by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their King in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or the other various constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justifie it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy-men under the King In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the King For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The King is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his authority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the King the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direction is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as supream governour though himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the King succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their leige sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperours and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their Kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganism they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not only their temporal contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And Kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of worldly senatours enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielden under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact speciall and particular laws answerable to the genetal rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto discovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselvs to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people who were of that Church The chief byshop is an Aaron and
every Christian king a Joshua And as it is a content and support to Aaron to have a Joshua with him to fight Gods battles and keep the people in awe so is it not a little comfort to Joshua to have an Aaron by him with whom he may consult And indeed no kingdom can have a perfect accomplishment without the presence of these two swords civil and spiritual Ecce duo gladij hic satis est And although Christians even at this day when any heresy or novelty arises have still recours unto the same head of their religion for a decision of the doubt whom they consulted before for as the channel of Christianity is and must be still the same so must the spring-head be the same also yet when the thing is once decided they have none but kings and governours under him to see the direction executed as the only overseers with coactive power to do it And thus you see in brief how the Pope is head of the Church and the King head likewise and both immediately under God but with this difference that the king only governs Christianity established in his own royalty by law the Pope without further law rules and guides all the streams and rivulets of religion where ever it flows He is head of primary direction the king of sovereign execution he of guidance and spiritual autority only the king of civil and natural power invested in his place and dignity from God above to maintain any laws as well purely Christian as civil which himself shall accept establish and promulgate The Pope perswades but the King commands and although the Pope should formally command yet vertually and in effect such a command amounts only to a perswasion and he that obeys not feels no smart for it except the king be pleased to espous his caus and punish the contumacious which if he justly do then have kings a just autority in those affairs if otherwise then hath the Pope no means of help or defence in this world any more after the conversion of kings than before it and help himself he cannot any other way than only by putting people out of his communion who care not for it The Pope is obeyed for conscience and love only to his religion the King for wrath and conscience too the Pope delivers the rule but in general only and blunt on one side the King particularises it and gives it an edg the Popes headship is exercised in Ought and Should be the Kings is Will and shall be the Pope directs but the King compells the Pope secludes the contumacious from heaven which he that beleevs not feels not the King over and above that cuts off malefactors from the face of the earth too and they shall be made by feeling to beleev it And these two defend and secure one another and keep both Christians and their faith inviolate And while Christians themselvs do both tenderly love their Pape and chief pastour and spring-head of their religion which is beleeved beyond him to flow invisibly from God the great ocean of truth and withall do honor fear and observ their King and princely governour who only bears the sword of justice and not in vain to take revenge upon all those whom the love of religion and spiritual sword of their pastour will not keep in awe they do their duty as they ought and shall finde happines therein I must make haste and can say no more at present to this busines which as I have told you is somewhat besides my purpos Only one thing I must needs tell you before I pass on Although a King is in a good and proper sence stiled head as well of Church as State within his own dominions as for all coersive power therein yet head of the Church absolutely or head of primary direction in faith is so proper to the chief Prelate that no man upon earth besides himself hath ever so much as pretended to it and that for five reasons First becaus head of the Church absolutely intimates an universal right over the guidance of religion not in one kingdom only but all where ever that religion is And the King of France for example neither did nor can pretend to be head of the Church of England much less of Hungary Spain Africk Italy Greece Asia c. Yet such a head there must needs be to the end the Church may be one mystick body at unity in it self And that head must be unlimited to time and place as the Church it self is ever permanent and universally spread nor must the government alter as governments of particular kingdoms do Secondly head of the Church absolutely involves a primacy both of conveighing and interpreting faith and all princes in Europe received their faith at first from priests who sent for that end from their spiritual superiour converted their kingdoms but they never gave faith either to them or their pastour Thirdly he that is head of the Church absolutely must be of the same connatural condition with the whole hierarchy to confirm baptise ordain preach attone the almighty by sacrifice impose hands segregate men from their worldly state unto his own spiritual one and in a special manner to exercise those priestly functions unto which he segregates them Fourthly head of the Church absolutely is to be indifferent unto kingdoms and all sorts of government as the religion also is and keep it like it self in all places unaltered in its nature however in its general dictates it may concur to the direction and good of all people and governments And therefor he cannot be confined to one place or government but must be as it were separate and in a condition indifferent to all as a general by shop whose sole care is to heed those eradiations of faith spread up and down the world may be and is when princes heed but their own particular kingdoms and care not how religion goes in another any more then their wealth or polity Thus the sun-beams though they fall upon several soils diversly affected yet they keep their own nature unaltered by vertue of one general fountain-head of light which is indifferent to every kingdom and dispenses distributes and keeps the raies unchanged The ends and wayes of religion are quite of another nature from all worldly businesses and therfor require a particular superintendent set apart for them as indeed they ever have had since the time of religions first master who as he did educate his in order to a life eternal in a government apart being himself a man distinct from Caesar so used he to speak of religious duties as separate and differing from others Reddite saith he quae Caesaris sunt Caesari quae Dei Deo In very truth the Church and Christianity as it is a thing accidental to all worldly states so is it superinduced upon them as an influence of another rank and order unto a particular end of future bliss whereas all states do
on the Defendants side which is not in the Plaintiff or Actour but this at present I am not to take notice of nay finally that they have ever don much harm in Kingdoms but never good In all this Sir you do like your self you love nois and whirlwinds and when you hear of Peace prepare your self to Battle so ill do you understand the sound of a retreat or becaus it suits not with your ends and inclinations will not But all this discours of Fiat Lux tends say you to Popery A fearful thing and ungrateful news to Ministers for whose foolish endles and ungrounded quarrels we have lately engaged our honour peace livelihood lives and all that is dear unto us and yet we are still but where we were before we began Nay we are ten times farther off from any reconcilement unity or satisfaction then before And such success have all wars ever had where the alarm was given in the Pulpit But why must it tend to Popery Becaus that Fiat Lux is bold to say that Popery in its own likenes is not so ugly as we imagin it Lord what a strange thing is this that either Fiat Lux or any els should presume to say that we in England or other Nations may be carried by the reports of som interested men to think wors of a thing then it may deserv especially considering that we com all to Church to hear Gods Words and there meet with a man who in the first opening of his lips cryes Hearken my Beloved to the word of the Lord and so having with that airy honey-comb sweetned the edges of our ears pours into them afterward what poison of his own conceived interests he pleases all which we his dearly beloved let down greedily into our hearts as that precious word of the Lord which he at first proclaimed By which fallacies we have been in the time of these our late wars so far inveigled I speak to men now alive who all know I speak true that it became then a most dangerous thing yea treason it self to say God save the King who was by this our Pulpit rhetorick made as odious then throughout the land as Popery what ever it be ever was or can be And are not neighbours thus abused daily almost in every thing Where is that man who hath not by such like means been one time or other induced to think amiss even of his most innocent and dearest friends till himself by trial found the contrary O but God forbid you will say that ever we should come by trial to know what Popery is Sir may it be far from us so long as heaven pleases But i' th interim what harm can it be to us to mitigate our passions which if there be no mistake are prejudicial notwithstanding to our own peace and if a mistake there should be are double injurious and desperately sinful before God and man Oh but mistake there can be none Sir let me tell you roundly By your own Book of Animadversions I do as clearly see as ever I beheld Sun in the Firmament that you do not your self understand what Popery is even no more then the poorest meanest peasant in the Parish But who is able to make this good and clear unto you no body Sir so long as you are in passion in a calm of indifferency your very self Nor could I without that serenity have been ever able to discern it But yet there is one thing more which will hinder your acknowledgement although you should come to know it It is their interest to justifie themselvs and yours to condemn them Had not you with your threats so much frighted me from any thought of writing any more I could I think my self who am in your judgement one of the greatest ingrams in the Land make it yet appear that the present Popish Religion if to pleas you they will give me leave to call it so is not only less ugly then we conceive it but far more innocent and amiable then I have made it And if there were not so much as one Catholik or Romanist or Papist upon earth yet so far am I from any interest herein that in that judgment I would notwithstanding dy alone Nor had I set before my eyes any other end in that my Fiat of moderation against which you write your hot Animadversions then the peace and welfar of my Countrey which under the pretended shadow of Popery inflamed by the alarms of Vicars and their Wives for whom we fight as it were pro aris focis hates and mischiess strikes and destroyes one another without end And yet which is a strange thing whilst every one conceits himself to fight for Purity of Gospel against Popery they fight all for Popery against Purity of Gospel And this you must affirm your self if you do but remember what in your Book of Animadversions you so frequently assert that what good soever the Papists or Roman Catholiks either do or have amongst them they have and do the same as Christians and not as Papists and that Popery is it self nothing els but pride interest ambition tyranny worldly respects thirst of blood affectation of dominion c. As I am sure on the other side that grace charity and peace is the pure quintessence of Gospel and the very extract of true Religion Either then I had reason to tell you that you understand not what Popery is or if you do you must needs acknowledge that those who here in England betwixt the years of 1640. and 1660. with guns and daggers as you often phrase it with field rhetorick and pulpit cannon subverted all before them even Church and State too let them call themselvs Puritans Independents Presbyterians or what they pleas were all of them by this your own rule as arch Papists as ever trode upon the earth Nor is it of concernment so they have the reality of the thing whence they may borrow their name whether some man upon earth be their Pope or whether the Devil be himself their ghostly father And I fear Sir you wer your self some part of that dismal tempest which in the last years of our woful Anarchy overbore all before it not only Church and State but reason right honesty all true Religion and even good natur too The very flashings of your pen move me to this thought The whole physiognomy of your Book speaks the hot and fiery spirit of the Authour First you cannot abide to hear of moderation it is with you most wicked hypocritical and devillish especially as it coms from me And for this one thing Fiat Lux suffers more from you then for all the contents of the Book put together My reason is your passion my moderation inflames your wrath and you are therfor stark wild becaus I utter so much of sobriety Secondly your so frequent talking of sword and blood fire and faggot guns and daggers do more then show you have not yet let
