dat virtute benedictionis in illud transelement at â eorum quae apparent naturâ Lastly that I may not forget my own design which is not here to prove Catholik faith but only to take a little view of this Disswasive from it those words of S. Cyril in his Mystagogica quarta Hoc sciens pro certissimo habens panem bunc qui videtur â nobis non esse panem etiamsi gustus panem esse sentiat sed corpus Christi vinum quod à nobis conspicitur tametsi sensu gustus vinum esse videatur non tamen vinum sed sanguinem esse Christi c. I say these and such like words of ancient Christian Divines many hundreds of years before the Councel of Lateran speak as much the thing meant by Transubstantiation as any Doctour can express it now though these may know more of the word than they And indeed the definition of the Catholik Councel makes no alteration at all in the practice of Catholik faith which so considers their Lords presence in the Eucharist that it never heeds the Quomodo or concomitances the adoration love and devotion being still and ever in all things the very same If Christ our Lord should appear to two Christians now as he did once to S. Paul in a splendour of light and a voice out of that shining brightnes should issue so efficacious that they should both of them be fully perswaded in their hearts to worship him whom they beleeved both of them there present I suppose these two would equally do well and equally do the same thing although one of them should haply think ther was no other thing there but his Lord in an appearance of light and the other should not think at all of the light whether it were a substance or only an appearance of it But if a third man should deny the real presence of our Lord in that light he would for certain be of another faith So it is here Protestants who deny the real presence are of another beleef from Catholiks who acknowledg it but Catholiks who equally adore it are all of one beleef though perhaps not one of a million ever thinks of Transubstantiation O but Christ might be present in the Eucharist although Transubstantiation were not He might so and Christ likewise may be owned for God though Consubstantiation were never thought of Both there and here somthing is explicately spoken which was latitant in the former practice and beleef and he that can may understand it But the millions that never heard of it so long as they beleev and worship their Crucified Redeemer as they ought in the Eucharist are never the worse Had it not been for hereticks neither Consubstantiation nor Transubstantiation had been ever heard of and yet the practice and faith of Catholik Christians the same it is The holy Fathers which your Disswader cites against this particle of Catholik beleef som say nothing at all there concerning that thing som speak what he cites in another manner som teach quite contrary But this I intend not now to insist upon Only thus much in general and I pray you Sir mark it well Those ancient Fathers who say somtimes that the words of our Lord are to be understood spiritually not carnally and that those symbols are a figure of his body agree with all Catholiks that are now in the world no less in the meaning of those their words than others wherin they manifestly assert the real presence in this Sacrament For all Catholiks say that our Lord is not to be so understood that his holy body in the Eucharist is to be fed upon in a carnal way as though it should be divided into gobbets and so digested by the stomack into flesh and blood as other meats are but that as that holy body now glorified is becom a spiritual body as good S. Paul speaks totally spiritual and divine and not now subject to any condition or laws of material corruptible bodies here on earth so is it spiritually to be taken as the food not of a mortal body but the immortal spirit So likewise do all Catholiks acknowledg and beleev that the symbols after the powerfull blessing of Christs consecration do so becom his sacred body by conversion mutation or transelementation as the same Fathers speak that outward appearance which remains of them is not now any more a figure of bread and wine as it was before but of our Lords precious body and blood which have succeeded in their place So that those very words of the ancient Fathers wherin they say that the elements are now becom a figure of Christs body and blood do prove not only a real presence but a transelementation too or Transubstantiation which your Disswader judges to sound somwhat more For every material body I pray you Sir mark this well I say every material body here on earth as a tree a man or beast or other thing exhibits to the eye ear taste or other sences an outward species of that which it is And the substance ever goes along in nature with that appearance it exhibits unless the power of God should interpose and make it otherwise Thus when I have bread before me or milk for example that I see taken from the cow I see it and feel it and tast