and perswading men to pious conversations is altogether laid out in controversies of a lesse nature and importance which by the way may be one cause of the spreading of Popery I thought this book would now at length prove very seasonable And if it may please the Almighty of his goodnesse to let it be as successefull in stopping the increase of the Romane Religion in England at it was in hindring the persecution of the Protestants in France I shall not think one minute of the spare-houres that I employed in translating it lost But if withall it prove instrumentall to the abating of any mans heat for ceremonies and externals or cause him to spend it where it ought in constant devotion to God alone and unfeigned Christian charitie toward all his brethren and reuniting the shattered pieces of groaning Christendome and so induce any one man to live a Holy life which questionlesse is or should be the main end of all our preaching religion and controversies I shall really deem it the happiest time that ever I bestowed The chief book that is now extolled by our Romanists is one lately set forth by M r Edward Knot alias Nich. Smith whose true name is Matthew Wilson born at Pegsworth neare Morpeth in Northumberland who was for severall years Professor of Divinity at the English Colledge in Rome then Vice-Provinciall and that he might finish this his last book the better was made Provinciall of all English Jesuits all which I am informed by some of his own Countrey-men and Society The book is entituled Infidelity unmasked or the Confutation of M r Chillingworth c. Wherewith if any wavering Protestant chance to be shaken in his belief whereof though the Romanists generally boast much I see no danger because I have aster much enquiry not heard of two in England that have had the patience to read it over 'T is so full of monstrous tenents and impertinencies I shall intreat for his satisfaction to read likewise over M r Chillingworth's book against which it was writ and he shall find M r Chillingworth's a sufficient answer to it if he please to compare Section with Section from the beginning to the end of each For he will perceive That the most weighty arguments of M r. Chillingworth as all the Answer to the Directions of N. N. that is M r Knot wherein Master Chill drew up and proved an high charge of Atheisme and Socinianisme against M r Knot and his party and cleared himself and so many places as it would be tedious to specifie are passed by as the sick man in the high way was by the Jew without notice taken And the rest so jejunely handled and so farre from a complete answer though 't is sufficiently known That M r K. being in such high place and dividing part of the task among many of his Inferiours and making use of those three folio's writ by M r G. H. against M r Chill which D r Hammond mentioneth in his unanswerable Defence of the L d Falkland and other the like helps had all the humane advantages that could be had so little touched that methinks he may well unchristen his book a little more and recall that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The confutation of M r Chillingworths book reserving onely the rest Infidelity unmasked And that in relation to himself I shall give M r K. a large catalogue of his omissions when he shall think fit to answer M r Chillingworths Preface to the Authour of charity maintained or because that would perhaps be too long a trouble when he shall answer onely the last page of M r Chillingworths book which in justice should have been done 19 years since containing 〈◊〉 eleven discourses of D r Potter which were never yet â—â—â—ched although M r Chill concludeth his first part in these words Now at last when you are admonished of it that my Reply may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration promising the second part of his Reply when M r K. should desire it but it seems he had enough of the first which made him desire to smother the second In the interim I cannot but mind M r Knot of one § containing two pages 't is the 96 th of the 5 th c. of M. Chill which he passeth over as ordinary Commentatours do over hard places saying not a word to it Which I am minded of by Mons r Milletiere's Rhetorick concerning the inconsistency of Protestant Religion with civil government And I do the more earnestly beseech him to answer it because I see he salls sometimes into the same strain and because I bear a great love to the persons of some in the Romane Communion and have been many years troubled with an argument which the learned D r Jer. Taylor brings p. 50 51. of his sermon on the Gunpowder-Treason having in my small perusall of Popish writers met with many confirmations both of major and minor proposition which I shall produce when need requires but I think it doth not now because I must be short and the D r hath said enough in that excellent sermon Which seemeth to me to contain a very sufficient answer to a book lately written by a Romanist entituled The Christian Moderatour Besides that I am most credibly informed by a Person of great quality and integrity who saw both the subscriptions and excommunication That those many English Recusants whom he mentioneth p. 17 and 37. were all excommunicated for subscribing those three moderate negative propositions which are there set down as the Doctrine of the English Rom. Catholiques concerning the Popes power over the Supreme Magistrate I was ever a great enemy to rancour in dispute and am of that Viscounts mind who thought That