revelation that the Bishop of Rome should succeed Peter in it and we being there told that S. Peter was at Antioch but never that he was at Rome it being confessed by some of their own parties by Cardinal Cusanus Soto Driedo Canus and Segovius that this succession was not addicted to any particular Church nor that Christs institution of this does any other way appear that it cannot be proved that the Bishop of Rome is Prince of the Church it being also certain that there was no such thing known in the primitive Church but that the Holy Fathers both of Africa and the East did oppose Pope Victor and Pope Stephen when they began to interpose with a presumptive authority in the affairs of other Churches and that the Bishops of the Church did treat with the Roman Bishop as with a brother not as their superior and that the General Council held at Chalcedon did give to the Bishops of C. P. equal rights and preheminence with the Bishops of Rome and that the Greek Churches are at this day and have been a long time great opponents of this pretension of the Bishops of Rome and after all this since it is certain that Christ who foreknowes all things did also know that there would be great disputes and challenges of this preheminence did indeed suppress it in his Apostles and said not it should be otherwise in succession and did not give any command to his Church to obey the Bishops of Rome as his Vicars more than what he commanded concerning all Bishops it must be certain that it cannot be necessary to salvation to do so but that it is more than probable that he never intended any such thing and that the Bishops of Rome have to the great prejudice of Christendom made a great Schism and usurp'd a title which is not their due and challeng'd an authority to which they have no right and have set themselves above others who are their equals and impose an Article of Faith of their own contriving and have made great preparation for Antichrist if he ever get into that Seat or be in already and made it necessary for all of the Roman Communion to believe and obey him in all things SECT XI THere are very many more things in which the Church of Rome hath greatly turn'd aside from the Doctrines of Scripture and the practise of the Catholick Apostolick and primitive Church Such are these The Invocation of Saints The Insufficiency of Scriptures without Traditions of Faith unto Salvation their absolving sinners before they have by canonical penences and the fruits of a good life testified their repentance their giving leave to simple Presbyters by Papal dispensation to give confirmation or chrism selling Masses for Ninepences Circumgestation of the Eucharist to be ador'd The dangerous Doctrine of the necessity of the Priests intention in collating Sacraments by which device they have put it into the power of the Priest to damn whom he please of his own parish their affirming that the Mass is a proper and propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and the dead Private Masses or the Lords Supper without Communion which is against the doctrine and practise of the ancient Church of Rome it self and contrary to the tradition of the Apostles if we may believe Pope Calixtus and is also forbiden under pain of Excommunication Peract à consecratione omnes communicent qui noluerint ecclesiasticis carere liminibus sic autem etiam Apostoli statuerunt sancta Romana tenet Ecclesia When the consecration is finish'd let all communicate that will not be thrust from the bounds of the Church for so the Apostles appointed and so the H. Church of Rome does hold The same also was decreed by P. Soter and P. Martin in a Council of Bishops and most severely enjoyn'd by the Canons of the Apostles as they are cited in the Canon Law There are divers others but we suppose that those Innovations which we have already noted may be sufficient to verifie this charge of Novelty But we have done this the rather because the Roman Emissaries endeavour to prevail amongst the ignorant and prejudicate by boasting of Antiquity and calling their Religion the Old Religion and the Catholick so insnaring others by ignorant words in which is no truth their Religion as it distinguishes from the Religion of the Church of England and Ireland being neither the Old nor the Catholick Religion but New and superinduc'd by arts known to all who with sincerity and diligence have look'd into their pretences But they have taught every Priest that can scarce understand his Breviary of which in Ireland there are but too many and very many of the people to ask where our Religion was before Luther Whereas it appears by the premises that it is much more easie for us to shew our Religion before Luther than for them to shew theirs before Trent And although they can shew too much practise of their Religion in the degenerate ages of the Church yet we can and do clearly shew ours in the purest and first ages and can and do draw lines pointing to the times and places where the several rooms and stories of their Babel was builded and where polished and where furnished But when the keepers of the field slept and the Enemy had sown tares and they had choak'd the wheat and almost destroyed it when the world complain'd of the infinite errors in the Church and being oppressed by a violent power durst not complain so much as they had cause and when they who had cause to complain were yet themselves very much abused and did not complain in all they might when divers excellent persons S. Bernard Clemangis Grosthead Marsilius Ocham Alvarus Abbat Ioachim Petrarch Savanarola Valla Erasmus Mantuan Gerson Ferus Cassander Andreas Frisius Modrevius Hermannus Coloniensis Wasseburgius Archdeacon of Verdun Paulus Langius Staphilus Telesphorus de Cusentiâ Doctor Talheymius Francis Zabarel the Cardinal and Pope Adrian himself with many others not to reckon Wicklef Hus Hierome of Prague the Bohemians and the poor men of Lions whom they call'd Hereticks and confuted with fire and sword when almost all Christian Princes did complain heavily of the corrupt state of the Church and of Religion and no remedy could be had but the very intended remedy made things much worse then it was that divers Christian Kingdoms and particularly the Church of England Tum primùm senio docilis tua saecula Roma Erubuit pudet exacti jam temporis odit Praeteritos foedis cum relligionibus annos Being asham'd of the errors superstitions heresies and impieties which had deturpated the face of the Church look'd into the glass of Scripture and pure Antiquity and wash'd away those stains with which time and inadvertency and tyranny had besmear'd her and being thus cleans'd and wash'd is accus'd by the Roman parties of Novelty and condemn'd because she refuses to run into the same excess
alledged can prevail more than all that which already hath been so often urged in these Questions But we are not deterr'd from doing our duty by any such considerations as knowing that the â—ame medicaments are with success applyed to a returning or an abiding Ulcer and the Preachers of Gods Word must for ever be ready to put the People in minde of such things which they already have heard and by the same Scriptures and the same reasons endeavour to destroy their sin or prevent their danger and by the same Word of God to extirpate those errors which have had opportunity in the time of our late Disorders to spring up and grow stroger not when the Keepers of the Field slept but when they were wounded and their hands cut off and their mouths stopp'd least they should continue or proceed to do the Work of God thoroughly A little warm Sun and somâ— indulgent showers of a softer rain have made many weeds of erroneous Doctrine to take root greatly and to spread themselves widely and the Bigots of the Roman Church by their late importune boldness and indiscreet frowardness in making Proselytes have but too manifestly declar'd to all the World that if they were rerum potiti Masters of our affairs they would suffer nothing to grow but their own Coloâ—ynths and Gourds And although the Natural remedy for this were to take away that impunity upon the account of which alone they do encrease yet because we shall never be Authors of such Counsels but confidently rely upon God the Holy Scripture right reason and the most venerable and prime Antiquity which are the proper defensatives of truth for its support and maintenance yet we must not conceal from the People committed to our charges the great evils to which they are tempted by the Roman Emissaries that while the King and the Parliament take care to secure all the publick interests by instruments of their own we also may by the word of our proper Ministery endeavour to stop the progression of such errors which we know to be destructive of Christian Religion and consequently dangerous to the interest of souls In this procedure although we shall say some things which have not been alwayes plac'd before their eyes and others we shall represent with a fittingness to their present necessities and all with Charity too and zeal for their souls yet if we were to say nothing but what hath been often said already we are still doing the work of God and repeating his voice and by the same remedies curing the same diseases and we only wait for the blessing of God prospering that importunity which is our duty according to the advice of Solomon In the Morning sow thy seed and in the Evening with-hold not thy hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper either this or that or whether they both shall be alike good CHAP. I. The Doctrine of the Roman Church in the Controverted Articles is neither Catholick Apostolick nor Primitive Sect. 1. IT was the challenge of S. Augustine to the Donatists who as the Church of Rome does at this day inclos'd the Catholick Church within their own circuits Ye say that Christ is Heir of no Lands but where Donatus is Coheire Read this to us out of the Law and the Prophets out of the Psalms out of the Gospel it self or out of the Letters of the Apostles Read it thence and we believe it Plainly directing us to the Fountains of our Faith the Old and New Testament the words of Christ and the words of the Apostles For nothing else can be the foundation of our Faith whatsoever came in after these foris est it belongs not unto Christ. To these we also add not as Authors or Finishers but as helpers of our Faith and Heirs of the Doctrine Apostolical the Sentiments and Catholick Doctrine of the Church of God in the Ages next after the Apostles Not that we think them or our selves bound to every private opinion even of a Primitive Bishop and Martyr but that we all acknowledg that the whole Church of God kept the Faith entire and transmitted faithfully to the after-Ages the whole Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the form of Doctrine and sound words which was at first delivered to the Saints and was defective in nothing that belong'd unto salvation and we believe that those Ages sent millions of Saints to the bosom of Christ and seal'd the true faith with their lives and with their deaths and by both gave testimony unto Jesus and had from him the testimony of his Spirit And this method of procedure we now choose not only because to them that know well how to use it to the Sober and the Moderate the Peaceable and the Wise it is the best the most certain visible and tangible most humble and satisfactory but also because the Church of Rome does with greatest noises pretend her Conformity to Antiquity Indeed the present Roman Doctrines which are in difference were invisible and unheard of in the first and best Antiquity and with how ill success their quotations are out of the Fathers of the three first Ages every inquiring Man may easily discern But the noises therefore which they make are from the Writings of the succeeding Ages where saecular interest did more prevail and the Writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous full of Controversie and ambiguous senses fitted to their own Times and Questions full of proper Opinions and such variety of Sayings that both Sides eternally and inconfutably shall bring Sayings for themselves respectively Now although things being thus it will be impossible for them to conclude from the Sayings of a number of Fathers that their Doctrine which they would prove thence was the Catholick Doctrine of the Church because any number that is less than all does not prove a Catholick consent yet the clear Sayings of one or two of these Fathers truly alledged by us to the contrary will certainly prove that what many of them suppose it do affirm and which but two or three as good Catholicks as the other do deny was not then matter of Faith or a Doctrine of the Church for if it had these had been Hereticks accounted and not have remain'd in the Communion of the Church But although for the reasonableness of the thing we have thought fit to take notice of it yet we shall have no need to make use of it since not only in the prime and purest Antiquity we are indubitably more than Conquerours but even in the succeeding Ages we have the advantage both numero pondere mensurâ in number weight and measure We do easily acknowledge that to dispute these questions from the sayings of the Fathers is not the readiest way to make an end of them but therefore we do wholly rely upon Scriptures as the foundation and final resort of all our perswasions and from thence can never be confuted but we also admit the Fathers as admirable
