but by fire and faggots by strange new-devised tortures we shall quickly find that the Court of Rome hath died it self red in Christian blood and equalled the most Tyrannical persecutions of the Heathen Emperours The other Maxim whereupon you say that our Reformation was grounded was this Tâ—…at the onely way to reform the Faith anâ—… Liturgie and Government of the Church was to conform them to the dictates of holy Scripture of the sense whereof every private Christian ought to be the Judge by the light of the Spirit excluding Tradition and the publiâ—…k Judgement of the Church You adde That we cannot prove Episcopacy by Scripture without the Help of Tradition And if we do admit of Tradition we must acknowledge the Papacy for the Government of the Catholick Church as founded in the Primacy of St. Peter Your second supposed ground is no truer than the former we are as far from Anarchy as from Tyranme As we would not have humane Authority like Medusa's head to transform reasonable men into sensless stones So we do not put the reigns of Government into the hands of each or any private person to reform according to their phantasies And that we may not deal like blunderers or deceitful persons to wrap up or involve our selves on purpose in confused Generalities I will set down our sense distinctly When you understand it I hope you will repent of your rash censuring of us of whom you had so little knowledge Three things offer themselves to be considered First concerning the Rule of Scripture Secondly the proper Expounders thereof and Thirdly the manner of Exposition Concerning Scripture we believe That it was impossible for humane reason without the help of divine Revelation to find out those supernatural truths which are necessary to Salvation 2. That to supply this defect of natural reason God out of his abundant goodness hath given us the holy Scriptures which have not their authority from the writing which is humane but from the Revelation which is divine from the Holy Ghost Thirdly that this being the purpose of the Holy Ghost it is blasphemy to say he would not or could not attain unto it And that therefore the holy Scriptures do comprehend all necessary supernatural truths So much is confessed by Bellarmine that All things which are necessary to be believed and to be done by all Christians were preached to all by the Apostles and were all written Fourthly that the Scripture is more properly to be called a Rule of supernatural truths than a Judge or if it be sometimes called a Judge it is no otherwise than the Law is called a Judge of civil Controversies between man and man that is the rule of judging what is right and what is wrong That which sheweth what is strait sheweth likewise what is crooked Secondly concerning the proper Expounders of Scripture we do believe that the Gospel doth not consist in the words but in the sense non in superficie sed in medullâ And therefore that though this infallible Rule be given for the common benefit of all yet every one is not an able or fit Artist to make application of this Rule in all particular cases To preserve the common right and yet prevent particular abuses we distinguish Judgement into three kinds Judgement of Discretion Judgement of Direction and Judgement of Jurisdiction As in the former Instance of the Law the ignorance whereof excâ—…seth no man every Subject hath Judgement of Discretion to apply it particularly to the preservation of himself his estate and interest The Advocates and those who are skilful in the Law have moreover a Judgement of Direction to advise others of less knowledge and experience But those who are Constituted by the Sovereign power to determine emergent difficulties and differences and to distribute and administer Justice to the whole body of a Province or Kingdome have moreover a Judgement of Jurisdiction which is not onely discretionary or directive but authoritative to impose an Obligation of obedience unto those who are under their charge If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law they are not accountable to their Inferiours but to him or them that have the Sovereign power of Legislative Judicature Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere To apply this to the case in question concerning the exposition of the holy Scripture Every Christian keeping himself within the bounds of due obedience and submission to his lawful Superiours hath a Judgement of Discretion Prove all things hold fast that which is good He may apply the Rule of holy Scripture for his own private instruction comfort â—…dification and direction and for the framing of his life and belief aceordingly The Pastors of the Church who are placed over Gods people as watchmen and guides have more than this a judgement of Direction to expound and interpret the holy Scriptures to others and out of them to instruct the ignorant to reduce them who wander out of the right way to confute errours to foretell dangers and to draw sinners to repentance The chief Pastors to whose care the Regiment of the Church is committed in a more special manner have yet an higher degree of judgement a Judgement of Jurisdiction to prescribe to enjoyn to constitute to reform to censure to condemn to bind to loose judicially authoritatively in their respective charges If their Key shall erre either their Key of Knowledge or their Key of Jurisdiction they are accountable to their respective Superiours and in the last place to a general Council which under Christ upon Earth is the highest Judge of Controversies Thus we have seen what is the Rule of Faith and by whom and how far respectively this rule is to be applied