villifie the Roman faith and Church which is indeed the comm on road of all her adversaries I shall speak more fully if I have time by and by Now I hasten to his text which I shall give and my own judgment of it very briefly § 1. Which is about Novelties in general Sayes that the Protestant hath the word of God and Gospel and Apostles writings and if need be the four first general Councels and cannot be therfore doubted to be Apostolical but the Roman Church cannot so much as pretend that all her Religion is primitive since she pretends a power of making new articles of faith for Turrecremata Triumphus Ancorano and Panormitan affirm she can do it And this power Pope Leo the tenth challenged when he condemned Luther for denying him to have it To further this their pretended power the Papists corrupt and alter the Fathers works insomuch that Saurius the correctour of the Press at Lions complained to Junius that he was forced to blot out many sayings of St. Ambrose which had been in a former edition printed there For this care of purging Catholik writers Sixtus Senesis commends Pope Pius Nay they correct the very Indexes made by Printers as those of Probens and Chevallonius Thus the Doctour begins his book and I cannot but commend his wit For he wisely assumes that to himself which is the very one great busines wherin every particular controversie sticks and which if it were once agreeed on would put an end to all controversies that either now are or ever shall be in the world For they all com at length to this question which of the many Professours of Christianity now so much divided in their wayes have the Gospel and word of God on their side in this that and the other particular We saith Dr. Taylor we Protestants have the word of God we have the Gospel of Christ we have the Apostles writings with us and for us and therfor our Religion is for certain both ancient primitive and Apostolical This is Sir a very good consequence That Religion must needs be ancient which hath God for his Author that must be a primitive Christianity which Christ founded and what the Apostles writings confirm must needs be Apostolical faith But is it proved here by the Doctour that Protestants and not Catholiks have the word of God and of Christ and of his Apostles on their side No it is all supposed and his whole endeavour is to tell us that the religion which issued from God and Christ and his holy Apostles must needs be Apostolical primitive and ancient He supposes Protestancy as distinct from Catholik faith to have com all of it from those divine hands which is the only thing to be proved and declares at large that a religion which came from such hands must needs be ancient and primitive which is a thing no man can ever doubt It is certain and manifestly known that Protestants received both Law and Gospel and Apostles writings from the hands of Roman Catholiks who had kept and canonized and lived by those rules fifteen hundred years before Protestancy rose up in the world and all the whole hundred years since The only question is about the sence and mind of that holy writ in the many particular points now controverted in the world He has the law that has the mind and purpos and meaning of the law not he that hath the form of words without it This is the great business and the very extract and quintessence of all controversies which your quick Doctour assumes as granted on his side without any more ado We saith he we Protestants have the Law and Gospel and Apostles writings and the old Councels too if need be and therfor is not the ancientness of our Religion to be doubted But the Papists what of them the Papists Religion cannot so much as be pretended to be Apostolical old or primitive Why so Have not they the law and Gospel and Apostolical writings He does not plainly say they have not but he hopes his reader will think so What then of the Papists They saith he can make new Articles and therfor cannot their Religion be antient Sir although they could make new articles so long as they do not their Religion may be old still for all that A man may live in an old house although he be able to build a new one And this seems indeed to be the case here For the Disswader in confirmation of his speech brings in although unjustly the testimony of som Catholik Doctours who should say The Church can make new Articles but not one that sayes she has made any That I may yet go further although the Church should make new obliging Articles so long as these do not contrary the former but declare them more amply in such and such circumstances they annull not but rather confirm and explicate the old ones Is not our Law the same old Law of England and we the same polity our fore-fathers were although the King and Parliament upon occasion of new disorders make new acts and statutes continually But let us go on yet one step more The Roman Church does plead Sir whatever your Disswader would have you think that her religion is Catholik Apostolik and primitive becaus all her Councels by which that Church is governed have openly and continually declared when they came together to decide any affair which had raised new disturbance in the Christian world that they must firmly adhere to that which is Primitive to that which is Apostolical to that which is Catholik to that which has been delivered and received from fore-fathers And by that rule they decided the difference How then can this Church pretend to make new Articles Does your Doctour bring any General Councel which is the loud voice of that Church or any Tradition which is the Churches still voice to speak it No not any at all But this he ought to have done if he would prove that Church to pretend any such power What then Wy Turrecramata and som other doctours sayes she can do it But Sir if some one or other clergy-man should think that the Church can make new articles does it therfor follow that the Church it self does pretend any such power Surely the voice of one or two Ministers here in England cannot in reason be thought the voice of our whole Protestant Church especially when they speak against the tenour of her doctrin and practice But your Disswader has been many years picking in cobweb holes and obscure writings that he might where he could find any half sentence apt to be wrested from the common judgment of Catholik Religion mark that out for Popery to the end it may be thought either naught or new This is the chief ingredient of your Disswaders Policy Catholik Doctours Sir though they may have written many other most excellent catholik and pious things yet through humane infirmity in this and that particular may
things should ever be at quiet throughout the world that ther should no heresies rise no seditions no wars any where this is a fansy that was never in my head and I wonder how it should drop into my paper But you are a martial man and resolved to bring me in with pikes and guns as the red-coat souldiers did the Cavaliers in the time of our late anarchy to suffer not only for the good they acted but for the ill they never thought of Fift must be that the first reformers were most of them contemptible persons their means indirect and ends sinister Where is it Sir where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible or their means indirect or ends sinister Where do I say all this Do I speak any word of Reformers of Religion in general as you make me to do But this you adde of your own in a vast universal notion to the end you may bring in the apostles and prophets and kings into the list of persons by me surnamed contemptible and liken my speech who never speak any such thing to the sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphiry Julian and other Pagans So likewise in the very beginning of this your second chapter you spend four leaves in a parallel betwixt me and the pagan Celsus wherof ther is not any one member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the caus of all the troubles disorders tumults wars within the nations of Europe upon the Protestants Doth he charg the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a rapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the argument of the Jews against Christ c. So doth Celsus who is confuted by learned Origen c. Where does Fiat Lux where does he does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to embroil and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order to unity and peace which is the end of my discours But must I therfor be Celsus Did Celsus do any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralises and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of faction is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions wars and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therfor be every one of them a Celsus a pagan Celsus what stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aim at your own glory coms in the reer If I be Celsus the pagan Celsus then must you forsooth be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen That is the thing Pray Sir it is but a word let me me advise you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not she like it perhaps so well that her husband should be Origen My sixt principle must be That our departure from Rome hath been the caus of all our evils This is but the same with the fourth in other words but added for one to make up the number And it is you say every where spread over the face of Fiat Lux. Sir you may say what you pleas to be in his face but I know best what is in the heart and bowels both of Fiat Lux and his Authour And sure I am this never came into my thoughts Our dissentions in faith may well multiply as we see with our eyes they do by our further departur from unity and this may caus much evil But the branches of our too too manifold evils found among the sons of men spread all as Fiat Lux also speaks from that fertil root of our innate concupiscence which by evil customs rises up into a thick bole of vitious inclinations while we study not to impair but rather to augment and nourish it However I must give you leave to number this among my silly principles to the end you may talk more copiously of the disputes and wars and broils that are and have been in several parts of Christendom and fall again into your much affected and often iterated strain So the Pagans judged the Primitive Christians c. And I must still be the Pagan and you the Primitive Christian Seventh is There is no remedy of our evils but by a returning to the Roman Sea This and the principle foregoing had not you warily cloven a hair had been all one and both are equally mine But Sir that may remedy our difference in faith which neither can nor will prevent varieties in philosophy or other worldly judgements nor considering the infinite diversity of mens humours is there any one thing equally prevalent with all men and at all times to the like good effect and if it do certainly help one evil it is not therfor a remedy for all But it seems you have yet a little more mirth and choller to vent and therfor I must permit you to adde this principle for mine that you may smilingly consider how the Romans should cure our evils that cannot prevent disorders differences and sins amongst themselvs I can tell you Sir another remedy of our evils that we suffer about dissentions in Religion besides that If the King and Parliament would pleas to give back all the ecclesiastical livings into the hands of secular gentlemen who out of a blind zeal as you phrase it gave them up aforetime unto the pious uses of spirituall men now no more extant all our controversies and the evils thence ensuing would soon ceas Even you zealous Sir would be then as quiet as a wolf tumbled into a pit-fall Other remedies I could yet acquaint you with more than one or two If you did Sir really and not in words only acknowledge any one superiour governour in the land unto whose power and judgment you would heartily all of you resign the word of that Oracle would solve all doubts and end all your quarrels But you will never do it The very genius of the Reformation is wholly set against it The eight follows That Scriptur on sundry accounts is insufficient to settle us in the truth And in this you flourish and triumph most copiously for fifteen pages together as the champion of the word of God But Sir you speak not one word to the purpos or against me at all if I had delivered any such principle which I never did Gods word is both the sufficient and only necessary means both of our conversion and settlement as well in truth as vertue But Sir the thing you heed not and unto which I only speak
