CHAP. III. Of the discourses written upon the design of abrogating the penal Laws and Test. 20. Reasons for abrogating the test imposed upon all members of C. L. parliament. First written for the author's own satisfaction, and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may pp. 131, 4to Lond. 1688 See Contin. p. 50. Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 820. (Edit. Bliss, vol. iv. col. 820.) Born in 1640, died in 1687. A defence of the Declaration of Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This piece called forth many answers, particularly one from Burnet, written with extraordinary vigour and acrimony. See Enquiry into the Reasons for abrogating the Test, &c., infra. 21. Transubstantiation a peculiar article of the Roman catholick C. L. faith, which was never owned by the antient church or any of the reformed. In answer to a late discourse called, Reasons for abrogating the test. teacher in London. By Goodwin, a dissenting pp. 48, 4to Lond. 1688 See Cat. p. 33. Contin. p. 50. I can find no notice of this writer although not a theologian κατα συμβεβηκος. “How unsuccessfully he (Bp. Parker) has managed this design of expounding transubstantiation has been shewn in a late Discourse proving transubstantiation to be the peculiar doctrine of the Church of Rome, and in the Preface to the Examination of the New Articles of the Roman Creed by Catholic Tradition."- Wake. 22. A discourse concerning the nature of idolatry, in which a late C. L. author [Samuel L. Bp. of Oxon's] true and only notion of Idolatry [in his reasons for abrogating the test, as above, No. 20.] is considered and confuted. By William Wake, M.A. Pref. pp. xvi., 96, 4to Lond. 1688 .... See Cat. No. 160. Contin. p. 50. Born in 1657, died in 1737. Archbishop Wake was early and long engaged in controversy with the papists; and of all the great Divines who stood forward in defence of the Church of England in that protracted and memorable contest he, after Stillingfleet, was at once the most profoundly skilled in the learning, the most acute, solid and judicious in the argument of his cause. His gentle spirit led him to be moderate; but to convince you how he really thought and wrote of the Church of Rome, I will beg leave to add one or two quotations from his works in return for yours. The charge of idolatry is repeatedly enforced by him, and that not incidentally and by the way, but directly and argumentatively. The title of one of his chapters is as follows. That the Church of Rome thus worshipping of images is truly and properly guilty of idolatry . . . . Of the Adoration of the Host he says, the Church of England, consequently to her principles of the Bread and Wine remaining in their natural substances, professes that she thinks it to be Idolatry, and to be abhorred of all faithful Christians. Of the Sacrifice of the Mass, that it both makes up the chiefest part of the Popish worship, and is justly esteemed one of the greatest and most dangerous errors that offend us. See Exposition of the Doctrines of the Church of England." Letter to Charles Butler, Esq. By the Rev. Henry Phillpotts, D.D. The question so laboriously dilated upon in Moncæii Aaron Purgatus sive de Vitulo Aureo simul Cheruborum Mosis, Vitulorum Jeroboami, Theraphorum Micha formam et historiam Explicantes, Atrebati, 1606, (of which there is an analysis in Poole's Synopsis ad Exod. xxxii.) viz. Whether the Golden Calf was set up in honour of Apis, the Egyptian god, or symbolically in honour of Jehovah, was involved in the controversy between Godden and Stillingfleet, and again in the revival of that controversy between Parker and Wake. "I shall not discuss the question of Moncæius," [who believed Aaron and the Levites to have offered relative worship only, whilst the rest of the congregation were guilty of apostasy] says the Rev. Dr. Townsend in Scriptural Communion with God, or the Pentateuch and the Book of Job, vol. ii. p. 287-"neither shall I enquire into the accuracy of the opinion of Pfeiffer and of the majority of commentators, that it was set up in honour of Apis. I believe that it was framed in honour of the God of the patriarchs, the God of Israel, Jehovah." Our learned author has evidently misrepresented the opinion of Pfeiffer, as will appear from the following extract from his Difficiliorum S. S. Locorum Centuria, Ultrajecti 1704, p. 131. Eum vitulum Israelitæ non habebant pro Deo sed verum Deum representa- The first Apologists indeed exulted in a religion more dogmatical and spiritual than that of the subjects of the ceremonial law," and zealously and severely condemned the frequent