous one of my fellow pupils wished me not to do it for that he had already told him that none were to look upon them but only the seniours and that it was expulsion for any els to read them becaus there was in them much of Popery about confession mass praying at altars for the souls of deceased founders and benefactors of the colledg unto all which I replied not a word The greatest benefit I got in the University was by looking over the heads and general contents of the many great volumes I there met with in severall fair libraries for though I was not able then any further to mannage or make use of them yet they stood me in stead afterwards when reflecting upon what I had there seen I discerned that all those great volumes of learning were so many as were Christian either latin or greek all catholick writers After two years wherein I had learned some few terms of logick out of Smith and John Seton I left the University and came up to London where I met with Churches and sermons good store Therein I observed
Church as that our good works be all mortal sins and damnable before God that we have no will or power to do good or avoid evil that the commandements of God are impossible to be kept c. but rather all contrary as if we were ashmed of our own doctrin and afraid to speak before the people what we know in reason could not but offend Christian ears But all generally do preach when they preach any good thing the doctrin of catholicks though ever abused with their own modes and mixtures For every sect as it hath a peculiar spirit so hath it a mode and vein and method proper to it self The Independent speaks many good words but inconsequent and unconnexed so much roving up and down as if he had a mind to be prophet errant and before he gives over to say somthing of every thing The Presbyterian ever pursues some Platonick idea for example the ingoing and outgoings of Christ which is so thin and bodiles that he is forced to assign six or seven wayes to discern it then gives twelv consequent effects nineteen wayes to get c. in which wayes he does even tire himself as you may perceive by his melting and breathing when he comes to the high hills of eighteenthly and ninteenthly and after some months labour and travel in these his wayes at last with much ado he finishes his text which before he handled it was good and easy doctrin but is now by his tedious exercise rendered obscure intricate and full of doubts The Protestant cuts his text out logically into so many parts and then walks through them all with an even rhetorick adorned with witty conceits and flowers of common places still bringing un that parcel of the text he is handling with such proportion and measure in the close that a man must needs say when he has done that he has shewed a featous piece of art and when his or Presbyterian or Independents sermon is ended then is the great work of their religion done though all to little purpos for a dead mans foot say what you will to him will never warm is shoo But the Catholick if he speak like himself having gravely and pithily prest the intention of the gospel for such a day unto the peoples practis and devotion falls to the great works of sacrifice if it be in the morning and of evensong in the after noon adoration prayer and charity which is the summe wherein his religion consists and all his preaching servs but as a pair of bellows to make those coles burn Nor does any good old catholick that is well grounded in the constant practis of his faith care at all for any further instruction knowing aforehand that it can tend to nothing els than what before he knew and yet endeavours to practis For with him pure religion and undefiled is not to hear words but do deeds to reliev the orphan and widow and to keep our selvs unspotted in this world which unspottednes we attain by complying heart and hand unto the rule and sacraments of Jesus Christ Nor did the primitive Christians for three hundred years ever hear any sermon made to them upon a text all their whole life time but meerly flocked together at their priests appointment to their messach or dominicum or Leiturgy or by what other name for they used many at several times to avoid the pagans discovery their Christian sacrifice was called And it is most strang that we should pretend here in England to be Christians and the only good ones and yet reject those two great things which were by all Christendom esteemed in every age the very essences of Christianity the tribunal of absolution and the great Legacy of Jesus his body to his spous the Church insisting wholly upon preaching which as it is an accidental and relative work of our Christianity so is it common with us an all religions both Mahometan Jew and Pagan whose sermons if any should hear he could not tell by the morality of the master to what religion they belonged It is hard to say why against all the vogue of antiquity we should be so violent as to abolish the Christian sacrifice pull down the altars banish the priesthood yea and persecute it unto death except we mean to repaganise our selvs Our protestant forefathers when they first rose found manifestly all the Christian world over that this incruent sacrifice according to the order of Melchisedeck was and had ever been the sum of all apostolical devotion for which our many goodly fair Churches shrines and altars were built which hang now forlorn and desolate in our hands like great dead carkasses after the soul is departed for the inshrined body of Jesus was the life and soul of our Churches which then died all of them when he departed mouldring away ever since into dust and rottennes And therefor Martin Luther with his Kate the Adam and Eve of protetestancy did not for that reason presume to pull down the altars although they would not keep