as in the matter of Tradition or Christs Body after the Resurrection 3. He saith that We expose Faith to great uncertainty by denying to Men the use of their Judgment and Reason as to matters of Faith proposed by a Church that is we deny particular Mens Judgment as to matters of faith to be as good if not better than the Churches and to infer from hence that we make Faith uncertain is just as if on the contrary one should say that Protestants make faith certain by exposing matter of faith determined by the Church to be discussed and reversed by the Judgment and Reason or rather Fancy of every private Man We have good store of this kind of certainty in England But as for the use of our Judgment and Reason as to the matters themselves proposed by the Church it is the daily business of Divines and Preachers not only to shew them not to be repugnant to any natural truth but also to illustrate them with Arguments drawn from reason But the use he would have of reason is I suppose to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend and this is not only irrational in its self but contrary to the Doctrin of St. Paul where he commands us to captivate our understandings to the Obedience of Faith 4. He adds We expose faith to uncertainty by making the Church power extend to making new Articles of Faith And this if it were true were something indeed to his purpose But the Church never yet owned any such power in her General Councils but only to manifest and establish the Doctrin received from her Fore-fathers as is to be seen in the prooems of all the Sessions of the Council of Trent where the Fathers before they declare what is to be believed ever premise that what they declare is the same they have received by Tradition from the Apostles And because it may happen that some particular Doctrine was not so plainly delivered to each part of the Church as it happened in St. Cyprian's case concerning the non-rebaptization of Hereticks we acknowledg it is in her power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before not by inventing new Articles but by declaring more explicitly the Truths contained in Scripture and Tradition Lastly he saith We expose Faith to great uncertainty because the Church pretending to infallibility does not determine Controversies on foot among our selves As if faith could not be certain unless all Controversies among particular Men be determined what then becomes of the certainty of Protestants faith who could yet never find out a sufficient means to determin any one Controversie among them for if that means be plain Scripture what one Judgeth plain another Judgeth not so and they acknowledg no Judg between them to decide the Controversie As for the Catholick Church if any Controversies arise concerning the Doctrin delivered as in St. Cyprian's case she determines the controversy by declaring what is of faith And for other Controversies which belong not to faith she permits as St. Paul saith every one to abound in his own sence And thus much in Answer to his third Argument by which and what hath been said to his former objections it appears that he hath not at all proved what he asserted in his second Answer to the first Question viz. That all those who are in the Communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it But he hath a third Answer for us in case the former fail and it is § 10. That a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church doth incur a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance This is the directest Answer he gives to the Question and what it imports is this That invincible Ignorance and he doth not know what allowance God will make for that neither is the only Anchor which a Catholick hath to save himself by If by discoursing with Protestants and reading their Books he be not sufficiently convinced whereas he ought in the supposition of the Answerer to be so that the Letter of the Scripture as interpretable by every private Mans reason is a most certain Rule of Faith and Life but is still over-ruled by his own Motives the same which held St. Austin in the bosome of the Catholick Church he is guilty of wilful Ignorance and consequently a lost Man there is no hope of Salvation for him Much less for a Protestant who shall embrace the Catholick Communion because he is supposed doubtless from the same Rule to have sufficient conviction of the Errours of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful Ignorance if he have it not which is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroys salvation So that now the upshot of the Answer to the Question Whether a Protestant embracing Catholick Religion upon the same motives which one bred and well grounded in it hath to remain in it may be equally saved with him comes to this that they shall both be damned though unequally because the converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so And now who can out lament the sad condition of that great Doctor and Father of the Church and hitherto reputed St. Austin who rejecting the Manichees pretended rule of Scripture upon the aforesaid grounds left their Communion to embrace the Communion of the Church of Rome And what is become now of their distinction of points fundamental from not fundamental which heretofore they thought sufficient to secure both Catholicks and Protestants Salvation and to charge us with unconscionable uncharitableness in not allowing them to be sharers with us The absurdness of these consequences may serve for a sufficient conviction of the nullity of his third and last answer to the first Question As for what he saith to the second I agree so far with him that every Christian is bound to choose the Communion of the purest Church but which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the Doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles That Church is to be judged purest which hath the best grounds and consequently it is of necessity to salvation to embrace the communion of it What then you are bound to do in reason and conscience is to see which Religion of the two hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace that as you will answer the contrary to God and your own soul To help you to do this and that the Answerer may have the less exception against them I will give you a Catalogue of Catholick Motives though not all neither in the words of the fore-cited Dr. Taylor advertising only for brevity sake I leave out some mention'd by him and that in these I set down you also give allowance for some expressions of his with which
between the Church of Rome and the Church of England in these words The Church of Rome imposeth new Articles of Faith to be believed as necessary to Salvation But the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but such as have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self and in other things as that no Veneration is due to Images the Bread is not Transubstantiated into the Body of Christ Saints are not to be invocated c. she requires subscription to them not as Articles of Faith but as inferiour Truths or as Dr. Bramhall Lord Primate of Ireland alledged by him calls them Pious Opinions fitted for the preservation of Unity not says he that we oblige any man to believe them but onely not to oppose or contradict them This then is the Basis and Foundation he lays of his Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion that no Doctrine of the Protestant Religion as it differs from that of the Roman is an Article of Faith that is that no Protestant believes or if he do he ought not to believe as a matter of Faith that the Images for example of Christ and his Saints are not to be honoured that the substance of the Bread is not changed into the Body of Christ that the Saints in Heaven are not to be invoked to pray for us Nay all that he is obliged to by the Church of England is not to oppose or contradict them This being so let us now see what follows from this Doctrine 1. It follows that the Church of Rome does not erre against any Article of Faith because the Church of England as he saith makes no Articles of Faith but such as are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self 2dly It follows that himself does not believe any of these Points to be Articles of Faith Viz. That Veneration is not to be given to Holy Images that Adoration is not to be given to the Eucharist or that the Saints are not to be invocated because to be Articles of Faith with him they must have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and be acknowledged to be such by Rome it self 3dly It follows that after all this bustle to make the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry in these very Points of Veneration of Images c. For ought any Man knows himself gives no interiour assent to any of the forementioned Tenets not even as to Inferiour Truths or Pious Opinions because the Church of England as he cites out of Dr. Bramhall doth not oblige any Man to believe them but only not to oppose or contradict them and it is not likely he defers more to the Church of England than she obliges him too 4thly and lastly It follows that his charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome is vain and groundless for Idolatry being an Errour against the most Fundamental Point of Faith and the Church of Rome according to him not erring against any Article of Faith 't is evident that to charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry must according to his own Principles be the most groundless unreasonable and contradictory proceeding in the World But it is time now to come to particulars onely I must not omit to desire every indifferent Reader to reflect and judge whether Dr. Stillingfleet to render the Doctrine of the 39. Articles digestible to the most squeamish stomack of the nicest Nonconformist have not done a notable piece of service to the Church of England in degrading so many of them as are not acknowledged by the Church of Rome although they be esteemed the distinctive badg of the purity of the Church of England from the dignity of being Articles of Faith into a lower Classe of Inferiour Truths as he calls them which neither himself nor any Body else know whether they have a grain of truth in them or no and consequently are not bound to believe them Nay does he not undermine the Church of England both in her Doctrine and Government In her Doctrine by freeing her Subjects from any obligation of interiour believing her Articles in which she differs from the Church of Rome to be so much as Inferiour Truths In her Government by exposing her Ordination to be invaded without scruple by such as in their hearts judg it Anti-Christian when he tells them her Sense is to oblige them no farther than not to oppose or contradict it Was it not worth the while to rend asunder the Peace of Christendom for a Company of Opinions which though Dr. Bramhall call them Pious yet the greater part of Christians both in the East and West for many Ages have and do condemn for Impious and Blasphemous Is not this a very Rational or rather as Mr. J. S. expounds the word a very Reasonable Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion and a rare way of justifying her from the Guilt of Schism Sure he never thought of charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry when he laid such sandy Principles for his Foundation Principles of so brittle a temper that it was not possible they should bear so great a Charge without breaking and discharging upon himself CHAP. II. Dr. St.'s chief Argument to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry examined and his Preposterous ways of arguing laid open § 1. IT is a known saying of St. Irenaeus and St. Hierom Ep. ad Ctesiphont speaking of those who set up their own fancies in opposition to the Doctrine of the Church that to lay open what they hold is to refute it and certainly it was never more true than in the subject of the present Debate concerning the Veneration of Images the very light of nature teaching that the honour or dishonour done to a Picture or Image reflects upon the Person represented by it This Protestants themselves confess in civil matters as in the Picture or Image of the King in order to his Person and did they not corrupt themselves in those things which they know naturally they could not but acknowledg the same in the Image of Christ and his Saints in order to them For is it an honour to the King to kiss his Picture and is it not the like to Christ to put off our Hats or kneel before His Was it a dishonour to the King to shoot his Picture with Bullets a◠the Souldiers did in the late times as they march'd along the Streets And was it none to Christ to have his Image bor'd through with hot Irons as he was represented rising from the Grave upon Cheapside Cross A Man would think there needed no more but the light of Nature and Common sence to decide this Controversie and yet the Doctor will needs sustain that the honour given to the Images of Christ and his Saints does not redound at all to them but is so far from that that it is no other than down right Idolatry §
Nature or Essence which is properly signified by such a Name The Doctor therefore to give him his due in the beginning of his Charge argues like a good Logician when he would conclude the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry because he says she requires the giving to the Creature the Honour due onely to God But he plays the downright Sophister in the close when he would prove that in worshipping God by an Image she gives to the Image the Honour due onely to Him because if God have given it the name of Idolatry it must receive the denomination of Idolatry Either he must make it out that a meer Extrinsecal Denomination has the miraculous power to reflect against Nature the Honour directed to God from Him to the Image or he must confess that Gods Prohibition of such Worship if there were any may make it indeed to be unlawful but hinders not the Act from tending whither it was intended and consequently if it be intended or directed by the Understanding and Will to God though after an unlawful manner it will not fail to be terminated on God Nor is this to make the Intentions of men to be the Rule of Divine Worship for if God have forbidden himself to be Worshipped after such a manner the giving him such Worship will be a dishonouring of Him though the Giver intend it never so much for his honour Disobedience it will be or some other sin and denominatively Idolatry if forbidden under that name but not a terminating the honour due to God upon the Image unless the Doctor think it a good Argument to prove the Fields and Trees to be Merry Companions because the Prophet says The Fields are joyful and the Trees of the Wood rejoyce These he will say are Metaphorical denominations and so must that of Idolatry be in his supposed Prohibition unless he can prove the Worship due to God to be terminated wholly on the Image and so the Act it self to have in it the true nature of Idolatry antecedently to such a denomination § 9. As for that Courtly Comparison of his that it would be Treason in any man to bow down to a Sign Post with the Princes Head upon it though with an intention to honour him by it a most self-denying Ordinance I confess and not unlike to that rare example of Self-denyal to which himself so Religiously exhorts the Prelates of the Church of England in the Preface to his Irenicum viz. to reduce the form of Church-Government to its Primitive State and Order by retrenching all Exorbitancies as he calls them of Power and restoring Presbyteries as the World is like to want such an unheard-of Example of Self-abnegation at least till Princes can be perswaded that the honour or dishonour done to their Pictures reflects not upon Them and that Act of the Civil Law be repealed L. unica cod de his qui ad Statuas which declares it Treason for any man to deface his Princes Picture So were it enacted it would not hinder the Act of Reverence and Respect from being terminated upon the Prince to whom it was intended § 10. To the Instances I gave in my Reply of the Prayers which Thieves and Murderers make to God for good success of the Jews offering to God the Blind and Lame which he had forbidden and of Cain's offering a Sacrifice to God which he refused to accept all which evidently shew that God's having forbidden such a kind of Worship hinders it not from being terminated on him All that he answers is That these Instances do not suppose any prohibited Object or Means of Worship as he supposeth the Worship of God by an Image doth And here again he falls into the same Contradiction as before viz. that it is the Worship of God by an Image and yet the Image is made the