Antichrist frog caterpillar serpent c. Besides the absence of the person we calumniate flout and expose to derision is a circumstance that does not a little aggravate the fact and renders it no less foolish and irrational than 't is unjust and rude It is a wonder that our Protestant byshops should countenance these disorders A wise woman will not hear her child call her neighbor Whore without the application of a just rebuke knowing that such like impudence being countenanced may imbolden him at last to call Her so too Indeed the judgment is already com home to our doors for now our byshops of England are as contumeliously treated in the pulpits by their own ministers as the byshop of Rome was by their connivance and applaus abused aforetime in the same place by the self-same persons Nor have ther been any in this land more furiously bent these last twenty years against our good King than they who to flatter our former princes most passionately reviled the Pope and the seed of those men who in the dayes of Edward the sixth Queen Elisabeth and King James plotted so vehemently against the Catholick Church and nobility even to their utter disgrace and ruin under a pretens of establishing our State were now the onely great fighting sticklers against our State and Monarchy I give only this note by the way to reach all men to do to another as they would others do to them and no othewaies for God is just and punishes all iniquity of men oftentimes with those very rods and scorpions which themselves used before to plague their innocent neghbours who when they knew the justice of God yet would they not understand that they which do such things are worthy of death and not only they who do them but they also who consent and yield compliance to the doers But that I may a little lay open to my countreymen the unreasonablenes of our proceedings in hating and reviling a Person whom Catholicks on the contrary do so much esteem and love to what I have already said let thus much be added That the Pope is one whose whole life and study is to defend innocence promote concord and maintain unity of Faith in the world nor is ther any man but he alone that looks to the general safety of all Christianity and in all times like a faithful pastour he hath so don it as if it were not so much his office to do it as his nature And this we might easily see if we would look over antient stories and not suffer our selves to be misled by the reports of those who think themselves undon if he that would curb their extravagancies should com to be thought of according to his true deserts I might make it good in many particulars but I will content my self onely to run over briefly the eighteen general councels that have been in several ages in the Christian world and their results and motives wherby men may be perswaded to think that the Pope is so far from what we in England are made to conceiv of him that he is the only man that hath fought in all times for the unity of faith for concord and the good of all Christendom when other byshops and believers under him began many of them to revolt and disturb our welfar Nor had we had any thing left us at this day either of truth or unity humanly speaking had not he been set over us and watched to make and keep us happy even against som of our wills 1. Arrius a priest in Alexandria had seduced many priests deacons nuns byshops and princes to beleev amiss against the divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord when Pape Sylvester rose up against him and fought stoutly for the honour of our Messias in his general councel at Nice in the year 325. and so did other Popes his successours after him for som hundred years together 2. Pape Damasus in the second general councel at Constantinople with the like spirit of fortitude maintained as valiantly the divinity of the Holy Ghost against Macedonius priest and byshop of Constantinople and Eunomius that insolent Cappadocian and all their retinue as he did likewise that of Christ an 381. 3. When Nestorius a byshop with his priest Anastasius gave great scandals in Constantinople by denying the virgin Mary to be mother of God for that in Christ they said were two persons and one of them was the son of the virgin the other son of God Pape Celestin stood up and quelled them and all their adherents in his councel at Ephesus in the year 430. 4. Pape Leo in a fourth generall councell at Chalcedon an 450. stopped the mouthes of Eutyches an Abbot in Constantinople and Dioscorus deacon in Alexandria who by their great dislike of Nestorius opinion ran into the other extream and affirmed Christ our Lord to have not only one person but one nature too which was as scandalous and as much against the faith of beleevers as was the former 5. In the fifth general councel at Constantinople an 553. when all the oriental part of the Church was in a combustion about the three heads or contents of Theodore byshop of Mopsuesten an epistle of Ibas and Theodoret byshop of Cyrus his writings against S. Cyril who had been all three honourably mentioned in the councel of Chalcedon and yet their writings were then found very scandalous and faulty Pape Vigilius though very sick and weak yet by his writings from his chamber he laboured abundantly and to good effect to asswage the feud 6. Pape Agatho in the sixth general synod at Constantinople an 680. when Cyrus Sergius Macarius and many other learned unquiet priests and byshops monothelites had spread the Eutichian heresy under other notions and taught that Christ had but one will and operation with much offence to the people he rose up and manfully resisted and subdued them 7. Pape Adrian combated no less for the use of images and crucifix against Gregorius Neocaesariensis Paul patriarch of Constantinople and several other Iconoclasts who tore and preached them down contrary to the judgment and practis both of the Christians then living and all their predecessors in the seventh general councel at Nice an 787. And in one and the same place was maintained by the whole catholick world both the images and divinity of the crucified Messias 8. Not long after in the eight general councel at Constantinople an 869 Pape Adrian the second defended the innocence of the great patriarch Ignatius whom suttle Photius by the help of some potentates in Constantinople had expelled his byshoprick and put himself in his place miserably harassing and vexing both the good prelate Ignace and all his adherents to the great disturbance of the East who were all in a hot feud about it 9. In the ninth general councel at Lateran an 1122 when after infinity of troubles the Church had recovered her peace pape Callixtus the second like a good vigilant pastour laboured to