Thirdly for the manner of expounding holy Scriptures for there may be a privacy in this also and more dangerous than the privacy of the person many things are necessary to the right interpretation of the Law to undeâ—…stand the reason of it the precedents the terms the forms the reports and an ability to compare Law with Law He that wants all these Qualifications altogether is no interpreter of Law He that wants but some of them or wants the perfection of them by how much the greater is his defect by so much the less valuable is his exposition And if he shall out of private fancy or blind presumption arrogate to himself without these requisite means or above his capacity and proportion of Knowledge a power of expounding Law he is a mad-man So many things are required to render a man capable to expound the holy Scriptures some more necessarily some less some absolutely some respectively As First to know the right Analogy of Faith to which all interpretations of Scripture must be of necessity conformed Secondly to know the practice and tradition of the Church and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages which gives a great light to
Truths which now make known to you the fault and the condemnation which God by the wisdome and power of his Judgements hath drawn from it self and his proper works that you may feel the effects How should you have been able to have discovered under this fair shew of Reformation whereof she hath taken the Title under this splendid lustre which she hath put upon her face of Knowledge and Eloquence the gifts whereof shine in her Doctors and Ministers of the reading and particular regard she commands them to have towards the holy Scriptures of the familiar Texts which adorn their Pastors Discourses and Preachings of the popular exercises of her Psalms and Canticles of the Prayers and Orisons which are extracted and interwoven with the Understanding which gives consolation Should you have been able to have discovered I say that under this appearance of Piety she had dis-avow'd her strength if God had not at present let you see it in the works of horrour and confusion deadly to Christian piety and charity destructive to all Form of Religion Enemies to all Order of God which she hath produced by the consequences of her Fundamental Maxims Sir Had your Majestie taken notice of the imposture and deceit which the Father of Lyes hath hidden under these Baits that they themselves whom he made the first Instruments and Authors of the division of the Church did not perceive for they would have abhorred it had they known it would have been such This is then truly the great work of God whereof this false prophet understands not the reason when he speaks thus God hath certainly done this work And God hath raised him up himself to put this confusion among them which have forsaken the Unity of the Church in dividing themselves into a thousand Sects of which they acknowledge at present that no one can call himself the Church For the Sect of the Protestants cannot pretend to it since she her self subsists no more but that every one sees her justly perished by the same Maxims that separated her from the Church and that the Presbyterians which seduced them have now destroyed them Nor the Sect of the Presbyterians which is under the yoke of the Independents who cut their throats with the same Swords wherewith they warred against the Church For they brought them by their own Maxims to renounce all Discipline all Government all Law and all Rule of Unity and by consequence all Form of the Church This cursed Cham hath then discovered his Father's filthiness that is to say of the first Author of this pretended Reformation who being drunk with the wine of his errour did not himself know â—…t But if God pleases the impudence of his brazen face who hath lost all shamefac'dness being not afraid to discover by his Independence the Foundations of this preposterous Reformation shall now touch his brethren with compunction and shame that they may return to their common Father He will cause the Presbyterians and Protestants to understand that it was the spirit of senslesness and errour which made Luther conceive and undertake the design of dividing the Church under pretext of a false Reformation From whence they will perceive if they can but come to themselves that one ought not to desire neither that any one can do any thing true or lawful but in the union and by the consent of the Church and the rule of Tradition which she hath receiv'd from the Apostles and conserved by a continued succession As God Sir draws light out of darkness so your Majestie sees that he makes your salvation to come out of your calamity But this is not for you alone That which he will do in your Person he will bring to pass in all your Kingdomes by your Person And not onely in all your Kingdomes but in all the places and in all those which are separated from the Church as your Kingdomes are That which you have singular in this cause is by being the greatest King of the party divided from the Church and that your Kingdomes are the greatest and most flourishing Estate that hath receiv'd this novelty of Religion where she hath found the most powerful Sanctuary and where she hath planted her seat the most eminent and most assured This is likewise a reason why God hath put her into this confusion in destroying her by the different Sects which she her self hath ingendred that all the world may know the spirit of errour from whence she hath taken her Original For all the world at present sees what this spirit is and its nature if it is the Spirit of Christ it is the Spirit of