Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expression of Minor Bishops he means acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said alwayes apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore-fathers which had actually possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therefore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimonie of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austins time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Iudge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not foresee The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Defence of the foregoing Answer to the Questions CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images The introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallel answered Madam § 1. THat
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still as to the adoration of the Host. For supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same Worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. There are not the same motives and grounds to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he affirms but without any appearance of reason And I would gladly know what excellent motives and reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any man think he hath reason to believe it I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest contradictions to sense and reason imaginable But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
all wise men ever did and will do to the worlds end 4. I proved they made faith uncertain by making the Churches power to extend to the making new articles of faith This he grants to be to the purpose if it were true but he saith the Church never owned any such power in her General Councils which doth not hinder but that the Heads of their Church have pretended to it and in case it be disputable among them whether the Pope be not infallible that unavoidably leaves faith at uncertainties Yet he yields what I contend for which is that it is in the Churches Power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before for whether it be by inventing new Articles or declaring more explicitely the Truths not contained in Scripture and Tradition it is all one to my purpose as long as men might be saved without believing them before and cannot afterwards which is to make the conditions of salvation mutable according to the pleasure of the Church which is the greatest inconveniency of inventing new doctrines 5. I shewed they made faith uncertain by pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not using it to determine those which are on foot among themselves The force of the argument did not lye in this as he imagines as though faith could not be certain unless all controversies were determined which was far from my thoughts but that pretending there can be no faith without infallibility in their Church to end Controversies they should give such great occasion to suspect that they did not believe themselves by imploying that Infallibility in ending the great Controversies among themselves of which I have spoken already and to this he gives no answer at all Thus much in Vindication of the third Argument I made use of to prove that all those who are in the Communion of the Roman Church do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it § 15. I now come to the third answer to the first Question which was that a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible Ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one Three things he objects against this Answer 1. That this makes them both damned though unequally because the Converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so 2. That this reflects as much upon St. Austin as them who rejected the Communion of the Manichees and embraced that of the Church of Rome upon their grounds 3. That it is contrary to our distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental To which I Reply 1. That the design of my Answer was not to pass the sentence of damnation on all who dye in the communion of the Roman Church but to shew that they who forsook a better Church for it do incurre greater guils than those who are alwayes bred up in it and live and dye in the belief of its being the true Church and therefore are not in an equal capacity of salvation with them I shall make my meaning more plain by a parallel Instance or two many in the Church of Rome have asserted the possibility of the Salvation of Heathens though some Bigots have denyed it to Protestants suppose this question were put concerning two persons Whether a Christian having the same motives to become a Heathen which one bred and born and well grounded in Heathenism hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it and a third person should answer that a Christian leaving the communion of the Christian Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in Heathenism and continues therein by invincible Ignorance doth this answer imply that they must both be damned though equally or rather doth it not yield a greater possibility of salvation to one than to the other Or suppose to come nearer our case the question were put concerning one that revolted from the Church of Iudah to the ten Tribes which were guilty of Idolatry though not of the highest kind whether he were equally capable of salvation with one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Israel all his dayes I should make no question to pronounce his condition more dangerous than the other yet not therein damn them both but only imply that it was much harder for to escape than the other For he that was bred up in the Church of Israel believing it was the true God he served and in a right manner and looking on the Church of Iudah as a Schismatical Church and seeing the greater number of Tribes on their side and wanting that instruction which was in the Church of Iudah might in the sincerity of his heart serve God in a false way and pray to him to pardon all his errours and corruptions and have a general repentance of all sins though not particularly convinced of the Idolatry of the ten Tribes I dare not say but God will accept of such a one that thus fears God and works Righteousness in the simplicity of his heart but I cannot say the same of one who revolts from Iudah where the true God was worshipped in a true manner where he had sufficient means of instruction and either wilful Ignorance or temporal ends or unreasonable prejudices makes him deliberately choose a worse and more impure Church before a better for that very sin makes his case much more dangerous than the other Our business is not to enquire into the salvation or damnation of any particular persons for that depends upon so many circumstances as to the aggravation or extenuation of their faults the nature and sincerity of their repentance the integrity and simplicity of their minds which none but God himself can know but to find out the truest way to salvation and to reject whatever Church requires that which is in it self sinful for though God may pardon those who live in it in the simplicity of their minds yet their hopes lying in their Ignorance and repentance none who have a care of their souls dare venture themselves in so hazardous a state Setting aside then the consideration of the danger common to both I say the case of a Revolter from us to the Church of Rome is much worse than of one who was alwayes bred up in it because he might far more easily understand the danger he runs into and wilfull Ignorance only keeps him from it and he doth upon deliberation choose a state of infinite hazard before one of the greatest safety 2. This doth not reflect on St. Austin or the Church in his time which was as far different from theirs as the Churches of Iudah and Israel were from each other neither can it destroy the distinction of Fundamentals and not Fundamentals
A DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME AND The danger of Salvation in the Communion of it in answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant WHEREIN A particular Account is given of the Fanaticism and Divisions of that Church By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1671. THE PREFACE ALthough I see no great effect of the Courtship commonly used towards the Candid and Ingenuous Reader unless it be in diverting the censure from the Book to the Preface yet in some cases it looks like a breach of the Readers priviledge not to give him an account of the occasion and design of a Book Especially when the matter handled therein hath been thought so often discussed and is of so general concernment that every pretender thinks he knows as much already as is to be known in it But we really find no greater advantage hath been given to our Adversaries than this that the things in dispute between us are generally no better understood by the persons they have their designs upon For assoon as they have baffled their ignorance and mistakes these have been ready to yield up themselves and the Cause imagining nothing more could be said for it than they could say for themselves Whereby our Church hath not only suffered in its reputation as far as that is concerned in the weakness of some of its members but strange boasts and triumphs have been made by those of the Church of Rome when such who understood not their own Religion have embraced theirs While these disputes were fresh in the world every one thought himself concerned to enquire into them but since our Church hath been so long established on the principles of the Reformation and other unhappy controversies have risen up the most have taken this Cause for granted and thought it needless to enquire any farther into the Grounds of it Which our Adversaries perceiving they have found far greater success in their attempts upon particular persons than in publick Writings for these have only provoked others to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause whereas in the other by their wayes of Address and all the arts of Insinuation they have instilled their principles into the minds of some less judicious persons before they were aware of it Thence it is easie to observe that the greatest mischief they have done hath been like the Pestilence by walking in darkness and spreading their infection by whispers in corners All their hopes and strength lye in the weakness and credulity of the persons they deal with but if they meet with any who truly understand the differences between us they soon give them over as untractable But to such whose employments have not given them leave to enquire or whose capacity hath not been great enough to discern their Sophistry their first work is to make a false representation both of the Doctrines and practices of their Church and if they be of such easie faith to believe them they from thence perswade them into an ill opinion of their Teachers who possessed them with so bad thoughts of such a Church as theirs A Church of so great Holiness as may be seen by the Saint-like lives of their Popes and Converts a Church of so great Antiquity bating only the Primitive times a Church of so admirable Unity saving the divisions in it a Church so free from any Fanatick heats as any one may believe that will If this first assault doth not make them yield but they desire at least time to consider and advise in a matter of so great importance then they tell them there is not a man of our Church dares give any of them a meeting if they offer to puâ— it to a tryal they will appoint a day which they foresee will be most inconvenient for the persons they are to meet with If upon that account it be declined or deferred this is spred abroad for a Victory if it be accepted then one thing or other happens that they cannot come either the person goes out of Town unexpectedly or his Superiours have forbidden him or such conferences are not safe for them they are so sorely persecuted or at last what good can an hours talk do to satisfie any one in matters of Religion But if there be no remedy which they are seldome without and a conference happen which they scarce ever yield to but when they are sure of the person for whose sake it is then whosoever was baffled they are sure to go away with the triumph and as an evidence of it such a person went off from our Church upon it which was made sure of their side before If this way takes not then a sett of Questions is ready to be sent if another be returned to them to be answered at the same time this is declined and complained of as hard dealing as though they had only the priviledge of putting Questions and we the duty of answering them If answers be given to them after a Pass or two they put an end to the tryal of their skill in that place and seek for another to shew it in But if the Papers chance to be slighted or business hinders a present answer or there be a reasonable presumption that the person concerned hath already forsaken our Church this becomes the occasion of a new triumph the Papers are accounted unanswerable as the Spanish Armado was called invincible which we thank God we found to be otherwise and it may be are demanded again as Trophies to be preserved for the glory of the Catholick Cause All these several wayes I have had experience of in the compass of a few years since by command I was publickly engaged in the Defence of so excellent a Cause as that of our Church against the Church of Rome I confess it seemed somewhat hard to me to be put to answer so many several Papers which I have received upon their tampering with particular persons of our Church while my Book it self remained unanswered by them after so many years of trying their strength about it For those two who in some small measure have attempted it have performed it in the way that Ratts answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them for the body and design of it remains wholly untouched by them But for the satisfaction of any person who desired it I was not willing to decline any service which tended to so good an end as the preserving any member of our Church in the communion of it Which was the occasion of this present writing For some time since the person concerned after some discourses with her brought me the two Questions mentioned in the beginning of the Book to which I returned a speedy answer in the midst of many other employments not long after I received the
The language of prayer proved to be no indifferent thing from St. Pauls arguments No universal consent for prayers in an unknown tongue by the confession of their own Writers Of their doctrine of the efficacy of Sacraments that it takes away all necessity of devotion in the minds of the receivers This complained of by Cassander and Arnaud but proved against them to be the doctrine of the Roman Church by the Canons of the Council of Trent The great easiness of getting Grace by their Sacraments Of their discouraging the reading the Scriptures A standing Rule of devotion necessary None so fit to give it as God himself This done by him in the Scriptures All persons therefore concerned to read them The arguments against reading the Scriptures would have held against the publishing them in a language known to the peâ—ple The dangers as great then as ever have been since The greatest prudence of the Roman Church is wholly to forbid the Scriptures being acknowledged by their wisest men to be so contrary to their Interest The confession of the Cardinals at Bononia to that purpose The avowed practice of the Roman Church herein directly contrary to that of the Primitive although the reasons were as great then from the danger of Heresies This confessed by their own Writers p. 178 CHAP. IV. Of the Fanaticism of the Roman Church The unreasonableness of objecting Sects and Fanaticisms to us as the effects of reading the Scriptures Fanaticism countenanced in the Roman Church but condemned by ours Private revelations made among them the grounds of believing some points of doctrine proved from their own Authors Of the Revelations pleaded for the immaculate Conception The Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Catharin directly contrary in this point yet both owned in the Church of Rome The large approbations of S. Brigitts by Popes and Councils and both their revelations acknowledged to be divine in the lessons read upon their dayes S. Catharines wonderful faculty of smelling souls a gift peculiar to her and Philip Nerius The vain attempts of reconciling those Revelations The great number of female Revelations approved in the Roman Church Purgatory Transubstantiation Auricular Confession proved by Visions and Revelations Festivals appointed upon the credit of Revelations the Feast of Corpus Christi on the Revelation made to Juliana the Story of it related from their own Writers No such things can be objected to our Church Revelations still owned by them proved from the Fanatick Revelations of Mother Juliana very lately published by Mr. Cressy Some instances of the blasphemous Nonsense contained in them The Monastick Orders founded in Enthusiasm An account of the great Fanaticism of S. Benedict and S. Romoaldus their hatred of Humane Learning and strange Visions and Revelations The Carthusian Order founded upon a Vision The Carmalites Vision of their habit The Franciscan and Dominican Orders founded on Fanaticism and seen in a Vision of Innocent the third to be the great supporters of the Roman Church The Quakerism of S. Francis described from their best Authors His Ignorance Extasies and Fanatick Preaching The Vision of Dominicus The blasphemous Enthusiasm of the Mendicant Fryers The History of it related at large Of the Evangelium aeternum and the blasphemies contained in it The Author of it supposed to be the General of the Franciscan Order however owned by the Fryers and read and preached at Paris The opposition to it by the Vniversity but favoured by the Popes Gul. S. Amour writing against it his Book publickly burnt by order of the Court of Rome The Popes horrible partiality to the Fryers The Fanaticism of the Franciscans afterwards of the followers of Petrus Johannis de Oliva The Spiritual State began say they from S. Francis The story of his wounds and Maria Visitationis paralleld The canting language used by the spiritual Brethren called Beguini Fraticelli and Bigardi Of their doctrines about Poverty Swearing Perfection the Carnal Church and Inspiration by all which they appear to be a Sect of Quakers after the Order of S. Francis Of the Schism made by them The large