first our Gospel and Christendom from Rome though the Brittans who inhabited this Land before us differing as much from us as Antipodes had some of them been Christned long before us And yet the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Brittans even they also as well as we had it from Rome too mark this likewise But you reply Though persons from Rome did first plant Christianity among the Saxons was it the Popes Religion they taught did the Pope first finde it out or did they Baptise in the name of the Pope Good Sir it was the Popes Religion not invented by him as your cavil fondly imagines but owned professed and put in practice by him and from him derived unto us by his missioners You adde Did not the Gospel come to Rome as well as to us for it was not first preached there Sir properly speaking it came not so to Rome as it came to us For one of the twelve fountains nay two of the thirteen and those the largest and greatest was transferred to Rome which they watered with their blood we had never any such standing fountain of Christian Religion here but only a stream derived to us from thence My second assertion must be From whom we first received our Religion with them we must still abide This principle as it is never delivered by Fiat Lux though you put it upon me so is it in the latitude it carries and wherin you understand it absolutely fals never thought of by me and indeed impossible For how can we abide with them in any truth who may perhaps not abide in it themselvs Great part of Flanders was first converted by Englishmen and yet are they not obliged either by Fiat Lux or any lux whatsoever to accompany the English in our now present wayes If Rome first taught us Christianity she may then rather plead a power to guide us than we her This or some such like thing I might speak and rationally speak it But that we or any other should be obliged still to abide or rather to follow them who first taught us Religion though they should themselvs forsake their own doctrin as you would make me speak is a piece of folly never came into my thoughts And you may be ashamed to put it upon me Why do you not set down my own words and the page of my book where I delivered this principle My third must be The Roman Religion is still the same This also I do no where formally express nor enter into any such common place You will say I suppose it But doth this justifie you who say here that I assert it as a principle let it then be supposed for I do indeed suppose it becaus I know it hath been demonstrativly proved a hundred times over You deny it has bin proved why do you not then disprove it Becaus you decline say you all common places Very good so do I let us com to proper ones You fall then upon my Queries in the end of my book The Roman was once a true flourishing Church and if she ever fell she must fall either by apostasie heresie or schism c. So I speak there And to this you reply that the Church that then was in the Apostles time was indeed true not that Roman Church that now is So so then say I that former true Church must fall then som time or other when did she fall and how did she fall by apostacy heresy or schism Perhaps say you neither way for she might fall by an earthquake Sir we speak not here of any casual or natural downfall or death of mortals by plague famine or earthquake but a moral and voluntary laps in faith What do you speak to me of earthquakes You adde therfor the second time that she might fall by idolatry and so neither by apostacy heresy or schism Good Sir idolatry is a mixt misdemeanour both in faith and manners I speak of the single one of faith And he that falls by idolatry if he keep still some parts of Christianity entire he falls by heresy by apostacy if he keep none At last finding your self pusled in the third place you lay on load She fell say you by apostacy idolatry heresy schism licentiousnes and prophanenes of life And in this you do not much unlike the drunken youth who being bid to hit his masters finger with his when he perceived he could not do it he ran his whole fist against it But did she fall by apostacy By a partial one say you not a total one Good Sir in this division apostasy is set to expres a total relaps in opposition to heresy which is the partial Did she then fall by heresy or partial apostasy in adhering to any error in faith contary to the approved doctrin of the Church Here you smile seriously and tell me that since I take the Roman and Catholik Church to be one she could not indeed adhere to any thing but what she did adhere unto Sir I take them indeed to be one but here I speak ad hominem to one that does not take them so And then if indeed the Roman Church had ever swerved in faith as you say she has and be her self but as another ordinary particular Church as you say she is then might you find som one or other more general Church if any ther were possitively to judg her som Oecumenical councel to condemn her som fathers either greek or latin expresly to write against her as Protestants now do som or other grave solemn autority to censur her or at least som company of beleevers out of whose body she went and from whose faith she fell Since you are no wayes able to assign any of these particulars my Query remains unanswered and the Roman still as flourishing a Church as ever she was The fourth assertion frequently say you pleaded by our Authour is that all things as to religion were ever quiet and in peace before the Protestants relinquishment of the Roman Sea This principle you pretend is drawn out of Fiat Lux not becaus it is there but only to open a door for your self to expatiate into som wide general discours about the many wars distractions and factious altercations that have been aforetime up and down the world in som several ages of Christianity And you therfor say it is frequently pleaded by me becaus indeed I never speak one word of it And it is in truth a fals and fond assertion Though neither you nor I can deny that such as keep unity of faith with that Church can never so long as they hold it fall out upon that account If you had either cited the place or set down my own words they would have spoke their meaning I might say perhaps that our Land had no part of those disturbances upon the account of religion all the thousand years it was Catholik which it hath suffered in one age since or the like But that all
to him whom God hath set over us as our head and ruler under him and none exalt himself against him I know you will laugh at this my observation but I cannot but tell you what I think To return then to my former discours when I speak good Sir of the news of Christianity first brought to this land I mean not that which was first brought upon the earth or soil of this land and spoken to any body then dwelling here but which was delivered to the fore-fathers of the now present inhabitants who be Saxes or Englishmen And I say that we the now present inhabitants of England off-spring of the English or Saxons had the first news of our Christianity immediately from Rome and from Pope Gregorius the Roman Patriarch by the hands of his missioner St. Austin And this all men know to be as true as they know that Papists are now becom odious Sith then the categorick assertions are both clear namely that the Papist first brought us the news of Christianity and secondly that the Papist is now becom odious amongst us what say you to my consequence that the whole story of Christianity may as well be deemed a Romance as any part of that Christianity we at first received as now judged to be part of a Romance This consequence of mine it behoved a man of those great parts you would be thought to have to heed attentively and yet you never mind it You adde in the close of your discours that many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the commission of Christ But Sir what love of Christ dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choos and reject at your own pleasure what heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the love of Christ and commission of Christ for what he did How shall any one know you do it out of any such either love or commission sith those who delivered the articles of faith now rejected pretended equal love of Christ and commission of Christ for the delivery of them as of any other And why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of something els when this love of Christ which is now crept out into the very outside of our lips is slipt off thence Do you think men cannot finde a cavil against him as well as his law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches Is not the thing already don and many becom atheists upon that account Pray speak to me somthing of reason Did not the Jews by pretens of their love to that immortal God whom their forefathers served reject the whole Gospel at once and why may not we possibly as well do it by peece-meals Let us leav cavils Grant my supposition which you know you cannot deny then speak to my consequence which I deem most strong and good to infer a conclusion which neither you nor I can grant I tell you plainly and without tergiversation before God and all his holy angels what I should think if I descended unto any conclusion in this affair And it is this either the Papist who holds at this day all those articles of faith which were delivered at the first conversion of this land by St. Austin is unjustly becom odious amongst us or els my honest Parsons throw off your cassocks and resign your benefices and glebe-lands into the hands of your neighbours whose they were aforetime my consequence is irrefragable If any part much more if many parts great substantial parts of religion brought into the land with the first news of Christianity be once rejected as they are now amongst us as Romish or Romancical and that rejection or reformation be permitted then may other parts and all parts if the gap be not stopt be lookt upon at length as points of no better a condition Nay it must needs be so for the same way and means that lopt off som branches will do the like to others and root too A villification of that Church wherein they find themselvs who have a minde to prevaricate upon pretens of Scritur and power of interpreting light spirit or reason adjoyned with a personal obstinacy that will not submit will do it roundly and to effect This first brought off the Protestants from the Roman catholik Church this lately separated the Presbyterian from the English Protestant Church the Independent from the Presbyterian the Quaker from other Independents And this last good man heeds nothing of Christian religion but only the moral part which in deed and truth is but honest paganisme This speech is worthy of all serious consideration And I could wish you would ponder it seriously See if the Quaker deny not as resolutely the regenerating power of baptism as you the efficacy of absolution See if the Presbyterian do not with as much reason evacuate the prelacy of Protestants as they the Papacy See if the Socinian arguments against the Trinity be not as strong as yours against the real presence in the Eucharist See if the Jew do not with as much plausibility deride Christ as you his Church See if Porphiry Julian and other ancient pagans do not as strongly confute all Christianity as we any part of it He is a fool that having a will and power enough cannot find out as plausible a pretence for the pulling down of Churches as we had any for the destroying of Monasteries Ther be books lately set forth and by more then one authour here in this land which do as powerfully dissipate the conceit we once had of hell as any ever did elude Purgatory Did we not lately find out texts and reasonings against our King and monarchy as many as we found out long ago against Pope and popery Gods providence and our souls immortality if any list to deny he may have more abundant argumentations every where occurring than any other piece of popery now rejected ever felt If one text of scriptur be by a trope of rhetorick made to speak a sens contrarty to what was beleeved in catholik times in any one point cannot another text by some such slight be forced to frustrate another I am sure it may do so and has done so And thus when all articles are at last by such tricks of wit cashiered can there be wanting several appearing incongruities contradictions tautologies improbabilities to disable all holy writ at once And cannot the Jew afford us at last arguments enough to dissipate at length the very name of Christ out of the world which after the whole extirpation of his law will but float on mens lips like an empty shadow till it quite vanish These things Sir are not only true but clear and evident And nothing is wanting to justifie them but a serious consideration These few words Sir which I have bestowed upon you by way of
not to heed any thing that may hinder your flourishes But Sir if you were kept up in a chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your aery vaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold had made an end of you But I beleev you love not such dry blows however you may be delighted with pen encounters at a distance where after your suppositum has been well inspired with the warm spirits blown hither out of the fortunate islands you may cavil revile and threaten at your pleasure and knock down the shadow of your adversary which your own spirits have raised up and presented to you in your chamber 10 ch from page 213 to 228. Your tenth chapter runs over two of my paragraffs which speak the plea of Independents Presbyterians and Protestants That you esteem idle the other sensles the last insufficient And to make this last good you endeavour to disable both what I have set down to make against the Prelate Protestant and also what I have said for him I said in Fiat Lux that it made not a little against our Protestants that after the prelate Protestancy was settled in England they were forced for their own preservation against Puritans to take up som of those principles again which former Protestants had sast down for Popish as is the autority of a visible Church efficacy of ordination difference between clergy and laiety c. Here first you deny that those principles are popish But Sir ther be som Jews even at this day who will deny any such man as Pontius Pilate to have ever been in Jury I have other things to do than to fill volums with useles texts which here I might easily do out of the books both of the first reformers and catholik divines and councels Then secondly you challenge me to prove that those principles were ever dented by our prelate Protestants And this you do wittily and like your self You therfor bid me prove that those principles were ever denied by our prelate Protestants becaus I say that our prelate Protestants here in England as soon as they became such took up again those forenamed principles which Protestants their forefathers both here in England and beyond the seas before our prelacy was set up had still rejected When I say then that out prelate Protestant affirmed and asserted those principles which former Protestants denied you bid me prove that our prelate Protestant ever denied them Thus you contradict what I say is pleaded against our prelate Protestant And again you do as stiffly gain-say what I plead for him my self You laugh at me even with head and shoulders and tell me that the prelate-Protestant has far better arguments for themselvs then either mine is or any I can bring nor do they need the help of such a weak logician as my self in this their caus Sir give me leav to tell you here once for all that I thought it sufficient for my design to set down either for Papist or Protestant when occasion required such reasons as appeared plausible to my self and to say all for them