to be Holy when it teaches Truth and Holiness So is the Universal Church Holy and so is every Member in its Communion Since that which makes it a Member in its Communion is its agreement with the whole in Doctrines taught by it both regarding Faith and Manners And from hence it follows that to ascribe Error and Corruption to any Church which is acknowledged a Member of the Catholic Church and for such pretended Errors to break off Communion with it is to do the same to the Universal Church and consequently to contradict an Article of Faith Now that this is the condition of the English-Church is manifest For since all Christians are under pain of damnation obliged to live in Communion with the Universal Church by being obedient to it's Laws and Governors as also to believe that this Universal Church is at this day extant where can an English Protestant hope to find this Church if not in the Roman Communion In the Greek-Church he will find the same Doctrine which in the Roman he calls dangerous Errours as besides the confession hereof by several Protestant Authors formerly hath been of late beyond all gainsaying evidenced by the indefatigable industry of Monsieur Arnaud in his two late Replies to Claude a Calvinist Minister from the Authentick Testimonials and Declarations both of several late Synods and of many Ecclesiastical Persons of eminency both in the present Greek and other Eastern Churches And besides these he will find other Doctrins which we all condemn as Heresies Then for pretended Corruptions in practice the same practices which he stiles Superstitious and Idolatrous principally touching the Blessed Sacrament he will find in the Greek Church far more distastful to him And as for other Eastern Sects besides the same Practises he will find himself obliged if in Communion with any of them to assent to Ancient Universally condemned Heresies Nestorianism Eutychianism Monothelitism c. §. 26. Prot. But no doubt God hath his Elect Servants among them all who are truly Orthodox as we are with whom we may be said to be united in Spirit Cath. Truly Sir this is a meer pittiful dream to talk of Communion in spirit with hidden Christians to you invisible as you are also to them This renders all the Discourses of the Holy Fathers touching the Churches Visibility and Unity utterly impertinent Yea this evacuates the Predictions of all Gods ancient Prophets foretelling the Extent Glory and Victories of the Kingdom of the Messias and it makes void the Promises of our Saviour touching his Church What meaning therefore can you frame to your self when you say You acknowledg a perpetually existent Catholic Church and a necessity imposed on all Christians to live in her Communion §. 27. Pr. We acknowledg our selves in Communion with all Christian Societies as far as they teach Truth and practise according to Christs Law Cath. So you may be said to communicate with Iews Turks and Insidels for some Truths are taught by all these and some of their practises are lawful But is this such a Communion as the Church Catholic anciently or as the First four General Councils required It is manifest that at the time of your first Separation there was not one Society of Christians in the world to whose Profession of Faith you would subscribe in whose Religious Worship you would joyn and by whose Laws you would be governed So that all Christians then living and visible in the World were to you as Heathens and Publicans and you the very same to them Were your first Reformers in Communion with them Certainly you will not say that the Roman Grecian and Oriental Churches though they will not deny but you teach some Truths and sometimes practise virtues do live in your Communion that is That Persons mutually excommunicating one another do at the same time live in one Communion or that Pastors live in Communion with those who renounce Obedience to them and abhorr the Faith taught by them §. 28. P. Why Sir would you have us allow such a way of Communion as you seem to understand to Societies which we firmly believe do teach damnable Errours and enjoyn Idolatrous or Superstitious Practises Cath. No Sir by no means But since there is on earth a visibly holy Catholic Church placed as a City upon a Hill with which you must under pain of damnation communicate in such a manner as Christians did in the time of the first four General Councils I adjure you not to rest where you now are in Schism from all visible Churches preceding your Separation but to find Her out and having found her out to depose an overweening conceit of your own abilities to censure and condemn her Doctrines and with Christian Humility to submit your self entirely to her Guidance by which means you will be sure to find rest of mind §. 29. Prot. This seems to me a task too hard to be undertaken Cath. That which makes it seem so hard to you is perhaps a secret whisper of Nature and self-love telling you that this may expose you to many worldly disadvantages or if not this a strong prejudice by education deeply imprinted in your mind against the Roman Church the condemning and reviling of which is the subject of most Books you read and of most of the discourses and Sermons you hear I name the Roman Church because I am perswaded that if you should happen to entertain any Doubts of the security of the Grounds of Protestant Religion it would not be the Grecian nor any of the other Oriental Churches whose Religion you would put in the scales against it but only the Roman from whence you had your Christianity your Church her subsistence and within the Limits and Iurisdiction of whose Patriarch you live Do I not judg aright Prot. Yes §. 