and antient divines do teach that he did before them the same sacramental act he had himself instituted and done aforetime before his apostles and by that he was discerned which interpretation is very probable for there be set down the same words and gestures He took bread and blessed and brake it and gave it to them Luke 24.30 And if it were so then it seems the cup was not thought necessary either by Christ himself or his disciples otherwise neither Christ would have done his work imperfectly and vanished before he had given them the cup nor would the disciples have judged him by so doing to be their master but som evil spirit or impostour as who had kept the cup from them against their right Nay by this example it seems that the very consecration it self may be dispenced in case of necessity to be don only in one kind though the complete sacrifice and mode of signication would be unexprest Thirdly in the first and second chapters of the Acts of the apostles where mention is purposely made of the religious assemblies of the Christians and their sacred Synaxis ther is much speech there of their breaking of bread but not any word of the use of a cup amongst the people And it is enough insinuated as well directly in these forenamed places that that was the religious work of the primitive Christians as it is indirectly afterwards c. 20. One day of the sabboth saith the text when we came together to break bread No mention being made any where in all that book of the challice at all So that I must conclude as I said before that the communion of the challice is neither necessary to any effect of the sacrament nor expedient to be generally practised nor is there in gospel or sacred writ any either precept or president for it But the autority and practis of the catholick Church descended from the apostles is in this as in all other points the best and most irrefragable convincing argument which S. Paul in another case kept for his best and last refuge 1. Cor. 11. If any one saith he will be contentious we have no such custom nor the Church of God And if there be no such custom in the Church of God let not any of us be any further contentious §. 27. Saints I Do not remember that ever I took into my hands any catholick Breviary or Missal or other prayer book but it had prefixed before it a calendar or catalogue of great saints amongst them apostles martyrs confessours virgins of whom the Catholicks keep a very respectful memory as of the temples wherein God did once dwell and work wonders in the Church And although this act and custom of theirs be made by our voluntary interpretation a thing of much offence and scandal against them yet looking upon it with an unprejudiced eye I cannot discern it to be any other than the civility of a due respect For what ingenuous noble spirit would not do as much for the great heroes of his own family that have upheld and innobled the hous And what sayes Christ would he not have it done so to his surely if these things had not been don in his Church but all memorials of him and his blotted out according to the fansy of every reformer we had had by this no more certainty of him than of Jove or Mercury But what sayes he therefor He that loves me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and make my mansion in him c. he that leavs father or mother for my sake shall sit upon thrones c. he that shall overcome and keep my words unto the end I will give him power over nations as I have received from my father and I will give unto him a morning star c. and the like promimises of glory I stand not now to mention And I should think whom God and Christ so highly honours that we may honour them too nay I beleev we should for a good servant ought to respect him his maister loves And what are we afraid of least people by much reflecting upon such eminent examples of vertue should be moved therby to imitate them what can it be els If saints were proposed and described unto us like Mars Jove and Venus eminent both actours and patrons of vice then we might justly blame it But who can dislike of an example of heroick vertue though it were in a Romance And all those saints even from the first of January to the last of December are so commended for their sacred retirements ravishing contemplations of Gods love and the life to come carnal mortifications and castigations of body fastings abnegations of themselves excessive charity daily renewed resolutions against the world flesh and devill and valorous attempts for the love of Jesus to justifie his truth and gospel even to the effusion of their bloods that we read nothing els of them all which is but what Christ and his apostles both by example and word either prescribed or at least counselled both them and us to do And who can make bitter gibeing invectives against them and their legends but only he who is an enemy to the vertues there commended What my self and others in England have read and heard against Popish Saints it would be tedious to speak but I find it to be the spirit and genius of them that depart from the Popes religion Luther the Hectour rampant was excellently dextrous at this feat of disabling persons of renown and before him his grandsire Wicleph who publickly affirmed that St. Austin St. Bennet St. Bernard and other such like men were damned in hell for founding religious orders yea and even John