that can be said was neither the work of my small ability nor any purpos of my design And it is enough to me that I know no better But let us see what my argument is and how you crush it The Church say I must have a byshop or otherwise she will not have such a visible head as she had at first c. This that you may evacuate you tell me that the Church hath still the same head she had which is Christ who is present with his Church by his Spirit and laws and is man-God still as much as ever he was and ever the same will be and if I would have any other visible bishop to be that head then it seems I would not have the same head and so would have the same and yet not the same Thus you speak But Sir I cannot in any reason be thought to speak otherwise if we would use true logick of the identity of the head than I do of the identity of the body of the Church This body is not numerically the same for the men of the first age are long ago gone out of the world and another generation com who yet are a body of Christians of the same kind becaus they adhere to the same principles of faith And as the body is of the same kind though not numerically the same so do I require that since Jesus Christ as man the head immediate of other beleeving men is departed hence to the glory of his Father that the Church should still have a head of the same kind as visibly now present as she had in the beginning or els say I she cannot be completely the same body or a body of the same kind she was But this she hath not this she is not except she have a visible byshop as she had in the beginning present with her guiding and ruling under God Christ our Lord is indeed still man-God but this man-hood is now separate nor is he visibly now present as man which immediately headed his beleevers under God on whose influence that natur depended His Godhead is still the same in all things not only in it self but in order also to his Church as it was before equally invisible and in the like manner beleeved but the natur delegate under God and once ruling visibly amongst us by words and examples is now utterly withdrawn And if a natur of the same kind be not now delegate with a power of exteriour government as at the first ther was then hath not the Church the same head now which she had then nor is she the same polity or body she was before Qui habet aures audiendi audiat And here by the way we may take notice what a sincere English Protestant you are who labour so stoutly to evacuate my argument for episcopacy and leav none of your own behind you nor acquaint the world with any although you know far better but would make us beleev notwithstanding those far better reasons for prelacy that Christ himself as he is the immediate and only head of the invisible influence so is he likewise the only and immediate head of visible direction and government among us without the interposition of any person delegate in his stead to oversee and rule under him in his Church on earth which is against the tenour both of sacred gospel and S. Pauls epistles and all antiquity and the present ecclesiastick polity of England and is the doctrin not of any English Protestant but of the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker Christ then in your way is immediate head not only of subministration and influence but of exterior direction and government to his Church Pray tell me is
he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man and Presbyterian Ministers are as needless as either Catholik or Protestant byshops On the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole Kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the Kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not onely by one but several acts and constitutions both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher than the byshops who by the law is under both King and byshop too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakned by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian King of any Kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reasons Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the lips of the king or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom Kings themselvs remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his Majesties autority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the Kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman Catholiks as to any Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his Majesties judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught
neighbour and neighbour wherof the supreme Lord hath absolute dominion but the service only and adoration due from man to his maker which God being essentially good and immutably true cannot alter or dispens with Nor doth it stand with his natur and deity to chang dispens or vary the first table of his law concerning himself I mean as to the substance of it by commanding us now to have but one God then to worship two now not to take his name in vain and then to blaspheme it as he may do the second which concerns neighbours for want of that dominion over himself which he hath over any creature to give or take away its right to preserv or destroy it as himself pleases God may disable my neighbours right and inable me to take to may self that which before was his but he cannot command me to commit idolatry or dishonour himself If he should deny himself he would not be God From hence it must needs follow that if it be the sens and mind of the almighty that to set up any images in Churches be derogatory to his glory then could not God possibly command any to be there set up For these two precepts Thou shalt set up images and Thou shalt set up none are not only contradictory in terms of the law proposed enounced and promulgated but infer also in God himself that contradiction opposition and self-denial which is inconsisting with such an unchangeable veracity God may possibly allow me either to curs or spoil my neighbour or in a case exprest not to help him but he should deny himself which the deity cannot do if either he should command me to blaspheme himself or the honour due to him either to refuse it him or give it to another When therfor one and the same God so often forbids his people to make to themselvs any images and yet in the same divine law commands them to set up Cherubims in his own temple it cannot being a concernment of his worship be otherwayes meant than that they should make no sculptures or figures but what himself commands and which may assuredly represent persons dear to himself as Fiat Lux interprets it And if an image in it self be opposite to Gods glory as Anticatholiks think then could not God possibly command the making or setting up of any in his holy temple or place of divine worship But you go on Fiat Lux sayes God forbad forreign images such as Moloch Dagon and Astaroth but he commanded his own But Fiat lux is deceived in this as well as other things for God forbad any likenesses of himself and he gives the reason becaus saith he in Horeb ye saw no similitude of me Sir you may know and consider that the statues and graven images of the heathens towards whose land Israel then in the wilderness was journeying to enter and take possession were ever made by the pagans to represent God and not any devils although they were deluded in it And therfor were they called the gods of the mountains the gods of the valleys the gods of Accaron Moab c. Ther was therfor good reason that the Hebrews who should be cautioned from such snares should be forbidden to make to themselvs any similitude or likenes of God What figur or similitude the true God had allowed his people that let them hold and use until the fulness of time should com when the figur of his substance the splendour of his glory and only image of his natur should appear And now good Sir since God has been pleased to show us his face pray give Christians leav to use and keep and honour it If you be otherwise minded and take pleasur in defacing his figurs I think they have good reason on their sides who honour them You proceed It is a pretty fansy in Fiat Lux to say we have as well a precept Thou shalt make graven images as we have Thou shalt not I wonder where Fiat Lux finds that precept sith all ancients have it and all translations read it Thou shalt not What is that It they have what is that It they read Do you think that Fiat lux reads one and the same text both Thou shalt and Thou shalt not Moses his making and the command given him to make Cherubims is a rule good enough to Fiat lux that som images may be made and set up in Churches as also is that precept Thou shall not make to thy self any images another rule to show him that som images we are not to make to our selves on our own heads in imitation of pagans No less whimsical say you is that relation Fiat lux sayes an image hath to som one Prototype for example to S. Peter rather then to Simon Magus for ther can be no relation but what the imagination either of the framer or spectatour makes Sir speaking as I do of a formal representation or relation and not of the efficient caus of it I cannot but wonder at this your illogical assertion Is the pictur made by the spectatours imagination to represent this or that thing or the imagination rather guided to it by the pictur By this rule of yours the image of Caesar did not my imagination help it would no more represent a man than a mous I know the imagination can for want of real picturs make fantastical ones to its self in the clouds walls air or fire c. But when she hath real ones made her either by art or natur she cannot make them to be otherwayes then they are nor think or say except she will abuse her self to derision that a cat is a dog or an oxe a hare Nor does it help you at all that ther may be mistakes for we treat not here of the errours but natures of things And you will not I hope maintain that ther is no real heat any where but what the imagination makes becaus the good poor man of Norway sent out of his own countrey upon an errand stood warming his fingers there at a hedg of red roses 18 ch from page 325. to 365. Your eighteenth chapter which is upon my paragraff of Tongues or Latin service hath som colour of plausibility But becaus you neither do nor will understand the customs of that Church which you are eager to oppose all your words are but wind I have heard many grave protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church which gives the sense life and meaning of Gods word to the people without the hard shell of the letter than that of ours which gives it in the shell to break peoples teeth Religion is not to sit pierching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and
easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselvs in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jew◠〈◊〉 into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Litâ—… out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questions were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prelate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any other language but Latin before Edward the sixt dayes
our very Justices of peace and Constables But in ecclesiastical affairs the proper businesses of the Church and matters of religion as distinct from civil this is the plea which the good Quakers use against the Byshops and Priests of not only the Roman but even this our English Church which Whitby defends Why say they to them why are we harrassed imprisoned beaten and spoiled so many wayes by your instigation who have made your selves drank with the blood of Saints Do not we either confront the evidence of Scriptur against you or the intent of the Apostles or rather of God himself and tell you expresly that you oppose the evidence of Gods word in your observances and ordinations in your tythes and Lents and Mass-tides in your lawn sleeves and cassocks and canonical girdles in your Pulpits Universities and Steeple-houses in your Chapters and Deanaries in your orders and degrees in your oppressions of conscience and jurisdictions in your surplices copes and preaching for hire c. Is it not enough to shew our innocence in not accepting these things becaus in the beginning it was not so nor were any of these things to be found amongst the apostles Especially when you know we hold and we know also you hold that in matters of faith and religion it is all one to be beside Scriptur and to be against it Are your Chapters and Deanaries your lawn sleeves and surplices your Lents and common-prayers your tythes and livings of five or six hundred a year your universities and steeple-houses in Scriptur and Christian Gospel yea or no If they be there shew it us If they are besides scriptur or not in it then are they by your own confession here against it Ch. 4 5 6 7 8. from p. 17. to 90. These five following chapters speak against ecclesiastical Supremacy either amongst the apostles or any other succeeding prelates And with so much earnestnes and little heed doth Mr. Whitby whiff away all your defence of it that he strikes off that authority not only from the Popes head but from any Prince or Prelate whatsoever not caring so the Roman fall if the English Prelacy sink too So earnest indeed is he bent against it that he professes p. 39. he would sooner perswade himself of the truth of Mahomets fables then any such pretension Thus well is he disposed against the coming of the Turk These few propositions he advances here amongst others 1. That the apostles had an equality of power and jurisdiction or dignity over the rest But whence then comes our English Hierarchy of byshops arch-byshops ministers and deacons Whitby himself denies that our Kings are the root of Episcopal jurisdiction here in England Who ever thought so quoth he p. 88. I think I could show him out of the statutes and laws of the Land that our English Episcopacy and their whole jurisdiction is from the King as the sole fountain and root of it But if it be not so and no such subordination as here he affirms was ever found amongst the apostles whence is our English Hierarchy If it neither come from God nor from the King it may not irrationally be suspected to be from an insufficient if not an ill original His second is that such an ecclesiastical jurisdiction is useles and unable to prevent schismes whether they rise from breach of charity or difference of judgement p. 20. And if it be useles for that for Gods sake what is it good for Third is that to submit to one is to slight the judgment of thousands that may be as wise as he and to endanger the very being of religion Ibid. And is it so indeed why then are so many millions here in England subjected to one Byshop much people to one minister all the people ministers and byshops to one King Is this to slight all that are subjected or to endanger the very being of religion Fourth is that general causes cannot be dispatched by one supreme governour over all as may particular by inferiour superintendents And other such like fanatick assertions he has which do as much evacuate the subordination of our English as the Roman Church and civil government as well as ecclesiastical hierarchy I am sure they have done both even in this our