The victory of truth for the peace of the Church to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick faith / by Monsieur de la Militiere, counsellour in ordinary to the King of France ; with an answer thereunto, written by the right reverend John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.

The victory of truth for the peace of the Church to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick faith / by Monsieur de la Militiere, counsellour in ordinary to the King of France ; with an answer thereunto, written by the right reverend John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.

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To the King of Great Britain, to invite his Majestie to embrace the Catholick Faith.

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An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Fpistle to the King of Great-Brittain, wherein he inviteth His Majesty to forsake the Church of England, and to embrace the Roman Chatholick Religion.

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THE VICTORY OF TRUTH FOR The Peace of the CHURCH, To the King of GREAT BRITAIN; To invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick Faith.

By Monsieur De la Militiere, Counsellour in Ordinary to the King of France.

With an Answer thereunto, Written by the Right Reverend John Bramhall, D. D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.

Printed at the Hague, 1653.

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To the King of Great Britain, to invite his Majestie to embrace the Catholick Faith.

SIR,

THE Wisedome of Gods Counsels is far above the prudence of men, who are altogether void of the knowledge of his grace. One sort, who know neither God, nor his providence, look upon all the events of humane life, as if they happened by chance. They imagine that that which we call good luck, or ill luck, hath no other cause than hazard, and that which every mans prudence or imprudence brings to the conduct of his life. Others, who acknowledge a Divine providence, but [Page] onely after the manner that God hath manifested it to the world by the instructions and judgements of his Law, think that all the goods, which heap prosperities upon them, are the effects and testimonies of the favour where with God cherisheth those that are his; And that the Ils, that oppress mans life with miseries, are arguments of the anger and hatred of God upon those he handles after that manner. But Christians, to whom God hath revealed by the Gospel the counsel of his mercy in Jesus Christ, know, that in his Cross, on which for satisfying the Justice of of the Law, he hath bore the pain of our sinnes, he hath changed, for those he calls to his Communion, the use of Afflictions. And that he imployes them first to humble them, and acknowledge their sin, that they may desire deliverance, to the end they may come by this way to the Faith of his grace, which doth deliver them. And when they are entred into Communion with him by [Page] faith, and that the exercise of the same afflictions accomplisheth in them the work of his grace, in giving them, by his consolation, in their patience, the hope of the glorious happiness which he hath promis'd them, and which carries over all their affections to the loving of him. Those therefore that have this faith and this hope, are of a judgement far differing from the opinion of men of the world, upon the event of Goods and Evils which accompany mans life.

Considering, Sir, the present fortune of your serene Majestie, far removed from the Majestick condition of your Birth, I humble my self with you in the sight of the powerful hand of God, who is the onely Judge, and onely Master of Monarchs, to ascend by the steps, whereto the Gospel addresses us, even into the counsel of his infinite mercy. And I find there, that the disaster of this great calamity, which environs you, is a work of the wisdome [Page] of the King of Kings, who will shew in you, whom he hath honoured with his Unction, and his Image, an admirable effect of his grace and of his power. I say, Sir, that under the Cloak of so many sad adventures, which try you by revolutions so strange, that all the Universe doth tremble, the King of Heaven, and of the Earth, who hath humbled himself for you, infinitely more low than you are, draweth himself near unto you. He comes to take you by the hand, not onely to re [...]stablish you in your Throne, but to make you sit in his, that you may reign with him eternally, after you have imployed the Scepter, which he shall put again into your hand, to re-establish his Kingdome among your people. It is very easy for me, Sir, to give you a reason of this judgement I make of tha [...] of God upon your sacred Person, and to explicate unto you, not onely the causes and effects of the ill which is come upon you, but also the way, the use, and the [Page] success of the remedy, which the hand of God will give you, to accomplish in you this work of his mercy. If we seek the Cause for which we behold that the hand of God hath made it self so grievously heavy upon the sacred head of the King your Father, and which pursues yet after him your Royal Person with so many sinister accidents, which hath caused this great desolation to come upon all your Kingdomes, this confusion, and this subversion of their peace and former prosperity, this change into which they are so blindly precipitated, to part with the form of Government that God had established amongst them, under which they had lived so happily for so many Ages past, to become slaves of the yoke which the armed hand of a Tyrant hath put upon their head under the false name of Liberty, it will be very easy for us to find the Cause, and to acknowledge it by the Effects.

You are not ignorant, Sir, and all the [Page] world knows it with you, that the subject for which this Paricidal Parliament hath so cruelly persecuted the King your Father, hath been the Ecclesiastical Government, of which they desired to change the form, by abolishing Episcopacy, and suppressing the Liturgie, and the Ceremonies, by which the Protestants of your Kingdome had yet retained some image of the Catholick Church. Those, which they call Puritans and Presbyterians, who would live under the form of the Genevian Discipline, could not endure the form of that Antient Order, which the Royal Authority had retained as instituted by Divine Authority, and for this very thing necessary for its conformity, to preserve in Christian Estates the form of a Monarchical Government. From thence it is come, that the Puritan and Presbyterian Faction hath conceiv'd, and alwaies kept in its breast an implacable hatred against Monarchical Government, by reason of their aversion [Page] from the Episcopal. That which the prudence of King James, your Majesties Grandfather, Sir, having judiciously taken notice of, did as wisely inform his posterity, by an express Book, to take heed of it. And this King knowing Church, as well as State matters, foreseeing the inconvenience that might arise, expressing from his mouth that which touched him at the heart, had this familiar speech, No Bishop, no King; which is become a lamentable Prophesie under his Successour. But, O good God! what Successour? Such an one certainly, that had neither cause nor pretext capable to stir up the hatred of Subjects against a King so merciful, so just, and so loyal, so amiable to his People, so venerable to his Neighbours, that upon this onely prejudication, wherein the Puritan Faction had instructed them, in making them believe, that under that Form of Government, and Antient Service, the King and the Bishops had an intention [Page] to re-establish in the Realm the Catholick Religion. This is the poyson, which the Puritan Faction hath blown into the hearts of the People, to fill them with hatred against a King so love-worthy.

And this Republican Parliament, endeavouring to erect it self in a Sovereign Authority, by annihilating that of the King, hath not thought any occasion more favourable to their design, than to act the Puritan, that they might come to the execution of their desires: which they have done at last by the Sacrilegious Paricide of their Archbishop and of their King. This was, Sir, the grand work of mans malice, and the Devils stratagem, which caused the ils which are fallen upon your Crown and Person, by the pitiful fate of that succession which ought to have befallen you. But the Justice and Wisdome of God in this conjuncture, hath other ends. Every one knows that this Archbishop, [...]ourished in the Schism from the Catholick [Page] Church, had no other thought no [...] inclination, than to re-unite in one body the People divided into Sects among themselves, as well as from the Church, and to make himself Chief Head of this Schismatical Body.

And we see God hath permitted, that his own People, divided against it self, hath caused his Head to be cut off.

The King otherwise accomplished in all royal and moral virtues, did use in the Schism, by the Law of his Predecessours, the Authority which God had given him in temporal matters, for governing of spiritual, and called himself the Head. It is for that reason, that God chastizing in his person the fault of his Predecessours, would let us know by the tragical spectacle of an unheard of Death, in a King no less innocent than lawful, that so strange an effect of his anger hath had no other cause than to instruct all other Princes that are in the Schism, with what severity [Page] God will revenge his glory, for their injuring the Unity and Authority of his Church.

But if such is the Effect of Divine Justice and Wisdome in the cause of your misfortune, Sir, his Mercy goes far before it; and this is the effect that concerns you. For God makes it here plainly appear unto your Majestie, that the Reformation, which the Authors of the Schism in this latter age have pretended to make, hath been (under the pretext of so good an outside) no othe [...] thing in effect than the entire ruine as well of the Faith, and form of the Church, as of the Order it self instituted by God for the governing of men. This is the Lesson which God sets before your eyes, in the historie of this sad Revolution, which hath given you a wound, the feeling whereof is to be your instruction. You shall see, Sir, through all the circumstances of these tragical effects which have produced the trouble, and changed the [Page] form of your Estates, and which have ravished from you the Crown: That the new Religion which your Predecessours embraced after the Schism, is the onely efficient cause, by the very maxims, and foundations of the design, which its Authors have called the Reformation of the Church.

Their new opinions did very easily sside themselves under this apparent colour, through the clefts of the Schism into the spirit of the Bishops, who made themselves culpable. But neither they themselves that received this novelty, nor the Kings that authorized them, did think, they should charge themselves with Uria's packet, which would abolish both the authority of the Bis [...]ops, and the Sovereignty of Kings. For men are alwaies blind in the works of Darkness, which they do by the instinct of the Devil, who goes disguizing himself into an Angel of Light, that he may induce them for to commit them. And their passions which do blind them [Page] do insensibly draw them into precipices of mis-haps, whereof neither the extraordinary steepness nor depth is by them discerned.

Certainly whosoever should have demanded of Peter Martyr himself, and Martin Bucer, who carried Calvin's Reformation into England, if they went to bring in the Brownists opinions, who by maxims receiv'd from their hands, did a little after think upon a more exact purity, by the motions which they suppose the Holy Ghost suggests unto them, from whence it is that they esteem themselves more Reformed Puritans? Whosoever likewise should have enquired of them, if they came to tell them they might be of what Religion they pleas'd, and for the extinction of all Ecclesiastical Discipline, of all rule and form of a common Faith, according to the opinion of the Independents? Whosoever should at last have ask'd them, whether the Sword [Page] of the Word they carried in their mouths, was to cut off their King's and Bishop's heads, that they might give: a Form altogether new, as well to the Kingdom as to the Church, what would they have answered? They would have sworn without doubt with their hands upon the new Gospel they carried about them, that their intentions were further distant from these thoughts, than the Earth is from Hell. And nevertheless this thing is no waies to be doubted of, and altogether apparent at present, that [...]alvin, Martyr, Bucer, and the Bishops which admitted their Reformation, and the Kings which authorized it, have brought in by the maxims of their Foundations not onely Protestants, but also Brownists and Independents. The Bishops that receiv'd this Reformation saw not that of it would be bred the Sect of the Presbyterians, Enemies to the Hierarchy of the Church, and all the Order of its institutions, as well for the Service as for the Government, and [Page] would ruine their Authority, that they might abolish Royalty it self. But neither did Calvin, Martyr, nor Bucer, know, that from the maxims of their Reformation would spring up the Brownists and Indep [...]ndents, who would ruine their Reformation by introducing an indifference concerning all opinion in Religion.

This is that, Sir, which the historie of things hapned in the progress of this Reformation (the knowledge whereof your Majestie at this present carries engraven in your heart by too bitter feelings) represents unto your eyes, to the end all the world may see the nature and Genius by the effects of its maxims. I will represent them, Sir, to the eyes of your Majestie, and by a demonstration so lively and evident, that no reason can contradict it, You shall see that the pain you suffer, and under which your Estate groans, is the true effect, as the very punishment of the sins your Fathers committed, and trans [...]itted unto [Page] [Page] [Page] you, then, when under the pretext of this blind Reformation, they abandoned the Faith of the Church, and her Communion. For it is after thi [...] m [...]nner the just vengeance of God punishet [...] sin by it self, and that its own proper work becomes the punishment it deserves. This Religion, for which the Bishops, the Kings, and the People have forsook the Church, hath destroyed the Bishops, and the Kings, and reduced the People to live without Bishops, without Kings, without a Form of Government, and without Discipline in Religion, under the Tyrannie of a Monster, who, without being either King or Bishop, attributes to himself all Authority both in State and in Religion. This which I declare unto your Majestie, Sir, is, to make you understand, that this terrible work of the hand of God, which afflicts you after this manner, is nevertheless a judgement of his mercy for you: For you may see he sends you not this trouble, but that you may perceive the sin, [Page] whereof it is the off-spring, that you may draw your self from the one and from the other, by the knowledge which he gives you of the horrour you should have for the Cause, by the grief you resent by its Effect. You shall see it, Sir, clearly enough by the consequents of the Maxims upon which the Authors of the Reformation which your Fathers embraced, have laid their Foundations.

The Foundations of the Reformation of Calvin are laid upon these two Maxims, which he, and all those which have forsook the Church, as himself, hath delivered as indubitable to the People which have followed him: The first is, That the Church was fallen into ruine and desolation, by Errour in its Faith, by Idolatry in its Service, and by Tyrannie in its Government. The second, That to reform and re-establish it [...]n its Original Purity, the Faith of its Doctrine, of its Service, and of its Government, was to be reduced to the onely [Page] precepts of the Scripture', of the sense whereof every Believer ought to be Judge, for his own proper salvation, by the light of the Holy Ghost which conducts him. They saw that if they did not suppose these Maxims for the causes of their Reformation, they could not pretend any which might oblige them to forsake the Church, which they had a mind to leave, that they might frame a Contrary Party, and make war against her. For they could not deny the Church from which they separated, the Title of the True Church, but in accusing of it, as they have done, of Errour, Idolatry, and of Tyrannie. And if we suppose this accusation for true, they could not bring in the necessity of a Separation, to make their Reformation, but in excluding the Authority of Tradition, and the Judgement of the Church, and by reducing the rule of the Reformation to the Scripture it self, interpreted by every mans Judge [...]ent.

[Page] Your Majestie, Sir, shall now see, that of those Maxims which the Bishops of your Realm (already become Schismaticks) receiv'd for the causes of the Reformation which they admitted, there was first of all Formed the Sect of Puritan-Presbyterians, against the Protestant-Episcopalians, who could not subsist against them, upon the Foundation of these Maxims. And that at length the Brownists, the more Reformed Puritans, did raise themselves upon the same Foundations, who have since begot the Independents for the ruine of the Presbyterians, by the same reasons by which the others had ruined the Protestants and Episcopacy, and with Episcopacy Royalty it self: In such sort, that all this dreadful disorder, which makes your Kingdoms to be a Chaos of lamentable disorder, in which your authority finds it self put out, comes from these Principles of Reformation, which are the natural source thereof.

That this is so, your Majestie, Sir [Page] may clearly perceive it. When the Bishops consented to these Principles of Reformation, they abandoned by them the Faith of the Catholick Church concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass; concerning Transubstantiation in the holy Eucharist; concerning the number and vertue of the seven Sacraments; concerning Justification real and inherent in the faithful, and of their Merits, and the Invocation of Saints; concerning Prayer for the Dead, and of Purgatory; concerning the Authority of the Pope, and of the adhering of all the Faithful to the See of St. Peter at Rome. But they retain, nevertheless, the Episcopal Dignity and Authority, with a part of the Liturgie, and Ceremonies of the Catholick Church.

But the Puritan-Presbyterians have cast away all Form of Hierarchy, and community of the Liturgie and Ceremonies with the Church of Rome, as pernicious remainders of the Papal Tyrannie and Idolatry, as they call them. That they [Page] might oppose both Parties, according to the first Maxim of their Reformation, they brought in a Form of Government altogether novel, and composed a Form of Service altogether new. Upon which they have had so much advantage against the Protestants in combating them with the reasons of their common Principles, and in stirring up the People heated with the zeal of Reformation, that it was impossible for them to subsist if the Puritans could but once be supported, by the Authority of Parliament, against the Authority of the King, who onely did support the Protestant Cause, not by arguing, but by command. For Controversy, by their Principles, was all for the Puritans against the Protestants.

Could they, without Tradition, and by the holy Scripture alone, interpreted by the judgement of every one, find Episcopal Dignity, and its Authority, with distinction, and superiority of power above the other Pastors and Ministers? [Page] They could certainly, without doubt, by the Authority of the holy Scripture, assisted by Tradition, which declares the lawful sense. But in doing this, the victory which it gives them, obligeth them to consent likewise to the Authority, and Primacy of the Pope, for the Government of the Universal Church, as founded in the Primacy St. Peter receiv'd in the College of the Apostles, as well for the Form of the Government of the Universal Church, as of every particular Church, from whence every Bishop derives his Authority. Then thus it must be, either that the Protestants abandon Episcopacy as a seed of Tyrannie, and become Presbyterians; or, in retaining it, to enter again into the Communion of the Pope, and Bishops who adhere to him. Though there be no need to speak here, that their sole Division makes it impossible for them to subsist, by the reason which the great Bishop and Martyr, St. Cyprian, represents [Page] to all Bishops, in declaring the obligation they have strongly to retain the Unity of the Church, by the not to be divided Unity of Episcopacy, whereof every one doth solidly possess his share. Upon which he admonisheth them, that if any one goes to separate himself, it shall happen unto him, as to a Beam drawn from the body of the Sun, which shall have no more part, through its division, in the unity of the light which continues in the body. As to a Bough broken from the Tree, which shall spring no more, having no more share in the sap which remains in the body and in the root of the Tree. Even like a Rivolet, cut off from the Fountain, which will dry up, having no more to do with the course of the water which runs from the Spring. This is that also, Sir, which your Bishops cannot avoyd. It must be, that being separated from the Mother-Church, they should be extinguished, and should vanish away, as its come to [Page] pass. It must be, that their very pain [...]as the proper work of the cause of [...]hier errour. That their Reformation made them lose their Form.

But if the Puritans have had this advantage upon the Protestants, by the Common Principles of their Reformation, that which the same Principles have given the Brownists, to withdraw themselves from the Puritans of the Genevian Discipline, in the more exact purity, which their spirit, Interpreter of the sense of the Scripture, suggests unto them, is yet more great. Behold how they combat the one party against the other, and the victory of the last. The Puritans of the Genevian Discipline have determined of Articles of Faith, and have form'd their Confession, to which they oblige all those that receive their Communion. But this Law, which prescribes by Authority a common belief among all the Communicants, cannot agree with the judgement [...]at every Believer can and ought [Page] to make of the sense of the Scriptures, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, according to the second common Maxim of their Reformation. For if one supposes it true, no other Authority can bear rule over the Conscience, nor prescribe it any thing beyond the sense that the Spirit suggests to it in the interpreting of the Scripture. Upon which the Brownists also set upon the Presbyterians by all the same Authorities, upon which they have founded theirs, to separate themselves from the Church, and abandon its determinations. They maintain, That to oblige the Faith of faithful men to a formular confession, which can have no other than an humane authority, is to bring them forthwith under the Papal Tyrannie, from which the Holy Ghost hath freed them. Against this the Calvinists have no reply, which doth not wound themselves with their own hands, and which is not their condemnation pronounced by themselves. For they can answer nothing [Page] pertinently, if they do not borrow the reasons the Church hath against them. So God, perpetual Protector of his Church, causes her Enemies to pronounce her Victory with their own mouths: whilst that they issued from the teeth and the mouth of the Serpent, to make war with her, do wage it among themselves, and kill one another.

From these Brownists, as your Majestie, Sir, knows much better, are come the Independents, which are not risen, but since the advantage the Puritan-Presbyterians had upon the Protestants, by the Authority of the Parliamentiers. It is those that have produced this falseprophet of blood and slaughter, to end this last Act of Infernal Reformation, that he himself preaches to his Musulmans, with his Sword in his hand, after he hath broke the Cross, and changed the Episcopal Crosier into a Murtherer's Axe.

By this same spirit of the Brownists, [Page] in which he hath been originally instructed, by using Disputes he deduces Fundamental Maxims of the common Reformation among them, he wars against the Presbyterians with much more advantage than he did against the Protestants. From whence he promises himself to make them all submit to his opinion, which is an indifference of all opinion of Religion.

Which shall fall out without doubt according to his own mind, if they will follow the Consequences of their own Maxims: For the reason of which, he gives liberty to every man to believe and prophesie that which they think the Spirit suggests to them. But he thinks in making these People, separated from the Church, taste the Liberty of Conscience, he shall rally all their different Sects into one Body, to set them against the Body of the Catholick Church, to the end he may destroy the Pope, and the Bishops that conduct her, and may exterminate the Kings that defend her. [Page] He calls that, the great work of God. He assures the success to all them that follow him, by the revelations which he makes them believe he had at his Fasts, his Prayers, and his reading the holy Scriptures. But it is no marvel he can assemble such a number of Followers by the arguing of their Maxims: For since they had already produced these different bodies of reform'd Battalions, and reforming, even to infinity, Protestants, Presbyterians, and Brownists, who in a perpetual war cannot agree among themselves; He comes further, as more fit to serve himself of their Maxims, to put them to the Ho there, by the indifference, and by abolishing all Lawes that rule upon the Conscience, and leaving every mans thoughts free, and the liberty to prophesie and interpret the Scriptures, according to the sense his spirit dictates to him. For, as to the remainder, he troubles not himself to see by this spirit, the prodigious number of Sects and Insects [Page] to swarm about, who daily vomit for more monstrous opinions than ca [...] come from the bottomless pit. For l [...] there be what difference there will among them, they all agree in his indifferency.

