graven things were made representations and similitudes both in Heaven and Earth notwithstanding the said law as the Serpent of brass which must either be made by melting or graving pomegranates lilies and various such-like things both graven in stone and interwoven in silks Cherubins or Angels in the Propitiatory even in Moses time and afterwards more fully and plentifully in Solomon's Temple it is not rationally to be doubted but that this law of his was intended only to keep those People close and constant to their own God and to their own Religion which was inconsistent with the idols of the Nations and not for any purpose of keeping Abraham Isaac and Jacob either out of their chamber hangings or ours I know the Jews do urge this Precept of Moses very eagerly against Christians ever since Jesus Christ our Lord was rejected by them whose image and figure they cannot abide to see But we must have patience with all men § 9. Moses saith he grounded this law of his upon a reason unchangable namely that Gods infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be represented O profound invention This is such a law and ground of a law as was never before thought of The ground and reason of making a law must be this an impossibility of breaking it They must not make any representations of God because God cannot be represented And the same motive or reason will be equally proper for all the rest of the Commandments They must keep the seventh day of the week a holy day The reason and motive because there is not an eighth day to keep holy and sanctifie They must honour their Parents The ground and reason of this because none of the whole Camp had any Fathers or Mothers alive to dishonour They must not kill The motive and reason is because they were all shot-free and so firmly inchanted that none could hurt them They must not commit adultery The ground and reason is because there was never a Woman in the Camp which any man though provok'd with the highest lust could possibly come near or touch with a pair of tongues They must not steal The great cause thereof is that there is nothing at all in the Camp for any man to take away Thus the Doctor imagines Moses to forbid any representations of God because God cannot be represented And such another discreet Mounsieur was he who solemnly commanded his Bowyer not to make him any shafts at all of a Piggs tail and he gravely gave him the reason for it because quoth he of a piggs tail no shaft can be made Truth is Moses never thought of any such Law nor any such reason of it much less but provided for the security of the Hebrews Religion that it might remain unchangable and firm in the mids of those many Nations round about them who worshiped false Gods and idols as Moses very frequently interprets himself and all the Prophets after him Therefore saith God by Moses thou shalt have no other Gods but me thou shalt not make to thy self any figures as the Gentiles do nor worship them For I am a jealous God and will have no intermingling of devillish idolatry with my service And all the reason given by Moses is gods jealousie not induring any divine worship but his own This is the very truth and all the truth of this business which this Doctor would turn another way thereby to make Moses seem as simple a man as himself And those idols forbidden by Moses did so involve an opposition to the true God and his divine worship that People could not possibly betake themselves to one but they must leave the other Therefore did Moses forbid both other Gods besides their own one God and all idols together which was by antient Christians very rationally and wisely reckoned all one and the same Commandement whereof no less a Man then St. Austin himself is witness But the memories of Abraham Isaac and Jacob could bring no such danger with them And that is our care for we are not in danger of loosing the faith of Jesus Christ by keeping the Image of him our crucified Lord among us or forsaking the communion of Saints by retaining their portraictures before our eyes We should ipso facto renounce our Lord and all his whole Religion should we set up Moses his forbidden Idols and make it our religion to worship them as heathens did But we are heartened incouraged and confirmed in our Christian Religion by looking on the faces of so many our glorious Martyrs holy Anchorets and Hermits pious Virgins and Confessors who profest this our Religion before us bravely triumphing by the power of Christs love and divine faith over sins allurements and deaths ugliest terrours though incompassed themselves with the like passions and infirmities we are our selves invironed round about And when we are entred into a Church amongst so many of our worthy Predecessors we compose our selves more heartily to our devotion then otherwise we should do in imitation of them remembring now that we are come up to Mount Sion to the City of our living God to celestial Jerusalem and society of Angels to the Church of Primitive Christians conscript in the Heavens to God the Judge of all to the Spirits of just men perfected to Jesus the Mediator of a new Testament and to the aspersion of blood speaking better things than Abel § 10. The Heathens saith he did ill in their idol worship and yet the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold them to be Gods but worshipped God in them Our acute divine having now by his fine wit so clarified Moses law that it might not so much concern Idolaters as our vulgar Painters he now begins so to purifie idolaters practice too that they may seem but in the same condition with our Catholick and best Christians And who would not give his penny to hear him act and speak The heathens all in general are so excused in their idolatry Aaron in his act of apostacy and Jeroboam in his great sin that they are all and each of them no otherwise faulty then the Church of Rome in his books Thus doth Mr. Stillingfleet convert idolatrous Nations while he sits dreaming in his Closet Here he diminishes and there he exaggerates here he blacks with his Pen and there he whitens and then he cries out all is one all of the same measure all of the same colour And truly I believe the great Gyant Goliah and little David might thus be made equal if the Gyant were beheaded and cut off by the knees on one side and David on the other side set upon a high pair of stilts While Cathoâ—icks are made to do what they do not and Heathens not to do what they do on a supposal that all this is true there can be no great difference Let us then hear him what he tells us of Heathens in general The wiser sort among them testifie quoth he that they worshiped not