helps for the understanding of the Scriptures and as good testimony of the Doctrine deliver'd from their fore-fathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation and therefore if we find any Doctrine now taught which was not plac'd in their way of Salvation we reject it as being no part of the Christian faith and which ought not to be impos'd upon consciences They were wise unto salvation and fully instructed to every work and therefore the faith which they profess'd and deriv'd from Scripture we profess also and in the same faith we hope to be sav'd even as they But for the new Doctors we understand them not we know them not Our faith is the same from the beginning and cannot become new But because we shall make it to appear that they do greatly innovate in all their points of controversie with us and shew nothing but shadowes instead of substances and little images of things instead of solid arguments we shall take from them their armour in which they trusted and choose this sword of Goliah to combat their errors for non est alter talis It is not easie to finde a better than the Word of God expounded by the prime and best Antiquity The first thing therefore we are to advertise is That the Emissaries of the Roman Church endeavour to perswade the good people of our Dioceses from a Religion that is truly Primitive and Apostolick and divert them to Propositions of their own new and unheard of in the first ages of the Christian Church For the Religion of our Church is therefore certainly Primitive and Apostolick because it teaches us to believe the whole Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and nothing else as matter of faith and therefore unless there can be new Scriptures we can have no new matters of belief no new articles of faith Whatsoever we cannot prove from thence we disclaim it as not deriving from the Fountains of our Saviour We also do believe the Apostles Creed the Nicene with the additions of Constantinople and that which is commonly called the Symbol of S. Athanasius and the four first General Councils are so intirely admitted by us that they together with the plain words of Scripture are made the rule and measure of judging Heresies amongst us and in pursuance of these it is commanded by our Church that the Clergy shall never teach any thing as matter of Faith religiously to be observed but that which is agreeable to the Old and New Testament and collected out of the same Doctrine by the Ancient Fathers and Catholick Bishops of the Church This was undoubtedly the Faith of the Primitive Church they admitted all into their Communion that were of this faith they condemned to Man that did not condemn these they gave Letters communicatory by no other cognisance and all were Brethren who spake this voice Hanc legem sequentes Christianorum Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti reliquos verò dementes vesanosque judicantes haeretici dogmatis infaemiam sustinere said the Emperors Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius in their Proclamation to the People of C. P. All that believ'd this Doctrine were Christians and Catholicks viz. all they who believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost one Divinity of equal Majesty in the Holy Trinity which indeed was the summe of what was decreed in explication of the Apostles Creed in the four first General Councils And what faith can be the foundation of a more solid peace the surer ligaments of Catholick Communion or the firmer basis of a holy Life and of the hopes of Heaven hereafter than the measures which the Holy Primitive Church did hold and and we after them That which we rely upon is the same that the Primitive Church did acknowledg to be the adaequate foundation of their hopes in the matters of belief The way which they thought sufficient to go to Heaven in is the way which we walk what they did not teach we do not publish and impose into this faith entirely and into no other as they did theirs so we baptize our Catechumens The Discriminations of Heresie from Catholick Doctrine which they us'd we use also and we use no other and in short we believe all that Doctrine which the Church of Rome believes except those things which they have superinduc'd upon the Old Religion and in which we shall prove that they haue innovated So that by their confession all the Doctrine which we teach the people as matter of Faith must be confessed to be Ancient Primitive and Apostolick or else theirs is not so for ours is the same and we both have received this Faith from the Fountains of Scripture and Universal Tradition not they from us or we from them but both of us from Christ and his Apostles And therefore there can be no question whether the Faith of the Church of England be Apostolick and Primitive it is so confessedly But the Question is concerning many other particulars which were unknown to the Holy Doctors of the first Ages which were no part of their Faith which were never put into their Creeds which were not determined in any of the four first General Councels rever'd in all Christendom and entertain'd every where with great Religion and veneration even next to the four Gospels and the Apostolical writings Of this sort because the Church of Rome hath introduc'd many and hath adopted them into their late Creed and imposes them upon the people not only without but against the Scriptures and the Catholick Doctrine of the Church of God laying heavie burdens on mens Consciences and making the narrow way to Heaven yet narrower by their own inventions arrogating to themselves a Dominion over our Faith and prescribing a method of Salvation which Christ and his Apostles never taught corrupting the Faith of the Church of God and Teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men and lastly having derogated from the Prerogative of Christ who alone is the Author and Finisher of our faith and hath perfected it in the revelations consign'd in the Holy Scriptures therefore it is that we esteem our selves oblig'd to warn the People of their danger and to depart from it and call upon them to stand upon the wayes and ask after the old paths and walk in them lest they partake of that curse which is threatned by God to them who remove the ancient Land-marks which our Fathers in Christ have set for us Now that the Church of Rome cannot pretend that all which she imposes is Primitive and Apostolick appears in this That in the Church of Rome there is pretence made to a power not only of declaring new Articles of Faith but of making new Symbols or Creeds and imposing them as of necessity to Salvation Which thing is evident in the Bull of Pope Leo the Tenth against Martin Luther in which amongst other things he is condemn'd for saying It is certain that it is not in the power
Christs merits and satisfactions a hope wholly depending upon the plain promises of the Gospel a service perfectly consisting in the works of a good conscience a labor of love a religion of justice and piety and moral virtues they do also expresly teach that pilgrimages to holy places and such like inventions which are now the earnings and price of Indulgences are not required of us and are not the way of salvation as is to be seen in an Oration made by S. Gregory Nyssene wholly against pilgrimages to Ierusalem in S. Chrysostom S. Austin and S. Bernard The sense of these Fathers is this in the words of S. Austin God said not Go to the East and seek righteousness sail to the West that you may receive indulgence But indulge thy brother and it shall be indulg'd to thee you have need to enquire for no other indulgence to thy sins if thou wilt retire into the Closet of thy heart there thou shalt find it That is All our hopes of Indulgence is from GOD through IESVS CHRIST and is wholly to be obtain'd by faith in Christ and perseverance in good works and intire mortification of all our sins To conclude this particular Though the gains which the Church of Rome makes of Indulgences be a heap almost as great as the abuses themselves yet the greatest Patrons of this new doctrine could never give any certainty or reasonable comfort to the Conscience of any person that could inquire into it They never durst determine whether they were Absolutions or Compensations whether they onely take off the penances actually impos'd by the Confessor or potentially and all that which might have been impos'd whether all that may be paid in the Court of men or all that can or will be required by the Laws and severity of God Neither can they speak rationally to the Great Question Whether the Treasure of the Church consists of the Satisfactions of Christ onely or of the Saints For if of Saints it will by all men be acknowledged to be a defeisible estate and being finite and limited will be spent sooner than the needs of the Church can be served and if therefore it be necessary to adde the merits and satisfaction of Christ since they are an Ocean of infinity and can supply more than all our needs to what purpose is it to adde the little minutes and droppings of the Saints They cannot tell whether they may be given if the Receiver do nothing or give nothing for them And though this last particular could better be resolv'd by the Court of Rome than by the Church of Rome yet all the Doctrines which built up this new Fabrick of Indulgences were so dangerous to determine so improbable so unreasonable or at best so uncertain and invidious that according to the advice of the Bishop of Modena the Council of Trent left all the Doctrines and all the cases of Conscience quite alone and slubber'd the whole matter both in the question of Indulgences and Purgatory in general and recommendatory terms affirming that the power of giving Indulgence is in the Church and that the use is wholesome And that all hard and subtil questions viz. concerning Purgatory which although if it be at all it is a fire yet is the fuel of Indulgences and maintains them wholly all that is suspected to be false and all that is uncertain and whatsoever is curious and superstitious scandalous or for filthy lucre be laid aside And in the mean time they tell us not what is and what is not Superstitious nor what is scandalous nor what they mean by the general term of Indulgence and they establish no Doctrine neither curious nor iucurious nor durst they decree the very foundation of this whole matter The Churches Treasure Neither durst they meddle with it but left it as they found it and continued in the abuses and proceed in the practise and set their Doctors as well as they can to defend all the new and curious and scandalous questions and to uphold the gainful trade But however it be with them Doctrine it self is prov'd to be a direct Innovation in the matter of Christian Religion and that was it which we have undertaken to demonstrate Sect. IV. THe Doctrine of Purgatory is the Mother of Indulgences and the fear of that hath introduc'd these For the world hapned to be abus'd like the Countrey-man in the Fable who being told he was like to fall into a delirium in his feet was advis'd for remedy to take the juice of Cotton He feared a disease that was not and look'd for a cure as ridiculous But if the Parent of Indulgences be not from Christ and his Apostles if upon this ground the Primitive Church never built the Superstructures of Rome must fall they can be no stronger than their Supporter Now then in order to the proving the Doctrine of Purgatory to be an Innovation 1. We consider That the Doctrines upon which it is pretended reasonable are all dubious and disputable at the very best Such are 1. Their distinction of sins Mortal and Venial in their own nature 2. That the taking away the guilt of sins does not suppose the taking away the obligation to punishment that is That when a mans sin is pardon'd he may be punished without the guilt of that sin as justly as with it as if the guilt could be any thing else but an obligation to punishment for having sinned which is a Proposition of which no wise man can make sense but it is certain that it is expresly against the Word of God who promises upon our repentance so to take away our sins that he will remember them no more And so did Christ to all those to whom he gave pardon for he did not take our faults and guilt on him any other way but by curing our evil hearts and taking away the punishment And this was so perfectly believ'd by the Primitive Church that they always made the penances and satisfaction to be undergone before they gave absolution and after absolution they never impos'd or oblig'd to punishment unless it were to sick persons of whose recovery they despaired not of them indeed in case they had not finished their Canonical punishments they expected they should perform what was enjoyn'd them formerly But because all sin is a blot to a mans soul and a foul stain to his reputation we demand in what does this stain consist In the guilt or in the punishment If it be said that it consists in the punishment then what does the guilt signifie when the removing of it does neither remove the stain nor the punishment which both remain and abide together But if the stain and the guilt be all one or always together then when the guilt is taken away there can no stain remain and if so what need is there any more of Purgatory For since this is pretended to be necessary onely lest any stain'd or
a strange spirit of contradiction or superstition or deflection from the Christian Rule greatly prevailing in the Church of Rome it were impossible that this practise should be so countenanc'd by them and defended so to no purpose with so much scandal and against the natural reason of mankind and the very Law of Nature it self For the Heathens were sufficiently by the light of nature taught to abominate all Pictures or Images of God Sed nulla effigies simulachraque nulla Deorum Majestate locum sacro implevere timore They in their earliest ages had no Pictures no Images of their gods Their Temples were filled with Majestie and a sacred fear and the reason is given by Macrobius Antiquity made no Image viz. of God because the Supreme God and the mind that is born of him that is his Son the eternal Word as it is beyond the Soul so it is above nature and therefore it is not lawful that sigments should come thither Nicephorus Callistus relating the Heresie of the Armenians and Iacobites sayes they made Images of the Father Son and Holy Ghost quod perquam absurdum est Nothing is more absurd then to make Pictures or Images of the Persons of the Holy and Adorable Trinity And yet they do this in the Church of Rome For in the windows of their Churches even in Country Villages where the danger cannot be denied to be great and the scandal insupportable nay in their books of devotion in their very Mass-books and Breviaries in their Portuises and Manuals they picture the Holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot to the great dishonour of God and scandal of Christianity it self We add no more for the case is too evidently bad but reprove the errour with the words of their own Polydore Virgil Since the world began never was any thing more foolish than to picture God who is present every where SECT X. THe last instance of Innovations introduc'd in Doctrine and practice by the Church of Rome that we shall represent is that of the Popes universal Bishoprick That is not only that he is Bishop of Bishops superior to all and every one but that his Bishoprick is a plenitude of power and as for other Bishops of his fulness they all receive a part of the ministry and sollicitude and not onely so but that he only is a Bishop by immediate Divine dispensation and others receive from him whatsoever they have For to this height many of them are come at last Which Doctrine although as it is in sins where the carnal are most full of reproach but the spiritual are of greatest malignity so it happens in this Article For though it be not so scandalous as their Idolatry so ridiculous as their superstitions so unreasonable as their doctrine of Transubstantiation so easily reprov'd as their half Communion and Service in an unknown tongue yet it is of as dangerous and evil effect and as false and as certainly an Innovation as any thing in their whole conjugation of errors When Christ founded his Church he left it in the hands of his Apostles without any prerogative given to one or eminency above the rest save onely of priority and orderly precedency which of it self was natural necessary and incident The Apostles govern'd all their authority was the sanction and their Decrees and writings were the Laws of the Church They exercis'd a common jurisdiction and divided it according to the needs and emergencies and circumstances of the Church In the Council of Ierusalem S. Peter gave not the decisive Sentence but S. Iames who was the Bishop of that See Christ sent all his Apostles as his Father sent him and therefore he gave to every one of them the whole power which he left behind and to the Bishops Congregated at Miletum S. Paul gave them caution to take care of the whole stock of God and affirms to them all that the Holy Ghost had made them Bishops and in the whole New Testament there is no act or sign of superiority or that one Apostle exercised power over another but to them whom Christ sent he in common intrusted the Church of God according to that excellent saying of S. Cyprian The other Apostles are the same that S. Peter was endowest with an equal fellowship of honour and power and they are all Shepheards and the flock is one and therefore it ought to be