them after they are dead without Repentance It is enough for you to know y Rich. ibid. she doth it And what might she not do for these Villains since she can with her two Angels be a Midwife z Discipulus De Miracul Mar. Tom. 2. Serm. Exempl 25. Palbart l. 21. c. 13. to very whores your main Interest is to see in return of these great Mercies Kindnesses and Protections what Services now she will have CHAP. VI. Concerning the Adoration and new Waies of serving the Virgin Mary WHEN the Roman Doctors are among themselves either worshipping at their Altars or discoursing in their Pulpits or teaching in their public Scholes they freely talk of adoring a Vid. Concil Nicenum 2. the blessed Saints they think them to be Canonized most principally for this end that they may publicly b Antonin Sum. part 3. l. 22. c. 8. be adored and praied to and they highly commend the Greek who at his first Conversion professed that he did c Salazar Prov. c. 8. v. 15. n. 114. adore from his heart our Lady the Queen of the world And their S. Damascen is herein their great Goliah driving before him all the Fathers with this weapon Decet enim c. It must be so f Damasc 1. De Nativ 2. de Assumt or t is fitting that this Mother of God should enjoy that which belongs to her Son and therefore the Glory of being adored by all men But when the Papists are amongst us tho they keep still their hearty thoughts they do quite reform their Language they are ashamed to say in England what they are proud to do at Rome If you believe what they say here it was never heard in their Church that they must adore any Saint g Censura Colon. p. 228. unless by chance it be in that sense in which Jacob adored his Brother and Abigail King David which is no Divine honor at all but only such a reverence as is deferred h Coster in Enchirid. to Kings or Fathers or such honorable Persons and therefore and justly too why not to Saints And if you be inquisitive and press them farther about this Point then they will run out into so many Distinctions and terms of Art as will puzle any Lay-man Dulia Latria hyperdulia Absolute and Relative Worship Divine Adoration and bordering upon Divine Godhead essential and Godhead participated so that it will go very hard with them if they do not leave him whom they pretend to satisfie as ignorant and more confounded then he was before They will tell you that they intend not either to adore the Virgin or to adore her otherwise then respectively that it is in a mere relation to her Son and those Intentions being in their hearts it is impossible there to search out either the Truth or the untruth of what they say But if you look to what they do instead of hearkning to what they say their most solemn and practical Devotions have such a plain and real language as must declare to all the world both what their Religion is in it self and what you may best think of it 1. First they bestow and accumulate upon the Virgin all the best Titles which both in the Church and in the Scripture are proper to God For in their most solemn Devotions she is a She God a She Savior the Queen of Queens the Fountain of Salvation the Ladder and Gate of Heaven c. And it were great folly in us to think that they do not worship her according to what they call her since it is not in such Rencounters that men use to play the Hypocrites 2. Secondly in their ordinary Praiers and Praises and Giving of Thanks they do most commonly join her with God Jesu Maria comes in one word out of their Mouths and Glory be to God and to the blessed Virgin is but one compleat Doxologie at the end of most of their Books Now such an Association as this is in the judgment of the Fathers a clear Evidence of being God Thus they prove i Athanas Orat. 4. contr Arian pag. 260. Edit Comel against the Arians that the Angel whom Jacob praied to when he blessed his Grand-children Gen. 48.16 is the Lord Christ because in that praier he is joined with the God of his Fathers and that this Christ is very God k Ibid. p. 159. because the Apostles join him with God both in their Praiers and their Praises Grace be to you and Peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Rom. 1.7 c. The strength of their Demonstration consists in this that in all those daies both when the Prophets and Apostles did write the Holy Scriptures and when the holy Fathers did maintain the Faith which is contained in them no man was seen or heard praying l Athanas suprà Cyrill Alexand. Tom. 5. in Thesaur pag. 115. Ed. Paris 1638. for any thing both to the Father and to an Angel or to any other Creature for Popery was not yet abroad nor wishing that God or his Angel or any greater Creature whatsoever would grant or give him any thing And they take it for an insufferable piece of m Cyrill Alex. ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sawciness when the Arians dare couple as upon their Principles they do any Creature with the Lord God Such was the known Catholic Faith and Profession of the Primitive times for otherwise judicious and learned Men would not have produced it in that manner as an undoubted Evidence against such subtil and dangerous adversaries Now both the Roman Faith and practice taking a quite contrary way we I hope are more bound to think that the Papists who follow this are Idolaters then that the holy Fathers who went on in that were very Fools 3. Thirdly The Papists apply to the Virgin the most illustrious Places of Scripture that belong directly to Christ and by this means either disable all true Christians from the possibility of proving by the Scriptures that He is God or prove as well that She is so too I will mention out of many but few Instances Every word almost of the eighth Chapter of the Proverbs which doth describe the Eternal Wisdom of God which by the Fathers is applied to Christ alone and which is none of the least cogent Mediums they stand upon to demonstrate him to be that true essential and uncreated Wisdom is now turned another way n Vid. Salazar in Prov. to deifie their Virgin It is by her namely the Virgin if you believe those Abusers of Holy Scripture that Kings reign and that Princes decree Justice v. 15. By her Princes rule and Nobles and all Judges of the Earth 16. Riches and honor are with her true durable Riches and Righteousness 18. She leads in the way of Righteousness she causes them who love her to have substance The Lord saies she out of these Blasphemers
having Bibles and Psalmes and other Instruments of Devotion wherewith Christians serve God and Christ there is no reason she should want Churches And she hath them in so great a number consecrated to her Service and Visited to her honor and all in such a special manner that as they impiously are used to say c Salazar Prov. ε. 31. v. 11. n. 55. that the Holy Ghost is jealous of Joseph on her account because they both are her Husbands God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost may justly be Jealous of that Idol which appearing under her Name gets more Churches to its Service then God to his Those men cover this Shame but with Figleaves who give out these Churches to be but d Bell. de Cult Sanct. l. 3. c. 4. sect Altera solutie Palaces and herein as well their own Church Books as their very Goddess gives them the lie Their own Church Books For they have not one Church consecrated to God since Poperie that is not with the same words and order consecrated to the Virgin e Pontifical Rom. Tit. de Dedication Eccles Sanctificetur c. Let this Church be Sanctified and consecrated in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost to the Honor of God and of the Glorious Virgin and to the memory of such a Saint By which words it appears that tho the Palace be pretended to be but a Memorial to such a Saint talis Sancti it must be a Church to the Virgin or not to God Since He an She have the same Rank and Interest in that main End that the Church is consecrated to I say that their very Goddess also confutes their distinction between a Palace and a Church whensoever she appears abroad for the building either of them Witness the Celestial f Chronic. Deip. an 1274. Ladder and the ascending Angels and her self above them all to mark the very Ground where she would have a Church built to her Honor. Witness S. Balduin the Ermite whom this evil Spirit for the g S. August contra Faust. l. 20. c. 21. item de Civit. l. 20 passim good Spirits abhor such things chid severely h Chronic. Deip. an 1112. for not building a Church so fast as she did wish in a place that She had chosen for them that would serve her Witness that large and square Stone of Anis where she declared what she intended for her self both in that and all other places k Odo Gissaus Histor Virg. Anic This is the Place saies she which I have chosen to this purpose that here and hereafter mortal men may worship me and serve me throughout all Generations Now I hope such houses for Devotion Praier and Worship by what name soever you call them are just that which we use to call Churches by making them stately and Roial you may make them Palaces also but this Magnificency cannot unchurch them The Jesuite Canisius is plain and downright and herein more sincere then his good Brother Bellarmin for he calls them Templa Mariana l Canisius De B. V. l. 5. c. 23. the Temples or the Churches of Mary In those Churches they say that she will appear sometimes in a created capacity only either to sing her part among the Nuns like a Chorister or to burn Incense to Perfume n Bover Tom. 1. Annal. Capucin the Church like a Diacon or to give the Sacrament o Chronic. Deip. an 1248. like a Priest Visne c. that is My Son Sylvester wilt thou take the Body of my Son or to Confirm her worshippers and cross them p Leand. Albert. in vita Jordan all with her Sons hand or to sit in an Episcopal Throne like a Bishop But at last her main purpose is to appear there more like her self to proclame before all the world that she is the x Blosius in Monili Mother of God and the Queen both of men and Angels and upon this account Bellarmins Palace well becomes her to swear y Henriquez in Guntelin 13. Sept. Catholics to her Service to promise them z Nicephor Eccles Hist l. 15. c. 25. protection and all spiritual Blessings upon condition they shall pray to her heartily and at the Service of God both begin a Chronic. Deip. 221. and end with her Praises Sometimes she will take this trouble upon her of teaching them how to do it And this is the Model she gave and sung once to S. Godrick S. Maria c. b Matth. Paris in vita Godric Holy Mary Mother of Christ blot out my Sins reign in my heart and bring me up to Happiness with God alone God himself cannot have more and Churches by their usual Consecration promise no less And to render this Consecration yet more solemn as the Ground where these Churches stand is commonly markt outby the Virgin so the Consecrating of them to her Service is now and then c Odo Gissaeus Histor B. V. Anic performed by her Angels 9. Ninthly These Churches of hers have Altars which are no part of a Palace and which are dedicated to her Service Every Altar even in Christs own Church is consecrated to this double use to wit d Pontificat Roman supra to the Honor of God and to that of the Glorious Virgin and this on several respects either e Ibid. as a Stone or a Table or a Sepulcher or a complete Altar twenty times But besides this She hath as many other Altars which are proper to her alone where if God have any share it is as it were but by the by Such as the Rosary Altars Mariana Altaria the Altars of the good Mary and sometimes under several Titles f Chronic. Deip. an 1287. five such in one and the same Church The Holy God of Israel never had so many in his own Temple It is both a great disingenuity to disguise and as great an impudence to face out this gross and open Idolatry with saying as they will sometimes that these belong to God alone as Altars and to the blessed Saints as Sepulchers For first the Virgin Mary left no Bones if that be true which they say that her whole Body was taken up and carried by the Angels into Heaven And if you be so simple to believe what they talk of that great Abundance of milk which they have got of her since she is above to wit when she is pleased to come down and give suck for having a Child on her Arm she must needs have milk to give him these Altars are not sepulchers for they do not bury this milk under them but keep it among the other Relicks they have of her Combes Gloves Hairs Shifts and Slippers very safe as in wardrobes 2. It is not a Grave it is an Altar which she or rather a quite other Spirit under her Name calls for Go saies that Ambitious Spirit and get me g Chronic. Deip. an
Demonstrations to wit That God is in Scripture praied to and that the Holy Ghost is every where or it proves Saints to have it also Sixthly As it is practiced by the devoutest Persons of Rome it complements the Saints with such Praiers such Expressions and such Services as you may safely challenge Melchisedec Moses David and all the Prophets and Apostles to magnifie God Almighty with any better You may be sure that the Papists will disown this because their own discretion suffers them not to avow more among strangers then they think themselves able to make good But where Mass is the reigning Service there Books and Mouths and if these should hold their peace the very stones of their Altars Churches and Images do speak it out and judg what Religious Worship that is which modest Men must flatly deny or palliate and excuse Some will tell you r Georg. Cassand Hym. Eccles in Vigil Pontec Schol. pag. 242. Edit Paris 1016. that all their Praiers to the Saints are but such Apostrophes or Rhetorical Figures as was that of David to Heaven and Angels Psalm 103. and that their Litanies Peter Paul c. Pray for me come but to this wishing Would to God or how I do wish that all these Saints should pray for me Others who see what either blindness or impudence it is to say so plainly confess that they directly s Bell. de Sanct. Beat. l. 1. c. 19. sect Praeterea in utroque pray to Saints but mince it as it were but as to Friends only to desire them to pray which yet at that distance were bad enough not as to principal Benefactors and it is upon this ground they say that praying to Saints in Heaven and praying to Friends in my House to pray for me comes both to one These Men are so confident at Rome and do think us to be so blind to all ends and purposes here in England that they shall perswade us these two things The first That all their Breviaries and Psalters signifie nothing but what they please The other That they make Saints * Ibid. c. 18. sect Nos autem facile to be Rulers and Princes over Nations with an Iron Rod in their Hands only to pray This desperate Cause forces Bellarmin at every turn the honestest and wisest Papist of his time to forsake upon this account both all Knowledg and Conscience For here you shall find him sometimes offering t Bell. ibid. c. 19. Athanasius Sermone proofs out of some Books under the name of St. Athanasius which when he needs them not u Id. De Scriptorib Eccl. observat in Tom. 3. Athanasis he acknowledgeth to be false sometimes most willingly and grosly satisfying x Bell. de Beatit Sanct. l. 1. c. 19. sect Eusebius lib. 13. Eusebius sometimes insisting y Ibidem sect Deinde in sexta Synodo upon such Canons and Decrees ascribed to the sixth Council as in his Heart he knows to be z Binius infin 6. Synod pag. 360. Edit Paris 1636. meer Forgeries somtimes siding with the a Cyrill Alexand. Thesaur p. 115. Edit Paris 1638. Arians and leaving the b Ibid. pag. 116. Athanas cont Arian Orat. 4. pag. 260. Edit Commel 1600. Chrysost in Genes Hom. 66. Fathers thereby to get some little thing that may favor the Praying to Angels sometimes he saies that the Roman Church praying to Saints makes c Bell. sup c. 19 20. them no more then Holy Men and in the point of Vows and such other Divine Honors that mere Men are in no wise fit for he himself d Id. De Cultu Sanct. c. 9. sect Tertio quia Sancti makes them to be by participation nothing less then Gods And thus the Papists must own at last what they did dissemble at the first And what can you make of such shifts turnings and contradictions but that there is most plain untruth as well as jugling in the case Either let them shew out of Scripture or out of any true Record written in true Primitive Times that any Prophet any Apostle or any Martyr have in any one of their many and great Distresses called upon any other Saint but God alone or else let them shew they have found some new Lights and some better waies then all these Saints ever did St. Chrysostom e S. Chrysost in Lazar. Orat. 2. S. Epiph. contr Collyrid pag. 447. Edit Basil takes for mere Devils those Spirits who even in his time did appear under human Shapes and did go under such and such Mens names And St. Epiphanius adds more to this that these Devils will under Religious and plausible pretences both make Men to appear like Gods and induce People to believe it And who can warrant that all those Souls that come creeping in Bellarmin first under the notion of Gods Friends and afterwards as Gods themselves are none of these However in point of serving them let the pretences be never so fair it is not safe to venture on waies which none of Gods ancient Servants have trac'd before But the following Chapter shall tell us more for certainly the name of the Blessed Virgin is unworthily abused now adaies to complete in all respects the full mesure of Idolatry CHAP. V. Of the Worship deferred to the Virgin and all the Blessings expected from this Worship THat which Rome adores under this name deserves a Chapter by it self It is both the great Allurement to and the great Diana of that Church It is with them the Head of all the Saints the very †Vid. infra Crown and Accomplishment of the ever Blessed Trinity and therefore such a Divinity in the Eies of thorough Catholics that some that had denied both their Baptism and God himself could never * Scala Coeli be temted so far as to deny and leave this Goddess Between the two contrary Extremes to wit the looking with some indiscreet Arabians on the Blessed Virgin as an ordinary Woman and the Worshipping her as a Goddess the Holy Fathers keep the middle way Let the Virgin Mary be honored saies St. Epiphanius a Epiphan contra Collyrid but let God alone be worshipped The Holy Scripture doth the same calling her in opposition to all profane Persons Blessed against all Superstitious Adorers leaving her among the Women Blessed art thou among Women Luke 1.28 Elizabeth likewise calls her The Mother of the Lord as the Fathers do upon another account The Mother of God that is Mother of that Savior as to the flesh who by the Hypostatical Union is also God And lest this Title should seem to exalt her as it doth commonly other Mothers to the same dignity with her Son the Holy Scripture sets her alwaies by Christ since the time of his public appearing to Israel rather like a Disciple then like a Mother witness the manner he uses her or answers her at all the times when they appear both
together as when she seeks him in the Temple Luke 2.49 or when she put him in mind of what they wanted in Cana John 2.13 or when she stood without and sent for him Mark 3.34 or lastly for I do not find them any more meeting and speaking together when he saw her standing by his Cross John 19.26 for there you cannot chuse but observe how little this great God and Savior was moved with all those Concerns even during the daies of his flesh that had their ground in flesh and blood and that if this Blessed Woman deserved any b Chrysost in Matth. c. 12. Hom. 44. Blessedness and had a gracious access to her Son it was by being a Believer rather then by being a Mother These four Passages cannot well bear any other sense and the severity which some of them express besides as some Fathers do c Epiph. cont Haeres l. 3. p. 447. Edit Basil well observe it stands upon Record for a warning to keep the Church from thinking better of Mary then her being a Blessed Virgin and perhaps a Holy Martyr Christ by this short Reply Woman what have I to do with thee John 2.3 having branded that great Impiety which he foresaw in after Ages and which we see to our great grief scandalously reigning in our daies For now at the head of ten thousand Saints of whom some were never in being as far as any true Authors can tell as St. Christopher St. Catharine St. Longis some were no better then Villains as Thomas Becket James Clement and such like which the Pope pleases to Canonize some are very true and blessed Saints but were never praied for nor praied to as long as Israel had a Prophet or the Church of Christ an Apostle at the Head I say of all these appears now in the Church of Rome what all both Prophets and Apostles may justly rend their Garments at the Virgin Mary under the Pomp and the very name of Goddess Not to mention the Worshippers how many and famous soever who in their Devotions * Ambros Cathar de Consummata Gloria pag. 112. and 115. Bernarden Meriale 3. p. S. 5. de Nominatione Mariae Lugdun Francisc Mendos Virid l. 2. Probl. 2. call her so one Pope or two may serve for all Leo the tenth in an Epistle that was published and therefore confirmed by the Command of Paul the third demands some better Timber for the repair of one of her Churches Ne tumnos tum Deam ipsam c. d Petr. Bemb Epist. l. 8. Epist 17. Lest by sending some useless sticks you seem saies he to delude both his Holiness and the Goddess her self This pretended God-head Deification e Petr. Damian Serm. 1. in Nativ Virg. and Divine f Mart. Delrius de Divin Milit. p. 886. Lips de Virgine Hall passim Gononus Chronic. an 1356. Majesty which under several Titles is attributed to this Goddess is not a thin Participation such as they allow to other Saints whom upon this score they call Gods but g S. Bernardin Serm. 61. a kind of Equality with God and an Infinity of Perfections which no Creature ever had Some do call it h Argentensis De Sept. Excellentiis identity others more plainly i B. Alanus part 2. c. 6. Esse Dei that is the very same thing or the very Being of God besides her other three Beings 1. of Grace 2. of Glory 3. and of the Mother of God Hereupon the Jesuites infer as well they may 1. that k Mendosa de Florib l. 2. Problem 2. n. 11. there is an infinite distance between the Mother and the Servants 2. That the greatness l Viegas Apocal. 12. Comm. 1. Sect. 4. n. 3. of this Goddess is a Mesure in a manner of Gods own Immensity 3. And that therefore 't is impossible to know well Gods Immensity without understanding the Virgins greatness Now if you will know how the blessed Virgin who was and is confessedly a finite Creature hath attained to this real Godhead and to the Infinity that attends it they will tell you that this great Miracle of being made Goddess was wrought in her 1. By a Singular Glorification and mutation in her proceeding from the whole Trinity For when once m Alan suprà c. 8. pag. 130. she presented her self to the Blessed Trinity in behalf both of her self and her devout servants God Almighty they say spoke to her thus Esto c. Be thou the noble and threefold Room where the Trinity shall inhabit I will be thoroughly changed into thee and thou shalt be thoroughly changed into me by special and singular Glorification 2. More especially by an entire and essential Communication from the second Person for thus they make Christ speaking n Guerricus ap Mendos Virid l. 2. Probl. 2. n. 11. to her Thou hast given me to be man I will also give thee my being God 3. Most specially by such a large Effusion of all Divine Excellencies as may o Quir. Salazar in Prov. c. 8. v. 23. n. 302. hold up proportion with the infinite Goodness and Appetency which the holy Ghost hath to be diffused to others So that as the Father did satisfie his own desire in bestowing his whole Divine Being on his Son and the Son with the Father in bestowing all what they have upon the Holy Ghost so likewise the Holy Ghost hath the same satisfaction for want of a fourth Person to spend and to pour himself in gifts and Graces upon Mary whom upon this account they dare all and God forgive them for calling her so Totius Trinitatis Complementum that is the Perfection and Accomplishment of the whole Trinity and to this purpose belongs what they say that in Heaven she hath her Throne by the Father as his only Daughter and Mignion or as others say p Argentens De Septem Excell 7. in quality of Gods Lady above the Son q Ibid. as being his Mother and close to the Holy Ghost in quality of his dear Spouse I have no mind to trouble my Reader and my self with rehearsing what here they babble or rather most ridiculously blaspheme concerning the r Salar in Prov. c. 31. n. 55 56 57. Jealousie between the Holy Ghost and Joseph upon the point of serving and pleasing her best It is enough which they will tell you and insist upon twenty times that this Virgin was the chief Allurement which in the beginning moved God Almighty s Idem c. 8 v. 25. n. 317. to make the world t Bernard Serm. 1. in Salv. and that Heaven and Earth were created and all the holy Scriptures written ob hanc propter hanc for her sake and upon her account That when in the eternal Decree and Prevision u Salazar Prov. c. 8. v. 23. n. 269. of God all other things did appear but as Molehills the great worth of this Virgin stood before him as
a while and all things are ready for the Office let one Sub-Deacon or more bring the three Bottles orderly one after another on his left Arm where the Lady carries her Babe and deliver them being decently covered into the hand of a more noble Officer who shall name what Bottle it is as for Example Oleum Infirmorum Here is the Oil for dying People and so set it before the Bishop upon a little Table near the Altar At that moment the Bishop shall rise up and with a pretty low voice not so low nevertheless as when he changes Bread into Flesh thus conjure and consecrate the Bottle set before him I conjure thee shall he say O thou most unclean Spirit and all you Apparitions and Incursions of the Devil to get forth out of this Oil in the Name of the Father c. that it may become a Ghostly Vnction fit to streng then the Temple of the living God Then follows the solemn Consecration that God would be pleased to send down the holy Comforter out of Heaven into this Fatness of Olives that it may scatter all the Pains all the Infirmities and all the sorrows both of the Soul and Body and that it may be a safeguard and restauration to them who shall be anointed with it After this must the two other Bottles be brought up on the left arm likewise but with more Ceremony for the Chorus must sing the Verse or as they call it the Charm O Redemtor c. four or five times and the high Mass Priest must consecrate the Balsam and mingle it with some of the Oil in a lesser Dish or Patin This don he blows three times cross-wise over the Mouth of the greater otherwise called the Chrismal Bottle After him twelve other Mass Priests but of an inferior Dignity who stand ready for the same purpose blow each in order thrice and cross-wise on the said Bottle Then here follows the Conjuring Consecration Exorcizo te c. that is I do exercise thee by God the Father Almighty O thou Creature of Oil that all the Armies of the Devil and all the Incursions of Satan may flee away out of thee and that thou maiest become to them who shall be anointed with thee an Adoption of Sons by the Holy Ghost in the Name of the Father c. Having thus conjured and praied he falls upon singing the Praises of this Chrismal Oil calling upon the Trinity as impertinently as before that the Vertue of the Holy Ghost may be mingled with the Fatness of this Oil just as he the High Mass Priest mingles what is upon the little Dish or Patin and lets it in into the Bottle with a Fiat that is wishing or commanding that this mixture of Liquors be a saving Propitiation and safe guard to them who shall anoint themselves with it And in full assurance that it is so the Inferior Priest takes off the white Veil which this Bottle was hooded with then the High Priest with a threefold humble kneeling worships the Bottle three times together saying at every kneeling and salute Ave Sanctum Chrisma but raising his voice by set degrees for this belongs to the Mystery at the second and the third time the rest of the present Clergy do somewhat more for at every Ave in several notes as before instead of bowing where they stood they must approach and kneel before the Bottle call it worship or Idolatry or what you please Lastly both the High and low Mass Priests do most reverently kiss in order not the Mouth as before but only the Lip of the Bottle Labium Ampullae Nothing of all this is don in vain and nothing can be don too much for this is the great Chrismal Ointment which supplies the want of Baptism and which arms the true Catholics with all Graces not one excepted against all Temtations whatsoever The third Bottle conteins what they call the Oil of the Catechumens which laying Balsam aside is consecrated as the former for the High and the 12 low Mass-Priests blow thrice on it then it is conjured and praied over that all the Devils may flee from it and that so many Graces may come into their Places as both to adopt and to purifie the Flesh and the Spirit of all who shall therewith be liquored For the Conclusion they all worship the third Bottle as they did the second with their repeting Ave Sanctum Oleum I worship or Salute thee O Holy Oil. So you have all you can desire to set your Salvation forward against the world the Flesh and the Devil Fourthly the Church of Rome knows how to advance Salt and water either each by it self or both together by Conjuring them into another n Pontifical Rom. sect De Benedict primi Lapiddis saving Sacrament the Salt to be both the Health and the Salvation of the Body and Soul Salus Mentis Corporis and the water by it self no less but when both are mixt together then you are safe on every side then all ill Spirits and uncleanness must fly away and then the assisting Presence of the Holy Ghost comes in good earnest about you That is the reason that no wise Catholic will pass one day if he can help it without sprinkling himself with this water nor let the Chamber where he lies be without a little Bottle full of this holy Preservative Fiftly the Roman Church affords two other great Saving o Pontifical Rom. ibid. sol 114. Devises by blessing Wine and conjuring Ashes These Ashes if it be possible must be taken p Id. sect De Officio 4 Ter. Cinerum out of the burning of such Boughs as had served the year before for Palm-Sunday What vertu these Ashes have especially on a Catholic when troubled in his Conscience guess by the praier of the Church who sends expressly for q Ibid. Gods Angel to infuse strength and blessing into them The Wine not that of the Holy Communion for this is a Mysterie which neither Christ nor his Apostles ever thought of as it appears by its consecrating Praier hath a great deal of vertue too But it shews it especially when the Mass Bishop hath mixed it with the said Ashes Salt and Holy water therewith to hallow Churches Altars and all other Instruments of Catholic Devotion with such admirable Properties as can make all Services more acceptable Sixtly this is one of the greatest Perfections and Allurements of Rome that over and above the many Means of Inherent Blessings to enable the deadest Souls towards something she can enable Marble Wood and Stone to raise and quicken the least Performance And for my mony give me such a Master as can both animate my hand with skill and motion to play upon an Instrument and help me to such an Instrument as can make most sweet harmony of the least touch of my finger when I come near and this is the Case of the Roman Church and the great Attractive she hath to make
