Mr. Pulton consider'd in his sincerity, reasonings, authorities, or, A just answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True account, his True and full account of a conference, &c. by the said Tho. Tenison.

Mr. Pulton consider'd in his sincerity, reasonings, authorities, or, A just answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True account, his True and full account of a conference, &c. by the said Tho. Tenison.

Table of contents

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§

Title page

TO THE PARISHIONERS OF St. MARTINS in the Fields, AND St. IAMES's Westminster.

An Extract out of the Last Will of the Reverend Mr. HERBERT THORNDIKE, sign'd, &c. Iuly 3. 1672. and prov'd the same year and month.

THE CONTENTS.

CHAP. I. Mr. Pulton consider'd in his Certificates.

IMPARTIAL CERTIFICATES relating to the CONFERENCE betwixt Mr. A.P. and D.T.

CHAP. II. An Artifice in Mr. Pulton's Second Narrative detected, together with an Instance of the like Artifice practis'd in relation to Dr. Hammond.

Dr. Hammond's own Relation, entitled, A Brief Account of one Suggestion of the Romanist.

CHAP. III. Mr. Pulton's Chief Reasonings and Authorities consider'd and refuted. And here first of his Reasonings and Authorities about Luther.

CHAP. IV. Mr. P's Objection against the Rule of Faith shown to be weak, and unconvincing.

CHAP. V. Mr. P. consider'd with Relation to what he hath said about the Lateran Council.

CHAP. VI. Mr. P. considered in relation to what he has said, touching the antiquity of Popery in England.

CHAP. VII. Mr. P. Considered in his Accusations.

ACCUSAT. I.

Mr. P. consider'd in his Accusations. ACCUSAT. 2.

ACCUS. 4.

ANSWER.

ACCUS. 5.

ANSWER.

ACCUSAT. VI.

CHAP. VIII. Mr. Pulton considered in his Triumphs.

CHAP. IX Mr. Pulton considered in his Threatnings.

The CONCLUSION.

ERRATA.

ADVERTISEMENT.

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[Page]

Mr. Pulton Consider'd.

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Imprimatur

Liber cui titulus [Mr. Pulton Consider'd in his Sincerity, Reasonings, Authorities, &c.]

November. 25. 1687.

H. Maurice, Reverendissimo in Christo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiepiscopo Cant. à Sacris.

§

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Mr. Pulton Consider'd In his

Sincerity,

Reasonings,

Authorities.

OR A JUST ANSWER To what HE hath hitherto published in His TRUE ACCOUNT; His TRUE and FULL ACCOUNT of a Conference, &c. His REMARKS; and in them his pretended Confutation of what he calls D. T's Rule of Faith.

By the said THO. TENISON, D.D.

LONDON, Printed for Richard Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard. M DC LXXXVII.

TO THE PARISHIONERS OF St. MARTINS in the Fields, AND St. IAMES's Westminster.

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[Page]

My most Worthy Friends,

THE Iesuit who occasioned my first application to you in this way, has by his Letter, mov'd me to give you this Second trouble: Perhaps it may be the last in this kind; for I do not envy him the Honour of throwing the first, and the second, and the third handful of Dirt. I am unawares ensnared into the most disagreeable Employment of defending and proving: But this I have to offer in just Excuse, That I went in the simplicity of a Christian, as to a Private Discourse, which the Arts of others have [Page] improv'd into a Publick Brawl. I will not so much suspect your Sagacity, as to imagine you do not guess at the reason why my self, and much better men, are on this manner treated; why that Reverend Person, the Dean of St. Paul's, is here Mr. Pulton's Remarks, p. 38. call'd, most disingenuous; and elsewhere egregiously slander'd, as one Concl. of Pax Vobis. who has exchanged Christianity for Paganism: Why the Reverend Dean of Canterbury has been in terms revil'd, Reason and Antiquity, p. 45. as a Writer void of Modesty, Charity, Sincerity, and good Manners: Why the Reverend Mr. Wake A Reply to the Def. of the Expos. of the Church of England. has been just now accused of Calumnies, Unsincerities, willful Mistakes, and Plain Contradictions. You can well understand, that this Work is laid before us for the hindering of better; and that they say this Ill of us, not because we are such, but because we are not theirs.

Mr. Pulton (in his Letter to you) is unwilling to believe that any Romanists spread false stories of me; yet I have spoken with great numbers of you who have heard them, from the mouths of the less generous of them, in publick places. In due time they may call in question that sense too.

He tells you further of Letters sent into the North and West of England, in which He and his Brethren were misreported. If such Papers were sent, I did no more, either by direct, or indirect [Page] Order, occasion the writing of them, than I have subscribed Pope Pius's Creed. This matter had been more probably laid, if he had mentioned the other Points of the Compass, and told of Letters sent into those parts of England where I have liv'd. For (I imagine) he does not take NORFOLK for a Northern County.

He speaks (here) of Bitterness and Scurrility, and tells the World elsewhere, he has not gall enough for me Mr. P's Rem. p. 32., tho he seems at present troubled with the over-flowing of it. And yet the provocation was only this great Truth, That his Patient, I. S. grew worse under his hands. I. S. is now under better. I voluntarily own'd what I then thought less decent, and have accounted for it; and I have been, by my Friends, reprov'd for making Apologies in my Epistle Dedicatory, for Warmnesses, which, they say, they cannot find in the Book.

The Iesuit would fix that Indignation which I speak of to you, upon Persons and Orders, when in express words, I make the Objects of it to be Hypocrisie and Injustice. And perceiving in him too great a Degree of those Evils, my resentment, such as it was, was reasonable. And for my Memory, it offer'd me a wholesom Admonition, when I met with a second Gubbard, who attempted [Page] to take away, I do not say, the Fleeces, but those things which have ever been much dearer to me, the Souls of my Sheep. This he, and his Friend Advice to the Pulpits, p. 26, 27, 28, 29. (who in part repeats him, and then enlarges) has constru'd, as a Grudge, and a Prejudice of thirty years standing, and an impotence in retaining a Childish impression for so many years: But 'tis no more Prejudice and Childishness, than for one, who, in his Youth, has read the History of Naboth's Vineyard, and hates the Encroachment, to think of it a-fresh, when he sees a man invading his own.

For the future, seeing I now know him better than at first I did; and have found him, instead of a serious Schollar, a man of Comical, and Jocular Humour, See his Rem. p. 36. in misrepresenting and exposing; I shall do Justice upon him, by that which (I hope) is no unbecoming Negligence.

He goes on, but steps into a great Mistake, by saying, I pretend to prove, that Mr. Gubbard was a Priest, by his favour with the Committee. For, besides that I there pretend not to such a Proof, otherwise than the Circumstances of the Relation prove it; I have said, That the Committee, who put him in as a Protestant Dissenter, put him out, when they [Page] discover'd him to be a Roman. The Grounds upon which they went, may, in time, be published.

But he tells you, he might have preached up Purgatory, (which, by the way, was not the openest Point he preached) without being a Romanist: And in one sense I allow it; for Bellarmine argues for a Purgatory, from the Poet Virgil; but it was not certainly that Purgatory out of which men are relieved by Masses. And such a Purgatory (notwithstanding Mr. P's Suggestion) Mr. Thorndike could not hold; having forbidden his Nieces to marry with any who should go to Mass.

Nor did he, in Mr. Pulton's way, desire an Ora pro Animâ, to be engraved on his Tomb. For he imitated some Christians about the Fourth Age, who wish'd Rest to none but those who, as they thought, already enjoy'd it. And even this Wish of theirs, if it had Charity, it had also (in my Opinion) weakness in it.

That which follows concerns the suffering of his Family (in the Evil Times); from the Honour of which I desire not to detract. It seems by his Story, that the Spirit of persecution has not confin'd it self to the Established Church, which, so far as I can understand the Temper of it, had rather suffer [Page] injuries than do them. That you may continue in the safe bosom of this Apostolical Church, is, and shall be my most importunate Address to Almighty God in your behalf, as being,

My most Worthy Friends, Your most Obliged, Thankful, and Faithful Pastor and Servant, THO. TENISON.

An Extract out of the Last Will of the Reverend Mr. HERBERT THORNDIKE, sign'd, &c. Iuly 3. 1672. and prov'd the same year and month.

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—But my Will is, That if my said Pieces, or either of them, shall return to New-England, after my Decease, or shall marry with any that goes to Mass, or any of the New Licens'd Conventicles, then whatsoever is given them by this my Will, exceeding the 400. l. which I have absolutely given them by Deed, shall be void, and not due; So that when either, or both of them shall be married here to such as sincerely cleave to the Church of England, then the payment to be made, &c.

As for my Body, I charge my Executor to write these Words upon my Grave-stone: Hic jacet Corpus HERBERTI THORNDIKE, Prebendarii hujus Ecclesiae, Qui vivus veram Reformandae Ecclesiae Rationem ac Modum precibus (que) studiis (que) prosequebatur. Tu, Lector, Requiem ei & beatam in Christo Resurrectionem precare.

THE CONTENTS.

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CHap. 1. Mr. A. Pulton, Iesuit, consider'd in his Certificates.

Page 1.

Chap. 2. Mr. A. P. consider'd in an Artifice used by him in his TRUE and FULL ACCOUNT, with a like Instance, relating to Dr. Hammond,

p. 7.

Chap. 3. Mr. P's Reasonings and Authorities considered and refuted; and first in Relation to his Charge against Luther,

p. 17.

Chap. 4. Mr. P's Objections against the Rule of Faith, shown to be weak and unconvincing,

p. 33.

Chap. 5. Mr. P. consider'd with relation to what he hath said about the Lateran Council,

p. 58.

Chap. 6. Mr. P. consider'd in relation to what he has said touching the Antiquity of Popery in England,

p. 61.

Chap. 7. Mr. P. consider'd in his Accusations,

p. 67.

Chap. 8. Mr. P. consider'd in his Triumphs,

p. 93.

Chap. 9. Mr. P. consider'd in his Threatnings,

p. 96.

The Conclusion.

p. 97.

CHAP. I. Mr. Pulton consider'd in his Certificates.

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THE Iesuit has usher'd in his Second Pamphlet with a pompous Company of Testimonials; With Testimonies in Favour of A. P. A new stile in Certificates, which ought to be written, either without Fear, Affection, or Favour. There was as little necessity for any of them, as there is sincerity in some. For I affirm'd, from very good Evidence, That several Persons enter'd with him; but I repeated it in the Second Page of my Account, that I did not say they were all of Mr. Pulton's bringing. Nor did I affirm there was one Iesuit there besides himself: For certainly all Orders are not swallow'd up in his, how widely soever he may open for that purpose.

I do not dispute either the L. S. I's, or the Provincial's Certificate; but if others under his Obedience have the like Sincerity with Mr. Pulton, they may have been there, without saying they were so, as well as Katharine Lamb might not at first be there, yet say she was.

Well; his false Quotations will not be swallow'd, and now his Refuge is Certificates. But they have likewise fail'd him. And he that reads the following Testimonies, and enquires after the Integrity of those who subscrib'd [Page] them, and the Capacity they have been in of knowing the Truth; and considers the little Reason they have had to expose themselves to the ill will of many, if their love of Truth would have suffer'd them to be private: Such a person (I say) for the buying of Truth, will not be apt to go to Mr. Pulton to purchase it. And when our Disputant lays his hand upon his heart, and reflects in Christian manner upon this insincerity, he will (I hope) makea moreopen acknowledgment for a publick Scandal, than an Auricular Confession can amount to. And let him henceforth forbear his Raillery about Katharine Boren, left he put people in mind of Katharine Lamb. This Katharine Lamb, for ought I know, may be a vertuous and true Woman. But as She is represented in Mr. Pulton's Certificate, she is a very extraordinary person. Certainly she must have some Relation to that Famous Dr. Lamb, whom the Mobile believ'd to be a Conjurer: For to be in a Room kept on purpose private, by Mrs. R. till D.T. and Mr. Pulton should come in, and neither to be seen by her or him; or, in her passage, by any of the Family; if it has nothing in it of one Black Art, I'm sure in the telling it, it has something of another. If she was there, she must have come in by some unsuspected way, such as the Chimney, or the Key-hole: And if there she remain'd, she must have put her self into the shape of some such thing as a Table, a Chair, or a Candlestick.

This Long-Acre Miracle will not pass, nor make many Conversions. For the People understand, that if Katharine Lamb did not certifie this, there's Forgery in it; and if she did, there is False Evidence. Now this, as our Representer pleases to speak, of a Query, (2) Mr. P's Rem. p. 35. is a Horned Beast of an Argument. It is a curst Dilemma, which [Page] hath long Horns, and let him take heed that they do not push him.

But let us see what Mr. Pulton himself says to this matter; for he is an Artist at mending a business, by making more holes in it. On Novemb. the 4th he Publish'd his Remarks. That Night the false Certificate of Katharina in Nubibus, was publickly expos'd. This came to his Ear, and it was, no doubt, as welcome to him as the next days History. On the Lord's day following, in the Afternoon (the better the day, the worse the deed), he closes his Sermon with this Iargon, not deliver'd without a Concern in his Looks, and Disorder in his Voice.

‘I was mistaken this Week in one thing of my last Paper, which, tho true, yet I had it not from the person's own hand, tho it came as if it came from them: It is about one of the Evidences, or Testimonials, which I shall clear by a Printed Paper to morrow, and satisfie therein about it The thing I say is true, but the Evidence not made by the Person to me, tho it came as from their own hands. But I shall give an account of it to morrow by a Printed Paper.’

Now commend me to the Infallible man, who was thus mistaken; to the man who will be plain in nothing relating to me. He is the man in the World who is good at a Conclusion. He is that Wise man in my Lord Bacon's Essays, who reserves his great business for a Postscript.

He is concern'd in a false way; let him neither dance, nor dance in a Net; for he is seen through his Cover, and he shews his halting as often as he stirs.

As to the Famous Paper he promis'd to publish the very next day, with such Solemnity; no Person; that I can hear of, has ever yet beheld it, tho inquiry after it has not been wanting.

[Page]And now I have greater Compassion than ever for deluded I. S. for he hapned upon a man, who, if he is a Lover of Truth, has a very notable Art in concealing his Affection.

IMPARTIAL CERTIFICATES relating to the CONFERENCE betwixt Mr. A.P. and D.T.

WE Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Martin in the Fields, in the County of Middlesex, and others, whose Names are subscribed, Do hereby certifie, That Robert Uppington, of Long-Acre, in the said Parish, Brasier, is a Person of Honesty and Integrity; and, during his abode there, has lived peaceably, orderly, and in good Esteem amongst his Neighbours. Witness Our Hands the 11th day of November, 1687.

Richard Rider,

Edward Salisbury,

William Cleer,

Christopher Cock,

William Thompson,

Robert Wood,

Iohn Roydhous,

Benjamin Thody.

Novemb. 4th, 1687.

WHereas in a Book this day published by Mr. Pulton, School-Master in the Savoy, there is this following Certificate inserted; viz.

Being in the Chamber where the Conference was held, I saw Mr. Pulton come up with only one Gentleman in his Company, and a third person, who followed them. Witness, my Hand,

Cath. Lamb.

[Page]

Now this is to Certifie, That I was in my own Chamber (being the place where the Conference was held) when Mr. Pulton came up, with his Train following him (who shall be named when there is occasion): And that no Woman, or any other Person (besides Dr. Tenison and my self), was there at that time. Witness my Hand, the 4th of November, 1687.

Susanna Robinson.

WE living in the same House, and seeing what persons came in, Do certifie, That (besides Dr. Tenison) no Person went into Mrs. Robinson's Chamber, till Mr. Pulton entered with his Company. Witness our Hands,

Anna Uppington.

Sarah Wood.

I Do certifie, That during the time of the Conference, several Gentlemen came to the Door, and importuned me to let them in, telling me, Mr. Pulton had appointed them to meet him there at Three of the Clock. Witness my Hand,

A true Copy,

Sarah Wood.

I Do (in Relation to the Testimony of the L. S. I.) Certifie, That Three Persons came to my House at the Conference, and pressed to come in; and one of them asking me, if I did not know him? and I answering, I did not, said, he belonged to the L. S. I. and came from thence. And that it was never suggested, that one of them was the L. S. I. Priest; for then it would not have been said, a Person supposed to be a Priest, by reason the L. S. I. Priest is known to the Neighbourhood; and I believe (having never heard the contrary) that he has been civilly used by them. Witness my Hand the 11th Day of November, 1687.

Robert Uppington.

[Page]I Do Certifie, That I have been to acquaint the L. S. I. of the persons coming to my House, and one of them saying, he belonged to her: But she being with Company, I told the same to some of her Servants. Witness my Hand the 11th Day of November, 1687.

Anna Uppington.

CHAP. II. An Artifice in Mr. Pulton's Second Narrative detected, together with an Instance of the like Artifice practis'd in relation to Dr. Hammond.

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CUrsory Notes have already been made both upon the Iesuit's True; and his True and Full Account: And I do not yet see any great Reason given by him for the blotting out of a single line. Something, hovvever, may be added, seeing he has been pleas'd to make both Additions and Alterations. He has added an Advertisement, and a Preface; and in both of them he is a pleasant man. In his Advertisement he excuses his false English, by his having been Eighteen Years out of England; And yet he can write two English Books in a few Weeks, and in one of them, use three several Stiles. I do not enquire whereabouts he has liv'd: one would think by his Narratives and Certificates, that he has liv'd among the Cretians. But seeing he speaks English as readily as any man, it may reasonably be demanded, how, in his Travels, a man of his Profession, retains the Pronunciation, and loses the Grammar of his Native Language? Now, perceiving that the Printers are become Criticks in the English Tongue, he sends me a Challenge to dispute with him in Latin. Latin, it seems, is so belov'd a Language, that he chuses to have both Prayers and Conferences in that Tongue, for the Edification of the People; for certainly the Learned have no need of our assistance; I fear we may rather become their sport.

[Page]After this, our Champion advanceth with his Preface, and there he imitates the ruggider Duellists, who, without any Embraces, make fierce passes at one another.

He accuses me of Mistakes, and Misrepresentations, and want of Sincerity, not thinking of his own guilt, whilst he traduces his Neighbour. Nay, I am become so potent in these Arts, that I have confounded the whole matter, and truly M. P's True and full Account. Ep. to the Reader. inverted the whole Order of the Conference. I have done a wondrous thing in representing that as Confusion which was so: By whose means, the unbyass'd can tell.

But what, if in the little method that was us'd, Mr. P. himself should be the man who has inverted the Order? Why then, he wants either Memory or Sincerity.

Now after having spoken of the Words of St. Ambrose, he introduces the story of Luther, and the Courtezans. This was mention'd at the beginning, and St. Ambrose towards the end. And if the setting of the last first, and the first last, be Order, Mr. P. is a man of Method, and no Inverter. But perhaps it was in him a Point of Good Manners, to set St. Ambrose before Luther, and let it go so. Of this true Relation he says, that D. T. recounted he knows not what Story of some Priest at Rome. And yet the Story is told as plainly as a Story can be told, and it needs no Interpreter. He is a singular man: He will neither tell a thing plainly himself, nor understand another that does so. He goes on, and informs the World (for it is informing), That I was M. P's Full Account, p. 11. offering at another long passage in Luther's Works; and yet it was a Story out of the Acts of his beloved Second Synod of Nice, as set forth by the Iesuites Labbe and Cossart. If the Iesuites Collection of Councils, and Popes Epistles and Decrees, be Luther's Works, the Lutherans and Romans are in a marvellous accommodation, [Page] which none of them know of. This is a Discovery worthy the invention of the invisible Catharine. But why is my I know not what Story of a Priest, so very idle? He gives a false Account of Luther's leaving the Mass, and I requite him with a true one. He from Luther's bitter Adversaries, and I from Luther himself. The Protestants thought it not at all amiss, that I should give him an Allen for his Duncomb.

