power and captivity offaith To conclud the word and will and works of God are absoluty superiour to every created thing and not to be alterd or innovated by man nor to receive either diminution or increas from him and consequently the religion he has reveald to the sons of men of his owne free love and bounty is to remain sacred and untoucht by any creatur how ever man may domineer over his owne inventions to perfect and mend them at his pleasur What is invented and made by man may by man be either betterd or made wors at his pleasur by what change he pleases But Gods works are altogether above his creaturs reach and his will is unch angable He made all things perfect and if he did not who is he can add to their perfection Children begot by men do by mans help and direction increas daily till they come to perfect age but Adam created imediatly by God was in all liklihood made at first in his full perfection and growth LA. I must Sr Harry cut of the thread of your discours that the Doctour who hath in civility forborne to interrupt you may have his time to speak VIC And indeed that is fulfild in me that is written I held my peace even from good things I was dumb wth silence and my heart was hot wthin me whils I stood musting the fire burned then spake I wth my tong Ps 39. MIN. Well Sr Harry this your discours is all good and orthodox but it maks so much to my purpos against your self that I could not my self have contrived a mor convenient battery against popery For if you consider right it rather confirms than destroys our reformations Religion is wthout all doubt above man and not subject to any vassalage of his fansy But you say wth all and that truly that what man does man may undo And ther 's the point Now popery in the pure and formall sens and acceptation of the word signifys onely that fardell of human additions superadded by the ignorance and superstâ—tion of men to the pure and sincer religion which the Lord taught us and is therfor a sacriledg not to be suffred in the Christian world but to be taken away and severd from the sincerity of divin truth like chaff from the corn so that our question is not whether you may add unto faith or we take from it wt is added or taken away being granted on both sides to be a part of faith and yet put in or out by our selvs for t is agreed upoÌ„ by us both that neither of thes things may be don without sacriledg But whether it be lawfull for us to reform or take away from the body of divin faith wt you hav impiously added thereunto of your own and obtrud upon us as divin revelation being indeed but human superstition This is the thing wch Luther and Calvin began to do and by other particular persons and parlaments is daily mor and more effected not only wthout sacriledg but wth much comendation of piety so that our reformations ar indeed diminishments not of Gods religion but of mans superstitions we take from the church not the stones or rafters but the rubbish mire and filth wch is brought in by slovenly autiquity even burdensom to the purity of faith Reforming religion we touch nothing at all we meddl wth nothing that is Gods but leaving al that untoucht we cast out the ordur of human traditions whereby the fincerity of faith was defaced and so we give to every one his own that wch in Cesars to to Cesar and that wch is Gods to God the legends of Damasus Gregory Anaclet and I know not who these being the dreams of his doating predecessors we cast forth to the Pope and popish to put up in their archivs the pure tabls of the law remaining in the ark of the Testament wth uswch being once happily purgd we purpos ever to conserv underfiled If it be a cursed thing to add unto the word of God as Papists hav don t is blessednes to tak it away again VIC I may say to thee sweet heart as David said to Abigail Blessed be the Lord wch sent the this day and blessed be thy advice and blessed be thou who hast kept me this day from shedding of blood For in very deed except thou hadst spoken this wise word wch shall suffice at this time I had brought a reason that had destroyd the Papists at a blow even every one of them that pisseth against the wall 1 King 25. KN. T is the good Dr agreed on all sides that nothing is to be added unto or taken from the word of God and our divine faith first delivered You say also that your reformations tak away continually some less som more but onely such things as be of human invention affirming this action not onely lawfull but comendabl This is the sum of your reply That the articles of Christian religion rejected by the reformation and by you called Popery be no human additions I should easily make it appear if I should run over the whole body of them and show from point to point that each parcell and particl thereof is equally ancient and divine wch would soon be evinced if the autority of those Scripturs you pretend to admit the joint acknowledgment and practis of all times and testimony of all antiquity both councells fathers and doctours and severall other monuments left in the Christian world which be greater than any we have to evince that William the Conquerour once raignd here in England may sufficiently prov them to be such But this cours I intend not to enter upon at least at this time becaus we ar but yet in generalls and besides this work is already done to my hands so magisterially solidly copiously by many renowned writers especially in the Latin tong that it were superfluous to insist theron had I either time or place or will to do it If you will not beleev them I have little hopes to prevail over so prodigious and obstinacy wch after such ample satisfaction given will say still that Catholik REligion so much as loos men listed 〈…〉 superstition and inventions of men I have morover one general ruâ—… 〈◊〉 I reserv for another discours to demoâ—â—â—…re that that Catholik faith you call popery â—s truly divine For if you do but read your own antiquities or the records of any other Christian kingdom you shall find that the conversion of our own and all other nations from idolatry and paganism was effected by that Catholik faith wch at one and the same time brought into the land both the news of Christ to the ear and the sight of the Crucifix to the eye both the necessity of faith and the merit of works both God in the fulnesse of time incarnat in the blessed virgin and incorporat really in the Eucharist both feast daies and lents both the popes supremacy and Priests power the news
humane superstructur Under this Protestant prelacy differing from all other reformations in the world bred the Puritan who was so chekt kept under all the raigne of K. Iames that when he came to be teemd forth by strength of natur and multitud of seed he was born double and came two forth together the younger brother supplanting the elder and thrusting himself into his place even in that instant that the elder had eat himself a passage through his Protestant mothers bowells This was the Presbyterian and Jndependent both rejecting somthing of that had been conveyed to them by the Protestant but the Independent more than the other But what either of them kept he received it by the Protestant as the Protestant had done from the Catholik the sole universall Professour of the whol Christian faith Now then the whol body of Christian faith and doctrin kept by the Catholik as it was wholly receivd at first from the pope the generall father of the Christian church so must it needs be all indifferently Papisticall upon that account and not that part onely wch a Reformer dislikes and calls so and consequently every parcell therof retaind by any Reformer is as properly Papisticall as wt he rejects and altho he cals it not so yet t is so stiled by another Reformer who likes not to retain it as he does and for no other reason but because as it issued so is it maintaind and practised by the popish Church wch reason holds good as well in him that likes it as him thy likes it not By this rule it will follow irrefragably that all the four professours be papists as also be all others who professe Christianity upon the face of the whole earth either in whole or part aswell those that keep their whole faith entire and respect the Pape as they that retain onely some part and defy him for ingratitud and pride can exempt no man from the denominatiō so long as he still beleeves or practises any part of that Christianity has been handed to him from the Pope and Popish Church as all men in England I am sure do and to avoid all further cavill t is solely of them I now speak If four or five generations of men arising from one stock should be all of them shorter by the head one than another the first generation completely resembling the father the second les by the head than he and the third yet less by the head than the former his imediate progenitour so to the last in like manner It would be ridiculous for the last descendents because they want much of the person statur of the first originall or stock to deny that they have therfore any thing of him or from him speaking against those severall inches they have not at the same time to magnifie the few inches wch they have and blaspheme him from whence they have received them And yet this is directly the case of all reformers and reformations to boast of the Christianity they keep and villify that part they reject as superstitious and popish whereas both wt they reject and wt they keep did descend equally and indifferently from the Popish or Catholick Church And if our English sectaries should render up to the Pope and Popish Church all they have had from her I do not know any one positiv point of Christianity speculativ or practicall they should have remaining except that harmonious song of mellifluous Robin red breast Preserv us Lord. Thus much may suffice to show that all England be Papists some Catholick Papists other heretick Papists but Papists all Sith every part of Christian faith brought altogether in one entire body of doctrine by a messenger of Pope Gregory to the English at our conversion from paganisme was equally papisticall equally received in the Catholik church and with the like indifferency communicated to our land from her Head and Pastour And the having of it more or less maks som less papists than others but not no papists Even as in musick if a sem breef be a full time a minnom tho it be but half so much is a notion of time so is likwis a crotchet tho it be but half a minnom and a quaver wch is but half a crotchet so that a minnom is half a sem breef a crochet the fourth part and a quaver tho it be but the eight part yet a part it is and nothing els Even so be thes four severall religions in England every one of them either complet popery or part of it the Catholick as it were a seem breef the protestant a minnom the Presbyterian a a crochet and the Independent a quaver And truly to keep one piece of popery and reject others deliverd by the same hands and upon the very selfsame grounds seems to me neither a safe cours nor yet a reasonabl proceeding For the whol stream of Christian doctrin was deliverd unto us as issuing indifferently from a divin originall and if this report be true no man may tampar or meddl at all in that sacred issue of divin will as I have already shown if fals t is all equally to be rejected and paganism or atheism to succeed in its place But our reformers will have that to be popery or human wch any of them rejects wthout ever rendring a reason therof to satisfy any moderat and indifferent man sith what ever they say against any one thing may be as well applied to any other Nor is religion like philosophy to be held by the propability it carrys in our understanding for then it wer not faith but reason nor should our understandings be otherwis captivated to divin revelations that to human positions or subjected to God more than to man And yet again if probability should carry it a wise judicious man that is unprejudiced in his judgment shall I am comfident find more difficulty to beleev the very history of the Bible than any articl of the Catholik religion rejected by reformers and as much reason to keep all articles as any But sith reformers will have that popery wch any of them rejects that he retains pure Gospell I for my part grant both But then I make no difference at all betwixt popery and pure Gospell nay the Gospell is so far pure as it is conformable to popery the traditionall doctrin of the Catholik church wch is the rule and square of all preachings Writings Letters Sermons Epistls Gospell andall And therfor that any reformation in religion is a purification of the Gospell from popery taken in your sens that is to say from human inventions superstitions and errours this I must flatly deny or that the popery men exclaim against is any such thing And as I can never my self be perswaded to the contrary so me thinks I should perswade even you my dear Lady and you also Mr Parson with your witty bedfellow to be of my mind VIC Who I God forbid Let them cleav
unto Baal that list I my people will follow the Lord as it is written in Scriptur For I will never beleev but this scriptur came from God and not from the Pope as you talk Sr Harry from heaven and not from Rome LA. By your favour sweet Mistres I have heard say that S. Marks Gospell was writ-ten in Rome first and originally in Latin I find also in my Bible that some of Pauls Epistls were written and dated from Rome as those he wrote to the Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians the second to Timothy that to Philemon and haply that to the Hebrews wch was dated from Italy And the Epistle which was written on purpose to the Romans was assuredly carried to Rome before it was brought hither and must come thence to us So that if they did come from heaven it seems Rome is either heaven it self or in the way twixt us and heaven for they were there first either brought thither or written there and thence cam over into England and other countries But to turn to you Sr. Harry me thinks you ar now too confident and seem to put on a refolution too much opposit to the hopes I have of you and consequently to the hopes you may hav of me for I cannot love an infidel as a friend much les as a husband VIC So indeed Madam it is written Be not unequally yoakt wth unbeleevers for we fellowship hath righteousnes wth unrighteous nes or wt communion hath light wth darknes KN. I begd the favour Madam to utter my mind freely and I think you granted it For t is wth an il affected mind as wth a diseased body neither can be made whol till they they hav purgd themselvs of their ill humours MIN. I am ready Sr to prove from point to point that al we hav in our reformation rejected is the pure inventions of men whereof the principal is that tyrant of Rome that Babylonian Antichrist the Pope VIC The whole Book of Revelations was made against that Beast Let me but read six or seaven Chapters and you will be affrighted I warrant you Now he rises out of the Sea then tumbles out o th clouds then ascends from the deep pit on a fiery red Hors or black hors wth seaven horns or ten horns accompanied wth armed locusts death and dragons KN. We will not descend unto particulars as yet Giv me leav now only to tell you in generall that those rejected parcells of our ancient Catholik faith cannot in any probability be thought human inventions For the Roman Catholik church whence all our religion issued doth own them indifferently wth the rest for integrall parts of the Christianity she at first deliverd And reformers never yet agreed together wt or how many of those parcells wer human and upon that account to be rejected And yet if they had had any certain knowledg either from God or man either by history or grounded reason they would not wth so much disagreement amongst one another hav by degrees cast off som one part some another of that religion they receivd at first altogether upon one the sam motiv of the Revealers infallibility This disagreement of reformers as it cannot but bring themselvs if they would but open their eyes into some suspitiō of uncertainty so to me unto whom uncertain grounds of faith are no grounds at all they ar a sufficient conviction of errour fraud Again these presented popish superstitions and