spreading and long continuance of them Of the Apostolici and Dulcinistae Of their numerous Conventicles Their high opinion of themselves Their Zeal against the Clergy and Tythes their doctrine of Christian Liberty Of the Alumbrado's in Spain their disobedience to Bishops obstinate adhering to their own fancies calling them Inspirations their being above Ordinances Ignatius Loyola suspected to be one of the Illuminati proved from Melchior Canus The Iesuites Order founded in Fanaticism a particular account of the Romantick Enthusiasm of Ignatius from the Writers of his own Order Whereby it is proved that he was the greatest pretender to Enthusiasm since the dayes of Mahomet and S. Francis Ignatius gave no respect to men by words or putting off his Hat his great Ignorance and Preaching in the Streets his glorying in his sufferings for it his pretence to mortification the wayes he used to get disciples Their way of resolution of difficulties by seeking God their itinerant preaching in the Cities of Italy The Sect of Quakers a new Order of Disciples of Ignatius only wanting confirmation from the Pope which Ignatius obtained Of the Fanatick way of devotion in the Roman Church Of Superstitious and Enthusiastical Fanaticism among them Of their mystical Divinity Mr. Cressy's canting in his Preface to Sancta Sophia Of the Deiform fund of the soul a superessential life and the way to it Of contemplating with the will Of passive Vnions The method of self-Annihilation Of the Vnion of nothing with nothing Of the feeling of not-being The mischief of an unintelligible way of devotion The utmost effect of this way is gross Enthusiasm Mr. Cressy's Vindication of it examined The last sort of Fanaticism among them resisting authority under pretence of Religion Their principles and practices compared with the Fanaticks How far they are disowned at present by them Of the Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance The Court of Rome hath alwayes favoured that party which is most destructive to Civil Government proved by particular and late Instances p. 235 CHAP. V. Of the Divisions of the Roman Church The great pretence of Vnity in the Church of Rome considered The Popes Authority the fountain of that Vnity what that Authority is which is challenged by the Popes over the Christian World the disturbances which have happened therein on the account of it The first Revolt of Rome from the Empire caused by the Popes Baronius his Arguments answered Rebellion the foundation of the greatness of that Church The cause of the strict League between the Popes and the posterity of Charles Martel The disturbances made by Popes in the new Empire Of the quarrels of Greg. 7. with the Empeperour and other Christian Princes upon the pretence of the Popes Authority More disturbances on that account in Christendome than any other matter of Religion Of the Schisms which have happened in the Roman Church particularly those
after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successors the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about the matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own difference will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition oâ— the 39. Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by theiâ— own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours p. 355 CHAP. VI. An Answer to the Remainder of the Reply The mis-interpreting Scripture doth not hinder its being a rule of faith Of the superstitious observations of the Roman Church Of Indulgences the practice of them in what time begun on what occasion and in what terms granted Of the Indulgences in Iubilees in the Churches at Rome and upon saying some Prayers Instances of them produced What opinion hath been had of Indulgences in the Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome p. 476 ERRATA PAg. 25. l. 19. for adjuverit r. adjuvet p. ibid. Marg. r. l. 7. de baptis p. 31. Marg. r. Tract 18. in Ioh. p. 64. l. 13. dele only p. 75. Marg. r. Trigaut p. 101. l. 24. for I am r. am I p. 119. l. 28. for is r. in p. 135. Marg. for 68. r. 6. 8. p. 162. l. 17. after did put not Ch. 3. for pennance r. penance p. 219. l. 10. for him r. them p. 257. l. 21. for or r. and l. 31. for never r. ever p. 350. l. 21. for their r. the p. 414. l. 18. for these r. their p. 416. Marg. for nibaldi r. Sinibaldi p. 417. l. 2. before another insert one p. 499. l. 16. after not insert at p. 526. Marg. for act r. art p. 546. l. 8. after for insert one Two Questions proposed by one of the Church of Rome WHether a Protestant haveing the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians Answer The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick takeing that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been born or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a man to leap from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be saved as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace it or continue in it And that upon these grounds 1. Because they must
Did not expect that two bare Questions could have produced such a super-foetation of Controversies as the Paper you sent me is fraught with But since the Answerer hath been pleased to take this Method for what end himself best knows I shall not refuse to give a fair and plain return to the several points he insists upon and that with as much brevity as the matter and circumstances will bear The Questions proposed were 1. Whether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it The 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians The first he saith being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant continuing so implyes a contradiction but where it lyes I cannot see for a Protestant may have the same Motives and yet out of wilfulness or passion not acquiesce to them He saw no doubt this supposition to be impertinent to the Question and therefore in the second part of the 1. § states it thus Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of the Protestant Church upon the motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who were bred in it The Question thus stated in its true supposition he answers first § 2. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the Communion of a Church wherein the salvation of a person may be much more safe than either of them But before I reply I must do both him and my self right in matter of fact and it is Madam that when you first addressed to me you professed your self much troubled that he had told you a person leaving the Protestant communion and embracing the Catholick could not be saved That we should deny salvation to any out of the Catholick Church you lookt upon as uncharitable and this assertion of his had startled you in the opinion you had before of the Protestant Charity Whereupon you desired to know my opinion in the case and I told you I saw no reason why the same Motives which secured one born and bred and well grounded in Catholick Religion to continue in it were not sufficient also to secure a Protestant who convinced by them should embrace it This Madam your self can witness was the true occasion of your proposing the Question and not as the Answerer supposes that I used the meer Question it self as a sufficient Argument to perswade you to embrace the Catholick Communion This premised I reply that the Answer he gives is altogether forrain to the matter in hand the Controversie not being between a Bred and a Converted Catholick on the one side and a person supposed to be in a safer Church than either of them on the other nor yet between two several Churches supposed to have in them an equal Capacity of salvation but between a person bred in the Catholick Religion on the one side and another converted to it from Protestantism on the other whether the latter may not be equally saved with the former Nor is it to the purpose of the present Question to prove that it is of necessity to Salvation to leave the Protestant Church and become a member of the Catholick because the Question is only of the possibility not of the necessity of Salvation I say it is not necessary to the present Question to prove this but rather belongs to the second where I shall speak to it Whether there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church Which being resolved affirmatively by both parts it follows then in order to enquire which this true Church is As for the Example of a man leaping from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being Wrackt meaning by that Ship as I suppose he does the Catholick Church Some will be apt to think he had come nearer the Mark if he had compared the Protestant to a Ship which by often knocking against the Rock on which the Catholick Church is built had split it self into innumerable Sects and was now in danger of sinking his comparison was grounded only on his own supposition but this is grounded on the truth it self of too sad an experience But to leave words and come to the matter His second Answer is § 3. that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it The first answer as I have shewed was nothing pertinent to the present Question nor comes this second any nearer the matter for though it be supposed that none ought to embrace or continue in the Catholick Church by reason of the great hazard he saith they run of their salvation yet if they do embrace or continue in it why may they not be equally saved that is with equal capacity but this assertion however beside the Question he makes it his main business to prove First § 4. Because those who embrace or continue in the Catholick Church are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation And here he must give me leave to return upon him a more palpable contradiction than that he supposed to have found in the Question viz. to assert only that those of the Catholick Communion run a great hazard of their salvation and yet affirm at the same time that they are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation which reduced into plain terms is no other but that they may be saved though hardly and yet cannot be saved But to the Argument The Church of Rome by the Worship of God by Images by the adoration of Bread in the Eucharist and the formal invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator Therefore it makes the members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry The charge is great but what are the proofs Concerning the first he saith § 5. that in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature And surely this implies another contradiction that it should be the Worship of God by Images and yet be terminated wholly on the Creature Nevertheless he proves it thus The Worship which God himself denyes to receive must be terminated upon the Creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denyes to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it that is that Worship him by an Image Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image To this Argument which to be just to the Author I confess I have not seen any where
some degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God His tenth pretended Obstruction of Devotion is that we make disobedience to the Church in Disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage he saith in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication I Answer That whether a Priest may Marry or no supposing the Law of the Church forbidding it is not a disputable matter but 't is out of Question even by the Law of God that Obedience is to be given to the Commands or Prohibitions of the Church The Antithesis therefore between disobedience to the Church in disputable matters and disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things is not only impertinent to the Marriage of Priests which is unquestionably forbidden but supposing the matter to remain disputable after the Churches Prohibition destroys all obedience to the Church But if it suppose them only disputable before then why may not the Church interpose her Iudgement and put them out of dispute But still it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the Word of Christ that is his Counsel of Chastitie that Marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication But he considers not that though Marriage in it self be honourable yet if it be prohibited to a certain order of persons by the Church to whom Christ himself commands us to give obedience and they oblige themselves by a voluntary vow to live in perpetual Chastity the Law of God commanding us to pay our Vows it loses its honour in such persons and if contracted after such vow made is in the language of the Fathers no better than Adultery In the primitive Church it was the custome of some Younger Widdows to Dedicate themselves to the Service of the Church and in order thereunto to take upon them a peculiar habit and make a vow of continency for the future Now in case they Married after this St. Paul himself 1 Tim. 1. 12. saith That they incurred Damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith that is as the Fathers Expound it the vow they had made And the fourth Council of Carthage in which were 214 Bishops and among them St. Austin gives the Reason in these words If Wives who commit Adultery are guilty to their Husbands how much more shall such Widdows as change their Religious State be noted with the crime of Adultery And if this were so in Widdows much more in Priests if by Marrying they shall make void their first Faith given to God when they were consecrated in a more peculiar manner to his Service Thus much may suffice for Answer to the Argument which with its intricate terms may seem to puzzle an unlearned Reader let us now speak a word to the true state of the Controversie which is whether Marriage or single life in a Priest be more apt to obstruct or further devotion And St. Paul himself hath determined the Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. where he saith He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to our Lord how he may please our Lord But he that is Married careth for the things that are of the World how be may please his Wife This is the difference he putteth between the Married and Single life that this is apt to make us care for the things which belong to God and that to divert our thoughts from him to the things of the World Iudge therefore which of these states is most convenient for Priests whose proper office it is to attend wholly to the things of God Having thus cleared Catholick Doctrines from being any wayes obstructive to good life or devotion I shall proceed to his third Argument by which he will still prove that Catholicks run a great hazard of their souls in adhering to the Communion of the Church of Rome Because it exposeth the Faith of Christians to so great uncertainty This is a strange charge from the pen of a Protestant who hath no other certainty for his faith but every mans interpretation of the Letter of the Scriptures But First he saith it doth this By making the Authority of the Scriptures to depend upon the infallibility of the Church when the Churches infallibility must be proved by the Scriptures To this I Answer that the Authority of the Scripture not in it self for so it hath its Authority from God but in order to us and our belief of it depends upon the infallibility of the Church And therefore St. Austin saith of himself That he would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move him And if you ask him what moved him to submit to that Authority he tells you That besides the Wisdom he found in the Tenets of the Church there were many other things which most justly held him in it as the consent of people and Nations an Authority begun by Miracles nourished by hope increased by Charity and established by Antiquity the succession of Priests from the very seat of St. Peter to whom our Lord commended the feeding of his Sheep unto the present Bishoprick Lastly The very name of Catholick which this Church alone among so many Heresies hath not without cause obtained so particularly to her self that whereas all Hereticks would be called Catholicks yet if a stranger demand where the Catholicks go to Church none of these Hereticks dares to shew either his own house or Church These saith St. Austin so many and great most dear bonds of the name of Christian do justly hold a believing man in the Catholick Church These were the grounds which moved that great man to submit to her Authority And when Catholick Authors prove the infallibility of the Church from Scriptures 't is an Argument ad hominem to convince Protestants who will admit nothing but Scripture and yet when they are convinced quarrel at them as illogical disputants because they prove it from Scripture Next he saith we overthrow all foundation of Faith because We will not believe our sences in the plainest objects of them But what if God have interposed his Authority as he hath done in the case of the Eucharist where he tells us that it is his Body must we believe our sences rather than God or must we not believe them in other things because in the particular case of the Eucharist we must believe God rather than our sences Both these consequences you see are absurd Now for the case it self in which he instances Dr. Taylor above cited confesses that they viz. Catholicks have a divine Revelation viz. Christs word This is my Body whose Litteral and Grammatical sence if that sence were intended would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle but I add it would be no precedent to them not to believe their sences in other the plainest objects of them as in the matter of Tradition or Christs body after the
