the Church of Rome they do nothing but pray to the Saints to pray for them And it is a very pitiful shift that Bellarmin is put to whereby to excuse such prayers as these That indeed as to the words themselves they do imply more than praying to them to pray for us but the sense of the words he saith is no more But whence I pray must the people take the sense of such prayers as these are if not from the signification of the words If this were all why in all this time that these prayers have been complained of hath not their sense been better expressed Have not their Breviaries been often reviewed if this had not been their meaning why have they not been expunged all this while Suppose then that any persons in the Roman Church as no doubt most do take their sense from the words and do not force it upon them and they pray according to the form prescribed do they well or ill in it If they do ill in it their Church is guilty of intolerable negligence in not preventing it if they do well then their Church allows of more than praying to Angels and Saints to pray for them Bellarmins instances of the Apostles in Scripture being said to save men do shew what shifts a bad cause will put a man to For will any man in his wits say the case is the same in ordinary speech and in prayer Is it all one for a man to say that his Staff helped him in his going and to fall down upon his knees to pray to his Staff to help him God did use the Apostles as instruments on earth to promote the salvation of mankind but may we therefore pray to them now in Heaven to save us May we not truly say that the Sun enlightens the world but may we therefore pray to the Sun to enlighten us No the Sun is but Gods instrument and our addresses must be in prayer to the Supream Lord over all But to take his own explication of praying to them for these things i. e. praying to them that they would pray to God for them as we desire one another to pray would not that man be condemned of gross Idolatry or prodigious folly who instead of desiring his Friends to pray to God for the pardon of his sins and the assistance of Divine Grace should say to them I pray you pardon my sins and assist me with the Grace of God What would St. Paul have said to such men that should have asked such things of him who yet saith that he was an instrument of saving some § 14. 2. Supposing this were all that were done and allowed in the Roman Church yet this would not excuse them for their practice is very different in their Invocation of Saints from desiring our Brethren on Earth to pray for us And I cannot but wonder how any men of common sense can suffer themselves to be imposed upon so easily in this matter For is there really no difference in St. Pauls desiring his Brethren to pray for him as he often did and a mans falling down upon his knees with all the solemnity of devotion he uses to God himself to St. Paul to desire him to pray for him when he was present upon earth and did certainly know what he desired of him Suppose in the midst of the solemn devotions of the Church where St. Peter or St. Paul had been present the Letanies of the Church had been then as they are now and after they had prayed to the persons of the Holy Trinity the people should with the same postures and expression of devotion have immediately turned themselves to the Apostles and cryed only Peter and Paul pray for us do you think this would have been acceptable to them No doubt St. Peter would have been less pleased with this than with Cornelius only falling down before him and yet then he bid him stand up I my self also am a man They who impute this only to his modesty will not allow him to carry it to Heaven with him For they suppose him to be very well pleased with that honour in Heaven which he refused on earth And St. Paul would have rent his garments and cryed out as he did to the men of Lystra Why do ye these things we also are men of like passions with you They would not receive any honour that might in the least seem to incroach upon the divine honour and yet they might upon better grounds have done it to them on earth than now in Heaven because they were then sure they heard them which now they can never be And would it not be a senseless thing to desire some excellent person in the Indies when we are at our solemn devotion to pray for us because it is possible God may at the same time reveal our minds to him I would willingly be informed if we had assurance of the Sanctity of a person in this life as great as they have in the Church of Rome of those they invocate whether there would be any evil at all in publick places of worship and at the time used for the service of God to set such a person up in some higher place of the Church to burn incense before him to prostrate themselves with hands and eyes lifted up to him if at last they pretended that all that time they only prayed to him to pray for them And certainly a good man is much more the Image of God and deserves more reverence than all the artificial Images of Saints or of God himself If they will condemn this they may conceive that supposing they only prayed to Saints in their devotions to pray for them this would not excuse them For they do it in those places at such times and in such a manner as highly incroaches upon the worship and service due to God alone § 15. 2. I now come to consider whether the answer given by St. Austin will vindicate them and whether invocation of Saints as it is now practised in the Church of Rome were allowed or in use then Here he tells us That Faustus the Manichean calumniates the Catholicks the word is St. Austins he saith and we do not quarrel with the word but that they are not such Catholicks as St. Austin speaks of because they honoured the Memories or Shrines of Martyrs charged them to have turned the Idols into Martyrs whom they worshipped said he with like vows To shew how very far what St. Austin saith is from justifying the present practices of the Roman Church we need no more than barely to represent what St. Austin affirms and what he denyes He affirms that it was the custom of the Christians in his time to have their religious Assemblies at the Sepulchres or Memories of the Martyrs where the place it self would raise their affections and quicken their love towards the Martyrs and towards God but he utterly denyes that any religious worship
