WHat reception My Answer to the Nu­bes Testium found among the Members of the Church of England, I am nei­ther so curious, nor so vain to in­quire, the entertainment it met with among the Romish Party doth very fully discover that some people were very much galled, and very much in­censed at it; for no sooner was it published in Print, than I was told that the Clouds were gathering, and that I should find them break in Thunder and Light­ning upon me: I will not trouble the World with the Stories and the Messages I had sent me about it; but will only assure the Reader, that if big words, and great threatnings could have done any good upon me, I had certainly been spoil'd for ever venturing upon Contro­versy again, or even upon defending what I had already written therein.

But upon second thoughts I suppose it was, that my [Page 2] Adversaries found it would be their best way to treat me as a Writer, and that it must be their care to have some sort of an Answer made to those severe things I had charged the Representer and the Jesuit with.

The Jesuit Sabran was the first that took the Field against me, and reason good; since he had but a small Postscript of half a page to encounter; and therefore after three Weeks time from the publishing of the Post­script at the end of my Answer to the Nubes Testium, out comes his Letter of a Sheet and a half to a Protestant Lord in defence of the Passage in his Printed Sermon, which I had reflected on.

Assoon as I saw his Letter, I could not but smile to see them begin at the wrong end of my Book to answer it, and to see them withal undertake the Defence of that thing, in which they were opposed not only by us Pro­testants, but by all the Men of Learning in their own Church: and therefore I needed not to be much con­cerned, since I perceived I was engaged with an Adver­sary whom I might answer as fast as I could write, who, instead of acquitting himself fairly of the first and single charge against him, had blundered ignorantly into several other mistakes; which I resolved to call him to account for, and therefore immediately I wrote him an Answer, and got it dispatcht so suddenly at the Press, that there was but one day betwixt the publishing of his Letter to the Protestant Lord, and my Letter to the Jesuit himself in Answer to it.

Whether the suddenness of my Reply, or the disco­vering to the World of his further mistakes, was the reason of his passionate Reply, I cannot tell; however I wondered to see a Jesuit who wrote with so much tem­per in the first Letter, and resolved not to be provoked into insulting or scurrilous Language, quite forget him­self in the Reply he made to my first Letter; and in this [Page 3]Reply which he published within less than a Week after his so solemn professions unto the contrary to the Prote­stant Lord, to fall into such indecent heats and such scurri­lous language: but I can assure him, I was not moved by it, and did as little mind as I did little deserve such impertinent language from him: All my concern was to send him a second Letter, and to let him know that I was resolved to make his Ignorance as apparent to the World, as his Sermon had been, and to expose his confident mistakes and his bold untruths about the four­teenth and eighteenth as well as the thirty fifth Sermons of St. Austin de Sanctis.

I did in two days dispatch and print, and the next day sent him my second Letter; to which I have not since received one word of Answer, and I suppose I ne­ver shall; and I think that Jesuit is by this time con­vinc'd that it had been better for him to have sat down at first quietly under the reproof given him in the Post­script to the Answer to the Nubes Testium: since he hath by his vain attempt to vindicate himself, betrayed his Ignorance and his weakness so very much to the World, and his Answerer hath not omitted (in the second Letter especially, wherein he had more room) to expose and publish it to the World, and to convince all Readers what sort of Adversaries we deal with at present.

I thought my self obliged to make such a discovery of this Jesuit to the World, because I did understand while I was engaged with him, that he does appear wonder­fully great in his own Eyes, and was as desirous of be­ing thought a very terrible Jesuit to the People in Wales, when he went thither, not long since, filled with the design and pleasing thoughts of bringing in the Welsh Nation by shoals into the Bosom of the Bishop of Rome's Church: but I question not but before this time that Country hath another very different Idea of him and [Page 4]his Learning; and that they now see that his Ignorance is altogether as great, as the Confidence with which he appeared and made such blustering among them.

While I was thus engaged with Sabran the Jesuit, the Re­presenter, or the Compiler of the Nubes Testium (for he that wrote Popery misrepresented and represented, is the same Person that stole the Nubes Testium out of Natalis Alex­andre) had got something ready against me, and was willing to be the Jesuit's Second: that they might there­fore divert me from medling any further with the Jesuit, who, they could not but see, had grievously overshot himself, and yet if possible, was to make some sort of a creditable retreat; the same day that the Jesuit pub­lished his Reply to my first Letter, the Representer also appeared in Print against me, but in Masquerade, lest it should look a little ungenerous, to fall two of them, and two such men of wonderful prowess and skill, at the same instant upon one weak and unskilful Writer, if you will believe the Representer: and as if he had been Secretary to a Committee of Dissenters, and had Or­ders to draw up Articles of Popery against me, he pub­lishes from his Masters a Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England, wherein I am com­plained of for no fewer than sixteen Articles of Popery to be found in my Answer to the Compiler of the Nubes Testium.

But I did no sooner see this pretended Letter from a Dissenter, than I was satisfied, not only of the design, but of the Author of it, and to spoil the design I imme­diately set to answering the Jesuit, that so I might put an effectual end to the Controversie with him, and there­by be wholly at leisure to attend my new Adversary in disguise. I was not deceived in my intentions, for af­ter the sending him my second Letter, I have not heard one word of the Jesuit since, and now after above six [Page 5]Weeks expectations I think I may have leave to believe that I have done his business, and have wholly rid my hands of the Jesuit.

And lest the Representer should think I should despise him, because I might not know him in his Dissenter's Masque, and that I should disdain to vindicate my self against such a false and groundless Charge, I was careful in an Advertisement at the End of my Second Letter which I was sending to his Friend the Jesuit, to let him and the World understand that I knew him notwith­standing his Disguise, and that I intended to give him a speedy Answer to that pitiful cheat.

I was as good as my word, and did shortly after pub­lish my Vindication against the Popish-Dissenter's Letter, wherein I shewed the great Knavery, the intolerable disingenuity and frequent Calumnies and Falsifications up and down that Letter, by which I am satisfied that I did sufficiently acquit my self, and that if the Repre­senter himself be not, yet the World is convinced, that he ought to be ashamed of such mean and contemptible projects of defaming an Adversary; that he had much better never to have medled with such a knavish Prank, as that pretended Letter was, since this piece of knavery had the fate that attends all such unlawful and disin­genuous actions, to do the Representer and his Cause, now it is displayed, ten times more mischief, than it e­ver could have done him service, had it continued (as he doubtless hoped it would) concealed; for I can as­sure the Representer that I do not speak my own Opini­on, but that of abundance of people who are competent Judges of these things, and of a great many worthy and Honourable Persons too, if I tell him, that he hath by that dissembling Practice quite sunk his Reputation, and is now and will be looked upon as a Person of no Honesty, nor Conscience: and this I hope will at last convince the [Page 6] Representer himself, that the publishing of that pretended Letter hath cost him very dear, hath forfeited that thing which every good and honest man values next to his Life.

I thought it not improper to give this State of the Controversie betwixt me and the Romish Jesuit and Re­presenter in relation to that Answer to the Nubes Testi­um, which hath been the Cause of all the dispute be­twixt us, since it was published unto the World, espe­cially since those two Persons will be so much concerned in this Book, which I am now writing: and it cannot be ungrateful to the Reader to know the Characters of them, particularly of the Representer, who hath made so much noise in the World, and is the Person against whom this Answer of mine is chiefly aimed.

For within some time after the publishing of his Let­ter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England against me, he was pleased to lay aside his Fanatical Masque, and to publish to the World in his own Name a formal Vindication of his Nubes Testium with the pom­pous Title of The Primitive Fathers no Protestants, or a Vindication of Nubes Testium from the Cavils of the Answerer.

Assoon as his Book was brought to my hands, and I had cast my Eye on his Title-page, I began to suspect that now he had stolen from his own dear self, and that we should now be served up again with his 11^th, 12^th, 13^th, and 14^th Chapters of his Second Part of a Papist Mis­represented and Represented, which is no new thing with him; but upon the Perusal of his Book, I found that this Title was only for Ornament sake, to help his Printer in the Sale of them, or to use one of his own dearly beloved Elegancies, that this Title is much like his Bartholomew-Fair-Narrative at the outside of a Booth, of which he gives such a Critical Account in the first [Page 7]page of his Preface to his Third Part of Popery Misrepresent­ed and Represented, as would make one suspect that the Representer uses to be very conversant at that Fair, and that he there pickt up most of those pretty Phrases, and fine Elegancies which appear up and down his Pamphlets, and set them off so very much to the Generality of his credulous Readers.

Well, but tho' the Representer did not formally set himself to shew that the Primitive Fathers were no Pro­testants, yet did he not do it effectually enough in vin­dicating his Nubes Testium throughly from the Cavils of the Answerer? this I know is that he will value himself upon, and therefore I come next to examine whether, and how he hath done that.

I must confess that when I saw his Title so promi­sing and his Pamphlet so small, I did expect that he would have kept close to his Vindication, and would have come up fairly to me in every point and charge; but when I came to read him, I found him spending page after page in general discourse nothing to the purpose, and roving here and there, first into Oats's Plot, then quickly into the Pulpits, then back into the defence, no­thing but rambling and incoherent Discourse, as if his business had been not to give a fair answer to an Ad­versary, but to fill up six sheets of paper with something.

After I heard of his Intentions of vindicating the Nubes, I did not wonder to find such rambling stuff in his Book, for I very well knew his Ignorance was so great that it would be impossible for him to do it as it did require: the collecting of the Nubes out of Natalis Alexandre, is no more than what might have been done by a Bookseller's Apprentice, who brought so much learn­ing with him from School, as to be able to understand a Latin Author, and to translate some passages of him into English: But to defend those passages, and to prove [Page 8] they were not curtail'd, nor abused, nor misunderstood, nor misapplied, did require a knowledge and skill in the Writings of the Fathers themselves out of whom they had been borrowed, and therefore the Representer was here at a loss, was carried beyond his depth, and was hereby ingaged in Matters he knew nothing more of than what he found in his Master Natalis Alexandre, who not foresee­ing what answers would be made to his several quotati­ons out of the Fathers could not set down his Defences of them, and therefore could not supply the Representer in this Emergency, wherein he was so hard put to it by his Adversary.

Yet notwithstanding all this, the Representer plucks up a good heart, and what he wanted of Learning for this occasion, he seems resolved to make up with Consi­dence, and therefore talks with as much assurance in his Vindication, as if he had the Fathers at his Fingers ends, and was resolved to carry the World before him; but since he was so hardy as to venture once more into the Combat, I think it fit to make up to him, and to let him know that I must stop him a while, that we two may fairly and calmly examine what hath been written and said on both sides, and see whether things have been managed betwixt us, as might be expected from those who understood what they were about, and had no other design than to make Truth appear, which all men will be ready enough to follow.

At the end of his Book he tells his Reader he hath run through all the Sections of his Answerer but one, and talks as if he had been as particular and as substantial in his Re­plies as any Reader could desire; but to let the World see the bold disingenuity of this Representer, and to dis­play his Confidence and his Ignorance alike, I must take a new method with such a pretender, and let the World see how much of my Book he hath not said one [Page 9]word to in defence of the Nubes: his dexterity at drop­ping the defence of his thirty seven Chapters of his Popery Misrepresented and Represented hath been very well shewn in the View of the whole Controversie betwixt him and the Answerer; but such things cannot put him to the Ex­pence of but one blush: for in his Preface to his last Piece of Popery Misrepresented and Represented he stands to it, that as for the Misrepresentations no body can prove that he had not such apprehensions of Popery while he was a Pro­testant; And for the Representations, no body can prove that he did not therein give that account of Popery which he had learnt in sixteen years Conversation among the Pa­pists; and thinks this answer sufficient, and a very good reason why he needed not to dispute: but the World is by this time satisfied, that there is a better reason why he did not dispute and defend his Characters, which is, because he had not learning enough to do it.

And this perhaps will be his next answer to me, that in the Nubes Testium he did only represent the Fathers Doctrine and Opinions, as he had learnt them in Natalis Alexandre, and other Catholick Writers: but I will take care to shut up that Door, by letting him know, that if he quote the Fathers themselves, and either falsify, or misapply, or curtail their words, no man else is to be an­swerable for them but himself, and that herein he is in­evitably put upon defending what he hath quoted, and disputing that such and such is the true sense of the words, and the doctrine of such or such a Father.

And therefore since I was so very particular in my Answer to the Nubes Testium as to follow him from pas­sage to passage, and to shew him that such and such passages were nothing to the purpose, that others were falsified, that a third sort were misunderstood, and wretchedly misapplied, and gave my reasons and Ar­guments for it all along; He ought either to have been [Page 10]as particular and fair in his Vindication; or since he re­ally was unable to do it, to have got some Friends to have done it for him; but he is for doing all himself, and thinks, I warrant him, that his Vindication will pass well enough upon the Generality of Readers, since it is writ­ten with an air of Confidence, and with such an assu­rance as certainly persuades the Readers, that he has the Truth on his side.

And therefore I think the greater obligation is upon me to expose such an affected confidence, and I must beg the Reader's pardon if I begin a tedious but new Me­thod to clear this to the World, and shew these two things. First a Catalogue of abundance of material points and arguments in my Book, to which he hath offered no sort of Answer. Secondly, The Weakness and Vanity of all that he hath said in Answer to any parts of my Book. The clearing of these two things will give a full Answer to his pretended Vindication, and will also, I do not doubt it, put a full End to the Controversie about the Nubes Testium, betwixt the Representer and Me.

As to the Catalogue therefore, I will place the several particulars as they lye in the distinct Chapters and Sections of my Answer, but must begin with my Preface, where­in I charged him in the first place with affirming not only what was false, but what was more than he could know, to wit, that the Latin of his Nubes Testium was out of such Editions as are most authentick; since I shewed it to be false from N. Alexandre's own Confession; and that he could not know what Editions N. Alexandre did use, because N. Alexandre does not tell the Readers what Editions he used in his Work, excepting Christopherson's Edition of Eusebius, which all know to be far from being the most authentick. To this severe Charge he gives no Reply.

I charged him also in the Preface with stealing the whole of his Nubes Testium (excepting a passage or two) out of N. Alexandre. This is not denied by him; and reason good, since every page of my Book did invincibly prove it; which hath so much enraged him against me. I charged him with stealing his Book out of a forbidden Author, every one of whose Volumes used by him in that Plagium had been condemned to the Flames by this pre­sent Pope two years before, and with his standing Ex­communicate by this Pope for his pains. This he durst not deny any more than the other, since I had reprin­ted the Pope's Bull it self, by which those Books were condemned, and the Representer for keeping and using them Excommunicated by this present Pope.

Answer to the Compi­ler of the Nubes Te­stium, p. 4. In my first Chapter I accused the Compiler first of quo­ting some passages, as from the 34^th, 45^th, and 36^th Chapters of St. Austin's third Book against Cresconius, which are not to be found in those Chapters. To this I have not one word of Reply.

2. In the same page I accused N. Alexandre of falsify­ing a notable passage of S. Austin, and the Compiler of obtruding it upon the World so falsified. To this not a syllable is offered in defence of either of them.

Answer to Nubes Te­stium, p. 7. 3. I accused N. Alexandre with falsifying another passage from S. Austin, and our Compiler with putting it off so falsified. But to this not a word of Reply.

P. 8, 9. 4. I charged our Compiler, when he was come to the point of the Pope's Supremacy, with giving a false state of that Controversie betwixt us. To this I find no Reply.

P. 10 5. I charged the Compiler with a deluding translation of the Decree of the Council of Florence. To this I meet with no Reply.

P. 12, 13. 6. I charged N. Alexandre with affirming a gross un­truth, in saying the Fathers did with a Nemine contra­dicente, interpret the Rock in St. Matthew to be meant of [Page 12]St. Peter; and I charged our Compiler for coming in for his share in it, in saying indefinitely, that the Fa­thers teach, that Christ built his Church upon Peter, where­as I shewed there from Launoy and some Fathers them­selves, that the Generality of the Fathers, nay the al­most unanimous consent of them was directly against our two bold and mistaken Asserters: To this heavy charge our Compiler in his Vindication was not able, or forgot to give one word of Reply.

P. 21 7. I charged the Council of Florence of being notori­ously guilty, either of Ignorance or of Forgery in that Decree which they made, and our Compiler quoted for the Pope's Supremacy; but our Compiler was not at leisure to say any thing in defence either of that Council, or himself.

P. 25 8. I charged our Compiler with citing a passage as out of S. Basil's Comments on Esaiah, which not only is not there, but the direct contrary to it is in that place, and put down from thence by me in my Answer. To this not a syllable of Reply.

