Can the Leopard change his Spots c. or they that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well And Rom. 8. 6 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to his Law nor can be I will not here too much contradict him 2. But is it nothing that they could have done in Parliament had they been willing 3. Is it unlawful for us to know if he know it not or deny it how much the Bishops and Clergy did with the Parliament-Men 4. He should at least have stayed till Dr. Bates Dr. Jacomb and I are dead who wrote and disputed with the Bishops by the Kings Commission before he had talkt at this rate to the World Did not the King make his Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs And did he not under the broad Seal commission those Bishops and Doctors to treat with us for the making such alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences Did they not maintain that no alterations were thereto necessary and so end the treaty 5. Did they not in their next Convocation lay aside the Kings Indulgent Declaration and make the Additions to the Liturgy And yet could they not help it Nor was it none of their doings 6. Doth not England know that Parliaments since have by experience perceived their Mistake and would have suspended our Prosecution and restored us to Unity and the Bishops and Clergy will not consent but rage against it and preach and write to have us executed according to the Laws and no abatement to be made and as this man think that the Churches Distraction is from Projects of Moderation What name should one give to such Histories as these The guilty cannot bear their names XII He saith It was the Law that tied them to their choice and not the Bishops Ans 1. Suppose the word choice were proper here Is it any justification of the Executioners It was the Emperour Charles the 5th's Edict that tied all the Protestant Ministers to conform to the Interim or be gone It was the Law that tied the Martyrs in Qu. Maries days to profess what they believed not or to be burnt Alas How could Bonner and Gardiner help it 2. But how many Bishops were against the passing of that Bill And who persuaded the Lay-Men to it Must we not know when it 's night if you deny it XIII He tells you that the ancient silenced Teachers before the Civil Wars were the Instruments of Antimonarchical and Antiepiscopal Faction Ans 1. Which of them all said so much as Mr. Hooker Bp. Bilson Bp. Jewel c. have done 2. If you make any Conscience of the 9th Commandment prove the Truth of what you say of those that were suspended and driven out of the Kingdom in the times of A. Bp. Laud Bp. Wren Bp. Piercy c. for not reading the Book for Lords-days Dancing and Sports and that were prosecuted for Preaching twice on the Lords-day and for not turning the Table Altar-wise and railing it in which even Bp. Montague as well as Williams was against Was Bishop Miles Smyth of Gloucester were A. Bp. Abbot or Grindall Antimonarchical or Antiepifcopal 3. Prove if you are able any Antimonarchical Principles Words or Deeds by Mr. Hildersham Mr. Brinsley Mr. Paul Baine Mr. Dod Mr. Knewstubs and hundreds of such I might name The most malicious are fain to talk of one Knox or one Goodman or one Junius Brutus that is Hubertus Languetus Melancthous friend or somewhat in Buchanan not the tenth part so much as is commonly said by the Papists with whom our A. Bp. Bromhall and his Companions so much plead for Concord 4. Doth not Al. Cope and Sanders and Pateson in the Image of both Churches and lately the nominal Bellamy in his Philanax Anglicus and many more such say all the same of the Bishops and Church of England and all that they deride as Protestants of Sincerity as guilty of far more rebellious Principles and Practices thâ—n ever you can prove by the meer Nonconformists old or new And is it enough to accuse XIV He saith They would preach but they would not conform to the established Religion Ans 1. But why should they be forbidden to preach which was good and they were devoted to If a man will not do all that you would have him to do shall he do nothing 2. What was that which he calleth the Established Religion It was the Ceremonies and Subscription that there is nothing in the Liturgy contrary to the Word of God And was this a Crime worthy the forbidding men to preach the Gospel Or why should the Souls of Thousands of the Innocent People be so heavily punished for another mans omission even because the Teachers fear Conformity 3. But still we see what these mens Religion is Had their Religion been the Scripture or any Doctrine or Worship common to the Christian or Protestant Churches the old Nonconformists willingly consented to it But here they shew that their Ceremonies and proper Liturgy forms are their Religion But then 1. Why do Dr. Burges and all that plead for your Ceremonies and Invention build all on this that you make them not any parts of Worship or Religion which they confess man may not invent but meer accidents 2. How old then is your Religion Your Liturgy was made since Luther began his Reformation 3. It seems then that you are not of the same Religion with the Protestants that have none of your Ceremonies Liturgy or Subscriptions 4. Is not then your Church of a singular Religion from all the World and consequently a singular Church And is it the whole Catholick Church then or a Schismatical Church I confess that you shew more evidently than by such words that your self made Rules and Circumstances are your Religion For 1. You make Conformity to them to be de facto more necessary than our Preaching the Gospel or our Church Communion or any publick Church Worship of God 2. And you excommunicate by your Rule or Canon every Member of Christ in England that doth but think and say that any thing of your Imposition Liturgy Ceremonies or Government are sinful 3. And yet when you have done you call all your Impositions things indifferent 4. And thereby you declare that your Religion in part is a thing indifferent 5. And no Man or Woman shall be of your Church that cannot know all the indifferent things in the World which may be imposed on them to be Indifferent and not Unlawful when you know or you know not whom you dwell among that we have much adoe to get one half your Church to know things necessary 6. The Papists that put a greater necessity on their Inventions will deride you for an Indifferent Religion There was a poor Puritane Nonconformist that feared Lying that went about the Streets with Ink to fell and was wont truly to cry Very good Ink very good Ink but once his Ink a little miscarried and he durst not call it