30. Cath. Then Sir though at present you should have no doubts of any Doctrines taught by your Church or rather in it for your self will not allow her the Title of an authentic Teacher neither does she challenge it yet since you have voluntarily fixed your self in such a Church which not pretending to an infallible direction from God cannot with any shew of reason tell you that you are bound in conscience to believe any one of her Doctrines nor that it is a sin for you to leave her Communion and to chuse that of any other Society which you may like better for then all Christians should as well as you be obliged to joyn themselves to the English Church only Endeavour I beseech you with a mind as disinteressed as may be to hearken to what may be alledged for the Right which the Roman Church has to challeng your Obedience so as that the refusal of such Obedience would be an heinous Sin For this Right indeed She challenges and She alone No other ancient Church hath and no par ticular Sect doth or can pretend to it Prot. I am content §. 31. Cath. First then consider that
abilities or blind passion against all Guides establish'd in Gods Church if Divine Revelation consent of Antiquity manifest Reason and even experience by outward Sensation may be fit to guide me I must not be a Protestant I must of necessity be a Roman Catholic For Divine Revelation interpreted also by consent of Fathers and Councils informs me that Christ hath established on Earth a visible Church which is one holy and Catholic the common Mother and only authentick Teacher of all Christians that this Church shall remain such to the end of the World and that whosoever is not a true faithful Member of this Church is thereby cut off from the Mystical Body of Christ and shall be eternally separated from Him Again evident Reason shews that no Person or Society can be esteemed a Member of any Church any other way than by believing its Doctrines and being subject to its Laws and Government In the third place the testimony of our Senses assures us that not any of our Modern Sects do assent to the Doctrines or are governed by the Laws of any Church at all and consequently not of the Catholic Church which had a being at their first pretended Reformation therefore upon these grounds it evidently follows that all the said Sects are manifestly guilty of Schism Moreover since the Roman is that Church of which the first Reformers once were Members and by reforming made a separation from it and since the same Church does constantly profess the same Doctrines which were once held by the Universal Body of Orthodox Christians and again since there is not any visible Church upon earth to which all marks of the true Church assigned in Scripture and by the Holy Fathers can be so applied and whereto the Antient Prophecies and the Promises of Christ have been so perfectly accomplished as the Roman it will evidently follow that the present Roman Catholic Church ought to be acknowledged that one Holy Catholic Church which we confess in the Apostles Creed and by consequence whatsoever Doctrines in opposition to the Faith professed in this Church are taught by Protestants they are thereby without any particular discussion legitimately prejudged to be formal Heresies Now Heresie and Schism being by all even by Hereticks and Schismaticks themselves acknowledged most dreadfully wasting Crimes of which I cannot possibly be guilty whilst I adhere to the Roman Catholic Church nor avoid the guilt of them by forsaking its Communion I conceive I have without any necessity of engaging in particular Disputes given you rational Grounds enabling me to afford a sufficient Answer to the Question first proposed by you viz. Why are you a Catholic §. 40. And for a conclusion Sir give me leave to tell you that it will be utterly in vain for you to atempt the avoiding of the stigmata brands of Heresie and Schism by entring into an endless Dispute about particular Controversies to be stated out of Books For till you be able to shew a present Visible Orthodox Church the Governors and Teachers whereof are derived by a continual Succession from the Apostles which Church in all those Points for which you have separated from the Roman teaches as you do and either governs you or is governed by you Till this I say be done your busying your self about particular Disputes will never produce to you Peace of mind but rather encrease in you Pride and Malice against others Your first most necessary Care therefore must be to establish your self in such a Church as can oblige you to believe her for by no other way can you nor your Teachers avoid Self-condemnation as manifest Innovators There are certain illustrious marks assigned by the holy Scriptures and Fathers to distinguish the true Catholic Church from Congregations of Hereticks and Schismaticks such are Unity Succession Universality Converting of Nations Miracles c. And these are such marks as are perceptible by the meanest capacities to the end that none should be excused if they mistake the Church Now not one of these so visible marks belongs to you and not one but belongs to the Roman Catholic Church §. 