Works, Book 4 · Letter 75 – Letter 77
EPISTLE LXXV.
Mr. Mede's Answer to Dr. Twisse's and Mr. Potter's Letters. His Vindication of that Elogium in the Inscription of his Discourse upon 1 Cor. 11. 22. [viz. Sublati inter sacrum & profanum discriminis Assertori.] His Vindication of that Maxime [Eadem est ratio Loci & Temporis] from the Exceptions of Dr. Twisse. In the first Edition page (660) was only printed a piece of this Letter, (which was all that could then be found) or the rude draught of an Answer written in haste upon the backside of Dr. Twisse's Letter. But in this is presented the whole Letter, as it was perfected by the Author, and copied ou… of the Original MSS.The word foreign used in the first 200 years, the name foreign not found in any Ecclesiast. Writing for 200 years. An Objection from the taking down S. Gregorie's Church answered.
Worthy Sir,
I Thank you heartily for communicating Mr. Potter's Letter with me. I understand now his reason why he took not in the Number of the Virgin-Company to ground his discovery of the Mystery of the Beast's Number upon, as by an Anti-numerus of an Anti-company; and I am in some degree satisfied therewith, yet so as I could still wish he had made some more use of it in his Argument, and not wholly passed by it with silence. I confess the observation of this supposed defect was mine own, and no bodies else: For those I related the Contents of his Book unto, had never (I believe) looked so much into the Apocalyps as to be able to make such an Exception, so far as I could discover by their Discourse. Yet how this Number might be taken in, though not as a principal, yet at least to bear a part, I am yet to seek; which before I read his Letter I thought I had not been: now methinks I see some possibility only a…ar off, and am as one loth to lose it.
The Exceptions I made mention of were not worth specifying, being of the same nature with Dr. Ts, viz. want of exactness both in the Root and in the Application. Whereupon I desired them to instance in any one Prophecy in the whole Scripture, which they would affirm and could shew to be more exactly fulfilled than Mr. Potter (if his Authorities were true) had shewn this to be; yea I urged them as far as the Prophecies concerning Christ himself, the time, the place and manner of his Coming; offering to parallel one Evidence and exactness with another. To which I received no other answer, but that they doubted much I would fall short, and that howsoever it was not good to make such Comparisons: wherein, it may be, they said not amiss.
That observation of mine, of Rome's Latitude to be 41 degrees and 51 minutes, was upon the suddain. For looking into Stadius his Catalogus Locorum & Vrbium in his Ephemerides, I found the Latitude of Rome to be there 41 degrees and 50 minutes, but in Origanus his Catalogus 42 degrees and 4 minutes, (which is 14 minutes more) in Maginus, as I remember, 42 degrees and 2 minutes; for I have him not in my Study, as I have the other two. I supposed that Stadius had followed Ptolemy; but when I looked some days after, I found in him but 41 degr. 40. min. 'Tis somewhat strange there should be no better agreement, if not of Ptolemy with the Neotericks, yet of the Neotericks with themselves, about so famous a City. But that of Stadius is nearest the middle between the extremes. Whatsoever it be, I make no account of it: yet I do not very well understand what Mr. P. means in his Letter, when he saith, That both the Numerator 41 and the Denominator 51 must be applied to divisions of the same Denomination, and yet the one to be part of the other, &c. But I have no time to consider it.
I doubt that the Meridian of 41 degr. of Longitude and the Parallel of 41 degr. Latitude will not cross each other in any part of S. Peter's Patrimony, nor scarce any where upon Land; whether we count the first Meridian with Ptolemy in the Canaries, or with the later Cosmographers in the Azores; the later accounting 10 degrees more or less than the other: which uncertainty also will make that other Application of the Parallel and Meridian 51 to be the Boundaries of the Papal dominion Eastward and Northward at the time of the Council of Trent, to be obnoxious and unuseful.