human inventions rejected even by Protestancy were both very many and verry weighty at about the reall presence apostolicall traditions the papes supremacy merit of good works sacrifice of mass sacramentall absolution use of images invocation of Saints seaven sacraments vows shrines priesthood and the like even in a manner the whole body of practical religion Thes if they be additions of man must either be ignorantly taken up by the people or imposed upon them by their prelats As for the peopl if nothing at the beginning had ere been taught them but only to beleev in Christ it is not possible morally speaking that such things as thes should ever com into their heads but t is altogether and absolutly impossible that they should be taken up universally by all people of the earth together and that not by parcells as now they are cast away but the whol body of them together wth such unity and consent as hath been ever found in all Christian kingdoms of the world none of the peopl in any kingdom gain saying their fellows nor Prelats resisting If you say the Prelats imposed them This must be don either by violence or fraud either by strong hand or som insensibl introduction Such main weighty tangible points as thes wch were to be brought not onely into peopls heads but hands and daily and hourly to be practisd can never be thought by any sensibl man to have been insensibly introduced or insensibly receivd or insensibly liked of wth so much prejudice of carnall eas and sensuality I say wth so much prejudice of sensuality as fastings watchings almsdeeds justiciary satisfaction vows of poverty obedience and chastity pennances cloisturs and religious monasteries must needs bring upon the world For the same reason violence offred to the people whether at the same time or severall ages in such businesses of main importance of great weight and of much servitud could never pass so smoothly or be so tamly admitted by all Christian kingdoms wherof some be at deadly feud opposition and war with one another others of a natur more refractory and not so carfull to keep wt they have once receivd som sooner som later converted so that no nois should be made therof no cours taken to resist it no dislike of the doctrin no difformity of beleef He can never beleeve this who knowes either the nature of the world or the disposition of the Catholik Church The world is naturally tumultuous impatient of new yokes apt to insurrections slow to admit a restraint and no les prone to omit neglect and reject wt is servilely imposd upon them especially if it be don wthout just autority and contrary to peopls inclinations The Catholik Church on the other side he that knows her and hath beheld her proceedings from age to age may easily discern how ticklish and scrupulous she is how she startls at the very news of the least innovation or new fangldnes in any of her peopl wch if it do increas how small so ever the matter may be in it self the Catholik body rises up against it will not rest till by a councell it be condemnd This is the motiv of calling so many councells as have been since Christianity first began and of the severity ther used even in som things a man would hardly deem considerable It would even delight a man reading the history of the church in learned Baronius and others to see the Churches industry and watchfulnes on all occasions to prevent new fangldnes the labour
disposed in the week time to be godly you read a chapter if not you let it alone And this is all you do or ever mean to do And if your preacher do sometimes upon occasion exhort you to the abnegation of worldly desires to the castigation of your body by fasting and discipline that you become not reprobate to hospitality or almsdeeds to a generall abdication of all things for Christ by leaving father and mother wife and lands to follow him in that nakednes himself practised finally to an universall conformity to the Son of God in piety and poverty These and such like things he speaks by cours and out of formality to make a plausible noise in the Church and fulfill his houre But he is not so mad as to think you will ever practise any of these things nor do you hear him wth any such purpos the practise of such things being well enough known by both of you or at least beleeved to be down right popery by all reformations discarded His preaching is a talking to your eares and your hearing a listning to his lips till the sound cease and then the essentiall work of your religion is done But if haply you like the wit of the preacher and give him your applaus then you have both of you your finall expectation and the whole work of religion both essentiall and accidentall is accomplisht This kind of hearing and preaching tending to no further end is so far from being the sole act religion that t is no religion at all nay t is a mere mockery and abuse of religion condemnd by the Scriptures both of the old and new Testament where t is concluded that not hearers but doers are justified VIC I could wish you would remember Sr that Christ said more than once he that hath ears to hear let him hear but he never said he that hands to work let him work or he that hath knees to kneel let him kneel or he that hath meat to eat let him fast Leave your talking Sr Harry and read the bible MIN. The acts of the Apostles will make it manifest that after Pentecost Peter and Iohn and Paul and others of the Apostles were wholly taken up in preaching as the sole act of Christian religion KN. Christian preaching is of two sorts The first is absolutly necessary the other onely expedient The first is made to Paynims and such as have not yet heard of Christ or respect him not as they ought to convert them to his religion and faith the other to Christians to put them in mind of the practis and end therof the first is the parent and productiv power of faith the second a mistres and overseer of works Of the first kind of peaching is often mention both in the Acts of the Apostles and other parts of the new Testament For both in Gospell when our saviour sent out his Apostles to preach unto all nations and when they exercised this their mission in the Acts preaching before Iewes and Pagans and when S. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and elswhere speaks so much of preaching t is every where meant of this preaching unto Gentils Paynims and unbeleevers for their conversion But concerning the second kind of preaching made unto Christians ther is no news or mention at all therof in the whole book of the Acts nor did ever any of those primitiv beleevers come together to hear a Sermon but onely to supplication and prayer and fraction of bread wch is the Catholik Masse Indeed on the day of Pentecost after the Holy Ghost had visibly descended upon the Catholik church congregated together in one place and made them all speak wth strang tongues Upon noise herof all sorts of people both Iews and Gentils came flocking in to behold the wonder then S. Peter took the occasion to make a Sermon to those strangers who stood amased at the sight Act. 2. but that speech was not directed at all to the Christians as may appear by the very matter and tenour therof and all the Christian service was ended before the people unto whom he addrest his speech came in Nor for some hundred years after do we find or hear tell of any preaching made to Christians nor were they ever accused by the Roman prefects for other than for meeting together and breaking of bread wheras Sermons if they had had any made had afforded a more plausible accusation against such as already tho wthout any desert of theirs bore the name of seditious As soon as any person or nation had embraced his Christian faith he then wthout expecting further preaching fell presently to those works his faith dictated to him and according to his obligation applied himself to the rule he had received as may be seen in the book of the Acts. And doubtles all prelats who had care of soules held forth unto beleevers that great dictamen of perfection and justice wch S. Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We will and comand that all who have once beleevd in God do make it their care to attend unto good works Tit. 3.8 Tho indeed in after times when that first fervour of Christian charity grew cold and especially upon times of singular mortification and fasts as in Lent and Advent as also upon high solemnitys the Catholik Church hath ever made use of this secondary preaching wch is made unto Christians for the incitement of works of piety This secondary peaching is indeed a religious exercise profitable to distrest and slack spirits for comfort and advice But no good Christian ever lookt upon it as the great work of his religion or ever thought his duty to be don when the Sermon was ended In a word the Catholik church uses both these kinds of preaching the one to infidels for their conversion the other to Christians for their exhortation But she places the sum of her religion in neither of them but in the performance of those things wherunto people are converted and exhorted And a third kind of preaching wch is to no further end at all but onely to spend time was never thought of by Christians till this wretched heresy invented it For your preaching is not Mr Parson to convert your auditours who have already received their faith and be as good Christians as your self nor yet to excite them to good works wch be in both your judgments justly casherd long ago as popish But your preacher he preaches till for his livelihood he has stood his howr and the hearers hear till they have sat their hour and then all hasten home and the work of God is ended This is all your holocaust an ear-offering and he that wants his ears or has them stopt by cold may stay at home as unfit for service In my judgement t is pure non sens and no religion at all to be still preaching faith as reformers do unto people wch already understand their faith as well as their teachers or think
one another whence is it that we all conspire to hate condemn and rail against the Catholik Church having as much cause to inveigh against one another and let her alone as to rail against her alone and applaud one another This is a shrewd sign we ar all rebels to that one Church and hav no truth amongst our selvs For one truth is opposit to twenty falshoods and these falshoods however they be contrary to one another that one primary truth still stands against them all Catilin and Cethegus and the other conspiratours against Rome their mother City could fall out one amongst another tho they jointly resisted her and she as indifferently confronted them all Besids these reformers must needs be liars all of them if we may beleeve any of them For as they did most vehemently inveigh against that part of popery wch themselves rejected so did they tooth and nail defend the purity of that portion they still retaind wch by the succeeding reformers was deeply censurd and condemnd And so from the very first to the last they still condemned one another for wt they retaind as the Church of God condemnd them all for wt they rejected Who shall unfold this riddle or tell me in wch reformation the truth lies Surely in non of them if by the mouth of two witnesses a truth may be established for ther is ever the Catholik Church and one reformation against the judgment of any other reformation every sect hath still the Church against her for one and some other sect if not all other reformations besides Ar all thes men sent from God for one and the same thing yet all fail in doing it and al condemnd by one another in the deed Still wt any one of them casts away is popery and what he keeps is the sincere word and will of God tho not only the Church that censurs them all together but even all other reformations say the contrary So that if we put all judgments together ther will result thus much That the Catholik on the one side all sectaries of severall opinions on the other they be all Papists and differ but secundum magis minus So that the Roman is a Catholik Papist and all the rest be heretick Papists but Papists all For every sect is condemnd by his fellowes of some popery and the Church as the source of all And indeed all sects do retain som thing more or les of that religion and faith wch our land received at first from the pape and wtsoever positive doctrin they still keep they had it onginally from him At least they keep all of them the Bible eyther whol or in part wch is the great book of the pope wch he ever sends wth his missioners since he orderd and canonised it to any nations conversion as conformable to the great rule of Christian faith wch is tradition And consequently if the Papist be a child of Antichrist all sectaries are no other so far as they be Christian or have any thing of Christianity amongst them onely wth this difference that the mark of the beast if he be a beast is lesse in som than it is in others but t is in the for heads of all so many as be baptised and beleeve in Christ by his means and missioners and by the Sacraments and precepts they had originally from him VIC The Lord shield us from the fiend of darknesse the pope upon my forehead the Bible the popes and all we Papishes confute him husband some way or other if this be true hee l not fear texts at all LA. S. Harry you have brought things about very strangly Can you think ever to perswade us that we have any thing of popery in us KN. Assuredly you have so much as is not yet clipt of by reformation be it more or les And this discours I have faln upon insensibly to mitigat the strang rancour against Catholik religiō wch people conceiv by contagion of custome and not any true knowledg they have thereof and the pleasing opinion each one fosters of the reformation himself is part of Take the four generall opinions that be now in England the Catholick the Protestant Presbyterian and independent Consid er seriously and you shall find that as they be antecedent in time so still the succeeding is but a deficiencie from the foregoer and the last the greatest negation of the positions laid by the first yet still what he holds positively he hath it from him and the first wch is the Catholik had all his whole positive faith from the Pope as himself professes and our own histories witnesse part whereof was cut of by the Protestant as the Presbyterian after him took away some things wch the Protestant still retaind and the Independent others wch the Presbyterian kept He is very ignorant in history that discerns not by his reading how the Catholik now existent in England retains universally all the points of faith wch were brought hither into England at its conversion from paganisme by S. Austin and other good children of blessed S. Bennet sent hither to that purpose by Pope Gregory eleaven hundred years ago concerning priests altars sacrifices the reall presence merit of good works consecrations pennances purgatory lents pilgrimages popes supremacy and the rest to the least iota of wt they then received Nor hath he any parcell of faith either over or under wt he received then so that the Catholik is a papist in print and a legitimat child of that venerable pastour A thousand years after the Saxes or English-mens conversion and the unanimous profession of the Catholik faith all that while in an unluky ho wt rises Luther who having been himself born and and bred up in the bosome of the Church through the instigation of Satan and his two instruments pride and lust apostatised from the Church and made a reformation as he called it wherunto the worst of people at first adhered altho now both wise and honest minded people go along wth it not so much by their own choise as unfortunate custome This protestancy took away at once almost three parts of the Churches practicall doctrin retaining the speculative Within the compasse of ten years it had run into severall divisions or subreformations in Germany Holland Switzerland and Geneva Upon Harry the eights schism and afterward these people of severall Reformations cam flocking over into England by whos severall directions to pleas all parties was made up that miscellan of the English protestancy by rejection of severall points of the Catholik faith then in our land some according to Luther others according to Calvin Swinglius the rest together wth an establishment of an apish prelacy in stead of the Catholik one wch had beene overthrown for the security of the state and of the fond Church they had then set up the other few remainds of our Catholik faith now wholly dismembred yet standing as the base of this