or Heathenish fornication was here only reprehended as Jewish or Heathenish Idolatry But as the one is a foul sin whether it be committed by Jew Pagan or Christian so if such as profess the Name of Christ shall practise that which the Word of God condemneth in Jews or Pagans for Idolatry their profession is so far from diminishing that it augmenteth rather the hainousness of the crime About the same time came forth Bishop Downams Book of Antichrist wherein he doth at large prove That to give divine honour to a creature is Idolatry and that the Papists do give it in the Worship of Saints the Host and Images which is likewise done nearer our own times by Bishop Davenant and Dr. Jackson I shall conclude all although I might produce more with the testimony of Archbishop Laud who in his Conference saith the ancient Church knew not the adoration of Images and the modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtleties in her Servants writings that defend it this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtleties or shun her practice and in his Marginal Notes upon Bellarmin written with his own hand now in my possession where Bellarmin answers the testimony of the Council of Laodicea against the Worship of Angels by saying That it doth not condemn all Worship of Images but only that which is proper to God he replyes That Theodoret who produced that testimony of the Council expresly mentions the praying to Angels therefore saith he the praying to them was that Idolatry which the Council condemns By this we see that the most Eminent and Learned Defenders of our Church of greatest authority in it and zeal for the Cause of it against enemies of all sorts have agreed in the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome And I cannot see why the authority of some very few persons though of great Learning should bear sway against the constant opinion of our Church ever since the Reformation Since our Church is not now to be formed according to the singular Fancies of some few though Learned men much less to be modelled by the Caprichio's of Superstitious Fanaticks who prefer some odd Opinions and wayes of their own before the received doctrine and practice of the Church they live in Such as these we rather pity their weakness than regard their censures and are only sorry when our Adversaries make such properties of them as by their means to beget in some a disaffection to our Church Which I am so far from whatever malice and peevishness may suggest to the contrary that upon the greatest enquiry I can make I esteem it the best Church of the Christian world and think my time very well imployed what ever thanks I meet with for it in defending its Cause and preserving persons in the communion of it THE Contents 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 parallell answered P. 49 CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith p. 108. CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroyes the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English
only suppose him to be really present under the form of bread but because we know and believe this upon the same grounds and Motives upon which we believe and those Motives stronger than any Protestant hath if he have no other than the Catholick to believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored And therefore that you may the better see the inefficaciousness of the Argument suppose it dropt from the Pen of an Arrian against the adoration of Christ as God and it will be of as much force to evince that to be Idolatry as it is from the Objection to prove the adoration of him in the Eucharist to be so see there how an Arrian might argue in the same form The same Argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same Argument whereby the Protestants make the Worship of Christ a pure man sayes the Arrian not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose Christ to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God c. Now the same answer which solves the Arrians argument against the adoration of Christ as God serves no less to solve the Objectors Argument against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since we have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental Signs as we have for his being true God and Man But what if Catholicks should be mistaken in their belief would it then follow that they were Idolaters Dr. Taylor an Eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants denyes the consequence His words are these in the Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. Numb 26. Idolatry sayes he is a forsaking the true God and giving Divine Worship to a creature or to an Idol that is to an Imaginary God who hath no foundation in Essence or Existence And this is that kind of superstition which by Divines is called the superstition of an undue object Now it is evident that the object of their that is the Catholicks adoration that which is represented to them in their minds their thoughts and purposes and by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions in the blessed Sacrament is the only true and eternal God hypostatically joyned with his holy humanity which humanity they believe actually present under the Veil of the Sacramental Signs and if they thought him not present they are so far from worshipping the bread in this case that themselves profess it Idolatry to do so which is a demonstration mark that that their soul hath nothing in it that is Idolatrical If their confidence and fanciful opinion so he terms the faith of Catholicks hath engaged them upon so great a mistake as without doubt he sayes it hath yet the will hath nothing in it but what is a great enemy to Idolatry Et nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas that is Nothing burns in Hell but proper Will Thus Dr. Taylor and I think it will be a task worthy the Objectors pains to solve his Argument if he will not absolve us from being Idolaters § 7. He proceeds to prove that Catholicks are guilty of Idolatry by their Invocation of Saints And his Argument is this If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathens Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in justification of the Invocation of Saints To answer this Argument I shall need little more than to explicate the hard words in it which thus I do By persons of a middle excellency we understand persons endowed with supernatural gifts of Grace in this life and Glory in Heaven whose prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God what he means by formal Invocation I understand not well but what we understand by it is desiring or praying those just persons to pray for us The Supream Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deities venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls them The gods of the Heathens are Devils The terms thus explicated 't is easie to see the inconsequence of the Argument that because the Heathens were Idolaters in worshipping Mars and Venus their inferiour Deities or rather Devils though they pretended not to give them the Worship proper to Jupiter their Supream God Therefore the Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him upon this account we must not desire the prayer of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deity But if some Sect of Heathens as the Platonists did attain to the knowledge of the true God yet St. Paul says they did not glorifie him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible man adoring and offering Sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them Which inferiour Deities St. Austin upon the ninety sixth Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required Sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods Now what comparison there is between this worship of the Heathens inferiour Deities and Christians worship of Saints and Angels let the same St. Austin declare in his twentieth Book against Faustus the Manichaean chap. 21. Faustus there calumniates the Catholicks the word is St. Austins because they honoured the Memories or Shrines of Martyrs charging them to have turned the Idols into Martyrs whom they worship said he with like Vows The Objection you see is not new that Catholicks make inferiour Deities of their Saints Faustus long ago made it and St. Austins answer will serve as well now as then Christian people sayes he do with religious solemnity celebrate the memory of Martyrs both to excite to the imitation of them and to become partakers of their Merits and be holpen by their prayers but to that we erect Altars not to any of the Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs although in memory of the said Martyrs For what Bishop officiating at the Altar in the places where their holy bodies are deposited does say at any time we offer to thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian but what is offered to God who crown'd the Martyrs at the memories or Shrines of those whom he crowned that being put in mind by the very places a greater affection may be raised in us to quicken our love both to those whom we may imitate and towards him by whose assistance we can do it We worship therefore the