41. When you are urged to shew some signs or marks which might invite any to joyn with you all you can say is That you teach truth and that you duly administer the Sacraments that is you would prove your selves to be a true Church because you say you are a true Church for not the marks but the essence of a Church consists in teaching Truth c. But marks of his Church easily observable by all men were appointed by God to lead the Simple as well as the Learned to discover that Church which only teacheth Truth and duly administers his Sacraments Not any such marks do you pretend to shew And as for this your miscalled single Mark the Unlearned cannot possibly judg whether you do indeed teach Truth c. and the Learned must have spent their whole lives before they can be in a capacity to judg And though they should be so unhappy as to suffer themselves to be convinced that you do teach Truth c. yet till you can further demonstrate that you are not guilty of Schism but that you communicate with that one holy Catholic Church which you believe in the Creed it would notwithstanding all the truth pretended to be taught by you be a damnable sin in them to communicate with you These things considered since I am confident it is impossible for you to clear this point I believe you will find an insuperable difficulty to prepare according to the method observed here a tolerable general answer sufficient to vindicate your Church in case I should by way of exchange propose to you this Question Why are you a Protestant Prot. Judg not Sir too hastily Perhaps at our next meeting you will hear more than you now expect In the mean time I thank you for your Charity And God willing I will seriously reflect on what hath been said Cath. Farewel Sir and if you think good cast your eyes upon this little bundel of Citations out of several ancient Holy Fathers of the Church who will tell you that upon the very same grounds which have been here discoursed on they were good Christians and Catholics Prot. If they tell me so I shall not easily contemn what they tell me Farewel ✚ ¶ TESTIMONIES of HOLY FATHERS regarding The Substance of the foregoing DISCOURSE §. 1. Of the Churches prepetual Existence Visibility c. OBscurius dixerunt Prophetaeâ—de Christo quam de Ecclesia Puto propterea The Prophets have spoken more obscurely concerning Christ than concerning the Church The reason hereof I conceive to be because they foresaw in Spirit that men would make divisions and parties and that they would not much dispute about Christ himself but that they would raise great contentions about the Church Therefore that was more plainly foretold and more openly prophecyed concerning which greater contentions would in succeeding times
wilfully misinterpret Scripture to their own destruction especially in Points Fundamental which are so clearly set down in Scripture that no sober Enquirer can be mistaken in them Cath. Well Sir I have at present done asking Questions and now better enabled by what you have said will endeavor to give you a fuller Answer to the Question you proposed in the begining viz. Why are you a Catholick §. 11. First then Sir I am a Catholick because I believe that Christ the Author and Finisher of our Faith is infinitely both good wise and omnipotent His goodness inclined him to come down into this world to save mankind by establishing a Church upon earth which should remain till the end of the world and in which the way to Heaven should be so taught as not only the Wise and Learned but the Poor Simple and Ignorant also should by Faith and Obedience be made partakers of Eternal Happiness Now his goodness having designed this his wisdom enabled him to appoint ways and means proper to effect that his blessed Design and omnipotence to make those means successful § 12. The general efficacious means to accomplish this are first The revealing his whole will to his Church which we acknowledg to be sufficiently done in Holy Scripture as to all points absolutely necessary to Salvation though in all those points not so clearly to every one that without a Teacher their sense may not be mistaken Neither doth Scripture make an express discernment of what points are necessary And secondly The assisting of this his Church with fidelity and a constant performance of her duty in declaring all necessary Divine Truth manifested to her to her Subjects with a command that all Christians should obey and submit to what she shall teach or enjoyn them God having thus revealed his whole Will to his one Catholic Church it necessarily and evidently follows 1. That Ignorance or Error in any Points of Christian Doctrine necessary to Salvation is damnable 2. That a Seperation from this one Church is damnable also upon what pretence soever the separation be made §. 13. Now to avoid eternal Misery thus threatned by Error or Schism only one of these two ways is possible 1. By ones own light to penetrate into all Mysteries so as to be most firmly assured of a right understanding of all necessary verities revealed by God in Holy Scriptures 2. Or out of a distrust of our own abilities to submit our Reason and internal Assent to Authority The former of these ways all Sects divided from the Roman Church and among themselves do uniformly take being forced hereto by denying any visible Society of men to have any authority obliging the Consciences of their Subjects and by conseqence they have all if any an equal Title that is indeed equally none at all to challenge belief one as well as another neither can they rationally without deserting their common Ground condemn or excommunicate one another The latter way we Catholics only take and as we think prudently and surely §. 