it to be such as it shows it self and such it is as it shows it self to be Thus it is in all nature But we are not say those good holy Fathers to think so here For though here be the colour and touch and tast of bread yet after this strange and powerful conversion made by Gods omnipotent words it is no more bread you see it is not natural bread you touch it is not material bread you tast but the blessed body of your Redeemer which is touched seen and tasted under those remaining appearances which are no more now the figure of bread which they were before but the figure of our Lords body under the species appearance or representation of bread now wonderfully concealed And thus much is manifestly and clearly exprest by all those holy Fathers Hoc sciens faith great St. Cyril of Jerusalem pro certissimo habens panem hunc qui videtur à nobis non esse panem etiamsi gustus panem esse sentiat sed est Corpus Christi vinum quod à nobis conspicitur tametsi sensu gustus vinum esse videatur non tamen vinum sed sanguinem esse Christi And this speak all holy Fathers both Greek and Latin It would be endles to bring their testimonies By these few words if Sir you have heeded them well you will presently conceiv the meaning of that speech of Tertullian in his third book against Marcion Acceptum panem distributum discipulis Corpus suum illum fecit Hoc est corpus meum dicendo id est figura corporis mei Figura autem non fuisset nisi veritatis esset Corpus
who was Leo the tenth to be any judg in those Controversies of Religion or to have any power statuendi of deciding or determining in such affairs Nor is ther any the least mention either in Luther's resistance or Leo his censure about constituting new articles but only deciding the old which Luther would have thought to be erroneous however strengthened by antiquity and from which old errours he would make himself a reformation and innovation by the right which was in himself not subjected to any man no not to the Pope himself in those affairs Is this a mistake think you in your Disswader or somthing wors Truly I cannot think he was so ignorant The like insincerity doth this your Disswader exhibit in all that his talk of the Catholiks dealing with the Fathers works and the indexes or tables adjoyned to them jumbling his words so confusedly together that his reader might beleev that to be don to the Fathers writings themselvs which the Churches care provided to be done to the false glosses tables and indexes annexed to those writings and that to be taken out of those writings which ever was and still is in them and Printers and Correctours complaining of that fault of making alterations in the Fathers Editions which they did not so much as think of Which is a most slupendious insincerity And thus saith he are the Fathers maimed and curtailed by Papists insomuch that Sixtus Senensis praises Pope Pius 5. for this his care in purging the Fathers works I say this whole talk of his is most prodigiously unjust For that Index Expurgatorius extended not to any writings or works of the Fathers but only to the marginal notes and false glosses and indexes or tables put to them by the hereticks and therfor are Tertullian Origen and some others still printed intire though ther be not a few things in them contrary to Catholik faith And this the very words of Junius a Correctour of a Press cited by the Doctour clearly intimates What saith he Papists dare not do with the Fathers they practise upon us he means Protestant printers and writers and with their little forks thrust out our annotations in the margent and our sayings in the indices although they be consonant to the Fathers minds But saith he this care was so great in Pius 5. that Sixtus Senensis commends the Pope for his industry in purging the Fathers works He did so indeed but if the Doctour had spoken out the sentence he had betrayed his own false heart which he would not willingly do Expurgari saith Senensis emaculari curasti omnium Catholicorum Scriptorum ac praecipue veterum Patrum scripta haereticorum aetatis nostrae faecibus contaminata venenis infecta Your Doctour our Disswader makes Senensis praise the Pope for his purging the Fathers as though he had scowred and scraped off the substance wheras he commended him only for his care in cleansing them from the infectious notes and glosses superadded to them by the hereticks of our times But Sir that I may tell you once for all The falsifications of Authours perverted by this your Disswader are so many so notorious and gross ones that in the very relating them I shall tire both my self and you My design is only to let you know that this whole work of his Disswasive from Popery if the proofs and citations he brings for his talk were true as they are all false signifies nothing at all Two worthy Catholik Gentlemen have discovered by the help of the Libraries in London and Oxford so many most gross falsifications one of them a hundred and fifty the other yet more