Nature or Essence which is properly signified by such a Name The Doctor therefore to give him his due in the beginning of his Charge argues like a good Logician when he would conclude the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry because he says she requires the giving to the Creature the Honour due onely to God But he plays the downright Sophister in the close when he would prove that in worshipping God by an Image she gives to the Image the Honour due onely to Him because if God have given it the name of Idolatry it must receive the denomination of Idolatry Either he must make it out that a meer Extrinsecal Denomination has the miraculous power to reflect against Nature the Honour directed to God from Him to the Image or he must confess that Gods Prohibition of such Worship if there were any may make it indeed to be unlawful but hinders not the Act from tending whither it was intended and consequently if it be intended or directed by the Understanding and Will to God though after an unlawful manner it will not fail to be terminated on God Nor is this to make the Intentions of men to be the Rule of Divine Worship for if God have forbidden himself to be Worshipped after such a manner the giving him such Worship will be a dishonouring of Him though the Giver intend it never so much for his honour Disobedience it will be or some other sin and denominatively Idolatry if forbidden under that name but not a terminating the honour due to God upon the Image unless the Doctor think it a good Argument to prove the Fields and Trees to be Merry Companions because the Prophet says The Fields are joyful and the Trees of the Wood rejoyce These he will say are Metaphorical denominations and so must that of Idolatry be in his supposed Prohibition unless he can prove the Worship due to God to be terminated wholly on the Image and so the Act it self to have in it the true nature of Idolatry antecedently to such a denomination § 9. As for that Courtly Comparison of his that it would be Treason in any man to bow down to a Sign Post with the Princes Head upon it though with an intention to honour him by it a most self-denying Ordinance I confess and not unlike to that rare example of Self-denyal to which himself so Religiously exhorts the Prelates of the Church of England in the Preface to his Irenicum viz. to reduce the form of Church-Government to its Primitive State and Order by retrenching all Exorbitancies as he calls them of Power and restoring Presbyteries as the World is like to want such an unheard-of Example of Self-abnegation at least till Princes can be perswaded that the honour or dishonour done to their Pictures reflects not upon Them and that Act of the Civil Law be repealed L. unica cod de his qui ad Statuas which declares it Treason for any man to deface his Princes Picture So were it enacted it would not hinder the Act of Reverence and Respect from being terminated upon the Prince to whom it was intended § 10. To the Instances I gave in my Reply of the Prayers which Thieves and Murderers make to God for good success of the Jews offering to God the Blind and Lame which he had forbidden and of Cain's offering a Sacrifice to God which he refused to accept all which evidently shew that God's having forbidden such a kind of Worship hinders it not from being terminated on him All that he answers is That these Instances do not suppose any prohibited Object or Means of Worship as he supposeth the Worship of God by an Image doth And here again he falls into the same Contradiction as before viz. that it is the Worship of God by an Image and yet the Image is made the whole and sole object of Worship But to conclude this point 'T is evident that the Image is not made the Object of Worship by the Intention of him that gives it which says Dr. Taylor is that by which God principally if not solely takes estimate of humane actions for what he intends is to Worship God by it and the Intention not making it the Object of Worship an Extrinsecal Denomination from a Law forbidding if there were any such cannot make it to be so nor hinder the Act from being terminated on God its intended Object 'T is manifest then that the Major Proposition of the Argument brought by him to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry viz. That the Worship which God denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature is absolutely false and consequently all that he builds upon it falls to the ground But this was but a Prelude to usher in his Minor viz. That God not onely denies to receive Worship by an Image but threatens severaly to punish them that give it Upon this it is he lays the main stress of his Charge of Idolatry how inconsequently though supposed to be as he would have it a Prohibition I have shewed already and shall make yet more apparent by laying open the nullity of the Proofs he brings to maintain it CHAP. III. The mystery of making the same Proposition sometimes an Article of Faith and sometimes none No express Text against Worshipping God by an Image His first Proof from the Terms of the Law manifesâ—ly groundless The Argument from St. Austin's Judgment and the Septuagints translating the word Pesel Idol and not Image re-inforced 1. WHat we are to consider in the first place here is what it is that Dr. St. will undertake to prove and it is this That God in the second Commandment according to his reckoning expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image This is what upon his Second Thoughts for the term expresly was not in his FIRST Answer he undertakes to prove And I cannot but wonder to see it drop now from his Pen who on the one side asserts Scripture doubtless express Scripture to be his most certain Rule of Faith and on the other side denies as I shewed above Chap. 1. any thing to bâ— an Article of Faith which is not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self What may the meaning of this be If it be expresly revealed in Scripture that God is not to be worshipped by an Image it is an Article of Faith If it be not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self it is no Article of Faith but as he calls it an Inferiour Truth or Pious Opinion yet such as neither himself nor any man else is bound to believe there is a jot of Truth in it Is it then or is it not an Article of Faith that God is not to be worshipped by an Image If it be an Article of Faith 't is false what he asserts so stiffly in his Rational Account p. 54. that the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but what are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self If it be
if the Common-Prayer-Book should ordain the Minister when he goes up to the Communion-Table either to put off his shoes or to bow to it he would scruple much more to go barefoot than to nod to it with his Shoes on Two other pretences of difference he brings not unlike the former The first that in kising the Ground or bowing to it if these things had been done to the Ground the danger had not been so great as to Images The other that the Reverence of Holy Places and Things is of a quite different nature from the Worship of Images For the first of danger he may leave that as Mr. Thorndike hath told him to the Judgment of the Church And for the second Holy Places and Things may have several Relations to God according to the different uses for which they serve in order to his Worship and yet the Reverence given them may be proportionably alike that is an inferiour Respect and Veneration and not Latria which is due to God alone But how different soever he would make it from that of Images he must not think to escape For if any be due at all to Holy Places and Things I suppose it is given them for God's sake and then all his own Arguments return upon him afresh for either it is the same which is given to God or distinct from it and which way soever he take Bellarmin or Vasquez will be upon him Or none at all is due to them and then he mocks his Reader when he tells him that the Reverence of Holy Places and Things is of a quite different nature from the Worship of Images And this is indeed what lies at the bottom how speciously soever he pretend the contrary here in words as will manifestly appear from his Answers to the following Instances For first § 3. To that of the Reverence given by the Jews to the Ark and the Holy of Holies where the Cherubins and Propitiatory were he plainly enough denies that any was given them To prove there was I produced first that Text of the Psalm Adore ye the foot-stool of God for it it is holy Psal xcviii 5. as all the Ancient Fathers read it without scruple or as their own Translation hath it Fall down before his Foot-stool for He the Margin hath it It is holy And secondly the Testimony of St. Hierom who saith expresly Ep. 17. ad Marcel Venerabantur olim that the Jews in times past did worship or reverence the Holy of Holies because there were the Cherubins the Propitiatory the Ark c. To neither of these doth he vouchsafe any Answer at all but with an Ipse dixit tells us p. 106. that the Jews onely directed their Worship towards that place where God had promised to be signally present among them and signifies no more to the Worship of Images than our lifting up our Eyes to Heaven doth when we pray Thus He Oracularly without either Scripture or Father or Reason to abet him But if Moses and Josue might lawfully testifie their Reverence to the Ground because it was holy why might not the Jews do as much to the Foot-stool of God because that also was holy Why was it placed in the Holy of Holies and why were the People commanded to adore or bow down before it but to testifie their Reverence to it and that a much greater in the Doctors opinion than putting off their shoes for they were to adore it or fall down before it and all this I hope signifies something more to the Worship of Images than the lifting up our Eyes to Heaven doth when we pray which might have been as well if not better without all this Ceremony in an open field For the Cherubins he tells That they were always hid from the