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
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
a short time they vanished and were no more heard of What was urged or insinuated by any Men of discretion and understanding that might make any impression upon sober unwary and misinformed Men was carefully and learnedly answered by Persons assigned to that purpose that the Church or the State might not undergoe any prejudice by want of seasonable advice without mingling any of the others froth or dregs in their compositions which they left to the chastisement of those who could as dexterously manage the same weapons and were fitter for their company And methinks grave and serious men or they who ought to be grave and serious should be afraid of imitating such adversaries in their licence and excesses lest they should get into a scoffing vein which they should not easily shake off or lose their credit with worthy Men for dishonouring the cause they maintain ironically A man will hardly be thought provident enough or solicitous for his own peace and credit who having discovered this unruly frantick disease will expose himself to the malignity thereof by approaching so near the company of those angry Wasps and Hornets who are like to be willing to take any opportunity to be revenged upon a Person who hath presumed to be offended with their manner of writing and in the same instant submitted his own to their censure which is like to be liable to as many exceptions of weakness and impertinence To which I shall only say that whatever other faults they shall discover in this short writing of mine they shall not find the same of which I complain I shall give no body ill words nor provoke them by contemning their Persons and I chuse rather to be at their mercy than not to endeavour the best way I can to divert men from that indecent way of reviling each other and instead of answering Arguments to traduce the Persons who urge them Truth is of so tender and delicate a constitution that it is defiled by rude handling and hath advantage enough to encounter and conquer its adversaries by the vigour of its own beauty without aspersing the deformity of the other farther than unavoidable reason makes it manifest I shall not interpose in those Arguments which are now most agitated in that scurrilous style that I complain of but chuse to take upon me to make Animadversions upon a Book lately published at least lately come to my sight Intituled Fanaticism Fanatically imputed to the Church of England by Doctor Stillingfleet and the imputation Refuted and Retorted by S. C. The Author whereof professes himself an avowed Enemy to the Church of England and would be thought as much an enemy to the foul custom introduced into the Controversies concerning it and the liberty men assume to deride Religion instead of vindicating it to wound the profession by a petulant and scornful mention of the Professors and by expressions full of pride and vanity and destructive to peace and government and yet how contrary soever this way of writing is to his practice and inclination he hath some jealousie of himself that upon the insupportable provocation he hath received some phrases of bitterness may have scaped his Pen which he doth believe he hath very good authority not to make any excuse for and there being such plenty of that noisom Gall scattered throughout his whole discourse it will be but just to take a view of his provocation and whether his revenge be no more than proportionable to the occasion and then whether the imputation be not rather confidently retorted than reasonably refuted and whether in the endeavoring the one or the other the bounds and limits of all modesty and civility are not so far transgressed that the Author is liable to just censure I do the rather enter into the List upon this occasion because I may infallibly presume that I know the Author of that Discourse for I no sooner read it which was long after it was published but that it was manifest to me by many particulars contained in it in which I cannot be deceived that it is written by Mr. Cressy with whom I have been acquainted very near fifty years and have very long esteemed him for his parts and learning and for his good nature and his good manners all of which were in as great perfection then as they have been ever since or are at present and therefore as I shall treat him with that candor that becomes an old Friend so I do not suspect his reception and interpretation of it will be such as is worthy of that temper of spirit which he professes to be of nor do I despair of presenting some considerations and reflections to him which may so work upon it as to induce him to believe that both in regard of the matter it self and the manner of treating Dr. Stillingfleet he hath swarved very much from those Rules which he prescribes to others and pretends to observe himself and then the tenderness of his own Conscience will instruct him what reparation he ought to make But before I enter into the debate I must first declare that the Religion I profess and defend is the Religion of the Church of England and not the particular opinions much less the expressions of any member of it how worthy soever and Mr. Cressy who professes to be an adversary to it ought to insist only upon what is owned and avowed by her and not hope to wound her through the sides or by the weakness or passions of those who have deserted her or still adhere to her And in the second place that I do not take upon me to write against the Catholick Church of which the Church of England is a vital part or against the Religion professed in any Catholick Country but against