defections of the Jews, C.L. which were no other than the joining foreign worship to the worship of the God of Israel; and in this they acted with much good judgment, inasmuch as Christianity could not have been established but upon the abandonment by the Pagans of their inveterate prejudices concerning intercommunity of worship. So great was the influence of this principle that in the same time and country the Jews of Jerusalem added the Pagan idolatries to their religion, while the Pagans of Samaria added the Jewish religion to their idolatries. For instances of Jewish intercommunity, see Apthorpe's Letters on the Prevalence of Christianity. The truth of Christianity was acknowledged by the Pagans; they only wanted the compliment to be returned. As this could not be done, there was a necessity for the Christians to assign the reasons for their refusal. And this gave birth to so many confutations of idolatrous worship. See Warburton's Div. Leg. B. ii. s. 6. Severe laws of the Church were established against such as mingled the Jewish religion and the Christian together, and who are specified and condemned in the laws of Honorius in the Theodosian code. Lib. xvi. tit. viii. On the evils infused into the Church, both Jewish and Christian, by Pagan Philosophy, see Gale's Court of the Gentiles, Part iii. B. 2, c. i., 4to Lond. 1677: C. L. 23. A discourse concerning transubstantiation and idolatry; being an answer to the L. Bishop of Oxford's plea to those two points. By Gilbert Burnet, D.D. pp. 36, 4to Lond. 1688 "The wisdom of our Legislators is demonstrated in singling out this to be the sole point of the Tests for Imployments; since it is perhaps the only point in Controversy in which the whole Church of Rome holds the Affirmative, and the whole Reformed hold the Negative." This treatise is in the ninth volume of the Somers Tracts, p. 151, and is thus described: "Samuel Parker, D.D. Bishop of Oxford, a man of some talents and activity, disgraced himself during this busy period by his implicit compliance with the arbitrary commands of James II. This involved him in a dispute with Dr. Burnet, who treated him as unmercifully as Andrew Marvel had done upon a former occasion. Indeed Parker had exalted the king's supremacy in terms which amounted to direct blasphemy. Burnet's account of the controversy is as follows: 'He wrote a book against the tests full of petulant scurrility, of which I shall only give one instance. He had reflected much on the popish plot, and on Oates's evidence; and upon that he called the test the sacrament of Oatesian villainy. He treated the parliament that enacted the tests with a scorn that no popish writer had yet ventured on; and he said much to excuse transubstantiation and to free the church of Rome from the charge of idolatry. This raised such a disgust of him, even in those that had been formerly but too much influenced by him, that, when he could not help seeing that, he sunk under it. I was desired to answer his book with the severity that he deserved; and I did it with an acrimony of style that nothing. but such a time and such a man could in any sort excuse. It was said the king sent him my papers, hearing that nobody else durst put them into his hands, hoping it would raise his indignation and engage him to answer them.""— Burnet's History of His Own Time, vol. iii. p. 1265. (Edit. 1724, vol. i. p. 740.) 24. Draconica, or, an abstract of all the penal laws touching matters C. L. of religion and the several oaths and tests thereby enjoined; with brief observations thereupon. The third edition, with considerable additions. By Henry Care. pp. 40, 4to Lond. 1688 In reply to this tract and the same author's Animadversions (41 infra) was published, A Seasonable Discourse showing the necessity of Union among Protestants, &c., ut infra. 25. A discourse for taking off the test and penal laws about reli- C.L. Pref. pp. vi, 40, 4to Lond. 1687 gion. Dr. More's discourse on the Real Presence is here quoted, in which "he can not escape a falling in with Transubstantiation any other way than by closing with a Notion manifestly false and Platonic." 26. The judgment and doctrine of the clergy of the church of Eng- C. L. land concerning the King's prerogative in dispensing with penal laws. Asserted by the Lords Archbishops Bancroft, Laud and Usher. The Lords Bishops Sanderson and Cartwright. The Reverend Doctors Sir Thomas Ridley LL.D., Dr. Heylin, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Sherlock, Master of the Temple, Dr. Hicks, Dr. Nalson and Dr. Puller. And by the Anonymous Author of the Harmony of Divinity and Law. Together E |