would not think he intended to treat the question in earnest seeing him begin with so serious a Preamble In the first five Paragraphs there is not a word concerning our question to be taken notice of in quality of a difficulty being nothing but a moral Preface indifferent to either side Only I desire by way of Memorandum that we may reflect well upon and bear in mind that vertue of ready and filial obedience of those under authority to their lawfully authorized Superiors mentioned by him and extolled for a vertue of the first magnitude And the indifferent Reader will aâ— once both easily discern hereafter whether the present Catholicks who hear the Church and believe her in her Lawfully authoriz'd Governors or the first Reformers who without any and against all Authority disobeyed and disbelieved her have the better title to that eminent vertue and he will also wonder why the Doctor should face his Book with the Encomiums of that Vertue the bare explication whereof applyed to the carriage of the first Reformers must manifestly condemn them and quite confute and disgrace all Doctor Hammonds laborious endeavours But a pretence to a vertue if confidently carried on seems to the vulgar an argument of a just claim and high commendations of it makes the pretence more credible For who willingly praises but what is either his own or his friends or dispraises but what is his enemies Which makes him in the next three Paragraphs proceed in the same tenor of Rhetorick and from Scriptures and Fathers paint â—ut the horrid vice of Schism in her own ugly shape as that it is carnality self-condemning contrary to charity bereaving one of the benefits of prayers and Sacraments as bad as and the foundation of all heresies that there is scarce any crime the place cited is absolute that there is not any crime though he mince it with scarce so great as Schisme not Sacriledg Idolatry Parracide that it is obnoxious to peculiar marks of Gods indignation Antichristianism worshiping or serving the Devil not expiable by martyrdom it being according to Iraenâ—â—s impossible though the Dr. mitigates the dangerous expression with very hard if not impossible to receive such an injury or provocation from the Governors of the Church as may make a separation excusable And lastly impossible according to St. Austin that there should be any just cause for any to separate from the Catholick Church Instead of which last words the Doctor full of jealousies and fears puts the Church truely Catholick as if there were much danger lest perhaps any should imagin Christs Church of which I conceive St. Austin meant it to be untruly Catholick And now what good honest well-minded Reader not much acquainted with the Doctors manner of Rhetorick would be so unconscionable as to think him guilty of that vice which he so candidly and largely sets forth in its own colours although in those expressions which might too directly prejudice his future work he seems something chary And indeed I wonder for whose sake he hath gathered such a bundle of severe rods out of the sacred Scriptures and the best Fathers to whip Schismaticks Such expressions as I hope will strongly incite the Protestant Reader whom a true care of his eternal good may invite to seek satisfaction in this point seriously to consider that the decision of no one controversie is more nearly concerning his salvation than this as appears by the abominable character of Schisme which the Doctor hath with so much pains deciphered to be an Abridgement of all the most hainons damnable inexcusable unexpiable vices that can be named or imagin'd Of which Augaean stable if Mr. Hammond can purge the Protestant Church he shall ever wear the most deserved title of the Reformers Hercules But I am sorry to foresee that the more he handles his work the more the dirt will remain sticking upon his own fingers He proceeds or rather infers from the former Premises an irrefragable Conclusion as he calâ— it that the examination of the occasion cause or motive of any mans Schism is not worth the producing or heeding in this matter This besides the manifest advantage it gives us of which hereafter is the preâ—tiest fetch to wave the whole question and whatsoever is material in it that I ever met with That you are excommunicated or separated from the Communion of our Church whence as you say the Schisme springs all the world sees and acknowledges What remains then to justifie or condemn you or us but that there was or was not sufficient cause to cast you out and deny you Communion For that our Church had authority to do it if you be found to deserve it being then her subjects or children none doubts If then there were no cause our Church was tyrannical If there were you are truely and properly Schismaticks first in giving just cause of your own ejection next in remaining out of our Church still and not removing those impediments which obstruct your return This is most evidently the very point of the difficulty which being in great haste to shorten your method you would totally decline Make what haste you please so you take the question along with you For assure your self however you would avoid it now you cannot possibly treat it without examining the causes and motives of breaking as de facto you do afterwards Although if you can evidence that there is actually no Schisme made between us then indeed I must confess there can be no need of examining the causes of a thing that is not But it is impossible to make this seem evident without putting out ours your own and the whole worlds eyes But you desire only that the truth of the matter of fact be lookt into whether the charge of Schisme be sufficiently proved c. It is proved Mr. Doctor if you be proved to have so misbehaved your selves within the Church that to conserve he Government inviolate she was forced to our-law you from her Communion These are the motives and causes which you conscious of and very tenderly sensible in those parts would have us leave untouch'd But on this we shall insist more at large when the very handling the question forces you though unwilling to touch the occasions or causes of Schisme at least such as you thought fit and seem'd most plausibly answerable by the notes you had glean'd up and down to that purpose SECT 2 Concerning his Notion of Schisme and the Excommunication of the Church HIs second Chapter begins with the distinction of Heresie and Schisme concerning which what he hath said is true but yet he hath omitted some part of the truth which was necessary to be told Wherefore let him but take along with him that not only Schisme is a dissenting from Authority and Heresie an introducing a false doctrine into the Church but also that all heresie which it concerns his cause to be willing to pretermit must necessarily include
ever imagin'd it a matter of Controversie needing to be manifested Whether or no King Henry the Eighth denied the Popes Supremacy The second is yet more ridiculous then the former since not even the most impudent Heretick in the World ever had the face to deny but that if the Popes Universal Authority was constituted by Christ the consequence was inevitable That it was both Schism and Heresie to reject and condem it as he confesses they did Yet is this the second thing saith he which we must manifest ere the Objection will be of any force But to make the jest compleat after telling us That we are to manifest them he out of his courtesie and to expedite the matter is pleased to grant them not requiring the pretenders farther to prove them As if he could have resisted them but had done us a great favor in saving us from a most disgraceful foil we should have sustained in maintaining That a fact was done which himself and all the world acknowledges and in being puzzled with proving that what Christ bid us do was to be done and the Authority instituted by God himself to be obeyed To what purpose was it to bring such unnecessary and frivolous distinctions and afterwards wave them But the Doctor as I have shown before and shall demonstrate more largely hereafter hath a most special gift of his own in dividing his Text and he must upon all or rather no occasion show it Which trick of his though it counterfeit an order and breed an apprehension of a methodical exactness in discourse to ordinary Readers yet when it shall be discovered to tend to no solidity being like the Philosophers dividing of Spatium imaginarium all men will see plainly it is but a meer knack to be-wonder Children and Ignorants SECT 7. Of Doctor Hammonds first Evidence against St. Peters Universal Pastorship BUt now the Question is stated this Chapter is to prove no Donation of any Primacy to St. Peter by Christ the next That no such Authority is devolv'd upon the Pope his Successor in the See of Rome And now the long-expected time of the Doctors Evidences is come I told you he had a horrible design in Lavander against the Pope now truth is come to light This this is the fatal time that the Horns of the Beast in the Apocalypse must be broken and the Walls of that Whorish-Babylon thrown down by the inevitable and unresistable Evidences of Dr. Hammond But to be serious the Doctor and I joyntly request the ingenuous Reader to bestow more attentive and deliberate diligence in examining and weighing well this part of the Controversie then what hath gone before The important weight of the truth in question now hot in pursuit and the very sound of Evidence now mainly pretended do both invite to a more particular attention The Doctor especially granting that the Question must be managed with Evidences and so concluded either on the one side or the other If the Doctors proofs conclude and manifest themselves to be indeed what they are pretended that is Evidences then I will grant the truth on his side and the controversie at an end But if all the Evidence they bring be onely that they are most evidently repugnant and most injurious to Gods Word to all Ancient Histories and to themselves that they are open Forgeries and most absurd Deductions shamefully abusing the Readers judgment and ev'n his very eyes then I hope the Reader will pardon me if I seem to bear less respect to him in telling him plainly of his faulâ—s who manifests himself to have quite cast off all respect to Truth Gods Word Antiquity his Readers and even to his own Conscience But the Doctor begins to argue have at Saint Peter then in this Chapter have at the Pope in the next His first Evidence then as he calls it is from Scripture That St. Peter was the Apostle of the Circumcision or Iews exclusively to the Uncircumcision or Gentiles Whence he insers that St. Peters authority being restrained to the Jews onely could not be Universal to the whole Church So that all his first Evidence is to evince the no-No-authority that Apostle had over the Gentiles or the Exclusiveness of any Apostleship in respect of them But first Mr. Hammond tells us what he means by an Apostle to wit A Commissioner of Christ endued with authority by him and this Commission given to him as to all the other Apostles indefinitely and unlimitedly not restrained by Christs words to any particular Province but equally extending to the whole World Where since he would go about to define an Apostle he might have done well to show in what he is distinguished from a Disciple However all he there says is true onely we adde That neither by any subsequent act of theirs as the Doctor imagines was this illimited Commission given to each by Christ restrained to particular sorts of men or several large Diocesses or Provinces so as to make them lose thereby their jurisdiction over other persons or places However they might agree for the better propagating the Gospel to disperse themselves into several Nations or by the provident cooperation of Gods Spirit have a more especial gift in converting some sorts of people then others and so applying more their industry where they experienced more fruit of their Preaching got thence by their particular addiction to that sort of people or that Nation the appellation of their Apostle or Doctor No Exclusiveness therefore of their ample Authority and Apostolical Jurisdiction from any Sect or Nation no hedging or fencing in the unbounded vastness of their universally-extended Mission and Commission within the Verge of any particular Province or People Yet Mr. Hammond will needs have all their Authorities limited for fear St. Peters should prove unlimited and therefore layes for his ground to conclude St. Peter Apostle of the Jews onely That they distributed their Universal great Province into several lesser ones This he evidences for you must conceive that all these Chapters are perfectly connected discourses that is manifest and noon-day Evidences out of two places in the Sacred Scripture in explicating which also his chief talent-lies These therefore we must endeavor to clear as far as our abilities will give us leave For the Reader can imagine no less but that these two places being the foundation of the Doctors future discourse must be most unconfutable Evidences and consequently must needs cost as much toil and labor in the answering The first place he alledges to prove That the Apostles had especial and peculiar Provinces exclusively to one another is that of Acts 1. 25. where the Apostles pray God to shew Whether of the two proposed justus and Matthias he had chosen that he might receive the lot of that Ministry and Apostleship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence â—udas strayed to go to his own place where he will needs have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to
who denies it Therefore what Ergo Kings are supreme in Ecclesiastical affairs How follows that since the onely word is wanting to wit supreme which can make good the inference The affairs of the Head depend on the Arms and Shoulders therefore will the Doctor infer they are supreme or highest as though dependence could not be both mutual and unequal It must needs argue a Soul very empty of reason to catch thus at every shadow of any aery word and think to deduce thence a full sentence The fourth is from Optatus noting it as a schismatical piece of language in the Donatists to say Quod Imperatori cum Ecclesiâ What has the Emperor to do with the Church citing for it his second Book But though perhaps I may be mistaken in not seeing so small a Testimony I finde no such thing in that place he quotes Indeed I finde that ancient Father arguing like a present Catholike calling the Doctor Schismatick and quite confuting and contradicting all his book saying Negare non potes scire te in urbe Româ PETRO PRIMO Cathedram Episcopalem esse collatam in quâ sederit omnium APOSTOLORUM CAPUT PETRUS Thou canst not deny that in the City of Rome the Episcopal Chair was given to PETER THE FIRST in which sate PETER THE HEAD OF ALL THE APOSTLES Then he proceeds to reckon up all the Popes of Rome successors of S. Peter till Pope Siricius who lived in his days Cum quo nobis totus orbis in commercio Formatorum in unâ Communionis societate concordat With whom the whole world agrees in one society of Communion by correspondence of communicatory Letters And afterwards probatum est nos esse in Ecclesiâ Sanctâ Catholicâ per Cathedram Petri quae nostra est per ipsam caeteras Dotes apud nos esse etiam Sacerdotium It is proved that we are in the holy Catholike Church by the chair of Peter which is ours what will become of the Doctor who can lay no claim nor hath any right to it nay hath disclaimed its right and who findes here a reason why we may justly be called Roman Catholikes It follows and by the chair of Peter other gifts are also with us even Priesthood Alas poor Doctor Hammond who having lost Communion with that Church hath lost also his Priesthood Mission and power to preach if this holy Father say true What hard fortune it was that Optatus lived not in the primitive times for then the Doctor had believed him and turned Papist but in regard he wrote after the three hundreth year the fatal period of any certain truth in Gods Church as the Doctor afterwards intimates he hath quite lost his labour and his Authority is invalid for writing Truth so late As for the Testimony it self which probably is this Fathers in some other place I see no difficulty at all in it For the Emperor being a nursing Father to the Church whose secular power she invoked to punish and repress such as were the Donatists none but Schismaticks would deny that power so granted to be sufficiently Authoritative to punish their pernicious Apostasie Then follow six Testimonies out of heathen writers all in a cluster that their Kings ought to be Priests and Augurs c. and the Doctor would have the example transfer'd to Christianity Indeed if Iesus Christ had not come from heaven to found a Church and besides what hath been said of St. Peters Primacy left it under the Government of Ecclesiastical persons the Apostles committing all jurisdiction in