Kingdom and in our own dayes a thing which will not be soon forgotten And little did I think to see any prelatick minister broach such whimsies again here in our land so lately made desolate thereby What he means by it I cannot tell But I am sure he is not so unadvised but he understands the consequence For p. 423. upon his grant of a liberty of judging to particular persons in matters of religion whence all our wars and animosities here in England do first flow even so far as to deny obedience therupon to their spiritual superiours he speaks thus Would a gracious King think you presently condemn all those to the utmost severity who in such cases after consultation and deliberation duly made by reason of som prejudices or weaknes of reasoning should be induced to think it their duty to follow the mutinous party he craftily uses the phrase of utmost severity the better to palliate his more secret judgment who by his own principles here and elsewhere not obscurely expressed must needs conceiv them liable to no severity at all But that you may see Sir this adversary of yours what a lively spark he is he makes in his 5 chapter the very Popes themselvs when significantly they would express their own supremacy either to say nothing for it or altogether against it If Pope Agatho speak of his own solicitude over the Churches of God even to the utmost bounds of the ocean Whitby hence infers that his headship therfor is not universal becaus it is bounded Is not this witty And thus the great Prophet when he describes the vaste unlinited extent of the Messias his dominion dominabitur à mari usque ad mare à flumine usque ad terminos orbis terrarum must be understood to limit and confine it Again if Pope Julius defend his acts of power and jurisdiction by ancient cannons and custom Whitby concludes from thence that it is not therfor of divine institution for custom and cannons are but humane Witty still Thus a master when sending his servant on an errand he tells him he may well go for that he gave him lately a pair of new shooes loses therby all his other claim of commanding him Again if St. Gregory prefer the Apostolicall See before other Churches That is quoth Whitby not for it self but for the Emperours seat And for the same reason must the Byshop of London or Abbot of Westminster if any now were be preferred before the Byshop of Canterbury If Pope Leo derive his autority from St. Peter prince of the apostles That may infer quoth he a precedency of order but not any dignity A Prince it seems signifies only one that is to go before not one
much swerved from the ancient primitive practice of former Christians For Protestants have neither priests nor altars nor offerings nor sacrifice nor satisfactions nor expiations for the dead which those authorities speak of Ch. 11. from page 188. to 203. The real presence under the elements of the Eucharist Mr. Whitby here will not by any means endure And he hath one shield of a word which consists of almost as many syllables as Ajax his buckler of bulls hides to repell all autorities that may witness it Representatively that is the word Thou seest saith St. Chrisostom upon the altar the very body which the wise-men saw and worshipped Representatively saith Whitby Again The most precious thing in heaven I will shew thee upon earth saith the same father It is shewed representatively saith Whitby it is seen representatively I dare not adore the earth saith St. Augustin and yet I have learned how the earth is to be adored becaus flesh is of the earth and our Lord gave us his flesh to eat which no man eats except he first adore It is Christ saith Whitby who is adored representatively And if any words will not bear that distinction then are they all spurious Nay if any should say expresly that not only Christ in heaven but his very Sacrament is worshipped this man will tells us presently who hath as many shifts in readiness where one will not serv his turn as Achelous had to slip out of the hands of Hercules that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and adoro have other significations But he has poor man no very good memory For after he had in this one chapter spent many of his pages to show that the real presence was not the former faith of Christians and that they never adored the Eucharist he lets fall a word by chance in the very close which spoils all by giving us to understand that this was so universal a beleef and practis among Christians that it came even to the notice of Infidels and that it was withall of so great concernment amongst beleevers that it expressed their whole religion as the abridgment of their faith and great capital work of their devotion Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis It was the speech of Avicen saith Whitby although I think it was Averroes who well enough understood both of them the natur of Christian religion not only by what they saw themselves but what they had read from more ancient writers both Christian pagan and Mahometan up and down the world concerning the religion of Christians Since the Christians worship that which they eat saith that Infidel let my sould be with Philosophers Ch. 12. from page 203. to 218. Labours much for the general use of the Cup in all Communions But neither does Mr. Whitby nor can he distinguish as appears by his discours wherein he sayes that otherwise ther would not be a representation of Christs death which is the wisest word he speaks in all this whole chapter I say he knows not and cannot distinguish that ther is in that one Eucharistian liturgy a double action the one of sanctifying and offering to God the other of giving or communicating to the people In the sanctifying and offering of the sacred simbols does only the sacrifice which is a representation of Christs death consist But the communicating of these symbols to the people is only a consequent of the former and no formal representation of our Lords death at all But he does not know and you need not heed what he sayes The concomitance of our Lords body and blood where ever it be in any one or other of the species or symbols which may enough justifie communion in one kinde he tells you very roundly it is a figment But if he had heeded the very practis of his own Church which indeed he never does he would have forborn those words For when the Protestant minister gives the people first the bread and sayes Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed upon him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving Do not the ministers words there imply a concomitance before the cup come even as perfect a concomitance as you Sir can plead for I think they do For surely they intend not to feed only upon one half of him Chap. 13. from page 218 to 230. Declares that alms-deeds and preaching of the Gospel is a sacrifice But the Eucharist he will not allow to be any true sacrifice at all Although to put by your arguments and solid reasonings for it he grants it may be called a Symbolical sacrifice And so he has caught hold of another distinction which runs quite through this matter or rather put the same distinction into other characters And if any ancient writers as ther are enough do give testimony that our Lords body and blood in the Eucharist is offered immolated and sacrificed on Christian altars by the priest for our attonement It is to be understood saith Whitby to be offered symbolically immolated symbolically sacrificed symbolically figuratively significatively representatively And though you beat his head never so much with your autorities and reasons so long as symbolically remains there you do but beat the air But where are any altars in our English Churches or any sacrifices offered or immolated theron And how comes it to pass that all these hundred years of our separation from Roman unity our people have never been told that they have priests still amongst them and altars and sacrifice although they be but symbolical ones symbolical sacrifice symbolical altars and symbolical priests For sacrifice is the very form and essence of all religion And they that know so much would have been much satisfied to hear that they have yet a sacrifice at least a symbolical sacrifice amongst them I will be bold to say that not one man of a million has ever heard of any such thing in an English pulpit or ever read it in a catechism The minister of the word and word of the minister that is all we ever hear of But it is thought perhaps that symbolical Priest would make but a jarring sound like two voices in a defective octave which have a semblance and shadow of a perfect concord but coming short of it produce the harshest and worst of discords in our ear That our Lords death upon the Cross was a true and real sacrifice to God for mankinde all Catholiks know well enough and our Ministers need not put them in minde of that which already they beleev But as the sacrifices of the old law were instituted by almighty God to be often iterated before the passion of the great Messias for a continual exercise of religion in order to his future death So did the same Lord for the very same purpos of religious exercise institute another to be iterated after his death unto which once past it was to have reference as the former had a
loyalty with these seditious querks and quibbles Who can tell whether he be legitimatly begotten or rightly baptised or legally elected c. Catholiks have as much ground for their obedience to civil and spiritual Superiours as they have for their observance of their own natural father And I think that is enough If we had it not promised in Gospel as we have that Christ would preserv his Church from failing and errour yet the very beleef we have in his divinity would naturally infer such a confidence as Catholicks have in the Churches truth But Mr. Whitby understands not in whom this infallibility does originally reside as I perceiv by his fond interrogatories nor consequently what it is If he had ever had the happy hour to read the System of that learned Doctour Franciscus Davenport by whose light I have lately Sir since your departure hence to Paris sufficiently declared in our English tongue all this whole busines of infallibility he had saved a multitude of idle words drawn out of his famous fanatick Mr. Chillingworth Catholik Divines may several wayes defend and declare this busines of Infallibility as well as other points of religion according to their several conceptions and abilities and may go som of them so far as to defend even an intrinsecal inherent Infallibility either in the Pope or Councel And although this may suffer more difficulty then the extrinsecall one of Gods providence and guidance yet do I not see how any one can disprove a possibility of it However faith does not require so much at their hands If God be but infallible and Christ be true the Church is safe Very many bitter books have been written against Catholiks and their religion injuriously diminishing both them and it upon the mistake of this one busines of Infallibility perhaps a wilful one two very lately by Mr. Moulin and Denton to the great hurt and dammage of the innocent if men beleev them It is a very pious and good rule that of the Canon and civil law Cum sunt jura partium obscura reo favendum est potius quam actori But I doubt much whether the people of England who may read these invective books against Papists follow that rule or no. When the right of Parties is obscure saith the law the defendant is rather to be favoured than the plaintiff If it were so here we should not have been by such bitter books so highly incensed as I see we are against poor Catholiks but against those rather who slander them Mr. Moulin would prove that Catholik religion and not Protestancy is guilty of sedition and he does it by a relation of passionate words and actions of some Popes recorded in stories And this he takes to be a sufficient proof that Catholik religion is guilty of sedition It were indeed to be wished that all Popes words and actions were answerable to their religion and rule But that is hardly to be expected in this world The very place and honour that has ever been given to that seat is no small temptation of pride or other passions incident therupon into a mind not more then ordinarily furnished with all Christian vertues But if we will beleev histories concerning them we shall find no series or succession of men in any one place or dignity of this world to have held forth so many lights of vertue as that one chair hath don And if som have been faulty they gave no doubt much caus of grief or scandal but none of wonderment to the world They may surely fail in a greater temptation since other Christians who have the same means of grace do fail in lesser But Catholiks saith Mr. Moulin are bound by the very tenour of their religion to hold for good and justifie all that any of their Popes have ever said or don This would be very strange why so Becaus saith he they beleev them infallible Who beleevs them infallible How infallible that they can neither do nor speak amiss Who ever thought that Infallible is a word taken up lately by schoolmen to expres the sovereign power and indeficiency of Gods Church and not any inherent endowments of a Pope who is brought up when he is young like one of us in the Catechise and practice of Christian religion and when he is ripe and placed by Gods providence in that supream chair is eminently to practise those holy ruses and carefully to keep and maintain that depositum fidei the treasury of faith which he hath received and if he fail therin shall give an account and suffer for it in another world as severely as any other for their faults Nor are his words and actions a rule to other men of Christian religion but Christian religion is a rule to him both for his actions and words And all that Infallibility which Catholik writers to expres more than one thing in one short word make use of in their discourses with Protestants is only an extrinsecal providence of God watching over his Church to preserv the primitive apostolik spirit in her and to keep her alwayes even to the consummation of the world from errour and deficiency notwithstanding any opposition from without or the misdemeanours of any one or other within her self even the providence of that good God whose property it is not only to prevent evil from the good but even to work good out of evil that his Church which he hath promised to preserv may be ever safe And if ever this infallible providence do show it self it must surely be then when the ship is ready to be split by heresies and schismes that rise from som violent spirits breaking unity with that body so dangerously that Prelates are called together from all parts of the world as a help extraordinary in a general Councel to prevent the ruin And this is that which Divines mean when they say that the Pope is infallible in Cathedra in the Chair that is to say in consessu Seniorum Presbyterorum ecclesiae in a general convention of Christian Prelates So that Moulin speaks not one word to the purpos But Doctour Dentons book is not any such mistake but pure malice He intends to show that Papists were never punished for religion but for treason And his book is altogether made up of several stories of men Papists men sent over hither from beyond seas as he sayes to kill poison and destroy people Some when they had read his book took the Authour for a fool but I heard afterwards that he is Physician And upon that account I had him excused For if he be as bad at physick as he is in affairs of religion he had caus to be angry with them who came hither from forreign parts to take his office and emploiment out of his hands kill and poison people If the villains who ever they were had been only sent over to make folks sick they had don him som service but to poison men and kill them
