COENA quasi ΚΟΙΝΗ : The New-INCLOSVRES broken down , AND THE LORDS SUPPER Laid forth in common for all Church-members , having a Dogmatical Faith , and not being Scandalous : In a Diatribe , and Defence thereof : AGAINST The Apology of some Ministers , and Godly People , ( as their owne Mouth praiseth them ) asserting the lawfulness of their administring the LORDS SUPPER in a select Company : Lately set forth by their Prolocutor , Mr. HUMPHREY SAUNDERS .

Written by WILLIAM MORICE of Werrington , in DEVON , Esq

LONDON , Printed by W. Godbid , for Richard Thrale , and are to be sold at the Cross-Keyes at Paul's gate , entring into Cheap-side , M. DC . LVII .

BEing engaged in the publick Service of my Countrey , I have been alwayes most forward to employ the power intrusted with me , for recovery of Tythes to the Ministery , whose honor and maintenance I have ever sensed to be very much of the interest of Religion ; for as Heraclitus once said , Were it not for the Sun , it would be night for all the Stars : so , were there not such greater lights , whose Office and Ministerie is to enlighten the world , the frye of twinkling Stars could not prevent or supersede a general Darkness , especially being Stellae prosilientes , Falling stars , which have no Celestial origen , nor are fixt in the proper sphere , but carried upward by their innate levity , and kindled by an irregular zeal .

Among such as were occasionally convented for Non-payment , there were some that pleaded in their excuse , that they would willingly pay their Tythes , if their Pastors would administer the Lords-Supper , which some of them did altogether intermit ; others did onely exhibit it to a Church which they had new gathered ; and therefore they prayed they might not be compelled to pay their Tythes to those which had interpretatively renounced and disclaimed to be their Pastors , by having appropriated another flock : This being no irrational answer , nor easie to be gain-said ( for as Crassus said to Lucius Philippus , If thou wilt not owne me for a Senator , neither will I acknowledge thee to be a Consul ; and as the Canons say , there is Matrimonium inter Episcopum & Ecclesiam ; so in Divorces , when for espousing a new Love , the former Wife was repudiated , there was still , Tibique res tuas habeto ) I knew no expedient apter to evade it , then by a gentle suppling and inflecting them to pay their Tythes , upon promise that I would engage the forces I had , to perswade their several Ministers to revive and reduce the Sacrament in their proper Churches , and to admit them thereunto , if there were no just and manifest obstacle .

In complyance with this promise , and because the cure ( as with the Leper under the Law ) begins with the Ear , I privately entred into an amicable altercation upon this Subject with some of these Ministers ; For even the Lights of the Sanctuary may need Snuffers , though such ought to be of pure gold ; and however the School tels us , that an Angel of an inferior Order doth not illuminate another of a superior ; yet in the Elementary world , Naturalists say that the Jackal is conducter to the Lyon , and the little Musculus goes before the Whale as a guide , and to direct him from shelves and flats ; yet nevertheless I was not herein without the modest sense of Tertullian , Non tantus sum ut ego vos alloquar ; verumtamen gladiatores perfectissimos , non tantum magistri & praepositi , sed etiam idiotae & supervacui quique adhortantur de longinquo .

As they have taught us to distinguish of Conversion wrought at the Sacrament , but not by it ; so some one or other perhaps occasionally , if not causally , was at such colloquies and transactions , if not by them , induced to return to his Duty , and redintegrate the Communion in his Church : Others I found according to that character of St. Hierom , Facilius vinci posse quam persuaderi ; but having sundry times by some interveniencies and avocations , been frustrated of the opportunity of a full carrying through , of the conference which I had entred upon with one among the rest , who seemed to me to have sollicited with , and engaged others by his influence and inspirations , and who had new gathered a Church , ( if not in that notion , yet much of that nature ) I thereupon concluded to give him my sense , and the reasons thereof in writing ; which accordingly I lapt up in one sheet , and transmitted to him by a private , and no vulgar hand : And because I had no thought it should be seen abroad , I was not carefull to give it any handsomer dress , but onely put it in an homely attire ; and having as little ambition as skill to paint to eternity with Zeuxis , I took no long time to draw this picture of my mind , which was onely two dayes in forming ; so that I might plead with Hierom , Qui non ignoscit ingenio , ignoscat tempori ; indeed I rather touched then handled things , and like Ladas I passed very lightly over the sands , intending to leave no impression or footsteps of any traverses betwixt us ; but nevertheless , as contrariant to my complacencies , as cross to my expectation , what I intended to speak in the ear , was preached on the house tops ; for no sooner was this private Rescript received , but the Church ( as according to the idiom of the Donatists they speak ) was congregated , and at their tribunal was my bashful sheet brought forth ( which I rather wished had been sentenced to perpetual imprisonment ) to be publickly arraigned .