there ought to be no more bitternesse in a treatise of Controversie then in a Love-letter And therefore though I never saw M r Chillingworth whom I find commended by M r Baxter and other eminent Divines and commended by his Adversaries for a devout and rationall man yet I cannot but be moved with pitty and grief to see how M r Knot who bespattereth Casaubon and severall other very learned men insulteth over M r Chillingworth now being dead who would not come near him to dispute while he was alive though M r Chillingworth at sundry times and by severall wayes entreated and solicited nay pressed and importuned him to it before the printing of this solio See The Answer to the direction to N. N. § 4. and afterwards as I am told by them that knew him which he survived seven years How after seventeen years studying to lay this Hector in the dust M r Knot sets sorth a book wherein to speak first of the manner of his discourse the chief thing be doth is to scare his Reader with morm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 s fortiter calumniando Antagonistam ut aliquid haereat as his policy was in Tacitus chiefly bespattering him and
that to us for a crime which inevitable necessitie hath forced us to doe God knows with what a deal of constraint we are come thus farre how troublesome a thing it hath seemed to us to renounce the duties and services which we owe to them to whom we bear so much respect and love our Princes our Fathers our Friends our Countreymen But what shall we doe when we find our selves surprized with necessity Ye see that our consciences torment us that they represent to us heaven and the eternity thereof hel and its punishments and which is more yet the will of God our Soveraigne Father This is not a toy nor can we please our selves in it You have seen that our belief doth necessarily bring along with it all these considerations Shall we preferre yours before them Shall we violate the motions of our conscience Shall we disturb the peace thereof and overthrow that which we beleieve to be the law of our Soveraigne God to please you Shall we venture willingly and knowingly to provoke His anger to avoid yours Shall we fear lesse to offend Him then to displease you You your selves I know very well will condemne such a loosnesse and in stead of approving it will extremely abhorre it For ye know and teach as well as we both by word and example that we owe all to God who looks upon the religion of our consciences Be pleased then to bear with us if we preferre what we believe to be the interest of His glory before your desires and our own And in other things where your contentment will not overthrow His service we shall freely acknowledge that we owe you our whole utmost are ready to testifie it by actions therein to do your absolute pleasures though it be with the losse of what we count most precious on earth our bloud our life it self Onely suffer us to reserve our consciences to our selves or rather to Him whole and entire over which no man can reign without affronting our God And if you think that the judgement we make concerning these matters is an errour be pleased to take the pains candidly to shew us it We shall willingly examine your proofs we shall bring pliant minds and as full of prejudice in your behalf as you can wish as persons that have all the interests in the world to perswade us to desire to live in your communion if it may be with the peace of our consciences We honour as well as you the H. Scriptures given and preserved to the Church by the Providence of God to be the laws and fountains of his Faith Let us we pray see you prove from thence the Articles which you presse so strongly or at least the principles whence they may be clearly and lawfully deduced If you shew them us and after such a manifestation we continue scrupulous we then neither can nor will denie but that you will have just and good cause to esteem us Schismaticks But if you cannot or do not me thinks you should have no reason to refuse what we request viz. To bear with our separation and not hereafter to give it the odious name of schisme which agreeth onely to such separations as are made by a pure and voluntary opinionativenesse grounded onely upon the peevishnesse ambition envy hatred animositie or the like passion of such as depart from the Communion of a Church without a true and necessary reason THE END * Ecclesia non in parietibus consistit sed in dogmatum veritate Ecclesia ibi est ubi sides vera est Caeterùm ante annos 15 aut 20 parietes omnes hîc Ecclesiatum haeretici possidebant Ecclesia autem illîc erat ubi fides vera erat Hieron in Psal 133. Nemo mihi dicat O quid dixit Donatus aut quid dixit Parm. aut Pontius aut quilibet eorum quia nec Catholicis Episcopis consentiendum est sicubi fortè fallantur ut contra Canonicas Scripturas aliquid sentiant August de unit Eccles c. 10. in Edit Lugdun Honorati Anno 1562. Ecclesiam suam demonstrent si possunt non in sermonibus rumoribus Afrorum non in Conciliis Episcoporum suorum non in literis quorumlibet disputatorum non in signis prodigiis fallacibus quia etiam contra ista Verbo Domini cauti redditi sumus sed iâ— praescripto Legis in Prophetarum praedictis in cantibus Psalmorum in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Canonicis Sanctorum librorum autoritatibus Eodem lib. c. 16. ejusdem edit Vtrum ipsi Ecclesiam teneant non nisi divinarum Scripturarum Canonicis libris ostendant quia nec nos propterea dicimus credi oportere quod in Ecclesia Christi sumus aut quia ipsam commendavit Optatus Ambrosius vel alii innumerabiles nostrae communionis Episcopi aut quia nostrorum Collegarum Conciliis praedicata est aut quia per totu orbent tanta mirabilia sanitatum fiunt c. Quaecunque talia in Catholica fiunt ideò approbantur quia in Catholica fiunt non ideò manifestatur Catholica quia haec in ea fiunt Ipse Dominus Iesus cùm resurrexisset à mortuis discipulorum oculis corpus suum offerret nè quid tamen fallaciae se pati arbitrarentur magis eos testimoniis Legis Prophetarum Psalmorum confirmandos esse â—udicavit ibid. Non audiamus Haec dico sed haec dicit Dominus Sunt certè libri Dominici quorum Autoritati utrique consentimus Ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam ibi discutiamus causam nostram Eod. l. c. 2. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in Act. hom 33. * It is entituled A memoriall for Reformation or A Remembrance for them that shall live when Catholick Religion shall be restored into England Wherein are directions in so many severall chapters what he thought best to be done as well in the Court as Countrey with the King and Counsell as with the rest of the Nobility and Commonalty Clergy as Laity when this Nation shall be as he said he was confident it would be reduced In summe he would have its Grand-Charter burnt the manner of holding lands in fee-simple fee-tail frank almain Kings service c. wholly abolished the Municipall laws abrogated and the Inns of Court converted to some other use That for Lawyers Then for Divines The Colledges in both Vniversities should be wholly in the power of six men who should have all the Lands Mannors Lordships Parsonages c. and what ever else belonged to Church or Cloyster resigned into their hands allowing to the Bishops Parsons and Vicars competent stipends and pensions to live upon according as Bishops-Suffragans and Mont seniors have allowance in other Catholick Countreys These are Parsons own words That at the beginning no mans conscience be pressed for matters in Religion then That publick disputations between Papists and Protestants
professe and practise the contrary to Christ's precepts as in mutilating the Communion and severall kinds of superstition idolatry and tyranny We are not in a Schisme for not subscribing and obeying but He for imposing And also it will follow that Mons r. Daillé hath taken a very right method And that the question of schisme ought to follow and not go before that of heresie or errour For if the Bishop of Rome be in schisme we are not then in fault for not remaining under his government although we had been under it ever since the first plantation of Christianitie in England hoc dato non concesso since he now exacteth our assent subscription to a damnable errour as a part of our Communion And therefore I cannot but wonder That the contrary methode being so preposterous and against both reason and the practise and opinions of the Fathers should be so much used among the Romanists For thereby they do not examine but praesuppose the conclusion First they would have us grant That the Church of Rome is the onely true Church on earth and then examine whether she speak truth and whether we did well in separating from her But I wonder at Cardinal Perron more then at any man That he considering his vast understanding 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and large preamble of two leaves concerning the benefit and necessity of a good definition should Repl. lib. 1. c. 8. define the Church to be a societie of those whom God hath called to salvation by the profession of the TRUE FAITH sincere administration of the Sacraments and adherence to lawfull Pastours and yet that he should both use the Romanists method and find fault with them that do not ibid. c. 4. For if the Church be such a Society Either every member of that Church is obliged to know and therefore to examine the true Faith and sincere administration of the Sacraments or he is obliged to make profession of that which he doth not know and hath not examined Which is far beneath a rationall man much more a Christian And in truth this I take to be the first particular that should be considered For unlesse men before they dispute will be perswaded to agree upon the state of the questions and in what order they should be handled they must needs end their discourse where they should have begun it as to instance in the point in hand D r Potter p. 81. proveth that it is lawfull to abstain from communicating with a Church that imposeth the profession of her corruptions as a condition of her communion Because 't is lawfull to separate from any other corrupted Societie in the like case as if a Monastery should reform it self and reduce into practise ancient good discipline when others would not c. or if a societie of men be universally infected with some disease c. M. Knot in answer alters the case very ingenuously to the quite contrary c. 5. § 31. M. Chillingworth moderates it to do him a courtesie c. 5. § 85. In requitall whereof M r. K. first blames him for it and then begs the question saying That in the question between the Church of Rome and us there is a divine command not to depart whatever she impose So that till the questions be stated right in due method that is till it be examined whether the Church of Rome have corruptions and impose them 't will never appeare whether she or we be in the schisme And certes methinks it is not fair to beg the question so oft as he doth tell us that we are no Christians unlesse