fundamentals the Romanists motives of credibility the Romanists doctrin about the material and formal object of faith c. For all this and several such like talk is but the theological discours of that Catholik Gentleman and of it self no Romanists doctrin at all For I know well enough what Stillingfleet means and would have meant by Romanists doctrin And all his Protestant readers understand therby only Catholik religion and he knows it well enough I should take it ill and be sorry and look upon it as an injury to the Church of God if any one should call my way of defending her faith the Romanists way or my talk the Romanists doctrin however the thing it self defended or excused by me is Roman or Catholik faith The Church has no one way but several methods and several schools and several wayes to declare and explicate and defend her religion And every writer does it according to his personall endowments and judgment some better some wors though the religion so explicated defended and declared be still and ever one and the very same And if indeed I had been to speak in that busines I should never have made any such argument as that Catholik Gentleman did nor will another man think himself obliged to discours as I do although he and I defend both of us the same thing This if Mr. Stillingfleet consider as he ought he will soon perceiv his own pittiful childishnes But thus Doctour OeN dealt with me to my very great pitty and regret Ever and anon Is this your Roman doctrin quoth he Who would have thought that the Romish Church should dare to utter so wicked blasphemies c. First misinterpreting my words and calling that a doctrin which was none at all but only a prosopopy of atheistical objections and then stiling that a Roman doctrin which was but the talk of a particular man So that what he called Roman doctrin and Romish doctrin was neither Romish nor doctrin neither But ministers care not what they say And so much the more wary does it behove all men to be who deal with them Too much care cannot be taken with such men who either cannot or will not distinguish between general faith and particular mens doctrin between religion and several school-methods of defending it between the faith of the whole Church of God and discourses of writers concerning it So ignorant they are all of them or wilfully malicious I find in my heart even a longing desire to expres to you in particular the various shifts and misdemeanours of Stillingfleet But here is now no time or place for it and such a thing if it were done would be but of little use to morrow I mention him only to let you know how much the French Hugonot religion begins here to prevail by means of Whitby Stillingfleet and others to the overthrow of our own Protestant Church here establisht and to let posterity who shall haply see any of these small writings have some little glimmerings of these our present times They doubtles will be glad to see the general cours of things now done even as we are to read the wayes of former reformers although neither we nor they can take any great pleasur in any long particular narrations of their fallacies either against logick or morality when the men are once past and gone Dr. Jeremy Taylor hath also put forth lately a very bitter insulting injurious book against Catholik religion which he calls a Disswasive from Popery Reddet illi dominus secundum opera ejus And God will bless his Catholik beleevers who trust in him and walk according to their holy rule in his fear and love unblamable the very contumelies of adversaries working at length to their greater good And I beseech God who revives all things and Jesus our Lord who gave his testimony under Pontius Pilate a good confession that they may ever observ the commandments of God and the Church his Spous possessing their souls in perfect patience unreprovable unto the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord whom in his own times will the blessed God shew forth the only potent one the King of kings and Lord of Lords who alone hath immortality and inhabits light inaccessible whom no mortal man hath ever seen nor yet can see him to whom be all honour domimion and power for evermore Amen This is the earnest desire and prayer of Sir Your real friend J. V. C. Given in the Nones of March 1664. EPISTOLA AD AMPHIBOLVM AGAINST Dr. Taylor The occasion of this Epistle THe first epistle was written to an adversary the second to a friend this third to a neuter who after he had began to think more moderately of Catholik religion returned upon his reading of Dr. Jeremy Taylor his Disswasive from Popery to his former misconceit And he is by this Epistle given to understand that the said Disswasive is of that nature that it can have no such force upon any judicious man Sermo Horatianus inter Davum Herum D. IAmdudum ausculto cupiens tibi dicere servus Pauca reformido H. Davusne D. Ita Davus amicum Mancipium Domino frugi quod sit satis hoc est Vt vitale putes H. Age libertate Decembri Quando it a majores voluerunt utere Narra D. Pars hominum vitiis gaudet constanter urget Propositum pars multa natat modo recta capessens Interdum pravis obnoxia H. Non dices hodie quorsum haec tam putida tendunt Furcifer D. Ad te inquam H. Quo pacto pessime D. Laudas Fortunam mores antiquae plebis idem Si quis ad illa Deus subitò te agat usque recuses Aut quia non sentis quod clamas rectius esse Aut quia non firmus rectum defendis haeres Nequicquam coeno cupiens evellere plantam Non horam tecum esse potes non otia recte Ponere teque ipsum vitas fugitivus erro H. Vnde mihi lapides D. Quorsum est opus H. Vnde sagittas Aut insanit homo aut versus facit Ocyus hinc te Ni rapis accedes opera agro nona Dunano Epistola ad Amphibolum against Doctour Taylor SIR YOu were pleased to say upon your reading of Fiat Lux that Popery may for ought you knew be more innocent then commonly it is reputed and no wayes so odious as some would make it But now upon the reading of Dr. Taylor 's Disswasive which you desire me to peruse I perceiv you look towards your former thoughts concerning this maligned Popery and invite them home again To deal freely with you I was amazed my self at the reading of that book though not Sir with your amazement but another of my own You startled at Popery whose uglines was there set before your eyes with such fresh colours I at those ugly colours which so injuriously defaced that Religion that most innocent Religion which under the name of Popery lies here traduced by
the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the in-numerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorious crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrin of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head any thing he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may be thought worthy of the dignity and wealth he has now obtained in another slipt our of it But concerning the way he takes to
villifie the Roman faith and Church which is indeed the comm on road of all her adversaries I shall speak more fully if I have time by and by Now I hasten to his text which I shall give and my own judgment of it very briefly § 1. Which is about Novelties in general Sayes that the Protestant hath the word of God and Gospel and Apostles writings and if need be the four first general Councels and cannot be therfore doubted to be Apostolical but the Roman Church cannot so much as pretend that all her Religion is primitive since she pretends a power of making new articles of faith for Turrecremata Triumphus Ancorano and Panormitan affirm she can do it And this power Pope Leo the tenth challenged when he condemned Luther for denying him to have it To further this their pretended power the Papists corrupt and alter the Fathers works insomuch that Saurius the correctour of the Press at Lions complained to Junius that he was forced to blot out many sayings of St. Ambrose which had been in a former edition printed there For this care of purging Catholik writers Sixtus Senesis commends Pope Pius Nay they correct the very Indexes made by Printers as those of Probens and Chevallonius Thus the Doctour begins his book and I cannot but commend his wit For he wisely assumes that to himself which is the very one great busines wherin every particular controversie sticks and which if it were once agreeed on would put an end to all controversies that either now are or ever shall be in the world For they all com at length to this question which of the many Professours of Christianity now so much divided in their wayes have the Gospel and word of God on their side in this that and the other particular We saith Dr. Taylor we Protestants have the word of God we have the Gospel of Christ we have the Apostles writings with us and for us and therfor our Religion is for certain both ancient primitive and Apostolical This is Sir a very good consequence That Religion must needs be ancient which hath God for his Author that must be a primitive Christianity which Christ founded and what the Apostles writings confirm must needs be Apostolical faith But is it proved here by the Doctour that Protestants and not Catholiks have the word of God and of Christ and of his Apostles on their side No it is all supposed and his whole endeavour is to tell us that the religion which issued from God and Christ and his holy Apostles must needs be Apostolical primitive and ancient He supposes Protestancy as distinct from Catholik faith to have com all of it from those divine hands which is the only thing to be proved and declares at large that a religion which came from such hands must needs be ancient and primitive which is a thing no man can ever doubt It is certain and manifestly known that Protestants received both Law and Gospel and Apostles writings from the hands of Roman Catholiks who had kept and canonized and lived by those rules fifteen hundred years before Protestancy rose up in the world and all the whole hundred years since The only question is about the sence and mind of that holy writ in the many particular points now controverted in the world He has the law that has the mind and purpos and meaning of the law not he that hath the form of words without it This is the great business and the very extract and quintessence of all controversies which your quick Doctour assumes as granted on his side without any more ado We saith he we Protestants have the Law and Gospel and Apostles writings and the old Councels too if need be and therfor is not the ancientness of our Religion to be doubted But the Papists what of them the Papists Religion cannot so much as be pretended to be Apostolical old or primitive Why so Have not they the law and Gospel and Apostolical writings He does not plainly say they have not but he hopes his reader will think so What then of the Papists They saith he can make new Articles and therfor cannot their Religion be antient Sir although they could make new articles so long as they do not their Religion may be old still for all that A man may live in an old house although he be able to build a new one And this seems indeed to be the case here For the Disswader in confirmation of his speech brings in although unjustly the testimony of som Catholik Doctours who should say The Church can make new Articles but not one that sayes she has made any That I may yet go further although the Church should make new obliging Articles so long as these do not contrary the former but declare them more amply in such and such circumstances they annull not but rather confirm and explicate the old ones Is not our Law the same old Law of England and we the same polity our fore-fathers were although the King and Parliament upon occasion of new disorders make new acts and statutes continually But let us go on yet one step more The Roman Church does plead Sir whatever your Disswader would have you think that her religion is Catholik Apostolik and primitive becaus all her Councels by which that Church is governed have openly and continually declared when they came together to decide any affair which had raised new disturbance in the Christian world that they must firmly adhere to that which is Primitive to that which is Apostolical to that which is Catholik to that which has been delivered and received from fore-fathers And by that rule they decided the difference How then can this Church pretend to make new Articles Does your Doctour bring any General Councel which is the loud voice of that Church or any Tradition which is the Churches still voice to speak it No not any at all But this he ought to have done if he would prove that Church to pretend any such power What then Wy Turrecramata and som other doctours sayes she can do it But Sir if some one or other clergy-man should think that the Church can make new articles does it therfor follow that the Church it self does pretend any such power Surely the voice of one or two Ministers here in England cannot in reason be thought the voice of our whole Protestant Church especially when they speak against the tenour of her doctrin and practice But your Disswader has been many years picking in cobweb holes and obscure writings that he might where he could find any half sentence apt to be wrested from the common judgment of Catholik Religion mark that out for Popery to the end it may be thought either naught or new This is the chief ingredient of your Disswaders Policy Catholik Doctours Sir though they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may