should say London is all England when the King and the Parliament sit at Westminster the Tribe of Levi all Israel when the High Priest and his Sanhedrin keep their Courts there Which is to say not that all Christendom is contained in the precinct and bosome of Rome but under its hand and power Thus to be the Catholic is not to be the Universal but only the Domineering Church and so far Roman Catholic which many wise men take for a Bull perhaps it sounds better then they are aware of since the Romans love to be Masters and since the Mastering Power hath bin a great while under their hand But there is a reply against all this that no Roman Power or wit can well shift off First this notion of Catholic to signifie commanding or Monarchical is altogether unusual and unheard of among the Fathers especially St Cyprian and St Austin who are all for keeping close to the Catholic Church and Faith and all at the same time for keeping themselves and their Churches free from the Monarchy of Rome Secondly it is tho it were true impertinent to such purposes as the Papists apply it to For suppose Rome hath the Power hath she therefore the Holiness the Infallibity the Promises of being led into all truth by the Spirit Hath she all such other great advantages which are made to the Catholic Universal and not to the Catholic Reigning Church Did Aaron never make an Idol altho he was the Lords high Priest Were either the Scribes ever kept from inventing idle Traditions by being Rulers in Jerusalem or St Peter from cursing himself and denying his own Master by that Jurisdiction they say he had over the rest of the Apostles Is his Holiness for instance John the twelfth or Sylvester the 2d the one less effeminate the other less a sorcerer or either of them more holy for all the power they say they have both over all the Kings of the Earth and over all the Churches of Christ And may not the holy City of Jerusalem be turned both into a Den of Thieves or into a Synagogue of Devils altho you believe her to have a very great and eminent sway over all the Tribes of Israel Therefore it is not the Catholic that is the Monarchical but the Catholic in a better sense that is the Universal Church of Christ that hath the Promises of God and this excellent Privilege which both Papists and others look for of bringing all its truly Catholic Members to Eternal Salvation But admit all what they would have that their Church may be said to be the Catholic because it has dominion over all other Churches whence comes this Catholic Power that can make her as really to be as to be said so It comes they say by lawful succession from Saint Peter who had it and so bequeath'd it to their Popes This is I confess easily said but hardly maintained or understood For first St Paul knew nothing of it when he resisted this Soveraign both publicly and to his Face Galat. 2.11 Nor did the whole College of Apostles when they sent him with John as freely as now the Pope sends his Legats to settle the Church at Cesarea Acts 8.14 Nor the whole Church of Jerusalem when they called him to an account about his behavior with the Gentiles Acts 11.2.3 Nor the holiest Fathers of the Church when they did call his Successors that is their own Soveraigns by the familiar name of Brothers Nor the whole Church of God with them when as it appears c Aen. sylv Epist l. 1. Epist 288. pag. 202. Basil by the very Confession of one who afterwards came to be Pope they took little notice of this sort of Catholicness Ante Nicenam c. that is Before the Nicene Council they regarded little the Roman Church and by the Interpretation of Ruffinus a Roman Priest who lived but few years after it its sixth Canon restrains this pretended Universal Power within the adjacent Towns of Rome I will say more even two hundred Years after Pope Gregory the first was so little acquainted with this pretended Prerogative that he could not suffer the hearing e Greg. Magn. Regist. l. 7. Ind. 1. Ep. 33. ad Eulog of it no not in a Compliment altho bestowed sometimes on others and so little as to this point skilled in Scripture that tho he insists often on these words Thou art Peter c. Feed my Flock and I will give thee the Keies c. the present great Supporters and Demonstrations of Universal Monarchy this blind Doctor could see in them nothing tending to such a Catholic Latitude If Christ had intended any such Power for Saint Peter 't was not a business to be whisper'd privatly d Ruffin Hist l. 1. c. 6. in the Ear as the Treason he told Judas of it was to be proclamed on the House tops and in the hearing of all the World according to the practice of Moses and Elisha when they made choice of their Successors in the face of all Israel Such a public Declaration might have presently both quelled the dangerous and undecided Contention among the Disciples to wit Who should be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven prevented all the Disorders which have ever since troubled the Church for want of knowing this supreme and infallible Governor Then might the Roman Church have spared forging f Binius in Donat Edict Constant Conc. Tom. 1. pag. 313. 314. Edit Par. 1636. Donations Decretals to her own shame to assert her Power in Europe And the Popes might have reserved that massy weight of Gold which they gathered from the Christians under the ordinary pretences of Holy War for holier uses then were either g Avent Annal. Bocor l. 7. the arming Turks against such Churches as would not acknowledg his Grandeur or driving distressed Bishops on this account by Persecution h Vid. Quillem Tyrium l. 15. c. 15. c. and hard usage to seek for shelter among the Turks All Nations without either fraud or force might then have learned their duty towards S. Peters Chair at the same time when they heard of S. Peters Gospel and if this pretended Tradition whether written or not written had waited but at a distance on the first Preaching of Christian Faith they would certainly have submitted to it that is to that Universal Empire as they did to Episcopacy Secondly Suppose against all what I have said that St Peter had during his life an Universal Monarchy What sound Reason what clear Text of the holy Scripture or what undoubted Tradition can any one allege to shew he left it to a Successor Did he leave him also his other Gifts and Privileges and among them his Faith of Miracles his Apostolical Rod to strike men with some to the ground as they say he did at Rome Simon Magus and others to their very Graves as he did certainly Ananias and Saphira Did he pass
demonstrated already that St Peters Roial Power was not believed by the Apostles nor in any Apostolical times and made it good out of Acts and Evidences altogether incompatible with destructive of this Belief namely His being rebuked by St. Paul both to the Face and publicly his being called to account by his Brethren his being sent to Cesarea c. Can you think that if at his return they had found him guilty of such a foul miscarriage as would send whole Nations to Hell they had thought it presumtion as the Canon Law saies it is to ask wherefore he did so Was it ever heard among the twelve that besides the general Commission of Preaching Christ St. Peter had another more special and proper Power of degrading all such Princes as would not be ruled by his Bulls And if he had it not Is it likely that the present Roman Popes have more Secular Power from Christ then he for compensation of their having less Holiness To come lower to the holy Fathers read their Epistles to the then Popes and judg whether St. Cyprian St. Basil c. did believe them to be their Monarchs when they call them as commonly they do their Brethren and Fellow-servants Did St. Augustin and his Brethren the worthiest Prelats of that Age submit themselves very modestly to the Roman Papal Power of controlling by their Legats and Officers the African Church Affairs when they called it again and again Secular y Conc. Afric sub Bonif. Ep. ad Bonif. Ep. ad Celest Pride and do the African z Codex Canon Afric Can. 28 sect Item placuit ut Presbyteri Canons the best Ecclesiastical Rules that the Church hath look upon Popes as their lawful supreme Visitors when they do forbid all Church-men under pain of Excommunication in any Church business to appeal to Rome During this long misunderstanding which lasted the lives of three Popes did Sozimus Boniface and Celestin Learned and Wise Roman Bishops believe that clear Texts of Scripture did sufficiently assert the Papacy when they were afraid of their Cause unless they could help it up better by forging false Nicene Canons And on the other side What meant the honest African Fathers in sending a Concil Afric ibid. to Constantinople to Alexandria and Nicea for true Copies with profession of a readiness of submitting to all the true Nicene Canons if they had thought That feed my flock and Thou art Peter and such other Texts of Scriptures better worth then all the Councils had so much as nodded the Roman way Or if the Papists say for I know not what they can say else that these places of Scripture which they now mainly stand upon are not so clear to their purpose without the help of Tradition Did St. Augustin and all the rest of Africa not yet know what Tradition was or what it said Was the ancient Tradition of the Universa Church then quite lost among the eighty Nicene Canons which some b Alph. Pisan l. 3. in Conc. Nic. Ep. ad Marcum fondly suppose to have bin burnt by the Arrians Books and Papers indeed may have bin burnt but Christian Faith and Tradition written no where so legibly as in Mens hearts could not be so unless the whole Church had bin burnt also Besides the general Practice whatsoever becomes of Tradition must remain still for you cannot imagin that the Church of Rome could actually exercise an universal Jurisdiction over all the Churches of the World without imagining in these an universal submission to that Power To this purpose tell me I pray Whether and where S. Chrysostom or St. Basil did swear Canonical Obedience to his Holiness when they were consecrated What sums of Money did they send to Rome when they had thence got their Pallium And when or where among a thousand Prelats in the old Times do you find one either subscribing himself or being called by others as now they do and are Arch-Bishops or Bishops of Milan of Constantinople or any other Diocess by the Grace of God and of the Holy Apostolical See fairly acknowledging themselves thereby little better then what they are now meer Suffragans Vicars or Curats of that Universal Bishop I am sure that Pope Gregory abhorred as long as he lived that very Title and much more the Usurpation as c Greg. Magn. Regist l. 4. Ind. 13. Ep. 33. Item l. 5. Indict 14. Epist. 39. a Mark of Antichrist and as a Destruction of the Faith Now it is cherished at Rome not only as a Catholic Doctrine but as the very Fundamental that makes the Catholic Church Thus Knaves grow great upon cheating and Rebels become Kings upon a Murther and Mens Crimes prove sometimes their Pride and Exaltation 2. From the Roman Supremacy go on and look upon the Roman Mass you know what great proportion that Sacrifice has among them Whole Popery depends or tends that way as on its Center and if the Roman Pope is that Churches Head this Roman Service is its Body I say then in the second place that this vast and comprehensive Bulk is nothing less then Catholic Catholic is By all Mens acknowledgment that which hath bin alwaies believ'd if a Doctrine or observed and practiced if a Service since Christian Antiquity in all Christian Churches and Ages Go therefore and seek when and where the twelve Apostles ever offered in Preaching their Savior to men to offer him up and to make him a Victime to God Enquire of all the Holy Fathers when and where they sung any Mass publicly without any Communicants except the Priests When and where they ever solemnly and publicly administred the holy Communion under one kind When and where they ever heard one single syllable of those Unchristian Doctrines that now a daies make the Main Fundamentals of the Romish Religion to wit that Christ offered up himself to God as an Expiatory Sacrifice any where else but on the Cross that the Natural Body of Christ is both in Heaven upon a Throne and on Earth on a thousand Altars that here his Body contracts shrinks it self into the compass of a small Crumb of Bread or any the least drop of Wine that these appearing Crumbs and Drops altho emtied to all Substance and attenuated to meer Accidents can both well subsist by themselves and whithersoever they be driven pull along with them the Flesh of Christ If these and other like Doctrines which now are essential to Roman Mass had in Ancient time bin Preach'd and heard as essential to Christian Faith Where was all the wit of Celsus or the malice of Julian and such Enemies of Christ Jesus when they fell foul upon the Blessed Trinity the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ and all such other Articles as seemed to them ridiculous to spare both the Mass-Sacrifice and the Transubstantiation that both are and seem to be so Where was either the wisdom or the care of Origen Eusebius St. Augustin and
other Christian Champions whil'st they were writing large Volumes in defence of Religion where it seemed subject to reproach to leave this part alone undefended which by all Mens confession had if then in being the greatest need of defence If the Church of God had in those daies a most real and continual Mass-Sacrifice How came S. Cyrill of Alexandria to be so dull against his Custom as when Julian laughed at Christians for having neither Altars nor Sacrifices to stop his mouth with nothing else then Metaphorical Oblations And was this Apostate such a Sot as to object at every turn such meer Falshoods if Mass be true wherein he knew having bin long a Christian that any Body might stop his mouth It seems as some of their best Authors d Alphons de Cast. l. 8. tit Indulgentia confess the Mystery of Transubstantiation was yet in the Church incognito and came to appear as it doth now but a long while as they say e Gabr. Biel. in Can. Sect. 41. I. too after Christ had instituted it So it is not Catholic at all 3. Go you down to Purgatory that vast and wide subterranean Rome as great at least as this above-ground who also in a very great mesure is her Mother and Nurse for if this pretends to send down any kind of relief to that by her Masses and Massoffices yet 't is that which maintains and helps up this with Wealth Honors Monasteries and all imaginable affluence of Riches In the mean time this commerce how mutual and great soever is nothing less then Catholic having not followed the Gospel through all the Countries nor times of the Church Whensoever and wheresoever the Christian Faith was Preached there is left an Impression in the Heart of all Believers that there is after this Life a Heaven prepared for Faithful Souls and an everlasting Hell for those that shall be found not to be so Purgatory which is a third place and should of course if true have gon in the same company with these two never followed them half the way no Apostle so far as we can see in their holy Writings ever Preached it it was not blown by Gods Spirit thro-out the whole World as other Catholic Doctrines were it lodg'd in some corners only and that late or upon a Heathenish account and where by chance it was admitted it found no better entertainment then a wavering Opinion Such a thing may be saies one It is not unlikely saies another The Greek and Armenian Churches larger then the Roman is do not believe it f Alfon. di Castro l. 12. tit Purgatorium saies one of the most learned Papists It was believed but somewhat late saies g Fisher cont Luther Art item one of their Cardinal Bishops and tho Bellarmin turns over and over all the Scriptures to search it out many of his own Church do confess that they h Fisher ibid. Pet. à Solv Assert 8. Mart. Peresius de Traditione cannot find it there 4. Indulgences that vast revenue and staple Merchandize of Rome is neither more ancient nor Universal then its correspondent Purgatory For saies i Polyd Virgil. de Invent. l. 8. c. 1. a good Roman Author after Cardinal Fisher no body thought of Indulgences before Purgatory was set a foot these without this being of no value But a while after men had bin affrighted with the Purgatory Torments then began Indulgences to be of use If you will know why both came in late they will endeavor to k Gab. Biel. in Can. Lect. 57. M. Alfons à Castro l. 8. â—it Indulgentia satisfie you with two Reasons the first is because Christians in primitive time had few sins to trouble them after their death when they had any they needed no other flames then their own Zeal to burn them out and their great i Gregor de Valent. de Indulg punct 2. Mortifications besides left nothing to do for Indulgences The second is because the Ancient Church did not know all however much less then now we do The first reason stands upon mere inconsideration of what men were for the most part in the best times The second stands fair for new lights and upon this account you must exclude Purgatory Indulgences and Fanaticism from being Catholic Doctrines 5. You may join with those three all the Roman Praiers and Devotions to Saints This recommended daily and reputedly devout Emploiment hath not so much as the shadow of Catholic for it crept in among Christians as the Baalim did in Israel when the Holy men that had seen Moses and Joshua and the elders of that generation were all departed Jud. 2.10.11.12 when our Savior and his Apostles and the first Preachers of the Gospel had left the world During above four thousand years when God had undoubted Saints living on Earth among his People you shall not find one who ever call'd praied or worshipped any other Saint in Heaven then the Holy one of Israel Salmero one of the learned Disputants at Trent confesses m Salmero 1. ad Timoth. Disp 7. Sect. Nec obiter such Invocations have no express ground in all the Scriptures Bellarmin n Bell. de Beat Sanct l. 1. c. 19. Sect. Item ex c. 32. Suar. p. 3. q. 52. Salm. 1. Tim. 2. Disput 8. Eckius Enchirid. c. 15. and others must yeild it as to the 4000 and odd years that preceded the Ascension And as for the years that followed it Would to God saies Stapulensis o Faber Stapul Praefat. in Evang. we would conform our waies of Faith and Devotion to the example of the Primitive Church who never lookt but on one Christ and never Worshipped any other then he Holy Trinity Eckius p Eckius in Enchirid. câ—de Venerat SS also is clear for this Read for your better satisfaction Origen contra Cels l. 8. Euseb Eccles Hist. l. 4. c. 15. S. Epiphanius his whole Tract against the worshippers of the blessed Virgin S. Ambros 1. Rom. S. Austin de Civit. l. 8. c. 27. l. 22. c. 10. item contra Faust. l. 20. c. 21. The whole business of Image worship the most visible part of the Roman Religion came in later then the Saints worship and therefore appears to be less Catholic If Ancient Authors mention once as it were by chance q Euseb Eccl Hist l. 7. c. 18. a Statue made by the Woman and a Heathenish Woman was she whom Christ had cured of a bloody Flux or the Picture of some Apostles which had bin seen on private walls or the Figure of a Shepherd with a Lamb upon his shoulders ingraved in a Cummunion s Tertull. de Pudicitia Cup or a Representation of Histories and t Gregor Nyssen Tom. 3. Martyr Theodor. p. 579. Edit Paris 1638. Martyrdoms in one or two Oratories yet where is the Prophet the Apostle or the Holy Father who ever lookt on such Figures otherwise then common representations or Pieces
Valerius with her holding of Water in a Sieve or drawing a Ship with her Girdle might as well have asserted her Heathenish Religion as her Personal Innocency There is nothing so absurd with the Donatists nor so impious with the Manichees which some Miracle or other wrought among them might not countenance in some mesure And without looking back towards old times the Kings of England and the Kings of France with that gift which it is said they have of healing an otherwise scarcely curable Disease might come near to justifie at once which is both absurd and impossible both Protestancy and Popery So far do these Providential differ from Christian Miracles as to the confirming of any Christian Truth Secondly I say that these true Christian Miracles are commonly but for a time and for the first authorizing c. For the Gift of working Miracles is as that of speaking Languages 1 Cor. 14.12 intended for the Conversion of Unbelievers and for assisting the Gospel wheresoever it should be first Preach'd Therefore the first Evangelists and other first Planters of Churches as well as the Holy Apostles had as long this help of Miracles as God had Nations in the World to whom he would revele his Will which being a work of many Years this supernatural Hand of God help'd it forward both in confounding Pagan Idols and strengthning Men against Pagan Persecutions till God had sent Christian Princes to whose care he then committed the work both of countenancing the Church throout all their Dominions and of mastering her Enemies which till then he did by his own hand After this 't is certain Miracles ceased apace if not to be yet to be common being thenceforth not so necessary as before Those that continued the longest were about the healing of Sicknesses and about the casting out of Devils and the corners where they continued were those wilde Deserts and remote Places the refuge of the Primitive Christians from the Face of their Enemies where there was more need of such continued Wonders because that more Infidels did lurk there And by the way it may be imagin'd that God inclined those last Workers of Miracles whose austere Life and Devotion now adaies seems to us so strange * to leave the more cultivated World and retreat to Deserts in order to convert barbarous men in their most barbarous Countries All this being done and all known Parts and Creeks of the World being either mostly converted or sufficiently called to the Christian Faith the Holy Fathers tell us that Miracles c S. Chrysost 2 Thess c. 2. Hom. 4. ceased that they were d Idem 1 Cor. c. 2. Hom. 6. Author Quaest ex Nov. Test apud Aug. unnecessary that to expect e S. Crysost in Joh. c. 3. v. 25. Hom. 23. of God any other then the old ones by which the Gospel had bin already most sufficiently confirmed was no less then temting of him that if any were wrought in their times they could not be well look'd upon but as a suspicious kind of Signs and not infallible proofs of Faith because the true f Author Operis Imperf Hom. 49. Servants of Christ having confirm'd their Preaching by true signs call'd Men away from their Infidelity to the Faith now this first calling being over the Devil will set up himself by the means of his own Miracles in order to draw Men back again from Faith to Infidelity And as to this God was pleased to take the same course in the publishing of the Gospel as he had bin pleased to take in the publishing of the Law In this first he asserted the Glory of Israel the redemtion out of Egypt and his own Law under Moses by such Miracles as no Egyptian at last could question and no false God could counterfeit For altho most of them as for example the producing of Lice the dividing an Arm of the Sea the making Thunders and Earth-quakes c. seemed not much to exceed that compass which created Causes might have reach'd to yet God so visibly confounded both the skill of all Magicians and the power of all Devils that his Almighty Power and stretched-out Arm did not appear so much in the very working of these Wonders as in restraining the contrary Powers both of the Air and of Hell from attemting to any purpose the like performances Lastly God having sufficiently evidenced both the Power of his Laws and the Truth of his Promises he thenceforth both withdraws his Hand from working his former continually appearing Miracles and takes off that restraint that alone kept the Devils from either doing or counterfeiting any like them And then the Evil Spirits being let loose again to their former Liberty God gives his People this fair warning against all Revelations and Miracles whatsoever If there arise among you a Prophet and give thee a Sign or a Wonder c. Deut. 13.1 In like manner those Miracles which ushered the Holy Gospel and spread it over all the World were in all respects unquestionable First they were mark'd out before-hand by clear infallible Prophecies both of Isaiah 35.5 6. The eyes of the blind c. And of Joel 3.28 I will pour my Spirit c. Secondly to remove farther out of the way both all suspicion and possibility of Error in those first times all the Devils and all their Ministers were tied generally from all false and considerable Miracles I beheld saies our Savior very much to this purpose Satan falling as Lightning from Heaven His Oracles were over the World all upon a sudden * Plutarch de Orac. defect suppressed Magicians and Seducers if they attemted any thing were either struck blind as Elymas in the Acts or silenced as so many Demoniacs were in the Gospel or confounded and even beaten down when they thought to exalt themselves as Simon Magus was by St. Peter as we find both in the Acts and in the Ecclesiastical History Then after a long course of true and infallible Miracles sufficient in all respects both to perswade men through all the World and to seal the Holiness and Importance of the Gospel to all Ages Satan is permitted to use his ancient Power again both for the trial of the Believers and the punishment of the Rebels Then all sorts of Seductions false Revelations and false Miracles could not but return back again by an infallible Consequence and with greater Violence then ever because after a longer restraint Hereupon come the often repeted and serious and merciful warnings of Christ There shall arise false Christs c. Matth. 24. Thus both in the Law and the Gospel the first times and sorts of Miracles do carry alwaies along with them and as it were in their Foreheads such express Characters of Gods hand as is most proper and most sufficient to put the Truth above all doubt Therefore Christ often doth make use of them John 5.36 and 9.37 And so do the Holy Prophets most celebrate and insist upon those Principal
