devotions in subordination to him to those subservient and ministerial Gods I should not have been afraid of what any Papists in the World could have said for my Confutation Nay I should have been tempted to have laughed at their folly and despised their weakness who should plead for the worship of God in or by a dull and rude image and condemn me for honouring God in the most noble parts of the Creation If they had told me that the supream God must have a worship proper to himself Yes I should answer them in their own terms I by no means question it and that is it which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is reserved to the supream Deity all that I give to inferiour Deities is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only the Sun deserved an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of his eminent usefulness If they had said I made them Gods by giving them religious Worship no more than they do Images If yet they had urged that God had forbidden Worshipping the Host of Heaven Yes that is giving the Worship of the Supreme God to them but not a subordinate relative inferiour Worship which was all I intended and I hope they are not so ignorant of the nature of humane actions as not to know that they go whither they are intended and my intent was only to honour the true God by it or else that the Worshipping the Host of Heaven was forbidden to the dull and stupid Iewes who had no kind of Philosâ—phy in them and did not see those admirable Images of the Divine perfections in them which I did but for men of Philosophical and contemplative minds what injury to God could there be as long as the more I saw cause to honour these far greater I still saw to honour him who produced all these things or lastly I would appeal to themselves whether the precept against Worshipping the host of Heaven or images were more plain in the Scripture the second commandment is not in words against the Worship of the things but the images of them and the first against Worshipping them as the Supream God I did neither but they could not possibly excuse themselves who did the same things to an Image which they do to God himself Thus we see the reason of the commandment is by no means appropriated to the Iews but doth extend as far as the knowledge of it doth and the same arguments which notwithstanding that command would justifie the Worship of Images will likewise justifie the most early the most general the most lasting Idolatry of the World which is the Worship of the Sun Moon and Starrs And a mighty Argument that the reason of this command drawn from the unsuitableness of the Worship of Images to the nature of God is of an unalterable and universal nature is that the same reason is urged under the New Testament against the Idolatry of the Heathens So St. Paul dealt with the Athenians proving the unreasonableness of their Worshipping God by Images because he was the God that made the World and is Lord of Heaven and Earth and that we are his off-spring therefore we ought not to think that the God head is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art or mans device he doth not speak meerly against their other objects of Worship besides the true God nor their supposing their Gods to be present in their Images nor taking their images for Gods but against their supposition that there was any resemblance between God and their Images or that he was capable of receiving any honour by them The same Argument he useth to the Romans speaking of those in whom that which may be known of God is manifest even his eternal power and God-head yet these persons who knew God did not glorifie him as God but changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an Image made like to corruptible man c. where changing his glory into Images is immediately opposed to the glorifying him as God in respect of his eternal power and God-head so that those two are inconsistent with each other to glorifie God by an Image and to glorifie him as God For here the Apostle doth not discourse against the most gross and sottish Idolaters of the Heathens but as St. Chrysostome well observes against the Philosophers and the wisest among them Who though they differed in their opinions of Religion extremely from the Vulgar yet they concurred with them in all the external practices of their Idolatry And therefore the Apostle doth not charge them with false notions of a Deity for he saith they held the truth in unrighteousness that they knew God but they shewed their vanity and solly in thinking they had found out subtiller wayes of defending the common Idolatries among them and instead of opposing them made use of their wits to excuse them And the most intelligent Heathens did never look on their Images as any other than symbols or representations of that Being to which they gave divine Worship No one but a Fool thinks otherwise of them saith Celsus They are only Books for the ignorant saith Porphyrie and the Heathens in Athanasius They deny in Arnobius that they ever thought their Images to be Gods or to have any Divinity in them but what only comes from their Consecration to such an Vse and in St. Augustin that they Worshipped the Images themselves but through them they Worshipped the Deity Maximus Tyrius discourses largely on this Subject and shews that Images were but the signs of divine honour and helps to remembrance They are but