Concerning the translating of M. Potter's Book into Latin, I could wish it; but I believe you mistake the possibility of getting it done in Cambridge. He that should do it must have a threefold qualification. 1. He must be ready and master of his Style. 2. He must be one that can understand it. 3. He must be well-affected to the Argument. How hard will it be, think you, to find all these concurrent in the same man here? For my self, I express my self with my pen with as much difficulty, if not more, than I do with my tongue; and so I want the first qualification, though, it may be, not the other two. And for others, I know not any that are able so well affected to the Argument, that they would be willing to undertake it: you may imagine divers impediments that way, which I will not name. But were it not fit rather that Oxford, that bred it, should do this office for it? I think Mr. P. in his Letter guesseth aright.
I forgot to answer to one thing in Mr. Potter's, namely concerning my Copy of his Book. Mr. Hartlib was earnest somewhile since to borrow it of me, to transcribe another conformable to it. I stipulated with him not to let it go out of his house. It is a mistake that I had written any marginal Annotations upon it. I affirmed only that I had written all his Margins with mine own hand, lest the alteration of the pages should confound them; only perhaps I added here and there some numeral references in the Margin, where the Text refers to somewhat spoken of before or to be spoken of afterward. That which I did to it was the distinguishing thereof into 8 Sections, and prefixing in the beginning of the Book the Contents of each of them, ad leniendum taedium Lectoris, and to represent unto him the sum of the Discourse in a short view. Also by breaking of lines I distinguished each Section as it were into Paragraphs, &c.
NOW, Sir, for my Book, I sent it not to you as an Auctoramentum or Pressemony to bind you to be of my opinion; but only as a testimony of that honour I thought I owed you; and yet so much the more willingly, because the Argument confirmed some grounds of Mr. Potter's, if I am not deceived. It was my New-years-gift to my Lord's Grace after he had taken me under his name; which some Friends informed me was a Ceremony of decorum, that I could not now at the first omit, and would serve in stead of a journey to London to thank his Grace, &c. I had this ready, and sent it in that name, with the Inscription you see, save only that the words In novi anni auspicium gratique, &c. now appear not, being thought by some fit to be omitted when it was to go to the press: To which honour the Author (if I know his mind) had no ambition it should have been preferred.
Well, but howsoever it came about, you say that part of the Elogium in the Inscription you doubt will do me wrong, [viz. Sublati inter sacrum & profanum discriminis Assertori] although you know the contrary to what they will be ready to conceive thereupon. 'Tis true; there be some men that will never find the true sense or reason of any thing quod dictum aut factum nollent. I have heard of the constructions of my new relation, but God forgive them; I have witnesses enough, which they are not aware of, of their Vnadvisedness, that I may give it no worse term. I am beholden, yea exceedingly beholden to my Lord's Grace for his good opinion of me, (notwithstanding he well knows that in some things I differ from him) and I am bound to acknowledge it; howbeit he yet knows not his Chaplain de facie, nor his Chaplain him. But because there are some that forget there is a Ninth Commandment as well as a Second, and have given me cause to speak, I would have them know what I now say, That I defy them, whosoever they or he be, that says, He is less ambitious or less discontented with his present condition than I am, or were when this happened unto me. And this by the way.
I come again to the Elogium; where I am not so narrowly pent, that I should be confined to the discrimen between sacrum & profanum in Places only, to make it true. You may remember that once upon occasion with you I made 4 sorts of things Sacred; to wit, 1. Personae sacrae, 2. Res sacrae, 3. Loca sacra, 4. Tempora sacra, Personae sacrae, as the Clergy, Res sacrae, (specially so called) as Bona Ecclesiastica, &c. Now I think the world takes notice that my Lord is Assertor eximius of the Discrimination of the first Three from common; and I hope an Instance of One particular amongst Four against the other Three doth not make an Indefinite affirmation not true. Besides, I add the word [Sublati;] but the Discrimination of sacred Time with us was none of the Sublata, though somewhere it be as well as the rest. And the field of my defence is so much the larger, if it be considered that one of the three, Res sacrae, is capable of Subdivision. But enough of this, it being no wellbecoming Theme to dispute upon.