and greater that it cannot but amaze an honest minded render to behold them Pray read them Sir and ponder seriously and so rid of that trouble I shall make the more haste in my own design It was their endeavour it seems to show him to be dishonest mine is only to prove him impertinent God reward them for their pains and help me in mine For my hand denies me now his office not able to write with that facility it was wont But becaus I saw no abler pen to appear as I thought they would in the confutation of this slanderous book I judged it my part Sir to give you som general hints of light concerning it till there might issue som more plenary confutation by a better hand And here Sir you must know too that I had no sooner finished this my Epistle but that I understood of another book against this Doctour Taylors Disswasive a very solid book written by Ja. Ser. in order to his own book called Sure-Footing lately set forth which made me doubt for a while whether I should let this of mine appear especially when I considered the industry care and solidity of those three men the last wherof had so taken up what the other two had left for me to say and so utterly confounded this Disswasive that I might well be silent But I remembred a story which I had sometime read in holy writ of Joas the King of Israel who coming to visit Elizeus the Prophet when he lay sick on his death-bed was bid by him for his encouragement against his enemies to strike the ground with the javelin he had in his hand Joas at his word struck the floor three times But the holy man of God was angry with him and said If thou hadst struck five or six or seven times thou hadst smote Syria even to an utter consummation but now thou shalt smite it but thrice So very faulty is this Disswasive that it cannot be smote too often even to an utter consummation §. 2 Which is about a leash of new Articles Sayes that in the Church of Rome faith and Christianity encreas like the moon and that ther be now two new articles of faith a coining namely the immaculate Conception and the Popes being above the Councel and one other lately produced in the Councel of Trent sess 21. which is That although the antient Fathers did give the Communion to Infants yet they did not beleev it necessary to salvation Which decree is saith he beyond all bounds of modesty and evident truth Here your Doctour tells news of one Article lately made and two more a coining which will shortly be out of the mint both which news he knows but we know not Indeed Sir this section belongs more to a writer of Diurnals or weakly Intelligencer than to a Doctour of Divinity And therfor at the reading of it I turned suddenly to the frontispiece of the book to see whose Imprimatur it had to it And I found it licensed not by Mr. l'Estrange but Geo. Stfadling First then he tells us news to come and then news past A pair of faith articles are now he saith in the mint and will shortly come forth The Virgins immaculate Conception and the Popes being above a Councel But how can your Disswader say that these two are shortly to com forth whereas
The Canon or Article of saith concerning this point runs thus Si quis dixerit parvulis antequam ad annos discretionis pervenerint necessariam esse Ettcharistiae communionem anathema sit And this is all the articles of faith determined in that Councel upon this affair wherein the faithful are forbid to hold that the Communion of Infants is necessary to salvation If any one sayes the Councel shall say that communion of the Eucharist is necessary to babes before they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema And this doctrin I am perswaded your Disswader himself holds for good But this would not make him sport enough And therfor he lets pass the Canon or Article of saith and speaks of the doctrin or Declaration of it which is not propounded for faith at all to any beleever although all Catholiks that know it adhere to it as good and solid And this is his first legerdemain to propound that for an Article of faith which is only a doctrin or declaration of faith His next trick is to make it run short like a Canon of faith wheras it is a large and serious explication wherein those words he catches at are so connexed with others that their rationality there appears which here is hid Third is that he makes it the Councels busines to determin only a matter of fact of the ancient Fathers not beleeving infants communion necessary though themselves used it which was none of the Councels intention but insinuated only by way of anticipation to cut off the arguments of hereticks who strengthned their errour about the necessity of infants communion by example of the ancient Fathers who practised it Denique eadem sancta Synodus docet parvulos ufu rationis carentes nulla obligari necessitate ad Sacramentalem Eucharistiae Communionem Siquidein per Baptismi lavacrum regencrati Christo incorporati adeptam jam filiorum Dei gratiam in illa aetate amittere