or what was the little further than was fit that they were forced to strain Next here 's another retreat to the Pacifick Humor to evade passages out of these Authors not proposed as terms of agreement or abatements to be yeilded or winkt at in order to an union but as certain truths justly maintain'd by the one side and perversly denied by the other the Quotations are true and they are conclusive but now the end and so the authority of the Authors must come into contempt and their design overthrow their evidence But what Is committing and defending Idolatry as they do if this man be in the right in them but straining a little more than is fit and in us a crime never to be sufficiently aggravated Pag. 91. l. 1. Will he himself allow every thing to be the Doctrine c. The Discourser allows that to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church which she not which any private Doctor without her allowance declares to be so and supposes tho not Bishop Taylor yet Bishop Andrews and King James to be of like authority with the genuine Sons of the Church of England as a Council is with us The reason is because the Head of the English Church hath all that Spiritual Power any Ecclesiastical person or persons ever challenged or exercised in England and may delegate it as the King did to Bishop Andrews in this case If the Minister had told us where St. Thomas Paludanus and Catherine assure him 't is Idolatry to Adore an unconsecrated Host thro mistake we might have understood what species of Idolatry they had esteem'd it since Protestants have lately discover'd a damnable and a saving sort of Idolatry for if of the later kind the danger incurr'd by an invincible mistake is inconsiderable However this we may learn thence That those Doctors did not hold either the substance or accidents of the Host unconsecrated Adorable nor did Adore either of them in an Host consecrated but something else that by Consecration became present in the Eucharist unless we can imagine they had there two objects adorable or made Christ and what remain'd after Consecration but one thing The Minister had dealt more ingenuously too if he had nam'd the several of our Writers that make our Adoration a worse Idolatry than any Heathens were ever guilty-of because the Person to whom that is imputed is abus'd if all be true the Answer to Dr. More tells us p. 47. viz. That the Doctor mistook Costerus his Ground of confessing at such a rate and moreover foisted in Transubstantiation which is not there Costerus arguing only thus If the true Body of Christ be not in the Eucharist Christ has dealt unworthily with his Church fail'd of his engagements to lead her into all truth and holiness and on the contrary seduc'd her by his own words to a fundamental impiety whereupon he could not be a true Christ and she must have worshipt not only a true object where it is not but an Impostor also and an object absolutely incapable of such Honour because Christ must then be not only a meer Creature but as Mahomet or Satan one of the worst of Creatures Ibid. l. 8. For the Doctrine of the Church of Rome I find it thus clearly set down in the Council of Trent c. We understand why he chuses to give our Doctrine out of the Chapter rather than out of the Canon It is not his way to represent our Points with the right side outward but if He will be so equal as to accept of such answers as himself hath often give the mist he raises before his Reader 's Eyes will be quickly dispell'd For if the sixth Canon of the same Session may interpret the fifth Chapter the illusion is escap'd if it may not why has he so often vexed us with Replies of the same nature which he despises His translation too of the Chapter is not accurate and tho I discern no great advantage got by this ill version yet his whole carriage in this controversie is so unhandsom that I fear I ought to complain rather of his sincerity than Learning Is quin exhibeant render'd well ought to give Or Neque enim ideo minus est adorandum quod fuerit a Christo D. ut sumatur institutum done rightly into for it is nevertheless to be adored because it was instituted by our Lord Christ that it might be receiv'd This is not the sense of that Clause but rather thus It is not the less to be Adored tho it were instituted by our Lord Christ to be Received This to shew the Minister's Translating Talent Now for his Arguing That according to this Council is to be worshipp'd which Christ instituted to be receiv'd Right He instituted that his Body Sacramentally existing should be received and this the Council says may be worshipped And in which they believe Christ to be present False Not it wherein Christ is present but Christ present in it is that the Council says may be Ador'd But Sir to expostulate with you a while for your treacherous method Why did you pick out the chapter and not the canon to shew our undoubted Doctrine Were you not aware there was such a canon wherein our Faith was contain'd as undoubtedly and more precisely even above the cavil and misunderstanding of either the Malignant or those they seduce Was it because you would have been depriv'd of a convenience to delude your People the complex and ambiguous terms Sacrament or Host as you fondly express our Doctrine there affording you no fallacies The canon does exclude all your pretences that we Adore the symbols or species with Divine worship which you would insinuate by your calling our Adoration