cast away Masse and Peace together The causes which each of you already alleadge are true enough but I leave your selves to prove them it s more then sufficient for all good Christians who tender their salvations not to adhere to either of you since you are so far from unity in Doctrine that your bodies respectively need Reformation as ye confesse of them and they of you wherein ye have destroyed your selves wholly First from the pretence of being one Christian Church and consequently any Church according as the universall Church teaches us I beleeve one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church If therefore no unity no Church And with no lesse evidence ye have Secondly destroyed either of you to be a Church having declared your severall errours in Superstition and Schisme For according to Holy Scriptures and the consent of all especially old Christians A Congregation which should generally and solemnly teach and professe Superstition and Schisme neither is nor can be a Church of Christ this would render it inconsistent with the light presented in Saint Johns Candlesticks and consequently alienate it from Christ This needs no further proofe to a man who hath observed the hinges of Christianity Doth not the whole world also know by your voluminous writings that ye have condemned the very Ceremonies of the Roman Church as unlawfull and made that amongst the vulgar people a maine argument of our Superstition and now ye say it is Superstition in the Presbyters to condemne them in you I le not presse you for I should presently cast you into Democritus his Well Ye wholly forget the force of an Argument called in the Schooles ad hominem drawne from a mans owne principle as here against you Ye goe on Secondly we are not satisfied in the next Branch concerning the Reformation of Religion in our owne Kingdome in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government how we can sweare to endeavour the same which without makeing a change therein cannot be done It is very well noted that ye cannot reforme without a change Phylosophy would laugh at you to attempt a Reformation without a proportionable mutation whence it followes that you have chang'd your Doctrine whence it further followes that its false you know Gamaliels rule if it be of God it will stand ye know then whence yours comes for if it change it is not of God You pretend to reverence the foure first generall Councells heare what the Councell of Chalcedon saith Act. 1. Sic sancivit sancta synodus c Si quis innovat Anaethema sit sanctorum patrum fidem servemus c. you see your sentence if you change you are gone and yet you must change If your Proselites would without prejudice observe how you tumble and tosse one another in reciprocall recriminations in matter of these high inconsistencies with Christianity they would relinquish such communion Your reasons to the contrary in order to you are important for it cannot be done 1. Papists Independents are equally rejected by the Praelatique party Without manifest scandall to the Papist and Separatist by yeilding the cause which our Godly Bishops and Martyrs and all our learned Divines ever since the Reformation have both by their writings and sufferings maintained who have justified against them both the Religion established in the Church of England to be agreeable to the word of God 2. By Justifying the Papists in the reproaches and scorne by them cast upon our Religion whose usuall objection it hath been and is that we know not what our Religion is that since we left them we cannot tell where to stay that our Religion is a Parliamentary Religion let us not be blamed if we call it a Parliament Religion Parliament Gospell Parliament Faith Harding Consul of Apology part 6. cap. 2. These are very home let me a little dilate them To your first You have indeed scandalized all the world and most of all those whom ye call Papists by yeilding the cause and shewing that hitherto ye have persecuted them to bloud to all manner of cruelties for not adhering to that which now is confessed to be Superstitious and Schismaticall Trajan was a Heathen and a profest enemy of Christian Religion yet he came not neere your cruelties He made a law that no Poursivants should search the houses or looke after Christians or their Priests but onely apprehend them if they should happen to meet them But under your reigne all our houses against the liberties of free borne Subjects as was declared in Master Pims case were disquieted by the very dregs of mankind continually infested with Saint Ignatius his Leopards who the better he treated them the worse they were but as he said Iniquitas eorum mea doctrina est their iniquities taught us patience This permission even of assemblies in point of Religion especially in the exercise of a Religion which was not newly taken up though different from that which was then in vogue was by the Senate allowed as that of the Jewes at Rome Nay Suetonius tells us that even the Christians were tollerated to assemble Eusebius Hist lib. 5. cap. 20. saith that Commodus the Emperour punished even by death such who accused Christians by reason of their quietnesse And in his third booke cap. 15. he tells how Nerva the Emperour did set Christians at