the following ought to be the sixth But nothing could secure S. W. from the melancholy cavilling humour of his Adversary who is so terrible that the Printer's least oversight and his own mistake must occasion a dry adnimadversion against S. W. and yet the jest is he pretends nothing but courtesy and civility and persuades many of his passionate adherents that he practices both in his writings For answer then to my first seventh Section according to Dr. H. but in reality the sixth he refers me to his Reply c. 4. sect 1 where he answers all but the ridiculous colours as he says Answ p. 38. which indeed I must say were very ridiculous as who ever reads Schism Disarm'd p. 41. or his own book p. 68. may easily see where after he had spoken of and acknowledg'd King Henry the eighth's casting out the Pope's Authority it follows in his own words thus of Schism p. 68. First they the Romanists must manifest the matter of fact that thus it was in England 2. the consequence of that fact that it were Schism supposing those Successours of S. Peter were thus set over all Christians by Christ that is we must be put first to prove a thing which himself and all the world acknowledges to wit that King H. the eighth deny'd the Pope's Supremacy next that what God bid us doe is to be done and that the Authority instituted by Christ is to be obe'yd Dr H. is therefore can-did when he acknowledges here that these passages are ridiculous very unconsonant to himself when he denyes there is the least cause or ground for it in his Tract whereas his own express words now cited manifestâ—â—â— and lastly extraordinarily reserv'd in giving no other answer than this bare denial of his own express words But being taken tardy in his Divisionary art in which it is his coÌ„mon custome to talke quodlibetically he thought it the wiser way to put up what 's past with patience than by defending it give occasion for more mirth But to come to the point That which was objected to him by me and the Cath. Gent. was this That he expected Catholicks should produce Evidences and proofs for the Pope's Authority in England which task we disclaimed to belong to us who stood upon possession and such a possession as no King can show for his Crown any more than it does to an Emperour or any long and-quietly-possest Governour to evidence to a known Rebel and actual Renouncer of his Authority that his title to the Kingdome is just ere he can either account him or punish him as rebellious In answer Dr. H. Repl. p. 44. first denies that he required in the Place there agitated that is in the beginning of his fourth Chapter of Schism any such thing of the Catholicks as to prove their pretensions â—ut his own express words of Schism p. 66. 67. check his bad memory which are these Our method now leads us to enquire impartially what evidences are producible against the Church of England whereby it may be thought liable to this guilt of Schism Whence he proceeds to examine our Evidences and to solve them which is manifestly to put himself upon the part of the Respondent the Catholick on the part of the Opponent that is to make us bring proofs and seem to renounce the claim of our so-qualify'd a possession by condescending to dispute it Whereas we are in all reason to stick to it till it be sufficiently disprov'd which cannot be done otherwise than by rigorous Evidence as hath been shown not to dispute it as a thing dubious since 't is evident we had the possession and such a possession as could give us a title This therefore we ought to plead not to relinquish this firm ground and to fall to quibble with him in wordish testimonies To omit that the evidences he produces in our name are none of ours For the onely evidence we produce when we please to oppose is the evidence of the Infallibility of Vniversal Tradition or Attestation of Fore-fathers which we build upon both for that and other points of Faith nor do we build upon Scripture at all but as interpreted by the practice of the Church and the Tradition now spoken of Wherefore since Dr. H. neither mentions produces nor solves those that is neither the certainty of Vniversal Attestation nor the testimonies of Scripture as explicable by the received doctrine of Ancestours which latter must be done by showing that the doctrine of the Church thus attested and received gives them not this explication 't is evident that he hath not so much as mention'd much less produced or solved our Evidences Our Doctors indeed as private Writers undertake sometimes ex superabundanti to discourse from Scripture upon other Grounds as Grammar History propriety of language c. to show ad hominem our advantage over the Protestants even in their own and to them the onely way but Interpretations of Scripture thus grounded are not those upon which we rely for this or any other point of our Faith So that Dr. H. by putting upon us wrong-pretended Evidences brings all the question as is custome is to a word-skirmish where he is sure men may fight like Andabatae in the dark and so he may hap to escape knocks whereas in the other way of Evident reason he is sure to meet with enough At least in that case the controversy being onely manag'd by wit and carried on his side who can be readiest in explicating and referring one place to another with other like inventions it may be his good fortune to light on such a doltish Adversary that the Doctor may make his ayre-connected discourse more plausible than the others which is all he cares for This being a defence and ground enough for his fallible that is probable Faith Dr. H. defends himself by saying p. 44. he mean't onely that Catholicks bring Christ's donation to S. Peter for an Argument of the Pope's Supremacy instancing against the Cath. Gent. in his own confession that Catholicks rely on that donation as the Foundation or cornerstone of the whole buildâ—ng By which one may see that the Doctor knows not or will not know the difference between a Title and an Argument Christ's donation to S. Peter is our title our manner of trnour by which we hold the Pope his Successour Head pastour not our argument to infer that he is so 'T is part of our Tenet and the thing which we hold upon possession to be disprov'd by them or if we see it fitting to bee prov'd by us not our argument or proof against them to maintain it or conclude it so As a title then we rely and build upon it not produce it as a proof to conclude any thing from it And indeed I wonder any man of reason should imagin we did so since if he be a Scholar he cannot but know that we see how to the Protestants the supposed proof would be as deniable and in
onely to mean at present a deemed or beleeved certainty of Faith in him who is to maintain it Now whoever holds his Faith and its ground certain as Catholiks do is obliged eo ipso to hold for certain likewise that the Government recommended to him by the same Rule of Faith is to be submitted to and by consequence that the rejecting it is Schism whence follows that he must hold also for certain that the Propagatour of that Tenet is a Ringleader of Schismaticks publickly pernicious and one who by his poisonous Writings infects the souls of men with as hainous a vice as ever entituled any to damnation Neither can he hold him otherwise unlesse he will hold the ground of his own Faith uncertain and call into question the substance of all his hope that he may instead thereof entertain charitable thoughts of the impugner of it Now then let us consider what carriage is due towards a private person held for certain to be one who endeavours to draw souls to hell by his Writings and Authority from him who holds him so nor can hold him otherwise unlesse he will hold the grounds of his own Faith doubtful ought not this Catholike Writer if he has any zeal for his Faith or care of his Conscience which obliges him in charity to prevent so great mischief to use the means and waies which wit and art can invent to confute and discredit that mans harmful sophistry and disparage his authority as fat as truth can justifie his words ought hee not to trample down all tendernesse which his good nature would suggest neglect all considerations of respect all condescensions of civility to lay him open plainly and palpably to be what hee is that is ridiculous nonsensical weak blasphemous or whatever other Epithet the defence of so bad a cause makes so bad a writer deserve why should he make scruple going upon those grounds that his Faith is most certain and the former sequel no lesse to give him the same language if he be found to deserve it as St. Iude gave the Adversaries of Faith in his daies as the Fathers gave Porphyrius afterwards nay more if he sees he can make him justly ridiculous why should he not expresse himself ironically too in order to his nonsence as well as Elias might scoffe at the Priests of Baal In a word whatever can conduce to the justly disgracing him as the Defender of a certainly deemed-pernicious cause might lawfully nay in Charity ought have been used to undeceive his adherentes and preserve others from a certainly-beleeved danger and that the greatest of dangers eternal damnation Hence sollows that though S W. may perhaps be blamed for holding his Faith certain yet he is inculpable for proceeding consequently to the former Tenet that is in treating Dr. H. as a pernicious destroyer of soules since as hath been proved he cannot think him otherwise unlesse hee either doubt of his own Faith or renounce the light of his Reason which taught him to deduce thence by evident consequence that such he was and as such to be treated He who holds ill principles is blameable indeed in that regard but yet he is worthy of praise and commendations for proceding consequently upon them since to deduce consequences aright is very laudable As for the culpablenesse which may accrue by holding his Faith certain to clear himseif to rational persons for wordish and merely testimony-men are not capable of reason he feares not to professe that he makes account he hath as perfect evidence or more than he hath for any thing in nature that Truths of no lesse concernment then Eternity written in the hearts of so many as may in a just estimate make up the account of mankind in such a powerful manner and with such incompatable motives as the Apostles writ them being so conformable to nature not meerly speculative but each of them visibile and daily practical could never dye or decay out of the hearts of Christians in any age Nor hath he lesse evidence that consequently Scripture its interpretation being subject to misprision as far as they depend not upon this and are regulaâ—ed by it Vniversal Tradition is the onely certain and absolute rule of Faith whence follows that both they who build upon any other ground have onely opinion to found their faith for those points which they receive nor from tradition as also that that Church who relies upon universal Tradition for each point of Faith erres in none not can erre so long as the sticks close to so safe a Principle Now then finding no Church doe this but the Roman-Catholike for neither Greeks nor Protestants nor any else pretended to have received ever from their immediate Fore fathers those points of Faith in which they differ from her doubt not to account Her that onely Church which hath the true motive ground and rule of Faith since probability cannot be that Rule and consequently which hath true Faith and is a true Church Hence I am obliged to esteem all other Congregations which have broken from that onely-certain Rule or her Government recommended by the same Rule Schismatical and Heretical hence I conclude her Infallible because I make account I can demonstrate that the principle upon which onely she relies is impossible to fail Hence Iastly that I may come home to my intent I account my faith certain and the propagator of the contrary certainly pernicious to mens souls and therfore that it was both his desert and my obligation not to let slip any possible advantage which might with Truth damnify his cause and him as-the maintainer of it Now that we may turn over the leaf as certainty that faith is true is a sufficient ground to beget a just zeal in its propugners against its adversaries so a profest fallibitily and uncertainty is uterly insufficient for that end and unable to interest conscience in its defence For how should conscience be inreressed to defend positions held upon no better ground with any eagernesse unlesse reason be interessed first and how can reason be obliged to the serious and vigorous patronage of what it felf knows certainly that it knows not whether it be true or no See but how the working of Nature in all men gives testimony to this Truth If we hear one obstinately affirm and stand to a thing which we know certainly is otherwise though the matter it self be but of triviall concernment even Nature seems to stirre us up in behalf of Truth to a just resentment and hardly can we refrain from giving a sharp reprehension if the person be underus or some expression of-dislike if this peremptory wronger of truth exceed our jurisdiction So on the other side if we be uncertain whether the thing be so or no we find it quite abates that keennesse of opposition neither will any one unlesse very peevish and weak engage passion to quarrel about a conjecture or if it so happen sometimes as when probablists
whereof England was one It claimed Vniuersal Tradition for it's tenour an Authority held of great efficacy by our very Adversaries the rejecting it if groundless was known to be an hainous Schism and to unknit the whole frame of the Churche's present Government which by consequence must render it in an high degree damnable to those who should go about to violate it Now then let us consider whether a Reason in it's own nature probable for except rigorous Evidence no reason can be more and no way in it's self obliging the Vnderstanding to assent be a sufficient and secure motive to reject an Authority of so long continuance held sacred and of Christ's Institution of such importance to the peace of the Church in rejecting which if one happen to mistake he is liable to the horrid vice of Schism and it 's condign punishment eternal damnation It must then be most peâ—fect demonstrative Evidence such as forces the understanding to assent which can in common prudence engage a man to hazard his salvation by renouncing that Authority Let Dr. H. then remember that they must be such kind of Evidences which can serve his turn not any ordinary common sleight testimony-proofs which for the most part arrive not to the pitch of a poor probability in them selves but compar'd to the tenour of our Government Vniversal Tradition vanish into aire or which is less into nothing To make this yet clearer let us suppose as it happens in our case that they who began to reform in this point first and to deny the lawfulness of this Authority were bred up formerly in a contrary belief ortherwise they must have received it from their Fathers which would quite spoil the supposition of being the first Reformers Neither is it likely that multitudes began to think or speak against it all in one instant but either one or some few chief who propagated it by suggesting it to the rest Now then let us consider what motives are sufficient to oblige these men to this new-begun disbelief and disobedience so as to absolve them even in common prudence from a most self-conceited pride and desperate precipitancy In prejudice of them is objected that heretofore they held that forme of Government as of Faith and acknowledged to receive it upon the same sole certain Rule of Faith which assured them that Christ was God the whole Church they left had confessedly for some ages held the same so that it was now found in quiet Possession If they were learned they could not but in some measure penetrare the force of Vniversal Tradition which stood against them in this point since orall Tradition of which we speak was pleaded by Catholicks for this point but never so much as pretented by the separaters against it because Reformation in a point of Faith and Tradition of it destroy one the other In a word should all these most ponderous Considerations be waved and onely the Authority of the Church they left consider'd t' is impossible they should reform unless they should conclude millions of Doctours which had been in the Church many of them reverenced even yet by the Protestants for their admirable learning to be ignorant in comparison of themselves or else all insincere and to have wronged their Conscience in holding and teaching against their knowledge Now let any ingenuous person consider whether such a strange self-extolling judgment and condemning others ought in reason be made by a few men against the aforesaid most important motives without a most undeniable and open Evidence able to demonstrate palpably and convincingly that this pretended Government was unjust and usurp't And if the first Reformers could have no just and lawfull that is evident Ground to begin their disobedience to that Government neither can their Proselytes and Successours the Protestanrs have any pretence for continuing it since in matters belonging to Eternity whose nature is unchangeable by the occurrence of humane circumstances none can lawfully adhere to that which could never lawfully be begun Neither are there any proofs against that Authority producible now which were not producible then The seventh ground is that No Evidence can possibly be given by the Protestants obliging the understanding to beleeve that this Authority was usurp't This is proved by the case of the first Reformers now explicated whose words could not in any reason be imagin'd evident against such an universall Verdict of the whole Church they left and particularly of all the learned men in it incomparably and confessedly more numerous and as knowing as any have been since Yet we shall further evince it thus They pretend not to any evidence from natural Principles concluding demonstratively that the former Government was usurp't nor yet from oral Tradition since their immediate Forefathers deliver'd them other doctrine else the Reformation could never have begun against our common Supposition Their Grounds then must be testimonial proofs from Scriptures Fathers or Councils But since these are most manifestly liable to be interpreted divers ways as appears de facto no sufficient assurance can be pretended hence without evidencing either more skill to fetch out their certain sense or more sincerity to acknowledge what they knew than was found in the Church they left a task I am perswaded few will undertake I am confident none can perform since all the world knows that the vast number of eminent and learned Doctors we have had in the process of so many ages and extent of so many Countries were persons not meanly vers't in Scriptures Fathers Councills yet held all these most consonantâ—to the Catholick doctrine though the polemical vein of the Schools which left nothing not throughly ventilated gave them ample occasion to look into them Adde to this that our late Doctors and Controvertists have not feared nor neglected to answer all those testimonies and produce a far greater number out of all the said Authorities nor have they behaved themselves so in those conflicts that the indifferent part of the world have held them non-sensical which surely they would had they deemed the other a perfect and rigorous Evidence From hence followes that though they may blunder and make a show with testimonies yet in reality they can never produce sufficient that is evident reasons thence for rejecting a Government qualify'd with so many circumstances to confirm and establish it Though I must confess if they could demonstrate by evident and unavoidable connexion of termes from some undeniable authority that this Government was unjust their Vnderstandings would in that case be obliged to assent to that inference But this is not to be hoped as long as divers words have divers significations as divers Sentences by reference to divers others put on different faces or by relation to several circumstances in history give us occasion to raise several conjectures Again if Evidence were easily producible from such kind of wordish testimonies yet they would still be as far to seek for an Authority
whence to alledge those testimonies comparable to that of the Church they left since they can never even pretend to show any company of men so incomparably numerous so unquestionably learned holding certainly as of Faith and as received from the Apostles that Government which they impugned and this so constantly for so many hundred years so unanimously and universally in so many Countries where knowledge most flourish't testifying the same also in their General Councels all which by their own aknowlegedment was found in the Church they left The eihtgh Ground is that The proofs alledged by Protestants against us bear not even the weight of a probability to any prudent man who penetrates and considers the contrary motives For the proofs they alledge are testimonies that is words capable of divers senses as they shall be diversely play'd upon by wits Scholars and Criticks and it is by experience found that generally speaking their party and ours give severall meanings to all the Testimonies controverted between us Now it is manifest that computing the vastnefs of the times and places in which our Profession hath born sway we have had near a thousand Doctors for one of the Protestants who though they ever highly venerated and were well versed in all the Ancient Fathers and Councells yet exprest no difficulty in those proofs but on the contrary made certain account that all Antiquity was for them Thus much for their knowledge Neither ought their sincerity run in a less proportion than their number unless the contrary could be evidently manifested which I hear not to be pretended since they are held by our very Adversaries and their acts declare them to have been pious in other respects and on the other side considering the corruptness of our nature the prejudice ought rather to stand on the part of the disobeyers than of the obeyers of any Government Since then no great difficulty can be made but that we have had a thousand knowing men for one and no certainty manifested nor possible to be manifested that they were unconscientious we have had in all morall estimation a thousand to one in the meanes of understanding aright these testimonial proofs and then I take not that to have any morall probability which hath a thousand to one against it But I stand not much upon this having a far better game to play I mean the force of Tradition which is fortify'd which such and so many invincible reasons that to lay them out at large and as they deserve were to transcribe the Dialogues of Rusworth the rich Storehouse of them to them I refer the Reader for as ample as satisfaction as even Scepticism can desire and onely make use at present of this Consideration that if it be impossible that all the now-Fathers of Families in the Catholick Church disperst in so many nations should conspire to tell this palpablely to their Children that twenty yeares agoe such a thing visible and practical as all points of Faith are was held in that Church if no such thing had been and that consequently the same impossibility holds in each twenty yeares upwards till the Apostles by the same reason by which it holds in the last twenty then it followes evidently that what was told us to have been held twenty yeares agoe was held ever in case the Church held nothing but upon this Ground that so she received or had been taught by the immediately-foregoing Faithfull for as long as she pretends onely to this Ground the difficulty is equal in each twenty yeares that is there is an equal impossibility they should conspire to this palpable lie Now that they ever held to this Ground that is to the having received it from their Ancestours is manifested by as great an Evidence For since they now hold this Ground if at any time they had taken it up they must either have counterfeited that they had received it from their Ancestours or no. The former relapses into the abovesaid impossibility or rather greater that they should conspire to tell a lie in the onely Ground of their Faith and yet hold as they did their Faith built upon that Ground to be truth the latter position must discredit it self in the very termes which imply a perfect contradiction for it is as much as to say nothing is to be held as certainty of Faith but what hath descended to us from our Forefathers and yet the onely Rule which tells us certainly there is any thing of Faith is newly invented Wherefore unless this chain of Tradition be shown to have been weak in some link or other the case between us is this whether twenty testimonies liable to many exceptions and testify'd by experience to be disputable between us can bear the force even of a probability against the universal acknowledgment and testification of millions and millions in any one age in a thing visible and practical To omit that we are far from being destitute of testimonies to counterpoise nay incomparably over poise theirs By this Ground and the reason for it the Reader may judge what weak and trivial proofs the best of Protestant Authours are able to produce against the clear Verdict of Tradition asserted to be infallible by the strongest supports of Authority and reason To stop the way against the voluntary mistakes of mine Adversary I declare my self to speak here not of written Tradition to be sought for in the Scriptures and Fathers which lies open to so many Cavils and exceptions but of oral Tradition which supposing the motives with which it was founded and the charge with which it was recommended by the Apostles carries in it's own force as apply'd to the nature of mankind an infallible certainty of it's lineal and never-to-be-interrupted perpetuity as Rushworth's Dialogues clearly demonstrate Sect. 6. The Continuation of the same Grounds THe ninth Ground is that The Catholick Church and her Champions ought in reason to stand upon Possession This is already manifested from the fifth Ground since Possession is of it's self a title till sufficient motives be produced to evidence it an usurpation as hath there been shown By this appears the injustice of the Protestants who would have it thought reasonable that we should seem to quit our best tenour Possession attested by Tradition and fall upon the troublesome and laborious method of citing Authours in which they will accept of none but whom they list and after all our pains and quotations directly refuse to stand to their judgment as may be seen in the Protestant's Apology in which by the Protestant's own confessions the Fathers held those opinions which they object to us for errours The tenth Ground is that In our Controversies about Religion reason requires that we should sustain the part of the Defendant they of the Opponent This is already sufficiently proved since we ought to stand upon the title of Possession as a Ground beyond all arguments untill it be convinced to be malae fidei which is
impossible they to produce sufficient arguments that it was unjust that is they must oppose or object we defend they ought to argue we to answer Hence appeares how meanly skill'd Dr. H. is in the art of disputing complaining many times in his last Book that I bring no Testimonies out of Antiquity and that I do not prove things in my Schism Disarm'd whereas that Treatise being design'd for an Answer to his Book of Schism had no obligation to prove my tenet but onely to show that his arguments were unconclusive Hence also is discover'd how manifestly weak and ridiculous Mr. H. was in the second part of the most substantial Chapter of his book of Schism where hemakes account he hath evidence S. Peter had not the Keyes given him particularly by solving our places of Scripture for that tenet where besides other faults in that process which Schism Disarm'd told him of he commits three absurditiâ—â— First in putting himself upon the side of the Defendant wheras he ought and pretended to evidence that is to prove Secondly by imagining that the solving an Argument is an Evidence for the contrary whereas the force of such a solution is terminated onely in showing that illation weak but leaves it indâ—fferent whether the thing in it self be so or no or evidently deducible from some other Argument Thirdly he falsly supposes that we build our Faith upon those places of the written words as explicable by wit not by Tradition and the practise of our Church whereas we onely own the delivery from father to son as the Ground of all our belif and make this the onely Rule by which to explicate Scripture However some Doctors of ours undetrake sometimes ex superabundanti to argue ad hominem and show our advantage over them even in that which they most pretend to I know Mr. H. will object that all this time I have pleaded for him whiles I went about to strengthen the title of Possession since they are at present in actual Possession of their Independency from the Pope and therefore that in all the consequences following thence I have but plow'd his ground with mine own heifer But the Reader may please to consider that though I spoke before of Possession in general and abstractedly yet in descending to particular sorts of Possessions we must take along with us those particular circumstances which necessarily accompany them and design them to be such Since then it were unworthy the wisdom of the Eternal Father that our Blessed Saviour Iesus Christ coming to plant à Church should not provide for it's Being and Peace which confist in Order and Government it follows that Christ instituted the Government of the Church In our case then the Possession of Government must be such a Possession as may be presumable to have come from Christ's time not of such an one as every one knows when it began Since then it is agreed upon by all sides that this present possession the Protestants now have of their Independency was begun lately it is impossible to presume it to be that which was instituted by Christ unless they evidence the long settled possession of that Authority they renounced to have been an usurpation and on the contrary unless they evidence this that Possession is justly presumable to have come from Christ's time the maintainers and claimers of it making this their main tenour that truly it came from Christ Now then seeing we hear no news from any good hand nor manifest tokens of the beginning of this universal and proud Vsurpation which could not in reason but draw after it a train of more visible consequences and be accompany'd with a multitude of more palpable circumstances than the renouncing it in England which yet is most notorious to the whole world again since the disagreement of their own Authours about the time of it evidently shows that the pretended invasion of this Authority is not evident hence both for these and other reasons also such a Possession as this is of it's self and in it's own nature capable of pleading to have been derived from Christ that is to be that Possession which we speak of whereas the other is discountenanc'd by it's confest and known original which makes it not capable of it self to pretend that Christ instituted it unless it be help't out with the additional proof that it had been expulsed from an ancienter Possession by this usurpation of the Pope So that to say the truth this present Possession of theirs makes nothing at all for their purpose since it is no ways valid but in vertute of their evidences that the same Possession had been ancieÌ„tly setled in a long peace before our pretended invasion and if they can evidence this and that we usurp't then it is needless and vain to plead present Possession at all since that Possession which is evidenced to have been before ours is questionless that which was settled by Christ In a word though in humane affaires where Prescription has force we use to callâ—t Possession when one hath enjoyed any thing for some certain time yet in things of divine Institution against which no prescription pleads he onely can pretend possession of any thing who can stand upon it that he had it nearer Christ's time and by consequence he who shall be found to have begun it later unless he can evidence that he was driven out from an ancienter Possession is not for the present having such a thing or Power to be styled a Possessour but an Vsurper an intruder an invader disobedient rebellious and in our case Schismatical I am not ignorant that Dr. H. rawly affirmes that the Pope's Authority began in Phocas his time but I hope no Reader that cares much for his salvation wil take his word for honest till he show undeniable and evident matters of fact concerning the beginning progress Authours abetters opposers of that newly introduc't Government of Head of the Church the writers that time for it or against it the changes it made in the face of the Ecclesiastical State and the temporal also with whose interest the other must needs be enlinsk't and what consequences follow'd upon those changes together with all the circumstances which affect visible and extern actioÌ„s Otherwise against the sense of so many Nations in the Church they left the force of Tradition and so many unlikelihoods prejudicing it to tell us onely a crude Story that is was so or putting us off with three or four quotations in Greek to no purpose or imagining some chimerical possibilities how it might have been done hardly consisting with the nature of mankind is an Answer unworthy a man much more a Doctor and to say that it crep't in invisibily and unobserved as dreams do into men's heads when they are asleep is the part of some dreaming dull head who never lookt into the actions and nature of man or compared them with the motives which should work upon them The eleventh Ground