But, to come to his Artifice. He sends me his Second Narrative in Writing. He expects my Notes upon it. He desires, in order to his easier finding of my Objections, that I will observe the Numbers of his Paragraphs See his Letter here published, chap. 7.. I do this little Service for him. I send him my Account and Notes in Print, on Wednesday. My Man carries a Book to him, before he brings one either into my own House, or Parishes. He reads these words in it, D. T's Ac. p. 82. Parag. 17, 18. Observe here the Fidelity either of Mr. P's Memory, or his Conscience. ‘He, says the Dr. told a Story of some Priest at Rome, who having pronounced the Words of Consecration, was heard to say aloud, That he believed not as the Roman Church obliged. Whereas the Story, as before repeated, was about the Courtezans over-hearing the Priest say, Bread thou art, and Bread thou shalt be, &c.’

Notwithstanding this, without any notice given me, or any acknowledgment in either of his Books, he (besides many other Variations, not so material) makes in Print, this alteration from the MS. he sent me: ‘He recounted I know not what Story of some Priest at Rome, who pronouncing the words of Consecration, was heard to say, Bread thou art, and Bread thou shalt be; Wine thou art, &c.’

To what end do you imagine is this Alteration made without giving any notice? Is it not that Readers observing [Page] first the Words I cite, as his, and then perusing his Account, and finding in it, that I tax him with failure in Memory, or in Conscience, may be induc'd to think I falsifie? Some who came to me, pleas'd to use the freedom, for which I thank them, and to ask how this could come about? I show'd them the Account in MS. which Mr. Pulton sent me, and compar'd it with the Account which he had Printed, and they were satisfied about the truth and fullness of his Narrative. He had better have left a void space in his Story, than have fill'd it with things which should not have been put in.

But he must not arrogate to himself this Artifice: It is an old Invention; and I am going about to give a Remarkable Instance of it in the case of the Reverend, the Learned, and (that for which I most esteem him) the Pious Dr. Hammond. He had cited a Passage out of Mr. White; the Leaf was cut out, and another pasted in; and then the Dr. was charg'd by his Adversary W. S. with falsifying a Quotation. I will give you this in Dr. Hammond's own Words, both that it may not rest upon my slender Authority, and that People may see it without the trouble of buying a great Book, not in every hand Dr. H. H. Works. Vol. 2. at the end of his Dispatcher dispatch'd, or Third Defence of his Book of Schism, against S. W. p. 253, 415. NOTE. This S. W. has been generally supposed to be the same Person with I. S. who at this present writes the Pamphlets call'd the Catholick Letters..

Dr. Hammond's own Relation, entitled, A Brief Account of one Suggestion of the Romanist.

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1 IT is the Statesman's Maxim concerning a false Suggestion, That if it be believed but Four and Twenty Hours, the Value of it is inestimable, which tho it must be allow'd to receive a grand Abatement, when it is apply'd to inferiour, and less considerable Transactions; yet the Interests of Religion, in the maintenance of Truth, are not so dispisable, as that he that hath appear'd, or embarked in them, can safely neglect the advantages which evil Arts may yield, or furnish an Adversary against him.

2. Such in Reason, and in Experience, beyond all others, is the Charge of falsifying; which if it be but suggested, and believed of any, and much more if a pregnant and visible Proof of it be tender'd, there needs no other Blast, or Smut, or Vermine, to lay waste the whole Field, and deprive him of all Harvest of his Seed and Labours.

3. How this is my Concernment at this time, the Reader will not suddenly divine, till I have entertain'd him with a short Relation of that which I had rather my self proclaim on the House-top, than leave others to whisper it in Corners.

4. I was lately advertised by a Judicious and Reverend Friend, that it was particularly urged against me, by a Romanist, That I had mistaken, or perverted Mr. White's Words, which I refer to, in The Dispatcher Dispatch't, Chap. 3. Sect. 4. p. 279. where I suppose him to answer (in his Apology for Tradition, p. 56.), That the Beatifical Vision of the Saints, before the Day of Judgment, was not yet held a [Page] matter of Faith, but only a Theological Conclusion; when (said he) the Apology in that very place, had expresly said, ‘That this Point is a matter of Faith, grounded on Tradition, and not a Theological Conclusion.’

5. That I should be guilty, of but of such an Oscitancy, or Mistake, much more of such a vile perversion as this, I may be allow'd to have been as unwilling my self to believe, as I am oblig'd to take care, that others should not causlesly apprehend it of me: Therefore without delay, I turn'd first to mine own Words (which as I then could not doubt, so now I acknowledge to be faithfully related), then to Mr. White's Words, in the Page of his Apology, whence I had cited them; and those I found exactly, and to a Letter concordant to my Transcript of them, in the Dispatcher Dispatch't.

6. For thus I still read (if I will not at Noon-day suspect mine own Eyes) in that Apologist, p. 56. l. 12. [For nothing is more clear, than that the Validity of Baptism by Hereticks was a Tradition, and decided by it: So the Beatifical Vision of the Saints, before the Day of Iudgment, the Spirituality of Angels, are not yet held matters of Faith, but only Theological Conclusions, as likewise the Souls being concreated to the perfecting of the Body.] What can be more manifest, than that in this Period the Beatifical Vision of Saints, before the Day of Iudgment, is by that Apologist set down, as one of the two things (to which after a third is subjoin'd) of which it is affirm'd in the Plural, that they are not yet held matters of Faith, but only Theological Conclusions? Which was all to a Syllable that I cited from him in that place, with this only change, that speaking only of one of these, the Beatifical Vision, &c. I set it ( as it was necessary) in the Singular, is not yet held a matter of Faith, but only a Theological Conclusion.

7. That I might be sure not to have mistaken my Author, I carefully consulted the Errata, but there was none noted, relating to that Page: And indeed the whole Composure of the Period was such, that there must be a concurrence of [Page] very many changes in the compass of very few lines (more, I believe, than the most negligent Compositor and Corrector have at any time conspir'd to be guilty of), to wrest this Testimony from me, or change it into what this Romanist had affirmed it to be.

8. Having dispatch'd this account to my Friend, from whom I received the former Advertisement, I had no cause of doubt, but that this affair had received its full Period, the Romanist being obliged to yeild to such full uncontrollable Evidence, and every man's Eyes, to whom the contrary Suggestion could be offered, being as well qualify'd as mine, to secure him from being misled by it. And on these grounds of safety I had no least thought of troubling the Reader with any Account, or Complaint, which I now see is become some part of my Interest and my Duty.

9. For I was soon assured by my Friend, that the Words which I had punctually transcribed from my Copy of the Apology, were not to be found in that which he had before him, but quite transformed into the contrary sense, even that for which the Romanist had vouch'd them: For thus he found them [for nothing is more clear, than that the Validity of Baptism by Hereticks▪ was a Tradition, and decided by it: So the Beatifical Vision of the Saints, before the Day of Iudgment. The Spirituality of Angels is not yet held a matter of Faith, but only a Theological Conclusion.]

10. By this Representation I was soon forced to confess, That the whole Scene was changed, the first part of the Words remaining the same, but the second [of the Beatifical Vision of the Saints] which were my only Concernment, wholly transform'd; that which before was join'd with the Spirituality of Angels, as not yet held matters of Faith, but only Theological Conclusions, being now annex'd to the Validity of Baptism by Hereticks, and so affirm'd to be a Tradition (and that is with him a matter of Faith), and decided by it: And then I had Reason to acknowledge [Page] the Candour of that Romanist, who proceeding on these Appearances, had laid no heavier a Censure upon me, than that of either mistaking, or perverting Mr. White's Words.

11. In this new posture of Affairs, first it was presently discernable, That the very many Changes, which I had foreseen, had been really made, to bring this about. And as all this was obvious, and credible to be done by a new Edition of the Book; so it remained uncertain to me, whether mine, or that other so contrary to it, were the True and Authentick Edition: This therefore was my next care to examine.

12. And herein again I met with an Intricacy; For if the Title-Pages, and a Concurrence of all obvious Indications, might be believed, there was all this while but one Edition; both Copies carrying in their Front, A Paris, chez Iean Billain Rue S. Iacques à l'ensign S. Austin, 1654. the same Volume, Print, Number of Pages, beginning and end of every Page, &c. This soon suggested that which was the only clue to extricate me then (and the Reader now) out of this Labyrinth. For sending to the Stationers for another Copy of the Apology, as from one, I received a Copy perfectly agreeing with mine, so by the help of another, I was furnish't with one exactly accordant to what my Monitor, from the Romanist, had represented to me, yet not discernably differing from my own in any other, save in this one Passage; and looking more narrowly, first, the Paper and Ink, wherein the Leaf was Printed (discernibly differing from all the rest of the Book), was apt to inject some suspicion: But I soon saw that I had no need of this, or other obscurer intimation, it being grosly visible, that in this place a Leaf had been cut out, and a new one pasted in. And what Gordian Knot might not have been untied by the like instrument?

[Page]13. When this change was thought fit to be made, I did, and still want Augury to divine; only this is apparent, that it was a Work which Second thoughts suggested, after the Book was published; else my Copy, which came regularly to me from the Worcester Stationer (in the Year, if my Memory fail me not, 1655.) and another now sent me from another Stationer (which assures me, there be many more) must have had their parts in the Change.

14. Having given the Reader a brief and single view of this matter, I abstain from any farther Observation, or Reflection on it, than what a ‘Quo teneam vultus mutantem—?’ will amount to. But that is also unnecessary, my whole Design being compleated in this, That it is now manifest to the most imperswasible of their Disciples, that dare read what is written against their Masters (which I perceive few are permitted to do), That I neither mistook, nor perverted the Apologist's Sense or Words, those, I mean, which I read in his Book, from which alone I could be imagined to receive cognizance of them, not being able to forecast, that what I had thus really transcrib'd from him, would be so soon snatch't from me again, or that what was to me so visible, should vanish, and become invisible to other men.

15. This indeed is an unexpected Proof of what S. W. had told me concerning the Wits (enormous) Power to transform Testimonies; which yet shall not discourage me from dealing in that Ware (being firmly resolved never to make use of my duller Faculties, to work such Metamorphoses), nor yet from diverting sometimes into such pleasant Fields, adorned with so great Varieties, as that. Apologist frequently affords the World, hoping that I shall not again meet with such misadventures as these, or any [Page] greater interruptions in reading him, than what a competent Attention, and a Table of Errata, shall enable me to overcome.

16. This Account, I conceived, would more pardonably, because more moderately, divert the Reader at this time, than if I should stay till it were solemnly and articulately call'd for, and moreover, deliver S. W. from some temptation, himself to think, or to perswade others, that he had sprang some real Game to invite his Chases, some Guilt to support his Contumelies, and perhaps prevail with some of their most credulous followers, to think it equitable to subject the Suggestions they meet with, to some other ways of Examination and Trial, than the bare Authority or Confidence of the Suggesters.

THE END.

CHAP. III. Mr. Pulton's Chief Reasonings and Authorities consider'd and refuted. And here first of his Reasonings and Authorities about Luther.

[Page]

MR. Pulton's Chief Reasonings and Authorities may be consider'd, in relation,

1. To Luther.

2. To the Rule of Faith.

3. To the Lateran Council.

4. To the Antiquity of Popery in England.

1. For Luther he has rais'd up the Ghost of Mr. Iohn Brerely, Priest, for the encountring of the celebrated Daemon of Martin I. B's Life of Luther. S. Omers 1624. p. 17, 29, 39, 44, 52, &c.. And tho he was in the Conference, referr'd to a late unanswered Book, called, The Spirit of Martin Luther, yet he will take no notice of it, but bring up the Old Objections, and by Repetition attempt that which he cannot do by Argument.

Now the most material part of that which he certifies, not in favour of Luther, may be reduc'd to Six Heads, that the rambling Mr. P's Full Account. p. 11. which he complains of, and at the same time is guilty of, may be avoided. He will by no [Page] means grant (even after grains of allowance for humane infirmity, for Monkish Education, for the Darkness and Abuses of those times, for Natural Temper, for highest provocations to be rugged with the rugged), that Luther was an excellent instrument of God.

1. Because he express'd his Passion against the word Homousion.

2. Because he spake irreverently of Ecclesiastes.

3. Because he spake indecently about Marriage.

4. Because he spake with disrespect of Henry the Eighth.

5. Because he disgusted the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, upon Conversation with Courtizans.

6. Because he left the Mass upon the perswasion of the Devil.

Now I will first tell Mr. P. one of my Reasons in justice to Luther, and then consider his.

My Reason is this: God used Luther as an Instrument of bringing forth the Bible from under that Rubbish of Canonists and Schoolmen, which had hid it from the World. The Roman Doctors did not put the Bible into Luther's Hands, but he found it by God's Providence, in a Library, where he look'd not for it. There was need of that Light in so ignorant and ill an Age, in which Tales (even Fables not cunningly devised) were Printed and Re-printed in the Vulgar Tongue (in which the true Scriptures were not to be had), and call'd by the Name of Flowers out of the Bible. If One Example be produc'd, it will be [Page] enough for a Reader, who has not abated of his due Veneration for the most Sacred Word of God Fioreti de la Bibia Vulgari Historiati, &c. Novamente stampati in Milano. C. 170. An. 1524..

Fu un di che Joseph dovea far una letera a un Valente huomo, & st guardo el legname perche volea far quella letera, & trovo curto uno cavo piu che l'altro, & fu molto turbato per che non haveva el legname ala misura, & Iesu veniva di fora da solazo conli fanciulli, e entro in casa e trovo Joseph cruciato perche elli non havea trovato, el legname sufficiente, & Iesu disse a Joseph non havere malinconia dicendo che lui pigliasse da un capo, e luy pigliare be da l'altro, & tanto tirono, che el legname fu longo come bisognava, & vedendo Joseph che el legname stava bene; benedisse el nome de Dio & in quello tempo fini Iesu 7 anni.

It was upon a Day that Ioseph was to make a Bedstead for a Worthy Man; and so looking upon the Wood, of which he designed to make the Bedstead, he found one side shorter than the other, and was much troubled, because he had not Wood according to the measure; And Jesus came from abroad from his Play with the Boys, and enter'd into the House, and found Ioseph very much troubled, because he had not found the Wood sufficient: And Jesus bad Ioseph not to be melancholick, saying, That he should take hold on one end, and himself would take hold on the other; and they pull'd so much, that the Wood was as long as was needful; And Ioseph seeing that the Wood was fit, blessed the Name of God. And at this time Jesus had finished the 7th Year of his Age.

[Page]This is one of my Reasons for him; his being an Instrument of bringing better Scripture into the Peoples Hands. Let some of Mr. Pulton's Reasons be laid in the Ballance against this One, that we may see how heavy they are.

Object. 1. ‘My Soul (saith Luther) hates Homousion, and the Arians did very well in expelling it, left so prophane and new a word should be us'd in the Articles of Faith Mr. P's Rem. p. 8..’

Answer. If he lik'd not the Word (as he says Luth. contra Latom.— Homousion quod & Hieronymus optavit aboleri. St. Hierom himself did not), he approv'd of the Article Luth. cont. Latom. —Etsi Ariani malè senserunt in fide, hoc tamen optimè sive malo sive bono animo exegerunt, ne vocem profanam & Novam in Regulis fidei usurpare liceret., as all Lutherans do, and it is the first we meet with, in the Confession of Wirtemburg (d). But what if Mr. P. has not cited Luther faithfully? Why then his Hand is still in at False Quotations. For his Words are not, My Soul-hates, &c. but, Quod si odit anima mea vocem Homouslon, & nolò eâ uti, non ero Haereticus, —but if, or upon supposltion that my Soul hates the Word Homousion, and I refuse to use it, I shall not, (or will not) be a Heretick. This false Quotation was used by Bellarmine himself Bell. Pref. ad l. de Chr. p. 227. M. L. contra Jac. Latomum Scribens, Anima mea, inquit, odit hoc verbum [...]., whom many have in such admiration, that without examining, they transcribe his very Faults; and make that to be absolutely, which was conditionally spoken. Luther was not pleas'd with this Word, neither did he, with St. Hierom, like the Word Hypostasis; but the Doctrine he taught. And Chemnitius and Gerard inform us, that he was not pleas'd with the Word Trinity, because in the German Tongue it seemed to import rather Triplicity than Trinity.

[Page] Object. 2. ‘Ecclesiastes (says Luther) has never a perfect Sentence, Mr. P's Rem. p. 8. the Author had neither Boots nor Spurs, but rid on a long Stick, or in begging Shoes, as he did when he was a Fryer.’

Answer. This is cited not from Luther's true Works, but from a Book called Luther's Table-talk, which, if he were alive, he would not own, and which is of no Authority with any judicious Man. Let such a Man look into the Commentary of Luther upon Ecclesiastes: There he will find him highly commending that L. Op. Tom. 3. fol. 231. Liber multis nominibus dignus qui omnium manibus tereretur, fol. 232. — Relig. causâ sordidissimè victitârunt. — Ne (que) enim contemnit faelicitèr mundum qui vivit solitarius — at qui abstinet à pecuniis, ut Franciscani, sed qui in mediis rebus versatur, neabque; tamen earum affectibus rapitur. wise Book, and explaining its notion of the contempt of the World against those who (as he says) mistake Sordidness for Religion.

Object. 3. ‘As it is not in my Power (saith Luther) that I should be no Man Mr. P's Rem. p. 9, 10., so it is not in my Power that I should be without a Woman.’

Answer. This (with other such sayings) is but less decent expressing of that which St. Paul deliver'd in more tender Language, in that very wise Casuistical Sentence, It is better to marry than to burn. Luther (possibly) had not spoken of the necessity of Marriage in such plain terms, if he had not been opposed by those who urg'd Monastick Vows, and held the Marriage of the Clergy to be dishonourable and unlawful. The Spirit of Luther might be moved upon observation of unchast Celibacy. There has been too much of that out of the World, as well as in it. Otherwise what need would there have been [Page] (for instance sake) of the Constitution of Cardinal Gallon Conc. & Decr. Synod. S. Rotomag. Eccles. Const. Gall. Capitul. 1. p. 209. Moneantur quo (que) ne MATRES vel Uxores, alias (que) conjunctas personas secum habeant, cum quibus etsi nihil saevi criminis faedus naturale existimari permittat, tamen frequenter, suggerente Diabolo, cum talibus noscitur fuisse facinus perpetratum. forbidding, so much as MOTHERS to have Domestick Conversation with Priests; and adding as a reason, that tho so foul a Crime is against Nature, yet notwithstanding, frequently through the suggestion of the Devil, that Wickedness is known to have been, even with SUCH, committed. It seems the Devil and Luther have not been the only Familiars.