them up without the mixtur of som errour of their own But we in England in our strang heat tore down all without either president of the catholick world or our own reforming forefathers We cannot but see if indeed we see any thing that every law and religion hath been still annexed with a corresponding sacrfice Yea so surely and universally that sacrifice seems both to be born with religion and with religion to be extinguished The first men who worshipped God in the world as Cain and Abel are said to have don it with a sacrifice after the flood with religion again renewed was also sacrifice renewed by Noah and when afterwards through divers persecutions religion was brought into hazzard nothing did the prophets so much lament as the ceasing of their sacrifice as may be be seen in the book of Kings and Daniel And not without reason for all other kinds of good things offered or don to God are common also unto creatures only sacrifice is a worship so due to the Almighty as none either in heaven or earth may partake with him in it an other sacrifice properly socalled besides this according to the order of Melchisedeck there never was any amongst Christians For although faith hope and prais be by way of analogy called a sacrifice in an improper and translated locution to set forth the worth and acceptablenes of them yet this is so far from derogating to the great and solemn sacrifice properly so called that it presupposes and establishes it for the other could not have that analogical name except that thing were unto which they may bear analogy prais could not be commanded as sacrifice if there were no such thing as sacrifice thence the commendation should be drawn and to whose worth it should allude as it were impertinent and foolish to express the sweetnes of any oratory by the name of honey and sugred rhetorick if we did beleev there were no such
men for my name but who shall persever unto the end he shall be saved But I hope our countreymen will at length discern their own dangerous mistake and perceiv with me that the Popish Mass which is the old opostolical devotion merits not the hatred and mischief we have either wrought or intended the observers of it in our land Hitherto then I hope we have no reason to hate popery upon the account of their Messach which is indeed the chiefest piece of our division and occasion of the many contumelies we put upon them especially considering that in our own Communion so far as it goes we do but imitate great part of it and that in their very words § 23. B. V. Mary AL Catholiks I could ever see or hear or read of bear a most devout respect to the Virgin MARY whom others care not how they villify and dishonour either by their words or writings and I cannot but dislike this our uncivil carriage to say no wors of it as much as I do approve of their piety Surely that Virgin of whom God would be incarnate and with whom he lived so many years together must needs be a person of strang perfection and worthy of great esteem amongst all such as worship her Son and look upon him indeed as their Redeemer He that loves him that begets saith the good apostle loves him that is begotten and I should think he that worships him that is begotten must needs have some respect for her that bare him The blessed Virgin was her self so confident of this that she was bold to say Ecce enim ex hoo beat am me dicent omnes generationes all generations all nations saith she shall call me Blessed And surely if this be true and in gospel it passes for divine words we that instead of calling her Blessed presume so highly to villify and blaspheme her even in our publick streets for which in catholick countries we should be in danger of being stoned to death by the people show our selvs to be a nation that belongs not to the Magnificat Indeed all here amongst us are not so rude but such as be are neither punished nor questioned for it And what in the name of God hath the Virgin Mary don to us what ill or harm hath she ever wrought us that any English Christian should cast so many gibes and show so much disesteem to that blessed creatur whom the whole catholick world the angels of heaven nay our Lord himself and that great God that made heaven and earth have set in so high a place of honour Will our incivility as it hath no ground or reason admit likewise of no limits It may be feared that the spirit of Luther anisme is some very foul one for it hath moved the professours of it in several places unto most unseemly language and highest disesteem of very thing that is venerable Not only princes and prelates priests and altars shrines and sacrifice byshops and their sacred ordinations the real presence tribunal of our reconciliation and the like but the very saints and angels of heaven nay the most innocent blessed Maid whom the very Turks do honour to this day and that she may not be thought the wors of for that an angel from heaven saluted by the mandate and in the name of him who is primogeneal Life and substantial Truth with the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most beloved and Gratious escape not the lash of our lips and pens And yet this is not all neither Do not I know that the primitive protestants in forreign parts have uttered some openly some more obscurely in their writings many odde words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself although our more moderate Church of England I am confident hates them for it Did not Calvin taunt at his ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he crust the figtree that had not fruit upon it when he sought it if he had studied catholick divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation than that idle wicked one of his own Did not Michael Servetus that bold apostate Spanish youth speak openly amongst