Anger and Malice and Indignation For Disputes alas continue not because Truth is not visible but because Men will not submit their Sence to Grace but strain it in stead of ending Disputes to keep them up and render invisible the most visible things in the World In our present Case if His Majesty in stead of as visible had said the Church is more visible than Scripture He would have had a very great Man to take His part For which do's the Answerer think is the more visible of the two the thing which is seen or that by which it is seen And he knows who said I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholic Church had moved me And this is in truth the Case of every Body But evidently S. Augustin's Eyes as good as they were did not see the Scripture but by the Catholic that is the Roman Catholic Church For that the Answerer knows was the Catholic Church with which he communicated Then he gives a Reason why Disputing would cease viz. Because none who dare believe what they see can call Scriptures being in Print in question which by making nothing visible which can be called in question makes it not visible that Scripture is in Print For he knows the far greatest part of Mankind all Infidels and Mahumetans do actually call Scripture in question at this day he knows many Christians have questioned divers Parts of it heretofore and He himself still questions some as visibly in Print as any of the rest But to question whether the Book in Print be Scripture is manifestly to question whether Scripture be in Print And so in one breath he says it is in the next it is not visible that Scripture is in Print But we will not fall out about Matters which import not But goes he on what if the Church whose Authority it is said they must submit to will not allow them to believe what they see Why then that Church if he take Believing strictly agrees with all Mankind For as every body knows that Faith is of things not seen none can allow we properly believe 〈◊〉 we see But if he take the Word largely I know of no Church which allows not People to believe all they see I do indeed know of one which would be glad People would not believe they see what they see not nor by thier Senses can see An Eye may see the Colour of a thing and an Ear hear the Sound it makes c. but what this coloured or sounding thing is often needs more than the Senses to discover For the What of a thing is not the Object of any Sense How then says he can this be a sufficient Reason to persuade them to believe the Church because it is as visible as that the Scripture is in Print I am sorry that to know our Duty is not with him sufficient reason to do it We all know by the Evangelist that Christ left Commission to teach all Nations and by the Apostle that there are Pastors and Doctors appointed to build us up into the Vnity of Faith and prevent our being Circumvented by Errour And whatever he do's I take it to be my Duty to learn of those who are appointed and have Commission from Christ to teach when 't is visible who they are His following conceit of using and renouncing our Senses and indeed all hitherto said might have very well been spar'd For there is nothing yet which relates to our Business If he thinks Kings and their Writings are not above Sporting the Matter I am sure is The substance of what he says when he thinks to pass in earnest is 1. That a Part is not the Whole and the Roman he takes to be only a part of the Catholic Church 2. That Roman Catholic is an Expression found neither in the Creeds nor Office of Baptism even at present 3. That the Roman do's not her self believe she is the Catholic Church of the Creeds because she admits the validity of Baptism administred out of her Communion And lastly That there may be different Communions of Christians which may still continue parts of the Catholic Church for instance the Holy Bishops and Martyrs who he says were Excommunicated heretofore in Asia and Afric and the Eastern Christians at this Day For his first Riddle of a Part and Whole we may thank his Inadvertence The Paper do's not say that the Roman is the Catholic Church but that the Roman Catholic is the one Church of Christ. As Roman alone may signify the Diocess under the immediate Government of the Bishop of Rome which never did nor can more pretend to be the Catholic Church than the Church of Laodicea or Ephesus or any other particular Church the Paper by joyning Catholic to it shews it speaks of her and all joyn'd in Communion with her and all who believe as her Communion believes whether they be joyn'd in External Communion or no. For it is apparent by his Majesties talking all along of matters of Faith and no where of any thing else that he minded nothing but Faith and considered the Church with respect only to Faith Now I beseech him is this Roman Catholic ever the less visibly the one Church of Christ because a Part is not a Whole Of what will he make that Whole but of all the Parts And do's not Catholic signify all the Parts Or is it the less Catholic is any part taken out because the particular Roman is put in By the way because He often mentions the Roman Church without adding Catholic let me here to avoid Repetitions declare once for all That I shall understand him of the Roman Catholic wherever the Circumstances of the place determine not the Sense to the particular Church of Rome For he means not I suppose to talk of one Church while His Majesty talks of another Upon the Second Head he asks If those who made the Creeds for our direction had intended the Roman Catholic Church why was it not so expressed He might have answered himself For he knows as well as I that the Reason was because Language always changes with Times As there were no such Dreams of the Roman Church when the Creeds were made as now it had been a very superfluous and a very unaccountable piece of Care to have said Roman in a Word by it self which was already said by the Word Catholic and so by all the World understood Now there are who will have her some a corrupt Part of the Catholic Church some none at all who have a mind to let People know they take her for a Part and a sound and the principal Part and yet would save Words have light on a thrifty way of saying all in short by Roman-Catholic He says besides That this Limitation as he calls it of the Sense of Christ's Catholic Church to the Roman was never put to Persons to be Baptiz'd in any Age of the Church And That he finds
would have any Man shew me says the King where the Power of deciding Matters of Faith is given to every particular Man He distinguishes and says The Power of Deciding so as to oblige others is not given to every particular Man the Power of Deciding so as to satisfie the particular Decider is Denial is a fair Answer and this seems to deny what His Majesty says and yet in truth says nothing to it Deciding of particular Men being our own Iudges following our own Fancy or private Spirit believing as we please and the like Expressions signifie all the same And the King as Men use to do who mind Sense more than Words and have Language at will takes now one now another as they come in His way As it could not scape an â— ye less piercing than His that he judges every jot as much who believes upon the Authority of the Church as he who believes upon his own Fancy of Scripture and that every Assent is a Judgment and so the Assent of Faith as well as the rest it cannot be imagin'd that He would have Men not judge at all But He meant as all the World means by those Phrases that they should not judge unreasonably For as they are blamed who will be their own Judges and no body blames another for doing well and Judging is of it self a good thing an Exercise of a Faculty planted in us by God there is nothing to be blamed but the ill use of that Faculty by suffering Passion to 〈◊〉 it which should only be guided by Reason That Men 〈◊〉 mean thus by those Expressions we see by the 〈◊〉 to which they apply them He who being 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 or Conceit of 〈…〉 〈…〉 the Advice of his unpassionate and 〈…〉 or he who has no skill in Physic or 〈…〉 will commence and prosecute Suits 〈…〉 against the Advice of able Lawyers and Doctors is said to be his own Judge He is not who understanding Jewels or Pictures buys them at his own Rate tho' never so many of less 〈◊〉 than himself persuade him to the contrary 〈…〉 is said to be his Judge Now the King 〈◊〉 because Christ taught his Apostles and 〈◊〉 who with those that believ'd his Doctrine 〈…〉 Preaching and their Successors through 〈…〉 are called the Church that he could not 〈◊〉 reasonably who would pretend to find out that Doctrine by his own Wit or Study or any 〈◊〉 but by learning it of the Church which 〈…〉 at first from Christ and preserv'd it ever 〈◊〉 And this unreasonable Judgment made on their own Heads or Fancy against the Judgment of those whose Profession it is His several Expressions strike at The Answerer reflected not on the meaning of them but would persuade us That to say particular Men must be satisfied of the Reasons why they believe is an Answer to the Question Whether there be indeed any Reasons why they should believe besides the Authority of the Church To go forward Christ says his Maâ—â— sty left his Power to his Church even to forgive Sins in Heaven and left his Spirit with them which they exerâ—â—â—â— d after his Resurruction He answers as if he were at 〈◊〉 purposes where then was the Roman 〈…〉 What has where was she to do 〈…〉 left to her 'T is a strange Quâ— stion 〈◊〉 and he I believe the first who ever ask'd where a Church was before she was The Roman was a part of the Catholic as soon as she was a Church till then she was where all the Churches 〈◊〉 the World besides were except that of â— ierusalem and where the Church of â— ierusalem too was before Christ was born in the order of Providenâ—â— But how can it be hence inferr'd that these Powerâ— are now in the Church of Rome 〈◊〉 Roman Cathâ—â—â—â— Church I suppose he means exclusive to all others unless it be made appear that it was Heir-General to all the Apostles As if there needed Logic to infer that Powers left for the Salvation of Mankind remain in being as long as there remains a Manâ—â—â—â— to be saved or Powers left to the Church of Christ are in the Church of Christ and those exclâ— ded from the Powers who are not inclâ— ded â— n the Church or to make appear She is Heir-General to all the Apostles who as visibly as that the Sâ— ripture is in Print is the One Churâ— h 〈…〉 he could be content to be 〈…〉 Point but since his Majesty 〈…〉 purpose to do more than barely mention it I 〈◊〉 it not to mine to stray from the Papers I 〈◊〉 In the process of his Discourse he would 〈◊〉 the ordinary Power of the Keys out of the 〈◊〉 and shall with all my heart so he remove it not out of the Church For since it was with the 〈◊〉 given only to her I do not see what 〈…〉 Title there can be to it but 〈…〉 Her He is by his good favour 〈…〉 removing Miraculous Power out of the 〈…〉 God who slights not the Roman 〈…〉 so much as he continues 〈…〉 her And would he be content to 〈…〉 〈◊〉 on Miracles I would be content to undertake the Proof But alas I fear there needs a Miracle to make People willing that Differences of Religion should have any Issue He would have it question'd What part of the Promise of the Infallible Spirit was to expire with the Apostles what to be continued to the Church in all Ages And how fâ— r that Promise extends Strange Questions for Christians to dispute after they have been answer'd by Christ himself When Christ has extended the Assistance of that Spirit to All his Doctrine and All Time for us to ask which part of that Assistance shall cease or to 〈◊〉 is to ask Which is the Part of Christ's Promise which he will not perform Neither indeed are these Questions with his Distinction between Sin and Errour and subtle Speculations upon it for any thing but to bring in Deposing Doctrine a Comâ— on-place bang'd in every Book of late It is a Theme than which as much as it is 〈◊〉 upon I do not think a worse can be taken 〈◊〉 an Invective against Infallible Assistance pick aâ— d chuse through the whole Bundle When I conâ—â—â— er what has past and reflect there wanted neither Power nor Propension in Men and nevertheless that the Persuasions about Deposing were never settled as those in other Matters which displease the Answerer what he takes for an Argument against Infallible â—â—â—â— tance I take for a strong Argument for it For 〈◊〉 else could be the Cause of that Effect but that 〈◊〉 Power even of willing Men was directed by an 〈◊〉 Assistance of the Divine Spirit He may 〈…〉 shew he pleases with the Errours of 〈◊〉 who will not reflect they never exercis'd the Power of Church-Guidâ—â— upon 〈◊〉 Errours or in his Language so as to 〈…〉 which yet he knows very well no Council of 〈◊〉 he had in his eye ever did As the Church
than that of our own Iudgments As if it pinched there His Majesty talks of those who do not believe as the Church of England do's for this reason because they are taught by a Church from which there is no Appeal that is who have not that Motive for their Judgments which he took for the only truly reasonable Motive And while he is speaking of Motives the Answerer falls a talking of Judgments The difficulty is not whether Judgment affords Security A Judgment grounded on true Reason can no more change than Reason but whether there be any security in those Judgments which are made on unsecure Motives Or if you will what Security there is in that Judgment which the Answerer offers for Security 'T is as in Land The Security is good where the Title is unquestionable but if that be doubtful there is no Money to be borrow'd on the Land And he will have us take for Security the Judgment of which we are not satisfy'd that it is it self secure Once again His Majesty thought Church-security the only Security in this Matter And it rests with the Answerer to shew that Protestants either have this or other true Security to shew what other Foundation and Pillar of Truth there is besides the Church how it can be a Foundation without Infallibility and People have reason to trust their Souls to what may deceive them In short what good account they can give of the Hope which is in them who learn the Faith by which they think to please God otherwise than from those whom he appointed to teach it Till he do this as obscurely as his Majesty speaks People will see they have nothing to trust to for their Salvation but Fancy nor the Church of England for their company But He dares appeal to the World whether They have not made it appear that it is not Fancy but Iudgment which hath made them firm to the Church of England Dares he in earnest put it to the Catholic World any more than we to the Protestant To what purpose these great words when he knows before-hand nothing will nor can come of them It had been a great deal more to purpose since Fancy and Judgment in this place signifie a rational or not rational Persuasion to have shew'd that they truly have Reason who are firm to the Church of England and that They are indeed firm For that Firmness may as well be pretended as Reason for itâ—â— and they may desire to pass for firm to Her 〈◊〉 make her not firm to her self But for big 〈◊〉 none are better at it than Cowards out of Gun-shot Might it not asks he on as well have been said That the Pâ—â—â—â— tants of the Church of England adhered to the Crowâ— in the Times of Rebellion out of 〈◊〉 and not out of Iudgment His Zeal for the Church of England is wondrouâ— unlucky As no body thought of detracting from the just Praises of the Church of England and every body must acknowledge her Doctrine in this Point is very Orthodox and her Practice in the Times of Rebellion conformable to it there was no need to mention this matter And yet he will by all means bring it in against himself Many he knows did desert her and her Doctrine in this Point at that time so many that the Rebellion peradventure was indebted for its Success to those Deserters For had not the ill-affected Rabble been countenanc'd and headed by Men who had perhaps all their Life before conform'd to the Church of England the Rebellion either would not have been at all or not so unfortunately prosperous Now as it is plain that if those who deserted had ever adhered to her with a persuasion that they were oblig'd to believe what she â— aught They could not have deserted her in this Point who always taught Loyalty This very Case proves what the King asserts That till they do so there is no security of their adhering to her For they may desert her in any other Point of Christ's Doctrine as well as they did in this and for ought appears will when they meet with the same Interest or whatever Motive They had to desert her then In the last place He tries to turn the Argument â— pon the Church of Rome to which he asks why any adhere but because it is agreeable to their Iudgment so to do This Actor went off the Stage but now and needed not return so soon with 〈…〉 a Part. For what do's he mean by Adheringâ—â— Believing I suppose that the Church of 〈…〉 right For he talks not sure of acting 〈…〉 conformity to our inward 〈…〉 but Hypocrites do in all their Actions 〈…〉 he mean it of the inward Persuasion to ask why They adhere but because they judge they ought is in other words Why do they adhere but because they adhere For their Judgment is their Adhesion To 〈…〉 People adhere to a Church with every body 〈◊〉 signifies What Reason or Motive have they 〈…〉 adhering To which Question with respect to the â— oman Catholic Church the Answer in the words of the Paragraph is That People are of her as 't is the true Church from whence there can be no Appeal or because she is the Church which Christ has now on Earth with whom his Doctrine was deposited and from whom only it can be learn'd In the words or St. Austin I am kept in the Bosom of the Catholic Church by the consens of People and Nations by an Authority begun by Miracles 〈◊〉 by Hope increas'd by Charity 〈◊〉 by Antiquity by a Succession of Bishops from St. Peter to whom 〈…〉 〈…〉 where Catholics meet none of them have the 〈…〉 him to their Congregations The Answerer will tell us when he thinks sit what Answer he thinks proper to be made for other Churches In the mean time let us reslect what he has answer'd to the Paragraph He has told us That there is no Security greater than that of our Judgments That theirs is Judgment not Fancy and particularly was so in the times of Rebellion And that they Judge in the Church of 〈◊〉 too What is all this to the Paragraph which says in short That because Protestants have no firm Motive for their adhering to the Church of England they cannot be firm to her Do's he make it appear their Motive is firm Or how They will be firm without one This little is all there was before him is their Judgment solidly grounded or is it not the only and whole business What need was there to talk of Judgment in common when the Question is of their Judgment in this Particular Or what serves it for but to make a shew and fill up a Page There may be as much Security in the Judgment as there will and Protestants be never the better unless there be Security in their Judgment They will I hope since their Souls are at stake consider what 〈◊〉 do to venture them where those who write