sight of the People as if nothing could have Reverence given it but what is seen It may reasonably be presumed that himself will charge us with Idolatry for adoring the Host not onely when we see it upon the Altar but when it is recluded in a Tabernacle or covered with a Veil Nor doth he mend the matter when he says That the High Priest himself went into the Holy of Holies but once a year for if at that time it were lawful for him to testifie Reverence to the Throne of God there placed it is as much as we desire and if unlawful it was more than he ought to have done though but once a year for as St. Hierom saith Quod semel fecisse bonum est non potest malum esse si frequenter fiat aut si aliqua culpa vitanda est non ex eo quod saepe sed ex eo quod â—it aliquando culpabile est What he adds of the Cherubins being placed meerly as Appendices to the Throne of God was a means rather to increase than diminish the people's reverence to them and for their form there needed no more be known than what Calvin in Exod. xxv 18. affirmeth of them That they represented Angels § 4. To bowing at the Name of JESUS This Ceremony was appointed and allowed by the Injunctions made in the time of Queen Elizabeth Art 52. and was defended by Dr. Whitgift in his Defence against Cartright by Dr. Fulk Dr. Andrews whose words are cited below and others and is at this day publickly practised in the Church of England and that in Dr. St.'s own sight by such as esteem themselves the onely true and genuine Sons of that Church This Instance I thought to be very pertinent because first it is allowed by Protestants and so more easily understood and secondly because of the Analogy there is between Words and Pictures a Picture being a Word to the Eye and a Word as Aristotle calls it a Picture to the Ear. Another reason I had also because the Doctor being inoculated into the Church of England or to speak his Dialect a Revolted Presbyterian I thought he would not dare to disavow all reverence to the Sacred Name of JESUS But I find I was deceived for he tells me plainly I might as well have instanced in going to Church at the Toll of a Bell as in bowing at the Name of Jesus for as the one only tells us the time when so the other only puts us in mind of the Person whom we are to worship This is plain enough I confess if it be as mannerly to tell us that no more Reverence is due to the most H. Name of JESUS when we hear it spoken than to a Bell when we hear it toll And the Compariâ—on is somewhat more elevated than if he had made it with Whittington's fancying the Bells to call him back to be Lord Maior of London But was this all that St. Paul meant when he told us That at the Name of Jesus or as Dr. St. himself reads it p. 111. To the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow Phil. ii 10. Was it for this that God so highly exalted Him that He gave Him
Respect given to it is a Fence against the Contempt of his Person He that passes by that with his Hat on thinks himself excus'd upon the same account from putting it off to the King himself The End of the First Part. THE SECOND PART OF THE ADORATION OF THE Most Blessed Sacrament CHAP. I. The Practise of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs he brings for it refuted § 1. HAving cleared the Doctrin and Practise of the Catholick Church from my Adversaries Unjust Charge of Idolatry in the Worship or Veneration she gives to the Images of Christ I come now to show the Injustice of a like accusation he brings in upon account of the Adoration she gives to Christ himself in the most H. Sacrament of the Altar A thâ—â—g so universally practiced and recommended by the Fathers of the Primitive Church both Greek and Latin that who so will condemn the practise of it at this day in the Church of Rome must have the confidence to involve the Church of that time in the same Condemnation with it Among other Apostolical Traditions which were delivered to the Church without Writing St. Basil reckons the words of Invocation when the Eucharistical Brâ—ad and Cup of Blessing were shewed And Theodoret affirms expresly that The Mystical Symbols are understood to be what they are made and are believed and adored as being the things they are believed S. Gregory Nâ—zianzen reporteth of his Sister Gorgonia as a great testimony of her devotion that in a certain sickness she had she went with Faith to the Altar and with a lowd voice besought him who is worshipped upon it for remedy giving him all his Titles or Attributes and remembring him of all the miraculous things which he had done And the same no doubt was done by St. Monica the Mother of St. Austin in her daily devotions at the Altar at which she used to assist without pretermission of any one day and from whence she knew saith he that Holy Victime to be dispensed by which the 〈◊〉 writing was blotted out which carried our condemnation in it To this Sacrament of our Redemptiâ—â— she had tied her Soul fast by the Bond of â—â—ith And in this she did no more 〈◊〉 what her Son teacheâ—â— upon the 98th Psalâ—â— where expounding 〈◊〉 words of the Psalmist Adore ye his Foot-stool to be meant of the Earth and by the Earth to be understood the Flesh of Christ he addeth that whereas Christ walked here in the Flesh and gave us that very flesh to be eaten for our Salvation and no man eateth that Flesh unless he have first adored we find saith he how such a Foot-stool of our Lord may be adored and that we do not only not sin in adoring but we sin in not adoring Viz. that Foot-stool of our Lord by which he said before was meant his most Holy Flesh And from whom did he learn this Doctrin but from the same Master from whom he learn't Christianity St. Ambrose who treating of the same place of the Psalmist saith By the Foot-stool is understood the Earth and by the Earth the Flesh of Christ which we adore also at this day in the Mysteries and which the Apostles adored in our Lord Jesus Upon this Account it is that St. Chrysostome exhorts Christians to this duty by the Example of the Wise-men These Men saith he though Barbarians after a long Journey adored this Body of our Lord in the Manger with great fear and trembling Let us imitate what they did Thou seest Him not in the Manger but on the Altar And then again by the Example of the Angels who saith he assist the Priest at the time of offring the Holy Sacrifice and the whole order of Heavenly Powers list up their Voices and the place round about the Altar is filled with the Quires of Angels in honour of Him who lyeth upon it And therfore it is called by St. Optatus the Seat or Throne of the Body of our Lord. Thus these Holy Men not as private Doctors delivering their own Opinions but as Fathers testifying and transmitting to Posterity the Doctrin and Practise of the Church of their time which was so notorious in this point of the Adoration of the Eucharist that the Heathens because they knew Christians made use of Bread and Wine in the Mysteries objected to them as St. Austin reports that they worshipped Ceres and Bacchus And hereupon Mr. Thorndike Epil 3. p. pag. 351. ingenuously saith I do believe that it was so practised and done in the ancient Church which I maintain from the beginning to have been the true Church of Christ For I do acknowledge the testimonies that are produced out of St. Ambrose St. Austin St. Chrysostome St. Gregory Nazianzen with the rest and more than I have produced And now it is in the Reader 's choice whether he will condemn so great and Holy Men and with them the Church of that time of Idolatry for adoring our Lord Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar or will absolve Uj for doing what they did It is with them we must stand or fall And the Doctor 's argument will make neither or both Idolaters But before I speak to that and that the Reader may see what force it is like to have behold how he ushers it in § 2. I proceeded saith he to the Adoration of the Host and here the argument I proposed was to take off the common answer viz. of Catholicks that it cannot be Idolatry because they believe the Bread to be God This is what the Doctor exposes in the front of his Rejoynder to publick view And if the Reader meet with such sophisticate Ware in the Mouth of the Sack What may he expect when he comes neerer to the bottom The argument I proposed saith he was to take off the Common Answer viz. of Catholicks that it cannot be Idolatry because they believe the Bread to be God And that too just as the Worshippers of the Sun believed the Sun to be God For upon the same ground he saith it is that they who believe the Sun to be God and worship him on that account would be excused from Idolatry too The unhandsomness of this Proceeding I fairly hinted to him in my Reply whereas I might justly have called it a most injurious calumny and it became an Ingenuous Writer either to have justified his charge or if he could not do that nor yet had humility enough to retract it to have wav'd at least the repeating it in his Answer But this he is so far from doing that without any proof at all what he did but insinuate before in the Body of his Argument he lays down now expresly in his Rejoinder as the Ground of his charge of
