can and to follow good Examples where they are to be had In these Reflections of his a man must have very good luck that meets with any thing that is worth answering but if he cannot find what he would he must learn patience and be content with what he can get I. He would make us believe That the only way of giving his first Book a just Reply P. 9. was to have shewn that the Faith as there stated was not really the Faith of Catholicks Now this indeed might have been the Only way according as the Representer might have drawn his Characters but as he has ordered the matter 't is not the only way for he has for the most part told stories hy halves in the Character of a Papist Represented and surely one Misrepresenting Trick is discovered on his side if it be shewn that the Faith of a Papist as stated under this or that Article P. 15. is not all his Faith but that it seems there was something concealed which was too bad to be shewn For instance The Representer takes occasion to bring in this Character of a Papist under the head of Indulgences The Papists teach That neither the Pope nor any other Power upon Earth can give leave to sin for a sum of money Nay in his first Book the Papist believes it damnable to hold that any Power in Heaven or Earth can do it Now we will suppose this to be the Faith of a Papist But then to represent him as he is he should have added thus much at least That he does not believe it damnable to hold that an Indulgence or Pardon of sins can be obtained for a Sum of Money after they are committed nor that the Tax of the Apostolick Chamber which sets the pardons of the most horrid sins at very reasonable rates is a Damnable Scandal nor that they who trust in the Popes Bulls for plenary remission of sins are damnably deceived Now all this is concealed and yet I doubt it will be found to belong to the Character of a Papist with respect to the matter of Indulgences and Pardons and in all like cases to shew what the Representer concealed is a Just Reply to his Characters but whether it be a just Reply to Him is a point wherein he is more concerned than we need to be II. He seems to lay great weight upon this That to this pitch of Confidence if not more are some Church of England Divines arrived that they pretend to know what the Religion of Papists is better than they Is it likely says he the Jews can tell better what Christ teaches than Christ himself or his Apostles Can Protestants tell better what Catholicks believe than Catholicks themselvrs If the Character of a thing is best received from professed interested and bitter Enemies then indeed they may put in for the best Informers of our Faith. Much more he says to this purpose just as he cried out Pulpits and Popery without adding any thing of new matter Now where no Answers are needful I am sure these that follow may suffice 1. 'T is false that I for instance pretenâ— to know what the Religion of Papists is better than he the Representer But for all that 't is true that unless he mends his Characters of a Papist Represented I do pretend to represent Popery with more honesty than he does I cannot tell what this Man believes better than he does himself nor so well neither but I can tell as well as he what their Trent Council their Catechisms their Pontifical their Missal their Breviary and their established Offices say Are these Mysteries that no Man must pretend to understand but a Representer and some few besides For 2. Why must we be brought in as pretending to know what Popery is better than Papists know it Was Bellarmin with all those of the old strain a Protestant Is Father Crasset a Protestant or Cardinal Capisucchi who approved the Bishop of Condom's Exposition too Are they Protestants in Spain or Italy Do we represent their Worship of Images so grosly as that very Cardinal does Do we represent Popery otherwise than as all these have and do profess and practise 3. It had been an Impudent thing in the Jews to pretend that they could tell better what Christ taught than Christ himself or his Apostles And it was silly in the Representer to run to so high an instance unless he would insinuate that we are as it were Jews and himself a kind of an Apostle I would have him observe that we are not so sensless as to think that we can tell what a Representer and an Expositor teach better than themselves but in many things we can tell as well as they by the same token that they teach some things for Catholick Doctrines which in their Church have been accounted little better than Heresies and suppress others which their predecessors scorned to suppress But tho' some Romanists do now think fit to palliate their Religion in this manner yet Christ and his Apostles did no such thing and were not therefore liable to that Reproof which these men must bear in spite of their hearts 4. For what he says That Bitter Enemies are not to be believed in the Characters they give of others I Answer That neither are designing and self-interested men to be believed in the Characters they give of themselves Animosity says he sets a Biass upon the Heart And is there nothing that does it beside What thinks he of the Design to reconcile a Nation so averse to Popery as this is and of the several conveniencies that will follow such a Change Nor is it so certain that we are their Bitter Enemies as that they are very great Lovers of themselves I am so far from being a Bitter Enemy to the Representer that I am now doing him the Office of a severe Friend by telling him the Truth which he cares not to hear but it may be I may bring him to blushing which he seems to have taken his leave of and he may in time thank me for it I tell him that in this place he talks wretchedly and I desire him to reflect upon himself before he pretends to make any more Reflections upon us Don't every body know says he that the Church of England has proclaim'd her self an open and professed Enemy to the Church of Rome Does not this unqualify her for a True Representer Now admitting our Church to be as open and professed an Enemy to his as she is to the Errors and Abuses of it yet who does not know that this can only unqualify her for a Representer to be believed upon her own word But she may Represent truly for all that Which is so plain a Case that this Man if he was in his right mind when he wrote those things could not but know it The most therefore that he could honestly make of this supposed enmity of our Church against his is that we