Object. 4. ‘Luther Mr. P's Rem. p. 11. calls Henry the VIII. more furious than Madness it self, more foolish than Folly it self, &c. most wicked and impudent Harry; and again, thou liest in thy Throat, foolish and sacrilegious King.’

Answ. This is one of the Grains to be allow'd to Luther. However, it is capable of a Retort against them, tho not of a defence in the nature of the thing it self. They call Hen. VIII. sacrilegious, but Luther must not. Lucifer Calaritanus calls Constantius most impudent Emperour Pro S. Athan. l. 1. p. 25..

It is noted in Commendation of St. Athanasius by a deposing-Author J. E. Right of the Prelate and the Prince, p. 144. imprinted with License from Superiours, Anno 1621., that he often in one Epistle stiles Constantius the Praecursour of Antichrist. If such ill Language was a Crime in Luther, it was certainly so in them, they being those Emperours Subjects.

The Romanists and Latiniz'd Greeks revile Constantine, and miscall him Copronymus, he being an Enemy to the Worship of Images: But in Luther all ill Names are unsufferable. They reprove not the Jesuit BELLARMIN, for reviling King IAMES THE FIRST, and asserting that he could not (upon any [Page] account be excused from HERESY Apol. R. Bellar. pro Resp. suâ ad L. Jac. M. B. Regis, &c. Cap. 7. p. 98. Jac. Regem ab Haeresi excusari nullâ ratione posse.. But if Luther touches a Prince with an undutiful Tongue, he is straightway of as black a Mouth as Satan his Familiar. GRETZER the Iesuit (the same Gretzer whose Grammar Mr. Pulton uses) is not reproved, yet he begins his Book with these Contents of his first Chapter. That the Faith which King James professeth, and defendeth, IS NOT TRVLY CHRISTIAN Jac. Gr [...]tseri Soc. Jes. Comment. exeget. Ingolstad. 1610. c. 1. p. 13.. But if Luther utters any frothy words, they are all poysonous, and he is run mad, and wo to every Man that stands in his way. I. S. has a Letter framed for him, of which the latter part was written in Mr. Pulton's own Hand D. T's Account, p. 71.: And in that Letter he is taught to revile King Henry the VIII, by the name of Leacher. This has been observ'd to Mr. P. but still he goes on, and rebukes Luther for such ill Manners as he himself is a Teacher of. And here with sincere, not hypocritical Charity Mr. P's Rem. p. 32. The Charity D. T. hypocritically pretends to. I pity I. S. who has had such ill Example set him, both of Falshood and Incivility. His Crime was the less, that he copied and did not invent. God pardon and amend him.

Object. 5. Luther learned,‘That Consecrated Bread was still Bread, not from the Colledg Mr. P's Rem. p. 13. of Cardinals, Bishops, and Prelats — but from the very Courtizans. — And here the Doctor has unawares pointed us out the true Motive of Luther's Change of Life and Doctrine, viz. the Conversation of Courtizans; which he knew, being a Fryer, he could not easily enjoy.’

Answer. I had thought they had been then connived at at Rome: For the state of the single, and not [Page] the married. But however we have here another Instance of Mr. PVLTON'S SINCERITY, D.T. had thus reported that Story from Luther, and from the Writer of his Life D. T's Account, p. 8.. He had been at Rome, and said Mass there, and heard it said, and he took notice of the PROFANENESS of the MASSPRIESTS, and he OVER-HEARD the very Courtizans jeeringly say, that some who consecrated, had used these words, Bread thou art, and Bread thou shalt be, Wine thou art, and Wine thou shalt be. This Story sticks in Mr. Pulton's side, but as yet he never would rightly repeat it. Sometimes it is, I know not what Story Mr. P's MS. Account. of a Priest that was heard to say aloud, that he believed not as the Roman Church obliged. Now Luther learn'd it only from the Courtizans, tho he said he himself took notice of the Profaneness of the Mass-Priests. But here again his Dexterity in equivocating can fetch him off; for the Mass-Priests were not Cardinals, Bishops, or Prelats.

But his main Point is that of LVTHER and the DEVIL, with that he began with I. S. that he pursued, and that he will not part with.

Whether his Affection to that Fable will permit him to part with it, is not a very material Inquiry. It seems as dear to him as Katherina in the Clouds. But I am apt to believe that the impartial will dismiss it upon due attention to that which follows.

A Confutation of Mr. Cordemoy's Book, written upon the CONFERENCE OF LUTHER WITH THE DEVIL. By Gaspar Sagittarius Nov. de la Rep. des Lettres. Janv. 1687. p. 32, &c..

[Page]

THE Author pretends, that the Jesuits of Germany first began to wrangle, upon this Dispute of Luther with the Devil; and that they did not so much as think of any such thing, till more than sixty Years after that was published. So then, according to his Reckoning, 'tis a Cheat of more than fourscore Years, since that Luther publish'd the first Account of it, in the Year 1533; and they who know the humour of the Controvertists, are not at al surpriz'd at the bustle they have made upon that Subject; but they rather wonder, that it had not been long before reproach'd to Protestants, that the Devil was the Author of their Doctrine, since none but he instructed Luther to contest the Holy and Divine Sacrifice of the Mass. Besides, 'tis easy to guess at those moral Reflections which follow the Train of these vile Imputations, viz. That God, whose Providence is ever watchful for the good of his Church, has permitted this wretched Arch-Heretick to discover himself, that so the Catholicks may be the more confirmed in the Faith, and have new occasion offer'd to wonder at the blindness, and the fatal obstinacy that do's attend all Hereticks and Schismaticks: The Author supposeth, that the Advantage which they will have Providence to have managed for Catholicism, by the manifestation of this Dispute of Luther, is not bounded there: he imagines that they pretend thereby to render all Protestants unworthy of humane Pity or Compassion, and to expose them to the rigor of the Laws made against those who voluntarily, and by premeditated design, subject themselves to the desires of the Devil: He further insinuates to us, that the Abbot of Cordemoy [Page] affects to render the Calvinists Accomplices of the Lutherans upon no other account, than to [render them more odious]. And if he engages to answer him, 'tis chiefly to the end, that the Protestants of Germany may understand, that Popery is always ill-intentioned against them; and that they have reason to fear every thing, if they once fall into the same condition with the Provinces which have been dismembred from the Empire. I cannot believe that this Abbot had a design to perswade the Higher Powers, that since the Calvinists adopt an Opinion, which Luther had learned of the Devil, and that they offer'd their Communion to the Lutherans, they ought to be punish'd as Agents of the Devil; but 'tis true, if we consider those studied Reflections and Invectives with which many Disputants have fraught their Disputes about this Conference of Luther, one would be easily induc'd to think, that their chief aim has been to let the World know that the Protestants are the Disciples of a Demon, who spoke face to face with one of their Masters, without disguising his Quality; so that they are very near rank'd in the same Classis with those Men who study the Black Art, and are as punishable as Magicians and Sorcerers; and as heretofore many of our Legislators (to gain to themselves greater Reputation) have sain'd I know not what Commerce with the Gods; So Luther came in like manner to say boldly, that he had learn'd of the Devil, that which he vented against the Mass. In which the Lutherans now fully justify themselves, and do not at all complain, as he who said,

—Pudet haec approbria nobis

Et dici potuisse, & non potuisse refelli.

To make the Accusation strike home, it must be confessed,

1. That Luther being fully perswaded that private Masses were good, he was set upon concerning this Point by the Devil; and that after having made what defence he could, he was at last forc'd to submit to the Reasons of this Spirit of Darkness.

2. That having been convinc'd by these Reasons, he published his Book against the Mass; and in all places where he [Page] had Interest, made it to be laid aside — this is what his Accusers suppose, and without that, we cannot see how he was able to oppose the Mass under the Conduct, and by the Instructions of the Devil. Now Mr. Sagittarius, after many other great Divines of his Party, lets us clearly see, that the thing was not transacted after this manner.—There fore, &c.—

'Tis a matter of Fact agreed on by all Men, that Luther had published nothing of this Conference before that Treatise which he caus'd to be printed in the Year 1533. And 'tis also certain that he remarks not the time when he was attack'd by the Devil: unless then the contrary is proved, the Lutherans may suppose, that this Dispute happen'd in the same Year 1533. and this is what Balduinus highly supposes in a Treatise, which he has published upon this Subject against the Jesuit Serrarius in the Year 1605. if this Supposition passes, the Accusation falls to the ground, since that 'tis publickly known, that from the Year 1520. Luther had written Books against the Mass, and that in the Year 1530. it was both highly condemned and forbidden by the Confession of Augsbourgh. But taking the thing at the worst, it cannot be supposed, that this Dispute happen'd before the end of April 1522. and here is a demonstrative Proof of it. 'Tis certain that Luther was made Priest on the Sunday Cantate, the Year 1507. and that he confesses, that when he was attacked by the Devil, he had said Mass 15 entire Years, therefore it must necessarily be, that this Dispute happen'd after the Sunday Cantate in the Year 1522. Now this Sunday falls out either about the end of April, or in the Month of May. If it be therefore found, that before the Month of May, 1522. Luther oppos'd the Mass with all the vigour imaginable, it will evidently follow, that his Dispute with the Devil did not determine him to that. Now these are the Arguments which Mr. Sagittarius offers upon this Subject.

1. He observes that Luther publish'd his Book de Captivitate Babylonicâ, in the Year 1520. and that de abrogandà missâ the Year after.

2. That being called to the Diet of Worms in April 1521. where they objected to him (among other Articles taken out [Page] of his Captivitas Babylonica by the Nuncio Ierom Alexander) this, which condemns the Sacrifice of the Mass, and that having acknowledged this Article as his own, he maintain'd it by those Arguments which he had brought in the Book it self.

3. That there is a Sermon, which Luther preach'd in High Dutch, in the Year 1520. and is printed in all the Editions of his Works, which contains a long Confutation of the Mass.

4. That 'tis most certainly known, that Luther's Book against Ambrosius Catharinus was written by him in March 1521.—Now this is a Book where he speaks violently against the Abuses of the Mass.

Mr. Sagittarius adds to this these three Considerations.

1. That the Augustines of Wittemberg began the first of all to abolish private Masses, without imparting it to Luther in the Year 1521. which their Provincial Chapter confirm'd sometime after in respect of Votive Masses. Luther being yet in the Castle of Wittemberg: these are Matters of Fact, of which we have strong Proofs, and the Consequences whereof are not less strong against the Pretensions of those, who controvert this matter. For will they suppose also, that these Augustins had learn'd of the Devil what they thought false in the Mass.

2. The Author says in the second place, that Luther being come out of Custody, and preaching at Wittemberg the 28th of March, 1521. declared that tho the Mass was an impious and abominable thing, yet that he did condemn Carolostad, who excited Tumults to abolish it.

3. That Luther protested in the Book which he writ in the Month of Iuly 1522. against the King of England, that he holds his Doctrine from Heaven, and that he defended it against the Temptations of the Devil. Now in this Treatise he discoursed chiefly of the Eucharist; if it be demanded to what purpose does the second Consideration serve to the design of Mr. Sagittarius? I answer, that he makes use of it to show, that the Devil had himself destroyed his own Kingdom, if he had excited Luther to the Abolition of the Mass, and if Luther at the same time did oppose those Advances, which Carolostad had made: Now Mr. Cordemoy pretends, [Page] that the Evil Spirit would not ruin his own Work himself. The result of what has been hitherto read, is, That Luther's Accusers have a little too much confounded the Account of Times; but they have yet much worse setled the state of the Controversy between this Doctor and the Devil; they have supposed it as a thing out of doubt, that what was disputed between these two Champions, was, to know, Whether private Masses were good; and that Luther did maintain the Affirmative, but yielded to the weight of his Adversary's Objections. It was nothing less than this, if we believe Mr. Sagittarius; Luther did not deny to the Devil, that the Sacrifice of the Mass was a very ill thing; it was a Principle to which both Adversaries consented; but Luther would not admit of the Consequence which the Devil drew from thence, to wit, that a Man who had said Mass for 15 Years together, ought to consider himself as lost without Remedy. The Devil therefore had a design to raise a thousand Remorses, and a despairing confusion in the Soul of his Adversary: He on the other side sought for Excuses and Justifications, not for the Mass, but for the Fault he had done in celebrating of it; and in fine, all the Consolation that was left him, after that he had seen all that he could say for his Excuse, defeated by the Devil, was, that the Mercy of God, and the Death of Christ Jesus, would preserve him from the Damnation which he deserv'd.—You see here two wonderful Differences betwixt the pretentions of the Lutherans, and those of their Adversaries; these pretend that the Dispute run only upon this Thesis, That private Masses are good, and that the Devil who took upon him the Office of an Opponent, confounded Luther. The others say, That the state of the Question was, Whether a Man who had said Mass for 15 Years, was a Sinner pardonable, and that Luther who was the Defendant, had been quite gravell'd, if it had not been that he alleadg'd the Merit of Jesus Christ, and the Mercy of God. Can any one consider such diversities of Opinion upon the same Matter of Fact, without adopting the Judgment of Mr. Simon

Nov. de Novemb. 1685 p. 1263.

concerning these Controvertists, Mutatis mutandis? The Author complains, That Mr. Cordemoy has omitted the last part of the Conference, where appears the design which the Devil had, and the Victory that Luther got over them.

[Page]That which is very strange, is, That many eminent Protestants, Hospinian, Pareus, and one Modern that is yet of greater Note than those, have confess'd, that the result of this Dispute, was the abbrogating of private Masses, so that they agree with the Controvertists of the Roman Party, That Luther overcome by the Reasons which the Devil laid before him, reform'd this part of Worship. Now this by no means appears in the account of the Conference, and is invincibly refuted by the Chronology which is above-mentioned. Who can we trust?

There is one other Remark that possibly may not be useless; Mr. Prej. Chap. 2. Nicole had objected to the Protestants this Dispute of Luther, and has drawn a Consequence from it more odious than the Controvertists ever did. Mr. Def. de lá repp. 2. P. ch. 5. Claud answer'd it, and among other things hath observ'd, that these Accusations of the Evil Spirit, were inward Impressions in the Heart of Luther. A Lutheran Minister also put forth an Answer to it; against which, a while after, they published a Book at Paris, and have added there a particular Reply Elle a et è ajouteé á là 2. Edit. dep. Pres. en. 1683. to Mr. Claud about this Conference; he complains that he had changed the Word of Dispute into that of Accusation. Others are offended with these words, en son coeur, i.e. in his Heart, which are not in the Latin; Mr. Sagittarius supplies wherewith to silence these Complaints; for besides what we have touch'd upon, he tells us, P. 5. that Iustus Ionas, who translated this piece of Luther into Latin, has suppress'd many things in the Original, and in particular these words, in corde meo, mu'tas enim Noctes mihi acerbas & molestas fecit; which ought immediately to follow this — Satan mecum caepit ejusmodi disputationem. This Iustus Ionas was not Preceptor to Luther's Son, but his Colleague in Divinity, from the Year 1522. Hospinian mistakes in this, and confounds him with another who was indeed his Preceptor, and who assisted with Iustus Ionas at Luther's Death.

Mr. Sagittarius contents himself in this Particular, to say that Mr. Cordemoy has follow'd the Error of Hospinian, but it must be allow'd that throughout every place else he confutes him with a force that is a little too severe. § One of the places that deserves the greatest Consideration, is this, which shews the design that Luther had, when he composed that [Page] Treatise, wherein we find an account of this Conference. By this means he overthrows all those confused Stories and Illusions which the Missionaries frame upon what Luther seems to answer sometimes, as being a good Catholick, tho his Expressions should seem to prove a great deal in this respect, and tho one should not acquiesce with the most probable sense which Mr. Sagittarius gives them, yet we must at least agree, that they are not Proofs which equal those of the Chronology already mentioned, and consequently that there was a great deal of Rashness in the matter of Fact related by the Controvertists. The Author qualifies their Dispute far otherwise; for, he thinks nothing can be more villanous than to accuse so many Princes and Cities of Germany, of having annull'd the Mass, and reform'd Religion upon a Platform taken from the Devil, not by disguised Suggestions, but by Instructions formally acknowledged to be Diabolical; he maintains, that this is a great Injury, the Infamy whereof, reflects upon his Imperial Majesty, and all those Catholick Princes, who own the Protestants to be Members of the holy Roman Empire, and who have promis'd by solemn Treaties of Peace, wherein the King of France interven'd, to give them Toleration of their Religion, and even to maintain it against all those, who should give them any disturbance.— He adds, that there would have been an apparent Nullity in all this, if the Protestants were such as Mr. de Cordemoy has represented them, since 'tis certain, that every Man who professes himself to be brought up by the Devil, ought to be incapable of enjoying the Priviledges of humane Society, and deserves the Punishment of Sorcerers and Magicians. He desires to know, if those, who are now employ'd to make Converts in France, do not fancy to themselves something like this, and he wonders, that they do not imitate Francis of Sales, who, as 'tis said first began to instruct the Hugenots by Exorcisms.

But let us end this Article by that Remark, which we made, speaking of a Writing of the Abbot of Cordemoy, in the Novels of August 1685. We said that the Devil prefers Truth before a Lie, when he thinks it most proper to excite the Passions, and to be the cause of much Mischief. This is a [Page] Principle which methinks cannot be contested in this, particular Dispute, but to the end to perswade the World that the Lutherans have follow'd the Devil's Instructions as such, rather than as a Truth. But let them say what they will, this Principle is agreed upon, and we have given a notable Example of it, in the second Edition of this place of our Novels, 'tis of the founder of the Jesuits, of whom they published, that the Devil would have diverted him from his Studies, in giving to him a most lively knowledg of the Mysteries of Religion: That which follows will serve as a Supplement to this.

Father Bouhours admirably well describes this Diabolical Stratagem in that place, where he shews us St. Ignatius learning his Grammar at the 33d Year of his Age.—He says that the Enemy of Men's Salvation, who foresaw to what end St. Ignatius his Learning would tend, made use of a cunning Artifice to overthrow his Studies, and so carri'd this new Scholar without any intermission to the Exercises of Piety, fill'd him full of Consolations, and suggested to him such tender Sentiments for God, that all the time that he should have devoted to his Study, was spent in devout breathings; instead of conjugating the Verb Amo, he exerted the Acts of Love—I love you my God, said he, and you love me: to love to be beloved, and nothing more. When he was in School, his Mind was in Heaven, and whilst his Master was explaining to him the Rules of Grammar, he heard an inward Master that cleared to him all the difficulties of Scripture and Mysteries of Faith.

The Life of St. Anthony, attributed to St. Athanasius, gives an account of many Temptations of this kind, wherein the Devil made use of the appearances of Truth and Piety.— 'Tis then a matter confess'd on both sides, that the Devil sometimes maintains a good cause, therefore 'tis no Argument of the goodness of private Masses, to say, that he has strongly opposed them.

[Page]His other Objections about Luther are as inconsiderable as these I have answer'd, and they have been spoken to by others; and instead of being press'd with the force, I am wearied with the weakness, and the repetition of them. For Mr. Pulton has done like the frugal Man, who saved firing by carrying the same Billets out of one place into another. Mr. P. has brought his Wooden Objections out of Bellarmine's and Brerelie's Cellar, into his Chamber; and he may please, if he needs to be warmer than he naturally is, to carry them back again.

CHAP. IV. Mr. P's Objection against the Rule of Faith shown to be weak, and unconvincing.