to 〈◊〉 the Promise of Assistance was made should 〈◊〉 know what it means none in the Roman Catholâ—â— Church ever understood it would always preserve even those who by their Functions are Church-Guides from Errour any more than Sin save when they perform the Office of Church-Guides or expected more than that They should not Authoritatively declare that to be Christ's Doctrine which 〈◊〉 not or that not to be which is Since it is undeniably certain that our Church-Guides have never made any such Declaration in stead of profiting by their Pains we stand wondring what Protestants mean by repeating so often a Tale which has nothing in it Whoever errs among us Church-Guide or not Church-Guide errs on his own Head and not misguided now or at any time by the Church or her Gnides And so long it is as wildly unreasonable to impute those Errours to the Church or any but the erring Particulars as to bring Peter in guilty for the Faults of Paul 〈…〉 imperâ— ect as half-periods use to be but who read the whole will I believe understand it perfectly enough and if he had no mind to speak to this part of it he might have said so without imputing to it an Imperfection of his own making by severing it from its fellows As imperfect as it is I find by it that the Power of which his Majesty speaks was the Power of deciding Matters of Faith and so that when he talks of the Giâ— t of Tongues and the like he talks of what his Majesty did not It informs us too that as great Prerogatives as the Apostles had above other Men subsequent Councils took upon them to make Creeds as well as they Creeds which declare they will undoubtedly perish eternally who believe not entirely what they contain And so might have put us in mind that those who do as much in latter Ages have Precedents for what They do Matters which it seems he takes no delight to speak of As it had been something rugged to have said this Part for all it was left out deserv'd no consideration he smoothly passes to that which next do's And that is That the Church was the Iudge even of Scripâ—â— re it self many Years after the Apostles which Books were Canonical and which were not To which he replys That there is a Iudge of Law and a Iudge of Fact and that the Church Iudges of Fact 〈◊〉 Law Let him call it how he pleases if the Church Judges whether a Book be Canonical or no the Church is the Judge of that Matter and the King said true and 't is but so much erudition lost to Dispute by what name Her Judgment shall go He says besides that The Church of Rome hath no 〈◊〉 priviledge in this Matter but gives its Iudgment as other parts of the Christian World do 〈◊〉 if the Clause he answers spoke of any 〈◊〉 Church or Priviledge It says the Church that 〈◊〉 the whole made up of the Roman and the 〈◊〉 whose same Faith intitles them to the same Appâ— llâ—tion was the Judge of Scripture which Books were Canonical and which were not One may percâ—â— ve the Answerer thinks this is true and he mâ— ght 〈◊〉 said what he thought in two words But he thought fit to spin it out into a Section and 〈◊〉 the Matter so that one Member of his Division is not included in the Matter divided he alone knows why And if They had this Power then I desire to know says his Majesty next how They came to lose it And the Answerer desires to know who are meant by They and what is understood by This Power He had not the Paper by him sure when he askt these Questions For it is there as plain as words can make it that by They is meant the Church and by this Power the Power of deciding Matters of Faith exercised in making Creeds and judging of Canonical Booâ—â— Then he falls to his Dâ— stinctions again and tells us It is one thing for a part of the Church to give Testimony to a matter of Fact and another to assume the Power of making Books Canonical which were not so Pieces of Learning which he may if he please keep in reserve till he have to do with some body who talks of a Part of the Church or making Booâ—â— Canonical which were not By the way he means I suppose making Books not written by 〈◊〉 Iâ—spiration to be written by Divine Inspiration For if he mean making it appear and 〈…〉 and with obligation of 〈◊〉 that a Book of which it is doubted whether it were 〈◊〉 that truly Catholic and Apostolic Church 〈◊〉 which by separting from the Roman they keep 〈◊〉 their stricter Union and with which the Roman 〈◊〉 none For sure he do's not talk of a strict Union with nothing Let him tell us in what Countrâ—â—â— the Men live that People may go to them and learâ— of them what their Faith is and see whether it 〈◊〉 be all one with that of the Answerer and his 〈◊〉 and have something more than his word 〈…〉 stricter Union which he says is between 〈◊〉 What He and those who take his part do 〈◊〉 separating of themselves he tells us but being 〈◊〉 out by an Vsurping Faction in the Church and 〈◊〉 the Conditions of Communion impos'd by tâ— at Fâ—ction and requir'd by him who is own'd â— or Heaâ— of that Church are unjust and unreasonable and 〈◊〉 Authority â— e challenges a meer Vsurpation and tâ— at They are not to be condemn'd for such a Separation which was unavoidable Why unavoidable I beseecâ— him even supposing Usurpation and whatever 〈◊〉 would have Cannot they who are let â— t he 〈◊〉 so unjustly separated from the Communion avoiâ— being separated from the Faith of a Church if they please Is there any Church or Power on Earth which could hinder them from believing 〈◊〉 they were out of Communion what they did 〈◊〉 they were in it Which if 〈◊〉 had done Excommunication it self had not 〈◊〉 them from the Church of which these Papers speak 〈…〉 〈…〉 their voluntary Change of Faith And that Change indeed casts them unavoidably out because to be of the same Faith with a Church and of a 〈◊〉 Faith from her is inconsistent Other casting 〈◊〉 by which he means I suppose Excommunication there is none that I know 'T is true there is a general Excommunication of those who haâ— e chang'd their Faith into Heresie And some are particularly named but not a word of the Church of England or any relating to England but the Wickliâ— ists If any of his We be included in it 't is because they have voluntarily thrust themselves in by embracing the Anathematiz'd Heresies And yet he with his Flourishes and big Talk would have their casting off the Church pass for the Churches casting them out and their voluntary Act be call'd a being cast unavoidably out Cross Language in my Opinion and a very sorry Justification of Separation But
what has he in reserve I see what he alledges to justifie his confident Reproach of Vsurpation The Sacred Head of the Church on whom he cries out for an Usurper has shew'd by his reiterated Approbation of the Bishop of Meaux Book that he is content with that Submission and Obedience which the Holy Councils and Fathers have always â— aught the Faithful Pray with what propriety of Language or what Sense do's he call challenging of so much Usurpation What Scripture or Ancient Châ— rch or Part of the Christian World 〈◊〉 with him that 't is so not excepting the 〈◊〉 of England her self For there is more reason to take the Expositor's word who speaks in her 〈◊〉 than his for the Sense of the Church of England And from him I learn it sticks not at 〈◊〉 Point since she will be content to yield the Pope that Authority which the Ancient Councilâ— of the Primitive Church have acknowledged and 〈…〉 Fathers have always taught the Faithful to 〈…〉 And She I suppose would not yield to 〈◊〉 â—â—â—â—pation nor the â— xpositor for her But pray for what is this Harangue â— pon Uâ—â—â— pation and a Spiritual Kingdom 〈…〉 would know how People come to separate from the 〈◊〉 that is vary from the Common â— aith of 〈◊〉 And the Answerer tells him There is an Usâ— rper set up in the West Why suppose there be mâ— st Pâ—â—ple therefore needs believe otherwise than they 〈◊〉 before needs believe there is no Change 〈◊〉 â—â—â—stance no Purgatory no more than two Sacraments and the rest This Western Usurpation has no Iâ—fluence upon the East to make the Christians there change their Faith Why cannot the Reforâ— ation believe of these Points as they believe and as 〈◊〉 Christians besides themselves ever have and 〈◊〉 do So all Differences would be reduc'd to a singâ— e Point and that if we may believe the Exposâ— tâ— r either no Difference or easily reconcileable But tâ— go about to make us believe we must needs differ about a hundred things and can by no means 〈◊〉 it lawful to pray to a Saint or set up an Image as long as a certain Man takes more than câ— mes to â— is share shews the Answerer was either in a very â— leasant Humour or hard put to it for something 〈◊〉 say I have follow'd him 〈…〉 my way To return again 〈…〉 do Men separate from 〈…〉 Church says the Question We own no Separation from that but are disjoyn'd from the Roman says the Answerer Since that Church is nothing but the Roman and the rest united in the same Faith as a Man's Body is nothing but the several Members animated by the same Soul and no Part can be cut off from any of the Members no Part of a Finger for example from the Finger without being cut off from the whole Body This is in truth to say We are not separated we are only disjoyned or We are not separated but separated But to let this pass and not stray further after him into the many Questions which his Reply would start As Whether there be any Catholic besides the Roman Catholic Church Whether there can be Reason for being disjoyn'd from any Part of it Whether Disjoyning and Union be not â— lat Contradiction since Disjoyning signifies a different Faith and Union the same And the like in which whatever concern his We have I do not believe he has Authority from the Church of England to concern her All these things apart I observe the Answerer do's here as elsewhere appears himself and leaves his Answer behind For who they are that separate and what they own and from what part they profess to be dis-joyn'd is nothing to what Authority they have to separate from the whole who do The Kings Quâ— stion is a step to an end of Controversies For let People once know that they whoever they be are in a deplorable condition who live separated from the one Church of Christ upon Earth those among them who haâ— e any care of their Souls will bethink themselves and be glad to find â— er out and by piecing with her if they be broken off help to make that One the only Church on Earth and all Christians of a mind again And I wish the Answerer had gone that one step without staggering It had been a safe step for every body who is sure he do's not separate For it takes off no weight from any Reason by which he can shew that he do's not But I am afraid the youngest Man in Christendom shall never live to see one step made towards an end of differences in Religion at least if the Answerer were inclin'd that way he might me thinks without boggling have frankly own'd there is or there is not Authority to separate The last Paragraph asks when pretences are made of separating from the Church Who shall judge of them the whole Church or particular Men He answers That the whole force of this Paragraph dependâ— upon a Supposition which is taken for granted but will never be yielded by Them and they are sure can never be prov'd by the Church of Rome Let the Paragraph and its force depend on what it will 〈◊〉 not have answered a plain Question plainly and told us whether the Judgment of pretences do or do not belong to the Church and if not to whom elseâ— He pretends here that things are taken for granted 〈◊〉 one side which can never be prov'd and will 〈◊〉 be yielded by the other Let him tell us if he please before he proceed who shall judge of thus much Who pronounce whether those of the Châ— rch 〈◊〉 Rome can prove or no and before whom they 〈◊〉 when it comes to their turn produce their 〈◊〉 Who likewise whether the other side ougâ— t to yield 〈…〉 why he drives all to the Judgment of a particular Church unless he think all saâ— e there and the Judgment of that Church not to be submitted to any farther Judgment Which if he do he plainly thinks there is no Judge between Churches whatever may be betwixt Churches and particular Men. This indeed is a full Answer and which takes the Question quite away For it can no longer be ask'd who is the Judge if there be none at all But he do's not explain himself and 't is not for me to make him say more than he do's This I see that either this is his Answer or he gives none For there is nothing besides but what pretences they make and who made them and upon what account All which is nothing to who is the Iudge of them His Usurper is a strange importunate fellow to thrust in so often where he has nothing to do and I have no more to say to him At the last consideration I am as much surpriz'd as the Answerer For I thought no Interest should have been remembred in our Case but One what it avails a Man to gain the whole World and lose his Soul
I see no great cause he has to wonder that Princes and the Clergy should be of different minds in Matters of Religion He knows the Case has happened heretofore and that there had been no change of Religion in England if the whole Body of the Clergy and their Advice had been regarded But not to pry into Mens Hearts to see what Interest sways them This is certain that those Princes who prefer their Eternal before their Temporal Interest when they are for the Church of Rome 〈◊〉 good example And I cannot conclude better 〈…〉 praying God to give every body the Grace to follow it and in behalf of Princes thanking him 〈◊〉 minding his Reader that they are not all drawn 〈…〉 of Rome by Interest A DEFENCE OF THE Second Paper THE first Paragraph as the Answerer has handled it concerns the Church of England more than me If She when the King talks of Heresies and Heresies crept in think her self oblig'd by the Answerers thinking presently of her or when she is brought in by his turning immediately to justifie the Dissenters and that by an Argument alledged formerly in her behalf with something more favour to them too than her â— for he allows Them Six Councils and but Four to Herâ— I have nothing to do with it They are Matters between themselves Are there Heresies in England or are there not Is it a sad thing there should or is it not These are the Questions at present and 't will be time enough to talk of the Church of England and Dissenters when they are answered What Power the Church of Rome has to define Heretiâ—â—â— Doctrines will keep cold too For 't is not ask'd How Heresies come to be or are known to be Hereâ—â—◠〈…〉 That 〈◊〉 should lay the stress of his Answer on a 〈◊〉 This Expression as competent as the 〈◊〉 is bâ— t an ordinary way of saying very compeâ—â—â—â— As when we say This Man is as strong as Samâ—◠〈◊〉 as wise as Solomon we mean no more 〈◊〉 that they are very strong and wise And he can 〈◊〉 that Not just so competent as the Apostles is an 〈◊〉 to Whether Competent or no and to 〈◊〉 at a Word fit matter in a Dispute with a King 〈…〉 us see The Apostles for what concerned 〈◊〉 could do no more with their Infallible 〈◊〉 than judge for themselves and act in order 〈…〉 Salvation according to that Judgment And 〈…〉 the Answerer contends is the right of every 〈◊〉 Why then every body is in rigour as competent 〈…〉 for himself as the Apostles And he 〈◊〉 to 〈…〉 His Majesty affirmed by 〈…〉 himself â— or His Majesty only said ther understand nor mean to inquire It concerns those Guides and it is not for me to thrust my self into the Concerns of other Folks And 't is no wonder says the third Paragraph it should be so since that Part of the Nation which looks most like a Church dares not bring the true Arguments against the other Sects for fear they should be turned against themselves and confuted by their own Arguments To this he says first That it is directly level'd against the Church of England As if an Arrow were the sharper or blunter for the Mark at which it is aim'd Let him tell us whether the Assertion be true or not true and talk of Levelling when Levelling is in question He is out even in that too For the Paragraph is in truth levell'd not against the Church of England but her Misfortune It is an Expression of Compassion not Reproach that she has been overaw'd from using the true Arguments against Sectaries Then he answers That if there can be no Authority in a Church without Infallibility or no Obligation to submit to Authority without it then the Church of England doth not use the best Arguments against Sectaries But if there be no ground for Infallibility as if his won Goodness were not Ground enough for God to give it to a Nature which needs it and his Word not Ground enough to believe he has given it then for ought he can see the Church of England hath wisely disown'd the Pretence of Infallibility and made use of the best Arguments against Sectaries from a just Authority and the Sinfulness and Folly of the Sectaries refusing to submit to it I take for granted he speaks of Authority to guide Souls to Heaven such as was in the Primitive Church when the Civil Laws were all against her And pray him if he please to instruct us how such Authority can be in a Church without Infalâ—â— bility We see no body will believe a Man who after he has told his Story should add It may be all falâ— e for any thing he knows nor lend his Money upon a Promise to be repaid which the Borrower declares before-hand he knows not whether he can keep or no. And we are persuaded there should be better Security for our Souls than for our Money or unconcerning Opinions To say a Church is fallible is to say she may be deceiv'd and if she may be deceiv'd her self They may be deceiv'd who follow her Wherefore to tell us that such a Church has notwithstanding Authority to guide us and that we ought submit to it is to tell us we ought be led by a Guide who cannot answer he knows the way we should go and venture eternal Happiness or Misery on a Security which he who gives tells us plainly before-hand may fail us Pray let us consider Christians every body knows are oblig'd to lose all things their Goods their Liberty their Lives rather than their Faith Can it be reasonable to do this for a Faith of which they are conscious to themselves that it may be false for any thing they know And do's not his own Heart tell him who knows nothing of it but by the Relation of a fallible Relator that it may be false for ought he can tell Wherefore to make the Faith of Christians depend on a fallible Authority is to make Christianity with its obliging Duties the most unreasonable thing in Nature What do I say unreasonable It is to make it absolutely impossible For can I be a Christian without believing Is not Belief a judgment that the thing is true which I believe Can I have such a Judgment without a cause able to produce it And is a fallible Authority able to make me judge more than that the thing is fallibly true When Christianity therefore obliges me to believe the thing absolutely true it there be nothing to make me believe but a fallible Authority it obliges me to an Effect without a Cause that is to a downright impossibility And indeed to flat Contradiction For as a thing cannot possibly be true and not true at once to judge it is true is to judge it cannot at the same time be false But I must of necessity judge both if I judge upon a Motive which I know is fallible That it is true by the Judgment to
