much swerved from the ancient primitive practice of former Christians For Protestants have neither priests nor altars nor offerings nor sacrifice nor satisfactions nor expiations for the dead which those authorities speak of Ch. 11. from page 188. to 203. The real presence under the elements of the Eucharist Mr. Whitby here will not by any means endure And he hath one shield of a word which consists of almost as many syllables as Ajax his buckler of bulls hides to repell all autorities that may witness it Representatively that is the word Thou seest saith St. Chrisostom upon the altar the very body which the wise-men saw and worshipped Representatively saith Whitby Again The most precious thing in heaven I will shew thee upon earth saith the same father It is shewed representatively saith Whitby it is seen representatively I dare not adore the earth saith St. Augustin and yet I have learned how the earth is to be adored becaus flesh is of the earth and our Lord gave us his flesh to eat which no man eats except he first adore It is Christ saith Whitby who is adored representatively And if any words will not bear that distinction then are they all spurious Nay if any should say expresly that not only Christ in heaven but his very Sacrament is worshipped this man will tells us presently who hath as many shifts in readiness where one will not serv his turn as Achelous had to slip out of the hands of Hercules that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and adoro have other significations But he has poor man no very good memory For after he had in this one chapter spent many of his pages to show that the real presence was not the former faith of Christians and that they never adored the Eucharist he lets fall a word by chance in the very close which spoils all by giving us to understand that this was so universal a beleef and practis among Christians that it came even to the notice of Infidels and that it was withall of so great concernment amongst beleevers that it expressed their whole religion as the abridgment of their faith and great capital work of their devotion Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis It was the speech of Avicen saith Whitby although I think it was Averroes who well enough understood both of them the natur of Christian religion not only by what they saw themselves but what they had read from more ancient writers both Christian pagan and Mahometan up and down the world concerning the religion of Christians Since the Christians worship that which they eat saith that Infidel let my sould be with Philosophers Ch. 12. from page 203. to 218. Labours much for the general use of the Cup in all Communions But neither does Mr. Whitby nor can he distinguish as appears by his discours wherein he sayes that otherwise ther would not be a representation of Christs death which is the wisest word he speaks in all this whole chapter I say he knows not and cannot distinguish that ther is in that one Eucharistian liturgy a double action the one of sanctifying and offering to God the other of giving or communicating to the people In the sanctifying and offering of the sacred simbols does only the sacrifice which is a representation of Christs death consist But the communicating of these symbols to the people is only a consequent of the former and no formal representation of our Lords death at all But he does not know and you need not heed what he sayes The concomitance of our Lords body and blood where ever it be in any one or other of the species or symbols which may enough justifie communion in one kinde he tells you very roundly it is a figment But if he had heeded the very practis of his own Church which indeed he never does he would have forborn those words For when the Protestant minister gives the people first the bread and sayes Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed upon him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving Do not the ministers words there imply a concomitance before the cup come even as perfect a concomitance as you Sir can plead for I think they do For surely they intend not to feed only upon one half of him Chap. 13. from page 218 to 230. Declares that alms-deeds and preaching of the Gospel is a sacrifice But the Eucharist he will not allow to be any true sacrifice at all Although to put by your arguments and solid reasonings for it he grants it may be called a Symbolical sacrifice And so he has caught hold of another distinction which runs quite through this matter or rather put the same distinction into other characters And if any ancient writers as ther are enough do give testimony that our Lords body and blood in the Eucharist is offered immolated and sacrificed on Christian altars by the priest for our attonement It is to be understood saith Whitby to be offered symbolically immolated symbolically sacrificed symbolically figuratively significatively representatively And though you beat his head never so much with your autorities and reasons so long as symbolically remains there you do but beat the air But where are any altars in our English Churches or any sacrifices offered or immolated theron And how comes it to pass that all these hundred years of our separation from Roman unity our people