be demanded 1. Let him go through the 37 Heads as I said before and tell us particularly what the Answerer charges upon Papists which we do well in rejecting but ill in imputing it to them And 2. Let him say plainly to every particular where he thinks there is just occasion to say so The Church of Rome will not receive you if you come with this Belief or with this Practice which yet you presume to call Popery But if the Representer will undertake for us upon these Terms even of Popery as 't is represented by that Author then I must beg of him to tell us what he meant by such Expressions as these If you have truly represented the Doctrines of the Church of Rome Reflect p. 18. I would as soon be a Turk as your Papist That Imaginary Monsters are raised up to knock down at pleasure Pref. p. 1. That we raise a Monster of Religion such as none can be in love with Pag. 21. but those that are bold enough to embrace Damnation bare-fac'd and then this is the Character of Popery And much more to the same purpose which he says up and down in his Replies Nothing is more familiar with him than to say we abhor and detest and abominate that which is charged upon us But I beseech you Sir is your Church so Catholick as to take in Men who say and do such things as part of their Religion which you detest and abominate who come with a Monster of Religion that none can be in love with but the Lovers of bare-fac'd Damnation Or does it take in Turks for you would as soon be a Turk as our Papist as you told us long since Here I am apt to think you will need all the improvement of your Confidence and it will not help you neither You have been thus long dancing in a Net and if you are not secured that way I have so often hinted before you will now begin to see it For I pray observe if the Characters that your first Answerer set a Papist out with are black enough to make a Man look like a Turk nothing could have been more easie to note than these Characters and you know Monsters are very remarkable things and may be shown with a Finger And therefore we do expect that you would now at last point them out as they lie at large for so you say they do throughout the Answerer 's Book And when you have done this it will then come upon you to declare whether with these Monsters you will present us to your Church and undertake for our Admittance or not If you will not pray say so and by the way think of giving some account how those Schoolmen and private Authors came to be the celebrated Members and those Old Rituals and Mass-books the standing Offices of your Church for you do not accuse your Answerer for seeking any where else to find these Monsters But to come close to the Point if you will take any Man that comes with these Monsters have we not great reason to supect that if we should come without them you would not expose your self to defend us from them if it should be thought fit to let them loose upon us I hope therefore that we shall be troubled with this offer no more of coming into your Church upon your Terms till you give us some better reason than yet we have had to believe that you are willing to secure us from those Terms which in general you say are monstrous but which you have not yet told us what they are in particular HERE THEREFORE I CHALLENGE YOU TO DECLARE WHAT THOSE PARTICULARS ARE THOSE MONSTERS THOSE DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES WHICH YOU DO SO DETEST AND ABOMINATE AND IF YOU REFUSE SO TO DO I FASTEN UPON YOU THE MARK OF INSINCERITY AND JUGGLING FOR OFFERING THAT WE SHALL BE RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH OF ROME WITHOUT THEM For observe me Sir if for fear of falling foul upon those of your own Party you dare not declare in particular what those Monsters are tho this be necessary to gain us to your Communion how much less will you stand between us and them when once we are gain'd Nor must you think to give us the slip now as hitherto you have done It will no longer serve your turn to feign Characters of a Papist Misrepresented for us and to raise up Imaginary Monsters as you speak to knock down at pleasure Remember to take your Answerer's Characters of a Papist who has so described your Religion that you would as soon be a Turk as his Papist This you know is to be done for our satisfaction and therefore our Characters of a Papist as we describe them for our selves not as you describe them for us are to be marked by you Remember again that you go from Point to Point and tell us all along as you go what it is in his way of stating your Religion which you detest and abominate for we shall take it for granted that you do not detest or at least that you do not say that you detest what you let go without any note of your Indignation In a word this is but what you ought to have done all this while and the Representing Controversy had been soon at an end But now it is necessary for you to do it that we may at least know what your Popery is and what reason we have to trust