A letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuite in answer to his letter to a peer of the Church of England : wherein the postscript to the answer to Nubes testium is vindicated and F. Sabran's mistakes further discovered. Gee, Edward, 1657-1730. 1688 Approx. 22 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2008-09 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A42570 Wing G455 ESTC R177350 12424601 ocm 12424601 61801 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A42570) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 61801) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 939:9) A letter to Father Lewis Sabran Jesuite in answer to his letter to a peer of the Church of England : wherein the postscript to the answer to Nubes testium is vindicated and F. Sabran's mistakes further discovered. Gee, Edward, 1657-1730. Gee, Edward, 1657-1730. Answer to the compiler of the Nubes testium. 8 p. Printed for Henry Motlock ..., London : 1688. Reproduction of original in Huntington Library. Attributed to Edward Gee. cf. NUC pre-1956. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Sabran, Lewis, 1652-1732. Church of England -- Controversial literature. Catholic Church -- Controversial literature. 2007-01 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2007-01 Aptara Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2007-02 Jonathan Blaney Sampled and proofread 2007-02 Jonathan Blaney Text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion A LETTER TO Father Lewis Sabran JESUITE , In Answer to his LETTER to a PEER OF THE Church of England . WHEREIN The Postscript to the Answer to NVBES TESTIVM is vindicated . And F. SABRAN's Mistakes further discovered . LONDON , Printed for Henry Motlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard . 1688. Imprimatur , A Letter to Father Lewis Sabran . Guil. Needham R mo in Christo P. D. Wilhelmo Archiepiscopo Cant. a Sacris Domest . Nov. 25. 1687. Reverend Sir ; SInce I am altogether a stranger to that Honourable Person , to whom your Letter is dedicated , I would not presume to write my Vindication to his Lordship , but thought it more proper for me to address this to your self . What I put down in a Postscript in relation to your Sermon at Chester , hath , I perceive , given you no little disturbance . I do not wonder at it , since few men are content or able to bear the justest censure that can be past upon them . But tho' I do not wonder at your displeasure , yet I do very much at your attempt to vindicate your self in a matter that is not capable of any defence , as I shall quickly shew you . I intend this Letter for a Vindication of my self to the world , as well as to you , and therefore will take leave to repeat what you said in that Sermon , and what it was that I animadverted upon in my Postscript to the Answer to the Nubes Testium . In the second page of your Sermon you have these words ; If I presume not to present them , [ yours and your Auditours Prayers ] without taking along the joynt Intercession of the Mother of God , I follow therein the Advice of St. Augustin , which I address to you in his words ; Let us by the most tender Application of our whole heart , recommend our selves , to the most Blessed Virgin 's Intercession ; let us all , with the greatest eagerness , strive to obtain her Protection ; that whilst with Assiduity we pay her our Devotions on Earth , she may intreat for us in Heaven by her earnest Prayers ; for undoubtedly she who brought forth the Price of Redemption , hath the greatest Right to intercede for those who are redeemed . This was the passage that I reflected upon there , since with a very little pains I found that that Sermon out of which you quoted these expressions , was not St. Austins , and therefore I said in that Postscript that I could not but conclude you guilty either of great Ignorance , or of notorious disingenuity , who would ascribe to the venerable St. Austin this Notorious Forgery . These Expressions of my Postscript I do still own notwithstanding your Vindication , and intend this Letter for a Defence of them , and a full Confutation of what you have so weakly and so unwarily offered towards the clearing of your self . You have prefaced your Letter to that Honourable Lord with some hard words against the Church of England about her Reformation by meer Lay-Authority , about her want of Succession , Mission , and about her undermining one third part of the Apostles Creed . I am so very desirous to come to the Controversie betwixt us , that I will only tell you here , that every word of what you have said there against the Church of England is very false , and very absurd . You next make two or three Reflections upon my Answer to the Compiler of the Nubes Testium ; I will pass over these at present also , since I am not at leisure here to defend that Book , and which is more , I need not against what you have said there . You next come to the Dividing of my Accusation against you , and tell the World , I accuse you first of Ignorance in saying , you followed the Advice of St. Austin , when you recommended your self to the Most Blessed Virgins Intercession . In Answer to which I must tell you , Sir , that you abuse words in dividing them-into the charge of Ignorance about Using the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin , and Disingenuity about quoting the Sermon as St. Austins . Your design I easily foresee , which is to draw me into a Controversy about Invocation of Saints , that so the heavy charge laid against you may be either dropt , or buried in a multitude of words about other things . But to be plain with you , Sir , now you have drawn me into the field , I am resolved not to be diverted with the throwing in of other matter about Invocation , which I have sufficiently answered once already in my Answer to the Compiler of the Nubes Testium : I am resolved to finish this dispute about the Sermon of St. Austin , before I begin any other with you ; When you have either cleared your self , or owned your obstinate Mistake , then I shall be at your service either in the DEFENCE of my Book , or of my Mother the Apostolical Church of England . You must not be angry therefore