which was simple Christianity we returned to it by Reformation Besides the Dectrine of Two Natures about which they saw they agreed in sense while the Jesuites Hereticated them three things much alienated the Habassines 1. Denying them the Sacrament of the Eucharist in both kinds 2. Rebaptising their Children 3. Reordaining their Priests This much being done the Papists were by degrees soon overcome 1. The Patriarch is accused for preaching Sedition 2. Then the Temples are taken from them and they break their own Images lest the Habassines should do it in seorn 3. On Sept. 16. 1632. the King died and his Son Basilides was against them 4. Ras-Seelaxus their most powerful friend is banished and others after him 5. Upon more Accusations their Farmes Goods and Guns are seised on 6. They are confined to Fremona Thence they petition again for new Disputations The King Basilides answereth them thus by writing What I did heretofore was done by my Fathers command whom I must needs obey so that by his conduct I made War against my Kindred and Subjects But after the last Battle in Wainadega both learned and unlearned Clergy and Laity Civil and Military men great and small fearlesly said to my Father the King How long shall we be vexed tired with unprofitable things How long shall we fight against our Brethren and near Friends cutting off our Right Hand with our Left How long shall we turn our Swords against our own Bowels when yet by the Roman Belief we know nothing but what we knew before For what the Romanes call two Natures in Christ the Divinity and Humanity we knew it long ago from the beginning even unto this day For we all believe that the same Christ our Lord is perfect God and perfect Man perfect God in his Divinity and perfect Man in his Humanity But whereas those Natures are not separated nor divided for each of them subsisteth not by itself but conjunct with the other therefore we say not that they are two things for one is made of two yet so as that the Natures are not confounded or mixed in his Being This Controversie therefore is of small moment among us Nor did we fight much for this but specially for this cause that the Blood was denied the Laity in the Lucharist whenas Christ himself said in the Gospel except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood ye shall not have eternal Life But they detested nothing more than the Reiteration of Baptisms as if before the Fathers rebaptized us we had been Heathens or Publicanes And that they Reordained our Priests and Deacons You too late offer us now that which might have been yielded at the first for there is now no returning to that which all look at with the greatest horrour and detestation and therefore all further Conferences will be in vain In short the Patriarch and all the rest were utterly banished out of the Empire Ludolph l. 3. c. 13. I add one but thing ex cap. 14. to end the story As the new Alexandrian Abuna was coming out of Egypt the foresaid Dr. Peter Heyling of Lubeck being then in Egypt took that opportunity to see Habassia and went with him On the Borders at Suagena they met the departing Roman Patriarch where Peter Heyling enters the List with him so handled him as made it appear that it was only the poor Habassine Priests unlearnedness which had given the Jesuits their Success And the Patriarch at the parting sighing said to his Company If this Doctor come into Habassia he will precipitate them into the extreamest Heresie But what became of him is yet unknown And so much for this History of the Roman Conquest in Habassia by the Calcedon Council and the Hereticating the Habassines about the one or two Natures and the Eight years possession Popery got by it and the many bloody Battles fought for it the Prelates powerful Oratory for it and the Peoples more powerful against it the Kings mind changed by sad experience and the Papists finally Extirpated And it is exceeding observable that their very Victories were their Ruine and the last and greatest which killed 8000 was it that overcame them when they thought they had done their work And those that conquered for them drove them out when they considered what they had done But had it not been better known at a cheaper rate This Tragedy is but the fruit of the Council which Mr. Morrice justifieth The fruit of a Church determination above 1200 years ago If you had seen the Fields of blood in Habassia would it not have inclined you to my Opinion against Mr. M. Or if he had seen it would it not have changed his mind I doubt it would not because the Silencings and Calamities in England no more move such men and because they still call for Execution against those that obey not all their Oaths and Ceremonies and will abate nothing what ever it may ost the Land by the strengthening of them that are for our Division And because the 1200 years experience hath not yet been enough to make them see the faultiness of such Bishops Councils â—ay because they yet take not all Gods Laws in Nature and Scripture for sufficient to Rule the Catholick