Chapter 10

It is time to return, and put an end to our review of those principles, which I observed your discourse to be built upon. The next as laid down in the Animadversions, p. 103. is, That the Pope is a good man, one that seeks nothing but our good, that never did us harm, but has the care and inspection of us committed to him by Christ. In the repetition hereof you leave out all the last part, and express no more, but the Pope is a good man, and seeks nothing but our good: and therein aim at a double advantage to your self. First, That you may with some color of truth, though really without it, deny the assertion to be yours, when as the latter part of it, which upon the matter, is that which gives the sense, and determines the meaning of the whole, is expressly contended for by you, and that frequently, and at large. Secondly, That you may vent an empty cavil against that expression, seeks nothing, but our good; whereas had you added the next words, and never did us harm, every one would have perceived in what sense the former were spoken, and so have prevented the frivolous exception. Your words are, This also I nowhere aver, for I never saw him, nor have any such acquaintance with him as to know whether he be a good man, or no: though in charity I do not use to judge hardly of any body; much less could say, that he whom I know to have a general solicitude for all churches, seeks nothing but our good, Sir if I had pondered my words in Fiat Lux no better than you heed yours in your Animadversions upon it; they might even go together both of them to lay up pepper and spices, or some yet more vile employment.

For what you have said of the Pope, I desire the Reader to consult your Paragraph so entitled: and if he find not that you have said ten times more in the commendation of him than I intimated in the words laid down for your Principle, I am content to be esteemed to have done you wrong. You have indeed not only set him out as a good man, but have made him much more than a man, and have ascribed that to him, which is not lawful to be ascribed to any man whatever. Some of your expressions I have again reminded you of; and many others of the same nature might be instanced in: and what you can say more of him than you have done, unless you would exalt him above all that is called God, and worshipped; unless you should set him in the Temple of God, and show him that he is God, I know not. Let the Reader if he please, consult your expressions, where you have placed them; I shall stain paper with them no more. And you do but trifle with us, when you tell us that you know not the Pope, nor have any such acquaintance with him, as to know whether he be a good man or no. As though your personal acquaintance with this or that Pope, belonged at all to our question. Although I must needs say, that it seems very strange to me, that you should hang the weight of religion, and the salvation of your own soul, upon one of whom you know not so much as whether he be a good man, or no. For my part I am persuaded there is no such hardship in Christian religion, as that we should be bound to believe, that all the safety of our faith and salvation depends on a man, and he such an one as concerning whom we know not whether he be a good man or no. The Apostle lays the foundation of our hope in better ground (Hebrews 1:1, 2, 3). And yet whatever opinion you may have of your present Pope, you are forced to be at this indifferency about his honesty, because you are not able to deny but that very many of his predecessors, on whose shoulders the weight of all your religion lay, no less than you suppose it does on his who now sways the Papal Scepter, were very brutes, so far from being good men, as that they may be reckoned among the worst in the world. Protestants as I said, are persuaded that their faith is laid up in better hands. With the latter part of my words, as by you set down, you play sophistically, that you might say something to them: (as to my knowledge, I never observed any man so hard put to it, to say somewhat, were it right or wrong) which seems to be the utmost of your design. You feign the sense of my words to be, that the Pope does no other thing in the world but seek our good: and confute me by saying, that he has a general sollicitude for all Churches. But Sir, I said not, he does nothing but seek our good; but only, he seeks nothing but our good, and never did us harm. And you may quickly see how causelessly you fall into a contemplation of your accuracy in your Fiat, and [illegible] looseness of my expressions in the [illegible]. For although I acknowledge that [illegible] been written in greater haste than [illegible] judgements of learned men might well [illegible] as is also this return to your Epistle, [illegible] of them proportioned rather to the merit of your Discourse, than that of the Cause in agitation between us; yet I cannot see that you or any [illegible] else, has any just cause to except against this expression of my intention, which yet is the only one, that in that kind, falls under your censure. For whereas I say, that the Pope seeks nothing but our good, and that he never did us harm, would any man living but yourself, understand these words any otherwise, but with reference to them of whom I spake? That is as to us, he seeks nothing but our good, whatever he does in the world besides. And is it not a wild interpretation, that you make of my words, while you suppose me to intimate, that absolutely the Pope does nothing in the world, or has no other business at all that he concerns himself in, but only the seeking of our good in particular? If you cannot allow the books that you read the common civility of interpreting things indefinitely expressed in them, with the limitations that the subject matter whereof they treat requires, you had better employ your time in any thing than study, as being not able to understand many lines in any author you shall read. Nor are such expressions to be avoided in our common discourse. If a man talking of your Fiat should say that you do nothing but seek the good of your countrymen, would you interpret his words, as though he denied that you say Mass, and hear Confessions, or to intimate that you do nothing but write Fiats? And you know with whom lies both jus & norma loquendi.

