things And so we find the latter practiced in the Gospel but not the former But you must say somthing and tho not to the purpose it must be called an Answer I related some desperate expressions of your Preachers over-valuing Saints And you confessing they were mad in so much fall into exclamations against me for leaving the Roman Church because I saw some mad men in it And thence you fall to your wonted immodest railleries without regarding how far you go from truth and the purpose Where did you find me say that for the madness of those Friers only I forsook the Roman Church Did not I alledg many other very grave causes of my resolution therein Did I say this was a cause at all for me to leave that Church I only reflected upon it as on very bad Fruit that declares the corruption of the Tree And in case it should be in some measure a cause how come you to imagine or think to perswade others it should be the only cause A thief that was hanged for stealing a purse wherein were twenty pounds and six pence because you heard in the process of his cause mention made of six pence were it ingenuous or just to exclaim at the Judges as if they did condemn a man to be hanged for stealing six pence I confess your disingenuity herein is hateful to me but if you think it should not be so pray then answer me to these two Questions If a Villain did come by night and cut down a score or two of those fair Trees that grace the Walks of the Roial Park of St. James in Westminster would you think it too much severity that such a Villain should be whipt about the streets for so great an Insolence But if after this check he should run about the City and Country with a little branch of one of those Trees in his hand exclaiming against the cruelty of the Judges as if they had order'd him to be whipt about the streets of London for cutting that little branch only would not you think him worthy to be whipt again for his notorious calumny Behold your case I express'd many grievous faults of the Roman Church which occasioned my withdrawing from her Idolatry Superstition cruelty in the conduct of Souls impiety in preferring her own laws to those of God rashness and even madness in her worship and Invocation of Saints and among others related the frantic expressions of a Friar in extolling his Saint as one of the Branches proceeding from that vitiated Tree Of this Branch you lay hold and cry that I have left the Communion of the Roman Church only because I saw in it a mad Friar Give me leave to tell you that this kind of arguing deserves no better than whipping in the Scholes And having answered my Arguments upon this Subject say you and having given no Answer to them say I as now I have shewn you provoke me to a trial of your Scholastic skill touching the knowledg that Saints in heaven have of our affairs here and how far they are concerned for them a thing whereof even your ablest Schole-men could never yet give a clear account Whoever shall please to read their Writings on this Subject will see a Theater of confusion The most that ever could be cleared of what they alledg and you can pick out of them is that God can and somtimes did reveal unto Saints in heaven some earthly concerns but that all the Saints in heaven should know all our thoughts and all our particular concerns could never be said upon any probable ground much less with certainâ— And yet a certain knowledg of it were requisite to save your practice from the note of blindness and solly in having such frequent recourse to them by mental and vocal praiers for all your particular concerns I say moreover that tho you were certain they did see all our peculiar concerns and were willing to be concerned for us yet you fall very short of giving a formal answer to my exception taken against your more frequent recourse to them then to Christ for Intercession and dedicating more Temples to their names then to the name of God and Christ How can this consist with our Christian acknowledgment of Christ to be our only Mediator and Advocate And if you deny so much to him I hope you will not doubt he is at least our chief Mediator and Advocate being so how come you to have less recourse unto him then to inferior Saints which was that I charg'd upon your practice To which you gave no answer because you saw no rational or Christian answer could be given and so finding it an easier work to fall upon your accustomed scurrilous Sarcasms you returned them for answer Only to that of building more Churches and offering praiers and devotions to your supposed Saints then unto Christ because you would seem to say somthing tho nothing indeed to the purpose You say at last that the honor you give to the Saints you give it to God in them or to them for God But who can understand this to be a good way to please God If an earthly King would have the Prince his Son and Heir to be Solicitor General to him in favor of his Subjects and that all Roial graces and favors should pass unto them by the hands of his Son Can any man rationally imagine it would be pleasing to such a King that his Subjects neglecting their Applications to the Prince should make all or the most frequent to inferior Servants of the Court Apply this example and if you do not see by it the unreasonableness of that practice of yours I think we may conclude that passion and prejudice has blinded you so far as not to see the light of noon-day Add to all this that many of your supposed Saints possibly may not be Saints indeed but wretched Souls damned in Hell Whereof your own