I said, there was eadem ratio Loci & temporis not foreign, but eadem ratio Loci & Temporis sacri; to wit, for the Sanctification (i. e. holy and discriminative usance) due unto them both, and the formal reason in respect whereof it is due. For the reason why a thing is to be Sanctified or Sanctè habendum is, because it is Sanctum or Sacrum: Now whatsoever is appropriate unto God and his Service, is such, whether the determination thereof be by God's own immediate Ordination, or mans Devotion, it is all one in this respect, so the Appropriation or Dedication thereof be supposed lawful and agreeable to the Divine will. For this Sanctification we speak of depends not either upon the difference of the cause or manner whereby the thing is consecrated, nor upon the diversity of Natural and Artificial being, but upon the Formalis ratio of the Object, because it is Holy or Sacred, therefore to be sanctified with holy usance. For to Sanctifie in Scripture is not only to make holy foreign, but to do unto a thing as becometh its holiness foreign. Moreover I believe the Sanctification of Place to be intended in the Fourth Commandment as well as that of Time; and that not only from the Rule observed in the interpretation of the rest of the Commandments, (by one of the kind named to understand all the rest ejusdem generis,) but especially the Lord himself hath conjoyned them as pairs, Levit. 19. 30. Keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my Sanctuary. And why not, when they are so near a-kin, being both Circumstances of Action, why may I not then say, Quae Deus conjunxit, nemo separet? And it may be (if it be well looked into) the Sanctification of the Lord's-day might be urged with far more advantage upon the ground I intimate, than upon that other which is so much controverted. But it is partialitie that undoes all.
It seems by this Objection I have now answered, you supposed the Argument of my Book to be The Reverence of holy Places, which is only The Antiquity of them.
You ask me if I believe indeed that foreign; was Ignatius his word. I say, I do, till I hear some sufficient reason why I should not. For that of my not being able to give an instance of the like either in his time or within 100 years after, seems to me to have no force of concluding at all. When I affirmed in my Altare, That the name of Table could not be shewed given to that whereon the Eucharist was celebrated, in any Ecclesiastical Writer confessed to be genuine, before 200 years after Christ; I inferred not therefrom, that therefore the name Table was never used all that time; nor, if I had, would you have believed me. And yet to tell you the truth, when I wrote that, I had some persuasion or suspicion that that Name could not be shewed in any Writer for 3 hundred years after Christ, but durst not affirm so much as I thought, because I was not sure of Origen. But when a Friend of mine soon after wondred how I durst avouch in publick a thing so incredible, as this to him seemed to be; I discovered that I had affirmed somewhat less than I believed, and desired him to make trial whether he could find it in 300 years or not: wherein when he had spent some time, he could not. He alledged indeed Cyprian de Coena Domini but I told him that was confessed of all sides to be none of his, &c. And now see the luck of it; The week before I received yours, a Friend shewed me the New Articles of the New Bishop of Norwich (his Diocesan,) wherein (besides some other unwonted things which some body will startle at) the Bishop avouches upon the credit of his reading, That the name Table in that sense is never to be found in any Ecclesiastical Writer of the first 300 years, save only once in an occasional passage of*Ecclesiast. Hi…arch. cap. 2. De Mysterio Baptismi foreign. He adds to this the two places in the New T. and so affirms it is found but thrice in all. But for my part I doubt whether foreign in those places of the New T. at least both of them, can be evinced to be used in that sense, if a man should deny it. Dionysius Areop agita. Now, Sir, what think you of this? Yet you see I can shew the name foreign oftner than once in those first 300 years. Yea if you would grant me that the Author of that Hierarchical Treatise (whosoever he were) lived but within the compass of 200 years after Christ, I could give you an instance both of the name foreign and foreign within the time by you limited. For this Dionysius in his Mysterium Synaxeos describes the Deacons standing foreign and in his Theory of the same mentions the sending of the Euergumeni (at the time of the Eucharist) foreign. However it be, it follows not, that because I can shew it but once within that 200 years, therefore I should believe it was used never. Besides, methinks I observe some unreasonableness used in this kind, viz. Notwithstanding such paucitie of Monuments remaining unto us of those first Ages, upon every unconcluding suspicion to discredit those we have, and then when we have done, to require proof that such things were in those times, (which we without proof deny) when those who alone could give testimony are disenabled, and sometimes for no other reason but because they give such testimony. Is this dealing reasonable?