Symbols of the presence of the Gods saith Iulian We do not think them Gods saith he but that through them we may Worship the Deity for we being in the body ought to perform our Service in a way agreeable to it And Eusebius testifies in general of the Heathens that they did not look on their Images as Gods however some among them had an opinion of the Gods being incorporated in them I desire to know whether these men who worshipped Images upon those grounds did amiss or no in it I do not ask whether they were mistaken as to the objects of their Worship but on supposition they were not whether they were to blame in the manner of serving God by Images in such a way as they describe If not wherefore doth St. Paul pitch upon that to condemn them for which they were not at all to blame in He ought to have done as the Iesuits in China did who never condemned the people for worshipping Images but for worshipping false Gods by them and perswaded them not to lay them aside but to convert them to the honour of the true God and so melted down their former Images and made new ones of them Can we imagine St. Paul meant the same thing when he blames men not for believing them to be Gods but that God
it or gave any signs of contrition it ought not to be omitted alwayes provided that those who are mad do nothing against the reverence of the Sacrament That being secured their work is done and if any sins have remained upon them they are taken off by vertue of this sacred Vnction and being thus anointed like the Athletae of old they are prepared to wrestle with all the powers of the Air who can then fasten no hold upon them Yet to be just to them the Roman Ritual saith that impenitent persons and those who dye in mortal sin and excommunicate and unbaptized are to be denyed extream Vnction A hard case for those who dye in mortal sin for if they could but express any sign of contrition by the motion of an Eye or a Finger all were well enough And for the impenitent we are not to imagine them so cruel to account any so but such who refuse the Sacrament of Pennance the summ of it then is if a man when he is like to live and therefore to sin no longer doth but probably express some signs of contrition and doth not refuse the Sacrament of Pennance if time and the condition of the Patient permit the using it then he is to have grace conferred on him by this last Sacrament which he is sure to receive although he be no more sensible what they are doing about him than if he were dead already So that upon the whole matter I begin to wonder how any sort of men in the Church of Rome can be afraid of falling so low as Purgatory I had thought so much Grace as is given them by every Sacrament where there are so many and some of them so often used might have served to carry one to Heaven they receive a stock of Grace in Baptism before they could think of it if they lose any in Childhood that is supplyed again by the Sacrament of Chrisme or Confirmation if they fall into actual sins and so lose it it is but confessing to the Priest and receiving absolution and they are set up again with a new stock and it is a hard case if that be not increased by frequent Masses at every one of which he receives more and although Priests want the comfortable Grace that is to be received by the Sacrament of Matrimony yet they may easily make it up by the number of Masses and to make all sure at last the extream Vnction very sweetly conveyes Grace into them whether they be sensible or not But all this while what becomes of Purgatory That is like to be left very desolate if the interest of that opinion were not greater than the evidence for the Sacraments conferring grace ex opere operato Let them seek to reconcile them if they can it is sufficient for our purpose that both of them tend to destroy the sincerity of devotion and the necessity of a good life § 8. 3. I said the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by discouraging tdiscourahe reading of the Scriptures which is our most certain Rule of faith and life To this he answers two wayes 1. That their Churches prudential dispensing the reading the Scriptures to persons whom she judges fit and disposed for it and not to such whom she judges in a condition to receive or do harm by it is no discouraging the reading of them any more than a Father may be said to discourage his Child because he will not put a Knife or a Sword into his hands when he foresees he will do mischief with it to himself or others and the Scriptures he saith are no other in the hands of one who doth not submit his judgement in the interpretation of it to that of the Church the doing of which he makes the character of a meek and humble soul and the contrary of an arrogant and presumptuous spirit 2. That the ill consequences of permitting the promiscuous reading of Scripture were complained of by Henry the eighth who was the first that gave way to it and if his judgement ought not to be followed in after times let the dire effects of so many Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of it bear witness For all Heresies arise saith St. Austin from misunderstanding the Scriptures and therefore the Scripture being left as among Protestants to the private interpretation of every fanciful Spirit cannot be a most certain rule of faith and life In which answer are three things to be discussed 1. Whether that prudential dispensing the