Histories do afford no few instances and the possibility of the Case is evident for most of your Saints were Canonized or called Saints by Vulgar opinion not by that more exact scrutiny which in latter Ages was ordained to prevent the Invocation of Impostors and Cheats for Saints through Vulgar error It is manifest that such wicked men are solicitous and not seldom successful in getting the credit of Saints with the Vulgar That 's the business of hypocrites when true Saints make it theirs to hide their virtues and please only the eies of God And even now after so many solemnities and scrutinies ordained to proceed to a Canonization the matter still remains uncertain Many of your learned Schole-men deny the Pope to be infallible therein He may be mis-informed and why not May not Cheats intervene and Bribes work in such Informations as in others A Town or Society that will be engaged to get one of their Members Canonized for Saint and thereby obtain considerable Emoluments of credit and interest to their body may possibly use
greatly feared is come upon me For certainly besides my sins against my God and ruine of my Country and Religion I could hardly conceive any thing more to be feared and grieved by me then the order of his departure Why most Reverend Father will you deprive the Scholes of Pamplona of so famous a Master the People of a preacher the Princes and Peers of the Kingdom of a Counsellor in matters of conscience and me an afflicted sad Prelate groaning in Banishment of my only comfort Why will you be good to others at our loss But doubtless you will have your subjects to be where serving God better he may be more benefiaial to his brethren if so leave him at Pamplona where hitherto besides the functions of the society by occasion of our mutual communication while I lived in that City he has don much good to his country in their spiritual concernments as now is don by exchange of Letters Alter your opinion therefore I beseech you for the greater good of souls and lend Sall for a while to me and to his Country and I promise you that you shall not repent of so good a resolution If it were convenient to discover all I could alledg many things which would induce your Reverend Paternity to a free and full consent to my proposal Expecting your favorable answer I kiss your sacred hands Your most Reverend paternities most affectioned servant in Christ Nichol. Bishop of Fernes The Author of this letter is yet living where Mr. S. may come to him and be certified of the case And tho he be of my present Antagonists I know he has so much of truth and honesty in him as not to deny his writing for even now he confesses that his opinion of me and the opinion of all that knew me was conforming to what that letter represents whatsoever be come of our present Controversies The second testimony I have to be produced here more public and full to this purpose is that of the Earl of S. Stephen General of the Spanish army in Castile Vice-Roy and Captain General first of the Kingdom of Gallicia then of Navarr and last of Peru a Prince of as great repute for his learning and piety as for his Government of Kingdoms and arms Being Vice-Roy of Navarr and Resident in Pamplona Metropolis of that Kingdom all the time I was there teaching Philosophy and Divinity and being often present at my public functions as well of moderating disputes in Scholes as of preaching in Churches and moreover having bin pleased to render me very familiar with himself for his direction and consultation in matters belonging to my profession and calling at last delivered his opinion of me for teaching preaching and behavior in an Elogy inserted among others of men he honored of his age and would have to live in the memory of posterity in a book of his works presented by his two Sons to Pope Alexander the 7th intitled horae succisivae Didaci Benavidii comitis S ti Stephani Proregis Navarrae c. and printed at Lyons in France in the year 1660. In the pag. 278. of the said Book he hath this Elogy touching me R do P. ANDREAESALO Hiberno Societatis Jesu Elogium DIgnus Famâ familiâ Ignatianâ Vir Hybernus patriâ Vernans literis Superasti Haereseos Pelagi ac Mortalitatis saevientes Procellas In Religionis tutum Sinum traductus Salo Sales Sapientiam Cognomentum Verba Mens Promunt Patriae calamitatibus Calamo notus A natalitiis oris ore cum Nestoreo Ad Hispanas Scholas accessisti Inservisti etiam sacrâ Eloquentiâ rostris Et quod mirum De Coelesti Patria non Patrio sermone Sed Hispano elegantissimè Perorasti Vere peregrinus sermo à Peregrino Ac dum te auribus usurpo Quà dissertatorem Scholasticum Quà Coeli Oraculorum interpretem Hinc me sagatum acuminibus Armas Hinc me togatum divinis Legibus instruis Quod magis In tuis literis sine litura Mores suspicio Desinis esse Ibernus factus Iber Desinis esse Iber IESU assecla Factus Hoc cautum ut habeas Volo Te exemplo hamare Quem meus amat Calamus I forbear turning these words into English both for the insufficiency I find in me for keeping their Elegancy in the Translation and for my unwillingness of delivering in words of mine own Elogies whereof I acknowledg my self most unworthy and which I could not behold without confusion The book was sent unto me by the Bishop of Pamplona to be examined before it was printed as the custom there is and so bears my censure and approbation of it in the beginning But the foresaid elogy was then concealed from me and inserted among the rest after the Copy went out of my hands and truly I was surprized and is no small