Church in Religion without the Laws of these same Councils which have had such effects But some Bishops and Cleâ—â—gâ— Men yet stand to it that All must be taken as Schismaticks who obey noâ— these same Councils Decrees as the Laws of the Universal Church And if Ludâ—lpâ—â—s and the Abassines can say so much against Here 〈…〉 g those called Eutychians much more may be said for the Nestorians to prove that the Contro vâ—â—sâ— was but verbal There is in Biblioth Pat. To. 6. p. 131. the Missa quâ utuntur antiqui Christiani Episcopatus Angamallensis in Montanis Mallabarici Regni apud Indos Orientales emendata ab erroribus blasphemiisque Nestorianorum expurgata per Alexium Menesium Archiepiscopum Goanum an 1599. I had rather have had it with all its Errours that we might have truly known how much is genuine But it being one of the most Scriptural rational and well composed Liturgies of all there published It would make one think 1. That these Nestorians were not so bad a people as their Anathematisers would have made the world believe them 2. That the Banishment of the Nestorians and Eutychians accidentally proved a great means of the Churches enlargement beyond the bounds of the Romane Empire whither they were banished And this is plain in current History I have given you this account of my Design in both the Books The History of Councils with its Vindication and the following Treatise I add an Answer to a Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse who hath written many Historical Untruths by his credulity believing false Reporters As to his and others Reprehension of my sharp unpeaceable words my Case is hard My own Conscience at once forbids me to justifie my
commanded it 5. I find that Christ hath himself done the work for which the necessity of Universal Humane Government by Pope or Councils is pretended viz. He hath made and caused his Apostles peculiarly qualified for it to record Universal Church-Laws even as many as are Universally necessary And if so I cannot but think 1. That he hath done it better than Man can do 2. And that to add more unnecessarily must needs be a snare and burden to the Church 3. And that it must be an usurping the Power of Christ For if there be no other Universal Governour there is no other that hath Authority to make Universal Laws Therefore this is Treason against Christ and a making Man a Vice-Christ 6. I found that there is not so much as a Natural Capacity in any one or many for an Universal Government Church-Government being of such a nature as maketh it far more impossible than for one Monarch or Aristocracy to Govern all the Earth And to do it by a truly General Council or by the Diffused Bishops of all the World is further from possibility than to do it by a Pope 7. I searcht the Councils pretended to be General to see whether they had made any better Laws than Christ's or made any desirable addition And I found 1. That while they were not wholly Papists they never pretended to make Canons for any Christians but only those in the Roman Empire 2. And that it had been much happier for the Churches if they had made no more Laws than Christ had made them for holy Doctrine Worship and Church-Discipline and had only as Teachers expounded and applied the Laws of Christ 8. I considered the Present State of the Church Universal and I find it such as no Party of Christians in the World doth own The Pope pleadeth for an Universal Soveraignty and all his Clergy do the same some saying it is in Councils some in the Pope and most in both together or Councils approved by the Pope And Protestants Greeks Nestorians Jacobites and almost all other Christians in the World accuse this Roman Church and Claim The Papists condemn the rest The Greeks Arminians and almost all the rest accuse each other 9. I considered what Popery is that is Clergy-Power in its height and what it hath done in the World And I found 1. A woful description of the lives of multitudes of Popes recorded by their own most credited Historians And 2. I found multitudes of vicious Canons obtruded by them as Laws on the Universal Church 3. I found most doleful Histories of the Wars and Rebellions that they have caused from Age to Age. 4. I found that they have corrupted the Doctrine of Christ in abundance of particulars 5. And that they have lockt up the Sacred Scriptures from the Vulgar as they have not done their Canons 6. And that they have turned God's Spiritual Worship into a multitude of Superstitious Rites and scenical Ceremonies and Shews 7. And that they have turned Spiritual Church-Discipline into a secular sort of Tyranny 8. And that they have most schismatically unchurched the rest of the Churches because they are not Subjects of the Pope 9. And that they have branded the soundest Churches with the name of Hereticks while they are the grand Heresie of the World 10. And that they have been and are the greatest Silencers of sound Preachers and hinderers of true Piety and Reformation in the Church 11. And that they have wofully vitiated the People that are their Subjects so that odious wickedness fed by Ignorance abounds among them and it is their Votaries that are called Religious and a few Canonized persons Saints as if Religion and Sanctity were rarities or any could be saved without them 12. Lastly I find that they have lived upon Blood like Leeches and have been the cruellest Persecutors of holy men on pretence of killing Hereticks And that it is this to which they trust 10. I took not this notice of them upon meer prejudice but have read I think as many Papists Books as Protestants or any other against them Nor have I taken it upon dark Scripture Prophecies suspecting my understanding of them But 1. The matter of fact from themselves 2. Against their Papal Supremacy from such Arguments as are fully collected by Dr. Barrow 