Resurrection 3. He saith that We expose faith to great uncertainty by denying to men the use of their Judgement and Reason as to matters of faith proposed by a Church that is we deny particular mens Iudgement as to matters of faith to be as good if not better than the Churches and to inferre from henâ—e that we make Faith uncertain is just as if on the contrary one should say that Protestants make faith certain by exposing matter of faith determined by the Church to be discussed and reversed by the Iudgement and reason or rather fancy of every private man We have good store of this kind of certainty in England But as for the use of our Iudgement and Reason as to the matters themselves proposed by the Church it is the daily business of Divines and Preachers not only to shew them not to be repugnant to any natural truth but also to illustrate them with Arguments drawn from reason But the use he would have of reason is I suppose to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend and this is not only irrational in its self but contrary to the Doctrine of St. Paul where he commands us to captivate our understandings to the Obedience of Faith 4. He adds We expose faith to uncertainty by making the Church power extend to making new Articles of Faith And this if it were true were something indeed to his purpose But the Church never yet owned any such power in her General Councils but only to manifest and establish the Doctrine received from her Fore-fathers as is to be seen in the prooems of all the Sessions of the Council of Trent where the Fathers before they declare what is to be believed ever premise that what they declare is the same they have received by Tradition from the Apostles And because it may happen that some particular Doctrine was not so plainly delivered to each part of the Church as it happened in St. Cyprians case concerning the non-rebaptization of Hereticks we acknowledge it is in her power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before not by inventing new Articles but by declaring more explicitely the Truths contained in Scripture and Tradition Lastly he saith We expose Faith to great uncertainty because the Church pretending to infallibility does not determine Controversies on foot among our selves As if faith could not be certain unless all Controversies among particular men be determined what then becomes of the certainty of Protestants faith who could yet never find out a sufficient means to determine any one Controversie among them for if that means be plain Scripture what one Iudgeth plain another Iudgeth not so and they acknowledge no Iudge between them to decide the Controversie As for the Catholick Church if any Controversies arise concerning the Doctrine delivered as in St. Cyprians case she determines the Controversie by declaring what is of Faith And for other Controversies which belong not to faith she permits as St. Paul saith every one to abound in his own sence And thus much in Answer to his third Argument by which and what hath been said to his former Objections it appears that he hath not at all proved what he asserted in his second Answer to the first Question viz. That all those who are in the Communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it But he hath a third Answer for us in case the former faile and it is § 10. That a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance This is the directest answer he gives to the Question and what it imports is this That invincible Ignorance and he doth not know what allowance God will make for that neither is the only Anchor which a Catholick hath to save himself by If by discoursing with Protestants and reading their Books he be not sufficiently convinced whereas he ought in the supposition of the Answerer to be so that the Letter of the Scripture as interpretable by every private mans reason is a most certain Rule of Faith and Life but is still over-ruled by his own Motives the same which held St. Austin in the bosome of the Catholick Church he is guilty of wilful Ignorance and consequently a lost man there is no hope of Salvation for him Much less for a Protestant who shall embrace the Catholick Communion because he is supposed doubtless from the same Rule to have sufficient conviction of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful Ignorance If he have it not which is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation So that now the upshot of the Answer to the Question Whether a Protestant embracing Catholick Religion upon the same motives which one bred and well grounded in it hath to remain in it may be equally saved with him comes to this that they shall both be damned though unequally because the converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so And now who can but lament the sad condition of that great Doctor and Father of the Church and hitherto reputed St. Austin who rejecting the Manichees pretended rule of Scripture upon the aforesaid grounds left their Communion to embrace the Communion of the Church of Rome And what is become now of their distinction of points fundamental from not fundamental which heretofore they thought sufficient to secure both Catholicks and Protestants Salvation and to charge us with unconscionable uncharitableness in not allowing them to be sharers with us The absurdness of these consequences may serve for a sufficient conviction of the nullity of his third and last answer to the first Question As for what he saith to the second I agree so far with him that every Christian is bound to choose the Communion of the purest Church but which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the Doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles That Church is to be judged purest which hath the best grounds and consequently it is of necessity to Salvation to embrace the communion of it What then you are bound to do in reason and conscience is to see which Religion of the two hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace that as you will answer the contrary to God and your own soul. To help you to do this and that the Answerer may have the less exception against them I will give you a Catalogue of Catholick Motives though not all neither in the words of the forecited Dr. Taylor advertising only for brevity sake I leave out some mentioned by him and that in these I set down you also give allowance for some expressions of his with which he hath mis-represented them Thus then he Liberty of
dangerous for me to be too confident of the sense of it I have heard some wise men of our church have said that these words may bear a figurative sense like that rock was Christ and that if there were no other evidence for transubstantiation but what the Scripture gives there were no reason to make it an Article of faith I have heard the great names of Scotus Aliaco Biel Fisher Cajctan Canus and others quoted to this purpose and their testimonies produced What a case am I in then if those words do not prove it Now I think better of it I must trust the Church for the sense of Scripture and if I be not strangely mistaken I am sworn to interpret Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers but alas what relief is this to my anxious mind This is a thing I am to do or not to do almost every day and to be resolved of it I am put to a task which will hold me all my life time and may be as unsatisfied at last as I am now For I see the world is full of Disputes concerning the sense of their words as well as the Scriptures One saith that a Father by a figure means a substance and that another by a substance means a figure one man sayes his adversaries authorities are counterfeit and another sayes the same of his one quotes the saying of an Heretick for the Orthodox and another makes it appear that if he spake his own mind he must contradict himself and others of the Fathers One produces a Pope confirming the Doctrine of transubstantiation and another as plain a testimony of a Pope of greater antiquity and more learning overthrowing it One appeals to the first Ages of the Church another to the latest one saith the Fathers spake Rhetorically and another Dogmatically One that they loved to talk mystically and another that they spake differently about this matter In this great confusion what ground of certainty have I to stand upon whereby to secure my mind from commission of a great sin I am sure if I live in wilful sin all my dayes I shall be damned but God hath never told me if I do not study the Fathers all my life I shall be damned It is satisfaction I desire and that I am not like to have this way when I see men of greater Wit and Subtlety and Judgement than ever I am like to come to are still disputing about the sense of the Fathers in this point Witness the late heats in France about it While I am in this Labyrinth a kind Priest offers to give me ease and tells me these are doubts and scruples I ought not to trouble my self about the authority of the present Church is sufficient for me I thank him for his kindness only desiring to know what he means by the authority of the present Church For I find we Catholicks are not agreed about that neither May I be sure if the Pope who is Head of the Church say it No not unless he defines it but may I be sure then No not unless a General Council concur but may I be sure if a General Council determines it Yes if it be confirmed wholly by the Pope and doth proceed in the way of a Council but how is it possible for me to judge of that when the intrigues of actions are so secret I see then if this be the only way of satisfaction I must forbear giving adoration or be guilty of Idolatry in doing it But suppose I am satisfied in the point of transubstantiation it is not enough for me to know in general that there is such a change but I must believe particularly that very bread to be changed so which I am now to worship and by what means can I be sure of that For my Church tells me that it is necessary that he be a Priest that consecrates and that he had an intention of consecrating that very bread which I am to adore But what if it should come to pass after many consecrations that such a person prove no Priest because not rightly baptized which is no unheard of thing what became of all their actions who worshipped every Host he pretended to consecrate They must be guilty of Idolatry every Mass he celebrated But how is it possible for me to be sure of his Priesthood unless I could be sure of the intention of the Bishop that ordained him and the Priest that baptized him which it is impossible for me to be Yet suppose I were sure he was a Priest what assurance have I that he had an intention to consecrate that very Wafer which I am to adore If there were thirteen and he had an intention to consecrate only twelve if I worship the thirteenth I give divine honour to a meer creature for without the intention of the Priest in consecration it can be nothing else and then I am guilty of downright Idolatry So that upon the principles of the Roman Church no man can be satisfied that he doth not worship a meer creature with divine honour when he gives adoration to the Host. 2. No man can be satisfied that he hath sufficient reason for giving this worship to the Host. For which we must consider what suppositions the adoration of the Host depends upon if any of which prove uncertain I am in as bad a case as I was before I first suppose that the bread being really and substantially changed into that very body of Christ which was crucified at Hierusalem I ought to give the same honour to that body of Christ in the Sacrament which I am to give to the person of Christ as God and man and that the body of Christ being present in the Sacrament I may on the account of that presence give the same honour to the Sacrament in which he is present But if it prove uncertain whether the humane nature of Christ as conjoyned to the divine nature be capable of receiving proper divine worship then it must be much more so whether the body of Christ as present in the Sacrament be so But granting that it may be yet uncertain whether I ought to give the same honour to the visible part of the Sacrament which I do to the humanity of Christ for though Christ may be present there his presence doth not make the things wherein he is present capable of the same divine honour with himself Now that these things are uncertain upon their own principles I now make appear I find it generally agreed by the Doctors of the Roman Church that the humane nature of Christ considered alone ought not to have divine honour given to it and I find it hotly disputed among them whether Christs humane nature though united to the divine ought abstractly considered to have any true divine honour given it and those who deny it make use of this substantial argument proper divine honour is due only to God but the humane nature of Christ
and him only shalt thou serve and that we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods on which account saith he we worship God alone and give cheerful service in all other things to you Theophilus Bishop of Antioch who lived in the second Century after Christ as well as Iustin giving an account why the Christians refused giving adoration to the Emperours which was then used not that adoration which was proper to the Supream God for none can be so senseless to imagine they required that but such kind of religious worship as they gave to the Images of their Gods saith That as the King or Emperour suffers none under him to be called by his name and that it is not lawful to give it to any but himself so neither is it to worship any but God alone and elsewhere saith that the Divine Law doth not only forbid the worship of Idols but of the Elements the Sun and Moon and Stars or any thing else in Heaven in Earth in Sea or Fountains or Rivers but we ought only to worship the true God and Maker of all things in the holiness of our hearts and integrity of our minds To the same purpose speak Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Cyprian Origen Athenagoras Lactantius Arnobius who all agree that religious worship is proper to the true God and that no created thing is capable of it on that very account because it is created it were easie to produce their testimonies if it were requisite in so evident a matter as this is If it be said That all these testimonies are only against that Idolatry which was then practised by the Heathens I answer 1. Their reasons equally extend to the giving divine worship to any created being whatsoever so that either they argued weakly and unskilfully or else it is as unlawful to give divine worship now to Saints as it was then to any creature 2. I would willingly understand why it should be more unlawful to worship God for his admirable Wisdom and Power and Goodness in the works of Creation than in supposed Saints i. e. why I may not as well honour God by giving worship to the Sun as to Ignatius Loyola or St. Francis or any other late Canonized Saint I am sure the Sun is a certain monument of Gods Goodness Wisdom and Power and I cannot be mistaken therein but I can never be certain of the Holiness of those persons I am to give divine worship to For all that I can know Ignatius Loyola was a great hypocrite but I am sure that the Sun is none but that he shines and communicates perpetual influences to the huge advantage of the world However I know the best of men have their corruptions and to what degree it is impossible for others to understand but I am certain the spots in the Sun are no Moral impurities nor displeasing to God And Philip Nerius could not be mistaken in the shining of the Sun although he might be in the shining of Ignatius his face which yet is thought so considerable a thing that it is read in the Lessons appointed for Ignatius in the Roman Breviary 3. On what account should the Christians refuse giving all external signs of Religious worship to the Heathen Emperours if they thought it lawful to be given to any sort of men Why might not they worship the Statues of Kings and Princes as well as others do those of Rebels and Traytors I mean why might not the Image of King Henry the second have the same reverence shewn to it that the Shrine of Thomas Becket had unless it be more meritorious to disobey a Prince than to give him reverence Might not the Primitive Christians have much easier defended themselves in giving those outward signs of worship to the Images of Emperours than others can do in the worship they give to Saints For they might have pleaded that external signs are to be interpreted by the intention of the person who uses them that they intended no more by it but the highest degree of Civil honour on the account of the authority they possessed or if this would not serve might not they have said that Kings and Princes were Gods Vicegerents and represented him to the world and that in giving divine worship to them they gave it to God and that their absolute ultimate and terminative worship was upon God and only a relative inferior and transient worship was given to them and all this might be better justified by St. Basils rule That the honour of the Image passes to the Prototype for he there pleads for the worship of Christ because he is one with the Father being his Image as the Image of a King is called the King and hath the same honour given to it for the honour of the Image passeth to the thing represented And as Christ hath the advantage above all by being Gods natural Image so Princes above Saints in that they represent God to the world which the other do not But notwithstanding all these Pleas the Primitive Christians were so punctual in observing that Command of worshipping God alone that they rather chose to lose their lives and suffer Martyrdom than be in the least guilty of giving any divine worship to a creature 4. They absolutely deny any religious worship to be given to the most excellent created Beings and therefore did not only condemn the Idolatry then in use but that which hath obtained in the Roman Church supposing all the persons worshipped therein to have been real Saints For that we are to consider that all the Heathens were not such great Fools as some men make them to excuse themselves if the wiser men were contented to let the people worship the Poetical Gods having their minds possessed with those Idea's of them which they had taken up by their education yet they understood them only as Allegories as some make the Image of St. Christopher and St. George in the Church of Rome to be no other and they had Temples erected to the greatest Vertues to Piety Faith Concord Iustice Chastity Clemency c. and others to the greatest Benefactors to mankind which was the only ground they pleaded for giving worship to them but still they acknowledged one Supream God not Iupiter of Creet but the Father of Gods and men only they said this Supream God being of so high a nature and there being other intermediate beings between him and men whose Office they conceived it was to carry the prayers of men to God and to bring down help from him to them they thought it very fitting to address their solemn supplications to them Here now was the very same case in debate altering only the names of things which is between us and the Church of Rome and if ever they speak home to our case they must do upon this point And so they do but very little to their comfort § 10.