affairs of that nature to them without dependence of any secular superior then for any thing I know we might have come ere this to have been in statu quo prius that is Heathens again and so the Doctors Argument might have ta'ne place But if Christ founded a Church upon Apostles Ecclesiastical persons without the help of secular supports leaving all power both of Ordination and Iurisdiction to it the Doctor must either prove no disparity between the sacred oeconomy of Christs House and the Babel of heathenism or else grant his parity improper and absurd I never imagin'd there was any such extraordinary holiness in the heathenish Rites but a secular power might serve to perform and overlook them And as the reason why they were used by the Emperors was onely because their mock-Religion was nothing but a policy to delude and bridle the vulgar so if Christian Religion were nothing but a trick of State-policy it would do very well indeed in a secular Princes hands to alter and fashion it to the mold of the peoples humors But our all-wise God hath dealt more prudently with his Church encharging his sacred Mysteries and the Churches-Government to those persons whose very state of life being purely dependent on God and his service secures them from being cross-byass'd by worldly interests and secular pretences Yet the Doctor is so deeply immers'd in Schism that he relishes and fancies better the Pope-destroying example of heathen policy then the ever-sacred and heaven-instituted Government of Christianity His eleventh instance is from David who order'd the courses of the Priests and Solomon who consecrated the Temple but the Doctor may consider that David and Solomon were Prophets as well as Kings and so no wonder if according to the more particular prudence given them by God they did something extraordinary Neither doubt I but if nowadays any King were both a Saint and a Prophet it were very convenient he should assist and instruct the Church in a more particular way and yet not thank his Kingly Dignity for that Authority neither But indeed neither David nor Solomon shewed any strain of a higher Jurisdiction Their greater zeal might invite them and their exacter knowledge make their assistance requisite to order the courses of the Priests And as for Solomons Consecrating the Temple it was performed by offering Sacrifice which he himself offer'd not but the Priests so as his Consecrating it was nothing else but his causing them to Consecrate it A pittiful proof that Kings are over the Church in Ecclesiastical affairs His twelfth Testimony is of Hezekiah and Iosiah who ordered many things belonging to the Temple So wonderfully acute is this Doctor that no King can do a pious deed or even scarce say his Prayers but his honor-dropping-pen streight way entitles him Head of the Church His thirteenth is of St. Paul who saith he appealed from the judgement of the chief Priests to the Tribunal of Caesar. So as now Caesar a Heathen Emperor is become Head of the Church nay of two Churches according to Master Hammond the Heathenish and the Christian. But the good Doctor is most grievously mistaken here as he hath been almost in every place of Scripture he hath yet produc't I observe that though he be pretty good at mistaking all over his Book yet when he omes to alleadge any thing out of Gods Word he errs far more accurately For St. Paul appealed
in the 23 Section that this is affirmed and intended by Balsamon to all Canons in general as the judgement of learned men in his notes on the sixteenth Canon of the Council of Carthage hath already been answered and shown that it is not Balsamon who affirms it but other men neither doth he call them learned men as the Doctor here imposes on him but onely says that some men say the Emperor can do such and such things And he adds that those persons proceed upon this ground that the Emperor may do lawfully whatever he lists His last Paragraph for which as his former custom was he reserves the best of his strength proves that this right of Kings to be head in Ecclesiastical affairs cannot be alienated by prescription The testimony he introduces is of one Sayr a late Monk who wrote his Book at Rome a man likely to speak much in the Doctors behalf whose opinion in case he should say any thing against us being but of a private Casuist may with the like facility be rejected as alleadg'd But what says honest Sayr he tells us that when prescription is neither of the Law of Nature nor the divine Law nor the Law of Nations but onely the civil and Canon Law there it extends no farther then every supreme Prince in his Realm by his Law is supposed to will that it shall be extended and therefore that no subject can prescribe exemption from making appeal to his King or that his Prince may not punish him when Reason and Iustice requires Let the testimony it self be what it will what was the Doctor dreaming on when he produced it Marry he dreamt two things First that the Pope had heretofore prescribed against the Kings of England in their pretended right of being head in Ecclesiastical matters next this prescription of the Pope hath not its force from any thing but a Canon or Civil Law These two points the Doctor dreamingly supposes to be certain principles and it is discourtesie in us not to grant them gratis for fear we should spoil his learned Conclusion What a shame is this for a Doctor of Divinity whereas every boy that hath been but two years at Cambridge knows he is first to establish his premises firmly ere he can claim any certainty of truth in his Conclusion to suppose his premises true and upon that grant kindly made by himself to himself conclude at pleasure what he lists And what an unconscionable piece of affected ignorance is this to bring a Testimony which could not possibly be applyed to his purpose without proving the two former self-made suppositions and yet to neglect that necessary task and conclude in these vain words It were easie to apply this distinctly to the confirming of all that hath been said but I shall not expatiate It is now become an old excuse with the Doctor to cry he is out of his way when he comes to a passage he cannot get over but all-to-be-labours things frivolous and which his self-laid grounds once supposed would be out of question Thus you see an end of his sixth Chapter which was totally built upon this ground that the Authority of Head of the Church was no more then Patriarchal and consequently needed in rigour of dispute no other reply but onely to deny the supposition and bid him prove it What has been answered to each particular was onely to let the Reader see how inconsequently and weakly he builds even upon his own foundations SECT 8. A Reply to Doctor Hammonds Narrative Confession of his Schism THe Doctor having laid his tottering grounds for the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs by alleadging some Testimonies expresly against himself and his cause and not one expresly for them but what his fellow-schismaticks afforded him Next having supposed upon his own strongly-dreaming imagination without one direct place of any Authentick writer against clouds of most plain Testimonies from Fathers and Councils frequent in our Controvertists and not touched by him in way of answer against the most visible practice and universal belief of the whole Catholick world that the Pope is onely a private Patriarch and hath no right of Jurisdiction over the universal Church And lastly out of a few Testimonies witnessing de facto that Kings did erect and remove Patriarchates without any word excluding the Churches precedent orders having concluded that such a power belonged de jure to Kings and was annext to a Crown These three things most gravely supposed he goes about to clear the Church of England from the imputation of casting off obedience to the Bishop of Rome at the Reformation which is the intent of this Chapter But first he lays down at large the whole history of Schism ommitting onely the main things that might disgrace it and by what degrees or steps this miserable Kingdom and Church came to renounce the obedience to those Ecclesiastical superiors who had by their own confession for eight or nine hundred years steered that-then-secure Barque in a calm unity of Faith and which Authority all the then present world except King Henry's now friend but late Antagonist Luther acknowledged and submitted to First he tells us this was done by the Clergy in a Synod recognizing the King to be supreme Head of the Church of England Secondly By their submitting themselves to the King and thirdly the definition of the Universities and Monasteries after debate that the Pope had nothing to do more in England then any other extern Bishop that is nothing at all And all this in this sort concluded subscribed and confirmed by their corporal oaths which word corporal was well put in for their Souls and Consciences never went along with it was afterwards turn'd into Acts of Parliament in which it was resolved upon the question to defie the Pope and all his works In answer to which though a bare narration how a Schism was made deserve none yet to devoid it of al excuse it may pretend to I object first that it did not originally spring from Conscience no not even an erroneous one but from manifest malice and viciousness Next that the Kingdoms assent to this il originiz'd breach was not free And thirdly that though both these were granted yet this act of theirs so largely laid out by Doctor Hammond is truly and properly a Schism and entitles them schismaticks nay the more the Doctor dilates upon it the more schismatical he makes the breach of which the two latter himself though never so loath must acknowledge unless he will deny his own words To begin with the first all the world knows that till King Henry violenced the breach all England both Clergy and Laity were as equally and as peaceably conjoyned to the Catholike Church under the government of her supreme Pastour the Bishop of Rome as either France or Spain are now neither did they ever express any scrupulosity that they had remained under such a Government ever since the Conversion of their first
or at least that year was pure again For it cannot be imagin'd the doctrine of that Council was pure but the beleefe of the Faithful in that Age taught by those Pastors which there resided must be pure also Far more consonant then to their grounds is the doctrine of the Puritans denying promiscuously all Antiquity than to pick and cull out at pleasure what serves their turn as doe the Protestants and to like and reject allow and disallow what makes for or against them without giving any evident reason why they put such a difference In vain therefore does the Doctor like a very Saint pretend in behalfe of their Church an unaffected ignorance though they should mistake being conscious to himselfe what pitiful shifts he makes use of in stead of grounds In vain does he hope that this ruliness as he calls it and obedience of theirs will render them approvable to God unless they can render God an approved reason why they will at pleasure hold his sacred Spouse the Church holy in one Age and adulterate in another and shape and fashion Christs seamless coat according to the mode of their ever-changing fancy Lastly most vainly doe they hope this ruliness in holding to the first 300. yeares will lead them into all truth unless they could shew that all the points of Truth between them and us were professedly treated and decided in those times and the decision on their side He ends in a preaching manner with extolling the humble and docible temper of his Church Truly Mr. Doctor it is a wonderful commendation to your Church that she is yet to bee taught Pray when will she be at age to leave going to School when will she be out of her prentice-like tutorage and set up for her selfe to professe truth as a Church should do I thought a Church should have been Columna firmamentum veritatis the Pillar and firm foundation of Truth but yours is like the hinge of a door or a weather-cock docibly turning with every wind of doctrine How doe you think the Puritans or any other Sect should in reason yeeld any Authority to your Church since she professes her selfe yet learning her Faith that is as yet knowes it not If it be such a commendation in your Church to be docible I suppose it is so in others and consequently in the whole Church and then I pâ—ay who must teach her or what greater Professor is there on Earth of the knowledge of Christs Faith to whom the Universal Church may submit her selfe as dociâ—le Perhaps you will say that one particular Church must sisterly and charitably assist and teach another that is though each be ignorant it selfe yet like the blind leading the blind they must all be supposed mutual Mistreâ—ses and consequently all learned But let us examine a little further this docible and humble temper of your youngling Church Is it dâ—ciblenesse or humility think you to forsake a Mistress who had all the qualities which could give â—er Authority and fall to teach your selves new reformed doctrines without any Authority at all Such is the humble dâ—ciblenesse of your Church Is it docibleness to cast off the Authority of 14. General Councils and the consent of Christendome for twelve hundred yeares and rely upon your own judgments to interpret the rest as you list This is the so much brag d on docibleness and humble temper of your Church Parallel to the former or rather far ouâ—vying them though of a contrary strain is that most heroick Act of your docible humility to be willing to hold things concerning your eternal salvation upon the Authority of the four General Councils or the Doctors and Church of the first 300. yeares which Drs. and Councils notwithstanding it is an Article of your Faith that they are fallible And as for the Church of those times that it was fallible your selfe grants for you confesse that the same Church erred in the fourth Age. Now to hold Articles or points of Faith upon that Authority which it is an Article of Faith may deceive me is such a magnanimous piece of docible humility as I dare be bold to say in the Doctors behalfe neither the Apostles nor any Saint in the succeeding Church durst ever own Neither can the present Catholikes whom some who neither understand their own nor Catholike grounds laugh at as blindly humble and obedient to the Church lay claim to such an incomparable degree of humility proper and peculiar to the Protestants onely For we pretend not Faith certain but upon a deemed INFALLIBILITY in the Authority assuring it so as though they may be supposed blameable by you for failing in their grounds that is in believing the Church infallible yet they cannot be condemned for proceeding inconsequently upon those groundâ— for an infallible Authority deserves a firm assent But to stand to the acceptation of matters of Faith which you pretend most certain upon an Authority confessed by your selves uncertain is such a condiscension of humility such a prostrating your proper knowledge as is not onely a blindly-capâ—ivating your Judgment but even an utter renouncing all judgment prudence and common sence not a submitting the reason by a voluntary winking at objections but a quite extinguishing and perfect putting out of the very Eye of reason it selfe and is all one as if a man should say For any thing I know such a one may lye in what he tells mee yet neverthelesse I will strongly perswade my selfe that all hee sayes is most certainely true Yet this humility the Doctor calls here a special mark of the Church of Englands Reformation And surely you have reformed well since you have not only reform'd the Unity you before enjoy'd into distractions the Faith you formerly profest into new-fangled misbeleefes but your former reason and judgment into present folly and fancy What is said of your accepting the four Councils c. may also bee apply'd to your private interpretitions of Scripture which found your Faith which Faith you will have to be certain and firm though the persons Interpretation it is built on be fallible and obnoxious to errour The pious words in your own behalfe with which you close up your Chapter spoken in an Elegiack tone are very moanfully moving words out of a pulpit rhetorical enough for women not rational enough to satisfie any prudent man You professe you would preserve the Unity of the Apostolical Faith and primitive practises as entire as Christs body or garments Good Mr. Hammond leave mocking your Readers and tell us why the Primitive times must needs just end then when the Church began to flourish and the Fathers to write against your doctrine And as for Christs body or garments I see no such great respect in you or your Churches doctrine allow'd towards holy Reliques that I should be willing to trust those sacred pledges to your unhallowed hands from whose rude usage his mystical Body his Church Faith its Rule