I Purpose (if God permit) as soon as the approaching Solemnities of Christ's Nativity are (for this Year) past, to publish a distinct Treatise about the Rule of Faith. Something I have attempted in the Tract entituled, A Discourse of a Guide in matters of Faith, but that seems a little too Scholastical for ordinary Readers. I intend a shorter and plainer Book for more common use. In that I shall deliver the Reason of the Case, without further regard to Mr. Pulton, or any other Disputer, than as the Rule shows it self, and that which is crooked.

At present I shall offer that which may refute Mr. Pulton's Reasonings, which, howsoever, they sounded, when they were heard from his Pulpit, are [Page] now, that they come to be seen and felt, no such formidable things.

1. If I had wholly refus'd to return an Answer to his Question about the Bible, I had not departed from Reason. When two Iews dispute, they do not contend about the Truth of the Writings of Moses. When two Mahometans dispute, neither of them do call in question the Alcoran. And when two Christians Dispute, he that questions the Bible does unnecessarily contend about that which he allows.

2. If I had persisted in the Suggestion concerning such Discourses, as tending to Atheism, or rather Unbelief; No Man who is tender of the moments of Religion would have blam'd me, considering some of the Company that was about us. By such Questions such Converts are made, as Father Simon has made by his Critical History of the Old Testament, S. Paul's Rule is little observed by the Controvertists of this World: ‘Him that is weak in the Faith receive, but not to doubtful Disputations.’

3. If I had answer'd his Questions with Questions, the way had been justifiable before all equal Judges. I mean (among others) such Questions as these, about the Copy to which the Romanists are tied in all Disputes, by the Council of Trent. Why do you make a Translation your Rule, and not the Original? Why do you not follow the ancient Italic Translation us'd in the Latin Church? Why is St. Hierom for one Translation, and your Popes for another? What Latin Translation was the Church tied to in St. Austin's time, when there were numberless Translations? and why did the Church suffer them if one was their Rule? Why did the Popes Sixtus Quintus and Clement the 8th ▪ differ from one another [Page] in many places, besides those which might be Errors of the Press? Why did not St. Gregory the Great go by this Rule? Why did Cardinal Zimenes, Pagnin, and Mariana, correct it? Why did Cardinal Cajetan help himself in the Translation by a Jew? Why do's the very Learned French Bishop Huetius here and there touch it over again? Why do's Father Simon Sim. Hist. Crit. p. 313. himself, who differs so much from it, tell us, that it serves as a Rule? And if it be, what Rule is it to the People who understand no Latin? And what Translation of it have they by their Church into the Vulgar Tongue? Last of all, (to refresh his Memory about Pope Innocent the Third);Inno. 3. op. fol. 105. Why did not HE go by the Rule of the Vulgar, if in his Time it was a Rule? He varies from it often, and particularly in the Text of the Penetential Psalms, where he thus pleasantly begins his Elucidation.

‘This Psalm, according to the Translation which the Roman Church holds, contains nine Verses, by which the Penitent gradually ascends to the nine Orders of Angels, because there is greater joy among the Angels of God over one Sinner that repenteth, than over 99 just Persons, who need not Repentance, although the number of ten Verses, which according to another Translation it is known to have, agrees well to reason; because Man who fell by Sin, rises by Repentance, that by him the Tenth Order may be restored. Deservedly also this Psalm has Three Ternaries, because Repentance ought to have Three Parts, Confession by the Mouth, Contrition in the Heart, and Satisfaction by the Work.’

Now here's your Pope for observing a Rule, and giving an infallible Interpretation.

[Page]4. The Universal Testimony which I mentioned as separate from Authority, and proving the Books of Scripture to be such Writings as they are taken to be, depends upon a firm Principle which Mr. Pulton has not shaken; to wit, that so many Persons of such different Places, and Conditions, and Interests, and Perswasions; could not possibly be Confederates in a false Testimony in this Matter; [...] no not so easily as in the Testimonies given for the Offices of Cicero, the History of Livy, and the Existence of the Cities of Ierusalem, or Rome. The sense of this was thrice repeated in the Conference; and now the Answer is, a Denial that ever it was said. Father Nicole would have yielded what Father Pulton would not; for thus he speaks De l'unitie de l'Eglise, p. 183. Quand le consentment de l'Eglise Universelle est general dans tous les siecles aussi bien que dans toutes les Communions, ce consentement unanimè sait une demonstration. both his own and Monsieur Iurieu's sense. ‘When the consent of the Universal Church is general in its several Ages, as well as in its several Communions, this unanimous consent makes a Demonstration.’ But perhaps Monsieur Nicole is not Father Pulton's Pope.

5. But why has he chang'd his Rule of a General Council for a living Judg? And for what Reason do's he call the Bible MY RULE of Faith? It is the Rule of all the Reformed; It was the Rule of the Ancient Church. It was St. Austin's Rule, and he thus owned it to be so: In those things which are plainly contained in the Scriptures, all those things are found which contain Faith and Manners of living. S. Aug. de Doctr. Christ. l. 2. c. 9. p. 45. In iis enim, quae apertè in Scripturis posita sunt, inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent Fidem mores (que) vivendi. For the Creed, or sum of things to be believed, S. Irenaeus called it the Rule of Truth; and Tertullian, the Rule of Faith. The Scripture is the Rule which God [Page] hath given his Church; Whom then makes He himself when he goes about to confute it Mr. P's Rem. in the Title Page. A Confutation of the DOCTOR'S RVLE OF FAITH. And p. 14. The DOCTOR'S RVLE of FAITH prov'd insufficient.? and whom does he make me, when to ME he ascribes the Rule? 'Tis wonderful surprizing that Mr. P., tho he venerates Creatures, should make ME, whom he reviles, the Object of his Worship. But so at the same time they worship'd Mercury, and threw Stones at him.

6. Against this Rule he has taken exception, and it will soon appear whether they are, or are not, causeless.

I will first examine his more General Reasonings and Authorities, and then descend to his more special Points, about the Sabbath, Easter, Infant-Baptism, and the Holy Trinity.

His more General Reasonings are Six.

OBIECT. 1. ‘Hereticks have from Christ's time appeal'd to the written Word of God, Mr. P's Rem. p. 15. which therefore cannot be the Rule of one true Church that is essentially different from an Heretical one.’

Answer 1. This is not true in History: for Irenaeus and Tertullian mention Hereticks who refus'd the Scriptures, and were (as the latter calls them) Fleers from the Light.

2. This Argument proves nothing because it proves too much: for it is an Argument against [Page] all Rules. Hereticks have appeal'd to REASON, therefore Reason is no Rule. Hereticks have appeal'd to the dictate of the Spirit of God, therefore that is not a true Spirit. Hereticks have pleaded Tradition, therefore Tradition is not to be pleaded. Heathens have pleaded universal Consent, [All Asia and all the World worship'd Diana] therefore universal Consent is not to be regarded. Contentious Men in Civil Kingdoms plead Customs and Presidents, and Maxims of Law, and Statutes, therefore none of these are Rules in Government. Many have appeal'd to Popes in Uncanonical Causes, therefore the Pope is no Judg. The later Arians pleaded the Councils of Sirmium and Rimini, therefore Councils are not to be pleaded. Miracles have been pretended to from the beginning by Impostors as signs of Truth, therefore true Miracles are no Proofs. False Appeals to a true Judg or Rule do not argue against the Truth of Judges and Rules, but against the confident and restless Contentiousness of the Appellants.

Further, if Hereticks from the beginning appeal'd to the Scriptures as their Rule, so did single FATHERS and Councils of them too: Therefore Mr. P. concludes equally against the written Word of God, as an insufficient Rule, from Fathers and Councils, as from Hereticks. And thus with great discretion, he has shut out the Witnesses whom he accepts of, that he may exclude those, to whom he is unwilling to give admission. In sum, the Church may be one, the Society may be one, and the Rule one, and very sufficient, tho ill Men will either pretend [Page] to it, or reject it. Many false Christs have risen up, yet one only is true, and he did many real Signs, and those who saw them would not yet believe in him.

All this Objection is a transferring the fault from the Men and fixing it upon the faultless Rule.

Object. 2.‘Ay!Mr. P's Rem. p. 16. but when Hereticks appeal to the Scripture, a living Judg will condemn them, and secure the Government of the Church, as a living Judg do's the Quiet of the State.’

Answer. All Churches rightly constituted have living Iudges, and such as are as infallible, as the Judg or Judges in the Roman Church. That is, having a true and plain Rule in Necessaries, it is their own wilful failure, if they pronounce in necessary Doctrine, or Rule of Life, a false Sentence. But still Mr. P's difficulty remains; for Hereticks will no more regard the Judg than the Rule, and they will no otherwise have a regard in their Judgment to the living Judg, than as they believe he goes by the dead Rule. And that which keeps the Peace in Churches and States is such Authority, to which their Fears submit, when their Reason or Interest do not. Therefore where Infallibility is pretended, where Men are at the feet of the seven Hills, whence the Fountain of it is said to spring, it is by thousands no further regarded, than as it has Power to enforce it. And the Keys of the Inquisition keep such more quiet in that Inclosure, than those of St. Peter. For the rest, some know better, and fear by their Separation in necessary things, to open a gate to Atheism [Page] and utter Disorder, and so groan secretly under a Burden which they openly profess to have no weight: And others, born in that Communion, being set by their Teachers against Examination as private Presumption and damnable doubting, and a way to endless Uncertainty, remain with the multitude in that way, of which they have not yet asked the Question whether it be the old and the good one, or not.

Object. 3. If a Man uses all Ministerial Helps, and cannot be satisfied in himself,Mr. P's Rem. p. 16, 17. that he either has sufficient helps, or that he has us'd them, and be left after this, to his own Conscience, may not this Man's Conscience be erroneous, and actually err in things necessary to Salvation? If so, then his Religion may be Fancy, and not Divine Faith.

Answer. Here again our Iesuit has taken up a two-edged Weapon. For his living Judg is but still a ministerial help [not (saith St. Paul) that we are masters of your Faith, but helpers of your Ioy]. For such a Man, before he accepts him for a Judg, must be convinc'd that he ought to accept him. And what if he be a Man of Pisa or Basel, and will bring him to the Canons of the ancient Church? And what if he be a Man of weak Capacity, and cannot understand the Arguments for such a Judg? What if he be a learned Man, and understands the Arguments better than the Imposer? and what if he has a scrupulous Mind which cannot be satisfied, not for want of outward Means, but through inward Distraction and Anxiety? Why then such a one must be left to his Conscience, whatsoever it be, in the Roman Communion [Page] as well as the Reform'd. If that Church can instruct him, so can ours. If it has cause to excommunicate him, we have that Spiritual Power also, but would not exercise it where there is demonstration that Men are sincere in their Perswasion and have taken due Pains, and are, in their dissentings, modest and peaceable.

If they are violent by blind Zeal, or by Faction cover'd under the venerable Name of Conscience, then, when the Common-Wealth is Christian, the Civil Powers in their way, preserve the Peace of the Church.

In fine, when we speak of very scrupulous and unperswadable Men, what effect can Infallibility have upon them? For if they cannot be convinc'd that they have taken sufficient pains, and that the Ministry, under which they are, is sufficient; how will they be convinc'd merely by hearing it said to them, they must not dispute, they must submit to an Infallible living Judg? For that is the great Thing which so many Thousands scruple even among themselves. That was an Expedient among the Pythagoreans, who were to be in Quietude and Silence, and submit in all things to, THE MASTER SAID IT. Yet they divided into many Sects, as is evident in the History of the Italic Philosophy. To say, there is a certain Guide, and on him you must depend wholly for your way, is to spend Breath and Confidence in vain, till the Wanderer knows who this Guide is, and whether he may absolutely depend upon him. If he still questions him, he must take his own way; and if he takes him, 'tis still in effect [Page] his own way, for he takes him upon this last Act of his own Judgment, that he is an Infallible Guide.

But what if his Conscience prove Erroneous, and his Faith be Fancy?

I Answer, First, as above, he has as good security in this Church, as in any other, for he has as sufficient means, and better than in some.

Secondly, A Man of good Capacity using these Means in Christian manner, if nothing distracts his Judgment, and disables his Capacity, shall not be brought to such Scruples as shall end in Fancy instead of Faith.

Thirdly, If he has natural Incapacity, God will not judg him for a Talent he had not. Such a Man even under the Gospel, may be as much without that Law, as the Heathens were without the Law of the Jews. For an Ideot, or a Man under a distraction, is without that as a Rule, which he is not capable of using or apprehending.

Fourthly, If a Man has Capacity, without Probity of Mind, and pretends Scruples, he ought not to abuse the Good Word, Conscience. He should say it is his Lust, or his Appetite, or his Fear, or his Profit, or his Vanity. And to such a one, all Church-Governnours, who give best Revenues and most Ease to Flesh and Blood, are sufficiently infallible. They give him security of Pleasure and Profit, and that is as much Assurance as he asks.

[Page] Fifthly, If a Man has had a good Capacity, and an honest Mind, but is shatter'd into variety of doubtful Thoughts, by bodily Distemper, by suddain wordly Losses, by Terrors from the Anathema's of the Bold and Uncharitable, by being call'd to by several at the same time, with great and restless Importunity, saying, This is the Way, the right Hand is the Way, the left Hand is the Way; I say, if such a Man, by such Disturbance, by repeated dinns of Clamour, and by such other Mechanick Influences, has the Frame of his Head so open'd, as to let in a Scruple which cannot be remov'd, or an Error which cannot be resisted; let not Man judg such a one, his Case must be reserv'd to God.

This is the safety of Men, and the true Bottom on which they may be easy in all Times of Controversy, and in all Places and Circumstances, viz. That they, doing their present best, with a good Heart, both for Judgment and Manners, and repenting sincerely of the Omission or Abuse of former. Means, God will accept of them according to what they have, and not according to what they have not. And this anticipates Mr. Pulton's

Object. 4. ‘That Men of his Communion using all possible means for Truth, are not therefore to be punished with Draconic or Sanguinary Laws;M. P. Rem. p. 17, 18. because, when all is done, they are to be left to their Conscience.’ For this is yielded to Men of all Communions, upon supposition that the Government is satisfy'd, 'tis not Humour, Interest, or Faction, but final [Page] Conscience, and not present Perswasion, which needs only consideration for the altering of it, and may be put upon consideration by Discipline. Provided also, that Publick Peace be secured: which Peace if Men disturb out of final or present Conscience, (as Saul did that of the Assemblies of Christians) a careful Governour uses Civil Power against them for Example to looser Men, and to them by way of Restraint rather than Punishment. And in such Cases their Confinement is a Bethlem.

Object. 5. ‘The Primitive Christians made a True Church. Mr. P's Rem. p. 18. To a True Church, the Rule of a Church is Essential. This Church subsisted many Years without a compiled Canon, for several Years past, without any written Gospels or Epistles, either divulg'd or compil'd into a Canon: Wherefore the written Word of God can't be the only true Rule of Faith.’

Answer. Part of this Objection is false History, and part of it is fallacious Reasoning.

Part of this Argument is false History.

For, First, The first Christians were not without the Old Testament, which is the same Rule with the New, though the New is clearer: And that Rule was illuminated by the very coming of Christ.

Secondly, St. Matthew's Gospel was written and divulged, and accepted within very few Years after Christ's Ascension, and so was St. Paul's first Epistle [Page] to the Thessalonians; and the whole of the New Testament was written during part of the Life of a Man; for St. Iohn, a Disciple of Christ, was the last Writer.

Part of this Argument is fallacious Reasoning.

For, first ▪ The New Testament was a Rule to the Christians before it was compiled into a Canon: for by compil'd, he means compil'd into a Codex, or Volume of Canons by a Council: for Canons, Laws, and Statutes, are Rules before they are collected into a Body; and we see the Sacred Scripture cited as the Rule, by St. Ignatius, Clement, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and other Ancient Christians before any Council met to compile them. And the Jews had the Law for their Rule, before Esdras (as they say) put the Holy Writers together.

2. Writing or not writing does not alter the Christian Rule which is the same spoken or written. But a Rule, which may be preserved without writing for a few Years, and whilst the Apostles were alive and to be consulted, and Evangelists commission'd by them, (who wrought amongst them real Miracles, whilst they taught the Christian Doctrine, and expounded the Old Testament, and after the manner of Christ opened the Understanding of the People, that they might understand the mystical Sense of the Old Covenant) was not likely to be preserved so entirely and so usefully, without writing, to the end of the [Page] World: Nor was the Law trusted without writing. When therefore, we say that the Scriptures are our Rule, what else do we mean, but that the Doctrine of the Messiah first taught by him, and afterwards written down by Evangelists and Apostles for the sake of Posterity, (to whom nothing could have been accurately transmitted for so long a time from Mouth to Mouth) that this Doctrine first preached, and then written, is the Rule of his Disciples. It is a Fallacy then to say, that a Rule once not written and afterwards written, is not the same, because one is not written and the other is. And it is so weak a one, that no Man of Judgment will be insnar'd by it. For he knows in his own little Affairs that an Account made first by word of Mouth, and afterward written down for the avoiding of Mistakes, and for the Preservation of that which frail Memory would lose, is but the same Account. So our Rule which was first dictated and then written, is but one Rule. When our Saviour said it, and St. Paul repeated it, and St. Luke wrote it down, that it was more blessed to give than to receive, the Rule was not altered but preserved: And our Saviour said many other things which, because they were not written down, are not known.

Object. 6. ‘Neither the universal Church, nor any part of it, deliver'd the Protestants the Bible, as they have it—The other Books being brought under examination in the Year 397. were found to be of equal Authority with those which were formerly [Page] received. So that the Protestants not receiving the Books they call Apochryphal,Mr. P's Rem. p. 18, 19. want ten parts of the Rule.’ For the making good of this Reasoning, he mentions the Authorities of the Councils of Carthage, Constantinople, and Florence, and of the Fathers, S. Austin, Pope Innocent the first, Pope Gelasius, and Pope Eugenius.

Answer. His Reasoning shall be first consider'd, and then his Authorities.

1. His Reasoning is not right upon two Accounts.

First, The Rule of the Scripture is not like a Mechanick Rule, of which just so much serves for measuring. For the Scripture is both a sufficient and an abundant Rule. And, strictly speaking, our Rule of Faith is rather in the Scripture, than the entire Volume. For the necessary Doctrines are few, and they are often repeated: and the same things are said more than once, by Moses, by the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles: There is good use to be made of all the Books extant, but if some of them had been wanting, the Rule of Faith might still have been contained in the rest.

If therefore we lay aside some Books he calls Canonical, it does not thence follow that the Rule of Faith is shortned, because the Code of the Canon is less. All things in Scripture are useful, but all [Page] things are not Doctrines absolutely necessary to Salvation.

