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A35885
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The salvation of Protestants asserted and defended in opposition to the rash and uncharitable sentence of their eternal damnation pronounc'd against them by the Romish Church / by J.H. Dalhusius ... ; newly done into English.
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Dalhusius, Johannes H. (Johannes Hermanus)
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1689
(1689)
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Wing D132; ESTC R1473
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51,117
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84
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of Ethnics Mahometans and Jews no not in the Society of those who retaining the Name of Christ nevertheless subvert the Foundation of Salvation such as formerly were the Ebionites Borborites Manichaeans Arrians and at this day the Socinians or if there be or were any other such like Monsters in Religion But in our Religion what is there to be discover'd that subverts the Fundamental Articles of Christianity but rather on the other side what serves in a high degree to support them Does it not admit the Scriptures of the old and New Testament to be of Divine Inspiration and the Three more solemn Creeds the Apostolic Athanasian and Nicene together with the Four Oeconomic Councils of Nicaea Chalcedon Ephesus and Constantinople Does it not adore in truth One God Three in One the Father Son and Holy Ghost Does it not acknowledg one Christ God and Man for the Mediator between God and Men the Redeemer of Souls a Prophet Priest and King of the Church Does it teach any thing concerning God which is repugnant to his Majesty his Glory and his Power Can it be accused of any Opinion that subverts good Manners or that sins against the Law of God or public Honesty The aim of Religion is to inform Men how to live well and bear Death with confidence to the end that after they have lived in the fear of God they may die in his favour And this is that which a Christian may easily attain in our Religion for it most powerfully excites a faithful Man to fear God and love his Neighbor It propounds no Article of Faith from whence various Corollaries may not be deduc'd for performance of our Duties and Reformation of our Lives and administers most sweet and those most effectnal Consolations to a Christian against the assaults of all Temptations and Death particularly advancing the Certainty of Redemption through Christ into the number of the Sons of God by his Merit and Favour so that they themselves who deal so rigorously by us so often as any one is to be prepar'd for Death insensibly come over to our side and tacitly renounce their own Opinions as is to be seen in Conson Agoniz written by Viguerrus For then they do not comsort the dying Person with heaps of his own proper Merits but exhort him to put all his hope and confidence in the Mercy of God and the Satisfaction of Christ Nor do they scare their doubtful Consciences with the Terror of Purgatory but comfort it with the hopes of soon obtaining Everlasting Rest and admonish the sick Person often to repeat the words of David Into thy hands I commend my Spirit The Bishop of Toledo is reported to have written to the Pope that the Emperor Charles V declar'd upon his Death-bed that he plac'd all the Hopes of his Salvation in one Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ and in his Merits adding withal that he look'd upon Luther's Opinion concerning Justification to be very true To which as the Famous John Crocius my Tutor formerly at Marpurgh reports in his Anti-Wigelius p. 451. they make the Pope to return this Answer That he would not celebrate his Funeral Obsequies because he held with Luther in such a Principal Point of Religion Maximilian II when the Bishop of Naples D. Lambert Gruterus came to him then lying under the Pangs of Death would not suffer him to be admitted but upon promise first That he would talk of nothing else but of the Merits of Christ his Blood and Sâ—eat The Bishop was as good as his word and made a long Oration concerning the Merits of Christ full of Consolation and when the Emperor was ask'd Whether he intended to die in that Faith He made Answer I shall do no otherwise As Crato relates in his Funeral-Oration and Chytraeus Chron. Sax. The Head and Summ of Christian Religion is Christ Crucify'd 1 Cor. 2. 2. Other Foundation can no Man lay then that which is laid which is Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 3. 11. So that for the obtaining of Salvation there is no other Rule of Faith to be acknowledg'd then the Word of Christ resounding in Scriptures nor any other Merit to be pleaded before God but his Death nor any other Purgatory but his Blood nor any other Propitiatory Sacrifice for our Sins but that which he offer'd once upon the Cross nor any other Head of the Church nor any other Mediator with God but Himself Behold the Foundations of our Faith Why should you deny us Eternal Salvation Moreover it would be very cruel and altogether repugnant to Christians to condemn to the Torments of Hell so many Myriads of Christians living in the East under the Patriarchs of Antioch Alexandria Jerusalem and Constantinople The Georgians Armenians Abissines Egyptians Greeks whose Churches the Apostles founded Martyrs water'd with their Blood the most Learned of the Fathers cultivated with their Instructions so many Councils honour'd with their Decisions and which are able to vye their Titles of Antiquity and Succession with Rome it self Now if the way to Salvation is not to be deny'd to these Christians dispers'd over the East and retaining the Foundations of Christianity tho' believing nothing of the Fire of Purgatory the Pomp of Papal Dignity Transubstantiation of the Bread into the Body of Christ Communion under One Kind the Use of Latin or a Foreign Tongue in Publick Worship the necessary Celibacy of the Ministry Auricular Confession and the like why may not Salvation be obtain'd in the Society of the Reformed Churches which are gather'd to Christ in the West tho as to those Points they have renounc'd the Roman Communion Then there is another thing which you Romanists confess of your own accords that our Church Reform'd according to the Word of God leads all the Members of its Communion directly to Christ that they may obtain Salvation in him and by him that they feed the starving Consciences with the Spiritual Bread of the Divine Word and Sacramental Eucharist call Sinners to Repentance and recommend to every one Piety towards God and Charity towards our Neighbor There is also another thing which they acknowledge that our Reformed Church both has and administers the true Baptism of Christ and by means of that Spiritually begets Sinners which are to be Heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven seeing that by their own Confession our Children dying after Baptism receiv'd in our Churches ascend to Joys Celestial as may be collected from Bellarmin lib. 1. de Bapt. cap. 11. In the mean time I beseech you Venerable Sir can you tell me what Motives they were that lead you headlong into so absurd a Precipice Or what I beseech you were the Impulsive Causes and Pregnant Reasons of so preposterous and unseasonable a Damning of our Souls If you are Ignorant as I shrewdly conjecture you are I will tell you what they are from your own Doctors who have written variously concerning this Question that is to say That we are therefore to be Damn'd and are