thus granted all that was pretended to wit their Infallibleness in those two sorts of actions because he would be sure to say something to every thing though to never so litle purpose as his custome is he addes first that they were not infallible in all sorts of things What man in his wits ever pretended it or imagin'd but that the Apostles might count mony wrong or be mistaken in knowing what a clock it was Was ever such frivolous stuff heard of Next he tells us that as they were men on earth they were fallible What a mysterious piece of sence is here He hath already confuted himself by granting that when they were men on earth they were Infallible which was solely pretended now that he may seem to impugn us he tacitely counterfeits us to hold that their Infallibility proceeds as from it's formal reason not from the assistance of the holy Ghost but from their being men on earth and by consequence that each man on earth is infallible since à quatenus ad omne valet consequentia Thirdly whereas my words which Answ p. 34. hee makes head against are onely of those two said acts in which hee at length grants they were infallibly assisted by the confirmation of the holy Ghost he rakes up all the Apostles faults and failings before the holy Ghosts descent and thinks to elude my words and delude his Reader by these more than childish evasions His tenth weakness is that he extends p. 34. by a voluntary mistake because he would still have something to say Mr. Knot 's words that the Church was infallible and not subject to errour to signify that it shall undoubtedly be preserved from falling into errour and that not onely from this or that sort of errour but indefinitely from all As if the controversy between Mr. Knot and him were not onely about Infallibility in delivering matters of Faith Is not this a sincere man who would make persons wiser than himself seem so imprudent as to think the Church Infallible in judging whether the Circle can be squared whether Sprights walk in S. Faiths under Paul's or whether a goose-py or a shoulder of mutton be the better dish By Dr. H's Logick it must be out tenet that the Holy Ghost whispers the Church in the ear to speak truth in all these and millions of other such unnecessary fooleries and all this absurdity must light upon us onely from this because Mr. Knot and S. W. said the Church is infallible and not subject to errour when the discourse was about matters of Faith necessary for the salvation of mankind The like non sense shuts up his eleventh Paragraph as the result of the discourse before it so again in the twelfth and fourteenth the same mistaking weakness is that which gives all the strength to the discourse and it is worth the Readers notice that he never impugnes our tenet of Infallibility but by such kind of forgery His eleventh weakness is his shuffling in his eleventh Paragraph where after he had told us very truly that the Apostles had agreed on all things needful for the Church deposited them in each Church as their Rule of Faiâ—h when he drew near the point in question to wit wheâ—her the depositary or Church was infallible and could not erre in delivering the right depositum or whether she might perhaps deliver a wrong one he flies off and tells us Ans p. 35. if they would adhere to that there needed no sitperadded Infallibility to things unnecessary Did ever Mr. Knot or I talk of Infallibility in things unnecessary or is this the point disputed between Catholicks and Protestants Good Mr. H. speak out and tell us whether the depositary can mistake or no in delivering needfull points if she can where is the certainty of our Faith if she cannot then some company of men on earth are infallible in delivering things necessary for Salvation which is the point in Controversy His twelfth weakness is that in going about to show how he can be infallibly certain of the books of Scripture he unawares recurres to our Rule of Faith though he never intends to stand to it affirming here Answ p. 36. that the testimony of others founded in their several sensations being faithfully conveyed to us by undeniable Tradition are as unquestionably certain as if we had seen them ourselves that is as he intimates before l. 3. infallible instancing that of this sort is the tradition of the universal primitive Church c. Where first if this be true I have gained my intent which was to show against him that some company of men might be infallible in attesting things of Faith though not in all things as he calumniates us to hold Next if the Tradition of the Primitive Church be infallible for the reason given I ask why the succeeding Church should not enjoy the same priviledge since the doctrine of Fore fathers being visible practical and so founded in the several sensations of the children they can by witnessing transmit it to their posterity asun questionably truly as if the Grand-children had seen what was held and practised in the Grand-fathers time Nay unless he grant this he hath done nothing that is he hath not shown that he hath any certainty of the books of Scripture for if the Tradition in the primitive Church onely be infallible I may be mistaken in believing the succeeding Tradition in this point since that may deceive me for any thing I know if the after Tradition also was Infallible then we conquer without dispute in this and all other Controversies about Faith since we were found adhering to this universal testification of all our Forefathers whereas they renounc't it when they renounced the Authority it recommended and ran to other Grounds private interpretations of Scripture and odde scraps of misunderstood testimonies and still are glad to sow together these thin figge-leaves to cover the nakedness of their deformed Schism His thirteenth weakness is that in testifying as above-said he sayes the Church is not considered as a society of believers indowed with any inerrable priviledge but as a number of witnesses c. As if they did not first believe it themselves ere they could conspire to deliver it to their Children for true or as if the same persons may both be Beleevers in respect of their Progenitours and Witnesses in respect of their posterity No wiser is his assertion that nothing is here contested from the Authority of their judgments For if he means the points which they contest are not founded on their judgments 't is most certainly true since speaking of points of Faith they are truths revealed by God not productions of mens heads But if he means their judgments went not along with their contestations but while they testified to have received them from their Ancestours they spake contrary to their judgment then they all conspired to tell a ly to their posterity in things of Faith which is impossible
assent sprung from Evidence From this short discourse follows first that our Churches Binding her children to beleef is evidently natural just charitable rational and necessary since she obliges them upon no other Ground than that which in it's own force had pre-obliged their nature to assent to wit Evidence Secondly that no man can revolt from the Faith of such an Authority to any other but through the highest degree of vice and passion since they would be found in this case to assent to another not onely without Evidence but against it Thirdly that therefore the Governours of the Church who proceed according to this power may justly punish and excommunicate those who recede from her Beleef founded in her Authority thus evidenced since this recession must spring from vice or a disorder'd affection in the will and vice all the world allows may be punished Fourthly that no tyranny can possibly be imputed to our Church as long as she proceeds upon such Grounds since she onely governs men according to their nature or Reason Fifthly that they who adhere to any other fallible Congregation upon onely probable that is inevident Grounds against her Authority thus evidenced being therefore as hath been shown in the highest degree vicious and passionate if they prove obstinate in it ought upon necessity to be Excommunicated cast out of the Church and separated from the Congregation of the Faithfull Reason showing plainly if no good can be done for their obstinate Souls order is to be taken that they do no hurt to the Souls of others Sixthly that all who forsake this infallible attestation of the Church they were in called Oral Tradition as did the Protestants in all points wherein they differ from us deserve this Excommunication since they left a pre-acknowledged Evidence and began to dogmatize upon acknowledg'd probabilities onely that is left proceeding to assent in that manner which was acknowledgedly rational connatural and virtuous and beginning to proceed in such a manner as is necessarily irrational unnatural and vicious Seventhly it follows that a Congregation which is fallible cannot without the greatest impudence in the world pretend to oblige rational Souls to assent upon her Authority since if she sees she may be in the wrong hic nunc in such a point she can have no Evidence that she is not actually deceived in it and so wanting Evidence to make good her Authority she wants whatsoever can oblige a rational Soul to assent upon her Authority Eighthly it follows hence that not onely the Independents Presbyterians c. may justly refuse to hear the Protestant Church which acknowledges her self fallible but that they sin if they should hear her since in that case they would be found to assent to an Authority without evidence of the veracity of that Authority Ninthly it follows that the Protestant Church acknowledging her self fallible and the like may be said of all fallible Congregations cannot even oblige the Independents Presbyterians c to behave themselves quietly within their Church and submit to their Government For in case that fallible Congregation oblige her Children to a subscription or declaration of their assent to her doctrine it were a vice either to assent without Evidence of authority which is wanting to a fallible Church or subscribe without a real inward assent as the Doctor himself confesses they may then resist such a command of that Church and express themselves contrary and disobedient Nay more if that Congregation be fallible it may possibly be in a damnable errour and some one or more may happen to see evidently that it is in such an errour and many of ordinary capacity rationally doubt what the others see now in that case why may not the former make account it is their obligatiō to oppose that Church and let men see their soul-endangering errour may maintain a party against her and defy her as one who would bring Souls to Hell by her doctrine As also why may not the latter rather than hazard the accepting a damnable errour adhere to this company of Revolters at least stand neutral between the Church and them Again since it hath been shown they may renounce the Faith of a fallible Church why may they not renounce her Government since her Faith must needs be as sacred as her Government which depends on Faith and is subordinate to it Government being chiefly to maintain Faith and such actions as proceed from Faith Neither is it lawfull yet to revolt against temporal Magistrates upon the score of their fallibility in case they oblige their Subjects onely to act or obey according to the civil State because that is a Government grounded onely upon natural reason instituted for natural ends and plainly evident it must be obey'd unavoydable inconveniences following upon disobedience which force us to confess there 's no safety for our lives or estates without this Obedience Tenthly it follows that Dr. H's denying any company of men on earth to be Infallible and by consequence to have power to bind to beleef is most exquisitely pernicious destroying at once all beleef and leaving no obligation in the world nay making it a sin to beleeve any Article of the Christian Faith For since neither Scripture nor the doctrine of the Primitive Church acknowledged by Dr. H. to have been built upon an Infallible Tradition can be evidenced to us but by some Authority faithfully conveying it down ever since that time if this Authority cannot be evidenced to be infallible no man is bound in reason to assent or believe either Scripture to be God's word or the Doctrine to be Christ's upon her Authority since there wants Evidence of that Authority's veracity which can onely oblige to assent nay more he must needs sin in precipitating his assent without Evidence to ground it on Eleventhly Dr. H. Answ p. 36. in another place grants that this universal attestation in which we found the Churche's Infallibility and all these deductions makes one as certain of a thing as if he had seen it with his own eyes and again confesses himself Infallibly certain of what he hath seen with his own eyes which is as much as we either say or desire Wherefore the good Doctor doth a◠once both confirm us and contradict himself Lastly it follows that it is the height of frivolousness for D. H. even to pretend excuse from obligation to beleeve our Church and assent to the doctrine of his own without most undeniable and rigorous Evidence both for the errableness of ours and the inerrableness of the Protestants Church By these brief deductions from that one evident Ground of the infallibility of Vniversal Attestation the prudent Reader will plainly see how consequently the Catholick Church proceeds to the grounds of Nature and Reason how inconsequently to both the Protestant Churches must necessarily goe when they would oblige either to Government or Faith Since Certainty and Evidence once renounced there remains nothing to move the Vnderstanding to
possible way corresponding to the one we shall take it as it must in all honestly-meant probability sound and ask him whether there was ever such a strange position heard of in the Schools that there should be no possible way to testify a Negative but by solving the Affirmative places Are there no Negative Testimonies in the words or cannot a Negative testimony testify a Negative point without necessarily recurring to solve Affirmatives Wee were taught in Logick to prove Negatives by concluding in Celarent or Ferio without being forc't necessarily to stand answering the arguments in Barbara and Darij for the Affirmative whereas according to Dr. H's new Logick the onely way to prove a Negative point must be to solve the Affirmative proofs To omit that it shall bee shown presently how the solving Affirmatives was no one way to testify a Negative Again he was shown by Schism Disarm'd that this way of arguing was rather indeed to bring obscurity than Evidence for all that it can pretend is this that the conclusion follows not out of those testimonies or premises therein is terminated it's force nor doth it proceed so far as to prove or infer that the thing in it self is vntrue Indeed if it be known first that the Opponent holds his tenet upon no other Grounds save onely that testimony and that be shown plainly to be vnable to conclude he will be obliged to relinquish his tenet so far as not to hold it any more till he sees better ground yet still he is not obliged to embrace or assent to the contrary position if he sees no Evidence for it but to suspend all assent one way or other and to think rather that perhaps his may yet have other Grounds to prove it true for any thing he knows Much lesse is it proved at all that the contrary is true though all his arguments be solved till evidence be brought for it Wherefore as long as this is not manifested to wit that he hath no other tenour upon which he holds his position the thing is much further from being concluded no not even ad hominem to be false for though that medium do not establish it another may But now if it be manifest that the Adversary builds least of all upon those places the other solves nay nothing at all in the manner that the other thinks they are to be managed and undertakes to solve them then the solving such Testimonies sinks into the miserablest lowest degree of force nay even as low as nothing This being our present case observe I beseech thee prudent Reader the infinite weaknes of this Drs discoursive facultie He first goes about to prove our tenet false from solving 2. or 3 places of Scripture whereas that very way of arguing can infer no more but that those places conclude not for it nor are places of Scripture arguments that we build upon at all for our faith as explicable by wit in which sence he impugns them but onely as they are explicable by universall Tradition our Rule of faith Since then Dr. H. not so much as pretends to solve them according to the sence which Tradition gives them for he no where pretends to shew that the attestation practice of immediate forefathers did not ever give them this sence 't is evident he hath not in this processe impugned our faith at all seeing he impugns no tenour nor argument at all upon which we build or hold our faith Indeed our Drs undertake sometimes to argue ad hominem against them and abstracting from our Rule of faith universall Tradition fall to interpret Scripture with them proceeding upon other Grounds to wit upon private skill learning to shew our advantage over them in their own and to them the onely way If then Mr. H. pretended onely to try his wit with our Doctors in this place then were his way of procedure by solving Testimonies allowable in reason I should approve of his intention so he exprest it But if he say he mean't to impugn our faith or build his own he can never pretend it unles he solve or impugn those Grounds upon which wee build our faith Make account then Reader that that which Dr. H. and I are now about is nothing at all to faith but onely an exercise of wit and private skill and consists in this whether of us can make words lest without life stark dead to our hands by Grammaticall Criticall quibbling move more dexterously smartly towards the end we drive at and is all one as if Lawyers should consent to abstract from custome knowledge of Ancestors and the books of the known laws as I do now from Practise Tradition the sole true Foundation of faith and dispute out of some pliable or obscure passages in odde histories and some letters written onely upon occasion as Gildas some such few remnants of that time in the Reign of the Brittains by what laws the kingdom was then governed Again since we build not all upon places of Scripture as explicable by private learning it belongs not to us to shew them evidently concluding for us as thus explicated no more then it doth to divines to demonstrate mysteries of faith by reason which depend upon another ground to wit Authority Wee acquit our selves well if wee shew that what is there is consistent with our faith as divines do if they can show mysteries consistent with and not contradictory to reason and wee do more then the necessity of our cause or reason obligeth us to if wee shew them rather sounding to our advantage as thus explicable For how can any man be bound in reason to show that thing sounding in his behalf upon which neither he nor his cause relies whereas it belongeth to the Protestants who rely upon Scripture explicable by private wit for their faith to prove evidently that it is for them and bears no probability against them In the same manner as when Catholikes go about to prove their faith from Scripture as explicable by Tradition it belongs to them to shew that explication infallibly certain because they rely upon it as the Rule of their faith Secondly Dr. H. was charged with a palpable iniuriousnes in making the answering our places of Scripture the summe of his first proofs and yet omitting our cheefest place of all Io. 21. 15. 16 17. Dr. H. replies Answ p. 59. this is iust as Doctor Stapleton deales with M. Calvin I answer it is very likely for I do not doubt but Dr. H. inherits his father Calvin's faults so deserves the same reprehension But how dealt Dr. Stapleton with that good man M. Calvâ—n why he call'd a Text of Scripture the most important place because it was not mention'd So sayes Mr. Calvin's friend Dr. H if wee will beleeve him but till he proves it better then by onely saying it wee shall take libertie to think that friendship blindes Next he tells us he hath given
Bishop and his consistory afterwards which was I deated in this first consistory of the Apostles wherefore since Dr. H. grants no higher degree of Authority in S. Peter than in the rest of the Apostles he can conclude no more but this that the Presbyters are all equall in Authority as the Apostles were that is there ought to bee no more-highly-authoriz'd Bishop over them but onely that one of those equally-dignify'd Presbyters ought to sit talk or walk before the rest according to Dr. H's explication of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by Primacy of order Thus whiles the Dr. disputes from this place against the Presbytery he falls into Popery As for what he tells me here that it is the interest of S. W. as well as of the Protestants to mantain this point against the Presbyterians who a lone can gain by the questioning it I answer that I love the Presbyterians so well as not to wish them renounce their reason that is man's nature which they must doe if they assent to what the Protestants say upon a probability onely nay a totally improbable and rather opposit Text. Nor should I wish them so much hurt as to beleeve Episcopacy unles I made account the Catholick Church was able to give them rigorously convincing evidence for her Authority asserting it which is impossible the Protestants should do unles they plow with our heifer and recur to our Rules of faith universall Tradition so oft renounc'd by them for other points Observe Reader that I had shown his explication of this place of Scripture against the Presbyterians to make unavoidably against thim self Schism Disarm'd p. 95. In reply to which dangerous point Answ p. 66 par 16. he onely calls my reasons expressions of dislike to his argument against Presbytery that it is not pertinent to the question that it hath not as he supposes any show of the least diâ—ficulty in it and so ends As if my showing that our tenet follows more naturally out of the words even as explicated thus by him self were onely an expression of dislike impertinent to our question or had not if proved any show of the least difficulty in it yet he braggs at the end of this Section that he hath attended me precisely and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 step by step though he makes when he spies danger such large skips over me Solution 8. The words feed my Sheep are nothing but an â—xhortation to discharge that duty to which he was beforâ— commissionated Rep. p. 68. par 10. p. 63. Reply had he ever a particular Commission given him correspondent to the particularizing promise but here or was not the word pasce spoken imperatively by a Master to his servant as apt to signify a Commission as the words Goe teach all Nations were how then appears it from the words that this was onely an exortation and if it does not what is it more then Dr. H's own saying Solution 9 The circumstances in the Text can never work a change in the matter an inculcated expresse particulariz'd explication introduc'd with a question to quicken and impresse it can never be converted by these accumulationâ— into a Commission for supremacy Answ p. 63. Reply first you must show that the words persuade it was onely an Exhortation else all this and your following discourse falls to the ground Next such particularizing circumstances to S. Peter in the presence of the rest are apt in their owne nature to make him or any man living ready to apprehend that the thing promised belonged to him in a particular manner els to what end serv'd they would noâ— a common promise have sufficed if this had not been intended Thirdly there needed no converting the signification of the pasce from an Exhortation into a Commission of Supremacy The word was apt before of it self to signify a Commission the accumulation of particularizing circumstances gave it to signify a particular Commission Let the reader examin Dr. H. by what force of the words he proves t' is an exhortation onely since the words themselves are words of Commission there being nothing proper to a meer exhortation in them And as for the Drs parallell here that Christ's praying the same prayer thrice did not make it cease to be a prayer and commence a precept t 's soe silly as a sillier cannot be imagin'd since neither the words of Christ's prayer are apt to be converted from a praying to a commanding signification nor was it likely or possible that Christ should impose precepts upon his heavenly father to whom he pray'd as he could upon S. Peter not lastly is it onely the thrice saying that wee build upon as abstracted from all the other particularising circumstances but the thrice saying a precept and a precept thus exprest Solution 10. The asking him thriâ—e lovest thou me made S. Peter no doubt deem it a reproach of his thrice denying his Master Answ p. 63. The Text saith Peter was greeved because he said vnto him the third time Lovest thou me which Sure he would not have been if he had looked on it as an introduction to so great a preferment Reply Dr. H. hath here at unawares bewray'd what kinde of Spirit he is of who makes account that the getting some great preferment is a ground of more gladnes then our Saviours seeming to doubt of his love to him would be occasion of sorrow But he shall give me and all good Christians â—eave to think that good S. Peter was of another temper and that he valued the good opinion of his Master questioning so much his love to him above the attainment of any dignity imaginable Though I must confesse Dr. H's Noe doubt and Sure upon which all depends are two sure cards were they authoris'd by any thing besides his own words and 't is a very competent answer with him to say he is sure and there is no doubt but that S. Peter gap't so much after a preferment that he car'd not in comparison of it what opinion his B. Master had of him in order to his loving him Again how do the words soe put it beyond all doubt that the asking him thrice lovest thou mee was deemed by S. Peter a reproach of his thrice deniall whereas the Text tells us that S. Peter was fully persuaded of his Masters knowledge of his love and confidently appeal'd to that knowledge Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee Nor have wee any ground to think that S. Peter apprehended his sweet Master so cruell as to upbraid a forgiven sin especially seeing the return of so much love in the breast of his dear Disciple If Dr. H. pretend that it was to excite in him a greater care of Christ's flok the words indeed give countenance to it But then it should be ask'd what necessity was there of exciting a greater care in S. Peter in particular had he shown him self of soe negligent a nature as to give occasion of doubt that
and the exercisers of them punish't as Traitors meerly upon this Score because they performed such acts That this was the case is evidenced most manifestly out of the laws themselves every where extant which make it treason and death to hear a Confession or to offer up the unbloody Sacrifice of our Saviours Body c. and out of their own remitting this strange treason at the very last gasp nay rewarding the persons osten if they would renounce their tenets accompany them to their Churches These are our manifest and undeniable proofs what arguments does hee hring to blinde the Evidences nothing but obscure conceits to be look't for in mens breasts pretended fears ielousies that all who exercised such acts of Religion were Traitors meant to kill and slay the Governors or at most some particular attemps of private persons either true or counterfeited if some were true it was no wonder that such hert burnings passions should happen where people were violently forced to renounce the faith they had so zealously embraced were bred brought up in and per adventure no Protestant party living under Catholikes but have had the same or greater examples of the like attempts Yet I excuse not those who attempted any thing against Government nor accuse the Governors for treating them as they deserved onely that the faults of some should be so unreasonably reflected upon all nay upon Religion it self as to make the formality of guilt consist in the performing such acts of Religion was most senceles malicious nay self condemning since their own Profession admits the hearning a Confession to be a lawfull act of Religion and you would yet willingly hear them if the people were not wiser then to go to such sleightly authoriz'd Ghostly fathers Nor do I apprehend that you would think your selves very well dealt with if the present Government because of some â—isings of some of your party against them which they know to have been back't promoted fomented by some of your Lay Clergy should there upon presently make laws to hang as Traitors every one of the said Clergy whom they found either hearning a Confession or speaking of the Church Government by Bishops a point as much condemn'd by the present Government as any of our tenets was by Queen Elizabeth If then you would think this very hard dealing acknowledge others comparatively moderate and your selves to have been most unreasonably cruell In his p. 48. if hee mean as hee sayes hee clears our Religion from destroying subjection to Princes I subsume But the Supremacy of the Pope is to us a point of faith that is a point of Religion therefore the holding the said Supremacy is according to him if hee means honestly that is as hee speaks no wayes injurious to Princes If any extent of this power pretended to bee beyond it's just limits hath been introduced by Canon-Lawyers or others let him wrangle with them about it our Religion and Rule of faith owns no such things as is evident by the universality of Catholike Doctors declaring in particular cases against the Pope when it is necessary as the Lawyers in England did against the King without prejudice to their Allegiance which I hope characters those Doctors in his eye to bee good sujects to their Governors Yet he is sorry to have done us this favour or to stand to his own words even when they signify onely Courtesy Hee alledges therefore that these instances cited by him of Catholikes disobeying the Pope in behalf of Kings were before these poysonous opinions were hatched and so they do not prove that all Roman Catholikes at this time are loyall subjets Yet himself in his vindication p. 194. so naturall is self contradiction to him told us of as violent acts done against the Pope in Cardinall Richlieu's dayes in Portugall very lately and in a maner the other day in which also the Portugeses were abetted by a Synod of French Bishops in the year one thousand six hundred fiâ—ty one who were positive very round with the Pope in their behalf These were some of his instances in this very seventh Chapter which now a badd memory and self contradiction is ever a certain curse to falshood hee tells us were before our seditions opinions were hatched Now what seditious opinions have been hatched or can bee pretended to have been hatched within this five years I dare say hee is ignorant And lest you should think I wrong him you shall hear him contradict himself yet once-more so fully does hee satisfy his Reader on all sides affirm here p. 49. that hee hopes that those seditioâ—s doctrines at this day are almost buried So that spell the Bishop's words together and they sound thus much that those pretended seditious doctrines had their birth buriall both at once and were entomb'd in their shell that is were never hatch't at all So cruelly if you but confront the two faces of the same Ianus does hee fall together by the ears with himself baffle break his self divided head with one splay leg trip up the other After this hee presents the Reader with a plat from of the Church fancied by mee as hee sayes for which greevous fault he reprehends mee ironically telling mee that 't is pitty I had not been one of Christ's Councellors when hee form'd his Church that I am sawcy with Christ what not Now I never apprehended Christ had any Councellors at all when he first form'd his Church till the Bishop told mee hee had wish't I had been one of them or fancied any thing at all unles hee will say that what Catholikes received from their forefathers and what with their eyes wee see left in the Church still is onely the work of my fancy which is non-sence for I onely took what was delivered as of faith by immediate Tradition to wit that S. Peter was constituted by Christ Prince of his Apostles and that the Pope was his Successor into that Office and then show'd the admirable conveniencies the moderation the necessity of that form of Government how innocent if taken in it's due limits as held out to us by the Rule of faith to temporall Government nay how beneficiall to the same how absolutely necessary for and perfectly concerning the Vnity in the Church how impossible the said Vnity is without it c. which if it bee Saucines hee may with the same reason accuse all divinity of Saucines which takes what faith hath delivered for example that Christ was Incarnate thence proceeds to show the conveniency necessity c. of the Incarnation But the poor Bp. who has busied all his life in not in quaint concieted stories odd ends of Testimonies never had leisure to reflect that this is the method which Science takes when it proceeds a posteriori first building upon what it finds to have been done by experience or other Grounds and thence proceeding to finde out the causes why or by
