by taking away the strong supporters which have hitherto upheld it and erecting rotten or mouldering pillars in the place and all this benefit and advantage may be lost or prevented by his fond and unseasonable advertisement if the King and the Bishops have prudence enough to make good use of it by driving away or discountenancing such a perfidious and unskilful champion May they not from hence apprehend that as he came to them upon a sudden and unexpected so that he is upon thoughts of returning to the Church for which he hath so much care and entering into a kind of correspondence with his adversaries by giving good counsel how to behave himself better But how comes it to pass that this miserable Doctor who he yet seems to think may mean well to be so stupidly couzened and deceived that instead of complying with his engagement to defend the Church he hath betrayed her and the whole cause to all the Fanatick Sects which have separated from her and with most horrible cruelty sought her destruction and with her the ruine of Monarchy All this tragical demolishing of foundations consists in this that he allows all sober enquirers to be for themselves judges of the sence of Scripture in necessaries and judges likewise what points are necessary This saying of his hath betrayed the cause of his Church and left her in a most forlorn condition tottering upon foundations and principles which to Mr. Cressy's certain knowledge were not extant at least not known in England thirty years since Let it be in the first place observed and it is sure worthy to be observed that this most pernicious proposition which hath in such an instant brought the Church of England into such a tottering condition is not made use of nor so much as taken notice of by any of those enemies of hers the Presbyterians Anabaptists or Independents who have been so vigilant and industrious so many years to make her totter and yet now the work is so near done to their hands by a secret friend who is the more able to do them good by his not pretending any affection towards them neither of them will put their cause upon that proposition nor apply it to their own designs and therefore it is possible that it may not be altogether so dangerous to the Church as he would have it supposed to be and of which it is probable he would not have given notice if he had in truth thought it to be dangerous In the next place let us examine whether the Doctor himself cannot make another and better interpretation of his own words than his implacable enemy hath done all good Physicians compound their Antidotes according to the nature and malignity of the poyson that their patients have swallowed Now the poyson that Mr. Cressy and his lurking brethren usually bait their traps with and by which they catch most of their prey is Their confident denouncing damnation against those and all those who are not of their mind that is who are not received into the Church of Rome and not intirely submit to all her dictates That the Scripture consists in dumb letters which cannot declare its own meaning and therefore is liable to be misinterpreted by the wit of bold and presumptuous men as the founders of all Heresies have been and therefore they can only be safe who receive and conform themselves to that interpretation of Scripture that the Church in the custody of which it is deposited hath given and declared to be Orthodox That that Church is the Church of Rome where there constantly resides a Supreme Magistrate who in case any new opinions shall start up to the prejudic of Religion which have not been enough convinced by former definitions of the Church hath full authority committed to him by our Saviour to declare and determine what is agreeable or contrary to the sence of the Scripture since it cannot be supposed that our Saviour would constitute an officer and not indue him with all necessary faculties or not qualifie him sufficiently for the discharge of so great a trust and from hence they resolve that the greatest danger of damnation is not from the commission of those sins against which the spirit of God hath so plainly denounced it but in an obstinate presumption in contradicting the opinions or directions of the Catholick Church and refusing to submit to the authority of the Vicar of Christ who hath the unquestionable power to bind and to loose to pardon and to condemn sins having the Keys of Heaven and of Hell and therefore whilst they will depend upon him and put themselves under his protection they cannot but be safe This is the common poyson which these men carry about them to administer to those who they find most like to be deluded and in the composition of it there are some ingredients according to the humour of the compounder which cannot be according to the Catholick prescription since that Soveraign power of their Supreme Magistrate the Pope is not nor ever will be acknowledged to be an essential part of the Roman Catholick Religion Let us now see what Antidote the Doctor hath provided for the prevention or expulsion of this poyson to confirm men in their absolute confidence and dependence upon the Scripture the force and virtue whereof that poyson would enervate he says That it is repugnant to the nature of the design to the wisdom and goodness of God to give an infallible assurance to persons in writing his will for the benefit of mankind if those writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their Salvation and consequently there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain those writings amongst Christians and this and no more than this is the sence of that which contains all that confusion which Mr. Cressy thinks must bring confusion upon his own Church as into that of the Roman and from thence the Doctor proceeds to shew how incompetent a Magistrate they have chosen to determine all differences in Religion which he proves by such arguments as are very natural for the proving thereof and for the answering avoiding whereof we shall be compelled anon to take notice of Mr. Cressy's admirable artifice and dexterity Now if the Doctor hath for want of skill in discerning consequences made choice of an improper medium to prove that which he hath a mind to prove God forbid that there should be such Tragical effects to attend that argumentation as the destruction of Church and State and it would be as unreasonable to condemn an argument that he who uses it thinks to his purpose because it was never used till within thirty Years One man says that the Scripture is so very difficult that no man can understand it without repairing to the advice of an adversary who will tell him the interpretation
lewd seditious Books are sold as that none such may be printed And if this kind advertisement of Mr. Cressy hath that operation upon the Magistrates of all sorts both the Printers and Sellers and it may be the Buyers of the multitude of Popish Books which are every day vented with as much freedom as the Book of Common-Prayer they of his own Religion will have new cause to celebrate his prudence and acknowledge the great advantage he hath brought to their cause by his pen as he hath to their persons by his modesty and his manners Mr. Cressy comes at last after very much passion and much more virulence against the poor Protestants than the Doctor hath expressed against the Roman Catholicks to a matter of importance indeed in which he believes which might have kept him from triumphing so soon he is absolute master of the field and that is to peace and unity which he says is more fit to be the subject and argument of writings composed by Ecclesiastical persons that is unity of faith and doctrine pag. 102. and in truth whoever is really an enemy even to that unity of faith and doctrine how hard soever to be attained must be an enemy to mankind but I must tell him too that the writings of Ecclesiastical persons have not hitherto in any age contributed to the production of that unity I mean such who have a pride petulancy of understanding obstinacy of will that will suffer nothing to be called peace and unity but a prostration of all other men to their dictates Mr. Cressy and his Ecclesiastical Friends affect and insolently prescribe a unity that is neither practicable nor desirable and there are other Ecclesiastical persons as humorous who are such enemies to unity that they think it not necessary to peace especially in Ecclesiastical matters that is in matters of Religion all men may think and speak and do what they please and upon the irrationality of these last the former impute all the folly and all the madness that would introduce the most uncontroulable confusion to those who observe order and discipline with more regularity and obedience than any of the pretenders will do It must not therefore be the Ecclesiastical persons who have given each other too ill words to be of one mind who can procure this unity of faith and doctrine that must constitute this peace but it must be the writings and actions of Magistrates who by the execution of those Laws and rules which the wisdom of the State for which they are made have provided for that purpose can infallibly establish that unity and peace that is necessary for it Magistrates who do not pretend any jurisdiction out of their own limits nor will suffer those who live within it to be disobedient much less to revile the Laws which are provided for the publick peace Where there are no Laws confusion is necessary and natural and where the Laws are not executed it is as unavoidable and in some degree necessary So that where unity is not as much provided for as is necessary for peace it is the Magistrates fault and not the fault of Ecclesiasticks who can only prosecute it by the ways prescribed by the Laws I say where unity is necessary for nothing is more mistaken or more misapplied than this precious word Unity Who doth not know or hath not had it frequently in his observation that men who have the same end affect several ways which lead to that end and he who goes the farthest way about may possibly come sooner to the end than he that believes he goes more directly to it However if he comes thither later he is liable to no other reproach than being laughed at for being longer upon the way than he needed to have been I knew two Gentlemen of good quality and fortunes one of which I think is still living who were very near neighbours in Berkshire and lived in that good correspondence and conversation as persons of quality and authority in their Country use to do they had both very frequent occasions to ride to London and the house of one of them was the confessed way of the other thither but the difference was whether from thence the nearest way was by Windsor or by Maidenhead and in that they were so great Opiniators that they still parted at the door and one took the one way and the other that which he conceived to be nearest and in twenty years they never made the journey together How light soever the instance seems to be it will be found fit enough to be applied to very many differences of opinion which by the excess of fancy on the one side and the defect of judgment of the other are blown up into a magnitude that dazles the eyes of too many spectators and for the determination of the rest there wants not a submission and obedience to authority the difference only is where that authority is placed to which obedience ought to be paid We of the Church of England hold ours to be due to the King the Church and the Law Mr. Cressy would have us pay it to the Pope which we cannot submit to not because he is fallible but because he is not a Magistrate who hath any jurisdiction over us In matters that concern Religion we resort to the Articles of the Church which we are obliged to conform to He would have us observe the Canons of the Council of Trent which we are forbidden to do and he as an English Catholick is not bound to upon which we shall enlarge hereafter and this election to believe that the Church of England which flourishes at least as much in learned and pious men as any Church of the world can better direct English-men in the way to Heaven than the Church of Rome is the greatest use we make of our reason which is not like to deceive What that union is that was intended certainly by our Saviour when he left his Church established under spiritual Governours will best appear by the rules he prescribed and the directions he gave in order thereunto which we may lawfully believe he never intended for such a unity as Mr. Cressy and his friends dream of and that he foresaw the same could never be and depended more upon what was necessary towards it upon the civil Magistrates than upon the Ecclesiastical power He prescribed the essential principles himself of that Religion which he intended should be established and left persons trusted by him who not only knew his mind but knew all things which are necessary to be known for the accomplishment of it And no temporal or spiritual authority under Heaven hath power to alter any thing that was setled by him or his Apostles who were the only Commentators intrusted by him to explain whatsoever might seem doubtful in what himself had said and they performed their parts with that plainness in what is necessary that there remains no difficulty to men
