A LETTER TO THE Superiors, (Whether Bishops or Priests) Which Approve or Licence the Popish Books IN ENGLAND, Particularly To those of the Jesuits Order, CONCERNING LEWIS SABRAN a Jesuit.  

Imprimatur hic Libellus cui Titulus, A Letter to the Superiors, etc.  
Jo. Battely. June 7. 1688.   
LONDON: Printed for William Rogers, at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1688.   

A LETTER to the Romish Superiors In ENGLAND.  
Reverend Sirs,  
YOU will not wonder at my making this Address to yourselves, since you were so lately pleased to allow Mr. Sabran to set me an Example of it; and cannot therefore disallow that in me, which was so commendable in him. When I wrote my last Letter to Mr. Sabran, I was so weary of such an Adversary, that I promised him never to answer him more, if he pursued the methods of his Challenge defended. This I will believe was the reason why it was thought expedient to trouble the Reverend Mr. Needham with the Controversy, who hath a much better Employment upon his hands, than to answer every Caviller that would be drawing him off from his better Services to our Church.  
I have not forgot my Promise of troubling myself no more with Mr. Sabran; and yet cannot be just to my own self, if I do not take some care to purge myself from some Wrongs he has done me in that Letter to Mr. Needham: you were pleased to allow of those Abuses to the Press, and therefore must give me leave not only to make my Complaints to you, but to expect that you will do me all the Right herein that one Christian ought to do to another.  
I need not inform you how I came engaged with Mr. Sabran, that it was concerning a Sermon de Sanctis, which Mr. Sabran had quoted in his Pulpit as St. Austin's, and I denied it to be his. Some of you were pleased not only to allow that Sermon, with that Passage in it, to the Press, but to approve of all the unlearned Arguments and Fetches which he afterwards used in defence of himself. What Services you did your Cause or your Church by that business, yourselves by this time, I presume, are able to tell. I am very well satisfied with all I wrote against him upon that account, and am so fully persuaded that I was perfectly in the right in that Affair, that I am confident there is not one Learned Bishop, Priest, or Deacom in your own Church beyond Seas, that is not of the same mind with me about that Sermon.  
I will not appeal to any of you in England, because you have made yourselves Parties to his Quarrel by Licensing his Papers; and Learning may be a different thing in England, from what it is beyond Seas.  
I will not presume any more to think that any of you did violence to your own Judgements in Licensing of Mr. Sabran's Papers: far be it from me to have so uncharitable a thought of Persons of your Characters and Station. However, to convince you that what he wrote, and you approved, about that 35 Sermon de Sanctis, was contrary to the Judgements of all men of Learning in the World, (your selves only excepted here in England); I do here offer and undertake to refer the Determination of that Controversy betwixt Mr. Sabran and me, to any Learned Persons or Societies beyond the Seas. I will refer it, if you please, to the Benedictines (Congregationis St. Mauri) at Paris, concerning whom, you, Gentlemen of the Jesuits Order, must pardon me that I think them to be as far before your Order in Learning and Knowledge in Antiquity, as their Order was before you in standing.  
But if Exceptions be made against them as Parties on my side, (which I cannot deny them to be) that have already determined against Mr. Sabran, and those that allowed his Papers to the Press; I am as willing to refer it to those learnedest men now in France, Father Mabillon, Monsieur Baluze, and Monsieur Bigot, or any two of them; and do here make you (Reverend Sirs) this Proposal, That what hath been written on both sides, shall be faithfully communicated to them; and that if you can procure a Letter from them that they are satisfied with Mr. Sabran's Arguments, that that 35 Sermon de Sanctis was St. Austin's, I do here engage my Reputation to you and the World, that I will not only beg Mr. Sabran's Pardon, but make my Recantation as public to the World as this Challenge is.  
You cannot but think, Reverend Sirs, that I have very good grounds for all I wrote against Mr. Sabran, that dare put this matter to such an issue before men of your own Persuasion, before men that look upon me as a downright Heretic, and therefore cannot be suspected of showing me the least favour herein.  