we are infallibly certain that the Church is infallible and yet never pretend to prove it so by any other motives than those of credibility which at best are but probable and to me they seem not such I protest I have oft wisht heartily they did having found so many discouragements for a scholar in late years that I long since concluded him a wiseman who said He that encreaseth notions encreaseth sorrow Much study is a wearinesse to the flesh Eccles i. 18. xii 12. concluding that the love of learning and truth which is the most that I pretend to would not onely be tedious but sinfull if felicitie could be attained full as well without it which it might if it were infallibly certain that the Romane Church is infallible And so while M r. Knot goes about to prove that reason overthroweth Christian Religion and tells us that it must be built onely upon the Authority of the Church and then builds that Authoritie onely upon reasons and those very weak ones and no way able to support his superstructure he will let all fall unlesse the same faculty be a pillar under his arm and a bulrush under ours And though he make great use of interjections in exclaiming against Chillingworth and other Protestants in England for pulling down he will never deserve any thanks in my opinion of the Christian world for this building Which mindeth me of the second particular I intend to speak of viz. II. The occasion of printing this book I confesse though it were translated several years since at the urgency of some learned friends whose judgement concerning the acutenes of it I had more reason to trust then mine own yet I was very unwilling to publish it till now that I am convinced of the seasonablenesse of it being certified from English Seminaries beyond the seas indè Quòd nuper-veteres cōmigravere coloni and convinced by relations from Newcastle Brecknock and other places on this side the water That they are very busie at such harvest-work here as Parsons the English Jesuite in his Memorial written at Sevil 1596 and Contzen the Moguntine Jes in the second book of his Politicks and 18. chap. and Campanella in his Monarchia Hispan appointed them being told by the London Book-sellers who are the most competent judges quisque in arte sua Beacon fired p. 6. that at least thirty thousand Popish books have been printed there within these three last years and in a book entituled The Petition of the six Counties of South-Wales and the County of Monmouth to the late Parliament of whole Parishes faln off to Popery since the Ministers have been cast out and yet many men ask WHAT NEED OF A CLERGY Alas I cannot but tremble to see how passionately they are in love with ruine and pursue nakednesse vengeance and desolation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prov. xxix 18. In a word knowing turpius ejicitur c. that men are with more ease kept within the Church of England then reduced to it and seeing many daily who formerly have been the most forward to cry Venient Romani posting out of it and furious for Romane superstition falling as 't is the custome of the giddy vulgar from one extreme to another Especially considering that the zeal of the greatest member of our Pastours most whereof might far better be spent in pressing
not to discern the danger We who follow their steps and have seen the whole world in a conspiracy for to reduce them with all possible force and artifice from this separation and to reunite us to Rome One must needs think then that both our Ancestours and We were carried on to this motion so apparently contrary to our own good and welfare by some very strong reason that forced us as it were against our wills to sleight what ever is naturally desirable and in stead of enjoying that to suffer what we are wont to dread which certainly can be no lesse then a strange fantasticalnesse and a silly opinionative humour which should make us take a delight in running counter to others as some without any appearance of reason are pleased to imagine I heartily wish it were in our power to accommodate our selves in this particular with a good conscience to the customes and Services of our Countreymen whose friendship We know very well how much we ought to value and how highly to prize the good favour of those Princes whom God hath set over us especially rather then to displease them needlesly in a matter of such high importance and which they affect with so much passion according to the great and singular devotion which they bear towards those things that they esteem divine We behold likewise and grieve to behold the disorders that this diversitie in Christianitie breeds and the extreme scandal that it gives to Infidels and such as are weak in faith And what ever others say We are not thanks be to God such enemies to His glory and the salvation of mankind as not be as sensible of these dolefull emergencies as of ought that most concerns our temporall good and private interests CHAP. V. Reasons of our Separation from Rome founded upon the diversitie of our Beliefs Object BUt you 'l say If it be thus how can you possibly passe over these considerations your selves which you pretend to think so important why do you not follow them whither they would lead you Seeing you desire the favour of Princes the love of your Countreymen a peaceable and settled condition seeing you would gladly promote the glory of God and the edification of men and do really abhorre the scandal of this disunion why are ye not again reconciled to the Romane Church