Scriptures as he calls it be any hinderance to devotion or no 2. Whether the reading of the Scriptures be the cause of the numbers of Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England 3. Whether our opinion concerning the reading and interpreting Scripture doth hinder it from being a most certain rule of faith and life 1. Whether that prudential dispensing the Scriptures used in the Church of Rome doth hinder devotion or no This prudential dispensing I suppose he means the allowing no persons to read the Scriptures in their own tongue without licence under the hand of the Bishop or Inquisitor by the advice of the Priest or Confessor concerning the persons fitness for it and whosoever presumes to do otherwise is to be denyed absolution For this is the express Command in the fourth Rule of the Index published by order of the Council of Trent and set forth by the authority of Pius the fourth and since by Clement the eighth and now lately inlarged by Alexander the seventh And whether this tends to the promoting or discouraging the sincerity of devotion will appear by considering these things 1. That it is agreed on both sides that the Scriptures do contain in them the unquestionable Will of that God whom we are bound to serve And it being the end of devotion as it ought to be of our lives to serve him what is there the mind of any one who sincerely desires to do it can be more inquisitive after or satisfied in than the rules God himself hath given for his own service Because it is so easie a matter for men to mistake in the wayes they choose to serve him in I see the world divided more scarce about any thing than this Some think God ought to be worshipped by offering up Sacrifices to him of those things we receive from his bounty Others that we ought to offer up none to him now but our selves in a holy life and actions Some that God is pleased by abstaining from flesh or any living creature and others that he is much better pleased with eating Fish than Flesh and that a full meal of one is at some times mortification and fasting and eating temperately of the other is luxury and irreligion Some think no sight more pleasing to God than to see men lash and whip themselves for their sins till the blood comes others that he is as well pleased at least with hearty repentance and sincere
A DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME AND The danger of Salvation in the Communion of it in answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant WHEREIN A particular Account is given of the Fanaticism and Divisions of that Church By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1671. THE PREFACE ALthough I see no great effect of the Courtship commonly used towards the Candid and Ingenuous Reader unless it be in diverting the censure from the Book to the Preface yet in some cases it looks like a breach of the Readers priviledge not to give him an account of the occasion and design of a Book Especially when the matter handled therein hath been thought so often discussed and is of so general concernment that every pretender thinks he knows as much already as is to be known in it But we really find no greater advantage hath been given to our Adversaries than this that the things in dispute between us are generally no better understood by the persons they have their designs upon For assoon as they have baffled their ignorance and mistakes these have been ready to yield up themselves and the Cause imagining nothing more could be said for it than they could say for themselves Whereby our Church hath not only suffered in its reputation as far as that is concerned in the weakness of some of its members but strange boasts and triumphs have been made by those of the Church of Rome when such who understood not their own Religion have embraced theirs While these disputes were fresh in the world every one thought himself concerned to enquire into them but since our Church hath been so long established on the principles of the Reformation and other unhappy controversies have risen up the most have taken this Cause for granted and thought it needless to enquire any farther into the Grounds of it Which our Adversaries perceiving they have found far greater success in their attempts upon particular persons than in publick Writings for these have only provoked others to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause whereas in the other by their wayes of Address and all the arts of Insinuation they have instilled their principles into the minds of some less judicious persons before they were aware of it Thence it is easie to observe that the greatest mischief they have done hath been like the Pestilence by walking in darkness and spreading their infection by whispers in corners All their hopes and strength lye in the weakness and credulity of the persons they deal with but if they meet with any who truly understand the differences between us they soon give them over as untractable But to such whose employments have not given them leave to enquire or whose capacity hath not been great enough to discern their Sophistry their first work is to make a false representation both of the Doctrines and practices of their Church and if they be of such easie faith to believe them they from thence perswade them into an ill opinion of their Teachers who possessed them with so bad thoughts of such a Church as theirs A