peacâ—… and truth if it be the spirit of Satan it is the spirit of trouble and errour which hath raised the trouble and errouâ—… which rules at present in your Kingdomes Since such is the spirit of this new Reformation and its Maxims such arâ—… its works that are at this day discovered and made evident who is that man that can defend it that can preserve iâ—… in his conscience that can have reposâ—… or comfort in his soul by adhering to it There 's no more need of Disputes or Arguments to convince it She is convinc'd by her self according to the character the Spirit of God hath stamp'd upon the Heretical man by the Pen of the Apostle St. Paul who commands us to depart for these reasons There is saith he a perverted spirit that is condemned by it self This is the imagâ—… that all the world doth see at present in this Reformation and its Genius But there rests now one thing to do which is to apply this remedy of Salvation to the Conscience of the People seduced by the errour There is no more to do than to anoint the wound the Scorpion hath made with the oyl where it hath been bruised For the way to heal them is now very easy by reason their Reformation hath receiv'd such a miserable success There is nothing more easy than to make the People know thereupon by the conviction of their Pastors upon the very Foundations and Maxims of their Reformation that they have neither Church nor Faith But then when they supposed contrary to the promise of Jesus Christ the Church was fallen into ruine for pretext of reforming it they have not been able to form an other which hath the conditions of the true Church but an infinity of different and contrary Sects among them none of which can be the Church but in rejecting the authority of Tradition for interpreting the Scripture and the judgement of the Church for the declaration of her Faith They have abandoned the Unity of the Faith that every one might abound in his own sense by the different opinions they have conceived That which of necessity must cast them as it is come to pass into the Independence of all rule and the indifference of all opinion in Religion And as modesty to accuse the Church of Errour in all the Ages hath been the
beginning to make the Authors of this Reformation agree that the Church remained pure in Faith during the time of the four first general Councils they have afforded us a way by this to disabuse the People they do abuse when they accuse the Church at this day of Errour in the heads of her Faith which they have rejected For they can no longer avoyd falling into a manifest contradiction of the sense which they impute to the antient Fathers in points of Faith which are in controversy between us They cannot brand the Church at this day for having a different opinion in Faith from the Antient Church without cutting their throats with their own proper contradictions upon the opinion they attribute to the Faâ—…hers So that there is nothing more to do for the informing the People separated from the Church of the truth and obliging them to enter again into her than to make them understand the cheat wherewith they have been surprized under the name of Reformation by convincing in their presence their Ministers of an evident contradiction of themselves by the consequences of the Fundamental Maxims of their Reformation From whence results the indubitable Demonstration which proceeds from the spirit of lying and errour If it please your Majestie Sir to imploy this way for your instruction and the satisfaction of your Conscience that your Conversion and return to tâ—… Church may both open the hearts and the way for all the rest to follow your example You cannot do it morâ—… solemnly or commodiously than in thâ—… place wherein you are at the present We have in this place five Ministers of the Communion separated from the Catholick Church who have gotten themselves as much credit and authority through the esteem of their sufficiency and reputation of their zeal as any that are in their whole body Your Majestie Sir may easily obtain of the King your good Brother and Friend that they be called by his Authority to come with all those of their Communion wherewith they would be assisted and appear in presence of Monsieur the Archbishop of Paris and Monsieur his Coadjutor and the Catholick Doctors which he shall please to bring with him And there Sir you Majestie being present to speak and answer with all security and liberty that which their spirit and conscience doth suggest to them upon the evident contradictions of the principles and consequences of their Reformation that in all their different Sects which have for saken the Church under this pretext there is neither Church nor Faith And that upon the Points of Faith where they have accused the Church of Errour and have taken the opportunity to separate themselves from her they are likewise separated from the Communion of the Church of all Ages So that they cannot any waies accuse us of diversity of opinion with the Antient Church but that they again fall into an evident contradiction of themselves as well as of the Antient Fathers and of us These Ministers Sir will deny neither the desire of your Majestie nor the Commandment of the King your good Brother to render the duty both to their charge and to their conscience unless they 'll wirness by their denial the open forsaking which they make oâ—… their cause and the condemnation which they themselves pronounce in their hearts But they 'll love rather as I think ingenuously to present themselves to yield to the truth which they cannot contradict than to incurr the blame of being acknowledged formal enemies of the