Obrazy na stronie
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p. 13.

Ethiop. Com

ment. p. I.

* p. 14.

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readily take any thing upon truft, that is faid of Hereticks; and as readily Subscribe any thing against them. Give me leave to mention a truc, and here a very pertinent, Remark of Ludolphus concerning the Habaffini, who, faith he, if they be asked any thing about Religious matters will be very civil and respectfull in their Anfwers, either for fear of being counted Hereticks themselves, or to hide their own Ignorance. This I take to have been, and still to be, the very cafe in getting these Subscriptions of the Grecks and • others in the Eaft.

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I must therefore, my Lord, crave leave plainly to fay that thefe Articles and Forms were first drawn up by the Latin Emiffaries and Agents themfelves, before they were offer'd to the Subfcribers. It is moft evident in the • Atteftations which your Excellency hath fhewn me, that thofe of the Venetian Bailo Quirini; of Cafimir the Refident of Poland; of Fieschi Refident of Genoa; of Caboga Refident of Ragufa; are all the very fame, Article for Article, in the very fame Senfe, and almoft in the very fame words; It feems to me beyond all Difpute that they came all from the fame hand. I obferve the fame in the Teftimony of the Right Reverend Andreas Ridolphi, Bishop of Calamina, or as we fay of Galata; only I muft humbly make this fmall Remark upon it, that I had the opportunity many times of converfing with him; it was indeed for the most part in Italian, but fometimes occafionally we fpake Latin; and truly though he was a Man of very ready parts and great Ingenuity, yet I muft lay ⚫ that I never observed fuch an affluence of words and fuch variety of Phrafe in his Latin as is there expreffed. He hath varied the fenfe of, Credere, to believe, at least ten times in his thirteen Articles; as affirmare, edocere, tenere, &c. If he had Studied for the whole, as well as for the change of this one word, methinks that he would not in his Preface there have fo carelefly put, Martyriam, (from the Greek word agroglav) instead of the plain Latin word, Teftimonium, Teftimony, but I ra•ther must think that fome of his officious Affociates at St. Francis made this flourishing Compliment, for the Honour of fo great a Man, and put it into his hands ready drawn.

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I muft freely confefs to your Excellency, that for my part I am fully convinced, that all the Forms of the other Atteftations of the feveral Eastern People were first contrived and drawn up by your Latin Agents, who were fcatter'd up and down and feated amongst them. The Natives in those Countries who never went abroad, but had all their Education at home, are generally reprefented by all as fuch dull, stupid, illiterate Fellows, as there is not one of them able of themselves to draw up any fuch Atteftations as you produce. • Whence had they their very Latin Scholaftick terms and phrafes, expreft fo nicely ⚫ in all their Articles, and levell'd fo exactly against the Lutherans and Calvinists, and other pretended Hereticks in the Weft? The very Articles themselves, and the common ufual Prefaces to them, are meer Calumnies and Invectives against them. Whence had they all thefe Notices but from your Emif• faries?

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As for the Maronites Atteftation, the Latins boast much that they have been long fince thoroughly reconciled to their Church of Rome, and therefore (whatever their former, proper, old Sentiments were ) this can avail nothing in this prefent difpute; for it is no wonder that their prefent Declaration is entirely in the Roman Stile and Senfe. However I must needs make this note, that your Excellency own'd to me that the whole performance was carried on by the Care and Importunity of a Jefuit, who I fuppofe might be Father Michael, whom you fent to them on purpose; and therefore I do conclude, that either he, or fome other of that fraternity, modell'd and drew it up them, for all the World know the Methods of that cunning and indefatiga• ble Society.

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1 muft fay the fame of the Armenians; they are a very numerous People, • but planted in feveral diftinct places under the Ottoman and Perfian Governments; there are amongst them two or three nominal Patriarchs befides the pretended one at Conftantinople, and I have met with fome Bishops of them here, and at Prufa (or as we commonly call it Brufa) and elsewhere, and in all that I ever converfed withall my Self, and by the common relations which I ever received from difcerning Men who have lived up and down amongst them (1 mean the native and homebred Armenians) the fame pro⚫ found Ignorance remains amongst them every where; and there are envious • Difputes, Quarrels, and mortal hatreds amongst these their Prelates, that it is no wonder to me if feveral Atteftations are here and there pickt up from these blind Guides, who will by importunity be brought to Subscribe any thing which they do not understand, meerly to court great Men, and to fupport and promote their particular Interefts. As for your famous Atteftation from • Ifpahan, it seems to me most evident that it was contrived, drawn up, and managed by a Junto or Confederacy of Latin Agents, Father Raphael a Capucin, Kelenter (that Rich, Powerfull and profeft Papist,) and Peter Badik, who had been taught and educated in Rome, who took all the pains imaginable to oblige your Potent Monarch, and gratify your Excellency in your defires; for thofe Armenians themselves are confeffedly own'd to be all a most wretched, illiterate, ignorant fort of people, and were not in the least • able to frame fuch a formal Declaration, and fo artfully to aim it against the * pretended Western Hereticks.