Sacraments Government nor any thing though never so sacred left by our Saviour hath found any security SECT 3. An examination of some common notes produced by Dr. Hammond to particularize his Clients to bee no Schismaticks HIs 9th Ch. undertakes to clear his Church from the 2d sort of his Schism against mutual â—â—arity to wit from that Schism which is against extern Peace or Communion Ecclesiastical And first he alledges for his plea that they have retain'd the right form of Government c. So that now Schism against Subordination or Government for they are all one which was the first general Head of Schism and also comprehended under the first species of the second Head as appeares C. 8. S. 2. is by the Doctors accurate method come to be under the second species also of the same second General Head Which is all one as if dividing vivens into Sensitive and Insensitive and then subdividing the Genus of Sensitive into the two Species of Rational and Irrational or Man and Beast he should first treat of Insensitive the first Genus and that done fall in hand with Sensitive the second and then under each Species of that returne to treat professedly of Insensitive again that is to speak of Trees Shrubs and Herbs when he should speak of men and creatures endued with sence Surely Doctor Hammond is more methodical in his Sermons otherwise the World must needs look upon him as another S. Iohn Baptist because hee preaches in a Wilderness But let us follow him through all his Mazes distinguish't by no orderly path but what his own inconstant and desultorious track makes First then he tells us that they retaiâ— the Form of Government in and under which the Apostles â—ounded Ecclesiastical Assemblies or Communion viz. that of the Bishop and his inferioâ— Officers in every Church As if the Arian Hereticks who denied Christ to be God and almost all heresies that ever broke from Gods Church did not retain afterwards the Authority of their own Bishops But what availed it either them or you but to the greater danger of damnation if you adhered to those Bishops who had rejected the Authority of their former Superiours and taught you doctrines contrary to the Order of Gods Church without whose order much lesse against it they had no Authority to teach at all Again you tell us of one piece of your Government that of Bishops constituted indeed by the Apostles but you tell us not of the main hinge of your Churches Government which is of the King being its Head and Supreme in Ecclesiastical matters This is the sum and top of your Churches Government put us not off with an odd end of it This is that for substituting which in stead of the Ecclesiastical Head you rejected wee charge you of Schism and breach of Communion Ecclesiastical for in so doing you cut Gods Church into as many single headed and consequently diverse-bodied and disparate Congregations as there are Kingdoms in Christendome Shew us that this your Novelty in Government was practised by the Apostles in their Assemblies or instituted by them or their Blessed Master and then you will say something to the point Remember your purest times of the first 300. yeares shew us that all that time the Church was ordered by the Emperours Presidency or that this Government was instituted by Christ and his Apostles If you cannot then tell us how comes it to be held now as a chief point of Faith You may not in reason think to uphold your self your by testimonies out of the following ages unles you wil disavow your own grounds for those ages were as you say all impure Lay your hand then on your heart Mr. Hammond and tell us in good sadness if you be not gravell'd in your own doctrine while you maintain this new Lay Ecclesiastical Government His second plea is that as they maintain the Order of Bishops so they submit to the exercise of it acknowledging the Authority of those Governors In answer to which no new thing is to be said this being the very same with the former only First changed into Secondly For the obeying submitting to and acknowledging the due Authority of Governours is the very formal maintaining and accepting the Government which was his first branch So as this is another orderly production of the Drs. methodical Head which vents it selfe in first secondly thirdly c. upon all occasions though both his first second and third bee the selfe-same formal thing His third plea is that they observe the circumstances necessary to the assembling themselves for publick worship First that of place Churches Secondly that of time the Lords day primitive Festivals As if all Schismaticks in the World doe not meet at some set times and in some appointed and set places Thirdly Formes of prayer and praises almost all out of our Mass and Breviary Celebration of Sacraments onely five of them being quite abolish't and three quarters of the sixth Sacramentals Copes and Surplisses which you might by the same principles call rags of Rome Preaching against Christ and his Church such doctrine as none ever sent you or your first Fore-fathers to preach Cathechising infecting and imbuing tender and easie minds with your tainted doctrine Fourthly that of Ceremonies such as the practice of the Primitive Church hath sent down recommended to us Pray by whom did she send them down and recommend them to you Examine wel and you shall find that the same authority recommended to you many more as from her though you only accepted of what you thought convenient Lastly that of discipline to binde all to these performances Doubtlesse all Sects in the world impose some obligation upon their subjects to keep them together else they could not bee a Sect. Yet that your tie either to that or any thing else concerning Government is as slack as may be is manifest out of the slender provision made against Schism according to the Protestant grounds See Part 3. Sect. 1. as I have shewn in my answer to the fore-going Chapter Neither are you beholding to your doctrine for any discipline sufficient to hold you together in Unity a professed fallibility is too weak for that but to the secular Power the threat of whose sword held you in awe for a while but as soon as that Power was dissolv'd your slack-sinew'd Church which no tie either in Reason or Conscience held together bewrayed its composition and like the statue seen by Nabuchadonosor fell all to pieces It were not amiss ere I leave these three pleas already mentioned to take a second survey of them that the Reader may visibly perceive how less than nothing this Doctor hath said either to his or indeed any purpose To make this discovery sincere we must mark his intent and scope in this Chapter which is to free or clear their Church from the breach of Commmunion Ecclesiastical which he makes to consist in such and such things Now
the Universities where there is no disputation but the one affirmes and the other denies and the Defendant holds his Conclusion for true till the Opponent proves the contrary without being judged to incur the fault of begging the question Besides to what dark holes you run for clear proofes we have already shewn and till you can shew us a greater Authority to acquit you than is the Churches Tribunal which condemned you your denying it will but double the fault not clear it especially since the material fact of Schism that is dividing from the persons with whom you formerly communicated cannot bee deny'd however you may pretend the intention or cause of it to be doubtful or obscure Ere I leave this first part of judging otherâ—â— I desire the Reader to fancy in his own minde as perfect a Schismatick as can bee imagin'd and therfore deservedly cast out by the Church which done let him read this Doctors tenth Chapter and hee shall easily perceive that hee has not brought one word for himselfe which the other justly-condemned schismatick may not with as good reason make use of So easily it is discoverable by the manner of weapon the Dr. wears whose side he is on and whose banner he fights under His second charge of Schism against mutual Charity is that we despise and set at nought the Brother Good Brother Doctor tell mee how we despise you We pity you indeed seeing the calamities you are fallen into by your former fault as also to see you persist still obstinately blind in the midst of your punishment But despise you wee doe not Yet you conclude the cause by the effect that is our casting you out of the Church and therefore say the guilt lies on our side EUGE QUANTI EST SAPERE Let us put the demonstration a posteriori in form and you shall see the invincibleness of it They who cast others out of the Church despise them and are guilty of schism against Charity But the Roman Church cast us out of the Church Therefore they despise us and are guilty of schism against Charity By which account no Church can condemn any one of schism but shee must bee a schismatick her selfe whereas wee did not cast them out but upon their avowed contumacy against the orders of our Church which the Doctor himselfe holds as a reason sufficient for the Protestant to excommunicate Catholikes Where you see the first Proposition can onely be sustained by making this shameless assertion good that no man can cast another out of the Church but he must despise him and consequently bee guilty of unchartiableness and schism But the Doctor argues as if a Rebel should confess at large that indeed he rejected the Authority of the Supreme Magistrate and receded from the former Lawes and Customes of the Common-wealth yet notwithstanding they must not punish him and his company or if they doe they are guilty of faction sedition dissention and despising their fellowes What King now could bee so hard-hearted as to punish a Rebel defending himself with such a wise solid and rational plea The Doctor confess'd that they rejected the Authority of the Pope formerly acknowledg'd to bee Supreme that they receded from the doctrines and practises of Rome of which Church they were a little before members and subjects and when he has done tells this Church it must not punish them nor excommunicate them or if she doe she is guilty of schism uncharitableness of despising and setting at nought the Brother But pray Mr. Doctor what schism is it after you had run away from the Church ever since King Henry fell in love to tell you in the tenth year of Queen Elixabeth when she saw you would not mend but grew daily worse and worse that she could no longer forbear to punish your pertinacious disobedience After this the Doctor crouds together a great company of advantages of our Religion with which wee pre-possesse our subjects though the Doctor mistakes in some and which hee sayes are so many reasons why they doe not set us at nought and despise us First the advantage of our education True indeed we are taught to obey our Superiors and hear our Pastors Secondly the prescribed credulity to all that the Church shall propose Good Mr. Dr whom should the Faithful beleeve in telling them the sence of Gods word if not the Church such pitiful guessing Southsayers as you Are not our Saviours words Hear the Church and I am with you ever till the end of the world plaine enough and sufficient to secure their credulity to such a Heav'n-assisted-Mistress And indeed how can you think those who cannot employ sufficient time to study out their Faith should be otherwise instructed than by Credulity Look whether your Proselytes doe not rely even upon your private Authority so natural and necessary is it there should bee an Authority to governe weak people Thirdly the doctrine of infallibility That is wee tell them Faith is certain and hath certain grounds a grievous accusation Fourthly the shutting up the Scriptures in an unknown Languge That is taking order that the unlearned nor unstable pervert them not to their own damnation Fifthly the impossibility that the multitude should search or examine Tradition with their own eyes That is the Doctor is utterly ignorant what Tradition is Is it such an impossible matter for the meanest person that hath age enough to know what doctrine was held by Christians ten yeares agoe or for them that liv'd ten yeares agoe to know what was held 20 years since and so forth Especially Faith not being a meer speculation but shewing it selfe in practise which proclames that heavenly law of Grace so openly that all must see it except such as neither have no eyes or wilfully shut them This Sir is the main mystery of Tradition which you imagin'd wee kept reserved like the Ark of the Testament and Mose's Tables from the sight of the people Sixthly The prosperous estate of the Roman Church and the persecutions and calamities of yours I see wee are in some sence beholding to our good fortune or your misfortune for your chariritablenesse But you complain for nothing what persecution suffer you in England in comparison of the Catholikes What Laws make it Treason to become a Protestant as they do to bee reconciled to the Catholike Religion What Oaths are impos'd on Protestants to renounce their Faith under pain of high Treason and forfeiture of their Estates as in those of Supremacy and Abjuration against Catholikes Read over the large Volume of Penal Statutes made in the dayes of your Dominion and you shall find that Catholikes can neither be married nor baptiz'd nor taught at home nor sent abroad nor maintain'd by their parents while they live nor buried when they dye without incurring the danger of a Premunire or some other severe penalty In all these I am confident your kind of Protestancy never endured the least punishment but a light cross is enough
really apprehended by him to whom they are thus proposed to be false it is hard to affirm that that man can lawfully subscribe and therefore rather then do it the Doctor makes account he may remain out of Communion and that lawfully too This is the Doctors assertion which indeed might serve out of a Pulpit to an Auditory that he would claw with giving them that sweet and as they esteem it Christian liberty of holding what they list but to any judicious person that knows what Government is it is in reality the sublimated quintessence of perfect Non-Religion and Anarchy The Position comes to this That none should be condemned or punished by his Governors for not-doing that the contrary whereof he thinks is to be done To give which Position the least shadow of likelihood the Doctor is necessarily obliged to prove first That no Pride Interest or Passion can make one think wrong and consequently culpable in so thinking which if the Doctor do he will work wonders and with a turn of his hand convert this world of miserable sinners into a Heaven of pure and perfect Saints But let us hear an Argument or two upon the Doctors principles An ambitious or proud man blinded by his Passion begins to think and really true that the long established Government of the Commonwealth is tyrannical and upon this thought he proceeds to jumble all the Land into intestine Seditions and to dismount the Governors from the top of Authority and as he tells you conscientiously too that is with a perfect perswasion according to his present Passion Force him not to subscribe to obey his lawful Magistrate saith the Doctor he may not do it lawfully it is against his Conscience A revengeful or malicious man thinks that in all right and reason he may endamage the party that offered the affront and upon the lawfulness of his so doing while his humor possesses him he would lay his Soul Controle him not saith the Doctor he is in an â—rror but yet governs himself at present according to Conscience he may not lawfully subscribe or â—eal a pardon contrary to his present perswasion The Anabaptist thought himself nearly touched in Conscience to cut off the heads of his Mother and Sister for kneeling at the Communion Urgâ—… him not to the contrary saith the Doctor 〈◊〉 cannot lawfully spare them it is against his preseâ—… perswasion The Puritans following the Protestants example refuse obedience to the Church of England seeing in her so many dregâ—… of Popery remaining Unjustly did the Church of England saith the Doctor in obliging them to her obedience and cutting off poor Bastâ—… wicks Burtons and Prynnes Ears who did according to their Conscience or present perswasion Neither will it avail you to Answer that these were told by Gods Law that their actâ—… were unwarrantable and therefore were culpable For it is easie to reply that you were as much and as earnestly commanded by God to hear the Church and obey your lawful Superiors and incurred a far greater sin if you did not to wit the sin of Schism which your selfe unfortunate Pen has out of the Fathers described to be a venomous compound swoln with the mixt poyson of all sorts of Vices The Reader will by this see to what a pass this Doctors Logick would bring the world if his Position should take place That no man should be obliged to or punished for anything against his present perswasion which he terms his Conscience The contrary to which that I may a little