peace and re-union of the Church through the perversness of an obstinate Faith I know not what to think that they should rather love to fling themselves headlong with their people into the confusion and disorder of Independency and indifference of all opinion in Religion than to avouch the errour and blindness of those who were the first Egressors from the Church by these Maxims which have cast by their consequenc s their Followers into this abyss of irreligion whereinto we see them at this present fallen And when the Ministers would let themselves be carried away to so unlucky a thought I do no waies believe that in France the People would follow them and adhere to their opinions This is wherefore Sir I dare hope that the Ministers which are in Paris being obliged by the desire of your Majestie and the will of their Sovereign to submit to this Law which their own Conscience imposes on them for the satisfaction of their own People for the People will have no less affection and will be no less desirous to see the success of the appearance of their Ministers and the answer they shall make will yield to it and will rather choose to walk in the way of honour and a good conscience than basely to appear desertors at one and the same time both of their Cause and good Faith Whatsoever comes to pass Sir and whatsoever they do whether they follow the motion of the Spirit of Peace and Truth or whether the Spirit of Pride suggest unto them to avoyd and fly both the one and the other youâ—… Majestie shall alwaies have all full satisfaction for departing from the errour which you shall see forsaken or condemned by its own Ministers and entring into the Church which is the Pillar of Truth and Rock of Ages against which you see all the sail of different Sects running at every wind of Doctrine through the deceit of them that conduct them to break and shipwrack â—…hemselves And then when your Majestie shall be entred into the Church after this manner and when all the world shall see that the desire to glorifie God by the searching for the Truth by the repose of your Conscience and by the love of your Salvation shall have been your whole motive You need not doubt Sir but your example will make the like impression in all the souls that are touched with the fear of God You need not doubt Sir for so much as God hath elevated your Majestie in birth and eminent dignity above the rest â—…hat are in the Communion wherein â—…ou have lived They all seeing these â—…ircumstances of your change and enâ—…rance into the Sanctuary of the Church â—…pon the wings of the victory of Truth â—…hich carries you thither alone will â—…e stirred up to give glory to God for â—…he same causes for which you shall be â—…endred to him It concerns you then Sir to make â—…our entrance by this means and that â—…ou serve your self of this way to adâ—…ress your self thither to the end your â—…onversion and return to the Church â—…ring to her with you by the solemn â—…onviction of the errour which hath â—…ismembred her not onely those which â—…he division of your Fathers hath torn â—…rom her but also all the rest which â—…he same cause hath separated For by â—…he power which Truth hath upon the Conscience of men when it is apparent here is no doubt but it will come to â—…ass after this manner When the People shall
Your valour and their unfearful hearts had for a time gotten the advantage of the great number of your Enemies who saw themselves ready to turn their backs But the chance of Arms turning in an instant for them this ill hap fatal to your Crown ravishd from you in this last Conflict according to humane appearance both the way and hope of recovering it But God hath waies unknown to men and his waies are not our waies It is in our weakness that he magnifies his strength and in our lowliness that he makes his height to be seen Then when you were thus deprived of your Forces and all humane means of safety taken from you he came to you under another visage and armed you with a sense of hardiness and resolution which was above the spirit of a man for the Party which you made choyce of for your security You resolv'd with your self to seek it by exposing your sole Person in the solitariness of waies and in the desert of Forrests to the hazard of a thousand sad Accidents after you had hidden all the Marks of that Majestie which is born with you under a form borrowed from the most base condition that the eyes of the People which owe you after God the second homage might not know what you truly were You have passed after this manner without astonishment and without fear across a thousand objects which the imagination at every step presented to you It is there where you acknowledged God had incamped his Angels about you for your guard and for your defence It is there where he made a simple Peasant and an infirm Woman the very Angels of his assistance for to be your guide giving to the simplicity of the one and to the frailty of the other prudence and resolution necessary to conduct you with as much judgement as sincere loyalty and to bring you as a stranger and unknown person both the object of every mans scorn and disdain into the Capital City of your Ancestors Inheritance It is there where before fearing by reason of the Orders set forth against your life and for discovering you the meeting so many faces that would regard yours the hand of God hath withdrawn the eyes of all those who had a heart to hurt you And he hath opened them to him alone for to acknowledge you who without being prevented either by a fore-sight or expectation of you became the Angel of your conduct for your crossing the Seas descending upon