an image if not in one neither is it in the other But what doth this answer signifie unless there be an equal presence and union of the Divine nature of Christ with the Image as there was with the humane nature Which union was the reason of the adoration given to the person of Christ and what ground can there be then of giving divine worship to the Image of Christ unless the same union be supposed If the humane nature without the union of the divine could yield us no sufficient reason of divine worship being given to it how much less can an Image deserve it which can only at the best represent but the external lineaments of that humane nature And if the divine nature be supposed united with the Image then the same divine honour is due to the Image of Christ which is to God himself which yet these Nicene Fathers deny and the Image then joyned with the divine nature is as proper an object of divine worship without respect to any Prototype as the person of Christ is consisting of the divine and humane nature Again they urge If the humane nature of Christ be represented in the Image of Christ to be worshipped as separate from the divine this would be plain Nestorianism To this the good Nicene Fathers not knowing what to answer plainly deny the conclusion and cry They Nestorians No they lye in their teeth they were no more Nestorians than themselves nor so much neither And now good men they say It is true they do represent Christ only by his humane nature in an Image and when they look on Images they understand nothing but what is signified by them as when the birth of the Virgin is represented they conceive in their minds that he who was born was truly God as well as man Alas for them that they should ever be charged with the worship of Images They plead for nothing now but a help to their profound Meditations by them But the Controversie was about worship what ever they think and their Adversaries argument did not lye in the Images being considered as an object of perception but of worship i. e. if the Image can only represent the humane nature of Christ as separate from the divine and in that respect be an object of worship to us then the charge of Nestorianism follows but this they very wisely pass by and their distinction of the Image from the principal cannot serve their turn since the Image receiving the worship due to the principal must have not only the name as they say but the reason of worship common with the principal which it represents After this the Fathers of Constantinople proceed to another Argument which is That all the representation of Christ allowed us by the Gospel is that which Christ himself instituted in the Elements of the Lords Supper whose use was to put us in remembrance of Christ. No other Figure or Type being chosen by Christ as able to represent his being in the flesh but this This was an honourable Image of his quickning body made by himself say they which he would not have of the shape of a man to prevent Idolatry but of a common nature as he took upon him the common nature of man and not any individuated person and as the body of Christ was really sanctified by the divine nature so by institution this holy Image is made divine through sanctification by Grace Here the Nicene Council quarrels with them for calling the Eucharist an Image contrary as they say to the Scriptures and Fathers but they are as much to be believed therein as in their admirable proofs that the worship of Images was the constant doctrine of the Church and having strenuously denyed this they suppose that to be enough to answer the argument Besides these particular arguments against the Images of Christ the Council of Constantinople useth many more against the Images of any other Because these being the chief there can be less reason for any other besides that there is no tradition of Christ or his Apostles or the primitive Fathers for them no way of consecration of them prescribed or practised no suitableness in the use of them to the design of Christian Religion which being in the middle between Iudaism and Paganism it casts off the Sacrifices of the one and not only the Sacrifices but all the Idolatries of the other and it is blasphemy to the Saints in Heaven to call in the Heathen superstitions into Christianity to honour them by that it is unbecoming their glory in Heaven to be set up on earth in dull and sensless Images that Christ himself would not receive testimony from Devils though they spake truth neither can such a Heathenish custome be acceptable to the Saints in Heaven though pretended to be for their honour That nothing can be plainer in the Gospel than that God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and in truth to which nothing can be more contrary than the going about to honour God by worshipping any Image of himself or his Saints These and many other arguments from the Scriptures and Fathers that Council insists upon to shew the incongruity of the worship of Images to the nature of God and the design of the Christian Religion to which the Council of Nice returns very weak and trivial answers as shall more largely appear if any one thinks good to defend them And we have this apparent advantage on our side that although the Popes of Rome sided with these worshippers of Images yet the Council at Francford condemned it called together by Charles the Great Not out of misunderstanding their Doctrine as some vainly imagine because as Vasquez well proves the Copy of the Nicene Council was sent to them by Pope Adrian because the Acts of that Council were very well known to the Author of the Book written upon this subject under the name of Charles the Great and published by du Tillet at Paris about the middle of the last Century which is acknowledged by their learnedst men to have been written at the same time because the Popes Legats Theophylactus and Stephanus were present and might easily rectifie any mistake if they were guilty of it and none of the Historians of that time do take notice of any such error among them But Vasquez runs into another strange mistake himself that the Council of Francford did not condemn that of Nice which is evident they did expresly by the second Canon of of that Council published by Sirmondus And all the Objections of Vasquez are taken off by what Sirmondus speaks of the great authority and antiquity of that MS. from which he published them and from the consent of the Historians of that time that the Council of Francford did reject that of Nice and Sirmondus saith they had good reason to deny it to be an Oecumenical Council where only the Greeks met together and none of other Provinces were called