more elucidate from its first grounds the Reader may please to consider That this present perswasion which a man is so fixt in may either begin in the Understanding or proceed from the Will If in the Understanding it must be onely a perfect demonstration that can beget in it so firm an adherence and then being rational it is not onely excusable but laudable Otherwise it is an irrational resolvedness sprung from a passionate distorsion of the interessed Will pushing and exciting the Understanding without due deliberation first to pitch upon and afterwards pertinaciously to adhere to a thing more then the light of Reason it self gives Which being in the Will vicious is consequently as all other Vices are culpable liable to correction and by correction reformable So as Licet non possumus opinari quando volumus that is Although we cannot deem or think a thing true but we must have some Motive or other true or false why we think so yet with this it well consists that a perverse affection in the Will may blinde and lead astray the Understanding by proposing false Motives for true ones And therefore when the Will by deserved punishment is whipt out of her viciousness the Native lustre of the Understanding will quickly disenvelop its self from the cloud of mistake in which the Passion exhaled vapors had enwrapt her You see then Doctor which perhaps you never reflected on before A man may be obliged to retract a present perswasion and however he pretends Conscience for his excuse be punished too if he does not since his bad will was the cause of his erroneous judgment as the cases of the fore-mentioned Malefactors your Clients have as I hope by this time better informed you But perhaps you would not have this method used in matters of Religion And why not Unless the violating the ever-sacred Authority of Christs Church and renouncing the main support of all Religion the Rule of Faith things in the conserving of which the eternal salvation of mankinde consists be less deserving punishment in the offenders or less worth taking notice of by the Governors of the Church then the wrong of thirteen-pence half-penny is by the Laws and Governors of the Commonwealth The result then of your discourse comes to this That all your dwindling suppisitions anâ— may bees which you wisely put down foâ— proofs and sometimes for grounds remain still in question or rather unquestionably unsupposable Your tenderness of Conscience not to sin against God in subscribing to the errors forsooth of his Church which he hath commanded you to hear onely Pharasaical arrogancy and singularity in you which makes you think and style at pleasure any thing Error which the whole Church holds if contrary to your private judgment Lastly Our pretended making Communion impossible will be found to be onely a self-opinionated pride in you and of all pride 's the most miserable and filly to adhere so pertinaciously against Evidence of Authority to a few obscure scraps of writers speaking on the by and your own self acknowledged fallibility All these and whatever pretences you here in sinuate will all lie at your doors and loudly call you Schismaticks unless you can evidence with most perfect demonstrations that those things were Errors which the Church obliged you to subscribe to that is that the Churches doctrine was or is erroneous and consequently her self not infallible This if you evidence I shall grant you have
not onely overthrown ours but all Religion not onely acquitted your self of Schism but also quite taken away all possibility of being a Schismatick since no Authority can with any face or conscience oblige to a belief of which her self is not certain But I doubt not you make your self sure of the conquest not apprehending any but Saints and Angels in Heaven and God himself to be infallible To which you adde of your own invention impeccable as your custom is never to speak of our Tenet without the disgraceful addition of some forged calumny or other imposed upon us But that none else should be infallible except those you mention I much wonder I thought the Apostles had been also infallibly assisted when they pen'd the sacred Writ and peach'd the Gospel I thought also our Saviour when he sent them to teach and promised them his assistance had said He would remain with them always even till the end of the world that is with the succeeding Church I thought there had been some means to be infallibly-certain that such and such Books were Gods Word and genuine Scripture without an Angel Saint or Christs coming from Heaven or the Doctors private-spirited opinion which he will call God Neither do I doubt but the Doctor himself will grant it impossible That all the Protestants in England should be fallible or mistake in witnessing whether twenty years ago there were Protestant Bishops or no and that such was the Tenet and Government of their Church at that time Yet a thousand timeâ— greater evidence have we of the indefectibility of the Churches Faith and her infallibility As you may to your amazement see if you will but open your eyes in that incomparable Treatise of Rushworth's Dialogues vindicated from all possible confute by that excellent Apology for it writ by the learned Pen of Mr. Thomâ—â— White in his Friends behalf whose Dialogues he set forth enlarged and defended against your acute Friends Faulkland and Digby Persons who did not use to treat Controversies iâ— such a dreaming shallow way as it hath been your misfortune to do here nor stand Preaching to their adversary when they should Dispute To these Dialogues and their Apology I refer you that you may know what to do if you confute them solidly and demonstrate plainly That our Church is liable to Error you will eternally silence us and clear your selves But take heed you bring not whimpering probable may-be's and onely-self-granted suppositions for proofs These might serve your turn in your first Book which might hope for the good fortune to scape without answering but in your second and after you are told of it it will fall short of satisfactory Remember Mr. Hammond that you granted â— cheerful obedience and submission of your judgments and practices to your Superiors under penalty oâ— not being deemed true Disciples of Christ. If this be real as I wish it were then what easier condescension and deference to the judgment of Superiors can be imagined then to submit oneâ— private judgment when he has onely probability to the contrary Evidence therefore demonstrable evidence you must give in of the Churches erring ere your pretence that you were obliged by her to subscribe to Errors can take place and so excuse you from Schism But as your profession of the obligation you have to submit your judgment to the Church renders your probable Reasons insufficient to fall to judge her so God be praised your own self acknowledged fallibility will secure us from the least fear of your Demonstrations Yet unless you do this you undo your cause for if the Church could not erre she could need no reforming So that your Preaching of Reformation is vain your Faith vain and by consequence your selves Schismaticks and an Ace more SECT 4. Concerning the ground of Unity groundlesness of Schism and of Dr. Hammonds manner of arguing to clear himself of the later ALl that is material in the Doctors second Chapter is sum'd up in these two heads that the Church does ill in obliging men to subscribe against their present perswasion and That the Church which they left was erroneous and so obliged them to the subscription of Errors Upon these two notes as on a base-ground he runs division all along this Chapter repeating them so often in each Paragraph that I was forced to omit my intended method at present not making a Countet-sermon to each in order but bringing together his dispersed Doctrine into Heads and then confuting them not doubting but the Leaves and Branches which counterfeit some small flourish of devotion will quickly fade into Hypocrisie when the sapless roots are pluckt up from their rotten ground The former of them hath been discovered in the former Section to be worse then weak his manner of arguing from the second shall be laid open in this But because I perceive Mr. Hammond very much unacquainted with our grounds why our Church obliges her sons to rest in her belief and continue in her Communion thinking her doubtless very discourteous that will not leâ— her subjects in civility as the modest and moderate Church of England does hold and do what they list I will at present undeceive him somewhat in that point having a better occasion to do it more largely hereafter First The Doctor stumbles much and as Ignorance iâ— ever the Mother of admiration thinks Master Knot 's Inference very strange that the Church iâ— infallible otherwise men might forsake her Communion Whereas on the contrary I not onely think it strange to infer otherwise but as great an absuâ—dity as can be imagined for why may not meâ— forsake the Communion of the Church if they may forsake her Doctrine since it is impossible to preserve the former if he renounce the latter and why may they not forsake her Doctrine if she have no Power nor Authority â—o tie them to the belief of it and how can she have any Authority to binde them to the belief of it if she her self knows not certainly whether it be true oâ— no that is be not infallible Or what man living who hath so much wit as to raise or understand the difficulty can possibly so degenerate from Reason which is his nature as to submit it in believing things above his Reason and which concern his eternal Salvation upon such an Authority as may perhaps lie and so damn him for believing her since Without true Faith it is impossible to please God Hence follows by an inevitable consequence that since the Church pretends and hath ever pretended to have a Promise from Christ of a perpetual assistance from Error if Christ have made good that promise that is if she be infallible then her obliging her sons to rest in her Faith is most plainly evidenced to be charitable just and necessary because in that case it were both mens obligation and also their greatest good to believe so qualified a Mistress Whereas on the other side any other Congregation
be wiser in interpreting Scripture then all the world besides and who will not stick when they want better shifts to delude your eyes with obtruding their own forgeries and sillilycritical explications as doth this Doctor for most absolute EVIDENCES Awake then as you tender your Souls endless good or misery awake and let these gross-absurdities with which they impose upon you rouze you from the Lethargy of such an easie credulity Wisely bethink your selves in time how unsafe it is to relie on the bare Authority of their slippery interpretations and relinquish the sence of the whole Catholick world Which both possesses a thousand Motives they dare not lay claim to and even in their own pretence which is the right interpreting of Scripture ought in all reason to have infinite advantages Of this dear Reader I thought good to admonish thee by the way in which if I may seem to have said too much the Doctor will make my words good in the process of this work and if I have now complain'd for nothing he will give me cause ere he ends this Chapter to complain for something But ere I proceed I desire the Reader to heed attentively what is in question and what is granted It is granted that Saint Peter preach'd to those of the Circumcision or Jews and for the more particular fruit which by Gods especial assistance he found and the more pains he took amongst them was called their Apostle As also that St. Paul preached to the Gentiles and for the greater cooperation he experienced of Gods assistance in that work which made him more particularly addict himself to them he thence had the appellation of the Apostle of the Gentiles as he himself clearly explicates himself in the place the Doctor alleages Gal. 2. 7 8. where he gives the reason why the Jews more particularly belonged to St. Peter and the Gentiles to him in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he that wrought with Peter for the Apostleship of the Circumcision wrought with me also â—…mongst the Gentiles Where the particle Forâ—… manifestly renders the reason why these tâ—… Apostles were more properly particularized 〈◊〉 these two parts of the world to wit by 〈◊〉 other designation then the more especial câ—â—operation of Gods efficacious assistance as 〈◊〉 yet more plainly shown in the ninth Verse 〈◊〉 the same Chapter This therefore is evideâ—… and out of question That St. Peter more peculiarly applied himself to the Jews and St. Paul to the Gentiles at least in the beginning of the Church That which is in question thâ—… is whether the Jews were so particularly St. Peters Province that his Authority was limited to them so that he neither did nor coulâ—… intermeddle in the conversion of the Gentileâ—… that is had no jurisdiction over them anâ—… the contrary of St. Paul This is the Doctoâ—… Position from whence he takes his first Evidence against St. Peters Universal Pastorship That this Apostle was Apostles of the Circumcisiâ—… or Iews Exclusively to the Uncircumcision or Gentiles Which Assertion is so shamelesly false sâ—… expresly-opposite to all Scripture and ancient History that it was not possible for a man to invent a Paradox so totally unwarrantable and improbable as this Nay more I promisâ—… the Reader and Mr. Hammond too That if amongst those many Testimonies he produces to prove it there be but found any one sentence line word syllable or letter which excludeâ— St. Peters Authority from the Gentiles more then what this man puts in his of own head I will be content to yeeld him the whole Controversie And may not a Doctor of Divinity be asham'd such a proffer should be made him in those very proofs of his which he would bear the Reader in hand are most perfect Evidences And first his pretended place of Scripture â—al â— 7. which we have before explicated â—nely says That the Apostleship of the Iews or Circumcision was committed to St. Peter but â—hat it was of the Iews onely or none but them â—o as by the particular Commission to convert â—â—em he lost or was excluded from any jurisdiction over the Gentiles which is the Doctors â—ffertion and can onely advantage his cause â—…ere is neither in that place nor any where â—…se the least syllable Whereas it is impossible 〈◊〉 should not see that the contrary to wit that 〈◊〉 Peter both had Authority and did preach 〈◊〉 the Gentiles was as manifest in Scripture as 〈◊〉 Sun at Noon-day half the eleventh Chapâ—… of the Acts being employed in a most exâ—…ss Narration of St. Peters vision exhorâ—…ing â—…n to preach to the Gentiles which he accordingly did and went immediately by an espeâ—… Mission of God to convert Cornelius a Genâ—… where he preached to him and his whole â—…se As also St. Peter in the Council at Ieruâ—…m affirmed saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath chosen amongst us that the Gentiles should hear the â—…d of the Gospel by my mouth and believe What 〈◊〉 we think now of this Doctor who puts â—…vident out of Scripture that St. Peter had no authority to preach to the Gentiles where as the Scripture expresly says He was chose out of the rest and particularly authorized so that end Is this man fit to be accounted 〈◊〉 expounder of Gods Word who thus wilfull perverts and purposely contradicts it Besides if St. Peter were made Apostle 〈◊〉 the Jews Exclusively to the Gentiles by the same reason St. Paul was made Apostle of 〈◊〉 Gentiles Exclusively to the Jews For the woâ—… alleaged Gal. 2. 7. The Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the Gospel of 〈◊〉 Circumcision was to Peter upon which onâ—… the Doctor builds this Tenet equally inserâ—… Exclusiveness of jurisdiction in one as in 〈◊〉 other over his fellow Apostles Province as 〈◊〉 Particle As signifies and the Doctor himâ—… confesses Section seven unless the word peculiar must lose its signification Yet it is 〈◊〉 evident that St. Paul where ever he caâ—… preached first to the Jews as appears most evidently Acts 13. 5. 14. 1. 17. 1 2 3. whâ—… it is said That it was St. Pauls manner or câ—… to go into the Iews Synagogue and preach Châ—… Faith Also Acts 20. 18 21. where St. Paul sâ—… of himself That ever since he came into Asia witnessed both to the Iews and Grecians the 〈◊〉 pentance towards God and Faith towards Châ—… Likewise Acts 19. 8. 21. 21. where the formation against St. Paul was That he tâ—… all the Iews such and such things that follâ—… there So Acts 22. the whole Chapter alâ—… being a Sermon of his to the Iews Again 〈◊〉 24. 24. 28. 23. where we finde that 〈◊〉 at Rome St. Paul preached to the Iews 〈◊〉 And now let the Reader judge if this be â—… most steel'd impudence thus point-blank and diametrically opposite to the whole stream of Scripture and onely upon his bare word to impale and confine the Authority of the Apostles to mutually-exclusive