By this Catastrophe of the Reformation, undertaken by those that hav [...] divided the Church in these latter Ages you see, Sir, what hath been both th [...] Design and Genius. This is not I tha [...] represent the truth of it to you, God hath set it before your eyes, or I may rather say, in your heart, written in Characters which shall never be blotted out. And to write them with his own hand, he himself is descended from Heaven, environed with the fire and thunder of his anger, which appears enlightned upon you. But from the middle thereof you hear the voyce of his mercy, recalling you to him, and declaring to you, that all this he hath done, to let you know the sins of your Fathers, by drawing you out of them, [Page] that he may call you back into his Church, where all benediction shall be given you. For true Piety and Religion, whereof she hath been made the Guardian, finds there (as the Apostle speaks) the promises of present life, and of that which is to come; And your Faith, which God will work in you by the vertue of the Cross, in the present affliction wherein you are, submitting all your desires to the Wisdome of his Counsel, and power of his strength, shall meet there the comfort of your patience, conformable to the hope you shall put in him. You will say then, Sir, when you consider your self, and the work that God shall have wrought in you, That the Wisdome of the Judgements of God is without bottome! That the Knowledge thereof is very difficult! That it is impossible to find it out, if he himself doth not manifest it! He will manifest it to you, Sir, and you may see it, if you consider the great abyss that was between you and [Page] God; how far you were drawn from him, before he came to you after thi [...] manner, and drew himself near to you that he might draw you to him.

When the King your Father had the Crown upon his Head, and was sitting upon his Throne in the middle of his flourishing Kingdomes, in the abundance of all prosperity and glory; And that you, Heir to this Majestie and Royal Pomp, bred up your spirit, among these mundane delights, of the desire and hope of adding to the lustre of your Grandfathers, the splendor of your brave Actions, wherewith your politick and military virtues should adorn your life, and the Historie of your Reign: What's this then, when all the reasons of State, as well as those wherewith your Conscience had been onely instructed, would have kept you engaged in this new Religion, the errour whereof you have suckt in with the milk of your infancy, your eyes and your ears should have been capable of [Page] seeing and hearing the Truths which now make known to you the fault, and the condemnation, which God by the wisdome and power of his Judgements hath drawn from it self, and his proper works, that you may feel the effects? How should you have been able to have discovered, under this fair shew of Reformation, whereof she hath taken the Title, under this splendid lustre which she hath put upon her face, of Knowledge and Eloquence, the gifts whereof shine in her Doctors and Ministers; of the reading, and particular regard she commands them to have towards the holy Scriptures; of the familiar Texts; which adorn their Pastors Discourses and Preachings; of the popular exercises of her Psalms and Canticles; of the Prayers and Orisons which are extracted and interwoven with the Understanding, which gives consolation: Should you have been able to have discovered, I say, that under this appearance of Piety she had dis-avow'd her [Page] strength, if God had not at present let you see it in the works of horrour and confusion, deadly to Christian piety and charity, destructive to all Form of Religion, Enemies to all Order of God, which she hath produced by the consequences of her Fundamental Maxims? Sir, Had your Majestie taken notice of the imposture and deceit which the Father of Lyes hath hidden under these Baits, that they themselves, whom he made the first Instruments and Authors of the division of the Church, did not perceive, for they would have abhorred it had they known it would have been such? This is then truly the great work of God, whereof this false prophet understands not the reason, when he speaks thus: God hath certainly done this work: And God hath raised him up himself, to put this confusion among them which have forsaken the Unity of the Church, in dividing themselves into a thousand Sects, of which they acknowledge at present, that no [Page] one can call himself the Church. For the Sect of the Protestants cannot pretend to it, since she her self subsists no more: but that every one sees her justly perished, by the same Maxims that separated her from the Church; and that the Presbyterians, which seduced them, have now destroyed them. Nor the Sect of the Presbyterians, which is under the yoke of the Independents, who cut their throats with the same Swords wherewith they warred against the Church: For they brought them, by their own Maxims, to renounce all Discipline, all Government, all Law, and all Rule of Unity, and by consequence all Form of the Church. This cursed Cham hath then discovered his Father's filthiness, that is to say, of the first Author of this pretended Reformation, who being drunk with the wine of his errour, did not himself know [...]t.

But if God pleases, the impudence of his brazen face, who hath lost all [Page] shamefac'dness, being not afraid to discover, by his Independence, the Foundations of this preposterous Reformation, shall now touch his brethren with compunction and shame, that they may return to their common Father.

He will cause the Presbyterians and Protestants to understand, that it was the spirit of senslesness and errour, which made Luther conceive and undertake the design of dividing the Church, under pretext of a false Reformation. From whence they will perceive (if they can but come to themselves) that one ought not to desire, neither that any one can do any thing true or lawful, but in the union, and by the consent of the Church, and the rule of Tradition, which she hath receiv'd from the Apostles, and conserved by a continued succession.

As God, Sir, draws light out of darkness, so your Majestie sees, that he makes your salvation to come out of your calamity. But this is not for you [Page] alone. That which he will do in your Person, he will bring to pass in all your Kingdomes, by your Person. And not onely in all your Kingdomes, but in all the places, and in all those which are separated from the Church, as your Kingdomes are.

That which you have singular in this cause, is, by being the greatest King of the party divided from the Church, and that your Kingdomes are the greatest and most flourishing Estate that hath receiv'd this novelty of Religion, where she hath found the most powerful Sanctuary, and where she hath planted her seat the most eminent, and most assured; This is likewise a reason why God hath put her into this confusion, in destroying her by the different Sects which she her self hath ingendred, that all the world may know the spirit of errour, from whence she hath taken her Original.

For all the world at present sees what this spirit is, and its nature, if it is the [Page] Spirit of Christ, it is the Spirit of peac [...] and truth; if it be the spirit of Satan it is the spirit of trouble and errour which hath raised the trouble and errou [...] which rules at present in your Kingdomes.

Since such is the spirit of this new Reformation, and its Maxims, such ar [...] its works, that are at this day discovered, and made evident: who is that man that can defend it? that can preserve i [...] in his conscience? that can have repos [...] or comfort in his soul, by adhering to it? There's no more need of Disputes, or Arguments to convince it: She is convinc'd by her self, according to the character the Spirit of God hath stamp'd upon the Heretical man, by the Pen of the Apostle St. Paul, who commands us to depart for these reasons: There is, saith he, a perverted spirit, that is condemned by it self. This is the imag [...] that all the world doth see at present in this Reformation, and its Genius.

But there rests now one thing to do [Page] which is, to apply this remedy of Salvation to the Conscience of the People seduced by the errour. There is no more to do than to anoint the wound the Scorpion hath made with the oyl where it hath been bruised. For the way to heal them is now very easy, by reason their Reformation hath receiv'd such a miserable success. There is nothing more easy than to make the People know thereupon by the conviction of their Pastors, upon the very Foundations and Maxims of their Reformation, that they have neither Church nor Faith: But then when they supposed (contrary to the promise of Jesus Christ) the Church was fallen into ruine, for pretext of reforming it, they have not been able to form an other, which hath the conditions of the true Church, but an infinity of different and contrary Sects among them, none of which can be the Church; but in rejecting the authority of Tradition for interpreting the Scripture, and the [Page] judgement of the Church for the declaration of her Faith, They have abandoned the Unity of the Faith, that every one might abound in his own sense, by the different opinions they have conceived. That which of necessity must cast them, as it is come to pass, into the Independence of all rule, and the indifference of all opinion in Religion.

And as modesty to accuse the Church of Errour in all the Ages, hath been the beginning to make the Authors of this Reformation agree, that the Church remained pure in Faith during the time of the four first general Councils; they have afforded us a way by this to disabuse the People, they do abuse, when they accuse the Church at this day of Errour in the heads of her Faith, which they have rejected. For they can no longer avoyd falling into a manifest contradiction of the sense which they impute to the antient Fathers in points of Faith, which are in controversy between [Page] us. They cannot brand the Church at this day for having a different opinion in Faith from the Antient Church, without cutting their throats with their own proper contradictions, upon the opinion they attribute to the Fa [...]hers.

So that there is nothing more to do for the informing the People, separated from the Church, of the truth, and obliging them to enter again into her, than to make them understand the cheat wherewith they have been surprized under the name of Reformation, by convincing, in their presence, their Ministers, of an evident contradiction of themselves, by the consequences of the Fundamental Maxims of their Reformation. From whence results the indubitable Demonstration, which proceeds from the spirit of lying and errour.

If it please your Majestie, Sir, to imploy this way for your instruction, and the satisfaction of your Conscience, [Page] that your Conversion and return to t [...] Church may both open the hearts and the way for all the rest to follow your example, You cannot do it mor [...] solemnly, or commodiously, than in th [...] place wherein you are at the present▪ We have in this place five Ministers of the Communion separated from the Catholick Church, who have gotten themselves as much credit and authority, through the esteem of their sufficiency, and reputation of their zeal, as any that are in their whole body.

Your Majestie, Sir, may easily obtain of the King your good Brother and Friend, that they be called, by his Authority, to come (with all those of their Communion wherewith they would be assisted) and appear in presence of Monsieur the Archbishop of Paris, and Monsieur his Coadjutor, and the Catholick Doctors, which he shall please to bring with him. And there, Sir, you Majestie being present, to speak and answer with all security and liberty, that [Page] which their spirit and conscience doth suggest to them upon the evident contradictions of the principles and consequences of their Reformation, that, in all their different Sects which have for saken the Church under this pretext, there is neither Church nor Faith. And that, upon the Points of Faith, where they have accused the Church of Errour, and have taken the opportunity to separate themselves from her, they are likewise separated from the Communion of the Church of all Ages. So that they cannot any waies accuse us of diversity of opinion with the Antient Church, but that they again fall into an evident contradiction of themselves, as well as of the Antient Fathers, and of us.

These Ministers, Sir, will deny neither the desire of your Majestie, nor the Commandment of the King your good Brother, to render the duty both to their charge and to their conscience, unless they'll wirness, by their denial, [Page] the open forsaking which they make o [...] their cause, and the condemnation which they themselves pronounce in their hearts.

But they'll love rather (as I think) ingenuously to present themselves, to yield to the truth, which they cannot contradict, than to incurr the blame of being acknowledged formal enemies of the peace and re-union of the Church, through the perversness of an obstinate Faith. I know not what to think, that they should rather love to fling themselves headlong, with their people, into the confusion and disorder of Independency, and indifference of all opinion in Religion, than to avouch the errour and blindness of those who were the first Egressors from the Church by these Maxims, which have cast, by their consequenc s, their Followers into this abyss of irreligion, whereinto we see them at this present fallen.

And when the Ministers would let [Page] themselves be carried away to so unlucky a thought, I do no waies believe that in France the People would follow them, and adhere to their opinions.

This is wherefore, Sir, I dare hope that the Ministers which are in Paris, being obliged by the desire of your Majestie, and the will of their Sovereign, to submit to this Law, which their own Conscience imposes on them for the satisfaction of their own People (for the People will have no less affection, and will be no less desirous to see the success of the appearance of their Ministers, and the answer they shall make) will yield to it, and will rather choose to walk in the way of honour, and a good conscience, than basely to appear desertors, at one and the same time, both of their Cause, and good Faith.

Whatsoever comes to pass, Sir, and whatsoever they do, whether they follow the motion of the Spirit of Peace and Truth, or whether the Spirit of Pride suggest unto them to avoyd and [Page] fly both the one and the other, you [...] Majestie shall alwaies have all full satisfaction for departing from the errour, which you shall see forsaken or condemned by its own Ministers; and entring into the Church, which is the Pillar of Truth, and Rock of Ages, against which you see all the sail of different Sects, running at every wind of Doctrine, through the deceit of them that conduct them, to break and shipwrack [...]hemselves. And then when your Majestie shall be entred into the Church after this manner, and when all the world shall see, that the desire to glorifie God, by the searching for the Truth, by the repose of your Conscience, and by the love of your Salvation, shall have been your whole motive, You need not doubt, Sir, but your example will make the like impression in all the souls that are touched with the fear of God.

You need not doubt, Sir, for so much as God hath elevated your Majestie in [Page] birth and eminent dignity above the rest [...]hat are in the Communion wherein [...]ou have lived, They all seeing these [...]ircumstances of your change, and en [...]rance into the Sanctuary of the Church [...]pon the wings of the victory of Truth, [...]hich carries you thither alone, will [...]e stirred up to give glory to God for [...]he same causes for which you shall be [...]endred to him.

It concerns you then, Sir, to make [...]our entrance by this means, and that [...]ou serve your self of this way to ad [...]ress your self thither, to the end your [...]onversion and return to the Church, [...]ring to her, with you, by the solemn [...]onviction of the errour which hath [...]ismembred her, not onely those which [...]he division of your Fathers hath torn [...]rom her, but also all the rest which [...]he same cause hath separated. For by [...]he power which Truth hath upon the Conscience of men, when it is apparent, here is no doubt but it will come to [...]ass after this manner.

[Page] When the People shall see that th [...] Ministers called in the presence of you [...] Majestie, either by their avowing of th [...] truth, or refusal to appear, shall hav [...] been themselves the Ministers of you [...] Conversion, every one will [...]nter up on the examination of the causes an [...] reasons of the Truth, which shall hav [...] moved you thither, which shall have no [...] less vertue to make the like impression in their souls, by the same means.

For whether the Ministers do sincerely yield to the Truth, which they will not know how to contradict, or whether they condemn themselves by their refusal of an ingenuous proceeding, the event of their Convocation shall be alike and universal in all places, where the same way to call back the People to the Church shall be practised.

There are no Ministers in France will know what to answer, when those of Paris shall be made dumb. No others will by any manner of means [Page] dispute them concerning their sufficiency: But if they are wanting to the duty of a good Conscience, you may easily meet many more ingenuous, who will no waies refuse to acknowledge the Truth. By this way the People, who seek nothing but their salvation, and who have no interest more pretious, will be ravished to see themselves at last, by a plain, solid and sincere instruction, upon the true understanding of matters of the Catholick Faith, drawn from this Labyrinth of disputes, which are given them for matter of Reformation, no less Enemies to Piety than Christian Charity.

For this effect, Sir, desiring to be assisting to the design of making the People see, by the conviction of their Ministers, that being separated from the Church under this pretext of Reformation, they are left by that means without Faith, and without the Church. And then when one perswades them; [Page] that in the Questions controverted i [...] Faith, the Church teaches contrary to what the Antient Church hath believed; those that accuse them canno [...] do it but by a formal contradicting bot [...] the holy Fathers and themselves, which is a necessary argument of lying and errour: I here put forth into the light a little Treatise, wherein these two Truth [...] are rendred evident.

They have formed no Controversy more important, according to their own opinion, than that of Transubstantiation in the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. They accuse us for having Introduced, by the truth of this change, the necessity of adoring Jesus Christ in this Sacrament, or the Sacrament it self, which we maintain to be Jesus Christ himself. They impute unto us, that in this we have altered the Faith of the Antient Church, to whom they say, both this change, and the adoration of the Sacrament, hath been unknown. [Page] They make this the principal cause, forsooth, of their sole necessity of separating themselves from us.

And being not able to deny, that the whole Antient Church did solemnly offer the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ to God his Father, according to his institution, in the holy Eucharist, they also cloak their difference in this subject, from the Antient Church, and from us, with this, That the Antient Church did not believe (as they presume) Transubstantiation with us, nor by consequence the Sacrifice, as we do, saying, That to this subject, as they reject in our belief Transubstantiation, so they have for the same reason likewise abolished the Sacrifice, which the Church celebrates at this present. I have made it evident, Sir, that the Faith of the Church at this day is conformable to the Antient upon this change, in a Book which I have published against the defences [Page] brought by Minister Aubertin upon the passages of the holy Fathers, in his Book of the Eucharist.

I have reduced the demonstration of the Truth to this point, viz. That all the holy Fathers have believed, that by the change, which interposes it self in this Sacrament, there is rendred, the same Flesh, and the same Blood of Jesus Christ, received by the mouths of Believers, whereof Jesus Christ speaks in St. John, where he commands us to eat and drink them, that we may have eternal life. The Minister hath not been able to contradict this truth, but in formally contradicting the sense which the Authors of his opinion, before him, have attributed to the Fathers, as conformable to them, and in making the sense of the Fathers formally contrary to that of Jesus Christ, and that which he attributes to them formally contrary to the true sense which they have and do declare in clear and express [Page] words. I have convinced him by the proof of an evident demonstration in this little Treatise. And if he be called to answer upon this conviction, the Truth will be found to be victorious, either by his good or his evil Faith. And as their Consciences tell them, and bite them for having introduced, by their Reformation, all Opinions equally contrary to the Faith of the Church of all Ages. When they see themselves reduced to this extremity, they cast themselves into the retrenchment of their Fundamental Maxims, which is to admit of no rule of Faith, but that of the Scripture, interpreted by every mans reason. Upon that I have convinced them by a Demonstration without Reply, that by the design of their Reformation, founded upon the use of this rule, they have lost both the Church and Faith. Which they must avouch if they be called to answer there, or that the Truth shall conserve its [Page] advantage by the refusal they shall make.

I most humbly intreat your Majestie, Sir, that you will be pleased to let this little work have the glory to appear to the World under your Royal Name, for a prop which will be able to serve your Faith, as an Instrument of the Truth, the Victory whereof ought happily to gain you to the Church: And by gaining you, to bring with you her Peace, and re-union of all the Parties that are divided from her. For assuredly this grace of Heaven is not far from us, if we our selves do not draw our selves back.

And I am certain, that if it please the prudence of the Bishops, which the Holy Ghost hath established for the conduct of the Church (as I hope they will be pleased) to serve themselves towards the People that have abandoned their Crosier, of the way that I propose and present to your Majestie, they shall [Page] see, without much pain, and in a little time, the strayed Sheep returning to them, by the very hand of those which keep them withdrawn from their Sheepfolds. For in effect, when the evidence of this demonstrated Truth shall once have taken its place (by the sweetness of the amiable conferences, where she ought to be treated with all sincerity and liberty) in the spirit of all our separated Brethren, as well Ministers as People, they will consent with joy to re-enter into the Catholick Church. So much the more willingly, that by the reasons of the truth of her Faith, acknowledged conformable to the Tradition of all Ages, they shall so acknowledge her in all her parts, to be the True Seed from which the Holy Spirit hath caused Piety and Charity to spring, flourish and fructifie in Believers.

From whence it follows by the same reason, that the true and lawful Reformation, which all good men of the [Page] Church desire in the Church, doth depend no otherwise than upon the understanding and practice of these same Truths, by the duty to which they address all Believers, in the different vocations whereto God calls them. In all which, the end which is proposed them, is no other than to live united among them, and with Jesus Christ, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, to serve God under the obedience of the Government which he hath put into the hands of the Bishops, which feed the Flock with an unanimous consent, under the Authority of the espe [...]ial Chair of St. Peter, established at Rome by two Principals of the Apostles, St. Peter, and St. Paul, from which whosoever separates himself, is a Schismatick, and out of the Communion of the Church.

Upon this, Sir, I am imboldened to speak for this last time to your Majestie, that as you may if you will, by the way which I propose to you, lay the Foundation [Page] of this work, by your Conversion and entrance into the Catholick Church: You will find also, that the success shall be, in the hand of God, the indubitable way of re-establishing you in your Throne. Certainly all will agree with me, that this work is upon such conditions, that if it had receiv'd its accomplishment in Paris, with the Ministers, and People separated from the Church, there's no place in all France wherein they would refuse to do the like.

And if once the love of the Peace, and re-union of the Church, had thus gained the heart of our separated Brethren which are in this Kingdome, acknowledging in this manner, that the onely safe and necessary Reformation ought to be this, which, by the truth of the definitions of the Faith of the Church, in her Doctrine, in her Service, and in her Government, shall reestablish a Christian life among Christians: [Page] the other People and Pastors (and the Pastors for the love, and by the very motion of the People) which are in the same Communion in other parts of Europe, will without doubt do the same thing.

Think you, Sir, that if your Subjects of Scotland, and those which are in England and Ireland, faithful and affectionate to your Crown and Person, seeing the success of this project hapned in France, to which your Conversion shall have given the beginning and motion, they will resist the call of the same grace, and that they can be able to find in their hearts, in their mouths, and in their hands, either reason, or means, for to hinder themselves to follow that, which all those of their Communion shall have done here? And after this will you doubt, that the blessing of God, who is never wanting to his promises, will not accomplish in you fully that which he hath promised to those that [Page] believe in him, by the mouth of his own Son, when he tels them, Search the Kingdome of God, and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you? Will you doubt, that in thus searching of his Kingdome, you shall not find also your own? And that Heaven will not likewise render unto you, upon the Earth, this temporal recompence, for a token of that you shall have sought, and which you shall receive in Heaven for eternity?

Yes, Sir, the Word of God deceives no man; it is more firm and immovable than the Heaven and the Earth; for the one and the other shall vanish away, but one sole Iota of the Word uttered from the mouth of the Son of God, shall not pass away. When I tell you these things, founded upon the Truth which he hath spoken unto us, believe that this is he himself that addresses them to you by my mouth. It is he himself that calls you. It is he [Page] himself that stretcheth forth his hand towards you. It is he himself, that by his hand hath conducted you, for this end, to the place where you are. Recollect again your self upon all the thoughts of your heart, since the time your Majestie parted from hence, to the time your Majestie returned back.

