39. Wherfore brethren covet to prophesie and forbid not to speak with tongues 40. Let all things be done decently and in order Thus runs this fourteenth Chapter in your own translation And if it do nothing at all concern Church-service why should the Roman Liturgy be reconciled to it any more than adultery to the third commandment Or what disparagement is it to this service that it cannot be reconciled to that law which no way concerns it If it do concern Church-service then must all the Common prayer and Service of our Protestant Church of England be abolished being as irreconcileable to this rule as you say adultery is to the seventh Commandment Say which you please If it concern not any Church-service you justifie as to this account the custom of the Roman Church if you say it do you condemn your own Truth is the Spirit of our Lord magnified his primitive Church when it began to spread and appear in the world with many particular graces that the Jew and Pagan might discern in it somthing extraordinary and by that exteriour sign be induced to beleev that the founder of that Religion was no ordinary person as gift of miracles tongues and prophesies The new converts of Corinth seemed to be more pleased with the gift of tongues than any other and when they met together fell a gabling all at once not two or three only but more and perhaps the greatest part of them all at one and the same time as the Apostle here intimates v. 23. one for example in the Congo language the other that of Mexico one Ethiopian the other Arabian one the Indian another the Slavonian and none understood another nor could well hear one another for the confused noise as we may gather by v. 2. and v. 11. and so became barbarians to one another This gift then and special grace of Gods Spirit though it might astonish a Pagan that should look upon them which was all that holy Spirit intended by it yet it could not edifie him any further or move him if he should be left to himself to think otherwise of them than that they were a company of mad gabling distracted people especially when he considered that some of them seemed to exhort some to sing some to pray and all in a cluster at one and the same time no man heeding the other or understanding a word he said if he should And this disdorder the Apostle here labours to rectifie in this whole fourteenth chapter And it is manifest that the apostle here neither spake nor thought of any Church-service either in one language or other but only of that temporal gift which is now past away long ago with the people that had it Nor can it prudently be applied to any Church-service that I know in the world For there is no such doing any where Much less can it relate to any custom of the Roman Church where all the people are devoutly praying to one and the same God in quiet and silence both in spirit and understanding heart and mind too the priest knowing what himself speaks or prayes and the people understanding both what he acts and does in their behalf and his own and what also they beg of God themselves either with words or without them So that here is no kind of parity at all Nay if neither the Priest did understand himself what he speaks nor the people what they pray both which are absolutely fals yet would the Apostle allow even that as a good custom though not so perfect so long as the words contained piety and the heart stood piously affected in pronouncing them He that speaketh in an unknown tongue saith he v. 2. speaketh not to men but to God and though man understand not yet in spirit he speaketh mysteries And again v. 4. he saith that such an one edifieth himself and v. 14. he teaches that such a ones spirit prayeth though his mind or understanding doth not and v. 17. that he gives thanks well With these of our learned Apostle your Disswaders words throughout this his section are I am sure absolutely irreconcileable For he saith such an one prayes only with his lips and not in spirit that there is neither affection nor edification in any such prayer and that the heart and spirit sayes nothing and asks for nothing and so receives nothing which Salomon calls the sacrifice of foools thus speaks your Disswader quite contrary to Apostolical sobriety And not that custom I should think but your Disswaders invectives against it are irreconcileable with this fourteenth chapter Saint Paul sayes that such a one prayes in spirit the Disswader that he prayes onely in his lips Saint Paul that he edifies himself the Disswader that his soul has no benefit and that there is neither edification nor affection or any good by such prayers Saint Paul that he prayes well and gives thanks well the Disswader that he does ill But I need not stand upon this now There is no such thing in the use of the Roman Liturgy where priests and people pray both in spirit and mind too both with heart and understanding also Only let me tell you thus much that St. Paul in one verse of this chapter checks your Disswader and all his whole discours in this section Linguis loqui nolite prohibere saith he v. 39. Do not forbid to speak with tongues But your Disswader forbids and labours here might and main against it Doth the Apostle speak here of Church-service or not If he do then Church-service in an unknown tongue is allowed if he do not then one of this chapter is against Church-service in an unknown tongue Surely your Disswader did never ponder these things as he ought Nay if this discours of the Apostle concern Church-service so that your Disswader hence