have never been told that they have priests still amongst them and altars and sacrifice although they be but symbolical ones symbolical sacrifice symbolical altars and symbolical priests For sacrifice is the very form and essence of all religion And they that know so much would have been much satisfied to hear that they have yet a sacrifice at least a symbolical sacrifice amongst them I will be bold to say that not one man of a million has ever heard of any such thing in an English pulpit or ever read it in a catechism The minister of the word and word of the minister that is all we ever hear of But it is thought perhaps that symbolical Priest would make but a jarring sound like two voices in a defective octave which have a semblance and shadow of a perfect concord but coming short of it produce the harshest and worst of discords in our ear That our Lords death upon the Cross was a true and real sacrifice to God for mankinde all Catholiks know well enough and our Ministers need not put them in minde of that which already they beleev But as the sacrifices of the old law were instituted by almighty God to be often iterated before the passion of the great Messias for a continual exercise of religion in order to his future death So did the same Lord for the very same purpos of religious exercise institute another to be iterated after his death unto which once past it was to have reference as the former had a
except haply the Psalter which the Saxons and almost all people have ever had in their own tongue being a chief part of Christians devotion nor in Brittish or Welch before the byshop of S. Asaphs translation And yet the people all that while wanted no know-knowledge of Gods will or comfort of his word You mightily insult over me in your 336 page for saying that the bible was kept by the Hebrews in an ark or tabernacle not touched by the people but brought out at times to the priest that he might instruct the people out of it Here say you the authour of Fiat Lux betrayes his gross ignorance and somthing more for the ark was place in sanctum sanctorum and not entered but by the priest only once a year wheras the people were weekly instructed But Sir do I speak there of any sanctum sanctorum or of any ark in that place Was ther or could ther be no more arks but one If you had been only in these latter dayes in any synagogue or convention of Jews you might have seen even now how the bible is kept still with them in an ark or tabernacle in imitation of their fore-fathers when they have now no sanctum sanctorum amongst them You may also discern how according to their custom they cringe and prostrate at the bringing out of the bible which is the only solemn adoration left amongst them and that there be more arks than that in sanctum sanctorum If I had called it a box or chest or cupboard you had let it pass But I used the word Ark as more sacred 19 ch from page 365. to 386. I discerned in your nineteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Communion in one kind a somwhat more than ordinary swelling choller which moved me to look over that my paragraff afresh And I found my fault there is in it so much of Christian reason and sobriety that if I had since the time I first wrote it swerved from my former judgment of the probability I conceived to be in that Roman practis of communicating in one kind I had there met with enough to convert my self And therfor wondered no more that you should load me so heavily with your wonted imputations of fraud ignorance blasphemy and the like I ever perceiv you to be then most of all passionate when you meet with most convincing reasons When the exorcist is most innocent his patient they say then frets and foams and curses most Ther is not a word in this your chapter which is not by way of anticipation answered in that my § of Fiat Lux against which you write 20 ch from page 386. to 402. Ther is in your twentieth chapter which prosecutes my paragraff of Saints or Hero's one word of yours that requires my notice I say in that my paragraff that the pagans derided the ancient Christians for three of their usages First for eating their own God Secondly for kneeling to the Priests genitals Thirdly for worshipping an asses head This last you except against and impute my story to my own simplicity and ignorance if not to somthing wors for that imputation say you was not laid upon Christians at all but only upon Jews as may be seen in Josephus c. But Sir you may know that in odiosis the primitive Christians were ever numbred among the Jews and what evil report lay upon these was charged also upon them though somtimes upon another ground And although Josephus may excuse the Jews and not the Christians yet a long while after his time if not even then also that slander was generally all over the pagan world charged upon Christians also as may be read in Tertullian and other ancient writers yea and very probably by the very Jews themselvs who bitterly hated them cast off from themselvs upon the poor Christians on another account which I specified in Fiat Lux. And through the whole Roman Empire did the sound of this scandal ring up and down for som ages together Insomuch that Tertullian himself conceited that as the Christian religion was derived from