fed by all the Apostles with unanimous consent This unity and identity of power without question and interruption did continue and descend to Bishops in the primitive Church in which it was a known doctrine that the Bishops were successors of the Apostles and what was not in the beginning could not be in the descent unless it were innovated and introduc'd by a new authority Christ gave ordinary power to none but the Apostles and the power being to continue for ever in the Church it was to be succeeded to and by the same authority even of Christ it descended to them who were their successors that is to the Bishops as all antiquity does consent and teach Not S. Peter alone but every Apostle and therefore every one who succeeds them in their ordinary power may and must remember the words of S. Paul We are Embassadors or Legates for Christ Christs Vicars not the Popes Delegates and so all the Apostles are called in the Preface of the Mass quos operis tui Vicarios eidem conâ—ulisti praeesse Pastores they are Pastors of the Flock and Vicars of Christ and so also they are in express terms called by S. Ambrose and therefore it is a strange usurpation that the Pope arrogates that to himself by Impropriation which is common to him with all the Bishops of Christendom The consequent of this is that by the law of Christ one Bishop is not superior to another Christ gave the power to all alike he made no Head of the Bishops he gave to none a supremacy of power or universality of jurisdiction But this the Pope hath long challenged and to bring his purposes to pass hath for these six hundered years by-gone invaded the rights of Bishops and delegated matters of order and jurisdiction to Monks and Friers insomuch that the power of Bishops was greatly diminished at the erecting of the Cluniac and Cistercian Monks about the year ML but about the year MCC it was almost swallowed up by privileges granted to the begging Friers and there kept by the power of the Pope which power got one great step more above the Bishops when they got it declared that the Pope is above a Council of Bishops and at last it was turn'd into a new doctrine by Cajetane who for his prosperous invention was made a Cardinal that all the whole Apostolick or Episcopal power is radical and inherent in the Pope in whom is the fulness of the Ecclesiastical authority and that Bishops receive their portion of it from
him and this was first boldly maintain'd in the Council of Trent by the Jesuits and it is now the opinion of their Order but it is also that which the Pope challenges in practice when he pretends to a power over all Bishops and that this power is derived to him from Christ when he calls himself the Universal Bishop and the Vicarial head of the Church the Churches Monarch he from whom all Ecclesiastical authority is deriv'd to whose sentence in things Divine every Christian under pain of damnation is bound to be subject Now this is it which as it is productive of infinite mischiefs so it is an Innovation and an absolute deflection from the primitive catholick doctrine and yet is the great ground-work and foundation of their Church This we shall represent in these following Testimonies Pope Eleutherius in an Epistle to the Bishops of France says that Christ committed the universal Church to the Bishops and S. Ambrose saith that the Bishop holdeth the place of Christ and is his substitute But famous are the words of S. Cyprian The Church of Christ is one thorough the whole world divided by him into many members and the Bishoprick is but one diffused in the agreeing plurality of many Bishops And again To every Pastor a portion of the flock is given which let every one of them rule and govern By which words it is evident that the primitive Church understood no praelation of one and subordination of another commanded by Christ or by vertue of their ordination but onely what was for order sake introduc'd by Princes and consent of Prelates And it was to this purpose very full which was said by Pope Symmachus As it is in the Holy Trinity whose power is one and undivided or to use the expression in the Athanasian Creed none is before or after other none is greater or less than another so there is one Bishoprick amongst divers Bishops and therefore why should the Canons of the ancient Bishops be violated by their Successors Now these words being spoken against the invasion of the rights of the Church of Arles by Anastasius and the question being in the exercise of Jurisdiction and about the Institution of Bishops does fully declare that the Bishops of Rome had no Superiority by the Laws of Christ over any Bishop in the Catholick Church and that his Bishoprick gave no more power to him than Christ gave to the Bishop of the smallest Diocese And therefore all the Church of God when ever they reckon'd the several orders and degrees of Ministery in the Catholick Church reckon the Bishop as the last and supreme beyond whom there is no spiritual power but in Christ. For as the whole Hierachy ends in Iesus so does every particular one in its one Bishop Beyond the Bishop there is no step till you rest in the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls Under him every Bishop is supreme in Spirituals and in all power which to any Bishop is given by Christ. S. Ignatius therefore exhorts that all should obey their Bishop and the Bishop obey Christ as Christ obeyed his Father There are no other intermedial degrees of Divine Institution But as Origen teaches The Apostles and they who after them are ordain'd by God that is the Bishops have the supreme place in the Church and the Prophets have the second place The same also is taught by P. Gelasius by S. Hierom and Fulgentius and indeed by all the Fathers who spake any thing in this matter Insomuch that when Bellarmine is in this question press'd out of the book of Nilus by the authority of the Fathers standing against him he answers Papam Patres non habere in Ecclesiâ sed filios omnes The Pope acknowledges no Fathers in the Church for they are all his sons Now although we suppose this to be greatly sufficient to declare the Doctrine of the primitive Catholick Church concerning the equality of power in all Bishops by Divine right yet the Fathers have also expresly declar'd themselves that one Bishop is not Superior to another and ought not to judge another or force another to obedience They are the words of S. Cyprian to a Council of Bishops None of us makes himself a Bishop of Bishops or by tyranical power drives his collegues to a necessity of obedience since every Bishop according to the licence of his own liberty and power hath his own choice and cannot be judged by another nor yet himself judge another but let us all expect the judgment of our L. Iesus Christ who only and alone hath the power of setting us in the government of his Church and judging of what we do This was spoken and intended against P. Stephen who did then begin dominari in clero to lord it over Gods heritage and to excommunicate his brethren as Demetrius did in the time of the Apostles themselves but they both found their reprovers Demetrius was chastised by S. John for this usurpation and Stephen by S. Cyprian and this also was approv'd by S. Austin We conclude this particular with the words of S. Gregory Bishop of Rome who because the Patriarch of Constantinople called himself Universal Bishop said It was a proud title prophane sacrilegious and Antichristian and therefore he little thought that his Successors in the same See should so fiercely challenge that Antichristian title much less did the then Bishop of Rome in those ages challenge it as their own peculiar for they had no mind to be or to be esteemed Antichristian Romano Pontisici oblatum est sed nullus unquam eorum hoc singularitatis nomen assumpsit His Predecessors it seems had been tempted with an offer of that title but none of them ever assum'd that name of singularity as being against the law of the Gospel and the Canons of the Church Now this being a matter of which Christ spake not one word to S. Peter if it be a matter of faith and salvation as it is now pretended it is not imaginable he would have been so perfectly silent But though he was silent of any intention to do this yet S. Paul was not silent that Christ did otherwise for he hath set in his Church primùm Apostolos first of all Apostles not first S. Peter and secondarily Apostles but all the Apostles were first It is also evident that S. Peter did not carry himself so as to give the least overture or umbrage to make any one suspect he had any such preheminence but he was as S. Chrysostom truly sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did all things with the common consent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing by special authority or principality and if he had any such it is more than probable that the Apostles who survived him had succeeded him in it rather than the Bishop of Rome and it being certain as the Bishop of Canaries confesses That there is in Scripture no
yet Bellarmine dares not deny it but makes for it a crude and a cold Apology Now concerning this Article it will not be necessary to declare the Sentence of the Church of England and Ireland because it is notorious to all the World and is expresly oppos'd against this Roman Doctrine by Laws Articles Confessions Homilies the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy the Book of Christian Institution and the many excellent Writings of King Iames of Blessed Memory of our Bishops and other Learned Persons against Bellarmine Parsons Eudaemon Iohannes Creswel and others And nothing is more notorious than that the Church of England is most dutiful most zealous for the right of Kings and within these four and twenty years She hath had many Martyrs and very very many Confessors in this Cause It is true that the Church of Rome does recriminate in this point and charges some Calvinists and Presbyterians with Doctrines which indeed they borrowed from Rome using their Arguments making use of their Expressions and pursuing their Principles But with them in this Article we have nothing to do but to reprove the Men and condemn their Doctrine as we have done all along by private Writings and publick Instruments We conclude these our Reproofs with an Exhoriation to our respective Charges to all that desire to be sav'd in the day of the Lord Iesus that they decline from these horrid Doctrines which in their birth are new in their growth are scandalous in their proper consequents are infinitely dangerous to their Souls and hunt for their precious life But therefore it is highly fit that they also should perceive their own advantages and give God praise that they are immur'd from such infinite dangers by the Holy Precepts and Holy Faith taught and commanded in the Church of England and Ireland in which the Word of God is set before them as a Lanthorn to their feet and a Light unto their eyes and the Sacraments are fully administred according to Christs Institution and Repentance is preach'd according to the measures of the Gospel and Faith in Christ is propounded according to the Rule of the Apostles and the measures of the Churches Apostolical and Obedience to Kings is greatly and sacredly urg'd and the Authority and Order of Bishops is preserv'd against the Usurpation of the Pope and the Invasion of Schismaticks and Aerians new and old and Truth and Faith to all men is kept and preach'd to be necessary and inviolable and the Commandements are expounded with just severity and without scruples and Holiness of Life is urg'd upon all men as indispensably necessary to Salvation and therefore without any allowances tricks and little artifices of escaping from it by easie and imperfect Doctrines and every thing is practis'd which is useful to the saving of our Souls and Christs Merits and Satisfaction are intirely relyed upon for the pardon of our sins and the necessity of Good Works is universally taught and our Prayers are holy unblameable edifying and understood they are according to the measures of the Word of God and the practice of all Saints In this Church the Children are duly carefully and rightly Baptiz'd and the Baptiz'd in their due time are Confirm'd and the Confirm'd are Communicated and Penitents are Absolv'd and the Impenitents punished and discouraged and Holy Marriage in all men is preferr'd before unclean Concubinate in any and Nothing is wanting that God and his Christ hath made necessary to Salvation Behold we set before you Life and Death Blessing and Cursing Safety and Danger Choose which you will but remember that the Prophets who are among you have declar'd to you the way of Salvation Now the Lord give you understanding in all things and reveal even this also unto you Amen FINIS 1 Cor. 6.4 Phil. â— 14 Cont. Hermogen De vera side in Moral â—â—g 72. c. 1. reg 80. c. 22. Epist. Pasch. 2 De incar Christi Lib. 2. cap. de origen error lib. 7. contr Celsum Can comperimus de consecr dist 2. in 1 Cor. 11. Eccles. 11.6 De uniâ— Eccles cap. 6. * Ecclesia ex facris canoniciâ— Scripturiâ— osteudenda est quaque exillis aftendi non potest Ecclesia non est S. Aug. deâ—â—tit Eccles. c. 4. c. 3. Ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam ibi deat namus causum nostram * Lib. Cano discipl Eccles. Angliâ— injunct Regiâ— Elis. A. D. 1571. Can. de concionatoribus â—at 3. Calend. Mart. Thâ—ssaâ—onicae a Quod sit metrum regula aâ— scientia credendorum Summae de Eccles. l. 2. c. 203. b Novum Symbolum condere solum ad Papam spectat quia est capuâ— fidei Christians cujus authoritate omnia quae ad filem spectant firmantur roborantur q. 59. a. 1. art 2. sicut potest novum symbolum condere ita potest novos articulos supra aelios multiplicare c Papa potest sacere novos arâ—iâ—ulos fidei id est quod modo credi oporteat cum sic prius non oportereâ— in cap. cum Christ. de hate n. 2. d Papa potest inducere novum articulum fidei in idem e Super 2. Decret de jurejur c. minis n. 1. f Apud Petrum Ciezam â—o 2. instit peruinae cap. â—9 * Iohannes Clemens aliquos folia Theodereti laceravit abjecit in socum in quibus contrae Transubstanâ—iaetionem praeclare disseruit Et cum non itae pridem Originem excuderent totum illud capuâ— sextum Iohannis quod commentabaetur Origenes omiserunt mutilum ediderunt librum propter candem causam * Sixtus Senensis Epist. Dedicat. ad Pium Quint. laudat Pontificem in haec verba Expurgari emaculari curâ—stâ— omnium Catholicorum Scriptorum at praeciput veterum Patrum scriptae Index Expurgator Madrili 1612. in Indiâ—e libror. expurgatorum pag. 39. Gal. 1. 8. Part 2. act 6. c. â— De potest Eccles consiâ— â— De Consiâ— author l. 2. c. 17. Section 1. Sess. 21. cap. 4. Part. 1. Sum. tit 10. c. 3. In art 18. Luther * Intravit ut vulpes regnavit ut leo moriebatur ut canis de eo saepius dictum Tertull. l. ad Martyr c. 1. S. Cyprian lib. 3. Ep. 15. apud Pamelium 11. Concil Nicen. 1. can 12. Conc. Ancyr c. 5. Concil Laodicen c. 2. S. Basil. in Ep. canonicis habentur in Nomocanone Photii can 73. * Communis opittio DD. tam Theologorum quaem Canonicorum quod sunt ex abundantiae meritorum quae ultrae mensuram demeritorum suorum sancti sustinuerunt Christi Sum. Angel v. Indulg 9. * Lib. 1. de indulgent cap. 2. 3. a In 4. l. sent dist 19. q. 2. b Ibid. dist 20. q. 3. Ubi supra In lib. 4. sent Verb. Indulgentia Vt quid non praevides tibâ— in die judicii quando nemo poterit per alium excusari vel defendi sed unusquisque sufficiens onus erit sibi ipsi Th. ae Kempis l. 1. de imit c. 24. a Homil. 1.