his fellow protestants in Geneva that he wondered that they had raised all their controversies so many as they had against the Church which is named the body of Christ and yet never a one against Christ the head of that body did not Valentine Gentile that unhappy Italian after he had revolted to Calvin take it ill that all the reformed Churches agreed yet with the papists in the beleef of a Trinity and with him sided Matheus Gribaldus Lismanin Francis David and Jacobus Paleologus though this last recanted afterward and returned happily to his catholick faith And who-knows not that Luther Brentius Calvin Suinglius yea and Erasmus too who though he yet remained catholick would be nibling now and then at Arrian and Socinianisme let fly many a secret dart at Christ and the sacred Trinity though they were not yet so bold as to profess openly with som others of their brethren whom they saw to suffer in their repute for it any such opinion till they found the world in a more forward disposition to accept it and all these bent their bowes and fitted their arrowes to the string that if not openly yet at least in the dark and in Lunâ as the prophet phrases it they might shoot and hit every thing that is sacred even Christ himself So true it is that he who loves him that begets loves him that is begotten and he that hates the one does not truly love the other But the penmen of our creed and gospel who made honourable mention of the Virgin Mary were of another spirit than we be that so much dishonour her although for fashion sake we read over those holy penmens words A certain protestant byshop did not many years ago examin a catholick child that stood before him if he could say his prayers the boy replying yes said first his Pater noster after that began his Ave Maria which catholicks use to repeat in memory of Christs incarnation at which words nay quoth the byshop let her alone let her alone we have nothing to do with her The child went on to his Creed and when he came to conceptus est de spiritus sancto natus ex he sodainly stopt and she is here again quoth the child she is here again my Lord what shall I do with her now you may let her pass quoth the byshop in your Creed but not in your prayers As though we might have faith but neither hope nor charity for her But if we seriously consider the spirit of those who wrote either our Gospel or Creed we shall find that of Roman catholicks to have a most near consanguinity with it and loving them we cannot hate these for the respect they bear his virgin Mother whom we all worship §. 24. Images IN all places where
living Honourable mention of Saints deceased proves an immortality of the soul and this immortality renders the saints even after their deceas still more honourable so that he that honors them must needs believ this and he that truly beleevs this will be apt to honour them I am God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living so argues and disputes our Lord Christ proving the souls immortality by the honourable mention of souls departed And his argument is good and very subtile for if God be the God even of souls departed then souls departed are not nothing but som subsisting thing for God cannot be said to be the God of that which is not And these two effects a beleef of our immortality and a pronenes to imitate their good works so highly crowned hath this memorial of saints wrought all over the catholick world where ther is not a man but will urge himself somtime or other for the respect he bears to such a glorious saint who by shedding his blood or mortifying his body magnified God and his religion upon earth to do somthing either of pennance or charity superabundant over and above what he should have thought upon himself without that help in imitation of the good pattern of him who being once a man compassed with the same infirmities that we now be hath shewed us notwitstanding both by his life and doctrin that such good works are both feasible by frail man and very commendable too and beneficial even to the reward of never ending glory And to this end do Catholicks read their saints lives labouring each one to the degree of his devotion to rais up in himself the lively sparkles of hope and faith and charity by those examples which he sees not confined only to the one age of the apostles but translucent in all times and places by his continued goodnes to his Church whose mercy endureth for ever Nor are those saints lives so prodigious and incredible as we in England take them to be I speak of solid authenticated legends For I have my self seen with mine own eyes and known hundreds of living men that have equalled them in those practises And he that knows the vigorous nature and life of Gospel where it is really put to practise and not only verbally profest will wonder at nothing If ye say to this mountain remove hence saith our Lord to aright beleever all things are possible and I am confident by what I have seen my self that ther be now as bad a world as it is an immens number of people among Catholicks as eminent in all perfections as ther have been in any age and som of them equall too even to the glorious saints of old whose legends we read For thousands of people do make it their very profession even as people here in London set up and profess a trade to lead their lives exactly according to the tenour of gospel noting every evening before they sleep all the deviations even of their very thoughts and making resolutions in the morning for the renewed practis of all such vertuous actions that may probably lye in their way and in particular such a vertue to day that to morrow this in the third and so they end their lives All the Catholick world knows I do not lye And all this is don not by any force of nature but against it by the meer