the Jews so likewise that the imputation of the asses head first put upon the Jews might from them be derived upon Christian religion And the same Tertullian in his Apologetick addes these words The calumnies saith he invented to cry down our religion grew to such excess of impiety that not long ago in this very city a pictur of our God was shown by a certain infamous person with the ears of an ass and a hoof on one of his feet clothed with a gown and a book in his hand with this inscription This is Onochoetes the God of Christians And he addes that the Christians in the city as they were much offended with the impiety so did they not a little wonder at the strange uncouth name the vaillain had put upon their lord and master Onochoetes forsooth he must be called Onochoetes And are not you Sir a strange man to tell me page 393. that what I speak of this business is notoriously fals nay and that I know it is fals and I cannot produce one authentick testimony no not one of any such things But this is but your ordinary confidence 21 ch from page 402. to 416. I must not marvel that my following paragraff called Dirge is so wantonly plaid upon in your one and twentieth chapter You think of no body after they are dead nor does it at all concern you whether they be in hell or heaven or som third place or not at all But Sir were not all the ancient monuments of the foundations of our churches colledges and chappels in England now destroyed you would find your self with that wretched opinion of yours absolutely incapable to enter upon any benefice cure or employment in this land But the times are changed and you have nothing now to do but to eat drink and preach for to morrow you shall dye 22 ch from page 416 to 435. In your two and twentieth chapter which is of the Pope you do but only repeat my words and not understand and deny and laugh 23 ch from page 435. to Finis Your last chapter is upon my paragraff of Popery wherin I set down eleven other parcels of catholik profession all of them innocent unblamable and sacred You only bite at the first of them and having it seems enough filled your self with that your wearied bones go to rest With Mas comedido the title of my last paragraff you meddle not at all It is doubtless to you who understand not the English word Messach another Gnostick Paldabaoth But I would you had Mas comedido by heart You cannot but marvel that I have taken so little notice all this while of your only one strong and potent Argument your stout Achilles that meets me in every paragraff and period and beats me back into the walls of Troy Wherever I am whatsoever I say your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is upon me All
can I know what our Protestants can have if all other things were equal above vulgar Catholiks by their scriptur translated as it lies in its own phrase Do they know any more of the mysteries of salvation Sacraments or hopes of a life to com or sincerity of a pious life then the other I am sure they do less whatever they know and are so taught to do Or does any Protestant after he has read a chapter know any more of what is expedient for salvation then before he began it It renews you will say and moves devotion Devotion to what Are they not taught by the Reformation that the good works there commended to our practis are all mortal sins And therfor do our people so read and hear that in hearing and reading they wholly acquiesce and trouble themselvs no further And they do wisely in it For who would chastise his body or mortifie his appetites or give alms and sin so many wayes with so much expences and trouble when he may as well do nothing and sin less And do not the sacred gospel which Catholiks read in their own language with pious meditations annexed for that very purpos which also they are taught to read for no other end move devotion too And this I judg to be right piety Whereas to read only to say that I have read or to find out new ways or strengthen my self therin is but vanity and sin After a duty is once known Catholiks conceiv then no further thing remains but only their corresponding practis which is with all their forces to be put in ure according to the dictates of that their rule of faith now sufficiently understood unto their sanctification and merit Whilst others think nothing behind but only to read over again what they knew before that they may have words in their head to talk of Which of these is right Christianity he knew well enough who said Fidelis sermo de his volo te confirmare ut curent bonis operibus praeesse qui credunt Deo It is a faithful saying and of this I would have you to be strongly confirmed that such as once have beleeved in God attend unto good works These things are good and profitable to men but other questions controversies and contentions which are the only fruit of our vulgar reading of scriptur in its own short ambiguous phrase these do thou avoid for they are useles and vain This is St Pauls mind and I think he had the Spirit of God in him As for the sacred liturgy which Mr Whitby would also have in a vulgar tongue if he knew what the Messach or Catholick Liturgy is which here I do not intend to teach him he would know that it could no more be understood in English then in Hebrew