A DISSVVASIVE FROM POPERY To the People of IRELAND BY JEREMY Lord Bishop of DOVVN DVBLIN Printed by Iohn Crooke Printer to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty and are to be sold by Samuel Dancer 1664. THE PREFACE TO THE READER WHen a Roman Gentleman had to please himself written a book in Greek and presented it to Cato he desired him to pardon the faults of his expressions since he wrote in Greek which was a tongue in which he was not perfect Master Cato told him he had better then to have let it alone and written in Latine by how much it is better not to commit a fault then to make apologies For if the thing be good it needs not to be excus'd if it be not good a crude apologie will do nothing but confess the fault but never make amends I therefore make this address to all who will concern themselves in reading this Book not to ask their pardon for my fault in doing it I know of none for if I had known them I would have mended them before the Publication and yet though I know not any I do not question but much fault will be found by too many I wish I have given them no cause for their so doing But I do not onely mean it in the particular periods where every man that is not a Son of the Church of England or Ireland will at least do as Apollonius did to the apparition that affrighted his company on the mountain Caucasus he will revile and persecute me with evil words but I mean it in the whole designe and men will reasonably or capritiously ask why any more controversies Why this over again Why against the Papists against whom so very-many are already exasperated that they cry out fiercely of persecution And why can they not be suffered to enjoy their share of peace which hath returned in the hands of his Sacred Majesty at his blessed Restauration For as much of this as concerns my self I make no excuse but give my reasons and hope to justifie this procedure with that modesty which David us'd to his angry Brother saying What have I now done Is there not a cause The cause is this The Reverend Fathers my Lords the Bishops of Ireland in their circumspection and watchfulness over their Flocks having espyed grievous Wolves to have entred in some with Sheeps clothing and some without some secret enemies and some open at first endeavour'd to give check to those enemies which had put fire into the bed straw and though God hath very much prosper'd their labours yet they have work enough to do and will have till God shall call them home to the land of peace and unity But it was soon remembred that when King James of blessed memory had discerned the Spirits of the English non-Conformists found them peevish and factious unreasonable and imperious not only unable to govern but as inconsistent with the Government as greedy to snatch at it for themselves resolved to take off their disguise and put a difference between Conscience and Faction and to bring them to the measures and rules of Laws and to this the Council and all wise men were consenting because by the Kings great wisdome and the conduct of the whole conference and enquiry men saw there was reason on the Kings side and necessity on all sides But the Gun-powder Treason breaking out a new zeal was enkindled against the Papists and it shin'd so greatly that the non-Conformists escaped by the light of it and quickly grew warm by the heat of that flame to which they added no small increase by their declamations and other acts of insinuation insomuch that they being neglected multiply'd until they got power enough to do all those mischiefs which we have seen and felt This being remembred and spoken of it was soon observ'd that the Tables only were now turn'd and that now the publick zeal and watchfulness against those men and those persuasions which so lately have afflicted us might give to the emissaries of the Church of Rome leisure and opportunity to grow into numbers and strength to debauch many Souls and to unhinge the safety and peace of the Kingdom In Ireland we saw too much of it done and found the mischief growing too fast and the most intolerable inconveniences but too justly apprehended as near and imminent We had reason at least to cry Fire when it flamed through our very Roofs and to interpose with all care and diligence when Religion and the eternal interest of Souls was at stake as knowing we should be greatly unfit to appear and account to the great Bishop and Shepherd of souls if we had suffered the enemies to sow tares in our fields we standing and looking on It was therefore consider'd how we might best serve God and rescue our charges from their danger and it was concluded presently to run to arms I mean to the weapons of our warfare to the armour of the Spirit to the works of our calling and to tell the people of their peril to warn them of the enemy and to lead them in the wayes of truth and peace and holiness that if they would be admonished they might be safe if they would not they should be without excuse because they could not say but the Prophets have been amongst them But then it was next enquired who should minister in this affair and put in order all those things which they had to give in charge It was easie to chuse many but hard to chuse one There were many fit to succeed in the vacant Apostleship and though Barsabas the just was by all the Church nam'd as a fit and worthy man yet the lot fell upon Matthias and that was my case it fell to me to be their Amanuensis when persons most worthy were more readily excus'd and in this my Lords the Bishops had reason that according to S. Pauls rule If there be judgements or controversies amongst us they should be employ'd who are least esteem'd in the Church And upon this account I had nothing left me but obedience though I confess that I found regret in the nature of the employment for I love not to be as S. Paul calls it one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disputers of this world For I suppose skill in controversies as they are now us'd to be the worst part of Learning and time is the worst spent in them and men the least benefited by them that is when the Questions are curious and impertinent intricate and inexplicable not to make men better but to make a Sect. But when the Propositions disputed are of the foundation of faith or lead to good life or naturally do good to single persons or publick Societies then they are part of the depositum of Christianity of the Analogy of Faith and for this we are by the Apostle commanded to contend earnestly and therefore controversies may become necessary but because they are not often so but
of the Church or Pope to constitute Articles of Faith We need not adde that this power is attributed to the Bishops of Rome by Turrecremata Augustinus Triumphus de Ancona Petrus de Ancorano and the famous Abbot of Panormo that the Pope cannot only make new Creeds but new Articles of Faith That he can make that of necessity to be believ'd which before never was necessary That he is the measure and rule and the very notice of all credibilities That the Canon Law is the Divine Law and what-ever Law the Pope promulges God whose Vicar he is is understood to be the promulger That the souls of men are in the hands of the Pope and that in his arbitration Religion does consist which are the very words of Hostiensis and Ferdinandus ab Inciso who were Casuists and Doctors of Law of great authority amongst them and renown The thing it self is not of dubious disputation amongst them but actually practis'd in the greatest instances as is to be seen in the Bull of Pius the fourth at the end of the Council of Yrent by which all Ecclesiasticks are not only bound to swear to all the Articles of the Council of Trent for the present and for the future but they are put into a new Symbol or Creed and they are corroborated by the same decretory clauses that are us'd in the Creed of Athanasius that this is the true Catholick Faith and that without this no man can be saved Now since it cannot be imagined that this power to which they pretend should never have been reduc'd to act and that it is not credible they should publish so inviduous and ill sounding Doctrine to no purpose and to serve no end it may without further evidence be believed by all discerning persons that they have need of this Doctrine or it would not have been taught and that consequently without more adoe it may be concluded that some of their Articles are parts of this New Faith and that they can therefore in no sense be Apostolical unless their being Roman makes them so To this may be added another consideration not much less material that besides what Eckius told the Elector of Bavaria that the Doctrines of Luther might be overthrown by the Fathers though not by Scripture they have also many gripes of Conscience concerning the Fathers themselves that they are not right on their side and of this they have given but too much demonstration by their Expurgatory Indices The Serpent by being so curious a Defender of his Head shewes where his danger is and by what he can most readily be destroyed But besides their innumerable corruptings of the Fathers Writings their thrusting in that which was spurious and like Pharaoh killing the legitimate Sons of Israel though in this they have done very much of their work and made the Testimonies of the Fathers to be a Record infinitely worse than of themselves uncorrupted they would have been of which divers Learned Persons have made publique complaint and demonstration they have at last fallen to a new trade which hath caus'd more dis-reputation to them than they have gain'd advantage and they have virtually confess'd that in many things the Fathers are against them For first the King of Spain gave a Commission to the Inquisitors to purge all Catholick Authors but with this clause iique ipsi privatim nullisque consciis apud se indicem expurgatorium habebunt quem eundem neque aliis communicabunt neque ejus exemplum ulli dabunt that they should keep the Expurgatory Index privately neither imparting that Index nor giving a Copie of it to any But it happened by the Divine Providence so ordering it that about thirteen years after a Copie of it was gotten and published by Iohannes Pappus and Franciscus Iunius and since it came abroad against their wills they finde it necessary now to own it and they have Printed it themselves Now by these expurgatory Tables what they have done is known to all Learned Men. In S. Chrysostom's Works printed at Basil these words The Church is not built upon the Man but upon the Faith are commanded to be blotted out and these There is no Merit but what is given us by Christ and yet these words are in his Sermon upon Pentecost and the former words are in his first Homily upon that of S. Iohn Ye are my friends c. The like they have done to him in many other places and to S. Ambrose and to S. Austin and to them all insomuch that Ludovicus Saurius the Corrector of the Press at Lyons shewed and complain'd of it to Iunius that he was forc'd to cancellate or blot out many sayings of S. Ambrose in that Edition of his works which was printed at Lyons 1559. So that what they say on occasion of Bertram's book In the old Catholick Writers we suffer very many errors and extenuate and excuse them and finding out some Commentary we fain some convenient sense when they are oppos'd in Disputations they do indeed practise but esteem it not sufficient for the words which make against them they wholly leave out of their Editions Nay they correct the very Tables or Indices made by the Printers or Correctors insomuch that out of one of Frobens Indices they have commanded these words to be blotted The use of Images forbidden The Eucharist no sacrifice but the memory of a sacrifice Works although they do not justifie yet are necessary to Salvation Marriage is granted to all that will not contain Venial sins damne The dead Saints after this life cannot help us Nay out of the Index of S. Austin's Works by Claudius Chevallonius at Paris 1531. there is a very strange deleatur Dele Solus Deus adorandus that God alone is to be worshipped is commanded to be blotted out as being a dangerous Doctrine These instances may serve instead of multitudes which might be brought of their corrupting the witnesses and razing the records of antiquity that the errors and Novelties of the Church of Rome might not be so easily reprov'd Now if the Fathers were not against them what need these arts Why should they use them thus Their own expurgatory indices are infinite testimony against them both that they do so and that they need it But besides these things we have thought it fit to represent in one aspect some of their chief Doctrines of difference from the Church of England and make it evident that they are indeed new and brought into the Church first by way of opinion and afterwards by power and at last by their own authority decreed into Laws and Articles Sect. II. FIrst we alledge that this very power of making new Articles is a Novelty and expresly against the Doctrine of the Primitive Church and we prove it first by the words of the Apostle saying If we or an Angel from Heaven shall preach unto you any other Gospel viz. in
whole or in part for there is the same reason of them both than that which we have preached let him be Anathema and secondly by the sentence of the Fathers in the third General Council that at Ephesus That it should not be lawful for any Man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed than that which was defin'd by the Nicene Council and that whosoever shall dare to compose or offer any such to any Persons willing to be converted from Paganism Iudaism or Heresie if they were Bishops or Clerks they should be depos'd if Lay-men they should be accursed And yet in the Church of Rome Faith and Christianity increase like the Moon Bromyard complain'd of it long since and the mischief encreases daily They have now a new Article of Faith ready for the stamp which may very shortly become necessary to salvation we mean that of the immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary Whether the Pope be above a Council or no we are not sure whether it be an article of faith amongst them or not It is very near one if it be not Bellarmine would fain have us believe that the Council of Constance approving the Bull of Pope Martin the fifth declar'd for the Popes Supremacy But Iohn Gerson who was at the Council sayes that the Council did abate those heights to which flattery had advanc'd the Pope and that before that Council they spoke such great things of the Pope which afterwards moderate men durst not speak but yet some others spake them so confidently before it that he that should then have spoken to the contrary would hardly have escap'd the note of Heresie and that these Men continued the same pretensions even after the Council But the Council of Basil decreed for the Council against the Pope and the Council of Laeteran under Leo the tenth decreed for the Pope against the Council So that it is cross and pile and whether for a peny when it can be done it is now a known case it shall become an article of Faith But for the present it is a probationary article and according to Bellarmine's expression is fere de fide it is almost an article of Faith they want a little age and then they may goe alone But the Council of Trent hath produc'd a strange new Article but it is sine controversia credendum it must be believ'd and must not be controverted That although the ancient Fathers did give the Communion to Infants yet they did not believe it necessary to salvation Now this being a matter of fact whether they did or did not believe it every man that reads their Writings can be able to inform himself and besides that it is strange that this should be determin'd by a Council and determin'd against evident truth it being notorious that divers of the Fathers did say it is necessary to salvation the Decree it self is beyond all bounds of modesty and a strange pretension of Empire over the Christian Belief But we proceed to other instances Sect. III. THe Roman Doctrine of Indulgences was the first occasion of the great Change and Reformation of the Western Churches begun by the Preachings of Martin Luther and others and besides that it grew to that intolerable abuse that it became a shame to it self and a reproach to Christendome it was also so very an Innovation that their great Antoninus confesses that concerning them we have nothing expresly either in the Scriptures or in the sayings of the Ancient Doctors and the same is affirmed by Sylvester Priâ—rias Bishop Fisher of Rochester sayes that in the beginning of the Church there was no use of Indulgences and that they began after the people were a while affrighted with the torments of Purgatory and many of the School-men confess that the use of Indulgences began in the time of Pope Alexander the third towards the end of the XII Century but Agrippa imputes the beginning of them to Boniface the VIII who liv'd in the Reign of King Edward the First of England 1300. years after Christ. But that in his time the first Jubilee was kept we are assur'd by Crantzius This Pope lived and died with very great infamy and therefore was not likely from himself to transfer much honour and reputation to the new institution But that about this time Indulgences began is more than probable much before it is certain they were not For in the whole Canon Law written by Graetian and in the sentences of Peter Lombard there is nothing spoken of Indulgences Now because they liv'd in the time of P. Alexander III. if he had introduc'd them and much rather if they had been as antient as S. Gregory as some vainly and weakly pretend from no greater authority than their own Legends it is probable that these great Men writing Bodies of Divinity and Law would have made mention of so considerable a point and so great a part of the Roman Religion as things are now order'd If they had been Doctrines of the Church then as they are now it is certain they must have come under their cognisance and discourses Now least the Roman Emissaries should deceive any of the good Sons of the Church we think it fit to acquaint them that in the Primitive Church when the Bishops impos'd severe penances and that they were almost quite perform'd and a great cause of pity intervened or danger of death or an excellent repentance or that the Martyrs interceded the Bishop did sometimes indulge the penitent and relax some of the remaining parts of his penance and according to the example of S. Paul in the case of the incestuous Corinthian gave them ease least they should be swallowed up with too much sorrow But the Roman Doctrine of Indulgences is wholly another thing nothing of it but the abused name remains For in the Church of Rome they now pretend that there is an infinite of degrees of Christs merit and satisfaction beyond what is necessary for the salvation of his servants and for fear Christ should not have enough the Saints have a surplusage of merits or at least of satisfactions more than they can spend or themselves do need and out of these the Church hath made her a treasure a kind of poor mans box and out of this a power to take as much as they list to apply to the poor souls in Purgatory who because they did not satisfie for their venial sins or perform all their penances which were imposed or which might have been imposed and which were due to be paid to God for the temporal pains reserved upon them after he had forgiven them the guilt of their deadly sins are forc'd sadly to roar in pains not inferiour to the pains of hell excepting onely that they are not eternal That this is the true state of their Article of Indulgences we appeal to Bellarmine Now concerning their new foundation of Indulgences the first stone of