our charge of their Schismaticall breach is will winnow them the Rule of faith the voice of the Church or immediate Tradition will winnow or rather Christ hath winnow'd them by it having already told them that if they hear not the Church they are to be esteemed no better than Heathens Publicans Since then 't is evident out of the terms that you heard not the Church for your nâ—w fangled Reformations nor Ground those tenets upon the voice of the Church nay according to your Grounds have left no Church nor common suprem Government in the Church to hear it follows that you have indeed winnow'd your selves from amongst the wheat of Christians and are as perfect chaff I mean those who have voluntarily broken Church Communion as Publicans Heathens Now to show how empty a brag it is that they hold Communion with thrice as many Christians as wee to omit their no Communion in Government already spoken of Sect. 6. let us see what Communion they have with the Greek Church in tenets by the numerosity of which they hope for great advantages and whether the Protestants or wee approach nearer them in more points held equally by both I will collect therefore out of one of their own side Alexander Ross the tenets of the present Greek Church in which they agree with us though in his manner of expressing our tenet hee sometimes wrongs us both The Greeks place saith hee much of their deuotion in the worship of the Virgin Mary and of painted Images in the intercession prayers help and merits of the saints which they invocate in their Temples They place Iustification not in faith but in works The sacrifice of the Mass is used for the quick and the dead They beleeve there is a third place between that of the blessed and the damned where they remain who deferr'd repentance till the end of their life If this place bee not Purgatory adds Ross I know not what it is nor what the souls do there View of all Religions p. 489. And afterwards p. 490. They beleeve that the souls of the dead are better'd by the prayers of the living They are no less for the Churches Authority and Traditions than Roman Catholikes bee when the Sacrament is carried through the Temple the People by bowing themselves adore it and falling on their knees kiss the earth In all these main points if candidly represented they agree with us and differ from Protestants Other things hee mentions indeed in which they differ from us both as in denying the Procession of the Holy Ghost not using Confirmation observing the Iewish Sabbath with the L d' s day c. As also some practises not touching faith in which they hold with the Protestants not with us as in administring the Sacrament in both kinds using leauened bread in the Sacrament Priests marriage there is no one point produced by him which our Church looks upon as a point of faith in which they dissent from us and consent with the Protestants except that one of denying the Pope's Supremacy for their onely not using Extreme-Vnction which hee intimates signifies not that they hold it unlawfull or deny it Iudge then candid Protestant Reader of they Bp ' s sincerity who brags of his holding Communion with thrice as many Christians as wee do whereas if wee come to examin particulars they neither communicate in one common Government one common Rule of faith if wee may trust this Authour of their own side since if the Greeks hold the Authority of the Church and Traditions as much as Catholikes do as hee sayes they must hold it as their Rule of faith for so Catholikes hold it nor yet in any one materiall point in opposition to us save onely in denying the Pope's Supremacy And how more moderate they are even in this than the greatest part of if not all Protestants may bee learned from the Bp ' s mistaken testimony at the end of this Section as also from Nilus an avowed writer of theirs for the Greek Church against the Latine and one of the gravest Bp ' s and Authours of that party who shuts up his book concerning the Pope's Primacy in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The summe is this As long as the Pope preserves order and stands with truth hee is not removed from the first and his proper Principality and hee is the Head of the Church and chief Bishop and the successour of Peter and of the rest of the Apostles and it behooves all men to obey him and there is nothing which can detract from the honour due to him but if when hee hath once strayed from the Truth hee will not return to it hee will bee liable to the punishment of the damned Where the Reader will easily judge whether the former words sound more incliningly to the Catholike or the Protestant tenet and as for the latter words But if c. There is no Catholike but will say the same Thus much then for my L d of Derry's Communion with the Eastern Church And as for his Communion with the Southern Northern Western Churches which hee thunders out so boldly as if all the world were on his side and of his Religion if examin'd 't is no better than the former sence his side denies immediate Tradition of forefathers or the living voice of the present Church to bee the Rule of faith which is to the Roman Church the fundamentall of fundamentalls Nor has hee any other Rule of faith that is a plain and certain method of interpreting Scripture common to him and his weakly relâ—ted Brethren so that if they hit sometimes in some points 't is but as the Planets whichare ever wandring hap now and then to have conjunctions which hold not long but pursving their unconstant course decline and vary from one another by degrees and are at length crost by diacentricall oppositions The rest of this paragraph insists again upon his often answer'd saying that the creed contains all necessary points which is grounded onely upon his falsifying the Council of Ephesus as hath been shown heretofore To my many former replies vnto this pretence I add onely this that either it is a necessary point to believe there is such a thing as God's written word or the Scripture or not If not then why do the Protestants challenge it for their Rule of faith Is not the Ground of all faith a necessary point But if it bee a necessary point then all necessary points are not in the Apostles creed for there is no news there of the Scripture nor is it known how much thereof was written when the Apostles made their creed what hee adds of our having chaÌ„ged from our Ancestors in opinions either hee means by opinions points of faith held so by us and then 't is calumny and is to be solidly proued not barely said But if hee mean School opinions what hurt is done that those things should be changed which are in their
to proceed His second Epistle against Vigilantius begins thus Multa in orbe monstra c Many monsters have been begotten in the world we read in Esaias of Centaurs and Sirens Screech-owls and Onocrotals Iob describes Leviathan and Behemoth in mysticall language the fables of the Poets tell of Cerberus and the Stymphals and the Erymanthian Boar of the Nemean Lion of Chimera ad many-headed Hydra Virgil describes Cacus Spain hath brought to light three-shap't Geryon France onely had no Monsters Suddenly there arose Vigilantius or more truly Dormitantius who with an unclean spirit fights against the spirit of Christ and denies that the sepulchres of the martyrs are to be venerated Insanum caput mad or frantick fellow Sanctas reliquias Andreae Lucae Timothei apud quas Daemones rugiunt inhabitatores Vigilantij illorum se sentire praesentiam confitentur The holy reliques of Andrew Luke and Timothy at which the Devils roare and the possessours of Vigilantius confesse that they feel their presence Tu vigilans dormis dormiens scribis Thou sleepest waking and writest sleeping De barathro pectoris tui coenosam spurcitiam evomens vomiting dirty filth from the hell of thy breast Lingua viperea Viperine tongue Spiritus isle immundus qui haec te cogit scrâ—bere saepe hoc vilissimo tortus est pulvere immo hodieque torquetur qui iu te plagas dissimulaâ— in aliis confitetur That unclean spirit which compells thee to write these things has oftentimes been tortured with this contemptible dust meaning the Holy Reliques which Vigilantius styled thus yea and is now adayes still tortur'd and he who in thee dissembles his wounds confesses them in others But let us come to the Treatise our Adversary cites and see how roughly S. Hierome handles Helvidius whom Dr. H. would have him accuse in the same treatise of the self-same fault Sedâ—ne te quasi lubricus anguis evolvas testimoniorum stringendus es vinculis ne querâ—lus sibiles but lest like a stippery snake thou disentangle thy self thou must be bound with the cords of testimonies that thou mayest not querulously hiss Imperitissime hominum siliest of men Nobilis es factus in scelere Thou art ennobled made famous by thy wickednesse Quamvis sis hebes dicere non aâ—debis although thou beest dull or blockish yet thou darest not affirm it Risimus in te proverbinm Camelum vidimus saltantem We have laught at the old proverb in thee We have seen a dancing Camel c. Where we see First that if S. Hierome's verdict exprest in his own manifold example be allowable whom Dr. H hath chosen for Vmpire in his matter t is very lawfull and fitting to give the Adversaries of Faith their full desert in controversies concerning Faith and not to spare them as long as the truth of their faultinesse can justify the rigorous expressions Neither let Dr. H. objet that I beg the question in supposing him an Adversary of the true faith for to put the matter indifferently and so as may please even the Protestants them selves either Dr. H's cause is false and then 't is laudable to use zeal against him who perniciously endeavours to mantain a falsehood or else it is true then he deserves as great a reprehension who abuses his cause by going about to defend it by such wilfull falsifications and so many frauds and weaknesses as he hath been discovered Whence it appears that the indifferent Reader is not to consider at all whether the expressions sound harshly or no but whether they be true or no for if they be then that person will be found in reason to deserve reprehension be the cause he defends true or false if he defend it either senselesly or insincerely Secondly these harsh expressions of S. Hieromes being due to Dr. H's forefather Vigilantius for denying veneration to holy Reliques are due likewise upon that onely score to Dr. H. and the Protestant writers who deny the same Point what then may we imagine the Protestants deserve for filling up the measure of their forefathers sinnes by denying the onely certain Rule of Faith Vniversall Tradition the former governmeÌ„t of God's Church almost all the Sacraments and many other most important points besides and of much greater concernment than is this of venerating holy Reliques Thirdly the Reader shall find no where in Schism Disarm'd such harsh language given to Dr. H. or which if taken in it's own nature sounds so contumeliously as this of S. Hieromes against Vigilantius is frantick fellow monster prodigious monster possest with the Devill possest with an unclean Spirit snake famous for wickednesse blockhead c. My harshest words in comparison of these are moderate and ciuil mine are smiling Ironies his are stern and bitter Sarcasmes and if I whipt Dr. H. gently with rods S. Hierome wihpt his forefather Vigilantius with Scorpions Whence followes that I am to be thank't by Dr. H. for my moderation not excommunicated for my excesse in reprehending him since all those more severe expressions far out-vying mine were his due as he is in the same fault with Vigilantius besides what accrues to him out of later titles and this by the judgement of S. Hierome the very Authour he quotes for himself in this point Fourthly what a miserable weaknesse is it to quote this Father against me for using harsh language who himself uses far harsher which evidences that if this Fathers authority and example be of weight in this point as Dr. H. grants by bringing him against me for that purpose then the roughnesse of the language is not railing or reprehensible if taken alone or abstracted from the cause since Dr. H. will not say that this holy Father thought that manner of language railing or reprehensible in himself which showes that Dr. H's first Chapter fighting against the words as abstracted from the cause as much accuses S. Hierome as me nay much more as his words exprest more fully his justly-caused zeal than my more moderate pen did Fifthly abstracting from the cause and impugning the manner of expression onely as Dr. H. does who sees not that the Heretick Vigilantius might with the same reason as he have entitled the first Chapter of his Reply to S. Hierome in the like manner as he did to wit thus Of Hieroms style and contumelies The Scriptures sentence on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Character belonging thereto Then in the Chapter it self have call'd S Hierome's plain discovery of his faults scoffes and contumelies have told him that he had just title to the scorners chair that his writing against him was like Goliahs cursing of David Rabshakels reproaches against Israel that the Apostle had long ago pronounced sentence against him that none should eat with him that he was in reality no Christian a detestable person faln under the censures of the Church ipso jure excommunicate in a speciall sort one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unrighteous that he shall not
truly that he was not actually and de facto under him when he had renounced his Authority and raised an Army against him He tells us moreover upon his honest word if we will believe him that the King and Bishops here had the supreme power under Christ to reiect the Pope's Authority that the Pope's power was usurp't c. and then hiding his head under these thin leaves he concludes himself perfectly safe till we make it appear that we were Governours and they faulty So that by the Doctor 's Logick a boy though undoubtedly held the son of such a Father may not be whip't by him for disobedience as long as the boy can call his mother whore and deny himself to be his Son unless the Father make it first appear that he is his Child Till you first renounced the Authority of our Supreme Governour let it be when it will you were under him and held his Children and Subjects your disobedience is most notorious and confest and that not a meer disacceptance of his commands but disallowance of his Authority yet as long as you can deny it and say the Roman-Church your then-Mother was a strumpet and had erred in Faith she may not punish nor excommunicate you without first making it appear you are her Children A solid piece of reason Observe Reader that Dr. H. in all these raw affirmations of his that not begg'd the question a jot although he be the opponent 't is his privilege to say what he will every one knows 't is his humour In a word let him either show that his reasons for renouncing that Authority are above all degrees of probability which was the proper answer or else let him confess as he must that he is evidently a Schismatick in rejecting an Authority for so many Ages acknowledg'd certain upon slight and phantastical Grounds One piece of wit I must not omit because I have heard more than one of Dr. H's Friends misled by it The Doctor affirms here Answ p. 30. l. 14. that the Pope's Authority was first cast off by Papists 'T is strange that the same men who nominate us Papists for onely acknowledging the Pop's Authority should call them also Papists who disacknowledge it But perhaps he means they were Roman-Catholicks if so then let me ask does he mean that they were of our Profession ere they renounc't it so was every one that turned Knave or Rebel an honest man and true Subject formely else he had never turn'd so but ever been so must then Knaves and Rebels impute knavery and rebellion to honest men and true Subjects and say it was they who first began those Vices or does he mean perhaps that they remain'd Catholicks after the renouncing it If his mistake be there he may right it by taking notice that such a renouncing is an Act of Schism involving heresy by corenouncing the Rule of Faith After this renouncing therefore they were Schismaticks and Hereticks not Catholicks and whatever tenets they may be pretended ro retain still were not now Faith but Opinion onely the sole certain Ground of Faith Oral Tradition being abandon'd and rejected unless the Doctor will say that they had yet Catholick Faith in them who denyed all the ground of Catholick Faith and then indeed I shall not refuse to give them leave to hold them without Ground and rank them in Dr. H's Predicament of Probablists Sect. 10. Dr. H's plea of a weak conscience common to the Prostants and any malefactour Thirteen shamefull and wilful weaknesses in answering Mr. Knot 's position that we may lawful'y forsake the Churche's Communion if she be not infallible Mr. H. begins his third Section very angrily calling mine p. 31. a perfect Romane-combate with a Wind-mil of my own erecting toward which he never contributed the least stone or timber But what if I show the Doctor that he hath contributed great mill-stones and huge logges towards the making this Wind-mill of his My affirmation was that Schism Disarm'd p. 14. he had got a new cloak for his Schism the pretence of a weak conscience citing for it his excusing words that they could not subseribe to things which their conscience tells them is false and that it is hard to say a man can lawfully subscribe in that case though the truth be on the Churche's side Hence I deduced some consequence how his doctrine excused those malefactours and their three pretended Schismaticks In answer he calls this a manifest perversion of his most innocent expressions because afterwards he sayes that such a weak-conscienc't erroneous man is in several respects crimtnous c. I reply I do not forbid him to speak contradictions for I perceive by his litle amendement he is not likely to take my friendly counsell but let us see what those places which I related to there in the Doctor gave me occasion to say and what they contributed towards this Wind-mill His first contribution is that there is nothing alledged by him where he pretends conscience in not obeying us but the very same will much better serve any malefactour so that his words may become their plea and consequently unless he gave us some distinctive sign of the goodness of his conscience above theirs his words are justly appliable to plead their cause His second is that whereas onely rigorous and convincing Evidence can excuse such a disobedience and he pretends none I ought to think his conscience erroneous and that for pleading for it he pleads for erroneous Consciences and may by the same resons plead for the other malefactours His third contribution is that since on the one side he tells us it is hard to affirm that a man in an errour may lawfully subscribe and on the other leaves no Grounds to convince him rationally for how can any man pretend to convince him or he rationally assent to be convinced by an Authority which tells him it may be mistaken this weak-conscienc'd man may consequently have a rational Ground to remain in his false opinion at least cannot be obliged to contrary belief but thanks Dr. H. heartily for pleading for his lawfull continuance in his beloved errour Or if he be scrupulous of his errour and Dr. H. afford him no perfectly-certain grounds to right it but that as he sayes here and his Grounds make good he is sure to sin which way soever he turns 't is likely Mr. H's good doctrine may make the poor fellow come straight home from the Probability-lecture take a rope hang himself This indeed were no great favour to a weak conscience His fourth contribution cap. 7. par 9. is his position of the errour in some case on the Churche's side in some places in this Chapter which very thing favours the self-conceit of every proud fellow and gives him a fine pretence to think his erroneousness lawfull in disobeying that Authority which could not oblige him in reason to believe what herself knew not but might be mistaken and erre in Nay more
he very putting the Errour on the Churche's side takes away all obligation to believe her and by consequence justifyes all erroneous consciences Thus is the Wind-mill finish't at Dr. H's proper cost and charges although he sayes he contributed not the least stone or timber so truly liberal noble he is that after such profuseness he will not own nor acknowledge his bounty to his very Adversaries Next to these faults which Dr. H. hath committed in pleading for a weak conscience follows his sin of omission I mean his neglect to answer my seventeenth eighteenth pages which obliged him to speak out and say either I or no to two points which are horrible Bull-beggers to him wheresoever he meets them The first is whether all assent of the Vnderstanding which comes not from perfect and demonstrative Evidence springs not from passion and vice The second whether he and his Friends have such Evidence that our Church erred in delivering as of Faith that the Pope as Successour of S. Peter was Head of the Church These two points I made account were the two main hinges on which that door turns which must shut them out of or keep them in the Church and therefore expected not that he should produce his Evidence here but that he should have given some answer either affirmative or negative to them But Grounds are very perillous edged tooles to meddle with and cut the throat of errour at one slash which costs much hacking and hewing when a Controversy is managed by debating particularities Again the nature of Grounds is to entrench so near upon the first principles and their termes are for the most part so unquestionably evident that they leave no elbow-room for a shuffler to bestir his mock-reason in which in particulars not so capable of scientifical proofs especially in testimony-skirmishe seldom or never want And therefore Dr. H. who is of that Generation of Controvertists and very prudent in it dit wisely omit to meddle with these points though in that place he had ample occasion to treat of them But to proceed Mr. Knot had affirm'd that we may forsake the Churche's Communion in case she be fallible and subject to errour Dr. H. inferred hence of Schism p. 20. that it was lawfull if this were true to forsake Communion of all but Angels and Saints and God in heaven his reason was because onely they were infallible and impeccable To maintain the infallible certainty of Faith against this man who would bring all to probability I gave some instances to let him understand that Infallibility in men on earth was not so impossible a matter as he fancies Glancing also at his addition of Impeccable since the controversy there being about our tenet which is Infallibility the mingling it with Impeccability was a tacite calumny intimating to the weaker Readers that this was also out tenet or part of it To these Dr H. pretends an answer but so full of contradictions both to himself and common sense that it would be tedious to enumerate them It were not amiss first to put down our plain tenet which as far as it concerns this present controversy is this That since it is unworthy the Wisdom and Goodness of Almighty God who sent his Son to save mankind not to first lay and then leave efficacious means for that end which means considering the nature of mankind to which they were to be apply'd are no other than efficacious motives efficacioully proposed to make him forsake temporary and fleeting Goods and embrace Intellectual Eternal ones his onely Felicity with which the affections to the former are inconsistent again since these motives cannot be efficaciously proposed to the Vniversality of mankind unless Faith the doctrine of them be certain hence to ascertain Faith Christ gave testimony to his doctrine by doing such prodigious miracles as no man did before and when he left us unless he had left also some means to propose certainly those motives to future mankind his coming had been in a manner voyd for asmuch as concern'd posterity and the rational and convincing certainty of his doctrine and by consequence the efficacy of it had been terminated in those few which himself by his preaching and miracles converted Hence it was necessary the Apostles should also ascertain his and their doctrine by the extraordinary testification of miracles The multitudes of believers encreasing the ordinary and common working of miracles began to cease and controversies beginning to rise between those who pretended to the Law of Christ the consent of Christians in all Nations was now sufficient to convince that that was Christ's doctrine and true which the Apostles Successours told them they had received from the Apostles themselves For it was not possible so many dispers't in several Nations should conspire to a palpablely in a visible practicall and known thing cōcerning their eternal Interest They had nothing else now to doe but to attest what they had received Christ being unanimously acknowledg'd a perfect Law giver there needed no new revelations to patch and mend his noway-defective doctrine The Company of Believers multiplying daily and spreading this attestation encreased still and grew incomparable stronger and the impossibility of either voluntarily lying or involuntarily mistaking became every day greater and greater In this universal delivery from hand to hand called Tradition or to avoid equivocation Oral Tradition we place the impossibility of the Churche's conspiring to erre in attesting things most palpable and most important which we call her Infallibility Vpon this we receive God's written word hence we hold our Faith infallibly-certain that is so true as it cannot but be true as far as concerns that Christ his Apostles taught such doctrine hence lastly to come nearer home we hold for certain and of Faith that S. Peter is Chief of the Apostles and the Pope his Successour and that the renouncers of his Authority are Hereticks and Schismaticks since this sole-certain Rule of all Faith Oral Tradition now shown to be infallible recommended it to us as delivered from immediate Fore-fathers as from theirs and so upwards time out of mind which Rule the first Reformers in this point most manifestly renounced when they renounced that Authority For they could not have been the first Reformers had they found it delivered by Oral Tradition By this is shown first in what we place the Infallibility of the Church not in the bare words of a few particular men but in the manifest and ample attestation of such a multitude as cannot possibly conspire to tell a lie to wit in attesting onely that Christ's doctrine which is of a most concerning nature and of a most visible quality was taught to a world of Children by a world of Fore-fathers This clear and short explication of our tenet premised let us see how weakly Dr. H. hath proceeded in this dangerous point His first weakness is that he thinks Mr. Knot 's saying very strange that we might
that he is sure the Protestants are not so persuaded nor ever had cōvincing Grounds represented to persuade them of it referring me to a book of his own called The View of Infallibility In answer I refer him to Rushworth's Dialogues and assure him that if he be not blinded with prejudice or interest he may see it there shown as perfectly as that two and three are five And as for his Book I find no such worthy stuffe in these as can invite me to think an hour well spent in perusing that Brother of theirs After this going about to vindicate the uncertainty on the Protestant's side he runs p. 21. 22. again to their full or verily-persuasion but never tells us whether this full persuasion of theirs sprung from the light of pure Reason that is Evidence or from passion interest and ignorance adding a parallel of beleeving that King Henry the eighth was King of this Nation the reasons whereof notwithstanding he accounts fallible because the testimonies of meer men Whereas I account it most evident and demonstrable and promise him to have acquitted himself better than ever Protestant did yet if he can show me the thousandth part of this Certainty which he puts here for a parallel of the Protestant's Vncertainty for any point in which they differ from us that is for any point which they have not received as handed down by Tradition or Attestation of Fore fathers For never let him expect to make a rational man beleeve that scruing or misunderstanding an odde line or two glean'd for the nonce out of Scripture or and old Authour can by any multiplication arrive to the clearness of the former ample undeniable uncontroulable Verdict of witnesses that King H. the eighth vas King of this Nation much lesse to that of our Rule of Faith being an attestion of things infinitely more importing which a multitude incomparably more numerous had seen visible in practice besides other assistant motives implanted by the Apostles the Holy Ghost especially cooperating in the hearts of the first faithful and still continued to this day which strengthen man's nature to the impossibility of erring in such an Attestation This vast advantage hath our Rule of Faith over this instance of K. H's reign here yet I doubt not to affirm that the testification of the latter renders it demonstrable which I thus show This undoubted and never yet-denyed persuasion that K. H. the eighth reigned here imprinted in the hearts of all in England not onely attested by all Fathers in that Nation but even by innumerable multitudes in other Countries his foul acts making him famous this persuasion I say is an Effect and consequently sprung from some Cause but no Cause can be imaginable in reason able either to breed this strong persuasion in such a world of knowing persons nor bribe so many attesters to a conspiracy of witnessing such a visible thing except the Being of King H. and of his Reign therefore he was or did reign here otherwise this persuasion and attestation had been effects without causes or which is all one without proportionable causes which being evidently impossible it is also evident and demonstrable that he did rule in England Now whoever should goe about to answer the major by putting some Cause as possible to be in it self proportionable and so able to produce this strange Effect besides the Existence of K. H. the eighth the very position would disgrace it self and the Authour when the proportions of it's efficacity came to be scann'd and apply'd to the Vniversal and strange Effect spoken of Again should a man consider this ample and uncontrolled attestation of it and all the other motives which infer it as King H's Wives Alliances abroad Warres Acts of Parliaments Embassadours in all parts Descent Apostatizing together with the infinite multitude of Conveyances Bonds Iudgments Foundations and innumerable such other things relating to such and such a year of his Reign and after all these fully considered should notwithstanding seriously express his doubt that he could not beleeve there was ever any such man would not all that heard him justly think him a mad man If so then surely he must have renounc't no less than rigorous Evidence and Demonstration the onely perfect light of Reason who can deserve justly such a censure It was therefore rigorously evident and demonstrable that King H. the eighth was Thirdly if it be not evident and demonstrable the contrary may possibly be such for one side must needs be true so all truths being connected in it'ts own nature demonstrable but it is evidently impossible the contrary should be demonstrable or the motives for it show'd not-concluding therefore they concluded demonstrably The minor is prov'd clearly for first it is not against any natural Science and consequently not possibly disprovable by natural reason nor yet by any Authority for in our case there is an Attestation for it uncontrolled by any either orally or by writing Wherefore there is left no means possible to goe about to confute it or evidence the contrary it self therefore is most perfectly and most strongly evident and demonstrable nay impossible to be deemed or pretended to be shown otherwise Bring not then Mr. H. this infallibly-and demonstrably-grounded instance for a parallel of your vertible and Wind-mill uncertainty till you can show you can produce the million'th part of that Evidence and certainty but rather be asham'd to pretend to make head against our Rule of Faith which is of an attesting Authority incomparably more numerous more clear and more strongly supported by all kind of imaginable assisting circumstances than was that now explicated with obscure or misinterpreted scraps of dead Authours cast into what mold you please by Id est's self-explications and voluntary deductions according to the easily-bending nature of words That is blush to have renounc't your Reason in renouncing Evidence of Authority to follow unreasonableness in assenting upon ambiguous probabilities After this to clear himself from denying Infallibility which denial was charged and hath been shown to take away all beleef and ground of Beleef he tells us pag. 23. It is evident that beleef is no more than consent to the truth of any thing and the grounds of beleef such arguments as are sufficient to exclude doubting to induce conviction and persuasion But sure Mr. H. forgets what he is about for to divine beleef which is commanded by God himself and so cannot be sinfull not every consent ought to serve but a rational one nor any conviction but such an one as is rational that is grounded upon Evidence of that Authorities veracity in that which she proposes to be beleeved which how it can stand with her fallibility in the same point is past Dr. H's skil to make good since if it be once known that she can erre in it it can never be shown thats he does not there being no certainer Authority than her self to testify certainly when she hits and when