As for the taking down of S. Gregorie's Church; I answer, In the Law some things Sacred were unalienable even quoad Individuum, (as for example such as were consecrated by way of foreign See Levit. 27. 28, 29.) Others were unalienable as touching the kind only, and therefore, if need were, the Individuum might be changed, so it were for the better and with the Lord's advantage, which the Law provides should be by adding a fifth part thereunto. See the rest of the Chapter quoted. But what is this to the deciding of the lawfulness or truth of what is in question, to alledge that which men do? Is not all the world full of Contradictions? I verily believe that even those who are zealous for the Sanctification of the Lord's-day, do in their practice, if not in their Theory too, overthrow the Principles whereupon it stands.
I think I have no more to make answer to, and I confess I have done this not without some tediousness. For you must pardon me, if, judging as a Stander-by, I am not persuaded you are by nature so prone and pliable, as you think, to the way which you say I take.
Yes, I now find one thing more. S. Gregorie's Church, you say, is going down, at least is to be built elsewhere; but we never yet heard the like of the Lord's-day… No? but I have, namely, that a great man in the Reformation had once a Consultation to have translated the Lord's-day unto Thursday, upon pretence to take away Superstition, and though that Consultation succeeded not, yet he is known to have been no great friend to the hallowing thereof. How true this is I know not, penes authores fides esto; but such a thing I have read, I can assure you.
Thus with my heartiest affection, which I never found my self prone to change for mere difference of Opinion, I commend you and yours to the Divine blessing, and am still
Your assured Friend, Ioseph Mede. Christ's Coll. Iuly 21. 1638.
EPISTLE LXVI.[The following Letters (though some of them are of an ancienter date than some of the foregoing Letters) are here placed together, because most of them treat of the same Arguments, viz. The right Notion of a Fundamental Article, together with The best Method of pursuing and Procuring Peace amongst the Protestant Reformed Churches.]
Mr. Hartlib's Letter to Mr. Mede, with an Extract of a Letter concerning Dr. Alting's Censure of Dr. Field's opinion.
Worthy Sir,
I Cannot but confess my self much obliged unto you for the Papers which you have been pleased to impart unto me. You do well to help us by a fuller unfolding of those excellent Mysteries which divers will take for Paradoxes.—
But I return to your Letter, and assure you that I will have a special care to send back your Papers. In the mean time I pray accept of these inclosed, which concern the work of Pacification. Mr. Dury remembers his respects unto you, and will be glad to embrace your Letter when-ever it comes. He hath not yet read your Book, because he can get none for himself, the Book becoming now rare every way. When you have done with the Papers, I pray let me have them again; some of them I had not leisure to read over. The printed Treatise I got from beyond the Seas; the*Casp. S…eso. Author of it thus writes unto me: Adsui Doctori Altingo; Is maximopere optat non praemisissem meo contra Bodsaccum Exercitio istud ex Fieldo excerptum. Ratio 1a, Quia falsa sunt quae ille tum de Orientalium hodierna, tum de Occidentalium ante Lutherum Religione refert. 2a, Quia Lutherani indè capient calumniandi ansam, quasi Universalem aliquam Religionum conciliationem moliamur. Intellexi simul hâc occasione Genevae imprimis Novum Testamentum linguâ Graecâ qualis nunc est, adeò ut non tantùm Originale Graecum, sed & Versionem Graecam simus habituri; quam ad rem 1000 Imperiales Domini Ordines dederunt, ut mittantur Exemplaria in Graeciam.