Latine or Greek For in it the Priest does but offer and pray submissively for the peoples attonement unto him who equally understands all languages and people offer with him as they are taught and know well enough to do all their several necessities either with words or without them in the mediation of his blood who reconciled the world in his flesh to God which reconciliation is figured and repeated in their Messach for their religious exercise and comfort And the great capital work of a true religion ought to be common unto all not to those only who hear and speak and see but even to the deaf and blind and dumb how ever these may fail in other inferiour and less necessary duties Ch. 16. from p. 273. to 369. Maintains very stoutly first that the Saints and Angels of God do not pray for us in heaven either in general or in particular Secondly that they do not assist help or protect us by their presence on earth And thirdly that to trust to any such help is to rest in them as our final end and to make them our Gods Though the two first be as much dissonant to any true religion as the last to reason yet will Mr. Whitby hold them all three And he has an evasion for any grounds or reasonings you or any Catholik can make an evasion at hand as smart and senceles as any of those he gave before against Supremacy c. But this your catholik doctrin about Angels he buts and runns at it with most frightful and horned dilemma's So many millions of Angel-guardians quoth he if for example upon the festival of St. Peter they go up to heaven to St. Peter with their pupils prayers who guards their persons and if they do not go up who presents their prayers Again When saith he these Angel messengers com so may thousand of them at once to tell the Virgin Mary of her new suitors how can she have any quiet to say her prayers And if she say her own prayers quietly how can they tell her continually of so many new suitors Again Have all the houses in London and all the Papist houses in Rome so many Angels as will guard them and keep the Devil from setting them on fire or not If they have then are the Angels finely employed If they have not why doth not the enemy set a fire on them every night Again Had Jobs cammels oxen and asses ther Angel-guardian or no If not why then did Satan complain he could not com at them If they had then must we allow our Author Mr. Cressy one Is not this notable divinity Surely Hudibras was but an ass to Whitby This this is the man of whom the poet sings Canto 1. This is he In school divinity as able As he that height irrefragable A second Thomas or at once To name them all another Duns But all this countrey divinity Mr. Whitby gathered I know well enough à sensibilibus from the natur and property of his serving-boy who cannot go of an errand and stay too cannot sup and blow together cannot tell a tale and whistle both at once cannot speak of Jobs asses but he must remember Mr. Cressy In truth though Mr. Whitby be thus extravagant yet can I not perswade my self that other graver Protestants are so likewise For when Christ our Lord comforts his poor beleevers and terrifies their oppressing adversaries with this his divine ratiocination See that you do not abuse or contemn any of these my little ones For I say unto you that their Angels do alwayes behold the face of my Father who is in heaven he seems apparently to speak somthing that serves directly for the catholik beleef and is consequently against these three assertions of Whitby to the contrary For those angel-guardians whom our Lord calls their angels the angels of his beleevers and of his little ones either they must be so perspicatious as one way or other to see even in heaven where they behold the face of God in glory all the persecutions and necessities of them whose angels they are or at least whilst they are present on earth with them whose angels they be they must still
see and enjoy the God of glory who is in heaven Both these things are possible and whether it be this or that they must needs be both so potent and good as to be able and willing when they see time to assist and help them in their afflictions and need whose angels they are either by praying for them in general or in particular or by strengthening comforting protecting their persons And lastly poor man may comfort himself in this invisible assistance whatever it be and however it be wrought without making those angels his gods or relying upon them as his final end And all this must be intended by our Lord and Saviour in that his comfortable ratiocination I should think if it conclude any thing If they be not there insinuated it is very hard to say what it may conclude If the angels do neither pray for us nor any way assist and help us nor we can without danger of sin rely on any such assistance then surely to say Let none abuse my little ones for their angels c. would be a ratiocination as impertinent as to say Let none abuse c. for the North and South poles are half the heavens distant and far more dangerous For man could hardly be perswaded by such a speech to put any trust in that distance of the poles as here he cannot but be moved to take comfort in that acquaintance and nearnes we have with angels which any way to rely on Mr. Whitby tell us is