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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29086	The victory of truth for the peace of the Church to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick faith / by Monsieur de la Militiere, counsellour in ordinary to the King of France ; with an answer thereunto, written by the right reverend John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.	La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665.; Bramhall, John, 1594-1663.	1653 (1653)	Wing B4097A; ESTC R34379	76,867	210

see that th●… Ministers called in the presence of you●… Majestie either by their avowing of th●… truth or refusal to appear shall hav●… been themselves the Ministers of you●… Conversion every one will ●…nter up on the examination of the causes an●… reasons of the Truth which shall hav●… moved you thither which shall have no●… less vertue to make the like impression in their souls by the same means For whether the Ministers do sincerely yield to the Truth which they will not know how to contradict or whether they condemn themselves by their refusal of an ingenuous proceeding the event of their Convocation shall be alike and universal in all places where the same way to call back the People to the Church shall be practised There are no Ministers in France will know what to answer when those of Paris shall be made dumb No others will by any manner of means dispute them concerning their sufficiency But if they are wanting to the duty of a good Conscience you may easily meet many more ingenuous who will no waies refuse to acknowledge the Truth By this way the People who seek nothing but their salvation and who have no interest more pretious will be ravished to see themselves at last by a plain solid and sincere instruction upon the true understanding of matters of the Catholick Faith drawn from this Labyrinth of disputes which are given them for matter of Reformation no less Enemies to Piety than Christian Charity For this effect Sir desiring to be assisting to the design of making the People see by the conviction of their Ministers that being separated from the Church under this pretext of Reformation they are left by that means without Faith and without the Church And then when one perswades them that in the Questions controverted i●… Faith the Church teaches contrary to what the Antient Church hath believed those that accuse them canno●… do it but by a formal contradicting bot●… the holy Fathers and themselves which is a necessary argument of lying and errour I here put forth into the light a little Treatise wherein these two Truth●… are rendred evident They have formed no Controversy more important according to their own opinion than that of Transubstantiation in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist They accuse us for having Introduced by the truth of this change the necessity of adoring Jesus Christ in this Sacrament or the Sacrament it self which we maintain to be Jesus Christ himself They impute unto us that in this we have altered the Faith of the Antient Church to whom they say both this change and the adoration of the Sacrament hath been unknown They make this the principal cause forsooth of their sole necessity of separating themselves from us And being not able to deny that the whole Antient Church did solemnly offer the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to God his Father according to his institution in the holy Eucharist they also cloak their difference in this subject from the Antient Church and from us with this That the Antient Church did not believe as they presume Transubstantiation with us nor by consequence the Sacrifice as we do saying That to this subject as they reject in our belief Transubstantiation so they have for the same reason likewise abolished the Sacrifice which the Church celebrates at this present I have made it evident Sir that the Faith of the Church at this day is conformable to the Antient upon this change in a Book which I have published against the defences brought by Minister Aubertin upon the passages of the holy Fathers in his Book of the Eucharist I have reduced the demonstration of the Truth to this point viz. That all the holy Fathers have believed that by the change which interposes it self in this Sacrament there is rendred the same Flesh and the same Blood of Jesus Christ received by the mouths of Believers whereof Jesus Christ speaks in St. John where he commands us to eat and drink them that we may have eternal life The Minister hath not been able to contradict this truth but in formally contradicting the sense which the Authors of his opinion before him have attributed to the Fathers as conformable to them and in making the sense of the Fathers formally contrary to that of Jesus Christ and that which he attributes to them formally contrary to the true sense which they have and do declare in clear and express words I have convinced him by the proof of an evident demonstration in this little Treatise And if he be called to answer upon this conviction the Truth will be found to be victorious either by his good or his evil Faith And as their Consciences tell them and bite them for having introduced by their Reformation all Opinions equally contrary to the Faith of the Church of all Ages When they see themselves reduced to this extremity they cast themselves into the retrenchment of their Fundamental Maxims which is to admit of no rule of Faith but that of the Scripture interpreted by every mans reason Upon that I have convinced them by a Demonstration without Reply that by the design of their Reformation founded upon the use of this rule they have lost both the Church and Faith Which they must avouch if they be called to answer there or that the Truth shall conserve its advantage by the refusal they shall make I most humbly intreat your Majestie Sir that you will be pleased to let this little work have the glory to appear to the World under your Royal Name for a prop which will be able to serve your Faith as an Instrument of the Truth the