Calvin himself that holy faced man was so intemtemperatly given to this theiomachy that he opened his mouth not only against all saints and their memorials in the register of the Church but even the renowned persons both of the old and new testament canonized in holy writ Noah Abraham Rebecca Jacob Rachel Job Moyses Josuah David Elias Jeremias Daniel The B. Virgin Mary S. Joseph S. Mary Magdalen Martha the haemorroiss Woman who touched Christs garments S. Peter S. Paul S. Matthew S. Luke S. Zacharias the husband of Elizabeth and S. Denyse Areopagite c. and his own words against all these I could easily set down but that I would not tire my reader nor foul my paper with his detracting unseemly speeches But I should being left to my own reason shrewdly suspect him to be an enemy to vertue whom I find to calumniate and disable all those persons who by authentick history are so much commended for it and by the same proposed unto us as an ensample of our lives It is not only their due but our benefit to keep the memory of saints before us Besides that man cannot easily forget his own imortality after our deceas who often ruminates upon such vertuous presidents whom being dead he honours as yet
ever name it be intitled that transports as well those that are in the right as those that are in the wrong unto effects in every right judgement injurious and hatefull to the divine nature Not strangers but allies and friends and men otherwis of most agreeable natures under this colour of religion and by it becom first unsociable then uncharitable first half friends then full foes not for any harm either of word or deed but only a disparity of thoughts such thoughts too as concern not one another but onely pass betwixt man and his maker nor is it becaus one man will not but becaus he cannot think as another doth And God himself must patronise these our uncharitable divisions whiles purely for his sake we hate one another heartily we hate even to death such as otherwis be our dearest friends for his sake and upon his account who commands us to love our enemies and enmitie is our utmost profession in the mannaging of his Religion who told us himself that the fulfilling of his whole law is Love The primitive Christians were in all judgments good ones and yet their badge and practis quite contrary to ours theirs was love and peace even to the admiration of their enemies ours hatred and war even to the confusion of our friends they died for we by one another they by the vertue of their Religion cimented together who before by affection and blood stood far divided we by ours do separate in all we were before conjoined theirs made new friendship ours dissolves the old But when the honourable Lord Chancellour addes in the close This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad-hour What honest heart would not at that word be ready to burst asunder Is that great princely innocence contristated by my self ruinous disorder Far be it from me to sadden that roiall breast in which the Almighty sits and swaies over me for my good My Reader be pleased to understand that I intend not directly in this my dicours to justifie or judg any opinion but only to show that wars and enmities upon such an account between neighbours is neither pious nor rationall But the acroamatick part which would prove our contentions about Religion to be irrationall fills up the book the moral which showes them to be unconformable to true piety and vertue is compendiously finished in the concluding paragraff And if I do let fall words that may favour any one opinion or way more than another it is only for this end that I may therby allay the heats of the other side which is intemperatly set against it more then any else if to depress any it is to abate the excessive both conceit we have of it and faction for it without any just caus that so the oppressed may be a little eased and raised up and the oppressor checkt by his own conscience which is the only way of introducing equallity of thoughts and unanimity amongst us And when we are once perswaded to think more moderately of that side we have hitherto hated and to discern som uncertainty in the other we so much doted of so that our affection may rise where before it was too low and where it was too high there begin to fall and that a smoothnes and equability may appear once in us then we shall be pretty well disposed to a right understanding and peace St. John Baptist the great precursor of the worlds Messias whose office was to prepare mankind to receiv him had nothing els to do for that purpos but only this very thing as if this kind of smoothnes and equability in mens affections were the best and only preparation unto the grace and peace of Jesus Christ within us The voice of a Crier in the desert saith the Prophet Isaias prepare the way of our Lord make the waies level every valley shall be raised up and every mountain and hill shall be brought down and crooked things shall become straight and rough make smooth and then all flesh shall see the salvation of God My matter is perceived by the prefixed generall contents of my five chapters 1. There is not any colour of reason or just title to move us to quarrell and judg one another with so much heat about Religion 2. All things are so obscure that no man in prudence can so far presume of his own knowledg as to set up himself a guide and leader to his neighbour in Religion 3. No Sect hath any advantage at all over another nor all of them together over Popery 4. All the serverall kinds of Religion here in England are equally innocent to one another and Popery as it stands in opposition to them is absolutely innocent and unblamable to them all 5. As there neither is nor can be any rationall motive for disputes and animosities about matters of Religion so is there an indispensable morall caus obliging us unto moderation if we either consider the various incommodities of hatred and rancour or the large sweetnes and convenience of charity and peace My method I do purposely conceal to keep therin a