3. Against their heinous Church-corruptions from such Moral Evidence as Dr. H. Moore hath fully gathered in his Mystery of Iniquity 4. Against their pretences of Tradition and Antiquity I fetcht my Arguments from the Histories and Authors which they themselves alledge and especially their Councils with the Fathers Writings § 9. Seeing the Church in this sad Condition and the Papal part so greatly vitiated I considered how long it had so been And I found that the Pope and his Bishops grew not up like a Mushroom in a day but had been long in thriving to maturity And I met with no man that could just tell what Year or what Age the disease or tumor did begin Bishop Bromhall thinks if they will abate their last 400 years Innovations we may have hope of agreeing with them Bishop Gunning will own no General Councils but the first six some will receive eight some but four Mr. Morrice here goeth no further in his defence of them whatever he think Some begin Popery with Leo the great some with Gregory's Successour But it is most certain that it was first an Embrio and next an Infant and so grew up from Childhood to maturity by degrees And the first Church-corruption was not that which we now call Popery And it is as certain that the tumor did neither begin nor grow up in the Bishop of Rome alone but in other Bishops who grew up with him were his strength and Councils and he their Head § 10. It is known when the Greeks and Romans began most notably to strive which should be greatest and how the division increased and when and how it came to an anathematizing or excommunicating each other § 11. It 's notorious that it was from the Councils of Calcedon and Ephesus that the great separated bodies of Nestorians and Eutychians now called Jacobites that possess the East and South were broken off with Nestorius and Dioscorus and so continue to this day § 12. I considered who were the Chief Authors of all these lamentable Schisms and Church-corruptions in the several Ages when they rose and who continue them to this day And I found that many Princes were much to be blamed and the People not Innocent no not the Religious Monks But the Bishops that had the main Church-power by abusing it were with their Clergy the principal Causes and so are to this day The breaches might yet be healed in East West and South were it not for them § 13. Finding this in History of undoubted Truth I next considered what was the Cause that the Bishops and their Clergy should become such Church-corrupters and Dividers and still continue the Churches miseries And
kept from the Sacrament and Communion for a crime till he profess Repentance than to be hanged or banished or ruined for it But especially the Temptation was strongest to the Bishops whose baits were the most alluring And ever since then they that most loved Wealth Power and Honour that is the worst most worldly men have been the most eager desirers and seekers of Bishopricks And while humble holy men must rather be sought to such earnest seekers are like to be the ordinary finders and possessors 11. But yet three things kept up for some time a considerable number of godly Bishops in the Churches which with the humble Presbyters kept up the Interest of sound and practical Religion 1. Those that had been tryed worthy men before Constantines conversion and the Bishop's exaltation kept their Integrity in the main though in the Nicene Council their contentious Libels shewed that we are more beholden to Constantine than to them that they fell not into such strife as their Successors did Good men may be carryed too far in Pride and Strife but they will not be mastered by them and turn against the Power of Godliness 2. The People and Inferiour Clergy had the choice of their Bishops And so though they oft had tumults as in popular Elections it will be yet the worst ambitious men were long kept out and the best oft chosen till the People and Presbyters themselves were corrupted 3. And divers good Emperours arose that took some care to promote the best But alas this had sad and frequent interruptions 12. For the Arians possest Constantine himself with hard thoughts of Athanasius and his Adherents And it could not be expected that Julian should countenance the best when Constantius and Valeus had done so much against them and got most of all the Churches headed by Arian Bishops to say nothing yet of after times 13. But now two things became matter of Contention among the Bishops and their Clergy and increased the strife from time to time The first and chief was the Old Cause greatly strengthened viz. Who should be greatest Who should have the largest fattest and most Ruling Diocess and Seat The other was Who should be taken for the most Orthodox and whose Explications of the Faith should be taken for the soundest especially about the description of the Person and immanent acts of Christ Or briefly 1. Jurisdiction and Greatness 2. Wisdom and hard words 14. Now also Constantinople contended with Rome and being the Seat of the Empire which they judged to be the true Reason of Church-preheminence they at first modestly took the second place And now the Trinity of Patriarchs was turned to five Jerusalem being made the fifth At all this Rome grudged 15. All this while the old Discipline of the Church was tolerably kept up 1. Because though much of the world had got into the Church yet a very great part were tenacious of their Heathenish Customs and prejudiced against Christians by their Contentions odiously described by Am. Marcellinus and many others and prejudiced against Constantine for his Son Crispus and Sopaters death c. and against Constantius for the Murder of Julian's Relations and being taken with the plausible parts of Julian and with the great Learning and highly extolled Lives of Plotinus Porphyrius Jamblichus