whole and sole object of Worship But to conclude this point 'T is evident that the Image is not made the Object of Worship by the Intention of him that gives it which says Dr. Taylor is that by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions for what he intends is to Worship God by it and the Intention not making it the Object of Worship an Extrinsecal Denomination from a Law forbidding if there were any such cannot make it to be so nor hinder the Act from being terminated on God its intended Object 'T is manifest then that the Major Proposition of the Argument brought by him to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry viz. That the Worship which God denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature is absolutely false and consequently all that he builds upon it falls to the ground But this was but a Prelude to usher in his Minor viz. That God not onely denies to receive Worship by an Image but threatens severaly to punish them that give it Upon this it is he lays the main stress of his Charge of Idolatry how inconsequently though supposed to be as he would have it a Prohibition I have shewed already and shall make yet more apparent by laying open the nullity of the Proofs he brings to maintain it CHAP. III. The mystery of making the same Proposition sometimes an Article of Faith and sometimes none No express Text against Worshipping God by an Image His first Proof from the Terms of the Law manifesâ—ly groundless The Argument from St. Austin's Judgment and the Septuagints translating the word Pesel Idol and not Image re-inforced 1. WHat we are to consider in the first place here is what it is that Dr. St. will undertake to prove and it is this That God in the second Commandment according to his reckoning expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image This is what upon his Second Thoughts for the term expresly was not in his FIRST Answer he undertakes to prove And I cannot but wonder to see it drop now from his Pen who on the one side asserts Scripture doubtless express Scripture to be his most certain Rule of Faith and on the other side denies as I shewed above Chap. 1. any thing to bâ— an Article of Faith which is not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self What may the meaning of this be If it be expresly revealed in Scripture that God is not to be worshipped by an Image it is an Article of Faith If it be not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self it is no Article of Faith but as he calls it an Inferiour Truth or Pious Opinion yet such as neither himself nor any man else is bound to believe there is a jot of Truth in it Is it then or is it not an Article of Faith that God is not to be worshipped by an Image If it be an Article of Faith 't is false what he asserts so stiffly in his Rational Account p. 54. that the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but what are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self If it be
not an Article of Faith 't is false what he affirms so positively here that God hath expresly prohibited it in the second Commandment Which side soever he takes 't is manifest he contradicts himself 2. But perhaps his meaning is that what at one time is but an Inferiour Truth must at another be an Article of Faith according as it may serve to the different ends and purposes he has designed to himself And here if I mistake not lies the Knack or if you will give it so venerable a name the Mystery of the business When the Hedge of the Church of England viz. Subscription to her 39 Articles must be broken down for the good Brethren the Nonconformists to enter in and ravage without scruple her Rights and Revenues so many of the said Articles as are not owned by Rome it self must be a company of Inferious Truths or Pious Opinions not to be assented to but not to be opposed for Unity's sake But when the Church of Rome is to be charged with Idolatry the Pretence with which Ignorant Preachers says Mr. Thorndike Just Weights p. 128. drive their Factions then they are no more Infericur Truths but Articles of Faith expresly revealed in the Holy Scriptures Now would an Impartial Reader to use Dr. Taylor 's expression upon another occasion say upon his conscience that this was not kindly done to make use of the Authority of the Church of Rome to unhallow so many of the 39 Articles as are not owned by her and cast them down into the Class of Inferiour Truths to stitch up the Rent made by the Nonconformists from the Church of England And then to consecrate them again so easily by virtue of this one definitive word Expresly into Divine Revelations against the Church of Rome to make the Breach of the Church of England from her yet wider But what cannot an Irenical Compliance with one Party and a Polemical Animosity or as Mr. Thorndike calls it Faction with another do When the same Proposition as it respects the former shall be rank'd onely amongst Inferiour Truths which none are obliged to assent to and as it oppugns the latter shall be raised to an Article of Faith which all are bound to believe Here then lies the Mystery that the same Proposition viz. That God is not to be worshipped by an Image taken Irenically and in its Paciâ—iâ—k Temper is but an Inferiour Truth because not owned to be an Article of Faith by the Church of Rome but taken Polemically and in its â—aâ—like Humour it must be an Article of Faith because expresly as he says revealed in Scripture And if he will have it so let us see how he goes about to prove it 3. Our Contrâ—versie says he p. 58. being 〈◊〉 about the sence of a Law the best ways we have to find the meaning of it are either from the Terms in which it is expressâ—d or from the Reason annexed to it or from the Judgment of Thâ—se whom we believe best able to understand and interpret it And he will prove from every one of these three ways that it is expresly prohibited in the second Commandment to worship God by an Image It were well he would tell us here first what he understands by the term Expresly For if he calls that for example an express Text which of it self is absolutely clear and manifest and therefore as St. Austin says de unit Eâ—â—l c. 19. Non eget Interprete needs no Interpreter Mr. Thorndike and those other Learned Men of the Church of England who see no better than he have reason to lament the loss of their Eye-sight But if he mean no more but that it is clear and manifest to himself they may hope they see as well as their Neighbours though they see the quite contrary unless They will suffer themselves to be wrought upon by his stout asserting it to be clear and manifest as the Travellers were by Polus in Erasmus his Exorcismus when pretending that he saw a huge Dragon with â—iery Horns in the Sky by avouching it strongly and pointing expresly to the place he forced them out of shame not to see so perspicuous a thing to confess that they saw it also That it is not absolutely clear and manifest of it self the pains and the ways he takes to make it out sufficiently evince And whether it be clear and manifest even to himself we have cause to doubt because the Proposition in debate viz. That God hath prohibited the worshipping himself by an Image in the second Commandment not being acknowledged by the Church of Rome for an Article of Faith the Church of England says he obliges no man to assent to it but onely not to oppose it and yet on the other side every man is bound to assent to that which he sees to be clear and manifest Such frequent self-contradictions are the natural Consequences of a Discourse not grounded upon Truth And although the Reader may think I take a delight to discover them in my Adversary yet I can assure him 't is a much greater Grief to me to see so subtil a Wit so often entangled in them The fault is in the Couse which cannot be managed without falling into them But as St. Austin says Quis coegit ers malam causam habere Who forced him and his Partizans to engage in a bad Cause Nothing of Faith if it be true which he tells us in his Rational Account Nothing of Reason as I shall shew in the Examination of his Proofs 4. The first way he takes to prove that God in the second Commandment hath expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image is from the Terms in which the Law is expressed And what are they in the Protestants own Translation Exod. 20. 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven Image or any likeness of any thing c. Thou shalt not bow down thy self to them nor serve them These are the Terms in which the Law is expressed and where I pray is it expressed here that we may not give any Worship to God himself by an Image The first part touches not the Worship of Images nor of God himself by them but onely the making them and gives matter to Divines to dispute whether it be forbidden by this Commandment to make any Image or any Likeness at all A thing in which Catholicks and Protestants are equally concerned The second forbids indeed in express terms to bow our selves down to the Images themselves but speaks not one word of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of worshipping God himself by them So that in case we have not here another of the Doctors Identical Propositions viz. that to treat a matter expresly is the same in other words as not to speak of it at all it is manifest that to worship God himself before or by an Image is not expresly prohibited in this Commandment Let the Protestant Reader consider this well and not suffer himself to be
and yet do not give the same Regal honour to the Chair as to the King so in like manner we honour Christs Picture or Image and yet give not the same Divine honour to the Image as to Himself but an inferiour Respect and Reverence as hath been above declared The Comparison then you see is onely about the way or manner of giving Honour which may be the same to God and the King although the Honour so given be very different and therefore for the Doctor to tell his Reader that the instance was in a matter of Civil Worship is just as if when St. Austin to perswade his friend Honoratus to believe the Mysteries of Religion without seeing them because he did the like in many things in order to this present Liâ—e he should have answered him that he mistook the case for their dispute was â—not about Humane Faith which is one of those Answers the Adagâ— terms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing to the purpose But though he say our dispute is not concerning Civil Worship yet 't is observable he does not tell us clearly whether he hold it lawful to give any such Worship to the Chair or no. If he do not I grant he proceeds conformable to his own Principles against the Worship of Images and so leave him to dispute it with the Guard If he do the Countrey-man of whom I spake in the precedent Chapter sets upon him with his own Argument that either the honour he gives to the Chair is the same with that which he gives to the King or distinct from it If it be the same then proper Regal Worship is given to the Chair If distinct then the Chair is worshipped with Regal Worship for it self c. and it is in his choice to take which part of the Dilemma likes him best But to press the Instance yet closer If he do acknowledge that Civil Honour is given to the Chair of State let him give a sufficient Reason why a like proportionable Reverence call it by what Name you will may not be given to the Image of Christ This will be to speak to the purpose but that was not his intention and therefore he flies for refuge to a frivolous supposition that I would not say that were any honour to the King in case he had absolutely forbidden it as we have proved saith he God hath done in the case of Images As for that pretty self-denying Ordinance of a Prince's forbidding any Reverence to be given to his Picture or Chair of State which perhaps the Doctor thinks very sit should be enacted in conformity to what God he saith hath forbidden in the second Commandment were it I say enacted I grant as formerly that to disobey it would be to dishonour the King as the disobeying any other Law would be but that hinders not but the Act intrinsecally and of its own nature would be an Act of Reverence to the King for Hâ—nor as the Phisopher saith est in honorante Honour resides in the mind that gives it And for any Command of God forbidding to honour the Images of Christ and his Saints besides that I have shown that Assertion of his and his Partizans to be in every respect groundless yet for the satisfaction of the true Protestant Reader I shall adde one Observation more upon that subject and it is this that the Compilers of the 39 Articles in which is contained the Doctrine of the Church of England sufficiently insinuate they could find no such Command when they rejected the Adoration of Images not as Idolatry as the Doctor doth but onely as a fond thing vainly invented nor as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture as they profess very roundly though without ground when they come to speak of Transubstantiation but as being rather repugnant to the Word of God which qualification of theirs plainly gives us to understand that they had done their endeavours to find a Command but could meet with none for had they made any such discovery either in the Second Commandment or elsewhere in the Word of God they would not have spared to tell us of it and have cry'd it down for flat Idolatry as the Doctor does In the mean time it is pleasant to see what Veneration this Champion of the Church of England hath either for the Compilers of those Articles or for the Articles themselves when what they call onely a fond thing a vain Invention he condemns as Idolatry most damnable Idolatry and Magisâ—erially declares it to be expresly prohibited in the second Commandment when they after the best enquiry they could make pronounce onely Problematically that in their Judgment they thought it to be rather repugnant to the Word of God than conformable to it So much does a Pigmy upon a Giant 's Shoulders the modest Emblem of Novel Wits see farther than the Giant himself upon whose Neck he presumptuously sets his feet § 2. The second Instance was of the Reverence which God commanded Moses and Josue to give to the Ground whereon they stood by putting off their shoes because it was Holy After a short descant upon the former erroneous Ground viz. that he thinks there is some little difference between what God hath commanded and what he hath forbidden p. 105. After this short descant I say and one Note in it above Ela that there is as plain a Prohibition against giving honour to the Image of Christ as in the case of Moses and Jesue there was an express Command to do it to the Ground Alas for the Compilers of the 39 Articles that they could not see it At length he gives Glory to God and tells us that the special presence appearance of God doth sanctifie a place to so high a degree that we may lawfully testifie our Reverence towards it Who will not here admire the force of Truth which after long standing out makes all her Adversaries submit to her power What could the Doctor have said so much to the ruine of his own Cause and the establishing of ours as to confess that Moses and Josue might and did lawfully testifie their Reverence towards the Ground I can easily believe his Passion blinded him so far that he did not foresee the Darts he threw so spitefully against the Images of Christ would recoil as they do with double force upon his own head For a subtil Logician like himself would ask him here whether this Reverence he speaks of were Absolute or Relative that is were testified to the Ground for it self or meerly for God's sake who appeared there present His Answer I doubt not would be that it was not to the Ground for it self but meerly out of respect to God And what would his Opposer do here but first turn his own Comparison upon him p. 100. that this was just as if an unchaste Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the Person she was too kind with was a near Friend of his and
