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
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