187 FATHER HENRY FITZSIMON, S.J. (Continued from page 94, No. xcviii.) "THIS sentence among themselves agreed upon, all the diffi culty was, how after the foresaid act of the Council, it might either be thought available, or adventured to be published. Therein this course was holden. The Mayor was requested by Mr. Rider to send for it to the College. He by no entreaty daring to disable the opinion of the State, and of himself instructing Mr. Rider how notorious the cause was made already and how frivolous such sentence would among all be esteemed, I neither being in place, nor any bond of Mr. Rider known to abide the Collegial arbitrament; they not knowing what else to do with their sentence, sent it freely and unwished to the Mayor, and he to me with a letter of the specified cir cumstances. "Now, consider the villany and iniquity of these Puritans in this judgment. If you please to read over my epistle of appellation to the College, you may find a recital of certain infidels, that had awarded right to Christians, against their own sects, when they had engaged their words to be true arbiters. Than which pre-occupation, to have them deal uprightly, I could not excogitate any more convenient. For as I said, what barbarian, Jew, or cannibal would betray one committing himself to his fidelity, where he needed not to be in his danger? But now we need not to exemplify in Hannibal, of whom Livy saith: 'That he never stood to his word, but while it was profitable for him." We need not reproach the punical compared with the puritanical perfidy. Witness but his excellent Majesty that now reigneth, in his book of kingly instructions to his son, how perjured, how treacherous, how inhumane is the puritanical spirit. Witness the condemned treachery against his person in Rutheven, anno 1582, and in Striveling, anno 1585, beside all other treasons against him and others in Scotland.2 Witness our own Challenor's Andronical treason, against Dr. Haddoc, a second Onias; after giving him the right hand with protestation of friendship,3 yet he secretly trained a draught to apprehend him : fulfilling the saying of the prophet Jeremy :- In his mouth he speaketh peace with his friend, and secretly he layeth ambushes for hims 1 Liv. b. 25, c. 30. 2 Machabees iv. 2 Acts of Parliament in Scotland, c. vii., &c. "So, then, if they use any legertie, treachery, and dishonesty, in this cause which we examine (whereof I refuse no enemy to be judge), it is but a usual act of punical puritancy. But let us debate the matter in order. First, they affirm, there was a late solemn appeal unto them before the Right Wor. Mayor of Dublin. There was, I say, none such. Only I alone had consented to go according to an ancient appeal to the College, giving to that effect a ring; but my provoker in public presence, repealed to a further licence. Also I crave of them, how were they solemnly appealed unto, without form of appellation; without themselves, or any for them, to accept our appeal; without bond of both parties, and other requisite ceremonies? "Secondly, whereas I alone had appealed unto them, and Mr. Rider ever repealed from them, and never entered into bond to stand to their decision, he himself neither in his printed books, nor private letters mentioning any such appeal, or bond; and refusing publicly to give me any gage of coming to trial before them; behold how with faces of a puritanical varnish, such double appeal, and forged bond is fraudulently by them here protested! They are now engaged to show such obligation of Mr. Rider, of a true and not falsified date, if any regard of reputation and sincerity remain in them. 'Thirdly, they affirm that the case resigned to their decision was of the controversy of Transubstantiation, and the consent of antiquity in the same. Fie upon all falsehood-what will all the world think, when to infer a partial and preditorious sentence, such shifting one controversy for another, by a reforming deformation of counterfeit evangelists (to whose sincerity the adversary party had confidently relied) is disfigured? For, as it shall shortly appear, even by Mr. Rider himself, we were at no diversity for the name of Transubstantiation, but for the signification thereof. So that to rack the controversy to the name, by none can be accounted but a profound dishonesty. Could not the first occasion of this disputation, to wit, whether the ancient Fathers stood for Catholics or Protestants, it being imprinted by Mr. Rider in his Caveat and Rescript; or my expressing the case in my letter to you, that you were only to judge, whether for the consent of antiquity in Mr. Rider's cause or mine, he or I had perverted, dissembled, or denied the effect and substance of the Authors' minds, in our allegations; could not the terror of disproof (as for fear of God or shame, I will not object them against you); could not fidelity (which, even according to Cicero, among all nations is 'commune omnium praesidium;' 'the common sanctuary of all;" and according to Valerius Maximus is 'Numen, ac certissimum humanae salutis pignus;' 'The oracle and certainest pledge of human safeguard')2— could not that fidelity hinder you from changing quid pro quo, as false apothecaries do, when they intend to poison? Be it, that you thought such juggling to be the only counterpoise of Mr. Rider's credit, considering that Scriptures, Fathers, Councils, Histories, Protestants, Jews, and Infidels are irrefragably condemning him in the matter signified by the word of Transubstantiation, although they have not the word; could not you suppose, that the very Protestant discreet readers, perceiving him so overthrown in the matter, would also condemn you, with St. Augustine, saying: 'What is a more contentious part, than to strive about the name, when the signification is apparent ?' But let Cicero, a pagan, convince what you are in these words: Calumniatorum proprium est verba consectari, et contra sententiam torquere;' It is the right quality of forging impostors, to chaunt upon words, and to adulterate them from their signification.'4 "Fourthly, they resolve that I have alleged no Council, Father, or Antiquity proving Transubstantiation. In this again they deprave the question committed to their arbitrament, in two manners. First, the perverting, dissembling, denying, of