Aedesius Maximus Proeresius Libanius Chrysanthius and such others described by Eunapius c. so that except Rome and Alexandria for 200 years and some few of the very great Churches for 400 the Churches were no greater than one Bishop and his Consessus might tolerably govern by the Keys 2. And all this while all the Presbyters were Church-Governours as well as the Bishop though he was their Chief and all Excommunications were to be done by joint consent And so many Church-Governours may do more than one 16. Then Councils called General having by the Emperours Grant and the Clergies Desire and Consent the Supreme Church-Power it was in these Councils that the Pride Ambition and Domination of all the worldly Prelates that were too soon got in did exercise it self as the valour and wit of Souldiers in a field of War And as 1. The good men yet among them 2. And the Articles of Faith yet retained by them did cause them to do much good against some Heresies and Disorders so the Pride and Turbulency yea ignorance of the rest caused them to become the occasions of the doleful Schisms and Heresies and Enmity of Christians against each other which continue to this day unhealed 17. These hurtful Contentions in Councils at first prevailed but little and that at Nice did much more good I think than harm And after at Constant a little more hurt was done and much good And those that followed did worse and worse till the proud worldly Spirit contracted Malignity and so much prevailed that for a thousand years at least the Bishops with their Prelatical Clergy and their Councils have been the grand Corruption and Plague of the Church which many of the most Learned Expositors of the Revelation take to be the Image of the Beast and Dr. H. Moore calls it a Heathenish Christianity which they have made their Religion 18. In their progress to all this as the Diocesses first grew up from our Parochial Magnitude towards that of the present Diocesan so the very Pastoral Power of all the rest of the Presbyters was by degrees taken away so far as that they had no consenting power in Ordinations or Excommunications unless the Bishop would chuse a few for his Council so that the proper power of the King 's was confined to one Bishop over many hundred Parishes and so Discipline became an impossible thing save as it served the Bishops against some that they disliked And so the Church which was as the Garden of Christ became like the Commons and good and bad were little differenced in Communion 19. Yet because the Power must still be useful to the Bishops ends as he sees cause some shadow of the old exercise must be kept up But the Bishop having not leisure for the tenth part of the labour which this very shadow required Lay-men are made his Chancellours to decree Excommunications and Absolutions and to Govern by the Church Keys like a secular Court And Commissaries Officials Surrogates and other hard names and things are set up instead of the Presbyters and their Antient Office 20. By this time the Antient Species of the Churches was altered and whereas it was long held that a Church and Bishop were Correlates and there were no more Churches than Bishops now many hundred or a thousand Parishes are become no Churches but parts of one Diocesan Church which is the lowest and many score or hundred of the old sort of Bishops all cast out and swallowed up by one Just as if a thousand or some hundred Schools should have but one Governing Schoolmaster and be but one School but each part have an Usher to read to the Boyes
new Historians would make us believe that the Reformed Church of England before Bishop Lauds time were of their mind that now call themselves Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England in holding as they do that there is an Universal humane Soveraignty with Legislative and Judicial power over all the Churches on earth and that this is in Councils or an Universal Colledge of Bishops of which the Pope may be allowed to be president and Principium Unitatis c. and that he must be obeyed as Patriarch of the West and so we must be under a forreign Jurisdiction Whereas it is notoriousy known that before Bishop Lauds time the doctrine of this Church was quite Contrary as may be seen at large in the Apology the Articles of Religion the writings of the Bishops and Doctors Yea they writ copiously to prove that the Pope is Antichrist and put it into their Liturgy And Dr. Heylin tells us that the Reason why Bishop Laud got it out was that it might not offend the Papists and hinder our reconciliation with them And the Oath of Supremacy sweareth us against all forreign Jurisdiction XV. The same Historians would make us believe that these mens doctrine is now the doctrine of the Church of England or agreeable to it Whereas the Oath of Allegiance is still in force and so are the Homilies and the Articles of Religion and the Laws and Canons for the Kings Supremacy against all forreign Jurisdiction And there is no change made which alloweth of their doctrine And the Church doctrine must be known by its publick writings and not by the opinions of new risen men XVI The new Historians make the Nonconforming Ministers to be men grosly ignorant preachingfalse doctrine of wicked principles and lives and not fit to be suffered out of Gaols And yet these 19. or 20. years how few of them have been convict of any false doctrine And I have not heard of four in England that have ever been convict since they were cast out of being once drunk or fornicating cheating swearing or any immorality unless preaching and not swearing Subscribing c. be such nor for false doctrine XVII The new Historians have made thousands believe that the doctrine or opinions of the Nonconformists is for sedition and rebellion And that it is for this that they refuse to renounce the obligation