Church of so great Holiness as may be seen by the Saint-like lives of their Popes and Converts a Church of so great Antiquity bating only the Primitive times a Church of so admirable Unity saving the divisions in it a Church so free from any Fanatick heats as any one may believe that will If this first assault doth not make them yield but they desire at least time to consider and advise in a matter of so great importance then they tell them there is not a man of our Church dares give any of them a meeting if they offer to puâ— it to a tryal they will appoint a day which they foresee will be most inconvenient for the persons they are to meet with If upon that account it be declined or deferred this is spred abroad for a Victory if it be accepted then one thing or other happens that they cannot come either the person goes out of Town unexpectedly or his Superiours have forbidden him or such conferences are not safe for them they are so sorely persecuted or at last what good can an hours talk do to satisfie any one in matters of Religion But if there be no remedy which they are seldome without and a conference happen which they scarce ever yield to but when they are sure of the person for whose sake it is then whosoever was baffled they are sure to go away with the triumph and as an evidence of it such a person went off from our Church upon it which was made sure of their side before If this way takes not then a sett of Questions is ready to be sent if another be returned to them to be answered at the same time this is declined and complained of as hard dealing as though they had only the priviledge of putting Questions and we the duty of answering them If answers be given to them after a Pass or two they put an end to the tryal of their skill in that place and seek for another to shew it in But if the Papers chance to be slighted or business hinders a present answer or there be a reasonable presumption that the person concerned hath already forsaken our Church this becomes the occasion of a new triumph the Papers are accounted unanswerable as the Spanish Armado was called invincible which we thank God we found to be otherwise and it may be are demanded again as Trophies to be preserved for the glory of the Catholick Cause All these several wayes I have had experience of in the compass of a few years since by command I was publickly engaged in the Defence of so excellent a Cause as that of our Church against the Church of Rome I confess it seemed somewhat hard to me to be put to answer so many several Papers which I have received upon their tampering with particular persons of our Church while my Book it self remained unanswered by them after so many years of trying their strength about it For those two who in some small measure have attempted it have performed it in the way that Ratts answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them for the body and design of it remains wholly untouched by them But for the satisfaction of any person who desired it I was not willing to decline any service which tended to so good an end as the preserving any member of our Church in the communion of it Which was the occasion of this present writing For some time since the person concerned after some discourses with her brought me the two Questions mentioned in the beginning of the Book to which I returned a speedy answer in the midst of many other employments not long after I received the
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still as to the adoration of the Host. For supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same Worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. There are not the same motives and grounds to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he affirms but without any appearance of reason And I would gladly know what excellent motives and reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any man think he hath reason to believe it I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest contradictions to sense and reason imaginable But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
to take the story as Baronius relates it in that year Benedict 9. was made Pope by the faction of the Counts of Tusculum Frascati out of opposition to which and dislike of Benedict the people of Rome deposed him and set up Sylvester 3. who got the Popedome by Simony and enjoyed it but three months when the Tusculan faction again prevailing Sylvester was deposed and Benedict restored but finding himself hateful to the people he resigns to Iohn called Greg. 6. or as Platina saith some affirm sold it to him Otto Frisingensis saith these three sat together in the City of Rome and all of them led very bad lives as he heard himself at Rome But Baronius will not have Greg. 6. to be the same with Iohn one of the Schismatical Popes but Gratian who by fair offers not to be called Symony perswading the other three to part with their places got the possession of the Popedome alone Alphons Ciacconus follows Onuphrius in saying that his name was Ioh. Gratianus but not one of the three Anti-Popes sitting together wherein neither Baronius nor he can sufficiently clear themselves If he were distinct there must be five Popes at the same time for this Greg. 6. was deprived with the rest by a Council called by the Emperour Henry 3. at Sutrium For Baronius is very much mistaken in saying that the other