persons they have ten times more cause to fear than the common people And considering the advantage they once had by the horrible Ignorance of Priests and people it must be imputed only to the watchful eye of Divine Providence that the Scriptures being of so little use in the Roman Church have been preserved entire to our dayes There had been no such means in the world to have prevented a Reformation as this for they are not out when they take the Scripture so much for their enemy as appears by the force and restraint they put upon it and the fear and jealousie they are in about it continually If it had not been for this would any one have compared the Scriptures in the hands of the common people as my Adversary doth to a Sword in a mad mans hand Is it of so destructive a Nature and framed for no other use than a sword is which nothing but discretion keeps a man from doing mischief by and all the way a man hath though never so meek and humble to defend himself by it is by destroying his enemy with it if he continues his assault These expressions do not argue any kindness to the Scripture nor an apprehension of any great good comes to the world by it but that really men might have been more at ease and fewer differences in Religion had happened if all the Copies of the Bible had been lost assoon as the Pope had placed himself in his infallible Chair This design was once attempted as I shall shew afterwards but failed of success and I know not how far the principles of this prudence may carry them if ever such a season should fall into their hands again having found so much trouble to them from the Scriptures and so little benefit by them their Church being once owned as infallible For I would fain know whether the Scripture hath not done more mischief according to them in the hands of the Reformers than it can be supposed to do in the hands of the common people If it must be a sword in a mad mans hand whether the more strength and cunning such a one hath he be not capable of doing so much the more mischief by it And if it were possible to get it out of such a mans hands whether it were not the highest prudence and care of the publick safety to do it It can be then nothing but the impossibility of the thing which makes them suffer the Scripture to be in the hands of any who are capable of doing mischief by it and the more mischief they may do the more desirable and prudential it is to take it from them But all men see none are so capable of doing mischief thereby as men of the greatest wit and learning and that have the fairest appearance of piety to the world the consequence then of this doctrine is if pursued to the true design of it that the Scripture should be kept if possible out of the hands of the most subtle learned and pious men above all others if they be not true to the interests of the Roman Church It is but a meer shew to pretend only to keep the people in order for when are they otherwise but when cunning men have the managing of them the true meaning of this principle is that it will never be well with the World till the Books of Scripture are all burnt which are abroad and that only one Original be preserved in the Vatican to justifie the Popes title to Infallibility and that as the Sybilline Oracles of old never to be consulted but in cases of great extremity and that under the inspection of some very trusty officers nor to be interpreted but by the Pope himself If I were of the Church of Rome and owned the principles of it I must needs have condemned the great men of it in former times for want of Prudence in this matter That would have served their turn much better than forging so many decretal Epistles falsifying so many testimonies perverting so many Texts of Scripture to maintain the dignity of the Papal Chair There was only one small circumstance wanting their good will we have no cause to question and that was the possibility of it for although the Roman Church called it self Catholick they were wise enough to know there were many considerable Churches in the world besides theirs where the Scriptures were preserved and from whence copies might be procured by persons who would be so much the more inquisitive the more they were forbidden to get it Therefore they pitched upon an easier way and finding the people under a very competent degree of Ignorance they indulged them and soothed them up in it and told them they could never miss the way to Heaven though never so narrow in the dark Their only danger was too much light for then probably they might be in a great dispute whether the broad way was not the true for there they saw most of their Friends and Leaders And while they kept the people in this profound Ignorance and superstition they jogged on in their opinion as securely to Heaven as Ignatius Loyola's Mule did to Mount-serrat when he laid his Bridle on his neck to see whether he would take the way to pursue the Moor which was the more beaten track or the more craggy and untrodden way to that place of devotion and by a mighty providence and I suppose a little help of the Rider the Beast took the more narrow way But when persons began to be awakened by learning and thereby grew inquisitive in all matters and so by degrees in those of Religion they then espied their errour in letting such a Book lye abroad in so many hands from whence so many irresistible arguments were drawn against the Doctrine and practices of the Roman Church This I assure my self is the true ground of the quarrels against the Reading the Scriptures but that being now irremediable they betake themselves to smaller arts and endeavour to hinder any one particular person whom they have the least suspicion of from meddling with a Book so dangerous to their Church and Religion § 10. For if this were not it what makes them to be more jealous of the use of the Scriptures than ever the Christians were in former Ages Was there not much more danger of misunderstanding the Doctrine of the Gospel at first than ever after Nay were there not very many who were false Apostles and great and dangerous Hereticks presumptuous and arrogant if ever any were But did Christ or his Apostles for all this think it unfit to communicate the doctrine of the Gospel to the people or were the Books containing it written in Languages not to be understood by them no they chose the most popular languages of that time most largely spread and generally understood The Apostles never told their Disciples of the danger of reading the Divine Writings that were among them when they were
the ancient Fathers had of the usefulness of Scriptures to the people than they have in the Roman Church but we need not more to prove it since it is acknowledged by those who are against the reading the Scriptures by the people that it was otherwise in the Primitive Church so Alphonsus à Castro and Sixtus Senensis confess Espencaeus quotes many plain places from St. Austin and St. Chrysostom to prove that the people ought to be very diligent in reading the Scriptures in their own houses and that nothing should excuse them from it and confesseth that St. Pauls precept Colos. 3. let the word of God dwell richly in you was intended for the people and that they ought to have it among them not only sufficiently but abundantly The sum of this argument is that the reasons now urged against the peoples Reading the Scriptures would have held against the publishing of them in a language to be understood by the people that they saw the same inconveniencies which are objected now and yet commended the reading the Scriptures to all that in all the primitive Church the practice was not only retained but vehemently urged after all the Heresies which had risen in the Church in their time and therefore for the Church of Rome to account it wisdome to keep the people from it is to charge not only the Fathers of the Church with folly but the Apostles and our Saviour and God himself CHAP. IV. Of the Fanaticism of the Roman Church The unreasonableness of objecting Sects and Fanaticisms to us as the effects of reading the Scriptures Fanaticism countenanced in the Roman Church but condemned by ours Private revelations made among them the grounds of believing some points of doctrine proved from their own Authors Of the Revelations pleaded for the immaculate Conception The Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Catharin directly contrary in this point yet both owned in the Church of Rome The large approbations of S. Brigitts by Popes and Councils and both their revelations acknowledged to be divine in the lessons read upon their dayes S. Catharines wonderful faculty of smelling souls a gift peculiar to her and Philip Nerius The vain attempts of reconciling those Revelations The great number of female Revelations approved in the Roman Church Purgatory Transubstantiation Auricular Confession proved by Visions and Revelations Festivals appointed upon the credit of Revelations the Feast of Corpus Christi on the Revelation made to Juliana the Story of it related from their own Writers No such things can be objected to our Church Revelations still owned by them proved from the Fanatick Revelations of Mother Juliana very lately published by Mr. Cressy Some instances of the blasphemous Nonsense contained in them The Monastick Orders founded in Enthusiasm An account of the great Fanaticism of S. Benedict and S. Romoaldus their hatred of Humane Learning and strange Visions and Revelations The Carthusian Order founded upon a Vision The Carmelites Vision of their habit The Franciscan and Dominican Orders founded on Fanaticism and seen in a Vision of Innocent the third to be the great supporters of the Roman Church The Quakerism of S. Francis described from their best Authors His Ignorance Extasies and Fanatick Preaching The Vision of Dominicus The blasphemous Enthusiasm of the Mendicant Fryers The History of it related at large Of the Evangelium aeternum and the blasphemies contained in it The Author of it supposed to be the General of the Franciscan Order however owned by the Fryers and read and preached at Paris The opposition to it by the Vniversity but favoured by the Popes Gul. S. Amour writing against it his Book publickly burnt by order of the Court of Rome The Popes horrible partiality to the Fryers The Fanaticism of the Franciscans afterwards Of the followers of Petrus Johannis de Oliva The Spiritual State began say they from S. Francis The story of his wounds and Maria Visitationis paralleld The canting language used by the spiritual Brethren called Beguini Fraticelli and Begardi Of their doctrines about Poverty Swearing Perfection the Carnal Church and Inspiration by all which they appear to be a Sect of Quakers after the Order of S. Francis Of the Schism made by them The large spreading and long continuance of them Of the Apostolici and Dulcinistae Of their numerous Conventicles Their high opinion of themselves Their Zeal against the Clergy and Tythes their doctrine of Christian Liberty Of the Alumbrado's in Spain their disobedience to Bishops obstinate adhering to their own fancies calling them Inspirations their being above Ordinances Ignatius Loyola suspected to be one of the Illuminati proved from Melchior Canus The Iesuites Order founded in Fanaticism a particular account of the Romantick Enthusiasm of Ignatius from the Writers of his own Order Whereby it is proved that he was the greatest pretender to Enthusiasm since the dayes of Mahomet and S. Francis Ignatius gave no respect to men by words or putting off his Hat his great Ignorance and Preaching in the Streets his glorying in his sufferings for it his pretence to mortification the wayes he used to get disciples Their way of resolution of difficulties by seeking God their itinerant preaching in the Cities of Italy The Sect of Quakers a new Order of Disciples of Ignatius only wanting confirmation from the Pope which Ignatius obtained Of the Fanatick way of devotion in the Roman Church Of Superstitious and Enthusiastical Fanaticism among them Of their mystical Divinity Mr. Cressy's canting in his Preface to Sancta Sophia Of the Deiform fund of the soul a superessential life and the way to it Of contemplating with the will Of passive Vnions The method of self-Annihilation Of the Vnion of nothing with nothing Of the feeling of not-being The mischief of an unintelligible way of devotion The utmost effect of this way is gross Enthusiasm Mr. Cressy's Vindication of it examined The last sort of Fanatioism among them resisting authority under pretence of Religion Their principles and practices compared with the Fanaticks How far they are disowned ai present by them Of the Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance The Court of Rome hath alwayes favoured that party which is most destructive to Civil Government proved by particular and late Instances § 1. 2. WE come to consider whether the reading the Scriptures be the cause of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England He might much better have charged the Philosophers especially Aristotle with all the disputes in the world for they not only by their writings have occasioned many but have taught men the pernicious use of reasoning without which the world might be as quiet as a Flock of Sheep If they could but perswade men to lay aside that mischievous faculty I dare undertake for them that let the people have the Bible never so much among them they shall never hurt the Church of Rome Do they not tell us that the words of Scripture are plain for Transubstantiation
This is my body Why do not then the people as readily believe that as any other proposition By which we see it is not meerly reading but a more dangerous thing called considering or reasoning which make them embrace some things as they lye in words and interpret others according to the clearest evidence which the nature of the thing the comparing with other places and the common sense of mankind will give But why are we not all of a mind I would fain know the time when men were so This variety of Sects was objected against the Philosophers and thought no argument then it was objected against the primitive Christians and thought of no force then why must it signifie more in England than ever it did in any other age or place But say they It was otherwise in England before the Scriptures came to be read by all it was and is otherwise in all Churches where they are not read therefore these Sects and Fanaticisms are the dire effects of the promiscuous reading the Scriptures This is the common and popular argument All things were well with us when we offered up Cakes to the Queen of Heaven when all joyned in the communion of the Roman Church then there were no Fanaticisms nor New Lights no Sects as there are now in England therefore why should any one make any doubt but he ought to return to the Church of Rome This necessarily leads me into the examination of these two things 1. Whether there be no danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church 2. Whether the Vnity of that Church be so admirable to tempt all persons who prize the Churches Vnity to return to it § 2. Concerning the danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church By Fanaticism we understand either an Enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under a pretence of Religion In either sense it shall appear that the Church of Rome is so far from being cleared from it that it hath given great encouragement to it 1. As to an Enthusiastick way of Religion I shall now prove that there have not been greater Enthusiasts among us in England than have been in the Roman Church all the difference is they have been some alwayes others for a time allowed and countenanced and encouraged by those of the Church of Rome but among us they have been decryed and opposed by all the members of the Church of England I shall not insist upon the resolution of faith and the infallibility of the Church which must be carried to Enthusiasm at last but I shall prove it by plain revelations which have been made the grounds among them of believing some doctrines in dispute and the reasons of setting up a more perfect way of life which in the highest strain of their devotion is meer Enthusiasm 1. Revelations have been pleaded by them in matters of doctrine such I mean which depend upon immediate impulses and inspirations since the Canon of Scripture and Apostolical Traditions Of this we have a remarkable instance in a late controversie managed with great heat and interest on both sides viz. of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary about the ending of which a solemn Embassy was sent from the Kings of Spain Philip the third and Philip the fourth to the Popes Paul the fifth and Gregory the thirteenth and an account is given of it by one concerned himself in the management of the Theological part of it which he saith is therefore published that the world may understand upon what grounds the doctrines of faith are established among them One of the chief whereof insisted upon was some private revelations made to some Saints about the immaculate conception which being once received in the Church adds no small strength he saith to any doctrine and gives a solid foundation for a definition i. e. that the matter may be defined to be of faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians Upon this he reckons up several revelations publickly received in the Church one mentioned by Anselm being a divine apparition to an Abbot in a storm a fit time for apparitions whereby he was admonished to keep the Feast of the Conception of the blessed Virgin upon which as Baronius observes that Feast was first kept in England Which revelation Wadding tells us is publickly recited in the office for the day and was not only extant in several Breviaries of England France Spain and Italy but he had divers himself authorized by the Pope wherein it was recommended as true and piously to be believed and accordingly have been publickly sung and used in the Church about an hundred years And what saith he is the consequence of disbelieving this but to say in effect that the Pope and the Roman Church are easily cheated and abused by impostures and forgers of false revelations to institute new Festival Solemnities upon the credit of them Another revelation was made to Norbertus the founder of the Order of the Praemonstratenses in which the Virgin Mary appeared and commended her veneration to him and gave him a white garment in token of her Original Innocency which revelation is believed by all of that Order and taken as the reason of their habit Besides these there are several other revelations to S. Gertrude and others to the same purpose reckoned up by several Catholick Authors which no man ought to reject unless he intends to be as great a Heretick or therein as wise a man as Erasmus was Nay these revelations were so frequent he saith that there hath been no age since the tenth Century wherein there hath not been some made to devout men or women about this matter But above all these most remarkable were those to S. Brigitt who had not one or two but many to this purpose and the latest were of Joanna a Cruce which it seems were at first eagerly opposed but at last came out with the approbation of two Cardinals and several Bishops of the Inquisition in Spain But now who could imagine a thing so often revealed so publickly allowed so many times attested from Heaven should not be generally received but the mischief of it was the contrary doctrine had revelations for it too For Antoninus and Cajetan say S. Catharine of Siena had it revealed to her that she was conceived with Original sin What is to be done now Here we have Saint against Saint Revelation against Revelation S. Catharine against S. Brigitt and all the rest of them Here to speak truth they are somewhat hard put to it for they grant God cannot contradict himself and therefore of one these must be false but which of them is all the question Here they examine which of these doctrines is most consonant to Scripture and Tradition which is most for the benefit of the Church which were persons of the greater sanctity and whose revelations were the most approved For. S. Brigitts they plead stoutly that when they were delivered by her