end we say our daily prayers with our hymns and canticles for this end we meditate for this end we fast and chastise our bodies for this we do penance make restitution give alms frequent sacraments and all that we endeavour according to our poor abilities Gods good counsels and holy grace assisting us He who shall please onely to peruse the writings of Dr. Eckius and his fellow Catholicks who opposed Martin Luther and his Protestant-reformation when it first rose up may there clearly see that this interiour sanctity and renovation and holiness of life is the one great Catholick point stoutly maintained against those wild and dissolute Reformers who began now to corrupt the world with that cursed opinion of theirs that faith alone is sufficient to salvation And what a strange man is this Dr. Stillingfleet If any one indeed of our men had objected to Protestants that in their reformation-way neither penance nor contrition nor satisfaction nor renovation of life is needful according to the first Masters of the Reformation who taught and maintained openly and in the eyes of this very Sun that nothing is necessary to salvation but onely to believe and by that naked faith to apply Christs merits to themselves all interiour sanctification being both impossible and needless he had said no more than truth and what he might easily have proved out of the first Reformers principles however I hope not maintained now by many of our wiser Protestants in England who notwithstanding remain still in that reformation which was chalked out for them by such wicked Leaders But now to lay upon Catholicks that wicked doctrine of Reformers opposed now a whole hundred years by our Catholick Divines is a desperate confidence befitting none but men wholly unconscionable Let them keep their own dirt to themselves and not throw it into our faces however they begin now to be weary and ashamed of it The precepts of holiness sobriety and justice are insignificant to them who have hitherto even from the very cradles of this unlucky reformation publickly defended them to be insignificant and not to us who have still maintained that they are the very all in all of Christianity I have troubled my self some while to think what should move Dr. Still to invent this slander Some word or other he must pervert but I cannot conclude what it should be Perhaps he may take occasion from hence that whereas there be several things concurring to our purification after sin as Gods grace and our dislike of our own ill deeds fear of Gods wrath and punishment grief for his love and favour forfeited an humble confession purpose of amendment and renovation of life some Schoolmen have amongst their other curiosities considered into which of these many things may our justification be principally attributed as the principal virtue and cause of it under God For God who created us without our selves will not redeem us without our selves And if any one in his philosophy have said that confession and sorrow have the chiefest influence on our fide that may be enough for Dr. Still to say as here he does that we make confession and contrition all in all and renovation of life nothing Or perhaps because Catholick Doctors have taught that confession together with contrition may sometimes be so great and cordial at the last hour that evil men may thereby find mercy with God as the good thief did although they have no further leasure to mend and renew their lives therefore does this man conclude that with us confession with contrition is sufficient without any more ado Whence soever he concludes or gathers it he knows best himself But this I know that it is an abominable slander And if all his readers were as skilful in our Catholick religion as we our selves who profess it he would not have dared to speak these things despairing then of finding any credit either with man woman or child § 2. They of the Church of Rome need little to heed a good life who can have their sins expiated in Purgatory by the prayers of the living which is a doctrine very pleasing to rich men but uncomfortable to the poor Pretty stuff And need not then any man heed either to have patience in afflictions or do his duty because another prays to God either that he may do so or find mercy if he have done otherwise Or must he needs be negligent of himself to day because he hopes good people will pray for him to morrow when he cannot help himself Souls departed are by our Christianity believed to be now out of the place and way of merit for there is neither art nor industry nor any good work to be done in the grave whether we all hasten And if friends on earth where Gods favour may by our dutiful compliance be obtained do commend their dead to Gods mercy and goodness this surely cannot make those friends careless of themselves while they remain here living All men know that it is not enough for our entrance into heaven to cry Lord Lord which is the voice of those who think that onely faith saves but the will of God who is in heaven is to be fulfilled by every one that shall enter there And yet it is good and pleasing and profitable notwithstanding to cry and supplicate unto our Lord God with all earnestness of heart both for our selves and friends But the poor are then in a sad condition and the rich man may easilier enter into the kingdom of heaven than a camel through a needles eye by procuring Masses for their Souls Who told this man that the Souls of the poor are not prayed for in the Catholick Church