the Roman Catholick Subjects of his Majesties Dominions whose Religion I take to be different from that which is professed and established in any Catholick Country in Europe and disavowed by all the Catholick Countries out of Europe And one of the principal reasons that engages me in this Discourse is to endeavour to draw the dispute that is between the Church and the Laws of England and his Majesties Subjects of his own Dominions who profess to be of the Roman Faith into a narrower room and within that compass that properly contains it And I have always thought that they have had too much countenance and too great a latitude allowed them in reducing the contest to what concerns all the members of the Roman Church equally with themselves as if the Roman Catholicks of England withdraw their obedience from the Kings authority and oppose the Laws of the Land so much to the damage of their Estates and the danger of their lives if the Laws were prosecuted against them only for the support and in the defence of the cause common to all other Catholicks Whereas I say the difference between us depends wholly upon the personal authority of the Pope within the Kings
Dominions which is an argument never used for the support of the Catholick Religion if it were all Catholicks must be of the same opinion It was that and that only that first made the Schism and still continues it and is the ground of all the animosity of the English Catholicks against the Church of England and produced their separation from it and if they will renounce all that personal authority in the Pope and any obedience to it within his Majesties obedience which I say again is not admitted in any other Catholick Kingdom they will purge themselves of all such jealousie or suspicion of their fidelity as may prove dangerous to the Kingdom and against which the Laws are provided their opinions of Purgatory or Transubstantiation would never cause their Allegiance to be suspected more than any other error in Sence Grammar or Philosophy if those opinions were not instances of their dependance upon another Jurisdiction foreign and inconsistent with their duty to the King and destructive to the peace of the Kingdom and in that sence and relation the Politick Government of the Kingdom takes notice of those opinions which yet are not enquired into or punished for themselves let them disclaim that and they will find themselves at great ease This is the only Argument I wish should be insisted on between us and our fellow-subjects of the Roman profession not that I think that the other Doctrinal points between the two Churches are not worthy the insisting upon but that as much hath been said already upon them on both sides and as convincingly as is necessary Nothing new can be added at least no man will be convinced with what shall be added who is not moved with what is already said nor doth the meer difference upon any of those points naturally produce that uncharitableness those animosities of which we complain towards each other No man was ever truly and really angry otherwise than the warmth and multiplication of words in the dispute produced it with a man who believed Transubstantiation more than he would be with another who should come into a room where he was reading by a Candle and swear that the room was so dark that he could not see his hand but when he will for the support of this Paradox introduce an authority for the imperious determination thereof that the Word of God hath not commanded men to submit to and the word of Man the Law of the Land hath positively forbidden them to submit to it is no wonder if passion breaks in at this door and kindles a Fire strong enough to consume the House This is the Hinge upon which all the other controversies between us and the English Catholicks do so intirely hang and depend that if that only were taken off all the rest would quickly fall to the ground and therefore it concerns Mr. Cressy and the rest of his friends to fasten and make that Hinge strong that it may support the rest from falling And I cannot but observe how unwillingly they are brought to touch this point or if they do it is so lightly as if it were too hot for their fingers and upon the necessity of a through examination of this material Argument I shall be obliged to inlarge in the Conclusion of this Discourse There is another reason that hath principally invited me to this unequal undertaking that is my Zeal to the Church of England and a compassion of the very ill condition it is reduced to by an unworthy conspiracy that was never before entred into against it or any other established Church in undervaluing whatsoever is written by any Clergy-man how learned and vertuous soever in defence of it as if he were a party and spoke only in his own interest so that they who would undermine it by all the foul and dishonest arts imaginable have the advantage to be considered as Persons engaged in that accompt meerly and purely by the impulsion of their Consciences and for the discovery of such dangerous errors as are dangerous to the Souls of men whilst they who are most obliged and are best able to refute those vain and malicious pretences and to detect the fraud and the ignorance of those Seditious undertakers are looked upon as men not to be believed at least partial and that all they say is said on their own behalf This is a sad truth and a new Engine to make a Battery at which Atheism may enter without opposition with all its instruments and attendants that would make Christianity it self ridiculous that it may be contemptible God forbid that this Scarcrow should impose silence upon or seal up the mouths of any Learned