P. 26, 27. 9. I charged both N. Alexandre and our Compiler of very egregious disingenuity about St. Basil's Epistle, which I proved was directed to the Western Bishops, not to the Bishop of Rome in particular; was sent to beg help and assistance from them, not from the Bishop of Rome in par­ticular against Eustathius. I proved also that it was not through any Letter from Pope Liberius, but through a Letter from the Western Bishops that Eustathius had for­merly recovered his Restitution to his See, and that the Oriental Bishops did not request that assistance from the West, because they had not power enough of their own to have judged and deposed Eustathius, but upon a quite different account. To all these particular charges of disingenuity, and cheat, our Compiler durst not offer at one word of Reply.

P. 27 10. I charged them with falshood in urging a passage in favour of the Pope from Gregory Nazianzen, which did concern S. Basil and not the Bishop of Rome, as Eli­as Cretensis, and Billius do assure us. To this we find no Reply.

P. 27 11. I charged N. Alexandre and our Compiler with prefixing impertinent and false Accounts to the passage in Athanasius about Dionysius of Alexandria. No Answer is given to this.

P. 27, 28, 29. 12. I charged them both with perfect Romancing a­bout the business of Julius's taking the Cause of Athana­sius into his hands, and of his citing him and his Enemies to appear before his Apostolic Tribunal, and proved that it was false in every part of it; I charged the Compiler with adding to the falshood in saying Athanasius appealed to the Bishop of Rome, with contradicting his own Master who had written a Dissertation in which he shewed that Athanasius did not appeal thither, nay with contradicting his own next Testimony from Sozomen. To this heavy load our Compiler has not a Word to answer.

P. 31, 32. 13. I charged both of them with great disingenuity in calling St. Chrysostom's Letter directed to Innocentius his Letter of Request, and with their forgeries about his pre­senting it: I charged them with wholly mistaking that affair. To this not a Syllable of Answer or Defence.

P. 32 14. I accused both of 'em of Ignorance and Disingenu­ity for affirming that the Synod of Capua had committed to Theophilus the Decision of the quarrel betwixt Evagrius and Flavianus at Antioch, when the contrary was as plain as words could express a thing; for laying that to St. Ambrose which he had not said. But this Charge wants a Reply as well as the rest.

P. 34, 35. 15. I desired an Answer from our Compiler himself whether he designed the passage from Valentinian's Letter to prove the Bishops of Rome had power alone, or with o­ther [Page 14]Bishops of judging Matters of Faith, and the Cause of Priests or Bishops: and shewed him that if he designed only the latter, he was guilty of trifling, if the former, that he was contradicted by his own Master F. Alexandre and by the Clergy of France. But the Compiler is sullen and was too angry to give an Answer in his Vindication to such an ensnaring Question.

P. 35 16. I charged our Representer and his Master with a false Assertion in saying the Council of Constantinople did submissively desire the Confirmation of their Decrees from Pope Damasus: but Natalis Alexandre is too far off, and the Compiler too sullen to make a Defence.

P. 36 17. I charged our Compiler with Impertinence in say­ing, the Hereticks rejected Doctrines and Practices because they were not in Scripture; I charged his Master with egre­gious falshood in saying the Hereticks appealed only to Scri­pture; and shewed them that had either of them read that Chapter, nay but the bare Title of that Chapter which they both quote in Iraenaeus in defence of what they so falsly affirmed, they would have been ashamed of what they did; But I cannot find a word of Reply to this.

P. 42 18. I charged our Compiler with Ignorance in Chrono­logy, and with contradicting his Master in the very pla­ces he transcribes from, and gave the Instances of his pla­cing Vigilantius in the beginning of the fourth Century, whom his Master and all men of Learning place a hun­dred Years later; of his placing Damasus and Julius in the Third Century, who lived in the Middle of the Fourth Cen­tury; of his putting Victor into the First Century, who flourished not till the Second Century was almost at an end: and lastly, of the gross and intolerable Blunder of putting Aerius in the middle exactly of the First Century, whereas he lived not till Three Hundred years after. Our Compiler in his Vindication wanted not only fore­head to defend them, but ingenuity to acknowledge his [Page 15] Mistakes, and therefore thought it were best to say no­thing about it.

P. 49 19. I charged him with making use of a false Tran­slation of a passage in Eusebius. To this not a Syllable of Reply.

P. 54 20. I charged our Compiler and his Master with ma­king use of a passage in defence of their Purgatory, which was direct Heresy. But not a word of Reply to this.

P. 56 21. I charged Our Compiler with abusing Gregory Na­zianzen by an ensnaring Translation of his words. To which our Compiler will give us no Reply.

P. 61 22. I charged both N. Alexandre and our Compiler with abusing and quite perverting a passage from S^t Am­brose by leaving out a Line which was connected to it, and would have given light to the whole passage. To which no Reply.

P. 55, 56, 57. &c. to 62. 23. I charged them both with misunderstanding, and misapplying St. Ambrose's words about Theodosius, I char­ged them of being guilty of the same towards all the passa­ges urged by them from S. Basil, S. Chrysostom, S. Hie­rom and S. Austin, but cannot find a word of Reply to this large Charge in our Compiler's Vindication of him­self.

P. 67 24. I charged the Compiler with disingenuity for cur­tailing and maiming the passage from Gelasius Cyzicenus about receiving but a small portion of Christ's Body and Bloud. To which I meet with not one word of Reply.

P. 78 25. I laid to his charge either gross Ignorance, or great disingenuity in saying that the Jews, Marcionites, Manichees and Theopaschites had always shewed themselves Enemies of holy Images. No Answer to this.

P. 85 26. I charged the Compiler with giving a false state of the Controversie about Images, with palliating in talk­ing only of respect to Images, when not only their Coun­cil of Trent, but that second of Nice commanded a Wor­ship [Page 16]of them, and their Index Expurgatorius was so care­ful to strike out of any Author any thing that did but of­fer to deny Adoration to Images; nay his own Quotations do prove as far as they are able, that Images were to be a­dored. But to this I find not one syllable of a Reply.

27. I challenged the Compiler to shew that as they made use of the Figure of the Cross in Constantine's time, so they adored it; that the Antients did adore the Image of the Cross, and paid that Latria to the Image of the Cross, which the Church of Rome doth now say, is due to it. But our Compiler is not at leisure to answer Chal­lenges, and therefore finds it the wisest way to say no­thing.

Thus I have given the Reader a Catalogue of a great many severe and very considerable Accusations against our Compiler, and his Master Natalis Alexandre, to which he hath not given one Syllable of Reply, or made any De­fence for himself or Master against them, though they be charges that call not only their Learning, but their Inge­nuity and Honesty so often into question; should I add to this Catalogue another of abundance of considerable passages in my Book, which I put down to explain the true and genuine sense of the several Fathers, and to con­front those curtail'd, misunderstood, misappliea, and abu­sed passages with which he had filled his Nubes Testium, to all which I find no better or more Reply than to the former Catalogue in his pretended Vindication; I should be forced to transcribe almost my whole Answer hither: for this Representer hath a considerable knack of his own to answer Authorities by saying nothing to them; He does not in that whole Vindication bear up fairly to any one Argument, or Authority urged in confutation of him, but knows very well how to fence off any thing that does press home, by stepping out of the way of it, and has got a peculiar Art first of abusing and misrepresenting [Page 17]his Adversaries words or sence, and then of ridiculing them, and making them for to appear absurd or unrea­sonable: and then this must pass for a full answer, and a compleat Vindication of himself.

After such an account of the Compiler's giving no an­swer, nor making any defence against so very many se­vere charges; and of his skulking, and shifting off all replying fairly to the rest of my Book: the Reader will be very desirous to know about what it is that the Com­piler hath employed his six sheets, and what he would mean by a Vindication of himself, if nothing be said to so very many, and so very heavy charges: I come there­fore to satisfie that desire, and to shew the Reader how very well the Compiler's Answer deserves the name of a Vindication of the Nubes Testium from the Cavils of the Answerer; by which false Title I do not question but it was his design to make people believe that I had only carpt at a passage here and there, and never bore up fairly to him; but this is but one of a great many of dis­ingenuous tricks so frequent with this Writer, as I have made it already sufficiently apparent from the Catalogue of considerable things, to which he hath given not a syllable of Reply; and shall make it much more visible in the following part of my Book, and prove there, that it was the Representer himself that was thus guilty of that ca­villing, of which he so falsly in his Title Page accuses me, that it is he himself that is really guilty of cavilling only and catching at here and there a passage in my An­swer: and this will give the World a better knowledge of the Representer, and discover with what disingenuity and confidence he can both write, and affirm the most groundless things.

I have hitherto given account of that part of my Book, to which the Representer hath been pleased to return no sort of answer; I must now undertake my second promise, [Page 18]and that was to discover the weakness and vanity of all that he hath said in answer to the rest of my Book.

He begins his Vindication, and certainly wrote it in a very angry mood, and therefore we must pardon his running out into generals, and making such frequent and odd excursions into matters that are wholly foreign to the Controversie betwixt him and me, to which I am resolved to confine my self, tho' his anger would not let him, but hurries him so much and so often quite out of his way. I will set aside therefore his general talk, in which tho' there is a great deal of malice, yet not one syllable of argument; I am never at leisure to mind or to answer such stuff: but will pass to the first thing he intends to reply to, which is my charge against him of stealing the Nubes Testium out of Natalis Alex­andre.

He acquaints his Reader, that I pretend to discover, that the greatest part of the Nubes Testium is in Natalis Alexandre's History: but when he is got about a dozen lines lower, then it is come to my discovering, that a great part of his Testimonies are in that History; and in the next page to his only taking the choice of those great numbers of Testimonies that are in N. Alexandre, and his adding some others to them: I thought I had told him of­ten enough in my Answer, and I suppose those who have read my Answer to Nubes Testium do very well remem­ber, that I do not only prove that the passages of the Fa­thers in the Nubes Testium are all of them (except one or two) to be met with in Father Alexandre, but that they were all of them stolen from thence: and that I do not charge him only with stealing some of his choice Te­stimonies thence, with stealing a great part, or the greatest part of the Nubes Testium, but I did in my Pre­face charge him more than once with stealing the WHOLE of his Nubes Testium, with stealing ALL his [Page 19]Book out of Natalis Alexandre, without once mentioning or hinting at Natalis Alexandre's History or Name through the whole Book; with being the greatest Plagiary that hath appeared on the stage in these times.

And now what answer hath he made to all this? Can he deny that the whole of his Nubes is to be met with in Father Alexandre? No, that he does not deny? can he disprove me, or will he deny that he stole that whole Book out of that Historian? No, he dare not pretend to do that neither; since every page in my Answer, did to his great vexation prove it upon him: What is it then that he would be at, while he has not the face or confidence to deny the thing? his business in his Vin­dication about this thing seems to be no other than to cast a mist before his Reader's Eyes, to lessen his crime as much as he can, and much more than he ought, by bearing them in hand, that the greatest part only, and soon after, a great part, and (as if he were to lessen and diminish the accusation gradually) in the next page the Choice only of the Testimonies in his Nubes Testium were to be met with, and were borrowed from Natalis A­lexandre: but this trick will not do, nor shall this cheat pass upon any one, that will read us both, since I did from the beginning, and do here again accuse the Re­presenter of stealing implicitely his whole Nubes Testium (ex­cept a passage or two) out of Father Alexandre with­out one naming whence he stole it.

But perceiving that all this would not clear him, or remove the Imputation of a very great Plagiary, under which he lay, he puts as good a face as he can upon the matter, and now is for assuring his Reader, that he is so far from being offended in being thought [he should have added, and being proved] a Compiler, that he should have thought himself unwise, if he had done more than compil'd. This is pleasant stuff, and shews what metal some men [Page 20]are made of, who can make that to be a Virtue in them­selves, which all men else look upon to be a very great disgrace: but such men are proof against a thing called Modesty, and think nothing more necessary to defend any of their most unaccountable actions, than by setting a good face to it.

But since our Compiler pretends here to the politick part, and since he does just after own that he hath not read the Fathers, and that it would be ridiculous for him in his circumstances to have attempted to read them over; I hope it will not be amiss if I can tell him of another and a better point of prudence, and that is, that he should not in his Circumstances have medled at all with present­ing the World with such a Collection out of the Fathers: I will also give him my reasons along with it, because they that know nothing of the Fathers themselves ought not to meddle in these things; because every one that can translate Latin into English is not straitways an Adept, and fit to be employed, or to employ himself in such things, because they that are ignorant of the Fathers themselves, must rely wholly upon the credit and honesty of those out of whom they collect, and can neither answer for the genuineness of the Authors, nor the Sincerity of the Authorities, which they take wholly upon trust; nor shew that the Author out of whom they borrow, did not misapply or misunderstand, or abuse the Fathers sense.

These reasons together ought to convince him that his excuse here is vain, and that it had been his wisest way not to have medled with such business, since he owns his Ignorance in the Fathers themselves, and I have shewn him that some things else are requisite for a Mans setting up for a Collector of Authorities out of Fa­thers, besides the ability of translating Latin into English. But the Representer thinking by this time that he had got pretty well rid of the severe accusation by the sleight [Page 21]and art of pleading guilty, and giving a knackish turn to the whole Matter, is now got into a merry mood, and cannot but send me his thanks for giving the World notice of the Representer's having more Consideration, than to take so much unnecessary pains as to read the Fathers them­selves in order to his publishing such a Collection of Testi­monies out of them.

I cannot but smile and can hardly keep from laugh­ing out at such a Scene as this: well then, since he is for thanking me for proving he was so great a Plagiary, I cannot in civility but receive his Thanks, and assure him withal that I am so very desirous and ambitious of doing things for which I can have thanks from such Friends as he is, that I shall always be at his service up­on the same account, and at the service of all his Friends (to let him see how grateful I am to him) and will make it my business to deserve his and their Thanks, by finding out where they have been stealing their Books, and publishing their Thefts to the World, as often as I can, that so I may have the more of their Thanks.

But is this Man really serious in giving me thanks in this business? Can he be hearty in sending me thanks for the discovery of that thing which hath made him ridicu­lous, and wholly contemptible in the Eyes of all Scholars, and I believe I may add, in the Eyes of all those who have perused my Answer to his Nubes Testium? I must profess that I look upon this as one of the most extra­vagant things I ever met with in Print, and that I can­not refrain giving it its true Name, and telling the World that I look upon it to be the very height of Impu­dence, for a man to be so far from being ashamed, or from blushing at that which lays him so open to the World, and makes him to be hist at, and ridiculous to all men, as to thank him for it who made him such an Object of Contempt and Derision.

But he hath something more to urge in his Defence, and says he had Authority enough for it, since I make F. Alexandre himself a Compiler, but never discover the Au­thor made use of by him in his History. Here I would gladly know, how this can be any excuse to our Compi­ler that F. Alexandre himself is suspected and believed to be guilty of the same crime: as to the reasons of be­lieving F. Alexandre also to be a Compiler, I did urge this one that he never, that I could observe, does tell his Reader what Editions of the Fathers he made use of, nor quotes the Page of the Author above once in a thousand Quotations. This made me reasonably suspect that he did not deal with the Fathers themselves, but with Coc­cius and Bellarmine and such Voluminous Quoters of the Fathers: and I am since much more perswaded, and fully confirmed in the Justice of my Suspicion by the en­quiries I have made concerning him among Learned Men, but especially from one extraordinary Person, who knows him very well, and hath given me a very good reason why we meet with the Greek Fathers always speak­ing Latin in this Historian, and why he made use of Christopherson's Latin and corrupt Translation of Eusebius in his History, who lived at Paris, and could not want the convenience of the best Greek and Latin Edition of Eusebius. However it is with him, I will offer F. Alex­andre this choice, whether he desires to have the Cha­racter of a Compiler, or of a Falsifier of the Fathers: if he disdains to be thought a Compiler, I do here engage that I will at any time prove it upon him that he hath falsified several passages of the Fathers in his History: but if he will not endure such an odious Character, he must even sit down content with the other.

Upon the mention of the word stealing, the Repre­senter is up in a rage again, and is got raving into Oates's Plot, and therefore I must leave him swaggering [Page 23]and tearing, and doing something worse than that for a page and a half, and can rest my self awhile till he is got into his senses again, and returned to the Controversie betwixt us two. He then tells his Reader that the other Crime I called him to account for, was for making use of an Author in this Collection, whose Books had been condemned by the Pope two years before.