our Banks and moreover rendring you to the eyes of the Queen your dear Mother to whom your presence hath caused a greater cessation of grief and rendred a greater joy than you did at your Birth God hath then after this manner Sir made you to return hither into the Bosome wherein your Majestie hath begun to live to the end he may give you a new one by your being born again into the spiritual Bosome of your eternal Mother You may see the conduct and counsel of God who calls you to him by a call so marvelous having heard the prayers and vows the sighs and tears of this Catholique Princess to give her the joy to see you rendred a partaker of the greatest graces she hath received from God and which she hath implored for you ever since your Birth without ceasing Since she is the Daughter of Henry the Great the Glory of most Christian Kings she implores of God for you the inheritance of that grace he received from his hand which set him at one and the same time time both in the Church and upon the Throne Her faith implores it her patience hopes it and her piety shall obtain it This is the consolation she sighs after for restoring her from so many bitter afflictions which she hath suckt in at leisure and that the hand of God hath poured upon her in his Sons Chalice by which he proves the constancy of those who love him To the tears of this desolate Princess I adde Sir the Innocent Blood shed before God by the King your Father whom I think I may be able without fear to stile happy For if we look upon the cause of his death he hath been persecuted and cruelly â—…ain being able to avoyd the one and the other from the hands of his Enemies if he would have submitted his Conscience to their Covenant and consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy But he hath loved rather to glorifie God by the confession of a good Conscience and for supporting a Dignity which he hath believed to have been instituted by God according to the opinion of the Catholique Faith Certainly we ought to believe that it is to this Faith which he hath preferred before the greatest things in the world which we must rehears acknowledge for the fruits Piety Humility Patience Constancy Resignation to the will of God submission even to that of men for the love of God which we have seen in him and which his persecution suffering prison unworthy intreatings criminal proceeding degradation condemnation the horrour and cruelty of his punishment like to which the Sun did never yet see an example on the Earth have rendred him more illustrious and more bright shining than the light of the Sun it self We may say that that firmness of this faith hath been in his heart a secret work of God for reuniting him in this trial of the last moments of his life to his Catâ—…olique Church in the number of his faithful Elect many of which saith St. Austin invisibly belong to the Church though they are not rendred members visibly And we ought to believe that this Crown which he hath gained by the constancy of his faith hath been woven for him by the hands of Jesus Christ the King of Kings hearing the prayer and intercession of the most happy Queen his Grandmother who hath in the same manner shed heâ—… blood and given up her soul into the hands of God by one and the same punishment with a faith and constancy not to be imitated for the Catholique Faith which was the very cause of the hatred and persecution she received from her people and most near Kinswoman from whom the succession of the Crown belonged to her For the prayers of the most happy Martyrs in Heaven tends to obtain continually of God by Jesus Christ the accomplishment of the same grace they have received here below imploring it for those that have need to the end that their Faith may be also consummated by a perfect Charity This is the grace Sir you shall make trial of when your Majestie shall attain this Faith by your reunion with the Church You shall feel likewise the effect of the prayers and intercession this glorious Princess makes to God for you by Jesus Christ to the end that when you shall be restored to his Church the Throne unâ—…ustly taken away both from her and from you shall be rendred to you in the middle of your Subjects there to establish by the same
Moreover whether the whole Body Blood of Christ be in every particle of the Bread and of the Cup and if it be then whether only after the division of the Bread and Wine or before division also And in how many parts and in which parts is the whole Body and Blood of Christ whether in the least parts and if in the least parts then whether in the least in kind or the least in quantity that is so long as the Species may retain the name of Bread and Wine or so long as the matter is divisible and whether the Body and Blood of Christ be also in the indivisible parts as points and â—…ines and superficies Lastly whether Accidents can subsist without their Subjects that is whether they can be both Accidents and no Accidents whether all the Accidents of the Elements do remain and partienlarly whether the quantity doth remain whether the other Accidents â—…o inâ—…ere in the quantity as their subject thâ—…t is whether an Accident can have an Aâ—…cident whether the Quantity of Christ's Body be there and whether it be thero after a quantitative manner with extension of Parts either extrinsecal or intrinsecal and whether the quantity of the Body of Christ be distinct anâ—… Figured or indistinct and Unfigured whether the Accidents can nourish or make drunken or corrupt and a new body be generated of them And what supplies the pâ—…ace of the matter in such generation whether the quantity or the Body of