1. THere was written in Scot­land, and directed to the high Court of the Parlia­ment of England, at their last sitting, a bitter and malicious Pamphlet, inti­tuled: Ladensium Auto­catacrisis: The Canterbu­rians selfe-conviction: Or, An evident Domonstration of the avowed Arminianisme, Poperie and Tyrannie of that Faction, by their owne Con­fessions. [Page 2] The purpose of this Worke speakes it selfe in the Title; namely, to brand many particular Di­vines in this Church with Heterodoxie of Opinions, and that under the name of a Faction, and a Faction united in my Lo. of Canterbury, as in their Common Head. Which Accusation of Heterodoxie in Opinions will be here found false and frivolous, and never a one of these Divines but will shake off this Pamphlet, as S. Paul did the venemous Beast, into the fire, and feele himselfe never the worse for it: But were it so, that some men in their opinions, and writings, did depart from the established Doctrine of this Church; yet to affirme, they combine to doe it as a Faction, and to ascribe the Conduct of that Faction to my Lo. of Can­terbury, without manifest and convincing Proofe, is a meere Calumny, and indeed but the spume of that Malice with which they prosecute him, endeavouring through his sides to wound the Church of England, and to draw one Line of Confusion over all. Yet that the Matter may carry some Colour, this Vndertaker, whoever he be, hath evesdropped all his Grace's Wri­tings, to see what he may possibly distort to any ill meaning; Concerning which, though we might briefly answer, what Ep. ad Neo­caesar. S. Basil speaks in like case for himselfe: [...]: that is in effect; A furious Zelot is no com­petent Iudge of the Writings of a well-affected Protestant: Yet I shall endeavour to lay the Particulars before you, very briefly and faithfully; that so when you see the whole reckoning together, you may judge, whe­ther on his Grace's part, in any thing he hath written, any just cause hath beene given, of all this Clamour [Page 3] raised against him, and all the unreverent Contumelies which are here cast upon him. Archbishops were not wont to be thus handled; but in this Age of the World, it were a ridiculous thing to send these Men to the Councells of Can. 6. Constantinople, Can. 8.11. Carthage, or Can. 21. Chalcedon, to learne better manners in this behalfe: Now is a time with them to hisse at all the Canons and Councels of the Christian World; and instead of such superstitious and out-worne stuffe, to idolize their owne new Bookes of Discipline, which leave both their tongues and pens free, Iud. 5.8. to despise Dominion, and speake evill of dignities. But whether these things proceed from hearts seasoned with the least tincture of Grace, or any syncere Affection to Religion and true Piety (a thing so much pretended and boasted now adayes) whether it be Christian-like, so barbarously and uncivilly to slander men of Place and Eminence, in the face of a Kingdome, wherein by Gods Ordinance, and the established Lawes, they are (under the Kings Majesty) appointed the chief Guides and Governours of the Church: that any sort of men, especially the meanest, should be permitted such an unbridled licence against them; whether, I say, it be Christian-like, or befitting the honour of a Reformed Church, though men may have forgotten to judge, God will surely re­member.

2. But before I meddle with matters of Opinion, I must expostulate some things with this Authour, which come rather to the nature of Fact, and serve to make up a great part of the noyse. Where first, Sir, what meane you by this Title, or Frontispice, Laden­sium Autocatacrisis, The Canterburians Selfe-conviction? [Page 4] Expound you [...], a Selfe-conviction? Sure the word signifies, Selfe-condemning: and Selfe-convi­cting is not Selfe-condemning.

But not to detaine you in this slip: Why Selfe-con­viction? Because they have written something, out of which, you think, you can convict them? But your Convicting them, is not Selfe-convicting.

3. And thirdly; why, a Demonstration by their owne Confessions? Doe they confesse the Fact? Indeed you have raked together many Sayings and Sentences out of their Bookes to prove them Arminians, and Papists, and Maintainers of Tyranny; but doe they answer guil­ty to all this? Sure your Purpose is but to fright the poore Men with this Mormo of your Title. Otherwise we know, an Accusation, though taken from the Par­ties owne mouth, does not presently inferre his owne Confession; for words may be misapplied, or misun­derstood: Nor to bee convicted by another man, though out of his owne mouth; is to be selfe-convi­cted: nor to be so convicted, even by himselfe, is pre­sently to be selfe-condemned. This is such stuffe, that the Parties concerned, as De Pallio. Tertullian sayes of the Ca­maeleon, Ridebunt illicò audaciam & Graeciam Nominis.

4. But in your We offer to instruct to the full sa­tisfaction of the whole world of free and inprejudicate mindes, not by fleeing reports, not by probable likeli­hoods, not by the sentences of the gravest and most solemne Iu [...]icato­ries of this Land, our two last gene­rall Assemblies, and late Parliament. All there meanes of Probation wee shall set aside, and take us alone to the Mouth of our very Adversaries. Preface you tell us, you could have used other Proofes, be­side their owne Bookes: 1 Flying re­ports. 2 Probable likelihoods. 3 The sen­tences of the two last generall Assemblies and late Parliament in Scotland: where the two first are, if you marke it, for­sooth, very strong proofs: and though you seeme to passe them by, yet you [Page 5] have trusted them as much as any. But for the third, if my Lord of Canterbury and these his Canterburians, as you please to call them, were then and there in your two Assemblies and Parliament condemned of Pope­rie, being, as they stand in your Index, all English-men: may they not reasonably plead what he doth in the Tragedie? [...]: A sub­ject of one Countrey ought not to be judged in another: Ne, usurpata altarum partium sollicitudine, Bellum inter se in­citarent, as S. Ambrose:

But the truth is, it is enough with men of your Fea­ther, to call your Adversaries, Papists, or Arminians, or what you please, your Adherents will believe it up­on your bare Word. Do but you say it, and all the Protestations, Oathes, Subscriptions, all the art and in­dustry they can use, shall never sufficiently purge them of it. So that, if now, ex superabundanti, you will not say it onely, but prove it too; very good reason, you should grace your performance with some extra­ordinary inscription. Let it be therefore Autocatacri­sis, a very Selfe-conviction, though it be indeed neither, nor one of these, the other.

Once more; If you will needs mistake these men to be Arminians, and Papists, and upholders of Tyranny; was it not enough to call them such? No; they are Ladensians, Canterburians: as if my Lord of Canterburie had led them into these Opinions; when you cannot be so blinde, as not to see, who their Au­thours and Abettors are, in all this, as you call it, Pope­ry. Examine but your owne Margin, there you shall [Page 6] finde P. 51. Ignatius, P. [...]5 Irenaeus, P. 51 Tertullian, P. 52. Optatus, P. 5 [...]. Ba­sil, P. [...]5. Nazianzen, P. 38, 76. Chrysostome, P. 82. Epiphanius, P 3 [...], 57, 59, 65. Augu­stine, P. [...]1. Damascen, P. [...]5. Bernard, and other like: all vou­ched together by you with these moderne men. Are all these Canterburians? For let the reader turne, I say, and see, if they stand not in your margin under the same condemnation, all. You pretend against the Pope, but you are his friend many wayes; especially in this, a more profuse benefactor to him, than Pipin, Charlemaigne, or any other. You give him East and West, the suffrage of all Christendome, side and wide, the consent of the best Writers in elder and later times; They are all for the Pope, by your Donation, all invol­ved in one common guilt of supporting his Antichristi­an Hierarchie. The voice of the Donatists was, Nos soli mansimus, the whole world is apostate; Our congrega­tion remaines the onely true Church: but yours must be, Nos soli fuimus; we are the first, and before us there was never any; never, in all the centuries of Christiani­ty, any such doctrine or discipline to be found, as you have devised. And your performance here, is not against the Canterburians onely; but even a generall inditement of all times and ages for superstition and heresie. Onely this humour of nick-naming is none of the newest, whether we regard either fact, or opini­on. Those that stuck to Iohn Chrysostome in his trou­bles, an innocent man, and refused to communicate with his unworthy successour Arsacius, were called Socrat. l. 6. c. 16. Ioannitae, Iohnists, forsooth. And those, that in the Ephesine Councell maintained the Orthodoxe Faith, together with S. Cyrill, against the fect of Nestorius, were by that Sect termed, Apud Bin. 10.1. par. 2. p. 287. Colon. 1618. Cyrilliani, Cyrillians. Iust [Page 7] thus, the conformable Ministery of this Kingdome, that in their books and practice maintaine the doctrine and discipline of this Church, which my Lord of Can­terbury doth in the prime place, must be, Canterburians: This is the ingenuity of the title prefixed to your book: dignum patinâ operculum; a fit cover for such a dish.

6. Now in your Preface, this chimaera of the Can­terburian faction and the Prelates, must bee stigmati­zed for the authours of all the mischiefes in the world; thereby to induce the high Court of Parliament to expell, non Tarquinium, sed Regnum; not the Bishops, but even the Bishopricks. Which yet were not equi­ty, to blame the office, for the men. And whereas it hath been ever your way, in your accusatory writings, to shift from things, to persons; let mee tell you, It is the knowne practice of schismaticks: Me facit causam, cum defecisset in causâ, saies St. Austine of Petilianus. When hee failes in his cause, hee mistakes mee for the cause: And, in Lib. cont. Fortunatum, Alia est quaestio de Fide, alia de moribus. And, Istae haereticorum machinae sunt, &c. sayes St. Hierom cont. Ruff. Thus the Prelates, they declare, they proclaime in the Kings name, they change the face of the Court, you say, into what shape they please: They doubtlesse have some secret designe, Praef. p. 3. when both Nations by mutuall wounds, are disabled for defence against the common enemy, to bring in France, or Spaine, spightfull Nations, and the hereditary enemies of our Religion and Iland: and this they doe, when the teares of his Majesties onely sister, the desolation of her most mi­serable subjects, the captivity and banishment of her hope­full children should command, as in pity, to put up all our [Page 8] homeward quarrels, though they evere both great and many, nor should we be induced by any allurement, by any terrour, to submit our selves as vallets and pages to the execution of the lusts, the furies, and outragious counsels of Can­terbury and his dependers; since the maine grievances both of Church and State, have no other originall, no other foun­taine on earth, but those men. All which is a Libell even against common sence, and needes no other an­swere.