This Crime he thinks to get clear off very easily, and therefore dispatches it in a very few words. But since, says the Representer, for this he remitts me to my F. Con­fessor, I'll e'en see to compound the matter with him as well as I can. And did I then remit him to F. Confessor? Did I remit it to the Confessor to decide whether the Pope had by his Breve condemned Natalis Alexandre's Books to the Flames? Did I remit it to him to decide whether the Pope had by that Breve forbidden the faith­ful of what condition or state soever under the pain of Excommunication immediately incurr'd the keeping or rea­ding any of those Books? Did I remit it to him to decide whether the Representer, who had not only kept, but transcribed and Printed part of those condemned Books, had incurr'd or no that severe Sentence of Excommunicati­on, which his Confessour can no more absolve him from, than I can, since the Pope hath reserved that Absolution solely to himself and the Popes of Rome? Every syllable of this is so utterly false and groundless, that I should ad­mire at it in any other Person than the Representer.

All that I said in relation to the Confessor was, that this bold contempt of the Pope's Breve seemed to be a tri­al of Skill about Infallibility betwixt the Compiler and the Pope, and that I would refer the Decision of this unto the Compiler's Confessour; which any one else would have seen that I spoke it Ironically, and was far from leaving it to the Confessour to decide whether the Compi­ler did stand excommunicated for the pains he took in col­lecting and Printing the Nubes Testium.

Every body knows of their brags of Discipline and of their professed Obedience to the Pope in the Church of Rome: but this behaviour of the Representer, and of Sa­bran the Jesuit, whom I catcht in the same Crime and Disobedience, will satisfie most people how little some Mens Writings agree with their Practices, and what little credit is to be given to their so much celebrated Discipline, when those that make the greatest noise about it, are at the same time discovered to be the most noto­rious Offenders against it.

Having dispatcht all that he has offered in defence of himself about the stealing his Book out of a forbidden Au­thor, I cannot but ask him before we part upon this point, whether it had not been better for him not to have medled any more with those things which were so evi­dent that they could not be denied, and so criminal that they could not be defended without the forfeiture of all Sense of Modesty, as well as betraying a want of Learn­ing.

He is now come to the Body of my Answer, and com­plains of my admirable Talent of trifling in quarrelling him for beginning his Book with The History of Donatus, and shewing the Nature of Schism, and for my saying, That this was so far from being a Chief Point, that it is no Point of Controversy at all betwixt us. And upon this he falls to pitying me who had dwelt so long among Books for lo­sing my time, and then shews that a Chapter about Schism was not improper to begin his Book with. But I would fain see this trifling proved; and will now prove that he is the guilty person who hath shuffled three Chapters together here, and hath not given us a true or fair state of the Chapters: I do own that a Discourse about Schism might be a proper Introduction to a Controversial Book, however I did shew that what he advanced there was perfect trifling.

I have once already done it sufficiently, and must be forced in Vindication of my self to do it again to let the World see who is the Caviller, and at whose Door the trifling must be laid. His first Chapter was, that the Fa­thers accused the Donatists of being guilty of Schism for ma­king the wicked Lives of the Members of the Church the rea­son of their Separation. My answer to this was, that this can be no point of Controversy betwixt us and the Church of Rome as he had made it, since we never urged the wicked Lives of some Members of the Church of Rome, as the ground of our Separation from them: and what says our Repre­senter in Reply to this? Does he either prove, that that is a point of controversie betwixt us, or that our Separation from the particular Church of Rome is grounded upon the same matter that the Donatists was? No, we have no reason to expect a fair Reply from him, who did not set down the state of this Chapter at all.

The second Chapter was, that the Fathers teach against the Donatists that the Catholick Church cannot fail. This I told him could be no Controversie betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome, since we believe with the Fathers that the Catholick Church cannot fail. Was this then the trifling I am accused of? if it be, the Com­piler had done well to have shewn it, that so upon the sight of my errour I might have altered my mind: but this he thought fit not at all to attempt.

His third Chapter was, that the Fathers taught, that whosoever breaks the Ʋnity of the Catholick Church upon any pretext whatsoever, is guilty of Schism. Upon this I told him, that taking the word pretext for a groundless pretence, I was of the same mind, and did believe the Donatists who acted so, to be guilty of a Criminal Schism: but assured the Compiler withal that this could not be matter of dispute betwixt us, who both assented to that doctrine of the Fathers; and here it is my trifling must be discovered, [Page 26]and here he will have me not only to differ from them, but from the Fathers: this is hard when I had assented to that Chapter as set down by him and proved by the Fathers: but he will have it that I am for making the breach of the Ʋnity of the Catholick Church not Schism, un­less it be done causelesly; whereas the Fathers teach there can be no just cause: I grant the Fathers teach that there can be no just cause given by the Catholick Church; how­ever that particular Churches can give and do often give just cause for others to break Communion with them, is what no Father will deny, is what the Church of Rome it self must grant, which hath not only broken Commu­nion with us, but with the whole Greek Church, and yet I suppose does pretend to shew that she had a just cause for it. He hath offered hereupon nothing new in defence of his three Chapters, but some hard words, and those I do not intend to reply to, but will pass to the defence of his Chapter about the Supremacy.

I had charged him with giving a false and imperfect state of the Controversie betwixt us in relation to the Pope's Supremacy; but this he is not willing to defend, but turns it off with saying, that it only is so, if my word be to be taken for it: but I had not only given him my word, but very good reasons for it; and therefore since the Com­piler hath no mind to be medling with reasons, it would be uncivil to be importunate with calling upon him to disprove them. That Chapter as it did concern the greatest point of Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome, so it did require a great deal of canvasing, and admit of a vast variety of dispute in it: I was careful to follow the Compiler through it, and to debate and dis­prove every thing that was brought to support the Pope's Supremacy in it: but our Compiler is not so civil to me, nor so just to his Book in his Vindication, but forsakes the defence of every one of his passages, and only seems solicitous to make a shew; and that he may not be ac­cused [Page 27]of saying nothing at all in defence of his Testimonies, and in Answer to a great many very severe charges in that Chapter, he serves us up again two or three bits of his for­mer passages, and that is all.

I told him his first quotation from Irenaeus was of no use; and gave him in short my reasons for it, all the an­swer he makes is to give us anew a piece of the same passage; and this with two or three scornful words, and crying good and great! must be called defending, and we must be content with such from him, since it seems the Man is not furnisht with better, but if the old quotati­ons presented anew will signify any thing, they are at your service, but upon this condition, that they may serve for a defence of themselves.

And such is his behaviour as to the next passage from Optatus, which I shewed to have been very obscure, and that in affirming there was but one Cathedra in the World possessed first by S. Peter, and after him by his Successours at Rome it did not only contradict the other parts of his Writings, but all Church Writers before and after him for hundreds of years, who make as many Ca­thedra's as Bishops in the World, and I instanced in a most plain place in Tertullian, which did assert the di­rect contrary to the Doctrine of that passage of Optatus. All the Answer besides rude language to these reasons that I can observe is, that it is a notorious fraud in me to pretend that the Father maintains here, That the Chair of Rome was such, that the rest of the Apostles might not have Cathedra's for themselves, whereas (says the Compiler) S. Optatus no where affirms this, but only, that the rest of the Apostles should not set up other Episcopal Chairs in opposition to this of Rome, or to contend with it.

I believe I have considered this passage a little better than this confident Gentleman, who perhaps never saw it any where but in Natalis Alexandre, or some Romish [Page 28]Writer: and upon all the care I could take, I can see no reason for my being accused of fraud in this thing: or for altering my opinion of its denying Cathedra's to the rest of the Apostles. It first speaks of the Episcopal Cathedra being bestowed on S. Peter at Rome, it imme­diately calls it the one Chair, and requires such an Ʋnity to be preserved by all in this one Chair, as to for­bid even the Apostles themselves to erect Cathedra's for themselves, and makes it Schism to set up a Chair against this SINGLE Cathedra; and to secure us from mistaking his meaning, it is just after this called the ONLY or SOLE Cathedra. If all this be not enough to satisfie that he speaks here of a single and ONLY Cathedra ex­clusively to any other Chair, I must confess I cannot see what words could do it, since had it been as much his design here, as I verily believe it was, to speak of there being but one single Cathedra in the World, he could not have used more full and larger expressions to de­clare his sense.

And now if this was his meaning in this passage, which it certainly was, notwithstanding the Compilers weak defence, what crime was it in me to shew that this was contrary to the rest of the Fathers, and what can be my fault to assent rather to what was the general and certain doctrine of the generality of Fathers, than to a small passage in S. Optatus, which does certainly contra­dict all them. This account of that passage will, I doubt not, acquit me of that hard thing I am accused of in the Opinions of all unprejudiced Readers: as for the Compiler's Opinion I do not value it, and therefore am far from being solicitous to gain it.

When I did in the next place declare my dissent to two affirmations quoted from S. Hierom, I did, as it was just, set down the reasons of that my dissent: my rea­sons the Compiler meddles not with, because it was too [Page 29]hard for him to answer them, but thinks he has got ad­vantage enough, and he makes triumphant use of it, that I durst be so hardy as not to assent to any thing said by S. Hierom, as if the words of S. Hierom were sacred, and one might as well deny assent to our blessed Saviour's words as to his; whereas had this ignorant boaster but been conversant even in Bellarmine and Baronius, he might have found them frequently enough setting aside the Authority and Interpretation of a particular Father, of S. Hierom for example, whose expressions about Pres­byters and Bishops I do not believe this Compiler himself does subscribe to, any more than I did to those men­tioned above: but he is too ignorant in these things, and therefore makes such tragical and womanish outcries about things, for which he would certainly be laught at by all men of learning, even in his own Church.

Having made a little fluttering as to those three pas­sages, he thinks he has done very great feats, and there­fore needed not to trouble himself to examine the rest as they came in their order, but makes one answer to serve for them all, by telling the Reader I only shift them off, and that the most eminent Protestants did acknowledge that the Popes did exercise a like authority with that which is attributed to the Pope by the Council of Florence: and so I am shifted off, the reason of which is, because this Com­piler is too ignorant for such things, and since it would be ridiculous here to serve us up again the passages them­selves out of the Nubes in the Vindication, he hath no­thing more for us: but thinks all is well if he can but bring in the Concessions of Protestants; but suppose he could bring such Protestants in, why must we be obliged to stand by what they granted or affirmed any more than he thinks himself obliged to be set down by what some Schoolmen have said, whom he does so frequently, nay always throw by as abusers or mistakers of the Church's genuine Doctrine.

I used to wonder whence it came to pass that every little Romish Writer could with so much readiness quote the Protestant Writers, insomuch that the most trifling Pamphleteer would not fail to serve you up with a last course of the Protestant Concessions. Thus the Antiquary of Putney, and the Maker of the Ecclesiastical Prospective­glass, and the Representer himself not only here, but in his other Pamphlets are very punctual in quoting the Pro­testant Authors, whom they have no more read, than the Alcoran in Arabick. But as soon as I saw Brerely's Protestant Apology, I quickly discovered that this was the Armoury out of which these doughty Writers did fur­nish themselves, and that this is the Book out of which they all borrow, and very fairly take things upon his cre­dit, the truth or falshood of which they know nothing of: but why should not such men take their quotations as well as their Faith upon trust, and be as confident about the truth of the first, as they are of the certainty of the other? I will only tell our Compiler again, that I do no more pin my Faith upon the groundless Concessions of some Protestant Writers, than he does his upon the Con­cessions of some of his Church-Writers.

When he is come to his Point about Tradition, he is almost for thanking me for giving him but little trouble by granting there almost all that he contended for about Traditions, as I had granted as kind things in favour of the Pope. As to any Concessions about the Pope I shewed them to be false and groundless, in my Answer to the Re­presenter's Letter from a Dissenter, by which Answer I question not but I have laid open sufficiently to the World the great Knavery of the Representer in that matter: but here he is for charging me again in his own Shape, what be had before accused me of in his Fanati­cal Disguise. I have fully vindicated my self about my pretended Concessions as to Tradition, and throughly ex­plained [Page 31]in what sense I spoke of Tradition in my Book, and as fully exposed the great Disingenuity of the Repre­senter there: I do refer the Reader for these things to my Vindication of my self in Answer to the Dissenter's Letter, because I would not do like the Representer, tran­scribe one Book into another.

In my Answer to the Nubes, I told the Compiler that his Testimonies about Tradition did refer to matters of Discipline and Practice, which every Church hath power to retain or alter as she sees most expedient, and that if he intended them for to prove that Tradition doth hand down to us some Points of Faith, which we are to receive, tho' they cannot be shewn to be founded upon the Holy Scriptures, I told him that Sett of Testimonies would not do his business, and was not to the purpose, and thereupon challenged him to produce Fathers for that Point, promising him at the same time a fair An­swer: But our Compiler durst not offer to accept of the Challenge, dares not meddle with such a thing; but if two or three bits of the Old Testimonies out of the Nubes may be admitted, they are at my Service; and from these it is that he would fain prove that even in matters of Belief, the Tradition of the Catholick Church is the best Demonstration. What? better than the Express Testi­mony of Scripture it self? Methinks our ignorant Com­piler might have been contented to have made Tradi­tion only as good or equal to Scripture for the Demonstrati­on of Faith, which is the highest the Council of Trent it self durst rise in favour of Tradition, and never pre­tended to mount Tradition so much above Scripture as to make it the BEST DEMONSTRATION of Matters of FAITH. But when Ignorance and too great a stock of Confidence meet together, such Assertions as these are commonly the fruits of them. But for this extra­vagant Assertion he hath a mind to bring in Origen for a [Page 32] Voucher, who speaking concerning the Belief of Christ's being the Son of God, says, that is to be embrac'd which by a Succession from the Apostles is preserved in the Church by Ecclesiastical Tradition: but in Answer to this, Is not that Truth and Faith concerning Christ's being the Son of God expresly taught and held forth in the Holy Scriptures; and which is more, doth not Origen himself expresly tell us in this very place (for our Compiler is for looking no further than his own Book) that that Truth was to be learnt by us ab IPSO from Christ himself, whose Words, Doctrine and Actions are used to be thought to have been the Subject of the New Testament, which I take to be Scripture: and as this Doctrine was to be read in the Scriptures, so it was delivered down from thence in Ec­clesiastical Tradition, which can mean nothing else than either that the Scriptures which did comprehend that Faith, were delivered down successively from Age to Age in the Church, or that this was always taught in the Ser­mons and Homilies of the Fathers of the Church succes­sively.

And to give our Compiler a better knowledge of Ori­gen's sence about these things, I will refer him to one Pas­sage which I will set down and desire him to consider of it:Origen in Leviticum, c. 7. Homi­lia 5. p. 144. Edit. Fro­ben. 1536. Origen in his Homilies upon Leviticus speaking of the Old and New Testament tells us, that in THEM every word that appertaineteh to God [by which Expression the least he can mean is, that every Point of Faith] may be sought after and found out, and all Knowledge of things may be apprehended from THEM. But if any thing doth re­main which the Holy Scripture doth not determine, no other third Scripture ought to be received for the Authorizing a­ny Knowledge, but we are to commit to the Fire that which remaineth, that is, we must leave it to God, for in this present World God is not for having us to know all things.

Our Compiler is next for having Tertullian on his side, but why does he not then bring us something to prove it, or rather why did he not disprove what I had pro­duced for the Authority and Sufficiency of the Holy Scri­ptures from Tertullian? He neither does the one, nor of­fers at the other, and yet this must pass it seems for vindicating.

And just thus he serves me after; for when I in Vin­dication of S. Basil had quoted him declaring for the ne­cessity of Scripture-Evidence for Matters of Faith, he says not one Syllable in Answer to it, but is for referring me to the old Quotations out of Basil, Epiphanius and Liri­nensis, which I had shewn him before were not to the purpose; which is such perfect trifling as none but such a Compiler as he is would be guilty of.

He then falls to thanking me for saying in relation to the Testimony from Gregory Nyssen, that we allow the Tra­dition of Antiquity to be highly useful and necessary in the Interpreting or giving us the genuine Sense of Points of Faith: all the Answer I will give him is, much good may it do him, however how far that Expression was from doing us any hurt, or them any good, I have abun­dantly shewn in my Vindication, which I am loth to transcribe hither: but that I may not be behind-hand in Civility for the Compiler's Thanks, I will present him in Token of my Gratitude with a Passage or two from his Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers, which I must re­commend to his Consideration.

Gregory Nyssen in his Dialogue de Animâ & Resurrecti­one lays it down for a Position, which no Man ought to contradict, that in that only the Truth [...]. Greg. Nyssen Dial. de Animâ & Resurrect. Tom. 2. P. 639. Edit. Paris. 1615. must be acknow­ledged, which hath upon it the Seal of Scripture-Testimony. [Page 34]And in another part of his Works he calls the Holy Scri­pture [...],Idem in O­rat. de iis qui adeunt Hierosol. Tom. 2. p. 1084. a true, or streight, and inflexible Rule.

