AN ANSWER TO Monseiur de la Militiere his impertinent Dedication of his Imaginary Triumph, To the KING of Great Britain, to invite him to embrace the Roman Catholic Religion.  
By John Bramhall D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry.  
HAGUE, Printed in the Year, 1653.   

An Answer to Monseiur de la Militiere his Epistle to the King of great Britain, wherein he inviteth his Majesty to forsake the Church of England, and to embrace the Roman Catholic Religion.  
SIR,  
YOu might long have disputed your Question of Transubstantiation, with your learned Adversary, and proclaimed your own Triumph on a silver Trumpet to the world, before any Member of the Church of England had interposed in this present Exigence of our Affairs. I know no necessity that Christians must be like Cocks, 
Plut.  that when one Crows all the rest must Crow for Company.  
Monseiur Aubertine will not want a surviving friend, to teach you what it is to sound a Triumph before you have gained the victory. He was no fool that desired no other Epitaph on his Tomb than this, Here lies the Author of this sentence, Prurigo Disputandi scabies Ecclesiae, 
Sir Henry Wotton.  the itch of disputing is the scab of the Church.  
Having viewed all your strength with a single eye, I find not one of your Arguments that comes home to Transubstantiation, but only to a true real presence, which no genuine Son of the Church of England did ever deny, no nor your Adversary himself. Christ said, This is my Body, what he said, we do steadfastly believe; he said not, after this or that manner, neque con, neque sub, neque trans; And therefore we place it among the Opinions of the Schools, not among the Articles of our Faith.  
The holy Eucharist, which is the Sacrament of peace and unity, 
rences in the Church directly about the Sacrament for the first 800. years.  ought not to be made the matter of strife and contention. There wanted not abuses in the Administration of this Sacrament, in the most pure and Primitive times, as profaneness and uncharitableness among the Corinthians. 
1 Cor. 11.  The Simonians and Menandrians, and some other such Imps of Satan, unworthy the name of Christians, 
Theod. ex Ignatio.  did wholly forbear the use of the Eucharist, but it was not for any difference about the Sacrament itself, but about the natural Body of Christ; They held that his flesh, and Blood, and Passion, were not true and real, but imaginary and fantastical things.  
The Manichees did forbear the Cup, but it was not for any difference about the Sacrament itself; They made two Gods, a good God whom they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or light, and an evil God whom they termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or darkness, which evil God (they said,) did make some creatures of the Dreg, or more feculent parts of the matter, which were evil and impure; And among these evil creatures they esteemed Wine, which they called the Gall of the Dragon: for this cause, not upon any other scruple, they either wholly abstained from the Cup, 
Leo. Ser. 4. de quad. Epiph. haer. 30. & 46.  or used Water in the place of wine, which Epiphanius recordeth among the errors of the Ebionites, 
Aug. li. de Haeres. c. 64  and Tacians; And St. Austin of the Aquarians. Still we do not find any clashing either in word or writing directly about this Sacrament, in the universal Church of Christ, much less about the presence of Christ in the Sacrament. 
Bel. l. 1. de Sac. Euch. c. 1.  Neque ullus veterum disputat contra hunc errorem primis sex centis Annis.  
The first that are supposed by Bellarmine to have broached any error in the Church about the real presence were the Iconomachi, after 700. years. Primi qui veritatem corporis Domini in Eucharistia in quaestionem vecarunt fuerint Iconomachi post Annum Domini 700. 
Bel ibid. Synon Nic. 2 Act 6.  only because they called the Bread and Wine the Image of Christ's body. This is as great a mistake as the former. Their difference was merely about Images, not at all about the Eucharist; so much Vasques confesseth, 
Disp. 179. c. 1.  that In his ●udgement they are not to be numbered with those who deny the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  
We may well find different observations in those days, 
Yet different observations,  as one Church consecrating leavened Bread, another unleavened; One Church making use of pure Wine, another of Wine mixed with Water; One Church admitting Infants to the Communion, another not admitting them; but without controversies, or censures, or animosity one against another: we find no debates or disputes concerning the presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament, and much less concerning the manner of his presence, for the first eight hundred years.  

And different expressions.  Yet all the time we find as different expressions among those Primitive Fathers, as among our modern writers at this day, some calling the Sacrament the sign of Christ's Body, the figure of his Body, the Symbol of his Body, the mystery of his Body, the exemplar type and representation of his Body, saying that the Elements do not recede from their first nature; others naming it the true Body and Blood of Christ, changed not in shape but in nature, yea doubting not to say, that in this Sacrament we see Christ, we touch Christ, we eat Christ, that we fasten our teeth in his very flesh, and make our Tongues red in his Blood: Yet notwithansting there were no questions, no quarrels, no contentions amongst them; there needed no Councils to order them, no conferences to reconcile them, because they contented themselves to believe what Christ had said, This is my Body, without presuming upon their own heads, to determine the manner how it is his Body, neither weighing all their own words so exactly before any controversy was raised, nor expounding the say of other men contrary to the analogy of Faith.  
The first doubt about the 
The first difference abou● the presence of Christ in the Sacrament.  presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament seems to have been moved not long before the year 900. in the days of Bertram, and Paschasius, but the controversy was not well form, nor this new Article of Transubstantiation sufficiently concocted in the days of Berengarius, after the year 1050. as appeareth by the gross mistaking, and mistating of the question on both sides; First Berengarius (if we may trust his adversaries) knew no mean between a naked figure, or empty sign of Christ's presence, and a corporeal or Local presence, and afterwards fell into another extreme of impanation; on the other side the Pope and the Council made no difference between Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation, they understood nothing of the spiritual or indivisible being of the flesh and blood of Christ in the Sacrament, as appeareth by that ignorant and Capernaitical retractation and abjuration, which they imposed upon Berengarius, Penned by Umbertus a Cardinal, 
Exact. Syn. Rom. sub Nich. 2.  approved by Pope Nicholas, and a Council, Ego Berengarius, etc.  
I Berengarius do consent to the holy Roman Apostolic See, and profess with my mouth and heart, to hold the same faith of the Sacrament, of the Lords Supper, with Pope Nicholas and this holy Synod, etc. And what the faith of Pope Nicholas and this Synod was, follows in the next words; That the Bread and Wine which are set upon the Altar after Consecration, are not only the Sacrament, but the very body and blood of Christ. This seems to favour Consubstantiation, rather than Transubstantiation; if the Bread and Wine be the body and blood of Christ, than they remain Bread and Wine still; if the bread be not only the Sacrament, but also the thing of the Sacrament, if it be both the Sign and the thing signified, how is it now to be made nothing? It follows in the Retraction; That the body and blood of Christ is sensibly, not only in the Sacrament, but in truth, handled and broken by the hands of the Priest, and bruised by the teeth of the faithful, If it be even so, there needs no more but feel and be satisfied. To this they made Berengarius sweat, By the consubstantial Trinity, and the Holy Gospels, and accurse and anathematise all those who held the contrary; yet these words did so much scandalise and offend the Glosser upon Gratian, that he could not forbear to admonish the Reader, 
De Cons. dist. 2 cap. Ego Ber.  that unless he understood those words in a sound sense, he would fall into a greater heresy than that of Berengarius. Not without reason, for the most favourable of the Schoolmen do confess, that these words are not properly and literally true, but figuratively and metanimically, understanding the thing containing by the thing contained, as to say the body of Christ is broken or bruised, because the quantity or Species of bread are broken or bruised, they might as well say, that the body and blood of Christ becomes fusty and sour, as often as the Species of Bread and Wine before their corruption become fusty and sour. But the Retractation of Berongarius can admit no such figurative sense, that the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament are divided and bruised sensibly not only in the Sacrament, (that is in the Species) but also in truth. A most ignorant Capernaitical assertion; for the body of Christ being not in the Sacrament modo Quantitativo, according to their own Tenet, but indivisibly, after a Spiritual manner, without extrinsecall extension of parts, cannot in itself or in truth be either divided or bruised.  
Therefore others of the Schoolmen go more roundly and ingenuously to work, 
Alex. Gab. Bonav. etc.  and confess that it is an abusive and excessive expression, not to be held or defended, & that it happened to Berengarius, (they should have said to Pope Nicholas, and Cardinal Umbertus,) as it doth with those who cut of a detestation of one error incline to another.  
Neither will it a veil them any thing at all, that the Fathers have sometimes used such expressions of seeing Christ, of touching Christ in the Sacrament, of fastening our teeth in his flesh, and making our tongues red in his blood. There is a great difference between a Sermon to the people, and a solemn Retractation before a Judge. The Fathers do not say, that such expressions are true, not only Sacramentally or figuratively, (as they made Berengarius both say and accurse all others that held otherwise) but also properly, and in the things themselves. The Fathers never meant by these forms of speech, to determine the manner of the presence, (which was not dreamt of in their days) but to raise the devotion of their hearers and readers, to advertise the people of God, that they should not rest in the external symbols, or signs, but principally be intent upon the invisible grace, which was both lawful and commendable for them to do. Leave us their primitive liberty, and we will not refrain from the like expressions.  
I urge this to show that the new doctrine of Transubstantiation is so far from being an old Article of faith, that it was not well digested, not rightly understood, in any tolerable measure, by the greatest Clerks, and most concerned, above a thousand years after Christ.  
The first definition or determination of this manner of the presence was yet later in the Council of Lateran, in the days of Innocent the third, 
Scot in 4. sent. didst 11. q. 3. T. 3 q. 75. d. 81. c. 1. The determination of the manner of the presence opened a floodgate to a deluge of Controversies.  after the year 1200. Ante Lateranense Concilium Transubstantiatio non fuit dogma fidei. And what the fruit of it was, let Vasques bear witness, Audito nomine Transubstantiationis, etc. The very name of Transubstantiation being but heard, so great a Controversy d●d arise among the later Schoolmen concerning the nature thereof, that the more they endeavoured to wind themselves out, the more they wrapped themselves in greater difficulties, whereby the mystery of faith became more difficult, both to be explained, and to be understood, and more exposed to the Cavils of its Adversaries. He adds that the name of Conversion and Transubstantiation gave occasion to these Controversies.  
No sooner was this Bell rung out, no sooner was this fatal sentence given, but as if Pandora's box had been newly set wide open, whole swarms of noisome Questions and debates did fill the Schools. Then it began to be disputed by what means this change comes, whether by the Benediction of the Elements, or by the Repetition of these words of Christ, This is my body. The common current of your Schools is for the later: 
Lib. de Corr. Theol. Scholar  But your judicious Arch-Bishops of Caesaria, since the Council of Trent, in a Book dedicated to Sixtus the Fifth, produceth great reasons to the contrary.  
Then was the Question started what the demonstrative Pronoun Hoc signifies in these words, This is my Body; whether this thing, or this Substance, or this Bread, or this Body, or this Meat, or these Accidents, or that which is contained under these Species, 
Gloss. de Con●…. d. 2. cap. timorem.  or this Individuum vagum, or lastly (which seems stranger than all the rest) this Nothing.  
Then it began to be argued, whether the Elements were annihilated; whether the matter and form of them being destroyed their essence did yet remain, or the essence being Converted the existence remained; whether the Sacramental existence of the body and blood of Christ do depend upon its natural existence; whether the whole Host were Transubstantiated, or only some parts of it, that is such parts as should be distributed to worthy Communicants, or whether in those parts of the Host which were distributed unto unworthy Communicants the matter of Bread and Wine did not return. 
Guidmend. l. 1. de ver.  Whether the Deity did assume the Bread or the Species thereof, by a new Hypostatical Union, called Impanation, either absolutely, or respectively Mediante Corpore. Whether the body and blood of Christ might be present in the Sacrament without Transubstantiation, with the bread, or without the bread; whether a body may be transubstantiated into a Spirit, 
Vasq. disp. 184. c. 8.  and (which is most strange) whether a Creature might be transubstantiated into the Deity.  
Then the Schoolmen began to wrangle what manner of change this was, whether a material change, or a formal change, or a change of the whole substance, both matter and form; And if it were a Conversion of the whole substance, then whether it was by way of Production, or by Adduction, or by Conservation, each of which greater Squadrons are subdivided into several lesser parties, speaking as different Language, as the bvilders of Babel, pestering and perplexing one another with mextricable difficulties.  
It cannot be a new Production (saith one) because the body of Christ, whereinto the Elements are supposed to be converted, did pre-exist before the change, neither can that body which is made of bread, be the same body with that which was born of a Virgin.  
If it be not by Production (say others,) but only by Adduction, than it is not a Transubstantiation, but a Tran-subiation, not a change of natures, but a local succession. Then the Priest is not the Maker of his Maker, (as they use to brag,) but only puts him into a new positure, or presence, under the Species of Bread and Wine.  
Howbeit this way by Adduction be the more common, and the safer way (if we may trust Bellarmine) yet of all Conversions or changes, it hath least affinity with Transubstantiation. Suppose the Water had not been turned into Wine at Cana of Gallilee by our Saviour, but poured out, or utterly destroyed, and Wine new created, or adduced by Miracle into the water-pots, in such a manner, that the introduction of the Wine should be the expulsion of the Water, not only Comitanter, but Causaliter, in such case it had been no Transubstantiation. Moses his Rod was truly changed into a Serpent, but it was by Production, if his Rod had been conveyed away invisibly, by Legerdemain, and a Serpent had been adduced into the place of it, what Transubstantiation had this been? None at all; no, though the adduction of the Serpent had been the means of the expulsion, and destruction of the Rod. It is so far from Transubstantiation, that is no Conversion at all. The substance of the Elements is not converted, for that is supposed to be destroyed; The Accidents are not converted, but remain the same they were. It is no Adduction at all, when the body of Christ (which is the thing supposed to be adduced) remains still in Heaven, where it was before.  
It cannot be a Conservative conversion, (say others,) for the same individual thing cannot be conserved by two total distinct Conservations; but if this were a conservative conversion the body of Christ should be conserved by two total distinct conservations, the one in Heaven, the other in Earth; Yea, by ten thousand distinct total Conservations upon Eatth, even as many as there are consecrated Hosts; 
Vasq. T. 3. q. 75. d. 181 c. 4.  Which seems to be ridiculous, and without any necessity administers great occasion to the Adversaries of Christian Religion, of jesting and deriding the mysteries of our faith.  
So here we have a Transubstantiation without transubstantiation; A production of a Modus or manner of Being, for a production of a substance; An Annihilation supposed, yet no Annihilation confessed; an Adduction without any Adduction; a Terminus ad Quem, without a Terminus à quo; who shall reconcile us to ourselves? But the end is not yet.  
Then grew up the Question, What is the proper Adequate body which is contained under the Species or accidents; Whether a material body, or a substantial body, or a living body, or an Organical body, or an humane body; Whether it have weight, or not, and why it is not perceived; Whether it can be seen by the eye of mortal man; whether it can act or suffer any thing, whether it be movable or immovable; whether by itself, or by Accident, or by both; whether it can move in one place, and rest in another; or be moved with two contrary motions, (as upwards and downwards, Southwards and Northwards,) at the same time?  
Add to these, whether the Soul of Christ, and the Deity, and the whole Trinity do follow the body and blood of Christ under either Species, by Concomitance? Whether the Sacramental body must have suffered the same things with the natural body? As supposing that an Host Consecrated at Christ's last Supper had been reserved until after his Passion, whether Christ must have died, and his blood have been actually shed in the Sacrament? Yea, whether those wounds which were imprinted by the whips in his natural body, might and should have been found in his Sacramental body without flagellation?  
Likewise, what blood of Christ is in the Sacrament? whether that blood only which was shed, or that blood only which remained in the body, or both the one and the other? And whether that blood which was shed was assumed again by the Humanity in the Resurrection?  
Then began those Paradoxical Questions to be first agitated in the Schools, Whether the same individual body, without division, or discontinuation from itself, can be locally in ten thousand places; yea, in Heaven and in Earth at the same time; Or if not locally, yet whether it can be so spiritually, and indivisibly? And whether it be not the same as to this purpose, whether a body be lolocally or spiritually present in more places than one? Bellarmine seems to incline to the affirmative. 
Bell. l. 3. de Euch. c. 3. in fine.  Though to be any where Sacramentally doth not imply the taking up of a place, yet it implies a true and real presence, and if it be in more Hosts or Altars than one, it seems no less opposite unto Indivisibility, than the filling up of many places. Nay, he is past seeming positive, that, without doubt if a body cannot be in two places locally, it cannot be Sacramentally in two places.  
Compare this of Bellarmine with that of Aquinas, 
In 4. d. 44. q. 7. art. 2. q. 3.  that it is not possible for one body to be in more places than one locally, no not by Miracle, because it implies a contradiction; And consider upon what tottering foundations you build Articles of faith. It is impossible, and implies a Contradiction, for the body of Christ to be locally in more Hosts than one at the same time (saith Aquinas,) But it is as impossible, and implies a Contradiction as much for the body of Christ to be Sacramentally in more Hosts than one at the same time, as to be locally (saith Bellarmine). The Inference is plain and obvious.  
Many more such strange Questions are moved, as whether it be possible that the thing contained should be a thousand times greater than the thing containing? whether a definitive being in a place, do not imply a not being out of that place? whether more bodies than one can be in one and the same place? whether there can be a penetration of dimensions? whether a body can subsist after a spiritual manner, so as to take up no place at all, but to be wholly in the whole, and wholly in every part? Moreover, whether the whole body and blood of Christ be in every particle of the bread, and of the Cup, and if it be, then whether only after the division of the Bread and Wine, or before division also; And in how many parts, and in which parts, is the whole body and blood of Christ, whether in the least parts, and if in the least parts, then whether in the least in kind, or the least in quantity, that is so long as the Species may retain the name of Bread and Wine, or so long as the matter is divisible, and whether the body and blood of Christ, be also in the indivisible parts, as points and lines, and superficies?  
Lastly, whether Accidents can subsist without their subjects, that is, whether they can be both Accidents, and no Accidents? whether all the Accidents of the Elements do remain, and particularly whether the Quantity doth remain? whether the other Accidents do inhere in the quantity as their subject, that is, whether an Accident can have an Accident? whether the quantity of Christ's body be there, and whether it be there after a quantitative manner, with extension of parts, either extrinsecall or intrinsecall, and whether the Quantity of the body of Christ, be distinct and figured, or indistinct and unfigured? whether the Accidents can nourish or make drunken, or corrupt, and a new body be generated of them; And what supplies the place of the matter in such generation, whether the Quantity, or the body of Christ, or the old matter of the Bread and wine, restored by miracle, or new matter created by God? And how long in such corruption the Body of Christ doth continue.  
Whosoever is but moderately versed in your great Doctors, must needs know that these questions are not the private doubts, or debates of single Schoolmen, but the common Garboils and general engagements of your whole Schools.  
Wherefore it had been a mere vanity to cite every particular Author for each question, and would have made the margin swell ten times greater than the Text.  
From this bold determination of the manner of the presence, how, have flowed two other differences, First the detention of the Cup from the Laity, merely upon presumption of Concomitance, first decreed in the Council of Constance, after the year 1400. Let what will become of Concomitance, whilst we keep ourselves to the Institution of Christ, and the universal practice of the Primitive Church. It was not for nothing that our Saviour did distinguish his Body from his Blood, not only in the Consecration, but also in the distribution of the Sacrament. By the way give me leave to represent a Contradiction in Bellarmine, which I am not able to reconcile. 
Lib. 4. de Euch. c. 25.  In one place he saith, The providence of God is merveilous in holy Scripture, for St. Luke hath put these words [do you this,] after the Sacrament given under the form of Bread, but he repeated it not after the giving of the Cup, That we might understand, that the Lord commanded that the Sacrament should be distributed unto all under the form of Bread, but not under the form of Wine. And yet in the next Chapter but one of the same Book, he doth positively determine the contrary, upon the Ground of Concomitance, that the Bread may be taken away, 
Cap. 27.  if the Cup be given, but both cannot be taken away together, Can that be taken away, which Christ hath expressly commanded to be given to all?  