Besides, this mans falshood had bin much more tole­rable, if he had kept himself within civill language; for possibly, That might proceed from misinformation, but This must needs be too much his owne. All this ado, he sayes, is but for the bearing up of Prelates tailes, for the execution of the Mandamus of Bishops. Might he not as well have said, in case hee had thought so (which I hardly beleeve he doth,) That all this adoe was, upon a misapprehension; That Regall power in a Christian Monarchy cannot well stand without Episcopall? which if it bee indeed a misapprehension, it arose not from Bishops: This knowne axiome, No Bishop, no King, was not invented by a Bishop. Neither was he a Bishop, but a States-man and a Iudge, and a witty man in his time, who advised King Iames; by all meanes you must keepe up the Bishops, because it is written; Mutato sacerdotio, mutabifer lex, Heb. 7.12. The Priesthood being changed, there must follow of neces­sity a change also of the Law: So hee in allusion to that Text. But for your selfe, if it were your minde to lay all the blame of this quarrell upon the Bishops, not taking notice of his Majesties interests, or the preser­vation of his royall Authority, yet you might have [Page 9] given good words. What meane such expressions, as these? The lusts, and furies of Canterbury, malepert Canterbury, effronted impudence, the touch of his Graces panton, and many like; besides the perpetuall venome of your stile, ever when you have said the worst you can devise, leaving a sting and suspition in the Rea­ders minde, as if somewhat worse might bee said: As here in the Preface, Men whose open profession in their printed books, beside secret practises, leads to wicked ends, &c. S. Paul exhorts us, Eph. 4.15. to speak the truth in love. But where we finde neither truth nor love, neither pro­bable matter, nor charitable speeches; pretend you never so much to Gods calling, and revelations, and reformations, and what you please; this we are sure of: Mat. 12.34.35. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Bonus homo de bono thesauro profert bona, malus homo de malo thesauro profert mala.

For the things themselves; you have put together here a long beadroll of untruths, purposely to raise ha­tred against my Lord of Canterbury, whereof you bring no proofe at all; and therefore you are faine to lubricate them with some oyle of Rhetorick, to make them slip the better. A long scheme of interrogations you put us here: who did this? and, who did that? To all which, considering I say, you bring no proofe, in reason, and equity, you can expect no other returne from us, then a plaine negation: Quintilian. Decl. 12. Sat erit, verbo negare, quod verbo ponitur: remove hanc spem eludendae menda­cio civitatis. Now then I tell you, point by point: It is not He, that hath kept the King at a distance from your countrey, these many yeares. Not he that hinders Parlia­ments, nor that breaks up Parliaments. It is not by his [Page 10] connivence that the idolatrous Chappels of both the Queenes are so gorgeous and so much frequented. It is not by his tolerance that Masse-Priests are so much multi­plied in City and Countrey. Hee sets up no Cloysters for Monks and Nuns: No Houses for open Masse, in any Ci­ty of the Kings Dominions. Hee holds no correspon­dence with the Pope. Hee sends no Agents to Rome: Entertaines not his Holinesse Nuncios, here in State. Hee hindred not our Alliance with the Swedes & French, for the relief of Germany. He withheld not from the poore Prince the King of Bohemiah to his dying day all conside­rable helpe from Brittaine. Prague was lost, and the Pa­latinate surprised while hee was yet but a private Ma­ster of a Colledge in Oxford, And what could he doe withall? Hee sent not those young Princes into the Field the other yeare, so poorely provided that one silly Commander beat them both. Hee moved not that inno­cent Prince to such strange Counsell, as now the World speakes of. Hee betrayed neither his purpose nor his Per­son to the French King. Hee is not the prime Authour of the Scottish broyles. All this you put upon him; all this wee deny: Whereof some things are false in themselves; All in regard of him. And you have not onely trusted report too farre, which is ever Tertul. Ap. Nomen incerti, detrahons, adiiciens, demutans de veritate; But withall yeelded your selfe too much, to that naughty disposition, which they call [...], a rejoycing in another mans evill: for wee may reasonably thinke, what ever of all this bee found false, you could wish it were true: Otherwise it is strange, a man should rake together all the disasters and mischiefs, that have been done at home and abroad these many yeares, and lay [Page 11] them all upon Him; but not give him the least share in any good action. What good my L. of Canterbury hath done in the civill state, what in the Church, what in Citie and Countrey, what in the University, there will be a time to remember. And though in this distempered state of things, seu benè, seu malè facta juxtà premunt; good and bad actions beare a like construction, with many men at least: yet the insu­perable strength of vertue and innocencie by Gods Blessing will overcome at last, Matth. 11.19. and wisdome be Iusti­fied of her children. In the meane while it shall be sufficient, to say to you here that of S. Cont: Ruff. Hierome: Non est necesse, ut in tractatihus ecclesiasticis rem tribunalem ventilemus. It is no way requisite, that disputing a­bout points of religion, we should mingle therewith, civill or criminall accusations.

8 Comming up to your Work, you tell us, you will prove these men, against whom you informe, to be guilty of grosse Arminianisme, plaine Popery, and of setting up barbarous Tyranny. Tot Calones quot Milites, every soldier must have his Cullion; every substantive an Epithet put to it, to carry along the Luggage of your Notion: not Popery onely but plaine Popery, not Arminianisme onely but grosse Arminianisme, nor Tyranny onely but setting up of barbarous Ty­ranny: yet lest we should be forgetfull or inobservant of this your great undertaking, you tell it us over a­gaine and againe, and againe; foure times, before you can end; And with it shut up this your zealous Preface. But these your vehement exaggerations, your long and sweet Rhetorications, [...] with which you would charme our Nobles, [Page 12] not to stirre a weapon against you in so innocent a Cause, I willingly permitt you: Onely two things I must expostulate with you.

9 First, that in case you faile in this great businesse, you are content, you say, to be censured of Jf J faile in my faire underta­king, let me be condemned of te­merity, and no houre of your leisure, &c. Teme­ritie: and will never desire men to imploy their leasure any more in hearing your Complaints. This indeed would be a great deale of Charity on our parts: for it was written of old, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Make good your undertaking, prove these men guilty of Idolatry, Heresie, of be­traying the King into the Bondage of Popery, the subject into a Condition of slavery; and their goods, their Bodies, their Lives will be too little satisfaction: nay what extreame hazards many have runne already, without any forme of Iustice, upon your bare suggestions, is sufficiently knowne: now you demand Iustice upon my Lo. of Canterbury, where in Case you faile of your proofe, shall it bee sufficient for you to suffer in point of reputation; and to bee Condemned of Temerity, such a Lucifuga, as your selfe, an Exploratour of other mens discour­ses, whose onely Artifice it is, benè dicta seciùs inter­pretari? I except against your iniquitie in this.

10. The other thing is: you complaine of the obstinate silence of the English Divines: it is most prodigious, you say, and one of the Wonders of the World how at this Time they can be so dumbe. You have scored downe in your Index here about twenty English Di­vines that have written within these few yeares a­gainst Papists and Schismatiques, as the necessities of the Church did require. God be thanked; there [Page 13] was never greater plenty of men, able and willing to encounter our adversaries on the right hand, or on the left. And do you finde so great a solitude of English Divines, that you are faine to supply your selfe with Burton, Bastwick, Prinne, Layton, Lilborne; of whom Burton only is the Divine, Prin a Lawyer, Bastwick & Layton Physitians, Lilborne a Tradesman. Are these your English Divines? do you propound these for im­itable Examples to the Clergie of this Kingdome?

You call us to the Example of those Marian Dayes, Times of hottest Persecution: as if now were the Time for faithfull Witnesses to stand up in defence of true Religion: That is, to oppose those Lawes now by which Popery was then cast out: to condemne that Liturgie, and those Ceremonies, as superstitious now, which were then ordained to cut off superstition: and the retaining of which, our very Ista autem multaque alia ex moribus & caeremoniis antiquis, politicorum suasu, contra hujus novi cleri volun­tatem Regina retinuit, &c. Et certe fecit plurimum ad stabilitatem, firmi­tatemque haereseos, &c. Sander. de schism. Angl. adversaries cannot but Confesse, hath beene the strongest sinew and support of our Reformation. To revile Bishops now, that were then prime Martyrs: as if their very calling were wicked, to whom even Scio instaurationem ecclesiae Angli­canae & eversionem Papismi, post Deum & Reges, deberi praecipue Episcoporum doctrinae & industriae: Quorum etiam nonnulli martyrio, &c. Pet. Moli n. Ep. 3. Strangers give this Te­stimonie: that they were then the Chief Instruments of plan­ting pure Religion among us, and have beene of conserving it ever since. We must be mad now, and cut off our right hand with our left, or else England is gone off, you say, from her zeale to the true Religion. [Page 14] But leave this wicked vanitie, Mocke not God, the World, and your owne Conscience. Doe not paral­lell persons and things so extreamly different; Prov. 17.15. to ju­stifie the Wicked, and condemne the just, are both Abomi­nations to the Lord.

11. In your first Chapter; you seeme to seare the World is mistaken in your Quarrell, and doth not understand it to be so extensive as it is, being as you say, not only that which P. 2. properly concerneth your selves, but that which rubbeth upon other Churches; not the Booke, Canons, and Episcopacie only; but many notable wrongs and affronts openly done to the reformed Religion. Experience teacheth us to understand your meaning; P, 12. you found in your generall assembly, you say, the cockle of Arminianisme comming up apace in many furrowes of your field; which being cast over the dyke, it was at once received and replanted in England in too good a soyle. Were it so; truly you have fol­lowed it so fast into that good soyle, that it is likely to take no very deepe roote: though how it has beene received or replanted here, I know not; except it of­fend you, that your expulsed Bishops and Clergie were permitted fire and water, or so much as lively­hood among us. But we aske not, quo Warranto, by what Authority you take upon you this large Visita­tion, to set right the Church of England. Nor are we very solicitous to informe our selves of the ex­tent of your quarrell. This we are sure of, [...]. The end and beginning of Businesse appeares not together, especially of Contenti­on; which Salomon saith, Prov. 17.14. is like the letting out of Water, it will not alwayes stop where men think.

But whereas you are so charitable to judge P. 4. sun­dry Bishops of the Isle to be innocent and very free of these Mischiefs, and such as would readily purge themselves, if only my Lord of Canterbury and his dependants were in any way to receive from the Kings justice some part of their Deservings: Herein we cannot but challenge you of injustice, that some of them being innocent, you would make it the Concluding vote of your Booke, that all without exception should be rid away. Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked? But yet your charity we are readie to compensate; and tell you, we believe there are involved in the Covenant many honest Hearts, many well meaning Soules: and that they are not all so blame-worthy, as you their spirituall Misleaders are; nay we believe, divers of them, were they truly taught the nature of this Action you have put them into, would gladly purge themselves, and leave you to receive from the King's Iustice some part of your deserving.

