the ancient â—orm pag. 49. CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination and wherein they do differ and how absurd the pretention of the Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders pag. 57. CHAP. IX That the succession of Bishops and Clergy since the Reformation is much more sure and unquestionable in the English Church then in the Romish pag. 6â— CHAP. X. A further cause of Nullity discovered in the Election of Pope Clement the 8 th pag. 75. CHAP. XI Nullities declared in the Popedom of Paul the 5 th and others following pag. 81. CHAP. XII Of the large extent of Christian Religion professed in the Church of England pag. 89. CHAP. XIII Of the several large and flourishing Christian Churches in the Eastern Countries not subject to the Pope pag. 98. CHAP. XIV Of the Jacobites Armenians Maronites and Indians pag. 110. CHAP. XV. A reflection upon the Contents of the three Chapters precceding and upon the pride and cruelty of the Romanists in despising and condemning all Christian Societies not subject to their Jurisdiction pag. 116. CHAP. XVI Inferences from the Doctrine preceeding of this who'e Treatise against the several objections of N. N. pag. 121. CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other-Romanists pag. 130. CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian pag. 132. CHAP. XIX N. N. His Book intitled the bleeding Iphigenia examined his abusive language bestowed therein upon persons of Honor and his censure upon the Kings Majesty reprehended pag. 140. CHAP. XX. That it is not lawful for subjects to raise arms and to go to war with their fellow subjects without the consent of their Prince The Doctrine of killing men and making war by way of prevention and on pretext of Raligion confuted pag. 148. CHAP. XXI A Conclusion of my discourse with N. N. with a Friendly Admonition to him pag. 171. CHAP. XXII A check to I. E. his Scandalous Libel and a vindication of the Church of England from his false and sâ—anderous report of it pag. 178. The SECOND PART CHAP. I. AN Anatomy of Mr. I. S. his Genius and drifts appearing in his Dedicatory Epistle to my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland pag. 1. CHAP. II. A vindication of several Saints and worthy Souls our Ancestors from the sentence of Damnation passed upon them by I. S. pag. 6. CHAP. III. Mr. I. S. His cold defence of the Infallibility of his Church examined pag. 14. CHAP. IV. That Protestants have a greater security for the truth of their Doctrine then Papists have pag. 19. CHAP. V. Mr. I. S. His prolix Excursion about the Popes Authority requisite to know which is the true Scripture declared to be impertinent and the state of the question cleared from the confusion he puts upon it pag. 27. CHAP. VI. Mr. I. S. His defence of the Popes pretended infallibility from the censure of Blasphemy declared to be weak and impertinent his particular opinion censured for heretical by his own party pag. 33. CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected pag. 41. CHAP. VIII Mr. I. S. His horrible Impiety against the Sacred Apostles and malicious impostures upon the Church of England reprehended pag. 46. CHAP. IX Our Adversartes pretention to prescription and Miracles in favour of the infallibility of their Church rejected his impostures upon me and upon the Church of England discovered further pag. 53. CHAP. X. A Check to Mr. I. S. his insolent Thesis prefixed for title to the 8th Chapter of his book that the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it That they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their tenets And his own argument retorted to prove that the Roman Church is not the Church of Christ pag. 59. CHAP. XI A Refutation of several other engagements of Mr. I. S. in that 8 th Chapter pag. 66. CHAP. XII Mr. I. S. His answer to my objections against the Popes in fallibility refuted his defence of Bellarmin of the General Council of Constance and of Costerus declared to be weak and vain pag. 70. CHAP. XIII Our Adversaries foul and greater circle committed pretending to rid his pretention of infallibility from the censure of a circle his many absurdities and great ignorance in the pursuit of that attemt discovered a better resolution of Faith proposed according to Protestant principles pag. 77. CHAP. XIV A Reflection upon the perverse Doctrine contained in the resolution of Faith proposed to us by Mr. I. S. and the pernicious and most dangerous consequence of it pag. 85. CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defence of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and Tyranical pag. 92. CHAP. XVI How falsly Mr. I. S. affirms the Irish did not suffer by the Popes prohibiting them to subscribe to the Remonstrance of fidelity proposed to them pag. 100. CHAP. XVII The complaint of Papists against our King for the Oath of Supremacy he demandeth from his subjects declared to be unjust pag. 103. CHAP. XVIII Our Adversaries essay in favour of Transubstantiation examined his challenge for solving two Syllogisms answered pag. 110. CHAP. XIX Several answers to my arguments against Transubstantiation refuted pag. 118. CHAP. XX. Ancient Schole men declare Transubstantiation cannot be proved out of Scripture and that it was not an Article of Faith before the Lateran Council Mr. I. S. his great boast of finding in my check to their worship of the hoste a prejudice to the Hierarchy of the Church of England declared to be void of sense and ground pag. 126. CHAP. XXI Mr. I. S. His weak defence of their halfe Communion confuted pag. 135. CHAP. XXII The Roman worship of Images declared to be sinfull pag. 142. CHAP. XXIII Mr. I. S. His defence of the Romish Worship of Images from the guilt of Idolatry confuted the miserable condition of the vulgar and unhappy engagement of the learned among Romanists touching the worship of Images discovered pag. 148. CHAP. XXIV Our Adversaries reply to my exceptions against their invocation of Saints declared to be impertinent pag. 159. CHAP. XXV A great stock of Faults and Absurdities discovered in Mr. I. S. his defence of Purgatory pag. 168. CHAP. XXVI The Argument for Purgatory taken from the 12 th of S. Matth. v. 32. solved 173. CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the Doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain pag. 185. CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church pag. 188. CHAP. XXIX The unhappy success of Mr. I. S. his great boast of skill in History touching the Antiquity of Indulgences discovered pag 195. CHAP. XXX Of
the strange and absurd terms used in the grants of Indulgences and the immoderate profuseness wherewith and slight causes for which they are granted pag. 199. CHAP. XXXI The Dismal unhapiness of the Romish People in having their Liturgy in a tongue unknown to them pag. 212. CHAP. XXXII The cruelty of the Roman Church in prohibiting the Reading of Scripture to the People and their common pretence of Sects and Divisions arising among Protestants refuted pag 216. CHAP. XXXIII Mr. I. S. His engagement touching the Immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary and the practise of Confession confuted pag. 219. CHAP. XXXIV A Reflection upon the many Fallacies Impertinencies Absurdities and Hallucinations of Mr. I.S. his Book which may justify a Resolution of not mispending time in reâ—urning any further reply to such writings and a â—onclusion of the whole Treatise exhorting him to a consideration of his miserable condition in deceiving himself and others with vanity pag. 222. TRUE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC FAITH Maintain'd in the CHURCH of ENGLAND PART I. Being A Reply to N. N. his two Books the one entitled The Bleeding Iphigenia the other The doleful fall of c. with a reflexion upon I. E. his Libel entitled A Soverain counterpoison c. and a Vindication of the Church of England from the calumnies of them and of their Party CHAP. I. A summary account of the Contents of N. N. his two Books and a distribution of the points to be handled in relation to them AN useful Proposal being made in the Senate of Athens by a person of ill repute those wise Senators accorded the same should be tender'd by another of a clearer fame that it might carry by his authority more weight and be the better accepted The like seems to have bin practis'd with me by my Brethren of the Romish communion Reasons of discontent with the Church of England and great affronts of it being presented to me by J. E. in his Book or Libel entitled A Soverain counterpoison c. they justly suspecting that I would slight that onset out of a dislike to the person because of his rude and passionate expressions have taken care that the same and other motives of discontent should be propos'd by another of greater repute an aged and grave Prelate renowned for learning and vertue and one much respected by me He is pleas'd to give me marks of former acquaintance for knowing him but without commission of further discovering him to the Reader then under the character of N. N. In the beginning of his Preface which came forth in a separate Tractate he tells me how much he was surpris'd and troubled seeing a Copy he receiv'd in Print from London of my Declaration for the Church of England This paper indeed saies he gave me a great heaviness of heart for I lov'd the Man dearly for his amiable nature and excellent parts and esteemed him both a pious person and a learned and so did all that knew him And after bemoaning my fall as he calls it from a little heaven the state of Religion wherein saies he for a time he shined like a little Star in vertue and learning he declares his anger against me and purpose of serving me not with the Waters of Shiloah that go softly but with those of Rezin more tumultuous to wash me from the stains of Heresie And after this leaving me he falls abruptly on lamenting the miseries of Ireland and complaining of injuries done to the natives of it and justifying their proceedings in their late Insurrection which he will not have to be called Rebellion In this he spends that Tractate and then proceeds to the greater Book design'd against me giving to it this title The doleful fall of Andrew Sall Jesuite of the fourth vow from the Roman Catholic and Apostolic faith lamented by his constant friend with an open rebuking of his embracing the Confession contained in the 39. Articles of the Church of England This Book he begins with a Rhetorical or Satyrical exclamation against my resolution of embracing the said Confession and proceeds to relate at large the vertues and learning of Saint Hierom Saint Augustine Saint Ambrose and other holy Doctors of the Church whose company he saies I have forsaken and then makes a large list of Heretics of all ages beginning with Luciser whom he will have to be the first Heretic before Mans creation and so coming down all along by Cain Lamech the Giants Cham Jannes and Jambre with others mentioned in holy writ to these of the latter times relating their execrable vices and errors of all which he will have me to be guilty and an associate of those Heretics for embracing the Confession contained in the 39 Articles of the Church of England He pretends to discuss and censure some of them as also some parts of my Declaration and makes a scandalous Narrative of the English Reformation and finally concludes with a fervent exhortation to me to return to the Roman Church By this Scheme I deliver of that Book the prudent Reader may judge how tedious a labour it were to take notice of every thing contained in it and how impertinent I being so far from what he supposes me to be and from being concerned in the Heresies and for the Heretics he mentions Yet the quality of the person the sacred tye of friendship which he professes for me and the good intention I am to believe he had in his writing and above all the love of truth oblig'd me to undeceive him and others that may be of his opinion in the great and gross mistake he is in touching my condition and that of the Church of England whose Communion I have embrac'd I will therefore declare First That the Religion we profess in the reformed Church of England is no other then the true Primitive Catholic and Apostolic Religion taught by our Saviour Jesus Christ and his Apostles and practis'd in the first and purer ages by the Primitive Church Secondly That we have nothing to do with the Heresies N. N. attributes to us and his Brethren practising such calumnies do manifest it is not the Spirit of God that moves them Thirdly That the professors of the Evangelical Doctrine in the Reformed Churches are not so few or despicable nor the Romish faction so considerable as they would make the Ignorant believe Fourthly and lastly I will refute some seditious Doctrines delivered in his first Book that is a preface to the second and will conclude with a check to J. E. his calumnies and barbarous abuses fastned on the Protestant Church CHAP. II. That the Church of England is a true Catholic Church and that the Doctrine professed in it is truly Catholic and Apostolic YOu begin the first Chapter of your Book against me N. N. under this character you will be named You begin I say with a Rhetorical exclamation in these terms O Sall tell us what domincering Spirit of darkness what black temtation hath drawn you out
of the house of God I may justly return for answer an other exclamation better grounded and say O N. N. tell us what domineering spirit of blindness what black presumtion is this that so generally possesses your faction amidst the light of so learn'd an age that a person of your years and degree should not know that in the House of my Heavenly Father there are many Mansions that it extends further then the quarters of the Roman Pope that by quitting his jurisdiction I forsake not the whole house of God But tho you declare to your Reader that your purpose is not to deal with me Scholastically but Historically that is to say as I find not by reason but by railing and by calumnies wherewith your usual armories are plentifully stored and by emty flourishes upon false grounds I will not engage in like manner with you but prove Scholastically that is to say with formal and solid arguments demonstrate that in all your cries you beat the air and not me that all of them are grounded upon a false supposition that by forsaking the Romish communion I did not forsake the Catholic Church that the Church of England whose communion I embraced is a very noble and sound member of the Catholic Church and the Doctrine professed in it proposed to the People for the object of their belief is truly Catholic and Apostolic free from all Heresie and falshood And when I have proved so much in a rational and Scholastic style and method it will appear how vain your attemt is of working on me by loud cries against Heresies wherein I am not concern'd as if you were hunting a wild Boar in a forrest to drive him by clamor and shouting into your nets It is reason that wins me and whereby I desire to win others not exclamations and cries of that kind I will not repete the just complaints delivered by many learned Writers of the arrogance of your party of their absurdity and impropriety of terms in pretending that they alone are the Catholic that is to say the Universal Church being at the best but a part of it and the same very corrupt and not the greater part but the less by very much as hereafter will appear To go through with my engagement of proving by Scholastical exact reasons that the Church of England is a true Catholic Church I 'le take up the arguments urged against this verity by one of the ablest Schoolmen that ever wrote in favour of your cause employed by the Pope against our great and learned K. James I mean Francis Suarez Jesuit I will I say take up the arguments wherewith this famous Schoolman pretends to rob the Church of England of the glorious title of a Catholic Church and declare by that way of arguing which Logicians after Aristotle do call argumentum mirabile that they prove the contrary and confirm the Church of England in its right to the title of a true Catholic and Apostolic Church It will indeed appear a singular triumph of truth that the weakest defender of it should wrest Arms out of the hand of the ablest opposer and beat him with his own weapons A trial of this great power of truth I offer now to the view of the ingenious Reader in my encounter with Suarez on this Subject I will not pursue all the amplifications and excursions of this voluminous Writer as not suitable to the brevity and perspicuity I intend to follow yet I will take up the foundations of all his arguments upon this subject and apply them to my purpose aforesaid Franciscus Suarez in his volume entituled defensio Fidei Catholicae Apostolicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores in his first Book from the 12. Chapter of it forward endeavours to prove that the Church of England is not a Catholic Church therefore that the Faith of it is not a Catholic Faith The first foundation he laies to this purpose is this that these two things Catholic Faith and Catholic Church are so united as the one may not be found separate from the other so that no Church may be Catholic wherein the Catholic Faith is not professed neither may the Catholic Faith be found in any Church that is not Catholic Thence he proceeds to prove that the Roman Church is Catholic because it has a continual succession from the first Church that was so called and retaineth the same Faith which the primitive Catholic Apostolic Church did profess for which he cites Tertullian saying Doctrinam Catholicam esse in Ecclesiâ Romanensi that in the Roman Church Catholic Doctrine is professed which is as much saies Suarez as if he had said it s a Catholic Church from all which Suarez concludes n. 13. that the Church of England is not Catholic because it is not the Roman Church nor united with it and there is but one Catholic Church as we confess in the Creed How hard a task Suarez has in proving to complete his argument that in the present Church of Rome that Faith and no other is taught which the ancient Church called Catholic did teach may appear by all my former discourses against their new coin'd Articles never mentioned in the Primitive Church But my present work will be to shew how his argument wherewith he pretends to prove the Roman Church to be the Catholic doth with more force evince the Church of England to be truly Catholic And thus I form it to that purpose In whatsoever Church that Faith is professed which was taught in the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic that Church is truly Catholic and Apostolic In the Church of England Tertul. in praescriptionibus cap. xx is professed that Faith which was taught by the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic therefore the Church of England is truly Catholic and Apostolic If we prove the minor proposition Suarez cannot in justice deny the consequence And if he will insist upon his pretention of such a disunion of his Church with that of England that both may not be Catholic let the second consequence be of his own making that their Church is no Catholic Church for it is not my intention to make them worse then the Doctors of the Church of England do who allow them to be members tho corrupt of the Catholic Church The minor proposition wherein the stress of my argument consists I prove thus The Faith taught by the ancient Church first called Catholic and Apostolic is that contained in the three Creeds that of the Apostles of Nâ—â—e and Athanasius professâ—d and declared in the first four General Councils of Nice Ephesus Constantinople and Chalcedon received by the faithful in the four first ages of the Christian Church All this Faith is professed by the Church of England as Suarez confesses to have bin declared by King James and is to be seen in his Majesties Epistle to Cardinal Perron written by Isaac Causabon Therefore that Faith is taught in the
perspicacity in striking the nail in the head This indeed is that stumbling stone and Rock of offence This is the chief and I may say the only cause of that irreconcileable disunion of the Roman Church with us We know by certain and well authorized * Tortura torti Pag. 152. records that Pope Paul the Fourth offered Queen Elizabeth to approve of the Reformation if the Queen would acknowledg his Primacy and the Reformation from him and he being dead his Successor Plus the 4. prosecuted the same as appears by his letters written the 5 * Cambden Anno 1560. of * Twisden H. Vind. Cap. IX n. 5. May 1560. and sent by Vincentius Parpalia offering to confirm the Liturgy of the English Church if she would acknowledg his Supremacy This being told by Sir Roger Twisden as he relates himself to an Italian Gentleman versed in public affairs together with the grounds on which he spake it well said the Gentleman if this were heard in Rome among religious Men it would never gain credit but with such as have in their hands the maneggi della corte the management of the court affairs it may be held true And indeed suâ—h as know the spirit of that Court may easily believe that if this great point of the Supremacy the foundation of their power and grandeur were agreed upon they would easily wink at other dissentions Whereof we have a pregnant testimony from Bellarmin Lib. 3. de Ecclesia Cap. 20. asserting that even such as have no interiour Faith nor any Christian vertue are to be taken for members of the Catholic Church provided they do but outwardly profess the Faith of the Roman Church and subjection to the Pope tho it be only for some temporal interest So ready they are in Rome to embrace all sorts of men provided they acknowledg the Popes Supremacy This being established all is well being denyed the best of Men and soundest Believers in Christ must be damned Heretics by sentence of that Court. But I shall declare sufficiently in the 15. Chapter of the 2d part of this Treatise how vain the pretence of Suarez and his party is to make the Popes Supremacy an article of saving Faith how unjust and tyrannical an usurpation it is how far the best Popes in the Primitive Church were from pretending to it and more from pressing it upon Christians as an article of saving Faith And indeed it must appear strange to any impartial judgment that the System of articles contained in the three Creeds and four first general Councels which gained the name of Catholic to the Church first called so should not suffice to make a Church Catholic in all times Therefore the Church of England professing all those Articles is to be taken for truly Catholic tho denying the Popes Supremacy not contained in the foresaid System nor ever own'd by the Church first called Catholic as hereafter will be proved As to the second sort of Universality consisting in taking the Word of God for a common reason or rule of belief how can any pretend the Church of England to be deficient herein having ever protested that the Word of God contained in Canonical Scripture is the prime and only rule of its belief while the Roman Church denies to stand to this rule as unable to make out all the belief it would force upon us What Suarez pretends that the Church of England wants a rule infallible for knowing which is true Scripture and the true meaning of it which they conceive to have themselves in the Popes infallibility I shall declare in the eighth Chap. of the 2d part of this Treatise how vain it is we having in universal tradition and in the Writings of the Holy Fathers means sufficiently certain for knowing which is the true Scripture and which the true meaning of it in points necessary to Salvation As for others less necessary if there be obscurity and diversity of opinions among our Writers so is there among theirs nor could their pretended Infallibility ever make them agree Nay among the best and wisest Fathers of the Church there was alwaies a great diversity of opinions in points not fundamental without breach of Catholic and Christian union Now concerning the third kind of union or universality consisting in a hierarchical order of Bishops Priests and Deacons c. Suarez is much mistaken in saying that we have them not true and legal I will declare at large from the fifth Chapter following that we have all the security they have of a legal sucession and true ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons It s their concern we should not be found deficient herein for any defect conceived in our hierachy will reflect upon theirs Finally touching the fourth manner of Universality signified by the name Catholic that a Church or Faith so called should be extended over all the Earth Suarez exceeds much in denying this property to the Church of England or Faith professed in it saying it passes not the bounds of Brittish land To which is contrary that grave and modest testimony of King James related by Suarez in the same place chapter xv n 6. Nos Dei benesicio nec numero nec dignitate ita sumus contemnendi qui â—â—ono vicinis nostris exemplo praeire possimis quandoquidem Christiani orbis omniumque in eo ordinum inde à Regibus liberisque Principibus usque ad insimae conditionis homines pars propè media in nostram Religionem consensit We by the grace of God are not so despicable either for number or dignity that we may not be a good example to our Neighbours whereas neer the one half of the Christian World and all orders of People in it from Kings and Soverain Princes to the meanest sort of persons have already embraced our Religion I shall declare hereafter from the XIX Chapter descending to particulars that this saying of King James was both true and modest and that more then the one half of the Christian World agrees with the Church of England in unity of Faith sufficient to render them Catholic and that the Church of Rome may cease bragging of her extent being now come so short of that latitude which made her swell to the contemt of all other Christian Churches now far exceeding her in number and lustre of Princes and Kingdoms embracing the Faith professed in them Suarez preventing a check to his argument from this discovery in the XVI Chapter num 4. of his said Book premises that this general extension of the Catholic Church over all the World is to be understood of extension either by right or by actual possession and tho the latter be deficient the former of right cannot want Christ having commanded that his Gospel should be preached to all the World But how can Suarez pretend that this right should belong to the Faith of his Church rather then to that of the Church of England whereas this latter preacheth only for object of
belief the Word of God contained in the Gospel and in the other Canonical Scriptures while the Roman preaches articles coined by her self and never given to the Apostles to be preached as we shall shew abundantly hereafter refuting the errors of it CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that Title SVarez after having used his best endeavours to deprive the Church of England of her right to the name of Catholic with so little success as we have seen in the precedent Chapter he passes in the 17. Chapter of his foresaid Book to rob it of the name of Apostolic so to deprive King James of the title he gives himself of Defender of the Faith truly Catholic and Apostolic To prove that the Faith of the Church of England is not Apostolic he laies this foundation that two things are requisite to make a Faith or Doctrine Apostolic The first that it proceed in some manner from the Preaching words or writings of the Apostles Secondly that it be conveyed to us by legal tradition and succession The first is contained in those words of St. Paul Ephes 2.19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and forreigners but fellow Citizens with the Saints of the houshold of God are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets The second requisite is declared by Irenaeus lib. 3. cap. 3. in these words Traditionem Apostolorum in omni Ecclesia adest perspicere quae vera velint audire habemus annumerare eos qui ab Apostolis instituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores eorum usque ad nos Who are willing to hear truth must look upon the tradition of the Apostles in all Churches and we can number those that were ordained Bishops by the Apostles and their successours to our own times Suarez pretends these two requisites to be wanting in the Church of England to merit the Name of Apostolic First saies he because the Doctrine of it was not preached by the Apostles neither was it taken out of their Doctrine or conveyed to us by lawful tradition Against which position he brings King James protesting himself to believe admit and reverence the Canonical Scripture the three Creeds and the first four General Councils in which sacred fountains he judged the Apostolic Faith to be contained and Suarez acknowledges that King James spoke herein not only his own sense but the sense and belief of the whole Church of England which is no small glory to it But how can Suarez make out that the Apostolic Faith and Doctrine is not sufficiently contained in those sacred Fountains of the Scriptures Creeds and Councils received by the Church of England See Reader and admire his answer Tho the Doctrine of the said Books considered in it self saies he be Catholic Apostolic Faith or rather a part of it for he pretends that all Catholic Faith is not contained in those fountains yet as it is received by sectaries either it is not Apostlic or it may not be certainly taken for such First because they cannot be certain whether those Books they receive be Canonical or the Councils legal Secondly that they cannot be certain of the true meaning of the Scriptures Creeds or Councils So that in conclusion the Divinity of our Saviour preached by a Romish Priest is Catholic Apostolic Faith but not so when preached by one of the Church of England I should indeed think this only consequence to be a sufficient confutation of this unhappy subtilty of Suarez but further to his reason when effectively we are secured that the Scripture received by us is truly Canonical and Divine and our adversaries do allow it what need is there for quarrelling about the grounds and motives of our security therein and touching the sense both of Scripture Creeds Councils the * Se tria symbola in eo seâ—su interpretari quem illis esse voluerunt Patres atque concilia a quibus funt condita atque descripta saying of K. James related by Suarez n. 9. that he does take the Creeds in the same sense which the Fathers and Councels by whom they were made were willing to give to them well considered is both pious and prudent When the words of a Scripture or article are capable of different senses all consistent with Christian verity and none repugnant to sound Doctrine it is bâ—t Catholic prety to suspend a firm assent to one and keep a readiness to adhere to what may be the real intention of the sacred writer For example that article of the Apostles Creed touching our Saviours descent into Hell is capable of different senses in relation to the Hell he descended into It s a groundless conjecture of Suarez that King James and the Church of England with him should deny a real descent and say he did suffer the pains of Hell in the garden as may be seen by the grave discourse of learned Dr. Pearson now Bishop of Chester upon that article We believe he descended really into Hell that is to say into some place under the Earth it may be without any absurdity to the Hell of the damned as declared in the second part of this Treatise c. 27. But whether it was that Hell or an other subterranean place he descended into we may with piety and prudence suspend our judgment having no Divine oracle to ground upon the determination of the place And Suarez gives us a signal example of this resignation of our intellects to the intention of the Writer in a matter less sacred then the Articles of the Creed I mean the expressions of Popes touching Indulgencies Finding insuperable difficulties in giving a congruous sense to terms of that art which appear non-sense as those of plena plenior plenissima full more full most full If full or plenary how can another be more full c. He confesses not to understand the propriety of these and other expressions used upon that Subject but will rest upon the judgment of the Church which knows the meaning of those measures as will be seen in the 39. Chapter And certainly all those of his party have need of this kind of resignation to rest upon if they will have quiet for there is no article of Creed or Council without diversity of Opinions touching the true meaning of it among their Doctors But this Author has more to say to us that the points wherein we differ from the Roman Church were never taught by any of the Apostles For example saith he to make the King Supreme Governour of the Church this nettles him still what place of Scripture what History do's warrant this Doctrine What Christian or Godly King did practise such a Supremacy over the Church to which I say that we have a warrant for this subjection to our Princes in the words of St. Paul Rom. XIII 1. Let every Soul be subject unto the higher powers where no distinction is
made betwixt the Ecclesaâ—ic and Secular We have for the same practice the examples of the Godly Kings of â—srael and of Christian Emperours in the Primitâ—â—e Church as will be declared hereafter Chap. XV. 1. And our Doctrine herein being built thus on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets appears thereby to be Catholic and Apostolic And if any Doctrine of ours be not found grounded upon the same foundation of the Apostles and Prophets we are all reaâ—y to make that pious confession of our great King James related by Suarez Chapter XVII n. 15. Ego vero id ingenuè spondeo quoties Religionis quam profiteor ullum caput ostendetur non antiquum Catholicum Apostolicum sed novitium esse ac recens in rebus sc spectantibus ad sidem me statim ab eo dâ—sâ—essurum I do faithfully promise that whensoever any point of the Religion I profess shall be found not to be ancient Catholic and Apostolic but new and modern as to things belonging to Faith I will presently depart from it This much those of the Roman Church cannot say with sincerity and truth since several of their tenents are not built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets but are contrary to them as is declared in the second part of this Treatise Therefore our Church and the Faith of it rather then that of Rome is truly Catholic and Apostolic CHAP. V. Of the Succession and lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the Reformed Church of England NOthing is affirmed more confidently nothing more blindly believed by most of the Romish party then the nullity of the Protestant Clergy that our Bishops Priests and Deacons are not such effectively but nominally or by title and therefore unable to give Orders they have not or administer Sacraments depending upon such Orders This I find by experience to be the greatest stop many of the more sober and serious of them have in embracing the Communion of the Church of England They see cleerly nothing is asserted by it which may be thought Heretical or erroneous And what it denies of superstructures added in latter Ages by the Roman Church they easily perceive them not to be essential to Salvation Their main scruple is whether in this separation of the reformed Churches from the Roman a lawful succession of Bishops and Ministers was retained and a legal ordination of them continued whether they may live and die confidently relying upon the Ministery of the reformed Ministers for consecrating absolving c. without recourse to a Romish Priest This point I find to be so necessary for setling the minds of many in this wavering age that I thought convenient to examine it exactly as far as may consist with the brevity and clearness I aim at in this writing To relate the reproches and calumnies of Romish Writers against our Ministery were endless and impertinent The shorter and readiest way will be to shew the truth and right of our cause by positive undeniable arguments touching the lawful succession and due Ordination of our Clergy This being established old stories and slanders will fall of themselves Who would not think it impertinent in me to take notice of that very rude and ridiculous fable of the Ordination of Parker and others at the Naggs-head in Cheapside most vigorously and demonstratively refuted many years ago by Mr. Mason and unhappily revived of late by a certain Gentleman to his own great shame and discredit of his cause being evidently convicted of Impostures by the Lord Bishop Bramhal in a separate Treatise printed upon that Subject Such base stuff as this if suitable to ears possessed with fury and blind passion is unworthy of any mention or regard among serious and sober Men. Now coming to the point after much reading and serious consideration upon the matter I wish heartily I could find the succession of lawful Bishops so cleer and not interrupted in the Roman Church from the Apostles times to the Reformation as we are able to shew it in ours from the beginning of the Reformation to our own daies It shall not be my present work to take notice of doubts occurring touching the former It will suffice for my purpose to demonstrate that from the beginning of Henry the Eight his reign when no doubt was of the legality of our Clergy to this day there has bin a lawful uninterrupted succession and due Ordination of Bishops and other Inferiour Clergy in the Churches of England and Ireland If the testimony of an adversary will avail we have that of * Cudsem de desper Calvini causa Cap. 11. pag. 108. Cudsemius who came into England the year 1608. to observe the state of our Church and the order of our Universities Concerning the state of the Calvinian Sect in England saith he it so standeth that either it may endure long or be changed suddainly or in a trice in regard of the Catholic order there in a perpetual line of their Bishops and the lawful succession of Pastors received from the Church for the honour whereof we use to call the English Calvinists by a milder term not Heretics but Schismatics Bellarmin is peremtory upon the contrary saying of all the Reformed Churches nostri temporis haeretici neutrum habent id est nec ordinationem nec successionem the Heretics of our times have neither ordination nor succession Whatsoever be said of other reformed Churches which I leave to speak for themselves upon this point we have cleer evidences to shew the falsity of the Cardinals assertion as relating to the Reformed Church of England and the more criminal as more wilful calumny of * Bristow Harding Sanders Kellison apud Masonliâ— 1. cap. 2. Vindiciae Eccleâ—ae Anglicanae Bristow Harding Sanders Howlet Kellison and other English Romanists whose malice must be Diabolical or their ignorance supine and unexcusable in slandering their Country with what they knew or easily might know to be an untruth as that stranger Cudsemius with due inquiry came to know For evidencing this point of so great importance * Papists Prisoners in Framblingham Castle in Queen Elizabeths time related by Mr. Mason 1 Book 3. Chap. of his English Edition that it was the cry of Papists to the Protestant Clergy in Queen Elizabeths time and is still the challenge of many among them if you can justify our calling we will come to your Church and be of your Religion I am to premise first as to matter of fact that in all prudence I am to rely with more satisfaction upon the public authentic records of the Church and state of England touching the transactions of both then upon the report of declared bitter Enemies such as those of the Romish faction are known to be Whereas it cannot but appear morally impossible in any impartial judgment that in so grave and wise a Nation as England is known to be the Lords and Officers of Church and State should conspire and agree in deluding
a more grave and decent form and more suitable to Christian simplicity As to the order of Priesthood agreeing with them in the essential parts of the matter and form and some indifferent ceremonies we differ from them First that a Priest with them is anointed with Oil. Secondly that power is given him to offer a proper sacrifice and really propitiatory as well for the dead as for the living of all which no mention is made in the aforesaid Council of Carthage Thirdly that with them only the Bishop laies his hand on the head of the Priest to be ordained but with us all the Priests present do lay their hands upon his head together with the Bishops hands according to the express order of the Council of Carthage Finally touching the Ordination of Bishops agreeing with them in the essential parts of matter and form belonging to that Order and in some accidentaly ceremonies as before declared we disagree with them in some considerable superstructures First that in both Churches a mandate is required for receiving this order but in the Romish from the Pope in the English from the King Secondly in both Churches an Oath is required which in the Romish is in favour of the Pope in the English in favour of the King Thirdly in both Churches an examen is premis'd and tho the Romish pretends to follow the Council of Carthage herein yet they insert their decretal Epistles and obedience to be performed to the Bishop of Rome whereof no mention is made in that Council Fourthly they use an heap of vestments and ceremonies of which neither the Apostles nor primitive Church ever had notice which are too tedious to relate and more to practice Finally and chiefly they demand a new Symbol or Creed coined in the Council of Trent to be professed by him that is to be ordained Bishop containing among other articles Transubstantiation Purgatory Indulgences obedience to the Pope of Rome articles never mentioned by the Apostles nor by the ancient Creeds nor by the Council of Carthage nor by any of the four first general Councils Now Reader consider how rude and rash are the cries of the vulgar Romish writers and preachers against our Orders as invalid for not conforming with the whole heap of their ceremonies tho in the substantial and essential parts we agree For besides the intrinsic falsity of their assertion it brings a manifest ruine and nullity upon all their own Orders since both we and they suppose that inferiour Orders may not be given but by the Bishops and Bishops may not be made but by other true and lawful Bishops Then if the whole bulk of ceremonies requisites prescribed in the present Roman Pontifical of Clement the 8th above mentioned be necessary for a valid Ordination of a Bishop it follows evidently that there is no lawful Bishop and consequently no lawful Priest or Deacon at present in the Church of Rome This consequence I prove thus no Bishop was Ordained after the rites ceremonies requisites above mentioned in the Roman Pontifica for 300 and more years in the ancient Roman Church then if the aforesaid stock of ceremonies and requisites be essential to a valid Ordination no lawful Bishop was made all that while in that Church it being necessary as is supposed before that Bishops must be made by other lawful Bishops it follows evidently that all the train of Bishops or Men so called by the Roman Church in after ages were no true Bishops and consequently no Priests or Deacons made by them were true Priests or Deacons That Bishops were not ordained after the present rites and ceremonies of the Româ—n Pontifical for the first 300 and many years after in the Roman Church which is the ground of all this discourse requires no more proof then to read over the Roman martyrology used to be publicly read in their Churches or the lives of Popes written by Platina or any other of their Historians where you shall see that the present heap of ceremonies rites and requisites prescribed in the said Pontifical was never introduced at once but successively several Popes in several times and ages signalizing their raign with new rites ceremonies and requisâ—tes whereof their very different Pontificals published in several ages may be a further evidence Of whose great disconformity that samous * Episcopus Pientinus in proaemio Pontificalis ad Innocent compiler of ceremonies employ'd by Innocent the 8th giveth this remarkable testimony in the preface of his Pontifical speaking to the said â—nnocent Pontificalis libri emendationem beatissime Pater tuo jussu aggressus sum opus sane laboriosum varlum atque ut multis fortasse gratum ita invidia plenum Rei enim vetustate Ecclesiarvm multitudine temporum Praelatorum varietate effectum est ut vix duo aut tres codices inveniantur qui idem tradunt Eodem modo quot libri tot varietates ille deficit hic superabundat alius nihil omnino de eâ re habet raro autn unquam conveniunt I have taken upon me most holy Fâ—ther by your command the Reformation of the Pontifical Book a work indeed laborious various and as perhaps grateful to many so likely to beget envy too for it came to pass by the antiquity of the Subject the multitude of Churches and the diversities of times and Prelates that scarce two or three Books may be found which may deliver the same thing as many Books as there are so many are the differences one is deficient another superabundant another has nothing at all of this subject so that they seldom or never agree By this Reader you may see how blind the presumtion of Romanists is in pretending our Orders should be null for not conforming with the rites and ceremonies of their present Pontifical whereas upon that account the ordination of their Bishops and Clergy in precedent ages must have been null and consequently their present Bishops and Clergy derived from them and depending upon them must partake of the same nullity CHAP. IX That the Succession of Bishops and Clergy since the Reformation is much more sure and unquestionable in the English Church then in the Romish IF Men had a due regard of their own defects and of the Reformation of them they would busie themselves less in finding fault with their Neighbours And if the Ministers and Writers of the Roman Church did reflect sufficiently upon the lamentable corruptions introduced and enthroniz'd among themselves they would be less bold in casting dirt in the face of others that with more right and ground may cast it in theirs I have declared in the precedent Chapters by rules and principles generally received that the form of Ordination used in the Church of Englana since the Reformation is legal and valid as comprehending the essential parts belonging to each order that in the ceremonial part we are more exact in observing the rules of antiquity the primitive Christian Church then