non possunt Neque ideo tamen daninanda est antiquitas si eum morent in quibusdam locis aliquando servavit Ut enim sanctissimi illi Patres sui sacti probabilem causam pro illius temporis ratione habuerunt ita certe eos nulla salutis necessitate id fecisse sine controversia credendum est Thus speaks the Councel in their doctrin or declaration of that Article of faith Si quis dixerit But enough of this busines And although your Disswaders talk deserv it not yet your own satisfaction concerning these three novelties here specified becaus I thought it might haply require what I have said therof pray take it in good part And be assured that faith and Christianity in the Roman Church increases not like the moon although out of that Church it decreas indeed like the moon in her wain daily and in all Reformations to the wors §. 3. Which is about Indulgences Sayes that the doctrin of Indulgences is wholly new and unknown to antiquity as Antonius Prierias Byshop Fisher Agrippa and Durandus Popish doctours do acknowledg And hence it is that Gratian and Magister sententiarum both of them eminent doctors among the Papists have not a word of them Indeed in primitive times when the Byshop imposed several pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the penitent and relax som remaining parts of his pennance But the Roman doctrin of Indulgence is another thing They talk of Jubilees and treasure of the Church and pilgrimages which ancient Fathers either speak against or never heard of In sine theirs is becom a doctrin of solution not absolution that is the sinner is to go free without any punishment which is destructive to true repentance and right hope to Christs merits and free pardon nourishes pride and brings in money condemned by holy Scriptures and ancient Fathers who teach repentance reducing to a good life faith in Christs merits and hope in his promises Neither can any Papists tell what they are the better for their Indulgences or whether they be absolutions or compensations whether they take off actual pennances or potential such as be due in the court of man or of God whether they avail if the receiver do nothing for them or not whether they depend only of Christs satisfaction or the Saints likewis And therfor the Councel of Trent durst determin nothing about all these things but contented themselves only to declare this That ther is in the Church a power of granting Indulgences advising Catholiks to set other superfluous and curious questions aside Sir if I had had the opportunity to print the four paragraffs which to lessen the book I left out of my Fiat Lux becaus one of them was about Indulgence I should need to say the less to this section wherin I must notwithstanding be brief that I may speak somwhat also to those that follow Three things are in this his third section consusedly jumbled together by your Disswader concerning this busines of Indulgence Faith School-philosophy and Abuses Catholik faith and Tradition he sets down himself p. 17. and acknowledges it for good Now lest the Roman Emissaries saith he should deceiv any of the good sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the primitive Church when the Byshop imposed severe pennances and that they were almost quite performed and a great caus of pitty intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Byshop did somtimes indulge to the Penitent and relax som of the parts of his pennance and according to the example of S. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease left they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow These are his words And in them he hath set down exactly not only the faith but all the faith of Roman Catholiks in this point to stop the mouths of Roman Emissaries which faith and practise he acknowledges also expresly to be antient and primitive And thus much he would have us beleev that Protestants hold and allow although not their books and writings only which manitestly gainsay it but their very practise which hath long ago abandoned and is now utterly ignorant either of confession or pennance or relaxation or indulgence and the very Articles of the English Protestant Church refute him But he that writes against Popery need not heed what he sayes If another say the contrary so that he speak against Popery too they will both pass for good But the Papists laith your Disswader they are quite gone from this primitive way their doctrin of Indulgence is another thing quite another thing And then jumbles together heaps of their school-disputes about solutions absolutions compensations relaxations and such like stuff which together with som abuses that time has brought forch as well in that as other affairs and