three Popes were all deprived two years before for his own Author Hermannus asserts that the cause of the false Popes was there diligently discussed and Greg. 6. deprived for Simony as Ciacconus expresly saith after other Authors however Baronius strives to vindicate him out of kindness to his name sake and Disciple Greg. 7. and Clement 2. is there made Pope who enjoyed it but a little time being poisoned saith Platina by Damasus 2. who succeeded him but after the death of both these Benedict 9. got into possession of the Papacy again and the fifth time after the death of Leo 9. in whose time a great controversie arose again about Re-ordination viz. of such who had been ordained by Simoniacal persons and although Leo had determined in Council that upon forty dayes pennance they might perform the duties of their function yet it appears by an Epistle of Petrus Damiani extant in Baronius that this Controversie remained still and they thought all actions done by such persons no other than if they had been done by Lay-men but we find nothing done in it to suppress this heresie as he calls it although he earnestly desires the Pope to condemn it We are now falleâ— into the times of Hildebrand who caused Benedict 10. to be deprived of the Papacy before he came to it himself for he called together the discontented Cardinals at Siena where they discarded Benedict and chose Nicolaus 2. The Schisme that happened in his own time I have already spoken to which I shall therefore pass by as likewise the others that followed upon the opposition between the Popes and Emperours although it is not to be imagined that there could be greater divisions among men than were upon the account of those two factions especially after they came to be distinguished by the names of Guelphs and Gibellines it being ordinary for them to murder each other whereever they met for a mighty demonstration of the peace and unity of the Roman Church I shall only now enquire whether all these Schisms and Factions happened among them only on the account of the differences between the Popes and Emperours and we shall find that the agreement among themselves was only from that external opposition and when that ceased new factions and Schisms brake forth among them Of which Italy was so full that the elections of Popes became the work of years by reason of the heats which were among them but I meddle not with these factions in elections although they are no great indications of the presence of the Holy Ghost among them But I shall only touch at the greatest Schism for continuance ever they had among them as their Historians reckon it which lasted with great animosities for fifty years together in which all the Princes of Christendome were concerned and one party condemning the other with the greatest bitterness and condemning all the acts done by the other and pronouncing them null and void This was begun upon the election of Vrban 6. at which the Cardinals declaring a force by the Souldiers and people of Rome when they were withdrawn from thence to a place of safety chose another Pope viz. Clem. 7. who sate in France as Vrban and his Successours did in Rome he made twenty seven Cardinals and Petrus de Luna or Benedict 13. succeeded him and notwithstanding all the endeavours could be used to suppress this Schism it still continued and the means for that end did rather increase it as the Council of Pisa which instead of two Popes made three setting up Alexander 5. besides Greg. 12. and Benedict 13. and after him Iohn 23. was chosen at Bononia and although afterwards the Council of Constance deprived Iohn 23. and Benedict 13. and chose Martin 5. yet Benedict never yielded and after his death the Cardinals that were with him chose Clem. 8. against Martin 5. who were so far from yielding him to be true Pope that they rather chose to rot in Prison as they did and so saith Ciacconius This Schism was ended after fifty two years which had given so great disturbance to the whole Christian World One might have imagined now when Councils were called for that purpose that an end should thereby be put to these Schisms among them but it was so far otherwise that we find another Schisme begun in that Church not long after by the Authority of the Council of Basil which chose Felix 5. in opposition to Eugenius 4. where there was not only Pope against Pope but Council against Council too Eugenius sitting at that time with the Council of Florence In the time of Iulius 2. we find Council against Council again that at Pisa and the Lateran at Râ—me both called General Councils and condemning each other By which we see how far the Church of Rome is from being free from dangerous Schisms in it self and therefore hath no cause to object them to others The only thing pleaded in answer to this charge of their numerous Schisms is that these were most of them Controversies concerning elections of Popes which is all the salvo Molanus hath for it at the end of Onuphrius his Chronologie but what is that to the purpose since the Question was which of them was the Head of the Church with whom the members were to be united and all those who were not united with him whom they account the true Head must be as much in Schism as they who renounce all subjection to the Pope For are not those as much in Rebellion who set up an Vsurper against their lawful Prince as they who deny him to be their Prince