and worthy Clergy-man who should open them the wider for this combination and contribute the more to the assistance and vindication of the best constituted Church in the world because it is in a distress by mockers and scoffers and neutral or unconcerned persons who make the approaches and sap the ground to open the way and make the access the more easie for more declared Enemies to oppress and destroy it This hath been a motive to me who have neither dependance upon or relation to any Clergy-man nor any temptation to imbark my self in this quarrel but my love of truth and the most abstracted duty to my Country and likewise because I think though the Clergy is best able to judge of any difficulties in matters of Religion the Laity is equally engaged in the consequences which will inevitably attend any prejudices it shall undergo or be exposed to and therefore ought in time to contribute their talent towards the securing it and not stand idle spectators of those stratagems which are no less designed against the State than the Church In the last place the particular esteem I have of the profound Learning and integrity of Dr. Stillingfleet to whom I am very little known and his great merit towards the Church of England whose worthy Champion he will not be thought the less for the untrue aspersions Mr. Cressy hath presumed to cast upon him and which will easily be wiped off hath disposed me to interpose in his Vindication which is so much due to him from other Men that I wish he may not trouble himself with it And having now observed Mr. Cressy's own method in giving first account of the reasons and motives which have prevailed with me for this engagement for which I cannot alledge another that was most powerful with him obedience to certain friends whose commands he ought in no wise to resist since I may honestly declare that no Friend I have is privy to my purpose or knows what I am doing I make hast to wait upon him by his own stages and shall make no excuse for not affixing my name to what I write which I do purposely decline not by the example of S. C. but by the assurance I have that the publishing my name would be so far from bringing any advantage to the cause
that contribution should not take well Besides that as in the time of S. Bennet which may be reckoned to be about the year Five Hundred and Fifty Learning did in no degree flourish so it grew less and less for Seven Hundred years after his time or near so much even to the Age in which Erasmus lived who knew the talent of the Monks and Friers very well And truly I think Mr. Cressy's Superiors may believe that he hath taken too much pains in collecting a bundle of reproaches of a false pretender to Visions Miracles and Inspirations and an ignorant fool to be cast upon their Founder not one of which is laid to his charge by the Doctor and must therefore be imputed to another Author and he hath less reason to imagine that those reproaches must fall upon S. Gregory because he confirmed the Rules and writ the life of S. Bennet both which he might do without being guilty of either of those imputations He never knew S. Bennet and confirmed his Rules long after his death which makes some Catholick Writers believe that the Rules were in truth not made by S. Benedict and a known Catholick Antiquary Mr. Broughton takes upon him to pronounce that S. Gregory himself was never a Monk of that Order which is a greater affront to it than any that the Doctor hath put upon it I do not know but that the Church of England hath a just reverence and esteem of the learning and of the piety of S. Gregory and a greater than Mr. Cressy hath as will appear anon however as the most learned men who write many Books seldom write all with the same perfection and accurateness of judgment and their Readers do not look upon all with the same estimation so many do not believe and I doubt not many Catholicks that S. Gregorie's Dialogue of the Life of S. Bennet is for the learning or judgment of it equal to the rest of his Works But Mr. Cressy is very hard to be pleased who hath been so very angry with the Doctor for the rudeness and incivility of his language and is now no less displeased with him for his excess of civility in calling S. Benedict Saint which he says pag. 31. If he was guilty of what the Doctor charges him with savours something of blasphemy Truly though many men cannot comprehend how S. Benedict attained that degree yet no body is sure that he hath it not and his title doth not seem the worse because he doth not appear qualified by any particular Canonization at Rome there being I think no Record of any such but by a general consent amongst many devout persons which is the title of all those Primitive Saints to whose memories our Church pays as much reverence as the other doth before those very costly commencements were established at Rome which have lately conferred all those degrees and the preliminaries to it But I think it is now the civility of most of the Provinces of Europe to treat all men with the same stile that they assume to themselves or their Friends attribute to them and so we use to call those Saints who are commonly called so though we are not sure they are in Heaven and he would believe that he were very unkindly dealt with if he should be charged with want of integrity for calling the Reverend Prelates of our Church Bishops when if he did believe them really to be so he would not when he left the Church have been re-ordained and if he does not believe them to be such his insincerity is more to be reproved than our blasphemy in calling those Saints of whose station we are not so well assured But Mr. Cressy hath a greater