glory of another world This was a Testament only fit for Jesus Prince of Angels and men to make And this I suppose is that piece of Popery your Disswader here so fumbles at that he knows not what to call it or how to express it in his words O but it is Transubstantiation which the Disswader dislikes And what is Transubstantiation what does it mean What is that long winded hard word of Transubstantiation what is the meaning of it For Catholik Religion which your Disswader calls Popery is not words nor are words Catholik Religion but the sence and life and meaning delivered us by help of words for faith hope and charity to feed upon Neither Consubstantiality nor Trinity nor Incarnation nor Transubstantiation and such other like phrases are any thing at all of any Religion Your Disswader abuses the world when he tells you he knows when Transubstantiation first came up The meaning of it was in the Christian world all those many ages before that Lateran Councel he speaks of or else it had not been in the world then Pray let him tell me whether the consubstantiality of the Son of God with his eternal Father who made all things be a novelty or new article yea or no. He knows the very time as himself here speaks when it began to be owned publickly for an opinion and that very Councel in which it was said to be passed into a publick doctrin and by what arts it was promoted and by what persons it was introduced And if he do not know all this I can tell him Does this prove that same Consubstantiation to be a novelty yea or no Let him answer me directly I am a plain man and love plain dealing Was Jesus the Son of God and Saviour of mankind beleeved any otherwayes to be true and really God after that Councel had declared him to be consubstantial to Almighty God his heavenly Father than he was before Christians ever heard of that word Constsubstantiality or Consubstantiation If Christians notwithstanding that new word still beleeved and adhered to one and the same old faith they did before then say I the same of Transubstantiation And if that new word made no new article no more does this Nor doth the one word any more belong to Christian Religion than the other and both indeed only so far as they conveigh the old faith by this new invented word guarded against the subtilties of the hereticks then living who by their circumventing sophistry deluded all other expressions concerning the real presence of the Godhead in our Lords humanity and of his humanity in the Eucharist save only that other of Consubstantatiion and this of Transubstantiation both words in those dayes equally new And when those heresies and hereticks are once vanished ther is no further use of the words amongst Christians who beleev and worship by verthe of their Christian Tradition the very thing it self Gods divinity in his humanity and Christs humanity in his sacred Eucharist without troubling their heads with those hard words which were invented against subtil hereticks unless haply the same heresies should rise again And the Catholik flock acts and beleevs after both those Councels just as their Christian predecessours did before They acknowledg Christ our Lord really God and fear and love and hope in him whether they ever hear of his consubstantiality or consubstantiation with God or no. Nor do they ever trouble their heads to know what is the meaning of con or what is substance or what be accidents or what substantiation or consubstantiation no more after that Councel of Nice than before it Such terms and phrases are besides the simplicity of their holy and innocent beleef which holds notwithstanding all that is really meant by those words taught them in a more natural and plainer way So likewise do Catholik beleevers after the Councel of Lateran worship their crucified Redeemer in the Eucharist in the same manner others did before it being the very same Christians with those that lived the age before and think no more of Transubstantiation many thousands of these now then those others did that word making no more difference before and after this Councel of Lateran then had Consubstantiation made amongst the Catholik Christians which were before and after that other Councel of Nice By those words som cunning wolves had been by their Pastours discovered and separated from the sheep and after that the whole flock fed quietly in the same hills and by the same fountains they did before And in this sence Catholik Divines might say and truly say that Transubstantiation is not of faith either before the Councel or after if any one of them did indeed ever say so For Christian faith is not words as I said before nor words any Religion And if those Catholik Divines who ever they were meant any thing else as namely that the Christians before that Councel of Lateran who indeed worshipped their Redeemer in the Eucharist as true and fully as any that lived after that Councel ever did or can were not given generally to understand explicitely that Christ our Lord is so present in the Eucharist that ther is there no other substance but himself in this sence they spoke true that so much had not been spoken expresly by a Councel but yet that the faith and practice of Christians both before and after that