Plantation of Christianity that where the age and the people were most inclined to superstition which in the first conversion and growth of Religion they were not disposed to at least to that worship and reverence which shortly after degenerated into superstition there was least care taken to introduce Forms and Ceremonies into the Church but when prophaneness broke in as a torrent and the lives of Christians discredited the doctrine of Christ and the power of Princes was found necessary to reform the manners of the Church such Forms and Ceremonies were brought into the exercise of Religion as were judged most like to produce a reverence into the professors towards it and to manifest that reverence in providing whereof General Councils medled very little knowing very well that they could not be the same in all places and that every State and Kingdom knew best what ways and means were most like to contribute to the general end the reverence for Religion and sure there cannot be too intent a care in Kings and Princes to preserve and maintain all decent Forms and Ceremonies both in Church and State which keeps up the veneration and reverence due to Religion and the Church of Christ and the duty and dignity due to Government and to the Majesty of Kings in an age when the dissoluteness of manners and the prophaneness and pride of the people too much inclines them to a contempt of Religion to a neglect of order and to an undervaluing and contending with the most Soveraign authority That the Secular power cannot provide for Ecclesiastical Reformations because Kings and Princes are not qualified to perform the offices and functions of Religion because they do not pretend to consecrate Bishops to ordain Priests or to administer the Sacraments is an argument to exclude them as well from the temporal as spiritual jurisdiction in the determination of matters of right between private men in the punishment of the most enormous crimes and offences Justice must be administred according to the established rules of the Law and not the will and inclination of the Iudge and it cannot be presumed that Kings can be so well versed in the Laws and customs which must regulate the proceedings of Justice and therefore may be excluded from the authority and power of judging the people and they are wonderful careful that you may not believe that they would bereave them of that inherent power and authority which they confess is committed to them alone but why the one and not the other since they can as well provide for the one as for the other is not so easie to be comprehended by any rules of right reason Kings provide for the good administration of justice by making learned men Iudges whose province it is to execute the Law in all cases and they provide for the advancement and preservation of Religion by making pious and learned men Bishops and use their advice and assistance in matters relating to the Church as he doth that of the Judges in cases pertaining to the Law and as he doth other Counsellors in such things as have an immediate dependance upon the Wisdom of State and both Bishops and Iudges are bound to render an account of their actions to Kings who have intrusted them and if they have been corrupt in the discharge of their several Offices they are equally liable to the Kings displeasure and to such punishments as the Laws have provided for such enormities which are inflicted upon them by the Kings authority And as no foreign power can be so competent as the King 's to administer this Justice since it must either controul it or be controuled by it so it is no easie matter for the Pope to prove himself a more spiritual Person than Kings are who have been in all Ages thought to have somewhat of the Priest and the Prophet by their very Office whereas some Popes have been pure Lay-men when they have been chosen to that Supreme office which is all the qualification they have to be more Ecclesiastical after and very many have been chosen Popes who never were Bishops which is not a necessary qualification for that dignity every Deacon-Cardinal being as capable to be elected Pope as the Priest and Bishop Cardinal and he that was a Bishop before consecrates no Bishops himself after he is Pope but that function is performed by other Bishops by vertue of his Commission or Bull and the same may as regularly be done by Bishops by vertue of Kings Commissions in their several Kingdoms otherwise it would be in the power of Popes to extinguish the function of Bishops in any Princes Dominions and therefore the French Ambassador declared in his Masters name to Innocent the Tenth that if he persisted in the refusal to make Bishops in Portugal upon that King's nomination they should chuse a Patriarch of their own who should supply that defect But God be thanked that senseless usurpation and exemption of the Clergie from the common justice of Nations is pretty well out of countenance and since the Republick of Venice so notoriously baffled Paul the Fifth upon that very point other Kings and Princes have chastised their own Clergie for transcendent crimes without asking leave of his Holiness or treating them in any other manner than they do their ordinary Malefactors For the unity proposed and professed by us in the Creed I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church if it be well considered in what time that Creed was made which is not yet defined or determined by any Church and if it had been made by the Apostles themselves according to the fancy of some men that every one of the Apostles should contribute his Article it would then be Canonical Scripture which it is not pretended to be yet I think it is agreed by most learned men that it was framed in the infancy of Christianity and in or very soon after the time of the Apostles themselves and then it can have no other signification than Credo Sanctam Apostolicam Ecclesiam esse Catholicam which was a necessary Article at that time when the believing that the Church was to be universal and to consist equally of Gentiles as well as Iews was one of the most difficult points of Christianity and most opposed and for the Confirmation whereof the Apostles took most pains after they were all reconciled to it themselves and as it could have no other sence then so the restraining it to any one Church now or to make it serve for a distinction between Churches and Nations and to produce a separation between them must be very unnatural if any sence at all To conclude then this discourse of unity I know not how Mr. Cressy can refuse to submit to that good rule and determination that S. Gregory long since gave upon the third Interrogation administred to him by Austin the Monk Cum una sit fides cur sunt Ecclesiarum diversae consuetudines altera consuetudo Missarum
his Second Iourney afterwards to Ierusalem in which he takes care that they might not think that he had any Superiour there To whom we gave place by subjection no not for an hour He proceeds then in the same jealousie to make a comparison with St. Peter He that wrought effectually in Peter to the Apostleship of the Circumcision the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles effectually in Peter mighty in Paul a word of an equal energy and lest all this might be looked upon as speaking behind his back after he had mentioned the respect he had received from the other Apostles from Iames and Cephas and Iohn he tells them that when Peter came to him he withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed and the manner of his expostulation with him seems very rough as with a man that stood upon the same level with him not as with the sole Vicar of Christ If thou being a Iew livest after the manner of the Gentiles and not as do the Iews why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Iews Whosoever seriously reflects upon the tampering that had been with the Galathians to lessen their confidence in Paul and the gradations by which he endeavoured to reconfirm them in the same faith he had formerly taught them cannot but believe that the Apostle had therein a purpose to root out any such Opinion of priority out of their hearts especially when in no other place after this there appears the least mention of or appeal to St. Peter in the many errours and mis-interpretations of the words and actions of our Saviour and of them in the Life of the Apostles from whence many troubles and great disorders sprung and grew up amongst Christians of that Age. He shall do well to consider whether it be probable that St. Peter himself or any of his Successors did pretend a Precedency or Superiority over Saint Iohn the Evangelist who lived Twenty Years after Saint Peter and to let us know when the first Pope discovered his Supremacy over other Bishops and then we know well enough how it was introduced in Temporalities If Mr. Cressy and the rest of the enemies of the Church of England who will not allow any members of the same to have any hope without deserting their Mother of a place in Heaven and hardly admit them to be in their wits upon Earth would enter upon the disquisition of these particulars which are warily declined in all their Writings or very perfunctorily handled the foundation doctrine and discipline of that Church would be in a short time utterly overthrown and demolished or worthily vindicated and supported in the judgment of most learned and discerning men and there can be but two reasons why they should decline this method which they should the rather imbrace because all other have proved ineffectual and in near two hundred years the appeal to Fathers and Councils or Scripture it self hath not reconciled many persons in any one controverted particular but those two reasons so unwarrantable that they will never be owned will never suffer them to admit the method and pursue it closely The first is that if they should proceed in this ingenuous and substantial way they would be cut off from those common places in which they are only versed and by which they are supplied to urge all things which have been thought heretofore material to that matter and to reply to what is said of course but especially they will find themselves restrained from that multitude of ill words in which they so much delight of calling those they do not love and whose arguments they cannot answer Hereticks who are condemned already to Hell-fire and from asking the old stale question that hath been as often answered as asked Where was your Church before Luther and from their so often vain excursions upon the voluptuousness of Henry the Eighth whom they would fain perswade the world to be the Founder of the Church of England and all the reformation to have been devised by him Whereas if they would seriously study these material points the first whereof would go very far towards the facilitating the resolution upon the rest they might easily discern that no member of