all the persons to whom it was communicated highly approved it yet she was not satisfied till one of her Gossips named Isabella after a whole years praying for it had the same thing revealed to her with that circumstance that this Feast had alwayes been among the Secrets of the B. Trinity but now the time was come that it should be published to the World and she in one of her extasies saw very distinctly all the heavenly orders upon their faces supplicating God that to confirm the faith of Christians this day might be speedily observed This Isabella was so much intoxicated by this Vision saith the Author that out of the abundance of her spiritual drunkenness they are his own words she declared she would promote the observing this Feast although the whole world should oppose her Which we may well think Iuliana rejoyced to hear and hence forwards they joyned counsels to advance this solemnity Iuliana gets an ignorant young Priest to draw up an Office for it and while he writ she prayed by which the Office was so well composed that it would melt saith he the hardest hearts into devotion and when it was seen by Divines they said it was not written by man but inspired by God himself And yet when Pope Vrban published his Bull upon the credit of these revelations for the Celebration of this Feast he appointed Tho. Aquinas to compose an Office for it and rejected that divine Office of Iuliana The Epistle of Vrban to Eva one of the Nuns of Liege and a companion of the two Virgins is still extant in Diestemius and Binius about the institution of this Feast of Corpus Christi And that this was the occasion of this Festival is not delivered alone by Diestemius but by Arnoldus Bostius and Petrus Praemonstratensis by Vignier and Molanus as Binius confesseth of this last who can no more be suspected of partiality in this case than Diestemius but we need no other evidence than the Popes own Bull. The story of the other is remarkable too for it is read constantly in the Roman Breviary upon the eighth of May. It came to pass that among the Droves of Cattle the Bull of a certain inhabitant wandred from the rest which having long sought for they found in the entrance of a Cave And when one shot an arrow at him to destroy him the arrow was driven back again to him that shot it Which thing so affrighted them all that they durst not come near the Cave the Sipontines consult their Bishop who appointed three dayes fasting and Prayer to seek God in the case after the three dayes the Arch-angel Gabriel admonisheth the Bishop that place was in his custody and by that act he shewed that they ought to worship God there in remembrance of him and his fellow Angels The Bishop and people go accordingly thither and they find the place already formed into the fashion of a Temple and there they perform divine Offices where many Miracles were afterwards wrought Not long after Pope Boniface Dedicated the Church of St. Michael the third of the Calends of October in which the Church celebrates the memory of all Angels but this day is consecrated to the apparition of Michael the Arch-angel Thus far the 5 or 6 Lessons of the present Roman Breviary whereby we understand what infallible grounds the Church of Rome proceeds upon in all her definitions and observations § 5. And is it not a hard case now we should be so often told of Fanaticism among us by the members of the Roman Church Where are the Visions and Revelations ever pleaded by us in any matter of Doctrine Did we never discard any of the Roman opinions or practices upon the account of Revelations made to Women or to any private persons Do we resolve the grounds of any doctrine of ours into any Visions and Extasies have we any Festivals kept upon such occasions Do we collect Fanatical Revelations and set them out with comments upon them as Gonsalvus Durantus hath done those of St. Bridgitt Have we any mother Iuliana's among us or do we publish to the world the Fanatick Revelations of distempered brains as Mr. Cressy hath very lately done to the great honour and service of the Roman Church the sixteen Revelations of Divine Love shewed to a devout servant of our Lord and Lady too called Mother Juliana We have we thank God other wayes of imploying our devout retirements than by reading such fopperies as those are Excellent men that debarr the people reading the Scriptures in their own tongue and instead of them put them off with such Fooleries which deserve no other name at the best than the efforts of Religious madness Were we to take an estimate of Christian Religion from such Raptures and Extasies such Visions and Entertainments as those are how much must we befool our selves to think it sense Did ever H. N. Iacob Behmen or the highest Enthusiasts talk at a more extravagant rate than this Iuliana doth As when she speaks of our being beclosed in the mid-head of God and in his meek-head and in his benignity and in his buxomness though we feel in us wrath debate and strife Of being substantially united to God and that God is that goodness which may not be wrath for God is not but goodness our soul is oned to him unchangeable goodness and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor forgiveness in his sight for our soul is so fulsomely oned to God of his own goodness that between God and our soul may be right naught That in mankind that shall be saved is comprehended all that is to say all that is made and the maker of all for in man is God and God is all and he that loveth thus he loveth all That our soul is so deep grounded in God and so endlesly treasured that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God which is the maker to whom it is oned and therefore if we will have knowing of our soul and commoning and dalliance therewith it behooveth to seek into our Lord God in whom it is inclosed and that worshipful City that our Lord Iesu sitteth in it is our sensuality in which he is inclosed and our kindly substance is beclosed in Iesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead and notwithstanding all this we may never come to the full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own soul for into the time that it is in the full mights we may not be all holy and that is that our sensuality by the vertue of Christs passion be brought up into the substance with all the profits of our tribulation that our Lord shall make us to get by mercy and grace I had in party touching and it is grounded in kind that is to say our reason is grounded in God which is substantially kindness Afterwards she discourseth of three
thither he was like to have begun his first adventure with a Moore who allowed the B. Virgin to have been so till her delivery but would not yield it afterwards at which Ignatius considering whose Knight he was began to be so inraged that he thought it necessary to revenge her quarrel upon him but disputing with himself what to do and the Moore being gone another way he leaves the cause to the wisdome of the Mule and puts the Reines in his neck that if he followed the Moores way at the parting of the two wayes he would have his life but the good Mule understanding his Riders mind left the beaten road and went on to Montserrat where a remarkable Ceremony was performed by him for as Orlandinus and Maffeius expresly say Ignatius having read in Books of Chivalry that the ancient Knights at their first entring upon that hononourable imployment were wont to watch all night in their arms he thought it fit to begin his Errantry in the same manner he therefore hangs up his Sword and Dagger before the Altar of the B. Virgin and puts on his habiliments but instead of his shining Armour he had gotten a long Coat of Sack-cloth with a cord about it at which he hangs his bottle for water and instead of his Lance a plain Crab-tree staffe with a wicker shooe upon one foot and the other naked having no Morrion on his head but exposed that to the violence of the weather All these habiliments having procured them by the way he hung at the pummel of his Saddle when he entred the Town saith Maffeius for fear the people should think him in his wits but he puts them not on till he came to the sacred place where he was by the Laws of Chivalry to watch in them and so he did say they sometimes standing sometimes kneeling and devoting himself with all his might to the service of the B. Virgin Which having done early the next morning for that is a necessary circumstance too in the adventures of Chivalry away he goes for Manresa where he takes up his lodging in the Town-Hospital and lets his Haire and Nailes grow and beggs from door to door and yet fasted six dayes in the week he whipps himself thrice a day was seven houres every day in vocal prayer lay upon the bare ground and all to prepare himself for his adventures to Ierusalem Which sort of life growing very uneasie to him he was once near saith Maffeius throwing himself out of a Window to put an end to it but God having designed his order for a further punishment to the world not permitting that not long after he had such clear divine revelations that in a moment of time saith Maffeius he understood the greatest mysteries of Religion and the most subtle speculations in Philosophy especially the way of Gods making the World made clear to him but not expressible to others which other men cannot attain to with the hardest study and pains In one of his Visions saith Orlandinus while he was repeating the Horary Prayers of the B. Virgin he saw the B. Trinity as plainly as we do one another under a corporeal representation and was so full of joy at it that he could not hold weeping before all the people and was so enlightned by it that although he was yet very ignorant he began to write a Book of the glories of the B. Trinity In one of his extasies he continued eight dayes in which it is probable saith the same Author he saw the frame and model of the Society of Iesuites A Blessed sight if he saw all the consequences of it too After this in order to his voyage to Hierusalem away he goes for Barcelona where Elizabeth Rosella espying him at Church sitting among the Boyes she saw a great shining about his mouth and heard a voice within her which bid her call that man to her house While he was in Italy in his way to Hierusalem Christ appeared to him again at Padua as he was wont to do at Manresa at Venice one of the Senatours had a vision concerning him checking him for lying in so much state while that holy man Ignatius lay in the open aire Visions were grown so familiar with him now that it is to no purpose to recount those which he had at Hierusalem and elsewhere In his return through Italy the Spanish Souldiers used him hardly taking him for a Spy and carryed him to their Commander now saith Orlandinus it had been his custome not to give men any titles of respect but to call them only by their common names and he questioned a little with himself whether he ought to break that custome now he was to appear before the Commander and resolves it in the Negative because to do it proceeded from too great fear of men therefore being brought before him he gives him no testimony of respect either in his words or actions and both Maffeius and Orlandinus testifie he would not put off his Hat to him By which we understand who was the first Founder of that Fanatick Sect among us which is distinguished so much from others by denying common civilities to men Upon this the Commander severely rebuked the Souldiers for bringing a mad man to him at which they were so enraged that he might have saved himself the labour of whipping himself that day they doing him that office very effectually Being returned to Barcelona at thirty three years of Age he begins to learn his Grammar but as Maffeius observes he could not have Amo in his mouth but his mind was carried he knew not whither and was so full of visions all that while that he could not remember one word that he learnt upon which he beggs his Master falling in great humility at his feet having it seems more reverence for him than he had for the Spanish Officer that he would tye him punctually as he did the Boys to his Lessons and if he could not say them that he might be whipt as they were But as dull as he was at his Book he had so great elevations in his Prayers that if we believe him one Iohn Paschal saith Orlandinus saw him raised up from the ground in a dark night but that being a suspicious circumstance he addes that the room at the same time was filled with a great light Having stayed out his two years at School in Barcelona to the Vniversity he goes where he privately studies Logick Physicks and Divinity together to very little purpose as Maffeius confesseth and in the mean time Preaches and Beggs in the Streets Here he was several times under examination by the Inquisition and once imprisoned for forty one dayes out of which he was not dismissed till they had commanded him not to Discourse of Divinity again till he had studied four years and to wear the same habit with other Students Upon this he removes to
and to have any authority over them because they look on themselves as a free State There can be but one lawful Head of the Church by their own principles and only they are truly united to the Church who are in conjunction with the lawful Head and therefore it follows upon their own principles that they must be in a State of Schisme who are united with any other than the true Head What then signifie the boasts of Vnity in the Roman Church if they cannot prevent the falling of their members into such dangerous Schisms To what purpose is it to tell us of one Head of the Church to whom all must submit if there have been several pretenders to that Headship and the Church hath been a long time divided which of them was the true Unless all their Vnity comes to this at last that they have an excellent Vnity among them if they could all agree And such an Vnity may be had any where But if all were agreed what need any means of agreement by one universal Head or what can that universal Head signifie to making Vnity when his title to his Headship becomes a cause of greater divisions May not we say upon better grounds that taking away the Popes authority would tend much more to the peace of the Church since that hath been the cause of so great disturbances in the world and is to this day of one of the greatest differences between the several parts of the Catholick Church For as things now stand in the Christian World the Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Fountain of Vnity that he is much rather the Head of Contention and the great cause of the divisions of the Christian Church § 7. 3. The differences have been as great in the Roman Church as out of it both as to matters of order and doctrine 1. For matters of Order and Government Have not the controversies between the Regulars and Seculars among them even here in England been managed with as much heat and warmth as to matter of Episcopal jurisdiction as between those of the Church of England and the dissenters from it Neither is this any lately started controversie among them but hath continued ever since the prevalency of the Mendicant Fryers and their pretences of exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction and encroaching upon the office of the Parochial Clergy For no sooner did the Fryers begin publickly under pretence of priviledges to take upon them to Preach without licence from the Bishops where they pleased and to take other offices of the Parochial Clergy out of their hands but great opposition was made against them by all the learned men who were friends to the Episcopal power and the peace of the Church Which being a matter of concernment for us to understand I shall give a faithful account of it from the best Writers of their own Church Assoon as the Monastick orders were found to be very serviceable to the Interests of the Court of Rome it was thought convenient to keep them in an immediate dependence upon the Pope in whatever Countrey they were From hence came the great favour of Popes to them and their willingness to grant them almost what priviledges they desired because receiving them only from the plenitude of the Popes power they were obliged to maintain and defend that from whence they derived them At first when they led a more properly Monastick life the priviledges granted them seem to be nothing else but exempting them from some troubles which were inconsistent with it either relating to their persons or the estates they enjoyed After this they began to complain of the numbers of people flocking to their Churches as inconsistent with their private and retired life from hence we first read that publick Masses by the Bishop were forbid in Monasteries to prevent a concourse of people and especially of Women to them But a long time after this they lived in subjection to the Bishops and meddled no more in Ecclesiastical than in Secular matters So Charles M. in his Capitular commands them to keep within their Monasteries to be subject to their Bishops and to meddle in no Ecclesiastical matters without the express command of the Bishop But as the Popes increased their authority the Monks inlarged their priviledges and procured exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction which yet was not pleasing to those who valued the Churches peace above the priviledges of the Monastick orders These exemptions are therefore highly condemned by St. Bernard though a Monk himself as tending to the dissolution of the Ecclesiastical Government and by Ivo Carnotensis who saith he grew weary of his Episcopal Government by reason of them Petrus Blesensis hath an Epistle written to Pope Alexander 3. in the name of Richard Archbishop of Canterbury against the Abbot of Malmsbury who refused subjection to the Bishop of Salisbury and being cited by the Archbishop to appear before him for his contempt he declared he would be subject to none but the Pope and said they were pittiful Abbots who did not wholly exempt themselves from the Bishops power when they might for an annual pension to the Pope obtain an absolute exemption Therefore the Archbishop saith it was time for them to complain because this contagion did spread it self far and the Abbots set themselves against their Bishops and Metropolitans and the Popes by indulging these things did command disobedience and Rebellion and arm the Children against their Fathers but these and many other complaints signified nothing in the Court of Rome as long as their profit and interest were advanced by it And although we read of many affronts which the Monks put upon the Bishops before the time of the Mendicant Fryers yet their insolency grew the highest when they took upon them to Preach in Parochial Churches and hear Confessions without the Bishops leave Thence the Vniversity of Paris published the Book De periculis novissimorum temporum which although written by S. Amour went abroad in the name of all the Divines there as appears by the beginning of it wherein a Character is given of those persons who should make the last times so troublesome they should be lovers of themselves not enduring reproof covetous both of riches and applause high-minded because they would not be in subjection to the Bishops but be set before them and therefore disobedient to their spiritual Fathers And such as these are said to creep into houses which the ordinary Gloss expounds of those who enter into the houses of those who are under anothers charge these enter not by the door as the Rectors of Churches do but steal into them like Thieves and Robbers and leading captive silly women is their setting them against the Bishops and perswading them to a Monastick life These are likewise false teachers who though never so learned and holy teach without being sent and none are duly sent but such as are chosen and