the Romish party Now it remains to shew that the succession of our Bishops and Clergy from those of unquestioned legality before the Reformation and the due Ordination of them according to the said rules and rites is more cleer and unquestionable with us then with the Roman Church As for the Bishops of England Mr. Mason giveth an exact account of their Succession and lawful Ordination the time and place of it the persons conscerating them running upon several Dioceses especially that of Canterbury from the time he published his Book which was the year 1638. to the time of K. Henry the Eighth when the validity of Ordination was not questioned grounding his narrative upon the authentic Records kept in London And in the same Records may be found the like account of the ensuing ordinations from Mr. Masons time to this day The like account may be found in the several Registries of the Churches of Ireland from our daies up to the aforesaid time of Henry the Eighth and touching the prime Church that of Armagh I found the ensuing account of the Succession and Ordination of arch-Arch-Bishops in it from the present Arch-Bishop the most Reverend Father in God James Lord Arch-Bishop of Armagh Primate of all Ireland to the great comfort and benefit of it since the blindest passion can't miss to see in his Grace the Idea of a most renowned and perfect Prelate In the hands of his worthy Vicar General and Judge of his Prerogative Court the noble and Learned Dudley Loftus Doctor in Laws I found I say the account following of his Grace his lineal succession from the Bishops of unquestioned authority in Queen Maries time James Margetson Consecrated the 27. of January 1660. by John Bramhal Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric in Dublin John Bramhal Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Derry in the Chappel of the Castle of Dublin the 26. of May 1634. by James Vsher Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. James Vsher Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Meath at Droghedah in the Church of St. Peter Anno 1621. by Christopher Hampton Arch-Bishop of Armagh c. Christopher Hampton Doctor of Divinity was Conseciated Bishop of Derry May the 5. 1613. in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric by Thomas Jones Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Thomas Jones Doctor of Divinity was Consecrated Bishop of Meath in the Cathedral Church of St. Patric Dublin the 12. of May 1584. by Adam Loftus Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Adam Loftus Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin was Consecrated Arch-Bishop of Armagh in the Church of St. Patric Dublin Anno 1562. by Hugh Curwin Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin c. Hugh Curwin Doctor of Laws was Consecrated Arch-Bishop of Dublin the 8. of September 1555. being the third of Queen Mary together with James Turbirwill Bishop of Exeter and William Glin Bishop of Bargor Each one of the other Bishops of Ireland may give the like account of their lawful ordination and lineal succession from the Bishops of unquestioned autoâ—ity in King Henry the Eighth and Queen Maries time no exception is known to have bin taken against the legality of any of them and the Laws being so severe and the penalties of premunire so heavy against any Bishop that would enter otherwise then by the Rites and requisites above mentioned and justified 't is morally incredible that any would permit any defect to intervene in his Consecration that might bring upon him so great a damage 'T is not so with the Bishops or Popes of Rome We have not only conjectures but cleer evidences by a learned and exact Pen of their own party that none of the Bishops or Popes who usurped that see from Gregory the 13. was a lawful Bishop or Pope The treatise pen'd upon this subject in Latin and dedicated to King James bore this title The new Man or a supplication from an unknown person a Roman Catholic unto James the Monarch of Great Britain and from him to the Emperour Kings and Princes of the Christian World touching the causes and reasons that will argue a necessity of a General Council to be forthwith assembled against him that now usurps the Papal chair under the name of Paul the Fifth This treatise being published by order of so excellent a Prince as the World knew King James to be it were a blind insolence to say it should not be real and unfeigned and a treatise so destructive to the credit and interest of the Roman Court being not disproved for the space of nine years by any of that party as reported by Mr. William Crashaw translator of the said treatise from Latin into English in the year 1622. nor to this day by any that we know 't is a cleer argument they wanted means to gainsay the truth of it I will reduce to a brief sum the heads of his proof as well to matter of fact as of Law that the election of Pope Sixtus the fifth succeeding Gregory the thirteenth was null and invalid and consequently the Cardinals created by him were no true Cardinals nor the Popes elected by such Cardinals true Popes For ground of this discourse it is to be supposed that any simoniacal contract intervening in the election of a Pope such an election is therefore rendred null and invalid as is declared in the Bull of Julius the 2d set out against Simonaical elections of the Pope whose words are as followeth If it shall hereafter fall out through the Devils malice the Enemy of Mankind or the ambition or covetousness of the Elector that when we or any of our Successors shall by Gods appointment be removed from the Government of the Church on Earth the election of the new Pope be made and don either by him that is châ—sen or by any other or more of the Colledge of Cardinals by the Heresie of Simonaical contract giving promising or receiving any goods of any kind or Lands or Castles or offices or benefices or by making any other promise or obligation of what kind soever whether they do it by themselves or another by a few or by many and whether the election be accomplished by the voices of two parts of the Cardinals divided in three or by the uniform consent or voices of them all whether it be done by way of assumtion or adoration yea tho there be no writing made at all We determine define and declare That not only the election or assumtion so made shall be from that very moment void and of none effect and no power or faculty shall accrew to him thereby thrust in of any administration government or jurisdiction in matters spiritual or temporal but also that it shall and may be lawful to any Cardinal present at the said election to except against the said intruder and to call him into question for the crime of Simony as of a true and undoubted Heresie that so being an Heretic he may be of all men accountedas no Pope or
but do not help forward his election and the election is properly held don and perfected before they be performed as any man may see in the aforesaid Bull of Julius the second Neither is the calling together of all the Cardinals necessarily required for it is expresly commanded in no law and as for the text of the Canon law called licet devitanda it shews the validity of the election as is soundly proved by Cardinal Jacobatius who shews that at least a Council is to be called to declare whether the election be good or no and that they may not proceed to the election of another The election therefore of Clement thus made is to be held a nullity as being don by deceit and fraud according to the express text of the law laid down in these words b â—n Câ—in nomine Dominâ— dist 28. But if any shall be elected ordained a Jacobat tr de Concil part â— ar 4. n. 154. or inthronized Pope through sedition presumtion or any ingeny or trick of wit contrary to this our sentence and Synodical decree pronounced in open Council by the autority of God and his Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul we pronounce him subject to the great curse and separated by perpetual Anathema from all Society with Gods Church together with all his authors factors and abettors an Anti-Christ an intruder and destroyer of Christian Religion c. a Abb. in d. licet devitanda n. 11. ver exposuit Ruffiensis And after Cardinal Hostiensis the great Doctor called the Abbot in his commentaries on the text expound's the word ingeny to be craft collusion and deceit and such like as was the election of Joh. the 22. that was afterward condemned in the Council of Basil For when after the Death of Alexander the fifth the Cardinals assembled at Bononia and consulted about the choice of a new Cardinal Cossa who then was Legate there a man potent and warlike obtained of the Electors by his greatness that they would commit the whole power of the election to him which they had no sooner granted him but he forthwith elected himself But for as much as upon examination of the matter in public Council it was found to be compassed by fraud and deceitful tricks he was therefore deprived by the Council From whence it followeth that Clement could not be taken for a true Pope both for that he was chosen by such as had no power to chuse as also that that choice by them made was wrought by fraud and deceit and to the injury of another lawfully chosen before and was therefore void tho it had bin done by such as had bin lawfully enabled to make such an election CHAP. XI Nullities declared in the Popedome of Paul the fifth and others following THe forementioned Roman Catholic author discovereth another egregious fraud and cheat used in the election of Paul the fifth succeeding Clement the Eighth wherewith they turned out the Cardinal of Florence lawfully elected to bring in factiously this Paul before called Cardinal Borgâ—esius The particulars of that intrigue are to be seen in the first chapter of the said treatise n. 15. besides whiâ—h damnable fraud and the nullity of the Cardinals electing both rendring the election void our Author discovereth another foul cause of nullity in the Popedome of Paul the fifth in regard of his notorious Simony For which it is to be presupposed that the Pope as Pope is not free from the crime of Simony nor exemted from incurring censures in that case as Aquinas proves at large concluding and resolving that the Pope as well as any other may incur the vice and come within the compass of the crime of Simony if he takes mony for any spiritual thing Of the same opinion are all the Divines that write upon that place of Aquinas In consequence to which doctrine the * Aquin 2.2 q. 100. art 1. ad 7. Council of Basil even for this crime and sin of Simony called in question examined convicted and condemned Eugenius the fourth then Pope and deprived him of the Papacy The words of the Councils decree are these By this definitive sentence of the great and universal Holy Council which is here recorded in writing for all the World to know and all posterity to take notice of the Council pronounceth decreeth and declareth Gabriel formerly called P. Eugenius the 4. to have bin and so to be a notorious manifest contumacious rebel to the warnings and commandments of the universal Church and that he still persists in the said open rebellion and doth therefore condemn him for a wilful contemner and violater of the holy ancient Canons a perturber of the peace and unity of the Church a notorious scandalizer of the universal Church a perjured incorrigible and Schismatical Simonist and therefore a forsaker of the Faith an Heretic a dilapidator and consumer of the rights and riches of the Church committed to his trust and hath thereby made himself an unprofitable member and not only unworthy and unfit for the Papal power but of all other title degree honour or dignity Ecclesiastical Whom the aforesaid General Council doth by the power of the Holy Ghost declare and pronounce to be by the Law deprived of the Papacy and Bishopric of Rome and by these presents it doth depose remove deprive and throw him out Now that the Pope Paul the fifth was guilty of Simony and deserves to be treated as Eugenius in the Council of Basil our Author declares in the foresaid treatise chapter the 2. from the second number by the words following In the Datary which is an office at Rome wherein all matters of benefices and businesses of that kind are expedited this is the course and custome at this day It is duly observed that the benefices belonging to the Popes collation whether reserved to his gift it falling void in the moneth that belongs to the Papacy which in regard of their far distance from Rome or that they are with cure cannot be given to his Nephew Borghesius are given to some of the Suitors or competitors that are of that Country or next adjoining to it For they take order that none be bestowed presently but ly vacant for a time that so a whole concourse of competitors may flock together for it which is not don for any good end that so they might know the difference of the suitors and give it to the worthiest as by the decree of the Council of Trent they are bound to do but that they may learn which is the richest and so may know how to make the best bargain To this end the time of this competition is appointed at a certain day whereof public notice is given that so all the suitors may come and that the officers of the datary may learn in that time which of all that seek it are best able to buy out and extinguish the pension that is laid upon that living For this is the fashion
not ordained again after their ceremonies Which point of presumtion and contemt of ancient Canons the Church of England refuses to learn from the Romish admitting to the practise of their respective orders among us such as have bin ordained in the Romish Church tho we have far greater reasons to suspect their ordinations as disagreeing with ancient Canons then they have to suspect ours as we have hitherto largely declared By all this discourse it appeareth how groundless is the scruple of such as refuse to join with the Church of England for fear that the ordination of its Clergy is not valid whereas we have all the certainty and even more for the validity of our ordination that the Roman Church hath for hers how much Suarez was mistaken in affirming that the Church of England has not the Ecclesiastic hierarchy composed of Bishops Priests and Deacons necessary to the constitution of a Catholic Church CHAP. XII Of the large extent of Christian Religion professed in the Church of England THe fourth and chief kind of universality proposed by Suarez as necessary to the constitution of a Catholic Church is the extent of it over all the parts of the Earth This he denies to the Church of England as not passing saies he the Limits of the Brittish Dominions But if he speaks of the Faith professed in the Church of England as he ought to do for the present purpose he was greatly mistaken Here I will shew that King James's saying as Suarez relates that the one half of the Christian World do join with us in the same Faith did not exceed the bounds of truth and modesty and that of three parts of Christians two do join with us in the profession of the Faith of Christ contained in the Apostles Creed tho not of all contained in the Creed of Trent whereby the Roman Church alone is singled from us and from all other Christian Churches not unlike Ismael whose hand was against every one and every Mans hands against him And as the Donatists would confine the Church of God to that corner of Africa they inhabited so the Romanists would not have it extended further then their jurisdiction declaring for excommunicated and damned all that join not with them in obedience to their Pope That they may be ashamed or weary of their blind presumtion and cruelty in offering to mangle and deface in this manner the Church of God if avarice and ambition the genuine cause of this proceeding is capable of shame or amendment I will give to the People blinded by them a view of the multitude of illustrious Nations and Religious Believers in Christ which they do rashly if not maliciously condemn and segregate from their communion And beginning with Protestants inhabiting Europe from the remotest parts thereof Eastward in the Kingdom of Polonia containing under its dominion Polonia Lituania Podolia Russia the less Volhinia Massovia Livonia Prussia all which united in a roundish enclosure are in circuit about 2600 miles and of no less space then Spain and France laid together In this so large a Kingdom the Protestants in great numbers are diffused through all the quarters thereof having in every Province their public Churches and Congregations orderly severed and bounded with Dioceses whence they send some of their chiefest men of worth unto their general Synods which they have frequently held with great celebrity and with such prudence and piety as may be a happy example to be followed by all Christian Churches and likely would be followed upon a due consideration if the insatiable avarice and boundless ambition of Rome aspiring desperatly to a monarchical power over all did not obstruct all the waies that sincere piety and zeal of Religion can imagine for the peace of Christians For as much as there are diverse sorts of these Polonic Protestants some embracing the Waldensian or the Bohemic others the Augustan and some the Helvetian confession and so do differ in some outward circumstances of discipline and ceremony yet knowing well that a Kingdom divided cannot stand and that the one God whom all of them worship in Spirit is the God of peace and concord they jointly meet at one general Synod and their first act alwaies is a religious and solemn profession of their unfeigned consent in the substantial points of Christian Faith necessary to Salvation Thus in general Synods at Lendomire Cracovia Petricove Woodslave Torun they declared upon the Bohememic and Helvetic and Augustan confessions severally received amongst them that they agree in the general heads of Faith touching the Holy Scripture the sacred Trinity the person of the Son of God God and Man the providence of God Sin free will the Law the Gospel justification by Christ Faith in his name Regeneration the Catholic Church and supreme head thereof Christ the Sacraments their number and use the state of Souls after Death the Resurrection and life Eternal They decreed that whereas in the forenamed confessions there is some difference in phrases and forms of Speech concerning Christs presence in his holy Supper which might breed dissention all disputations touching the manner of Christs presence should be cut off seeing all of them do believe the presence it self and that the Eucharistical Elements are not naked and emty signs but do truly perform to the Faithful receiver that which they signify and represent To prevent future occasions of violating this sacred consent they ordained that no man should be called to the sacred Ministry without subscription thereunto and when any person shall be excluded by excommunication from the Congregation of one confession that he shall not be receiv'd by them of another Lastly For as much as they accord in the substantial verity of Christian Doctrine they profess themselves content to tolerate diversity of ceremonies according to the diverse practice of their particular Churches and to remove the least suspicion of rebelling sedition wherewith their malicious and calumniating adversaries might blemish the Gospel tho they are subject to many grievous pressures yet they earnestly exhort one another to follow that worthy and Christian admonition of Lactantius defendenda Religio est non occidendo sed moriendo non saevitiâ sed patientiâ non scelere sed side illa enim bonorum haec malorum sunt This is the State of the Professors of the Gospel in the Elective Monarchy of Polonia who in the adjoining Countries on the fouth Transylvania and Hungary are also exceedingly multiplied In the former by the favour of Gabriel Bartorius Prince of that Region who not many years since expelled thence all such as are of the Papal faction in a manner the whole Inhabitants except some few rotten and pâ—trid limbs of Arrians Antitrinitarians Ebionits Socinians Anabaptists who here as also in Polonia Lituania and Borussia have some public assembly are professed Protestants and in Hungary the greater part especially being compared with the Papists Thence Westward in the Kingdom of Bohemia consisting of 3200 Parishes
my great comfort and no small grief to consider the disingenuity of Romanists in fomenting animosities among Christians by calumniating thus the opposers of their errors CHAP. XIII Of the several large and flourishing Christian Churches in the Eastern Countries not subject to the Pope TO all men truly zealous of the honour of God and of his Son Jesus Christ it cannot but be comfortable to see how happily the blessed Apostles have complied with the command of our Soveraign Lord and Saviour * Math. 28 â—9 Go and teach all Nations baptizing in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and how gloriously the Churches planted by them have persevered in the Faith of our Saviour in spight of the greatest persecutions and under the greatest Enemies of the Christian name such as the Turk is known to be and yet under his Domions is a numberless number of Christians of which the Grecians are for antiquity number and dignity the chief They acknowledg obedience to the Patriarch of Constantinople under whose jurisdiction are in Asia the Christians of Natolia Circassia Mengrelia and Russia as in Europe also the Christians of Grece Macedon Epirus Thrace Bulgaria Servia Bosnia Walachia Moldavia â—odolia Moscovia together with all the Islands of the Aegean Sea and others about Grece as far as Corfu besides a good part of the large Dominion of Polonia and those parts of Dalmatia and Croatia that are subject to the Turkish Dominion all which Congregations of Christians subject to the Patriarch of Constantinople do exceed in number them of the Romish Communion as I find recorded by diligent a Brerewood inquiries cap. 15. Pagit Christianography cap. 2. Writers whereof Pagit saies that Christians make up the two third parts of the Grand Signiors Subjects All these Churches do deny the Popes Supremacy they account the Pope and his Church Schismatical The Patriarch of Constantinople doth yearly upon the Sunday called Dominica invocavit solemnly excommunicate the Pope and his Clergy for Schismatics They deny Transubstantiation touching which point Cyril Patriarch of Constantinople delivereth this excellent confession as agreeable to the Doctrine of the Church of England as opposite to the Romish In the Eucharist saith b Cap. 17. Pag. 60. he we do confess a true and a real presence of Christ but such a one as Faith offereth us not such as devised Transubstantiation teacheth for we believe the Faithful to eat Christ's body in the Lords Supper not sensibly champing it with our teeth but partaking it with the sense of the soul For that is not the Body of Christ which offereth it self to our Eies in the Sacrament but that which Faith spiritually apprehendeth and offereth to us Hence ensueth that if we believe we eat and participate if we believe not we receive no profit by it Hieremy the Patriarch teacheth a change of bread into the Body of Christ which he calleth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a transmutation which is not sufficient to infer a Transubstantiation because it may only signify a mystical alteration which the Patriarch in the same place plainly sheweth saying that the mysteries are truly the Body and Blood of Christ not that these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he are changed into humane flesh but we into them for the better things have ever the preeminence The words of Cyril and Hieremy in Greek are to be found with Mr. Pagit in his Christianographie Cap. 4. They deny Purgatory fire So Nilus Arch-Bishop of Thessalonica a Nilus p 219. de purg igne we have not received by tradition from our teachers that there is any fire of purgatory nor any temporal punishment by fire neither do we know of any such Doctrine taught in the Eastern Church b Castr adver haeres l. 12. p. 1.8 Alphonsus de Castro It is one of the most known errors of the Grecians and Armenians that they teach there is no place of Purgatory where Souls after this Life are purged from their corruptions which they have contracted in their Bodies before they deserve to be received into the Eternal tabernacles They administer the Eucharist in both kinds of which c Cyr c 17. p. 61. Câ—rill the Patriarch As the institutor speaketh of his Body so also of his blood which commandment ought not to be rent asunder or mangled according to humane arbitrement but the institution delivered to be kept intire a Resp p. 129 distinct 31. aliter They allow married Priests Hier. Patr. We do permit those Priests that cannot contain the use of marriage They deny the worship of Images Concerning which point b Cyr. resp ad inter 4. p. 97. Cyril speaketh we forbid not the historical use of Pictures Painting being a famous and commendable Art we grant to them that will have them the pictures of Christ and Saints but their adoration and worship we detest as forbidden by the Holy Ghost in holy Scripture least we should before we are aware adore colours instead of our Creatour and Maker They acknowledg the sufficiency of Scripture for an entire rule of Faith and of our Salvation Of which c Damasc de Orthodoxa fide lib. 1. c. 1. Damascen giveth this testimony What soever is delivered unto us in the Law and in the Prophets by the Apostles and Evangelists that we receive acknowledg and reverence and beside these we require nothing else They do not forbid the layty the reading of Scriptures As the reading of Scripture is forbidden to no Christian Man saith Cyril the Patriarch so no Man is to be kept from the reading of it for the word is near in their mouth and in their hearts Therefore manifest injury is offered to any Christian Man of what rank or condition soever he be who is deprived or kept from reading or hearing the Holy Scripture They allow no private Masses as Châ—traeus relates No private Masses saies he are celebrated among the Grecks without other communicants as their liturgies and faithfull relations testifâ— They have prayer in a known tongue They use not prayer for Souls to be delivered out of purgatory nor the extreme unction nor elevating and carrying about the Sacrament that it may be adored nor indulgences nor sale of Masses Neither is there in their Canon any mention made of the sacrifice of the Body and blood of Christ for the living and dead as Chytraeus Guagnirus and others quoted by a Pagit c. 4. Pagit do relate Other differences of less account betwixt the Grecian Church and the Roman you may see related by b Brerew c. 15. Possev dereb Muscov pag. 38. Brerewood and Possevin Of the same Religion with the Grecians are the Christians of the vast and mighty Empire of Muscovia and Russia under their Metropolitan the Arch-Bishop of Mosco nominated and appointed by the Prince the Emperour of Russia and upon this nomination consecrated by two or three of his own suffragans To these may
be added the Christians called Nestorians for having maintained antiently the errour of Nestorius spread over a great part of Asia For besides the Countries of Babylon Assâ—ria Mesopotamia Parthia and Media wherein many of them are found they are scattered far and wide in the East both northerly to Cathaia and foutherly to India So that beyond the river Tigris eastward there is no other Sect of Christians to be found as learned Brerewood relates except only the Portugals and the Converts made by them in India The Patriarch of the Nestorians to whom all those of the East parts acknowledg obedience hath his seat in the City of Musale on the River Tigris in Mesopotamia or in the Patriarchal Monastery of Saint Ermes fast by Musale In which City tho subject to Mahometans it is recorded that the Nestorians retain yet 15. Temples being esteemed about 40 thousand Souls Sanders relates the great number of suffragan Bishops and Metropolitans subject to the Patriarch of Musale Next to these we may name the Christians of Egypt called Cophti under the Patriarch of Alexandria to whose jurisdiction belong not only the native Christians of Egypt but also those about the bay of Arabia and in the Mount Sinai Eastward and in Afric as far as the greater Syrtis westward To him likewise are subject the Christians called Habassins spread over the wide Empire of Aethiopia with their Prince commonly called Prester John For tho they have a Patriarch of their own whom they call in their idiome Abuna our Father yet are they limited b Zaga Zabo de relig mor. Aethiop apud Damian Goes to chuse one of the jurisdiction of Alexandria and a Monk of Saint Anthony he must be Besides the confirmation and consecration of him belongeth to the Patriarch of Alexandria and by him is he sent with Ecclesiastical a Tho. Ã Jesul 7. p. 3. Tho. Ã Jes lib. 7. p. 3. charge into Habasia The conferring of Bishopries and other Ecclesiastical benefices except the Patriarcship belongeth only to the King Their Priests and other inferiour Ecclesiastical Ministers as also Monks live by their labour as having no tithes nor any Ecclesiastical revenues to maintain them nor being suffered to crave alms All which is recorded by Zaga Zabo an Ethiopian Bishop The Christians of Egypt are so constant in the profession of Christianity that if any of them are by force circumcised by the Turks he is marked in the forehead or hands with the sign of the Cross that all Men may know him to be a Christian The Patriarch of Alexandria's dwelling is now neer the Church of Saint Nicholas in Caire which City is one of the greatest Cities in the World reputed to be eight and twenty miles in length and fourteen in breadth as a Lithgows travels p. 306. Lithgow reporteth and that of Greeks Copates Armenians others there are about two hundred thousand Christians in that City of Caire b Tho. a Jesu de convers gent. lib. 7. par 1. c. 6. p. 363. Thomas a Jesu relates a foul mistake in Baronius who in the end of his sixth to me tells that in the time of Pope Clement the 8. an Embassage was brought from the Church of Alexandria to the Roman Bishop in which the Patriarch and all the Provinces of Egypt and others adjoyning did acknowledg him chief and universal Pastor of the Church but the matter being more diligently examined appeared to be a meer ly and fiction of a certain Impostor Bartavis How great is the extent of Christianity in Aethiopia may appear by the vast extent of that Empire which according to Mr. Brerewood his dimension is equal with Germany France Spain and Italy Others do report it to be as great as all Europe a Apud Pagit p. 38. Horatius Malegueius maketh the dominion of the Aethiopian Emperour larger then any other excepting the Dominion of the Catholic King b Godig de Abass reb lib. 1. c. 32 p. 195. Godignus reports that there are in Aethiopia one hundred and twenty seven Arch-Bishops c Alvares c. 14. Alvares a Portuguese Priest relates that in Macham Talacem which is the Church of the Holy Trinity he saw two hundred mitred Priests together and sixty four Canopies carried over them Their Churches are built round and very rich with hanging of Cloth of Gold Velvet and Plate They have many goodly Monasteries to the Monasteries of the vision of Jesus belong about 3000 Monks Many were the attacks of Rome upon this flourishing Christianity of Aethiopia to bring it under the Dominion of the Pope d Godig p. 367. The more famous I find recorded is that of Andreas Oviedo sent thither with the title of Patriarch in the year 1557. who coming with his letters to the Emperor Claudius received this answer from him That he would never yield obedience to the Bishop of Rome he gave him leave to teach the Portugals but forbad him to speak one word to his Abassins touching Religion and that he would not suffer the Roman yoak to be laid on him or his This Emperor Claudius dying Adamas succeeded who banish'd the said Patriarch Andreas and this was the issue of the Embassy as Godignus relates Under the Patriarch of Jerusalem a Chytr de statu Ecclesiae p. 24. are the Christians inhabiting Palestine mingled with Turks and others The Patriarch keeps his residence in Jerusalem where are now remaining ten Churches of Christians The Patriarchal Church is the Church of Saint Sepulcher in Jerusalem and his house is near unto it To this Patriarch did belong the three Palestines Tyrius adds two Provinces more Rubensis Beritensis He relateth also five Metropolitans to have belonged to this See and about 101 Bishops The Armenians Georgians Abassins and other Christians have several Churches in Jerusalem Under the Patriarch of Antioch are the Christians called Syrians of the place of their chief habitation and Melchites which according to the Syrian Etymology is as much as to say Royalists because their Bishops have followed alwaies in Faith and in their Councils the example and autority of the Emperors of Constantinople They inhabit mingled with Mahumetans part of Syria Beritus Tripolis Alepo and other places in Asia b Boter relat univers par 3. lib. 2. Boterus saith they are the most numerous sort of Christians in the East They live under the jurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop of Damascus by the title of Patriarch of Antiochia For Antiochia it self where the name of Christians was first heard in the World lying at present wast or broken into small villages the Patriarchall seat was translated thence to Damascus where are reported to be above a thousand houses of Christians For altho the Patriarch of the Maronites and of the Jacobites whereof the former keepeth residence in Libanus and the latter in Mesopotomia entitle themselves Patriarchs of Antiochia and by the Christians of their own Sects be so acknowledged yet do the Melchites
one passionatly bent to extol St. John the Evangelist above St. John Baptist the other preferring with no less animosity the Baptist before the Evangelist Our preacher before mentioned to pleasure the Nuns of the Evangelist delivers that prodigious Paradox which in English may be turned thus exceeding great is the excellency of John upon the account of being the Beloved It is greater then that of a Redeemer even in God it is so great as to be God in trinity and unity nay for this cause the word was made flesh Go now and compare this piece of Doctrine with any of those you related of the Protestant writers and if it has not out gon them all add to it what follows Being advertised by the inquisitor general of Spain at the second time he sent me a licence for reading prohibited Books that I had not given him account of what censureable propositions I might have lighted upon in my readings as he had charged me to do in the instrument of such a Licence which he had sent me the year before I sent to him a list of some perverse Doctrines I saw in Books approved and in much use among themselves for Protestant Books I could find none to give account of among which were the three propositions following prefixed for titles to so many moral discourses of Leander de Murcia in his Commentaries on the book of Esther The first of which goes thus Adeo essicax est mortis memoria ad reducendos in meliorem frugem homines ut non solum ipsi sed etiam Deus op Max. proposita ante oculos morte in meliora contendat The memory of Death is so powerful to reduce Men unto a better life that not only they but even God Almighty himself laying death before his eies becomes better The second runs thus Etiam daemon morte ante oculos constituta contendit in meliora even the Devil looking upon death mends himself The third proposition is this Tanta dilectione prosecutus est filius Dei homines vt pro ipsis quasi insanire videatur The Son of God his love to men has bin so great that he seems to be mad for them And if thus it goes even in Books current and approved among you what if I did relate the Doctrines of others censured and prohibited by your inquisitions as you and your party frequently do upbraid our Church with erroneous Doctrines of particular Men which we do utterly detest and our learned Men do vigorously oppose by word and pen in Pulpits Books and Scholes CHAP. XVII The Reformation of the Church of England vindicated from the slanderous aspersions of N. N. and other Romanists IT is very usual with the Zelots of the Romish Church to make Henry the Eight sole Author of the Reformation of the English Church loading that Prince with bitter invectives and odious reports thereby to render the reformation contemtible to which N. N. in the 14. chapter of his Book adds a slanderous relation of the lives and behaviour of some Monks and Friers come out of Germany which he pretends to have bin the authors and contrivers of the 39. Articles of the Church of England I will not repete the many idle stories he tells of them more fit to divertise simple persons of his own credulity in a Winter night at the fire then to work on serious and knowing Men. I have chosen for a more short and solid way rather to justify our cause with positive arguments then to follow our adversaries in sifting fopperies To this purpose I will lay for foundation of my present discourse that the whole frame of the Reformation standeth upon two points whereof the first and more resented at Rome is the denying of the Popes supremacy and the withdrawing of the Church of England from subjection to him The second is the Reformation of the Liturgy and Doctrine of the said Church from errors and corruptions introduced in it As for the first it is clear and evident that neither Henry the 8. nor Luther nor Calvin nor any of those strangers mentioned by N. N. were authors or causers of the freedom of the Church of England from subjection to the Pope of Rome This freedom being by its own right inherent in it from the beginning of its Christianity however King Henry his valour and resolution broke off effectually the Tyrannical usurpations of Rome which long time did oppress the English Church and Nation notwithstanding their continual reluctancy and complaint against those Romish extortions Far were those good Christians that inhabited England before the time of Gregory the Great from giving or owning obedience to the Bishop of Rome and so when Augustin came hither about the year 590 and demanded their obedience to the Church of Rome the Abbot of Bangor returned him answer * Concil Spelm. P. 108. That they were obedient to the Church of God to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian to love every one in his degree in charity to help them in word and deed to be the Children of God and other obedience then this they did not know due to him whom he named to be Pope nor to be Father of Fathers And if Augustin did pretend to such a subjection from England to Rome as the Popes of it now would have certainly he exceeded his commission for St. Gregory that sent him never pretended to that supremacy which his successors do aspire to as we shall demonstrate in the 15 chapter of the second part of this treatise and how far he was from pretending England to be of his jurisdiction may appear by what is related of him that being told certain children were de Britannica Insula he did not know whether the Country were Christian or Pagan The siliâ—â— and voluntary respect and obedience which the holiness and learning of Gregory and some other good Popes gain'd among the English gave occasion to others following of less merit to pretend to a right to such obedience which being perceived by the Kings they prohibited all appeals to Rome and the coming of Legats thence and so much as the receiving of letters without the Kings licence as may appear by Paschalis the Second his letter to Henry the first expostulating with him about this particular in these words Sedis Apostolicae nuncii vel literae praeter jussum regiae Majestatis nullam in potestate tua susceptionem aut aditum promerentur nullus inde clamor nullum inde judicium ad sedem Apostolicam destinantur c. This happened in an 1114. notwithstanding the King stood upon his resolution so as in the year following 1119 sending his Bishops to a Council held by Callixtus the 2. at Rhemes at their departing he gave them instructions not to complain of each other because himself would right each of them at home that they * Joh Diacon l. 1. c. 21. vita Greg. should a Orderi Vital is p. 857. Ite Dominum