Secondly, Whilst he argues for a Rule larger than the Primitive Church received, and adheres to a later Canon, he argues against Tradition. For he takes up that which is later, and prefers it before that which was earlier in the Church. Whereas Tradition descends, but does not ascend. Now Learned Men of his own Communion allow that the ancient Church did not receive his Additional Canon any more than the Reformed will allow his Additional Creed. When both are reduc'd to the ancient Standard, the Church of God will enjoy a greater measure both of Truth and Peace. I will lay before the Iesuit the Judgment of a Sorbonist, who has read as many Ecclesiastical Books, and made as great Collections as he pretends to Mr. P's Full Account, p. 9.—had read all Eccles. Hist. and had Volumes of Notes, &c., and to better purpose, than has yet been manifested by him. I mean Mr. Ellies du Pin Du Pin Nov. Bibl. des Auteurs Ecclesiastiques, tom. prem. p. 653. Livres Mis hors du Canon par les Juiss, & par plusieurs Antients Chretiens, & receus depuis dans L'Eglise. Tobie, &c., ‘Who says of Tobit, Iudith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the second Book of Maccabees, the History of Susanna, and Bell, that they are Books left out of the Canon by the Jews, and by many ancient Christians, and since that, received by the Church.’ He says this, but in other places, he, for Church-Reasons, is not so constant to himself.

I might therefore have rather mention'd the great Cardinal Ximenes, whose Polyglot Bible was [Page] dedicated to Pope Leo the Tenth (the Pope, in whose time Luther liv'd) and, in express words Consensu Leonis motu proprio & ex certâ Scientiâ comprobantis, &c. by that Pope approv'd. That Cardinall in his Preface does thus instruct his Readers, ‘That the Pentateuch is set forth in a threefold Tongue, Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, (with Latin Interpretations of each). That the Hagiographa and Prophetical Books are in a twofold Tongue, Hebrew and Greek, with Latin Versions. But (as he goes on) the Books out of the Canon which At. verò libri extra Canonem, quam Ecclesia potius ad aedificationem Populi, quam ad Authoritatem Ecclesiasticorum Dogmatum confirmandum recipit, &c. the Church receives rather for the Edification of the People, than for confirming the Authority of Ecclesiastical Doctrines, are only in Greek, but with a twofold Latin Translation, the one St. Hierom's, the other the Interlinary (reading) word for word.’

This may satisfy Mr. P. (if he be a reasonable Man) that he was not infallible when he denied there was any Canon like ours at Luther's appearing.

Mr. P. will perhaps say (for something some Men will say when they cannot say that which amounts to an Answer) that he has produc'd greater Authorities; and that du Pin and the Cardinal are not his Popes.

[Page]I come therefore,

2dly, To the Examination of his Authorities, after having suggested this general Answer to those or any others which he shall be able to bring forth out of his Magazine of voluminous Collections. That is to say, that the Apochryphal Books being valuable, some Churches received them as a Secondary Canon (so his own Sixtus Senensis called them) and yet not as a Canon of Faith, but Manners. And the Fancies of Men after some Apocryphal Books were read in Churches, being apt to affect the introducing of more; it was thought Prudence to limit that Secondary Canon, lest Books should be multiplied to the hinderance of the Scripture, and the prejudice of Truth. Our Church instructs the People in the Reason of the Reception of the Apocryphal Books, and the distinction of them from the Primary Canon out of S. Hierom.

Article 6.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to Salvation: So that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any Man, that it should be believed as an Article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation. In the name of the holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical Books of the Old and New Testament, [Page] of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church. Of the Names and Numbers of the Canonical Books. Genesis, Exodus, &c. And the other Books (as Hierom saith) the Church doth read for Example of Life and Instruction of Manners, but yet doth not apply them to establish any Doctrine: Such are these following, the three Books of Esdras, &c.

See Canon 47. Mr. P's great and leading Authority is the third Council of Carthage Mr. P's Rem. p. 18, 19. in which (if you give credit to a Man that witnesses for himself, that he has read all Ecclesiastical History) the Books we call Apocryphal, were found to be of equal Authority with the rest, and consequently received into the Canon.

Here I intreat the Reader to make with me these Observations.

First, Mr. P. notes on his Margin Mr. P's Rem. p. 18. concerning the Council of Laodicea, that it was only a National Council of no general Obligation; but he points not at his Council of Carthage (which was later, and but a Provincial Council) with any such marginal Finger.

Secondly, Whereas he says Pag. 19. that the Council of Carthage was confirm'd in the sixth Council of Constantinople in the Year 680. he forbears to add, [Page] that there was no Enumeration of Books in that Council, and that the National Council of Laodicea was there confirmed as well as the Provincial Council of Carthage: And he observes not that the Council of Laodicea was confirm'd by the great Council of Chalcedon, not so the Council of Carthage. This sure was done to show his Impartiality.

Thirdly, He observes not that the Council of Laodicea was taken into the Code of the Universal Church, but not the Council of Carthage. The first Collection of that Code ends with the second General Council, the first of Constantinople. It is true that Council ended about 16 Years before the Synod of Carthage, but the Collection was not made so soon, tho before the Year 431. Nor is the Council of Carthage added to that Code in the Collection made afterwards. It is true, it is in the African Addition in Dionysus Exiguus, but in the more ancient one it is not to be found.

Fourthly, He omits the Note Concil. Tom. secund. Conc. Carth g. 3. p 1177. Quidam vetustus Codex sic habet. De confirmando isto Canone Transmarina Ecclesia consulatur. in the Collection of his dear Friends Labb [...] and Cossart, put under this 37th Canon of Carthage about the Scriptures, ‘[A certain Ancient Code has it thus Touching the confirming that Canon Let the Transmarine Churches be consulted.]’ There was no full Satisfaction among them in these Additional Books; and for satisfaction they did not refer meerly to the Roman Church.

[Page] 5ly, This Canon could not be a Canon of the third Council of Carthage, held (as Mr. P. says) in the year 397. for Relation is had in it to Boniface, who began his Pontificate about the year 419.

6ly, It is not true, that this Council found these Books to be of equal Authority with the rest.

1. Learned and impartial Romans do not say what Mr. P. does; and the Presumption of the Fathers of Trent, in setting them upon the same Level, is very heinous, as well as very new. Cardinal Cajetan was much of another mind, but neither is he Mr. Pulton's Pope.

2. The former Books of the Old Testament (for about that Canon is the Contest) were own'd by Christ himself and St. Paul; But these were not, could not be so: And the Canon of the Israelites (in Iosephus) is ours.

3. The Council of Carthage call'd these Books Canonical upon no other account than as Books allow'd to be read in Churches. This is clear'd by A Patribus ista accepimus in Ecclesia legenda. the latter part of that supposed Canon; for there the Fathers would have it known to Boniface and other Bishops, in order to the confirming of this Canon, that they had received these Books to be read in the Church; and then they give leave also, that the Passions of Martyrs may be there read too upon their Anniversaries.

2ly. It is true that St. Austin (his next best Authority) was a Consenter in general to the Council of Carthage; and by that which he teaches about the Additional Books, we shall understand them not to have been esteemed of equal Authority with the former Canon; [Page] so that Mr. P. by producing St. Austin, has brought us a Key to the Council of Carthage for the shutting out of himself.

Let us hear St. Austin in the very place cited by Mr. P. and afterwards in other places, in which his mind is not ambiguously delivered.

The place cited by Mr. P. is in St. Austin's Book De Doctrina Christiana, in which Book that Father asserts a Mystical sense in the Sixth Chapter of St. Iohn, (and in the very next S. Aug. de Doct. Christiana, c 9. Chapter to that cited by Mr. P.) the Sufficiency, and Perspicuity of the Scriptures. If his Authority be valid for the Canon, Why is it not for these latter Points? But how very wide is Mr. P. of St. Austin's sense in this very place about the Canonical Books? St. Austin affirms they are not all of equal Authority, and Mr. P. affirms they are. St. Austin before the Enumeration of them, lays down these Rules of Caution:‘A man must hold this measure in the Canonical Books; he is to prefer those Scriptures which are received of all Catholick Churches [where note, he speaks of more Catholick Churches than one; that is, by Catholick he means Apostolick and Orthodox] before those which some, do not receive, and in those which are not received of all, let him prefer those which the greater number, and the more considerable Churches receive, before those which the Churches which are fewer and of lesser Authority receive. But if he shall find some to be received by the greater number of Churches, and others by the more considerable, (tho' this will scarce be found) yet my opinion is, that such are to be esteem'd of equal Authority.’

There are many other places in S. Austin, which make his mind very plain to those who are not so blind that they will not see.

[Page]Two places may at present suffice.

The first is,

In his Book of the City of God August. de Civitate Dei. l. 18. Cap. 36. Tom. 6. p. 1096. Ab hoc tempore apud Judaeos restituto Templo, non Regessed Principes fuerunt usq (que) ad Aristobulum; quorum supputatio temporum, non in scripturis sanctis, quae Canonicae appellantur: sed in alils invenitur, in quibus sunt & Macchabaeorum Libri; Quos non Judaei sed Ecclesia pro Canonicis habet, propter quorundam Martyrum passiones vehementes, atque Mirabiles: Qui antequam Christus venisset in Carnem, usque ad mortem pro Dei lege certaverunt, & mala gravissima, atque horribilia pertulerunt.. There he speaks of other Books which are not Canonical, and amongst them reckons those of the Macchabees which were not in the Canon of the Israelites, received as canonical by the Church by reason of the Suffering certain Martyrs; by which passage it appears, that the Church read them not as a primary Canon of Faith, but a secondary Canon of Manners.

The next place is in his second Book against the Epistle of Gaudentius S. Aug. l. 2. contr. Ep. Gaud. c. 23. p. 353—hanc quidem scripturam, quae appellatur Macchabaeorum, non habent Judaei sicut legem, Prophetas & Psalmos, quibus Dominus Testimonium perhibet, tanquam Testibus suis—Sed recepta est ab Ecclesia, non inutiliter si sobrie legatur vel audiatur, maxime propter illos Macchabaeos, qui pro Dei lege sicut veri Martyres, &c. in which he asserteth that the Writings of the Macchabees were not received by the Iews as they received the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, for which our Lord bears Testimony as his Witnesses; but that it is received by the Church, and not unprofitably if it be soberly read or heard, especially by reason of the Macchabean Martyrs. As to the rest of his Authorities, they are a further Testimony of the choice he made in his great Collection.

For his Epistle of Innnocent, it was shuffled at last into the Roman Code, which was very long without it.

Nor was the Decree of Gelasius known to the World, [Page] till some Hundreds of years after his death; and then it came forth out of the Dark Ware-house of Isidore Mercator. Nor does it speak of the Order of the Canonical Books, but of the Books of the Old Testament; and it makes mention but of one Book of the Macchabees.

Further, to what purpose is it, after so great a gap in time as is betwixt these Authorities, to mention the Council of Florence, not held till the Year 1438. in which there was no Decree at all about the Apocryphal Books, tho' he asserts the contrary, from the no Authority of those who deceived the modern Epitomizer Caranza. What Pope Eugenius might do, is in this Cause insignificant. As to that whole Council, the Greeks at their return, and when they were at Liberty, undid that which, out of fear and hope of Succour, they seem'd to agree to whilst they were in the Territories of the Papacy.

2. Touching his particular Points, seeing he only mentions them, and asks Questions about them, without further Discourse upon them; I will return him here a very brief answer, reserving the further consideration of them, for the forementioned Tract.

First, For the Lords-day; seeing a time is to be set apart for the Worship of God, and that the Israelites by God's appointment, kept one Day in Seven Sacred; and that tho' the Law written in Tables of Stone, so far as it was Typical and Mosaic, was done away; and that Christ came to perfect, and not destroy the Law; and that Christ rose on that day; and that on that day at Pentecost his Church properly began; and that this day was generally observed by Christians, not meerly by Romans; there is so strong a Scriptural Reason for the [Page] observation of it, that no Church-Authority can omit or alter it without doing that which is irrational and unbecoming a Christian Society: And if the Roman should make this Attempt, it ought not to be obey'd.

2. Concerning the Feast of Easter, and the time of its observation, I do not know who they are among Christians, who make it one of the Necessaries to Salvation. There is reason for making a solemn Memorial of Christ's Resurrection; but that the Apostles setled the time, is contrary to the express words in the Epistle (not of Philippus, as the Editor mistakes, but Theophilus) in the Council of Caesarea. Post Resurrectionem vel Ascensionem Domini Salvatoris, Apostoli quomodo Pascha deberent observare, nihil ordinare potuerunt: Quia dispersi per universum mundum ad praedicandum fuerunt occupati. Which Epistle, tho it is not so very ancient, yet it is set out as such by the Jesuit Bucherius.

3. Concerning Baptism (Mr. P's third Point) he says 'tis necessary to Salvation.

If he had said generally necessary, our Catechism had thus far agreed with him. And St. Austin fetches his proofs for Infant-Baptism out of the Scripture against the Pelagians, as our Church-Office does. And they who consider, that Infants are capable of ent'ring into Covenant with God, and that Christ hath mentioned no other Gate of admittance into his Church, but Baptism, will fear the omission of Baptizing Infants. And he who has regard to the Analogy of both Covenants, will as readily construe our. Saviour, as requiring the Baptizing of Infants in that command, Go and bring into the Christian School All Nations, as a Iew would have construed Moses, as requiring the Circumcising of Infants, if he had said, Go and Circumcise all Nations.

[Page]4. For the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the Arians opposed it by Tradition, and the Fathers prov'd it by Scripture. And the place in St. Iohn's Epistle, There are three that bear Record in Heaven, was by the Arians believed to be of such force against them, that they removed it out of many Copies.

Instances are infinite: I will produce but one out of St. Hilary St. Hil. de Trin. lib. 5. Propheta loquitur, Evangelium testatur, Apostolus interpretatur, Ecclesia confitetur verum Deum esse, qui visus sit, cum tamen Deum Patrem visum nemo fateatur. which shews the way of the Fathers in proving the Divinity of Christ out of the Scriptures. St. Hilary compares the places in Isa. 6. St. Ioh. 12. and Rom. 10. and then draws this Conclusion: ‘The Prophet speaks, the Gospel witnesseth, the Apostle interpreteth, the Church confesseth him, who was seen to be the true God, whilst no man owneth that God the Father was seen.’

CHAP. V. Mr. P. consider'd with Relation to what he hath said about the Lateran Council.

MR. Poulton had mistaken some hundreds of Years in time, about the great Lateran Council See D. T's Account, p. 15, 81.; and he was tax'd for it in particular manner before Mr. M. and neither of them then deni'd it; and now M. P's Full Account, p. 9. he turns it off by an Evasion (which Katherine heard) that he appealed to a General Council, and troubled not himself with a private Man Rem. p. 26, 27., meaning the Monk Paschasius Radbertus. If this had been his Answer, what occasion could there have been for this Question, put aloud to Mr. Merideth, Why do you bring a Man [for [Page] Mr. M. is a manager in Conference] who has not common skill in History? But notwithstanding, He certifies for himself, that he has profound skill, for he had read M. P's Full Account, p. 9. all the Ecclesiastical History [especially the Acts of Innocent the third] and had Volumes of Notes relating thereunto: Volumes better worth 10000 l. than the Books which I am wont to boast of, before Catharine in the Cloudes, and other such Witnesses.

For this Lateran Council, let us weigh a little (for a little' weighing will suffice for a Feather) these Reasonings and Authorities about the Lateran Council.

He proves it to be a General Council, because Binius, Labbe and Carranza, give such an Account of it; and because I oppose it by Father Walsh the Franciscan, who (it seems, weak man) is nothing in the hands of three such Defenders of the August Assembly M. P's Rem. p. 27.. That it may appear the more August, he Notes that it was held against the Heresies of the Albigenses.

Now he should either have left out the Persecution of the Albigenses on his side; or his Epithets of Sanguinary, Bloody, Penal, on ours; for as long as the Saint of the Lateran Council (St. Dominic) is remembred, Blood and Penalties will not be forgotten.

This by the by, and he will chide me for Rambling. I return to Father M. P's Account, p. 11. Walsh and Binius. And

1. I did not prove this Council by the mere Authority of Father Walsh, but only noted how Father Pulton, and Father Walsh agreed about their Rule of Faith in the great Article of Transubstantiation; and how Mr. P. had own'd a Deposing Canon, and denied it's Deposing Doctrine; but this was with nimble art to be so clearly skipt over, as not to be touched

D. T's Account, p. 81.

.

[Page]2. I do (in one point at least) value Father Walsh, above his very famous Binius and Labbe, for they were friends of the Deposing Doctrine, and he has been an open Enemy to it, and for that Reason drawn no small hatred upon him.

Binius has Bonif. VIII. Vita & Epist. ap. Lab. Tom. II. part 2. p. 1398. words to this effect in his Collection of Councils; Bonifacius VIII — Justly Excommunicated Philip the IV. of France, sirnamed the Fair, for his Violation of the Law of Nations: Labbe repeats them in the August Edition of the Louvre without any Note in the Margent against them; but this giving Offence, in the next Edition a Note is added, which is rather an Evasion than a Reproof of that Doctrine Ib. A. 1294. Errat Binius; tantum abest, ut Philippus juste excommunicatus fuerit, ut ne fuerit quidem Excommunicatus.

He Notes that Binius err'd, he does not say in the Doctrine of Excommunicating the King, but in the History; because Philip was not (in one Jesuits Opinion, tho he was in another's) Excommunicated at all. Moreover in the second Apparatus, of Labbe, and Cossart, Jesuits, to their Collection of Councils, Jacobat de Concil. l. 7. de Cap. Concil. p. 329. 2 col. unde Gl. 1. in. they have publish'd without Reflection this dangerous Doctrine, That the Pope alone has power to depose an Emperor, Kings, and any other kinds of Power.

After this, is it possible for any man to guess, why this Franciscan is not this Iesuits D. T's Account, p. 15. Mr. P. answered. Father Walsh was not his Pope. Pope?

You will be wide of the Mark, if you say it is because Father Walsh is an open Remonstrant, and against deposing. Whether the Acts of this Council were genuine or not, I now dispute not. But 'tis certain, 'twas no truly General Council, and yet that the major Part of Romish Writers have said it was. And seeing Mr. P. is become one of that number, let him, with more Art than others have done, attempt the evading the genuine Sense of its Decree Conc. Lat. 4. cap. 3. for the Extirpation of Heresie, owned afterwards by the Bull of Martin the [Page] V. It was then thus decreed, ‘That if a temporal Lord being requir'd and warn'd by the Church, should neglect to purge his Dominions of Heresie, he should first be excommunicated by the Metropolitan, and the other Bishops of his Province; whereof, if within a years time, he gave no satisfaction, the Pope was to be warned, who might absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance, and expose his Dominions to be seiz'd on by Catholicks; who having destroyed the Hereticks, might thenceforward possess it without any contradiction, and preserve it in the purity of the Faith, saving the Right of the Principal Lord, on CONDITION that he put no hindrance.’ And it is expresly added, that the same Course is to be observ'd towards them, who have no Principal Lords.

CHAP. VI. Mr. P. considered in relation to what he has said, touching the antiquity of Popery in England.

THREE things on this subject Mr. Pulton asserts; yet there is not one of them which he can maintain.

1. He asserts M. P's Rem. p. 2. that Popery flourished in this Kingdom, near a Thousand years (he might as well have added my number of Ten thousand) before Protestancy was ever heard of; and that we our selves confess it. Whereas we say, that the British Bishops protested [Page] against the Popes Jurisdiction above a Thousand years ago; that we had Witnesses against Romish Errors before Luther rose: That our Faith is the Faith in the Ancient Creeds; and that if our Protestations against Romish Errors are new, it is because they were new, and that we could not sweep out the Dirt, till they had brought it in; and that we are the same Church as from the beginning, the Corruptions only being remov'd.