they at one time or other trip and fail And particular mens failings are to be rectified by the straightnes and integrity of the General Canon but they are not to be esteemed that Canon as your Doctor Taylor not inclined to mend things but marre them rather would here have them to be thorowout this whole book of his Disswasive where whatever he can read or hear of amongst the writings of any one in the Catholik world that may either swerv or be wrested from the universal judgment and beleef of Papists that he calls Popery and what they speak that the Roman Church must pretend O the strange perversness and wickedness of mans heart And yet this book of his thus made up has carried away not the weaker sort of men only but it seems has made even your discretion Sir to stagger For when I gave you lately a visit I perceived within a while that I had but gon forth to see a reed shaken with the wind What the Church can do is but one of the Questions of School-divinity and no Catholik faith Consequently no Popery And if two or three in the Schools should chance to aver this power in the Church where more then two or three thousands deny it why should not the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours be esteemed Popery as well as that of only three Whilst all of them agree in their faith which is that the Church hath a power authoritatively to decide controversies and dispute only of a further power then their faith reaches unto I should think that the opinion of three thousand Papist doctours is rather to be esteemed Popery if one of them must be called so rather then the single opinion of two or three if any such be to the contrary But truth is ther is no such opinion of any one I know to the contrary Nor does Turrecremata nor any els teach that the Church hath power to make new articles in that sence your Dr. Taylor means who therby would infer that Catholik faith is therfor not primitive but new Nay it is rather Popery and a part of Catholik faith that no new articles can be made For General Councels have determined that nothing is to be beleeved or held but id quod traditum est that which has been received from Christ and his Apostles Nor can the Religion otherwise be the faith of Christ or Christian Religion Sir if you do but seriously peruse the last one general Council which all Protestants hold to be rank popish that I mean which was kept at Trent you will find that they testifie almost in every Session and profes to make all their determinations according to that which had been delivered according to that they had received according to that which had been conserved by continual succession to that which was conformable to Apostolical tradition to that which had been perpetually and uninterruptedly retained to that which ancestours profest to that which the Church of God ever taught ever understood ever beleeved that which hath been received down by hands that which was the ancient judgment and custom that which has been approved since the apostles dayes c. These are all the very words of the Councel in several of their Sessions And shall a Doctor Taylor com now after all this and tell the world that Popery is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive and that Papists pretend to make new faith c. after a general Synod which all Protestants look upon as the most popish Councel that ever was and that too the last and nearest to us hath so manifestly so pathetically so generally profest the contrary What should we say to such a Doctor And other general Councels in like manner never determined any thing for the quieting of dissentions for which end they met together but what was latent at least in the seed of Christs word and so no new article in this Doctours sence as did that Councel for example which determined two wills in Christ which was no new article becaus the former old faith which had made known two perfect natures in our Lord the one divine the other humane apparently dictated that truth against all those who would acknowledg but one will in him And this being defined by the Councel received a new strength against a novel heresie but not a new birth For this caus Councels do not determin the varieties that are in Schoolmen becaus these are superstructures and none of them more latent in ancient tradition than is the opinion that is opposit to it But Turrecremata Triumphus Ancoran and Panormitan teach that the Church can make new articles If they should say any such thing I have already made it enough evident that it cannot be thence inferred to be popery or any part of popery But what if they speak no such thing What shall we think then of this your Dr. Taylor Turrecremata in the place cited by him never so much as dreamed as any man may there see that the Pope is the rule of faith as the Doctour would have him speak but in that whole chapter labours only to shew that it belongs to him principally to regulate disputes in faith as being the chief Prelate In the like manner does he most unworthily abuse the other three brought by him as witnesses that the Pope can make new Creeds and new faith wheras Panormitan teaches expresly that he cannot make but only declare faith Ancorano sayes the like adding that what he so declares may be new to us though not in it self and Triumphus no less manifestly speaks in the very place cited by him that ther is one and the same faith in the ancients and moderns and that in our holy Creed are inserted all those things which universally pertain to Catholik faith although he say withall which is also very true that to adde explicate or declare a truth which is contained in holy Scripture hath alwayes been lawful for the Church But is this to make new faith which is not Apostolik and primitive as this your Doctour would have them to assert Do you Sir your self judg And him that thus abuses the world God Almighty judg So that when we come to the close of all ther is not any one Catholik Doctour that ever said that the Church can make new articles of faith in Doctour Taylors sence Why then did Pope Leo the 10. condemn Luther for denying the Pope to have this power Neither did Luther or Pope Leo ever dream of any such thing For Luther wholly busied himself about his old Catholik Religion from which he had revolted which he called an Egyptian darkness that had overspread the earth even from the Apostles dayes and never thought of this school question which in his dayes was not heard of And he denied the then present Pope who was Leo the tenth to be any judg in those Controversies of Religion or to have any power statuendi of deciding or
Christians did stand at their Liturgy all Paschall time now they kneel Little children were in old time communicated after Baptisme in many places of the Catholik world now no where Absolution is now given upon an humble confession and a promis either exprest or tacite of performing the due pennance but it could not be in ancient times obtained till the pennance was fulfilled Priests may be consecrated now at twenty five years old in former times not till thirty Many holy dayes were then kept which now cannot Many now which could not then Communion was oftner in som ages than it is now There is a reason for all these changes of disciplin and custom But the substance of Religion remains ever the same about Fasts Liturgy Baptism Pennance Confession Priesthood Feasts Communion and such like things though som circumstance may change So concerning this point of the Eucharist the substance of Religion is that in memory of our blessed Lords Passion a benediction or consecration of bread and wine be made in the Church of God by his Priests for ever until our Lords second coming to the end that the Church his spouse may ever have his body with her to feed upon This I say is the substance of religion in this point But som circumstances such as may will change For example Priests rarely celebrated in som times of the Church but yet when any Mass or Messach was kept by any one of them all the other Priests and Clergy-men that were near would assuredly be present at it and hear and pray and meditate with other people in most humble and fervent manner as became all good Christians to do but now in this last age they go generally every one to the Altar daily Which custom is the better I will not here determin But I am sure that great S. Francis commanded all his children to hear Mass once a day both Priests and others but forbad those that were Priests every day to celebrate and I think he had the Spirit of God in him In old times all Christian Priests had their head covered at the Altar with an Amictus or amice of pure linnen now they generally let it fall into their neck and their heads are utterly bare And time will come that they will put it upon their heads again So likewise for good and just reasons were catholik people in som times and places communicated in the one kind and som time in the other and som time and place in both But they were never debard Communion nor was ever the Sacrifice of the Altar stopped Nor is it so indifferent a circumstance to consecrate or celebrate in one kind as it is in one kind to communicate For Communion respects the thing contained the body and blood of Christ which was ever beleeved to be equally present in either kind But the sacrifice or consecration in one kind would not figure our Lords death and passion and the effusion of his blood as it ought to do But this great Christian work of sacrificing which is essential Religion and the very characteristical badg of Christianity becaus our Protestant Reformers cast it off they talk ever since only of Communion of lay-people as though the sacred benediction or consecration and oblation which indeed is the Christian sacrifice according to the rite and figure of Melchisedek recounted admired and worshipped by all primitive Christians were instituted only for that end Wheras indeed Christ our Lords institution touches immediately the figuration only of his death and passion which is completly don in the sacrifice consummated by the Priest although the peoples communion unto whose comfort and benefit all that work of consecration is exercised in the Church ought to follow by sequel when it is necessary or expedient Now the ancient primitive Church so firmly beleeved that the blessed body and blood and whole humanity and divinity of Christ were so present to those sacred symbols after the benediction or consecration of them by their Priests in Christs name and vertue tho it be unconceivable and wholly ineffable unto us that if a man with an indifferent and unprejudiced eye will but look back upon antiquity he may plainly see that in all ages it was indifferent to Christians though not to consecrate yet to communicate either in one kind or both For the younger people and such as were sick were generally communicated only in the liquid kind and others though som also received in both when solemn Communion was made yet that in the very primitive times they thought it all one to receiv either in both or one S. Cyprian S. Basil and Tertullian very ancient Priests and Fathers do abundantly witness For Tertullian in his book de oratione describing the Christian wayes of old Vsque adeo accepto corpore saith he stationem liceret solvere that is when they had communicated the body of their Lord no mention made of the chalice they brake up their station and had their Ite missa est to be gon as it is now even at this day among Catholiks And as for S. Basil he in his epistle to Caesarea Patricia tells at large how Christians in those dayes communicated four times a week and oftner if a Martyrs feast chanced to fall in the week and how that if persecution happened so violent that a Priest could not be had to give the people Communion they were forced with their own hands to touch that sacred body which was consecrated and kept in ciborium's boxes or pixis for them And this the peoples irreverence of touching the sacred body good S. Basil labours to excuse both by the urgency of their devotion and need and also by the example of the Hermits who leading a monastical life for want of Priests at that time among them kept the sacred Communion in their cells and received it with their own hands touching it contrary to the general custom when devotion and piety required as also by that of the Christians in Alexandria and Egypt who in such times of persecution and danger would have the sacred Communion at home in their own houses lest upon any necessity they should chance to dye without it and lastly by the very custom of Priests in the Church who then so delivered the host to communicants that when it was put by the Priests into their mouths they touched som part of it who received it with their own hands All this S. Basil there discourses more at large which agree well to the consecrated bread thus touched by the people in time of necessity thus put into their mouths by the help of the Priests and their own hands thus kept at home in times of persecution thus reserved in pixes or little arks but not at all to the chalice And all those devout Christians thought themselves sufficiently communicated in one kind who understood Christianity as well surely as we do now abov a thousand years after them St. Cyprian likewise in his book
after supper becaus it would as much have inferred the Protestant practice to be against Christs institution as the Popish is and so his talk would either have been of no value or against himself Thirdly whereas the Councel declared only against the opinion which those Hereticks had of the necessity of those two circumstances and corresponding practice he makes them to condemn not their necessity but the circumstances themselves which the Councel never thought of Fourthly he delivers that Councels declaration against those circumstances as if it had been a dogme of faith and consequently Popery or Catholik Religion wheras it was delivered in order to the circumstances themselves but as a temporal law and decree though in order to the necessity of those circumstances it be a constant Catholik truth And therfor the Councel of Basil which a little after determined the same doctrin namely that Priests are not bound to communicate the people in both kinds whereof they also give their reason quia certa fide tenendum est quod sub specie panis non tantum caro sub specie vini non sanguis tantùm sed sub qualibet specie Christus totus continetur sess 30 yet they allowed the Bohemians and Moravians who desiring to submit to the Catholik Church and yet in their weaknes could not comply with that custom to be communicated in both kinds These four are shifts of much insincerity but I must bear with him His other authorities against this Catholik custom now generally in use may be easily understood by what I have hitherto spoken what they mean But that of Paschasius I cannot but give you notice of it For Paschasius speaking of one certain ceremony in the Priests celebration of Mass wherin he drops a piece of the host into the consecrated chalice Very rightly saith he is the flesh sociated with the blood becaus neither the flesh without the blood c. And a little after Therfor saith he they are well put together in the chalice becaus from one cup of Christs Passion c. From those words which speak only the Priest's action in the sacrifice of Mass your Protestant Disswader would prove his communion of people in both kinds of which Paschasius neither spoke nor thought Is he not hard put to it think you or is he ignorant rather of what he speaks But he is gon to his next section and I must follow him § 7. Which is against Service in an unknown Tongue Sayes that the Roman Church offends no less in another of their Novelties of using an unknown tongue in their Service which use can no more be reconciled with Saint Pauls fourteenth chapter to the Corinthians than adultery with the seventh Commandment and Origen Ambrose Basil Chrysostom Austin Aquinas also and Lyra speak all against it no less also the Civil and Canon Law Indeed what profit can he receiv who hears a sound and understands it not a dumb Priest would serve as well for God understands his thoughts The popish people that pray in their churches they know not what can have no affection becaus they have no understanding of their own prayers Therfore let every tongue prais the Lord. Here the Disswader that he may the better express the