will or no printing and preaching presse and pulpet Mr Iohn an oaks Mr Prinne cannot utter any thing but truth Innovations papists do nothing else but make innovations they cannot eat or drink or sleep but the must do it and mischief is their very life LA. God mend all SECOND DIALOGUE LA. I have Sr Harry brought you here again your souls phesitian to understand the symptoms of your diseas and apply an agreeable remedy therunto KN. I shall Madam as well as I may both declar my sicknes and respectfully receiv his remedy LA. Com doctour you look blith upon t to day I take it for a good sign VIC And I am glad for sooth to see my husband cherfull for sadnes as it is written dries up the bones Pro. 17. MI. I bring you good news Sr Harry The work of reformation we perswade you unto is as easily effected as t is to cast of a heavy cloack in a burning midsommers day All popish practises as I in order shall name them to you do but you in the same method reject them and you shall in one half hour becom a Protestant in three quarters a Presbyterian in a whol howre an Independent and so be reformed at your leysur and wth eas KN. You say not all this while what shall guid me in this action MIN. The word of God that guides you Sr to the will of God KN. The means and end of his motion being coincident a man may well hope for an undisturbd tranquillity in the period MIN. Wt can disturb you Sr being built upon the rock of the bible wth more or les hold thereon according to the natur of the reformation KN. Wch reformation has the best hold MIN. Let them look to that I le not meddle wth those disputes KN. I have both read and heard of the rock of the Church but the rock of the bible you are the first man I know ever used the phrase MIN. The Church and her doctrin be all one the Churches doctrin and scriptur is the same and so the rock of the church and rock of the bible cannot be two severall things VIC Well said sweet heart This is now a little above me But so it is written The husband is above his wife and she shall be under and subject to him Gen. 3. MIN. The summe of all is Betake your self to the pure scripture And t is enough KN. Ther is much talk of Scriptur and all the sectaries have ever risen tho never so many or never so opposit one to another have still pretended it nay the devill urged his temptation wth a scriptum est Matt. 4. so that I feare the proposall of this either means or rest will prove but wast of time Give me leav to tell you that the messenger of the Gospell of peace who by a mission from pope Eleutherius converted the Brittons from paynisme to Christian faith in the second age of the church and the other from pope Gregorius who reduced the Saxes or English in the fift gave them all their religion as well explicitly in all the articles of their Christian faith as implicitly in the bible they deliverd into their hands wherin those articles by incidentall occasion lay casually coucht Now to take away all those explicite articles drest and prepared allready to our hands and give us the bible is the same thing as to take from men all the gold and silver already coined wth so much care and industry of princes and show them a mine whence such things may be digd wthout affording eyther work men skilfull in the art or instruments for the purpos Imagin in such a case wt disorder and confusion would happen when thousands of people are gatherd together about a mountain none verst in digging or fitted wth instruments for it none accustomed to the hollowes of deep earth none skild in finding out the vein none expert in discerning the oare or to melt it into bullion or stamp it into coin And yet all of them equally conceyted as undertaking ignorance uses to be and indifferently judging and condemning the works of each other It cannot otherwise happen in such a case but that some should tumble into precipices some be somtherd in the earth below some after much toil bring forth a handfull of clodded earth lead or iron oare and perhaps a slat or peble in the stead of mettall and if haply any one meet wth the right he will either not heed it as not appearing to be such or loose it in the allay melting or stamp In fine where so much curiosity and art is required in the manifold degrees of procedur yet none had by any and profest by all to the disparagement of one another wt can result from such an attempt but disorder nois confusion and hazard emulation quarrell amongst themselves Nov can they ever effect any thing to the generall agreement liking of all or repair the coin that is destroyd This is in all points our very condition when the Christian articles of faith wrougt out and stampt for us and deliverd us by our primitiv pastours according as they had received them from Jesus Christ the prime Inventour and Work-man of our faith are principitously annuld and the Bible put in mens hands to dig out from thence by their own skill and industry the results of their religion Nay the case here is so much the more desperat in that the common people wth the tradition of the Bible receiv this caution from the reformers that they take heed of such and such abrogated articles of popery wch as they do ever and anon appear in the Scripturs they hav to peruse so are they indeed the very pith and marrow of that sacred Book and the golden metall they are onely to seek for So that being left unto their own shallow judgments if it were then improbable they should ever light upon the whol sincere truth of good now being adviced and prejudiced against it altho they should happly light upon it t is impossible wth that prejudice they should ever embrace and adhere unto it That the articles of Catholik religion abrogated by reformers were all stampt out for us by our primitiv Pastours and have gon currant in the whol Christian world from the beginning to this day hath been proved a hundred times over and over by learned Catholik divines both for the generall in each particular And that it is an impious tiranny to take them all away and put people to seek new out of the Bible I think it will easily appear to an understanding man if he do but consider the way-wardnes of mans will prone to evill and averst to good such especially as is annext to bitternes and pains the fallacy of his fansy and weaknes of his understanding wch we cannot but perceiv to fail even in things that be in our very senses and that both by deficiency and errour both by want of apprehension and
said and done wt is to be thought and beleevd wt is to be hoped and feard wt concerns God and his creaturs wt angels and men wt earth and heaven wt our creation and redemption wt the beginning and end of things First where is the order and method to find out these things You will find that the story and doctrinall part goes hand in hand together wch is not the ordinary way of teaching If I peruse the story of Gospell by it self I shall scarcely find it answerable to my expectation whiles I find mention onely of one howr of Christs birth and not a word more for twelv years together and then but one single action of his appearing in the publick Schools and not a word again of his whole life till almost twenty years after and then onely some works he did in publick for the space of about three years so his death wch is far less than I should expect or desire to know And the doctrine our Lord deliverd is no more of it set down than what he spake incidentally in fields and streets and publick places the three years space of his publik appearance and not a word of any thing he taught his Schollers or Disciples in particular on set purpose without reference to publick speeches which was without all doubt the main doctrin primarily intended both by the Maister his disciples and most copiously explicated Moreover those publick speeches of or Lord we have set down in Gospell they are deliverd us but under certain generall heads and brief notes wthout any order or connexion at all that can appear to any the subtillest wit that is Our Lords Sermon on the mount is the largest piece of doctrin we hav of his deliverd at one time and most heavenly and divine it is like its authour but he that reads the sift sixt and seaven Chapters of S. Mathew where t is set down shall desire connexion And indeed the holy Evangolists collecting their Gospels as brief memorialls did it wthout all doubt the best way And t is sufficient and far better than if all had been set down in that order and fulness of discours our Lord deliverd it For the few separated notions of Christian morality set down in Gospell wer enough to give testimony to the traditionall doctrine the Apostles had methodically received from their master for his Church Finally those speeches of our Lord recorded in Gospell be only some brief sentences and parables questions and replies to interrogatories wch be far short to a whol body of divinity tho abundantly enough for a Church in whos bowels the Messias would imprint his law and intire will It appears then both by the mingling of the story and dogm together by the few parcells of the history it self by the want of that method and connexion in the dogmaticall part wch our dull capacities require for learning and the omission of great many things we should need to be imformd in far more amply than we can find it set down in Scriptur concerning the use of Sacraments government of the Church and a thousand difficulties rising about the exercises of charity and faiths I say it appears by these and such like things that the Scripture of the New Testament was never pend on any purpose to teach us our religion but rather to confirm and ratify by incidentall passages therein such religion and doctrin as should be deliverd by the Church the prime and sole mistresse of faith after God and in place of him in all clearnes of methodical beleef and practise To you saith our Lord to his Apostles Luc. 8.10 it is given to known the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven to others in parables that seeing they may see and not understand The Apostles and the Church derived from them were made acquainted wth the mysteries and secrets of Christian religion for their beleef and practise and the same Church clearly knows and understands them as the mysteries of her own profession and art wch she hath receivd and practisd from the beginning to this day But to others that be aliens and out of the Chuâ—ch it seems our Lord so orderd his speech that they should hear and yet not understand nor everfully perceiv his will till beleeving they were incorporated into his mysticall hody unto which alone all the mysteries of religion are delivered in perspicuity and clearnes This generall purpos and intention of penning the Gospell and other parts of the New Testament as short manuall notes for Christians within the Church or such as are to be congregated unto it from wch Churches hands they have both a larger explicit declaration of their faith and a full and ample practis thereof in her bosom must needs infer such an obscurity as shall obstruct all possibility out of the Church of God by this bare letter ever to arrive to a clear understanding of the waies of Christian Religion This is the first and great cause of that obscurity scripture carries with it unto such as come to seek their religion in a Book wch was never made to teach it nor written for such a propos The churches doctrin as it comes out of her lips that is the thing that converts nations and regenerats unto heavenly life and this written word is a good milk to nurs us up after we are regenerated wch made S. Peter to exhort Christians 1 Pet. as new born babes to desire that sincere milk of the word that they may grow by it 1. Pet. 2. But it is not the thing that givs us the first life Indeed the Scriptur does little or no good but as it is presented by the Church and received with her interpretation and practisd in her bosom wthout wch three things I wil be bold to say it is not the Word of God nor hath it any vertue at all The Ark of God so long as it was upheld by the Priests it comforted and sanctified them but touched or lookt into by others it destroyd them nor was it unto them an Ark of salvation but an offence and occasion of fall If we descend to particulars we shall espy reasons enough of obscurity such as will frustat all desire of any perspicuous discovery of faith to be made by any man wthout the churches help The very history doth afford disputs enough hardly to be answered by the learnedst of divines as they will easily grant that have examind them The Prophesies and mysteries of faith containd therein who is able to trace them And the morall or dogmaticall part tho it seem familiar yet hath it a profoundnesse beyond all human writting Indeed by this it is demonstrated to be the Word of God wch must needs be like himself unsearchable Out of the abundance ef the heart the mouth speaketh saith our Lord and where the heart is immense the word is also incomprehensible I doubt not but there be too many amongst our people in England who read the
for the worlds conversion carried any written Gospell at all wth them wch might be made by themselves much less is it to be thought that they staied to write out theirs having their own breasts so well fraught wth all that and far more than they found ther written especially considering that two of the Evangelists were but their pupills and disciples Nay before those Gospels were written out and completed especially that of S. John the Church of God was spread up and down the world and flourisht in all the duties of Christianity By wch it may appear that even the written Gospell is neither it self necessary to the being of the Church nor the reading or expounding of a text the essentiall work of Christianity As for the Epistles wch be the other part of the new Testament written by S. Paul and others These t is well enough known were pend a long while after the Church of God was perfectly formd and grown up in most parts of the known world in particular after those Churches of Rome Corinth Ephesus Galatia Thessalonica and the rest unto whom they are addrest were perfected in all the essentialls of Christian faith and they were occasiond merely accidentally upon the creeping in of some disorders and errours in those places contrary to the tradition of faith they had received as may soon appear to him that reads and understands the tenour of those spirituall Epistles So then the Church is antecedent to her Scriptur and altogether independant theron either for her being or profession helps of memory as all these writings be do presuppose both the memory and the things to be remembred before those helps were brought to light And so the reading of these Scriptures or hearing them expounded can no wise be the essentiall work of Christian religion or the totall exercise therof but somthing that is altogether independent of them more ancient than they be and that is more intrinsecally a worship homage adoration and service of the most high God than hearing or looking upon words and syllables can be I make no doubt but the whol Scriptur or writing of the new Testament both Epistles and Gospells was merely casuall and accidentall For I find it long ago foretold by the Prophets that the law and government of the Messias should in this differ from the Law of Moses that Moses Law was all committed to paper but the doctrin of Iesus should be writ in the heart and entrailes of his Church You may see one place in the Prophet Ieremy c. 31.33 wch the Apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrewes applies unto Christ our Lords dayes Heb. 10.16 and S. Paul doth not obscurely allude unto it in one of his letters he wrote to Corinth c. 3.3 Indeed to imprint in the churches breast a law from wch she should never deviat is in my judgment a greater argument of divinity than any written Gospell could afford The things wch Solon