the Church of England by their own rules can be comprehended within any of their decrees for an Heretick which serves their turn only as an angry word to throw at any mans head whom they desire to make odious to all Roman Catholicks and they would be as easily convinced that we never had any thing to do with Luther that in all those quarrels and wars which were either occasioned by him or accompanied his doctrine there was not a man of the English Nation that was ever engaged and that it was long after his time not at all by his model that the Church of England without one sword drawn and in as peaceable and grave a manner as ever that Nation hath concurred in the making of any of those excellent Laws which distinguishes them from all the subjects of the world in the happiness they enjoy did reject those superstitions and inconveniences which they could not sooner free themselves from with those circumstances of justice and peace and the retaining whereof would have been more for the benefit and advantage of the Court of Rome than for the Church of England or the good of that Kingdom and as such alterations cannot be supposed to be made with so universal a consent but that many of all conditions adhered still to the exercise of their Religion with all the circumstances which they had been before accustomed unto and for which no body suffered in many years nor till by their treasonable acts and conspiracies they appeared dangerous to the State For King Henry the Eighth he had some personal contests with Clement the Seventh who was then Pope from whom he received such personal indignities as in the opinion of most of the Princes of that Age who had all out-grown the wardship of the Pope he could not but resent and vindicate himself from nor did he do it any other way than his most glorious Catholick Predecessors had always done upon far less injuries or provocations as Edward the First and Edward the Third and others whose Religion was never suspected often restrained him from exercising any authority or jurisdiction in England to which they well knew he had no other authority or right but what the Crown had granted him and forbid any of their Subjects to repair to Rome or to receive any Orders from thence which was upon the matter all that Henry the Eighth did and was no more than Lewis the Twelfth of France had done very few years before but was so far from being inclined or favouring to any reformation or alteration in Religion that he proceeded as long as he lived with the utmost severity against all who were but suspected to be averse from the Catholick Religion and caused many of them
Kings mercy What must all the peaceable and well-affected Catholicks of England think who have enjoyed so long tranquillity by the King's grace and favour to find the calm they were in interrupted by the boisterous and unskilful noise of one of their own Preachers and to hear and see a jealousie kindled of their loyalty and good meaning by the impetuous breath of a Religious man that if it be not allayed by their prudence may devour and destroy their chief and most beautiful habitations Mr. Cressy therefore shall do well and wisely henceforward to demean himself with more temper and civility towards the Church and all the members of it of whose clemency and gentleness he may yet stand in need and if his passion will not suffer him to live as a Friend let his discretion prevail with him to live like a Neighbour at least like an old acquaintance as long as he thinks it convenient to enjoy the benefit of their quarters The advice that I give Mr. Cressy with reference to the matter is That he will contract the Controversie into what concerns the Church of England solely and to say all he can against the Articles and Policy thereof and not to make any sallies against Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists or other Sectaries who declare as great animosity against the Church of England as that of Rome hath always and therefore are more like to agree together And the first question that is proper and pertinent to be debated and which determination will go very far towards the reconciling all inferiour particulars is I. Whether a National Church hath power with the approbation and authority of the Soveraign to remove any errors or inconveniences which have been practised in that Church either by an Original corruption or by degenerating from what might at first be innocent into superstition or scandal and whether the long reception and continuance of what is erroneous or mischievous can restrain the Soveraign power from reforming it when he finds it necessary in the same peaceable order and method as he provides Laws in other cases for the well Government of his Kingdom II. Whether whatsoever is not of the Essence of Christian Religion instituted by our Saviour himself or declared or advised to be practised by the Apostles may not lawfully be looked upon as Religion of State in that it may be altered or improved or abolished by the Soveraign power for the better advancement of those ends which are essential and which no power on Earth can make alteration in And whether Gods promise to his Church be not to be depended upon in every National Church where learning and piety flourishes that it shall not fall into enormous error whereby Christianity shall receive prejudice and be not more like to advance and propagate devotion in that Church and Nation than any Foreign power whatsoever III. Whether the Bishop of Rome hath any authority given by God in the Dominions and over the Subjects of other Princes and what authority and power it is and what obedience and subjection it is which the English Catholicks conceive themselves bound to pay to him by the obligation of their Religion It being absolutely necessary for the personal security of Kings and Princes and for the peace and quiet of Kingdoms that it may be clearly made manifest what the authority and power is that a Foreign Prince doth challenge in an other Princes Dominions contrary to and above the Laws of the Land and what obedience it is that subjects may pay to such a Foreign Prince without the privity and contrary to the command of his own Soveraign nor can any general answer be satisfactory in this point They who conceive the Pope hath a Temporal and Spiritual power in England must explain what the full intent of that power is that the King may discern whether he hath enough of either as to preserve himself the peace of the Kingdom and they who insist upon his having a spiritual power as most of the most moderate Catholicks do without imagining that it can in the least lessen their affection and loyalty to the King which they do really intend to preserve inviolable must as clearly explain and define what they understand that spiritual to be which may otherwise be extended as far as the former intend the temporal and spiritual shall extend nor in truth can they be secure of their own innocence of which they think themselves in possession until they fully know from those who intangle them with distinctions what that spiritual power is and what submission they are bound to pay to it which seeming to be some obligation upon their Conscience it is fit they may be sure it cannot involve them in actions contrary to their duties which they can hardly be secure of and less satisfie others till they absolutely disclaim any power to be in him at all with reference to England as they will upon a full enquiry discover that he hath no other in any Catholick Kingdom but what is granted to him by the Soveraign power and the municipal Laws of the Kingdome which makes it differ so much in all the Catholick Nations of Europe and to be little or nothing out of it IV. Whether Catholick Subjects in England are not bound to give as good security to the King for their fidelity and peaceable behaviour as all his other subjects do and without which they cannot wonder that they may be made subject to such Laws and restraints as may disable them from being dangerous when they profess to owe obedience to a foreign Prince who doth as much profess not to be a friend to their Countrey and will not declare what that obedience is V. Whether his Majestie may not justly and ought not prudently to require the same or as full satisfaction and security for their allegiance as Catholick Subjects give for their fidelity to Catholick Kings if so how can the English Catholicks under pretence of Religion refuse to declare that it is in no Earthly power to absolve them from their fidelity to the King when no French Roman Catholick dares refuse the same it being a Catholick resolution in France and renewed upon the occasion of a seditious Book by a Declaration of the Sorbone concerning the Kings Independency in the Year 1663. Quòd subditi fidem obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debent ut ab iis nullo praetextu dispensari possint and whether any Catholick in France or Spain can refuse to profess that he doth not believe that the Pope can depose the King if the King thinks to require it VI. Whether since the Pope so lately caused his Majestie 's Catholick Subjects in Ireland to rebell and when out of the conscience of their sin they submitted to the King and subscribed and swore to the observation of the Articles agreed upon The Pope absolved them from the performance of their Oaths and took upon himself to be their General in the Person of