A second difference flowing from Transubstantiation is about the Adoration of the Sacrament; One of those impediments which hinder our Communication with you in the Celebration of divine Offices: We deny not a venerable respect unto the Consecrate Elements, not only as love-tokens sent us by our best friend, but as the Instruments ordained by our Saviour to convey to us the merits of his Passion: But for the person of Christ (God forbidden) that we should deny him divine worship at any time, and especially in the use of this holy Sacrament, we believe with St. Austin that No man eats of that flesh, but first he adores. But that which offends us is this, That you teach and require all men to adore the very Sacrament with divine Honour. To this end you hold it out to the people. To this end Corpus Christi day was instituted about 300. years since. 
Conc. Vien.  Yet we know that even upon your own grounds, you cannot without a particular Revelation, have any infallible assurance that any Host is consecrated; And consequently you have no assurance that you do not commit material Idolatry.  
But that which weighs most with us is this, That we dare not give divine worship unto any creature, (no not to the very Humanity of Christ in the Abstract, much less to the Host) but to the whole person of Christ God and man, by reason of the Hypostatical union between the Child of the blessed Virgin Mary, and the eternal Son, who is God over all blessed for ever. Show us such an union betwixt the Deity and the Elements, or accidents, and you say something. But you pretend no such things, The highest that you dare go is this, 
Bell. l. 4 de Euch. c. 29. quodam modo.  As they that adored Christ when he was upon Earth did [after a certain kind of manner,] adore his Garments. Is this all? This is after a certain kind of manner indeed. We have enough. There is no more Adoration due to the Sacrament, than to the Garments which Christ did wear upon Earth. Exact no more.  
Thus the seamless Coat of Christ is torn into pieces; Thus faith is minced into shreds, and spun up into niceties, more subtle than the Webs of Spiders, 
Fidem minutis diffecant ambagibus  
Ut quisque est lingua nequior.   
Because curious wits cannot content themselves to touch hot coals with tongs, but they must take them up with their naked fingers, nor to apprehend mysteries of Religion by faith, without descanting upon them, and determining them by reason, whilst themselves confess that they are incomprehensible by humane reason, and imperceptible by man's imagination; How Christ is present in the Sacrament can neither be perceived by sense, 
Aq. p. 3. 1. 76. Art. 7.  nor by imagination. The more inexcusable is their presumption to anatomise mysteries, and to determine supernatural not revealed truths, upon their own heads, which if they were revealed were not possible to be comprehended by mortal man; As vain an attempt, as if a Child should think to lad out all the water of the Sea with a Cockleshell. 
Deut. 29.29.  Secret things belong to the Lord our God, but things revealed unto us, and our Children for ever.  
This is the reason why we rest in the words of Christ, This is my Body, leaving the manner to him that made the Sacrament; we know it is Sacramental and therefore efficacious, because God was never wanting to his own Ordinances, where man did not set a bar against himself. But to determine whether it be corporeally or spiritually, (I mean not only after the manner of a spirit, but in a spiritual sense,) whether it be in the Soul only, or in the Host also; And if in the Host, whether by Consubstantiation or Transubstantiation, whether by Production or Adduction, or Conservation or Assumption, or by whatsoever other way bold and blind man dare conjecture, we determine not.  

Durand.  Motum sentimus, modum nescimus, praesentiam credimus.  
This was the belief of the Primitive Church, this was the Faith of the ancient Fathers, who were never acquainted with these modern questions de modo, which edify not, but expose Christian Religion to contempt. We know what to think, and what to say with probability, modesty, and submission in the Schools; But we dare neither screw up the Question to such an height, nor dictate our Opinions to others so Magisterially as Articles of Faith.  
Nescire velle quae Magister maximus  
Docere non vult, erudita est inscitia.  
O! 
Against multiplying of questions, and controversies.  how happy had the Christian world been, if Scholars could have sat down contented with a latitude of General, sufficient, saving Truth, (which when all is done must be the Olive branch of peace, to show that the deluge of Ecclesiastical division is abated,) without wading too far into particular subtleties, or doting about Questions and Logomac●ies, whereof cometh envy, strife, raylings, evil surmisings, perverse dispute. Old controversies evermore raise up new controversies, and yet more controversies, as Circles in the water do produce other Circles.  
Now especially these Scholastical quarrels seem to be unseasonable, when Zenos School is newly opened in the world, who sometimes wanted opinions, but never wanted Arguments; Now when Atheism and sacrilege are become the mode of the times; Now when all the fundamentals of Theology, Morality, and Policy, are undermined and ready to be blown up; Now when the unhappy contentions of great Princes, or their Ministers, have hazarded the very being of Monarchy and Christianity; Now when Bellonia shakes her bloody whip over this Kingdom, it becometh well all good Christians, and subjects, to leave their litigious questions, and 
〈…〉  to bring water to quench the fire of civil dissension already kindled, rather than to blow the Coals of discord, and to render themselves censurable by all discreet persons, like that half-wirted fellow personated in the Orator, Qui cum Capit is mederi debuisset reduviem curavit; when his head was extremely distempered, he busied himself about a small push on his finger's end.  
But that which createth this trouble to you and me at this time, is your Preface, 
The Occasion of this Discourse.  and Epistle Dedicatory; wherein to adorn your vainly imagined Victory in an unseasonable Controversy, you rest not contented, that your Adversary grace your Triumph, unless the King of great Britain, and all his subjects, yea and all Protestants besides attend your Chariot. Neither do you only desire this, but augurate it, or rather you relate it as a thing already as good as don: 
P. 37.  for you tell him, that his eyes and his ears do hear and see those truths, which make him to know the faults of that new Religion which he had sucked in with his milk; you set forth the causes of his Conversion, The tears of his Mother, and the Blood of his Father, whom you suppose (against evident truth) to have died an invisible Member of your Roman Catholic Church. And you prescribe the means to perfect his Conversion, which must be a conference of your Theologians with the Ministers of Charentou.  
If your charity be not to be blamed, 
The Author's indiscretion.  to wish no worse to another than you do to yourself, yet prudent men desire more discretion in you, than to have presented such a Treatise to the view of the world under his Majesty's protection, without his licence and against his conscience: Had you not heard that such groundless insinuations as these and other private whisper concerning his Father's Apostatising to the Roman Religion did lose him the hearts of many subjects? If you did, why would you insist in the same steps, to deprive the Son of all possibility of recovering them?  

To no purpose.  If your intentions be only to invite his Majesty to embrace the Catholic Faith, 
The King is already a better Catholic than himself.  you might have spared both your Oil and labour. The Catholic Faith flourished 1200. years in the world, before Transubstantiation was defined among yourselves. Persons better acquainted with the Primitive times than yourself (unless you wrong one another) do acknowledge that the Fathers did not touch either the word or the matter of transubstantiation. 
Discursus modestus Jesuitarun p. 13. watson's quod- lib. l. 2. Art. 4.  Mark it well, neither name nor thing. His Majesty doth firmly believe all supernatural truths revealed in sacred Writ. He embraceth cheerfully whatsoever the holy Apostles, or the Nicene Fathers, or blessed Athanasius, in their respective Creeds or Summaries of Catholic Faith did set down as necessary to be believed. He is ready to receive whatsoever the Catholic Church of this age doth unanimously believe to be a particle of saving Truth.  
But if you seek to obtrude upon him the Roman Church, with its adherents, for the Catholic Church, excluding three parts of four of the Christian world from the Communion of Christ, or the opinions thereof for Articles and fundamentals of Catholic Faith, neither his reason, nor his Religion, nor his charity will suffer him to listen unto you. The Truths received by our Church are sufficient in point of Faith to make him a good Catholic. More than this your Roman Bishops, your Roman Church, your Tridentine Council, may not, cannot obtrude upon him. Listen to the third general Council, 
Par. 2. Act. 6. c. 7.  that of Ephesus, which decreed, that it should be lawful for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defined by the Nicene Council, 
Not lawful to add to the old Creed.  And that whosoever should dare to compose or offer any such to any persons willing to be converted from Paganism, Judaisme, or Heresy, if they were Bishops or Clerks should be deposed, if Laymen anathematised.  
Suffer us to enjoy the same Creed the Primitive Fathers did, which none will say to have been insufficient except they be mad, 
Concil. Flor. Sess. 10. prof. sid. in bulla Pti quarti.  as was alleged by the Greeks in the Council of Florence. You have violated this Canon, you have obtruded a new Creed upon Christendom. New I say, not in words only; but in sense also.  
Somethings are de Symbolo, 
What are additions to the Creed, and what are only explications.  somethings are contra symbolum, and somethings are only praeter symbolum. Somethings are contained in the Creed, either expressly or virtually, either in the Letter or in the sense, and may be deduced by evident consequence from the Creed, as the Deity of Christ, his two natures, the procession of the Holy Ghost. The addition of these was properly no addition, but an explication. Yet such an explication, no person, no Assembly under an Ecumenical Council, 
Aq. 2. 2. q. 1. Art. 10.  can impose upon the Catholic Church. And such an one your Tridentine Synod was not.  
Secondly, somethings are contra symbolum, contrary to the symbolical Faith, and either expressly or virtually overthrow some Article of it. These additions are not only unlawful, but heretical also in themselves, and after conviction render a man a formal Heretic; whether some of your additions be not of this nature, I will not now dispute.  
Thirdly, somethings are neither of the Faith, nor against the Faith, but only besides the Faith; That is, opinions or truths of an inferior nature, which are not so necessary to be actually known: for though all revealed truths be a like necessary to be believed when they are known, yet all revealed truths are not a like necessary to be known. It is not denied, but that General or Provincial Councils may make constitutions concerning these for unity and uniformity, and oblige all such as are subject to their jurisdiction to receive them, either actively, or passively, without contumacy or opposition. But to make these, or any of these, a part of the Creed, and to oblige all Christians under pain of damnation to know and believe them, is really to add to the Creed, and to change the Symbolical, Apostolical Faith, to which none can add, from which none can take away, and comes within the compass of St. Paul's curse, 
Gal. 1.8.  If we, or an Angel from Heaven, shall Preach unto you any other Gospel (or Faith,) than that which we have Preached, let him be accursed. Such are your Universality of the Roman Church, by the Institution of Christ, to make her the Mother of her Grandmother the Church of Jerusalem, and the mistress of her many elder Sisters. Your Doctrine of Purgatory and Indulgences, and the Worship of Images, and all other novelties defined in the Council of Trent, all which are comprehended in your New Roman Creed, and obtruded by you upon all the world to be believed under pain of damnation. He that can extract all these out of the old Apostolic Creed, must needs be an excellent Chemist, and may safely undercake to draw water out of a Pumice.  
That afflictions come not by chance, 
P. 4. Crosses are not always punishments but sometimes corrections, or trials.  that prosperity is no evidence of God's favour, or adversity of his hatred; that crosses imposed by God upon his servants, look more forwards towards their amendment, than backwards to their demerits, and proceed not from a Judge revenging, but from a Father correcting, or (which you have omitted,) from a Lord Paramount proving and magnifying before the world his own graces in his Servants for his glory and their Advantage, are undeniable Truths which we readily admit. As likewise that the dim eye of man cannot penetrate into the secret dispensations of Gods temporal judgements and mercies in this life, so as to say this man is punished, that other chastised, this third is only proved.  
But you forget all this soon after, 
Which the Author presently forgets.  when you take upon you to search into, yea more, to determine the grounds and reasons why the hand of God; 
P. 8.  aswell as the Parliament, hath been so heavy upon the Head of his late Majesty, and his royal Son. 
P. 14.  Namely on God's part, because he called himself the head of the Church. God purposing by his punishment, to teach all other Princes that are in the Schism, with what severity he can vindicate his glory in the injury done unto the Unity and Authority of his Church, 
P. 9  And on the Parliaments part, because he would not consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy, and suppression of the Liturgy, and Ceremonies established in the Church of England.  
First, what warrant have you to inquire into the Actions of that blessed Saint and Martyr, which of them should be the causes of his sufferings? Not remembering that the Disciples received a check from their Master upon the like presumption; 
Joh. 9.2.  Who sinned? this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.  