it was laid by P. Clement VI. in his extravagant Vnigenitus de poenitentiis remissionibus A. D. 1350. This constitution was published Fifty years after the first Jubilee and was a new device to bring in customers to Rome at the second Jubilee which was kept in Rome in this Popes time What ends of profit and interest it serv'd we are not much concern'd to enquire but this we know that it had not yet passed into a Catholick Doctrine for it was disputed against by Franciscus de Mayronis and Durandus not long before this extravagant and that it was not rightly form'd to their purposes till the stirs in Germany rais'd upon the occasion of Indulgences made Leo the tenth set his Clerks on work to study the point and make something of it But as to the thing it self it is so wholly new so meerly devis'd and forged by themselves so newly created out of nothing from great mistakes of Scripture and dreams of shadows from antiquity that we are to admonish our Charges that they cannot reasonably expect many sayings of the primitive Doctors against them any more than against the new fancies of the Quakers which were born but yesterday That which is not cannot be numbred and that which was not could not be confuted But the perfect silence of antiquity in this whole matter is an abundant demonstration that this new nothing was made in the later laboratories of Rome For as Durandus said the Holy Fathers Ambrose Hilary Hierom Austin speak nothing of Indulgences And whereas it is said that S. Gregory DC years after Christ gave Indulgences at Rome in the stations Magister Angularis who lived about 200 years since says He never read of any such any where and it is certain there is no such thing in the writings of S. Gregory nor in any history of that age or any other that is authentick and we could never see any history pretended for it by the Roman Writers but a Legend of Ledgerus brought to us the other day by Surius which is so ridiculous and weak that even their own parties dare not avow it as true story and therefore they are fain to make use of Thomas Aquinas upon the Sentences and Altisiodorensis for story and record And it were strange that if this power of giving Indulgences to take off the punishment reserv'd by God after the sin is pardoned were given by Christ to his Church that no one of the antient Doctors should tell any thing of it insomuch that there is no one Writer of authority and credit not the more antient Doctors we have already named nor those who were much later Rupertus Tuitensis Anselm or S. Bernard ever took notice of it but it was a Doctrine wholly unknown to the Church for about MCC years after Christ and Cardinal Cajetane told Pope Adrian VI. that to him that readeth the Decretals it plainly appears that an Indulgence is nothing else but an absolution from that penance which the Confessor hath imposed and therefore can be nothing of that which is now a dayes pretended True it is that the Canonical penances were about the time of Burchard lessen'd add alter'd by commutations and the antient discipline of the Church in imposing penances was made so loose that the Indulgence was more than the Imposition and began not to be an act of mercy but remisness an absolution without amends It became a trumpet and a leavy for the holy War in Pope Vrban the Seconds time for he gave a plenary Indulgence and remission of all sins to them that should go and fight against the Saracens and yet no man could tell how much they were the better for these Indulgences for concerning the value of Indulgences the complaint is both old and doubtful said Pope Adrian and he cites a famous gloss which tells of four Opinions all Catholick and yet vastly differing in this particular but the Summa Angelica reckons seven Opinions concerning what that penalty is which is taken off by Indulgences No man could then tell and the point was but in the infancy and since that they have made it what they please but it is at last turn'd into a Doctrine and they have devised new propositions as well as they can to make sense of it and yet it is a very strange thing a solution not an absolution it is the distinction of Bellarmine that is the sinner is let to go free without punishment in this World or in the World to come and in the end it grew to be that which Christendom could not suffer a heap of Doctrines without Grounds of Scripture or Catholick Tradition and not onely so but they have introduc'd a way of remitting sins that Christ and his Apostles taught not a way destructive of the repentance and remission of sins which was preached in the Name of Jesus it brought into the Church false and fantastick hopes a hope that will make men asham'd a hope that does not glorifie the merits and perfect satisfaction of Christ a doctrine expresly dishonourable to the full and free pardon given us by God through Jesus Christ a practise that supposes a new bunch of Keys given to the Church besides that which the Apostles receiv'd to open and shut the Kingdome of Heaven a Doctrine that introduces pride among the Saints and advances the opinion of their works beyond the measures of Christ who taught us That when we have done all that is commanded we are unprofitable servants and therefore certainly cannot supererogate or do more than what is infinitely recompenc'd by the Kingdome of Glory to which all our doings and all our sufferings are not worthy to be compar'd especially since the greatest Saint can not but say with David Enter not into judgement with thy servant for in thy sight no flesh living can be justified It is a practise that hath turn'd Penances into a Fayr and the Court of Conscience into a Lombard and the labors of Love into the labors of pilgrimages superstitious and useless wandrings from place to place and Religion into vanity and our hope in God to a confidence in man and our fears of hell to be a mere scarcrow to rich and confident sinners and at last it was frugally employed by a great Pope to raise a portion for a Lady the Wife of Franceschetto Cibo bastard son of Pope Innocent VIII and the merchandize it self became the stakes of Gamesters at dice and cards and men did vile actions that they might win Indulgences by gaming making their way to heaven easier Now although the H. Fathers of the Church could not be suppos'd in direct terms to speak against this new Doctrine of Indulgences because in their days it was not yet they have said many things which do perfectly destroy this new Doctrine and these unchristian practises For besides that they teach a repentance wholly reducing us to a good life a faith that intirely relies upon
was any substantial change or no. His words are these If it be inquir'd what kinde of conversion it is whether it be formal or substantial or of another kinde I am not able to define it Onely I know that it is not formal because the same accidents remain the same colour and taste To some it seems to be substantial saying that so the substance is chang'd into the substance that it is done essentially To which the former authorities seem to consent But to this sentence others oppose these things If the substance of bread and wine be substantially converted into the body and blood of Christ then every day some substance is made the body or blood of Christ which before was not the body and to day something is Christs body which yesterday was not and every day Christs body is increased and is made of such matter of which it was not made in the conception These are his words which we have remark'd not onely for the arguments sake though it be unanswerable but to give a plain demonstration that in his time this Doctrine was new not the Doctrine of the Church And this was written but about fifty years before it was said to be decreed in the Lateran Council and therefore it made haste in so short time to pass from a disputable opinion to an Article of faith But even after the Council Durandus as good a Catholick and as famous a Doctor as any was in the Church of Rome publickly maintain'd that even after consecration the very matter of bread remain'd and although he says that by reason of the Authority of the Church it is not to be held yet it is not onely possible it should be so but it implies no contradiction that it should be Christs body and yet the matter of bread remain and if this might be admitted it would salve many difficulties which arise fom saying that the substance of bread does not remain But here his Reason was overcome by Authority and he durst not affirm that of which alone he was able to give as he thought a reasonable account But by this it appears that the opinion was but then in the forge and by all their understanding they could never accord it but still the questions were uncertain according to that old Distich Corpore de Christi lis est de sanguine lis est Déque modo lis est non habitura modum And the opinion was not determin'd in the Lateran as it is now held at Rome but it is also plain that it is a stranger to Antiquity De Transubstantiatione panis in corpus Christi rara est in antiquis scriptoribus mentio said Alphonsus à Castro There is seldome mention made in the ancient Writers of transubstantiating the Bread into Christs Body We know the modesty and interest of the man he would not have said it had been seldom if he could have found it in any reasonable degree warranted he might have said and justified it There was no mention at all of this Article in the primitive Church and that it was a meer stranger to Antiquity will not be deny'd by any sober person who considers That it was with so much uneasiness entertained even in the corruptest and most degenerous times and argued and unsettled almost 1300 years after Christ. And that it was so will but too evidently appear by that stating and resolution of this question which we finde in the Canon Law For Berengarius was by P. Nicolaus commanded to recant his error in these words and to affirm Verum corpus sanguinem Domini nostri Iesu Christi sensualiter non solùm in sacramento sed in veritate manibus sacerdotum tractari frangi fidelium dentibus atteri That the true body and bloud of our Lord Jesus Christ sensually not onely in sacrament but in truth is handled by the Priests hands and broken and grinded by the teeth of the faithful Now although this was publickly read at Rome before an hundred and fourteen Bishops and by the Pope sent up and down the Churches of Italy France and Germany yet at this day it is renounc'd by the Church of Rome and unless it be well expounded says the Gloss will lead into a heresie greater than what Berengarius was commanded to renounce and no interpretation can make it tolerable but such an one as is in another place of the Canon Law statuimus i.e. abrogamus nothing but a plain denying it in the sense of Pope Nicolas But however this may be it is plain they understood it not as it is now decreed But as it happened to the Pelagians in the beginning of their heresie they spake rudely ignorantly and easily to be reprov'd but being asham'd and disputed into a more sober understanding of their hypothesis spake more warily but yet differently from what they said at first so it was and is in this question at first they understood it not it was too unreasonable in any tolerable sense to make any thing of it but experience and necessity hath brought it to what it is But that this Doctrine was not the Doctrine of the first and best ages of the Church these following testimonies do make evident The words of Tertullian are these The bread being taken and distributed to his Disciples Christ made it his body saying This is my body that is the figure of my body The same is affirmed by Iustin Martyr The bread of the Eucharist was a figure which Christ the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his passion Origen calls the bread and the chalice the images of the body and blood of Christ and again That bread which is sanctified by the word of God so far as belongs to the matter or substance of it goes into the belly and is cast away in the secession or separation which to affirm of the natural or glorified body of Christ were greatly blasphemous and therefore the body of Christ which the Communicants receive is not the body in a natural sense but in a spiritual which is not capable of any such accident as the elements are Eusebius says that Christ gave to his Disciples the Symbols of Divine Oeconomy commanding the image and type of his own body to be made and that the Apostle received a command according to the constitution of the new Testament to make a memory of this sacrifice upon the Table by the symbols of his body and healthful blood 8. Macarius says that in the Church is offered bread and wine the antitype of his flesh and of his blood and they that partake of the bread that appears do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ. By which words the sense of the above cited Fathers is explicated For when they affirm that in this Sacrament is offered the figure the image the antitype of Christs body and blood although they speak perfectly against Transubstantiation yet they do not deny
blasphemy a book was written by Iohn Huss about the time of the Council of Constance But these things are too bad and therefore we love not to rake in so filthy Chanells but give onely a generall warning to all our Charges to take heed of such persons who from the proper consequences of their Articles grow too bold and extravagant and of such doctrines from whence these and many other evil Propositions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 frequently do issue As the Tree is such must be the Fruit. But we hope it may be sufficient * to say That what the Church of Rome teaches of Transubstantiation is absolutely impossible and implies contradictions very many to the belief of which no faith can oblige us and no reason can endure For Christs body being in heaven glorious spiritual and impassible cannot be broken And since by the Roman doctrine nothing is broken but that which cannot be broken that is the colour the taste and other accidents of the elements yet if they could be broken since the accidents of bread and wine are not the substance of Christs body and blood it is certain that on the Altar Christs body naturally and properly cannot be broken * And since they say that every consecrated Wafer is Christs whole body and yet this Wafer is not that Wafer therefore either this or that is not Christs body or else Christ hath two bodies for there are two Wafers * But when Christ instituted the Sacrament and said This is my body which is broken because at that time Christs body was not broken naturally and properly the very words of institution do force us to understand the Sacrament in a sense not natural but spiritual that is truly sacramental * And all this is besides the plain demonstrations of sense which tells us it is bread and it is wine naturally as much after as before consecration * And after all the natural sense is such as our blessed Saviour reprov'd in the men of Capernaum and called them to a spiritual understanding the natural sense being not onely unreasonable and impossible but also to no purpose of the spirit or any ways perfective of the soul as hath been clearly demonstrated by many learned men against the fond hypothesis of the Church of Rome in this Article Sect. VI. OUr next instance of the novelty of the Roman Religion in their Articles of division from us is that of the half Communion For they deprive the people of the chalice and dismember the institution of Christ and praevaricate his express law in this particular and recede from the practise of the Apostles and though they confess it was the practise of the primitive Church yet they lay it aside and curse all them that say they do amiss in it that is they curse them who follow Christ and his Apostles and his Church while themselves deny to follow them Now for this we need no other testimony but their own words in the Council of Constance Whereas in certain parts of the World some temerariously presume to affirm that the Christian people ought to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist under both kinds of bread and wine and do every where communicate the Laity not onely in bread but in wine also Hence it is that the Council decrees and defines against this error that although Christ instituted after supper and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds of bread and wine yet this notwithstanding And although in the primitive Church this Sacrament was receiv'd of the faithful under both kinds Here is the acknowledgement both of Christs institution in both kinds and Christs ministring it in both kinds and the practise of the Primitive Church to give it in both kinds yet the conclusion from these premises is We command under the pain of Excommunication that no Priest communicate the people under both kinds of bread and wine The opposition is plain Christs Testament ordains it The Church of Rome forbids it It was the primitive custom