Divines whether any of the three Points instanced by the Doctor viz. Veneration of Images Adoration of the B. Sacrament and Invocation of Saints be Idolatry or no and those who side least with that Party which are called Non-conformists are for the Negative Viz. that it is not Idolatry whereas if it had been the sense of the Church of England in those Articles that it were Idolatry to do any of those things they had by maintaining the contrary as erroneous incurr'd Excommunication ips facto as appears by the Canons Printed before the 39 Articles set forth by Mr. Rogers Here therefore the Doctor to maintain his charge of Idolatry to be as he calls it the receiv'd Doctrin and practice of the Church of England is forc'd to have recourse to the Book of Homilies and to the Sentiments of Particular Persons of which he cites no less than Seventeen the greatest part of whom I shall show to be incompetent Witnesses in the case and the rest to speak nothing to his Purpose First then for the Book of Homilies which he saith is not barely allow'd but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times I answer this doth not Evince that every particular Doctrin contained in it is such And therefore Mr. Thorndike speaking of the very Homily against peril of Idolatry here urged by Dr. St. saith that in this particular he must have leave to think it fails as it evidently doth in others And Bish Mountague saith The Book of Homilies contains a general Godly doctrin yet it is not in every part the publick dogmatical doctrin of the Church And Dr. Heylin in his necessary Introduction to Cyprianus Anglicus p. 14. tells us that the vehemence used in those Homilies was not against Images as Intolerable in themselves but as they might be made in those broken and unsetled times an occasion of falling But that People being well instructed in the right use of them Images may be still kept for good uses in Churches and for stirring up of devotion in which respect they were called saith he by Pope Gregory and not unfitly the Lay-men's Books As for the particular Doctors he cites I except against little less than two parts of three of them as Incompetent Witnesses in the Case And in Order to this I shall take the same measure the Doctor himself puts into my hand when to show the Testimony of Arch bishop Whitgift to be valid in his cause he premises that none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than He that is I shall cast out of the List all those who shall be found to have been Puritans or Puritanically inclin'd And first for his two Arch-bishops Whitgift and Abbot the Former though otherwise a stiff Asserter of the Disciplin of the Church of England is known to have consented to the frameing of the Lambeth Articles and to have proposed them to the Divines of Cambridge and the latter was so great a Favourer and Abettor of the Puritan Party that to stop them in their full Carreer Dr. Heylin saith it was found necessary to suspend Him from his Metropolitical Jurisdiction of Dr. White the same Heylin reports p. 135. that for Licensing Bishop Mountague's Appello Caesarem it was said that White was turned Black Jewel Bilson and Davenant were all excepted against by our late Soveraign K. Charles I. in his 3d. Paper to Hinderson Dr. Fulk also in Matth. 28. 46. is noted for abetting Calvin in his blasphemous Opinion that our Saviour Christ suffered in his Soul the very pains of a damned Person upon the Cross Reynolds and Whitaker are notorious for their siding with the Puritans the latter being a great stickler for the Lambeth Articles and the Former appearing publickly the Fore-man or Champion of that Party at the Conference at Hampton-Court against the Church of England Bishop Usher and Bishop Downam cannot be excused The story of the first is to be seen in Cyprianus Anglicus p. 271. where after many Calvinistical Opinions of which the said Primate was the Contriver in Ireland Dr. Heylin saith he refused to receive the whole Body of the Canons made in the year 1603 because he was afraid of bowing at the name of Jesus and some other Reverences which he neither practised nor approved and p. 216. that his Book called Gottescalchus had run the same Fate of being called in with that of Bishop Downam 's about Perseverance but that it seem'd not fit to put a publick disgrace upon the Primate of a Nation By all which it appears that of Seventeen Authors He cites to maintain his unjust charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome to be the sense of the Church of England no less than Eleven are shown to have been downright Puritans or Puritanically affected For the Six which remain viz. Dr. Jackson Dr. Field Isaac Casaubon Bishop Andrews Arch bishop Laud and King James whoever compares what the Doctor cites out of them with what they write in other places nay whoever attentively considers but the very places cited by my Adversary shall find that they do not impugn the Doctrin it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that Doctrin but such things as they conceived to be great abuses in the Practice of it For Dr. Jackson as cited by the Doctor doth not say that to give a honourary Veneration to Images is Idolatry but to give divine honour to them which he saith the Papists do and the Papists themselves deny Bishop Andrews in like manner giveth for the reason of his charge that the Papists do not meerly pray to the Saints to pray for them but to give what they pray for themselves and the Papists profess they do no such things Dr. Field doth not charge the Invocation of Saints with Idolatry and Superstition but speaks only of the Idolatry and Superstition whâ—ch he thought but not truly was committed in it Arch-bishop Laud also as his own words declare speaks of the practice of Adoration of Images in the Modern Church of Rome which he erroneously affirmeth to be too like to Paganism And so K. James in the place cited by the Doctor had He not so soon forgot his promise of reporting faithfully saith expresly that what He condemns is Adoring of Images viz. with Divine Worship praying to them and imagining a kind of sanctity to be in them all which are detested by Catholicks And all that he cites out of Isaac Casaubon when He was employed by the King to deliver His Opinion to Cardinal Perron in the Invocation of Saints was that the Church of England did affirm that some Particular Practices were joyned with great impiety So that it is not the Doctrin of the Church of Rome if rightly practic'd which these Authors condemn of Idolatry but the abuses they conceiv'd to be committed in the practice of it as to give the Worship due to God to an Image to pray to
it or imagin any virtue or Divinity to be in it or to pray to the Saints as to those who are to give us what we pray for themselves All which are forbidden by the 2d Nicen Council and that of Trent and for other practices which the Dr. occasionally objects they shall be discuss'd in the following Discourse This being so as I have shewn and the Judgment of these Divines differing only as more and less in the same kind from what Mr. Thorndike and other learned Protestants pretend when they reprove some practices as Idolatrous or at least in danger to be such These last Six Authors cited by the Doctor ought to have been alledged for the contrary position of what He affirms viz. That the Church of Rome neither in her Doctrine nor Practice conformable to her Doctrin is guilty of Idolatry For whilst they impeach only some Practices which they judge different from the Doctrine 't is manifest they iâ—ply the Doctrine it self and Practice if conformable to it not to be Idolatrous Here then let the Reader judge whether Dr. St being as He saith by command publickly engag'd in the defence of so excellent a cause as that of the Church of England against the Church of Rome have not betray'd his trust and his Church too if it be his in advancing such a Medium to justifie Her separation as contradicts the sense of that Church if it be to be taken from the sentiments of those who are esteem'd Her true and Genuin Sons and in the Judgment of some of them makes it in plain terms to be Schismatical Which yet will appear more clearly if we consider how this Charge of Idolatry subverts the very foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority in the Church of England For it being a received Maxime and not denyable by any one of common sense that no Man can give to another that which he hath not himself it lies open to the Conscience of every man that if the Church of Rome be guilty of Heresy much more if Guilty of Idolatry it falls under the Apostles Excommunication Gal. 1. 8. and so remains depriv'd of the lawful Authority to use and exercise the Power of Orders and consequently the Authority of Governing Preaching and Administring Sacraments which those of the Church of England challenge to themselves as deriv'd from the Church of Rome can be no true and lawful Jurisdiction but usurped and Antichristian This is what follows against the Church of England from the charge of Idolatry upon the Church of Rome and so much the more as issuing from his Pen who in his Irenicum a Book very humbly tendred by him to Consideration after the Re-settlement of Episcopacy in the Church of England maintains that no particular Form of Church Government is De Jure Divino but mutable as the Secular Magistrate with the advice of learned and experienc'd Persons shall see convenient for State and Church and particularly that the main Ground for setling Episcopal Government in this Nation was not any pretence of Divine Right but conveniency to the State and condition of the Church at the time of its Reformation citing for it the Testimony of Arch bishop Cranmer and others Mr. Foulis I know speaking of that Book calls Him a Bold Fellow that Published it and affirms that he little understood the compass and merit of that Controversie I like not the rudeness of these and other expressions of like nature He there uses and I forbear to repeat yet I could willingly joyn with Him so far in Charity as to impute it rather to Inadvertence than design in my Adversary did not this new charge of Idolatry seem but too apparently to be but a clinching of the nail which He had driven before to the Head For if the Form of Church-Government be mutable as the Secular Power well-advised shall see reason what greater reason can there be for the actual changing of it than the nullity of its Jurisdiction This hath made me wonder not a little how the Governours of the Church of England could see their Authority so closely attacqued at least so manifestly betrayed by their pretended Champion and not vindicate themselves and their Jurisdiction from the â—oul stain of Antichristian which necessarily follows if the Church of Rome as He pretends be guilty of Idolatry and they derive together with their Consecration their Episcopal Jurisdiction from it But I shall leave these things to those whom it concerns and betake my self to my present business which is to show that the Church of Rome neither in her Doctrine nor Practice conformable to her Doctrine is guilty of Idolatry And this I bid done much sooner had not the Time spent iâ— Transcribing least the Copy should be surprized the Difficulty of the Press which also encreased the Errata and other Employments 〈◊〉 a few for we also are none of those happy Men who have only one thing to mind reâ—arded me in my design ERRATA IN the Preface page 2. line 27. for Pointing read Printing p. 6. l. 8. r. Dr. Taylor that neither p 25. l. 15. r. Question thus put p. 35. l. 30. for with r. against p. 38. l. 8. for couse r. causâ— l. 9. for ers r. eos p. 41 l. 10 r. writings p. 5â— l. 28. r. Beholders p. 64 l 12 r. Irrepresentablenes p. 80. l. 11. for the r. his p. 81. l. 18. f. seat r. State p. 87. l. 6. f. did r. drew p. 92. l. ult r. advantages p. 124. l. 11. add in the Marg. Of the Church li. 3. c. 36. p. 134. l. 3. f. cross r. Cross p. 138. l. 23. r. â—ue that by p. 140. l. ult f. rashly r. vainly p. 158. l. 27. r. Obcaecans l. 27. f. that r. that is p. 161. l. 25. or â—magine r. Imagine l. 28. for Oracres r. Oraces p 172. l. 5. for in r. me p. 178. l. 25. r. in this matter p. 212. l. 27. for honour r. comfort p. 2â—7 l 6. r. Wherefore p. 246. l. 2. r. Begotten Son p. 360. l. 30. f. first r. â—isth p. 363. l. 2. after foâ— Biu put St. Nicholas for Eru p. 411. l. 7. 