their design than to act the Puritan that they might come to the execution of their desires which they have done at last by the Sacrilegious Paricide of their Archbishop and of their King This was Sir the grand work of mans malice and the Devils stratagem which caused the ils which are fallen upon your Crown and Person by the pitiful fate of that succession which ought to have befallen you But the Justice and Wisdome of God in this conjuncture hath other ends Every one knows that this Archbishop â—…ourished in the Schism from the Catholick Church had no other thought noâ—… inclination than to re-unite in one body the People divided into Sects among themselves as well as from the Church and to make himself Chief Head of this Schismatical Body And we see God hath permitted that his own People divided against it self hath caused his Head to be cut off The King otherwise accomplished in all royal and moral virtues did use in the Schism by the Law of his Predecessours the Authority which God had given him in temporal matters for governing of spiritual and called himself the Head It is for that reason that God chastizing in his person the fault of his Predecessours would let us know by the tragical spectacle of an unheard of Death in a King no less innocent than lawful that so strange an effect of his anger hath had no other cause than to instruct all other Princes that are in the Schism with what severity God will revenge his glory for their injuring the Unity and Authority of his Church But if such is the Effect of Divine Justice and Wisdome in the cause of your misfortune Sir his Mercy goes far before it and this is the effect that concerns you For God makes it here plainly appear unto your Majestie that the Reformation which the Authors of the Schism in this latter age have pretended to make hath been under the pretext of so good an outside no otheâ—… thing in effect than the entire ruine as well of the Faith and form of the Church as of the Order it self instituted by God for the governing of men This is the Lesson which God sets before your eyes in the historie of this sad Revolution which hath given you a wound the feeling whereof is to be your instruction You shall see Sir through all the circumstances of these tragical effects which have produced the trouble and changed the form of your Estates and which have ravished from you the Crown That the new Religion which your Predecessours embraced after the Schism is the onely efficient cause by the very maxims and foundations of the design which its Authors have called the Reformation of the Church Their new opinions did very easily sside themselves under this apparent colour through the clefts of the Schism into the spirit of the Bishops who made themselves culpable But neither they themselves that received this novelty nor the Kings that authorized them did think they should charge themselves with Uria's packet which would abolish both the authority of the Bisâ—…ops and the Sovereignty of Kings For men are alwaies blind in the works of Darkness which they do by the instinct of the Devil who goes disguizing himself into an Angel of Light that he may induce them for to commit them And their passions which do blind them do insensibly draw them into precipices of mis-haps whereof neither the extraordinary steepness nor depth is by them discerned Certainly whosoever should have demanded of Peter Martyr himself and Martin Bucer who carried Calvin's Reformation into England if they went to bring in the Brownists opinions who by maxims receiv'd from their hands did a little after think upon a more exact purity by the motions which they suppose the Holy Ghost suggests unto them from whence it is that they esteem themselves more Reformed Puritans Whosoever likewise should have enquired of them if they came to tell them they might be of what Religion they pleas'd and for the extinction of all Ecclesiastical Discipline of all rule and form of a common Faith according to the opinion of the Independents Whosoever should at last have ask'd them whether the Sword of the Word they carried in their mouths was to cut off their King's and Bishop's heads that they might give a Form altogether new as well to the Kingdom as to the Church what would they have answered They would have sworn without doubt with their hands upon the new Gospel they carried about them that their intentions were further distant from these thoughts than the Earth is from Hell And nevertheless this thing is no waies to be doubted of and altogether apparent at present that â—…alvin Martyr Bucer and the Bishops which admitted their Reformation and the Kings which authorized it have brought in by the maxims of their Foundations not onely Protestants but also Brownists and Independents The Bishops that receiv'd this Reformation saw not that of it would be bred the Sect of the Presbyterians Enemies to the Hierarchy of the Church and all the Order of its institutions as well for the Service as for the Government and would ruine their Authority that they might abolish Royalty it self But neither did Calvin Martyr nor Bucer know that from the maxims of their Reformation would spring up the Brownists and Indepâ—…ndents who would ruine their Reformation by introducing an indifference concerning all opinion in Religion This is that Sir which the historie of things hapned in the progress of this Reformation the knowledge whereof your Majestie at this present carries engraven in your heart by too bitter feelings represents unto your eyes to the end all the world may see the nature and Genius by the effects of its maxims I will represent them Sir to the eyes of your Majestie and by a demonstration so lively and evident that no reason can contradict it You shall see that the pain you suffer and under which your Estate groans is the true effect as the very punishment of the sins your Fathers committed and transâ—…itted unto you then when under the pretext of this blind Reformation they abandoned the Faith of the Church and her Communion For it is after thiâ—… mâ—…nner the just vengeance of God punishetâ—… sin by it self and that its own proper work becomes the punishment it deserves This Religion for which the Bishops the Kings and the People have forsook the Church hath destroyed the Bishops and the Kings and reduced the People to live without Bishops without Kings without a Form of Government and without Discipline in Religion under the Tyrannie of a Monster who without being either King or Bishop attributes to himself all Authority both in State and in Religion This which I declare unto your Majestie Sir is to make you understand that this terrible work of the hand of God which afflicts you after this manner is nevertheless a judgement of his mercy for you For you may see he sends you not this trouble
how they combat the one party against the other and the victory of the last The Puritans of the Genevian Discipline have determined of Articles of Faith and have form'd their Confession to which they oblige all those that receive their Communion But this Law which prescribes by Authority a common belief among all the Communicants cannot agree with the judgement â—…at every Believer can and ought to make of the sense of the Scriptures by the assistance of the Holy Ghost according to the second common Maxim of their Reformation For if one supposes it true no other Authority can bear rule over the Conscience nor prescribe it any thing beyond the sense that the Spirit suggests to it in the interpreting of the Scripture Upon which the Brownists also set upon the Presbyterians by all the same Authorities upon which they have founded theirs to separate themselves from the Church and abandon its determinations They maintain That to oblige the Faith of faithful men to a formular confession which can have no other than an humane authority is to bring them forthwith under the Papal Tyrannie from which the Holy Ghost hath freed them Against this the Calvinists have no reply which doth not wound themselves with their own hands and which is not their condemnation pronounced by themselves For they can answer nothing pertinently if they do not borrow the reasons the Church hath against them So God perpetual Protector of his Church causes her Enemies to pronounce her Victory with their own mouths whilst that they issued from the teeth and the mouth of the Serpent to make war with her do wage it among themselves and kill one another From these Brownists as your Majestie Sir knows much better are come the Independents which are not risen but since the advantage the Puritan-Presbyterians had upon the Protestants by the Authority of the Parliamentiers It is those that have produced this false-prophet of blood and slaughter to end this last Act of Infernal Reformation that he himself preaches to his Musulmans with his Sword in his hand after he hath broke the Cross and changed the Episcopal Crosier into a Murtherer's Axe By this same spirit of the Brownists in which he hath been originally instructed by using Disputes he deduces Fundamental Maxims of the common Reformation among them he wars against the Presbyterians with much more advantage than he did against the Protestants From whence he promises himself to make them all submit to his opinion which is an indifference of all opinion of Religion Which shall fall out without doubt according to his own mind if they will follow the Consequences of their own Maxims For the reason of which he gives liberty to every man to believe and prophesie that which they think the Spirit suggests to them But he thinks in making these People separated from the Church taste the Liberty of Conscience he shall rally all their different