Vnity they look after all such who hold opinions contrary to their Interest must be proceeded against and condemned but for others let them quarrel and dispute as long as they will they let them alone if they touch not the Popes Authority nor any of the gainful opinions and practices which are allowed among them And supposing their Interest be kept up which the Inquisition is designed for the Court of Rome is as great a Friend to toleration as may be only what others call different perswasions they call School points and what others call divisions they call disputes the case is the same with their Church and others only they have softer names for the differences among themselves and think none bad enough for those who cast off the Popes Authority and plead for a Reformation Here then lyes the profound mystrey of their Vnity that they are all agreed against us though not among themselves and are not we so against them too May not we plead for the Vnity that they have on the same grounds We are all agreed against Popery as much as they are against Protestants only we have some Scholastick disputes among us about indifferent things and the Episcopal Authority as they have we have some zealous Dominicans and busie and factious men such as the Iesuits among them are but setting aside these disputes we are admirably well agreed just as they are in the Roman Church § 15. 2. They say they doe not differ in matters of faith But this is as true as the other for are they agreed in matters of faith who charge one another with heresie as we have already seen that they doe But if they mean that they doe not differ in matters of faith because those only are matters of faith which they are agreed in they were as good say they are agreed in the things they doe not differ about for the parties which differ doe believe the things in difference to be matters of faith and therefore they think they differ from one another in matter of faith But they are not agreed what it is which makes a thing to be a matter of faith and therefore no one can pronounce that their differences are not about matters of faith for what one may think not to be de fide others may believe that it is we see the Popes personal infallibility is become a Catholick doctrine among the Iesuits and declared to be plain heresie by their Adversaries The deliverance of souls from Purgatory by the prayers of the living is generally accounted a matter of faith in the Roman Church but we know those in it who deny it and say it was a novel opinion introduced by Gregory 1. against the consent of Antiquity It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans and Iansenists to attribute to God alone the praise of converting grace and that grace efficacious by it self was the doctrine of Fathers and Councils and the Catholick Church and is it not then a matter of faith in their opinion wherein the Iesuits and they differ from each other To which purpose it was well said by the author of a Book printed at Paris A. D. 1651. containing essayes and reflections on the state of Religion that because of the Controversies between the Iansenists and the Iesuits it might with more reason be affirmed now than in the time of Arrianism it self that the whole Church seems to become heretical For admitting saith he what is most certain that the Church hath decreed Calvinism Pelagianism and Semipelagianism to be heresies and that the Doctors are those who sit in the Chair to be consulted withall upon points of Religion all Catholicks are reduced to a most strange perplexity For if a man shall address himself to those of the Iansenian party they will tell him that those who are termed Molinists are Pelagians or at least Semi-pelagians and on the other side the Molinists will bear him down that their Adversaries are Calvinists or else Novatians Now all the Doctors of the Catholick Church a very few excepted are either of the one or the other party I leave you then to consider to what prodigious streights mens minds are reduced since this is held as a general Maxime that whosoever fails in one point of faith fails in all It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans that all persons Christ only excepted were born in sin and therefore the contenders for the immaculate conception must in their judgment differ in a point of faith from them But if this distinction should be allowed to preserve the unity of their Church why shall it not as well cure the divisions of ours The most considerable in all respects of the dissenters from the Church of England declare that they agree with us in all the articles of doctrine required by our Church will this be enough in their opinion to make us at unity with each other if not let them not plead the same thing for themselves which they will not allow to us I cannot understand that the controversies about Ceremonies considered in themselves among us are of any greater weight than the disputes among the Fryars concerning their habits have been and yet this controversie only about the size of their hoods lasted in one Order almost an Age together and was managed with as great a heat and animosity as ever these have been among us and was with very much adoe laid asleep for a time by the endeavours of 4. Popes successively But if this signifies nothing to unity to say that the matters are not great about which the Controversies are if the disturbances be great which are caused by them that will reflect more sharply on their Church than on ours which hath so many differences which they account not to be about any matters of faith But if these differences in point of doctrine among them prove to be none in matters of faith it would be no difficult task upon the same grounds to shew that they have no reason to quarrel with us for breaking the unity of their Church because then we may differ from them as little in matters of faith as they doe from one another This I need not take upon me to shew at large because I find it already done to my hand by F. Davenport al. Sancta Clara in his paraphrastical exposition of the 39. articles of our Church about half of them he acknowledges to be Catholick as they are without any further explication The first he meets with difficulty in is that about the number of Canonical books point blank against the Council of Trent but he acknowledges that Cajetan and Franciscus Mirandula fully agree with our Church in it who quote Hierom Ruffinus Antoninus and Lyra of the same opinion as they might have done many others but because our Church doth not cast them wholly out of the Canon he dares not say it is guilty of heresie simply and the rather because Waldensis and Driedo
do hold that it is only in the power of the whole Church successively from the Apostles to declare what books are Canonical and what not For the 11. article about justification he saith the Controversie is only about words because we are agreed that God alone is the efficient cause of Justification and that Christ and his passion are the meritorious cause of it and the only question is about the formal cause which our Church doth not attribute to the act of faith as he proves by the book of Homilies but only makes it a condition of our being justified and they believe that by faith we obtain our righteousness by Christ so that he can find no difference between them and us in that point He saith the Controversie about merit may be soon ended according to the doctrine of our Church for they deny as well as we article 1. 3. that any works done before the Grace of Christ and Inspiration of his Spirit can merit any thing and when we say article 12. that good works which follow justification are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ if by that we mean that they are accepted by Christ in order to a reward by vertue of the promise of God through Christ that is all the sense of merit which he or the school of Scotus contends for For works of supererogation article 14. he saith our Church condemns them upon that ground that men are said to do more by them than of duty they are bounden to do which being generally understood they condemn he saith as well as we because we can doe no good works which upon the account of our natural obligation we are not bound to perform though by particular precept we are not bound to them In the 19 article where our Church saith that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of ceremonies but also in matters of faith he distinguisheth the particular Church of Rome from the Catholick Church which is frequently understood by that name and he saith it is only a matter of faith to believe that the Catholick Church hath not erred and not that the particular Church of Rome hath not In the 20. article our Church declares that the Church ought neither to decree any thing against holy writ so besides the same it ought not to enforce any thing to be believed of necessity to salvation this he interprets of what is neither actually nor potentially in the Scriptures neither in terms nor by consequence and so he thinks it orthodox and not against traditions Article 21. wherein our Church determins expresly against the infalibility of general Councils he understands it only of things that are not necessary to faith or manners which he saith is the common opinion among them The hardest article one would think to bring us off in was the 22. viz. that the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Reliques and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture But we need not despaire as long as one bred up in the Schools of Scotus designes our rescue he confesses it to be a difficult adventure but what will not subtilty and kindness doe together He observes very cunningly that these doctrines are not condemned absolutely and in themselves but only the Romish doctrine about them and therein we are not to consider what the Church of Rome doth teach but what we apprehend they teach or what we judge of their doctrine i. e. that they invocate Saints as they doe God himself that Purgatory destroys the cross of Christ and warms the Popes Kitchin that Pardons are the Popes bills of Exchange whereby he discharges the debts of what sinners he pleases that they give proper divine worship to images and reliques all which he saith are impious doctrines and we doe well to condemn them So that it is not want of faith but want of wit this good man condemns us for which if we attain to any competent measure of whereby to understand their doctrine there is nothing but absolute peace and harmony between us This grand difficulty being thus happily removed all the rest is done with a wet finger for what though our Church Art 24. saith that it is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custome of the primitive Church to have publick prayer in the Church or to Minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understood of the people Yet what can hinder a Scotist from understanding by the Scripture not the doctrine or command of it but the delivery of it viz. that the Scripture was written in a known tongue nay he proves that our Church is for praying in Latin by this Article because that either is a known tongue or ought to be so it being publickly lickly taught every where and if it be not understood he saith it is not per se but per accidens that it is so I suppose he means the Latin Tongue is not to blame that the people do not understand it but they that they learned their lessons no better at School But what is to be said for Women who do not think themselves bound to go to School to learn Latin He answers very plainly that S. Paul never meant them for he speaks of those who were to say Amen at the Prayers but both S. Paul and the Canon Law he tells us forbid women to speak in the Church The case is then clear S. Paul never regarded what language the Women used and it was no great matter whether they understood their Prayers or not But what is to be said to the Council of Trent which pronounces an Anathema to those who say that Prayers are to be said only in a known Tongue This doth not touch our Church at all he thinks because in some Colledges the Prayers are said in Latin but although that be a known tongue there it is no matter as long as the Council of Trent hath put in the word only that clears our Church sufficiently Besides the Council of Trent speaks expresly of the Masse which our Article doth not mention but only publick Prayers and the Council of Trent speaks of those who condemns it as contrary to the institution of Christ but our Church only condemns it as contrary to the institution of the Apostle but all the commands of the Apostles are not the commands of Christ therefore our Church declares nothing against faith in this Article Are not we infinitely obliged to a man that uses so much subtlety to defend our Church from errrour in faith But that which is most considerable is what he cites from Canus that it is no Heresie to condemn a custome or Law of the Church if it be not of something necessary to salvation especially if it be a custome introduced since the Apostles times as most certainly this was For the five Sacraments rejected
Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome § 1. HAving thus far Vindicated the Scriptures from being the cause by being read among us of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England I now return to the consideration of the Remainder of his Reply And one thing still remains to be cleared concerning the Scripture which is whether it can be a most certain rule of faith and life since among Protestants it is left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit which is as much as to ask whether any thing can be a rule which may be mis-understood by those who are to be guided by it or whether it be fit the people should know the Laws they are to be governed by because it is a dangerous thing to mis-interpret Laws and none are so apt to do it as the common people I dare say St. Augustin never thought that Heresies arising from mis-understanding Scriptures were a sufficient argument against their being a Rule of faith or being read by the people as appears by his discoursing to them in the place quoted by him For then he must have said to them to this purpose Good people ye perceive from whence Heresies spring therefore as you would preserve your soundness in the faith abstain from reading the Scriptures or looking on them as your rule mind the Traditions of the Church but trust not your selves with the reading what God himself caused to be writ it cannot be denyed that the Scriptures have far greater excellency in them than any other writings in the world but you ought to consider the best and most useful things are the most dangerous when abused What is more necessary to the life of man than eating and drinking yet where lyes intemperance and the danger of surfetting but in the use of these What keeps men more in their wits than sleeping yet when are men so lyable to have their throats cut as in the use of that What more pleasant to the eyes than to see the Sun yet what is there so like to put them out as to stare too long upon him Therefore since the most necessary and useful things are most dangerous when they are abused my advice must be that ye forbear eating sleeping and seeing for fear of being surfetted murdred or losing your sight which you know to be very bad things I cannot deny but that the Scriptures are called the bread of life the food of our souls the light of our eyes the guide of our wayes yet since there may be so much danger in the use of food of light and of a Guide it is best for you to abstain from them Would any man have argued like St. Augustin that should talk at this rate yet this must have been his way of arguing if his meaning had been to have kept the people from reading the Scriptures because Heresies arise from mis-understanding them But all that he inferrs from thence is what became a wise man to say viz. that they should be cautious in affirming what they did not understand and that hanc tenentes regulam sanitatis holding this still as our rule of soundness in the faith with great humility what we are able to understand according to the faith we have received we ought to rejoyce in it as our food what we cannot we ought not presently to doubt of but take time to understand it and though we know it not at present we ought not to question it to be good and true and afterwards saith that was his own case as well as theirs What S. Augustine a Guide and Father of the Church put himself equal with the people in reading and understanding Scriptures In which we not only see his humility but how far he was from thinking that this argument would any more exclude the people from reading the Scriptures than the great Doctors of the Church For I pray were they the common people who first broached Heresies in the Christian Church Were Arius Nestorius Macedonius Eutyches or the great abettors of their Doctrines any of the Vulgar If this argument then holds at all it must hold especially against men of parts and learning that have any place in the Church for they are much more in danger of spreading Heresies by mis-interpreting Scriptures than any others are But among Protestants he saith Scripture is left to the Fanciful interpretation of every private Spirit If he speaks of our Church he knows the contrary and that we profess to follow the unanimous consent of the primitive Fathers as much as they and embrace the doctrine of the four General Councils But if there have been some among us who have followed their own Fancies in interpreting Scripture we can no more help that than they can do in theirs and I dare undertake to make good that there have never been more absurd ridiculous and Fanciful Interpretations of Scripture than not the common people but the Heads of their Church have made and other persons in greatest reputation among them Which though too large a task for this present design may ere long be the subject of another For the authority of Henry 8. in the testimony produced from him when they yield to it in the point of Supremacy we may do it in the six articles or other