8. f. Paul r. Paula l. 23. Praises r. prayes p. 448. l. 17. f. Flood r. Floods THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS PART I. Of the Veneration of Holy Images Chap. 1. DR Stillingfleet's 1st and 2d Answer to the First Question shown not pertinent Necessity of Communion with the Church of Rome proved and his Charge of Idolatry overthrown by his own Principles Pag. 1. Chap. 2. His chief Argument to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry examin'd and his Preposterous ways of arguing laid open Pag. 17. Chap. 3. The Mystery of making the same Proposition sometimes an Article of Faith and sometimes none No express Text against worshipping God by an Image His first Proof from the Terms of the Law manifestly groundless The Arguments from St. Austin's Judgment and the Septuagint's Translating the word Pesel Idol and
Catholick The Reply to Dr. Stillingfleet's Answer Madam I Did not expect that two bare Questions could have produced such a super-foetation of Controversies as the Paper you sent me is fraught with But since the Answerer hath been pleas'd to take this Method for what end himself best knows I shall not refuse to give a fair and plain return to the several Points he insists upon and that with as much brevity as the matter and circumstances will bear The Questions proposed were 1. Whether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it The 2d Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a Member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians The first he saith being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant continuing so implyes a contradiction but where it lyes I cannot see for a Protestant may have the same Motives and yet out of wilfulness or passion not acquiesce to them He saw no doubt this supposition to be impertinent to the Question and therefore in the second part of the 1. § states it thus Whether a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who were bred in it The Question thus stated in its true supposition he answers first § 2. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the Communion of a Church wherein the salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them But before I reply I must do both him and my self right in matter of fact and it is Madam that when you first addressed to me you professed your self much troubled that he had told you a person leaving the Protestant communion and embracing the Catholick could not be saved That we should deny salvation to any out of the Catholick Church you lookt upon as uncharitable and this assertion of his had startled you in the opinion you had before of the Protestant Charity Whereupon you desired to know my opinion in the case and I told you I saw no reason why the same Motives which secured one born and bred and well grounded in Catholick Religion to continue in it were no◠sufficient also to 〈…〉 a Protestant who convinced by them 〈◊〉 embrace it This Madam 〈…〉 was the true occasion of your proposing the Question and not 〈…〉 supposes that I used the meer 〈…〉 self as a sufficient Argument to 〈…〉 you to embrace the Catholick Communion This premised I reply that the Answer he gives is altogether forrain to the matter in hand the Controversie not being between a Bred and a Converted Catholick on the one side and a person supposed to be in a safer Church than either of them on the other nor yet between two several Churches supposed to have in them an equal Capacity of salvation but between a person bred in the Catholick Religion on the one side and another converted to it from Protestantism on the other whether the latter may not be equally saved with the former Nor is it to the purpose of the present Question to prove that it is of necessity to Salvation to leave the Protestant Church and become a Member of the Catholick because the Question is only of the possibility not of the necessity of Salvation I say it is not necessary to the present Question to prove this but rather belongs to the second where I shall speak to it Whether there be a necessity of being a Member of some distinct Church Which being resolved affirmatively by both parts it follows then in order to enquire which this true Church is As for the Example of a Man leaping from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being Wrackt meaning by that Ship as I suppose he does the Catholick Church Some will be apt to think he had come neerer the Mark if he had compared the Protestant to a Ship which by often knocking against the Rock on which the Catholick Church is built had split it self into innumerable Sects and was now in danger of sinking his comparison was grounded only on his own supposition but this is grounded on the truth it self of too sad an experience But to leave words and come to the matter His second Answer is § 3. that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace or continue in it The first answer as I have shewed was nothing pertinent to the present Question nor comes this second any nearer the matter for though it be supposed that none ought to embrace or continue in the Catholick Church by reason of the great hazard he saith they run of their salvation yet if they do embrace or continue in it why may they not be equally saved that is with equal hazard but this assertion however beside the Question he makes it his main business to prove First § 4. Because those who embrace or continue in the Catholick Church are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation And here he must give me leave to return upon him a more palpable contradiction than that he supposed to have found in the Question viz. to assert only that those of the Catholick Communion run a great hazard of their Salvation and yet affirm at the same time that they are guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry sins inconsistent with Salvation which reduced into plain terms is no other but that they may be saved though hardly and yet cannot be saved But to the Argument The Church of Rome by the Worship of God by Images by the Adoration of Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator Therefore it makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry The charge is great but what are the proofs Concerning the first he saith § 5. that in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature And surely this implies another contradiction that it should be the Worship of God by Images and yet be terminated wholly on the Creature Nevertheless he proves it thus The Worship which God himself denies to receive must be terminated upon the Creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denies to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it that is that Worship him by an Image Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image To this Argument which to be just to the Author I confess I
As for Marriages we acknowledge the Church may dispense in some degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God His Tenth pretended Obstruction of Devotion is that we make disobedience to the Church in Disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage he saith in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication I answer That whether a Priest may Marry or no supposing the Law of the Church forbidding it is not a disputable matter but 't is out of Question even by the Law of God that Obedience is to be given to the Commands or Prohibitions of the Church The Antithesis therefore between disobedience to the Church in disputable matters and disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things is not only impertinent to the Marriage of Priests which is unquestionably forbidden but supposing the matter to remaind sputable after the Churches Prohibition destroys all obedience to the Church But if it suppose them only disputable before then why may not the Church interpose her Judgment and put them out of dispute But still it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the Word of Christ that is his Counsel of Chastity that Marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication But he considers not that though Marriage in it self be honourable yet if it be prohibited to a certain order of persons by the Church to whom Christ himself commands us to give obedience they oblige themselves by a voluntary vow to live in perpetual chastity the Law of God commanding us to pay our Vows it loses its honour in such persons and if contracted after such vow made is in the language of the Fathers no better than Adultery In the Primitive Church it was the custom of some younger Widdows to Dedicate themselves to the Service of the Church and in order therunto to take upon them a peculiar habit and make a vow of continency for the future Now in case they married after this St. Paul himself 1 Tim. 1. 