confusion finding it in the book after it was printed But I see Gods great providence fore seeing the present malignant attemt of my adversary upon my credit was pleased to have this Antidote prepared against his venem I hope the judicious Reader will not ascribe to any appetit of vain Glory the exhibiting of the foresaid testimonies to which the just and necessary defence of my credit did force me And whereas my adversary is so bold as to appeal even to the Protestant reader for justifying his attemt in robbing me of the Titles given to me with a confessed design of weakning thereby my cause and my arguments with the vulgar I embrace the same appeal and desire the same reader to judg whether it be right or reason I should desert his cause and mine in this exigency Shall we let their insolent and presumtious vaunt run unchekt wherewith they blind the simple saying that no man of understanding or honesty can leave their Church for the reformed that both Religion and learning have fixed their tents among them so as out of their Society neither may be found that the dullest wits coming to them are illuminated and refined and the most sublime by leaving their Communion are blinded and stupified This robber of titles certainly shall meet with something in his Encounter with me that will trouble him more then those callings of Professor and Rector Many Professors of Divinity and Rectors of Colledges have I known without any great presumtion I may say it who in debates of this kind could not put their opposers into such streights as I. S is like to find himself in at the trial of his book now to be taken in hand But being he conceives that those callings may add force to my arguments with some readers I will defend them in spight of his malice and endeavor to forward the truth of God by all that is mine by right And if it be true what some of his party to give more credit to this calumny do report saying that the Author of it is a Jesuit of my acquaintance in Spain if so I say his guilt is hainoussy
posterity with false records And on the other side the Romish party is found guilty by uncessant experiences of aspersing without measure or regard of truth the protestant cause and all defenders of it Whereof the story of Ordination at the Nags-head confidently revived of late by one of a great calling and confuted to his shame and confusion by the Lord Primate Bramhall may be a conspicuous evidence To which I could add not a few more of my own experience and certain knowledg They got a great Person to relate in Dublin that I was struck Dumb at making of my Declaration in the Church of Cashel and that I fell suddainly Dead soon after going in the Street A miracle I suppose is put by this time into the annual letters of Rome and Indies to terrify others from following my Example An other Person of like quality was emploied to testifie that after my foresaid Declaration made at Cashel an extraordinary concourse of People being present at it I went to a Noble-Mans House where my habitation was formerly and said Mass in it whereas I was not out of the Arch-Bishops company from that day until I came to Dublin with a considerable number of Men and Arms to guard me And after some Months constant retirement in the Colledg of Dublin without ever lying out of it or going abroad but seldom to the Castle and few houses of the chief Prelates and Nobility an Irish Papist told confidently to one of my Lord Chancellors Gentlemen who related it to me after that he saw me few daies before saying Mass at Kilkullen Bridg where I was not in some years before that time after my public Sermon of Recantation at Dublin and the Gentleman asking how that could possibly be so I being in their sight and company and never out of Dublin all that time he took a Book into his hand and swore by it that what he said was true At this very instant it hapned that I should come out of Christ-Church from Praiers in company of an other Gentleman of the Colledg and my Lord Chancellors Gentleman seeing me asked of the swearer whether he did know me if he saw me he answered yea and asking whether I was of those two that went by he said no. But being told I was one of them he confessed that he never saw me before So punctual as this are their reports of us If they were but seldom we might take them for mistakes but seeing them so frequent and continual we have too much ground for suspecting a set purpose of imposing upon us especially their most creditable Doctors teaching them that t is lawful to raise false testimonies in defence of their credit that their opposers may not be believed The authors of this godly Doctrine confessors and Preachers to Emperours and Princes you may see quoted by John Caramuel Titular Bishop of Misia in Theologia fundamentali fundamento 55. n. 1589. This being so it appears how little credit is due to their testimonies against our cause and persons I premise secondly that by sacred orders a character indelible is given to the person ordained whether Bishop Priest or Deacon that is to say a spiritual sign or ability to certain functions uncapable of being taken away by humane power or accident So t is defined in the Council of Trent sess 7. can 9. Si quis dixerit in tribus sacramentis Baptismo sc Confirmatione Ordine non imprimi characterem in anima hoc est signum quoddam spirituale indelibile unde ea iterari non possunt anathema esto If any shall say that in these three Sacraments Baptism Confirmation and Order a character is not left in the Soul viz. a spiritual and