Numa Lycurgus Draco and other such like men contrived and dictated for the good of their common wealths did much commend their gravity vigilance and wisedome and elevated them above other men not above manhood Moses himself the most profound judicious Lawmaker the world ever had by the excellency of his written Laws hath merited the title of a divine and sacred legislatour but he is known to be a man by his hand-writing and the paper he wrote on He is a God that writes on the velin of the heart characters indelible unto eternity The Law of Christ onely is written not wth ink but wth the spirit of the living God not in tables of stone but in fleshly tables of the heart I do also verily think that the religion wch the Son of God deliverd to his church was neither commanded by him to be written nor yet ever intended either by the Euangelists or other of those primitiv writers to be totally set down under the notion of a rule of faith altho so much as ther is of it drawn principally for the use of devotion and charity be a rule of faith also What the occasion might be that moved the four Euangelists to write their compendious Gospells by the little learning I have I could never yet assuredly gather altho I remember I have read somthing thereof in a learned latin book made by a friend of mine called Systema fidei put forth some few years ago wherein be very many things of excellent learning worthy of the Authour but I have not now the book at hand Wt occasion moved S. Paul to write his Epistles unto Rome Corinth and other places is manifest enough and I shall afterward declare it when I shall come to discover the religion of the Apostles and Euangelists and make it appear that they were all papists and of the very self same religion Catholiks be of at this day All this put together that Christ himself neither wrote any thing nor comanded any thing to be written yea gave notice that he would use his speciall prerogative of legislatourship and write his law in hearts promising to animate the body of his Church wth his own spirit wch should lead them into all truth and that the church was disperst over the earth before any Christian writting was made wch was afterwards drawn to confirm and strengthen the faith and devotion it found already planted All this being true it follows apparently that hearing or reading or preaching upon a text is not the great capitall work of Christian Religion Indeed t is childishnes to think that God unto whom all prostration adoration all homage service and worship both of the outward inward man is more than due should be sufficiently served wth a little labour of the lips or ears when a man thinks good so to do Preaching is indeed necessarily antecedent to Christian faith yet it onely disposes unto furrher actions as may easily appear both by autority of Scriptures wch exclaime bitterly against such as hear and go no further and also by the very natur of hearing and all kind of exhortation wch ever tends to somthing besides it self For who ever heard onely to hear and no further who but our mad reformers ever preacht onely to be heard And how can speaking on one side and hearing on the other complete the whol duty of man to his God as if one were nothing but tongue and ear or had receivd nothing from him but those two organs Tell me Madam ingenuously Do not you think you have sufficiently done your duty to God if you go but forth once a Sunday to hear a Sermon and if you read a chapter or two in a week day this is nothing else in effect altho by your favour you do not think you self bound under sin to either but if you like the weather or the parson pleases or your clothes be neat and handsom then you will go forth to church if not you will stay at home if you find your self
they do at least and if they chance for formalitys sake to fall upon any practicall point to speak therof wth no purpos hope or intention of their practise For t is agreed on both sides both preacher people that such practis is popery and nothing requisit to salvation but onely to beleeve Hear a parable Two artificers had each of them an apprentis The first having delivered to his servant exactly all the rules of his art put him presently to work and practis by them assuring him that practis will better his knowledg wch the servant in all singlnesse of heart applying himself to labour according to the dictats of his rule advanced accordingly and so became eminent in the eyes of men and excceedingly beneficiall to the common wealth The other tradesman wth drew from the sight of his prentise all the particular rules and whole method of his art onely deliverd unto him in grosse som experiments and feats thereof by wch notwthstanding he could not perceiv at all either where to begin or how to go on nay he gave his servant one generall caution not to put his hands to any thing his duty being onely once a week to com and sit down before him and hear him discours of the usefulnes and benefit of his trade Onely beleeving in him his work is ended The prentise under such a teacher grew to be a great proficient in works and sentences but never put his hand to any thing either for his own credit or the benefit and service of mankind Nay he mockt at the other apprentis and cald him simple drudg The first of these artificers is the Catholik church the other is the Reformation Do you apply the rest The Catholik Religion is a noble a rational religion well beseeming a complete man to profess well beseeming the Son of God to plant The reformation a vain empty businesse befitting none to receive it but a company of cripples that have neither hands nor feet to use nor none to invent it but dawes and magpies It begins in teaching and ends in preaching Wo to you Pharisees saith our Lord for ye tith mint and rue and all manner of herbs and passe over judgment and justice and the love of God those ye ought to have done and not leave the other undone Luc. 11. Preaching if it be right and pious may be used nay when instructions advise and comfort is necessarily to be applied it ought to be done but the practise wherunton it tends this is not to be left undon The tithing of mint rue and cumin does but figur out under a tipe a consecrating unto God part of the good things we do enjoy from him by fasting almsdeeds and prayer that is to be done these not to be left undone Preaching puts in mind of the works of faith hope and charity that wher is need is to bee used these not to be neglected At one and the same time to preach good things in the pulpet and to cry down the same things by the rules of Reformation is to open a mans mouth and stop his wind pipe All your people go to your Churches wth such a prejudice against the customs of Catholik Church whence they are cut off by the reformation that altho the minister should chance wth singular zeal and eloquence to declaim against sin and cry up the exercises of Christianity yet the auditory is promoted nothing at all therby being aforehand prejudiced by the rules of reformation incorporated and naturalised in their spirit For who can take such words to heart or ever heed them effectually that shall firmly beleev that all we do or can do is sin and wt sin soever we commit we shall sure enough be saved if we do but beleev in Christ. People imbued wth these principles shall never by any Rhetorick either of man or angel be either affrighted from evill wordly pleasures and sin or perswaded to the laborious works of mortification and pennance The sowr grapes of Reformation have so set peoples teeth on edg that they cannot chew good mear T is in vain t is utterly in vain to bid dead men walk or exhort those to the works of life who by the poyson of reformation are made dead and sensles Preaching is to Catholiks a profitable and religious exercise to hereticks if it be orthodox t is a vain work if pseudodox t is a wicked work but to no people nor in no kind is it or can it be the onely work or sole Christian duty LA. Wt be those works Sr Harry you require over and above preaching KN. Even such as the Word of God it self requires The works of faith hope and charity and use of Sacraments prescribed in Gospell a serious and effectuall indeavour against sin according as sacred scriptur prescribes whose precepts must be heeded as obligatory and counsells respected as meritorious offerings We must both beleev in Christ as mediatour and beleev him too as our legislatour Both love him and observ his will and when we do fail reconcile our selves unto him by the means-himself hath ordayned captivating both our will and understanding to his pleasure who is our redeemer and maister and omnipotent Lord. To speak more particularly the works wch Catholiks by their faith are directed and exhorted unto be of two sorts personall and conventuall The personal works be first a constant obedience to the Church in all her dictamens of faith upon this great hinge hangs indeed all true and solid Christianity then an effectuall exercise of homage and piety to God of justice and charity towards our neighbour of sobriety and continence in our selves These things must be done he that does them best shall fare best for it The conventuall a reverent use of Sacraments and a presence at divine psalmody and Sermons according to our occasion and need But the great capitall conventuall work and worship is the venerable and blessed Sacrifice of the Altar every holiday solemnly exhibited every Christian stands obliged to be then present at it tho his devotion may find it each day of the week in our Catholik churches and many thousands of good people serv God every day in this holy rite But this is a free offering of their own not wthout great benefit and comfort to themselvs unto wch Holy church will not oblige This is that great work wch constitutes and essentiates Christian Religion By this it was perfected in its fundamentall worship and duty towards God long before our people had any Scripturs to read and by wch especially seconded wth its other Catholik appurtenancies it would still remain intire altho there were no Scriptures at all either to read or hear For Scriptur as it is expounded by Holy church or rather the traditional doctrin of the church whereof Scripture is a short and compendious coppy is to us Christians a light not to sit idle by but to work by This is the work wch the Disciples and
observation wch I noted at times in my own privat reading never before taken notice of by any LA. So much the better for new things do excite attention VIC First you know that the Papish church sends forth her Priests and Religious to reduce nations from paganism and conveigh their faith up and down the World contrary to expres Scriptur Hast thou faith have it to thy self Rom. 14.21 II. Christ sayeth When thou dost fast anoint thy head wash thy face Math. 6.17 Papists never observe this nor do they think themselves bound in Lent ember other fasting days to put painting or black patches on otheir face to curl and powder their hayr anoint their head with jessamy butter spiknard other sweet ointments but the Gospell is neglected by them wthout any fear or conscience at all III. They hold that no body should forsake their religion directly contrary to Gods will The Spirit saith expresly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith 1. Tim. 4.1 God sayes some shal they say they shall not and by their good will they would let no body do it IV. They hold that the virgin Mary was taken up soul and body into heaven and would perswade us we shall be so too yet truth says that flesh and blood cannot in herit the Kingdom of heaven 1. Co. 15. V. They will tell you punctually on what day of the month Easter Christmas or any holiday happens Of such t is written Ye observ days and months and times and years I am afraid of you least I have bestowed labour in vain Gal. 4.10 VI. Such of them as be strong and healthy fast in Lent if any be sickly he eats flesh contrary to wt is writtē He that is weak let him eat herbs Ro. 14.2 VII T is written If thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink Rom. 12.20 here the Papists commit two errours first they hold that a man may give both meat and drink to one that is hungry secondly they will do this not onely to their enemyes but neighbours and friends VIII They bring the Virgin Marys Pictur into the church wth a child in her arms tho they cannot but know that she stiles herself the handmayd of the Lord and t is written Cast out the Bondwoman her son Gal. 4.30 IX Papists will have the church forsooth to teach us our Religion and faith But it is written Wo unto him that saith unto the wood Awake and to the dumb stone Arise it shall teach Hab. 2.19 Is the church any thing but wood and stone T is flat idolatry thus to worship wood and stone and the works of mens hands Wo unto them for it X. They teach that righteousnes pleases God sin displeases wher as indeed they are both equally reprovable When the comforter is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousnes Io. 16.8 XI You know Madam we sit in our pews all service and Sermon time wthout uttering word nor can any discern our lips to stir all the while but the Papist women as soon as they enter their churches down they fal on their knees so long as they remain there patter forth prayers you may see hundreds of their lips moving together somtimes you may hear them cry Jesu Jesu I dare swear they speak in the church their religion teaches them to do it contrary to what is written It is a shame for women to speak in the church Cor. 14.34 XII They hold that both prodigality covetousnes in respect of our own goods fornicatiō leache ry in regard of our own bodys is unlawfull contrary to expres Scriptur Is it not lawful for me to do what I will wth mine own Mat. 20.15 XII They hold that they abstain from all kind of flesh in Lēt yet they eat fish c. not understāding the Scriptur Ther is one kind of flesh of men another of beasts another of fishes another of birds Co. 15.39 VIC XIII LA. Nay thirteenthly fourteenthly be words too long we have not time to proceed sweet mistres you hear I am cald VIC Many are called but few ar chosen saith the Scriptur Give me leav but to say over my nine and thirty articles LA. They will serv for good discours at table how come they to be so many VIC Articles against popery can never be more or les than nine and thirty K. James could have made his up to forty if he had pleasd but they must be no more than nine and thirty nor yet no les according as t is written Of the Iewes receivd I forty stripes save one 2. Cor. 11.24 LA. You are so witty VIC A parsons wise must needs be witty as t is written He that walks wth a wise man shall be wise Prov. 13.20 It should be she that walks but the Scriptur is compendious and somtimes leavs out a letter nay somtimes a whol syllable as in that saying God made man upright Eccl. 7.29 Ther man is set for woman for t is wel enough known that Adam had a stitch in his side and so went up and down stooping LA. Let us carry in your nine and thirty articles to the table VIC For S. Harry now and then to bite upon according as t is written man livs not by bread alone LA. Enough enough VIC So indeed it is written Luc. 22.38 Satis est It is enough FINIS