the Workers of false wonders open their Mouth against Jesus Christ We live in times when the Devils in all Mens account are let loose from such a restraint and the Church left unguarded of such a Protection when false Prophets may arise with such Prophesies Deut. 13. and false Christs with such Miracles as if it were possible might deceive the very Elect Mark 13.22 Now the Mirabilarians u Aug. in Joh. Tract 13. sub fin as S. August calls them are abroad against whom Christ saies he already and we much more that are 1200 years after him cautum me fecit Dominus the Lord himself his Apostles after him have given us all sufficient warning And so it were a great folly to take notice of a Painted Cloth when we are told of so many that * Ibidem run away with Christs Colours that is with a permitted power of counterfeiting true Miracles and therewith amaze poor Country People but whosoever hath no mind to be either affrighted or cheated with this may look to it The glorious Works of Christ of Christs Disciples and other Apostolical Fathers were don in such clear daies as scattered and dissipated all suspicions and imaginable Clouds of Imposture the Devils had not so much as the liberty to preach the Truth Mark 1.25 If either Simon or Elymas tho Sorcerers of the highest rank did but offer to play their old game you read in the Acts how they were kept in Thus this mighty restraining hand rather then the intrinsecal greatness of the work was an infallible Evidence which in those daies shined about all true Miracles whereas the Revelations and Feats of Rome must needs be full of suspition and noted for such by all Christians since they came forth when all false Christs and false Prophets have the liberty to work them In this horrible Confusion either of Miracles or Actors none but God or a good Angel can well discern by the work it self which is the Impostors and with the Saints If the restoring life to a dead man or giving sight to one born blind be thought to be proper to God this may be without much ado counterfeited by any Devil and as Brass sometimes out shines Gold lying wonders may dazle our Eies as strongly as most true Miracles This dark and dubious conjuncture is the season and the very point of time when Roman Miracles swatm abroad Then the Apparitions of sad Souls first begin by thousands to come up and to acquaint their friends with their condition underneath and what neither Moses nor the Prophets nor Jesus Christ nor his Apostles ever thought to mind us of sad groaning Spirits make it their principal business to express and throng about craving for help for Pilgrimages and for Masses Then come Images after them to bleed or sing or mourn as occasion requires and the consecrated Elements the better to justifie what they are not appear with blood with flesh and even sometimes with whole children It passes all understanding how the Virgin Mary who kept her self so long above would not come down among us men both sooner and in fitter times She passed all her daies on Earth alwaies keeping close and quiet at home and since her happy departure I can account five hundred years when all good Authors will justifie that she continued as quiet above Here then are two huge great Marvels the first how the blessed Virgin after so many years of rest comes to have new Inclinations to bestir her self among men and the second that she should consent to take this suspicious unlucky time of shewing her Activity when the Devil and all his Spirits are permitted to play their Pranks How is this Change imaginable that she who never did appear to any one of the primitive holy Fathers when she could do it without any suspicion would in these last and branded times shew her self to a dirty Monk Did not S. Augustin before he died being besieged by Barbarians deserve as well her Protection and a guard of her armed Angels as S. Dominic did whilest he held with his Rosary x Specul Exemp Tit. Rosar Exem 1. about the neck one poor pitiful Heretic wherefore never had these holy men S. Athanasius S. Hilary S. Cyprian as well the comfort of a kiss or an Embrace as y Ribaden in vita Ignat. Loyola as z Attich Chron. Ord. Minim an 1612. Stephen the Minime and thousand more less deserving it And how comes she who never was known to take notice of any trouble disease or Imprisonment of true Saints as the Head-ach of S. Chrysostom the sickliness of S. Basil the infirm Body of S. Gregory Nazianzen the Prisons and Tortures of all the Martyrs now to be running up and down to relieve all sorts of persons to cure a Jesuite with her a Chronic. Deip. an 1561. Child whom she put by him in his bed to cure whole Countries b Oliver L. Mirac Mar. Montis of purple feavers and to free several Rogues that had well deserved c Albert. De Viris Illust. Ord. Praedic hanging from the Gallows from Dungeons and from all Imaginable sorts of Dangers How comes this fancy to take her so late of bringing down out of Heaven Crosses Hoods Books Robes Holy water and such other utensils which the Fathers in former times never had nor expected from her the truth is this kind of Apparitions and Miracles were most advisedly reserved till such times as these later are dark and confused and more propitious to Imposture and these strange new doings have another reason besides which I wish Roman Catholics would seriously take notice of and it is this As long as the blessed Virgin had no more honor in the Church then what became a Creature and was allowed to her by the Fathers to be d Epiphan contr Haeres l. 3. adv Collyrid honored not adored no ancient Author will tell you that she ever appeared among men But assoon as the later times brought in Public Services to pray with to her and new Images to pray to her by then she or rather some other Spirit under her Name began first to bestir her self then she and all other Saints with her seemed to come down and appear at the voice of these new Praiers just as the Soul of Samuel did or rather seemed to come up at the Mysteries of Endor Sam. 28. Ever after the pretended Queen was seen in the Roman Church as in her Heavenly Palace and she had more Angels to wait on her in the least of her ordinary progresses then Christ himself ever had in any one of his most Solemn Appearings But as the Circumstance of a base witch who did order Sauls business was a sufficient Evidence that the Appearance of Samuel had not the Soul of Samuel and as when Devils will look like Angels you may still they say either perceive a Cloven Foot or smell a stinking vapor that betraies the pretending
glorious appearance Roman Miracles and Visions have most commonly some black Mark which may convince any sober man that they are not what they seem to be Consider in the holy Scriptures what all the true Saints of God both holy Angels and Apostles say or do whensoever they meet with more honor then is their due and ask S. Austin what Spirits those are who take it whensoever given or call for it when it is not No Saints or Angels saies this holy Father e August cont Faust l. 20. c. 21. 22. will take of others what they know to be due only to God as it appears by Paul and Barnabas who tore their clothes to shew they were mere men Act. 14. and by that Angel who rejected adoration Unclean Spirits are for Worship and tho they care little for Flesh yet they pride themselves with Sacrifices only because they are due to God And in another Place f Idem De vera Relig. c. 55. Good Angels are for this one thing namely that with them we may serve God in whose contemplation they are happy but those who invite us to serve themselves are like proud men c. only the serving of proud Devils is more hurtful And in another place g Idem de Civit. l. 10. c. 7. Celestial and happy h Ibid. c. 16. Spirits will have us Sacrifice not to themselves but unto God whose Oblation they are as well as we and therefore all Revelations and Miracles that invite us to serve more then one God are such Seductions of Devils as any pious and prudent men must needs throw off for this is their proud malice who by that token are noted to be neither good Angels in themselves nor the Angels of a good God For the i Ibid c. 7. item l. 9. c. 23. good Angels love us so well that they will not have us serve them but serve the true God Bring now to these Christian Rules most of the Roman Apparitions and Miracles Shew me where this humble Spirit whom they worship did the like good Angel ever reject one worshipping or devout Adoration shew me where she tore once her clothes at the hearing the Te Deum and the whole Psalter of David sung and applied most blasphemously from God to her I am sure I find in her waies for several centuries of years the steps of another Spirit seeking continually for more honor We shall behold one who strokes k Caesarius l. 7. Hist c. 55. and kisses pious men because they both l Leandr de vrt is Illustrib Chron. Deip. an 1372. begin and end their best Devotions with her Praises who teaches in what godly form they must m Chronic. Deip. an 1178. pray to her for all Blessing who calls them into brakes n Franc. Hierasc in Vit. Henr. Sylvice of Thornes and Nettles and sometimes into holes under ground to find and adore her Images one who can put on the shape either of a o Odo Gissaeus Histor. Virg. Aniciensis Stag or p In vita Manaveri ap sur 5. Jun. a Pigeon or a great r Arch. Gian Cent. 3. Annal. l. 4. c. 9. Queen purposely to shew the place and stone where she must needs have an Altar or a Chappel or a great Church that there she Å¿ Od. Gissaeus supra may be served and worshipped to the worlds end and there t Niceph Eccl. Hist l. 15. c. 25. walk and delight her self one I say who in all these Churches brags among men as if she were the u Blosius in Monili Mother of Campassions the Lady x Menol Cisterc 22. Dec. of the House of Praier and the fountain y Chronic. Deip. an 1467. of all Blessings lastly one who spreads forth about her a great Mantle therewith to betoken the great z Tho. Malvenda Tom. 1. Annal. Ord. Praedic an 1221. largeness of her mercies and favors which she saies she denies to none that will come to her with faith Hereupon let S. Austin judg what kind of Creatures these Spirits are and what great difference there is between those which among Pagans did perpetually labor for Sacrifices and these which now among Papists are all for Masses and the greatest Oblations that can be set on Romes Altars Mean while we may be confident that none but God alone can own Sacrifices Altars and Churches to be served with and that none but Devils ever owned Images to speak move or in any wise to work in Such Spirits as these may be the Authors of all the Roman Apparitions and Miracles and such Apparitions and Miracles are very fit for such Spirits and both foretold and reserved for the last times And so you may guess what that Church is that hath her proper establishment both from such Wonders and such Saints CHAP. IV. Concerning the Protection and Assistance of Roman Saints THIS pretended help of men and women who after their departure out of this world and their being Canonized by some Pope are called Saints are another great Enchantment to keep and draw People to Rome Their Souls are conceived to be still ready to go about any business which their worshippers have in Heaven and their Bodies even to the least of their Bones their Clothes and their Shoes withal can at every good occasion work great Cures and Feats on Earth Thus one Saint is upon this account worth as much or more then any two Angels What sober man therefore would not be temted to turn a Roman Catholic and who would turn from being so tho there were no other reason for either then the getting and losing such Friends The perswasion of Romanists is that all such Souls as deserve their Canonization at Rome go up directly to Heaven as to a place where their happy Rest from all their Labors and an happy Possession of an eternal Glory with God is not all what they expect they must have also Government and Regencies a Bell. de Sanct. Beati t. l. 1. c. 18. over the whole world wherefore they fancy them sometimes like so many great Captains marshalling all the Natione under Christ with an Iron Rod sometimes like great Pillars above holding all Churches under them And because so much were too much for any one Saint to manage it well and that no Creature is capable of such an Universal Burden except the Virgin Mary above and the Pope of Rome here below to facilitate b Gab. Biel. in Can. Lect 32. N. the business they divide the whole among themselves that every one may be troubled with no more then his proper share First by this imaginary Distribution they divide their Saints into Countries c Salmero 1. ad Tim. c. 2. Disp 7. S. James is to take care of Spain S. Sebastian of Portugall S. Denys of France S. Mark of the Venetians S. Nicolas of the Moscovites S. Ambrose of Milan the three Kings of the Electorat of
Cologne S. Barbara of Germany c. and before the happy Reformation S. George S. Andrew and S. Patrick had the respective charges of England Scotland and Ireland Secondly they subdivide their Emploiments in these and other Countries after the several sorts of Professions and Trades extant therein For S. Nicolas and S. Christopher are thought to look to the Seamen S. Catharine to the Scholars S. Austin to the Divines S. Luke to the Painters S. Ivo to the Lawiers S. Eustachius to the Hunters S. Chrispin to the Shoemakers The very Whores have their proper Saints and they are S. Magdalen and S. Afra who look to them Some others are put to equally vile Services as St. Anthony about Swine St. Pelagius about Cows St. Eulogius about Horses Saint Vendeline and S. Gallus have the care both of Sheep and Geese Judg you how gladly these happy Souls leave the Bosom of Abraham to drudg about these sorts of Cattel Thirdly In these distinct Provinces and about these ranks of Men and Beasts the Roman Saints are for the most part appointed to distinct Works and Helps Non omnia possumus omnes that is Every one cannot do all saies one of the †Biel. sup Learned Catholics and therefore will they sometimes direct Clients to other altho possibly inferior Saints as once St. Peter sent a d Gregor Dialog l. 3. c. 25. Woman to a Sacrist he had at Rome for the cure of her Palsie and it is upon this ground that devout Persons are directed to several Saints for their several Exigencies to the end that both every Saint may have his share in the Worship and every Client in the Relief This is it which they e Idem in Can. Lect. 32. N. call the discreet Variety so honorable to their Church and so advantageous to her poor Members when you shall see one pray to St. Peter for the Gift of Submission to St. Agnes for Continency to our Lady S. Anna for Wealth to S. Margarite for Child-bearing to St. Rochus against the Plague to St. Petronilla against an Ague to Saint Apollonia against the Tooth-ach to St. Liberius against the Stone and so to every Saint for that help that is in his way Let no Batchellors go to St. Peter because a married Man nor no married Man to St. John because he was a Batchellor but †Salazar Proverb c. 8. v. 18. n. 172. let every one go to a Saint of his on Tribe a Widow to a Widow-Saint and a Soldier to one of his Trade for this is the humor of Roman Saints to favor better their own Companions According to this Oeconomy there is not one Romanist but may pretend to march under the colors of several Saints For example a French Catholic born at Paris hath as fair title as Rome can give to the protection of St. Michael St. Denis and our Lady who generally rule that Kingdom of St. Genevefa that more specially looks to Paris of St. Germain or St. Thomas or St. Sulpice if he either be born or reside in those Parishes of St. Cosmus and St. Damian in case he do practice Physic of St. Ottilia and St. Lucia when his Ears and Eies trouble him and of St. Mathur in also if he be troubled with folly Over and above these he may be sure of other Saints St. Dominic S. Celestin S. Francis and twenty more by matriculating his Name into their Confraternities which he may do for a small matter It is great pitty that this fancy of distributing Presidencies and Powers thus among Roman Saints hath no better ground then that had which Julian * Julian ap Cyrill Alexand. l. 4. sub init the Apostat alleges and S. Augustin observes f Augustin de Civitate l. 6 7 8. to have bin constantly practiced among the ancient Pagan Gods What signifies saies the holy Father elsewhere g Idem de Civit. l. 6. c. 9. that trifling Division of Offices among your Gods wherefore must they be severally praied to but to make it rather a Play fit for a Stage then any thing which may become the worth and gravity of a true God This new Comedy is still the same only the Actors wear better Clothes or rather borrow better Names and the Roman People that stand about it adore the Virgin for Juno and S. George instead of Mars and as a Learned Romanist h Lud. Vives de Civ l. 8. c. 27. saies another kind of he and she Saints instead of the old Gods and Goddesses But as to any honest ground and precedent for such practices these two things may and must be said to the everlasting shame of the Roman Church The first is That whereas as long as either the Patriarchs or the Prophets or the Apostles or any Holy and Apostolical Men ordered the Church there never appeared one soul that offered to speak to Men unless the soul of Samuel 1 Sam. 28. and in the judgment both of the Fathers and of many Roman Doctors that appearing soul was a Devil the Church of Rome brags in her time of above ten thousand souls all coming down to talk with Men which souls she believes to be Saints The second is That whereas neither Patriarchs nor Prophets nor any Apostles or any Apostolical Holy Men in all their dangers and distresses ever Praied to or Worshipped any Creature whatsoever whether holy Angel or holy Soul the Church of Rome in a great mesure praies to and worships nothing else And the truth is this unusual praying to departed Saints and this new appearing of Mens souls may very well meet together It is the constant practice of evil spirits tho neither called nor thought on to meet Men in unlawful waies When the Pagans did consult Fowls of the Air about their good or bad success and so did bird for Prophesies the Devils moved Ravens and Eaglesto signifie somewhat by either flying or croaking the same did actuate stocks stones when they did call upon Images they made the Votaries often to see Visions when they watched for them about Tombs And it is both very just with the true God to suffer and pleasing to false gods to do that they who run after dead Saints should find the same thing that Saul and the Witch did when they sought after dead Prophets First It is a great presumption to pretend to more Wisdom in point of serving God and saving our selves then either God hath appointed or all the holy Prophets and Apostles have known and taught and it is most just and likely that Men should meet with strong Delusions and with the Devils themselves when they venture upon slippery unknown and dark by-paths where not one of Gods Saints ever durst walk Secondly Admit what we know not that the Souls of Holy Men are not confined to Heaven and fixt there to their happy rest but which i Origen ad Rom. c. 2. l. 2. any discreet Man tho he suspected it would not
affirm that they may come down now and then and take some care of our Affairs Admit that these few Apparitions which I find recorded by good Authors 1. Of Potamiena k Euseb Eccl. Hist l. 6. c. 5. to Basilides 2. Of a Father l August de Curapro Mort. c. 11. who after his death brings the true Acquittance of a Debt that his poor Son was troubled for 3. Of something like Felix the Confessor m Ibid. c. 16. appearing to relieve Nola 4. Of something like Spiridians daughter that n Socrat. Hist Eccl. l. 1. c. 12. offered to the good Bishop her Father to shew him where she had laid the Jewels which a Friend had entrusted her with 5. Of somthing like John Monachus a Holy Man that o Aug. sup c. 17. appeared to a really pious Woman when once she longed to see him 6. And of something like St. Augustin that once appeared to his p Ibid. c. 11. Disciple Eulogius and another time q Idem c. 12. to one Curma about Hippo when both this John and St. Augustin were yet alive and knew nothing of this appearing at the least St. Augustin did not but what he heard other Men say Suppose I say both against all probability and the s Ibid. c. 16. c. positive judgment of St. Augustin himself that these were not Angels but real Souls What are some few extraordinary Apparitions to ground an universal and perpetual way of Worship And suppose that not few but whole thousands of Souls should swarm down amongst us as we know the Angels do the Angels we also know were never called upon nor praied to by any true Servant of God as long as the Church was ordered by any Prophet Apostle or Apostolical Men and after their departure it is well known how the Fathers who next succeeded them alwaies voted both against Worshipping and Praying to any one created Angel The Disciples of Christ saies St. Ireneus t Iren. cont Haeres l. 2. c. 57. sub fin do nothing by praying to Angels but by directing holy and undefiled Praiers to the Lord who hath created all things Praiers directed to others it seems are defiled with something And tho the blessed Angels u Orig. Cont. Celsum l. 5. p. 233. Edit Cantabr saies Origen a most authentic Author in this Point are sometimes called Gods and convey down to us the favors of God yet we do not serve them as Gods for all our Praiers Supplications Addresses and givings of Thanks which he makes to be all one with the true Service of God must be directed to God who is the Master of all things thro our High Priest the living Word and God who is greater then all the Angels And as for the Angels themselves we have no reason to pray to them because we do not understand them well and tho we did this very knowing of both their Nature and Offices would not afford us the confidence of offering our Vows and Praiers to any other then to the All-sufficient and Supreme God by his Son our Savior Not to trouble my self or others with any more clear and direct Citations to this purpose I will only add the Verdict of two and thirty Fathers who find x Concil Laodic Can. 35. in a full Council that the praying to Angels for so St. Theodoret y Theodor. Colossens c. 2. v. 18. interprets the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be both a hidden Idolatry and a forsaking of Christ and his Church The true reason which makes these and other Fathers so sharp against Praying to Angels much more against Praying to Saints as to call it Idolatry is not because the Angels cannot hear alwaies the Saints never for this would make praying to them no more then an idle and useless act but mainly and principally because Praier Vows and giving of Thanks is a main part of Gods service and therefore Saint z Iren. Sup. Ireneus and a Orig. sup Origen take Praier and Worship promiscuously for the same thing And 't is upon this same account that both b Psalm 50 14.15 Scripture and the Ancient c Tertullian Apol. c. 30. Euseb Demonst Evang. c. ult sub fin Orig. in Rom. c. 10. v. 14. p. 382. Edit Paris 1619. Fathers still reckon Praier and Thanksgiving among the truest Sacrifices and which can belong to none but God Now Praier is part of Gods service because if serious and devout and I am sure Roman praying to Saints is no jest it presupposes and acknowleges in the Saint which is praied to such an infinite knowledg of Mens hearts such an Universal and extensive Capacity or rather Being in hearing them all alwaies every where and such an immense sufficiency and power of helping them accordingly that to make or to presuppose created either Saints or Angels fit persons for to be praied to is to make or to presuppose them to be Gods And this is the true account wherefore calling upon God is reputed an Honor given to God Call upon me and thou shalt glorifie me Psal 50.15.23 because it implies and in very deed acknowledgeth the Immensity the Knowlege the Mercy and Power of God not calling upon him is Atheism Psalm 79.6 And so calling on them who are not Gods is down-right Idolatry The truth is you may call upon a Saint without any danger of Idolatry if he be in such a distance whence intelligent Creatures may without Miracle hear one another thus the Prophets were not afraid to speak to Angels Dan. Ch. 10. and Ch. 22. Zachar. 1.9 If you did pray a Holy Man whil'st he is with you to pray for you and to recommend you to God after he is dead perhaps this exceeds not much the ordinary power of a Saint Thus St. Cyprian d Cyprian l. 1. Ep. 1. sub fin intreated his Friend Cornelius then Bishop of Rome that he of them two who should by suffering Martyrdom step the formost to Jesus Christ would being with him there continue his wonted Praiers for his poor Brother whom he knew to be left behind And as I take it the same Father asks the same favor of his Holy and Devout Virgins against the time when their Virgin Zeal and Piety e Idem de Habitu Virg. Tract 2. sub fin should be crowned with its due Honor. Thus far I see nothing at all that an humble Christian may not wish and a created Saint may not perform and if such Praiers have any defect it is not Idolatry nor Superstition perhaps 't is only they want an Example Nor is it any Idolatry to pray to your Friends by letters at any distant whatsoever for St. Paul in his Epistles doth often so and therefore I would not blame our learned Papists for dedicating their Books and writing Dedicatory Letters to the most Blessed Virgin Mary if they had Expresses to carry them But if you can fancy a Saint of such