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What proof can your Excellency make by the Perotes Teftimony? I know ⚫ them all to be of the Genoefe race, and that they were profest Papifts from their Original; and many of them Marrying with Greeks have mutually mixt and blended their religious Worfhip together. Many of your Hugenot French • Watchmakers here are Married to Greeks, and they and their Wives come • to our Sacrament and receive it at my Hand, and after our way, and some few • of them with their Wives communicate with the Dutch; this makes altoge•ther as much against you, as the other does for you. There is no doubt but • that the Greek Papaffes may carry their Confecrated Mites fometimes to La• tins who are Sick, and the Latins may do the like to fome Greeks; but they never faw the Greeks carry their Viaticum any where with any pompous p. 14. • Proceffion through the Streets as the Latins do, neither do any Worship it as it pafs by. I have feen many of our Greek Servants my felf go in Maf

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• chera and Difguife to St. Francis on Afh-wednesday, and my own Man was once (as Incognito) one of them; and there they flash themselves in a most frightfull Heathenish manner; but they had all first harden'd themselves with • fo much Drink as fome of them when they bowed were ready to fall on their Nofes. Thefe Practifes give me a very good account how matters pass elsewhere where Greeks and Latins here in the Eaft live together; poor ignorant People, filly Men and efpecially Women, are cafily feduced by the crafty Emiffaries who make a prey of them; I am fully perfwaded that thofe vigilant, diligent, Peripateticks are every where at the the bottom of all. It Pet. 5. 8. is poffible enough that fome well-meaning Greeks have careleffly, and per

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haps too freely, talkt with thefe Perotes about religious Matters in the Habif

fine way, to be easy with them and to cover their own Ignorance, in things which neither the one nor the other thoroughly understood; for the cafe ftands thus, Greeks that feem to favour Popery are faid by others to be Schifmaticks or Latinized; thofe who feem against it are by others brand

ed with the name of Calvinifts; and this makes them either conceal and dif- N. B. Yet this femble their minds to one another, or by degrees to become indifferent

very Man after I came from

penting re

• to all disputes that they may live in quiet. N.B. An English Apothecary of my Conftant.grew intimate Acquaintance Married a Greek Woman, and both of them were made Wifer, and rePapists by the importunity of the Dominicans their Neighbours, who cm-turn'd to our ploy'd the Man when any of their Convent were Sick or indifpofed; but Communion

again and died

We in it.

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201. C.

* p. 16.

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we know very well what a Potent Idol Intereft is commonly made over all the World.

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Father Zampi in the Mengrelian Certificate, which your Excellency fhew'd me is faid to have tranflated it; but he there owns himfelf to be an Emiffary; and the Georgian Bishop, (I doubt not in the leaft,) who is faid to have drawn it, had been Educated in the fame College at Rome, or at least had had his advice and direction in the whole affair; for from whence elfe had they the notion of the Subftance of Bread being Anilated and TranfubStantiated into the true Body of Chrift? The native Mengrelians are fufficiently known to be all, as for Learning, moft Miferable Wretches; and it is very remarkable that the Articles are made in the plural number, they declare, they obferve, (that is, the Mengrelians) &c. fo that this is in reality only the private Attestation of the Georgian Latinized Bishop, and not of the particular Mengrelians themselves.