readest this Answer whether thou be'st Catholick Protestant Puritan nay even the Doctor himself it is impossible but thou shouldst manifestly see that the Doctor hath not said one syllable to the purpose there being neither in any of the former nor following Testimonies either out of Scriptures Fathers or Histories any the least restrictive or exclusive sentence particle or syllable for him To say nothing that all both Scriptures Fathers and ancient Histories are most expresly against him What a most unfortunate man is this Doctor to vent these for EVIDENCES and how unfortunate they who hazard the eternal loss of their Souls upon such mens writings But to return to our six Testimonies By what means think you does he make them speak to his purpose Not by torturing and screwing the words to confess what they never intended that were impossible in such stubborn allegations and perfectly-silent in what concerns him Nor by intermingling words of his own to prompt them and make them speak out which is the old and often-discover'd trick of his fellows nor by criticizing his former unsuccessful art but by pinning a Paper of his own forging to the Testimony alleaged and gulling the Reader to his face that the Author sayes it So as the device is the same onely the method altered for the said necessary Paper-which he used to pin behinde the Testimony now he pastes before it beginning the ninth Paragraph which introduces the formerly-recited Testimonies thus The same is as EVIDENT at Rome where these two great Apostles met again and each of them erected and managed a Church St. Peter of Iews and St. Paul of Gentiles Hold Doctor the Testimonies should have told us that why do you forestal them And then as in the eight Section after his own bare WE KNOW he used the transition of ACCORDINGLY to bring in his Authors So now after he had straw'd the way with his own evident as he pleased himself he ushers in the modest Testimonies with so many Soe 's So Irenaeus so Epiphanius so the Inscription so Gaius whereas indeed the following Testimonies are no more So or like his Preface to them and to the question they are produced for then as the Proverb says the running of the Wheel-barrow is to the owing of six pence The Doctor shall put the Similitude in form and the Reader shall judge Just as I say saith the Doctor That St. Peter and St. Paul each of them erected and managed a Church one of Iews the other of Gentiles with exclusion of St. Pauls authority over St. Peters and St. Peters over St. Pauls Congregation Even SO St. Irenaeus says That they built the Church there St. Epiphanius That they were Apostles and Bishops there c. The Reader may perceive the fitness of the rest by applying them at his leasure Onely ere I take my leave of these Testimonies I would gladly learn of the Doctor why in his preamble to them he maintains a distinction of Churches belonging to St. Peter and St. Paul and then brings in St. Prosper with a So to witness it whereas himself in the nineteenth Section of this very Chapter makes the same St. Prosper testifie the quite contrary and a promiscuous Jurisdiction over the Gentiles saying expresly That Peter and Paul at Rome Gentium Ecclesiam Sacrârunt consecrated the Church of the Gentiles Were ever such mistakes incident to any other man as are natural to this Doctor But it seems he wants a good memory a necessary qualification for him that says any thing at random without ground authority or reason to maintain a false cause or rather indeed foreseeing the danger he made the Testimony whisper softly in English lest it might be taken notice of translating Ecclesia Gentium The Church of the Nations because the word Gentiles would be too much reflected on being that which throughout this whole Chapter he hath absolutely interdicted St. Peter to have any thing to do with Alas poor man SECT 11 The Examination of Dr. Hammonds Irrefragable Evidence and other silent Testimonies produced by him BUt now we are come to his EVIDENCE of EVIDENCES the Seals of the Popes which the Doctor here calls an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE I know the Reader will expect some most express and unavoidable Testimony out of some ancient Writer beyond all exception and of the first Class witnessing as the Faith of that Age the contradistinction and contralimitation of St. Peter and St. Pauls Jurisdiction The Testimony is out of Matthew Paris which I will transcribe word by word together with the Doctors Comment upon it In the Bull of the Pope stands the Image of St. Paul on the right hand of the Cross which is graven in the midst of the Seal and the Image of St. Peter on the left And this onely account saith the Doctor given for St. Pauls having the nobler place Quia c. because he believed in Christ without seeing him Here on Earth addes the Doctor in a Parenthesis Here is all that belongs to this Testimony transcribed to a word without any more either Explication or Application to the matter before or after than is here put down And now for Gods sake Reader tell me what canst thou discern here of St. Peters being Apostle of the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles which may deserve it should be called an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE My eyes are dazel'd it seems with striving to see a thing at such an unproportionable distance for I can espie nothing at all in it Had the Question between us been Whether St. Paul believed on Christ without seeing him or no it might have served to some purpose but to our case it hath no imaginable relation Yet this Eagle-ey'd Doctor in the bare pictures of St. Peter and St. Paul on a Seal can discern clearly an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE that their Authorities are exclusively-limited St. Peters to the Iews St. Pauls to the Gentiles which none living could see without his colour'd and insincere spectacles to wit blackest hatred and rancor against the Pope While he looks through these any thing appears an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE which may seem possible in his perverse imagination to be detorted to the Popes prejudice and to wound him though through the sides of St. Peter After this Testimony or IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE follows immediately in the Doctor And all this very agreeable to Scripture which onely sets down St. Peter to be the Apostle of Circumcision and of his being so at Rome saith he we make no question What means his All this For neither in any Testimony nor yet in the Popes Seal is there any the least expression of St. Peters being onely the Apostle of the Circumcision save in his own words onely yet he says that all this is in that point agreeable to Scripture it is then of his own words he means which how disconformable and totally repugnant they are to Scripture hath already been shewn Nor are they less dissonant in this
very place to Sacred Writ for neither doth the Scripture onely set down Saint Peter as Apostle of the Circumcision but James and John also Gal. 2. 9. Nor is St. Peter any where exprest as Apostle of onely the Circumcision but expresly particulariz'd the contrary as hath been manifested out of Acts the fifteenth and seventh So as that ONELY is your own forgery pin'd here to the Scripture as before to your too sober Testimonies Neither your Authors then nor Scripture speak a word of Saint Peter being at Rome the Apostle of the Iews onely The onely proof of it is your own unquestionable certainty of it exprest here that of his being at Rome you make no question So that your onely grounds and proofs of your position is WE MAKE NO QUESTION and WE KNOW And I here again confirm my former promise to you That if you can shew me the least syllable either in Scripture or your other Testimonies expresly and without the help of your ID ESTS and scruing deductions restraining St. Peters Jurisdiction to the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles I will yeeld you the Laurel and quit the Controversie His twelfth Testimony for his IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE from the Popes Seal was the Eleventh is brought in with another So. So the Scripture affirms of St. Paul that he preached at Rome in his own hired house receiving them which came unto him Acts 28. 30. which the Doctor most fitly applies to the Gentiles of thâ— City the Iews having solemnly saith he departeâ—… from him Vers. 29. But looking into the Teâ—… I finde no such word as solemnly which he after his accustomed manner pinâ— to the Testimony nor any sign of a solemnity of departure buâ—… rather the contrary there being in that placâ—… no expressions either of absolute relinquishing him nor pertinacity nor contempt but onely that after he had spoken They departed and hâ—… much discourse or debate amongst themselves which is rather a sign of hoveringness and unsetledness in the business not indisposing them tâ—… a return then of a fixed and solemn rejectioâ—… of his society and rather a solemn disputeâ—… whether they should return or no than so solemn a departure as Master Hammond imaginâ—… Next the Doctor might have seen in Acts 13 46. both Paul and Barnabas tell the Jews boldly saith the Text That they would turn to the Gentiles and depart more solemnly shaking off thâ—… dust of their feet against them Vers. 51. Another manner of parting then this was and yet many times afterwards did they preach to the Jews notwithstanding their so solemn departure Lastly What became of the Jews which aâ—… is manifest in this eight and twentieth Chapter and twenty fourth verse were converted by St. Paul Must they necessarily quite fall ouâ—… with St. Paul and never see him more because he had perswaded them to believe in Christ. Yet the Doctor upon authority onely of the word solemnly which was of his own coyning thinks he hath evidenced that St. Paul at Rome treated with none but Gentiles the Text it self not admitting so much as a probability of it But all is good Corn that the Doctors Mill grinds His fourteenth Testimony is out of St. Ignatius I will first cite the words as I finde them in the Author in the place quoted by him and then let you hear the Doctors Comment upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What are Deacons but imitators of the Heavenly Powers exhibiting to him the Bishop a pure and blameless Ministery as holy Stephen did to blessed James Timothy and Linus to Paul Anacletus and Clement to Peter This is all And now good Reader pardon me that I am forced to trouble thee so often I intreat thee as thou lovest truth and honesty to take this Testimony and sift it well over and over and then give in thy verdict what thou canst discover in it which in the most far fetcht construction can be said to evidence That St. Peter was onely over the Iews and St. Paul over the Gentiles Here to an ordinary eye nothing seems to be said but onely that St. Peter had such two Deacons and St. Paul other two which are there named wherefore I say sift it well and that with the disquisitive exactness as men do Riddles and when thou hast spent all thy industry in vain I will bring thee Doctor Hammond who will cure both thine and my blindness by his Exposition beginning his eleventh Section thus ACCORDINGLY observe the old transition in Ignatius Ep. ad Trall we read of Linus and Clement that one was St. Pauls the other St. Peters Deacon both which afterwards succeeded them in the Episcopal Chair Linus being constituted Bishop of the Gentile Clement of the Iewish Christians there And there he stops Where all that any way makes to the purpose is subjoyned by the Doctor out of his own head There is no dealing with such a terrible adversary who though he should chuse out his Testimonies blindfold and at all-adventures yet hath such a perilous faculty that nothing can come wrong to him but he will ere he hath done with it make it speak pat to his purpose What follows in this Section is onely a vain-glorious conceit that he hath found out a way to enucleate a difficulty in History concerning Linus and Cletus which all the Historians in the world never dream't on before and this onely forsooth out of his own wrong laid erroneous grounds But because the Doctor says that this rare and unheard-of discovery or as he calls it his Scholion is UNQUESTIONABLY true as also because it is built onely upon the slippery sand of his own saying already proved to be false I will forbear to vex him or trouble my self unnecessarily by vouchsasing it any farther confute His twelfth Section proceeding upon the grounds of his own Scholion lately brought to light to teach the world new History never heard of before tells us That in Pope Clemens the Union of the Iewish and Gentile Congregations was first made and not in St. Peter So that the Doctor first upon his own giddy imagination â—ancied them distinct and now because he saw no more but one Bishop succeed in the Roman Chair fancies them united without any word from History to countenance the former or any thing but his own Scholion to make good the latter And surely it were very strange that whereas the difficulty about the succession of Clemens was so ventilated and the opinions so various amongst the ancient Fathers Ignatius Tertullian Ierome c. no man could ever understand the business aright till this happy age in which Dr. Hammond was born whose Glow-worm fancy evidenced more then all the former lights of the Church could discover Many evasions they found out to solve the difficulty As that Anacletus and Cletus were the same that Clemens who as Tertullian says â—ate
Jurisdictions but also to set them together by the ears as if they were jealous that their fellow Apostles like usurping competitors would intrude into their right and therefore give express charge to debar their ambition from putting their Sicklâ— into another mans Harvest Good Mr. Hammond let us have no more of these insincere dealings Let the restrictive and exclusive words which onely make for your purpose be the witnesses not yours at least put them down with that distinction as may easily be discerned and do not after a company of your own expressions mainly prejudicial to the Controversie immediately cite a place of Sacred Writ without producing the words and so gull the Reader to to believe That all which went before is perfect and pure Scripture Whereas indeed scarce so much as a blank Monosyllable is found in the Testimony to countenance your alleaging it But this is your solemn method all over your Book His next Argument is that St. Paul gave Commission to Timothy without St. Peter And who doubts but that each Apostle might by his own single power delegate and constitute whom he pleased and where he pleased in any place of the world I perceive by this whole Chapter that the Doctor understands not the question or at least could not have made a Book without counterfeiting not to understand it We voluntarily yeeld him that each Apostle had an Apostolical Commission over the whole world and yet fear no prejudice should hence arise to St. Peters Primacy amongst the rest of the Apostles Had Master Hammond known this it might have saved him all that pitiful puzzle in making good his first Evidence That St. Peter was over the Iews onely by patching those old garments of ancient Testimonies with the new peeces of his self-woven Additions This Concession of ours and mistake of his shews the next Paragraph which harps upon the same string to wit That St. Paul constituted Titus Primate in Creet to be nothing to the purpose And I observe That the Doctor to give him his due hath very good luck in this That he proves those things pretty plainly which none ever denied After this he tells us That Simeon Metaphrastes affirms St. Peter to have been in Britanny sometime and baptized many into the Faith of Christ and constituted Churches ordaining Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the twelfth year of Nero. How now Doctor what will become of your excluding St. Peter from any Authority over the Gentiles if this Testimony be true were not all the ancient Britains at that time Heathens or Gentiles Alas no we and all antiquity were mistaken the Doctor tells us That in all reason it must be extended no farther then St. Peters line as he was Apostle of the Circumcision ID EST saith he to the Iews which might at that time â—e dispersed here So as though the story were true yet the Doctor hath ever a help at maw and rather then St. Peter shall touch a Gentile he will fancy strongly that there were I cannot tell how many Diocesses of Iews in England since there must be several Diocesses where there are several Bishops for St. Peter to convert and govern So that Britain must swarm with Jews Which might have been saith this evidencing Doctor dispersed there and this without any authority or likelihood but onely because Master Hammond and his ID ESTS say it In the last place the Doctor concludes out of his former laid