Christ or the old matter of the bread and wine restored by Miracle or new matter created by God And how long in such corruption doth the body of Christ continue Whosoever is but moderatly versed in your great Doctors must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts or debates of single Schoolmen but the common Garboils and general engâ—…gements of your whoâ—…e Schools Wherfore it had been a meer vanity to cite every particular Author for each question and would have made the margent swell ten times greater than the Text. From this bold determination of the manner of the presence how have flowed two oâ—…her differences First the detention of the Cup from the Laity meerâ—…y upon presumption of Concomitance first decreed in the Councill of Constance after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance whiâ—…est we keep our selves to the Institution of Christ and the universal practice of the Primitive Church It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his blood not only in the Consecration but also in the Distribution of the Sacrament By the way give me leave to represent a Contradiction in Bellarmine which I am not able to reconcile In one place he saith The Providence of God is marveilous in holy Scripture for Sâ—… Luke hath put these words do you this afâ—…er the sacrament given under the form of Bread but he repeated it not after the giving of the Cup that we might understand that the Lord commanded that the Sacrament should be dâ—…stributed unto all under the form of Bread but not under the form of Wine And yet in the next Chapter but one of the same book he doth positively determin the contrary upon the ground of Concomitance that the Bread may be taken away if the Cup be given but both cannot be taken away together Can that be taken away which Christ â—…ath expresly commanded to be given to all A second difference flowing from Transubstantiation is about the Adoration of the Sacrament One of those impediments which hinder our Communication with you in the Celebration eâ—… divine Offices We deny not a Venerable respect unto the Consecrate Elements not only as love-tokens sent us by our best friend but as the Instruments ordained by our Saviour to convey to us the Merits of his Passion But for the Person of Christ God forbid that we should deny him Divine worship at any time and especially in the use of this Holy Sacrament we belecve with St. Austine that No man eats of that Flesh but first he Adores But that which offends us is this That you teach and require all men to Adore the very Sâ—…crament with Divine Honour To this end you hold it out to the People To this end Corpus Christi day was instituted about 300 years since Yet we know that even upon your own grounds you cannot without a particular Revelation have any infallible assurance that any Host is consecrated And consequently you have no assurance that you do not commit materiall Idolatry But that which weighs most with us is this That we dare not give divine worship unto any Creature no not to the very Humanity of Christ in the Abstract much less to the Host but to the whole person of Christ God and Man by reason of the Hypostaticall Union between the Child of the blessed Virgin Mary and the eternal Son who is God over all blessed for ever Shew us such an Union betwixt the Deity and the Elements or Accidents and you say somthing But you pretend no such things The highest that you dare go is this As they that adored Christ when he was upon Earth did after a certain kind of manner adore his Garments Is this all This is after a certain kind of manner indeed We have enough There is no more Adoration due to the Sacrament than to the Garments which Christ did wear upon Earth Exact no more Thus the seamless Coat of Christ is torn into piâ—…ces Thus Faith is mincâ—…d into shreds and sâ—…un up into â—…icities more subtil than the Webs of Spiders Fidem minutis dissâ—…ant ambagibus 〈◊〉 quisque est lingua â—…quior Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot Coals with Tongs but they must take them up with their naked Fingers nor to uâ—…prehend Mysteries of Religion by Faith without descanting upon them and determining them by Reason whilst themselves confess that they are incomprehensible by humane Reason and imperceptible by Mans imagination How Christ is present in the sacrament can neither be perceived by sense nor by imagination The more inexcusable is their presumption to Anatomise Mysteries and to determine supernatural not reveled Truths upon their own heads which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortal man As vain an attempt as if a Child should think to lade out all the water out of the Sea with a Cockleshell Secret things belong to the Lord our God but things revealed unto us and our Children for ever This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ this is my body leaving the manner to him that made the sacrament we know it is sacramental and therefore esficacious because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances where man did not set a Barr against himself But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually I mean not only after the maner of a spirit but in a spirituall sense whether it be in the soul only