one day be destroyd The path of the just saith Solomon is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day Prov. 4.18 LADY This is handsomly spoken Think seriously of this good S Harry and be as ready to suspect that for an errour wch lay hid longer as that wch was sooner discovered so shall all your popery melt away by degrees like icicls before the sun KN. I see and acknowledg that new reformations in Religion are daily made but whether to the edification or ruin thereof dos not yet so clearly appear A continuall taking away is an odd kind of mending nor do I know any thing in natur made better or greater therby save only a gap The pretended lights that have risen from time to time one after another I have hitherto taken to be meer unwholsom exhalations sulphureous meteors or som ignes fatui good for nothing but to lead men into lakes and ditches The daily rising of new opinions in Religion maks me rather suspect all than approv of any innovation becaus thes opinions ar all of them but new denialls of som part of the ancient catholik-Catholik-faith wch former reformers had not yet attained the confidence to reject so that it is stil but the same kind of audacity the very self same presâ—â—â—ption wth an additioÌ„ of som new degree of daring And ther was never any harlot that cast of all her cloths at once but according as she grew by degrees more shamless They that threw down the altar left a tabl standing in the Church and the first violatours of picturs did not break al the glass windows yet their succeslours hav finisht the work and the bare walls now standing ar dangerously threatnd In the same manner be articls of faith defaced and rased in the hearts and spirits of men by a graduall proceeding of infidelity and heresy still increasing in its growth of imodesty til of the whol fabrick of Christian religion ther be not left one ston upon another wch is the way not of composition but solution it dos not renew but impair I should look strangely upon that Phesition who will first make me beleeve I am sick when I do not find in my self that I ill any thing or complain at all and then taking upon him even against my will to reform me in my health purges me too again till I bee not able to stand on my legs drawing still from me till my body be quit consumed and never adding any positiv thing to sustain me Or if he should begin on the outsid and first tear of my cloths then my skin and so my flesh and bones still telling me it is for the renewing of my health and cheerfulnes I could not judg this other than outragious mockery and most cruell inhuman abuse Yet such and no other be all reformations in religion a continuall cancelling of doctrins formerly receivd and practised a daily taking away without addition of any thing and that in despight of the Church whos doctrine it is This is one reason I like not to hear of thes reformations much les to behold wth mine eyes the wofull ruins and disorders accompany them both in Church and state Another is I cannot see when there will be any end therof the successours still pretending the unlimited right of innovation the unlimited right of innovation left them as hereditary by their fathers wch right for aught I see all generations ar equally ambitious to put in practis so that nothing is stabl or secure nothing at all unchangeable nor can any one tell either what faith he livs in or in what he is to dy Indeed such men as would not be containd in their bounds by a profession of infallibillity wch they had in the Church how shall a profession of fallibility exhibited by heresy contain them a fallible liberty and a free fallibility can never lin rolling nor will they ever rest stated till they be faln into the gulf of atheism MIN. Do not mistake us Sr Harry we do not intend that variety of reformations should afford an argument against your stiff standing Popery in that way you take it But desire you onely to consider that inventions have been perfected by degrees all arts sciences customs garbs languages and wtever hath been at any time invented or used by man as you shall soon perceiv and grant if you would let your thoughts descend unto any one particular The art of making of watches how is it betterd wthin forty or fifty years and our English tongue purified Thus runing over the whol employments of mens hands and understandings you will acknowledg wth us that addition of new facultys in men of succeeding tims hath stil perfected the rude unpolisht works of forgoing ages In the same manner Religion afortim obscur and mixt wth several superstitions is by latter times illustrated and clensd LADY T is therfor no marvell that every ten or twenty years new waies ar invented by fresher wits to oppugn Popery KNIGT Madam thes severall new ways of heresy argue first that the ring-leaders and followers of the Lutheran faction the most dangerous epidemicall revolt I think hath ever happed since the Apostles days did not forsak the church for any reason they had so to do but first forsook the church and then sought out a reason to colour their revolt For had they had any one or many reasons for their division thes being once cleard and answered by the Catholick church so far that they could no longer insist upon their scattered principls they would hav returnd unanimously unto that body whence they and their for-fathers had impiously apostatisd and not have studied other shifts as vain as the former and perhaps more wicked too wherby to maintain themselvs and adherents in the wretched Schism whereunto they had formerly run purly indeed upon sensuall and carnall motivs whatsoever themselves pretend Secondly thes new ways and daily alterations of sectarys do sufficiently demonstrat that out of the Catholick church ther is not that unity consent and stablnes wch may mov a prudent man to beleev that either all those Sects together or any one of them ar that mysticall body of Christ that keeps an unity of spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.2 and wch is fitly joind and compact together v. 16. sith they neither agree together in the articles of their heleef nor yet in the motivs of their apostasy from that church that is and ever hath been so united and compacted in it self nor have in themselves any stability or consistency at all That is not grounded which never lins moving Again thes new ways of oppugning the church are not onely new declarations of former negativs maintaind by their for-fathers against the church but additions of new negativs and further apostasie wch infers as much division from their predecessors as they had from the first faith of the church and so they give me no
security at all of adhering unto any sith I may still in prudence doubt of any even the last separation whether that be the unspotted spous of Christ or a new purification yet to be expected And who can assure me that any such thing shall happen in my life time to be made use of by me or that I shall ever see that glorious church not having spot or wrinkl or any such thing holy and wthhout blemish Eph. 5.27 unto wch I may incorporat my self For the last separation still exclaimes against ' the former as they did against the mother church and that wch is to come will do the like against this Besides these several new ways if they be well examined appear so to dash one against another that altho all of them strike expressy at the mother church yet they wound her through one anothers sides and if any should beleev them he shall not possibly find any thing to adher unto unles he blindly close wth the first he meets and condemn all others wth the sam folly he made chois of this Our later Writers here in England L. Faukland Chillingworth and others driv if I mistake not against Religion in generall and strike as much at any or all as at the Catholick The Socinians they have sprung a mine under the church so deep and dangerous that it makes the very battlements of heaven to shake at least in the eyes of man openly and wthout dissimulation oppugning the very divinity of the Son of God crucifying not so much the lord of glory as the very lordship and glory of that lord finally calling many things in question wch former heretiks left untoucht And now one may meet here in every town villag wth som or other blaspheming openly against the whol Gospell of Christ such as hear them laughing at the conceit without any sens at all or zeal of Gods glory and their own finall hopes This is the fruit of thes new ways fresh wits and daily inventions wherby the utter desolation is day by day consummated Nemo repente fuit turpissimus no man on the sodain was ever made stark naught and be degrees doth every heresy how slight soever it be in the beginning sink it self insensibly into atheism containing most of Catholick faith in the first and imediat separation till by degrees it all expire This is the perfection Religion gets by the addition of new wits and the progres of innovation The knowledg and experience of these mischiefs makes the Catholik church wch is the wisest congregation hath ever been or possibly ever can bee upon earth to curb and stifl every wtsoever innovation as far as lies in her power at its first uprising how small soever it be knowing full well that from such a littl egg is by littl and littl formd a dangerous adder and this in time wingd into a flying serpent MINISTER Can you deny Sr that arts and sciences are all perfected by time so is Religion likwise KNIGT By your favour you ar much mistaken your self in your similitud or would at least beguil me If religion wer a human invention the consequence were good For all inventions of man issuing from an imperfect principl by the application of fresh hands and understandings superadded to the former as new degrees of perfection in the principle do receiv increas and the arts ar then com to the height when they have past through so many hands and heads as be able to imprint so much perfection as the subject or matter is capable to receiv So that all those heads and hands put together as well that perfected as that first invented the science do but make up one complet perfect principle of the art or invention resulting thence wch receives perfection proportionabl to the gradual acces of its original from whence it flows and still as natur and industry perfects that so does the art increase Thus much I can grant And if Religion were an human invention the very same affection would be found in it also T is here to be noted that we do not treat of Theology or scholasticall learning wch is a science superadded to the primary principles of Religion for this I shal grant to be humane as Physick or the civill law is if it be taken precisely according to its conclusions and inferences without respect had to the principles whence it flowes and it may alter in its manner and method as they do But I speak purely of those primary principles whereupon this Theology is founded for these only are faith and the unalterable doctrine of the Christian church This Religion and Faith deliverd unto us by God if the Gospell and Scripturs be true differs as to our present purpose in two points from all other humane sciences First that it issued at first from a principle absolutly complet secondly that ther is not upon earth any principl already existing or possible to exist that can join wth that principl to add to the perfection of the work God who reveald and taught this faith is an infinit intellect and an understanding infinitly actuated of such excessive perfection that it may easlier be admird and worshipt than exprest And therfor the faith that issued from him must have its whol perfection at the first impression and that infinit degrees more absolut than arts and sciences receive at the last that coms forth absolutly pure and perfect thes receiv their perfection such as it is in their progres The further Religion proceeds from its first institution or revelation the more t is sullied by the comerce of man whos practis by deviating from its dictats fouls it as it were by contagion of the vessell but if he shall once dare to enterpose the results of his own judgment wth those revealed articles to deny any or add to any mingling his own urin with that supernaturall current then does the water of life run troubled muddy and corrupted and ceases to be divine nor is ther any way to rectify it but by having recourse to its first pure sours and according to that samplar to clarify it again But human inventions arising at the first unpolisht and rough if their perfection be to be measurd are not called back to their first originall but examind rather by the nearnes to the last and final experiment This is the first difference as concerning our purpos in hand betwixt divine faith and human sciences Religion and arts gods worship and mans works The other is that ther is not upon earth any other principl which may add any thing to Religions perfection renew or alter it in any kind Arts sciences garbs languages and fashions of men thes do expect their perfection from mans industry whence they had their first being and humane industry and wit presumes rightfully to make severall additions alterations and changes in them according to the variety that is in mens fansies These alterations be either perfections or at least so esteemd
by men who introduce and receiv them which is all one in human society for amongst men that is the best wch is in use and fashion as may be seen in languages garbs and fashions of attire wch chang continually stil for the best at least in vulgar opinion till the fashions do insensibly wear out one another and that return again by degrees wch afortime was rejected rendring that fashion contemptible by wch it self had been in former times made vile Thus mans thoughts and al the works of his hands run incessantly in a circular motion wearing out one another wth a strang restlesness conveyed into things from the instability of fansy their first contriver wch can never stay or remain in the fame state but likes and dislikes creats and destroyes does and undoes continually and seems to be pleasd wth nothing but variety And so all human workmāships of whatsoever kind they be do meet with severall fansies of men unto all wch they are equally subject and apt at pleasur by them to be contrould alterd varied and subdud according tot he diversity of imaginations they meet withall All this is apparently tru and lively set out by Salomon in his Eccelesiastes where he affirms that ther is nothing new under the Sun and that ther is a season for every thing and a time for very purpos under heaven a tim to break down and a tim to build a tim to rent and a time to soe As if he should have said man now fansyes one thing and then is pleasd wth the contrary now hee l plant an orchard then hee l turn it into a meadow now he will build a hous in one fashion and then alter it into another and the like so that all his works chang and run in a circl till his former rejected fansy perhaps return again and seem to be som new busines but indeed it is not for all that is now brought up has been afortime rejected as that wch is now refused hath been liked of and will be so again so that under the Sun is nihil novi no new thing either in lawes states governments buildings books fashions languages or other thing invented or contrivd by man The very dyet and company wch seven years ago displeasd us hath now lost its tast Finally al that one mā does either himself or som other like himself will undo it again and mould it in another fashion the works of man being totally subject to his humour and not issuing at first from any self-sufficient self-singular self-eternall uncontroulable intellect are apt indifferently to follow the guidance of any thing that pertaks of that reason wch gave them their first being But religion is not thus subject to the understanding or fancy of any one man or all men together For mans understanding and gods do not agree together in the same reason as two individualls in one species and consequently wt is dictated by the one that is infinitely perfect self-singular and incomunicable cannot be contrould by the other wch is infinitely imperfect common and accidentally singularisd A thing is naturally subject to his own caus or some thing at least unto wch that principl it self is subject and nothing els the works and will of man to man the works and will of God to god the thoughts and actions of man both to man and God also to whom man himself is subject but the word and will of God are so his that they can not be in mans power who is a poor vassail both to God and his will and word too What man hath once willed not onely God but man also may frustrat it by willing the contrary but he cannot alter the will of God nor destroy any of his works Towns he can overthrow and Orcards and Gardens wch himself hath planted but where is the man can pull a star out of heaven annihilat one of the elements or add another to those wch God hath made In all reason I think it is apparent to every one that the will and Word of the Allmighty cannot be subjected to such a poore pittifull thing as man is he must be led by it and not draw it to his pleasure by adding or diminishing by chopping and changing as he lists