Think upon all that you have been willing to do, and upon all that which it hath pleased God to do with you: For he hath done all the things, both what you see and what you suffer, upon your Person and upon your Estate.

He hath put you into the Estate you are, to make you understand his voyce, and for to oblige you to say to him, Lord, what wilt thou that I do?

You have thought to be able to reascend upon your Throne, by the means of those of your Subjects, who appear'd to retain for you, and for your Crown, that fidelity to which a more antient Bond held them obliged more straitly [Page] than all others. God would not have it so. They had a design to bind your Conscience to the Lawes of their Reformation, by an oath to observe the conditions of their Covenant, and by abjuring your opinions, that drew more near the Catholick Religion.

They hoped by this means, that in conserving upon your head some Form, at least apparent, of the Royal Government, under which they had so happily obeyed your Fathers for so many Ages, they should avoyd the falling under the slavage of the Tyrannie which is called Cromwel's Commonwealth.

And that they should defend by this way the factiousness of their Religion from giving place to his Independency, What is it come to? God hath destroyed all their Counsels. He hath routed all their Armies by the Arm of this False-prophet, by whose mouth he convinces, and confounds in the face of their Ministers, by mouth and by writing, [Page] the rules of their Covenant, by the proper Maxims of their Reformation. God hath delivered them into his hands, and imposed upon them the yoke of his absolute domination. They must now submit to the Lawes of his Independency, and of his Commonwealth, the name whereof serves for a Masque to his Tyrannie.

But God hath delivered you, Sir, and by a conduct of his Providence, full of trembling and admiration, he hath withdrawn your Sacred Person from a thousand dangers, which threatned it from the fury and cruelty of this Monster, who spared neither the force of Iron, nor the value of Gold, to find the means of violently taking away your life. You have seen, Sir, the anger of God to descend upon your head, who according to the terms of the Scripture, hath loosned the Belts of Kings, and bound their Reins with Cords.

[Page] You have seen his Arm armed with his rage, to defeat your Armies. Combating at their head you have done bravely, with your hand, and with your courage, all that the generosity of a valiant and magnanimous Prince could do, to associate Victory to the justice of your Arms. You have there shed your Blood, and seen that of your faithful Subjects to stream through the fields covered with their bodies.

Your valour, and their unfearful hearts, had for a time gotten the advantage of the great number of your Enemies, who saw themselves ready to turn their backs: But the chance of Arms turning in an instant for them, this ill hap, fatal to your Crown ravishd from you in this last Conflict, according to humane appearance, both the way, and hope of recovering it. But God hath waies unknown to men; and his waies are not our waies. It is in our weakness that he magnifies his strength, [Page] and in our lowliness that he makes his height to be seen.

Then when you were thus deprived of your Forces, and all humane means of safety taken from you, he came to you under another visage, and armed you with a sense of hardiness, and resolution, which was above the spirit of a man, for the Party which you made choyce of for your security. You resolv'd with your self to seek it, by exposing your sole Person in the solitariness of waies, and in the desert of Forrests, to the hazard of a thousand sad Accidents; after you had hidden all the Marks of that Majestie which is born with you, under a form borrowed from the most base condition, that the eyes of the People, which owe you after God the second homage, might not know what you truly were. You have passed after this manner, without astonishment, and without fear, across a thousand objects, which the imagination [Page] at every step presented to you. It is there, where you acknowledged God had incamped his Angels about you, for your guard, and for your defence. It is there, where he made a simple Peasant, and an infirm Woman, the very Angels of his assistance, for to be your guide: giving to the simplicity of the one, and to the frailty of the other, prudence and resolution necessary to conduct you, with as much judgement as sincere loyalty, and to bring you, as a stranger and unknown person, both the object of every mans scorn and disdain, into the Capital City of your Ancestors Inheritance. It is there, where before fearing (by reason of the Orders set forth against your life, and for discovering you) the meeting so many faces that would regard yours, the hand of God hath withdrawn the eyes of all those who had a heart to hurt you. And he hath opened them to him alone, for to acknowledge [Page] you, who without being prevented, either by a fore-sight, or expectation of you, became the Angel of your conduct, for your crossing the Seas, descending upon our Banks, and moreover, rendring you to the eyes of the Queen your dear Mother, to whom your presence hath caused a greater cessation of grief, and rendred a greater joy, than you did at your Birth.

God hath then after this manner, Sir, made you to return hither into the Bosome, wherein your Majestie hath begun to live, to the end he may give you a new one, by your being born again into the spiritual Bosome of your eternal Mother. You may see the conduct and counsel of God, who calls you to him by a call so marvelous, having heard the prayers and vows, the sighs and tears of this Catholique Princess, to give her the joy to see you rendred a partaker of the greatest graces she hath received from God, and [Page] which she hath implored for you ever since your Birth, without ceasing.

Since she is the Daughter of Henry the Great, the Glory of most Christian Kings, she implores of God for you the inheritance of that grace he received from his hand, which set him at one and the same time time both in the Church, and upon the Throne. Her faith implores it, her patience hopes it, and her piety shall obtain it. This is the consolation she sighs after, for restoring her from so many bitter afflictions, which she hath suckt in at leisure, and that the hand of God hath poured upon her, in his Sons Chalice, by which he proves the constancy of those who love him.

To the tears of this desolate Princess, I adde, Sir, the Innocent Blood shed before God by the King your Father, whom I think I may be able without fear to stile happy. For if we look upon the cause of his death, he [Page] hath been persecuted and cruelly [...]ain, being able to avoyd the one and the other from the hands of his Enemies, if he would have submitted his Conscience to their Covenant, and consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy.

But he hath loved rather to glorifie God by the confession of a good Conscience, and for supporting a Dignity which he hath believed to have been instituted by God, according to the opinion of the Catholique Faith. Certainly we ought to believe, that it is to this Faith, which he hath preferred before the greatest things in the world, which we must rehears, & acknowledge for the fruits, Piety, Humility, Patience, Constancy, Resignation to the will of God, submission even to that of men, for the love of God, which we have seen in him, and which his persecution, suffering, prison, unworthy intreatings, criminal proceeding, degradation, condemnation, [Page] the horrour and cruelty of his punishment, like to which the Sun did never yet see an example on the Earth, have rendred him more illustrious and more bright shining than the light of the Sun it self. We may say, that that firmness of this faith hath been in his heart a secret work of God, for reuniting him, in this trial of the last moments of his life, to his Cat [...]olique Church, in the number of his faithful Elect, many of which (saith St. Austin) invisibly belong to the Church, though they are not rendred members visibly. And we ought to believe, that this Crown, which he hath gained by the constancy of his faith, hath been woven for him by the hands of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, hearing the prayer and intercession of the most happy Queen his Grandmother, who hath in the same manner shed he [...] blood, and given up her soul into the hands of God, by one and the same [Page] punishment, with a faith and constancy not to be imitated, for the Catholique Faith, which was the very cause of the hatred and persecution she received from her people, and most near Kinswoman, from whom the succession of the Crown belonged to her. For the prayers of the most happy Martyrs in Heaven, tends to obtain continually of God, by Jesus Christ, the accomplishment of the same grace they have received here below, imploring it for those that have need, to the end that their Faith may be also consummated by a perfect Charity. This is the grace, Sir, you shall make trial of, when your Majestie shall attain this Faith, by your reunion with the Church. You shall feel likewise the effect of the prayers and intercession this glorious Princess makes to God for you by Jesus Christ; to the end that when you shall be restored to his Church, the Throne un [...]ustly taken away both from her, and [Page] from you, shall be rendred to you in the middle of your Subjects, there to establish by the same grace, the Kingdome of Jesus Christ.

To these prayers, which all the Angels and Saints which are in the Church in Heaven, and in Earth, make to God for your Majestie, I joyn, Sir, my vows and supplications, with this testimony of my devotion to your most humble service, in a Subject which I have esteemed the most important, and most worthy to gain me the honour of the good favour of your Majestie, and that to stile my self,

SIR,

Of your Majestie the most humble, most faithfull, and most obedient Servant, La Militiere.

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AN ANSWER TO Monsieur de la Militiere his Impertinent Dedication of his Imaginary Triumph, To the KING of Great Britain, to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholick Religion.

By John Bramhall, D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry.

HAGUE, Printed in the Year, 1653.

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An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Fpistle to the King of Great-Brittain, wherein he inviteth His Majesty to forsake the Church of England, and to embrace the Roman Chatholick Religion.

SIR,

YOU might long have disputed your Question of Transubstantiation, with your learned Adversary, and proclamed your own Triumph on a silver Trumpet to the World, before any Member of the Church of England had interposed in this present exigence of our Affairs. I know no necessity that Christians must be like Cocks, that when one Crows, all the rest must crow for Plut. company.

Monseiur Aubertine will not want a surviving friend, to teach you what it is [Page] to teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gain'd the Victory. He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this, Here lies the Author of this sentence, Prurigo Sir Henry wotton. disput andi scabies Ecclesiae, the itch of disputing is the scab of the Church.

Having viewed all your strength with a single eye, I find not one of your Arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation, but only to a true Real Presence, which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny, no nor your Adversary himself. Christ sayd, This is my Body, what he sayd, we do stedfastly believe; he said not after this or that manner, neque con, neque suh, neque trans; And therefore we place it among the Opinions of the Schools, not among the Articles of our Faith.

The holy Eucharist, which is the Sacrament of Peace and Unity, ought not No differences in the Church directly about the Sacrament for the first 800 years. to be made the matter of strife and Contention. There wanted not abuses in the Administration of this Sacrament, in the most pure and primitive times: as Prophaness and Uncharitableness among the Corinthians. The Simonians, and Menandrians, 1 Cor. 11. and some other such Imps of Sathan, unworthy the name of Christians, [Page] did wholly forbear the use of the Eucharist, but it was not for any difference Theod. ex Ignatio. about the sacrament it self, but about the Naturall Body of Christ; They held, that his Flesh, and Blood, and Passion, were not true and real, but imaginary and phant astical things.

The Maniches did forbear the Cup, but it was not for any difference about the sacrament it self; They made two Gods, a good God, whom they called [...] or Light, and an evill God, whom they tearmed [...] or Darknes, which evill God, they sayd, did make someCreatures of the Dreg, or more feculent parts of the Matter, which were evil and impure; and among these Evil Creatu [...]es they esteemed VVine, which they called the Gaul of the Dragon: For this cause, not upon any other scruple, they wholly abstained from the Cup, or used water in Leo. Ser. 4. de Quad. Epiph. h [...]r. 30. & 46. Aug. l. de. H [...]re. c. 64. the place of wine, which Epiphanius recordeth among the Errors of the Ebionites and Tacians; And St Augustine of the Aquarians. Still we do not find any clashing either in word or writing directly about this sacrament, in the universall Church of Christ, much less about the presence of Christ in the sacrament. [Page] Neque ullus veterum disputat contra [...]el. l. 1. de Sac. Euch. [...]. 1. hunc errorem primis sexcentis Annis.

The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any Error in the Church about the Real presence, were the Ichonomachi, after 700 years. Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vocarunt, fuerint Ichonomachi post Annum Domini 700. only because they called the Bread Bel. ibid. Syn. Nic. 2 Act 6. and Wine the Image of Christs body▪ This is as great a mistake as the former▪ Their difference was meerly about Images, not at all about the Eucharist; so much Vasques confesseth, that In his judgment they art not to be numbred Disp. 179. c. 1 with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

We may well find different observations Yet different Observations, in those daies, as one Church consecrating leavened Bread, another unleavened; One Church making use of pure wine, another of wine mixed with water; One Church admitting Infants to the Communion, another not admitting them; but without Controversies or Censures, or Animosity one against the other: we find no Debates or Disputes concerning the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament, and much less concerning [Page] the manner of his presence, for the first 800 years.

Yet all the time we find as different expressions among those Primitive Fathers, And different expressions. as among our modern writers at this day, some calling the Sacrament the sign of Christs Body, the figure of his Body, the Symbol of his Body, the mystery of his Body, the exemplar type and representation of his Body, saying that the Elements do not recede from their first Nature; Others naming it the true Body and Blood of Christ, changed, not in shape but in nature, yea doubting not to say, that in this Sacrament we see Christ, we touch Christ, we eat Christ, that we fasten our teeth in his very Flesh, and make our Tongues red in his Blood: Yet notwithstanding there were no Questions, no Quarrells, no Contentions amongst them; there needed no Councils to order them, no Conferences to reconcile them, because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said, this is my Body, without presuming on their own heads, to determine the manner how it is his Body; neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversie was raised, nor expounding the sayings of other men contrary to the Analogy of Faith.

[Page] The first doubt about the presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament seems The first difference about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament. to have been mooved not long before the year 900. in the dayes of Bertram and Paschasius, but the Controversie was not well formed, nor this new Article of Transubstantiation sufficiently concocted in the dayes of Berengarius, after the year 1050. as appeareth by the grosse mistaking, and mistating of the Question on both sides; First Berengarius, if we may trust his Adversaries, knew no mean between a naked Figure, or empty sign of Christs presence, and a Corporeal or Local presence, and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation; on the other side the Pope and the Councill made no differrence between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation, they understood nothing of the spiritual or indivisible being of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament, as appeareth by that ignorant and Capernaiticall Retractation and Abjuration, which they imposed upon Berengarius, Pe [...]ned by Vmbertus a Cardinal, approved by Pope Nicholas, and a Councill, Ego Exact. Syn. Rom. sub Nich. 2. Berengarius &c.

I Berengarius do consent to the Holy Roman Apostolick See, and professe with [Page] my Mouth and my Heart, to hold the same Faith of the Sacrament of the Lords supper, with Pope Nicholas and this holy Synod, &c. And what the Faith of Pope Nicholas and this Synod was, follows in the next words; That the Bread and Wine, which are set upon the Altar after Consecration, are not only the Sacrament, but the very Body and Blood of Christ. This seems to favour Consubstantiation, rather than Transubstantiation; If the Bread and Wine be the Body & Blood of Christ, then they remain bread and wine sti [...]l; If the bread be not only the Sacrament, but also the thing of the Sacrament, if it be both the signe and the thing signified, how is it now to be made nothing? It follows in the Retractation; That the body and blood of Christ is sensibly, not only in the sacrament, but in truth handled and brok [...]n by the hand of the Priest, and bruised by the teeth of the Faithfull. If it be even so, there needs no more but feel and be satisfied. To this they made Berengarius swear by the consubstantiall Trinity, and the holy Gospels, and accurse and anathematize all those who held the contrary; yet these words did so much scandalize and offend the Glosser upon Gratian, that he could not forbear to admonish the [Page] Reader, that unless he understood those words in a sound sense, he would fall into a greater Heresie than that of Berengarius. Not without reason, for the most favorable of the School-men do confess, D [...] Cons. dist. 2 cap. Eg [...] [...]er. that these words are not properly and literaly true, but figuratively and metanimically, understanding the thing containing by the thing contained, as to say the Body of Christ is broken or bruised, because the quantity or Species of Bread are broken or bruised, they might as well say, that the Body and Blood of Christ becoms fusty and sowr, as often as the Species of Bread and Wine before their corruption become fusty and sowr. But the retractation of Berengarius can admit no such figurative sense, that the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament are divided and bruised sensibly, not only in the Sacrament (that is the Species) but also in truth. A most ignorant Capernaitical assertion; For the Body of Christ being not in the Sacrament modo quant itativo, according to their own Tenet, but indivisibly, after a spiritual manner, without extrinficall extension of Parts, cannot in it self, or in Truth, be either divided or bruised.

Therefore others of the Schoolmen go [Page] more roundly and ingenuously to work, and confess, that it is an abusive and excessive Alex. Gab. Bon [...]v. &c. expression, not to be held or defended, and that it happened to Berengarius (they should have said to Pope Nicholas, and Cardinal Umbertus) as it doth with those who out of a detestation of one error encline to another.

Neither wil it avail them any thing at all, that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of seeing Christ, of touching Christ in the Sacrament, of fastening our teeth in his Flesh, and making our toungsred in his Blood. There is a great difference between a Sermon to the people, and a solemn Retractation before a Judge. The Fathers do not say, that such expressions are true, not only Sacramentally or figuratively, (as they made Berengarius both say and accurse all others that held otherwise) but also properly, and in the things themselves. The Fathers never meant by these forms of speech to determine the manner of the presence, (which was not dreamt of in their daies) but to raise the Devotion of their Hearers and Readers; to advertise the people of God, that they should not rest in the externall symbols, or signes, but principally be intent upon the invisible [Page] Grace, which was both lawfull and commendable for them to do. Leave us their primitive liberty, and we will not refrain from the like expressions.

I urge this to shew that the new doctrine of Transubstantiation is so farre from being an old Article of Faith, that it was not well digested, nor rightly understood, in any tollerable measure, by the greatest Clerks, and most concerned, above a thousand years after Christ.

The first definition or determination of this manner of the presence was yet later, in the Councill of Lateran, in the Scot. in 4. sent. dist. 11. q. 3. T. 3. q. 75. d. 81. c. 1. The determination of the manner of the presence opened a floodgate to a Deluge of Controversies. daies of Innocent the Third, after the year 1200. Ante Lateranense Concilium Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei, And what the fruit of it was, let Vasques beare witnes, Audito nomine Transubstantiationis, &c. The very name of Transubstantiation being but heard, so great a Controversie did arise among the later Schoolmen concerning the Nature thereof, that the more they endeavoured to wind themselves out, the more they wrapped themselves in greater difficulties, whereby the Mystery of Faith became more difficult, both to be explaned, and to be understood, and more exposed to the Cavils of its Adversaries. He adds [Page] that the name of Conversion and Transubstantiation gave occasion to these controversies.

No sooner was this Bell rung out, no sooner was this fatal Sentence given, but as if Pandora's Box had been newly set wide open, whole Swarms of noysom Questions and Debates did fill the Schools. Th [...]n it began to be disputed by what means this Change comes, whether by the Benediction of the Elements, or by the repetition of these words of Christ, This is my Body. The common current of your Schools is for the later: But your judicious Arch-Bishop Lib. de c [...]r. Theol. Schol. of Caesaria, since the Councill of Trent, in a book dedicated to Sixtus the Fifth, produceth great reason to the contrary.

Then was the Question started, what the demonstrative Pronoun Hoc signifies in these words, This is my Body; whether this Thing, or this Substance, or this Bread, or this Body, or this Meat, or these Accidents, or that which is contained under these Species, or this individum vagum, or Gloss. de Con. d. 2. cap. Tim [...] rem. lastly (which seemes stranger than all the rest) this Nothing.

[Page] Then it began to be argued, whether the Elements were annihilated; whether the matter and form of them being destroyed, their Essence did yet remain, or the essence being converted, the existence remained; whether the sacramental existence of the Body and Blood of Christ do depend upon its natural Existence; whether the whole Host were Transubstantiated, or only some parts of it, that Guidm [...]nd. [...]. [...]. de ver. is, such parts as should be distributed to worthy Communicants; or whether in those parts of the Host which were distributed unto unworthy Communicants, the matter of bread and wine did not return. Whether the Deity did assume the Bread, or the Species thereof, by a new Hypostaticall Union, called Impanation, either absolutely, or respectively Mediante Corpore. Whether the Body and Blood of Christ might be present in the Sacrament without Transubstantiation, with the Bread or without the Bread; VVhether a Body may be Transubstantiated into a Spirit, and (which is most Vasq. dis [...]. 184. 6. 8. strange) whether a Creature might be Transubstantiated into the Deity.

Then the Schoolmen began to wrangle what manner of change this was, whether a materiall change, or a formal [Page] change, or a change of the whole substance, both matter and form; and if it were a Conversion of the whole substance, then whether it was by way of Production, or by Adduction, or by Conservation, each of which greater Squadrons are subdivided into several lesser Parties, speaking as different language as the builders of Babel, pestering and perplexing one another with inextricable difficulties.

It cannot be a new Production (saith one) because the Body of Christ, wherinto the Elements are supposed to be converted, did pre-exist before the change; neither can that Body which is made of Bread, be the same body with that which was born of a Virgin.

If it be not by Production (say others) but only by Adduction, then it is not a Transubstantiation, but a Transubiation, not a change of Natures, but a local succession. Then the Priest is not the Maker of his Maker, (as they use to brag) but only puts him into a new positure or presence, under the Species of Bread and Wine.

Howbeit this way by Adduction be the more common, and the safer way (if we may trust Be [...]larmine) yet of all [Page] Conversions or Changes, it hath least affinity with Transubstantiation. Suppose the water had not been turned into wine at Cana of Galile by our Saviour, but poured out, or utterly destroyed, and wine new created, or Adduced by Miracle into the water-Pots, in such a manner, that the introduction of the wine, should be the expulsion of the water, not only comitanter but causaliter, in such case it had been no Transubstantiation. Moses his Rod was truly changed into a Serpent, but it was by Production, if his Rod had been conveyed away invisibly, by Legerdemain, and a Serpent had been adduced into the place of it, what Transubstantiation had this been? None at all; no, though the adduction of the Serpent had been the means of the expulsion and destruction of the Rod. It is so farr from Transubstantiation, that it is no Conversion at all. The substance of the Elements is not converted, for that is supposed to be destroyed; The Accidents are not converted, but remain the same they were. It is no Adduction at all, when the Body of Christ (which is the thing supposed to be adduced) remains still in Heaven, where it was before.