down at a cheap rate Repl. p. 29. l. 27. with If Councils have any Authority for he is sure no man can possibly oppose him as long as he sayes nothing positively but keeps himself within the powerfull spell of an If. But let us see what follows if Mr. H. pleases to grant Councils any Authority then he tells us that this Authority will certainly be reducible to paternal power meaning of a Priest Bishop Metropolitan c. and this both in Provincial National and General Councils The reason he assignes for his evasion comes to this that the of fence against the whole was consequently an offence against any one there residing True but must the offence against some one Governour of which onely he treated be necessarily an offence against them all or against the whole Council otherwise what will it avail him who is not charged with omitting Schism against any particular Governour after having put that which is against the whole Church or the collection of many but quite contrary which putting down onely the Schisms against particular Governours and omitting that which was against them as collected in a Council Did ever man's Reason run counter in this manner or his insincerity so resolutely persist never to acknowledge any lapse that whereas it is as evident as noon-day that one may dissent from any one Bishop in his grounds and yet consent to the rest still he will needs prove the contrary and that the disobedience to some one sort of paternal Governour is the disobedience to all Again though a Bishop have a kind of paternal Authority over a Priest a Metropolitan over a Bishop c. and so the disobedience of these Inferiours would be against Paternal power as Dr. H. calls his first Head yet what Paternal power hath a Company of Bishops over a single Bishop or a Council consisting of three Patriarchs and five hundred Bishops over one single Patriarch It is evident then that should this Patriarch rebel against the common decrees of all the rest he could not be called a Schismatick against Paternal power and so according to Dr. H's division would be no Schismatick at all since there is no Authority there which could be said to be Paternal in respect of him himself being coequally high that is placed in the top of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy with the rest of the other Patriarchs and a Father in an Ecclesiastical sense over all the rest Their power therefore over him consists in the collective force of so many united which makes them considerable in respect of him as a whole compared to a part Now then since Dr. H cannot even pretend to have treated of a Schism against any collective power but against an Authority consisting in higher rank or degree onely 't is most evident to the most ordinary Vnderstanding that he omitted Schism against Authority of Councils After all this adoe he confesses here Rep. p. 30. that he treated not specially of Schism against General Councils that is he confesses his Division of Schism insufficient which was onely objected No I had forgot he onely goes about to give reasons why he did not treat it more specially by which pretty expression the good Reader is to be made beleeve that he had treated of it specially and onely omitted to handle it more specially whereas he purposely and professedly waved the handling it at all in this Controversy as is to be seen Of Schism p. 60. Ad now so exquisite is his shuffling art after he had labour'd to produce proofs that he did treat of Schism against Councils he brings his excuses why he did not doe it ibid. First because Councils were remedies of Schism But since they remedied them authoritatively and with such an Authority as in comparison of any one degree of power by him treated was as it were of an Vniversal in respect of a particular the Schism against them was by consequence proportionably or rather improportionably greater and so deserved in all right an eminent place of it 's own in his division Next because they are extraordinary and not standing Iudicatures I answer they are likewise of an extraordinary Authority as hath been shown and therefore could not merit to be slighted by him His third is because this was not a constant sort of Schism but upon accidental emergencies That is his treatise of Schism doth not absolutely forbid a man to be a Schismatick in an higher sort of Schism so it happen upon occasion but takes care first and more specially that he be not a Schismatick in one of those constant sorts of Schism though it be of far less guilt His fourth excuse as I reckon them is because they are now morally impossible to be had Very good his Church is accused by us of Shism against General Councils already past and Dr. H. in this book entitled their Defence therefore treats not particularly of Schism against them because they are morally impossible to be had at present and for the future though towards the end of the world he thinks it probable there may be one Of which divination of his I can give no better reason than this that Antichrist who is to be then the Vniversal secular Governour and by consequence according to Mr. H's grounds the Head of God's Church or Supreme in Ecclesiastical affaires will doe Christianity that favour as to gather a General Council This I say if any must be his meaning for the reason given by him here why they are now morally impossible to be had is because the Christian world is under so many Empires and when they are likely to be united into one towards the end of the world unless it be under Antichrist I confess my self unable to prognosticate His last excuse is Repl. p. 31. l. 2. because the Principal sort of Schism charged by the Romanists is the casting out the Bishop of Rome I answer that we charge not the Protestant with a simple Schism but a decompound one involving also heresy in each of it's parts First with a Schism from the whole Church in renouncing the Rule and Root of all our Faith Vniversal Oral Tradition of immediate Fore-fathers and by consequence separating themselves from the whole Body of the Faithful as Faithful next with renouncing the Authority of Councils proceeding upon this Ground in declaring things of Faith and lastly with not onely disobeying but disacknowleding the Authority of the Pope recommended to us by both the former And it seems strange that Mr. H. should goe about to clear the sufficiency of his division by recurring to our charging or not charging of Schism whereas he has not taken notice of any of these three Schisms charged against him but onely of petty ones against the Paternal power of a Bishop Patriarch c. which may be consistent with a guiltlesness from the other three principal ones He promised us in his Answer p. 8. 9. that he had rescued the Catholick Gentleman 's letter
This manner of treating Scripture then we Catholicks account in an high degree blasphemous nay to open the way to all blasphemousness and this because we do not dogmatize upon it or affix to it any interpretation that we build faith upon which is not warranted by the Vniversal practice of the Church and our Rule of Faith Vniversal Tradition though we know 't is the Protestant's gallantry to make it dance afther the jigging humour of their own fancies calling all God's word though never so absurd which their own private heads without ground or shadow of ground imagine deducible thence nay more to call it an Evidence that is a ground sufficient to found and establish Faith upon And thus much for Dr. H's blasphemous and irreverent treating both Faith and Scripture Sect. 4. How Dr. H. prevaricates from his own most express words the whole tenour of his Discourse the main scope of his most substantial Chapter and lastly from the whole Question by denying that he meant or held Exclusive Provinces And how to contrive this evasion he contradicts himself nine times in that one point AT length we are come home close to the question it self Whether the Pope be Head of the Church pretended to be evidently disproved by Dr. H. in the fourth Chapter of Schism by this argument S. Peter had no Supremacy therefore his Successour the Pope can have none The consequence we grant to be valid founding the Authority of the latter upon his succeding the former But we absolutely deny the Antecedent to wit that S Peter had no Supremacy that is supreme power and Iurisdiction in God's Church Dr. H. pretends an endeavour to prove it in this his fourth Chapter offering his Evidences for this negative p. 70. l. 4. First from S. Peter's having no Vniversal Iurisdiction from parag 5. to parag 20. Secondly from thence to the end of the Chapter from his not having the Power of the Keyes as his peculiarâ—â—ty and inclosure that is from his not having them so as we never held him to have had them His first Argument from S. Peter's not having an Vniversal Iurisdiction proceeds on this manner that each Apostle had peculiar and exclusive Provinces pretended to be evidenced in his fifth parag from the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lot of Apostleship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iudas his place in Hell of Schism p. 71. that the Iews onely were S. Peter's Province nay that but one portion of the dispersed Iews can reasonably be placed under S. Peter's Iurisdiction that the Gentiles were S. Paul's c. and all this undertaken there to be evidenced by testimonies from Scripture Fathers and other Authours What hath been the success of his Evidences from his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath already been manifested by showing that he had neither any ground in the place it self to favour his explication of a lesser province nor among all the many-minded Commenters on Scripture so much as one Authority to second it As for his limiting S. Peter's Iurisdiction to the Iews onely and S. Paul's to the Gentiles by his pretended proofs his Disarmer offer'd him p. 52. that if among those many testimonies he produces to prove it there be but found any one sentence line word syllable or letter which excludes S. Peter's Authority from the Gentiles more than what himself puts in of his own head he would be content to yeeld him the whole Controversy which he vindicated to the very eyes of the Reader from every testimony one by one alledged by Dr. H. In this manner stood the case then between S. W. and his Adversary it remains now to be seen what reply he tenders to so grievous heavy and unheard-of a charge and how he can colour a fault so gross palpable and visible to the eye of every Reader Observe good Reader I beseech thee whether thou be Catholick ProtestaÌ„t or of whatever other profession that now the very point of the Controversy is in agitation For we pretend no tenour for the Pop'es Supremacy save onely that he succeeds S. Peter whom we hold to have had it if then it be evidenced as is pretended that S. Peter had none the Doctor hath inevitably concluded against us Reflect also I intreat thee on the grievousness of the charge layd by S. W. against Dr. H. and make full account as reason obliges thee and I for my part give thee my good leave that there must be most open knavery and perfect voluntary insincerity on one side or other and when thou hast examin'd it well I am a party and so must not be a Iudge lay thou the blame where thou shalt find the fault Neither despair that thou hast ability enough to be a coÌ„petent Iudge in this present contest here is no nice subtlety to be speculated but plain words to be read for what plainer than to see whether in the testimonies there be any words limiting the Iurisdiction of S. Peter or whether they were onely the additions of Dr. H. antecedently or subsequently to the testimonies But what needs any Iudge to determine or decide that which Dr. H. himself hath confest here in his Reply and Answer where seeing it impossible to show any one word in all that army of Testimonies which he muster'd up there limiting S. Peters Iurisdiction to the Iews or excluding it from the Gentiles which yet was there pretended he hath recourse for his justification to the most unpardonable shift that ever was suggested by a desperate cause viz. to deny that he mean't exclusiveness of â—urisdiction that is to deny his own express words the whole tenour of his discourse there the main scope and intention of that Chapter ' and lastly to change and alter the state and face of the whole Question This is my present charge against him consisting of these foure branches which if they be proved from his own words he is judged by his own mouth and can hope for no pardon but the heaviest coÌ„demnation imaginable from all sincere Readers since it is impossible to imagin a fifth point from which he could prevaricate omitted by him and consequently his present prevarication is in the highest degree culpable and unpardonable First then his own express words manifest he mean't Exclusiveness of Iurisdiction For of Schism p. 70. he uses the very word exclusively saying that S. Peter was Apostle of the Iews exclusively to the Gentiles and that this exclusiveness was meant to be of Iurisdiction is no less expressely manifested from the following page where it is said that but one portion of the dispersed Iews can reasonably be placed under S. Peter's Iurisdiction which is seconded by his express words here also Reply p. 56 the portion of one Apostle is so his that he hath no right to any other part Excludes him from any farther right c. and sure if he have no right to preach to any other Provinces he hath no Iurisdiction at all
follows by most absolute necessary consequence that they must be all Schismaticks and Blessed S. Peter their Ringleader But 't is no matter with him rather shall S. Peter instead of being Head of the Church be an Head of Schismaticks than Dr. H. be acknowledged a Schismatick a falsifier and not onely the Authority but also the Sanctity of that holy Apostle be sacrific'd to the Protestant interest rather than so great a Patron of theirs and so saintly a falsifier shall want an evasion to soder his crack't credit Neither let Dr. H. think to escape making S. Peter his Iewish converts Schismaticks by saying that this was a prudent managery onely Rep. p. 62. so iustifiable by the present circumstances since it is most undeniable that the breaking of all Communion with another Church is the extern Act of Schism then let him remember his own grounds layd against himself in his first Chapter of Schism p. 10. that the matter of fact onely is to be considered not the causes or motives Since eo ipso that fact is Schism nor can be iustifi'd from being such by any causes motives or circumstances what-soever Now then since the fact of breaking from all-Communion which the Gentile Church that is of Schism from it is in expresse terms imputed to S. Peter his Iewish Proselytes by Dr. H. I expect then what possible motive this Author can pretend to alledge sufficient to excuse them from Schism whose doctrine it is in the place cited that no motive or reason was sufficient to render matter of fact of this nature excusable or iustify it from being Schism nay damnable worse then sacriledge Idolatry c. as the fathers there cited by D H. avouch The summe then of this part of Dr. H's defence is that he takes no notice at all of his falsifying by adding the onely important large-senc't word All to the Scripture nor attempts to clear himself of it but instead of doing this he goes about to maintain his position counterfeited to be found there to wit that Iewish Christians withdrew from all-Communion with the Gentile ones by this argument that it was equally forbidden by Moses his law to converse with or preach to a Gentile as to eate their diet A paradox so incomparably notoriously absurd that it is at once both perfectly opposite to the law it self repugnant to innumerable examples from Scripture to the contrary the universall practice of the Synagogue injurious to the Iewish Church in it's purest times making them frequently publikely uncontrolledly break the law in a point as he saies equally forbidden as eating the Gentile diet implicatory in terms supposing once the lawfulnes of making a Proselyte impertinent to his present purpose circumstances were it granted expressely contradictory to his own words about which the present contest was raised derogating from those ancient Primitive Christians all charity nay even in the least and sleightest degree and lastly beyond all evasion making them perfectly Schismaticks S. Peter their Ring-leader and that proceeding on Dr. H's own grounds Nor hath he any thing to counterpoâ—ze this heap of absurdities of the Seuenteens but onely a misunderstood place of Scripture of which himself must be the Interpreter which is the right Protestant Method who build their faith upon any Text which seems at first sight to make for them or is hard to explicate although universall Tradition of the foregoing Church importing involving bringing downe to us all imaginable motives of the contrary truth evidence that Interpretation to be impossible But 't is no matter what Dr. H. does or sayes if he can but talk any thing gentilely sleightly the grave negligence must supply the want of sence Truth especially if hee but shut upwith a victorious Epiphonema pronounced with a serious-sobersadnes Repl p. 61. l. vlt. Thus unhappy is this gentleman continually in his objections all is well and his sleight-sould Sermon-admiâ—ers take that to be the rarest Nectar of reason which if examin'd is the most sublimated quintessence of contradiction-absurdity as hath amply been shown Now as for S. Peter's words that it was unlawfull for a man that was a Iew to keep company or come to one that is of ther Nation upon which onely he build his position otherwise altogether destitute of any shadow of proof I answer that the Scribes such like pretenders to a preciser Kinde of holines had lately introduced many customes of their owne forging under the notion of Traditions of some of which they are accused by our saviour and obtruded them upon the consciences of the Iews to be religiously observed especially at Hierusalem the Rendevous of Iewish Doctors and the place where their doctrine had more immediate influence upon the mindes of of thei Auditors Of those precise customes this was one of not going to a Gentiles house or conversing with them To this amongst others S. Peter was inured by long education in so much that though he heard our B. Saviour with his own mouth give them commission to go to preach all over the world in vniuersum mundum and omni creaturae to every creature yet finding employment enough amongst those of the Circumcision he never attempted it till by a vision he was immediately set upon it by Almighty God especially the obligation to his country laying a stronger ty upon him and having received order to preach first to the Iews untill they shew'd themselves unworthy he needed a vision to tell him when that time came circumstances were ripe for it In like manner we read that S. Paul though chosen particularly to preach to the Gentiles Act. 9. 15. yet he affirmed Act. 13 46. that it was necessary that the words of God should first have been spoken to the Iews did not turn to the Gentiles but upon their rejecting him By unlawfull then in this place I take not to bee mean't not against the law of Moses but what their Teachers and Doctors who govern'd their Consciences bore them in hand was unlawfull in the same manner as wee now call many things unlawfull which are not found forbidden by Christ's law but which our Doctours and Casuists iudge to bee unlawfull Again wee read that though the Apostles and Brethren that were in Iudea had heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God Act. 11. v. 1. yet the second verse let ts us know of none that found fault with him save those at Hierusalem onely and that not meerly upon the account of going to the houses of Gentiles but of eating with them also as the third verse expresses But let their zeal have been never so hot to maintain this new-fangled apprehension and let it bee never so universall to abhorre the conversation of Gentiles whiles they remain'd Gentiles yet it is the strangest fancy that ever entred into a rational head to imagin that they should still retain the same uncharitable feud towards them after
the Apocalypse that being come thither he brings another negative proof argues from plurality to equality again gives for his solution Grounds for all the Apostles to be call'd Peter falls to measure a wall in the Apocalypse to prove equality of power without proving first or knowing nay doubting himself whether it relate to power or no that hee omits to reply to those passages which show'd him baffled in his own argument and lastly when he hath done to let the Reader see he hath used his utmost here he praises this point as most important and brags that he hath attended us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and precisely whereas he left the main passage and all the circumstances that force was put in un attended and untouch't and most miserably shuffled about blunder'd quibbled in all the rest THE CONCLVDING SECTION Reason why the Disarmer proceded no further in laying open Dr. H's fault Objected Falsifications clear'd and some of them retorted upon the Objector An unparallell'd and evidently willfull one of the Drs presented to himself and his Friends in requitall Friendly counsel to the Dr at parting AND now understanding Reader what dos't thou expect further that I should lose my own ill employ'd time vex thy patience already cloy'd with laying open this Drs weaknesses false dealings through the rest of his book or rather dos't thou not complain how unnecessary so long a refute is to such a Trifler and candidly correct mee as some iudicious friends have already done that it had bin abundantly sufficient and as much as he deserved to gather together a Catalogue of his manifest absurdities and then leave him to the censure of iudicious ingenious lovers of truth reason I confesse in the tedious processe of this Reply seeing nothing worthy a man that is nothing which pretended a rigorous or rationall discourse I became wholly of their minde too yet I had such regard to the weaknes of the multitude of Readers that I still proceeded in laying open minutely the unparalleld sillines insincerity of their adored preaching Doctor and the tyranny of that consideration had transported me into farther inconveniencies so as to shew him constantly like himself to the very end of his long book had not I been partly urged partly necessitated to desist and my desistance warranted by these following reasons First that Wits Schollars who are the flower of Readers are deterr'd disenvited from reading books especially Controversies if they grow to any excessive bulk And to those that should read such it would be in a manner ungratefull when nothing is to be seen but the faults of a writer laid open which was the reason that to give some tincture of solidnes to my Reply so to take of the tediousnes from knowing Readers I have taken occasion to discusse some points as those concerning Possession the Churches power to binde to beleef the certainty of Tradition c. more largely than I was obliged out of any respect due to my Antagonist himself or his sleight way of writing Secondly I have given unexpected satisfaction before hand to more knowing persons by laying Grounds before my Reply which come home to the life of the question at least endeavor to clear it rationally which therefore I conceive would be more gratefull profitable to them and on the other side being supererogatory to the task of a Respondent might deserve to excuse some part of that which was ungratefull to them unprofitable nay all of it confes 't by Dr. H. himself as shall be seen to be unnecessary Thirdly I had acknowledg'd some beholdingnes to the Catholike Gentleman's letter so had drawn upon my self an engagement to vindicate it also against Dr. H's Reply By which mean's I had two books of his to refute as far as I proceeded to both which had I reply'd quite through it would have made too-large a volume Fourthly the B. of Derry had e're I had answer'd Dr. H's first part put out a refute to my Appendix to Schism Disarm'd which oblig'd me to leave some room in my already big book for him and to bestow on him some part of that my defensive task otherwise due intended to Dr. H. and so I had not room enough to prosecute all the less necessary trifles of that my long winded Adversary Fifthly the task it self of answering such kinde of sleight soul'd Writers was most tedious irksom to any one who pretends to ayms at Science nay most irrationall and senceles consisting in this that rigorous discourse the immediate evident connexion of terms that onely proper satisfaction to a reasonable Soul being neglected upon which our Tenor Rule of faith immediate Tradition is at least pretended to be built to leave this I say and to stand replying to every odd end of a worm-eaten Record or testimony which without the help of this Tradition can claim no originall Authority at all much less against it and for the most part is falsify'd unauthentick ambiguous in terms or non-cluding if it hap to be true truly-proposed besides many other weaknesses invalidating it which is to neglect sence for words and instead of reasoning from Grounds fall to quibbling in Sounds Sixthly even in pursving this testimony way I have shown to the eye of the Reader this Drs manner of writing so infinitely faulty weak so full fraught with falsifications paralogisms perverting both words sence of Authors omitting words most important for us adding others most important for himself suborning Arch-hereticks for true fathers building upon Testimonies fetch 't from those of his own side alledging places as for him concealing the words found to be directly against him shuffling a way the true point with a gentile slines begging or els mistaking the question all over as oft calumniating our tenets positions runing division upon a dow-bak'd If a long way without ever considering the if not Talking voluntarily to fro upon his own head in a preaching vein blundering things in themselves most clear with needles distinctiōs explications which he uses against their nature to involue confound recurring to dilating himself much in the generall terms so to avoid coming to the particular point contradicting himself frequently and in one point Nine or ten times flourishing all over with certainly surely irrrefragably infallibly unquestionably accordingly plainly manifestly demonstrably undoubtedly clearly expresly we know it is manifest id est perfectly unavoidably evidently innumerable such other expressions all sprung from his own fancy to give countenance to the Testimonies not from the Testimonies or any force of reason to make good those expressions to which add his sober sermon-phrases so oft repeated of no degree of truth no appearance of force I did in the simplicity of my heart verily beleeve I shall not deem it necessary to descend to any further proof His playing the Pedant all over in Greek to amuse the
his most partiall Admiter if he have not absolutely renounc't his reason resolved the slender fading thing into the Drs Authority must see confess he was wilfully fraudulent intended to breed in the Readers minde by the words thus maimedly falsly put another apprehension than the testimony it self rightly dealt with could have caused Yet as long as this Enemy to Truth true dealing makes zealous professions of his entire desire to speak the full Truth of God and that he did in the sincerity of his heart verily beleeve and such like womanish demurenesses he hopes there will be found a company so weakly simple as to give him credence and that his moderate bashfull language will to these good weak sighted Souls be a cloack thick enough to hide or excuse his immoderately shamefull deeds Of such kinde of falsifications Reader I could afford thee variety were it necessary but I have already done enough to secure thee from this Drs Arts and the consequence of them Schism as maintain'd asserted by him Peruse my book attentively thou shalt observe I never call his materiall error in transcribing a falsification I doubt not but I could show thee one hundred such of his for my single one were it worth the pains but onely when I manifest the advantage he got by such a carriage which he never goes about to show in those he objects to mee Again thou â—eest how easily those falsifications he pretends as mine are clear'd nay shown to thine eye to be unconcerning toies or groundles willfull calumnies His which I objected in Schism Disarm'd are left by him unclear'd as this Treatise hath from place to place shown thee And so Reader I leave thee to thy candid thoughts which I desire thee to employ in ruminating upon the Dr. as put in this pickle requesting of thee in mine Adversary's behalf not to be too rigorous in thy censures of him abate as much as the consideration of humane errablenes frailty can suggest to a rationally-compassionate minde onely be not partiall in what is evidently fraudulent and then thou shalt right Truth thy self mee too by one impartially ingenuous rationall act I have onely one word to speak to the Dr. and then I take my leave You see Dr. H. it will not do no tricks can prevail against Truth she will conquer and knows how to defend herself by the weakest Weapon Were it not better now to give God and his Church the honour due to them and show at length your willingnes to acknowledge faults so plainly undeniably open than to continue your fruitles pains to show your self unretractably obstinate Nor do I impute them however I may seem rigorous too plain originally to you I know the necessity of your cause obliges you forcibly to rely on such uniustifiable waies I know and your self cannot but know the same how miserably you are glad to pervert the words voluntarily mistake and thus mistakingly propose to your Readers the true import and sence of your Testimonies and to content your self with any sleight gloss which not your impartiall judgment gives absolutely to be the meaning but what your partiall fancy can imagin may be defended on some sleight fashion to be the meaning See in the Index what undeniable self contradictions weaknesses absurdities voluntary mistakes falsifications your task of defending Schism hath put you upon Be true to your own best interest a sincere conscience be true at least to your own honour and neglect for the future the defence of that cause which must inevitably throw you upon such Rocks The further you reply the worse it will still fare with you For to clear your self of these falsifications other manifold faults satisfactorily is impossible eye-sight attesting them not to clear your self of them is doubly disgracefull fluttering up down as your way of writing is entangles you more Sit still and you will be safer You cannot but see acknowledge that your position of a probable faith leads directly to Atheism if follow'd and that since none has reason to assent further then he has reason that is further then the reasons given convince and since no probability can possibly convince the thing is true or that the Authority speaks true it is impossible any man living can have any obligation in your Grounds to assent that any point of faith is true or any Authority to be beleeved nay if he will not renounce his nature he ought to suspend in both these that is embrace no faith at all The necessity of holding which tenet so fundamentally pernicious to all Christianity so odious to all good Christians unavoidably follows out of your principles of Schism built upon the rejecting the onely certain Rule of faith immediate TraditioÌ„ and the consciousnes to your self that your weak testimony-way reaches no further than probability enforces you to own it and aym at no higher a pitch of satisfaction that is none at all for how can probability satisfy Look behinde you then see what a great deal of industry time you have fruitlesly lost in turning over promiscuously multitudes of Authors without first studying Grounds that is without first laying your thoughts in order with evident deduction from and connexion with first Principles This task onely is called knowledge the former without this is more apt to lead to ignorance mistake leaving onely a confusion of motley incohereÌ„t thoughts in a mans head impossible to be orderly rank't in the posture of knowledge unles regulated by fore layd Grounds Look before you and you shall see many late wits whose gallant self-understanding Souls own their nature rationally scorn to submit to any assent but upon rigorous demonstrative Evidence either of the thing it self in Science or of the Authority in faith Suffer your self to be won to the imitation of these pursvers of knowledge leave talking words begin to speak Sence leave of to diffuse scatter abroad your fleeting thoughts in a Sermonary Preaching way and begin to connect them into rigorous discourse that is instead of aiery talk begin to iudge know instead of empty florish learn to be solid Ina word aym seriously to know that is to assent upon Evidence and then I am confident our understandings will meet in a ioynt-assent and I hope our wills in a consent submission to the Authority of that Church whose Rule of faith immediate Tradition is evidently demonstrable This Sâ— is the hearty wish of him who however you may apprehend him protests he preserves a more prompt zeal naturall alacrity to honour serve you in what you can iustly be concieved deserving than he hath to discover the faults your tenets made you commit which yet was at present his unavoidable duty the truth of your miscariages being ioyn'd to the certainty concernment of his cause you iniur'd by them YOVR SERVANT S. W. FINIS THE APPENDIX VINDICATED AGAINST