the Rules and prescriptions which Mr. Cressy and some other of his Friends have taken upon them to give for rendring the same more perfect and exact And though the Doctor is more modest than to make his own judgment and understanding an argument to condemn what another man thinks very reasonable which is the syllogism the other out of kindness hath made for him yet truly I have so good an opinion of Mr. Cressy's understanding that if he should tell me that he had held a discourse upon matter of Religion with a man who entertained him for half an hour in a continued speech with many proper and in themselves very intelligible words which drew his best attention to what he said which was all pronounced in so grave a tone that he suspected his own understanding for not quickly comprehending what his meaning could be but that after all his intentness of mind he could observe nothing but a heap of words improperly mingled together without any coherence or context to make any signification I should presently conclude that what he had heard was unintelligible canting for what other definition can be given of unintelligible canting than a dialect of affected words which have no congruity and of which men of very competent parts and who hear patiently cannot collect any sence And I have always believed that men who cannot express their own meaning in words and a method that men of good comprehension do understand their meaning have not clear notions themselves of what they do deliver and if mystick Divines will express their conceptions of the most pure operations of the Soul her self and likewise of God upon the Soul in such terms and language as none but those of their own fraternity can upon hearing them know what they would have they must not take it ill if other men believe that they have a peculiar cipher between themselves which being in words is only sence to them and canting to every body else But without doubt Prayer and whatsoever relates to it should always consist of language so plain and easie that the meanest and lowest of the people cannot but know what every word signifies And as he is commonly very unhappy in his application of Scripture so he now prophanes S. Paul's name to a purpose so contrary to what he would apply it to that if there were no other argument to convince him of his error that Text alone would do it very amply S. Paul who he says was the greatest Master of Language that perhaps ever was yet for want of words could not describe the extasie he had been in nor the vision that he had seen but professed that no humane language could describe them nor humane fancy comprehend them and therefore Mr. Cressy says that according to the Doctors grounds S. Paul should be the greatest Fanatick that ever was yea the Father of all Fanaticks yet the Doctor dares not call him so whereas the Doctor only calls those Fanaticks who will not imitate S. Paul but upon an imagination that they have seen somewhat which few men believe they did see will needs describe it in words which no body understands and though that great Master of Language therefore forbore to mention what he had seen or heard because there were no words which would serve the turn he hath helped S. Paul to proper words to do it by and says that it cannot be denied to have been a passive union of S. Paul's Soul with God but since S. Paul could not tell what it was we are not bound to believe that Mr. Cressy knows better or can better express it and it were to be wished that his Friends if they have such apparitions as they cannot understand they will be as modest as S. Paul and not go about to describe them nor believe that they do understand themselves what they cannot make any body else to understand Since Mr. Cressy appeals from the Doctor to the indifferent Reader upon his sharp censure of some expressions in Sancta Sophia and takes much pains to make elucidations upon those difficult places which the Doctor thought hard to be understood and which he seems to believe will by the pains he hath taken appear very intelligible I cannot but take my self to be one of those indifferent Readers who is not by any prejudice to the man or to the matter uncapable of judging of the sence of what he reads And I must confess that by Mr. Cressy's favour and direction I had one of those Books of Sancta Sophia presented to me assoon as it was printed which I was the more impatient to read because he had recommended it to me as a Book worthy to be read by all Christians since it medled not with any Controversies but was the greatest help to devotion in general that had been yet published nor did he think himself concerned in the commendation since he always professed that he was not Author of any thing contained in the Book but of the method and marshalling the several discourses out of Papers and Notes not enough digested by the death of Mr. Baker who was generally esteemed a learned and devout man and truly I believe he might be so and as I have heard for I never saw him nor did Mr. Cressy I think spent more time privately upon his own thoughts than in books or conversation I cannot deny but that I did then think that what was not very vulgarly said which was honest was very obscure and difficult to be understood which I did really impute to want of capacity in my self until I read many of the particulars to others much wiser and in all respects very competent judges of such discourses and when upon a full disquisition I found them of the same opinion and that they knew not how to make any thing that was said applicable to heighten their own devotions I begun to conclude too that what benefit soever others might attain by reading it for I met with some women who professed to have received much benefit by it I should get little in taking more pains to comprehend it and I remember it came out much about the same time that Sir Henry Vane published a book of the same subject of the love of God and the union with God which when I had read and found nothing of his usual clearness and ratiocination in his discourse in which he used much to excel the best of the company he kept and that the stile thereof was very like that of Sancta Sophia and that in a crowd of very easie words the sence was too hard to find out I was of opinion that the subject matter of it was of so delicate a nature that it required another kind of preparation of mind and it may be another kind of diet than men are ordinarily supplied with And I am now the more confirmed in that judgment by finding all Mr. Cressy's glosses which he hath taken the pains to make to
took And if he had it could not be wondered at since by the age he was of when he published his Book in defence of Archbishop Laud which some who knew it well assured me to be but twenty eight years I cannot suppose him to be when the Covenant was first appointed to be administred to all Scholars in the Universities above the age of thirteen years if so much and cannot be conceived to be at all instructed in the principles of the Church of England which had been long before that discountenanced and suppressed And no body doubts but that there are very many reverend and learned persons who have now great and unquestionable affection and zeal for that Church who did in their minority and under that accursed and tyrannical Government take that lewd Covenant and whose affection and zeal is not the less for having taken it But of all men it least becomes Mr. Cressy to put them in mind of the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy when himself broke from the obligations of them and his own subscription though he was near if not full forty years of age when he last repeated those obligations and himself acknowledges that the Doctor had the courage even in those ill times to write against all the Religions which were then professed and countenanced in his Ironicon that he is so angry with And I do profess that I am not of the Doctor 's mind in all things which he says in that Book yet as Mr. Cressy will never undertake to confute it so I am not sorry that no body else hath gone about to answer it I will not accompany Mr. Cressy in his uncharitable passion which every expression how lawful soever that he dislikes kindles in him by treating others as he doth Archbishop Cranmer whose memory will be preserved as of a most worthy Prelate and glorious Martyr notwithstanding the foul imputations he is pleased to cast upon him Yet I must tell him that if that unhappy and ill advised Queen who had just reason to be offended highly with that Archbishop could have found that the Law would have condemned him for Treason she rather desired to have had him hanged for a Traitor than to have him burned for his Religion since she wanted not other instances enough of her severity in that kind But the Law would not extend to serve her turn that way if it would no body would have blamed her for having prosecuted him with the utmost rigour whereas many good men then did and since have for proceeding the other way with him It is not new to find those who have been adjudged Traitors by the Law of the Land looked upon in his Church as Martyrs which he well knows is the case of some who were executed for the Gunpowder Treason But he will answer that is no act of the Church which hath never declared them Martyrs it may be so and it is as true that the Church hath in some times Canonized those who were by Law known to be guilty of High Treason though not executed for it as Saints for whoever understands the Law as it was in those days cannot doubt but that Thomas Becket was guilty of High Treason and might legally have been proceeded against for it as he was condemned afterwards for it though the assassination of him was in no degree warrantable or to be excused Many other examples of the same kind may be given however it is a very sorry exception that Mr. Cressy takes to Cranmer's subscription of his opinion that he remits the judgment thereof wholly to the King So says he a final judgment both touching Government and Doctrine is by the prime Bishop referred to a King of about nine years old a great glory surely to the English Which is a suggestion below the wisdom and experience of Mr. Cressy who cannot but know that in all Kingdoms hereditary that the King is not less King for being but nine years of age and that all sentences and judgments are as much referred to him then as when he is at full age and the transactions are concluded in the same method and formality as they would be then As that opinion of the Archbishop was considered by the Privy Council and whatsoever was done afterwards which was not in all particulars agreeable to that opinion was concluded by the Parliament Nor is he much graver in his Comical discourse of the Kings Title of being Supreme Governour of the Church of England for he knows that head is not in the title though if it were it would be of no other signification that the King may thereby ordain Bishops and Priests himself which he well knows the Crown always disclaims and the Church never admitted but knows very well that the King hath as much authority to appoint and authorize those who shall do both within his own dominions as the Pope who doth neither with his own hands hath in his own Territories or others where by the consent of the Princes he hath that jurisdiction I shall say nothing in defence of the Hugonots of France of whose communion I do not profess my self to be they are of age let them speak for themselves yet I may say that I do not comprehend how their Confession of faith obliges them to be Traitors and Rebels whensoever the honour of God which he says is the defence of their execrable Religion is concerned and it cannot be denied that there have been many rebellions in France by the Catholicks since there have been any in which the Hugonots joyned who for these many years have given great testimony of their signal affection and fidelity to the King and when they were known to have temptations which many Catholicks did not resist And Mr. Cressy knows that there are many very learned men amongst them whose lives are not reproachable and whose writings for the learning contained in them and the modesty with which they are represented are thought worthy to be answered by the reverend Bishops themselves and other eminent and learned Catholicks who are contented to answer their Arguments and their Allegations with all possible candor and condescension and without any bitterness of language and therefore I cannot but lament on the behalf of our Nation and our manners and of the English tongue that the good spirit of France and the urbanity that is there used in handling Controversies in Religion hath not made greater impression upon Mr. Cressy who hath lived so many years amongst them as might well have disposed him to have followed their example and might have convinced him that rudeness of stile and impetuosity of words in contradictions of the highest importance which can relate to Religion are not essential to the being a good Catholick and since he urges the great liberty the Hugonots enjoy joy in France as an argument against the severity he will call it by a worse name of the Laws of his Country which forbid any exercise of the