the infancy of the Church and did no great harm No doubt S. Paul wished that all who were to preach Christ had had the same thoughts and had used the same words and had had the same affection towards each other which unity would much have advanced the propagation of Christianity but he knew that was impossible and that different apprehensions and different conceptions must be always attended with difference of expressions whilst the birth and life and death and resurrection of Christ was taught though they who preached him had their own passions and prejudices towards each other he was still glad that the number of the Christians were increased There may be much good done in the world without taking its rise purely from Conscience and only to please others or to imitate others and the like may be done to anger and to cross and contradict other men and though the Authors of that good have lost their reward yet there is matter of rejoycing still that good is done It is very well worth our reflexion how little pains our Saviour took who well foresaw what disputations would arise concerning Religion to the end of the world to explain any doctrinal points or indeed to institute any thing of speculative doctrine in his Sermon upon the Mount which comprehends all Christianity but to resolve all into practice and his Apostles though they met with a world of questions and disputes and in the highest points of the mystery of Religion were very short in their answers and determination and left no room for any contention in the understanding upon any matter of faith it depending purely upon believing what was past and done and of which they received unquestionable evidence but in the application of this faith to practice they were large in their discourses and clear to remove all doubts they had observed into how many Schisms and Sects the Church of the Iews had run by their several interpretations of the Law and the Prophets of both which they had all equal veneration and from both gathered arguments enough to found an animosity against each other that vented it self in all the acts of uncharitableness and denunciation of Hell-fire to their opponents and they did all they could that the Gospel and the professors thereof might not be exposed to the like mischiefs by the same disputations Men might set their wits on work to raise doubts and scruples and improve them to what degree they please by the subtilty of their own invention they were difficulties of their own making not finding Christ and his Apostles left their Declarations of what we are to believe and what we are to do so clearly stated that we cannot dangerously mistake and so much the more clearly by informing us what we are not to believe and what we are not to do by the obligations of Christianity and as they did no doubt foresee the weakness and the wilfulness of the succeeding times and that men would make use of the Scriptures themselves to the prejudice of Religion they took care that they might know that there is much in them above their understanding and that they should govern themselves by what is easie plain to be understood therein and above all that they should not presume to censure and judge those who differ from them in their opinions because Christ hath reserved all those differences to be determined by himself and except it were inflicting Ecclesiastical censures upon corruption of manners and transgressing against Christian duties It was some Ages before the Church expressed any great severity upon differences in opinions and used such circumspection in the expressions upon their determinations as rather pleased all persons concerned than strictly defined the matter in controversie The Primitive Church never prescribed any other rule to themselves to judge by than the sacred Scriptures by consent of which they made all their definitions and determinations and as no man yet at least with any countenance of authority hath pretended to understand the intire meaning of any one of the Prophets so it was some time a long time before the Revelation of S. Iohn was received into the Canon of the Church for the difficulty of it and whosoever hath since undertaken to understand it hath received more censure than approbation from pious and learned men nor have they attained to credit enough to be believed Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength is very good counsel and proportioned to mens different faculties and understandings he that is stronger than I may search for things that are too hard for me and there is no harm in that search but I who am weaker am in no degree obliged to make that search nor shall fare the worse because I am so weak The Dialogue between the Angel and the Prophet Esdras may be very good Divinity thoughs it be contained in the Apocrypha He that dwelleth above the Heavens may only understand the things that are above the heighth of the Heavens The more thou searchest the more thou shalt marvel for the world hasteth fast to pass away and it cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in time to come Let us endeavour to do the things which we are plainly enjoyned to do and which we can very well comprehend at least let us forbear doing any thing which we are as plainly forbidden to do and we shall in due time obtain those things which for the present we cannot comprehend It hath been an artifice introduced to perplex mankind and to work upon the conscience by amusing and puzling the understanding to perswade men to believe that there is but one Church and one Religion in which men may be saved that by their confident averring themselves to be that Church and of that Religion others may be prevailed with to be of their party and they who with most passion abhor their presumption and so withdraw from their Communion adhere to the same unreasonable conclusion and will not suffer them to be a Church at all or capable of salvation and form their own Church upon those principles only which most contradict the other whereas there is room enough in Heaven for them all and we may charitably and reasonably believe that many of all Christian Churches will come thither and that too many of every one of them will be excluded from thence There is indeed as was said before but one faith which no authority upon Earth can change or suspend or dispence with but Religion which is the uniting or the being united of pious men in the profession of that Faith may be exercised in several and different forms and ways and with several ceremonies according to the constitutions and rules of the several Countries and Kingdoms where it is practised and there are so many Churches united in one and the same faith and methinks the very stile
Church from the corruption of Doctrine and contentions and contradictions in the practice of Religion as any exorbitancies in state is so far from being soveraign that he holds upon the matter the little authority he hath in other things but precariò of him who hath the exercise of the other jurisdiction And as this mischief and confusion is very demonstrable to all men who understand the foundation and rules of Policy and Government so the benefits which accrew from this distinction are not discernable by the eyes of reason or of faith Temporal Princes and Kings cannot have authority to change Religion nor are qualified to perform the Offices and functions of Religion that 's true Nor hath any Ecclesiastical and Spiritual power authority to change Religion The Pope whom some Men call the Church nor a General Council which no doubt is the most natural representative of the Universal Church doth not pretend that they can change Religion Our Saviour left our Religion intire and the Apostles left all things so plain which he directed that no power under Heaven can add to or take from that body of Religion which they commended to all Christians nor can it be more reasonably imagined that God will suffer any Christian state to make such an alteration than that the Universal Church shall fall away from being Christian but if Christianity were deposited with one Church-man or any body of Church-men we have too much reason to apprehend what would become of it by the progress Arianisme once and other Heresies too made in the World by possessing many great and learned Men even of the Fathers themselves So that we may say that the purity of Christian Religion hath been in truth preserved by the piety of Princes with the advice and assistance of their National and Ecclesiastical Councils more than by any spiritual authority Religion it self then must not cannot be changed but the advancement of it the information in it the exercise and practice by which it is best to be made manifest cannot be so well provided for as by that supreme soveraign authority to which God hath intrusted the peace and prosperity of a Nation which best knows how to establish such formes and ceremonies and circumstances in what pertains to Religion as are most agreeable to the nature and inclination and disposition of a people A conformity in humours and in manners is a great introduction to conformity in Religion and will not suffer the pride and affectation and singularity of any man to contradict the order established This Soveraign Authority knows best how to preserve Peace in which the being of a Nation consists and how to reform errors which are grown and prevent those which are growing by such ways as may not disturb that peace and such errours as are grown too obstinate are too deep rooted to be pulled up without shaking the whole peace of the Kingdom he will let alone drawing by degrees such nourishment from it as most cherishes it until a fitter season for the intire cure of it No Reformation is worth the charge of a Civil War Nor was it a light reproach which Seneca charged upon Sylla Qui patriam durioribus remediis quam pericula erant sanavit The Remedy was worse than the Disease and God knows Christianity hath paid very dear for the too hasty and passionate application of remedies to very confessed diseases when the disease was not ripe for the remedy nor the remedy proportioned to the disease State surgery cannot be used with too much caution nor are the wounds and sores of it cured at once or with one kind of medicine but the lenitives and corrosives must be applied successively and if the first will do it there cannot be too little used of the latter No sore is so ill cured as that which is hastily cured There is no necessity nor convenience that the outward exercise and forms of Religion be the same in all climates and in all Countries Nay it is very necessary that it be different according to the natures and customes of the people It would be very incongruous where genuflexion is neither the posture of reverence or devotion to introduce a command for kneeling and there are many particulars worthy of the same consideration They do equally mistake who believe that the out-works of Religion must be equally with the same passion guarded and preserved as the walks themselves that no form or ceremony or circumstance in Religion may not be altered or parted with more than the faith it self and they who would be always mending and altering and reforming according to every model description they meet with as a thing indifferent