insight into History and a more discerning spirit than any man of whom I have ever heard if he hath discovered That the greatest Iudgment and Plague that God ever no doubt in his just anger brought upon the Christian world or any Christian part of it in that general deluge of the Goths Vandals Huns Saxons Danes and other Pagan Nations proved a most unvaluable blessing as he says pag. 32. because God of those stones raised up children unto Abraham that is after these inhumane miscreants had for many hundred years massacred many millions of Christians demolished so many Churches and Religious houses and introduced a brutish savageness into the very nature of the Inhabitants within the Provinces of which they were possessed some of their posterity became Christians and yet for almost an Age after their conversion their manners remained still almost as much Pagan as they were before And for their building of Churches and Schools of piety hear what Monsieur Mezeray who is much more conversant with the transactions of those times than Mr. Cressy is says I know no time in which there were more Churches and Abbies built than in this speaking of the Tenth Century which was near the time when the most general conversion of these Barbarians happened The most wicked persons affected says he very much the title of Founders whist they ruined Churches on one side they built others on the contrary and made sacrilegious Offerings to God of those things which they had ravished from the poor and therefore those structures are not always the best Records of the piety of the Age in which they are erected and very few of the Monasteries into which Kings and Queens and Princes used to retire for attending their Heavenly meditation were erected after the incursion of those barbarous Pagans and before which that numerous Army of Martyrs was likewise expired since that time must be reckoned under the Ten Persecutions So that the unvaluable blessing that Christian Religion received from that impious inundation is not yet discovered or understood and less that the persons who by Gods blessed directions instilled into the hearts of men such an heroical Faith and Divine love were principally the Disciples of S. Benedict I must tell him again that Christianity was well cultivated before S. Bennet's Rules were published or confirmed which was not till after the year Six Hundred and from that time it received greater improvement from the piety and learning of many devout Prelates and from the learning and good lives of the Clergy and of other Religious men than it hath ever done by the disciples of S. Bennet except all the Monasteries that have been ever founded and all the professed Monks shall be looked upon as founded by him upon which computation I doubt many of Mr. Cressy's mistakes are to be imputed nor is he probably well informed of the numbers which have been converted to Christianity by the Protestant Churches though he takes upon him to know that there is not one Village which he would hardly undertake since he cannot but know that the Protestants have many large Plantations in Provinces inhabited by Pagans whereof many have been converted if he did not think that a conversion from Paganism is to little purpose
liberatur And he would likewise have found in the Canonization of Ignotius Loyala his thirty third miracle is that of Isabella Monialis ord S. Clarae who being threescore and seven years old being in a very high place about business by mischance had a terrible fall to the ground with which she broke her thigh and for above forty days adhibitis per Medicum Chirurgum eventu planè irrito medicamentis and all hope of life being in the judgment of all hopeless and desperate petita tamen pia cum religione impetrata reliquia B. Ignatii super coxendicem applicata statim sana est reddita coxendicem tibiam prius tumentem atque immobilem expedite sine dolore movere coepit die proxima surrexit ac libere perfecte ambulavit Many more of the like instances he will find in the fourth Tome of the great Bullarium and without the evidence of these three women these miracles had been lost which could not but contribute very much to their Canonization Nor was the Testimony of women ever rejected in those cases it is probable for that very reason for which Mr. Cressy seems to think their evidence ought not to be received because imagination is stronger in them than judgment and that whatsoever is esteemed by them to be pious is easily by them concluded to be true and such a Confessor as Mr. Cressy will easily perswade them to believe that many things are pious which he knows not to be true And in truth he hath not answered the weight of the Doctors instance of the visions of S. Bridget and S. Katherine of Syena with all the help that S. Anthony and Cardinal Baronius can give him the last of which apparently believed neither of them and his own addition is much less satisfactory to any discerning person that no Oecumenical Council hath made a Canon with an Anathema against all those who will not acknowledge all the Revelations of S. Bridget to have been divine and the belief of them necessary to salvation and that all that was done by the Council was upon occasion of invectives made against those Revelations by many Catholicks to require Joannes à Turrecremata to peruse and give his judgment of them which being favourable the Council approved them says the Doctor that is says Mr. Cressy freely permitted them to be read as containing nothing contrary to faith and good manners The Councils approbation was much more than that but if it were no more it doth not become the Catholick Church or any National Church to give