12. You have brought us next a long Syllogisme, which is to be the touchstone of your whole dis­course, and summarily is this:

P. 5. Whoever in the Kings Dominions spreads abroad Poperie, or any Doctrine opposite to the Religion and Lawes of the Land, now established; ought to be pu­nished.

But Canterbury and his Dependants have spread abroad in the Kings Dominions, Doctrines opposite to our Religion and Lawes; and especially Points of grossest Popery. Ergo.

Where I hope you will give me Leave to scruple two or three things without Offence: and first, [Page 16] touching your Major: Let me tell you, it is ever a lurching Tricke to Complicate many Termes in one Proposition; as here be two: Spreading abroad Po­perie, and spreading abroad any Doctrine opposite to the Lawes established. It is a Fallacie Multarum Quaestio­num, to which the Respondent cannot very advisedly give his Answere at once: for it may be halfe true, and halfe false. Know then, one you must leave out, by the Law of Art, unlesse you will affirm them to be both one, or convertible, which I thinke you will not. Let me Counsell you then to leave out the Word Poperie, and that because it is an Ambiguous Word; about which you and your Opposites are very little agreed, and in all Controversies, [...]; Principium est Nomen. First you must agree upon the Cleare Meaning of your Terms, or else instead of Disputing you will but beate the Ayre. As heere in this Case, you will urge them with some Doctrines and call them Poperie: They will acknowledge the Doctrines, but deny the Po­pery: then you must revert to dispute, what is Popery, a thing that by all reason should have beene cleared at first. You seeme to define it by Tenets of Reformed Churches, and Tenets of reformed Divines; as if what crosseth these, were Poperie. But this is to define it by uncertainties: for Churches differ in their Tenets, not to goe from home, P. 98. you tell us you could never in Scotland be induced to follow so much of the Masse as we retained in England. Divines differ in their Tenets. What thing more knowne? He that followes not Calvin in the Point of Praedestination, may yet fol­low Melancthon. And he a man, (as Pietas or­dinum. &c. Hugo Grotius [Page 17] very truly saith) never a whit inferiour to him. Shall the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of Rome be Poperie? that will not be universally true, for there was a Time when S. Paul commended both: their Rom. 1.8. Faith and Rom. 16.19. Obedience. Shall the Customes and usages of that Church be Poperie? not all. For they had many in Common with the whole Catholike Church, which cannot without great scan­dall and falshood be taxed of Poperie. You of all men have made this word Poperie, such an ambula­tory word, that we know not where to fixe it. Ar­minianisme shall be Poperie, if you please to call it so: to refuse the oathes of allegeance and suprema­cie, shall not be Poperie, if you please not to call it so. Our English liturgie with you is a Popish masse; our Ceremonies, Popish ceremonies. Now should your adversaries be so unadvised to grant themselves pu­nishable, for teaching and maintaining Popery, ad­mitting it ever in your acception? In the meane while, to say, they are punishable, for teaching any doctrine opposite to the Religion by Law established; is to say a Consequent, and undeniable truth, which will they, or nill they, they must submit to. Now then let this undefined thing Poperie stand by; or else let every Doctrine insisted on by you, be Popish so, as withall opposite to the Religion by Law esta­blished: and therein you shall do very well.

12. Next, in your Minor: I may not suffer you to jumpe out of England into Scotland; as you do in this Clause of it: Our Religion and Lawes. Ours? whose? yours, in Scotland? shall these men, subjects of Eng­land and Members of this Church, be punishable, [Page 18] for teaching some Doctrine opposite to the Religion by Law established in Scotland? when did they sub­scribe to your Religion or Lawes? you Scota ante aliquot Annos Anglorum Auxilus è servitute Gallica liberati, Religionis Cultui & Ritibus cum Anglis Communibus subscripserunt. The scotish being some yeares before delivered from the slavery of the French by the Aydes of the English, subscribed to the same Worship and Rite of Religion, which the English used. Buchan: hist. Scot. l. 19. have subscri­bed to ours, as coy as you are of us now: we to yours never. And yet would you candidly set out even your own Lawes; happily they would not re­fuse you upon them. But if you superinduce the Bookes of Discipline, or Records, to them utterly un­knowne, Large De­clar. p. 270 wonderfully preserved, and now after a long silence of Time, no doubt, as uncorruptly exhi­bited by you: if that must be a Canon to regulate your Church and Religion; then they will recoile, and desire to be tryed by their owne Lawes. The summe of all, is: they would not have you juggle and sophisticate, confound and tumble together Places, Persons, Things, as every where you do; to raise Cla­mour, not to discover Truth. In all Equity then, this must be your syllogisme.

Whosoever in the Kings Dominions, respectively, spreads abroad any Doctrine opposite to the Religion by Lawes established; ought to be punished.

But Canterburie and his Dependents, being sub­jects of England, have spread abroad Doctrines op­posite to The Religion, by Lawes established in England. Ergo.

Now if you can acquite your selfe of this Minor and carry it handsomly through your whole Booke, you will doe a memorable perfor­mance. But you meane no such thing: and therefore [Page 19] I desire the Reader to do it for you; upon every point to bring you to this test: which he must do if he will be just and impartiall. For make you up your par­ties as you please, with reformed Divines and ortho­dox Preachers; that wil be but to call up against you other orthodoxe Preachers; and all to no purpose: for nothing is punishable but by Law: Simul ac a jure dis­cesseris, go you from that, and either in Fact or Opi­nion, men wil think they may use a moderate liberty.

13 First, touching Arminianisme, in relation to Fact: It is but hard measure in you to represent it presently with this Odium: A Pag. 8. dangerous inno­vation, and such a one as was found to be the readiest Engin, which had ever beene used by the Pope or Spani­ard to overthrow the Church and State of Holland. For were this true, yet sure it could bee true by no other necessity, then as Medicus cantat; a Physitian may be skilfull in song, but it is no intrinsecall act of his Profession. An Arminian may bee a seditious Citi­zen, but it flowes not from any of the five disputed points. Divines may differ about the order of Gods Predestination, and yet bee good subjects to their Prince: In the meane while, your selfe that make this objection, living in a Monarchicall State, make no bones to affirme; Postscrip. p. 14. That publike Assemblies, and Conventions may bee held without the authority of the Civill Magistrate: Ibid. p. 8. That, subjects may beare Armes against their Soveraigne: p. 14. That, there is and ought to bee in a Kingdome, an Ecclesiastique Power, supreme in it selfe, and independent on the King. These Opini­ons touch the life of a State, and tend dangerously to the dissolution of Government; yet these must [Page 20] be borne with, in you: but if men doubt of absolute Reprobation, or sticke at any like rigid Doctrine, [...], the State must looke about, it is some secret Plot to betray the Kingdome to the Pope or Spaniard.

I take not upon me to Apologize for Arminians: let them stand or fall by themselves: But I thinke a dramme of equity will obtaine them thus much, that they may bee as good and loyall subjects in any State or Kingdome, as they which maintaine your aforesaid positions or any of them. When my Lord of Canterbury, that then was, tooke so much care (as you tell us) to suppresse Barrow at Cambridge, and to enact his Lambethane Articles (which you ridicu­lously call the Pag. 16. Synod of Lambeth) the Queene, even Presat. that most sacred Queene Elizabeth, did not inter­pret it as any great service done to the State, or as if the Kingdome had been thereby secured: Which is plaine enough by the cold thankes shee gave him. If you know not the carriage of that businesse, I pray you informe your selfe better, out of the story.

14. The greatest Accusation that lies against my Lord of Canterbury here, in this matter of Arminia­nisme, is the preferment of men whom you suspect to encline to the opinions of Arminius, wherein before you passe any Verdict, you should doe well to con­sider: First, whether all Preferments be so absolute­ly in his Graces disposing, that hee may bee truely said to preferre them all. Secondly, whether hee looke upon them in that Quality, as they encline to [Page 21] such Opinions, and bee not obliged to favour them, for some other eminent Abilities, or Merit of parti­cular service, done in Church or State. Thirdly, whe­ther some others sufficiently known to be anti-Armi­nians, be not as high in the Church, & as well promo­ted as they. Fourthly, whether most men promoted in the Church, are not upon your own false grounds, by you causelesly suspected to be Arminians. Quic­quid horum tetigeris, Ulcus est: you are not Proofe in any of these. And because the Preferments of sun­dry men may bee upon sundry motives, by sundry Meanes and Procurements: Nor can it be any thing else in you, but an invidious Presumption to thinke all done by his Grace in favour of Arminianisme, whereas all in that kinde is not done by him, nor any with an eye of favour upon Arminianisme, clamour while you please, my Answer is this: and it is suffi­cient to satisfie any honest man. There is no man, promoted in the Church of England, with or with­out my Lord of Canterburies helpe, but subscribes to the Articles; the established Doctrine of this Church. Now these Articles, either they condemne the Opinions of Arminius, or they doe not: If they doe not, then is Arminianisme, either a thing set by, and left at liberty, neither belongs it to my Lord of Canterbury, or any other trusted with the Gover­ment of the Church, to take cognisance of any mans judgement in those points: Or if those Points bee comprehended in the Articles and not condemned, belike they are approved there: But if the Articles doe condemne Arminianisme, all men promoted in the Church subscribe to the Articles: They pro­fesse [Page 22] fully and heartily to assent to the Doctrine there set downe; which Profession is as valid, as an oath; and an Heb. 6.16. Oath for confirmation is an end of all strife. So that to affirme his Grace keepes a constant course, in promoting Arminianisme, as a Sect offensive to this Church, is but a meere calumny: Their sub­scription being as great and apparant a Purgation of any their adherence to heterodox Opinions, as they can possibly exhibit, or hee require of them: And should he require more, he could not justifie it.

