such a manner by persons who by making reflections on the Iustice and Wisdom of a Nation do endeavour to expose the Laws and Government of it to the censure and reproach of the malicious and ignorant But since our Laws are so publickly accused of injustice and cruelty and the Kingdom charged with the guilt of innocent blood I hope I may have leave as an English man to vindicate the Laws of our Countrey and as a Protestant to wipe off the aspersion of Cruelty from our Religion which I shall do without the least intention of mischief to any mens persons or of sharpening the severities of Laws against them § 3. And to proceed with the greatest clearness in this matter I shall consider 1. The charge of injustice and cruelty which he lays upon our poenal Laws 2. The proposals he makes in order to the repeal of them and giving a full liberty to the exercise of their Religion 1. The charge of injustice and cruelty upon our poenal Laws Whosoever adventures to charge the publick Laws of a Kingdom in such a manner ought to be very well advised upon what grounds he proceeds and to understand throughly the nature and constitution of Government and Rules of Iustice and the power of interpreting as well as making Laws and the certain bounds within which Laws may make actions Treasonable and how far actions thought Religious by the Persons who do them may become treasonable when they are against Laws made for the publick safety and what actions of Religion make men Martyrs when they suffer for them and what not for it is certain they are not all of equal consequence and necessity these and many other things a man ought to come well provided with that dares in the face of the World to charge the Laws of his own Nation with injustice and cruelty But Mr. Cr. may be excused in this matter for that would indeed be an unjust and cruel Law to require impossibilities from men I wish so noble a subject had been undertaken by a Person fit for it that could have managed it otherwise than in a bare declamatory manner But since he is the Goliah that dares so openly defie our Laws and Government I shall make use of his own Weapons to cut off the heads of this terrible accusation For 1. He grants That the Laws made by their Catholick Ancestors viz. the Statutes of Praemunire and Provisors were just Laws 2. That our King hath reason to expect as much security of the Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects as any Catholick Prince hath from his 3. That all Christian Kings have in some sense a kind of spiritual Authority that they ought to be Nursing Fathers to Gods Church that they ought to promote true Christian doctrine both touching Faith and manners and to imploy their power when occasion is to oblige even Ecclesiastical Persons to perform their duties and all their Subjects to live in all Christian Piety and Vertue These are his oâ—n words which in short come to this that they are bound to promote and preâ—erve the true Religion 4. That it is absolutely unlawful for them to defend their Religion being persecuted by Soveraign Magistrates by any other way but suffering which he saith they do sincerely profess according to their perswasion 5. That the treasonable actions of persons of their own Religion were the occasion of making and continuing the poenal Laws for upon their account he saith they are thought dangerous Subjects and care is taken to exact Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy from them 6. That where the Popes temporal power is owned especially as to deposing Princes there can be no sufficient security given as to the Fidelity of such persons This I prove from his saying that there is no reason to question their Fidelity whose Ancestors were so far from any Supremacy of the Pope in Temporals and much less any Authority in him to depose Princes that they made the Statutes of Praemunire and Provisors which by his favour is a very weak argument unless men can never be supposed to degenerate from the Vertues of their Ancestors but besides the satisfaction he offers is by renouncing the Popes temporal power and declaring that his power of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance is repugnant to the Word of God although they dare not call it heretical from whence it follows that Mr. Cressy doth not think those can give sufficient security for their Fidelity who dare not thus far renounce the Popes power 7. That where there is no sufficient security given for the Fidelity of Persons there is great reason they should lye under the severity of Laws Which Mr. Cressy alwayes supposes and only complains of their hardship upon the offers he makes of their Fidelity And this must hold as to all sorts of persons who may be dangerous to Government although they may pretend never so much exemption by their Function or being imployed in Offices not immediately relating to Civil Government From these concessions it will be no difficult task to clear our Poenal Laws from injustice and to vindicate the whole Kingdom from the guilt of innocent blood if I can prove these following assertions 1. That the same Reasons which justifie the antient Statutes of England and the Laws of Catholick Princes abroad do vindicate our Poenal Laws from the charge of Injustice and Cruelty 2. That Laws originally made upon the account of acknowledged treasonable practices do continue just upon all those who do not give sufficient security against the principles leading to those practices 1. That the same Reasons which justifie the antient Statutes of England and the Laws of Catholick Princes abroad do vindicate our Poenal Laws from the charge of Injustice and Cruelty For if the penalties do bear no greater proportion to the nature of the offence if the Power be as great and as just in our Law-makers if the occasions were of as high a nature and the pleas in behalf of the persons equal then there can be no reason assigned why those Laws should be just and lawful and not ours And the making out of these things is my present business 1. I begin with the antient Laws and Statutes of England And I hope no one dares question but that the power of makeing Laws is as good and just in England since the Reformation as ever it was before For if there be the least diminution of Power by vertue of the cutting off the Popes Authority then so much of the Civil Power as was lost by it was derived from the Pope and this is in plain terms to make the Pope our Temporal Soveraign and the whole Kingdom to be only Feudatary to him which is asserting his Temporal power with a vengeance and contains in it a doctrine that none but very Self-denying Princes can ever give the least countenance to because it strikes at the very root of their Authority and makes them only