she opens her arms wide unto you and is not so stiff and rigorous as you seem to apprehend her but for to gain you is willing to yield to some Accommodation and in favour of you to mitigate some of those things that offend you most What I pray is there so strange in her doctrine or in her service that should cause you to forsake her communion to avoid the ancient Churches and Religion of our Fathers to renounce the ordinary publick assemblies of Christian people to sever from all the rest of the world and to suffer all sorts of extremities Our Church adores the same JESVS CHRIST whom you professe to be the Prince and Authour of your Religion She confesseth the unity of His person and the veritie of His two natures She believes Him to be God eternal of the same substance with the Father and with the Holy Ghost and likewise man made in time of the flesh of the blessed Virgin like to us in all things sinne onely excepted truly Immanuel as the ancient Prophesies foretold She acknowledges the truth benefit and necessity of his sufferings and preacheth even as you That His bloud expiated the crimes of mankind That the freedome and salvation of the world is the fruit of His death She exalteth His glory and believes That He sits at the right hand of God in heaven and That He shall come in the last day to judge the world and she hopes after the renovation of this world for a blessed immortality through his grace in one to come She gives to her children baptisme which Christ did institute and refreshes them with His Eucharist and recommends to them piety toward Him and charity toward men She reverenceth the Gospels and the Epistles of the Apostles as books divinely inspired And if there be any other Article in the discipline of our Lord she receiveth and embraceth it as well as you and curseth the names and memory of those who have gone about to overthrow or shake them whether in former or latter ages Ans The truth is We neither can nor will denie that the Church of Rome doth at this day believe all these holy truths We thank our gracious Lord that she hath preserved them through so many ages midst so many disorders But we would to God That she had been as carefull of not adding as of not diminishing That she had foisted in nothing of her own but permitted us to content our selves with that which sufficed the Primitive Christians to bring them to salvation For had she kept within those bounds neither our Fathers nor We had ever had any cause of withdrawing from her Communion We had then sworn to her opinions and performed her service without any scruple finding abundantly in this brief but full and admirably complete rule of wisdome enough to replenish our faith and season our manners understandings and wills with all perfections necessary for attaining to that Soveraigne Happinesse which both you and We naturally desire But who knows not That to the aforesaid divine Articles clearly expressed in the Holy Scriptures authentically preach'd and founded by the Apostles uniformly believed and confessed by Christians of all places and ages Rome hath added divers others which she presseth equally with them forcing all those of her communion to receive them with the same faith as they do those aforesaid thundring out horrible anathemaes against all them that doubt of them and using for the ruine of such all the power and credit that she hath whether in the Church or in the world For besides J. Christ whom she acknowledgeth with us to be the Mediatour of mankind the High-Priest and chief Soveraigne of the Church she would have us hold the Saints departed to be our Mediatours and her Priests our Sacrificers and her Pope to be the Head and Husband of the Church Besides the sacrifice of the Crosse she forceth upon us that of the Altar Besides the bloud of Christ she commands us to expect our cleansing from the sufferings of Martyrs and from the vertue of a certain fire which she hath kindled under ground Besides the water of Baptisme and the refection of the Eucharist she presseth us to receive unction with oyles and the mysteries of her private Confessions Besides the Great God whom she adores and prayes to as we do she commandeth us to adore the holy Sacrament to invocate Angels and beatified Spirits Besides that service of the Gospel wherein she agreeth with us she imposeth upon us divers ceremonies abstaining from meats distinction of times veneration of images Besides the H. Scriptures which are divinely inspired which she confesseth with
who did not likewise hold the conclusion viz. that the soul is mortall With what face dare you venture to assert it since Tertullian and many other Authors of very great esteem were of that opinion and S. Augustine did rather approve it then condemn it since I say they did openly believe the first of these positions and expresly deny the second So S. Hilary according to the true consequences of that opinion which he held concerning the impassible nature of Christs body seems to me to have been obliged to denie the truth and realitie of our redemption And yet who dare impute so grievous an impietie to such a Saint I should never have done should I resolve to set down here all the examples that may be alledged to this purpose These two suffice to shew that whoever maintains an ill opinion is not therefore to be held guilty of the consequences of it Sâ—ppose then it were true as it is not That from the belief of the Lutherans concerning the Eucharist it would follow That we must adore the Sacrament Since