S. Austin is as clear and full against our Compiler, while he assures us that in those things which are laid down plainly in the Scripture, all those things are found which concern Faith or Manners. In iis quae aperte in Scripturâ posita sunt, inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem, mores (que) vi­vendi. August. de Doctr. Christianâ, l. 2. c. 9. Tom. 3. p. 17, 18.

S. Hierom speaking of the Hereticks in his time, which made so much noise, and pretended so highly to Apostoli­cal Tradition, gives this severe Doom upon them, but those things also, which they of themselves invent and [yet] feign to have received as it were by Tradition from the Apo­stles without the Authority and Testimonies of the Scriptures, the sword of God doth smite. D. Hi­eron. in Ag­geum, c. 1. Tom. 6. p. 230. Edit. Basil. 1565.

I could give him several such Testimonies from other Fathers, but I will neither trouble him or the Reader with any more at present, it will be time enough to send him the rest when he hath answered these. And will now pass to his next Chapter and the Vindication of it.

But here it seems there was no need of any Vindica­tion, for I am brought in as one of their own side, for saying and granting that our Church doth honour the Saints in observing days in honour or memory of them: and I have the Compiler's thanks for it here: we have had this Con­cession up once already, it made one of the most terrible Articles of Popery against me in our Compiler's masque­rading Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England: In my Answer to that scurrilous Letter I did sufficiently acquit my self and our Church in relation to her Practice about Festival Days.

However our Compiler, now he has laid aside his Dis­guise, advances the same Accusation against me in his [Page 35]own Person, but considering what Church he was of, could do no less than give me Thanks for my Concessions: Well then, since this Man is not ashamed of serving us up again the very same Objections which I had already answered, I must e'en be forced to trouble the Reader with Repetition, since the importunity of an Adversary that cannot blush, forces me upon it, and must tell the Compiler a second time, that when our Church doth set apart Days for the commemorating of the Saints, which is all the Honour she either gives or intends Them, she only appoints them for to bless God for the good and pious Examples of his Saints and Martyrs, not to put up Prayers to the Saints themselves, nor to offer Praises unto Them, but to their God, which was the genuine Practice of the Primitive Church, as I shewed from the Example of the Church of Smyrna, in relation to S. Po­lycarp their Martyred Bishop. Our Church pays no Re­ligious Worship to the Saints themselves, but the Church of Rome does not only worship them, but is very lavish and extravagant in it, as it were easie to shew: however as they of the Church of Rome are not imitated by us, so neither have they the Example of the Primitive Church to defend their present Practices.

We do with the Primitive Church honour the Martyrs and Saints, and have often enough declared it to be such an Honour as was given to them in the Primitive Times, and what that Honour was, S. Austin shall determine, who in answer to a false Aspersion of the Manichees, of the Church's worshipping the Saints upon their Festival Days and at their Monuments, told Faustus the Manichee, that the Church did indeed worship the Martyrs, but that it was with no other Worship than that of Love and Fel­lowship which is paid to the Colimus ergo Marty­res eo cultu dilectionis & societatis, quo & in hâc vitâ coluntur sancti homines Dei. D. Aug. cont. Faust. Manich. l. 20. c. 21. in Tomo 6. Oper. August. Holy Men of God while [Page 36]they are alive on Earth. That this was no other than a civil worship or respect I hope will not be denied by my Adversary, since I suppose he will not pretend to shew, that mortal and frail men, while on Earth, are used to have Religious Worship paid unto them, and solemn Pray­ers offered up to them with all the external indications of devotion.

As to the Concessions which he pretends I have made, and supposes it here again, because I did not particular­ly consider the Testimonies under that Head; I must tell him a second time that I neither did grant all that he had collected in the Nubes Testium upon that Subject, nor seemed to grant it, but did set them aside as need­less: and am, notwithstanding our Compiler, far from joining with them in this Point, as he falsly would insi­nuate that I do: but this is not the first of such wrongs done to me by this Compiler.

When he is next come to the Chapter about Invocation of Saints, he tells the Reader that I appear with some discon­fidence of my cause: and therefore (says the Compiler p. 19.) tho' he pretended in the Title Page, that Antiquity for the first five hundred years did not favour this, or any Doctrine of the Church of Rome: here he has considered better on't, and therefore cutting off Two of the Five, he says, we cannot shew this to have been the Practice of the first Three Centuries. So that here he is willing to give us the Fourth and Fifth Ages, as Practising the In­vocation of Saints. The Compiler quotes for all this the 43. page of my Answer to the Nubes Testium; and a little after tells the Reader, that I grant that Invoca­tion of Saints was practised in the Fourth and Fifth Cen­turies.

If ever I was surpized at the reading any thing in my life, it was at this account of my Book against that Chap­ter in the Nubes; my memory of what I had written [Page 37]and this account of it were so diametrically opposite, that I could not but immediately look into my Book to see whether was in the fault, and quickly found that this Compiler had need to have a very large forehead that would venture at this, when my Book was in so ma­ny hands.

For first as to his saying, I have cut off two of the five Centuries, and only insist on their being not able to shew, that Invocation of Saints was practis'd in the First Three Centuries, it is very false: I neither cut off two of the five, nor insisted upon the three first Centuries only, but said in that very page and place quoted by the Com­piler, that I would pass on to Invocation of Saints, and see whether the Compiler did shew this to have been the pra­ctice of the Three first Centuries, and so on: does and so on here signifie nothing? I did intend it, and I question not but the World understood it to mean the two next Centuries, to wit, the Fourth and Fifth in Controversie betwixt us: and yet this Writer hath the assurance to tell the World I had cut them two off.

He next tells them, that I am willing to give the Pa­pists the Fourth and Fifth Ages as practising Invocation of Saints; and a little lower, that I have granted that Invo­cation of Saints was practis'd in the Fourth and Fifth Cen­turies. This is just as true as the other, for to expose this bold falshood, I need turn over only to the next page in my Book, and transcribe what I had said there, which I intreat the Reader to compare with what the Compiler says of it here.

Speaking in defence of the Church of England's not practising Invocation of Saints, I have these very expressi­ons; We have far more reason to reject Invocation and so­lemn Prayers to Saints as Superstitious, since it is against Scripture, and against the Practice of the Three first Centu­ries, AGAINST A COUNCIL in the FOURTH CENTU­RY, [Page 38] and WANTS A PATTERN EVEN IN THE FIFTH and SIXTH, and hath NO EXAMPLE in ANY of the PLACES produced by our Compiler on this head.

With what face then could this man write that I had given up the fourth and fifth Centuries? Who can believe that such men have in reality either Religion or Consci­ence, that can with so much deliberation commit such a deliberate wrong? Had he had any regard to Truth or Ho­nesty, his Conscience must have flown into his Face, and told him, that what he was then writing was a ve­ry great injustice, and directly false. Good God! that men who make such shew of Religion, make such fre­quent appeals unto the God of purer Eyes, than either to be­hold iniquity, or to let it go unpunished; that talk so often of a day of Judgment, and severe reckoning, can do such things as must force the World to believe, that they are not in earnest in these things! I must say, that the Representer with some other Writers which I could name are very unhappy men, since they either are embarkt in defence of a Cause which cannot be upheld by better Ar­guments and Methods, or they do very great hurt to their cause in defending a good cause with such unlawful Wea­pons.

But to return, the only excuse that can be made for him is, that he was necessitated to it; for as to the three first Centuries he found there was no manner of defence to be made for their Invocation of Saints thence, and that if I did not grant him that the fourth or fifth Cen­tury practised Invocation of Saints, he should have no­thing to say for his Church, or his Book, as to those five hundred years which in the Title of his Nubes Testium he had appealed, and pretended to. He was forc'd there­fore, since I neither did grant him, nor could do it, to set the best Face he could upon the matter; and to say, I had granted that Invocation of Saints was the Practice of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries.

And upon this all is built that he hath to say in de­fence of his Nubes in the Vindication, and he sets very heartily to it with the assistance of his Friend Monsieur de Meaux, and wonders how we can think those illustrious Fathers should practise it, had not the same been a doctrine of the foregoing Ages: and runs on in commending the Virtue and Learning of those Fathers: forgetting all this while that he was guilty of begging the question, and which is worse, of taking that as granted, which had been expresly denied him, that those Fathers did practise Invocation of Saints: He should first have proved the thing, and then he might have harangued upon it, but he begun at the wrong end, and since he was not at lei­sure to disprove fairly and fully any of the Answers I had given to his Nubes, but only by saying, that my distinguishing betwixt Requests made to Saints, and Prayers solemnly addressed to them was a shift, and a piece of Con­troversial Legerdemain, and serving us up with the old provision out of the Nubes to confirm what he said; I should not trouble my self any further with this Matter: but that I am called upon by his Friend F. Sabran the Jesuit, and challenged to shew a difference betwixt what was practised by S. Austin, and ALL the Fathers of his and the precedent Century, and what is now practised by the Church of Rome in relation to Invocation of Saints.

This I promised to do, as soon as the Controversie be­twixt him and me about the 35^th Sermon of S. Austin de Sanctis was either ended or dropt: and since it is dropt, and that matter by my second Letter to the Jesuit was (to use one of his own expressions) made out against him beyond the possibility of a seeming Answer; I will now be just to my word: and that I may more fully vindicate our Church from that Schism the Jesuit lays to her charge upon this account, I will beg leave of the Reader to enlarge a little more upon this point in order to the further clear­ing of matters about it.

I must now return to the Compiler's Vindication of the Nubes Testium, and should pass to the next Chapter about Reliques, but that I must not forget to take notice of a very terrible Objection against us in relation to this Invo­cation, which I had like to have omitted. The Reader I suppose does remember, that the Compiler had said, that I had granted that Invocation of Saints was practised in the Fourth and Fifth Ages of the Church, upon this he very learnedly observes against me, that even one of the Four First General Councils was held within the same time, without ever censuring it as an Error, tho' even before that, this Practice is own'd to have taken root in many Places. This passage is very diverting, and shews with what an air of confidence some men can write the most absurd things, and tack together the most inconsistent: I had thought [Page 80]I had taught the Compiler a little more care and circum­spection when he meddles with Chronology-matters in my Answer to his Nubes Testium, but I perceive nothing will do good upon him, nor learn him more caution. Well then, since he is so wilful, and cannot be persua­ded from making such lamentable blunders in Chronology, he must e'en thank himself if he be exposed for it, and lasht for it as he does deserve.

He first then observes, that even one of the Four First General Councils was held within the same time, that is, within the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. By this One of the Four First General Councils, I suppose, he means the Council of Nice; and I must needs tell him, that he guessed very well to say, that that Council was held with­in the time of those two Centuries, but that he had guess'd a great deal better if he had said, that even all the Four First General Councils were held within that time; for there is no body that pretends to any the least skill in Chronology, that would not have readily told him that they were all four held and over within two Years after the middle of the Fifth Century.

His next Observation is like this, he tells us, That this General Council did not censure Invocation of Saints as an Error; if he means the Council of Nice, as I before supposed he did, it is a very great Truth that that Council did not censure Invocation of Saints as an Error, and there was a very good Reason for it, and that was, because there was no such thing as Invocation of Saints practised in the Church when that Council was held, nor of above two hundred Years after; but some men love to make wise Observations, tho' they miss their aim too too often. Well! But what will the Compiler say, if I shew him that tho' not the First, yet One of these Four General Councils did censure Invocation of Angels, (and consequently of Saints) as an Error, and [Page 81]as a most gross one too? This I will do, that so he may curse his ill Fate for putting him upon making such an untoward Objection against us, and learn for the future, if he is not deaf to Advice, to look before he leaps into such recoyling Objections.

The Council of Chalcedon doth in her first Canon ad­mit and approve of the Synod of Laodicea, and makes the Canons of that Synod part of the standing Law of the Ʋniversal Church: now among the Canons of that Synod we find the 35^th directly forbidding Invocation of An­gels. I will set down the whole Canon, not only because it was made by a Diocesan Synod of a great many Bishops, but because it was confirmed by the Greatest and last General Council, consisting of above Six hundred Bishops, in the middle of the Fifth Century, (which is the Cen­tury most contested for betwixt me and the Compiler) and made by them a Rule to the Catholick Church: and the Canon is this, That Christians ought [...]. Concil. Laodicen. Can. 35. in Biblioth. Juris Canonici. Edit. Justel. 1661. not to forsake the Church of God, and go into Conventicles and Invocate, or pray to Angels, and make Meetings; all which are forbidden them: If any Man therefore be found to give himself to this Secret Idolatry, let him be ac­cursed, for that he hath forsaken our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and hath betaken himself to Idolatry.

The Compiler hath still another Observation to be ex­amined which is as good as either of the other two: It is, That this Practice [of Invocation of Saints] is own'd to have taken root in many places, even before that [Council of Nice]. I will not accuse him here of a willful Falshood, [Page 82]it is meerly because he knew not when that Council was held, that makes him write at this extravagant Rate: I do not own that Invocation of Saints took root either be­fore or within a hundred Years after that Council: and the very first Instance of any Addresses in Orations, or otherwise made to the Saints that any of the Romish Writers are able to produce comes not within forty Years of that Council, so that our Compiler is a very unlucky Man at these Chronology businesses, and should not have ventu­red so rashly to croud so many false, and such ridiculous things into so small a compass: and tho' perhaps I shall have no Thanks for my good Intentions, yet could I but in the least suspect that he and I should have any further Controversie about these things, rather than he should go on in this blundering blindfold manner, I would be at the Expence of presenting him with a Chronology-Ta­ble, that so no more Paper may be spent in correcting or exposing his Mistakes in Chronology. I intreat him to consider of it, and not to venture at such things any more, except he is sure of an Adversary just as wise as himself, and that hath just as much Knowledge in Chro­nology and Antiquity as himself: then indeed he may write on as he has done here, couragiously without the fear of being discovered, and they two may serve only to make diversion for their Readers.

The next Chapter in my Book is about Reliques, and here the Compiler takes me up very quick, and says that I re­tire within the Three first Centuries, but for the Fourth and Fifth that I dare not put the Cause [about Reliques] upon their Verdict. And is not this very pleasant Mat­ter? Suppose I had retired, which I did not, for the Dis­proof of the Worship of Reliques within the Three first Centuries, and durst not stand to the Verdict of the Fourth or Fifth Century; does not he himself remember that the Design of his Nubes Testium was to shew that the [Page 83] Fathers of the first five hundred years did teach and pra­ctice what the Church of Rome at present doth? And did not he pretend there to the Tradition of the First Five Centuries? How then should I have betray'd or hurt my pretences to the same Ages, had I retired within the Three First Centuries, and disprov'd him as to those Cen­turies. When a Man at Law pretends to have five hun­dred years Prescription to the Toll (for Example) of some great Fair, doth not his Adversary sufficiently ruin his five hundred years Prescription, if he can make it appear, that for three of the five hundred years there was no Fair at all kept at that place, and therefore no Toll paid there? The Case betwixt me and my Adversary, as set down by himself, is the very same, and yet I must not be al­lowed to ruine his first five hundred years Prescription, tho' I could prove, that there was no enquiry after, much less any worship of Reliques for three of those five hundred years. This is a very hard Case, however the Compiler writes as if he fear'd no Colours, nor that any body would dare to take up the Pen against him.

But I must bring him to a better consideration of these things, and inform him that the Controversie be­twixt him and me about Reliques is whether they were worshipped or no during the first five hundred years, and that I am so far from retiring within the Three first Cen­turies, that I challenged the Fourth and Fifth as well as the Three first as expresly rejecting and denying the worship of Reliques.

It is necessary for me to do this, since the Compiler confounding what I had said in relation to the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries with what we do at present condemn the Church of Rome of, runs me down most grievously for a page or two, for daring to censure what was then done about the searching and treasuring up of Reliques, tho' I had shewn it to be expresly con­trary [Page 84]to what was the Practice of the three first Centuries, for which I suppose I ought to have as great veneration at least, as for the Practice of the Fourth and Fifth. Ay, but says he, don't you see what men he dares to censure, S. Basil, S. Gregory Nyssen, S. Gregory Nazianzen, S. Chrysostom, S. Ambrose, S. Jerom, S. Austin and Theodo­ret, and then grows very angry upon it, forgetting all the while that he is as pert against what the Church of Antioch did to S. Ignatius's body, the Church of Smyrna to S. Polycarp's; against what the Body of the Clergy of the Church of Rome did expresly enjoin in their Letter to the Clergy of Carthage; against what was done by all the Faithful of the first Ages towards the Bodies and Ashes of all the Martyrs; against what the Great Anchorite S. An­thony (as it is related in his Life, written by S. Athana­sius) did so often beg of the Bishops, that they would for­bid their people to keep the Bodies of their dead Friends un­buried, censuring thereby the Custom of the Egyptians [and I may add, of all those Fathers mentioned by the Compiler against me] who before his time had begun what was so zealously practised and commended by those Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, and is so angrily contended for by the Compiler in his Vindi­cation.