then hee runs on wildly and boldly challenging mee that I cannot show out of Scripture that S. Peter was at Rome that our own Authours say S. Peter might have dy'd at Antioch and the succession into his power have remain'd thâ—re c. Answers soe frivolous soe totally impertinet to the point in hand that I wonder how any man can have the patience to read such a trifler or the folly as to think him worth heeding To omitt that hee pick't these words which hee impugns here out of a paragraph following a leaf after which totally concern'd a dangerous and fundamentall point as shall presently bee seen and so it importing him to neglect it hee cull'd out and mistakingly glanc't at these few loose words which hee thought by a device of his own he could best deal with for a colour of his necessary negligence What hee adds of the Council of Chalcedon hath been answer'd an hundred times over and by mee Schism Disarm p. 109. 110. c. nor deserves any reiteration till hee urge it farther especially being soe rawly put down Onely because hee builds upon their giving equall priviledges to Constantinople without manifesting what those priviledges were wee shall take leave to think that as Rome still remain'd first in order as his late words granted and Protestants confess notwithstanding those equall priviledges so for any thing hee knows it might still remain Superiour in Iurisdiction and till hee evince that priviledges in that place mean't Iurisdiction to which the word will bee very loath hee is far from bringing it to our question or to any purpose His next task is a very substantiall and important one striking at the Rule and Root of all our faith yet by voluntary mistaking no less than every syllable of it hee quickly makes clear work with it Hee was told that wee hold our first Principle by this manifest Evidence that still the latter age could not bee ignorant of what the former believed and as long as it adhered to that method nothing could bee alter'd in it Which the wily Bp. answers by telling us that the Tradition of some particular persons or some particular Churches in particular points or opinions of an inferiour nature which are neither soe necessary to hee known nor firmly believed nor so publikely and uniuersally professed nor derived downwards from the Apostolicall age by such uninâ—or upted succession doth produce no such cerâ—aâ—nty either of Evidence or adherence Where First hee knows wee mean Tradition of all the Churches in Communion with the see of Rome that is of all who have not renounced this Rule of immediate Tradition for all who differ from her never pretended this immediâ—te delivery for those points in which they differ from her but receded from that Rule as the Apology for Tradition hath manifested indeed plain reason may inform us It being impossible and self condemning where there was an Vnity before for the beginners of a Novelty to pretend their immediate fathers had taught them that which the whole world sees they did not Now the Bp. talkes of Traditions of some particular persons or some particular Churches desirous to make his Readers believe wee rely on such a Tradition and so defective as hee expresses that is hee makes account our pretended Tradition must not bee styl'd universall unles it take in those persons and those Churche also who have formerly renounced and receded from this Rule of Tradition Which is as much as if hee had said a thing cannot bee absolutely white unles it bee black too Secondly wee speake of believing that is of points of faith but the Bp. talkes of opinions and those not concerning ones neither but as hee styles them opinions of an inferiour nature And then having by this sleight changed faith into opinion hee runs giddily forwards telling us fine things concerning questionable and controverted points of Opinions in the Schools and how hard a thing it is to know which opinion is most current c. Is not this sincerely done and strongly to the purpose Thirdly hee cants in these words So necessary to bee known I ask are they necessary or no If they bee not necessary why does hee seem to grant they are by saying onely that they are not so necessary But if they bee necessary then why does hee call them opinions onely and that too of an inferiour nature Can that bee necessary to bee held or known which hath no necessary Grounds to make it either held or known Opinions have neither Fourthly hee speaks of points not so publikeâ—y professed whereas every point of faith is publike and notorious being writ in the hearts of the faithfull by the teaching of their Parents and Pastouts sign'd by all their expressions and seal'd by their actions Nor is there any point of faith for example in which the Protestant differs from us which is not thus visible and manifesting our Church now and was then when they first broke from that doctrine of their immediate â—ncestours Fifthly hee speaks of points not universally professed that is if any heretick receding from immediate Tradition of his fathers shall start a novelty propagate it to posterity the Tradition and profession of this point in the Church must not bee said to bee universall because that heretick professes and delivers otherwise and so Socinians by the Bps argument may assist their cause and say it was not universally professed that Christ was God because the Arians anciently profest otherwise The like service it would do an Arian or any other Heretick to alledge as the Bp. does that the Christian world must bee vnited otherwise the Tradition is not certain for as long as that Heretick has a mind to call himself and his friends Christians which hee will ever do so long hee may cheaply cavill against the Authority of the whole Church But empty words shall not serve the Bps turn Let him either show us some more certain Rules to know who are Christians who not that is some certainer Rule of faith than is the immediate practicall delivery of a world of fathers to a world of sons oâ— else let him know that all those who have receded from this immediate delivery as did acknowledgd'ly the Protestants at the time of their Reformation as also the Greeks Arians c. in those points of faith in which they differ from us are not truly but improperly call'd Christians neither can they claim any share in Tradition or expect to bee accounted fellow-deliverers of faith who have both formerly renounced that Rule and broach't now doctrines against it which like giddy whirlpools run crossely to that constantly-and directly flowing stream Lastly hee requires to the Evidence and certainty of Tradition that it bee derived downwards from the Apostles by such an uninterrupted succession Wee are speaking of the Rule of faith itself that is of Tradition or the deriving points of faith from the Apostles immediately from age to age or if hee pleases from
ten years to ten years and wee tell him that this Rule is a manifest Evidence because 't is impossible the latter age should bee ignorant of what the foregoing age beleeved Hee runs away from Tradition or the delivering to points delivered and tells us they must come downwards from the Apostles uninterruptedly ere they can bee certain Whereas this point is confest by all and avouched most by us who place the whole certainty of faith in this uninterrupted succession The point in question is whether there be any certain way to bring a point downwards uninterruptedly from the Apostles but this of Tradition or attestation of immediate fathers to sons or rather wee may say 't is evident from the very terms that it could not come down uninterruptedly bur by this way since if it came not down or were not ever delivered immediately the descent of it was mediate or interrupted and so it came not down uninterruptedly The like voluntary mistake hee runs into when hee calls the Apostles creed a Tradition since hee knows wee speak of the method or way of conveying points of faith downwards not of the points convey'd But I am glad to see him acknowledge that the delivery of the Apostles creed by a visible practice is an undeniâ—ble Evidence that it came from the Apostles If hee reflect hee shall find that there is scarce one point of faiâ—h now controverted between us and Protestants but was recommended to his first Reformers by immediate forefathers as derived from the Apostles in a practice as daily visible as is the Apostles creed and that the lawfulnes of Invoking saincts for their intercession the lawfulnes of Images Praying for the Dead Adoration of the B. Sacrament c. and in particular the subjection to the Pope as supream Head were as palpable in most manifest and frequent circumstances as was that creed by being recited in Churches and professed in Baptism After I had set down the first part of the matter of fact to wit that at the time of the Reformation the Church of England did actually agree with the Church of Rome in those two Principles I added the second part of it in these words It is noe lesse evident that in the dayes of Edward the sixth Q Elizabeth and her successours neither the former Rule of Vnity in faith nor this second of Vnity in Government have had any power in that Congretion which the Protestants call the English Church The Bp. who must not seem to understand the plainest words lest hee should bee obliged to answer them calls this down right narration of a matter of fact my Inference and for answer tells us hee holds both those Rules Well shuffled my Ld pray let mee cut Either you mean you hold now the sence of those Rules that is the thing wee intend by them and then you must say you hold the Pope's supremacy and the Tradition of immediate forefathers both which the world knows and the very terms evince you left of to hold at your Reformation or else you must mean that you hold onely the same words taken in another sence that is quite another thing and then you have brought the point as your custome is to a meere logomachy and shown yourself a downright and obstinate prevaricatour in answering you hold those words in stead of telling us whether you hold the thing or noe Possum-ne ego ex te exculpere hoc verum The Principle of Vnity in Government to those Churches in Communion with the see of Rome immediately before your Reform was de facto the acknowledgment of the Pope's Authority as Head of the Church the Principle of Vnity in faith was then de facto the ineheriring from or the immediate Tradition of Ancestours De facâ—o you agreed with those of the Church of Rome in those two Principles de facto you have now renounced both those principles and hold neither of them therefore you have de facto broke both those bonds of Vnity therefore de facto you are flat Schismaticks As for what follows that there is a fallacy in Logick â—all'd of more interrogations than one I answer that there is in deed such a fallacy in Logick but not in my discourse who put no interrogatory at all to him As for the two positions which so puzzle him the former of S. Peter's being supreme more than meerly in order hee knows well is a point of my faith which I am at present defeâ—ding against him and have sufficiently exprest my self p. 307. l. 1â— c. by the words first Mover â—o mean a Primacy to act first in the Church and not to sit first in order onely The latter point is handled in this Treatise in its proper place No sincerer is his 12. page than the former I onely put down p. 308 what our tenet was and hee calls my bare narration my second inference and when hee hath done answers it onely with voluntary railing too silly to merit transcribing or answering The matter of fact being declared that actually now they of the Church of England had renounced both the said Principles it was urged next that his onely way to clear his Church from Schism is either by disproving the former to bee the necessary Rule of Vnity in faith or the latter the necessary bond of Government for if they bee such Principles of Vnity it follows inevitably that they having broke them both as the matter of fact evinces are perfect Schismaticks since a Schismatick signifies one who breaks the Vnity of a Church What sayes my Ld D. to this this seems to press very close to the Soul of the question and so deserves clearing Hee clears it by telling us wee are doubly mistaken and that hee is resolu'd to disprove neither though unles hee does this the very position of the matter of fact doth alone call him â—chismatick But why is hee in these his endeavours to vindicate his Church from Schism so backwards to clear this concerning point Why first because they are the persons accused By which method no Rebell ought to give any reason why hee did so because hee is accused of Rebellion by his lawfull Governour Very learnedly Now the truth is wheresoever there is a contest each side accuses the other and each side again defends it self against the the others accusations but that party is properly call'd the defendant against which accusations or objections were first put and that the OpponeÌ„t or Aunswerer which first mou'd the accusations It being then most manifest that you could not with any face have pretended your Reform but you must first accuse your former actuall Governour of vsurpation your former Rule of faith of Erroneousnes it follows evidently that wee were the parties first accused that is the defendants you the accusers or opponents for whoever substracts himself from a former actuall Governour and accuses not that Governour of something which hee alledges for his motive of rising that person eo ipso
had any such priviledge of independency as the Bishop contends But My second objection was that this pretended exemption of the British Church was false My reason was because the British Bishops admitted appellation to Rome at the Council of Sardica In answer First hee tells mee that ere I can alledge the Authority of the Council of Sardica I must renounce the divine Institution of the Papacy and why for said hee that Canon submitted it to the good pleasure of the fathers and groundeth it upon the memory of S. Peter not the Institution of Christ Which is first flat falsification of the Council there being not a word in it either concerning the Papall power it self or it's Institution but concerning Appeals onely Next since wee call that of divine Institution which Christ with his own mouth ordain'd and never any man made account or imagin'd that Christ came from heaven to speak to the after Pope's and so give them a Primacy but that hee gave it by his own mouth to S. Peter whiles hee lived here on earth This I say being evidently our tenet and the Council never touching this point at all what a weaknes is it to argue thence against the diuine Institution of the Papacy and to abuse the Council saying that it submitted this to the good pleasures of the fathers Secondly hee asks how does it appear that the British Bishops did assent to that Canon which a little after hee calls my presumption And truly I shall ever think it a most iust presumption that they who confessedly sate in the Council assented to what was ordain'd by the Council in which they sate as was their duty unles some objection bee alledged to the contrary as the Bp brings none Thirdly hee sayes the Council of sardica was no generall Council after all the Eastern Bishops were departed as they were before the making of that Canon What means hee by the Eastern Bishops the Catholicks or the Arians The Arian Bishops indeed fled away fearing the judgment of the Church as Apol. 2. ep ad solitarios S. Athanasius witnesses but how shows hee that any of the 76. Eastern Bishops were gone ere this Canon which is the third in that Council was made So that my L d of Derry is willing to maintain his cause by clinging to the Arians against S. Athanasius and the then Catholike Church as hee does also in his foregoing Treatise p. 190. 191 denying with them this to have been a generall Council because his good Brother Arians had run away from it fearing their own just coÌ„deÌ„mnation Fourthly hee says the Canons of this Council were never received in England or incorporated into the English laws I ask has hee read the British laws in those times if not for any thing hee knows they were incorporated into them and so according to his former Grounds must descend down to the English But wee are mistaken in him his meaning is onely that the aduantages and priuiledges should bee inherited from the Britons not their disadvantages or subjection So sincere a man hee is to his cause though partiall to common sence Lastly saith hee this Canon is contradicted by the great generall Council of Chalcedon which our Church receiveth Yet it seems hee neitheir thought the words worth citing nor the Canon where the abrogation of the Sardica Canon is found worth mentioning which argues it is neither worth answering nor looking for I am confident hee will not find any repealing of the Sardica Canon exprest there It must therefore bee his own deduction on which hee relies which till hee puts it down cannot bee answerd As for their Church receiving the Council of Chalcedon the Council may thanke their ill will to the Pope not their good will to receive Councils For any Council in which they can find any line to blunder in mistakingly against him they receive with open arms But those Councils which are clear and express for him though much ancienter as this of Sardica was shall bee sure to bee rejected and held of no Authority and when a better excuse wants the very running away of the guilty Arians shall disannul the Council and depriue it of all it's Authority Hee subjoyns there appears not the least footstep of any Papall Iurisdiction exercised in England by Elentherius I answer nor any certain footstep of any thing else in those obscure times but the contrary for hee referd the legislative part to King Lucius and the British Bishops Here you see my Ld D. positive and absolute But look into his Vindication p. 105. and you shall see what Authority hee relies on for this positive confidence viz. the Epistle of Eleutherius which himself conscious it was nothing worth and candid to acknowledge it there graces with a parenthesis in these words If that Epistle bee not counterfeit But now wee have lost the candid conditionall If and are grown absolute Whence wee see that the Bp. according as hee is put to it more and more to maintain his cause is forced still to abâ—te some degree of his former little sincerity And thus this if-not counter feited testimony is become one of his demonstrations to clear himself and his Church from Schism Now though our faith relies on immediate TraditioÌ„ for it's onely and certain Rule and not upon fragments of old Authours yet to give some instances of the Pope's Iurisdiction anciently in England I alledged S. Prosper that Pope Celestin Vice sua in his own stead sent S German to free the Britons from Pelagianism and converted the scots by Palladius My L d answers that converting and ordaining c. are not acts of Iurisdiction yet himself sayes here p. 193. that all other right of Iurisdiction doth follow the right of ordination Now what these words all other mean is evident by the words immediately foregoing to wit all other besides Ordination and Election by which 't is plain hee makes these two to bee rights of Iurisdiction So necessary an attendant to errour is self contradiction and non-sence But the point is hee leaues out those words I relied on Vice sua in his own stead which show'd that it belong'd to his office to do it These words omitted hee tells us that hee hath little reason to beleeve either the one or the other that is hee refuses to beleeve S. Prosper a famous and learned father who lived neer about the same time and was conversant with the affairs of the Pelagians and chuses to relie rather on an old obscure Authour whence no prudent man can Ground a certainty of any thing and which if hee would speak out himself would say hee thought to bee counterfeit What follows in his 25. page is onely his own sayings His folly in grounding the Pope's Supremacy on Phocas his liberality hath been particularly answer'd by mee heretofore Parâ— 1. Sect. 6. whether I refer him I found fault with him for leaving the Papall power and spending his time in impugning the Patriarchalâ—
Authority deserved to bee abolish't for it's own sake as accompany'd with the sayd grievances Secondly the Bp. tells us that they seek not extirpation of the Papacy but the reducing it to the primitive constitution which is as good sence as to give a manabox on the ear and then tell him you intend not to strike him They have already totally extirpated it in England in such sort as all the world sees and acknowledges the Pope hath not the least influence upon the English Congregation over which before hee had the greatest yet they hope to bee taken for moderate men as long as they speak courteous non-sence and tell us they seek not to extirpate it Thus the Bp. wanders from the purpose but still all is my fault who would not grant him his two conditions Thirdly hee tells us that Monarchy and Episcopacy are of divine Institution so is not saith hee a Papall soueraignty of Iurisdiction That Monarchy should bee of divine Institution I much wonder surely the Venetians and Hollanders are in a sad case then who thus continue without relenting to break one of God's Commandments especially their Brethren the Hollanders who renounced the Monarchicall Government of the King of Spain But the learned Bp. hath some text or other in Scripture which hee interprets onely according to Grammar and Dictionary-learning without ever looking into Politicks the science which concerns such points passages which would have taught him that Government was instituted for the good of the Governed and that since human affairs are subject to perpetuall mutability and change it happens that in some countries and some circumstances one form of Government is convenient in others another according as it happens to bee best for the Governed which comes to this that no particular form of Government is of divine Institution and constituted to endure ever seing the end to which all Government is directed the good of the Governed is mutable and changeable As for the next part of his third excuse that the Pope's Authority or Headship in Iurisdiction is not of divine Institution as Episcopacy is you see 't is his old trick onely his own bare saying and which is worse saying over again the very point in dispute between us Whereas the point which wee urge here is a plain matter of fact that those who first renounc't the Papall Authority held immediately before they renounc't it as firmly that it was divine Institution as the Protestants do of Episcopacy now and therefore ought to have renounc't it upon the pretended pressure of inconveniencies no more than Episcopacy ought to bee abolish't upon the like inconveniences Nay more the first Reformers ere they grew newfangled and chang'd their mind held it much more firmly for they held it a point of faith and abhorr'd all them who renounc't it as Schismaticks and Hereticks both whereas the Protestants acknowledge the Huguenots of France for Brothers who yet deny Episcopacy which the Bp. tells us upon another occasion is of divine Institution But 't is all one with the Protestants whether they renounce all Christ's Institutions or no if they do but hate Rome they are saints and Brothers The common faction against the Pope is more powerfull to unite them than the professed and obstinate rejecting Christ's ordinances is to disunite them As for his Bravado how rarely hee could iustify his Parliamentary Prelacy what weak performances it would afford were it put to triall may bee judged from his numerous and enormous contradictions in this present treatise bragg'd on by the Protestants to bee his Master peece Sect. 6. How my Lâ— of Derry states the whole question false by pretending against the plain matter of fact that they separated onely from the Court and not from the Church of Rome His Grounds of separation shown insufficient in many regards nay confest such by himself granting there was another remedy besides division That the Reformers have neither left any open and certain method of coming to Christ's faith nor any form of Government in God's Church nor by consequence any Church His weak plea for England's independency from the Council of Ephesus Five palpable contradictions cluster'd together which the Bp. calls the Protestants more Experience than their Ancestors HIs sixth section pretends to vindicate his Grounds of separation to take notice of which the Bp. is violently importunate with the Reader bidding him observe and wonder Nor can I doe any less seeing such monstrous stuff throughout this whole Section It begins we are now come to the Grounds of our separation from the Court of Rome And this is the first Monster which the Bp's pen more fruitfull of such creatures than Africk it self proposes to our observation Which if it bee not as foul and uncouth an one as errour could hatch and obstinate Schism maintain you shall pay but pence a peece to see it and say I have abus'd you too The charge against the Protestants was this manifested by undeniable matter of fact that they had rejected the acknowledgment of S. Peters and his successours the Pope's Headhip over God's Church and that they had receded from this Rule of faith that nothing is to bee adhered to as of faith but what was inherited that is immediately delivered by their forefathers as the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles That they renounced the former is manifest by the whole worlds and their own Confession That they renounced the latter is no less manifest by the same undeniable attestation and indeed out of the very word Reformation which signifies a not immediate delivery It is no less evident that the acknowledgment of the former both was at the time of the Reformation and now is the Principle of Vnity in Government to those Churches in Communion with the see of Rome that is to all the Churches they themselves communicated with or were united to before they broke for 't is as visible as the sun at nonday that France Spain Portugal Italy c. consent and center in a ioynt acknowledgment of the Pope's Headship and are therefore held by Protestants Puritans and all contrary sects for Papist Countreys It is evident likewise that the acknowledgment of the latter was and is to the sayd Churches the Principle of Vnity in faith for they ever held the living voice of the Church that is the immediate Tradition or delivery of Pastours and forefathers an infallible Rule of faith wherefore ' it is unavoidably consequent that the Protestants dissenting from and disagreeing in both the sayd Principles in which these then-fellow Churches consented and agreed were and are separated from all those Churches and all that belong to those Churches And this according to the two sayd Principles Again since nothing can bee more essentiall to a Church than that which is the Rule and Root of Vnity both in faith and Government it follows that the Protestants dissenting in both and acting accordingly that is having separated according to both separated and
were not I show First those inconveniences hee reckons up as extortions vsurpations of more than belong'd to them causing animosities between the crown and the miter c. though they had been true are evidently abuses of the Officer and argue no fault in the Office it self of Head of the Church nor that the Right use of it ought therefore to bee taken away Secondly some of those pretended Abuses are his own deductions onely as that it is against the right ends of Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction which hee endeavours not to show evidently out of the science of Politicks which is proper to those matters nor any thing else of this nature but out of two or perhaps three matters of fact which onely inferr'd that it happen'd so sometimes and then by the same reason Episcopacy and all the Offices in the world must bee abolish't and abrogated Thirdly that some of those pretended Abuses are indeed such and not rather just Rights hee no way proves for hee onely puts down that such and such things were done but whether rightfully or no I presume hee will not think himself such a rare Iuris vtriusque Doctor as to make a fit umpire to decide law quarrells of this highe'st nature And on the other side none is ignorant that either party had learned lawiers for them to avouch their pretences I omit that the Kings were worsted so metimes and renounc't their pretence as in that of investitures Fourthly the temporall laws hee cites conclude not evidently a Right for it is as easy for a Canon-lawier to object that the temporall laws wrong the Ecclesiasticall as it is for civill lawiers to say that the Ecclesiasticall wrong theirs but with this disadvantage to the latter that reason gives more particular respect and charines ought to bee used in disannulling or retrenching Ecclesiasticall laws than temporall by how much they are neerer ally'd to the Church and by consequence to the order of mankinde to Beatitude Fifthly hee abuses those pretended Abuses most unconscionably saying that the Pope usurp't most unjustly all Right civill Ecclesiasticall sacred prophane of all orders of men Kings Nobles Bishops c. Which is such a loud-mouth'd calumnie such a far-stretching fiction that it is as big as all Christendome For by this no man in the Church was master or owner of his own Kingdome Estate house nay not of the very bread hee eat but by the Pope's good leave Thus the Bishop in a fury of Schism runs himself out of breath nor will any thing pacify him or bring him into temper to speak a word of truth or sence but my granting him his two conditions that is my denying my own tenet which I am defending Sixthly grant all those Abuses had been true was there no other remedy but division Had not the secular Governours the sword in their hand did it not ly in their power to chuse whether they would admit or no things destructive to their Rights yes for the Bp. tells us p. 36. that All other Catholike countries which hee knows held the Pope's supremacy as well as England do maintain their own Priviledges inviolated And as for England hee tells us in a slovenly phrase that our Ancestours were not so stupid as to sitt still and blow their noses meaning that they did the same which other Catholike countries did so that according to himself there was a remedy still and a means to keep their priviledges inviolated Seventhly put case these temporall inconveniences had not been otherwise remediable I conceive there is not a good Christian in the world that understands what a Church is will say that Ecclesiasticall Communion is to bee broken for all the temporall concernments imaginable For first that the well being and peace of a Church cannot consist without Vnity is so evident that the very terms would convince him of a contradiction who should deny it since distraction and dissention the parents of dissolution and ruine must needs bee where there is no Vnity Secondly not onely the well being of a Church but the very Being of it consists in it's Vnity for what scholler knows not that things of this nature have no other Vnity nor consequently Entity or Being but that of order that is of Superiority and subordination Whence follows that if this Order bee broken which is done by disacknowledging the former Ecclesiasticall chief Magistrate the Vnity of the Church is dissolu'd that is her Entity is annihilated that is there is no one Church that is there is no Church This act then of yours since it dissolu'd that which was the chief bond of Vnity in the former Church was in it's own nature destructive of a Church A mischief which out-weighs the necessity of remedying the highest temporall inconveniences imaginable Thirdly since Christ came from heaven to plant a Church and the Being of a Church consist in Order it follows that Christ instituted the Order of the Church otherwise hee had not constituted a Church that is hee had not done what hee came to do Wherefore that fact which breaks the Order of the Church and that in the highest manner by disacknowledging the highest Magistrate in the Church is by good consequence in the highest manner against Christ's Institution and command that is in the highest manner sinfull and criminall and so no temporall inconveniences can bee a competent plea for such a fact since no temporall inconvenience can bee a sufficient reason for a man to sin Fourthly if the Communion of a Church may bee broken for temporall miscarriages it follows that all the generall Councils were to no purpose since whensoever the observation of these generall Councils hapens to bee inconvenient to the temporall state that is sute not with the humours of the Governed but are likely to breed combustion the remedying the temporall ills according to the Bp. ought to oversway The consequence is evident for general Councils cannot bee more sacred than the Communion of the Church since they are the effects of it or rather indeed they have their form and Essence from this Communion Since then this fact of theirs as appears by the charge broke Church Communion and by the Bishop's plea because of temporall inconveniences they may for the same and with better reason break Councils too and there 's an end of all Fifthly faith that is the supernaturall knowledge of God is so essentially necessary for the salvation of mankinde that no worldly consideration ought to ballance it Now then since faith if not one is none nor can it bee preseru'd one but by some certain Rule to keep it one it follows that no temporall mischief can deserve a remedy accompany'd with the renouncing this certain Rule of faith Wherefore temporall inconveniences cannot with any face bee alledg'd by a Christian who held formerly no certain Rule of faith but the living voice of the present Church that is immediate Tradition as did the first Reformers for a plea for them to renounce