she was all the while rambling up and down in Bawdy-houses that it was not her self but an Angel who ran Races and fought Battels in the shape of her Worshippers being then at Mass Some are also pleased to say that every Saturday she goes down to Purgatory not by her self but by her Proxy for the rescuing thence of some Souls But none of her Historians will aver that it was a Deputy or any other but her self who did hug and kiss St. Bernard St. Dominic and St. Alain upon several occasions who did once ride behind a Knight in the shape of a Woman in order to surprize the Devil or who in a dark tempestuous night was really met by two wandering Travellers in a Forrest with St. Michael and St. Peter It is she and not another if you will believe what she saies who now and then will call her self the Mother of Grace and Mercies who comes often to visit Churches with sweet Perfumes or Holy Waters or whole Baskets of Holy Roses or white and black Hoods for her Chaplains And accordingly it is she her self and not her Angel that is adored in all the places where she appears No man praies either to her or to any other Saint or Angel upon any considerable occasion but thinks to have her and them present and so the very same conceit of an Universal Power and Presence essential Attributes of God which makes them willing to pray to Saints must needs make them Idolaters in praying thus This impious worship is an Abuse of what was don sometimes to God in the primitive times at the Graves of his own Martyrs and no wonder if ignorant men could turn the Miracles and Mercies of God as they can all other good things to their own destruction It is well known how many wonders were wrought at the Sepulchers of holy Martyrs as one at the shadow of S. Peter Act. 13. and at the Bones of the holy Prophet Elisha 2 Kin. 13.21 These Miracles were to those Saints in some mesure what the glorious Resurrection and Ascension had bin before to their Savior to wit high Declarations from above that their Souls and Bodies however they had appeared vile in the Eies of their Murderers were pretious in the sight of God and that what they had believed taught and signed as it were with their own Blood were both true Doctrines good Examples in order to Salvation And these extraordinary Marks of Gods favor on their Persons and Seals of truth to their belief as they were principally intended in behalfs of Infidels so they mostly and longest continued in those parts of the world as Africa e Lege Aug. de Civit. l. 22. for example where more Pagans remained not called or not converted to the Faith It is well known also how at the same time which was a time of generall and cruel persecutions the holy Zeal and Death of the Martyrs as it was marked out as it were by the finger of God in his Miracles so it was exalted both to their own praise and to the encouragement of others by the Christians in all Churches The highest strains of Eloquence which the Fathers had were spent in the magnifying of Martyrs They set down their Names in their best Church Records and rehearsed them duly in their solemn Eucharists and public praises to their Savior They gave the most honorable Burial they could in those sad times to their bodies and having no Churches then they made their graves their most ordinary Places of Meeting to declare before all the world that by this resorting to their Sepulchers they prepared themselves to their Death In a word they did what they could to bring both themselves and their Flocks to love and admire those holy Souls that so both themselves and others might be encouraged to follow them Bless and esteem most sincerely saies S. Basil f Basil in 40. Martyr the holy Martyrs that you may in your course do as they did in the mean while in your real intention be accounted as good as real Martyrs already that you may without the blows cruelties which they suffered attain to the rewards which they enjoy These zealous exhortations in times of Persecution and the visible hand of God confirming whatever they said as to this point prevailed so far upon the People that * S. Basil ibid. at every particulat occasion as well as upon solemn daies they did go and pray hard by their Graves and did take for a great honor to be buried where they had praied till at last their Pagan Foes began to take notice of it and to believe at least to say g Cyril Alexand. cont Jul. l. 6. p. 202. Ed. Paris 1638. Maximus Madaur ap August Ep. 43. that Christians did adore dead men as themselves did adore their Gods This gave an Occasion to the holy Fathers to wipe off all suspicions of this kind from Christian Religion and to declare to all the world I wish that Roman Catholics would take better notice of it first that they did not worship c Hieron contr Vigilant Martyrs at all neither as Gods nor as Presidents and Vice Roys d Cyrill Alex. contr Julian l. 6. of any Town or Country Secondly that the blessed Saints have neither particular notice e August de cura pro Mort. c. 13. nor care of the Affairs of this world and if by chance they medled with it it was as extraordinary to them to do so as f August ibid. c. 16. as to the Water to become Wine or to a dead Body to rise up Thirdly that the Veneration and Reverence which they did bear to holy Martyrs exceeded not that degree of honor which in former times was deferred to * Cyrill sup pag. 204. valiant men after they had spent their lives for the defence of their Country or that is due to all the Friends g Smyrnensis ap Euseb Hist Eccl. l. 4. c. 15. and true Disciples of Jesus Christ and is of no other h August cont Faust l. 20. c. 21. sort then is that which in this life we give to other holy men whom we think to be endued with the same piety that Martyrs were only our Devotion for the Dead Saints is more confident then it can be for living because these are yet fighting and those have got the victory Fourthly that when they builded i Idem De Civitat l. 22. c. 10. Monuments and Houses of Praier where these Martyrs were buried the Monuments were for the Dead Saints and the Houses of Praier were only for the living God Fifthly that when the names of the Martyrs were there mentioned it was neither to pray for them nor to them but to keep up after k Dionys Areop de Eccl. Hierar c. 3. their death an Authentic Declaration of their continual being with God and specially in these great Mysteries where Christ is both signified and received of their
a Mountain That when he put his hand to the making of Creatures Heaven and Earth Stars Angels and Thrones x Ibid. v. 22. n. 269. he had still this woman in his thought to pick and chuse out of every Creature as it came out the very best of it for this true Pandora and true Abbreviate of all his works That then she was the very y Ard. Hierosolymit Serm. de Annunc Perspective thro which from all Eternity God both foresaw and predestinated all Christians S. Peter S. Paul and all the rest because they were not predestinated to any Grace but such as should be conveied to them thro her hands That when God did order the Springs and course of Water z Salazar c. 8. v. 27. n. 363. then he but studied what way it were possible to make Mary an Aqueduct of all Blessings upon Mankind That God had not set up so many Princes in the world nor so many a Rupert ap Salaz p. 246. Kings in Israel had it not bin to procure her a more Roial Extraction And finally that he made Eve b Salaz Prov. c. 31. n. 418. the Ark the Tabernacle and other Ceremonial Figures to pass his time in those Images and Representations of Mary and so to amuse as well as he could the extreme longing that he had to possess the Original At last this blessed Creature being come forth she appears at her very c Idem c. 8. v. 25. n. 321. Birth when she was lying in her Cradle above all both Angels and Saints like a Mountain above small Hills far holier as they say then Mount d Joh. Damascen Sina but somwhat like e Bernard Serm. de Annunc the Mount Sion in which God was pleased to dwell all the Angells f Gabr. Biel. in Can. lect 80. that are in Heaven all the Souls that are in Hell all the Saints and Prophets that ever were and all men that are or shall be must by all means look towards Her as the Center and Support of the whole world as the very Ark of God as the Cause of all Creatures as the g Bonavent in Psalter founder of all Blessings as the Fountain h Bernard apud Salaz c. 8. v. 35. n. 450. and Vein of life and the Author of i Petr. Dam. Serm. 1. de Annunciat Salvation Now lest you should think that these great Titles as great as God himself and our Savior can ever have are given her chiefly upon the account of Christ whose Mother she was after the Flesh thorough Catholics will tell you that before she was the Mother of Christ she k Anselm de Excell Virg. c. 12. had deserved to be so that by her own Goodness l Ozor Tom. 3. Conc. 1. in Annunc Conc. 1. in Nativ and Grace she had drawn God down towards her and induced him m Bernardin de Bust 2. part Serm. 2. de Coronat Mariae to take her Flesh and that being as commonly they do term her Negotium omnium Seculorum the work of four thousand years and possessing eminently within her self all the Perfections that lie scattered up and down in all Celestial and subcelestial Creatures such a complete Hostess could not but procure or o Salaz Proverb c. 8. v. 16. n. 106. at least hasten the coming in of the best Guest The Founder of the Jesuites did commonly p Salaz Prov c. 9. v. 4. 5. n. 144. bless himself whensoever it came to his mind that swallowing down Christ at Mass he had also by the same means some of the Flesh of this Goddess And they say that on this same account Christ takes delight q Judoc Clictov Serm. de Visitat to lie hidden under transubstantiated wafers and to fall down into mens stomacs because it represents and reminds him of his Ancient being in her womb and that therefore she r Anâ—nymus apud Metaphrast would not miss a day without taking the Sacrament after her Son was in Heaven that he might have that sweet satisfaction every day But when at the Salutation of Gabriel she opened her Heart and her Breast to take him in and therein to make him her Son that one Act of humble Obedience expressed in nine Latin words Ecce Ancilla c. Behold the Handmaid of the Lord c. that one Act of hers they say is more Meritorious then God himself in a manner can recompense Christians may think 't was no Merit of hers but rather a favor of God and that all which she could do towards it was her Duty but Roman Catholic Authors and Saints too teach otherwise 1. That by that one Act she had fully s Stellarum Coronâ— B. V. l. 11. part 2. c. 11. repaied to God for n Bernard Serm. 2. de Pentecost all the things that he ever bestowed upon men and this they call Retribution and take it for the eleventh of those twelve Stars which shine continually about her Head 2. That by that Act she repaied more then she ever received her self and so that t Methodius Constantin Serm. de Purificat God is in her debt 3. That by that Act she hath done more u S. Bernardin Serm. 61. Bernardin de Bust Marial part 6. Serm. 2. de Visitatione Mar. for God or as much at the least then God for her and all Mankind and that men may say to their comfort rather blaspheme to their confusion that upon the Virgins account God is more obliged to them then they to God This is the most stupendous Merit which they say x Salazar Prov. 4. v. 13. n. 53. Christ insisted upon to shelter himself against the wrath of his own Father when after their interpretation he praied thus upon the Cross O turn thee unto me and have mercy on me give the Kingdom to thy Servant and save the Son of thy Handmaid that is if thou wilt not save me from off this Cross for thy sake or for my sake save me for her great Merits sake who said Behold the Handmaid of the Lord and give me also that Kingdom the Monarchy of the whole World which she hath y Ildelph Serm. de Assumt deserved by that Act and which devolves to me as being her Son So let all men here consider both how admirable those Merits must be which Christ makes his own shelter of and how useful to a poor sinner since they are thus needful to Christ We have not yet don The Virgin Mary appears as great at her Sons Death as at his Conception and if some talk of her saving men only because she hath brought forth their Savior thorough Catholics will inform you that z Quir. Salazar c 8. v. 19. n. 207. Conceiving and Bringing forth are two Acts which of themselves being Natural and not Voluntary cannot be much Meritorious and therefore besides all what she contributes either by her
x Salazar Prov. c. 8. v. 15. n. 136. her Servants and her Salves The best is that this large and wide Empire is not setled on her by God as a mere Donation y Ibid. n. 121. Mendosa Virid l. 2. Problem 1. n 1. and Favor it is they say a just and proper Right of her own grounded upon natural z Ibid. n. 131. Equity both as being the a Anselm de Excell Virg. c. 4. Spouse of the Holy Ghost on which account they say b Pseudepiphan de Laud. Mar. she had Spiritual Gifts upon the Title of the Wedding present and afterwards she was to have what she hath now Heaven and Earth for her Jointure and as having c Anselm ibid. c. 11. by her own Merits saved and restored all things or d Damascen de Fide Orthod l. 4. c. 15. as being the Mother of Christ and therefore Queen e Salazar supra n. 132. upon as good a Title as he is King and even as God himself For saies another Blasphemer As God the * Ludolphus de Saxonia de vita Christi part 2. c. 86. Father is Lord of all because he hath created all thro his Power so is the Mother Mary the Lady of all because she hath repared and re-establish'd all things by her Merits These things being so as no true Roman Catholic must doubt but they are it concerns us all next to enquire First What use this Queen of the World is pleased to make of her Power Secondly What kind of Homage Men must return to that high and Soveraign Majesty for the great Favors and Blessings that flow continually from that use As to the use of her Grandeur both old and new Papists will tell you That since all Power is given to f Petr. Damian Serm. 1. de Nativ Virg. her as to Christ it is to this Blessed purpose that all Men may receive as well of g Antonin 4. part T. 15. c. 6. sect 3. her as his Fulness Grace for Grace and that every one may take out of her Bosome h Bernard Serm. de Aquae ducti all such Blessings as he most desires Here the Sinner shall find Mercy the Righteous all increase of Grace the Angels happiness and Joy and the whole Trinity Glory Among all others Kings and Warriers are much concern'd on this account She hath a Temporal Power both of taking and giving away of Estates Thus by her help both the Spaniards and the Portugeses discovered and i Petr. Maffaeus Hist Indic l. 2. got a good part of the East Indies She turns Armies and Victories to what side she pleases Read what they say she did for Philip k Nicol. Aegidius Annal. Franc. in Philippo Aug. King of France against Otho the Emperor for l Histor. Carnot An. 1328. Philip de Valois and m Ibid. An. 1304. Philip le Bell against the Flemings and for the Cities of n Annal. Flandr l. 12. Tournay o Meyer Annal. Fland. An. 1386. Ipres †Nic. Aegidius Annal. Franc. in Carol. 7. Orleans and p Chronic. Deip. An. 1200. Poictiers against the English This last is considerable for there they say she stood like a great Queen and the Keys were conveied away by night no Body can tell how from under the Governors Pillow and found hanging in the morning by her Image Her very Shift being once set up as a Banner upon a Wall q Antonin 2 part Hist tit 16. c. 2. sect 5. routed a great Army and if any ones Shirt chance but to touch that Blessed Shift it may go near to make the whole Body as once it r Anton. Solerius de Venerat SS did invulnerable Her very Images will inspire strength for when King Arthurus was tired s Robert Holc Sapient Sect. 35. c. 3. some say that he had one of her Images which was painted upon his Shield that when he look'd on it did recover him from fainting Fits You may guess by these Shifts and Images what the Lady her self can do By virtue of this same Power about Temporal Affairs she sends or removes all Temporal Blessings and Curses Honors Riches and all manner of Earthly Prosperities are in her hand and what Gods Eternal and uncreated Wisdom is in Scripture Prov. 8.18 the same by a foolish Impiety now is the Virgin Mary in Popery Read their Sermons and see what good use they make of all the Power given to Christ †Vid. Quirin Salazar in Proverb Solom See the eighth Chapter of the Proverbs she is now made blasphemously what Christ was then the Tresuress t Idiota de Contempl. Virg. in Prolegom of all Gods Graces and the very Tresure * Ricard a S. Laurentio de Laudib Virg. l. 10. of the Church It is out of this new Store house that the greatest Scholars of Rome if you will believe them had their Learning Albert the Great was a u Leander de viris Illustrib dull Fellow and Duns Scotus a very x Wadd Tom. 1. Annal. Minor An. 1304. Dunce till the Virgin Mary gave them more wit Vdo Arch-bishop of y Canisius de B V. l. 5. c. 20. Magdeburg and St. Rupert z Eradenbach Sacr. Collect. l. 2. c. 7. Abbot of Tuits had it the same way But St. Thomas Aquinas and S. Tharlevarct are in this Point most admirable that one a Surius F. Mart. became an Angelical Doctor by swallowing down his Throat a Paper that Ave Maria was written upon and this other got the full understanding of the whole Bible by drinking out of a Silver Cup a sweet Liquor b Balanghem 25 Dec. which she gave him Not to trouble you with more Instances what can you add to what they say that She is the very c Bonavent inspecul c. 3. Ahysse and Ocean * Salazar Prov. 8. v. 27 n. 364. from whence all Blessings flow like so many streams into the Church that she is the true Mother who keeps us alwaies like Embrions in her d Ibid. v. 18. n. 190. Bowels and makes us live with her own Breath that she is both the Neck and the Hand e Idem c. 31. n. 118. that is both the passage and only means thro which our cries may go up to God and his Blessings come down to us They who will speak at a soberer rate compare the Virgin f Georg. Venet. Hav Cant. 1. T. 4. c. 38. to the Moon which both qualifies and transmits all the Influences that come to us from the Sun and other Planets that is from Christ and all his Saints But here to speak the plain Truth without terms of Astrology they do find an absolute Decree made by all the three Persons together and God knows where they can find it whereby g Salazar Prov. c. 8. v. 18. n. 193. God the Father hath obliged himself to his Daughter and the Son to his
mouths possessed me in the beginning of his waies I was set up from everlasting when he prepared the Heavens I was there c. and so all along They scruple not o Bust Marial Serm. de Nomin Mariae to say of her what God Almighty saies of himself Malach. 1.11 From the rising up of the Sun unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentils And that of Christ Matth. 28.18 * Novarin Vmbra Virgin l. 4. excurs 122. n. 1149. All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth and what John the Baptist saies p Antonin 4. part tit 15. c. 6. sect 3. of her Fulness have all received c. namely q Salazar Prov. c. 3. v. 29. n. 200. the Sinner Pardon the Righteous Grace the Angels joy and the whole Trinity Glory And therefore r Idiot Contempl. 1. say they as blasphemously God hath highly exalted her and given her a name above all names that in her name all knees should bow c. Phil. 2.9 10. And after the same rate what God saies of his only begotten Son Heb. 1.6 Let s Vitis Florig Lect. 27. all the Angels of God worship her and let Men boldly come unto the Throne of Grace from him to her that we may obtain Mercy and find Grace to help us in time of need Hebr. 4.16 It were endless to rehearse all 4. Fourthly They allow her a whole Psalter * Vid. Psalter S. Bondvent as the Church doth to God Almighty And whatever David could say in the Highest strein of his Zeal towards the magnifying of Gods Glory or the imploring of his Mercy or the expressing his Faith in him Gods name being out and that of the Virgin in they both transfer and improve it towards the magnifying of this Lady For Example in the first Psalm instead of Blessed be the Man c. it begins thus Blessed be the Man that loves thy name O Virgin Mary Thy mercy shall comfort his Soul c. The second Why do the Heathen c hath it thus Why do our Enemies imagine vain things against us Thy right hand O Mother of God shall protect us Come ye to her all ye that Travel and are heavy laden and you shall find rest for your Souls c. The fourth thus When I did call thou O Lady heardest me Thou wert pleased to remember me out of thy high Throne for thy mercy is on all them that call upon thy holy Name and thy Majesty be blessed thro out all Generations Glorifie her O all ye Nations c. The 16. thus Save me O Lady for I have put my trust in thee c. The 19. thus The Heavens do declare thy glory O Virgin c. The 29. thus Bring to our Lady O ye Sons of God bring praise and worship to our Lady Give strength to thy Servants O holy Mother and bless them that magnifie thee Let Heaven and Earth bless thee the Sea and all the corners of the World c. The 42. thus Like as the Hart desires the water Brooks so longs my Soul after thy love O holy Virgin for thou art the Mother of my life the Nurse and restauration of my flesh and both the beginning and end of my Salvation c. The 44. thus We have heard with our ears O Lady and our Fathers have told us that thy Merits are ineffable and thy Miracles wonderful Thy Virtues are innumerable and thy Mercies inestimable Rejoice in her O my soul for many good things are laid up for them that praise her Blessed be thou O Queen of Angels c. The 51. thus Have mercy on me Lady who art call'd the Mother of Mercies and according to the Bowels of thy Compassions make me clean from all mine Iniquities Pour thy Grace upon me and withdraw not thy usual Mercies from me c. The 68. thus Let Mary arise and let all her Enemies be crush'd under her feet c. The 72. thus Give the King thy judgments O Lord and thy Mercy to the Queen his Mother Salvation and life O Lady are in thy hand perpetual Joy and glorious Eternity c. The 73. thus Truly God is loving unto Israel even to such as worship his Mother c. The 84. O how amiable are thy Dwellings O Lady of Hosts c. The 92. It is a good thing to give thanks and confess to the Virgin Mary and to sing Praises to her Glory to tell of her Merits that rejoice the heart and to imitate her Works which rejoice the Angels c. The 94. It is the Lord God to whom Vengeance belongs but thou art the Mother of Mercy who turnest him to compassion The 95. thus O come let us sing to our Lady let us heartily rejoice in the Virgin our she Savior The 103. Praise the Virgin Mary O my Soul and all that is in me praise and glorifie her name c. The 110. thus The Lord said unto my Lady Mother sit thou at my right hand Be thou reigning with me Have mercy upon me O Lady Mother of splendor enlighten me O thou Mother of Truth and Virtue c. The 117. O praise the Lady all ye Heathen glorifie her all ye Nations for her Merciful kindness remains upon us for ever whosoever will serve her shall be justified but whosoever neglects her shall die in his sins c. The 144. begins thus Blessed be our Lady who teaches her Servants to fight c. The 148. thus O praise our Lady of Heaven praise her in the height Praise her Sun and Moon And so all along to the very last O praise the Lady in her Holiness praise her in her Virtues and Miracles Let every Spirit or every thing that hath breath praise our Lady This Service goes under the name of a Superangelical and Seraphical Doctor a Roman Saint and a Cardinal besides whom they call St. Bonaventura Give this Worship what name you please it is all that David and Moses and other Prophets could bestow on the Lord God of Israel Now when the same is bestowed upon a holy Creature how great and holy soever yet a Creature judge what it is 5. Fifthly Lest the Lord God of Israel should receive any kind of honor from Men where the Lady had not her share what ever more eminent pieces of Divine Service they can find scattered in Holy Scripture they will be sure to give it her For example that of Moses Deut. 32. Give ear O ye Heavens to what I will speak of the Virgin Mary Magnifie her with me c. O perverse and crooked Generation acknowledg our Lady for thy she Savior Is she not thy Mother that hath begotten thee in Faith If thou forsakest her thou art no friend unto our Soveraign Cesar O that thou wert wise and wouldest consider thy last end As an Infant cannot live without his Nurse no more canst thou be saved without this our Lady Therefore let thy
1467. an Altar built by such an Image that it may be a spring of all Graces to them who shall call on my Name Never Saint in the whole Bible spake near this rate 10. All Altars being made by their general institution both to receive and to sanctifie the Sacrifices and Offerings which are daily laid upon them the Virgin hath these also and in an immense abundance Gods Temple at Jerusalem was scarce richer then Lauretta is on this account Neither Gold nor pretious Stones are too good for her Majesty If his Holiness fear the French as Alexander the third once did he will secure himself from that danger by h Gianius Chronic. Servitor Mar. an 1495. offering her a Silver statue or as Innocent the 8th by offering Golden i Job Burch in Diarie 1492. Medals and Clothes embroidered with Pearls or as the Recineti did for securing themselves from the plague by offering her a Massy Crown k Tursel Lamet Hist l. 2. c. 8. of Gold and pretious Stones They that have not so much may offer less tho it were but a wax-candle as common an Offering under this new Religion as was a pair of Turtle Doves under Moses They that have nothing at all must make a vow of visiting some of her Churches Such vows they say have saved many from the Gallows from Shipwracks Falls Fires and all imaginable Dangers tho vows before Popery came up were never heard to have bin made to any Saint but God alone But which is more Sacrilegious then all either Vows and Sacrifices that which they call the Holy Mass must be celebrated on her Altars that is the Son of God and God himself as they take it must be sacrificed to her honor and in that impious service as I have demonstrated l Mystery and Depth of the Roman Mass elsewhere suffer more shame and Infamy to please her then he ever suffered on the Cross to save the whole world besides 11. They allow her in every year eight holy daies Christ hath no more of his Christians nor are they so religiously observed Nothing but death or some other Judgment as bad threatens the Profaner of them Witness the Hill m Bancius Annal. an 1580. which they say fell on the Villain who offered to dig upon her Assumtion day and the terrible pain * Bust Marial 1. part Serm. 7. p. 2. which ever troubled honest Alensis as long as he read his Schole-Divinity upon the day of her Conception Contrarywise great Miracles and great Blessings will attend the holy keeping of these Daies for wax-candles and Tapers n Petr. Abbas Cluniac Miracul l. 2. c. 30. will burn then a whole night without wasting And Bishop Bernard may fall down with his horse thro a broken Bridge without harm if he do but vow while he tumbles that o Chronic. Deip. an 1436. he will observe the Immaculate Conception day 12. And lastly The Papists bestow upon the Virgin Mary Proper Masses Litanies Canonical Hours and both great and small Offices in all Churches on all Altars and upon proper Holy daies Thus the Virgin or that Goddess which they take for the blessed Virgin hath all the Religious Services and more from the Papists that God and Christ have or ever had from the best sort of Israelites and Christians If God and Christ have not enough then Moses and the Prophets the Apostles and the Holy Fathers are much to blame who gave no more and if they did and gave as much as could make up all the service which God then required at their hands and which now another Spirit being certainly a Creature requires at the hands of Papists let the Israel of God be the Judge both what that proud Creature is that craves as much as God ever had and what these Catholics are that will give it For what they plead is soon wiped off Here a Woman stands accused of lying every night with her Neighbor She cannot at all deny the Fact but she maintains that the Fact is not Adultery because she never lies with him as with her Husband but alwaies as her dear Husbands Cozen and dear Relation There stands a Jew publicly impeached of Idol-worship by the Prophet because he burns Incense to the Queen of Heaven Jerem. 44.25 The Jew for his Justification avows this but utterly denies that because he burns not his Incense to the Queen as to the King and understands very well that this Queen is a Creature Between these two guilty Persons stands also the Roman Catholic charged with the same he cannot deny but he hath Churches Altars Vows Bibles Psalters Oblations and Holy daies and universally all those kinds of Worship which Christians can bestow on God which for his part he bestows also on the Virgin But this moves him not at all he stoutly clears himself he thinks of all by once saying that he neither honors nor adores with all these things the Blessed Virgin as he doth God whom he knows to be her Creator but as a holy Woman whom he knows to be his Creature By this Reckoning none of the three let them do whatever they will in the way of either Carnal or Spiritual whoredom can be convinced of being guilty as long as they have but so much wit as to distinguish the first a Cozen from a Husband the second a Moon from a Sun and the third a Woman from God Almighty Whereas by their very pleading and excusing of themselves they are found to be twice Idolaters 1. By their Act which they confess for they transfer on the Creature what is due to God alone 2. Secondly by their own knowledg for all what can be don to God in point of visible worship which is all that men can take notice of they willingly and voluntarily impart to others whom they know to be Creatures By what they do they stand guilty and by what they know unexcusable Never simple men were more grossly drawn and inveigled into such sins then Papists are To begin first where I ended last of these eight Holy Daies kept and set out for the Marian Worship not one can be called Catholic nor bear any primitive Date The very Papists p Bell. De Cultu Sanctor l. 3. c. 16. sect Ad tertium dico duo cannot deny it and among them the two greatest namely the pretended Conception and Assumtion as they were the fittest to crown a most compleat Idolatry so they came in the latest of all That glorious Feast of the Immaculate Conception now so blissfull to them that observe it and so terrible to them that do not was never thought on by their Virgin nor by themselves to any considerable purpose sooner then above twelve hundred years after the Virgin her self was conceived It was about the year 1300 when this Marian Goddess appeared like a Queen both of Heaven and all the Angels both to revele it to S. Peter the Cistercian who q Gononus Chronic.