I will set down the whole passage, because it is so compleat a defence of all that I have written about these things, and is so full an Answer to all that the Com­piler doth make so much noise about. S. Athanasius having related S. Anthony's farewel Oration to his Bro­ther Monks, and their great desire to stay him with them, that so they might be honoured with his ending his days among them, tells us, that S. Anthony upon several reasons was utterly against it, but especially for that presumptuous custom of Egypt, which he thus describes. [Page 85] For the Egyptians Mos etenim Aegyptiis est, nobi­lium & praecipue beatorum Martyrum Corpora linteamine quidem obvolve­re, & studium funeri solitum non ne­gare: terrâ verò non abscondere, sed super lectulos domi posita reservare. Hunc honorem quiescentibus reddi, inveteratae con uetudinis VANITAS tradidit. De hoc Antonius saepe & Episcopos deprecatus est, ut populos Ecclesiastica consuetudine corrigerent, & laicos viros ac mulieres rigidius ip­se convenit, dicens: Nec LICITUM HOC ESSE, nec DEO PLACITUM, quippe cum Patriarcharum & Prophe­tarum Sepulchra, quae ad nos us (que) per­durant haec facta convincerent: Do­minici quo (que) Corporis exemplum o­portere intueri jubebat, quod in Se­pulchro positum lapide us (que) ad resur­rectionis tertium diem clausum fuerit. At (que) his modis vitium circa defunctos Aegypti, etiam si Sancta essent Corpora, coarguebat,— Haec justa persuasio mul­torum insitum evellit errorem, & re­positis in terra cadaveribus domino gratias pro bono Magisterio retulerunt. D. Athanasii Vita S. Antonii Tom. 2. p. 482. Edit. Commelin. 1600. have a Custom among them of wrapping up indeed in linnen the Bodies of their Virtuous Men, and espe­cially of the blessed Martyrs, and of giving them Funeral Rites, but they do not bury them in the Earth, but lay them upon Couches, and keep them in their Houses. The VANITY of an inveterate Cu­stom hath taught them, that this Honour is to be shewn to the Deceased. S. An­thony had often complained to the Bishops about this thing, and requested of them, that they would by Ecclesiastical Censure cure the People of this Evil Custom; and He himself was wont to chide both Men and Women very severely for it, telling them, that it was NOT LAWFUL, and that IT was NOT PLEASING TO GOD, and that the Sepulchres of the Patriarchs and Prophets, which continue to these days, did convince these actions to be unlawful; and he bid them to consider the Example of our Lords own Body, which was buried in a Sepulchre, and sealed up with a Stone to the Third day on which he was to rise again. And by these means S. Anthony did reprehend and put a stop to this Evil Custom of Aegypt towards the decea­sed, tho' it was to the Bodies which were Holy; — and this just Reproof did root out of many this inbred Er­ror, and they having buried the dead Bodies of their deceased Friends, returned the Lord thanks for the Good Admonition.

Our Compiler however is very earnest upon it, that what was practised in the latter end of the fourth and fifth Centuries towards the Reliques of the Saints and Martyrs is the very same, and no more than what is now [Page 86]practised towards them by the Order of the Church of Rome; and he builds this whole fancy upon the equivo­calness of some words and actions used then as well as now; but that I may ruine this groundless pretence, and all his Jingling about words, I will settle and prove these two things:

First, That the Church of Rome doth command and pra­ctise the worship of Reliques.

Secondly, That for the First Five Centuries of the Church the Worship of Reliques was neither commanded nor practised by the Primitive Church.

For the proof of the First, I need only insist on what the Council of Trent in her twenty-fifth and last Session did decree about Reliques, that the Bodies and Reliques of the Saints were to be worshipped, and a little after she denoun­ces an Anathema against all that should affirm, that Venera­tion and Honour are not to be paid to Reliques. That by Veneration and Honour in this Decree Religious Worship is meant, may be cleared from the best Writers of the Church of Rome, who use the words Veneration and Ado­ration promiscuously, and in the same sense.

Thus Vasques the great Schoolman, Vasques in Par. 3. D. Thom. Disp. 112. since that Council, in his Disputations upon S. Thomas, having proposed this question, whether the Bodies and Reliques of the Saints are to be VENERATED; answers, that it is an indisputa­ble Truth among the Catholicks, that the RELIQUES of SAINTS, whether they be any parts of them, as Bones, Flesh and Ashes, or any other things that have touch'd them, or did belong to them, ought to be ADORED and honoured with Sacred or DIVINE HONOUR: and a little after concluding, that he had proved, that RELIQUES are to be ADORED, he next sets upon explaining with what kind of Worship and Honour THE RELIQUES ought to be VENERATED.

And S. Thomas himself before Vasques had thus pro­miscuously used the Words VENERATION and ADO­RATION,S. Thom. Sum­ma, Pars 3. Quaest. 25. Ar­tic. 6. p. 65. and whereas Vasques had put the Question whether Reliques were to be VENERATED, S. Thomas puts it, whether RELIQUES are to be ADORED, and as Vasques had answered that they were to be ADORED, so S. Thomas answers his Question, that seeing we VENE­RATE the Saints of God, we must also VENERATE their Bodies and RELIQUES. And he does throughout that Article in his Objections and Answers sometimes use the one, and sometimes the other, but more frequently the Word ADORATION to express what Honour the Church did think due to RELIQUES.

I was more careful to make use of the Authority of S. Thomas herein, because he is lookt upon to be of such Sacred Authority in the Church of Rome, that Sabran the Jesuit assures me that above one half of the Divines of the Christian World [and those I am sure are at least all the Divines that are in the Church of Rome] do own Him for Master, Reply to my I. Letter to him. and bind themselves to maintain ALL He hath taught. Well then, If the Case be as the Jesuit re­presents it, I am certain to carry my Cause that the Church of Rome doth ADORE the RELIQUES of the Saints, since I am sure that S. Thomas taught that RE­LIQUES ARE TO BE ADORED.

But without the Authority of S. Thomas, from whose Decision, the Jesuit told me in his Letter to the Peer, that he would not swerve, tho' I had proved S. Thomas altoge­ther and certainly mistaken about that thing: I think we may prove that by VENERATION the Council of Trent did mean the ADORATION of RELIQUES, if they will but permit us to explain the meaning of the Decrees of that Council by the standing Reformed Offices in their Church.

In the Twenty fifth Session of that Council, in their De­cree about Images, they do use the very same Words to ex­press what Honour they will have done to Images, that they had used immediately before for the Reliques of the Saints. VENERATION and HONOUR are the Words em­ployed in both the Paragraphs. Now to find what that VENERATION means, which the Council of Trent appoints to be paid to the Images, we need only look into their Good-Fryday-Service, and into their Ponti­tical to find their Church's Sense. Missale Rom. Feria 6. in Pa­rasceue. fol. 83, 84. Edit. Paris. in 8^o. 1582. In the Good-Friday-Service we meet with the Word ADORATION, and ADORED, about the Honour paid to the Image of the Cross above Ten times; and that we cannot mistake them, the Worship or VENERATION of the Cross is three times plainly styled the ADORATION OF THE CROSS. In their Pontifical, to shew what they mean by VENERATION and HONOUR in the Decree of the Council, it is given as the Reason why the CROSS carried before a Legate should take the right Hand of the Emperour's Sword (at the Reception of an Emperour with Procession into any City) because, LATRIA, a DIVINE WORSHIP IS DUE TO THE CROSS.

This I question not will be able to convince all Men that VENERATION and ADORATION are promi­scuously used for the same thing, and that by appointing a VENERATION to be paid to the RELIQUES of the Saints, the Council of Trent did command that THE RELIQUES of Saints should be ADORED: and this is sufficient for what I undertook to prove, That the Church of Rome doth command the Worship of Re­liques.

That she doth practise the Worshipping of Reliques is what I have next to shew; but this may be dispatch'd in a few Words, since every body knows that their Peo­ple in the Church of Rome are not behind hand in practi­sing [Page 89]what their Church commands about Reliques: and I suppose that this will be granted me, That what the Church commands, the People may very lawfully do; and that they do practise in all their Popish Countries the Adoration of Reliques.

I must then prove my Second Particular, That for the First five Centuries of the Church, the Worship of Reliques was neither commanded nor practised by the Primitive Church.

To prove that the Worship of Reliques was not com­manded during that time, we need only to appeal to the Canons and Laws of the Four General Councils held with­in the Fourth and Fifth Century, wherein not a Syllable is to be met with about any such thing: and they of the Church of Rome are as well satisfied as we, that there is nothing in those Councils for their purpose about Re­liques, and therefore do not pretend to shew any Com­mand for the Worship of Images from any of those Coun­cils.

And that the Primitive Church did not practise any Worship of Reliques during that time, is as easie to shew from the Generality of the Fathers, who were utterly against Worshipping the Saints themselves, and conse­quently much more against the Worshipping any of the Mortal Remains of those Saints. I will only insist upon two, who lived in the beginning of the Fifth Century of the Church, S. Austin to prove that they did not then worship the Saints themselves, and S. Hierom to shew that they did not worship the Saints Reliques. Colimus ergo Martyres eo cultu dilectio­nis & societa­tis, quo & in hâc vitâ colun­tur sancti ho­mines Dei. Aug. c. Faust. l. 20. c. 21.

S. Austin in answer to Faustus the Manichee who had objected to the Orthodox their Worshipping the Saints, shews him the Falseness and Silliness of his Accusation, by telling him, that the Church did indeed worship the Martyrs, but that it was meerly such civil Worship as is paid to Holy Men while they are alive; and that I am sure [Page 90]was never hitherto accused of being Religious Wor­ship.

And for the Reliques of the Saints, when Vigilantius had objected to several in the Church (as S. Hierom re­presents it) a Worship of Reliques: S. Hierom with his usual vehemence falls upon him, and asks him first, who ever adored the Martyrs? [A Question that can very ea­sily be answered in our days without the danger of being called Madmen for our pains, as Vigilantius was for even thinking that any of the Church should be so foolish as to worship the Martyrs] and then he tells him that They did not WORSHIP the Saints RELIQUES, and were so far from it, that they did not Worship or Adore even the Sun it self Nos autem NON dico Martyrum RELIQUIAS, sed ne Solem qui­dem — non Angelos, non Archange­los—COLIMUS & ADORAMUS. D. Hieron. advers. Vigilant. ad Riparium., nay not the Angels, nor the Archangels. Here we see S. Hierom confuting the Accusation of Worship­ping of Reliques, by shewing that the Church did not worship the Sun it self, nor the Angels or Archangels themselves, which are Crea­tures so much above, and more Glorious than the dead Remains of any Saint, and therefore must needs be much further from the giving WORSHIP to the Saints Reliques.

Having thus proved these two things, that the Church of Rome doth worship Reliques, and that the Primitive Church did not, we ought to conclude as to this Point about Reliques, that the Primitive Fathers were no Papists, but Protestants, since they did declare against the Wor­ship of Reliques as much as the Church of England doth, and did detest the Worshipping of them as much as we can.

There is one Great Mistake that the Compiler must be rectified in, before I leave this Chapter about Reliques, and that is from the Community of Actions and Expressions to gather that the same thing was done by some of the [Page 91] Fathers towards the Reliques, that is done now in the Church of Rome: He cannot be ignorant that most of the External Expressions of Respect are common to Civil and Religious Worship, and yet that no Body is so wild as to conclude from thence that Civil and Religious Wor­ship are the same thing.

When Abraham bowed himself to the ground before the Children of Heth, he used the very same Gesture that he was wont to make use of in his Worship of God, and yet I hope our Compiler would not have it concluded from the same Gesture used upon both those Occasions, either that Abraham, when he bowed to the Children of Heth, paid Religious Worship unto them, or that he, using the same Gesture in the Service of God, paid only a Civil Worship unto Him. And yet This is all that he builds upon, when he is so earnest about the thing, and would confound Civil and Religious Worship, by shewing what no Body denies, that several of the Outward Expressions of Civil and Religious Worship are the same. Whereas, notwithstanding the Outward Gestures be the same, we do easily know Religious from Civil Worship, by the Object to whom it is paid, and by the Professions of them who pay it.

And by this we are able to decide and resolve that Scru­ple which the Compiler would fain raise about the Mat­ter of Reliques. The Primitive Fathers did declare that they were against giving any Religious Worship to Reliques, and therefore when we meet with any extraordinary Expressions or Actions among them which might other­wise appear to be Religious, we are obliged to look up­on them only as Expressions of Civil Worship by reason of the Declaration so often made by them, that they did not worship Reliques. But for the same Gestures or Acti­ons used by the Church of Rome towards the Reliques or Bodies of the Saints, we are obliged upon the very [Page 92] same Reason to look upon them as Expressions of a Reli­gious Worship or Adoration, since She hath prevented our taking them in the other Sense, by declaring and decreeing in her Council of Trent that the BODIES and RELIQUES of the SAINTS are to be WORSHIPPED or ADO­RED.

And further to let him see this by an Instance used by Himself, He urges that they used to touch and kiss the Reliques of the Martyrs, and shews it from Gregory Nys­sen, which was the highest Expression of Respect used then towards Reliques: Now how far this is from being Religious Worship, in them, or the same Kiss from being but Civil Worship in the Church of Rome, I have alrea­dy abundantly cleared, from the Professions made about Reliques by the Primitive Fathers, and by the Church of Rome in her Council of Trent.

I have insisted the longer upon this Business about the Reliques, because the Compiler himself did; and have ta­ken the more care to clear the whole Matter about the Worship of Reliques, because He took so much pains to disguise and obscure it, and by confounding Civil and Religious Worship, to bear the credulous Reader in hand that the Church of Rome and the Primitive Church are exactly the same in their Respect to Reliques: and that the Church of Rome doth no more pay a Religious Wor­ship or Adoration to Reliques, than the Primitive Fathers did: the Vanity and Falshood of all which I have fully display'd, that so the Compiler being driven out of this Hold, and being made ashamed of such groundless Delu­sions and Distinctions, may e'en fall into the Old Track of defending Popery, and speak out fairly the Sense of their Church about the Worship of Reliques, and defend with the Angelical Doctor S. Thomas Aquinas, and his Disciples, (who, Sabran the Jesuit tells us, are above One half of the Divines of the Christian World) [Page 93]that THE RELIQUES of the SAINTS OUGHT TO BE ADORED.

He next undertakes the business of Purgatory, and finding that I had invincibly shewn, that the Primitive Fathers, notwithstanding their Prayers for the Faithful deceased, did believe, that they were at the same time in a state of Bliss, of Comfort, of Peace, of Joy, and Light and Tranquillity, nay in Heaven it self; every one of which is utterly inconsistent with the Condition of Pur­gatory believed and taught by the Church of Rome; He hopes to salve all, by granting what he could not deny of the Primitive Fathers believing the Faithful deceased to be in such a Condition, and reconciling all this to the Belief of Purgatory in his Church.

To this purpose he tells us, that the supposing those Souls, for which the Fathers pray'd, to be in a State of Joy and Comfort, does most nearly agree with the present Pra­ctice and Doctrine of the Church of Rome. I am glad to hear this, and now I perceive there is none of those tor­ments and burnings in the Case, with which the peo­ple used to be frighted out of their Wits themselves, and to scare one another: but the unhappiness is, this is too good news to be true; and I doubt we shall find by and by that the Romish Purgatory is the very same place that it used to be thought, and that it is just as hot, and as tormenting and intolerable at this very day as it was six hundred years ago, when those lamenta­ble shreeks were so often heard from the poor Souls in Purgatory: However since I suppose our Compiler knows himself not to have been so careful of his Life as to ima­gine he shall escape calling at Purgatory, I cannot dis­commend his making Purgatory as easy as he can, and his representing it to be just such a place as he would with all his heart find it, when he comes thither.

He endeavours to prove this agreement from that [Page 94]Prayer in the Canon of the Mass used in their Church, wherein they pray God to grant to those his faithful Ser­vants who rest in the sleep of Peace, a Place of Comfort, Light and Peace. In answer to which I will only tell him here, that this Old-Prayer in the Canon of the Mass is directly against the present Church of Rome in the bu­siness of Purgatory, and against what the Compiler hath positively asserted a little after this about Prayer not being made for those in Bliss, or those in Hell, but only for those who could be relieved by the Prayers of the Li­ving; as I shall by and by shew. In the mean time I will consider what he further offers to prove this A­greement; and this is no other than to tell us over a­gain, that the State of Purgatory is agreeable to that Prayer, and then to describe it, by telling us very grave­ly, that in Purgatory there is a kind of Rest and Quiet, where the Interior Powers of the Souls are well order'd and compos'd; the Ʋnderstanding setled in the Light of Faith, the Will inflam'd with the Love of God, the Imagination undisturb'd, and secure Hopes of once enjoying God, filling the Souls with a happy Resignation and Comfort.