power and vertue of their religion whereby I have known many men to subdue corrupt nature even to amazement and miracle And the various examples both of good people yet alive and of eminent saints departed whose cells and vestments and beads and books are yet reserved amongst them incourage Catholicks unto this vertuous adventure while not only by sight of their lives who live amongst them and of the mortified figures of the holy persons deceased and bloody necks of their martirs but also by sermons and the continual rites of the Church prefiguring before them the conversation and passion both of Jesus himself and his many glorious followers who have imitated his steps that none might think but that the same life might be led though not in the same degree and the same valour be shown in undergoing both carnal castigations and death even by meer man through the grace of him who strengthens us to all things they are made continually to remember and seriously lay to heart both what they are to do and whom to imitate by which reflections they are more moved towards all the good works of piety than without them such a poor weak spirit as mans is housed in mouldring clay could ever bee And that this hath been the practis of the Christian Church in all times to set before the people the lively pourtraits of their holy and well deserving foregoers for their greater incitation unto semblable good works unto which their religion calls them I could easily show throughout all ages but that I intend here to speak no more than what may somwhat allay the preconceived prejudice we have taken up against the Popes religion especially in the few particulars I touch upon of which I speak no more than what I think may suffice to unbeguile such as list seriously to ruminate upon the truth And if in these things which seem harder to us their caus be just I should think the lesser prejudices should fall away of themselvs and we at length love one another as we ought for no man I think does willingly hate the innocent Only two testimonies of the primitive respect unto saints and their images amongst Christians taken not out of the bowels of the Church but from her enemies one from the Jew the other from the Pagan sufficiently known in history I cannot but here mention The Jews in the first three ages of the Church even from the apostles to Constantine the great accused the Christians not only in private but even before the Roman emperours and Senate of three great violations of Moses law first that they broke the sabboth and had turned it from the seventh day of the week unto the first making that holiday which Moses ordained for work and that a working day which Moses made holy secondly that they worshipped images of their saints and kept them not only in their houses but in their oratories and chappels thirdly that they brought in a strange God Jesus Christ they meant which neither they nor their forefathers knew all which seemed expresly against the letter not only of the general law but of the two tables of the ten commandements The pagan all over the empire laughed at the Christians for three ridiculous worships of theirs namely of a breaden God of the priests genitals and of an asses head the first whereof proves the primitive sacrifice of which I have already spoken the second their confession the third their use and respect they had of images for the Jewes had defamed Jesus Christ our Lord whose
them or to them in the catholick but not in the protestant sens If any one like not this my way of explicating this holy custom of the Church he may use what other he pleases But this I do use as most facile and connatural to pious oratory which easily diverts unbeleevers objections and best answers to the state not only of Christian saints but also those of the old law who could not see the necessities of men upon earth by any mirrour of divine essence which then they enjoyed not and yet they were prayed unto then as well as the Christian Saints be now And to me it seems irrational to defend an easy custom of religion by a hard subtility of philosophy which clears not but renders that obscure and doubtful which was clear and utterly undoubted of before All Christians ever beleeved saints invocation to be lawful and pious but it entered not into the Creed of any that those of another world either hear or see what we do in this and this opinion brought to clear the other practis is harder to beleev than it and no point of faith neither although by the subtility of Christian Philosophers it be rendered probable enough to such as allowed of the Christian custom aforehand This pious rite of saints-invocation common to the Hebrew and Christian Church is necessarily justified upon the supposal of three principles which all I think will grant First that Gods grace whereby men are made partakers of the divine nature is in a singular manner in some persons more than others secondly that the souls of those holy people and merits of their good works are immortal with God even after their death thirdly that God cannot dislike the reflections of his divine nature diffused in them out of the fulnes of his beloved son when any one makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight And all protestant objections as Come unto me saith Christ c. are but childish for who does a man come unto or go unto but Christ and God alone when he sues to none but him for grace and mercy whether he use or use not the helps of other intercessour with himself to facilitate his request As innocent therefor is popery in this as in any other her religious practises and we destitute of argument to carp at them for it Let us therefore love and not hate rather honour than diminish them without caus §. 