that countenance to any new opinion that may encourage such a liberty as he says is taken by many writers to decry both the one and the other and introduces animosity and uncharitableness between Christians which hath been notorious enough in this particular And since he confesses that many illusions and fancies have been brought into the Church by pretence of such Revelations by the several Sects and Persons named by the Doctor as the Sects of Mendicants the Authors of the Evangelium aeternum and the rest all or most of which did find countenance and exceedingly disturb the peace of the Church and who Mr. Cressy confesses were Monsters raised up by the Devil in a cursed imitation of the graces and gifts communicated by God to his devout and faithful servants There cannot be too much vigilance in shutting all doors at which such illusions may enter and no body is to be blamed who is most jealous of their integrity We come in the next place to his fifth Chapter of resisting authority falsly imputed he says to Catholick Religion in which he says the Doctor doth very ingeniously absolve the Catholick Church her self and lays the fault only on the principles and practices of the Iesuitical party Indeed the Doctor cannot but absolve the Catholick Church from that reproach except he thought all Christian Churches liable to it but he is far from absolving all Catholicks of the Roman Church from rebellion excepting only the Iesuits though he instances most in them because the books which most defend it have been written by those of that Society but nothing can be stranger than that Mr. Cressy should so magnifie the general obedience of all Roman Catholicks that none of them were ever in rebellion against the King or his Father when he knows very well and hath some marks of it that the whole Irish Nation very few persons of honour excepted joyned in rebellion against the King and but for that rebellion neither Presbyterian Independant or Anabaptist had been able to have done any harm in England For the Scots rebellion was totally suppressed and their Army disbanded before the Irish rebellion begun It was that which produced all the mischief that succeeded in England and gave those Sects in Religion opportunity to bring in their confusion to the destruction of the Church and State with such barbarous circumstances as are too horrible to repeat though they can never be forgotten Was not that Rebellion begun and carried on intirely by the Kings Roman Catholick subjects Was there one man but Catholicks who concurred in it and did they pretend any other cause for it but Religion at least when they had the satisfaction they desired in whatsoever else they pretended did they not continue it still under pretence of Religion Was not the secular and regular Clergy equally engaged to support it And did not the Pope himself contribute to it if not contrive it And was not himself in the person of his Nuntio Rinnuccini General of the Rebels both by Sea and Land And can there be a greater manifestation that the Catholick Roman Religion it self favoured rebellion than when their head of their Church and all Ecclesiastical Orders joyned and concurred in it And it it cannot but be observed that though the Irish for ought appears only carried on or were active in that Rebellion there was not any English Catholick that made any publick profession against it nor did one English Priest Secular or Regular manifest his detestation or dislike of it by any publick writing And how much they favoured it in private discourse there wants not abundant evidence All which should be forgotten as it is forgiven before there be such loud Encomiums published of the never-failing obedience of the Romish Catholicks and the Records of later rebellions in France as well as those of the League should be razed out It is to be wished rather than hoped that the profession of Christian Religion in any Church had that impulsion in it as it ought to have that it preserved the professors of it from entring into rebellion and the practice of any other iniquity Yet it may be truly said that there were very few who did so much as pretend to have a reverence for the Church of England that were ever active in the late rebellion How far the fear and consternation men were in forced them to submit to
lewd seditious Books are sold as that none such may be printed And if this kind advertisement of Mr. Cressy hath that operation upon the Magistrates of all sorts both the Printers and Sellers and it may be the Buyers of the multitude of Popish Books which are every day vented with as much freedom as the Book of Common-Prayer they of his own Religion will have new cause to celebrate his prudence and acknowledge the great advantage he hath brought to their cause by his pen as he hath to their persons by his modesty and his manners Mr. Cressy comes at last after very much passion and much more virulence against the poor Protestants than the Doctor hath expressed against the Roman Catholicks to a matter of importance indeed in which he believes which might have kept him from triumphing so soon he is absolute master of the field and that is to peace and unity which he says is more fit to be the subject and argument of writings composed by Ecclesiastical persons that is unity of faith and doctrine pag. 102. and in truth whoever is really an enemy even to that unity of faith and doctrine how hard soever to be attained must be an enemy to mankind but I must tell him too that the writings of Ecclesiastical persons have not hitherto in any age contributed to the production of that unity I mean such who have a pride petulancy of understanding obstinacy of