confusion and darknes that is in this popish custom which he means here to speak against uses a confused and dark speech of his own and confutes it rather by emblem than reason His reader no doubt will imagin or els the Disswader fails of his end that Roman Catholiks do not understand their own prayers in the Church that God is not praised by them in every tongue that they are not at all edified by their Liturgy or Mass that they joyn not their desires nor understand what they say or ask of God that their heart sayes nothing nor asks for nothing and therfor receivs nothing that they understand not in particular what they should desire or beg of God that their own souls have not any benefit by their prayers and that the Church will not suffer them to be brought out of their intollerable ignorance All these things are jumblingly said and asserted in this his section against the Roman liturgy must as he hopes be beleeved by his reader But ther is not a Roman catholik in the world however ignorant and simple he be but will be ready to tell your Disswader to his face that ther is not of all this any one word of it true But he imagines that Roman Catholiks come to Church like Protestants there standing or sitting and looking upon one another till a black-coat comes to read som prayers in their ears But in this he is grosly mistaken as all Catholiks know though others do not They have their obsecrations their meditations their postulations their psalms their ejaculations which humbly upon their knees they pour forth to their Redeemer both while their priest is with them at the altar and before and after too Nor is there a blesseder sight to be seen on earth than devout Catholicks in a Church wheras others stand or sit gazing about till the Parson comes to make use of their ears neither heart nor lip nor hand nor knee nor breast being to them of any use And this every one would understand as well as I if he understood Catholik customs and religion as I do Nor does the Priest come to the altar to teach the people what they should say but to pray and make an atonement for them And in his confession entrance hymn of glory to God on high prayer epistle and gospel and his whole work of consecration and offering they go along with him in their meditations humiliations and requests understanding all the whole matter and busines of that heavenly devotion though they hear not his particular words which it would be all one to them whether they were in latin or in the mother tongue I know alas I speak but in vain to such as are brought up in another way and by fallacious slights of ministers are lead into a misconceit of the ancient religion of this Land which till they see it again they can hardly ever rightly understand Prejudice is a lettance almost unremovable And it concerns ministers that such a prejudice should be continually rivetted into peoples minds who must either be deceived or ministers undone But he that sees Catholik people at their devotions and Protestants at theirs would if he be any wayes disinterested conclude with himself that Catholik people serv God in earnest Protestants but in jeast Truth is the Catholik Liturgy is only a representation of Christs death and passion which our Lord appointed should be exhibited to the eyes of his beleevers so long as the world shall last that coming still together they may worship there their crucified Lord and pour forth in him all their requests every one according to their several necessities So that the priest and peoples great work is soon ended the consecration
39. Wherfore brethren covet to prophesie and forbid not to speak with tongues 40. Let all things be done decently and in order Thus runs this fourteenth Chapter in your own translation And if it do nothing at all concern Church-service why should the Roman Liturgy be reconciled to it any more than adultery to the third commandment Or what disparagement is it to this service that it cannot be reconciled to that law which no way concerns it If it do concern Church-service then must all the Common prayer and Service of our Protestant Church of England be abolished being as irreconcileable to this rule as you say adultery is to the seventh Commandment Say which you please If it concern not any Church-service you justifie as to this account the custom of the Roman Church if you say it do you condemn your own Truth is the Spirit of our Lord magnified his primitive Church when it began to spread and appear in the world with many particular graces that the Jew and Pagan might discern in it somthing extraordinary and by that exteriour sign be induced to beleev that the founder of that Religion was no ordinary person as gift of miracles tongues and prophesies The new converts of Corinth seemed to be more pleased with the gift of tongues than any other and when they met together fell a gabling all at once not two or three only but more and perhaps the greatest part of them all at one and the same time as the Apostle here intimates v. 23. one for example in the Congo language the other that of Mexico one Ethiopian the other Arabian one the Indian another the Slavonian and none understood another nor could well hear one another for the confused noise as we may gather by v. 2. and v. 11. and so became barbarians to one another This gift then and special grace of Gods Spirit though it might astonish a Pagan that should look upon them which was all that holy Spirit intended by it yet it could not edifie him any further or move him if he should be left to himself to think otherwise of them than that they were a company of mad gabling distracted people especially when he considered that some of them seemed to exhort some to sing some to pray and all in a cluster at one and the same time no man heeding the other or understanding a word he said if he should And this disdorder the Apostle here labours to rectifie in this whole fourteenth chapter And it is manifest that the apostle here neither spake nor thought of any Church-service either in one language or other but only of that temporal gift which is now past away long ago with the people that had it Nor can it prudently be applied to any Church-service that I know in the world For there is no such doing any where Much less can it relate to any custom of the Roman Church where all the people are devoutly praying to one and the same God in quiet and silence both in spirit and understanding heart and mind too the priest knowing what himself speaks or prayes and the people understanding both what he acts and does in their behalf and his own and what also they beg of God themselves either with words or without them So that here is no kind of parity at all Nay if neither the Priest did understand himself what he speaks nor the people what they pray both which are absolutely fals yet would the Apostle allow even that as a good custom though not so perfect so long as the words contained piety and the heart stood piously affected in pronouncing them He that speaketh in an unknown tongue saith he v. 2. speaketh not to men but to God and though man understand not yet in spirit he speaketh mysteries And again v. 4. he saith that such an one edifieth himself and v. 14. he teaches that such a ones spirit prayeth though his mind or understanding doth not and v. 17. that he gives thanks well With these of our learned Apostle your Disswaders words throughout this his section are I am sure absolutely irreconcileable For he saith such an one prayes only with his lips and not in spirit that there is neither affection nor edification in any such prayer and that the heart and spirit sayes nothing and asks for nothing and so receives nothing which Salomon calls the sacrifice of foools thus speaks your Disswader quite contrary to Apostolical sobriety And not that custom I should think but your Disswaders invectives against it are irreconcileable with this fourteenth chapter Saint Paul sayes that such a one prayes in spirit the Disswader that he prayes onely in his lips Saint Paul that he edifies himself the Disswader that his soul has no benefit and that there is neither edification nor affection or any good by such prayers Saint Paul that he prayes well and gives thanks well the Disswader that he does ill But I need not stand upon this now There is no such thing in the use of the Roman Liturgy where priests and people pray both in spirit and mind too both with heart and understanding also Only let me tell you thus much that St. Paul in one verse of this chapter checks your Disswader and all his whole discours in this section Linguis loqui nolite prohibere saith he v. 39. Do not forbid to speak with tongues But your Disswader forbids and labours here might and main against it Doth the Apostle speak here of Church-service or not If he do then Church-service in an unknown tongue is allowed if he do not then one of this chapter is against Church-service in an unknown tongue Surely your Disswader did never ponder these things as he ought Nay if this discours of the Apostle concern Church-service so that your Disswader hence may rightly gather that the popish Mass in an unknown tongue is irreconcileable with it I may upon the same ground prove more strongly that S. Paul would have the popish Mass in an unknown tongue to be practised Volo omnes vos linguis loqui saith he v. 5. I will that ye all speak with tongues or I would that you all spake with tongues which is according to your Disswaders meaning I will have you all turn Papists or I would ye were all turned Papists But lastly if this 14. chapter to the Corinthians be to be understood of Church-service and Church-preaching and Church-praying as this disswading Doctour would have it then Sir must our Protestant pulpits and service-pews all down and the Quakers way must come up infallibly For what saith the text here Sive lingua quis loquitur secundum duos aut ad multum tres per partes unus inter pretetur si autwm non fuerit interpres taceat in ecclesia sibi autem loquatur Deo Prophetae autem duo tres dicant caeteri dijudicent Quod si alii revelatum fuerit sedenti prior taceat Potestis enim omnes
flitted from the richer byshoprick of Durham to that of York becaus as he himself gave the reason he wanted Grace But Doctor Taylor must remember his own doctrin that an Archbyshop although he have Grace yet he has no jurisdiction with it and it is a question whether is better to have power without grace or grace without power He is well enough as he is if he could be content But ambition and covetousnes will know no bounds And as your Doctor in this his Disswasive prattles about a Popery which is no part of Catholik religion so does he wholly pass by their chief religion which is in a manner their whole popery and all their religious customs attending it not that only which the first reformers allowed of as their faith of one God all powerfull most wise and good who made all things visible and invisible and by his providence conserves them in their being who in the fulnes of time sent his beloved son to reconcile the world to himself c. but that also which they rejected and principally inveighed against as first internal sanctification and renovation of our spirits which was the end of Christs appearing in the world the efficacy of his grace in our hearts and the intention of his counsels and laws secondly the comfort merit and necessity of good works unto which holy gospel by all sweet promises invites us Gods holy spirit moves the very excellency of mans nature and condition suggests the name and profession of Christian calls for and future happines requires These by the first Protestants were all cried down as mortal sins and of no value at all in the eyes of God by which doctrins they debauched mankind and made men so dissolute careless and licentious that if good nature right reason and the gracious working of God in our hearts had not more force upon some than the principles of the first Protestancy earth had become a meer hell by this Thirdly he passes by the priesthood altar and sacrifice which Christ our Lord instituted for our daily atonement in the figuration of his holy passion at which old Christians with all fear and reverence offered up their daily praises requests and supplications to God for themselves and allies and whole Church of Christ for all distressed persons for kings and princes and for all men that we may lead a quiet and godly life in this world Fourthly the seven sacraments of Christs which are so many conduits of sanctification for our several necessities and for all conditions of men and for all degrees of spiritual comforts Fifthly the obligations of vows which any shall freely make for Gods glory and his own advancement in piety in continency in charity and the blessed condition of singing and praising God in monastical retirement Sixtly the communion and union of the whole body of Christians under one visible pastor by whom they are aptly knit and compaginated together into one flock and body of Christ however they may differ otherwis in countrey language laws civil government and other affections Sevently the marks of the true Church and the autority she hath to keep her people in unity of faith and observance of their Christian duties Eightly the danger of original sin and actual transgressions which however we may have heard of Christian faith and beleev it to be true may notwithstanding exclude us eternally from the bliss of heaven now opened to beleevers such as by mortifying ungodly lusts shall render themselves conformable to their Lord and head who is ascended into heaven and gone before to prepare there a place for them in bliss with himself Ninthly the necessary concurrence of Gods grace and mans will unto his justification and sanctity and future glory in him Qui creavit te sine te non salvabit te sine te as good S. Austin speaks Tenthly the necessity and great benefit of prayer alms-deeds and fasting which is practised in the Catholik Church and commended to all as worthy fruits of that religion which labours to root out pride of life concupiscence of eyes and concupiscence of flesh thereby and our obligation to exact justice in all our contracts and dealings with our neighbour Eleventhly the danger of living and dying in sin to such as profess Christianity and uselesnes of faith without the good works of grace attending it Twelftly the possibility of keeping Gods commandments with the assistance of his grace Lastly not to mention more the great duty incumbent upon all Christians when led away by the deceit of Satan flesh and this wicked world they shall chance to have strayed from their holy rule to set all streight again by humble confession restitution and other penal satisfactions for their fault These and such like principles of ancient Christianity our first reforming Protestants Luther and Calvin with other their companions all apostate priests from the mother Church so stifly cryed down as notorious popery that they have thereby corrupted the whole world But your Doctour in this your Disswasive from Popery for reasons best known to himself takes no notice of them at all Protestant writers however loth to practise them yet ashamed they are now to speak against good works as their fore-fathers did Indeed every one of them that upon the hope of a richer benefice writes against Catholik Religion makes both a new Popery and a new Protestancy too and while they speak in general against that they may say in particular of this what they pleas For Protestants had never any Councel to make them all agree how much of Popery they should reject or what they should positively establish nor ever will nor can have nor do they care so they keep but their livings and places that they have extorted from Catholik hands which they know they cannot keep except by libelling against Popery they get the power of the land honester and better men then themselvs to back and support them in their wayes whether any thing be ever settled or no. I should also here set down the substantial customs of Catholik Christians in their chappels and churches oratories and private houses wholly neglected by the Disswader though they be in the hearts and hands of them all throughout the whole earth If he had declared either their substantial faith or customs he had lost his credit with some but he had saved his own soul which now is becom as black as hell with slaunders lyes and uncharitable depravations both of their customs and immaculate Religion What he can pervert and make sport with that he puts upon them for popery and what he cannot that must be thought no popery at all But this I cannot now insist upon My letter is already grown too long ANd yet I cannot but give you notice Sir that even these things specified here by your Disswader for popish novelties as they are rightly understood in the catholik sence and meaning Indulgences the real presence under the apperances or species of