combination of the Presbyterians and Independants whom they do likewise as unskilfully to their purpose irreconcile to them as if they could subdue the whole Kingdom and so care not whom they provoke If the noise and clamour and evil-speaking of these men do awaken the sleeping Laws to take that vengeance upon them that they were ordained for and which yet remain in that drowzy posture that their own modesty may reduce them to the manners of Gentlemen and Subjects or if the Kings mercy continue as obstinate toward them as their guilt and provocation so that he thinks fit still to abate the sharp edge of the Laws towards them in which very few men wish his Majestie less merciful there are still other Laws which the dignity of his Government will not suffer him to restrain and which are provided to vindicate those who do their duty from the extravagant passions and insolence of those who observe no rules of good behaviour and of peaceable conversation And what may be inflicted upon them of this kind will be unpitied by all good Catholicks and will never be thought a persecution of their Religion and it may be their Superiours at least upon their observation to what ill use they put their tongues may exact from them that silence for cherishing whereof their Order was first instituted and hereafter only imploy such in their missions as may return to them again without doing them any harm or bringing prejudice to the Religion they profess Mr. Cressy thinks he hath a wonderful advantage against the Church of England because he says he can find no religious Orders in it he cannot hear so much as of one single person whom he might call a Fanatick for leaving the flesh and the world to the end he or she might intirely consecrate themselves to God in solitude and exercises of spiritual prayer and mortification and if God should call any one to such a state of life there is an utter want amongst them of instructors or instructions proper for it I will not enter into any discourse of the benefits or inconveniences or ill uses which are too often made of those Monasteries and Religious houses of the He 's and the She 's I have nothing to say against them nor do I doubt that there are amongst them many persons of great learning and vertue and therefore I shall say no more but that most Catholick Kingdoms think the number of them too great and frequently forbid the erecting more of them and the Popes themselves have done the like in Italy and have dissolved many of them but I may say which is as much as is necessary to say that we have no cause to lament the absence of them in England since any defects which arise by the want of them is so abundantly provided by the noble Colledges in both the Universities and the great Free-Schools all so plentifully endowed not only for the good education of Youth in all principles of vertue piety and good literature but for the support of them after they are bred in the improvement of their parts for the service of the Church and of their Country insomuch that it may be truly said that more Scholars are liberally maintained upon the sole charge and charity of the several Founders and greater emoluments assigned for the encouragement of learning in England than can be said of any Kingdom in Europe how much larger and richer soever and I believe the Common-wealth of Learning in all other parts doth think and with great reason that all kinds of Learning are at this day in as great a heighth and perfection as they have been in any age in any Kingdom of the world and Mr. Cressy cannot forget though he doth not care to acknowledge that himself had his education in a Religious house founded by Walter Merton where he received a much more liberal and bountiful education and support than he hath ever had from S. Benedict and from whence he brought more learning than he hath found in any other place that he hath since inhabited or I doubt than he hath yet about him In this Religious house where I think he lived as many years as he hath done since under a worse discipline he had opportunity and obligation to consecrate himself to God in as much solitude as would contribute thereunto and to exercises of spiritual Prayer and mortification He was as much bound to chastity and to all kind of temperance as the severe Rules and Statutes of a magnificent Founder could oblige him and which he was likewise sworn to observe And I believe he under went as severe and a much more beneficial Novitiate there in which silence likewise was a part of the mortification as he did afterwards at Douay for I saw him in both those It is very true there and in all other Colledges if they found that the obligations they were under were stricter than they could submit to they are at liberty to quit those benefits their Founder hath bequeathed them and to dispose of themselves according to their inclinations otherwise they may enjoy the other to their lives end as very many do who prefer that solitude before the pleasures of the world It is very true that the Church and State of England did by observation and experience find that vows did not make people chast who would not be restrained by conscience of their duty to God and that those actions were not worthy the name of vertue and piety I speak still only of our own Country which were the effects of force and want of opportunity to decline them In a word the practice they had too much testimony and evidence of made them conclude that the mischief from those inclosures constraints and vows was greater and more apparent than the benefit and advantage and so they thought not fit to restrain that liberty which God and Nature did allow to all those persons who would decline the profit of those Communities in which they were possessed of them and betake themselves to another condition of life And I doubt not but Mr. Cressy knows that many learned Catholicks have always been and still are very averse to those vows and inclosures of Women which seems not to be much favoured by the Church it self the constitutions whereof require a greater number of years than are now required before they receive the vail and whether the scandalous lives of many Religious men abroad brings not a greater prejudice to the Religion they profess than their habit and vows brings honour to it I leave to his observation The other defect he finds in our Church of want of instructors and instructions for those in case God should call any one to such a state of life in solitude and exercises of spiritual prayer and mortification is yet more strange Without doubt if God doth in truth call any one to such a state of life he will not leave him destitute of instruction and
the infancy of the Church and did no great harm No doubt S. Paul wished that all who were to preach Christ had had the same thoughts and had used the same words and had had the same affection towards each other which unity would much have advanced the propagation of Christianity but he knew that was impossible and that different apprehensions and different conceptions must be always attended with difference of expressions whilst the birth and life and death and resurrection of Christ was taught though they who preached him had their own passions and prejudices towards each other he was still glad that the number of the Christians were increased There may be much good done in the world without taking its rise purely from Conscience and only to please others or to imitate others and the like may be done to anger and to cross and contradict other men and though the Authors of that good have lost their reward yet there is matter of rejoycing still that good is done It is very well worth our reflexion how little pains our Saviour took who well foresaw what disputations would arise concerning Religion to the end of the world to explain any doctrinal points or indeed to institute any thing of speculative doctrine in his Sermon upon the Mount which comprehends all Christianity but to resolve all into practice and his Apostles though they met with a world of questions and disputes and in the highest points of the mystery of Religion were very short in their answers and determination and left no room for any contention in the understanding upon any matter of faith it depending purely upon believing what was past and done and of which they received unquestionable evidence but in the application of this faith to practice they were large in their discourses and clear to remove all doubts they had observed into how many Schisms and Sects the Church of the Iews had run by their several interpretations of the Law and the Prophets of both which they had all equal veneration and from both gathered arguments enough to found an animosity against each other that vented it self in all the acts of uncharitableness and denunciation of Hell-fire to their opponents and they did all they could that the Gospel and the professors thereof might not be exposed to the like mischiefs by the same disputations Men might set their wits on work to raise doubts and scruples and improve them to what degree they please by the subtilty of their own invention they were difficulties of their own making not finding Christ and his Apostles left their Declarations of what we are to believe and what we are to do so clearly stated that we cannot dangerously mistake and so much the more clearly by informing us what we are not to believe and what we are not to do by the obligations of Christianity and as they did no doubt foresee the weakness and the wilfulness of the succeeding times and that men would make use of the Scriptures themselves to the prejudice of Religion they took care that they might know that there is much in them above their understanding and that they should govern themselves by what is easie plain to be understood therein and above all that they should not presume to censure and judge those who differ from them in their opinions because Christ hath reserved all those differences to be determined by himself and except it were inflicting