insolent forms of prayer conteined in your books even ultimate prayers if we take the words as they sound directed to the Creatures that they would protect you at the hour of death and deliver you from the devill and confer spirituall graces upon you and admit you into Heaven precibus meritisque by their prayers and merias You know what merit signifies in your language a Condignity or at least a Congruity of deferâ— The exposition of your Doctors is that they should do all this for you by their prayers as improper a form of speech as if a suppliant intending only to move an ordinary Courtier to mediate for him unto the King should fall down upon his Knees before the Courtier and beseech him to make him an Earl or a Knight or to bestow such an Office or such a Pardon upon him or to do some other Grace for him properly belonging to the Prerogative Royall How agrees this with the words Precibus meritisque A begger doth not deserve an Alms by asking it This is a snare to ignorant persons who take the words to signifie as they sound And it is to be feared doe commit down-right Idolatry by their Pastors faults who prescribe such improper forms unto them The Roman Court most Tyrannicall Concerning Tyranny which makes up the arriere of the first supposed Maxim Wee do not accuse the Roman Church of Tyranny but the Roman Court If either the unjust usurpation of Sovereign power or the extending thereof to the destruction of the Laws and Canons of the Church yea even to give a Non obstante either to the Institution of Christ or at least to the uniform practise of the Primitive Ages or to them both If the swallowing up of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and the arrogating of a supercivill power paramont If the causing of poor people to trot to Rome from all the Quarters of Europe to wast their livelihoods there If the trampling upon Emperours and the disciplining of Monarchs be Tyrannicall either the Court of Rome hath been Tyrannicall or there never was Tyranny in the world I doubt not but some great persons when they have had bloody Tragedies to act for their own particular ends have sometimes made the Roman Church a stalking horse and the pretence of Catholick Religion a blind to keep their Policies undiscerned But if we consider seriously what cruelties have been really acted throughout Europe either by the Inquisitors Generall or by persons specially delegated for that purpose against the Waldenses of old and against the Protestants of later dayes against poor ignorant persons against women and children against mad-men against dead carkasses as Bucer c. upon pretence of Religion not onely by Ordinary forms of punishment and of death 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 Tyrannicall persecutions of the Heathen Emperours Our second supposed Maxim The other Maxim whereupon you say that our Reformation was grounded was this That the onely way to reform the Faith and Liturgy P. 21. 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 publick Judgement of the Church You add P. 26. 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 Much mistaken we are as far from Anarchy as from Tyranny 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 Goverment into the hands of each or any private person to reform according to their phantasies And that we may not deal like blunderers or deceitfull persons to wrap up on 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 The Scripture the rule of supernatural truths 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 Revevelation to find out those supernaturall truths which are necessary to Salvation 2. That to supply this defect of naturall 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 supernaturall truths So much is confessed by Bellarmine that All things which are necessary to be believed L. 4. de verbo Dei cap. 11. and to be done by all Christians were preached to all by the Apostles and were all written 4. That the Scripture is more properly to be called a Rule of supernaturall truths than a Judge or if it be sometimes called a Judge it is no otherwise than the Law is called a Judge of civill Controversies between man and man that is the rule of judging what is right and what is wrong That which sheweth what is streight sheweth likewise what is crooked Secondly Who are the proper expounders of Scripture and hoâ—… far concerning the proper Expounders of Scripture we do believe that the Gospell 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 excuseth 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 skilfull in the Law have moreover a Judgement of Direction to advise others of less knowledge and experience But those who are Constituted by the Soveraign power to determine emergent difficulties and differences and to distribute and administer justice to the whole body of a Province or Kingdom have moreover a Judgement of Jurisdiction which is not onely discretionary or directive but authoritative to impose an Obligation
of obedience upon those who are under their charge If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law they are not accomptable to their Inferiours but to him or them that have the Soveraign 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 lawfull Superiours hath a Judgement of Discretion Prove all things 1 Thes 5.21 hold fast that which is good He may apply the Rule of holy Scripture for his own private Instruction comfort edification and direction and for the framing of his life and belief accordingly 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 out of them to instruct the ignorant to reduce them who wander out of the right way to confute errors 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 speciall 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 accomptable to their respective Superiours and in the last place to a generall Councill 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 The manner of expounding Scripture 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 understand 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 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 practise and tradition of the Church and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages which gives a great light to 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 practise and tradition of the purest primitive ages or the Symbolicall faith of the Catholick Church is not a likely work-man 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 alwayes been the doctrine This