man but to know what is in all men and at all times is the perfection of infinite knowledge which it is therefore impossible for Saints or Angels to have because it is a contradiction for a Creature to have so much as one single infinite perfection It would be a great presumption in us to go about to fix the Bounds and Limits of their enlarged understandings and to tell just how wise an Angel of God is They may for ought I know have an intuitive knowledge without the trouble and hazzard of reasoning and see the remotest Conclusions by as clear a light as we do first principles They may in many other respects have their understandings elevated and enlightned beyond what we can imagine Yet it is no pre sumption to say that they have not any such knowledge in any kind as may equal them with God But on the other hand it is Blasphemy to ascribe that to them than which we cannot ascribe any thing greater to him And this knowledge of understanding and searching men's Hearts the Papists not only imply in their praying to Saints and Angels and decree in their Councils but they openly avow it likewise in their writings and will prove it by Scripture it self Cardinal Perrone for one amongst many others proves that the Saints know men's Hearts because they are equal to the Angels and the Angels assuredly know them because they rejoyce at the Conversion of a Sinner which is the inward change of man's mind and lies very deep even at the bottom of the Heart But far less charity than the Angels burn withal and a much smaller degree of knowledge than they really are endued with will solve this Phaenomenon For cannot such silly Wretches as we be glad of the conversion of a sinner who was given for lost though we never saw him in our lives if we be assured of it by a very good Friend who likewise was himself the happy Author of this Conversion and invites us to congratulate the good success of his care and pains in it And that this is the very case of the Angels Joy I will venture to refer it to any man that will but once read over the first ten verses of the 15th Chapter of St. Luke They likewise argue from Elisha's Heart going with Gehazi and from his discovering the King of Syria's Counsels But 1. these were Actions and Words which are nothing near so private as thoughts And then 2. there is no consequence from the extraordinary performances of Saints and Prophets enabled and inspired by God to infer an ordinary and constant power and faculty of doing such things at all times Have the Saints and Angels Praescience because Prophets have been some times enabled to foretel Things to come Have they the power of raising the Dead and of doing such Miracles as are plainly the Finger of God because God has been pleased at some times to make men his Instruments in the performance of these mighty Works One would be ashamed of such Reasonings and yet they have still worse For some of them take it ill that in denying Invocation of Saints and Angels we will not allow them so much knowledge as the Devil has Well for ought I know they may hereafter have a new set of Gods and from worshipping those which as the Homily says they transform into Devils by setting them up as the Rivals of God they may fall to courting those which have made themselves so who it seems have one qualification towards Invocation For who knows where Apostasy from God will end Secondly The Matter of their Prayers to Saints and Angels makes them Gods by giving them still more Divine Attributes 1. They attribute to Saints and Angels the disposal of Grace pardon of Sins deliverance from Hell and eternal Life which are as peculiarly the Gifts of God as the Creation of the World was his Work As you may see by these following prayers Angelorum concio Sacra Et Arch-angelorum turma inclyta Nostra diluant jam peccata Praestando supera Coeli gaudia Here they pray the Angels to blot out their Sins and bestow upon them the Joys of Heaven O Virgo sola Mater casta nostra crimina Solvens da Regna qui beata regnant agmina Here they pray the Virgin to pardon their Sins and to give them the Kingdom of Heaven Ab Inferni horribili cruciamine Libera nos Domina From the horrible Torment of Hell Good Lady deliver us Ut cunctis fidelibus defunctis requiem aeternam donare digneris Te rogamus audi nos That it may please thee to give everlasting Rest to all the faithful departed this Life we beseech thee to hear us And in the Versicles and Responses towards the end of that Litany you have these words V. Ego dixi Domina miserere mei R. Sana animam quia peccavi tibi c. I have said Lady have mercy upon me Heal my Soul for I have sinned against thee Shew they mercy upon us And be gracious unto thy Servants And presently after you have this devout Ejaculation Miserere servorum tuorum super quos invocatum est nomen tuum Be merciful to thy Servants who are called by thy Name And so let them be and never hereafter pretend to be Christians for that she is their great Goddess appears 2. By that blasphemous Honour which they have done her in decking and magnifying her with the very same glorious praises and acknowledgements wherewith David was inspired to honour God which our Blessed Saviour himself when he was upon Earth and all the Church of God have sung to him ever since Such as these which follow and the rest is alike for it is all quintessence Psal. 10. In thee Lady do I put my trust 18. The Heavens declare thy Glory 30. Into thy hands I commend my Spirit my whole Life and my last day 53. I will freely offer unto thee the Sacrifice of Praise and give thanks unto thy Name for it is good 67. Let Mary arise and let her Enemies be scattered 111. Blessed is the man that feareth our Lady and blessed is the Heart that loveth her 118. 