by it to the Bread and Wine or any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood Will the Doctor be so unkind as to make her say that no Reverence at all is due to that Holy Sacrament that this of all things in the World ought not to have been objected against them What! will he make them fall below Calvin in their respect to that Sacrament who saith it is to be received with reverence as the Pledge of our Holy Union with Christ Is it not time now to remind him as I promised above p. 138. how his Beloved Constantinopolitan Fathers call it an Honourable Image of Christ's quickning Body And thereupon invite all those and among them the Doctor unless he will leave himself out as he did these words all those I say to rejoyce and exult with confidence who desire worship and offer it for the Salvation both of Soul and Body Though He stile me very ineptly a Revolted Protestant yet I have so much respect for those learned Persons who made that Rubrick as to think they meant by Adoration what the word now signifieth by use in English that is Divine Worship proper to God alone and not that no more Reverence should be used towards the Bread and Wine in the Church than there is to the Remainder of it at home by some seemingly Revolted Presbyterians I cannot believe them to be truly Sons of the Church of England Now what the sense of that Church was and still is unless the Doctor will have us suppose these Modern Divines to have prevaricated from their Fathers Bishop Jewel tells us in these words We only adore Christ saith he as very God but we Worship also and Reverence the Sacrament we Worship the Word of God we worship all other like things in such Religious wise to Christ belonging The same is witnessed by Bishop Morton Under the degree of Divine Worship we our selvs yield as much to the Eucharist as St. Austin did to Baptisme where he said Epist 164. We reverence Baptisme wheresoever it is Nor is this delivered by them as their private Opinion but as the sense of the Church of England as appears by their words And if you ask how they can excuse themselves from Idolatry you have the Answer of Bishop Jewel that the Sacraments be adored but the whole honour resteth not in them but is passed over from them to the things signified So that it seems I was not much miâ—â—â—ken when to paralel the Reverence given by Catholicks to Images I instanced in that which is given by Protestants to the Sacramental signs by kneeling at the Eucharist for they do not only allow a like Reverence but maintain it also with the same distinction Nor will the Doctor ever be able to perswade his Parishioners out of it till he can make them leave their usual Expression when they speak of this Sacrament that they do not receive it as Bread but as the Body of Christ § 6. The 6th and last Instance was of Reverence given to the Altar by bowing to it a practise of great Antiquity as Dr. Heylin shows in his defence of the Modern Practise of it in the Church of England against Burton p. 25. This Dr. Still saith is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are in the Church And what is this to say Himself admits a Reverence to Holy Places p. 105. and surely the Church the House of God is one of them Here then we find him incline to admit a Reverence due to the Altar and if it be of the same nature with putting off our Hats while we are in the Church as he doth the one so he may lawfully do the other But then as if he had granted too much he presently draws back and tells us This is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship which as far as I can understand the words is not of the same nature with putting off our Hats when we are in the Church but with going to Church when the Bell tolls which is to give no more Reverence to the Altar than to the Bell. But who can unfold the Riddle and tell me what he means by a natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship If he mean by that way the local situation of the Altar in the East which was the way the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship and that Nature teacheth us to direct our Worship that way although the Altar for example in St. Andrew's may serve for such a determination because it is placed in the East yet he must give another reason why those in the Savoy bow towards the Altar where it is seated in the North because it doth not there determin a Natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship which was towards the East But if he mean by that way a like manner of Reverence to the Altar as was used to be given by the Ancient Christians he will find in the aforecited place out of Dr. Heylin that they acknowledged an honour and veneration due to the Holy Altar and testified that honour by bowing and kneeling to it In fine whatever the meaning of the words be to speak to the practise it self either he condemns those of the Churcâ— of England who profess and testify their reverence to the Altar by bowing to it for Idolatry or no. If he do they are at age to answer for themselves If he do not an Inferiour or Relative honour may be given to it for his sake whose Throne it is under the degree of Divine Worship due to God alone and as the allowing this will render him a true Son of the Church of England so the allowing the like to the sacred Images of Christ will make him in this point a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome whose Councils have decreed that we are not to give to the Images of Christ and his Saints Latria or the worship due to God but a honourary respect and veneration as to the Books of H. Scripture and other Holy things But what himself may justly fear should success crown his endeavours in putting scruples into poor simple Mens minds to with draw them from the Reverence they owe to the Sacraments of Christ his Saints his Name his Image his Altars and such like Holy things relating to his Worship is that the Event whatever the design be of his labours will be no other as those Pious and Learned Doctors of Rhemes long since observed and we see at this Day in a great measure fulfilled than to inure Men by degrees to lose all honour and respect to Christ himself to abolish all true Religion out of the World and to make them plain Atheists The Chair of State is not more an Ornament to the King's Palace than the
refell him by shorter Enthymems and longer Syllogisms search in what Mood and Figure he speaks and then tell him how his Consequence flaggs or Antecedent is Ambiguous till he have consumed a hundred Pages in refutation of a Trifle This I confess is a Character of my present Undertaking though not to the full because in the Prosecution of it I shall be forced over and above to lay open frequent Contradictions Calumnies and Mis-representations of the words and sense of Authors which can be no great pleasure nor content of heart to my Adversary to see discover'd I was in good hope to have been freed from this ungrateful task of laying open faults of this nature which cannot be treated of without being named nor named without offence by the fair promise he makes to represent the matters in difference between us truly report faithfully and argue closely And this Hope made me for a good while not exact that severity of quoting Authors which is required and expected in the managing of Controversy But since the necessity he hath drawn upon himself by defending so Extravagant a Charge as that of Idolatry upon the Roman Church hath made him too often forget so good a purpose I must begg his pardon if at length I take the freedome to make the Reader a little sensible of it with that Plainness which the Merits of the Cause will not only bear but require Of which the Reader must be Judge Whether the Laurels he fancies he hath acquired from his Adversaries by their declining as he saith Personal Conferences look as green and fresh to others as to himself I very much question For Meetings of this nature being hardly to be undertaken by Catholicks without exposing themselves to the Danger of being accounted Bold and Insolent and so of irritating His Majesty and the Government against them All sober and impartial Men will easily judge that they may be more prudently declined without prejudice to their cause than Arguments in writing which is a much more peaceable and satisfactory way of proceeding be by their Adversaries who run no such hazard slighted either as Inconsiderable or upon account of business or upon a reasonable Presumption that the Person concerned had already forsaken their Church These and such like may be Prudential Motives to them to slight answering a Paper and also for declining Personal Conferences as sometimes they have been Yet they must not be allowed at any time for such to Catholicks Nay even their modest compâ—rtment towards Authority must go for no other than a Pretence only of hazard though we see a Private Paper as this was from which the Doctor hath taken occasion to make all this noise published in Print with such Characteristical Notes of the Author as might easily discover his Person and in termes so Invidious as were apt to create the greatest Prejudice against him Why else was he stiled and that upon every post corner a Revolted Protestant when Roman-Catholick might have sufficed And why was He made the Proposer of the Questions when the Party concerned proposed them indifferently to both As for the Paper it self which is now become the Subject of Debate what others may have thought or said of its not being answered I know not but from my Adversary's own Relation nor doth the Person taxed in particular remember any such thing Besides I am certain I never communicated any Copy of it but to the Party for whose satisfaction it was written Yet since my Adversary hath thought good to publish it together with his own Answer to the two Questions at the beginning of his Book I have judg'd â—it to do the same before mine not that I except against any thing as mis-represented in it besides some little Errors of the Press but that I conceive it may be some Satisfaction to the Reader in the perusing of this Rejoinder to recur sometimes to the first Papers at least that he may clearly see that the Charge of Idolatry was no way necessary to the Resolution of the Questions as I shall shew more at large in the First Chapter but meerly brought in by Him upon some other Account which I am now to consider The Account Himself gives of reviving a Charge which for many Years had lain buried under the ruins of its own Infamy was as he pretends to Justify more clearly the Separation of the Church of England from the Guilt of Schism For this he saith lies open to the Conscience of every Man if the Church of Rome 〈◊〉 guilty of Idolatry our separation can be no Schism either before God or Man because our Communion would be a Sin This is what he pretends And this Cause indeed as Mr. Thorndike well observes would be more than sufficient to Justify the separation did it appear to be true but then on the other side saith he it charges the mischiefs of the Schism upon those who proceed upon it before it be as Evident as the Mischiefs are which they run into upon it So that should the Church of England declare that the change which we call Reformation is grounded upon this supposition I must then acknowledg saith he that we are Schismaticks For the cause not appearing to me as hitherto it hath not and I think will never be made to appear to me the separation and the mischief of it must be imputed to them that make the change In plain terms We of the Church of England make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation upon this pretence Thus Mr. Thorndike whose Judgment abetted by divers of the most learned and most Judicious Persons of the Church of England and this is thought to be the reason why the Doctor 's Book came forth without the publick stamp of an Imprimatur from any of its Bishops will stand as a convincing Prejudice against him till he can make it as evident that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry as the mischiefs are that have ensu'd upon it This He saw was not possible to be done and therefore laying those Divines aside for Men of more charity than Judgment least he should be thought in so severe a Censure to contradict the sense of his Church which he saith he hath so great a regard to he undertakes to show that this charge of Idolatry hath been managed against the Church of Rome by the greatest and most learned Defenders of it ever since the Reformation But if he have such a regard as he saith for the Church of England Why did he not appeal to her 39. Articles For as himself saith p. 209. of the sense of the Church of Rome that we are to appeal for it not to the Writings of particular Doctors but to the Decrees of her Councils so in like manner for the sense of the Church of England He ought to have appealed to Her Publickly-Authorized Articles But in them the Church of England declares no such thing For we see it hotly disputed between her
Divines whether any of the three Points instanced by the Doctor viz. Veneration of Images Adoration of the B. Sacrament and Invocation of Saints be Idolatry or no and those who side least with that Party which are called Non-conformists are for the Negative Viz. that it is not Idolatry whereas if it had been the sense of the Church of England in those Articles that it were Idolatry to do any of those things they had by maintaining the contrary as erroneous incurr'd Excommunication ips facto as appears by the Canons Printed before the 39 Articles set forth by Mr. Rogers Here therefore the Doctor to maintain his charge of Idolatry to be as he calls it the receiv'd Doctrin and practice of the Church of England is forc'd to have recourse to the Book of Homilies and to the Sentiments of Particular Persons of which he cites no less than Seventeen the greatest part of whom I shall show to be incompetent Witnesses in the case and the rest to speak nothing to his Purpose First then for the Book of Homilies which he saith is not barely allow'd but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times I answer this doth not Evince that every particular Doctrin contained in it is such And therefore Mr. Thorndike speaking of the very Homily against peril of Idolatry here urged by Dr. St. saith that in this particular he must have leave to think it fails as it evidently doth in others And Bish Mountague saith The Book of Homilies contains a general Godly doctrin yet it is not in every part the publick dogmatical doctrin of the Church And Dr. Heylin in his necessary Introduction to Cyprianus Anglicus p. 14. tells us that the vehemence used in those Homilies was not against Images as Intolerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsetled times an occasion of falling But that People being well instructed in the right use of them Images may be still kept for good uses in Churches and for stirring up of devotion in which respect they were called saith he by Pope Gregory and not unfitly the Lay-men's Books As for the particular Doctors he cites I except against little less than two parts of three of them as Incompetent Witnesses in the Case And in Order to this I shall take the same measure the Doctor himself puts into my hand when to show the Testimony of Arch bishop Whitgift to be valid in his cause he premises that none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than He that is I shall cast out of the List all those who shall be found to have been Puritans or Puritanically inclin'd And first for his two Arch-bishops Whitgift and Abbot the Former though otherwise a stiff Asserter of the Disciplin of the Church of England is known to have consented to the frameing of the Lambeth Articles and to have proposed them to the Divines of Cambridge and the latter was so great a Favourer and Abettor of the Puritan Party that to stop them in their full Carreer Dr. Heylin saith it was found necessary to suspend Him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction of Dr. White the same Heylin reports p. 135. that for Licensing Bishop Mountague's Appello Caesarem it was said that White was turned Black Jewel Bilson and Davenant were all excepted against by our late Soveraign K. Charles I. in his 3d. Paper to Hinderson Dr. Fulk also in Matth. 28. 46. is noted for abetting Calvin in his blasphemous Opinion that our Saviour Christ suffered in his Soul the very pains of a damned Person upon the Cross Reynolds and Whitaker are notorious for their siding with the Puritans the latter being a great stickler for the Lambeth Articles and the Former appearing publickly the Fore-man or Champion of that Party at the Conference at Hampton-Court against the Church of England Bishop Usher and Bishop Downam cannot be excused The story of the first is to be seen in Cyprianus Anglicus p. 271. where after many Calvinistical Opinions of which the said Primate was the Contriver in Ireland Dr. Heylin saith he refused to receive the whole Body of the Canons made in the year 1603 because he was afraid of bowing at the name of Jesus and some other Reverences which he neither practised nor approved and p. 216. that his Book called Gottescalchus had run the same Fate of being called in with that of Bishop Downam 's about Perseverance but that it seem'd not fit to put a publick disgrace upon the Primate of a Nation By all which it appears that of Seventeen Authors He cites to maintain his unjust charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome to be the sense of the Church of England no less than Eleven are shown to have been downright Puritans or Puritanically affected For the Six which remain viz. Dr. Jackson Dr. Field Isaac Casaubon Bishop Andrews Arch bishop Laud and King James whoever compares what the Doctor cites out of them with what they write in other places nay whoever attentively considers but the very places cited by my Adversary shall find that they do not impugn the Doctrin it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that Doctrin but such things as they conceived to be great abuses in the Practice of it For Dr. Jackson as cited by the Doctor doth not say that to give a honourary Veneration to Images is Idolatry but to give divine honour to them which he saith the Papists do and the Papists themselves deny Bishop Andrews in like manner giveth for the reason of his charge that the Papists do not meerly pray to the Saints to pray for them but to give what they pray for themselves and the Papists profess they do no such things Dr. Field doth not charge the Invocation of Saints with Idolatry and Superstition but speaks only of the Idolatry and Superstition whâ—ch he thought but not truly was committed in it Arch-bishop Laud also as his own words declare speaks of the practice of Adoration of Images in the Modern Church of Rome which he erroneously affirmeth to be too like to Paganism And so K. James in the place cited by the Doctor had He not so soon forgot his promise of reporting faithfully saith expresly that what He condemns is Adoring of Images viz. with Divine Worship praying to them and imagining a kind of sanctity to be in them all which are detested by Catholicks And all that he cites out of Isaac Casaubon when He was employed by the King to deliver His Opinion to Cardinal Perron in the Invocation of Saints was that the Church of England did affirm that some Particular Practices were joyned with great impiety So that it is not the Doctrin of the Church of Rome if rightly practic'd which these Authors condemn of Idolatry but the abuses they conceiv'd to be committed in the practice of it as to give the Worship due to God to an Image to pray to