And is not this very Comical stuff? Certainly, all that read it will wonder whence this Man comes to have so very nice and exact an account of the State of Purgatory, as to know how every one of the Faculties of our Soul are employ'd there. One would think he had been there already himself, or that somebody hath slipt out thence, and instead of going streight to Heaven had come to Earth again, to inform the Compiler how things stand there, and how every one is employ'd there; which brings into my mind that Dialogue of Lucian, which gives us just such another account of the State of the Dead: I must confess I cannot read such things without an Indignation to see grave men Romancing about things so serious; and tho' I can bear well enough [Page 95]Sir Thomas Moor's Accounts what people do, and how they are taken up in his Ʋtopia, yet I cannot forgive any Christian that will bring such Comical Accounts in­to our Religion: and for any Man to write at the rate the Compiler does here, and to give such a formal ac­count of things for which he can have no grounds, nor reasons, nor any probability or possibility (without a di­vine Revelation) of knowing any of the things he so confidently affirms, is to make another Ʋtopia, and to ridicule the Christian Religion to the World.

I cannot find that the Compiler makes the nature of their Purgatory to be any thing else than the Longing de­sire of those in it of seeing and enjoying God, which long­ing desire doth give them a most afflicting Anguish; from which they are capable of being delivered and reliev'd by the Prayers of their Friends on Earth. And he concludes, that this is all that is required in our Profession of Faith, in which 'tis said, I hold that there is a Purgatory, and that the Souls there detain'd, are reliev'd by the Suffrages of the Faithful.

I know the Compiler too well to trust him in these things, wherein he hath taken a great deal of pains to no purpose in the World, since it is very easy to de­monstrate, that He and F. Alexandre, with the other Expositors of the New Popery have quite run away from the true old doctrine of their Church about Purgatory; that the true Purgatory of the Church of Rome is as incon­sistent with that State of Light, Tranquillity and Comfort, wherein the Primitive Fathers supposed the Faithful to be, as Light is with Darkness, Torment with Ease, and the most exquisite Pain with Pleasure.

And this is what I will now prove, that the Romish Purgatory is a place of Corment, wherein the Souls of those who are in it, undergo the same pains that the damned do, and that there is no other difference be­twixt [Page 96] Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire, but that the one is Eternal, and the other but Temporal: and this I am sure will discover the absurdity of all that our Compiler hath said here in his Vindication, and ruin the pretended agreement betwixt the Primitive Fathers State of Joy and Tranquillity, and the Purgatory of the Church of Rome.

The Council of Trent was so shy, or rather so cunning, about the business of Purgatory, that she only decrees in general terms, That there is a Purgatory, and that the Souls detain'd there do receive Relief by the Prayers of the Faith­ful, but especially Concil. Tri­dent. Sessio 25. de Purgatorio. by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Mass; without telling us one word further of the State, Na­ture, Condition or Place of this Purgatory, or any other Circumstances that might explain the Nature of it to them, who, notwithstanding these general ambi­guous words, are bound to believe it as much as the Ar­ticle of the Trinity: So that either there is no way of knowing what this Purgatory is, or we must gather the knowledge of the nature and condition of it from the best approved Writers or general sense of their Church about it.

I could not but smile, I must confess, to find the Com­piler to be so very shy in his Vindication, and to be so afraid of having any body believe that there is any thing of Fire in the Case when he is describing the nature of Purgatory, since tho' he had forgotten it, yet I had not, how in his Nubes Testium he makes the greatest show for Purgatory with his PURGING FIRE out of Gre­gory Nyssen, with his PURGATORY FIRE out of S. Basil, and with his Baptism of FIRE after Death, out of Gregory Nazianzen; but now in his Vindication, He hath put all the Three Fires out, and all this because tho' they did agree well enough with Places of Light, yet there were no ways possible of making 'em Places of Comfort [Page 97]and Joy; and therefore they deserv'd to be put quite out.

Of all the Writers I ever met with, I never observed any that would plunge himself so grievously as this poor Compiler will; tho' he set himself never so warmly to prove any thing, nay to be as earnest for it as if the whole of Christianity did depend upon it; yet if after­wards he finds that the matter is or may be turn'd upon him, then farewel this or that Opinion, and all the quotations for it into the bargain; he wipes his Mouth, gets into another Box, and then talks or writes as if he had never affirmed, nay not heard of any such thing.

Well then, since the Compiler is for throwing away all his quotations out of the Fathers to prove Purgatory was a FIRE, I cannot make use of them, since he has put them all out: but must inquire among other people to see what they make the Nature of Purgatory to be. There is none so able or so probable to help me herein as Bellarmine; One of the greatest Men their Church ever had. The Cardinal in his second Book about Pur­gatory, examining the Nature of Purgatory, concludes thus, It is certain, that in Purgatory as well as in Hell, there is a Punishment Certum est 4^to, in Purgatorio, sicut etiam in Inferno esse poenam Ignis, sive iste Ignis accipiatur propriè, sive Metaphoricè, & sive significet poenam sensus, sive damni, ut quidam volunt — ex Patrum Testimoniis. Omnes enim IGNEN appellabant Purga­torii poenam. Bellarm. de Purgatorio, l. 2. c. 10. of FIRE. Whe­ther this Fire be taken properly, or Me­taphorically, and whether it signify the Pain of sense, or of loss, as some will have it. This he did gather, as he tells us immediately after in the same Chap­ter, from the Testimonies of the Fa­thers: for ALL of them (says He) did call the Punishment of Purgatory FIRE.

Here we find Bellarmine determining that Purgatory-Fire, and Hell-Fire, are the very same by Nature: and the Title of his next Chapter is Ignem Purgatorii esse Cor­poreum, [Page 98]that the FIRE of Purgatory is CORPOREAL, for the proof of which,Idem ibid. l. 2. c. 11. He urges, that it is Communis sententia Theologorum, the Common Opinion of their Divines, that Purgatory-Fire is True and Real Fire, and of the same kind with our Elementary Fire.

I have chosen thus to give Bellarmine's words in this Controversy, because he does not urge his own sense or Thoughts only about the Nature of Purgatory, but in­sists upon it, and tells us, that it is the COMMON JUDGMENT of their DIVINES, that Purgatory-Fire is true real Elementary Fire: as before he had deliver'd as a thing CERTAIN, that Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire are the same in kind.

But I need not content my self with Bellarmine and the Common Consent of the Divines of the Church of Rome to prove that the Romish Purgatory is a Place of Torments by Fire: I have better evidence for it, and such as our Compiler, nor any of the New Expositors of Popery dare not refuse, if they will allow One of their General Councils to be of as much Authority among them as another. In the Account we have of the General Coun­cil of Florence, we find the Latins continually contend­ing for a Purgatory-Fire.

Thus in the History of what did immediately precede the First Session of this Council at Ferrara (from whence, by reason of the Plague, it was removed to Florence) we find a select number of twelve Latins and twelve Greeks, appointed to meet, and debate of the chief points in Con­troversy betwixt the Greek and Roman Church. The point about Purgatory was the first debated, where the Latins at first word told their Churches sense, that by Purgatory they meant a Purging FIRE, and throughout the whole debate we find them still using the term Pur­gatory-Fire for to express their Churches sense about the Nature of Purgatory: the Greeks are perfectly against [Page 99]there being any such thing as a Purgatory-Fire; and their Opinions are distinctly set down in the Preliminary Acts of that Council, which I will transcribe hither for to shew, not only that the Romans did believe Purga­tory to be Fire, but also to let the World see, that the Compiler, tho' he was for the Church of Rome in his Nu­bes Testium, is since run over (in his Vindication) to the Opinion of the Greeks about Purgatory.

The sense of the Latin Church is thus delivered, The Italians do acknowledge a Fire even during this present World, and a Purging by Fire; They own also a FIRE in the World [...], &c. Concil. Florent. p. 28. Edit. Cossart. to come, but not a Purga­tory Fire, but an Eternal One: and that during this World the Souls are purged by FIRE, and delivered thence [sooner or later] according to every ones Sins, so that He which hath committed many Sins is not delivered thence till after he hath been a long time purged; but he that was guilty of but few sins, was the sooner absolved, the Church also (as hath already been said) helping them; and [lastly] that all are PURGED by FIRE. Wherefore the Italians do take this FIRE to be TEMPORARY during this present World, but ETERNAL in the World to come, and THIS TEMPORARY FIRE they name PUR­GATORY.

After this the sense of the Greeks about it is immedi­ately set down in these very Words: But the Greeks think that there is NO FIRE but in the World to come, [tho' they do own] a temporary Punishment of Souls [which they make to consist herein] that the Souls of Sinners go into a Dark Place, into a Place of Grief, where they are grieved for a time, and punished with the want of Divine Light [or as our Compiler hath expressed it, of seeing and enjoying God] but by the Prayers and Sacrifices [Page 100]of the Priests, and by Alms they are purged, that is, they are delivered out of that obscure Place and Affliction, and are dismiss'd thence, but not in the least purged by FIRE, for the Greeks do not own any Operation of Fire here with the Italians, but meerly that Prayer, Intercession, and Alms do operate and obtain that Deliverance.

After the setting down of both the Latins and Greeks Opinions in this manner, I will end this with the Conclu­sion that was placed there in the Acts of that Council immediately after them. This then is the Difference be­twixt them; the Greeks say there is a Punishment and Af­fliction, and a Place for this Punishment, but that it is NOT BY FIRE: but the Italians [on the other hand] say [...]. Concil. Florent. p. 28., that this Punishment and Purgation is BY FIRE.

This Account of the Sence of the Roman Church is so plain for a Purgatory Fire, which differs only from Hell Fire in that the one is Temporary and during this World, but the other Eternal in the World to come, that it would be very vain to offer at any thing for the further clearing of it here: I must only not forget to take notice of the Con­fidence of the Compiler, who will very magisterially have the Greeks and the Latins to differ chiefly herein about a Name; and is angry at me for saying the Greeks disown any such Place as Purgatory: whereas it is as plain as the Sun, that the Greeks do disown Purgatory, as it signifies a Place of Torment, wherein Souls are purged by Fire, which he cannot but know was the Sence in which I used the word, and the whole Church of Rome too, except­ing a few Expositors and Representers, who since they cannot defend the Doctrines and Practices of their Church, are running away quite from them, and setting up a [Page 101] New Popery, which they think they can defend.

The Passages I have produced out of the Council of Florence it self do unanswerably shew what the Latins do mean by Purgatory; and we find after all the Debates and Contests in the Council that the Pope Eugenius in­sisted mostly upon having it granted that those faithful who dyed in the state of the Penitents, do GO into a PUR­GATORY FIRE, and after having been PURGED there, are removed to the Society of them Concil. Flor. Sessio 25. p. 494 who enjoy the Vision of God.

Another Authority I am able to produce, which if it be not equal, yet is next to that of a General Council, from the Catechism ad Parochos, drawn up by the Order of the Council of Trent.

Tho the Council it self was so sly about the business of Purgatory, yet the Persons who drew up the Catechism did see it necessary to speak out more plainly the Sense of their Church about the Nature of Purgatory; and therefore upon the Fifth Article in the Apostles Creed a­bout the Descent into Hell, when they come to give the various Senses in which the word Hell is used, they tell us it is first taken for the Receptacle of the Damned, where­in the Souls of them are tormented with an Eternal and Ʋn­quenchable Fire. They next will have it to signifie Pur­gatory, and these are their own Words. Furthermore there is a PURGATORY FIRE, in which the Souls of the Pious are Praeterea est PURGATORIUS IGNIS, in quo Piorum Animae ad definitum tempus cruciatae expiantur, ut iis in aeternam Patriam ingressus pa­tere possit, in quam nihil coinquina­tum ingreditur. Catechism. ad Paro­chos, Pars 1. p. 50. Edit. Lugd. 1676. TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME, in order to their being expiated, that so an Entrance into their Eternal Country may lye open unto them, into which nothing polluted does enter. And to let the World see they did not give their own Sense herein, but that of their Church, they quote in the Margin the Council of Trent it self for it, in the 25^th Session about [Page 102] Purgatory: and tell us immediately after, that Holy Coun­cils [by which they must mean, that of Florence as well as that of Trent] have declared for the Truth of this Doctrine, that it is confirmed by the Testimonies of Scripture, and Apostolical Tradition: and therefore the Parish Priest is to treat more diligently, and more frequently of Purgatory, because we (say the Authors of the Catechism) are fallen into those times, wherein Men do not endure SOUND DOCTRINE.

If the Times were thought so bad, when that Cate­chism was drawn up, what must be thought of ours, when not only the Protestants will not endure this SOUND DOCTRINE, but the Present Writers of the Church of Rome, the Bishop of Meaux, his Vindicator, and the Compiler will no more endure this SOUND DOC­TRINE of a PURGATORY FIRE than the Hereticks, but cry out so often that the Church doth not believe, that the Church doth not teach a Purgatory FIRE. Whereas it is as evident as that there is Day and Night, that this Catechism drawn up by the Order of the Council of Trent, and confirmed by Pope Pius the Fifth, doth not on­ly here deliver it as Sound Doctrine, that there is a PURGATORY FIRE WHEREIN THE SOULS of the FAITHFUL are TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME, but in the next Page, speaking of the Souls of the Faithful which departed this Life before Christ's Re­surrection, says, that they went not to Heaven, which was not opened to any before Christ's Death and Resur­rection, but that they were carried either into Abraham's Bosom, (or as it NOW happens to those, who have something to discharge when they dye) were expiated or purged by the FIRE OF PURGATORY.

But I have a better evidence than all these to prove, that by Purgatory the Church of Rome doth certainly mean a Place of Torment, wherein those Souls that are [Page 103]detain'd in it undergo Fiery-Torments which differ no otherwise from Hell-Torments, but only in the Duration of them, that Purgatory Torments are but for a time, but the other are everlasting: and it is no other than the Office for the Dead in the Romish Missal.

In the Mass for the Dead the Offertory runs thus, O Lord Iesu Christ, King of Glory! DELIVER the SOULS of all the FAITHFUL DECEASED from the PAINS OF HELL, and from the BOT­TOMLESS PIT: Deliver them Domine Jesu Christe, Rex Gloriae, libera animas omnium fidelium defun­ctorum de Poenis Inferni, & de pro­fundo lacu: libera eas de Ore Leonis, ne absorbeat eas Tartarus, ne cadant in Obscurum: sed signifer Sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in Lucem San­ctam: quam olim Abrahae promisisti, & semini ejus. Missa pro Defunctis in Missali Romano, fol. 51. Edit. Paris. in 8^o. 1582. from the MOUTH of the LION, that HELL may not SWALLOW THEM UP FOR EVER, and that they may not fall into outer Dark­ness; but let thy Holy Angel Michael convey them unto that Heavenly Light, which thou hast promised of old to Abraham and to his Séed.

This is the service of the Church of Rome at this very day for the Dead, the only enquiry now to be made is, who these are for whom the Church of Rome is so solici­tous to have them delivered out of the Pains of Hell, and out of the Mouth of the Lion, &c. And who can I better inquire of than our Compiler himself? He shall be the Man, that the World may see how very fairly I deal with my Adversaries. This Prayer then must be put up for one of these three sorts of men, either for the Souls who are in Heaven, or for the Souls who are in Hell, or for some Souls who are neither in Heaven, nor Hell, but in a middle State or Place which their Church doth call Purgatory.

Is this Prayer therefore used for the Souls in Heaven? No, says our Compiler, for it is needless to pray for those that are in Heaven; there being no want there at all, no want of Relief, of Refreshment [and consequently no Hell-Torments [Page 104]undergone by any Souls there] of Pardon; there being no Guilt there of Sins. Is it for the Souls in Hell? No, replies the Compiler again, it is as fruitless to pray for those in Hell, that State being wholly irreversible: So that by his help we have light upon the Souls that are prayed for there, and those are the Souls in Purgatory, which according to this Prayer, undergo their Hell-Torments, and are in a Condition nothing different from the damned but meerly in the Duration of their Pains, these Souls torments being but temporary, but those of the damned eternal. And for the Condition of the Place in which these miserable Souls are, we find it here represented in this Prayer as the same with Hell, and we meet in this short Prayer with all the Terms by which Hell is described to us in the word of God; so that there is no danger of our mistaking the sense of the Church of Rome about Purgatory, since we find it so plainly set forth in her Office for the Souls in it, as a Place of Fiery Torments.