and only to please the fancies of men where there is no indifference there may be alterations made by and according to the wisdom of the Government and as the good Order and peace of the Nation requires and with the same gravity and deliberation as all other mutations and provisions are made but there must be out-works still and such as may secure the walls from rude approaches every fanciful Engineer must not demolish the out-works upon pretence they are too high or too irregular nor must the decency of the prospect so much transport others as not to suffer the least alteration in them though thereby the walls would be the better garded No one Classis of men will dispassionately weigh all necessary consideration in this matter but that authority which must provide for the publick peace is the most competent provider for this branch of it It is no irreverence to the purest times to believe that in the first plantation of Christian Religion I speak not of infusion of Christian Religion into the Apostles and the inspiration by the Holy Ghost but of the plantation of it by the Apostles and those who succeeded them by the strength of their reason and the powerful effects of their lives and actions the same method and order and application was used and observed as is in other Plantations The Sun and the Soil are first consulted and husbandry practised accordingly in the sowing of Seeds or setting of Plants and that husbandry altered and improved according to seasons and upon observation and experience what is most like to advance the Plantation If ever the Spaniard loses the West Indies which it is probable enough he will do it will be by his positive and rigorous adhering to the same rules which were most prudently established by Philip the Second upon the first conquest of that Empire and under which the Infant Plantation prospered exceedingly and not admitting any such material alterations since as would produce more benefit and advantage now than the other did then and which time and the people will make if the policy of the Government do not first introduce it and then it is very hazardous that the presumption of doing it will shake off that authority that should have done it It may be observed in the
Indulgence to obtain which they visit such and such places and Churches so many times and in this expedition people of both sexes the lame and the blind tire themselves when whoever can read Latin finds that if he complies with the Precepts and Injunctions which are the conditions of every Indulgence of hearty repentance of all their sins and a sincere amendment of life and the like he shall be sure to enjoy all the benefits and more than are promised by that Indulgence though he should lie in his bed whilst others make those perambulations and yet this kind of fatuity is the ground of all those Indulgences and of the Pilgrimages which are undertaken except for Penance whereas if the conditions be performed they have no need of the Indulgence and if they be not they have no benefit by it though it costs even the poorest people some money which they cannot well spare in most places Mr. Cressy is not so sturdy a maintainer of all the points in difference with the Roman Church but he would willingly part with the Prayers in an unknown tongue though he says there is scarce a rustick so ignorant but well understands what the Priest does through the whole course of the Mass but I must confess my self so much more ignorant than his Rustick that though I have seen many Masses I never heard any nor saw any Congregation so intent as if they did desire to hear any thing that is said but whisper and talk and laugh except only at the Elevation and if the Congregation be great especially at a high Mass it is hardly possible that any considerable number of them can understand one word that is spoken nor is it held necessary for as the Priest takes more than ordinary care by an affected and industrious pronunciation not to have what he says understood so the people generally think themselves only concerned in being present and that it is not necessary for them to hear or understand what is spoken because all that relates to them is done and completely performed by the Priest He confesses that it was far from being the Churches primary intention that the publick office should be in a tongue not understood by the people for it was at first composed he says in the language generally spoken and understood through Europe by which I suppose he means the Latin tongue in which he is much mistaken both that Latin was generally spoken and understood through Europe I am not sure that it was the language of all Italy it self or that in the first composing of Liturgies they were all one and the same or in one Language In the East and throughout the Greek Church we are sure they had and still have different Liturgies and we have no reason to believe that in the Latin Church the Liturgies were the same throughout the West but were such as the Bishops allowed or made for their own Dioceses We know that the British Church retained its Liturgie for many years and that it was near if not above one thousand years for it was not till the time of Gregory the Seventh before Spain parted with the Gothish Liturgie and accepted that from Rome and how many alterations have been since made in it is known to all who will inform themselves and after all I think S. Ambrose's Missal is still retained in Milan notwithstanding the Bull of Clement the Eighth and of the succeeding Popes and therefore I cannot doubt but that and very many particulars in common practioe are parts of that Religion of State which may without breach of charity or unity be altered and reformed by the Soveraign in such order as such mutations are made for the advancement of Gods service in such a Kingdom or Province for which it is made But Mr. Cressy would find himself as much deceived even in the making up that breach if the Popes consent be necessary to it as he was formerly in his draught of a protestation or subscription for the fidelity of the English Catholicks yet we know that Pope Pius in the beginning of Elizabeth's Reign was very willing to have dispensed with the usage of the English Liturgie the Communion in both kinds and whatever else was practised in that Church upon condition that the Popes authority and supremacy might have been resetled in that Kingdom which he knew would be a good bargain and enable him to undo all the rest when he should think it necessary but Mr. Cressy would have proceeded more warily if he had before he left the Church in which he was first ordained a Priest procured a Reformation in those two particulars for which he is now so willing to compound Indulgences and the praying in an unknown tongue which are greater blemishes in the Church he hath betaken himself into than all he hath left in that which he is departed from We are come at last to the Doctors exception against the Church of Romes denying the reading of the Bible indifferently and with this exception Mr. Cressy makes himself very merry as if the principles of the Religion of the Church of England must fall to the ground or as he says utterly go to wrack if that liberty were denied for how then should every sober enquirer into Scripture frame a Religion to himself And so pleases himself with endeavouring to perswade others contrary to his own conscience that every one of the Church of England hath liberty to frame a Religion to himself whereas he well knows that every member of the Church of Rome hath as much liberty to frame a Religion to himself as any one of the Church of England hath who is as much obliged to conform himself to the doctrine of that Church as the other is to that of Rome And for the opinion it hath of the Scripture it answers for it self in these words Article Sixth Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary for salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation How will this serve his turn to frame a Religion to himself But then he recreates himself with a Dialogue which he makes between the Doctor and one of his Parishioners which if he pleases is his own case whilst he triumphs in his conquests of those poor people which he perverts what do those simple creatures know of the authority of the whole Church when he amuzes them with points of Controversie of good works and of Christs very flesh and blood in the Sacrament contrary to the very evidence of all his senses to which all miracles have been subjected have those people any other knowledge or information of the sense of the Catholick Church than from him and would it not better become them to answer him that in those points they would chuse rather to believe their own Minister to whom
inform his indifferent Reader of the sence of those hard places do but make the understanding thereof the more intricate and that the Commentary is not less obscure than the Text and nothing is more wonderful than that the illustration he makes to facilitate the understanding of what is conceived obscure by the Prayer in our Churches Liturgy which he says was borrowed from the Roman and I say was translated out of our own Lord from whom all good things come grant us thy humble servants that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good and by thy merciful guiding we may perform the same I say it is strange that he does not so far discern that this Prayer is so easie that no one pretends not to understand the perfect meaning and extent thereof whereas he cannot but know that some men of more than common understanding profess not to comprehend the other and therefore it is too magisterial a determination that whosoever hath not a capacity to understand Sancta Sophia is an enemy to mental Prayer which no body can be who understands it or in the least degree hath endeavoured to practise it Since it is the best if not the only way to keep the mind fixed upon the subject it is solicitous for and the object to whom the Prayers are directed which in the loud pronunciation of many words is it may be to many men the most difficult thing in the sacrifice of Prayer especially if there be any affectation of words which insensibly carries the mind away from what it should be intent upon and the least moment of diversion puts a period to mental prayer which without any sensible motion hath a vehemence that cannot bear interruption and as little any prescription of method from another man To the personal reflexions and invectives against the Doctor fuller of causeless passions and of bitterness and virulence than I have ever observed in so little room in any book I shall answer in a more proper place anon After Mr. Cressy hath spent many pages in commending to his friends the having a good opinion of Visions and Revelations and Miracles and very pathetically advises them to read the Histories of the lives of Saints which the more they have done they may probably be the less inclined to conform to his opinions he professes that the only ground of the Catholicks faith is divine Revelation made to the Church by Christ and his Apostles and conveyed to posterity in Scripture and Tradition and we say that the ground of the Faith of the Church of England is the same leaving out the two last words and tradition not that the Church of England is an enemy to or disclaims the use of tradition but is not guided and governed by it by reason of the incertainty of it Where the tradition is universal and uncontradicted we have as much resignation to it as they have and therefore we do acknowledge the reception of the Scripture to be by unquestionable and never doubted tradition and that having thereby received it it hath in it self enough to convince the Reader that it could not be formed and invented by the wit of man nor that it hath not been disguised or corrupted by the malice of man and so we are possessed of the Scriptures by the same tradition that they are and whatever they believe by as confessed a tradition we believe likewise as well as they But when they urge many things as necessary to be believed by the authority of tradition we do not reject the authority but deny the tradition and say there is no tradition that will warrant it and how fallible that pretence is needs no other manifestation than