15. That which brought up Arminianisme a­mong you, was, you say, P. 11. a gentle ayre from Court: which were it true, as it is undoubtedly false, yet it leaves no reall Aspersion upon those Opinions. The Court does not alwayes cherish the evill seeds: it is the voice of Schismaticks sometimes; Optat. l. 1. Aug. Ep. 48. Quid Epis­copis cum palatio? The Arrians and Donatists did often complaine they were borne downe by favour at Court; and so do you now, and so did alwayes all unquiet Spirits, when they could not have there, what themselves desired. P. 11. D^r. Wederburne, you tell us, was made Bishop of Dunblane, and that Bishop is alwayes Deane of the Chappell Royall: and a society of twenty foure Chaplaines was erected, the fittest that could be found in the whole Kingdome, to preach to the State the Deanes Arminian Tenets. Where, it may be, all the offence is, that your selfe was none of the number.

16. Passing over into Ireland, you question there: P. 15. P. 21. Who holds downe the head of that Orthodoxe Primate? Which complaint, after three or foure pages, you re­sume againe, thus. What fray, makes that worthy Pri­mate [Page 23] Vsher to foretell oft to his friends his expectation, to be sent over sea, to die a Pedant, teaching boyes for his bread, by the persecution of this faction. Where this strange expression from your pen, Orthodoxe Primate, made me almost forget the maine of your complaint. For say, in good earnest, is Episcopacie a wicked and Antichristian calling? So you teach sometimes. And sure if a simple Bishop be a limb of Antichrist, a Primate must be a very principall member: how then, Orthodoxe primate? Or, why care you, who holds downe his head? Were it in your power, would you advance it? You that have howted all Ecclesiasticall Dignities quite out of your Coun­trey? You tell us plainly, that a totall ejection of the Bishops Postscrip. p. 28. would much increase the joy and prosperity of all the three dominions: We have just reason to think then, that if this Orthodoxe Primate were in your Power, you would divide betwixt his Orthodoxie, and his Primacie, by such a kind of distinction, as that was of old; Platin. in vit. Ioan. 24. Gibellinorum, bona Guelfa; the Man might be Orthodoxe, but the Primacie, with what belongs to it, his Rents and Revenues, would be found all Antichristian: so that he must be content indeed to die a Pedant, teaching boyes for his bread. But to the maine of your Complaint, take his Answer, which upon sight of this passage in your booke, he made with his owne mouth. This is notoriously false, I ne­ver said any such thing, I never thought it; and I am in my particular beholding to my Lord of Canterbury. I had the happinesse to be by, when my Lord Primate spake this.

17. Your aptnesse to misconstrue even the best [Page 24] actions, appeares by the censure you put upon His Majesties Declaration before the Articles. You make it but a crafty trick in his Grace, then Bishop of Lon­don, by the Duke his Patron, you say, to perswade that course of silence purposely to give Their crafty leader seeing the s [...]t of oppositi­on, and sinding it meet a little to hold in, &c. p. 19. advantage to the Arminians. It were a happy thing, if in all emergent controversies men would carrie themselves with that temper, and prudence, as that no such declarations might be needfull: But when the fire of contention begins to burne, and endanger the peace of Church and State; it is then time for Kings, who are nutritii Ecclesiae, to interpose their power and suppresse the flame. What our gracious Soveraigne did, was done more majorum, after the example of all godly Princes. In the time of Theodosius the elder, every mans tongue ran upon the Trinity, nothing could be heard but perpetuall wrangling about those high mysteries; whereupon that pious Prince forbad all disputing thereabout, Sozom. l. 7. c. 6. latâ lege & paenâ constitutâ. Had you lived then, you would have said; This was but the tricke of some Prelate, to give advan­tage to the Sabellians, Photinians, Arrians, and the like. In these very questions blessed King Iames both counselled and approved a pacificatory edict, devised and published in Holland, to make peace there; which indeed was variously carped at. But God forbid, that at such exigences, for the misprision of some disaffected spirits, Kings and Princes should lay by their care; whose office it is to suppresse Schisme and Faction in Church, as well as theft, homicide, or like crimes in State, as Ep. 50. & cont. Cres­con. 3. c. [...]1. S. Austin tels us. But what advantage did the Arminians make of this edict, I [Page 25] pray? Yes, P. 23. Many Doctors, you say, in both Univer­sities, and over all the Land, boldly gave out their minde to all they met with, for the advancement of the new way. Boldly gave out their minde? But did they print as boldly? I am sure some of the contrary part as boldly gave out their mindes: otherwise your intel­ligence had not been so good. And what know you, but that many books, like to be offensive in this kinde, were and are suppressed by my Lord of Can­terburies care? I am sure, you can keepe no tale of them, no more than Diagoras his friend could of those that were drowned; quia nusquam picti sunt, for they appeare not.

18. Needs will you make the world believe; in this quarrell of Arminianisme, my Lord of Canter­buries Predecessour, Archbishop Abbot, was so farre P. 21. wrought out of grace with the King, that he remained some yeares before his death, well neare confined to his house at Lambeth: and that for the same cause, is ca­ged up in the Tower that great and learned Bishop of Lincolne. Where touching the first; in good time said you, well neare confined: For certainly, no other confinement lay upon him at Lambeth some yeares before his death, but by that which serves an arrest upon all the sonnes of men, age and infirmity. And for the second, that Arminianisme is any way con­cerned in my Lord of Lincolnes affaire, is more than I ever understood; or, I believe, any man else. It were a great folly for me to misreport or dissemble in things so publike and notorious as these.

19. Much adoe you make about Chounes Booke: where you begin with the License, but mistake the [Page 26] Licenser; whence I hope we may conclude, you are over-apt to trust flying Report. For, had you used ocular inspection here, we cannot but think you can read a printed Name. Touching the Booke it selfe, very eager you are to stretch all to the worst. For, he saith not, Fides, Resipiscentia, Perseverantia, Faith, Repentance, Perseverance, are the Causes of Salvati­on, as you alledge: but Fidei, Resipiscentiae, Perseve­rantiae recta quae est ex Deo Ordinatio: Kenne you no difference here, betwixt mans act, in believing, re­penting, and persevering; and Gods [...] in ordain­ing, faith, repentance, and perseverance, to be the meanes of salvation. But a dangerous matter it is, to fall into the hands of a Man, that is resolved to make the worst of every thing he meets with. You tell us farther, D. Bastwick in the Face of the Starre-Chamber, charged my Lord of Canterbury with this Booke. That he did not neither; in the High Com­mission somewhat hee wrangled about Fundamen­talls: which truly was not worth the writing into Scotland.

But more than all this; It wounds, you say, the Kings Monarchick Government at the very heart, and transferres from the Crowne to the Miter one of its fai­rest Diamonds; which the King and His Father before him did ever love most dearely. You cite not the Words, nor the place: but in your Chapter of Ty­rannie, we cannot misse it, sure. There he is allea­ged to say; that P. 113. Kings and Princes are accompted sonnes of the Church, That Bishops make Canons, which yet have their Vivacity, or Act of life from Kings, as the Heads. This is all in effect, he saith there. I wonder [Page 27] much what designe M. Choune, a Lay-Gentle­man, should have, to transferre from the Crowne to the Miter this faire Diamond, Supremacie in Causes Ecclesiasticall: for that is it you meane: And I won­der more to finde you so jealous of it. But be con­tent, good Sir, neither M. Choune nor the Bishops in­tend any such theft. In the meane while, Rom. 2.21. thou that teachest a man should not steale, dost thou steale? Doe not you with open face rob the Crowne of this Dia­mond, and transferre it to your Ecclesiasticke Assem­blies? Parall. 4. Lysimachus Nicanor sayes you doe; And in your Postscript-answer to him here, durst you deny it, so much as in one syllable? Are you not faine to conclude the point with him thus, Our Prince is very well content from the Generall Assembly, the highest Ec­clesiasticke Court, should come no appeale at all to him? Belike, from other Sessions and Presbyteries, lies Appeale thither, but there you are at the top: [...]. Looke no higher, then: though sure the top is ever the Kings by right. Obediunt si­mul & regnant, saith Choune. Princes obey the Church, but rule and governe it withall: but with you, it is simply obediunt, nay Synodo in­tersint, non ut regnent, sed ut servi­ant, &c. Bez. conf. c. 5. art. 15. serviunt, by no meanes, reg­nant: You may make Acts, censure, depose, excom­municate, and no Appeale lies from you. Indeed you slide it over with a mannerly expression, our Prince is very well content, &c. but should the Bishops build up such an independent Supremacie, and be questioned for it, would it suffice for them to answer, Our Prince is very well content? That personate Iesuite, as you call him, objects; you deny Kings, Power to convo­cate Assemblies: whereto you answer; Postscr. p. 14 he knowes [Page 28] the contrary, that you give to all Christian Soveraignes, so much interest in affaires of the Church, as to convo­cate Assemblies when and where they please: but with­all, you hold indeed, that without them, you may convo­cate your selves, in some case. So tender you are of preserving in the Crowne, that faire Diamond: And so much you indigne at Choune, though very inno­cent thereof, that hee should transferre it to the Mi­ter: the fault is, he did not indeed transferre it to the Presbytery. Where bee it knowne, That Ecclesiastick power is not to bee lessened by the expulsion of Bi­shops; now it is jurisdiction, but then it shall bee discipline.

21. In your third Chapter you P. 31. taxe my Lord of Canterbury for promoving Master Duries Nego­tiation with the Churches beyond Sea. This Durie is a Scottish Minister, that hath much pained himselfe, travelling up and downe Germany, to solicit an Vnion betwixt the Churches of the Augustan confession, and the rest. My Lord of Canterbury found his Pre­decessour, Archbishop Abbot, imbarqued in this de­signe; and thereupon inclined the rather, to give en­couragement to it: but ever kept himselfe within the bounds, which his Predecessour had set. Now if this be a fault, there be many partakers: For wee are made beleeve, few Ambassadours, or Agents in those parts, few Doctours or Professors of their Vni­versities, that have not intermedled more or lesse, to promove this action. But after all; I doubt, you need not much feare the successe. A synctetisme you say, all good men did ever pant for; but not a full peace. I suppose you meane, they should combine a­gainst [Page 29] the common enemy, but still keepe at oddes amongst themselves. Yet a syncretisme being not every daies Word, you might have done well to explaine your selfe better: and the rather, because the Cretians had an ill name, you know, for cheating and cozening, that possibly [...], may bee taken in a vicious sense; to pack together for mischiefe. And I thinke, Beza uses it so, in an Epistle of his to Bishop Grindall. Quis porrò fuerit quorundam nuper adversus omnes ha­rum Partium, ac proinde etiam adversus Gallicas & ve­stras quoque Ecclesias, quas omnes nobiscum in omnibus doctriae capitibus consentire arbitramur, conatus & [...], jam pridem ad vos usque perlatum esse Opinor. Conatus, & [...]: I hope, this is not the syncretisme, you have long panted for. But a syncretisme you would have, not a full peace; though otherwise a man very peaceably minded. Now wee in England, are taught to pray thus; That God would inspire continually his universall Church, with the spirit of truth, unity, and concord: and grant, that not onely, These, and Those: but even all they, that confesse his holy name, may agree in the truth of his holy word, and live in unity and godly love.