Inter argumenta cur Fieldi sententiam rejicit est, quòd Witebergensis quidam olim ad Graecum Patriarcham miserit Confessionem Augustanam, ut approbaret, sed illam ut heterodoxam rejecisse. Quòd hodiernus Patriarcha alius sit, id personale esse, & facilè apparere ex quibus scriptis ille hauriat. Sepultus est hâc hebdomade noster Burgersdicius, &c.
But I would fain know your judgment about this Censure of Field, it being a thing of very great consequence. Dr. Alting, I hear, is writing an Ecclesiastical History. Thus expecting your Answer, I rest for ever
Your assured and affectionate Friend, Sam. Hartlib. London, March 13. 1634.
EPISTLE LXXVII.
Mr. Mede's Answer to Mr. Hartlib, vindicating Dr. Field's Tenet, and shewing in what sense it may be said that the Roman and Greek Church have not erred in Primariis & Fundamentalibus Fidei Articulis.
Mr. Hartlib,
I Received not your Packet till yesterday at dinner-time. I send with this inclosed a*His Clavi… and Commentary upon the Apocalyps. Book to Mr. Dury, which I was fain to rob a Friend of, promising to give him another as good, but I send the Book and this my Letter apart, that the one may bring news of the other, if they should chance not to arrive at your hands together—
I thank you for Mr. Streso. Concerning that of Dr. Field, I have hitherto subscribed to it, according as I conceived to be his meaning; though whether the particulars of his narration be every one of them true, I cannot affirm: the most, I believe are. But it is no marvel though such a Tenet make your forein Divines to startle: That notion is almost proper to our English, to maintain that the Roman Church, much more the Greek, …rreth not in Primariis & Fundamentalibus Fidei Articulis, because explicitely they profess them, howsoever by their Assumenta implicitely and by consequent they subvert them. This your forein Divines, and some too of our own, think to be an harsh assertion, because they rightly conceive not our meaning: whereof you may be more fully informed by Dr. Crakenthorp against Spalato, cap. 47. and by Dr. Potter in his Charity mistaken. You may remember also that Bishop Davenant (in the Discourse you shewed me at London) by the name of Fundamental Articles understands the Articles of the Creed of all Christians, and no other. Take notice likewise that we say the Roman Church and Ours differ not in the Articles we account to be Fundamental: not that we differ not, and mainly too, in those which they account Fundamental: Nor do we say but by consequent they ruin too even those Articles we account Fundamental, though explicitely they profess them. In a word, we hold That all the Roman Errors consist in the Assumenta they have added to the Foundation, and not in the Foundation it self, which they profess notwithstanding.
Besides that in the main Points of Controversie between them and us, the Truths, we affirm against them were heretofore freely maintained in their Church, as for the substance from time to time; and though for the most part the opposite Faction overtopped them, yet were not the Tenets of that Faction made the Tenets of their Church, till the Council of Trent decreed them, and condemned the other.
This is the sum of the Tenet of ours. But what do I write of these things in so tumultuary a manner? It is a point that requires a man should have his brains at home.
What though the Patriarch Ieremy rejected the Augustane Confession for Heterodox, when it was sent him? It is true, that often one Sect of Religion condemns that in another which it self affirms; because it understands not its own in anothers terms and after another way. Besides, though the Patriarch rejected the Confession …n gross, yet it follows not, he rejected it for those Points whereof Dr. Field affirms; but because it condemned likewise their Assumenta. For it is certain that in the Assumentis we differ mainly from them, and they from us.
Now the clock strikes three, I must an end. So with my best affection I rest
Your assured Friend, Ioseph Mede. Christ's Coll. March 18. 1634.