more handsom decorum for he that goes about to part a fighting fray cannot observ a method but must turn himself this way and that as occasion offers be it a corporal or mental duel So did good St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans which of all his other letters as it hath in it most of solidity so hath it least of method in the context The reason is becaus it was intended to allay som heats and feudes that were risen in Rome amongst the converted Jews and Gentiles there who began after their conversion to upbraid and disable one another as such childish heats will rise with their former unworthines The converted Jew esteemed himself the better man becaus his Nation was Gods chosen from the beginning out of which the Messias came and the Jews were in a continuall succession both before their conversion to Christianity and after it still Gods servants The converted Gentile on the other side maintained that he had notwithstanding the darkness of his condition so worthily behaved himself even by the meer light of reason that God was pleased of his love he therfore bore him to call him to the light of Gospel to serv that Lord of glory whom the Jews had crucified S. Paul to end this quarrell turns himself to and fro first on this side then on the other as occasion presented it self and finding the parties resolute in a question hard to decide as it was stated and both so deeply ingaged that they could not easily be reconciled that he might the better part them he knocks them both down and he dissipates all pretenses of their own worthines to the end they might both of them have recours to Gods mercy which was equally shewed to both and so have peace among them selves This is the occasion and end and summ of that Epistle which it seems our Ministers som of
wonder take any one kingdom under his spiritual jurisdiction and they shall remain a hundred yea thousand years in all peace and unity upon religions account But let that kingdom once divide and separate from him and presently all those very self same byshops who before in their subordination to the Pope easily mannaged the peoples consciences and kept them in a most orderly peaceablenes not know in their separation from him which way to turn themselves but that heresies and schismes will rise and augment themselves without end in despight of all their power and endeavours as if unity and truth and peace were tied to the Popes chair Those that understand not catholick religion have stood many of them exceedingly amazed at this consideration and not without caus for whence can this happen It is not becaus Popes are all saints and only they for the venerable and renowned priests under him and great multitudes of people about him in all nations which shine like stars in the firmament may be without controul as good and holy many of them as himself and although Popes be for the most part very good civil and discreet men yet if it should happen that som one be no better than he should yet even that man shall be as zealous of unity in religion and preserv it as exactly as the best which exalts our wonderment unto such a height that we are even forced to acknowledg that there is some great secret in this business not easily to be resolved for all other byshops and princes the more worldly and sensual they be the less care have they of their flock and people If we shall say that these be the great powers of God upon him the doubt is at an end and a reason appears why people do fear so much to be excluded his communion if this be not admitted I am at a loss and can find no reason why a good king and true head of his Church if himself or the people can make him so should not be able by his acknowledged autority and sword to keep his own subjects in an unity of faith and peace as well as a bad Pope for so we beleev them all to be and pretended head keeps together other mens subjects of different manners and languages without sword or axe or corporal rods only by the meer love of his communion and fear they have to lose it Nor can we say that new opinions about religion are never broacht among catholiks for this as it cannot be expected amongst so many millions of great wits and spirits that be amongst them up and down the world so is it so far from being true that all the heresies that have rose in Christianity were invented ever by some catholick I mean that had been formerly such for his opposition to and apostacy from his general Pastour makes him ceas to be catholick any longer and generally by priests who preferring their own judgments before their pastours and the tradition they had hitherto walked by in the pride of their hearts led people after them out of the fold of the Church And whoever does so puts himself by his own autority in locum Petri and is to be looked upon by all good Catholicks who have care of their own salvation as a dangerous guide Thus did first begin our own Protestancy by Martin Luther Calvin and other fallen priests and the fall of murmuring Judas from the colledg of apostles of contesting Adam and Eve from the bliss of paradise of dissenting Lucifer and his angels from heaven who are said to dispute with Michael and his angels as Luther did with Eckius and his fellow Catholicks signifie nothing else But what does the Pape or Christian pastour do in this case When the tumult is once raised and a disorder begun in any part of his flock by som proud turbulent spirit amongst them the Pape first whistles him and his fellow petulcous rams into order by charitable admonition which still increases lowder by degrees and if this will not serv but that they will still be refractory he casts in his shepheards crook amongst them and divides the turbulent from the peaceful and so the infection stayes The disquiet ones being driven out depart in a rout together but within a while they separate and walk by sixes and seavens and subdivide at length so often that at last they go single whiles every sheep amongst them will be a ram and every ram a shepheard But the other quiet ones