liberty generally by publique Proclamation hence Saint John was freed from Patmos In fine he recalled all power given to Poursuivants by his predecessours How much more should Christian Senates allow of innocent meetings in celebration of a Religion which all our forefathers professed But ye persecuted both new and old Religions I feare the bloud of all those who have suffered death either by hanging Loaplanding as the Dutch call it famishing or starving for Religion will call for revenge but we pray with our blessed Saviour and his Protomartyr Saint Stephen ne statuas illis hoc peccatum Saint Paul hath also taught us Rom. 12.5.21 Be not overcome of evill but overcome good with evill Nay Aristotle himselfe in 4. Eth. cap. 3. saith it is a signe of magnanimity to forget injuries For as it is a marke of a weake Stomack not to be able to digest hard meat so it is of a pusillanimous Soule not to be able to indure a harsh word or harder threats Cicero lib. 2. Tusc ques speaking of wise mens patience saith si fortis in perferendo officii satis est ut laetetur non postulo These Christian wise men have gone further even to joy in Persecutions Aristotle when the Athenians were consulting to proceed in judgement against him upon suspition of some impiety in his opinions departed from Athens and removed his Schoole saying to his Schollars Discedamus Athenis ne prebeamus iis secundam occasionem sceleris quale prius perpetraverunt in Socratem neve iterū per impietatem violent Philosophiam Thus tender Aristotle was of Philosophy and of their innocency but our Christian Philosophers here have gone
fictitious Priests in Iamblicus in his Treatise of Mysteries who threatned the Gods to breake the Heavens and reveale Isis her Secrets to stop the Egyptian Sacred Ship c. you seeme to threaten Gods Ship which is his Church c. but all signifie your imminent destruction Your second Reason is also considerable that wee know not what your Religion is since you your selves cannot yet agree on it nor indeed know where to stay since yee left us you rightly conclude this and the changes of your Articles of Beleife even in the highest mysteries of Doctrine as of Predestination finall Apostacy from grace and the rest c. too too abundantly declare that hitherto you have wandered in false and strange Doctrines A miserable condition for all your Proselites now after so many years to be to seeke Reasons in point of Doctrine why yee left us and yet severely punished us to bloud for not following you Yee assumed to your selves a magisteriall power of dictating Divinity to your followers and yet you are not agreed upon your owne Tenets this is like Peter Martyr in Oxford who sent to the Parliament to know how hee should expound Hoc est corpus meum to his auditors Thus your own practises discover and destroy your designes every proposition used in your Pulpits against us was Demonstratio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no reason durst be offred against it and yet now you have destroyed all your selves Touching your additionall Reason of our charging you with embracing a Parliament Religion Can you your selves call it any other then Parliamentary I wonder yee boggle at this did not a Parliament lay the first Stone when Hen. the 8. made his breach from Rome which yee cite after in your Paragraph to the Oath of Supremacy did it not in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth augment that breach in abolition of Masse c. Is not the Supreame power over all Doctrines by severall Acts transferred by Parliament to the Imperiall Crowne of this Realme cited in the same Paragraph was it not also re-established by King James in the Parliaments and so ever since continued to your great griefes All men know the passages of this Is there any thing believed to this day any further then setled by Parliament as you in your next number 2. confesse Nay doe not your posteriour Writers professe that settlement of Religion is solely to be had from the civill Power And upon this ground they teach that Inhabitants in any Countrey should follow the Religions how often soever changed there which was the antiquated impiety of Celsus strengthned by him in many examples and strongly confuted by Origen fol. 484. c. 2. Upon which supposition wee might come at last to worship a 〈◊〉 insteed of GOD as the Aegyptians did by Origens relation fol. 485. c. 1. But to prevent such absurdities the Prophet Isay 49.43 foretelling the times and Method of Government under Christianity and the Churches Supremacy as condistinct to temporall principality saith Kings shall bow down to her with their Face toward the Earth and lick up the dust of her Feete which surely will reach to a submission in Doctrines but this concernes not your imaginary Church the Prophet who foretold Christs comming and his true Churches Birth and Progresse never dreamed of such a Hypocentaur as you had framed which neither was Catholique nor Protestant I conceive it therefore the noblest pretence you have to pleade your Origin from a Parliament which being supposed you will easily finde the way of your Reformation and destruction to bee equally authenticall because by Act of Parliament warranted by that Rule Per easdem causas aliquid resolvitur per