your Offers Whether I shall hear from you upon these Matters I cannot foresee but in the mean time I do not much care if I give you my Thoughts concerning the bottom of this Business I question not but you are willing to receive us into the Roman Church upon our making the Profession of your Papist Misrepresented and I have some reason to think upon much easier terms of Profession for which I shall by and by give my Reason If we would but do as you do we might for some time put what Interpretation upon it we please If we would subscribe Pope Pius his Creed we might deliver in a Protestation of what sense we please if we would but adore the Cross and worship the Sacrament as you do we might declare what Intention we please But in Matters of Religion Insincerity and Dissimulation are such odious things that we who dare not prevaricate with our own Consciences can neither have a very good Opinion of those who would help us to do so nor of the Cause which needs it We cannot but see that the secret meaning of all is this that we must submit to Rome and do as they do at Rome and till better care can be taken we may be allowed to comment upon what we do even as we list and while we take our Rule of Faith and Worship from Papists we may if that will content us go on to talk like Protestants And I doubt not but that if this were honest we might make better Conditions for our selves than
the same Worship as Christ himself and what does he conclude upon it Why that any one may hold which side they please as an Opinion or suspend their Judgment but neither side is truly what you ought to mean by Popery And therefore I conceive that if neither side be Popery the Representers side is not Popery but a private Opinion which the Church has not yet censured as the Vindicator says Now what the Vindicator said in this Case is applicable to all others where the Answerer plainly shewed that the Eminent and Leading Men of the R. Church were of a different Sentiment from the Representer Whereas therefore the Representer either promised or threatned great matters in his Introduction I 'll endeavour says he to separate these Calumnies and Scandals from what is REALLY THE FAITH AND DOCTRINE OF THE CHVRCH I 'll take off the Black and Dirt which has been thrown upon her and set her forth in her GENVINE Complexion I 'll Represent a Papist whose Faith and Exercise of his Religion is according to the Direction and Command of the Church The Vindicator has on the other hand knocked him down at one blow For says he So long as the Church determines not the Dispute any one may hold which side they please as an opinion but neither side is truly what you ought to mean by Popery This shews that I was not much out of the way when I noted the great hazard of these Expounding and Representing designs The truth is it was so nice a work that in prudence they ought to have committed it to one hand and the Representer should have been the Vindicator For while they are two and and each of them driven to straits one of them being pressed on one side and the other on another side the danger was great that each of them would shift for himself a several way and be exposed to the Reproaches of one another Thus it happened that the Representer being pressed by his Adversaries for not having fairly Represented Popery was fain at last to make a Rule to know the Churches Sense by which might serve his turn and what should that be but the Currant passing of his Book amongst Catholics for this he thinks was enough to shew that the Doctrine of it was Authentic But the Vindicator being pressed with the Opposition that is made in the Roman Communion to the Doctrine of the Exposition and perceiving that Currant passing would not serve his turn he I say comes out a Month after the Representer and will not allow any thing to make Doctrine Authentic under the express Words of a General Approved Council and he has utterly undone the poor Representer's Rule of Currant passing which he thought was enough to shew that his Doctrine was Authentic Nay the unfortunate Vindicator has blown up the Exposition of the Bishop of Meaux as well as the Characters of the Representer which indeed could not be avoided because one must necessarily follow the Fate of the other For the Bishop's Exposition was solemnly pretended to be An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversie that is to say An Exposition of Popery But the Bishop has expounded many things for the Doctrine of the Catholic Church which other Members of the same Church condemn and so long as the Dispute remains undetermined neither Side is truly what you ought to call Popery And therefore the Bishop should have called his Book An Exposition of his own Private Sentiment concerning the Doctrine of the Catholic Church Thus I say he should have called it or else he should have found out another Vindicator Nay because the greatest Grace that his Doctrine seems now to have from the Church is That it is not censured by the Church The Title should have been a little more wary by running thus An Exposition of the Bishop's Private Sentiment which the Church has not yet censured concerning the Doctrine of the Catholic Church But because in truth the Living Church has begun to censure his Doctrine and they who have censured it are not censured for it The Title should have been yet more warily contrived thus An Exposition of the Bishop's Private Sentiment which Sentiment is not contrary to the express Words of a General Approved Council Then perhaps the Vindicator might have done something in discharge of the Duty of a Vindicator But as the case stands he ought henceforward to change his Name and to write himself the Betrayer