Ecclesiastical censures upon corruption of manners and transgressing against Christian duties It was some Ages before the Church expressed any great severity upon differences in opinions and used such circumspection in the expressions upon their determinations as rather pleased all persons concerned than strictly defined the matter in controversie The Primitive Church never prescribed any other rule to themselves to judge by than the sacred Scriptures by consent of which they made all their definitions and determinations and as no man yet at least with any countenance of authority hath pretended to understand the intire meaning of any one of the Prophets so it was some time a long time before the Revelation of S. Iohn was received into the Canon of the Church for the difficulty of it and whosoever hath since undertaken to understand it hath received more censure than approbation from pious and learned men nor have they attained to credit enough to be believed Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee neither search the things that are above thy strength is very good counsel and proportioned to mens different faculties and understandings he that is stronger than I may search for things that are too hard for me and there is no harm in that search but I who am weaker am in no degree obliged to make that search nor shall fare the worse because I am so weak The Dialogue between the Angel and the Prophet Esdras may be very good Divinity thoughs it be contained in the Apocrypha He that dwelleth above the Heavens may only understand the things that are above the heighth of the Heavens The more thou searchest the more thou shalt marvel for the world hasteth fast to pass away and it cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in time to come Let us endeavour to do the things which we are plainly enjoyned to do and which we can very well comprehend at least let us forbear doing any thing which we are as plainly forbidden to do and we shall in due time obtain those things which for the present we cannot comprehend It hath been an artifice introduced to perplex mankind and to work upon the conscience by amusing and puzling the understanding to perswade men to believe that there is but one Church and one Religion in which men may be saved that by their confident averring themselves to be that Church and of that Religion others may be prevailed with to be of their party and they who with most passion abhor their presumption and so withdraw from their Communion adhere to the same unreasonable conclusion and will not suffer them to be a Church at all or capable of salvation and form their own Church upon those principles only which most contradict the other whereas there is room enough in Heaven for them all and we may charitably and reasonably believe that many of all Christian Churches will come thither and that too many of every one of them will be excluded from thence There is indeed as was said before but one faith which no authority upon Earth can change or suspend or dispence with but Religion which is the uniting or the being united of pious men in the profession of that Faith may be exercised in several and different forms and ways and with several ceremonies according to the constitutions and rules of the several Countries and Kingdoms where it is practised and there are so many Churches united in one and the same faith and methinks the very stile
and appellation used by the Apostles themselves should discountenance and abolish that quarrelsome proposition to the Church of or at Corinth at Ephesus at Philippi and other places to the seven Churches of Asia and it is observable that the Apostles in their method of writing and prescribing their rules and orders to the several Churches have a regard to the customs and natures of the several people and permit some things and for some time in one place and to one People which they do not to another they who succeeded them followed their example and did not only permit but encourage the People to all actions which they perceived did really contribute to and improve their Devotions and so many things which afterwards degenerated into Superstition had their original from fervent piety and innocent Devotion as some kinds of Worship and Forms of Adoration and an over easie belief of Miracles when there seemed less danger in that fervour which inflamed them than might have been in extinguishing that good Fire that warmed them by an over severe examining and refining the Fewel that had kindled it It is an unanswerable argument of the truth of Christian Religion of the Christian Faith that being so different from all things then known to Mankind and so much contradicting the very Principles of their belief and knowledge in very many things it should in so short a time possess the hearts of so many Millions of People of all Nations of both Sexes and of all Religions and as God did miraculously prepare and dispose the hearts of men to the reception of their faith so as a natural means to that operation he infused likewise into them a profound reverence for the Persons of those who published this Faith and informed the People of the mysteries and instructed them in the knowledge of it towards the Apostles and towards those who succeeded them and observed their Orders and followed their examples this Universal esteem of such Persons amongst all Christians created such an implicit belief in all they said and so intire a submission to all they required that Men were not less guided by them in all the affairs of humane life than in their determinations of the most spiritual matters which related to their Conscience and this general resignation continued in a great degree until Religion grew to be a faction and reproach amongst Christians themselves and the preaching it a Trade to live and to grow rich by and Men studied it for preferment and practised it for profit That unreasonable inconvenient and mischievous distinction of Ecclesiastical and Temporal as it exempts things and Persons from the Civil Iustice and the Soveraign Authority and as it erects another Tribunal and sets up another distinct Soveraign Iurisdiction Superiour and independant upon the other hath cost the Christian World very dear in Treasure and in blood and hath almost heaved that Government which ought to preserve the order and peace of Christendom off the Hinges That there are offences and crimes of an Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Nature according to the manner and custome of speaking and Persons who by their Functions to which they are assigned properly fall under the same distinctions is very true and very reasonable but that any such difference in the appellation should create a Schisme in the Government that the civil justice of the Kingdom should not have the full cognisance of either and both but that an other Supreme and Soveraign Iurisdiction should examine and determine those things and have the only authority to regulate reform and punish those Persons is such a solecisme such a contradiction indeed such a dissolution of all the principles and substantial frame of Government that there is not wherewithall left to prevent the highest and most dismal confusion that can be imagined for if the same Treason may not be determined before the same Tribunal because of the difference and distinction of the Persons who are guilty of it if the Soveraign power over the Nation have only power to judge and condemn the Laymen who Rebel and the Clergy which hath fomented it the Church-men who have preached it up as lawful and necessary and justifiable may appeal from that justice to another jurisdiction which it may be wished good success to that undertaking which is now condemned however will not be obliged to the same rules of judging which were to confess it self inferiour Is it not possible that the same offence may be condemned and justified and one Man legally commended and preferred for the same action for which the other is censured and executed Kings and Queens can never be the Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers of the Church if they themselves shall be kept as Children in the Nursery of the Vicar of that Church if he shall exercise a Soveraignty above the Soveraignty they have in their own Dominions Aaron had a function of his own Offices to perform which were proper to him and to his Tribe after him but he was inferiour to Moses Moses had the power over him and it was well he had so had it been otherwise he who was so ready to gratifie the people in their impious desire of having Gods to walk before them and had no other excuse for not only permitting but contriving their abominable Idolatry but that the people were set on mischief and said unto him make us Gods and he said unto them whoever hath any Gold let them break it off so they gave it he cast it into the Fire and out came the Calf which they worshipped before the Altar which he built before it what would not this Man have done that the People would have required and if Moses had not been the Soveraign to have examined and punished this foul transgression Idolatry had probably been established as a Law by God's own High Priest and as by his own Commandement He who had the presumption to murmur and speak against Moses as Aaron did would have rebelled against him if God himself had not given him such a reprehension as made him tremble Wherefore were you not afraid to speak against my Servant Moses the speech was but between two but it would hardly have been stilled if God had not stopped their Mouths and struck his joynt murmurer with Leprosie and sent him to ask mercy of Moses It is no undervaluing the persons or their functions to say it were better for the Successors of Aaron and for the Successors of St. Peter and for the things and Persons which are committed to their charge if they as their Predecessors were were subject to a superiour visitation which is more like and more able to reform things as they grow amiss and to prevent dangerous innovations in Church as well as in the State and surely that Soveraign power which is trusted by God to provide for the peace and prosperity and security of a Nation if it cannot as well prevent and punish those enormities which grow up in the