prevent any farther suspicion of my meaning I do declare I am for no other Church than that Church of England which is established by Law among us But it must be allowed to those who plead for seeing Visions that sometimes they may dream Dreams Having therefore cut off so much impertinency I shall reduce the matter yet to a narrower compass by casting by the large account he gives of the several Books written by himself in all which tedious Discourse the wisest thing he saith is That Books relating to personal things are scarce ever so long-lived as a yearly â—lmanack and serve only to increase the uncharitableness and injustice of the present Age in which men will be sure to censure all Books and Persons and are indifferent whether they condemn the Plaintiff or Defendant or both I shall not therefore feed so bad a humour by medling with any personal Disputes but come now to the main things which deserve any farther discussion in the passages between the Person of Honour and Mr. Cressy CHAP. II. Of the Charge of Fanaticism and Mystical Divinity § 1. ANd the first thing is about the Charge of Fanaticism which gave the Title to that Book of Mr. Cressy ' s upon which the Person of Honour bestows his Animadversions This Mr. Cressy said he would begin with and particularly that part of my Book which concerns the life and prayer of Contemplation commended and practised only in the Catholick Church it being a State he saith which from the Infancy of the Church hath been esteemed the nearest approaching to that of Glorified Saints and this is that from whence I took an occasion to vilifie him but adds that he is very well content to receive his proportion of scorn with such companions as Thaulerus Suso Rusbrochius Blosius c. But to the end I may not boast he saith of the Novelty of my invention and profanely employed wit he doth assure me that he heard the same way much better acted a long time since but the Actor was obliged to make a Recantation Sermon for it I thank Mr. Cressy for more of his Charity still in that he parallels the representing the Fanaticism of their Church with the histrionical representing the life of our Saviour and his Attâ—ndants it seems there is no great difference to be made between the Reverence due to the Founders of their Monastick Orders and to the Son of God himself I do assure him if I had no better opinion of our Blessed Saviour as to his Wisdom and all manner of Excellencies than as yet I see ground to have of the Founders of their Orders I should be far from that esteem I now have of the Christian Religion but however the Person of Honour hath better informed Mr. Cressy ' s memory viz. That the Recantation Sermon was made upon the account of State-matters and therefore Mr. Cressy very wisely passeth it over in his Epistle Apologetical To this the Person of Honour adds That Mr. Cressy had no such reason to be enraged at me for this Charge since the provocation was given me by my Adversary by whom the beginning of so many Sects Fanaticisms was laid to the charge of the Church of England which unseasonable and untrue reproach made it necessary for me to answer and refell that calumny and as reasonable to let them know that their own Church is much more lyable to that accusation than the other and why this provocation should be so innocent an assault for the one and the defence by the other should prove so heinous an offence will require an impartial Judge to determine To this Mr. Cressy thus answers That my Adversary chanced unhappily though innocently to let drop out of his pen one line or two which has undone us all I know no design of undoing them that any of us have had unless it be as some men think they are undone when they are kept from doing mischief but I hope we may have leave to take care of our own preservation and of that Religion we ought to value above our lives but suppose it were so whom may they thank for it him that gave the provocation or him that did but his duty in Defence of his Church and Religion But come come Mr. Cressy let us not flatter our selves it is not the Fly upon the Wheel that raises the Dust we Writers of Controversies are no great Doers or Undoers of publick business But Mr. Cressy denyes that my Adversary did lay the imputation on the Church of England and craves leave with all due respect to tell the Person of Honour that it was a great mistake in him to say so Of that we may judge by the very words produced by Mr. Cressy viz. Whether the judgement of King Henry viz. in forbidding the Bible to be read in English ought not to have been followed in after-times let the dire effects of so many new Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of the Scripture bear witness In which words the rise of Sects and Fanaticisms is plainly imputed to the reading the Scripture the reading of the Scripture in English is an effect of the Reformation of the Church of England for it is the Church of England as reformed that is only the subject of the dispute And therefore I appeal to any indifferent person whether the Reformed Church of England doth not in their Opinion bear the blame of all the Sects and Fanaticisms But this is too plain a thing to be insisted upon No saith Mr. Cressy the very naming of Fanaticism and England in the same line was provocation enough for me who seemed with an impatient longing to have watched for such an advantageous opportunity to empty my voluminous store of Collections How strangely may some be deceived by an overweening imagination I was so far from having a Voluminous store of Collections that I never thought of the Subject till it came in my way to answer it and then I remembred some things I had read to that purpose which put me upon a farther search into the history of those things And since Mr. Cressy will have it out this is the true account of the birth of that terrible Mormo that hath brought so many reproaches and execrations upon me § 2. There are two parts of this Charge of Fanaticism which Mr. Cressy thinks himself particularly concerned in and which I shall therefore handle distinctly the one concerns Mystical Divinity and the other the honour of S. Benedict and his Rule and Order these two Mr. Cressy sets himself with all his force to defend and I hope before I have done to make Mr. Cressy repent the heat he hath shewed about them I begin with that concerning Mystical Divinity of which Mr. Cressy still speaks with the greatest Veneration imaginable he had before called it The practice of Christian Vertues and Piety in the greatest perfection this life