may rightly gather that the popish Mass in an unknown tongue is irreconcileable with it I may upon the same ground prove more strongly that S. Paul would have the popish Mass in an unknown tongue to be practised Volo omnes vos linguis loqui saith he v. 5. I will that ye all speak with tongues or I would that you all spake with tongues which is according to your Disswaders meaning I will have you all turn Papists or I would ye were all turned Papists But lastly if this 14. chapter to the Corinthians be to be understood of Church-service and Church-preaching and Church-praying as this disswading Doctour would have it then Sir must our Protestant pulpits and service-pews all down and the Quakers way must come up infallibly For what saith the text here Sive lingua quis loquitur secundum duos aut ad multum tres per partes unus inter pretetur si autwm non fuerit interpres taceat in ecclesia sibi autem loquatur Deo Prophetae autem duo tres dicant caeteri dijudicent Quod si alii revelatum fuerit sedenti prior taceat Potestis enim omnes
reproaches of Christians And whatever my paragraff may be this your chapter seems to me as ingenious as the very best of your book and absolutely frivolous And must you invegh against calumnies whose whole book is nothing els It is a bundle of slanders and a meer quiver of fiery darts of desolation and malice 17. ch from page 313 to 325. Your seventeenth chapter upon my paragraff of Images or Figures nibbles at more of my discours made in that one paragraff then you have taken notice of in ten of my others A man say you may indeed have such thoughts of devotion as Fiat Lux speaks of upon the sight of images which be sees banging in Churches if he be a man distraught of his wits not if he be himself and sober So then mad men it seems can tell what figures represent sober and wise men cannot Again The violation of an image say you redounds to the prototype if it be rightly and duly represented not els And when then is Christ crucified for example rightly and duly represented Are you one of those mad men can tell what figures represent yea or no. The hanging up of traitors in effigie is don say you only to make a declaration of the fact and not to cast a dishonour upon the person So you say Becaus you know it don long after the fact has rung all the whole Kingdom over and don not in places of concours but ignominy not in the Exchange but Tyburn not with any characters declaring the fact but with a halter about his neck to denote the death and ignominy inflicted as far as is possible upon him You go on Where the Psalmist complains of Gods enemies breaking down his sculptures he means not therby any images or figures but only wainscot or carved ceiling Surely the Prophet wanted a word then to express himself or translatours to express the Prophet If we must guess at his meaning without heeding his words one might think it as probable what also holy scripture tells us that the hous of God was ordained with sculptures of Cherubims and other angels to represent his true hous that is above as with the circles quadrats triangels rhombos and rhomboides of wainscot The eye say you again may not have her species as well as the ear becaus God has commanded the one and not the other This Sir you only say Fiat Lux makes it appear that God commands and commends both and the nature of man requires both nor can you give any reason why I may not look upon him who was crucified as well as hear of him You adde Nor is the sole end of preaching as Fiat Lux would have it only to move the mind of the hearers unto corresponding affections Why do not you say then what els it is for you deny my words but declare your self no other end but what I have in those short words exprest You may haply conceal in your heart som other end of your preaching which you are loath to speak as to procure applaus to vent your rhetorick to get good benefices to show your fine cloth and silks your pure neat white starched bands and cuffs button'd handkerchiefs and ladies gloves to inflame factions get wives or the like but I could not think of all things at once nor needed I to express any more then that one end of preaching which is connatural apostolical and legal You go on God indeed commanded the Cherubims to be set upon the ark but those cherubims were images of nothing of what should they be images Nor were they set up to be adored Besides God who commanded them to be set up did no more gainsay his own prohibition of images to be made than he contradicted his own rule which forbids to steal when he commanded his people to spoil the Egyptians But Sir since the real Cherubims are not made of our beaten gold those set up by Moses must be only figures And of what els should they be figures but of those real ones Nor is it either to my purpos or yours that they are set up to be adored For images in catholick Churches are not set up for any such purpos nor do I any where say it No man alive has any such thought nor tradition no councel hath delivered it no practis infers it Christian Philosophers or Schoolmen have indeed raised a philosophical question Whether any respect may be terminated upon the figure purely as it such an absolute entity in it self besides that relative one that falls only upon the prototype But what they question or what they talk or what they resolve does no more belong becaus they say it unto catholik faith then if they had been asleep and said nothing All catholik councels and practis declares such sacred figures to be expedient