How and by what Authority did we separate from that Church If the Power of Interpreting Scripture be in every Mans Brain what need have we of a Church or Church-men To what purpose then did our Saviour after He had given his Apostles Power to bind and loose in Heaven and Earth add to it That He would be with them even to the end of the World These Words were not spoken Parabolically or by way of Figure Christ was then ascending into his Glory and left his Power with his Church even to the end of the World All this the Answerer leaves out what relates to the Churches Authority and every Mans following his own Iudgment having he says been answered already I wish he had told us where For tho' I remember some Speech of Persons who separate from the Church and of their Pretences I cannot call one Word to mind of the Authority by which they separated If this be the Answer he means he compliments His Majesty's Papers For to insist upon it is to consess he has none He said too and that too often to be forgotten That every Man is to judge for himself tho' not for others What need then of a Church or Church men says His Majesty when every body is provided without them It seems he thinks they are indeed needless but had no mind to say so He takes the matter of Appeals more to heart in which he takes occasion to proceed from these words What Country can subsist in peace or quiet where there is not a Supreme Iudge from whence there can be no Appeal From whence the natural Consequence he says appears to be That every National Church ought to have the Supreme Power within it self In the Comparison here made a National to the Whole Church is as a Shire to a Kingdom And a very natural and very consistent Consequence it is That every Sheriff should be a King But how come Appeals to a Forreign Iurisdiction to tend to the Peace and Quiet of a Church He would peradventure if one should press him be hard enough put to it to make Sense of his Forreign Jurisdiction in our Case For how can any thing be Forreign but by not belonging to that Aggregate whether Civil or Spiritual in respect whereof they are said to be Forreigners Forreign I think comes from Foris and signifies out So that unless the ultimate Jurisdiction of the Church be out of the Church it seems as hard to understand how it can be Forreign to any part of the Church as how a Native of any part of England can be a Forreigner in England The several Nations which make the Church are Forreigners to one another in respect of the several Temporal Bodies which they compose too but Fellow-Citizens All in respect of the Ecclesiastical But let this pass and the Answerer if he please inform us how the Appeals of which we talk can be made but to what he calls Forreign Jurisdiction The King aim'd at an end of Differences in Religion and as he thought every one ought believe as the Catholic Church believes which Christ has here on Earth calls their Agreement in Faith a Decision and knowing or searching what it is an Appeal As no Particular can be the Catholic Church let him make it intelligible who can how the Faith of a Church compos'd of many Nations can be known without knowing the Faith of the Nations which compose it that is of those Churches which he calls Forreign It is therefore so far from hard to comprehend how Appeals to Forreigners tend to the Peace and Quiet of a National Church that when that Peace is disturbed by Dissentions in Matters of Religion it is absolutely impossible to resettle it without them We says the King in the Period before which the Answerer I know not why puts after have had these hundred years past the sad Effects of denying to the Church that Power in Matters Spiritual without an Appeal And our Ancestors says the Answerer for many hundred years last past found the intollerable Inconveniences of an Appeal to Forreign Iurisdiction Which after he has a little dilated by reckoning up the Particulars he tauntingly adds But these were slight things in comparison to what we have felt these hundred years for want of it This Taunt is unexpected and by his good favour might have been spared for more Reasons than one For what Do's he in earnest think that the Incoveniences he has thought of and may think of hereafter hold comparison with the Inconvenience of Heresie Are not all temporal Concerns let them be what they will slight things in respect of the eternal Ruine of so many as Heresie has swallow'd up in Perdition Will he compare the gain of the whole World to the loss even of a single Soul For the rest 't is strange a Man should toss a Word so long and never mind what it means The King us'd the Word Appeal with respect to the Allegory in which he speaks The Answerer will needs understand it in the Law-sense and talks all the while of another matter For the Impoverishment the Obstruction of Justice and what else he mentions are Consequences all of Legal Trials betwixt Plaintiff and Defendant according to the Methods of Courts In which where-ever those Courts be Princes can and when they see fit do preserve their own Prerogatives from diminution and their Subjects from Oppression without shocking their Religion There is nothing of all this in the Appeals of which the King speaks no feeing of Lawyers nor need to travel from home Who will but step to St. Iames's and see what they do and hear what they say has appeal'd as much as the King desir'd he should To his Conclusion That it is a very self-denying Humour for those to be most sensible of the want of Appeals who would really suffer the most by them I shall say no more than that it is very unreasonable because no body dreams of such Appeals as he understands and I wish that no body may think worse of it and of him and other Folks for it Can there be any Iustice done says the next Paragraph where the Offenders are their own Iudges and equal Interpreters of the Law with those that are appointed to administer Iustice He cross interrogates and asks Whether there be any likelihood Iustice should be better done in another Country by another Authority and proceeding by such Rules which in the last resort are but the arbitrary Will of a Stranger I have already observ'd That another Country and another Authority is unâ— ntelligible where all are Countrymen and arbitrary Rules are altogether as unintelligible where the Law is â— ixt and known At present I pray him to tell us how he answers the Question Can Iustice be done Or which is the same Is there a Judge without Appeal signifies he knows Can Controversies be ended And he knows the Answer is They can or They cannot And yet he will
things Whether it be easie or no to find the Churches Infallibility in the Scripture has been answered by Her Royal Highness and I will not presume to answer where she has especially when the Question has no relation to our Business In the last place who has found the Churches Infallibility has yet says the Answerer a harder Point to get over viz. How the Promises relating to the Church in general came to be appropriated to the Church of Rome By the way the Promises of which he talks are they not in Scripture and no harder to be found there by another than by him How comes the Churches Infallibility to be easily found there in this Period which was not easie to find in the last For who has found the Promise has founâ— Infallibility as certainly as that the Promises of Christ never fail But why are we not all agreed now That there are Promises of Infallibility made to the Church in general he agrees and doubts not I suppose but that those Promises are made good I suppose too he will allow that the Church in General and the General Church are all one and that the General and the Catholic Church are but two Names for the same thing And so we are arriv'd at Infallibility in the Catholic Church Yes but it must not be appropriated to the Church of Rome Why it shall not if that will content him We ask no more than what he allows That the Catholic Church be Infallible and the Church of Rome with all her faults one of the many Churches which make it up To allow so much is to allow the Roman Catholic Church is Infallible For Roman Catholic is nothing but the Catholic with the Roman in What remains then but to take the Infallibility promis'd to this Catholic Church for the Foundation of our Salvation inquire and believe what she teaches and leave off disputing For they are undoubtedly firmly grounded who build on the Promises of God It is true the Answerer has not all this while answered the Question For he says not whether Salvation ought to depend on a Sandy Foundation or whether the private Judgment be a Sandy Foundation But he has done much better by instructing People the Catholic Church is Infallible and shall for me keep his Thoughts of that Matter to himself since he has no mind to reveal them People I hope will profit by his Instructions and for their own sakes chuse Infallible rather than Fallible Security for their Souls now they know where 't is to be had There follow several lines in his Majesties Paper which are not transcrib'd by the Answerer because they are he says as effectual for the Church of England as Rome And truly I am of his mind that the Church of England has her share in those favours as much as any particular Church if she be as they are incorporated into the General For neither do they claim otherwise nor can the Favours granted by God to the Faithful be imagined extended to the not-faithful It is for this Reason I have always thought them no Friends of hers who make her of a dâ— fferent Faith from all or indeed any part of the Catholic Church that is no part her self For evidently there is no pretending to the Priviledges of a Body but by being a Member nor pretending to be of the Body of Faithful but by Faith And pray consider says the King on the other side that those who resist the Truth and will not submit to his Church draw their Arguments from Implications and far fetch'd Interpretations at the same time that they deny plain and positive words which is so great a disingenuity that 't is not almost to be thought that they can believe themselves Here are two particulars mentioned drawing Arguments from Implications and denying plain words In answer to the first out of the whole heap of Controversies the Answerer chuses Three in which they have he says plain and positive words on their side Now it had been altogether as easie and as short to have produc'd those plain and positive words if there had been any as to have past his word that there are such Besides that People love to see with their own Eyes and plain things may easily be seen He is a Party and even Supreme Powers according to him must not judge in their own Cause It rests then with him to shew where the Scripture says No of what the Roman Catholic Church says I or contrariwise For this is what People understand by plain and positive and all besides is Implication And by the favour of his Confidence I affirm to him that who argue against the Roman Catholic Church out of Scripture argue always from Implications tho' it be more than needs to justifie His Majesties Assertion For if they draw their Arguments from Implications at any time they draw Arguments from Implications In answer to the Second he pitches upon a point wherein he acknowledges the words of Scripture seem plain and positive on our side and their Sense to be from Implications and far-fetch'd Interpretations and alledges what he has to say why notwithstanding they are not plain and positive As if there were any other way of denying plain Words of Scripture but by denying them to be plain No Christian has the confidence to deny what Scripture plainly teaches but who has no mind to believe what it teaches denies that it teaches contrary to him and for a Pretence to deny That raises some Mist or other to obscure the Clearness of every Text alledg'd against him The Answerer then is far enough from shewing that they do not deny plain Words of Scripture by pretending that they are not plain not did not could His Majesty mean they denied them otherwise who knew very well that there is no other way to do it and that no Words are so plain but who will make it his business may find something to say against them This which the Answerer alledges was far from a Secret to Him In short the Answerer would have them cleared from arguing from Implications by saying they have in three Points plain Words which he thought it needless to produce and from denying plain Words by denying that they are plain And this is all his Answer What he says of Implications in the Pope's Bulls might if he could shew the Church of Rome builds her Faith on those Implications be an Argument against her but none for himself For Paul is not a just the less a Thief because Peter is caught stealing too But some in the Church of Rome argue from Implications upon which they do not build their Faith therefore others may build their Faith upon Implications seems to me but an odd Argument The King's Conclusion is Is there any other Foundation of the Protestant Church but that if the Civil Magistrate please he may call such of the Clergy as he thinks fit for his turn at that time and turn
bare word without Repetition Yet this notwithstanding he might have some inward grudgings that his Pupil thought him not so great a Doctor But it is not fit that a Matter of such importance should end in a bare Ay and No on either side for though the Parties have been so long dead yet there is a Witness still alive and such a one that all Loyal Subjects are bound to joyn with me in Prayers for the long continuance of His Life and even for His continuance in the True Religion as far as the English Liturgycan oblige them The Duchess thought her self bound to make his Royal Highness acquainted with every one of these several Conferences which she had either with Archbishop Sheldon or Bishop Blandford and that account was the very same in substance with what she communicates to her Friends in this present Paper as he is pleas'd to permit me to assure the World after having had the Honour to hear him solemnly affirm it which puts an end to the whole Matter of Dispute and this which follows is as Authentic The Day it pleased Almighty God to call her Highness to his Mercy some Relations of hers who are yet living were desirous that she should speak with the Bishop of Worcester which the Duchess did not absolutely refuse upon their importunity but requested the then Duke to stop the Bishop a little in the Anti-chamber and prepare him according to her directions before he enter'd the Bed-chamber accordingly His Highness having met the Bishop acquainted him That she was actually reconcil'd to the Catholic Church he then enquir'd Whether she were fully satisfied in all Points of the Doctrine which she had embrac'd and the Duke answer'd that she was entirely satisfied in the Doctrine of the Catholic Church at length the Bishop ask'd Whether she had already receiv'd the last Sacraments of the Church naming particularly those of the Blessed Eucharist and the Extreme Vnction and it being reply'd by the Duke that she had receiv'd them the Bishop answered That then he doubted not but that her Soul was in a very safe condition before they parted His Royal Highness told him That it was the desire of the Duchess he would not trouble her with any Matter of Dispute nor offer to Pray with her but if he had any Spiritual Counsel fitting for a Person in her condition in order to prepare her for her Death he might freely tender it upon this he was admitted to her Bed-chamber and made her a brief Exhortation after which his stay there was very short This being matter of Fact and of unquestionable Truth I hope the Answerer will acquiesce in it What he will think of his Bishop concerns not me but as a Protestant he has reason for his thanking God that the Cause of his Church do's not depend on the singular Opinion of one Bishop in it It appears plainly by this Relation that the Bishop of Worcester was ignorant almost to the last of her Conversion so that if that will serve our Authors turn he is acquitted from intending any such Act of Charity but that he contributed to it without any such intention is apparent Yet our Author will not so sit down he will condemn her Highness from her own words again and prove from her saying that she ow'd the Blessing of her Conversion to God Almighty that therefore the Bishop could have no hand in it What obligation has he to defend the Honour of his Church by a piece of Sophistry she ow'd it wholly to Almighty God for of our selves we can do nothing but as the Answerer confesses this excluded not her own endeavours God inspir'd her with a desire of being reconcil'd to his Church in answer to her frequent Prayers not by immediate illumination or shewing her the right belief miraculously but by affording her the ordinary means and conducting her by his good Spirit in the use of them If she had been immediately enlightn'd she needed not to have recourse to any of the Bishops but it pleas'd God who often works Good out of Evil that the Arguments they us'd or rather the Answers which they made produc'd a contrary effect and added more to the desire she had to be a Catholic in this sense therefore it may be said that the Bishops sent her to the Priest for an unresistable over-ruling Power made them contribute to her change by opposing it and the very hands which labour'd to hold her fast in the Protestant Perswasion carried her half Seas over and put her into other Hands which carried her the other half Truly they would have receiv'd hard measure if they had been found guilty on the Statute of Perswasion who far from endeavouring to make her change disswaded her from changing tho' the Protestant Flints happen'd to strike Catholic Fire So that I cannot but think there was an extraordinary Hand of Providence in her Case and of which she had reason to be extraordinary sensible But we must have I perceive a care of Praying and owning benefits from God for that or nothing made her pass for an Enthusiast with the Answerer She did nothing besides Praying which our Author do's not acknowledge it her duty to have done She read the History which was put into her Hands to confirm her in her first belief she examin'd the Scripture she conferr'd with her Divines and yet he can make an obstinate Woman of her for doing that very thing to which he wou'd advise her But says our Author All pretenders to Enthusiasm do as solemnly and wholly ascribe the Blessing to Almighty God and look on it as the effect of such Prayers as she made to him in France and Flanders They ascribe it indeed wholly to God in our Authors Sense but not in hers for she meant not immediate illumination by the word wholly as I have already prov'd they may look on their false light as the effect of their Prayers but she looks on her Conversion as the effect of hers after having used the means He had thought he says that the pretence to a private Spirit or Enthusiasm for he joyns them both afterwards had not been at this time allowed in the Church of Rome Somebody once thought otherwise or he had never diverted the young Gallants of the Town with his merry Book concerning the Fanaticism of the Church of Rome He next enquires what need she had of an infallible Church if she owed her Change so wholly to Almighty God Wholly is already explain'd to him and then his Argument is of no more force against her then against all Catholics who have once been Protestants which is a new Subject of Dispute and forrein to the Argugument in hand Her Conclusion as he tells us is That she would never have chang'd if she could have sav'd her Soul otherwise Whereupon he infers If this were true she had good reason for her change if it were not true as most certainly it was not she had none But
