they never opposed the Merit of Good works as you fain me to say in your Epistle neither the one nor the other but I say that Protestants teach the Christian Doctrine of Good works as revealed in the Gospell and oppose the Merit of Good works by you invented and as by you explained and now avowed And whilest you talk at this rate as if you were perfectly innocent you begin your story as if you had nothing to do but to accuse another of fraud like him that cried Nec si me miserum fortuna Sinonem Finxit vanum etiam mendacemque improba fingit when you know what his business was But the truth is when you talk of the merit of Good works you stand in a slippery place and know not well what you would have nor what it is that you would have me believe Your Tridentine Convention hath indeed provided a limber Cothurnus to fit if it were possible your severall statures and postures But generall words are nothing but the proportion of a Cirque or Arena for Dogmatists to contend within the limits of The Antient Ecclesiasticall importance of the word Merit wherein as it may be proved by numberless instances it denoted no more than to obtain you have the most of you rejected and do urge it in a strict Legall sense denoting working for a reward and performing that which is proportionable unto it as the labour of the Hireling is to his wages according unto the strict Rules of Justice See your Rhem. An. 1 Cor. 3. Heb. 6. 10. So is the judgment I think of your Church explained by Suarez Tom. 1. in Thom. 3. d. 41. A Supernaturall work saith he proceeding from Grace in its self and in its own nature hath a proportion unto and condignity of the reward and 〈◊〉 of sufficient value to be worth the same And you seem to be of the same opinion in owning that description of Merit which Protestants reject which I gave in my Animadversions namely an intrinsecall worth and value in works arising from the exact answerableness unto the Law and proportion unto the reward so as on the Rules of Justice to deserve it Of the same mind are most of you See Andrad Orthodox Explic. lib. 6. Bagus de Merit Op. Lib. 1. cap. 9. Though I can assure you Paul was not Rom. 6. 23. Ch. 8. 18. so that you must not take it ill If Protestants oppose this Doctrine with Testimonies out of his Epistle to the Romanes as well as out of many other portions of the holy Writ for they look upon it as an opinion perfectly destructive of the Covenant of Grace Nay I must tell you that some of your own Church and way love not to talk at this high and lofty rate Ferus speaks plain unto you on Mat. 20. If you desire to hold the Grace and favour of God make no mention of your own merits Durand slicks not to call the opinion which you seem to espouse temerarious yea blasphemous Quest. 2. d. 27. In the explication of your distinction of congruity and condignity how wofully are you divided as also in the application of it there is no end of your altercations about it the termes of it being horrid uncouth strangers to Scripture and the antient Church of an arbitrary signification about which men may with probabilities contend to the worlds end and yet the very soul and life of your Doctrine of Merit lies in it Some ascribe Merit of Congruity to works before Grace and of Condignity to them done in a state of Grace some Merit of Congruity to them done by Grace and Merit of Condignity they utterly exclude Some give Grace and the Promise a place in Merit some so explain it that they can have no place at all therein Generally in your Books of Devotion when you have to do with God you begin to bethink your selves and speak much more humbly and modestly than you do when you endeavour to dispute subtilly and quell your Adversaries And I am not without hope that many of you do personally believe as to your own particular concernments far better than when you doctrinally express your selves when you contend with us As when that famous Emperour Charles the fist after all his bustles in and about Religion came to die in his retirement he expresly renounced all merit of works as a proud sigment and gave up himself to the sole Grace and Mercy of God in Jesus Christ on whose purchase of Heaven for him he alone relied Toto pectori in Deum revolutus sic ratiocinabatur saith the renowned Thuanus Hist. lib. 21. se quidem indignum esse qui propriis meritis regnum Caelorum obtineret sed Dominum Deum suum qui illud duplici jure obtinuit patris haereditate passionis merito altero contentum esse alterum sibi donare ex cujus dono illud sibi merito vindicet hacque fiducia fretus minime confundatur neque enim oleum misericordiae nisi in vase fiducia poni hanc homines fiducium esse à se deficientis innitentis Domino suo alioqui propriis meritis fidere non fidei esse sed perfidiae peccata remitti per Dei indulgentiam ideoque credere nos debere peccata deleri non posse nisi ab eo cuisoli peccavimus in quem peccatum non cadit per quem solum nobis peccata condonantur Words worthy of a lasting memory which they will not fail of where they are recorded Casting himself saith that excellent Historian with his whole soul upon God he thus reasoned That for his part he was on the account of any merits of his own unworthy to obtain the Kingdom nf Heaven but his Lord and God who hath a double right unto