22. And thus much of Fact, now to matter of Doctrine, or Opinion; wherein all that is objected will be found, as hitherto it hath been, lighter then vanity it selfe. But when such things as these are printed with Licence, and informed of as matters of very great consequence; wee trust it will bee ex­cused, if wee lose a little time, to give some answer at least, to such an importunate Delatour.

23. In the point of Arminianisme, one passage is [Page 30] said to bee gotten from his Graces Pen: And that is, the changing of a Clause in the Collect, for the Queen and the Royall Issue: instead of Father of thine Elect and their seed, putting in, the Fountaine of all goodnesse. Grave Crimen, Cai Caesar; and not so fortunate as to steale out of the world, but with noise enough. For this complaint you tooke up of Burton. But you charge it further; It was, say you, in favour of Ar­minianisme, to cut and mangle the very Liturgie of the Church, otherwise a sacred peece in England, and a Noli me tangere, even in the smallest points, bee they never so much by any censured of Errour. Then which, what could bee spoken more ridiculous? For first, not to urge how this Collect is a post-nate, to the Li­curgie of the Church of England: Wherein could this Clause offend even Arminius himselfe? The difference betwixt him and his Opposites, being not, Whether there bee any Elect or none? or whether God bee the Father of them and their seed? but a­bout the Object of Election; whether it be, man sim­ply considered, or man so qualified, that is, beleeving, and repenting: whether faith and repentance, anto­cede, or result from Gods Election. Doth any Ar­minian deny a personall Election, that is, an Election of singular persons, as you ignorantly say here? They hold it to bee indeed, singularium credentium. But what is that to my Lord of Canterbury? or what to this Clause of the Collect? This innocent Clause, not touching in the least manner the condition or motive of Gods Election, why should it be discarded in favour of Arminianisme? Againe, if the word E­lect did scandaline his Grace, why did hee not put it [Page 31] out of other Collects, as well as out of this as, upon All Saints Day, Almighty God, which hast knit together thy Elect in one Communion, &c. And at the Buriall of the Dead, Almighty God, in whom the soules of them that are elected, &c. accomplish the number of thine Elect. Besides, be you pleased to know, your Brethren here in England helpe this Prayer with a certaine distin­ction of Ips. Newes. Elect to a Crowne temporall, and Elect to a Crowne eternall: doubting that somebody at some time may be included in it, whom they cannot hear­tily allow to be one of Gods Elect. Now were his Grace content to pray with that singlenesse and sim­plicity of heart as these your godly Brethren use to do, in case this Clause were peccant, and would not downe with him (what an easie scape was there for him?) it had been but to reserve to himselfe, that spe­ciall meaning of Elect to a Crowne temporall, and all had been safe. But in charity, I beseech you, believe the matter to be indeed what it was; when this Change was made, the King had no issue. But, shy you, A childlesse man may say in his prayers, that God is the Father of the Elect, and of their seed? Yet, by your favour, not so properly then; for to addresse a prayer to God under such a compellation, Father of thine Elect and of their seed, should doubtlesse in Con­gruity relate to the prosperity of the Kings and Queens Children, which then were none. For you scoffe upon the Liturgie of this Church, a sacred peece, and a No­li me tangere in England. Though you presume you have gotten the time now, wherein you may say any thing of Gods publike Worship established a­mong us; yet we trust you will finde your selves ex­tremely disappointed.

24. This is all you can get from his Grace's Pen, to helpe on the clamour here; except that you tell us, you have a suspition, my Lord of Canterbury directed, in penning a passage of the large Declaration, concerning your censure at Glas­gow upon the opinions of Arminius: Which were there condemned to be Popish opinions. For, D^r. Balcanquall, you say, could not relate it; because he was a member of the Dort Synod. Who penned, or who directed in penning that Declaration, is to me unknowne; but sure your reason is a meere cobweb. For why may not a Member of the Dort Synod re­late a matter of Fact, as it passed in the Assembly at Glasgow? Because your affections do biasse you, in all your relations, to your owne party, think you it is so with every man else?

25. The hard shift you make to finde out such Objections as these, are his Graces most evident Purgation, and so he is cleare in this matter. One thing let me tell you by the Way, you cite King Iames: And great reason we should rise up to such a sacred Authority. And willingly would I hereby ingage you, that K. Iames may be cited to you, upon just occasion? It is a Rule in Law: Reg. Iur. in Sexto. Quod semel placuit, amplius displicere non debet: An authority admitted for good here, should not be refused else­where. Shall we decide concerning the maine points which have been, as you pretend, the prime and proper Incentives of this present miserable com­bustion. That is, the Canons, Liturgie, Supremacie of Kings, Episcopall Government, by King Iames his sentence? Who, in many yeares, with much [Page 33] Care and Cost laboured to build up, what at one Commotion you have tumbled downe? was it not I, that in the yeare of God 84. erected Bishops, and depressed all their popular Parity, &c. I, that for the space of sixe yeares before my comming into England, laboured no­thing so much, as to depresse their Parity, and re-erect Bishops againe, &c. That Bishops ought to be in the Church, I ever maintained as an A­postolike Institution, and so the Or­dinance of God. Monit. to all Christ. Monarchs. King Iames? But this is always the fashion of men that are wholly addicted to serve their owne Opinions. Let K. Iames declare himselfe in some speculative points of so abstruse a nature, that the most acute Iudgements, after long search are faine to sit downe, with that of the Apostle, [...]! Let him in such points as these declare himselfe in any manner as you desire; and then who but King Iames, a venerable Prince? but if he speake in things practicall and palpable upon long experience and set­lednesse of judgement any thing that crosseth your Humour; then you turne your deafe eare to King Iames; Charme he never so wisely, you will not heare him.

26. Now we go on to Popery, where the first point objected to my Lord of Canterbury, is: That he holds not the Pope to be The Antichrist. How know you that? Where hath he told you so? P. 35 You say, he confesseth that place of the publike Liturgie wherein it was imported, was changed by his own hand. How was it changed? From these words; Root out that Babylonish and Antichristian Sect, into this forme of words, Root out that Romish and Babylonish Sect of them, &c. So the Word Antichristian is delete. A strange Cause have you taken in hand, that must be thus unhappily defended. First, you are wrong up­on the Liturgie againe: This Prayer, is in the Service [Page 34] appointed for the fifth of November, which you fraudulently, and to raise hatred, call the publike Liturgie: The publike Liturgie was extant and esta­blished by Act of Parliament, before that Service was begotten, or the miserable occasion of it fell out. Secondly, Ep. 2.18. S. Iohn tels us, there be many An­tichrists: so that though a man doubt, whether the Pope of Rome be that great Antichrist; yet he may esteeme well enough the Doctrines and practices of the Romish Church to be Antichristian, and call them so: what needed this blotting of the Service then? His Grace might have held his Opinion, and let the word Antichristian stand. And thirdly; so he doth: there it is, as it was; Root out that Babylo­nish and Antichristian Sect of them. For the change (with which you would colour this passage) objected by Burton, ventilated in the Starre-Chamber, defen­ded afterwards by Heylin and Dow (all which you seeme to have read with double diligence, and there­fore I mention them) was no more but this, from, that Sect, into, that Sect (of them:) I say the word Antichristian, remaines (I have seene the very Origi­nall:) So that your Crimination here is a notorious, and which is worse, a wilfull Falshood: And what­ever your pretentions of holinesse be, and great shew of zeale; we shall desire the ingenuous Rea­der, for his finall satisfaction, and to decide upon the whole matter betwixt us, but to remember this one Principle, that the divell is the father of lies.