Victory whereof ought happily to gain you to the Church And by gaining you to bring with you her Peace and re-union of all the Parties that are divided from her For assuredly this grace of Heaven is not far from us if we our selves do not draw our selves back And I am certain that if it please the prudence of the Bishops which the Holy Ghost hath established for the conduct of the Church as I hope they will be pleased to serve themselves towards the People that have abandoned their Crosier of the way that I propose and present to your Majestie they shall see without much pain and in a little time the strayed Sheep returning to them by the very hand of those which keep them withdrawn from their Sheepfolds For in effect when the evidence of this demonstrated Truth shall once have taken its place by the sweetness of the amiable conferences where she ought to be treated with all sincerity and liberty in the spirit of all our separated Brethren as well Ministers as People they will consent with joy to re-enter into the Catholick Church So much the more willingly that by the reasons of the truth of her Faith acknowledged conformable to the Tradition of all Ages they shall so acknowledge her in all her parts to be the True Seed from

or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Aduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture we determine not Motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus This was the belief of the Primitive Church this was the Faith of the antient Fathers who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo which edifie not but expose Christian Religion to contempt We know what to think and what to say with probability modesty and submission in the Schools But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height not d●…ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erud●…ta est inscitia O! how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of general sufficient saving Truth which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace to shew that the deluge of Ecclesiasticall division is abated without ●…ading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomachies wherof cometh envy strife raylings evil surmisings perverse disputings Old Con●…roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies and yet more Controversies as Circles in the ●…ater do produce other Circles Now especially these Sc●…olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable when Zenos School is newly opened in the World who sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology Morality and Policy are undermined and ready to be blown up Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes or their Ministers have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome it becometh well all good Christians and Subjects to leave their litigious Q●…estions and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coles of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit when his head was extremely distempered he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end But that which createth this tro●…ble to you and me at this time is your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph unless the King of great Britain and all his subjects yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot Neither do you only desire this but augurate it or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done for you tell him that his ●…ies and hi●… ears do hear and see those Truths which make him to know the Faul●…s of that new Religion which he had suck●… with his milk you set forth the causes of his Conversion The tears of his Mother and the Blood of his Father whom you suppose against evident truth ●…o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his conversion which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton If your Charity be not to be blamed to wish no worse to another than you do to your self yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection without his licence and against his Conscience Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many Subjects If you did why would you insist in the same steps to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them If your intention be only to invite his Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self unles you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation Mark it well nei●…her Name nor thing His Majesty doth ●…rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ He embra●…eth chearfully whatsoever the holy A●…ostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholick Church excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith neither his Reason nor his Religion nor his Charity will suffer him to listen unto you The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of ●…aith to make him a good Ca●…holick More than this your Romane Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Concill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third general Councill that of Ephesus which de●…eed that it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill And that whos●…ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Lay-men ana●… hematised Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fat●…ers did which nons will say to have been insufficient except they be mad as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Some things are de Symbolo some things are contra Symbolum and some things are onely praeter Symbolum Some things are contained in the Creed either expressly or virtually either in the Letter or in the Sense and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Procession of the Holy Ghost The Addition of these was properly no no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Occumenical Council can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly some things are contra symbolum contrary to the Symbolical Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not onely unlawful but heretical also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not