he such an immediate head to all beleevers or no if he be to all then is no man to be governed in affairs of religion by any other man and Presbyterian Ministers are as needless as either Catholik or Protestant byshops On the other side if he be not immediate head to all but ministers head the people and Christ heads the ministers this in effect is nothing els but to make every minister a byshop Why do you not plainly say what it is more than manifest you would have All this while you heed no more the laws of the land than constitutions of gospel As for gospel That Lord who had been visible governour and pastour of his flock on earth when he was now to depart hence as all the apostles expected one to be chosen to succeed him in his care so did he notwithstanding his own invisible presence and providence over his flock publikly appoint one And when he taught them that he who were greatest among them should be as the least he did not deny but suppose one greater and taught in one and the same breath both that he was over them and for what he was over them namely to feed not to tyrannize not to domineer abuse and hurt but to direct comfort and conduct his flock in all humility and tendernes as the servant of all their spiritual necessities And if a byshop be otherwise affected it is the fault of his person not his place As for the laws of the land it is there most strongly decreed by the consent and autority of the whole Kingdom not only that byshops are over ministers but that the Kings majesty is head of byshops also in the line of hierarchy from whose hand they receiv both their place and jurisdiction This was establisht not onely by one but several acts and constitutions both in the reign of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth So that by the laws of the land ther be two greeces between ministers and Christ which you cut off to the end you may secretly usurp the autority and place of both to the overthrow at once both of gospel and our law too By the laws of our land our series of ecclesiastical government stands thus God Christ King Byshop Ministers People the Presbyterian predicament is this God Christ Minister People So that the Ministers head in the Presbyterian predicament touches Christs feet immediately and nothing intervenes You pretend indeed that hereby you do exalt Christ but this is a meer cheat as all men may see with their eyes for Christ is but where he was but the minister indeed is exalted being now set in the Kings place one degree higher than the byshops who by the law is under both King and byshop too You will here say to me What is the Papists line of Church government There the Pope must sit next Christ and Kings under his feet Sir I have not time in this short letter to discours this subject as it deserves Nor does it now concern me who have no more here to say than only this that my argument for prelacy howsoever in your words you may disable it is not weakned by you in deeds at all and as far as I can perceiv not understood Yet two things I shall tell you over and above what I need in this affair also First is that Roman catholiks do more truly and cordially acknowledg the respective Christian King of any Kingdom to be supream head of his catholik subjects even in affairs of religion than any other whether Independents Presbyterians or even prelate Protestants have if we speak of truth and reality ever done And this I could easily make good both by the laws and practises of all catholik kingdoms upon earth in any age on one side and the opposite practises of all Protestants on the other Second is that for what reasons Roman catholiks deny a prince to be head of the Church for the same ought all others as they deny it in deeds so if they would speak sincerely as they think and act to deny it in words also as well as they For catholiks do beleev him to be head of the Church from whom the channel of religion and all direction in it is derived and flows for which reason a spring is said to be head of a river But neither does any King upon earth except he be priest and prophet too ever trouble himself to derive religion as the Pope has ever don neither does either Protestant Presbyterian or Independent either in England or elswhere ever seek for religion from the lips of the king or supplicate unto him when any doubt arises in those affairs as they ought in conscience and honesty to do for a final decision any more than the Roman catholik does So that whatever any of them may say all Protestants do as much deny the thing in their behaviour as catholiks do in words and catholiks do in their behaviour observ as much as Protestants either practise or pretend What is the reason that Roman catholiks in all occurring difficulties of faith both have their recours unto their papal Pastour unto whom Kings themselvs remit them and acquiesce also to his decision and judgment but only becaus they beleev him to be head of the Church And if Protestants have no such recours nor will not acquiesce to his Majesties autority in affairs of religion but proceed to wars and quarrels without end the prince neglected as wholly unconcerned in those resolvs they do as manifestly deny his headship as if they profest none Nay to acknowledg a headship in words and deny it in deeds is but mockery By these two words Sir it may appear that the Kings majesty is as much head of the Church to Roman Catholiks as to any Protestants and these no more than they either derive religion or decision of their doubts from the kings chair i th interim it is a shame and general scandal to the whole world that we in England should neither supplicate nor acquiesce in affairs of religion to his Majesties judgment whom in words we acknowledg head of the Church but fight and quarrel without end and yet have the confidence to upbraid Roman catholiks with a contrary beleef who although they ever looked upon their papal patriarch as spiritual head and pastour and deriver of their faith unto whom they so submit that he who after his decision remains contumacious forfeits his Christianity yet have they notwithstanding in all ages and kingdoms resigned with a most ready cordial reverence unto all decisions orders and acts of their temporal princes even in spiritual and ecclesiastical affairs as well as civil so far as their laws reached as supreme head and governours of their respective kingdoms And all kings and princes find in a very short space however others may utter hypocritical words of flattery that indeed none but catholik subjects do heed and fear and observ them universally in all whatever their commands being taught
our very Justices of peace and Constables But in ecclesiastical affairs the proper businesses of the Church and matters of religion as distinct from civil this is the plea which the good Quakers use against the Byshops and Priests of not only the Roman but even this our English Church which Whitby defends Why say they to them why are we harrassed imprisoned beaten and spoiled so many wayes by your instigation who have made your selves drank with the blood of Saints Do not we either confront the evidence of Scriptur against you or the intent of the Apostles or rather of God himself and tell you expresly that you oppose the evidence of Gods word in your observances and ordinations in your tythes and Lents and Mass-tides in your lawn sleeves and cassocks and canonical girdles in your Pulpits Universities and Steeple-houses in your Chapters and Deanaries in your orders and degrees in your oppressions of conscience and jurisdictions in your surplices copes and preaching for hire c. Is it not enough to shew our innocence in not accepting these things becaus in the beginning it was not so nor were any of these things to be found amongst the apostles Especially when you know we hold and we know also you hold that in matters of faith and religion it is all one to be beside Scriptur and to be against it Are your Chapters and Deanaries your lawn sleeves and surplices your Lents and common-prayers your tythes and livings of five or six hundred a year your universities and steeple-houses in Scriptur and Christian Gospel yea or no If they be there shew it us If they are besides scriptur or not in it then are they by your own confession here against it Ch. 4 5 6 7 8. from p. 17. to 90. These five following chapters speak against ecclesiastical Supremacy either amongst the apostles or any other succeeding prelates And with so much earnestnes and little heed doth Mr. Whitby whiff away all your defence of it that he strikes off that authority not only from the Popes head but from any Prince or Prelate whatsoever not caring so the Roman fall if the English Prelacy sink too So earnest indeed is he bent against it that he professes p. 39. he would sooner perswade himself of the truth of Mahomets fables then any such pretension Thus well is he disposed against the coming of the Turk These few propositions he advances here amongst others 1. That the apostles had an equality of power and jurisdiction or dignity over the rest But whence then comes our English Hierarchy of byshops arch-byshops ministers and deacons Whitby himself denies that our Kings are the root of Episcopal jurisdiction here in England Who ever thought so quoth he p. 88. I think I could show him out of the statutes and laws of the Land that our English Episcopacy and their whole jurisdiction is from the King as the sole fountain and root of it But if it be not so and no such subordination as here he affirms was ever found amongst the apostles whence is our English Hierarchy If it neither come from God nor from the King it may not irrationally be suspected to be from an insufficient if not an ill original His second is that such an ecclesiastical jurisdiction is useles and unable to prevent schismes whether they rise from breach of charity or difference of judgement p. 20. And if it be useles for that for Gods sake what is it good for Third is that to submit to one is to slight the judgment of thousands that may be as wise as he and to endanger the very being of religion Ibid. And is it so indeed why then are so many millions here in England subjected to one Byshop much people to one minister all the people ministers and byshops to one King Is this to slight all