it one by inheritance of his Father the other by the merit of his own passion contented himself with the one granted the other unto him by whose grant he rightly or deservedly laid claim thereunto and resting in this faith or confidence he was not confounded for the oyl of mercy is not powred but into the vessel of faith this is the faith or confidence of a man fainting or despairing in himself and resting on his Lord and otherwise to trust to our own merits is not an act of faith but of infidelity or perfidiousness that sins are forgiven by the mercy of God and that therefore we ought to believe that sins cannot be blotted out or forgiven but by him against whom we have sinned who sinneth not and by whom alone our sins are pardoned This S r is the faith of Protestants in reference unto the merit of works which that Wise and Mighty Emperour after all his Military actings against them found the only safe Anchor for his soul in extremis his only relief against crying out with Hadrian Animula vagula blandula Hospes comesque corporis Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula frigida nudula Nec ut soles dabis jocos The only
Antidote against despair the only stay of a soul when once entring the lists of Eternity And I am perswaded that many of you fix on the same Principles as to your hope and expectation of Life and Immortality And to what purpose I pray you do you trouble the world with an opinion wherein you can find no benefit when if true you should principally expect to be relieved and supported by it But he that looks to find solid peace and consolation in this world or a blessed entrance into another on any other grounds than those expressed by that dying Emperour will find himself deceived S r you will one day find that our own works or merits Purgatory the sufferage of your Church or any parts of it when we are dead the surplussage of the works or merits of other sinners are pitifull things to come into competition with the blood of Christ and pardoning-Mercy in him I confess the Inquisition made a shift to destroy Constantine who was confessor to the Emperour and assisted him unto his departure And King Philip took care that his Son Charles should not live in the faith wherein his Father Charles died whereby Merit or our own Righteousness prevailed at Court but as I said I am perswaded that when many of you are in cold blood and think more of God than of Protestants and of your last account than of your present Arguments you begin to believe that Mercy and the Righteousness of Christ will be a better plea as to your own particular concernments at the last day Seeing therefore that Protestants teach the necessity of Good works upon the cogent Principles I minded you of in my Animadversions I suppose it might not be amiss in you to surcease from troubling them about their Merit which few of you are agreed about and which as I would willingly hope none of you dare trust unto You have I suppose been minded before now of the conclusion made in this matter by your great Champion Bellarmin lib. 5. de Justificat cap. 7. Propter saith he incertitudinem propriae justitiae periculum inanis gloriae TUTISSIMUM est fiduciam totam in sola Dei misericordia beâ—ignitate reponere Because of the uncertainty of our own righteousness and the danger of vain-glory it is the Safest course to place all our confidence in the alone mercy and benignity of God Wherein if I mistake not he disclaimeth all that he had subtilly disputed before about the merit of Works and he appears to have been in good earnest in this conclusion seeing he made such use of it himself in particular at the close of all his Disputes and Dayes praying in his last Will and Testament That God would deal with him not as aestimator meriti a Judg of his merit but largitor veniae a mercifull Pardoner Vit. Bell. per Sylvestr à Pet. San. Impress Antuerpiae 1631. And why is this the safest course certainly it must be because God hath appointed it and revealed it so to be for on no other ground can any course towards Heaven be accounted safe And if this be the way of his appointment that we should trust to his mercy alone in Christ Jesus let them that will be so minded notwithstanding all perswasions to the contrary as to trust to their own merit take heed lest they find when it is too late that they have steered a course not so safe as they expected And so I desire your excuse for this Diversion the design of it being only to discover one reason of your failing in morality in affirming mee to have said that which you knew well enough I did not which is this that you stood in a slippery place as to the point of faith which you were asserting being not instructed how to speak constantly and evenly unto it And to take you off from that vain confidence which this proud opinion of the Merit of works is apt to ingenerate in you whose first Inventours I fear did nor sufficiently consider with whom they had to doe before whom sinners appearing in their own strength and Righteousness will one day cry Who amongst us shall dwell with devouring fire who amongst us shall inhabit with everlasting burnings not the purity perfection and severity of his fiery Law judging condemning cursing every sinner for every sinne without the least intimation of