the finding out of the right sense Thirdly to be able to compare Texts with Texts Antecedents with Consequents without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the Holy Ghost in the obscurer passages And lastly it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written He that wants all these requisites and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture is a doting Enthusiast fitter to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means and above the talent which God hath given him as he that hath a little Language yet wants Logick or having both Language and Logick knows not or regards not either the Judgement of former Expositors or the practice and tradition of the purest Primitive Ages or the Symbolical Faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely workman to build a Temple to the Lord but ruine and destruction to himself and his seduced followers A new Physician we say requires a new Church-yard But such bold ignorant Empericks in Theology are ten times more dangerous to the Soul than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the Body This hath alwaies been the doctrine and the practice of our English Church First it is so far from admitting Laymen to be Directive Interpreters of holy Scripture that it allows not this Liberty to Clergy-men so much as to gloss upon the Text untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion onely it gives it not to private persons above their Talents or beyond their last It disallows all phantastical and Enthusiastical presumption of incompetent and unqualified Expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive In●…erpreter of Scripture howsoever otherwise qualified unless he be able to give a good account of his Faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his Expositions according to the Analogy thereof It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholick Fathers and old Bishops of the Primitive Church have not collected out of the Scriptures It ascribes a Judgement of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops in all manner of Ecclesiastical duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawful Synod as the representative Church Now Sir be your own Judge how infinitely you have wronged us and your self more suggesting that temerariously and without the Sphere of your knowledge to his Majestie for the principal ground of our Reformation which our souls abhorr Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawful for private persons or nothing Because we would not have them like Davids Horse and Mule without understanding do we therefore put both Swords in their hands to reform and cut off to plant and to pluck up to alter and abolish at their pleasure We allow them Christian liberty but would not have them Libertines Admit some have abused this just liberty may we therefore take it away ●…rom others So we shall leave neither a ●…un in Heaven nor any excellent Crea●…ure upon Earth for all have been abused ●…y some persons in some kinds at some ●…imes We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions nor unwritten fundamentals But we admit genuine Universal Apostolical traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God the Anniversary Festivals of the Church the Lenton fast Yet we know that both the duration of it and the manner of observing it was very different in the Pri●…nitive times We believe Episcopacy to an ingenuous person may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition but to such as are froward the perpetual practice and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentique and the proof more convincing What is this to us who admit the practice and tradition of ●…he Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from believing that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principal mo●…ives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenical Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition of the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into ●…ces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at our pleasure have not so much ground left you as to set your Instrument upon Your two main ground-works being vanished all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions do remain like so many Bubbles or Castles in the Air It were folly to lay closer siege to them which the next puff of wind will disperse ru●…at subductis tecta Columnis Howsoever though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation and of your discourse yet you charge us that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the seven Sacraments Justification by inherent righteousness Merits Invocation of Saints Prayer for the Dead with P●…rgatory and the Authority of the Pope Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed that we have renounced Surely no you deal too favourably with us We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship your half Communion your Prayers in a tongue un known c. It seems you were loth to mention these things First you say we have renounced your Sacrifice of the Mass. If the Sacr●…fice of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross we attribute more unto it than your selves we place our whole hope of Salvation in it If you understand another Propitiatory Sacrifice distinct from that as this of the Mass seems to be for confessedly the Priest is not the same the Altar is not the same the Temple is not the same If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world or of any new supplement to the merits of Christs Passion you must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed and to adhere to the Apostle By one offering he hath persected for ever them that are sanctified Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper then his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous nor that the Priest now doth more than Christ did then We do readily acknowledge an Eucharistical sacrifice of prayers and