Wherfore our B. Saviour when som upon the doctrin they had heard him deliver doubted and askt him wth a quomodo how can man forgive sins and again others how can he give us his flesh to eat It is very observable that our Lord never went about to satisfy their curiosity or declar to them how or in what manner it might be don it being indeed below the Majesty of God to give his vassail a reason of his will but he singly repeated again his owne assertion wthout showing the provability or possibility thereof therby giving us to understand that the institutions and will of God ar not to be subjected to the understanding or man to be admitted or rejected according to that probability they shall carry in it but humbly to be accepted wth all submission and lowlines as the will of that in finit suprem power unto wch mans understanding and the whol creation is subjected And therefore good S. Paul willed that every intellect should be captivated to the obedience of Christ 2. Cor. 10.5 that is to say subject to the dictamens of his faith and Religion as a captive slave to the will of his maister And consequently as a slave cannot controul his maister so neither hath mans reason any right or power at all to chang or alter add or diminish from Gods revealed will holy scripture denounceing therfor anathema to such as should dare to do it against their duty and allegiance All this being assuredly true ther can be no place in religion for new ways of fresher wits for innovations reformations clearings clensings additions subtractions and other such like mouldings and workings upon it as there is in arts and sciences and other such like effects of mans own contrivance In these mans understanding is the workman trades fashions laws languages and the like human inventions ar the matter on wch the fansy understanding works and the matter is naturally subject to the workman the clay to the potter the building to the architect as reason and scripture teaches Rom. 9.21 But in religion mans understanding is the clay and the will and word of God is the workman or potter to fashion and frame it to his pleasur Mans inventions as clay are subject unto mans understanding as the potter and again mans understanding as clay is subject to faith as the artificer and the same reason that makes human inventions receive alteration from man makes mans will to receive impressions from religion So likwise on the other side Religion is no more in the power of man then is the artificer in the hand of his clay but hath absolut and full dominion over him and every created intellect is fully in the
of purgatory as well as hell or heaven both contrition and pennance both God and his blessed retinu of Saints and Angels both preaching and Sacrificing shrins altars unctions seaven Sacraments vows Pilgrimages and all whatsoever things the Catholik now beleeves or professes even to the least drop of holy water And if that faith that hath the vertu and power to trample down idolatry to chase away paganisme and triumph over all the power of darknesse be not divine if this good tidings of truth benot the vertue of God and power of God wch is it From this power of converting nations the Prophets of old magnified the word and Gospell of the Messias and S. Paul upon that account cals it the vertu and power of God and yet this efficacy is onely proper and peculiar to the Catholik Religion and non els I shall onely at this time give some generall conjectures in a familiar discours wherby we may be moved to beleeve wt is indeed most cerainly true that popery is no addition of mans at least suspect that the report our reformers give of it sounds like a slander leaving solider and more particular demonstrations for som other time LA. It will not displeas us to hear you speak so that after all is done you will follow our counsell KN. I shall not be obstinat But give me leave dear Lady fully to vent my thoughts For I conceive that a man is not capabl of better counsell till he hath utterly discovered all whatever things detaind him afortime in his sormer purpos wthout any reservation at all For even small reliques of former courses lurking in the mind undiscoverd will still be egging him on to thos waies again after he hath embraced better counsell repine against the advice he hath taken as ruinous and prejudiciall although it were in it self very behoofesull and good So that the mind runs a hasard of lasting disquiet wch enters upon a new cours before the old be totally dislikt VIC I out wth is Sr Harry our wth it fully for so it is written Counsell in the heart of a man is like deep water but a man of understanding will draw it out Prov. 20. MIN. Well Sr let not my argument be forgot wher by I prooud that popery was a human art and therfore in mans power to reform nay t is comendable to cashere falsities KN. You said indeed so but prooud it not not was it ever prooud yet by any tho it be in all mens mouths nor ever will be so long as the world lasts The misery is Sr that men of your opinion that is to say not catholik are all very little verst in our catholik authors especially such as be scholasticall subtile and voluminous love and care I mean wife and children haply not permitting such brain-consuming studies so that when we come to discours wch you t is as equally hard to perswad you as the vulgar of the parish being all of you equally ignorant of the Churches waies and doctrin And yet popery a thing indeed unknown to you must be jeerd at spoke against preacht against and haply writ against too by som pert Gentlman that has never so much as heard a whol cours of philosophy in his life for a whol cours either of philosophy or divinity is a thing now a daies altogether unknown in both our universities and that wth so many impertinencies lies and slanders such vanity fraud and cosenage such insulting babl wresting of Scriptur texts and falsifying of authors that my heart has even startld within me to behold this shamles dealing You say that all your reformations are but the taking away from the purity of Gospell the vain superstructurs of human superstitions commonly cald popery This you say becaus other reformers said so before you taking it one from another since Luthers time and your child will say it from you and so will every bastard in the parish Nor does it avail us any thing by all manner of proofs to assert the divinity and truth of our doctrin Altho you will not read or cannot haply understand those sublim orthodox divins that would fully inform your judgement in this point and convince you of an errour no less notorious than dangerous Yet me thinks there be many things obvious and familiar might render you wary and suspitious of danger in this your asserion wch concerns no les than your eternal salvation As first that you never examend it you know you did not I appeal to your own conscience The Church hath ever beene in possession of this her doctrin and cannot possibly be dispossest but by some evident demonstration wch I am sure the power of man and angel can never effect if you insist on any other autority as sacred scripturs or councells they are as sure hers as any of your proper goods is your own Nor is ther I am confident any one text I say not any one single text of Scriptur if it be taken together wth the whole body scope and intention of the book whence t is drawn that shall urg or proov any thing for any Reformation against the Church this I am able to maintain against the wholl world And yet you ar so far from considering or examining any of thes things that you conclude upon bare hearsay or report wthout either autority or demonstrative reason against the doctrin of the Church wherof she hath been time out of mind in possession and all this slighnes is used in a matter of the highest concernment in the world as if the talk wer onely de lana Caprina Me thinks it should fright you to think that if your assertion should be fals as for aught you know it is then ar you certainly guilty of the accursed sacriledg of diminishing from the word and will of God Again you know and do acknowledg that you have substracted not only some part but the most and greatest parts of that religion was found planted in the land in Harry the eights daies Pray tell me that whol mass or body of practicall doctrin that is now cut off in this year 1655 was it known in King Charls James or Queen Elisabeths days to have been all of it popish additions To this I am sure peopl of severall reformations will give severall answers Independency the last and purest reformation will affirm it but Protestancie the first and oldest apostasy will deny it nor will the Protestant indure that his children should judg him as he condemnd his mother Church or reform his fallibility as he rebeld against the infallibility of his parent And yet the Independent proceeds consequently to those very principles wch the protestant laid for his own revolt namely the fallibility of men the solesufficiency of scripturs and the Spirit of God therin assisting his elect to the discovery of truth Nor can the Independent be blamed for any thing but for striking thes principls further hom than the amphibian protestant did This
I am fully assured of that the Protestant is not abl to bring any one argument for himself against the Independent but what he borrows from the Catholik church and which being admitted and prest home will destroy all his own protestancy that is to say all thoss negative wherby he differs from the Catholik and wch he hath striven thes hundred years to defend and therfore it behovs him to take heed wt he does for the Independent is quick and resolut and as well verst in his principles as himself and able I am sure wth the Protestants own grounds to convince him neither to be fish nor flesh nor yet good red herring as the proverb speaks neither sound Catholick nor pure reformd The Catholik doctrin is all fixt and permanent and therfor every reformation can find what to deny of it but they can never all agree together wt and how much therof to affirm the latter still denying more of the Catholick faith than the former had don alltho it proceed upon the same principles wth it The Church will easily make good all her affirmativs against you all so soon as you shall agree al together how much you will deny But so long as you jar one amongst another and speak contraries it is not possible to stop all your mouths at once In a word all the changes made by the Independent are either legall just and religious or els protestancy it self is an unjust illegall and impious apostasy for if all men be obnoxious to errour and the Scriptur sole judg and guid of faith by wt right can the Protestant oblige men to her tenets further than they approov of them by the test of Scriptur wch they hav in in their own hands if thos principles be fals wth wt justice did the Protestant himself revolt from the Catholik upon those sole grounds Nay the Independent is far more honest and excusabl than the protestant for he prefers his judgment onely before a Church that profest her self to be fallible but the protestant rebeld against an infallible guid and one that profest her self such And altho the Catholik Church wer not infallible yet professing her self infallible she has that caus of blaming the revolting protestant wch the protestant can never hav against the Independent for an infallible Church may well expect an universall subjection whereas the protestant professing herself fallible cannot in modesty either oblige peopl to her cannons or dislik their freedom of judgment however dissenting from her own And so she must needs have the Presbyterian excusd and the Presbyterian he cannot do otherwise than comend the Independent as the nimbler work man For sith both of them went about to mend the Protestant reformation and correct the dictats of that fallible mistres the Independent did his work more speedily and fully than the other and so indeed may be maliced by him as the better workman but never blamed Finally if this last reformation of Independency be indeed an abolishing of all reliques of popery hanging upon the Protestant and not clearly casheerd by the Presbyterian then does the Catholik and Independent stand like extrems having the intermediat reformations of Protestancy and Presbytery and the like between then two as white and black be the two extrems of colours between which are red blew green and the like borrowing their existency from the natur of both in a severall mixtur And all other reformations interjacent are diversified in themselvs according as they do mor or les partake of the Catholik positivs and Independents negativs These two claim an absolute liberty of conscience in their own territories the Catholick a freedom of the Churches judgment the Independent of his own particular And either all is true that the Catholik affirms or all the independent denys MIN. I mean not to interpose my self in the busines of reformations let them be as they will but do maintain onely in the generall that reformation of popery is good lawfull not executed without the speciall commission instinct Spirit of Christ VIC So it is written Without me ye can do nothing Jo. 15. KN. And I likewis do onely in generall wish you to consider yet two or three things wherby you may suspect this busines not to be of God and consequently the whol work of reformation unlawfull Thes speciall commissions do ever bring with them some peculiar seals and letters patents such as heaven uses to send to mankind as be signs wondrous operations and miracles wthout wch man cannot in reason desert his station Reformers had none of thes to show But I will not insist hereon altho it be a worthy and waighty consideration becaus t is copiously don by others I say then First it would seem strang to a reasonabl man and a thing of much suspition that all reformations are but negativ abolitions of the ancient Catholik religion without any positiv institution at all T is an odd kind of dressing a garden still to be grubbing up trees and never plant any in the place nor is it likly God should send workmen into his vineyard onely to destroy and pull up Again reformers do all of them equally pretend to be sent from God wth an extraordinary commission to enlighten the world And yet they all hitherto did their work to the halfs keeping still as much popery as they cast away Gods extraordinary messengers use not to do their work imperfectly or remain themselvs in that errour they were sent on purpos to correct Martin Luther that extraordinary light of the world did if we may beleeve the succeeding reformations both liv and dy in as much popery as himself abolished If popery be so damnable as both Luther and other reformers cry out and say it is I should think that half a score swinging articles of popery are enough to sink a man and so much Luther must keep stil if we beleev the following reformation and this detaind no les if we may credit the third The purity of these times found so much popishnes still hanging on Protestants skirts that they thought it worth the hazard of their lives to brush it off And som think that even these purest are not themselves absolutly free from it and surely never wil be so long as the Bible wch is the Popes book and sent immediatly from him into this island is yet in their hands Ar all these reformers sent from God why then did non of them doe their work to the full till at the end of a full age the Independent stept in to accomplish it if yet he hath himself don the deed to the utmost Why should I think ill onely of the Catholik whom Luther raild against and not as well hate Luther whom Calvin condemnd or judg Calvin whom the Protestant church of England censurd in many things and forsook or detest also the Protestant Church wch the purity of thes times have destroied Sith we be all so much severd from