[Page] It cannot be a Conservative Conversion, say others; for the same individual thing cannot be Conserved by two total distinct Conservations: but if this were a Conservative conversion, the Body of Christ should be conserved by two total distinct Conservations, the one in Heaven, the other in Earth; Yea by ten thousand distinct total Conservations upon Earth, even as many as there are consecrated Hosts; Which seems to be ridiculous, and without any necessity administers Uasq. T. 3. q. 75. d. 181 c. 4. great occasion to the Adversaries of Christian Religion, of jeasting and deriding the Mysteries of four Faith.

So here we have a Transubstantiation without Transubstantiation; A production of a Modus or maner ofbeing, for a production of a Substance; An Annihilation suppo [...]ed, yet no Annihilation confessed; An Adduction, without any Adduction; A terminus ad quem, without a terminus à quo; who shall reconcile us to ou [...] selves? But the End is not yet.

Then grew up the Q [...]tion, what is the proper Adequate Body which is contained under the species or Accidents; whether a material Body, or a substantial Body, or a living Body, ora n organical [Page] Body, or an Humane Body; whether it have weight or not, and why it is not perceived; whether it can be seen by the eye of mortal man; whether it can act or suffer any thing; whether it be movable or immovable; whether by it self or by Accident, or by both; whether it can move in one place, and rest in another; or be moved with two contrary motions, as upwards and downwards, Southwards and Northwards, at the same time?

Add to these, whether the Soul of Christ, and the Deity, and the whole Trinity, do follow the Body and Blood of Christ under either species, by Concomitance? whether the Sacramental body must have suffered the same things with the Natural Body? As supposing that an Host consecrated at Christ's last supper, had been reserved untill after his Passion, whether Christ must have died, and his Blood have been actually shed in the Sacrament? Yea, whether those wounds that were imprinted by the Whips in his naturall body, might and should have been found in his sacramental body without flagellation?

Likewise, what Blood of Christ is in the Sacrament? whether that blood only [Page] which was shed, or that blood only which remained in the Body, or both the one and the other? And whether that blood which was shed was assumed again by the Humanity in the Resurrection?

Then began those Paradoxical Questions to be first agitated in th [...] Schools, whether the same inividual body, without division or discontinuation from it self, can be locally in ten thousand places, yea in Heaven and in Earth at the same time; or if not locally, yet whether it can be spiritually and indivisibly? And whether it be not the same as to this purpose, whether a Body be locally or spiritually present in more places than one? Bellarmine seemes to encline to the affirmative. Though to be any where s [...]cramentally Bel. l. 3. de Euc. c. 3. in fine. doth not imply the taking up of a place, yet it implies a true and real presence, and if it be in more Hosts or Altars than one, it seems no lesse opposite unto Indivisibility, than the filling up of many places. Nay, he is past seeming positive, that without doubt if a Body cannot be in two places locally, it cannot be sacramentally in two places.

Compare this of Bellarmine with that In 4 d. 44▪ q. 7. art. [...] q. 3. of Aquinas, that it is not possible for one [Page] body to be in more places than one locally▪ no not by Miracle, because it implies [...] Contradiction; And consider upon what to [...]ering foundations you build Articles of Faith. It is impossible, and implies a Contradiction, for the Body of Christ to be locally in more Hosts than one at the same time (saith Aquinas) But it is as impossible, and implies [...] Contradiction asmuch, for the Body o [...] Christ to be Sacramentally in mor [...] Hosts than one at the same time, as to be locally (saith Bellarmine). The Inference is plain and obvious.

And many such strange questions are moved, as whether it be possible the thing contained should be a thousand times greater than the thing containing? whether a definitive being in [...] place, do not imply a not being out o [...] that place? whether more bodies than one can be in one and the same place? whether there can be a penetration of Dimensions? whether a Body can subsi [...] after a spirituall manner, so as to take up no place at all, but to be whollv in the whole, and wholly in every part? Moreover whether the whole Body & Blood of Christ be in every particle of the Bread, and of the Cup, and if it be▪ [Page] then whether only after the division of the Bread and Wine, or before division also? And in how many parts, and in which parts, is the whole Body and Blood of Christ; whether in the least parts, and if in the least parts, then whether in the least in kind, or the least in quantity, that is, so long as the Species may retain the name of Bread and Wine, or so long as the matter is divisible, and whether the Body and Blood of Christ be also in the indivisible parts, as points, and [...]ines and superficies?

Lastly, whether Accidents can subsist without their Subjects, that is, whether they can be both Accidents, and no Accidents? whether all the Accidents of the Elements do remain, and partienlarly whether the quantity doth remain? whether the other Accidents [...]o in [...]ere in the quantity as their subject, th [...]t is, whether an Accident can have an A [...] cident? whether the Quantity of Christ's Body be there, and whether it be thero after a quantitative manner, with extension of Parts, either extrinsecal or intrinsecal, and whether the quantity of the Body of Christ be distinct an [...] Figured, or indistinct and Unfigured? whether the Accidents can nourish or [Page] make drunken or corrupt, and a new body be generated of them; And what supplies the p [...]ace of the matter in such generation, whether the quantity, or the Body of Christ, or the old matter of the bread and wine restored by Miracle, or new matter created by God? And how long in such corruption doth the body of Christ continue?

Whosoever is but moderatly versed in your great Doctors, must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts or debates of single Schoolmen, but the common Garboils and general eng [...]gements of your who [...]e Schools.

Wherfore it had been a meer vanity to cite every particular Author for each question, and would have made the margent swell ten times greater than the Text.

From this bold determination of the manner of the presence how, have flowed two o [...]her differences, First the detention of the Cup from the Laity, meer [...]y upon presumption of Concomitance, first decreed in the Councill of Constance, after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance, whi [...]est we keep our selves to the Institution of Christ and the universal practice [Page] of the Primitive Church. It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his blood, not only in the Consecration, but also in the Distribution of the Sacrament. By the way give me leave to represent a Contradiction in Bellarmine, which I am not able to reconcile. In one place he saith, The Providence of God is marveilous I. ib. 4. de Euch. c. 25 in holy Scripture, for S [...]. Luke hath put these words [do you this] af [...]er the sacrament given under the form of Bread but he repeated it not after the giving of the Cup, that we might understand that the Lord commanded that the Sacrament should be d [...]stributed unto all under the form of Bread, but not under the form of Wine. And yet in the next Chapter but one, of the same book, he doth positively determin the contrary, upon the ground of Concomitance, that the Bread may be taken away if the Cup be given, but both cannot be taken away together. Can that be taken away Chap. 27. which Christ [...]ath expresly commanded to be given to all?

A second difference flowing from Transubstantiation is about the Adoration of the Sacrament; One of those impediments which hinder our Communication [Page] with you in the Celebration e [...] divine Offices: We deny not a Venerable respect unto the Consecrate Elements, not only as love-tokens sent us by our best friend, but as the Instruments ordained by our Saviour to convey to us the Merits of his Passion▪ But for the Person of Christ, God forbid that we should deny him Divine worship at any time, and especially in the use of this Holy Sacrament; we belecve with St. Austine, that No man eats of that Flesh, but first he Adores. But that which offends us is this, That you teach and require all men to Adore the very S [...]crament with Divine Honour. To this end you hold it out to the People. To this end Corpus Christi day Conc. Uien. was instituted about 300 years since. Yet we know that even upon your own grounds you cannot without a particular Revelation have any infallible assurance that any Host is consecrated; And consequently you have no assurance that you do not commit materiall Idolatry.

But that which weighs most with us is this. That we dare not give divine worship unto any Creature, no not to the very Humanity of Christ in the Abstract (much less to the Host) but [Page] to the whole person of Christ God and Man, by reason of the Hypostaticall Union between the Child of the blessed Virgin Mary, and the eternal Son, who is God over all blessed for ever. Shew us such an Union betwixt the Deity and the Elements, or Accidents, and you say somthing. But you pretend no such things, The highest that you dare go is this. As they that adored Christ when B [...]ll. 4. de Euch. c. 29. quodam modo. he was upon Earth, did[after a certain kind of manner] adore his Garments. Is this all? This is after a certain kind of manner indeed. We have enough. There is no more Adoration due to the Sacrament, than to the Garments which Christ did wear upon Earth. Exact no more.

Thus the seamless Coat of Christ is torn into pi [...]ces; Thus Faith is minc [...]d into shreds, and s [...]un up into [...]icities, more subtil than the Webs of Spiders,

Fidem minutis diss [...]ant ambagibus

[...] quisque est lingua [...]quior.

Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot Coals with Tongs, but they must take them up with their naked Fingers, nor to u [...] prehend Mysteries of Religion by Faith, [Page] without descanting upon them, and determining them by Reason, whilst themselves confess that they are incomprehensible by humane Reason, and imperceptible by Mans imagination; How [...]q. p. 3. 1. 76. A [...]t. 7. Christ is present in the sacrament can neither be perceived by sense, nor by imagination. The more inexcusable is their presumption to Anatomise Mysteries, and to determine supernatural not reveled Truths upon their own heads, which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortal man; As vain an attempt as if a Child should think to lade out all the water out of the Sea with a Cockleshell. Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but Deut. 29. 29. things revealed, unto us, and our Children for ever.

This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ, this is my body, leaving the manner to him that made the sacrament; we know it is sacramental, and therefore esficacious, because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances, where man did not set a Barr against himself. But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually, (I mean not only after the maner of a spirit, but in a spirituall sense) whether it be in the soul [Page] only, or in the Host also; And if in the Host, whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation, whether by Production, or Aduction, or Conservation, or Assumption, or by whatsoever other way bold and blind men dare conjecture, we determine not.

Motum sentimus, modum nescimus, praesentiam credimus.

Durand.

This was the belief of the Primitive Church, this was the Faith of the antient Fathers, who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo, which edifie not, but expose Christian Religion to contempt. We know what to think, and what to say with probability, modesty, and submission in the Schools; But we dare neither scrue up the Question to such a height, not d [...]ctate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith.

Nescire velle quae Magister maximus

Docere non vult, erud [...]ta est inscitia.

O! how happy had the Christian world been, if Scholars could have sate Against multiplying of questions, and Controversies. down contented with a latitude of general, sufficient, saving Truth, (which when all is done must be the Olive branch of Peace, to shew that the deluge [Page] of Ecclesiasticall division is abated) without [...]ading too far into particular subtilties, or doting about Questions and Logomachies, wherof cometh envy, strife, raylings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings. Old Con [...]roverersies evermore raise up new Controversies, and yet more Controversies, as Circles in the [...]ater do produce other Circles.

Now especially these Sc [...]olasticall quarrels seem to be unseasonable, when Zenos School is newly opened in the World, who sometimes wanted Opinions, but never wanted Arguments; Now when Atheism and Sacrilege are become the Mode of the Times; Now when all the Fundamentalls of Theology, Morality, and Policy, are undermined and ready to be blown up; Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes, or their Ministers, have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity; Now when Bellona shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdome, it becometh well all good Christians, and Subjects, to leave their litigious Q [...]estions, and to bring water to quench the fire of Civil dissention already kindled, rather than to blow the Coles of discord, and to render themselves [Page] censurable by all discreet persons, like that half-witted fellow personated in theOrator, Qui cum capitis mederi debuisset reduviem curavit; when his head was extremely distempered, he busied himself about a small push on his fingers end.

But that which createth this tro [...]ble to you and me at this time, is your Preface, The occasion of this Discourse. and Epistle Dedicatory; wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversie, you rest not contented that your Adversary grace your Triumph, unless the King of great Britain, and all his subjects, yea and all Protestants besides, attend your Chariot. Neither do you only desire this, but augurate it, or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as done: for you tell him, that his [...]ies and P. 37. hi [...] ears do hear and see those Truths, which make him to know the Faul [...]s of that new Religion which he had suck [...] with his milk; you set forth the causes of his Conversion, The tears of his Mother, and the Blood of his Father, whom you suppose (against evident truth) [...]o have died an invisible Member of your Roman Chatholique Church. And you prescribe the means to perfect [Page] his conversion, which must be a Conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charenton.

If your Charity be not to be blamed, The Authors indiscretion, to wish no worse to another than you do to your self, yet prudent men desire more Discretion in you, than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the World under his Majesties protection, without his licence, and against his Conscience: Had you not heard that such groundles insinnations as these, and other private whisperings concerning his Fathers Apostatising to the Roman Religion, did lose him the hearts of many Subjects? If you did, why would you insist in the same steps, to deprive the son of all possibility of recovering them?

If your intention be only to invite his To no pur pose. The King is already a better Catholick than himself. Discursus modestus Jesuitar [...] p. 13. Watsons quodlib. l. 2. Art. 4. Majesty to imbrace the Chatholick Faith you might have spared both your oyl and labor. The Chatholick Faith florished 1 200. years in the World before Transubstantiation was defined among your selves. Persons better accquainted with the Primitive times than your self (unles you wrong one another) do acknowledge, that the Fathers did not touch either the Word or the Matter of Transubstantiation. Mark it well, nei [...]her [Page] Name nor thing. His Majesty doth [...]rmly believe all supernatural Truth revealed in sacred Writ. He embra [...]eth chearfully whatsoever the holy A [...]ostles, or the Nicene Fathers, or blessed Athanasius in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Chatholick Faith did set down as necessary to be believed. He is ready to receive whatsoever the Chatholick Church of this Age doth unanimously believe to be a Particle of saving Truth.

But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church, with its adherents, for the Catholick Church, excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ, or the opinions thereof for Articles and Fundamentals of Catholick Faith, neither his Reason, nor his Religion, nor his Charity, will suffer him to listen unto you. The Truths received by our Church, are sufficient in point of [...]aith to make him a good Ca [...]holick. More than this your Romane Bishops, your Roman Church, your Tridentine Concill, may not, cannot obtrude upon him. Listen to the third general Councill, that of Ephesus, which de [...]eed, Par. 2. Act. 6. c. 7. that it should be lawfull for [Page] no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Councill; And that whos [...]ever should dare to eompose or offer any such to any persons willing Not lawful to add to the old Creed. to be converted from Paganism, Judaism, or Heresie, if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed, if Laymen ana [...] hematised.

Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fat [...]ers did, which nons will say to have been insufficient, except they be mad, as was alleged by the Greeks in the Councill of Florence. Concil. Flo. Sess. 10. prof. fil. in bulla pii quarti. You have violated this Canon, you have obtruded a New Creed upon Christendom. New I say, not in words only, but in sense also.

Some things are de Symbolo, some What are additions to the Creed, and what are onely explications. things are contra Symbolum, and some things are onely praeter Symbolum. Some things are contained in the Creed, either expressly or virtually, either in the Letter or in the Sense, and may be deduced by evident Consequence from the Creed, as the Deity of Christ, his two Natures, the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The Addition of these was properly no [Page] no addition, but an explication. Yet such an explication, no person, no Assembly under an Occumenical Council, can impose upon the Catholick Church. Aq. 2. 2. q. 1. Art. 10. And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not.

Secondly, some things are contra symbolum, contrary to the Symbolical Faith, and either expresly or virtually overthrow some Article of it. These additions are not onely unlawful, but heretical also in themselves, and after conviction render a man a formal Heretick; whether some of your additions be not of this nature, I will not now dispute.

Thirdly, some things are neither of the Faith, nor against the Faith, but onely besides the Faith; That is, opinions or truths of an inferiour nature▪ which are not so necessary to be actually known: for though all revealed truths be alike necessary to be believed when they are known, yet all revealed truths are not alike necessary to be known. It is not denied, but that General or Provincial Councils may make constitutions concerning these for unity and uniformity, and oblige all such as are subject to their jurisdiction to receive them, either actively, or passively, without c [...]ntumacy [Page] or opposition. But to make these, or any of these, a part of the Creed, and to oblige all Christians under pain of damnation to know and believe them, is really to adde to the Creed, and to change the Symbolical, Apostolical Faith, to which none can adde, from which none can take away, and comes within the compass of St. Paul's Curse, Gal. 1. [...]. If we, or an Angel from Heaven, shall Preach unto you a [...]y other Gospel (or Faith) than that which we have Preached, let him be accursed. Such are your Universality of the Roman Church, by the institution of Christ, to make her the Mother of her Grandmother the Church of Jerusalem, and the Mistress of her many elder Sisters. Your Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences, and the Worship of Images, and all other novelties defined in the Council of Trent, all which are comprehended in your New Roman Creed, and obtruded by you upon all the world to be believed under pain of damnation. He that can extract all these out of the old Apostolick Creed, must needs be an excellent Chymist, and may safely undertake to draw water out of a Pumice.

That afflictions come not by chance, [Page] that prosperity is no evidence of Gods P. 4. Crosses ar [...] not alwaie [...] punishments, bu [...] sometimes corrections, or trials. favour, or adversity of his hatred; that crosses imposed by God upon his servants, look more forwards towards their amendment, than backwards to their demerits, and proceed not from a Judge revenging, but from a Father correcting, or (which you have omitted) from a Lord Paramount proving and magnifying before the world his own graces in his Servants for his Glory and their Advantage, are undeniable Truths which we readily admit. As likewise that the dim eye of man cannot penetrate into the secret dispensations of Gods temporal judgements and mercies in this life, so as to say this man is punished, that other chastised, this third is onely proved.

But you forget all this soon after, Which the Author presently forgets. P. [...]. when you take upon you to search into, yea more, to determine the grounds and reasons why the hand of God, as well as the Parliament, hath been so heavy upon the Head of his late Majestie, and his Royal Son. Namely on Gods part, P. 14. because he called himself the Head of the Church. God purposing by his punishment, to teach all other Princes that are in the Schism, with what severity he can [Page] vindicate his glory in the injury done unto the Unity and Authority of his Church. And on the Parliaments part, because he would not consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy, and suppression of the Liturgie, and Ceremonies established in the Church of England.

First, what warrant have you to enquire into the Actions of that b [...]essed Saint and Martyr, which of them should be the causes of his sufferings? Not remembring that the Disciples received a check from their Master upon the like presumption; Who sinned? this man, Joh. 9. 2. or his Parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his Parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

The Heroical Virtues, the flaming Better grounds of his Majesties sufferings, than those of the Author. Charity, the admirable Patience, the rare Humility, the exemplary Chastity, the constant and frequent Devotions, and the invincible Courage of that happy Prince, not daunted with the ugly face of a most horrid death, have rendred him the Glory of his Country, the Honour of that Church whereof he was the chiefest Member, the admiration of Christendome, and a Pattern for all [Page] Princes, of what Communion soever, to imitate unto the end of the world. His Sufferings were Palms, his Pri [...]on a Paradise, and his Death-day the Birth-day of his happiness; whom his Enemies advantaged more by their Cruelty, than they could have done by their Courtesie. They deprived him of a corruptible Crown, and invested him with a Crown of glory; They snatched him from the sweet society of his dearest Spouse, and from most hopeful Olive branches, to Ps. 128. 3. place him in the bosome of the holy Angels. This alone is ground enough for his sufferings, to manifest unto the world those transcendent and unparallel'd graces, where with God had enriched him, to which his sufferings gave the greatest lustre, as the Stars shine brightest in a dark night.

The like liberty you assume towards the other most glorious Martyr, the late The Authors rash censure upon the Archbishop of Cant. Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of profound learning, and exemplary life, of clean hands, of a most sincere heart, a Patron of all good Learning, a Professor of Antient Truth, a great friend indeed, and earnest pursuer, of Order, Unity, and Uniformity in Religion, but most free from all sinister ends, either [Page] avaritious or ambitious, wherewith you do uncharitably charge him, as if he sought onely his own Graudeur, to make himself the head of a Schismatical body. In brief, you therefore censure him, because you did not know him. I wish all your great Ecclesiastiques had his Innocency, and fervent zeal for Gods Church, and the peace thereof, to plead for them at the day of Judgement.

By applying these particular Afflictions according to your own ungrounded Fancy, what a wide gap have you opened to the liberty and boldness of other men? who if they should assume to themselves the same freedome that you have done, might say as much, with as much reason, concerning the pressures of other great Princes abroad, that God afflicts them, because they will not become Protestants, as you can say that God afflicted our late King, because he wou'd not turn Papist.

But if you will not allow his Majesties sufferings to be meerly probatory; And if (for your satisfaction) there must be a weight of sin found out to mov [...] the wheel of Gods Justice, why do yo [...] not rather fix upon the body of hi [...] [Page] [Page] [Page] Subjects, or at least a disloyal part of them? We confess that the best of us Sovereigns may be taken away for the sin [...] of their Subjects. did not deserve such a Jewel, that God might justly snatch him from us in his wrath for our ingratitude. Reason, Religion, and Experience do all teach us, that it is usual with A [...]mighty God, to look upon a body politick, or Ecclesiastick, as one man, and to deprive a perverse people of a good and gratious Governour; as an expert Physician, by opening a vein in one member, cures the distempers of another. For the transgressions of a Land, many are the Princes Pro. 28. 2. [...]hereof.