that controversie of the observation of Easter which continued half a hundred years only upon the point of tradition with so much bitterness and animosity the Greek Church alledging that tradition was for them and the Roman Church the contrary and if tradition was so doubtful a guide in those Primitive times when so few years had run out what must it be now when five times as many are since expired They therefore do not deal ingenously who amuse their auditors with telling them that we reject all tradition consider not antiquity submit to no authority but every man chuses a Religion according to his own spirit Whereas they well know that the Church of England doth as much respect tradition when it is agreed upon as all evidence must be that is submitted to and requires as much subjection to authority and leaves as little to the private fancy and imagination of men and pays as much reverence to the primitive Fathers where they concur together in opinion as the Church of Rome doth but denies any subjection to that Church and believes that her own children with others she meddles not should have the same reverence for her determinations as those others have for the Roman since her determinations are made with as much regularity as lawful authority and with the unanimous advice of as learned men as by the others of which we shall say more in the conclusion of this discourse If Mr. Cressy was not very confident that all for whom he writes will confidently believe all he says and had not a marvellous contempt of all other persons he would not so positively say That when examination is made of miracles in order to the Canonization of any Saint the testimony of women will not be received pag. 68. and gives the reason for it because naturally imagination is stronger in them than judgment and whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily concluded by them to be true which may likewise be the reason that his beloved Sancta Sophia is so much valued by women and his Miracles so much believed by them only and neither the one or the other in any degree regarded by any learned men of the Roman Church But his averment that the testimony of women is rejected in those cases is without any ground Was not the single testimony of the Nurse the only evidence of the first miracle that was wrought by his adored S. Benedict in the mending the Sieve or putting together the broken pieces of the Earthen pot If he were much conversant in the acts of Canonization as he ought to be before he publishes the Rules observed there he would have found that the seventh miracle wrought by Philip Nereus the Founder of the order of the Oratorians for which he was Canonized was that he cured diseases oftentimes by his word as particularly in the case of Maria Felici à Castro in Monasterio Turris speculorum Moniali quae continua febri correpta Philippo jubente statim convaluit And his eighth was that he cured many sick people meerly by his apparition Ac Drusilla Fantina quae praecipiti casuprostrata ac horribili capitis oculorum totius corporis collisione semiviva jacens tribus Philippi apparitionibus mirabiliter
liberatur And he would likewise have found in the Canonization of Ignotius Loyala his thirty third miracle is that of Isabella Monialis ord S. Clarae who being threescore and seven years old being in a very high place about business by mischance had a terrible fall to the ground with which she broke her thigh and for above forty days adhibitis per Medicum Chirurgum eventu planè irrito medicamentis and all hope of life being in the judgment of all hopeless and desperate petita tamen pia cum religione impetrata reliquia B. Ignatii super coxendicem applicata statim sana est reddita coxendicem tibiam prius tumentem atque immobilem expedite sine dolore movere coepit die proxima surrexit ac libere perfecte ambulavit Many more of the like instances he will find in the fourth Tome of the great Bullarium and without the evidence of these three women these miracles had been lost which could not but contribute very much to their Canonization Nor was the Testimony of women ever rejected in those cases it is probable for that very reason for which Mr. Cressy seems to think their evidence ought not to be received because imagination is stronger in them than judgment and that whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily by them concluded to be true and such a Confessor as Mr. Cressy will easily perswade them to believe that many things are pious which he knows not to be true And in truth he hath not answered the weight of the Doctors instance of the visions of S. Bridget and S. Katherine of Syena with all the help that S. Anthony and Cardinal Baronius can give him the last of which apparently believed neither of them and his own addition is much less satisfactory to any discerning person that no Oecumenical Council hath made a Canon with an Anathema against all those who will not acknowledge all the Revelations of S. Bridget to have been divine and the belief of them necessary to salvation and that all that was done by the Council was upon occasion of invectives made against those Revelations by many Catholicks to require Joannes à Turrecremata to peruse and give his judgment of them which being favourable the Council approved them says the Doctor that is says Mr. Cressy freely permitted them to be read as containing nothing contrary to faith and good manners The Councils approbation was much more than that but if it were no more it doth not become the Catholick Church or any National Church to give that countenance to any new opinion that may encourage such a liberty as he says is taken by many writers to decry both the one and the other and introduces animosity and uncharitableness between Christians which hath been notorious enough in this particular And since he confesses that many illusions and fancies have been brought into the Church by pretence of such Revelations by the several Sects and Persons named by the Doctor as the Sects of Mendicants the Authors of the Evangelium aeternum and the rest all or most of which did find countenance and exceedingly disturb the peace of the Church and who Mr. Cressy confesses were Monsters raised up by the Devil in a cursed imitation of the graces and gifts communicated by God to his devout and faithful servants There cannot be too much vigilance in shutting all doors at which such illusions may enter and no body is to be blamed who is most jealous of their integrity We come in the next place to his fifth Chapter of resisting authority falsly imputed he says to Catholick Religion in which he says the Doctor doth very ingeniously absolve the Catholick Church her self and lays the fault only on the principles and practices of the Iesuitical party Indeed the Doctor cannot but absolve the Catholick Church from that reproach except he thought all Christian Churches liable to it but he is far from absolving all Catholicks of the Roman Church from rebellion excepting only the Iesuits though he instances most in them because the books which most defend it have been written by those of that Society but nothing can be stranger than that Mr. Cressy should so magnifie the general obedience of all Roman Catholicks that none of them were ever in rebellion against the King or his Father when he knows very well and hath some marks of it that the whole Irish Nation very few persons of honour excepted joyned in rebellion against the King and but for that rebellion neither Presbyterian Independant or Anabaptist had been able to have done any harm in England For the Scots rebellion was totally suppressed and their Army disbanded before the Irish rebellion begun It was that which produced all the mischief that succeeded in England and gave those Sects in Religion opportunity to bring in their confusion to the destruction of the Church and State with such barbarous circumstances as are too horrible to repeat though they can never be forgotten Was not that Rebellion begun and carried on intirely by the Kings Roman Catholick subjects Was there one man but Catholicks who concurred in it and did they pretend any other cause for it but Religion at least when they had the satisfaction they desired in whatsoever else they pretended did they not continue it still under pretence of Religion Was not the secular and regular Clergy equally engaged to support it And did not the Pope himself contribute to it if not contrive it And was not himself in the person of his Nuntio Rinnuccini General of the Rebels both by Sea and Land And can there be a greater manifestation that the Catholick Roman Religion it self favoured rebellion than when their head of their Church and all Ecclesiastical Orders joyned and concurred in it And it it cannot but be observed that though the Irish for ought appears only carried on or were active in that Rebellion there was not any English Catholick that made any publick profession against it nor did one English Priest Secular or Regular manifest his detestation or dislike of it by any publick writing And how much they favoured it in private discourse there wants not abundant evidence All which should be forgotten as it is forgiven before there be such loud Encomiums published of the never-failing obedience of the Romish Catholicks and the Records of later rebellions in France as well as those of the League should be razed out It is to be wished rather than hoped that the profession of Christian Religion in any Church had that impulsion in it as it ought to have that it preserved the professors of it from entring into rebellion and the practice of any other iniquity Yet it may be truly said that there were very few who did so much as pretend to have a reverence for the Church of England that were ever active in the late rebellion How far the fear and consternation men were in forced them to submit to
was manifest to them for God had shewed it to them There are no doubt many things fit to be known and which we should be the better for knowing which are not so manifest but it is not so necessary if it be not manifest and it is very observable that when he tells them what became of those under the Law and the sins of the Gentiles who did not like to retain God in their knowledge he mentions not what false opinions grew up amongst them by reason of their not retention of him in their knowledge but that God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which were not convenient Being filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness full of envy murther debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to Parents He doth not so much as mention their Idolatry in that place because it was matter of opinion which was the greatest contradiction of the Majesty of God but those vices which had proved destructive to all humane relation and society and the same Apostle finding still that the infant Christians perplexed themselves with many difficulties between the Law and the Gospel took the pains as Moses had done to abridge the obligations of the Law as was mentioned before to abridge the Religion of the Gospel If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Iesus aud shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved He that cordially believes the History of our Saviour That he was the only begotten Son of God that he suffered death for the sins of mankind and that after he was put to death and buried he rose the third day the birth and death and resurrection of Christ hath faith sufficient to salvation and all that is absolutely necessary to be believed lies within that narrow compass Notwithstang the clearness of which definition and authority of the Apostle the wit of men and even the zeal of Religion produced many differences of opinion and much faction amongst the believers many men thinking that this excellent foundation would very well support this manner of building and others that it would as well or better bear another sort of building rather this deduction than that would result from the same proposition S. Paul still adhering fast to the foundation without much examining the superstructures tells them Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Iesus Christ If they would keep themselves steddy to that foundation let their superstructures