falsity of judgment or if we consider on the other side the obscurity of Scriptur not in it self but in order to our weak obscure sens-perverted intellect Upon wch two generall Heads it coms to pas that men so frequently deprave the Scriptures to their own perdition as Scriptur it self complaineth 2 Pet. 3. But over and above all this to put men to put men to seek for a thing wth a fore-imprinted prejudice of that they go to find to seek for faith with a prejudice against faith is a tirannous cheat and abuse hardly to be paraleld If to people met together to try or search for silver and gold one should give such like instructions Take al that comes to hand t is all good howsoever composed or mixt two kinds onely excepted such parts of earth as hav much of friability and inconsistency in them lay hold of them if there be any body cōposed of impure earth liquefied take that if the earth be not wel vanquisht the parts much dissimilar t is good But if the matter be more hardned by the egress of tenuity uniformly compacted white and lucid take heed of that cast that away If the parts be yet more pure and equall hardend and made yellow by the celestiall spirit an intrinsecall inmate in the body wch is therby made most flexible by vertue of the similar softnes of the parts and yet most ponderous of all mettals by the uniform closnes therof and the little porosity by wch the air may enter to confer a levity This is stark naught It will not rust by the similar purity of the parts nor loose its weight by melting through the equality therof none being thinner than other to exhale by heat as it is in bodies unequally composed And therefore cast it away as a thing uselesse and of no valiew or profit at all With these instructions shall they ever find matter for gold and silver coin I trow not Nor shall they ever be able to repair the loss of their currant coin which was conformable to the hidden treasure of that mine by searching in a place where it lay hid wth so much ignorance as is naturally in unexperienced men so much disagreement of judgment as is in a multitude not subordinate unto any one such prejudicate opinions given them quite opposite to the design they have in hand With such like prejudice do all our English people take the Bible in their hands and read it being adviced aforehand by their reformers and fully beleeving that the Catholik mass is abomination the reall presence a chimera the merit of good works a dream fasting and all mortification of sensuall desires a fardell of superstition all endeavour of fulfilling Gods precepts a vanity and the imagination of any possibility thereof a delusion the indifferency of mans free will unto good or evill an errour the making of vows to god folly restitution or satisfaction of injuries done to our neighbour a prejudiciall mistake all expiation of our sins either for our selvs or others an inexpiable crime the honour of blessed saints idolatry and the imitation of their severe and holy lives childishnes sacrifice altars and the whole priesthood of Christ prophanenes the conscionable practise of sobriety justice and piety as necessary unto life eternall detestable popery For Gods sake wt good can accrew to the soul of man by reading of Scripture wth these prejudices these diabolicall anticipations these antichristian preconceptions these obstructions to all grace and salvation And yet thus forewarnd and prepossest do all our reformed Christians read the scriptures no sound or solid fruit ariseing thence to their soules but rather hardnes of heart pride schismes fearlesnesse of Gods judgments and where good nature the best religion I know in England hinders not desperatenes in all sin and injustice Nor can any forreiner brought hither out of Catholik countreyes ever discern either by our Churches houses or practise of peopl that we have amongst us any knowledg at all of Gospell unles haply he hear the good-man leading his wife to bed over night wth a text and the hous-wife next morning cudgelling her mayd wth another the countrey boys whipping their tops wth a saying of Paul and the girls wth another of Peter playing at last couple in hell the drawer bringing his canary wth a verse of Iohn and the tapster filling in his beere wth a text of Mathew This he may see and this is all he shall find for his edification And this indeed is all the fruit of our common and familiar reading of scripture when it is don wth a prejudice against solid religion sincere worship Catholik piety aery shadowes empty sounds prophanenes and blasphemy And therfore it was a heavenly caution and worthy of all consideration that wch we received by a voyce from heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 10. the things wch God hath sanctified do not thou make common When therefore Mr Dr you advice me to apply my self wholly to scripture You either mean I should do this having a forehand renounced and precipitously cast away all the positiue articles of beleef I hav received from my forefathers explicitely declared and formed for me by the primitive Pastours and Teachers of my religion and then go seek for the results of faith in the Bible where they be implicitely hidden conceald and coucht incidentally wthout any method or intended order of any such conclusions under severall parables histories allegories letters canticles psalms prophesies and the like And then I should run my self into that inconvenience I have upon good reason disallowed As to cast away all my gold and silver-coin that being stampt in primitive times by the first maister of faith has gone currant in all ages and go seek into the mine for new wth so much hazard trouble and danger as I cannot but see to be in such a work whether I consider the weaknes of mine own understanding and my perverse inclinations wch I my self must needs be apt to favour in mine own cause or the doubtfulnes labyrinthes and obscurity of that hidden mine or finally the ill successe that all people hav had in such a search as their personable wretchlessenesse and dissolutenesse their disorder and disagreement one amongst another may sufficiently witnesse Or else you mean I should apply my self to scripture wth all my Catholike positions in my head wch I conceive to be the very marrow and pith of that scripture you advice me to peruse And then I shall by reading of scripture advance nothing at all either from my owne way or towards yours whatever it be For finding my owne positions to appeare in scripture at every turn I shall still embrace and close wth them as wth matter that is genuin and connaturall to my self and by their light be enabled to understand and interpret all the rest of scriptur I shall meet wthall Wch way soever you put me to it the rock of the bible will
either keep me still from you or split me wth you LA. Wt shall we do wth you Sr Harry sith you decline scripture wch as it is the purest so t is the easiest way for your conversion VIC Shall I tell you he wil even go out of his way as Balam and his ass did I le show you the story as t is written in 22 chapter of numbers t is a very pretty one Ther you wil see how the ass confuted his rider and said unto him Am not I thine ass so prettily Read here from the 22 vers to the 36. If you go not in the right way Sr Harry as we would have you be sure you shall be checkt by a very ass When any such thing happens you may take it for a certaine sign that you ar out of your way KN. Scriptur is a good instrument to drawn men from paganisme to Christianity but no fit means to divert us from Catholik Religion to heresy That heavenly seed wch makes sons of God can never make children of perdition except it self be mischievously corrupted And therfore I decline it not at all but admit allow and embrace it as containeing that irrefragable doctrine wch eminent persons in the church of God penned wch industrious and religious persons in the same Catholik church coppied transcribed wth their owne hands above a thousand years together before printing was invented to keep that sacred letter alive and lastly wch by the Catholik body of the said Church hath beene authenticated and canonised and therfore it must needs be pure and holy being madâ— conserud and ratified by holy Church But its facility and easinesse that I do not so easily conceive or agree unto especially if you separate it from the Church whose book it is The mind and meaning of any writing no man can understand so well as the Authour no man can interpret aright contrary to the Authour no man where it is obscure and uncouth may peremptorily interpret wthout the Authour MIN. You will soon grant it to be easy if you consider that t is called a light to the understanding Wt thing is there more apparent than light And therfore t is said in the Ephesians if our Gospell be hid t is hid to them that are lost VIC Sweet heart you are mistaken that sayeing is not in the Ephesians but Corinthians 2. Ep. and the 4. c. LA. T is no matter Mr person so we find out your riddle tho it be by plowing wth your heyfer according to the saying of Samson Iud. 14. VIC I told you even now Madam that the ass will rebuk his rider when he goes astray KN. A light if it be set behind us or under a bushell or to an eye ill affected inlightens not and a prejudiced mind is a veyld understanding where light cannot enter I must say more he that goes out of the Church puts out his own eyes and he that never enterd in never had any but gropes in darknes Light is come into the world saith our Lord but men love darknes more than light Jo. 1. namely because they shut their eyes against it and no marvell that unto such the Gospell should be hid Catholikes all of them have indeed the whole Gospell by heart and comprehendit sufficiently for the life and spirit of it yet still the bark and letter of it hath obscurity enough wch is opend and manifested as far as is needfull upon occasion by the lips of priests wch preserve knowledg No man understands the mind of man but the spirit that is in man nor the meaning of scriptures can any comprehend but the spirit of that Catholik body whose the scriptures be For these be imediatly the word and doctrin of the Church and therfore called the Word of God because that Catholik body from whence it issued is animated by the spirit of Jesus Christ her naturall head who is God blessed for ever and the particular penmen therof being members of the sayd church were peculiarly illustrated by that spirit unto such an effect So then the word of God is a light and enlightens good Catholiks it enlightens not others that remain blinded in infidelity and separated from that holy mysticall body of Christ and yet t is a light still t is hid to them that are lost People that live in a family colledg or corporation by the daily sight and practis of things to be don therin do fully comprehend all that is to be said or acted there But others who be out of those societys shall never by bare reading of books written of such emploiments so long as themselves stay out attain to any satisfactory light therof but remain pusled in a wood of dark words and either mistake or not apprehend the reality and truth of things So our people wthin the Church see distinctly and clearly the truths of God in whose practis they are daily conversant so that words and writtings are not necessary unto such as be in a continuall exercise of their trade but sectaries paymins al infidels who be aliens and strangers to this Society out of the family altho they should look upon their book of statutes scripturs or laws yet will they still be pusling about words and never clearly understand the secrets of the profession One artist or tradesman knows more by heart and practise than the whole world besides that is out of that body or not conversant in the society can ever attain unto by reading A man may demonstrat by Philosophicall reason that light it self enlightens not but by reflexion no more do the word and scripturs except they reflect upon us from the bosom of the Catholik body wch actuats them in their operation If you would seriously ponder these few words you should quickly perceive unto whom the scriptures be obscure and unto whome they be easy and how they be easy to Catholiks for the practise life and meaning of them tho the letter may still keep its obscurity as children of a family may clearly understand all the whol affaires and businesses of the house tho if books should be written therof they might not so easily understand the letter of those books Yet these have great advantage in the understanding of such books abov those who are not coversant in the affairs being aliens and strangers to the family For t is easier by the knowledg perfect comprehension of things to understand words that be written of them than by reading of words to perceiv things we are altogether unexperienced in But to speak abstractively of the letter of Scriptur wthout reference unto persons as if the case were that neither you nor I ever knew any thing of the Christian religion but what we get out of the Bible or new Testament put now into our hands Could either of us or all of us together see clearly in this letter the whole state of the Catholick Church or without obscurity discern wt is to be
for it and all kind of obscurity contrary to such an end But to conclude If Scriptur be indeed so clear and easy for each capacity to read out of them to cull his faith and by them to frame his religion as sectaries pretend and this be indeed the judgment of all reformers wherfore do they themselves so multiply their catechists interpretours and expositours theron to wt end is all their preaching and weekly teaching this if it be indeed to any end must needs be either to expound faith or promote good works if the faith be clear enough the expounding is in vain as for good works they be long ago exploded bannisht out of the land and the empty preaching for aught I know may go foot it after them for words are in vain that tend to no end In fine whence comes all these diversities of opinions amōgst us here in England about matters of faith and religion and so opposit one to another and yet all grounded upon Scriptur Is that way so uniform and easy that leads men so diversly Nor am I satisfied at all in hearing som answer as they do that this coms not of Scriptur but the disorder and mistakes of men so lōg as I see it may wthout the Churches help be so shreudly mistaken I have reason to suspect mistakes in my self too if I once lean upon mine own spirit and industry as others do being my self no better than my neighbours And therfore I am loth nay I shall never be perswaded to leav the secure footing I now hav in all tranquillity peace uniformity wth the Catholik body of Gods Church by the result of truth delivered us by antiquity consonant to Gods word both written and unwritten and run my self with the confusd rout of disagreeing sectaries upon the rock of the Bible so apt as it appears by the event to be mis-understood and and wrested awry that I am clear of the opinion that no man out of the Church of God nor nobody of meē besides the Church of God understands it right Nor shall I be so mad now in my old age to go to dig my self religion having so fair a one already stamped to my hands wch all the art of men and angels put together can never mend Put him in Bedlam that undertakes both labour and hazard for naught LA. Do you think Sr Harry ever to perswade me that reading the Gospell I do not sufficiently understand the story of Christ his birth and life death and passion resurrection and ascension I fear not to affirm that I understand it perfectly and by your favour as fully as is necessary I do also conceiv well enough nor is it hard so to do wt his doctrin and miracles conduced to mankind I am moved also wth the divine discours of Christ and his Apostles Every Sabboth-day I go to Church and hear the word of God preacht I cannot see wt is more to be done he that reads and hears and beleevs the word of life cannot miscarry VIC And I for my part understand all that ever I either read or hear Alas when I was a young girle I was even then so towardly that I could read the Scripture as I ran up and down the house according as it is written write the vision and make it plane upon Tables that he may run that readeth Hab. 2. My husband and I every Sabboth day go hand in hand to Church together like the beasts that went into the ark by two and by two the Male and his Female Gen. 7.2 Surely this is sufficient for the salvation of all flesh KN. Madam you have now toucht upon the main busines wherein all sectaries be most pittifully deluded