Sects into one Body to set them against the Body of the Catholick Church to the end he may destroy the Pope and the Bishops that conduct her and may exterminate the Kings that defend her He calls that the great work of God He assures the success to all them that follow him by the revelations which he makes them believe he had at his Fasts his Prayers and his reading the holy Scriptures But it is no marvel he can assemble such a number of Followers by the arguing of their Maxims For since they had already produced these different bodies of reform'd Battalions and reforming even to infinity Protestants Presbyterians and Brownists who in a perpetual war cannot agree among themselves He comes further as more fit to serve himself of their Maxims to put them to the Ho there by the indifference and by abolishing all Lawes that rule upon the Conscience and leaving every mans thoughts free and the liberty to prophesie and interpret the Scriptures according to the sense his spirit dictates to him For as to the remainder he troubles not himself to see by this spirit the prodigious number of Sects and Insects to swarm about who daily vomit for more monstrous opinions than caâ—… come from the bottomless pit For lâ—… there be what difference there will among them they all agree in his indifferency By this Catastrophe of the Reformation undertaken by those that havâ—… divided the Church in these latter Ages you see Sir what hath been both thâ—… Design and Genius This is not I thaâ—… represent the truth of it to you God hath set it before your eyes or I may rather say in your heart written in Characters which shall never be blotted out And to write them with his own hand he himself is descended from Heaven environed with the fire and thunder of his anger which appears enlightned upon you But from the middle thereof you hear the voyce of his mercy recalling you to him and declaring to you that all this he hath done to let you know the sins of your Fathers by drawing you out of them that he may call you back into his Church where all benediction shall be given you For true Piety and Religion whereof she hath been made the Guardian finds there as the Apostle speaks the promises of present life and of that which is to come And your Faith which God will work in you by the vertue of the Cross in the present affliction wherein you are submitting all your desires to the Wisdome of his Counsel and power of his strength shall meet there the comfort of your patience conformable to the hope you shall put in him You will say then Sir when you consider your self and the work that God shall have wrought in you That the Wisdome of the Judgements of God is without bottome That the Knowledge thereof is very difficult That it is impossible to find it out if he himself doth not manifest it He will manifest it to you Sir and you may see it if you consider the great abyss that was between you and God how far you were drawn from him before he came to you after thiâ—… manner and drew himself near to you that he might draw you to him When the King your Father had the Crown upon his Head and was sitting upon his Throne in the middle of his flourishing Kingdomes in the abundance of all prosperity and glory And that you Heir to this Majestie and Royal Pomp bred up your spirit among these mundane delights of the desire and hope of adding to the lustre of your Grandfathers the splendor of your brave Actions wherewith your politick and military virtues should adorn your life and the Historie of your Reign What 's this then when all the reasons of State as well as those wherewith your Conscience had been onely instructed would have kept you engaged in this new Religion the errour whereof you have suckt in with the milk of your infancy your eyes and your ears should have been capable of seeing and hearing the
Truths which now make known to you the fault and the condemnation which God by the wisdome and power of his Judgements hath drawn from it self and his proper works that you may feel the effects How should you have been able to have discovered under this fair shew of Reformation whereof she hath taken the Title under this splendid lustre which she hath put upon her face of Knowledge and Eloquence the gifts whereof shine in her Doctors and Ministers of the reading and particular regard she commands them to have towards the holy Scriptures of the familiar Texts which adorn their Pastors Discourses and Preachings of the popular exercises of her Psalms and Canticles of the Prayers and Orisons which are extracted and interwoven with the Understanding which gives consolation Should you have been able to have discovered I say that under this appearance of Piety she had dis-avow'd her strength if God had not at present let you see it in the works of horrour and confusion deadly to Christian piety and charity destructive to all Form of Religion Enemies to all Order of God which she hath produced by the consequences of her Fundamental Maxims Sir Had your Majestie taken notice of the imposture and deceit which the Father of Lyes hath hidden under these Baits that they themselves whom he made the first Instruments and Authors of the division of the Church did not perceive for they would have abhorred it had they known it would have been such This is then truly the great work of God whereof this false prophet understands not the reason when he speaks thus God hath certainly done this work And God hath raised him up himself to put this confusion among them which have forsaken the Unity of the Church in dividing themselves into a thousand Sects of which they acknowledge at present that no one can call himself the Church For the Sect of the Protestants cannot pretend to it since she her self subsists no more but that every one sees her justly perished by the same Maxims that separated her from the Church and that the Presbyterians which seduced them have now destroyed them Nor the Sect of the Presbyterians which is under the yoke of the Independents who cut their throats with the same Swords wherewith they warred against the Church For they brought them by their own Maxims to renounce all Discipline all Government all Law and all Rule of Unity and by consequence all Form of the Church This cursed Cham hath then discovered his Father's filthiness that is to say of the first Author of this pretended Reformation who being drunk with the wine of his errour did not himself know â—…t But if God pleases the impudence of his brazen face who hath lost all shamefac'dness being not afraid to discover by his Independence the Foundations of this preposterous Reformation shall now touch his brethren with compunction and shame that they may return to their common Father He will cause the Presbyterians and Protestants to understand that it was the spirit of senslesness and errour which made Luther conceive and undertake the design of dividing the Church under pretext of a false Reformation From whence they will perceive if they can but come to themselves that one ought not to desire neither that any one can do any thing true or lawful but in the union and by the consent of the Church and the rule of Tradition which she hath receiv'd from the Apostles and conserved by a continued succession As God Sir draws light out of darkness so your Majestie sees that he makes your salvation to come out of your calamity But this is not for you alone That which he will do in your Person he will bring to pass in all your Kingdomes by your Person And not onely in all your Kingdomes but in all the places and in all those which are separated from the Church as your Kingdomes are That which you have singular in this cause is by being the greatest King of the party divided from the Church and that your Kingdomes are the greatest and most flourishing Estate that hath receiv'd this novelty of Religion where she hath found the most powerful Sanctuary and where she hath planted her seat the most eminent and most assured This is likewise a reason why God hath put her into this confusion in destroying her by the different Sects which she her self hath ingendred that all the world may know the spirit of errour from whence she hath taken her Original For all the world at present sees what this spirit is and its nature if it is the Spirit of Christ it is the Spirit of peacâ—… and truth if it be the spirit of Satan it is the spirit of trouble and errour which hath raised the trouble and errouâ—… which rules at present in your Kingdomes Since such is the spirit of this new Reformation and its Maxims such arâ—… its works that are at this day discovered and made evident who is that man that can defend it that can preserve iâ—… in his conscience that can have reposâ—… or comfort in his soul by adhering to it There 's no more need of Disputes or Arguments to convince it She is convinc'd by her self according to the character the Spirit of God hath stamp'd upon the Heretical man by the Pen of the Apostle St. Paul who commands us to depart for these reasons There is saith he a perverted spirit that is condemned by it self This is the imagâ—… that all the world doth see at present in this Reformation and its Genius But there rests now one thing to do which is to apply this remedy of Salvation to the Conscience of the People seduced by the errour There is no more to do than to anoint the wound the Scorpion hath made with the oyl where it hath been bruised For the way to heal them is now very easy by reason their Reformation hath receiv'd such a miserable success There is nothing more easy than to make the People know thereupon by the conviction of their Pastors upon the very Foundations and Maxims of their Reformation that they have neither Church nor Faith But then when they supposed contrary to the promise of Jesus Christ the Church was fallen into ruine for pretext of reforming it they have not been able to form an other which hath the conditions of the true Church but an infinity of different and contrary Sects among them none of which can be the Church but in rejecting the authority of Tradition for interpreting the Scripture and the judgement of the Church for the declaration of her Faith They have abandoned the Unity of the Faith that every one might abound in his own sense by the different opinions they have conceived That which of necessity must cast them as it is come to pass into the Independence of all rule and the indifference of all opinion in Religion And as modesty to accuse the Church of Errour in all the Ages hath been the
