have no charity, which is greater even than faith itself, 1 Cor. xiii. 13. And therefore that they can be no Christian church: their want of charity being by this much plainer than our want of faith. Take Chillingworth's answer to this, chap. vii. of his works, p. 306. "You" (says he to Knot the Jesuit)" vainly pretend, that all Roman Catholics, not one excepted, profess that protestantcy unrepented destroys salvation. From which generality we may except two at least to my knowledge, and these are, yourself, and Franciscus de Sancta Clara, who assures us, that ignorance and repentance may excuse a Protestant from damnation though dying in his error. And this is all the charity, which by your own confession also, the most favourable Protestants allow to Papists."

Militiere was persuaded that King Charles I. was happy in heaven, because he preferred the Catholic faith before his crown, his liberty, his life. [Now it is known to all the world that King Charles I. lived and died in the communion of the church of England, which he declared with his last breath upon the scaffold.] But Archbishop Bramhal gave him this answer, "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 here than I have heard some of your famous Roman doctors at Paris 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 credentibus, &c. ' persons living in the communion of the Protestant church, if they endeavour to learn the faith, and are not able to attain 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.""

L. Militiere supposed that King Charles I. secretly and invisibly in the last moments of his life, was by God's spirit united to the Roman Catholic church.

G. Then no Protestant, at least no Protestant King, need despair-but to these divines let us add some royal testimonies. King James I. in his Præmonition to Christian Monarchs, tells us, "that his mother (Queen Mary) as she was ready to lay her head upon the block, sent him this message; that although she was of another religion than that wherein he was brought up, yet she would not press him to change, except his conscience forced him to it, not doubting but if he led a good life, and were careful to do justice and govern well, he would be in a good case in his own religion."

This was perfectly agreeable to the sentiments of his grandson the late King James II. who often spoke to those divines who had the instruction of both his daughters, to be diligent in making them religious and good Christians, in the way of the church of England, without so much as hinting at any change of their principles towards the church of Rome, as I

have heard myself from two of them, Dr. Turner, late Lord Bishop of Ely, and Dr. Ken, late Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells. And neither before nor after his coming to the crown would he suffer any attempt to be made upon them as to religion, of which there is an eminent witness now alive, who knows if I speak truth. And when a certain zealot pressed him to endeavour their reconciliation to the church of Rome, and offered his service for the purpose; the King an swered, "no, let them alone, they are so good they will be saved in any church."

L. It is strange then he should be a Roman Catholic himself.

G. Not at all, for he might think that best for him,' without thinking those in hazard who were sincerely of the church of England, and lived up to the rules of it.

L. He could not think it lawful to be present at your common prayers.

G. He did not think it unlawful, because he heard them at his coronation.

L. That was upon a particular occasion. But does any Roman Catholic think it lawful to hear them constantly or frequently?

G. They did think so, for after the Reformation the Roman Catholics of England came to our churches and to our common prayer without any scruple. And this continued till about the tenth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Pope Pius V. forbad it by his bull. So that he made the separation, and if he had not sufficient power to do it, or that there was not sufficient cause for it, then he made the schism too, 2 L

VOL. II.

and it lies wholly at his door. Now it is the undoubted right of every national church to reform, alter, and model their liturgy as shall be most convenient, provided there be nothing put into it that is contrary to the faith, which is not so much as alleged against our public offices. They have a breviary at Milan and in other places, different from that at Rome. And in England before the Reformation there were divers in several dioceses, as what was used in the church of Salisbury, of Hereford, of Bangor, of York, of Lincoln, &c. as is mentioned in the preface to our Common-Prayer Book, concerning the service of the church. But these differences did not break communion, nor did the alteration made at the Reformation, till the Pope by the plenitude of his supremacy, and to be revenged upon Queen Elizabeth, took upon him to break the communion. For which as there was no sufficient cause, our liturgy being all orthodox, even our enemies being judges; so on the other hand, the Pope's supremacy did not extend to break in upon the rights and liberties of any national church, as has been and is still maintained by the whole Gallican church, and others the most learned in the church of Rome. And, my lord, I know some Roman Catholics of figure and good sense in England, who merely upon this account bave come over to our church, and thought themselves obliged to return to the communion of their national, church, and to heal the breach made by that excess of the Pope's supre macy, which no sober man on this side the Alps will own. It is strange to own it in fact, and yet deny it

in words. Whoever owns this bull of Pius V. for breaking communion in England, must also own the full extent of the Bulla in Coena, which has his authority, in a particular manner, as well as of all the Popes since. And it damns almost all the Papists, as well as all who are not Papists.

L. We desire not to be called Papists, we think it a word of contempt, as if we were only partisans for the Pope, and of that party or faction of Christians who would raise his power above the church and everything else.

G. I am glad your lordship thinks so, and indeed the church of France (where you were bred) are not Papists in this sense. They are got free, in a good measure, from the servitude of the Pope. But they are still Roman Catholics.

L. We do not delight in that word neither, as if our Catholicism were tied only to Rome; we term ourselves Catholics in general, as members of the Catholic or Universal Church.

G. We call ourselves so too, and in the same sense, and pray every day for the Catholic church in our liturgy. Therefore we call not you Catholics, because it would not distinguish you from us. But Roman Catholics is calling a part the whole.

L. You know the meaning, not that the particular church of Rome is all the churches in the world, but she is called Catholic, as being the head and principle of unity and communion to all other churches.

G. If this be the frame of the Catholic church, it must have been soalways.