it or imagin any virtue or Divinity to be in it or to pray to the Saints as to those who are to give us what we pray for themselves All which are forbidden by the 2d Nicen Council and that of Trent and for other practices which the Dr. occasionally objects they shall be discuss'd in the following Discourse This being so as I have shewn and the Judgment of these Divines differing only as more and less in the same kind from what Mr. Thorndike and other learned Protestants pretend when they reprove some practices as Idolatrous or at least in danger to be such These last Six Authors cited by the Doctor ought to have been alledged for the contrary position of what He affirms viz. That the Church of Rome neither in her Doctrine nor Practice conformable to her Doctrin is guilty of Idolatry For whilst they impeach only some Practices which they judge different from the Doctrine 't is manifest they iâ—ply the Doctrine it self and Practice if conformable to it not to be Idolatrous Here then let the Reader judge whether Dr. St being as He saith by command publickly engag'd in the defence of so excellent a cause as that of the Church of England against the Church of Rome have not betray'd his trust and his Church too if it be his in advancing such a Medium to justifie Her separation as contradicts the sense of that Church if it be to be taken from the sentiments of those who are esteem'd Her true and Genuin Sons and in the Judgment of some of them makes it in plain terms to be Schismatical Which yet will appear more clearly if we consider how this Charge of Idolatry subverts the very foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority in the Church of England For it being a received Maxime and not denyable by any one of common sense that no Man can give to another that which he hath not himself it lies open to the Conscience of every man that if the Church of Rome be guilty of Heresy much more if Guilty of Idolatry it falls under the Apostles Excommunication Gal. 1. 8. and so remains depriv'd of the lawful Authority to use and exercise the Power of Orders and consequently the Authority of Governing Preaching and Administring Sacraments which those of the Church of England challenge to themselves as deriv'd from the Church of Rome can be no true and lawful Jurisdiction but usurped and Antichristian This is what follows against the Church of England from the charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome and so much the more as issuing from his Pen who in his Irenicum a Book very humbly tendred by him to Consideration after the Re-settlement of Episcopacy in the Church of England maintains that no particular Form of Church Government is De Jure Divino but mutable as the Secular Magistrate with the advice of learned and experienc'd Persons shall see convenient for State and Church and particularly that the main Ground for setling Episcopal Government in this Nation was not any pretence of Divine Right but conveniency to the State and condition of the Church at the time of its Reformation citing for it the Testimony of Arch bishop Cranmer and others Mr. Foulis I know speaking of that Book calls Him a Bold Fellow that Published it and affirms that he little understood the compass and merit of that Controversie I like not the rudeness of these and other expressions of like nature He there uses and I forbear to repeat yet I could willingly joyn with Him so far in Charity as to impute it rather to Inadvertence than design in my Adversary did not this new charge of Idolatry seem but too apparently to be but a clinching of the nail which He had driven before to the Head For if the Form of Church-Government be mutable as the Secular Power well-advised shall see reason what greater reason can there be for the actual changing of it than the nullity of its Jurisdiction This hath made me wonder not a little how the Governours of the Church of England could see their Authority so closely attacqued at least so manifestly betrayed by their pretended Champion and not vindicate themselves and their Jurisdiction from the â—oul stain of Antichristian which necessarily follows if the Church of Rome as He pretends be guilty of Idolatry and they derive together with their Consecration their Episcopal Jurisdiction from it But I shall leave these things to those whom it concerns and betake my self to my present business which is to show that the Church of Rome neither in her Doctrine nor Practice conformable to her Doctrine is guilty of Idolatry And this I bid done much sooner had not the Time spent iâ— Transcribing least the Copy should be surprized the Difficulty of the Press which also encreased the Errata and other Employments 〈◊〉 a few for we also are none of those happy Men who have only one thing to mind reâ—arded me in my design ERRATA IN the Preface page 2. line 27. for Pointing read Printing p. 6. l. 8. r. Dr. Taylor that neither p 25. l. 15. r. Question thus put p. 35. l. 30. for with r. against p. 38. l. 8. for couse r. causâ— l. 9. for ers r. eos p. 41 l. 10 r. writings p. 5â— l. 28. r. Beholders p. 64 l 12 r. Irrepresentablenes p. 80. l. 11. for the r. his p. 81. l. 18. f. seat r. State p. 87. l. 6. f. did r. drew p. 92. l. ult r. advantages p. 124. l. 11. add in the Marg. Of the Church li. 3. c. 36. p. 134. l. 3. f. cross r. Cross p. 138. l. 23. r. â—ue that by p. 140. l. ult f. rashly r. vainly p. 158. l. 27. r. Obcaecans l. 27. f. that r. that is p. 161. l. 25. or â—magine r. Imagine l. 28. for Oracres r. Oraces p 172. l. 5. for in r. me p. 178. l. 25. r. in this matter p. 212. l. 27. for honour r. comfort p. 2â—7 l 6. r. Wherefore p. 246. l. 2. r. Begotten Son p. 360. l. 30. f. first r. â—isth p. 363. l. 2. after foâ— Biu put St. Nicholas for Eru p. 411. l. 7. 8. f. Paul r. Paula l. 23. Praises r. prayes p. 448. l. 17. f. Flood r. Floods THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS PART I. Of the Veneration of Holy Images Chap. 1. DR Stillingfleet's 1st and 2d Answer to the First Question shown not pertinent Necessity of Communion with the Church of Rome proved and his Charge of Idolatry overthrown by his own Principles Pag. 1. Chap. 2. His chief Argument to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry examin'd and his Preposterous ways of arguing laid open Pag. 17. Chap. 3. The Mystery of making the same Proposition sometimes an Article of Faith and sometimes none No express Text against worshipping God by an Image His first Proof from the Terms of the Law manifestly groundless The Arguments from St. Austin's Judgment and the Septuagint's Translating the word Pesel Idol and
not Image reinforced Pag. 33. Chap. 4. The Doctor 's Second Proof from the Reason of the Law sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on God's part is assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature pag. 57. Chap. 5. Worship unlawful by the light of Nature equally unlawful to Jews and Christians A strange Paradox advanced by Dr. Stillingfleet viz. What can an Image do to the heightning devotion or raising Affections How far his Devotion to the Sun may be allowed in the Judgement of St. Leo. pag. 76. Chap. 6. Of the Notions and practice of the Wiser Heathens in the matter of their Images The Texts of St. Paul Acts 17. 24. and Rom. 1. 21. explained Some of the Doctor 's Testimonies examined in particular the Relation He gives of what the Jesuites did in China Pag. 95. Chap. 7. Of the 2d General Council of Nice call'd most irreverently by Dr. St. that wise Synod His Constantinopolitan Father's Objections answered by Epiphanius and his Answers shown to be goâ—d pag. 118. Chap. 8. The Dr.'s Objection from the Council of Franckford examin'd and shown to be no advantage to his Cause pag. 140. Chap. 9. Of the Doctor 's Third Proof from the Judgment as He pretends of the Law-giver His Speculation concerning the Golden Calves manifestly repugnant to the H. Scripture and Fathers Mr. Thorndike's Judgment of the Meaning and Extent of the second Commandment pag. 153. Chap. 10. What kind of honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctor 's mixing School-disputes with matters of Faith shown to be sophistical pag. 176. Chap. 11. Of the Instances brought to explicate the nature of the honour given to Images from the like Reverence given to the Chair of State to the Ground to the Ark to the Name of Jesus c. The weakness of the Doctor 's Evasions laid open and His own Arguments return'd upon Him pag. 193. PART II. Of the Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament Chap. 1. THe Practice of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs He brings for it refuted pag. 221. Chap. 2. The true State of the Controversie laid open together with the Doctor 's endeavours to mis-represent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the Adoration of Him as God pag. 243. Chap. 3. Of Dr. St.'s Scruple about the Host's not being consecrated for want of Intention in the Priest and his mistake of the true Reason of giving Adoration to Christ in the Sacrament pag. 256. Chap. 4. His Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity p. 272. Chap. 5. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation With a New Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the words and sense of an Author pag. 294. Chap. 6. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken in the belief of Transubstantiation not answered by Dr. St. The Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in Himself pag. 317. PART III. Of the Invocation of Saints Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Point supposed by Dr. St. to be Idolatry but not proved The disparity between the Worship given by Catholicks to the Saints and that of the Heathens to their Inferiour Deities laid open pag. 333. Chap. 2. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the practice of making Addresses to Particular Saints pag. 353. Chap. 3. What kind of Worship of Angels was condemned by St. Paul Theodoret c. with a farther display of the disparity between the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and that given by Catholicks to Holy Angels and Saints pag. 377. Chap. 4. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Forms used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times pag. 397. Chap. 5. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us shown to be Insignificant pag. 414. Chap. 6. Of the practice of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints pag. 430. The Two Questions whence Dr. Still took Occasion to raise this Controversy 1. WHether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians His Answer to the aforesaid Questions The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick taking that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been horn or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a Man to leap from the plain Ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of Salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be savâ—d as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a Member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or
also the Liturgies and Rituals in a Tongue unknown but to the Learned among them that who will dispute against it must prepare himself to hear the censure of St. Austin Ep. 118. where he saith That it is a point of most insolent madness to dispute whether that be to be observed which is frequented by the whole Church through the World 4. He says The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not In what Council this Doctrine was defined I never read but as for the Sacrament of Penance which I suppose he chiefly aims at I read in the Council of Trent Sess 14. Falso quidam calumniantur That some do falsly calumniate Catholick Writers as if they taught the Sacrament of Penance did confer Grace without the good motion of the receiver which the Church of God never taught nor thought But I am rather inclined to look upon this as a mistake than a calumny in the Objector 5. He says The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is our most certain Rule of Faith and Life Here he calls the Churches prudential dispensing the reading of Scripture to persons whom she judges fit and disposed for it and not to such whom she judges in a condition to receive or do harm by it a discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is no other than whereas St. Paul Coloss 3. 