mercy or compassion if you would but seriously consider how impossible it is for any man to know all his secret sinnes or to make compensation to God for the least of them that he doth know and that the very best of his works come short of that universal perfection which is required in them so that he dares not put the issue of his eternal condition upon any one of them singly though all the rest of his life should be put into everlasting oblivion and withall would diligently enquire into the end of God in giving his Son to die for sinners with the mystery of his Love and Grace therein the nature of the New Covenant the Importance of the Promises thereof the weight that is layed in Scripture on the Righteousness and blood of Christ with the Redemption that is purchased thereby or to the whole work of our Salvation and the peremptory exclusion of the merit of our works by Paul form our Justification before God I am perswaded you would find another manner of Rest and Peace unto your soul than all your own works and your other pretended supplements of them or reliefs against their defects are able to supply you withall And this I hope you will not be offended at that I have thus occasionally minded you of CHAP. III. A defence of the second Chapter of the Animadversions Principles of Fiat Lux re-examined Of our receiving the Gospell from Rome Our abode with them from whom we received it IN the same page you proceed to the consideration of my second Chapter and therein of the Principles which I gathered out of your Fiat Lux and which I affirmed to run through and to animate your whole Discourse and to be the foundation on which your Superstructure is built Concerning them all you say pag. 21. that in the sense the words do either naturally make out or in which I understand them of all the whole you can hardly own any one Pray S r remember that I never pretended to set down your words but to express your sense in my own And if I do not make it appear that there is no one of the Principles mentioned which you have not in the sense by me declared affirmed and asserted I will be contented to be thought to have done you some wrong and my self much more for want of attending unto that Rule of Truth which I am compelled so often to desire you to give up your self unto the conduct of The first Principle imputed unto your Fiat Lux is That we received the Gospell first from Rome To which you say Wee that is we
what and you seem both in your Fiat and in your Epistola to obscure it as much as you are able 1. You call it an incruent Sacrifice which 1. Shews only what it is not and that in one only instance which is a very lame description of any thing and this also may be affirmed of any Metaphorical Sacrifice what ever as offering unto God the calves of our lips it is an incruent Sacrifice 2. Your Expression implyes a contradiction Every proper Propitiatory Sacrifice was bloody and an incruent proper Sacrifice such as you would have this to be is a proper improper Propitiatory Sacrifice 2. You say it was instituted by our Lord to figure out his Passion 1. This is a weighty proof of what you have in hand being the only thing to be proved 2. I suppose in the examination of it it will appear that you Sacrifice that very body and blood of Christ in your own conceits which himself offered unto God and how you can make any thing to be a figure of it self as yet I do not perfectly understand 3. That the Lord Christ appointed the Sacrament of his body and blood and our Eucharistical Sacrifice therein to be a Commemoration of his death and Passion is the Doctrine of Protestants where with your Sacrifice hath a perfect inconsistency as we shall find in the Consideration of it This is the substance of what you are pleased to acquaint us with about this great business of our Religion But because you shall perceive that it was not without good grounds and reasons that I affirmed the Scripture to be utterly silent of this that you make the great work of Christianity I shall a little further enquire after the nature of it that I mean which by you it is fancied to be for it is a mere creature of your own imagination 1. You alwayes contend that it is a proper Sacrifice which you intend The first Canon of your Council accurseth them who deny it to be verum proprium Sacrificium a True and proper Sacrifice wherein as they say before Christus inimolatur Christ is Sacrificed Many things in the New Testament in respect of their Analogy unto the Institutions of the old are called Sacrifices even almost all spiritual actions that are acceptable unto God in Christ. The preaching of the Gospel unto the conversion of sinners is termed Sacrificing Rom. 15. 16. So is Faith it self Phil. 2. 17. So Prayers and Thanksgiving are an oblation Heb. 5. 7. chap. 13. 15. and good works are called Sacrifices Heb. 13. 16. Phil. 4. 