that there is more of the Old City than of the Ancient Church in Rome Lastly If the Papal Supremacy be so absolutely necessary to Christ's Kingdom here on Earth Whether the Cardinals be not strange Men that they by their long Janglings and Disputes upon a Vacancy and at an Election should so long debar him from the Administration of that Power by his Vicar And whether it be not more suitable to a Monarchy that suffers no Interregnum And consequently since Rex Angliae non moritur The King of England is said not to dye according to our Law whether the King be not according to the 37th Article the Supreme Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil in all his Dominions and whether the Bishop of Rome hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction in any of them At this a Jesuit stood up and looking earnestly upon some newly proselyted Papists Regard not said he what any prating Heretick of them all says Have we not made you sufficiently sensible that all the Protestant Religion is an Innovation that King Henry the 8th a mere Julian was the first that apostatiz'd from the Holy Catholick Faith the first that arrogated to himself the Pope's incommunicable Dignity of being Head of the Church 'T is false replyed one of the Church of England King Henry the 8th onely reassum'd what some of his Predecessours own'd what none of them ever could or any of his Successours ever can give away from the Crown of England But the Papal Supremacy is an Usurpation and an Innovation too 't was never heard of in the World untill above 600 Years after Christ nay Pope Boniface the 3 d was the first that ever pretended to be the Vniversal Bishop The Christians in * Tertull. ad Scap. cap. 2. Tertullians's time acknowledg'd the Emperour to be Hominem a Deo secundum solo Deo minorem And †Opt. Lib. 3. Optatus has the same Strain Super Imperatorem non est nisi solus Deus qui fecit Imperatorem What need I mention what Cyril and Chrysostome and Gregory the Great and Pope Agatho have clearly and plainly said and written upon this Point you have been told often enough nay in that Council which you call the Eighth General Council the Emperour Basilius publickly professeth none of the Bishops contradicting him * Epag Basilii in Conc. quod vocat Act. 8. 1. Gubernacula Ecclesiasticae navis sibi a Deo commissa That the Government of the Church was committed to him by God There was no reply made of a long time for a great bustle that was among the Papists at last three or four lusty Fellows came dragging in a mighty tall Statua almost resembling the old Image of St. Christopher in Nostre Dame in Paris he held in his Hand a long Scroll which was a Catalogue of all the Popes and was hung from Head to Foot with all manner of old fashion'd Trumpery Before it march'd an aged Hermit with a Scyth in his Hand and looking upon the Protestants as if he would have mowed them down at once Ye base Innovatours cryed he that have troubled the World with new Doctrines where was your Religion before Luther See here the ancient and undeniable Records of ours see here the infallible Traditions of many Ages by which we clearly know that we profess the same Fundamental Truths the first Martyrs asserted who were so very old that their Beards help'd to burn them and which none but a Company of new fangled Hereticks in the last Century ever denyed Good Father grey-Beard replyed Bishop Montague don 't think to afright us out of our Senses with an old Worm-eaten Idol over-run with Cobwebs you might as well have brought a Tom of Bedlam with the Luggage of the Gibeonites to prove the Antiquity of your Doctrines as this old wither'd Hercules for assure your self we cannot onely prove them the spurious Inventions of your Cabalistical Innovatours but we can tell you the very Time and Occasions of the introducing every one of them into the Christian Church we have not onely the Scriptures Fathers and Councils maintaining all the grounds of the Protestant Religion according to the Reformation of our Church of England but before it even in the darkest days of Popery we meet with many the learned'st Men that those Ages afforded inveighing against the Corruptions both in Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of Rome as Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln William Occham John Gerson Picus Mirandula Hierom Saveranola Hus and Hierom the Followers of Waldo and in the Year 1260 Nicholas Gallique wrote a Book upon that Subject entituled the Fiery Dart But since we cannot convince you of the Antiquity of Protestantism we will be so complemental for this once as to allow Popery to be older than Christianity it self it is no difficult thing to prove several of your Legends out of Livie and Valerius Maximus what a dull Theologue was Lipsius not to remember that several of the fine Stories he tells concerning our * Just â—ips de Virg. Hallu cap 6. Lady at Hall were long before recorded of the †Val. Max. lib. 1. cap 8. Statua of Claudia plac'd in the Temple of the Mother of the Gods the speaking and Miracles of Images are all Ethnick Illusions and the friskings of Monkish Puppets the Artificial Contrivances of Heathenish Oracle-mongers many of your Saints are slipt into places of Trust held by the old Deities but I wonder that since Diana had so noble an Office as to hunt the Stag and the Wild-Bore that St. Gertrude should get no better Preferment in your Legends than that of a paltry Rat-catcher But we will talk no more of the Antiquity of your Religion As for that Jesuit who boasts so much of it although he is the greatest Innovatour amongst you yet rather than fail upon occasion he can learnedly prove his own Order to be the eldest as well as the richest in the World nay contemporary with the very Hivites and Perizzites for Numb 26. 