A DEFENCE OF THE PAPERS Written by the Late KING Of Blessed Memory AND Duchess of York AGAINST The ANSWER made to Them By Command LONDON Printed by H. Hills Printer to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty for His Houshold and Chappel 1686. PREFACE T IS acknowledg'd that Sovereign Princes when They enter into the Lists of Disputation may be answer'd as well as Private Men for then they Command not but only Argue speak their Opinion and Instruct. The Answerer is not therefore blam'd for appearing on the contrary Side to our late Sovereign of Blessed Memory whose Papers were for that Reason made Public that every man might have the liberty of considering them and of making a free and upright Iudgment concerning them Accordingly it hath pleas'd Almighty God by means of them to open the Vnderstanding and direct the Will of many sober and well-meaning Readers in the knowledge of his only True Church and the desire of being united to it The great Success of them as it is manifest to the World so in all probability hath occasion'd the Answer by one who calls himself a Son of the Church of England and who gives it as the Reason of the publishing his Pamphlet That the Papers thus dispers'd in Print may fall into many Hands who without some Assistance may not readily resolve some Difficulties started by them Vpon which Consideration this Author thought it not unbecoming his Duty to God and the King to give a clearer Light to the Things contained in them Which not long after he explains in relation at least to the First Paper wherein he could have been glad to have found as much Reason to convince as there was a fair Appearance to deceive Now whether the King intended to deceive his People or that the Deceit might be occasion'd by His Writings I leave our Author to expound But in general to clear Difficulties and discover a Cousenage I freely grant not to be unbecoming of our Duty An Answer then may be made even to a King but the Manner of Answering is likewise to be consider'd And surely there is somewhat more of Respect to be given to a Sovereign Prince than to a common or private Disputant especially if the Answerer be his Subject The Cardinal of Peronne tho' a Forreigner has observ'd this Decency in the Controversie manag'd betwixt our King JAMES the First and him Luther on the other side has made a German Quarrel with HENRY the Eighth without allowing Him so much as the Name of King but in the beginning of his Answer calling Him barely by His Christn'd Name and using Him afterward as familiarly and scurrilously as if Martyn and Harry had been two Sophisters set up to wrangle in the Schools at their two confronting Desks After the same manner and not without a convenient share of Impudence has Milton treated King CHARLES the First but he had cast off the Yoke of Dominion before he answer'd and of a Subject was become a Rebel To speak evil of Dignities is not much recommended to us in the Holy Scriptures and whether he be Catholic or Protestant Tros Rutulusve fuat who manages a Dispute in this manner neither Church ought to be over-proud of such a Champion Now whether our Answerer has follow'd the Example of Peronne or whether he has not some little tincture of Luther's Mannerliness and the Civility of Milton let the impartial Readers of his Pamphlet nay let even all modest and dutiful Protestants be Iudges I name not here the Passages which are either disrespectful in relation to the Late King or to the Present nor the Pedantique Cavils nor the private Scoffs which have render'd our Author justly odious to the sober Men even of his own Party But if he will look upon this as a bare Accusation without Proof I shall endeavour to make it good upon his Summons In the mean time tho' as he alledges it be no Reflection on the Authority of a Prince for a private Subject to examine a Piece of Coin as to its just Value notwithstanding that it bears his Image and Superscription on it yet the Answerer ought to be cautious of decrying that Coin among his Fellow-Subjects unless he can fully prove it to be Counterfeit But he might have made a more proper and less invidious Similitude by comparing the King's Paper to a Medal rather than to Coin'd Money It bears the Figure of one Monarch and is Distributed to the People by another 'T is a Largess not impos'd on any Man it may either be taken or refus'd But both those Actions ought to be accompanied with Respect the Metal and the Weight may be examin'd without phillipping it up into the Air for the Image the Superscription and the Donor ought all to secure it from Contempt To conclude If the Answerer thinks it not unbecoming his Duty to God and the King to give a clearer Light to the Things contain'd in those Papers I know it not to be unbecoming mine to defend the Honour of both our Princes and the Truth of that Religion profess'd by them which has descended without interruption from our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles even to us In so doing I hope I shall discover the foul Dealing of this Author who has obscur'd as much as he is able the Native Lustre of those Papers and recommended by a false Light his own sophisticated Ware part of which may certainly deserve the clearest Light which can be given it by the Hands of the Vnder-Sheriff or of somebody whom I will not name A DEFENCE OF THE PAPERS Written by The late KING of Blessed Memory and Duchess of York AGAINST The Answer made to Them A Defence of the First Paper AS I think the Answerer may with as little need of Apology become the Antagonist as I the Champion of a King and Princess and that the cowardise of delaying Time suits ill with the Presumption of entring into such a Quarrel I shall lose none in scanning the Preliminary Discourses of my Adversary or making any for my self His Majesty says in his first Lines That it is as visible as that the Scripture is in Print that none can be the One Church which Christ has here on Earth but that which is called the Roman Catholic Church and that there is no need to enter into the Ocean of Particular Disputes when the main and in truth only Question is Where that Church is The Answerer who had a mind to flourish before he offered to pass says first That if particular Controversies could be ended by a Principle as visible as that the Scripture is in Print all Men of sence would soon give over Disputing And what if they did The sooner the better I should think For Christians sure might without any harm become unanimous in their Sentiments all of one Heart and one Soul again and lay Disputing aside As truly I believe they would if the Apostle could prevail with them to lay aside all
not in the Office of Baptism that it is required that they believe the Roman Catholic Church As if the Roman Baptism by requiring belief of the Catholic did not require belief of the Roman Catholic Church If he think in earnest that it do's not let him present a Man to this Baptism who professes not to believe the Roman Catholic Church and try whether his professing to believe the Catholic Church will obtain it He reflects not that the Limitation which is in this Expression Roman Catholic Church comes not from Roman but from Church That Word indeed always limits the Expression to those who believe and sometimes to those who practise the Doctrine of Christ. Roman neither makes nor marrs as to Limitation but owns the Romans for such Christians Taking in those whom Injustice would keep out is it seems Limitation in his Language As it griev'd him in likelihood that this Expression as visible as that the Scripture is in Print should be applied to the Roman Catholic Church he had a mind to retort it upon her but very unluckily chuses to do it in an Assertion contrary to the sense of all the World besides himself and by an Argument contrary to the sense of the whole Church not excepting his own He says then in his third Head That it is to him equally visible that the Church of Rome it self do's not believe that it is the one Catholic Church mentioned in the two Creeds and this every body but he plainly sees it do's And proves it by this Argument Because if it did it must void all Baptism out of its Communion which it hath never yet done when 't is plain that all the Church agrees it ought not to be voided This he very well knows is a Plea over-ruled by the whole Church many Ages ago and which I little expected he would have borrow'd from Men who he says were excommunicated because they made and stood to it especially whâ—â—â— he I think condemns it himself For he excludes the Donatists I suppose and Novatians from the Catholic Church because they re-baptized When he bethinks himself he will not sure have the Church heretofore not believe her self the Catholic Church because she would not void Baptism with the Re-baptizers nor exclude the English from the Caâ— holic Church because she voids it not The truth is to say in one breath That the Donatists were not Catholics because they Re-baptized and in the next That Roman Catholics cannot believe themselves Catholics because they do not is a cross piece of Business and much too hard for me As far as I can understand the very Reason he gives why they should not is one Reason why they should believe themselves the Catholic Church For in not voiding the Baptism of Heretics they do as the Primitive Catholic Church did And had I made such an Argument for a Friend I am afraid he would have thought I plaid booty The Answerer nevertheless strives to make it good by this Discourse As long as Baptism doth enter Persons into the Catholic Church it is impossible that all who have the true Form of Baptism though out of the Communion of the Roman Church should be Members of the Catholic Church and yet the Communion of the Roman and Catholic be all one as it must be if the Roman Church be the Catholic and Apostolic Church professed in the Creeds This if I understand it is in short Persons Baptized out of the Roman Communion are Members of the Catholic but not of the Roman Catholic Church and therefore the Catholic and Roman Catholic are not the same Churches He was not I perceive aware that he supposes what he should prove and when he has done proves it by means of that Supposition For he could not make a Member of the Catholic not to be a Member of the Roman Catholic unless he suppose that those are two different Churches And this is the very Point in Dispute which he should prove and which he puts for proved in his Conclusion But we are all subject to oversights I wonder more how it could scape him that the Baptized Persons he speaks of are as much Members of both Churches as of either I speak in his Language as if they were different Churches that his Argument may go on Those Persons are not truly Members either of the Catholic or Roman Catholic Church but as far as Baptism makes Members they are altogether as much Members of the Roman Catholic as of the Catholic And He if he will recollect himself knows very well that both Points have been long since determin'd and that by the whole Catholic Church The old Contest about Rebaptisation puts it past Dispute that they were not truly Members of any Part of the Catholic Church For the Contest was How they should be made Members Whether by a new Baptism or only by Imposition of Hands Both Sides therefore that is the whole Church agreed That they were not Members of the Church till one way or other they were receiv'd into it And to think they did not agree in this is to make very wise Men of them Men who fell out with one another even to Excommunication if we will believe the Answerer how those should be brought into the Church who were in already Again That they were nevertheless as much Members of the Catholic Church tho' baptised out of its Communion and so of the Roman tho' baptised out of the Roman Communion as Baptism could make them he knows too was carried against the Re-baptisers by the rest of the Church in whose Judgment the whole Church ever since has acquiesced And he stands single against that Judgment when he thinks a Man baptised out of the Roman Communion is not a Member of the Roman Communion as much as Baptism makes a Member and as much as if he were baptised in her Communion In truth there is nothing to dispute of but Words When he says that Baptism enters the Baptised into the Catholic Church if he mean that those who are duly baptised by Men who are out of the Communion of the Catholic Church need no other Baptism to be brought into the Catholic Church he says very true and no more than what the whole Church has long since said before him Neither do they need any other Baptism to be brought into the Roman And if he will have this called an entry and the Baptised called Members with all my heart For I think it time lost to quarrel about the Names of things when we know what they signifie But if he mean that their Baptism so enters them that they need nothing more to be what every body understands by Members Men who believe and profess the Faith of the Catholic Church he contradicts every Member of the Catholic Church and every Man in the World For all Men see they do not profess that Faith but the Heresies of their Baptisers and all Christians know they need notwithstanding their
Baptism to be receiv'd into the Church and that there goes Faith as well as Baptism to a Member of the Body of Faithful And as Faith signifies an Assent to the Doctrine of Christ the Answerer sure will not say that they have Faith who far from assenting contradict the Doctrine of Christ and so make the Church a Congregation no longer of Faithful but of Faithful and not Faithful There is more ado about the last Head and nothing all the while to the Question The substance is That some have been cast out of Communion upon particular Differences which were not supposed to be of such a nature as to make them no Members of the Catholic Church That therefore there may be different Communions among Christians which may still continue Parts of the Catholic Church And that consequently no one Member of such a Division ought to assume to it self the Title and Authority of the One Catholic Church And what is all this even supposing it all true to the Question of the Paper Whether the Roman Catholic be the One Catholic Church of the Creeds Suppose his divided Christians do continue Parts still of the Catholic Whole cannot the Roman Catholic therefore be that Whole Suppose no one Member of the Division ought to assume to it self the Title and Authority of the One Catholic Church ought not therefore both and all the Members to assume it What is or can there be to assume it besides Or would he not have it assumed at all but the Name of Catholic Church banish'd out of the World by every such Division which happens in it His Majesty as I observ'd before included in the Roman Catholic Church of which He speaks all Christians whom a different Faith excluded not and said that this Church or these All are the One Catholic Church of the Creeds The Answerer to shew they are not tells us That among these All there may be Divisions notwithstanding which they may remain Parts still of the Catholic Church Why if they remain Parts of the Catholic Church they are of the number of the All who make it up and remain Parts of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Church which takes All in Is that Church ever the less Catholic by having never so many Members Or ever the less One because divided Christians believe as she do's For if they do not She and They both cannot be Members of one Catholic Church and the Answerer must needs exclude either Her or Them For it being as palpable Nonsence that one Church can be with more than one Faith as that one Man can be with more than one Soul the Churches which make up the Catholic Apostolic One Church can have but one Faith among them All And who knows the Faith of any one knows the Faith of all the rest Now since the Answerer with his Compliment of Corrupt Faith which as Compliments often are is Nonsence too makes the Roman Catholic a Part at least of the one Catholic Whole all the other Parts must believe as she do's or cannot themselves be Parts And so his Reason why All those who believe as she do's are not the Catholic Church is because All believe as she do's notwithstanding some Divisions As it is not to our purpose I inquire not whether his divided Christians do indeed by continuing the same Faith properly continue parts of the Catholic Church a