2. He avers M. P's Rem. p. 26. that the Corruptions I mention are but supposed, and that I shall never be able to shew that St. Gregories Faith was not that which Rome now teaches.

I had said already that Gregory the Great D. T's Account. p. 77. ‘had not sent into the Land the same Canon the Romanists now go by; for he would not allow the Books of Macchabees to be Canonical.’ Now according to Mr. Pulton's Art of Logic, if old Popery has a shorter, and new Popery has a longer Rule, the Popery is not the same; But then was then, and now is now.

3. He asserts concerning the Doctrines of the Two famous Synods, the Second of Nice, and that of Trent, M. P's Rem. p. 26. that they are not here oppugn'd, unless by Hereticks desirous to retain the name of Catholicks.

The name Catholick is sometimes with them a mark of the Church, and now Hereticks covet and use it: 'Tis a mark and no mark. Now for the Synod of Nice, he commits a mistake, for I cited Hoveden, for the opposition of it to the Worship of Images, and not, as he forgets, to the Corporal presence. And because he is just now in good humour, and promises a fair and candid Answer M. P's Rem. p. 26. when my proofs out of Beda and Hoveden are produced, I will produce a place or two. He will do well for varieties sake, to say something that is fair and candid.

[Page]For Hoveden in relation to the Decree of Nice about Image-Worship, his Testimony is this Rog. de Hoveden Annal. pars prior. p. 405. — Anno 792. Carolus Rex Francorum misit synodalem librum ad Britanniam, sibi a Constantinopoli directum, in quo libro (heu proh dolor) multa inconvenientia, & verae fidei contraria reperiebantur; maxime, quod pene omnium Orientalium Doctorum non minus quam trecentorum vel eo amplius Episcoporum unanimi assertione confirmatum fuerit, Imagines adorari debere, quod omnino Ecclesia Dei execratur; contra quod scripsit Albinus Epistolam ex authoritate divinarum Scripturarum mirabiliter affirmatam; illamq (que) cum eorum Libro ex persona Episcoporum ac Principum nostrorum Regi Francorum attulit.: ‘In the year 795. Charles King of the Franks sent that Synodical Book to Britain, which had been directed to him from Constantinople, in which Book (alas and wail the day) many inconvenient things, and CONTRARY TO THE TRVE FAITH, were found; but the greatest grief was, that it was confirmed by almost all the Oriental Doctors, no less than Three hundred, if not more, Bishops with unanimous suffrage, THAT IMAGES OVGHT TO BE WORSHIPPED, WHICH THE CHVRCH OF GOD VTTERLY ACCVRSETH. Against which [Decree] Albinus wrote a Letter wonderfully strengthened by the Authority of the Divine Scriptures, and brought it, together with the said [Synodical] Book to the King of the Francs in the name of our Bishops and Princes.’

As to Beda, in relation to the Corporal presence, one place may suffice, tho' in him there are many. Now in his Commentary on St. Luke he teaches, that Beda in Lucae Evang. cap. 22. lib. 6. p. 424. Col. 2. — Ut viz. pro carne Agni, vel sanguine suae Carnis sanguinisq (que) Sacramentum in panis ac vini figura substituens, ipsum sese esse monstraret, cui juravit Dominus, & non poenitebit eum tues sacerdos in oeternum, secundum ordinem Melchisedec; frangit autem, &c. ‘Instead of the Flesh and Blood of the Paschal Lamb, he did substitute the Sacrament of his own Flesh and Blood in the FIGURE of Bread and Wine.’ And the words following show that he meant it of such Bread and Wine as Melchisedeck gave to Abraham, who certainly was not presented with mere shows and Accidents.

[Page]From Knyghton I had asserted, D. T's Account, p. 78. That even in the latter time of Wickliff, there was no such Doctrine then in England as Transubstantiation publickly imposed as an Article of Faith. I cited not then the Recantation of Wickliff, nor the Book in which that Author is; and Mr. P. not finding it (as I conjecture) in his Volumes of Collections, he passed it over in silence.

I will oblige him with it at length, tho it is hard Language for a man that has been Eighteen Years out of England.

I knowleche H. de Knyghton de Event. Anglice l. 5 p. 2647, 2648. that the Sacrament of the autar is verry Goddus Body in fourme of Brede: but it is in another manner Goddus Body then it is in hevene. For in heven it is sene fote in fourme and figure of Fleshe and Blode. But in the Sacrament Goddus Body is be myracle of God in fourme of Brede, and is he nouther of sene fote: Ne in mannes figure, but as a Man leeves for to thenk the kynde of an Image whether it be of Dke or of Ashe, and settys his thoouzt in him of whome is the Image: so myche more schuld a Man leve to thenk on the kynd of Brede, But thenk upon Christ, for his Body is the same Brede that is the Sacrament of Autere, and with alle clennes, alle devocion, and alle charite that God would gif him, worschippe he Crist, and then he receyves God gostly more medefully than the Prist that syngus the Masse in lesse Charite. For the Bodely etyng ne profytes nouth to Soule, but in als mykul as the Soule is fedde with Charite. This sentence is provyde be Crist that may nouzt lye. For as the Gospel says, Crist that Night that he was betraied of Iudas Scarioth, he toke Brede in[Page]hise Handes, and blesside it, brak it, and gaf it to hise Disciplus to ete. For he says, and may not lye. This is my Body.

CHAP. VII. Mr. P. Considered in his Accusations.

ACCUSAT. I.

HE cannot step over two Pages, before he is gotten into his Innuendo's, and his, ‘This reflects upon the King Mr. P's Rem. p. 2.. He accuseth me for want of Respect, in charging the Religion of which the sworn Head of his own Church is a Principal Member, (which as themselves [the Protestants] confess) flourished in this Kingdom near a Thousand Years before Protestancy was ever heard of) to be such, whence a moping, lying, and uneasie temper, naturally flows. All this I believe he might write himself; it is original.’

For want of respect, (or rather the humblest duty, where it is so just a tribute), I shall never fail to pay it. And here in this instance, the fault with which he taxeth me, he himself committeth. He wears the Sacred name of a King, by using it upon every unnecessary occasion. Whereas they who understand the profound civil veneration which Crowned Heads may challenge, are at the same time frugal in the mentioning of their Names, and free and abounding in their Allegiance. Add to this, that they less honour a Prince than they ought, who create any uneasiness to his Subjects, and [Page] that is an uneasiness which is not pleasing, when in common conversation men are under Terror; when they have a suspicion, that their words shall be watcht, and each innocent phrase, which the Hearer likes not, shall be called a Reflection upon the King.

But (to come to the strength of his Accusation) what a false and invidious consequence is here? I. S. grew worse upon Mr. Pulton's tampering with him, and so it appear'd to D. H. and Mr. V. and divers others; therefore the Roman Religion is such whence a Mopish, lying and uneasie temper NATURALLY flows. I suppose this consequence was not drawn by him by the Art of Thinking, which the ingenious Iansenists have published. Must that be Natural to a Religion which may be the effect of dissettlement, and the fault of the method of the Tamperer? There are many made worse by Empyrical practicers, though the Physick it self might not Naturally do it. Mr. P. talkt so much of Luther and the DEVIL, and of DAMNATION out of his Church, that I. S. might for some time, be under an affrightment. If I may say it in his own light way, he ought to have forborn his stories of Goblins, when he was putting his Child to rest in his Mothers bosom.

From his Premises then, the Conclusion is not my want of duty, if he draws it, not with Jesuitical, but Logical Art. I wish him a greater share of Loyal duty himself.

He will (he says) REFER himself to the JUDGMENT OF HIS MAJESTY, Mr. P's Rem. p. 31. which seems a familiarity bordering on irreverence. His Half-sheet-Friend has written a FULL ANSWER to the SIX CONFERENCES concerning the Eucharist, [a Full ANSWER in the same sense that Mr. Pulton's Book is a [Page] FULL ACCOUNT.] And he likes me not the worse (I hope) because he finds in me a little of the Aequivocator. For I openly call my self the PUBLISHER, but (in his opinion) I am secretly the AUTHOR. Now he THREATENS me with a smarting Discipline A Full Answer to D. T's Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist. when the Church of Rome shall be Triumphant. He leaves this sting in the close of his Paper, [God be thanked our Church is too strong to waver by the blasts which flow from his mouth, and will TRIUMPH, when perchance the Doctor may SMART for having attempted its destruction.] Here's want of respect with a witness to his Gracious Majesty's principle, That Conscience cannot be forc'd. Mr. P. himself is again besides his bounden Duty, when he opens those wounds in his next Accusation, which the Royal Clemency would heal.

Mr. P. consider'd in his Accusations. ACCUSAT. 2.

HERE Mr. Pulton (for my utter Affrightment) has M. P's Rem. p. 32. conjur'd up the Ghosts of the Duke of Monmouth, and Sir Thomas Armstrong, whom I assisted in their Extreams. And he has charg'd me with assisting the latter of these, without obliging him to an humble Confession of his Crimes, and acknowledgment of the Injury done to his King and Country. For tho Sir Thomas Armstrong and D. T. (who had never before been in his Company) were then in private within thick Walls, and several Locks, yet Katherine in the Cloudes was invisible there, and gave Information to Mr. Pulton. And, note well here, his Argument which cuts me on both sides. If I do not reveal Confessions, then [Page] it cuts me for not Revealing, and injuring Government; and if I do reveal Confessions, then it cuts me for opening such a Seal, as is not fit to be broken up. For his Brother Bellarmin the Jesuit Bell. Apol. c. 17. p. 328, 329. Jam. autem supra demonstratum est non potuisse Garnettum detegere proditionem in Confessione Sacramentali cognitam, nisi etiam detegeret Proditores: Ideo maluisse crudeli supplicio vitam amittere, quam Sacrosanctum secretum violare. has demonstrated it, in the case of his other Brother Garnett, That he could not have reveal'd the Gun-powder Treason, made known to him in [what he calls] Sacramental Confession, without having made a discovery of the Traitors. Therefore he chose rather to lose his Life by a cruel Punishment [not crueller than that Treason] than violate the very holy Secret.

M. P's Rem. p. 34, 35, 36. A. P: further informs the World [A. P. has used a very fit word, for it is (as I observed before) right informing] that he has lately reconcil'd Two zealous Protestants, one of which had been with the Doctor, and sincerely desired to be satisfied in certain Queries about an uninterrupted Succession of the Protestant Religion from the Apostles, About the Fallibility of of the Church of England, And about the Miracles of the Roman Church.

To the first he says, I answered only, 'twould cost Ten Thousand pounds worth of Books to show it: A Thousand I might say; but I said something besides, and might have said much more, having just then preached upon that very subject of visible Succession, upon those words, A City built upon a Hill cannot be hid: What I said was open, and before Hundreds of Witnesses: what he reports, was private, and attested by one with whom I had no reason to use much freedom of Speech. But does Mr. P. consider the Cost of Books, out of which a man may prove minutely since Christ's [Page] time, Succession of Doctrine in the Christian Churches? It is true he may do it in some manner with little Cost, but not amply and to the satisfaction of Cavillers without much Money and Labour. For Examples sake; There are MSS. relating to the Eastern Churches, which a man would willingly use in this Argument: And the purchase of that one Book of Dionysius Syrus, in which 'tis manifest that new Popery was not old Christianity in the great Article of their Corporal Presence, did not come from so far a Countrey to Arch-bishop Vsher, at a very easy Rate.

If Mr. P. would condescend to learn from Protestants, and look into the Learned Work of Dr. Pearson late Bishop of Chester, and Mr. Dodwell, who have set that right in the Chronology of Popes, which no Romon Writer could effect before them; he would be convinc'd, how many pounds worth of Books were necessarily to be consulted, in order to the clearing of that one matter in the Succession of a very few Popes. I will take leave to say further, that a small Sum will not purchase all the Books necessary for the answering of this Question, ‘Whether a Woman did not set in the Papal Chair, betwixt the Pontificates of Leo the IV. and Benedict III.’ And there are some who would not spare Cost for the retrieving of that History which was cut out of a fair MS. of Ranulph of Chester See Al. Cook Dial. & le sieur de Congnard. p. 85..

To the second, how the Church of England granting her self to be fallible (and for ought she knew, in actual Error) could be the Church built upon a Rock, &c. he assures me, I answer'd nothing; but instead of answering, grew warm, and call'd the party Impertinent and Impudent.

Now, thus much is true, There came a Woman to me with Queries, as many have done; and some of [Page] them have been sent upon no very commendable designs. She was a Person I never (to my knowledg) saw before or since, much less in a Church, or at a Sacrament. She own'd (to the best of my remembrance) that her Brother was a Priest; She had the very Shibboleth of the Party. Perhaps she was not formally reconcil'd, for I perceive a great many are some years contracted, e're the Priest joins their hands; but they live all the while very lovingly together. I told her of my Suspicion, that some Priest or other, had sent her of an Errand, and at that saying, she seem'd out of Countenance: So little Reason had I for the incivility of saying She was Impudent. But however, if Katherine Lamb was there in her Magical Mantle, she may (I doubt not) prove it upon me. I do not affect the finesses of Courtship; but for IMPUDENCE it is a word I do seldom use to those who deserve it. But if I gave her a Reproof for coming with her Snares, I did not trespass against good Manners by doing Justice. It is much that I had nothing to say upon this Argument, when Mr. Meredith may remember that upon the Objection as made by him, I gave him this answer, to which he has not yet repli'd, That our Church was no more Fallible than any other in the World; That God's Providence would not suffer all to fail together; That we had a certain Rule and Sufficient means; That we were as infallibly sure of the Necessaries of Faith, as a man is of casting up a Sum right; tho', by misattention, 'twas possible to commit a mistake: And that our Church could prove it had rightly computed. This was said to him at the side of the Bed in the second Room about the Close of our Talk.

For the Third, about Roman Miracles, he thus misrepresents [Page] me, in his very pleasant and Comical Humour: ‘You talk, said he, of Miracles in the Romish Church, I'le show in one Example, what Credit they are of; There was upon a time a certain Priest, who got money by exposing the head of a pretended Saint to the peoples charitable Veneration: Now as Providence would have it, a Chirurgion, on what suspicion I know not, pierced this Saintly Head with his Launce, and found it to be a piece of Parchment; now, said he, tell me of Roman Miracles again. This was certainly the happiest stroke of a Launce we shall ever find mentioned in History; if his Hand was not that of a Lady, his Eyes, at least, those of an Eagle, and his Heart of a Lyon. I wonder this Chirurgion is not Canonized by the pretended Reformers, for thus totally routing the Romish Church: What need then of tumbling over Concordances, and beating mens Brains to search out misapplied Texts of Scripture, and bring them in by the Head and Shoulders against Popery; an instance whereof we have in that Learned Catechism lately cry'd about the Streets; and to give it the greater Credit, father'd on our Doctor, when this one story of the Chirurgion, with the help of Doctor T's Application, would every whit as well do the feat, and be as much to the purpose: As you may see by this Specimen. Master. Were there ever any Miracles wrought in the Roman Church these Twelve hundred years? Scholar. No, for there was a Chirurgion, &c. Master. Must we then believe, that all those recounted by St. Austin, St. Gregory, St. Bernard, Venerable Beda, and Infinite others, were so many Impostures? Scholar. Yes, for there was a Chirurgion, &c. Can any man be so unreasonable, as to desire a more irrefragable Proof of the Roman Churches Errors?’

[Page]Our Accuser is very smart upon me, and I must mind him, when he says smart things; Mr. P's Rem. p. 31. The Doctor here omits A. P's smart (but just) return, & c. or else he will take it for a Neglect Mr. P's 3d. Letter p. 43. your last was in terms so ambiguous, & c. You won't neglect my Paper, & c.. He is here as grave as he was in his Pulpit, when he talked of an Arian Cobler capping of Texts with a Protestant Doctor. Here's smartness again! Capping of Texts, and capping of Shoes; he is mightily improv'd in the space of a Month for a man that has been Eighteen years out of England; for I suppose they never quibble, nor speak, nor write, nor read any English, in the English Seminaries abroad. But to return to the story, if he by mis-telling it, and making it a Tale; and I by telling it, as it is in the Book, do not justify my self, and shew his Talent in Repetition, I am in Tale-telling a most fallible man. The story is neither more nor less than this in the Book, from whence I repeat it La. Pol. du Cl. Fr. p. 68, 69, 70..

‘—These Gentlemen are—so imprudent, as to bring to light such scandalous Histories as rejoice Hereticks. For example, can any thing be more terrible than what they have caused to be printed against Indulgences and Relicks, with that Bull of Innocent the XI. which condemns some supposed Relicks without design of injuring those that are real? Amongst others this is one of the Stories they have published; in the year 1668, Pope Alexander the VII. sent into France three Chests of Relicks, to be put into the Hospital Church; these Three Chests were bound up with Red silk Cords, and sealed with the Seal of Cardinal Ginetti, Commissary for the Relicks, and with the Seal of the Popes Sacristain. These Relicks were accompanied with a Bull, which said, they might with all surety be exposed to the Veneration of the people; they had already caused Magnificent Bills to be fixed in every Quarter of the City, [Page] to draw the people to this Devotion. The Bishops of Bayeux, and Cahors, Father Don Cosme, Father Crasset, and the Abbot Fromentieres, were to Preach during the Octave. It was however order'd, they should be search'd. In the third Chest was found a Head, which at first appear'd to be a real one; It had this Inscription, Caput Sancti Fortunati. The Head of St. Fortunatus. In searching it, there was perceived above the ear a piece of Painted Cloth. The Physician, whose name was M. de S. Germain, took an Iron Instrument and scraped it, and thrust it in, and found it was a Paistboard Head. They put a lighted Candle into the Head, but the light did not appear through; at last they cast the Head into hot water, which defaced the Paint, and the Paist-board fell in pieces. M. de St. Germain made his Verbal Process thereupon. But by a Letter of Cachet, he was forbidden to show it upon pain of being sent the same moment to the Bastille. Is not it insupportable that Hereticks must learn such like Stories from Catholicks?’

Now I appeal to men of common sense, whether this was represented as it ought to be, either by a Woman of so raw a Conscience as to doubt her Salvation in our Church; or by a Iesuit, who speaks so frequently of the day of Iudgment, and has cited me to appear at that day for denying the modern Real Presence Mr. P. Rem. p. 30.. Here let the Misrepresenter call for his Chirurgion for the healing this breach he has made in his sincerity.

But A. P. goes on, and with great Condescension Mr. P's Rem. p. 36. ‘grants that the Doctor added another Story to fix this wavering mind of the Querist, in an Aversion to the Roman Church, and it was of a person of his own Acquaintance who had been at Rome, where he had known those who for six-pence a Month obtained[Page]a dispensation to live at discretion, and violate the Commands of God, and the Church at pleasure.’