beginning to make the Authors of this Reformation agree that the Church remained pure in Faith during the time of the four first general Councils they have afforded us a way by this to disabuse the People they do abuse when they accuse the Church at this day of Errour in the heads of her Faith which they have rejected For they can no longer avoyd falling into a manifest contradiction of the sense which they impute to the antient Fathers in points of Faith which are in controversy between us They cannot brand the Church at this day for having a different opinion in Faith from the Antient Church without cutting their throats with their own proper contradictions upon the opinion they attribute to the Faâ—…hers So that there is nothing more to do for the informing the People separated from the Church of the truth and obliging them to enter again into her than to make them understand the cheat wherewith they have been surprized under the name of Reformation by convincing in their presence their Ministers of an evident contradiction of themselves by the consequences of the Fundamental Maxims of their Reformation From whence results the indubitable Demonstration which proceeds from the spirit of lying and errour If it please your Majestie Sir to imploy this way for your instruction and the satisfaction of your Conscience that your Conversion and return to tâ—… Church may both open the hearts and the way for all the rest to follow your example You cannot do it morâ—… solemnly or commodiously than in thâ—… place wherein you are at the present We have in this place five Ministers of the Communion separated from the Catholick Church who have gotten themselves as much credit and authority through the esteem of their sufficiency and reputation of their zeal as any that are in their whole body Your Majestie Sir may easily obtain of the King your good Brother and Friend that they be called by his Authority to come with all those of their Communion wherewith they would be assisted and appear in presence of Monsieur the Archbishop of Paris and Monsieur his Coadjutor and the Catholick Doctors which he shall please to bring with him And there Sir you Majestie being present to speak and answer with all security and liberty that which their spirit and conscience doth suggest to them upon the evident contradictions of the principles and consequences of their Reformation that in all their different Sects which have for saken the Church under this pretext there is neither Church nor Faith And that upon the Points of Faith where they have accused the Church of Errour and have taken the opportunity to separate themselves from her they are likewise separated from the Communion of the Church of all Ages So that they cannot any waies accuse us of diversity of opinion with the Antient Church but that they again fall into an evident contradiction of themselves as well as of the Antient Fathers and of us These Ministers Sir will deny neither the desire of your Majestie nor the Commandment of the King your good Brother to render the duty both to their charge and to their conscience unless they 'll wirness by their denial the open forsaking which they make oâ—… their cause and the condemnation which they themselves pronounce in their hearts But they 'll love rather as I think ingenuously to present themselves to yield to the truth which they cannot contradict than to incurr the blame of being acknowledged formal enemies of the peace and re-union of the Church through the perversness of an obstinate Faith I know not what to think that they should rather love to fling themselves headlong with their people into the confusion and disorder of Independency and indifference of all opinion in Religion than to avouch the errour and blindness of those who were the first Egressors from the Church by these Maxims which have cast by their consequenc s their Followers into this abyss of irreligion whereinto we see them at this present fallen And when the Ministers would let themselves be carried away to so unlucky a thought I do no waies believe that in France the People would follow them and adhere to their opinions This is wherefore Sir I dare hope that the Ministers which are in Paris being obliged by the desire of your Majestie and the will of their Sovereign to submit to this Law which their own Conscience imposes on them for the satisfaction of their own People for the People will have no less affection and will be no less desirous to see the success of the appearance of their Ministers and the answer they shall make will yield to it and will rather choose to walk in the way of honour and a good conscience than basely to appear desertors at one and the same time both of their Cause and good Faith Whatsoever comes to pass Sir and whatsoever they do whether they follow the motion of the Spirit of Peace and Truth or whether the Spirit of Pride suggest unto them to avoyd and fly both the one and the other youâ—… Majestie shall alwaies have all full satisfaction for departing from the errour which you shall see forsaken or condemned by its own Ministers and entring into the Church which is the Pillar of Truth and Rock of Ages against which you see all the sail of different Sects running at every wind of Doctrine through the deceit of them that conduct them to break and shipwrack â—…hemselves And then when your Majestie shall be entred into the Church after this manner and when all the world shall see that the desire to glorifie God by the searching for the Truth by the repose of your Conscience and by the love of your Salvation shall have been your whole motive You need not doubt Sir but your example will make the like impression in all the souls that are touched with the fear of God You need not doubt Sir for so much as God hath elevated your Majestie in birth and eminent dignity above the rest â—…hat are in the Communion wherein â—…ou have lived They all seeing these â—…ircumstances of your change and enâ—…rance into the Sanctuary of the Church â—…pon the wings of the victory of Truth â—…hich carries you thither alone will â—…e stirred up to give glory to God for â—…he same causes for which you shall be â—…endred to him It concerns you then Sir to make â—…our entrance by this means and that â—…ou serve your self of this way to adâ—…ress your self thither to the end your â—…onversion and return to the Church â—…ring to her with you by the solemn â—…onviction of the errour which hath â—…ismembred her not onely those which â—…he division of your Fathers hath torn â—…rom her but also all the rest which â—…he same cause hath separated For by â—…he power which Truth hath upon the Conscience of men when it is apparent here is no doubt but it will come to â—…ass after this manner When the People shall
which the Holy Spirit hath caused Piety and Charity to spring flourish and fructifie in Believers From whence it follows by the same reason that the true and lawful Reformation which all good men of the Church desire in the Church doth depend no otherwise than upon the understanding and practice of these same Truths by the duty to which they address all Believers in the different vocations whereto God calls them In all which the end which is proposed them is no other than to live united among them and with Jesus Christ by the grace of the Holy Ghost to serve God under the obedience of the Government which he hath put into the hands of the Bishops which feed the Flock with an unanimous consent under the Authority of the espeâ—…ial Chair of St. Peter established at Rome by two Principals of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul from which whosoever separates himself is a Schismatick and out of the Communion of the Church Upon this Sir I am imboldened to speak for this last time to your Majestie that as you may if you will by the way which I propose to you lay the Foundation of this work by your Conversion and entrance into the Catholick Church You will find also that the success shall be in the hand of God the indubitable way of re-establishing you in your Throne Certainly all will agree with me that this work is upon such conditions that if it had receiv'd its accomplishment in Paris with the Ministers and People separated from the Church there 's no place in all France wherein they would refuse to do the like And if once the love of the Peace and re-union of the Church had thus gained the heart of our separated Brethren which are in this Kingdome acknowledging in this manner that the onely safe and necessary Reformation ought to be this which by the truth of the definitions of the Faith of the Church in her Doctrine in her Service and in her Government shall re-establish a Christian life among Christians the other People and Pastors and the Pastors for the love and by the very motion of the People which are in the same Communion in other parts of Europe will without doubt