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What can I think or fay otherwife of the pretended Atteftations from the • Patriarchs of Antioch, they are all fo particularly drawn up against the French Calvinifts and other Proteftants in Europe, and their Opinions fo punctually fpecified in every Article, that it is most evident to me that fome fagacious Emiffaries were the Authors of them. Whence elfe had these Prelates and their Affociates thefe Informations, who understand not one word of Latin nor ever faw any of Calvin's or his Difciple's works? Who taught them, that each of the two Species, either of the Bread or of the Wine, by its felf, is the entire Body of Christ, when we know very well that in the Eaft both Elements are always received by every Communicant, and the fancy of Concomitancy, is neither known nor understood by them? So alfo, that only the Appearances or Accidents of Bread and Wine remain? Whence had Meletius, a pretended Patriarch of Alexandria, that express piece of BellarDe Eucharift.• mine's Sophiftry, which you mention'd to me once out of a letter of his, that 1. 2. c. 15. P. the Elements are at the fame time plain Antitypes, or Figures of Chrift's entire Body and Blood, and yet they are the very true Body and Blood themfelves; they are real Figures of themfelves, and yet their very felves too at the fame moment? I beseech your Excellency to confider well this one Syllogifm, Typus Corporis Chrifti eodem tempore ac fenfu non eft ipfum. Corpus Chrifti; Elementum, feu Panis, eft Typus, & manet Typus, Corporis Chrifti; Ergo elementum feu Panis eodem tempore ac fenfu non eft ipfum Corpus. As your Excellency hath told me that a Jefuit procured. thefe from Antioch; fo for my part I muft conclude that he and his Brethren Formed and Worded every one of them. In one place it is plainly confeft that thefe Articles or Queries were fent from you, and presented to thofe Fathers at Antioch by Father Michael a Jefuit; and though there had been no fuch open declaration made, any unprejudiced Man, that feriously perufes them, muft needs Imagine that they were all forged by a Latin hand, the continued Calumnies and Invectives carried on all along against the French Calvinifts, and the pure Scholaftick Terms, and the common ftile fufficiently do evince it; for thus they write, thefe French Calvinists fay, this and that, thefe Prevaricators or Impoftors have faid; thefe Hereticks fay, thefe People have faid; thefe Hereticks believe, &c. Thefe very fame things we may alfo plainly obferve in the Atteftations of the Cophtes, thofe miferable Wretches fufficiently noted by all for their horrid Confufion and Ignorance.

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The World may well guess at the Learning and Capacity of thefe Eastern Prelates, by a Letter from a Patriarch of Alexandria to our Ambaffador Sir Dan. Harvey. About a year before I came into Turky, Joakim Patriarch of Alexandria, an old Man, was turn'd, or rather bought, out of his place by his own Nephew; and being Perfecuted and Profecuted for Debts which he had Contracted, he fled to Conftantinople and defired my Lord to let him have his Protection in his Palace. I beseech your Excellency freely to tell

me

• me whether by this you can think that he was at all able to dress up any tole- * p. 16. ⚫rable Attestation himself, much lefs any fuch an accurate and cunningly con ⚫trived one as thofe which you have fhewn me. Sir Dan. Harvey hath fhewn

' you

the Original and this is an exact Copy of it.

Excellentiffimo & illuftriffimo Legato feliciffime bretanie
Domino Danieli Harvey, Joacim gratia Dei

papa & patriarcha magne civitatis Alexandrie
S. P.

Notum facio veftra excellentia ego patriarcha alexandrinus, quod ab in-
juftitia impiorum expulfus fum ex alexandria jam unum annum & aberro
furfum & deorfum, ut fervam meam vitam ab inimicis meis, qui volunt oc-
cidere me fine caufa. non habeo igitur alibi refugium nifi veftram excellen-
t'iam. quoniam ab initio veftra domus eft refugium patriarcharum. ideoque
rogo illuftriffime ut des mihi unum cubiculum in palatium tuum obfcuri metem
quia periclitur notus fuiffe, in domis grecorum habitans: vale
dignaris refpondere nobis, per vocem Jeremie fervi tui

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Ιωακειμ ελεῳ θεου πατριαρχης αλεξανδριας

I fuppofe it was Indited and Written by fome one which he thought the
learnedeft Latineft of his Affociates, and then he firmed it Scurvily with his
own hand. One Cyril (much fuch another) pretending to be Patriarch of
Antioch, and then in diftrefs, came to Sir Dan. Harvey in January 1674.
defiring his Protection and Affistance; He was a young Man, and feem'd not
⚫ much above two or three and twenty years old; but Sir Daniel
gave him no
relief, and shew'd him as little respect. I could add many more remarks to this
very fame purpose, but I humbly conceive that it already appears most evident
that the Articles were all ready drawn and stated by your Emiffaries, and be-
ing thus formally offer'd, were through opportunity and importunity fubfcribed
by thefe poor ignorant and mifguided People.

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·

Give me leave now most humbly but freely to confider how these Subfcrip- * ⚫tions were procured. We all know very well what immenfe Glory, Authority and Power the very name of your great Monarch hath throughout all the Dominions of the Eaft; as being ftiled the most Chriftian King, and the Protector of all who there profefs and Worship the Bleed Jefus, as the eldest Son of the Church; and your Excellencies Renown and • Patronage, as his Ambaffador, flies every where upon the Wings of the fame Fame, and is coextended and jointly esteemed with it. Now fince the G. • Seignor, and other Infidel Princes, (to fpeak plain truth) are the Heads or fole Difpofers of all publick promotions and affairs in all the Chriftian Churches