quas componitur but because this is a Rule amongst Lawyers whom you esteeme no Friends to Athens I doe not urge it onely remember it is the same way and as far from your Colledges to the Convocation House as from thence to your Colledges and all is done You go on in your Reasons 3. By a tacite acknowledgment that there is some thing in the Doctrine and worship whereunto their conformity hath beene required not agreeable to the Word of God and consequently justifying them both the one in his Recusancy the other in his separation You well conclude this for indeed it followes very evidently being necessarily and virtually included in the premises If your forme of Faith must be changed surely it convinces that wee not you have beene in the right agreeably to Gods Word which can not change So that it is cleare that you are the Separatists being changed in Doctrine and worship yet here you very prodigally call others Separatists as not agreeing with your fancies Why the Independent party should be styled Separatists by you of the Prelatique I know not The Independents indeed justly Separated from you and you unlawfully from us Why a just Separation from you should make these to be Sectaries as you often stile them or Separatists and your unlawfull separation not more strongly conclude against your selves who first separated from your true Mother they from an Adulteresse Let all men judge I feare you have forgotten the Ante-Predicaments and the Rules of denomination you have hitherto done with us as the Gentiles did with old Christians when they appointed some upon their Theaters to imitate their Religious Acts in derision of Christians as Eusebius and the rest relate But God sometimes even miraculously turned their jests into earnest as Baron To. 2. a. 303. and elsewhere shewes in the case of Ardalion and Genesius and S. August Ep. 67. of Dioscorus You have acted our parts at your pleasure in your Pulpits hitherto and yee have taught others to doe the like to you many of yours with Genesius and some of your Dioscorists the Arch Players of deriders have become serious imbracers of Catholique truth It is the greatest harme we wish you all Nicetas Choniates in his Annals under Manuel Comnenus tells of a Magician who had so farre dementated a poore Waterman that hee broake in pieces his Boat full of Pots and Pans and such like Vessells of Earth The poore man seemed to see a horrible Serpent creeping towards him which hee endeavouring to kill broke all and then the Serpent vanished This was done in sight of all at Court Methinks much after this manner you have beene dementated to breake your selves off from all Communion with others esteeming all Separatists where as indeed you made all the breaches and even in all our sights and at the Court as that poore man did still thinking to preserve your selves by that which was your ruine But you goe on 4. By an implyed Confession that the Lawes formerly made against Papists in this Kingdome and all punishments by vertue thereof inflicted upon them were unjust in punishing them for refusing to joyne with us in that forme of worship which our selves as well as they doe not approve of Thus far you rightly observe And surely it concernes you to thinke
you without manifest wrong to your selves Consciences Reputation and Estates to reforme your Doctrine How was it lawfull for the first Broachers of your Articles to pretend Reformation of the Doctrines they had sworne unto under us did not they beare false witnesse against themselves and are not you their issue conceived in Perjury It is ingenuously done of you to confesse you had a very considerable Eye to the losse of your Estates in refusing the Covenant though experience now teacheth you that the Covenanters themselves are not exempted from that losse Non est consilium contra Dominum your policies did not succeed How free were Catholiques from this Avarice They prodigally exposed all rather then to grate upon their Consciences This was not obstinacy but constancy like the old Christians in S. Basiles time who would not admit the change of a particle superest disserere de Syllaba oum unde caeperit c. No change of Faith with them 2. Catholiques were forced as much as in you lay to condemne what they were not nor yet are convinced of in their Judgements that the former that is the old Catholique Doctrines are not agreeable to Gods Word Wee must therefore cry aloud with Tertullian de Pres c. 3. against Hermogenes Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis officinae c. Shew us where it is written that we must forsake stated truths for your variable conceits altogether disagreeing from Gods word This plea will destroy you wholy and with all Justice restore us at least to a quiet condition under the Profession of our old Tenets Ptolomey though of a different profession to both parties was thought capable to determine the Schismaticall Controversie of the two Temples of Hierusalem and Garizim 3. Catholiques did not onely believe but knew that their Doctrines were much better and more agreeable to the Word of God and the practise of the Catholique Church then your fancies And yet were compelled either to sweare to them or lose all Wise men do not onely provide for the present in making