praises we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross and in the language of holy Church things commemorated are related as if they were then acted As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son as this day to be born of a pure Virgin And whose praise the younger Innocents have this day set forth And between the Ascension and Pentecost which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven we beseech thee leave us not comfortless but send un●… thy holy Spirit We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it we maintain an Application of its vertue So here is a commemorative impetrative applicative sacrifice Speak distinctly and I cannot understand what you can desire more To make it a suppletory sacrifice to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross I hope both you and I abhor The next crime objected by you to us is that we have renounced Transubstantiation It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed you need not wonder at that But if we had rejected it 400 years sooner that had been a Miracle It was not so soon hatched To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author were sussicient to prove him a counterfeit Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture or Council or Creed or Father or antient Author first devised by Peter Lombard first decreed by Eugenius the fourth first confirmed in the Provincial Council of Sen●…s and after in the Council of Trent Either the word Sacrament is taken largely and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament then the onely sprinkling of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign instituted by Christ ●…o convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof as do not set a bar against themselves according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church common ●…o all or in the words of our Church generally necessary to Salvation are but two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose wri●…es not of in his Book de Sacrament is because he did not know them These we admit for genuine and general Sacramen●…s Their S●… cramental vertue we acknowledge The rest we retain more purely than your selves though not under the Notion of such proper and general Sacraments As Confirmation Ordination Matrimony Penitence though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction nor of your ordinary Penitentiary tax and lastly the Visitation of and Prayer for the sick which onely is of perpetual necessity The Unction prescribed by St. James being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing or recovering men out of sicknesses then in use Whereas your custome is clean contrary never or rarely to enoyl any man untill he be past all hope of Recovery The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the Primitive Church was Prayer and Absolution or the benefit of the Keys and the Viaticum of the Body and Blood of Christ which we retain Concerning Justification we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice though not perfect according to a perfection of degrees as Gold is true Gold though it be mixed with some dross We believe that this inherent Justice and Sanctity doth make them truly just and holy But if the word Justification be taken in sensu forensi for the acquittal of a man from former guilt to make an offender just in the eye of the Law as it is opposed to Condemnation It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth Then it is not our inherent righteousness that justifieth us in this sense but the free Grace of God for the merits of Jesus Christ. Next for Merits we never doubted of the necessity of good Works without which Faith is but a fiction We are not so stupid to imagine that Christ did wash us from our sins that we might wallow more securely in sin but that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our life We never doubted of the reward of good Works Come ye blessed of my Father c. for I was hungry and ye fed me Nor whe●…her this reward be due to them in Justice Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day Faithful promise makes due debt This was all that the Antient Church did ever understand by the name of Merits Let Petavius bear witness Antiqui Patres omnes prae caeteris Augustinus cumque i is consentiens Romana Catholica piet as ag●…oscit merita eo sensu nimirum ut neque Dei gratiam ulla antecedant merita haec ipsa tum ex gratiâ tum ex gratuit â Dei pollicitatione tot a pendeant All the Antient Fathers especially St. Austin and the Roman and Catholique faith consenting with them do acknowledge Merits in this sense that no Merits go before the grace of God and that these very Merits do depend wholly on grace and on the free promise of God Hold you to this and we shall have no more difference about Merits Do you exact more of us than all the Fathers or the Roman and Catholique piety doth acknowledge It is an easy thing for a wrangling Sophister to dispute of Merits in the Schools or for a vain Orator to declaim of Merits out of the Pulpit but when we come to lye upon our death-beds and present our selves at the last hour before the Tribunal of Christ it is high time both for you and us to renounce our own merits and to cast our selves naked into the Arms of our Saviour That any works of ours who are the best of us but unprofitable servants which properly are not ours but Gods own gifts and if they were ours are a just debt due unto him setting aside Gods free promise and gracious acceptation should condignly by their own intrinsecal value deserve the joys of Heaven to which they have no more proportion than they have to satisfie for the eternal torments of Hell This is that which we have renounced and which we never ought to admit If your Invocation of Saints were not such as it is to request of them Patronage and Protection spiritual graces and Celestial joyes by their prayers and by their merits alas the wisest Virgins have oyl in their Lamps little enough for themselves Yet it is not necessary for two Reasons First no Saint doth love us so well as Christ No Saint hath