21. enjoyns Fathers not to provoke their Children lest they be discouraged one should reprove a Father for discouraging his Child because he will not put a Knife or Sword into his hands when he foresees he wil do mischief with it to himself or others the Scriptures in the hands of a meek and humble Soul who submits its judgment in the interpretation of it to that of the Church is a Sword to defend it but in the hands of an arrogant and presumptuous Spirit that hath no Guide to interpret it but it s own fancy or passion it is a dangerous Weapon with which he will wound both himself and others The first that permitted promiscuous reading of Scripture in our Nation was King Henry the Eighth and many years were not passed but he found the ill consequences of it for in a Book set forth by Him in the Year 1542. he complains in the Preface That he found entred into some of his Peoples hearts an inclination to sinister understanding of it presumption arrogancy carnal liberty and contention which he compares to the seven worse Spirits in the Gospel with which the Devil entred into the House that was purged and cleansed Whereupon he declares that for that part of the Church ordained to be taught that is the Lay People it ought not to be denyed certainly that the reading of the Old and New Testament is not so necessary for all those folks that of duty they ought and be bound to read it but as the Prince and Policy of the Realm shall think convenient so to be tolerated or taken from it Consonant whereunto saith he the Politick Law of our Realm hath now restrained it from a great many This was the judgment of him who first took upon him the Title of Head of the Church of England and if that ought not to have been followed in after times let the dire effects of so many new Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of it bear witness For as St. Austin sayes Neque enim natae sunt Haereses Heresies have no other Origen but hence that the Scriptures which in themselves are good are not well understood and what is understood amiss in them is rashly and boldly asserted viz. to be the sense of them And now whether the Scriptures left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit as it is among Protestants be a most certain Rule of Faith and Life I leave to your self to judge 6. He says The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as he is ready to defend he should have said to prove for we deny any such to be used in the Church 7. By the gross abuse of People in Pardons and Indulgences Against this I can asseâ—t as an eye-witness the great devotion caused by the wholsome use of Indulgences in Catholick Countreys there being no Indulgence ordinarily granted but enjoyns him that will avail himself of it to confess his sins to receive the Sacraments to pray fast and give alms all which duties are with great devotion performed by Catholick people which without the incitement of an Indulgence had possibly been left undone 8. He says The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn celebration of the Eucharist for a Thousand Years after Christ This thousand years after Christ makes a great noise as if it were not as much in the power of the Church a thousand years after Christ as well as in the first or second Century to alter and change things of their own nature indifferent such as the communicating under one or both kinds was ever held to be by Catholicks But although the Cup were not then denyed to the Laity yet that the custom of receiving but under one kind was permitted even in the Primitive Church in private Communions the Objector seems to grant because he speaks only of the Administration of it in the solemn Celebration and that it was also in use in publick Communions is evident from Examples of that time both in the Greek Church in the time of St. Chrysostome and of the Latin in the time of St. Leo the great As for the pretended obstruction of Devotion you must know Catholicks believe that under either species or kind whole Christ true God and Man is contained and received and if it be accounted an hindrance to devotion to receive the total refection of our soul though but under one kind what must it be to believe that I receive him under neither but instead of him have Elements of Bread and Wine Surely nothing can be more efficacious to stir up Reverence and Devotion in us than to believe that God himself will personally enter under our Roof The Ninth Hinderance of the sincerity of devotion is that we make it in the power of a person to dispense in Oaths and Marriages contrary to the Law of God To this I answer That some kind of Oaths the condition of the Person and other Circumstances considered may be judged to be hurtful and not fit to be kept and the dispensation in them is no more than to judg or determine them to be so and consequently to do this cannot be a hinderance but a furtherance to devotion nor is it contrary to the Law of God which commands nothing that 's hurtful to be done
a Member of some distinct Church This had been a ready way to put an end to the Dispute and give Satisfaction to the Reader and this had been sufficient our Assent to the Articles in controversie depending upon the strength of the Motives But to multiply Disputes without cause without end and without bringing them to Grounds and Principles as it is no good Argument to prove a man not to be fond of Controversie so all the Satisfaction the Reader is likely to gather from it is a despair of being ever satisfied When therefore the Doctor says he had no other end in this increase of Controversies but to let his Protestant Reader see there could be no reason to forsake the Communion of that Church it is much like as if a Mother to deter her Son from travelling into other Countries should tell him there was a great Sea between full of Rocks and Pirates and no Vessel strong enough to venture over Besides that the Countrey whither he was going swarmed with Bears and Lions This is one way to let him see there could be no reason to think of leaving his Native Countrey and this is the Method generally pursued by our Adversaries for want of sound Principles to retain their Adherents in their Communion to make the dangers and difficulties they are to incounter with in that of the Roman seem insuperable and therefore best for them to sit down contented where they are But what if all the dangers and difficulties he raises prove but Bugbears and Scare-Crows This I hope by GOD's Grace to make appear in the following Treatise § 2. His first Answer to the first Question was that an equal capacity of Salvation of those persons supposed not onely in order to a safer Church but in two several Churches supposed equally safe can be no argument to forsake the Communion of the one for the other To this I reply'd that the Answer was altogether impertinent to the Question the Controversie not being between two persons compared with a third in a safer Church nor yet between two several Churches supposed to have in them an equal capacity of Salvation but between a Catholick bred so and a Protestant converted to be so whether the later having the same Motives with the former may not equally be saved with him To what purpose then was it to talk of an equal capacity supposed in two persons compared with a third in a much safer condition or in two several Churches compared to one another unless it were to make his Reader believe that a supposed possibility of Salvation in the Catholick Church was used by me as a sufficient Argument to embrace its Communion Whereas his own telling the Person concerned that however Catholicks who were bred so might be saved yet a Person leaving the Protestant Communion for the Catholick could Not be Saved in it was that which occasion'd the Question A weak but common Artifice of the Doctor and his Party to deter Persons from embracing the Catholick Communion when yet the more genuine Sons of the Church of England are not so cruel as to damn all those who embrace it The Answer then was nothing to the purpose of the Question and this himself seems to acknowledge when he adds Whether it were to the Question or no he is sure it was very much to the purpose for which this Controversie was first started And then having gotten this loop-hole he beseeches the Person who had proposed the Question to propose another and if not for her own sake yet for his to insist upon that he may know one reason at least why the Believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of Rome And this he says he cannot yet procure though he have often requested it Here himself is afraid he may be thought to digress but so earnest a request must not be denied § 3. I remember I promised to speak to this Point when it should be proper viz. in handling the second Question Whether it be necessary to be a Member of some distinct Church where it came in order and I did so though my Adversary takes no notice of it here as far as was pertinent to the present purpose when upon his Grant that A Christian by vertue of his being so is bound to joyn in some Church and to chuse the Communion of the purest I subjoyned that that Church was to be judged the purest which had the strongest Motives for it and then laid down a Catalogue of such weighty Motives for the Roman Catholick allowed by Dr. Taylor To which I added That neither himself in his Defence nor Dr. Taylor when he had a mind to invalidate them produced any thing to weigh against them but a few Tinsel-words and one Scripture-Testimony interpreted by and according to their own Fancy Having done this they sing Io Triumphe that Thou shalt not worship any graven Image will out-weigh all the best and fairest Imaginations of the Roman Church And now let the Reader judge whether he had any reason to say that he could not procure an Answer to this Question though he had often requested it § 4. But because he seems so little satisfied with this Answer as to take no notice of it I shall now enforce it farther with this Argument ad hominem There was in the World before Luther a distinct Church whose Communion was necessary to Salvation But this was not the Protestant Therefore it was the Roman The Major is evident from his own Concession that a Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to joyn in some distinct Church which is not possible if there be not such a distinct Church to joyn with The Minor also that this was not the Protestant is manifest because before Luther there was no such Church in the World distinct from the Roman It follows therefore the Question between him and us being of the necessity of Communion either with the Roman or with the Protestant that of the two the Roman Church was and still is as remaining still the same that Church whose Communion is necessary to Salvation § 5. Again taking the term Roman-Church not onely for the particular Diocess of Rome but for the Churches also in Communion with it as the Head as we generally take it in this Controversie nothing can render her Communion not necessary to Salvation but either Heresie that is an adhesion to some private or singular Opinion or Errour in Faith or Schism that is a Separation from former Ecclesiastical Unity For the first my Adversary himself Rat. Account p. 54. acknowledges as I shall shew before I end this Chapter the Church of Rome to believe all the same Articles of Faith with the Protestant and that the Points in which the Protestant differs from the Roman are not Articles of Faith consequently the Opposite Tenets to them can be no
Errours in Faith with him And for the second if he will make the Church of Rome guilty of Schism he must assign some other distinct Church then at least in being from whose Unity she departed which I think was never pretended I am sure can never be performed As for the Charge of Causal Schism that is the Churches having given just cause for Separation the common plea of all Separatists by Imposing as is pretended New Articles of Faith and some of them Idolatrous as it implies an acknowledgment of the Fact of Schism that is of breaking Church-Unity to be on the Protestants side so till the Accusation be made good and judged so by some other more competent Judge than themselves they stand arraigned of the Crime of Schism also for breaking Communion with the Church of Rome § 6. Lastly not to spend too much time in a Digression and yet satisfie his desire and if not his the Readers why the Believing all the Antient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of Rome I argue thus A Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to be of the Communion of that Church which evidently was the true one and the purest until it be as evidently at least if not more evidently proved not to be so for otherwise he wrongs both his Reason and Conscience if he leave a greater evidence and adhere to a lesser But the Roman Church as comprehending all those in Communion with her by the Testimony not only of S. Paul Rom. c. 1. and c. 16. but of the whole Christian World of all Ages was evidently once the onely true Church of Christ and conseqently the Purest and neither hath nor can be as evidently much less more evidently proved not to be so still since the Testimony of those who do or will deny it is incomparably short of the former Therefore a Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to be of the Communion of the Roman Church § 7. Having thus not only given one but more Reasons to his Demand which I heartily pray may do him good because he requested so earnestly to know them I cannot but reflect how speciously soever it hath been hitherto pretended against the Church of Rome that the believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life is all that is necessary to Salvation yet now there is more required by him viz. to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians by virtue of a mans being a Christian and that he is bound to chuse the Communion of the Purest Church by which I will suppose at present he means the Church of England I hope I may without offence take the same liberty with him which he did with me and desire if not for my own sake at least for the satisfaction of the Presbyterians Anabaptists and other Separated Congregations to know one Reason from him why the believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of England I confess I may be mistaken to suppose him to mean by the purest Church the Church of England It is not improbable as will appear in the following Discourse that he means that of the Presbyterians but let him mean which he will it comes all to the same pass I leave him to satisfie all other Sectaries why they are bound by virtue of their Christianity to joyn in either of those two Congregations or if not in them in any other which he fancies to be the purest Which done I proceed to his Second Answer to the First Question very fitly called by him the main business because it serves him as a Foundation to raise so many Controversies upon as by his manner of treating them may frighten any one that shall but look toward the Roman Church into despair of ever getting out of so intricate a Labyrinth § 8. His second Answer to the Frst Question was That all those who are in the Communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or continue in it because they must be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation This I said was as little pertinent to the Question as the former for though it be supposed that none ought to embrace or continue in the Catholick Church by reason of the great hazard he saith they run of their Salvation yet if they do embrace it why may they not be equally saved that is with equal hazard To this he returns that he is amazed I should say this Answer of his was not pertinent to the Question if the Question were propounded for any ones satisfaction that doubted which Churches Communion it were best to embrace And who can chuse but be more amazed at this Reply which gives no satisfaction at all to the Question For the Question supposing the same Motives and consequently an equal capacity or hazard as he will have it of Salvation in two persons what answer is it to the Question whether they may not equally be saved though with hazard to say the hazard they run is very great And yet of 573 pages his Book contains no less than 544 of them are spent upon this subject Tant◠〈…〉 I added farther That this Answer of his implied a Contradiction in asserting that all those of the Catholick Communion do run indeed a great hazard of their Salvation and then affirming for proof of this Assertion that they must be guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation Which reduced into plain terms is no other but to say they may be saved though with danger and yet indeed they cannot be saved at all To salve this Contradiction he runs to a pretended supposition of wilful embracing or continuing in Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins if unrepented of inconsistent with Salvation But this Salve is not at all proper for the Sore since if the Motives convince the Understanding and the Persons be sincere as the Question supposes there cannot with any shew of Reason be any thing of wilfulness supposed in the Case The Answer then was nothing to the purpose of the Question but onely that it might serve him for an occasion to bring the whole Body of Controversie into the Field and give a treble Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome viz. in worshipping of Images Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints There want not Learned and Eminent men of the Church of England who think the Charge to be over great and there needs no more than his own Principles to make the Metal of his Proofs appear of too inferiour an Alloy to bear it Which thus I shew § 9. In his Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion pag. 54. he lays down the state of the difference