application of Worship due to a real object of adoration i. e. whether a man giving adoration to what he believes to be God which is not so in it self be not as excusable as believing a true object of adoration in general but giving divine worship to that which is not it as whether the Worshipping false Gods supposing them to be true be not as venial a fault as Worshipping that for the true God which is not so as for instance suppose the Aegyptians Worshipping the Sun for God and the Israelites the golden Calf believing it was the true God which brought them out of the Land of Aegypt or let us take one of the Inca's of Peru who believed by a Tradition supposed infallible among them that the Sun was their Father and the visible God by which the Invisible did govern the World and therefore they ought to give all external adoration to the Sun and internal only to the Invisible Deity upon what account shall these be charged with Idolatry if an involuntary mistake and firm belief that they worship the true God doth excuse from it Nay the most stupid and senseless of all Idolaters who worshipped the very Images for Gods which the wisest among them alwayes disclaimed and pretended only such a relative worship as he pleads for were in truth the most excusable upon this ground for supposing that it be true which they believed they did a very good thing and which every person else ought to do upon the same belief Which is the utmost can be said for the Papists adoration of the Host supposing the doctrine of transubstantiation were as true as it is false and absurd § 8. 3. As to invocation of Saints I found the chief answer given was this That they did not attribute the same kind of excellency to Saints which they give to God but suppose only a middle sort of excellency between God and us which they make the foundation of the worship which is given to them And as to this my argument was thus framed If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be sufficient ground for formal invocation then the Heathens worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for they still pretended they did not give to them the worship proper to the supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papists in justification of the Invocation of Saints To this he answers two wayes 1. By shewing the disparity of the Heathens worship from theirs in two things 1. In the object 2. In the manner of their worship 1. The persons whom they worship he saith are such as are endowed with supernatural gifts of grace in this life and glory in Heaven whose prayers by consequence are acceptable and available with God but the Supream Deity of the Heathens is known to be Jupiter and their inferiour Deities Venus Mars Bacchus Vulcan and the like rabble of Devils as the Scripture calls them and therefore there can be no consequence that because the Heathens were Idolaters in the worship of these though they pretended not to give them the worship proper to Jupiter the supream God therefore the Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry in desiring the servants of the true God to pray for them to him 2. As to the manner of worship he saith If any of them did attain as the Platonists to the knowledge of the true God yet as St. Paul sayes they did not glorifie him as God but changed his glory into an Image made like to corruptible man adoring and offering sacrifice due to God alone to the Statues themselves or the inferiour Deities they supposed to dwell or assist in them which St. Austin upon the 90. Psalm proves to be Devils or evil Angels because they required sacrifice to be offered to them and would be worshipped as Gods But all he means by formal Invocation he saith is desiring or praying the Saints to pray for them And if this were Idolatry we must not desire the prayers of a just man even in this life because this formal invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity 2. He answers that the same calumny was cast upon the Catholicks in St. Austins time and is answered by him and his answer will serve as well now as then in his twentieth Book against Faustus Chap. 21. who himself held formal Invocation a part of the worship due to Saints as is evident from the prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdom l. 7. de bapt c. Donat. c. 1. and Calvin confesseth he saith it was the custom at that time to say Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us This is his full answer in which are two things to be examined 1. Whether the disparity between the Heathen worship and theirs be so great as to excuse them from Idolatry 2. Whether the answer given by St. Austin doth vindicate them and whether Invocation of Saints as it is now practised in the Church of Rome were allowed or in use then § 9. 1. Concerning the disparity 1. As to the object of worship Far be it from me to parallel the Holy Angels and Saints with the impure Deities of the Heathens as to their excellencies but the true state of the Question is whether the Heathens were only too blame in making an ill choice of those they worshipped as in worshipping Iupiter and Venus and Vulcan who are supposed to have been wicked wretches or else in giving divine worship to any besides the true God And if their Idolatry lay not only in the former but the latter then this disparity cannot excuse them There were two Questions in debate between the Primitive Fathers of the Christian Church and the Heathen Idolaters The first was more general and in thesi whether it were lawful to give divine worship to any besides the true and Supream God The second was more particular and in hypothesi whether on supposition that were lawful those whom the Heathens worshipped were fit objects for such adoration In this latter they triumph over them with a great deal of eloquence laying open the impiety of those whom they commonly worshipped but withal knowing that the wiser among them had another notion of these Deities under the common names than the Vulgar had they therefore charge them with Idolatry in giving the worship proper to God to any creature let it be never so excellent and serviceable to mankind and that it was the property of the Christian Religion to give divine worship to none but God himself and his Son Christ Iesus without ever making any distinctions of absolute and relative worship which they must have been driven to in case they had given Religious worship to any besides Thus Iustin Martyr tells the Heathen Emperours to whom he makes his Apology for the Christians that Christ did perswade men to worship God alone by saying this is the great Commandment thou shalt worship the Lord thy God