will that will suffer nothing to be called peace and unity but a prostration of all other men to their dictates Mr. Cressy and his Ecclesiastical Friends affect and insolently prescribe a unity that is neither practicable nor desirable and there are other Ecclesiastical persons as humorous who are such enemies to unity that they think it not necessary to peace especially in Ecclesiastical matters that is in matters of Religion all men may think and speak and do what they please and upon the irrationality of these last the former impute all the folly and all the madness that would introduce the most uncontroulable confusion to those who observe order and discipline with more regularity and obedience than any of the pretenders will do It must not therefore be the Ecclesiastical persons who have given each other too ill words to be of one mind who can procure this unity of faith and doctrine that must constitute this peace but it must be the writings and actions of Magistrates who by the execution of those Laws and rules which the wisdom of the State for which they are made have provided for that purpose can infallibly establish that unity and peace that is necessary for it Magistrates who do not pretend any jurisdiction out of their own limits nor will suffer those who live within it to be disobedient much less to revile the Laws which are provided for the publick peace Where there are no Laws confusion is necessary and natural and where the Laws are not executed it is as unavoidable and in some degree necessary So that where unity is not as much provided for as is necessary for peace it is the Magistrates fault and not the fault of Ecclesiasticks who can only prosecute it by the ways prescribed by the Laws I say where unity is necessary for nothing is more mistaken or more misapplied than this precious word Unity Who doth not know or hath not had it frequently in his observation that men who have the same end affect several ways which lead to that end and he who goes the farthest way about may possibly come sooner to the end than he that believes he goes more directly to it However if he comes thither later he is liable to no other reproach than being laughed at for being longer upon the way than he needed to have been I knew two Gentlemen of good quality and fortunes one of which I think is still living who were very near neighbours in Berkshire and lived in that good correspondence and conversation as persons of quality and authority in their Country use to do they had both very frequent occasions to ride to London and the house of one of them was the confessed way of the other thither but the difference was whether from thence the nearest way was by Windsor or by Maidenhead and in that they were so great Opiniators that they still parted at the door and one took the one way and the other that which he conceived to be nearest and in twenty years they never made the journey together How light soever the instance seems to be it will be found fit enough to be applied to very many differences of opinion which by the excess of fancy on the one side and the defect of judgment of the other are blown up into a magnitude that dazles the eyes of too many spectators and for the determination of the rest there wants not a submission and obedience to authority the difference only is where that authority is placed to which obedience ought to be paid We of the Church of England hold ours to be due to the King the Church and the Law Mr. Cressy would have us pay it to the Pope which we cannot submit to not because he is fallible but because he is not a Magistrate who hath any jurisdiction over us In matters that concern Religion we resort to the Articles of the Church which we are obliged to conform to He would have us observe the Canons of the Council of Trent which we are forbidden to do and he as an English Catholick is not bound to upon which we shall enlarge hereafter and this election to believe that the Church of England which flourishes at least as much in learned and pious men as any Church of the world can better direct English-men in the way to Heaven than the Church of Rome is the greatest use we make of our reason which is not like to deceive What that union is that was intended certainly by our Saviour when he left his Church established under spiritual Governours will best appear by the rules he prescribed and the directions he gave in order thereunto which we may lawfully believe he never intended for such a unity as Mr. Cressy and his friends dream of and that he foresaw the same could never be and depended more upon what was necessary towards it upon the civil Magistrates than upon the Ecclesiastical power He prescribed the essential principles himself of that Religion which he intended should be established and left persons trusted by him who not only knew his mind but knew all things which are necessary to be known for the accomplishment of it And no temporal or spiritual authority under Heaven hath power to alter any thing that was setled by him or his Apostles who were the only Commentators intrusted by him to explain whatsoever might seem doubtful in what himself had said and they performed their parts with that plainness in what is necessary that there remains no difficulty to men
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
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