undelible sign which is the cause they may not be repeted let him be anathema It is not my present business to dispute with the Council upon what account it calls Confirmation and Order Sacraments but to note that by it is defined that sacred orders do leave a character indelible and that they ought not to be reiterated upon the same person The same Doctrine is delivered again in the 23. sess 3. can of the same Council adding that who was once a Priest can never be made a Layman And in the eighth Council of Toledo cap. 7. and in the Council of Florence under Eugenius the 4th in decre de unione Hence follows saies Bellarmine that no superiour power can hinder a Bishop from confirming and ordaining if he pleases to do it And Peter Sotus saies that doubtless no Heresie excommunication or even degradation takes away the power of Orders tho the use of them may be unlawful so as tho a Heretic excommunicated or degraded person sin in giving Orders or administring Sacraments yet the actions are valid for where such a character is saies Bellarmine God in force of a Covenant doth concur to produce a supernatural effect to wit to give an other Character even Episcopal * Bellarmine de confir cap. 12. * Peter Soto lect 5. de inst Sacer. lin 5 fol. 279. edit diling an 1560. * Ubicunque est talis character Deus ex pacto concurrit ad effectum supernaturalem producendum Bellar. de Sacramentorum effectu lib. 2. c. 19. These two premises supposed for examining the matters of fact which is the ground and foundation of this work we are to rely upon the public authentic Records of the Church of England faithfully produced by Mr. Francis Mason and truly examined at the request of Mr. Fitz Herbert who seeing a mortal wound given to the Romish calumnies against the lawful ordination of English Clergy by this narrative of Mr. Mason desired that those Records related by Mr. Mason should be shown to some learned persons of the Romish communion which was accordingly don by the most Reverend Father in God George Arch-Bishop of Canterbury who having read this challenge in Fitz. Herberts Book called to him Mr. Collington then reputed Archipresbyter Mr. Laithwait and Mr. Faircloath Jesuits and Mr. Leagume a secular Priest All these being brought before the Arch-Bishop the 12. of May 1614. in presence of the Right Reverend Bishops of London Dunelm Ely Bath and Wells Lincolne and Rochester the said Records were given to them to see feel read and turn and having considered all exactly they declared that no exception could be taken against that Book in their opinion and the Arch-Bishop desiring them to signify so much by letters to Fitz Herbert they promised to do it as Mr. Champney relates the story And the same Records are at this day and alwaies to be seen if men will not be satisfied otherwise then by eye-sight Fitz Herbert Append. n. 13. The Records produced by Mr. Mason being thus justified we will take our measures by them to cleer this point First our adversaries allow us that the Bishops ruling in England at the beginning of Henry the Eighth his Reign were lawful Bishops and legally ordained according to
any person departs from the Protestant Church to the Romish they neither curse nor rail nor plot against his life or credit they onely commiserate his fall and pray for him that God may convert him Herein appears the spirit of Christ his meekness and charity But when any comes from the Romish Church to the Protestant he may be sure to have curses calumnies affronts conspiracies against his life and repute follow him while he lives A strong point of policy apt indeed to terrify weak minds that they dare not desert their quarrell but a policy dictated not by that wisdom that is from above peaceable gentle full of mercy c. Jam. 3.17 but from that other called by the same Apostle earthly sensual devilish v. 15. Learned grave and civil discourses about Religion such as those of Isaac Casaubon with Cardinal Peron and Fronto-Ducaeus of Peter Wading with Simon Episcopius and the like I shall alwaies honor and willingly entertain but with scoulds I do not love to spend my time And so I leave you to God Mr. I. E. to direct you while I enter into Lists with an other pretending to subtilty in reasoning the case with me Which is to be the second part of this Book FINIS TRUE CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC FAITH maintain'd in the CHVRCH of ENGLAND THE SECOND PART TRUE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC FAITH Maintain'd in the CHURCH of ENGLAND PART II. Being A Survey of Mr. I. S. his Book Entituled The unerring unerreable Church CHAP. I. An Anatomy of Mr. I. S. his Genius and drifts appearing in his dedicatory Epistle to my Lord Lieutenant of Ireland THE dissections of Anatomy discover imperfections and diseases in the vitals and other exterior parts of the body which a fair skin or cunning dress hides from the eies of a common beholder In like manner a Scholastic examen will lay open the faults and corruptions both in the essential and ornamental parts of a discourse which upon a transient view appear plausible and commendable Unto a mind clouded with passion and prejudice and the favour of an espoused or the dislikes of an adverse party the writing of Mr. I. S. may appear without blemish or fault but an incision being made the flesh and the skin being cut off it will be found void of truth in the proposal of force and form in the argumentation sincerity in the design and lastly modesty and ingenuity in the style and terms which are the