44. we reade Of Jesui the Family of the Jesuits He had a great deal more to say to them but that he was interrupted with a great Crowd and Noise of Clergy-men coming in from all parts of the Kingdom who made great Complaints against the Presbyterians and other Dissenters for that they in a time when the Government both in Church and State was in such danger by reason of the Papists were then more ungovernable restless and insolent than at any other time and indeed so it plainly appeared for those there present began to be troublesome and mutinous pretending great Fears of Popery but levelling all their Invectives against Persons the most remarkable for Loyalty and Conformity and clamouring for a speedy Reformation of I do not know what holding a great many Seditious Pamphlets in their Hands complaining railing petitioning threatning which when the Papists observed they very cunningly slipt away well knowing that they had too much alarm'd
it but you were reforming us to those Fantastical Customs from whence at first 't is probable that the Romish Corruptions had their beginning but what and if you thought to banish the Mass by taking away the Common-Prayer-Book 't is certain that you at the same time made room for the Targum and surely your Friends the Jews could not but smile at their return into England again to meet such plenty of Adonirams Obadiahs and Ichabods such blessed Reformers from Popery as would have sold them St. Paul's Church for a Synagogue who preach'd Christ to the Gentiles this was establishing his Throne Nineteenthly My Beloved We cannot help it cry'd Vines if the Turk should come in For that Horse of Superstition and Idolatry upon the Back of Vines to the Commons 1646. which the Devil hath in former times made war against the Church is slain under him and now he is mounted upon a fresh Horse of another Colour called Liberty of Opinion falsly called Liberty of Conscience Well done old Beelzebub cry'd a Cavalier laughing heartily a very good Jockey truly and very well mounted upon an Horse that will carry double and treble I hope he will be so gratefull to your Worships for helping him to him that he will take some of you up behind him one of these Days But for the Horse of Superstition and Idolatry did those Horses rout him which Cromwell brought into the Church watered at the Font and fed at the Communion Table assure your selves that those very Gentlemen who raised that abominable Lye concerning the Nag's-head are the Men that would make you believe that there is a Horse of Superstition grasing within the Pale of the Church of England although 't is hard to prove him to be lineally descended from those Horses upon which the Popes ride whilst Princes hold their Stirrop But since the Devil is mounted as you say we find he will not ride alone for your Brother the Quaker is got upon his Mare that may in time breed as many false Opinions as the Trojan Horse carried treacherous Grecians But how came we cry'd he from Hebrew to Horseback How replyed a Gentleman over Hedg and Ditch by leaping a Similitude of Vines's who compares the Service of the Church to an Horse of Idolatry whenas his Brethren who style themselves the Horsemen and Chariots of Israel are Heyryck to the Commons May 27 1646. nearer related to the old Centaures and his Horse of Opinions might as well have been a Hydra or the Beast with seven score Heads But my Friends cry'd he turning to the Presbyterians were not you forewarned of those very things of which ye now complain Did not the Authour of the Loyal Convert whoever he was thus argue with you in the Year 1643 Think you such swarms of Sectaries sweat Page 17. for nothing Are their Purses so apt to bleed to no end Will not their costs and pains expect at least a congratulatory connivance in the freedom of their Consciences Or will their Swords now in the strong possession of so great a multitude know the way into their quiet Scabbards without the expected Liberty of their Religions and can that Liberty produce any thing but an establish'd Disorder And is not Disorder the Mother of Anarchy and that of Ruine At this they being all silent for a considerable time he said again pray what do you your selves think to be the reason that your intended Reformation should so dismally miscarry What! replyed Faircloth why * Faircloth on John 7. 