To justifie or excuse the publishing hereof , it hath been pleaded , that it was not wedded to him under any caution not to communicate or impart it ; and that 2. it was expedient to publish it to the Church , because they were concerned in it , and they heard but their owne Cause pleaded .

But for answer to the first ; I should have thought , that though I had been silent , yet Morality would have dictated , that without my consent first had , nothing of mine should have been made common to any , besides those to whom I allowed it , and the publishing needed my express assent to warrant it , not my direct prohibition to restrain it . To the 2. Though the Church were concerned in the subject and matter controverted , yet that can no more evince an expedience to communicate to them the traverses betwixt us , then because every one of the Nation is interessed in the conduct of State-affairs , that therefore it is necessary or fit that the people should be acquainted with the counsels and agitations thereof : I had no altercation with them ; my address was not to the Orbs , but the Intelligence that set them on their motions , and with Diogenes I struck at the Master , for what I thought more culpable in him then in the Scholars . I never was of Lucilius his minde , who professed he wrote onely to the unlearned Tarentines , I should rather invert the speech , and say , Perseum curo legere , Laelium Decimum nolo ; let him that I strike at be such an one as may totum telum recipere ; and let the learneder smite me , whose reproof shall be an excellent oyl ( so it be cold oyl , for oyl set a fire is most raging and mischievous ) that shall not break , but heal the wounds I may chance to have in my head . I am somewhat of Aristippus his minde , the bite of a Weazel would trouble me more then the tooth of a Lyon . Si cadendum est , Aeneae magni dextra cadam , & sim jugulatus Achille : But the course they took could onely have been rib'd and inlaid with some reason to support and strengthen it , if I had scattered my papers among his Church , and sought to toll away his Proselites , and if they had been hereby shaken , or made volatile , and could not have been otherwise fixed , but by perswading them how in that argument he had foyled me ( which general notion , and that taken up by an implicit faith , was , I doubt , all the impression which the generality of them could get by the reading of our dissertations ; for though those matriculated into his Church , may perchance be all sufficiently principled in repentance toward God , and faith in Christ Jesus , which my charity prompts me to hope ( whatever others report ) yet I doubt ( however they may blandish them ) that their understandings are too narrow and disproportionable to make judgement of controversies , especially agitated scholastically . ) Sic mihi magnopere faber est invisus , in altum Qui struit , adnitens superare jugum Oromedontis . But hereupon it was bruited abroad that I should forthwith receive an answer ; and though methinks so many hands should have made more light work in respect of time , and not so light in regard of waight , yet I can instance the person , one of their Church ( and I know they will resent with indignation any suspicion that one of that extraction and refinement should retain any Dregs or impurity of an untruth ) which did say , and the person to whom , and the circumstances of time and place when and where he said it , that foure Ministers had laid their heads together to frame a speedy answer to my Epistle ; in which relation therefore that which they call an Apology of some Ministers and godly persons , may be so named as well in respect of the efficient as the subject .