the said Rule of faith which brings faith to an uncertainty that is to a nullity or no obligation of holding any thing to bee of faith Yet this former Rule of faith the first Reformers renounc't when they renounced the Pope's Headship recommended by that Rule Sixthly the matter of fact not onely charges you to have rejected the Rules of Vnity in faith and Government in the Church you left and by consequence since both then and now you acknowledge her a true Church broke Church Communion but it is also equally evident that your Grounds since have left the Church no Rule of either but have substituted opinion in stead of faith or obscurity of Grammaticall quibbling in stead of Evidence of Authority and Anarchy in stead of Government For the Rule of faith if the former Church was so easy and certain a method of coming to Christ's law that none that had reason could bee either ignorant or doubtfull of it what easier than Children to beleeve as they were taught and practice as they were shownd What more impossible than for fathers to conspire to either errour or malice in teaching their Children what was most evident to them by daily practice of their whole lives to have been their immediately foregoing fathers doctrine and was most important to their and their Children's endles bliss or misery And what more evident than that they who proceed upon this principle as Catholikes do will alwaies continue and ever did to deliver embrace what was held formerly that is to conserve true faith Now in stead of this though the Protestants will tell us sometimes upon occasion that they hold to Tradition and at present beleeve their immediate forefathers yet if wee goe backward to King H. the 8th's time their chain of immediate delivery is interrupted and at an end the Reformation which they own broke that and shows their recourse to iâ— a false hearted pretence ours goes on still Whether run they then finding themselves at a loss here for an easy open and certain method of faith Why they turn your wits a woolgathering into a wildernes of words in the Scriptures ask them for a certain method to know the true sence of it they 'l tell you 't is plain or that you need no more but a Grammar and a dictionary to find out a faith nay less and that common people who neither understand what Grammar nor dictionary means may find it there though our eyes testify that all the world is together by the ears about understanding the sence of it Ask them for a certain interpreter perhaps sometimes they will answer you faintly that the generall Councils and fathers are one that is you must run over Libraries ere you can rationally embrace any faith at all and if you bee so sincere to your nature reason as to look for certainty which books are legitimate fathers which not which Councils generall authentick and to bee beleeved which not you are engag'd again to study all the School-disputes Controversies which concern those questions And if you repine at the endles laboriousnes of the task the insecurity of the method and the uncertainty of the issue and urge them for some other certainer shorter and plainer way of finding faith they will reply at length and confess as their best Champions Chillingworth and Faulkland do very candidly that there is no certainty of faith but probability onely which signifies that no man can rationally bee a Christian or have any obligation to beleeve any thing since it is both most irrationall and impossible there should bee any obligâ—tion to assent upon a probability And thus Reader thou se est what pass they bring faith and it's Vnity to to wit to a perfect nullity and totall ruin Next as for Government let us see whether they have left any Vnity of that in God's Church That which was held for God's Church by them while they continued with us were those Churches onely in Communion with the see of Rome the Vnity of Government in this Church was evident and known to all in what it consisted to wit in the common acknowledment of the Bishop of Rome as it's Head Since they left that mother they have got new Brothers and sisters whom before they accounted Bastards and Aliens so that God's Church now according to them is made up of Greeks Lutherans Huguenots perhaps Socinians Presbyterians Adamites Quakers c. For they give no Ground nor have any certain Rule of faith to discern which are of it which not But wee will pitch upon their acknowledg'd favourites First the Church of England holds the King the Head of their Church Next the Huguenots whom they own for dear Brothers and part of God's Church hold neither King nor yet Bishop but the Presbyteâ—y onely strange Vnity which stands in terms of contradiction Thirdly the Papists are accounted by them lest they should spoil their own Mission part of God's Church too and these acknowledge noe Head but the Pope Fourthly the Lutherans are a part of their kind hearted Church and amongst them for the most part each parish-Minister is Head of his Church or Parish without any subordination to any higher Ecclesiasticall Governour Lastly the Greek Church is held by them another part and it acknowledges no Head but the Patriarch I omit those sects who own no Government at all Is not this now a brave Vnity where there are five disparate forms of Government which stand aloof and at arms end with one another without any commonty to unite or connect them Let them not toy it now as they use and tell us of an union of charity our discourse is about an Vnity of Government either then let him show that God's Church as cast in this mold has an Vnity within the limits and notion of Government thaâ— is any commonty to subscribe to some one sort of Government either acknowledg'd to have been instituted by Christ or agreed on by common coÌ„sent of those in this new-fashion'd Church or else let him confess that this Church thus patch't up has no Vnity in Government at all Wee will do the Bishop a greater favour and give him leave to set aside the french Church and the rest and onely reflect upon the form of Government they substituted to that which they rejected to wit that the King or temporall power should bee supreme in Ecclesiasticall Affairs Bee it so then and that each particular pretended Church in the world were thus govern'd wee see that they of England under their King would make one Church they of Holland under their Hogen Moghen Magistrates another France under it's King a third and so all the rest of the countries in the world Many Churches wee see here indeed in those Grounds and many distinct independent Governours but where is there any Vnity of Government for the whole where is there any supreme Governour or Governours to whom all are bound to submit and conform themselves in the
nor was pretended by mee as such but as a consideration which much aggravates the charge and obliges in all reason the renouncers of this Authority to look very charily to the sufficiency of the causes of thâ—t their division For since it follows out of the terms that ere they renounced it and by thus renouncing it left to bee Catholikes they immediately before held it as Catholikes do that is held it as a point of faith and of Christ's Institution and since it is evident that none ought to change his faith which hee and his Ancestours immemorially embrac'd but upon evident Grounds again since it is evident likewise and confest that temporall motives ought not to make us break Christ's commands which is done by rejecting a Government which hee instituted Two things are consequent hence to their disadvantage one that their motives ought to bee rigoro sly evident and demonstrative for their renouncing it since dâ—nger of damnation ensves upon their miscarriage and this even in their own thoughts as they were lay'd in their minds when they first began to meditate a breach The other that the pretended causes especially temporall inconveniences for the abolishing this Authority can no waies iustify the first breakers who held it formerly a point of faith since no iust causes can bee given to renounce an Authority held to bee instituted by Christ As then it had been rationall to Reply to King H. the 8th remaining yet a Catholike and beginning to have thoughts to abolish this Authority upon such and such temporall inconveniences that his maiesty and his Ancestours had held it of divine Institution and that therefore there could bee no iust cause to abolish it so it is equally seasonable to Reply to my Lord of Derry who undertakes here to vindicate him by alledging the same thing that these causes nor any else were sufficient to make them begin to break because ere they begun the breach they held this Authority to bee of Christ's Institution and therefore it is a folly for him to think to iustify them by huddling together causes and motives and crying them up for sufficient till hee can show they had Evidence of the Truth of the opposite point greater than the pretended Evidence of Authority universall Tradition which they actually had for their former tenet If a cause bee sufficient to produce an effect and equally apply'd 'tis manifest the same effect will follow Hence as an argument of the insufficiency of their motives of Division I alledged that all other Catholike countries had the same exceptions yet neither broke formerly nor follow your Example Hee answers first Few or none have sustain'd so great oppression which signifies I know not well whether any have or no or for any thing I know some have Nor does hee prove the contrary otherwise than by a pleasant saying of a certain Pope Any thing will serve him Next hee tells us all other countries have not right to the Cyprian priviledges as Brittain hath And how proves hee that this country had any by that Council Is England named in the Council of Ephesus which exempted Cyprus from the Patriarch of Antioch No. Is Brittain at least No. How come wee then to bee particularly priviledg'd by that Council Why the Bp. of Derry thinks so His Grounds Because that Council ordains that no Bp. should occupy a Province which was not from the beginning under his Predecessours And how proves hee the application that England was never anciently under the Pope as Head of the Church from Sr Henry Spelman's old-new manuscript and two or three raggs of History or misunderstood Testimonies Are they demonstrative or rigorous Evidences Here my Ld is wisely silent Will less serve than such proofs to iustify such a separation Hee is silent again Were they a thousand times as many are they of a weight comparable to a world of witnesses proceeding upon the Grounds of immediate dâ—livery from hand to hand which recommended and ascertain'd the contrary Alas hee never thinks of nor considers that at all but very wisely puts his light grains in one end of the scales negl â—cting to put our pounds in the other and then brags that his thin grains are overweight The third particularizing motive is his own unprou'd saying and is concluded with a boast that hee is not the onely schismatick in the world but hath Brothers Is this the way to argue against us To call all those Christians which profess the name of Christ and communicate with himself in the same guilt and then say hee hath fellows in his schism Hee knows wee grant them not to bee truly-call'd Christians but in the name onely and equivocally as a painted man is styld ' a man If hee will show that any Congregation of truly-call'd Christians partakes with him in the separation from Rome let him show that these pretended Christians for those points in which they differ from us did not renounce the onely certain Rule of faith Tradition or delivery of immediate forefathers or that there is any certain and infallible Rule but that Otherwise they are cut of from the Rule and Root of faith and by consequence not in a true appellation to bee call'd faithfull or Christians otherwise they heard not the immediately foregoing Church for those points which they innovated and so are to us no properly call'd Christians but according to our saviours counsell as Heathens and publicans I mean those who knowingly wilfully separated Talking voluntarily my Ld according to the dictates of your own fancy will not serve in a rigorous Controversy First show that those you call Christians have any infallible or certain Rule of faith and so any faith and that they have not onely a probable and fallible GrouÌ„d that is opinion onely for their faith and then you shall contradict your own best and more candid writers who confess it in terms and do such a miracle as your Ancestours never attain'd to nor any of wit and ingenuity attempted seeing it impossible to bee done rationally I alledged in the next place to show more their inexcusablenes and the infussiciency of their pretended motives for breaking the example of our own country and forefathers who had the same cause to cast the Pope's Supremacy of the Land yet rather proferr'd to continue in the peace of the Church than to attâ—mpt so destructive an innovation The Bp. replies first that wee should not mistake them aâ—d that they still desire to live in the Communion of the Catholike Church c. No my Ld I doe not mistake you but know very well you would bee willing and glad too the former Church should own you for hers I doubt not but you are apprehensive enough of what honour would accrue to you if wee would account you true Catholikes and what disgrace you get by being accounted Hereticks and Schismaticks by us But yet your desire of staying in the Church is conditionall that you may bee permitted to remain
these expressions if taken as falling from their mouths pens I conceive sound not over much of Moderation All the Moderation consists here that my Ld of Derry had a mind to break a good iest and assure us very Sadly p. 39. l. 7. that notwithstanding all this they forbear to censure us which signifies first that they do not censure at all whom they have already censured in the height as is manifest by their former expressions next that though they beleeve those former expressions to be true and that wee are indeed such that is though they hold us for such yet they do not censure us for such Awitty contradiction And lastly that though our Church erre in credendis contradict Scripture blasphemously perniciously in her doctrine nay though her all grounding Principles be flatt Errors and that she pertinaciously unrelentingly persist in those doctrines as she does nor is ever likely to change or retract them yet for all this she is not to be held as hereticall though this be the very definition of Heresie but as a true Church still nor is to be censured to be otherwise Good charitable non-sence Hee tells me first that hee speakes of forbearing to censure other Churches but I answer of communicating with them and that therefore I err from the purpose Yet himself six lines before so forgetfull he is quotes S. Cyprian for removing no man from our Communion c. And how they should refuse to communicate with any unles they first iudge him censure him to deserve to be avoided that is naught I must confess I know not Next hee tells us one may in some cases very lawfully communicate with materiall Idolaters Hereticks c. In pious offices though not in their Idolatry Heresie c. Thus we have lost the question Who for bids them to go to visit the sick with them or such like religious duties The question is whether they may communicate with them in any publike solemne act performable by Catholikes as they are subjects of such a common wealth from which the other is out law'd or performable by those others as belonging to a distinct sect Again this position of Moderation destroies all order Government both of Church state for by this out law'd persons may be traffick'r treated with so we joyn not with them in their rebellion and all the whole world heathens too may be of one Communion especially all Hereticks who all agree in some common Principle of Christianity with the rest The Bishop's Proviso makes all the world Brothers friends though one part should remain most obstinate enemies both to God his Church for still as long as this Principle holds of communicating with them in all things but their Errors God's Church shall become a courteous gallimafry of all the filth Hell Error could compound to deform her and wear in her externall face a motley mask of as many colours as there are sects in the world Perhaps Heathens too must make up a part of this Communion provided we abstain onely to communicate with them in their Idolatry Thus they who want Grounds to give nerves to their Government are forced to embrace a counterfeit Kind-heartednes and under that plausible vizard vent much refined perniciousnes as is able at once to ruin all sence reason order discipline Government common wealth Church Thirdly he tells us that the Orthodox Christians did sometimes communicate with the hereticall Arians By which you see he is a kind disposition to admit even those to his Communion who deny Christ's divinitie The Arians were known to cloak themselves so craftily in words that they could not for a long time be certainly discover'd nor is it any wonder that for a while Hereticks be tolerated untill they be both heard and a time of repentance be prescribed them Fourthly he tells us he hath shown how the Primitive Catholikes communicated with the Schismaticall Novatians in the same publike divine offices But he is so reserved as not to direct us where he hath shown this nor could an ordinary inquiry finde it out and in his p. 282. which place seems most proper for that discourse he onely names the word Novatians without proving any thing concerning them Now the Novatians were simply Schismaticks and transported onely by a too rigorous zeal to a disobedience to the Church in a formerly received practice with such as these it is lawfull to communicate till upon their contumacy the Church shall excommunicate them Again as long as Schismaticks those who are erroneous in faith are onely in via as we may say and not in termino and hardned into an obstinacy there is a prudentiall latitude allow'd by the Church delaying her censures as long as shee can possibly without wronging her Government as was de facto practised in England till the 10th of Q. Elizabeth But this is not enough to prove they were admitted into Communion because they were tolerated for a certain time while there was hope they would not be obstinate but would return the Apostle himself prescribing a time of triall before they are to be avoided upon necessitie But can my L d of Derry show a parallell to our case that any renounc't the former Rule of faith immediate Tradition of Ancestors the former Government and many other points recommendedy that Rule and obstinately persisted to disavow both reviling writing against excommunicating nay persecuting with loss of Estates and often times of life the professors of the thus renounced faith Government can he show I say that such were ever admitted by the Church into Communion unles he can show this he beats the Air for this onely comes to our point S. Cyprian's case reaches not hither he had no reason to remove any from his Communion since he was in the wrong nor could hee possibly see with evidence that the immediate Tradition of all those Churches with whom hee communicated did avouch his tenet for hee was the man that brought in the noveltie your renouncing the former Rule of faith immediate delivery of fore fathers and the former Government with many other points recommended by that Rule is most evident nay confest avouched still maintain'd by your own obstinate selves Fifthly hee told us that the Catholikes call'd the Donatists their brethren I answer so are Catholikes bound to call the Protestants now nay Turks Heathens and in generall all men who are yet in a capacite to attain beatitude that is all but the damned in hell who are eternally hardned in enmitie against God S. Peter Art 3. v. 17. call'd the Iews who crucyfy'd Christ his Brethren yet never meant by that appellation that they were good Christians Sixthly he objects that the Donatists proceeding upon my Principle would not acknowledge the Catholikes their Brethren And what is this Principle of mine 'T is this as put down here by himself that a man cannot say his own religion is true but he must say
the opposite is false nor hold his own certain without censuring another man's Good Reader reflect a little upon this proposition he cavills at and then take if thou canst the just dimensions of the unmeasurable weaknes of error and it's Abettors Do not truth and certainty involve essentially in their notions an oppositenes and contrarietie to falshood error Does not true signifie not-false How is it possible then a man indued with the common light of reason can hold a thing true and yet not hold it 's opposite false yet this plain self evident proposition in other terms the self-same with this that a thing cannot both be not be at once is denied by the Bp. nay accounted disgracefull to hold it Whereas indeed it is not mine nor the Donatists onely but the common Principle of nature which the silliest old wife and least boy come to the use of reason cannot but know Error prest home cannot burst out at length into less absurdities than denying the first Principles The Bishop of Derry having shown us how well skill'd he is in Principles by renouncing that first Nature-taught one proceeds immediately to establish some Principles of his own which he calls evident undeniable so to confute the former The first is that particular Churches may fall into error where if by Errors he means opinions onely 't is true if points of faith 't is not so undeniable as he thinks in case that particular Church adhere firmly to her Rule of faith immediate Tradition for that point already there setled that is if shee proceed as a Church If he wonder at this I shall increase his admiration by letting him know my minde that I see it not possible how even the pretended Protestants Church of England could it without self condemnation have owned the immediate delivery of fore fathers and onely proceeded stuck close to that Rule should ever come to vary from the former Protestant Beleef for as long as the now fathers taught their Children what was held now and the Children without looking farther beleeved their fathers and taught their Children as they beleeved and so successively it followes in terms that the posterity remote a thousand generations would still beleeve as their fathers do now But as their religion built on Reformation that is not immediate Tradition will not let them own immediate Tradition for their Rule of faith so neither did they own it could their certainty arrive to that of our Churches strengthen'd by so many super-added assistances His second Principle is that all errors are not Essentiall or fundamentall I answer that if by Errors he means onely opinions as he seems to say in the next paragraph then none at all are Essentiall but what is this to my proposition which spoke of Religion not of opinions unles perhaps which is most likely consonant to the Protestant Grounds the Bishop makes account that Religion and opinion are all one But if he means Error in a matter of faith then every such error is fundamentall and to answer this third Principle with the same labour destroies the being of a Church For since a Church must necessarily have a Rule of faith otherwise she were no Church and that 't is impossible to conceive how man's nature should let her proceed so quite contrary to her Principles as to hold a thing as a matter of faith not proceeding upon her onely Rule of faith this being a flat contradiction Again since the Rule of faith must be both certain and plain without which properties 'tis no Rule it follows that an error in a matter of faith argues an erroneousnes in the Rule of faith which essentially and fundamentally concerns the being of a Church His fourth Principle is that every one is bound according to the just extent of his power to free himself from those not essentiall errors Why so my L d if those errors be not essentiall they leave according to your own Grounds sufficient means of Salvation and the true being of a Church How prove you then that you ought to break Church Communion which is essentially destructive to the being of a Church to remedy this or hazard your Salvation as you know well Schism does when you might have rested secure Is it an evident and undeniable Principle that you ought to break that in which consists the being of a Church to remedy that which you confess can consist with the being of a Church or is it an undeniable Principle that you ought to endanger your soul where you grant there is no necessity Say not I suppose things gratis your friend Dr. H. tells you out of the fathers how horrid a crime Schism is how vtterly unexcusable the undeniable evidence of fact manifests you to have broke Church Communion that is to have Schismatized from the former Church which you must be forced to grant unles you can show us that you still maintain the former Principles of Vnity both in faith and Government These are the points which you violently broke and rejected show either that these were not fundamentally concerning the Vnity and cōsequently the Entity of the former Church or else confess that you had no just cause of renouncing them and so that you are plainly both Schismatick Heretick But 't is sufficient for your Lp's pretence of Moderation without so much as mentioning them in particular to say here in generall terms that the points you renounc'd were not essentiall were accidentall were errors vlcers opinions hay stubble the plague weeds c. And thus ends the first part of your wisely maintained Moderation as full of contradictions absurdities as of words The second proof of their Moderation is their inward charity I love to see charity appearing out-wardly me thinks hanging and persecution disguize her very much and your still clamorous noises against us envying us even that poore happines that we are able with very much a doe to keep our heads above water and not sink utterly He proves this in ward charity by their externall works as he calls them their prayers for us He should have said words the former were their works and prou'd nothing but their malice But let us examin their prayers they pray for us he sayes daily and we do the same for them nay more many of ours hazard their lives daily to do good to the souls even of themselves our enemies and to free them as much as in us lies from a beleeved danger Which shows now the greater charity But their speciall externall work as he calls it is their solemn anniversary prayer for our conversion every good friday And this he thinks is a speciall peece of charity in their Church being ignorant good man that this very thing is the solemn custome of our Church every good friday as is to be seen in our Missall and borrowed thence by their book of common prayer among many other things But let us see whether the Protestants
according to their Grounds can be sayd to pray for us at all in particular on Good friday or for our conversion as he forget-full of his own tenet affirms Their prayer is this Mercifull god who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a Sinner but rather that he should be converted and live have mercy upon all Iews Turks Infidells and Hereticks c. Fetch them home to thy flock that they may be saved c. I ask now under which of these heads does he place Papists when he pretends their cōversion is here pray'd for in particular Vnder that of Hereticks How can this stand with his Principles who acknowledges ours a true Church that is not hereticall and lately told us as a point of his Churches Moderation that she forbears to censure others Again they grant us to be of Christ's flock already in a capacy to be saved whereas those they pray for here are supposed reducible to Christ's flock that is not yet of it and by being thus reduced capable of Salvation that is incapable of it before they be thus reduced none of these therefore are competent to us nor are we prayed for there as Hereticks if his own Grounds his own pretended Moderation are to be held to by himself Much less will he say we are pray'd for there under the notion of Iews Turcks or Infidels for this were to censure us worse nor was ever pretended by Protestants It follows then that our conversion in particular is not there pray'd for at all but that there is such a pittifull dissonancy between the pretended Church of England's doctrine her practice that her greatest Bp's Doctors cannot make sence of one related to the other Nay more since hee culls out this Good friday prayer for the speciall externall work of their charity towards us and that this cannot concern us at all without a self contradiction it follows that their other externall works argue no charity at all towards us And this is the great inward charity the Bp. brags of as a proof of their due Moderation He adds that we excommunicate them once a year that is the day before Good-friday I reply that to expect a Church should not excommunicate those whom she holds to be Schismaticks and Hereticks is at once to be ignorant of the Churches constant practice and the common Principles of Government It being equally evident that the Church in all ages tooke this course with obstinate Adversaries of faith as it is that Society in the world can subsist without putting a distinction and separating avowed enemies and Rebels from true subjets friends If then they hold us Hereticks and unles they hold us such they do not pray for us in particular as is pretended they ought in all reason to excommunicate as indeed sometimes they did some particular Catholikes in their Churches though not all our Church in generall their new started congregation was conscious to herself that she had no such Authority which made her also instead of those words in our Good-friday prayer ad sanctam Matrem Ecclesiam Catholicam atque Apostolicam revocare digneris recall them to our holy Mother the Catholike Apostolike Church vary the grave and too authoritative phrase too loud alas for her as taken in contra distinction to us into that dwindling puling puritanicall expressions of one flock the rem nant of the true Israelites one fold under one Shepheard c. equally pretendable if taken alone by Quakers as by them since they include no visible Marks in their notion which can satisfy us of any distinction between the one the other The third proof of their Moderation is that they added nothing but took away onely from the former doctrines of the Church which he expresses by saying they pluck up the weeds but retain all the plants of saving truths I answer'd that to take away goodnes is the greatest evill c. He replies that he spake of taking away errors No my L d this was not the intent of your discourse there both because you pretended there to prove something whereas I conceive to rely on onely the cheap saying that all is erroneous you tooke away proves nothing but is a meere self supposition as also because it is not a proof of Moderation to take away errors but a rigorously requisite act of Iustice Your intent then was to show the Moderation in your method of proceeding which you pretended all the way long to have been that you added no new thing but onely took away something of the old This I glanc't at as a fond and idle pretence since till you prove evidently and demonstrably from your new Rule of faith that the former of immediate Tradition which asserted those points denied by you did there in erre the presumption stands against you that it was Christ's doctrine which you maimed by thus detracting from it or if you suppose gratis that 't was not Christ's doctrine but errors falshoods then it is not proper to call it Moderation but rather an act of necessary charity to root it out I know it is an easy matter to call all weeds which your nice stomachs cannot digest but if that point of immediate Tradition renounced by you which onely could ascertain us that there was any such thing as Christ or God's word be a weed I wonder what can deserve to be called a flower What he vapours of holding what the primitive fathers iudged necessary and now Catholike Church does is an emptie brag vanishes into smoak by it self since as shall shortly bee shown their Grounds can never determin what is the Catholike or universall Church In order to the same proof of his Moderation I likewise answered that he who positively denies ever adds the contrary to what he takes away and that he who makes it an Article that there is no Purgatory no mass no prayer to Saints has as many Articles as he who holds the contrary He replies that he knows the contrary instancing that they neither hold it an Article of faith that there is a Purgatory nor that there is none I ask what kinde of things are their thirty nine Articles Are they of faith or opinions onely I conceive his Lp. will not say they are meere opinions but contra-distinctive of the Protestant faith from ours at least the good simple Ministers were made beleeve so when they swore to maintain them and unles they had certainty as strongly grounded as divine beleef for those points or Articles how could they in reason reject the cōtrary tenets which they held by divine beleef Now the 22. Article defines the negative to Purgatory three other points of our doctrine yet this ill-tutour'd Child tells his old crasy mother the Church of England that she lies that he knows the contrary Now his reason is better then his position 't is this because a negative cannot be