be of gold or silver precious stones wood hay or stubble let their conceptions or deductions be of the finest allay the more probable and rational or more gross and irrational there will at last be such an examination of every one of them that the truth shall appear and be made manifest but for their comfort to abate the superciliousness of him who hath more reason to think himself in the right and to raise the spirits of them who may be terrified with the consequence of being in the wrong he tells them that they who have done their work best raised such doctrine upon and from the foundation as will endure the trial that doctrine shall stand and they shall receive a reward and that they who have built less skilfully raised imaginations too large or contracted opinions too narrow to be supported upon that foundation their doctrine shall not subsist their opinions shall be disavowed and condemned yet because they departed not from the foundation let their mistakes and errors in judgment be what they will they themselves shall be saved nor did he think the determination of those buildings how different soever and vile the materials might seem to be were proper for the judgment of any but the Master-builder the Architect who had directed the foundation who could only judge whether there were malice or hypocrisie in preparing such superstructures to rest upon that foundation Therefore judge nothing before the time until the Lord come Whosoever takes upon him to judge before presumes to judge before the cause is ripe for judgment which is not only beside the office of an upright Judge but against the rules of Justice and it was very good husbandry as well as wisdom in the Master in the parable who though he saw the Tares Tares not grown up by chance out of the rankness of the soil but Tares maliciously and industriously sown by the labour and craft of an Enemy would not suffer his active servants to pull them up he rejected the providence Nay lest whilst you gather up the Tares ye root up also the Wheat with them let them both grow until the Harvest And lest men should think by the ripeness of the Tares that the harvest was come our Saviour himself interprets his own parable The Harvest is the end of the world and the Reapers are the Angels an unskilful hand will mistake the Wheat for Tares and a rude passionate hand will for expedition pull up both that he may be sure he hath destroyed one unskilful and unlearned men may believe that to be an error which in truth is none but enough consistent with the truth and angry men will not enough consider if it be in truth an error what root it may have taken from some unquestionable truth and how far it may have insinuated it self into the minds of good and pious men which ought to be undeceived by application and gentle remedies and by time but will violently tear it from the hold it had and make a greater wound than they found disturb the peace of a Kingdom rather than connive at an error till it be ripe and the mischief thereof fully discovered and when the malice of the disease is evident proportionable remedies may more easily be found Our Saviour was not more careful of the season than of the Reapers the season is the end of the world the Reapers are the Angels dispassionate and unpartial Reapers who understand the nature of the Tares and the hurt they have done to the Corn. It is a complaint and observation as ancient as S. Gregory Quam multi sunt fidelium qui imperito zelo succenduntur saepe dum quosdam quasi Haereticos insequuntur haereses faciunt Charity and discretion can only preserve men from splitting upon those rocks and the time prescribed in the parable can only determine all disputations It seems an expression of a wonderful latitude which S. Paul uses to the Philippians Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will what then Notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ is preached and I therein do rejoyce yea and will rejoyce S. Paul found opposition and contradiction as all other Preachers have done since even from some other Apostles and Disciples emulation was a strong passion and well grown in
Plantation of Christianity that where the age and the people were most inclined to superstition which in the first conversion and growth of Religion they were not disposed to at least to that worship and reverence which shortly after degenerated into superstition there was least care taken to introduce Forms and Ceremonies into the Church but when prophaneness broke in as a torrent and the lives of Christians discredited the doctrine of Christ and the power of Princes was found necessary to reform the manners of the Church such Forms and Ceremonies were brought into the exercise of Religion as were judged most like to produce a reverence into the professors towards it and to manifest that reverence in providing whereof General Councils medled very little knowing very well that they could not be the same in all places and that every State and Kingdom knew best what ways and means were most like to contribute to the general end the reverence for Religion and sure there cannot be too intent a care in Kings and Princes to preserve and maintain all decent Forms and Ceremonies both in Church and State which keeps up the veneration and reverence due to Religion and the Church of Christ and the duty and dignity due to Government and to the Majesty of Kings in an age when the dissoluteness of manners and the prophaneness and pride of the people too much inclines them to a contempt of Religion to a neglect of order and to an undervaluing and contending with the most Soveraign authority That the Secular power cannot provide for Ecclesiastical Reformations because Kings and Princes are not qualified to perform the offices and functions of Religion because they do not pretend to consecrate Bishops to ordain Priests or to administer the Sacraments is an argument to exclude them as well from the temporal as spiritual jurisdiction in the determination of matters of right between private men in the punishment of the most enormous crimes and offences Justice must be administred according to the established rules of the Law and not the will and inclination of the Iudge and it cannot be presumed that Kings can be so well versed in the Laws and customs which must regulate the proceedings of Justice and therefore may be excluded from the authority and power of judging the people and they are wonderful careful that you may not believe that they would bereave them of that inherent power and authority which they confess is committed to them alone but why the one and not the other since they can as well provide for the one as for the other is not so easie to be comprehended by any rules of right reason Kings provide for the good administration of justice by making learned men Iudges whose province it is to execute the Law in all cases and they provide for the advancement and preservation of Religion by making pious and learned men Bishops and use their advice and assistance in matters relating to the Church as he doth that of the Judges in cases pertaining to the Law and as he doth other Counsellors in such things as have an immediate dependance upon the Wisdom of State and both Bishops and Iudges are bound to render an account of their actions to Kings who have intrusted them and if they have been corrupt in the discharge of their several Offices they are equally liable to the Kings displeasure and to such punishments as the Laws have provided for such enormities which are inflicted upon them by the Kings authority And as no foreign power can be so competent as the King 's to administer this Justice since it must either controul it or be controuled by it so it is no easie matter for the Pope to prove himself a more spiritual Person than Kings are who have been in all Ages thought to have somewhat of the Priest and the Prophet by their very Office whereas some Popes have been pure Lay-men when they have been chosen to that Supreme office which is all the qualification they have to be more Ecclesiastical after and very many have been chosen Popes who never were Bishops which is not a necessary qualification for that dignity every Deacon-Cardinal being as capable to be elected Pope as the Priest and Bishop Cardinal and he that was a Bishop before consecrates no Bishops himself after he is Pope but that function is performed by other Bishops by vertue of his Commission or Bull and the same may as regularly be done by Bishops by vertue of Kings Commissions in their several Kingdoms otherwise it would be in the power of Popes to extinguish the function of Bishops in any Princes Dominions and therefore the French Ambassador declared in his Masters name to Innocent the Tenth that if he persisted in the refusal to make Bishops in Portugal upon that King's nomination they should chuse a Patriarch of their own who should supply that defect But God be thanked that senseless usurpation and exemption of the Clergie from the common justice of Nations is pretty well out of countenance and since the Republick of Venice so notoriously baffled Paul the Fifth upon that very point other Kings and Princes have chastised their own Clergie for transcendent crimes without asking leave of his Holiness or treating them in any other manner than they do their ordinary Malefactors For the unity proposed and professed by us in the Creed I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church if it be well considered in what time that Creed was made which is not yet defined or determined by any Church and if it had been made by the Apostles themselves according to the fancy of some men that every one of the Apostles should contribute his Article it would then be Canonical Scripture which it is not pretended to be yet I think it is agreed by most learned men that it was framed in the infancy of Christianity and in or very soon after the time of the Apostles themselves and then it can have no other signification than Credo Sanctam Apostolicam Ecclesiam esse Catholicam which was a necessary Article at that time when the believing that the Church was to be universal and to consist equally of Gentiles as well as Iews was one of the most difficult points of Christianity and most opposed and for the Confirmation whereof the Apostles took most pains after they were all reconciled to it themselves and as it could have no other sence then so the restraining it to any one Church now or to make it serve for a distinction between Churches and Nations and to produce a separation between them must be very unnatural if any sence at all To conclude then this discourse of unity I know not how Mr. Cressy can refuse to submit to that good rule and determination that S. Gregory long since gave upon the third Interrogation administred to him by Austin the Monk Cum una sit fides cur sunt Ecclesiarum diversae consuetudines altera consuetudo Missarum