27. But the Popes Antichristianisme, being thus (as you falsly pretend) removed by my Lord of [Page 35] Canterbury, you say, P 36. the Pope, and his Cardinals, and their whole religion, begin to looke with a new face. Particularly it lies upon his Grace, that debating with the Iesuite Fisher, about the Popes Supremacy over the Church universall, he yeelds to S Peter a Primacie of Order: to the Pope, 1 a Primacie of Order; 2 A more powerfull Principality than other Churches; 3 An Apostolike Chaire; 4 A jurisdiction within his owne Patriarchate. Touching a Primacie of Order granted to S. Peter, who ever denied it? Doe I deny it, sayes Ch. 5. div. 3. D. Reynolds in his Conference with Hart? Then let me be smitten, not with the blunt weapon of the words of men, &c. Touching those priviledges granted the Pope; neither my Lord of Canterbury, nor any reformed Writer of note in this Church, doth deny them to him. And par­ticularly here had hee denied the first, it would have beene extorted from him by the third Ca­non of the second Oecumenicall Councell: the second, by the flat testimony of Irenaeus, which the Iesuite alledged: the third by S. Augustine: The fourth, by the sixth Canon of the Nicene Councell, and Rufsinus his Testimony: and againe, every one of these, by other Testimonies sans Number. But now, I pray, observe; First, all these Priviledges are granted to the Bishop of Rome; stante Imperio, and intra Romaniam: the Empire yet standing, and within Romane soyle: so that the States and Poli­cies of the world being now changed, happily he may be brought to a new reckoning, as his § 25. Num. 13. What if the States and Poli­cies of the world be much chan­ged? &c. Grace notes. Secondly, the most demonstrative way to cut off his claime of Supremacy by divine Right, which is [Page 36] the point in question, is to shew all his Greatnesse to be founded upon positive Law, and in relation to the temporall State. So the Fathers in the Coun­cell of Calcedon, [...] be­cause that is the Regall City: And so Can. 28. Ep. ad solit. vitam. agent. Athanasius, [...] Rome is the Metropoli­tane City of all the Romane Soile. And the most demonstrative way to cut off his claime of Universall Supremacy, is to Prima pars huius Canonis satis perspi­cuè docet Alexandrinum Episcopum ha­buisse Potestatem in vicinis aliquot Regi­onibus, sic etram Romanum Episcopum sua sub potestate vicinas Italiae Regiones obtinuisse. Antiochenum Episcopum su­as etiam vicinas Ecclesias gubernasse: ne­que horum quenquam in alterum superi­oritatem sibi sumpsisse: ergo tunc tem­poris Romanus Pontifex nondum pro universali totius Ecclesiae Episcopo agnos­cebatur. Osiand. Ep. ad Con. Nic. Can. 6. Et Baron. scot. Apol. Tract. 5. c. 9. limit him within the circuit of his owne Iurisdiction. Thirdly, (as is said before) it is neither strange nor new in the Church of Eng­land, to yeeld the Bishop of Rome all these Priviledges. I shall put this Authour in minde of King Iames onely, King Charles his blessed father: Praemon. to all Chr. K. Of Bishops and Church Hierarchy, I very well allow (as I said before) and likewise of Ranks and Degrees amongst Bishops. Patriarchs (I know) were in the time of the Primitive Church, and I likewise re­verence that Institution for orders sake, and amongst them was a contention for the first place. And for my selfe (if that were yet the question) I would with all my heart give my consent that the Bishop of Rome should have the first seat, I being a Westerne King would goe with the Patriarch of the West. And for his Temporall Principality over the Signiory of Rome, I do not quarrell it neither; let him in God his name be Primus Episco­pus inter omnes Episcopos, and Princeps Episcopo­rum, so as it be no otherwise then as Peter was Princeps [Page 37] Apostolorum. How say you, Sir, whether is more bountifull to the Pope? King Iames, or the Archbi­shop of Canterbury? he that can be content to admit him Patriarch of the West; or hee that circumscribes him within his Italique Diocesse? Had you beene to answer the Iesuite here, you would have granted him none of all this. You would have told him plainly, the Pope was never of any credit in the Ca­tholike Church, neither Bishop, nor Primate, nor Pa­triarch, but a Monster, and alwayes Antichrist: or rather you would have told him, there was never a­ny Catholike Church at all. But it hath not beene our way in England to confute Iesuites so: Wee are per­swaded that by the strength of Truth, wee may sub­due Falseshood. Magna est veritas, & praevalebit, but to drive out one untruth with another is an unwor­thy, and indeed, an unsuccessefull way. Though our Adversaries bee never so madde (saith [...]. Ad Gal. c. 1. St. Chryso­stome) yet it behoves not us out of the like love of contention to goe awry from the Truth.

28. But among all the Paradoxes charged here by you upon the Divines of our Church, this I stood amazed at. You say, They teach, That the Re­stitution of the Popes ancient Authority in England, and yeelding unto him all the Power that this day he hath in Spaine or France, would be many wayes advantagi­ous, and in nothing prejudiciall to the King. Good God! upon which of the Canterburians will this Pa­radox fall? Even upon his Grace himselfe, you say; whose words stand upon the blacke list of your Mar­gin, thus. Cant. Relat. pag. 202. He that is not blinde, may see if hee will, of what little value the Popes power [Page 38] in France and Spaine is, this day, further then to serve the turnes of their Kings therewith, which they doe to their great advantage. Now that impudence it selfe should not blush, out of these words to extort such a prodigious conclusion. Relat. of Relig. Sir Edwin Sands, a man never suspected sure in the least manner, to warpe towards Popery, discourseth very largely, with what permutation of courtesies the Pope gratifies Popish Princes; and they, him: how hee serves them with his Dispensations and Excommunications, that hee may bee served by them with their Executions: In all which, belike, hee doth but commend the like Pra­ctices to his owne King, and insinuate that the resti­tution of the Popes power in England, would bee many wayes advantagious, and in nothing prejudiciall unto him. Hee that saies, men of haughty spirits, use proud and atheisticall Discourses, Psal. 33. Their tongue goeth through the world, therefore fall the people unto them, and thereout suck they no small advantage, doth by your reasoning, herein exhort men to Pride and A­theisme. If these your candid Constructions may goe for solid Arguments, to prove Popery upon my Lord of Canterbury, nay if they induce not all reaso­nable men, to believe him, as hee is, most cleare and innocent, and that more effectually, then any thing we can reply to you: [...]. Farewell to all modesty, truth, and piety. But let mee tell you touching these great Kings, French and Spanish; the experience of your Behaviour here, towards our and your Gracious So­veraigne, will rivet them faster into the Popes Chaire, then all the Courtesies they can receive from the [Page 39] Pope himselfe, when they shall see that to reforme Re­ligion, will not be to vindicate their own just power in the government of the Church, nor to reduce their Kingdomes to the peaceable profession of Christian Truth; but to expose themselves to new hazards, and indeed to breake one yoake to put on another, when they shall see that under pretence of Reformation, some men will still bee heaving at the publike Government, and induce others to expostu­late espeé au poing; upon every occasion, when they shall see the King of Great Britaine, that sustaines so much unjust envie and inconvenience with the neighbouring world, for defence of the Gospell, after the settlement of so many yeares, at as hard a passe to satisfie his Subjects in matters of Religion, as ever Themselves were: When they shall observe all this to arise not from any accidentall matter of Fact; but from questions of right; from Principles and Doctrines infused into the people, by them that will be held the onely Architects of a Reformation: though (God knowes) they are farre from it: I say, when they shall observe and consider all this; it may probably be thought, they will keep too close, where now they are. And this is an immense scandall, and incurable would given by you to the Truth of God, which you may doe well to consider of in your cooler thoughts.

29. Next it offends you, P. 39. my L. of Canterbury should exempt himselfe from the jurisdiction of the Pope, which he doth even by their owne Lawes and Ca­nons. But I pray let not this be a point of Poperie: To any reasonable man this one period is a sufficient [Page 40] confutation of your whole discourse: unlesse you can by some strange art conclude this contradiction, That to shut out the Pope, is to let him in. P. 41.

30. But it offends you most of all: that he says, We and the Papists are of one religion: yet he gives you his reason withall: Starre-Cham. Speech. p. 36. There have been in the world of old, three Religions, Paganisme, Iudaisme, Christianisme: Two of these are false, saith Cont. Sabel. Gregales. Athanasius; and if they op­pose each other, it is but as the Babylonians fought with the Egyptians: the third is the true. To these three, saith his Grace, later times have added a fourth, which is Turcisme. Now if these be all (and Brere­wood, who inquired thereabout with more diligence, than, I beleeve, ever you did, can Inquir. c. 11. tell us of no more) And we cannot reasonably accompt the Papists to be Iewes, Pagans, or Turks, we must grant them Christi­ans; and so we and they fall under the same gender of Religion. That in this Religion we differ, and that the Difference is certaine grosse corruptions superin­duced by them to the very endangering of salvation; this the Archbishop defends, and you take notice of it: but this satisfies you not, it must be toto genere, a diverse Religion. Now to bid us quit such an au­thentique division, and not supply us with a new one; to put the Archbishops Reason in your mar­gin, and not gainesay it with a better in your Text, is but the same prudence which you have used all your booke along. There is a great Schisme in the Ma­humetan Religion, and it begun Paul. Iovi. L. 13. much at the same time that Luther stirred in Germany, yet we count them all Mahumetans still: and why may not dissen­ting Christians be all Christians? That some errours [Page 41] and corruptions brought into a Religion, should di­versifie it so, as to make it no more the same, is alike absurd and unreasonable, as if one should say, an un­sound man is no more a man. We hold the substance of Religion in Common: the Papists with us, Eph. 4. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptisme; which are S. Paul's Fundamentals. Our Faith, or Belief, is the same, as it is contained in, and explicated by the same Creeds: Our Baptisme the same, which is the proper Badge, and Character Vide S. Aug. cont. Crescon. l. 2. c. 4. of one Religion: when any of them returne from their Er­rours to us, we Pource qui'l reste encores quclque petite trace d'Eglise en la Papauté & mesme que la substance du Bap­tesme y est demcurce joinct que Def­ficace du Baptesme ne despend de ce­lui qui Padmintstre, nous Confessons que cieux qui y sont baptizez n'ont besoin d'un second Baptesme. Con­fess. Gallican iterate not this. We thinke our selves bound to eschew that arrogance and singularity, which Iam illud quale est quod ho­minibus Christianis etiam Cle­ricis dicitis, e [...]te Christiani▪ Op­tat. l. 3. Non est alius tam im­pius superbiae tumor apud om­nes qui se à Christi unitate dis­cindunt, quàm se solos esse Christianos jactare, & damnare caeteros. August. cont. Cres­con. lib. 4. Et in Epist. 169. ad Euseb. Optatus and S. Augustine repre­hended so sharply in the Donatists. Now if this be not to your mind, I pray tell us what specificates a Reli­gion; what latitude you will allow: Shall every difference in Religion be sufficient to produce a new one? Then Geneva and you are not of one Reli­gion: For your new erection of Ru­ling Elders to sway in all Presbyte­ries and Assemblies, and to voice in Matters of Faith, Geneva knowes not: Nay the Protestants of France, as D'Aubiga l. 2. c. 5. an Historian of their owne Party tells us, offered to conforme themselves to all the Ceremonies and Constitutions that had beene established within the fifth Age of the Church; whereas you forsake them all. But if one difference serve not to diversifie [Page 42] a Religion, may a few do it? Then are not you (a thing which we shall by no meanes acknowledge) of one and the same Religion with us. P. 98. For, besides o­ther differences betweene us, you say, your Coun­trey-men would never be induced to follow so much of the Masse as we retained here. If a few will not doe it, then how many, I pray? —depinge, ubi sistam: how many Errours for Number, and how great for Quality, are of a just weight, to make Christned men, no Christians? When you goe about this Worke, you will finde your selfe brought, in lo­cum lubricum & periculosum, as Cicero cals it: so that you were better take the Stoicks counsell, [...], that is, to be quiet; and to stop this differencing of Religions, which is cutting a thread betwixt Hea­ven and hell, at those knowne bounds and limits, which common observation hath made: els, you will but venture into a soriticall Maze, out of which you will never be able to finde your way.