who should visit the 12. Churches and their own Cathedral all Lent Fasting as full an Indulgence as if they went to Hierusalem and besides this every first Sunday in the month as great an Indulgence i. e. I suppose for as many days as a man could take up sands in both hands This Baronius thinks a little too much and therefore rejects it as fabulous because the same Pope in an Indulgence given to the Church of Ferrara grants but a year of criminals and a seventh part of venials but he doth not consider that the case of Ancona was peculiar because of the great friendship that city had shewn to the Pope in his distress and this Indulgence was transcribed from a very ancient Manuscript and better attested than many other things which he never disputes But if it be a cheat let it pass for one and it is no great matter to me whether it were a cheat of the Popes or the Church of Ancona But he doth not at all question the Indulgence granted by the same Pope to those who would take up arms against the Albigenses which to those who dye in that cause is not only pardon of all their sins but an eternal reward but such that refused to goe no less than excommunication is denounced against them And Honorius 3. in the same cause granted an Indulgence in the same terms as to those who went to the Holy Land and Gregorius 9. to all who should take his part against the Emperour Frederic 2. which Bzovius confesseth to be usual with the Popes to give to those who would fight against Saracens hereticks or any other enemies of theirs This practice of Indulgences being once taken up was found too beneficial to be ever let fall again and private Bishops began to make great use of it not in such a manner as the Popes but they were unwilling not to have as great a share as they could get in it thence they began to publish Indulgences to those who would give money towards the building or repairing Churches or other publick works for this they promised them a pardon of the 7. or 4. or 3. part of their sins according as their bounty deserved This was first begun by Gelasius 2. for the building of the Church of Saragoza A. D. 1118. and was followed by other Bishops in so much that Morinus is of opinion that Mauricius Bishop of Paris built the great Church of Nostredame there in that manner and he saith he can find no ground for this practice of Indulgences before the 12. century and answers Bellarmins arguments for a greater antiquity of them and proves all his testimonies from Gregories Stations Ludgerus his epistle and Sergius his indulgence in the Church of S. Martin at Rome produced by Baronius to be meer impostures But the Bishops of Rome finding how beneficial these Indulgences were soon resolved to keep the keys of this Treasury of the Church in their own hands and therefore quickly abridged other Bishops of this power and made great complaint that by the indiscreet use of Indulgences by the Bishops the keys of the Church were contemned and discipline lost so Innocent 3. in the Council of Lateran can 62. and therefore decrees that in the dedication of a Church though where there were several Bishops together they should not grant any Indulgence above a year nor any single Bishop above 40. days But we are not to imagine that the Popes ever intended to tye their own hands by these Canons but they were too wise to let others have the managing of so rich a stock as that of the Church was which would bring in so great a harvest from the sins of the people Thence Boniface 8. first instituted the year of Iubilee A. D. 1300 and in his Bull published for that end grants not only a plenary and larger but most plenary remission of sins to them that if Romans for 30 if strangers for 15. days in that year should visit the Churches of the Apostles This was brought afterwards by Clem. 6. to every 50. years and since to 25. or as often as his Holines please but in all of them a most plenary remission of sins is granted It were worth the while to understand the difference between a plenary larger and most plenary indulgence since Bellarmin tells us that a plenary Indulgence takes away all the punishment due to sin But these were the fittest terms to let the people know they should have as much for their money as was to be had and what could they desire more And although Bellarmin abhorres the name of selling Indulgences yet it comes all to one the Popes gives Indulgences and they give money or they doe it not by way of purchase but by way of Alms But commend me to the plain honesty of Boniface 9. who being not satisfied with the oblations at Rome sent abroad his Iubilees to Colen Magdeburg and other Cities but always sent his Collectors to take his share of the money that was gathered and inserted in them that Clause porrigentibus manus Adjutrices which in plain English is to those who would give money for them without which no Indulgence was to be had as Gobelinus Persona saith Who likewise addes this remarkable passage that the preachers of the Indulgences told the people to encourage them to deale for them that they were not only à poená but à culpâ too i.e. not meerely from the temporal punishment of sin but from the fault it self which deserved eternal this made the people look into them and not finding those terms but only a most plenary remission they were unsatisfied because they were told that the fault could be forgiven by God alone but if they could but once find that the Pope would undertake to clear all scores with God for them they did not doubt but they would be worth their money Whereupon he saith those very terms were put into them then the wiser men thought these were counterfeit and made only by the Pardon-mongers but upon further enquiry they found it otherwise How far this trade of Indulgences was improved afterwards in the time of Alexander 6. and Leo 10. the Reformation which began upon occasion of them will be a lasting monument which was the greatest good the world ever received by them § 5. But we are not to think since Indulgences are such great kindnesses to the souls of men that they should be only reserved for years of Iubilee for what a hard case may they be in who should chance to dy but the year before Therefore the Popes those tender Fathers of the Church have granted very comfortable ones to many particular places and for the doing some good actions that no one need be in any great perplexity for want of them Other places it is probable a man may goe to Heaven assoon from as Rome but there is none like that for escaping Purgatory
why is it not so expressed if they meant honestly but they know if their Pardons ran so no one would give a farthing for them What need any talk of the Churches Treasure for this which Clement 6. made the ground of Indulgences in his Bull and hath been asserted by the most zealous defenders of them This way of explaining Indulgences then though it be easie and intelligible yet it is not reconcileable with the practice of the Church of Rome nor with the suppositions on which that practice is built We are therefore to enquire what they can make of it who go about to defend it as it is practised and generally understood among them To this end they tell us that although the fault be remitted upon the Sacrament of Penance yet the temporal punishment of sin remains which God must be satisfied for that this temporal punishment is either to be undergone here or in Purgatory that every man must have undergone it himself if there had not been a treasure of the Church made up of the satisfactions of Christ and the Saints to make amends to God for every one to whom that Treasure is applyed That the dispensing of this Treasure is in the hands of the Pope who gives it out by Indulgences which being applyed to any person upon the condition required he is thereby discharged from the debt of temporal punishment which he owed to God This is the received doctrine of Indulgences in the Roman Church which holds together till you touch it and then it presently flies in pieces like a Glass drop or vanishes into smoke and aire It is of so tender a composition that it can endure no rough handling if you like it as it is much good may it do you but you must ask no Questions But however I shall to shew the monstrous absurdities of this Doctrine 1. Why if the Indulgence only respects the punishment and not the fault the terms of the Indulgence do not express this that the people may not be deceived Why in all Indulgences since this doctrine is so explained as in the Iubilees of Clement 8. and of Vrban 8. the former of whom is applauded by Bellarmin for a reformer of Indulgences the most general expressions are still used of most plenary Indulgence remission and pardon of all their sins why is it not said only of the temporal punishment due to sin the fault being supposed to be remitted 2. How punishment doth become due when the fault is remitted if the punishment be just it must have respect to the fault for to punish without respect to the fault is all one as to punish without fault if it have respect to the fault how that fault can be said to be remitted which is punished So far as a man is punished it is nonsense to say he is pardoned and so far as he is not pardoned his fault is charged upon him 3. Suppose temporal punishment remain to be satisfied for whether all or only some one kind whether diseases pains and death be not part of the temporal punishment of sin and whether men may be freed from these by Indulgences whether from the effects of the justice of God in extraordinary judgements if not how can a man be said to be freed from the temporal punishment of sin that is as lyable to it as any one else 4. If only one sort of the temporal punishment of sin why is not that one sort declared what it is that all men may be satisfied from the Pope himself whom some believe infallible in his Indulgence Others we find are not agreed about it some say it is only the punishment due to sin above the Canonical penance some that it is only the Canonical penance and not that which is due from the justice of God some that it is for both some only for negligence in performing penance some that it is only for injoyned penance and others that it is for all that may be enjoyned In this diversity of opinions what security can any man have what punishment he is to be freed from 5. If it be from Canonical Penance whether a man is wholly freed from the obligation to that or no if he be what power hath the Priest to enjoyne penance after if he be not free what is it he is freed from and in what tolerable sense can this be called a most full remission of sins which neither remits the fault nor the natural or divine punishment nor so much as the Canonical Penance enjoyned by a Priest 6. Although there needs no treasure where nothing is discharged yet since so great a one is spoken of for this purpose wherein the satisfaction of Christ bears the greatest share it were worth the enquiring why the satisfaction of Christ might not as well remit the temporal punishment when the fault is remitted on the account of it as afterwards by Indulgences 7. How the parts of Christs satisfaction come to be divided into that which was necessary and that which was redundant so as the necessary satisfies for the fault and the redundant for the temporal punishment whether Christ did any more than God required whether any thing which God required can be said to be redundant if there be how one part comes to be applyed and the other cast into a treasure what parts can be made of an infinite and entire satisfaction and if so little were necessary and so much redundant how the least part comes to satisfie for the fault and eternal punishment and the greatest only for the temporal punishment 8. Whether all the satisfaction of Christ taken together were not great enough to remit the eternal punishment of the whole world if it were whether all the redundant parts of that be cast into a treasure too and who hath the keeping of it and what use is made of so much more useful a treasure than that which serves only to remit the temporal punishment What account can the Pope give of suffering so vast a part of the Churches Treasure to lye idle and make no use of it for the benefit of those that need it 9. May not the Pope if he thinks of it gather another mighty Treasure of the absolute Power of God which is never used as for making new worlds c may he not by the help of this deliver souls out of hell as well as by the other out of Purgatory and if this be so much the greater kindness he ought to think of it and imploy this treasure for these purposes Why may he not think of another treasure of the light of the Sun that is more than enough for the use of the world and to lay it up in store for the benefit of the purblind and Aged 10. If the satisfaction of Christ be so redundant how comes it not to be sufficient for so poor an end as Indulgences serve for but the satisfactions of the Saints must make up a share in this
Treasure too Is not this worse than to light a Candle to help the Sun to suppose Christs satisfaction so infinite as to be sufficient to redeem more worlds and yet not enough to deliver from temporal punishment without the satisfactions of the Saints 11. How come the Saints to make such large satisfactions to the justice of God if the satisfaction of Christ were of so infinite a nature and if they did make satisfactions were they not sufficiently rewarded for them if they were how come those satisfactions to help others which they were so abundantly recompensed for themselves 12. If the satisfaction of Christ doth only obtain grace for the Saints to satisfie themselves for the temporal punishment of their sins how can the application of this satisfaction by Indulgences free any from the temporal punishment of their sins Or have the satisfactions of Saints being joyned with Christs greater power now in common penitents than the satisfaction of Christ alone in the greatest Saints 13. Why the satisfaction of Christ may not serve without the Saints to remit only the temporal punishment of sins when it was sufficient alone to remit both eternal and temporal in the Sacrament of Baptism or was the force of it spent then that it needs a fresh supply afterwards but if then it could be applyed to a higher end without any other help why not where it is to have far less efficacy 14. If satisfaction be made to God for the temporal punishment of penitents by Indulgences I desire to know when and by whom the payment is made to God If it was made by the persons whose satisfactions make the Churches treasure for that end what hath the Pope to do to dispense that which God hath accepted long agoe for payment If it be made by the Pope in what way doth he make it doth he take out so much ready cash of the Churches treasure and pay it down upon the nail according to the proportion of every ones sins or doth he only tell God where such a treasure lyes and bid him go and satisfie himself for as much as he discharges of his dâ—bt 15. How came this Treasure of the Church into the Popes Keeping who gave him alone the Keys of it if there were any such thing methinks those who are trusted with the greater treasure of Christs necessary satisfaction for the remitting of eternal punishment as every Priest is by their own doctrine in the Sacrament of Penance should not be denyed the lesser of the Superfluities of Christ and the Saints sufferings for the remitting only temporal punishment When I once see these questions satisfactorily answered I may then think better of this doctrine than I doe at present for the best I can think of it now is that there never was a doctrine more absurd in the ground of it or more gainful in the practice than this of Indulgences in the Roman Church and therefore ought to be accounted one of the most notorious cheats that ever was in the Christian world § 10. But let us suppose it otherwise and then we are to enquire whether this would tend to promote or obstruct that very way of devotion which is most in request in the Roman Church there are but two ways to judge of this either by experience or the nature of the doctrine it self For experience my Adversary alledges his own and that he hath seen great devotion caused by them but by his favour the question is not what outward acts of devotion may be performed by some ignorant and silly people who are abused by great hopes of strange benefits by Indulgences and therefore prepare themselves with some shew of devotion to receive them especially when they are unusual but the question is whether they have these effects upon those who understand the nature and designe of them and the doctrine of their Church about them For as Durandus resolves it the validity of the Indulgence doth not depend on the devotion of the receiver for then saith he the Indulgence would contain a falsity in it which is that whosoever doth such a thing as going to the 7. Churches shall have plenary remission of his sins therefore saith he whoever doth the thing shall have the whole benefit of the Indulgence or else the Indulgence is false And to his experience I shall oppose that of greater observers of the world than he hath been I have already mentioned the testimony of Vrspergensis and others concerning the effects of plenary Indulgences in their times how men encouraged themselves to sin the more because of them Polydore Virgil observes that when Indulgences were grown common many men did abstain less from doing evil actions The author of the book called Onus Ecclesiae saith that they take men off from the fruits of repentance and are profitable only to the idle and wicked The Princes of Germany in the Diet of Norimberg among the grievances represented to the Pope by the consent of them all upon the mention of Indulgences reckon as the least bad consequence of them that the people were cheated of their money by them but that they say was far more considerable that true Christian Piety was destroyed by them and that all manner of wickedness did spring frâ—m thence and that men were afraid of committing no kind of sin when at so cheap a rate they could purchase a remission of them But setting aside the experience of these things let us consider what the nature of the doctrine it self tends to to those who believe it The least benefit we see allowed them is a freedom from enjoyned penances and what are these penances accounted among them but fruits of true repentance a severe mortification fasting frequent prayers and Almes so that the short of this doctrine is that men by Indulgences are excused from doing the best parts of their Religion and if this be a way of promoting devotion I leave any one in his senses to judge § 11. I proceed now to the denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ. To which he answers 3. ways 1 that the receiving in one or both kinds was ever held a matter of liberty in the Church 2 that it was as much in the Churches power to alter it after a 1000. years as in the first or second century 3 that the believing whole Christ to be present in one kind tends more to excite devotion than receiving both elements without that belief This is the substance of his answer But I have else where at large proved and need not repeat it here that the Institution of Christ as to both kinds was of an universally obligatory nature not only from the will of the first Institutor but from the universal sense of the Church concerning the nature of that Institution And there I have largely answer'd those very
testimonies produced by him and shewed that they are so far from proving the use of one kind in the Catholick Church that Leo in that very place shewes that it was the token of an heretick not to receive in both kinds and the other Instance in the Greek Church is only of a woman in whose mouth the bread turned into a stone that she had not patience to stay to receive the Cup. So very pittyful are the proofs brought against the use of both kinds for a 1000. years after Christ which being supposed and acknowledged by some of the most learned and ingenuous of their own Church I wonder what authority the Church afterwards can have to alter what was always looked on before as an obliging Institution of Christ Might it not as well alter any other Institution on the same grounds and wholly forbid the bread to the Laity as well as the cup and I doe not at all question but as substantial reasons might be brought for one as the other I had thought the Gentlemen of the Roman Church had pretended a mighty reverence to Apostolical Traditions and the Practice of the Catholick Church for a thousand years after Christ. But it seems this signifies nothing to them when it is contrary to their present doctrine and practice Then it makes a great noise as he saith but nothing else Thus we Protestants have at last gained Antiquity of our side it is now yielded that though the Church were for us for a thousand years yet if it now decree or act otherwise this is enough for them And we are contented to have Christ and his Apostles and all the Primitive practice for so long a time on our side and to leave them to enjoy the satisfaction that follows taking the part of the Church of Rome against them all But however their opinion tends more to devotion Alas for us we doe not account it any piece of devotion to believe non-sense and contradictions such as the doctrine of transubstantiation implies we know not what devotion there can be in opposing a plain Institution of Christ and not meerly in leaving the people at liberty to receive in one or both kinds but in prohibiting the far greatest part of Christians to receive as Christ appointed we know not what devotion there can lye in worshipping a piece of bread for the Son of God and believing that when a wafer is taken into our mouths that God himself is personally entered under our Roof O horrible devotion and detestable superstition to give the same adoration to a wafer which we doe to the Eternal God and to believe Christ to goe down as personally into our bellies as ever he went up and down when he was upon earth § 12. That which followes is the Power of a Persons dispensing in oaths and marriages contrary to the Law of God which I therefore made a hindrance of the sincerity of devotion because it is apt to possess mens minds with an apprehension that Religion is only a Politick Cheat if any person shall be thought able to dispense with those things which are universally received among Christians as the Laws of God That which I meant was the Popes taking upon him to dispense with oaths of allegiance to Princes and the incestuous marriages of some great Princes And now let any one consider what his Answer signifies he saith that some kinds of oaths may be judged in some circumstances to be hurtful and not fit to be kept and the dispensation in them is no more than to judge or determine them to be so and for Marriages he addes that the Church may dispense in some degrees of Affinity and consanguinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God But this doth not at all reach to the busines for dispensing in this way may as well be done by a Casuist as the Bishop of Rome but the Question lyes here whether those things which otherwise would be sins by the Law of God doe therefore cease to be so because of the Popes Power to discharge that obligation of conscience which lay upon the Person either in oaths or marriages Let him answer directly to this for the other is shuffling and not answering As it is granted that a subject hath an obligation of conscience upon him to obey his Soveraigne by vertue of the Law of God and the universal sense of the Church hath been that there are some degrees of consanguinity and Affinity which it is Incest to marry within I desire to know whether the Popes power can make disobedience lawful in one case and marriage in another which without that Power were utterly unlawful This he could not but know was the thing meant but not fit to be answered § 13. The last Instance is making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things as marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication To this he answers 1. That the Law of the Church being supposed forbidding the marriage of a Priest that is no disputable matter but it is out of Question by the Law of God that obedience is to be given to the commands or prohibitions of the Church 2. That marriage in a Priest the prohibition of the Church being supposed and a voluntary vow against it is no better than Adultery in the language of the Fathers and therefore worse than Fornication 3. That the state of single life is much more convenient for Priests than the married state is This last answer is nothing at all to the purpose for in matters of conveniency not determin'd by any Law every one is left to be his own chooser but the case I put was not between a married life and single life for we know no harm either in one or the other of these but every one is to judge as most tends to the comfort of his life and the ends of his calling which hath now far different circumstances from the Apostolical times which is a sufficient answer to the Apostles words 1 Cor. 7. 