However to put this thing without the possibility of a Reply; that the Compiler may see that it is not I alone who gather thus much out of that Prayer, I will give the Reader an account of Cardinal Capisucchi's Opinion in his 5^th Controversy about the Words of this very Prayer which I have made use of, and put down above.

The Cardinal first puts down the Opinion of them who look upon that Prayer as offer'd up for those that are in Hell, who may come to be deliver'd thence as Trajan the Heathen Emperour is said to have been: but This he refu­ses as most false and erroneous upon the reasons com­monly given in this Case. He next puts down their Opinion that will have it to relate to those who are just a dying and drawing on: but this Opinion he says is gene­rally rejected, not only because those that are only drawing on cannot be, with any propriety of Speech, called the Souls [Page 105]of the Dead, but because the Custom of the Church is to use this Prayer for those Souls which have many years ago left the Body. After which He concludes, that this Prayer is used for those that are in Purgatory, and gives us this Exposition of the Words of the Prayer, Deliver, O Lord, the Souls of all the Faithful Deceased from the Pains of Hell, that is, from PURGATORY-FIRE, WHICH IS HELD TO BE ALTOGETHER THE SAME WITH HELL-FIRE, and from the Bottom­less-Pit, and from the Mouth of the Lion, that is, from the Prison hid under Juxta haec singula illius Orationis verba exponi possunt, nam dicitur, Domine, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis Inferni; id est, à PURGATORIO IGNE, qui IDEM prorsus esse perhibetur, at (que) IGNIS INFERNI, & de profundo lacu, de Ore Leonis; à Carcere nimirum sub Terram abdito, ubi detentae expur­gantur animae piorum. Ne absorbeat eas Tartarus: hoc est ne amplius & diutius eas profundi illius Carceris Ca­vernae & vincula remorentur, nec In­ferni poenae tanquam fauces quaedam belluae immanis, saevae & truculentae detineant; Unde IGNEM PUR­GATORIUM, cum sit IDEM qui IGNIS INFERNI, appellat Ec­clesia Tartarum. Ne cadant in Obscu­rum; id est, ne obscurum, quas ca­dentes excepit, longius detineat. Fr. Raimund Capisucchi Controversiae Theo­log. selectae. Controversia 5^ta p. 237. Edit. Romae 1677. the Earth, wherein the Souls of the Faithful are de­tain'd to be purged; that HELL may not swallow them up for Ever: that is, that the Receptacles and Bands of that deep Prison may not stay them fur­ther or any longer: nor the PAINS OF HELL, as the Jaws of some fierce, cruel and savage Beast detain them: Where­upon the Church doth call PURGATORY-FIRE Hell, because Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire is the same; that they may not fall into outer darkness; that is, that this Obscure Place may no longer detain the Souls which it receives falling into it.

Here is the Interpretation of a Great Cardinal of the Church of Rome now alive, and which is more, the Chief Licenser of all Divinity Books at Rome, as Master of the sacred Palace; one of the qualifications for which place certainly is to understand the Faith and Doctrines of the Church of Rome. Here we meet with him ex­plaining that Prayer in the Mass for the Dead, as rela­ting [Page 106]to Purgatory, and calling it over and over again a place of Torment, Purgatory-Fire, and declaring it to be the same with Hell-Fire.

I took the pains to peruse and transcribe that large passage about the Exposition of this Prayer hither, be­cause I could not call it to mind without a secret Indig­nation, that this Cardinal Capisucchi, but two years be­fore the Printing of this Book (which was not then first written, but Reprinted) was one of those who Licen­sed and so much commended the Bishop of Condom's Ex­position, in which we find an account of Purgatory per­fectly inconsistent with what the Cardinal had written in his Controversies.

In the Bishop of Condom's Exposition, we find these expressions about Purgatory. This is what the Council of Trent proposes to our Belief, touching the Souls detained in Purgatory, without determining Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church. By the Bishop of Con­dom, p. 15. in WHAT Their PAINS consists, or many other such like things; concerning which this holy Council demands great moderation, blaming those who divulge what is uncertain or suspected. Such is the in­nocent, and holy DOCTRINE of the CATHOLICK CHURCH touching Satisfactions.

But for all Cardinal Capisucchi's Licensing and appro­ving this passage in that Exposition, He himself had written the direct contrary, when he makes the Pains of Purgatory to be by Fire, and makes Hell-Fire and Pur­gatory-Fire to be the SAME; and not only knew this to be, but published that it was the Faith of their Church that does in that Prayer for the Dead call Purgatory Hell, because Purgatory-Fire and Hell Fire were the very same.

All the defence that can be made for Cardinal Capi­succhi, must be, that the Bishop of Condom's words were restrained to the Council of Trent, which Council it is certain did not determine any thing about what [Page 107]the Purgatory pains consisted in; but this can by no means excuse him, since it is false that the Bishop of Con­dom's words are confin'd to that Council, for he just after the mention of the Council says, that what he had set down there about Satisfactions [in this World, or in Purgatory] was the innocent and holy Doctrine of the CATHOLICK CHURCH; which thing Cardinal Ca­pisucchi did not only know in his Conscience to be false, but had written the contrary to it, which I suppose he is willing should be thought the truer of the two.

But granting that the Bishop of Condom's words had been restrain'd wholly to the Council of Trent; Cardinal Capisucchi ought not to have Licensed or approved that Bishop's Exposition, if he would have approved himself a sincere Man: since he could not but know that this pas­sage of the Bishop of Condom about Purgatory was a per­fect Juggle, and altogether unbecoming a Christian, much more a Bishop; for tho' the Council had been so re­served about the nature of the Pains in Purgatory, yet he knew too well that their Church, their Catholick Church had plainly and fully determined about the na­ture of those Purgatory Pains in her Office for the Dead, by which she had spoken her sense intelligibly enough to the very meanest Capacities, that those pains are by FIRE, by FIRE which is the SAME with HELL-FIRE.

I will urge this thing no further, but only pray to God, that those great men may repent of such unwar­rantable actions, and of such arts which are altogether a dishonour to our Holy Religion. I think I have very fully shewn what I did undertake for upon this busi­ness, to wit, that the Romish Purgatory is a place of Tor­ment, wherein the Souls of those who are in it, undergo the same pains that the damned do, and that there is no other difference betwixt Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire, but [Page 108]that the One is Eternal, and the other but Temporal.

Having shewn all this so effectually from their ap­proved Writers, from the Council of Florence, from the Catechism ad Parochos, and from the Office for the Dead in their Romish Missal, it would be the veriest loss of Paper, and the greatest affront to Readers of any sense, to set formally here to the shewing how inconsistent this Romish Purgatory is with the Opinions of the Primitive Fathers about the State of the Deceased Faithful, whom they believed to be (when they pray'd for them) in a State of Comfort, Joy and Tranquillity; if our Compiler be not convinced also by what I have proved here, that there is really no more agreement betwixt their Purgatory in the Church of Rome, and the State of Bliss and Com­fort of the Primitive Fathers, than there is between Light and Darkness, betwixt Torment and Pleasure; I must tell him that I will never have any further to do with an Adversary that is obstinate and resolute not to be overcome; and therefore resolved not to be persua­ded. I question not but this account of Purgatory that I have given from such unquestionable Authority in their Church, will no little discompose the Compiler, not only because it will ruine all he contended for about Purgatory in his Vindication, but for a nearer concern, because it shews, that the Compiler in giving such a con­trary account of Purgatory in his Vindication, either did not know the Doctrine of his own Church about Purgatory, or did dissemble it, the first of which makes him unable, the second unfit to write about these things, since Igno­rance or Insincerity are singly sufficient Bars against any Man's gaining Credit, that will notwithstanding set up for a Writer.

Notwithstanding that which I have already demonstra­ted about the Romish Purgatory's Inconsistency with any Opinions of the Primitive Fathers touching the State of [Page 109]the Faithful deceased, ought justly to supersede all fur­ther Controversie with the Compiler about Purgatory; yet since he offers something further in Defence of him­self and his Church, I will consider it briefly. He says the Primitive Fathers did believe three States of Men gone off the Stage of this World, and that the middle State (to wit, of them who were neither very bad, nor very good) did suffer Temporal Punishment after their Death in order to their thorough Purgation. We enquire there­fore from what Fathers he proves this, his Stock is small, and S. Austin is his only Author for all this, whom, of all the Primitive Fathers, he ought least to have insisted upon, since S. Austin is on every side, and is in for almost every of the different Opinions a­bout the State of the Dead, as I could easily shew here, were it worth while. We grant S. Austin did talk of three States of Men after this Life; but must tell our Compiler withal that S. Austin was the First Father that begun this Distinction, and therefore it ought to be of no consideration herein, especially since it apparently contradicts the Doctrines of the Elder Fathers, who did look upon the Dead in the two Conditions only of Good Men, who were carried into Abraham's Bosom, and Wicked Men, who were hurried into the Place of Torments. This I made sufficiently apparent in my Answer to the Nubes Testium, particularly from S. Chrysostom, whose Third Homily upon the Epistle to the Philippians, doth evidently divide the Dead into Two States only; the Righteous whom he makes to go, imme­diately after they have left this world, to God, and to be possessed of Crowns and eternal Rest; and the Wicked, whom he places among the Damned, and looks upon their Judgments alike irreversible. But as S. Austin first talkt of Three Conditions of Men after Death, so we own that he talkt of Temporal Pains after this Life, [Page 110]for the middle Condition of those departed Souls; yet all this will do the Church of Rome no Service for her Par­gatory, since S. Austin is not only so very doubtful about any such Temporal Pains after this Life, which plain­ly shews it then to have been no Doctrine of the Ca­tholick Church, but his Temporal Pains are wholly diffe­rent from those of the Romish Purgatory.

It is impossible to express any thing more doubtfully than he did this,Enchiridion ad Laurentium c. 69. That there may be such a thing (speak­ing of this his Notion about Temporal Pains for some after this Life) is not incredible, and whether it be so or no, it may be questioned, and either be found out, or lye conceal'd. And is not this a pleasant Account of that thing for which the Church of Rome pretends to the Tradition of the Catholick Church, and told the Greeks, at the Council of Florence, that she had this Doctrine delivered to her from hand to hand successively from S. Peter and S. Paul.

But these Temporal Pains S. Austin here spoke of are wholly different from those of the Romish Purga­tory: that the Pains of the Romish Purgatory are by Fire, I have just now proved, whereas S. Austin's are no more (as is apparent from the preceding Chapter) than an intense Grief with which Men are afflicted or burnt for the loss of those things which they —Salvus est quidem, sic ta­men quasi per ignem. Quia urit eum rerum dolor, quas dilexerat amissarum. Idem ibid. c. 68. loved very much here on Earth.

The last Argument our Compiler hath for his Purga­tory, which is rather insinuated than urg'd barefac'd, is, That since it is allowed the Fathers did pray for the Dead, it must be only for them who want Re­lief and are in Purgation, and neither for them who are in Heaven, nor for them who are in Hell, for the former of which they are needless, and for the other fruitless. And this is what F. Alexandre, our Compiler's Master, does speak out plainly.

But to ruine this Conclusion, I will prove these two things, That the Fathers did pray for those they belie­ved to be in Heaven; and That, secondly, they prayed for those in Hell.

For the Proof of my first I will make use of our Com­piler's help, who brings in S. Ambrose praying for the Soul of the Emperour Theodosius, in his Nubes Testium, and will, I suppose, still yield it me, that the Father did pray for the Emperour's Soul. Now that S. Ambrose did at the same time believe that that Emperour's Soul was in Heaven, is evident beyond contradiction, since he does, in the same Oration, expresly affirm that the Emperour's Soul was then placed in the Heavenly Jerusa­lem, which all People own to be Heaven it self. I could prove further from the ancient Liturgies, that the Prayers of the Church were made for the best of Men, for the Martyrs themselves, whom they of the Church of Rome suppose to be in Heaven: but I need not stay to do it, however I will, to take notice of that Evasi­on which S. Austin hath taught them; who looking up­on it as an absurd thing to pray for the Martyrs who were fitter to pray for us, and yet finding the Liturgies of the Church directly practising it, had no other way to answer the Practice of the Church, but by say­ing (as our Compiler quotes him) that the Prayers of the Church, when put up for such as Martyrs, were Thanksgi­vings, but for others were a Propitiation: which with all Reverence towards S. Austin is a Fineness of too bold, and too groundless a Nature, since had the Church in­tended only to praise God for the Martyrs, I question not but she would have made her Intentions plain e­nough, by putting down the Praises for the Martyrs as distinctly and as properly, as she would the Prayers for others. I must not forget to prove this also from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass urged by our Compiler, [Page 112]wherein they pray not only for those Servants of God, who have gone before them with the Seal of Faith, and rest in the Sleep of Peace, but for ALL WHO REST in CHRIST, which does comprehend all, even Martyrs as well as Saints, or Men of Lesser Sanctity, and as it includes Martyrs, it prays for those whom the Compiler and his whole Church believe to be in Heaven. But this Prayer is no more consistent with the Doctrines of the present Writers of the Church of Rome, than it is with the pre­sent Purgatory of that Church, which supposes the Faith­ful deceased to endure Fiery Torments in order to Expia­tion, whereas this very Old Prayer supposes them to rest in the Sleep of Peace.

That they prayed also even for the Damned is plain, from S. Chrysostom, who in his above-quoted Third Ho­mily upon the Philippians, did advise such Prayers upon this Perswasion, that tho' they could not obtain a Re­lease for them from Hell, yet they would procure for them some Alleviation of Torments, some small Re­lief: and S. Austin himself seems to be for the same thing, when he speaks of the Prayers of the Living pro­fiting so much, as either Aut ad hoc prosunt, ut sit plena Remissio, aut certe tole­rabilior fiat ipsa Damnatio. D. August. Enchirid. ad Laur. c. 110. to procure a compleat and full Remission, or that their Damnation should be made more tolerable.

Our Compiler cavils (before he leaves this Point) ve­ry rudely at me for saying S. Chrysostom only advises the Oblation of Alms for the Increase of Happiness to his Son's Soul; and does very scornfully ask me what means S. Chrysostom's bidding him also pray for the discharge of his Son's Guilt? I can answer him without such rude­ness in a very few Words, That the Increase of Glory was the sole Intention of his praying for the discharge of the Guilt of Sin: and that the latter was wholly design'd for the former.

Thus I have got through that Chapter about Purgatory, and have fixed all that I had proved before in my An­swer to the Nubes Testium, that the Fathers neither knew of nor taught any such Purgatory as the Church of Rome doth, and therefore since they believed the Romish Pur­gatory no more than we of the Church of England, they are no more Papists than we are in this thing.

When he is come to the next great Controversy about Transubstantiation, he was resolved to divert himself, and his Reader, and in order to it by perverting of my sense to make himself sport. He pretends to be mightily at a loss what I would have the Doctrine of our Church to be about the Eucharist: and brings me in first say­ing, Christ's Body is really present in the Eucharist, then that 'tis the Body of Christ Figuratively only, but within four lines after, that it is the Flesh and Blood of Christ ABSOLUTELY, without any addition of really or figura­tively: yet that in the next page 'tis not Christ's True Natural Body, but his Figurative or Symbolical Body. So that he says, I play backward and forward in declaring the Doctrine of our Church, and make the Sacrament to be really Christ's Body, and yet to be Figuratively only (that is, really not) his Body.

But does this Man believe himself in all this? Does he from his heart think that I am guilty of all this con­fusion and contradiction about this thing? I am well enough assured, that no Man of the least sense doth find such stuff in my Book it self, and therefore that the Compiler did not, but was forc'd to abuse my sense, and falsify my words, in order to his ridiculing of them and me. For as to the first passage about Christ's Body being really present in the Eucharist, it was occasion'd by my telling Him, that the Controversy betwixt the Church of England and Rome, is not about a Real Presence, which the Church of England did believe, when she looks up­on [Page 114]the Consecrated Elements not to be the Body and Bloud of Christ themselves, but to be appointed by God to ex­hibit to every faithful Receiver (not to every Receiver) the Body and Bloud of Christ. But for the Consecrated Elements themselves, she believes them to be Figura­tively only Christ's Body and Bloud: the Reason of which I so often inculcated, because BREAD and WINE CAN NO OTHERWISE BE THE BODY and BLOUD of CHRIST, AND BREAD STILL AT THE SAME TIME; and therefore our Compiler ought to blush at his great disingenuity when he brings me in contradicting those very words within four lines of them, and says, I grant there, that It (that is, the Sacrament) is the Flesh and Bloud of Christ ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT ANY ADDITION of Really or Figura­tively: whereas any Man else would have carried my meaning along with him for so short a way as four lines, had I said so absolutely, without any Addition of Really or Figuratively: but this is absolutely false, for immedi­ately after I had granted, as to Justin Martyr's words, that the Consecrated Food was the Flesh and Bloud of Christ, to prevent any such misinterpretation of my words, as the Compiler would make notwithstanding it, I added these very words: However to corroborate what we said above [which was, that the Blessed Bread is the Flesh of Christ, but Figuratively only] it is evident to a Demonstration, that This Consecrated Food was still Bread, and NOT TRANSUBSTANTIATED into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ.