that hear the voice of their sheapherd and follow him in peace as becoms sheep to do enjoy all happines and spiritual content amongst themselvs to the unspeakable comfort of their souls under him whom Christ the great Messias hath set over them and this is called the Catholick flock which for the love they bear to their honoured pastour and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we commonly call Papists and somtimes becaus they will not forsake either their sheapheard or divine pastures of truth and sacraments wherein they have been brought up when we would speak more civilly we call them Recusants If any one shall think I speak too much in favour of catholick religion let such know that I favour nothing but truth and peace and it is the part of an ingenuous and well bred nature to support what he can the weaker side especially if he know it to be innocent and injuriously opprest as it often happens in this world that the stronger in right may be the weaker in repute Nor can any fewd amongst us ever be ended which is the thing I aim at so long as errour and injustice are maintained And although we quarrel furiously one with another yet considering that our strifes amongst our selves proceed upon the very same grounds and motives we pretend all of us to have against the general adversary we all hate till this capital dislike of Popery be diminished our other fewds must needs be kept alive No peace amongst our selves till we revoke our words and ill deeds against our innocent neighbours and at last comply charitably with them against whom our first dissention sprang up in this land Ephraim is against Manasses and Manasses against Ephraim but both against Juda and becaus they are both against Juda their lawful superiour therefor are they so furiously bent against one another whiles Ephraim to be in Juda's place who is thrust out by both parties labours to depress Manasses and Manasses for the same reason to trample upon Ephraim Thus is Presbyterian against Independent and Independent against Presbyterian but both against the Papist Protestant against Puritan and Puritan against Protestant but both against the Catholick And as soon as the Protestant had by violence supplanted and cast his Roman-neighbours out of all their dignities honour and livelihood the rancour had utterly ceased had not the Puritan rose up out of the Protestant bowels and subverted him by the same means he had used to his catholick foregoers and
I came I beheld great store of pictures and images in Churches of Roman catholicks which being in the postures either of their bloody martyrdoms which for their religion they underwent or apostolical sacrifice or sacred retirements meditations or other exercise of their faith hope or charity either towards God or their neighbours apostles martyrs confessours hermites monks virgins kings queens byshops as they made a goodly show so did they mightily assist the fansy unto a more united thought of the religion people came into the Church to fulfil and solemnise But the altar is seldom without the pourtraicts of Jesus and his Virgin Mother but never without the Crucifix the sight of all which is apt to cast into the mind of such as enter into the Church that meditation of the apostle in his epistle to the Hebrewes Non accessistis ad tractabilem montem accensibilem ignem c. Ye are not com to the high towring mount flaming fire and whirlwind and darknes and storm and sound of trumpet and nois of words which they that heard excused themselves and requested to hear it no more and it seemed so terrible that Moyses himself stood trembling and affrighted but ye are come to Mount Sion to the city of our living God to celestiall Jerusalem and society of angels the Church of primitive Christians conscript in heaven to God the Judge of all to the spirits of just perfect men to Jesus the mediatour of a new testament and to the Aspersion of blood speaking better things than Able And all these representations so much concurring to devotion and piety as they do the doctrine and men who tore them down and cast them out of our English Churches and broke and hewed them in pieces with so much rage could not be any friends whatever they might pretend either to our mount Sion or the citty of our living God the celestial Jerusalem society of angels the Church of primitive Christians or to the spirits of just men perfected or to Jesus mediatour of the new testament or lastly to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel all which was there pour-traited and described It is the judgment of all men that the violation of an Image redounds to the Prototype and therefore Kings not only in Christendom but beyond it use to punish a grand traitour either deceased or fled even in his effigie Every particular person loves to behold the picture of him he esteems and again if he hate the person he detests the face thus even our late rebells here in England after they had murthered our good King shot his pictures with bullets and broke them with their cimiters and spears all the land over Thy adversaries saith the Prophet have roared and raged in the midst of thy synagogues and for thy ensigns have set up their own banners as once of those who with strong exes cut up the thickest of timber unto the temples structure it was esteemed an honourable and noble work in them so is it countd now if any on the contrary break in pieces thy sculptures with axe hammers they were Gods enemies then that did all this and that brake down his sculptures and by those very works of theirs concluded to be his enemies by a great Prophet who well enough understood who was Gods friend and who his foe If any would consider the constitution and exigence of mans nature he would soon find not only the convenience but necessity of such helps as ocular representations afford us for the fansy hath nothing but what it receives from the senses and the intellect works upon nothing but what it has from fansy and therfore did God make man in the last place after heaven and earth was framed