12. saith That they incurred Damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith that is as the Fathers Expound it the vow they had made And the fourth Council of Carthage in which were 214 Bishops and among them St. Austin gives the Reason in these words If Wives who commit Adultery are guilty to their Husbands how much more shall such Widdows as change their Religious State be noted with the crime of Adultery And if this were so in Widdows much more in Priests if by Marrying they shall make void their first Faith given to God when they were consâ—eâ—ated in a more peculiar manner to his Service Thus much may suffice for Answer to the Argument which with its intricate terms may seem to puzzle an unlearned Reader let us now speak a word to the true state of the Controversy which is whether Marriage or single life in a Priest be more apt to obstruct or further devotion And St. Paul himself hath determined the question 1 Cor. 7. 32. where he saith He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to our Lord how he may please our Lord But he that is Married careth for the things that are of the World how he may please his Wife This is the difference he putteth between the Married and Single life that this is apt to make us care for the things which belong to God and that to divert our thoughts from him to the things of the World Judge therefore which of these states is most convenient for Priests whose proper Office it is to attend wholly to the things of God Having thus cleared Catholick Doctrines from being any ways obstructive to good life or devotion I shall proceed to his third Argument by which he will still prove that Catholicks run a great hazard of their souls in adhering to the Communion of the Church of Rome Because it exposeth the Faith of Christians to so great uncertainty This is a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant who hath no other certainty for his faith but every Man's interpretation of the Letter of the Scriptures But First he saith it doth this By making the Authority of the Scriptures to depend upon the infallibility of the Church when the Churches infallibility must be proved by the Scriptures To this I Answer that the Authority of the Scripture not in it self for so it hath its Authority from God but in order to us and our belief of it depends upon the infallibility of the Church And therefore St. Austin saith of himself That he would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move him And if you ask him what moved him to submit to that Authority he tells you That besides the Wisdom he found in the Tenets of the Church there were many other things which most justly held him in it as the consent of People and Nations an Authority begun by Miracles nourished by Hope increased by Charity and established by Antiquity the succession of Priests from the very Seat of St. Peter to whom our Lord commended the feeding of his Sheep unto the present Bishoprick Lastly The very name of Catholick which this Church alone among so many Heresies hath not without cause obtained so particularly to her self that wheras all Hereticks would be called Catholicks yet if a stranger demand where the Catholicks go to Church none of these Hereticks dares to shew either his own House or Church These saith St. Austin so many and great most dear bonds of the name of Christian do justly hold a believing Man in the Catholick Church These were the grounds which moved that great Man to submit to her Authority And when Catholick Authors prove the infallibility of the Church from Scriptures 't is an Argument ad hominem to convince Protestants who will admit nothing but Scripture and yet when they are convinced quarrel at them as illogical Disputants because they prove it from Scripture Next he saith we overthrow all foundation of Faith because We will not believe our sences in the plainest Objects of them But what if God have interposed his Authority as he hath done in the case of the Eucharist where he tells us that it is his Body must we believe our sences rather than God or must we not believe them in other things because in the particular case of the Eucharist we must believe God rather than our sences Both these consequences you see are absurd Now for the case it self in which he instances Dr. Taylor above cited confesses that they viz. Catholicks have a divine Revelation viz. Christ's word This is my Body whose Litteral and Grammatical sence if that sence were intended would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle but I add it would be no precedent to them not to believe their sences in other the plainest Objects of them
he hath mis-represented them Thus then he Liberty of Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their Name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expressions of Minor Bishops he means in acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said always apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who dâ—parted from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Forefathers which had actually possession and seizure of Mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading Man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a Man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therfore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimony of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austin's time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Judge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not fore-see The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the Scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned Men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own Opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Full Refutation OF Dr. STILLINGFLEET's Unjust Charge of IDOLATRY Against the Church of Rome The First Part. Of the Veneration of Holy Images CHAP. I. The First and Second Answer to the First Question shewn not pertinent Necessity of Communion with the Church of Rome proved and his Charge of Idolatry overthrown by his own Principles § 1. WHoever considers how Dr. Stillingfleet in his Answer to the Two Questions has engag'd himself and his Adversary in Seventeen or Eighteen of the most material Controversies between Catholicks and Protestants besides innumerable others of lesser concern which together with the former have swell'd his Rejoynder to a short Paper into a large Book will not very easily free him upon his own word from being fond of the practise of the Noble Science of Controversie or as his Friend Dr. T. calls it The Blessed Art of Eternal Wrangling especially if he reflect how easie and obvious the Answer was to the Questions themselves without running into farther Disputes To the First by shewing that the Motives which are sufficient to secure the Salvation of one bred up and well-grounded in Catholick Religion are not sufficient to secure the salvation of one bred up in the Protestant who convinced by them should embrace the Catholick To the Second by shewing the Motives for Communion with the Protestant Church to be greater and stronger than those for the Roman and therefore that to be necessarily embraced before this it being agreed between us that it is of necessity to salvation to be
a Member of some distinct Church This had been a ready way to put an end to the Dispute and give Satisfaction to the Reader and this had been sufficient our Assent to the Articles in controversie depending upon the strength of the Motives But to multiply Disputes without cause without end and without bringing them to Grounds and Principles as it is no good Argument to prove a man not to be fond of Controversie so all the Satisfaction the Reader is likely to gather from it is a despair of being ever satisfied When therefore the Doctor says he had no other end in this increase of Controversies but to let his Protestant Reader see there could be no reason to forsake the Communion of that Church it is much like as if a Mother to deter her Son from travelling into other Countries should tell him there was a great Sea between full of Rocks and Pirates and no Vessel strong enough to venture over Besides that the Countrey whither he was going swarmed with Bears and Lions This is one way to let him see there could be no reason to think of leaving his Native Countrey and this is the Method generally pursued by our Adversaries for want of sound Principles to retain their Adherents in their Communion to make the dangers and difficulties they are to incounter with in that of the Roman seem insuperable and therefore best for them to sit down contented where they are But what if all the dangers and difficulties he raises prove but Bugbears and Scare-Crows This I hope by GOD's Grace to make appear in the following Treatise § 2. His first Answer to the first Question was that an equal capacity of Salvation of those persons supposed not onely in order to a safer Church but in two several Churches supposed equally safe can be no argument to forsake the Communion of the one for the other To this I reply'd that the Answer was altogether impertinent to the Question the Controversie not being between two persons compared with a third in a safer Church nor yet between two several Churches supposed to have in them an equal capacity of Salvation but between a Catholick bred so and a Protestant converted to be so whether the later having the same Motives with the former may not equally be saved with him To what purpose then was it to talk of an equal capacity supposed in two persons compared with a third in a much safer condition or in two several Churches compared to one another unless it were to make his Reader believe that a supposed possibility of Salvation in the Catholick Church was used by me as a sufficient Argument to embrace its Communion Whereas his own telling the Person concerned that