I am convinced to a demonstration, that what I wrote in that Controversy was the very Truth, and that what you allowed to the Press, could not be so. I will not be so bold as to call upon you to do St. Austin and me right, in retracting what you have done for Mr. Sabran herein; but I cannot but entreat you that for your own sake, for Truth's sake, and for the World's sake, you would not allow for the future such things to the Press, because against us, which are condemned not only by us, but by all the men of Learning of your Church beyond Sea, who cannot but be ashamed of any Violences done to Truth, Learning, or Ingenuity.  
This Controversy with Mr. Sabran, about St. Austin, is that which gave occasion to our Second Controversy, about Invocation of Saints: and the Management of the first did prepare me to expect all the outrageous and indecent Usage I have had from your Champion in the second; I have been treated by him, with your leave, with such Language as I could not have expected from a Scholar, or a Christian. I have too great a respect for you, as well as for my Reader, to foul this Address to you with any of it: and I cannot think any among you can be willing to be entertained with such stuff, excepting those who allowed the Letter to Mr. Needham to the Press; if such Language pleases them, I must entreat them to take up the Letter itself which they Licenced, and there they will find entertainment enough. As for the rest of you, Reverend Sirs, I must entertain you with Complaints and Requests, instead of bad Language.  
I will not trouble you or myself so far as to run over again what I have written and urged out of Antiquity against your Invocation of Saints. I am sure I have demonstrated it through the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and part of the Fifth Ages of the Church of God, that Invocation of Saints was so far from being the Practice, that it was expressly against the Doctrine of the Martyrs and Fathers of those Ages: Mr. Sabran had the courage to venture upon one Page of that large Historical Account of the Fathers, and to make his Exceptions against it, which I took care to remove very soon after, and which I did very easily do, since besides some harsher Mistakes than he had hitherto made, there was little but mean Cavils.  
As mean however as these Cavils were, he was pleased to cook them up anew, and to make them the Subject of his cavilling Letter to the Learned Mr. Needham; I am not willing to throw away my time in answering again those mean Objections, but am very well assured, that every one that will impartially read and consider my Historical Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints, and my Third Letter to Mr. Sabran, in defence of it, will be as much persuaded as my Friends who have read them are, that I ought not to trouble myself or the World with entering the Lists again upon that Subject with such a Trifler.  
But there are some things there, which I could not pass over without making some defence for myself: they are his charging me with falsifying the Father's Words and Sense: and this I can assure you (R.R. Sirs) is an Accusation I cannot lie quietly under, but must complain to those who gave Mr. Sabran leave to print it.  
Since I became a Writer in Defence of my Dear Mother, the Church of England, I have been chief concerned with those of your Party, who laid their Pretensions to Antiquity, as if she had been on your side against us: in my Answer to the Convert, Mr. Sclater of Putney, and to the Nubes Testium, and in my Primitive Fathers no Papists, I have had occasion to make abundance of Citations out of the Father's Words; I thank God that I can affirm it, that as I saw all I quoted (excepting one little Passage in Veteres Vindicati) with my own eyes in the Fathers themselves, so I am not conscious that I ever misquoted, or altered, or falsified any one Passage of them all, tho' so numerous: and therefore after so much care, and pains and sincerity used herein, to be posted up for a falsifier of Fathers, was very uneasy, and what I cannot bear; especially since I am no such person, as I am confident I can convince every one of you, to whom I make this Address, if you will but give yourselves the small trouble to examine this business betwixt him and me.  
In Mr. Sabran's Challenge defended, he had quoted a Passage out of St. Athanasius, in favour of Invocation of Saints. In my third Letter to him, I shown not only that the Tract out of which he had it, was owned to be spurious by your latest Critic, Monsieur du Pin, but that had it been St. Athanasius', the Passage was urged by St. Athanasius in a direct contrary sense to that wherein Mr. S. had urged it. This I shown not only from the Design of the whole Tract, but from the Passage itself, which was abused by him.  