25. Pag. 25. Israel could not be cured without a full and total extirpation of all the accursed Things and Persons also That is replyed the Cavalier every Throat that could not swallow the Covenant was to be cut which amounted to some hundreds of thousands and by all the accursed things you meant whatever you called Popish But I protest Saints according to your Definition of Popery many things more Popish than any thing you objected against the Church escaped your sagacious Reformation Why did you not utterly abrogate all Leggs of Mutton Town and Country because they have the Popes Eye in every one of them Why was not the Man in the Almanack that great Malignant laid by the Heels whose Heart is influenc'd by Leo the name of a great many Popes Why did you not demolish all the Signs of the Cross-Keys of the Mitre and of the Cardinals Cap Why did ye suffer the Babylonish Game of Cross and Pile the Antichristian Game of Chess with Kings and Queens and Bishops in it Why was there a Toleration of Dice the very Bones of the Whore of Babylon with black Patches on them these were all dismal Tokens of the Beast and more the just Objects of your refining Zeal than many things you did abolish But to be serious with you after all the Remonstrances you made did the King ever deny to concur with you in a Legal Reformation of any abuse But instead of closing with him in calm and moderate Counsels you brought all things into Confusion with violent Invectives and distant Scandals the Peoples easy Fancies being the best grounds of your clamorous Arguments to prove the Ceremonies of the Church Popish and particular Irregularities of some few Clergy-men were made use of as a general Argument against its Discipline and Government whenas indeed the Faults of its Members are not its Constitutions nor did so good and just a King any more countenance them than your Rebellion and therefore they did not authorize you to revile the whole body of the Church much less to treat the best of its Members with such barbarous Insolencies without distinction as you have done and * De Moribus Eccl. Cath. Tom. 1. cap. 34. St. Austin if you will allow of any Saints but your selves hath taught you a better Lesson when he saith Nunc illud vos admoneo ut aliquando Ecclesiae Catholicae maledicere desinatis Vituperando mores hominum quos ipsa condemnat quos quotidie tanquam malos filios corrigere studet Now this I advise you that you cease at length to revile the Catholick Church by disparaging the manners of Men which it self condemns and whom as evil Sons it dayly endeavours to correct The words immediately before are Novi multos esse Sepulchrorum picturarum adoratores I know that there are many Worshippers of Tombs and Pictures So much Superstition could never be found among the Sons of the Church of England who might have found more Charity among Turks and less Inhumanity from Infidels than from you But you who could not endure one establish'd Religion let in at least 40 to drive it out as Foreigners themselves computed This was First my Beloved a plentifull Reformation You that could not allow the King any considerable Supplies towards the maintaining a Foreign War in which you engaged him could raise and consume 17 Millions Sterling in less than three Years in a Domestick War
these honest People formerly of the Ims there was the Rephaims the Zusims the Emims the Cherubims and Seraphims the Vrims and Thummims and they all come from the Hebrew word le Vmmim but now there is not one of them to be had for love or Money And what should be the reason that so many godly people should be smitten why truly they were separated and were united far asunder Do ye think that if these Protestants had made a Bargain to stand by one another that the Pope and his Kings could ever have smitten them Do ye think that if they had entred into Covenant before the Lord that he would not have left all Business to defend them Yes verily the Lord loves to see his secret ones go hand in hand like a Yoke of Oxen. But now Beloved Let us consider the reasons why we are not united for the Zusims and the Emims Case is ours at this day I say what is the reason why truly the reason is because there is no reason at all for are we not all Protestants though we go by several Names If we had all the same Name how should we know one from another Then if I called my Wife my Maid would come and there would be such coming and going and going and coming that we should be like Satan walking to and fro What! one is called a Presbyterian another an Independent a third an Anabaptist what signifies these Names Are we not all Protestants Shall a few Letters we learnt when we were Boys make us quarrel now we are Men Nay now we are come of Age to be Martyr'd And have we not reason to fear it For 't is certain that the Whore of Babylon is coming with a great many Kings after her Tail and then what do ye think will become of us She will eat of the best and drink of the best She will eat up all your White Bread and leave you nothing but Brown-Bread And do you think that is all No! She will send you Slaves to the Sugar Mines or drown you by the way in the Pyrenaean Sea One would think this enough but hold ye there She will kill you over and over again She will fetch the Heart's Bloud and Gutts of your Souls out and pick your Pockets Ah! my Beloved Ah Lord I wish ye had been so united that I might have divided my Text but into one part nevertheless I will conclude with this pray carry it home with you We have been a long time as Hemp I say as Hemp beaten by the Ungodly let us be twisted with one ac-cord into an holy Rope to bind their Kings in Chains and their Nobles with Links of Iron As