do the same thing Think you Sir that if your Subjects of Scotland and those which are in England and Ireland faithful and affectionate to your Crown and Person seeing the success of this project hapned in France to which your Conversion shall have given the beginning and motion they will resist the call of the same grace and that they can be able to find in their hearts in their mouths and in their hands either reason or means for to hinder themselves to follow that which all those of their Communion shall have done here And after this will you doubt that the blessing of God who is never wanting to his promises will not accomplish in you fully that which he hath promised to those that believe in him by the mouth of his own Son when he tels them Search the Kingdome of God and his righteousness and all things shall be added unto you Will you doubt that in thus searching of his Kingdome you shall not find also your own And that Heaven will not likewise render unto you upon the Earth this temporal recompence for a token of that you shall have sought and which you shall receive in Heaven for eternity Yes Sir the Word of God deceives no man it is more firm and immovable than the Heaven and the Earth for the one and the other shall vanish away but one sole Iota of the Word uttered from the mouth of the Son of God shall not pass away When I tell you these things founded upon the Truth which he hath spoken unto us believe that this is he himself that addresses them to you by my mouth It is he himself that calls you It is he himself that stretcheth forth his hand towards you It is he himself that by his hand hath conducted you for this end to the place where you are Recollect again your self upon all the thoughts of your heart since the time your Majestie parted from hence to the time your Majestie returned back Think upon all that you have been willing to do and upon all that which it hath pleased God to do with you For he hath done all the things both what you see and what you suffer upon your Person and upon your Estate He hath put you into the Estate you are to make you understand his voyce and for to oblige you to say to him Lord what wilt thou that I do You have thought to be able to reascend upon your Throne by the means of those of your Subjects who appear'd to retain for you and for your Crown that fidelity to which a more antient Bond held them obliged more straitly than all others God would not have it so They had a design to bind your Conscience to the Lawes of their Reformation by an oath to observe the conditions of their Covenant and by abjuring your opinions that drew more near the Catholick Religion They hoped by this means that in conserving upon your head some Form at least apparent of the Royal Government under which they had so happily obeyed your Fathers for so many Ages they should avoyd the falling under the slavage of the Tyrannie which is called Cromwel's Commonwealth And that they should defend by this way the factiousness of their Religion from giving place to his Independency What is it come to God hath destroyed all their Counsels He hath routed all their Armies by the Arm of this False-prophet by whose mouth he convinces and confounds in the face of their Ministers by mouth and by writing the rules of their Covenant by the proper Maxims of their Reformation God hath delivered them into his hands and imposed upon them the yoke of his absolute domination They must now submit to the Lawes of his Independency and of his Common-wealth the name whereof serves for a Masque to his Tyrannie But God hath delivered you Sir and by a conduct of his Providence full of trembling and admiration he hath withdrawn your Sacred Person from a thousand dangers which threatned it from the fury and cruelty of this Monster who spared neither the force of Iron nor the value of Gold to find the means of violently taking away your life You have seen Sir the anger of God to descend upon your head who according to the terms of the Scripture hath loosned the Belts of Kings and bound their Reins with Cords You have seen his Arm armed with his rage to defeat your Armies Combating at their head you have done bravely with your hand and with your courage all that the generosity of a valiant and magnanimous Prince could do to associate Victory to the justice of your Arms. You have there shed your Blood and seen that of your faithful Subjects to stream through the fields covered with their bodies
grace the Kingdome of Jesus Christ. To these prayers which all the Angels and Saints which are in the Church in Heaven and in Earth make to God for your Majestie I joyn Sir my vows and supplications with this testimony of my devotion to your most humble service in a Subject which I have esteemed the most important and most worthy to gain me the honour of the good favour of your Majestie and that to stile my self SIR Of your Majestie the most humble most faithfull and most obedient Servant La Militiere AN ANSWER TO Monsieur de la Militiere his Impertinent Dedication of his Imaginary Triumph To the KING of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick Religion By John Bramhall D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry HAGUE Printed in the Year 1653. An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Fpistle to the King of Great-Brittain wherein he inviteth His Majesty to forsake the Church of England and to embrace the Roman Chatholick Religion SIR YOU might long have disputed your Question of Transubstantiation with your learned Adversary and proclamed your own Triumph on a silver Trumpet to the World before any Member of the Church of England had interposed in this present exigence of our Affairs I know no necessity that Christians must be like Cocks that when one Crows all the rest must crow for company Monseiur Aubertine will not want a surviving friend to teach you what it is to teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gain'd the Victory He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this Here lies the Author of this sentence Prurigo disput andi scabies Ecclesiae the itch of disputing is the scab of the Church Having viewed all your strength with a single eye I find not one of your Arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation but only to a true Real Presence which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny no nor your Adversary himself Christ sayd This is my Body what he sayd we do stedfastly believe he said not after this or that manner neque con neque suh neque trans And therefore we place it among the Opinions of the Schools not among the Articles of our Faith The holy Eucharist which is the Sacrament of Peace and Unity ought not to be made the matter of strife and Contention There wanted not abuses in the Administration of this Sacrament in the most pure and primitive times as Prophaness and Uncharitableness among the Corinthians The Simonians and Menandrians and some other such Imps of Sathan unworthy the name of Christians did wholly forbear the use of the Eucharist but it was not for any difference about the sacrament it self but about the Naturall Body of Christ They held that his Flesh and Blood and Passion were not true and real but imaginary and phant astical things The Maniches did forbear the Cup but it was not for any difference about the sacrament it self They made two Gods a good God whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Light and an evill God whom they tearmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Darknes which evill God they sayd did make someCreatures of the Dreg or more feculent parts of the Matter which were evil and impure and among these Evil Creatuâ—…es they esteemed VVine which they called the Gaul of the Dragon For this cause not upon any other scruple they wholly abstained from the Cup or used water in the place of wine which Epiphanius recordeth among the Errors of the Ebionites and Tacians And St Augustine of the Aquarians Still we do not find any clashing either in word or writing directly about this sacrament in the universall Church of Christ much less about the presence of Christ in the sacrament Neque ullus veterum disputat contra hunc errorem primis sexcentis Annis The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any Error in the Church about the Real presence were the Ichonomachi after 700 years Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vocarunt fuerint Ichonomachi post Annum Domini 700. only because they called the Bread and Wine the Image of Christs body This is as great a mistake as the former Their difference was meerly about Images not at all about the Eucharist so much Vasques confesseth that In his judgment they art not to be numbred with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist We may well find different observations in those daies as one Church consecrating leavened Bread another unleavened One Church making use of pure wine another of wine mixed with water One Church admitting Infants to the Communion another not admitting them but without Controversies or Censures or Animosity one against the other we find no Debates or Disputes concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament and much less concerning the manner of his presence for the first 800 years Yet all the time we find as different expressions among those Primitive Fathers as among our modern writers at this day some calling the Sacrament the sign of Christs Body the figure of his Body the Symbol of his Body the mystery of his Body the exemplar type and representation of his Body saying that the Elements do not recede from their first Nature Others naming it the true Body and Blood of Christ changed