7th Part. Lady how have I loved thy Law it is ever before mine Eyes 148. Praise our Lady from Heaven glorifie her in the Heights Praise her Sun and Moon c. And then this Psalter concludes just as David's does Psalm 150. Let every thing that hath breath praise our Lady Who can endure to see Scripture thus transpros'd and abused and a Creature cloathed with all the Majesty of Heaven and adorned at this rate with the spils of her Maker And besides David's Psalms there is hardly an Hymn in the whole Bible that is not in the same manner applied to her The Chariots of Pharaoh and his Host she hath cast into the Sea How came she to cast them into the Sea ye blasphemous Wretches a thousand years before she was born They have
in places of Dignity and Authority using the like boldness as Juventinus and Maximus did enjoyed equal Crowns For Valentinian himself who was afterwards Emperor but was then a Colonel of the Houshold Guards did not hide the Zeal which he had for the true Religion For when that Thunder-struck Mad-man went in Procession to the Temple of Fortune the Chaplains stood on both sides of the Doors cleansing as they counted it with Sprinklings or Holy Water that those entred in But when Valentinian who gained both Kingdoms of Earth and Heaven for what he now did walking before the Emperor saw this Holy Water coming near his Cloaths he struck the Chaplain with his Fist saying that it would not cleanse but defile him Julian seeing what passed sent him away to a Garison lying by a Desart and gave order that there he should spend his days But in a Year and a few-Months time he was made Emperor in reward of his Confession For the Righteous Judg not only rewards those that are concerned for Religion in the Life to come but sometimes he presently gives them the recompence of their pious Labours by these previous Gifts now confirming the belief of those which Christians hope for hereafter You see how Theodoret magnifies this Action and though it was so high a breach of the Peace as might have cost him his right Hand if not his Head in many Courts yet he makes him no less than a Confessor for it And so St. Austin calls him Valentinian was a Confessor of the Christian Faith under Julian and lost his place in the Guards for it Our next Instance is a Passage of as great a Man in his way and that is Old Gregory Bishop of Nazianzum Father to Gregory Nazianzen We have it in the Funeral Speech or Sermon of the Divine upon his Father's Death and after he has said a great deal in his praise he has these words But I suppose that some of them who knew his Life very well have wondred a good while that I should be so taken up in these things aforesaid as if I had nothing else in commendation of him and that I should make no mention of the difficulty of the Times against which he seemed to have been set in battel aray Come on then and let me add these things to what has been said Our Age bore such an Evil as no Age did before aud I suppose none will hereafter an Emperor that was an Apostate both from God and Reason who thought it a small Bursiness to conquer the Persians but a great Work to reduce the Christians And the Devils that drove him perswading him to it he omitted no manner of Impiety by Persuasions by Threatnings Sophistry drawing over to him not only those that he gained by Artifices but those also which he forced by Violence Now who is there to be found that more despised this Emperor or had a greater hand in destroying him than my Father Of his contempt of him amongst many other both those Archers and their Commander are a proof whom he brought against our Church as either to take possession of it or to destroy it For having assaulted many others he came hither likewise with the same intent and imperiously demanded the Temple He so far failed of accomplishing any thing of what he desired that if he had not presently got out of my Father's way being aware of it either of himself or by some Bodies advice he might have gone away kick'd The Bishop boyling with Anger against him and with Zeal for the Temple I have had more trouble with this Passage than with all the rest in the Book For I have often tried to make this seating intended for the Captain of the Archers and have been ready to make Solaecisms in the Greek to avoid the greater Solaecism of an Emperor of the World awed and terrified with the fear of a kicking But it will not do it is too late for me to consult Julian's Honour or to alter Gregory's words And that you may be satisfied this is the sense of them I have here set down the Comment of a Metropolitan of Crete who was a better Grecian than I ever expect to be Ac contemptionis praeter multa alia documento quoque sunt sagittarii illi Dux eorum quos impius ille