to be burned as Hereticks very few days before having made new Laws for the discovery of them stricter than had been ever before And there is no reason to believe that he did not die as much a Catholick as he was when he writ against Luther nor did any Catholick Prince forbear to enter into the strictest alliance with him notwithstanding the Popes Bulls of Excommunication Deprivation and Interdiction nor was there one Mass the less said for it in England and after his death his obsequies were with all possible solemnity observed as hath been said before in Paris at Nostre Dame by Francis the First notwithstanding all those Bulls from Rome in all which nothing can be more observable than that the great Emperor Charles the Fifth who had threatned and compelled that weak humorous Pope into all those acts of folly and presumption against the King had no sooner made him commit that insolence but himself entred into a straiter friendship and confederacy with the Excommunicated King than had ever before been between them The other reason why they will very unwillingly expose their interest to this manner of debate is That it would divide their party which if they were solicitous only for truth would not prevail with them Other Catholick Kingdoms and Nations which differ from one another as well in the profession as the exercise of the Roman Religion as the French hold a Council to be above the Pope and the Spaniards the Pope to be above a Council and many other particulars when they come to know that the Crown and Church of England have established only amongst themselves such an exercise of Christian Religion that in all the substantial and essential points is the same which they profess without censuring them or what they find fit to do in their Countries and have only made such alterations as by the constitution of that Kingdom they may lawfully do and which they find more agreeable to the manners of the Nation and for the peace and happiness of the people They will not think themselves concerned in the policy of other Kingdoms nor the Popes authority so much of the Essence of Catholick Religion that they are bound to support all his pretences which are different in all those Countries which are most devoted to him and therefore cannot flow from any determination of our Saviour which would have made it the same in all places besides they too well know that in all the particulars proposed the Catholick Doctors are not of one mind who are now kept united to them by not knowing the constitution of the Church of England nor that the Roman Catholicks in that Kingdom refuse to give that security for their duty to the King and for their peaceable and good behaviour as all other their fellow subjects chearfully give and as are required of all by the Laws of the Kingdom and if they would perform that common duty it is very probable that there appearing no more danger to threaten the State from them than from other men those Laws which the iniquity of their forefathers brought upon them by their conspiracies and treasons may be suspended towards their innocent Children until such time as their peaceable demeanour and good carriage shall make it appear just to be abolished This expedient for the reasons aforesaid will be obstructed by the Religious and regular Clergie who have so absolute a dependence upon the Pope that they are in truth subjects to no other Prince and probably some few of the secular Clergie may concur with them though more of them if they can discern any security to themselves in disclaiming the Popes authority which few of them look upon as of the Essence of their Religion and have in their hearts as well as in their professions as sincere purposes towards the King and his People However I know not why all the Lay Catholicks of his Majesties Dominions should bind up their interest with those who have different obligations from them nor how they can excuse themselves from not throughly examining every one of the particular heads proposed by which they will receive this benefit and information that they will clearly discern what is necessary for them to retain and insist upon without which in their conscience as thus informed they cannot continue members of the Catholick Church and what is so much of the policy of the State that is warrantable or unwarrantable only as it is established by the Soveraign authority and by this means they will know how to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to render unto God that which belongs unto God the just distribution whereof is of an equal concernment to all Christians being equally enjoyned by our Saviour Christ. THE END A Brief Catalogue of Books newly Printed and Reprinted for R. Royston Bookseller to his Most Sacred Majestie THe Works of the Reverend and Learned Henry Hammond D. D. containing a Collection of Discourses chiefly Practical with many Additions and Corrections from the Author 's own hand together with the Life of the Author enlarg'd by the Reverend Dr. Fell Dean of Christ Church in Oxford in large Folio Nova Vetera Or a Collection of Polemical Discourses addressed against the Enemies of the Church of England both Papists and Fanaticks in large Folio by Ieremiah Taylor Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the First of Blessed Memory and late Lord Bishop of Down and Conner Reflexions upon the Devotions of the Roman Church With the Prayers Hymns and Lessons themselves taken out of their Authentick Authors In Three Parts In Octavo New The Christian Sacrifice and the Devout Christian and Advice to a Friend these last three Books written by the Reverend S. P. D. D. in 12. Eph. 4. 31. Pag. 11. Pag. 26. Pag. 31. Pag. 32. Pag. 219. Pag. 35. Pag. 68. Pag. 94. Pag. 102. Mark 16. 16. Ver. 14. Mat. 3. 14. Mark 9. 10. Luke 18. 34. Rom. 10. 9 Rom. 1. 29 30. Rom. 10. 9 1 Cor. 3. 11 12. 1 Cor. 4. 5. Mat. 13. 29 30. Lib. 9. Ep. 39. Phil. 1. 15 18. 2 Esa. 4. 21. 26 27. Numb 12. 1. Zach. 8. 19.