31. In like manner, it offends you, P. 44. that my Lord of Canterbury, in all that large Booke set out by him the last yeare, doth no where charge the Papists, with Schisme, Heresie, or Idolatry; nor any of his Fa­vourites, you say, have done it, in earnest, as farre as you can remember, in all your poore Lecture. Now truly I see little Cause, why you should much confide in your owne poore Lecture: For doubtlesse, most of these Collections were brought to your hand; and it is plaine, because in the puzle of di­gesting them, your fashion is to put downe a Quo­tation, and then another and another; and often by mishap you light upon the same againe, and [Page 43] downe you clap it againe, without any Care at all. Let the Reader but observe the manner, and he will be of my mind.

32. But first, touching Schisme: doth my Lord of Canterbury no where charge the Papists with Schisme? That he doth sure very plainely: especially in the 23. Sect. of his Book: where he shewes; in regard they thrust us from them by Excommunications and Censures, and were obstinate to continue in their owne Corruptions; the Schisme was theirs. The Cause of the Schisme is yours, saith he, for you thrust us from you, because wee called for Truth, and re­dresse of Abuses: A Schisme must needs be theirs, whose the cause is. Againe, he makes the Separation, that gives the first just cause of it; not He that makes an actuall separation upon a just cause preceding. Fur­ther, as he casts upon them the P. 145. beginning of the Schisme, so doth he the continuance of it. And if this be not to charge them with Schisme, I know not what is: and insisting so largely, as he doth, upon this Argument, how could you misse it? You that a little before could see in his Booke, what was not there; the Popes Authority absolutely vindicated, and commended to bee set up in England; Now cannot see what is there, The Papists charged with Schisme: but no great marvell, this: Tertul. A­pol. cap. 9. Coecitatis enim duae species facilè concurrunt, ut qui non vident quae sunt, videre videantur quae non sunt. Or in S. Basil's language: [...]: An eye indispo­sed and out of temper sees not many things that are, and seemes to see many things which are not.

33. Next how should we be sure, neither the Arch­bishop nor any of his Favourites charge the Papists with those other two Crimes of Heresie and Idolatry? You that read them only to explore what is amisse, wil not report what you find, for you say, they absolve them clearely in formall Termes of all those three crimes, Schisme, Heresie, and Idolatry: Of Schisme: because they goe on in the practice of their Forbeares without in­troducing any late Novations. Of Heresie, because their errors taketh no part of the Foundation away, but are only Excesses and Additions, consisting with all fundamentall Truth. Of Idolatrie: because they teach not the giving of Latria to any Image or any Creature. Where that they clearly and in formall termes absolve them of all these three, or any of the three, I am very confident will be found an untruth; for it is one thing to absolve them by Deductions and Consequences, of your making, and another to absolve them clearly and in formall Termes,

Concerning the first, which is Schisme, as your report is false, so the reason given is weake and filly, for it is no Contradiction, but they may goe on in the practises of their forefathers, and yet be guiltie of Schisme; by exterminating all those, that will not submit themselves to the same vicious practices, to­gether with them; as it was shewed even now. The blame ever goes along with the Cause.

34. For the second, which is Haeresie: Even those Errours of Rome which they hold not to be contra fundamentum, fundamentall errours: yet they hold them to be damnable; and if obstinately persisted in, hereticall. Which is cleare by his Graces discourse, Confer. p. 315. And elswhere; as what say you to this [Page 45] passage, p. 298. Therefore in this present case, there is pe­rill, great perill of damnable, both schisme and Hae­resie, and other sinne by living and dying in the Roman faith, tainted with so many superstitions, as at this day it is. Call you this cleare absolving?

35. Thirdly Concerning Idolatrie; though the Pa­pists be very nice in their doctrine here, yet it is well enough knowne, their Practice is grosse: and how little my Lord of Canterbury favours them either in their doctrine or practice, I leave the Reader to be his owne Iudge, if he please to peruse the 33. Sec. Nu. 13. of his Conference, where upon occasion of a proposition taken out of Lammas, he putteth his adversary to this question. And now I pray A. C. doe you be judge, whether this proposition doe not teach idolatrie: and whether the moderne church of Rome, be not growne too like to paganisme in this point: For my owne part, I heartily wish it were not. And much more hath he there to this purpose; enough sure to shew what credit may be given to this shamelesse Calumniatour, who would make the World be­lieve, that the Papists stand absolved of these three Crimes, Schisme, Heresie, and Idolatrie, clearly and in formall termes.

36. His like frequent overstrainings in this kind, are an evident demonstration, that he set himselfe about this Worke, not out of any Love of Truth, but out of a wicked purpose to doe Mischiefe, They teach, sayes he, P. 43. that not only the People, but their most learned Clergie, Popes, Cardinals, Iesuites, living and dying in their bitter oppositions and persecutions of Pro­testants, are in no hazard of Damnation, though they [Page 46] never come to any particular Acknowledgement of their sinfull opinions, and practices, following thereupon; as who should say (for so the Words import) though knowing them to be sinfull Opinions and practises, yet never acknowledging them such, never repenting, nor asking God forgivenesse for them, they are still in the way to heaven. Belike these Canterburians would be content to save the Pope and his Cardi­nals: though sinning against the Holy Ghost: for truth is, this were no lesse. To make good this Ac­cusation, stand in his Margin this and such like say­ings. The Corruptions of Rome materially and in the very kind and Nature, are leven, drosse, hay and stubble, yet the Bishop thought that such as were misled by Edu­cation or long custom, or over-valuing the Soveraigntie of the Romane Church, and did in Simplicity of heart embrace them, might by their generall Repentance and faith in the merits of Christ, attended with Charity and other vertues, finde Mercy at God's hands. Reader, how say you, doth this come home to the Popes lear­ned Clergie living and dying in bitter, and unrepented Oppositions, and persecutions of Protestants? It was counted a Christian Speech, that of Euseb. Hist. L. 6. c. 45. Dionysius Alexandrinus to Novatus: Thou oughtest to have endu­red any thing, rather then to rent the Church of God: To suffer for avoiding of Schisme is a Martyrdome never a whit lesse, nay indeed more Glorious, then for not sacri­ficing to Idols. And S. Chrysostome cites this from the mouth of an holy man, as he sayes; That even Mar­tyrdome will not satisfie for Schisme. Now then what Spirit, may we thinke, guides these men, that are so dearely affected to Division and Combustion, [Page 47] that rather, then faile to kindle a fire among us, doe harden their faces to slander, and in this bold Manner?

37. Our Divines say; there is a Difference in Case of Schisme or Heresie, betwixt the Simple, and the Learned; the Misled, and the misleaders: They say; A man may be a good Protestant, and yet not damne all his forefathers: They say, we refuse Communion with Rome in her Publike Service, being grosse and su­perstitious; but in Charitie we hold Vnion with them and all the Church of Christ. These and the like say­ings are scored downe here in his Margin as foule and impious: So that belike, the Contradictory of them would have better become the Pens of Prote­stants. They must say, there is no difference betwixt Priest and people, simple and learned, Leaders and fol­lowers, all are in a like Condition, all must to hell alike. They must say, no man can be a good Protestant that lives in charitie with a Papist; Nor can he be a good Protestant, unlesse he damne all his Forefathers. What Cause there may be to repent of that pious and pru­dent Way, which hath hitherto beene insisted up­on by this our Church in defence of the Truth; and is most agreeable to Christian moderation and the practice of the most holy times, I know not. But if this keene zeale were the only Weapon left, to destroy Poperie: And the Bishops with their Ad­herents should wipe their Pens, and give place to these fierie Champions; What Fields of honour would be wonne by their devouring sword of dam­nation: what accession made to the Protestant part; wise men know well enough, and time would teach [Page 48] the rest, which is the best master to shew an errour, but the worst to mend it.

38. Hitherto you have stood upon Generalls, you tell us; now you will come up close to the Canterbu­rians in particular points of Poperie: and for that purpose you propound us foure heads. P 48. Their Ido­latries, their Heresies, their Superstitions, their abomi­nation of Desolation the Masse: In all which, say you, nay the grossest of which; it shall appeare, that the Canterburians joyne with Rome. But having undertaken to present the Reader with such passages as are objected to my Lord of Canterbury from his owne pen, which was to be expected would raise a great Cloud over him: To see the ill luck of it; my worke is done even where it should begin. For, ex­cept about the Matter of Altars, in this next point of Idolatry, I meet not with his Name cited above once or twice in all the residue of your Booke: so that you are faine to give him over at the first loose: on­ly the word Canterburian runs through all, but to keep the worke alive, and your Reader in minde, at what marke specially, be it right or wrong, he is to shoot. This must be swallowed, or els you have done just nothing, that all these men, whom you bring to the Barre for Canterburians, wrote by his speciall encouragement, and direction; where­as some of them were his Elders and Antecessors in the Church, as D. Andrewes and D. White, [...] some of them were and are meere strangers, and unknowne to him, so much as de fa­cie, which is most true, and will be avowed. Yea and when this is swallowed, yet you have done [Page 49] just nothing, for let the indifferent Reader, but use the helpe of your Margin to confute your Text, not distracting his owne eyes with passion or prejudice, and this quarrell is well nigh ended. Though were it otherwise, yet to affirme that the Archbishop of Canterbury, long before he was Archbishop, for these many yeares, hath held the Pens of all that have written in England amisse, and of none of them that have written right, is such a wild Presumption, as no man of any honesty can say, and no man of Common Sense will believe.

39. Concerning the holy Table or Altar, your Ac­cusation is, Canterbury saith, that Worship, yea and di­vine Worship or Adoration is to be given to the Altar. Let us see now, whether your Allegations in the Margin will come home to this; there we finde: Great reverence is due to the Body, and so to the Throne where this Body is usually present; Marke you, Reve­rence, not Worship. But you say he gives, Venite Adoremus to the Altar, and no man can suppose that to be lesse than Divine Adoration. Let us to your Margin againe: there we read thus: Therefore according to the Service-Book of the Church of England, (in this Compellation, Venite adoremus) the Priest and the People both are called upon for externall and bodily Worship of God in his Church. Marke you againe, Worship of God, not of the Altar. Let the Reader peruse the whole Passage, as it is set downe within the Bounds of a few short Pages in his Starre-Cham­ber Speech, and see if his constant expression be not, Reverence to the Throne, Worship to God. St. Sp. p. 43. God for­bid (sayes his Grace there) we should worship any thing, but God himselfe. It is a rare confidence you [Page 50] have in your Reader, that you dare set before his eyes your owne assertion and confutation of it both at once.