It may be that two or three of our Princes at the most (the greater part Not above two or three of our Princes called Heads of the Church. whereof were Roman Catho [...]iques) did [...] themse [...]ves, or give others leave to [...]tile them, the Heads of the Church, within their Dominions. But no man can be so simple, as to conceive that they [...]ntended a spiritual headship to infuse [...]he life and motion of grace into the [...]earts of the faithful, such an head is Christ alone; No nor yet an Ecclesia [...]ical headship; We did never believe [...]hat our Kings in their own persons [...]ould exercise any act pertaining either [...]o the power of Order or Juri [...]ction: [Page] Nothing can give that to another, which it hath not it self. They meant That is onely political heads. one [...]y a Civil or Political Head, as Saul is called the Head of the Tribes of Israel, to see that pub [...]ick peace be pres [...]rved; 1 Sam. 15. 17. to see that all Subjects, as well Ecc [...]esiastiques as others, do their duties, in their several places; to see that all things be managed for that great and Architectonical end, that is the weal and benefit of the whole body politique, both for soul and body. If you will not trust me, Hear our Church it self; When we attribute the Sovereign Art. 37. Government of the Church to the King, we do not give him any power [...]o administer the W [...]rd or Sacraments; but onely that Prerogative which God in hol [...] Scripture hath alwaies allowed to Godly Princes, to see that all States and Orders of their Sub [...]ects, Ecclesiastical and Civil, do their duties, and to punish those who are delinquent, with the civil Sword Here is no power ascribed, Expos. Paraph [...]. art. Conf. Ang. A [...]t. 37. no punishment inflicted, but meerly political, and this is approved and justisied by S. Clara, both by reason, and by the examples of the Parliament of Paris. Yet by vertue of this Political power, he is the Keeper of both [Page] Tables, the preserver of true Piety towards God, as we [...]l as right Justice towards men; And is obliged to take care of the souls, as well as the skins and carkasses of his Subjects.

This power, though not this name, The Chr [...] stian Emperours political heads. the Christian Emperours of old assumed unto themselves, to Convocate Synods, to preside in Synods, to confirm Synods, to establish Ecclesiastical Lawes, to receive Appeals, to nominate Bishops, to eject Bishops, to suppress Heresies, to compose Ecclesiastical differences, in Councils, out of Councils, by themselves, by their delegates: All which is as clear in the Historie of the Church, as if it were written with a beam of the Sun.

This power, though not this name, The old Kings of England political heads. the Antient Kings of Engla [...]d ever exercised, not onely before the Reformation, but before the Norman Conquest, as appears by the Acts of their great Councils, by their Statutes, and Articles of the Clergy, by so many Lawes of provision against the Bishop of Romes conferring Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices upon Foreiners, by so many sharp oppositions against the exactions and usurpations of the Court of Rome, by so many Lawes concerning the Patronage [Page] of Bishopricks, and Investitures of Bishops, by so many examples of Churchmen punished by the Civil Magistrate. Of all which Jewels the Roman Court had undoubted [...]y robbed the Crown, if the Peers and Prelates of the Kingdome had not come into [...]he rescue.

By the Antient Lawes of England it is death, or at lest a forfeiture of all his goods, for any man to publish the Popes Bull without the Kings Licence. The Popes Legate without the Kings leave could not enter into the Realm. If an Ordinary did refuse to accept a resignation, See Au [...]horities for all these in Cawdries Case, in Judge Cook his Reports. the King might supply his defect. If any Ecclesiastical Court did exceed the bounds of its just power, either in the nature of the cause, or manner of proceeding, the Kings Prohibition had place. So in effect the Kings of England were alwaies the Political heads of the Church within their own Dominions. So the Kings of France are at this day.

But who told you that ever King Ne [...]ther K. Charles, K. James, nor Q. Elizabeth stiled heads of the Church. Charles did call himself the Head of the Church? thereby to merit such an heavy Judgement. He did not, nor yet King James his Father, nor Queen Elizabeth before them both, who took Order in [Page] her first Parliament, to have it lest out [...]f her Title; They thought that name did sound ill, and that it intrenched too far upon the right of their Saviour. Therefore they declined it, and were called onely Supreme Governours, in all Causes, over all persons Ecclesiastical and Civil; which is a Title de jure inseparable from the Crown of all Sovereign Princes; Where it is wanting de facto (if any place be so unhappy to want it) the King is but half a King, and the Commonwealth a Serpent with two Heads.

Thus you see, you are doubly, and both wa [...]es miserably mistaken. First, King Charles did never stile himself Head of the Church, nor could with patience endure to hear that Title. Secondly, a Political Headship is not injurious to the Unity, or Authority of the Church. The Kings of Is [...]ael and Judah, the Christian Emperours, the Eng [...]ish Kings before the Reformation, yea, even before the Conquest, and other Sovereign Princes of the Roman Communion have owned it signa [...]ly.

But it seems you have been to [...]d, or have read this, in the virulent writings of Sand [...]rs, or Parsons, or have heard of [Page] a ludicrous scoffing proposition of a M [...]rriage between the two Heads of the two Churches, Six [...]us Quintus, and Queen Elizabeth, for the re-uniting forsooth of Christendome. All the satisfaction The Auth [...] [...] the Pope to leave that vain Title. I sh [...]uld enjoyn you, is to perswade the Bishop of R [...]me (if Gregory the Great were living, you could not fail of speeding) to imitate the piety and humility of our Princes; that is, to content himself with his Patriarchical dignity, and primacy of Order, & Princip [...]m unit at is, and to quit that much more presumptuous, and (if a Popes word may pass for current) Antichristian term of the Head of the Catholick Church. If the Pope be the Head of the Catholique Church, then the Catholique Church is the Popes Body, which would be but an harsh expression to Christian ears: then the Catholick Church should have no Head, when there is no Pope, two or three Heads, when there are two or three Popes; an unsound Head, when there is an heretical Pope; a broken Head, when the Pope is censured or deposed; and no Head, when the See is vacant. If the Church must have one Universal, Visible, Ecclesiastical Head, a [Page] general Council may best pretend to that Title.

Neither are you more successful in your other Reason, why the Parliament Hatred of Episc [...]pacy not [...]he true [...]ause [...]hy [...]he [...] persecu [...]d th [...] King. persecuted the King; Because he maintained Episcopacy, both out of Conscience and Interest, which they sought to abolish. For though it be easily admitted, that some seditious and heterodox persons had an evil eye, both against Monarchy, and Episcopacy, from the very beginning of these troubles, either out of a fiery zeal, or vain affectation of Novelty, (like those, who having the green-sickness, prefer chalk and meal in a corner, before wholsome meat at their Fathers table,) or out of a greedy and covetous desire of gathering some sticks for themselves upon the fall of those great Okes: yet certainly they, who were the contrivers, and principal actors in this business, did more malign Episcopacy for Monarchies sake, than Monarchy for Episcopacies. What end had the Nuncio's Faction in Ireland against Episcopacy? whose mutinous courses apparently lost that Kingdome. When the Kings consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland was extorted from him by the Presbyterian [Page] faction (which probably the prime Authors do rue sufficiently by this time) were those Presbyterian Scots any thing more favourable to Monarchy? To come to England, the chief Scene of this bloody Tragedy: If that party in Parliament had at first proposed any such thing, as the Ab [...]ition either of Monarchy, or Episcopacy, undoubtedly they had ruined their whole design; untill daily tumults, and uncontrollable uproars had chased away the greater, and sounder part of both Houses: Their first Protestation was solemnly made to God, both for King and Church, as they were by Law established.

Would you know then what it was that Conjur'd up the storm among us? The true causes of the troubles in England. It was some feigned jealousies and fears, (which the first broachers themselves knew well enough to be fables) dispersed cunningly among the People, That the King purposed to subvert the Fundamental Lawes of the Kingdome, and to reduce the free English Subject to a condition of absolute slavery under an Arbitrary Government. For which massy weight of malitious untruth, they had no supporters, but a few Bull-rushes. Secondly, that [Page] he meant to apostate from the Protestant Religion to Popery, and to that end had raised the Irish Rebellion by secret encouragements and Commissions; For which monstrous calumny, they had no other foundation (except the solemn Religious Order of Divine Service in his own Chapel, and Cathedral Churches) than some unseasonable disputes about an Altar, or a Table, and the permission of the Popes Agent to make a short stay in England, more for reason of State than of R [...]ligion. And some sensless fictions of some Irish Rebels, who having a Patent under the Great Seal of Ireland for their Lands, to colour their barbarous murthers, shewed it to the poor simple people as a Commission from the King to leavy Forces. And lastly, some impious pious frauds of some of your own party, whose private whispers, and printed insinuations, did give hopes that the Church of England was coming about to shake hands with the Roman in the points controverted; Which was meerly devised to gull some silly Creatures, whom they found apt to be catched with chaff; for which they had no more pretext of truth, than [Page] you have for your groundless intimations in this unwelcome dedication.

These suspitions being compounded with Covetousness, Ambition, Envy, Emulation, desire of Revenge, and discontent, were the sourse of all our Calamities. Thus much you your self confess in [...]ffect; that, this supposition, that the King and Bishops had an intention to re-establish the Roman Catholique Religion, was the venome which the Puritan Faction insused into the hearts of the people, to fill them with hatred against a King worthy of love; And the P. 11. Parliament judged it a favourable occasion for their design, to advance themselves to Sovereign Authority. Be Judge your self how much they are accessary to our sufferings, who either were, or are the Authors, or fomenters of these damnable slanders.

There was yet one cause more of this cruel persecution, which I cannot conceal from you, because it concerns some of your old acquaintance. There was a Bishop in the world (losers must have leave to talk) whose privy Purse, and subtil Counsels, did help to kindle that unnatural war in his Majesties three Kingdomes. Our Cardinal [Page] Wolsey complained before his death, That he had served his King better than his God. But certainly this practise in your friend, was neither Good service to his God, to be the author of the effusion of so much innocent blood, nor yet to his King, to let the world see such a dangerous president. It is high time for a man to look to himself, when his next neighbours house is all on a flame.

As hitherto I have followed your steps, though not altogether in your own method, or rather your own confusion; So I shall observe the same course for the future. Your discourse is so full of Meanders and windings, turnings, and returnings, you congregate He [...]erogeneous matter, and segregate that which is Homogeneous, as if you had made your Dedication by starts, and snatches; and never digested your who' [...] discourse. On the contrary, where I meet with any thing, it shall be my desire to dispach it out of my hands, with whatsoever pertains unto it, once for all. I hope you expect not that I shou'd amuse my self at your Rheto [...] cal flowers, and elegant expressions▪ they agree well enough with the work you [Page] were about; The Pipe plays sweetly, whilst the Fowler is catching his prey. Trappings are not to be condemned, if the things themselves are good and useful; but I prefer one Pomegranat-Tree loaden with good fruit, before a whole row of Cypresses, that serve onely for shew. Be sure of this, that where any thing in your Epistle reflects upon the Church of England, I shall not miss it first or last, though it be but a loose unjoynted pe [...]ce, and so perhaps hitherto untouched.

Amongst other things which you lay We are onely accused of Schism. to our charge, you glance, at the least twelve times, at our supposed Schism: But from first to last, never attempt to prove it, as if you took it for granted. I have shaped a Coat for a Schismatick, and had presented it to you in this Answer; but considering that the matter is of moment, and merits as much to be seriously and solidly weighed, as your naked Crimination without all pretext of proof deserves to be sleighted, lest it might seem here as an impertinent digression, to take up too much place in this short Discourse, I have added it at the Conclusion of this Answer, in a short Tract by it self, [Page] that you may peruse it if you please.

You fall heavily, in this Discourse, Presbyterians and Brownists have been Romes bst friends. upon the Presbyterians, Brownists, and Independents; if they intend to return you any answer, they may send it by a messenger of their own. As for my part, I am not their Proctor, I have received no Fee from them. And if I should undertake to plead their Cause upon my own head, by our old English Law, you might call me to an accompt for unlawful maintenance. Onely give me leave as a by-stander to wonder why you are so cholerique against them, for certainly they have done you more service in England, than ever you could have done for your selves.

And I wonder no less why you call our Reformation, a Calvinistical Reformation, brought into England by Bucer, and Peter Martyr, a blind Reformation, yea, the intire ruin of the Faith, of the very form of the Church, and of the civil Government of the Commonwealth instituted by God. Though you confess again in our favour, that if our first Reformers had been interrogated, P. 16. whether they meant any such thing, P. 19. they would have purged themselves, and P. 14. avouched their Innocence with their P. 17. [Page] hands upon the new Gospel. The gifts of Enemies are no gifts. If such as these are all your courtesies, you may be pleased to take them again; Our first Reformers might safely swear upon any Gospel, old or new, that they meant no such thing. And we may as securely swear upon all the books of God, old or new, that there is no such thing. But why our Gospel should be younger or newer than Sixtus Quintus his Gospel, or Clemens Octavus his Gospel, passeth my understanding, and yours also.

Comparisons are odious, therefore I will not say, that the true English Protestant standing to his own grounds, is the best subject in the world: But I do say, that he is as good a subject as any in the wortd, and our principles as Innocent, and as auxiliary to civil Government, as the maxims of any Church under Heaven; And more than yours, where the clashing of two Supreme Authorities, and the exemption of your numerous Clergy from the Coercive power of the Prince, and some other novelties, which I forbear to mention, do alway threaten a storm.

Tell me Sir, if you can, what [Page] Church in Europe hath declared more fully, or more favourably for Monarchy than the poor Church of England, That the most high and sacred Order L. Cant. 1643. C. I. of Kings, is of Divine Right, being the Ordinance of God himself, founded in the prime Laws of Nature, and clearly established by express Texts, both of the old, and new Testament. Moreover, that this power is extended over all their Subjects, Ecclesiastical and Civil; That to s [...]t up any Independent coactive power above them, either Papal, or popular, either directly, or indirectly, is to undermine their great royal Office, and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Ordinance, which god himself hath established. That for their subjects to bear Arms against them, Offensive or defensive, upon any pretence whatsoever, is to resist the powers which are ordained of God.

And why do you call our Reformation Calvinistical? contrary to your The English Reformation not Calvinistic [...] P. 9. own Conscience, contrary to your own confession, That in our Reformation we reteined the antient Order of Episcopacy, as Instituted by divin [...] authority, and a Liturgy, and Ceremonies, whereby we preserved the face, or Image of [Page] the Catholick Church. And that for this▪ P. 10. very caus [...] the disciplinarians of Geneva, and the Presbyterians, did conceive an implacable hatred against the King for the Churches sake, and out of their aversion to it. Did they hate their own Reformation so implacably? If these things be to be reconciled, reddat mihi minam Diogenes. He that looks more in disputation to the Advantage of his party, than to the Truth of his grounds, had need of a strong memory; We reteined not onely Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies, but all things else that were conformable to the Discipline, and publick service of the Primitive Church rightly understood.

No, Sir, we cannot pin our faith upon the sleeve of any particular man, as one used to say, We love no nismes; neither Calvinism, nor Lutheranism, nor M. Th [...]. Sq. Jonsenianism, but onely one, that we derive from Antioch, that is Christianism. We honour Learning, and Piety in our fellow servants, but we desire to wear no other badge or Cognizance than that we received from our own Master at our Baptism. Bucer was as fit to be Calvins Master, as his Scholar. So long as Calvin continued with him [Page] in Germany, he was for Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies, (and for assurance thereof subscribed the Augustane Confession) and his late learned Successor, and assertor in Geneva, Monsieur Deodate, with sundry others of that Communion, were not averse from them. Or why do you call Reformation blind? It was not blindness, but too much affectation of knowledge, and too much peeping into controverted and new fangled Questions that hath endamaged our Religion. It is you that teach the Colliers Creed, not we.

Howsoever you pretend to prove that our Reformation was the ruin of the Church, and Common-wealth; wee expect you should endeavour to prove it. You cannot so far mistake your self as to conceive your authority to be the same with us, that Pythagoras had among his Scholars, to have his Dictates received for Oracles without proof; what did I say, that you pretend to prove it? That's too low an expression, you promi [...]e us a demonstration P. 19. of it, so lively and evident that no reason shall be able to contradict it. Are you not afraid that too much expectation [Page] should prejudice your discourse by diminishing our applause?

Quid tanto dignum feret hi [...] proneissor hia [...]u? Do you think of nothing now but Triumphs? Lively and evident demonstration, not to be contradicted by reason, is like the Phenix, much talked of, but seldom seen. Most men, when they see a man strip up his sleeves, and make too large promises of fair dealing, do suspect jugling. No man proclameth in the Market that he hath rotten wares to sell; And therefore we must be careful, notwithstanding your great promises, to keep well Epicharmus his Jewel, Remember to distrust. By your permission, your glistering demonstration is a very counterfeit, not so valuable as a Bristol Diamond, when it comes to be examined by the wheel.

Sometimes nothing is more necessary than Reformation. Never was Reforma [...]n is some [...]imes necessary. house so well builded, that now and then needed not reparation. Never Garden so well planted, but must sometimes be weeded. Never any order so well instituted, but in long tract of time there will be a bending and declining from its Primitive perfection, and a necessi [...]y of reducing it to its [Page] first principles. Are your Houses of Religion which are Reformed, therefore the less Religious? Why then did all the Princes and Common-wealths in Europe, Yea the Fathers themselves in the Council of Trent, cry out so often, so earnestly, for a Reformation? yet were forced to content themselves with a vain shadow for the substance, as Ixion embraced a Cloud for Juno, or Children are often stilled with an empty bottle.

But Reformation is not agreable to all persons. Judas loved not an Audit, Reformation not agreeable to all persons, especially the Court of Rome. because he kept the Bag. Dull Lethargick people had rather sleep to death than to be awaked; and mad phrenetick Bigots are apt to beat the Chirurgion that would bind up their wounds; but none are so a verse from Reformation as the Court of Rome, where the very name is more formidable than Hannibal at the Gates, yea than all the five terrible things. No mervail they are afraid to have their Oranges squeesed to their hands; if they were infallible as they pretend, there was no need of a Reformation; we wish they were, but we see they are not.

On the other side, it cannot be denyed There is danger in Reformation. [Page] that Reformation, when it is unseasonable, or inordinate, or excessive, may do more hurt than good; when Reformers want just Authority, or due information, or have sinister ends, or where the remedy may be of worse consequence than the abuse, or where men run out of one extreme into another; therefore it is a rule in prudence, Not to remove an ill custom, when it is well setled, unless it bring great prejudices, and then it is better to give one account why we have taken it away, than to be alwaies making excuses why we do it not. Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion, and lessen the credit of antient truths. Break Ice in one place, and it will crack in more. Crooked sticks by bending streight are sometimes broken into two.

There is a right mean between these The right rule of Reformation. extremes, if men could light on it, that is, neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers, nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers, out of a doating affection to the body; that is, neither to destroy antient Institutions, out of a zealous hatred to some new abuses, nor yet to doat so upon [Page] antient Institutions, as for their sakes to cherish new abuses.

Our Reformation is just as much the Our Reformation not the ruin of Faith Church or Commonwealth. cause of the ruin of our Church and Common-wealth, as the building of Tenderden Steepl was the cause of Goodwins Sands, or ruin of the Country thereabouts, because they happened both much about the same time.

—Careat successibus opto,

May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event. Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith, just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden, ruins the good Herbs. It hath ruined the Church, just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthful purgation. It hath ruined the Common-wealth, just as pruning [...]f the Vine ruins the E [...]m. No, no Sir, Our s [...]fferings, for the Faith, for the Church, for the Monarchy, do proclame us Innocent to all the world, of the ruin either of Faith, or Church, or Monarchy. And in this capacity we choose rather to ste [...]ve as Innocents, [...] to swim in plenty as Nocents.

But this is but one of your doubles to k [...]ep us from the right form. It is [Page] your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith. It is your Papal Court that hath ruined the Church. It is your new Doctrines of the Popes Omnipotence over temporal persons in order unto spiritual ends, of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Allegeance, of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction, of the lawfulness of murthering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes, of aequivocation and the like, that first infected the world to the danger of Civil Government. Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church, at any time, much less at this time, when they are much faln from their former credit; neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions, destructive to all civil societies, have been transplanted by our Sectaries, and taken too deep root in our quarters, but never by our fault. If God should grant us the benefit of an Oecumenical or Occidental Council, it would become both you and us in the fi [...]st place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch.

You say our Calvinistical Reformation (so you are pleased to call it as [Page] would have it, for the moderate and and orderly Reformation of England, was the terror, and eye-sore of Rome) is founded upon two maxims, The one, that the Church was faln to ruin and Our [...] supposed Maxim▪ desolation, and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny.