But whether sat bene , I shall not say , but I am sure not sat cito ; and though they would have it to be as the Jews Messias , born long since , but shewing it self long after ; yet I know their Answer ( like Lapis Lazuli among Physicians ) had many several Washings before they could agree to give it , and about a yeer after the Answer was said to be inchoated , the Church met to peruse and set their Seal to it , which after several concoctions and filtrations was then thought fit to be sent in progress to several Towns among their Symmists , whither like a Snowbal to gather somewhat by rolling , and to raise a posse comitatus against this rebel to their Discipline , I will not assert upon conjectures or reports , but shal be facil to believe that if this Temple of their Diana had been so many yeers in building by all Asia , it must rather have been one of the wonders of the world .

For the censures which they insinuate to have attended or prevented the coming forth thereof , as I am not justly obliged to be responsible for what I was not guilty of , who ( as Memnon General to Darius said his Souldier was ) am prest to fight , not to rail , so I cannot discreetly undertake to excuse what I am ignorant of ; but if they mistook not the tinckling of their own ears for outward sounds , perhaps some of their own Cougregation that think themselves losers of a just liberty of communion , might seek their recompense by a freedom in communicating their grieved minds , and in civitate non libera ( as they made it ) would yet have linguas liberas ; and then I shall onely remind them a story of Philip of Macedon ; when one told him that Nicanor who was in Court , and neglected by him , spake reproachfully of him , he sent him a large Donative , and supplyed his indigence ; and thereupon Nicanor began to talk very honourably of the King ; which made Philip to say , Videtis in nobis esse situm , ut bene vel male audiamus : but whatsoever those censures were , or by whomsoever aspersed , as winds blustring about the earth are caused by vapors breaking out of the cranies thereof , so were these rumors occasioned by themselves that were pleni rimarum ; and it fared then with them as it useth to do with such as buy winds of Witches , who by opening the knots of the ropes given them , raise so great gales , as make them wish them stilled again , which they have let loose , and cannot hush : Had they done ( as Augustin speaks of Zachary , Tacuit generatus vocem ) men might have held their peace , and the Apologists had peace ; or as it was said of Bonaventure ; Had they been first the dumb Oxe , the world needed not to have wondred till they had lowed : That ever I writ any thing to be answered , or that they undertook the answer , had never slown so far , nor sounded so loud but in the winds which their owne birth first raised ; and that which was my desire , might have been our common felicity , to have discharged all our volleys with white powder , not onely for the candor , but because ( they say ) it makes no report ; and to have resembled heavenly rather then earthly bodies , the one moving without sound , the other with bustling ; and so never to have come forth upon the stage , but to have acted our parts behind the curtain , had not they drawn it aside , to shew what prizes they could play , and to make open sale of the Bears skin as soon as they began to hunt ; for what ever censorious omens others had of them , themselves had endevoured to make the Countrey ring with their celeusma's , and the Paeans of their triumph for this victory ; and though the dust followed their chariot , wherewith they seek to blind mens eyes , yet the creaking of their wheels ( and they are onely dry things wanting fatness which use to move with noyse ) were heard long before they were seen to come .

Yet all this while I was no more answered then one man may be by whispering in anothers ear , nor did no more feel the stroke of their rod , then Nico did the blows wherewith his image was beaten by those that made no haste to encounter himself . I might justly have expected it , not onely upon the score of Civility , but Christian charity , that I should first have been privately admonished of my faults , before the Church had been told thereof ; for even a truth unseasonably published , is a virtual slander ; and though I will not profess with Aristotle , Let them not onely reproach , but beat me too , whiles I am absent , yet I shall say with Plancus , when he was told that Asinius Pollio had written invectives against him , not to be published until after his death , that there are none but Ghosts and Goblins that fight with the dead ; and in respect of obloquy , there is the same reason of the dead , and those that are not present ; but perhaps it was their conceit , that the expectation of the blow , which they boasted to be impendent , would anticipate the suffering thereof , knowing that pauculum differt patiaris adversa , an expectes , nisi quod tantum est dolendi modus , non timendi ; dolens enim quantum scias accidisse , timeas quantum possit accidere ; and because that cito periisse est loco beneficii , therefore they would be persuaded by Caligula , Sic feri , ut sentiat se mori .