an Adoration of the Sacrament or Host Tho these terms as Mr. Thorndike observes suggest to such as make not cavilling their business no other than the adoration of our Lord in the Sacrament Did you not peruse what is written from § 11. to § 17. in the 2d Treatise on purpose to vindicate our Doctrine from Dr. Taylor 's and Dr. Stilling feeet's comments and prevent such tricks as you now play Will no Answers satisfy you no cautions retrench your exorbitances but still such wild and malicious and seigned notions must be repeated by every little smatterer in Theology as if never exposed by us and all this to ingratiate with the vulgar grow famous and obtain pluralities Sine-cures and Dignities for such service against Popery Are you ignorant that a Council may express it self less or more distinctly or obscurely concerning a point without derogating from either its authority or infallibility as serving in the one and failing in the other unless whatever is determined by authority or infallibility must be equally perspicuous is Scripture so and all their chapters as exact as their creeds When you remember the Canon are you remorseless for writing that this Assertion by adoring the Sacrament no more nor other is intended than adoring Christ
the present Church of England in compliance with the black Rubrick this Minister's only publick evidence such as it is against both a Substantial presence and Adoration must be concluded to deny Adoration from its beginning it did not so and in 1660 it could not be said the Church of England by Law establish'd condemns Adoration no Test no Rubrick was then extant no Penal Laws whereto the establishment as well as original of their Church is to be ascribed constraining any man to subscribe with or without consent a villanous slander upon the whole Church of God upon the Lutherans and themselves too till the Return of King Charles II. and since the contrary hath bin both said printed and practised by the genuine Sons of the Church of England who regarded the Rubric no more than the rest of that communion do the Fasts and other ceremonies injoyn'd them by the same Liturgy Pag. 87 l. 27. Now to this I shall at present only say That the Supposition being absurd does not admit of a rational consideration c. Here he asserts it impossible for Christ's body to exist or to be present except in the circumstances and cloathed with all the ordinary properties of a Body and consequently must disbelieve not only that the bodies of Saints at the Resurrection shall neither marry nor be given in marriage not need nourishment c but be as the Angels impassible c. and so either deny a Heaven or admit a Mahometan Paradise but also question our Lord's resurrection the stone unrolled from the mouth of the Sepulcher and his entrance into the room the door being shut and besides censure St. Paul's Spiritual body as absurd Could our Lord's body rise from the Grave thro a Stone and enter a close Room ad modum corporis If not then this Answerer must either retract this passage as an affront to Faith or Socinian-like reject the Scripture testifying this because absurd to his low and impure conceptions but if it could and did then where are our Minister and his vain Philosophy If he has known some admitting the Supposition That our Lord's Body may be present and not after the ordinary sensible manner of Corporal presence and yet resolving against adoration of it such oppose what this man concedes in the first Supposition unless he grant adoration due to the corporeal manner of Christ's presence and not to Christ himself Pag. 88 l. 13. I presume it was then in the times of Popery for since the Reformation I have shewn before that she always held the contrary viz. That our Lord's presence in the Eucharist is not adorable In the most flourishing Protestant times an adorable presence was believed and profest by Bishop Andrews deputed by the Head of the English Church to declare her sentiment in this matter He is not therefore to be considered as a private Doctor or Bishop but as the mouth of the Church and presumed to know and neither to falsify nor oppose her Doctrine or practice How came this Man to more skill and authority in expounding the Doctrine of the Church of England than that very learned Bishop Did King James II. depute you to expound it What reason do you assign why I must discredit Bishop Andrews and acquiesce in your exposition I cannot foresee how you can prove your self more honest more able more authentick than that extraordinary Bishop was But what does that accurate Plenipotentiary publish Does he fence and seek subterfuges as dreading or blushing to tell his thoughts No his expressions are with assurance and perspicuity He proclaims to the world that the King James I. believed and adored our Lord truly present in the Eucharist and we Church of England-men with Ambrose adore the flesh of Christ in the mysteries and with Austin we do not eat the flesh without first adoring it Did Bishop Andrews speak true or did he not If he did then the Answerer speaks what 's false if he did not why may we not reject a Protestant Minister's testimony when such a Bishop's is so tardy What adoration Protestants render to the Divine Majesty in their other Religious offices we are not at leisure to enquire but that in this of the Eucharist the Bishop and King and consequently their Church adored the Flesh of Christ is to any one of modesty and