of the Covenant as to all men besides themselves and that they refuse to subscribe that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King Whereas we have at large in a second Plea for peace opened our judgments about Loyalty and obedience and none of them will tell us what they would have more nor where our profession is too short or faulty Nor have they convict any of my acquaintance of preaching any disloyal doctrine XVIII Yea they have by writing preaching and talking made multitudes believe that the Nonconformists or Presbyterians have been long hatching a rebellion against the King and have a Plot to take down Monarchy under pretence of opposing Poperty And how far these Historians are to be believed true Protestants by this time partly understand XIX Yea these Historians have made multitudes believe that the Parliaments that have been disolved here of late years have been designing to change the Government of Church and state under pretence of opposing Popery As if that Parliament that did that for them and against us which is done and made all the Acts which are for the Renunciation of the Covenant and for all the Declarations Subscriptions and Practices Imposed and for Fining us 20 l. and 40 l. a Sermon and laying us in Gaols had been for Nonconformists and against Episcopacy and they that made the Militia Act and such other had been against the King or his Prerogative Or the other following had not been of the same Religion XX. But the boldest part of their History is their description of the two sorts of the People in England those that are for the present Nonconformists and those that are against them Those that are against them they account the most Religious Temperate Chast Loyal Credible and in a word the best people through the Land for of our Rulers I am not speaking And those that are for the Nonconforming Ministers they defame as the most proud hypocritical treacherous disloyal covetous false and in a word the worst people in the Land or as Fowlis saith the worst of all mankind and unfit to live in humane Society How long will it be ere the sober people of this Land believe this Character One would think that the quality of the common Inhabitants of the Land should not be a Controversie or unknown thing All that I will say to this History is to tell the Reader the utmost of my observation and experience from my Youth up concerning these two sorts of men Where I was bred before 1640. which was in divers places I knew not one Presbyterian Clergy man nor Lay and but three or four Nonconforming Ministers Nay till Mr. Ball wrote for the Liturgy and against Can and Allen c. and till Mr. Burton Published his Protestation protested I never thought what Presbytery or Independency were nor ever spake with a man that seemed to know it And that was in 1641. when the War was brewing In the place where I first lived and the Country about the People were of two sorts The generality seemed to mind nothing seriously but the body and the world They went to Church and would answer the Parson in Responds and thence go to dinner and then to play They never prayed in their families but some of them going to bed would say over the Creed and the Lord's Prayer some of them the Hail Mary All the year long not a serious word of holy things or the Life to come that I could hear of proceeded from them They read not the Scripture nor any good Book or Catechism Few of them could read or had a Bible They were of two ranks the greater part were good Husbands as they called them and savoured of nothing but their business or Interest in the World the rest were Drunkards Most were Swearers but not equally Both sorts seemed utter strangers to any more of Religion than I have named and loved not to hear any serious talk of God or Duty or Sin or the Gospel or Judgment or the Life to come But some more hated it than others The other sort were such as had their Consciences awakened to some regard of God and their Everlasting State and according to the various measures of their understanding did speak and live as serious in the Christian Faith and would much enquire what was Duty and what was Sin and how to please God and to make sure of Salvation and made this their Business and Interest as the rest did the world They read the Scripture and such Books as The Practice of Piety and Deut
numbers saith he I pray you tell me How great a number of all sorts of men hath our City How many Christians will you that there be That is will you grant or do you think there be Will you that there be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an hundred thousand But how great is the Number of Jews and Ethnicks How many pounds of Gold have been gathered or Myriads And how great is the Number of the Poor that is of the whole City I do not think they are above fifty thousand Commelin hath put an hundred thousand as Erasmus Translation I suppose by the Errour of the Press Now if there was in Chrysostom's daies but an hundred thousand which many say is not near so many as there be in two Parishes here Martins and Stepney it is not like that in Constantine's Time they were half so many at most And yet I am far from thinking that there was then no more than usually met in an Assembly or could so meet § 6. The Jesuites Valesius and Sirmondus I am no fit person to censure But I am not satisfied why their Credit should go as far with me as it doth with him I have before spoke of Valesius's Recording Grotius as one that designed to bring many with him into the Roman Church And Grotius himself saith That many of the English Bishops were of his mind as Bishop Bromhall and many Doctors by defending him seem to be And yet when I wrote my Christian Concord and The Grotian Religion how many censured me as a Slanderer for saying less than Valesius doth Yet I am false