no material difference that the Heathen called those they worshipped Gods but they do not so in the Roman Church For St. Austin saith there was scarce any difference between the Heathen and them about the name whether Angels might be called Gods or no for he thinks that they are called so in Scripture as well as Origen but the Question was about the thing whether they were to be Worshipped as Gods or no i. e. by giving any part of religious worship to them which they utterly deny And were I in the communion of the Roman Church I should much less scruple calling Canonized Saints or Angels by the names of Gods than giving them the worship of Invocation or the honour of Sacrifices but in so doing they are not only condemned by plain Scripture and reason but by those of the primitive Church who writ against the Heathen Idolatry which was the thing to be shewed § 13. 2. Another disparity is insisted on by him which is as to the manner of Worship And as to this he saith all that they understand by formal invocation is desiring or praying those Iust persons who are in glory in heaven to pray for us and if the Catholicks be guilty of Idolatry in this we must not desire the prayers of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deitie To shew the palpable weakness of this answer I shall prove these two things 1. That those in the Church of Rome do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts 2. That supposing this were all it would not excuse them and that it is of a very different nature from desiring the prayers of just men for us in this life 1. That they do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts He might very well say he did understand well what I meant by formal Invocation when he makes this to be the meaning of it for never any person before him imagined that sense of it And that term of formal Invocation was purposely chosen by me to distinguish it from the rhetorical Apostrophe's of some of the Greek Fathers the Poetical Flourishes of Damasus Prudentius and Paulinus from general wishes that the Saints would pray for us Of which are some instances in good Authors from assemblies at the monuments of Martyrs which were usual in ancient times and that which I thought any man would understand by it was that which is constantly practised in the Roman Church viz. in places and times purposely appointed for divine and religious worship with all the same external signes of devotion which we use to God himself to offer up our Prayers to Saints or Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us The former part none can be ignorant of that have but so much as heard of the devotion of the Church of Rome all the difficulty lies in that whether they pray to them to help their necessities as well as pray for them And so many forms of Prayer allowed and practised in their Church have been so often objected to them wherein these things are manifest that I cannot but wonder this should be denyed Do they believe we never look into their Breviaries Rosaries Houres and other Books of Devotion wherein to this day such Prayers are to be found Do they think we never heard of the Offices of the B. Virgin or our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book never yet censured wherein the Psalmes in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the V. Mary I have known my self intelligent persons of their Church who commit their souls to the V. Maries protection every day as we do to Almighty Gods and such who thought they understood the doctrine and practice of their Church as well as others But Madam these are mysteries not to be known till they have their Proselytes safe and fast enough then by degrees they let them know what is to be done when they have given away all liberty of judging for themselves Then it is no matter what they are commanded or expected to do they must do as others do or else their sincerity is questioned and they are thought Hereticks in their hearts whatever they profess I shall not insist upon any ancient Breviaries or obsolete Forms or private Devotions which yet they are accountable for till they do condemn them I need no more than the present Roman Breviary restored according to the Council of Trent and authorized by three several Popes In the Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as though it were not enough in the Antiphonae to say Hail Blessed Virgin thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the world but lest this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son a formal Invocation of her follows Vouchsafe to let me praise thee O Holy Virgin and give me strength against thy enemies And in the Hymn frequently used in her Office and particularly that day she is not only called the Gate of Heaven but she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is in the Mass-book at Paris 1634. Iure Matris impera redemptori as thou art a Mother command the Redeemer In a word They pray to her therein for purity of life and a safe conduct to Heaven But lest the Hymns should be thought only Poetical in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives Aug. 5. a formal prayer is made to her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn and that all who celebrate her holy Festivity may feel her assistance By which we may understand the meaning of that solemn Hymn used in her Office wherein she is called the Mother of Mercy and Clemency and is prayed to protect us from our enemies and to receive us in the hour of death Is all this only praying to her to pray for us What could be more said to Almighty God or his Son Iesus Christ Nor is this devotion only to the Blessed Virgin but we shall see it alike in that to Angels and Saints in the Antiphona upon the apparition of Michael the Archangel May 8. he is prayed to come to the help of the people of God And in the Feast of the Guardian Angels recommended to all Catholicks by Paul the fifth in the last words of the Breviary they are prayed to defend them in War that they may not perish in Gods terrible judgement In the Hymn to the Holy Apostles they are prayed to command the guilty to be loosed from their guilt to heal unsound minds and to increase their vertues that when Christ shall come they may be partakers of eternal glory These may suffice for a present taste of the sincerity of such persons who say that in
private Spirit is not for all these things are necessarily implyed therein And so for all particular doctrines rejected by us upon this principle we do not make them Negative points of faith but we therefore refuse the belief of them because not contained in our only rule of faith On this account we reject the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation Infalibility of the present Church in delivering points of faith Purgatory and other fopperies imposed upon the belief of Christians So that the short resolution of our faith is this that we ought to believe nothing as an Article of faith but what God hath revealed and that the compleat revelation of Gods will to us is contained in the Bible and the resolution of our worship is into this principle that God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and therefore whether they be Saints or Angels Sun Moon and Stars whether the Elements of a Sacrament or of the World whether Crosses and Reliques or Woods and Fountains or any sort of Images in a word no creature whatsoever is to be worshipped with religious worship because that is proper to God alone And if this principle will excuse them from Idolatry I desire him to make the best of it And if he gives no more satisfactory answer hereafter than he hath already done the greatest charity I can use to those of that Church is to wish them repentance which I most heartily do CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroys the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English 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 people 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 § 1. 