Question which belongs to the propriety of Language nor how far so much Title to the Church avails to their Salvation Since Divisions especially of long continuance seem hardly consistent with Charity and Charity is as necessary to Salvation as Faith I pray God of his Mercy to preserve me from ever being divided whether I be said to belong still to the Church or no and make them sensible of their condition who are Neither will I examine how 't is with the Eastern Christians at this Day or was with those of Afric and Asia whom he makes Excommunicated heretofore by the Bishops of Rome a Point of which if he have a mind to Dispute he may chuse his Man among those who deny it Whether the Roman Catholic comprehending all of the same Faith with her be the one Catholic Apostolic Church of the Creeds is our Question not who they are who have the same Faith And that this Roman Catholic Church is the One Church which Christ has on Earth or that he has none on Earth is as visible as that Scripture is in Print or any thing more visible if any thing can be For if it be not we must look for Christ's Church either among Infidels who believe not in Christ at all or Heretics who believe not his Doctrine And there I for my part despair to find it The truth is I suspect by his talking that he would be content People should think that the one Catholic Church of the Creeds requir'd not any one Faith but were made up of as many Men as own Christ whatever they believe of his Doctrine Except perhaps those who Rebaptise and those who assume the Title of the Catholic Church By which means the notion of Catholic would be well enough provided for but One and Church left to shift for themselves But he do's not directly say it and 't is not fair to put my suspitions to his account Divers other Passages there are in his Discourse which relish not with me He by saying the Visible Church might have been easily shewn in the first Blessed Times insinuates she is less visible now or rather invisible for visible things may be easily seen at all times And I conceive the same marks which shew'd her then will with as little difficulty shew her now Christians were then admonish'd to mind those who abide in the Doctrine of Christ who come and bring not that Doctrine and to contend for the Faith once delivered to the Saints And we have but to do so still Again I comprehend not how his unheeded and yet remarkable difference between People cast out of Communion viz. That some did and some did not challenge the Title of the Catholic Church was the cause of any great misapplication It sounds as if he would have that Title never rightly apply'd but to those who do not challenge it in likelihood because they have no pretence to it But I less understand how it comes to be Presumption and a cause of Schisms in one part of a Division to assume it It is not well intelligible when there is a Division how more than one part can bear it For the Language of the World has always preserv'd that Title to one Part and given the name of Sect or part cut off to the other And it is more unintelligible how it should be Presumption in that one Part to take what all the World gives and that Presumption be the cause of Schisms which happen'd and of necessity always must happen before the Presumption For till there be Schism that is Division there
cannot be Part of a Division to presume His account too of the breach betwixt the East and the West is I think very wide of the mark He would have the Popes Supremacy bear the blame of all which if my Memory fail me not was not so much as made a Pretence till near Two hundred Years after the Schism began nor any where more acknowledged than in Greece nor by any body more than by him who began the Schism When I read the Story I apprehended the cause of that breach was National Feuds heightned into violent hatred by several Accidents which chopt unluckily in and the malitious Ambition of Men who found their private Accounts in the Public Calamity Indeed I think they denied the Popes Supremacy at last as all who will continue in Schism at long run must because to acknowledge and not regard it is self condemnation Otherwise their Quarrel was to the Latin Church or perhaps more truly Nation not the Supremacy of which they speak so inconstantly that I am persuaded it would break no squares even now if they could be brought on any terms to agree with Men whom they hate I would be more diligent in this Matter if it concern'd our Question But as they are parts of His Majesties Roman Catholic Church if they believe as she do's and are not if they do not and it is equal whether they do or no I leave them to Gods Mercy and return from straying thus far into our Road again This Principle being remov'd which ought he says be taken for granted since it can never be prov'd By the way he do's not sure mean this for a bob to the King as if he took his Principle viz. That the Church is as visible as Scripture for granted because he knew not how to prove it Whether the Person to whom he directed his Paper were satisfy'd before hand of this Point by their former Discourses or needed no Arguments to see a visible thing or however it were the Answerer may perceive by the Paper that his Majesty thought it not to his purpose to press the Visibility of the Church but only submission to it and means not I suppose to tell the King he knew not his own Design or how to pursue it His part is to answer what is said and not instruct the King what should have been said He must therefore mean that it ought to be taken for granted that he has remov'd that Principle which is just Lend me your Hand Neighbour to remove my Block I cannot stir it my self Alas it is very visible he has done nothing towards removing it But he is in the right to play sure Who have a flaw in their Title do well to get a Grant By his saying it can never be prov'd he has I guess a mind to tempt somebody to prove over again what has been prov'd a hundred and a hundred times already But as much as his positiveness tempts me to be doing and as easie as I think it to be done I beg his Pardon at present Parrying is my business not Thrusting now Whatever he mean I do not think that what he concludes would follow even tho' the Principle which he dislikes were removed The Principle is That the Roman Catholic is the One Church which Christ has here upon Earth and the Conclusion is That we must unavoidably enter into the Ocean of particular Disputes Why so I pray him Why will not another Catholic Church serve turn If he will needs have it granted that the Roman Catholic is not the One Church of Christ 't is but shewing us the other Catholic which is Roman or not Roman imports not But believing the Doctrine of Christ imports as much as Salvation is worth and the Commission which Christ gave to teach it the World is now in force and shall be as long as there is a World Let him but direct us to the Men who have it in this Age that we who live in this Age may learn it of them let him but tell us which is the One not Roman Catholic Church which Christ has here upon Earth and it will do our business every jot as well as the Roman Catholic and as much save us from being plunged into the Ocean of particular Disputes Otherwise to tell us the Roman Catholic is not that Church and not tell us which is is as much as to tell us that Christ has none upon Earth For evidently She or some other must be that Church if there be any at all But let him not send us to a Church whereof the several Parts agree not in one Faith Besides that we should never understand how such a Church let it be never so Universal could be One and make account Christ taught One determinate Doctrine not the 1 and the No both it would be otherwise useless For if This Part teach one Faith and the Next another we should not know which to believe and in all likelihood believe neither But he knows no Reason any can have to be so afraid of the Ocean of particular Disputes since we have so sure a Compass as the Holy Scripture to direct our Passage I am sure there can be no Reason to venture to Sea when we are already safe in our Port The Holy Scripture assures us that the Church is the Foundation and Pillar of Truth and Truth is plainly the Port to which his Compass should direct us But pray what Compass can be sure where the Needle is not suffer'd freely to play Wrangling is Iron to this Needle and turns it to all Points It will indeed direct the humble and docile and the sincere who first know that no Prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation and we see it will by the Third Paper But it is not for the bold and self-conceited Disputers If any will be contentious we have no such custom nor the Church of God is what the Scripture it self says to them To contend with them at Scripture Tertullian tells us is good for nothing but to turn the Brain or the Stomach and that we ought not to try it this way because the Issue will be uncertain or but little certain or none Alas this Gentleman with the security he promises errs all this while not knowing the Scriptures nor so much as the End for which they were made He would do well to remember what St. Austin says to him in Words directed to another If you will not have me believe Catholics you are quite out to think to draw me to you by Scripture because it was for their sakes that I believed Scripture You would indeed if you could evidently prove your Doctrine by Scripture invalidate the Authority of Catholics who bid me not believe you And when you have done neither shall I believe the Scripture which I had believed upon their Credit and so what you alledge out of it will be of no force with me If you find it
manifest for you I shall neither believe Catholics nor you Here I will stop For truly after so much said of this Subject and so long Experience of his sure Compass I grieve too much to dispute it farther when I observe that neither Reason nor Experience will do and fear there are who more desire the Ocean of Controversies should never be past than truly think it will be past this way But he is merry whatever I be For sure he is in jest when he talks of clear Evidence of Scripture against us and the Church of Romes notoriously deviating from it Under the Face he sets on this Matter there is nothing in the World but that he has the Art to make the Words of Scripture bear a Sense of his own or Friends invention no great matter to brag on Alas no not so much as for Learning For even the Unlearned he knows have Wit enough to pervert the Scriptures to their own Perdition And because the Church of Rome has no mind his Word should be past upon her for God's Word he runs away with it with a sure Compass and clear Evidence and the infallible Rule Words which as big as they sound signifie nothing but the Whimsies of possibly a single possibly an unlearned Man but yet who will needs be wiser than the Church To take upon us to understand the meaning of the Books of Divine Mysteries otherwise than by learning it of their Interpreters when no Trade the most trivial and easie is learnt without a Master and condemn what we understand not as we do when we will not embrace that Meaning is not to mince his Words rash Pride in the Opinion of S. Austin But to go on the Answerer knows very well that the meaning of his Majesties next Paragraph is not what his Question would put upon it and yet he must needs suppose it has another as if he did him Grace His Majesty asks no Grace of him but to put the Period entire It is not left to every Phantastical Mans Head to believe as he pleases but to the Church to whom Christ left the Power on Earth where I think the Compositor has left out a Comma to govern us in matters of Faith who made the Creeds for our direction and then to understand English But he will needs suppose the meaning is that those who reject the Authority of the Roman Catholic Church do leave every Man to believe according to his own Fancy Still he takes it not right Not but that rejecting that Authority infers setting up private Fancy But as inconsequent as it is there are who for all their rejecting that greater Authority are severe enough in requiring punctual obedience to their own little or no Authority and this too visibly for his Majesty to say they do not His words I conceive cannot fairly be suppos'd to extend farther than they were directed to a single Person in all likelihood who had the honour of his Confidence and whom he thought fit to put in mind That it is not left to every Phantastical Mans Head to believe as he pleases What has the Answerer to say to this is it true or is it not true Certainly says he those of the Church of England cannot be liable to any Imputation of this Nature And who can tell by this whether he say I or no or what kind of Answer that should be which says neither or what it serves for but to do the Church of England the same good Office which they do themselves who when Vice is ridicul'd on the Stage fall out with the Actors or Poet and will needs be the Fools of the Play But if he will be 〈◊〉 needless Apologies why must he needs make one fifty times worse than the attempt to make it All Heretics since the first Four General Councils may say the very same which he says for the Church of England and all before them the Equivalent Arius himself could say I receive the Apostles Creed and why should more be requir'd of me when that has hitherto been thought sufficient for all Christians Moreover I embrace all former Councils but think I have very great reason to complain that a Party in the Church the most corrupt and obnoxious assuming the Title of a General and Free Council takes upon it self to define new Doctrine which has neither universal Tradition divers heretofore and all the Orthodox that is my Abetters being on my side and so plainly no Scripture that because they could find none there they were fain to Coyn a new Word for their new Faith Macedonius Nestorius and Eutiches might have said as much of the Creeds and Councils before them and all Heretics since of the Creeds and Councils alledg'd by the Answerer and all complain of the Villanous Factions call'd General Councils He has plainly justify'd them all if it be a justification of a Doctrine that it is not found condemned in Councils held before it was broach'd For the Doctrine of none of them was condemn'd by any former Council nor indeed well could For as Councils seldom meddle with more than the exigence for which they were call'd requires it is not to be expected that more Faith should be found in their Creeds or Acts than was Controverted when they sat Wherefore unless one will fancy that every part of Christs Doctrine was denied so early or that no body since can deny some part which was not denied then it is as wild as unseasonable to plead in behalf of a Doctrine now that it was not condemn'd by the first Four General Councils or Three Creeds where there was no occasion to mention it And yet he thinks this an Apology fit to be made for the Church of England Truly I have long thought and there are of her Members who know my Thoughts that she has ill luck when she has much better things to say for her self to have such things as these said for her things which fit the greatest Enemies she has every jot as well as her self and which I therefore wonder not when I see alledg'd by them as Pleas for her For They have reason when They will not be brought to Her to bring Her to Them if they can But to see them produc'd by those who will be even unseasonably zealous for her is a Riddle with which it is not for me to meddle What he adds of holding nothing contrary to any universal Tradition of the Church from the Apostles Times and putting it upon that Issue for professing and offering as he expresses it is no great matter unless they do what they profess and offer is indeed to purpose and spoken like a Friend of the Church of England and a Lover of Peace And I hea◠tily wish and as earnestly as I can pray to Almighty God that this Trial may be brought speedily on which I can safely undertake shall neither be declin'd nor delay'd by the Church of Rome Then he passes on