think never saw that excellent Person to take upon them to asperse a Noble man of the most Prodigious learning of the most exemplar manners and singular good nature of the most unblemished integrity and the greatest Ornament of the Nation that any Age hath produced with the Character of a Socinian Mr. Cressy well knows that before that time of his Journey into Ireland in the Year One thousand six hundred thirty eight that Noble Lord had perused and read over all the Greek and Latine Fathers and was indefatigable in looking over all Books which with great expence he caused to be transmitted to him from all parts and so could not have been long without Mr. Dallies Book if Cressy's presenting it to him had not given him opportunity to have raised this scandal upon his memory nor could that Book have been so grateful to him if he had not read the Fathers For Mr. Chillingworth if Mr. Cressy had not been very wary in saying any thing that might redound to the honour of any of the present Prelates he cannot but know that the present Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had first reclaimed him from his doubtings and they were no more nor had he ever declared himself a Catholick except being at S. Omers amounts to such a Declaration before ever he was sent for by Arch-Bishop Laud and I am very much deceived which I think I am not in that particular if Chillingworth's Book against Mr. Knott was not published before the time of Cressy's Journey in thirty eight into Ireland and I know had been perused by him and therefore Mr. Dallies Book could not interrupt him in his study of the Fathers nor induce him to fix his mind upon Socinian grounds which now serves his turn to reproach all men and the Church of England it self for refusing to believe his miracles or to submit to that authority to whose blind guiding he hath lazily given up himself and all his faculties Yet he does so much honour to those grounds that he does confess that they obstructed a good while his entrance into the Catholick Church the contrary whereof I know to be true as much as negative can be true and that he never thought of entring into the Religion he now professes till long after the death of the Lord Falkland and Mr. Chillingworth nor till the same rebellious power that drove the King out of the Kingdom drove him likewise from the good preferments which he enjoyed in the Church and then the necessity and distraction of his fortune together with the melancholick and irresolution in his nature prevailed with him to bid farewell to his own reason and understanding and to resign himself to the conduct of those who had a much worse than his If the having read Socinus and the commending that in him which no body can reasonably discommende in him and the making use of that reason that God hath given a man for the examining of that which is most properly to be examined by reason and to avoid the weak arguments of some men how superciliously soever insisted upon or to discover the fallacies of others be the definition of a Socinian the party will be very strong in all Churches but if a perfect detestation of all those Opinions against the Person and Divinity of our Saviour or any other doctrine that is contrary to the Church of England and the Church of England hath more formally condemned Socinianism than any other Church hath done as appears by the Canons of One thousand six hundred and forty can free a man from that reproach as without doubt it ought to do I can very warrantably declare that that unparallel'd Lord was no Socinian nor is it possible for any man who is a true Son of the Church of England to be corrupted with any of those Opinions But in truth if Mr. Cressy hath that Prerogative in Logick as to declare men to be Socinians from some propositions which he calls Principles which in his judgment will warrant those deductions though he confesses he does not suspect the Doctor will approve such consequences yet he is confident with all his skill he cannot avoid them that is he is a Socinian before he is aware of it and in spight of his teeth this is such an excess in the faculty of arguing as must make him a dangerous Neighbour and qualifies him excellently to be a Commissioner of the Inquisition who have often need of that kind of subtilty that will make Heresies which they cannot find All this invention is to perswade his new friends of that which they call the old Religion that his old Friend's Religion is new that they have no reverence for antiquity no regard for the Authority of the Fathers and only make use of their natural reason to find out a new Religion for themselves whereas in truth whoever will impartially and dispassionately make the enquiry shall find that there is no one substantial controversie between the Roman and the Church of England but what is matter of Novelty and hath no foundation in Antiquity and that the Fathers are more diligently read and studied in our Church than they are in theirs and more reverence is paid to them by us than by them though neither they nor we nor any other Christian Church in the World do submit or concur in all that the Fathers have taught who were never all of one mind and therefore may very lawfully have their reasons examined by the reasons of other men This that I say concerning the reading and the reverence paid to the Fathers ought to be believed till they can produce one Prelate or Member of the Church of England who hath ever used such contemptuous words of the Fathers Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uno summo Pontifici crederem in his quae fidei mysteria tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Ieronymis Gregoriis c. Credo enim scio quòd summus Pontifex in his quae fidei sunt non posse errare quoniam authoritas determinandi quae ad fidem spectant in Pontifice residet which are the words of Cornelius Mussus an Italian Bishop and much celebrated amongst them for his extraordinary learning in Epis. ad Rom. cap. 14. pa. 606. Michael Medina a man as eminent in the Council of Trent as any who sate there in the debate whether a Bishop was Superiour to a Presbyter jure Ecclesiastico or jure Divino when they who sustained the former alledged Saint Ierome and S. Augustine to support their opinion Medina said aloud Non mirum esse si isti nonnulli alii Patres re nondum eo tempore illustratâ in eam haeresim incidissent How would Mr. Cressy and his Friends insult if a Doctor of the Church of England should publish in Print by the authority of the Church Illud asserimus quo juntores eo perspicaciores esse Doctores contra hanc quam objectant multitudinem Respondemus inquit ex verbo
of it to which he is to conform let the advice be never so contrary to his own judgment and reason The other answers that the understanding all the places of Scripture is so difficult that men had need to consult very much about it yet that whatsoever is necessary towards salvation is contained in such easie places of Scripture that every man who sincerely enquires to know the meaning of them may easily do it and is ready to name those places in which there is no difficulty nor any difficulty hath yet been pretended the believing of which our Saviour himself hath declared to be enough for Salvation Oh! but says he the consequence of this proposition makes every man the judge of his own Religion and he may be of what Religion he pleases The question is not what the consequence is which few men agree upon one consequence seeming natural to one and another to an other but whether the averment be a good answer to the other suggestion when an other more weighty argument is urged an other answer shall be applied without the reach of his consequences and yet the Doctor hath never said that no man hath need of any information or advice even in the easiest places of Scripture and so that Coblers and Laundresses may choose a Religion for themselves nor doth believe that any sober cr sincere enquirer will fail in asking advice of those to whom he ought to repair if that which seems to others most easie appear hard to him nor can any man appear to himself to be a sober or sincere enquirer without enquiring to help his ill understanding and then even the Laundress or the Cobler will be out of Mr. Cressy's reach by his arguments of damnation which will manifestly appear to them to have no foundation in Scripture but to be a presumption against it Certainly it is a new way and a new Law imposed upon the handling of Controversies and was not in practice thirty Years since that a man can no sooner apply a proposition let it be new and not known to be urged before towards the confirmation of a Principle in one Religion or towards enervating a principle in an other but that proposition is called a Principle and thereupon all the ill consequences are deduced from it that may serve turn to asperse his Person wound his reputation and to make the unhappy man who hath not been sharp-sighted enough in Logick to discern those consequences nor consents to any one of them be looked upon and abhorred as a Socinian or if that be thought worse of a Turk for the consequence by well stroking will be stretched as well to the one as to the other and the case of this unhappy disputer is the more miserable because though he intends very honestly and acknowledges none of the consequences that is only by his ignorance of what passes in his own mind which a cunninger man than himself hath discovered and assures him and can easily prove that he doth believe that which he protests he doth not believe by which no Classis of men seem to be liable to so many woes as they who make false syllogismes and they who cannot discover when they are false for both these will be perplexed with ill consequences according to the mercifulness of the subtle man who hath the handling of the man and the matter If I will not submit to the authority to which Mr. Cressy will subject me to because he says the Church requires my subjection and I tell him that it is an irrational claim and my reason cannot therefore submit to it If I will not believe what he hath in his hand to be a flint when he suffers me to handle it and to put it into my mouth because my senses tell me that it is a piece of butter I am presently concluded to be a man who will examine all matters relating to Religion by natural reason and make my outward Senses the sole judges of the mysteries of Faith and of the interpretation of Scripture and therefore I am a Socinian and do neither believe the Trinity the Incarnation nor the other Elements of Christianity and therefore no Name can be bad enough for me nor is it any matter what I say And after all this I am no Socinian and I do believe the Trinity the Incarnation and all the other Elements of Religion and my reason obliges me to believe them because they being all matters of fact are manifested by such evidence that I cannot suspect nor can my reason contradict though all the parts of it it cannot comprehend Doth not the most abstracted reason oblige me to believe that the Scripture contains nothing in it but what is true when I have as great a manifestation as the subject is capable of that it is the Word of God and therefore it must be true yet when Mr. Cressy or the Pope himself as he frequently does in all his Bulls applies a Text of Scripture to a very light or erroneous purpose the same reason may enable and warrant me to declare that such an interpretation is not reasonable therefore it is to be rejected Must that greatest faculty that God hath bestowed upon mankind and therefore bestowed it upon him that he may judge by it reason be laid aside or cast away because there are some few things above the reach of it and yet even when that is true for it is often thought to be true when it is not and that some things are above reason which are not reason shall contribute more to that obedience that is requisite than any stupid resignation to such authority as every day betrays it self in some weak or wilful determination It is more than probable that very many learned and pious men may be so partial to the Doctor as to believe that he is equally skilled in Logick and to foresee all consequences which may naturally follow from any proposition or principle he makes use of and that he can make it evident that none of those direful consequences do result from them which Mr. Cressy's subtilty doth discern and if this should be so his friends will have cause to wish that he had not been so transported with passion for two principles which he hath made choice of out of thirty whereas if half the other twenty eight sufficiently evince what he would have his work is done which the Doctor for his ease had abridged in the end of his Book that he hath upon the matter left all the rest of his Book at least those parts which are most dangerous to the Roman allegation unanswered and unexmined and that he hath made too much hast to his conclusion and to his triumphant Declaration on his own behalf of the right and justice whereof he makes so little doubt that having treated his adversary with that meekness from the beginning of his Book he charitably concludes with giving him good counsel upon the peril of his