to the end that in so great a variety of sensible objects he might find somthing to think of even in the first instant of his being wheras if he had been made before other things he had stood like a stock or stone without any possibility of a thought Now nothing administers to the fansy and consequently to the mind with that variety and life and power as doth the eye the supplies of the ear care but dead things to it especially in the account of exciting desire and love let Cicero speak a whole day upon the beauties of a princely seat countrey city man or woman yet when the eye comes once to see the thing in its own properties it discerns and represents more at one glance than could his or all the oratory in the world ever by the help of the ear imprint into the mind Indeed who is so ignorant that he has not observed ere this that the eye has a hundred fold the actuosity of the ear nor is it unknown what strange melting affections are caused in the heart by a continual sight and meditation of some sacred pictur of the Crucifix when sermons float by and effect little or nothing in comparison even as worldly objects so long as they are coached in aiery words pass away like wind but once seated in the throne of the eye they move impetuously Nor can all the ministers in the world give me a reason why the eye in a sacred purpos may not have the helps of her species as well as the ear have hers or why the minde that is to be moved and can never be moved too much in such things may not as well have the quicker as duller assistance For when any one preaches upon the Passion of Christ does he do any thing els but labour to work out such representations in the ear and minde as oratory may effect for the moving of affections corresponding to such an object and if such good meditations put into a book of devotion be assisted with an ocular representation which is more quick and full and carries more of life with it what harm is it surely he that deprives me of the more lively helps never means whatever he pretend I should have any cordial feeling of the things he talks of And verily the Protestant pretenses for their removal of images out of our Churches are but simple ones and the simpler they be the the better it seems they serve the deluded vulgar First say they God has in his commandements forbidden the making of graven images Good and has he so do you not find too that he commanded it see if he did not give order in the same scripture for Cherubins and Seraphins to be made and set up in his sanctum sanctorum over the ark what then did God or Moses forget himself and contradict his own words or are you blind or only catholicks fools or what is the matter Look seriously and you shall find that Moses forbad prophane and forreign images but he commanded his own though he disliked the ugly face of Molech Dagon and Astaroth yet did not he therefor will his people should tear down his own Cherubins And Christians likewise have not any images of Simon
them or to them in the catholick but not in the protestant sens If any one like not this my way of explicating this holy custom of the Church he may use what other he pleases But this I do use as most facile and connatural to pious oratory which easily diverts unbeleevers objections and best answers to the state not only of Christian saints but also those of the old law who could not see the necessities of men upon earth by any mirrour of divine essence which then they enjoyed not and yet they were prayed unto then as well as the Christian Saints be now And to me it seems irrational to defend an easy custom of religion by a hard subtility of philosophy which clears not but renders that obscure and doubtful which was clear and utterly undoubted of before All Christians ever beleeved saints invocation to be lawful and pious but it entered not into the Creed of any that those of another world either hear or see what we do in this and this opinion brought to clear the other practis is harder to beleev than it and no point of faith neither although by the subtility of Christian Philosophers it be rendered probable enough to such as allowed of the Christian custom aforehand This pious rite of saints-invocation common to the Hebrew and Christian Church is necessarily justified upon the supposal of three principles which all I think will grant First that Gods grace whereby men are made partakers of the divine nature is in a singular manner in some persons more than others secondly that the souls of those holy people and merits of their good works are immortal with God even after their death thirdly that God cannot dislike the reflections of his divine nature diffused in them out of the fulnes of his beloved son when any one makes use of them the easier to find mercy in his sight And all protestant objections as Come unto me saith Christ c. are but childish for who does a man come unto or go unto but Christ and God alone when he sues to none but him for grace and mercy whether he use or use not the helps of other intercessour with himself to facilitate his request As innocent therefor is popery in this as in any other her religious practises and we destitute of argument to carp at them for it Let us therefore love and not hate rather honour than diminish them without caus §. 