candor undeniable They adored as St. Ambrose and St. Austin adored which was just in the same manner and in the self same degree as the Catholick Church adores at this day Those Fathers gave sovereign worship to the Flesh to the natural flesh of Christ substantially present in the Eucharist and Hypostatically united to his Soul and Divinity Our Dispute then with this Minister is about the adoration of Christ himself if about the adoration of his Flesh unless his Natures and Person be separable Pag. 89. l. 17. But is he sure the Bishop meant so i. e. that Bishop Taylor meant we worship the Body or Flesh of Christ Yes He is sure that Author meant the Flesh of Christ 1. Because the same Bishop Real Pres p. 144. says We worship the Flesh of Christ in the Mysteries exhibiting it to our souls 2. Because the Action it self is not adorable the words then must either intend the flesh of Christ or What do they signify What is it the Bishop worships in the venerable usages of the signs Not the signs yet Divine Honor is given given then either to nothing or to the flesh of Christ in the mysteries 3. Because the Bishop is considering St. Ambrose's testimony for adoring the flesh of Christ in the mysteries and waving the usual refuges of the testimony being spurious or a Rhetorical flight c. he acknowledges that his party worships as St. Ambrose did Certainly then they have the same object pay the same service and at the like solemn occasions i. e. sovereign adoration to the flesh of Christ in the mysteries for this St. Ambrose undoubtedly perform'd And what if this Bishop according to his native constancy in another book recede from this was it therefore none of his thought when this was written Can his dictating contrary elsewhere alter the sence of what was said long before Pag. 90. l. 6. Since I have read of a Protestant Minister c. Very faithfully translated The Minister was permitted says the Answerer to exercise the functions of his Ministry as before 'T is false says the Margent He was not to preach any thing against the belief of the true Church nor to celebrate the Supper Thus the Man's Margent confutes his Text and his Translation quarrels with the Original Ibid. l. 17. As for Bishop Forbes and the Archbishop of Spalato it is not to be wondred if men that had entertain'd the design of reconciling all Parties were forced to strain sometimes a little further than was fit c. An Answer very solid and very charitable For first is not this a concession that these Protestant Bishops allowed adoration
to pass over c. But why is Bishop Forbes's testimony past over so unconcernedly and instead of an Answer to his assertions an obloquy left on his Name involving the whole Family of Reconcilers Did he not in that passage write his thoughts Was his intention only a palliating or recommending of Error and Idolatry not a retrenching the opinions and unjustifiable aggravations of those that affect extremes and thro rage desert truth I always conceited the aim of that wise and moderate Person and of other Accommodators to have bin the undisguising of Doctrines and a representation of them in their proper lineaments and habit but not a betraying of truth to purchase a wicked peace Henceforward therefore if this Minister be regarded whenever we hear a man speak of reconcilement we must double our guards and apprehend treachery But where was the Bishop's conscience and respect to piety if according to this Minister to cement a rotten Union he condiscended not only to relinquish his Faith but also to establish an inexcusable Idolatry for his words assert both a substantial presence on the holy Table and an Adoration of our Lord's body there present The presence he means is such a one of which the more orthodox Protestants do not doubt which the Holy Fathers very often mention and which the Puritans grosly erring rejected but the rigider Protestants reject a substantial not a gracious presence so that the Bishop's sense will admit of no other evasion besides his being of the Pacifick tribe which is it seems with this Minister if not in maledictionibus of no authority Thus this impartial Friend to truth whilst he should weigh the arguments considers the personal qualities of an Author and is carried for or against those as these affect or displease him Pag. 66. l. 1. For Bishop Tailor I cannot acquit our Author of a wilful prevarication c. Nor I the Answerer of folly for medling with what he can no better discharge His business is to shew either that Bishop Tailor had written no such passage as was cited out of his works or that his words were perverted from their literal sense by the Discourser for to alledge out of the same or another Book sentences contradictory thereto will expose the Bishop indeed but satisfies not the difficulty for the Discourser no where undertook that Dr. Taylor has not said and unsaid acording to the custom of Protestants and Wits but that he has said what with any candor is incapable of any other meaning than is imposed in the Oxford Treatises Bucer's advice to P. Martyr ut Dogma sacramentarium ambiguis loquendi formulis involveret and Dr. Taylor 's boastings and practices are too notorious to be insisted-on or for us to expect from so inconstant artificial and confident a Writer other than that according as his humor or circumstances engaged he should sometimes deliver himself plainly sometimes in affected and intricate terms and never scruple contradicting himself so he might procure a present relief when reduced by his cause or indiscretions to a strait This Reply to this Minister's Answer to Dr. Taylor 's testimony will serve for what was return'd pag. 49. 