is conformable to the doctrine and practise of our Church 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 Can. 1603. Can. 49. untill they be Licenced to become Preachers Secondly for Judgement of Discretion only it gives it not to private persons above their Talents See the Preface to the Bishops Bible or beyond their last It disallows all phantasticall and Enthusiasticall presumption of incompetent and unqualified expositors It admits no man into holy Orders that is to be capable of being made a Directive interpreter of Scriptures howsoever otherwise qualified Cant. â—4 unless he be able to give a good accompt of his faith in the Latin tongue so as to be able to frame all his expositions according to the Analogy thereof Cant. 1571. tit Concionatores It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed which the Catholique 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 Ecclesiasticall duties as appears by the whole body of our Canons And especially where any difference or publick Opposition hath been between Preachers Can. 1631. Can. 53. 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 Art 20. Can. 1603. Can. 139. as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles And to a lawfull 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 Majesty for the principall ground of our Reformation which our souls abhor Is there no mean between stupidity and madness Must either all things be lawfull 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 from others So we shall leave neither a Sun in Heaven nor any excellent creature upon Earth for all have been abused by some persons in some kinds at some times We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions The English Church an enemy to upstart not to Apostolicall traditions nor unwritten fundamentalls But we admit genuine Universall Apostolicall
traditions As the Apostles Creed the perpetuall 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 maner of observing it was very different in the Primitive 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 perpetuall practise 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 practise and tradition of the Church as an excellent help of Exposition Use is the best interpreter of Laws and we are so far from beleeving that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy that one of the principall motives why we rejected the Papacy as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenicall Councils and Infallibility of Judgement was the constant tradition aâ— the Primitive Church So Sir you see your demonstration shaken into pieces You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at your pleasure have not so much ground left you as to see 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 ruunt 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 inhaerent righteousness merits Invocation of Saints prayer for the dead with Purgatory 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 unknown c. It seems you were loath to mention these things Of the Sacrifice of the Mass First you say we have renounced your sacrifice of the Mass If the Sacrifice 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 Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected 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 Eucharisticall sacrifice of prayers and praises we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross And in the language of holy Church things commemorated are related as if they were then acted As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son as this day to be born of a pure Virgin In the Collects for these â—easts And whose praise the younger Innocents have this day set forth And between the Ascension and Pentecost which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven we beseech thee leave us not comfortless but send unto us thy holy Spirit We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it we maintain an Application of its vertue So here is a commemorative impetrative applicative sacrifice Speak distinctly and I cannot understand what you can desire more To make it a suppletory sacrifice to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross I hope both you and I abhor The next crime objected by you to us is Of Transubstantiation that we have renounced Transubstantiation It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed you need not wonder at that But if we had rejected it 400. years sooner that had been a Miracle It was not so soon hatched To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author were sufficient to prove him a counterfeit Of 7. Sacraments Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture or Councill or Creed or Father or antient Author Anno 1439 1528. 1547. first devised by Peter Lombard first decreed by Eugenius the fourth first confirmed in the Provinciall Councill of Senes and after in the Councill of Trent Either the word Sacrament is taken largely and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament then the onely sprinkâ—ing of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign instituted by Christ to convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof as do not set a bar against themselves according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church common to all or in the words of our Church generally necessary to Salvation are but two Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose writes not of in his Book de Sacramentis because he did not know them These we admit for genuine and generall Sacraments Their Sacramentall vertue we acknowledge The rest we retein more purely than your selves though not under the Notion of such proper and generall Sacraments As Confirmation Ordination Matrimony Penitence though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction nor of your Ordinary penitentiary tax and lastly the Visitation of and Prayer for the sick which onely is of perpetual necessity The Unction prescribed by St. James Jam. 5.14 being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing or recovering men out of sicknesses then in use Whereas your custome is clean contrary never or rarely to enoyl any man untill he be past all hope of Recovery The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the primitive Church was Prayer and Absolution or the benefit of the Keys and the Viaticum of the body and blood of Christ which we retein Concerning Justification Of Justification we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice
though not perfect according to a perfection of degrees as gold is true Gold though it be mixed with some dross We believe that this inherent Justice and sanctity doth make them truly just and holy But if the word Justification be taken in sensu forensi for the acquittall of a man from former guilt to make an offender just in the eye of the Law as it is opposed to Condemnation Rom. 8.33 It is God that justifieth who is â—e that condemneth Then it is not our inherent righteousness that justifies us in this sense but the free Grace of God for the merits of Jesus Christ Of Merits Next for merits we never doubted of the necessity of good Works without which Faith is but a fiction We are not so stupid to imagine that Christ did wash us from our sins that we might wallow more securely in sin but that wee might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the dayes of our life We never doubted of the reward of good Works Come ye blessed of my Father c. for I was hungry and ye fed me Nor whether this reward be due to them in Justice Henceforth is layd up for me a Crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4. â— which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day Faithfull promise makes due debt This was all that the antient Church did ever understand by the name of Merits Let Petavius bear witness Discrt Eccles li. 2. c. 4. Antiqui patres omnes prae caeteris Augustinus cumque iis consentiens Romana Catholica pietas agnoscit merita eò sensu nimirum ut neque Dei gratiam ulla antecedant merita haec ipsa tum ex gratiâ tum ex gratuitâ Dei pollicitatione tota pendeant All the Antient Fathers especially St. Austin and the Roman and Catholique faith consenting with them do acknowledge Merits in this sense that no Merits go before the grace of God and that these very Merits do Depend wholly on grace and on the free promise of God Hold you to this and we shall have no more difference about Merits Do you exact more of us than all the Fathers or the Roman and Catholique piety doth acknowledge It is an easie thing for a wrangling Sophister to dispute of Merits in the Schools or for a vain Orator to declame of Merits out of the Pulpit but when we come to ly upon our death-beds and present our selves at the last hour before the Tribunal of Christ it is high time both for you and us to renounce our own merits and to cast our selves naked into the Arms of our Saviour That any works of ours who are the best of us but unprofitable servants which properly are not ours but Gods own gifts and if they were ours are a just debt due unto him setting aside Gods free promise and gracious acceptation should condignly by their own intrinsecall value deserve the joyes of Heaven to which they have no more proportion than they have to satisfie for the eternall torments of Hell This is that which we have renounced and which we never ought to admit Of Invocation of Saints If your Invocation of Saints were not such as it is to request of them Patronage and Protection spirituall graces and Celestiall joyes by their prayers and by their merits alas the nisest Virgins have oyl in their Lamps little enough for themselves Yet it is not necessary for two Reasons First no Saint doth love us so well as Christ No Saint hath given us such assurance of his love or done so much for us as Christ No Saint is so willing or able to help us as Christ And secondly we have no command from God to invocate them So much your own Authors do confess and give this reason for it S. Clara Probl. 37. ex Horantio Lest the Gentiles being converted should believe that they vere drawn back again to the worship of the creature But we have another command Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will hear thee We have no promise to be heard when we do invocate them But we have another promise Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name ye shall receive it We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them but rather the contrary See thou do it not Rev. 22.9 I am thy fellow servant worship God We have no certainty that they do hear our particular prayers especially mentall prayers yea a thousand prayers poured out at one Instant in severall parts of the world We know what your men say of the glass of the Trinity and of extraordinary Revelations But these are bold conjectures without any certainty and inconsistent the one with the other We do sometimes meet in antient Authors with the Intercession of the Saints in Generall which we also acknowledge or an oblique invocation of them as you term it that is a prayer directed to God that he will hear the intercession of the Saints for us which we do not condemn Or a wish or a Rhetoricall Apostrophe or perhaps something more in some single antient Author But for an Ordinary Invocation in particular necessities and much more for publike Invocation in the Liturgies of the Church we meet not with it for the first six hundred years or thereabouts All which time and afterwards also the common principles and tradition of the Church were against it So far were they from obtruding it as a necessary fundamentall Article of Christian Religion Of prayer for the dead with Purgatory It is a common fault of your writers alwaies to couple Prayer for the dead and Purgatory together as if the one did necessarily suppose or imply the other In whose steps you tread Prayer for the dead hath often proceeded upon mistaken grounds often from true grounds both inconsistent with your Purgatory Many have held an Opinion that though the souls were not extinguished at the time of their separation from the body yet they did lye in secret receptacles in a profound or dead sleep untill the resurrection doing nothing suffering nothing in the mean time but only the delay of their glory Others held that all must pass through the fire of Conflagration at the day of judgement These opinions were inconsistent with your Purgatory yet all these upon these very grounds used prayer for the dead Others called the mercifull Doctors held that the very pains of Hell might be lessened by the prayer of the living Such a prayer is that which we meet with in your own Missall O King of Glory deliver the souls of all the faithfull deceased from the pains of Hell from the deep lake Tartarus from the mouth of the Lion that is the Devill that the bottomless pit of Hell do not swallow them up A man may lawfully pray for that which is certain if it be to come but one cannot lawfully pray for that which is past The souls which are in