If they do but go to Church and hear a Sermon each one according to his fansy their duty is done and all his safe I will not stand now to examine whether the preaching be orthodox or no. Be it what it will It will not serv the turn I have already to my ability declared that the reading of Scriptur is no sufficient means of finding out our faith tho so much as it is it doth all of it confirm and verify the Churches doctrin I shall now go forward and evince two truths more First that reading or preaching of Gods word or the hearing therof tho it be indeed Gods word and pure and orthodox is not the essentiall or cardinal work of Christian religion Secondly that a man may hear and read it all his life time and yet be lost at the end both for want of grace and truth Our Lord wrote nothing himself as all men know yet notwthstanding he would never have failed either to have done it himself or commanded others to have done it if reading or hearing had been the great work of his religion to be imposed upon mankind For reading you know and expounding of Scriptur presupposes writing and his great work had been no other than to see things written if our great work had been no other than to read or hear them The four Evangelists afterwards put together some few heads of our B. saviours life and doctrin haply to carry about wth them in their bosom and entertain their converts wthall But we do not read that our Lord gave them any command to do so And this is an argument in your principles that he gave them none at all And as he gave them no order to write so neither did the promise them any assistance in their writing for all the concurrence we find promised either them or their successours was onely for the pectorall custody of their traditions orall doctrine and Church government And therfor since you deny the constancy of Christs assistance in the continuall government of his Church internall beleef and externall doctrin unto wch that assistance was promist affirming that the Church of Christ as it is not in it self infallible so hath it gone astray both in practis and doctrin me thinks you might wth as much ease and indeed more plausibility deny the same concurrence to any of the Churches writings whereunto it was never promist at all nor the Scriptur or writing it self so much as commanded by him wthout whose order nothing of force or autority could be done Nor it is to be thought but that Peter James Andrew and others of the Apostles had been both as able and as willing to write Evangells as the other four wherof two of them were but disciples of a far inferiour rank to the Apostles and indeed but companions and attendants upon them as may be seen in the Acts. Nay if writing had been such a capitall work S. Peter would never have neglected to have writ a Gospell himself especially when S. Mark his pupil and companion wrote one But this is an argument they had some greater work in hand and more nearly enjoind than that was Nor can we find by any monument that any of the other ten Apostles who were sent severall waies
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in fractione panis in his breaking of bread Luk. 24.35 For that religious work they knew was done by none but Christ himself or his Priests This discours upon the words of Scriptur I hav somwt inlarged beyond my custom not to teach Catholiks for altho the Greek should be rendred by them in templo they know well enough that every place where that most sacred rite is done is a temple and so t is indifferent to them to translate it either in templo or in sacro but to let others who be not Catholik understand that more is implied in such expressions than they do ordinarily think of and that the religion of the primitiv Christians was not preaching wherof here is no mention at all but prayers supplications sacrifice or fraction of bread Wch religious emploiment is in another place of the sam chapter yet more fully exprest They were saith he firmly persisting in the doctrin of the Apostles and in comunion and in fraction of bread and supplications v. 42. They firmly persisted both in the Apostles doctrin unanimously united in faith wthout schisme division or any singularity of opinions wch might separat them from the main body into particular conventicles and also in comunion one wth another both by fraternal charity Ecclesiasticall obedience and Christian Sacraments in Fraction of bread wch was the great Cardinall capitall work of their faith and the very quintessence of Christianity and in supplications in the plurall number both for living and dead both for pastour and people for every degree for every necessity This was a right Catholik body and the right exercise of their Catholik faith And such and no other is the faith religion of all Catholiks to this day those I meane who are traduced by frivolous people under the notion name of Papists wch is a barbarous word and neither Latin Greek or Hebrew nor yet good English and if it signify any thing it is as much as to say Fatherists because they persist unanimously and firmely in the doctrine of Apostolical pastours and fathers in comunion with them in fraction of bread and supplications day by day persevering in sacro and breaking the bread at their houses wch they take together in exultation and singlnes of heart praysing God and having grace towards al good people Pray God bless thē all To make themselvs worthy of this Holy comunion our Catholiks do frequently examin and clens their consciences as P. Paul advises to do wch clensing and examining of conscience none but Catholiks know wt it means This sacred Action and venerable service of God was by the first Christians named Missah a notion they had out of the old Testament where the Sacrifice of the Messias peculiar onely to his people and religion by way of constitution distinction from all others is so named and the Latin and western part of the church did ever keep the name as well agreeing to the Latin tongue But the Eastern and Greek churches called it ordinarily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Liturgy wch was their own language and o word wherby that sacred action was exprest in the new Testament In the Acts of the Apostles t is frequently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breaking of bread The primitiv Christians gave it severall names the Eucharist the Synaxy the Dominicum and the like changing the word as souldiers do the watchword that uncircumcised paynims should not know wt they meant as our Catholiks now in England use some by-expressions therof for concealment And the antient doctours of the church wrote very cautiously of it especially in such books as they thought might haply fall into the hands of pagans as may be seen in severall places of Origen S. Austin and others I observed the last time I read over S. Austin de civitate Dei a very notable passage to this purpose tho I have not now the book to turn to it where speaking accidentally of the venerable bread of Christians he presently recalls himself saying they know wt I mean whose bread this is and in whose cause I write And a certain Roman prelat in antient times denied to send by writing an answer of som doubts propounded by ultra-marin Christians concerning some circunstances of the mass least the pagans intercepting his letters should therby discover the mystery of Christian Religion but he promist to send a messenger to the petitioners who should inform them by word of mouth So carfull they were not to cast this pearl before swine Yet as soon as Paganism was subdued their writings came abroad copiously and gave ample testimonies therof S. Ambrose was in the third age of the church and yet he began to be bold and writ not onely of the substance of the thing but betrayed the very name wherby it was generally known and called namely missa or mass But they all frequently spake of the Altar and Priests the Sacrifice and service of the most high God performd in Christian Religion and the like And the writers of the last twelv hundred years speak so amply and so plainly therof that the very citation of their evidences would fill a volume For this divine service were all our churches in England erected by Catholiks in the form of a cross the high Altar now called the Chancell being placed in the head of the church and the Tabernacle over it for the body of our Lord to repose on for Christian mens solace wth candles and lamps before it below it was the quire for the clargy to sing prayses night and day before their redeemer on both sides of the church lesser Altars for other priests to celebrate in at their devotion and the nave or body of the church kept clenly and vacant for the people to kneel in continue wth one accord in their supplication and prayer according as it is written My hous is the hous of prayer If churches had been onely buylt for preaching and hearing Sermons they would not have been made in the form of a cross as they be but of a theater or amphitheater rather wth scaffolds about for that purpose and such stalls or pews below as now all our churches are pesterd wth in Catholik times utterly unknown And if a man look into the places of devotion the Christians resorted unto in times of paganism before they had any churches erected wch were for the most part in dens and caves bottoms of mountains wherof many are still to be found in all Kingdoms of Europ he shall easily discern what their busines was there I once saw one of them in a hill neare Paris cald mount Dammartin wch descended as I remember three score steps into the hill at the bottom there is a place of the bignes of a chamber and an Altar stone at the head of it in part still remaining and a hole in the same rock over the Altar for the Priests chalice to stand in And generally wher ever such
put both the Byshopricks into one and gave him beath together Wine and wife are to mee as Bath and Wells Let me have beath as the Scotchman said VIC Go your wayes go Wer it not that you cast a glance of your eye now and then upon me when you ar in your pulpet you would be but a dry preacher T is even so Madam LA. Even so be it THIRD DIALOGUE VIC LO I com according as it is written Psa 40.9 Dear Madam good morrow to your Lap. It seemes I am the first to day somewhat earlier than ordinary but so it is written Thou shalt heare my voyce betimes in the morning Psa 5. O Sr Harry wellcom wellcom you could not stay long from us when both the spirit and the bride say Com Rev. 22. I le be the spirit for once especially when I am got up in a morning out of my bed And why not I pray you sith the very ruler of darknes when people are got up for conformities sake transforms himself into an angel of light 2. Cor. 11.14 KN. Health and happines attend my noble Lady this day and ever It pleases my eye Madam to behold the chear of your countenance this morning wch seems to promis to my purposes a good succes LA. I doubt not of good successe both to my wishes and your own if you will but relent a little of that hardnesse and obstinacy is in a manner naturall unto Papists I would not Sr Harry proceed so rigorously as to request you all at once to abjure the whole body of popery but to let fall at first the super fluous parts of it that do hāg looser on and be of least concernment and use and to stand so disposed as to think obstinacy unhandsom in any thing Papists say truely that they are built on a rock I think all their whole church is rock for one may as soon wth his teeth bite off a piece of marble as wrest from them any of their very least opinions so firm tenacious and obstinat ye be all of you Nay to save a whole Kingdom you will relent nothing at all What a masse of money did Harry the eigth spend for six yeares together in Embassadours and agents in Italy France Spain and Germany to procure the testimonys of Universityes and yet he was not able either for love or money although he were a magnanimous noble Prince to purchase so much as the hands or consent of any one University for the lawfulnesse of his affection to his sweet Lady Anne Bullen And the popes Cardinals although they received no small weight of good English gold from our Princely Harry insomuch that they could have wisht he had had his fill of her yet would they not be brought by any means to say he might lawfully do it Your Popes themselvs tho I confes they have been many of them very holy and learned personages yet som of them hav been known to be as bad as the worst and yet even thes have been as Zealous of the integrity of their faith as the greatest Saints and would sooner do ill than say it might be done Simony Pride Gluttony known and acknowledgd sins these some of them would act of their own accord but all the power of earth summond together should not force any of them to abrogat one article of their faith or traditions though it were but the sprinckling of holy water I read not long ago in an authentick story that the nobls and Prelats of England perceiving the resolution rage of K. Harry upon the forementiond affront certified the Pope by a privat Embassadour that if he did not some what relent and condescend to the Kings desires the whole frame of Catholik Religion in England wch already crackt would be utterly overthrown the nobility disgraced monasterys ruind Byshops deposed thousands imprisond and perhaps martyrd and the whole land undon To wch the pope replied frantick man as he was though the whole body of Christs church should be destroyed yea tho heaven and earth should mingle together in its old Chaos of confusion yet would he not declare that lawfull wch in conscience he thought was not so What a crabbed perversnesse was this He was certainly no Gentleman S ◠Harry that would not be perswaded tho heaven and earth should come together to chang his judgment KN. To be obstinat and heady in our own proper opinions is oftimes unseasonabl and unhandsom But the tradition wch the Church preservs is the very depositum of our B. Saviour whether it concern faith or manners practicall or speculativ beleef and no conceptions of privat or human judgments and therfor in al honesty to be preserved entire by the trustee of our Lord who committed it unto his church wth this caution that not one jota or apex therof should be altered And therfore that Pope who would not declare against his conscience although heaven and earth should com together did no more than what his Lord and Maister had said before him Heaven and earth shall pass away my word shall not pass not one jota orapex therof Luc. 21. And it was a doubl madnes in Harry the eigth doing himself evil to expect the church of God should say it was good Nor be there Madam in Faith any superfluous parts but the whole body of it hangs so cōcatenated and cemented together that the taking away of any one particl would ruin the whole fabrick nor will you find in faith any portion less strong than another but al equally invincible Som may be more leading points wherupon others depend and more materiall in their quality but in respect of our beleef the least hath as much firmnes of truth as the greatest And wtsoever sophistry may seem to shake any one apply the like engin to any other and in shall do as much that is to say in very truth nothing at al whatsoever it may appear to do in self beguiling minds Wherfore Madam bereaving me of any of my faith you rob me of all for it is an uncontroulable rule in faith what the Apostle also does as in a good sense it may be applied unto manners Qui delinquit in un◠factus est omnium reus Jam. 2.10 He that fails in one is made guilty of all This you would easily understand if you would consider how we receivd our faith and Christian doctrin For it was all equally handed to us at once and that from the autority of one and the same originall and it was extant in the world before any Scriptures were pend And these sacred Scripturs and other pious Books and also all generall councells that hav ever been celebrated in the Church were formed afterwards directed swayed rectified and ordered by this rule of Traditional doctrin committed to the Church and kept by her So that issuing conformably from one and the same sours all points of faith have an equall proportion of truth however they may differ in their own