Lawes but foresee and prevent future and as much as may bee even possible dangers Had yee consulted with old Lycurgus hee found other wayes to perennize his owne Lawes and perswade an Opinion of their Divine Origen but your Eutopia hath destroyed it selfe by your owne Fundamentall Lawes they are now with full force retorted upon your selves as all men see and consequently enforce your ruine for want of Foundation Besides the falsity of your Doctrines in themselves you have all the outward Habiliments of Sectaries by which the old Church of Christ discovered their Novelties Athanasius destroyes Arianisme in his Tract of the Synods of Arimine and Seleucia by this most certaine Argument Vrsacius Valens Geminius cum caeteris suis Gregalibus id fecere quod antea nec factum nec auditum est apud Christianos Cum enim Scripsissent eam fidem quam voluerunt addidere Consulatum mensem diemque ejus temporis ut omnibus prudentibus palam facerent non olim sed nunc demum eorum fidem sub Constantio initium accepisse Thus S. Basil Ep. 82. and the rest confuted Heresies even by this Extrinsecall consideration and it was alwayes amongst Christians esteemed sufficient to assigne the Consulship the time and day of their Subscriptions Which of you or us cannot retrive your forme of Faith not onely to the reigne of which Prince but of the Lord Major under whom it began even with as much ease as this Act of the Convocation The Pithagorians did use to build Hearses for such who should apostatize from Philosophy esteeming them no better then dead men How much more should some such course bee taken for those who forsake Christian Philosophy and turne to Heresies and Errors I wonder you doe not blush to pretend the practise of the Catholique Church Here is repugnantia in adjecto as Logitians speake a Catholique Church confined to England you pretend no further then England for you say true Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Indeed this Iland hath beene stiled Orbis Britannicus a World by it selfe but it is a very little Catholick Church which encompaseth not this very Iland For Scotland is excluded by your own Confession So that if this Iland were the World it is not Catholique The reason why at Antioch the Name of Christians was added as a Surname to the Believers in Christ St. Athanasius in a Disputation against Arius sets downe to bee because they were before called Disciples which Name also Dositheus one Judas and others as well false as true Teachers gave to their Disciples and therefore the Apostles for distinction would have their Disciples to be surnamed Christians which was prophecied by Isaias e. 62. Servientibus mihi vocabitur novum nomen c. yet afterwards Heretiques abusively tooke this Name also and rendred it execrable to the Pagans by their ill lives and abominable Doctrines as Tertullian demonstrates in his Apologetico Whereupon the celebrated adjunct of Catholique was taken up and appropriated to Orthodox Christians against the Marcionites Harpocratians and after the Donatists and the rest of which also they were ambitious as appeares often in St. Augustines Collations with them even by as much title as you peruse him and acknowledge your selves non Suited the reason of this attribute was universality as Origen declares in his Dialogue and all the ancient testify Pacianus wrote a whole Treatise of the very Name Catholique which is yet extant though hee lived somewhat before St. Hierome Out of these examine your Title and you will finde it vaine trie it by this test and learne to renounce what yee have unjustly usurped Your last plea of perjury was not admitted to Catholiques who adhered to their first Tenents in the generall revolt of this Country yet you urge it handsomly to convince all your Brethren of high perjury in taking such an Oath which you your selves judge to be false since yee deny that there is such a power in Parliaments as yee said above and consequently in the Crowne being all the pretence you alleadge for it was from Parliaments This point of forcing mens Consciences with Oathes in matter of beliefe is excellently declared in a Letter written by Sir Alexander Irving a Scot dated the 20. Jan. 1651. to the Presbytery of Aberdeen and since Printed by authority to bee greater then any other tyranny namely to make men sweare that they believe what the imposers know or may presume they doe not thinke This is a sure way to send the swearers to the Devill especially if to compleat their Malice the Imposers should presently kill them as I hear of a Varlet who out of revenge made a wretch first forsweare his Religion and then instantly stabd him lest he should live and repent I could wish you others would vouchsafe to reade not our Schoolmen that were too much labour but our Summists at least to learne what