Parisian Doctors in their Declaration against the forementioned Thesis of Clermont Colledg presented to all the Bishops of France extant in the hands of many both in French and English And if their reason exhibited for their censure be considered well we shall find it to comprehend Mr. I. S. his opinion no less then that of the Clermont Jesuits since both the one and the other do bottom the pretended Infallibility of their Church upon the Popes Autority whether in a Council or out of it and so the reason of the Parisian Divines doth conclude in either case that it is a Blasphemy injurious to Jesus Christ to ascribe to the Pope that Infallibility which Christ alone possesses and that men should render that Supreme Cultus of Divine Faith to the words of the Pope which is only due to the word of God The allegations of our Adversary for obedience due to the Church as to Christ and of promises made of the assistance of the Holy Ghost to the Apostles and the Church governed by them will appear very impertinent to his purpose in favor of the Pope and his faction when we come to examine the Texts alledged for which I will assign the Chapter following In the mean time we may conclude from what is said in this Chapter That to ascribe Infallibility to the Pope is Blasphemy in the opinion even of Popish Doctors and Mr. I. S. his pecular way of defending that tenet declared for heretical by Doctors of his own party which was my present undertaking To which may be added the opinion of Mr. * Tabul Suff. cap. 19.20.21 Thomas White of the same Communion whose whole Book called his Tabulae suffragiales is purposely designed against this doctrine of the Popes personal Infallibility affirming it to be not heretical but Archiheretical and that the propagating of this doctrine is in its kind a most grievous sin so weary men of Learning and Parts begin to grow of this intolerable Arrogance of the Roman Church or Court and of their Flatterers CHAP. VII Our Adversaries corruption of Scripture detected OUR Adversary certainly never look'd into the Bible for the Texts he alledges for the Infallibility of his Church but snatch'd them out of some of his old Controvertists whose custom is to clip and cut Scripture to their own pretences without regard of their true meaning Or if he has seen them with their contexts he has bin strangely dull in not perceiving the right sense of them very obvious to any ordinary good understanding or malicious in misrepresenting the meaning of them This is especially seen in his Allegation of these words Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come whom I will send from my Father the spirit of truth he will give testimony of me and ye will give testimony This he will have us take for a certain testimony of the Holy Ghosts assistance promised to his Church If he did see the half verse immediatly following which he left out or his Tutors cut off he would find that these words were spoken to the Apostles with circumstances making them impossible to be applied to his Church The verse restored to its integrity saies thus And ye also shall bear witness because ye have bin with me from the beginning What man in his senses would think those words appliable to the Council of Trent Were the Fathers of that Council with Christ from the the beginning was the Holy Ghost not yet descended He confirms further his opinion out of Acts the XV. 28. where the Council of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem deciding the controversy concerning Circumcision delivers their opinion thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us signifying that the Holy Ghost did assist them and that grounded on the words aforesaid of our Saviour Joh. XV. 26. When the Paraclete will come he shall give testimony of me and you shall give testimony of me If that be the ground of the Apostles Phrase we have seen before to whom that promise was given whether to the Apostles alone or the Bishops of Rome to be for ever We have seen that the Text in its integrity cannot be applied to the latter But Mr. I. S. of his own autority declares that promise was made by Christ not only to the Apostles but to the Roman Church for ever And to make this latter Text sound somthing like to his purpose he patches it up with a piece of a verse fetch'd out of Matth. XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world This usual art of theirs of cutting from the Texts what is against their purpose and patching them with other words far fetch'd that may have a gloss or appearance of their pretention may be practiced with more safety in conversation or in a Sermon to a vulgar Auditory then in a serious debate by print exposed to a strict examen This is a cheat like that used in Italy with rotten Apples to set them out for sound They cut off the rotten pieces and glue together the sound fragments to an appearance of a fair Apple but being handled more close it falls in pieces and discovers the cheat This abominable Legerdemain is too often seen in their Pulpits fathering upon the Gospel forsooth most execrable Blasphemies extolling their several new Saints to whom they would gain devotion and by that devotion mony to their Coffers above the Apostles above the Angels above Christ and all that is in heaven to the perpetual scandal of the discreet part of their own flock and edification of none All is sanctified with them by repeting at the end of every desperate discourse some words of the Gospel as a burden of the song tho with no relation in its sense to their purpose This is the art Mr. I. S. useth with the testimony related of Acts XV. touching the assistance of the Holy Ghost in the Council at Jerusalem grounded as he confesses upon the aforesaid Text of John XV. 26. declared to relate only to the Apostles then present and Mr. I. S. of his own head will have it extended to the Roman Church for ever and his Interpretation must be taken for Canonical Scripture by closing it up with this fragment of the twentieth verse of Matthew the XXVIII Vntil the consummation of the world The Text he corrupts and cuts off Matth. XXVIII contains a promise of Christ to the Apostles and Church founded and Faith preached by them that he will assist them for ever saying I am with you all the daies until the consummation of the world St. Hierom better then Mr. I. S. will tell us the meaning of these words glossing thus upon them qui usque ad consummationem seculi cum discipulis se futurum esse promittit illos ostendit semper esse victuros se nunquam à credentibus recessurum In these words our Saviour promises to his Disciples life everlasting and to the Church founded by them and to all true believers in him his
Quae ab initio sunt male constituta tempore non convalescunt That what was unlawful in the beginning grows not by continuance lawful nor this other Non debet quis commodum reportare ex crimine none ought to find an advantage in a guilt for his defence An unjust usurper by a continuance of his usurpation is rendred rather more guilty then excusable We have shown by evident proofs that the pretention of the Roman Church to Infallibility was and is still an unjust usurpation a robbery of a priviledg belonging unto God and his holy Scripture communicated to the Apostles founders of Christian Religion and to the Church truly Catholic and Universal sticking to the Doctrine and Belief which Christ and his Apostles left to us not to that factious party devoted to the Pope of Rome which Mr. I. S. would have us take for the only Church committing in all his discourses a perpetual Solecism against the laws of a Disputant which is to take for granted the subject of the Debate which is constantly deny'd to them But his Logic will not take notice of these niceties Now therefore to accuse us that we disturb them in the possession of their Infallibility is like the complaint of a certain Gentleman against a Merchant calling on him for an old debt He ranted and swore he was a troublesom companion for importuning for the payment of a debt of so many years as if it were but of yesterday his delay in paying was an increase of his guilt The retaining of another mans goods as well as the taking them away against his will is robbery Thus it is in our case the pretention of the Roman Faction to Infallibility was a robbery from the beginning an imposing upon man kind as I have proved and the continuance of it is an increase of their guilt why will Mr. I. S. make this increase of their guilt an excuse of it Besides to say that his Church was in all Ages in peaceable possession of this prerogative of Infallibility as he do's pag. 76. is a wide mistake and as he asserts it without proof he must be contented with a bare denial for an answer while we leave him to look after any pertinent testimony of the Fathers of the first three hundred nay for a thousand years for his purpose which he shall never find In the seventh Chapter of his Book p. 102. he falls abruptly upon the old armory of miracles in favor of his Church Of this I could not but wonder having seen him p. 81. engage his whole Logic against the power of Miracles for breeding in men a saving divine Faith for said he Either they are only probable or evident if probable only they are not proportionable to give us that certainty required for divine Faith if evident absolutely they can be no motive of Faith which is of its own nature obscure In which piece of Logic he gives a clear testimony of his Impiety and Ignorance Impiety in pretending to weaken that strong foundation of Christian Belief taken from the glory of Miracles for which I remit him to what he alledges himself from the foresaid p. 102. Ignorance in pretending that an obscure Conclusion may not be deduced from an evident Premise To prove notum per ignotius a Conclusion clear by a Premise or Medium more obscure is a known fault in arguing but to prove by an evident Medium a Conclusion obscure is a fault of arguing never heard of yet before Mr. I. S. his Logic. By this Canon he makes the belief of Martha to be indiscreet who seeing the resurrection of her brother and other Miracles our Saviour wrought concluded I beleive that thou art Christ the son of God The miracle was evident but the generation of Christ from his heavenly Father obscure And who shall declare his generation Esa III. 8. Having thus helped him against himself for rendring Miracles a congruous way to find out true Religion I gladly accept the challenge to a trial of our Religion by them Our Religion or the object of our necessary Belief is only what is contained in the word of God by Canonical Scripture In favor of this Belief we have all the Miracles written in the Old and New Testament Their Religion as opposite to ours and differing from us are those Articles in debate introduced by the Roman Church Transubstantiation Purgatory Worship of Images c. Will he for shame pretend the stock of Romanies produced by them for these Innovations fit to be compared with the store of glorious Miracles which we have in the behalf of our divine truly infallible Belief contained in holy Scripture While we show his new Belief to be contrary to this divine Faith confirmed with Miracles of infallible truth as we do let him keep to himself his new-coin'd wonders and remember that God is not contrary to himself in putting his Seal to contrary Laws And if he must believe some of the wonders he proposes let Lessius and others help him to understand what to make of those miracles or wonders which Valerius Maximus Titus Livius and other Roman Historians do relate to have bin wrought in favor of their Temples and heathenish Superstitions and let him not expect from me that I should bestow time in examining the truth or false-hood of all his impertinent Allegations In the same seventh Chapter from p. 126. he fastens on me two notorious calumnies first that having left the Roman Church I fixed upon no other to be of the second that I said none may be saved in the Roman Church The falsehood of the first is seen by my public declaration for the Church of England the untruth of the other I declared in the second Chapter of this Treatise whereby all his verbosity upon this subject appears a fret of his Malice without any real ground without shame to tax me often with and repete with his frivolous exclamations without shewing where or when I did say what indeed I never said or wrote That there is no salvation in the Roman Catholic Religion With the same confidence and the like untruth he repetes That it is the constant doctrine of the Church of England that the Romish Religion is a saving Religion or a safe way to salvation which is what we deny them Let the Reader reflect upon what I said in the foresaid second Chapter of this Treatise and see the confusion of this mans brains in not understanding or delivering distinctly our sentiments according to our own expressions or the corruption of his mind in deceiving wilfully his Reader especially that he himself p. 133. alledgeth Doctor Stillingfleet comparing both Churches the Romish to a leaky Ship wherein a man may be saved but with great danger and difficulties and the Protestant to a sound Ship wherein one may be saved without hazard This is the utmost of courtesy or charity that may be and is extended to them Is this to say the Romish Church is a
not answer because the Scripture says it neither must I answer that I beleive God to speak by the Church because she works Miracles Here I am to doubt whether this be the same man that spoke to us a little before p. 177. and more at large p. 102. extolling the force of Miracles to beget an evidence of Credibility in the proposer of divine Verities or another of his Auxiliaries that came in his place to carry on the work without regard to what the former said But whoever he be let us see how he disputes against Miracles If the Miracles be absolutely evident says he they can be no motive of Faith which is of its own nature obscure and if they be but morally evident Miracles they can not be the motive because the motive of Faith must be infallible How blind is the attemt of this Man against Miracles how destructive of his own purpose How absurd and ridiculous his argument against Miracles I have declared above in Chap. 9. whither I remitt the Reader Now let us see this mysterious work of our Adversary go on Having excluded Miracles from ascertaining us of the credibility of the Church proposing doctrines to us he tells us how we must answer that question Why I beleive that God speaks by the Church and it must be thus because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her and I am obliged to beleive be speaks by her because he doth credit her with so many Miracles and supernatural marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her If it be the same Man that wrote the whole page it cannot but appear a wonder that having employed his skill a few lines before in weakning the force of Miracles to ground the infallibility of the Church on he should now take up the same Miracles for his ultimate reason of beleiving in the Church As a nice Man who throwing away the paring of his apple and checking his companion for eating his without paring fell immediatly after upon eating the paring he threw away To cast a patch upon this foul breach of coherence in reasoning our Adversary shuffles in a distinction betwixt the motive of our act of Faith and the motive of our obligation of beleiving which indeed is nothing else at the present then Culicem excoriare to flay a flea after much ado to do nothing The present question immediatly proposed is why am I to beleive that God speaks by the Church the only reason he gives for beleiving in the Church is Miracles What needs that distinction of motive to my beleif and motive to my acknowledgment of obligation to beleive the same reason that makes me beleive intimates to me my obligation of beleiving The primitive Christians who heard the Apostles preach and saw their Miracles knew nothing of these distinctions Seing those Servants of God confirm their doctrine with Miracles they beleived God spake by them and for the same reason or motive thought themselves obliged to beleive them If we have the same Faith that the primitive Christians of Jerusalem and Antioch had as Mr. I. S. says p. 183. why shall not we go the same way to beleive as they did But our Adversary is upon a design of imposing upon us a Faith which the Apostles did not teach which he discovers clearly tho happily not so much to his own knowledg p. 184. in those remarkable words The cheif and last motive whereupon our Faith must rest is the Word of God speaking to us by the Church The Church I say by which God actually in this present Age speaks unto us for we do not beleive because God did speak in the first second or third Age by the Church c. Here you see Reader a plain Confession of the great guilt of the Roman Church deserving the most severe resentment of all true Christians that glorious truly Catholic Apostolic and holy Church of the primitive Ages excluded from the office of being Mistress of our beleif and the Church of this corrupt Age governed by the most corrupt Court in the World if we are to beleive them that are best acquainted with it that of Rome substituted in her place And as this is proposed by our Adversary without any proof so it ought to be rejected by all true Christians with indignation Only I will reflect upon the inconsequence of the Man and how farr he is from his purpose of ridding himself from a Circle in resolving his Faith All that great Labyrinth he works from p. 176. to p. 184. in order to declare his procedure to each act of Faith and able to puzzle the best understanding will certainly be requisite in his opinion to proceed to this last act of Faith which he will have to be the guide of all others that the Roman Church of this Age is infallible in teaching what we ought to beleive This being as he says an act of divine Faith I mean that the Pope with a Generall Council such as that of Trent is infallible in proposing matters of Faith how shall he go about to resolve his Faith upon this particular point Certainly thus according to his former discourse I beleive that the present Church governed by the Pope of Rome in the Councill of Trent is infallible and God speaks by her because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her and I am obliged to beleive that God speaks by her because he credits her by so many Miracles and supernaturall marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her These are Mr. I. S. his own words and his Confession of Faith set down in the 181. page of his Book And while the Reader reckons how many Circles he committs here endeavouring to rid himself of one I ask of him where be those Miracles wrought by the Fathers of the Councill of Trent and the Popes moderating in it to breed in me an evidence of credibility that God spake by their mouth as the Christians of Jerusalem and Antioch saw the Apostles work for believing that God spake by them being he says I must take the objects of Faith upon credit of the present Church and that credit must be grounded upon Miracles and supernaturall marks appearing for it Will he have us prefer his forg'd Miracles in favour of his newcoin'd-Faith to those wrought by the Apostles in confirmation of the Faith preached by them Turn Reader to what I said to this purpose in the 9. Chapter of this Treatise The more I consider this resolution of Mr. I. S. his Faith the less I find in it of resolution and the more Circles and obscurities Now I enquire of him further why doth he exclude the Church of the first second and third Age from the office of declaring Gods will and word to us He answers because the declarations of that ancient Church are known to us onely by tradition and tradition says he is not the motive but
which name of either he pleaseth to term it to put us to silence as to further debates as truly he had need accordingly he appears ill furnished to enter into them We will now proceed to see how ill armed he is to encounter upon the particular points I proposed for motive of my discontent with the Roman Church CHAP. XV. Mr. I. S. his defense of the Popes Supremacy declared to be vain Their pretence to a Monarchical power over all Christians whether in Spiritual or Temporal proved to be unjust and tyrannical OUR Adversary will have us take for an Article of Faith the Supreme power of the Pope over all Christians in Spiritual affairs Whether he hath the like supreme power over Princes in temporal concerns he leaves to our discretion to believe what we please the case being disputable And indeed it is a courtesy in Mr. I. S. to permit us this liberty even touching temporal affairs and beyond commission from the Court of Rome as may appear by what we are to say in this Chapter But what he allows him of Supremacy in Spiritual government over all other Bishops and over all Christians is certainly more then his right more then Christ gave him and more then S. Peter had whose Successor the Pope pretends to be He will never find any mention in History Ecclesiastic of any claim S. Peter should pretend to have of power over S. James in Jerusalem S. Andrew in Achaia over Thomas in the Indies or over any other of the Apostles in their respective Provinces no dependance of them upon him None of those more worthy first Bishops of Rome for five hundred years did ever pretend to any such Supremacy if we are to believe one of the best of them St. Gregory the Great in his many Epistles written against the Ambition of John Patriarch of Constantinople pretending to such a calling of Universal Bishop Neither did he therein act for himself as he do's formally protest to obviate the malice of those who would cast that aspersion upon his proceeding herein a Gregorius lib. 4. Regist Ep. 36. In damnando generalitatis nomine saies he nostrum specialiter aliquid non amamus Neither indeed could the reasons he alledges against the Ambition of John of Constantinople consist with a pretention to such a Prerogative in favor of his own See namely b Jactantiam sumsit ita ut Universa sibi tentet adscribere omnia quae soli uni capiti cohaerent videlicet Christo per elationem pompatici sermonis ejusdem Christi sibi studeat membra subjugare cum fortasse in errore perit qui Universalis diâ—â—tur nullus jam Episcopus remansisse in statu veritatis invenitur ibid. that it is to rob Christ of his priviledg of being Head of the Universal Church that if the whole Church were subject to and depending upon one man he falling into Heresie all the Church would fall with him How foul an Aspersion Papists do cast upon this good Pope Gregory the Great saying he would claim to himself the calling he reprehended in John of Constantinople may appear by these words of his foresaid Epistle 36. written to Eulogius Bishop of Alexandria and to Athanasius Bishop of Antioch saying a Vnt per Sanctam Chalcedonensem Synodum Pontifici sedis Apostolica cui Deo disponente deservio hec Universitatis nomen oblatum est Sed nullus unquam decessorum meorum hoc tam profano vocabulo uti consensit quia videlicet si unus Patriarcha Vniversalis dicitur Patriarcharum nomen ceteris derogatur Sed absit absit hoc à Christiani mente id sibi velle quempiam arripere unde fratrum suorum honorem imminuere ex quantulacunque parte videatur The name of Universal Bishop was by the holy Council of Chalcedon offered only to the Bishop of the See Apostolic in which by Gods providence I do serve but none of my Predecessors did consent to use this profane calling For if one Patriarch or Bishop be called Universal the name of a Bishop is taken from the rest But far be this far be it from the mind of a Christian that any should assume to himself any thing which may seem to diminish in the least the honor of his brethren How can this consist with saying that Gregory did claim to himâ—elf that calling which he reprehended in John of Constantinople since he declares that his Predecessors did refuse that calling and alledges reasons which prove that none ought to admit it The same St. Gregory is the first Author I find to have accused of Anti-Christianism the pretention of the Pope to Supremacy over all Christians in the person of the foresaid John Patriarch of Constantinople of whose ambitious pretention to the like Supremacy he writes thus to the Empress Constantina b Sed in hac ejus superbia quid aliud nisi propinqua jam Antichristi esse tempora designatur quia illum videlicet imitatur qui spretis in sociali gaudio Angelorum legionibus ad culmen conatus est singularitatis erumpere dicens c. Lib. 4. Ep. 34. And what may we understand by this kind of pride but that the time of Anti-Christ is near since he imitates him who despising the social joy of Angels did endevor to rise up to the top of singularity saying I will ascend into Heaven I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God I will sit also upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North I will ascend above the height of the Clouds I will be like the most high This singularity of the Bishops of Rome in despising a fair and brotherly society with other Bishops and pretending a Supremacy over all and an Equality with God in several of his priviledges gave occasion to such as in after Ages called them Anti-christs Certainly this Ambition of being head of the Universal Church a priviledg granted in Scripture only to Christ the boldness of preferring his own laws to the Laws of Christ whereof we gave several instances have great affinity with the qualities of Anti-christ described in Scripture And St. Gregory his prediction that the usurpation of this Supremacy would be a calamity to the Church is found to be too true All the Combustions and dismal Contentions that afflicted this Kingdom for a whole Age did proceed from the Popes pretention to Supremacy It is not the intrinsic quality of speculative doctrines of Faith controverted it is not the alterations of Ceremonies or Language in divine Service did minister fuel to this fatal fire all these things would be easily agreed upon if we did allow but Supremacy to the Pope or he did quit his pretention to it Of this we have certainty by what Sir Roger Twisden affirms out of warrantable Histories and Relations that Pope Paulus IV. finding his fierceness could not avail with Queen Elizabeth offered a Tortura torti pag. 148. to let things stand as they were
of those who are to be saved but not without some note of infamy And a little after he added these words Sunt enim in Ecclesiâ credentes quidam acquiescentes divinis praeceptis erga servos Dei officiosi religiosi ad ornatum Ecclesiae vel ministorii satis promti sed in conversatione propriâ impuri obscoeni vitiis involuti nec omnino deponentes veterem hominem cum actibus suis Istis crgo Christus Jesus salutem concedit sed quandam infamiae notam non evadunt There are in the Church some believers and honorers of his Servants and ready to contribute towards the decency of his Service in the Church but in their private life impure and liable to vices not putting off altogether the old man with his works To these therefore Christ Jesus allows Salvation but they shun not a certain note of infamy According to this doctrine of Origen some may depart this life in state of Salvation and be received in Heavenly bliss tho with some blemishes of smaller guilt not inconsistent with Gods amity but occasioning a decrease in their degree of Glory and therefore capable of a pardon of such blemishes or imperfections even in Heaven if so your Text mentioning a pardon of sins in the other life doth not evince the existence of Purgatory If you say that Origen has erred herein as I conceive you will then first think it not a scandal to say that some one or other of the ancient Fathers should err Secondly acknowledg therein a fault of your Church in making choice of the foresaid words of Origen for Gloss ordinary of the above-mentioned passage of Joshua with the Gibeonites and conclude from all that this subtilty which clearly solveth your strongest Argument for Purgatory out of the New Testament is no invention of mine but a doctrine of a very learned Father of the ancient Church approved and received by yours modern with so public a qualification as to take it for an ordinary Gloss upon the fore-mention'd passage of Scripture CHAP. XXVII The attemt of our Adversary to make the doctrine of Purgatory an Article of the Apostles Creed declared to be vain Mr. I. S. makes sure account he found Purgatory in the Apostles Creed where it is said He descended into Hell And what if you are told those words were not in the Apostles Creed from the beginning and that the first time and place they were used in it was in the Church of Aquilcia some four hundred years after Christ that they are not expressed in those Creeds which were made by the Councils as larger Interpretations of the Apostles Creed not in the Nicene or Constantinopolitan not in that of Ephesus or Chalcedon not in those confessions made at Sardica Antioch Seleucia Syrmium not in the Creed expounded by St. Austin de fide Symbolo And * Ruffin in Expositione Symboli Râ—ffinus saies that in his time it was neither in the Roman or Oriental Creeds Sciendum sanè est quod in Ecclesiae Romanae Symbolo non habetur additum descendit ad inferna sed neque in Orientis Ecclesiis habetur hic sermo It is certain saith he that the Article of the descent into Hell was not in the Roman or any of the Oriental Creeds It is not mentioned in several Confessions of Faith delivered by particular persons Not in that of Eusebius Caesariensis presented to the Council of Nice nor in that of Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra delivered to Pope Julius nor in that of Acatius Bishop of Caesarea delivered to the Senate of Seleucia nor in others mentioned by the learned Bishop of Chester Dr. Pearson in that his grave and judicious exposition of the Creed writing upon the fifth Article of it I am perswaded this will appear strange unto you and tho sufficient to weaken the force of your Argument grounded upon the foresaid words of the Creed my Answer will not rely upon it I allow the said words to belong to the Catholic Creed long time received in the Church and embraced by that of England But I deny your inference from those words of the Creed in favor of your doctrine of Purgatory to be pertinent He descended into Hell I believe he did But not into the Hell of the damned say you for all Christians abhor the Blasphemy of Calvin that saies Christs Soul suffered the pains of the damned What then therefore he descended into Purgatory I am sure the more learned and pious men of your Communion will abhor this consequence I never heard any of them say that descent of Christ should have bin to Purgatory First because under the notion of Hell they never understood Purgatory Secondly if you mean he should descend thither suffering the pains of that place it s no less blasphemous then that you call Blasphemy in Calvin for if we believe your Authors the pains of Purgatory are the same with those of Hell and inflicted by the same Ministers of divine Justice that punish the damned souls in hell If you say he descended thither triumphant and glorious without suffering the pains of that place to purposes of divine Providence not manifested to us you may say without any Blasphemy he descended the same manner into the Hell of the damned triumphant and victorious without prejudice to his glory and honor as the Divinity of Christ is there still without prejudice to his glory why may not his Soul be there for a short time with the same immunity and to the same purpose of triumphing over Hell and his Enemies And the words of the Creed being capable of this Exposition more literal and obvious what need is there of your new Invention of Purgatory unknown to Primitive Christianity for the right understanding of that Article of our Creed CHAP. XXVIII How weak is the foundation of the grand Engine of Indulgences in the Roman Church WHEN first I came to examin the grounds of the doctrine of Indulgence used in the Roman Church I confess I was astonished to see how little ground they could shew in the Fountains of divine Faith for this mystery of the Romish belief of so great noise and so much use among them I thought it a strong negative argument against such a dectrine not to be contained in the Word of God that two so great Champions of the Roman Church Cajetan and Suarez both emploied by public authority to defend this doctrine should not meet with any convincing testimony of it in divine Scripture as both do confess plainly Both do examine the two chief Testimonies alledged for this doctrine the first out of John 20.23 Whose soever sins you remitt they are remitted to them The second out of Matth. 18.18 Whatsoever you shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever you shall loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven And both do acknowledg them not to convince the doctrine of Indulgences as now practised in the Roman Church Cajetan tom
others with a contemt of the earth Soon after he saies I should have taught That there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church without telling where or when I did deliver such a doctâ—ine as indeed he could not do I professing every day my belief in the Catholic Church and protesting I do and will live and die in it If by Catholic Church he means only the Popish or Roman it s a foul abuse of terms especially speaking to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland or to any other of sense in a polemic discourse and even speaking of the Roman or Popish Church it is another great piece of untruth to say I should have taught that none may be saved in it as may appear by the second Chapter of this Treatise It s another wilful or rude mistake whereinto he falls very often that by Roman Church I should understand the Diocess of Rome of which I never took any notice or regard in my discourse which was of the Roman Church as opposiâ—e to the Reformed and so containing the whole congregation of men subject to the Pope of Rome and it is to me a wonder that this great pretender to skill in Controversies should not know before now that to be the meaning of the Roman Church in Controversies of this kind What shall I say of his pitiful spite and envy in his Preface to the Reader pretending to rob me of those titles my Emploiments gave me so public and known as appears in the Preface of of this Treatise without shame to be convinced of palpable untruths What of his rashness and rudeness in fixing for a Thesis or Title to the eighth Chapter of his Book That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it that they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets Of his prosane policy in accusing me of indiscretion in delivering what I knew to be truth touching the Salvation of Protestants when I was on the Romish side as mentioned in the fourteenth Chapter What of his blasphemous impiety in saying that no Text of Scripture tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it Nay further against the Gospel it self he pronounceth this horrible Blasphemy That not only we are unsure of the Infallibility of the Gospel but that we are assured it is not infallible And this hellish conception of his own he must father upon the Protestant Church saying it s the common doctrine of it that it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments the falsehood of which maliâ—ious imposture I have declared above in the 8th Chapter of this Treatise What of his boldness in challenging me and all Protestants to answer his ridiculous and silly Sophisms with undertakings that they shall never be answered as appears in the eighteenth Chapter touching Transubstantiation and in the twenty sixt touching Purgatory in denying that Scotus Ocham and other Schole-men should deâ—lare Transubstantiation not to be proved out of Scripture as above declared chap. 20. As a so in denying that Costerus should say it is the common opinion of Romish Divines that the Image of God and Christ is to be adored by the worship of Latria as above mentioned Ch. 23. What of his terrible Hallucination in matter of History touching Indulgences declared in Chapt. 29. appearing in every word ridiculously mistaken when he pretends to be most magisterial in correcting mistakes of his Adversary And carrying on constantly to the end this spirit of Untruth Hallucination and Impropriety of terms he concludes his Book with telling me I know in my conscience the Church of Rome is not guilty of the errors I attribute to her for cause of my separation from her How came you Sr to know the interior state of my conscience You tell me I know the Popes Supremacy in temporal affairs over Princes was no article of Faith but a Schole question That the Popes infallibility was but an opinion of some Divines As to the Popes Supremacy I have declared above c. 25. what little comfort is left to Princes by that distinction of the Popes Supremacy in spirituals from that of his power in temporals whereas he backs his spiritual power with a temporal to the ruin and deposing of all Princes and Emperors that resist him The only case of furious Hildebrand with the Emperor Henry the 3d as related by his own most friendly Historians even Baronius is apt to strike a horror into any human heart and a terror into Princes and people if the unspeakable arrogance of the Roman Court should not be bridled As for the Popes Infallibility I have declared above in the 3d Chapter how impertinent your distinction of Pope alone from Pope and his Council together is to escape the force of my Arguments in the present Controversy How falsly you say I should speak only of the Infallibility of the Pope alone my Arguments proving he is fallible still whether alone or in a Council depending upon him as that of Trent You tell me I left the Roman Church because I saw the Bible prohibited in it to the People and the Liturgy performed in an unknown Language But tho that is a great crime of the Roman Church as I have declared in the precedent Chapter it was not the only cause others several grievous I produced more immediatly touching my own concern and daily practise wherein I could not continue with quiet or safety of Conscience You tell me I forsook a Church honored with many Saints for the Protestant Church whereof there was never yet any Saint If this be true S. Peter and S. Paul and the rest of the Apostles were no Saints for I am certainly perswaded they were of the Church that I am of their Doctrine and their Faith and no other being taught in it But you speak with the vulgar of Protestants as condistinct from Roman Catholics Well and how come you to know that none of them was ever a Saint Were you in the hearts of all or did you sit in the Tribunal of God to know what degree of grace they had in his Soveraign inscrutable judgement What is rashness if this be not But you have titular Saints who have purchased that calling by public authority as Dukes Earls and Knights do purchase theirs of such we have none Then you speak of titular Saints not of real ones and upon this account you may not expect to win me from the Protestant Church to yours I hear of some Sectaries about us I know not where who style all of their Congregation Saints to this degree of Sanctity your Church did not aspire yet then if I am to remove to a Church of more titular Saints to these Sectaries I am to go not to you But you speak of Saints that come to Heaven and thither none may come but under the conduct of the Roman Pope he hath the keys of Heaven and none may go
different the condition of the Church of England is for Piety and learning from what his malice would make his blind Flock believe of it The next book of those published against me that came to my hand was one intitled the Bleeding Iphigenia by way of a Preface to another greater a preparing which soon after appeared under the Title of the Dolefull fall of Andrew Sall c. both written by a grave and ancient Prelate of my acquaintance in Spain who in both of them dolefully laments a supposed fall of mine from the Catholic faith into Heresy and enlarges in magnifying the virtues and learning of the prime Fathers and Doctors of the Church whose company he saies I have forsaken and cries against the errors and vices of many Heretics which he mentions drawing their pedegry down from Cain whose society he saies I have embraced and concludes conjuring me by all that is Holy and precious on earth and in Heaven that when the last visit of God comes upon me I may be found a true professor of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Faith The good will and Pious intention of this Prelate I truly love and honor and accordingly will endeavor to satisfy him in sober serious and sincere terms If it were so indeed as he supposes that I should have fallen from the Holy Catholic Apostolic Faith I should be the most unhappy and worthy to be lamented of all men but I am certainly perswaded I have rather fastened my self to it by the change I made I hope shall make it appear so to all unbiassed men in the progress of this book And to his request that I be found a true Professor of the holy Catholic Apostolic faith I promise him faithfully it shall be my constant and inflexible resolution to hold that faith to the end of my life wheresoever it be uncorruptly professed whether in Rome or Jerusalem or else where I know it is not tied to places And in truth and sincerity of my heart I say to God in the words of holy David which I have put for a Motto in the Frontispiece of this work One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the daies of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his Temple Psal 27.4 This desire appeared early in me having betaken my self in my younger years to that course of life which I conceived to be most expedient to come to God and dwell in his house by the strict practise of Piety and learning secluded from the world in a society of great reputation for both And in that course I did persevere whilst that apprehension lasted but having discovered errors therein opposit to the primitive Catholic and Apostolic faith leading to the house of God and finding by serious and due considerations the same true faith to be professed uncorruptly in the reformed Church of England I did constantly resolve to embrace it in prosecution of my foresaid professed design of dwelling in the house of God I mean in the true Catholic Apostolic Church And as no human force or industry could win me to this change without a strong interiour motion and full perswasion of being in the right so all arts and endeavours by terrors or allurements are vain to recal me this interior perswasion persisting which I find rather confirmed then weakened by all industry hitherto used to draw me from it as I hope will appear to the dispassioned reader by the sincerity of my discourses in this Treatise The fourth and last book of those published against me that came to my hands was one of J. S. bearing Title the unerring unerrable Church Whosoever the said J. S. be if we measure him by his conceit of himself his contemt of his adversaries his boast of his arguments for unanswerable and the brags of his Friends in his behalf for matchless certainly he is the Goliah of their Camp of Gigantic stature among them I was not a little joied to find a person of so great repute and trust engaged in answering my arguments If I find it easy to render void his answers and to confute his arguments then may I expect to be at full quiet in my perswasion and immoveable against all their oppositions whereof the prudent Reader will be judg after he hath viewed our incounter And whereas the main strength of this Combatant lies in his calumnies and impostures wherewith he besets thick the front or Preface of his Book I will in this place remove that engine To lessen the weight of my arguments with a great number of Readers who rely much upon the credit of the writer he will he saies strip me of those Titles which my public emploiments for many years have given me and with a kind of power never heard of before will make that I should not have bin what really I was to the knowledg of many thousands of men living Finding me stiled Professor of controversies in the Irish Colledg of Salamanca he saies resolutely that no Controversies were taught in that Colledg these forty yeares in which undertaking he has bin so unlucky that several persons of Honor in Ireland who have bin in Spain and do know the language of it saw an Instrument in Spanish yet extant in my keeping of the Inquisitor General of Spain giving me Licence for having and keeping prohibited Books upon the account of being professor of Controversies in the aforesaid Colledg after the Tenor following En la villa de Madrid a 15. de Junio 1652. c. En la villa de Madrid a quinze dias delmes de Junio de mily seiscientios y cinquenta y dos annos El Illustrissimo y Reverendissimo Sennor Obispo de Placentia Inquisidor General en los Reynos y Sennorios de su Magestad y de su consejo c. dio Licentia al P. Andres Salo de la campania de Jesus Rector del Collegio de Irlandezes de Salamanca y Lector en el de la catedra de Controversias contra Herejes paraque por tiempo de un anno que comience a correr y contarse desde 〈◊〉 dia de la fecha pueda tener y leer libros prohibides para el efecto de escrivir y impriâ—â—ir y dar ala estampa qual quier libro o tratado y le encargò que si hallare en algun libro antiguo o moderno alguna proposition censurable no comprehendida en el ex purgatorio compliendo con su obligacion lo advierta y de cuenta dello asu Sennoria Illustrissima o al consejo por lo que importa al servicio de dios nuestro Sennor De lo qual testifico yo eâ—â— infra escrito secretario de camara de su Sennoria Illustrissima El L do Pedro Lopez de Brinnas And at the bottom of the leaf on the left hand corner are written these words assentada a fol. 138