an 1292. knew nothing of it before and to take him for her Husband upon condition he should keep it which he gladly undertaking her Son came down to the wedding and in facie Ecclesiae being in a Priestly Habit and in the face of the whole Church joined this holy Monk and his Mother in a Roman Wedlock together Her other Solemn and great Feast which they call the Assumtion and which in the Roman account makes the Virgin as much a Goddess as the blessed Ascension among the Socinians can make Christ God is scarce older One of the most skilful of all the Fathers in Sacred Antiquity I mean St. Epiphanius had not yet in his time heard of it nor had a great many years after pious and learned Pulcheria when she sought s Nicephor Eccles Hist b 5. c. 14. the Virgins Corps in the Holy Land not dreaming it was in Heaven Neither could Venerable t Beda de Locis Sacr. c. 6. Bede or Arch-Bishop * Martyrol Adon. 18. Cal. Sept. Ado men the best versed both in all true and untrue stories tell much more nor had Ludulphus de Saxonia tho a great Adorer of the Virgin †Devita Christ part c. 186. yet heard of that Legend Nicephorus is the first u Niceph. ibid. Romancer that can distinctly tell with what Triumph of men and Angles She went up twelve hundred years after it was don The Blessed Virgin Mary kept her self during that interval close and happy like other Souls in the Bosom of Abraham and under the wings of her Savior She never thought yet of coming forth either to throw x Mag. Speculum Tit. Festum Exemp 2. Gold or Medals into their hand who kept this Feast or to bury y Bencius supra them under ground who kept it not Neither mortal Ears had heard till then in the blindest times of the Church the Angels z Cantiprat l. 2. c. 4. n. 7. singing their Mattins to celebrate that Festival nor mortal Eies seen Trees * Gonon ex Annalib Colmar an 1276. both to blossom and bear Fruit against nature nor Hoods and a Cantiprat l. 2. c. 29. n. 26. Frocks becoming as good as strong Boats to ferry Monks over a great River when they would preach the Glory of that day In good earnest can an infallible Church can a true Church be drawn away to new Services upon the account of such Tales Or if these Tales and hundred other as bad or worse be true stories as they may be and I am not he that will dispute it what must we think of that Spirit which is pleased to entice us to his Service upon such Grounds This matter proves as bad again in the Point of Altars and Churches First it cannot be a good Spirit if created that calls for either Altars or Churches Secondly it is not a good Spirit neither that calls for them by unbecoming ridiculous and jugling waies Thirdly 'T is not a true Religion or a true Church that yields to that Spirit what he calls for both on those accounts and by those waies First Such Spirits what name soever they take are to be shrewdly suspected who call for Churches Vows Altars Offerings and all such other sacred services as clearly belong to God alone And in express terms Saint Augustin makes no doubt b August de Civit. l. 10. c. 19. but that they are Devils Good Angels saies this holy Father do then love us and for our sakes do rejoice when we worship the only God but if we do the like to them they are not pleased with it at all but openly cast it from them And when some have thought of deferring also to them that honor they forbad them and commanded them to do it to him to whom alone they know that it can be lawfully done Herein the Holy Men of God do imitate the Holy Angels c. Therefore saies and concludes the c Ibidem same Father as well he may when some of those Spirits or Saints have a mind to be served with holy Rites and Sacrifices and others avert it from themselves and order it for God alone the very sense of true Piety may teach any Man how to discern between that which proceeds from true Religion and what from a Spirit of pride for proud Spirits are neither good Angels nor the Angels of a good God And let d Ibid. c. 11. them do what Miracles they will even beyond the course of Nature these are but seducing Tricks of wicked Devils which true Piety must take heed of Here the Papists cannot answer St. Augustin nor satisfie him at all by saying That no Roman Saint or Spirit was ever found calling for any Sacrifices that is for the Blood of Bulls or Goats which here St. Augustin understands for then the Father will reply and out of Porphyrius an authentic Pagan Author that these proud c Ibid. c. 19. Devils never cared for the Blood or smell of slain Beasts upon any other account then because such Sacrifices were in those daies the Expressions of Divine Worship as now surely Churches and Masses are destined to the same end and therefore as much at the least if not more desirable and pleasing to them Who doubts but all the Gold and Silver Utensils which you shall find at Lauretta may be as rich Oblations as all that was once at Delphi And let any Jeweller tell me whether one of those many precious Stones which are daily by formal Vows sent and presented to that Goddess would not buy the best Bull or Ram that ever was at any time Sacrificed at Jerusalem To follow the Roman accounts one Mass is better then all what both Delphi and Jerusalem had together and if the Devils anciently craved for the slaughter of silly Beasts because such was the solemn worship of Israel how proud may they be now to see upon their Altars the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ which tho in very deed but a Wafer yet in the Opinion of Papists is the most solemn Worship of Rome You will say that this Flesh or Wafer is not sacrificed to the Virgin Mary true indeed but it is worse for it is sacrificed to God for her sake in honorem Mariae Thus when I make much of a Stranger for my Friends sake the Stranger hath the entertainment and God upon the Roman Principles hath the Sacrifice or the Mass but the Friend and the good Lady are the main end and the main Persons I look upon he in the Entertainment and she in the Sacrifice a Gonon Chronic. an 1372. Thus this she Ghost understands it Thou art my servant saies she to a Priest offering the First-fruits of his Mass Priesthood when he was singing his first Mass Thou art my servant for I have chosen thee God uses to speak so to his Prophets and I will be glorified in thee I dearly love them of your b Leand. Albert. in vita
which they try Evil Spirits with and which those Devils do not care for they would but consult the Example of the former Ages and the practice of all Faithful People much above four thousand Years there they might see that the Church of God ever had Angels had Saints had Deliverers and sometimes Workers of great Miracles and yet never had one Altar nor one Chappel nor one Image to serve them with And that if the very best of all their either Saints or Angels had called for any such Service they would have thought him qualified rather for Execration then for Worship The Women of Arabia did come far short of the Papists in their Devotions to the Virgin yet St. Epiphanius calls what they did p Epiphanius cont Antidicomar pag. 445. Edit Basil Diabolical and plainly tells them That the Devil had put them upon the conferring of such Honors What manner of Spirit must it be then that falls himself and puts the others upon seeking and craving them If the Blessed Virgin saies the Pious and Learned q Ibidem Father have had a natural death and burial let her sleep and rest in peace If she have bin slain by the sword let her be celebrated among the Martyrs for in those daies it seems her end was not known If she hath seen no death at all for no man saies he knows her end then let her be as Elias who also was a Virgin and was taken up into Heaven None of these Saints was ever adored and if r Id. contr Collyrid pag. 448. God will not have the Angels much less Anna's Daughter that is the Virgin to be so Churches Altars public Praiers Vows and Sacrifices do betoken by their own nature and set out a supreme Adoration to the highest degree that it can reach to For if Adoration or Bowing and Worshipping in general may sometimes signifie no more then a kind of Civil Honor as when 't is said Abraham adored or bowed himself before the People Gen. 23. Vowing Sacrificing and erecting of Altars or Churches denotes alwaies Soveraign Worship these Acts as the Jesuits themselves confess s Bellarm. de Sanct. Beatitud l. 1. c. 12. sect Tertia species Coster in Enchirid. having in themselves this inherent and proper sense which no private Intention can make lower as sometimes it doth Bowing and Kneeling Therefore they take it for a good evidence to prove our Savior Christ to be God because the Church t Bell. de Christo. l. 1. c. 8. sect Denique omnes honors him with Temples Altars and Oblations and so saies Bellarmin if Christ were not truly God never such an Idol were in the world And by the same reason if the Virgin be not a Goddess with all her Churches Oblations in good earnest what shall she be Here no Grove nor hardly the shade of a green Leaf covers their sin The Whore may kiss hard her Neighbor and say she kisses him as a dear Friend but she cannot lie with him and put it off in the same way saying she doth it meerly upon her dear Husbands account because the other was his Kinsman this saying proclames her to be a most bold impudent Woman as the very Act proclames her light and guilty in all the rest For my part I like them better who tell ingenuously what they do and following the Trade of Idolaters think they may use as well their Language Sacrificemus c. say some of them u Abbas Livriacensis in Roset Exercit. Spiritual Tit. 4. c. 6. that is Let us Sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out to her Drink-offerings Jerem. 44.17 Here both Jews and Romans hit just upon the same Idol the Moon for those the Virgin Mary whom they represent by the Moon for these and the Queen of Heaven for both CHAP. VII Concerning the daily Services bestowed upon the Virgin Mary THE Virgin Mary that is the Ghost that walks and appears under her name doth not possess these Churches in vain For first They must serve for keeping eight great and universal Holy-daies which she is allowed every Year the Annunciation Conception c. God the Father under the Law had but three such and God and Christ at Rome have but eight So she and her Son are as to this both of them pretty equal sharers 2. So are they too in every Week for if Christ hath the Sunday she hath the Saturday before it and therein that Weekly Office so famous among them for Miracles and so plentiful of Blessings which Service is called Officium Sabbatinum that is the Office of the Saturday But do not think that there is one day in which you may excuse your self from some other more private daily Praiers and daily Praises to her Honor. 1. Not from Praiers For the best Masters of Popery say a Salazar Proverb c. 8. v. 34. n. 435. that as you cannot live any one day in the week without the Influences of some of the Planets so can you neither without the special Assistance of the Saints and that the Virgin Mary being the true or the Original and super-celestial Moon Luna archetypa Supramundana that both qualifies and immediatly pours down all the Blessings which you can expect from other Saints as the other Moon doth the good Influences which you receive from the other Planets t is more then fit you should pray to her every Day and order your Devotions suitably to the Temper and strength of the Star that rules the same day For example they say that upon Munday the Moon hath a proper faculty of tempering the Heat of the Blood then come with an office short or long that is proper to that and every Munday and pray to the Virgin for Modesty and Chastity Upon Tuesday wherein Mars reigns you must pray to the Virgin again but not so much for Modesty as for Zeal and Strength and Courage Upon Wednesday which is the day of Mercury the Merchants must pray to her for good Trade and the Lawiers for Eloquence Upon Thursday which is the day of Jupiter call on the Virgin for high Designs Upon the Friday because of Venus for loving kindness and Charity Upon the Saturday because of Saturn for Prudence And finally upon Sunday because the Sun is conceived to rule that day you are directed to pray to her for clear and bright understanding about Supernatural Mysteries You may likewise upon any of the seven daies pray for one of the seven Gifts for tho they proceed originally from the Holy Ghost they do not think they come to you otherwise then through the Virgin In doing this they warrant you * Salazar ibid. that you shall find both the Virgin Mary propitious and the Scripture true which saies when most impiously misapplied from Christ to a Creature Blessed is the man or all sorts of Blessings will light upon the man who hears the Virgin Mary and watches every day at Her Gates Prov.