to her and says That who believe her to be the Catholic believe as they please without any colour of Scripture Antiquity or Reason This Ball has been tost already and in my Opinion enough Only lest he whoever believe be thought to speak as he pleases he would do well to shew what Scripture or Reason tells him that the Roman Church with the rest of her Belief for sure he talks not of a Diocess was not always believ'd the Catholic Church Antiquity I know he has as much as since Luther Any other Colour from all these three I see none Divers other Points he brings in I know not why unless that he has perhaps a mind to be sailing on the Ocean of particular Disputes As I have not I mean to stay on firm Ground with S. Austin and content my self that It was thought fit by the Catholic Church spread throughout the World to observe what we hold And that Because the things we hold are observ'd by the Vniversal Church they are believ'd not otherwise deliver'd and recommended than by the Apostles Who has a mind to put to Sea with the Answerer will I think find the same Saint's Counsel good When he has been tost enough and has a mind to be at ease to follow the way of Catholic Discipline which descended from Christ himself by the Apostles even to us and shall to Posterity He shall if he please excuse me from rambling after him into the Authority they allow the Church which gay word if it should signify no more as I suspect it sometimes do's not than that it do's oblige People whatever they think to hold their Tongues and not to thwart her decisions in public for fear of losing their Benefices it were great pity Likâ—â— e into free Councils and Factions and what else he fills a Page with For whatever he do I remember our Question all the while is whether it be well or ill said That it is not left to every Phantastical Man's Head to believe as he pleases And when he pleases to speak to it I am for him In the next Section he tells us That all they plead for in this case is the right which Loyal Subjects have under an Vsurper so far to interpret the Laws as to be able to understand their duty c. I will not ask him who the Usurpers are and who the Loyal Subjects For he makes account I find that to receive Faith from him who thought it no Usurpation to be equal to God and keep it when People have it and tell other folks what it is is Usurpation and that who is so bold as to deny it stands in danger of being hurried into the Ocean of Controversies with the Answerers fancy of Scripture for a sure Compass to direct him out again All this while we have other Business in hand We have an Assertion and an Answer to mind The Assertion is That it were a very irrational thing to make Laws for a Country and leave it to the Inhabitants to be Interpreters and Iudges of those Laws And the Answer is That it is as irrational to allow an Vsurper to Interpret the Laws to his own advantage Is this I or No again or what do's it say That both are Irrational which is to say that the Assertion is true Or that both are Rational or one Rational the other not Let him say if he please what he would be at and leave Usurpers till we have Business with them His Majesty supposes next that the goodness of 〈◊〉 would not leave Men uncertain of the way to Heaven which they would be if Scripture were the Rule and every Man his own Judge He by way of Question says first That the Rule is capable of being understood by those to whom it was given in order to the great end of it Salvation Which is next to saying that it is not capable of being understood by those to whom it was not given that is by any but the Church to whom alone it was given In which he may be sure I shall not contradict him But is it understood with certainty by every Man who will be his own Judge or are we left to uncertainty These are our Questions to which how this which he says should be any step towards an Answer I cannot imagine Next he tells us That the main end of the Rule was to direct us in the way to Heaven and not meerly to determine Controversies Here is work enough for him that needs it For who shall understand what other end there is of a Rule to determine Controversies but determining Controversies Heaven is indeed the end for which it is necessary Controversies should be determiâ— ' d but that is to be the end of the Determination not the Rule How a Rule made to determine Controversies should have any end besides determining them when the end of a thing is what it was made for or why directing to Heaven and determining Controversies should here be separated where the Determination is the very direction of a Rule to determine them they may Dispute who love Disputing All shall pass for me till I find something which concerns our Question certain or uncertain His next words suppose Scripture is the Rule a little odly me thinks for an Answerer For when it is objected against its being a Rule that we should be left at uncertainties it would have shew'd better to have taken some notice of the Objection before he take for granted the thing which is in Dispute But I shall not stop him What will he do with his Rule now he has suppos'd it Why It is fit to examine and compare Controversies with this Infallible Rule and then we shall determine them Infallibly I hope I expected this should follow but was much mistaken What he says is That when that is done to help us in our way to Heaven is that which it was chiefly intended for He may if he please keep his Intended till some body doubt what was intended in every thing which God do's for Man and tell us in the mean time what his examining and comparing will do Whether it will determine Controversies or no and whether certainly or no or whether it be no matter whether they be determined or no but we shall get to Heaven by â— are examining which side soever of the Controversie examined we chuse and whether any or none Whatever was chiefly intended determining Controversies sure was intended by a Rule to determine them and our comparing them with that Rule Pray let him tell us how we shall succeed whether hit or miss in compassing that Intentiâ— n. 'T will be afterwards time enough to talk of his other chief Intention He says further That no Man can think it of equal consequence to him not to be mistaken and not to be damned As if mistakes in our case would not damn a Man For who can hope to be saved without pleasing God and every body
which Christianity obliges me and that it may be false by the same Judgments being grounded on my fallible Authority For by judging it fallible I judge it may deceive me that is that what it recommends to me for true may be false At which rate he is the only good Christian who contradicts himself When the Answerer shall make out that such things can be we may hope to see his Church Authority without Infallibility Till then he will permit us to be persuaded that Infallibility is the true Argument which he confesses has not been us'd against Sectaries If it be true that the Church of England cannot pretend to this Argument which if she did Sectaries he says might justly turn it against her it is so much the worse and the Kings Discourse is indeed levelled against her But I see no such matter Why may not she if she please pretend to her share in the Infallibility of the Whole by remaining as I think her best Advocates plead she do's a part of the Whole Because says he tho' Church Authority be asserted infallibility is deny'd in her Articles Where I beseech him for I cannot find infallibility deny'd save to particular Churches whereof any one undoubtedly may forfeit her pretence to Infallibility by changing her former Faith and so ceasing to be a Member of the Body to which it was promised But this is her concern not mine Iâ— it be so with her she may thank those against whom the Kings Discourse is truly levell'd those who have pull'd this Argument out of her Hands and reduc'd her to have nothing to urge against Sectaries but the sinfulness and folly of their Separation as if she could take it ill of other folks that they separate from her if she be brought to separate from other folks Or as if there were any sin or folly in Peoples desiring to make their Salvation sure and when they cannot find security in a Fallible Authority seeking it elsewhere There follows that the Church of England as â— is calâ—â— d. This as ' t is call'd makes him teachy and he would fain know what she wants to make her as good a Church as any in the Christian World she that wants neither Faith if the Câ— eed contain it nor Sacraments nor Succession of Bâ—â—â— ps nor a Liâ—â—â—â— Never so little Indulgence for a King would 〈◊〉 suffered him to speak as he thought fit especâ—â—â—â— when he had apply'd the Word which offends the Answerer to the Church of Rome too For he 〈◊〉 of the Roman the Church which is 〈◊〉 the Râ—â—â— Catholic But if the Answerers Zeal for the Church of England be so very nice it might have been employ'd much more 〈…〉 something material for her than in picking a needless Quarrel If the Church of England really be not what she is call'd it is long of her self and the influence she suffers those to have who will needs possess the World that she sets up Separately for her self with a different Faith from that of the great Body As the Whole is but One Church made up of as many Members as there are particular Churches which profess the same Faith it is unintelligible how there can be a particular Church otherwise than by being a Member of this Body If the Answerer have a mind to shew she is a Church he should shew she is a Member and believes as the rest not alledge for her things common to as very Heretics as ever were in the World For how many of them receiv'd the Creed had Sacraments Succession of Bishops and Liturgies Not to touch the rest in which for all the Answerers confidence there are difficulties more than he or any Man will be able to clear Is it not palpable that Christians are as much oblig'd to believe every thing which Christ taught when 't is known he taught it as what is contain'd in the Creed And is it not as certainly known he taught much more as that he taught what is there contain'd Is it not palpable that she her self believes more I for my part understand not the Zeal of talking as if she quitted her only sure hold to stand upon Ground which will certainly founder under her and upon which arrant Heretics are forc'd to stand because they have no better But this again is her concern Our business is with the remaining part of the Paragraph which says that she would have it thought that she is the judge in matters Spiritual yet dares not say positively there is no appeal from her His Answer dilated with several Examples is That They are ture Judges from whom there lies an Appeal Still catching at Words and saying nothing to the Thing His Majesty was solicitous of freeing the Nation from the Heresies crept in and convincing the Sects by Arguments to which there could be no return Till the Church of England can determine Spiritual as a Judge do's Temporal Differences by a final Sentence conclusive to the Parties He thought so great a Benefit could not be expected from her The Answerer with his Zeal never thinks of shewing which way she can conclude any body but as if the Name of a thing were All tells us There are true Judges who nevertheless cannot conclude the Parties which come before them Why His Majesty and every body else knew this without needing to trouble his Rhetorâ— and Erudition for the Matter But what are those Judges to our purpose What Benefit shall we get by them And how much the nearer will our Differences be to an end If there were no other in the World Suits would be endless in a Nation and Controversies in a Church as I pray God there be not who desire no better In short His Majesty talks of Judges from whom there lies no Appeal He of Judges from whom there do's and gives us this for a satisfactory Answer He might peradventure have made something a better shew by saying That His Majesty by expecting the Church of England should judge without Appeal expects more than can be had from a particular Church because Appeals must needs lie from all such But every particular Church may judge as the rest of the Body do and it is to our purpose all one to judge without Appeal and to judge as they judge from whom there is none For that Judgment is without Appeal tho' not purely in vertue of the Authority of the particular Church So the Church of England may judge without Appeal and if she do not may thank those who will not let her His Majesty goes on proving what he had said For either they must say that They are Infallible which they cannot pretend to that is otherwise than by giving the right-hand of Fellowship to those who are or confess that what they decide in Matters of Conscience is no farther to be followed than it agrees with every Mans private Iudgment If Christ did leave a Church here upon Earth and We were all once of that Church
not say either the one or the other but amuses us with his Descant upon the Metaphor never touching the Plain-song Question Subordinate Judges may be as true Judges and Appeals do as much harm as they will Justice too may be as well administred at home as abroad for any thing we are the wiser or the better For what is it to us what becomes of those Matters We can inform our selves time enough of Lawyers and those who understand Government how they go when it imports us to know At present let the Answerer tell us whether Controversies can or cannot be ended Whether we can be secure that we are in the right way to Heaven or must live on at a venture never knowing whether we live as we should till we come into the next World and find perhaps by a sad Experience how we have liv'd in this We are all Travellers to the Country of Happâ—â—â— and as a wrong way can never lead right it imports us as much as Happiness imports to travel in tâ—â— right Road. He who undertakes to assist us in the â—â—â—ficulties started by these Papers acquits himself by taking an Allegorical Expression in a Literal sense and then by shewing Erudition upon it turning our Thoughts from the Moral For while we are entertain'd with literally true Judges and Appeals and Justice unless we think of two things at once there is no minding Differences in Religion So that the Assistance which it seems he meant was his Assistance to remove those Difficulties out of sight and the Danger he apprehended the Danger lest people should once perceive how 't is with those who are out of the Catholic Church that they have no accountable Means to end a Controversie or satisfie a Difficulty save by cleanly conveying it out of the way if it become importunate But for any Assistance towards the only difficulty which imports Whether People be in the right way to Heaven or no Whether Controversies can or cannot be ended we have none from the Answerer but may guess from his silence he either thinks They cannot or wishes They would not He asks again Whether such a one pretending to a Power he has no right to must be Iudge in his own Cause when he is the greatest Offender This Such a one if he take it as in all reaâ— on he should as His Majesty do's signifies Him or Those who are appointed to administer Iustice. Do's such a one in his conceit pretend without right to the Power of Administring Justice And if they be appointed to administer it in all Causes must they not administer it in their own Pray turn this Doctrine to another Subject and suppose a Question started in England about the king's Prerogative By what Authority should or could this Question be judg'd but the king's As much his own Cause as it is we must not have another Authority set up in His Kingdom to judge of Differences belonging to His Kingdom For deciding Differences being one Part of the Kingly Office it would be to set up another King It is palpable that to apply the Exception of ones own Cause to Supreme Powers is to make them not Supreme and yet as irrational and as destructive as it is People take the confidence to do it But if the Answerer mean by his Such a one a Stranger proceeding by his arbitrary Will there neither is nor can be such a one No Member of the Church can be more a Stranger in the Church than an Englishman in England And for arbitrary Will in our Case there cannot be a wilder Fancy Christ commanded his Apostles to teach his Doctrine to all Nations They obey'd his Command and their sound is gone forth through the whole earth Can the arbitrary Will of any Mortal stretch it to the utmost extent of Imagination alter or conceal or disguise a Doctrine known and practis'd by a great many Nations some very remote and those which are Neighbours agreeing in few things besides that Doctrine Then as the king would have his Appeal for Justice made to the Catholic Church so many Millions as make up that Church are a very pleasant arbitrary such a one This says His Majesty is our Case here in England in matters Spiritual For the Protestants are not of the Church of England as 't is the true Church from whence there can be no Appeal but because tâ—â— Discipline of that Church is conformable at that present to their Fancies which as soon as it shall contradict or vary from They are really he out of an uncorrect Copy says ready to imbrace or joyn with the next Congregation of People whose Discipline and Worship agrees with their Opinion at that time His Copy has whose Discipline or Worship agrees with the Opinion of that time Here is the Moral of the Allegory which we find by Iustice to be done understood deciding differences in Matters Spiritual that is in Faith By those who are to administer Iustice the Church from which there is no Appeal Because Protestants do not think themselves concluded by the Decisions of the Church of England but adhere to her because they like them at present The king infers there is no Authoritative deciding of Spiritual Differences in England no thrusting out the Heresies crept in but every one in consequence of his Principles is to leave the Church of England as often as she decides against his Perswasions and take up with the next Congregation which is more to his humour What says the Answerer to this Why that the Sense of this Period is not so clear but that one may easily mistake about it Very easily without question For there is not an easier thing in the World than to mistake when one will give his mind to it He is the first tho' I believe who thought his late Majesty did not speak intelligible English But the Answerer will help him out and tell us what is aim'd at As if what a Man says and what he aims at by saying it were not two things as difâ— ereâ— t as End and Means But let him set the Cart before the Horse for me and tell us what was aim'd at That we of the Church of England have no 〈◊〉 upon us but that of our own Iudgments â— nd when that changes we may joyn with Independents or Presbyterians as we do now with the Church of England For one half His Majesty I believe did think the Church of England as things go has no tie upon her Members but his aim was she might and it depends on her self whether she will or no. The other half was not only aim'd at but directly said and more that who adhere to Day to the Church of England in vertue of their own Fancies not only may but ought quit her for the next Congregation which is more agreeable to those Fancies How do's the Answerer avoid that Consequence Why truly by talking of another Matter For he asks What security can be greater