of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition but by no means the Vindicator of it Which himself so well understood that he thought fit to pass over all the Letter of the Defender to the Bishop and he gives this substantial Reason for it Because the Letter concerns not him the Vindicator nor the Doctrine of the Catholic Church which he is to vindicate In good time But the Letter sorely concerned the Bishop and the Doctrine of his Exposition Pag. 8. and therefore if it does not concern the Vindicator you are not to wonder at it because there have been great Changes of late and now the Doctrine of the Bishop's Exposition is one thing and the Doctrine of the Catholic Church is another I may without breach of Modesty say that hitherto I have given the Vindicator a Full Reply And I believe the Reader would be well satisfied that I should drop him here and leave his following Cavils to be confuted by any one that will take the pains to compare him and the Defender together But then this would be a Pretence for another Book and for some boasting that he is not answered A little therefore must be said to what remains Pag. 8. And 1. By many of the Roman Casuists allowing the Defamation of an Adversary by false Accusations as the Defender said in his Table it is so plain by the Book that he meant no more than that they maintained it to be but a Venial Sin that the Vindicator himself has not questioned it and therefore it was a mere Cavil to tax the Defender of Falsifying in this business tho to incourage the Vindicator to do well another time thus much he is to be commended for that he limited his Accusation to the expression of Allowing which he found in the Table This Sir as you here word it is a False Imputation Even where he does ill I am glad that he does no worse But to speak to the thing They that make one of the basest things in nature to be but a Venial Sin cannot reasonably be otherwise understood than that they intend to make it easie for their own Party to commit it And tho they flourish never so fairly with that Rule that No Evil is to be done that Good may come of it yet there are so many little ways amongst them of clearing themselves from Venial Sins that when so foul a Wickedness is made but Venial it can be with no other design than to encourage men to it
Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus An Answer to the Representer's Reflections upon the View of the Controversie with a Reply to the Vindicator's Full Answer Jan. 21. 1687. H. Maurice R mo in Christo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. a Sacris AN ANSWER TO THE REPRESENTER's REFLECTIONS UPON THE STATE and VIEW OF THE CONTROVERSY With a REPLY to the VINDICATOR's full Answer SHEWING That the Vindicator has utterly Ruined the New Design of Expounding and Representing POPERY LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII THE PREFACE I Have here brought together the Representer and the Vindicator two Friends that seem to have been great strangers to one another of late They have been so busy each of them is pursuing his own Proper part that they have had no eye to the safety of that design which is Common to both Nothing seems to require a more nice and exact care then so to Expound and Represent the Roman Religion as to gain Protestants and yet not to hazard the very pretences to Infallibility in the Roman Church and to Vnity amongst themselves And therefore since these Two were engaged in this Work they ought above all things to have proceeded by common Advice and like Two even Squares if it were possible they should have touched one another in every Point But something or other has broken off this Correspondence For the Vindicator has undone the Representer if that Man can be undone by another who had undone himself before And betwixt 'em Both there is a hopeful Cause lost which can never be retrieved but by new Hands or by a declared War between these two in which the Representer if he can must undo the Vindicator If the Representer has a better Opinion of his own Affairs he is a happy Man For I dare almost undertake that for the future no Body shall go about to disturb him but he shall keep Possession in Peace I was for this time prevailed with to come in for one of his Answerers He has shak'd off two or three already and he is enough to tire out all the Controvertists in Town Tâ— write against him is now grown as unprofitable a drudgery as to plow upon a Rock where there is no Soil to be turned up He gives little or no occasion to write any thing that will answer the attention of a judicious Reader and hardly of a curious one He may be confuted indeed and exposed as he deserves to be but 't is but a meer trial of skill which no body is the better for To Answer him now will never pay the charge of a Book and therefore he that undertakes it must either leave him as he was wont to serve his Adversaries or be content with Pertinence where 't is good for nothing This is the best Apology I have to make for those barren Pages which occur sometimes in the Answer to him And if the Reader will accept it now I pass my Word to need it no more The Representer may from this time either carry on the Character Controversy upon his old Thirty seven Points or he may think of some new Additions to patch up a Fourth Part out of his first Three as he has compounded a Third out of his First and Second and he may come out with Fifteen fresh Articles of Representation once a year as long as he lives without any great fear of being opposed He may now write with a Privilege and say what he pleases if H. Hills will but give his consent for I think no body else is like to discourage him And if he puts out a Reply to this Answer he shall do very well but then