Better grounds of his Majesty's sufferings, than those of the Author.  The Heroical Virtues, the flaming Charity, the admirable Patience, the rare Humility, the exemplary Chastity, the constant and frequent Devotions, and the invincible Courage of that happy Prince, not daunted with the ugly face of a most horrid death, have rendered him the glory of his Country, the Honour of that Church whereof he was the chiefest member, the admiration of Christendom, and a pattern for all Princes, of what Communion soever, to imitate until the end of the world. His Sufferings were Palms, his Prison a Paradise, and his death-day the birthday of his happiness; whom his Enemies advantaged more by their cruelty, than they could have done by their courtesy. They deprived him of a corruptible Crown, and invested him with a Crown of glory; They snatched him from the sweet society of his dearest Spouse, and from most hopeful Olive branches, 
Psa. 128.3  to place him in the bosoms of the holy Angels. This alone is ground enough for his sufferings, to manifest unto the world those transcendent and unparallelled graces, wherewith God had enriched him, to which his sufferings gave the greatest lustre, as the stars shine brightest in a dark night.  

The Author's rash censure upon the Archbishop of Cant.  The like liberty you assume towards the other most glorious Martyr, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of profound learning, and exemplary life, of clean hands, of a most sincere heart, a patron of all good learning, a Professor of ancient truth, a great friend indeed, and earnest pursuer, of Order, Unity, and uniformity in Religion, but most free from all sinister ends, either a varitious or ambitious, wherewith you do uncharitably charge him, as if he sought only his own Grandeur, to make himself the head of a Schismatical body. In brief, you therefore censure him, because you did not know him. I wish all your great Ecclesiastiques had his Innocency, and fervent zeal for God's Church, and the peace thereof, to plead for them at the day of Judgement.  
By applying these particular Afflictions according to your own ungrounded Fancy, what a wide gap have you opened to the liberty and boldness of other men? who if they should assume to themselves the same freedom that you have done, might say as much, with as much reason, concerning the pressures of other great Princes abroad, that God afflicts them, because they will not become Protestants, as you can say that God afflicted our late King, because he would not turn Papist.  
But if you will not allow his Majesty's sufferings to be merely probatory; And if (for your satisfaction) there must be a weight of sin found out to move the wheel of God's justice, why do you not rather fix upon the body of his Subjects or at least a disloyal part of them? We confess that the best of us did not deserve such a Jewel, 
Sovereign's may be taken away for the sins of their subjects.  that God might justly snatch him from us in his wrath for our ingratitude. Reason, Religion, and experience do all teach us, that it is usual with Almighty God, to look upon a body politic, or Ecclesiastic, as one man, and to deprive a perverse people of a good and gracious Governor, as an expert Physician by opening a vein in one member, cures the distempers of another. 
Prov. 28. ●  For the Transgressions of a Land, many are the Princes thereof.  
It may be that two or three of our Princes at the most (the greater part whereof were Roman Catholics, 
Not above two or three of our Princes called Heads of the Church. ) did style themselves, or give others leave to style them, the Heads of the Church, within their Dominions. But no man can be so simple, as to conceive that they intended a spiritual headship to infuse the life and motion of grace into the hearts of the faithful, such an head is Christ alone; No not yet an Ecclesiastical headship; We did never believe that our Kings in their own persons could exercise any act pertaining either to the power of Order or Jurisdiction: 
That is only political heads. 1 Sam. 15.17.  Nothing can give that to another, which it hath not itself. They meant only a Civil or Political head, as Saul is called the Head of the Tribes of Israel, to see that public peace be preserved, to see that all Subjects, aswell Ecclesiastiques as others do their duties, in their several places; to see that all things be managed for that great and architectonical end, that is the weal and benefit of the whole body politic, both for soul and body. If you will not trust me, Hear our Church itself, When we attribute the Sovereign Government of the Church to the King, 
Art. 37.  we do not give him any power to administer the Word or Sacraments; but only that Prerogative which God in holy Scripture hath always allowed to Godly Princes, to see that all States and Orders of their Subjects, Ecclesiastical and Civil, do their duties, and to punish those who are delinquent, with the civil Sword. Here is no power ascribed, 
Expos. Paraphr. art. Conf. Ang. Art. 37.  no punishment inflicted, but merely political, and this is approved and justificed by S. Clara, both by reason, and by the example of the Parliament of Paris. Yet by virtue of this Political power, he is the Keeper of both Tables, the preserver of true piety towards God, as well as right Justice towards men; And is obliged to take care of the souls, aswell as the skins and carcases of his subjects.  

The Christian Emperors political heads.  This power, though not this name, the Christian Emperors of old assumed unto themselves, to Convocate Synods, to preside in Synods, to confirm Synods, to establish Ecclesiastical Laws, to receive appeals, to nominate Bishops, to eject Bishops, to suppress Heresies, to compose Ecclesiastical differences, in Councils, out of Councils, by themselves, by their delegates: All which is as clear in the History of the Church, as if it were written with a beam of the Sun.  
This power, 
The old Kings of England political heads.  though not this name, the Ancient Kings of England ever exercised, not only before the Reformation, but before the Norman Conquest, as appears by the Acts of their great Councils, by their Statutes, and Articles of the Clergy, by so many Laws of provision against the Bishop of Rome's conferring Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices upon foreiners, by so many sharp oppositions against the exactions and usurpations of the Court of Rome, by so many Laws concerning the Patronage of Bishoprics, and Investitures of Bishops, by so many examples of Churchmen punished by the Civil Magistrate. Of all which Jewels the Roman Court had undoubtedly rob the Crown, if the Peers and Prelates of the Kingdom had not come in to the rescue.  
By the ancient Laws of England it is death, or at least a forfeiture of all his goods, for any man to publish the Pope's Bull without the King's Licence. The Pope's Legate without the Kings leave could not enter into the Realm. If an Ordinary did refuse to accept a resignation, 
See Authorities for all these in Cawdries Case, in Judge Crook his Reports.  the King might supply his defect. If any Ecclesiastical Court did exceed the bounds of its just power, either in the nature of the cavie, or manner of proceeding, the King's Prohibition had place. So in effect the Kings of England were always the Political heads of the Church within their own Dominions. So the Kings of France are at this day.  
But who told you that ever King Charles did call himself the Head of the Church? 
Neither K. Charles, K. James, nor Queen Elizabeth styled heads of the Church.  thereby to merit such an heavy Judgement. He did not, nor yet King James his Father, nor Queen Elizabeth before them both, who took Order in her first Parliament, to have it left out of her Title; They thought that name did sound ill, and that it entrenched too far upon the right of their Saviour. Therefore they declined it, and were called only Supreme Governors, in all Causes, over all persons Ecclesiastical and Civil; which is a Title de jure inseparable from the Crown of all sovereign Princes; Where it is wanting the facto (if any place be so unhappy to want it,) the King, is but half a King, and the Commonwealth a Serpent with two Heads.  
Thus you see, you are doubly, and both ways miserably mistaken. First, King Charles did never style himself Head of the Church, nor could with patience endure to hear that Title. Secondly, a Political Headship is not injurious to the Unity, or Authority of the Church. The Kings of Israel and Judah; the Christian Emperors, the English Kings before the Reformation, yea, even before the Conquest, and other Sovereign Princes of the Roman Communion have owned it signally.  
But it seems you have been told, or have read, this in the virulent writings of , or Parsons, or have heard of a ludicrous scoffing proposition of a Marriage between the two heads of the two Churches, Sixtus Quintus, and Queen Elizabeth, for the reuniting forsooth of Christendom. All the satisfaction, I should enjoin you, is to persuade the Bishop of Rome (if Gregory the Great were living, 
The Author's satisfaction to persuade the Pope to leave that vain Title.  you could not fail of speeding,) to imitate the piety and humility of our Princes; that is, to content himself with his patriarchical dignity and primacy of Order, & Principium unitatis, and to quit that much more presumptuous, and (if a Pope's word may pass for current) Antichristian term of the Head of the Catholic Church. If the Pope be the Head of the Catholic Church, than the Catholic Church is the Pope's body, which would be but an harsh expression to Christian ears; then the Catholic Church should have no Head, when there is no Pope, two or three Heads, when there are two or three Popes; an unsound Head, when there is an heretical Pope; a broken Head, when the Pope is censured or deposed; and no Head, when the See is vacant. If the Church must have one Universal, visible, Ecclesiastical Head, a general Council may best pretend to that Title.  
Neither are you more successful in your other Reason, 
Hatred of Episcopacy or the true cause why the Parliament persecuted the King.  why the Parliament persecuted the King; Because he maintained Episcopacy, both out of Conscience and Interest, which they sought to abolish. For though it be easily admitted, that some seditious and heterodox persons had an evil eye, both against Monarchy, and Episcopacy, from the very beginning of these troubles, either out of fiery zeal, or vain affectation of Novelty, (like those, who having the green-sickness, prefer chalk and meal in a corner, before wholesome meat at their Father's table,) or out of a greedy, and covetous desire of gathering some sticks for themselves upon the fall of those great Okes, yet certainly they: who were the contrivers, and principal actors in this business, did more malign Episcopacy for Monarchy's sake, than Monarchy for Episcopacies. What end had the Nuncio's faction in Ireland against Episcopacy? whose mutinous courses apparently lost that Kingdom. When the King's consent to the Abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland was extorted from him by the Presbyterian faction (which probably the prime authors do rue sufficiently by this time) were those Presbyterian Scots any thing more favourable to Monarchy? To come to England, the chief Scene of this bloody Tragedy: If that party in Parliament had at first proposed any such thing, as the Abolition either of Monarchy, or Episcopacy, undoubtedly they had ruined their whole design; until daily tumults, and uncontrollable uproars had chased away the greater, and sounder part of both Houses: Their first Protestation was solemnly made to God, both for King and Church, as they were by Law established.   


The true causes of the troubles in Engl●●d.  Would you know then what it was that Conjured up the storm among us? It was some feigned jealousies and fears, (which the first broachers themselves knew well enough to be fables) dispersed cunningly among the people, That the King purposed to subvert the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, and to reduce the free English Subject to a condition of absolute slavery under an Arbitrary Government. For which massy weight of malicious untruth, they had no supporters, but a few Bulrushes. Secondly, that he meant to apostate from the Protestant Religion to Popery, and to that end had raised the Irish Rebellion by secret encouragements, and Commissions; For which monstrous calumny, they had no other foundation (except the solemn religious Order of divine Service in his own Chapel, and Cathedral Churches) than some unseasonable disputes about an Altar, or a Table, and the permission of the Pope's Agent, to make a short stay in England, more for reasons of State than of Religion. And some senseless fictions of some Irish Rebels, who having a Patent under the great Seal of Ireland for their Lands, to colour their barbarous murders, shown it to the poor simple people as a Commission from the King to levy forces. And lastly some impious pious frauds of some of your own party, whose private whispers, and printed insinuations did give hopes, that the Church of England, was coming about to shake hands with the Roman in the points controverted; Which was merely devised to gull some silly creatures, whom they found apt to be catched with chaff; for which they had no more pretext of truth, than you have for your groundless intimations in this unwelcome dedication.  
These suspicions being compounded with Covetousness, Ambition, Envy, Emulation, desire of Revenge, and discontent, were the source of all our Calamities. Thus much you yourself confess in effect; that, this supposition, that the King and Bishops had an intention to re-establish the Roman Catholic Religion, was the venom which the Puritan faction infused into the hearts of the people, 
P. 11.  to fill them with hatred against a King worthy of love; And the Parliament judged it a favourable occasion for their design, to advance themselves to Sovereign Authority, Be Judge yourself how much they are accessary to our sufferings, who either were, or are the Authors, or fomenters of these damnable slanders.  
There was yet one cause more of this cruel persecution, which I cannot conceal from you, because it concerns some of your old acquaintance. There was a Bishop in the world (losers must have leave to talk) whose privy Purse, and subtle Counsels, did help to kindle that unnatural war in his Majesty's three Kingdoms. Our Cardinal Wolsey complained before his death, That he had served his King better than his God. But certainly this practice in your friend, was neither Good service to his God, to be the author of the effusion of so much innocent blood, nor yet to his King, to let the world see such a dangerous precedent. It is high time for a man to look to himself, when his next neighbour's house is all on a flame.  
As hitherto I have followed your steps, though not altogether in your own Method, or rather your own confusion; So I shall observe the same course for the future. Your discourse is so full of Meanders and wind, turn, and returnings, you congregate Heterogeneous matter, and segregate that which is homogeneous, as if you had made your Dedication by starts, and snatches; and never digested your whole discourse; On the contrary, where I meet with any thing, it shall be my desire to dispatch it out of my hands, with whatsoever perteins unto it once for all. I hope you expect not that I should amuse myself at your Rhetorical flowers, and elegant expressions; they agree well enough with the work you were about; The Pipe plays sweetly, whilst the Fowler is catching his prey. Trappings are not to be condemned, if the things themselves are good and useful, but I prefer one Pomegranate Tree loaden with good fruit, before a whole row of Cypresses, that serve only for show. Be sure of this, that where any thing in your Epistle reflects upon the Church of England, I shall not miss it first or last, though it be but a lose unjointed piece, and so perhaps hitherto untouched.  