28. Dirge ALl over the catholick world prayers are constantly made for the dead both in publick and private Insomuch that one day in a week the altar is set apart for that purpos and it is a rare thing when one half hour in every day is not spent there by some priest or other together with the people for that end nor is there a private person in the world that makes any orisons apart but will send forth som short ejaculations for the requiem of souls departed before he give over So that I may truly say it is as ordinary for Catholicks to pray for the dead as for the living and for one another as for themselvs And this custom carries with it so great a show of piety that for my part I could never dislike it and I have heard but few discreet persons speak otherwise against it than only as an ungrounded opinion For of it self what can it be but purest humanity to remember our friends when they are out of sight and to pray for them even after their deceas a most pious charitablenes The question is whether the doctrin be well grounded or whether it may make for good accordingly to use it If the deceased be utterly dissolved and soul and body equally extinguished then it is likely my praier cannot avail for any benefit nor will it becom either my charity or discretion to pray for them that are not for God is not the God of the dead but of the living as our Lord speaks nor is he to be requested for benefits to any thing that is not existent and absolutely incapable to receiv them But if their souls be still immortal with God where or in what condition soever they be it cannot hurt I should think either me or them to wish them well for wheresoever they are if so be they are any thing they are present to God who fills all things if not more yet assuredly as much as we that live this mortal life and as they themselvs were when they lived amongst us and God whom we pray unto is equally present both to them and us who assuredly hears and sees and knows us both And since the Almighty has set a limit to our knowledg none to our charity towards any man no reason can be given why I may not wish well unto them all my life time even after their deceas whom I might pray for while they lived even by the command of him who bad me do well unto all and have love which is ever accompanied with well wishes and praiers even to my very enemies never prescribing me either limit of time or measure of charity Those I pray for after their deceas must needs be if they be yet subsisting either in hell or heaven or som third place I speak vulgarly that I may be understood not heeding at all whether a soul in Aristotles philosophy may be said in rigour to be in any place or no in right reason whatsoever is must needs be somwhere and that is all my meaning If the soul I pray for should chance even then to be in heaven then my prayer for him is answerable to Gods will and so not evil but good whiles I beg rest to him to whom God hath given it for prayer though it often supposes yet it doth not necessarily require a want of the good thing prayed for in him I wish it unto otherwayes I could not say as well and truly Our father who art in heaven sanctified be thy name thy kingdom com thy will be don as I say afterwards Give us this day our daily bread c. In the former there is no want to be imagined for they both are and shall be whether I pray so or no and I do but only show my love and charity to God in wishing him to be as he is most holy powerful and just and desiring that to him which he neither does nor ever can want all sanctity power and glory but in the other requests a want is presupposed before the petition If he should be in hell fith it is not Gods will I should know so much I can no more be interpreted to gainsay his pleasur than when I prayed for the same person upon earth and wished him what he should never have for even then also I knew no more of Gods disfavour towards him than now I do and my good wishes in both places presented ever under a tacite condition of Gods good pleasur may be equally acceptable in order to any effect either
along with him in his train and service all those holy prophets and patriarks of the old law who had in their place of detention waited for the consolation of Israel I say St. Peter must suppose that proposition on which the firmitude of his whole discours was chiefly grounded to be admitted by the Jews for true otherwise his argument had been inefficacious and had neither proved Christs ascension nor yet Jesus to be Christ and if the Jews had beleeved Davids soul to be in heaven though not his body yet still the argument in my judgment had fallen short All this infers that the Hebrew Church did beleev a detention of spirits citra coelum and that the Rich man might go to hell before Christ but Lazarus the happy went but into Abrahams bosom that is to say unto that repose where Abraham David and all the antient patriarks expected the light and redemption of Israel and not into heaven it self And they might very well so beleev for how can any one hope for that upon anothers gift which he never promised when he promised all other things but it heavenly bliss amongst all the fair promises made in the law of Moses was never so much as mentioned nor those people ever put in hope of it for any good work they should do But in the new testament of our Messias heaven which himself should open to his faithful is frequently promised as an immens motive and incitement to good words they should for his love by the assistance of his grace act and persever in unto the end Yet so too as that in the execution of this promis it is sufficiently insinuated that if any spirit issue out of his body not absolutely purified himself may indeed by the use of such means of grace as our Lord instituted be saved yet so as by fire 1 Cor. 3. And therfore our blessed Saviour