I promise him he shall Answer it himself and get the Victory by fighting the Battel on both sides The Vindicator is making all the haste he can after him In truth the Representer came first to perfection by nothing else but getting the start of him For I have no skill at all if the next Book that the Vindicator writes in this Controversy does not make him a Privileged Author too Indeed if he should happen to be as good as his word and try to Answer the Discourse of Extreme Unction or fall upon some fresh Subject the next thing he does he will be but an ordinary man so much the longer For when those men begin a Controversie they write like other men and so long 't is possible to Answer them but they have such a way of carrying it on as will wear out the patience of any man living When their Arguments are spent without doing any execution one would believe they must of necessity yield but they never appear invincible till then and they bring such terrible Reserves when they can Reason no longer that the best we can do is to make an honourable Retreat The Vindicator is much in the same state that the Representer was in when his last Answerer plainly shewed him that he had dropt the whole Controversie and lost his whole Cause For the Vindicator as I have shewn in the Reply has lost the very same Cause another way if therefore he intends to be as famous as the Representer I expect from him a Preface or the like containing Reflections upon my Reply to his Letter and if that happens he may expect from me one Reply more and after that I promise him too that for me he shall flourish all the days of his life It was the same ungrateful work to have to do with one of these Pieces as with both and 't was pity that more than one man should disoblige his hands about it and therefore when I had the Representer's Performance before me I needed no Intreaty to tack the Vindicator's Full Answer to it in my Reply to which Answer I have shown these men to one another and the Representer I cannot but fancy looks like a Chymist that having laid out all he is worth in trying for the Philosophers Stone is in the very nick of his unreasonable hopes undone by an unlucky Friend who comes in hastily and by one moments medling confounds the whole Operation The Representer had been setting up a good substantial Popery for Protestants to be fond of which was to be found in the profession of Living men with whom we may change a word as occasion serves but the Vindicator who was in with him in the same design must needs show that he could help it forward by putting words together in less than a years time and so the Popery they have been labouring for so long is dwindled into a Church-sense which 't is in vain for men to expound one to another he has made it an Invisible unaccountable Popery and something like a Spirit that troubles the house all night but no body ever saw it This I take it must needs be a deadly disappointment to the Representer and what if these two men should now serve one another as they have served us
who saw Misery before them which they had already so deeply tasted of that their Hearts were quite sunk with the apprehension of what was just coming But is this dealing for the Credit I will not say of the Managers but of the Cause they serve and of the Method that is now taken to serve it by Expositions and Representations Why if no more sincerity were used in Fairs and Markets than this comes to in the Concerns of Everlasting Salvation Men had better live alone and make what shift they can each one for himself than to have any thing to do with one another I was going to descant upon every one of the other seven Articles but to shew the Intrigue of them though never so gravely would look so like a Farce that I count it decent to forbear lest I should seem to make sport with the Sins and Miseries of Men. I shall only give the Reader this Note that the Relation only says there were Difficulties on both Sides but that by the wording of the Conditions it appears very probable that the Citizens had brought them in another Form when the Capitulation began but that this was all they could obtain and now that they are reduced to this Form the sagacity and watchfulness of one side is no less discovered than of the other But O God to what a pass is the State of Religion brought amongst Christians I have here given the Representer an Example of reconciling Protestants to the Church of Rome upon Terms much after his own way only 't is something finer though the Application I confess was more rugged the Principality having felt the Dragoons to the ruin of it and the utmost Extremities being threatned in two hours in case of refusal to subscribe Thus much at least they gained that they might not be obliged to go to Mass for three Months nor to be present at the Offices of the Church which was a plain demonstration that these miserable Persons had subscribed with an unsatisfied Mind and that Vnion and Submission was the thing aimed at by the Reconcilers but whether it was done upon the Convictions of the Citizens what cared they I can give no farther account of this Matter but shall only put the Representer in mind of one Passage in the State of the Controversy which he cared not to reflect upon State. p. 23. viz. That after the Bishop of Meaux had treated of a Reconciliation upon Terms more moderate than his own Exposition while the Dragoons were at the Gates he came in three Months and treated them now as Persons Reconciled and without any regard to his own Promises or to their Consciences let the Dragoons loose upon those that refused to compleat their Conviction by going to Mass The Representer may from all this pick out some Reason why he ought to be