adversùs Ecclesias concitabat tanquam scilicet eas aut assumpturus subacturus aut eversurus ac deleturus Cum quibus scilicet omnibus nihil eorum quae cupiebat perfecit in tale Ecclesiae propugnaculum incidens quin potiùs nisi quà m primum ipsi cessisset nimirum vel ipse per se intelligens vel alium quendam consultorem audiens etiam pedibus contusus abiisset eo nimirum vehementiore quodam adversis eum Divino Zelo commoto Ergo contemptionis quidem luculentum hoc Argumentum est Here you have the description of one of the Lachrymists of old who at fourscore and ten and after he had been thirty five Years a Bishop was an Over-match for a Pagan Emperor and having vanquish'd him and won the Field kept it as long as he lived which was about nine Years after Julian's Death And which is more than that The Garlands and Trophies of this Victory are hung up in the Church by the hands of another Bishop to satisfy the Exspectation of a number of good Christian People Basil the Great assisting at the Ceremony And now know I no more than the Pope of Rome what to make of all this what they meant by it or upon what Principles these Men proceeded Whether the Laws of their Country allowed them which I am sure the Laws of our Country do not allow a Man to imagine to offer Violence to their lawful Emperor or whether old Gregory distinguish'd and did not resist Julian but only the Devil which his Son so often tells us was in him Or how it was I will never stand guessing Only this we may be assured of that none of these Bishops had ever been in Scotland nor had learn'd to fawn upon an Apostate and a mortal Enemy to their Religion CHAP. V. Their Devotions And first of their Psalms ' THese Passages which we have hitherto related were in common conversation in the Streets and Market-place in the Court and abroad in the World where the Christians might chance not to have their Religion about them and so shew themselves Men of like Passions with other Men but when they go to Church and enter upon Holy Ground or whenever they make their Addresses to God in Prayers and Praises there one may expect to see the flights of their self-denying and suffering Religion There one may justly expect they should lay aside all their Animosity against Julian though he were their Enemy and for that reason pray the harder for him Yes so they do the wrong way they cannot sing a Psalm but they make his Confusion the Burden of it And as they
Superstitions Which is so great a Truth and so seasonable and coming from so great a Man that it deserves to be written in Letters of Gold And if Popery be ten times worse than all the Heathenish Superstitions then I am sure we do no worse than the Primitive Christians if we have ten times a greater aversion for a Popish Successor than they had for their Julian And yet if it be but equal I think it will serve the turn and therefore it will be sufficient to prove Popery as bad as Paganism though if in so doing I prove it much worse I cannot help that It would be endless to run through all the particulars of both these Religions and to compare them together I shall chuse therefore to insist upon those things wherein they mainly agree and wherein they are removed at the greatest distance from Christianity and they are Polytheism Idolatry and Cruelty which I shall treat of in order CHAP. X. Their Polytheism WHenever Paganism is named the most obvious thing in it and that which comes first to our Thoughts is the multitude of Gods which they worshipped And that the Papists have herein equalled and out-done the old Pagans I shall first shew is the publick and professed Doctrine of the Church of England And secondly I shall demonstrate the truth of it First That the Papists are gross Polytheists and worship a vast number of false Gods is the publick and professed Doctrine of the Church of England And he that doubts of this never read the Homilies which I shall take this occasion to recommend to every Bodies reading as one of the best Books that I know in the World next the Bible and in the mean time shall set down several passages at large which plainly shew what is the Doctrine of the Church in this point In the third part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry you have these words And for that Idolatry standeth chiefly in the mind it shall in this part first be proved that our Image-maintainers have had and have the same Opinions and Judgements of Saints whose Images they have made and worshipped as the Gentiles Idolaters had of their Gods And afterwards shall be declared That our Image-maintainers and worshippers have used and use the same outward Kites of honouring and worshipping their Images as the Gentiles did use before their Idols and that therefore they commit Idolatry as well inwardly and outwardly as did the wicked Gentiles Idolaters And concerning the first part of the Idolatrous Opinions of our Image-maintainers What I pray you he such Saints with us to whom we attribute the defence of certain Countries spoiling God of his due Donour herein but Dii tutelares of the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were Belus to the Babylonians and Assyrians Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians Vulcane to the Lemnians and to such