and Church of England did no more than all other Princes Republikes of the Roman Communion have done in effect This word in effect deserves a Comment and then if it bee candidly explicated we shall finde it â—ignifies the whole busines though it seeme to speak coyly mincingly Did they ever make laws to renounce and abrogate the Popes Authority and define absolutely against essentiall right Did they ever erect an Ecclesiasticall Superior as you did the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and pretend that he was in no manner of way subordinate to the Pope but vtterly independent on him Did any of them ever separate from the Church by disacknowledging his Head ship and by consequence the Rule of faith immediate Tradition which asserted it Not one Did not your self in your vindication p. 184. after your had put down the parallell acts of Henry the 8th to other Princes when you came to the point confess that Henry the 8th abolished the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome within his Dominions but the Emperors with whom you run along with your parallel in other points did not so Did not your self here p. 37. where you put downe a gradation of the oppositions of the former Kings to the Pope tell us onely as the highest step of it that they threaned him further to make a Wall of separation between him them If then they but threaned to do what K. H. as appears by this law which vtterly renounces the Pope did it follows plainly that they did nothing and King Henry did all as farr as concerns our Controversy which is not about extent of his Authority or in what cases he may be check't from exercising particular Acts of that Authority but about the denying the very Right it self and which is consequent by denying joyintly the Rule of faith and by those denialls separating from the Body of the former Church which held both The signification then of this iuggling phrase in effect as apply'd to our purpose by his own interpretation is this that other Catholike countries did just nothing and King Henry the 8th did all To no imaginable purpose then save onely to show his diligence in nothing the politicall wranglings between Kings and Popes are all the instances produced by the Bishop that Catholike Kings in such such particular cases permitted not the Pope to execute what he intended unles he can deny his own words and prove that they did as much as K. Henry and not threaned onely But my Ld of Derry having taken a great deal of pains to gather together these notes which the way being new he made account would come of bravely grows much perplex't to see them all defeated at once by showing plainly that they are nothing to the purpose and therefore both heretofore and especially at present complains much that we answer them not in particular assuring the Reader that would our cause have born it we had done so Was ever man so ignorant of the common laws of disputing Needs any mory answer be given to particulars which one yeelds to than to say he grants them We grant therefore all his particular instances of these contess between Kings Popes and yeeld willingly that such such materiall facts happen'd many more not entring into that dispute how far they were done iustly how far un iustly which is little to our purpose since the Authority it self was still acknowledg'd on both sides What need we answer each in particular by saying first I grant this next I grant the other Now the use or application he makes of them that is to pretend thence that they did as much as King Henry the 8th so to iustify him is a particular point and one and to this I have answer'd particularly both here and also in my third Section where I have demonstrated it to be the most shameles manifoldly contradictory absurdity that ever bid defiance to the universall acknowledgment and ey-verdict of the whole word Vpon occasion of his alledging that all Catholike countries do the same in effect against the Pope as the Protestants I raised an exception of his incoherent manner of writing To which he thus replies p. 45. But what is the Ground of his exception nothing but a contradiction As if he made account that a contradiction is a matter of nothing nor worth excepting against His contradiction is this that our doctrine concerning the Pope is injurious to Princes prejudices their crowns and yet that we hold do the same against the Pope in effect as Protestants do He would salve the contradiction first by alledging that Papists may be injurious to Princes in one respect one time and do them right in another respect and another time Well my Lord but since the doctrine of the Papists concerning the substance of the Pope's Authority is ever constantly the same for none can be Papists longer then they hold it it knows no varitie of respectt not times and so if it be prejudiciall in it self once 't is prejudiciall alwayes The extent of it varies upon occasions this consists in an indivisible cannot alter This substance of his Authority is the point which belongs to you to impugn if you go to work consequently since you are onely accused of Schism for rejecting this not for hindring him from acting in particular cases Either grant then that this tenet is not preâ—udiciall to Princes being like yours and then you contradict your former pretence that it was or say that yours is prejudiciall to Princes also being the same in effect with it and then you have evaded indeed a contradiction but by as great an absurdity Secondly to show his former answer was nothing worth he alledges that I have changed the subject of the Proposition and that he spoke not of Papists but of the Pope Court of Rome No Ld but I would not let you change the subject of the whole question 'T is a separation from all the Churches in Communion with Rome that you stand accused of the undeniable fact evidences that you have broke from all those Churches by renouncing those two said Principles of Vnity in which they agree This is our accusation against you and so your excuses must be apply'd to this or else they are no excuses at all Now one of your excuses is that the Pope's Authority is prejudiciall to Princes and it must be mean't of the Pope's Authority as held universally by all those Churches else why did you separate from all those Churches upon that pretence But those Churches universally as you say hold the same in effect with the Protestants for you say you separated from the Court onely what needed them excuses from you to them unles there had been a contradiction in the busines Had you opposed onely some attempts of the Court of Rome by your tenet you might have remain'd still united with France Spain c who did as you confess the same in effect but
which such things were done In Answer the Bishop pretends first that hee will take my frame in peeces whereas hee not so much as handles it or looks upon it formine concern'd a Visible ty of Church Vnity his discourse reckons up out of S. Paul seven particulars all which except onely the common Sacrament of Baptism are invisible latent some of them no wayes proper to a Church The first is one Body Well leap't again my L d you are to prove first we are one Body if the Vnity of Government conseru'd by all those who acknowledge the Popes Head ship be taken away by you but you suppose this and then ask what can be more prodigious then for the members of the same Body to war with one another wee were inded once one Body and as long as the meÌ„bers remain'd worthy of that Body there was no warr between them But as when some member becomes corrupted the rest of the members if they do wisely take order to cut it of lest it infect the rest so 't was no prodigy but reason that the members of the former Church should excommunicate or cut you of when you would needs be infected and obstinacy had made you incurable nay when you would needs be no longer of that Body The former Body was One by having a visible Head common nerves Ligatures of Government Discipline united in that Head the lifeâ—giving Blood of faith essentiall to the faithfull as faithâ—full derived to those members by the common Channells or veins of immediate Tradition You separated from that Head you broke aâ—sunder those nerves of Government you stop'tâ—up and interrupted those Channells or veins the onely passage for divine beleef that is certainty grounded faith your task then is to show us by visible tokens that is by common exterior ties that you are one Body with us still not to suppose it and talk a line or two sleightly upon that groundles supposition Secondly one Spirit that is the Holy Ghost which hee rightly styles the common soul of the Church But his Lp must prove first that they are of the Body of the Church ere they can claim to be informed by the Soul of it It is not enough to talk of the Spirit which is latent invisible Quaker or Adamite can pretend that at pleasure but you must show us visible Marks that you are of that Body and so capable to have the same Spirit or Soul otherwise how will you convince to the world that you have right to that Spirit Thirdly one hope of our calling This token is both invisible again and besides makes all to be of one Church Iews all if they but say tthey hope to go to Heaven who will stick to say that Fourthly one Lord in order to which hee tells us wee must be friends because wee serve the same Lord Dark again How shall wee know they serve the same Lord Because they cry Lord Lord or because they call him Lord Their visible acts must decide that If then wee see with our eyes that they have broke in peeces his Church renounced the only-certain Grounds of his law they must eithers how us better Symptoms of their service and restore both to their former integrity by reacknowledging them else wee can not account them fellow servants to this Lord but Rebells enemies against this Lord his Church Fifthly one faith But how they should have one faith with us who differ from us in the onely certain that is in the onely Rule of faith as also in the sence that is in the thing or tenet of some Articles in the creed or indeed how they can have faith at all but opinion onely whose best Authors writers confess they have no more than probability to Ground their faith hee knows not so sayes nothing and therefore is not to be beleeu'd for barely saying wee have one faith Sixthly one Baptism As if Hereticks who are out of the Church could not all be baptised But hee tells us that by Baptism wee fight vnder the same Standard That wee should do so because of Baptism I grant indeed But as hee who wears the colours of his Generall yet deserts his Army fights against it will find his colours or Badgeso far from excusing him that they render him more liable to the rigour of Martiall law treatable as a greater enemy so the badge of Christianity received in Baptism is so far from being a plea for them who are out of the Church or for making them esteemed one of Christ's and hers if they run away from her take party against her that it much more hainously enhances their accusation and condemns you whom the undeniable matter of fact joyn'd with your acknowledgment of ours for a true Church manifests most evidently to have done both Lastly one God who is father of all c. By which if it be mean't that God is a father by Creation or ordinary Providence them Iews Pagans Atheists are of God's Church too if in the sence as God is fathers of Christians you must first prove that you have his Church on earth for your Mother ere you can claim God in Heaven for your father But to shew how weak a writer this Bp. is let the Reader peruse here my p. 324. 326. and hee shall see our charges is that without this Government they have no common ty under that notion to vnite them into one Christian common wealth and therefore that having rejected that Government unles they can show us what other visible ty they have substituted to that they cannot be shown to be Christians or of Christ's flock but separates Aliens from it Wee deny them to be truly-nam'd Christians for want of such a visible ty now the Bishop instead of showing us this supposes all hee was to prove towit that they are of Christ's Church and reckons up some invisible motives proposed by S. Paul to Christians already acknowledg'd for such to vnite them not into one Church for that was presupposed but into one harmony of affections There is no doubt then but all the seven points alledged are strong motives to vnite Christians in Wills but it is as undoubted on the other side that none of them onely pretended and being invisible they can be but pretended is a sufficient Mark to know who is a true Christian who not nor was this S. Paul's intent as appears by the quality of the persons hee writes to who were all Christians Now Christians being such because of their faith it followes that the Vnity in faith is the property to Christians as such and consequently in Government which by reason of it's concernment ought in all reason to bee a point of faith not in charity onely for this extends it self to Infidells all the world Since then the Bp. goes not about to show visibly their Ground for vnity of faith that is a
to him yet seem to strike at the latter as hee ought hee joyns both however in consistent into one and being to wrangle against the Pope's Headship proposes it first under this Chimericall notion The Papacy Quà talis or as such as it is maintained by many And this hee calls laying the Axe to the root of Shism though it bee as directly leuell'd a stroak at his own legs and inflicting as deep a wound on the supports of his cause as a contradiction can give to pretended sence For since all Papists as such hold a Papacy or the Pope's Headship of Iurisdiction over the whole Church and differ in this point from Protestants it is evident that the Papacy of such is that which is held by all for none can be Papists longer then they hold it Now then to say the Papacy as such as it is now held by many is the same as to say the Papacy as held by all as held by many onely which is in other language to legitimate an Hircoceruus and to clap together non ens and ens into the same notion But how does hee clear himself of this shuffling nonsence why first hee asks do not some Roman Catholikes subject the Pope to a generall Council and others nay the greater part of them c subject a generall Council to the Pope What is this to the Question whether these words the Papacy as such as it is now maintain'd by many cohere in sence or no Secondly hee asks whether hee might not then well say the Papacy quà talis c. No my L d for it being evident that all Roman Catholikes hold the Papacy in some sence if you call it the Papacy as such as it is held by many pray how will you stile it as held by all as not such or the Papacy with super additions or can all hold what some do not hold Thirdly hee saies his conclusion was not against the Church of Rome in generall but against the Pope Court of Rome that they were guilty of the Schism For what for maintaining the substance of the Pope's Authority held by all then you accuse the Church of Rome in generall of Schism for the Church in generall holds what all in her hold Or was it for this opinion of the Pope above the Council and others of this strain How were they guilty of Schism for this unles they had deny'd you Communion for holding the contrary or prest upon you an unconscientious approbation of it which you know they did not Fool not your Readers my L d 't was not for this tenet which you impute to the Court of Rome but for that of the Pope's Headship or Spirituall Iurisdiction over all God's Church held by all Catholikes and by that whole Church equally then as it is now for which you are excommunicated and so ought either to submit to that whole Church again in that point as formerly or else if you would deal candidly impugn that whole Church and not the Court onely thus opposite to you in that mainly-concerning point Fourthly as hee saies although aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus that is sometimes honest Homer takes a nodd and though hee had stol'n a napp it had been neither felony nor treason yet to let us see hee did not sleep he will put his argument into form without a quâ talis which is to affect a sleepines still or as our English Proverb saies to sleep fox sleep Hee is accus'd of a contradiction non-sence and to clear himself hee tells us hee will now lay aside one part of the contradiction and endeavour to make good sence of the other Now his first argument is that the Court of Rome is guilty of Schism for preferring the Pope before a generall Council to which I have already answer'd His second is that ours are thus guilty for making all Apostolicall succession Episcopall Iurisdiction come from Rome onely By which if hee means our Church as a Church holds it as hee ought if hee speak like a Controvertist 't is a most gross false imputation as I told him If of the Court of Rome onely then since they neither prest it as of faith nor deny'd you Communion for these points but for another held by all as I lately show'd they cannot hence be concluded guilty nor you guiltles of Schism This argument past over hee confesses this tenet is not generall amongst us I add but points of faith are generally held therefore this tenet is but an opinion and being not generall as hee grants it follows that it is onely a particular or private opinion as I call'd it his own words evince it Yet hee is loath these should be call'd private opinions because they are most common most current Whereas unles they come down recommended by our Rule of faith immediate Tradition or the voice of the Church so become perfectly common generall universall undoubtedly current our Church looks upon them onely as deductions of private men's reasons nor shall I own them for other That the former is a common tenet hee brings Cardinal Bellarmine to say that it is almost de fide or a point of faith which the good Bp. sees not that it signifies it was almost reveald or that the revelation fell an inch or two short of reaching our knowledge or that God has not indeed reveald it but yet that t was twenty to one but hee had done it Next that the Council of Florence seem'd to have defin'd it now the word seems signifies I know not that ever it defin'd it at all or if it defin'd it so 't is more than I know Thirdly that the Council of Lateran I suppose hee means not the generall Council there held defin'd it most expresly Yet the Bp here descanting upon the words of that Council sayes onely that they seem to import no less that is it may bee they mean no such thing or it may bee they mean much less For the latter opinion as hee candidly here calls it hee tells us Bellarmine declares it to bee most true that hee cites great Authors for it saith that it seemeth again to have been the opinion of the old Schoolmen speaking highly at least seemingly of the Pope's Authority So that all is seeming all opinion and uncertainty Now the use the Bp. makes of this gear is this The Court of Rome many with it held an over weening opinion of their own Authority though they permitted us whole Churches to hold the contrary therefore wee very innocently broke God's Church or therefore wee quite renounc't the Principles of Vnity in both faith Government as the fact witnesses you did because they held an erroneous op nion too much extending the latter In a word let Bellarmine the Bp. wrangle about the opinionative point I shall not think my self concern'd as a Controvertist to interrupt their dispute or â—oyn mine interest with either party however did I
preteÌ„d to treat a point of Canon-Law I might The point of faith I undertook to defend as a Controvertist whensoever I see any opposition to that I acknowledge it my Province to secure it by my resistance Sect. 10. My L d of Derry's vain pretence of his Churches large Communion His frivolous and groundles exceptions against the Council of Trent How weakly hee clears himself of calumny And how going about to excuse his citing a Testimony against himself hee brings three or four proofs to make good the accusation HEe pretended that the Protestants held Communion with thrice as many Christians as wee do I reply'd that if by Christians hea means those who lay claim to the name of Christ I neither deny'd his Answer nor envy'd him his multitude for Manichees Gnosticks Carpocratians Arians Nestorians Eutychians and others without number do all usurp the honour of this title I added that I did not think hee had any solid reason to refuse Communion to the worst of them Now the Bp ' s task is evidently this to give us this solid reason show it conclusive why hee admits some of these rejects others But 't is against his humour to go about to prove any thing Talking is his an angry woman's best weapon and of voluntary talk he is not niggardly but deals us largess of it First hee falls into rhetoricall exclamations against our prejudice partiality want of truth charity candour ingenuity Words are but vapour let him put certainly-establish't Grounds to conclude himself or any of his sects true Christians which may not as well infer that all those other sects are such also otherwise his exclâ—mations which sound so high in Rhetorick are very-flat noted and signify just nothing in Controversy where the concernment of the subject renders all proofs inferior to rigorous convincing discourse dull toyish Secondly hee asks wherein can I or all the world charge the Church of England of Greece or any of the Eastern Southern or Northern Christians with any of these Heresies and then reckons up afterwards the materiall points held by the Manichees Gnosticks c. Suppose I could not are there no other heresies in the world but these old ones or is it impossible that a new heresy should arise It was not for holding those very materiall points that I accused the Church of England or the Bp. as hee purposely misrepresents mee but this that having no determinate certain Rule of faith they had no Grounds to reject any from their Communion who held some common points of Christianity with them though differing in others Again since the Rule of faith Protestants pretend to is the Scripture and all those Hereticks recurr'd still rely'd upon the same nay even the Manichees upon the new Testament it follows that these are all of the Protestants Communion because they have the same Grounds Rule of their faith if the Bp. reply that the letter of the Scripture is not the Rule of faith but the sence hee must either show us some determinate certain way to arrive to the true sence of it or else confess that this Rule is indeterminate uncertain that is as far as it concerns us none at all Now though indeed the Protestants hapt not to light into all the same materiall errors as did the Manichees Arians c. Yet they agree with them in the source of all error that is in having deny'd and renounc't the onely Ground of faiths certainty Tradition of immediate forefathers which alone could bring down to us security that Christ was God or that there was such a thing as God's word and so the deniall of this is in it's consequences equally nay more pestilentiall then is the denying the materiall point it self of Christ's divinity or the asserting any other held by the worst of those Hereticks They agree with them all therefore in the root of all errors though the branches chance and they but chance to be diverse as may bee seen if you do but consider what varieties of sects are sprung in England since your strong hand which truly did forbid the liberty of interpreting Scripture is taken from you whereof some be as learned as yourselves witnes the books of the Socinians for 't is an easy matter out of affection to turn Scripture to variety of errors as was cleerly seen in Luther who because Carolostadius had publish't the absence of Christ's Body from the Blessed Sacrament before himself found the middle tenet of compresence of both Body Bread and so by that base affection saved a great part of the world through God's Providence from a wickeder error Thirdly hee tells us that some few Eastern Christians are called Nestorians others suspected of Eutychianism but most wrongfully Though indeed nothing is more right full then to call them so as even Protestants confess But you see nature works in despite of Design and that hee hath a mind to cling in very brotherly and lovingly with the Nestorians Eutychians though hee saies hee will not and those tenets of theirs which in the close of his paragraph hee pretends to detest as accursed errors here hee strokes with a geâ—tle hand assuring us they are nothing but some unvsâ—all expressions as if all heresies when exprest were not expressions and also very unvsuall new to faith the faithfull Now their unvsuall expressions were onely these that Christ had two distinct persons and no distinct natures which are nothing in the Bp ' s mind had they deny'd Christ to be God too it had been also an unvsuall expression but I must confess a very scurry and pestiferous one as were the former But our favourable Bishop thimking it necessary to bolster up his Church with a multitude boldly pronounces what hee knows not in excuse of those Hereticks though it be contrary to the publike and best intelligence wee have from those remote countries Fourthly hee is very piously rhetoricall tells us that the best is they are either wheat or chaff of the Lord's floar bâ—t that our tongues must not winnow them Which is as absurd as the former That it is best for them to be wheat I understand very well but that it should be best as hee says that they are either wheat or chaff I confess I am at a loss to conceive Chaffe Ps 1. v. 5. signifies the vngodly and Mat. 3. v. 12. the very place which his Allegoâ—y relates to it is said that Christ will burn the chaff of his floar in vnquenchable fire which mee thinks is far from best So miserably the Bp. comes of still wâ—ether hee intends to speak finely or solidly Our tongues indeed shall not winnow them as hee says nor do we pretend to do so by our tongues or voluntary talking that were to vsurp the method of discourse proper to himself onely but our reason will winnow them unles wee turn Beasts use it not our proofs if they be evident as
own nature changeable Hee imagins that Dr. Field hath prou'd some thing against us in this point and in answer shall imagin that those of ours who have reply'd to his toyes have disproved what hee is pretended to have proved nor am I further concern'd unles the Bp. had produced some weighty particular out of him which yet wanted answering as hee brings none at all After this hee will needs prove the Council of Trent not to have been a Generall one His exceptions that the summons were not generall that the foure Protopatriarchs were not present by themselves nor their deputies that there were not some present from the greater parts of all Christian Provinces are already shown to bee frivolous impertinent till hee gives us some certain determinate notion of Church and some certain Rule to know what sects in particular are of it what excluded as I have already manifested his Ground could give none For otherwise those who are excluded from or are not of the Church have no right to be Summon'd thither unles to bee call'd to the Barr as Delinquents nor to sit there nor are to be accounted Christians and so the summons may bee Generall all may bee there that should be there and some may bee present from the greater part of all Christian Provinces notwithstanding the neglect or absence of these aliens Hee ought then first put Grounds who are good Christians ought to bee call'd who not ere hee can alledge their not being call'd as a prejudice to the Council Our Grounds why it was generall are these The onely certain Rule of faith and by consequence root of Christianity which can secure us of God's word or any thing else is the immediate delivery or Tradition of forefathers Those therefore onely those who adhere to this root are to bee held truly Christians of the Church those who broke from it any time as did the Protestants professedly the Greeks the rest as evidently when they began to differ from us in any point are not properly Christians nor of the Church therefore a representative of the Church or Council is intire universall Generall though those latter who are not of the Church bee neither call'd Summon'd nor present provided those others who adhere to this root of faith and so are indeed Christians or adherers to Christ's law be Summon'd admitted But such was our Council of Trent therefore it was Generall Now to disprove this Council to bee Generall if hee would go to work solidly the Bp. should first alledge that it was not a sufficient representative of the whole Church which must bee done by manifesting definitely and satisfactorily who in particular are of the Church who not nor can this bee performed otherwise than by showing some Rule root of faith Christianity better qualify'd to bee such that is more certain more plain than this which may distinguish those who are of the Church from those who are not of it or else to convince that the Greeks Protestants Lutherans c. When they began to differ from the Roman innovated not but were found adhering to that immediate delivery otherwise they must confess that all were Summon'd that ought to have been Summon'd all were there or might have been there who ought to have been there and so the Council was Generall Till this bee done all his big worded pretences of the absence of the whole Provinces of the greater part of Christendome want of due summons fewnes of the members present that the Greeks are not known Rebells c. are convinc't to bee but voluntary talk as is indeed almost all this Treatise this being his peculiar manner of discoursing more fit for old wives Gossips at their frivolous meetings then for a Bp. and Controvertist handling matters of faith Hee sayes that the Greeks though Hereticks should have been lawfully heard condemned in a generall Council What needed hearing when themselves in the face of the whole world publikely confessed maintained avowed their imputed fault Condemned they were by generall Councils heretofore though the Bp's particular faculty of saying what hee lists without a word of proof will not allow them to bee such nor yet give us some certain way to know which Councils are such Or had it been an acknowledg'd generall Council and they heard condemned there still the B p. had an evasion in lavender hee laid up in store this reserve of words following that they were never heard or tried or condemned of heresy by any Council or person that had Iurisdiction over them and then hee is secure by talking boldy proving nothing His saying that though they were Hereticks yet they of all others ought especially to have been Summon'd signifies thus much that it is more necessary to a generall Council that Hereticks bee call'd thither than that Orthodox fathers bee so A substantiall peece of sence worthy consideration I brought a similitude of a Parliament that known and condemned Rebells need not bee call'd hee will needs have it run on four feet prosecutes it terribly some of his best trifles I shall reckon up First hee saies the Pope hath not that Authority over a generall Council as a King hath over a Parliament I answer I am so plain a man that I understand not what the Authority of King or Parliament either taken singly or one in order to the other signifies some Kings have more some less Authority so have Parliaments witness those of England France To expect then I should know â—ow great the Authority of King or Parliament is by naming onely the common words is to expect that one should know how long a country is by naming it a country or how big a mountain is by barely calling it a mountain That these have some great bignes and those some great Authority I know by their common names but how great I know not Words my Ld may serve you to give whose cause will not bear sence but they must not serve mee to take Secondly that the Greek Patriarchs are not known condemned Rebells Answer this is onely said again not prou'd and so 't is sufficient to reply that they who call'd the Council all in the Council held them so Again the errors which they publikely maintain'd have been condemned by Councils for the most part some of their own party being present Now why those who publikly profess those Errours should need a further calling to triall or why they are not known Rebells is the B p' s task to inform us Thirdly he sayes that the least Parliament in England had more members then the Council of Trent They were therefore graver and more choice persons The Church summons not parish-priests out of every great town as the common wealth doth two Burgesses out of every corporation Again what was it matters not but might not there bee a Parliament of England without having the fifth part of the members found