by the Roman Church must be a greater Temtation For what would you have more temting then this By this saving Office say they h Al. Gazaeus supra pag. 69. if you use it now especially when his Holiness hath improved it with Apostolical Indulgences 1. You may lay claim to Heaven not merely upon the title of mercy from God but by that of Justice and Condignity as your own Right 2 You may satisfy Divine Justice both for your sins and the sins of others 3. What would you have more by these Praiers whatsoever you can ask in the Name of the Savior and in the name of the Savioress Mary too you shall receive it For who can be so incredulous as not to be sure to have all in order to his real Good and Salvation by this form of Praier thus approved of by the Church recommended by God himself they mean the little Baby who bids men to pray to his Mother and in an especial manner consecrated to the Virgin Maries Service What a hot friend she proves to be and how Zealous to undertake for the silliest Fellow that is her Client S. Damian can best tell you i Cardin. Damian l. 2. Ep. 14. A pitiful sottish Man who had no spark of Grace in him but that he could sing Ave Maria and bow passing by her Altar had bin deprived of his Pension by a Bishop who thought himself bound in Conscience to free the Church from such a Wretch But then the Goddess comes by night and falls foul upon the Prelat and being seconded by an Angel who had a burning Taper in one hand and a lusty whip in the other What saies he wrong'st thou my Chaplain and takest thou from him what thou didst not give At last after many sound stripes the Bishop being taught good manners was glad to cry out peccavi and to restore to that worthy Man the stipends which he had kept from him This is but a temporal Concern but here is one which is Eternal It is somewhat long but it concerns all Men to know it and I have it from the same Saint k Card. Damian supra An ugly Fellow named Bassus who died a sudden death had the good luck to die so in coming from one of our Ladies Churches He having bin in his Coffin the greatest part of the night after his death rose up out of it suddenly both affrighted and affrighting others for with a terrible tone he cried for Praiers Litanies to scare away those ugly Spirits who watch'd for him about the Room and at last being come to himself for Ave Maria and Holy Water had soon frighted the Devils away when my poor Soul saies he parted from me presently came on some black Troopers this Fellow said they is our prize for he hath ever lived after the Flesh and never knew what the Spirit was His good Angel could say nothing but that he was dead in the service of their Mistress the Queen of Heaven and that whosoever hath her favor cannot perish by the power of any Judg. To this they make bold to reply that God being Just would do nothing for a Sinner to their prejudice and thereupon the Devils grew so earnest after their Prey and the Angels on the other side so remiss in keeping their charge that the Wretch was upon the point of being given up as he deserved when behold the Queen of Heaven came among them and an Army of Celestial Soldiers with her and with such a splendor besides that the Devils durst not look up Nevertheless with reverence they protested against the wrong which the former Angels had done them in detaining from them their just Prey and that if God and she were just they could not rescue such a sinner out of their hands The Queen confessed he had bin so but yet her Son and Lord would never suffer that one who had ended his daies in her service as this Fellow had done in going to visit her Church should ever suffer their Cruelty and withal he had confessed tho he had not the time to do Penance Hence the Devil took a fit time to tell her what a Villain he was and what ugly Abomination he had never confessed and that is true saies the revived Man of himself at which the Mother of Mercy started but at last after a kind of modest silence in reverence to this plain truth having somewhat recovered her self It is as you say saies she but yet of course Mercy goes before Judgment Go back again to thy Body saies she to him and then confess to such a Priest whom she named what these Spirits lay to thy charge and in my name charge such Friars whom she named also to take upon them thy Penance Then come again without delay for I will not stir hence till thou come The Rascal being confessed saies the Cardinal Damian and the Holy Friars having taken upon themselves the satisfaction enjoined him by the Confessor died again but as sweetly as if he had but fallen asleep A happy Sinner indeed who can find such a Savioress as will give way to all his Crimes and secure him from punishment Men troubled in their Consciences and unwilling to leave their sins do not consider the Absurdity tho visible in all such Stories but see their own conveniency and what could please and fit then better then such a protecting Goddess Add to this Enchantment of daily Praiers to the Virgin the Devotion of Fasting and Hearing one Mass to her Honor every Saturday the Temtation will be ended and your Soul safe This weekly piece of Devotion on Saturday Officium Sabbatinum is grounded as they say l Durand Rational l. 4. c. 1. upon three Reasons 1. Because the Saturday and the Sunday or the Ladies day and the Lords day as do the Lord and the Lady go together 2. Because as God the Father rested upon that day and kept it holy under the Law so must the Goddess his Daughter and Wife do the like under the Gospel 3. Because she is an entrance to Eternal Life as Saturday is to the Sunday But if you will be so refractory as not to acquiesce in these Reasons be you satisfied with a Miracle They say m Gonon Chron. an 770. that in the Year 770. it is pity it did not happen sooner that the Holy Apostles and the Fathers might have observ'd it a great Cortin that hanged before our Ladies Image all the Week long was miraculously drawn up as they suppose into Heaven from Friday at Vespers to Sunday Night so that the People could see her Face for the space of 24 hours and adore her accordingly This Miracle constantly veiling and unveiling the Virgin Mary on Saturday as well as the other that the Night of her Assumtion made all sorts of Lights burn without wasting is quite abolish'd But the Benefit and the Charm to induce you to hear her Mass Missa de S. Maria in Sabbato
†Chronic. Deip. an 1149. Trees sometimes with these letters upon their leaves which the Virgin Mary or rather some other Spirit makes often grow upon their Graves and out of their very Mouths Noses and Ears who did make it their business and their whole Religion to sing it are among Roman Catholics a most sufficient Evidence both of the Excellency of those words and of the esteem she makes of them Besides all this Depth and pregnancy which these words bear in their signification they think them to carry often also such a miraculous n Ren. Bened. ibid. strength in the sound they are spoken with and in the very Ink and Paper they are written in that no Charm can be stronger What do you think of that x Ibid. an 1598. Infant which being yet not above six months old did sing it out in a full Church when there was neither Clerk nor other Choristers to do it Was it not a clear inspiration that moved your Angelical S. Thomas being yet an Infant as the other was to take up y Vita S. Thom. ap Sur. 7. Mart. a loose Paper where this Salutation was written and to hold it in spight of his Mother till he had swallowed it down But what do you say to the little Bird that z Bust. in Marial 12. Serm. 1. having bin taught by a Nun to prate Ave Maria and being snatcht away by a Hawk assoon as the Bird cried the two words with what understanding or devotion you may think presently the Hawk fell down dead and the poor Bird fled back again to her Mistress Now if these few words an inconsiderable part of the Rosary can do such Feats what may not one hope of the whole when S. Dominic had put it all in a Packthred and cast it about a Magn. Specul Tit. Rosarium Exemp 1. ones Neck he could overmaster any Devil One of his Captains named Antony for S. Dominic was a Warrior could b Alanus de Insulis in Rosa B. M. cause the Clouds to rain hot burning Bullets upon his Heretical Foes by hanging it to his Banner And it is confidently reported that Brave Montford c Chronic. Deip. an 1213. once routed an hundred thousand of them with this Weapon Now you must know otherwise you do not deserve the Name of a true Roman Catholic that the Rosary with the hundred and fifty Angelical Salutations well rehearsed and minded together besides the sense of every word which reaches high contains in its whole Contexture the fifteen great Mysteries which are d Missal Rom. in Missa Rosar celebrated by special Masses What these Mysteries are is a Mystery to Protestants as it was to the holy Fathers but of late times the Roman Catholics have got them all by special Revelations from the Virgin Of these 15 Mysteries the first 5 e Navar. de Rosar Miscell 20. n. 1. are called Gaudiosa the 5 next Dolorosa the last 5 Gloriosa Gaudiosa that is the first five joiful Mysteries are the five great Joies that the Virgin had upon earth as they say she hath reveled to some of her friends the first was when the Archangel Gabriel got into the Sanctuary the doors being shut to salute her with an Ave. 2. The second when Elizabeth saluted her by the title of Mother of the Lord. 3. The third when she was delivered of her Travel 4. The fourth when she presented both her and Gods child in the Temple 5. And the fift when she found him twelve years after disputing among the Doctors What the remembring of these Joies is worth you may learn by the Experience of that holy Monk who whilst he was muttering them by an Altar heard an Oracle from Heaven f Card. Damian an 1360. in these words Gaudâ—um c. thou hast celebrated my Joies on Earth Thou shalt have great Joies hereafter The second 5 Dolorosa or full of Grief are about the Passion as at the last farwell when Christ went to Jerusalem At the sight of the Crown of Thorns At the hearing of the Hammer beating the Nails upon the Cross c. They say that a very lew'd Raskal and a Magician besides was saved from Hell upon this one account that tho he cared neither for God nor for his Mother g Chronic Deip. an 1360. yet he had the grace to think of these Griess whensoever he passed by her Image The last five Mysteries which are called Gloriosa or glorious Joies are 1. When she saw her Son arising out of his Grave 2. Going to Heaven 3. When she at the Pentecost received the Holy Ghost 4. When she saw her self above waited upon and courted by Christ c. Now if any third part of these fifteen Mysteries can as you have Examples for it sometimes rescue a Soul out of Hell sometimes bring down the Virgin Mary from heaven and sometimes make Altars speak out how strong are the fifteen together Nor is this all The Rosary one way or other involves within its proper Extent besides the 15 Mysteries 165 Contemplations h about what both Christ and his Mother did together and every one of these Contemplations must be applied to every Pater or Ave. So no man living can say how far the holy Rosary can reach It is but a small trial of it to see it sheltering i Chronic. S. Franc. l. 1. c. 36. Monks against a storm as well as the Roof of a strong house could or to see Angels gathering k Autor Method Admirab fol. 210. Lilies at every Pater and a Rose at every Ave that is said and making Garlands and Posies for them l Chronic. Ord. Minor par 3. who are careful to pray that way It is somewhat more to see horrible Blasphemers carried m Lipez de Rosar l. 1. c. 10. away by stupid Asses from the Gallows into Holy Churches for once undertaking the Rosary or to see the Virgin her self breaking on this account n Chronic. Deip. an 1495. all the Halters that should strangle condemned persons or keeping them o Pat. Archang Gian de Rosar so slack and loose that they could never stop their breath But what can a Villain wish for better or a holy man find more horrible then is what they say of dead Whores p Alan 5. part c. 62. arising out of their Graves by the power of their Rosary an hundred and fifty daies answerable to the 150 Aves after their heads had bin cut off The Woman lived but two daies after for she came merely to confess her sins and to have Absolution then being dead after 15 daies more answerable to the 15 Mysteries and to the 15 Paters being in the form q Ibid. of a bright Star you see what wanton Ladies may come to she appeared to St. Dominic to tell him what he knew before but such Things cannot be too well known that there was nothing in the world comparable to
or by quenching his Lust upon Maids and Women of Snow all this I say and a great deal more is to be disposed of at Rome for the use of good Catholics and yet all this is but one half of this Tresure For besides all these sufferings all the meritorious Works of pious men from the very first to the last Saint are gathered in and the Roman Church hath found the way of parting a good work in two namely h Navar. de Jubil Bellarm. de Indulg l. 1. c. 2. sect Postreme potest Bonacina de Indulg q. 1. punct 1. n 3. the meritorious deserving side which makes Supererogations and gains extraordinary Rewards and another laborious and painful side for the Saints could not Preach or Pray on do any manner of good without taking some trouble about it which is put up and kept very safe for expiating other mens sins Hereupon Rome may safely swear that no other Church in the whole World enjoies the like if real and true privilege with her and that she is the only that pretends to be able to ease poor sinners from the necessity of repenting or at the least i Bell. de Paenitent l. 4. c. 14. sect Respondeo Indulgentia from doing works meet for Repentance This great Tresure and Privilege hath bin lost and buried out of the notice of Christs Church above thirteen hundred Years No Christian ever thought of it till Pope Clement found it out For tho there were Indulgences before yet they were a quite other thing as in the time of the Latin Fathers or they were not taken out of this Tresure but either out of the pretended strength of their Blessings or out * Cajetan Medina ap Suarem de Thesaur sect 3. Parag. his ergo rejectis of the Keys which then Popes turned backward and forward to shut in or let out whom they pleased Such were the Indulgences wherewith Innocent the third for example did encourage the Christians against the Turks and Gregory the seventh his k Baron To. n. An. 1084. n. 15. Soldiers against the Emperors of Germany which were but Letters of Favor and Testimonials and Passes as it were to God Almighty which however much sought after and sometimes dearly paid for even in those daies cost nothing but the Popes blessing or credit whereas in these later times Indulgences are Bills of Exchange for hundreds and thousands of Years really as it is supposed paied out of this Tresury that is either out of that vast abundance of Blood which Papists say Christ might have spar'd or out of the Blood and Penances of other Saints which are reserved in this Tresury and thence by vertue of these Indulgences allowed to the sinner as much to all ends and purposes as if the sinner were the Saint that had done and suffered for himself Here are two very great Wonders for Men and Angels to look upon The first How all this Blood and Sufferings are from the remotest parts of the World and through the distance of all Ages fetch'd and gathered into this Tresury The second How when thus got home the Pope can disperse them so well abroad 1. To get all in the Blood of Christ and his Martyrs cannot be conveied into the Roman Tresury as Rivers are down their Chanels into the Sea or as lesser Waters are by Pipes and Spouts conveied into a Cistern No more also can they be kept in Bottles as they say our Ladies Milk is nor in Ward-robes or other Rooms as they say also her shoes and shifts are and by that means it were possible to fetch up all from Nazareth or from Rome or from Venice or from any other Country But as if you should see these said Bottles Shifts Shoes and other Relics leave all of them upon their own accord their respective usual Abodes and flock together into one place you would take it for a strange Miracle as strange at the least as when the Chamber where they say the Virgin was born jumped with the Doors Chimney Windows and all from Nazareth to Lauretta the Satisfactions and Scourgings and other Penances of the Saints to meet under the hand of his Holiness must not do less Whether we be bound to imagine such an Attractive Vertu at Rome which is the Center of their Church to draw satisfactions to her Tresury as there is imagin'd in the Center of the World to draw heavy Bodies to its bottom or whether all this be done by some other strange Conveiances however all the satisfactory Works and Penances let them be what they can do tend and unless hindered and stopt in some passage take their course towards this Store-house Insomuch that l Greg. de Valent. de Indulg Punct 3. sect Secundo quia Bonacin de Ind. Quaest 1. punct 3. Proposit 3. Layman de Ind. c. 4. nâ— 5. sect Dico secundo Suarez To. 4. Disput. 51. sect 4. Parag. Nonnulla unless a Man by a special intention applies to his own benefit the satisfactoriness of his Work before it parts out of his hand it runs forthwith to the Tresury and thence in vain would he have it again tho never so much for his own need unless the Pope will give it him 2. The second Wonder is about the getting out what is thus got in and the scattering it far and near upon all manner of Persons Families Buildings and other things whatsoever his Holiness can think upon Let the Pope of Rome but turn the Cock this Fountain will cast forth its Waters what way how much and how far he will and as he may chuse what he pleases nothing hinders him to pick out for example the works of Abel that have bin kept close five or six thousand years and apply them to Gardiner or all the Merits of austere John Baptist and bestow them upon the course of some wanton Catholic Lady 'T is indeed an admirable Magazine or Store-house that can keep things so long for so good ends And which is another great Wonder what thing soever they be clapt to there they shall be as long or longer then the very matter which they stick to Let his Holiness for example apply one of these Blessings by way of local Indulgence to an Altar or a Church it will outlast the very Stones unless recalled and tho Thunder or time beats them down m Paul Layman de Indulg c. 13. n. 3. Suarez To. 7. de Ind. Sect. 1. n. 8. 9. it will stick to the very ground and there be as good for a new Church if the Parishoners will build it up as ever it was for the old one Nay the lightest and moveablest things as Beads Medals Pieces of Wax Holy Grains c. what way soever you toss them cannot shake it off Navarrus a great holy Man among all the Fathers of Trent n Navar. de Jubil Notab 15. n. 15. saies That he hath seen the Pope bestowing out of this Tresure as much upon
alittle Button of Wood Globulo ligneo as could save any one Soul if in saying the Lords Praier he will but hold it in his hand now this Blessing will stick to it though you throw it into the Sea and if you did throw it into the Fire this admirable saving Vertu would probably stick to the Ashes I am sure it will lay hold upon the very ringing of Bells and whensoever o Richard Cluniacens in Papa Joh. 22. you hear them in the Morning especially at Noon and at Sun-setting and have the grace to put off your Hat to say an Ave Maria you may thereby expiate some sins Happy sinners whose Churches Altars and the very Bells can do so much and the Tresure shall pay for all But this is a fitter matter to be abhorred then jested at As this Tresure is best contrived both for the Interest of Covetous and the Lust of lewd Persons it is made up of Blasphemies and impertinent lies against God The first Pope who invented it maintain'd it upon this ground That p Clemens 6. Extravag Vnigenitus one drop of Christs Blood could save man-kind whence follows that he had no need to die Hereupon the Blasphemer concludes That since God spared not his Son but put him to such a violent death as forced out of him not one single drop but q Ibid. a whole stream and Flood of Blood there must be somewhere a Tresury to receive this most precious but superfluous quantity lest it be lost But First This impious untruth destroies the necessity of Christs satisfaction and sufferings and countenances all what the old and the new and worse Arrians will say against his Sacrifice upon the Cross For if one drop of Blood was sufficient he shed that and more at his Circumcision and thus far his Passion was useless Secondly It charges the Justice of God with such a foul Reproch as can never be wash'd off as long as this Roman Tresury shall stand For since it stands merely to receive that Blood which might have bin spared at our dear Saviors Passion it stands up as an Evidence that whatsoever is therein kept was demanded of and paied by Christ as a tyrannous rigor above what was due to afflict and torment him and that the same Eternal Judg who as they say is so merciful even in Hell as to take * Aloys Novarin Vmbra Virg. To. 2. l. 4. Excurs 43. n. 799. less of damned men then they deserve was in the very acts of Grace and the Redemtion of Man-kind so severe against his own Son as by most insufferable Punishments to extort from him a thousand times more then it was strictly just he should suffer Thirdly It throws the same Dirt upon that Love which God bears to his only beloved Son For Christ never sought for Torments farther then they were necessary for the saving of his own Flesh that is Man-kind Contrariwise with Praiers and Tears he wish'd That that Cup might pass from him And therefore what kindness had this bin in God the Father to put his Son to vain Tortures and to plunge his very Soul into a most shameful kind of death when one drop of Blood had done as much the Popes Interest being laid aside And what Bowels and natural Compassions were these in both a Just and Loving Father to draw so much Blood out of his Son as should bring him to a cruel Death merely to fill up Roman Purses Fourthly Nothing less then blind Covetousness could betray Men into that blind Opinion For what could perswade the Popes that one drop of Christs Blood was enough to save all the World out of Hell but the pretence of having all the rest in their disposal to save Men from Purgatory Can any ordinary Divine unless blinded by that Interest be so fundamentally ignorant as not to know that what sinners deserve the Law demands the Sacrifices for sin did threaten and therefore either we or our surety for us was to suffer was a real and cursed Death And can any other then a mad-men think that a Drop of Blood shed without Death is a real and cursed Death It is true one Drop of that Blood was of an infinite value and t is perhaps with this pretense that Popes blind themselves and others or unconsidering men in their harangues have talkt unwarily but there are many more things in Christ which are of an infinite value as for example his Praiers his Groanings his Tears c. which yet are not sufficient for our Ransom for no infinite thing could be it but such as were an infinite death and certanly a Drop of Blood is neither death nor a death of infinite worth Popes or at the least Popish Divines r Bellar. de Indulg l. 1. c. 2. sect Tertia Propositio Becan de Iâ—â—ulg q. 1. sect Prima Conclusio have another Foundation to set their Church Tresure upon which I confess is not so impious as the former but is as much or more impertinent They say and they say well that the Death of Jesus Christ was abundantly sufficient not only to save those few who are saved out of the World but to save all men besides and twenty thousand both men and worlds more if God had created them and if they had corrupted themselves Hereupon and this is their foolish Impertinency they part Christs death and infinite Ransom into two Namely that which hath bin really applied and made use of and that which hath not bin so The former they think well bestowed on them who are or shall be really saved and therefore lay no claim to it But the other which is the far greater part that never was applied because it was rejected for fear it should fall to the ground they challenge it for their Tresure and that is it which they apply every 25th year in a Jubilee and every day in Indulgences After this rate Rome may provide for new store-houses for they may part as well in two the Infinite Wisdom or power or Providence of God and leaving that part he makes use of for Creating and Ordering this one world wherein we live take for themselves that other share which might have served and yet did not for creating and ordering of thousand more Did one ever hear of mad-men that went about to tresure up that part of sun-shine that might shew the way to a whole Army when but one man makes use of it or to reserve that part of Christs Voice as far as it might have bin heard by the seventy where it was heard but by the twelve Disciples the Papists in this Poin are very little wiser then so The same Wisdom and Power of God which is all-sufficient both to create and order many worlds is all necessary and therefore indivisibly and wholly set to order one the same Sun-shine which at one time fills a whole Hemisphere or the voice and Sermon which fills a great Auditory do not use to
Latin word Indulgentia without its proper sense and use was ground enough for crafty men to build what they would upon it and how far they have abused it and more abused their Church with it one may guess by what here follows It was and should be still the Practise of the Holy Church to expell from their Society Scandalous and known sinners and since the Church could not alwaies keep Hypocrites from coming in she could not take a better course for asserting both her detestation against all sin and her credit with God and men then to keep them off when duly known and to shun them in their holy Meetings especially till many and great Evidences both of their sorrow for what they had done and of their Amendment for the time to come had procured them Readmittance They were y Concil Ancyran Can. 16. Concil Nicen. Can. 11. enjoined to pray to fast to curb and to mortifie their Flesh to afflict their Souls for their sins and to apply themselves to all such works as might both improve and declare their inward sincere Repentance These long and holy Exercises did pass among all Christians for Satisfactions to the Church and in some manner z Cyprian l. 1. Ep. 3. to God too Before the Church most properly because that was all which the Church Discipline and Ecclesiastical Canons did require and before God in a lower yet a very true and proper sense because tho all such works of Repentance be far from being a price equivalent to what Divine Justice demands which can never be had but either from the eternal death of the sinner or from the infinite satisfactions of Christ for him yet it is the main Condition which God requires of Offenders before the grant of his Pardon and which he is in his Mercy both satisfied and pleased with when they sincerely perform it This was not all 't was not enough to have don it they must do it a long * Concil Ancyr supra while some a whole year some two some ten some according to the Enormity of the sin all their life long and the surest Proof the Church could take of their real sincerity was in the length of their Performances By this it seems the holy Fathers had a great care that in the management of their keies whether to shut out or to let in their Church might keep time with Heaven so that they might neither retein nor remit here upon Earth but what and when they might well judg God would retein or remit above It was not then as now at Rome where Dispensations and Licences are presently got at a small Rate a Ravisher of a Virgin was in the year 1520 I hear it is now much raised as well as the Rate of Monies about six a Taxa Cancellar Apostol Fol. 36. pag. 2. Edit Paris 1520. Groats the Ravisher of his own Sister was but at five and the heaviest severity that these Villains must undergo is that 't is impossible for them how penitent and contrite soever to be released without some Mony Pauperibus c. b Ibid. fol. 23. p. 1. that is they cannot have the Comfort of these Mercies whosoever brings in no Mony In such Occasions of Scandal the Roman Church whilst a Virgin was as severe as now she is become remiss and what the Whore gives for twelve pence the honest Virgin had scarce granted for a penance of twenty years So careful were they in those daies to clear the Church from foul Scandals and so afraid were they withal in the exercise of their Power to break correspondencie with Gods Justice to unloose them whom he kept bound and to bind themselves before God * S. Ambros De Paenit l. 2. c. 2. by a rash unbinding of others You may read in S. Cyprian c Cyprian l. 3. Ep. 14. Ep. 15. Ep. 16. item Serm. de lapsis and Ambrose how both sinful and dangerous this loose and remiss indulgence is in their opinion Nevertheless there now and then happened such causes as not only permitted but moved them also to be more free As when the excommunicated Sinner gave signal proofs of an extraordinary sorrow when upon dangerous occasions he stoutly owned and defended the Christian Faith when in times of Persecutions all Christians were to be encouraged and strengthened to Martyrdom and when valiant Confessors who ever before their Death were reputed for true Martyrs did intercede for some of their friends on these and other like rational and pious Inducements the holy Fathers thought they might d Conc. Ancyran Can. 5. 12. Conc. Nic. Can. 12. either ease such Penitents of the length or sometimes quite discharge them of the whole Burthen that excommunicated but withal contrite persons did lie under and so before the time prescribed readmit them into the Church And this Relaxation of Ecclesiastical Severity some Latin Fathers e Cyprian de Lapsis Sub sin Tertull. de Exhortat Castit call once or twice in their writings by the Name of Indulgence Tbis was enough for cunning Cheats to ground their Indulgences upon and for silly men to entertain them So that as one word Missa could serve their turn as I have shew'd in another Book for introducing that great Abomination which they call Mass so doth this other Latin word Indulgentia used once or twice by some ancient Authors in a good sense and now turned to a quite other for countenancing all the Impostures that now a daies are bought and sold under the name of Indulgences Here you may whensoever you please discover Romes either Knavery or Folly or both by these two distinct Characters The first is that when the Fathers thought good to use any Indulgence it was to shorten or to moderate their Ecclesiastical Censures before Reconciliation and pardon whereas the Roman Indulgence is for another sort of Punishments which Mass Priest are pleased both to inflict on the Penitents and to moderate or quite take off after their Absolution The second is that the holy Fathers never either thought or attemted to moderate or to take off any other Censures or Punishments then such as had bin imposed whereas the Pope by his Indulgences offers to moderate or take off all boâ— what is laid on by his Church and what is or shall be laid on by God himself As to the first Mark to distinguish the Primitive Relaxations from the present Roman Indulgences The Church of Christ never used upon any occasion whatsoever this unnatural and popish way of inflicting punishments or Ecclesiastical Censures after Pardon and therefore they could not have occasion of ever granting such Indulgences as should ease men after pardon from such Censures When notorious and public Offences had turned the sinner out of dores the Holy Fathers did lay on him several Degrees of Rigor before they would take him in again as antecedent Preparations to make him fit to be taken in 1. The Sinner