however Catholicks who were bred so might be saved yet a Person leaving the Protestant Communion for the Catholick could Not be Saved in it was that which occasion'd the Question A weak but common Artifice of the Doctor and his Party to deter Persons from embracing the Catholick Communion when yet the more genuine Sons of the Church of England are not so cruel as to damn all those who embrace it The Answer then was nothing to the purpose of the Question and this himself seems to acknowledge when he adds Whether it were to the Question or no he is sure it was very much to the purpose for which this Controversie was first started And then having gotten this loop-hole he beseeches the Person who had proposed the Question to propose another and if not for her own sake yet for his to insist upon that he may know one reason at least why the Believing all the Ancient Creeds and leading a Good Life may not be sufficient to salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of Rome And this he says he cannot yet procure though he have often requested it Here himself is afraid he may be thought to digress but so earnest a request must not be denied § 3. I remember I promised to speak to this Point when it should be proper viz. in handling the second Question Whether it be necessary to be a Member of some distinct Church where it came in order and I did so though my Adversary takes no notice of it here as far as was pertinent to the present purpose when upon his Grant that A Christian by vertue of his being so is bound to joyn in some Church and to chuse the Communion of the purest I subjoyned that that Church was to be judged the purest which had the strongest Motives for it and then laid down a Catalogue of such weighty Motives for the Roman Catholick allowed by Dr. Taylor To which I added That neither himself in his Defence nor Dr. Taylor when he had a mind to invalidate them produced any thing to weigh against them but a few Tinsel-words and one Scripture-Testimony interpreted by and according to their own Fancy Having done this they sing Io Triumphe that Thou shalt not worship any graven Image will out-weigh all the best and fairest Imaginations of the Roman Church And now let the Reader judge whether he had any reason to say that he could not procure an Answer to this Question though he had often requested it § 4. But because he seems so little satisfied with this Answer as to take no notice of it I shall now enforce it farther with this Argument ad hominem There was in the World before Luther a distinct Church whose Communion was necessary to Salvation But this was not the Protestant Therefore it was the Roman The Major is evident from his own Concession that a Christian by virtue of his being so is bound to joyn in some distinct Church which is not possible if there be not such a distinct Church to joyn with The Minor also that this was not the Protestant is manifest because before Luther there was no such Church in the World distinct from the Roman It follows therefore the Question between him and us being of the necessity of Communion either with the Roman or with the Protestant that of the two the Roman Church was and still is as remaining still the same that Church whose Communion is necessary to Salvation § 5. Again taking the term Roman-Church not onely for the particular Diocess of Rome but for the Churches also in Communion with it as the Head as we generally take it in this Controversie nothing can render her Communion not necessary to Salvation but either Heresie that is an adhesion to some private or singular Opinion or Errour in Faith or Schism that is a Separation from former Ecclesiastical Unity For the first my Adversary himself Rat. Account p. 54. acknowledges as I shall shew before I end this Chapter the Church of Rome to believe all the same Articles of Faith with the Protestant and that the Points in which the Protestant differs from the Roman are not Articles of Faith consequently the Opposite Tenets to them can be no
concerning the lawfulness of representing God in Picture we see how far the Church of England allows it in the Front of her Publick Liturgy and there want not other examples not unparallel to this in some of her Churches also So that Dr. Stillingfleet must either condemn her of Impiety i◠making and exposing such kind of Representations to the Eyes of the People or himself of a most gross Errour when he asserts in so universal a manner that God cannot be represented to men in any way but what must be an infinite disparagement to him Perhaps he will say they are not exposed by the Church of England for Worship But that belongs to the Consequence Our Question at present is about the Antecedent whether they may not be made without disparagement to God Besides that himself not onely condemns them for Worship but also in order to the putting us in mind of God which how strange soever it seem he avowedly maintains p. 68. when he affirms That they tend highly to the dishonour of God and suggest mean thoughts to us of the God we are to worship But of this more in the next Chapter Let him make his attonement with the Church of England as he can I come now to speak to the point it self § 3. Pictures or Images made with reference to God may be considered two ways either a◠made to represent the Divinity it Self out of an Erroneous Conceit which the Maker hath of it in his mind such as the Anthropomorphites had of God whom they conceived to have Eyes and Ears and Hands and other like bodily parts as we have or as representing immediately such things as bear a certain Analogy or Proportion to some divine Perfections and thereupon are apt to raise our Minds to the Knowledge and Contemplation of the Perfections themselves As when God the Father is pictured as he appeared to Daniel in the likeness of the Ancient of Days to manifest his Wisdom and Eternity and the H. Ghost in the likeness of a Dove to signifie his Purity and Simplicity in a manner suitable to our Conceptions The first sort of Representations are an infinite disparagement to the Divine Nature because being infinite and invisible it cannot be represented as it is in it self by any corporeal likeness or figures But the Second are no way dishonourable to him because they are not made to represent the Divine Nature by an immediate or proper similitude but by Analogy onely or Metaphorical signification as is above declared And if it were no disparagement to God to appear in such or such visible forms it can be none to represent them in Picture no more than it is to relate or describe them in Writing § 4. This premised I answer to the Preposition If his meaning be that Gods Nature being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men either Properly or Analogically but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it I deny it as false God the Father would never have represented himself in a humane form nor the H. Ghost in the likeness of a Dove had it been dishonourable Nor do I believe the Church of England would have permitted the Divinity to be pictured in the likeness of a Triangular Light had she thought it a disparagement But if his meaning be that the Divine Nature being infinite cannot be represented properly as it is by any corporeal similitude I grant it But then the Consequence in virtue of this Antecedent can onely be this that to worship God by such a visible Representation as conceiv'd proper to his Nature is extreamly dishonourable to him And in this we perfectly agree with him but utterly deny what he farther infers without any restriction or reason that all Worship given to God by any visible Representation of him whether conceiv'd as Proper or Analogical is extreamly dishonourable to him Having shown the Proposition it self 〈◊〉 taken in the unlimited Sense he gives it to be false it follows manifestly that it cannot be the Reason of the Law Yet for a more ample discovery of his Sophistical managing of Controversie I shall give it a farther Consideration as it is assigned by him for the Reason of the Law § 5. The Question at present between us is about the Reason of the Law viz. Why God forbad the making a graven Image or the likeness of any thing in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth to bow down and worship it And on the People's part to whom the Law was given it is evident that it was to keep them in their duty of giving Soveraign Worship to God alone by restraining them from Idolatry But this it seems was too plain and obvious a Reason for so Metaphysical a Discourser He seeks therefore another more subtil and elevated and consequently more apt to lead a vulgar Reader into a maze viz. What Perfection in God was the Cause or Reason why he made this Law What he asserts it to be we have already heard viz. That the Divinity cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it What I affirm it to be is The Supreme Excellency of God's Nature to which Soveraign Worship is onely due and not the incongruity of an Image to represent it as he often expresseth it The Question thus stated I prove my Assertion 1. From the Preface of the Law the usual place where the Reasons of all Laws are expressed because the Reason there assigned by the Law-maker himself is this I am the Lord thy God And what is this but I am the onely Supreme and Super-Excellent Being above all and over all to whom therefore Soveraign honour is onely to be given and to none beside me Neither is there any mention at all made of the irrepresentableness of the Divine Nature or the incongruity of an Image to represent it to men But the same reason of his Supreme Excellency is enforced anew from the Zeal or Jealousie which God hath of his honour when immediately after the Prohibition he adds For I the Lord thy God am a Jealous God as the Protestant Translation hath it by which he gives us to understand that the Reason why he will punish severely those who shall give his honour to any thing beside him is because he is the Lord their God to whom onely it is due 2. I prove it from the necessary Connexion there is as of an effect to its proper Cause between the Prohibition of the Law on the one side and the Supreme Excellency of the Divine Nature on the other To make this as clear as the matter will give me leave I must desire the Reader to reflect that although there be no distinction of Attributes or Perfections in God but that All are really one and the same indivisible Perfection with his Nature and consequently the same with one another viz. his Mercy with his Justice his Justice with his Truth and his Truth with