The tenth and last Principle is, That the devotion of Catholics far transcends that of Protestants; so you now express it: what you mention being but one part of three, that the Animadversions speak to. Hereunto you reply; But Sir, I never made in Fiat Lux any comparisons between your devotions; nor can I say how much the one is, or how little the other: but you are the maddest commentator that I have ever seen: you first make the text, and then Animadversions upon it. Pray Sir have a little patience, and learn from this instance not to be too confident upon your memory for the future. I shall rather think that fails you at present, than your conscience; but a failure I am sure there is, and you shall take the liberty to charge it where you please, which is more than every one would allow you. I would indeed desirously free my self from the labor of transcribing ought that you have written to this purpose in your Fiat; and only refer you to the places which you seem to have forgotten. But because this is the last instance of this kind that we are to treat about, and you have by degrees raised your confidence, in denying your own words to that height, as to accuse them of madness, who do but remind you of them; I shall represent once again to you what you have written to this purpose; and I am persuaded upon your review of it, you will like it so well, as to be sorry that ever you disowned it. I shall instance only in one place, which is Sect. 22. p. 270, 271. where your words are these, When I beheld (in the Catholic countries) the deep reverence and earnest devotion of the people, the majesty of their service, the gravity of their altars, the decency of their priests; certainly said I within my self, this is the House of God, the Gate of Heaven. Alas our churches in England as they be now, be as short of those, either for decency, use, or piety, as stables to a princely palace. There they be upon their knees all the week long at their prayers, many of them constantly an hour together in the morning, and half an hour he that is least; and my house said God, is the house of prayer; but our churches are either shut up all the week, or if they be open, are wholly taken up with boys shouting, running and gambolling all about. On Sundays indeed our people sit quiet, and decently dressed, but to bow the knee is quite out of fashion; and if any one chance to do it, as it is rare to behold, so he is very nimble at it, and as soon up as down, as if he made a courtship with his knees, and only tried if his nerves and sinews were as good to bow as to stand upright, and our whole religious work here, is to sit quietly while the Minister speaks upon a text,— and that we spend all our days, ever learning and teaching, &c. If this discourse must be esteemed text, I pray tell me whose it is, yours or mine; or whether it does not contain a comparison between the devotion of your Catholics and Protestants; and whether that that of the former be not preferred above the other. And when you have done so, pray also tell me whether you suppose it an honest and candid way of handling matters of this importance, or indeed of any sort whatever, for a man to say and unsay at his pleasure, according to what he apprehends to be for his present advantage. And whether a man may believe you, that you so accurately pondered the words of your Fiat, as you seem to pretend; seeing you dare not abide by what you have written, but disclaim it! And yet I confess this may fall out, if your design in the weighing of your words, was so to place them, as to deceive us by them; which indeed it seems to have been. But it is your unhappiness, that your words are brought to other men's scales after they had so fairly passed your own. For the devotion itself (by the way) of Catholics which you here paint forth to us, it looks very suspiciously to be painted. The piety of your churches wherein they exceed ours, I confess I understand not; and your people's frequenting public places to perform their private devotions, leans much to the old Pharisaism, which our Savior himself has branded to all eternity for hypocritical, and carried on with little attendance to his precept of making the closet, and that with the door shut upon the Devotionists, the most proper seat of private supplications. Besides if their prayers consist, as for the most part they do, in going over by tale a set number of sayings which they little understand; you may do well to commend your devotion to them that understand not one word of Gospel, for those that do, will not attend to it. And so I have once more passed through the Principles of your work, with a fresh discussion of some of them, which I tell you again I suppose sufficient to satisfy judicious and ingenuous persons, in the sophistry and inconclusiveness of the whole: my further procedure being intended for the satisfaction of your self, and such others as have imbibed the prejudices which you endeavour to forestall your minds with all, and thereby have given no small impeachment to your judgement and ingenuity.