not in shape but in nature yea doubting not to say that in this Sacrament we see Christ we touch Christ we eat Christ that we fasten our teeth in his very Flesh and make our Tongues red in his Blood Yet notwithstanding there were no Questions no Quarrells no Contentions amongst them there needed no Councils to order them no Conferences to reconcile them because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said this is my Body without presuming on their own heads to determine the manner how it is his Body neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversie was raised nor expounding the sayings of other men contrary to the Analogy of Faith The first doubt about the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament seems to have been mooved not long before the year 900. in the dayes of Bertram and Paschasius but the Controversie was not well formed nor this new Article of Transubstantiation sufficiently concocted in the dayes of Berengarius after the year 1050. as appeareth by the grosse mistaking and mistating of the Question on both sides First Berengarius if we may trust his Adversaries knew no mean between a naked Figure or empty sign of Christs presence and a Corporeal or Local presence and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation on the other side the Pope and the Councill made no differrence between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation they understood nothing of the spiritual or indivisible being of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the
or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Aduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture we determine not Motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus This was the belief of the Primitive Church this was the Faith of the antient Fathers who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo which edifie not but expose Christian Religion to contempt We know what to think and what to say with probability modesty and submission in the Schools But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height not dâ—…ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erudâ—…ta est inscitia O! how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of general sufficient saving Truth which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace to shew that the deluge of Ecclesiasticall division is abated without â—…ading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomachies wherof cometh envy strife raylings evil surmisings perverse disputings Old Conâ—…roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies and yet more Controversies as Circles in the â—…ater do produce other Circles Now especially these Scâ—…olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable when Zenos School is newly opened in the World who sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology Morality and Policy are undermined and ready to be blown up Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes or their Ministers have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome it becometh well all good Christians and Subjects to leave their litigious Qâ—…estions and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coles of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit when his head was extremely distempered he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end But that which createth this troâ—…ble to you and me at this time is your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph unless the King of great Britain and all his subjects yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot Neither do you only desire this but augurate it or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done for you tell him that his â—…ies and hiâ—… ears do hear and see those Truths which make him to know the Faulâ—…s of that new Religion which he had suckâ—… with his milk you set forth the causes of his Conversion The tears of his Mother and the Blood of his Father whom you suppose against evident truth â—…o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his conversion which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton If your Charity be not to be blamed to wish no worse to another than you do to your self yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection without his licence and against his Conscience Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many Subjects If you did why would you insist in the same steps to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them If your intention be only to invite his Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self unles you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation Mark it well neiâ—…her Name nor thing His Majesty doth â—…rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ He embraâ—…eth chearfully whatsoever the holy Aâ—…ostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholick Church excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith neither his Reason nor his Religion nor his Charity will suffer him to listen unto you The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of â—…aith to make him a good Caâ—…holick More than this your Romane Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Concill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third general Councill that of Ephesus which deâ—…eed that it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill And that whosâ—…ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Lay-men anaâ—… hematised Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fatâ—…ers did which nons will say to have been insufficient except they be mad as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Some things are de Symbolo some things are contra Symbolum and some things are onely praeter Symbolum Some things are contained in the Creed either expressly or virtually either in the Letter or in the Sense and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Procession of the Holy Ghost The Addition of these was properly no no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Occumenical Council can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly some things are contra symbolum contrary to the Symbolical Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not onely unlawful but heretical also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not
bring great prejudices and then it is better to give one account why we have taken it away than to be alwaies making excuses why we do it not Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion and lessen the credit of antient truths Break Ice in one place and it will crack in more Crooked sticks by bending streight are sometimes broken into two There is a right mean between these extremes if men could light on it that is neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers out of a doating affection to the body that is neither to destroy antient Institutions out of a zealous hatred to some new abuses nor yet to doat so upon antient Institutions as for their sakes to cherish new abuses Our Reformation is just as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth as the building of Tenderden Steepl was the cause of Goodwins Sands or ruin of the Country thereabouts because they happened both much about the same time Careat successibus opto May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden ruins the good Herbs It hath ruined the Church just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthful purgation It hath ruined the Common-wealth just as pruning â—…f the Vine ruins the Eâ—…m No no Sir Our sâ—…fferings for the Faith for the Church for the Monarchy do proclame us Innocent to all the world of the ruin either of Faith or Church or Monarchy And in this capacity we choose rather to steâ—…ve as Innocents 〈◊〉 to swim in plenty as Nocents But this is but one of your doubles to kâ—…ep us from the right form It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith It is your Papal Court that hath ruined the Church It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporal persons in order unto spiritual ends of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Allegeance of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction of the lawfulness of murthering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes of aequivocation and the like that first infected the world to the danger of Civil Government Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church at any time much less at this time when they are much faln from their former credit neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions destructive to all civil societies have been transplanted by our Sectaries and taken too deep root in our quarters but never by our fault If God should grant us the benefit of an Oecumenical or Occidental Council it would become both you and us in the fiâ—…st place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch You say our Calvinistical Reformation so you are pleased to call it as would have it for the moderate and and orderly Reformation of England was the terror and eye-sore of Rome is founded upon two maxims The one that the Church was faln to ruin and desolation and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny This is neither our foundation nor our superstruction neither our maxim nor our Opinion It is so far from it that we hold and teach the direct contrary First that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universal Church that though the rain descend and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon it yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation because it is builded