He is again a very Fidentinus in repeating. Instead of this it was said that Pope Leo Regule Ordinationes & Constitutiones cancellarie. S.D.N.D. Leonis divina providentiâ Pape X. Scripte & correcte in Cancellaria Apostolica. in Luther's time set out a Book of Rules, in which the greatest Villanies, even Incest with nearest Relations, was rated at a few pence Taxe sacre penitentiarie Apostolice Ed. Rom. ap. Jac. Mazoch. Anno 1516. die 19. Mart. Absol. pro eo qui Matrem, sororem, aut aliam consanguineam, vel affinem suam aut commatrem carnaliter cognovit. g. 5. Absolutio pro eo qui Virginem defloravit. g. 6. Absolutio pro vitio Symonie pro Laico. g. 6. Idem pro Presbytero. g. 7. Idem pro Monacho. g. 8. Absolutio pro Perjurio g. 6., and that I had this Book of Rates of the Edition of Rome. I do believe I added, that I had had an acquaintance there, who if the Priest was but sure of his Six-pence, was never importun'd by him to see Mass. Now if a Iulio be Six-pence farthing, then I am quite lost with him for a Computer. For this in his very charitable opinion, I am commenc'd Doctor at Salamanca, and become a very Titus in Narrative Mr. P's Rem. p. 36. Now had this Story fallen from Dr. Titus's mouth, &c..

Now tho mine is the History, and his 'the Fable, yet upon it he gives me this friendly advice Mr. P's Rem. p. 37. that I addict not my self much for the future to this way of Tale-telling.

For once, however, I will decline his advice, and the rather because he does not use it himself. And I will tell him a Tale out of a Jesuit's School, and it shall be about his beloved Article of Transubstantiation.

Bellarmin the fam'd Cardinal and Learned Jesuit, wrote a Catechism for Youth. He pretends in it to lay the Grounds of Religion. You will perceive by the Story, that his Grounds and mine do very much differ, if I be the Author (as I never said I was) of the Catechism cry'd about in my Name, in the Streets M. P. Full Account, p. 36.. He means (if a man can guess at his meaning) [Page] the Catechism of the Church of England, with Scripture Proofs. Scripture Proofs are good Grounds, whomsoever they offend, but they will not always serve the Jesuits turn. Therefore he has found out an easier way, and a pleasanter way for Children; for Story-telling shall settle them in the Faith. Thus then we find it in the Edition of Cologn; tho in the English Editions, they are as sparing of putting it in, as they are of the 2d Commandment.

Bell. Chr. Doct. Expos. jussu Clem. 8. Pontif. Comp. Col. Agr. A. 1617. p. 174, 175. Scholar. ‘Explain, I pray you, by some Example, How it may be possible for our Lords Body to be in so many Hosties, as many as are found upon so very many Altars?’

Master. — ‘It is written in the Life of St. Anthony of Padua, That when he was preaching in one of the Cities of Italy, he was by means of the Divine Grace, at the same time in Portugal, and there did another good Work. Now therefore, if God could bring it to pass, that St. Anthony should be in his own form in two such distinct places at such distance; how should it not agree to his Power, to effect it, that Christ should be in many Hosties, under the shew of the same Hosties?’

This is my Story from Bellarmin, who forgat to prove it. Now Mr. Pulton, if he pleaseth, may call it Impertinent. But here is Catechism for Catechism, and Allen for Rodriguez. And here is the Cardinal in his Cloyster setling the Doctrine of Transubstantiation with St. Anthony here, and St. Anthony there, and St. Anthony at the same time in his own figure in both places. And here is the Parish Priest settling the matter about Looseness and Relicks, with the Tax of Pope [Page] Leo, and the Probe of St. Germain. And if his Doctorship M P. R. p. 36, 37, & c. ought not to have told the latter, the former might have been let alone by the Cardinal.

Seeing there are such Tales, and they themselves tell them, why may not I, when I can so pertinently do it, be a Rehearser of them? Is not their own Angelinus Gazoeus a Teller of Tales? And does he not give his Book the Title of Pia Hilaria, or Pious Merriments? Have not Capgrave, Alford, Cressey, told Tales in abundance? Was not the Liber Festivalis L. Fest. p. 15, 16., read here in Churches in K. Hen. VII. time, a book of stories? Ex. gr. ‘It speaks of Adam and Eve, standing for Penance in the Water till they were as Green as Glass. And whilst one has written the Golden Legend, Legenda Lignea. another has taken the freedom to write the Wooden one.’

ACCUS. 4.

‘D. T. has (like E. S. from whom he has borrowed) quoted Mr. P's Rem. p. 38. St. Cyril most DISINGENUOUSLY, leaving out that Text [...]. which if cited, would have left no place of doubting, but that he makes for the Roman Catholick Tenet; part of it is as follows: That which seems Bread, is not Bread, although to the Taste it appears to be so, but is the Body of Christ; He that cavils about such a Text, has, doubtless, great humility of soul, and notable dispositions of Faith.’

Note, That not one word was quoted out of St. Cyril in the Conference.

ANSWER.

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Answer: This NOTE has a little of the Aequivocator in it; He did not cite in Terms at length, therefore 'twas not produced at the Conference: EXCELLENTLY WELL! (as his word was to me, as often as I had answered, and he began to reply); the plain truth is this; he named St. Cyril's Catechism for the proof of his Corporal Presence; I did prevent his repeating the words, by saying that I knew them, and that they needed no Answer from me, being answered already at the end of a certain Printed Conference; to which he replied, that there was a Printed Answer to that Account of the Conference betwixt Mr. S. &c. and that he would shew it me; now that Famous Answer I could never yet hear of,See here ch. 1. any more than I could hear of the Famous Paper Mr. Pulton promised to print last Monday Seven-night for the clearing the Certificate of Katherine in the Clouds.

Well, but the Answer was borrow'd from E. S. just as a man borrows, when he promises you a Citation out of St. Austin, and truly cites his words. But when I have occasion to borrow, I should as soon borrow of the Reverend E. S. as of any man; for he has a mighty Stock of good Learning, and he is very Communicative. I would not so soon go to Mr. P. notwithstanding he has read See Mr. P's Full Account, noted in D. T's p. 81. all Ecclesiastical History (he says it himself, and he is an Oracle) and has Volumes of Notes relating to it. But where is my Disingenuity in leaving out words, which were not in the place I promised to repeat? And what need was there of adding those words? The sense of them was enough shew'd in the words produc'd; to wit, that the Consecrated Bread [Page] was no more mere Bread, than the Consecrated Water is meer Water? And for the disingenuity of the Reverend D. S. if Mr. P. can shew us it, it is a new discovery. I suppose that this which follows, will satisfy the just Reader, that the disingenuity is in the Accuser, and not in him who is unworthily reflected on.

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To — D. T. &c.

SIR,

HAVING the Curiosity to turn over Mr. P's Remarks, I found my self remark'd upon in his Postscript with wonderful Civility and Kindness;P. 38. of which I thought fit to give you this Account. He charges me with most disingenuous leaving out some words of St. Cyril, which if cited would have left no place of doubting that he makes for the Catholick Tenet. Whereas the Design of that part of the Discourse was to answer this very Quotation of S. Cyril, which was urged by M. W. in the Conference; His Words are, ‘But to Theodoret he would oppose S. Cyril, Conference, p. 36. Ed. 76. who in his Fourth Myst. Catech. says expressly Tho thou see it to be bread, yet believe it is the Flesh and the Blood of the Lord Iesus; doubt it not since he hath said, This is my Body.’ Our Business was to answer the Testimony produced by them; and I do not remember the least omission as to the strength and force of it; and those words Mr. P. produces, signifie no more than the other, unless he thinks the Sense of Tasting more Emphatical than that of Seeing: But I suppose his meaning is, that there is omitted that Clause, That which seems Bread is not Bread, altho to the Taste it appears to be so. But this is the very same difficulty in Sense, which was answered: For if tho we see it to be Bread, yet we are to believe it to be the Body of Christ; [Page] then according to him, the meaning is, though we see it to be bread, it is not bread, but the body of Christ.

To which it was truly answer'd, That in this fourth Catech. he bids them not to consider it as meer bread; As if a man should break in pieces the Kings Broad Seal, and another to aggravate his fault, should tell him, That which you have broken, is not Wax, but the Kings Broad Seal; would not any one understand this, not to be denying it to be truly Wax, but that it was something far beyond that, by the Impression of the Royal Seal? Or, as if a Judg setting forth the Crime of a Clipper, should tell him, that what he clipt was not silver, but the Kings Coin, who would need an Infallible Interpreter to tell him, that by silver he meant common silver?

If St. Cyril had deliver'd any such Doctrine in any other place, that the substance of the Elements doth cease upon Consecration; or that nothing but the Accidents remain, there might have been some colour for his urging this place for the Roman Tenet. But I desire St Cyril may interpret himself, and I think he knew his own meaning better than Mr. P.

In the very same Catech. he saith, Regard not therefore these as meer Bread and Wine, [...] for they are the Body and Blood of Christ according to our Lords Word. Are not these as plainly St. Cyril's expressions as the other; and going before them, to prevent misinterpreting that which follows? And if they are not to be look'd on as meer bread and wine, I think they are to be look'd on as Bread and Wine still. As if Christ be not to be look'd on as [...], as a meer man, I think it follows, that he is to be look'd on as a true man, Catech. 5. but as one much more than a man; so whatever St. Cyril superadds by vertue of a Divine [...], as [Page] he calls it, upon Consecration, yet he cannot be understood so, as to destroy the substance of the Elements, which if I mistake not, is the Roman Tenet.

And in this parallel place, [...] &c. St. Cyril uses the like expressions as to seeing and tasting. Although thy sense suggest that to thee, viz. that they are meer Bread and Wine; yet let faith establish thee, judg not this matter by thy Tast.

What was here to be judged by the Tast? whether it were real Bread and Wine? That he doth not in the least question, that I can find; but whether there be nothing else but Bread and Wine? And as to this, he saith, Sense is not to be Iudg, but Faith. And so say we.

Bellarmin, De Eucharist, l. 1. c. 14. I remember, distinguisheth between the positive Argument from sense, and the Negative; the positive Argument, he saith, is good: This is handled and seen, therefore it is a body; but not the Negative, this is not handled or seen, therefore it is not a Body: So say I here, according to St. Cyril, The Affirmative judgment of sense was true, and to be relied upon; that which we see and tast to be Bread and Wine is really Bread and Wine; but the Negative judgment is not; i.e. we are not to judg by our Sight and Tast, that they are nothing else but meer Bread and Wine; for besides what was discerned by the Senses, they were according to our Saviour's word, the Body and Blood of Christ.

To make this yet more plain to be St. Cyril's meaning,Catech. 3. we have another Parallel place in the foregoing Discourse, [...]. where he speaks concerning the Holy Chrism; Look not on this, saith he, as meer Ointment. Why not? [Page]For as the Bread of the Eucharist after Invocation of the Holy Ghost, is no longer common Bread, but the Body of Christ; so this Holy Ointment is no longer meer or common Ointment, after Consecration, but the Gift of Christ, and by the Presence of the Holy Ghost hath a Divine Efficacy.

Can any thing be plainer than that St. Cyril meant the Bread after Consecration was no longer common Bread; Would any man now be thought to hold the Roman Tenet, who should talk at this rate? And that which he saith oftenest and plainest, ought to be taken for his true meaning.

The same thing he saith, concerning the Water in Baptism in his other Catechetical Discourses: Come not to Baptism as to common Water, but as to the Spiritual Grace which is given with it; [...]. which he repeats soon after, and saith, It is not to be regarded as meer Water, but as that by which the Holy Ghost doth operate.

Here is such a similitude of Expressions as may make it most reasonable for us to assert that he understood them in the same manner.

But it may be objected, That he no where saith, It is not Water in Baptism, as he doth here, it is not Bread, but the Body of Christ.

I answer, That he saith, It is not meer Water, and that is as much as he means as to the Bread in the Eucharist. And that he doth not so make the Bread to be the Body of Christ, as to destroy the substance of the Bread; I shall further prove from St. Cyril himself.

[Page](1.)Cardinal Bellarmin lays down this Rule,Bell de Eucharist. l. 1. c. 1. Sect. 9. Suarez in 3. p. Th. Disp. 58. Sect. 7. Vasquez in 3. p Th. Disp. 180. c. 9 That saying, This Bread is my Body, the Proposition must be either figurative; or absurd and impossible, for the Bread cannot be the Body of Christ. The like is affirmed both by Suarez and Vasquez. If now St. Cyril, in plain terms affirms this, Then he cannot speak according to the Roman Tenet; but his Words are express, That Christ spake of the Bread, when he said, This is my Body [...] ▪ Catech. Mystag. 4.. And this is in the very same Discourse with the other passage; and therefore if his words be taken in the strict and literal sense, St. Cyril must speak that which was false and impossible; for he affirms of the very Bread, that it was the Body of Christ.

Bellarmin saith,De Eucharist. l. 2. c. 13. St. Cyril doth not speak of material, but of consecrated Bread, which is material to appearance, but in substance is Coelestial Bread. If this be true, St. Cyril talked very impertinently; for he speaks of the Bread which Christ took into his hand, and Consecrated. I desire Mr. P. to tell us what sort of Bread that was; if it were Coelestial Bread, as he calls it, then the Transubstantiation was made before Consecration; which I think is not agreeable to the Roman Tenet. But if it were the substance of Bread when Christ took it, then Bellarmin's sense cannot hold. And withal, the Proposition would be Identical, i.e. Ridiculous; for then the sense would be, This Bread is my Body, i.e. My body is my body; for that Coelestial bread is the very body of Christ

2. The Roman Tenet is, That there is a total change of the whole Substance of the Bread into the Substance of the Body of Christ. But I can find nothing in St. Cyril; which implies any such Change He doth indeed affirm, That the Bread after invocation of the Holy Spirit by its Presence and Efficacy is made the body of Christ. But he might suppose [Page] this to be done, as the body of Christ was produced in the Womb of the Virgin, by the Power of the Holy Ghost; and yet Christ had true Human Nature in him, being born of the Virgin, as well as conceived by the Holy Ghost. So here, the true Substance of the Bread might remain, yet by the Operative Power of the Holy Ghost, that Bread might become the Body of Christ; not by being changed into the substance of that Body which was born of the blessed Virgin, but by an immediate presence of the Spirit of Christ in it. And to this purpose St. Cyril speaks in those Catechetical Discourses: For, he saith, The Church prays God to send his Holy Spirit to make the Bread the Body of Christ. And so the Bread is changed not from being Bread,Tò [...]. Catech. 5. [...]. Ibid. [...]. Ibid. [...]. Catech. 4. to be none, but from being common Bread, to be the Body of Christ; not by an Hypostatical Union, but by a Divine Presence and Energy. For this seems to me to have been his Opinion; viz. That all true Believers were to be made partakers of the Divine Nature, by the body and blood of Christ in us; and so we become of the same body and blood with him; but he never imagined this to be done by the Eucharistical Bread being changed into the substance of Christ's Body in Heaven; but that it being changed by the Holy Ghost, it was thereby made the Body of Christ; which being receiv'd; he thought it did not pass into the draught, Catech. 5. but was distributed through the whole man, for the benefit both of Soul and Body. This, as far as I can judg, was his true opinion; I am not now to examin [Page] whether it were reasonable or not; but I think it is evident to any common understanding, that this is far enough from the Roman Tenet, for which Mr. P. hath so solemnly vouched his Authority.

But the Greek Fathers were men of finer thoughts, than to entertain so gross a notion as that of Transubstantiation; which was first started by a Western Monk of no great capacity, and was opposed by the men of Wit and Learning at that time. One who had been much in the East, and suckt in the opinions of the Greeks, was the most earnest opposer of it. But Ignorance and Superstition prevailing in the Western Church, it came by degrees to be owned and received by it; especially after the Bishops of Rome concerned themselves in the quarrel against Berengarius. From that time the Authority and Infallibility of the Roman Church and Transubstantiation, have been so closely united, that they cannot part with this (though like an Ephialtes, it lyes so heavy upon it) without giving up the other. But as long as Learning and Liberty continued in the Greek Church, they were utter strangers to it, (what Barbarism and a very prevailing Argument among the Modern Greeks, may have done as to the receiving Transubstantiation, I am not much concerned to enquire.) But as to the Learned Greek Fathers, as far as I can find, they knew nothing at all of it. They had a notion among them, of a real Body of Christ in the Sacrament after Consecration; but they still supposed the substance of the Elements to remain, as fully appears by that very Discourse M. P. nibbles at; but it will break his Teeth to answer it.

I am unwilling to end my Answer to this charge of most disingenuous dealing about St. Cyril's Testimony, without putting him in mind of an extraordinary instance [Page] of this kind in a Reverend Father of the Society, even before the pretended infallible Head of the Church.

In the time of Clement the Eighth, the Controversie de Auxiliis was carried so high between the Iesuits and Dominicans, that the Pope himself resolved to have the hearing of it. And the Generals of both Orders were to chuse their Divines, and to be present with them. Greg. de Valentia was of one side, and Father Lemos of the other. The Controversie came to a passage of St. Augustine, which Greg. de Valentia alledged; the other answer'd, it was not so in his Book, and desired to see that which Greg. de Valentia used; he was very unwilling, but the Pope commanded him; F. Lemos cried out, the Text was falsified, and desired a third Person might read it; and upon reading it, it was so found; upon which the Pope with a stern look, and a dreadful note, cried to him, Ho! which struck the poor Father into such a consternation, that he fell down in a swoon, and was taken up half dead, and carried out, and never more appear'd in any Congregation, but was sent away to Naples, where he died some Months after.

Tradition de l'Eglise Romane sur la Predestination de Saints & sur la Grace, efficace, Tom. 2. Par. 5. p. 226. Avertisement, n. 5.This story is very lately printed with evident proofs, by Roman Catholicks out of the Original Acts of that Congregation. And this I think was most disingenuous dealing with St. Augustin. If Mr. P. can find any such dealing among us, let him charge it home upon us. But I think I have said enough at present for my own Vindication.

As to his other Charges which concern your self, I doubt not but in short time to see a satisfactory Answer from a better hand. I am,

Octob. 12. 1687.

Sir,

Your Faithful Friend and Servant, E. S.

ACCUS. 5.

[Page]

D. T. has without a Text of Scripture for it, Published four of Mr Pulton's Letters, and very injuriously conceal'd his fifth Mr. P's Rem. p. 39. which was the most material of all, containing A. P's clearing himself from the Doctor's false aspersions, whereby he charges A. P. with not having stood to the Agreement.

ANSWER.

He needed no Text, he gave Mr. Pulton fair warning of it, and was not forbidden by him; for in these words I wrote to him in my Answer to his Fourth Letter, D.T's Account, p. 51. ‘You have my Letters, and I yours, & c. do with them what you please, and write what you please further, and I will take the like freedom.’ And thus the very great injury is vanished. But if that fifth Letter was very injuriously conceal'd, why does he not thank me for the publishing of the rest? for all of them were as worthy of the light as this? I had answer'd before what was material in it, his denial of an Agreement See Mr. P's 4th. Let. p. 48. in my Account, and my Answer, p. 50. — I will not be tedious in answering yours of the 11th. Instant, in Relation to our agreement; for of that we have Witnesses, & c., and I did not think it worth the while to publish the same things so very often. Yet seeing he thinks this Letter very injuriously conceal'd, I will make amends for the injury, and publish it here, and it shall come forth in its original English of write for written, and wrighting for writing; and all that have an eye can see how material it is.

[Page]

The Savoy Octob. 14. 1687.