the Roman Church's more potent principality to comply with her the Centurists are much displeased at it and censure it for a very corrupt speech And indeed the papal power and jurisdiction was so eminent in all ages that Philip Nicolai in his comment de regno Christi resers the beginning of it to the infirmity of the Apostles and byshops succeeding them For there speaking of the origin and increas of papal power Primatus affectatio saith he communis fuit infirmitas apostolorum ac etiam primorum urbis episcoporum Finally in the first age that St. Peter had a primacy above the other apostles is acknowledged by Calvin The twelve apostles had one among them to govern the rest by Musculus The celestial spirits are not equal the apostles themselves were not equal Peter is found in many places to have been chief amongst the rest which we deny not by Mr. Whitgift Amongst the Apostles themselves ther was one chief and by Dr. Covel who in his examinations teaches at large against the Puritans both that there was one appointed over the rest amongst the apostles to keep them in unity and that that government was not to ceas with the apostles but ever to continue in the Church and that it is the only way to prevent dissention and suppress heresies and that otherwise the Church would be in a far wors case than the meanest Commonwealth nay almost than a den of thieves But the Centurists like not this and therfor do they in their 4. Cent. reprehend many of the Fathers for entituling Peter the head of the apostles and the byshop of byshops So indeed Optatus calls him apostolorum caput and therfor Cephas Origen apostolorum principem Cyril of Jerusalem principem caput caeterorum Cyril of Alexandria Pastorem caput ecclesiae Arnobius Episcoporum episcopum the Councel of Chalcedon Petram verticem ecclesiae Catholicae Thus much for that point which by all this is proved to be far from any novelty As for Saints invocation and the antiquity of that beleef and custom it is acknowledged by the Centurists Chemnitius our Dr. Whitgift and Fulk Dr. Whitgift in his defence hath these words Almost all the byshops and writers of the Greek Church and Latin also for the most part were spotted with doctrins of Free-will of merit of invocation of Saints and such like Fulk in his rejoynder to Bristow I confess saith he that Ambrose Austin and Jerom held invocation of Saints to be lawful and in his book against the Rhemish Testament In Nazianzen Basil and Chrysostom I confess saith he is mention of invocation of Saints and again that Theodoret also speaketh of prayers to martyrs and again in the same book that Leo ascribeth much to the prayers of S. Peter for him and again that many ancient fathers held that Saints departed pray for us Chemnitius in his examen acknowledges as much of S. Basil Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen Theodoret S. Jerom and even S. Austin himself The Centurists charge the same upon S. Cyprian who is ancienter than S. Austin and again upon Origen who was ancienter than Cyprian adding that there are manifest steps of Saints invocation in the doctors of that ancient age So this is no novelty then Lastly as for the Sacrifice of Mass and Altars which as Dr. Reynolds sayes well in his conference with Hart are linked together Peter Martyr in his common places reproveth Peter of Alexandria for attributing more as he speaks to the outward altar than to the living temples of Christ and he checks Optatus also for saying what is the altar even the seat of the body and blood of Christ such sayings as these saith Peter Martyr edified not the people and lastly all the fathers in general he finds fault with for their abusing so frequently the name Altar which indeed is spoken of even by S Ignatius the Apostles undoubted schollar who is therfor carped at by Cartwright Calvin Fulk and Field acknowledg that most ancient fathers S. Athanasius Ambrose Austin Arnobius talked much of the Christian Sacrifice and Altar and Priests who offer and pour out daily on the holy table adding that the fathers without doubt received that their doctrin from the Jews and Gentiles whom therin they imitated The Centuriators in 3. Cent. blame Cyprian as superstitious in that point and in their 2 Cent. say that S. Irenaeus and Ignatius though disciples of the apostles were dangerously erroneous in that account Sebastianus Francus in his epistle de abrogandis in universum omnibus statutis ecclesiasticis affirms that presently after the apostles times the supper of our Lord was turned into a sacrifice Andreas Chrastovius in his book de opificio missae charges the most ancient fathers with using a propitiatory sacrifice And our own Ascham in his Apologet. pro coena Domini is found to acknowledg that sacrifice for the dead and living is so ancient in the Christian Church that no beginning of it can be found although he thinks also with Calvin that it was derived whensoever it first began from the custom either of the Jews or Gentiles or both thus bespattering with his rash pen the very first sproutings of Christianity in the world However it is in the mean time no novelty at least And let any one in any age of Christianity look all over the Christian world on any of those who profess that name whether they kept communion with the Roman Church or brake by schisme from it or perhaps never heard of it as they say the Church in Ethiopia did not and he shall find that they all had this Christian sacrifice amongst them as the great capital work of their Religion The Grecians under their Patriarch of Constantinople even still after their schisme have their Priests celebrating in all their ancient robes this their sacred liturgy to this day in the learned greek tongue all over the world where they live and may serv God not only in Greece Epirus Macedon and islands of the Egoean sea but in many parts of Natolia Circassia Russia Thrace Bulgaria Rascia Servia Bosnia Walachia Moldavia Dalmatia Croatia Thracia and up as far North as Trebisond The Assyrians or Melchites who are under the Archbyshop of Damascus whom they intitle Patriarch of Antioch The Georgians that dwell between the Euxin and Caspian seas under their Metropolitan who resides in the monastery of S. Catherin in Mount Sinai The Circassians that live between them and the river Tanais The Muscovites or Russians under the primate of Mosco The Nestorians dispersed up and down in Assyria Mesopotamia Parthia Media even to Cataia and India under their Patriarch residing either in Muzal or the monastery of S. Ermes fast by it The Indians or Christians of S. Thomas about the cities of Coulan and Maliapar Angamal and Cochin under their own archbyshop who is subject to the patriark of Muzal or patriark of Babylon as they call him The Jacobites in Cyprus Syria Mesopotamia and Palestin
under their patriark resident in Caramit metropolis of Mesopotamia or els in the monastery of S. Saphran near the city Merdin The Cophti or Christians of Egypt subject to the patriark of Alexandria The Habassms or midland Ethiopians under their own patriark or Abuna who is ever a monk of S. Antonies order consecrated for them by the patriark of Alexandria The Armenians on this side and beyond Euphrates under their two patriarks resident one of them in Mitilene or els in the city of Sis not far from Tarsus in Cilicia the other in Sebastia or els in the monastery of Ecmeazin The Maronites resident in mount Libanus under their patriark who is ever a monk and resides either in Tripoli or in the great monastery of S. Antony All these although many of them fell away long since from ecclesiastick unity upon their dislike of the Councel of Ephesus and Chalcedon where one person and two natures in Christ was declared and others of them upon other such like occasion yet do they still keep up all of them their monasteries altars priesthood sacred ordination messach and ancient Christian Liturgy Nor do they know any other way of serving or appeasing the Almighty in order to heavenly bliss than this propiatory sacrifice which received from their forefathers they practise and exercise to this day And this was ever the great devotion of all Christians and still is excepting only some few here in the North who have gone out of that primitive Christianity the last age by following the unhappy steps of Luther and Calvin and not all of them neither For Luther although he fouled yet did he not throw down the altar and the pure Lutherans that be yet in Germany Denmark and Sweathland keep it up still Thus Sir have other Protestants admitted all that to be ancient which this your Disswader calls a novelty unheard of in ancient times Nay Luther and Calvin esteemed all Popery an old Egyptian darknes spread over the face of the Church all ages since the Apostles dayes and dissipated at length by that new light which they revealed It is a strange thing that Popery which in Luther and Calvins dayes was old should now after a hundred years be grown young again But when Protestancy was new then Popery was old and now Popery must be thought new when Protestancy is grown old and rotten Truth is it was the Ministers advantage to acknowledg Popery to be old when 〈◊〉 where Catholik Religion spread all over â—…e earth had all her monuments intire by her to show her antiquity to all people then living who had also heard of the Catholik faith of their ancestours although they made it by slight of fallacious oratory erroneous But here and now in England where all those monuments are destroyed it is a double convenience to say that Popery is erroneous and new too When the first Reformers endeavoured to supplant the Catholik professours of their means and livings it was best to accuse them of old errours But now to keep their livings they have invaded it is a wiser part it seems to inveigh against Popery as a novelty There novelty could no way be proved and here in England antiquity cannot easily be shown Then matter of fact would have disproved novelty now matter of fact will not prove antiquity here in this Kingdom where the ancient religion is abrogated about a hundred years ago and people now alive that behold Protestancy never saw Catholick Religion and are almost perswaded by their ministers there was never any such thing here Nor will people read Catholik authors nor beleev them if they do nor have they power to consider who built all their Churches or made their laws or any other good thing done for them by Catholik beleevers but take all Papists to be in a manner Atheists becaus they com not to hear their ministers talk in those Churches from whence poor Catholiks were first solemnly banisht and then within a while after were punished for not coming there at such a time when their altar sacrifice and priesthood were now abolished and their priests put to death and others made liable to it afterwards when ever they should come into those Churches again to do their functions and ministers had got into their places to rail against them and that holy ancient Religion which had built those Churches to their hands Ther is I think no better way imaginable to discover the natur of the ancient Christian Church than by considering what was said to be her beleef and practice then when first she dared to show her face openly in the world appearing at length as it were from under ground and her former lurking condition wherin she had remained three hundred years under the cruel persecution of Pagan Emperours As soon as Constantin the Great Gods heavenly grace so moving him had first taken this holy Church by the hand and cloathed her with her ornaments of peace then surely she would appear her self And what she was then may be easily gathered by such ancient writers who either purposely spake of the life of Constantin or incidentally of the things which were done in those dayes as Eusebius Zozomen S. Jerom Bede and others who deliver us the form and features of the Christian Church in those times so like unto the Popery that is now adayes after thirteen or fourteen hundred years both in the particulars Dr. Taylor speaks of and several others now cancelled by our Protestant Reformation that a man may safely swear that the now present Popery and old Christianity are one and the same thing Eusebius tells us how Constantin the Emperour after the fashion of those good times chastised his own body with fasting and disciplines how he used to bless himself and sign his face with the sign of the Cross how highly he honoured and set up that triumphal ensign having confidence of victory in vertue therof how he erected illustrious temples in memory of the Christian martyrs how he refused to sit down in the general Councel of Nice till the Prelates there had given their consent how he dedicated a sumptuous Church in memory of the apostles and provided there a sepulchre for himself to the end that after his death he might be partaker of the prayers there offered how he assembled the priests to the dedication of his temple wherof some preached others offered sacrifice for the common peace for the Church of God and for the Emperour and lastly how in his sickness he confest his sins in a chappel of the martyrs and prayer and sacrifice made for his soul after his deceas Zozomen in his history tells us also of him that becaus those primitive Christians used consecrated places and only them for their publick Liturgy Constantin had ever carried with him in the camp a portable altar and tabernacle and priests and deacons attending it for celebration of divine mysteries how much also he honoured the holy monk S. Anthony for