to obey Christ in this a later custom is by the Church of Rome introduc'd to the contrary To say that the first practise and institution is necessary to be followed is called Heretical to refuse the later subintroduc'd custom incurres the sentence of Excommunication and this they have pass'd not onely into a Law but into an Article of Faith and if this be not teaching for doctrines the commandments of men and worshipping God in vain with mens traditions then there is and there never was and there can be no such thing in the World So that now the question is not whether this doctrine and practise be an INNOVATION but whether it be not better it should it so Whether it be not better to drink new wine than old Whether it be not better to obey man than Christ who is God blessed for ever Whether a late custom be not to be preferr'd before the antient a custom dissonant from the institution of Christ before that which is wholly consonant to what Christ did and taught This is such a bold affirmative of the Church of Rome that nothing can suffice to rescue us from an amazement in the consideration of it especially since although the Institution it self being the onely warranty and authority for what we do is of it self our rule and precept according to that of the Lawyer Institutiones sunt praeceptiones quibus instituuntur docentur homines yet besides this Christ added preceptive words Drink ye all of this he spake it to all that receiv'd who then also represented all them who for ever after were to remember Christs death But concerning the doctrine of Antiquity in this point although the Council of Constance confess the Question yet since that time they have taken on them a new confidence and affirm that the half Communion was always more or less the practice of the most Ancient times We therefore think it fit to produce testimonies concurrent with the saying of the Council of Constance such as are irrefragable and of persons beyond exception Cassander affirms That in the Latine Church for above a thousand years the body of Christ and the blood of Christ were separately given the body apart and the blood apart after the consecration of the mysteries So Aquinas also affirms According to the ancient custom of the Church all men as they communicated in the body so they communicated in the blood which also to this day is kept in some Churches And therefore Paschasius Ratbertus resolves it dogmatically That neither the flesh without the blood nor the blood without the flesh is rightly communicated because the Apostles all of them did drink of the chalice And Salmeron being forc'd by the evidence of the thing ingenuously and openly confesses That it was a general custom to communicate the Laity under both kindes It was so and it was more There was anciently a Law for it Aut integra Sacramenta percipiant
aut ab integris arceantur said Pope Gelasius Either all or none let them receive in both kindes or in neither and he gives this reason Quia divisio unius ejusdem mysterii sinc grandi sacrilegio non potest pervenire The mystery is but one and the same and therefore it cannot be divided without great Sacriledge The reason concludes as much of the Receiver as the Consecrator and speaks of all indefinitely Thus it is acknowledged to have been in the Latine Church and thus we see it ought to have been And for the Greek Church there is no question for even to this day they communicate the people in the chalice But this case is so plain and there are such clear testimonies out of the Fathers recorded in their own Canon Law that nothing can obscure it but to use too many words about it We therefore do exhort our people to take care that they suffer not themselves to be robb'd of their portion of Christ as he is pleas'd sacramentally and graciously to communicate himself unto us SECT VII AS the Church of Rome does great injury to Christendom in taking from the people what Christ gave them in the matter of the Sacrament so she also deprives them of very much of the benefit which they might receive by their holy Prayers if they were suffered to pray in publick in a Language they understand But that 's denied to the common people to their very great prejudice and injury Concerning which although it is as possible to reconcile Adultery with the seventh Commandment as Service in a Language not understood to the fourteenth Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians and that therefore if we can suppose that the Apostolical age did follow the Apostolical rule it must be concluded that the practise of the Church of Rome is contrary to the practise of the Primitive Church Yet besides this we have thought fit to declare the plain sense and practise of the succeeding ages in a few testimonies but so pregnant as not to be avoided Origen affirms that the Graecians in their prayers use Greek and the Romans the Roman language and so every one according to his Tongue prayeth unto God and praiseth him as he is able S. Chrysostome urging the Precept of the Apostle for prayers in a Language understood by the hearer affirms that which is but reasonable saying If a man speaks in the Persian Tongue and understands not what himself sayes to himself he is a Barbarian and therefore so he is to him that understands no more than he does And what profit can he receive who hears a sound and discerns it not It were as good he were absent as present For if he be the better to be there because he sees what is done and guesses at something in general and consents to him that Ministers It is true this may be but this therefore is so because he understands something but he is onely so far benefited as he understands and therefore all that which is not understood does him no more benefit that is present than to him that is absent and consents to the prayers in general and to what is done for all faithful people But If indeed ye meet for the edification of the Church those things ought to be spoken which the hearers understand said S. Ambrose And so it was in the primitive Church blessings and all other things in the Church were done in the vulgar tongue saith Lyra Nay not onely the publick Prayers but the whole Bible was anciently by many Translations made fit for the peoples use S. Hierom affirms that himself translated the Bible into the Dalmatian Tongue and Vlphilas a Bishop among the Goths translated it into the Gothick Tongue and that it was translated into all Languages we are told by S. Chysostome S. Austin and Theodoret. But although what twenty Fathers say can make a thing no more certain than if S. Paul had alone said it yet both S. Paul and the Fathers are frequent to tell us That a Service or Prayers in an unknown Tongue do not edifie So S. Basil S. Chrysostome S. Ambrose and S. Austin and this is consented to by Aquinas Lyra and Cassander And besides that these Doctors affirm that in the primitive Church the Priests and People joyn'd in their Prayers and understood each other and prayed in their Mother Tongue We find a story how true it is let them look to it but it is told by AEneas Sylvius who was afterward Pope Pius the II. that when Cyrillus Bishop of the Moravians and Methodius had converted the Slavonians Cyril being at Rome desir'd leave to use the language of that Nation in their Divine Offices Concerning which when they were disputing a voice was heard as if from Heaven Let every Spirit praise the Lord and every Tongue confess unto him Upon which it was granted according to the Bishops desire But now they are not so kind at Rome and although the Fathers at Trent confess'd in their decree that the Mass contains in it great matter of erudition and edification of the people yet they did not think it fit that it should be said in the vulgar tongue So that it is very good food but it must be lock'd up it is an excellent candle but it must be put under a bushel And now the Question is Whether it be fit that the people pray so as to be edisied by it or is it better that they be at the prayers when they shall not be edified Whether it be not as good to have a dumb Priest to do Mass as one that hath a tongue to say it For he that hath no tongue and he that hath none to be understood is alike insignificant to me Quid prodest locutionum integritas quam non sequitur intellectus audientis cum loquendi nulla sit causa si quod loquimur non intelligunt propter quos ut intelligant loquimur said S. Austin What does it avail that man speak all if the hearers understand none and there is no cause why a man should speak at all if they for whose understanding you do speak understand it not God understands the Priests thoughts when he speaks not as well as when he speaks he hears the prayer of the heart and sees the word of the mind and a dumb Priest can do all the ceremonies and make the signs and he that speaks aloud to them that understand him not does no more Now since there is no use of vocal prayer in publick but that all together may signifie their desires and stirre up one another and joyne in the expression of them to God by this device a man who understands not what is said can onely pray with his lips for the heart cannot pray but by desiring and it cannot desire what it understands not So that in this case prayer cannot be
an act of the Soul There is neither affection nor understanding notice or desire The heart sayes nothing and asks for nothing and therefore receives nothing Solomon calls that the Sacrifice of fools when men consider not and they who understand not what is said cannot take it into consideration But there needs no more to be said in so plain a case We end this with the words of the Civil and Canon Law Iustinian the Emperor made a Law in these words We will and command That all Bishops and Priests celebrate the Sacred Oblation and the Prayers thereunto added in holy Baptism not in a low voice but with a loud and clear voice which may be heard by the faithful people that is be understood for so it follows that thereby the mindes of the hearers may be raised up with greater devotion to set forth the praises of the Lord God for so the Apostle teacheth in the first to the Corinthians It is true that this Law was rased out of the Latine Versions of Iustinian The fraud and design was too palpable but it prevail'd nothing for it is acknowledged by Cassander and Bellarmine and is in the Greek Copies of Holoander The Canon Law is also most express from an Authority of no less than a Pope and a General Council as themselves esteem Innocent III. in the great Council of Lateran above MCC years after Christ in these words Because in most parts within the same City and Diocess the people of divers Tongues are mixt together having under one and the same faith divers Ceremonies and Rites we straitly charge and command That the Bishops of such Cities and Diocesses provide men fit who may celebrate Divine Service according to the diversity of ceremonies and languages and administer the Sacraments of the Church instructing them both by word and example Now if the words of the Apostle and the practise of the primitive Church the sayings of the Fathers and the Confessions of wise men amongst themselves if the consent of Nations and the piety of our fore-fathers if right reason and the necessity of the thing if the needs of the ignorant and the very inseparable conditions of holy prayers if the Laws of Princes and the Laws of the Church which do require all our prayers to be said by them that understand what they say if all these cannot prevail with the Church of Rome to do so much good to the peoples souls as to consent they should understand what in particular they are to ask of God certainly there is a great pertinacy of opinion and but a little charity to those precious souls for whom Christ dyed and for whom they must give account Indeed the old Toscan Rites and the Sooth-sayings of the Salian Priests Vix Sacerdotibus suis intellecta sed quae mutari vetat Religio were scarce understood by their Priests themselves but their Religion forbad to change them Thus anciently did the Osseni Hereticks of whom Epiphanius tells and the Heracleonitae of whom S. Austin gives account they taught to pray with obscure words and some others in Clemens Alexandrinus suppos'd that words spoken in a barbarous or unknown Tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are more powerful The Jewes also in their Synagogues at this day read Hebrew which the people but rarely understand and the Turks in their Mosques read Arabick of which the people know nothing But Christians never did so till they of Rome resolved to refuse to do benefit to the souls of the people in this instance or to bring them from intollerable ignorance SECT VIII THe Church of Rome hath to very bad purposes introduc'd and impos'd upon Christendom the worship and veneration of Images kissing them pulling off their hats kneeling falling down and praying before them which they call giving them due honor and veneration What external honor and veneration that is which they call due is express'd by the instances now reckon'd which the Council of Trent in their Decree enumerate and establish What the inward honor and worship is which they intend to them is intimated in the same Decree By the Images they worship Christ and his Saints and therefore by these Images they pass that honor to Christ and his Saints which is their due that is as their Doctors explain it Latria or Divine worship to God and Christ. Hyperdulia or more than service to the blessed Virgin Mary and service or doulia to other canoniz'd persons So that upon the whole the case is this What ever worship they give to God and Christ and his Saints they give it first to the Image and from the Image they pass it unto Christ and Christs servants And therefore we need not to enquire what actions they suppose to be fit or due For whatsoever is due to God to Christ or his Saints that worship they give to their respective Images all the same in external semblance and ministry as appears in all their great Churches and publick actions and processions and Temples and Festivals and endowments and censings and pilgrimages and prayers and vows made to them Now besides that these things are so like Idolatry that they can no way be reasonably excused of which we shall in the next Chapter give some account besides that they are too like the Religion of the Heathens and so plainly and frequently forbidden in the Old Testament and are so infinitely unlike the simple and wise the natural and holy the pure and the spiritual Religion of the Gospel besides that they are so infinite a scandal to the Jews and Turks and reproach Christianity it self amongst all strangers that live in their communion and observe their rites besides that they cannot pretend to be lawful but with the laborious artifices of many Metaphysical notions and distinctions which the people who most need them do least understand and that therefore the people worship them without these distinctions and directly put confidence in them and that it is impossible that ignorant persons who in all Christian countries make up the biggest number should do otherwise when otherwise they cannot understand it and besides that the thing it self with or without distinctions is a superstititious and forbidden an unlawful and unnatural worship of God who will not be worshipped by an Image we say that besides all this This whole Doctrine and practice is an innovation in the Christian Church not practis'd not indured in the primitive ages but expresly condemned by them and this is our present undertaking to evince The first notice we find of Images brought into Christian Religion was by Simon Magus indeed that was very Antient but very heretical and abominable but that he brought some in to be worshipped we find in Theodoret and S. Austin S. Irenaeus tells That the Gnosticks of Carpocrations did make Images and said that the form of Christ as he was in the flesh was made by Pilate and these Images they