40. Now that he saith, Great reverence is due to the Body, and so to the Throne where this Body is usually present: Why should it repent him of so saying? Ad 2. Epist. Cor. Hom. 20 S. Chrysostome saith the same, and that even Terminis terminantibus: [...]: Thou reverencest this Altar, because there­on is placed the Body of Christ. And, [...]. Why we should challenge S. Chrysostome of Idolatry; or why that should be Idolatry in our Archbishop, which was none in S. Chrysostome, cannot I imagine. But this you call, Sheltring ones selfe under the name of a Fa­ther; an P. 49. usuall thing, you say, with us here in Eng­land, and we are faine to doe it, to keepe off our heads the indignation of the people. A speech so unwor­thy, that I thinke no Scholler, nor good Christian but will disdaine to read. Sir, excuse our Di­vines in this, I pray: They have to doe with Adversaries in the Church of Rome, that are men of learning, and would make the world believe, they have carried all the suffrage of Antiquity from them, they cite the Fathers to discover their falshood. And they have to doe with novelling Schismaticks; who, because men, though of the best merit, are commonly undervalued in their owne times, must be encountred with names, and Authorities above exception. But chiefly they doe it, because Errour being surreptitious and younger then Truth, we are bid by insisting upon the old [Page 51] Paths, to finde out the good Way, Ier. 6.16. and to walke in that. And for this, did the Fa­thers [...]. Basil. de Spir. Sanct. [...]. Chrys ad Mat. Hom. 3. [...]. So­crat. Lib. 3. cite their Fore-fathers; ever by the Tracke of intermediate Times, ascending to the Spring head of Truth. But you passe by all ancient Authours, and to make good your worke, betake your selves to other wayes, very farre different from scholasticke arguments, thinking it sufficient, you incurre not the indignation of the People, however abused and misled by you.

41. But touching the point in hand; we are very much unsatisfied, since all Primitive Christiani­ty, Easterne and Westerne, is so full for reveren­cing holy places and holy things, whence it should come, that to give them any regard now, should be one of Rome's grossest Idolatries. The Altar had so much honour, as by it selfe to denominate our whole Function, and Ministerie sometimes: as Al­tari Cypr. Ep. 4.9. & passim. deservire; ab Altari avocare; ad Altaris Mi­nisterium, vel locum Sacerdotalem, indignum obrepe­re; to make a Schisme in the Church, was erigere Altare con­tra Altare. Catholike Christi­ans did honour it: Quid enim est tam sacrilegum, quàm Altaria Dei (in quibus & ali­quando vos obtulistis) frangere, ra­dere, removere? in quibus vota populi & membra Christi portata sunt. Optat. lib. 6. [...], &c. Conc. sub A­gap. & Men. Act. quint. Hereticks and Schismaticks either break it, or as if it contracted some pollution, from former use, scrape it: Infi­dels and Apostates, in contempt [Page 52] of Christian Religion, prophane it, Theodoret. l. 4 c. 22. & Nazianz. [...]. dancing, or dicing, or otherwise abusing it: One Impudenter contra sa­crum Altare minxit. Hist. trip. l. 6. c. 32. of Iulians Renegadoes did that to it by way of disgrace, that I cannot civilly tell you; as if to dishonour a Christi­an Altar, were to dishonour Christ. And since all this is so, be you as petulant and as bold as you please, I should rather desire to be with them, that in contemplation of those holy mysteries there dis­pensed to us approach thither, [...], as [...]. Gregory Nyssen speaks, with reverence and godly feare. In the meane time your falshood is intolerable, that tell your Reader, my Lord of Canterbury gives to the Altar, no lesse then divine Adoration.

42. This being past, you have little else to object to him, insomuch that after the intervall of many pages, you are faine to P. 85, 86. rub up the same againe. In your next point, touching the Adoration of the Com­munion Elements, you are quite to seeke of any Alle­gation at all: not one Canterburian can be brought to depone for it, except that you are angry at bowing, and call it our new adoration, that is our new Idolatry; our old Idolatry, kneeling at the Communion, you are content to passe over you say: but the new will not downe with you. How new or old it is in the Church of God; Much hath beene said of late time: But whether you be a competent Iudge of I­dolatry the while, or whether our writings in Eng­land ought to be levelled by the Rubrick of your Presbyterian Discipline, let any sonne of this Church consider.

43. Touching Images, Reliques, and Invocation of Saints; I finde of my Lord of Canterbury, Nè [Page 53] gry quidem. Was it, because that in all his Wri­tings he toucheth no where upon those Points? No. But where you cannot speake ill of him, you will be sure not to speak well. How he writes of Images, I shewed before; Pray you read what he saith concer­ning Invocation of Saints: Sect. 33. Num. 13. Though some of the ancient Fathers have some Rhetoricall Flou­rishes about it, for the stirring up of devotion (as they thought) yet the Church admitted not then of the invo­cation of them, but onely of the Commemoration of the Martyrs, as appeares clearely in S. Augustine. And when the Church prayed to God for any thing, she desi­red to be heard for the mercies and merits of Christ, not for the merits of any Saints whatsoever, &c. If God must heare our prayers for the merits of the Saints, how much fall they short of sharers in the Mediation of Redemption? You may think of this. For such Pray­ers as these, the Church of Rome makes at this day, and they stand (not without great scandall to Christ and Christianity) used and authorized to be used in the Missall. For instance, upon the Feast of S. Nicho­las you pray: That God, by the Merits and Prayers of S. Nicholas, would deliver you from the fire of Hell. And upon the Octaves of S. Peter and S. Paul, you desire God that you may obtain the glory of eterni­ty by their Merits. And on the Feast of S. Bonaventure you pray, that God would absolve you from all your sinnes by the interceding Merits of Bonaventure. How say you? if the Canterburians hold to this, I hope they are not gone from the Protestant Way: if o­therwise, why then are they Canterburians?

44. In your next long Chapter there is but one drib­bler against my Lord of Canterbury, and that is in the matter of P. 71. Baptisme; where pressing against the Iesuite that Baptisme of Infants may be proved out of Scripture: (Mark you, out of Scripture; so he does not leave it to stand upon one leg of Tradition:) Thus he speaks, Relat. p. 56. That Baptisme is necessary to the Salvation of Infants in the ordinarie way of the Church (without binding God to the use and meanes of that Sacrament, to which he hath bound us) it is expresse in S. Iohn Chap. 3. Except a man be borne againe of Water, he cannot enter. No Baptisme, no entrance: nor can Infants creepe in any other ordinary way. And this is the received opinion of all the ancient Church. Infants are to be baptized, that their salvation may be certaine. For they which cannot helpe themselves, must not bee left onely to extraordinarie helpes, of which wee have no assurance, and for which we have no warrant at all in Scripture. Hence your inference is: They avow (say you) that all those who die in their infancie without Baptisme, by whatsoever misse, by whosoever's fault, are certainly damned, as farre as men can judge. A very liberall Conclusion, considering the narrow Premisses you had to deale upon: but you follow it; For Baptisme is the ordinarie meane which God hath ap­pointed for their salvation; which failing, salvation must be lost; except we would dreame of extraordinarie Miracles, of the which we have no warrant. Now if a man analyze this huddle of words, and take the height of their sense, it is, as if you had said: They avow, that infants dying without Baptisme, must cer­tainly be damned, except they be saved. The Arch-Bishops [Page 55] speech falls into these Parts. 1 Baptisme is the ordinary way of salvation appointed by Christ himselfe, Iohn 3. 2 To save without Baptisme, is a way extraordinary. 3 To trust to extraordinary wayes, we have no warrant in Scripture. 4 Children are not to be exposed to the perill of those wayes, whereof we have no warrant. You will wring out of this; Children dying without Baptisme, by whatsoever misse, by whosoevers fault, are certainly damned: But before you can get off, a Whimsey takes you in the head, that you are faine to add; Except we will dream of extraordinary miracles, of which we have no war­rant. That is in sence; Except God, who is not tied to meanes, please to save them by a way extraordinarie. So that à primo ad ultimum, your discovery is; Chil­dren dying without Baptisme, according to the Can­terburians, are certainly damned, except they be not dam­ned. Marry that to expresse, an honest and or­thodoxe sense, you will use such an invidious phrase, as dreaming of extraordinary miracles, it is but your wonted Candor. Call you it a miracle, for God to save by a way extraordinarie? that is, besides the meanes and rules prescribed to us? Or a beliefe of such a saving, a dreame of miracles? The proper Matter and Subject of miracles is Nature, and things naturall: Aquin. 1. q. 110. 4. c. Miraculum dicitur, quod fit praeter ordi­nem totius naturae creatae. But Salvation is a worke wholly supernaturall; and if you will translate mira­cles thither, to workes supernaturall, then to save even by Baptisme, is a miracle; Ferrar. ad Aq. Cont. gen. l. 3. c. 101. Et universaliter omne opus, quod à solo Deo fieri potest. And now see the addle language wee are fallen into; for thus it [Page 56] will come to passe, that if to save by Baptisme, be a miracle, and to save without Baptisme, an extraordina­r [...]e miracle, then some miracle is an ordinarie mira­cle; which is absurd, and a contradiction in terminis; every miracle being praeter ordinem.

45. The Canterburians (for so you will call them) do not love to be too busie with damnation: you are those men of wrath; in whose Power if it were to send poore soules to hell, 'tis to be doubted the whole world had beene consumed by you ere this; as [...], &c. Ep. Ethic. Iustin Martyr speakes of your like. The matter is; you stand not much upon Baptisme or the neces­sity of it, you use to dispute against it at home: but we here, hold it most necessary: and our Liturgie hath a speciall Rubricke for Private Baptisme in case of extremity, which I still urge, to shew your in­competency to judge of our Writings. And whe­ther our or your doctrine be the sounder in this point, I referre you to be instructed by your owne P. 78, 79. & seq. Duplyes, who have set you to schoole in this Ar­gument, and many other; I would we could see you rid your fingers handsomely of them. Take along wich you likewise K. Iames his opinion, and what evidence, say you, ought to be so demonstrative as that? Who in the Conference of Hampton Court, reports, that to a Scottish Minister, pierking against him with this Question, Thinke you Baptisme so necessary, that if it bee omitted, the child should bee damned? Hee made this Answer: No: but if you, being called to ba­ptize the child, though privately, should refuse to come, I think, you should be damned.

46. Behold another Innovation: They P 73. forbid Matrimony [...]