the Pope's Legates who presided and the Vicars of the Oriental Patriarchal Sees who assisted in it O my God! is it come to this that an Inferiour Rector of one Pâ—rochial Church whose name is scarce known but in the Bills of Mortality and was never heard of in the List of any General Council shall dare to condemn as foolish the Sentence of the most August and Venerable Tribunal upon Earth Was he not afraid of that dreadful Sentence of our Lord He that shall say to his Brother how much more to so many Fathers of the Church Fool shall be guilty of Hell-fire What Order and Discipline can be observ'd in the Church if it shall be lawful for any private person upon presumption of his own wit to contemn and deride the Decrees of those whom he is bound under pain of being accounted as a Heathen and Publican to hear Will he plead for his excuse that he follows the Judgment of another Synod held not long before in Constantinople in which boâ—h the making and honouring of sacred Images was condemned Let him shew that to have been a lawful Council and not a Conventicle as in reality it was being called by the Secular Power and wanting both the consent and presence of the Patriarchs of the East and chiefly of the Bishop of Rome by himself or Legates whom the Fathers of the fourth General Council of Chalcedon acknowledge to have presided over them as the Head over the Members and without whose Authority according to the Canon of the Church no Decrees could be valid None of which defects were in the Council of Nice Besides that divers of the Bishops who had voted in and subscribed to the false Synod of Constantinople came and abjur'd its Doctrine in the Council of Nice and among them Gregorius Bishop of Neocaesarea the Ringleader of the Faction Yet Dr. St. takes up and abets the Arguments of that Pseudo-Synod as if they had never been retracted and anathematized as impious by the chief Author of it and scoffs at the Answers of the Synod to them as insufficient I pray God he may one day imitate him in his Repentance as he hath done hitherto in his Passion against the Images of Christ and his Saints Examples we know move much and possibly it may be neither unprofitable to Him nor ungrateful to the Reader to set down the form and manner of that Bishops Recantation and his Reception into the Church § 2. Being brought into the Council by a Person of honour sent from the Emperour Tarasius Patriarch of Constantinople ask'd him If hitherto he had not known the Truth or knowingly had contemn'd it His answer was that he hop'd it was out of ignorance but desir'd to learn And when Tarasius bad him declare what he desir'd to learn he answered Forasmuch as this whole Assembly doth say and think the same thing I know and most certainly believe that the Point now agitated and preached by this Synod is the Truth and therefore I beg pardon for my former evils and desire with all these to be instructed and inlightned For my Errours and Crimes are great beyond measure and as God shall please to move the hearts of this Holy Synod to Compunction towards me so be it Here Tarasius expressing some doubt he had least his submission might not be sincere but that he might speak one thing with his mouth and have another in his heart Gregorius cry'd out God forbid I confess the Truth and lie not neither will I ever go back from my word Whereupon Tarasius told him that he ought long ago to have given ear to what the Holy Apostle St. Paul teaches saying Hold fast the Traditions which ye have received either by our word or by our Epistle And again to Timothy and Titus Avoid profane Novelties of words For what can be a greater Novelty in Christianity and more profane than to say that Christians are Idolaters To this Gregorius return'd that what he and his Partizans had done was evil and we confess saith he that it was evil So it was and so we did by which words it seems he made a particular confession of what evil they had done and therefore we beg pardon of our faults I confess most Holy Father before you and this Holy Synod that we have sinned that we have transgressed that we have done evil and ask pardon for it Upon this it was ordered that he should bring in his Confession the next Session of the Synod which he did of the same tenour with that of Basilius Bishop of Ancyra and others in the first Session viz. that he did receive and salute or give Veneration to the Holy and Venerable Images of Christ and his Saints and anathematize such as were not of the same mind as he expressed himself in the vote he gave after he had by the Sentence of the Popes Legates and the consent of the Synod been restored to his Seat upon his repentance This is recorded of Gregorius Bishop of Neocaesarea in the Acts of the Council of Nice to his immortal Glory May it be imitated with no less Glory by the Rector of St. Andrews May he take to himself what St. Ambrose said to Theodosius Secutus es errantem sequere poenitentem This I heartily pray for and to this end shall take the pains to shew with what little Reason he abets the Arguments of that false Synod and derides the Answers of the Nicen Fathers If in doing this I make his vanity appear here as elsewhere I have done it is but what St. Austin tells us we ought so much the more to endeavour towards those who oppugn the Church by how much the more we desire their salvation And I know not how possibly himself could have laid it more open than in the Ironical Title of That Wise Synod he gives that very Council to which his Leader in the Charge of Idolatry the afore mentioned Gregorius submitted himself as to a most lawful Council confessing that what those Fathers so unanimously taught was the Truth and the Tradition of the Catholick Church Now what they taught was this that the Images of Christ and his Saints were to be placed and retained in Churches that by seeing them the Memory and Affections of the Beholders might be excited towards those who were represented by them as also to salute and give an honourary adoration or respect to the said Images like as is given to the figure of the Holy Cross to Chalices to the Books of the H. Gospels and such like sacred Utensils but not Latria which as true Faith teacheth is due onely to God What he could find in this definition for which the Fathers deserved from him the title of Fools I cannot imagin unless he will have it to be Idolatry to reverence the Books of the Holy Gospels or the sacred Utensils of the Altar But in this the Council is vindicated by Eminent Divines of
he saith were very well known to the Author of the Caroline Book and because the Copy of the Nicen Council was sent them by Pope Adrian whose Legates also presided in the Council of Francford and might easily rectifie any Mistake if they were guilty of it Besides none of the Historians of that time do take notice of any such Error and the second Canon of Francford published by Sirmondus expresly condemns the Council of Nice To this he adds That the same Council was rejected here in England and the Synod of Paris called by Ludovicus Pius condemned expresly Pope Adrian for asserting a superstitious Adoration of Images Lastly he confirms it from the Doctrine of the Caroline Books whose design as Binius confesseth was against all Worship of Images and of Agobardus published by Baluzius who ingenuously saith he confesseth that Agobardus saith no more than the whole Gallican Church believed in that Age. This is the sum and force of his Argument and to manifest the insufficiency of it in order to his design supposing the matter of fact to be true viz. that the Council of Francford did reject that of Nice which divers learned men not improbably deny I shall shew first that de facto there was a mis-understanding of the Doctrine of the Council of Nice Secondly That supposing there had been no mistake but that the Synod at Francford had really condemn'd the Doctrine of Nice yet had it been no advantage to his Cause § 2. First there was a misunderstanding of the Doctrine of the Council of Nice And to make this evident I shall need no more than to compare what was taught in the Council of Nice with what was condemn'd in the Council of Francford What the Council of Nice taught I have set down in the precedent Chapter viz. That the Images of Christ and his Saints were to be placed and retained in Churches c. and that an honourary adoration or respect was to be given to the said Images like as is given to Chalices and to the Books of the H Gospels but not LATRIA which as true Faith teacheth is due onely to God This was the plain and open Definition of the Council of Nice Let us now see what it was that the Synod of Francford condemned Allata est in medium Quaestio c. A Question was proposed in the Council saith the Author of the Caroline Book concerning the late Synod of the Greeks held at Constantinople a mistake of the place for Nicaea about the adoring of Images In qua scriptum habebatur In which there was written that those should be anathematized who did not give service and adoration to Images of the Saints as to the Divine Trinity Now saith the said Author our most Holy Fathers denying by all means Service and Adoration did both contemn and unanimously condemn the said Synod This is what the Fathers of the Synod at Francford condemned as it stands represented by the Author himself of the Carolin Book to whom my Adversary saith that the Acts of the Council were very well known and by Goldastus in Sir Henry Spelman who cites them as the very words of the Council and I suppose by Sirmondus also for had he published any thing