Almost two yeares after I had inscribed and consigned to them my single sheet ( by which time perchance I might have forgotten that any such thing had passed my hands , had I not been awakened to the remembrance thereof by their assiduous alarms ) I received in manuscript their answer ; but in the interim , perceiving this my smal spark by their stirring was like to be no longer covered under ashes , but to be laid open to publick light , therefore least it might expire and vanish through its own exility , and so waighty a question sustain some prejudice by so short an answer ( which Nebridius St. Augustines friend hated ) and so suddenly formed ( which I need not professe , seeing , as Apelles , when his boy shewed him a painted table , and told him that it was done in haste , answered , he might have spared to tell him so , for the work sufficiently shewed it ) therefore as the Tuberous use to take their younglings into their bellys again for their better fostering and defence , so I reassumed into the wombe of second cogitations this rude Minerva , this conception and abortive issue of my brain , and new moulded my Diatribe , yet retaining the same Scheme of the former black lines , though dilating and filling them with fresher colors , yet kept it close and secret , having still a desire with the old Romans , to sacrifice mutae deae ad compescendas detrahentium linguas , untill by the veiw of their Apologie transmitted to me , I had the provocation and the call to remande my Diatribe ( the same with little or no alteration which here precedes this defence ) and they had the virgin prospect thereof ; for seeing how undecent it was in them , to prostitute their answer to others eyes , before it was represented to mine , I could not stumble at the same stone of offence , since as in good things the example merits more prayse then the imitation , so in evil the imitation deserves more blame then the example ; and together with that review were conveyed some animadversarions on their Apology , as velites to begin the Skirmish , till time could bring to the shocke the waightier armature .

To these animadversions their Prolocutor replyed , and I rejoynd . But within short time after a gentleman of quality and worth came to me ( as he said ) from the Apologist , to tell me , he was very willing to cut off or winde up the thread of controversie , which he heard I was preparing to draw out farther by forming an answer to his Apology . But I might be superseded of such pains ; for he desired I would rest as silent as he had resolved to be , who would never henceforth have to do with me in any altercation of this kind .

I ( who had always applauded the wisedom of the Romans that set the image of Angerona on the altar of Volupia , and have ever sensed most pleasure in silence ) received with much complacency this amicable offerture , and thereupon laid aside and took a farwell of the thoughts of making answer , and that little Schedule which I had scribled , I passed this sentence upon , tineas pascat taciturnus inertes .

But it seems they thought that also , per injurias injuriis tutum est iter , and they had learned that principle of Machiavell , that whom they stagger with one wrong , they must utterly cast down with more ; for although he that read over the Oration which Lysias made for him , the oftner he perused , the worse he relished it ; yet it seems they better fancying their discourse , the longer they contemplated it , and beholding themselves under I know not what multiplying glasses , fell in love with their own image , and thought themselves so considerable , and their way so exemplar , as to acquaint the world with so much of both , or else being as they say excited thereunto by importunity of friends ( the common vouchee to warrant publications ) whereof one hath hung out his bush at the dore , to whom though perhaps some as wise men will say , as Apollonius did to Tigellinus that asked him how he liked Nero's singing at the harpe , melius de Nerone sentio quam tu ; cantare enim tu illum dignum putas , ego autem tacere ; yet I shall alone adde , that the gentleman hath in one respect salved the honor of his judgement , by insinuating a doubt that his love to the person may deceive him , though in another regard he hath detracted from the credit thereof ; for amans quod cupiat scit , quod sapiat nescit ; honestius est cum judicaveris amare , quam cum amaveris judicare ; yet however for my part , amet tua carmina Maevi ; but upon these or other impulsives , about two years after this , and at the last Spring out comes in print their Answer to my first sheet ( which I had professed I would disclaime and not own ) and that without taking any notice of the reveiw thereof ( which they had all those years in their hands ) and which alone ( having slighted the former ) I assumed to defend , as a peece which I thought better fortified , even as if they had borrowed some of the subtilty of the Serpent who assaults the heele when he cannot reach the head ; or , had been prompted by Balak to see but the utmost part of them , and not to see them all , and hoped to have power to curse them from thence .