worshipped as did the Gentiles These things they did but against these things the Christians did zealously and piously declare We have no Image in the world said S. Clemens of Alexandria It is apparently forbidden to us to exercise that deceitful art For it is written Thou shalt not make any similitude of any thing in Heaven above c. And Origen wrote a just Treatise against Celsus in which he not onely affirms That Christians did not make or use Images in Religion but that they ought not and were by God forbidden to do so To the same purpose also Lactantius discourses to the Emperor and confutes the pretences and little answers of the Heathen in that manner that he leaves no pretence for Christians under another cover to introduce the like abomination We are not ignorant that those who were converted from Gentilisme and those who lov'd to imitate the customs of the Roman Princes and people did soon introduce the Historical use of Images and according to the manner of the world did think it honorable to depict or make Images of those whom they had in great esteem and that this being done by an esteem relying on Religion did by the weakness of men and the importunity of the Tempter quickly pass into inconvenience and superstition yet even in the time of Iulian the Emperor S. Cyril denies that the Christians did give veneration and worship to the Image even of the Cross it self which was one of the earliest temptations and S. Epiphanius it is a known story tells that when in the village of Bethel he saw a cloth picture as it were of Christ or some Saint in the Church against the Authority of Scripture He cut it in pieces and advis'd that some poor man should be buried in it affirmed that such Pictures are against Religion and unworthy of the Church of Christ. The Epistle was translated into Latine by S. Hierome by which we may guess at his opinion in the question The Council of Eliberis is very ancient and of great fame in which it is expresly forbidden that what is worshipped should be depicted on the walls and that therefore Pictures ought not to be in Churches S. Austin complaining that he knew of many in the Church who were Worshippers of Pictures calls them Superstitious and adds that the Church condems such customs and strives to correct them and S. Gregory writing to Serenus Bishop of Massilia sayes he would not have had him to break the Pictures and Images which were there set for an historical use but commends him for prohibiting to any one to worship them and enjoyns him still to forbid it But Superstition by degrees creeping in the Worship of Images was decreed in the seventh Synod or the second Nicene But the decrees of this Synod being by Pope Adrian sent to Charls the Great he convocated a Synod of German and French Bishops at Francfurt who discussed the Acts pass'd at Nice and condemn'd them And the Acts of this Synod although they were diligently suppressed by the Popes arts yet Eginardus Hinâ—marus Aventinus Blondus Adon Amonius Regino famous Historians tell us That the Bishops of Francfurt condemn'd the Synod of Nice and commanded it should not be called a General Council and published a Book under the name of the Emperor confuting that unchristian Assembly and not long since this Book and the Acts of Francfurt were published by Bishop Tillius by which not only the infinite fraud of of the Roman Doctors is discover'd but the worship of Images is declar'd against and condemned A while after this Ludovicus the Son of Charlemain sent Claudius a famous Preacher to Taurinum in Italy where the Preached against the worshipping of Images and wrote an excellent Book to that purpose Against this Book Ionas Bishop of Orleans after the death of Ludovicus and Claudius did write In which he yet durst not assert the worship of them but confuted it out of Origen whose words he thus cites Images are neither to be esteemed by inward affection nor worshipped with outward shew and out of Lactantius these Nothing is to be worshipped that is seen with mortal eyes Let us adore let us worship nothing but the Name alone of our only Parent who is to be sought for in the Regions above not here below And to the same purpose he also alleges excellent words out of Fulgentius and S. Hierom and though he would have Images ratain'd and therefore was angry at Claudius who caus'd them to be taken down yet he himself expresly affirms that they ought not to be worshipped and withal addes that though they kept the Images in their Churches for History and Ornament yet that in France the worshipping of them was had in great detestation And though it is not to be denied but that in the sequel of Ionas his Book he does something praevaricate in this question yet it is evident that in France this Doctrine was not accounted Catholick for almost nine hundred years after Christ and in Germany it was condemned for almost MCC years as we find in Nicetas We are not unskill'd in the devices of the Roman Writers and with how much artifice they would excuse this whole matter and palliate the crime imputed to them and elude the Scriptures expresly condemning this Superstition But we know also that the arts of Sophistry are not the wayes of Salvation And therefore we exhort our people to follow the plain words of Scripture and the express Law of God in the second Commandment and add also the Exhortation of S. Iohn Little children keep your selves from Idols To conclude it is impossible but that it must be confessed that the worship of Images was a thing unknown to the Primitive Church in the purest times of which they would not allow the making of them as amongst divers others appears in the Writings of Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian and Origen SECT IX AS an Appendage to this we greatly reprove the custom of the Church of Rome in picturing God the Father and the most Holy and Undivided Trinity which besides that it ministers infinite scandal to all sober minded men and gives the new Arrians in Polonia and Antitrinitarians great and ridiculous entertainment exposing that Sacred Mystery to derision and scandalous contempt It is also which at present we have undertaken particularly to remark against the Doctrine and practise of the Primitive Catholick Church S. Clemens of Alexandria sayes that in the Discipline of Moses God was not to be represented in the shape of a man or of any other thing and that Christians understood themselves to be bound by the same law we find it expresly taught by Origen Tertullian Eusebius Athanasius S. Hierom S. Austin Theodoret Damascen and the Synod of Constantinople as it is reported in the sixt Action of the second Nicene Council And certainly if there were not
very goodly forbids all Superstitions in this Article but yet tells us not what are Superstitions and what not and still the world goes on in the practise of the same intolerable follies and every Nation hath a particular Guardian-Saint and every City every Family and almost every House and every Devouter person almost chuses his own Patron-Saint whose Altars they more devoutly frequent whose Image they more religiously worship to whose Reliques they more readily go in Pilgrimage to whose honour they say more Pater-nosters whose Festival they more solemnly observe spoiling their prayers by their confidences in unknown persons living in an unknown condition and diminishing that affiance in God and our Lord Jesus Christ by importune and frequent addresses to them that cannot help But that these are not the faults of their people only running wilfully into such follies but the practise of their Church and warranted and taught by their Guides appears by the publick Prayers themselves such as these O Generous Mary beauteous above all obtain pardon for us apply grace unto us prepare glory for us Hail thou Rose thou Virgin Mary c. Grant to us to use true wisdome and with the elect to enjoy grace that we may with melody praise thee and do thou drive our â—ins away O Virgin Mary give us joyes These and divers others like these are in the Antheme of our Lady In the Rosary of our Lady this Hymne is to be said Reparatrix Salvatrix desperantis animae Irroratrix Largitrix Spiritualis gratiae Quod requiro quod suspiro mea sana vulnera Et da menti te poscenti gratiarum Munera Vt sim castus Modestus c. ......... Corde prudens ore studens veritatem dicere Malum nolens Deum volens pio semper opere That is Thou Repairer and Saviour of the despairing Soul the due Giver and Bestower of spiritual Grace heal my wounds and gives to the minde that prayes to thee the gifts of grace that I may be chaste modest wise in heart true in my sayings hating evil loving God in holy works and much more to the same purpose There also the blessed Virgin Mary after many glorious appellatives is prayed to in these words Joyn me to Christ govern me alwayes enlighten my heart defend me alwayes from the snare of the Enemy deliver us from all evil and from the pains of Hell So that it is no wonder that Pope Leo the X. calls her a Goddess and Turselin the Jesuit Divinae Majestatis potestatisque sociam Huic olim coelestium mortaliumque principatum detulit Ad hujus arbitrium quoad hominum tutela postulat terras maria coelum naturamque moderatur Hà c anuente per hanc divinos thesauros coelestia dona largitur the companion or partner of the Divine Majestie and Power To her he long since gave the principality of all heavenly and mortal things At her will so far as the Guardianship of men requires he rules the Earth and Seas Heaven and Nature And she consenting he gives Divine treasures Coelestial gifts Nay in the Mass-books pen'd 1538. And us'd in the Polonian Churches they call the B. Virgin Mary Viam ad vitam tolius mundi gubernatricem peccatorum cum Deo reconciliatricem fontem remissionis peccatorum lumen luminum the way to life the Governess of all the world the Reconciler of siners with God the fountain of Remission of sins Light of light and at last salute her with an Ave Vniversae Trinitatis Mater Hail thou Mother of the whole Trinity We do not pick out these onely as the most singular or the worst forms for such as these are very numerous as is to be seen in their Breviaries Missals Hours of our Lady Rosary of our Lady the Letany of our Lady called Litania Mariae the Speculum Rosariorum the Hymns of Saints Portuises and Manuals These only are the instances which amongst many others presently occurr Two things onely we shall add instead of many more that might be represented The first is That in a Hymn which they from what reason or Etymology we know not neither are we concern'd call a Sequence the Council of Constance did invocate the B. Virgin in the same manner as Councils did use to invocate the Holy Ghost They call her the Mother Grace the remedy to the miserable the fountain of mercy and the light of the Church attributes proper to God and incommunicable they sing her praises and pray to her for graces they sing to her with the heart they call themselves her sons they declare her to be their health and comfort in all doubts and call on her for light from Heaven and trust in her for the destruction of Heresies and the repression of Schisms and for the lasting Confederations of peace The other thing we tell of is That there is a Psalter of our Lady of great and ancient account in the Church of Rome it hath been several times printed at Venice at Paris at Leipsich and the title is The Psalter of the Blessed Virgin compil'd by the Seraphical Doctor S. Bonaventure Bishop of Alba and Presbyter Cardinal of the Holy Church of Rome But of the Book it self the account is soon made for it is nothing but the Psalms of David an hundred and fifty in number are set down alter'd indeed to make as much of it as could be sense so reduc'd In which the name of Lord is left out and that of Lady put in so that whatever David said of God and Christ the same prayers and the same praises they say of the B. Virgin Mary and whether all that can be said without intolerable blasphemy we suppose needs not much disputation The same things but in a less proportion and frequency they say to other Saints O Maria Magdalena Audi vota laude plena Apud Christum chorum istum Clementer Concilia Vt fons summae pietatis Qui te lavit à peccatis Servos suos atque tuos Mundet datà veniâ O Mary Magdalen hear our prayers which are full of praises and most clemently reconcile this company unto Christ That the Fountain of Supreme Piety who clensed thee from they sins giving pardon may clense us who are his servants and thine These things are too bad already we shall not aggravate them by any further Commentary but apply the premises Now therefore we desire it may be considered That there are as the effects of Christs death for us three great products which are the rule and measure of our prayers aâ—d our confidence 1. Christs merits 2. his Satisfaction 3. His Intercession By these three we come boldly to the Throne of Grace and pray to God through Iesus Christ. But if we pray to God through the Saints too and rely upon their 1. Merits 2. Satisfaction 3. And Intercession Is it not plain that we make them equal with Christ in kind though not in degree For it
is publikely avowed and practis'd in the Church of Rome to rely upon the Saints Intercession and this intercession to be made valid by the Merits of the Saints We pray thee ô S. Iude the Apostle that by thy Merits thou wouldst draw me from the custom of my sins and snatch me from the power of the Devil and advance me to the invisible powers and they say as much to others And for their Satisfactions the treasure of the Church for Indulgences is made up with them and the satisfactions of Christ So that there is nothing remaining of the honour due to Christ our Redeemer and our Confidence in him but the same in very kind is by the Church of Rome imputed to the Saints And therefore the very being and Oeconomy of Christianity is destroyed by these prayers and the people are not cannot be good Christians in these devotions and what hopes are laid up for them who repent to no purpose and pray with derogation to Christs honour is a matter of deepest consideration And therefore we desire our charges not to be seduc'd by little tricks and artifices of uselesse and laborious distinctions and protestations against evidence of fact and with fear and trembling to consider what God said by the Prophet My people have done two great evils they have forsaken me fortem vivum the strong and the living God fontem vivum so some copies read it the living fountain and have digged for themselves cisterns that is little phantastick helps that hold no water that give no refreshment or As S. Paul expresses it they worship and invocate the Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides the Creator so the word properly signifies and so it is us'd by the Apostle in other places And at least let us remember those excellent words of S. Austin Tulius jucundius loquar ad meum Iesum quam ad aliquem sanctorum spirituum Dei I can speak safer and more pleasantly or chearfully to my Lord Jesus than to any of the Saints and Spirits of God For that we have Commandment For this we have none for that we have example in Scriptures for this we have none there are many promises made to that but to this there is none at all and therefore we cannot in faith pray to them or at all rely upon them for helps Which consideration is greatly heightned by that prostitution of Devotion usual in the Church of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to every Upstart to every old and new Saint And although they have a story among themselves that it is ominous for a Pope to Canonize a Saint and he never survives it above a twelve-moneth as Pierre Mathieu observes in the instances of Clement the IV. and Adrian the VI. yet this hinders not but that they are tempted to do it too frequently But concerning the thing it self the best we can say is what Christ said of the Samaritans They worship they know not what Such are S. Fingare S. Anthony of Padua S. Christopher Charls Borromaeus Ignatius Loyola Xaverius and many others of whom Cardinal Bessarion complain'd that many of them were such persons whose life he could not approve and such concerning whom they knew nothing but from their parties and by pretended revelations made to particular and hypocondriacal persons It is a famous saying of S. Gregory That the bodies of many persons are worshiped on earth whose souls are tormented in Hell and Augustinus Triumphus affirms that all who are Canoniz'd by the Pope cannot be said to be in Heaven And this matter is beyond dispure for Prateolus tells that Herman the Author of the Heresie of the Fratricelli was for twenty years together after his death honour'd for a Saint but afterwards his body was taken up and burnt But then since as Ambrosius Catharinus and Vivaldus Observe if one Saint be called in question then the rest may what will become of the devotions which are paid such Saints which have been Canoniz'd within these last five Centuries Concerning whom we can have but slender evidence that they are in Heaven at all And therefore the Cardinal of Cambray Petrus de Alliaco wishes that so many new Saints were not Canoniz'd They are indeed so many that in the Church of Rome the Holidayes which are called their Greater Doubles are threescore and four besides the Feasts of Christ and our Lady and the Holidayes which they call half double Festivals together with the Sundays are above one hundred and thirty So that besides many Holidays kept in particular places there are in the whole year about two hundred Holidays if we may beleive their own Gavantus which besides that it is an intolerable burthen to the poor labourer who must keep so many of them that on the rest he can scarce earn his bread they do also turn Religion into superstition and habituate the people to idleness and disorderly Festivities and impious celebrations of the day with unchrististian merriments and licentiousness We conclude this with those words of S. Paul How shall we call on him on whom we have not believed Christ said Ye believe in God believe also in me But he never said Ye have believed in me believe also in my Saints No For there is but one Mediator between God and Man the Man Christ Iesus And therefore we must come to God not by Saints but onely by Jesus Christ our Lord. SECT X. THere is in the Church of Rome a horrible impity taught and practised which so far as it goes must needs destroy that part of holy life which consists in the holiness of our prayers and indeed is a conjugation of evils Of such evils of which in the whole world of Society of Christians should be least suspected we mean the infinite Superstitions and Incantations or charms us'd by their Priests in their exercising possessed persons and conjuring of Devils There was an Ecclesiastical Book called Ordo baptizandi cum modo visitandi printed at Venice A. D. 1575. In which there were damnable and diabolical charms in somuch that the Spanish Inquisitors in their Expurgatory Index printed at Madrid A. D. 1612. commanded deleatur tota exorcismus Luciferina cujus initium est Adesto Domine tui famuli that all that Luciferian Exorcism be blotted out But whoever looks into the Treasure of Exorcisms and horrible Conjurings for that is the very title of the Book printed at Colein A. D. 1608. shall finde many as horrid things and not censur'd by any Inquisitors as yet so far as we have ever read or heard Nay that very Luciferina or Devilish Exorcism is reprinted at Lyons A.D. 1614. in the institutio baptizandi which was restored by the Decree of the Council of Trent So that though it was forbidden in Spain it was allowed in France But as bad as that are allowed every where in the Church of Rome The most famous and of most publike use