to rest in them as our final end and make them our gods I could wish Mr. Whitby would first consult his own reason whether any way to rely on the comfort of second causes visible or invisible infer necessarily that we do rely upon them as our ultimate end and make them our gods as he affirms more then once in this his 16 chapter And again I desire him that he would be more wary and take heed how he speaks against the angels of God and deride those hosts of heaven in whom our Lord Christ advised us if I understand him right to take comfort lest they strike him as som others they have don with sudden death Poor Catholiks are yet in their pilgrimage and place of sufferance who must therfor patiently endure all scoffs contumelies and slanders for their futur merit But the Angels of God are in glory and blessed and therfor not to be blasphemed or mockt at by insolent dust or their protection and assistance to be slighted What is the essence of Angels what their presence or how great their power we cannot here under our thick corporeal veil conceiv They may for ought we can tell be as compleatly present all at once both here on earth and heaven too unto any effect of perceiving or operating as a man is present within the four walls of his chamber At least if our Lord whom we pretend all of us equally to beleev hath so clearly allowed us to support our selves in their assistance however it be wrought no man I should think who bears the name of Christian can with any modesty affirm as Whitby does here that they neither pray for us in heaven nor assist us on earth nor that we can any way support our selvs in any comfort from them without making them our gods Ch. 17. from page 369 to 410. Is very bitter against the celibacy and single life of priests and exclaims on the contrary with very broad language that you may see he is very sensible of what he sayes against the uncleannes of the clergy not excepting any nor allowing so much as a possibility to do otherwise And I doubt not saith he p. 378. whether such advocates of Celibacy as M. C. if strict inquiry were made might not be often found where the Card. of Crema was Where that man was found I do not know In all likelihood it was in som place where Jobs asses use to graze for he lately made you Sir one of them Good Sir do not hate the man as he deservs but pitty pardon and pray for him He has mocked away his own angel-guardian and cannot therfor be civil towards men Mr. Whitby understands not the several wayes and means prescribed by catholik religion as a preservative against the incursions of that or any other sensual temptation He is unacquainted either with their frequent fastings or disciplines or hair-cloth or continual and hourly exercise of psalms hymns and canticles which take up in a manner all the whole life of the Roman Clergy That man who uses heartily such like exercises commended by catholik religion will easily subdue any whatever temptation if ever it should assault him as they know well enough who practis that their religion seriously and prevent oftentimes its very assault But if any will be so forgetful of his own welfare as utterly to neglect those sacred means he may fall deservedly into a lower religion and becom a Whitby Ministers are either in bed with their wives or thinking haply after one when the catholik clergy if they correspond with their duty and calling are watching and saying their sacred mattins which consist of many divine lessons psalms anthems responsories hymns canticles which put divine and spiritual thoughts into their minds When ministers are feasting they fast When they are caressing their mistrisses these chastise their body with disciplines When they got out of their beds are at their mornings draught these are saying their Lauds and Prime and devoutly disposing themselves by prayer and meditation upon their knees unto their sacred liturgy When they are eating and drinking and mannaging worldly affairs about their wives and children these are at their Sext and None and Vespars and Compline that they may fulfill their daily task of prayers and devotions to their Redeemer I say no more but of this I am and will be consident that if Mr. Whitby had ever practised or seen the lives and conversations of Roman Priests those visible angels of God or been otherwise acquainted therewith he would not have so boldly affirmed as he does even against the very tenour of gospel which saith that som are made eunuchs by men and som again make themselvs so for the kingdom of heaven that it is impossible to be chast Nor would he so universally calumniat all professours of chastity for the wickednes of som few who have in som particular ages and places given offence by their evil lives unto Catholiks whose testimony Mr. Whitby uses against them But commonly men judg of others as they act themselvs And he that keeps himself chast will in charity think so of other men When you say Sir and all catholiks with you that it is indeed a doctrin of devils both pernicious and fals to forbid marriage absolutely as evil and unlawful in it self as did the Encratites Montanists Marcionites and Manichees but yet relatively and upon som particular account may som persons notwithstanding be withheld from marriage for diviner