assistants to our thoughts in our divine meditation and prayers and that is all that I know of it And the relative respect that is given to any figur as it is such a figur whether in a glass or in any more fixed postur to supply the defects of a mirrour that it terminates naturally upon the sampler or prototype is evident to right reason and philosophy And it cannot be otherwise That which you speak of the Israelites spoiling the Egyptians by Gods command hath som species of an argument in it But Sir we must know you as well as I that God who forbids men to steal did not then command to steal as you say he did when he bad his people spoil the Egyptians under the species of a loan Many things legitimate that their act of spoil and clear it from any notion of theft or robbery or stealing First they might have of themselvs a right to those few goods in satisfaction of the long oppression they had unjustly undergon and it may be that in that their great haste their own allowance was not then paid them But secondly becaus it is a thing of danger that any servant should be allowed to right himself by putting his hand to his masters goods though his case of wrong be never so clear therfor did the command of God intervene to justifie their action And the absolute dominion of the whole earth and all that is in it being inseparably in the hands of God made that by Gods express command to be truly now and justly the Hebrews right which by an inferiour and subordinate title such as is in the hand of creatures belonged to the Egyptians before So that the Hebrews in taking those goods with them did not steal nor did God command them to steal when he bad them carry those goods of the Egyptians with them for that upon that very command of God they now ceased to be the Egyptians any more But this can no wayes be applied to the busines of Images nor could God command the Hebrews to make any images if he had absolutely forbidden to have any at all made For this concerns not any affair between
after supper becaus it would as much have inferred the Protestant practice to be against Christs institution as the Popish is and so his talk would either have been of no value or against himself Thirdly whereas the Councel declared only against the opinion which those Hereticks had of the necessity of those two circumstances and corresponding practice he makes them to condemn not their necessity but the circumstances themselves which the Councel never thought of Fourthly he delivers that Councels declaration against those circumstances as if it had been a dogme of faith and consequently Popery or Catholik Religion wheras it was delivered in order to the circumstances themselves but as a temporal law and decree though in order to the necessity of those circumstances it be a constant Catholik truth And therfor the Councel of Basil which a little after determined the same doctrin namely that Priests are not bound to communicate the people in both kinds whereof they also give their reason quia certa fide tenendum est quod sub specie panis non tantum caro sub specie vini non sanguis tantùm sed sub qualibet specie Christus totus continetur sess 30 yet they allowed the Bohemians and Moravians who desiring to submit to the Catholik Church and yet in their weaknes could not comply with that custom to be communicated in both kinds These four are shifts of much insincerity but I must bear with him His other authorities against this Catholik custom now generally in use may be easily understood by what I have hitherto spoken what they mean But that of Paschasius I cannot but give you notice of it For Paschasius speaking of one certain ceremony in the Priests celebration of Mass wherin he drops a piece of the host into the consecrated chalice Very rightly saith he is the flesh sociated with the blood becaus neither the flesh without the blood c. And a little after Therfor saith he they are well put together in the chalice becaus from one cup of Christs Passion c. From those words which speak only the Priest's action in the sacrifice of Mass your Protestant Disswader would prove his communion of people in both kinds of which Paschasius neither spoke nor thought Is he not hard put to it think you or is he ignorant rather of what he speaks But he is gon to his next section and I must follow him § 7. Which is against Service in an unknown Tongue Sayes that the Roman Church offends no less in another of their Novelties of using an unknown tongue in their Service which use can no more be reconciled with Saint Pauls fourteenth chapter to the Corinthians than adultery with the seventh Commandment and Origen Ambrose Basil Chrysostom Austin Aquinas also and Lyra speak all against it no less also the Civil and Canon Law Indeed what profit can he receiv who hears a sound and understands it not a dumb Priest would serve as well for God understands his thoughts The popish people that pray in their churches they know not what can have no affection becaus they have no understanding of their own prayers Therfore let every tongue prais the Lord. Here the Disswader that he may the better express the confusion and darknes that is in this popish custom which he means here to speak against uses a confused and dark speech of his own and confutes it rather by emblem than reason His reader no doubt will imagin or els the Disswader fails of his end that Roman Catholiks do not understand their own prayers in the Church that God is not praised by them in every tongue that they are not at all edified