that are subjected or to endanger the very being of religion Fourth is that general causes cannot be dispatched by one supreme governour over all as may particular by inferiour superintendents And other such like fanatick assertions he has which do as much evacuate the subordination of our English as the Roman Church and civil government as well as ecclesiastical hierarchy I am sure they have done both even in this our Kingdom and in our own dayes a thing which will not be soon forgotten And little did I think to see any prelatick minister broach such whimsies again here in our land so lately made desolate thereby What he means by it I cannot tell But I am sure he is not so unadvised but he understands the consequence For p. 423. upon his grant of a liberty of judging to particular persons in matters of religion whence all our wars and animosities here in England do first flow even so far as to deny obedience therupon to their spiritual superiours he speaks thus Would a gracious King think you presently condemn all those to the utmost severity who in such cases after consultation and deliberation duly made by reason of som prejudices or weaknes of reasoning should be induced to think it their duty to follow the mutinous party he craftily uses the phrase of utmost severity the better to palliate his more secret judgment who by his own principles here and elsewhere not obscurely expressed must needs conceiv them liable to no severity at all But that you may see Sir this adversary of yours what a lively spark he is he makes in his 5 chapter the very Popes themselvs when significantly they would express their own supremacy either to say nothing for it or altogether against it If Pope Agatho speak of his own solicitude over the Churches of God even to the utmost bounds of the ocean Whitby hence infers that his headship therfor is not universal becaus it is bounded Is not this witty And thus the great Prophet when he describes the vaste unlinited extent of the Messias his dominion dominabitur à mari usque ad mare à flumine usque ad terminos orbis terrarum must be understood to limit and confine it Again if Pope Julius defend his acts of power and jurisdiction by ancient cannons and custom Whitby concludes from thence that it is not therfor of divine institution for custom and cannons are but humane Witty still Thus a master when sending his servant on an errand he tells him he may well go for that he gave him lately a pair of new shooes loses therby all his other claim of commanding him Again if St. Gregory prefer the Apostolicall See before other Churches That is quoth Whitby not for it self but for the Emperours seat And for the same reason must the Byshop of London or Abbot of Westminster if any now were be preferred before the Byshop of Canterbury If Pope Leo derive his autority from St. Peter prince of the apostles That may infer quoth he a precedency of order but not any dignity A Prince it seems signifies only one that is to go before not one
consent is right and good but not at all against me who there treat a case of metaphysical concernment which you apprehend not It is no wonder then you should so much dislike all that my plea of uncertainly not only before any teacher appear but after too whiles you take the teacher and his words as they walk hand in hand actually linkt together with our beleef in him which actual beleef my supposition suspends and separates to the end I may consider whether any such teacher can appear so accomplisht as to move us who live in this present age and coin religion anew to a beleef invariable so that through your too much haste you utterly mistake all my whole discours and speak nothing at all to the case I treat of I speak wholly there as in other parts of Fiat Lux upon a supposition of the condition the generality of people are now actually in here in England where every one lets himself loose at pleasure to frame opinions and religions of themselvs And so cannot be thought to speak of a settled beleef but only of settling one or one to be settled which there and elswhere in that book I endeavour to show impossible to be so fixedly stated by any private man but that himself and others may rationally doubt it And that therfor our only way is to beleev and not dispute to submit to the old way we have formerly received and not to surmise a new This is the very substance scope and purpos not only of that paragraff but of my whole book which you do as utterly swerve from as ever any blinded man put to thrash a cock misplaced his blow Perhaps it is hard for you to conceiv your self in a state you are not actually in at present And if you cannot do this you will be absolutely unfit to deal with such hypothetik discourses as I see indeed you are Bellarmins little catechise had been a fitter book for you to write Animadversions upon than my Fiat Lux. There is good positive doctrin signed hic nunc and specified to your inclination and capacity I meddle not with any I deliver no positive doctrin at all I never descend to any particular conclusion or thesis of faith I defend no opinion but only this That every opinion is defensible and yet none impregnable Do you not blush Sir to see your own gross mistake God is my witnes when I finde you misled by your own errour so furiously to tax me with ignorance fraud blasphemy atheisme I cannot but pitty you And generally you talk at random as well in this chapter as others Let me give som little hint of it in particular for this once Where I in my foresaid paragraff say that differences of faith in its branches are apt to infer a suspition in its very root and consequently atheism To this you reply that That discours of mine is all rotten that Christian religion it self might thus be questioned that it is the argument of the Pagan Celsus that such contests have ever been that Protestants are resolved that Catholiks turn atheists as well as others that our religion is the same yesterday and to day that our evils are from our selves c. Doth this talk concern or plead to my assertion I know all this as well as you but that it is nothing to the purpos that I know and you it seems do not Though all this you say be true yet still it remains notwithstanding as true and certain as it was before and that is certain enough That difference of faith in its branches are apt to infer a suspicion in its very root and consequently atheism You have but beaten the air So likewise unto all that discours of mine If the Papist or Roman Catholik who first brought us the news of our Christianity be now becom so odious then may likewise the whole story of our Christianity be at length thought a Romance You speak with the like extravagancy and mind not my hypothetick at all to speak directly to my inference as it became a man of art to do But neglecting my consequence which in that discours is principally and solely intended you seem to deny my supposition which if my discours had been drawn into a syllogism would have been the minor part of it And it consists of two categories first that the Papist is now becom odious second that the Papist delivered us the first news of Christianity The first of these you little heed the second you deny That the Papist say you or Roman Catholik first brought Christ and his Christianity into this land is most untrue I wonder c. And your reason is becaus if any Romans came hither they were not Papists and indeed our Christianity came from the East namely by Joseph of Arimathea c. And this is all you say to my hypothetick or conditional ratiocination as if I had said nothing at all but that one absolute category which being delivered before I now only suppose You use to call me a civil logician but I fear a natural one as you are will hardly be able to justifie this motion of yours as artificial A conditional hath a verity of its own so far differing from the supposed category that this being fals that may yet be true For example if I should say thus A man who hath wings as an eagle or if a man had wings as an eagle he might fly in the air as well as another bird Such an assertion is not to be confuted by proving that a man hath not the wings of an eagle Yet so you deal with me here a great master of arts with a civil logician But that I may go along with you we had not Sir our Christianity immediately from the East nor from Joseph of Arimathea as I have already told you we Englishmen had not For as he delivered his Christianity to som Brittons when our land was not called England but Albion or Brittany and the inhabitants were not Englishmen but Brittons or Kimbrians so likewise did that Christianity and the whole news of it quite vanish being sodainly overwhelmed by the ancient deluge of paganisme nor did it ever come from them to us Nay the Brittons themselvs had so forgot and lost it that even they also needed a second conversion which they received from Pope Eleutherius And that was the onely news of Christianity which prevailed and lasted even amongst the very Brittans which seems to me a great secret of divine providence in planting and governing his Church as if he would have nothing to stand firm and lasting but what was immediately fixed and seated upon that rock For all other conversions have vanisht and the very seats of the other Apostles failed that all might the better cement in an unity of one head Nay the tables which God made with his own hand were broken but the other framed by Moses remained that we might learn to give a due respect
by their religion of which they alone give account at times appointed for penance to hearken and obey for conscience sake all higher powers constituted over them for good That catholiks do universally observ their King in all affairs as well ecclesiastick as civil I need not to make it good send you Sir either to the testimonies of civil law and Codex of Justinian or the other various constitutions of so many several provinces and kingdoms as are and have been in Christendom our own home will suffice to justifie it Were not the spiritual courts both court Christian Prerogative court and Chancery all set up in catholik times about matters of religion and affairs of conscience and all mannaged by clerks or clergy-men under the King In brief where ever any civil coaction or coactive power intervenes be it in what affair it will all such power and action who ever uses it hath it autoritatively only from the King For neither Pope nor Byshop nor any Priest ought to be a striker as S. Paul teaches nor have they any lands or livings or court or power to compel or punish either in goods or body but what is lent or given by princes and princely men out of their love and respect to Jesus Christ and his holy gospel whose news they first conveighed about the world although a just donation is I should think as good a title as either emption inheritance or conquest if it be irrevocable The King is the only striker in the land ex jure and the sword of the almighty is only in his hand and none can compel or punish either in body or goods but only himself or others by his commission in any whatever affair He can either by his authority and laws blunt the sword of those who have one in their hand whether by pact or nature as have masters over servants and parents over children or put a civil power into the hands of those who otherwise have none as prelates priests and byshops So that although the Pope derive religion and chiefly direct in it yet is the King the only head