28. Dirge ALl over the catholick world prayers are constantly made for the dead both in publick and private Insomuch that one day in a week the altar is set apart for that purpos and it is a rare thing when one half hour in every day is not spent there by some priest or other together with the people for that end nor is there a private person in the world that makes any orisons apart but will send forth som short ejaculations for the requiem of souls departed before he give over So that I may truly say it is as ordinary for Catholicks to pray for the dead as for the living and for one another as for themselvs And this custom carries with it so great a show of piety that for my part I could never dislike it and I have heard but few discreet persons speak otherwise against it than only as an ungrounded opinion For of it self what can it be but purest humanity to remember our friends when they are out of sight and to pray for them even after their deceas a most pious charitablenes The question is whether the doctrin be well grounded or whether it may make for good accordingly to use it If the deceased be utterly dissolved and soul and body equally extinguished then it is likely my praier cannot avail for any benefit nor will it becom either my charity or discretion to pray for them that are not for God is not the God of the dead but of the living as our Lord speaks nor is he to be requested for benefits to any thing that is not existent and absolutely incapable to receiv them But if their souls be still immortal with God where or in what condition soever they be it cannot hurt I should think either me or them to wish them well for wheresoever they are if so be they are any thing they are present to God who fills all things if not more yet assuredly as much as we that live this mortal life and as they themselvs were when they lived amongst us and God whom we pray unto is equally present both to them and us who assuredly hears and sees and knows us both And since the Almighty has set a limit to our knowledg none to our charity towards any man no reason can be given why I may not wish well unto them all my life time even after their deceas whom I might pray for while they lived even by the command of him who bad me do well unto all and have love which is ever accompanied with well wishes and praiers even to my very enemies never prescribing me either limit of time or measure of charity Those I pray for after their deceas must needs be if they be yet subsisting either in hell or heaven or som third place I speak vulgarly that I may be understood not heeding at all whether a soul in Aristotles philosophy may be said in rigour to be in any place or no in right reason whatsoever is must needs be somwhere and that is all my meaning If the soul I pray for should chance even then to be in heaven then my prayer for him is answerable to Gods will and so not evil but good whiles I beg rest to him to whom God hath given it for prayer though it often supposes yet it doth not necessarily require a want of the good thing prayed for in him I wish it unto otherwayes I could not say as well and truly Our father who art in heaven sanctified be thy name thy kingdom com thy will be don as I say afterwards Give us this day our daily bread c. In the former there is no want to be imagined for they both are and shall be whether I pray so or no and I do but only show my love and charity to God in wishing him to be as he is most holy powerful and just and desiring that to him which he neither does nor ever can want all sanctity power and glory but in the other requests a want is presupposed before the petition If he should be in hell fith it is not Gods will I should know so much I can no more be interpreted to gainsay his pleasur than when I prayed for the same person upon earth and wished him what he should never have for even then also I knew no more of Gods disfavour towards him than now I do and my good wishes in both places presented ever under a tacite condition of Gods good pleasur may be equally acceptable in order to any effect either
themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and
promises of future reward do voluntarily and of their own accord forsake the world and all worldly pleasures to serv God night and day in poverty humility and chastity and multitudes of others of a secular condition in several parts of the earth have rather chosen to live an afflicted life in this world contemned abused pillaged beaten put to death by their persecutours than to forsake that religion and these too as noble and wise persons many of them as any the earth hath had But if any will yet be contentious and maintain his hatred still against Popery I earnestly request he would seriously ponder these few following Queries which I borrowed of a friend It will not be deny'd but that the Church of Rome was once a most pure excellent flourishing and Mother Church for this is not only by good St. Paul amply testified in his epistle to the said Romans but acknowledged also by Whitaker in his answer to Dr. Sanders by White in his defence of his way by Fulk and Reinolds and also by K. James in his speech to the Parliament This Church could not ceas to be such but she must fall either by Apostasie Heresie or Schism I. Apostasie is not onely a renouncing of the Faith of Christ but the very name and title to Christianity No man will say that the Church of Rome had ever such a fall or fell thus II. Heresie is an adhesion to some private and singular opinion or errour in Faith contrary to the general approved Doctrin of the Church If the Church of Rome did ever adhere to any singular or new opinion disagreeable to the common recived Doctrin of the Christian world I pray satisfie me as to these particulars viz. 1. By what General Councel was she ever condemned 2. Which of the Fathers ever writ against Her Or 3. By what authority was She otherwise reproved For If seems to me to be a thing very incongruous that so great a Church should be condemned by every one that hath a minde to condemn her III. Shisme is a departure or division from the Vnity of the Church wherby the Band and communion held with som former Church is broken and dissolved If ever the Church of Rome divided her self by Schisme from any other body of faithful Christians or brake communion or went forth from the Society of any Elder Church I pray satisfie me as to these particulars 1. Whose company did She leave 2. From what body did She go forth 3. Where was the true Church which She forsook For it appears somwhat strange to me that a Church should be accounted schismatical when ther cannot be assigned any other Church different from her which from age to age since Christ his time hath continued visible from whence She departed If these Queries were well pondered or if men