grounds that is out of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iudas his going to Hell out of his own ID ESTS WE KNOW IT IS MANIFEST WE MAKE NO QUESTION out of his clasping together very unlike and disaccording Testimonies to his own voluntary Assertions with the Hooks and Eyes of SO and ACCORDINGLY but most of all out of the Papers of his own Additions pin'd before and behinde the too-bashful proofs Out of these grounds I say without so much as one word in any Testimony either out of Scripture Fathers or History restraining the Commission of St. Peter to the Iews onely he concludes That that Apostle could not be Universal Pastor of the Church This done he hooks in with another ACCORDINGLY a Testimony of St. Prospers which calls them Hereticks who depart from the Communion of Christ and his Apostles in the plural says the Doctor and then reckons up promiscuously such and such Apostles founding such and such Churches What follows hence against St. Peters authority This Testimony seems also something aenigmatical and requires Lynxe's eyes or the Doctors far-seeing and all-penetrating Optick to look through the thick rinde of it which he willingly lends you in these words Where as the Church had the several Apostles for their Founders and those Independent one from the other so the unity from which Hereticks and Schismaticks are said to depart IS SAID to have been founded EQUALLY in each of them in John James and Andrew as well as in St. Peter The word where and is said would almost perswade the Reader that all that follows is in the Testimony but nothing is there or any where else That the Apostles were independent of each other nor that this unity was founded equally in each of them nor in the rest as well as St. Peter But all these his Doctorship huddles together of his own head All the shadow of proof one can have a glimpse of from this place is That the Apostles are here named promiscuously and without distinction and that therefore all were equal Which as it is onely a Negative and non-concluding Argument to say That no distinction is here mentioned therefore there was none so were the Conclusion admitted as Consequent it makes as much against Christ as against St. Peter For he is also named joyntly with his Apostles as those whose joynt-communion Hereticks leave So as if the mentioning of several persons indifferently together without distinction of superiority argue an equality in their Authorities the Doctors Logick may with the same reason infer That Christ and his Apostles were independent of one another that the unity from which Schismaticks depart is founded EQUALLY in them in John James Andrew AS WELL as Christ c. And this may serve for a sample of the Doctors solidness in reasoning Yet it is some sign of wit if one can do himself no good at least to do himself no hurt but the Doctor by this very Testimony which made nothing at all for him has most expresly undone all his former work even beyond the help of an ID EST that is beyond all hopes of remedy For whereas he had bent all his endeavors to prove that some Apostles had the Iews onely for their Province and had more especially insisted for nine whole Paragraphs together in limiting St. Peters authority to the Iews no body knows where as likewise St. Iames his to the Iews in Iudea Section six and St. Iohns to the Iews of Asia Section fourteen This Testimony by himself here alleaged
refused to subscribe The Act it self not numbred amongst the Acts of the Council till ambition which at first receiving such a check from so grave Authority was modest growing more impudent when the reprehending and curbing power was absent legitimated that bastard-issue and pin'd it to the end of the Council as Dr. Hammond does his own sayings to the end of his Testimonies Yet the Doctor tells us He could vindicate the validity of this Canon but that he means not to go out of his way Is it out of your way Mr. Doctor to vindicate that Testimony to be valid which you object for a strong proof against us and we reject as of insufficient Authority and illegitimate In my poor judgment it lies so directly in your way that you cannot possibly do your cause better service then to clear this point else why did you produce a Testimony lying under a just Exception unless you would stick to it and maintain it It lay in your way it seems to put that large-senc'd monosyllable ALL into the Testimony that was just in your way but to make good your own weak Allegation was quite out of your way Yet you were something excusable from under-propping your Testimony if you had been better employ'd in the mean time but I finde the whole fifth Paragraph in which you wave it from the beginning to the end made up onely of your own sayings and some of those too false upon which as upon grounds you proceed with an unresistable career So as your proofs are perfect Cobwebs both the ground and the work upon it being spun out of your own bowels But instead of vindicating it you first quarrel with us for strange dealing in not admitting any Testimony against us but wherein we have given our own suffrage which you call A method of security beyond all amulets c. Thus the Doctor plausibly indeed if his Readers were fools otherwise nothing can sound more unconsonantly For either the Pope is head of the Church or no If he suppose negatively then he plainly begs the Question which hangs yet in dispute and then upon this supposition I will grant it is not onely strange dealing but injustice usurpation tyranny impiety or whatever he will or else the Pope was and is Head of the Church and then the Doctors words may be objected as well to any Governor or any man living as to the Pope and it is not strange dealling but very good reason That he should refuse to subscribe to an Act endamaging the Canons of the Church it being his duty and obligation to keep them inviolate And if Pope Leo could in reason reject it then when one siding and self-interessed part of the Council had voted it we can with as good reason reject it now when Dr. Hammond alleages it SECT 2. THe Doctors next EVIDENCE that the Pope is not Head of the Church is from a Canon in the Council of Ephesus where saith Mr. Hammond the independency of Cyprus not onely from the Patriarch of Antioch but from all others whomsoever was contested then as from the Apostles times c. Thus the Doctor desirous to make the Reader believe that Cyprus had no kinde of Dependency on any one whomsoever Though the Testimony it self contests no more but that from the Apostles time they could never show That the Bishop of Antioch was there Et ordinaverit vel communicaverit unquam Insulae ordination is gratiam neque alius quisquam that is And ordain'd or conferred the grace of Ordination upon that Iâ—and nor any other The Testimony speaks onely That neither the Patriarch nor any other ordained there the Doctor interprets it That Cyprus was independent on the Patriarch of Antioch or any one whomsoever Which is not ingenuously done for there may be a dependency of subjection to the Jurisdiction of another though they never received from that other their Ordination Thus you see the Doctor seldom brings us an account of any Testimony but less or more he will be sure to enflame the reckoning But the Council exempted Cyprus from the peculiar subjection to a private Patriarch in particular True but is there any thing exprest there That either Cyprus or the Patriarch of Antioch himself were exempted from the Obedience or Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome as Publick Head of the Church or was the Popes Primacy there called in question This should have been exprest to make good your inference But of this we have not so much as a syllable nor any thing that can deduce it since the I le of Cyprus might well have been exempted from the obedience of any particular Patriarch and yet both it and the Patriarchs themselves subjected to one Chief or Head of the Church As there may be some free State or City in Europe independent of any particular Kingdom or Province and yet both that State and all the Kingdoms and Provinces in Europe dependent or subject to the Universal Rule of an Emperor who is Lord of the whole Yet the Doctor hath not done with us thus he hath another fling at us out of this Council of Ephesus which determined saith the Doctor That no Bishop shall encroach upon anothers Province or usurp a power where from the Apostles times he had not enjoyed it Which how directly adds the Doctor it prejudgeth the pretensions of Rome is so manifest that it cannot need farther demonstrating This therefore being Dr. Hammonds PRIMUM PRINCIPIUM first Principle which is so evident by the light of nature and cannot need farther demonstrating it were not amiss if we put it in a Syllogism to let the Reader see how unavoidably the Doctor deduces a break-neck conclusion to the cause of Rome out of it The Argument then stands thus The Canon of Ephesus constitutes That nâ—… Bishop shall encroach upon anothers Province oâ—… usurp a power where from the Apostles time hâ—… had not enjoyed it But the Pope must Dr. Hammond subsume hath encroacht upon anothers Province and usurpt a power where from the Apostles times he had not enjoyed it Therefore his pretensions are prejudiced by this Canon of Ephesus Where as every childe may see nothing follows out of the words of the Council against the Pope which are the Major until the Doctor makes good his Minor That the Pope hath thus encroached c. Yet this being all that belongs to him to prove he either supposes as a first principle though it be the onely thing in controversie or else begs of us to grant him gratis and then tells us the Conclusion is so manifest it cannot need farther demonstrating Surely he was afraid here also to go out of his way and with good reason for had he gone about to evidence his Minor he would never have arrived at his Conclusion After this most palpable and evident demonstration he gives us two instances of the same alloy One of the Archbishop of Carthage whom the Emperor Iustinian made equal in
Communication with any Church either true or even fals For first at your dawning or rather twilight in King Henry's dayes for your progress hath not been to noon-day-light but to midnight you had nothing at all to doe with any other Church in Christendom Since that time though you have indeed a kinde of Communication with some few of your fellow Schismaticks yet if well examin'd it is negative onely Faction against Rome initiates you into so much friendship as to converse with the Calvinists sometimes to call them Brethren somtimes to be merry with your doublejug Companions in the Synod of Dort of whose drunken and beastly behaviour wallowing worse then swine in their own vomits I have heard a Pillar of your own Church scandalously complain having too much spirit of draff forced by them into his queaâ—ier stomach Though I say you may thus communicate with them in eating and drinking in which acts * before you made All Communion consist yet any other positive tie and obligation either with them or any others to conserve you in Communion so as you may be said to make up one Ecclesiastically-politick Body united by some inviolable Order such an obligation I say could never be discover'd between you and any other Church good or bad true or fals The Greek Church holding almost all that we doe and scarce two points with you which are against us as your friend Alexander Rosse hath particularly told you The Lutherans hold much more with us in opposition to you than with you in opposition to us The Calâ—inists are excluded by the most understanding Protestants from their Church since they admit not the Government of Bishops held by the others to be of Divine Right nor the Protestants Fundamental or as the Doctor calls it The Bottome of the Foundation of the Reformation to wit that the King is Head of the Church The 39. Articles which as the Kings Supremacy is the Imprimis so these are all the Items of the Protestants Faith obtain not a total admission from any Church but themselves nor amongst themselves neither their great Champion Mr. Chillingworth rejecting them at his pleasure Nor is there any visible form of Government uniting them all together but they are forced to fly sencelesly to an invisible one either of onely Christ in Heaven or onely Charity pretences to gull the easie vulgar not to satisfie prudent men who know that the Church though it be a spiritual Common-wealth breeding up Soules to a state of a future Eternity yet while it is here on earth it is a Common-wealth of Christians visibly comporting or discomporting themselves in order to Christs laws of which the Church is the Keeper and Conserver and therefore it must have visible Governours without expecting a miraculous recourse to Christ in Heaven to resolve emergent difficulties or to cherish and punish her weldemeaned or misdemeaned subjects But for a more full demonstration that the Church of England has no perfect Communion with the Greek Lutheran Calvinist or any other Church I refer the Reader to the learned Exomologâ—sis or Motives c. of Mr. Cressy a late Protestant Dean but now Religious of the ancient and holy Order of St. Benet where the Doctor may also read among other controversies excellently treated the charge of Schism sufficiently prov'd against his Church Perhaps the Doctor will alledge that their positive Communion with other reformed Churches consists in the acknowledgment of Gods Word and the holding to it But I would ask him whether he means they agree in the Name of Gods Word or in the Thing or Sence of it If in the Name onely then all that have the title of Christians that is all Hereticks and Schismaticks in the World are of one Communion nothing being more rife in their mouths and pens than wrong alledged testimonies out of the Bible the bare name then is not sufficient it must be the Thing that is the sence and meaning of Gods Word in which he must make their positive Communion consist but since they have no one certain known and commonly acknowledged Rule by which to interpret Gods word and fetch out the true inward sence lurking in the imperspicuous bark of the letter it followes they have no positive way or meanes to communicate in the same sence and therefore no positive unity can be grounded on that pretence And it would be as sencelesse to object that they communicate at least in fundamentals found in Gods word since the Scripture not telling them they cannot tell certainly themselves which points are fundamentals which not all being there with equal authority and like tenour delivered and proposed to them And if we should goe to reason to know what are fundamentals surely reason would give it that the rules of Faith and Government are more fundamental than all the rest No positive communion therefore have they with our Church as little with their fellow schismaticks it being the nature of boughs separated not to grow together into one tree after they have once lost connection with the root Where they are cut off there they lie and though for a short time they retain some verdure and some little moystning sap counterfeiting life that is as much Religion as serves them to talk of God and Christ yet after a while they wither roâ— and molder away into an hundred atomes of dust or else if they chance to be gathered up or taken away sooner they serve for nothing but to be thrown into the fire SECT 10. That the reforming Protestants were and are guilty of the formal part of Schism THat you have made then a material breach or schism is as evident as fact and reason can make the most manifest thing to the clearest understanding The formality of schism comes next to be enquired into which consists in its injustifiablenesse or doing it without just causes or motives which consequently unlesse you can shew you must unavoidably be concluded formal schismaticks And though the testimonies of the Fathers which you formerly produced affirming that there can be no just cause given of schism render all further proof unnecessary yet to make this matter stil more manifest I desire Mr. Hammond in the Churches behalfe that he would give me leave to summon him to the Bar of Reason that we may see what he can answer for himselfe and his friends whose defence here he undertakes Cath. Do not you know that the Church in whose bowels your ancestors til K. Henry began the breach were bred had no other form of Government then that which now is of the Bishop of Rome held chiefe Pastour of the universal Church and supreme in Ecclesiastical matters and that til the breach was made you held as sacred and were under that government Dr. I pretend not to deny it for this is the very authority I told you in my 7. c. 5. sect we cast out of this Island Besides Kings can erect and remove Patriarchates at