else the Doctor would not have failed to let us know it And now I appeal to any indifferent Reader whether there were not a great misunderstanding of the Doctrine of the Council of Nice For had the Fathers of Francford rightly understood that the Council of Nice declar'd onely an honourary Worship to be given to Images like as to the H. Cross and to the Books of H. Scriptures c. and not Latria or the Worship due only to God they could never have condemn'd it for defining that the same Service and Worship was to be given to Images as to the Divine Trinity And therefore Mr. Thorndike ingenuously professeth that It is to be granted that whosoever it was that writ the Book against Images under the Name of Charles the Great did understand the Council to enjoyn the Worship of God to be given to the Image of our Lord. But it is not to be denied that it was a meer mistake and that the Council acknowledging that submission of the heart which the Excellence of God onely challenges proper to the H. Trinity maintains a signification of that esteem to be paid to the Image of our Lord. It is evident then there was a grand mistake And to omit what Bellarmin and others say of the ocsion of it Petrus de Marca the late learned Archbishop of Paris very probably judges it to have risen from the words of Constantinus Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus unskilfully rendred by the Latine Translator For as he well observeth the Council of Francford did not condemn the plain and open Definition of the Council of Nice but as the Canon it self of Francford speaks Quod scriptum habebatur for that there was found written in the Acts of that Council that the Worship due unto God was to be given to Images And the Author of the Caroline Book tells us that this was found written in the Sentence of the aforesaid Constantinus whom therefore he condemns of precipitancy and folly in these words Infauste praecipitanter sive insipienter Constantinus Constantiae Cypri Episcopus dixit suscipio amplector honorabiliter sanctas venerandas Imagines quae secundum servitium adorationis quae substantiali vivificatrici Trinitati emitto But instead of precipitancy and folly in Constantinus he should have laid the fault upon the ignorance of the Translator or his own if not his malice For the sense in Greek is plain and facil to be this Suscipio honorarie amplector sanctas venerabiles Imagines Et adorationem secundum Latriam soli supersubstantiali vivificae Trinitati impendo I receive and with honour embrace the holy and venerable Images of Christ and his Saints but for adoration of Latria I give it onely to the supersubstantial and Life-giving Trinity From whence it is is plain how ignorantly or maliciously rather it was said by Calvin that the same Constantinus professed he did reverently embrace the said holy Images cultumque honoris qui vivificae Trinitati debetur se illis exhibiturum and that he would give that Worship to them which is due to the Holy Trinity when what he professed was the quite contrary Such Arts as these were enough to make a man suspect a good Cause much more to desert a bad one But whether this were the occasion or no 't is evident as I shewed before that there was a great mistake and while the matter of fact is evident my Adversary labours in vain to argue from Conjectures that it was not possible especially since the Copy of the Acts of the Nicene Council was so unskilfully if not maliciously translated as to minister matter of mistake and though the Popes Legates could not perswade the Francford Fathers from
who had the power of limiting what is lawful and what is not by the Law should declare to be unlawful But to think that their declarations ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews And then a little after he goes on For Christianity saith he having put Idolatry to flight which the Law never pretended to do it is not to be imagined that the having of Images can make a man take those for God which they represent so long as the belief of Christianity is alive at the heart For neither was it Idolatry though it were a breach of this Commandment for a Jew to have such Images as were forbidden by their Elders not taking that for God which they represented But what honour of Saints departed or what signs of that honour Christianity may require what Furniture or Ceremonies the Churches of Christians and the Publick Worship of God in them may require now all the world professes Christianity and must honour the Religion which they profess this the Church is at freedom to determine by the Word of God expounded according to the best agreement of Christians This is Mr. Thorndike's Discourse in which the Reader may observe 1. That to think the Declarations of the Jews ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews 2. That all things forbidden to the Jews by this Commandment were Not Idolatry 3. That the Images which the Precept supposeth were the Representations of other that is false Gods which his People were wont to worship for God 4. That what Furniture viz. of Images the matter he there treats of or Ceremonies the Publick Worship of God may require is left to the Judgment of the Church to determine 5. and lastly That the Opposition in this Point between Dr. St. and Mr. Thorndike is not onely concerning the obligation of the Jews as between Catholick Divines but of Christians also in order to this Commandment So that some are of opinion however Dr. St. â—eem to direct his arrows against the Church of Rome yet he meant at least by rebound to shoot them at Mr. Thorndike And had he made it any part of his business to answer his Arguments I might easily have been induc'd to have embrac'd their Opinion But those remaining untouch'd I cannot but look upon this Discourse of that Learned Person as a kind of Prophetical Confutation in the year 1662. when he printed that Book of all which Dr. Stillingfleet brings in 1671. for the proof of his Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome in the matter of Images As for his new way of answering the Testimony I alledged of St. Austin's Judgment of the sense of this Commandment by asking me how I am sure that it was his constant Judgment I have at large refuted it in the Third Chapter to which I remit the Reader CHAP. X. What kind of Honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctors mixing School Disputes with matters of Faith shewn to be sophistical § 1. TO clear the Doctrine and Practise of the Catholick Church from his most Unjust Charge of Idolatry I told the Reader That the Honour we give to the Sacred Images of Christ and his Saints was an inferiour or Relative Honour onely not Latria the Worship due to God but a certain Honourary Worship expressed by kissing them or putting off our Hats or kneeling before them much like the Worship which is given to the Chair of State or the Reverence which Moses and Joshua gave to the Ground by putting off their Shoes c. That this was the meaning of the Council of Nice is confessed by Dr. Field and Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed p. 124. And that the Council of Trent means no more is manifest from the words of the Council related above Chap. 2. as also for that Sess 25. it refers us expresly to the Council of Nice Yet because the Doctor is resolved to quarrel the distinction of Absolute and Relative Worship that the Reader may see what is meant by it I shall desire him to take notice first That Adoration or Worship being an Act of the Will as the Will can love one thing for it self because of the Perfection it is endow'd with and another thing not for it self but purely for that others sake to whom 〈◊〉 belongs So likewise it may adore or worship a thing either for it self that is for some intrinsecal Excellency in the thing for which it deserves Worship and then it is said to worship the thing absolutely because for it self Or it may worship it for another's sake that is for some Excellency in the Person to whom the said thing hath a Relation or Union and then it is said to worship such a thing with a Relative or Inferiour Worship because purely for that Persons sake And because Intellectual Beings are capable of having some Excellency in themselves for which they deserve to be worshipped as Virtue Sanctity Wisdom Power c. and Inanimate Beings are capable of bearing a Relation to a Person endowed with such Excellencies it follows that as Intellectual Beings may have Absolute Worship given to them so Inanimate Things relating to them may for their sakes have a Relative Respect or Honourary Adoration given to them and that so far from being injurious to the Person to whom they belong that it would be look'd upon as a disrespect and affront if in due circumstances it were not done Such a kind of Relative Worship it is we affirm to be due and to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints when we kiss them or put off our Hats before them Secondly I must desire him to observe as Mr. Thorndike doth very well that the words Adoration Worship Respect Reverence or howsoever you translate the Latine word Cultus are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is sometimes they may signifie one kind of honour and sometimes another Sometimes that which belongs to God and sometimes that which belongs to the Creature And the cause of this equivocation he saith is the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signifie conceptions which came not from common sense And from this equivocation in the Words Adoration Worship c. the greatest part of the Difficulties which occur in this take their rise Now when the Doctor should set himself seriously to confute the aforesaid Explication he puts his Reader into a fit of laughing with a Drollish Parallel p. 100. that to give this Inferiour and Relative kind of Worship to the Image of Christ that is to honour and reverence it for his sake is just as if an unchaste Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a near friend of his and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his Bed But to lay open the