Errant appeared in battell and like high-drawn Meteors vanished in the midst of the ayery combate leaving some ill-savours behind them which require suffumigations of sacred incense or at least aspersions of holy Water These last words being pronounc'd you quitted the stage the Chorus replying sadly How truly may we apply to you our blessed Saviours inculcation to the Jewes Quoties volui c. you have murthered his Prophets and Apostles lawfully sent to you for above 80. years you have had their examples of Christian fortitude in undergoing cruell deaths for the antient Religion of Gods universall Church and of this Nation from the infancy of Christianity here and you would not be advised by them Wherefore you are now dissipated and none will receive you The Catholique Church declines you all Protestant Congregations disclaime you which the B. of Cant. at the Councell table confess'd when upon a false rumour of his flying beyong Seas he said If he were minded to leave England he knew not whither to go All that now remaines of your Religion within the whole Dominion of this Nation by authority is that among the Articles upon the surrender of Virginia to the Parliaments navall forces dated the 12. of March 1651. The 11. Article is this That the use of the Common-Prayer Book be permitted there for one yeare ensuing c. God in nature in all ordinate motions to corruption never ceaseth till the subject be reduced to materia prima that is to your first invisibility wherein you now are therefore you must content your selves to be numbred inter non entia for the Law saith De non existentibus not apparentibus eadem est ratio Truly I am of opinion that future ages which shall read your history will take it to be a Romance it seems so full of prettily contrived implicancies like the old Romans who endeavoured by a tumultuous noise of kettles to enchant the Moon you have entertain'd this little world with high noyses in Pulpits in hope to enchant the Inhabitants but the curtain being opened all vanisheth What God will work out of this for generation certainly followes corruption we yet know not only we learn according to Aristotle that the more imperfect form is first produced and then the more Noble as in man first the vegetative then the sensitive and at last the intellectuall The Synagogue had three States even after Christs coming first it was obligatory til Christs Passion it was lawfull not profitable till Pentecost but from thence after sufficient promulgation of the Gospell it was unlawfull every where By these descents it was degraded and honourably buried And truly somewhat after this manner though not so handsomly in the close your Episcopal Idol was to be adored under obligation from 1. Eliz. till the beginning of this Parliament when your Bishops came to their purgation Then the Idoll was reduced to the second state of being lawfull not profitable or obligatory this continued til the Covenant was established by Parliament in Sept. 1643. From thence it became unlawfull and so ingloriously expired yet was not publikely exposed in order to interment till the Common Prayer Book was on the 26. of Novemb. 1644. voted down by Parlâ—an â—nt and the Presbyterian Directory established in its room which is since also vanished Moving and inviting all Catholiques Presbyterians and Independents to sing the Dirige of O Hierusalem Hierusalem quae occidis Prophetas c. they shall not leave on thee one stone upon another Luk. 19. All passengers will easily see the reason of the ruine of this high-built Babel to be because they made the walls without Morter they neither had unity community nor antiquity which only can cement a Christian structure The Roman world was astonisht to see the Pompeian faction having the conscript Fathers of Senate joyned in and with them to be so often and at last totally routed their answer which Cicero celebrates was Nemo mirari debet humana concilia divina necessitate esse superata The same answer in a Christian sense may be given as cause of your ruine Gods decrees have evacuated your ayery policies Let me with all possible instance and charitable seriousnesse conclude to all our Country men with S. Augustine in his seventeenth chapter de utilitate credendi written to Honoratus wherein he first shews the power and prejudice which habits and customes work in us as if he would admonish all to suspect themselves and therefore since Religion is a business of so high concernment as upon which our salvation radically depends you will do well to examine whether it is not custome rather then Christian reason which keeps you where you are without duly weighing the grounds Be pleased seriously to read and ponder S. Augustine who had deeply studied in this Treatise against the Manichees your very case see a summary of the grounds of true Religion you need read no more truly this sole chapter well pondred and the great truths therein wel observed are able to satisfie all the world and powerfully to compell your relinquishing an ill-drawn picture of a Church which hitherto you have exhibited to the world his words are these All customes have such vertue and power to win the love and affection of men that we sooner can condemn and detest even the things that are naught and wicked in them then forsake and change them and this for the most part comes to passe when our unlawfull appetites and desires have gotten a Dominion and predominancy over us Doest not thou think that great care hath been taken about the affairs of mankind and that they are put into a good state and condition that not only Divines but most learned men do argue and contend that nothing that is earthly nothing that is fiery finally nothing that is