We are only accused of Schism.  Amongst other things which you lay to our charge, you glance, at the least twelve times, at our supposed Schism. But from first to last, never attempt to prove it, as if you took it for granted. I have shaped a Coat for a Schismatic, and had presented it to you in this answer, but considering that the matter is of moment, and merits as much to be seriously and solidly weighed, as your naked Crimination without all pretext of proof deserves to be slighted, lest it might seem here as an impertinent digression, to take up too much place in this short discourse, I have added it at the Conclusion of this Answer, in a short Tract by itself, that you may peruse it if you please. 
Presbyterians and Brownists have been Rome's best friends.   
You fall heavily, in this Discourse, upon the Presbyterians, Brownists, and Independents, if they intent to return you any answer, they may send it by a messenger of their own. As for my part, I am not their Proctor, I have received no Fee from them. And if I should undertake to plead their Cause upon my own head, by our old English Law, you might call me to account for unlawful maintenance. Only give me leave as a by-stander to wonder why you are so choleric against them, for certainly they have done you more service in England, then ever you could have done for yourselves.  
And I wonder no less why you call our Reformation, a calvinistical Reformation, brought into England by Bucer, and Peter Martyr, a blind Reformation, yea, the entire ruin of the Faith, of the very form of the Church, and of the civil Government of the Commonwealth instituted by God. 
P. 16.  Though you confess again in our favour, that if our first Reformers had been interrogated, whether they meant: 
P. 19  
P. 14.  any such thing, they would have purged themselves, 
P. 17.  and avouched their Innocence with their hands upon the new Gospel. The gifts of Enemies are no gifts. If such as these are all your courtesies, you may be pleased to take them again; Our first Reformers might safely swear upon any Gospel, old, or new, that they meant no such thing. And we may as securely swear upon all the books of God, old or new, that there is no such thing. But why our Gospel should be younger or newer than Sixtus Quintus his Gospel, or Clemens Octavus his Gospel, passeth my understanding, and yours also.  
Comparisons are odious, therefore I will not say, that the true English Protestant standing to his own grounds, is the best subject in the world. But I do say, that he is as good a subject as any in the world, and our principles as Innocent, and as auxiliary to civil Government, as the Maxims of any Church under Heaven. And more than yours, where the clashing of two Supreme Authorities, and the exemption of your numerous Clergy from the Coercive power of the Prince, and some other novelties which I forbear to mention, do always threaten a storm.  
Tell me Sir, if you can, what Church in Europe hath declared more fully, or more favourably for Monarchy than the poor Church of England, 
L. Cant. 1643. C. 1.  That the most high and Sacred Order of Kings, is of Divine Right, being the Ordinance of God himself, founded in the prime Laws of Nature, and clearly established by express Texts, both of the old, and new Testament. Moreover, that this power is extended over all their Subjects, Ecclesiastical and Civil; That to set up any Independent coactive power above them, either Papal, or popular, either directly, or indirectly, is to undermine their great royal Office, and cunningly to overthrow that most Sacred Ordinance, which God himself hath established. That for their subjects to bear Arms against them, Offensive, or defensive upon any pretence whatsoever, is to resist the powers which are ordained of God.  

The English Reformation not Calvinist. call.  And why do you call our Reformation calvinistical, contrary to your own Conscience, contrary to your own confession, That in our Reformation we retained the ancient Order of Episcopacy, 
P. 9  as Instituted by divine authority, and a Liturgy, and Ceremonies, whereby we preserved the face, or Image of the Catholic Church. 
P. 10.  And that for this very cause the disciplinarians of Geneva, and the Presbyterians did conceive an implacable hatred against the King for the Church's sake, and out of their aversion to it. Did they hate their own Reformation so implacably? If these things be to be reconciled, reddat mihi minam Diogenes. He that looks more in disputation to the Advantage of his party, than to the truth of his grounds, had need of a strong memory; We retained not only Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies, but all things else that were conformable to the discipline, and public service of the primitive Church rightly understood.  
No, Sir, we cannot pin our faith upon the sleeve of any particular man, as one used to say We love no nismes; 
M. Tho. Sq.  neither Calvinism, nor Lutheranism, nor Jonsenianism, but only one, that we derive from Antioch, that is Christianism, We honour Learning, and Piety in our fellow servants, but we desire to wear no other badge or Cognizance, than that we received from our own Master at our Baptism. Bucer was as fit to be calvin's Master, as his Scholar. So long as Calvin continued with him in Germany, he was for Episcopacy, Liturgy, and Ceremonies, (and for assurance thereof subscribed the Augustane Confession) and his late learned Successor, and assertor in Geneva, Monsieur Deodate, with sundry others of that Communion were not averse from them. Or why do you call our Reformation blind? It was not blindness, but too much affectation of knowledge, and too much peeping into controverted, and new fangled Questions that hath endamaged our Religion. It is you that teach the Collier's Creed, not we.  
Howsoever you pretend to prove that our Reformation was the ruin of the Church, and Commonwealth: we expect you should endeavour to prove it. You cannot so far mistake yourself as to conceive your authority to be the same with us, that Pythagoras had among his Scholars, to have his Dictates received for Oracles without proof; what did I say, that you pretend to prove it? That's too low an expression, you promise us a demonstration of it, 
P. 19  so lively and evident that no reason shall be able to contradict it. Are you not afraid that too much expectation should prejudice your discourse by diminishing our applause?  
Quid tanto dignum feret hic promissor hiatu? Do you think of nothing now but Triumphs? Lively and evident demonstration, not to be contradicted by reason, is like the Phoenix much talked of, but seldom seen. Most men, when they see a man strip up his sleeves, and make too large promises of fair dealing, do suspect juggling. No man proclaimeth in the Market that he hath rotten wares to sell; And therefore we must be careful, notwithstanding your great promises, to keep well Epicharmus his Jewel, Remember to distrust. By your permission, your glistering demonstration is a very counterfeit, not so valuable as a Bristol Diamant, when it comes to be examined by the wheel.  
Sometimes nothing is more necessary than Reformation. 
Reformation is sometimes necessary.  Never was house so well builded, that now and then needed not reparation. Never Garden so well planted, but must sometimes be weeded. Never any order so well instituted, but in long tract of time there will be a bending and declining from its Primitive perfection, and a necessity of reducing it to its first principles. Are your Houses of Religion which are Reform, therefore the less Religious? Why then did all the Princes and Commonwealths in Europe, Yea the Fathers themselves in the Council of Trent, cry out so often, so earnestly, for a Reformation? yet were forced to content themselves with a vain shadow for the substance, as Ixion embraced a Cloud for Juno, or Children are often stilled with an empty bottle.  

Reformation not agreeable to all person, especially the Court of Rome.  But Reformation is not agreeable to all persons. Judas loved not an Audit, because he kept the Bag. Dull Lethargic people had rather sleep to death than be awaked; to and mad phrenetick Bigots are apt to beat the Chirurgeon that would bind up their wounds; but none are so averse from Reformation as the Court of Rome, where the very name is more formidable than Hannibal at the Gates, yea than all the five terrible things. No marvel they are afraid to have their Oranges squeezed to their hands; if they were infallible as they pretend there was no need of a Reformation, we wish they were, but we see they are not.  
On the other side, 
There is danger in Reformation.  it cannot be denied that Reformation, when it is unseasonable, or inordinate, or excessive, may do more hurt than good; when Reformers want just Authority, or due information, or have sinister ends, or where the remedy may be of worse consequence than the abuse, or where men run out of one extreme into another; therefore it is a rule in prudence, Not to remove an ill custom, when it is well settled; Unless it bring great prejudices, and then it is better to give one account, why we have taken it away, than to be always making excuses why we do it not. Needless alteration doth diminish the venerable esteem of Religion, and lessen the credit of ancient truths. Break Ice in one place, and it will crack in more. Crooked sticks by bending straight are sometimes broken into two.  
There is a right mean between these extremes, 
The right rule of Reformation.  if men could light on it, that is neither to destroy the body out of hatred to the sores and Ulcers, nor yet to cherish the sores and Ulcers, out of a doting affection to the body, that is, neither to destroy ancient Institutions, out of a zealous hatred to some new abusers, nor yet to do at so upon ancient Institutions, as for their sakes to cherish new abuses.  
Our Reformation is just 
Our Reformation not the ruin of Faith Church or Commonwealth.  as much the cause of the ruin of our Church and Commonwealth, as the building of Tenderden Steeple was the cause of goodwin's Sands, or the ruin of the Country thereabouts, because they happened both much about the same time.  — Careat successibus opto, 
May he ever want success who judgeth of Actions by the Event. Our Reformation hath ruined the Faith, just as the plucking up of weeds in a Garden, ruins the good Herbs. It hath ruined the Church, just as a body full of superfluous and vicious humours is ruined by an healthful purgation. It hath ruined the Commonwealth, just as the pruning of the Vine ruins the Elm. No, no Sir, Our sufferings, for the Faith, for the Church, for the Monarchy, do proclaim us Innocent to all the world, of the ruin either of Faith, or Church, or Monarchy. And in this capacity we choose rather to starve Innocents', than to swim in plenty as Nocents.  
But this is but one of your doubles to keep us from the right form. It is your new Roman Creed that hath ruined the Faith. It is your Papal Court that hath ruined the Church. It is your new Doctrines of the Pope's Omnipotence over temporal persons in order unto spiritual ends, of absolving subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance, of exempting the Clergy from secular jurisdiction, of the lawfulness of murdering Tyrants and excommunicated Princes, of aequivocation and the like, that first infected the world to the danger of Civil Government. Yet far be it from me to make these the Universal Tenets of your Church, at any time, much less at this time, when they are much fallen from their former credit; neither can I deny that sundry dangerous positions, destructive to all civil societies, have been transplanted by our Sectaries, and taken too deep root in our quarters, but never by our fault. If God should grant us the benefit of an Ecumenical or Occidental Council, it would become both you and us in the first place to pluck up such seditious opinions root and branch.  
You say our Calvinistical Reformation (so you are pleased to call it as you would have it, for the moderate and orderly Reformation of England, was the terror, and eyesore of Rome) is founded upon two maxims, 
Our first supposed Maxim.  The on●●hat the Church was fallen to ruin and desolation, and become guilty of Idolatry and Tyranny. 
The Catholic Church cannot come to ruin or be be guilty of Idolatry or Tyranny.   
This is neither our foundation, nor our superstruction, neither our maxim, nor our Opinion. It is so far from it, that we hold and teach the direct contrary. First, that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Universal Church, that though the rain descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon it, yet it shall never fall to ruin or desolation; because it is builded upon a Rock. Secondly, we believe that the Catholic Church is the faithful Spouse of Christ, and cannot be guilty of Idolatry, which is spiritual Adultery. Thirdly, we never said, we never thought, that the Ecumenical Church of Christ was guilty of Tyranny. It is principled to suffer wrong, to do none, and by suffering to Conquer, 
Chrysost.  as a flock of unarmed Sheep, in the midst of a company of ravenous Wolves, A new and unheard of kind of warfare as if one should throw an handful of dry flax, into the midst of a flaming fire to extinguish it.  
But I presume this is one of the Idiotisms of your language, 
Catholic and Roman not Convertibles.  in which by the Church you always understand the Roman Church, making Roman and Catholic to be convertibles. As if Christ could not have a Church, nor that Church any privileges, unless the Court of Rome might have the Monopoly of them. There is a vast difference, between the Catholic Church and a patriarchal Church. The Ca-Catholick Church can never fail; any patriarchal Church may Apostate and fail. We have a promise that the Candle shall not be put out, we have no promise that the Candlesticks shall not be removed. 
Rev. 2.5.   

The Roman Church itself not absolutely fallen to ruin.  But suppossing that (which we can never grant) the Catholic Church and Roman Church were Convertibles, yet still you do us wrong. First we do not maintain, that the Roman Church itself is fallen to ruin and desolation, we grant to it a true metaphysical being, though not a true moral being; we hope their errors are rather in superstructures, than in fundamentals; we do not say that the Plants of saving truth (which are common to you and us) are plucked up by the roots in the Roman Church, but we say that they are overgrown with weeds, and in danger to be choked.  
Next for Idolatry, 
Whether the Roman Church be guilty of Idolatry.  whether, and why, and how far, we accuse your Church of it deserves further Consideration. First you agree with us, That God alone is the Object of Religion, and consequently that all Religious worship is due terminatively only to him, that God alone is to be invocated, absolutely or ultimately, that is so as to grant our requests and fulfil our desires by himself, and that the Saints are not the objects of our prayers, but joint petitioners with us, and intercessors for us to the throne of Grace.  
Secondly, we profess as well as you that there is a proportionable degree of honour, and respect, due to every creature in Heaven and Earth, according to the dignity of it, and therefore more honour due to a glorified Spirit, than to a mortal man: But withal we add, that this honour is not servitutis but charitatis, not of service as to our Lords and Masters, but of love and charity as to our friends and fellow servants, of the same kind and nature with that Honour which we give to holy men on Earth. And herein we are confident that we shall have your consent.  
Thirdly, we agree in this also, that abundant love and duty doth extend an honourable respect from the person of a dear friend, or noble benefactor, to his Posterity, to his memory, to his Monument, to his Image, to his Relics, to every thing that he loved, or that pertained to him, even to the Earth which he did tread upon, for his sake. Put a Liefhebber, or Virtueso, among a company of rare Pictures, and he will pick out the best pieces for their proper value: But a friend or a child will more esteem the Picture of a Benefactor, or Ancestor, for its relation. The respect of the one is terminated in the Picture, that of the other is radicated in the exemplar. Yet still an Image is but an Image, and the kinds of respect must not be confounded. The respect given to an Image, must be respect proper for an Image, not Courtship, not Worship, not Adoration. More respect is due to the person of the meanest beggar, than to all the Images of Christ and his Apostles, and a 1000 Primitive Saints or Progenitors. Hitherto there is neither difference nor peril either of Idolatry; or superstition.  
Wherein then did consist this guilt of Idolatry contracted by the Roman Church? I am willing for the present to pass by the private abuses of particular persons, which seem to me no otherwise chargeable upon the whole Church than for Connivance. As the making Images to counterfeit tears, and words, and gestures, and compliments, for advantage, to induce silly people to believe that there was something of divinity in them; and the multitude of fictitious Relics and suppositious Saints, which credulity first introduced, & since covetousness hath nourished. I take no notice now of those remote suspicions or suppositions of the possibility of want of intention, either in the Priest that consecrates the Sacrament, or in him that Baptised, or in the Bishop that ordained him; or in any one through the whole line of succession; in all which cases (according to your own principles,) you give divine worship to corporeal Elements, which is at least material Idolatry.  
I will not stand now to examine the truth of your distinctions, of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, yet you know well enough, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is no religious worship, and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is coin lately minted, that will not pass for current in the Catholic Church. Whilst your common people understand not these distinctions of degrees of honour, what holds them from falling downright into Idolatry?  
Neither do I urge how you have distributed the Patronage of particular Countries, the Cure of several Diseases, the protection of all distinct professions of men, and all kinds of creatures, among the Saints, just as the Heathen did among their Tutelary Gods; nor how little warrant you have for this practice from experience; nor last how you build more Churches, erect more Altars, offer more presents, power out more prayers, make more vows, perform more offices to the Mother than to the Son. Yet though we should hold our peace, methinks you should ponder these things seriously, and either for your own satisfaction, or ours, take away such unnecessary occasions of scandal and disunion.  
But I cannot omit, that the Council of Trent is not contented to enjoin the Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament, (which we never deny,) but of the Sacrament itself, (that is, according to the common current of your Schoolmen, the Accidents or Species of Bread and Wine, because it contains Christ.) Why do they not add upon the same grounds, that the pix is to be adored with divine worship, because it contains the Sacrament? Divine honour is not due to the very Humanity of Christ, as it is abstracted from the Deity, but to the whole person, Deity, and Humanity, hypostatically united. Neither the Grace of Union, nor the Grace of Unction can confer more upon the Humanity, than the Humanity is capable of. There is no such Union between the Deity and the Sacrament, neither immediately, nor yet mediately, mediante corpore.  
Neither do you ordinarily ascribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or divine worship to a Crucifix, or to the Image of Christ, indeed not Terminatively but transeuntly, so as not to rest in the Image or Crucifix, but to pass to the exemplar or person crucified. But why a piece of Wood should be made partaker of divine honours even in Transitu, or in the passage, passeth my understanding. The Heathens wanted not the same pretext for all their gross Idolatry. Let them plead for themselves Non ego, etc. I do not worship that stone which I see, but I serve him whom I do not see.   