His Answer to this in his Letter to Mr. Needham is, That I, to keep my hand in (for it seems this is not the first time I have been guilty) must falsify and misapply the passage, and then gives the Words as they stand in the Cullen Translation, which he had by him of the year 1617. If you adore the Man Christ, because the Word of God dwells there, in the same manner adore also the Saints on the account of God, who hath his dwelling in them. Now that above the Holy Ghost, that is, above God a Man be honoured and glorified is the highest Impiety. These says Mr. Sabran, are the holy Doctor's words. And these I am accused of falsifying: whether I am guilty or no, shall quickly appear; and to this purpose I entreat you all, you especially that did Licence this Accusation to the Press, to look into your own Edition of St. Athanasius' Works, printed at Paris in Greek and Latin, by Morel and Cramoisy 1627., in the first Tome at p. 593. you will find the passage quoted by us both: Which I will present in Greek to those that understand it, and in English to those that do not.  
Wherefore if you Adore the Man with God the Word, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. D. Athan. de Incarn. Verbi Dei, p. 593. Tom. 1. Edit. Paris. Gr. L. 1627.  because he dwells there, Adore the Saints also, for God dwells in them too: AND IS NOT THIS ABSURD? And for a Man to be honoured above the Holy Ghost, that is, above God, is the highest Impiety.  
And now Reverend Sir, I appeal to every one of your own Consciences, whether I am guilty of falsifying this passage, in putting in those words, And is not this absurd? is not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text? is not this your own Edition of St. Athanasius out of a Popish Press? and can any of you deny this to be the truest and best Edition of that Father's Works? If none of these things can be denied by any men of Virtue and Honesty, much less by men of your Character and station; what satisfaction do you own to me as well as to Truth and to the World, who did allow Mr. Sabran in print to affix so false a scandal upon me? I pray God to forgive you, and do assure you, that I have already done it.  
In his Quotation of St. Cyril concerning the Virgin Mary, I told him that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (which he made such use of in his Translation, and upon which the stress of the whole passage did depend) belonged to the Virgin's Womb, and not to the Virgin herself. In his Letter to Mr. Needham he calls this a gross Cheat, which any Grammar Scholar can easily find out, and very decently asks him whether he did not blush when he read this, and yet Licenced it.  
It was not Mr. Needam but Mr. S. that should have blushed at this, for Reverend Sirs, let me entreat you to look in St. Cyril himself, and you will not for the future Licence such Language and such Behaviour.  
I will to convince you as well as the World, set down the passage as it is in St. Cyril himself; and as it was Translated by Mr. Sabran; and as it ought to have been Translated from the Original.  

Mr. Sabran's Translation.  
Hail Virgin, BY WHOSE MEDIATION the Holy Trinity is glorified and honoured through the whole World; IN WHOM Heaven exults, Angels and Archangels rejoice, by whom the Devils are put to flight.   

A True Translation.  
Hail you that bore him that is incomprehensible in your Holy Virgin Womb, by which, or, by reason of which the Trinity is glorified; by which Heaven rejoices, by which the Angels and Archangels are joyful, by which the Devils are put to flight.   

The Text of St. Cyril.  
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. S. Cyril. Alexand. Homil. Diver. Tom. 5. Pars 2. p. 355. Edit. Paris 1638.   
You see, Reverend Sirs, the Text and the Translations together, and now I cannot but ask you, whether the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 (which Mr. Sabran had Translated By whose Mediation) does not follow immediately after the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Virgin's Womb, and is connected relatively to it; I will hope that the sight of these things will not only acquit me in your Consciences from the Accusation of a gross Cheat which M. S. had laid to my charge, but that you who Licenced that Letter to Mr. Needham to the Press, will not for the future suffer Mr. Sabran to lay such very false and groundless Accusations either unto mine, or any of our Writers charge. If you do, notwithstanding this discovery of him and his strange practices suffer him to go on in his way, we shall for the future be obliged to lay any such Slanders at your doors, Reverend Sirs, who Licence them.  