aggravated thereby as being a formal and willful impostor with certain knowledg of the untruth of what he saies he having bin a master of a Grammar School in one of those Colledges where I was Professor of Divinity and where he says Divinity was never taught and knowing certainly that I had all those emploiments which he denies I should have had for which cause several of the Romish Clergy and Laity in Ireland who know the same have detested the impudence of this man in denying a thing so publicly known I could not but imagin that some person capable himself of so desperate a folly as to take upon him fictitious titles should be author of this rude calumny for mens apprehensions of others are commonly a testimony of their own temper as is observed in the beginning of this Preface And if the said Jesuit be Author of that book and of the calumnies of it the observation now mentioned is fully verified in him for to my certain knowledg this man being sent away from Spain before he was ripe in learning to magnify his mission with privat friends gave himself a title so ridiculously and Chimerically fictitious that if I did mention it here it would bring upon him an incurable confusion not to wound him to deeply I forbear to unfold the matter further at present But I have declared it to a person of quality of his acquaintance with a message to him and his brethren that if they will not stand to the offer of their Superior above mentioned of union in Christianity and civill demeanor nor will accept of my invitation to a trial of our cause by a grave and Scholastic way becoming Christians and learned men but must force me out of it by calumnies and slanders they may possibly find that it is not want of materials that keeps me from throwing dirt in their face as others commonly do departing from them but want of inclination to such practises and when their * Vide Caramvel Theolog fundamentali fundamento 551. N. 1589. great Doctors teach them to raise false testimonies whereby to discredit their adversaries as this man does I hope they will allow me to repell with truth tho bitter the assaults of malicious enemies After the publication of these four Books now mentioned the last and great engin applied by my former brethren to recall me was a large and solemn Bull of Pope Clement the 10. now reigning in Rome signed and Sealed by his Protonotarius Apostolicus Claudius Agrete assuring me in terms of full Legality an intire and absolute Remission of all that is past and a favorable reception to my former condition and priviledges if I would return to them This Bull came into my hands by Dublin post in September last with a letter about it of few lines in Latin without subscription inticeing me to an acceptance of the favor offered and concluding with admonishing me of evil design'd against me if I did not consent to it of which designs against me I have had more notice given to me then I am willing to publish I thank God for delivering me hitherto and I pray that he may correct the ill affected minds that harbor such cruel thoughts To the offer made by that Bull of pardon and favour I answer that I want a more necessary indult from the true supreme Head of the Church our Saviour Jesus Christ for submitting to the present Laws and Commands of the Roman Church opposit as I do conceive to the Commandments of God the Doctrine of Christ and the practise of the primitive Apostolical Church as I hope to make appear in the following Treatise to the indifferent Reader by the help of God And finding the above mentioned I. S. more eager in challenging me to answer his Syllogisms and his party more confident of them I hastned my reply to him for the print but some delaies intervening which gave me way to have the second part which 〈◊〉 intended to be of my reply finished before this other could be printed I have resolved to leave his own place to Mr. I. S. which is the last and begin with my reply to N. N. declaring by occasion of his objections that the faith we profess in the Church of England is that and no other which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and was professed by the faithful in the first and better ages of Christianity that we have in this Church all those titles and rights which do qualify a Church for truly Catholic even according to the rules prescribed by the ablest writers of the Romish party whereby all those loud cries against us for Heretics and Scismaties appear to be no better then emty bubles and meer wind only apt to delude weak and ignorant people and thence I will proceed to declare how their ordinary stuffe of arguments against us is bottomed constanly upon false suppositions and misrepresentations of our Doctrin and practices which if well known to the sober and sincere sort of Roman Catholics they would be far otherwise affected then they are towards the Church of England by the false informations of ignorant or malicious instructors O may the Father of light and the God of truth open the eies of men blinded with earthly passons that they may see and follow the true way to everlasting happiness declared to us by his dear Son Jesus that his will and glory may be the common aime of all our wishes and writing and of all our actions that our Studies and endeavors be not to make the breach among Christians wider but to reconcile them in Christ that thus united in him we be at length happily united among our selves in the profession of true faith in our good Saviour Jesus to whom with the Father and Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen A TABLE of CHAPTERS Of the First PART CHAP. I. A Summary account of the Contents of N. N. his two Books and a Distribution of the points to be handled in relation to them pag. 1. CHAP. II. That the Church of England is a true Catholic Church and the Doctrine professed in it truly Catholic and Apostolic pag. 6. CHAP. III. Suarez his Argument taken from the propriety of the word Catholic applied to prove that the Church of England is truly Catholic pag. 14. CHAP. IV. The Church of England proved to be Apostolic upon the foundation laid by Suarez to rob it of that calling pag. 21. CHAA. V. Of the succession and Lawful Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in the reformed Church of England pag. 27. CHAP. VI. The Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons in King Edward the Sixth his time and after proved to be legal and valid pap 41. CHAP. VII How far the form of Ordination used in the Church of England agrees with that of the ancient Church declared in the fourth Council of Carthage and how much the form prescribed by the Roman Pontifical of this time differs from
in the Library of Dublin University where it is ordered that the Bishop consecrating together with the Bishops assisting to help him do place the Book over the neck and the shoulders of the Bishop consecrated without saying any word one of the Chaplains of the Bishop elect kneeling behind him and holding the Book until it be given to his hands and then the Bishop consecrating and the other Bishops assisting him do touch with both their hands the head of the Bishop elect saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum Receive the Holy Ghost And in supposition that the mode of placeing the Book is not essential to this Ordination certainly the form prescribed by the Church of England in this particular is very decent and apposite to the purpose of this action the Arch-Bishop or other Bishop consecrating delivering the Bible to the Bishop consecrated saying give heed unto reading exhortation and Doctrine with other wholesome admonitions touching his pastoral duty Now touching the essential parts of this ordination which do consist in the imposition of hands as matter and the benediction or words pronounced by the Bishop consecrating as form the Church of England is exact in observing the form prescrib'd by the foresaid Council of Carthage since it orders that all the Bishops present should lay their hands upon the Bishop elect and only the Arch-Bishop or Bishop consecrating should bless or pronounce the words of the form saying Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Châ—st Here the Roman Pontifical deviates from the foresaid form prescribed by the Council of Carthage ordering that both the Bishop consecrating and the Bishops assisting should pronounce the words of the form saying Accipe Spiritum Sanctum By this we see how exact the Church of England is in observing all the essential and necessary parts and ceremonies prescrib'd by that renowned Council of Carthage for the ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons As for other ceremonies not essential the Council of Trent it self declares that even in the administration of Sacraments whereof they will have Orders to be a part they may be altered by the Church as the condition of matters times and places may require Neither is this to be understood of the Church Universal congregated in a general Council only but also of each particular Church whence proceeded the great variety of Rites in things indifferent amongst the ancient and even modern Christians of several places and orders approved by that grave sentence of a Lib. 1. Epist 41. Gregory the Great in una fide nihil ossicit Sanctae Ecclesiae consuetudo diversa And as the Roman Church upon this account introduces new rites why may not that of England abolish others especially such as are found to be superstitious for which the b Distinct 63. Quia Canon law giveth this warrant Docemur exemplo Ezechiae frangentis serpontem aeneum quae in superstitionem vertuntur illa sine tarditate aliqua cum magna autoritate à posteris destrui posse We are taught by example of Hezechias that such things as turn to superstition may be without delay and with autority extirpated in after ages As a good husband cuts off not only rotten but superfluous branches that may suck away the sap from the main tree so any Church that is free and independent such as this of England is may cut off superstitious and superfluous rites and ceremonies which by their multiplicity may distract both the Ministers and Congregation and take their attention from the main object of their devotion And certainly who ever considers the vast number of ceremonies used now by the Roman Church and prescribed in their Pontifical will find it a task not easie for even a good capacity to comprehend and practice them all and very hard to think of elevating the mind withall to praier or meditation CHAP. VIII How far the Church of England do's agree with the Romish in matter of Ordination wherein they differ and how absur'd the pretention of Romanists is that our difference herein with them should annul our orders AS the Church of England did not think convenient to follow that of Rome in all their superfluous ceremonies especially such of them as are noxious and opposite to the sincerity of Christian discipline so it do's not grudg to go along and conform with them in what they retain of ancient integrity In many things we agree with them First that only Bishops are to give Orders Secondly that none be promoted to Orders without the title of a benefice or sufficient patrimony which is far more exactly observed in the English then in the Romish Church Thirdly that the persons to be Ordained be examined as to behaviour and ability Fourthly that certain times and daies are appointed for Ordination Fifthly that the persons to be ordained ought to appear in the Church Sixthly that they receive their Orders on their knees Seventhly that they receive the Communion All this is commonly observ'd in both Churches but more exactly and indispensibly in the English as to Orders in general Now as to particular Orders we agree in the following points as to Deacons First that the Arch-Deacon presents them to the Bishop Secondly that the Bishop enquires of the Arch-Deacon whether he knows them to be worthy of that Order Thirdly that the Bishop admonishes the Congregation that if any person has any thing to say against them he should declare it Fourthly that the Bishop instructs them in the duty they are to perform Fifthly that litanies are said and the Bishop exhorts the Congregation to pray for the Persons to be ordained that they may be fit Ministers in that sacred Order Sixthy that the Bishop gives them the Book of the Gospels and power to read them in the Church of God Seventhly that one of the Deacons newly ordained should read the Gospel Herein we agree But we differ from the Roman Church First where they add to the litanies the invocation of Saints and Angels Secondly where power is given to the Deacons to read the Gospels for the dead Thirdly that what is not expresly delivered by the Roman formulary is more clearly expressed by the English As for example the Order of Deacons in the former is given by these words Receive the Holy Ghost for power to resist the Devil and his temtations in the Name of the Lord which being too general and common to all Christians is made more proper and apposite to the function of Deacons by these other words used in the English ordinal Receive autority to exercise the work of a Deacon in the Church of God committed to thee in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Fourthly that we redâ—ce the tedious variety of vestments and ceremonies used in the Roman Church to
now in use the Pope chargeth every living in his gift with a pension more or less ordinarily it amounts to half of the whole value of the benefice if but a third part 't is held easy and favourable but sometimes it extends to two parts of the whole divided into three which don he provides by an other ordination that by present payment of five years profit the pension shall be exringuished Now when by this concourse and comparison of competitors they have found which of them is best able to buy it on him presently it 's conferr'd so not the worthiest but the wealthiest carries it and thus are all the Popes livings bestow'd at Rome Now he that comes thus to a benefice by paying down five years pension before hand buyes it full dear for he paies for it at the rate of 30. in the 100. over and besides his personal service For the clearing of this point Suppose a benefice worth 300 Crowns a year this is sure to be charged being so great a Living with a pension of the largest size namely some 200 that so one 100 may be left to the Incumbent he then that comes to it in this manner pays down a 1000 Crowns for the pension and an 100 more for writing and seal of his Bulls and for expedition and so all laid together he buys his living of 300 at the rate of 30. for the hundred besides his personal service and cure of Souls Moreover whereas in the Council of Trent certain Simoniacal tricks and devices called regressus expectatives are flatly forbidden the Pope to delude the Councils decree grants coadjutorships with assurance of future succession after his Death to whom he is made coadjutor but makes them pay one years profit for the expediting and dispatch of their Bulls Now these coadjutorships are the very same and tend to the very same end even to bring in by hook and crook sums of mony for by these pensions and buying out of pensions this Pope has scraped up twenty hundred thousand Scutes all which he has bestowed in buying lands for his Nephew He bought of Sarelly a goodly large territory called Rignanum near unto Rome at the price of 353000 Scutes The City of Sulmona in the Kingdom of Naples he bought of the King of Spain and gave for the same the summ of 150000 Scutes He purchased those goodly demains called the four Casalia within the territories of the City of Rome which cost no less then 700000 Scutes In the mountanous Countries belonging to the City which are commonly at six in the hundred he made a purchase that stood him in 400000 Scutes He has built a palace and called it after his own name the palace of Burghesius upon the Fabric whereof he has bestowed 300000. He has so enriched the Cardinal Burghesius his Nephew in private Stock and wealth that his very moveables are esteemed worth 600000 Scutes Good God what a mighty wealth is here and I appeal to any that knows the Court of Rome if this could be got together by any means into the Popes own Coffers and private purse but only out of that office of the benefices called the Datary Therefore this one demonstration is presumtion sufficient enough to prove his foul and detestable Simony seeing it is certain that the whole name and bloud of the Burghesies were but of a mean estate nay many of them are known to have run out of their livings and to be little better then bankrupt when this man got the Popedom Hitherto the words of the foresaid Author who promised to justify all that he had said to be true out of the Authentical Books Records and writings extant in Rome and that out of the Register of the Popes Bulls it shall appear to whom each benefice has been given and with what pension they were charged Of all which the Spanish Nation can give a large testimony for many of them dealing in businesses of benefices at Rome have transacted them in this manner The conclusion of all before said is that if Simoniacal contracts do annul the election of a Pope and the same crime committed after his election depriveth him of all right to that place and calling if all Cardinals made by such unlawful and criminal Popes were no Cardinals and Popes made by unlawful Cardinals are no Popes as is established by the Laws and Canons forementioned if all those nullities of Simonies frauds and cheats have intervened in the election of Sixtus and following Popes as hitherto recorded and no care has bin taken of repairing those nullities as is manifest but rather the like practices continued to this day as is well known to those that are acquainted with that Court all this being so it followeth as a forceable consequence that there is not in the See of Rome any true Pope nor has bin since Gregory the thirteen How strange will all the precedent narrative appear to many poor Irish and English Roman Catholics who are not permitted to know more then their beads and some small prayer Book with the litanies of the conception of Saint Joseph Sancta Theresa c. and a list of great indulgences for very small devotions But such as know by sight or faithfull relation the intrigues of Rome whereof my good friend N. N. who gave me the occasion of this discourse is one will easily perceive that all which is said is very suitable to the language and practice of that Court. Now therefore let the poor Souls consider by these particulars what mettal that Roman holiness is which they so blindly adore And let their bold and presumtuous instructors forbear to censure the Ordinations of the Church of England in which no such dirty practices did ever intervene when their prime See is defaced and disgraced with such public and peremtory exceptions against the usurpers of it and let them cease boasting as they do of a wicked practice reordaining such as were ordained in the Church of England if they chance to pass to their communion whereas it is not less sacrilegious and unlawful to reordain persons already lawfully ordained then to rebaptize such as were lawfully baptized according to Gregory the great his declaration * Lib. 2. Epist 32. end 10. Cap. 58. Sicut baptizatus semel iterum baptizari non debet ita qui consecratus est semel in eodem iterum ordine consecrari non debet As those who were baptized before ought not to be rebaptized again so he that was once consecrated ought not to be consecrated again in the same order The same was decreed in the Council of Carthage ch 38. and before in the Council of Capua as related by the said Council of Carthage and by Baronius in the year 139. To transgress the decrees of these grave and anâ—ient Councils is the boast of Romanists when they brag of not admitting Priests ordained in the Church of England to the function of Priesthood with them if they be
say that this severe sentence is not of their making but delivered by Christ against all that will not obey his Vicar upon Earth the Pope of Rome And possible it is that some of the simpler sort may believe it is so But it s long since I knew and proved that none sufficiently conversant in the principles of their own Theology could seriously think it to be so but that according to their principles its blasphemy and Heresy to say without restriction and in general terms as commonly they do that none may be saved out of the communion of the Roman Church And my Antagonist I.S. tells us I did not trespass therein against truth of Doctrine but against policy or prudence as he calls it whereby I put a great stop to the conversion of Protestants if People did think that out of the Romish Communion any may be saved So as the prudence demanded from me was to fashion my Doctrine to the increase of the Popes Dominion be it with truth or untruth and pronounce sentence of damnation against all Christians not subject to him tho I should know no such sentence to be against them in the judgment of God I wish my good Brethren of the Roman Church did reflect upon and acknowledg the great injury they do to themselves in breeding and fomenting this unchristian hostility with the whole Society of Christians separated from their communion so numerous and illustrious as we have seen in the preceeding Chapters imprinting hatred towards all in the hearts of their Children which forceably must beget a return of hatred or disaffection and mistrust How incommodious it s to create to themselves so many Enemies how uneasie and disadvantagious to bereave themselves of the free and amiable society of so many noble Nations and brave People which the apprehension of Heresy makes intractable to them What happened to me with a Spanish young Man that came in my company out of Spain into England makes me more sensible of the misery that Romanists bring upon themselves this way He was of his own disposition chearfull and sociable but as soon as he came among the English People his heart and countenance fell down and he appeared sad and melancholic I inquiring of him the cause of that alteration he answered that he looked upon all those men as Heretics which made their very sight odious to him and their company displeasing The man did not well know what Heresy was and much less did he know whether those Men he saw were Heretics or no. He acknowledged them to be good men just and civil in their dealing and adorned with noble gifts of God yet the prejudice he was in against them by conceiving them to be Heretics made their sight and company odious to him Would not this Man have been more happy in conceiving a better opinion of the People would it not make him live with more ease and comfort among them not to mention now that higher Emolument and duty of maintaining charity towards all Men. CHAP. XVI Inferences from the preceeding Doctrine of this whole treatise against the several objections of N. N. HE that hath not considered the frame I proposed to observe in this treatise and seeth me go through many Chapters of it debating with Suarez and other Romish writers without any mention of N. N. may think I have neglected or forgotten him and his Book But if he will take notice of my purpose made in the beginning of cutting down by the root the whole Fabric of the said Book he shall find I am still upon my intended work The ground and foundation of all the cries and complaint of N. N. against me is a supposition that I have left the Catholic Church and Faith by withdrawing from the communion of the Roman Church and embracing this of England In the whole discourse of this Treatise I have proved that the Church of England is in all propriety Catholic and the Faith professed in it truly Catholic and Apostolic and all this by rules and principles taken from the ablest of Romish Writers for proceeding in this inquiry whereby it remains proved that all the exclamations of N. N. against me went upon a false supposition and consequently are vain and groundless Hence I infer first how vain is his query and more vain his divining answer about what drew me out of Gods house It appears by what is said hitherto and will be further declared in the rest of this Book that in my change I did not leave the house of God but removed to the best and soundest part of it that no private spirit or rash fancy moved me but a sincere acknowledgment of truth by the ordinary means God has disposed for us to come by it I infer secondly how groundless and unreasonable his pretention is that I should have quitted the holy Doctors Gregory Ambrose Augustine and Jerom and all the ancient Fathers and Catholic Doctors He do's not tell how or wherein I have deserted that noble company neither indeed were it easy for him to tell it I live and do firmly resolve to dy in the same Catholic Church which they lived and died in and in the profession of the same Catholic and Apostolic Faith which they professed The same and no other Faith is professed in the Church of England whose communion I have embraced as hath bin sufficiently demonstrated hitherto and I hope by the merits and grace of our Saviour Jesus to enjoy the company of those blessed Saints in Heaven maugreall the censures of Rome Neither was I ever closer with those Holy Fathers in the Romish Church then I am now in the English It is one of the perverse calumnies of our adversaries to give forth that there is not due regard had of them here I see the contrary I have observed diligently the waies of the Universities and method of Study with Learned men in England and Ireland and I see with them far greater application to the study and reading of holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church then ever I saw amongst Romanists Whilst the most learned of these spend their life and forces in speculative notions only serving Schole debates learned Protestants employ their time more happily in the study of the Holy Scriptures of Fathers and credible Histories I infer thirdly how rash and injurious is his censure in saying that by embracing the confession contained in the 39. Articles of the Church of England I have made my self partaker of all the Heresies and an associate of all the Heretics that were from the beginning of the World to this day Of these he makes a great list beginning with Lucifer whom he will have to be the first Heretic before Mans Creation and from him proceeds to Lamech the Gyants all those that entred not into the Ark but perished in the deluge who were all Heretics saies he Then enters Cham with the builders of Babels Esau Jannes and Jambres Corah and Dathan Nadah and
Abihu all those strange Kings that made war against the Children of Israel all the false Prophets of Baal Of all these Heretics he saies I am become an associate by embracing the confession contained in the 39 Articles of the Church of England But is not all this rage without any mixture of reason Is it not a sufficient confutation of the Man and a foul confusion to him to repete this raving speech of his In what part of the 39 Articles or of the three Creeds we use in the Church of England will he find those Heresies he appropriats to us But he will come nearer home and make a long narrative of errors and vices related of Luther Calvin Melanchton and others who contributed with their writings to the reformation of the Church To which I say first that I have but too much reason not to believe all that they say of their opposers Secondly that tho some of those who concurred to the Reformation should have fallen as men into some vices or errors the Reformation it self which certainly was a work of God ought not to be undervalued for that The sacred Colledg of the Apostles first founders of the Christian Church had in it one as bad as Judas shall the whole Colledg of the Apostles and the Religion founded by them be disesteemed for that Several of those renowned Fathers preachers and defenders of the Gospel after the Apostles in the primitive Church as Origen Tertullian c. through human frailty were guilty of no few errors shall we therefore despise the work they did and the healthful part of their Doctrine If you did tell me of some Doctrine imposed upon us as an article of belief and rule of manners that were Heretical or opposit to the law of God that were pertinent to work upon me but this I am certain you will never be able to do and no less certain am I that your Church is guilty of such impositions upon its followers as I shall demonstrate by several instances in the second part of this treatise But to tell me of vices and errors of particular persons is both impertinent and imprudent I knowing so much how matters go on your side I appeal to your own knowledg by what you have seen and heard of of the Court of Rome And if you will conceal your knowledg herein I remit your self and the Reader not to Protestant Historians which happily you may suspect but to your own most qualified as Platina Onuphrius and even Baronius Read in them the acts and lives of several of those your holy Fathers and infallible oracles of Doctrine the Popes of Rome see the transactions of John the thirteenth about the year 966 or of Sylvester the secound about the year 999. or John the 18. about the year 1003. or Benedict the 9. about the year 1033. or of Gregory the 7. about the year 1080. or Boniface the 8. about the year 1294. or Alexander the 6. and of his outragious Son Caesar Borgia about the year 1294. and you shall find them to be such men as no Epicurean monster storied out to the World has outgon them in sensuality cruelty tyranny and all manner of vices And while I have in my memory and before mine eies unfeigned Histories of this kind spare heaping fables against some particular persons concurring to the reformation But who will not admire the mans disingenuity in reproaching me and the Church of England with the Tenets or madness of the Quakers which he relates at the end of the 16 chapter of his Book knowing and confessing in the same place that they are reproved and punished by this Church and that the author of them James Naylour was condemned to a perpetual imprisonment after being whipt publicly and his tongue bored with a burning iron May not I with the same reason reproach him and his Church with the horrid impieties of the Jews Moors and Atheists as thick set in Spain and Italy as Quakers among us But were that fair dealing I knowing that such Sects are not approved of but rather punished in those Countries Why then for shame will N. N. tell me I am become of the society of Quakers by adhearing to the Church of England he telling at the same time how severely they are punished amongst us And if I were of his temper for pleasuring vulgar readers with stories and rarities of this kind I could with more ground of truth and therefore more sensibly return upon him a large sum of practices which to indifferent judgments would appear no better then madness yet daily used by persons and societies approved and applauded in his Church But I reserve my time and labour for a more serious and becoming work in the mean time I remit him to Sir Edwin Sandys his Book containing a Survey of the Western Church where he shall see set down with candor and ingenuity becoming a Gentleman and a Christian the rites and customs he saw practised in several societies of the Roman Church He do's not grudg to praise them where he finds them praise worthy neither do's he soure his pen in relating their faults If you will be ingenuous you will confess he saies nothing but what you know your self to be in practise and if long custom and passion got by it has not blinded your judgment you shall perceive many of those practices to be as unreasonable and mad as any of those you relate of the Quakers And if you will have a more exact and vigorous discussion of this point go to Dr. Stilling fleet his Book where he speaks of the fanaticism practiced in the Church of Rome and you shall find in it confusion enough and reason to spare objecting to us the follies of Quakers And whereas you pretend to fright me with representing to me errors of particular persons of the Protestant Church if I would resolve to make a return to you of that kind I could make my Book swell and the Readers heart tremble by relating the Heresies Blasphemies and execrable Doctrines which I have heard preached and saw printed by persons of your Church I will only relate to you for example some few propositions of Books that came to my own hands the one was of a grave preacher who prepared for the print a large volume of Commentaries upon the Gospel of St. Mark This book was sent by the Provincial of his order to be examined by me and having read it with attention I voted against the printing of it for several faults I specified in my censure but especially for containing some desperat blasphemous propositions as this following touching St. John Evangelist Joannis Excellentia titulo dilecti maxima est major est quam Redemtoris etiam in deo Tanta est quanta esse Deum trinum unum imo propter hoc verbum caro factum est For the understanding of which mad piece of Rhetoric it is to be considered that there are two Sects of Nuns the
Doctrine of Purgatory Indulgences veneration and adoration as well of Images as of reliques as also of the invocation of Saints is absurd and vainly invented nor is grounded upon any authority of Scripture but is rather repugnant to the word of God Upon which Article N. N. delivers this heavy censure that it is false profane and Heretical But in the whole discourse of the second part of this Treatise I will demonstrate God willing that it is rather true Religious and Catholic as also I do intend by the help of God to vindicate the rest of those Articles in a separat Treatise from the cavils of Alexander White and other Romanists whereby N. N. will find how much he is mistaken in taking the said Alexander White 's Book against the thirty nine Articles for unanswerable as certainly he is far mistaken in saying resolutely tho without having any ground for it that the aforesaid White hath bestowed more time and deliberation in quitting those Articles then I have don in deserting the communion of the Roman Church Seven years he saies Mr. White spent in deliberating upon his resolution but certainly I have spent many more years in deliberating upon mine How many they were as it is not easie to demonstrate so it is not material to tell men may deliberate long and err at last in their resolution To my reasons alledged for that resolution which I took I appeal and do willingly expose them to public view and examination that others as well as I may judg of the weight of them Very foul and slanderous also has bin the mistake of our adversary in saying that the Authors of our 39. Articles were only some few obscare men Priests and Friers run out of Germany and that by them the Church and Kingdom of England was governed in the Reformation of their Religion How false their report is may appear by the public Records and Histories of the Land and by several Acts of Parliament passed with great deliberation of all the States of the Kingdom upon the settlement of the Reformation and of those Articles as well in that great Synod or Convocation celebrated under Edward the sixth in the year 1552. above mentioned as also an other no less famous Synod held at London ten years after viz. 1562. wherein the said Articles were reviewed examined and confirmed I have seen among Seldens Books kept in the Bodleian Library of Oxford an Authentic COpy of these Articles printed at London in the year 1563 and a scroul of parchment annexed to it with the subscriptions by their proper hands of the members of the lower house of Convocation being all Deans Arch Deacons and procurators of Clergy which I found to be in number 104 besides the Arch-Bishops and Bishops sitting in the upper house whose names came not in my way to see but I am to suppose they were all the Prelates of the Land as they used to meet in Convocation And is this to shuffle up a Reformation and make Articles in clandest in manner without due examination as our Adversary would make his Reader believe CHAP. XVIII A view of N. N. his discourse upon Transubstantiation and upon the affinity of the Roman Church with the Grecian THo N. N. had declared his purpose in the beginning to deal with me not Scholastically but Historically yet it seems he would not part with me without disputing upon the point of Transubstantiation He alledges testimonies and Fathers and miracles in favour of it and pretends it to have bin a Doctrine of more ancient standing then the Lateran Council To all which I have given a full answer in what I have delivered by my discourse formerly printed and in what will follow in the second part of this Treatise from the 18. Chapter forward Only I will reflect here upon two or three very gross mistakes of N. N. in his present discourse with me upon the point The first is touching my belief of this great mystery He saies resolutely without giving any ground for his saying as indeed he could have none for it that I do not believe Christ to be really present at all in this Sacrament why then saies he should he dispute with us about the Doctrine of Transubstantiation seeing he flatly denies the body and blood of Christ to be really and substantially present in the Sacrament But good Sir where have you seen this flat denial of mine certainly not in my declaration which seems to be the object of your quarrel not in the 39. Articles not in any public Catechism or system of Doctrine generally received by the Church of England nay the Catechism approved by autority and commended to the use of all being inserted into the Common Praier Book delivers the Doctrine quite opposite For to the question proposed touching the inward or invisible part of this Sacrament this answer is returned The Body and blood of Christ which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lords Supper And is this to deny flatly that the Body and blood of Christ is really present in the Sacrament as you impute to us When a Jesuite in Germany broached the like calumny in a conserence had with some of the English nobility waiting upon our King in that Country in presence of his Majesty and of a Prince Elector in that Empire both his Majesty and the Noble-Men took offence at his Speech as being a foul Calumny and therefore desired the Reverend and Learned Doctor Cosin Bishop of Durham to vindicate the Church of England from that a spersion as he did abundantly in a very learned Tract published under the title of Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis Wherein he proves by the Articles public Catechisms and by the testimonies of several * Vide Jacobum Armac in resp ad Malon Mont. Norw in Antidiatribis Laud. Cantua in resp ad Fish Hooker Polit. Eccles l. s Joh. Roffens de potest Pap. in prae fat stat Prime Elis. c. 1. 8. Elis. c. 12 13. Elis. c. 1. grave and learned Prelates that all true Protestants especially those of the Church of England do constantly believe and profess that Christ our Saviour is really and substantially present in the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and his Body and blood really and substantially received in it by the faithful and accordingly he alledges the learned Bilson B. of Wincl ester declaring the belief and Doctrine of the Church of England touching this point in the words following Eucharistiam non solum figuram esse Corporis Domini sed etiam ipsam veritatem naturam atque sul stantiam in se comprehendere ' That the Eucharist is not only a figure or representation of the Body of our Saviour but that it comprehends also the very truth and nature and substance of his body The very same Doctrine is contained in the 28. Article of the 39. above mentioned in these words The Body of Christ is given or taken and eaten in the
Supper only after an Heavenly and spiritual manner Here you have a real giving eating and taking and consequently a reall presence of the Body of Christ confessed by our Church as well as by yours Our difference is only touching the mode of his presence We say that mode or manner to be spiritual you pretend that it is corporal with what consequence or coherence with the rules of common reason you will never be able to declare nor how to avoid contradiction in saying that his flesh and blood is present in the Sacrament after a corporal manner and with all that none of our corporal senses is able to give testimony of such a presence Neither will you find it an easier task to declare unto us what may be the object of your adoration given to the consecrated bread If you say it is the person of our Saviour God and Man really present we adore and reverence the same as well as you If you pretend that your adoration doth extend to more that must be only the accidents of the Bread and Wine appearing to the senses which accidents being in your own confession meer creatures to give unto them the worship of Latria cannot with any colour of reason be excused from a formal Idolaâ—ry The second very gross error I find in the discourse of N. N. upon this subject is that finding me complain of the Roman Church for forcing upon Christians a belief of Monstrous miracles in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation he cries against me in Tragical terms as if I had reviled Gods wonders calling miracles monstrous and appeals to the Catholic Reader for a severe sentence against me in these words Numquid haec est atrox humuncionis insultantis Christo Ecclesiae rabies pag. 126. And I appeal to any Reader of sense whether I may not on good ground return on him this other quere Annon hic est hominis frigide id est non opportune excandescentis inconditus clamor p. 136. Is not this cry a fit of zeal unseasonably burniâ—g To call those miracles they pretend to intervene in the consecrated bread Monstrous he takes it for a contempt of Gods wonders in general So if I say a Man born with 2 Heads and 3 Eies is a Monstrous Man that must be taken for an affront put upon all humane kind Sir I reverence Gods wonders and those many miracles wrought by his powerful hand and I bless his holy name for all But those miracles you would have us believe to happen in the consecration of the Eucharist as that the substance of the bread vanishes a way and the accidents of it remain without any substance to rest upon c. these I deny to be true miracles or works of God but a product of your erring imagination and if you will persist in calling them miracles certainly they must appear monstrous ones For the proof whereof you give your self a very considerable help by a definition or description of a miracle which you produce out of Aquinas how much to your purpost is not easie to find but very clearly it serves for my present purpose of making your pretended miracles in the Eucharist appear most properly monstrous You tell us that Aquinas saies * 1. P. quaes 105. A. 7. quod nomen miraculi ab admiratione sumitur Admiratio autem consurgit cum effectus sunt manifesti à causa occulta That the word miracle comes from admiration and this admiration doth arise when the effect appears and the cause is hidden Here we have the common and ordinary nature of a miracle described that a wonderful effect should appear tho the cause should be hidden Now it rests to know what is the proper notion of a Monster Philosophers do give us this definition of it out of Aristotle monstrum est effectus à recta solita secundum speciem dispositione degenerans A Monster is an effect degenerating from the right and common disposition of things of that kind So that a Man born with two Heads is called monstrous because he degenerats from the right and common disposition of other men The Colledg of * Conimb in Arist. 2. Phy. c. 9. q. 5. Ar. 1. Coimbra declares this to be Vulgata Monstri desinitio the vulgar or commonly received definition of a Monster Now then if the common and ordinary nature of a miracle is as you tell us out of Aquinas that the miraculous effect should be manifest and apparent tho the cause were hidden then a miracle degenerating from this common course and nature of miracles so as the effect pretended to be miraculous should not be manifest or known to any must be according to these rules a monstrous Miracle deviating and degenerating from the common course of true Miracles Of this kind are your imaginary Miracles of the Eucharist that the bread and wine should be substantially converted into the flesh and blood of our Saviour corporally present If this were so indeed and therefore a real and true Miracle this miraculous effect would appear to the senses of men as that true and miraculous conversion of the Water into Wine at the wedding in Cana of Calilee did appear to the senses of the Men present there and thereby appeared to be a true Miracle and more fit to breed a belief in the beholders which is the ordinary aim of Divine providence in working Miracles and which certainly Christ would not have obtained of the persons then present if he had only told them that the water remaining with the same color tast and smell which it had before was really converted into Wine without letting any of their senses bear testimony of such a conversion Of this latter kind are your imaginary Miracles which being of your own making I may without offence to God or prejudice to his true Miracles call them Monstrous as degenerating from the common course of true Miracles The third mistake that I am to put N. N. in mind of at present is concerning his pretention to affinity with the Greek and Ruthenian Church in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation and of other points controverted with our reformed Churches for which he pleases himself in telling us of a favourable relation to his purpose given by a Muskovite Priest to a French Prelate that feasted him But that he may see how wide is his mistake herein and how far the Grecians and Ruthenians are from joining issue with the Roman Church against us I remit him to what I have related above upon more solid and authorized grounds in the 13. Chapter of this Treatise Neither indeed can I see upon what ground you can pretend to union with the Greek Church in their tenets if it be not that several of your greatest Scholemen such as are a Lomb. 1. Sent. d. 11. Sane sciendum est quod licet in praesentiarticulo a nobis Graeci verbo discordent tamen sensu non differunt Lombard b Bona. in 1. sent d. 11. A. 1.