several requisites that can make a writing in any degree worth the reading This kind of Anatomy I will now take in hand and by no other art then plain incision shall with truth and perspicuity discover the fallacies and gross errors of the before mentioned Author who delivers boldly his judgment upon what he do's not understand or if he were not really ignorant yet delivers unsincerely and misrepresents those things of which he treats all which I shall demonstrate in the following Chapters After several attacks made by I. E. N. N. and others upon my small Book upon my self and the Church of England comes up confidently to complete the victory Mr. I. S. as Scipio Africanus to the Seige of Numantia to amend the errors of the preceding warriors And to appear a Scipio indeed in his present adventure he promises himself so to beset and straighten us as to make us burn our selves as the Numantines did to prevent their falling into the hands of the Roman Conqueror To compass this magnificent design he proposeth to the Earl of Essex Lord Lieutenant of Ireland my good Lord and Patron in the dedicatory Epistle of his book to his Excellency that I should be burned for a crime he calls a Blasphemy wherein all the learned men of the Church of England are involved with me viz. to say that the Roman Church as now it stands is not a secure way to Salvation And the executioner of this severe sentence passed upon us by Mr. I. S. must not be the Inquisitor of Rome or Spain but our own Kings Prime Minister and Lieutenant in the Kingdom of Ireland He allow's me so much wit as to know that I could not justifie my separation from the Church of Rome if I did hope to be saved in it whereas believing I may to forsake it were a formal schism thus much of wit he doth very injuriously deny to all other learned Protestants saying that all allow the Roman Church to be a secure way to Salvation which is to say they are all confessedly Schismatics The inference is but too clear from his Positions confusedly delivered if thus ordered All men that separate from the Roman Church knowing and allowing it to be a safe way to Salvation are formally and confessedly Schismatics all Learned men of the Church of England do acknowledg and allow the Church of Rome to be a safe way to Salvation Therefore all of them are confessedly and formally Schismatics This Thesis Mr. I. S. presents to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to win his favor To clear the ground of all this discourse and see how bold and blind was the attemt of Mr. I. S. his charging me with Blasphemy see the occasion given to him for it that in the page 226 of my book according to the first Edition of it at Dublin rebuking their ordinary vaunt wherewith they delude the simple saying that Protestants do allow Papists may be saved but Papists do not allow that Protestants may be saved c. I delivered these words following but in neither do they say truth for no Learned Protestant do's allow the Popish Religion in general and absolutely speaking to be a secure way to Salvation for all do agree in affirming that many of their Tenets and practises are inconsistent with Salvation tho ignorance may happâ—ly excuse many of the simple sort but not such as know their error or with due care and inquiry may know it On the other side c. This has netled the poor man to rage Happily he found himself to be of those who know or with due enquiry may know the damnable errors of the Roman Church Now I desire the judicious Reader to consider with what propriety of terms Mr. I. S. calls it a Blasphemy in me to relate this sentiment of Learned Protestants Tho I were mistaken to call such a mistake Blasphemy is extravagant language Three kinds of Blasphemy I find mentioned by Aquinas and other Schole-men 1. To appropriate to God something unbeseeming 2. To deprive him of a perfection due to him 3. To attribute to a creature any of Gods properties To which of these classes will Mr. I. S. reduce my mistake if it be not so what I relate of learned Protestants That one of those who sit in the Market-places selling roots should call it a Blasphemy in another of her trade to say that her Turnips came out of Flanders not being so may be a cause of laughing but that one pretending to learning and a disputant in divinity should
to establish as the chiefest of his concern is the Popes supremacy and absolute power over all Christians directly forfooth spirituals but effectively in their temporal concerns as many powerful Princes Kingdoms and provinces have experienced to their woe These two great Prerogatives of absolute power over all Christians and of infallibility in his Decrees such as none may oppose or mutter against being established in the Pope what security can people or Princes have of their Liberties or Possessions if liable to be censured Heretics if they do not receive and submit to any thing the Pope will be pleased to decree and declare for an article of Faith and being thus censured to have their Liberties and Lands seiz'd upon and taken from them by any that will have force to do it Next we are to consider the dangerous consequences of this Doctrine in the daily extent of the Popes power and autority by his Emissaries and flatterers Hitherto they were contented to assert his infallibility in matters of Right now of late they extend it to matters of Fact as appears in the famous Thesis of the Parisian Jesuits declared above in the ninth Chapter And tho another party opposed that assertion of theirs as mentioned in the