Another Accusation as heavy as either of these, he does advance against me, about the Words of the Council of Chalcedon: He tells Mr. Needham, in that his obliging Letter to him, That I, having made way for a Forgery, falsify that Council's words.  
I have got it seems of late a very unlucky hand, or a very unjust Adversary; but you, Reverend Sirs, shall determine whether it is. I hope I need not tell you the History of Stephen and Bassianus, nor remind how it was upon the mention that Flavianus had communicated with Bassianus the rejected Bishop of Ephesus, that the Bishops which belonged to Constantinople risen up and cried out, This is the Truth, we all say the same, the Memory of Flavian is eternal; behold the Truth, Flavian lives after death; the Martyr shall entreat you for us; Flavian is here, Flavian judges with us.;  
My crime here is that I have Translated the words of the Council different from him: but why so many hard words upon it. He Translates the words, Flavianus lives after death, that the Martyr pray for as; but I with my Forgery, The Martyr shall entreat you for us. I will put down the Text itself: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
I do not entreat you, gentlemans, to trouble yourselves to end this doughty terrible Quarrel betwixt Mr. Sabran and me. I hope some of Mr. Pulton's Scholars at the Savoy, are so much Proficients as to tell what Mood and Tense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is of: If they be, I will even leave it to them, and trust the Lads with it, who will certainly be Degraded if they be not on my side.  
I will trouble your Reverences no further with Mr. Sabran's Accusations of me, I hope these I send you may have so much success as to discover the Man to you; which is the utmost of my Intentions in this Letter against him; for I am very certain, that such a knowledge and insight into the Jesuit, and his Behaviour will procure him a Quietus from you, who cannot love to have your Cause defended by such disingenuous and unaccountable ways as this Mr. Sabran is got into. However, the least I can hope for at your hands is, that when this Mr. Sabran sets up for Writer again, you would lay your Commands upon him, to leave out such defamatory Language, and to have a care of Forgeries and Falsifications, and that you would let him know withal, that if he does not leave off such Practices, you cannot in Honour or Conscience give your Licence or Allowance to his Books, since he has been not only accused, but proved before your own faces to have been guilty of such behaviour as is not only dishonourable to your Religion, but Christianity itself.  
But after all, I am not of such a temper as to believe that Mr. Sabran, or any of your other Authors are of such a Nature as to love these unaccountable Practices for their own sakes, or to calumniate others for Calumnies sake; no I profess my belief to be that what any of them have been guilty of herein, is matter of necessity and not their own choice; that it is the very great badness of your Cause, and not their own Inclinations that puts them upon such dangerous things: and this gives me occasion to address myself to yourselves, Reverend Sirs, and to beg of you, that you would so far lay by all prejudices, and partial interests, as to admit a serious consideration of this one thing into your minds, that that cannot be either a good, a true, or a safe Religion, that is forced to make use of such Arts and Arguments in the defence of her as are a blemish to our common Christianity.  
I have the charity to believe, that were your Church of Rome as pure now as it was in the Apostles time, or as pure as our Church of England (blessed be God for it) is, and our Church as corrupt as we know yours to be, that you would have the same tenderness for our immortal Souls as we have for yours, and that you would with all the earnestness and concern imaginable call upon us, and exhort us, and beseech us to come out of the Church of England, and forsake all dangerous and unlawful Doctrines and Practices.  
Give me leave therefore, Reverend Sirs, who have this very care and concern for all your Salvations, to be as earnest with you as such a thing, and your condition doth require at our hands.  
That your Condition, as Members of the Church of Rome, is most dangerous and unsafe to your Souls, I need not tell you now; especially since all that care and pains, and unwearied diligence hath been taken by the Church of England, to convince you of the Errors and Dangers of your Ways. They have left you now unexcusable, if you do not betake yourselves, as bound in conscience, into the Bosom of your most tender, but neglected Mother, the Church of England, by having proved it so plainly and so fully, that your Religion is not the true Religion of Christ: They have proved, that your Romish Religion hath no Foundation nor Countenance in the Word of God, and where, I beseech you, should the Christian Religion be found, if not in the Holy Scriptures; does it want that advantage the Jewish hath of being visible in the Old Law? The Clergy of this City have almost gone through all your Romish Doctrines and Practices, and made it apparent, that those very few Texts of Scripture which you lay claim to in defence of your Religion, are most directly against it.  