judg of those quarrels I only attend the pernicious Doctrines I see assumed to maintain the interest of one side with intention to rebuke the same as universally false and destructive to the public peace and quiet Neither in truth can I understand which of both parties may fear more prejudice from the Doctrine I am reprehending I see complaints and jealousies upon both sides which of both hath more reason for it as I am not apt to determine so I do conceive that N. N. as also any other may be uncertain to which of the parties he do's prepare ruine by allowing subjects upon suspicion of danger from their fellow subjects to go to war with them without the consent of their Prince If both do complain and fear why may not either party as well as the other fall upon his fellow subjects when opportunity will assist him in conformity with that Doctrine Truly I cannot but wonder how any one living under a Prince or state that hath several Kingdoms Provinces or Societies to govern should dare to publish so pernicious a Doctrine as this I am reprehending If those of Navar and Arragon of Sicily and Sardinia of Brabant and Flanders should renew old quarrels or stir up new ones and run to war about them without the consent of their common Prince how long would the King of Spain be able to keep peace in his Dominions If his Ministers did take notice of this Doctrine and the consequences of it certainly they would have all Books containing it banished out of their territories But all this is sanctified with N. N. by telling us that the war was for Religion and since the law of God and nature do permit a Man to kill an other that pretends to take away his life with the same or more reason he may kill one that means to take away his Religion which ought to be more precious and dear to him then his life Good God whether has the perverseness of men arrived to canonize Murders and the most barbarous cruelties with the sacred name of Religion This language came not from Heaven Christ nor any of his Apostles did never teach it the Church instructed by them did not practise it Lactantius sets before us the maxims and practise of Christians in those times by these noble words Defendenda Religio est non occidendo sed moriendo non saevitia sed patientia non scelere sed fide Religion is to be defended not by killing but by dying for it not by cruelty but by patience not by mischief but by Faith Thus St. Peter and St. Paul and the rest of the Apostles thus did the brave Theban Legion defend their Religion tho able to defend it with Sword as is testified by Tertullian if the Spirit and Doctrine of Christ then steering the Church had permitted it A particular person to defend his life say you may kill by way of prevention an unjust aggressor that pretends to take it from him to this purpose you quote Divines and Civilians and from thence you infer two consequences the first that likewise a community or society may war against and destroy another society from whom it fears the like destruction the second consequence is that a private person or a Society may also by way of prevention set upon and kill another whom he suspects doth intend to take his religion from him You abuse foully the Doctrine above mentioned of Divines and Civilians by misapplying it both your consequences do not only contain a perverse Doctrine against right Divinity and Christian discipline as now declared but also do trespass against the rules of Logic. The former because it is not so easie to surprise a whole society largely dispersed as it is to surprise one particular person Evidences requisit to qualify a prudent fear such as may justify a preventing onset may not so easily be found against a society the threatning words or purpose of one particular or more in a society giveth not so much assurance of the purpose or intention of the whole society as the words of a particular may give of his intention Besides the killing of one particular is not so criminal and hainous nor so much exposed to an oppression of innocents as the killing and destroying of a whole society is therefore it s no lawful consequence a particular person may killby way of prevention another that he fear will kill him ergo a society or great party may likewise by way of prevention destroy another from whom it fears the like destruction Your second consequence above mentioned that if one to defend his life may kill an other that pretends to take it from him he may likewise kill him or them that intend to take his Religion from him this consequence also I say besides the perverse Doctrine it contains is a faulty piece of Logic it is not so easy to take his Religion from a man as his corporal life Your Religion may not be taken from you by a surprise or when you are a sleep or against your will as your corporal life may be Wherefore the same prevention cannot be necessary or lawful for the preservation of both Any that hath true Religion in him due love to God and a sincere and serious desire of his own happiness must take the loss of his corporal life for his Religion to be the greatest gain he can make it being the greatest security he can have of gaining life and glory everlasting for his Soul and body as our Saviour hath declared And is it not a desirable exchange to leave a painful short and wretched life for a glorious blessed and everlasting one Much he hath in him of Earth and little of Christian Spirit who would not wish to be dissolved if he were sure to be after his dissolution with Christ The only reason that can justifie a fear to dy and part with this miserable life is the uncertainty of what may be our doom in the other and the hopes of securing a good one by further living but when a security is given to pass by death to a life everlasting as Christ gives to such as die for God and his holy Faith what Christian consideration can justifie a fear to such a death so far as to kill those that intend to bring us to it Truly N. N. I have so much of kindness and true friendship left in me for you as made me sorry and not a little troubled to see such pernicious Doctrines as these contain'd in your book I took you for a Man better principled and if I had perceived any such errors in your conversation at the time of our acquaintance in Spain I would have refuted them and shewed my dislike to them as freely as I do now I am willing to imagine that non ex tuo haec dicis that it is not your own deliberate sentiment but imposed upon you by some of those fiery emissaries of Rome who will not stick to
go through streams of blood to extend the Popes power and their own earthly advantages with it under the color of Catholic Faith But by what is said hitherto and will be further confirmed in the discourse following it will easily appear to the unbyassed Reader that it is no want of true Catholic Faith in the Church of England nor any true zeal for it in the Roman Court makes them disturb thus the peace of these Kingdoms obstinately endeavouring the ruine of them And if the Irish be not quite given over to the Spirit of delusion they will look upon all bloody suggestions of this kind as proceeding from him that was the first author of rebellion in Heaven and upon earth and a Murderer from the beginning a Joh. 8.44 and they will accordingly reject and detest them not only for b Rom. 13.5 conscience which ought to be the principal motive but also for wrath remembring the sad effects of Gods wrath against them in each one of their several rebellions whether for Religion or for any other cause CHAP. XXI A Conclusion of my Discourse with N. N. with a friendly Admonition to him SR if the severe Decree of your Church prohibiting to the common sort the reading of Controversial writings doth not comprehend you also I hope you will bestow an attentive reading upon this Book for our old friendships sake but more for the love of Truth and if you have not made a firm inflexible resolution of not yielding to any evidences be they never so clear that may justify the way I took or discover the errors of that which you are in I may expect that by reading this Treatise you shall find that I am not in that deplorable condition by my change which you seem to imagin That by it I have not forsaken the whole house of God as you say but removed to the soundest and safest part of it that I have not deserted the Society of the holy Fathers of the Church nor am become an associat of Heretics having come to a Church where I find as much veneration and study of those Fathers and as much aversion to the Heresies you mention as ever I saw among you And if you read further the second Part now to follow of this same Book you shall find that I did not forsake the Communion of the Roman Church without grave and urgent reasons forcing me to it Those reasons I have laid open in my first Sermon preached at Dublin and printed great labor and study hath bin emploied in answering them yet if you bring indifference with you to read my reply to that answer you shall find that my reasons alledged do still remain in their force and that the errors I refuted are further discovered and cleared by occasion of the defence made of them But if you resolve either not to read my Book or bring to the reading of it a firm purpose of not yielding to any reason that may oppose those sentiments you are prepossest with then my labor is lost as to you but I hope not so as to others more rationally disposed The word of God is a grain of seed and brings forth its fruit in time differently according to the different disposition of the subjects it meets with but especially I hope that my endeavors will avail me with God in whose presence I write with sincerity what I understand to be conformable to his holy Word Will and with a constant desire in all these scrutinies to satisfy my own conscience principally of the righteousness of the way I took and to help others also to the knowledg of the same truth When St. Paul was brought before King Agrippa and the Governor of Judaea Porcius Festus to give account of himself and his Religion he gave it so full that Agrippa said almost thou perswadest me to be a Christian To which the great Apostle replied I would to God that not only thou but all that hear me were such as I am except these bonds Act. XXVI 29. If you read with indifferency and attention the account I give of my resolution and of the Religion I embraced I am perswaded whatsoever your outward expression may be it will work upon your mind a motion like that of Agrippa And if you ask whether I would have you do what I did in this point I say freely as St. Paul did say to Agrippa that I would to God that both you and your brethren did take the like resolution but that it may be with less difficulty and reluctancy then I had and with less crosses and dangers for doing it You tell me I am old and I have many reasons to believe it by my long continued infirmity of body but I remember the time when you called me a young man and your self an old man then I being now old you must be very old and therefore both of us ought to measure our resolutions and doctrine with the rules of Religion and the interest of Eternity rather then with those of earthly policy and temporal Advantages in which we can have but a little share and a short enjoyment How then come you to speak to me of the loss of Friends and of infamy got by my change If it hath bin for the best in the presence of God and I am certainly perswaded it was I have got by it the grace and favor of God and given joy to his Angels and this applause is to be preferred before that of the earthly friends you speak of I am much afraid that the fear of temporal shame and dammages is too strong with you and many others of your party to keep you from following truth and from searching after it with due care I found it to be so in my self I confess my weakness herein with sorrow humbly craving pardon of God for it The fear of shame and loss among men more then any superior consideration made me struggle along time against the inward callings of God from my former errors and to use all means possible to silence the cries of conscience but the more I laboured and studied to allay them the more force they got and when I saw clearly by a strict inquiry that they were indeed from God I yielded to them notwithstanding my natural reluctancies and the heap of shames crosses and dangers which I saw in the way looking upon Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame Heb. XII 2. In the life and doctrine of Christ we shall find Lessons of this kind but never in the dictats of nature How would you imagine it should be a natural inclination that a man in his declining Age should change a state of quiet honor and plenty of all things necessary for humane life into another of troubles crosses affronts no certainty of a competent lively-hood and a certain and continual danger of losing his life This
Colledg of Pamplona and Divinity scholastic Moral Polemic or Controversial in the Colledges of Pamplona Palencia Tudela and Salamanca joyning with these functions of continual teaching which in those parts are exceedingly laborious the practise of very frequent preaching together with a constant and eager study of holy scripture counsels Fathers and History Ecclesiastic in which kind of study I had alwaies my chief delight when duty and employments enjoyned upon me forced me to the study of those other faculties And is this to be a vagrant person that could bear no fruit united to the stock what fruit would be man have me bear But what if we refer him to himself few pages after saying still excessive that before I was vir Apostolicus a most resplendent star in the firmament of the true Church c. now plunged in all the contrary vices and cries * page 27. quomodo obscuratum est aurum mutatus est color optimus how is the Gold become dim how is the most fine gold changed Truly I am to return the same question upon him How came this change or * Thren 4. how came he to know it For I feel no other change in me but to the better to a quiet of conscience and full satisfaction that I am in the right way of worshipping God But I find in his own words an answer to all he saies I was before vir Apostolicus now Apostata vilis dictus a vile Apostate not really but called so and by whom by a party which I prove by demonstrative reasons not railing at random as I. E. that they have apostatized from the true faith and Doctrine of Christ in several points as evidenced both in my former discourse printed and in the second part of this treatise at large wherefore to be called Apostate by them is to me the same as if I were called a Theif or high-way Robber by one that is such himself I knowing my self to be an Alien from those practises or as if I were called an Infidel by a Turk or Pagan If I was induced to make a blind vow of blind obedience to the Pope of Rome and his Ministers I made a former vow of Religious obedience to God and his holy Laws in my baptism if I find the latter vow made to the Pope not to consist with the complyance of the former made to God as I found clearly not to consist then must I stand to my former vow made to God and rescind the latter made to the Pope If this Libeller were contented to rail at me his guilt had bin less but he extends his insolent soul language to the whole Protestant Church belching out streams against it I know not which more of brutish ignorance or hellish malice in most notorious calumnies * Pag. 30 You deserted a Church saies he in which only is Faith Religion Priests Sacrifice Altars Sacraments and real remission not only of originall sin but also of actual mortal sins all which is excluded and exploded and quite abolished by your Protestant Sect. And all this he bables out boldly without giving one word of reason for all or any part of it but I have proved with clear demonstrative reasons from the beginning of this Treatise that in the Protestant Church we have and do profess the same true Catholic faith and Religion which Jesus Christ and his Apostles taught and was professed by the Church first called Catholie That we have a right Hierarchy and due ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons and therefore a due administration of Sacraments and remission of sins both original by Baptism and actuall by contrition and also by absolution upon confession not only allowed but commended and enjoyned to our people and practised by many if neglected by others it s their fault not of our Church and of the horror some have to this practise wee may well say your Church to be the cause by its intolerable tyranny over consciences as well in the reservation of cases to be absolved only by Prelates or by the Pope as in the difficulties daily added touching the mode of Confessions and circumstances to be declared in them which deters many even from the right use of it and is thought to be occasion of more loss then gain of souls among you He tells me * 63. Page that I know in my conscience that the Protestant Sect doth place all happiness in the pleasures honours liberty and contentments of the body and obstructs all means and waies to vertue to Sanctity Piety Mortification c. and doth stifle the fear of a living dreadful God and all this likewise without any proof of it Was there ever seen a more desperate insolency false prophet who dost pretend to dive into the inward of my conscience known only to God and to my self I will declare to the glory of God and edification of the Christian people miserably deluded by such Slaves of fury and lies what I know in my conscience to be true That in the Protestant Church I saw more practise of solid vertue piety and devotion and of the fear of God more apt means used to purchase those vertues both by the doctrine of our Church and by the ordinances of our state then ever I saw among the Romanists Since my coming to the Protestant Church my constant habitation has bin in Trinity Colledg of Dublin where I see more practise of sobriety devotion and piety then ever I saw in a Colledg of so many young men on the Romish side Three times a day they go all to prayers to the chappel at six in the morning ten at noon and four in the evening with admirable reverence and attention their Prayers most grave and pious for all purposes and for all sorts of persons they say kneeling the Psalmes standing and the sacred Lectures they hear sitting reverently and bare-headed with a respect due to the Lessons used by them sacred indeed as taken out of those blessed fountains of Living waters of the old and new Testament not out of the broaken Cisterns of Romantic Legends all being read in a voice audible and language intelligible and thereby sutable to the edification and instruction of all the people present The same order and style I see observed in the Palaces of Princes and Prelates and in the houses of Gentlemen and godly persons all the family being called to pray together in the Chappel or other decent room of the house after the manner now declared When I come to the Royal Castle or palace of Dublin there I see the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to whom a judicious French * Georg Fournier in geograph li. i. cujus praecipua inter omnes qui n Europasunt Pro reges eminent authoritas writer gives the Chief place among all the Viceroyes of Europe with all his flourishing family and many Nobles attending on his Excellency break off discourses and business tho weighty and serious and answer the found
the erroneous Principles they profess having sucked them in their tender years as divine verities proceeding from a living reputed Infallible Autority They never heard them controuled or examined no books written against them were permitted to come in their sight They were taught it was a sin to doubt of the truth of their tenets ergo those men wanted the ordinary means of instruction and consequently may have the refuge of invincible Ignorance All this I know to be so by my own experience Having lived in Spain many years and having had for several of them licence from the Inquisitor general to read all manner of prohibited books the prohibition was so severe that I could never find one book of a Protestant to read And even in Ireland where more liberty may be expected there is a severe prohibition of reading books opposing the Romish tenets which appeared particularly touching that small book I published For offering it to be read by a Romish priest Vicar General of a famous Church in that kingdom that he might see I did not without consideration and reason what I did he desired to be excused from reading it fearing it would raise in him doubts which he could not solve and this injunction being so severe upon persons of that degree must be more indispensable upon the vulgar Means of instruction for knowing their errors being thus carefully prohibited to them of the Romish Communion in all times and places we may favorably conceive that many of them both learned and unlearned may have the excuse of invincible Ignorance the sin lying upon the Statists that for temporal ends do debar them from the means of healthful knowledg One touch more in favour of the learned Very many of them having bestowed the flower of their age in studies of Humanity Philosophy and Divinity speculative are taken up and often kept all their life time teaching those faculties without ever reflecting upon or having means to know the errors of their Church in the points controverted They take them upon the credit of their instructors for infallible verities being continually beaten into their ears with horror and execration against the opposite doctrine And how great the power of education and prejudice is let the Dominicans and Jesuits testifie How fierce and eagerly doth each one act and opine for the Schole he was educated in and against the opposite By this it appears how vain the Triumph of I. S. is as if in my opinion all learned men dying in the communion of the Church of Rome were damned to hell We have seen that impious sentence to be a product of his fancy no consequence of any doctrine of mine More rash and wicked was his attemt in casting the like sentence of Damnation upon those glorious Saints and great Doctors of the Church St. Augustin St. Jerome St Chrysostom What have they to do with his errors to be damned for them Strong opposers no Patrons of them were they as partly I have already and after will more fully declare It appears likewise by this discourse how ridiculous his charge upon me is of contradiction and speaking against my conscience in calling Thomas Aquinas a Saint I have declared how that doth consist with and contradicteth not what I have delivered touching the unsecurity of Salvation in the Communion of the Roman Church He pretends to render me guilty in the Tribunal of the English Inquisition for calling Aquinas a Saint but the inquisition of England is not so rude as that of Rome in denying common civility to men and the honorary Titles custom do's allow them He may as well accuse the compilers of the London Gazets for giving to the Pope the title of Holiness and will have as much thanks for it as for his present impeachment of me for calling Aquinas a Saint We do not take it for a certain proof of holiness to be canonized in the Church of Rome Many of their own more learned writers deny it to be unerreable therein It is not merit only gets that honor there And tho we know all this to be so we do not grudg to call those Saints we find by custom to be called so And by all that is said hitherto we may see and wonder how rare the boldness of this man is to term it Blasphemy in me to relate the common opinion of all learned Protestants or to consent to it and to propose to have us all burned for it by sentence of our own chief Governor to pretend for this wicked attemt the Authority of our Soveraign King James of glorious memory whose Decrees and sentiments herein I do most willingly obey and consent unto to impose upon me an opinion I never uttered by word or writing nor ever harbored in my thought that there is no Salvation in the Catholic Church that her errors are inconsistent with Salvation to clip my words and force them against my will and well declared meaning to his malicious purposes And notwithstanding these enormous excesses and absurdities of his speech his presumtion is so blind that he concludes his Dedicatory Epistle saying that tho his Treatise contained nothing else but this check he gives to me it must be grateful to his Excellency If this address were made to a weak or dull person it were yet criminal enough but presented to so deep a judgment and well known wisdom as that of my Lord Lieutenant pardon me sacred laws of modesty if I say its a very insolent boldness But now to our chief case in Debate CHAP. III. Mr. S. his cold defence of the Infallibility of his Church examined BOTH in my Declaration and in my printed Sermon or discourse against the errors of the Roman Church I signified that the only anchor left to keep me in the communion of it after a strong apprehension of its erroneous Tenets was the opinion of Infallibility granted to that Church and the Head of it But that anchor being cut off and a clear discovery made of the fallacy of their pretended Infallibility I set open my eyes and heart to receive the light which God sent me in his holy Writ to discover their pernicious errors and declare for his truth against them My adversary preceiving this to be the hinge all the Fabric go's on and that if I were perswaded to that Infallibility I would blind my eyes and follow without any further dispute the conduct of such a Guide goes about to set up the said Infallibility with all his power and so entitles his book The unerring unerreable Church But his way to compass his design is very odd which is yielding to my first and main attack upon it that is the uncertainty of such an Infallibility to assist them which I proveed by the disconformity of their Authors in asserting it and the weakness of the grounds they produce for it But Mr. I. S. in the page 167. gives me leave to believe what I please therein It s no article of faith
saith he that the Pope is infallible If he misliked that doctrine he might have denyed it and remain a Catholic A Catholic I may remain and do but not of their communion that Prop failing for those structures which I saw clearly to be ruinous without it It is an intolerable cavil to say I should speak of the Pope alone or of the Roman Diocess to delude the Reader with impertinent Digressions as often he doth I having clearly expressed my meaning to be that neither the Pope alone nor in a Council such as that of Trent nor the Congregation under his obedience are infallible To say the said Congregation should be the Church Universal which I allow according to St. Pauls Expression to be the pillar and ground of truth is an arrogant begging of a conclusion which will never be allow'd to them all Christian Churches that differ from them which are far the greater part of Christendom crying against their blind presumtion in appropriateing unto themselves the name of the Catholic Church That the Church truly Universal composed of all believers in Christ whether diffusive or representative in a Council truly Oecumenicall and free such as were the first four General Councils and such as was not the Councill of Trent is to have the assistance of the holy Ghost so that tho it be not properly infallible yet it shall not err in things fundamental to mens Salvation I do piously believe and of my meaning therein I gave him no occasion to doubt Therefore if he will speak to the purpose granting it is not an Article of faith that the Pope is infallible in the sense I denyed infallibility to him that is to say in a Council of those depending upon him or out of it it follow 's they have no certainty for their Tenets relying upon the Popes Infallibility which being no article of faith cannot be certain in it self nor consequently give certainty to things depending upon it He only allow's Infallibility to the Pope jointly with a general Council Herein he gratifies the Jansenists who may by this plead for indemnity notwithstanding the definitions of Innocent the Tenth and Alexander the Seventh against them which being not confirmed or autorized by a general Council in conjunction with the Pope cannot pretend to Infallibility in Mr. I. S. his opinion who hereby must incense against himself all the party adverse to the Jansenists which will prove too hard for him But he saies all Catholics do agree in the Infallibility of the Pope and a generall Council Therefore Aquinas Turrecremata and Alphonsus à Castro are in his opinion no Catholics of whom * Can. l. 4. De lo. c. 4. Aquin in 4 d. 6. qu. 1. art 7. in 3. qu. 2. ad 3. Turrecrem l. 2. sum Ecclesiae c. 91. Alphons à Cast de just Haer. pun l. c. 5. gloss interlin in illud Math. 16. portae infer c. Canus relates that the Church even Pope and Council together may err materially in their opinion as I mentioned in the 30. page of my discourse which if he did consider and examine he would not so peremtorily assert that all Catholics do agree in the Infallibility of Pope and Councel jointly Neither indeed do's Mr. S. himself sâ—em to be very strong in the belief of this Infallibility for in the comfort he gives his brethren on this account extolling magnificently their happiness herein above Protestants he so orders the matter that their comfort must not be grounded upon the real existence of that Infallibility but upon a strong apprehension or belief of it tho not extant It is a comfort saies he to an unacquainted Traveller to be guided by one whom he firmly believes to be acquainted with the way tho really your guide were not acquainted with the way if you câ—â—tainly believe that he is and cannot stray c. This is such another comfort as the grand Turk gives to his men that dying in his quarrel they go immediately to Paradise tho it be not so it s a comfort to think it is A sad comfort for the unhappy souls lost but commodious for the Turk to get by these means people to sight desperately and dye for him Thus it is with the Church or Court of Rome To believe they are infallible is a satisfaction to the people and very important for the autâ—rity and grandeur of that Court whether it be so indeed is not material The understanding of this mystery we are to owe to Mr. S. his ingenuity Poor man he has not been well acquainted with the intrigues of that Court they do not love to have arcana imperii the mysteries of their government discovered He will certainly fall short of his expected remuneration for his writing and if a Cap be deputed to him for it sure I am it will not be that of a Cardinal CHAP. IV. That Protestants have a greater security for the truth of their doctrine then Papists have Mr. I. S. his ridiculous exposition and impious contradicting of St. Pauls Text in favor of Scripture rebuked OUR Adversary triumphs upon the aforesaid comfort of Papists in apprehending their Guide to be Infallible tho he be not so indeed which comfort he saies the Protestants cannot have being guided by a Church which they believe is not so well assured of the way but they may err God forbid Protestants should not have a better warrant for the truth of their Doctrine then that he gives to Papists They have the infallible word of God delivering all their doctrine and clearly containing all that is necessary to Salvation and a perfect life as appears evidently by what I delivered in the discourse which Mr. I. S. go's about to oppose and will be further evidenced by shewing how vain and weak the opposition is They have besides in the general tradition of the Church a full and sufficient certainty that the books commonly received for Canonical are the true word of God and therefore are certain of Gods infallible autority assisting in favor of the verities contained in those books which kind of certainty tho only morall touching the existence of Gods revelation in favor of those verities joined with an absolute and undoubted Certainty that whatsoever God reveals is infallible verity makes up all the certainty that a pious and prudent believer ought to expect in matters of divine faith Mr. I. S. talks of a kind of certainty requisite for Divine faith which I doubt muâ—h whether he or any of his party ever had for all those articles they pretend to be of faith He tells us and takes it upon credit of his instructors without much examination as often he does in other matters that for all acts of belief touching revealed truths an absolute certainty is requisite clearing the believer from all manner of doubt If you speak of an objective certainty relating to the mystery revealed all true believers have it being fully assured that God cannot reveal an untruth but
if you speak of a subjective certainty excluding all manner of doubts as well touching the truth of Divine revelation if extant as of the existence of it I do vehemently suspect that both you and your instructors do speak against your sense and experience especially touching points controverted and not explicitly contained in Scripture such as is Transubstantiation for example that mystery which Scotus Ockam Cajetan and others of your ablest Schole men could never find in scripture nor agreeable to the rules of common reason I appeal to your breast for judging whether you have touching this point that degree of certainty excluding all manner of doubt which you pretend to be necessary for all acts of belief touching revealed truths Mr. I. S. must not expect from me that I should take notice off and pursue all the impertinencies he runs upon in his book my intention being only to clear the truth in our main concern and therefore to follow him as far as I find him speak pertinently to the points I proposed for discovering their grosser errors which forced me to a separation from their communion In the first Chapter of his book he enlargeth upon points we allow and know upon firmer grounds then his proofs for them That God is to be adored That he has revealed himself what manner of worship he requires That this worship is true religion That the same is but one That God hath afforded sufficient means to know which is the true saving Religion That divine faith must be grounded upon an infallible autority fully assuring us of the truth of its proposals The controversy is what authority this is whether of the Scripture as we believe or of the Pope and Council as he pretends For a visible Judge to ascertain us of Divine verities I once argued that it became Divine wisdom and goodness to provide us such to determine our controversies which otherwise would be endless It was replied that we ought to be wary in censuring Gods wisdom if this or that seeming to us convenient were not don in the government of the world I acknowledged force in the reply and did further it with an instance that we may as well say that it belongeth to the power and goodness of God not to permit his holy Laws to be transgressed by vile creatures and as we do not judg it a failure in his goodness to permit sins so ought we not to waver in the opinion of his goodness if he has not appointed us a visible Judg for our direction having given us the Holy Scriptures which abound with all light and heavenly doctrine to such as are not willfuly obstinate Mr. I. S. not accustomed to approve any thing in his opponents calls this my acknowledgment weakness and to my instance saies it becomes the goodness of God to permit sins and the scandals of Popes for the exercise of their liberty But if this stout disputant were as provident as he is confident in running upon engagements he might hate foresâ—en a ready reply to his objection that liberty is no less necessary to heresie then to other sins being an essential requisite to all moral actions good or bad Neither is the permission of heresie less conveâ—ienâ— whether for the exercise of liberty or for other reasons which made the Apostle say that there must be here sies among men 1 Cor. 11 2â— neither doth his pretended infallibility of his Church hâ—nder heresies and endless controversies among them But where I prove that the word of God is able to furnish us with all necessary instruction out of St Paul 2 Tim. 3. saying that holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation that the man of God may be perfect thoroughly furnished to all good works this is the gloss of our Antagonist But I infer the contrary whereas Scriptures tho replenished they be with heavenly light are not sufficient to â—eclare unto us what we ought to believe we might waver in our opinion of Gods goodâ—ess if he did not appoint an infallible living Judg to instruct us Is this to interpret St. Paul or clearly to oppose and contradict him St. Paul sayes that the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation and I. S. saies that they are not sufficient to declare unto us what we ought to believe which is clearly to say that they are not able to make us wise unto Salvation for certainly without due belief we can not be saved This interpretation is like to another attributed by a Fryar to Lyra being convinced that the proposition he denyed was in Scripture he replied it was true the Text said so but Nicolas de Lyra said the contrary So t is in our case St. Paul saies that the Scripture is able to make us wise unto Salvation but Mr. I. S. saies the contrary which of them ought we to beleive I should expect from the subtilty of our Sophister to tax me with giving my conclusion for reason of it self such is the identity in sense of my assertion with S. Pauls Text alledged for proof of it That Holy Scripture is sufficient to instruct us for Salvation and a good life is what S. Paul saies and what I say no more nor less but it is for slow wits to fetch out of a Text only what is contained in it Sublime understandings must find in it more then the Author did mean nay the contrary of his words and meaning It is not for them to submit to that rule of Canonists that it is not a right way of interpreting a Text to mend it Mr. S. mends the Text of S. Paul asserting the contrary of it and from the contrary assertion by him substituted he inferrs a contrary consequence to that I inferred from S. Pauls assertion I inferr thus Whereas Scripture is sufficient to our full instruction we ought not to waver in our opinion of Gods goodness if he did not appoint an infallible living Judg to direct us But Mr. S. thinking that a small dâ—scovery thus resolves But I infer the contrary Whereas Scriptures tho replenisht with heavenly light are not sufficient to declare unto us what we ought to believe we might waver in our Opinion of Gods Goodness if he did not appoint an infallible living Judg for to instruct us I leave the judicious Reader to reflect upon the stock of insolencies heaped up in these lines to give the he flatly to S. Paul and pronounce a sentence against the goodness of God if he did not what Mr. I. S. thinks sit to be don But see how our admirable Doctor teacheth S. Paul to mend his error that where he said Scripture is able to make us wise to Salvation he did not say it of Scripture alone but in conjunction with those Auxiliaries Mr. I. S. is pleased to appoint As if one to magnifie his strength did say he could carry two hundred weight and being on a trial found unable to do it to verifie his saying should
alledg that that he did not mean he could carry so much alone but he and a Horse with him Such quibbles as these are more becoming Mr. S. then S. Paul and so he may keep them for himself and not father them upon the great Apostle Further he proceeds to oppose St Paul saying that when he wrot that Epistle to Timothy the whole Canon of Scripture was not completed and only the whole Canon and no part of it can be sufficient means for our instruction therefore the Scripture that S. Paul spoke of cannot be a sufficient means for instructing us to Salvation Herein our Sophister is twice impious first in taxing the great Apostles assertion with untruth next that the Oracle of God delivered to men in each time for their instruction to Salvation should not be complete and sufficient By this it appears well how much a stranger this man is to the common Doctrine of Divines who affirm that in the Apostles Creed are contained all necessary verities to be believed for Salvation and in the Ten Commanâ—ments all duties to be performed of necessity to the same end And may not the Creed and Ten Commandments be known without a knowledg of the whole Canon of Scripture His boldness is prodigious in asserting extravagances without exhibiting any proof but his bare ipse dixit Pythagoras-wise Finding me say I was not fit for Pâ—thagoras his Schole where ipse dixit was the rule and men will not give reason for what they teach he opposes that if I am to expect reason for what I believe I am not fit for Christs Schole nor learning from Scripture which affords nothing but a bare ipse dixit But if the Man had any ingenuity in him he would spare this Objection seeing it prevented in the 18. page of my discourse where I acknowledg with thanksgiving to God that I never doubted of the Truth of Holy Scriptures nor of the Creed proposed to us by the Catholic Apostolic Church and dictated by God Almighty worthy to be believed without examen not so Pythagoras nor the Pope CHAP. V. Mr. S. his prolixe excursion about the Popes Authority requisite to know which is the true Scripture declared to be Impertinent and the state of the Question cleared from the confusion he puts upon it OUR Adversary finding the Popes Infallibility to be an expression odious and ridiâ—ulous to all knowing men and whereof even the sober part of * Vid. Cress in exomologesi cap 4. Sect. 3. Romanists grow ashamed endeavours to serve us up the same Dish under another dress calling it the Autority of the Church Universal And if therein he did speak properly or sincerely he would have less opposition from us But if you do enquire what he means by Church Universal he tells you it is the Congregation Subject to the Pope of Rome excluding all other men and particularly the Church of England from being any part of that his Universal Church The said Congregation subject to the Pope whether diffusive or representative in a general Council depending upon the Pope and confirmed by him he pretends to be Infallible And whatever I alledge against the Infallibility of the Roman Church he thinks to elude by pretending I speak of the particular Diocese of Rome a gross misunderstanding or willful misrepresentation of my meaning for which I never gave any ground in my writing or discourses He is to know I speak in proper terms as used among Learned men speaking upon this Subject taking the Roman Church for the party following the Popes faction wheresoever extant whether congregated or dispersed prescinding from his Altercations with the rest or any they have among themselves for both he and the rest agreeing in making that Infallibility depending ultimately upon the Popes Autority we may well represent their assertion as opposite to the sentiment of all other Christians under the notion of the Popes infallibility * That all is bottomed upon the Popes Authority Bellarmin declares saying totam firmitatem conciliorum legitimorum esse á Pontifice non-partim à Pontifice partim à concilio lib. 4. de Rom. Pon. c. 3. sect at contra The terms and state of the Question being thus cleared it follows to declare how impertinent his prolixe excursion and vain ostentation is in telling us the diversity of Opinions that were in different times about Canonical Scripture and the difficulty of ascertaining us which is the true one This is an old device of those of his faction to decline the main controversy in hand wherein they still betray the weakness of their Cause They and he should remember the points controverted are among parties that agree in reverencing the Bible for the infallible Word of God And if he thinks the part of it received for Canonical by common consent will not suffice for ending our Controversies we admit willingly St. Augustins rule for clearing the difficulties touching particular Books the Authority of the Church and the Tradition of it as described by Lirinensis Quod semper quod ubique quod apud omnes What was in all time in all places and by all Christians delivered that we take for a true Apostolic Tradition and to it we resolve to stand or fall as well for discerning Canonical Scripture as for understanding the true meaning of it If Mr. S. did take Church and Tradiâ—ion in the sense that the Holy Fathers did and the Learned Men of the Church of England do he would find in us all due reverence to those sacred Fountains of Christian verities But to call Church Universal the faction adhering to the Pope of Rome in opposition to the rest of Christians is a presumtion like that of the Turk in calling himself King of Kings and Emperor of all the World such as are Vassals to him may revere that calling others do laugh at it But we do not find the Turk to have plaâ—'d the sool so far as to take that his assumed title as granted by other Princes independing upon him or to alledg it for ground of his pretentions with them This is Mr. S. his folly in taking for granted in his debates with us that the Romish faction is the Catholic Universal Church So great an Intruder upon disputes should learn that rule of Disputants Quod gratis dicitur gratis negatur what is barely said without proof is sufficiently refuted with a bare denial This alone well considered will suffice to overthrow man Chapters of Mr. S. his Book What makes him spend time in telling us of the difficulty of finding out which is true Scripture the rule truly infallible of our belief when he sees us thus ascertain'd of it why do's he trouble us with speaking of a Criterion or beam of light pretended by Fanatics confessing at the same time that to be exploded by Protestants is it to make his Book swell But finding he cannot hide Scripture from us he will have us to be beholden to the Pope for the true