Church from the corruption of Doctrine and contentions and contradictions in the practice of Religion as any exorbitancies in state is so far from being soveraign that he holds upon the matter the little authority he hath in other things but precariò of him who hath the exercise of the other jurisdiction And as this mischief and confusion is very demonstrable to all men who understand the foundation and rules of Policy and Government so the benefits which accrew from this distinction are not discernable by the eyes of reason or of faith Temporal Princes and Kings cannot have authority to change Religion nor are qualified to perform the Offices and functions of Religion that 's true Nor hath any Ecclesiastical and Spiritual power authority to change Religion The Pope whom some Men call the Church nor a General Council which no doubt is the most natural representative of the Universal Church doth not pretend that they can change Religion Our Saviour left our Religion intire and the Apostles left all things so plain which he directed that no power under Heaven can add to or take from that body of Religion which they commended to all Christians nor can it be more reasonably imagined that God will suffer any Christian state to make such an alteration than that the Universal Church shall fall away from being Christian but if Christianity were deposited with one Church-man or any body of Church-men we have too much reason to apprehend what would become of it by the progress Arianisme once and other Heresies too made in the World by possessing many great and learned Men even of the Fathers themselves So that we may say that the purity of Christian Religion hath been in truth preserved by the piety of Princes with the advice and assistance of their National and Ecclesiastical Councils more than by any spiritual authority Religion it self then must not cannot be changed but the advancement of it the information in it the exercise and practice by which it is best to be made manifest cannot be so well provided for as by that supreme soveraign authority to which God hath intrusted the peace and prosperity of a Nation which best knows how to establish such formes and ceremonies and circumstances in what pertains to Religion as are most agreeable to the nature and inclination and disposition of a people A conformity in humours and in manners is a great introduction to conformity in Religion and will not suffer the pride and affectation and singularity of any man to contradict the order established This Soveraign Authority knows best how to preserve Peace in which the being of a Nation consists and how to reform errors which are grown and prevent those which are growing by such ways as may not disturb that peace and such errours as are grown too obstinate are too deep rooted to be pulled up without shaking the whole peace of the Kingdom he will let alone drawing by degrees such nourishment from it as most cherishes it until a fitter season for the intire cure of it No Reformation is worth the charge of a Civil War Nor was it a light reproach which Seneca charged upon Sylla Qui patriam durioribus remediis quam pericula erant sanavit The Remedy was worse than the Disease and God knows Christianity hath paid very dear for the too hasty and passionate application of remedies to very confessed diseases when the disease was not ripe for the remedy nor the remedy proportioned to the disease State surgery cannot be used with too much caution nor are the wounds and sores of it cured at once or with one kind of medicine but the lenitives and corrosives must be applied successively and if the first will do it there cannot be too little used of the latter No sore is so ill cured as that which is hastily cured There is no necessity nor convenience that the outward exercise and forms of Religion be the same in all climates and in all Countries Nay it is very necessary that it be different according to the natures and customes of the people It would be very incongruous where genuflexion is neither the posture of reverence or devotion to introduce a command for kneeling and there are many particulars worthy of the same consideration They do equally mistake who believe that the out-works of Religion must be equally with the same passion guarded and preserved as the walks themselves that no form or ceremony or circumstance in Religion may not be altered or parted with more than the faith it self and they who would be always mending and altering and reforming according to every model description they meet with as a thing indifferent and only to please the fancies of men where there is no indifference there may be alterations made by and according to the wisdom of the Government and as the good Order and peace of the Nation requires and with the same gravity and deliberation as all other mutations and provisions are made but there must be out-works still and such as may secure the walls from rude approaches every fanciful Engineer must not demolish the out-works upon pretence they are too high or too irregular nor must the decency of the prospect so much transport others as not to suffer the least alteration in them though thereby the walls would be the better garded No one Classis of men will dispassionately weigh all necessary consideration in this matter but that authority which must provide for the publick peace is the most competent provider for this branch of it It is no irreverence to the purest times to believe that in the first plantation of Christian Religion I speak not of infusion of Christian Religion into the Apostles and the inspiration by the Holy Ghost but of the plantation of it by the Apostles and those who succeeded them by the strength of their reason and the powerful effects of their lives and actions the same method and order and application was used and observed as is in other Plantations The Sun and the Soil are first consulted and husbandry practised accordingly in the sowing of Seeds or setting of Plants and that husbandry altered and improved according to seasons and upon observation and experience what is most like to advance the Plantation If ever the Spaniard loses the West Indies which it is probable enough he will do it will be by his positive and rigorous adhering to the same rules which were most prudently established by Philip the Second upon the first conquest of that Empire and under which the Infant Plantation prospered exceedingly and not admitting any such material alterations since as would produce more benefit and advantage now than the other did then and which time and the people will make if the policy of the Government do not first introduce it and then it is very hazardous that the presumption of doing it will shake off that authority that should have done it It may be observed in the
think never saw that excellent Person to take upon them to asperse a Noble man of the most Prodigious learning of the most exemplar manners and singular good nature of the most unblemished integrity and the greatest Ornament of the Nation that any Age hath produced with the Character of a Socinian Mr. Cressy well knows that before that time of his Journey into Ireland in the Year One thousand six hundred thirty eight that Noble Lord had perused and read over all the Greek and Latine Fathers and was indefatigable in looking over all Books which with great expence he caused to be transmitted to him from all parts and so could not have been long without Mr. Dallies Book if Cressy's presenting it to him had not given him opportunity to have raised this scandal upon his memory nor could that Book have been so grateful to him if he had not read the Fathers For Mr. Chillingworth if Mr. Cressy had not been very wary in saying any thing that might redound to the honour of any of the present Prelates he cannot but know that the present Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had first reclaimed him from his doubtings and they were no more nor had he ever declared himself a Catholick except being at S. Omers amounts to such a Declaration before ever he was sent for by Arch-Bishop Laud and I am very much deceived which I think I am not in that particular if Chillingworth's Book against Mr. Knott was not published before the time of Cressy's Journey in thirty eight into Ireland and I know had been perused by him and therefore Mr. Dallies Book could not interrupt him in his study of the Fathers nor induce him to fix his mind upon Socinian grounds which now serves his turn to reproach all men and the Church of England it self for refusing to believe his miracles or to submit to that authority to whose blind guiding he hath lazily given up himself and all his faculties Yet he does so much honour to those grounds that he does confess that they obstructed a good while his entrance into the Catholick Church the contrary whereof I know to be true as much as negative can be true and that he never thought of entring into the Religion he now professes till long after the death of the Lord Falkland and Mr. Chillingworth nor till the same rebellious power that drove the King out of the Kingdom drove him likewise from the good preferments which he enjoyed in the Church and then the necessity and distraction of his fortune together with the melancholick and irresolution in his nature prevailed with him to bid farewell to his own reason and understanding and to resign himself to the conduct of those who had a much worse than his If the having read Socinus and the commending that in him which no body can reasonably discommende in him and the making use of that reason that God hath given a man for the examining of that which is most properly to be examined by reason and to avoid the weak arguments of some men how superciliously soever insisted upon or to discover the fallacies of others be the definition of a Socinian the party will be very strong in all Churches but if a perfect detestation of all those Opinions against the Person and Divinity of our Saviour or any other doctrine that is contrary to the Church of England and the Church of England hath more formally condemned Socinianism than any other Church hath done as appears by the Canons of One thousand six hundred and forty can free a man from that reproach as without doubt it ought to do I can very warrantably declare that that unparallel'd Lord was no Socinian nor is it possible for any man who is a true Son of the Church of England to be corrupted with any of those Opinions But in truth if Mr. Cressy hath that Prerogative in Logick as to declare men to be Socinians from some propositions which he calls Principles which in his judgment will warrant those deductions though he confesses he does not suspect the Doctor will approve such consequences yet he is confident with all his skill he cannot avoid them that is he is a Socinian before he is aware of it and in spight of his teeth this is such an excess in the faculty of arguing as must make him a dangerous Neighbour and qualifies him excellently to be a Commissioner of the Inquisition who have often need of that kind of subtilty that will make Heresies which they cannot find All this invention is to perswade his new friends of that which they call the old Religion that his old Friend's Religion is new that they have no reverence for antiquity no regard for the Authority of the Fathers and only make use of their natural reason to find out a new Religion for themselves whereas in truth whoever will impartially and dispassionately make the enquiry shall find that