and the other two places I but the word Pesel is oâ— so large a signification that he saith it properly signifies any thing that is carved out of Wood or Stone and being so often rendred by the Septuâ—gint a graven thing it is plain from thence saith he that when they translate it by an Idol they mean no more thereby than a graven Image But what a strange kind of consequence is this that because they oftentimes translate it a graven thing therefore when they translate it Idol they mean no more thereby than a graven thing As if the sense of a word of a stricter signification were to be regulated by another of a larger and not the more ample by the narrower especially in this place where the words Thou shalt not worship them nor serve them are as Tertullian above-cited saith a Restriction limiting the Generality of a Carved Image No assistance then can be given him from hence nor yet from the Alexandrian MS. rendring it glypton in the repetition of the Law Deut. 5. 8. nor its being translated â—ikoon Isa 40. 18. nor yet from the Vulgar Latin using Idolum Sculptile and Imago all to express the same thing Isa 44. 9 10 13. for in all these places as They may see who will look into them there is still some term or clause restraining the words Sculptile and Imago to signifie such a graven thing or Image as is made to be compared with God or to be the Object of Divine Worship that is to be an Idol from whence the contrary to what he infers is plain that when they translate it by graven Image they mean no more thereby than an IDOL As for that final Conclusion of his viz. By which it appears that any Image being made so far the Object of Divine Worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in this Commandment not to spend time in divining what that is by which this appears it is so very mystical the Proposition it self 1. Supposes most falsely that to bow down before any Image though with intent to worship God is to make it the Object of Divine Worship and consequently an Idol 2. It contradicts also what he said before that to do so is Idolatry upon the quite contrary account viz. because it is forbidden as hath been shewn more at large above Let him not contradict Christs holy Spouse the Church if he will not contradict himself much less accuse her of Idolatry for worshipping God by bowing or kneeling before a Crucifix as the Jews were allowed to do by the like actions before the Ark and the Cherubins When he can prove this to be Idolatry from the Terms of the Law or any thing else he will do something Hitherto he hath done nothing there being not any one Term in the Law as I have shewed by which it is expresly prohibited to give Worship to God himself by an Image I advance now to his Second Proof drawn as he says from the Reason annexed to the Law CHAP. IV. Dr. St.'s Second Proof from the Reason of the Law Sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on Gods part assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature § 1. THe Second Proof he brings p. 62. to shew that God in the second Commandment hath expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image is from the Reason annexed to it P. 58. And that he saith the Scripture tells us was derived from Gods Infinite and Incomprehensible Nature which could not be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it I expected to find this Reason because he saith it is annexed to the Law either in the Law it self or in the Preface or in the Commination against the Transgressors of it but it seems he could not find it there himself and therefore he cites for it that Text of Isa 40. 18. To whom will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare to him And that of Deut. 4. 15 16. Take good heed to your selves c. for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you And the Consequence from all is a desire to know whether by this Reason God doth not declare that all Worship given to him by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him This is the Sum of his Discourse apt enough I confess to dâ—lude a vulgar Auditory out of the Pulpit but altogether empty and insignificant when brought to the Test of Reason as I shall make appear in this Chapter The Reader in the mean time may please to take notice that whereas he infers now onely from the Promisses That all Worship given to God by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him and not that it is flat Idolatry he is either grown kind all on the suddain or jealous that his Proof falls short of his Charge since every extreamly-great sin as Blasphemy and the like is extreamly dishonourable to God and yet not Idolatry As for the Conclusion it self whether and in what sense it may be true or false shall be examined below Let us see first what truth there is in the Antecedent from whence he infers it § 2. The Proposition he lays down for the Reason of the Law is this Gods Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it And if this be so what shall we say to one that should represent God in Picture as a Three-Corner'd Light casting out radiant Beams on all sides of it at a little distance a resplendent Cloud of Glory in a Circular form encompassing the Light Within the Cloud near to the Fountain of Brightness Angels adoring without the Cloud Faith and Religion praying and directly under it an Altar with an inflamed Heart offering it self in Sacrifice Would such a visible Representation as this be an infinite disparagement to God or no If my Adversary grant it as he must do if he speak consequently to himself then what becomes of the Church of England For in the Frontispiece of her Book of Common-Prayer Printed at London by Robert Barker 1642. in octavo this very Picture is exposed to the Eyes of all her People and to prevent their mistaking it as intended to represent any thing but God the incommunicable Name JEHOVAH is written in the midst of the Triangular Light and that in Hebrew Characters to strike no doubt a greater respect and reverence in the Beholders If he deny it to be an infinite disparagement then what becomes of his Fundamental Position that God being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to his Nature Whatever Calvin denies
concerning the lawfulness of representing God in Picture we see how far the Church of England allows it in the Front of her Publick Liturgy and there want not other examples not unparallel to this in some of her Churches also So that Dr. Stillingfleet must either condemn her of Impiety i◠making and exposing such kind of Representations to the Eyes of the People or himself of a most gross Errour when he asserts in so universal a manner that God cannot be represented to men in any way but what must be an infinite disparagement to him Perhaps he will say they are not exposed by the Church of England for Worship But that belongs to the Consequence Our Question at present is about the Antecedent whether they may not be made without disparagement to God Besides that himself not onely condemns them for Worship but also in order to the putting us in mind of God which how strange soever it seem he avowedly maintains p. 68. when he affirms That they tend highly to the dishonour of God and suggest mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship But of this more in the next Chapter Let him make his attonement with the Church of England as he can I come now to speak to the point it self § 3. Pictures or Images made with reference to God may be considered two ways either a◠made to represent the Divinity it Self out of an Erroneous Conceit which the Maker hath of it in his mind such as the Anthropomorphites had of God whom they conceived to have Eyes and Ears and Hands and other like bodily parts as we have or as representing immediately such things as bear a certain Analogy or Proportion to some divine Perfections and thereupon are apt to raise our Minds to the Knowledge and Contemplation of the Perfections themselves As when God the Father is pictured as he appeared to Daniel in the likeness of the Ancient of Days to manifest his Wisdom and Eternity and the H. Ghost in the likeness of a Dove to signifie his Purity and Simplicity in a manner suitable to our Conceptions The first sort of Representations are an infinite disparagement to the Divine Nature because being infinite and invisible it cannot be represented as it is in it self by any corporeal likeness or figures But the Second are no way dishonourable to him because they are not made to represent the Divine Nature by an immediate or proper similitude but by Analogy onely or Metaphorical signification as is above declared And if it were no disparagement to God to appear in such or such visible forms it can be none to represent them in Picture no more than it is to relate or describe them in Writing § 4. This premised I answer to the Preposition If his meaning be that Gods Nature being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men either Properly or Analogically but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it I deny it as false God the Father would never have represented himself in a humane form nor the H. Ghost in the likeness of a Dove had it been dishonourable Nor do I believe the Church of England would have permitted the Divinity to be pictured in the likeness of a Triangular Light had she thought it a disparagement But if his meaning be that the Divine Nature being infinite cannot be represented properly as it is by any corporeal similitude I grant it But then the Consequence in virtue of this Antecedent can onely be this that to worship God by such a visible Representation as conceiv'd proper to his Nature is extreamly dishonourable to him And in this we perfectly agree with him but utterly deny what he farther infers without any restriction or reason that all Worship given to God by any visible Representation of him whether conceiv'd as Proper or Analogical is extreamly dishonourable to him Having shown the Proposition it self 〈◊〉 taken in the unlimited Sense he gives it to be false it follows manifestly that it cannot be the Reason of the Law Yet for a more ample discovery of his Sophistical managing of Controversie I shall give it a farther Consideration as it is assigned by him for the Reason of the Law § 5. The Question at present between us is about the Reason of the Law viz. Why God forbad the making a graven Image or the likeness of any thing in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth to bow down and worship it And on the People's part to whom the Law was given it is evident that it was to keep them in their duty of giving Soveraign Worship to God alone by restraining them from Idolatry But this it seems was too plain and obvious a Reason for so Metaphysical a Discourser He seeks therefore another more subtil and elevated and consequently more apt to lead a vulgar Reader into a maze viz. What Perfection in God was the Cause or Reason why he made this Law What he asserts it to be we have already heard viz. That the Divinity cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it What I affirm it to be is The Supreme Excellency of God's Nature to which Soveraign Worship is onely due and not the incongruity of an Image to represent it as he often expresseth it The Question thus stated I prove my Assertion 1. From the Preface of the Law the usual place where the Reasons of all Laws are expressed because the Reason there assigned by the Law-maker himself is this I am the Lord thy God And what is this but I am the onely Supreme and Super-Excellent Being above all and over all to whom therefore Soveraign honour is onely to be given and to none beside me Neither is there any mention at all made of the irrepresentableness of the Divine Nature or the incongruity of an Image to represent it to men But the same reason of his Supreme Excellency is enforced anew from the Zeal or Jealousie which God hath of his honour when immediately after the Prohibition he adds For I the Lord thy God am a Jealous God as the Protestant Translation hath it by which he gives us to understand that the Reason why he will punish severely those who shall give his honour to any thing beside him is because he is the Lord their God to whom onely it is due 2. I prove it from the necessary Connexion there is as of an effect to its proper Cause between the Prohibition of the Law on the one side and the Supreme Excellency of the Divine Nature on the other To make this as clear as the matter will give me leave I must desire the Reader to reflect that although there be no distinction of Attributes or Perfections in God but that All are really one and the same indivisible Perfection with his Nature and consequently the same with one another viz. his Mercy with his Justice his Justice with his Truth and his Truth with
the Church of England For Mr. Thorndike freely 〈◊〉 that he must maintain as unquestionable that the Council of Nice enjoyns no Idolatry And Dr. Field affirms that the Nicene Fathers mean nothing else by adoration of Images but embracing kissing and reverently using of them like to the honour we saith he do the Books of Holy Scripture Whereupon Bishop Montague saith Let Doctrine and Practice go together and we agree Dr. St. perhaps will rank them for this in the same Predicament of with the Nicen Fathers But herein his vanity and presumption will appear though less than in condemning a whole General Council A farther discovery of it he makes in deriding the answers given to the Objections of his Constantinopolitan Fathers Let us see what they are and with what reason he does it § 3. First saith he When the Fathers of the Synod at Constantinople had said that Christ came to deliver us from all Idolatry and to teach the Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth they bravely answer that then it is impossible for Christians meaning I suppose particular Christian to fall into Idolatry because he should have added as the Council doth the Prophets had foretold that all Idolatry should be extirpated by the preaching of Christ his Apostles and his Kingdom was always to continue and the gifts and graces of God are without repentance Which would as well hold saith the Doctor against the prevalency of the Turk as Idolatry among them And is not this bravely answered by the Doctor Doth he think that there are as great Promises in the Scripture for the Turks not over-running Christendom as there are for the Gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church Or that the Church which is Christs Kingdom could apostatize so far as to enjoyn and allow the belief and practise of Idolatry and the Gates of Hell not prevail against it If he will not maintain these impieties to be true nor deny what God hath said by the Prophet Zachary Behold the days come and I will destroy the names of Idols from off the earth and the memory of them shall be no more and this not for four or five hundred years but to the end of the World for the Kingdom of Christ is to continue always and his graces are without Repentance let him give Glory to God and acknowledge his charge of Idolatry to be false and that Christ hath done what he came to do that is as his Constantinopolitan Fathers confess to deliver us from all Idolatry § 4. The second thing he makes the Fathers of the false Synod at Constantinople to urge is That the Devil not being able to reduce the World to the former Idolatry endeavours underhand to introduce it under a pretence of Christianity bringing them again to the Worship of the Creature and making a God of a thing that is made when they have called it by the Name of Christ The words here cited were taken out of St. Gregory Nissen in the Oration he made upon his Brother St. Basil and Epiphanius in the Name of the Council of Nice charges them to have adulterated both the meaning and words of the Saint by putting the name of Christ instead of that of the Son For whereas St. Gregory's Discourse there was against the Arrians proving them to be Idolaters because they acknowledged Christ to be a Creature and yet adored and served and put their trust in him they wickedly pervert his words against the Images of Christ which although Christians retain in memory and reverence out of love to him that is represented by them yet they neither call them Gods nor serve them as Gods nor at any time put their hope of salvation in them as the Arrians did in the Son although they believed him to be a Creature The Dr. thought it not to his purpose to take notice of this Juggle of his Constantinopolitan Fathers in putting the name Christ for Son No it might put us in mind of his own dexterous managing the words and sense of Authors cited by himself as I have shewed in the foregoing Chapter Only when Epiphanius makes the difference between the Arrians and Catholicks to consist in this that the Arrians trusted in Christ and gave properly divine honour to him but Catholicks did not so to the Images of Christ but only worshiped them for the sake of the Object represented by them He comes in p. 79. with a But Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that where any thing is worshipped meerly for the sake of another it must have the same kind of worship given it which they give to the thing represented by it For as Aquinas observes the motion of the Soul towards an Image as it is an Image is the same with that which is towards the thing represented by it Therefore Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers are in the same case with the Arrians whom they acknowledge to be Idolaters § 5. I remember the Dr. in his Preface tells his Reader that his design is to argue closely How much he hath failed in the performance of his design if ever he had any such I have shown in almost every argument he brings And for the present argument there are so many failings in it that a Junior Sophister in the Schools would have given it the name not of one but of many Fallacies For to make the consequence good he ought first to have prov'd that the Nicen Fathers were of the same opinion with Aquinas and his followers or that their Argument was so evident a Dâ—monstration that they could not but be guilty of culpable ignorance if they did not see it 2dly That Aquinas and his followers did conclude themselves in virtue of so evident a proof to be Idolaters or at least they ought to have done so for giving the same Worship or Reverence to Christ and his Image to Him absolutely for himself to his Image relatively or meerly for his sake as they explicate themselves 3dly That the Arrians were Idolaters upon this very account that they gave onely relative Worship to the Son and not properly Divine Worship which St. Gregory Nissen saith they did because though they acknowledged him to be a Creature yet they ador'd and serv'd and put their trust in him as God These things he ought to have prov'd to make his own consequence good viz. Therefore the Nicen Fathers are in the same case with the Arrians whom they acknowledge to be Idolaters But to tell us that because Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers said they onely worshipped the Images of Christ for his sake who was represented by them and because not They but Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that when Christ is worshipped by his Image the same Worship or Reverence is given to him and his Image Therefore Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers were in the same case with the Arrians that is Idolaters is such a piece of Logick if good