14. For Sir I beseech you to consider what a busy laborious task you have undertaken by being a Protestant of what Sect among them soever you are Before you can promise to your self any rest of mind in the Peculiar Fundamental Doctrines of your Sect your Conscience must satisfy you that you have not embraced a Religion by hazard but after a diligent sincere and effectual examination of all the Reasons and arguments not only of Catholicks submitting to Authority but also of other Sectaries who proceeding your way of interpreting Scripture by a private light do condemn your Doctrines or whose Doctrines you condemn To be able to do all this how many Volums of Controversy are you obliged to read and examine Besides this it will be absolutely necessary that you be perfectly studyed in all the Books of Scripture with the best Commentaries on them both Ancient and Modern since you ground your Religion upon a sense of Scripture which perhaps not any of them will allow and then in equity you are to examine their reasons for it Now what one mans age will suffice for all this business though but in one or two Points controverted and though the party were learned and had never so much leasure What then shall ignorant persons do who yet make up the greatest number of Christians What shall Trades-men and Day-Labourers do who can scarce allow from their necessary Vocations any time at all dayly even to say their Prayers yet it concerns all these upon the venture of Eternal Happiness or Misery not to forsake or embrace a Religion without a sufficient Examination made by themselves of the grounds of it since they are told and believe it that they must trust to themselves only because no external Authority upon Earth can require from them a submission of their judgment inasmuch as according to their general fundamental Positions no Authority is infallible §. 15. Now whereas you said That all Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity are so clearly set down in Scripture that no sober Enquirer can be mistaken in them If this were true yet since neither the Scripture nor you your selves do clearly express which and how many Doctrines are fundamental every tittle of Scriptures must be read and examined by every one of you for fear a necessary Doctrine should chance to escape you But to demonstrate the groundlesness of that your Assertion I desire you to reflect on the prodigious multiplicity of Sects swarming in this age all which ground their Belief upon pretended clear Texts of Scripture alone you will then scarce find one Article of Christian Faith exempted from their Disputes There are not wanting who deny the Mistery of the Holy Trinity the Divinity and Incarnation of our Lord the Divine Personality of the Holy Ghost Some absolutely deny Freewill whilst others exalt the power of it so high as to affirm Divine Grace unnecessary to its best Operations Some affirm our Nature to be so incurably polluted by Original Sin as that all the best actions of the Regenerate are Mortal Sins Others will acknowledge no Original Sin at all Some affirm Baptism necessary to Salvation even of Infants Others reject Infant-Baptism and Calvinists assert that Infants without Baptism are sanctified by their Parents faith and that some Infants dying though baptized may be damned Some believe mans Soul to be mortal and that it perisheth with the Body not having any Knowledg or Sentiment after death Some confine God to a determinate place in Heaven and also deny his Prescience of future Contingents Lastly some deny an Eternity of torments in Hell Surely you will not deny most of these to be contrary to Fundamental Doctrines of our Faith yet all who maintain these Tenets and all Sectaries who contradict them do ground themselves upon express Scripture which to you seems so clear You cannot be more confident that you have light on the true sence of Scripture than they of a
contrary sense and only self-love and selfe-esteem determine both the one and the other Can it then be prudence in any man to hazard Eternity upon his own sence of Scripture the half of which perhaps he never read Commonly a Text or two concludes every point controverted when perhaps there are twenty Texts unconsidered by the Person which would rectify the sence he gave to the former Is that Guide to be trusted which has seduced such infinite Multitudes opposing calumniating and hating one another All Mankind may be witness that this Private Light hath hitherto never been able to confute or undecieve one Sect. In a word is it not in effect an injurious blaspheming of the Goodness Wisdom and Omnipotence of God to affirm that he has obliged under penalty of damnation all Christians to unity of Faith in all necessary Doctrines and also that he hath promised to conserve his Church in this Unity to the end of the world and on the other side to affirm withal that the only Means appointed by him to produce this Unity should be a certain Means of destroying Unity and which if made use of by all Christians the gates of Hell would be too strong for him so that there would scarce be left a Church upon earth §. 16. Truly Sir I do not know through what Spectacles you look upon this principle of Protestancy which hath been indeed the constant Principle of all Ancient-Herities But to me it appears most horribly gastly and only fit to be acknowledged the invention of Lucifer the foul Spirit of Pride and contention who presents to unwary Christians once more this fruit of the Tree of the knowledg of good and evil to be aspired to by our own endeavors and contrary to Gods appointment Since therefore as hath been said there are but those two ways to arrive at the knowleg of Divine Mysteries contained in Scripture yet so contained as that the Texts in which they are contained are subject to be miss-understood viz. First A man 's own private Reason And Secondly Authority of Superiors by Gods appointment placed in his Church All the Reason I have enforces me to chuse this latter way because thereby I shall avoid inconstancy otherwise unavoidable as I am taught by St. Paul who sayes Eph. 4. 