be rendred that the Government was injust ' which as you see could not Irrational therefore was that present perswasion of theirs and if so not sprung from reason therefore from unreasonable passion that is from vice therefore sinful and obnoxious to punishment as all other like perswasions are which make men think and act against their duties and obligations Besides all the Logick we have hitherto heard assures us nothing can convince the understanding but evidence and therefore men take so much paines about the moods and figures that the discourse may prove evident wherefore whatsoever assent comes not out of Evidence must come from our will and wilfulnesse and by consequence cannot be free from desert of punishment if it happen to be wrong and wrongfull Neither availes it to pretend invincible ignorance since no man living if free from a proud spirit can be so sottish as not to know that it is his obligation to obey his Superiors so long setled in the possession of their command till most open and undeniable Evidences and not seeming ones onely should discover that Authority null And if the obligation be of belief he must condemn the Churches judgment in not seeing the falsity of her doctrine and prefer his own before millions more learned who liv'd and dy'd in that faith which savours too strong of a self-conceited pride or else imagin so little sincerity left in the Church that all see and wilfully adhere to a known falshood but himselfe which is a plain sign of a rash and Pharisaical presumption And are not those punishable yet the Doctor would stroke such a fellow on the head and give him sugar plums for following his present perswasion and self-conceit which he nicknames conscience Nay he highly applauds his first Reformers whose conscience no doubt was tainted with the same leaven The Material Schism then which was manifestly your fact is made formal by your want of evidence that the doctrine was erroneous and consequently her Government violable Both which joyn'd together give you in plain termes your own name of flat proper and formal Schismaticks and entitle you to all the bed-roll of vices and curses which you hoarded up for your self and your friends in your first Chapter SECT 11. The Doctors argument that the Popes power in England was deriv'd under the Kings Concession refuted BUt it is now high time to returne to overlook the work who after the declaration of the matter of fact confesses no great hold can be taken from the freeness of the Clergy's determination and therefore the whole difficulty devolves to this one enquiry whether the Bishop of Rome were Supreme Head or Governour of the Church of England in the reign of King Henry the eighth That is we are come about again to the beginning of the Book But I am mistaken he tells us he hath largely disproved in his Chap. 4 5 6. all pretensions from St. Peters Supremacy and from Englands Conversion to whose particular answers I refer the Reader for full satisfaction and he has now invented a new ground of the Popes Supremacy in England to wit the voluntary Concession of our Kings What the Doctor meanes I cannot imagine Some particular priviledges and as I may say pious curtesies have out of a special respect been granted by our Kings to that See to whom they owe their first knowledge of Christ and his Law but these are not the thing in debate The right of Supreme Authority is our question now who ever held this to come from the Concession of our Kings Yet this ayr-beating Champion of Schism first fancies this to be our tenet and then beats it all to dirt He is as valiant as Sir Iohn Falstaff let him tell his own story and hee 'l make you beleeve he has kill'd eleven Enemies when but one opposed him We onely found the Popes Primacy upon his Succession to St. Peter This is the onely adversary-point the Doctor is to combate which he hath most weakly opposed with grosse mistakes palpable contradictions to Scripture and pinning all the words that made for his purpose to every testimony as hath been shew'd But to counterfeit a triumph he makes every trivial thing done either by or about the Pope to be the very ground of his Primacy and then falls to work and impugnes them as really as if he thought we held them The Pope cannot doe any good action or convert a Nation but that must be the ground of his Universal Pastorship over us and be impugned accordingly A beggerly penny cannot be given to the Pope by our Kings for pious uses and out of a gratefull obligation but the poore Peter-pence and such like petty grants must presently be the Popes Universal Authority given him by the Concession of our Kings and that as such must be impugned The Kings of England France c. cannot be said by G de Heimburgh to be free from swearing obedience to the Pope at their instalment an obligation peculiar to the Empire of Germany but presently the Doctor concludes hence an absolute power in our Princes I suppose he means in Ecclesiastical matters for in temporal none denies it so as now the very ceremony of swearing obedience to the Pope is become the very granting of the formal universal Pastorship and they that doe it not are concluded to be free from the Popes Jurisdiction though he knows well enough that the King of France who as he confesses performes no such ceremonious courtesie towards him acknowledg'd notwithstanding himselfe subject to him as the Head of Gods Church Lastly which he touches here againe he cannot read in some Authors that Kings de facto executed the erecting and removing of Patriarchates though the testimony doe not exclude the Churches fore ordering it but presently the Popes Universal Power must be supposed to be transdignifi'd into a private Patriarchate and as a Patriarchate impugned Thus nothing can come amiss to the Doctor Every argument he undertakes to manage is equally strong and unresistable A pot gun will serve him to batter downe the walls of Rome He was borne a Controvertist and it is an even wager whether hee be better in the gift of Use and Applicatioon or in the Art of Dispute and Consutation Next comes another Dilemma or forked Argument which though proceeding on the former false supposition needs no answer yet for the Readers recreation we will afford a glance First it is observable that he never brings this bug-bear Argument upon the stage but when he has made a Prologue for it of some forg'd supposition of his own and then the Thing in vertue of that acts and talkes through the vizard of a mistake and yet ere it comes to a Conclusion the Doctors weak reason cracks to make both ends meet The summe of it is this that The Authority of the Pope was either originally in our Kings so as they could lawfully grant it to the Pope or not if not then the grant
in the Doctors judgment Not considering which yet any prudent man would that the whole world whom before they accounted onely Catholick and in which had been hundreds of Kings Queens and Bishops nay perhaps thousands for one of theirs had ever condemned by their contrary beliefe these Votes and Acts to bee scismatical and heretical Besides this King before the breach acknowledging himselfe subject to that Authority in Ecclesiastical matters as all Catholick Kings now doe and as all his Ancestor-Kings ever since Englands conversion had done it must be as I have told you often most apparent evidence and such as greater cannot be imagin'd which may warrant him to exalâ— himselfe above the Popes Authority so long setled in possession and that in those very things in which before he was acknowledgedly under him especially the contrary verdict of such an universality as I have before mention'd with its weight not to be counterpois'd preponderating and mightily prejudicing any pretence of Evidence Again if the thing were evident how happened it that no Christian King till the time of King Henry the eighth and in his time none but he should discern this clear evidence unless perhaps though they say love is blind yet his desire to Anna Bullen did open his eyes in such miraculous manner that he saw by the heavenly light of her bright star-like eyes that the Pope was Antichrist his Authority unlawful and himselfe who was then found under it in Ecclesiastical matters to be indeed above it in case the Popes spiritual power should cross his carnal pleasure To conclude my answer to this Chapter I would ask two things of Mr. Doctor one is in case a King should have broke from the Church and brought in Schism into his Country whether it could probably be perform'd in any other manner than the very method by which their Reformation was introduced The other is whether the Reformation be yet perfectly compleat or rather that Queen Elizabeth swept the Church indeed but left the dust sluttishly behind the door if it be not yet compleat I would gladly know how far this Reformation and Receding from Rome may proceed and what be the certain stints and limits of this rowling Sea which it may not pass For I see no reason in the Doctors grounds but if the secular powers think it convenient they may reform still end wayes as they please nay even if they list deny Christ to be God an acute Socinian will solve very plausibly all the objections out of Scripture and produce allegations which I doubt not he will make far stronger than the Doctor doth his against the Pope nor will there want some obscure testimonies out of Antiquity and express ones from the Arrian Hereticks to evince the Tenet if this then were voted by a King some of his Bishops and a Parliament the Doctor must not disobey and hold Christs Divinity since the thing was done by them to whom as the Doctor sayes rightfull power legally pertain'd They having no infallibility then may happen to vote such a thing and the Doctor having no infallible certainty to the contrary ought not recede from his lawful Superiours so as upon these grounds all religion may be reformed into Atheism and the infallibility of the Church once denied the temporal Power hath no reason to have his rightful authority stinted but at pleasure to make Reformation upon Reformation from generation to generation per omnia saecula saeculorum THE THIRD PART Containing the answers to the foure last Chapters of Dr. Hammonds Schism SECT 1. Doctor Hammonds second sort of Schism and his pretence that they retain the way to preserve Unity in Faith refuted MAster Hammond hath at length finish't his greatest task and done preaching of the first species of Schism as it is an offence against the subordination which Christ hath by himselfe and his Apostles setled in the Church and is now arrived to the second sort as it signifies an offence against the mutual unity peace and charity which Christ left among his Disciples This Schism against Charity for methods sake as he tells us he divides into three species The first is a Schism in the Doctrine or Traditions a departure from the unity of the Faith once delivered to the Saints from the institutions of Christ of the Apostles and of the Universal Church of the first and purest times whether in Government or practises c. Where first this methodical Dr. makes Faith and Charity all one putting his Schism against Faith for the first species of his Schism against mutual Charity Next he ranks also the rejecting Christs Institution of Government under this second species of Schism against Charity which most evidently was the first General Head of Schism hitherto treated of that is of the Offence against Subordination setled by Christ in the Church For Christ could not settle such a subordination in the Church but he must at the same time institute the Government of the Church since there can be neither subordination without Government nor Government without subordination So as now the Schism against Government is come to be one of the Schisms against mutual Charity and to mend the matter comprehended under the same Head with Schism against Faith Was ever such a confusion heard of And yet all this is done saith the Doctor for methods sake But to proceed the second species of his Schism against mutual Charity is an offence against external peace and Communion Ecclesiastical Where I find as much blundering as formerly For these words must either signifie an Offence against Superiors and Governors of the Church and then it is again co-incident both with the first general Head of Schism which dissolves the subordination of the Churches subjects and also with the first particular species of Schism against mutual Charity which according to the Doctors method included a breach from the Government instituted by Christ. Or else they must signifie an Offence against the mutually and equally-due correspondence and Charity which one fellow-member ought to have to another and then it falls to be the same with his third and last species which he calls The want of that Charity which is due from every Christian to every Christian. So that if the jumbling all the Bells together in a confused disorder may be called musical then the Doctors division may be styled methodical After this he subdivides this first species to wit Schism against Faith into A departure from those Rules appointed by Christ for the founding and upholding truth in the Church and into The asserting particular doctrins contrary to Christs and the Apostolical pure Churches establishment But first he cleares himselfe of the former of these by answering our suggestion as he calls it that in casting out the Authority of the Bishop of Rome they have cast off the Head of all Unity To which he tells us the answer is obvious First that the Bishop of Rome was never appointed by
a man that goes about to clear another of an imputed fault should as I conceive propose the objected fault with the presumptions of the defendants guiltiness and then diluere objecta wipe off the stain of the accusations and clear his innocencie What does the Dr he takes no notice of what is objected but in stead of that onely reckons up some few indifferent things which their Church hath not rejected and sure it were a hard case if they had rejected all which their Forefathers taught them and then thinks the deed done In particular he tells us first that they retain the Government of Bishops but why they have innovated a new Church-government making the King Head in Ecclesiastical matters or why they obey those Bishops who can derive their mission of doctrine from no former Church or Authority which only are the things objected to them as schism of these two points hee sayes nothing That they now obey their Bishops he tells us but why they obey'd not him or why they cast out his Authority whom they held before to bee the Chief-Bishop that 's a matter not worth clearing The Pope's Antichrist and ther 's an end Then he clears his side from Schism because they assemble in Churches but he never considers that wee charge them with plain Sacriledge for meeting there and deatining those places anciently ours and built by us out of the true owners hands and applying them to prophane uses All that with him is very laudable and needs no clearing either from injustice or sacriledge He clears their Church of Schism because they observe yet some Festivals and the like may bee said of Sacramentals and Ceremonies but considers not that the schism consists in this that they at their own voluntary pleasure refusing some and admitting others denied consequently obedience to that Authority which recommended both unto them and which disobedience their own grounds condemnes as shall presently bee shewed He cleares his Church of Schism by alledging they observe some form of Prayer but never takes notice that the crime wee object to them is this that they ruin'd Religious houses to build dwelling Halls so they mangled our Holy and ancient Service-books to patch up their reformed piece of the book of Common-prayer leaving out all the most sacred parts of it to wit Canon Missae and what ever concerned the Heaven-propitiating Sacrifice that highest and soul-elevating Act of Religion and onely taking out of it those sleighter things which might satisfie the lowersiz'd devotion of their reformed spirits and was enough to serve them to cry Lord Lord. He brings as a proofe of their innocencie from schism that they have celebration of Sacraments Preaching and Catechizing c. But thinks it not worth clearing that of seven Sacraments they have retain'd onely the substance of one and the shadow of another Nor ever considers whether their doctrine be true or false All is one for that with the Doctor if they doe but preach pray and catechise let it be what it will it is a certain note that they are no schismaticks Lastly hee puts as an argument to cleare them from schism that they have some Discipline to bind to these performances c. that is they use some little wit or meanes to maintain their schism and hold their tribe together but he waves that for which onely we accuse them of Schism to wit that they utterly renounced all the discipline and even all ground of it in that Church of which theirs was once a member and fancied to themselves a new one without any ground of