Diftinction, as to the Performance of relative Duties, between Perfons of your Communion and our own. The Duties of Humanity and Natural Juftice, which are common to us with all Men, are of great and facred Obligation; not to mention. thofe with which our common Christianity hath more particularly charged our Confciences, as to our Behaviour in Charity, Prudence, and Honesty towards all Men; to them we think without, as carefully as them within; to Unbelievers, as well as Believers; ftrictly commanding us to give no Of fence to Jews or Greeks, or to thofe of the Church of God. Sir, with a Sense of these unalterable Duties to you and all others of your Religion I have hitherto written, and fhall proceed to write in the Controverfy between us; and however it may determine, I shall continue to be

Your faithful Friend and Servant,

GEO. HICKES.

Some

Some LETTERS, which passed between Dr. Hickes and his unknown Adverfary, from the fecond to the twenty fourth Day of April, 1714, before the Doctor fent the foregoing printed Answer to his Reply.

SIR,

S

April the 2d, 1714.

INCE I am apt to be perfuaded, that there is a wide Difference betwixt the answering of a Difficulty propos'd, and the pretending to be able eafily to do it, I wish you would take the Pains to make me fenfible of this Mistake, as far as relates to our Purpose. And to make an eafy Matter yet eafier, let us ftrip our felves of all fuperfluous Words, Digreffions, Jefts, or other Artifices of prolonging the Difpute, and shut up our felves to be try'd by the force of our Reasons alone: Which if we have the Affurance to do, we fhall foon fee the Arms drop out of the Hands of one of us. One would think that after having study'd amongst you for this 150 Years and more, you should have an Answer ready to this Thread-bare Queftion. By what Linage do you make your Defcent good from the fourth Century to the pretended

0.3

Re

Reformation? If by the Roman Catholicks, anfwer the Difficulties propos'd. If by any other, who either held the fame pretended Errors or others as ill, anfwer the fame Difficulties proportionably. And if you will pretend to draw out the old rufty Diftinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental, Pray tell us First, what you mean by Fundamental, and 2dly, which Points precifely are to be efteem'd Fundamental, if you can: And if you cannot, confefs that you cannot. If you will proceed in this manner, a few Lines may make a full Answer, and a few Days put an end to the Queftion: If you will not, or will not do it foon, I defire you will fend back the Papers to the Place from whence you had them, for I am going out of Town very foon.

I am, Sir, tho' unknown,

Your Well-wisher and Servant,

A. B.

SIR,

April the 5th, 1704.

YOUR anonymous Letter, dated the 2d In

ftant, I received Yefterday towards the Evening, when fome Gentlemen were with me, who came to make me a charitable Visit, having heard I was not well. In it you fent me a Queftion to Anfwer, which you call a Thread-bare Queftion, viz. By what Linage do you make good

your

1

your defcent from the fourth Century to the pretended Reformation? I fuppofe by your defcent, you mean either the Defcent or Succeffion of our Doctrines, or the Defcent or Succeffion of our Bishops and Priefts; or it may be both, for by the uncertainty of the Terms, in which you put your Queftion, I am left to guefs at your Meaning. If by your Defcent, you mean the Defcent of our Doctrines, I anfwer, that they have defcended to us from the end of the fourth Century, as they did from the third Century to the end of the fourth, and from the fecond to the end of third, and from the firft to the end of the fecond, from Chrift and his Apoftles, through a continued Succeffion of Oriental and Occidental Churches to the Time of the Reformation; only with this Difference, that they descended through the first four Centuries pure and without erroneous Additions and Mixtures, but afterwards were conveyed down with Errors and Innovations, at first fewer and of lefs Moment, then by degrees more and greater (efpecially in the Latin Church.) And the Church of England by the Reformation separated the pure and primitive Doctrines, from thofe impure Additions, which were not primitive: She separated the Wheat from the Chaff, the Gold from the Drofs; and the Doctrines, I mean the pofitive Doctrines, which you hold with us, you cannot, you dare not deny to be primitive and pure. And this Anfwer, as to Subftance, hath been made 150 Years ago, and hath never been confuted. But if by your Defcent, you mean the Defcent or Succeffion of our Bifhops and Priefts, I anfwer, that we have as good a Succeffion of Bishops and Priefts,' as the Roman Church hath this Day, or had at the time of the Reformation. A Succeffion derived through feventeen Centuries from the Apostles and

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their

their next Succeffors, by continued Confecrations and Ordinations, of which we have moft certain Evidence and Records from the beginning of the Reformation, as hath been often thew'd to the World.

I have now, Sir, fent you an Answer to your Queftion, or rather Queftions; for if by your Def cent, you meant both the Defcent of our Doctrines and of our Bishops and Priests, it was fallacia plurium interrogationum, and not one Question, but two. But be it as you please, one or two Queftions, as in Compliance with your Requeft, I have returned a plain Answer to it: So I hope, in requital, you will be fo kind, as to return me as plain an Answer to those which follow in your own Terms. By what Linage do you make good the Defcent of Tranfubftantiation, through the first five Centuries to the fixth?

By what Linage do you make good the Pope's Supremacy over the Univerfal Church through the fame Centuries?

Shew me the Defcent of the firft Doctrine, if you can, through the firft five Centuries against Albertinus in his three Books in one Volume, de Euchariftia Sacramento, printed MDCLV.

Shew me, if you can, the Defcent of the fecond Doctrine through the fame Ages against one of your learned Writers, Lambert, in his Preface to the French Tranflation of St. Cyprian's Epiftles, and Launoy, and others, and one of ours Dr. Barrow, in his Book againft the Pope's Supremacy.

If the Linage or Defcent of thefe Doctrines cannot be proved through thofe Ages, i. e. from Chrift and his Apostles to the beginning of the fixth Century, it will be no matter of Triumph to your Church to fhew their Original many Ages after; nor can any Christian be obliged to be of a Church,