there is no one substantial controversie between the Roman and the Church of England but what is matter of Novelty and hath no foundation in Antiquity and that the Fathers are more diligently read and studied in our Church than they are in theirs and more reverence is paid to them by us than by them though neither they nor we nor any other Christian Church in the World do submit or concur in all that the Fathers have taught who were never all of one mind and therefore may very lawfully have their reasons examined by the reasons of other men This that I say concerning the reading and the reverence paid to the Fathers ought to be believed till they can produce one Prelate or Member of the Church of England who hath ever used such contemptuous words of the Fathers Ego ut ingenuè fatear plus uno summo Pontifici crederem in his quae fidei mysteria tangunt quà m mille Augustinis Ieronymis Gregoriis c. Credo enim scio quòd summus Pontifex in his quae fidei sunt non posse errare quoniam authoritas determinandi quae ad fidem spectant in Pontifice residet which are the words of Cornelius Mussus an Italian Bishop and much celebrated amongst them for his extraordinary learning in Epis. ad Rom. cap. 14. pa. 606. Michael Medina a man as eminent in the Council of Trent as any who sate there in the debate whether a Bishop was Superiour to a Presbyter jure Ecclesiastico or jure Divino when they who sustained the former alledged Saint Ierome and S. Augustine to support their opinion Medina said aloud Non mirum esse si isti nonnulli alii Patres re nondum eo tempore illustratâ in eam haeresim incidissent How would Mr. Cressy and his Friends insult if a Doctor of the Church of England should publish in Print by the authority of the Church Illud asserimus quo juntores eo perspicaciores esse Doctores contra hanc quam objectant multitudinem Respondemus inquit ex verbo
life but there are too many particulars in the lives of the Saints to charge the Church with believing and therefore it may be wondered at that they are so much countenanced But the instance I would insist upon is our Ladies House at Lauretta which is alledged to have remained still at Nazareth till after the year twelve hundred time enough to have reduced the greatest Palaces into dust but that after that time some Catholick writers name the year when it begun its journey it was taken by Angels the very house in which the lived and had received the salutation from the Angel and carried to a mountain in Dalmatia and at three stages more whereof one was a wood belonging to a widow named Lauretta many years rest intervening it was brought to and left in the place where it now stands and where it is covered with the most rich and very beautiful Church which for the good widows sake in whose wood it rested some years is called Lauretta and where her Image and her House receives visits and very rich presents from all parts where the Catholick Religion is professed for the reception and entertainment whereof a good Town is built several Religious houses Pilgrimages made thither from far and near and hereby that people may without going so far as Nazareth see the house of our Ladies abode the Church in Plate and Jewels is richer than any other in the world not to speak of the incredible number of miracles which have been wrought there since the miraculous coming of that Cottage thither I dare not ask Mr. Cressy whether he doth believe this wonderful voyage or progress because I dare not say he doth not since he hath brought his reason and his judgment into such a marvellous captivity but I would presume to ask whether the Church as it can be contracted into that denomination for if the Pope be enough the Church to declare Heresies and determine controversies which are yet undetermined methinks he should be Church enough to answer questions and in this particular he is more concerned for being a Soveraign temporal Prince in his own Dominions as well as the Supreme Prelate he is in some degree answerable for the discretion and the good manners as well as the Religion and the Faith of his subjects May we ask whether it may be presumed that he and his Consistory with which he consults in matters of importance that he doth believe this miracle or may it be presumed he doth not To say he doth believe it is to accuse him of such an impotency of understanding as the most illiterate Frier is hardly guilty of as to imagine that a thing so monstrous in nature and so impertinent as to any pious or prudent effect can be true To say that God can do as much is an answer that may as well support the most notorious fiction that is in Ovid's Metamorphosis and it may be as well replied that God if he had done it would have provided some such witnesses in the way as should have made it manifest that he had done it whereas they who have been at so prodigious a charge in beautifying and enriching that little mansion have not yet been able to purchase one Record of so long a voyage but satisfie themselves that they who take the pains to come thither do easily believe it whereas more go thither to see those who do pretend to believe it than to see the Relique that draws men thither I never spoke with any Roman Catholick who knew so much of the story as I have here mentioned for most that have been there or have heard of the stories of it have heard no more than that our Ladies own House is there and for ought they know Nazareth may be within three miles of it who hath pretended to believe it he was not bound to it it was not of Divine faith it might be of humane and Historical faith I ask him whether he believes it as much as he doth that Iulius Caesar was Emperor of Rome That he cannot say neither In a word most Catholicks laugh at it as much as I do and many of them are as angry at it so that I suppose it may become us to conclude that the Pope doth not believe it to be true or rather that he knows it to be a fiction and if that be so with what conscience and sincerity can he suffer or indeed permit such a Pageantry to be acted in his Territories to the delusion of so many millions of Christians and to the scandal and opprobrium of Religion in exposing the dignity of the Mother of our Lord to so much derision only for his own benefit and advantage for it 's no small revenue that accrews to the Pope's Exechequer by the visitation and adoration of that Mansion of our Lady Many come to Rome in a year for no other reason than that they may worship our Lady at Lauretta and many go thither immediately without going to Rome as lately a great Ecclesiastical Prince did and returned without so much as seeing the Pope after he had for the cure of his Hypochondriack indisposition liberally presented our Lady with as many Jewels as are worth above five thousand pounds Sterling which she could not but receive very graciously yet his infirmity hath encreased ever since though it may be his Present hath much added to the devotion of the place for the fight of the richness of the Copes and Plate and other Utensils is a great part of the business of the Visitants Though it was a very pertinent scoffe upon the occasion that was used by a Legate in France who was afterwards Pope himself when he passed in state through that Kingdom and found all passages thronged with people who upon their knees implored and expected his benediction he repeated it often with the usual ceremony of making the sign of the Cross with these reiterated words Sivulgus vult decipi decipiatur however I say it might be a proper benediction for such occasion in the high-way yet to induce men to so solemn Pilgrimages and to the performance of so solemn acts of devotion there ought to be some such solid and substantial foundation of it as may be a support to real piety which can hardly be imagined in this case and I cannot tell whether it were not rather to be wished that the Pope and Cardinals and Prelates of the Roman Court did at the expence of their reputation really believe all that Machine than suffer it to be shewed without their own believing it at the expence of their sanctity at least of their ingenuity Nor could it seem strange to any man if an honest man of a good understanding who hath not been moped in his education with such discourses and hath in the pursuit of his own satisfaction fallen into some doubts of things practised in his own shall if he had no other exception to it refuse to cast himself into
of the Essence of Religion and reject only some Canons which are indifferent for if any thing remains indifferent after the determination of the Council and may therefore be rejected it is manifest that the jurisdiction is not in the Council though confirmed by the Pope but in that power that rejects it and judges of the indifferency For his invitation of the Doctor to a Christening that a Colledge in Cambridge may have another name given to it than it is now called by S. Bennet or Corpus Christi Colledge the wit of it is enough answered when taken notice of The last Paragraph of his Postscript is a pure piece of Oratory and may be in imitation of no worse an Orator than Caesar himself who when he had tried all fair and foul means threats and promises to draw Cicero to his party and found it was impossible to engage him to be active against Pompey he only considered how to make him Neutral to sit still without doing any thing in the quarrel and writ to him Neque tutius neque honestius reperies quidquam quà m ab omni contentione abesse So Mr. Cressy after he hath heaped more ill words upon the Doctor and applied more reproachful Epithets to his grave and learned person and stile than hath been gathered together in so small a volume within these nine and twenty years he concludes his Postscript with desiring him to consider that Almighty God commands us to love Peace and Truth and then gravely informs him how they ought always to go together and left his too civil address to him should more work upon him than would become an adversary he quickens him for the better application of his Text by telling him that since he hath demolished all Tribunals in Gods Church which might peaceably end controversies and had endeavoured as much as in him lay to banish peace eternally from among Christians it was expected from him that he should give some testimony to the world that he is at least a seeker and promoter of truth and so proceeds very Rhetorically to perswade him that he doth not himself believe any thing that he says to others because he is too reasonable a man and of too great abilities to think that such a Book as his last can convert any Catholick who cannot read without trembling at the blasphemy of it and without a horrible aversion from one who would make their Church and their Faith odious Indeed I believe they will suffer very few of their Proselytes to read that or any other of his Books which may open their eyes or inform them of the darkness