of all civil coercition as well in Church affairs as any other which his commands and laws do reach unto So that the line of Church government amongst catholiks since the conversion of kings runs in two streams the one is of direction the other of coercition That of direction is from Christ to the chief pastour from him to patriarchs then to metropolitans arch-byshops byshops priests and people and in this line is no corporal coaction at all except it be borrowed nor any other power to punish but only by debarring men from sacraments In the other line of corporal power and autority the King is immediately under God the Almighty from whom he receivs the sword to keep and defend the dictates of truth and justice as supream governour though himself for direction and faith be subject to the Church from whose hands he received it as well as other people his subjects after the King succeed his princes and governours in order with that portion of power all of them which they have from him their leige sovereign received This in brief of papal Church government which we in England by our canting talk of the Lord Christ to the end we may be all lords and all Christs have utterly subverted Indeed in primitive times the channel of religion for three hundred years ran apart and separate from civil government which in those dayes persecuted it And then the line of Christian government was unmixt None but priests guided defended governed the Church and Christian flock which they did by the power of their faith vertue secret strength and courage in Jesus their Lord invisible Afterward it pleased the God of mercies to move the hearts of emperours and kings of the earth to submit unto a participation of grace which they were more easily inclined by the innocence and sanctity of Christian faith especially in that particular of peaceful obedience unto kings and rulers though aliens and pagans and persecutors of religion And now kings being made Christian were looked upon by their subjects with a double reverence more loved more feared more honoured than before Nor could Christian people now tell how to expres that ineffable respect they bore their Kings now co-heirs of heaven with them whom before in their very paganism they were taught by their priests to observ as gods upon earth not for wrath only or fear of punishment but for conscience also and danger of hazarding not only their temporal contents but their eternal salvation also for their resisting autority though resident in pagans And Kings on the other side who aforetime by the counsel of worldly senatours enacted laws such as they thought fit for present policy and defended them by the sword of justice wielden under God to the terrour of evil doers and defence of the innocent began now as was incumbent on their duty to use that sword for the protection of Christianity and faith and the better way now chalked out unto them by Christian priests from Jesus the wisdom and Son of God And by the direction of the same holy prelates abbots and other priests who were now admitted with other senators into counsel did they in all places enact speciall and particular laws answerable to the genetal rule of faith which they found to be more excellent and perfect than any judgment they had by natural reason hitherto discovered Thus poor Christians who had hitherto but only a head of derivation of counsel and direction which could but only bid them have patience for Christs sake and conform themselvs to his meek passion when they suffered from aliens and when they suffered injury from one another could only debar the evil doer if he gave not satisfaction from further use of sacraments those Christians I say who could hitherto have no other comfort or assistance in this world under their spiritual pastour than what words of piety could afford had now by the grace of heaven princely protectours royal defenders and head champions under God to vindicate and make good all Christian rights discipline and truths now accepted and established from faith as well as other civil rites and customs dictated aforetime from meer reason equally revengers upon all evil doers indifferently that were found criminal in affairs as well purely Christian as civil still using the advice and direction of their prelates and Christian peers in the framing and establishing of all those laws they were now resolved to maintain So it was don in England so in all places of the Christian world And then the line of Christian government ran mixt which before was single And Christians now had a Joshua to their Aaron who were only led by Moyses before And although Aaron was head of the Church yet Joshua was head and leader prince and captain of all those people who were of that Church The chief byshop is an Aaron and
of themselves aim no further then the peace and happines of this life And so for the particular end and means answerable therunto which religion uses it will require a particular and special overseer Thus Aristotle though he conceited the celestial orbs to be contiguous and so all rapt together in a motion from East to West yet becaus they had special motions of their own he therfor allowed them particular intelligences to guide those motions So we see in ordinary affairs a man that hath several wayes and ends is guided by several directours in this by a lawyer in that by a physician by a gardener by a tradesman c Fiftly becaus head of the Church absolutely must be one that succeeds in his chair whom Jesus the master left and appointed personally to feed his flock No King upon earth ever pretended to fit in that Fishermans chair or to succeed him in it which the Pope to my knowledg for sixteen hundred years hath both challenged as his right and actually possest And Catholiks are all so fixt in this judgment that they can no more disbeleev it then they can ceas to beleev in Jesus Christ 11 ch from page 228. to 246. Your eleventh chapter falls directly upon my fifteenth paragraff of Scriptur And therfor I may here expect you should insult over me to the purpos But Sir I told you before and now tell you again that I know no other rule to Christians either for faith or manners no other hope no other comfort but what scriptur and holy gospel affords But this is not any part of the debate now in hand however you would perswade the world to think so When four or five men Sir of several judgements collected from the very scriptur you and I talk of rise up one against another with one and the same scriptur in their hands with such equal pretence of light power and reason that no one will either yield to another or remain himself in the same faith but run endles divisions without controul does scriptur prevent this evil does it has it can it remedy it can any one man make a religion by the autority of scriptur alone which neither himself nor any other upon the same grounds he framed it shall rationally doubt of This is our case Sir and only this which you do not so much as take notice of to the end you may with a more plausible rhetorick insult over me as a contemner of Gods word Nor do you heed any particle of my discours in this paragraff but according to your manner collect principles to the number of seven out of it you say which I do not know to be so much as hinted in it that as you did before so you may now again play with your own bawble and confute your self And they are in a manner the very same you sported with before in your second chapter 1. from the Romans we received the gospel 2. what is spoken in scripture of the Church belongs to the Roman 3. the Roman every way the same it was c. of all which I do not remember that I have in that my paragraff so much as any one word Sir either speak to my discours as you finde it or els hold your peace As if then you had overheard me afore-hand to give you this deserved check at the close of your chapter you bring in som few words of mine with a short answer of your own annext to the skirts of it which I here set down as you place them your self No man can say speaks Fiat Lux what ill popery ever did in the world till Henry the eights dayes when it was first rejected Strange say you in your Animadversions when it did all the evils that ever were in the Christian world With the Roman catholiks unity ever dwelt Never Protestants know their neighbour catholiks not their religion They know both Protestants are beholding to Catholiks for their benefices books pulpits gospel For som not all The Pope was once beleeved general pastour over all Prove it The scriptur and gospel we had from the Pope Not at all You cannot beleev the scriptur but upon the autority of the Church We can and do You count them who brought the scriptur as lyars No otherwise The gospel separated from the Church can prove nothing Yes it self This short work you make with me And to all that serious discours of mine concerning scriptur which takes up sixteen pages in Fiat Lux we have got now in reply thereunto this your Laconick-confutation Strang. Never Know both Som not all Prove it Not at all Can and do No otherwis Yes it self 12 ch from page 246. to 262. Your twelfth chapter meets with my history of religion as a flint with steel only to strike fire For not heeding my story which is serious temperate and sober you tell another of your own fraught with defamations and wrath against all ages and people and yet speak as confidently as calm truth could do First you say that Joseph of Arimathea was in England but he taught the same religion that is in England now But what religion is that Sir Then you tell us that the story of Fugatius and Damian missioners of Pope Eleutherius you do suspect for many reasons But becaus you assign none I am therfor moved to think they may be all reduced to one which is that you will not acknowledg any good thing ever to have come from Rome Then say you succeeded times of luxury sloth pride ambition scandalous riots and corruption both of faith and manners over all the Christian world both princes priests prelates and people Not a grain of vertue or any goodnes we must think in so many Christian kingdoms and ages Then did Goths and Vandals and other pagans overflow the Christian world To teach them we may think how to mend their manners These pagans took at last to Christianity Haply becaus it was a more loose and wicked life than their own pagan profession These men now Christened advanced the Popes autority when Christian religion was now grown degenerate And now we come to know how the Roman byshop became a patriark above the rest by means namely of new converted pagans It was an odde chance they should think of advancing him to what they never knew either himself or any other advanced before amongst Christians whose rotten and corrupt faith they had lately embraced And yet more odde and strange it was that all Christendom should calmly submit to a power set up anew by young converted pagans no prince or byshop either there or of any other Christian Kingdom either then or ever after to this day excepting against it Had not all the byshops and priests of Africa Egypt Syria Thrace Greece and all the Christian world acknowledged by a hundred experiments the supreme spiritual autority of the Roman patriarch in all times before this deluge of Goths and Vandals But why do I expostulate
easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine truths into two words which his great apostle again abridged into one And if the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all catholiks the chiefest particles of divine epistles books of sacred history and meditation upon all the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberles amongst catholiks adjoyned to the many several rites of examination of conscience daily and continual practis of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things God hath wrought for us throughout the year which all by law are tied to observ and do observ them may not give a sufficient acquaintance of what concerns our salvation and promote them enough towards it I am to seek what it is that can or what further good it may do to read the letter of Saint Pauls epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherin questions and cases and theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingeniously and without heat what more of good could accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practis than by the conceived substance of Gods will to me and my own duty towards him or what is ther now here in England when the letter of scriptur is set open to every mans eye any more either of peace or charity piety or justice than in former catholik times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those ancient catholik times they flockt every day in the week to their Churches which stood continually open there to pray and meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles all over the land both day and night they built all our churches that we have at this day remaining amongst us and as many more which we have razed and pulled down they founded our universities established our laws set out tythes and glebe-land for their clergy built hospitals erected corporations in a word did all the good things we found don for our good in this our native kingdom But Quid agitur in Anglia Consulitur de religione The former Christians practised and we dispute they had a religion we are still seeking one they exercised themselvs in good works by the guidance of their holy catholik faith which leads to them all these works we by our faith evacuate as menstruous rags they had the substance of true religion in their hearts we the text in our lips they had nothing to do but to conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own factions Sir mistake me not The question between us is not Whether the people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consists in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon people for their practis And this becaus you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth chapter vades into nothing Where Fiat Lux sayes in that forenamed paragraff that the Pentateuch or hagiography was never by any High-priest among the Jew◠〈◊〉 into a vulgar tongue nor the Gospel or Litâ—… out of greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or latin in the Western You slight this discours of mine becaus hebrew greek and latin was say you vulgar tongues themselvs I know this well enough But when and how long ago were they so not for som hundreds of years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian liturgy then put into vulgar tongues when those they were first writ in ceased to be vulgar This you should have spoke to if you had meant to say any thing or gain-say me Nor is it to purpos to tell me that S. Jerome translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it has been so translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Ethiopian and other particular dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians either greek or latin ever deliver it so translated to the generality of people or use it in their service or command it so to be don as a thing of general concernment and necessity So far is it from this that they would never permit it This I said and I first said it before you spoke and your meer gainsay without further reason or probability of proof cannot disposses me Dr. Cousins now byshop of Durham lately sojourneying in Paris when he understood of a grecian byshops arrival there did with some other English Gentlemen in his company give him a visit and with the same or like company went afterwards to see him The articles of our English Church were translated into greek and shown him Many questions were asked him about the service of the grecian Church praying for the dead invocation of Saints real presence confession c. Dr. Cousins can tell himself what answer he received from that venerable grave prelate Cyrillus archbishop of Trapesond for that was his name and title In brief he owned not those articles as any way consonant to the faith of the Greeks who beleeved and had ever practised the contrary He also told them distinctly and openly that Mass or Liturgy was and had ever been the great work of their Christianity all over the greek Church that confession of sins to a priest praying for the dead invocation of saints and such like points wherein we in England differ from papists were all great parts of their religion and their constant practis Finally he let them know that all the Liturgies both those of St. Basil St. Chrysostom St. Gregory Nazianzen were ever kept in the learned greek differing from the vulgar language And withall showed his own greek book of Liturgy which he used himself at the altar Dr. Cousins did himself see him officiate with his lay-brother a monk of St. Basil belonging to St. Catherins monastery in mount Sina ministring to him at the altar and found both by his words and practis that in all those and other essential parts and observances of Christianity the Greeks agreed perfectly with the Roman Church This testimony Sir of a venerable arch-byshop to such a worthy person as Dr. Cousins might I should think suffice to justifie my words and make you beleev with me that Christian Liturgies have ever been used as Fiat Lux speaks in a learned language distinct from the vulgar But we need not go far from home for a testimony Neither the Bible nor Service-book was ever seen here in England for a thousand years space in any other language but Latin before Edward the sixt dayes
the discours of my whole one and thirty paragraffs is by it fell'd to the ground miserably bruised and battered with that one and the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I hope you will have me excused I have not leasur I am not willing I want ability to answer it or give you any corresponding satisfaction The like to our Authour say you for flourishing empty words and cunning sleights of subtilty hath been seldom c. Here our Authour falls into a great misadventure c. Here our Authour discovers not only his gross ignorance but somthing more c. Our Authour beleevs not a word of all this nor can c. We finde our Authour never to fail so palpably and grosly as when c. Our Authour speaks notoriously fals nor hath he c. Our Authours history philosophy and reason all alike c. Our Authour speaks boldly though he know it is not so but c. Our Authour if I could com to speak to him would not own any this c. Never any such cunning dissembling hypocrite as our Authour c. It is no mervail our Authour should still fail both in philosophy antiquity c. who hath not c. In these and such like arguments which occur almost as oft as the pages of your book you rout Our Authour utterly I am in all this not able to say boh to a goos Although I be not conscious of any either fraud in my breast or fault in my book or lye in either yet in all such talk you must and will and shall have both the first and last word too Another argument of yours exprest in twenty places of your Animadversions by which you would dissipate at once great part of Fiat Lux into the air does as finely cant as this does coursly defy The religion say you that is now profest in England is that and only that which was first in ancient times received here c. This you speak and the more confidently do you speak it the less significant you know your words be and yet sounding well enough for your design What do you mean I pray you Sir by that religion that is now profest in England Why do you not specify it Speak it in down-right language Is it Popery that has been peaceably profest in the land for almost a thousand years and did all the good things we now finde in it as yet profest by som No this you will deny Is it Prelate-Protestancy that for threescore years opprest Popery here If you had said this you had praised that too much which your self approves not Is it Presbytery that warred the last twenty years and utterly destroyed the foresaid Protestancy In saying this you had to your own danger disabled the English Protestant Church now to the great heart-burning of the Presbyterians establisht again by law Is it Independency that for six or seven years curbed the Presbyterian here in Tectour Olivers time and had almost past an Act for the abolishing of the three P. P. P. Papish Protestant and Presbyterian It is Quakery that is now far enough spread and openly profest by many and judges the Papist stark naught the Protestant half rotten the Presbyterian a quarter addle and other Independents imperfect Is it som general abstracted religion that is common to them all If it be so then Popery as well as any other may be justly stiled the religion here first received For that common notion in whatever you shall say it consists so it be positive as it ought to be will be found first and principally in the Papists faith But this you have not thought good your self to expres that you may seem to expres somthing that may be thought good to your self and ill to me But you must deal candidly with me I am an old oxe that hath fixed his foot firmly and am not to be out-braved either with your canting words or passionate execrations I had told you Sir of all your tricks from page to page in particular if nothing had been required at my hands to write but only my own reply but being if I should do so obliged to set down your talk too I think it not worth either my charge or labour to reflect upon you such your voluminous impertinencies And I have I assure you taken notice of all in your book that may seem to have any appearance of reason in it though really ther be none at all against me and is not either manifestly untrue or absolutely improper This is all And now good Sir I could wish you had given me the first letter of your name that I might have known how to salute you I have been told of late that the Authour of the Animadversions upon Fiat Lux is one Doctour O. N a Protestant against Popery which you found down a Presbyterian against Protestancy which you threw down an Independent against Presbyterianry which you kept down But whether you be Doctour O. N or to turn your inside outwards you be N. O Doctour since I cannot be assured it shall be all one to me All that I have undertook at this time is to let you know who ever you be that I have read over your Animadversions upon my Fiat And I thank you for your book for it confirms Fiat Lux and all the whole design of it I think irrefragably It shows to the eye and really verrifies by your own example what Fiat Lux did but speak in words namely that controversies of religion are endles for want of some one thing to fix upon which may not be depraved that they are fraught with uncharitable animosities which darken the understanding and deprave good manners that they are mutable as mens fansies be which can never be fixedly stated sith every man hath a spirit hath a method hath an opinion of his own and sayes and denyes with endles diversity that they are guileful and delusory sometimes fals on both sides ever on one and yet still made out with subtil words so plausible to the eye and ear that men employed in the multitude of affairs and troubles of this world can never be able to disintangle those knots of pro and con then especially at a loss when they consider that such as mannage those disputes are all of them interested persons fiftly that they are mad and irrational while all parties pretend one and the same rule of holy scriptur and yet will admit of no exteriour visible judg in their visible exteriour contests lastly that they are mischievous and fatal to all places where they rise as they have been of late to this our distressed Kingdom of England where disputes and controversies about religion raised to a height by the inferiour scribes against their prelates drew after them pikes and guns to make them good for twenty years together with much desolation and ruin which times I think I may not unjustly call the Vicars Wars For the inferiour priests and levites envying