50. to Calvin's and Beza's Authorities If other places contradictory can be pickt out of their Writings yet that will not manifest that they in the sentences cited intended not a substantial presence But where does Calvin say solum beneficium non corpus ipsum the proposition contradictory to neque tantum beneficium sed corpus ipsum Is it not of this Proposition that Archbishop Lawd says Nor can that place by any art be shifted or by any violence wrested from Calvin's true meaning of the Presence of Christ in and at the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist The Archbishop was a Puny in evasions and of a feeble spirit for what his acuteness could not contrive and his courage durst not attempt this Minister has discovered and adventured to perform even to shift off and wrest this place by some that say nothing different and by others that say nothing contradictory Pag. 69. l. 24. And now I am afraid his cause will be desperate unless Mr. Thorndike can support it The same course is taken to answer Mr. Thorndike as was followed to dismiss most of the precedent viz. endeavouring to oppose Mr. Thorndike to himself this practice how useful and how frequently used soever it be by the Answerer as wondrous sufficient yet is rejected by him in parallel cases and he takes that liberty he disallows to such as have equal right to it with himself Yet how will this rare controvertist vindicate Mr. Thorndike from approving Idolatry if he deny that learned Man to hold a substantial presence for what can be more express for Adoration of our Lord in the Eucharist than his words are I do believe that it adoration was practised and done in the ancient Church I know the consequence to be this that there is no just cause why it should not be done at present c. Whatever notion therefore Mr. Thorndike had of our Lord's presence certainly he maintained the presence of such a Body as was adorable and that the adoration practised in the Catholick Church was not Idolatry Having thus copiously discuss'd this Point Whether the Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Real Presence was from Queen Elizabeth 's days till the Restauration of the last King for a substantial or but gracious Presence and having amply demonstrated that a substantial Presence was its faith and that as well its Article Communion-Office and Catechism as its supremest Governors and most dignified and learned Doctors are peremptory and full in the case for which the Discourses contend one chief Design of them is secured and defended and by this Minister's confession several points are gain'd as 1. That of all men living the genuine Sons of the Church of England ought not to press us with such contradictions wherein their own opinion is equally involved pag. 41. l. 18. 2. That it is no less a contradiction for Christ's Natural Body to be in several places at the same time by the Church of England's mode of Substantial Presence than by the Church of Rome's which add's only the Manner of that Substance being present viz. Transubstantiation the repugnancy being in the thing it self not in the manner of it Therefore the Philosophical Maxim of the impossibility of one Body's being in many places at the same time must not by Church of England-men be relied-on nor urged in the Dispute between us pag. 44. l. 4. Besides we obtain 3ly That the genuine Sons of the Church of England ought neither to impeach Catholicks of Idolatry nor in taking the Test profess we are Idolaters since according to their faith our object is right and there where we believe it to reside Should they charge the whole Church with Idolatry for worshiping Jesus Christ substantially present in the Eucharist which they both believe and practise Does not
the same reason compel them to affirm Adoration follows their own Doctrine and therefore ours which forced Bishop Morton to say it followed the Lutheran 4ly Their deference to the certainty of sense must be adjusted with ours and Miracles must not be confined to its sphere 5ly Such language as this Minister uses must be forborn and his blasphemous Ironies receive the same detestation with them as they have with as For instance Pref. p. 6. l. penult That the Council of Lateran gave the Priests power of making their God for Church of England Priests if true Priests have the same power with the Catholick But neither pretend by Sacerdotal consecration to make the substance of Christ's Body but only to invoke the Holy Ghost to effect by its Almighty power that the substance of our Lord 's glorified body which now exists gloriously in Heaven may also exist Sacramentally on the Altar Is this making their God The Lateran Definition de Fide Catholica and the Council of Trent informed this Minister what part by Christ's institution not their gift as this man imposes the Priest has in the consecration if he had not bin willing to forget or mistake it for vile purposes Again p. 75. l. 8. That the Popish Real Presence is a meer figment and their Mass to be abhorred rather than adored Such putrid falshoods and conceited nonsense will be very indecent in a genuine Church of England man's mouth not only because of his Defender but of his Faith too For such a one to tell