with this Historian and Valesius is a credible Jesuite And he vouchsafeth to tell us the Judgment of Valesius that Eusebius Nicomed was no Arian pag. 332. where he saith Eusebius of Nicomedia was no Heretick in the Judgment of Valesius But if he were he was not an Heretick because he did not begin the Arch-Heresie but followed Arius What the meaning is of the latter words I know not If he were an Heretick he was not an Heretick I conjecture it is one of the almost Infinite Errata's of the Printer But he supposeth my Printer's to be mine own But that Eusebius Nicomed should be no Heretick whom all the stream of credible Historians make to be that Arch-Heretick I say not the first who corrupted Constantine his Court and Son which introduced the prevalency of Arianism to the almost Ruine of the Orthodox Church is a thing which he that believeth Valesius in must prefer the Credit of one Jesuite that lived above a thousand years after before the whole current of the best Historians of the same and many following Ages And did I ever so discredit the whole stream of Church-Historians as on the word of one Jesuite to bring them under the suspicion of such a Lie But I confess I am more inclined to believe a Jesuite and a Prelatist when they excuse any man of Heresie than when they accuse him § 7. In the Preface he tells us that Had I consulted Sirmond's Edition of the French Councils I must have wanted several Allegations for the Congregational way which are nothing else but corrupt readings of the ancient Canons of the Gallican Church Nor can we suspect Sirmond as too great a favourer of Diocesan Bishops since it is well known how he is charged by the Abbot of S. Cyran under the name of Petrus Aurelius for having falsified a Canon in the Council of Orange to the prejudice of the Episcopal Order Jesuites care as little for Bishops as our Protestant Dissenters can do Answ I doubt not but Sirmond was a very Learned man and had not the Conformists divested me of all Church-maintenance I had been like to have bought his French Councils In the mean time that notice which others before him gave of the Acts and Canons of Councils sufficed to my furniture fully to prove the Cause I maintained But I confess his pretended reason no whit induceth me to give more credit to a Jesuite than to another man Though Albaspineus was a Bishop there is so much Judgment and Honesty appears in his Observations that I would sooner believe him about Episcopacy than a Jesuite that you say is against it But it 's as incredible to me as the rest of his spurious History that the Jesuites care as little for Bishops as our Protestant Dissenters can do Sure many of those called Presbyterians and Independents would have none at all If this be true then 1. The Jesuites would have no Bishops of Rome though they be his sworn Servants 2. Then they would have no Bishops to be subject to the Pope 3. Then they would have all particular Churches to be without Bishops or to be unchurcht 4. Then they would have Ordination without Bishops 5. Then they think not that an uninterrupted Succession of Episcopal Ordination is necessary to Church or Ministry 6. Then they think that Bishops should not confirm 7. Then they are against the Councils of Bishops General or Provincial 8. And against Diocesans Government of the Parish Priests And yet is a Jesuite a Papist Wonderful that they will venture their Lives in endeavours for the Church of Rome and that they write so much of and for Bishops Councils and yet are quite against them But if really this be so you that take me for incredible who am against but the Corruption of Episcopacy do allow me to take Sirmondus and Valesius and the rest of the Jesuites for incredible who are as much against the very Office as our Dissenters can be But what will not some Historians confidently say CHAP. XVI Mr. M's Observations on my Notes of credible and incredible History Examined § 1. I. BEcause I suppose that common sound Senses are to be trusted He 1. Infers that I was asleep thought that I saw all that I relate that is He that saith he must believe sense implies that he seeth all that he reporteth I am one of the unlearned and this Logick is too hard for me Let it be his own 2. He concludes That we must not believe our senses if they were not Presbyterians but Episcopal that begun the late War in England As if he had seen not only the Parliament Lords and Commons then and the Army then forty years ago almost but had seen their Religion or heard or read them then so profess it Whereas I cannot learn yet whether he was then born or of capable understanding and hath neither sense nor reason for what he saith The Case that we are in is very sad when both sides say they have the Evidence of Sense it self against each other what hope then of Reconciliation They that are yet living that were Lords Commons and Commanders say their internal Sense and Self-knowledge told them that they were no Presbyterians but Episcopal and their daily converse told them that their Companions were mostly of the same Religion and Mind But Young Men that never conversed