As they have shown, that the Holy Scriptures are not for you, so they have proved, that your Religion had no being till Christianity had been above three hundred years in the World; yourselves cannot be ignorant of the Truth of this, you cannot deny that when your Writers are challenged to produce the Examples of the three first and purest Ages of the Christian Church, that they dare not undertake it: I will instance in your Representer who wrote the Nubes Testium, and in Mr. Sabran himself, who hath not given one word of answer to my challenge, to show me that your Invocation of Saints was taught and practised in the three first Ages of the Church.  
This is a mighty and unanswerable Prejudice against your Romish Religion; for where, in God's Name, should we look for sincere Christianity, and where should we expect to find it, if not in the Records of the Sacred Scriptures, and in the Practices of the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church.  
I will not descend to the particular Controversies betwixt you and us, it is too tedious for the end of a Letter: but will beg of you, that your Religion and ours may be tried by this evident and plain Principle, That that Religion ought to be preferred to any other, which doth most tend to the promoting and propagating the Glory of God and of our blessed Saviour, and securing the Edification of the People of their Communion.  
Now in the fear of God, and with his assistance, let us impartially examine both Churches by this Rule; you yourselves shall be Judges here as to the first, whether that Church doth not more promote the Glory of God, that is for dedicating and attributing all Religious Worship to God alone, than that Church which doth divide it betwixt God and his Creatures, betwixt God and Stocks and Stones, and the Bones of Dead Men? if the more we worship God, the more we honour him, that Church must honour him most of all, which worships him most of all, and that the Church certainly does, which makes all Religious Worship whatever peculiar to his Infinite Majesty alone.  
And for the Glory of our blessed Saviour, does not that Church honour him most, that makes him the Sole Mediator, that offers up all her Prayers in his Name and for his Honour? does not she honour him far more than that Church, which makes Saints and Angels Joynt-Mediators with him, and worships them for that, which is to be done by him alone, and for which all that worship ought to have been paid to him. The greatest Honour we can do our blessed Saviour certainly is to rely wholly upon his Mediation, and to place our whole confidence in him.  
And for the Edification of the People, does that Church consult it so much, as hath its Prayers in a Language the People do not understand, as that Church which puts up such Prayers as all the People can understand and join with? This is so evident against the Church of Rome, that we need neither Scripture nor Fathers to urge against you, since the very Light of Nature doth so absolutely condemn such dumb unintelligible Service.  
It were easy for me to urge these things further upon all your Consciences, but I can only now entreat you, that as you love your own Souls, you would give way to such further Reflections upon these three points as will be apt to suggest themselves, if you be resolved to lay aside all Prejudices from Education, Station, or Interest. It will be more glory for any one of you to embrace the true Faith and Protestant Religion now, than at any other time, since this will convince the World that it was the pure Dictates of your Consciences, and the concern for your immortal Souls, that made you leave the dangerous Communion of the Church of Rome, and renounce all her Errors and corrupt Doctrines. Do not despise, Reverend Sirs, the Concern I discover for your eternal Interest; you will join your Prayers to mine, that after the proving of all things, you may have the Grace to hold that which is good: and then I am certain you cannot continue in the Communion of the Church of Rome.  
In the mean time I have this further Charity for you, to believe that if the Church of England be a true Church of Christ, and her Doctrines pure, and her Worship holy, (as I am certain it is, and ready to seal my Belief with my Blood) that you will join your Prayers with mine, for the Prosperity of this Church of England, that God would abate the Pride, and assuage the Malice of all its Enemies, and that he would confound the Devices of all and every Society or Party of Enemies against this most Holy and Apostolic Church of England.  
In the Confidence of this your Christian Charity, I cannot but subscribe myself,  
Reverend Sirs, Your most hearty Wellwisher, and humble Servant in Christ, E. G.