us of adoring the Mass and that He abhors it and accounts our Real presence a figment is both absurd and impious But this is the result of a Gallican vagary and of learning the Doctrine of the Church of England from Hugonotal conversation Tales and Fathers Pag. 72. l. 1. That the alterations which have bin made in our Rubric were not upon the account of our Divines changing their Opinions c. Tho it signify little whether the Alterations in the Article and Liturgy and the Disgrace of the Rubric were or were not from a change of opinions so long as the Doctrine of the Church was changed tho this I grant may well be and the other not according to the gloss of subscribing not with assent but for peace and tho too t is a strange casualty for Divines remarkable for resolution and famous for immutability to flit their sentiments as ordinarily as the Moon does her appearances yet the Proof brought that those Divines did not imitate Cranmer in compliance and submission of judgment to the present Possessor of White-Hall is no more than an heap of this Minister's conjectures stampt with the superscription of a Rational account when-as Dr. Heylin equal to Dr. Burnet in abilities and industry and incomparably more honest than that perfidious Fugitive reports that the changes were made lest in excluding a carnal Presence they the Divines sure might be thought to reject such a Real presence as was defended in the writings of the Ancient Fathers Nor is the design of reconciling Parties inconsistent with a change of opinions A comprehension-affair may be pursued by Real Presence-men as well as Zuinglians As to the Copy of Articles perused by Dr. Burnet and out of him mentioned pag. 58. we say again that it ought to be concluded from that rased Monument rather that the Divines did than did not change their Opinions for he that reverses a subscription voluntarily is likelier to have altered his resolution than to have retain'd it especially when induced to expunge what had bin agreed on by an Authority whereto by the Principle of Lay-Supremacy lately assumed by the Prince and submitted to by themselves their judgments were to conform and whose sentiments in Religion they were to believe and profess For Queen Elizabeth had by a dreadful example just then told the world as after she had like to have done in the Lambeth-Articles-Affair that She would not hear the Church but tho a woman be heard by it in matters of Faith and would neither consult with nor follow but controll and prescribe-to Convocations in causes of meer Religion Had She not refused to hear the voice of the whole Clergy in her first and the last Canonical Convocation In a Convocation acting agreeably not only to the institution of Christianity and rules of the Catholick Church but of all other Convocations that ever were in the Nation unless a few in Hen. 8. and Edw. 6. time in a Convocation acting according to all Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil then in force in this Kingdom and representing the Church of England by Law established How then could its Declaration be illegal as the Reflecter on the Historical Part of the Fifth part of Church-Government p. 82. will needs esteem it What could the Queen under a penalty justly prohibit them the use of that Authority both Christ and the Laws of the Land had setled on them alone If this were not tyranny where shall instances of it be found But that Reverend and Catholick Assembly understood both its own power and duty better than so and despising the temporal terrors that only a Tyrant in that case would threaten and a Persecutor execute discharged it self with constancy as became men entrusted with the souls of the Nation tho deprivation were the reward of their Confession Her new and parasitical Ministers understood then what they must do and that for that very end She had raised them up even to think and act at her appointment In return to the conjectures wherewith the Answerer strives to blanch o're a soul defection from the Catholick faith we will relate how we apprehend Religious affairs were managed At Edward the Sixths coming to the Crown the Doctrine of the Church of England was a substantial Presence the manner of that Presence was Transubstantiation but thro the Ambition and Avarice of Governing Parties some quickly began to contest and forsake this Faith vet by degrees rejecting first the manner and afterwards the Presence being assisted in this Apostasy by a few and opposed by most of the Clergy and Laity hence tho there were Assemblies and deliberations had yet no Canonical determinations pass'd or are extant unless such approbations may be deemed Synodical that were obtained by terrors and deprivations of many the most eminent Bishops and dignified Ecclesiasticks for relucting at what derogated from Christian Truth and Church Authority All was done by the conduct and influence of the evil Spirit and neither Scripture nor Antiquity rightly consulted or observed only herein the diligence and craft of those destroying Reformers must to their eternal infamy be own'd that they distinguished points immediately obstructing their gain and licentiousness from others more indifferent rejecting chiefly such as debarred them from spoiling the Church and gratifying their sensual appetites Thus as superstitious or idolatrous prayer for the Faithful deceased that Chanteries the Mass that the furniture of Altars c might be alienated