Kings mercy What must all the peaceable and well-affected Catholicks of England think who have enjoyed so long tranquillity by the King's grace and favour to find the calm they were in interrupted by the boisterous and unskilful noise of one of their own Preachers and to hear and see a jealousie kindled of their loyalty and good meaning by the impetuous breath of a Religious man that if it be not allayed by their prudence may devour and destroy their chief and most beautiful habitations Mr. Cressy therefore shall do well and wisely henceforward to demean himself with more temper and civility towards the Church and all the members of it of whose clemency and gentleness he may yet stand in need and if his passion will not suffer him to live as a Friend let his discretion prevail with him to live like a Neighbour at least like an old acquaintance as long as he thinks it convenient to enjoy the benefit of their quarters The advice that I give Mr. Cressy with reference to the matter is That he will contract the Controversie into what concerns the Church of England solely and to say all he can against the Articles and Policy thereof and not to make any sallies against Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists or other Sectaries who declare as great animosity against the Church of England as that of Rome hath always and therefore are more like to agree together And the first question that is proper and pertinent to be debated and which determination will go very far towards the reconciling all inferiour particulars is I. Whether a National Church hath power with the approbation and authority of the Soveraign to remove any errors or inconveniences which have been practised in that Church either by an Original corruption or by degenerating from what might at first be innocent into superstition or scandal and whether the long reception and continuance of what is erroneous or mischievous can restrain the Soveraign power from reforming it when he finds it necessary in the same peaceable order and method as he provides Laws in other cases for the well Government of his Kingdom II. Whether whatsoever is not of the Essence of Christian Religion instituted by our Saviour himself or declared or advised to be practised by the Apostles may not lawfully be looked upon as Religion of State in that it may be altered or improved or abolished by the Soveraign power for the better advancement of those ends which are essential and which no power on Earth can make alteration in And whether Gods promise to his Church be not to be depended upon in every National Church where learning and piety flourishes that it shall not fall into enormous error whereby Christianity shall receive prejudice and be not more like to advance and propagate devotion in that Church and Nation than any Foreign power whatsoever III. Whether the Bishop of Rome hath any authority given by God in the Dominions and over the Subjects of other Princes and what authority and power it is and what obedience and subjection it is which the English Catholicks conceive themselves bound to pay to him by the obligation of their Religion It being absolutely necessary for the personal security of Kings and Princes and for the peace and quiet of Kingdoms that it may be clearly made manifest what the authority and power is that a Foreign Prince doth challenge in an other Princes Dominions contrary to and above the Laws of the Land and what obedience it is that subjects may pay to such a Foreign Prince without the privity and contrary to the command of his own Soveraign nor can any general answer be satisfactory in this point They who conceive the Pope hath a Temporal and Spiritual power in England must explain what the full intent of that power is that the King may discern whether he hath enough of either as to preserve himself the peace of the Kingdom and they who insist upon his having a spiritual power as most of the most moderate Catholicks do without imagining that it can in the least lessen their affection and loyalty to the King which they do really intend to preserve inviolable must as clearly explain and define what they understand that spiritual to be which may otherwise be extended as far as the former intend the temporal and spiritual shall extend nor in truth can they be secure of their own innocence of which they think themselves in possession until they fully know from those who intangle them with distinctions what that spiritual power is and what submission they are bound to pay to it which seeming to be some obligation upon their Conscience it is fit they may be sure it cannot involve them in actions contrary to their duties which they can hardly be secure of and less satisfie others till they absolutely disclaim any power to be in him at all with reference to England as they will upon a full enquiry discover that he hath no other in any Catholick Kingdom but what is granted to him by the Soveraign power and the municipal Laws of the Kingdome which makes it differ so much in all the Catholick Nations of Europe and to be little or nothing out of it IV. Whether Catholick Subjects in England are not bound to give as good security to the King for their fidelity and peaceable behaviour as all his other subjects do and without which they cannot wonder that they may be made subject to such Laws and restraints as may disable them from being dangerous when they profess to owe obedience to a foreign Prince who doth as much profess not to be a friend to their Countrey and will not declare what that obedience is V. Whether his Majestie may not justly and ought not prudently to require the same or as full satisfaction and security for their allegiance as Catholick Subjects give for their fidelity to Catholick Kings if so how can the English Catholicks under pretence of Religion refuse to declare that it is in no Earthly power to absolve them from their fidelity to the King when no French Roman Catholick dares refuse the same it being a Catholick resolution in France and renewed upon the occasion of a seditious Book by a Declaration of the Sorbone concerning the Kings Independency in the Year 1663. Quòd subditi fidem obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debent ut ab iis nullo praetextu dispensari possint and whether any Catholick in France or Spain can refuse to profess that he doth not believe that the Pope can depose the King if the King thinks to require it VI. Whether since the Pope so lately caused his Majestie 's Catholick Subjects in Ireland to rebell and when out of the conscience of their sin they submitted to the King and subscribed and swore to the observation of the Articles agreed upon The Pope absolved them from the performance of their Oaths and took upon himself to be their General in the Person of
to be burned as Hereticks very few days before having made new Laws for the discovery of them stricter than had been ever before And there is no reason to believe that he did not die as much a Catholick as he was when he writ against Luther nor did any Catholick Prince forbear to enter into the strictest alliance with him notwithstanding the Popes Bulls of Excommunication Deprivation and Interdiction nor was there one Mass the less said for it in England and after his death his obsequies were with all possible solemnity observed as hath been said before in Paris at Nostre Dame by Francis the First notwithstanding all those Bulls from Rome in all which nothing can be more observable than that the great Emperor Charles the Fifth who had threatned and compelled that weak humorous Pope into all those acts of folly and presumption against the King had no sooner made him commit that insolence but himself entred into a straiter friendship and confederacy with the Excommunicated King than had ever before been between them The other reason why they will very unwillingly expose their interest to this manner of debate is That it would divide their party which if they were solicitous only for truth would not prevail with them Other Catholick Kingdoms and Nations which differ from one another as well in the profession as the exercise of the Roman Religion as the French hold a Council to be above the Pope and the Spaniards the Pope to be above a Council and many other particulars when they come to know that the Crown and Church of England have established only amongst themselves such an exercise of Christian Religion that in all the substantial and essential points is the same which they profess without censuring them or what they find fit to do in their Countries and have only made such alterations as by the constitution of that Kingdom they may lawfully do and which they find more agreeable to the manners of the Nation and for the peace and happiness of the people They will not think themselves concerned in the policy of other Kingdoms nor the Popes authority so much of the Essence of Catholick Religion that they are bound to support all his pretences which are different in all those Countries which are most devoted to him and therefore cannot flow from any determination of our Saviour which would have made it the same in all places besides they too well know that in all the particulars proposed the Catholick Doctors are not of one mind who are now kept united to them by not knowing the constitution of the Church of England nor that the Roman Catholicks in that Kingdom refuse to give that security for their duty to the King and for their peaceable and good behaviour as all other their fellow subjects chearfully give and as are required of all by the Laws of the Kingdom and if they would perform that common duty it is very probable that there appearing no more danger to threaten the State from them than from other men those Laws which the iniquity of their forefathers brought upon them by their conspiracies and treasons may be suspended towards their innocent Children until such time as their peaceable demeanour and good carriage shall make it appear just to be abolished This expedient for the reasons aforesaid will be obstructed by the Religious and regular Clergie who have so absolute a dependence upon the Pope that they are in truth subjects to no other Prince and probably some few of the secular Clergie may concur with them though more of them if they can discern any security to themselves in disclaiming the Popes authority which few of them look upon as of the Essence of their Religion and have in their hearts as well as in their professions as sincere purposes towards the King and his People However I know not why all the Lay Catholicks of his Majesties Dominions should bind up their interest with those who have different obligations from them nor how they can excuse themselves from not throughly examining every one of the particular heads proposed by which they will receive this benefit and information that they will clearly discern what is necessary for them to retain and insist upon without which in their conscience as thus informed they cannot continue members of the Catholick Church and what is so much of the policy of the State that is warrantable or unwarrantable only as it is established by the Soveraign authority and by this means they will know how to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to render unto God that which belongs unto God the just distribution whereof is of an equal concernment to all Christians being equally enjoyned by our Saviour Christ. THE END A Brief Catalogue of Books newly Printed and Reprinted for R. Royston Bookseller to his Most Sacred Majestie THe Works of the Reverend and Learned Henry Hammond D. D. containing a Collection of Discourses chiefly Practical with many Additions and Corrections from the Author 's own hand together with the Life of the Author enlarg'd by the Reverend Dr. Fell Dean of Christ Church in Oxford in large Folio Nova Vetera Or a Collection of Polemical Discourses addressed against the Enemies of the Church of England both Papists and Fanaticks in large Folio by Ieremiah Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First of Blessed Memory and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner Reflexions upon the Devotions of the Roman Church With the Prayers Hymns and Lessons themselves taken out of their Authentick Authors In Three Parts In Octavo New The Christian Sacrifice and the Devout Christian and Advice to a Friend these last three Books written by the Reverend S. P. D. D. in 12. Eph. 4. 31. Pag. 11. Pag. 26. Pag. 31. Pag. 32. Pag. 219. Pag. 35. Pag. 68. Pag. 94. Pag. 102. Mark 16. 16. Ver. 14. Mat. 3. 14. Mark 9. 10. Luke 18. 34. Rom. 10. 9 Rom. 1. 29 30. Rom. 10. 9 1 Cor. 3. 11 12. 1 Cor. 4. 5. Mat. 13. 29 30. Lib. 9. Ep. 39. Phil. 1. 15 18. 2 Esa. 4. 21. 26 27. Numb 12. 1. Zach. 8. 19.