11 12 c. That therefore God placed in his Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers for the edification of the Body of Christ a Succession of which is to last till we all meet in the Unity of Faith c. This Almighty God did says he To the end we should not be like children wavering and carried about with every wind of Doctrine through the wickedness of men and cunning of such as would circumvent us with errour the only remedy whereof in the Apostles judgment is submission to Authority To which submission also I am obliged by an express command of God Obedite praepositis vestris c. Heb. 13. 17. Obey them that are set over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give account And Reason thus divinely enlightned obliging me to submit to Authority I should renounce the same Reason utterly if I should not prefer that Society which by an evident Succession from the foresaid Apostles and Pastors makes the best claim thereto yea which alone claims an Authority obliging the Conscience and that is the Catholics Church the Authority whereof is evidently the greatest in the world For though all divided Sects preume to contend with her for Truth of Doctrines challenging that to themselves yet there is not any one of them which dares assume to themselves that eminence of Authority which manifestly appears in her And you may know this Catholio Church from others because it only challengeth an universal and absolute not conditional Obedience and you may know the Sons of it by their professing to give to the Churches Authority such Obedience §. 17. Now Sir consider how agreeable to Gods goodness and wisdom how suitable to humane capacities how helpful to mens necessities is this way of grounding our Faith on Gods Word as interpreted by the Catholic Church The far greatest part of Christians are too weak to maintain Disputes yet God loves the Poor and Ignorant at least as well as he does the Rich and Learned and takes care to bring them to Happiness without Learning sharpness of wit curiosity and study of knowledg Consequently he has chalked out a way to Heaven in which the Ignorant and Simple may walk securely And in what other way can these walk but in that of obedience to Authority This doubtless is that way foretold by the Prophet Isa. 35. 8. saying in Christs Kingdom There shall be a high way and it shall be called a holy way No polluted person shall pass through it This shall be to Christians a streight way so that Fools shall not err in it Now have Sectaries found out this streight way in which Fools cannot err Sectaries I say who have framed a confused Labyrinth in which there are a thousand cross paths and windings where every one wanders as it were with a dark Lanthorn in his hand and either stumbles into or phantastically chuses such a path as at the present pleases him best and leaves it also when he thinks good not taking direction from any other or not much caring for such directions By this means we see how that not only Fools and Ignorant but even the most Judicious amongst Sectaries following their own light do walk all their lives in quite contrary ways yet all believing that God by the Scripture directs them §. 18. Manifest therefore it is that Gods way being only one holy streight High-way not any Sectaries but all and only Catholics have been by Almighty God brought into it In as much as they distrusting the dim Light of their own Reason for discerning the Verities of Faith contested borrow the Churches Light thus exercising Christian Humility in not presuming upon their own Abilities and Christian Obedience in submitting to the Guidance of those Teachers and Governors whom God hath placed over them and who are to give an account of their souls These Heavenly Virtues are and have always been equally practised by both Ignorant Catholics out of necessity and by the most Learned out of Duty Yea those glorious Lights of Gods Church the holy Fathers and ancient Doctors though they were Fathers and Doctors to others yet to the Church herself they were humble Children and Disciples learning only from her and teaching others only what they had learnt from her This surely is a streight High-way and a Holy way too and whil'st the most Simple among Catholicks walk in this way they have an incomparable advantage in light above the most Learned of those which trust to their private light For they are guided by all the lights that is by the whole Body of those which God hath constituted Teachers in his Church in all ages and
of the Churches Decision is as followeth I profess that in the Mass is offered to God a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice for the Living and the dead By which Sacrifice that bloody Sacrifice performed once on the Cross is represented and the memory of it remains till the end of the world the saving vertue thereof is also applyed for the remission of those sins which are dayly commited by us All Catholics receive this Decision as it lyes As for School-men they according to their custom raise a world of unnecessary Disputes which are no where so multiplyed as on this incomprehensible Mystery of the Holy Eucharist But as many of their Questions seem no way necessary so no Catholics are obliged to their Decisions §. 