the authors' minds in our several causes, was by them to be judged, and not what I proved or not proved. Secondly, by intimating that I intended to prove the name and not the matter of Transubstantiation. "For the position of Mr. Rider was, 'that Transubstantion, or the corporal presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament, was never taught by the ancient Fathers.' By which even he (whom you defending have destroyed yourselves) sheweth, that he consisted, not in the word, but in the signification; newly explicating it with the disjunction or. Take that fling as a reward of Mr. Rider's mule. Nay, you shall not (by your leave) be quit of him so. We alleging St. Ambrose saying, 'The bread is bread before the consecration: but when it is consecrated, of bread it is made the flesh of Christ; sayeth Mr. Rider thereupon: all that we grant to be true, but you come not to the point, whether Christ's flesh be made of bread by way of Transubstantiation; that is, by the changing of one nature into another, by hoc est corpus 1 Cicero, pro Sexto Roscio. St. Aug., Ep. 174. 5 St. Ambrose, b. 4, De Sacr., c. 4. 2 Val. Max., lib. 6, in principio. 4 Cic., b. i., ad. Heren. meum. This is our question.' So that, not the word of Transubstantiation, but the changing of one nature into another, by hoc est corpus meum, is maintained to be the question; and consequently the former infidelity of the Collegists is evidently, even by Mr. Rider, contestated. "Yet again, they shall have from their beloved brother a Joab's kiss to Amassa,1 a Dalila's tears to Samson, a Triphon's feast to Jonathas,3 in this his answer to the foresaid words of St. Ambrose. He granteth all to be true, but requireth a conversion of one nature into another by the foresaid words. In such grant of truth he giveth perspicuously the lie to both himself and his supporters. For if it be true that by consecration the bread is made the flesh of Christ, then must the nature of bread be converted into the flesh of Christ, and so one nature is transubstantiated or converted into another. Which also St. Ambrose in all that chapter intendeth to prove, saying: 'Moses, his rod was changed into a serpent, and again into a rod; the rivers of Egypt into blood, and again into rivers, etc. And cannot, then, the words of Christ transform bread and wine? The heavens, the earth, and sea were not, nor any creature, and by a word they were made -He commanded, and they were created; if, then, of nothing His powerful word could make things to be, how much more can He alter one thing into another?" The changing, then, of one nature into another, or Transubstantiation, according to Mr. Rider's mind and mine, being true, I say that disproof is given by Mr. Rider against himself in pretending that the ancient Fathers, within the first five hundred years, had no such matter; and against the judgment of the Collegists in his favor containing that I had proved no such matter. "Beside which sufficient confutation of their arbitrament even by Mr. Rider, let all the rest of my proofs in sifting Mr Rider's Caveat (without recapitulation of them in this place) declare these Puritans to be the schismatical Collegians, or uncircumcised gymnasists of Jerusalem, of whom the Scripture saith— 'They have departed from the Holy Testament, and are joined to the Gentiles, and are sold to do evil;'5 not at this time for any price, but to dispawn Mr. Rider's credit. "Lastly, they affirm that allegations are brought by Mr. Rider in the same time, that evidently convince the contrary; to wit that no Transubstantiation was acknowledged for 500 2 Reg. 20. 2 Judic. 14. 31 Mach. 13. 4 St. Ambrose, loc. cit. 5 Recesserunt a testamento sancto, et juncti sunt nationibus et venundati sunt ut facerent malum.-I Mach. viii. 16. years after Christ. But first, the late answer of Mr. Rider himself to the place of St. Ambrose, who lived within 400 years after Christ, confessing it to be true, wherein the change or Transubstantiation of one nature into another is plainly verified; such his answer, I say, doth refel this favourable sentence as false. Next, I crave of these Puritans (not how some time they durst control the contrary sentence of the State; for that demand would imply an ignorance of their general inclination, which is by me elsewhere detected), how at least they durst condemn in such covert contradiction, so malapertly the wisdom of the State, as either to be ignorant of such Mr. Rider's sufficient proofs; or knowing them, of not confronting us together, to so manifest advantage thereby of the public cause, by my being convicted by them; and in particular, how injurious they have made Sir James Fullerton to the whole profession, that not only he did not commend Mr. Rider's proofs in their manner, but that in greater vehemency he did condemn them to be guilty of all defectiveness? To these demands, if they refuse to answer by words, yet they will never escape the infamy engendered in the minds of all that will look on them, by not daring to justify their no less punical censure towards me, than their desperate presumption against the body of the Council, in so thwarting their act and discretion. "This judgment, had it been under King Cambyses, how he would punish1 it, appeareth from his memorable justice against a corrupt judge, whose skin he caused to be flayed off, and to be nailed on the chair of judgment. Then, electing the very son of the said judge, and installing him in his father's office and seat, he willed him now to learn how to judge by such his father's example.' If, as I said, a Cambyses had the Collegists in hand, for this judgment (by themselves, by him whom falsely they defended, by the State, by all learned of the world, detected to be treacherous, filthy, and unchristian), how would he uncase and dismember them? But I leave them as they are. "Mr. Rider says I broke my promise of putting my hand to I know not what. Yet I have been ever known free to trust as much, if not more, than I ought, so that unless I had apparent cause to fear depravation I would not subtract my subscription to anything of mine. Again, he says, my reluctance to give him a legible copy 'argueth weakness of my cause, a shame of my bubbering, and insufficient handling of 1 Valer. Max. 1. c. 3. Helinand, 1. 15, hist. |