is capable of the nearest approach to the state of glorified Saints the most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven and now he makes a prayer for me that it would please God to give me and all my friends a holy ambition to aspire to the practice of contemplative prayer though by me so much despised But of the good effects he saith it would have upon me I do the most wonder at that which he adds viz. that it would exceedingly better my style I have hitherto thought the choice of clear and proper expressions such as most easily and naturally convey my thoughts to the mind of another to be one of the greatest excellencies of Style but all before Mr. Cressy that have been the greatest Friends to Mystical Divinity have endeavoured to excuse the hard words of it Surely never any Masters of Style before Mr. Cressy thought obscure strained affected unintelligible phrases were any Graces and Ornaments of speaking Would it not add much beauty to ones style to bring in the state of Deiformity the superessential life the union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit and abundance of such phrases which are so very many that Maximilian Sandaeus the Iesuit hath written a large Book only in explication of them and this is the account he gives of the Mystical Style that it is obscure involved lofty abstracted and flatulent that it hath frequent hyperbole's excesses and improprieties And he tells us there were some who not unhappily compared them to Paracelsian Chymists who think to make amends for the meanness of their notions by the obscurity of their terms Carolus Hersentius hath nothing to answer to this but only that the matter cannot be plainer expressed in Mystical Divinity which is so far from being an argument to me that it can improve ones style that it gives me very much ground to suspect the very thing it self For God would never require from men the practice of that as certainly he doth the duty of Prayer and the greatest Love of himself which it is impossible for men to understand when it is proposed to them What obligation can there be to practise no man knows what The Christian Religion is a very plain and intelligible thing and if it had not been so I do not know how men could be obliged to believe it I do not say that men could form a distinct conception in their minds of the manner of some of those things which are revealed in it as how an infinite being could be united to humane nature but this I say that the terms are very intelligible and the putting of those terms into a proposition depends upon Divine Revelation viz. that the Son of God was incarnate so that all the difficulty in this case lyes in the conception of the manner which by reason of the shortness of our conceptions as to what relates to an infinite being ought to be no prejudice to the giving our assent to this Revelation since we acknowledge the union of a spiritual and material being in the frame of mankind and are as well puzzled in the conception of the manner of it But in Mystical Divinity I say the very terms are unintelligible for it is impossible for any man to make sense of that immediate Union with God in the pure fund of the Spirit wherein the Mystical Writers do place the perfection of the Contemplative Life § 3. But because Mr. Cressy referrs the Person of Honour for the understanding those Mystical phrases which I had quarrelled with to the Author of the Roman Churches Devotions vindicated which was purposely writ in answer to me upon this subject I shall therefore consider what light he gives us in this matter for I am very willing to be better informed In the beginning he saith that Prayer is the most Fundamental part of a Christians Duty if this relates to the matter in hand viz. of contemplative prayer it must be implyed that this is a part at least of that fundamental Duty and if it be so I think my self obliged to understand it and it must be a very culpable ignorance not to understand so fundamental a part of a Christians Duty Therefore I shall pass by all his excursions and hold him close to the matter in debate I confess he prepares his way with some artifice which makes me a little jealous for things plain and easie need none He insinuates 1. That those who have not these things cannot well know what they mean and then adds 2. That the means for obtaining them are in his own words much frequent and continued vocal or mental prayer much solitude and mortifications of our flesh and abstraction of our thoughts and affections from any creature much recollection much meditation on selected subjects and the endeavouring a quiescence as much as we can from former discourse these actions of the brain and intellect now hindring the heart and will and the bringing our selves rather to a simple contemplation without any action of the brain or intellect or at least as little as may be to exercise acts of love adhere to sigh after and entertain the object thereof and after this come passive unions which are rather Gods acts in us than our own and are particular Favours to some and those not constant By this explication I am fallen into utter despair of understanding these things for if the acts of the brain and intellect prove such hindrances to the desired union and the quiescence in order to it be that of Discourse viz. of all ratiocination I am utterly at a loss how this should ever be understood by the persons themselves and much more how it should be explained to others And I extreamly wonder at those who go about to explain things which themselves confess are so far from being understood that the acts of the understanding are hindrances to the enjoyment of them But F. Baker speaks more plainly in this matter when he describes this Mystick contemplation by which saith he a soul without discoursings and curious speculations without any perceptible use of the internal senses or sensible Images by a pure simple and reposeful operation of the mind in the obscurity of faith simply regards God as Infinite and Incoâ—prehensible Verity and with the whole bent of the Will rests in him as her Infinite Universal and Incomprehensible Good This is true Contemplation indeed And afterwards he adds that as for the proper exercise of active contemplation it consists not at all in speculation but in blind elevations of the will and ingulâ—ing it more and more profoundly in God with no other sight or knowledge of him but of an obscure Faith only And towards the conclusion of his Book he hath these words We mortifie our passions to the end we may loose them we exercise Discoursive prayer by sensible Images to the end we may loose all use of