Councel was the same And so consequently ther was no more of faith after that Councel than was before it whether we consider the learned or the common slock of Christians For these worship Christ in the Eucharist after that Councel as others did before it though neither of them think of Transubstantiation and those learned ones spake and wrote of our Lords presence in the Eucharist before that Councel as others do after it and both do equally beleev the thing that is meant by Transubstantianon which in a diverse sence according as men speak either of the word or meaning of the word may be either said to be or not to be of faith either before the Lateran Councel or after it Those words of Tertullian in his 2. book ad uxorem where he speaks of the marriage of a Gentile with a Christian woman Non sciet maritus quid secretò ante omnem cibum gustet si sciverit panem non illum credat esse qui dicitur c. Those also of S. Cyprian in his Coena Domini Panis iste communis in carnem sanguinem mutatus c. And again Panis iste non in specie sed natur â mutatur c. Those likewise of St. Chrysostom de poenitent serm 5. Non quod panis sit respicias neque quod vinum sit reputes c. And again Mysteria hic consumi Christi corporis substantiâ c. Those too of S. Greg. Nyssen in his magna Catechista Rectè ergo nunc quoque Dei verbo sanctificatum panem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and again Haec autem
or perhaps a naughty end This is no crime with you If it be how comes it to pass that never any byshop or other minister in England who seribble with such a stiff impertinency against Popish Images have never laboured at all against these Protestant pictures O but Protestants do not worship these pictures Do they not I would to God that all good Catholiks could so heartily love imitate and worship those blessed persons represented in their portraictures as Protestants do theirs who by such amorous faces in their curious dresses are brought I fear too often on their knees Motives to filthy iniquity they may stand but representation of austerity of contemplation of martyrdom of divine extasies of charity of our Lord Jesus and his Saints these are popish these are antichristian these are abominable If the God of holiness will not have any sacred figures to be made surely he cannot allow lascivious prophane and light ones But though he do not our Ministers will O but the Papists give the same worship to the representation and the thing represented This your Disswader may gather haply by his own experience For the figure of a King a father and a wife if they do raise any affections or thoughts these must needs be so much differing as the persons represented are For the shadow figure or representation if we would speak according to right philosophy neither does nor can terminate any such respect though it may its own For example that I may declare this my speech put case I have three or four Crucifixes before me of a several make or form and of a much differing art All these four figures have but one and the same representation becaus they represent but one and the same thing Christ Jesus our Lord crucified for our reconciliation and redemption and whatever good affection may arise in my heart upon the sight and thought of it must needs be the same to that representation and thing represented becaus it is terminated upon the thing represented by means of the representation of it And that is but one and the same respect though the figures be many For the representation or figure can terminate no such thought although it be a means of directing it But yet all those four figures have respects of their own which they bound and terminate themselves by reason for example of the excellency of their colours the material on which they are wrought the exactness of art in limning every part to the life and the proportions of the whole in its due and full measure These and such like considerations are ended fully in the picture without any consideration had to its object represented And they may be of such concerment in the business that a man may be moved to prefer one of those four pictures before all the other three This is that I mean Sir when I say that a shadow figure or representation neither does nor can terminate any such respect as refults naturally upon the samplar or prototype though it may its own And this is no sophistry of Aristotle but meer natural and vulgar reason common to all mankind O but the Papists make their pictures their gods I this is the talk of black ministers in the dark to fools and children while they sit warm in the Roman Catholik Benefices which they have invaded it behooves them to say what ever they can think against Popery be it right be it wrong be it sence or nonsence All goes down by a people once inveigled And if they be not still kept warm in their mistake the minister is lost Good God in what a world do we live I did my self beleev all this once And I wondred when I first