perceptible by the corporall senses ought to be worshipped and adored for God but that he is to be prayed unto intreated and supplicated only by the understanding or intellectuall power but also that the unskilfull multitude of both sexes doth in so many and so divers Nations both believe it and publish it that there is continency and forbearance of meats even to the most slender diet of bread and water and fastings not for one day only but also continued for divers dayes together that there is chastity even to the contempt of marriage and Issue that there is patience even to the contemning of crosses and flames that â—here is liberality even to the distribution of Patrimonies to the poor and finally so great a disesteem and contempt of all things that are in this world that even death it self is wished and desired Few there are that do these things fewer that do them well and prudently yet the people do approve them hearken to them and like them yea they love and affect them and not without some progress of their minds towards God and certain sparks of piety and vertue they blame and reprehend their own weakness
party first decreed the breach from their old Mother Church as the very Acts testifie so that they had no more Nationall Synod then these who can when they please congregate as many of their party and stile it a Nationall Synod especially if warranted by Parliament as the Presbyterians have lately done whom he equally rejects Secondly he sayes the Independents or Sectaries as he calls them have not plain and evident Scripture but places unlearnedly wrested Who knows not that the Prelatists could never hitherto bring Scripture or antiquity except places unlearnedly wrested have not we demonstrated this 100. times do not they stand registred upon this accusation in all Courts of Justice equity and reason and yet are not able to wipe off the least part These are D. D. his peculiar Aphorismes which by a little redargution rise up in judgement against himselfe and his faction The other Sections are built upon Topicks as common as Robin Hoods Song and answered by every Stationers Catalogue of Frankfort Mart therefore I trouble not the judicious Reader with the rehearsall But to return to the words cited out of his Preface it is most evident to all who read histories what pains the Roman Church hath and doth take in maintaining Colledges and sending Missionaries for the reducing of the Eastern Church and with what affection and solicitude she laboured the recovery of England to her pristine Religion does clearly appeare by the innocent bloud of many of her Priests shed at Tyburn and other places of publique execution meerly upon that account which is the only practise he can justly accuse the Roman Church of what hand we Catholikes have had in the present troubles of the Land cannot be unknown but to those that are truly simplicians of very short consideration when our Priests being every where throughout the Countrey since the beginning of the late warres imprisoned and persecuted to death and our Layty ransackt almost to utter ruine in point of temporall estate only upon the score of their old Recusancy no one of them could be hitherto convicted of Incendiarisme notwithstanding the extreme eagernesse of their enemies to accuse them upon any cavill that malice could surmise let the D. D. convince me of the contrary by any particular instance if he can On the other side what hands and heads what pens and Pulpits those that were not Catholiques have had in their own and our late troubles the Parliamentary Records Scaffolds and Gallowses do make so evident that none can pretend ignorance but such as have their sculs stuffed with Fern. That we joy in our Adversaries troubles is another unproveable calumny of the Doctors We doe extremely pitty them and hope that the Divine permission of an infinity of Sects and subdivisions among them may sooner bring them to reflect on their common Schisme and of their owne accord to endeavour a re-union with the root whence they separated themselves But I presume when the Doctor has read the foregoing discourse he will ingeniously confess who were the only cause of our late troubles or if he will still seem to be wilfully ignorant let him inform himself further of the Scotchwomen of Edenborough who flung their stools at the late Arch-Bishop of Canterburies Legat's head that came to put in practise his new Service Book and other innovations there in the year 1639. I his bred the first disturbance and gave the Alarum to all the sad ensuing troubles in both Nations as our modern histories unanimously agree It would seem strange that a grave D. D. should nor be sensible of the sin of calumny against so celebrated a Church but to reproach her with want of charity or rather excesse of malice in joying at their neighbors spiritual ruines which by all possible solicitude she hath laboured to prevent and to accuse her Members as Boutefeus of State But this is the Prelatists constant stile since they were dispossest of true charity by imbracing Schism neither do I know what should move them thus to detract from the innocent but desparation FINIS ERRATA PAge 89. line 19. for salved read valued p. 96. l. 15. r. Decrees p. 106. l. 16. r. Parsonages