This is neither our foundation, nor our superstruction, neither our maxim, The Catholick Church cannot come to ruin, or b [...] guilty o [...] Idolatry or Tyranny. nor our Opinion. It is so far from it, that we hold and teach the direct contrary. First, that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universal Church, that though the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon it, yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation; because it is builded upon a Rock. Secondly, we beleeve that the Catholick Church is the faithfull Spouse of Christ, and cannot be guilty of Idolatry, which is spiritual Adultery. Thirdly, we never said, we never thought, that the Occumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny. It is principled to suffer wrong, to do none, and by suffering to Conquer, as a flock of unarmed Sheep, in the midst Chrys. of a company of ravenous Wolves, A new and unheard-of kind of warfare [Page] as if one should throw an handful of dry flax into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it.

But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms [...]f your language, in which [...]holick [...]nd Roman not Convertibles. by the Church you a [...]waies understand the Roman Church, making Roman and Catholick to be Convertibles. As if Christ could not have a Church, nor that Church any privileges, unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them. There is a vast difference between the Catholick Church and a Patriarchal Church. The Catholick Church can never fail; any Patriarchal Church may Apostate and fail. We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out, we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed. Rev. 2. 5.

But supposing that (which we can never grant) the Catholick Church The Roman Church it self not absolutely faln to ruin. and Roman Church were Convertibles, yet still you do us wrong. First we do not maintain, that the Roman Church it self is faln to ruin and desolation, we grant to it a true metaphysical being, though not a true moral being; we hope their errors are rather in superstructures, than in fundamentals; [Page] we do not say that the Plants of saving truth (which are common to you and us) are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church, but we say that they are over-grown with weeds, and in danger to be choked.

Next for Idolatry, whether, and why, and how far, we accuse your Whether the Roman Church be guilty of Idolatry. Church of it, deserves further Consideration. First you agree with us. That God alone is the Object of Religion, and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him; that God alone is to be invocated absolutely or ultimately, that is, so as to grant our requests and fulfil our desires by himself, and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers, but joynt petitioners with us, and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace.

Secondly, we profess as well as you, that there is a proportionab [...]e degree of honour, and respect, due to every creature in Heaven and Earth, according to the dignity of it, and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit, than to a mortal man: But withall we adde, that this honour, [Page] is not servitutis but charitatis, not of service as to our Lords and Masters, but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow-servants, of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth. And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent.

Thirdly, we agree in this also, that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend, or noble benefactor, to his posterity, to his memory, to his Monument, to his Image, to his Reliques, to every thing that he loved, or that pertained to him, even to the Earth which he did tread upon, for his sake. Put a Liefhebber, or Virtuoso, among a company of rare pictures, and he will pick out the best pieces for their proper value. But a friend or child will more esteem the Picture of a Benefactor, or Ancestor, for its relation. The respect of the one is terminated in the Picture, that of the other is radicated in the exemplar. Yet still an Image is but an Image, and the kinds of respect must not be confounded. The respect given to an Image, must be respect proper for an Im [...]ge, not Courtship, not Worship, not Adoration. More respect is [Page] due to the person of the meanest beggar, than to all the Images of Christ and his Apostles, and a 1000. Primitive Saints or Progenitors. Hitherto there is either no difference nor peril either of Idolatry, or Superstition.

Wherein then did consist this guilt of Idolatry contracted by the Roman Church? I am willing for the present to pass by the private abuses of particular persons, which seem to me no otherwise chargeable upon the whole Church, than for Connivence. As the making Images to counterfeit tears, and words, and gestures, and complements, for advantage, to induce silly people to believe that there was something of divinity in them; and the multitude of fictitious Relicks, and supposititious Saints, which credulity first introduced, and since covetousness hath nourished. I take no notice now of those remote suspitions or suppositions of the possibility of want of intention, either in the Priest that consecrates the Sacrament, or in him that Baptized, or in the Bishop that ordained him, or in any one through the whole line of succession; in all which cases (according to your own principles) you give divine worship to corporeal Elements, which is at least material Idolatry.

[Page] I will not stand now to examine the truth of your distinctions, of [...], and [...], yet you know well enough, that [...] is no religious worship, and [...] is coin lately minted, that will not pass for current in the Catholick Church. Whilst your common people understand not these distinctions of degrees of honour, what holds them from falling downright into Idolatry?

Neither do I urge how you have distributed the Patronage of particular Countries, the Cure of several Diseases, the protection of all distinct professions of men, and all kinds of Creatures, among the Saints, just as the Heathen did among their Tutelary Gods; nor how little warrant you have for this practice from experience; nor lastly, how you build more Churches, erect more Altars, offer more presents, pour out more prayers, make more vows, perform more offices to the Mother than to the Son. Yet though we should hold our peace, methinks you should ponder these things seriously, and either for your own satisfaction, or ours, take away such unnecessary occasions of scandal and dis-union.

But I cannot omit, that the Council of Trent is not contented to enjoyn the [Page] Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament, (which we never deny) but of the Sacrament it self (that is, according to the common current of your Schoolmen, the A [...] cidents or Species of Bread and Wine, because it contains Christ.) Why do they not adde upon the same grounds, that the pix is to be adored with divine worship, because it contains the Sacrament? Divine honour is not due to the very Humanity of Christ, as it is abstracted from the Deity, but to the whole person, Deity and Humanity, hypostatically united. Neither the Grace of Union, nor the Grace of Unction can conferr more upon the Humanity, than the Humanity is capable of. There is no such Union between the Deity and the Sacrament, neither immediately, nor yet mediately, mediante corpor.

Neither do you ordinarily ascribe [...] or divine worship to a Crucifix, or to the Image of Christ, indeed not Terminatively, but trans [...]untly, so as not to rest in the Image or Crucifix, but to pass to the exemplar, or person crucified. But why a piece of Wood should be made partaker of divine honours even in [...], or in be passage passe [...]h my unde [...]nding. Th [...] Heathens [...]ted not, the same [...] [Page] for all their gross Idolatry. Let them plead for themselves. Non ego, &c. I do not worship that stone which I see, but I serve him whom I do not see.

Lastly, whilst you are pleased to use them, I may not forget those strange insolent forms of prayer, contained in your books, even ultimate prayers, if we take the words as they sound, directed to the Creatures, that they would protect you at the hour of death, and deliver you from the Devil, and confer spiritual graces upon you, and admit you into Heaven, precibus meritisque, by their prayers and merits. (You know what Merit signifies in your language, a Condignity, or at least a Congruity of desert.) The exposition of your Doctors is, that they should do all this for you by their pra [...]ers; as improper a form of speech, as if a Suppliant intending onely to move an ordinary Courtier to mediate for him unto the King, should fall down upon his knees before the Courtier, and beseech him to make him an Earl, or a Knight, or to bestow such an Office, or such a Pardon upon him, or to do some other Grace for him, properly belonging to the Prerogative Royal. How agrees this with the words, Precibus meri [...]que? A beggar doth not deserve an Alms by asking it. This is a [Page] snare to ignorant persons, who take the words to signifie as they sound. And (it is to be feared) do commit downright Idolatry by their Pastors faults, who prescribe such improper forms unto them.

Concerning Tyrannie, which makes up The Roman Court most Tyrannical. the arrear of the first supposed Maxim: We do not accuse the Roman Church of Tyrannie, but the Roman Court. If either the unjust usurpation o [...] Sovereign power, or the extending thereof to the destruction of the Laws and Canons of the Church, yea, even to give a Non obstante, either to the Institution of Christ, or at least to the uniform practice of the Primitive Ages, or to them both; If the swallowing up of all Ecclesiastical Jurisd [...]ction, and the arrogating of a supercivil power paramount; If the causing of poor people to trot to Rome, from all the Quarters of Europe, to wast their livelyhoods there; If the trampling upon Emperours, and the disciplining of Monarchs be Tyrannical, either the Court of Rome hath been Tyrannical, or there never was Tyrannie in the world

I doubt not but some great persons when they have had bloody Tragedies to act for their own particular ends, have sometimes made the Roman Church a stalking horse, and the pretence of Catholick Religion a [Page] blind to keep their Policies undiscerned: But if we consider seriously, what cruelties have been really acted throughout Europe, either by the Inquisitors General, or by persons specially delegated for that purpose, against the Waldenses of old, and against the Protestants of later daies, against poor ignorant persons, against women and children, against mad men, against dead carkasses, as Bue [...]r, &c. upon pretence of Religion, not onely by ordinary forms of punishment, and of death, but by fire and faggots, by strange new-devised tortures, we shall quickly find that the Court of Rome hath died it self red in Christian blood, and equalled the most Tyrannical persecutions of the Heathen Emperours.

The other Maxim whereupon you say that our Reformation was grounded, was Our second sup [...]osed Maxim. this, T [...]at the onely way to reform the Faith an [...] Liturgie, and Government of the Church, was to conform them to the dictates of holy Scripture, of the sense whereof every P. 21. private Christian ought to be the Judge, by the light of the Spirit, excluding Tradition, and the publi [...]k Judgement of the Church. You adde, That we cannot prove Episcopacy P. 26. by Scripture, without the Help of Tradition; And if we do admit of Tradition, we must [Page] acknowledge the Papacy for the Government of the Catholick Church, as founded in the Primacy of St. Peter.

Your second supposed ground is no truer than the former, we are as far from Much mistaken. Anarchy as from Tyranme; As we would not have humane Authority, like Medusa's head, to transform reasonable men into sensless stones; So we do not put the reigns of Government into the hands of each, or any private person, to reform according to their phantasies. And that we may not deal like blunderers, or deceitful persons, to wrap up or involve our selves on purpose in confused Generalities, I will set down our sense distinctly, When you understand it, I hope you will repent of your rash censuring of us, of whom you had so little knowledge.

Three things offer themselves to be considered: First, concerning the Rule of The Scripture [...] rule of supernatural truths. Scripture; Secondly, the proper Expounders thereof; and Thirdly, the manner of Exposition.

Concerning Scripture we believe, That it was impossible for humane reason, without the help of divine Revelation, to find out those supernatural truths which are necessary to Salvation. 2. That to supply this defect of natural reason, God out of [Page] his abundant goodness hath given us the holy Scriptures, which have not their authority from the writing which is humane, but from the Revelation which is divine, from the Holy Ghost. Thirdly, that this being the purpose of the Holy Ghost, it is blasphemy to say he would not, or could not attain unto it. And that therefore the holy Scriptures do comprehend all necessary supernatural truths; So much is confessed by Bellarmine, that All things which L. 4. de verbo Dei, cap. 11. are necessary to be believed, and to be done by all Christians, were preached to all by the Apostles, and were all written. Fourthly, that the Scripture is more properly to be called a Rule of supernatural truths than a Judge, or if it be sometimes called a Judge, it is no otherwise than the Law is called a Judge of civil Controversies between man and man, that is, the rule of judging what is right, and what is wrong. That which sheweth what is strait, sheweth likewise what is crooked.

Secondly, concerning the proper Expounders Who are the proper expounders of Scripture▪ and how far. of Scripture, we do believe that the Gospel doth not consist in the words, but in the sense, non in superficie, sed in medullâ; And therefore that though this infallible Rule be given for the common benefit of all, yet every one is not an able or [Page] fit Artist to make application of this Rule, in all particular cases. To preserve the common right, and yet prevent particular abuses, we distinguish Judgement into three kinds.

Judgement of Discretion, Judgement of Direction, and Judgement of Jurisdiction.

As in the former Instance of the Law, (the ignorance whereof exc [...]seth no man) every Subject hath Judgement of Discretion, to apply it particularly to the preservation of himself, his estate and interest; The Advocates, and those who are skilful in the Law, have moreover a Judgement of Direction, to advise others of less knowledge and experience; But those who are Constituted by the Sovereign power, to determine emergent difficulties, and differences, and to distribute and administer Justice to the whole body of a Province or Kingdome, have moreover a Judgement of Jurisdiction, which is not onely discretionary, or directive, but authoritative, to impose an Obligation of obedience unto those who are under their charge. If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law, they are not accountable to their Inferiours, but to him or them that have the Sovereign power of Legislative Judicature; Ejus est legem interpretari, cujus est condere.

[Page] To apply this to the case in question concerning the exposition of the holy Scripture. Every Christian keeping himself within the bounds of due obedience, and submission to his lawful Superiours, hath a Judgement of Discretion; Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. He may apply the 1 Thes. 5. 21. Rule of holy Scripture for his own private instruction, comfort, [...]dification and direction, and for the framing of his life and belief aceordingly. The Pastors of the Church (who are placed over Gods people as watchmen and guides) have more than this, a judgement of Direction, to expound and interpret the holy Scriptures to others, and out of them to instruct the ignorant, to reduce them who wander out of the right way, to confute errours, to foretell dangers, and to draw sinners to repentance. The chief Pastors, to whose care the Regiment of the Church is committed in a more special manner, have yet an higher degree of judgement, a Judgement of Jurisdiction, to prescribe, to enjoyn, to constitute, to reform, to censure, to condemn, to bind, to loose, judicially, authoritatively, in their respective charges. If their Key shall erre, either their Key of Knowledge, or their Key of Jurisdiction, they are accountable to their respective Superiours, and in the last place [Page] to a general Council, which under Christ upon Earth, is the highest Judge of Controversies. Thus we have seen what is the Rule of Faith, and by whom, and how far respectively this rule is to be applied.

Thirdly, for the manner of expounding The manner of expounding Scripture. holy Scriptures, (for there may be a privacy in this also, and more dangerous than the privacy of the person) many things are necessary to the right interpretation of the Law, to unde [...]stand the reason of it, the precedents, the terms, the forms, the reports, and an ability to compare Law with Law. He that wants all these Qualifications altogether, is no interpreter of Law. He that wants but some of them, or wants the perfection of them, by how much the greater is his defect, by so much the less valuable is his exposition; And if he shall out of private fancy, or blind presumption, arrogate to himself, without these requisite means, or above his capacity and proportion of Knowledge, a power of expounding Law, he is a mad-man.

So many things are required to render a man capable to expound the holy Scriptures, some more necessarily, some less, some absolutely, some respectively; As First, to know the right Analogy of Faith, to which all interpretations of Scripture must be of [Page] necessity conformed. Secondly, to know the practice and tradition of the Church, and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages, which gives a great light to the finding out of the right sense. Thirdly, to be able to compare Texts with Texts, Antecedents with Consequents, without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the Holy Ghost in the obscurer passages. And lastly, it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written. He that wants all these requisites, and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture, is a doting Enthusiast, fitter to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments. He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means, and above the talent which God hath given him, (as he that hath a little Language, yet wants Logick, or having both Language and Logick, knows not, or regards not either the Judgement of former Expositors, or the practice and tradition of the purest Primitive Ages, or the Symbolical Faith of the Catholick Church) is not a likely workman to build a Temple to the Lord, but ruine and destruction to himself, and his seduced followers. A new [Page] Physician (we say) requires a new Churchyard; But such bold ignorant Empericks in Theology, are ten times more dangerous to the Soul, than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the Body.

This hath alwaies been the doctrine, This is conformable to the doctrine and practice of our Church. Can. 1603. Can. 49. and the practice of our English Church; First, it is so far from admitting Laymen to be Directive Interpreters of holy Scripture, that it allows not this Liberty to Clergy-men so much as to gloss upon the Text, untill they be Licenced to become Preachers. Secondly, for Judgement of Discretion onely, it gives it not to private Se [...] the P [...]eface to the Bishops Bible. persons above their Talents, or beyond their last. It disallows all phantastical, and Enthusiastical presumption of incompetent and unqualified Expositors. It admits no man into holy Orders, that is, to be capable of being made a Directive In [...]erpreter of Scripture, howsoever otherwise qualified, unless he be able to give a good account of his Faith in the Latin tongue, so Can. 34. as to be able to frame all his Expositions according to the Analogy thereof. It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the Can. 1571. tit. Concionatores. people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed, which the Catholick Fathers, and old Bishops of the Primitive Church, have not collected out of the Scriptures. [Page] It ascribes a Judgement of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops, in all manner of Ecclesiastical duties, as appears by the whole body of our Canons. And especially where any difference or publick Can. 1631. Can. 53. Opposition hath been between Preachers, about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture. It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church, as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles. Art. 20. Can. 1603. Can. 139. And to a lawful Synod, as the representative Church.

Now, Sir, be your own Judge, how infinitely you have wronged us, and your self more, suggesting that temerariously, and without the Sphere of your knowledge, to his Majestie, for the principal ground of our Reformation, which our souls abhorr. Is there no mean between stupidity and madness? Must either all things be lawful for private persons, or nothing? Because we would not have them like Davids Horse and Mule, without understanding, do we therefore put both Swords in their hands, to reform and cut off, to plant and to pluck up, to alter and abolish at their pleasure? We allow them Christian liberty, but would not have them Libertines. Admit some have abused this just [Page] liberty, may we therefore take it away [...]rom others? So we shall leave neither a [...]un in Heaven, nor any excellent Crea [...]ure upon Earth, for all have been abused [...]y some persons, in some kinds, at some [...]imes.

We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions, nor unwritten fundamentals: The English Church an enemy to upstart, not to Apostolical traditions. But we admit genuine, Universal, Apostolical traditions; As the Apostles Creed, the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God, the Anniversary Festivals of the Church, the Lenton fast. Yet we know that both the duration of it, and the manner of observing it, was very different in the Pri [...]nitive times. We believe Episcopacy, to an ingenuous person, may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition, but to such as are froward, the perpetual practice and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentique, and the proof more convincing. What is this to us who admit the practice and tradition of [...]he Church, as an excellent help of Exposition? Use is the best interpreter of Laws, and we are so far from believing that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy, that one of the principal mo [...]ives why we rejected the Papacy, as it is now established with Universality of [Page] Jurisdiction, by the Institution of Christ and superiority above Oecumenical Councils, and Infallibility of Judgement, was the constant tradition of the Primitive Church.

So Sir, you see your demonstration shaken into [...]ces; You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at our pleasure, have not so much ground left you as to set your Instrument upon. Your two main ground-works being vanished, all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions do remain like so many Bubbles, or Castles in the Air, It were folly to lay closer siege to them, which the next puff of wind will disperse, ru [...]at subductis tecta Columnis.

Howsoever, though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation, and of your discourse, yet you charge us, that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass, Transubstantiation, the seven Sacraments, Justification by inherent righteousness, P. 24. Merits, Invocation of Saints, Prayer for the Dead, with P [...]rgatory, and the Authority of the Pope. Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed, that we have renounced? Surely no; you deal too favourably with us. We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship, [Page] your half Communion, your Prayers in a tongue un known, &c. It seems you were loth to mention these things.

First, you say we have renounced your Sacrifice of the Mass. If the Sacr [...]fice Of the Sacrifice of the Mass. of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross, we attribute more unto it than your selves; we place our whole hope of Salvation in it. If you understand another Propitiatory Sacrifice, distinct from that (as this of the Mass seems to be, for confessedly the Priest is not the same, the Altar is not the same, the Temple is not the same) If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world, or of any new supplement to the merits of Christs Passion, you must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed, and to adhere to the Apostle; By one offering he hath persected for ever them that are sanctified. Heb. 10. 14

Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper (for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper, then his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous) nor that the Priest now [Page] doth more than Christ did then. We do readily acknowledge an Eucharistical sacrifice of prayers and praises; we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross; and in the language of holy Church, things commemorated are related as if they were then acted; As, Almighty In the Collects for these Feasts. God, who hast given us thy Son [as this day] to be born of a pure Virgin. And, whose praise the younger Innocents have [this day] set forth. And between the Ascension and Pentecost, which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven, we beseech thee leave us not comfortless, but send un [...] thy holy Spirit. We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father, we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it, we maintain an Application of its vertue: So here is a commemorative, impetrative, applicative sacrifice. Speak distinctly, and I cannot understand what you can desire more. To make it a suppletory sacrifice, to supply the defects of the onely true sacrifice of the Cross, I hope both you and I abhor.

The next crime objected by you to us is, that we have renounced Transubstantiation. Of Transubstantiation. [Page] It is true, we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed; you need not wonder at that. But if we had rejected it 400 years sooner, that had been a Miracle. It was not so soon hatched. To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author, were sussicient to prove him a counterfeit.

Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much Of 7. Sacraments. older. Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture, or Council, or Creed, or Father, or antient Author; first devised by Peter Lombard; first decreed by Anno 1439 1528 1547. Eugenius the fourth; first confirmed in the Provincial Council of Sen [...]s, and after in the Council of Trent. Either the word Sacrament is taken largely, and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament, then the onely sprinkling of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament, then there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven; Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign, instituted by Christ, [...]o convey or confirm invisible Grace to all such partakers thereof, as do not set a bar against themselves, according to the Analogy between [Page] the Sign and the thing signified. And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church, common [...]o all, or (in the words of our Church) generally necessary to Salvation, are but two, Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose wri [...]es not of in his Book de Sacrament is, because he did not know them. These we admit for genuine, and general Sacramen [...]s. Their S [...] cramental vertue we acknowledge.