or in the Host also And if in the Host whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation whether by Production or Aduction or Conservation or Assumption or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture we determine not Motum sentimus modum nescimus praesentiam credimus This was the belief of the Primitive Church this was the Faith of the antient Fathers who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo which edifie not but expose Christian Religion to contempt We know what to think and what to say with probability modesty and submission in the Schools But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height not dâ—…ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith Nescire velle quae Magister maximus Docere non vult erudâ—…ta est inscitia O! how happy had the Christian world been if Scholars could have sate down contented with a latitude of general sufficient saving Truth which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace to shew that the deluge of Ecclesiasticall division is abated without â—…ading too far into particular subtilties or doting about Questions and Logomachies wherof cometh envy strife raylings evil surmisings perverse disputings Old Conâ—…roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies and yet more Controversies as Circles in the â—…ater do produce other Circles Now especially these Scâ—…olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable when Zenos School is newly opened in the World who sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology Morality and Policy are undermined and ready to be blown up Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes or their Ministers have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome it becometh well all good Christians and Subjects to leave their litigious Qâ—…estions and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled rather than to blow the Coles of discord and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit when his head was extremely distempered he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end But that which createth this troâ—…ble to you and me at this time is your Preface and Epistle Dedicatory wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph unless the King of great Britain and all his subjects yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot Neither do you only desire this but augurate it or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done for you tell him that his â—…ies and hiâ—… ears do hear and see those Truths which make him to know the Faulâ—…s of that new Religion which he had suckâ—… with his milk you set forth the causes of his Conversion The tears of his Mother and the Blood of his Father whom you suppose against evident truth â—…o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church And you prescribe the means to perfect his conversion which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton If your Charity be not to be blamed to wish no worse to another than you do to your self yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection without his licence and against his Conscience Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many Subjects If you did why would you insist in the same steps to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them If your intention be only to invite his Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self unles you wrong one another do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation Mark it well neiâ—…her Name nor thing His Majesty doth â—…rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ He embraâ—…eth chearfully whatsoever the holy Aâ—…ostles or the Nicene Fathers or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church with its adherents for the Catholick Church excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith neither his Reason nor his Religion nor his Charity will suffer him to listen unto you The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of â—…aith to make him a good Caâ—…holick More than this your Romane Bishops your Roman Church your Tridentine Concill may not cannot obtrude upon him Listen to the third general Councill that of Ephesus which deâ—…eed that it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill And that whosâ—…ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism Judaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed if Lay-men anaâ—… hematised Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fatâ—…ers did which nons will say to have been insufficient except they be mad as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence You have violated this Canon you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom New I say not in words only but in sense also Some things are de Symbolo some things are contra Symbolum and some things are onely praeter Symbolum Some things are contained in the Creed either expressly or virtually either in the Letter or in the Sense and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed as the Deity of Christ his two Natures the Procession of the Holy Ghost The Addition of these was properly no no addition but an explication Yet such an explication no person no Assembly under an Occumenical Council can impose upon the Catholick Church And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not Secondly some things are contra symbolum contrary to the Symbolical Faith and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it These additions are not onely unlawful but heretical also in themselves and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick whether some of your additions be not