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6

of the Eaft, who can pretend to a greater Intereft with them, then Lewis the Great, and the most Illuftrious Marquis de Nointel, his moft fplen⚫ did and every way moft Excellent Ambaffador? And therefore it is most plain to me, first that all Chriftian Prelates, and great Men in the Eastern Church, * must in common reafon on all occafions most diligently court, and apply themfelves to your fingular Protection. Next there ever was for many Ages past, and at this very day there are every where Parties and Divifions and Am⚫bitious Men amongst them; what a vast weight then, in their Differences, muft the French fupport carry with it? Pardon me, great Sir, if I here prefume only to mention the Illuftrious Character which your Excellency ⚫ hath generally and most justly gain'd amongst all that know You. Your Noble and most generous Temper; the fplendor and Magnificence of your Palace, and of your Manageing your whole Family in every thing, whereby you here fo fully express the very Glory of the Court of France; the State and Grandeur of your Equipage and Attendance in all your Progrefs to Athens, through the Archipelago and Palestine, at Jerufalem and elsewhere; the

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* p. 17.

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prodigious expence which you were at, (which, as I remember, you told me Journal. p. 25. amounted to much above ten thousand pounds of our English Moncy;) God forbid that I, who fo well know your unfpotted Honour and Integrity, fhould harbour the least thought that any part of it was spent in any Intriguing or Mercenary manner; yet I cannot but think that all thefe Accomplishments, and your Majestick Appearance, muft needs every where dazle the Eyes of all Spectators, and wonderfully influence both great and fmall, and create in them a most profound respect and Reverence for your Perfon, and as great an Inclination and Readiness to gratify you in your requests, for Subfcribing what was fo artfully drawn up by your Emiffaries, and what the Subfcribers themfelves fo lictle confidered or understood.

* p. 18.

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My Lord, we in England know very well the common Methods which are there used to get Subscriptions to our frequent Addresses, and publick Petitions ⚫ to our King in matters both of Church and State; and how Votes are pro• cured for Candidates in all Elections. The Authority and Countenance of great Men, the active warmth and noise of zealous Sticklers, the Eafinefs or Indifferency in the middle fort of People, but above all that potent Idol Intereft, every where from the highest Managers of parties to the lowest Freeholder amongst them though he be but a Cobler, will infallibly determine all • controverfies and carry each Caufe; and the very fame things ufually influ⚫ence our Committies of the Elections of our Commons in Parliament; fo that . I cannot think that the Subscription or Vote of every particular Man is really and steadily the fincere ftudied Opinion of his Heart; and Men all over the World, in the East as well as in the Weft are ftill alike, meer Men. Befides all this (not to mention all the time fince Pafchafius his Dream, nor • the many years that Conftantinople and Jerusalem were in the Latins hands, ⚫ when the Natives in both places were (as is confeffed by all) egregiously Ignorant; and the Latin Priests, as they were more Learned, fo without all Question they were every where very Zealous and Active amongst them.

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⚫ cannot but confider the numerous Miffionaries which were fince fet up by your Henry the fourth, and thofe yearly fent out from the College de pro•paganda Fide at Rome, amongst the miferably Ignorant Eafterlings, (Georgians, Perfians, Greeks, Neftorians, Jacobites, Melchites, Cophtes, Athiopians, Armenians, &c.) under pretence of Inftructing them, and not for the Converfion of Mahometans or Infidels; and thence I cannot but conclude that thefe Skilfull, Witty, and Vigilant Agents have very cafily infinuated ⚫ the Latin Doctrines by degrees into those who had neither Learning nor Cou rage to oppose them.

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It is very plain to me that meer Intereft guided the Eastern Prelates, and • when the Shepherds are once mifled, the Flocks (as the Cuftom is still there Joh. 10. 4. ⚫ in the common Herds of Sheep,) will follow them; their Stamp or Scal a• lone charms the common Priests as much, as the common Shepherd's Pipe or Whistle, calls and brings on the following Herd. As for the Officers of Patriarchs, Metropolites and Bishops they muft all Subscribe or be turn'd out if the Patron Subscribe. I humbly and with all fubmiffion and deference beg • leave to make this one poor Remark; when Parthenius had turn'd out Me⚫thodius, and did not comply with your Excellency, Methodius was drawn from ⚫our House, and he with the Junto of the other Expatriarchs, (Parthenius his Enemies) then Refugees in your Palace, by your Authority and Pana'gioti's affistance turn'd out Parthenius; and it was then that they fubfcrib. ed that Article in favour of Tranfubftantiation; a Copy of which your Excellency was pleased to give me fingly by it felf in Greek and French; hope I may freely fay, that this might give us at least a just fufpicion that Obligations and Refpects between you were mutual; your relief and fupport of them in their difficulties on one fide, and their obfequious gratifying your Requests on the other. And thus the Bethlehem or Jerusalem Synod was

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