if I throw aside as nothing to the purpose of the present Controversy what you have set down out of the Nubes from your third to your sixth page , where I was glad to find that you did recollect with your self that our dispute was about those words as taken out of the thirty fifth Sermon de Sanctis : Which I said could not be St. Austins , but you are now resolved to defend that it may . As for my Arguments ; you tell his Lordship that I borrow some Proofs , of this Confident Assertion [ I suppose you mean of the Sermons not being St. Austins ] of Alexandre Natalis , and add one of my own contrivance . Since I am not acquainted with that Honourable Lord , I am afraid you will not do me the favour to tell that Lord from me , that what you say here is very false . I designed and drew up that Postscript , and had it Printed in half a day ; I had not lookt into Natalis Alexandre of five weeks before , and which is more , neither looked for , or ever saw one syllable in him about that , or any other Sermon attributed to St. Austin that I remember . I must own that I have been acquainted with Natalis Alexandre , but it was meerly to find out the stealings of your Pious and Learned Author of the Nubes Testium , who as I have thewn in my Answer , did not only steal his whole Book , ( excepting a small passage or two ) out of that French Historian , but stands excommunicated by this present Pope for his pains , After your false account whence I had my Proofs , you come next to examine them singly . My first was that the Title , a Sermon on [ not in as you translate the words ] the Feast of the Assumption does not at all agree to any thing that is near St. Austins time . You answer that there is no consequence can be drawn from the Title , since the Title ( as I suppose your meaning is ) might have been afterwards added . But why , Sir , can there be no consequence drawn hence ; my design was not only from there being no Feast of Assumption then ( which you grant ) and therefore no Sermon could be Preached on that Solemnity , but from there being no belief of such an Assumption then , and therefore a Sermon on that subject , which this evidently is , cannot be either St. Austins , or near his time , since there was then and long after not only no Feast , but no belief of any such thing as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. But you endeavour to illustrate this shadow , or rather phantome of an Answer by an Instance . You tell his Lordship St. Austins fourteenth Sermon de Sanctis is allowed by all to be his genuine work , the Title whereof , is in the Feast of all Saints ; yet that the Institution of that Feast was much later than that Sermon , which was made for , and preach'd in the Solemnity of a Virgin and Martyr . Surely Sir , you thought your putting your name and your society to your Letter would fright the nameless Author , from daring to give one word of Answer to that Letter , and therefore that you might take the Liberty to say what you pleased in it . Without such a supposition , I am not able to rescue you from a more odious Character , than I am willing to mention : For this is one of the falsest passages I have met with in so few words . You say St. Austins 14 th Sermon de Sanstis is allowed by all to be his genuine work : This is ( give me leave to speak out ) very false : For the Benedictines of Paris ( not to mention our Authors , whom I will not insist on to prove against your ALL , ) have thrown this Sermon into their a Appendix as Spurious , and shew that it is a meer Cento , made up of pieces of Sermons , borrowed here and there . You tell his Lordship next , that the Title of the Sermon , is in the Feast of all Saints . This is as false as the other ; for not onely in the Louvain , but in the Benedictine , as well as in Erasmus's Edition , the Title of this fourteenth Sermon , is in Festo Conversionis Sancti Pauli , a Sermon on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. I must confess Sir , that I was wholly astonished at your asserting these things with so much assurance to a Peer , and to a Peer also of the Church of England , and without any truth : I lookt again and again at it , and lest it might be an errour of the Press , I lookt into the fourth , into the twenty fourth , into the thirty fourth , into the forty first ; I lookt also into the two next Sermons before and after this fourteenth Sermon de Sanctis , but no news could I find of your Title in any one of those Sermons , and therefore must lay this mistake to your own charge . You lastly tell his Lordship , that this fourteenth Sermon was made son , and preach'd in the solemnity of a Virgin and Martyr ; which is as false as either of the other , since it certainly was made for , and preach't upon St. Pauls Conversion . You next tell his Lordship of a far greater mistake in this my Objection , much to be wondered at in so great a pretender to reading , as if ( say you ) Feast , or day of Assumption in the Writings of Antients , did almost ever signify any thing else but the Day of a Saints Death . But pray , Sir , what is that to this Sermon , if the day of Assumption do not ever signify the day of a Saints Death , why may not this be the exception ? but to pass that ; you know very well that that cannot be the meaning here , since this Sermon speaks of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin ; and that it was the Churches Custom to believe that the Virgin Mary was on the day of that solemnity assumed into Heaven . But all this is but to raise a dust about nothing , for were the Argument from the Title as weak as you could desire , yet what follows in my Postscript , is more than strong enough to convince all reasonable men that that Sermon could not be St. Austins . I next urged against this Sermon , that the Benedictines of Paris in their late Edition of St. Austin had cast it into their Appendix as spurious , and that they told us that in their MSS. it wanted the name of any Author ; but that the Divines of Louvain told us that in several Manuscripts , which they used in their Edition of St. Austin , this Sermon de Sanctis was intituled to Fulbertus Carnotensis . This Argument you were affraid to take together and