Authority and with direct opposition and contempt of the former discipline Nor hath he onely in this present endeavour to clear his Church of Schism omitted the very mentioning those matters which were to be cleared but even the things he alledges as whose retaining hee makes account frees their Church from schism are such pitifull ordinary businesses so indifferent to all or most schismaticks and hereticks that they can no way particularize them to be none or exempt them from the common crue of their fellowes For what schism ever arose but had some kind of government or discipline had their meetings in some set places at some set times pray'd in their own new way preach't taught and catechiz'd their own doctrine So as the Doctor might with â—ar better Logick have concluded the Protestants no schismaticks because they have all noses on their faces this being common to Catholikes as well as Schismaticks and so might seem partly to excuse them whereas the other of admitting such points and no more which are the Doctors notes of his Church are disclaimed by all Catholikes and common to almost all Schismaticks Nay some schismaticks and hereticks have retained much more of what their Ancestors taught them as Lutherans some almost all points as the Greeks and the old Arians the latter of which excepting their one heresie against Christs divinity had twenty times more markes of a Church in all other things than the Drs could ever pretend to Fourthly hee assures us that the Popes Authority is an usurpation and the use of more ceremonies and Festivals an imposition of the Romanists How so Mr. Doctor if the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome was brought in 900. yeares agoe when Pope Gregory sent to convert our Forefathers to Christs faith as your selfe and your followers grant then how is it an usurpation of the present Romanists Were wee who now live alive 900. yeares agoe or are they who lived 900. years ago alive now But in regard you onely say it and bring no proof I shall not trouble my self in vouchsasing you an answer As for the imposition of more ceremonies which you say the present Romanists used towards you without any authority from the Primitive Church it is so silly so contrary both to our grounds and your own also that you make your selfe ridiculous to any man that understands either one or the other For since the institution of Ceremonies is one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things indifferent left to the ordering of Gods Church as both the 20th Article of the new English Creed expressely determines and all moderate Protestants hold I wonder why our Church should not when she saw convenient ordain new Ceremonies and the like may bee said of new Festivals which are things indiferent also and recommend the observation and practice of them to you who were then members of that Church her subjects and children Most lawfully then did our Church even in your own grounds in imposing new Ceremonies on you her then-subjects and if so as unlawfully did you in spurning against her Ordinances Neither consequently can those few you retain upon your own head and not her Authority excuse you from Schism Equally absurd is your zealous profession of conforming your selves in ceremonies to the Primitive times for if the Church hath Authority upon emergent conveniences and difficulties to institute new Ceremonies and
all that is in the Britannick World belongs to us and is derived to us Yet is this also false For nothing in History is more evident than that the British Churches admitted appellations to Rome at the Council of Sardica And as much as we have Records in our Histories of the Pope Eleutherius so much appeares the Popes Authority in that time And out of St. Prosper contra Collatorem in Chron. Wee have that the Pope Celestinus by his care and sending St. German Vice sua in his own stead freed the Britans from Pelagianism and converted the Scots by Palladius though Venerable Bede as far as I remember does not touch that circumstance But that which is mainly to the purpose is that since the Priviledge wee pretend was one that descends upon the Pope in quality of Successor to St. Peter how far it was executed may be unknown but that it was due none can bee ignorant And here our late Bishop begins to shuffle from the priviledge of St. Peter to the Patriarchal Jurisdiction of the Pope which is another an historical a mutable power and so concernes not our present debate Two objections he makes seem to deserve an answer First That the Welsh or Britans sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman in the observation of Easter To which I answer 't is true they observ'd not Easter right yet never so much as cited the Eastern Churches in abetment of their practise but onely the custome of their own Ancestors Neither was there any cause of siding wee not hearing it was ever pressed by the Church of Rome after Victor's time to any height The Council of Nice and the Emperour Constantine exhorted the Christian World to it but without any coercitive force And if the Britans resisted or rather neglected them I think wee ought not to say they sided against them but onely did not execute their desires St. Irenâ—us was of the French Church yet testifies this question was no matter of division so that it cannot bee guess'd by this what influence the Roman Church had or had not upon the British It seemes certain also that St. Lupus and Germanus neglected this Point that is thought it not necessary to be corrected however St. Austin seem'd more rigorous And though Palladius sent from Celestinus converted the Scots yet we find some of them in the same practise The second Objection is out of a piece of a worn Welsh Manuscript hoped by the Protestants to bee a Copy of some ancienter Original which though it has already been proved a manifest forgery counterfeited by all likelyhood in Q. Elizabeths time when the English Protestants sought to corrupt the Welsh by Catechisms and other Writings printed and not printed Yet if their great Antiquaries can shew that in St. Gregories time this name Papa or Pope taken by it self without other addition as Papa Urbis Romae c. was put as in later ages for the Bishop of Rome I shall confesse my selfe much surpriz'd If they cannot these very words sufficiently convince the Manuscript to bee a meer Imposture Another suspition against the legitimatnes of this paper naturally arises from this that Sr. Henry Spelman one so diligent in wiâ—ing off the dust from old writings found no other Antiquity in it worth the mention which shrewdly implies the Book was made for this alone And so this demonstrative proof of the Bishop is a conviction of the forgery of some counterfeit Knaue and the easiness of assent in Mr. Mosten and the Knight In his 6th Chapter he pretends three things 1. That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to withdraw their obedience from Rome 2ly That they had sufficient grounds for it and 3ly That they did it with due moderation I doubt not but the intelligent Reader understands by the first point that the Bishop meanes to shuffle away the true difficulty and whereas the Question is of the Priviledge given by Christ to Saint Peter and from him descended to the Popes his Successors spend his time about a Patriarchal Authority which wee also acknowledge to be of humane institution And here I must confesse that generally when no body opposes him his Lordship carries it clearly and gives his empty Reader full satisfaction Hee tells you out of Catholike Authors that Princes may resist the oppressions of Ecclesiasticks and themselves have priviledge to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction That Popes have been convented and deposed That Emperors have changed Patriarchs and that the Kings of England have as much power as Emperors And all this to handle the Question which is not in hand since our dispute is not what can be done in respect of the Popes Patriarchal Authority which the good Bishop himself professes the Pope has renounced these 600. years No doubt but th' other two points will follow the former in missing the Question For admitting the Popes Authority to bee derived from Christ what grounds can there bee for renouncing it or what moderation is the rejjecting it capable of Nay even if it were of humane institution many things there are which cannot bee rejected unless it appear the abuses are not otherwise remediable Suppose then the Christian World had chosen themselves one Head for the preservation oâ—â—o precious a Jewel as Unity in Religion how great absurdities must that Head commit what wrongâ— must it doe to cause it selfe to bee justly deposed and not onely the Person deposed but the very Government abolish't Suppose again that this alteration should â—ee made by some one party of the Christian Common-â—ealth which must separate it selfe from the assistance and communication of the â—â—st of Christianity ought not far weightier causes bee expected or greater abuses committed Suppose thirdly that by setting aside this Supreme Head eternal dissentions will inevibly follow in the whole Church of Christ to the utter ruine of faith and good life which our Saviour thought worth the comming down from Heaven to plant among us and then tell mee whether the refusal to comply with the humours of a lustful Prince be ground enough â—o renounce so necessary an Authority Let the Bishop bee now asked whether Kings deserve to bee deposed and Monarchy it selfâ— rejected for such abuses as hee gathers against the Pope or whether there may not easily bee made a collection of as many an I great misgovernments against the Court of England or any other Country Let him remember whether like abuses were not alledged against his own Parliamentary-Prelacy when it was put down Will hee justifie that if the mâ—â—demeanours pretended against them had been true the extirpation of Prelacy had been lawfull Surely hee would find out many remedies which hee would think necessary to bee first tryed and Sâ—â—ggin should as soon haue chosen a tree to bee hanged on as â—hee have ended the number of expedients to be â—â—yed before hee would give his assent to the extirpation of Episcopacy It is then of little concern to
Christ to be the Head of all Christian Unity or that Church to be the conservatory for ever of all Christian Truth more than any other Bishop or Church of the Apostles ordaining or planting Where I find almost as many absurdities hudled together as words For first what signifies the Bp. of Rome was not appointed by Christ Christ was not on earth when St. Peters Successors in the See of Rome sate there and when he ordained St. Peter chief of the Apostles Saint Peter was not yet Bishop of Rome Next if he meanes that St. Peter was not appointed by our Saviour as the Head of Christian Unity St. Hierom's testimony I suppose will be as good as the Doctors word who tels us Inter duodecim c. Amongst the twelve one was chosen that A HEAD being constituted the OCCASION OF SCHISM MIGHT BE TAKEN AWAY Where we see expresly Saint Peter the Popes Predecessor was advanced to be HEAD and this to take away occasion of Schism that is to be HEAD OF CHRISTIAN UNITY Thirdly hence also follows that Christian Unity is conserved by him more than by any other Bishop contrary to the Doctors assertion Fourthly he equivocates in the word Roman Church and takes in it a sence which he knowes we never mean't Our acception of it being of the Universal Church communicating with the Mother Church of Rome his of the private Diocess of Rome it selfe Fifthly it is groundless to affirm even of this private Church of Rome it selfe that she is not the conservatory of Christian Truth more than any other since the Doctor cannot but know the Fathers are of a contrary beleefe holding that the two chief Apostles dying there bequeathed to that Church as a sacred Legacy a greater vigour of Christian Tradition Again Histories and Fathers witnessing so unanimously her firm persistance above the rest objections often urged by our Authors to that purpose the Doctor might at least have afforded us one testimony of the contrary besides his own bare saying Lastly what is the Doctors intent in saying Christ did not appoint the Church of Rome conservatory for ever of all Christian truth What meanes this canting Parenthesis for ever As if Christ might perhaps appoint her to conserve truth for a while but meant after some time to discharge her of that office But this Parenthesis the Doctor reserved for a starting-hole that he might at pleasure cry out she had erred when he had found out some odd testimony which with the help of an id-est-clause might overthrow the Authority of the whole World His second Defence for relinquishing the means to preserve Unity of Faith which we charge them with is this that The way provided by Christ and his Apostles for preserving the Unity of Faith c. is fully acknowledged by their Reformation Which way sayes the Doctor is made up of two Acts of Apostolical Providence First their resolving upon some few heads of efficacy to the planting of Christian life through the world and preaching and depositing them in every Church Secondly their establishing an excellent subordination of Church-officers c. As for the first of these Acts as he calls them of Apostolical Providence if these two Heads he speaks of as thus deposited be indeed sufficient to form a Christian life in order to the attainment of Eternal bliss and that they came down certainly to us by this depository way at first in the Churches and so derived successively age by age Dr. Hammond is suddenly become a Proselyte and a plain Papist For we neither say we have any point of Faith superfluous for the Community of the Faithful nor that those we have came to us by any other meanes than seruando depositum by preserving uncorrupted those necessary doctrines thus deposited But I fear much when the matter comes to scanning Mr. Hammond in this his doctrine neither goes to Church nor stayes at home but halts very lamely in the mid-way He stayes not at home for his Church of England is so far from holding the points deposited by the Apostles in Churches a certain way to preserve Unity of Faith that nothing is more abominable to her than the name of Tradition This appeares by the sixth Article or Canon of Queen Elizabeth's female-headed General Council where the Scripture is made the sole ground of Faith and nothing affirmed as necessary to Salvation but what is built upon it whereas the Doctor here builds points necessary to salvation for sure those few heads of special efficacy to the planting a Christian life can be no lesse upon their preaching and depositing them in the Churches nay more the Unity of Faith that is Faith it self for Faith if not one is none upon this way of depositing Yet for all this he will not goe to Church neither though he stay not at home For ask him are those few Heads all that are necessary he will tell you nâ— yet which be those necessary Heads how many and why no more were thus delivered since this he sayes is A WAY TO PRESERVE UNITY IN FAITH and on the other side he sees what multiplicity is bred by the diverse interpretations of Scripture ask him I say these questions and no particular account can he give you only he had a mind to say somthing in geneneral lest he might be thought to have utterly contemned all Traditions Again these Churches in which were deposited those few Heads of such special eefficacy to plant Christian life were they infallible that is such as we may certainly trust to in their preserving that depositum if they were they might as well be infallible in other necessary points also and so the Doctor hath slipt by good hap into our Rule of Faith and though hoodwink't goes to Church again But if they be not infallible that is connot certainly tell us that they delivered us the right depositum and the same they received then the Drremaines as he is and hath brought nothing to his purpose For since Unity of Faith cannot be preserved without some efficacious meanes of bringing it down to us inerrably true unless this depositing was such as must upon necessity continue for ever which is that we call Infallibility or Indefectibility of the Church the providence of the Apostles had been very sleight and nothing at all to the Doctors purpose that is it had been no efficacious way to preserve Unity of Faith He addes afterwards And all this is asserted and acknowledged by every true son of the Church of England as zealously as is pretended by any Romanist Here again the Doctor seemes to step forwards towards the Church and to draw a great troup of backward unwilling Protestants after him For if they hold as I conceive he meanes by these words the doctrines deposited in the Church as zealously as the Romanists they must hold them as of Faith for so farre our well-grounded zeal carries us and that the depositary is so trusty as