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

The Roman Court most Tyrannical.  Concerning Tyranny which makes up the arriere of the first supposed Maxim: We do not accuse the Roman Church of Tyranny, but the Roman Court. If either the unjust usurpation of Sovereign power, or the extending thereof to the destruction of the Laws and Canons of the Church, yea, even to give a Non obstante, either to the Institution of Christ, or at least to the uniform practice of the Primitive Ages, or to them both; If the swallowing up of all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, and the arrogating of a supercivill power paramount; If the causing of poor people to troth to Rome, from all the Quarters of Europe, to waste their livelihoods there; If the trampling upon Emperors, and the disciplining of Monarches be Tyrannical, either the Court of Rome hath been Tyrannical, or there never was Tyranny in the world.  
I doubt not but some great persons, when they have had bloody Tragedies to act for their own particular ends, have sometimes made the Roman Church a stalking horse, and the pretence of Catholic Religion a blind, to keep their Policies undiscerned: But if we consider seriously, what cruelties have been really acted throughout Europe, either by the Inquisitors General, or by persons specially delegated for that purpose, against the Waldenses of old, and against the Protestants of later days, against poor ignorant persons, against women and children, against madmen, against dead carcases, as Bucer, etc. upon pretence of Religion, not only by Ordinary forms of punishment, and of death, but by fire and faggots, by strange new devised tortures, we shall quickly find that the Court of Rome hath died itself red in Christian blood, and equalled the most Tyrannical persecutions of the Heathen Emperors. 
Our second supposed Maxim   
The other Maxim whereupon you say that our Reformation was grounded was this; That the only way to reform the Faith and Liturgy, 
P. 21.  and government of the Church, was to conform them to the dictates of holy Scripture, of the sense whereof every private Christian ought to be the Judge, by the light of the Spirit, excluding Tradition, and the public Judgement of the Church. You add, 
P. 26.  that We cannot prove Episcopacy by Scripture without the Help of Tradition; And if we do admit of Tradition, we must acknowledge the Papacy, for the Government of the Catholic Church, as founded in the Primacy of St. Peter.  
Your second supposed ground is no truer than the former, 
Much mistaken.  we are as far from Anarchy as from Tyranny; As we would not have humane Authority, like Medusa's head, to transform reasonable men into senseless stones; So we do not put the reigns of Government into the hands of each, or any private person, to reform according to their fantasies; And that we may not deal like blunderers, or deceitful persons, to wrap up on involve ourselves on purpose in confused Generalities, I will set down our sense distinctly; When you understand it, I hope you will repent of your rash censuring of us, of whom you had so little knowledge. 
The Scripture the rule of supernatural truths.   
Three things offer themselves to be considered: first, concerning the Rule of Scripture; Secondly, the proper Expounders thereof, and thirdly, the manner of Exposition.  
Concerning Scripture we believe, That it was impossible for humane reason, without the help of divine Revevelation, to find out those supernatural truths which are necessary to Salvation. 2. That to supply this defect of natural reason, God out of his abundant goodness hath given us the holy Scriptures, which have not their authority from the writing which is humane, but from the Revelation which is divine, from the holy Ghost. Thirdly, that this being the purpose of the Holy Ghost, it is blasphemy to say he would not, or could not attain unto it. And that therefore the holy Scriptures do comprehend all necessary supernatural truths; So much is confessed by Bellarmine, that All things which are necessary to be believed, 
L. 4. de verbo Dei, cap. 11.  and to be done by all Christians, were preached to all by the Apostles, and were all written. 4. That the Scripture is more properly to be called a Rule of supernatural truths than a Judge, or if it be sometimes called a Judge, it is no otherwise than the Law is called a Judge of civil Controversies between man and man, that is, the rule of judging what is right, and what is wrong. That which showeth what is straight, showeth likewise what is crooked.  
Secondly, 
Who are the proper expounders of Scripture, and ho●… far.  concerning the proper Expounders of Scripture, we do believe that the Gospel doth not consist in the words, but in the sense, non in superficie, sed in medullâ; And therefore that though this infallible rule be given for the common benefit of all, yet every one is not an able or fit Artist to make application of this Rule, in all particular cases. To preserve the common right, and yet prevent particular abuses, we distinguish Judgement into three kinds.  
Judgement of Discretion, Judgement of Direction, and Judgement of Jurisdiction.  
As in the former Instance of the Law (the ignorance whereof excuseth no man) every subject hath Judgement of Discretion, to apply it particularly to the preservation of himself, his estate and interest; The Advocates and those who are skilful in the Law, have moreover a Judgement of Direction, to advise others of less knowledge and experience; But those who are Constituted by the Sovereign power, to determine emergent difficulties, and differences, and to distribute, and administer justice to the whole body of a Province or Kingdom, have moreover a Judgement of Jurisdiction, which is not only discretionary, or directive, but authoritative to impose an Obligation of obedience upon those who are under their charge. If these last shall transgress the rule of the Law, they are not accountable to their Inferiors, but to him or them that have the Sovereign power of Legislative Judicature; Ejus est legem interpretari, cujus est condere.  
To apply this to the case in Question concerning the exposition of the holy Scripture. Every Christian keeping himself within the bounds of due obedience and submission to his lawful Superiors, hath a Judgement of Discretion, Prove all things, 
1 Thes. 5.21.  hold fast that which is good. He may apply the Rule of holy Scripture for his own private Instruction, comfort, edification, and direction, and for the framing of his life and belief accordingly. The Pastors of the Church, (who are placed over God's people as watchmen and guides,) have more than this, a judgement of Direction, to expound and interpret the holy Scriptures to others, & out of them to instruct the ignorant, to reduce them who wander out of the right way, to confute errors, to foretell dangers, and to draw sinners to repentance. The chief Pastors to whose care the Regiment of the Church is committed in a more special manner, have yet an higher degree of judgement, a Judgement of Jurisdiction to prescribe, to enjoin, to constitute, to reform, to censure, to condemn, to bind, to lose, judicially, authoritatively, in their respective charges. If their Key shall err, either their Key of Knowledge, or their Key of Jurisdiction, they are accountable to their respective Superiors, and in the last place to a general Council, which under Christ upon Earth, is the highest Judge of Controversies. Thus we have seen what is the Rule of Faith, and by whom, and how far respectively this rule is to be applied.  
Thirdly, 
The manner of expounding Scripture.  for the manner of expounding holy Scriptures, (for there may be a privacy in this also, and more dangerous than the privacy of the person,) many things are necessary to the right interpretation of the Law, to understand the reason of it, the precedents, the terms, the forms, the Reports, and an ability to compare Law with Law. He that wants all these Qualifications altogether, is no interpreter of Law. He that wants but some of them, or wants the perfection of them, by how much the greater is his defect, by so much the less valuable is his exposition; And if he shall out of private fancy, or blind presumption, arrogate to himself, without these requisite means, or above his capacity and proportion of Knowledge, a power of expounding Law, he is a madman.  
So many things are required to render a man capable to expound holy Scriptures, some more necessarily, some less, some absolutely, some respectively; As first to know the right Analogy of Faith, to which all interpretations of Scripture must be of necessity conformed. Secondly, to know the practice and tradition of the Church, and the received expositions of former Interpreters in the successive ages, which gives a great light to the finding out of the right sense. Thirdly, to be able to compare Texts with Texts. Antecedents with Consequents, without which one can hardly attain to the drift and scope of the holy Ghost in the obscurer passages. And lastly, it is something to know the Idiotisms of that language wherein the Scriptures were written. He that wants all these requisites, and yet takes upon him out of a phanatique presumption of private illumination to interpret Scripture, is a doting Enthusiast, fit to be refuted with Scorn than with Arguments. He that presumes above that degree and proportion which he hath in these means, and above the talon which God hath given him, (as he that hath a little Language, yet wants Logic, or having both Language and Logic, knows not, or regards not either the Judgement of former expositors, or the practice, and tradition of the purest primitive ages, or the Symbolical faith of the Catholic Church) is not a likely workman to build a Temple to the Lord, but ruin and destruction to himself, and his seduced followers. A new Physician (we say) requires a new Churchyard; But such bold ignorant Empirics in Theology, are ten times more dangerous to the Soul, than an ungrounded unexperienced Quacksalver to the body.  
This hath always been the doctrine, 
This is conformable to the doctrine and practice of our Church.  and the practice of our English Church; First, it is so far from admitting laymen, to be directive Interpreters of holy Scripture, that it allows not this Liberty to Clergymen so much as to gloss upon the Text, 
Can. 1603. Can. 49.  until they be Licenced to become Preachers. Secondly, for Judgement of Discretion only, it gives it not to private persons above their Talents, 
See the Preface to the Bishop's Bible.  or beyond their last. It disallows all fantastical, and enthusiastical presumption of incompetent and unqualified expositors. It admits no man into holy Orders, that is, to be capable of being made a Directive interpreter of Scriptures, howsoever otherwise qualified, 
Cant. ●4.  unless he be able to give a good account of his faith in the Latin tongue, so as to be able to frame all his expositions according to the Analogy thereof. 
Cant. 1571. tit. Concionatores.  It forbids the Licenced Preachers to teach the people any doctrine as necessary to be religiously held and believed, which the Catholic Fathers, and old Bishops of the Primitive Church, have not collected out of the Scriptures. It ascribes a Judgement, of Jurisdiction over Preachers to Bishops, in all manner of Ecclesiastical duties, as appears by the whole body of our Canons. And especially where any difference or public Opposition hath been between Preachers, 
Can. 1631. Can. 53.  about any point or doctrine deduced out of Scripture. It gives a power of determining all emergent Controversies of faith above Bishops to the Church, 
Art. 20. Can. 1603. Can. 139.  as to the witness and keeper of the Sacred Oracles. And to a lawful Synod as the representative Church.  
Now, Sir, be your own Judge how infinitely you have wronged us, and yourself more, suggesting that temerariously, and without the Sphere of your knowledge, to his Majesty for the principal ground of our Reformation, which our souls abhor. Is there no mean between stupidity and madness? Must either all things be lawful for private persons, or nothing? Because we would not have them like David's Horse and Mule, without understanding, do we therefore put both Swords in their hands, to reform and cut off, to plant and to pluck up, to alter and abolish at their pleasure? We allow them Christian liberty, but would not have them Libertines. Admit some have abused this just liberty, may we therefore take it away from others? So we shall leave neither a Sun in Heaven, nor any excellent creature upon Earth, for all have been abused by some persons, in some kinds, at some times.  
We receive not your upstart supposititious traditions, 
The English Church an enemy to upstart, not to Apostolical traditions.  nor unwritten fundamentals: But we admit, genuine, Universal, Apostolical traditions, As the Apostles Creed, the perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God, the Anniversary Festivals of the Church, the Lenton fast. Yet we know that both the duration of it, and the manner of observing it, was very different in the Primitive times. We believe Episcopacy to an ingenuous person may be proved out of Scripture without the help of Tradition, but to such as are froward, the perpetual practice and tradition of the Church renders the interpretation of the Text more authentic, and the proof more convincing. What is this to us who admit the practice and tradition of the Church, as an excellent help of Exposition? Use is the best interpreter of Laws, and we are so far from believing that We cannot admit tradition without allowing the Papacy, that one of the principal motives why we rejected the Papacy, as it is now established with Universality of Jurisdiction, by the Institution of Christ, and superiority above Ecumenical Councils, and Infallibility of Judgement, was the constant tradition a● the Primitive Church.  
So Sir, you see your demonstration shaken into pieces; You who take upon you to remove whole Churches at your pleasure, have not so much ground left you as to see your Instrument upon. Your two main groundworks being vanished, all your Presbyterian and Independent superstructions; do remain like so many Bubbles or Castles in the air. It were folly to lay closer siege to them, which the next puff of wind will disperse, ruunt subductis tecta Columnis.  
Howsoever, though you have mistaken the grounds of our Reformation, and of your discourse, yet you charge us, that we have renounced the Sacrifice of the Mass, Transubstantiation, the seven Sacraments, Justification by inhaerent righteousness, merits, Invocation of Saints, prayer for the dead, with Purgatory, and the Authority of the Pope. Are these all the necessary Articles of the new Roman Creed, that we have renounced? Surely no; you deal too favourably with us. We have in like manner renounced your Image-worship, your half Communion, your prayers in a tongue unknown, etc. It seems you were loath to mention these things.  