other What be such Saints to whom the safeguard of certain Cities are appointed but Dii Praesides with the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were at Delphos Apollo at Athens Minerva at Carthage Juno at Rome Quirinus c. What be such Saints to whom contrary to the use of the Primitive Church Temples and Churches be builded and Altars erected but Dii Patroni of the Gentiles Idolaters Such as were in the Capitol Jupiter in Paphus Temple Venus in Ephesus Temple Diana and such like Alas we seem in thus thinking and doing to have learned our Religion not out of God's Word but out of the Pagan Poets who say Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis Dii quibus imperium hoc steterat c. That is to say All the Gods by whose defence this Empire stood are gone out of the Temples and have forsaken their Altars And where one Saint hath Images in divers places the same Saint hath divers names thereof most like to the Gentiles When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham our Lady of Ipswich our Lady of Wilsdon and such other What is it but an imitation of the Gentiles Idolaters Diana Agrotera Diana Coriphea Diana Ephesia c. Venus Cypria Venus Paphia Venus Gnidia Whereby is evidently meant that the Saint for the Image sake should in those places yea in the Images themselves have a dwelling which is the ground of their Idolatry For where no Images be they have no such means Terentius Varro sheweth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his Time there were no fewer Veneres and Dianae we had no fewer Christophers Ladies Mary Magdalenes and other Saints Oenomaus and Hesiodus shew that in their time there were thirty thousand Gods I think we had no fewer Saints to whom we gave the honour due to God And they have not only spoiled the true living God of his due Honour in Temples Cities Countries and Lands by such Devices and Inventions as the Gentiles Idolaters have done before them But the Sea and Waters have as well special Saints with them as they had Gods with the Gentiles Neptune Triton Nereus Castor and Pollux Venus and such other In whole places be come Saint Christopher Saint Clement and divers other and specially our Lady to whom Shipmen sing Ave Maris stella Neither hath the Fire scaped the idolatrous inventions For instead of Vulcan and Vesta the Gentiles Gods of the Fire our men have placed Saint Agatha and make Letters on her day for to quench Fire with Every Artificer and Profession hath his special Saint as a peculiar God As for Example Scholars have Saint Nicholas and Saint Gregory Printers Saint Luke neither lack Souldiers their Mars nor Lovers their Venus amongst Christians All Diseases have their special Saints as Gods the curers of them The Por Saint Roche the Falling Evil Saint Cornelis the 〈◊〉 Saint Appolin c. Neither do Eeasts and 〈◊〉 lack their Gods with us for Saint Loy is the Dorseleech and Saint Anthony the Swineherd c. Where is God's Providence and due Honour in the mean season who saith The Heavens be mine and the Earth is mine c. But we have left him neither Heaven nor Earth nor Water nor Countrey nor City Peace nor War to rule and govern neither Men nor Beasts nor their Diseases to Cure that a Godly man might justly for zealous indignation cry out O Heaven O Earth and Seas what madness and wickedness against God are men fallen into What dishonour do the Creatures to their Creator and Maker And if we remember God sometime yet because we doubt of his Ability or Will to help we joyn to him another Helper as if he were a Noun Adjective using these sayings Such as Learn God and Saint Nicholas be my speed such as Neese God help and Saint John To the Horse God and Saint Loy save thee Thus are we become like Horses and Bules which have no understanding For is there not one God only who by his Power and Wisdom made all things and by his Providence governeth the same and by his goodness maintaineth and faveth them Be not all Things
Son of God and laid all the fault upon his Followers because they had done it of their own Heads but likewise he repeats and inculcates it all over his Alcoran that there is but one God only and no more And in one place I remember he gives this reason for it There is but one God and no more and he has no Son for he never had a Wife But now there 's an end of that Turkish Argument And now likewise the Secret is out For I confess it has often amazed me to see the extravagant Blasphemies which are used in their prayers to the Virgin Mary as when they call her the Fountain of Mercy which is the brightest and loveliest apprehension of God that can possess the minds of Creatures when they call her Empress of Heaven who upheld the Cherubim and Seraphim from falling there I thought them mad whom all the Angels worship that methought was but reasonable supposing the former whom the Sun Moon and Stars and the whole Creation are called upon to praise and magnify as if she had been the Maker of them all and who threw Pharaoh and his Host into the Red Sea there thought I they make old Time go back a thousand years for this piece of Flattery Whereas this unthought of Relation entitles her to every thing that is was or can be in the Universal World Methinks such rank Blasphemy as this