acknowledges catholik religion free and that Papists also or Roman Catholiks are the only men that have universally exhibited themselvs unblamable towards that breast of love and mercy from whence he would have them all excluded And to make these Papists odious he names som wars and troubles of theirs in Ireland Poland Bohemia Savoy Indeed he needed not have wandred so far as Bohemia or Poland The story of our own England would have afforded a large volum of matter if all that Papists have ever don must be attributed to their religion for wars and broils enough to tire a reader How many battles have there been here between the Scot and English between the Sax and Norman between the Norman and Britton between the English and French at Agencourt and all over France with much bloodshed and slaughter between the two houses of York and Lancaster at home when all these parties were Papists and no other religion known amongst them Is there no other principle to attribute all these disorders unto but that religion which endeavours as much as it is able to stifle all these evil fruits of concupiscence amongst men which som time or other will shoot up notwithstanding all the heavenly endeavour of that divine seed implanted in men on purpos to suppres it Must or can Protestants be justly charged with the treasons murders robberies of all such as have been imprisoned in our Jayls or hanged at Tyburn since the reformation And yet thus we deal with poor Catholiks to adde affliction upon affliction and extinguish that small sparkle of life which is left in their bodies It is surely a general fault in Protestants that we think in our hearts whatever we speak outwardly that Roman catholiks are as they should be all Saints all spotles in their lives all of them unblamable universally unblameable And hence it is that if ever we discover one traytor fool or knave amongst any of that profession we exult and make bonefires for joy and record it in our books one age after another that all the world may know and ever remember that even som of them have been transgressors We do not wonder so at our own Protestants though thousands of them should prove traytors together and many are continually hanged and som also burnt for their wicked crimes I am sure the Papists have not themselvs any such opinion of men of their own religion that they should so necessarily be honest and good as that it is impossible any should be otherwis But even in catholik countreys they have their whips and stocks and gibbets and prisons and torturs provided for malefactors as well as we have here And Princes will there go to wars as well as we Did not the Kings of Israel and Judah do so And the people too think themselvs bound even by their religion to follow them Nor have any people rose in rebellious herds to do mischief but they would somtimes pretend religion for it although they act indeed against the dictamen not only of other mens religion but perhaps their own too Catholiks know their religion is good and pure and holy and apt to make all men so that walk according to its direction But if any swerv they pitty indeed and pray for their serious repentance but they wonder not as we do at it much less do they rejoyce when any of our Protestants are taken and hanged for treason nor do they write or spread it abroad in books nor make bonefires or keep holy-dayes for joy of a thing which is indeed the object of their grief and pitty But Mr. Whitby speaks here so much of equivocations and mental reservations as proper and peculiar only unto Papists which render them although they should promis and swear allegiance never so seriously not at all to be beleeved or trusted that I began to doubt whether all London and the whole Land may not haply be Papists although I thought not of it One thing I am sure of and all men are of my mind that when we go into a shop in London or into any market or fair in England to buy wares when they tell us yea and swear too that the thing we cheapen cost them so much out of their own purse we do not beleev a word they say but think they have either som reservation in their mind or use an equivocation or ly And even Mr. Whitby himself must either be a Papist too if mental reservation be peculiar only unto them when he sayes so often in his book of which I treat That there is not one reason in Mr. Cresseys book that is pertinent not one authority but corrupted not one instance but ushered in with disadvantages to the truth and forgery or if he be not a Papist he must in these and several other passages in this his book wherin he either secretly equivocates or openly lyes at least papistare and act that which he sayes only Papists practice To give one example he sayes p. 237. That one general councel calls the respect given to images a hundred times by the name of worship I have good reason to think that one Councel would not use that word much above fourscore times if they be rightly numbred So likewise he sayes here p. 4. That the whole colledg of Jesuits in London said that they would rather promote the late Kings ruin then hinder it lest the Puritans should make use of his distresses to any advantage o too too foolish and malicious calumny For surely this is somthing more then an equivocation They rather promote then hinder it How could they do either the one or the other Thus som of our mad countreymen were not ashamed to tell it abroad about ten years ago even in catholik countreys where they travelled that they who sate in Court and condemned our gracious King were most of them Papists and Jesuits And did all the whole colledg of Jesuits in London conclude this so generally that there was not any one against it Who took the votes that he could be so assured of this great scret And where is this colledg of Jesuits in London Who ever heard of any such thing Will ever any of this wild talk pass for other then the dream of a man in Bedlam We shall ere long be frighted by such as Whithy and Baxter from hanging our pot over the fire lest the whole colledg of Jesuits in the moon should conspire together to water down upon our heads and spoil our pottage They would never tell us these things or hope to be beleeved were not the opinion they hav of our reason as small as the confidence they hav of their own audacity is great And what will the colledg the whole colledg of Jesuits here in London determin next If they should chance to decree that no whale or cod or herring should ever com into the North seas as now it is not unlikely they may they will undo many a family In the end of
which infers a worship of God in it not by it Chap. 15. from page 247 to 273. Is very earnest for scriptur and liturgy in a vulgar tongue This plea of Protestant ministers makes a plausible sound And they know it well enough For it was the first thing that by their rhetorical colours cast upon it commended them to the people after the Apostacy of the first reformers by whose perswasion the people was then made to beleev they should now be as gods all of them knowing good and evil The word of God saith Whitby is kept from the knowledge of the vulgar people in the Roman Church And thus they all say and ever will say be they never so much satisfied by Catholik writers to the contrary becaus it is to their own advantage it should be so thought in England and all other places where Protestants have invaded and now actually sit upon the Catholick Clergies benefice and byshoppricks But is ther any part or particle of Christian faith or religion or of the word of God that is kept from Catholiks or not made known to them in Books Catechismes Sermons all in their own language and in daily practis of that Church wherof they are members Do they not hear and read and see all the mysteries of our Christian faith Christ our Lords birth and passion resurrection and ascension into glory what he acted what he suffered what he taught what he constituted and ordained for our salvation what we are to hope what to beleev what to practice in order thereunto set before their eyes not only by continual sermons made to them all over the catholik world in their own vulgar tongue but by their Gospels and Epistles which they have lying by them collected for the cours of the whole year and translated into their own language together with several pious treatises and meditations upon all these rules and mysteries of faith unto so ample use that if they do but walk accordingly which is all that religion intends they cannot miss salvation Is not all this Gods word It is nothing els And what is ther more of the word of God except we will count letters and syllables The word of God then is not kept from the knowledg of the vulgar people in the Roman Church But why have they not the Bible translated as it lies in all languages where catholik faith is profest Becaus it is obscure as it lies in that short and ambiguous phrase and under so many several tropes of rhetorick and schemes also of logick wherin it was wrote apt therby to be perverted and misunderstood as we see by experience to be true unto endles factions Nor does the word of God consist so much in letters and syllables as in the marrow and meaning of his will And not the sence and meaning but the letter of the scriptur is that which makes hereticks But is not that the word of God which is kept from the people It is the word of God but not kept from the people For it is but the same with that which is delivered and made known unto the people So much as it contains whatever it be either of faith or morality either of what is to be beleeved or hoped or practised they have it all but disintangled from those artificiall schemes of logick and rhetorick wherof the holy writ is fuller then any book was ever writ by man which there inwrap and render it obscure Ther is no instruction no rule of piety no particle of comfort either for this world or the other in St. Pauls epistles for example but Catholiks have it they read it in their own language if they be able to read they know it all And they have it in a better and more facil manner then they could find it out by perusing those high theological discourses of his which the learnedst of men can hardly and very hardly understand The like I say of other portions of holy writ Only the disputative part with the interwoven systems of rhetorick this may exercise great and more