he supposed all that were remaining of the Ten Tribes except himself to have forsaken the true God to follow Baal As for the Embassy of the Samaritans to the King of Assyria that a Priest might be sent unto them from the Captivity the reason is plain why they sent to him and not to the King of Juda because they fear'd his displeasure should they have kept Correspondence with his Enemy Moreover they thought the God of Israel to be only a Topical God and therfore they call him the God of the Land 4 Kings xvii 26. as distinct from the God of Juda. Now what the Text saith is that the Priest when he came taught them how they should fear the Lord but there is no mention at all made of his teaching them to worship him in the Calves as Symbols of his presence which was the onely thing for the Doctors purpose had it been there § 5. Having thus answer'd all the Doctors Conjectures or rather Monceius his as to the greater part of them for it is with his Heiâ—er he plows by which he endeavours to make the World believe that the Israelites intended the making of the Calves for no other end but onely to worship God in them as Symbols of his presence and shewn them to be perfectly groundless for a farther discovery of the weakness of his Dâ—scourse let us suppose it after all to be as he would have it It cannot be denied but the Calves were originally Symbols of Osiris the chief but false God of the Egyptians and himself confesses p. 94. that upon this account the Israelites made choice of them for the fittest Symbols of the presence of the true God Suppose I say they look'd upon them as such and that they were condemned of Idolatry for intending to worship the true God in them I affirm it follows no more from hence that God hath expresly prohibited in the second Commandment to give him any Worship by such Symbols or Images as are not the Symbols of false Gods than it would follow from a King 's condemning such Persons of Treason as should pretend to worship Him by honouring the Image of an Usurper that he had expresly prohibited the giving him any Worship by his own Image In fine if this discourse of the Doctors may be allowed for good I see no reason why he might not as well justifie the grossest of Idolaters the Aegyptians in their worship of Lâ—cks and Onyons from the guilt of Heathen Idolatry as the Israelites in worshipping the Calves for proceeding in his way it were but to imagin they could not be so sottish as to believe them to be Gods in the proper sense but that they look'd upon them onely as Symbols of Gods kindness to them in providing them Sauce as well as Meat though out of Reverence to those Deities they would eat neither of them § 6. To conclude this Point of the meaning of the Second Commandment he tells us that the Jews thought the Prohibition to extend to all kind of Images for Worship And I would gladly know whether we must stand or fall by the Interpretation of the Jews It was their Opinion that the Prohibition extended not only to the worshipping but also to the making all kind of Images And will the Doctor therefore condemn the Professions of Painting and Carving as unlawful and as his Constantinopolitan Fathers call them blasphemous Well but Vasquez saith he acknowledgeth with other Divines of the Roman Church that it is plain in Scripture that God did not only forbid that in the second Commandment which was unlawful by the Law of Nature as the worshipping an Image for God but the worshipping the true God by any similitude of him But to whom do they say he forbids it Does not Vasquez say expresly c. 2. that it was to the Jews which the Doctor conveniently leaves out And do not those Divines in the very words cited by himself plainly declare the Prohibition of worshipping God by any similitude of him to be but a Positive Precept when they so clearly distinguish it from the Prohibition of worshipping an Image for God which they say was unlawful by the Light of Nature And if they look'd upon that part of the Prohibition as a meer Positive Precept does he think they thought it obliged Christians Their Doctrine and Practice evince the contrary And if Divines agree not among themselves how far this Precept obliged the Jews what matter is it so they agree that what is forbidden in it to Christians is that which is unlawful by the Law of Nature The opposition then which the Doctor would make between my Assertion and that of other Catholick Divines is altogether impertinent for taking it as a Natural Precept and Immutable they say the same that I do that it onely forbids the worshipping of Idols To what he alledges of the Primitive Christians being declared Enemies to all Worship of God by Images which he saith is at last confessed by Petavius one of the most Learned Jesuites they ever had when he affirms that for the first four Centuries or farther there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of Christians not to dispute the matter of fact of which he confesses there was some little use nor the truth of the Doctors relating the words of Petavius of which there is some little reason to doubt from what he did before with Trigautius I shall give him the Answer of Mr. Thorndike one of the most Learned Divines among the Protestants that at that time there might be jealousie of Offence in having Images in Churches before Idolatry was quite rooted out of which afterwards there might be no appearance And therefore they were afterwards admitted all over for it is manifest saith he the Church is tied no farther than there can appear danger of Idolatry And since he hath given in occasion to mention this Learned Person I shall conclude this Point with his Judgment concerning the meaning and extent of the Second Commandment that the Reader may see how diametrically opposite Dr. St.'s discourse is to the Sentiment of so Eminent a Divine in the Church of England Thus then Mr. Thorndike § 5. The second Commandment setting forth God for a God that is jealous of his People whether they worship him or not manifestly supposeth their Covenant to forsake all other Gods beside him a Contract of Marriage between Him and his People Which if it be so it is no less manifest that the Images which the Precept supposeth are the Representations of other Gods which his People were wont to commit Adultery with by Worshipping them for God For seeing it is manifest how much Idolatry was advanced by Imagery though it may be without it there can be no marvel that there should be a peculiar Precept against it Wherefore it is manifest that Jews by the Letter of this Precept are tied from all Images which their Elders
if the Common-Prayer-Book should ordain the Minister when he goes up to the Communion-Table either to put off his shoes or to bow to it he would scruple much more to go barefoot than to nod to it with his Shoes on Two other pretences of difference he brings not unlike the former The first that in kising the Ground or bowing to it if these things had been done to the Ground the danger had not been so great as to Images The other that the Reverence of Holy Places and Things is of a quite different nature from the Worship of Images For the first of danger he may leave that as Mr. Thorndike hath told him to the Judgment of the Church And for the second Holy Places and Things may have several Relations to God according to the different uses for which they serve in order to his Worship and yet the Reverence given them may be proportionably alike that is an inferiour Respect and Veneration and not Latria which is due to God alone But how different soever he would make it from that of Images he must not think to escape For if any be due at all to Holy Places and Things I suppose it is given them for God's sake and then all his own Arguments return upon him afresh for either it is the same which is given to God or distinct from it and which way soever he take Bellarmin or Vasquez will be upon him Or none at all is due to them and then he mocks his Reader when he tells him that the Reverence of Holy Places and Things is of a quite different nature from the Worship of Images And this is indeed what lies at the bottom how speciously soever he pretend the contrary here in words as will manifestly appear from his Answers to the following Instances For first § 3. To that of the Reverence given by the Jews to the Ark and the Holy of Holies where the Cherubins and Propitiatory were he plainly enough denies that any was given them To prove there was I produced first that Text of the Psalm Adore ye the foot-stool of God for it it is holy Psal xcviii 5. as all the Ancient Fathers read it without scruple or as their own Translation hath it Fall down before his Foot-stool for He the Margin hath it It is holy And secondly the Testimony of St. Hierom who saith expresly Ep. 17. ad Marcel Venerabantur olim that the Jews in times past did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies because there were the Cherubins the Propitiatory the Ark c. To neither of these doth he vouchsafe any Answer at all but with an Ipse dixit tells us p. 106. that the Jews onely directed their Worship towards that place where God had promised to be signally present among them and signifies no more to the Worship of Images than our lifting up our Eyes to Heaven doth when we pray Thus He Oracularly without either Scripture or Father or Reason to abet him But if Moses and Josue might lawfully testifie their Reverence to the Ground because it was holy why might not the Jews do as much to the Foot-stool of God because that also was holy Why was it placed in the Holy of Holies and why were the People commanded to adore or bow down before it but to testifie their Reverence to it and that a much greater in the Doctors opinion than putting off their shoes for they were to adore it or fall down before it and all this I hope signifies something more to the Worship of Images than the lifting up our Eyes to Heaven doth when we pray which might have been as well if not better without all this Ceremony in an open field For the Cherubins he tells That they were always hid from the sight of the People as if nothing could have Reverence given it but what is seen It may reasonably be presumed that himself will charge us with Idolatry for adoring the Host not onely when we see it upon the Altar but when it is recluded in a Tabernacle or covered with a Veil Nor doth he mend the matter when he says That the High Priest himself went into the Holy of Holies but once a year for if at that time it were lawful for him to testifie Reverence to the Throne of God there placed it is as much as we desire and if unlawful it was more than he ought to have done though but once a year for as St. Hierom saith Quod semel fecisse bonum est non potest malum esse si frequenter fiat aut si aliqua culpa vitanda est non ex eo quod saepe sed ex eo quod â—it aliquando culpabile est What he adds of the Cherubins being placed meerly as Appendices to the Throne of God was a means rather to increase than diminish the people's reverence to them and for their form there needed no more be known than what Calvin in Exod. xxv 18. affirmeth of them That they represented Angels § 4. To bowing at the Name of JESUS This Ceremony was appointed and allowed by the Injunctions made in the time of Queen Elizabeth Art 52. and was defended by Dr. Whitgift in his Defence against Cartright by Dr. Fulk Dr. Andrews whose words are cited below and others and is at this day publickly practised in the Church of England and that in Dr. St.'s own sight by such as esteem themselves the onely true and genuine Sons of that Church This Instance I thought to be very pertinent because first it is allowed by Protestants and so more easily understood and secondly because of the Analogy there is between Words and Pictures a Picture being a Word to the Eye and a Word as Aristotle calls it a Picture to the Ear. Another reason I had also because the Doctor being inoculated into the Church of England or to speak his Dialect a Revolted Presbyterian I thought he would not dare to disavow all reverence to the Sacred Name of JESUS But I find I was deceived for he tells me plainly I might as well have instanced in going to Church at the Toll of a Bell as in bowing at the Name of Jesus for as the one only tells us the time when so the other only puts us in mind of the Person whom we are to worship This is plain enough I confess if it be as mannerly to tell us that no more Reverence is due to the most H. Name of JESUS when we hear it spoken than to a Bell when we hear it toll And the Compariâ—on is somewhat more elevated than if he had made it with Whittington's fancying the Bells to call him back to be Lord Maior of London But was this all that St. Paul meant when he told us That at the Name of Jesus or as Dr. St. himself reads it p. 111. To the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow Phil. ii 10. Was it for this that God so highly exalted Him that He gave Him