2. THe second Reason I gave why persons run so great a hazard of their salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because that Church is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by opinions and practices which are very apt to hinder a good life which is necessary to salvation But 1. This necessity I said was taken off by their making the Sacrament of Pennance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation Here he saith That Protestants do make contrition alone which is less sufficient for salvation and our Church allowing confession and absolution which make the Sacrament of Pennance in case of trouble of conscience they being added to contrition cannot make it of a malignant nature To this I answer That contrition alone is not by us made sufficient for salvation For we believe that as no man can be saved without true repentance so that true repentance doth not lye meerly in contrition for sins For godly sorrow in Scripture is said to work repentance to salvation not to be repented of and it cannot be the cause and effect both together Repentance in Scripture implyes a forsaking of sin as it were very easie to prove if it be thought necessary and without this we know not what ground any man hath to hope for the pardon of it although he confess it and be absolved a thousand times over and have remorse in his mind for it when he doth confess it And therefore I had cause to say that they of the Church of Rome destroy the necessity of a good life when they declare a man to be in a state of salvation if he hath a bare contrition for his sins and confess them to the Priest and be absolved by him For to what end should a man put himself to the trouble of mortifying his passions and forsaking his sins if he commits them again he knows a present remedy toties quoties it is but confessing with sorrow and upon absolution he is as whole as if he had not sinned And is it possible to imagine a doctrine that more effectually overthrows the necessity of a good life than this doth I cannot but think if this doctrine were true all the Precepts of Holiness in the Christian Religion were insignificant things But this is a doctrine fitted to make all that are bad and willing to continue so to be their Proselytes when so cheap and easie a way of salvation is believed by them especially if we enquire into the explication of this doctrine among the Doctors of that Church I cannot better express this than in the words of Bishop Taylor whom he deservedly calls an eminent leading man among the Protestants where after he hath mentioned their doctrines about contrition The sequel of all he saith is this that if a man live a wicked life for sixty or eighty years together yet if in the article of his death sooner than which God say they hath not commanded him to repent by being a little sorrowful for his sins then resolving for the present that he will do so no more and though this sorrow hath in it no love of God but only a fear of Hell and a hope that God will pardon him this if the Priest absolves him doth instantly pass him into a state of salvation The Priest with two Fingers and a Thumb can do his work for him only he must be greatly prepared and disposed to receive it greatly we say according to the sense of the Roman Church for he must be
is a thing no man would believe who suffered in such a case He might indeed say that he did not exercise the utmost rigour of Iustice but would hardly be brought to magnifie the infinite clemency and kindness of his Creditor But we that desire to understand the way of salvation as it is delivered by our Lord Iesus Christ and to be saved in that way cannot for our hearts understand any more by his doctrine but that men shall be saved if they believe and obey his doctrine and shall be condemned if they do it not We find nothing of half saving and half damning men such as the state of Purgatory is believed to be in the Church of Rome For the pains of person therein are said to be as great as the damned in Hell and yet all this while God is their Friend and they are sure to be saved They had need in such a case call in the help of their Friends on earth if God be so ill a Friend in Heaven And can he not believe that it is a far greater encouragement to a Spend-thrift to be told indeed of a dreadful Prison but such as if he leaves but money behind him to imploy his friends in begging his pardon he shall be surely delivered than to be assured if he continues his folly there will be no redemption or hopes of deliverance when he is once cast into it I dare appeal to any one who can but understand what we speak of whether of these two is the more probable way of reclaiming a man from riotous courses but that which is beyond this is that the one is most certainly true the other but a meer figment of the brains of men who have contrived a way to bring wicked men to Heaven at last although somewhat the farther way about and it must cost them dear for their Friends to help them through § 3. 3. After I had shewed how much the necessity and care of a good life were obstructed by the principles of the Roman Church I proceeded to shew how the sincerity of devotion was hindered among them by several particulars 1. By prayers in a language which many understand not To this he answers If I speak of private prayers all Catholicks are taught to say them in their Mother Tongue If of the publick prayers of the Church he understands not why it may not be done with as much sincerity of devotion the people joyning their intention and particular prayers with the Priest as their Embassadour to God as if they understood him he is sure the effects of a sincere devotion for nine hundred years together which this manner of worship produced in this Nation were much different from those we have seen since the reducing the publick Liturgy into English for which he instances in building and endowing Churches Colledges Religious Houses and the conversion of several Nations by English Missionaries But this he saith is a matter of Discipline and not to be regulated by the fancies of private men but the judgement of the Church and withal is confessed by some Protestants that most Sects of Christians have the Scriptures Liturgies and Rituals in a Tongue unknown but to the Learned and therefore according to St. Austin it is insolent madness to dispute that which is frequented by the whole Church through the world For our more distinct proceeding in answer to this three things are to be considered 1. Whether praying in a known or unknown tongue do more conduce to devotion 2. Whether this whole matter be a thing left in the power of the Church to determine 3. Whether prayers in an unknown tongue be universally received in all other parts of the Christian world 1. Whether of these conduce more to devotion is our main enquiry And if praying in an unknown tongue doth so I wonder he tells us that all Catholicks are taught to say them in their Mother-tongue Why so I pray Is it that by understanding what they speak their minds might be more attentive and their affections more raised in the desires of the things they pray for And will not the same arguments more hold for publick prayer wherein all the Congregation are to joyn together So that their private prayers condemn their publick unless Latin in the Church be of greater force than uttered in a Closet But can it enter into the minds of any men who consider what the end of meeting together to pray is that such an end should as much or more be attained where people know not what they say as where they do If all the business of Christian worship were only to patter over a few words as if there were no difference between prayers