sublime divines who by help of their various litterature may consider not only the plain truths therin contained which are common to them with other vulgar beleevers but the nature of the Metonymies Synechdoche's Metaphors together with the several modes of argumentation refutation objections and inopinate transitions in the context This if my adversary OeN had understood it had saved one fourth part of his Animadversions upon Fiat Lux and Whitby here had been utterly silent But it is their only advantage both in this and other controverted points of faith with Roman Catholiks either to be ignorant or dissemble their knowledg And therfor I have good reason to think they will never seem to understand But God grant they may The wonder is that English Protestants should still be as fiercely eager in this point when they write controversies as ever they were when they do themselves most heartily repent I have heard several great clergy-men amongst them speak it that they had ever given the Bible in that short ambiguous phrase it is penned into the hands of people in their own tongue to be thus perverted as it is every one his own way unto endles and irreconcilable schismes It would glad their hearts no doubt to see the Roman Church do indiscreetly as they have don But that will never be Holy catholik Church has revealed translated and several wayes made known the will of God to her people appointing most divine wayes and methods such as she had her self received from God to inure and keep them in the practis of that their holy faith And the disputative and sublimer divinity or as I may so speak the philosophical part of holy writ such as can may read on Gods name and the Church will commend them for it while these with all the rest attend unto those duties and good works every one in his calling which their holy faith prescribes These are and ever were the wayes and method of the now present and ancient catholik Church most wise and holy And her subjects and beleevers have profited therby many thousands of them unto angelical sanctity and all of them unto somthing more than otherwise they would have had whilst others that swerv from these wayes promote themselvs unto wildness and schisme without end missing indeed the word of God in the very scripture they read and never attaining to the true life and power in that form of words which they use not unto intended sanctification but by their own misinter pretations wrest and deprave daily unto their own destruction Nor will people be ruled now by their ministers but thinking it their own right to interpret as they pleas make it their only work to read and cant sentences and coin opinions as they list Excepting only this one fruit of our vulgar reading of scripture as it lies which in all mens judgments is an evil fruit I do not see nor
down-right that may give the Physician a just caus of wrath against those intruding empyricks He begins his book thus I suppose it is a matter of faith with all Papists that the Pope is infallible and that he can depose Kings c. Thus doth that wise man open his mouth and begin his Recipe Two things very seldom seen in any Academick conclusions when students defend a whole body of divinity in the schools but never delivered in Gospel or declared in Councels or heard or thought of by any one Catholik in the world as any thing of his religion these Mr. Denton supposes to be matter of faith with all Papists I would ask Mr. Denton whether he thinks it a matter of faith among Papists That the earth moves or no. If one Catholik hold those two assertions which in his sence I cannot tell whether any one do or no I will be bold to say a thousand hold this The next book Dr. Denton writes against Papists will haply begin thus I suppose it is a matter of faith with all Papists that the earth moves And then he may go on with his moon-stories and build castles in the air and Dentonise as here he hath done Ch. 21. from p. 448. to 456. Allows that general Councels although they be not infallible are highly notwithstanding both themselvs and their decrees to be esteemed provided that they keep to Gods rule that clear reason be not against them that men of worth do not gainsay them and that their proceedings be legal Not otherwis Thus he recalls himself and mends the matter All these four things if general Councels observ they shall be observed themselves notwithstanding they may haply be a company of bastards and buffoons neither legitimately begotten nor rightly baptised nor validly elected nor legally ordained And whether these specified conditions be or be not in councels and their decrees every man as Whitby here and several other places of his book speaks is to judg according to his own pleasur and discretion So that according to his rule the discretion and will of particular men is the final resolv of all religion faith and practis Whence it will follow that if there be as many religions as men they must be all good When you object Sir that such a liberty as this will be destructive even of all articles canons and acts of Parliament in order to our establisht Protestancy or other affairs To this Whitby replyes according to his custom very hotly Doth it becom a confuter of Mr. Chillingworth saith he thus to trifle Hath he not told you that others may make the same defence as we as murderers may cry not guilty as well as innocent persons but not so justly not so truly For Gods sake who trifles here when both Chillingworth and Whitby too had put into every private mans hand an equal power of judging admitting or rejecting the decrees orders and laws of their superiours he now distinguishes with Chillingworth his fanatick Master that som do it justly and truly others not so justly not so truly But who shall pass judgment upon the final and only irrefragable judg or aver such a thing of any one who hath an equal and unlimited power beforehand to take and reject what himself pleases Both truth and justice must solely be in his will who may admit and refuse as himself willeth But the party now esteemed faulty will be meal-mouthed we must think and not dare to say he both truly and justly does what he does or to affirm that he uses his own discretion in that which he takes or refuses by his own liking The Protestant forsooth separated from the Roman both truly and justly but the Presbyterian Independent and Quaker these refuse the Protestants communion not so truly not so justly although they do it upon the same right and title and by the same principles the other used himself and allows to other men The Protestant shall reject the Parliament of Prelates who establisht Catholik religion and do it justly and truly only for this reason that they do it upon their own discretion but another if he shall except against a Council of Lords and Commons that shall set up Prelate Protestancy although according to Whitby they be no judges of our faith he does it not so justly not so truly though he do it by his own discretion allow'd him to be his final resolv What is this but to do wickedly and talk fondly First to subjugate all degrees of autority to every mans judgment as the final and last rule and then to question that rule which he made subject unto nothing But that we may understand what a worthy respect Mr. Whitby has for general Councels he tells us here that it is neither impossible nor improbable that general Councels may erre Nay our writers quoth he do not acknowledg generall Councels to be infallible even in fundamentals And Whitby writes we all know by this time what his writers writ before him I cannot but marvel at this his talk For Whitby in several places of his book affirms himself that fundamentals are so perspicuous and clear that no man can be so ignorant if he be not a natural fool as to mistake therin We saith he p. 104 distinguish between points fundamental and not fundamental These are clearly revealed and so of necessary beleef And to determine their sence there is no more need of a judg then for any other perspicuous truth What need of a judge to decide whether scriptur affirms that there is but one God that this God cannot lye that Jesus Christ was sent by his commission into the world that he was crucified and rose again that without faith and obedience we cannot com to heaven These and such like are the truths which we entitle fundamental And if the sence of this needs an infallible judg then let us bring Euclids elements to the bar and call for a judg to decide whether twice two make four So he likewise avers p. 441. that fundamentals are as perspicuous as if they were written by a sun-beam He reckons not the Trinity amongst his fundamentals perhaps he does not take it for one or will have no fundamentals but what are perspicuous I could make it easily appear that even fundamentals have been denied and that with as great reason as any he calls otherwis are denied now But I must be brief That which I here note is this What is as perspicuous as a sun-beam as certain as Euclids elements as evident as that which is most clearly revealed as notorious a known truth as that twice two make four so clear that there needs no judg to determin it This the Prelates of the Christian world met together which none but a natural fool can mistake must not be able to discern They and none but they can erre in fundamentals And yet which does not a little encreas our admiration he acknowledges withall p. 439. That general Councels have
the pen of her own ungrateful Scribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Doctour Taylor against Popery And such a Disswasive as this But my amazement Sir is now blown over The Doctour appeared to me after some serious thoughts to be for a special reason that touches none so much as himself in some manner excusable That none should love Popery or ever come to know it concerns not only his wealth and dignity and life of ease which is the common caus of others also with himself but all the honour and fame he hath hitherto got by transcribing popish as now he calls but in former times named Catholik authors For having bin twenty years and upwards deeply plunged in reading and transcribing som of the in-numerous spiritual books that are amongst Catholiks not only in Latin but other languages of several Kingdoms where that Religion flourishes he hath culled out thence many fine treatises which he hath set forth in his own name and language to his much renown and no small wealth and dignity amongst us Nor is it to be doubted but that he means for his yet further glory reaped from other mens labours and that spirit of piety which thence he got into his own pen to write out yet one book more The same store-house that furnished him with the life of Christ will dictate to him also the lives of his twelve Apostles and many other raptures of divine love and heavenly devotion And if people be but kept from Popery as he hopes and labours they may it will never be known whence he gathers those his fragrant pieties It was not handsom yet a piece of wisdom it was in the Grecian Cynick to spit in the dish which pleased him best lest others should taste how good it was and deprive him therby of som of his content This book of Doctour Taylors called a Disswasive printed in Dublin and as I understand reprinted here in London I suppose in the very same words by reason of the Authors absence is large enough containing 173 pages in quarto marvellously bitter and contumeliously insulting over that