a Name which is above every Name that it might have as much Reverence given It as we give to great Meg of Westminster What would Bishop Andrews have said had he lived to hear this Verily saith He in his Sermon upon the foregoing words of St. Paul God will not have us worship him like Elephants as if we had no Joynts in our Knees He will have more honour of men than of the Pillars of the Church He will have us to bow our Knees and let us bow them in God's Name and To his Name For this is another Prerogative He is exalted to whose Person Knees do bow but He to whose Name onely much more But the cause is here otherwise For his Person is taken up out of our sight all we can do will not reach unto it But his Name he hath left behind to us that we may shew by our Reverence and Respect to it how much we esteem him How true the Psalm shall be Holy and Reverend is his Name But if we have much ado to get it bow at all much more shall we have to get it done to his Name There be that do it not what speak I of not doing it There be that not onely forbear to do it themselves but put themselves to an evil Occupation to find faults where none is and cast scruples into mens minds by no means to do it And again a little after But to keep us to the Name This is sure the words themselves of St. Paul are so plain as they are able to convince any mans Conscience And there is no Writer not of the Ancient on this place that I can find save he that turned all into Allegories but literally understands it and likes well enough we should actually perform it Thus Dr. Andrews a very Learned Bishop of his Church as Dr. St. himself calls him p. 101. And can any legitimate Son of that Church hear him preach that no more Reverence is due to the Name of JESUS than to the tolling of a Bell and yet cry him up hereafter for a Pillar of that Church unless it be in the Bishop's sense above-mentioned whose practise he exposes as ridiculous by so unhandsome a Comparison I remember at the beginning of the Long Parliament one of the first Wounds given to the Church of England was from a Book whose Title as I read it posted up in Westminster-Hall was Jesu-Worship Confuted and whether the same might not have been put for a Marginal Note to this Answer of the Doctors I leave to Judgment of the Reader Give me leave to speak a Word to you Sons of the Church of England what if the Doctor should come upon you for reverencing the Name of JESUS with your Hat or Knee as he doth upon us for honouring in like manner his Image viz. p. 102. that the Reverence you give to that Holy Name is either the same you give to God or distinct from it If it be the same then you give proper divine worship to the Name and if it be distinct then the Name is worshipped with divine worship for it self and it is in your choice what sort of Idolatry you will commit who worship the Name of JESUS but neither way can you avoid it If you tell him that the Reverence you give that H. Name is not the worship due to God but a Relative and inferiour respect for his sake he will tell you again as he did me in the case of Images p. 100. that this is just as if an unchast Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the Person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a dear friend of his nay had his very name and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his Bed I do not hear that he hath press'd this argument upon you and if he do not I cannot but wonder his zeal for God's honour suffers you so long to go on in your Idolatrous practise and much more if he comply with you himself in shewing any reverence to that Name for though like a wiser Christian there being degrees among Christians as well as Heathens he differ extreamly from the Vulgar in his Opinion of Religion yet this is to concur with them in the external practise of their Idolatry and so he falls under the same censure with his wiser Heathens p. 73. On the other side if he do it noâ— Bishop Andrews hath told him he hath just reason to fear least the Knee that will not bow be strucken with something which shall make it not able to bow and for the Name that they that will do no honour to it when time of need comes shall receive no honour by it But to conclude this Point If it be the sense of the Sons of the Church of England that they intend to give no more reverence to the most Holy Name of Jesus when they hear it read than to a Bell when they hear it toll I confess I was mistaken in alledging this Practise of theirs for an Instance But if they acknowledge more is due to that sacred Name than to a Bell and yet not so much as is due to God himself I have the end for which I brought it which was to let them see what kind of worship it is we give to the Images of Christ such as is given by themselves to the Name of Jesus For we make Images no more the Objects of our worship when we kneel before them than they do that Holy Name when they bow at it § 5. The Fift Instance was of the Reverence given to the Sacramental signs in the Supper by kneeling before them which if the Bread and Wine had any sense in them as he saith of Images p. 102. would think were done to them And what saith my Adversary to this Marry that this of all things should not be objected to them If you ask him why He tells you because they have declared in their â—ubrick after the Communion that thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Dread and Wine there bodily received or any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored For that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians I confess I reflected up in this Rubrick when I put down Kneeling at the Eucâ—arist for an Instance but I could not imagin the Doctor would make it a matter of Triumph over the Church of England It is not yet more than a dozen years since this Rubrick was inserted into the Communion Book and the occasion is well known to have been a design to gain scrupulous and dissenting Parties to a conformity in so innocent a Ceremony And because the Church of England hath been so kind to those who dissented from her as to declare no adoration is intended
Council teaches is that It is good and profitable for Christians humbly to invocate the Saints and to have recourse to their Prayers aid and assistance wher by to obtain benefits of God by his Son our Lord Jesus Christ who is our only Redeemer and Saviour These are the very words of the Council and any Man but of common Reason would think it were as easy to prove Snow to be black as so Innocent a practice to be Idolatry even Heathen Idolatry What we teach and do in this matter is to desire the Saints in Heaven to pray for us as we desire the prayers of one another upon Earth and must we for this be compared to Heathens Do we not acknowledg that Jesus Christ the Son of God is our only Redeemer and Saviour Do we not confess that what Benefits we obtain of God either by our own or others Prayers must come by the merits of Him our only Redeemer Do we not believe that God needs neither our own Prayers nor the Prayers of others to confer his Benefits upon us but that all the need is on our part and all that we can do either by our own Prayers or humbly begging the Prayers of others is little enough to make us capable of his Favours Do we not profess to all the World that we look upon the Saints not as Gods but as the Friends and Servants of God that is as just Men whose Prayers therefore are available with him And that we worship them only with that worship of Love and Communion with which even in this life also Holy men of God are worshipped whose hearts we judge prepared to lose their Lives for the truth of the Gospel Where then lies the Heathenism Where lies the Idolatry Had the Doctor held himself to the Doctrine of the Church of England which terms the Invocation of Saints a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture there had been some colour for a dispute against the lawfulness of it But to condemn us of Idolatry down-right Idolatry for desiring the Servants of God in Heaven to pray for us was to put the common size of Intelligent Readers quite out of hopes of ever seeing it proved He says indeed in his Preface that He thinks it no great skill to make things appear either ridiculous or dark and here He gives us a very pregnant Example of what himself can do in that kind § 2. The Argument he made choice of to do this Feat that is to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry in the Invocation of Saints was this If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathens worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for they still pretended they did not give to them the worship proper to the supreme God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in Justification of the Invocation of Saints To this I answer'd two ways in my Reply 1. By shewing the disparity of Catholicks worship from that of the Heathens in two things 1. In the Objects where I said that by Persons of a middle excellency we understand Persons endowed with supernatural gifts of grace in this life and glory in Heaven whose Prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God But the supreme Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deuits Venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls thâ—m and therefore there can be no consequence that because the Heathens were Idolaters in the worship of these though they pretended not to give them the worship proper to Jupiter the supreme God therefore Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him 2. In the manner of worship because I said if any of the Heathens did attain as the Platonists to the knowledge of the true God yet as St. Paul saith they did not glorify him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible Man adorâ—â—g and offering sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them which St. Austin upon the 96. Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods What he meant by formal Invocation I said I did not well understand but Catholicks I told him understand no more by it in this matter but desiring or praying the Saints to pray for them And if this were Idolatry we must not desire the Prayers of a just Man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity 2. I answer'd that the same Calumny was cast upon the Catholicks in St. Austin's time and is answered by him and his Answer will serve as well now as then in his Twentieth Book against Faustus Chap. 21. who himself held such formal Invocation a part of the Worship due to Saints as is evident from the Prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdome l. 7. de Bapt. c. Donat. c. 1. And Calvin himself confesseth it was the custome at that time to say Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for Us. This indeed was my Answer and to disprove it he undertakes to show two things 1. That the disparity between Catholicks worship of Saints and the Heathens worship of their inferiour Deities is not so great as to excuse them from Idolatry 2. That the Answer given by St. Austin doth not vindicate them now as well as then § 3. 1. Concerning the disparity 1. As to the Object of Worship he abhors from his heart to parallel the Hâ—ly Angels and Saints with the impure Deities of the Heathens as to their Excellencies No. He hath more honour for them than not to think them more excellent than Devils or wicked Wretches I suppose in case they have the testimony of Scripture for their sanctity otherwise it may go hard with the best of them should he proceed in the same form with all the rest as he doth a little below with St. Ignatius But supposing them at present to be more excellent than the impure Deities of the Heathens yet if the Idolatry of the Heathens saith he lay not only in this that they worshipped Jupiter and Venus and Vulcan who are supposed to have been wicked Wretches but in this that they gave Divine Worship to any besides God then this disparity cannot excuse Catholicks from being Idolaters Behold here the ground upon which he intends to build his Charge of Idolatry Viz. That Catholicks give divine honour to the Holy Angels and Saints This is what the Reader must suppose otherwise his Arguments are at an End and having laid this false and scandalous supposition instead of proving it he undertakes to show out of the Primitive Fathers that it was the
to make the breach bigger already too wide Thus St. Austin and Bishop Mountague and were they alive they might justly â—ear that for these singular fancies or superstitious Caprichio's as the Doctor calls them they should â—all under his lash of being accounted Men of mere Charity than Judgment CHAP. IV. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Formes used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times § 1. THe Doctor having made use in his Answer to the two Questions of the equivocal term of Formal Invocation to amuze his Reader I reply'd I understood not well what He meant by Formal Invocation but withall I told him that what Catholicks understand by it in the present matter is desiring or praying those just Persons who are in Glory in Heaven to pray for them To shew the palpable weakness as he calls it of this Answer he says he will prove that those of the Church of Rome do allow and practice another kind of Formal Invocation from what I assert and I think he never betrayed more paâ—pably the weakness of his own cause than in this undertaking Let the Reader judge § 2. First then he says that Never any Person before me imagin'd that to be the sense of Formal Invocation which I do when I say that what we understand by it is desiring or praying the Saints to pray for us And 〈◊〉 Himself in the very next words declarâ—s that he imagins the very same sense of it that I do when he says that the term of Formal Invocation was purposely chosen by Him to distinguish it from Rhetorical Apostrophes Poetical Flourishes and general wishes that the Saints would pray for us and from Assemblies at the Monuments of the Martyrs of all which he grants there are some instances in good Authors Viz. the Chief Fathers both of the Greek and Latin Church For what is this but to tell us that he means by Formal Invocation as I do a real address of our minds to the Saints themselves to help us with their Prayers 'T is true indeed what He would have his Reader to understand by it is what he says is constantly practis'd in the Roman Church to offer up our Prayers to Saints and Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us But what doth he say then to the Forme of Prayer used by us in the Letanies Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us Is it only a Rhetorical Apostrophe Poetical Flourish or general wish that the Saints would pray for us Or is it more If it be no more Why does he impugne what he grants was used by those good Authors If it be more 't is then a part at least of Formal Invocation as defin'd by Himself And if when we pray them to help our necessities the meaning be that they should do it by their Prayers the whole sense of Formal Invocation in this present matter is to desire them to pray for us so that though never any Person before me imagin'd this to be the sense of it yet now I have the Doctor himself concurring with me in it But to pass on to the Proofs of his Assertion § 3. All the difficulty he says p. 163. lies in this whether Catholicks pray to the Saints to help their necessities as well as pray for them that is whether besides the usual form of saying Holy Mary pray for us we do not sometimes vary the Phrase and say Help me or comfort and strengthen me O B. Virgin for as for the meaning of the words I never yet met with any Catholick so Ignorant as not to understand the sense to be to desire them to help us with their Prayers Behold then here the terrible Mystery not to be made known to Proselites saith the Doctor until they be first made safe and fast enough Viz. that sometimes they may use the like form of words to God and the Saints as a Child does to his Father when instead of saying Pray Father Pray to God to bless me he saith sometimes Bless me Father But Catholicks he saith p. 163. do this with all the same external signs of devotion which they use to God Himself And can he excuse a Child from Idolatry when he kneels down with the same external sign of devotion which we use to God and saith Bless me Father because he saith it in a different sense to his Father than he doth to God and will he not upon the same account be as charitable to us when with the like external sign of devotion we say Bless me or help me Mother of God Mr. Thorndike in all his discourses shows his unwillingness to free the Practise of the Church of Rome in this matter from Idolatry yet convinc'd by the Evidence of Truth he confesses that the Church of England having acknowledg'd the Church of Rome a true Church though corrupt ever since the Reformation he is oblig'd so to interpret the Prayers thereof as to acknowledge the corruption so great that the Prayers which it alloweth may be Idolatries if they be made in that sense which they may properly signify but not that they are necessarily Idolatries For if they were necessarily Idolatries then were the Church of Rome necessarily no Church the being of Christianity prâ—supposing the worship of one true God And although to confute the Hereticks the style of Modern devotion he saith leaves nothing to God which is not attributed to and desired of his Saints yet it cannot be denyed they may be the words of them who believe that God alone can give that which they desire And if this cannot be denyed where is the Doctor 's either Charity or Sincerity to interpret these or the like words Help me Mother of God in the same sense they carry when we say Help me GOD § 4. But what do I do expecting Charity from Him who makes it superstitious Fanaticisme or at best but Fanciful singularity in others The excess not of his Judgment but Zeal if we must call it so hath quite eaten up his Charity And every thing he meets with that is not down-right Ora pro nobis must now be Idolatrous or Blasphemous Nay it is enough he hath heard of our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book he saith never yet censured wherein the Psalms in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the Virgin Mary But what or whose Book soever that be which I first had news of from Himself his only hearing of it argues that it is no publick Devotion of the Church and so not to be charg'd upon Her And did it contain Blasphemy as he saith it doth and were publickly known no doubt it had been censured before this But then again as we are not to take all for Gospel so neither are we to take all for Blasphemy which the Doctor calls so Every one saith Aristotle judgeth