〈…〉 are not able to shew they have any 〈◊〉 It is enough to my purpose to have 〈◊〉 that his Majesty asks for a secure Motive and 〈…〉 no Answer 〈…〉 to see by his Objections against 〈…〉 what he takes for Fancy and 〈…〉 According to him They 〈…〉 and They Iudge who to be sure of a right 〈…〉 â—â—â—â—â—rences in Religion look out for a Fallible Iudge and hazard their Salvation on what may deceive them They Fancy who are for an Vnwritten Word They Iudge who think the Word of God is made by Writing Giving Honour to God by the Worship of Images is Fancy and Iudgment that giving Honour to God is not giving Honour to God For giving Honour any way is plainly giving Honour Mediators of Intercession besides the Mediator of Redemption are Fancy and so to think because only one could Redeem us no body besides can Pray for us is Iudgment The Doctrine of Concomitancy Fancy and true Christian Iudgment that the Body and Blood of Christ can nâ—â—â— e sepâ— rated and he die again A Substantial change in the Eâ—â—ments Fancy and right Iudgment that the Apostles did not understand what Christ said to them or not instruct the Church as they believ'd themselves So 't is with his last instance of Pargatory and all the rest Our Judgment is the Judgment of the Church from which there is no Appeal and it rests with the Answerer to shew how any other Judgment can be more than meer Fancâ—â— or 〈◊〉 to dispatch the next Paragraph under one Men are giddy or settled as they are guided or not 〈◊〉 by Reason and he should shew 〈◊〉 Reason besides can settle them 〈…〉 I desire to know therefore says His Majesty of every serious Considerer of these things whether the great Work of our Salvation ought to depend on such a sandy Foundation as this That is says the Answerer the Private Iudgment Can a Man expect there should be any Answer to this but that our Salvation ought or ought not depend on Sand or that the Foundation of Private Judgment is or is not Sandy And yet the Answerer makes a shift to spin out a Paragraph without one word of either I says he have seriously considered this matter and must declare That I â— ind no Christian Church built on a more sandy Foundation than that which pretends to be settled on a Rock as to part of her Faith If that Church build on Sand too she will I suppose hear on 't in due time At present he who considers so much might consider that he is not ask'd what he has considered or what he has found but whether any Church That if he will among the rest ought to build on Sand and whether Private Judgment be more than Sand Plain I or No if it please him first and then a l' autre Then he tells us That no understanding Man builds upon his own Iudgment He takes I suppose the Advice of his Friends in Compliment For after all he is to be his own Judge But is his Judgment and their Advice and what you will besides the Judgment of the Church without Appeal a Foundation to build upon There is the Knot which the Answerer should now untie But no Man of understanding can believe without his Judgment Sure enough nor no Man of not-understanding neither for his Belief is his Judgment But I am cloy'd with this Dish What Stand there is to set it upon is now the Question I appeal says the Answerer to any ingenuous Man whether he doth not as much build upon his own Iudgment who chuseth the Church as he that chuseth Scripture for his Rule Every ingenuous Man who reads these Papers will tell him that to build upon ones own Judgment is the same with following ones own Fancy being ones own Iudge and what other Terms a Master of English in all Senses used to express in variety of Phrases Iudging unreasonably Let the Answerer in stead of telling us what we all know as well as he That every one Judges who Judges tell 's what we do not know what Reason they have to chuse the Scripture not the Church for their Rule He that chuseth the Church hath many more Difficulties to conquer than the other hath How so For this sounds like a Paradox Those many more Difficulties to my thinking must be conquer'd before one can come at Scripture For unless we first chuse the Church for a Rule to find out Scripture by whom alone St. Austin has told us we know it there will be no assurance of Scripture for us to chuse And then in the choice of the Church there is but one thing to mind and that no difficulty neither where or which the Church is When that is settled a Man has no more to do but believe as he is taught and live as he believes Who thinks he has conquer'd the difficulties about the Letter of Scripture as which Books belong to the Canon which not which is a right Translation or Reading which wrong and whatever falls in his way has at least as many remaining as he has past and which if he find not insuperable he is I believe the more beholding to his Will For I know not how to have any Opinion of his Iudgment who only because such words will bear his Sense as they will it may be twenty others all abetted by Men of Name ventures his Soul upon 't that his is just the Sense meant by the Holy Ghost But let us hear his Reason For the Church can never be a Rule without the Scriptures but the Scriptures may without the Church that is without Faithful For a Congregation of them is a Church Will he persuade us there were no Faithful in the World before Moses No Christians before the New Testament which was written by Christians and no part of it till several Years after the Resurrection Do's not St. Irenaeus inform us that more than one Nation had the Doctrine of Christ and no Scriptures And will he make us believe that all these were Faithful without any Rule for their Faith and that the Church depends on Writing which if it should be lost in the World there would be an end of the Church Again of what and to whom should Scripture be a Rule if there were no Faith nor Faithful Paradoxes a part and the attempt to unriddle one by another let the Answerer tell us if he please whether our Salvation ought to stand upon Sand and to deal plainly whether he think that they who stand whether on the Church or Scripture do not build both on Sand For by saying nothing for Scripture and yet making it worse on the Churches side one would guess he is of Opinion there is no steadiness in either And it would be well to speak plain that People may leave off dealing where there is no Security and troubling themselves no longer with the uncertainties of Religion turn their Thoughts to more solid
therefore wish'd People in stead of floating uncertainly up and down in the Ocean of Disputes to take Port in that one Church which Christ has upon Earth and to which Power was given to govern us in Matters of Faith and a promise of perpetual assistance Which Church he says is vibsily the Roman Catholic The Answerer flatly denies the Roman Catholic to be the one Church of Christ for Reasons ever since St. Cyprians Days condemn'd by all Christians and never minds that he denies two terms the same with a third to be the same between themselves For Church of Christ and Catholic Church are the same both signifying all the particular Churches which believe the Doctrine of Christ. Again Roman Catholic is the same too with Catholic for both signifie likewise all the same Churches with the Roman for one of the number which the Answerer acknowledges she is Catholic says All and who says All says Roman if she be one And who says Roman Catholic says those very All neither more nor less And yet the Answerer can fancy a difference For the rest he gives no direct Answer that I remember to any one Question yet hovers so about it that one must keep his thoughts very attentive not to have them diverted quite another way As for Certainty or Uncertainty they are Matters which he seems not to mind Not but that he talks of a sure Compass and Infallible Rule but he never tells us whether or how a Man shall be sure that he do's indeed steer by that Compass or is guided by that Rule Those great sounds vanish into Conscience at last and that Conscience may be right or wrong for any care he takes as perhaps he thinks it equal whether the one or the other The King desired People should have sure hold and shews them where they may He is only solicitous to keep them from fastning there and leaves them to find another if they can of themselves or be content if they will without any If he have a Pique to the Roman Catholic he may shew them another Catholic Church or if a Church be needless on what they may rest securely without a Church If on Scripture he may shew them how they may safely stake their Souls that they do not mistake it If on Conscience how they may securely trust it Let People be but safe and I ask no more But as there is after all but one way to Heaven the King shews it and he imputes deceit to him for his pains and then sets up for the faithful Friend himself who will neither let them go that way nor shew them that there is any other And thus it stands between them It is for the Reader to consider which of the two gives him better Counsel and where he can find better Security than what His Majesty offers or whether Security be needless One would think is not like to take up much Consideration in our Country whether in a concern of infinite more value than all the Money which troubles so many Lawyers and Scriveners one should deal without looking after Security And yet by whatever charm it happens there needs a great deal of Grace to make People sensible in this Case of what in all others they are but too much their greatest concerns God of his Mercy grant it to all who ask it and to all who by not asking it shew they more need it A DEFENCE OF THE Third Paper I Dare appeal to all unprejudic'd Readers and especially to those who have any sense of Piety whether upon perusal of the Paper written by Her late Highness the Duchess they have not found in it somewhat which touch'd them to the very Soul whether they did not plainly and perfectly discern in it the Spirit of Meekness Devotion and Sincerity which animates the whole Discourse and whether the Reader be not satisfied that she who writ it has open'd her Heart without disguise so as not to leave a Scruple that she was not in earnest I am sure I can say for my own particular that when I read it first in Manuscript I could not but consider it as a Discourse extremely moving plain without Artifice and discovering the Piety of the Soul from which it flow'd Truth has a Language to it self which 't is impossible for Hypocrisie to imitate Dissimulation could never write so warmly nor with so much life What less than the Spirit of Primitive Christianity could have dictated her Words The loss of Friends of worldly Honours and Esteem the Defamation of ill Tongues and the Reproach of the Cross all these though not without the struglings of Flesh and Blood were surmounted by her as if the Saying of our Saviour were always sounding in her Ears What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his Soul I think I have amplified nothing in relation either to this Pious Lady or her Discourse I am sure I need not And now let any unbias'd and indifferent Reader compare the Spirit of the Answerer with hers Do's there not manifestly appear in him a quite different Character Need the Reader be inform'd that he is disingenuous soul-mouth'd and shuffling and that not being able to answer plain Matter of Fact he endeavours to evade it by Suppositions Circumstances and Conjectures like a cunning Barreter of Law who is to manage a sinking Cause the Dishonesty of which he cannot otherwise support than by defaming his Adversary Her only Business is to satisfie her Friends of the inward Workings of her Soul in order to her Conversion and by what Methods she quitted the Religion in which she was educated He on the contrary is not satisfied unless he question the Integrity of her Proceedings and the Truth of her plain Relation even so far as to blast what in him lies her Blessed Memory with the imputation of Forgery and Deceit as if she had given a false Account not only of the Passages in her Soul and the Agonies of a troubl'd Conscience only known to God and to her self but also of the Discourses which she had with others concerning those Disquiets Every where the Lie is to be cast upon her either directly in the Words of the Bishop of Winchester which he 〈◊〉 or indirectly in his own in which his spiteful Deligence is most remarkable In his Answer to the two former Papers there seems to have been some restraint upon the virulence of his Genius though even there he has manifestly past the Bounds of Decency and Respect But so soon as he has got loose from disputing with Crown'd Heads he shews himself in his pure Naturals and is as busie in raking up the Ashes of their next Relations as if they were no more of kin to the Crown than the New Church of England is to the Old Reformation of their Great-Grandfathers But God forbid that I should think the whole Episcopal Clergy of this Nation to be of his Latitudinarian Stamp many of them
as Learn'd as himself are much more Moderate And such I am confident will be as far from abetting his Irreverence to the Royal Family as they are from the jugling Designs of his Faction to draw in the Nonconformists to their Party by assuring them they shall not be prosecuted as indeed upon their Principles they cannot be by them but in the mean time this is to wrest the Favour out of the King's Hands and take the Bestowing it into their own and to reassume to themselves that Headship of the English Church which their Ancestors gave away to King Henry the Eighth And now let any Loyal Subject but consider whether this new way of their Proceeding do's not rather tend to bring the Church of England into the Fanatics than the Fanatics into the Church of England These are the Arts which are common to him and his Fellow-labourers but his own peculiar Talent is that of subtle Calumny and sly Aspersion by which he insinuates into his Readers an ill Opinion of his Adversaries before he comes to Argument and takes away their Good Name rather by Theft than open Robbery He lays a kind of accumulative Dishonesty to their Charge and touches 'em here and there with Circumstances in stead of positive Proofs till at last he leaves a bad Impression of 'em like a Painter who makes Blotches of hard Colouring in several Parts of the Face which he smooths afterwards into a Likeness After this manner he or one of his Brethren in Iniquity has us'd Monsieur de Condom by picking up Stories against him in his Preface which he props up with little Circumstances but seldom so positive that he cannot come off when their Falsity shall be detected In the mean time his Cause go's forward with the Common Reader who prepossest by the Preface is made partial to his Answer The same kind of Artifice with some little variation has been us'd in other of their Books besides this present Libel against the Duchess But the Cloven-foot of this our Answerer appears from underneath the Cassock even in the first step he makes towards his Answer to the present Paper Which he tells us is said to be written by a great Lady How doubtfully he speaks as if there were no certainty of the Author But surely 't is more than barely said for 't is Publish'd by the same Authority which order'd the two other Papers written by His late Majesty to the Press and the Original of it is still remaining in the Hands of the present King Indeed the Bishop of Winchester may seem to have given him some encouragement for this in the Preface to his Treatises where he tells us That Maimbourg the Iesuite recites something which he says was written by the late Duchess and which he afterwards calls the Papers pretended to be written by Her But if that Bishop had liv'd to see what our Answerer has seen Her Paper Printed and Publish'd by His Majesty I cannot think he would have been so incredulous as to have made that doubt It may be allow'd him to suspect a Stranger of Forgery but with what face can this Son of the Church of England suspect the Integrity of his King In the mean time observe what an excellent Voucher he has got of this dead Bishop and what an excellent Argument he has drawn from him Because he would not believe what he did not think she said we must not believe what he know the did say Let our Author therefore come out of his Mists and Ambiguities or give us some better Authority for his unreasonable Doubts For at this rate if it be already suspected whether what she writes be Matter of Fact and indeed whether she writ it at all it may be doubted hereafter whether she chang'd and perhaps whether there were ever such a Woman After he had thus begun That this Paper was said to be written by a Great Lady for the satisfaction of her Friends he shuffles in commodious Words for an Answerer and which afford him Elbow-room For he talks of the Reasons and Motives which she had for her leaving the Communion of the Church of England c. and of the Right which all Readers have to judge of the strength of them Now as Luck will have it none of those Motives and Reasons are to be found in the Paper of her Highness She expresses her self clearly to write for the Satisfaction of her Friends not as to the Reasons she had her self for changing but as to the Censures which she might expect from them for so doing and her whole Paper shews this was only her Design So that against the Law of all Romances he first builds the Enchanted Castle and then sets up to be the Doughty Knight who conquers it It seems he found that a bare Denial which is the proper Answer to Matter of Fact was a dry Business and would make no sport and therefore he would be sure to cut himself our sufficient Work But it is not every Mans Talent to force a Trade for a Customer may chuse whether he will buy or not This Great Person chang'd not lightly nor in haste but after all the Endeavours which could be us'd by a Soul which was true to it self and to its Eternal Interest She was sensible as I before hinted that she should lose her Friends and Credit and what to her Condition at that time was more sharply piercing expose the Catholics of England to the danger of suffering for her sake On these Considerations she makes a plain Relation of all the Passages in her Change and expecting severe Censures from the World took care to satisfie her Friends concerning it As for the Reasons of it they were only betwixt God and her own Soul and the Priest with whom she spoke at last What a wonderful Art has this Gentleman to turn a bare Narrative into Motives and Inducements When he is arriv'd to the Perfection of calling down a Saint from Heaven he may examine her concerning them in the mean time he must be content with the Relation which she has left behind her here on Earth and if he will needs be mistaking her Scruples for her Motives who can help it His Design as he tells us a little after the beginning is to vindicate the Honour of the Church of England so far as it may be thought to suffer by the Paper of her late Highness I might here tell him that he has on Obligation antecedent to the Honour of his Community which is that to God and his own Conscience But the Honour of the Church of England is no farther concern'd in the Paper of her Highness than in relation to the Persons of two or there Prelates and those he leaves at last to shift for themselves as they are able with this melancholy Farewell That God be thanked the Cause of our Church do's not depend upon the singular Opinion of one or two Bishops in it wherein they apparently recede
