Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A33211
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A discourse concerning the worship of the Blessed Virgin and the saints with an account of the beginnings and rise of it amongst Christians, in answer to M. de Meaux's appeal to the fourth age, in his Exposition and pastoral letter.
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Clagett, William, 1646-1688.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing C4384; ESTC R171370
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81,086
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123
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Again Thou having the power of a Mother with God dost beyond measure gain Pardon for them who sin beyond measure For it cannot be that thou shouldst not be heard because to all purposes and in all things and through all things God obeys thee as his true and immaculate Mother This was pretty well for the eighth Age as likewise was that of Damascene who calls the B. Virgin †Joh. Damasc lib. 4. c. 15. The Lady and Go verness of all Creatures No wonder therefore that Cardinal Peter Damian coming long after these telleth her that she comes before the Altar of Reconciliation not asking only but commanding as a Lady not as a Servant I know not whether he was the Author of those glorious Titles which have since furnished some of the Hymns that we meet with in the Offices of the Blessed Virgin * Hom. 46 de Nativ B Mar. 1. Tom. 2 p. 106. The Queen of the World The Window of Heaven The Gate of Paradise The Tabernacle of God The Star of the Sea The Heavenly Ladder by which the Heavenly King came down to us below and by which man who grovelled upon the ground ascends in exaltation to Heaven But Anselm that lived in the same Age with him speaks more fully ‖ Anselm Cant. de Excell Virgin c. 11. As God is the Father and God of all things by his power creating all things so Blessed Mary the Mother of God restoring all things by her Merits is the Mother and Lady of the Vniverse Which agrees very well with that reason he had given before why her Son went to Heaven before her †Ibid. c. 7. Perhaps O Lord lest thy Court in Heaven should stand in doubt whom it should rather go out to meet See Answer to Jesuits Chall from p. 478. to p. 495. thee their Lord coming to take possession of thy Kingdom or her their Lady ascending to that Kingdom also which belonged to her by a Mothers right To this nothing could be added in so little a time beyond Bonaventure's Psalter who taking the Psalms of David put in Lady instead of Lord in this manner O come let us sing unto our Lady c. Let every thing that hath breath praise our Lady But not content with this he framed the * Psalt Bonav p. 111 112 Paris Athanasian Creed to her Service too beginning thus Whosoever will be saved before all things it is necessary that he should hold a firm Faith concerning the Virgin Mary which Faith except a man keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly And now whosoever shall consider the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin and her Rosaries and the Prayers and Hymns of her Saturday's Office and her Psalters and the vast number of Books of Devotion to her and the Worship that is accordingly given to her in pretended Catholick Countries whosoever shall consider what they say to her in those Prayers and Hymns c. which the Speculum Beatoe Virginis just now published has put together may perhaps find there are Causes of Horror which Monsieur de Meaux is not so much concerned at as he ought to be He may justly fear that if the Reformation did not give some little check neither would these excesses stop here though in many places nothing now remains to be done but without any farther reservedness to erect Altars proper to the Blessed Virgin in every Church as the †Trigautii Exp. ad Sinas lib. 5. c. 15.20 Jesuites began to do in China O Blessed God look down in thy mercy upon the miserable estate of Christianity in so many parts of the Christian World When the Blessed Virgin foretold that all Generations should call her Blessed did she mean that all Generations would Worship her would Worship her Images and Pictures would make her a Mediatrix between God and man would ascribe to her the power not of prevailing with Jesus only for any thing but of commanding him too would offer Jesus himself a Sacrifice in her Honour should burn Incense to her would use Rosaries Hours and Psalters for her especial Invocation and Service would institute and maintain Fraternities for that Service would build Temples and Chappels to her and Altars and by most solemn Invocation every-where and by proper Rites of Religious Worship and by letting Devotion run out to her more than to our Lord Jesus himself to agnize her to be the Lady of Heaven and Earth the Queen of the World No she did not mean thus in saying that all Generations should call her Blessed For thus all Generations have not served her Nothing of all this was done to her for several Generations after Christ nor any thing of it in comparison till the dregs of Time till the decay of Learning and Piety made way for gross Superstition The first beginnings of these Corruptions were more general but the Improvements of them were chiefly owing to the See of Rome which as it grew in power and greatness so it protected those Abuses more effectually A Character very ill-beseeming a Church that pretends to be the Pillar and Ground of Truth The Wit of Man could not devise any thing more serviceable to Errour to make it spread in the World and to fix it than that a powerful See grasping at Supremacy and pretending to Infallibility should take it under her wing This See is the Source of all those Oppositions which they have met with that demanded a Reformation it is this See alone which hath obstructed a general Reformation when Christendom was otherwise well disposed towards it Therefore when Reformation by common consent was made Impossible by the See of Rome what remained but that the National Churches should reform themselves Our Reformation was a return to Primitive Antiquity and that it may prove a leading example let us pray without ceasing That God would bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived THE END Faults to be Corrected PAge 81 seventh line from the bottom for Consciences read Concessions P. 82 l. 3. for Reconciled r. Recommended P. 80 l. 6. for them read then P. 88 l. 7. for safely r. falsly P. 92 l. 3. for Prayers r. Praises A Catalogue of some Discourses Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinons in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a visible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this visible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Recieved and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supreme God 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistioe Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter A Collection of Cases and other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London In two Volumes in Quarto