they are in If Mr. Cressy's word may be taken as no doubt it will he will tell them of blasphemies that may make them tremble though he hath not in his whole answer named one but if a man will not that is cannot give credit to all the stories which are told of S. Bennet and S. Francis he is streight a blasphemer of Gods Saints as he who will not submit to the authority of the Bishop of Rome demolishes all Tribunals in Gods Church which might peaceably end controversies and endeavours to banish peace eternally from amongst Christians whereas it is only that Tribunal that hinders and obstructs the peace which but for that judicatory would be generally imbraced The counsel I would now give to Mr. Cressy will consist in two kinds the first with reference to himself purely the second with reference to the cause If he thinks fit any more to write against the Church of England which I do not disswade him from that he will state truly and clearly the difference between it and the Church of Rome which he hath never yet done I advise him to remember that he hath been a member and son of the Church of England cherished and educated in her during the most vigorous part of his age and that he ows to that education all the learning he hath I will charitably believe that he saw or thought he saw good reason to withdraw himself from her Communion and that he is satisfied in his conscience with his present state of separation let it be so why should that hinder him from living fairly and civilly towards her It is an ungenerous thing to fall from streight embraces to publick revilings Men of honour after they have contracted friendships with each other for a long time and afterwards find cause from some mutation in manners and upon discovery of infirmities with which they can no longer comply to live at a greater distance towards each other to repose less confidence than they used to do and by degrees to grow strangers they yet retain such a decent behaviour that standers by can scarce discover any alteration of affections in them they are never heard to speak ill to traduce or disgrace one another and believe that it is a debt and duty due to their former friendship never to undervalue each others parts or to bring the honour of either into question common prudence and good breeding prevents those excesses and methinks in Religion the same temper should have a greater influence and Mr. Cressy should for his own sake allow some beauty to have been in the Church that did so long detain him and not desire to render her so ugly and deformed as takes away any excuse from any body for staying so long in her company This I expected from his natural genius and from the conversation he frequented where bitterness of words was never allowable towards men whose opinions were very different and if any new illumination hath perswaded him that such urbanity is not consistent with the zeal that Religious discourses should be warmed with he should suspect it for delusion He hath an excellent example given him by a Catholick learned and Reverend Bishop the present Bishop and Prince of Condun who treats an enemy more inferiour to him and more liable to reproach than the Church of England can be imagined to be to Mr. Cressy with such condescension and humanity as if they stood upon the same level with him And no question those strokes make a deeper impression upon all ingenuous men than louder blows and are with more difficulty repelled Whereas Mr. Cressy like a rude and blustering wind disturbs all sorts of men who stand near him offends and provokes all Classes of men with his unnecessary choler What can the King think to see his Laws and Government so vilified by his scornful expressions to hear his Royal Ancestor whose obsequies were kept and observed at Nostre Dame in Paris with the highest solemnity by the first great King France ever had in spight of the Pope's Excommunication called a Tyrant by one of his own subjects What can all the Protestant Nobility and Prelates of England think to see the Ecclesiastical and Civil Laws of the Church and State despised and trampled upon by a man who could not live an hour in that Air but by the
Romish Religion in that Kingdom he will not take it ill that I put him in mind that as the Hugonots have great obligations to his most Christian Majesty their true and lawful King for his clemency and justice towards them in defending and protecting them in the enjoyment and possession of all those rights priviledges and immunities which are granted to them by the Law of the Land so they do enjoy no more liberty than by that Law is due nor can it be taken from them without a bare-faced violation of the Law which is of no more force to defend the Subjects in their other possessions than it is to defend the Hugonots in the exercise of their Religion and yet with all this right and legal title to protection no Hugonot in France dares revile the Bishops or the Magistrate much less the Religion that is established there nor mention the Laws without reverence or do any thing that is scandalous to the government or that is not allowed by the Law whereas a Benedictine Monk who by being so hath renounced his subjection to his King by chusing other Superiors for himself with obedience to whom his obedience to the King is inconsistent who hath deserted the Religion and the Church in which he hath been educated and to which he hath vowed subjection and in that respect cannot but be less acceptable than those who have never been subject to it who is so obnoxious to the Laws that he cannot securely live one day or set his foot in England notwithstanding all which this man hath the courage to enter into it publickly to defie the Laws traduce the Government treat the Bishops and the reverend Clergy and the Christian Religion that is established there by Law and all the professors of it with those scoffs and derision and contempt as if they were Turks and Pagans and if he had a warrantable mission to convert them would not yet in common prudence and discretion become him and seems contrary to any good and Christian intention and all this while in his triumphant stile as if he had subdued all Protestant Churches he complains lamentably of the cruel persecution against Catholicks God be thanked the King hath many good Catholick subjects of another temper of spirit who with all duty acknowledge the goodness and indulgence of the King in permitting them to live with that ease and security that they have enjoyed from the time of his Majesties blessed restoration without any distinction between them and any other of his subjects and desire nothing more than the continuance of the same ease and protection and take care to provide and warily entertain Confessors of the same humble and grateful spirit Is there one Roman Catholick in England of the Laity or the Clergy that hath suffered in the least degree in his Person or his Estate for being a Roman Catholick whether many have not gotten by it who would not have been considered under any other title many men do doubt since the time of his Majesties blessed restoration Did they ever enjoy the like tranquillity for a quarter of that time since the Reformation The King looked upon many of them as persons who had deserved well from his blessed Father and himself which cannot be denied and upon the rest as good subjects and upon all of them as men who had suffered with him if not for him in the late barbarous times of Usurpation His Majesty graciously remembred the humanity he had found in many Catholick Countries and from some Catholick Princes who always besought him not to be severe to his Catholick subjects when God should restore them to his protection and it was not agreeable to the gentleness and clemency of his Majesties nature when he pardoned all the breach and contempt and violation of the Laws almost to the highest and foulest transgressors upon his arrival to awaken those Laws for the destruction of his poor Catholick subjects which upon the matter had slept even in that season of Tyranny though a more arbitrary power had been exercised for their ruine as well as for theirs who had been most active and faithful to him And the whole Nation was as well content with that his Majesties lenity and did not think it reasonable that the general and universal joy which filled the hearts of all men with the blessing of the Kings return should be eclipsed or interrupted by the tears and sighs of their Roman Catholick neighbours and that they who had born their full share in the late persecutions should undergo new vexations by the exacting those penalties which they were liable to by Laws which had been necessary to be provided against them in times wherein there was more cause to be jealous of them than they hoped there was or would be hereafter This cannot be denied to be the case of the Roman Catholicks in England for many years after the Kings return until the rude and boisterous behaviour of some of them disturbed the happy calm they all enjoyed and the vanity and folly of others made that ill use of the Kings bounty and generosity towards them that they endeavoured to make it believed that it proceeded not from charity and compassion towards their persons but from affection to their Religion and took upon them to reproach the Church of England and all who adhered to it as if they had been in a condition as well as a disposition to oppress it and to affront and discountenance all who would adhere to it and so alienated the affections of those who desired they should not be disquieted and kindled a jealousie in others who had believed that they were neither able or willing to disturb the publick peace to think that they were willing to attempt it and had more power to compass it than was discerned This hath changed the face of that affair and even compelled his Majesty to with-draw that countenance from them that he was willing should have been more propitious to them if they had known how modestly and innocently to have been happy under the shadow of it and this mischief the wisest and the soberest Catholicks of England have long foreseen would be the effect of that petulant and unruly spirit that swayed too much amongst them and did all they could to restrain it and Mr. Cressy shall do well to revolve how much he hath contributed to this storm which seems to have a little shaken the repose they were in and to take heed that the Catholicks of England may not undergo more prejudice from the distempered carriage and behaviour of him and two or three more for no body is incensed against those who with gravity and sobriety defend and maintain the Religion they profess who have contracted a scurrilous stile that hath been long laid aside and declined in such debates to exalt themselves in against the Religion of the Kingdom and those who are obliged to defend it than could be brought upon them by any