ashamed of his Offer that we shall be received upon the Terms of his Book IV. I come next to his Quotation of Mr. Montagu from whence he would prove that the Church of England began too early to Misrepresent Papists to deserve now much credit in her Representings Appello Caesarum c. 23. p. 60 c. But what shall I call our Representer here Not the modestest thing in Nature for Mr. Montagu is most vilely abused by him while he makes him bring in the Homilies as representing the Papists That which he says of them is this That they contain certain godly and wholesome Exhortations to move the People to Honour and Worship Almighty God but not as the publick Dogmatical Resolutions confirmed of the Church of England And again They have not Dogmatical Positions or Doctrine to be propugned and subscribed in all and every Point as the Books of Articles and of Common Prayer have Then follow the words which the Representer begins with They may seem secondly to speak somewhat too hardly and stretch some Sayings beyond the use and practice of the Church of England both then and now which last words the Representer mentions not nor these that follow immediately And yet what they speak may receive a fair or at least a tolerable construction and mitigation well enough For you have read peradventure how strangely some of the Ancientest Fathers do speak and how they hyperbolize sometimes in some Points in their popular Sermons which in Dogmatical Decisions they would not do nor avow the Doctrine by them delivered resolutivè Now the occasion of all this was that Mr. Mountagu was charg'd by his Adversaries for granting an allowable use of Images contrary to the Homilies of the Church of England in the Sermon against the Peril of Idolatry which seemeth to inveigh against all use of them To this Mr. M. answered as before producing the Homilies not as speaking of what the Papists do or not do but as universally condemning the use of Images in Churches P. 262. And he gives this account of it more fully than I need to transcribe viz. That as the Fathers spake against Images with some tartness and inveighing sort lest the Christians who had been Pagans themselves and now lived amongst Pagans might learn to worship Idols So our Predecessors coming late out of Popery and conversing with Papists and knowing that Images used to be crept unto incens'd worshipped and adored amongst them might if they were suffered to stand as they did induce them to do as they had sometime done and therefore in a godly Zeal such as moved Ezekias to destroy the Brazen Serpent they spake thus vehemently and indeed hyperbolically against them For the People with whom they then dealt were by all means â—o be preserved from the taint and tincture of their Superstitious Practices This is the whole truth of the business which the Representer did not think fit to shew but without taking the least notice of the occasion and subject of this Chapter runs away with a few Phrases that he pick'd out from the rest as best fit for his purpose such as hyperbolizing stretching upon the Tenters by all means and the like and would make as if Mr. Mountague confessed the Church of England regarded not how she represented Papists and Popery Which wretched dealing is according to no common Honesty but his own and whoever goes on at this rate will write himself out of all Credit and there will be no need of answering his Books 'T is to the same purpose that he brings in Mr. M. Pref. p. 19. again not thinking it any Reflection upon him if he does not altogether agree or subscribe to the Doctrine of the Book of Homilies in his time because it being a Book fitted for a Season and declared necessary for THESE Times what great wonder if what was a good Doctrine under Edward VI. was not so in the time of King James c. For thus he would perswade us that we alter and change our Religion according to Times and Seasons which is what we justly charge upon them The Compilers of
the Homilies and Mr. M. meant the same thing which this Man may shew a fault in when he can viz. that more Care is necessary at some times to secure People from Image-worship than at others though our Religion which will not allow us to worship Images be the same at all times If he thinks that the Homilies stretch their Hyperboles too far let him compare them with what Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Minutius Felix and other Antients say of the same Subject and then tell 〈◊〉 more of his Mind But since as Mr. M. judiciously observ'd their severe Reflections against all use of Images whatsoever are to be interpreted by the danger of being seduced to Idolatry which the Christians were in in those Times so may the less hyperbolizing of our Homilies bear a good Construction with reference to These Times in which we are sure Images are worshipped by certain People that the Representer can tell of with no less Devotion than the Pagans worshipped theirs The Reader I hope will now excuse me for taking no more notice of his protesting against the distinction of Old and New Popery his declaring that their Belief is always the same and his lamentable Complaints that we are Misrepresenters Pref. p. 20 21. and that we rake together some odd Opinions out of private Authors c. that the Heads upon which our Representing stands are so many Fallacies and Sophistry c. For if a Man after the Particulars of his Book have been particularly answer'd will still betake himself to general Out-cries and makes as if he intended to go on in this way as long as he lives he ought to know at last that he may do so without any more disturbance and that no body will go about to answer him And so I come to consider his Reflections upon the View of the whole