inform the World that she had such Divines that she imparted her Scruples and after all remain'd unsatisfied with their Answers Persons of Learning indeed he says may possibly be satisfied without entring into Disputes of Matters which she had neither the leisure to examine nor the capacity to judge of Then as I said before the Kingdom of Heaven is chiefly if not only for the Wise and Learned of this World though our Saviour was not of this Judgment But is not every Man to be satisfied pro modulo suo according to the measure of his own Understanding Can an ignorant Person enter into the Knowledge of the Mysteries of our Faith when even the most Learned cannot understand them Can the Answerer himself unriddle the secrets of the Incarnation fadom the undivided Trinity Or the Consubstantiality of the Eternal Son with all his Readings and Examinations From whence comes it then that he believes them since neither the Scripture is plain about them nor the Wit of Man can comprehend them As for her comparing the Doctrines of both Churches no question she did it to the best of her Ability for if he will believe her in any thing she both read the Scriptures and conferr'd with the most Learned Protestants before she had any Discourses with a Catholic Priest But if she had not as he rudely says the capacity of judging in deep Controversies 't is very probable she might want that of understanding the instructions of her Guides For if I may similize in my turn a dull fellow might ask the meaning of a Problem in Euclide from the Bishop of Salisbury without being ever the better for his Learned Solution of it So then her Capacity will break no squares at least from the Doctrine of the English Church and the Presbyterians put them both together as they now stand united for either the Scriptures are clear and then a mean Capacity will serve to understand them or though they are never so obscure yet the upshot of all is that every Man is to Interpret for himself What farther quarrel he can have against the Lady in this particular I know not unless it be upon the Bishop of Winchesters account namely That she refus'd to advise with him and admitted the two others to a Conference and what reason she had for so doing if I were as penetrating as my Author I should undertake to demonstrate by the Infallible Evidence of Circumstances and Inferences but since the parties are dead and so long since I will not give my own Opinion why she refus'd him and of what Principles she might possibly have thought him At present I will not trouble my self farther with that Prelate of rich Memory whom I warrant you our Author would not commend so much for his great Abilities and willingness to resolve the Ladies doubts if he had not some Journey-work for him to do hereafter neither will I meddle much with the long Impertinent Story of his Letter to the Duchess and her silence at Farnham where she would not consult him in any of her doubts Whatever great matters are made of these by our Answerer she had a very sufficient reason for not asking his Advice as will instantly be made appear but now our Author is at another of his dodging tricks comparing Times and Dates of Letters the Bishops bearing Date the Twenty fourth of Ianuary that very Year in which she chang'd but that he may not puzzle himself too much in reckoning I will unriddle the Matter of Fact to him which I have from a most Authentic Hand the Duke and Duchess were at Farnham in the beginning of September where they continued about three Days in the Year 1670. Her Highnesses Paper bears Date the Twentieth of August 1670. by which it is manifest that it was written twelve or fourteen Days before her visit to the Bishop Now where I beseech your is the wonder that she spoke nothing to him concerning any points of a Religion in which she was already satisfied Wou'd any Man ask another what 's a Clock after he had been just looking upon a Sun-dial So that all his aggravations dwindle at length into this poor inference that it is evident she did not make use of the ordinary means for her own Satisfaction at least mark how he mollifies for fear of being trap'd as to those Bishops who had known her longest Now this is so pitiful that is requires no Answer for it amounts to no more than that she lik'd not the Bishop and therefore from the begining conceal'd her Scruples from him and she chang'd her Religion the same Year tho' before he writ to her because she was satisfied of another but do's it follow from hence as he infers that in the mean while she did not use the ordinary means for her satisfaction supposing she had lik'd the other two Bishops as little as she did him had she no other ordinary means but by those two or even by any other Bishops Satisfied to be sure she was or she had not chang'd and if the means had been wholly extraordinary from the Inspirations of Gods Holy Spirit only she had thereby receiv'd the greater favour but not omitting to give God thanks for his Supernatural Assistance she us'd also the ordinary means It appears that her first Emotions were from her observing the Devotions of the Catholics in France and Flanders and this is no news to any Traveller ask even our Protestant Gentlemen at their return from Catholic Countries and they cannot but confess that the Exercises of their Devotion their Mortifications their Austerities their Humility their Charity and in short all the ways of good living are practis'd there in a for greater measure than they are in England But these are the Vertues from which we are blessedly reform'd by the Example and Precept of that Lean Mortified Apostle St. Martin Luther Her first Scruples were rais'd in her by reading Doctor Heylins History of the Reformation and what she found in it we shall see hereafter it appears that History had given her some new apprehensions and to satisfie them she consider'd of the Matters in difference betwixt the Catholics and Protestants and so considered them as to examine them the best she could by Scripture which she found to speak clearly for the Catholics and she upon our Authors Principles was Judge of this after which she spoke with two of the best Bishops in England and their doubtful or rather favourable Answers did but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic All these ordinary ways she took before she could persuade her self to send for a Priest whose endeavours it pleas'd the Almighty so to bless that she was reconcil'd to his Church and her troubled Conscience was immediately at rest I have been forc'd to recapitulate these things and to give them the Reader at one view for our Answerer is so cunning at this Trade that he shews them only in Parcels and by
Retail that it might not be thought she us'd the ordinary Means One thing I had omitted which was that the Bishop affirms in his letter to her Highness that she had made him a Promise in case any Writing were put into her Hand by those of the Roman Church she would send it either to him or the Bishop of Oxford Why do's our Author put down that Promise thus at large If he means any thing more by it besides a Justification of his Bishop for having done his part which signifies just nothing he would tacitely insinuate that she broke he Word by not sending any such Writing to him If so he is at his Legerdemain again He would have it thought she kept not her Promise but do's not positively affirm it But since it is manfsest by the order of time in her Paper that she neither sent for any Priest nor conferr'd with any Learn'd Catholic till after she had done with the two Bishops it may and ought to be suppos'd that she receiv'd no Writings from any of that Religion for if she had she would certainly have mention'd them If then the Bishop of Winchester would insinuate that she had such Papers which she sent not to him according to her Engagement I may at least answer with my Author That the Lady was dead long before the Bishop publish'd his Letter so that the Circumstances therein mention'd cannot be so fully clear'd But to return to our Answerer He has brought us at length to the several Discourses which her Highness had with the two Bishops his Grace of Canterbury and the Bishop of Worcester and since he has thought fit to put all that concern'd this Matter into one long Paragraph quoted from the Duchess I must follow his Example These are her Words After this I spoke severally to two of the best Bishops we have in England who both told me there were many things in the Roman Church which it were very much to be wish'd we had kept as Confession which was no doubt commanded of God that Praying for the Dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity that for their parts they did it daily tho' they would not own it And afterwards pressing one of them very much upon the other Points he told me That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not change his Religion but that being of another Church wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation he thought it very ill to give that Scandal as to leave that Church wherein he had receiv'd his Baptism All these Discourses did but add more to the desire I had to be a Catholic and gave me the most terrible Agonies in the world c This he confesses seems to be to the purpose And where he confesses the least Advantage on our side the Reader may swear there is somewhat more than ordinary in the matter But he retrenches immediately and kicks down the Pail by adding this Restriction If there were not some Circumstances and Expressions very much mistaken in the Representation of it Yet in the next Line again as if he were asham'd of his own fearfulness he is for making a bold Sally and putting all to the push For supposing the utmost to be allow'd says he there could be no Argument from hence drawn for leaving the Communion of our Church But he restrains that too with this Caution If the Bishops Authority and Example did signifie any thing with her Thus from yielding at first he comes to modifie his Concession and from thence to strike out magnanimously But then he retreats again with another if 'T is a sign he is uneasie when he tosses and turns so often in a Breath and that he is diffident of his Cause when he shifts his Plea 'T is evident that the Duchess laid a great stress on these Concessions and well she might for what a startle would it give to a doubting Soul which already had taken the Alarm to hear two Bishops whereof one was Primate of All England renouncing and condemning two of the establish'd Articles of their Church But 't is well known that those two Prelates were not nor if they were now living would be the only Clergy-men of the Church of England who are of opinion they have over-reform'd themselves in casting off Prayers for the Dead and consequently the Doctrine of a Third Place But these are Church of England Men of the old stamp betwixt whom and the Faction of this Answerer there is just as much difference as betwixt a true Episcopal Man and a Latitudinarian and this latter in plain terms is no otherwise different from a Presbyterian then by whatsoever Titles and Dignities he is distinguish'd So that our Answerer was much in the right to skip over the first half of this Paragraph without answering in this place and to gallop to the last Sentence of it which begins with Bishop Blandford's saying That if he had been bred in the communion of the Roman Church he would not change his Religion Whither as in Duty bound I follow him To over-ballance the weight of these Concessions our Author would have us think that the subsequent Words of the Bishop ought to have had greater force to have kept her in the Communion of the Protestant Church than the former to have drawn her from it for the Bishop comes off with this Excuse That being of another Church wherein he was sure were all things necessary to Salvation he thought it very ill to give that Scandal as to leave that Church wherein he receiv'd his Baptism First take notice That the Duchess says the Bishop was pressed by her very much before he made the Concession That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have chang'd which shews that a Truth was forc'd out of him which he would willingly have conceal'd For both in regard to his own Credit and the retaining of so Great a Person in his Church it was not his Interest to have yielded that a Catholic might be saved at least on as easie Terms as Protestant But he goes farther when he confesses That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have alter'd his Religion For therein he seems even to regret his being bred a Protestant at least he yields that all things necessary to Salvation were in the Roman Catholic Church for otherwise had he been educated in it he ought in conscience to have chang'd which he owns he would not have done Now this is manifestly more than what he said for the Church of England for his following Words are rather an Excuse for his Continuance in his Church than Argument to dissuade her Highness from turning Catholic He thought it very ill to give that Scandal to leave the Church wherein he was Baptiz'd Now the Word Scandal plainly relates to his own Person and signifies no more than that he was asham'd to change For it was impossible for him to think he should sin
against his Conscience in changing who had declar'd That he would not have chang'd in case he had been bred a Catholic And the Reason he gives is made of the same yielding Metal viz. That he had his Baptism in the Protestant Church for that Argument in it self is of no weight since the Right Reverend well knew that the Baptism even of Heretics is good so that if he had been Christn'd in the Lutheran the Abyssine or the Russian Church he must for that reason have continu'd in it But he timerously pleads his fear of giving Scandal which is as I said no Justification of himself no Dissuasive to Her but only a mean interessed Apology for his not changing As for his intimating That all things necessary to Salvation were to be had in the Church of England let any reasonable Man be Judge whether he could possibly have said less in defence of himself for continuing in it For this only shew'd that he thought Salvation was to be had in both Churches as even this Author himself is forc'd to confess afterwards in these words The utmost that can be made of this is That a certain Bishop of our Church who in the mean time has prov'd himself an uncertain one held both Churches so far Parts of the Catholic Church that there was no necessity of going from one Church to another That which he calls the utmost we can make of it is in truth the least which the Bishop's Words will naturally bear and I may safely put the Cause upon this Issue Whether such a Discourse might not reasonably add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic Let us hear now what he has to answer and I will reply briefly because I have taken away the Strength of his Argument already First He says in effect That the Bishops Authority and Example ought to have prevail'd with her on the one side more than his Concessions on the other I reply Not his Authority because he spoke more for the Church of Rome than against it Nor his Example for he gave her no encouragement to follow it by saying That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have chang'd His Example of Praying daily for the Dead shew'd his Opinion at the bottom but his not publicly owning that he did so has prov'd him little better than a Black Bishop who was enter'd privately into the White ones Walk Our Author asks in the second place Why any Person should forsake the Communion of the Protestant Church wherein the Bishop affirm'd were all things necessary to Salvation And I enquire How she could be bound to believe him since Confession and Prayers for the Dead are wanting in it one of which he had before acknowledg'd to be commanded of God the other to be one of the ancient things in Christianity Thirdly He urges That the Bishop had told her it was an ill thing to leave the Church of England And I reply That the Answerer has falsified his Words The Bishop only thought it very ill to give that Scandal as to leave the Church wherein he was Baptiz'd First he spoke of himself only not of her Mark that Fallacy And then he said not It was ill to leave the Church but very ill to give that Scandal as to leave the Church relating again to his own particular Fourthly He says 'T is evident that the Bishops Concessions could have no influence upon her tho' she positively says those Discourses in which were those Concessions did but add more to the desire she had to be a Catholic This is full upon the Vizor but the Dead are to take all things patiently Well! How if he can convince her of Falsity from her own Words Why then he will carry his Argument as well as his Good Manners to the height and how broad soever the Word may be which he has slily given her yet he will tell you That Freedom ought to be permitted him as sustaining the Honour of the Church of England His Argument is this She declares afterwards That she would not have chang'd if she had thought it possible otherwise to have saved her Soul But the Bishop had told her That all things necessary for Salvation were in the English Church Therefore the Bishop contributed nothing to her Change So the Miter be safe in its Reputation no matter what becomes of the Ducal Coronet Now I can be very well content that the Bishop should have no part in the Honour of her Conversion for 't is plain that he desir'd it not and why should he do good against his will I wish my Author would have furnish'd me with an Argument to have brought him wholly off but I will bring him on his way as far as by the help of the Answerer's Scarf I can fairly drag him I say therefore That tho' her Highness chang'd not her Belief upon the Concessions of the Bishop yet his Concessions were an occasion of her farther Scruples in order to her Change For she says they added to the desire she had to be a Catholic The Bishop did indeed tell her That all things necessary to Salvation were in the English Church but tell me Sir I beseech you was that all he told her By your favour you have left out the better half of what he said for he told her also That if he had been bred a Catholic he would not have chang'd And she had reason to believe what he said to the advantage of a Church of which he was no Member as being sure he would say no more than scanty Truth And he acknowledges into the Bargain That Confession was commanded of God and that Praying for the Dead was one of the ancient things in Christianity What a shameful way of arguing is this to make a general Negative Conclusion from half the Premises Or in other Words to maintain that the Bishops Concessions could have no influence upon her because they had not the greatest influence And you in a manner confess it before you were aware in the close of your Argument where you say There must therefore have been some more secret Reason which increas'd her desire to be a Catholic after these Discourses Now some more secret Reason do's not hinder the Bishops Concessions from being one nay it argues that they were one of the Reasons though not the most prevalent because there was one more secret You have now contradicted your self so plainly that you have wholly justified the Duchess and the broad Word without naming it is fairly brought back to your own door After this our Answerer do's but piddle and play at small Game as if her Highness might possibly take encouragement from the Bishop's calling the Church of Rome the Catholic Religion But she was too much in earnest to lay hold upon a Word Neither is more advantage to be taken from his calling the Church of Rome the Catholic Religion than we receive disadvantage from the playing upon