was enjoined a Greg. Neocaesar Epist Canon to stand without and there with cries and tears b Ambrosius De Paenit l. 1. c. 19. to beg them who came in to pray to God for him 2. Some years or months after he was admitted within Doors but in a remote Corner of the Church behind the Catechumens that is the not Christened Proselytes where they might hear Sermons but not Praiers 3. After such other time as they thought fit he was suffered to hear and pray with the Christians but not to take the Holy Mysteries These with some other Mortifications and trials were all the Penalties inflicted by the Church upon scandalous Offenders the Satisfactions when undergon given by the Offenders to the Church and when humbly and sincerely performed upon good grounds were also thought in the sense above said acceptable to God himself And here among these performances was the only time of Indulgence either to shorten the time or to mitigate the Rigor of the Hardship that they were under 4. This don either with or without favor at last the sinner was at the time appointed for his Readmission brought in into the Church there he kneeled and there the Bishop coming to him as the good Father in the Gospel to the lost Child fell both himself and all the People upon their knees then after holy Praiers and a holy laying on of hands gave him Sacerdotal Blessing and complete Absolution raised him up from kneeling for conclusion of all he was admitted at the same time both to the holy Communion and the Churches Peace The Penitents being thus reconcil'd neither under-went other Punishments nor needed other Indulgences And if that Holy Mother the Primitive Church used to chastise her stubborn Children and upon their amendment to kiss and embrace them afterwards we do not read in any Father that it was ever her Method first to kiss then to correct and punish It is an extravagance proper to Rome to absolve her Penitents and after Absolution to have them punisht thereby to satisfie Divine Justice and so consequently are all her Indulgences to ease men of such Punishments Tricks of their own invention Our Savior did not plague sinners after he had bid them go in Peace and if God kept them afterwards humble and sensible of their former sins by Fatherly Corrections as you read often that he did Psal 89. Hebr. 12. 1 Corinth 11. Roman Indulgences are but both idle and sawcy Toies to take them off And this brings to the second visible Character by which you may discern the Primitve Relaxations from the present Roman Indulgences 1. Therefore as to this second the Fathers of the Primitive Church never intended with their Condescensions or favors to moderate or to take off any other Punishments then that which they had laid on by their own sentence and Censure They knew that the Power of reteining and the Power of remitting which God allowed them in his Church are both i Suares de Indulg Disp 50. Sect. 2. n. 5. proportioned and relative the one to the other and that they could remit nothing but when they had bin able to bind This appears so by the very Contents and Form of their Warrant Whatsoever you shall bind on Earth c. Matth. 1.16.19 and 18.18 and John 20.23 Where the power of Loosing and Remitting follows close to that of Retaining and Binding This is exercised by Excommunications and Censures that by taking them away in the reconciling of Offenders and both Keies turn in the same wards that is within the same compass within the Ministerial Pale of the Church and within the bounds of this Life Roman Popes are the first Hectors who durst break out beyond these Lines and roving into Purgatory there over-rule Divine Justice and pull out thence out of Gods hands the Souls whom they say his Vengeance doth burn and torment This is then the drift of the Popes and the second visible Mark of their best and most authentic Indulgences that whereas the Fathers of the Church never attemted to dispose of any other punishments then such as they had inflicted the Popes stretch their hands much farther even as far as to reverse the Judgments which as they presuppose it God inflicts Now let Rome ransack their Learning and procure from any corner of good and known Antiquity one precedent for such Indulgences In the mean while laying aside Antiquity which in true Conscience cannot but shame this new attemt it is a business worth enquiring what these Roman Indulgences whether new or old are in themselves They are intended for these c Bellarm. de Indulg l. 1. c. 7. two ends 1. The easing of true Penitents from the Penalties laid on them by their Confessors after their Absolution here in the Church 2. And the removing of more grievous punishments laied on them by God Almighty yonder in Purgatory And certainly it is hard to say in the which of these two you shall find less both Impiety and Extravagancy 1. The Indulgences for the first end are both foolish and impious upon several accounts What rebellious attemt is this to bind to punishment those Men as it is supposed contrite and truly penitent for their sins whom the Gospel of Christ looses and absolves May not one as well curse whom God blesses as retain or bind whom God remits And if one may bind the Penitents whom God absolves may he not as well unbind the Faithless and Impenitents whom God hath bound If so we know where the Antichrist lies yet he should go and learn Manners from the Example of Balaam Num. 23.8 They say that what they bind their Penitents to is not a Punishment only but an useful Correction also Then I say what they do in binding them whom God doth loose shall be as far a Rebellion as it is a punishment and as far unlawful and unchristian to take off as 't is an useful Correction and as it was good to lay it on And have the Popes no better waies to fill their Coffers and to maintain their Holinesses then by such a Trade of Indulgences as dispense with Men against their own good 2. There is yet more to justifie their Penalties from being a resisting of God and a retaining what he remits they say that after Absolution they lay no more on any Man then what a sincere Penitent d is both willing to undergo and obliged by the fear of God and the sense of his Conscience to do or suffer and that this is it properly and directly what the Indulgences do ease Men from Do not then call this if you please Rebellion or Resisting God but you cannot choose but perceive that if this same penitent Soul lies not between a cruel binding Confessor and a gracious remitting God she now falls into another as bad or worse condition For here is within the sense of Conscience that charges her to do or suffer such a thing and there is without a
in applying it to strangers or God the Father being there present in applying it to his Children Is it that Christs Redemtion must come to Rome and there be ratified by some Bull before it be good against Burning Secondly this Paiment however reacht to is they say presented to God by the Pope It is so in all Indulgences but in those especially which his Holiness grants for the dead For there the Pope rescues no man from what he suffers but by offering as much to God of Christs Sufferings that so Justice they say n Bellarmin de Indulg l. 1. c. 14. sect Tertia Quaestio may be satisfied by the exchange And herein lies a most impious Absurdity 1. For what is this to offer up again what Christ by his eternal Spirit offered before Was not Christs once offering it sufficient Is the Popes Offering more acceptable and since Christ alone can by the Law of Mechisedecs Priest-hood offer up his Body and Blood what is the Popes second Offering in every Bull but a most sacrilegious Boldness Will they say that this Offering is merely intentional such as every Christian may do by praier then say I the Indulgence which the Pope sells with this kind of Offering is a mere Cheat if it be more it is the Sacrilege 2. Secondly what a rude extravagancy is it to offer to God for Paiment his own Mony and to present him with that which he had already from an incompatably better hand Is this fair and honest dealing to pay one out of his own Purse and what Piece of Courtship is it in a Subject to present his Prince with nothing else then his own proper Roial Jewels This is the truth of Christs Satisfaction and Pope and Papists should either learn or teach it better Christ having once offered to God a Ransom most sufficient to redeem all men both from all sins and all the Penalties which attend them God the Father hath accepted of it for such at the hands of his Dear Son Now the way of applying this great and infinite Sacrifice and of rendring it as well all Efficacious to us as it is al-sufficient in it self is not to return it up to God either by ordinary Priests at Mass or by Popes pretending to repay it him in Indulgences for this were rather the way of applying it to God who gives then to us who must receive it but to beg it of God through Christ by continual Praiers to thirst and long after it by the sense of our wants and unworthiness to qualify our selves towards the receiving of it by repenting and then to embrace what God according to his mercies and promises will give to embrace it I say with faith and secure it to our selves by a constant course of holy life Or to say the same in Roman terms The Church hath an infinite Tresure both of Satisfactions and Merits out of which you may have as many Jubilees and Plenary Indulgences for all your Sins and all the Penalties whether eternal or temporal that attend sin as you shall want This Tresure of Satisfactions hath already bin both so sufficiently and so efficaciously offered to God by Christ and accepted of by God for you that without any farther Offering by Mass Oblations or Popes Bulls it stands alwaies before God in his mind and acceptation God is pleased to offer it you full as it is in his Gospel His Holy Sacraments and his gracious Promises are both his Bulls and Indulgences and be sure that you shall gain them if you are but willing and earnest to have them Only know this that Christ who is the Steward and the Dispenser of the Tresure throws it not a way undiscreetly on every sinner that bids mony None of his Indulgences are to be had sine Causa rationabili as the Bull-mongers use to speak without some reasonable cause which is leaving the Pope to come with repentance and Faith to Christ instead of bowing to a Rosary Altar or an Image to humble your self and walk uprightly both before God and before men Now have you got the whole Tresure upon these reasonable terms you have the keies along with it as far as your private concern reaches Impepenitency or continuing in any sin are the two ordinary keies that lock it up holy Faith and true Charity are the keies that get it open There are keies of another kind that belong to public Persons S. Peter S. Paul and all the Lawful Officers in the house of God These public keies are to lock out of it all such wretches as stand in the Church to shame it and to open it to them again when after due proofs of Amendment they shall watch and knock at her Gates And this is more then perhaps you think for altho directly they belong only to the Church they do also consequently both lock or open Gods good Tresure and in some manner Heaven it self For tho Christ properly be the keeper of as well as the way and the Gate of this Celestial Palace take it for certain that his Keies do shut or open his Kingdom whensoever Paul or Apollos or any other Lawful Bishop Lawfully shuts or opens the Church and whensoever also your private ones shut or open your own Tresure If Rome trespass against the rule as her keies may turn wrong and not in the wards of the Catholic Church your private ones shall serve your turn and the keies of Christ will second them These keies every true Christian as Tertullian p saies very well doth keep and carry about him and may with them attain unto the tender Mercies of God and the satisfaction of Christ for all his sins without the Bull of any Pope The very Papists do confess it tho they do it in other words when they say r Becan de Sacram. c. 31. sect 1. Parag. Tertia Conclusio Lay-man de Sacram. Poenit. c. 1. n. 8. That there is no mortal sin but may be remitted by true Co trition without the Sacrament of Penance Only for fear of beggering themselves they keep in their own Power the remitting of Temporal Pains This one Reservation makes all the trouble about Pardons and so secures all the profit It makes all the trouble for Pardons for let the foulest sinner go and confess the meanest Mass Priest can absolve him from all his sins and from all the eternal punishments in Hell and if some Repentance be required tho some s Sylvester Verb. Confess 1. c. 21. Soto in 4. Sent. d. 14. q. 4. a. 3. think it scarce necessary it will go hard with the Penitent if a very small sorrow be not counted Attrition and by the power of their Keies be not elevated that is made to pass into such a degree of Contrition or Roman Repentance as shall secure the worst Livers from Eternal Destruction And God knows how many Wretches both are drawn away to that Church and there emboldened to sin by this sweer Enchantment But when
and therefore to their honor is this Privilege duly granted that whosoever will but visit any of their Churches or Chappels shall receive Pardon c Ibid. sect 6. for a hundred Years and if any of them being dead d Ibid. sect 9. will be wrapt up in Frocks or be buried in a Church yard belonging to either of their Orders shall in all probability have as much more Judg you by this what these Confraternities of theirs be worth and what value you may well set upon their two most Sacred Standards or Bodies the Rope or Girdle of St. Francis whereof enough and the 150 Beads or Rosary of S. Dominic of which you must now learn somthing This new and admirable way of praying to God by saying Ave Maria hath as they say proved in their Church so successful for raising Hearts to Devotion sanctifying Men extirpating all Heresies and propagating Catholic Light as it appears by e Pius 5. Constit Consueverunt many Bulls that most Popes from Sixtus the Fourth 1479. have thought themselves concerned in their Consciences to raise it to a Confraternity as Universal as their Church and to make it as the Sun is to use their words common to all Men in the whole World For this brave Corporation is not as the most part of others are some for Men only and not for Women some for great Men and not for mean People some for the Religious and not for the Secular some for the sound and not for the weak * Archang Caraccius De Rosar 1. par c. 1. this great and comprehensive Society takes in all sorts and conditions of Men and to say all as it shall appear hereafter even the very dead may come to it Whosoever will be admitted as a Member of this vast Body and march f Idem 3. par c. 5. as they love to speak under the B. Virgin and St. Dominic's great Standard he must go first to Confession and take the Consecrated Wafer then he must appear in Person if he can or by a Proxy if he cannot and there either himself or his Proxy being prostrated before the Altar Del Santissimo Rosario of the most holy Rosary declare what great desire he hath to be enrolled under St. Dominic's Banner So the Officers being duly qualified to that purpose shall take his name and acquaint him with what he the new Brother is to do especially how he must once every Week run over the whole Rosary that is the 150 Beads Ave Maria and the 15 Pater nosters solacing him at the same time with this most gracious assurance that he must not think it a Sin * Ibidem nor a breach upon his Conscience if at any time he shall fail in the performance and that the whole duty consists of such things as never were commanded by God nor practiced by his Apostles so the omitting of them must not disquiet his mind only he must be content to lose the good Indulgences which his Roman Holiness was pleased to grant upon such terms After this he gives him a Consecrated Rosary of Beads and the Consecrating of them comes to this After some short Praiers and Responsals the Mass-Priest begs at the hands of God this great and Blasphemous Favor g Idem part 3. c. 5. namely That to the honor and praise of his Sons Mother would he be pleased to infuse into those Beads so much strength of his Holy Ghost that whosoever shall either carry them abroad or reverently keep them at home and there devoutly pray with them after the way of the holy Confraternity may abound in Devotion may have his share in all the Graces Privileges and Indulgences granted to the said Society may as long as he lives be protected every where against all Enemies whatsoever and at last may be presented full of good works to God by the Blessed Virgin Mary To which is added the other Blessing by Holy Water and as it were a second Baptism In the Name of the Father c. Next to the holy Beads thus impiously Consecrated and devoutly delivered into the hand of the new Brother or Sister comes the Holy Candle This Holy Candle is of great use when you walk in Procession when you go to Burial when any one of the 15 Mysteries you may remember what that is is solemnly celebrated and especially when you die for there but especially here if you do hold this holy Candle lighted in your hand you may be sure that all your sins are forgiven because Pope Adrian the h Breve Illius qui Dominicam Sixth hath ordered it so But the Candle must be Consecrated as solemnly as your Beads were and with a Form to this purpose That thro the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the 15 great Mysteries contained in the aforesaid Beads Christ the true Light that enlightens every Man that comes into the World will enlighten also this Candle with the true light of his Grace c. Then is the Candle sprinkled with Holy Water in Nomine Patris c. This is not all you must have a Holy Rose for it is of a singular Vertue and besides Rose and Rosary are of a kin especially as soon as it is Consecrated with this execrable Form of Blessing Deus Creator c. the sense is That God the Creator and Giver of spiritual Grace and eternal Salvation be pleased to bless the said Rose which is presented unto i Archang Caraccius de Rosar part 3 c. 6. him for the worship of his Mother and to infuse into the Rose by the vertue of the sign of the Cross such a Celestial Blessing that to what Infirmities soever it be applied and in what houses and places soever it be devoutly kept or carried the said Infirmities may be cured that thence all Devils may flee away This Charm is likewise compleated with the usual Baptism of Holy water With these Tacklings you may hereafter reckon your self most fully incorporated into this Heavenly Body What you have next to think upon is well to discharge those duties that belong to a Heavenly Member and to fall lustily to that incredible and strange way which S. Mary and S. Dominic her Husband have in the latter times brought into the Roman Church of serving God by saying Ave Maria. To the great encouragement of the said Brethren and Sisters this way of Devotion is called the Crown the Psalter and the Rosary the Crown because whensoever you say fifty times Ave Maria as my Italian k Caraccio Part. 1. c. 13. Author observes and I may prove it many waies the so saluted Goddess is pleased to take it for so many Crowns and Garlands of fine Flowers that you do adorn her Head with 2. The Psalter because the Church of Rome doth think it fit to worship the Lady of the most Holy Rosary with 150 Salutations as King David the Prophet did to adore the Lord God of Israel
with 150 Psalms and because as Davids Psalter was an Instrument wherewith he could ease the Spirit of Saul when it was troubled by the Devil so do Catholics with these Aves defend themselves and charm all the Powers of Hell from doing any harm to their Souls 3. It is call'd the Rosary because as with Roses you make Rose-water Oil Sugar and Hony Rosal so do the Brethren and Sisters of the Rosary make with it admirable Confections Drugs and Syrops to Physic their poor sick Souls to soften the hardness of sin to dispose Roman Catholic Hearts towards all Graces and to say all with them Caelum ridet c. that is the Heavens laugh the Angels dance the Church keeps her joiful Festivals Hell trembles and all the Devils run away when they say or sing Ave Maria. I much wonder they should excuse or exclude all the prisoners in Purgatory from jumping or cutting Capers since they hold that the Dead are as much concerned as the Living Therefore when one goes to enter a Name he may Å¿ Caraccio De Rosar Part. 1. c. 13. put in as well any Soul of Father Son Uncle or any other Relation as his own Only thereby he binds himself to say the holy Rosary and to perform all other Duties for them he puts in that so they may wheresoever they be above or under ground receive all the Profits and Pardons of the Society And if he put in two Names he must perform the Duty twice once for himself and once for his Friend This double work is less troublesom because you may speed it away at any time you have little else to do as when m Id. parte 3. c. 3. you dress and undress your self when you walk stand sit ride abroad or wait and for more ease and more Merit too you may join more hands to one work when for example you are with two or three Neighbors walking and travelling together I did forget another Duty which you must by no means forget it being as indispensable as it is easie and it is this both the Poorest and the Richest must needs contribute to the Charges of setting up a near Altar n Id. part 3. c. 12. and adorning it with a Standard bearing the Picture both of our Lady giving and S. Dominic receiving on the other side the holy Psalter from her Hand They must be likewise at the Charges of having the fifteen great Mysteries fairly painted both over and on each side of the great Altar Besides you must pay your small share for both the wax and the Oil that burns night and day before the Rosary Lady and least you should grumble at such expenses be you sure that one Mass upon or one Ave or one Pater before such a privileged Altar especially on solemn Daies is better worth then a thousand whether Masses or Aves that you may hear or say elsewhere This being done you may confidently look for all sorts of Blessings and Privileges must needs from all parts flow towards you 1. Rome opens in your behalf her whole Celestial Tresure a full Pardon of all your sins at your first coming to this Society at your going out when you dy at all and every holy Day kept to the Ladies Honor through the whole year at all and every solemn Day kept for any one of the fifteen great Mysteries at Christmas the Sunday before Epiphany holy Thursday and good Friday the 3 holy daies at Easter at the Ascension the three Holy Daies at Whitsuntide all the first Sundaies of every Month c. And all this both for sick and sound for the absent as well as present at Sea or Land in prison and at Liberty so that there be a just Impediment that detains you from the Duty and from visiting the Altar you can hardly make three or four steps or open the o Caraccius de Rosar part 2. c. 7. Mouth to say Jesu or Maria but you shall get by it a considerable Indulgence When you devoutly * Ibid. c. 8. take your Beads When you hear Salve Regina t is a short song to the Ladies Honor when you walk after the Procession when you march after the Banner at a Burial when you visit a sick Brother or Sister when you wait upon the Host in the street c. you gain hundreds of Daies of years and some Quarantains or Quadragenes to boot And if all this be not enough all the Stations and daily Indulgences of Rome are at your command and mercy if you will but visit a Rosary Church with saying three Aves in it or in case of too much throng stand at a distance before one or the five Rosary Altars and you may stand sometimes before them five tho you do not stir from one Place however my Italian p Ibid. c. 10. Author assures me that divers Popes have granted all these huge Pardons both by Bulls and by word of Mouth Oraculo vivae vocis which is the Roman Church's Oracle upon these terms I hope that by this time you have enough for your own use But if you please also to plesure your Friends you may weekly rescue out of Purgatory two of their Souls one on the Sunday q Ibid. c. 5. the other upon the Wednesday following and Eleven other souls more upon other special daies which I leave out to spare you trouble Only you must take the pains to visit the Rosary Altar and of saying at it this short praier O Lord I pray you to accept of the Indulgence which hath bin granted by your High Priest the Steward of the holy Tresure to the soul of John or James or if he the said John or James have none or little use of it to such a soul in Purgatory which I am most obliged to concluding all with a Requiescant in pace thereupon let them rest in peace This way one may help in one year some 115 souls and she is a woman of large correspondence that hath more friends yearly to care for 2. Besides this incredible abundance of Privileges and Pardons coming upon you from without they say that this Rosary Confraternity enjoies within it self the greatest Tresure of the whole World namely a real and perpetual Participation of the Merits and Penances of all and every one of the greatest Saints since Adam Consider what vast Abundance of Good works S. Dominic left in this Magazine by whipping r Caraccio De Rosario Part. 1. c. 3. himself to the Blood thrice every day once for his own sins which it is verily thought he had none once for the sins of the World and once for the sins of the souls burning in Purgatory Calculate what Saint Vincent might hoard up for the use of his Brethren by converting 8000 Turks and 25000 Jews Think what Tresure might Agnes bequeath to her Society with those incomparable Jewels which s Bov. Tom. 13. Annal. an 1317. n. 9. she had partly received from the Virgin