Controversy with the Answer to his last Reply It seems the Stater as he observes had so good an Opinion of it that he thought it would put an End to the Controversy The Representer says that he is almost of the same Mind And I say that I am altogether of the same Mind And so there is one thing in which we do all of us almost agree But why is the Representer almost of that Mind Because the Answerer had said so little to that long Bill which was drawn up against the Members of his Church Pref. p. 22. wherein the Crime of misrepresenting is laid to their Charge that besides what he confesses the very Guilt appears so plainly in the forced Excuses he makes for the rest that there 's little need of any more besides reading his Defence to see how far they are from being innocent So that by his own Confession he brought in a long Bill against some of our Church wherein the Crime of misrepresenting is laid to their Charge And the truth is it was long enough considering that it had neither Truth nor Pertinence as it was particularly shewn him in the Answer to his last Reply For I must add that the Answerer brought in a longer Answer of about 28 Pages to the Particulars of the Representer's Bill not omitting any one Charge upon any one of our Authors where there was direction to the Passage by Page or Chapter And I do assure the Reader that those six or seven Lines of his which I transcribed just now out of his Preface is all the Reply that he has given to that Answer And I desire the Reader to remember and consider that that tedious Charge of his the Defence of which he now so visibly forsakes was manifestly brought in to supply the place of defending his 37 Points of Representation nay and of defending his very Pretences for forsaking them And yet that now at last he forsakes the Defence of those Imputations upon particular Authors by which he hoped to divert the Reader from an expectation of Replies pertinent to his first undertaking Now therefore I apply my self to the Representer and desire him to take as much notice of what I say as if there was a Finger against it in the Margin That because he was so very modest as not to offer the least particular Reply to those Answers to his Charge therefore his continuing that Charge is the greater Impudence With all my Soul I wish that the Gentlemen of the Church of Rome would imply other sort of Men to write against us for this Man carries on the Controversy not only to the disparagement of their Cause in particular but to the discredit of Religion in general But since I have such a Countenance to deal with I must not think to let even those six Lines go without some particular Answers to them For tho he can with a good Grace drop his own Challenges and Undertakings one after another and as he once said gravely turn over I know not how many Pages of ours without offering a word to any one Particular that he finds there and never change Countenance for the matter Yet we are to watch every Line of his and unless we intend to have another Book from him we must prove that the Sun sets before Midnight if he should happen to deny it He pretends that his Answerer said so little to his long Bill c. What should I say to this Should I print over again here the 28 Pages which were taken up in refuting those Cavils of the Representer Or is it not enough that I do now forbid him to make any Replies to the Particulars of that Answer He pretends that the Answerer confessed something Besides what he confesses says he So that if he may be believed the Answerer has confessed that some of those whom he mentions have misrepresented the Church of Rome But this is adding Sin to Sin For he confess'd no such thing and I will add that he had no cause to confess it These words indeed I find in the Answer Did ever either of his Adversaries undertake to justify all that any Protestant Divine or Historian has at any time said in opposition to Popery Or was it not possible to give a more honest account of Popery than he did without such an Undertaking And again Tho it be no part of our business to bring off every thing that has been said or done by Protestants yet I shall a little examine what our Representer has charg'd those with whom he has singled out to expose them to the World For my own part where his Accusations in whole or in part fall justly there they shall lie for me nor will I make another Man's fault my own by going about to defend it But is this confessing that Misrepresentation was proved upon any one Author that was charged with it The Answerer it seems was resolved as became him never to wrangle either for a Friend or against an Enemy and he found in the long Bill one or two filly Sayings of Protestants which this Man called Misrepresentations for instance
Construction is no False Translator but a True one especially if that Sentence be part of a Work where the Latin is every where else very good and that Sense which the Construction makes agrees with all that is in connexion And 1. it agrees very well with the mention of those many Benefits which Reliques are said to be the Means of And 2. It holds with the Difference between the Matter of this Period and that of the foregoing one much better than the Vindicator's Sense does For he would have the Help of the Saints to be mentioned here But let him observe that this was abundantly taken care for in the Provision that went immediately before and therefore if it were Indifferent as it is not which way the Construction should be carried according to the use of Latin this should carry it for ours that here the Council was engaged in a new Matter not for the Invocation of Saints and the Benefits of that which are provided for before but for the Veneration of