if she be an Adulteress though she be yet she may say she is not if in her mind secretly she say not with a purpose to tell you so Cardinal Tolet teaches And if a man swears he will take such a one to his Wife being compelled to swear he may secretly mean if hereafter she do please me And if a man swears to a Thief that he will give him Twenty Crown he may secretly say If I please to do so and then he is not bound And of this Doctrine Vasquez brags as of a rare though new invention saying it is gathered out of St. Austin and Thomas Aquinas who onely found out the way of saying nothing in such cases and questions ask'd by Judges but this invention was drawn out by assiduous disputations * He that promises to say an Ave Mary and swears he will or vows to do it yet sins not mortally though he does not do it said the great Navar and others whom he follows * There is yet a further degree of this iniquity not onely in words but in real actions it is lawful to deceive or rob your Brother when to do so is necessary for the preservation of your fame For no man is bound to restore stollen goods that 't is to cease from doing injury with the peril of his Credit So Navar and Cardinal Cajetan and Tolet teaches who adds also Hoc multi dicunt quorum sententiam potest quis tutâ conscientiâ sequi Many say the same thing whose Doctrine any man may follow with a safe Conscience Nay to save a mans credit an honest man that is asham'd to beg may steal what is necessary for him sayes Diana Now by these Doctrines a man is taught to be an honest Thief and to keep what he is bound to restore and by these we may not only deceive our Brother but the Law and not the Law only but God also even with an Oath if the matter be but small It never makes God angry with you or puts you out of the state of grace But if the matter be great yet to prevent a great trouble to your self you may conceal a truth by saying that which is false according to the general Doctrine of the late Casuists So that a man is bound to keep truth and honesty when it is for his turn but not if it be to his own hinderance and therefore David was not in the right but was something too nice in the resolution of the like case in the fifteenth Psalm Now although we do not affirm that these Particulars are the Doctrine of the whole Church of Rome because little things and of this nature never are considered in their publick Articles of Confession yet a man may do these vile things for so we understand them to be and find justifications and warranty and shall not be affrighted with the terrours of damnation nor the imposition of penances He may for all these things be a good Catholick though it may be not a very good Christian. But since these things are affirm'd by so many the opinion is probable and the practice safe saith Cardinal Tolet. But we shall instance in things of more publick concern Catholick Authority No Contracts Leagues Societies Promises Vows or Oaths are a sufficient security to him that deals with one of the Church of Rome if he shall please to make use of that liberty which may and many times is and alwayes can be granted to him For first it is affirmed and was practis'd by a whole Council of Bishops at Constance that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and Iohn Hus and Hâ—erom of Prague and Savanarola felt the mischief of violation of publick Faith and the same thing was disputed fiercely at worms in the case of Luther to whom Caesar had given a safe conduct and very many would have had it to be broken but Caesar was a better Christian than the Ecclesiasticks and their Party and more a Gentleman But that no scrupulous Princes may keep their words any more in such cases or think themselves tyed to perform their safe conducts given to Hereticks there is a way found out by a new Catholick Doctrine Becanus shall speak this point instead of the rest There are two distinct Tribunals and the Ecclesiastical is the Superiour and therefore if a Secular Prince gives his Subjects a safe conduct he cannot extend it to the Superiour Tribunal nor by any security given hinder the Bishop or the Pope to exercise their jurisdiction And upon the account of this or the like Doctrine the Pope and the other Ecclesiasticks did prevail at Constance for the burning of their Prisoners to whom safe conduct had been granted But these things are sufficiently known by the complaints of the injur'd persons But not onely to Hereticks but to our Friends also we may break our Promises if the Pope give us leave It is a publick and an avowed Doctrine That if a man have taken an Oath of a thing lawful and honest and in his power yet if it hinders him from doing a greater good the Pope can dispense with his Oath and take off the Obligation This is expresly affirm'd by one of the most moderate of them Canus Bishop of the Canaries But beyond dispute and even without a dispensation they all of them own it That if a man have promised to a woman to marry her and is betrothed to her and hath sworn it yet if he will before the consummation enter into a Monastery his Oath shall not bind him his promise is null but his second promise that shall stand And he that denies this is accursed by the Council of Trent Not only Husbands and Wives espoused may break their Vows and mutual Obligation against the will of one another but in the Church of Rome Children have leave given them to disobey their Parents so they will but turn Friers And this they might do Girls at twelve and Boyes at the age of fourteen years but the Council of Trent enlarged it to sixteen But the thing was taught and decreed by Pope Clement the III. and Thomas Aquinas did so and then it was made lawful by him and his Schollars though it was expresly against the Doctrine and Laws of the preceding ages of the Church as appears in the Capitulars of Charles the Great But thus did the Pharisees teach their Children to cry Corban and neglect their Parents to pretend Religion in prejudice of filial piety In this particular AEâ—odius a French Lawyer an excellently learned man suffered sadly by the loss and forcing of a hopeful Son from him and he complain'd most excellently in a Book written on purpose upon this subject But these mischiefs are Doctrinal and accounted lawful But in the matter of Marriages and Contracts Promises and Vows where a Doctrine fails it can be supplied by the Popes power Which thing is avowed and own'd without a cover For when Pope
and yet Subjects to a Forreign Power But we need not trouble our selves to reckon the Evills consequent to this Procedure themselves have own'd them even the very worst of things The Rebellion of a Clergy-man against his Prince is not Treason because he is not his Princes Subject It is expresly taught by Emanuel SÃ and because the French-men in zeal to their own King could not endure this Doctrine these words were left out of the Edition of Paris but still remain in the Editions of Antwerp and Colien But the thing is a general Rule That all Ecclesiastical persons are free from Secular Iurisdiction in causes Criminal whether Civil or Ecclesiastical and this Rule is so general that it admits no exception and so certain that it cannot be denied unless you will contradict the Principles of Faith So Father Suarez And this is pretended to be allowed by Councills Sacred Canons and all the Doctors of Laws Humane and Divine for so Bellarmine affirms Against which since it is a matter of Faith and Doctrine which we now charge upon the Church of Rome as an Enemy to publick Government we shall think it sufficient to oppose against their Pretension the plain and easie words of St. Paul Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers Every soul That is saith St. Chrysostome whether he be a Monk or an Evangelist a Prophet or an Apostle Of the like iniquity when it is extended to its uâ—most Commentary which the Commenters of the Church of Rome put upon it is the Divine Right of the Seal of Consession which they make so Sacred to serve such ends as they have chosen that it may not be broken up to save the lives of Princes or of the whole Republick saith Tolet No not to save all the World said Henriquez Not to save an Innocent not to keep the World from burning or Religion from perversion or all the Sacraments from demolition Indeed it is lawful saith Bellarmine if a Treason be known to a Priest in Confession and he may in general words give notice to a pious and Catholick Prince but not to a Heretick and that was acutely and prudently said by him said Father Suarez Father Binet is not so kind even to the Catholick Princes for he sayes that it is better that all the Kings of the World should perish than that the Seal of Confession should be so much as once broken and this is the Catholick Doctrine said Eudaemon Iohannes in his Apology for Garnet and for it he also quotes Suarez But it is enough to have nam'd this How little care these men take of the lives of Princes and the Publick Interest which they so greatly undervalue to every trifling fancy of their own is but too evident by these Doctrines SECT III. THe last thing we shall remark for the instruction and caution of our charges is not the least The Doctrines of the Church of Rome are great Enemies to the dignity and security to the powers and lives of Princes And this we shall briefly prove by setting down the Doctrines themselves and their consequent Practises And here we observe that not onely the whole Order of Jesuites is a great Enemy to Monarchy by subjecting the Dignity of Princes to the Pope by making the Pope the Supreme Monarch of Christians but they also teach that it is a Catholick Doctrine the Doctrine of the Church The Pope hath a Supreme Power of disposing the Temporal things of all Christians in order to a Spiritual good saith Bellarmine And Becanus discourses of this very largely in his Book of the English Controversie Printed by Albin at Mentz 1612. But because this Book was order'd to be purg'd una litura potest we shall not insist upon it but there is as bad which was never censur'd Bellarmine sayes that the Ecclesiastical Republick can command and compel the Temporal which is indeed its Subject to change the Administration and to depose Princes and to appoint others when it cannot otherwise defend the Spiritual good And F. Suarez sayes the same The power of the Pope extends it self to the coercion of Kings with Temporal punishments and depriving them of their Kingdoms when necessity requires nay this power is more necessary over Princes than over Subjects The same also is taught by Santarel in his Book of Heresie and Schism printed at Rome 1626. But the mischief of this Doctrine proceeds a little further Cardinal Tolet affirms and our Countryman Father Bridgewater commends the saying That when a Prince is excommunicate before the Denunciation the Subjects are not absolved from their Oath of Allegiance as Cajetan sayes well yet when it is denounc'd they are not only absolved from their obedience but are bound not to obey unless the fear of death or loss of goods excuse them which was the case of the English Catholicks in the time of Henry the VIII And F. Creswel sayes it is the sentence of all Catholicks that Subjects are bound to expel Heretical Princes if they have strength enough and that to this they are tyed by the Commandment of God the most strict tie of Conscience and the extreme danger of their Souls Nay even before the sentence is declar'd though the Subjects are not bound to it yet lawfully they may deny obedience to an Heretical Prince said Gregory de Valentia It were an endless labour to transcribe the horrible Doctrines which are preach'd in the Jesuits School to the shaking of the Regal power of such Princes which are not of the Roman Communion The whole Oeconomy of it is well describ'd by Bellarmine who affirms That it does not belong to Monks or other Ecclesiasticks to commit Murthers neither doe the Popes use to proceed that way But their manner is first Fatherly to correct Princes then by Ecclesiastical Censures to deprive them of the Communion then to absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Allegiance and to deprive them of their Kingly Dignity And what then The execution belongs to others This is the way of the Popes thus wisely and moderately to break Kings in pieces We delight not to aggravate evill things We therefore forbear to set down those horrid things spoken by SÃ Mariana Santarel Carolus Scribanius and some others It is enough that Suarez sayes An Excommunicate King may with impunity be depos'd or kill'd by any one This is the case of Kings and Princes by the Sentence of the chiefest Roman Doctors And if it be objected That we are commanded to obey Kings not to speak evill of them not to curse them no not in our heart there is a way found out to answer these little things For though the Apostle commands that we should be subject to higher Powers and obey Kings and all that are in Authority It is true you must and so you may well enough for all this for the Pope can make that he who is a King
are The Treasure of Excorcisms of which we but now made mention the Roman Ritual The Manual of Exorcisms printed at Antwerp A.D. 1626. with Approbation of the Bishop and privilege of the Archdukes the Pastorals of several Churches especial that of Ruraemund and especially the Flagellum Daemonum The Devils whip by Father Hierom Mengus a Frier Mino. which the Clergy of Orleans did use in the Exorcising of Martha â—rosser A. D. 1599. the story whereof is in the Epistles of Cardinal D'Ossat and the History of the Excellent Thuanus Now from these Books especially this last we shall represent their manner of casting out Devils and then speak a word to the thing it self Their manner and form is this First They are to try the Devil by Holy Water Incense Sulphur Rue which from thence as we suppose came to be called Herb of Grace and especially S. Iohns wort which therefore they call Devils flight with wich if they cannot cast the Devil out yet they may do good to the Patient for so Pope Alexander the first promis'd and commanded the Priests to use it for the sanctifying and pacifying the people and driving away the snares of the Devil And to this it were well if the Exorcist would rail upon mock and jeer the Devil for he cannot endure a witty and a sharp taunt and loves jeering and railing no more than he loves holy water and this was well tried of old against an Empuse that met Apollonius Tyanaeus at Mount Caucasus against whom he rail'd and exhorted his company to do so Next to this the Exorcist may ask the Devil some questions What is his name How many of them there are For what cause and at what time he entred and for his own learning by what persons he can be cast out and by what Saint adjur'd who are his particular enemies in Heaven and who in Hell by what words he can be most afflicted for the Devils are such fools that they cannot keep their own counsel nor choose but tell and when they do they alwaies tell true He may also ask him by what Covenant or what Charm he came there and by what he is to be released Then he may call Lucifer to help him and to torment that Spirit for so they cast out Devils by Belzebub the Prince of the Devils and certainly Lucifer dares not but obey him Next to this the Exorcist is cuningly to get out of the Devil the confession of some Article of Faith for the edefication of the standers by whom he may by this means convince of the truth of Transubstantiation the reality of purgatory or the value of Indulgences and command him to knock his head three times against the ground in adoration of the Holy Trinity But let him take heed what Reliques he apply to the Devil for if the Reliques by counterfeit the Devil will be to hard for him However let the Exorcising Priest be sure to bless his pottage his meat his ointment his herbs and then also he may use some Schedules or little rolls of paper containing in them holy words but he must be sure to be exercis'd and skilful in all things that belong to the conjuring of the Deuil These are the preparatory documents which when he hath observ'd then let him fall to his prayers Now for the prayers they also are publickly describ'd in their Offices before cited and are as followeth The Priest ties his stole about the neck of the possessed with three knots and says O ye abominable Rebels against God I conjure you Spirits and adjure you I call I constrain I call out I contend and contest where ever you are in this Man by the Father Son and Holy Ghost then he makes three †by the most powerful name of God Helâ—y the strong and admirable I exorcise you and adjure you and command you by the power I have that you incontinently hear the words of my conjuring and perceive your selves overcome and command you not to depart without license and so I bind you with this stole of jucundity in the name of the Father †Son †and Holy Ghost †Amen Then he makes two and thirty crosses more and calls over one and thirty names of God in false Hebrew and base Greek and some Latine signifying the same names and the two and thirtieth is by the sign of the Cross praying God to deliver them from their enemies Then follow more prayers and more adjurations and more conjurations for they are greatly different you must know and aspersions of holy water and shewings of the Cross and signings with it Then they adjure the Devil in case the names of God will not do it by S. Mary and S. Anne by S. Michael and S. Gabriel by Raphael and all Angels and Archangels by the Partriachs and by the Prophets and by his own infirmity by the Apostles and by the Martyrs and then after all this if the Devil will not come out he must tarry there still till the next Exorcism in which The Exorcist must rail at the Devil and say over again the names of God and then ask him questions and read over the sequences of the Gospels and after that tell him that he hath power over him for he can transubstantiate bread into Christs body and then conjure him again and call him damn'd Devil unclean Spirit and as bad as he can call him and so pray to God to cast him out of the mans mouth and nose lips and teeth jaws and cheeks eyes and forehead eye-brows and eye-lids his feet and his members his marrow and his bones and must reckon every part of his body to which purpose we suppose it would be well if the Exorcist were well skill'd in Laurentius or Bautunus his Anatomy And if he will not go out yet there is no help but he must choose till the third Exorcism in which besides many prayers and conjurations in other words to the same purpose the Exorcist must speak louder especially if it be a deaf Devil for then indeed it is the more necessary and tell the Devil his own and threaten him terribly and conjure him again and say over him about some twenty or thirty names or titles of Christ and forbid the Devil to go any whither but to the center of the world and must damn him eternally to the Sulphurous flames of Hell and to be tormented worse then Lucifer himself for his daring to resist so many great Names and if he will not now obey let him take fire and brimstone and make a fume whether the possessed will or no untill the Devil tells you all his minde in what you ask him the liver of Tobias his fish were a rare thing here but that 's not to be had for love or money And after this he conjures him again by some of the names of God and by the Merits and all the good things which can be spoken or thought of the Most Blessed