75. Protestants set themselves against this Sacrifice upon a meer mistake of the Term which they will needs affirm to imply an Immolation and thereupon argue that the Roman Church manifestly contradicts the Authour of the Epistle to the Hebrews who affirms that Christ hath now once in the end of the world appeared to put away sin by the Sacrifice of himself And that he was once offered to bear the sins of many and thence concludes the absolute Perfection of that one Sacrifice of Christ once offered which did not need be repeated as the Legal Sacrifices did But this pretended Contradiction will quickly vanish if we consider that though the Sacrifices made by Christ did accomplish all sorts of Sacrifices and Oblations in the Law yet the forementioned Divine Authour in a special manner compares it to that great Anniversary Sacrifice of general Propitiation in which after the killing of the beast the High Priest alone and only once every year carryed the Blood into the Holy of Holies and there sprinkled it before God In like manner did our Saviour after his bloody Sacrifice on the Cross ascending into Heaven by his own blood entered into the most Holy place having obtained eternal redemption for us Now these two Acts of Priesthood are by his commission in a sort repeated by his Servants whom he hath ordained Priests in his Church and who according to Saint Augustine's expression are propriissime Sacerdotes in a most proper Sence Sacrificing Priests For answerably to the Acts of Immolation their Sacrifice on the Altar is only Representative and Commemorative and expressed by Seperating the Body from the Blood Yet so that it is not barely a Sign of Christs death for that alone would not be sufficient to entitle it a Sacrifice but it also contains the Victim whose death is represented And again with regard to Christs offering and presenting to his Father his crucified Body in the most Holy place or Highest Heaven his Priests truly and properly present and Offer to Almighty God the same Body and Blood really present on the Holy Altar as a Propitiation for the Living and the Dead Which Propitiation is not at all injurious to that Propitiation and Eternal Redemption purchased for us by our Saviour since it receives all its virtue from his bloody Sacrifice being instituted for an Application of the said Redemption For thus also in an inferiour degree the same Propitiation is applyed to us by other Sacraments as Baptism Pennance and Absolution and Extream Unction yea also by the Word preached c. And thus much even the French Calvinists do acknowledge in their Cene as hath been shewed Now I desire you to judge what prejudice can come by the various applications of Christs Merits Prot. There seems to me now no such great difficulty in admitting a Relative Sacrifice and a proper Oblation Therefore you need not enlarge this Point any further 7. Of Communion under One Species §. 76. Cath. The last Subject of Protestants quarrels against the Church with relation to the Holy Eucharist is her Ordaining to the Laity Communion under one Species only Now it is acknowledged that as our Saviour instituted this Sacrament in both Species so for many ages together it was in public Communions received accordingly I say in Public Communions for in other private occasions as in Sickness at Sea and generally among the devout Inhabitants of Desarts it was otherwise yet these receiving in One Species only did not esteem themselves deprived of any vertue pertaining to the integrity of the Sacrament And the reason is because they generally believed as the Church has now declared that it is most true that as much is contained in each Species as under both for whole and entire Christ does exist under the Species of Bread and under every particle of that Species in like manner whole Christ does exist under the Species of Wine and under its parts when separated Upon this ground the Church without intending the least prejudice to her Children has thought fit for avoiding many inconveniences and irreverencies which did frequently occur by the negligence and confusion of such vast multitudes of Communicants receiving the Blood also that all excepting the Priest who celebrated should content themselves in Public Communions as from the beginning Christians did in Private with our Lords Body only under the Species of Bread which is not obnoxious to the like inconveniencies considering that hereby they should not be loosers of any part of the Blessing §. 77. This regards the Holy Eucharist considered as a Sacrament But as it is a Sacrifice both the Species are necessary to the constitution of it it being ordained to represent the Death of Christ by shedding his Blood Which representation is made by Consecreating and offering both the Body and Blood separatly Matters standing thus it concerns you much to consider whether this be a just cause of your Speration from the Catholic Church in which you might have been partaker truly and really of the precious Body of Christ whereas in Congregations divided from her you instead of the Body and Blood of our Saviour must content your self with a morsel of meer bread and a sup of wine Prot. I will by Gods assistance think seriously on this In the mean time you may proceed to the following Points 8. Of Sacramental Confession Pennance and Satisfaction §. 78. Cath. The next Catholic Doctrine severely censured by you as an invention of the Clergys ambition is the Obligation imposed by the Catholic Church on her subjects to Confess their Mortal sins and to submit to satisfactions for them according to this Canon Whosoever shall deny Sacramental Confession to have been instituted by Divine Law or to be necesary to Salvation or shall affirm that the manner of Confession secretly to the Priest alone which the Catholic Church from the beginning hath allways and still doth observe is disagreeing from the institution and command of Christ and that it is a humane invention Let him be Anathema This Duty of Confession of sins seems by this Canon referred to that Commission and Privilege given by our Saviour to his Apostles and their Successours Whose soever sins ye remit they are