Of the Sacrifice of the Mass.  First, you say we have renounced your sacrifice of the Mass. If the Sacrifice of the Mass be the same with the Sacrifice of the Cross, we attribute more unto it, than yourselves; We place our whole hope of Salvation in it. If you understand another propitiatory Sacrifice, distinct from that (as this of the Mass seems to be, for confessedly the Priest is not the same, the Altar is not the same, the Temple is not the same,) If you think of any new meritorious satisfaction to God for the sins of the world, or of any new supplement to the merits of Christ's Passion, You must give us leave to renounce your Sacrifice indeed, and to adhere to the Apostle; 
Heb. 10.14  By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.  
Surely you cannot think that Christ did actually sacrifice himself at his last Supper, (for then he had redeemed the world at his last Supper, than his subsequent sacrifice upon the Cross had been superfluous,) nor that the Priest now doth more than Christ did then. We do readily acknowledge an Eucharistical sacrifice of prayers and praises, we profess a commemoration of the sacrifice of the Cross, And in the language of holy Church, things commemorated are related as if they were then acted, As Almighty God who hast given us thy Son [as this day] to be born of a pure Virgin. 
In the Collects for these ●easts.  And whose praise the younger, Innocents' have [this day] set forth. And between the Ascension and Pentecost, which hast exalted thy Son Jesus Christ with great Triumph into Heaven, we beseech thee leave us not comfortless, but send unto us thy holy Spirit. We acknowledge a Representation of that sacrifice to God the Father, we acknowledge an Impetration of the benefit of it, we maintain an Application of its virtue: So here is a commemorative, impetrative, applicative sacrifice. Speak distinctly, and I cannot understand what you can desire more. To make it a suppletory sacrifice, to supply the defects of the only true sacrifice of the Cross, I hope both you and I abhor.  
The next crime objected by you to us is, 
Of Transubstantiation.  that we have renounced Transubstantiation. It is true we have rejected it deservedly from being an Article of our Creed; you need not wonder at that. But if we had rejected it 400. years' sooner, that had been a Miracle. It was not so soon hatched. To find but the word Transubstantiation in any old Author, were sufficient to prove him a counterfeit.  

Of 7. Sacraments.  Your next Article of the septenary number of the Sacraments is not much older. Never so much as mentioned in any Scripture, or Council, or Creed, or Father, or ancient Author; 
Anno 1439 1528. 1547.  first devised by Peter Lombard; first decreed by Eugenius the fourth; first confirmed in the Provincial Council of Senes, and after in the Council of Trent. Either the word Sacrament is taken largely; and then the washing of the Disciples feet is called a Sacrament, than the only sprinkling of Ashes on a Christians head is called a Sacrament, than there are God knows how many Sacraments more than seven; Or else it is taken strictly for a visible sign, instituted by Christ, to convey or confirm invisible Grace, to all such partakers thereof, as do not set a bar against themselves, according to the Analogy between the Sign and the thing signified. And in this sense the proper and certain Sacraments of the Christian Church, common to all, or (in the words of our Church,) generally necessary to Salvation, are but two, Baptism and the Supper of our Lord. More than these St. Ambrose writes not of in his Book de Sacramentis, because he did not know them. These we admit for genuine, and general Sacraments. Their Sacramental virtue we acknowledge.  
The rest we retain more purely than yourselves, though not under the Notion of such, proper and general Sacraments. As Confirmation, Ordination, Matrimony, Penitence (though we neither approve of your preposterous manner of Absolution before satisfaction, nor of your Ordinary penitentiary tax,) and last, the Visitation of, and Prayer for the sick, which only is of perpetual necessity. The Unction prescribed by St. James, 
Jam. 5.14.  being appropriable to the miraculous gift of healing, or recovering men out of sicknesses, then in use; Whereas your custom is clean contrary, never, or rarely to enoyl any man, until he be passed all hope of Recovery. The Ordinary and most received custom of preparing sick persons for another world in the primitive Church, was Prayer and Absolution, or the benefit of the Keys, and the Viaticum of the body and blood of Christ, which we retain.  
Concerning Justification, 
Of Justification.  we believe that all good Christians have true inherent Justice, though not perfect according to a perfection of degrees, as gold is true Gold, though it be mixed with some dross. We believe that this inherent Justice and sanctity, doth make them truly just and holy. But if the word Justification be taken in sensu forensi, for the acquittal of a man from former guilt, to make an offender just in the eye of the Law, as it is opposed to Condemnation, 
Rom. 8.33  It is God that justifieth, who is ●e that condemneth; Then it is not our inherent righteousness that justifies us in this sense, but the free Grace of God for the merits of Jesus Christ.  

Of Merits.  Next for merits, we never doubted of the necessity of good Works, without which Faith is but a fiction. We are not so stupid to imagine that Christ did wash us from our sins, that we might wallow more securely in sin, but that we might serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. We never doubted of the reward of good Works; Come ye blessed of my Father, etc. for I was hungry, and ye fed me. Nor whether this reward be due to them in Justice; Henceforth is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness, 
2 Tim. 4. ●  which the Lord the just Judge shall give me in that day. Faithful promise makes due debt. This was all that the ancient Church did ever understand by the name of Merits. Let Petavius bear witness; 
Discrt. Eccles. li. 2. c. 4.  Antiqui patres omnes & prae caeteris Augustinus, cumque iis consentiens Romana & Catholica pietas agnoscit merita eò sensu, nimirum ut neque Dei gratiam ulla antecedant merita, & haec ipsa tum ex gratiâ, tum ex gratuitâ Dei pollicitatione tota pendeant. All the Ancient Fathers, especially St. Austin, and the Roman and Catholic faith consenting with them, do acknowledge Merits in this sense, that no Merits go before the grace of God, and that these very Merits do Depend wholly on grace, and on the free promise of God. Hold you to this, and we shall have no more difference about Merits; Do you exact more of us, than all the Fathers, or the Roman and Catholic piety doth acknowledge?  
It is an easy thing for a wrangling Sophister to dispute of Merits, in the Schools, or for a vain Orator to declaim of Merits out of the Pulpit, but when we come to lie upon our deathbeds, and present ourselves at the last hour before the Tribunal of Christ, it is high time both for you and us to renounce our own merits, and to cast ourselves naked into the Arms of our Saviour. That any works of ours, who are the best of us but unprofitable servants, which properly are not ours but Gods own gifts, and if they were ours are a just debt due unto him, setting aside God's free promise, and gracious acceptation, should condignly by their own intrinsical value deserve the joys of Heaven, to which they have no more proportion than they have to satisfy for the eternal torments of Hell: This is that which we have renounced, and which we never ought to admit.  

Of Invocation of Saints.  If your Invocation of Saints were not such as it is, to request of them▪ Patronage and Protection, spiritual graces, and Celestial joys, by their prayers, and by their merits, (alas the nisest Virgins have oil in their Lamps little enough for themselves;) Yet it is not necessary for two Reasons; First, no Saint doth love us so well as Christ. No Saint hath given us such assurance of his love, or done so much for us as Christ. No Saint is so willing, or able to help us as Christ. And secondly, we have no command from God to invocate them.  
So much your own Authors do confess, and give this reason for it, 
S. Clara Probl. 37. ex Horantio.  Lest the Gentiles being converted, should believe that they vere drawn back again to the worship of the creature. But we have another command, Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will hear thee. We have no promise to be heard, when we do invocate them; But we have another promise, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name, ye shall receive it. We have no example in holy Scripture of any that did invocate them, but rather the contrary; See thou do it not; 
Rev. 22.9.  I am thy fellow servant, worship God. We have no certainty that they do hear our particular prayers, especially mental prayers, yea a thousand prayers poured out at one Instant in several parts of the world; We know what your men say of the glass of the Trinity, and of extraordinary Revelations: But these are bold conjectures without any certainty, and inconsistent the one with the other.  
We do sometimes meet in ancient Authors, with the Intercession of the Saints in General, which we also acknowledge; or an obliqne invocation of them (as you term it,) that is a prayer directed to God, that he will hear the intercession of the Saints for us, which we do not condemn; Or a wish, or a Rhetorical Apostrophe, or perhaps something more in some single ancient Author: But for an Ordinary Invocation in particular necessities, and much more for public Invocation in the Liturgies of the Church, we meet not with it for the first six hundred years, or thereabouts; All which time and afterwards also, the common principles and tradition of the Church were against it. So far were they from obtruding it as a necessary fundamental Article of Christian Religion. 
Of prayer for the dead with Purgatory.    

It is a common fault of your writers always to couple Prayer for the dead and Purgatory together, as if the one did necessarily suppose, or imply the other; In whose steps you tread. Prayer for the dead hath often proceeded upon mistaken grounds, often from true grounds, both inconsistent with your Purgatory. Many have held an Opinion, that though the souls were not extinguished at the time of their separation from the body, yet they did lie in secret receptacles, in a profound or dead sleep, until the resurrection, doing nothing, suffering nothing in the mean time, but only the delay of their glory. Others held that all must pass through the fire of Conflagration at the day of judgement. These opinions were inconsistent with your Purgatory, yet all these, upon these very grounds used prayer for the dead. Others called the merciful Doctors, held, that the very pains of Hell might be lessened by the prayer of the living: Such a prayer is that which we meet with in your own Missal, O King of Glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful deceased, from the pains of Hell, from the deep lake, 
Tartarus.  from the mouth of the Lion (that is the Devil,) that the bottomless pit of Hell do not swallow them up. A man may lawfully pray for that which is certain, if it be to come, but one cannot lawfully pray for that which is past. The souls which are in Purgatory (by your learning,) are past the fear of Hell. Nor can this petition be any ways so wrested, as to become appliable to the hour of death. This prayer is not for the man, but for the soul separated; nor for the soul of a sick man, or a dying man, but for the souls of men actually deceased. Certainly this prayer must have reference, either to the sleeping of the souls, or to the pains of Hell; To deliverance out of Purgatory it can have no relation. Neither are you able to produce any one prayer public or private, Neither any one indulgence to that purpose, for the delivery of any one soul out of Purgatory, in all the Primitive times, or out of your own ancient Missals or records. Such are the Innovations which you would impose upon us, as Articles of Faith, which the greatest part of the Catholic Church never received until this day. Moreover though the sins of the faithful be privately and particularly remitted at the day of death, yet the public promulgation of their pardon at the day of judgement is to come. Though their souls be always in an estate of blessedness, yet they want the consummation of this blessedness, extensively at least, until the body be reunited unto the soul, (and as it is piously and probably believed) intensively also, that the soul hath not yet so full and clear a vision of God, as it shall have hereafter. Then what forbids Christians to pray for this public acquittal, for this Consummation of blessedness? So we do pray, as often as we say, thy kingdom come, or come Lord Jesus, come quickly, Our Church is yet plainer, that we with this our Brother, and all other departed in the faith of thy holy name, may have our perfect Consummation of blessedness in thy eternal kingdom. This is far enough from your more gainful prayers for the dead, to deliver them out of Purgatory.  

The Authority of the Pope.  Lastly, concerning the Authority of the Pope, It is he himself that hath renounced his lawful patriarchal Authority. And if we should offer it him at this day, he would disdain it. We have only freed ourselves from his tyrannical usurped Authority. But upon what terms, upon what grounds, how far, and with what intention, we have separated ourselves, or rather have suffered ourselves to be separated from the Church of Rome, you may find if you please in the Treatise of Schism.  
I cannot choose but wonder to see you cite St. Cyprian against us in this case, 
P 27.  who separated himself from you, as well as we, in the days of a much better Bishop than we, and upon much weaker grounds than we, and published his dissent to the world in two African Councils; He liked not the swelling title of Bishop of Bishops, nor that one Bishop should tyrannically terrify an other into obedience; No more do we. He gave a primacy, or principality of order to the Chair of St. Peter as principi●m unitatis; so do we: But he believed that every Bishop, had an equal share of Episcopal power; so do we. He provided a part, as he thought fit in a Provincial Council for his own safety, and the safety of his flock; so did we. He writ to your great Bishop as to his Brother and Colleague, and dared to reprehend him for receiving but a letter from such as had been censured by the African Bishops. In St. Cyprians sense, you are the beam that have separated yourselves from the body of the Sun; you are the Bough that is lopped from the Tree; you are the stream which is divided from the Fountain. It is you, principally you, that have divided the unity of the Church.  
You collect as a Corollary from our supposed principal of the right and sufficiency of private judgement, 
Whether humane Laws bind the Conscience.  enlightened by the Spirit, that no humane Authority can bind the conscience of an other, or prescribe any thing unto it. I have formerly shown you your gross mistake in the premises, Now if you please hear our sense of the Conclusion. Humane Laws cannot be properly said to bind the Conscience, by the sole authority of the Lawgiver, But partly by the equity of the Law, every one being obliged to advance that which conduceth to a public good, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; And especially by divine Authority, which commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers; for conscience sake; not prudentially only. The question is soon decided, just Laws of lawful Superiors, either Civil; or Ecclesiastical, have authority to bind the conscience in themselves, but not from themselves.  
How shall we believe that it is not you but God that represents these things to his Majesty, 
P. 34. 69. The Author a little enthusiastical.  that addresseth them to him by your mouth, that calleth him, that stretcheth out his hand to him, that hath set these things before his eyes, in Characters not to be defaced. What? That his Majesty should turn Roman Catholic? Are they like Belshazars' Characters; and are you the only Daniel that can read them? we do not see a Cloven tongue upon your head, nor a Dove seeming to whisper in your ear. Be not too confident left some take it to be a little taint of Anabaptism, perhaps you have had as strange fantasies as this heretofore, whilst you were of a contrary party.  
Be it what it will be, you cannot offer it to his Majesty with more confidence, or pretend more intimacy with God, or to be more familiarly acquainted with his Cabinet Counsel, than a Scotch Presbyter; And yet yourself would not value all his confidence at a Button. Wise men are not easily gained by empty shows or pretences, that signify nothing but the pretenders vanity, nor by enthusiastical interpretation of occurrences. It is only the weight of reason that depresseth the scale of their judgement, and makes them to yield and submit unto it.  
Howsoever it be God or you that represent these things to his Majesty, you tell us that the end is to reduce him from those errors which he sucked in with his milk, which in the days of peace, and abundance, it had been difficult for him to discover. But now his eyes and his ears do see and hear those truths which make it evident to him, that God hath condemned them to reduce him to the Communion of the Church; wherein you promise him all manner of blessings. Who told you of his Majesty's new Illumination? or what have you seen to believe any such thing? when you dare avouch such gross untruths of himself, to himself, how should he credit your private presumptions, which you tell him as a new Mercury dropped down from Heaven.  