soon as he had ended the Gentleman pull'd me by the Sleeve and what Sir said he do you think of Demosthenes or Cicero What Sir said I I think they have been dead this half year Why said he When they were living they were not half so good Oratours as this very Fellow that now Canted as you call it is not that the truest Eloquence that moves the Audience to what the Preacher designs Pray come along with me I will shew you how servently they practise his Doctrine I went along with him in the Crowd untill we came into a spacious open Field in the midst of which was a great Ring of People hand in hand in the middle of them a Scotch Bag-piper and a Fellow blind-folded dancing to the Tune of 41. Bless me thought I what is here to doe what have we a dance of Satyrs in a Fairy Circle As soon as we were come close up to them I never saw such different shapes of Men in all my Life there was not one of them like to another Pray Sir said I what are these Here are quoth he Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Brownists Ranters Antinomians Familists Libertines Scepticks Jesuits Adamites Quakers Hold Sir said I have you ever a Rhinocerot among them What do you mean Sir said he Why truly Sir replyed I I thought you had been reckoning the Beasts of America Oh no Sir said he these are the several Sectaries who united in the late infamous League against the Government in Church and State And is not that Man very Eloquent that can persuade Men who are Antipodes in Religion to venture Life and Estate Soul and Body to fight against any particular one which they do not understand so well as the differences between themselves Oh! Sir said I as these several Sects have derived their blasphemous Opinions from the Ancient Hereticks so likewise do they agree with them in their rebellious Combinations against the Sovereign Truth as Tertullian has delivered to us a Character of those in his Days let us compare them with these Omnes tument omnes scientiam pollicentur ipsae mulieres Haereticae quà m procaces quae audent docere contendere c. Now is not this like our Separatists But to the present Case Nihil interest illis licet diversa De Praescrip cap. 41. tractantibus dum ad unius veritatis Expugnationem conspirent But Pray Sir continued I which of these are true Protestants Why said he the Fellow that is blinded in the midst of them is a Seeker and if I had time he who has been of all Religions should give us an account of their several Opinions and when you have heard them if you can from them all patch up such a considerable Rarity as a true Protestant I will be bound to give you a Venison Pasty made of Act aeon for your Supper but I will be at leisure to give you a relationn of them at another time Pray Sir said I let me have a short account of some of these Rarities of Fanaticism now I will not trouble you to speak of them all for I think to * D. Aug. de Haeres St. Austin's Catalogue of Hereticks here are ninety more of a later Invention added surely Ross in his View of Religions never saw half so many strange Garbs of Opinion as are here before us 't is no wonder the Morocco Ambassadour was startled to find such Protestant Monsters amongst us as Africa never bred and which can digest the good Cause better than his Ostriches can old Iron But what is yonder Fellow with a watering-Pot in his Hand That is replyed he an Ana-Baptist and that Fellow who Trembles as if he had swallowed an Earthquake has a cold Fit of the Hat just now creeping upon him his Principles have of late been sufficiently proved to be Jesuitical and his Practices much more for when the warm Fit of Zeal and Fighting is upon him he is as brisk a Reformer as the rest of the Pack or as that Antinomian who is for breaking the two Tables that he might prevent Popery whereas his Holiness thinks that taking away but one of the Commandments is a sufficient means to encourage it But is not that Yeoman in his Naturalibus a very hardy Fellow think you
rather chuse to be non-suited than comply with such determinations which may be to your advantage much good may it doe you Moreover it is generally believed by all natural Philosophers that a man may walk into a Church though it stands East and West if all the doors be open though some Hypocondrical people would fancy they could not and that the door is either too little for their Noses or their Noses too big for the Door Now Sir you will say that Conscience though erroneous is not melancholy and that the cases we talk of are not Civil but Ecclesiastical therefore say you 't is certain that Conscience though false obliges but that 't is uncertain whether such Commands do or no. But that your Conscience may not be erroneous we will prove they certainly do oblige Whig If the Commands of a Father or Master of a Family do not in such Circumstantials for many reasons I have given how then can such Commands of a Supreme Magistrate whose Dominions may be so large that they cannot punctually be observed Suppose a strict Law were made at Paris that every particular Church in the Nation should commence their publick Service on the Lord's day precisely at nine a clock it is Mathematically certain that some would have done and got half through their dinners before others would be half way in their devotions