The rest we retain more purely than your selves, though not under the Notion of such proper and general Sacraments. As Confirmation, Ordination, Matrimony, Penitence (though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction, nor of your ordinary Penitentiary tax) and lastly, the Visitation of, and Prayer for the sick, which onely is of perpetual necessity. The Unction prescribed by St. James, being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing, or recovering Jam. 5. 14. men out of sicknesses, then in use; Whereas your custome is clean contrary, never, or rarely to enoyl any man, untill he be past all hope [Page] of Recovery. The Ordinary and most received custome of preparing sick persons for another world in the Primitive Church, was Prayer and Absolution, or the benefit of the Keys, and the Viaticum of the Body and Blood of Christ, which we retain.

Concerning Justification, we believe Of Justification. that all good Christians have true inherent Justice, though not perfect, according to a perfection of degrees, as Gold is true Gold, though it be mixed with some dross. We believe that this inherent Justice and Sanctity, doth make them truly just and holy. But if the word Justification be taken in sensu forensi, for the acquittal of a man from former guilt, to make an offender just in the eye of the Law, as it is opposed to Condemnation, It is God that justifieth, Rom. 8. 33. who is he that condemneth? Then it is not our inherent righteousness that justifieth us in this sense, but the free Grace of God for the merits of Jesus Christ.

Next for Merits, we never doubted Of Merits. of the necessity of good Works, without which Faith is but a fiction. We are not so stupid to imagine that Christ [Page] did wash us from our sins, that we might wallow more securely in sin, but that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our life. We never doubted of the reward of good Works; Come ye blessed of my Father, &c. for I was hungry, and ye fed me. Nor whe [...]her this reward be due to them in Justice; Henceforth is laid 1 Tim. 4. 8 up for me a Crown of righteousness, which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day. Faithful promise makes due debt. This was all that the Antient Church did ever understand by the name of Merits. Let Petavius bear witness; Antiqui Patres omnes, & prae Disert. Eecles. lib. 2. c. 4. caeteris Augustinus, cumque i is consentiens Romana & Catholica piet as ag [...]oscit merita eo sensu, nimirum ut neque Dei gratiam ulla antecedant merita, & haec ipsa tum ex gratiâ, tum ex gratuit â Dei pollicitatione tot a pendeant. All the Antient Fathers, especially St. Austin, and the Roman and Catholique faith consenting with them, do acknowledge Merits in this sense, that no Merits go before the grace of God, and that these very Merits do depend wholly on grace, and on the free promise of [Page] God. Hold you to this, and we shall have no more difference about Merits; Do you exact more of us, than all the Fathers, or the Roman and Catholique piety doth acknowledge?

It is an easy thing for a wrangling Sophister to dispute of Merits in the Schools, or for a vain Orator to declaim of Merits out of the Pulpit: but when we come to lye upon our deathbeds, and present our selves at the last hour before the Tribunal of Christ, it is high time both for you and us to renounce our own merits, and to cast our selves naked into the Arms of our Saviour. That any works of ours, who are the best of us but unprofitable servants, which properly are not ours, but Gods own gifts; and if they were ours, are a just debt due unto him, setting aside Gods free promise, and gracious acceptation, should condignly by their own intrinsecal value deserve the joys of Heaven, to which they have no more proportion than they have to satisfie for the eternal torments of Hell, This is that which we have renounced, and which we never ought to admit.

[Page] If your Invocation of Saints were Of Invocation of Saints. not such as it is, to request of them Patronage and Protection, spiritual graces, and Celestial joyes, by their prayers, and by their merits (alas the wisest Virgins have oyl in their Lamps little enough for themselves.) Yet it is not necessary for two Reasons; First, no Saint doth love us so well as Christ, No Saint hath given us such assurance of his love, or done so much for us as Christ. No Saint is so willing, or able to help us as Christ. And secondly, we have no command from God to invocate them.

So much your own Authors do confess, and give this reason for it, Lest S. Clara [...]robl. 37. [...]x Horantio. the Gentiles being converted, should bel [...]eve that they were drawn back again to the worship of the Creature. But we have another command, Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will hear thee. We have no promise to be heard, when we do invocate them; But we have another promise, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, ye shall receive it. We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them, but rather the contrary; [Page] See thou do it not; I am thy fellowservant, worship God. We have no Rev. 22. 9. cer [...]ainty that they do hear our particular prayers, especially mental prayers, yea a thousand prayers poured out at one Instant in several parts of the world; We know what your men say of the g [...]ass of the Trinity, and of extraordinary Revelations: But these are bold conjectures without any certainty, and inconsistent the one with the other.

We do sometimes meet in Antient Authors, with the Intercesfion of Saints in General, which we also acknowledge; Or an oblique invocation of them (as you term it) that is a prayer directed to God, that he will hear the intercession of the Saints for us, which we do not condemn; Or a wish, or a Rhetorical Apostrophe, or perhaps something more in some single Antient Author: But for an Ordinary Invocation in particular necessities, and much more for publick Invocation in the Liturgies of the Church, we meet not with it for the first six hundred years, or thereabouts; All which time, and afterwards also, [Page] the common principles and tradition of the Church were against it. So far were they from obtruding it as a necessary fundamental Article of Christian Religion.

It is a common fault of your wri [...]ers, Of Prayer for the Dead, with Purgatory. alwaies to couple Prayer for the Dead, and Purgatory together, as if the one did necess [...]rily suppose, or imply the other; In whose steps you tread. Prayer for the Dead hath often proceeded upon mistaken grounds, often from true grounds, both inconsistent with your Purgatory. Many have held an Opinion, that though the souls were not extinguished at the time of their separation from the body, yet they did lye in secret re [...]eptacles, in a profound or dead sleep, untill the Resur [...]ection, doing nothing, suffering nothing in the mean time, but onely the delay of their glory. Others held that all must pass through the fire of Conflagration at the day of judgement. These opinions were inconsistent with your Purgatory, yet all these, upon these very grounds used Prayer for the Dead. Others, called the mer [...]ifull Doctors, held, that the very pains of Hell [Page] might be lessened by the prayer of the living: Such a prayer is that which we meet with in your own Missal, O King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithfull deceased, from the pains of Hell, from the deep Lake, from the mouth of the Lion (that is, the Devil) Tar [...]. that the bottomless pit of Hell do not swallow them up. A man may lawfully pray for that which is certain, if it be to come, but one cannot lawfully pray for that which is past. The souls which are in Purgatory (by your learning) are past the fear of Hell. Nor can this petition be any wai [...]s so wrested, as to become appliable to the hour of death. This prayer is not for the man, but for the soul separated; nor for the soul of a sick man, or a dying man, but for the souls of m [...]n actually deceased. Certainly this prayer must have reference, either to the sleeping of the souls, or to the pains of Hell; To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation. Neither are you ab [...]e to produce any one prayer publick or private, neither any one indulgence to that purpose, for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory, in all [Page] the Primitive times, or out of their own antient Missals or Records. Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us, as Articles of Faith, which the greatest part of the Catholick Church never received untill this day. Moreover, though the sins of the faithfull be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death, yet the publick promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come. Though their [...]ouls be alwaies in an estate of blessedness, [...]yet they want the consummation of this blessedness, extensively at least, untill the body be re-united unto the soul, (and as it is piously and probably believed) intensively also, that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God, as it shall have hereafter. Then what forbids Christians to pray for this publick acquittal, for this Consummation of blessedness? So we do pray, as often as we say, thy Kingdome come, or, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Our Church is yet plainer, That we with this our Brother, and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect Consummation [Page] of blessedness in thy everlasting King [...]me. This is far enough from your more gainfull prayers for the dead, to deliver them out of Purgatory.

Lastly, concerning the Authority of The Authority of the Pope. the Pope, It is he himself that hath renounced his lawfull Patriarchal Authority. And if we should offer it him at this day, he would disdain it. VVe have onely freed our selves from his tyrannical usurped Authority. But upon what terms, upon what grounds, how far, and with what intention, we have separated our selves, or rather have suffered our selves to be separated from the Church of Rome, you may find if you p [...]ease in the Treatise of Schism.

I cannot choose but wonder to see P. 27. you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case, who separated himself from you, as well as we, in the daies of a much better Bishop than we, and upon much weaker grounds than we, and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils; He liked not the swelling Title of Bishop of Bishops, nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrifie another [Page] into [...]edience; No more do we. He gave a primacy, or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter, as Principium unit at is; so do we: But he believed that every Bishop had an equall share of Episcopal power; so do we, He provided a part, as he thought fit in a Provincial Council for his own safety, and the saf [...]ty of his Flock; so did we. He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Collegue, and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a Letter from such as had been [...]ensured by the African Bishops. In Saint Cyprians sense, you are the Beam that have separated you selves from the body of the Sun; you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree; you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain. It is you, principally you, that have divided the unity of the Church.

You collect as a Corollary from our supposed principal of the right and sufficiency Whether humane Laws bind the Conscience. of private judgement, enlightned by the Spirit, that no humane Authority can bind the Conscience of another, or prescribe any thing unto it. I have formerly shewed you your [Page] gross mistake in the premises, Now if you please hear our sense of the Conclusion. Humane Lawes cannot be properly said to bind the Conscience, by the sole authority of the Law-giver; But partly by the equity of the Law, every one being obliged to advance that which conduceth to a publick good, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self; And especially by Divine Authority, which commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers, for conscience sake; not prudentially onely. The question is soon decided, just Lawes of lawfu [...]l Superiours, either Civil, or Ecclesiastical, have authority to bind the Conscience in themselves, but not from themselves.

How shall we believe that it is not you but God that represents these things P. 34. 69. The Author a little Enthusiastical. to his Majestie, that addresseth them to him by your mouth, that calleth him, that stretcheth out his hand to him, that hath set these things before his eyes, in Characters not to be defaced? What? That his Majestie should turn Roman Catholick? Are they like Belshazars Characters, and are you the onely Daniel that can read them? [Page] we do not see a Cloven Tongue upon your head, nor a Dove seem [...]ng to whisper in y [...]ur ear. Be not too consident, lest some take it to be a little taint of Anabaptism; perhaps you have had as strange phantasies as this heretofore, whilst you were of a contrary party.

Be it what it will be, you cannot offer it to his [...]ajestie with more confidence, or pre [...]end more intimacy with God, or to be more familiarly acquainted with his Cabinet Counsail, than a Scotch Presbyter; And yet your self would not value all his confidence at a Button. Wise men are not easily gained by empty shews o [...] pretences, that signifie nothing but the pretenders vanity, nor by Enthusiastical interpretation of occurrences. It is onely the weight of reason that depresseth the scale of their judgement, and maketh them to yield and submit unto it.

Howsoever it be God or you tha [...] represent these things to his Majestie, you tell us, that the end is to reduce him from those errours which he sucked in with his milk, which in th [...] [Page] dayes of Peace, and abundance, it had been disficult for him to discover, But now his Eyes and his eares do see and hear those Truths which mak [...] it evident to him, that God hath condemned them to reduce him to the Communion of the Church; wherein you promise him all manner of blessings. Who told you of his Majesties new illumination? or what have you seen to believe any such thing? when you da [...]e avo [...]ch such gross untruths of himself, to himself, how should he credit your private presumptions, which you tell him as a new Mercury dropped down from Heaven. The Romanists r [...]quire submission to their Church as necessary to salvation.

You tell us that it is necessary for every one to adhere to the true Church, which is the keeper of saving truth. That is true, but nothing to his Majesty who hath more right already in the Catholick Church than your self. You tell us moreover that this Church is the Roman Church. That is not tr [...]e; but suppose it were most true, as it is most false, what should a man be beter or more neerer to the knowledge of the Yet cannot agree an [...]ong themselves what this Roman Church is Truth, and consequently to his sal [...]ation, for his submission to the Roman Church; As long as you cannot agree among your selves either what this Roman [Page] Church is, or wh [...]t this infallible Judge is? One saith it is the Pope alone; Another saith no, but the Pope with his Conclave of Cardinals; A third will go no less than the Pope and a Provincial Council; A fourth will not be contented without the Pope and a General Council; A Fifth is for a general Council alone, [...]ither with or without the Pope; A Sixth party (and they are of no small esteeme amongst you here at this present) is for the Essential Church, that is, the Company of all faithfull people, Whose reception (say they) makes the true ratificationof the Acts of its representative Body. It were as good to have no infallible Judge, as not to know or agree who it is. Be not so censorious in condemning others, for not submitting to your Roman Church or infallible Judge, nor so positive to make this submission so absolutely necessary to salvation, untill you agree better what this Judge or Church is. It is five to one against you, that you your self miss the right Judge. The English Chu [...]ch not perished.

Whatsoever becom of your Church, you say Ours is perished by the proper Axioms of our own Reformation, and [Page] hath no more any [...] in the world, nor pretence to the Privilege of a Church. This is hard. He perisheth twice that peri sheth by his own weapons. Even so Iosephs brethren told Joseph himself, with Consciences gui [...]ty enough, one is not. This Gen. 42. 13. is that which the Court of Rome would be content to purchase at any rate. This hath been the end of all their Negotiations and Instructions, by all means to support the Presbyterian Faction in England against Episcopacy; Not that they loved them more than us, but that they feared us more than them.

There was an Israelitish Church, when Elias did not see it; but he must be as blind as Bartimaeus, that canno [...] see the E [...]glish Church. Wheresoever there is a lawfull English Pastor, and an English Flock, and a subordination of this [...]lock to that Pastor, there is a Branch of the true English Protestant Church. Do you make no difference between a Church persecuted, and a Church extinguished? Have patience and expect the Catastrophe. It may be all this while the Carpenters Son is making a Coffin for Juli [...]n. If it please God, we may yet see the Church o [...] [Page] England which is now frying in the fire, come out like Gold out of the Furnace more pure, and more full of l [...]ster. If not, his Will be done. Just art thou O Lord, and Righteous are all thy judgements. The Primitive Church was as glorious in the sight of God when they served him in Holes and Corners, in Cryptis, Sacellis, Conventiculis, Ecclesiolis, as when his worship was more splendidly performed in Basilicis and Cyriacis, in goodly Churches and magnificent Cathedralls.

Your Design stops not at the King of Great Britain, but extends it self to P. 42. all his subjects, yea to all Protestants whatsoever. I wonder why you stay there, and would not adde all the Eastern The Authors vain Dreams. Churches, and the great Turk himself, fince you might have done it with another penfull of Ink? and with as much pretence of Reason, to secure himself from the joint Forces of Christendom thus united by your means. A strong Pha [...]tasie will discover Armies, and Navies in the Clouds, men and Horses, and Chariots in the fire, and hear Articulate Dictates from the Bells. This is is not to write wakeing, but dreaming.

[Page] Yet you make it an easy worke; to effect which, there needs no Disputation, but only to behold the Hereticall Genius of our Reformation, which is sufficiently condemned by it self, if men P. 43. 44. will onely take the pains to compare the Fundamentall Principles thereof with the Consequences. Great Houses and Forts are builded at an easy charge in Paper. When you have consulted with your A [...]chitects, and Enginiers, you will find it to be a work of more difficu [...]ty. And your Adversa [...]ies Resolution may teach you, to your cost, what it is to promise to your self su [...]h an easy Conquest before the Fight, and let you see that those golden Mountains which you phantasied have no subsistance but in your Brain, and send you home to seek that selfConviction there, which you sought to fasten upon others. When you are able to prove your Universal Monarchy, your new Cannon of Faith, your new Treasury of the Church, your new Roman Purgatory, whereof the Pope keeps the Keyes, your Image worship, your Common-Praiers in [...] toung unknown, your deteining of the [Page] Cup from the Laity in the publike Administration of the Sacrament, and the rest os your new C [...]eed, out of the four first General Councils, or the Universal Tradition of the Church in those daies, either as principles or Fundamental Truths, (which you affirm) or so much as ordinary points of Faith, (which we deny) we will yield our selves to be guilty both of Contradiction and Schism. Untill you are able to make these Innovations good, it were best for you to be silent, and leave your vaporing. Desparate undertakings do easily forseit a mans Reputation.

Now are we come to the most specious piece of your whole Epistle, P. 47. &c. His vainer Proposition of a cons [...] quence. that is, the Motion or proposition of a Conference, by Authority of the King of France, at the instance of the King of great Britain, before the Arch-Bishop of Paris, and his Coadjutor. between some of your Roman Catholike Doctors, and the Ministers of the Reformed Church at Paris, whom you do deservedly commend [...]or their sufficiency and Zeal. You further suppose that the Ministers of the Reformed [Page] Church will accept of such a Disputation, or by their Tergiversation betray the weakness of their Cause; And you conclude confidently beyond [...]upposition, that they will be con [...]uted and convicted, and that their conversion or conviction will afford sufficient ground to the King of Great Britain, to embrace the Communion of the Roman Catholike Church; And that his conversion will reduce all conscientious Protestants to Unity and due obedience.

I will contract your larger Palm to a Fist. If the King of Great Britain desire a solemn Conference, the King of France will enjoyn it; If he enjoyn it, the Ministers will accept it; It they do accept, they are sure to be convicted; If they be convicted, the King of Great Britain will change his Religion; If he [...] his Religion, all conscientious P [...]nts will be reduced; And all this [...] be done, not by the old way of D [...]ting, No, take heed of that, the burnt Child dreads the fire; But by a proper new way of refuting old Protestant Principles [Page] by new Independent Practises. Why was this Remedy found out no sooner? This might have eased the Cardinals in their Consultations about propagating the Faith; This might have saved Cardinal Allen all his Machiavillian Instructions to his English Emissaries; This may in a short time [...]vrne the Inquisitors out of their employment for want of an Object, and not leave such a thing as Hereticall pravity in the World. How must men praise your Fortune, and applaud your Invention? But stay, the second thoughts are wiser; what is this Chain supposed to be of Adamant, should prove a rope of Sand? And so it is; I have seen a Sorites disgraced, and hissed out of the Schools, for drawing but one lame leg after it, this is foundred of all four, from the begining to the end there is nothing in it but future Contingents, which are known only to God, no [...] one Grain of necessary Truth. The King of England desires no such Conference.

First Sir, be not angry if a man take away the subject of your whole discourse; It is but your officiousness, [Page] the King desires no such Con [...]erence. Let them desire Conferences who waver in their Faith. All these blustering Stormes have radicated him deeper in his Religion. And chiefly that which you make the chiefest motive to his Apostating, the Martirdom of his Royall Father, and an hereditary love to that Church which he hath [...] with his Blood.

Secondly, if his Majesty should incline to such a Conference, do you If he should he had neither Reason nor need to desert his English Clergy. think he would desert the English Clergy, who have forsaken their Country, their Friends, their Estates, out of their Conscience, out of their d [...]ty to God and their Soveraign; who understand the constitution o [...] the English Church much better than your self, or any Forrainers how susficent soever, and cast himsel [...] wholy upon Strangers, whose Reformation (you say) is different from that of England, in the points of Episcopacy, Liturgy, and the Ceremonies of the Church? Say, what was the Reason of this gross Omission? were you afraid of that Image of the Church (as you call it in a sleighting [Page] manner) which they retained? O [...] did you not think any of the English Nation worthy to bear your Books at a Conference? It hath been otherwise heretofore, and you will find it otherwise now, when you come to prove it. I know not whether England hath been more fortunate or unfortunate since the Reformation, in breeding as many able P [...]lemique Writers on both sides, as any Nation in Europe; Stapleton, Harding, Parsons, Sanders, Reynolds, Bishop &c. for the Roman Church. Jewell, Andrews, Abbot, Lawd, White, Field, Montague, Reynolds, Whitaker &c. for the English Church; (I forbear to name those that are living) and many mo e who come not short of these, if they had pleased to communicate their Talents to the World. This is such a c [...]ntumely that [...] upon the Nation, and you must be contented to be told of it.

Thirdly, how are you sure that the Such a Conference not [...]t to be granted by [...]he King of France. King of France and his Counsell would give way to such a publike Conference? Private Insinuations use to prevail much when a man may Lavere & tack [Page] to and again to compass his Ends. Au [...]hority or the Sword may put an end [...]o Controversies: But publike Conferences for the most part do but start new Q [...]estions, and revive old forgotten Animosities. What were the Donatists the better for the Collation at Carthage? The Mind of a man is generous, and where it looks for Opposition, it fortifies it self against it. Urban the Eighth was the wisest Pope you have had of late, who by his Moderation and Curtesie cooled much of that Heat, which the violence of his Predecessors had raised against the Court of Rome. The mild bea [...]es of the Sun were more prevalent, than the blustring Blasts of the North Wind. Multiplying of Words more commonly engenders strite, than peace.

Fourthly, upon what Grounds are you Nor to be accepted by the Min sters of the Reformed Church. so confident, that the Ministers of the Reformed Church would admit of such a publike Disputation upon those terms which you propose? That is, [...]o accept of the Arch-Bishop of Paris and his Coadjutor, two persons interessed, for competent Judges. I am as confident [Page] of the contrary, that they would rather chuse to suffer, than wrong their Cause so much; Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora. It were a readier way for them, and but the same in effect to subscribe to a blank paper, and to submit without Disputation.