their Reliques and the Benefits that come that way which is the Business of this Period And now the Vindicator may consider to whom of right the Character of a False Translator belongs of a Falsifier and a Calumniator too Certainly Controversies about Religion were never disgraced by such mean Bickerings as these but who can help it that has to do with such Men as this Vindicator and his Friend the Representer So much for knowing the Sense of the Church by her Voice in her General and Approved Councils Again We are to know what the Church delivers as a necessary Practice Pag. 6. by her universally practising such things as necessary I ask therefore 1. Did not the Church intend her Public Offices for Rules of Vniversal Practice and are they not therefore one Means by which we are to judge of such Practice 2. Whether those things are not necessary to be done in the Roman Church which her Public Offices require 3. Whether she does not practice those things as necessary which she practises in conformity to her own Public Offices or Whether it be indifferent for the Children of the Church to observe her Rules or to refuse to observe them The Vindicator understood himself to be liable to these Questions and therefore when he comes to apply this Means of knowing the Churches Sense in necessary Practices he adds a new Limitation Vnless says he you can prove That what you term Old Popery was delivered as a Practice necessary TO SALVATION all you say will avail you nothing For the Church is to answer for nothing which she requires not as necessary to Salvation And tho she obliges all her Children to worship the Wood on Good-Friday and condemns those that refuse as Schismatics as Imberâ— knows to his Cost yet 't is not the Churches Sense that they should do so because the Rubric does not add that this is Necessary to Salvation So that if the Church had commanded us to worship Moloch that had not been Popery or the Churches Sense unless she had inserted that Reason for her Command That 't is necessary to Salvation to worship Moloch In a word The General Practice of the Church of Rome in the Service of the Virgin the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Images is notorious to the World. And no Man that knows the authorized Practice can doubt of the Sense of the Church nor be ignorant that in these things the Bishop of Meaux has delivered not the Churches Sense but his own if indeed it be his own The Defender produced an Author of the Roman Communion who concluded that the true and only Means to free their Religion from the Exceptions of Heretics was to shew that it does not tolerate any thing but what is Good and that the Public Worship the Customs and Doctrines Authorized in it are Just and Holy. This Author had good Reason for what he said especially against the Bishop of Meaux who imputed to the Pagan Religion those Abuses which were publicly committed amongst them and laughed at the Expositions of the Philosophers that would put a good Sense upon their Abominable Worships The Vindicator says he admits the Parallel but he is certain that it will never make any thing for us till we can shew that the Church does or did make use of Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures to oblige People to believe and practise those things which we call Old Popery as the Heathens did to make them worship Idols That is to say He does not admit the Parallel tho he says he does admit it For the Bishop of Meaux was brought in charging Paganism with a Barbarous and Idolatrous Worship upon the account of their Notorious and Authorized Practices without regard to their Cruelties upon those that refused to comply with them And therefore if the Parallel be admitted we may conclude an Old Popery from a like general Practice without enquiring whether Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures were used to enforce it upon the people But the Vindicator has required a wise condition to make the Parallel hold for he says in effect that before Christianity appeared against Heathenism and till the Pagans had some people to hang and to torture Paganism could not be charged with a Corrupt and Idolatrous Worship And yet if this were necessary to be added Old Popery has not been behind hand with the use of Racks and Gibbets and all sorts of Tortures to speak all in a word it has had and to this day it has an Inquisition to uphold it As for what he says that the Defender must shew Pag. 7. that the Church allows such wicked Practices as correspond to his Authors example of Killing and Robbing and are as dangerous to the Church as those are to a State. I reply that the Question is not here how dangerous those Doctrines and Practices are which we call Old Popery but whether indeed they are to be charged upon the Church of Rome And the Similitude was brought to shew That it is to as little purpose to defend the Church of Rome against our exceptions by pretending that no decision of Council can be produced requiring that Service and Worship which is universally given to Saints and Images as to acquit a City where they rob and kill without contradiction by saying that there is no Law commanding Men to rob and murther one another As for the danger of those Doctrines and Practices which we call Old Popery 't is another Question in which I am pretty confident that Good Man the Representer is bound to appear He and the Vindicator therefore shall agree about it at their leisure I shall do my part to bring them fairly together and so let them compound the matter betwixt them as well as they can The Vindicator felt himself born down with those clear Testimonies of an Old Popery which the Defender plied him with and by what appears now he struggles