Damn'd to all Eternity First Because we are guilty of Blasphemy against the Omnipotency of God in the business of the Eucharist Secondly Because we make God the Author of Sin. Thirdly Because we fasten Despair upon Christ when he was upon the Cross Fourthly Because we are injurious to the Virgin Mary and the Saints Fifthly Because we oppose Chastity Sobriety Mortification Good Works the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and every pious Institution And Sixthly Because we are Heretics or at least Seventhly Schismatics These are the Imputations which I find in Bellarmin Becanus Tirinus and Stapleton all Jesuites the great Props of your Cause and the Pillars of this cruel Sentence Nevertheless know Mr. Prior that these Accusations are no more then mere Imaginations and feigned Dreams which have no real Foundation as I shall with all possible brevity demonstrate in order both for your own and the sake of others and if these Pretences of yours be found to be groundless and unreasonable there needs no more to convince you of your Error and your stragling from Truth and Charity First therefore we are accused as if we would limit Divine Omnipotence and that we plainly deny it while we assert that it is impossible for the Bread to be Transubstantiated into the Body or that any Body should be actually in divers places or that Accidents should subsist without a Subject or that there should be some Bodies allow'd of that fill no space But far be it from us to limit the infinite Pôwer of the most Infinite or in the least to call it in question We are ready with our Blood to subscribe to the Apostles Creed in the first Article whereof we profess to believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth And this we generally add for a Conclusion to our ordinary Prayers For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Mat. 6. 13. Then also our Saviour taught us That those things are Easie and Possible with God which seem to Men Impossible Let him be Anathema that calls in question the Power os the most High who existing of himself because according to the common Axiom There is nothing in God which is not God it is impossible for him to be limited or bounded And this Infinity we could as certainly believe in the Sacrament of the Eucharist in reference to the destruction of the Bread and substituting the Body of Christ in the room of it as it is certain and perspicuous from the Word of God that our Bodies should rise at the Day of Judgment our Faith would be directed by the Cynosure of Divine Will nor can we doubt but that God both could and would have done it had he so decreed the thing to be done as profitable and necessary for our Salvation But as to this we find First That those Sacred Mysteries which are distributed to us from the Table of the Lord are and remain both in Substance and Name what they were as to the Substance before the Consecration Nor need we to produce the Testimony of Senses for it our Seeing Tasting Feeling Smelling which according to the Opinion of certain Philosophers are rarely deceiv'd about their proper Objects the Authority of St. Paul is sufficient and beyond all Objection 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ And then again 1 Cor. 11. 28. Let a man examin himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. Secondly We find that the eating of his Flesh and the drinking his Blood is recommended to us by Christ Joh. 6. But there there is nothing spoken of Oral feeding by which the Body of Christ is actually swallowed into our Bodies but he speaks of Spiritual and Mystic Eating by which he remains in us and we in him which does not come to pass by Chewing but by Believing not in swallowing down into the Stomach but by receiving him with the Heart with Faith as Christ in the same place clearly and frequently explains himself as when he says ver 35. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst And thus all Antiquity has expounded this Context of St. John. And several Testimonies might be produc'd of St. Austin alone among all the rest of the Fathers to the same purpose whose following words were taken out of his Commentaries upon St. John by Gratian. Distinct 2. Consil Can. 47. Why dost thou make ready thy Teeth and Belly believe and thou hast eaten For to believe in him is the same as to eat the living Bread who believes in him eats him is invisibly fed because he invisibly grows again Now that we ought to understand the words of Christ in this place of Mystical and Spiritual Feeding the constant Rule propos'd by the same Father constrains us l. 3. de Doctrin Christ c. 16. If the Scripture saith he seems to command an unlawful and wicked act and to forbid a profitable and good deed then it is Figurative Vnless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall not have Life within you Here it seems to command a wicked Act. Therefore it is a Figure commanding it s to communicate the Passion of our Saviour and to remember profitably and sweetly that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for our sakes But I abstain for the nonce from farther Explication of this Matter unless occasion shall be given of vindicating this Epistle by a Reply In the mean time the sole Omnipotency of God is usually oppos'd to so many effectual Arguments by which we are constrained to assent to the Opinion of the Antients concerning the Sacrament as if God were bound to display his Power to do whatever Men fancy to themselves or that we must be said to Blaspheme his Omnipotence because we do not consent to their Dreams and Miracles whereas if those new and unprofitable Opinions were approv'd by the assent of the Divine Will we should never meddle to contradict this Argument taken from God's Omnipotency But since there is nothing that can be produc'd in their favour out of the Testament of God but on the contrary so many Demonstrations fighting against them we dare pesume to descend to the Examination of this Argument Not to limit the Omnipotence of God but to shew that those things that you Romanists would defend by virtue of that are of the number of those things which fall not under the Power of God not through Impotency or want of Strength but through the Excellency and Perfection of his Power For tho' God be Omnipotent yet he can neither Walk nor Sleep nor Die for that these things would contradict the Perfection of his Eslence In this sense the Scripture testifies that God cannot lye nor deny himself