18. And our whole Christian Obedience is intimated by Peter so to be In the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is that you seek for your Sacrifice And if you would be contented to call it and esteem it so upon the account of its comprizing some of the things before mentioned or meerly as a spiritual action appointed by God and acceptable unto him there would be an end of this contest But you must have it a proper Sacrifice like those of Aaron of old not a remembrance of the Sacrifice of Christ but a Sacrifice of Christ himself wherein Christus immolatur Christ is sacrificed as the Council speaks 2. The Secrifices of old were of two sorts 1. Eucharistical or Oblations of the fruits of the earth or other things whereby the Sacrificers acknowledged God as the Lord and Author of all good things and mercies with thanksgiving 2. Propitiatory for the atoning of God the reconciling him unto sinners for the turning away of his wrath and the impetration of the pardon of sin This was done typically and Sacramentally by virtue of their respect unto the oblation of Christ by the old bloody Sacrifices of the Law really and effectually by that bloody Sacrifice which the Lord Jesus Christ once offered for all Now because in the Sacrament of the Eucharist it is our Duty to offer up unto God our thankeful prayers for his unspeakable love in sending his only Son to dye for us we do not contend with any who on that accont and with respect unto that peculiar act of our duty in it shall call it an Eucharistical Sacrifice yea affirm it so to be But you will have it a propitiatory Sacrifice a Sacrifice of Atonement like that made by Christ himself a Sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead making reconciliation with God obtaining Pardon of sin and eternal life things peculiar to the one Sacrifice of Christ in his death and passion 3. Though you usually exclude the communion from it wherein you do wisely that it may have no affinity with the Institution of Christ yet you do not precisely determine your Sacrifice unto any one act or action in your Mass but make it comprize the whole with the manner of its celebration from the first setting forth of the Elements of bread and wine mixed with water unto the end of the Offertory after their Transubstantiation and religious adoration thereupon and their offering up unto God the body and blood of Christ under the accidents of bread and wine The presentation of the bread and wine you would prove to belong unto your Sacrifice from the example of Melchisedeck Your Transubstantiation is also of the essence of it for it is required in a Sacrifice sayes your Bellarmine that the sensible thing to be offered unto God be changed and plainly destroyed de Miss Lib. 1. cap. 2. which you esteem the substance of your bread and wine to be in your Transubstantiation Your religious adoration of the consecrated â—â—st belongs also unto it for that in the Canon of the Mass immediately ensues your Transubstantiating Consecration before the oblation it self and so must necessarily be a part of your Sacrifice Your offering up unto God of Jesus Christ praying him to accept of him at the Priests hands supra quae propitio sereno vultu respicere digneris accepta habere belongs also unto it So doth your direction of it to the propitiating of God and the expiation of the sins of the Quick and the Dead The Ceremonies also wherewith your Masse is celebrated as I suppose most of them belong to your Sacrifice and those who believe them not to be duties of Piety are accursed by your Council of Trent The Priests eating of the Host belongs to the Sacrifice yea saith Bellarmine it is pars essentialis Sacrificii though not tota essentia an essential part of the Sacrifice though the whole Essence of it doth not consist therein I know you are at a great loss and variance among your selves to find out what it is that is properly your Sacrifice or wherein the essence of it doth consist Some of your discrepant opinions are given us by your Azorius Lib. 10. Chap. 19. Sunt saith he qui putant rationem sacrificii totam constitui in verbis precibus ceremoniis ritibus qui in consâ—oratione adhibentur eo quod Sacrificii ratio inquiunt nequit in
Syriack transposeth the words and interprets the Sacrifice intended in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and when they were fasting and praying unto the Lord. Praying together with prophesying and preaching was their Ministry not Sacrificing To the same purpose all antient Translations not one giving countenance unto your fancy So well have you the plain words of the sacred Text for you 7. Are you not ashamed to boast that you have all Antiquity for your sense and meaning Produce any one antient Author if you can that gives the least countenance unto it This boasting is uncomely because untrue Bellarmine out of whom you took your Plea from this place and your qâ—otation of Erasmus in your Fiat cannot produce the suffrage of any one of the Antients for your interpretation of the words no more can any of your Commentators The Homilies of Chrysostom on that passage are lost Oecumenius is quite blank against you so is Cajetan Erasmus and Vatablus of your own and do you not now see what is become of your boasting And are not your Countrymen beholding unto you for endeavouring so industriously to draw them off from the Institution of Christ to place their Confidence and devotion in that which hath not the least footstep in Scripture or Antiquity but is expresly condemned by them both But to tell you my judgement you will prevail with very few of them to answer your desires Will they judge it meet and equal think you to change a blessed Sacrament that