they own not this consequence nay on the contrary strongly reject it It would be an extreme injustice to ascribe it to them And as it would have been a want of charity in the primitive Christians to have avoided the Communion of Tertullian or S. Hilary upon protence that from their opinions touching the originall of the soul of man and the nature of the body of Christ there followed many propositions which are impious and contrary to our faith since they rejected and abhorred them so would it be in my mind a great oversight now to separate from the Lutherans upon this pretended consequence from their opinion concerning the holy Sacrament if it could be deduced thence as it cannot Since they themselves protest that they will not acknowledge it But as for them of Rome 't is quite otherwise For the adoration of the Eucharist is a consequence of their doctrine concerning this point both de jure and de facto that is it plainly follows from it and they expresly professe and practise it 1. De jure it follows from it For if the subject which we call the Sacrament of the Eucharist be in its substance not bread as we believe but the body of Christ as they hold 't is evident that men both may and ought to adore it seeing that the body of Christ is a subject adorable And then it follows from it 2. De facto they practise it For who knows not that there is not any one Article in all the Romane religion which is professed more publickly pressed more severely exercised more devoutly then this of adoring the Host Since then they hold this article both de jure according to the plain consequences of their belief in the point of the Eucharist and de facto in their confessions and practises and That the Lutherans on the contrary hold them not neither in one manner nor the other neither in thesi nor hypothesi 'T is cleare That our bearing with the latter without separating from them for the diversitie that is between them and us about the point of the Eucharist doth no way inferre that we should do as much with the former CHAP. X. That the dignitie and excellency of the Eucharist doth not hinder it from being a grievous and deadly offense to adore it if it be bread in substance as we believe Object BUt you 'l say That you esteem it a rude comparison to liken the adoration which the Church of Rome gives the Eucharist to the services that the profane Pagans or debauched Israelites gave to mere creatures For they adored idols whereas the Eucharist is a divine Sacrament So that it seems an abuse of the Scripture to scare us with those threats and curses that it denounceth against such kind of people seeing the object which they served was so different from that which Rome will have us to adore We confesse we perform this action but 't is to one of the Institutions of our Master and for you to equall that and compare it with an idol 'T is very unbeseeming Answ Thanks be to God we have a clean other opinion of the Eucharist We hold it as it is indeed a very holy Sacrament of the body and bloud of our Lord to be one of the most precious instruments of his grace which being lawfully and rightly celebrated communicateth to us all the treasures of heaven the flesh and bloud of Christ the pardon of our sinnes the peace of our consciences the sanctification of our souls and the right to a blessed immortalitie Farre be it from us to give it the profane and infamous name of an idol We will not say that it is simply and onely bread and if any of us do chance to speak so in saying that 't is bread he means in regard of the substance of the thing not in regard of its vertue or dignity in regard of which we believe that it is quite another thing from bread We should take the word in the same sense that Gregory Nyssen doth on the like subject who speaking of the water in Baptisme Orat. in Bapt. Christ p. 803. tom 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith That it is nothing else but water he means in its nature For in the grace 't is another thing beside water and both the Scriptures teach it to be so and all Christians believe it and this holy Doctour particularly witnesseth it in divers places Id. ibid. p. 801. c. 4. orat Catech. c. 33. We therefore do willingly give to the Sacrament all those advantages and respects that justly belong to it and not to any idol But if this be a creature as we believe it to be the excellence and dignitie thereof as great as you set it forth will not at all excuse their crime who adore it For the Lord forbids us to adore not base or vain things onely as onions and the Cats of the Egyptians and the idols of the Pagans which have not any subsistence in nature or any where else except in their false imaginations but he forbids us generally and absolutely to adore any creature what ever it be whether it creep upon the ground or shine in heaven whether it swim in the water or flie in the aire animate or inanimate visible or invisible corporeall or spiritual profane or sacred comprehending under the same condemnation all those who worship any creature what ever it be as guilty of the same crime and subject to the same punishment And de facto the thing is very evident for this adoration which we give to God being an acknowledgement of his Soveraignty a duty like to the love which a woman oweth to her lawfull husband Who doth not perceive that it is a manifest crime to give it to any other but to him that the differences of the subjects to which men give it are no way considerable in this particular seeing though they