speaking of the severall trespasses we make in this life gives us this counsel to set all right and straight as far as we can while we are here in via in the way of this life for if once by death we be delivered up to the place of hold detention or prison ther will be no getting forth thence till the utmost farthing be paid Math 5. that is as holy fathers do jointly interpret the place till absolute satisfaction be made either by sufferance or suffrages And that redemption or remission of some sins may be had after this life is enough insinuated unto us by himself when he tells us that there be some sins that shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come For if any should tell me here in England that som criminall offences will neither be pardoned at the Sessions nor at the Kings bench at Westminster he sufficiently insinuates if he speak properly that releas may be had for som other offences in both the places S. Paul in his epistles although he do somtimes indirectly hint at this doctrin of expiation after this life yet does he not directly make use of it as a topick place either in his exhortation to vertue or disswasion from vice But the reason is manifest for being a thing mixt of good and ill it could serv sufficiently to neither purpos and heaven being now lately promised to all those that walk piously in Christ Jesus was a more full and stronger motive of perswasion as also was hell a greater argument of affrightment then the interjacent place of expiation however penall could be which by reason of the temporality of the sufferance and hopes of approaching glory admits some comfort to mitigate the terrour and again by reason of the penalty of that condition and trouble of expectation carries enough of terrour to allay to comfort of the place And yet incidentally and without design ther is there to be found as much of purgatory as of the liturgy the trinity primitive absolution and other mysteries of faith In a word the thought of heaven served well both to incourage people to the utmost perfection of charity and good works and to comfort them also in tribulations which the memory of their expiation before it could not do And on the other side if any were wicked for such a one purgatory would neither be a seasonable nor sufficient menace Yet both all their life time and especially when they came to dye all records of primitive times will tell us how careful the antient Christians were to provide for their souls assistance after death And accordingly S. Austin commends the piety of his mother Monica in that she begged so earnestly of him her son to be mindful of her soul when he stood at the altar to pray heartily for her after her deceas and he sets down at large in the ninth book of his Confessions c. 12. and 13. the dirge and sacrifice and prayers he made both for her and her husband Patricius And the doctrin of expiatory punishments after this life he teaches in several places of his many learned volumes In his 20 book de civitate dei c. 9.13.16 and 24. In his comment upon the 37 psalm In his book of fifty homilies hom 16. In his 41 sermon de sanctis In the 110 chapter of his Enchiridion In his book de cura pro mortuis c. 2. and 4. By which and other places we may see that S. Austin was not only of this catholick opinion but he was also a priest himself who both taught and practised it sacrificing at the altar for souls departed And so was S. S. Bede German Constantinopolitanus Jo. Damascen and Alcuin in the eight age of the Church not to mention later times S. S. Isidore Eligius and the fathers of the eleventh councel of Tolledo in the seventh age S. S. John Climacus Gregory the great and the Fathers of the councel of Valentia in the sixt S. S. Jo. Chrysostome with the above-named S. Austin Paulinus Eucherius Lugdunensis Victor Vticensis Socrates and Theodores in the fist S. S. Eusebius Caesariensis Athanasius Basilius Magnus Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus Gregorius Nazianzen and Nyssen Epiphanius Ambrosius and Hieronimus in the fourth S. S. Eusebius Alexandrinus Zeno Veronensis and Origen in the third S. S. Ireneus Hermes and Tertullian in the second who were all of them priests catholick Roman priests and publickly taught as I am able to make it apparent out of their works this venerable religious doctrin of the souls expiation after death before it arrive to heavenly bliss by the prayers and pennances and alms deeds of the faithful left behind them in this world and did it and practised it themselvs in their houses altars and oratories according as they had received it from the first age which they found in an universal beleef and practis of the same truth as even yet appears by the antient liturgies and testimonies of S. Matthews S. Mark S. James the elder and the younger S. Clement and S. Denyse the Areopagite Thus Popery did
Antichrist frog caterpillar serpent c. Besides the absence of the person we calumniate flout and expose to derision is a circumstance that does not a little aggravate the fact and renders it no less foolish and irrational than 't is unjust and rude It is a wonder that our Protestant byshops should countenance these disorders A wise woman will not hear her child call her neighbor Whore without the application of a just rebuke knowing that such like impudence being countenanced may imbolden him at last to call Her so too Indeed the judgment is already com home to our doors for now our byshops of England are as contumeliously treated in the pulpits by their own ministers as the byshop of Rome was by their connivance and applaus abused aforetime in the same place by the self-same persons Nor have ther been any in this land more furiously bent these last twenty years against our good King than they who to flatter our former