Honoured Sir,

YOU were pleased to insist again in your last, upon my not standing to my agreement; I must mind you again, that your own conscience is witness all our discourse of WRIGHTING, was in reference to the quotation of St. Ambrose and farther carrying on the matter in debate and that no body mentioned a title of giving or not giving an account of the pure matter of fact past. However, take it as you please, I never gave a Copy otherwise then to be WRITE out (and that with express order of distributing no copies) nor shall you ever produce the man that had one from me, or by my order, knowlege, or consent, till I had sent you your's, and this I can prove, and if you charge me with the contrary, it shall be incumbent on you to make it out. I return you many thanks for your obliging profer of sending me the first sheet, I desire you will not give your self that trouble, it will suffice that you send me a Copy of the whole, the evening before you publish it (if such be your resolutions) and I will do the same. For your remarks upon the narrative which I here send you at large, I leave it to you to send them or not, and I will proceed therin as you shall prescribe, if you send me yours, Ile send you mine, but I must acknowlege having no Secretary or Servant it is [Page] very troublesome and expensive to me, but I am willing to shew herein, that I am desirous to prove my self.

Honoured Sir

Your Obediant Servant, And. Pulton.

One Favour I must beg, (viz.) that you will be pleased, when you print to note your Paragrafs as I have don.

ACCUSAT. VI.

MR. P. concluded the first Collation which he gave the World M.P's true and full Account, p. 17, 18. with very bitter Sawce; ‘Blood spilt in abundance by the Reformed, upon false Pretence of Gospel-Liberty: And again, in his Remarks, he is talking of Severity, and Sanguinary Laws; of my Rancour Rem. Ep. Ded. p. 2, 10. &c. and hypocritical Charity P. 32..’

I am personally accused of bitterness, tho no man was yet the worse for me, for meer Religion, one hair of his head: I am also involv'd in the common Cause of the Reformed, as a bloody man; and you must not doubt of this, for Mr. Pulton's CATHERINA IN NUBIBUS, can plainly prove it by this Certificate; ‘I do testifie, That D. T. is a Sanguinary Man, for he is by Church-Principle, against RESISTING the Higher Powers, and approves not of the EXCLUDING and DEPOSING Doctrines taught in Mr. P's great Lateran Council, before there were Iesuits, and also after [Page] they arose, by Bellarmin, and Doleman, and a long train of others, in which some Popes, some Synodical men, have pompously marched.’

Let any man that pleases, set her hand to this Certificate, if she neither understands nor likes it her self; for they may do it as safely as it was done in that Testimonial which Mr. Pulton has published out of his GREAT SINCERITY.

And here again I must withdraw my self from under the obedience of Mr. Pulton, and tell him a story, a very true one: And it will appear by this story, that a Pope can be Sanguinary in reality, whilst I am only such by Misrepresentation. I will give it you in the words of an unquestionable Author, for he is one of their own Vita del Papa Pio Quinto scritta da Girolamo Catena dedicata al Sisto Quinto in Roma 1587. p. 93.. ‘The King (that is, Philip the Second of Spain) having imprisoned his Eldest Son Don Carlos, because (as was known after his death) he designed both against the Service of the Kingdom, and against the Person of his Father; and the Pope having Intelligence from France that there were many Chests full of Calvin's Catechisms in the Spanish Tongue in Lyons and Toulouse; he was not wanting to write upon this occasion a Brief to the King, both to encourage and to comfort him.’

And because Et perche è Cosa molto notabile, che'l Re facesse sacrificio della sua Carne, et del suo sangue a Dio, & Pio publicamente commendo la Christiana, & Catholica mente & Religione di liu, dicendo Quia proprio filio non pepereit, porro qui la Lettera ch'Egli scrisse di man propria al Papa. it is a thing very remarkable that the King should make a Sacrifice of his own Flesh and of his own Blood to God, and Pius publickly commended his Christian and Catholick Mind and Religion, saying, BECAUSE HE SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON, I will here set down the Letter which he writ with his own hand to the Pope. — [then follows the Letter, too large to be inserted.]

[Page]For this matter at present, I will refer the Iesuit to an Ingenious man who is a Third person betwixt us. Both of us say the Scriptures are ours, and the Fathers are ours, Reason is ours, and History is ours; let us put the matter to Arbitration. Rem. p. 31. A. P. in this matter refers himself to his most Sacred Majesty. Mr. P. is for a REFERENCE. I am content. I will not indeed presume as he does, to use familiarly His Majesties SACRED NAME: But in this case I will agree to the Award of a fellow-subject, who bears his Testimony against Sanguinary proceedings in all Parties; and so far as they are unchristianly Sanguinary (even in my Arbitrators some Seas. Ca. against Popery, p. 36. Protestants, if he throughly knows them, and proves it upon them) I am not of their Temper. If it be in both Mr. Pulton's Rem. p. 32. Hypocritical Charity, 'tis more, on my part, than I have ever yet known by my self; and for him, I judge him by his Profession; and believe not (as Romanists do believe) that an Angel from Heaven can search the Heart. Hen. Holdeni, Epist. ad Ill. D.D. N.N. Anglum inqua de 22. propos. ex Libr. Thomae Angli ex Albiis excerptis, & a facultate Theologica Duacena damnatis sententiam suam dicit. Propos. 9, & 10. And thus having put this matter to Reference, I shall acquiesce.

[Page]

Mr. Pulton's True and Full Account, p. 17, 18.

THE Reformers— had taken the Priviledge upon a false pretence of Gospel-liberty, to SPILL MORE CHRISTIAN BLOOD through all Germany, Bohemia, France, Low-Countries, Holland, England, and wherever they assum'd the Reforming Spirit, than ever the Roman Catholicks had done from Christ's time, nor should [D.T.] ever show they propagated their Faith by the Swords point.—

William Penn's SEASONABLE CAVEAT against POPERY, &c. printed in Quarto in the year 1670. Chap. 10. of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, p. 35, 36.

TO conclude— If we would not receive a Thief until he had repented: Let the Papist first recant his Voluminous Errors (not known in Scripture, nor ever heard of for Three hundred years together after Christ): But above all, Let us have good Testimony of his hearty sorrow for that SEA OF BLOOD shed in England, France Holland, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Savoy, Switzerland, and Germany, of many Hundred Thousands of Poor Protestants, that for pure Conscience, could not conform to their most exorbitant practices, as well as new Doctrines imposed upon them: such inhumane and [Page] barbarous inventions and cruelties, as no Age could ever Parallel, and are the only demonstrations of their wicked Wits, that liv'd in that; and that not only upon the Parties themselves, but their poor little innocent Babes.

CHAP. VIII. Mr. Pulton considered in his Triumphs.

HIS Triumphs are made up of Two things.

1. His performances in the Conference.

2. The wonderful Success that followed it.

1. He perform'd mightily in the Conference; and as if he had had a double Portion of the spirit of every one of his Six Vncles who were Iesuits Mr. P's Rem. Ep. Ded.. I will give you a true Representation of his way of performing in the Conference; and I submit it to you, whether he who has perform'd so little as he has done in Two printed Books upon deliberation, could perform so much as his Party has boasted of together with himself, in his talk at adventure.

His way of performing, consisted in repeating the Names of some of the Fathers, and some Questions over and over, without condescending either to accept the Answer, or to enervate it. What is the Rule of Faith? How do you prove the Bible? From what Copies had you it? What Copies? What Copies? When? How? Where? St. Iustin Martyr, St. Irenoeus, &c. St. Iustin Martyr, St. Irenoeus, &c. And when [Page] I was desiring to speak to St. Ambrose which he first alledged, he was still at his Cries, St. I. Martyr, St. Irenoeus, &c. He was at more than his Once, Twice, Thrice, at his Auction of Strong Reasons. In good earnest, this is no Mockery; it can be attested by the Oaths of many Judicious and Serious People present; this is as true as it would be pleasant, if the Conference had not been about Religion. And thus because he would ask on, and throw the same Stone again into the Well after it had been taken out and laid before him, he calls this VICTORY; but by his leave, a Grammarian who gives words their freedom, and sets them at liberty from their signification, recedes from his Art. They were used to these Victories beyond the Alps, whilst the Iesuits preached the Mountebanks down from their own Stages. I believe such a man as the Excellent Bishop Saanderson would have been silenced by this way: And his Reputation would have suffer'd through his modesty; but I who had less Learning and more confidence than he, did set my Face against his Face, as well as my Reason, and what he calls my Rule, against his shews of Reason and Authority.

Now I must confess an Infirmity, and own to my Reader, that he still stands in my Fancy, in the Figure of a Man of Huffing Valour, who asks for his Adversary, tho' he is in readiness; and threatens to draw, and immediately to slay him; and still he does nothing, tho' there is no Lock upon his sheath. He goes away and triumphs, and at last shows his Sword to the World, and it appears to be a weapon of Lath.

But, Secondly, as he triumphs in his performance in the Conference, so he glories still more in the success that attended it Mr. P's Rem. p. 33. Singular Effects of D. T's Conference.. He will tell you it himself; for he has the Art of putting the Laurel on his own Head. He [Page] glories not indeed in Mrs. R. in Mr. V. or Mrs. V. who were all come over in the Taverns and Coffee-houses, but confirm'd at home. But let that pass; he has other Triumphs which will render him, a Man of Fame to Posterity. There are Rem. p. 33. he says (and we have found him a man of his word) at least two a gaining; (two in fieri, in his beloved Latin); and I. S. is in facto esse; Why! here's the success of the D. of Lorain and Morosini. Nay further, the Report of that Catholick Ladies Leaving the Roman Faith, is false; we have it upon his Certificate in the Margin: [but what if more than Two are coming from his Church, and from under his very Wings, tho' they are not Ladies?] And that the Tyber loses more ground on the one side, than it gains on the other. If he had had a FAIR CONFERENCE, he questions not but he should have been yet more successful; if he might have read on in his Specutum and Breviary, and been suffer'd to set time back some hundreds of years, and brought Paschasius acquainted with Innocent the Third, no doubt he had been the Xaverius of the Savoy. But as it was, he carry'd off young I.S. and Ten days after I.S. was reconciled. I had thought they were very good friends before; but the Mayor is no Mayor till the Show be over.

I pity any that are seduced, from the bottom of my Heart; but if any shall go away upon noisy Talk, and such Motives as Mr. P. has yet given either in his Discourse, or Catechizing, or Printed Books (in which the World may see his strength) they are either very weak in Capacity, or strong in their inclinations to wander.

Now, seeing he has writ what he would have said about his main point, and no body has given him interruption, and some-body (they say) has given him help; we shall surely, ere long, have his Two turn'd to Fifty; for his REMARKS must certainly carry all before him.

[Page]And now methinks I see him in the figure into which Valerian the famous Capuchin once condescended to put himself. ‘Has it not been told you? have you not read (says the humble Valerian) Val. Mag. Actio 5. profide Cath. p. 227. Sed num tibi relatum non est, num non legisti Bartholomeum Nigrinum, victum in disputatione publica? Ille ego sum qui prostravi illud Columen Calvinismi in Polonia. how I overcame Bartholomew Nigrinus in a Publick Disputation? I am the man who laid along that Pillar of Calvinism in Poland.’ But what said some of our Inns of Court, after hearing Mr. Pulton when they came out of the Door of the Savoy Mass-house? This man does banter finely. Atheists he may make by such discourse; but if he makes any Papists, he works a Miracle. And this (I assure him) is not Invention, but History.

CHAP. IX Mr. Pulton considered in his Threatnings.

HE has both promised and threatn'd what he would do. His promises he is not very likely to perform; for he has said he will give an Answer to certain places, when produc'd from Beda and Hoveden, and such others. There can be no Answer, there may be evasion.

He has threatned, if I tell any more Tales of Iulio's and Past-board-Heads, that he will come forth with what I know not Mr. P's Rem. p. 32, 33. 40, &c.. It may be, he intends a second Century of Scandalous Ministers, and an Appendix to the Cobler of Glocester. But let him remember the man that blew the Coal, till the sparks put out his Eyes. He threatens me with himself, and Mr. Meredith his Second. Let Mr. M. come forth: Possibly some or other may oblige him in the Art of wrangling, for he loves to be engaged. He is the very Salesman at every Auction of Arguments. [Page] He may still find himself business if he pleases; but I have Employment more worthy my time.

He Threatens me with an AnswerMr. P's Rem. p. 38. about S. Ambrose; if he can effect that, he will be greater than his very great Cardinal Bona: And let the Ball be between them for the showing of their Unity. He will do more, he will show my Contradictions M. P's Rem. p. 38.. Alas, good Man! they are innocent things, a man cannot celebrate Mass without them; but he will shew them like Catharine Lamb, whom no body could see.

The CONCLUSION.

MANY things might be further added, as Ex. Gr.

1. He charges me with producing these words

Mr. P's Rem. p. 1.

, [Ever since the pretended Reformed had proceeded upon the word of the Devil.] Instead of these, [Now I ask, whether the Doctrine delivered by the spirit of Untruth can be from the Holy Ghost?] And he cites the first and second Pages, whilst in those Pages, all is repeated from what I. S. said before Witness, before the Conference. And that which is reported as Mr. P's in the Conference, is in the 7th. Page in these words, which he has confirmed instead of disowning them. ‘[Mr. P. proceeded to talk about Luther and the Devil, and his leaving Mass at the Devil's instance.]’

2. He says he began not to Catechise till

Mr. P's Rem. p. 2.

after Whitsuntide, and from thence he infers that he could not tamper with I. S. who had waver'd before. As if there were no Tamperers besides himself; and as if he could not tamper with him in private, before he did it in publick.

[Page]3. He condemns me for giving I. S. so

M.P's. Rem. p. 2.

publick a Reproof, tho 'twas done after private admonition, and after he had brought I. S. upon the Stage; for I was of Solomon's mind, who esteemed of open rebuke as better than secret love. And hearing what his Relations, his Master and Mistris, and Fellow-servants had said, I could not then stroke him as Mr. P. did, by calling him [a very Candid, ingenuous, laborious, tractable youth.]

Mr. P's Rem. p. 2.

God (I hope) will make him so, whilst he is with true Friends.

4. He tells his Reader, that when I quoted Paschasius Radbertus,

Mr. P. Rem. p. 7.

saying there were three Sacraments; I naming which they are, should have added, he allow'd no more than three, which I can never make out. As if, when St. Iohn said, There are three that bear record in Heaven, he should have told us, there are but three.

5. He charges me with three Calumnies

Rem. p. 14.

, upon my telling the story of Abbot Theodore; tho it be told by me out of the Acts of his Council of Nice, as published by his Brethren Labbe and Cossart, whose very Pages are cited.

6. He has found in one of his Store-houses (i.e. in the Guide

Guid. in Contr. Disc. 1. p. 5.

in Controversie) that the Rock [...] in Greek, is in the Syriack Kypha, which is of the Masculine Gender; as if the Primitive Translator (if Saint Matthew's Gospel was Translated out of Hebrew) could have better render'd his sense by a word of the Masculine than of the Feminine Gender. If that had been his opinion, he would have done it.

7. He formerly reflected on the Greeks as Lyars and Hereticks

D. T's Account, p. 11.

. Now he professes †

Mr. P. Rem. p. 25.

, that he said it not in his own, but in my opinion. This is for the sweetning of the Greeks in the Morea. He is very politick in nicking of Junctures.

[Page]8. He says, I mistake

Rem. p. 25.

when I assert, That the Roman Church proves her being and Authority out of the Scriptures. To say that they can or do prove it out of the Scriptures, is a mistake I am not apt to be guilty of; but to say that they attempt to do it, is none; for to this purpose they alledg so very often, Hear the Church; and, Thou art Peter, &c.

9. He calls for our Catalogue of Witnesses against their Errors. Yet he had heard of the Works of Illyricus and others of this nature. And I am not ashamed to own that I published in the English Tongue, divers Months ago, the Testimonies of Writers in the several Ages of Christianity against Transubstantiation

A Treatise by an Author of the Roman Communion, touching Transubstant. 4to, London, 1687. out of French.

.

10. He pull'd a Book of written Collections together with his Breviary out of his Pocket, as sure as he put my Paper into it; and there were eyes enough to discern it; and now he denies he ever produced it

M. P's Rem. p. 28.

perhaps he never read out of it; or according to his Evasion about shewing Luther's works, he never produc'd it in the Pulpit.

11. He mentions a place in St. Ambrose, which in his Opinion is evidently against me, and which (he says) I refused to hear

Ibid p. 38.

. It was not worth either my Attention or my Answer; for I had before told him the true Meaning of all such Places; viz. That Consecration altered Sacramental Elements from common to Sacred things in use and benefit; and that the Fathers used the same Expressions about the Water in Baptism, as about Bread and Wine in the Lords Supper, whilst no body imagines the Substance of the Water is by the most powerful benediction remov'd. In that very Chapter, a fragment of which is cited by Mr. P.,

S. A. de ii [...] qui Myst. initiantur. c. 9. p. 427, 428. Compare this ch. with ch. 3. p. 422, Quid vidisti? Aquas utique sed non solas, &c.

St. Ambrose compares the Change in the Lords Supper upon Consecration, with that in Baptism, and proves [Page] the Change of Baptismal Regeneration, by that with which he had just before illustrated the Change in the Eucharist; the Miraculous Conception of Christ in the Blessed Virgins Body: Disputants, who like unsatisfied Beggars will still ask on, extort a Reproof instead of a Grant.

12. He Charges me

Mr. P's Rem. p. 40.

with a Reflection upon the Apostles who preached in rich and warm Countries; because I took notice (tho from Balzac a Papist) that Missionaries chose such places rather than Nova Zembla. But he takes no notice of the Argument it self, That the talk of Conversions, and of Places, and Numbers, and Qualities, is insignificant, unless it be first prov'd that men are not made Proselytes as the Scribes and Pharisees made them, but converted to True Religion.

But enough, if not too much, has been said in Answer to Objections, which are not real Difficulties.

Perhaps my Readers have already taken Compassion on themselves, and left off some Pages before they have come at this. And I think it is time to relieve my self, after having been concern'd in a Controversial matter which in the nature of it I do not much relish; and which by the length of it, has created in me a most ungrateful Satiety.

FINIS.

ERRATA.

PAge 20. l. 15. for Homouslon, read Homousion. Marg. for [...]; p. 21. Marg. l. 9. f. At, r, Aut; p. 26. l. 30. f. it must be, r. they would have it be; p. 29. l. 39. f. design, r. designs; p. 33. and often elsewhere, Objection, f. Objections; p. 52. l. 27. f. Churches, r. Church. There are other mistakes which are left to the Correction of the Judicious Reader.

ADVERTISEMENT.

WHereas there has been a Paper cry'd by some Hawkers, as a Sermon preached by D. T. at the Funeral of M. E. Gwynn, this may Certify, that that Paper is the Forgery of some Mercinary people.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

Mr. Pulton consider'd in his sincerity, reasonings, authorities, or, A just answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True account, his True and full account of a conference, &c. by the said Tho. Tenison.

Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715.

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1687

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2003-11 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

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A64363

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Wing T703

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ESTC R241

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51279

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A64363)

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— Mr. Pulton consider'd in his sincerity, reasonings, authorities, or, A just answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True account, his True and full account of a conference, &c. by the said Tho. Tenison., Tenison, Thomas, 1636-1715..

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Printed for Richard Chiswell ...,. London :: 1687.. (Half title appears before t.p.) (Reproduction of original in Union Theological Seminary Library, New York.)

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