upon a Rock Secondly we beleeve that the Catholick Church is the faithfull Spouse of Christ and cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is spiritual Adultery Thirdly we never said we never thought that the Occumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny It is principled to suffer wrong to do none and by suffering to Conquer as a flock of unarmed Sheep in the midst of a company of ravenous Wolves A new and unheard-of kind of warfare as if one should throw an handful of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms â—…f your language in which by the Church you aâ—…waies understand the Roman Church making Roman and Catholick to be Convertibles As if Christ could not have a Church nor that Church any privileges unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them There is a vast difference between the Catholick Church and a Patriarchal Church The Catholick Church can never fail any Patriarchal Church may Apostate and fail We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed But supposing that which we can never grant the Catholick Church and Roman Church were Convertibles yet still you do us wrong First we do not maintain that the Roman Church it self is faln to ruin and desolation we grant to it a true metaphysical being though not a true moral being we hope their errors are rather in superstructures than in fundamentals we do not say that the Plants of saving truth which are common to you and us are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church but we say that they are over-grown with weeds and in danger to be choked Next for Idolatry whether and why and how far we accuse your Church of it deserves further Consideration First you agree with us That God alone is the Object of Religion and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him that God alone is to be invocated absolutely or ultimately that is so as to grant our requests and fulfil our desires by himself and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers but joynt petitioners with us and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace Secondly we profess as well as you that there is a proportionabâ—…e degree of honour and respect due to every creature in Heaven and Earth according to the dignity of it and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit than to a mortal man But withall we adde that this honour is not servitutis but charitatis not of service as to our Lords and Masters but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow-servants of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent Thirdly we agree in this also that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend or noble benefactor to his posterity to his memory to his Monument to his Image to his Reliques to every thing that he loved or that pertained to him even to the Earth which he did tread upon for his sake Put a Liefhebber or Virtuoso among a company of rare pictures and he will pick out the best pieces for their
proper value But a friend or child will more esteem the Picture of a Benefactor or Ancestor for its relation The respect of the one is terminated in the Picture that of the other is radicated in the exemplar Yet still an Image is but an Image and the kinds of respect must not be confounded The respect given to an Image must be respect proper for an Imâ—…ge not Courtship not Worship not Adoration More respect is due to the person of the meanest beggar than to all the Images of Christ and his Apostles and a 1000. Primitive Saints or Progenitors Hitherto there is either no difference nor peril either of Idolatry or Superstition Wherein then did consist this guilt of Idolatry contracted by the Roman Church I am willing for the present to pass by the private abuses of particular persons which seem to me no otherwise chargeable upon the whole Church than for Connivence As the making Images to counterfeit tears and words and gestures and complements for advantage to induce silly people to believe that there was something of divinity in them and the multitude of fictitious Relicks and supposititious Saints which credulity first introduced and since covetousness hath nourished I take no notice now of those remote suspitions or suppositions of the possibility of want of intention either in the Priest that consecrates the Sacrament or in him that Baptized or in the Bishop that ordained him or in any one through the whole line of succession in all which cases according to your own principles you give divine worship to corporeal Elements which is at least material Idolatry I will not stand now to examine the truth of your distinctions of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet you know well enough that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no religious worship and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is coin lately minted that will not pass for current in the Catholick Church Whilst your common people understand not these distinctions of degrees of honour what holds them from falling downright into Idolatry Neither do I urge how you have distributed the Patronage of particular Countries the Cure of several Diseases the protection of all distinct professions of men and all kinds of Creatures among the Saints just as the Heathen did among their Tutelary Gods nor how little warrant you have for this practice from experience nor lastly how you build more Churches erect more Altars offer more presents pour out more prayers make more vows perform more offices to the Mother than to the Son Yet though we should hold our peace methinks you should ponder these things seriously and either for your own satisfaction or ours take away such unnecessary occasions of scandal and dis-union But I cannot omit that the Council of Trent is not contented to enjoyn the Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament which we never deny but of the Sacrament it self that is according to the common current of your Schoolmen the Aâ—…cidents or Species of Bread and Wine because it contains Christ. Why do they not adde upon the same grounds that the pix is to be adored with divine worship because it contains the Sacrament Divine honour is not due to the very Humanity of Christ as it is abstracted from the Deity but to the whole person Deity and Humanity hypostatically united Neither the Grace of Union nor the Grace of Unction can conferr more upon the Humanity than the Humanity is capable of There is no such Union between the Deity and the Sacrament neither immediately nor yet mediately mediante corpor Neither do you ordinarily ascribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine worship to a Crucifix or to the Image of Christ indeed not Terminatively but transâ—…untly so as not to rest in the Image or Crucifix but to pass to the exemplar or person crucified But why a piece of Wood should be made partaker of divine honours even in 〈◊〉 or in be passage passeâ—…h my undeâ—…nding Thâ—… Heathens â—…ted not the same 〈◊〉 for all their gross Idolatry Let them plead for themselves Non ego c. I do not worship that stone which I see but I serve him whom I do not see Lastly whilst you are pleased to use them I may not forget those strange insolent forms of prayer contained in your books even ultimate prayers if we take the words as they sound directed to the Creatures that they would protect you at the hour of death and deliver you from the Devil and confer spiritual graces upon you and admit you into Heaven precibus meritisque by their prayers and merits You know what Merit signifies in your language a Condignity or at least a Congruity of desert The exposition of your Doctors is that they should do all this for you by their praâ—…ers as improper a form of speech as if a Suppliant intending onely to move an ordinary Courtier to mediate for him unto the King should fall down upon his knees before the Courtier and beseech him to make him an Earl or a Knight or to bestow such an Office or such a Pardon upon him or to do some other Grace for him properly belonging to the Prerogative Royal. How agrees this with the words Precibus meriâ—…que A beggar doth not deserve an Alms by asking it This is a snare to ignorant persons who take the words to signifie as they sound And it is to be feared do commit downright Idolatry by their Pastors faults who prescribe such improper forms unto them Concerning Tyrannie which makes up the arrear of the first supposed Maxim We do not accuse the Roman Church of Tyrannie but the Roman Court If either the unjust usurpation oâ—… Sovereign power or the extending thereof to the destruction of the Laws and Canons of the Church yea even to give a Non obstante either to the Institution of Christ or at least to the uniform practice of the Primitive Ages or to them both If the swallowing up of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdâ—…ction and the arrogating of a supercivil power paramount If the causing of poor people to trot to Rome from all the Quarters of Europe to wast their livelyhoods there If the trampling upon Emperours and the disciplining of Monarchs be Tyrannical either the Court of Rome hath been Tyrannical or there never was Tyrannie in the world I doubt not but some great persons when they have had bloody Tragedies to act for their own particular ends have sometimes made the Roman Church a stalking horse and the pretence of Catholick Religion a blind to keep their Policies undiscerned But if we consider seriously what cruelties have been really acted throughout Europe either by the Inquisitors General or by persons specially delegated for that purpose against the Waldenses of old and against the Protestants of later daies against poor ignorant persons against women and children against mad men against dead carkasses as Bueâ—…r c. upon pretence of Religion not onely by ordinary forms of punishment and of death