Rome would make which more more evidences that the acknowledgment of the Popes iust power was retained by the Greeks and encroachments upon their Liberties onely deny'd which the French Church intended to imitate Now 〈◊〉 cannot bee pretended with any shame that Gerson and the french Church mean't to disacknowledge the Pope's iust power as Head of the Church nor will Gersons words even now cited let it bee pretended for then without any perhaps not onely some as hee doubts but all in the Court of Rome would most certainly have contradicted it Their consideration then being parallell to that of the Greeks as the Bp. grants it follow'd that they acknowledg'd the Pope's Authority though they passively remain'd separate rather than humour a demand which they deem'd irrationall Thus the Bishop first cited a testimony against himself as was shown in Schism Disarm'd and would excuse it by bringing three or four proofs each of which is against himself also so that as hee begun like a Bowler hee ends like one of those Artificers who going to mend one hole use to make other three THE CONCLVSION The Controuersy between us is rationally and plainly summ'd up in these few Aphorisms 1. THat whatsoever the Extent of the Pope's Authority bee or bee not yet 't is cl ar that all Roman-Catholikes that is all Communicants with the Church of Rome or Papists as they call them hold the substance of the Pope's Authority that is hold the Pope to bee Supreme Ecclesiasticall Governour in God's Church This is euident out of the very terms since to acknowledge the Papall Authority is to bee a Papist or a Communicant with the Church of Rome 2. The holding or acknowledging this Authority is to all that hold it that is to the whole Church of Rome or to all those particular Churches united with Rome a Principle of Vnity of Government This is plain likewise out of the terms since an acknowledgment of one Supreme Governour either in Secular or Spirituall affairs is the Ground which establishes those acknowledgers in submission to that one Government that is 't is to them a Principle of Vnity in Government 3. 'T is euident and acknowledg'd that whateuer some Catholikes hold besides or not hold yet all those Churches in Communion with the Churches of Rome hold firmly that whatsoever the living voice of the present Church that is of Pastours and Fathers of Famâ—lies shall unanimously conspire to teach and deliuer Learners and Children to have been recieued from their immediate fathers as taught by Christ and his Apostles is to bee undoubtedly held as indeed taught by them that is is to bee held as a point of faith and that the voice of the present Church thus deliuering is infallible that is that this deliuery from immediate forefathers as from theirs as from Christ is an infallible and certain Rule of faith that is is a Principle of Vnity in faith This to bee the tenet of all these Churches in Communion with Rome both sides acknowledge and is Evident hence that the Body made up of these Churches ever cast out from themselves all that did innouate against this tenure 4. 'T is manifest that all the Churches in Communion with Rome equally held at the time of the Protestant Reformation in K. Henry's dayes these two Principles as they do now that is the substance of the Pope's Authority or that hee is Supreme in God's Church and that the living voice of the present Church delivering as aboue said is the infallible Rule of faith This is manifested by our Aduersaries impugning the former Churches as holding Tradition and the Pope's Headship nor was it ever pretended by Friend or Foe that either those Churches held not those tenets then or that they have renounc't them since 5. The Church of England immediately before the Reformation was one of those Churches which held Communion with Rome as all the world grants and consequently held with the rest these two former tenets prou'd to have been the Principles of Vnity both in faith and Government 6. That Body of Christians or that Christian Common-wealth consisting of the then-Church of England and other Churches in Communion with Rome holding Christ's law upon the sayd tenure of immediate Tradition and submitting to the Ecclesiasticall Supremacy of the Pope was a true and reall Church This is manifest by our very Adversaries acknowledgment who grant the now Church of Rome even without their Church to bee a true and reall one though holding the same Principles of Vnity both in faith and Government 7. That Body consisting of the then Church of England and her other fellow communicants with Rome was united or made one by means of these two Principles of Vnity For the undoubted acknowledgment of one common Rule of faith to bee certain is in it's own nature apt to unite those acknowledger's in faith that is to unite them as faithfull and consequently in all other actions springing from faith And the undoubted acknowledgment of one Supreme Ecclesiasticall Governour gave these acknowledgers an Ecclesiasticall Vnity or Church-communion under the notion of Governed or subjects of an Ecclesiasticall Commonwealth Now nothing can more neerly touch a Church than the Rules of faith and Government especially if the Government bee of faith and recieved upon it's Rule Seeing then these principles gave them some Vnity and Communion as Faithfull and as belonging to an Ecclesiasticall Commonwealth it must necessarily bee Church Vnity and Comunion which it gave them 8. The Protestant Reformers renoun'ct both these Principles This is undeniably evident since they left of to hold the Popes Supreme power to act in Ecclesiasticall affairs and also to hold diverse points which the former Church immediately before the breach had recieved from immediate Pastours fathers as from Christ 9. Hence follows unavoidably that those Reformers in renouncing those two Principles did the fact of breaking Church Communion or Schismatizing This is demonstrably consequent from the two last Paragraphs where 't is proved that those two Principles made Church Communion that is caused Vnity in that Body which themselves acknowledge a true Church as also that they renounced or broke those Principles therefore they broke that which united the Church therefore they broke the Vnity of the Church or Schismatiz'd 10. This renouncing those two Principles of Ecclesiasticall Communion prou'd to have been an actuall breach of Church Vnity was antecedent to the Pope's excommunicating the Protestants and his commanding Catholikes to abstain from their Communion This is known and acknowledg'd by all the world nor till they were Protestants by renouncing those Principles could they bee excommunicated as Protestants 11. This actuall breach of Church Vnity in K. Henry's E d the 6th's and the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's reign could not bee imputable to the subsequent Excommunication as to it's cause 'T is plain since the effect cannot bee before the cause 12. Those subsequent Excommunications caused not the actuall breach or
Schism between us For the antecedent renouncing those two points shown to have been the Principles of Ecclesiasticall Vnity had already caused the breach disvnion or diuision between us But those between whom an actuall diuision is made are not still diuisible that is they who are already diuided are not now to bee diuided Whefore however it may bee pretended that those Excommunications made those Congregations who were antecedently thus diuided stand at farther distance from one another yet 't is most senceles and unworthy a man of reason to affirm that they diuided those who were already diuided ere those Excommunications came Especially since the Rule of faith and the substance of the Pope's Authority consist in an indiuisible and are points of that nature that the renouncing these is a Principle of renouncing all faith and Government For who so renounces a y Rule may nay ought if hee go to work consequently renounce all hee holds upon that Rule whether points of faith or of Government nay even the letter of God's written word it self that is all that Christ left us or that can concern a Church 13. The renouncing those two Principles of the former Church Vnity as it evidently disvâ—ited mens minds in order to faith and Government so if reduced into practice it must necessarily disvnite or diuide them likewise in externall Church carriage This is clear since our tenets are the Principles of our actions and so contrary tenets of contrary carriage 14. Those tenets contrary to the two Principles of Church Vnity were de facto put in practice by the Reforming party and consequently they diuided the Church both internally and externally This is most undeniably evident since they preach't writ and acted against the Tradition or delivery of the immediately foregoing Church as erroneous in many points which shee deliver'd to them as from immediate fathers and so upwards as from Christ and proceeded now to interpret Scripture by another Rule than by the tenets and practice of the immediately foregoing faithfull And as for the former Government they absolutely renounc't it's influence in England preach't and writ against it Nay kept Congregations apart before they had the power in their hands and after they had the power in their hands punish't and put to death and that vpon the score of Religion many of the maintainers of those two Principles of Church Vnity 15. Hence follows that the Protestants breach was a perfect and compleat fact of Schism For it diuided the former Ecclesiasticall Body both internally and externally and that as it was an Ecclesiasticall Body since those two said Principles concern'd Ecclesiasticall Vnity 16. The subsequent Excommunication of our Church was therefore due fitting and necessary Due for it is as due a carriage towards those who have actually renounced the Principles of Vnity both in faith and Government and so broken Church Vnity to bee excommunicated by that Body from which those Renouncers thus broke as it is towards rebells who have renounc't both Supreme Government and fundamentall laws of a Common-wealth and so diuided the Temporall Body to bee denounced and proclaimed Rebells by the same Common-wealth Fitting since the effect of it they most resent which was to keep the true faithfull apart in Ecclesiasticall actions from them signify'd no more than this that they who had broken both internally and externally from the former Body should not bee treated with in Ecclesiasticall carriages as still of it nor bee owned for parts of that Commonwealth of which already they had made themselves no parts Lastly necessary all Government and good order going to wrack if opposite parties bee allow'd to treat together commonly in such actions in which their opposition must necessarily and frequently burst out and discover it self which will ineuitably disgust the more prudent sort hazzard to peruert the weaker and breed disquiet on both sides Thus far to evidence demonstrably that the Extern Fact of Schism was truly theirs Which done though it bee needless to adde any more to prove them formall Schismaticks themselves confessing that such a fact cannot bee iustifiable by any reasons or motives whatsoever of Schism c. 1. Yet I shall not build upon their standing to their own words knowing how easy a thing it is for men who talk loosely and not with strict rigour of Discourse to shuffle of their own sayings I shall therefore prosecute mine own intended method and alledge that 17. The very doing an Extern fact of so hainous a Nature as is breaking Church Vnity concludes a guilt in the Acters unles they render reasons truly sufficient to excuse their fact This is evident a fortiori by parallelling this to facts of far more inferiour malice For who so rises against a long settled and acknowledg'd Temporall power is concluded by that very fact of rising to bee a Rebell unles hee render sufficient reasons why hee rose Otherwise till those reasons appear the Good of Peace settlement order and Vnity which hee evidently violates by his rising conclude him most irrationall that is sinfull who shall go about to destroy them The like wee experience to bee granted by all Mankind in case a son disobey or disacknowledge one for his father who was held so formerly nay if a schoolboy disobey a petty schoolmaster for unles they give sufficient reasons of this disobedience the order of the world which consists in such submission of inferiours to formerly-acknowledg'd Superiours gives them for faulty for having broken and inverted that order How much more then the fact of breaking Church Vnity since this entrenches upon an order infinitely higher to wit Mankind's order to Beatitude and in it's own nature dissolves that is destroyes Christ's Church by destroying it's Vnity and by consequence his law too since there remaining no means to make particular Churches interpret Scripture the same way each of them would follow the fancy of some man it esteems learned and so there would bee as many faiths as particular Congregations as wee see practic 't in Luther's pretended Reformation and this last amongst us 18. No reasons can bee sufficient to excuse such a fact but such as are able to conuince that 't was better to do that fact than not to do it This is most Evident since as when reason convinces mee 't is worse to do such a thing I am beyond all excuse irrationall that is faulty in doing it so if I bee conuinc't that 't is onely-equally good I can have no reason to go about it for in regard I cannot act in this case without making choice of the one particular before the other and in this supposed case there is no reason of making such a choice since I am convinc't of the equality of their Goodnesses 't is clear my action in this case cannot spring from reason 'T is left then that none can act rationally nor by consequence excusably unles convinc't that the fact is better to bee done than not to bee done 19. In
this case where the point is demonstrable and of highest concern no reason meerly probable how strongly soever it bee such can convince the understanding that the Contrary was better to bee done but onely a manifest and rigorous demonstration For though in the commoner sort of humane actions an high Probability that the thing is in it self better bee sufficient for action yet there are some things of a nature so manifest to all Mankind to bee universally good that nothing but rigorous Evidence can bee pretended a Ground sufficient to oppose them For example that Parents are to bee honored that Government is to bee in the world that Vnity of Government is to bee kept up in God's Church that there ought to bee certain Grounds for faith and such like Which since on the one side they are such as are in their own nature demonstrable and indeed self evident on the other so universally beneficiall and consequently an universall harm or rather a deluge of inconveniences and mischief break in if the Acter against these should hap to bee in the wrong hee is therefore bound in these cases not to act till hee sees the utmost that is to bee seen concerning such affairs but affairs of this nature are demonstrable or rather self evident as is said on the one side therefore hee ought not to act unles hee could see perfect demonstration that 't is better to do the other Wherefore it being evidenced most manifestly in the 6th Section of this Vindication of my Appendix that this fact of theirs left neither Certain Ground of faith nor Vnity of Government in God's Church nothing but a perfect and rigorous demonstration could bee able to convince the understanding that 't was better to â—ct 20. The Protestants produce no such demonstration that â—was better to act in this case For they never clos'd with severe demonstration in any of their writings I have yet seen to Evidence rigorously either that the Rule of immediate delivery was not certain or that the Pope had no Supreme Authority in Ecclesiasticall affairs or lastly that though hee were such yet the Authority was to bee abolish't for the Abuses sake Which were necessary to bee done ere they could demonstrate it better to break Church Vnity Nor indeed does their manner of writing bear the slenderest resemblance of rigorous demonstration since demonstration is not a connecting of Ayre and words but of Notions and sence and this from self evident Principles even to the very intended conclusion Whereas their way of writing is onely to find out the sence of words by a Dictionary kind of manner which sort of Discourse is the most fallible most sleight and most subject to Equivocation that can bee imagin'd To omit that rigorous demonstration is pretended by our party for our Rule of faith immediate Tradition which they renounc't and consequently for whatsoever was recieved upon it as was the Pope's Authority as yet unanswer'd by their side Nay their own side sometimes acknowledge our said Rule of faith infallible See Schism Dispatch't p. 104. p. 123. 21. 'T is the most absurd and impious folly imaginable to bring for their excuse that they were fully persuaded the thing was to bee done or is to bee continued For since a full persuasion can spring from Passion or Vice aswell as from reason and virtue as all the world sees and grants it signifies nothing in order to an excuse to say one was fully persuaded hee was to do such a thing till hee show whence hee became thus persuaded otherwise his persuasion might bee a fault it self and the occasion of his other fault in thus acting 'T is not therefore his persuasion but the Ground of his persuasion which is to bee alledged and look't into Which if it were reason whence hee became thus persuaded and that hee knew how hee came to bee persuaded without knowing which 't was irrational to bee persuaded at all then hee can render us this reason which persuaded him and reason telling us evidently that no reason less than demonstration is in our case able to breed full persuasion or conviction that it was better to act as hath been proved Aph. 19. it follows they must give us a demonstrative reason why 't was better to bee done otherwise they can never iustify that persuasion much less the fact which issued from it But the fact being evidently enormous and against a present order of highest concern and no truly Evident reason appearing why 't was better to do that fact 't is from it self convinc't and concluded irrationall precipitate and vicious If they complain of this doctrine as too rigorous in leaving no excuse for weak and ignorant persons who act out of simplicity I reply Either their first Reformers and themselves the continuers of the Breach thought themselves ignorant in those things they went about to reform or no. If they thought themselves ignorant and yet attempted to make themselves iudges 't is a plain self-Condemnation and irrationall If they were ignorant or in some degree ignorant and yet either thought themselves not ignorant or in some degree less ignorant then I ask what made them think themselves wiser than they were except their own Pride So that which way soever they turn their fault and guilt pursve them But if they were indeed knowing in those things then 't is apparent there are no truly sufficient convincing or demonstrative reasons to bee given why they acted since they were never able to produce any such though urged and obliged there unto by the highest motives imaginable Whence they remain still criminall as in the former cases and indeed much more leaving it manifest that neither persuasion nor their fact which was originiz'd from it sprung from reason in their understanding but from Passion and Affection in their Wills THEREFORE THE PROTESTANTS ARE GVILTY BOTH OF MATERIALL AND FORMALL SCHISM SINCE 'T IS EVIDENT THEY HAVE DONE BOTH A SCHISMATICALL FACT AND OVT OF A SCHISMATICALL AFFECTION FINIS THE POST-SCRIPT IF my Adversaries will undertake to reply in a rigorously demonstrative way which as it onely is conclusive so none but it can avail them to iustify a Fact of this nature they shall have a fair return from their Disarmer Otherwise if they resolve to pursve their old method of talking preachingly quotingly and quibblingly hee can bee content to leave them to the Applause of weak and half-witted Readers and to the Laughter and contempt of rationall and intelligent persons INDEX TO THE TREATISE Against Dr. Hammond A ABsurdtiies in Dr. H. p. 215 three til this page the Collectour neglected to gather them p. 216. three more Other three p. 217. Heaps of others from p. 217. till p. 221. Also p. 272 and 274. Two more p. 279. His Absurdity of Absurdities that it was forbidden by Moses his Law to converse with or preach to a Gentile from p. 308. to p. 319. A shameless Absurdity in making a Testimony totally against
him speak for him by adding two Parenthesis of his own in the middle p. 326 327 328. Another heap of Absurditis p. 232 233. Absurdity in deducing a Conclusion out of three Testimonies in stead of shewing one expresse word in any one p. 345 346. c. with others of an inferiour strain Absurdities about Saint John's Priority in place p. 371 372 373. Another p. 374. Many and most grosse Absurdities to avoid the clearing his inexcusable Falsification of Scripture p. 376 377 c. Absurd pretences and his building on a â—silly unauthentik and most unlikely Narration p. 388 389. Absurd nonsence in obliging us to confesse what we hold as of Faith instead of shewing us he had exprest we held so and not calumniated our tenet p. 390 391 392. More new Absurdites p. 307 308. Absurdity in answering by a Paralel which in nothing resembled our objection p. 410 411. Absurd Nonsence p. 418 419 420. A Cluster of Absurdities about his twelve Thrones p. 421 422. c. all over Another Cluster of toyish Absurdities p. 435 436. An whole Army of Absurditias mustered up which he nicknames a perfect Reply and attendance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to my most important Section p. 450 451. Abusing the Reader 's eyes four severall times p. 198 199. Also p. 231 232 237 249 251 326 327. with what art he does so p. 327 328. Also p. 329 330. and in divers other places Abusing a Testimony from Theophylact. p. 243 244. Abusing a Testimony from Scripture p. 283 284 285. Abusing a Testimony from Anacletus p. 297 298. c. Abusing the Jewish Church and her Practice in their purest times p. 311. Abusing the Primitive Christians as most uncharitable and the Apostles as abetters of their fault p. 318 319. Abusing Saint Peter and his Jewish Prosclytes by making them all Schismaticks p. 315 316. His other manifold abuses come under the Heads of Calumny cavill false-dealing and others Actuall Power of the Pope in England at the time of the breach p. 36. 37. The Antientnesse of that Actuall Power p. 37 38. B BElief what according to Dr. H. p. 113 114. 134. What truly ibid. Blasphemy against Faith and Ground of Faith p. 111. Another p. 112. Three more p 114. Other two p. 200 201. Doctor Hammonds manner of dogmatizing the seed of all Blasphemies p. 420. C. CAlumny against a pretended Adversary who medled not with him p. 27 28. Also p. 33 34. Calumniating our tenets p. 96 103 twice 104 403 404 twice 423 424 431 432 440. Calumniating his Adversary p. 366 Calumny formerly imputed manifested from his own words to be such p. 390. 391. Cavill groundlessly made against a petty lapse though rectify'd in the Errata p. 172 173. Other groundlesse and senselesse Cavills p. 186 230 276 277 278 302 366 367 368 426 thrice 427. False Cavill that S. W. never consider'd his Allegations when as he had answerd them particularly one by one p. 211. A Cavill grounded upon a false pretence of his own p. 342. Another built upon his own Falsification of his Adversaries words p. 37â— Certainty of Faith a just ground for zeal p. 10 11 12 20. Certainty and strength of Tradition p. 12 13 16 45 46 97 119 120 132 134. Challenge made formerly to â—r H that he could not shew one expresse word for Exclusive Jurisdictions in any of those Testimonies he produc'd to prove it p. 343. This Challenge how rationall and moderate in the Offerer how necessary and advantagious for the Accepter p. 343 344. Challenge acceped ibid. but totally prevaricated from after acceptation p. 345 346. Changing St. Hierom's words p. 26. Changiing my words and intention p. 31 56 Changing the force and sence of the Father's words thrice by his Paraphrase or Translation p. 8 79 80. 81. Changing the Question almost all over Changing the words of their own Translation p. 195. Changing St Chrysostom's intention and sense by omitting some of his words p. 265 266. Multitudes of others of this sort especially changing the Fathers and his Adversary's words `and the letter in which-they were printed to his own advantage I omit to recount most of them fall more properly under other Heads Contradictions to himself p. 102 104 115 116 123 135 140 142 145 146 148 173 174 185 twice 196 l. ult 197 l. 11. 216 238 239 244 twice 263 264 270 271 twice 272 287 293 294 369 392 393 405 423 432 446. Contradicting four places of his own p. 204 205. Contradicting six other places of his own ib. Nine Self contradictions shewn from p. 207. to p. 214. Contradicting himself and common sense both at once 314 315. Contradicting himself in denying his Irrefragable Evidence to be intended for what his own words evince he brought it p. 334 335. In denying it to be a Proof for the point p. 336. In denying seven Testimonies which before he call'd Clear Evidences to be Proofs p. 336 337. Contradicting himself with one Testimony five times p. 417 418. Contradicting the scope of the present Controversie and of his whole fourth Chapter p. 205 206. contradicting the whole stream of Scripture p. 309. 310 312 313 314. contradicting his own Tenet of Exclusive Provinces p. 357. contradicting common sense p. 310. 311 368 369. 393. contradicting himself and common sense at once p. 314 315. contradicting at once all the most Substantial part of his Book p. 350 351. E. Evidences able to excuse the Protestants from Schism how they ought to be qualified p. 40 41. That they have no such Evidences p. 42 43 44. A Testimony Evidence how it ought to be qualified p. 382. Dr. H's Evidences how qualified p. 383. Evident demonstrably that H. the eighth was p. 132 133 134. Evident demonstrably that the Papacy was never introduc'd p 168 169 170. F. Fact evinc'd out of Histories concludes not Right p. 51 52. Falsifications of Scripture p. 194 195 196 197 307 339 343 403. False and common trick in citing Scripture p. 354 355. False pretences from Scripture 195 360 363. Egregious and most wilful falssificâ—tions of Fathers other Authors discoverd p. 245 246 247 248 249 250 266 267 268 269. 270 358 359 367 415 416. Falsifications of S. Ambrose reiterated and shamelesly applyed to his own advantage whereas it is expresly for us p. 349. Falsification of Falsifications p. 375. Falsely substituting the Arch-heretick Pelagius his Testimony for S. Hieroms p. 239 240 241. Falsifying the words of the Testimony as well as the Authority p. 242 243. Falsifying his Adversaries words and plain intention p. 73 74 370 371 376 428 433 465. An egregious and most notorious Falsification as it was put in his Book of Schism 468 469. A voluntary and shameful Falsification left undefended p. 319 320 321 c. False Pretences that he answered some passages p. 186 187 322. l. 3. and again l. 8 9. Also p. 387 394 413. Falsifying our pretence of Evidences p. 175. False stating
England flies off presently and denies it saying he had no title to such an Authority there whereas when we maintain his possession we pretend not yet a Right which is our inference thence but that actually England was under such an Authority and acknowledg'd it whether it were rightly pretended or injustly remains to be inferred which the Dr. mistaking and not distinguishing between possession and right sayes we beg the question when we onely take what is evident that he was in possession and thence infer a right until the contrary be proved The second Ground is that This Authority actually over England and acknowledged there was acknowledged likewise to be that of the Head of the Vniversal Church and not of a Patriarchate onely This Ground is no less evident than the former by our adversaries confession since this is the Authority they impugn as unlawfull and from which they reformed which last word implies the actual acknowledgment that Authority had before Hence Mr. H's digression to show that Kings could erect and translate Patriarchates was perfectly frivolous as far as concerns this purpose for whether they can change Patriarchates or no is impertinent when we are questioning an Authority above Patriarchs and pretended to be constituted by Christ himself The third Ground is that This Papal Authority actually over the Ecclesiastical affaires in England was held then as of Christ's Institution and to have been derived to the Pope as he was Successour to S. Peter The truth of this appears by the known confession of the then Roman Church and the self-same Controversy perpetually continued till this day The fourth Ground is that This actual power the Pope then had in England had been of long continuance and settled in an ancient Possession This is evinced both from our Adversaries grant the evidence of the fact it self and even by the carriage of S. Aust in the Monk and the Abbot of Bangor exprest in that counterfeited testimony alledged by Dr. H. whence we see it was the doctrine S. Austin taught the Saxons The fifth Ground shall be that No Possession ought to be disturbed without sufficient motives and reasons and consequently it self is a title till those reasons invalidate it and show it null This is evident first by Nature's Principles which tell us there is no new cause requisite for things to remain as they are wheras on the other side nothing can be changed without some cause actually working and of force proportionable to the weight and settledness of the thing to be moved Secondly by Morals which teach us that mans understanding cannot be changed from any opinion or beleef without motives ought not without sufficient ones and consequently needs no new motive to continue it in any former assent besides the foregoing Causes which put it there Thirdly we find that Politicks give testimony to or rather stand upon this Ground assuring us when any Government is quietly settled it ought so to stand till sufficient motives and reasons in Policy that is a greater common good urge a change And if Possession were held no title then the Welshmen might still pretend to command England and each line or race which preceded and was outed quarrel with any subsequent one though never so long settled and so no certain right at all would be found of any possession in the World till we come to Adam's time Fourthly as for the particular Laws of our Countrey they clearly agree in the same favour for Possession I shall onely instance in one common case If I convey Blackâ—cre to I. S. for the life of I. N. and after wards I. S. dy in this case because I cannot enter against mine own Grant and all the world else have equal title whoever first enters into the land is adjudged the true and rightfull Owner of it during the life of I. N. and that by the sole title of Occupancy as they call it which they wholly ground upon this known reason that in equality of pretensions Possession still casts the ballance Nay such regards is given by our Law to Possession that were the right of a former Title never so evident yet a certain time of peaceable Possession undisturb'd by the contrary claim would absolutely bar it And here I should take my self obliged to ask my Adversary's pardon for using such words as a Dr. of Divinity is not presumed to be acquainted with did not his own Example at least excuse if not provoke my imitation Thus much of the force of Possession in general without descending to the nature of ours in particular that is of such a Possession as is justly presumable to have come from Christ Hence followes that since Possession of Authority must stand till sufficient Reasons be alledged that it was unjust those Motives and Reasons ought to be weighed whether they be sufficient or no ere the Authority can be rejected wherefore since the relinquishing any Authority actually in power before makes a material breach from that Government the deciding the question onely stands in examining those Reasons which oppose its lawfulness since the sufficiency of them cleares the breakers the insufficiency condemns them and in our case makes the material Schism formal Let the Reader then judge how little advised Dr. H. was in stating the question rightly and clearly of Schism pag 10. where he tells us that the motives are not worth he eding in this controversy but onely the truth of the matter of fact For the matter of fact to wit that there was then an actual Government and that they broke from it being evident to all the world and confest by themselves if there be no reasons to be examined he is convinced by his own words to be a Schismatick so flatly and palpably that it is left impossible for him even to pretend a defence The sixth Ground shall be that Such a Possession as that of the Pope's Authority in England was held ought not to be changed or rejected upon any lesser motives or reasons than rigorous and most manifest Evidence that it was usurp't The reasons for this are fetch 't by parity from that which went before onely the proportions added For in moving a Body in nature the force of the cause must be proportion'd to the gravity settledness and other extrinsecal impediments of the Body to be moved otherwise nothing is done In morals the motives of dissent ought to be more powerfull than those for the former continuance in assent otherwise a soul as a soul thas is as rational is not or ought not to be moved and so in the rest Now that nothing less than Evidence rigorously and perfectly such can justify a rejecting of that Authority is thus show'd That Authority was held as of Faith and to have been constituted by Christ's own mouth it had been acknowledgedly accounted for such by multitudes of pious learned men for many ages before in all Christian Countries of the Communion of the Roman Church