the finding out of the right sense Thirdly to be able to compare Texts with Texts Antecedents with Consequents without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the Holy Ghost in the obscurer passages And lastly it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written He that wants all these requisites and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture is a doting Enthusiast fitter to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means and above the talent which God hath given him as he that hath a little Language yet wants Logick or having both Language and Logick knows not or regards not either the Judgement of former Expositors or the practice and tradition of the purest Primitive Ages or the Symbolical Faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely workman to build a Temple to the Lord but ruine and destruction to himself and his seduced followers A new Physician we say requires a new Church-yard But such bold ignorant Empericks in Theology are ten times more dangerous to the Soul than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the Body This hath alwaies been the doctrine and the practice of our English Church First it is so far from admitting Laymen to be Directive Interpreters of holy Scripture that it allows not this Liberty to Clergy-men so much as to gloss upon the Text untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion onely it gives it not to private persons above their Talents or beyond their last It disallows all phantastical and Enthusiastical presumption of incompetent and unqualified Expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive Inâ—…erpreter of Scripture howsoever otherwise qualified unless he be able to give a good account of his Faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his Expositions according to the Analogy thereof It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholick Fathers and old Bishops of the Primitive Church have not collected out of the Scriptures It ascribes a Judgement of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops in all manner of Ecclesiastical duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawful Synod as the representative Church Now Sir be your own Judge how infinitely you have wronged us and your self more suggesting that temerariously and without the Sphere of your knowledge to his Majestie for the principal ground of our Reformation which our souls abhorr Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawful for private persons or nothing Because we would not have them like Davids Horse and Mule without understanding do we therefore put both Swords in their hands to reform and cut off to plant and to pluck up to alter and abolish at their pleasure We allow them Christian liberty but would not have them Libertines Admit some have abused this just liberty may we therefore take it away â—…rom others So we shall leave neither a â—…un in Heaven nor any excellent Creaâ—…ure upon Earth for all have been abused â—…y some persons in some kinds at some â—…imes We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions nor unwritten fundamentals But we admit genuine Universal Apostolical traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God the Anniversary Festivals of the Church the Lenton fast Yet we know that both the duration of it and the manner of observing it was very different in the Priâ—…nitive times We believe Episcopacy to an ingenuous person may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition but to such as are froward the perpetual practice and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentique and the proof more convincing What is this to us who admit the practice and tradition of â—…he Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from believing that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principal moâ—…ives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenical Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition of the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into â—…ces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at our pleasure have not so much ground left you as to set your Instrument upon Your two main ground-works being vanished all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions do remain like so many Bubbles or Castles in the Air It were folly to lay closer siege to them which the next puff of wind will disperse ruâ—…at subductis tecta Columnis Howsoever though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation and of your discourse yet you charge us that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation the seven Sacraments Justification by inherent righteousness Merits Invocation of Saints Prayer for the Dead with Pâ—…rgatory and the Authority of the Pope Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed that we have renounced Surely no you deal too favourably with us We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship your half Communion your Prayers in a tongue un known c. It seems you were loth to mention these things First you say we have renounced your Sacrifice of the Mass. If the Sacrâ—…fice of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross we attribute more unto it than your selves we place our whole hope of Salvation in it If you understand another Propitiatory Sacrifice distinct from that as this of the Mass seems to be for confessedly the Priest is not the same the Altar is not the same the Temple is not the same If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world or of any new supplement to the merits of Christs Passion you must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed and to adhere to the Apostle By one offering he hath persected for ever them that are sanctified Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper then his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous nor that the Priest now doth more than Christ did then We do readily acknowledge an Eucharistical sacrifice of prayers and