32. having a particular respect to the state of the Christian Church in that time of unfixedness and persecution but the opposition was between marriage in a Priest and Fornication whether the former were not by them made a greater crime than the latter and whether this were not dishonour to the Laws of Christ to make the breach of a constitution of the Church in a matter left at liberty by the Law of Christ a greater crime than the violation of an indisputable Law of his And S. Paul hath given a general rule which equally holds in all ages of the Church If they cannot contain let them marry for it is better to marry than to burn So that if S. Paul may resolve the case he makes no question that where there is but danger of Fornication marriage is so far from being a greater crime than that that
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
for the possibility of salvation allowed to any in their Church is built upon the supposition that they have all that is fundamentally necessary in order to it though there are many dangerous errours and corruptions in that Church whose communion they live in § 16. The Answers to the first Question being thus vindicated there remains little to be added concerning the second For he tells me that he agrees so far with me that every Christian is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church But which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles And to be even with him I thus far agree with him in the way of proof of a Churches purity viz. by agreement with the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and that that Church is to be judged purest which shews the greatest evidence of that consent and that every one is bound to enquire which Church hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace the communion of it Being thus far agreed I must now enquire into what motives he offers on behalf of their Church and what method he prescribes for delivering ours For the former he produces a large Catalogue of Catholick Motives as he calls them in the words of Dr. Taylour Liberty of Prophecy Sect. 20. And I do not know a better way of answering them than in the words of the same eminent and learned Person which he uses upon a like occasion to his demonstrating Friend I. S. But now in my Conscience saith the Bishop this was unkindly done that when I had spoken for them what I could and more than I knew they had ever said for themselves and yet to save them harmless from the iron hands of a tyrant and unreasonable power to keep them from being persecuted for their errours and opinions that they should take the arms I had lent them for their defence and throw them at my head But the best of it is though I. S. be unthankful yet the Weapons themselves are but wooden Daggers intended only to represent how the poor men are couzened by themselves and that under fair and fraudulent pretences even pious well meaning men men wise enough in other things may be abused And though what I said was but tinsel and pretence imagery and whipt Cream yet I could not be blamed to use no better than the best their cause could bear yet if that be the best they have to say for themselves their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urged by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will out-weigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church But then I. S. might if he had pleased have considered that I did not intend to make that harangue to represent that the Roman Religion had probabilities of being true but probabilities that the Religion might be tolerated or might be endured and if I was deceived it was but a well meant errour hereafter they shall speak for themselves only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that Book that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there is for the Anabaptists and yet it was but an excuse at the best But since from me saith he they borrow their light Armour which is not Pistol-proof from me if they please they may borrow a remedy to undeceive them and that in the same kind and way of arguing for which he referrs to a letter written by him to a Gentlewoman seduced to the Church of Rome out of which I shall transcribe so much as may over-ballance the probabilities produced elsewhere by him After directions given rather to enquire what her Religion is than what her Church is for that which is a true Religion to day will be so to morrow and for ever but that which is a holy Church to day may be Heretical at the next change or may betray her trust or obtrude new Articles in contradiction to the old c. and shewing the unreasonablness of believing the Roman to be the Catholick Church he descends thus to particulars You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtlety and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oaths to the King your Promises to Men your Duty to your Parents in some cases a Church in which men Pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they Pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to Worship Images with the same Worship with which they Worship God or Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the Holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that Sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the divine nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her Children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christs Institution to a human Invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Tradition to new pretences from Prayers which ye understood to Prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon Creatures from intire dependance upon inward-acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose Worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens Consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the dayes of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the Holy Scriptures from whence you sound instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that Fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacrament or Decrees of the Church or the messages of your
friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are lyable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be Ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are lyable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you are only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to Worship Saints and Angels with a Worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church Worships the V. Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the V. Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the Worship and your joyning God and the Saints is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former To which he subjoynes that the points of difference between us and the Church of Rome are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition in them and that very many of her Doctrines are very ill Friends to a good life and that our Religion is incomparably beyond theirs in point of safety as in point of Praying to God alone and without Images relying on God as infallible which are surely lawful but it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints or Worship Images c. From whence he concludes So that unless you mean to preferr a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of yours prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs Institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a faith that grows bigger or lesser as men please and a hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the commandments in faith in hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supream you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of England and I doubt not but you will find the comfort of it in all your life and in the day of your death and in the day of Judgement Thus far that excellent person and I leave you now to judge between the Motives on both sides as they are laid down by him whom my Adversary appeals to and I must thank him for the kindness of mentioning him against me without which I had wanted so good a representation of the Motives of either side and so full an Answer to the pretences brought for the Church of Rome The other Motives which he adds of Fathers Councils and Tradition he knows are utterly denyed by us and I wonder he should insist upon them since in the matters of our debate Antiquity is so evidently of our side as against Worship of Images and Saints against Purgatory Transubstantiation Prayers in an unknown tongue and he thinks it no great matter to allow us a thousand years against communion in one kind and yet all this while Scripture Fathers Councils and Tradition are all on their side For the testimony of the present Church we deny that S. Austin speaks of it as of it self sufficient and though he did that concerns not the Roman Church any more than other parts of the Catholick Church and he may assoon prove Tyber to be the Ocean or S. Peters at Rome to have been before the Temple at Hierusalem as prove the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or the Mother of all others § 17. But I must conclude with the method he prescribes to you for satisfaction from me which is not to meddle with particular disputes which we know very well the reason of but to call upon me for a Catalogue of our grounds and to bring things to Grounds and Principles as they have learnt to Cant of late and then he saith Controversie will soon be at an end I should be glad to see it so notwithstanding his Friend I. S. accounts it so noble a Science unless he hath changed his mind since for so many years now he hath failed in the Defence of his Demonstrations But to satisfie the men of Principles and to let them see we can do more than find fault with their Religion I shall give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions which is all we can understand by Negative Points and if we can give an account of the Christian faith independently on their Churches Authority and Infallibility it evidently follows that cannot be the foundation of faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome And I know no other Answer necessary not only to this present demand but to a Book called Protestants without Principles the falsity of which will appear by what follows Principles Agreed on both sides 1. THat there is a God from whom man and all other Creatures had their Being 2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect and therefore Justice Goodness Wisdom and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection 3. That man receiving his Being from God is thereby bound to obey his will and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience 4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God it is necessary that he know what it is for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not 5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will 6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of to make known his will unto man by These thing being agreed on both sides we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind 1. AN entire
case whether there are the same motives and grounds from thence to believe Transubstantiation as there are the Divinity of Christ. In the proof of Transubstantiation his only Argument is from those words this is my body which words saith he do necessarily inferre either a real mutation of the Bread as the Catholicks hold or a metaphorical as the Calvinists but by no means do admit the Lutherans sense and so spends the rest of the Chapter against them and concludes it thus although there be some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by Councils and Fathers and so passes to them Which are a plain indication he thought the same which others of his Religion have said that the doctrine of Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone But when he proves the Divinity of Christ he goes through nine several classes of arguments six of which are wholly out of Scripture the first out of both Testaments the second only out of the Old the third out of the New the fourth from the names of the true God given to Christ the fifth from the Divine Attributes Eternity Immensity Power Wisdome Goodness Majesty the sixth from the proper works of God Creation Conservation Salvation Fore-knowing of secret things and working Miracles All which he largely insists upon with great strength and clearness so that if he may be judge the motives to believe the Divinity of Christ are far from being the same in Scripture that there are to believe Transubstantiation § 6. 3. But supposing they are mistaken in the belief of this doctrine this doth not excuse them from Idolatry To his quotation out of Dr. Taylors Liberty of Prophecying to the contrary I shall return him the opinion of their own Divines The Testimony of Coster is sufficiently known to this purpose who saith the same thing in effect that I had done If the doctrine of Transubstantiation be not true the Idolatry of the Heathens in Worshipping some Golden or Silver Statute or any Images of their Gods or the Laplanders Worshipping a red cloth or the Aegyptians an animal is more excusable than of Christians that Worship a bit of bread And our Country-man Bishop Fisher confesseth That if there be nothing but bread in the Eucharist they are all Idolaters But none is so fit to answer Dr. Taylor as himself after almost twenty years time to consider more throughly of those things and then he confesseth That the Weapons he used for their defence were but wooden daggers though the best he could meet with and if that be the best they have to say for themselves which he hath produced for them their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urg'd by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will outweigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church and elsewhere That the second Commandment is so plain so easie so peremptory against all the making and Worshipping any Image or likeness of any thing that besides that every man naturally would understand all such to be forbidden it is so expressed that upon supposition that God intend to forbid it wholly it could not more plainly have been expressed By which it is clear he did not think that Idolatry did lye only in forsaking the true God and giving divine Worship to a Creature or an Idol that is to an imaginary God who hath no foundation in essence or existence which is the reason he brings why they are excused from Idolatry in Adoration of the Host because the object of their adoration is the true God for he not only makes the second command to be peremptory and positive against the Worship of the true God by an Image but elsewhere plainly determins this to be Idolatry and saith that an image then becomes an Idol when divine Worship is given to it and that to Worship false Gods or to give divine honour to an image which is not God is all one kind of formal Idolatry If therefore they cannot be excused from Idolatry who Worship the true God by an Image though the object of their adoration be right and they think the manner of it to be lawful neither can they who worship Christ upon the account of Transubstantiation in the Sacrament for not only the superstition of an undue object but of a prohibited manner or way of Worship is Idolatry even according to the opinion of him whom he produces as a testimony of their innocency § 7. 4. That if a mistake in this case will excuse them it would excuse the grossest Idolatry in the world St. Austin speaks of some who said that Christ was the Sun and therefore worshipped the Sun I desire to know whether this were Idolatry in them or no They had Scripture to plead for it as plain as This is my body for he is not only called the Sun of Righteousness but the Vulgar Latin which they contend to be the only authentick version reads that place Psal. 19. 6. in sole posuit tabernaculum suum he hath placed his Tabernacle in the Sun and that this is to be understood of Christ may be proved from the Apostles applying the other words their line is gone out through all the earth to the Apostles Preaching the Gospel Rom. 10. 18. And the Manichees did believe that Christ had his residence partly in the Sun and partly in the Moon and therefore they directed their prayers alwayes to the Sun Let us now consider two persons equally perswaded that the Sun is now the Tabernacle of Christ and that he is really present there and dispenses all the comfortable influences of heat and light to the world he being so often in Scripture called the true light 1 Joh. 8. 9. and another that he is really present by Transubstantiation in the Sacrament I would fain understand why the one should not be as free from Idolatry as the other If it be said that all those places which speak of Christ as the Sun are to be understood metaphorically that is the same thing we say to them concerning those words of Christ this is my body and if notwithstanding that they are excused by believing otherwise so must the other person unavoidably be so too It is to no purpose to alledge Fathers and Councils for the opinion more than for the other for the question is not concerning the probability of one mistake more than of the other although if they be strictly examined the absurdities of Transubstantiation are much greater but we suppose a mistake in both and the question is whether such a mistake doth excuse from Idolatry or no and we are not to enquire into the reasons of the mistake but the influence it hath upon our actions And then we are to understand why a mistake equally involuntary as to the real object of divine adoration may not excuse from Idolatry as well as to the wrong