take any impressions and upon false information chargeth Cyril with prosecuting his private quarrells with Nestorius under pretence of zeal for the faith I leave all men to believe our Accuser as they see cause And the same I say of that which is so great a Controversie among the Critical Historians whether Theodorets Epistle to Job Aut. against Cyril be Counterfeit or were written on a false rumour of Cyrils death Their 5th General Council hath it Baronius and Binnius say some Eutychian knave hath corrupted the Acts of that Council Must Councils be the Laws of all the world and hath the Church and Tradition kept them no better that we know not when we have them truly Leave us then to the universal Laws of God § 14. He saith truly that the Council of Ephesus was chiefly directed by the authority of Cyril Ans And so was that at Trent by the authority of the Pope And when he hath confuted the credible History wich tells us of the womens and Courtiers hatred of Nestorius and proved that the Emperour and Pulcheria the Empress were but one I will grant that the authority of the Court directed not Cyril and that then and now Bishops neither were nor are directed by the Civil powers § 15. When I spake against Nestorius his cruelty to Sectaries he asketh What Hereticaters were hotter than the Presbyterians in 1646. The inquisition is not more severe than their ordinance against Heresies which they desired should be made felony and punished by death c. Ans Reader Judge of the mans Credit as to ancient History still by his truth about the Present age 1. The Inquisition he saith is not more severe Do I need to answer this to any man of 50 years of age It 's Capable of no answer but what he will call by some name deserved by his own 2. I can find no such ordinance He saith It was offered Is that all And by whom Was it the body of the Presbterians or who 3. What were the Heresies named by them Were they not down right Blasphemy 4. Who and how many were ever either tormented or put to death for Heresie from 1641 till 1660 I remember not one save that James Nayler was imprisoned and whipt and had his Tongue bored for blasphemous Personating Christ and that not by the Presbyterians 5. Why are they so ordinarily reproached by the Prelatists for tolerating all Sects here in England 6. What if all this had been true What is it to me or any of my mind I never had a hand in persecuting one man to my remembrance How few can you name of all the Nonconformists now in England that had any hand in the Severities you mention I know not four in England that I remember And what 's this to us any more than to you 7. And was it well done or ill If well why do you liken them to the Inquisition Are you for it If ill why do you plead for it in others Imitate it not if you dislike it For my part as I am against all Sects as such I am much more against the cruelty of any I stick no more at the disgracing the Presbyterians sins than yours And I am readier to disgrace my own than either if I can know them I would cherish Errours no more than you but I would not ruine or imprison even such of your selves as have too many Heresie must have its proper cure I thank God I had once an Orthodox agreeing Flock But again I say the Presbyterians were too impatient with Dissenters and it 's better have variety of Fish in the Pond than by the Pikes to reduce them to special unity § 16. He saith that Nestorius consequentially denyed the God-Head of Christ p. 192. Next he hath found a contradiction in my words that the Emperor was weary of this stir And yet that Cyril did it to please the Court These critical men can make their two hands enemies to each other How came he waking to dream that this was a contradiction when Historians tell us that the Women and Courtiers hated both Chrysostome and Nestorius He implyeth that the Emperor and the Court were all one or of one mind But I am not bound to believe him no more than of many other Emperours whose Wives kept up one party and they another And I pray you why should we be confident that Theodosius 2. himself called an Eutychian by the hereticating Bishops was not against Nestorius when he called that Council at first Condemned both him and Cyril and after him alone I did but recite the Historians words and was that forgetfulness § 17. His many words about this controversie with Nestorius are the most unworthy of any answer of all his Books sometime he saith as I as p. 193. It had been happy for the Church if the mysteries of our Religion had never been curiously disputed sometime he confesseth that Nestorius spake the same thing with Cyril that Christ had two natures in one Person ibid. And that he expresseth himself one would think very orthodoxly p. 202. But the Heretick dissembled and hid his sence And so this man after above 1000 years knew the mans mind to be contrary to his words whereas it's palpable to him that readeth the Histories that the man was so far from hiding and dissembling that he was sowrly and morosely addicted to stick to the words and Notions he had espoused and too little to regard a peaceable complyance to mollifie his accusers His fault lay on the clean contrary side But he proveth him a Heretick that meant Christ was two Persons though he said the contrary 1. Because he saith that the Humane Nature was united in dignity and honour to the Divine Ans As if either the hypostatical union were denyed by those words or he knew that Nestorius meant not to include it in those terms But he saith he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ans As if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never signifyed more than a Relative or official Person when besides the many places cited by Derodon Nestorius oft explaineth himself in the common orthodox sence But the foulest charge is that he seems once or twice to distinguish Christ from the Divine Nature Ans By Christ he expresseth himself to mean the humane nature anointed to his Office And the man thought that the Divine Nature was not so anointed and distinguishing is not dividing It is not his Nay and my Yea that can inform any Reader what Nestorius said and meant without reading his own words rather than Cyrils of him And if such as Mr. M. will pretend Charity and contrary to plain evidence face down the world that a Man denyeth consequentially Christs God-Head and the Unity of his Person while he profest the contrary no mans innocency is sufficient to escape the fangs of such hereticaters And let him call me what his list inclineth him to call me