saw Roman Catholiks to tear their pictures somtime and put them into the fire It is no such marvel if Epiphanius should tear a Saints picture which your Disswader here tells us although that story be not found in that epistle of Epiphanius translated by St. Jerom Roman Catholiks do it ordinarily For they use picturs but as they do their prayer-books and when they are so fullied and worn they can use them no more they are turned both into ashes which is the last end of picturs books and men And the respect they give to pictures is but the very same kind with what they give to the holy Gospels save only that the Gospel is looked on as the inside and a Crucifix the outside of their Redeemer but both are still but shadows of him I could say more concerning this busines and make it appear both that Christians have ever in all ages had images of their Lord and his Saints in their houses and Churches and how profitable and useful they are and that they are neither against the will of God nor any right reason And this I could clearly prove out of S. Basil Eusebius Caesariensis S. Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen S. Austin Bede Jo. Damascen Athanasius Ambrose Chrysostom But I have here said enough if I have enough demonstrated as I think I have that your Disswader has said nothing §. 9. Which is an appendage to the former Reprovs the picturing of God the Father and holy Trinity which many of the holy Fathers speak against much to the blame of the Roman Church which in their Mass-books and Breviaries Portuises and Manuals picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot Though the Catholik Christian Church hath ever used and approved of the use of Images as well as spiritual books yet they allow not of any abuse in either And Ordinaries Byshops Visitors and Superiours in all places are to look to that So that in this his appendage as he calls it your Disswader acts but the part of a good Visitour to blame and mend that which is amiss which must continually be done and continually is done all over the Catholick world as well in this as other affairs And if any Ordinary be negligent herein he is worthy of blame But Sir this is nothing of Popery or Catholik Religion which allows only in general the use of pious figures to forward our thoughts and desires to that eternal felicity above which so many holy Virgins Confessours Martyrs Apostles Monks Hermits and pious Princes portrayed all before our eyes arrived unto by their austerities alms-deeds purity fastings disciplines meditations watchings and patient sufferings in love and conformity to their holy Redeemer who is the prince and leader and crown of all those his glorious Saints redeemed and sanctified by the vertue of his precious blood and passion out of the thraldom of Satan and this wicked world Nor has Catholik Religion ever descended unto the particular circumstances of these figures This belongs to the care of Bishops and Ordinaries Catholiks have generally no figures but of such only as once have lived amongst them in their Church either as head or members of it Nor of many ages would byshops permit the
that every other Church saith Irenaeus comply with the Roman by reason of her greater principality First becaus he sayes it is necessary secondly that every Church thirdly for the Roman Church's more potent principality to comply with her the Centurists are much displeased at it and censure it for a very corrupt speech And indeed the papal power and jurisdiction was so eminent in all ages that Philip Nicolai in his comment de regno Christi refers the beginning of it to the infirmity of the Apostles and byshops succeeding them For there speaking of the origin and increas of papal power Primatus affectatio saith he communis suit infirmit as apostolorum ac etiam primorum urbis episcoporum Finally in the first age that St. Peter had a primacy above the other apostles is acknowledged by Calvin The twelve apostles had one among them to govern the rest by Musculus The celestial spirits are not equal the apostles themselves were not equal Peter is found in many places to have been chief amongst the rest which we deny not by Mr. Whitgift Amongst the Apostles themselves ther was one chief and by Dr. Covel who in his examinations teaches at large against the Puritans both that there was one appointed over the rest amongst the apostles to keep them in unity and that that government was not to ceas with the apostles but ever to continue in the Church and that it is the only way to prevent dissention and suppress heresies and that otherwise the Church would be in a far wors case than the meanest Commonwealth nay almost than a den of thieves But the Centurists like not this and therfor do they in their 4 Cent. reprehend many of the Fathers for entituling Peter the head of the apostles and the byshop of byshops So indeed Optatus calls him apostolorum caput and therfor Cephas Origen apostolorum principem Cyril of Jerusalem