this crafty Design is no way reconcileable to that Spirit of Integrity which the Gospel frames us to if we are True Christians and of which they if any were undeniable Examples One would think therefore that if the Heathens knew no such Doctrines and Practices amongst the Christians that the Christians had none such to be known And in the Opinion of Salmeron himself had those known any such thing these had not failed to have heard of it Why then did they not charge the Christians with Worshipping the B. Virgin when nothing would have been more pertinent and apposite I will give one Instance of this Question so clear and full that it shall render all others needless There was nothing that Celsus insisted upon against the Christians Worshipping Jesus Christ with more Spite and Triumph then that Jesus was as he called him a most vile Person Taken Beaten and Cruceâ—ied Orig. contra cels lib. 2.3 It was for this he scorned the Christians that they should count him the Son of God and Worship him now dead who lived and died ignominiously It must be uneasie to a Christian Ibid. lib. 7.8 to write or to read his Blasphemies upon this Occasion But there is one place that I must not forbear and that is Where the foresaid Wretch brings in a Jew and with the Jew does himself upbraid Jesus That he was Born in a little Town of Judaea and that of a wandring Woman miserably poor that span for her living who was also for Adultery thrown out of doors Orig. lib. 1. Cont. Cel. by the Carpenter her Husband and being thus driven away by him and wandring up and down in a base fashion brought forth Jesus in a Corner Thus did that accursed Villain blaspheme the Blessed Virgin in despite to Jesus her most Holy Son I say in despite to him because he was worshipped by the Christians By bringing forth the Execrable Stories of the Jews concerning the Mother the Impious Infidel designed to make the Church of God ashamed of Worshipping her Son whom he sought to disparage this way as well as by objecting the Poverty of his Life and the Ignominy of his Death But suppose I beseech you that the Church in those days had honored the Mother of Jesus little less than Jesus himself that she had been called the Queen of Heaven that the Story of her Assumption had been then invented that she had been Worstipped as the Lady of the World and served with Prayers and Vows and Incense and with all or with any of those Religious Rites that she is now served with would that spiteful Wretch have failed to reproach the enemies of his Gods with so plain a matter of Reproach Did he think they had reason to be ashamed of making so helpless and so unfortunate a man as the Pagans took Jesus to be Ibid. Lib. 8. the object of a most excellent Worship and would he not have thought it a greater shame if they had given a superexcellent worship to so helpless and so scandalous a woman as the false Miscreant reckoned the Mother to be Did they insult over the Christians for making a God of the Son of such a Mother What would they have said if the Church had given then the least occasion to suspect that it had made a Goddess of the Mother her self But of this not one word is to be met with in all the Reproaches of the Infidal no nor of Trypho or Coecilius or any of the most bitter enemies of the Christian names for the three first Ages where it lay as fair to be taken up as Argument and Occasion could make it What Account then is to be given of this Omission It was no Omission of theirs at all The Church had not yet given them this Handle against it self No such things as these were known amongst Christians and therefore their Enemies did not lay them to their Charge Their Enemies I say who falsly accused them as to other matters upon the most slight and frivolous Occasions They accused them of Worshipping an Asse's Head of killing a Child at their Solemn Assemblies and of Adultery and Incest as you may see in Minutius Felix and elsewhere and all this upon the most ridiculous Grounds imaginable But it seems the Christians paid Religious Worship to the Virgin and to dead Men and Women and their watchful Enemies were content to say never a word of it Alas these wise Men did not know that the Christians derided them for such things as these perhaps they were always deaf when it was told them that the Christians did the same things themselves or they had quite forgotten it when it was most proper to remember it or were so silly as not to discern the Advantage they were to make of it or so imprudent as to accuse them of other things which could be easily disproved rather than to accuse them of those things which could not be denied The Children of this World were now grown Fools in their Generation He that can believe these things let him believe them I shall add this only Cyril contra Julian l. 6. See Mr. Mede's Apostacy of the later times that when the least Occasions were once given to suspect that the Martyrs were worshipped by the Church the Heathens immediately laid hold on the Pretence especially Julian and Eunapius who urged the Accusation with all the stings of Malice as their Predecessors in this Cause against Christ would certainly have done had there been the least Colour for it But to return to the Virgin Mary We have seen that in these latter Ages the Doctrine of her Worship is grown to be no mean part of the Body of Divinity with the Doctors of the Roman Church There is no end of writing Books in her Honor and to excite and direct Devotion to her A Sermon cannot be preached but she must be addressed to with an Ave Mary Nor a large Volume Written but 't is odds that it is concluded with Praise to God and to the Virgin Mother Mary One would therefore expect to find all things full of Veneration and Address to the B. Virgin in the Writings of the Primitive Fathers that is to meet with it at every turn in their Expositions of the Faith in their Exhortations to Devotion and Piety and in all their Homilies to the people But if you look for any such thing I will be bold to say you will lose your labour unless it were some Satisfaction to find that the World is very much altered from what it was and the State of Religion not a little changed But the worst is that what these Fathers say of her is but very little in Comparison and that not of set purpose but incidentally and occasionally as they were led to it by other things I know not how the Fathers can be excused but that the Scriptures speak as sparingly of her as they It were something however if their occasional