by their Liturgy or Mass that they joyn not their desires nor understand what they say or ask of God that their heart sayes nothing nor asks for nothing and therfor receivs nothing that they understand not in particular what they should desire or beg of God that their own souls have not any benefit by their prayers and that the Church will not suffer them to be brought out of their intollerable ignorance All these things are jumblingly said and asserted in this his section against the Roman liturgy must as he hopes be beleeved by his reader But ther is not a Roman catholik in the world however ignorant and simple he be but will be ready to tell your Disswader to his face that ther is not of all this any one word of it true But he imagines that Roman Catholiks come to Church like Protestants there standing or sitting and looking upon one another till a black-coat comes to read som prayers in their ears But in this he is grosly mistaken as all Catholiks know though others do not They have their obsecrations their meditations their postulations their psalms their ejaculations which humbly upon their knees they pour forth to their Redeemer both while their priest is with them at the altar and before and after too Nor is there a blesseder sight to be seen on earth than devout Catholicks in a Church wheras others stand or sit gazing about till the Parson comes to make use of their ears neither heart nor lip nor hand nor knee nor breast being to them of any use And this every one would understand as well as I if he understood Catholik customs and religion as I do Nor does the Priest come to the altar to teach the people what they should say but to pray and make an atonement for them And in his confession entrance hymn of glory to God on high prayer epistle and gospel and his whole work of consecration and offering they go along with him in their meditations humiliations and requests understanding all the whole matter and busines of that heavenly devotion though they hear not his particular words which it would be all one to them whether they were in latin or in the mother tongue I know alas I speak but in vain to such as are brought up in another way and by fallacious slights of ministers are lead into a misconceit of the ancient religion of this Land which till they see it again they can hardly ever rightly understand Prejudice is a lettance almost unremovable And it concerns ministers that such a prejudice should be continually rivetted into peoples minds who must either be deceived or ministers undone But he that sees Catholik people at their devotions and Protestants at theirs would if he be any wayes disinterested conclude with himself that Catholik people serv God in earnest Protestants but in jeast Truth is the Catholik Liturgy is only a representation of Christs death and passion which our Lord appointed should be exhibited to the eyes of his beleevers so long as the world shall last that coming still together they may worship there their crucified Lord and pour forth in him all their requests every one according to their several necessities So that the priest and peoples great work is soon ended the consecration
lifting up the host and chalice and adoration being all accomplished in half a quarter of an hour and in som Churches that especially of Ethiopia in yet lesser time And all the prayers and meditations and what other things the Priest either speaks with his lips or heart besides are only to dispose himself before and after that great work And in all times have Christian people ever made it their special care to furnish themselvs with such meditations and affections as that their solemn work of adoration requires I find in my heart here to set down the way I have been taught to hear Mass and which I practise my self Such an ocular pattern would I am sure give more satisfaction to my countrymen than any general words I can speak concerning it But I shall have som better place for that hereafter The testimony of authorities which your Disswader brings against this Roman custom of one and the same language all over the world which he calls an unknown tongue either speak nothing at all to that busines or say nothing but what Papists say themselves and many of them by his usual trick either of total falsity or partial depravation are made by your Disswader to speak against a custom which they never so much as dreamed to impugn If Origen say that the Grecians in their prayers use Greek and the Romans the Roman language c. so say all Papists too The Maronites with some others use the Hebrew Liturgy Grecians the Greek and Western Christians the Roman and so every one in his own tongue that is proper to that part of the Church wherof he is a member prayeth and praiseth God And yet it was never thought necessary that any people in the Christian world should have their Liturgy in their mother tongue Again if St. Ambrose say when people meet for edification in the Church things ought to be spoken which hearers understand so say and so do Papists also For all their Sermons which are made for edification are ever in the mother tongue or vulgar language of the Countrey and in so plain a manner they either are or should be uttered that hearers may understand and edifie thereby But the Christian sacrifice is offered up to God not for the peoples edification or instruction but for their reconciliation and peace Likewise if S. Jerom and Ulphilas translated the Bible so has it been translated by several other Priests since their time I