should poyson the Air into which it is breathed forth and blast the whole Creation round about I am sure it will make the Ears of all Christians to tingle and raise their Blood against such an horrid Religion And thus I have proved the Papists out of their own blasphemous mouths to be Polytheists in setting up Saints and Angels for Gods and in giving Divine Honour to them I have employed no other Argument at present to prove this than only their prayers to them whereas I might have used very many others as he that will read the Homily against Peril of Idolatry may easily see Against certain truth I know there cannot possibly be any material Objection but I would answer all trifling ones if I could foresee them It may be the Papists will say They do not make the Angels and Saints Gods because they make them in many respects inferior to God Were the Heathen Gods no Gods because Jupiter was King of them Was Vulcan no God because he was only armed with an Hammer and not with the Soveraign Thunderbolt What difference the heathens made betwixt Jupiter and the other Gods you may in part see by this following passage taken out of Maximin's Edict upon a Pillar in Tyrus The highest and greatest Jupiter who presides over your famous City and delivers the Gods of your Country your Wives and Children and Houses from all destructive Calamity c. These poor helpless Gods were so far from being Omnipotent that they needed the protection of Jupiter as much as the meanest of their Votaries Or it may be they will say They reserve peculiar Worship and Services to God which they do not communicate to Saints For they tell us They celebrate the Mass indeed in memory and honour of the Saints but the Priest never uses to say I offer Sacrifice to thee Peter or Paul namely this Sacrifice of the Mass. For that they offer all other Sacrifices if it please God to give me Life and Health I shall hereafter fully prove and then they shall hear more of this deceitful Juggle too and of the Tricks they have played with St. Austin's words We grant they do not offer the Sacrifice of the Mass to the Saints but to the Trinity So that they offer the Son of God to himself and according to the usual decorum which they constantly observe in that awkerd Religion which is made to spite the Reason of Mankind As our Saviour once heretofore sat at the Table discoursing and lay sowering in twelve several mens Stomachs at the same time so now he is every day in person both the Sacrifice it self upon Earth and the God in Heaven to whom it is offered None but such a Fool as I am would stand arguing and disputing with these men whom all the Reason upon Earth can never distress by reducing them to Impossibilities or Absurdities when they own and profess these Absurdities and Contradictions of their own accord it would certainly be more wisdom to go and preach as Venerable Beds once did to a heap of stones But to proceed nevertheless are not we to take it for a great favour that they do not offer the Great God of Heaven in Sacrifice to Thomas of 〈◊〉 The Gentiles Idolaters were so far from offering Jupiter in Sacrifice to any petty God that I never yet read that they offered him in Sacrifice to himself There is no consequence at all in this reasoning The Papists do not offer the Sacrifice of the Mass to Saints and Angels but only to the Trinity therefore they do not make Saints and Angels Gods For had not the Heathens proper Sacrifices for Jupiter which were sacred only to him and yet this did not destroy the Divinity of the other Deiries It makes no more difference amongst the Gods nor affects their God-head any more to have this or that particular Sacrifice offered or not offered to them than it did for 〈◊〉 to have a great Beard and his Father Apollo to have none at all Lastly The Papists may possibly say That there is great difference betwixt the Gods of the Pagans and the Saints which they honour and worship the former having been lewd men and sometimes feigned persons the latter being such as we Hereticks pay some respect to though not enough I shall not now enter into the merits of that Cause but refer them to a great Prelate of our Church who has told them That they Worship Saints in Heaven and Saints in Hell and Saints that are in neither place nor ever were in being Though by the way I cannot find any such great difference betwixt Romulus and Ignatius Loyola the one having been in his time the Governour of a Den of Thieves and the other the Captain General of the Modern Banditi and it is all one to me whether they worship the Nine Muses or the Seven sleepers for still the Polytheism remains the same they have indeed chang'd their Gods but not their Religion CHAP. XI Their Idolatry ACcording to my former Method I shall 1. shew that the Church of England has all along charged the Papists with Idolatry And 2. I shall make good that Charge upon them out of their own Mouths 1. The Church of England has all along charged the Papists with Idolatry The Homilies I am sure charge them with it above an hundred times over out of which I shall make choice of some few Instances Speaking of the Ages of Popery It is evident that Images Superstition and worshipping of Images and Idolatry have continued many hundred