and charms what he saith were to some purpose but that is so dishonourable a thing to Christian Religion that it is hard to say whether they have more corrupted the doctrine or the devotion of the Christian Church If I saw a company of Indians met together with their Priest among them using many antick gestures and Mimical postures and speaking many words which the people muttered after him but understood not what they said I might probably suspect they were conjuring but should hardly believe them if they called that praying I could not but enquire of them what they meant by praying If they told me saying so many hard words which they understood not I had done with them but should shrewdly suspect the knavery of their Priests If they told me by praying they meant expressing their desires of the things they stood in need of to the God they worshipped I could not but ask of them whether it were not necessary for them to know what it was they asked or how could they desire they knew not what Or whether the God they worshipped understood only that one tongue and so they were fain to speak to him in his own language This I confess were a sufficient reason and in that case the people were to be pittied if they could not learn that tongue themselves But supposing all languages equally known to him we make our addresses to why should not the people use that which they understand themselves Are their prayers like counterfeit Iewels that the less they understand them the better they like them It may justly give men some suspicion that there are not fair dealings where so little light is allowed to judge by and that devotion commended most which Ignorance is the Mother of We think it as unreasonable to desire the people to say Amen to prayers they know not the meaning of as for men to set their hands to Petitions without reading what is contained in them It is a great chance if they do not mistake to their own great prejudice and do what they repent of afterwards We declare that our meeting together to worship God is to joyn together our hearty prayers which the more the people understand the better their minds are satisfied in what they desire
in which he was sometimes swallowed up in God as Bonaventures expression is and his soul melted at the sight of Christ and was so tender hearted to the poor that he sometimes put off his clothes to give them sometimes unript them sometimes cut them in pieces I suppose that he might give to the more All this while he had no Teacher but Christ and learnt all by inspiration but went besides himself at hearing the voice come from a Crucifix as any one almost would have done and it seems he was not well recovered when he came from the Cave for the people flocked about him as a mad man and gave him the common Civility to such persons of dirt and stones and his Father entertained him with dark rooms and chains as the fittest for him whom neither words nor blows could bring to himself But finding no amendment he made him renounce his Patrimony and so discharged him which S. Francis did so readily that he would not so much as keep the Clothes on his back Whereby saith Bonaventure in a wonderful zeal and being drunk in the Spirit casting away his very Breeches and being stark naked before them all said thus to his Father Hitherto I called thee Father on earth but hence forward I can securely say Our Father which art in Heaven As though his duty to God and his Parents had been inconsistent The Bishop in whose presence all this was done gave order to have his nakedness covered highly admiring his zeal and he no sooner had got some rags about him but he falls to makeing Crucifixes in Mortar with his own hands as Children do Babies in the dirt In this height of Fanaticism he goes about and preaches to the people whose words pierced their hearts much sooner than sense and reason would have done and he soon brought the superstitious and ignorant multitude to a great admiration of him for his very way of saluting the people he pretended he had by revelation At last one Bernard joyns with him but S. Francis tells him They must seek God for direction what to do and after prayers he being a great worshipper of the Trinity in honour to it opens the Gospel three times and the first three sentences he met with were to be the rule of their Order their second Brother was F. Gyles who though an Idiot and a simple man was full of God as he saith and had so many extasies and raptures that he seemed to live rather among Angels than men One day when S. Francis was alone in a solitary place He fell into an extasie of joy and had full assurance of the remission of his sins and being transported beyond himself he was catched up into a wonderful light wherein his mind being inlarged he foresaw all that should come to pass concerning his Order His number being increased to Rome he goes to confirm his Order but the Pope rejected him with scorn but in the night he saw a Palm growing between his feet into a goodly Tree which he wisely interpreting to be S. Francis sent for him and promised him fair things and upon the other Vision of his supporting the Lateran Church he approves his Rule and establishes his Order And his whole life afterwards was agreeable to this beginning 〈◊〉 and the Rule of his Order he called as Possevine tells us The Book of life the hope of salvation the marrow of the Gospel the ladder of Heaven the key of Paradise the Eternal Covenant Let any Fanaticks be produced among us though we are far from looking on them as the supporters of our Church who have exceeded S. Francis in their actions or expressions S. Brigitt saith of the Rule of S. Francis That it was not dictated or composed by the wisdom of man but by God himself nay every word therein was inspired by the Holy Ghost which she saith likewise of all the other Rules of Religious Orders What horrible blasphemy is this which is so solemnly approved in the Church of Rome for divine Revelations But lest Dominicus should seem to come behind S. Francis in â—â—sions he tells him at Rome where they met That it was revealed to him in a Vision that Christ was just coming to destroy the world for the wickedness of it and his Mother stopt him and told him she had two servants would reform it whereof himself was one and Christ approved of him as one that would do his work but his companion he did not know till he met S. Francis and so they embraced one another Which Vision out of his great humility S. Francis reported having it from the others own mouth I shall not insist on any more of Dominicus nor on the blasphemous Images set up in S. Marks Church at Venice one of which was of S. Paul with this Inscription By him we go to Christ the other of Dominicus with this but by him we go easier to Christ but I shall proceed to their followers among whom we meet with one of the most blasphemous pieces of Enthusiasm the world hath ever known § 8. For which we are to understand that in the beginning of the thirteenth Century one Almaricus a Student in Paris was suspected for some dangerous Opinions for which he was sentenced to recant and soon after dyed Among these Opinions he broached this blasphemy which was privately instilled into his followers That every person of the Trinity had his successive time of ruling the world that the Law of the Father continued till Christs comeing the Law of the Son to their time and then the time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all