The Romanists require submission to their Church as necessary to salvation,  You tell us that it is necessary for every one to adhere to the true Church, which is the keeper of saving truth. That is true, but nothing to his Majesty, who hath more right already in the Catholic Church than yourself. You tell us moreover that this Church is the Roman Church. That is not true; but suppose it were most true, as it is most false, what should a man be better or nearer to the knowledge of the truth, and consequently to his salvation, for his submission to the Roman Church; 
Yet cannot agree among themselves what this Roman Church is.  As long as you cannot agree among yourselves, either what this Roman Church is, or what your infallible Judge is? One saith it is the Pope alone; Another saith no, but the Pope with his Conclave of Cardinals; A third will go no less than the Pope and a Provincial Council; A fourth will not be contented without the Pope and a general Council; A fifth is for a General Council alone either with, or without the Pope; A sixth party, (and they are of no small esteem among you here at this present,) is for the essential Church, that is the Company of all faithful people, whose reception (say they,) makes the true ratification of the Acts of its representative body. It were as good to have no infallible Judge, as not to know or agree who it is? Be not so centorious in condemning others, for not submitting to your Roman Church or infallible Judge, nor so positive to make this submission so absolutely necessary to salvation, until you agree better what this Judge or Church is. It is five to one against you, that you yourself miss the right Judge.  

The English Church not perished.  Whatsoever become of your Church, you say Ours is perished by the proper Axioms of our own Reformation, and hath no more any subsistence in the world, nor pretence to the Privilege of a Church. This is hard. He perisheth twice that perisheth by his own weapons. Even so joseph's Brethren told Joseph himself with Consciences guilty enough, One is not: 
Gen. 42.13.  This is that which the Court of Rome would be content to purchase at any rate. This hath been the end of all then secret Negotiations and Instructions, by all means to support the Presbyterian faction in England against Episcopacy; Not that they loved them more than us, but that they feared us more than them.  
There was an Israelitish Church, when Elias did not see it; but he must be as blind as Bartimaeus, that cannot see the English Church. Wheresoever there is a lawful English Pastor, and an English Flock, and a subordination of this Flock to that Pastor, there is a branch of the true English Protestant Church. Do you make no difference between a Church persecuted, and a Church extinguished? Have patience and expect the Catastrophe. It may be all this while the Carpenter's Son is making a Coffin for Julian. If it please God, we may yet see the Church of England which is now frying in the fire, come out like Gold out of the Furnace, more pure, and more full of lustre. If not, his will be done. Just art thou O Lord, and righteous are all thy judgements. The Primitive Church was as glorious in the sight of God when they served him in Holes and Corners, in Cryptis, Sacellis, conventiculis, ecclesiolis, as when his worship was more splendidly performed in Basilicis, and Cyriacis, in goodly Churches, and magnificent Cathedrals.  
Your design stops not at the King of great Britain, 
P. 42.  but extends itself to all his subjects, yea to all Protestants whatsoever. I wonder why you stay there, 
The Author's vain dreams.  and would not add all the Eastern Churches, and the great Turk himself, since you might have done it with one other penfull of Ink? and with as much pretence of reason, to secure himself from the joint forces of Christendom thus united by your means. A strong fantasy will discover Armies, and Navies in the Clouds, men and horses, and chariots in the fire, and hear articulate dictates from the Bels. This is not to write waking, but dreaming.  
Yet you make it an easy work, to effect which there needs no disputation, but only to behold the Heretical Genius of our Reformation, 
P. 43. 44.  which is sufficiently condemned by itself, if men will only take the pains to compare the fundamental principles thereof with the Consequences. Great Houses and Forts are builded at an easy charge in Paper. When you have consulted with your Architects and engineers, you will find it to be a work of more difficulty. And your adversaries resolution may teach you to your cost, what it is to promise yourself such an easy conquest before the fight, and let you see that those golden mountains which you phantasied have no subsistence but in your own brain, and send you home to seek out that self-conviction there, which you sought to fasten upon others. When you are able to prove your Universal Monarchy, your new Canon of Faith, your new Treasury of the Church, your new Roman Purgatory whereof the Pope keeps the Keys, your Image worship, your common prayers in a tongue unknown, your detaining of the Cup from the Laity in the public administration of the Sacrament, and the rest of your new Creed, out of the four first General Councils, or the Universal Tradition of the Church in those days, either as principles or fundamental truths, (which you affirm,) or so much as ordinary points of faith, (which we deny,) we will yield ourselves to be guilty both of Contradiction and Schism. Until you are able to make these innovations good, it were best for you to be silent, and leave your vapouring. Desperate undertake do easily forfeit a man's reputation. 
P. 47. etc. His vainer proposition of a conference.   
Now are we come to the most specious piece of your whole Epistle, that is the motion or proposition of a Conference, by Authority of the King of France, at the instance of the King of great Britain, before the Archbishop of Paris, and his Coadjutor, between some of your Roman Catholic Doctors, and the Ministers of the reformed Church at Paris, whom you do deservedly commend for their sufficiency and zeal. You further suppose that the Ministers of the reformed Church will accept of such a disputation, or by their Tergiversation betray the weakness of their cause; And you conclude confidently beyond supposition, that they will be confuted and convicted, and that their conversion or conviction will afford sufficient ground to the King of great Britain, to embrace the Communion of the Roman Catholic Church; And that his conversion will reduce all conscientious Protestants to unity and due obedience.  
I will contract your larger Palm to a Fist. If the King of great Britain desire a solemn conference, the King of France will enjoin it; If he enjoin it, the Ministers will accept; if they do accept it, they are sure to be convicted; if they be convicted, the King of great Britain will change his Religion; if he change his Religion, all conscientious Protestants will be reduced: And all this to be done, not by the old way of disputing, No, take heed of that, the burned child dreads the fire; But by a proper new way of refuting old Protestant principles, by new Independent practices. Why was this Remedy found out no sooner? This might have eased the Cardinals in their Consultations about propagating the Faith; This might have saved Cardinal Allen all his Machiavillian Instructions to his English Emissaries; This may in a short time turn the Inquisitors out of their employment, for want of an Object, and not leave such a thing as heretical pravity in the world. How must men praise your fortune, and applaud your Invention? But stay, the second thoughts are wiser; What if this Chain supposed to be of Adamant, should prove a rope of sand? And so it is; I have seen a Sorites disgraced, and hissed out of the Schools, for drawing but one lame leg after it. This is foundered of all four, from the beginning to the end there is nothing in it but future Contingents, which are known only to God, not one grain of necessary truth.  

The King of England desires no such Conference.  First Sir, be not angry if a man take away the subject of your whole discourse; It is but your officiousness, the King desires no such Conference. Let them desire Conferences who waver in their faith. All these blustering storms have radicated him deeper in his Religion. And chief that which you make the chiefest motive to his Apostating, the Martyrdom of his royal Father, and an hereditary love to that Church which he hath justified with his blood.  
Secondly, 
If he should, he had neither reason nor need to desert his English Clergy.  if his Majesty should incline to such a Conference, do you think he would desert the English Clergy, who have forsaken their Country, their Friends, their Estates, out of their Conscience, out of their duty to God, and their Sovereign, who understand the Constitution of the English Church much better than yourself, or any Foreiners how sufficient soever, and cast himself wholly upon strangers, whose Reformation (you say) is different from that of England, in the points of Episcopacy, Liturgy, and the Ceremonies of the Church? Say, what was the Reason of this gross Omission? were you afraid of that Image of the Church (as you call it in a slighting manner) which they retained? Or did you not think any of the English Nation worthy to bear your books at a Conference? It hath been otherwise heretofore, and you will find it otherwise now, when you come to prove it. I know not whether England hath been more fortunate or unfortunate since the Reformation, in breeding as many able Polemique writers on both sides, as any Nation in Europe; Stapleton, Harding, Parsons, Sanders, Reynolds, Bishop. etc. for the Roman Church. Jewel, Andrews, Abbot, Laewd, White, Field, Montague, Reynolds, Whitaker, etc. for the English Church (I forbear to name those that are living) And many more who come not short of these, if they had pleased to communicate their Talents to the world. This is such a Contumely as reflects upon the Nation, and you must be content to be told of it.  
Thirdly, 
Such a Conference not fit to be granted by the King of France.  how are you sure that the King of France and his Counsel would give way to such a solemn and public Conference? private Insinuations use to prevail much when a man may Laevere & tack to and again to compass his ends. Authority or the Sword may put an end to Controversies: But public Conferences for the most part do but start new Questions, and revive old forgotten animosities. What were the Donatists the better for the Collation at Carthage? The mind of a man is generous, and where it looks for opposition, fortifies itself against it. Urban the Eighth was the wisest Pope you have had of late, who by his moderation and courtesy cooled much of that heat, which the violence of his Predecessors had raised against the Court of Rome. The mild beams of the Sun were more prevalent, than the blustering blasts of the North wind. Multiplying of words more commonly engenders strife, than peace.  
Fourthly, 
Nor to be accepted by the Ministers of the reformed Church.  upon what grounds are you so confident, that the Ministers of the Reformed Church would admit of such a public Disputation upon those terms which you propose? That, is to accept of the Archbishop of Paris and his Coadjutor, two persons interessed, for competent Judges. I am as confident of the contrary, that they would rather choose to suffer, than wrong their cause so much; Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora. It were a readier way for them, and but the same in effect, to subscribe to a blank paper, and to submit without disputation. 
Nor could any such Success be expected from it.   
Fifthly, suppose (all this notwithstanding) such a Conference should hold, what reason have you to promise to yourself such success, as to obtain so easy a Victory? You have had Conferences and Conferences again at Poissye, and other places, and gained by them, just as much as you might put in your eye, and see never the worse. When Conferences are only made use of as Pageants, to grace the Introduction of some new Proselyte, and to preserve his Reputation from the aspersion of desultorious Levity, they seem much more efficatious than they are. As they know well enough who are privy to what is acted in the withdrawing room. The time was when you have been as confident in a contrary Opinion, that such a free Conference would have sealed the Walls of Rome, and leveled the Pope's Triple Crown.  
Sixtly, 
The Author's impertinence and sauciness with the King.  whether the Ministers should accept of such a partial unequal Conference or not, or whatsoever should be the success thereof, you trespass too boldly upon his Majesty's patience, to dictate to him so pragmatically, so magisterially, what he should do, or would do, in such a case, which is never like to be. Doth his Father's constancy encourage you to believe, that He is a Reed shaken with the wind; Qui pauca considerate, facile pronunciat, He that weighs no more circumstances or occurrences than serve for the Advancement of his design, pronounceth sentence easily, but temerariously, and for the most part unsoundly. When such a thing as you dream of should happen, it were good manners in you to leave his Majesty to his Christian Liberty. But to trouble yourself and others about the Moons shining in the water, so unseasonably, so impertinently, or with what will come to pass when the sky falls, is unbeseeming the Counsellor of a King.  

His Pen over ●uns his wit.  Lastly, consider how your pen doth overrun your reason, and overreach all grounds of probability, to ascribe unto his Majesty's change such an infallible Influence upon all Protestants, as to reduce them to the Roman Communion, not only his own subjects, but foreiners. His blessed Father's example had not so much influence upon the Scots his native Subjects. He was no Changeling indeed, neither to the right hand, nor to the left. Henry the Fourth his Grandfather, did turn indeed to the Roman Church. Had his change any such Influence upon the Protestant party in France? I know no followers such a change would gain him, but I foresee clearly how many hearts it would lose him. Certainly Sir, if you would do a meritorious piece of ●●…ice to his greatest Adversaries, you could not fix upon any thing that would content them more highly, than to see you successful in this undertaking. I have done with your Proposition. He than compares it and your demonstration together, will easily judge them to be twins at the first sight.  
As a motive to his Majesty's conversion, you present him with a Treatise of Transubstantiation, and desire that it may appear unto the world under his royal name. 
P. 58.   

His improper choice of a Patron for his Treatise.  I meddle not with your Treatise, some of your learned Adversaries friends will give you your hands full enough. But how can his Majesty protect or patronise a Treatise against his Judgement, against his Conscience, so contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, not only since the Reformation, but before? About the year seven hundred, 
Serm. Saxon. in fest● Paschat.  The body of Christ wherein he suffered, and his Body Consecrated in the Host, differ much. The body wherein he suffered was born of the Virgin, consisting of flesh and bones, and humane members; his Spiritual body, which we call the Host, consists of many grains, without blood, bones, or human members, wherefore nothing is to be understood there corporally, but all spiritually. Transubstantiation was neither held for an Article of Faith, nor a point of Faith in those days.   

You charge the Protestants in divers places, 
P. 62.  That they have neither Church nor Faith, but have lost both. And at the later end of your Treatise you undertake to demonstrate it: 
P. 222.  
His unskilfulness, or his unfortunateness in his Demonstrations.  But your demonstration is a mere Paralogism. You multiply your terms, you confound your terms, you change and alter your terms, contrary to the rules of right arguing, and vainly beat the air, concluding nothing which you ought to prove, nothing which your Adversary will deny. You would prove that Protestants have no Church. That you never attempt; But you do attempt to prove (how pitifully God knows,) that they are not the only Church, that is, the one, Holy Catholic Church. This they did never affirm, they did never think. It sufficeth them to be a part of that Universal Church, more pure, more Orthodox, more Catholic than the Roman, always professing Christ visibly, never lurking invisibly in an other Communion, which is another of your mistakes. I should advise you to promise us no more evident demonstrations; Either your skill, or your luck is so extremely bad.  
In the second place you affirm that Faith is founded upon divine Authority, and Revelation, and deposited with the Church. All that is true; But that which you add, that it is founded in the Authority of Christ speaking by the mouth of his Church; By this Church, understanding the Church of this Age, and (which is yet worse) the Church of one place, and (which is worst of all) the Bishop of that one Church, is most false.  