would once beleev as most true it is that by irrefragable principles which all must needs acknowledg who will own a Christianity in general Popery may be proved to be as good a religion as the best then Facta est Lux. But this is a little beyond my intention which aims no further than only to put our passions to a demur for which it may suffice us to think that Popery is not ill And if I should yet say more and endeavour to prove it good those that be of that Way will say I speak too little and they who be not will think I say too much I had a purpos in the three last dialogues of my Reclaimed Papist to make Popery appear not only a good religion but the best and not only the best but the only sole Christianity which Christ planted upon earth and which every right reason that admits of Christ must needs approve But I hope I was therfore discouraged and hindred in that work that it might be left for som better hand and I should my self very much rejoyce to see it don It is now besides my purpos my paper also is already too much swelled my mind calls for freedom and my pen is dulled Acta est pars acroamatica sequitur moralis Fifth Chapter Moral topicks for charity and peace §. 31. Conclusion AS without the indifferency and moderation I have hitherto laboured to implant ther cannot be in us any capacity of a right understanding so ther be yet som moral topicks remaining which are apt to implant this moderation and indifferency as to consider first the sad precipices men have run themselves and others by their headiness and temerarious obstinacy in their opinions and conceits about religion secondly that the connatural excellency of a good Christian consists not in finding new waies to the reformation of other mens thoughts but putting in practis the old received well known dictates of sobriety justice and piety in our selves thirdly that charity which the apostle makes to be the end and highest perfection of religion and indeed all vertue suggests good and moderate thoughts of our neighbour c. But these and such like topicks be a subject fitter for a pious preacher than a civil logician and so leav them What I should speak at this time unto any such purpos take it in the golden words and phrase of the honourable Lord Chancellour the Oratour of the Land Gentlemen the distempers of religion which have too too much disturbed the peace of this Kingdom is a sad argument indeed It is a consideration that must make every religious heart to bleed to see religion which should be the strongest obligation and cement of affection and brotherly kindness and compassion made now by the pervers wranglings of passionate and froward men the ground of all animosity hatred malice and reveng And this unruly and unmanly passion which no question the divine nature exceedingly abhors somtimes and I fear too frequently transports those who are in the right as well as those who are in the wrong and leaves the latter more excusable than the former when men who find their manners and dispositions very conformable in all the necessary obligations of humane nature avoid one anothers conversation and grow first unsociable and then uncharitable to each other becaus one cannot think as the other doth And from this separation we intitle God to the patronage of and concernment in our fancies and distinction and purely for his sake hate one another heartily It was not so of old when one of the most antient Fathers of the Church tells us that love and charity was so signal and eminent in the primitive Christians that it even drew admiration and envy from their greatest adversaries Vide inquiunt ut invicem se diligunt Their adversaries in that in which they most agreed in their very prosecution of them had their passions and animosities among themselvs they were only Christians that loved and cherished and comforted and were ready to dye for one another Quid nunc dicerent illi Christiani si nostra viderent tempora sayes the incomparable Grotius How would they look upon our sharp and virulent contentions in the debates of Christian religion and the bloody wars that have proceeded from those contentions whilst every one pretended to all the marks which are to attend upon the true Church except only that which is inseparable from it Charity to one another My Lords and Gentlemen This disquisition hath cost the King many a sigh many a sad howr when he hath considered the almost irreparable reproach the Protestant religion hath undergone from the divisions and distractions which have been so notorious within this Kingdom What pains he hath taken to compose them after several discourses with learned and pious men of different perswasions you may see by a declaration he hath published upon that occasion by which you see his great indulgence to those who can have any protection from conscience to differ with their brethren And I hope God will so bless the candour of his Majesty in the condescentions he makes that the Church as well as the State will return to that unity and unanimity which will make both king and people as happy as they can hope to be in this world If aught yet remain to be said in the heavenly words of blessed S. Paul I shall conclude it all Quosdam quidam posuit deus c. Some hath God set over us in his Church first apostles secondly prophets thirdly doctours then virtues then graces of healing opitulations gubernations sorts of tongues Are all apostles are all prophets are all doctours are all vertues have all men the grace of healings do all speak with tongues do all interpret But do you emulate the better graces And I do yet show unto you a more excelling way If I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity I am but as sounding brass and tingling cimbal And if I shall have prophesy and know all mysteries and all sciences and if I shall have all faith so that I can translate mountains and have not charity I am nothing c. This is the great rule of our happines and square of all perfection Et quicunque hanc regulam secuti fuerint pax super illos super Israel Dei FINIS