beleev into all languages of the world and is continually read and expounded in Catholik Countreys now one mystery of it then another unto peoples constant edification But this infers not that it ever was or ought to be read in the Churches one chapter after another instead of their Liturgy No such thing did antiquity ever hear of If the civil law of Justinian ordain all byshops and Priests to celebrate the sacred oblation not in a low voice but with a loud clear voice which may be heard by people so do Roman Priests at this day act all according to that Canon But how came the first reforming Protestants to leave off the name of Priests but only becaus they had no such sacred oblation which was abolished by them any longer now to make Again if there issued from Pope Innocent the third a precept or decree in the Councel of Lateran that in the same city as your Disswader here speaks thinking it I beleev to be som City called Lateran where people had then met together from several parts of the world service should be celebrated according to the diversity of ceremonies and languages no doubt but that precept or decree was then observed throughout all the City of Rome where that Councel was kept And the Maronites with their adherents had the sacred Liturgy in Chaldee or Hebrew the Grecians in Greek others in Latin with such variety of ceremonies therin as was used in these several nations though they acted the same thing in substance So that such as came from Syria Egypt or Greece were not bound to be present at the Latin Liturgy although they were then in Rome nor yet the Romans to the Hebrew or Greek Mass And if any were met there from our English Sarum Church they might use their Sarum Missal and not that of the Roman Dioces although it might have shorter or perhaps longer graduals more or fewer meditations or differing evangiles or a longer solemnity of consecration This difference is still in the world amongst Roman Catholiks at this day and ever was and will be althoug the whole substance of their Messach or Liturgy be every where the same And for this reason a Dominican Fryar now deceased coming over some years ago into England becaus he began his Mass with Confitemini Domino after the manner of the Dominicans and not with the usual psalm Judica me Deus although they had patience with him till he had ended yet the women that were present at it got together afterwards and in their indiscreet zeal fell upon him and beat him for a counterfeit And if the Councel be of any force here otherwise why is it brought then are Catholiks according to that Councel to celebrate in the very same city here with Protestants without controul though they use diversity of ceremonies and languages All these authorities then make nothing against this piece of Popery but rather confirm it And the glosses which your Disswader makes upon them and all his insulting invectives are but the froth of his own evil will When your Disswader tells us further that Basil Chrysostome Ambrose Austin Aquinas and Lyra speak against Service in an unknown tongue as unapt to edifie the aforenamed Catholik Gentlemen who have endeavoured with all care to search the Libraries for a trial of your Disswaders honesty have found in som of those Fathers no such book as your Disswader cites and in none of them any such words Which I am apt to beleev not only by reason of the industrious sincerity of the said Gentlemen and palpable insincerity of this Disswader but for other special reasons drawn from the authors themselves For St. Basil and St. Chrysostome St. Austin and St. Ambrose the two first were Greek Priests that used a Greek Liturgy of their own one of them an Archbishop or Patriarch the other a monk the two last S. Ambrose a Priest and Bishop of Millain in Italy S. Austin the like in Africa and founder of the Augustin Canons regulars and Hermits used a Latin one both which differed even in their times from the vulgar language of their respective places And Aquinas and Lyra are manifestly known to be later popish Priests and Friars using one and the same Latin Liturgy differing from the languages of England and Spain As also becaus it is unlikely they would use this Disswaders reason becaus such unknown tongues in the liturgy would not edifie For though edification in a large sence may well agree with the Mass or Liturgy in
such a stiff impertinency against Popish Images have never laboured at all against these Protestant pictures O but Protestants do not worship these pictures Do they not I would to God that all good Catholiks could so heartily love imitate and worship those blessed persons represented in their portraictures as Protestants do theirs who by such amorous faces in their curious dresses are brought I fear too often on their knees Motives to filthy iniquity they may stand but representation of austerity of contemplation of martyrdom of divine extasies of charity of our Lord Jesus and his Saints these are popish these are antichristian these are abominable If the God of holiness will not have any sacred figures to be made surely he cannot allow lascivious prophane and light ones But though he do not our Ministers will O but the Papists give the same worship to the representation and the thing represented This your Disswader may gather haply by his own experience For the figure of a King a father and a wife if they do raise any affections or thoughts these must needs be so much differing as the persons represented are For the shadow figure or representation if we