given us such assurance of his love or done so much for us as Christ. No Saint is so willing or able to help us as Christ. And secondly we have no command from God to invocate them So much your own Authors do confess and give this reason for it Lest the Gentiles being converted should belâ—…eve that they were drawn back again to the worship of the Creature But we have another command Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee We have no promise to be heard when we do invocate them But we have another promise Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name ye shall receive it We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them but rather the contrary See thou do it not I am thy fellow-servant worship God We have no cerâ—…ainty that they do hear our particular prayers especially mental prayers yea a thousand prayers poured out at one Instant in several parts of the world We know what your men say of the gâ—…ass of the Trinity and of extraordinary Revelations But these are bold conjectures without any certainty and inconsistent the one with the other We do sometimes meet in Antient Authors with the Intercesfion of Saints in General which we also acknowledge Or an oblique invocation of them as you term it that is a prayer directed to God that he will hear the intercession of the Saints for us which we do not condemn Or a wish or a Rhetorical Apostrophe or perhaps something more in some single Antient Author But for an Ordinary Invocation in particular necessities and much more for publick Invocation in the Liturgies of the Church we meet not with it for the first six hundred years or thereabouts All which time and afterwards also the common principles and tradition of the Church were against it So far were they from obtruding it as a necessary fundamental Article of Christian Religion It is a common fault of your wriâ—…ers alwaies to couple Prayer for the Dead and Purgatory together as if the one did necessâ—…rily suppose or imply the other In whose steps you tread Prayer for the Dead hath often proceeded upon mistaken grounds often from true grounds both inconsistent with your Purgatory Many have held an Opinion that though the souls were not extinguished at the time of their separation from the body yet they did lye in secret reâ—…eptacles in a profound or dead sleep untill the Resurâ—…ection doing nothing suffering nothing in the mean time but onely the delay of their glory Others held that all must pass through the fire of Conflagration at the day of judgement These opinions were inconsistent with your Purgatory yet all these upon these very grounds used Prayer for the Dead Others called the merâ—…ifull Doctors held that the very pains of Hell might be lessened by the prayer of the living Such a prayer is that which we meet with in your own Missal O King of Glory deliver the souls of all the faithfull deceased from the pains of Hell from the deep Lake from the mouth of the Lion that is the Devil that the bottomless pit of Hell do not swallow them up A man may lawfully pray for that which is certain if it be to come but one cannot lawfully pray for that which is past The souls which are in Purgatory by your learning are past the fear of Hell Nor can this petition be any waiâ—…s so wrested as to become appliable to the hour of death This prayer is not for the man but for the soul separated nor for the soul of a sick man or a dying man but for the souls of mâ—…n actually deceased Certainly this prayer must have reference either to the sleeping of the souls or to the pains of Hell To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation Neither are you abâ—…e to produce any one prayer publick or private neither any one indulgence to that purpose for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory in all the Primitive times or out of their own antient Missals or Records Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us as Articles of Faith which the greatest part of the Catholick Church never received untill this day Moreover though the sins of the faithfull be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death yet the publick promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come Though their â—…ouls be alwaies in an estate of blessedness â—…yet they want the consummation of this blessedness extensively at least untill the body be re-united unto the soul and as it is piously and probably believed intensively also that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God as it shall have hereafter Then what forbids Christians to pray for this publick acquittal for this Consummation of blessedness So we do pray as often as we say thy Kingdome come or come Lord Jesus come quickly Our Church is yet plainer That we with this our Brother and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name may have our perfect Consummation of blessedness in thy everlasting Kingâ—…me This is far enough from your more gainfull prayers for the dead to deliver them out of Purgatory Lastly concerning the Authority of the Pope It is he himself that hath renounced his lawfull Patriarchal Authority And if we should offer it him at this day he would disdain it VVe have onely freed our selves from his tyrannical usurped Authority But upon what terms upon what grounds how far and with what intention we have separated our selves or rather have suffered our selves to be separated from the Church of Rome you may find if you pâ—…ease in the Treatise of Schism I cannot choose but wonder to see you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case who separated himself from you as well as we in the daies of a much better Bishop than we and upon much weaker grounds than we and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils He liked not the swelling Title of Bishop of Bishops nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrifie another into â—…edience No more do we He gave a primacy or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter as Principium unit at is so do we But he believed that every Bishop had an equall share of Episcopal power so do we He provided a part as he thought fit in a Provincial Council for his own safety and the safâ—…ty of his Flock so did we He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Collegue and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a Letter from such as had been â—…ensured by the African Bishops In Saint Cyprians sense you are the Beam that have separated you selves from the body of the Sun you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain It is you principally you that have divided
uncertain or fallible rule the more dangerous is the error So our right foundation purgeth away our error in superstruction And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths and doubles the guilt of your errors I will by your leave requite your demonstration and turn the mouths of your own Canoâ—…s against your self That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolical Creed the Apostolical Succession the Apostolical Regiment and the Apostolical Communion Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolical Orthodox or Catholick Church They have changed the Apostolical Creed by making a new Creed wherein are many things inserted that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed The Apostolical Succession by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars and Substitutes as to their Jurisdiction The Apostolical Regiment by erecting a visible and Universal Monarchy in the Church And lastly the Apostolical Communion by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholick Apostolick Church Again That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into Humane infallibility or the Infallibilitie of the present Church without knowing or according what that present Church is whether the Virtual or the representative or the essential Church or a body compounded of some of these hath no true faith But the Church of Rome resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority but into the Infallibility of the present Church not knowing or not according what that present Church is whether the Virtual Church that is the Pope or the Representative Church that is a general Council or the Essential Church that is the Church of Bâ—…lievers diffused over the world or a body compounded of some of these that is the Pope and a General or Provincial Council Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope that this infallibility is fixed to his Chair But of all other Judgements that is most fallible and uncertain for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papal Election we have great reason to doubt that that Chà ir hath not been filled by a right Pope these last hundred years These are no other but your own Mediums Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholick you promise him restitution to his Kingdoms Great undertakers are seldom good performers when you are making your Proselytes you promise them golden Mountains but when the work is done you deal with them as he did with his Saint who promised a Candle as big as his Mast and offered one no bigger than his finger Do you however think it reason that any man should change his Religion for temporal respects though it were for a Kingdom Jeroboam did so you may remember what was the success of it You propose this as the readiest means to restore him Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs look upon it as the readiest way