Take Virgin Wax charm it with the b Cardin. Raspon de Basilic Lateran l. 2. c. 8. usual Blessing mingle it with the Ointment which they call Chrisma and some Balsom added to it put this Past into the shape of Lambs carry them in a Silver Bason to the Pope at Procession saying these Words c Ibid. Holy Father these are the young Lambs that bring the good Tidings Allelujah now they are going to the Fonts ad Fontes At which the Clergy is to answer Thanks be to God Allelujah Then his Roman Holiness abusing most horribly the Holy Ceremonies of Baptism dips d Ceremonial Rom. them all into the Water out of which he or some other present Bishop takes them and thus all being Baptized Omnibus Baptisatis the Pope himself Consecrates them with a Praier to the Holy Ghost O Alme Spiritus c. that is as He the Holy Ghost hath ordained the Holy Sacrament of Baptism to wash all sins away so these Lambs pretty Children to bring to Christ being washt with the holy and living Water and anoiated with the holy Ointment may be blessed and sanctified with the abundance of his Grace against all Devils and ill Spirits And that whosoever will devoutly carry about him one of these Lambs may never be troubled with any storms nor overcome with any Adversity nor Plague nor ill Air nor Shipwrack nor Fire that no man may ever have the Dominion over him So Catholics must have still the better And that if a woman wear it in Childbed the Child may be kept safe with the Mother The great Sacraments of Christs own institution namely the Holy Baptism and Communion have not the half of this and yet both for the great encouragement of Poperie and the greater horror of all true Christianity you may have more for the first Pope who made them and therefore knew best what they were good for makes their vertue like to Christs Blood e Raspon suprà Balsamus Cera c. I present you saies he to the above said Empress with an Agnus or Lamb of God as a great Gift for it scatters away Devils and storms c. as in the consecrating Praier and besides all this it breaks and choaks all mortal sins as the very Blood of Christ doth Commend me now to such a Church that can upon her own account make for her friends such Sacraments Secondly Hear what she can make in another way of this same wax especially upon Easter Eve In the Morning f Pontificat Rom. sect De Offâ—c Sabbath Sanâ— at six a Clock strike you as much Fire out of a Flint as may serve you to light CharCoales without the Church put the lighted Coales in a Censer and throw on them five Grains of Franckincense while this Incense is a burning put out all the Lights of the Church put three wax Candles at some triangular distance upon the top of a long Pole At the first stepping into the Church light one of them at the new Fire then lift it up and let the People say Deo gratias God be thanked there is Christs light When you come to the middle of the Church light the Second and falling down upon your knees repete the same words somewhat louder and when you are come in so far as to the High Altar then light me the third Candle and cry out as loud as you can Here is Christs light This done go up to the Pulpit and there with one of the three afore said Candles light a fourth but a huge one which is called Cereus and must be burning the whole night This great Candle or Cereus is good as they say on Easter Eve to bring the holy Ghost into that water which it is thrice dipped into the first time it must no more then touch the water the second it must go in somewhat deeper but the third g Missal Rom. Sabbath Sanct. time it must sink unto the Bottom Now sprinkle a little of this holy water upon your self or whom or whatsoever you will it will do Marvails Once the Virgin brought down from Heaven one such Taper h Pyraeus Coron B. M. Tract 1. c. 12. to dip in water whether she learned it from the Roman Church or this from her I cannot tell but however all the Inhabitants of Arras who drunk but a little of this water being troubled afore with sore diseases were upon their drinking thereof on a sudden recovered It were exceeding worth trying whether the other lesser Candles could do the same if they were dipt for Roman Catholics find in the water a marveilously great aptness to impregnate it self with all the vertu of Holy things Witness that water whereof mention was made before where S. Francis did wash his feet and the other water in Flanders which did cure i Balinghem Calend. B. M. 10. Sept. the Palsie when the little Image of Montague Montis acuti had soakt in it But however without any water these small Candles do great Effects if the praier to hallow them be not as vain as I am sure it is extravagant namely k Misal Roman Fest. Purificat that God would be pleased to Sanctifie all these Candles thro the Intercession of the Virgin and the Praiers of all his Saints for the health of Souls and Bodies by Sea and Land and to this purpose to kindle them with the light of his Celestial Blessing and the infusion of his Grace that all the People who have a mind to carry them devoutly and decently in their hands may have their Praier heard in Heaven This said and don then presently come up the People to the high Altar and there down on their knees do kiss the hand of the Mass-Priest who gives to every one of them one of these Candles When some Body is like to dy this blessed light is held before him when he cannot hold it himself and the benefit of it is this that whosoever holds or hath this Candle held before him when he dies especially if a Rosary Brother dies l Archangel de Rosar part 3. c. 6. with the Pardon of all his sins what would you have more Thirdly from the Wax you go to the Oil for the Church of Rome makes of it three other great Organs of Grace 1. One to prepare and qualifie young People to all spiritual Graces Oleum Catechumenorum 2. Another to introduce the Old or the Sick into Heaven Oleum Infirmorum And the third to strengthen both young and old from the time of their Baptism through their whole life against all Temtations whatsoever Chrisma For the making of these three Means of Salvation which are best don on holy Thursday m Pontifical Roman in Caena Domini â„ž Take me three Bottles full of the best and purest Virgin Oil you can get cover them well the two former with silk of any Golor but the third by all means with white then when the Bells have rung
Essential Article of the Christian Faith yet all of their own accord especially upon certain daies will throng both to see and to worship St. Paul's Head or St. Peter's Tooth And without any great teaching Men learn presently any where what most Israelites learn'd in Egypt when they care little for God or for Moses whom they see not they will gape and run lustily after the Calf or any thing which they can see Thus evidently Let us make Gods to go before us is the most corrupt natural wish and the most universal Religion of all Mankind To this purpose the Holy Fathers have observed this Enchantment in Images that the very Men that should best know what stuff these Idols are made of yet will stand in some a S. August Epist. 49. Quaest. 3. awe of them when they see them bravely seated over the Heads of a multitude and that either such is the Charm of these dead figures b Idem in Psal 113. Conc. 2. to make Mens Souls stoop unto them or the natural weakness of Men to let themselves stoop to these shapes that the very Men who see the Sun and believe it to be their God will turn c Ibidem their back to their own God and turn their Face to his Image The truth is carnal Worshippers such as naturally all Men are are all for present carnal Objects and if these have also human shapes in St. Augustins Judgment this likeness becomes to them so great a Charm that as the same Father observes Men shall not be discouraged from following after Images by seeing them both Deaf Blind and Dumb but will take them for friendly Gods because they see them have Ears Eyes and Mouths Whatever this Reason be worth this Experience is most certain that the People of God excepted all the World besides hath bin drawn to their respective Religions by the help of these gross Images and if by chance any Temple or Nation happened to have none that is observed by most Historians as extraordinary and singular All the Provinces of China however full as they say of Teachers who think of God much above all what an Image can represent yet never draw up their Train'd Bands to any Religious solemn purpose but still march with such Standards and the true Israel of God and the Primitive Church of Christ are the only two Societies that both had not and detested Image Worship Not to speak of the Israelites according to the Flesh of which there is no question the Church of Christ as well at Rome as every where else hath for above six hundred Years after her first Institution best lived and best served her Savior without Images as to any Worshipping account If there were Images at all to be seen among Christians during the three first and most Virgin Centuries they were either kept useless in private hands or used by the Followers of Simon the d Iren. l. 1. c. 23. Magician Carpocrates e Ibid. c. 24. and such Infamous Heretics and if by any Christians it was by such weak Superstitious ones as in S. Augustins f Augustin de Consens Evangel l. 1. c. 9. Judgment deserved well to be deceived for their offering to learn Christian and Apostolical Faith from painted Walls When first Images crept into Churches which was about the sixth Century it was on a civil account either as Ornaments of Christian Temples or as Memorials of Holy Stories Pope Gregory the first and the first Patron of Images * Gregorins Magn. supr never pleaded farther then this against Serenus for his Clients which stood 200 Years in this posture till the second Nicene Council with much opposition and more scandal advanced them a step higher Then soon after came the ninth Century noted by all for the worst the saddest and the ignorantest Age of the Church which drowned the Gospel with Popery and which as their best Authors g Baronius an 900. n. 1. confess began in good earnest to set up the Abominable Desolation foretold by Dan. 9. in the Roman Church And so Images had a fair opportunity to come in when both the Holy Scriptures were kept unknown under the Bushel of Ignorance and when all other things were managed by new Revelations and new Miracles Here I do not undertake to shew how far Roman Images lead worshippers into the way of plain Pagan Idolatry since able men have done it before But what is proper to my purpose and is not so generally known I will insist 1. upon their Roman Original Secondly upon their use among Papists Thirdly and most principally upon what good or bad accounts Roman Images are grown so lovely and so taking 1. First as to the Original of Roman Images it imitates that of Roman Relics So the Papists have them two waies for some are made by the Roman Church others have an unknown Extraction as being supposed either made by some Saint or brought down from Heaven by Angels or however found out one way or other by some extraordinary Providence The Images made by the Roman Church are made this way the Carpenter cuts down a Tree or the Mason digs out a Stone then a Carver works this Stone or Tree into an Image and the Mass-Bishop consecrates both into a Saint or a Virgin or a Crucifix In the joint labor and concurrence of these three Craftsmen the first finds the Materials the second adds the shape and Figure and the third that is the Mass Bishop puts in the Essential form the very Soul and by his powerful Consecration introduces it into the Body of the Image in this manner When the Church wants a Crucifix the Bishop puts off his Miter and in a pretty long Office declares or explains to God what he would have that is what it is that he hath a mind to set up namely Singulare Signum a Pontifical Rom. sect De Benedict Nov. Crucis a special Standard which by a special Blessing may be a saving help to Mankind a supporter to Faith a Means of Proficiency in good works a Redeeming Instrument for Souls and both in the Town and in the Field a protecting Shelter against all Enemies whensoever a good Catholic shall come and humbly kneel before it If the Crucifix be made of some better matter then common Wood as of some fine Stone Brass or Silver it is intended and praied for that by the Merits of this Crucifix all devout Worshippers may be cleansed from all their sins as the world was by the Holiness of Christs Cross In order to these great Designs the Bishop makes use of Holy Water not such ordinary holy water as Mass Priests make every Sunday for every body to keep off Devils and Diseases nor such tho nobler as is used at every Christening of Children but that noblest sort of holy water which a Pope b Layman l. 5. tractâ—t 9. c. 13. n. 12. or a Bishop only can make to consecrate
and the ordinary Seats of Roman Saints and when Bellarmin with some others say that they do honor these Images as signs only representing and and not as Seats and Instruments inhabited or assisted by the invisible Spirit of their Saints they are confuted by these two waies the visible Practice of their Church and the invisible Testimony of their own private Consciences What might be said more probably both in behalf of these Images and of their zealous Devotion in worshipping them is what frees them from the reproach which Holy Scripture casts on Idols that they have Eies and see withal they have Hands wherewith they handle and somtimes give terrible blows if they have Mouths it is not in vain since they can cry and laugh and speak and somtimes also Prophesie Feet have they and thereon leap and walk and flee and if they have Noses they smell therewith and can tell where the wanton and the wicked Persons are All this I say from their own approved Authors Only the main difficulty remains and I conjure all sober Men as they tender their Salvation to look how to satisfie it well to know what is the inward Principle Spirit or Soul which moves and animates these dead Figures to all and more then what living Bodies can perform with the help of their living Souls Here let the Roman Catholics well consider whether to justifie them by these acts of activity from being Idols doth not by the same means both accuse and convince them of being Devils The Holy Scripture warns Men often against false Christs and false Prophets against false Apostles and false Spirits it were strange if we had no need of warning or of being wary against false Saints I find somtimes the best Roman Monks much puzled what to think of their most celebrated Apparitions and tho they trust too much their Holy Water a pitiful trial God knows in the discernment of the good from the bad Spirits yet they do not think it uncatholic to demur somtimes in such matters It is neither want of Learning nor want of Faith in the School-men the Primitive Fathers of Popery which makes them dispute now and then whether that which they see at Mass under the Figure of raw Flesh or a young Child be Christ himself or a Phantome and certainly we have no ground either in Scripture or in Reason or in Experience to secure us but that the Devils which play such pranks both in Apparitions and on Altars may juggle as well and play worse tricks about consecrated Images First It is no small prejudice against these Roman Images and the Roman way of using them that both came so late into the Church and that in the best Primitive Times when the Church was a purer Virgin none but Heretics had Images whereas in these later and worse Ages when the Church is confessedly worse too no Roman Catholics are without them It is also no small prejudice against the best as it is supposed and the most famous of these Images that when they were admitted at first as either visible Records of Ecclesiastical Antiquity or as Ornaments of new Walls not one of them did work Miracles or if it did 't was in behalf of Infidels and Pagans only as it is presupposed by Patriarch Tharasius n Nicaen Synod secund Act. 4. pag. 626. Edit Bin. Paris 1634. the great Promoter of Image Worship whereas now since they are become both the Objects and the Instruments of Roman Devotion and Blessing they generally work all Miracles in behalf of the Romanists The alteration in the Church as it is now full of Images from the Church as it was then without any Image Worship as it is visible and great must have some visible and great Cause Is it because the Pagans and the Heretics then and the Mass-Priests and Papists now understand the worth of Images and the right use of Image-worship better then the Holy Apostles did Or is it because the Holy Apostles had neither Patriarchs nor Prophets nor Martyrs to make Saints of or to consecrate Images to Is it not more probable to think that this Alteration hath thus happened because both Pagans and Papists are of the same mind as to Images And because the Spirits which Christ and his Blessed Apostles had silenced and beaten off from most of their Pagan Quarters having long wandered among the Heathen and in dry places have at last found better shelter and emploiment at Lauretta Montserat and other great Roman Oracles What can one think else of Images which having kept themselves close dumb and obscure in the best and Primitive daies take now their advantage to start up and to make a noise and to shew Miracles in these later times of the Church when both by Christ and his Apostles Predictions and the Judgment p Joseph Acosta de Temporib Novissim l. 3. c. 3. 14. of sober Papists all must be full of false Prophesies of strong Illusions and lying Wonders Secondly That which aggravates the suspition of appearing in unhappy Times like the coming of Thieves and unexpected Straglers in dark Nights is the ugly and pitiful Holes where most of these Images were at first found For these Images I mean those wonderful and famous ones which the Roman Church runs most after were neither lately made by common Painters nor consecrated by ordinary Roman Bishops they are supposed to have bin made and consecrated by no meaner Workmen then God himself his Christ his Angels and such of his Saints as S. Luke S. Nicodemus c. were and so left and deposited to the Christian Church and Catholic Tradition Hereupon let me ask two things absolutely necessary for any sober satisfaction The first When and where if ever at all these Saints made these Images and by laying on of their Hands or otherwise conferred on them the Gifts of Speaking of Prophecying and working Miracles or put in them an inward or assisting Spirit to make them speak foretel and do strange things The second When and where having used them as it is supposed they have they thought fit to bury them under Ground and to hide some among Thorns some under Brambles all in most pitiful places as dark Holes and hollow Trees where they were found and where any wise Man would rather look for Worms or Toads If you say they hid them in those places for fear of the Pagan Persecuters Pagans were not haters at all nor destroiers of Images contrariwise they loved Images as Papists do But since they were great Burners and Destroiers of Holy Scriptures Why would the Apostolical Men rather hide their Books under ground which were most principally both hated and sought after then their Images which were not so And if they hid both Images and Books together by what universal Mischance did they never find any of these where they found those How came the Holy Scriptures to discover themselves so soon ever in cruellest times of the Primitive
Persecutions and Roman Images so late and so many hundred Years after all these Persecutions were over Why did not Images howl or sing under their Nettles as well in the fourth and fifth Age when S. Epiphanius S. Jerome S. Chrysostom and such Learned Fathers might have best judged of their worth as they did many hundred Years after when Antichrist was expected and when all the Learning and Holiness of the Gospel was under the thickest Cloud If you go to Tradition which is what the second Nicene Council and now the Papists go too as if Roman Images were come from hand to hand immediatly from the Apostles By what misfortune comes it to pass that the many hundreds of Greek Prelats all great Admirers of Images and Boasters of Tradition had never one of St. Luke's Pictures nor of Nicodemus nor of Christ and that now Rome hath got them all But since these Images never came to us through their hands as it is certain they came not that way Rome hath got them either flying like Birds and Fowls over their Heads or creeping along silently like Moles and Vermin under their Feet The truth is when this second Council of Nice was held it was somwhat too soon for such Roman Novelties as the prating and howling of Images to appear above Christian Ground it was not then yet quite so dark but the Church could see about her altho it was toward Sun-setting Hobgodlings venture not to dance at any Light but the Moon-shine A deep Mid-night of Ignorance and of all other Confusions besides which soon after over-whelmed the following Ages was by much a fitter time for Stones and Images to speak and for Spirits to delude Men. And you may judg what Ghosts they are who hide their Heads during the times of the Apostles and all the Primitive Fathers and take their times to shew them when all is full of new Revelations and Dreams and Monks and yet shew themselves in such a manner as marks both their Original and their Nature appearing forth from under ground and watching under Bushes and Brambles like those Spirits in Isa 29.4 which were not heard but muttering out of the dust Certainly those blessed Spirits who are imagined to speak thus are not in Hell whence damned Souls in Romes account will somtimes howl nor in that other place which in their Opinion is about it and which they call Purgatory whence they say that tortured Spirits will come up to bemoan themselves they have a most happy and glorious abode in Heaven whence it is not imaginable they will come down unless thrust out to lurk and weep here under Hedges The Scripture speaks of some false Gods which you may be sure of it were true Devils who loved to be courted under green Trees and of some other wicked Spirits which either whisper with a low voice as from the Earth or are met with and spoken to in some Sepulcher and love to keep themselves and others in Wildernesses and about Tombs The Heathen Rome had familiar Spirits or Demons Dii Lares and Dii Penates which watch'd and fluttered about their Hearths and Houses I have heard of some who had travelled in the East that in those vast Desarts between the Holy Land and the Red Sea especially about Mount Sina there are many unhappy Phantomes that will watch and kill Men somtimes when they find them single and stragling from their Convoies or Caravans And I am satisfied by some noble and living Eye-witnesses that often in some Silver Mines as for example near Befo rt in the Frontiers of France and Germany are seen a sort of seeming little Men in red or blue Juppa's Genii Metallici playing and trifling about Work-men especially in the deepest Holes These are both fit and likely Juglers to act their part in hollow Trees and dark Corners But who could expect it of Moses of Elias or of any Glorious and Blessed Saints or Angels that instead of waiting upon Christ in their Robes about his Throne or if need be as at his Glorification upon the glorious Mount they would come down into base Holes and there become Pupetplaiers to make Images whistle under Nettles Let Rome find us one such Example and second it with some reason why the Blessed Saints and Angels whosoever appear in Holy Scriptures detest and wave Adoration for themselves and now a daies under Popery come down purposely to crave and beg it for their Images Thirdly in the judgment of the holy Fathers a Eusebius De Praepar Evang. l. 5. p. 120. Edit Rob. Steph. 1544. in their Controversies against Pagans it was a sufficient Evidence and Demonstration against false Gods and it can be no less against false Saints to shew that they did teach men to make Images and that they did love these the like Figures And the truth is if holy Souls may be allowed in that elevated condition wherein they live to fancy yet dead and gross things it were rather their Bones and Relics wherewith they have fought the good Fight then carved Wood and painted Boards wherewith they never had any commerce For as to Pieces of stone or wood which are nothing to their Nature and as little to their Happiness it were most strange to see them taken with such Things and upon such poor silly accounts because therein forsooth they see somewhat like either their Form or their Faces Tho good and sober men may love sometimes their Friends Pictures none but vain fools dote on their own and they that laugh to see young Cats turning about and admiring their Resemblance in looking-Glasses would be sorry to see their old and venerable Friends doing the like in their Pictures Let the great Devil Serapis brag among his other Pagan Gods b Euseb supra p. 119. of the fine Head brave Locks and Beard and golden Feet which he then had in his Statues How mean and unbecoming such a great Saint as certainly the Blessed Virgin is were it to see her pleasing her self as doth the Laurettan Lady with acquainting sometimes a c Horat. Tursel Laur. Hist l 1. sick Mass Bishop and sometimes an d Ibid. c. 6. old Eremite with the value of what she had in her Chamber at Lauretta and shewing here the very Altar where S. Peter did officiate and there the very Crucifix which the Apostles had set over it But especially saies she here is our Image of Cedar which Luke the Evangelist made with his own hand to represent my Face as much to the life as it was possible for a Mortal and all this is a Dear Jewel both to God Almighty and to my self She accuaints them withall that it had bin long honored and with the highest degree of worship in her Town of Nazareth But at last their Faith and Devotion decaying she had removed all from thence to receive more Honor in Italie In good earnest will a true Saint make such discourses and will a true Saint
black and blew where her Image had bin abused and inspires a Black-Smith both with Intelligence where to seek out the hidden Jew and with skill and spirit to fight with him in a Duel for it was an affront she had received that was to be repair'd by her Hectors valor and kill him This one instance and many more that might be had to this purpose doth plainly shew that Roman Saints concern themselves in their Images not in a civil regard only as Kings abused in their Envoies or Nobles beheaded in their Pictures or Effigies but in a far more real manner as if Catholic Kings did find their Backs excoriated when some Pope scourges their Ambassadors and as if Gentlemen had their Heads really cut off from their shoulders when the Hang-man strikes their Pictures There is such an effectual Correspondency between Roman Saints and Images as is observed between Twins who most commonly are either well or ill together or to come somewhat nearer the case as between enchanted Images of Wax and the Persons intended by them who freez or burn accordingly as the Magician manages the business After this rate as they speak n Plutarch de Defect Oracul ap Euseb de Prepar Evang. l. 5. pag. 122. of the Howlings of Devils when Christs Passion and Sacrifice turned them all out from their old Seats you may hear somtimes these Roman Saints weep and bemoan themselves sometimes in the o Vincent Specul Hist l. 7. c. 81. Clouds sometimes under Walls when they are abused in their Images It is upon this same account of care and sympathy for their dear Receptacles that as Pagans did with threatning force their Gods to what they had a mind they should do Roman Saints may be led that way if you tell them unless they do it that either q Mart. Polon ad an 715. pet Canisius de Deip. l. 5. c. 24. you will drown their Images or take r Caesarius l. 7. c 46. away the sweet Baby as did really the Woman who kept him so long in her Chest upon the loss of her Child s Ibid. whom a Wolf had run away with till with wonderful humility the Queen of Heaven commanded the Wolf to bring again and restore his prey her Majesty seeming to be exceedingly afraid of being deprived of her Son that is the little Cherub whom she hath commonly on her left Arm. Hence you may learn upon what ground the Tyrians once being besieged kept their chief Image * Quint. Curt. in obsidione Tyri in Chains the Trojans secured their Palladium the Romans their Ancile and now the Roman Catholics have so great care of their Images Those were once what these are now dear Pawns and as it were Hostages to draw on any side the Gods and Saints p Franc. Hierasc in vita Henr. Sylv. whom these Images do relate to Never fear that the good Lady can forget her ancient Friend at Lauretta at Maria major or at Montserrat and if she be sometimes out of the way when Pilgrims adore those Images it is because she looks to some others But if the Image be deeply engaged either in its Reputation as when it had bin intrusted with the Keies and keeping of t Annal. Flandr l. 12. an 1340. Tournay or in its own preservation as that was which the Sextan u Bov. supra would burn to bake his Wafers then read what Apollo did x Herodot Vrania for Delphi and Minerva for her little Chappel when both were assaulted by Xerxes compare it with what in the like occasion our Lady did for y Tursel Lauret Hist l. 2. c. 20. Lauretta for z Annal. Fland. sup Tournay for an old Image and so upon this whole matter judg whether Pagan Gods and Roman Saints be not alike as to their care and kindness to their Images and how unreasonable it were if you take those for very Devils to take these for any true Saints Fifthly The very acts of making Images to speak is an irrefragable Evidence of their being both ungodlike and unsaint-like Spirits God and his Blessed Angels have in times past expressed themselves several waies by Visions Dreams Vrim and Thummim Signs Judgments Fires and Thunders I leave out Gods speaking by Men because it is his most ordinary way of Revelation But let the Roman Catholics turn over either the Holy Scripture or the genuine Writings of any ancient Father and then shew me where ever God or Saints or Angels spake either in the Church or abroad in the World a Balinghem 28. May. by Stocks or Stones or any kind of dead Pictures and after they have consulted their Consciences if instructed with any degree of Learning let them pronounce whether both speaking and working through Images be or be not the most universal and most constant way of Devils Hereupon let Rome consider that tho Devils may and do often countenance themselves with counterfeiting the waies of of God God or his Saints never have disparaged themselves with using the waies of Devils much less such a way as the use of Images is which God hath so earnestly and constantly disowned and declared himself against Sixthly Their own Speeches and Actings may convince any sober Man by their own Ridiculousness or Impiety what kind of Spirits set them on work To be short consider but this one instance namely the Image of our good Lady with a young Child on her left arm the great Goddess and God of Rome and at the first entring into a Roman Church the first and most conspicuous Object of the Roman Adoration Consider in this double Image 1. The Roman Lady 2. The Roman or as they call it the sweet Baby each by themselves 3. Both the Mother and the Babe together First As to the main and Mother Image What is it do you think that makes Images sometimes as light as any Feather sometimes as heavy and immovable as any Rock sometimes to fly sometimes to dance sometimes to sing sometimes to weep sometimes to sweat sometimes to tear themselves to pieces For if all the Pranks be true as 't is certain they are possible do they not become somewhat better those wild silly Spirits that use to tumble stools and dishes or to skip up and down in a house then the most Holy the most serious and the most truly glorified Virgin Mary Whosoever will be at the trouble of summing up the Hours and Daies which since these six or seven hundred years have bin mispent about such doings shall find both that this spirit whosoever it is that animates this Roman Image is oftner below then above and that against the condition of all true glorified Saints he or she fidles away more of his time about Visions and Drudgeries about Gallows Whores and Prisons and about Monks and their Images then is left him or her to spend with the Blessed Saints about Gods Throne and in the Beatifical Vision Seeondly what do you