would speak according to right philosophy neither does not can terminate any such respect though it may its own For example that I may declare this my speech put case I have three or four Crucifixes before me of a several make or form and of a much differing art All these four figures have but one and the same representation becaus they represent but one and the same thing Christ Jesus our Lord crucified for our reconciliation and redemption and whatever good affection may arise in my heart upon the sight and thought of it must needs be the same to that representation and thing represented becaus it is terminated upon the thing represented by means of the representation of it And that is but one and the same respect though the figures be many For the representation or figure can terminate no such thought although it be a means of directing it But yet all those four figures have respects of their own which they bound and terminate themselves by reason for example of the excellency of their colours the material on which they are wrought the exactness of art in limning every part to the life and the proportions of the whole in its due and full measure These and such like considerations are ended fully in the picture without any consideration had to its object represented And they may be of such concerment in the business that a man may be moved to prefer one of those four pictures before all the other three This is that I mean Sir when I say that a shadow figure or representation neither does nor can terminate any such respect as results naturally upon the samplar or prototype though it may its own And this is no sophistry of Aristotle but meer natural and vulgar reason common to all mankind O but the Papists make their pictures their gods I this is the talk of black ministers in the dark to fools and children while they sit warm in the Roman Catholik Benefices which they have invaded it behooves them to say what ever they can think against Popery be it right be it wrong be it sence or nonsence All goes down by a people once inveigled And if they be not still kept warm in their mistake the minister is lost Good God in what a world do we live I did my self beleev all this once And I wondred when I first saw Roman Catholiks to tear their pictures somtimē and put them into the fire It is no such marvel if Epiphanius should tear a Saints picture which your Disswader here tells us although that story be not found in that epistle of Epiphanius translated by St. Jerom Roman Catholiks do it ordinarily For they use picturs but as they do their prayer-books and when they are so sullied and worn they can use them no more they are turned both into ashes which is the last end of picturs books and men And the respect they give to pictures is but the very same kind with what they give to the holy Gospels save only that the Gospel is looked on as the inside and a Crucifix the outside of their Redeemer but both are still but shadows of him I could say more concerning this busines and make it appear both that Christians have ever in all ages had images of their Lord and his Saints in their houses and Churches and how profitable and useful they are and that they are neither against the will of God nor any right reason And this I could clearly prove out of S. Basil Eusebius Caesariensis S. Gregory Nazianzen and Nyssen S. Austin Bede Jo. Damascen Athanasius Ambrose Chrysostom But I have here said enough if I have enough demonstrated as I think I have that your Disswader has said nothing § 9. Which is an appendage to the former Reprovs the picturing of God the Father and holy Trinity which many of the holy Fathers speak against much to the blame of the Roman Church which in their Mass-books and Breviaries Portuises and Manuals picture the holy Trinity with three noses and four eyes and three faces in a knot Though the Catholik Christian Church hath ever used and approved of the use of Images as well as spiritual books yet they allow not of any abuse in either And Ordinaries Byshops Visitors and Superiours in all places are to look to that So that in this his appendage as he calls it your Disswader acts but the part of a good Visitour to blame and mend that which is amiss which must continually be done and continually is done all over the Catholick world as well in this as other affairs And if any Ordinary be negligent herein he is worthy of blame But Sir this is nothing of Popery or Catholik Religion which allows only in general the use of pious figures to forward our thoughts and desires to that eternal felicity above which so many holy Virgins Confessours Martyrs Apostles Monks Hermits and pious Princes portrayed all before our eyes arrived unto by their austerities alms-deeds purity fastings disciplines meditations watchings and patient sufferings in love and conformity to their holy Redeemer who is the prince and leader and crown of all those his glorious Saints redeemed and sanctified by the vertue of his precious blood and passion out of the thraldom of Satan and this wicked world Nor has Catholik Religion ever descended unto the particular cirumstances of these figures This belongs to the care of Bishops and Ordinaries Catholiks have generally no figures but of such only as once have lived amongst them in their Church either as head or members of it Nor of many ages would byshops permit the holy Trinity especially God the Father to be pourtrayed at all And if now they suffer it they have for it I make no doubt a sufficient reason especially since