to ruin his hopes by the alienation of his friends by the confirmation of his foes and in some sort the justification of their former feigned fears Do you think all Roman Catholick Princes desire this change as earnestly as your self Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith The Sword distinguâ—…sheth not between Protestants and Papists But what is the ground of this your great Confidence no less than Scripture Seek ye first the kingdom of God and the righteousness of it and all other things shall be added unto you You say the word of God deceives no man True but you may deteive your self out of the word of God The Conclusion alwaies follows the weaker part such as this are commonly your mistaken grounds when they come to be examined The text saith Seek the kingdom of God You would have his Majesty deseâ—…t the kingdom of God The promise is of all things necessary or convenient you will be your own Carver and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions The promise is made as all tempral promises are with an implicite exception of the Cross unâ—…ess God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us He that denies us gold and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold that denies a temporal Kingdom to give an eternal doth not wrong us Tâ—…s was out of your head That the Scots had an antienter Obligation to fidelity towards his Majesty and that Royal Family than the English is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of I think I may safely adde than any Nation in Europe or in tâ—…e known world to their Prince his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line that hath swayed the Scepter of that Kingdom successively The more the pitty that a few treacherous Shebas and a pack of bawling seditious Orators under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion to the extreme scandal of all honest professors should be able to overturn such an antient fabrick and radicated succession of Kingly Government But take heed Sir how you beleeve that any ingagement of the Presbyterian faction in Scotland proceeded either from conscience or gratitude or fidelity or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne No no their hearts were double their treaties on their parts were meer treacheries from the beginning I mean not any of those many loyal patriots that never bowed their knees to Baal-berith the God of the Covenant in that Nation Nor yet any of those serious converts that no sooner discoveâ—…ed the leger de main of a company of canting impostors but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition with the hazard of their own lives and estates Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber by some stronger spels of disciplinarian charmers but did yet later open their eyes and come in to do their duties at the sixth or ninth hour All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties And let their memories be daily more and more blessed But I mean the obstinate Ring-leaders and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes and the setters up of that mishapen Idol It is from these I say that no help or hope could in reason be expected They who sold the Father and such a Father were not likely to proove loyal to the Son They who hanged up one of the most antient Gentlemen in Europe the gallant Marquâ—…ss of Montrose being then their lawful Vice-roy like a dog in such base and barbarous manner together with his Maâ—…esties Commission to the publike dishonour of
their King in the chief City of that Kingdom in a time of Treaty They who purged the Army over and over as loth on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty or loyalty in it who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Souldiery lest he should grow too popular They who after they had proclamed to the world his Title and right to that Crown yet sought to have him excluded from the benefit of it and from the execution of his Kingly Office until he should abjure his Religion cast dirt upon his Parents alienate his loyal subjects and ratifie the usurpations of his Rebels These these I say were most unlikely persons to be his restorers Was it ever heard before that subjects acknowledged a Soveraign and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights until he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes Others may be more severe in their judgements but I for my part could be well contented that God would give them the Honour to be the repayrers of the breach who have been the makers of the breach to be the restorers of Monarchy who have been the ruiners of Monarchy to be the re-establishers of peace who have been the chiefest Catalines and promoters of VVar. But that can never be whilst they justifie their former rebellious practises and after they have eaten and devoured wipe their mouths and say what have we done until they acknowledge their former errors Repentance onely is able to knit the broken bone why should they be more afraid to confess their faults and shame the Devil than to commit them Yet I cannot say with you that this hath robbed his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery VVe may not limit God to any time who commonly with-holds his hâ—…lp until the Bricks be doubled until the edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servant that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself VVe may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court God did forget him when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph then God remembred him God hath nobler wayes of restitution than by Battails and bloudshed that is by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness I confess his Majesties resolution was great so was his prudence that neither fear which useth to betray the succours of the soul nor any indiscreet Action or word or gesture in so long a time should either discover him or render him suspected VVhen I consider that the Heir of a Crown in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding whom all mens eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun of no common features or physiognomy at such time when he was not onely believed but known to be among them when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spys to search him and every Port and Inne full of Officers to apprehend him I say that he should travail at such a time so long so far so freely in the sight of the Sun exposed to the view of all petsons without either discovery or suspition seems little less than a miracle That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness as the â—…yes of the Sodomites that they could not find Lots door or the Syrian Souldiers that were sent to apprehend Elisha This strange escape and that former out of Scotland where his condition was not much better nor his person much safer do seem strangely to presage that God hath yet some great work to be done by him in his own due time You attribute this rare deliverance and the hopes of his conversion in part to the prayers and tears of his Mother prayers and tears were the onely proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother for the Son of her desires are most powerful As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica for St. Austine her Son fieri non pâ—…tuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed God sees her tears and hears her prayers and will grant her request if not according to her will and desire we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudicial to our selves and our friends yet ad utilit atem to his Majesties greater advantage which is much better She wisheth him a good Catholick and God will preserve him a good Catholick as he is We do not doubt but the prayers of his Father who now follows the Lamb in his whiâ—…es for his perseverance will be more effectual with God than the prayers of his Mother for his change Your instance of his Majesties Grandfather your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite or fit for your purpose He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people you would perswade his Majesty to turn from his people and to cast away his possibilities of restitution that is to cut off a natural leg and take one of wood To the tears of his Mother you adde the blood of his Father whom you justly stile happy and say most truly of him that he preferred the Catholick Faith before his Crown his liberty his life and whatsoever was most dear unto him This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life to unite him to the Roman Catholick Church but openly during his whole Reign all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholick Church Yet you are so extremely partial to your seif that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholick Church as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world An old pious fraud or artifice of yours learned from Machiavel to gain credit to your Religion by all means either true or false but contrary to his own profession at his death contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murther Upon a vain presumption that Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla pareret filium And because you are not able to produce one living witness you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted do belong invisibly to the Church Yea and before they were born also But St. Austine neither said nor thought that after they are converted they make no visible profession or profess the contrary to that which they beleeve Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church not with borrowed but with stollen Saints VVhom all the