meaning of it he musters up a store of Arguments objected by Pagans Arians and Sabellians against the Mystery of the Trinity and would have us leave the points present for answering them let him go to the Fathers that propose the Arguments they will deliver the anwier The Councils truly Oecumenical of the Prmitive Church and universal Tradition do secure us of the right meaning of Scripture touching those points Where comes here a need of the Pope and his faction to ascertain us He finds a special mystery in the point of Purgatory that either we for diminishing or they for adding to the Words of God are in a damnable error deserving to be blotted out of the Book of life Apoc. xx 9. The danger is clearly on their side no mention of Purgatory being in he written Word of God as shall after appear In the fourth Chapter he is very prolixe in telling us the Church is a Body and must have accordingly a Head and Members subject to it We allow all provided Christ be the Head and all others both Pastors and flock Members subject to him as it was in the Apostles times each one of them preached Christ none himself for Head There is no memory of any pretence in St. Peter over St. Andrew in Achaia or over St. Thomas in the Indies or over any other of the Apostles in their respective Provinces no dependance of them upon him What he adds of Obedience due from the Flock to the Pastors is right speaking of each Flock in regard of their ordinary lawful Pastors right also that in difficulties emergent of greater moment a National Synod should be congregated as that he mentions in the United Provinces in Dordrecht Right likewise what the Synod of Delpht resolved that tho the former Synod was fallible there was no obligation of conscience in obeying the decrees of it as there is in all Subjects to obey the orders of a lawful Superior received for such And the Arminians having submitted to that Synod and acknowledged it to be lawfully congregated may well be declared obliged to submit to the Decrees of it so far as not to disturb the public peace by illegal oppositions But all this comes very short of Mr. S. his purpose since the Reformed Churches never submitted to the Council of Trent nor did acknowledg it for a lawful free Oecumenical Council and how could they think it to be such when the party accused the Pope and his Court was to be the judg and supreme Arbiter of the cause His resistance to a true lawful free Council is the cause of all the combustion and confusion we have in Christendom He takes for an advantage against Scripture that I said the reading of it made me doubt of the truth of those Articles the Roman Church press'd upon my belief as if it were not able to ascertain me But I thank God and the light of his holy Word which made me doubt of what your Party would have me swallow without doubt or examen and from the doubt brought me to a certainty of your corruptions and of the truth of the Primitive truly Catholic and of Apostolical Faith professed in the Church of England such a certainty as renders my mind quiet and satisfied that I have the guidance of Gods Word for the belief proposed to me and consequently a sufficient and full assurance of the truth of it CHAP. VI. Mr. I. S. his defence of the Popes pretended Infallibility from the censure of Blasphemy declared to be weak and impertinent His particular opinion censured for heretical by his own party LOW goes the cause with our Adversary when he pretends to a milder sentence against their error in attributing Infallibility to the Pope He will not have it called Blasphemy we may rest contented with finding it an error of any degree by that alone the whole structure of their tenets against us falls down but being mention was made of Blasphemy in their assertion we will shew how faint a defence Mr. I. S. prepares against that censure It is a wonder that one so prodigal of the like censure as we have seen him to be in the first Chapter of this Treatise tearming it a Blasphemy in me to say that the Learned men of the Church of England denied the Roman Church as now it stands to be a safe way to salvation and in the eighth Chapter of his Book saying that Protestants may not without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their tenets should take so great a scandal at saying it is a Blasphemy to make the Pope Infallible especially when the saying is grounded upon principles of their own Authors But it is no great wonder that Mr. I. S. opposing this censure should not go the right way to it nor heed the form or force of my Argument for that is his constant custom The Argument was ad hominem grounded upon premises taken out of Authors of his own party the first was that it is a Blasphemy to attribute to a creature any of Gods properties so Aquinas 1. p. q. 16. art 3. ad tertiam The second Premise was that Infallibility is a property of God not communicable to any man so the the same Aquinas 2a. 2a. q. 13. art 1. These two Premises being granted the conclusion is evident that it is a Blasphemy to attribute Infallibility to the Pope which conclusion being contained in the two Premises the truth of it is to stand or fall with Aquinas his Autority If Mr. I. S. were formal in arguing his way to answer this Argument were to examine whether Aquinas delivered the said Premises ascribed to him and so come directly to my conclusion that in principles of their own Divines it is a Blasphemy to make the Pope Infallible But what do we mention Aquinas and formal disputing to Mr. I. S he do's not seem to be acquainted with that kind of reading or dealing he will not be tyed to their strict rules of reasoning Now let us follow him in his own way and see how he argues being set at liberty He taxes me with ignorance for not knowing that God may lend his Attributes to men and the Attribute of Infallibility being but passed over in a grace and lent to the Pope of Rome it must not be a Blasphemy to ascribe it to him First I enquire of this Magisterial man whether Infallibility be an Attribute of God incommunicable to a mutable man as Aquinas seems to say and being so whether it be not likely it may not be lent to another as his Omnipotency cannot both representing an unlimited perfection for as Omnipotency includes a relation to infinite effects produceable so the Infallibility ascribed to the Pope for determining without error all questions possible to occur about Religion seems to argue an unlimited perfection the said questions being endless the heavenly Preacher declaring that God having made man upright he has entangled himself in infinite questions which the Latin Vulgar Translation delivers
perpetual assistance This assistance of Christ to his own true Church following the steps and doctrine of the Apostles we believe with joy but cannot approve the Arrogancy of Mr. I. S. and his brethren in appropriating all such promises to their own Faction and perpetually taking for granted in his Debates with us that to be the only Church favoured by such gracious promises being indeed but a very corrupt Member of the Church Universal to whom these promises were made a thing which we do not say barely but prove evidently Another example of their skill in clipping and corrupting Scripture he fetches out of the same Store-house upon the words of John XIV 16. I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter the spirit of truth that will abide with you for ever who will lead you unto all truth I discovered their abuse of this Text by restoring it to its integrity which according to their own Bible goes in these words If ye love me keep my commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive By the first words we see this to be a conditional promise limited to such as love God and keep his Commandments by the latter words worldly and sinful men are expresly excluded from receiving that gracious assistance of the Spirit of truth for which meaning of these words I related the Gloss interlineal and ordinary This discourse our Adversary opposes thus that after the former clause if you love me keep my commandments there is a punctum and then follows a distinct verse and I will ask my Father and he will give you another Paraclete c. which makes an absolute sense independent from the former This is indeed a subtilty well becoming a Sophister as if a punctum may not be interposed betwixt several clauses of one discourse tending to the same end or betwixt premises and a conclusion deduced from them as if the copulative particle and did not signify a conjunction of both clauses and an influence of the one upon the other as if all that were not cleared by the words I quoted in the Margin of the Gloss interlineal Mundus i. e. remanens amator mundi cum quo nunquam est amor Dei and of the Gloss ordinary non habent spirituales oculos quibus Spiritum Sanctum videant mundi amatores Here we see both Glosses denying the effect of that glorious promise to profane worldlings and consequently the promise made only to lovers of God and keepers of his holy Commandments If our Adversary were ingenuous he would spare his silly subtilties seeing them obstructed by this stating of the case CHAP. VIII Mr. I. S. his horrible impiety against the sacred Apostles and malicious imposing on the Church of England reprehended ANother grand Argument he has which he saies resolutely I can never answer is this that if the foresaid promise John XIV 16. was conditional as above-mentioned it follows we cannot be sure the Gospel is infallible whereas no Text of Scripture saies he pag. 89. tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it My first answer to this so unanswerable Argument is that if this man had delivered this expression in Spain and were accused to the Inquisition his body would suffer for it if his intellect were not reduced to acknowledg and repent the horrid impiety of it And I am certainly perswaded that there is no Christian that has any sense of piety in him whether Protestant or Papist but will cry out with horror against the insolent impiety of this man in speaking so irreverently of those sacred Organs of the Holy Ghost and blessed Disciples of Christ confirmed by him in grace as is the common apprehension and expression of Christians and replenished with the Holy Ghost Act. 2.4 for whose perseverance in grace our Saviour praied so fervently to his heavenly Father as we see in John the XVII 11. Holy Father keep through thine own name those thou hast given me Upon which words Maldonate delivers this Gloss Non rogat Christus ut nunc à peccatis liberentur sed ut jam liberati in eo statu quo erant conserventur ne quis ab eâ decedat gratiâ quam consecutus suo erat beneficio quemadmodum Judae contigerat That our Saviour praied for their perseverance in grace that none of them should fall from it as Judas did And will this rash man say that the praier of our Saviour was not heard nor his request granted by his heavenly Father in favor of his beloved Disciples If he will not be so profligately impious how dares he say that no Text of Scripture tells us that the Evangelists were in the state of Grace when they wrote the Gospel nor nothing else gives us assurance of it If his Book did contain no other crime then this unchristian expression any true disciple of Christ and believer of his Gospel ought to judg the said Book more worth the burning then the reading He is not yet contented with the damnable expression fore-mentioned but must raise his censure against the truth of the Gospel of Christ to a higher degree p. 89. saying that not only we are not sure of the Infallibility of the Gospel but that we are assured it is not infallible and this horrible Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost and the Gospel dictated by him he must father upon the Protestant Church but upon a ground so much of his own making that any dispassionate man and not blind may see the whole assertion to be his own and a product of his inclination which appears here and in many other places of destroying the foundations of all Christian Belief The ground he gives for this latter most damnable Blasphemy is That the common doctrine of the Protestant Church is That it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments therefore saies he The Evangelists when they wrote did not keep Gods Commandments and consequently they could not have the Paraclete to lead them into truth I never yet heard any Protestant deliver such a desperate proposition as this he fathers upon them which thus delivered categorically without further declaration or limitation were to say it were impossible for any man to be saved our Saviour often declaring that the only way to life everlasting is to keep Gods Commands It were also to give the lie to our Redeemer saying that his yoke is easy and his burden light Mat. XI 30. and that his Commandments are not grievous 1 Joh. V. 3. If he knows any Protestant Writer to have delivered that position in that latitude why do's not he tell me who he is and where he saith it that I may judg accordingly of the Author and of the Doctrine Must I take it upon his credit having so many experiences of
safe way to salsation Is it safe to venture in a leaky Ship upon a stormy Sea But what saies he to the streams of learned Authors of the Protestant Church which Dr. Stillingfleet relates and of the very learned Book he wrote himself proving with irresistible Arguments that the Romish Church in several of her present Tenets and Practices is guilty of Idolatry Is Idolatry of those pious opinions which matter not for salvation And let Mr. I.S. know that I considered long and examined throughly the doctrine of the Church of England before I declared for it and he may spare his labour of catechizing me in the Tenets of it CHAP. X. A check to Mr. I. S. his insolent Thesis prefixed for title to the eighth Chapter of his Book That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it That they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets And his own Argument retorted to prove that the Roman Church is not the Church of Christ UNder so pregnant and big promising a title as this That the Protestant Church is not the Church of Christ nor any part of it that they cannot without Blasphemy alledg Scripture for their Tenets c. and that in a Book presented to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the Earl of Essex under so magnificent a title I say exposed to the view of so great and judicious a person who would not expect a very exquisite discourse to go through so stout an undertaking And behold Reader what Mr. I. S. presents to his Excellency for that purpose For a Foundation of his discourse he will have us premise that Protestants do allow Papists not to err in points Fundamental to Salvation that our differences with them are about points not Fundamental He do's not seem to regard or know which be these points call'd Fundamental or not Fundamental which is a bad beginning to be clear and exact in the present Engagement But he is to suppose with Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Potter and other learned Writers of both Churches * See Chillingworth his Answer to the Book intitled Charity maintained c. c. 4. And Dr. Hammond in his Treatise of Fundamentals c. 2. Stillingfleet in his Rational Account Part. 1. cap. 2. B. Laud p. 42. following therein the common opinion of Fathers and Scholemen that the points Fundamental or of necessary belief to Salvation and to the constitution of a true Christian Church are those contained in the Apostles Creed which is a system or summary of Articles which those sacred Founders of Christianity thought fit and sufficient to be proposed to all men where the Gospel was preached and necessary to be explicitly believed So as the Council of Trent calls it Fundamentum firmum unicum Sess 3. not the firm alone but the only Foundation Points not Fundamental or inferior truths are all other divine Verities contained in the Word of God whether written in Canonical Scripture or delivered to us by Apostolical Universal Tradition implicitly contained in the Creed where we profess to believe in God and in the Catholic Church and explicitly to be believed when we should be ascertained that they are contained in those Oracles of God called inferior truths not that they are of less certainty and objective Infallibility in themselves then the other called Fundamental but because the explicit knowledg of them is not so necessary or obvious to all men and consequently are more capable of inculpable ignorance of them and errors about them in many men And because the Roman Church do's agree with us in the explicit confession of this Creed it is said not to err in Fundamental points tho found guilty of pernicious errors touching other points not Fundamental And with this Supposition I am confident my Antagonist will not quarrel if you take him here before he sees my reflexions upon his unwary Argument Upon the foresaid Foundation Mr. I. S. builds this Thesis That the Protestant Church as it is condistinct from the Popish Church is not the Church of Christ because saies he it do's not teach the doctrine of Christ and no Church can be called of Christ further then it teacheth his doctrine That Protestancy or the doctrine of Protestants as opposite to the Popish is not the doctrine of Christ he undertakes to prove with this Syllogism No fallible doctrine is the doctrine of Christ but Protestancy is altogether fallible doctrine Therefore Protestancy as it is properly the doctrine of the Protestant Church is not the doctrine of Christ This Syllogism he chalks out to us in a different Character for remarkable as indeed it is and for unanswerable for it is in Ferio saies he pag. 142. The Major Proposition we allow willingly the Minor to wit that Protestancy is altogether fallible doctrine he saies is manifest by virtue of this other no less remarkable Syllogism Protestancy or the doctrine wherein Protestants do differ from Papists is altogether of points not Fundamental but the doctrine of points not Fundamental or inferior truths is fallible doctrine therefore Protestancy is but fallible doctrine and therefore no doctrine of Christ He concludes with these words I confess ingenuously I think this Argument cannot be solidly answer'd If his confession herein be ingenuous indeed let him take in return this other ingenuous confession from me that I think seriously he is a very weak man If he be sensible himself of the fallacy and falsehood of his Argument he is unworthy in beguiling his Reader and unwise in exposing it to a polemical strict debate and thinking we should want a solid Answer to so silly a Sophism not to give it yet a more severe check haply he has that poor excuse in his favor that he knows not what he saies To see whether my Answer be solid let us examine how solid his Argument is The stress of it lies in his latter Syllogism whose major Proposition is That Protestancy or the doctrine wherein Protestants do differ from Papists is altogether of Points not Fundamental This we allow him to take for granted Let us proceed to the Minor But the doctrine of Points not Fundamental or inferior Truths saies he is fallible doctrine Stop here Sir and if Justice were don to you a perpetual stop should be put to your tongue for blasphemons from speaking any more It is a formal Blasphemy and a horrid one to say that the doctrine of Points not Fundamental or inferior Truths in general is fallible doctrine It is to say that the Word of God is fallible Remember what is premis'd a little before and supposed by your self in many places of your present discourse that the Points called not Fundamental are all those other divine Verities contained in the Word of God whether written in Canonical Scripture or deliver'd to us by Apostolical Tradition besides the Points contained in the Creed of equal objective certainty and truth with the other Points They are of a size as
Ireland whither I was sent to convert Protestants The case was with Papists who concerned for the Salvation of their Relations and Friends of the Protestant Communion enquired whether such believing sincerely they were in the right never convinced of the contrary and living religiously in the fear of God and in the observation of his Commandments might be saved I answered they might and were not Heretics but Members of the Catholic Church a dignity received in their Baptism and not to be lost otherwise then by formal Heresy or Infidelity whereof they were not guilty by the foresaid Supposition You say all is true but 't is not discretion to declare truth it self when there is no obligation of declaring it Well but was there not an obligation upon me when question'd to answer according to truth No say you for if the Inquirers were Papists they needed not to be instructed in that truth 't is no Fundamental Truth If Protestants they were not oblig'd to know it for the same reason and that the answer was an encouragement to them to remain as they were A pretty subtilty We have declared before how touching Points not Fundamental there may be pernicious errors Such is that opposite to the Truth we now speak of an error subversive of Christian charity and public peace a seed of those Animosities Rebellion and Combustions which made this Land unhappy And ought not a sincere Instructor and faithful Minister of the Word of God to oppose this error No say you because it was to encourage Protestants to remain as they were and not to come under the Popes Obedience There is the ground of your dislike of me Thus indeed stood the case and this was one of my chief reasons to be dissatisfied of your way That the rule of my doctrine among you must not be truth but the interest of the Bishop of Rome and the increase of his Dominion whether by right or wrong This point of policy or discretion as you call it I refused openly to learn from you chusing rather to be of the Children of Light tho with less prudence in your opinion then of the Children of this World by that elevated point of prudence you would teach me of prostituting truth and honesty to the Popes pleasure and interest CHAP. VII Mr. I. S. his Answers to my Objections against the Popes Infallibility refuted his defence of Bellarmin of the Council of Constance and of Costerus declared to be weak and vain OUR Adversary fore-seeing what small assistance he could have from Scripture and reason to maintain his Tenets emploies his main forces in setting up their ordinary great engine of the Popes Infallibility and having bestowed the far greater part of his Book upon that subject turns to it again beginning the second part of his said Book with reflexions upon some of my Arguments against their pretention and wanting it seems materials to bring his Book to the intended bulk repotes much of what he said before wherein I will not imitate him by repeting my replies my desire being to abbreviate as far as may consist with a full satisfaction to all his Objections He pretends to cast a mist over the case turning the usual term of Popes Infallibility to Infallibility of the Church and by Church he means fraudulently not the Church Universal truly Catholic and Apostolic to which I allow all the priviledges and assistances of the Holy Ghost promised to it in Scripture tho he signifies that he doubts of my meaning herein but his own particular Church I do not mean the Diocess of Rome as he do's wilfully impose upon me happily to gain time or draw us from the point but the Congregation subject to the Pope wheresoever extant Defenders of a bad cause do love such confusion and obscurities as Foxes holes and thickets but we must keep him to the Light and to the ordinary use of terms taking for Popes Infallibility the same which he or any of his Communion attributes to their Church depending upon the Pope as is declared above in the beginning of the fifth Chapter I said I admired that Bellarmin should make it an Argument of the Popes Infallibility that the high Priest did bear in his Breast-plate two Hebrew words signifying Doctrine and Truth I questioned whether he believed all those high Priests even Caiphas condemning Christ to be infallible in their judgments Mr. I. S. to relieve Bellarmin endeavors to autorize the Affirmative and to that of Caiphas saâ—es nothing and so gives us leave to think that he held him also infallible according to that rule qui tacet consentire videtur By which we have this further notice of Mr. I. S. his singular doctrine that he finds Caiphas infallible in his judgment passed against the life of our Saviour and taxes me with ignorance for not knowing so much I accused them of making the Pope Arbiter and supreme Judg over Gods Laws So Bellarmin lib. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 5. sticketh not to say That if the Pope did command Vices and prohibit Virtues the Church would be obliged to believe Vice to be good and Virtue bad And the Council of Constance commanded the Decrees of Popes to be preferr'd before the Institutions of Christ since having confessed that our Saviour did ordain the Communion under both kinds to the Laity and that the Apostles did practice it they command it should be given for the future but in one kind alledging for reason that the precedent Popes and Church did practice it so Which is to extol the Decrees of Popes above them of Christ As if the Laws of England were not to be understood or practiced in Ireland but according to the will and declaration of the King of France certainly the King of France would be deemed of more power in Ireland then the King of England and the People more his subjects To that of Bellarmin you say he spoke of Vices and Virtues when there is a doubt of their being such for example if there should arise a doubt of Usury 's being a Vice and in that case the Pope should command Usury to be practiced we should be obliged to practice Usury Herein Sir you allow us all that we pretended and you confess what we condemned in Bellarmin I could alledg many Texts of Scripture supposing and affirming Usury to be a Vice But you spare me that labour presupposing that Vsury of it self is a Vice of its nature bad Per se malum and that you all know it to be such and notwithstanding that knowledg and Gods declaration in Scripture you say if the Pope should command Usury to be practiced we should be obliged to practice it And so it is indeed with you both in Usury and other Vices We know all that Rebellion is a sin and soodious to God that in Scripture it is compared to Witchcraft and Idolatry 1 Sam. xv 23. But if the Pope should command you to rebel against your King for Religions
sake forsooth then would you be obliged to rebel against him because say you with Bellarmin in dubious Cases the Church is obliged to obey the Pope Men are apt to doubt of their duties and the Devil is ready to stir such doubts in them Thus he wrought the first Rebellion in Paradise Cur praecepit vobis Deus c. Why hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the Garden And if the Pope comes out declaring that it is lawful and religious to rebel you must practice accordingly tho Scripture and reason makes you know that Rebellion is an heinous vice This is the great power of the Pope you teach to metamorphose vice into virtues and virtues to vices It is a common boast of your stout Bigots to say that if the Pope did prohibit them to say the Lords Praier Our Father c. they would not say it tho Christ did order them to pray so To that of the Council of Constarce you say it is false that they alledged no other reason for prohibiting the Cup to the Laity then the Decrees of precedent Popes You affirm they alledged also for reason the example of Christ and his Apostles who gave it in one kind whereby it appears you did not read the Council Read the thirteenth Session of it where this matter is handled and there you shall find no montion of Christ and his Apostles to have given the Sacrament in one kind but the contrary is supposed as appears by these words of the Decree Quod licet in Primitiva Ecclesia hujusmodi Sacramentum reciperetur à fidelibus sub utraque specie postea à conficientibus sub utraque à Laicis tantummodo sub specie panis suscipiatur That tho the Sacrament of Communion in the Primitive Church was received by the faithful under both kinds for the future it is to be received by the Priests consecrating under both kinds and by the Laity only under the Species of Bread It is therefore from your self you say that Christ and the Apostles did administer it to the Laity under one kind and the Council do's not pretend to know so much only alledges the custom formerly introduced saying Vnde cum hujusmodi consuetudo ab Ecclesia Sanctis patribus rationabiliter introducta diutissime observata sit habenda est pro lege That this custom being reasonably introduced and long time observed by the Church and holy Fathers it is to be taken for a Law Here you see no mention made of Christ or the Apostles to have don so as you say Upon what ground you do not tell us you will have it taken upon your credit By saying that I may flatter the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland by telling him he hath more power in this Kingdom then the King his Master in whose place and name he acts because I accused you of giving more power to the Pope then to God by these priviledges of giving to divine Law what sense he pleases and overthrowing the Ordinances of Christ to set up his own by this your expression I say you are twice criminal in a hainous degree First for imagining it should be a way to flatter my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to say he had more power in Ireland then the Kings Majesty which he could not hear without horror and indignation Secondly for the falsehood of your supposition to frame your parity When or where did the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland say that notwithstanding the King of England did ordain this or that for the Government of Ireland himself would order the contrary as your pretended Vicar of Christ said in the Council of Constance now mention'd that notwithstanding Christ did order the Communion to be given in both kinds to the Laity he did order himself the contrary And all this senseless and groundless extravagancy you run upon only to find occasion of talking to us of a halter after your wonted grave and modest sâ—â—le But being convinced of a false accusation you deserve by the law of retaliation the punishment due to the crime you do so falsly impose upon us Certainly that of the ducking-stool will appear in all good judgments both due and necessary to so foul a mouth Another Example I produced of your extolling Papal Laws above the Divine in the case of Costerus saying It s a greater sin in a Priest to marry then to keep a Concubine the former being but a transgression of a Papal Law the second of a Divine You answer p. 173. that tho it be but a Papal Law that Priests should vow chastity yet the vow being made it is a trangression of Divine Law to violate it Consult your Casuists Sir and you shall find them all say that a vow made in any matter opposite to Gods orders is null or invalid There is an order of God intimated by St. Paul to the unmarried that if they cannot contain let them marry 1 Cor 7.9 Possible it is that a Priest should find by experience that he cannot contain This you will not deny Then the vow appears to be null because by it was promised a thing contrary to that order of God intimated by St. Paul and consequently the obligation of it ceaseth only the Popes Law prohibiting Priests to marry urgeth To it is opposite that other intimated to the unmarried if they cannot contain let them marry Which of these Laws or Orders must be observed If you say the Popes Law as Costerus do's then follows the Conclusion that you prefer the Popes Laws to those of God You may exclaim at this but you see the Premises containing in them the Conclusion is inbred undenied doctrine among you CHAP. XIII Our Adversary his foul and greater Circle committed pretending to rid his claim to infallibility from the censure of a Circle His many absurdities and great ignorance in the pursuit of this attempt discovered A better resolution of Faith proposed according to Protestant Principles I accused our Adversaries of a Circle committed in their pretence to Infallibility because they prove it by Scripture and the Infallibility of Scripture they prove by the infallibility of their Church which is to go still round in a Circle Mr. I. S. to wind himself out of this Circle presents to us a resolution of his Faith containing in it a greater Circle or many Circles together Having premised some trivial notions to ching the obscurity of Faith and evidence of credibility required to the assent of it he falls on extolling the power and aptness of Miracles to beget such credibility reducing all to the advantage of the Roman Church authorized with Miracles as he pretends and from page 180. he enters into his resolution of Faith thus You ask why I beleive the Trinity I answer because God hath revealed it You ask why I believe that God revealed it I answer because the Church by which God speaks tells us so You ask why I beleive that God speaks by the Church I must
the Rule of our belief All this he must say of the Council of Trent or the Church represented in it of this Age that alone and not the Pope out of it must be in his doctrine our infallible Teacher Now further Is not the doctrin of the Council of Trent proposed to us as a Rule of our Faith of equal value and autority with the written word of God both proceeding from the Holy Ghost they say it is Is not moreover that doctrine known to us only by tradition certainly it is I have no notice of it nor can I have but by relation of others and they of no more credit with me but rather of far less then those Venerable Writers that relate to us the doctrine of the primitive Church Are there not Controversies dayly and endless about the sense and meaning of the Councill of Trent as well as about the more ancient Councils witness the dismall broyls betwixt Jesuists Jansenists and Dominicans Where is now Mr. I. S. his living infallible Judg The Councill of Trent and the Popes governing it are dead and gon The Pope now living or any Councill he can congregate less than a general one is not an infallible Judg. Who then will ascertain him will he have a generall Councill congregated for the resolution of his Faith in every doubt that comes into his head How shall we be sure that Pope Innocent and Alexander did not err in their definition of the great debate with the Jansenists Their definition not being in a general Council cannot be to us a warrant of security in Mr. I. S. his opinion The Jansenists will triumph at this and will that please them at Rome and Paris while Mr. I. S. agrees with them upon this particular I ask further Tho a General Council were congregated now to that effect such as that of Trent to ascertain us of the Articles defined against Jansenius how shall I be sure that God speaks by such a Council or the Church represented in it thus in Mr. I. S. his dialect because the Church by which God speaks says that God speaks by her because he doth credit her by so many Miracles and supernatural marks which makes it evidently credible that he doth speak by her Well and where be those Miracles and supernatural marks assisting this Council present to ascertain us that God speaks by it are you sure to find them at hand when the Council is joined likely you are upon the experience of coining Miracles when occasion requires it By this Reader you may see how little Mr. I. S. hath don after so much ado to resolve his Faith without a Circle How rash his assurance was that Protestants will never resolve theirs without such a fault I will now shew briefly The Faith of Protestants is that contain'd in Canonical Scripture as he often supposes my Faith touching each point of those contained in Scripture I resolve thus I believe the Son of God was made Man because I find it written in the holy Scripture I believe what is written in the holy Scripture because it is the infallible Word of God And I believe it is the Word of God because the Apostles preaching it did confirm it with such Miracles and Wonders as only God could work And finally that the Apostles did deliver the Doctrine contained in Scripture and did confirm it with Miracles I beleive in force of universal tradition according to that celebrated notion of it delivered by Vincentius Lyrinensis quod ubique quod semper quod apud omnes est creditum what was alwaies in all places and by all Christians received and believed is to be taken for Universal and Apostolical Tradition This common consent of Christians making up universal Tradition we have in what is unanimously delivered by the ancient Fathers and declared in the first general Councils of those more holy and sincere primitive times Thither I go to take up my belief as to streams immediatly proceeding from the Fountain of Grace with more pleasure and satisfaction then to the muddy Waters of doctrine delivered by the Church of Rome of this corrupt Age past through so many hands defiled with ambition avarice and other earthly passions repugnant to sincerity of which we have too much assurance CHAP. XIV A Reflection upon the perverse Doctrine contained in the resolution of Faith proposed to us by Mr. I. S. and the pernicious and most dangerous consequences of it IT is a Providence of God and the great force of truth that our Adversaries should forget themselves sometimes and discover their wicked intentions covered under sacred pretexts All their Novelties they frequently set forth under the venerable cloak of Antiquity It is a glory of humility says S. Bernard that Pride should wear a cloak of it to be in esteem Gloriosa res humilitas qua se vestire solet Superbia ne evilescat and so it is a glory of Antiquity that Novellers should pretend credit to their inventions by casting on them a color of Antiquity It is very frequent with the Romanists to use this stratagem to cloak their new Decrees with the venerable name of ancient Canons to call their Church ancient Church tho composed of Novelties where it opposes the Reformed Mr. I. S. hath bin pleased to unmask his Church herein to us declaring that the ultimate ground and motive of their belief and their Proselytes must not be the Testimony of that sacred primitive Church govern'd by Christ himself and his blessed Apostles but the Testimony of the present Church of Rome infected with the corruptions which the World knows and both friends and foes do see and cry against with universal scanâ—al Besides the perversness of this Doctrine obvious to every one that will not blind himself wilfully taking from our sigâ—t and view the sweet and comfortable face of primitive Christianity and willing us only to attend the foul and abominable practices of the Roman Court calling it self Church and even the Catholic Universal and only Church to the offence and scandal of all sincere and knowing Men Besides the perversity of this Doctrine the dangerous consequences of it are much to be considered for preventing the growth of this destructive Seed First it followeth hence that as there is no end of Disputes and Controversies among Men nor any is like to be so there will be no end of coining new Articles of Faith all tending to the encrease of power and splendor of the Pope and his Court tho at the expences of disturbance and destructions to Men Cities Provinces and Kingdoms as often happen'd This to be their aim under the pretence of exalting and propagating the Faith of Christ appears by the next attemt of Mr. I. S. in favor of the Popes supremacy to be examined in the Chapter next following Having established the Pope and his present Church as he conceives in the possession of infallible Judges in matters of Faith the next point he takes in hand