a short time they vanished and were no more heard of What was urged or insinuated by any Men of discretion and understanding that might make any impression upon sober unwary and misinformed Men was carefully and learnedly answered by Persons assigned to that purpose that the Church or the State might not undergoe any prejudice by want of seasonable advice without mingling any of the others froth or dregs in their compositions which they left to the chastisement of those who could as dexterously manage the same weapons and were fitter for their company And methinks grave and serious men or they who ought to be grave and serious should be afraid of imitating such adversaries in their licence and excesses lest they should get into a scoffing vein which they should not easily shake off or lose their credit with worthy Men for dishonouring the cause they maintain ironically A man will hardly be thought provident enough or solicitous for his own peace and credit who having discovered this unruly frantick disease will expose himself to the malignity thereof by approaching so near the company of those angry Wasps and Hornets who are like to be willing to take any opportunity to be revenged upon a Person who hath presumed to be offended with their manner of writing and in the same instant submitted his own to their censure which is like to be liable to as many exceptions of weakness and impertinence To which I shall only say that whatever other faults they shall discover in this short writing of mine they shall not find the same of which I complain I shall give no body ill words nor provoke them by contemning their Persons and I chuse rather to be at their mercy than not to endeavour the best way I can to divert men from that indecent way of reviling each other and instead of answering Arguments to traduce the Persons who urge them Truth is of so tender and delicate a constitution that it is defiled by rude handling and hath advantage enough to encounter and conquer its adversaries by the vigour of its own beauty without aspersing the deformity of the other farther than unavoidable reason makes it manifest I shall not interpose in those Arguments which are now most agitated in that scurrilous style that I complain of but chuse to take upon me to make Animadversions upon a Book lately published at least lately come to my sight Intituled Fanaticism Fanatically imputed to the Church of England by Doctor Stillingfleet and the imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. The Author whereof professes himself an avowed Enemy to the Church of England and would be thought as much an enemy to the foul custom introduced into the Controversies concerning it and the liberty men assume to deride Religion instead of vindicating it to wound the profession by a petulant and scornful mention of the Professors and by expressions full of pride and vanity and destructive to peace and government and yet how contrary soever this way of writing is to his practice and inclination he hath some jealousie of himself that upon the insupportable provocation he hath received some phrases of bitterness may have scaped his Pen which he doth believe he hath very good authority not to make any excuse for and there being such plenty of that noisom Gall scattered throughout his whole discourse it will be but just to take a view of his provocation and whether his revenge be no more than proportionable to the occasion and then whether the imputation be not rather confidently retorted than reasonably refuted and whether in the endeavoring the one or the other the bounds and limits of all modesty and civility are not so far transgressed that the Author is liable to just censure I do the rather enter into the List upon this occasion because I may infallibly presume that I know the Author of that Discourse for I no sooner read it which was long after it was published but that it was manifest to me by many particulars contained in it in which I cannot be deceived that it is written by Mr. Cressy with whom I have been acquainted very near fifty years and have very long esteemed him for his parts and learning and for his good nature and his good manners all of which were in as great perfection then as they have been ever since or are at present and therefore as I shall treat him with that candor that becomes an old Friend so I do not suspect his reception and interpretation of it will be such as is worthy of that temper of spirit which he professes to be of nor do I despair of presenting some considerations and reflections to him which may so work upon it as to induce him to believe that both in regard of the matter it self and the manner of treating Dr. Stillingfleet he hath swarved very much from those Rules which he prescribes to others and pretends to observe himself and then the tenderness of his own Conscience will instruct him what reparation he ought to make But before I enter into the debate I must first declare that the Religion I profess and defend is the Religion of the Church of England and not the particular opinions much less the expressions of any member of it how worthy soever and Mr. Cressy who professes to be an adversary to it ought to insist only upon what is owned and avowed by her and not hope to wound her through the sides or by the weakness or passions of those who have deserted her or still adhere to her And in the second place that I do not take upon me to write against the Catholick Church of which the Church of England is a vital part or against the Religion professed in any Catholick Country but against the Roman Catholick Subjects of his Majesties Dominions whose Religion I take to be different from that which is professed and established in any Catholick Country in Europe and disavowed by all the Catholick Countries out of Europe And one of the principal reasons that engages me in this Discourse is to endeavour to draw the dispute that is between the Church and the Laws of England and his Majesties Subjects of his own Dominions who profess to be of the Roman Faith into a narrower room and within that compass that properly contains it And I have always thought that they have had too much countenance and too great a latitude allowed them in reducing the contest to what concerns all the members of the Roman Church equally with themselves as if the Roman Catholicks of England withdraw their obedience from the Kings authority and oppose the Laws of the Land so much to the damage of their Estates and the danger of their lives if the Laws were prosecuted against them only for the support and in the defence of the cause common to all other Catholicks Whereas I say the difference between us depends wholly upon the personal authority of the Pope within the Kings
Dominions which is an argument never used for the support of the Catholick Religion if it were all Catholicks must be of the same opinion It was that and that only that first made the Schism and still continues it and is the ground of all the animosity of the English Catholicks against the Church of England and produced their separation from it and if they will renounce all that personal authority in the Pope and any obedience to it within his Majesties obedience which I say again is not admitted in any other Catholick Kingdom they will purge themselves of all such jealousie or suspicion of their fidelity as may prove dangerous to the Kingdom and against which the Laws are provided their opinions of Purgatory or Transubstantiation would never cause their Allegiance to be suspected more than any other error in Sence Grammar or Philosophy if those opinions were not instances of their dependance upon another Jurisdiction foreign and inconsistent with their duty to the King and destructive to the peace of the Kingdom and in that sence and relation the Politick Government of the Kingdom takes notice of those opinions which yet are not enquired into or punished for themselves let them disclaim that and they will find themselves at great ease This is the only Argument I wish should be insisted on between us and our fellow-subjects of the Roman profession not that I think that the other Doctrinal points between the two Churches are not worthy the insisting upon but that as much hath been said already upon them on both sides and as convincingly as is necessary Nothing new can be added at least no man will be convinced with what shall be added who is not moved with what is already said nor doth the meer difference upon any of those points naturally produce that uncharitableness those animosities of which we complain towards each other No man was ever truly and really angry otherwise than the warmth and multiplication of words in the dispute produced it with a man who believed Transubstantiation more than he would be with another who should come into a room where he was reading by a Candle and swear that the room was so dark that he could not see his hand but when he will for the support of this Paradox introduce an authority for the imperious determination thereof that the Word of God hath not commanded men to submit to and the word of Man the Law of the Land hath positively forbidden them to submit to it is no wonder if passion breaks in at this door and kindles a Fire strong enough to consume the House This is the Hinge upon which all the other controversies between us and the English Catholicks do so intirely hang and depend that if that only were taken off all the rest would quickly fall to the ground and therefore it concerns Mr. Cressy and the rest of his friends to fasten and make that Hinge strong that it may support the rest from falling And I cannot but observe how unwillingly they are brought to touch this point or if they do it is so lightly as if it were too hot for their fingers and upon the necessity of a through examination of this material Argument I shall be obliged to inlarge in the Conclusion of this Discourse There is another reason that hath principally invited me to this unequal undertaking that is my Zeal to the Church of England and a compassion of the very ill condition it is reduced to by an unworthy conspiracy that was never before entred into against it or any other established Church in undervaluing whatsoever is written by any Clergy-man how learned and vertuous soever in defence of it as if he were a party and spoke only in his own interest so that they who would undermine it by all the foul and dishonest arts imaginable have the advantage to be considered as Persons engaged in that accompt meerly and purely by the impulsion of their Consciences and for the discovery of such dangerous errors as are dangerous to the Souls of men whilst they who are most obliged and are best able to refute those vain and malicious pretences and to detect the fraud and the ignorance of those Seditious undertakers are looked upon as men not to be believed at least partial and that all they say is said on their own behalf This is a sad truth and a new Engine to make a Battery at which Atheism may enter without opposition with all its instruments and attendants that would make Christianity it self ridiculous that it may be contemptible God forbid that this Scarcrow should impose silence upon or seal up the mouths of any Learned and worthy Clergy-man who should open them the wider for this combination and contribute the more to the assistance and vindication of the best constituted Church in the world because it is in a distress by mockers and scoffers and neutral or unconcerned persons who make the approaches and sap the ground to open the way and make the access the more easie for more declared Enemies to oppress and destroy it This hath been a motive to me who have neither dependance upon or relation to any Clergy-man nor any temptation to imbark my self in this quarrel but my love of truth and the most abstracted duty to my Country and likewise because I think though the Clergy is best able to judge of any difficulties in matters of Religion the Laity is equally engaged in the consequences which will inevitably attend any prejudices it shall undergo or be exposed to and therefore ought in time to contribute their talent towards the securing it and not stand idle spectators of those stratagems which are no less designed against the State than the Church In the last place the particular esteem I have of the profound Learning and integrity of Dr. Stillingfleet to whom I am very little known and his great merit towards the Church of England whose worthy Champion he will not be thought the less for the untrue aspersions Mr. Cressy hath presumed to cast upon him and which will easily be wiped off hath disposed me to interpose in his Vindication which is so much due to him from other Men that I wish he may not trouble himself with it And having now observed Mr. Cressy's own method in giving first account of the reasons and motives which have prevailed with me for this engagement for which I cannot alledge another that was most powerful with him obedience to certain friends whose commands he ought in no wise to resist since I may honestly declare that no Friend I have is privy to my purpose or knows what I am doing I make hast to wait upon him by his own stages and shall make no excuse for not affixing my name to what I write which I do purposely decline not by the example of S. C. but by the assurance I have that the publishing my name would be so far from bringing any advantage to the cause