princes most passionately reviled the Pope and the seed of those men who in the dayes of Edward the sixth Queen Elisabeth and King James plotted so vehemently against the Catholick Church and nobility even to their utter disgrace and ruin under a pretens of establishing our State were now the onely great fighting sticklers against our State and Monarchy I give only this note by the way to reach all men to do to another as they would others do to them and no othewaies for God is just and punishes all iniquity of men oftentimes with those very rods and scorpions which themselves used before to plague their innocent neghbours who when they knew the justice of God yet would they not understand that they which do such things are worthy of death and not only they who do them but they also who consent and yield compliance to the doers But that I may a little lay open to my countreymen the unreasonablenes of our proceedings in hating and reviling a Person whom Catholicks on the contrary do so much esteem and love to what I have already said let thus much be added That the Pope is one whose whole life and study is to defend innocence promote concord and maintain unity of Faith in the world nor is ther any man but he alone that looks to the general safety of all Christianity and in all times like a faithful pastour he hath so don it as if it were not so much his office to do it as his nature And this we might easily see if we would look over antient stories and not suffer our selves to be misled by the reports of those who think themselves undon if he that would curb their extravagancies should com to be thought of according to his true deserts I might make it good in many particulars but I will content my self onely to run over briefly the eighteen general councels that have been in several ages in the Christian world and their results and motives wherby men may be perswaded to think that the Pope is so far from what we in England are made to conceiv of him that he is the only man that hath fought in all times for the unity of faith for concord and the good of all Christendom when other byshops and believers under him began many of them to revolt and disturb our welfar Nor had we had any thing left us at this day either of truth or unity humanly speaking had not he been set over us and watched to make and keep us happy even against som of our wills 1. Arrius a priest in Alexandria had seduced many priests deacons nuns byshops and princes to beleev amiss against the divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord when Pape Sylvester rose up against him and fought stoutly for the honour of our Messias in his general councel at Nice in the year 325. and so did other Popes his successours after him for som hundred years together 2. Pape Damasus in the second general councel at Constantinople with the like spirit of fortitude maintained as valiantly the divinity of the Holy Ghost against Macedonius priest and byshop of Constantinople and Eunomius that insolent Cappadocian and all their retinue as he did likewise that of Christ an 381. 3. When Nestorius a byshop with his priest Anastasius gave great scandals in Constantinople by denying the virgin Mary to be mother of God for that in Christ they said were two persons and one of them was the son of the virgin the other son of God Pape Celestin stood up and quelled them and all their adherents in his councel at Ephesus in the year 430. 4. Pape Leo in a fourth generall councell at Chalcedon an 450. stopped the mouthes of Eutyches an Abbot in Constantinople and Dioscorus deacon in Alexandria who by their great dislike of Nestorius opinion ran into the other extream and affirmed Christ our Lord to have not only one person but one nature too which was as scandalous and as much against the faith of beleevers as was the former 5. In the fifth general councel at Constantinople an 553. when all the oriental part of the Church was in a combustion about the three heads or contents of Theodore byshop of Mopsuesten an epistle of Ibas and Theodoret byshop of Cyrus his writings against S. Cyril who had been all three honourably mentioned in the councel of Chalcedon and yet their writings were then found very scandalous and faulty Pape Vigilius though very sick and weak yet by his writings from his chamber he laboured abundantly and to good effect to asswage the feud 6. Pape Agatho in the sixth general synod at Constantinople an 680. when Cyrus Sergius Macarius and many other learned unquiet priests and byshops monothelites had spread the Eutichian heresy under other notions and taught that Christ had but one will and operation with much offence to the people he rose up and manfully resisted and subdued them 7. Pape Adrian combated no less for the use of images and crucifix against Gregorius Neocaesariensis Paul patriarch of Constantinople and several other Iconoclasts who tore and preached them down contrary to the judgment and practis both of the Christians then living and all their predecessors in the seventh general councel at Nice an 787. And in one and the same place was maintained by the whole catholick world both the images and divinity of the crucified Messias 8. Not long after in the eight general councel at Constantinople an 869 Pape Adrian the second defended the innocence of the great patriarch Ignatius whom suttle Photius by the help of some potentates in Constantinople had expelled his byshoprick and put himself in his place miserably harassing and vexing both the good prelate Ignace and all his adherents to the great disturbance of the East who were all in a hot feud about it 9. In the ninth general councel at Lateran an 1122 when after infinity of troubles the Church had recovered her peace pape Callixtus the second like a good vigilant pastour laboured to