Did I here then say it was the Flesh of Christ abso­lutely, without any Restriction or Explication of my words and sense? Is this the Candour that becomes a Scholar? Is this the Sincerity that becomes a Christian? Is this the Veracity of a Priest of the Living God? Well, Well, If this be answering an Adversary, I per­ceive [Page 115]it is no matter whether it be true or false which we write, nor whether it be right or wrong which we assert, so that we secure our main design of ridiculing or abusing our Adversary.

That I might state the Controversy betwixt us and Rome aright in this great point, I shewed our Compi­ler that it was whether upon Consecration the Bread and Wine were transubstantiated into that very Body and Bloud of Christ which was nail'd and pour'd out upon the Cross, or whether after Consecration there is no other substance there but the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ. This I told him we expect they should prove, and that it is to no purpose to bring us only passages of the Fathers to shew, that they gave to the Consecrated Elements the Name and Appellation of the Body and Bloud of Christ, and that they said of the Elements, that they were Consecrated, made, or turned into the Body and Bloud of Christ, since we can demonstrate to them, that by the Body and Bloud of Christ which the Fathers said the Elements were made, they meant always that Body of Christ, which (in con­tradistinction to his Natural Body which he took from the Virgin Mary, and his Mystical Body, which is his Church) we call Christ's Symbolical, or Figurative Body.

And therefore Our Compiler is miserably out in his Vindication, when he thinks to carry his Cause by re­peating only what he had put down more at large in his Nubes Testium, and by supposing the very words of Body and Bloud of Christ, sufficient Reply to all I had said in my Answer to the Nubes. I did not say only this means, and that signifies only so and so, as he would represent me to do in answer to any thing that did seem strong against us, but did all along give my Reasons for such things, till to repeat them further to the same [Page 116]Objections, would have been more tedious to the Rea­der than me.

He talks as if the Fathers were clearly in their pos­session, and wholly on their side, and therefore that he need not much concern himself in confuting some un­toward passages out of the Fathers, urged by us against Transubstantiation, since he supposes the Fathers are on their side, and would not contradict themselves: else surely we should find Him answering fairly to our Ob­jections, as I had done to all his. But this is not the Man's way, tho' he is desirous it should be his Adver­saries: but for himself he writes as if the Controversy had not made one step forwards betwixt us two.

But to let the World be judge also what a sort of an Adversary he is, I will very briefly run over his first Testimonies in the Nubes, and my answer to them, and shew how He does reply. To the passage from S. Ig­natius, that the Eucharist was the Body of Christ, I an­swered that it was, but that it could be Figuratively only so, since Bread could no otherwise be the Body of Christ and Bread still; to this he makes no Reply. In Answer to the passage from the Council of Nice about not minding the Bread and Wine before us, but raising up our minds by Faith to consider the Lamb of God offered by the Priests without shedding of Bloud, I shew'd him it meant only that Communicants should by Faith represent to themselves the offering of the Lamb, and that had he but transcribed on the rest of that passage out of his Master Alexandre, every one would have seen at first blush, that by the pretious Body and Bloud of the Lamb was not meant Christ's Natural Body, but his Figurative only, since the Communicants are advised to take but a small portion of his Body and Bloud; and that tho' it is sense to talk of receiving little or much of the Elements, yet that it is not sense to talk of taking a little or much of the True Natural Body of Christ. [Page 117]To all which there is no Reply: and Reason good, since there was not room for any.

And when, in the next place, to explain a very ob­scure Passage in S. Hilary, I had produced a place that proved he did not believe any Annihilation or Transub­stantiation of the Elements, since he says it was Wine which they drank in the first Institution of the Eucharist, the Compiler had nothing to reply with, and therefore runs back, and makes much adoe with the obscure Pas­sage.

In answer to S. Cyril, he was told, that that very Passage (wherein the Bread is said by Christ to be his Body) was proof sufficient that Cyril did not believe Transubstantiation, since, as I had urged before, Bread can be Christ's Body only Figuratively. To this he gives no manner of Reply; but when I had further answer­ed that Cyril had spoken as lofty things of the Chrism-Oyl, as he does of the Eucharist, and that no Body, for all that did believe that the Chrism-Oyl was Transubstan­tiated, tho' he said it was no longer bare or common Oyl; he asks me whether Cyril said that Oyl is changed into the Body and Bloud of Christ? A Question so ridiculous, that I would forgive no Body the asking it me that had three Grains of Sense. S. Cyril, if this Compiler knew any thing of Him, does compare the Change in the Eucharist to this in the Chrism-Oyl, but I would feign know how the one Change does illustrate or prove the other; when according to the wise Masters of the Church of Rome, the one is changed in its very Substance, but the other is not. It is a tedious thing to have to do with People that know nothing of the Fathers themselves, but by a little Quotation, which they make such a flut­tering with, and as much noise as if they had read them through, and understood them as throughly.

To his next Authorities from Gregory Nyssen about the Body of Christ being received into our stomach, and making our Bodies Immortal by the Dispersion of the Sacrament into our several parts in order to their being cured of that poison which had affected every part, and made them Mortal. I shew'd him that this was directly against them, since this nourishing of our Bodies in a strict and proper sense cannot, without Blasphemy, be attributed to the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ. All the Reply he makes to this, is to ask, What need of nourishing here in a strict and proper sense? My Answer is very ready, because this was the general opinion of the Fathers, That our Bodies are nourished with the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ. This I did abundantly clear in my Expostulatory Letter to Mr. Sclater of Putney, and made it the Instance of my Second Corol­lary against Transubstantiation in that Book, Veteres Vindi­cati. p. 93, 94. that to attri­bute a nourishing of our Bodies to the Sacramental Body and Bloud of Christ doth altogether exclude their being Tran­substantiated into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ: and that the Fathers did attribute such a Nourishment of our Bodies to them, I proved from Justin Martyr, who did assert in plain terms, That our Flesh and Bloud are nourished by the Consecrated Elements being changed into our Substance; from Irenaeus and Tertullian, That our Flesh is fed and nourished with the Body and Bloud of Christ. I proved it from Origen, who says, That the Eucharist, as to its Material Part, goes into the Belly and is cast out into the Draught: from Isidore of Sevil, from Rhathramn, and from our Saxon Paschal Homily, which proves that the Eucharist is corruptible, for that it may be broke into several Pieces, grinded by the Teeth, and cast out into the Draught. I will add to these but one other Proof from Rabanus Maurus, who lived in the Ninth Century, and does not only tell us, That the Sacrament is made to nourish our [Page 119]Bodies Sacramentum enim in ali mentum corporis redigitur. — Sicut ergo in nos Id convertitur, cum Id manduca­mus & bibimus, sic & nos in Corpus Christi convertimur, dum obedienter & piè vivimus. Raban. Maur. de In­stitutione Clericorum, l. 1. c. 31. in Tom. 6. Edit. Colon. 1627.; and that as it is converted into us, when we eat and drink it, so we are con­verted into Christ's Body, when we live in a Godly Obedience: but he speaks of it in the Poenitential (or Epistle, as Baluzius calls it) to Heribaldus as a thing not at all questioned that the Sacrament, after it is received into our Bodies, is consumed, and cast out into the Draught: Rabani Liber Poenitentialis ad Heribal­dum. c. 33. which he had Reason enough to think, since, as he speaks in the same Chapter, he did not believe that Body of Christ to be the same with the Body which was born of the Virgin Mary.

It is high time to return to my Friend, the Compiler, and the Business of Transubstantiation, and see whether he makes a better Defence for the rest of his Fathers for Transubstantiation, than for those hitherto. To the rest of his Quotations, from Gregory Nyssen, I shewed him that that Father does compare the Changes of the Water in Baptism, and the Oyl in Chrism, and the Altar at its Dedication to that of the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist: which plainly shews he meant no more Change of the Substance of any one of these, than of the rest. What he says to this is nothing but confusion, I did not only prove that the Water and the Oyl have a Virtue from Christ, but that the Father said they were changed as well as the Bread and Wine, so that if the Change of the Bread and Wine was more than a Change of Use and Quality only, theirs must be so too, since he makes them all the very same: and it is too childish to urge that he does not say the Water and Oyl are changed into the Body of Christ, since we do see he asserts the same Change in them all: and what matters it that he does not determine in­to what?

He hopes next to secure S. Chrysostom, by saying, that I would fain evacuate all the plain and positive Testimonies of that Father, by a doubtful and obscure Passage out of his Epistle to Caesarius. But I have too fully shewn in my Answer to repeat it here, That those Testimonies from Chrysostom were not plain, but very Allegorical, and not positive but very Rhetorical, as reasonable People of their own side, must own, that consider them. And for the Passage from Caesarius, I urged that alone against them, because it was so very plain and so positive against Transubstantiation, and I will be judged by the Reader whether I needed (tho' I easily could have done it, and was prepared) to add any other Evidence to It, which [Page 129]runs thus. For as [in the Eucharist] before the Bread is consecrated, we call it Bread; but after that by the Media­tion of the Priest, the Divine Grace hath sanctified it, it is no longer called Bread, but is honoured with the NAME of our LORD'S BODY, THO' THE NATURE OF BREAD CONTINUE IN IT STILL. I cannot discommend the Compiler for calling it obscure, since it is the easier way to get rid of it, by saying so of it, than by an­swering it.

To his Quotation from S. Ambrose I answered fairly, by shewing him that S. Ambrose, when he was at the height of his Illustrations from Scripture, to prove a Change in the Sacrament, doth yet not only compare the Change in the Eucharist to the Change of a Man by Bap­tism, which every one owns is meerly a Change in Qua­lity, but doth positively assert, That the Elements were what they were before Consecration, notwithstanding their Change into another thing; which Passage the Compiler dare not meddle with, but only says, I give the pretend­ed Authority of this Father against them. But this is all the Man is able to say, and this is his way of trifling, when he hath nothing to answer fairly with. Whereas the Passage I quote is in the very same Book some of his own Quotations are taken from, and some of his Church were so sensible, that the Passage I make use of, is direct­ly against their Transubstantiation, that they have struck part of it out of their Edition of S. Am­brose at Rome Si ergo tanta vis est in Sermone Domini Jesu, ut inciperent esse quae non erant: quanto magis operatorius est, ut sint quae erant, & in aliud commutentur, which last part the Ro­man Edition hath altered into, ut quae erant in aliud commutentur. D. Am­bros. de Sacramentis, l. 4. c. 4., which did entirely run thus, If there be therefore so great Power in the Words of our Lord Jesus, as to give a Being to things which had none before, how are they not much more powerful to make that things may still be what they were, and yet be changed into another thing; which is quite altered by the Romish Edition, which makes S. [Page 130] Ambrose to say, How are they not more powerful to make, that those things which were, may be changed into ano­ther? Which is a pretty way of getting the Fathers over to their Party.

After all he rallies up his scatter'd Forces, and shews them in a Body, calling the Bread, Christ's Body, and saying it was changed into Christ's Body; but since I have answered all that are out of genuine Au­thors already, and he has nothing farther to say for them, I need not stand to make any Reply, but refer the Reader to my Answer, wherein I had not only urged the Doctrines of Antiquity, but several Practices out of It, perfectly inconsistent with any Belief of Transubstan­tiation: but the Compiler was not so fair as to give one Word of Reply to them; but it is his way, and there is no hopes of getting him out of it.

In Answer to the Chapter about Images, he offers not one Word, but refers the Reader and me, to a whole Dis­course (as he calls it) which he had published in Defence of that Chapter: But why must we be turn'd off to an Answer to a Third Person? Is all I have laid to the Com­piler's Charge answered there? If it be not, To what Purpose am I sent thither? Well! To comply with this shuffling Adversary, I did look there, and all that I found was, that he can treat much Worthier Persons than I pretend to be, in the most contemptuous Man­ner. I had thought my finding out where he stole his Book, and publishing it to the World, had sharpened him more than ordinary against me, but by this Book I was convinc'd of my Mistake, for in it I found him treat­ing the Worthy Person he was writing against, with the same opprobrious scornful Language, that he uses towards me. Another thing I did learn there, That this Man can, with a very good Grace, accuse others of that very thing which he is the most guilty in of [Page 131]any Writer that I know; he accuses that Reverend Person continually of false stating, and of not stating the Controversie about Images: and yet he himself (as I pro­ved it upon him) hath not truly stated any one Point of Controversy (except that about Invocation) through his whole Nubes Testium; hath most falsely stated, for Ex­ample, this about Images, for whereas their Council of Trent hath decreed the Worship of Images, he states the Matter, as if the Church of Rome, and second Council of Nice were only for giving Respect to Holy Images: and yet when he is got into his Cloud of Witnesses, as if no Body could discover what he would be at, he falls to proving that the Christians did not only adore the Cross, but the very Nails of it, and which is more, that they were commanded by the Law of God to do it. Which were strong Proofs indeed, especially for the Times in which the Authors of them are said to have lived, but are such as shew there is nothing so absurd but that some Men will be found to assert it, and that there can be nothing so ab­surd, but that it will be swallow'd and quoted by such Authors as Natalis Alexandre, and our Compiler.

I had charged the Compiler with many other things, and his Church; not a syllable of which is answered in the Discourse I am refer'd to: I had challenged himself about the Worship of the Cross, and some other things, but he was wiser it seems than to accept my Challenge, or to trouble himself about that and forty such things laid to his charge: However, since he will not, I must then take leave to tell him, that this was not vindicating his Nubes Testium, but that his pretended Vindication does deserve the name of some Cavilling Reflexions upon the Answerer to the Nubes Testium, instead of that of an Answer to Him.

If he intends to make any further defence of himself against this Reply, I will tell him what scores he must [Page 132]clear, before I need to take further notice of Him. I have drawn up the Catalogue of near Forty consider­able Charges against Him, which I must require him to reply to: and besides that, to go regularly through the several Parts of this Reply to Him, if he would acquit himself like a Scholar, or like an Honest Man in this Controversie: but above all things I must not for­get to put him in mind of getting a Chronology Table; the want of which hitherto hath done him such a scurvy deal of mischief: it will prevent his stumbling so often in those things, and will prevent some sharp Replies upon that account.

I have thus got through my Vindication of my self, and which I value much more, of the Primitive Fathers, and have made it further appear how far they were from joining with, or countenancing any of those Practices or Doctrines of the Church of Rome, set down by our Com­piler in his Nubes Testium. As to the Supremacy of the Pope, I had little to answer, since the Compiler had so little to say in his Vindication for it, but was forc'd to leave almost all I had urged from the Fathers against it, without once touching it, but only pickt at a place here and there. One of his little touches at me I had like to have slipt, I know not how, over; his saying, I impose sillily upon the Reader, when in answer to the Ob­jection made about no one's denying the Bishop of Rome's power of Excommunicating the Asiaticks, I had said, Every Bishop might deny to communicate with any other Bishop or Church, against whom they had sufficient reason: As if (says he) denying to communicate were the same thing as to Excommunicate, to the doing of which an Authority or Ju­risdiction over them who are Excommunicated is required, whilst refusing Communion may be done without any such power. Well then this Man shall have his Will, and I therefore tell him, that by denying Communion, I meant [Page 133]a doing it authoritatively, that is, a putting the other Bishop from them by Ecclesiastical Censure: but I must also tell him, that an Authority or Jurisdiction over the persons to be Excommunicated, is not required, but that an Equality of State with the other persons is suf­ficient: and this of his is dangerous Doctrine, since every Greek can prove their Bishops of Constantinople to have Jurisdiction over the Bishop of Rome by this Argument since Photius's time, who did Excommunicate the then Bishop of Rome, and the Bishops of that Church do con­tinue to excommunicate yearly to this day the Bishop and Church of Rome; and not only the Greeks, but the French Bishops also, may by this Argument also be proved to be above the Pope, since they so long ago (as Monsieur Talon told the Parliament of Paris the other day) threat­en'd the Pope, that if he came to Excommunicate them, He should be Excommunicated himself for medling in things he had nothing to do with.