old Law the cases proposed above of Hezekiah and Josiah do assure us that this hath bin the practice of the best Kings of those times And if you consult the acts of Constantine the great of Arcadius and Honorius of Theodosius the elder Justinian Charles the great and others the best of Christian Emperors and greatest supporters of the Churches honor you shall find them intervening frequently and moderating the greatest consultation touching Religion and the good conduct of Church affairs It was a wonder to S. Augustin that any should doubt it should be the duty of an Emperor or Prince to do so a Aug. l. 1. in Epist contra Ep. Parm c. 9. An forte de Religione fas non est dicat Imperator vel quos miserit Imperator What doth it not belong to the Emperor or to him he employs to deliver his opinion touching Religion and elsewhere he says that to be the chief care and charge of the Emperor of which he is to give account to God b Aug. Ep. 50.162 ad Imperatoris curam de quâ rationem Deo redditurus est res illa maximè pertinebat All this being so that it is the duty of our Princes to govern all the states and affairs of this Kingdom and the dut◠of Subjects to obey them in all and that for conscience as S. Paul declareth Rom. 13.5 That you must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake how can I omit to condole the misery of my Country-men and others so deluded by the arts of Rome as to take it for a breach of Conscience what S. Paul declares to be a duty of Conscience I mean an acknowledgment of their Princes Supreme Authority over all his Subjects and their obligation of obeying him accordingly Especially when I see what S. Bernard saw and lamented that it is not the welfare of Souls nor the zeal of their Salvation makes the Court of Rome to put this horror into the hearts of Men against their dutyful obedience and subjection to their Princes Non quod valdè Romani curant quo fine res terminetur sed quia valdè diligunt munera sequuntur retributiones not that the Ministers of Rome do regard much the end or purpose of Controversies raised so they obtain their own end of encreasing their own interest and power I wish with all my heart with S. Bernard that these corruptions of Rome were not so public and known to all the World * Bernard Ep. 42. ad Archiep. Senonens Vtinam nobis relinquerent Moderni Noae unde à nobis possint aliquatenus operiri nunc vero cernente Orbe mundi fabulam soli tacebimus I wish these modern Noahs did leave unto us some possibility of covering their shame but all the World beholding it shall we alone conceal it This being so consider Mr. I. S. how blind is your zeal or great your malice in saying it should be a cruelty in our Princes to demand from their subjects an acknowledgment of his supreme power over them and in them a blasphemy to acknowledg it And to make us believe it is so you produce the autority of Calvin When I alledg Vasquez or Suarez his doctrine to you if it be not to your liking you tell me they have bin mistaken as well as I so much I say to you at present of Calvin that if he be of your mind in this particular he is mistaken and in a foul error as well as you Calvin and Luther have no more autority in the Church of England then Suarez and Vasquez among you and I observe you are as singularly impertinent as unreasonable wheresoever you speak to me of Luther and Calvin it is not their writings which I never saw brought me to the Church of England nor conserves me in it The Scripture Fathers and the History of the Church did work both upon me Of them you are to speak to me as I do to you Many a thousand poor simple Souls in these Kingdoms misled by the Pope and his busy Emissaries do cry against the Oath of Supremacy without knowing or examining what it means or what is their Princes meaning in demanding it crying up the Popes Supremacy much like those 200. seduced by Absalon to follow him out of Jerusalem to rebel against the King his Father when they thought they did service to the King And with Absalon went two hundred men out of Jerusalem that were called and they went in their simplicity and they knew not any thing 2. Sam. 15.11 So it is with many seduced by the art and activity of Rome to den◠due submission to their lawful Prince and give it to a Forreign usurper under pretext of following a pretended Vicar of God to rebel against God S. Paul declaring that whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation A conclusion he doth very legally infer from a verity he had immediatly before premised That the powers that be are ordained of God Rom. 13.1.2 We are to believe in Charity that many have the excuse of those 200. seduced by Absalon That they went in their simplicity and they knew not any thing But the corruptions and impostures of Rome being so universally known even in S. Bernards time as declared above and much more now we may fear justly that too many do err with knowledg or for want of due inquiry and so resisting lawful power they may receive to themselves damnation Of which latter sort Mr. I. S. may seriously fear himself to be one if he be so conversant in the doctrine of both Churches Protestant and Popish and in that of primitive Christianity as he pretends to be This I commend to his mature consideration while I pursue him in his engagement about Transubstantiation CHAP. XVIII Our Adversarys Essay in favour of Transubstantiation examined His Challenge for solving two Syllogisms answered MR. I. S. I do generally find you unexact and much unlike a Scholar in your Arguments but more when you boast most and stand in defiances Now you defy all my Divinity to answer two Syllogisms you would have us believe to be of your own invention But a piece of my Logic will make both appear Paralogisms unworthy of any answer no formal Syllogisms The first grounded upon Luke 22.19 Eat this is my Body which is given for you runs thus He gave to them what he gave for them But what he gave for them was not a sigure but his real and true Body therefore what he gave to them was not a figure but his real and true body In this Syllogism nothing is new but the form you give it and that guilty of several vices against the rules of Logic. I say nothing is new in your argument nor any sense or force added to it by passing the case from Christ giving the last Supper to Christ suffering upon the Cross All your Syllogism may be
difficulties rendring the Mystery more hard to be believed but that the contrary is to be held for the declaration of the Church Cajetan said that only the said declaration could make the words of our Saviour alledged for Transubstantiation appear convincing to that purpose And Suarez tells us his saying was commanded by Pope Pius the V. to be expunged An old Copy of Ocham I found in Dublin Library was more fortunate in escaping their blurs In his 5th quodlibet q. 30. he relates three opinions touching the Bread in the Eucharist The first saying that the Bread which was before is the Body of Christ after Consecration of which opinion he delivers this censure Prima est irrationalis that it is an unreasonable opinion The second opinion saies he is that the substance of Bread and Wine ceases to be and only the Accidents do remain and under them begins to be the Body of Christ Of this opinion he saies Est communis opinio quam tenâ—o propter determinationem Ecclcsiae non propâ—â—r aliam rationem That to this opinion he consems for the declaration of the Church in favor of it and not for any reason assisting it The third opinion related by him is that the substance of Bread and Wine remains after Consecration and of this he saies Tertia opinio esset multum rationabilis nisi esset determinatio Ecclesiae in contrarium That this opinion were very rational if the determination of the Church were not contrary to it So that it is not any reason nor any ground they saw for it in Scripture made these and many other very Learned men consent to the doctrine of Transubstantiation but only a blind Obedience to Innocents Decree in the Lateran Council Bellarmin wishes we should all have this submission to the Autority of the Church and I wish with all my heart that both we and he and his party and all Christians should have due submission to the Church truly Catholic Primitive and Apostolic declaring to us the Word of God by Canonical Scripture and Universal Tradition in which Fountains of Truth neither Transubstantiation will be found nor any of their Errors which I pointed out for motives of my forsaking their Communion Neither is I. S. more fortunate in his attemt of putting a terror upon me as if I had shock'd the Hierarchy of the Church of England by saying its rashness to give divine Adoration to a Wafer wherein they cannot be sure Christ to be Present this depending according to their own Principles upon the Priests intention to Consecrate his due Ordination and of the Bishop that gave him Orders his intention and due Ordination and so upward of endless requisites impossible to be certainly known And what has all this to do with shocking the Hierarchy of the the Church of England When I saw the man begin with so great a clap and sounding already a triumph I expected the story of the Nags-head or some other of their old Engines against the Legality of the Protestant Clergy should come down but all he brings is that we do also allow some things to be essentially requisite for the validity of a Sacrament the defect of which nullifies the Sacrament As for Baptism water is requisite and the form of words I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost The Minister may vitiate this form and utter somewhat in lieu of it or omit some words of it or add some other that would destroy the form The same may happen in the Ordination of a Minister or Bishop and there is no certainty that no error of these should have happen'd in any one of the whole train of our Ordainers and if it was wanting in any all the Ordinations derived from him are null Therefore we can have no Assurance of our Hierarchy I leave the Judicious Reader to see what singular exploit this man hath done herein against the Church of England his reasons alledged of doubting the Legality of its Ministers doth prove so much for rendring doubtful the Legality of the Roman Clergy by his own confession but much more for what I am to add first that we do not make the effects of Sacraments to depend so much upon the intention and quality of the Ministers as Papists do We entertain a better opinion of Gods goodness that he will not have pious Souls lose the fruit of their sincere Endeavors and will supply to that effect the defect of the Minister secondly that their practice of muttering the words in a Language unknown to the People and in a voice not audible especially in the consecration of the Eucharist is more subject to errors and fraud then the way of our Church where the Minister is to pronounce loudly and intelligibly the words of the form But chiefly touching the subject of our present discourse from which our Adversary seems willing to divert I mean the use and Adoration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist who run more hazard the Papists or we In case a defect should happen touching the consecration we enjoy the fruit of a spiritual Communion and are not at the loss that Papists are in the like case who make the main fruit depend upon the real and corporal presence of Christ in the host We run no danger of Idolatry material or formal giving the worship of Divinity to a thing that is not God as Papists do giving that kind of worship to any host reputed to be duly consecrated which if it happens not to be so indeed their act of worship is at least a material Idolatry in their own confession and to expose themselves to a known danger of committing such kind of Idolatry cannot chuse but be criminal as it is generally reputed to be a sin for one to expose himself to a danger of committing a sin The parity of one honoring his Father not knowing certainly him to be his true Father is impertinent and undecent A bad opinion he must have of his Mother who doubts his reputed Father to be such in truth But what if he were in a material error it is not a sin but a duty to pay respect unto him that adopts or owns him for a Son I will conclude this matter with letting Mr. I. S. see his rashness in pretending I was rash in saying its intolerable boldness in some of his fellows to say there is the same reason for the adoration of the host as for adoring Christs Divinity And he pretends I should seem thereby not to understand their doctrine Sir I am not to enter with you in comparison which of us understands better the Doctrine of both Churches what I see evidently is that either you do ignorantly misunderstand or maliciously misrepresent the state of the Question that wanting an answer to my Arguments in their proper terms you may fashion them so as your impertinent Discourses may seem to strike at something which is properly hostem tibi
fingere quem ferias to create your self an Adversary such as you may triumph over that is not to fit your answer to my Arguments but my Arguments to that you will have us take for an answer being what you have to say This is very usual with you as in many occasions I have declared from the beginning of this Discourse and will further declare in others to the end of it but in the present you appear notoriously guilty of this foul play I do neither ignore or doubt that if your doctrine of Christs personal presence in the consecrated host were true there is as much reason to adore such an host as to adore Christ himself both being the same thing in such a supposition This is the Mystery you pretend I should not understand but this is not the state of the Question with me What I did and do again call intolerable boldness is to say that the matter standing as now it doth doubtful and controverted there is as much reason for adoring the host consecrated as there is for adoring Christ his person since for adoring Christ we have several express commands laid upon us in Scripture which I related out of Heb. 1.6 Philip. 2.10 Jo. 5.23 but no intimation given of adoring Christ in the Sacramental bread supposing him corporally present there But if you go to the object of both worships Christ living in the World and your host consecrated to say that there is as much ground for believing your doctrine of Divinity existent in the latter as in the former I said and say still its intolerable boldness and a great injury to Christian Religion to make those two things of equal certainty whereof I was contented to make Bellarmin * Bellarm. de Christo lib. 1. c. 4. Judg who being to prove the Divinity of Christ goes through six Classes of Arguments out of Scripture with uncontroulable strength but being to prove Transubstantiation out of Scripture his only Argument is out of those words of Matth. 28. Take eat this is my Body Which place how unable it is in the opinion of the gravest School-men and of Bellarmin himself to make clear the doctrine of Transubstantiation we have seen from the beginning of this Chapter Is it not therefore intolerable boldness to say there is as much reason to assert that Christ is in the host really and corporally as there is for saying that Christ is God CHAP. XXI Mr. I. S. his weak defence of their half Communion confuted HE will have the Precept of Communion run parallel with that of Baptism wherewith I am well contented Both are commanded by Christ Baptism thus If one be not born again by the Water and the Spirit he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Joh. VI. 53. And the Communion thus If ye do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall not have life in you The essential requisites of Baptism are water and a set form of words In this no alteration may consist with the validity of the Sacrament not so of the mode or circumstances whether it be with immersion or sprinkling Herein alterations may be and were admitted by the Church Even so in the Sacrament of the Eucharist the essence of it consists in eating the Flesh and drinking the Blood of our Saviour This may not be altered but the mode or circumstances whether it be kneeling or standing whether in leavened or unleavened Bread whether white or red Wine touching these Accidents there may be alterations without prejudice to the substance of the Sacrament but not touching the essential parts of Flesh and Blood in this much we agree on both sides Now what are we to understand by Flesh what by Blood our Saviour did not leave obscure so as we may err in so weighty a matter wherein the life of our Souls doth consist but made it clear and visible to us He took Bread in his hands and of it he said this is my Body he took likewise Wine in his hand saying this is my Blood The way therefore to take his Body and Blood is to take consecrated Bread and Wine in remembrance of him This is the way Christ did establish the taking of this blessed Sacrament this the Apostles and Primitive Church did practice and this way all true Christians ought to walk Mr. I. S. censures it as a pusillanimity in me to be surprized at that famous non obstante of the Council of Constance that notwithstanding Christ did institute this Sacrament in both kinds and in the Primitive Church they administred it so yet the Council thought convenient to ordain the contrary I should have a strong stomach to swallow without chawing or examining what our Lord God the Pope orders as the Glossist calls him He is Vice-god upon earth as all of them stile him and of such priviledg that the commands of God must oblige no further then he pleases If he tells us that virtue is vice and vice virtue we are to believe him Yet Mr. I.S. will reason the case with us He might have spared that labor for I declared it was sufficient to my purpose to know they will pretend reason for inverting Christs Institutions But how well beseeming the gravity of a Council are the reasons he alledges grounded upon principles of nigardliness nicety To spare expences of wine and hinder the inconveniency of clean people to drink out of the same Cup with the unclean Is there not so much plenty of Wine now in the World as was in the Primitive Church and the Communion less frequent Were not clean people then in the World Shall a groundless fear of annoying the body over-weigh a certain danger of losing the Soul Christ having declared that if we do not eat his Flesh and drink his Blood we shall not have life in us Is it fair that such frivolous reasons as these should suffice for a Pope to alter the Institutions of Christ and no reason be it ever so evident should excuse opposing a Popes Decree But Mr. I. S. tells us that in these words of our Saviour Joh. VI. If ye do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall not have life in you The Particle and must be taken disjunctively for or not copâ—latively So as the command must be understood of eating his Flesh or drinking his Blood because in the Hebrew Language wherein our Saviour spake the Particle and is capable of such a sense Bellarmin and Suarez said so I see they did and thereby I see that a bad cause will make iâ—s Patrons run to narrow shifts At this rate you may pretend to comply with the precept of loving God and your Neighbor by loving either tho you do not love both And so of the precept of honoring your Father and Mother that you observe iâ— by honoring one tho you deny that duty to the other because the Particle and in those
wherewith Christ himself is to be worshipped And so respectively of the Images of other Saints that they are to be worshipped with the same kind of worship that is due to the Prototype Neither indeed do they say herein more then the Council of Trent doth teach them to say For in the Decree above mentioned touching the worship of Images it gives such a reason of it as declares the said worship to be measured by the quality of the Prototype Quoniam honos qui iis exhibetur refertur ad prototypa quae illae repraesentant ità ut per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoremus sanctos quorum illae similitudinem gerunt veneremur The honor which we give to Images says the Council is related to the Prototypes which they do represent so as that by the Images which we kiss and before which we uncover our head and bow down we adore Christ and worship the Saints whose likeness they bear Whence follows what the forementioned Divines said That the worship of Images being to be measured by the Quality of their Prototypes the worship of Latria is due to the Image of Christ that being the worship which is due to himself And by your denial of this to be the doctrine of your Church Mr. I. S. you will more easily perswade us that you begin to grow asham'd of your doctrine as well you may then that you understand the Tenets of the Roman Church better then Azorius did or those other Divines of greatest eminency among you by him quoted This being so consider the miserable condition of your doctrine how well you can desend it from the infamous note of Idolatry If you believe the best Interpreters touching the proper signification of the word Idolum you shall find them say it signifies no more then Imago So that an Image adored or worshipped is in propriety of speech an Idol worshipped and consequently a worship of Latria given to an Image or Idâ—l for they are the same is in all propriety of speech Idololatria Therefore according to the doctrine of the Council of Trent and your Divines forementioned by the worship of Latria given by you to the Image of Christ you commit formal Idolatry I wish with all my heart you did not and that no Argument of mine nor of any other could prove you guilty of this horrid crime By this you see how the Council of Trent and the most eminent of your Schole-men do countenance the stupid error of the vulgar among â—ou even exceed it It is plain they deliver in formal terms what I am certain would be a horror to the meaner Capacities if these did apprehend the sinful absurdity of it And your pretensiâ—n to more prudence in not terming your worship Latria doth not heal the wound nor so much as cover it from any clear sighted-eies The real guilt consists in worshipping Images against the Ordinance of God give that worship what name you please If I do say your people do pray to Images of wood or stone and therein do practice that great folly of which the Wise man accuses the Idolater that he is not ashamed to speak to that which hath no life For health he calls upon that which is weak for life prays to that which is dead Wisdom 13.17 if I do say moreover that your Church teacheth them to do so certainly you will say it is a great calumny But then tell me I pray whose words are these you speak to the Cross in the procession of good Friday O Crux ave spes unica Hoc Passionis tempore Auge piis justitiam Reisque dona veniam Hail ô Cross our only hope in this time of Passion give increase of grace to the godly and pardon to sinners If you tell me these are the words of the Church which you will not deny but spoken to Christ not to the Cross Azorius gainsays you for he declares that by those words the Church speaks to the Cross Ecclesia cum Crucem veneratur colit eam salutat alloquitur cum ait O Crux ave c. The Church says he adoring the Cross salutes it and speaks to it saying Hail ô Cross c. And is not this to speak to that which hath no life c. Thus your people do and which is worse thus your Church teaches them to do And thus we see your Church and People do what all Idolaters do to their Idols CHAP. XXIV Our Adversaries reply to my exceptions against their Invocation of Saints declared to be impertinent Mr. I.S. is so exact a Disputant that he takes it for a sufficient answer to my Arguments if he do's but mention the subject of them and say somthing of what his notes or stock of knowledg do's afford him without taking the trouble of examining whether what he saies be to the purpose of my Arguments or no. This is usual with him but very conspicuous in the present case of their Invocation of Saints I begun accusing their excesses in calling the Virgin Mary their life and hope their Redeemeress and Saviouress This I said to be contrary to St. Peters declaration That there is no salvation in any other besides Jesus Christ and that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved Act. IV. 12. To this Mr. I. S. saies it proves we must not ask the Saints on earth to pray for us which is to prove too much I hope Mr. I. S. himself will not be so desperate as to call his Colleague whose praiers he desires his Life and Hope his Saviour and Redeemer But how comes it to prove we must not desire at all the praiers of Saints upon earth Two excesses of Papists in their Invocation of Saints I took in hand to reprehend To speak of all the brevity which my business then did confine me to would not permit The one is to call the Virgin Mary Saviouress c. the other to dedicate more Churches and address more praiers to Saints then to Christ Both which excesses I convinc'd of error by those passages of Scripture which declare Christ our Lord to be our only Saviour and that he is more willing and able to help us then any other Saint and that he invites us to come to himself for remedy of all our needs Your way to answer this were either to purge your Church of those excesses or to prove that the Scriptures which I alledged did not evince those practices of yours to be excesses You do neither but in lieu thereof you speak only of desiring the praiers of Saints who live yet upon earth whereby you alter the state and terms of the question I spoke of praying to Saints who are no more on earth and fitted my Texts to the Confutation of that practice You speak of desiring those who are not yet departed this life to pray for us which are far different
have us say that your Church made choice of that text beyond others to be read in the Anniversary Mass of Souls because in it is made mention of a weighty sum of money to be given for the dead and with offerings of this kind your Clergy is much pleased and so do strike on that string too much in their Funeral Sermons exhorting to mony offerings for the dead to the no small offence and heavy censure of such of your People as dare speak their sense By what I see of your temper I am sure you would say so if you were in my place and case And while you make your atonement with your Church for undervaluing her judgment in the preference of that text forbear at last tergiversations and stand to a trial of the pertinency of the said text reputed for chief to prove the Existence of Purgatory I said that tho the Book relating the foresaid case were Canonical and of certain Autority which is not allowed yet it was no concluding argument to prove the Existence of Purgatory since Praiers for the Dead may be made and were made to different purposes then that of drawing them out of Purgatory and if that be so it is not a good consequence Judas Maccabeus ordered Praiers to be made for his Soldiers defunct therefore it was to draw them out of Purgatory That Prayers may be made for the dead to a different purpose then to draw them out of Purgatory I proved first out of a doctrine received among Romish Doctors that God being present to all the spaces of Eternity may see now and listen to Praiers that will be made in any Age after and fore-seeing that godly persons shall pray in the future for the assistance of his Grace to one dying now may yield it accordingly If this go well said I praiers may be commendable and very important for the dead tho no Purgatory were in nature being conducent to a greater emolument of dying penitently and thereby escaping the everlasting fire of Hell I have added that if the case related of Maccabeus be true it is more likely the praiers made for the slain should have proceeded in the manner aforesaid then for bringing them out of Purgatory since in the same place is related that those men were found to have committed a mortal sin which is not pretended to be pardoned in Purgatory under the Coats of every one that was slain saith the Text Maccab. XII 42. They found things consecrated to the Idols of the Jamnites which is forbidden to the Jews by the Law And the following Context declares that sin to have bin hainous for as much as it drew upon them Gods vengeance saying that every man saw that this was the cause wherefore they were slain Mr. I. S. is pleased to approve of that subtilty of Schole-men alledged for ground of this reply that Praiers in the future may avail Souls dying before to obtain a good death the only thing I did suspect may not meet with general applause and which indeed if certain and accordingly apprehended and believed by men would make Praiers for the dead to appear more useful and important then ever the doctrine of Purgatory could make them yet appear to serious judgments But my good Antagonist allowing the same doctrine to be very good tells me it is not to the purpose None is more apt to call one a thief then he that is a thief himself and none so ready to say his opponent speaks not to the purpose as one that never speaks to the purpose himself Of this latter sort I dare make good Mr. I. S. to be in all his encounters upon my discourse if it were worth my while in the mean time I appeal to the Reader of common sense to judg betwixt him and me at present which of us both doth speak to the purpose he in saying that my discourse now related is not to the purpose of proving the case of Judas Maccabeus do's not evince the existence of Purgatory or I in ordering thus my Argument to that purpose The Praiers supposed to be made by the Maccabees might have bin and probably were made to a different purpose then that of drawing the Souls of their defunct from Purgatory therefore the case of such Praiers to have bin made doth not evince the existence of Purgatory The Antecedent of this Argument as also the proof and declaration of it is allowed and commended by my Adversary To enlarge upon declaring the legality of the consequence is to mistrust the understanding of the discreet Reader and to mis-spend my time which I do not resolve to do But shall we see how my subtile Adversary go's about to prove I did not speak to the purpose in my former discourse For allow saies he those Praiers made for the slain might have had that effect in this passage c. a penitent death yet still returns the conclusion pretended by Bellarmin that the passage proves it was the belief and practice of the people of God and praised by Scripture to pray for the expiation of the sins of the dead Good Sir this is to draw breath a little but not to escape a deadly blow given to your cause in this occasion I take up your own words and make them serve my purpose thus Tho that passage proves it was the belief and practice of the people of God and praised by Scripture to pray for the expiation of sins of the the dead yet still returns my Conclusion that those Praiers might have bin made for the expiations of sins committed by the dead in life and to be pardoned at their death not of sins remaining after their death and bringing them to Purgatory which was Bellarmins purpose and yours The Texts he alledges out of St. Dennis and Isidorus for praying for the dead are capable of the same construction I gave to the praiers of the Maccabees This Answer he might have expected from me if he were in charity with more ground then the other he supposes rashly I should give that the Ancient Fathers erred I did not learn in the Church of England to respect them less I see here far greater reading and regard of them then I saw among you I know no Gehinus or others of those you mention that ascribes to them more errors then Aquinas Scotus Suarez Maldonate and other your greatest Schole-men and Scripturians they alledg them frequently for contradictory opinions and the one side must be in an error You betray too much of a vulgar temper in admiring it should be said that any of the Ancient Fathers hath erred They confess themselves to have don it it was far from their modesty and sincerity to deny it CHAP. XXVI The Argument for Purgatory taken from the 12th of S. Matth. v. 32. solved THE chief testimony out of the New Testament alledged in favor of Purgatory is that of Matth. XII 32. where our Saviour saith that a sin against the Holy Ghost
1. opusc tract 8. q. 4. says the foresaid testimonies are without doubt to be understood of a remission to be given by way of Sacraments not of the remission of pains in the other life as the Pope doth practice in the giving of Indulgences and finally gives for the only reason the Authority of the Church and of Pope Leo then governing which he tells us must suffice tho no other reason should appear by these remarkable words Absque hasitatione aliquâ etiamsi nulla adesset ratio fatendum est dicti Thesauri dispensationem non solùm per Sacramenta quoad merita Christi sed aliter quam per Sacramenta qnoad merita Christi Sanctorum commissam esse Praelatis Ecclesiae praecipuè Papae hoc tanto magis fatendum est quanto per Leonem decimum determinatum est We are to believe without staggering tho no reason appear for it that the dispensing of the Treasure of the Church not only by way of Sacraments as to the merits of Christ but otherwise then by Sacraments as to the merits of Christs and the Saints is committed to the Prelates of the Church and especially to the Pope And this is so much the more to be confessed because it is so determined by Leo X. A very special reason to convince Luther and the rest of the World that do not believe the Pope to be Infallible Suarez tom 4. in 3. partem disp 49. sect 1. delivers his opinion of the foresaid Testimonies of Scripture to be insufficient to prove the doctrine of Indulgences Of that of Joh. 20. he says the same that Cajetan above mentioned Of the other touching the power of binding and loosing Matth. 18.18 he says the literal sense of those words to be the power of binding by Laws and Censures and of absolving from Censures and dispensing in Laws And finally in the number 17. of the same Section he concludes there is no place in the Gospel whence the giving of this power may be concluded if it be not Joh. 21.16 where our Savior said to S. Peter feed my Sheep in which words Suarez doth pretend the power Universal and Supremacy over all the Church to have bin given to S. Peter and under that Universalïty the power of Indulgences to have bin given to him But as S. Peter did never receive such an Universal power over the Church as the Bishops of Rome do now usurp so did he never pretend it nor ever troubled Thomas in India or Andrew in Achaia or James in Jerusalem or any other of his Fellow-Apostles and Bishops in their respective Provinces about a power over them or a dependance of them upon him all and eaâ—h one of them complying faithfully with their Ministry without incroaching one upon the other nor staining the repute of Christian holiness with the profane spirit of Ambition which in Rome did grow to the confusion and distraction of Christendom But tho such a Supremacy would have bin granted to the Pope and to the succeeding Bishops of Rome farr must Suarez go for a consequence of the doctrine of Indulgences to be inferred from such a grant If the power of dispensing those immense Treasures of the merits of Christ and all Saints was given to S. Peter in those words of our Savior commending to him the feeding of his Sheep how came he and the other succeeding Bishops of Rome for so many Ages to neglect the use of this power to the benefit of Souls and great advantage of the Roman Church as now is practised Suarez did easily perceive the weakness of his argument from this testimony and so betook himself in the second Section following to the common refuge of the use and autority of the Church That there is such a use says he is not denied we see it that it is not an abuse but a lawful use is proved first by the authority of the Council of Trent last Session where is added that this use hath bin approved by the autority of sacred Councils for which purpose are wont to be related the Council of Nice Can. 11. of Carthage 4.75 of Neooaesarea ch 3. of Laodicea Can 1.2 but in these Councils says Suarez we only find that it was lawful for Bishops to remit some of the public Penitences enjoined by Canons for divers crimes but that such a remission should be extended to a pardon of penalties due in the Tribunal of God may not be inferred from those Councils Another main argument for the Antiquity of Indulgences they fetâ—h out of 2. Cor. 2.10 where S. Paul remits a part of the penalty due to an incestuous Person whom he had formerly punished saving To whom you forgave any thing I forgive also for if I forgive anâ— thing to whom I forgave it for your sakes forgave I it in the pâ—rson of Christ From these latter words in the person of Christ they pretend to infer that the practice of Indulgences now used in the Roman Church had its beginning from Christ and that S. Paul did practise it in the occalion now mentioned by autority received from Christ This Argument Suarez proposes in the above mentioned second Section num 3. but from the following fourth Number to the 11. he doth most vigorously prove the inefficaciousness of that argument That the remission given by S. Paul to that incestuous man did only relate to an exterior penalty due by course or Canon of Ecclesiastical Government not to penalties of the other life depending from Divine Justice that the words in the person of Christ only proves it to be an act of Jurisdiction or power received from Christ which may be sufficiently verified by a remission of an exterior temporal penalty due by the common course of Ecclesiastical human power and finally concludes that there is no warrantable history or testimony extant by which it may be convinced that the practise of Indulgences now used in the Roman Church was known before the times of Gregory the great of whom he says is reported that he gave a Plenaâ—y Indulgence tho even of this says Suarez I find no written History but a public report in Rome and other places And finally what Suarez says with resolution is only that this practise is now in use in the Church so as they are reputed heretics who reprehend such a custome and it is impossible that the Universal Church should err herein for it were says he an intolerable moral error in practise If the Universal Church indeed did practise now and always from the beginning and in all places this custom according to the rules of Apostolic lawful Tradition delivered by Lyrinensis and S. Augustin l. 4. de Baptismo cap. 24. we would look upon this argument as of force But Suarez himself doth acknowledg and confess that this practise is neither so ancient nor Universal And therefore it may not be taken for Apostolic tradition but ranked among the modern Institutions of the present Romish Church to stand or fall
with the autority of it which we have sufficiently proved not to be infallible And by this Reader you may see how rashly Mr. I. S. says I did most falsly aver that Suarez is not so certain whether the power of absolving given to the Church did extend to the profuse grant of Indulgences practised at present by the Roman Church Let the Learned Reader reflect upon Suarez his discourse upon this subject in the place forementioned and he shall find how farr he is from any certainty that this doctrine is grounded upon Scripture and primitive Antiquity but shall find that he only believes it as Scotus did that of Transubstantiation Non propter rationes quae non cogunt not in force of arguments alledged for it which are not convincing but for the autority of his Church And mark Reader that so great men as Cajetan and Suarez being employed by public autority in defending this doctrine after bestowing all their Learning and no small labor in procuring to establish it we find them confess they have nothing to say seriously for it but what the Collier for his Faith viz. that he believed as the Church believes And here also they mistake the true notion of the Church and autority of it a mistake in truth more tolerable in a Collier then in men of the Learning and repute of Cajetan and Suarez But such is the condition of their cause that it could not be defended better and such was their engagement that they must defend it by right or wrong I conceive my Antagonist complaining that I have neglected him in this Chapter and I confess freely I delight more in dealing with people of that Learning and ingenuity I see in Cajetan and Suarez then with Mr. I. S. but being we are debtors to all I will give a turn to him also upon this subject and it will be in the next Chapter CHAP. XXIX The unhappy success of Mr. I. S. his great boast of skill in History touching the Antiquity of Indulgences discovered IN the 90th page of my former Discourse speaking of the Antiquity of Indulgences I mentioned that the first notice I had of the grants of them after the manner now used is that of Gregory the VII given to those of his party who would fight against the Emperor Henry III. by error of the Printer IV. in the year 1084. which Baronius relates from his Penitentiary in which was promised remission of all their sins to such as would venture their lives in that holy War for which I quoted Baronius his Annals upon the foresaid year 1084. num 15. Here Mr. I. S. enters in triumph and declares that if I have no more skill in Divinity or moral Theology then I seem to have in History I am but a fresh-water Scholar as for Controversie saies he my Treatise shews well what I know of it Be it so Sir let me have truth on my side as I hope will appear by this Treatise and make you much of your skill in the mean while let us examine how much it is in the present point of History wherein you pretend to be most Magisterial First you mistake most absurdly the state of the Question as is usual with you and where I speak of Indulgences given by Gregory the Seventh to those of his party who would fight against the Emperor Henry the Third you report such Indulgences to be given by the said Gregory to Henry to encourage him and the Christians to war against the Saracens Whoever did read the History of that Gregory and his fierce persecution of the said Emperor to the end of his life even as his own Historians Platina and Baronius more biassed to him do report will more easily believe that Gregory should favor the Turk against Henry then uphold Henry against any Adversary If ever you had any tincture of the History of Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the Seventh how could you fall into so ridiculous an equivocation as to conceive him granting Indulgences in favor of the Emperor Henry III. If you did read my Discourse speaking expresly of an Indulgence granted to those that would fight again the Emperor how come you to pervert the narrative so absurdly as if I should have spoken of an Indulgence given in favor of that Emperor You say that the Indulgence I speak of nor any other to any such purpose was not granted by Gregory the Seventh but by Vrban the Second Read the place I quoted of Baronius upon the year 1084. numb 15 there you shall find Gregory the Seventh employing Anselm Bishop of Luca to publish Indulgences for all those that would fight in his quarrel against the Emperor Henry the Third And continuing your strange equivocations you speak of Indulgences given by Vrban the Second to the same Henry the Third but it was not to him he gave them but to Alexius Emperor of Constantinople as Baronius relates at the year 1095. numb 3. You speak of Indulgences granted by Leo the Third anno 847. but it was not Leo the Third but Leo the Fourth that reigned then and when Suarez finds not him nor any other giving Indulgences of so ancient date sure I am you never found them upon any warrantable account To one notice of Indulgences I will help you out of Baronius preceding that I mentioned of Gregory the Seventh given to them that would fight against the Emperor Henry the Third in the same year 1084. which I allow you to take for the genuine origin of your present practice of Indulgences given by profane Cardinals Creatures of Pope Guibert called Clement the Third Competitor of Gregory the Seventh of which kind of Cardinals Baronius in the foresaid year numb 9. giveth this account Erant enim cives Romani Vxorati sive Concubinarii barbati Mitrati peregrinis oratoribus praecipue vero multitudini rusticanae Longobardorum mentientes asserentes se Cardinales Presbyteros esse quique oblationibus receptis Indulgentiam remissionem omnium peccatorum usu nefari◠impudenter praestabant hi occasione custodiendae Ecclesiae consurgentes intempestae noctis silentio intra citra candem Ecclesiam impunè homicidia rapinas varia stupra diversa latrocinia exercebant There were saies he Roman Citizens either married or retaining Concubines shaven and wearing Mitres imposing upon forreign Embassadors but especially upon the rude multitude of Longobards that they were Presbyter Cardinals and who receiving offerings did impudently bestow Indulgences and remission of all sins these under pretext of defending the Church rising in the deep silence of the night did commit within and about the Church without hindrance horrible murders robberies and diverse sorts of whoredoms and luxuries Who were better Popes or better men Guibert and his Cardinals or Hildebrand and his as I do not know so I will not dispute but conclude that such Indulgences as these were given in Rome by relation of their own hired Historian and let the Reader see how unhappy Mr.