they in the farthest Eastern Parts would have come to their Amen before those on the Calabrian Ocean would be at their Oremus Pamph. They would be pretty well out of the hearing and interrupting one another that 's the comfort of it If the Man in the Almanack though pelted with all the Signs of the Zodiack had not brought a better Argument I would sentence him to be stuck in the Pillory that his Noddle might be influenc'd with rotten Eggs and therefore keep your Mathematical Certainty for your Sunday Pudding But Sir though the Clock of a Family may sometimes go wrong it can't go far and therefore I suppose the Master of a Family may determine a time by that clock for family-duty ay and many other Circumstantials too Nay I fancy that he may enjoyn his Family to abstain from Wine all Lent Whig That would be a Breach of Christian Liberty Pamph. Was not that more a Breach of the Jewish Privileges when the Rechabites were commanded to drink no Wine they nor their sons for ever by their Father Jonadab there lay no such obligation from the Law of Moses yet what says the Text Jerem. 35. 18 19. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Because ye have obeyed the Commandment of Jonadab your Father and kept all his Precepts and done according to all that he hath commanded you Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever Whig But the consequence from the power of a Master of a Family to the Civil Magistrate's Power is not very clear and that by reason of the incapacity and unfitness of the Matter the bulkiness of the Aggregate for as c. Pamph. Away with these rumbling Similitudes you draw but foisty Arguments from such swelling words of vanity I say the Supreme Magistrate particularly the King of England is better qualified to govern in all cases Civil and Ecclesiastical in his Dominions than any Master can be for domestick in his Family God has furnish'd him with means suitable to the greatness and variety of his charge for Ecclesiastical affairs Rex Angliae est persona mixta cum Sacerdote in the same sense that Constantine the Great vouch'd himself to be a Bishop and the Church of Christ acknowledged him He is custos utriusque Tabulae And as he can command you to hold up your hand at the Bar of God's Justice whose Vicegerent he is in case you break any one Commandment so can he command you to kneel before the Throne of Grace in token of your Obedience So that indeed I grant you that the power of a Master of a Family may not be compared with that of the Supreme Magistrate indeed if you look into the late Rebellion the Supreme Magistrate was made low enough but if you look into the Present State of England you will find by Common Civil Canonical Apostolical by all manner of Law that our Sovereign Lord King Charles the Second is by the grace of God in all Causes and over all Persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil Supreme Governour Look into the late Rebellion and you will find that they were such scrupulous Buffoons as your self that broke the Boundaries of Order and Obedience under the pretence of Reformation and Conscience and turned the Nation Topsy-turvy in Blood and Gore I have formerly shewn what was their Reformation As for their Consciences they were not very tender when they made none you are mightily offended that such a Tender Conscience should be thought a melancholy delusion or a superstitious qualm But with what confidence are you so brisk upon that instance of David's heart smiting him when he cut off Saul's skirt when you are Pag. 375. pleading for the Consciences of those Dissenters that cut off King Charles his Head You are merrily prophane when you say pag. 381. that you wonder that among all the Apocryphal Epistles of our Saviour to Agbarus or Paul to Seneca that we meet with none of the Apostles to Nero That whereas their Lord and Master either through the hurry of business had forgotten or the littleness of the things had neglected to settle his Churches c. That therefore they humbly beseech his Imperial Majesty that he would review and revise their Religion and such other mystical Ceremonies significant of Gospel-grace wherewith his well-known Piety could not but be intimately acquainted c. And his Petitioners shall humbly pray c. Sir Had you drawn a Petition according to the strain and humour of those Dissenters you plead for it should have run thus That whereas their Lord and Master whose Kingdom was not of this world had not left them Amunition enough to settle his Churches c. That therefore they humbly beseech his Protectorship to grant them the Militia of the Empire the Pretorian Bands and to add such other things significant of Gospel-power wherewith c. And his Petitioners shall heartily fight c. Whig Hark you Sir have you nothing to say to the Authour of Julian the Apostate Pamph. Yes I suppose he is one of your disciples and has learn'd both his Loyalty and his Modesty from you one would think that you had spit into his mouth that very Complement you by the way of Similitude pass upon the Supreme Magistrate Page 361. It was say you a Malicious Artifice of Julian the Apostate to erect the Images of the Heathen gods in the Forum near his own Statue reducing hereby the Christians to this Dilemma either to seem to worship the Images