The great advantage of the Prostant above the Roman Catholic in the choice of his foundation.  And so is that which you add, that the faith of Protestants is founded upon their own reasonings, which makes so many differences among them. Reason must be subservient in the application of the Rule of Faith. It cannot be the foundation of Faith. Bad reasoning may bring forth differences and errors about Faith, both with you and us, but the abuse of Reason doth not take away the use of Reason. We have this Advantage of you, that if any one of us do build an erroneous Opinion upon the holy Scripture, yet because our adherence to the Scripture is firmer and nearer than our adherence to our particular error, that full, and free, and universal assent which we give to holy Scripture, and to all things therein contained, is an implicit Condemnation and retractation of our particular error, which we hold unwittingly, and unwillingly against Scripture. But your foundation of Faith being composed of uncertainties, whether this man be Pope or not, whether this Pope be Judge or not, whether this Judge be infallible or not, and if infallible, wherein, and how far; the faith which is builded thereupon cannot but be fallible and uncertain. The stricter the adherence is to a false, uncertain, or fallible rule, the more dangerous is the error. So our right foundation purgeeth away our error in superstruction; And your wrong foundation lessens the value of your truths, and doubles the guilt of your errors.  
I will (by your leave) requite your demonstration, and turn the mouths of your own Canons against yourself.  
That Church which hath changed the Apostolical Creed, the Apostolical Succession, the Apostolical Regiment, and the Apostolical Communion, is no Apostolical, Orthodox, or Catholic Church.  
But the Church of Rome hath changed the Apostolical Creed, the Apostolical Succession, the Apostolical Regiment, and the Apostolical Communion.  
Therefore the Church of Rome is no Apostolical, Orthodox, or Catholic Church.  
They have changed the Apostolical Creed, by making a new Creed, wherein are many things inserted, that hold no Analogy with the old Apostles Creed; The Apostolical Succession, by engrossing the whole succession to Rome, and making all other Bishops to be but the Pope's Vicars, and Substitutes, as to their Jurisdiction; The Apostolical Regiment by erecting a visible and Universal Monarchy in the Church; And lastly the Apostolical Communion, by excommunicating three parts of the holy Catholic Apostolic Church.  
Again, That Church which resolves its Faith not into divine Revelation and Authority, but into Humane infallibility, or the Infallibility of the present Church, without knowing, or according, what that present Church is, whether the Virtual, or the representative, or the essential Church, or a body compounded of some of these, hath no true faith.  
But the Church of Rome resolves it Faith, not into didine Revelation and Authority, but into the Infallibility of the present Church, not knowing or not according what that present Church is, whether the Virtual Church (that is the Pope,) or the representative Church (that is a general Council) or the Essential Church, (that is the Church of Believers diffused over the world,) or a body compounded of some of these, (that is the Pope, and a General or Provincial Council.)  
Therefore the Church of Rome hath not true faith. The greater number of your Writers is for the Pope, that this infallibility is fixed to this Chair. But of all other Judgements, this is most fallible and uncertain, for if Simony make a Nullity in a Papal Election, we have great reason to doubt, that that Chair hath not been filled by a right Pope these last hundred years. These are no other but your own Mediums; Such luck you have with your irrefragable demonstrations.  

P. 68 His Majesty's Apostasy is not the way to his restitution.  In case his Majesty will turn Roman Catholic you promise him restitution to his Kingdoms.  
Great undertakers are seldom good performers; when you are making your Proselytes, you promise them golden Mountains, but when the work is done, you deal with them, as he did with his Saint, who promised a Candle as big as his Mast, and offered one no bigger than his finger. Do you however think it reason, that any man should change his Religion for temporal respects, though it were for a Kingdom? Jeroboam did so, you may remember what was the success of it.  
You propose this as the readiest means to restore him. Others who penetrate deeper into the true state of his affairs, look upon it as the readiest way to ruin his hopes, by the alienation of his friends, by the confirmation of his foes, and in some sort the justification of their former feigned fears. Do you think all Roman Catholic Princes desire this change as earnestly as yourself? Give them leave first to consult with their particular Interests. A common Interest prevails more with Confederates than a common faith. The Sword distinguisheth not between Protestants and Papists.  
But what is the ground of this your great Confidence? no less than Scripture. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and the righteousness of it, and all other things shall be added unto you. You say the word of God deceives not man. True, but you may deceive yourself out of the word of God. The Conclusion always follows the weaker part, such as this, are commonly your mistaken grounds, when they come to be examined. The text saith, Seek the kingdom of God, You would have his Majesty desert the kingdom of God; The promise is of all things necessary or convenient, you will be your own Carver, and oblige God Almighty to Kingdoms and particular conditions; The promise is made (as all temporal promises are,) with an implicit exception of the Cross, unless God see it to be otherwise more expedient for us; He that denies us gold, and gives us patience and other graces more precious than Gold, 
1 Pet. 1.7.  that denies a temporal Kingdom to give an eternal, doth not wrong us. This was out of your head.  
That the Scots had an ancienter Obligation to fidelity towards his Majesty, 
P. 70. The obligation of the Scots to his Majesty the greatest of any Subjects in the known world.  and that Royal Family than the English, is a truth not to be doubted or disputed of, I think I may safely add, than any Nation in Europe, or in the known world to their Prince, his Majesty being the hundred and tenth Monarch of that line, that hath sweyed the Sceptre of that Kingdom successively. The more the pity that a few treacherous Shebas, and a pack of bawling seditious Orators, under the vizard and shadow of pure Religion, to the extreme scandal of all honest professors, should be able to overturn such an ancient fabric, and radicated succession of Kingly Government.  

Their Treachery  But take heed Sir, how you believe that any engagement of the Presbyterian faction in Scotland, proceeded either from conscience, or gratitude, or fidelity, or aimed at the resetling of his Majesty upon his throne. No, no, their hearts were double, their treaties on their parts were mere treacheries from the beginning. I mean not any of those many loyal patriots, that never bowed their knees to Baal-berith the God of the Covenant, in that Nation: 
The loyal Scots excepted.  Nor yet any of those serious converts, that no sooner discovered the leger de main of a company of canting impostors, but they sought to stop the stream of Schism and sedition, with the hazard of their own lives and estates. Nor even those whose eyes were longer held with the Spirit of slumber, by some stronger spells of disciplinarian charmers, but did yet later open their eyes, and come in to do their duties, at the sixth or ninth hour. All these are expunged by me out of this black Roll. Let their posterities enjoy the fruit of their respective loyalties, And let their memories be daily more and more blessed. But I mean the obstinate Ringleaders, 
The disloyal Scots deciphered.  and Standard-bearers of the Presbyterian Covenant of both robes, and the setters up of that misshapen Idol. It is from these I say, that no help or hope could in reason be expected. They who sold the Father, and such a Father, were not likely to prove loyal to the Son. They who hanged up one of the most ancient Gentlemen in Europe, the gallant Marquis of Montrose, being then their lawful Viceroy, like a dog in such base and barbarous manner, together with his Majesty's Commission, to the public dishonour of their King, in the chief City of that Kingdom, in a time of Treaty; They who purged the Army, over and over, as loath on their parts willingly to leave one dram of honesty, or loyalty in it, who would not admit their fellow subjects of much more merit and courage than themselves to assist them; They who would not permit his Majesty to continue among the Soldiery, lest he should grow too popular; They who after they had proclaimed to the world his Title and right to that Crown, yet sought to have him excluded from the benefit of it, and from the execution of his Kingly Office, 
P. 70.  until he should abjure his Religion, cast dirt upon his Parents, alienate his loyal subjects, and ratify the asurpations of his Rebels; These, (there I say,) were most unlikely persons to be his restorers. Was it ever heard before, that subjects acknowledged a Sovereign, and yet endeavoured to exclude him from his rights, until he had granted whatsoever seemed good in their eyes? 
No hope from that party until they repent.  Others may be more severe in their judgements, but I for my part could be well contented, that God would give them the Honour to be the repairers of the breach, who have been the makers of the breach; to be the restorers of Monarchy, who have been the ruiners of Monarchy; to be the re-establishers of peace, who have been the chiefest Catiline's and promoters of War. But that can never be whilst they justify their former rebellious practices, and after they have eaten and devoured, wipe their mouths, and say what have we done? until they acknowledge their former errors; Repentance only is able to knit the broken bone; why should they be more afraid to confess their faults, and shame the Devil, than to commit them? 
P. 73. God must not be limited to time or means of deliverance.   
Yet I cannot say with you that this hath rob his Majesty of all hopes and means of recovery. We may not limit God to any time, who commonly withholds his help until the Bricks be doubled, until the edge of the razor doth touch the very throats of his servants, that the glory of the work may wholly redound to himself. We may not limit God to those means which seem most probable in our eyes. So long as Joseph trusted to his friend in Court, God did forget him; when Pharaohs Butler had quite forgotten Joseph, than God remembered him. God hath nobler ways of restitution than by Battles, and bloodshed, that is, by changing the hearts of his creatures at his pleasure, and turning Esau's vowed revenge into love and kindness.  
I confess, 
P. 74. 75. His Majesty's escape out of England almost miraculous.  his Majesty's resolution was great, so was his prudence, that neither fear (which useth to betray the succours of the Soul,) nor any indiscreet Action, or word, or gesture, in so long a time should either discover him, or render him suspected. When I consider that the Heir of a Crown, in the midst of that Kingdom where he had his breeding, whom all men's eyes had used to Court as the rising Sun, of no common features or physiognomy, at such time when he was not only believed, but known to be among them, when every Corner of the Kingdom was full of Spies to search him, and every Port and Inn full of Officers to apprehend him, I say that he should travail at such a time, so long, so far, so freely, in the sight of the Sun, exposed to the view of all persons, without either discovery, or suspicion, seem little less than a miracle. That God had smitten the eyes of those who met him with blindness, as the eyes of the Sodomites, that they could not find Lot's door, or the Syrian Soldiers, that were sent to apprehend Elisha. This strange escape, and that former out of Scotland, where his condition was not much better, 
And seems to presage that God hath something to do with him.  nor his person much safer, do seem strangely to presage, that God hath yet some great work, to be done by him in his own due time.  
You attribute this rare deliverance, 
P. 76. Prayers and tears the proper Arms of woman,  and the hopes of his conversion, in part to the prayers and tears of his Mother; prayers and tears were the only proper Arms of the old Primitive Christians; more particularly they are the best and most agreeable defence of that sex; but especially the prayers and tears of a Mother, for the Son of her desires, are most powerful. As it was said of the prayers and tears of Monica, 
Especially of Mothers;  for St. Austin her Son; fieri non potuit ut filius istarum lacrymarum periret, It could not be that a Son should perish for whom so many tears were shed. God sees her tears, and hears her prayers, and will grant her request, if not according to her will and desire, (we often ask those things which being granted would prove prejudicial to ourselves and our friends) yet add utilitatem, to his Majesty's greater advantage, which is much better: She wisheth him a good Catholic, and God will preserve him a good Catholic as he is. We do not doubt but the prayers of his Father (who now follows the Lamb in his whites) for his perseverance, 
Yet not so powerful as his Father's intercession now in Heaven.  will be more effectual with God, than the prayers of his Mother for his change. 
P. 77. The Author's instance of Henry the great not pertinent.   
Your instance of his Majesty's Grandfather, your grand King Henry the fourth is not so apposite, or fit for your purpose. He gained his Crown by turning himself towards his people, you would persuade his Majesty to turn from his people, and to cast away his possibilities of restitution, that is, 
Plutarch.  to cut off a natural leg, and take one of wood.  
To the tears of his Mother you add the blood of his Father, 
P. 77. 78. The just commendation of K. Charles.  whom you justly style happy, and say most truly of him, that he preferred the Catholic Faith before his Crown, his liberty, his life, and whatsoever was most dear unto him. This faith was formerly rooted in his heart by God, not secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life to unite him to the Roman Catholic Church, but openly during his whole Reign, all which time he lived in the bosom of the true Catholic Church. 
It is gross impudence to feign that he died a Roman Catholic.  Yet you are so extremely partial to yourself, that you affirm that he died invisibly a Member of your Roman Catholic Church, as it is by you contre-distinguished to the rest of the Christian world. An old pious fraud, or artifice of yours, learned from Machiavelli, to gain credit to your Religion by all means, either true or false; but contrary to his own profession at his death, contrary to the express knowledge of all that were present at his murder. Upon a vain presumption, that Talem nisi vestra Ecclesia nulla parerit filium. And because you are not able to produce one living witness, you cite St. Austin to no purpose to prove that the elect before they are converted, do belong invisibly to the Church; Yea and before they were born also. But St. Austin neither said nor thought, that after they are converted they make no visible profession, or profess the contrary to that which they believe. Seek not thus to adorn your particular Church, not with barrowed but with stolen Saints, Whom all the world know to have been none of yours. What Faith he professed living, he confirmed dying; In the Communion of the Church of England he lived, and in that Communion at his death he commended his soul into the hands of God his Saviour. 
The Author's confession confutes his demonstration, that Prostants have no faith.  That which you have confessed here concerning King Charles, will spoil your former demonstration, that the Protestants have neither Church nor Faith.  
But you confess no more in particular here, than I have heard some of your famous Roman Doctors in this City acknowledge to be true in general; And no more than that which the Bishop of Chalcedon (a man that cannot be suspected of partiality on our side,) hath affirmed and published in two of his Books to the world in Print; That Protestantibus credentes, etc. persons living in the Communion of the Protestant Church, if they endeavour to learn the truth, and are not able to attein unto it, but hold it implicitly in the preparation of their minds, and are ready to receive it when God shall be pleased to reveal it (which all good Protestants and all good Christians are) they neither want Church, nor Faith, nor Salvation. Mark these words well. They have neither Church nor Faith say you; If they be thus qualified (as they all are) they want neither Church, nor Faith, nor Salvation (saith he. 
His intelligence as good in Heaven as upon earth. )  
Lastly Sir, to let us see, that your intelligence is as good in Heaven as it is upon Earth, & that you know both who are there, and what they do, you tell us that the Crown and Conquest, which his late Majesty gained by his sufferings, was procured by the intercession of his Grandmother Queen Mary. We should be the apt to believe this, if you were able to make it appear, that all the Saints in Heaven do know all the particular necessities of all their posterity upon earth. St. Austin makes the matter much more doubtful than you, that's the least of his Assertion, 
Aug. de cura pro mortuus. c. 15.  or rather to be plainly false; fatendum est nescire quidem mortuos quid hic agatur. But with presumptions you did begin your Dedication, and with presumptions you end it. In the mean time till you can make that appear, we observe, that neither Queen Mary's constancy in the Roman Catholic Faith, 
No faith sufficient armour against bloody attempts:  nor Henry the fourth's change to the Roman Catholic Faith, could save them from a bloody end. Then by what warrant do you impute King Charles his sufferings to his error in Religion? Be your own Judge.  
Heu quanta de spe decidimus; Alas! 
The Author much fallen from his former charity in seeking the reunion of Christendom.  from what hopes are we fallen! Pardon our error, that we have mistaken you so long. You have heretofore pretended yourself to be a moderate person, and one that seriously endeavoured the reuniting of Christendom by a fair Accommodation. The widest wounds are closed up in time, and strange Plants by inoculation are incorporated together, and made one; And is there no way to close up the wounds of the Church, and to unite the disagreeing members of the same mystical body? Why were Caleb and Joshua only admitted into the Land of promise, whilst the carcases of the rest perished in the Wilderness, but only because they had been Peacemakers in a time of Schism? Well far our learned and ingenuous Countryman S. Clara, who is altogether as perspicacious as yourself, but much more charitable. You tell us to our grief, 
P. 204.  that there is no accommodation to be expected; that Cardinal Richelieu was too good a Christian, and too good a Catholic to have any such thought; that the one Religion is true, the other false, and that there is no society between light and darkness. This is plain dealing, to tell us what we must trust to. No Peace is to be expected from you, unless we will come unto you upon our knees, with the words of the Prodigal Child in our mouths, Father forgive us. we have sinned against Heaven, and against thee. Is not this rare Courtesy? If we will submit to your will in all things, you will have no longer difference with us. So we might come to shake a worse Church by the hand, than that which we were separated from.  

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