Religion which he cannot but know he misreports Indeed Sir there is more popery in one page of Dr. Taylors Life of Christ which he transcribed from popish Authors than is in all this whole book which he writes against those Authors popery that is owned by them to be their religion all this he puts upon them under the notion of popery throughout his whole hundred and seventy three pages except haply som three or four words whose sence also he perverts no Catholik upon earth acknowledges for any parcel of his faith Is not this strange disingenuous dealing How he comes to act thus and what is the feat he makes use of to discolour their Religion you shall hear by and by when I have first opened his book and the things contained in it His Disswasive hath three chapters and each chapter several sections The first chapter is intitled thus The Doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive The second thus The Church of Rome as it is at this day disordered teaches doctrins and uses practices which are in themselvs or in their true and immediat consequences direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life The third thus The Church of Rome teaches doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in general and of Monarchy in special both which the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland does by her doctrins greatly and Christianly support These three be things of importance and must either be great notorious crimes in the Defendant or monstrous slanders in the Plaintiff A Religion that is new impious and unsociable that is against antiquity piety and society is hardly good enough for Hell Who is he that shall dare to profess or countenance such a religion upon earth But let us see in order how all this is demonstrated to us by an old pious and sociable Doctour His first Chapter First then That the doctrin of the Roman Church in the controverted Articles is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive he declares in eleven sections which make up that his first chapter First section sayes that the Roman Church pretends a power to make new Articles of faith and doubtles uses that power and for that end corrupts the Fathers and makes expurgatory Indices to alter their works The second that this power of making new articles is a novelty and yet beleeved by Papists Third that the Roman doctrin of Indulgences is unknown to antiquity Fourth that Purgatory is another novelty Fift Transubstantiation another Sixt Half-communion another Seventh Liturgy in an unknown tongue another Eighth Veneration of Images the like Ninth Pictures the same Tenth the Popes general Episcopacy likewise And the eleventh and last speaks almost as many more all of a heap to make up his one last section as Invocation of Saints sufficiency of scriptures absolving sinners before pennance simple Priests giving Confirmation selling Masses for nine pence circumgestation of the Eucharist intention in Sacraments Mass-sacrifice and supper without Communion All this is Popery all new and therfor the Roman Church is neither Catholik Apostolik nor Primitive This is the sum of his first Chapter What in the name of God does this Author of the Disswasive your learned Doctour mean by the Church of Rome and by the doctrin of the Roman Church This Sir is a main busines and ought if he had meant sincerity to have been firmly stated before any thing were treated either of the one or the other But this he utterly here omits which he should principally have heeded that he may speak loosely and hand over head any thing he may deem fit to black his own paper and other mens fame If he take them as he ought the Church of Rome for that universality of Catholik beleevers who live in several kingdoms of the world united in faith and sacraments under the Spirit of Jesus Christ and one visible Pastour and the doctrin of that Church for the body of faith and religion handed to them from age to age as taught and delivered from Christ and his Apostles which they call in the phrase of St. Paul Depositum fidei or treasure of faith I say if he mean this by the Roman Church and doctrin of that Church as he ought to do I will be bold to aver that ther is not any one claus or period in his book true and three parts of his book absolutely impertinent If he mean otherwis then Catholiks themselvs conceiv or profess he was bound in honour to make his mind known that the renown of an innocent Religion and worthy persons might not suffer prejudice by his ambiguous speech But perhaps he studied how to abuse that Religion that he may be thought worthy of the dignity and wealth he has now obtained in another slipt our of it But concerning the way he takes to
under their patriark resident in Caramit metropolis of Mesopotamia or els in the monastery of S. Saphran near the city Merdin The Cophti or Christians of Egypt subject to the patriark of Alexandria The Habassms or midland Ethiopians under their own patriark or Abuna who is ever a monk of S. Antonies order consecrated for them by the patriark of Alexandria The Armenians on this side and beyond Euphrates under their two patriarks resident one of them in Mitilene or els in the city of Sis not far from Tarsus in Cilicia the other in Sebastia or els in the monastery of Ecmeazin The Maronites resident in mount Libanus under their patriark who is ever a monk and resides either in Tripoli or in the great monastery of S. Antony All these although many of them fell away long since from ecclesiastick unity upon their dislike of the Councel of Ephesus and Chalcedon where one person and two natures in Christ was declared and others of them upon other such like occasion yet do they still keep up all of them their monasteries altars priesthood sacred ordination messach and ancient Christian Liturgy Nor do they know any other way of serving or appeasing the Almighty in order to heavenly bliss than this propiatory sacrifice which received from their forefathers they practise and exercise to this day And this was ever the great devotion of all Christians and still is excepting only some few here in the North who have gone out of that primitive Christianity the last age by following the unhappy steps of Luther and Calvin and not all of them neither For Luther although he fouled yet did he not throw down the altar and the pure Lutherans that be yet in Germany Denmark and Sweathland keep it up still Thus Sir have other Protestants admitted all that to be ancient which this your Disswader calls a novelty unheard of in ancient times Nay Luther and Calvin esteemed all Popery an old Egyptian darknes spread over the face of the Church all ages since the Apostles dayes and dissipated at length by that new light which they revealed It is a strange thing that Popery which in Luther and Calvins dayes was old should now after a hundred years be grown young again But when Protestancy was new then Popery was old and now Popery must be thought new when Protestancy is grown old and rotten Truth is it was the Ministers advantage to acknowledg Popery to be old when 〈◊〉 where Catholik Religion spread all over â—…e earth had all her monuments intire by her to show her antiquity to all people then living who had also heard of the Catholik faith of their ancestours although they made it by slight of fallacious oratory erroneous But here and now in England where all those monuments are destroyed it is a double convenience to say that Popery is erroneous and new too When the first Reformers endeavoured to supplant the Catholik professours of their means and livings it was best to accuse them of old errours But now to keep their livings they have invaded it is a wiser part it seems to inveigh against Popery as a novelty There novelty could no way be proved and here in England antiquity cannot easily be shown Then matter of fact would have disproved novelty now matter of fact will not prove antiquity here in this Kingdom where the ancient religion is abrogated about a hundred years ago and people now alive that behold Protestancy never saw Catholick Religion and are almost perswaded by their ministers there was never any such thing here Nor will people read Catholik authors nor beleev them if they do nor have they power to consider who built all their Churches or made their laws or any other good thing done for them by Catholik beleevers but take all Papists to be in a manner Atheists becaus they com not to hear their ministers talk in those Churches from whence poor Catholiks were first solemnly banisht and then within a while after were punished for not coming there at such a time when their altar sacrifice and priesthood were now abolished and their priests put to death and others made liable to it afterwards when ever they should come into those Churches again to do their functions and ministers had got into their places to rail against them and that holy ancient Religion which had built those Churches to their hands Ther is I think no better way imaginable to discover the natur of the ancient Christian Church than by considering what was said to be her beleef and practice then when first she dared to show her face openly in the world appearing at length as it were from under ground and her former lurking condition wherin she had remained three hundred years under the cruel persecution of Pagan Emperours As soon as Constantin the Great Gods heavenly grace so moving him had first taken this holy Church by the hand and cloathed her with her ornaments of peace then surely she would appear her self And what she was then may be easily gathered by such ancient writers who either purposely spake of the life of Constantin or incidentally of the things which were done in those dayes as Eusebius Zozomen S. Jerom Bede and others who deliver us the form and features of the Christian Church in those times so like unto the Popery that is now adayes after thirteen or fourteen hundred years both in the particulars Dr. Taylor speaks of and several others now cancelled by our Protestant Reformation that a man may safely swear that the now present Popery and old Christianity are one and the same thing Eusebius tells us how Constantin the Emperour after the fashion of those good times chastised his own body with fasting and disciplines how he used to bless himself and sign his face with the sign of the Cross how highly he honoured and set up that triumphal ensign having confidence of victory in vertue therof how he erected illustrious temples in memory of the Christian martyrs how he refused to sit down in the general Councel of Nice till the Prelates there had given their consent how he dedicated a sumptuous Church in memory of the apostles and provided there a sepulchre for himself to the end that after his death he might be partaker of the prayers there offered how he assembled the priests to the dedication of his temple wherof some preached others offered sacrifice for the common peace for the Church of God and for the Emperour and lastly how in his sickness he confest his sins in a chappel of the martyrs and prayer and sacrifice made for his soul after his deceas Zozomen in his history tells us also of him that becaus those primitive Christians used consecrated places and only them for their publick Liturgy Constantin had ever carried with him in the camp a portable altar and tabernacle and priests and deacons attending it for celebration of divine mysteries how much also he honoured the holy monk S. Anthony for