principem caput caeterorum Cyril of Alexandria Pastorem caput ecclesiae Arnobius Episcoporum episcopum the Councel of Chalcedon Petram verticem ecclesiae Cathobais Thus much for that point which by all this is proved to be far from any novelty As for Saints invocation and the antiquity of that beleef and custom it is acknowledged by the Centurists Chemnitius our Dr. Whitgift and Fulk Dr. Whitgift in his defence hath these words Almost all the byshops and writers of the Greek Church and Latin also for the most part were spotted with doctrins of Free-will of merit of invocation of Saints and such like Fulk in his rejoynder to Brittow I confess saith he that Ambrose Austin and Jerom held invocation of Saints to be lawful and in his book against the Rhemish Testament In Nazianzen Basil and Chrysostom I confess faith he is mention of invocation of Saints and again that Theodoret also speaketh of prayers to martyrs and again in the same book that Leo ascribeth much to the prayers of S. Peter for him and again that many ancient fathers held that Saints departed pray for us Chemnitius in his examen acknowledges as much of S. Basil Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen Theodoret S. Jerom and even S. Austin himself The Centurists charge the same upon S. Cyprian who is ancienter than S. Austin and again upon Origen who was ancienter than Cyprian adding that there are manifest steps of Saints invocation in the doctors of that ancient age So this is no novelty then Lastly as for the Sacrifice of Mass and Altars which as Dr. Reynolds sayes well in his conference with Hart are linked together Peter Martyr in his common places reproveth Peter of Alexandria for attributing more as he speaks to the outward altar than to the living temples of Christ and he checks Optatus also for saying what is the altar even the seat of the body and blood of Christ such sayings as these saith Peter Martyr edified not the people and lastly all the fathers in general he finds sault with for their abusing so frequently the name Altar which indeed is spoken of even by S Ignatius the Apostles undoubted schollar who is therfor carped at by Cartwright Calvin Fulk and Field acknowledg that most ancient fathers S. Athanasius Ambrose Austin Arnobius talked much of the Christian Sacrifice and Altar and Priests who offer and pour out daily on the holy table adding that the fathers without doubt received that their doctrin from the Jews and Gentiles whom therin they imitated The Centuriators in 3. Cent. Hame Cyprian as superstitious in that point and in their 2 Cent. say that S. Irenaeus and Ignatius though disciples of the apostles were dangerously erroneous in that account Sebastianus Francus in his epistle de abrogandis in universum omnibus statutis ecclesiasticis affirms that presently after the apostles times the supper of our Lord was turned into a sacrifice Andreas Chrastovius in his book de opificio missae charges the most ancient fathers with using a propitiatory sacrifice And our own Ascham in his Apologet. pro coena Domini is found to acknowledg that sacrifice for the dead and living is so ancient in the Christian Church that no beginning of it can be found although he thinks also with Calvin that it was derived whensoever it first began from the custom either of the Jews or Gentiles or both thus bespattering with his rash pen the very first sproutings of Christianity in the world However it is in the mean time no novelty at least And let any one in any age of Christianity look all over the Christian world on any of those who prosess that name whether they kept communion with the Roman Church or brake by schisme from it or perhaps never heard of it as they say the Church in Ethiopia did not and he shall find that they all had this Christian sacrifice amongst them as the great capital work of their Religion The Grecians under their Patriarch of Constantinople even still after their schisme have their Priests celebrating in all their ancient robes this their sacred liturgy to this day in the learned greek tongue all over the world where they live and may serv God not only in Greece Epirus Macedon and islands of the Egoean sea but in many parts of Natolia Circassia Russia Thrace Bulgaria Rascia Servia Bosnia Walachia Moldavia Dalmatia Croatia Thracia and up as far North as Trebisond The Assyrians or Melchites who are under the Archbyshop of Damascus whom they intitle Patriarch of Antioch The Georgians that dwell between the Euxin and Caspian sea under their Metropolitan who resides in the monastery of S. Catherin in Mount Sinai The Circassians that live between them and the river Tanais The Muscovites or Russians under the primate of Mosco The Nestorians dispersed up and down in Assyria Mesopotamia Parthia Media even to Cataia and India under their Patriarch residing either in Muzal or the monastery of S. Ermes fast by it The Indians or Christians of S. Thomas about the cities of Coulan and Maliapar Angamal