therefore without saying a word to the Benedictine Manuscripts , which name no Author for that Sermon , you think you answer the Louvain MSS. about its being intituled to Fulbertus , by saying St. Ambrose and Chrysologus's Sermons have appeared in MSS. under other Authors names . But pray , Sir , what would you prove from hence , because such a thing hath happened to St. Ambrose , therefore this Sermon must be St. Augustins , because printed among his works , tho' it bears not his name either in the MSS. used by the Louvain Divines , or by the Benedictines . How is it that we know one man's Sermon 's from another's , is it not either from his style , or from its being attributed to such a person by the most and best Manuscripts ? from one of these ways it is that St. Ambrose's or any other Father's Sermons are vindicated to their true Authors . But both these Arguments are directly against this Sermon 's being St. Austins ; the style is dull and heavy , hath not any thing like or near the briskness , wit , and great sense of St. Austin ; and further the MSS. used by them , give it against you , they either intitle it to no Author , or to Fulbertus Carnetensis . Tho' my Arguments were not very weighty , yet what I next urged I thought would fully satisfy any ones scruples ; I mean the instance of Isidores being quoted in it , by which I said it was certain that this Sermon must be written after his time who lived in the beginning of the Seventh Century . What I say is certain here you tell his Lordship is unprobable . You give this as one reason , because the Author of that Sermon says no Author among the Latins could be found , who treating of our blessed Ladies Death had been positive , and express ; whereas Gregory of Tours in the Sixth Age hath a most full account of our blessed Ladies Assumption , and therefore the Author of this Sermon must have lived before Gregory , and consequently long before Fulbertus , or Isidore of Sevil. But I do not see this Consequence , it is no errour to suppose the Author of that Sermon had never seen Gregory of Tours Book , and therefore might have that expression concerning no Latin Author treating of the Virgin Maryes Assumption : Or we may very well suppose that if he had , he reckons his story among those Apocryphal ones which were then writ , but rejected by the Church of God : And I cannot see how it should be a fault in Fulbertus to reject Gregory of Tours ( if he knew of him ) as an Apocryphal Author , and not in St. Bernard , who so very long after either doubted or disbelieved ( as you own in the page before this ) the Story of the Assumption , notwithstanding the most full account of it in Gregory ; whom ( with the Author of this Sermon ) he either did not know , or did not regard . Your Answer about St. Isidore is very strange , since tho' there were never so many Isidores before St. Austin , yet can you , or dare you offer to shew that any of them were Writers ? But to drive you from this weak hold , we are certain that the Isidore quoted here is he that lived in the seventh Century . If you did look into the Louvain Edition when you wrote your Letter , you could not have mist seeing what book of his the passage is taken from . But I am affraid , Sir , I have to do with one , who is resolved to carry things by his own wild guesses more than by examining things fairly . The passage in the Sermon is in Isidor's Book de Vita & Morte Sanctorum . b So that all your dreams are vanished ; and this one passage enough to have answered your whole Letter . I shall therefore be shorter with the rest , and tell you that your sleighting the Judgment of the Louvain Divines , and the present Learned Benedictines at Paris , especially when invincibly strengthened by this passage from Isidore , and your believing this Sermon to be St Austins , because Thomas Aquinas believed it to be his , discovers ( pardon the expression ) a very unbecoming obstinacy ; You cannot but have heard how little a Critick Monsieur Launoy hath shewn Aquinas was , what forged Authorities he used and urged as from S. Cyril of Alexandria ; whereas there was no such things in his works . This instance , which you make use of for your defence , is an evidence as well against him as you , however far more excusable in him than in you , since he lived in such times of Ignorance , and you in times so learned ; I am very confident that had he seen how much is now said against this Sermon , he would have been far from acting like you , or have been obstinate in the defence of such a noted forgery . I have but room left to tell you that the Louvain Divines are of no Authority with me except where their reasons are apparently good ; and therefore should they have asserted the 18th Sermon de Sanctis to have been St. Austins as you say they do ) I should not upon good reasons assent unto them ; but that what you say here is false , is evident from that note set by them before this Sermon , that some attribute this Sermon to Fulgentius : and the Benedictines of Paris are so far from your words , that they say the Louvain Divines leave it as DUBIOUS : And they for their parts have east it into the Appendix as Spurious , and give this reason for it among others ▪ that it is the work of some ignorant botcher , who hath patched it up out of stolen Sentences : So that your quotation for Invocation thence ought to be sleighted by that honourable Lord as much as your other in the Sermon before the Court at Chester , Thus , Sir , I have given you the trouble of a Letter ; if you intend a further Vindication of your self , pray oblige me so far as to hasten it out , that so ! may stay no longer for it , than you have done for this . One thing you may oblige me in further , and that is not onely to quote , but to look into those Authors you make use of . This will prevent the multiplying of the Controversy ; tho' you be resolved to continue this any longer against Reverend Sir your Friend in all Christian Offices . FINIS . Notes, typically marginal, from the original text Notes for div A42570-e220 a Appendix ad Tom. 5. i. ) August . p. 316. Edit . Paris 1683. b Isidor . de Vita & Morte SS . n. 68. p. 168. Edit . Paris 158● . * Append. a Tom. 5 p. 321.