place aforesaid all men know how litle success any may expect to have in the Roman Judicature against such as will engage in exalting and extending the power and authority of the Pope and so the Jesuits have not only obtained a censure of heresy and blasphemy c. agaist the Doctrine of Cornelius Jansenius where the debate was in matter of right but another arising touching the fact whether Jansenius did indeed deliver such a Doctrine They obtained wise from the succeeding Pope Alexander the 7th a Bull and Decree no less peremtory touching the fact declaring the said Propositions censured by his Predecessor to be really contain'd in Jansenius his Book and which is more wonderful he should know in the sense intended by Jansenius The foresaid sworn defenders and exalters of the Popes autority have defended publicly that we are to believe with divine Faith the said declaration of the Popes against Jansenius as well in matter of right as fact to be infallible by these notable words Fide divinâ credi potest librum cui titulus Augustinus Jansenii esse haereticum quinque Propositiones ex eo decerptas esse Jansenii in sensu Jansenii damnatas that the Book intitled the Augustin of Jansenius is heretical and the five Propositions which are gathered out of it are Jansenius's and in the sense of Jansenius condemned And there is no reason but we may expect a command of believing the Popes infallibility in this latter kind in matter of fact as formerly intimated in matters of right And if this be established that the Pope is infallible also in matters of fact and if he be pleased to declare that any of us in particular is an heretic or hath delivered an heretical Proposition Woe be to him so declared a heretic by the Pope All Christians subject to the Pope must take him for an heretic and proceed against him accordingly with all those severities inflicted by Canons against Heretics Mr. I. S. accuses me to the Lord Licutenant of Ireland that I should have said that there is no salvation in the Catholic hurch a proposition in my own opinion heretical and blasphemous taken in its proper literal and right sense not to take notice of some crooked improper sense which Mr. I. S. may pretend and may render my discourse obscure This testimony so evidently false he imposes upon me my Book being extant in the hands of many hundred men and my self living to declare the false-hood of it yet his confidence is such that having no evidence nor as much as attemted to prove the truth of his accusation he will have my Lord Lieutenant to proceed to the utmost severity against me commanding me to be burned for blasphemous Ill may he expect from his Excellency so unjust and rash a judgment but how far he may speed in Rome with the same accusation tho false I may not know Of their integrity proceeding to judgement without hearing the parties I can have no assurance If they declare me for Author of the Proposition imposed upon me by Mr. I. S. That in the Catholic Church there is no salvation and consequently guilty of heresy and blasphemy and all must take their declaration therein for infallible according to that increase of infallibility in matters of fact ascribed of late to the Pope by his prime Favorites what mischief may not I expect from all those who think it a special service of God to destroy Hereties But my particular concern is not of so great a force to declare the enormity or danger of this consequence He accuses the whole Church of Protestants of heresy and blasphemy in a high degree saying it s their common doctrine that it is impossible to keep Gods Commandments which proposition in its literal full sense is certainly heretical and blasphemous for derogatory of Gods justice and goodness and diametrically opposite to the doctrine of Christ as I have declared in the 8th Chapter where also I have shewed how falsely such a doctrine is imposed upon the whole Church of England But if our Adversary gets a definition of the Pope that we are in effect guilty of that error in what condition shall we stand with our neighbors our innocency in the case will not availe What if Mr. I. S. or other like him would accuse some great Christian Prince of heresy tho with as little truth as we have seen his accusation of me and of the Church of England now mentioned to have proceeded But if the malice of neighbors hunting after the Lands of such a Prince and of his Subjects disposed to rebell against him should join to accuse him of heretical pravity and the Pope thereby should proceed to deliver his infallible judgment touching such a Prince to be an heretic in effect in what miserable condition must that Prince be for credit and interest to be taken by all men for an undoubted heretic his Subjects absolved from their Allegiance to him and his Lands exposed to the prey of any stronger hand autorized by the Pope according to the procedure of that Court whereof many dismal Tragedies are to be seen in the Chronicles of England Germany Navarre and other Kingdoms of Europe To establish this power in the Pope of Rome so destructive to the peace and safety of Christian people and Princes being the aim of Mr. I. S. his tedious and intricate discourses in favor of his pretended unerring unerrable Church and that declared by himself he may expect the time when all Christian people are perfectly blind and mad to have his doctrine received And now having seen how unsuccessful he hath bin in setting up the grand Engine of the Popes infallibility or infallibility of the Church governed by the Pope by