Christ hath appointed to embrace a Sacrifice that you have invented to leave calling upon God according to the sense of their wants with understanding as they do in that Celebration of the Eucharist which now they enjoy to attend unto a Priest sometimes muttering sometimes saying sometimes singing a deal of Latine whereof they understand never a word To forego that internal humility self abasement and prostration of soul unto God which they are enured unto in that Sacrament to become spectators of the Theatrical gestures of your Sacrificers Besides they are not able to comply with your request and to make your Mass the sum of their Devotion and worship of God without offering the highest violence to their Faith as they are Christians their Reason as they are men and that Sense which they have in common with other Creatures And what are you or what have you done for them that you should at once expect such a profuse largeness at their hands I. For your Faith if it be grounded on the Scripture as every true Protestants is your Sacrifice if admitted will unquestionably evert it To accept of a worship pretended to be of such huge importance as to be available for the impetration of Grace Mercy Pardon of sins removal of punishment life eternal for the living and the dead destitute of all foundation in or countenance from the Scripture absolutely inconsistent with their faith 2. It is no less to have a Sacrament which is given unto us of God as a pledge and token of his Love and Grace turned into a Sacrifice which is a thing by us offered unto God and accepted by him so that they differ as in other things so in their terms à quo and ad quem from what they proceed and by whom they are accepted 3. Besides they will quickly discover your pretensions to be contrary unto what the Scripture teacheth them both concerning the Sacrifice of Christ and also his institution of his last supper which is your Rule and comprizeth the whole of your Duty in the administration of it They do not find that therein Christ offered himself unto his Father but to his Disciples not to him to be accepted of him but to them to be by faith received 4. And whereas the Apostle expresly affirms that he offered himself but once if he offered himself a Sacrifice in his last Supper you must maintain that he offered himself twice unless you will deny his Sacrifice on the Cross. 5. Moreover it is greatly opposite to your Countreymens faith about the Priesthood of Christ and his real Sacrifice which are to them things of that moment that whosoever shakes their faith in and about them shakes the very foundations of their hope consolation and salvation They have been taught that Christ remains an High Priest for ever and the multiplication of Priests in succession arising meerly from the mortality and death of them that preceded they believe that no Priest can be sustituted unto him in his office to offer a proper Sacrifice unto God the same which he offered himself without a supposition of an insufficiency in him for his work It is true there are persons who in his name and Authority as he is the great Prophet of the Church do Minister unto it whom some of them either as the word may be an abreviation of Presbyter or out of analogy unto them who of old served at the altar do call Priests but that any should intervene between God and Christ in Sacrificing or the discharge of his Priestly office you will not find your Countrymen ready to believe For they are perswaded there are as many Mediators and Sureties as Priests or Sacrificers of the New Covenant 6. Moreover they believe that the Sacrifice of the Mass is an high derogation from the vertue and efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and to be set up in competition with it 7. They are at a stand at the whole matter to see you turning bread and Wine into that very body and blood of Christ which suffered on the Cross and then to worship them and then to pray to God to accept at your hands that Christ which you have made and then to eat him But when they consider that by so doing you suppose your selves to effect that which they believe to be wrought only by the blood of the Cross of Christ once offered for all and therein fancy a Sacrifice of Christ wherein he dyeth not contrary to so many express Testimonies of Scripture they are utterly averse from it For whereas they look for Redemption Forgiveness of sins and Reconciliation with God by the one Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross wherein consists the foundation of their hope and consolation because it being absolutely perfect was every way able and sufficient without any repetition as the Apostle teacheth them to take away sin and for ever to consummate them that are Sanctified you teach them now to look for the same things from this Sacrifice of yours which would make them question the validity and perfection of that of Christ. 8. And when they have so done yet they would still be forced to question the validity of yours because it is a pretended Sacrifice of Christ without his death which they know to have been indispensably required to render his Sacrifice valid and effectual 9. And they cannot but think that this repeated Sacrifice being pretended to be for the very same ends and purposes with