I. S. has bin in his pretended triumph over me touching this point of History CHAP. XXX Of the strange and absurd terms used in the grants of Indulgences and the immoderate profuseness wherewith and slight causes for which they are granted TRuly if we do consider the absurd language used in the trade of Indulgences and the vast boundless profuseness in the grant of them for very slight causes of all which their most learned Defenders do confess not to be able to give a rational account we may with some grounds suspect that some such Lay-cardinals mentioned in the precedent Chapter out of Baronius granting Indulgences in Rome should have bin the Authors and Inventors of the present practice of Indulgences and terms of it used in the Roman Church First they divide Indulgences into total and partial A total Indulgence is a full remission of all the temporal pains due to the mans sins committed A partial Indulgence is a remission of a part of the penalties according to the will of the person granting it A total Indulgence is subdivided again into plena plenior plenissima a plenary or full more full and most full Here the wits of the Learned are strained to find sense in these words how one Indulgence that is plenary can be capable of these degrees of increase in regard of the same person If by any plenary Indulgence he has a total remission of all the penalties due to his sins how can he have a more total or full remission of them Suarez disp 1. De effectu Indulgent Sect. 4. finding no ground for these degrees would fain give some sense to them by a parity of the Virgin Mary full of grace by the coming of the Angel more full by the coming of her Son and most full in her death but finding himself weary of such bare conjectures resolves that according to the present state there is no substantial difference as to the effect in those gradations of plenary Indulgences whatsoever was the meaning of those terms with the first Authors of them whereof at present there is no clear knowledg and relates Sotus saying that Preachers of Indulgences have introduced those gradations by way of exaggeration Partial Indulgences are likewise subdivided into quadragena septena carena and the like Quadragena they call an Indulgence of forty daies septena of seven years carena composed of both the former containing seven years and forty daies And now enters a very perplex difficulty that turns the brains of their ablest Divines what to understand by these years and daies of remission whether so many years and daies of the pains of Purgatory to be remitted as Viguerius did conceive or so much time of penance enjoined by Canons for sins and tho this latter be the more received and common opinion and approved by Suarez in the place now mentioned yet he finds so many difficulties for a congruous sense of so many thousand years allowed by Indulgences so little consistence in reasons alledged by several Authors that he resolves it s a matter obscure and unknown to us and that we must rest upon the judgment of the Church which knows the meaning of those measures concluding thus Breviter vero assero de re nobis incertà Authores hos disputare Ecclesiam vero uti illa mensurâ quae sibi nota est I say briefly that these Authors do quarrel about a thing unknown to us and that the Church uses herein that measure which is known to it self remitting those pains of Purgatory which may be proportionable to the penalties of this life enjoined by Canons and so leaves us as wise as we were before for understanding what sense so many thousands of years can have whether relating to the pains of Purgatory or to penalties enjoined by Canons But this Language is used and received in the Roman Church and therefore we must stand to it let it mean what it will be it sense or non-sense and that 's all the account that Suarez can give us of it after the trial of his own wit and examining the discourses of others being to speak in earnest Now to the cause of giving Indulgences Mr. I. S. gives us occasion to say somthing since he boasts that Indulgences are not granted so slightly as Protestant Ministers would make their flock believe It s true that Cajetan teaches Opusc de Indulgent cap. 8. that great Indulgences ought not to be given for small causes and that there ought to be a proportion betwixt the quality of the Indulgence and the work performed to obtain it But how can this consist with what Cajetan tells there that a plenary Indulgence is given to every one that stands in the Yard of St. Peters Church when the Pope gives his blessing to the people there on Easter day Here he recurs to a mystery that tho to stand in that place be of its own nature of no great consideration yet relating to the purpose of representing the Members of the Church united under one head it s of great weight and proportioned to the Indulgence received But what mystery shall we find to render decent that famous Indulgence granted by Innocent III. to all such as would marry public Harlots as Spondanus relates in the year 1198. Who would not think that so many loud and learned cries made against the abuses of Indulgences in the Roman Church for more then a hundred years and the scandal and contemt of them grown among the sober and judicious men even of their own party would not be a means to moderate at least the boundless profuseness of those grants feeding continually the hopes of sinners for a remission of all their crimes and encouraging them to persevere in their wicked waies But that 's the unhappiness of that Church and the dismal symptom of a disease being mortal that it grows worse with remedies and hates a cure Setting aside numberless instances of their most absurd prodigalities in this kind whereof many Books are replenish'd I will only set down here a Copy of Indulgences granted by the present Pope Clement the Tenth upon the occasion of Canon zing certain new Saints of late in which you may see a full Idea of the Romish corruptions in this kind Formula Indulgentiarum cum quibus S. D. N. Clemens Papa X. Coronas Rosaria Cruces sacrasque Imagines numismata Medallias vulgo nuncupata benedicir per occasionem Canonizationis SS Confessorum Cajetani Francisci Borgiae Philippi Benitii Ludovici Bertrandi Sanctae Rosae Virginis Peruanae QVicunque saltem semel in hebdomada Coronam Domini vel Beatissimae Virginis aut Rosarium ejusve tertiam partem aut Officium divinum vel parvum Beatissimae Virginis vel defunctorum vel septem Psalmos poenitentiales vel graduales recitare aut detentos in carcere visitare aut pauperibus subvenire aut saltem horae quadrante mentali orationi vacare consueverit si confessus Sacerdoti ab Ordinario approbato sanctissimum Eucharistiae
Sacramentum sumserit in quolibet ex diebus infra scriptis piasque ad Deum preces fuderit pro haeresium extirpatione fideique Catholicae propagatione aliisque sanctae Ecclesiae necessitatibus plenariam suorum peccatorum Indulgentiam corsequetur nimirum die Festo Nativitatis Domini nostri Jesu Christi Circumcisionis Epiphaniae Resurrectionis Ascensionis Pentecostes Sanctissimae Trinitatis Corporis Christi die Conceptionis Nativitatis Praesentationis Visitationis Annunciationis Purificationis Assumtionis beatissimae Virginis tum Nativitatis Sancti Johannis Baptistae Sanctorum modo Canonizatorum omnium Sanctorum dedicationis propriae Ecclesiae ejusdem Patroni vel tituli Quisquis in vigilia cujuslibet istorum sanctorum jejunaverit confessus in ipsius Festo Sanctissimum Eucharistiae Sacramentum sumserit oraveritque Deum ut supra dictum est toties Indulgentiam plenariam consequetur Quicunque Missam celebrarit vel confessus sacrâ Communione refectus interfuerit Missae ad Altare in quo Imago aut corpus aut reliquiae cujuslibet praedictorum quinque Sanctorum asservantur pieque Deum oraverint at dictum est die uno quem voluerit cujuslibet Mensis plenariam Indulgentiam lucretur Quisquis vero poenitens peccata commissa emendare firmiter proposuerit eadem die visitaverit septem Ecclesias quaslibet ubi tot Ecclesiae non reperiuntur quotquot ibi sint si unica tantum Ecclesia sit in loco omnia ipsius altaria pro haeresium extirpatione c. pie Deum oraverit semel in anno fruatur Indulgentiis concessis septem urbis Ecclesias visitantibus Quicunque devotè cogitaverit de aliquo sanctissimae passionis D. N. Jesu Christi mysterio in ejusdem passionis honorem septies terram deosculatus fuerit eo die lucretur Indulgentias concessas ascendentibus Romae per scalam sanctam hoc autem semel in singulis annis Quisquis praedictorum quinque sanctorum imitatione vel peccata sua vere detestabitur cum firme proposito non peccandi de cetero vel actum aliquem virtutis exercebit toties lucretur Indulgentiam septem annorum totidem quadragena Quisquis leget aliquod libri caput de vitâ corundem Sanctorum aut invisitet eorum altare vel imaginem venerabitur eraverit pro felici statu Sancta matris Ecclesiae peccatorumque conver sione singulis vicibus percipiet Indulgentiam ce tum dierum Eandem pariter consequatur qui aliquid pauperibus tribuet vel eosdem instruet aut por alios instrui curabit in iis quae pertinent ad fidem bonosque mores Quisquis in Sanctissimae Eucharistiae cultu vel Beatissimae Virginis se exercebit meditans illius mysterii dignitatem quantaque ex eo ad nos beneficia manant aut commiserans ejusdem Beatae Virginis dolores quibus in passione morte filii affecta fuit vel alia qualibet ratione Sanctissimum Sacramentum venerabitur pro necessitatibus Ecclesiae orabit toties Indulgentiam centum dierum consequatur Quilibet in urbe commorans vel ab ea ultra viginti milliaria non absens si legitimè impeditus non interfuerit Benedictioni qua Romanus Pontifex in Festo Paschatis Ascensionis solemniter benedicere consuevit confessus autem Sacrosancta Communione reficiatur pias ad Deum preces pro haeresium extirpatione c. fuderit Indulgentiis fruatur quibus praesentes fruuntur eadem vero si adimpleverint longius ab urbe distantes easdem Indulgentias etiamsi legitime non impediti consequantur Omnes supradictae Indulgentiae fidelibus defunctis applicari possunt per modum suffragii Pro iisdem percipiendis satis est privatim habere apud se aliquam coronam vel crucem c. cum praedictis Indulgentiis à Sanctitate suâ benedictam quae superius praescripta sint adimplere licet illa etiam alio nomine impleri forte debuerint Quisquis in articulo mortis se totum Deo commendans praedictos Sanctos vel ex iis unum invocar it ore si potuerit sin minus saltem corde confessus sacraque Communione refectus si potuerit alioquia saltem contritus plenariam omnium peccatorum Indulgentiam consequetur In distribuendis hujusmodi Coronis Crucibus earumque usu sanctissimus servari jubet decretum Fel. record Alexandri VII editum sub die sexto Februarii 1657 nimirùm ut Coronae Cruces Rosaria Numismata quae vulgo Medalliae nuncupantun sacrae Imagines cum praefatis Indulgentiis benedictae non transeant personam ilionum quibus à sanctitate suâ concessae sunt aut quibus ab his primâ vice distribuentur neque commodari aut precario dari possunt alioquin Indulgentiis jam concessis aliquatre ex praedictis deperdita pro ea subrogari altera nullo modo potest quacunque concessione aut privilegio in contrarium non obstante Prohibet Sanctitas sua hanc Indulgentiam imprimi extra Vrbem MICHAEL ANGELUS RICCIUS Secret Romae ex Typographiaâ— Rev. Camerae Apost 1671. Thus Englished A Form of Indulgences wherewith our holy Father Pope Clement X. did bless Crowns Rosaries Crosses sacred Images and Medals by occasion of Canonizing the holy Confessoâ—s Cajetan Francis Borgia Philippus Benitius Lewis Bertrand and Sancta Rosa a Peruvian Virgin Whosoever shall accustom at least once a week to say the Crown of our Lord or of the Blessed Virgin or her Rosary or the third part of it or the Divine Office or the little Office of the Blessed Virgin or of the Dead or the seven Penitential Psalms or the Gradual Psalms or to visit Prisoners or relieve the Poor or spend at least a quarter of an hour in mental praier if he confesses to a Priest approved by the Ordinary and receive the holy Communion in any of the daies below mentioned and shall pray to God for extirpation of Heresies the Propagation of Catholic Faith and for other necessities of the Roman Church shall obtain a Plenary Indulgence of all his sins viz. in the day of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ his Circumcision â—piphany Resurrection and Ascension the day of Pentecost holy Trinity and Corpus Christi and the day of the Conception Nativity Presentation Visitation Annunciation Purification and Assumtion of the blessed Virgin the day of the Nativity of S. John Baptist of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul of the five Saints now canonized of all Saints of the Dedication of his proper Church and of the Patron or Title of it Whosoever shall confess and receive in the Vigil of any of the foresaid Saints and shall pray to God as aforesaid shall obtain Plenary Indulgence as often as he doth it Whosoever shall say Mass or having confessed and received shall hear Mass at an Altar in which the Image or Body or Relique of any of the foresaid five Saints are kept and shall pray to God as aforesaid in any one day which he pleases of every Moneth
and the meaning of them then when he hears the same Psalm without understanding the words or sense of them Your comparison of a Polander presenting a Petition in English to the King of England which himself doth not understand doth aggravate your crime and publish the misery of the People abused by you Would not that Polander wish to know the English tongue for acting in his own cause and to be sure he was not abused by a Notary who possibly might have framed a Petition for him to the King for hanging his Father or Mother for Traitors If the King did understand the Polish Language as well as the English were it not a madness in the said Polander to have his Petition penn'd in a Tongue he doth not understand with the foresaid disadvantages being able to do it in his own Tongue with the contrary advantages What madness then is it in your People to frame their Praiers in a Tongue unknown to them to speak like Parrots without feeling or knowing what they say and exposed to the danger of being abused by a knave teaching them or reading before them blasphemous words in which they are to join with him bâ— their Amen And in case the Praier be good that is read before them what proportion can it have with elevating the minds of the People to a conjunction in sense with the Minister if they do not understand what he says And thus ill it go's with you even for the act of praying in your Liturgy which you allow to be an elevation of the mind to God Even in this point I have your own judgement against you and so may return your text upon you saying Ex ore tuo te judico serve nequam But what of the second part of the Liturgy above mentioned containing a speech of God to the People by the Epistles Gospels Psalms and other sacred Lectures directed to the Spiritual direction and food of their Souls can this end be compassed without sense and feeling in the People of what is said to them You confess that S. Paul 1. Cor. 14. prohibits preaching to the People in a Tongue unknown to them and are not those sacred Lectures a kind of preaching exhortation and instruction of the People and the best that can be as proceeding immediatly from God himself Then you act against the Apostles order by your own confession proposing such exhortations to the People in a Tongue unknown to them and so your text returns upon you here in full measure Ex ore tuo te judico serve nequam It is a discredit to a cause so clear to make more delay upon it but let the World cry against the tyranny you use this way with Souls in depriving them of their Spiritual food What you say of submitting your judgment herein to the Church is idle and absurd when our present business is to rebuke the abuses and corruptions of your Church the causes of our dislike of it CHAP. XXXXII. The cruelty of the Roman Church in prohibiting the reading of Scripture to the people and their common pretence of Sects and Divisions arising among Protestants refuted FRom the page 101. of my former Discourse I declared the cruelty used with the faithful people in prohibiting them the reading of Scripture which is the food of their Souls how contrary that is to the doctrine of Scripture it self often inviting us to the reading of it and to the doctrine and practice of the Fathers and people of the Primitive Church To all which Mr. I. S. replies that the fruit we have in the Protestant Church of permitting the people to read the Bible is the variety of Sects sprung from the reading of it But this you may tell better to others then to me that know now matters go on both sides and am certain that there are more divisions in several Societies of your Communion both in Doctrine and in Ceremonies then in the Protestant Church He that knows the differences of opinions betwixt Jesuists and Dominicans each one condemning the other of heresie and doctrines destructive of good life and of the merits of Christ and the great difference in Rites and Ceremonies used among them will clearly see they differ more in all the one from the other then the Orthodox Protestants do from any other Congregation of Christians in the Reformed Church Their differences are not in matters so fundamental and necessary to Salvation and a good Life as those of the dissenting Romish Societies Their censures of one another are not so heavy yea the very stating of their Questions on both sides do declare so much both supposing they are touching things indifferent the Dissenters or Non-conformists pretending that the points in Debate being only Ceremonial and indifferent not essential to Salvation or good life ought not to be forced upon them The Orthodox alledging that very thing to render Dissenters criminal that the things ordered being of their own nature indifferent and not opposite to Gods Law there is a necessity upon them of obeying lawful Autority ordering such matters So much we may say in relation to Rites and Ceremonies that there is not near so great a diversity in them used by Orthodox Protestants and other Congregations dissenting as there is in the Ceremonies and Rites used in Colledges of Jesuites and Convents of Dominicans Carmelites Franciscans Carthusians and other very many Societies differing both in Habit Diet Rites and Ceremonies one from the other All these differences both of Doctrine and Rites the Pope can wink at provided they agree in paying obedience to him and advancing his quarrel The great Union required by the Church of England makes meaner dissentions appear more sensible and greater would the Dissentions and Errors be if the light of holy Scriptures were removed for St. Hierome saith that infinite evils do arise from ignorance of Scripture from hence saith he most part of Heresies have come and so they are of their own nature and well used not a cause of Dissentions and Errors but a cure of them And therefore the Roman Church being resolved not to be cured of her corruptions decreed the Scriptures to be removed from the eies of the people as appears by the Council of Bishops mentioned by Dr. Stillingfleet and by other grave Writers of whose Autority you doubt And what need we the Autority of that Council for a thing that we see with our eies and ordered by the Council of Trent by Pius IV. Clement the VIII and Alexander the VII in the places alledged in the page 100. of my former Discourse CHAP. XXXIII Mr. I S. his Engagement touching the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary and the practice of Confession confuted FOR instance of the cruelty of the Romish Church in pressing upon the belief of the faithful things uncertain and repugnant to their judgment I made a brief mention of the opinion about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary how they make people swear to
flesh such they do commend and many do practice tho with less ostentation then is used among you You tell me that the Precepts of the Roman Church without Controvers do oblige me and that by every omission of a Holy-day Mass c. I commit a hainous sin Oh great Divine I have demonstrated with reasons in my own judgment at least evidently convincing that I can not fulfil the Precepts of the Roman Church without infringing the Divine that in many things they are opposite Which of them shall I prefer Is it not so that we ought to obey God rather then men Act. v. 29. You speak of vows I made but if all was grounded upon a blind obedience to the Pope of Rome including a dis-obedience to the Laws of God whereof I am now certainly perswaded and delivered reasons of it which after sundry oppositions and streight scrutinies remain still in the same force with me by the common vote of Divines such vows are null and I am totally free from obligation of complying with them And finally whereas you conclude with Exhortations to me of returning to your Communion I will requite you with an Admonition better grounded of considering the miserable condition you are in dazled with the splendor of the Roman Grandeur and baited with the strong allurements of it deceiving the world with colours of Sanctity when Ambition and Avarice is the primum mobile and the Soul that animates all your motions Many simple Souls are not aware of the profane secular drifts of this great Engine of Religion set up by cunning Italians to make all the world contribute to their Lust and Pride hooking in with slight more then those more honest anciâ—nt Romans could win with the sword But you and your like that pretend to learning and knowledg are in a worse condition and we have but too much ground to suspect you are wilfully in an error and therefore guilty of deceiving the world and being complices of the destruction and miseries of Christendom being your self the most deceived when your work is to deceive others This is a matter of greater scruple and consequence then that you intimate to me of an obligation to hear Mass on every Holy-day I commend it therefore to your serious consideration and to fear and think upon seriously that wo declared against corrupt Teachers by the Prophet Ezekiel XXXIV 2. c. Wo be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves Should not the shepherds feed the flocks .... with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them and they were scattered because there is no shepherd .... Therefore Oh ye shepherds hear the words of the Lord thus saith the Lord God Behold I am against the shepherds and I will require my flock at their hand and cause them to cease from feeding the flock c. O how may we fear this will be the end of your Pride and Cruelty that pretending to have all you may lose all and while you pretend to domineer over all the faithful you may be trampled under the feet of Infidels If you continue to set God against you it will be so he will cause you cease from feeding the flock and require at your hands the decay of it This is our fear but our earnest desire and hearty praier to God is that he may be graciously pleased to clear your minds from the cloud of earthly passions which possessed of the will do blind the understanding that he may raise your hearts to a real inquiry of Gods honor and service and inspire into your leaders thoughts of peace with your Christian Brethren and not a further affliction to his holy Church FINIS
and its appurtenances the Marquisates of Lusatia and Moravia the Dukedom of Silesia all which jointly in circuit contains 770. miles and in Austria it self and the Countries of Goritia Tirolis Cilia the principalities of Suevia Alsatia Brisgoia Constance the most part of the People are Protestants especially of the nobility and are in regard of their number so potent that they are formidable to their malignant opposites And they are neer of the same number and strength in the neighbour Countries of the Arch-Duke of Gratzden a branch of the house of Austria namely in Stiria Carrabia Carniola But the condition of the Protestants residing among the Cantons of Helvetia and their confederates the City of Geneva the Town of Saint Gall the Grisons Vallesians seven communities under the Bishop of Sedan is a great deal more happy and settled in so much that they are two third parts having the public and free practise of Religion for howsoever of the 13. Cantons only these five Zuric Scathausen Glarona Basil Abbaticella are entirely Protestant yet these in strength and ampleness of territory much exceed the other seven and hence Zuric in all public meetings and embassies hath the first place being chief of the five Now coming to Germany the whole Empire consisteth of three orders or states the Princes Ecclesiastical the temporal Princes and the free Cities Of the Ecclesiastics the Arch-Bishop of Maidenburg and Breame with the Bishoprics thereunto belonging are under the Protestants as also the Bishopricks of Verden Halberstad Osnaburg and Minden The temporal Princes all none of note excepted besides the Arch-Duke of Austria and the Duke of Bavaria are firmly Protestants And what the multitudes of Subjects are professing the same Faith with these Princes we may guess by the ampleness of Dominions under the government of the chief of them such as are the Prince Elector Palatin the Duke of Saxony the Marquess of Brandenburg the Duke of Wirtenburg Landgrave of Hesse Marquess of Baden Prince of Anhalt Dukes of Brunswic Holst Lunenburg Meckleburg Pomeran Swyburg Among whom the Marquess of Brandenburg hath for his Dominion not only the Marquisat it self containing in circuit about 320 miles and furnished with 50 Cities and about 60 other walled Towns but likewise a part of Prussia the Region of Prignitz the Dukedom of Crossen the Seigneuries of Sternberg and Corbus and lately the three Dukedoms of Cleve Dulic and Berg of which the two former have either of them in circuit 130 miles The free Cities which were in number 88. before some of them came to the possession of the French Polanders and Helvetians are generally Protestants especially those called the Hans Cities very rich and powerful situate in the northern part of Germany inclusively between Dantisk eastward and Hamburg westward As for Ratisbon Argentine Augusta Spire Wormes Francfort upon Main both Papists and Protestants in them make public profession Nearer to us are the Provinces of the low Countries governed by the States General namely Zutphen Vtrecht Overissel Gronninghen Holland Zeland West-Friesland in which only Protestants have the public and free exercise of their Religion The power and strength of these Provinces is too much known for to need a relation of it * Pagi Christianography chap. 2. I find in Mr. Pagit related that they contain about 210 Cities compassed with walls and ditches and 6300 Towns and villages and more and that they keep about 30000 Men in continual garrisons Now passing from the united Provinces into France those of the Religion as they usually stile them are seized of above 70 Towns having garrisons of Soldiers governed by Nobles and Gentlemen of the Protestant Religion they have 800 Ministers retaining pensions out of the public finance and are so dispersed through the chief Provinces of the Kingdom that in the Principality of Orange Poiclou almost all the Inhabitants in Gascony half in Languedoc Normandy and other western Provinces a strong party profess the Protestant Religion Besides the Castles and Forts that do belong in property unto the Duke of Bullen the Duke of Rohan Count of Laval the Duke of Trimovil Monsieur Chastillion the Mareschal of Digniers the Duke of Sully and others Now if to all the forenamed Kingdoms Principalities Dukedoms States Cities abounding with professors of the Reformed Religion we add the Monarchies of Great Britany Denmark Sweden wholly in a manner protestants we shall find them not inferior in number and power to the Romish party especially if we consider that the main bulk here of Italy and Spain are by a kind of violence and necessity rather then out of any free choice and judgment detained in their superstition namely by the jealousy cruelty and tyrannous vigilancy of the inquisition and by their own ignorance being utterly debarred from all reading of the Holy Scriptures and of controversial Books whereby they may come to the knowledg of truth and of their own errors If any shall object that the Protestants in divers Countries before mentioned cannot be reputed as one body and one Church by reason of many differences and contentions among them let him consider that however many private persons living among Protestants rather then of them have strained their weak understanding to coin several erroneous tenents and by them have bred dissentions and animosities yet these wicked practises are not to be imputed to the whole sâ—cred community of Orthodox Churches whose harmony and agreement in necessary points of Faith are to be seen and esteemed by their public confessions of their Faith which they have divulged unto the whole World by public autority and in which they do so agree that there is a most sacred harmony between them in the more substantial points of Christian Religion necessary to Salvation This is manifest out of the Confessions themselves which are the Anglican Scotian French Helvetian Belgic Polonic Argentine Augustane Saxonic Wirtembergic Palatine Bohemic or Waldensian For there is none of the Churches formerly pointed out in diverse places of Europe which doth not embrace one of those confessions and all of them do harmoniously conspire in the principal articles of Faith and which nearest concern our Eternal Salvation as in the divine essence and divinity of the Everlasting God the sacred Trinity of the three Glorious Persons the blessed Incarnation of Christ the Omnipotent providence of God the absolute Supreme head of the Church Christ the infallible verity and full sufficiency of Divine Scriptures for our instruction to life Everlasting c. In none of those confessions is to be seen that heap of desperate Heresies which my Antagonist N. N. attributes to the Church I have followed and wherewith Bellarmine and Becan and other Romish controvertists do make their volums swell to fill the minds of their proselytes with hatred and animosity against the Reformed Churches whilst in them such impious Heresies are most seriously rebuked and learnedly refuted by pen and tongue from Chairs and Pulpits as I am dayly seeing to