Fifthly, suppose (all this notwithstanding) such a Conference should Nor could any such Success be expected from it. hold, what reason have you to promise to your self such success as to obtain so easy a Victory? You have had Conferences and Conferences again at Poisye, and other places, and gained by them just as much as you might put in your eye and see never the worse. When Conferences are onely made use of as Pageants, to grace the Introduction of some new Proselite, and to preserve his Reputation from the aspersion of Desultorious Levity, they seem much more efficatious than they are. As they know well enough who are privie to what is acted in the withdrawing Room. The time was when you have been as confident in a contrary Opinion, that such a Free Conference [Page] would have sealed the Walls of Rome, and levelled the Popes Triple Crown.

Sixthly, whether the Ministers The 'Authors importinence and saucinese with the King. [...]hould accept of such a partial unequall Conference or not, or whatsoever should be the succes thereof, you trespas too boldly upon his Majesties patience, to dictate to him so pragmatically, so Magisterially, what he should do, or would do, in such a case, which is never like to be. Doth his Fathers constancy en ourage you to believe, that he is a Reed shaken with the Wind; Qui pauca considerat, sacile pronunciat, He that weighs no more Circumstances or Occurrances than serve for the advancement of his Design, pronounceth sentence easily, but temerariously, and sor the most part unsoundly. When such a thing as you dream of should happen, it were good manners in you to leave his Majesty to his Christian Liberty. But to trouble your self and others about the Moons shining in the water, so unseas [...]nably, so impertinently, or with what will come to p [...]ss when the sky falls, is unbeseeming [Page] the Counseller of a King.

Lastly, consider how your Pen doth His Pen over run [...] his Wit. over-run your Reason, and over-reach all grounds of probability, to ascribe unto his Majesties chang such an infallible I [...]fluence upon all Protestants, as to reduce them to the Roman Communion, not onely his own subjects, but Foreiners. His blessed Fathers example had not so much influence upon the Scots his Native Subjects. He was no Changling indeed, neither to the right hand nor to the left. Henry the Fourth, his Grandfather, did turn indeed to the Roman Church. Had his change any such influence upon the Protestant party in France? I know no followers such a change would gain him, but I foresee cleerly how many Hearts it would lose him. Certainly Sir, if you would do a meritorious piece of service to his greatest Adversaries, you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly, than to see you successfull in this undertaking. I have done with your Proposi [...]ion. He that compares it and your Demonstration together, will easily judge them to be twins, at the first sight.

[Page] As a Motive to his Majtsties Conversion, you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation, and desire that it may appeare un to the World under his Royal name,

I meddle not with your Treatise, His improper choise of a Pation for his Treatise. some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough. But how can h s Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his judgement against his Conscience, so contrary to the doctrin of the Church of England, not onely [...]nce the Reformation, but before? About the year seven hundred, The Body of Christ wherein he suffered, Serm. S [...]xon in [...] Paschat. and his Body Conseorated in the Host, differ much. The Body wherein he suffered was born of the Virgin, consisting of flesh and bones, and humane members; his Spiritual body, which we call the Host, [...]onsists of many Grains, without blood, bones, or human Members, wherefore nothing is to be under stood there Corporally, but all Spiritually. Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Falth, nor a point of Faith in those daies.

You charge the Protestants in divers [Page] places, That they have neither Church nor Faith, but have lost both. P. 62. And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it: But P. 222. your Demonstration is a meer Parologism. You multiply your Terms, you His un [...]kilfulnes, or his unfortunate [...]ess in his Demonstrations. confound your terms, you chang and alter your Terms, contrary to the rules of right arguing, and vainly beat the air, concluding nothing which you ought to prove, nothing which your Adversary will deny. You would prove that Protestants have no Church. That you never attempt; B [...]t you do attempt to prove (how pittifull God knowes) that they are not the onely Church, that is, the one, Holy Catholique Church. This they did never affirm, they did never think. It susficeth them to be a part of that Universall Church; more pure, more Orthodox, more Catholique than the Roman, alwaies professing Christ visibly, never lurking invisibly in another Communion, which is another of your mistakes. I should advise you to promise us no more evident Demonstrations; either your skill, or your luck is so extremly bad.

[Page] In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority, and Revelation, and deposited with the Church. All that is true; But that which you add, that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church; By this Church understanding the Church of this Age, and (which is yet worse) the Church of one place, and (which is worst of all) the Bishop of that one Church, is most false.

And so is that which you add, that the faith of Protestants is founded upon The great advantage of the Protestant above the Roman Catholick in the choice of his foundation. their own reasonings, which makes so many differences among them. Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith; It cannot be the foundation of Faith. Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith, both with you and us, but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason. We have this Advantage of you, that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture, yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and neerer than our adherence to our particular [Page] error, that full, and free, and universal assent which we give to holy Scripture, and to all things therein conteined, is an implicite Condemnation and retractation of our particular error, which we hold unwittingly, and unwillingly against Scripture. But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties, whether this man be Pope or not, whether this Pope be Judge or not, whether this Judge be infallible or not, and if infallible, wherein, and how far; the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain. The stricter the adherence is to a false, uncertain, or fallible rule, the more dangerous is the error. So our right foundation purgeth away our error in superstruction; And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths, and doubles the guilt of your errors.

I will (by your leave) requite your demonstration, and turn the mouths of your own Cano [...]s against your self.

That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed, the Apostolical [Page] Succession, the Apostolical Regiment, and the Apostolical Communion, is no Apostolical, Orthodox, or Catholick Church.

But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolical Creed, the Apostolical Succession, the Apostolical Regiment, and the Apostolical Communion.

Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolical Orthodox, or Catholick Church.

They have changed the Apostolical Creed, by making a new Creed, wherein are many things inserted, that hold no Analogie with the old Apostles Creed; The Apostolical Succession, by ingrossing the whole succession to Rome, and making all other Bishops to be but the Popes Vicars, and Substitutes, as to their Jurisdiction; The Apostolical Regiment by erecting a visible and Universal Monarchy in the Church; And lastly the Apostolical Communion, by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholick Apostolick Church.

Again, That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority, but into Humane infallibility, [Page] or the Infallibilitie of the present Church, without knowing, or according, what that present Church is, whether the Virtual, or the representative, or the essential Church, or a body compounded of some of these, hath no true faith.

But the Church of Rome resolves its Faith, not into divine Revelation and Authority, but into the Infallibility of the present Church, not knowing, or not according, what that present Church is, whether the Virtual Church (that is the Pope,) or the Representative Church (that is a general Council) or the Essential Church, (that is the Church of B [...]lievers diffused over the world,) or a body compounded of some of these, (that is the Pope, and a General or Provincial Council.)

Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith. The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope, that this infallibility is fixed to his Chair. But of all other Judgements, that is most fallible and uncertain; for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papal Election, we have great reason to doubt, that [Page] that Chàir hath not been filled by a right Pope these last hundred years. These are no other but your own Mediums; Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations.

In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholick you promise him restitution P. 68. His Majesties Apostacy is not the way to his restitution. to his Kingdoms.

Great undertakers are seldom good performers; when you are making your Proselytes, you promise them golden Mountains, but when the work is done, you deal with them, as he did with his Saint, who promised a Candle as big as his Mast, and offered one no bigger than his finger. Do you however think it reason, that any man should change his Religion for temporal respects, though it were for a Kingdom? Jeroboam did so, you may remember what was the success of it.

You propose this as the readiest means to restore him. Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs, look upon it as the readiest way to ruin his hopes, by the alienation of his friends, by the confirmation of his foes, and in some sort the justification [Page] of their former feigned fears. Do you think all Roman Catholick Princes desire this change as earnestly as your self? Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests. A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith. The Sword distingu [...]sheth not between Protestants and Papists.

But what is the ground of this your great Confidence? no less than Scripture. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness of it, and all other things shall be added unto you. You say the word of God deceives no man. True, but you may deteive your self out of the word of God. The Conclusion alwaies follows the weaker part, such as this, are commonly your mistaken grounds, when they come to be examined. The text saith, Seek the kingdom of God, You would have his Majesty dese [...]t the kingdom of God; The promise is of all things necessary or convenient, you will be your own Carver, and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions. The promise is made (as all tempral promises [Page] are,) with an implicite exception of the Cross, un [...]ess God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us; He that denies us gold, and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold, that denies a temporal 1 [...] ▪ 1. 7. Kingdom to give an eternal, doth not wrong us. T [...]s was out of your head.

That the Scots had an antienter Obligation P. 70. The obligation of the Scots to his Maj [...]sty the greatest of any Subjects in the known world. to fidelity towards his Majesty, and that Royal Family than the English, is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of, I think I may safely adde, than any Nation in Europe, or in t [...]e known world to their Prince, his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line, that hath swayed the Scepter of that Kingdom successively. The more the pitty that a few treacherous Shebas, and a pack of bawling seditious Orators, under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion, to the extreme scandal of all honest professors, should be able to overturn such an antient fabrick, and radicated succession of Kingly Government.

But take heed Sir, how you beleeve that any ingagement of the Presbyterian Their Treachery. [Page] faction in Scotland, proceeded either from conscience, or gratitude, or fidelity, or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne. No, no, their hearts were double, their treaties on their parts were meer treacheries from the beginning. I mean not any of those many loyal patriots, that never bowed their knees to Baalberith the God of the Covenant, in that Nation; Nor yet any of those serious The loyal Scots excepted. converts, that no sooner discove [...]ed the leger de main of a company of canting impostors, but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition, with the hazard of their own lives and estates; Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber, by some stronger spels of disciplinarian charmers, but did yet later open their eyes, and come in to do their duties, at the sixth or ninth hour. All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties, And let their memories be daily more and more blessed. But I mean the obstinate Ring-leaders, [Page] and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes, and the The disloyal Sco [...]s deciphered. setters up of that mishapen Idol. It is from these I say, that no help or hope could in reason be expected. They who sold the Father, and such a Father, were not likely to proove loyal to the Son; They who hanged up one of the most antient Gentlemen in Europe, the gallant Marqu [...]ss of Montrose, being then their lawful Vice-roy, like a dog in such base and barbarous manner, together with his Ma [...]esties Commission, to the publike dishonour of their King, in the chief City of that Kingdom, in a time of Treaty; They who purged the Army, over and over, as loth on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty, or loyalty in it, who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them; They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Souldiery, lest he should grow too popular; They who after they had proclamed to the world his Title and right to that Crown, yet sought to have him [Page] excluded from the benefit of it, and from the execution of his Kingly Office, until he should abjure his Religion, cast dirt upon his Parents, alienate his loyal subjects, and ratifie the usurpations of his Rebels; These, (these I say,) were most unlikely persons to be his restorers. Was it ever heard before, that subjects acknowledged a Soveraign, and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights, until he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes? Others may be more severe in their judgements, but I for my part No hope from that party until they [...]epent. could be well contented, that God would give them the Honour to be the repayrers of the breach, who have been the makers of the breach; to be the restorers of Monarchy, who have been the ruiners of Monarchy; to be the re-establishers of peace, who have been the chiefest Catalines and promoters of VVar. But that can never be whilst they justifie their former rebellious practises, and after they have eaten and devoured, wipe their mouths, and say what have we done? until they acknowledge their former errors; [Page] Repentance onely is able to knit the broken bone; why should they be more afraid to confess their faults, and shame the Devil, than to commit them?

Yet I cannot say with you that P. 73. God must not be limited to time or means of deliverance. this hath robbed his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery. VVe may not limit God to any time, who commonly with-holds his h [...]lp until the Bricks be doubled, until the edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servant, that the glory of the work may wholy redound to himself. VVe may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes. So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court, God did forget him; when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph, then God remembred him. God hath nobler wayes of restitution than by Battails, and bloudshed, that is, by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure, and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness.

I confess, his Majesties resolution P. 74. 75. His Majesties escape ou [...] of England almost miraculous, was great, so was his prudence; [Page] that neither fear (which useth to betray the succours of the soul,) nor any indiscreet Action, or word, or gesture, in so long a time should either discover him, or render him suspected. VVhen I consider that the Heir of a Crown, in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding, whom all mens eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun, of no common features or physiognomy, at such time when he was not onely believed, but known to be among them, when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spys to search him, and every Port and Inne full of Officers to apprehend him, I say that he should travail at such a time, so long, so far, so freely, in the sight of the Sun, exposed to the view of all petsons, without either discovery, or suspition, seems little less than a miracle. That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness, as the [...]yes of the Sodomites, that they could not find Lots door, or the Syrian Souldiers, that were sent to apprehend Elisha. This strange escape, and that former out [Page] of Scotland, where his condition was not much better, nor his person much And seems to presage that God hath something to do with him. safer, do seem strangely to presage, that God hath yet some great work to be done by him in his own due time.

You attribute this rare deliverance, and the hopes of his conversion, in part P. 76. Prayers and tears the [...] A [...]ms of women; to the prayers and tears of his Mother; prayers and tears were the onely proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians; more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex; but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother, for the Son of her desires, are most powerful. As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica, Especially of Mothers; for St. Austine her Son; fieri non p [...]tuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret, It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed. God sees her tears, and hears her prayers, and will grant her request, if not according to her will and desire, (we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudicial to our selves and our friends) yet ad utilit atem, to his Majesties greater advantage, [Page] which is much better: She wisheth him a good Catholick, and God will preserve him a good Catholick as he is. We do not doubt but the prayers Yet not so powerful as his Fathers intercession now in Heaven. P. 77. The Authors instance of Henry the great not pertinent. of his Father (who now follows the Lamb in his whi [...]es) for his perseverance, will be more effectual with God, than the prayers of his Mother for his change.

Your instance of his Majesties Grandfather, your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite, or fit for your purpose. He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people, you would perswade his Majesty to turn from his people, and to cast away his possibilities of restitution, that is, to cut off a natural leg, and take one of wood. Plu [...]rch.

To the tears of his Mother you adde P. 77. 78. The just commendation of K. Charls. the blood of his Father, whom you justly stile happy, and say most truly of him, that he preferred the Catholick Faith before his Crown, his liberty, his life, and whatsoever was most dear unto him. This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God, not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of [Page] his life to unite him to the Roman Catholick Church, but openly during his whole Reign, all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholick Church. Yet you are so extremely It is gross imp [...] dence to feign that he dyed a Roman Catholick. partial to your seif that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholick Church, as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world. An old pious fraud, or artifice of yours, learned from Machiavel, to gain credit to your Religion by all means, either true or false; but contrary to his own profession at his death, contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murther. Upon a vain presumption, that, Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla pareret filium. And because you are not able to produce one living witness, you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted, do belong invisibly to the Church; Yea and before they were born also. But St. Austine neither said nor thought, that after they are converted they make no visible profession, or profess the [Page] contrary to that which they beleeve. Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church, not with borrowed but with stollen Saints, VVhom all the world know to have been none of yours. VVhat Faith he professed living, he confirmed dying; In the Communion of the Church of England he lived, and in that Communion at his death he commended his soul into the hands of God his Saviour. That which The Authors confession confutes his demonstration, that Protestants have no faith. you have confessed here concerning King Charls, will spoil your former demonstration, that the Protestants have neither Church nor Faith.

But you confess no more in particular here, than I have heard some of your famous Roman Doctors in this City acknowledge to be true in general; And no more than that which the Bishop of Chalcedon (a man that cannot be suspected of partiality on our side,) hath affirmed and published in two of his Books to the world in Print; That Protestantibus credentibus, &c. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church, if they endeavour to l [...]arn the truth, and are not able to [Page] attain unto it, but hold it implicitely in the preparation of their minds, and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it (which all good Protestants and all good Christians are) they neither want Church, nor Faith, nor Salvation. Mark these words well. They have neither Church, nor Faith, say you; If they be thus qualified (as they all are) they want neither Church, nor Faith, nor Salvation, saith he.

Lastly, Sir, to let us see, that your His intelligence as good in Heaven [...] upon Earth. intelligence is as good in Heaven as it is upon Earth, and that you know both who are there, and what they do, you tell us, That the Crown and Conquest, which his late Majestie gained by his sufferings, was pro [...]ured by the intercession of his Grandmother Queen Mary. We should be the apter to believe this, if you were able to make it appear, that all the Saints in Heaven do know all the particular necessities of all their posterity upon Earth. St. Austin makes the matter much more doubtfull than you, that's the least of his Assertion, or rather to be plainly false; fa [...]endum Aug. de [...] ra pro mort [...]s. c. 15. est nescire quidem [...]ortuos quid [Page] hic agatur. But with presumptions you did begin your Dedication, and with presumptions you end it. In the mean time, till you can make that appear, we observe, that neither Queen Maries constancy in the Roman Catholick No faith sufficient armour against bloody attempts. Faith, nor Henry the Fourths change to the Roman Catholick Faith, could save them from a bloody end. Then by what warrant do you impute King Charles his sufferings to his errour in Religion? Be your own Judge.

Heu quanta de spe decidimus! Alas! The Author much fall'n from his former charity in seeking the reunion of Christendome. from what hopes are we fall'n! Pardon our errour, that we have mistaken you so long. You have heretofore pretended your self to be a moderate person, and one that seriously endeavoured the reuniting of Christendome by a fair Accommodation. The widest wounds are closed up in time, and strange Plants by Inoculation are incorporated together and made one; And is there no way to close up the wounds of the Church, and to unite the disagreeing members of the same mystical body? Why were Caleb and Joshua onely admitted into the Land of promise, whilst [Page] the carkasses of the rest perished in the VVilderness, but onely because they had been Peace-makers in a time of Schism? VVell fare our learned and ingenuous Country-man St. Clara, who is altogether as perspicacious as your self, but much more charitable. You tell us to our grief, that there is no accommodation to be expected; that Cardinal P. 204. Richelieu was too good a Christian, and too good a Catholique, to have any such thought; that the one Religion is true, the other false, and that there is no society between light and darkness. This is plain dealing, to tell us what we must trust to. No Peace is to be expected from you, unless we will come unto you upon our knees, with the words of the Prodigal Child in our mouths, Father forgive us, we have sinned against Heaven, and against thee. Is not this rare Courtesie? If we will submit to your will in all things, you will have no longer difference with us. So we might come to shake a worse Church by the hand, than that which we were separated from.

If you could be contented to wave [Page] your last four hundred years determinations, The way to a gener [...]l Accommodation. or if you liked them for your selves, yet not to obtrude them upon other Churches; If you could rest satisfied with your old Patriarchal power, and your Principium unit at is, or Primacy of Order, much good might be expected from free Councils, and Conferences from moderate persons; And we might yet live in Hope to see an Union, if not in all Opinions, yet in Charity, and all necessary points of saving truth, between all Christians; to see the Eastern and Western Chur [...]hes joyn hand in hand, and sing, Ecce quàm bonum & quam jucundum est habitare fratres in unum; Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. But whilst you impose upon us daily new Articles of Faith, and urge rigidly, what you have unadvisedly determined, we dare not sacrifice Truth to Peace, nor be separated from the Gospel, to be joyned to the Roman Church; Yet in the point of our separation, and in all things which concern either doctrine or discipline, we profess all due obedience [Page] and submission to the judgement and definitions of the truly Catholique Church; Lamenting with all our hearts the present condition of Christendome, which renders an Oecumenical Council, if not impossible (mens judgements may be had, where their persons cannot) yet very difficult, wishing one, as general as might be, and (untill God send such an Opportunity) endeavouring to conform our selves in all things, both in Credendis, & Agendis, to whatsoever is uniform in the belief or practice, in the doctrine or discipline of the Universal Church; And lastly, holding an Actual Communion with all the divided parts of the Christian world, in most things, & in voto, according to our desires, in all things.

FINIS.

Information about this book

Title statement

The victory of truth for the peace of the Church to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick faith / by Monsieur de la Militiere, counsellour in ordinary to the King of France ; with an answer thereunto, written by the right reverend John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry.

La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665.

Edition statement

1653

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Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2003-09 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A29086

ID [STC]

Wing B4097A

ID [STC]

ESTC R34379

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

14346715

ID [OCLC]

ocm 14346715

ID [VID]

102273

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Early English books online.

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A29086)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 102273)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1564:22)

Source

— The victory of truth for the peace of the Church to the king of Great Britain to invite him to embrace the Roman-Catholick faith / by Monsieur de la Militiere, counsellour in ordinary to the King of France ; with an answer thereunto, written by the right reverend John Bramhall, D.D. and Lord Bishop of London-Derry., La Milletière, Théophile Brachet, sieur de, ca. 1596-1665., Bramhall, John, 1594-1663..

Extent

[2], 69, [3], 131 p.

Printed at the Hague,. [Hague] :: 1653.. ("An answer to Monsieur de la Militiere his impertinent dedication of his imaginary triumph," has special t.p. and separate pagination.) (Imperfect: tightly bound with loss of print.) (Reproduction of original in the Union Theological Seminary Library, New York.)

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