internal administrations and every one then was to be saved by the inspiration and inward grace of the Holy Ghost without any external actions They so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be nothing with it as Fornication Adultery c. and promised impunity to the women with whom they committed these things because they said God was only good and not just That these were their opinions is delivered by Rigordus who lived in that age and was upon the place being a Monk of S. Denys and Physitian to the King of France and by Eymericus and Pegna and many others But by the care and endeavour of the Bishop and Vniversity of Paris though they had spread very far abroad and with a great deal of secrecy yet by the fraud and artifice of one imployed among them who pretended to revelations and the Spirit as highly as they could do they were convicted condemned and some of them executed Notwithstanding which severity about fifty years after this came forth a Book with the Title of Evangelium aeternum or the Eternal Gospel published by the Mendicant Fryers and supposed to be written by Iohannes de Parma
if a man confess his sins and but stumble into one of the 7. Churches it is a hard case if he doth not escape at least for one thousand years I need not reckon up what vast Pardons are to be had there at easie rates since they have been so kind at Rome to publish a Catalogue of them in several books an extract out of which is very lately set forth in our own language Those who have gone about to compute them have found that Indulgences for a million of years are to be had at Rome on no hard terms Bellarmin would seem to deny these pardons for so many years as far as he durst as though they were not delivered by Authentick writers but I desire no more than what Cnuphrius hath transcribed from the Archives of the Churches themselves and we may judge of the rest by what Caesar Rasponi a Canon of the Lateran Church and a present Cardinal hath written lately of that one Church in a book dedicated to Alexander 7. He tells us therefore there is so vast a bank of the Treasure of the Church laid up there that no one need goe any further to get full pardon of all his sins and that it is impossible for any one to reckon up the number of the benefits to be had there by it In the Feast of the Dedication of that Church at the first throw if a man be well confessed before he gets if he be a Roman a pardon of a 1000. years if a Tuscan 2000 but if he comes from beyond sea 3000. years this is well for the first time The like Lottery is again at that Church on Câ—ena Domini But Boniface 9. would never stand indenting with men for number of years but declares if men will come either for devotion or pilgrimage no matter which he shall be clear from all sin and what would a man have more But besides this there are other particular seasons of opening this Treasury and then one may take out as much as they can wish for As when the Image of our Saviour is shewn all that come thither have their sins pardoned infallibly and many other days in the year which the Author very punctually reckons up and are so many that a Canon of that Church may dispose of some thousands of years nay plenary remissions and yet escape Purgatory at last himself But besides what belongs to the Church it self there is a little Oratory or Chapple belonging to it called the Holy of Holies where it is impossible for any man to reckon up the number of Indulgences granted to it These vast numbers of years then are no fiction of Pardon-mongers as Bellarmin is sometimes ready to say unless he will have the Popes called by that name or charge the Holy Churches at Rome with so gross impostures § 6. But suppose it should be a mans fortune never to see Rome as it hath many a good mans must he be content to lye and rot in Purgatory or trust only to the kindness of his Friends no we that live at this distance have some comfort left there are sonne good prayers appointed for us to use which will help us at a need or else the book of the houres of the B. Virgin secundunm usum Sarum is strangely mistaken but herein I am likewise prevented by the authoâ—â— of the preface lately mention'd but my edition being elder than either of those mention'd by him seems to have something peculiar to it or at last omitted by him As when it saith of the Prayer Obsecro te Domina Sancta Maria c. Tho all them that be in the state of Grace that daily say devowteli this prayer before owre blessed Lady of pity she wolle showâ— them her blessed vysage and warn them the day and owre of deth and in there last end the Angells of God shall yield there sowles to heaven and he shall obtayn 5 hundreth yeres and soo many Lenttis of pardon graunted by 5 holy Fathers Popes of Rome That is pretty well for one prayer But this is nothing to what follows to a much shorter prayer than that Our Holy Father Sixtus 4. Pope hath graunted to all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lady in the sone eleven thousand years of pardon A prayer said to good purpose I confess I can hardly stoop now to those that have only dayes of pardon promised them yet for the sake of the procurer I will mention one Our Holy Father Pope Sixtus hath graunted at the Instance of the highmost and excellent Princesse Elizabeth late Quéen of Englond and wyfe to our Soveraign liege Lord King Henry the 7th God have mercy on her sweet soull and all Cristen soulls that every day in the morning after 3 tollinges of the Ave â—ell say 3 times the hole salutation of our Lady Ave Maria gratiâ that is to say at 6 the klock in the morning 3 Ave Maria att 12 of the klock at none 4 Ave Maria and att 6 a klock at even for every time so doing is graunted of the spiritual treasour of holy Church 3 hundreth dayes of parden totiens quotiens To which is annexed the pardon of the two Arch-bishops and nine Bishops forty dayes a piece three times a day which begun A. D. 1492. the seventh year of Henry 7. And the summ of the Indulgence and pardon for every Ave Maria is 800 days totiens quotiens But if a man thinks himself well provided already and hath a mind to help his Friends there is nothing like the 15 O. s of St. Brigitt Thys be the 15 O. Os. the which the holy Uirgin S. Brygytta was woente to say dayle before the holy rode in S. Pauls Church at Rome who soe says this a yere he schall deliver 15 soulles out of Purgatory of his next kyndred and convert other 15 sinners to gode lyf and other 15 righteous men of his kynd shall persevere in gode lyf And wat ye desyre of God ye schall have it if yt be to the salvation of your sowle Not long after we find a better endowment with number of years than any we have yet met with To all them that before this Image of pytie devoutly say 5 Pater Noster and 5 Aves a Credo pityously beholding these Armes of Crystys passion are graunted thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifty years of pardon and Sixtus the 4. Pope of Rome hath made the 4 and the 5 prayer and hath doubled his foresaid pardon The Prayer with Boniface 6. his Indulgence of ten thousand years pardon will hardly down with me now much less that niggardly grant of Iohn 22. of a hundred dayes pardon What customers doth he hope to find at such sordid rates Sixtus 4. for my money witness this Indulgence Our holy Father Sixtus 4. graunted to all them that beyn in state of Grace sayeing this prayer following ymmediately