He onely thinks so And he thinks amiss therein as he loves to do Whence doth he gather that the rich go to heaven so easily in our esteem by Masses This he thinks too Perhaps he does For I am much deceived if he do not utter many a falshood which he knows to be such before he utters it At least none of ours ever told him the one nor the other and what we believe or do our selves he may easily mistake and we have had already sufficient experience of his ignorance therein or some worser misdemeanor Prayer or whatever good work of Christianity although it may do some good ye◠does it not therefore do all and what does not all good must not therefore be denied to do some Poor Lazarus's may by their cold hunger and nakedness here on earth patiently endured satisfie for their humane frailties so far with God here that after this life having no utmost farthing to account for they may chance not to need any farther help But the rich men of the world will not easily be brought unto those many voluntary penances and mortifications which their sensualities exact unto their expiation and peace with God It were a happy thing if they would be perswaded in their life-time to distribute part of their goods unto
is here put upon the Jesuitical party And yet it is nothing to our purpose if it were But as to the personal designs of them or any others we can no more dive into them then into the several wandering thoughts and purposes of men museing daily in London-streets about their affairs And one man or other thus museing amiss amongst the Jesuits can no more be called the Jesuitical party then such a one here in England be termed the English party Mariana I am sure has been soundly checkt amongst them and other Catholicks for his fault here spoken of And if the Court or Courtiers of Rome have any fancy that they are higher than Kings and by their excommunication can render them Kings no more as this Doctour here speaks this may argue indeed that they are a high minded people But Courtiers do not walk so exactly according to our Christian religion that this can prove that vanity of theirs to be any part of it Catholick Kings who have been here in England well nigh twenty since the Conquest more among the Saxons and others not a few amongst our antient Brittains and the present Catholick Kings of France Spain the Emperour German Princes and others have and do all know well enough that such a fancy is no part of our Catholick religion Nor did our King Henry the Eighth who first left it off express any such cause or reason for it The times would be very good and happy if all the words and actions of every particular man were answerable to his holy faith But this is not to be expected in this evil world And to call that religion which is done or spoken contrary unto it is a very great injury and injustice Our holy religion teaches us to observe and obey our Kings and Superiours as Gods Vicegerents upon earth though they be Infidels and Pagans and rather to lay down our lives for them then suffer them to be hurt And this is nothing but the very law of Nature antecedent to any religion whatsoever and holds good although there were neither heaven nor hell nor any reward or punishment to come And what power can any man upon earth have to take that away which he never gave nor ever had He that creates can only annihilate So long as kings are Catholicks the Pope prays for them And if they cease to be so he is nothing to them any more And yet are they the same they were in all their royalty and power uncontroulably If the King of France should receive the Garter from our King of England he is thought to be so long his friend as he is pleased to wear it But if he throw it off he is King of France still as much as ever he was I know not what the Court or Courtiers of Rome may think or say in this business For what the Doctour here tells us about the Irish remonstrance is a personal business and not so circumstanced that one can draw any general conclusion or position from it But if they be only so much as said either to have conceived or countenanced any such opinion looked upon by all Catholicks and good Christians upon earth as ungrounded fals and impious it behoves them I should think both for the publick good honour of Catholick religion and their own credit to see it censured with all speed that the progress of Christianity be not stopped by it For no Pagan King will venture at a promise of everlasting felicity with the hazard of his Crown at the pleasure of one man whom he never saw nor knows Sure I am if any such opinion had been heard of when Christianity was first planted in Kingdoms it had never found footing in this world And if it be now countenanced the progress of Christianity is at an end I doubt not but that a Cotholick writer may in his controversy about religion if so he pleas defend an opinion also of any one or other who has professed the Catholick religion which he maintains But this is more then any one needs to do For religion is quite another thing derived from another authour and original established in another manner no less differing from an opinion then a fixed star in the firmament from the mist or fog ariseing from the earth Faiâ—h is one known thing but opinions are innumerable and endless If the various opinions entertained in mens minds but one only day in any City of England were all faithfully recorded at night they would exhibite to a Reader a most prodigious spectacle Opinions are infinitly various infinitly changable infinitely contradictory and absurd in the world Nor may we doubt but that thousands of them are contrary both to religion and law Angry rageing men and wanton women unfaithful servants and di obedient children theevs and murderers cheats and liars can we think when they act according to their own disordered passions that they hold not then an opinion that in such circumstances it is expedient for them so to do Wicked sinners hold wicked opinions be the religion what it will Gainsay and blame them in their heat and it will soon appear that they are stiff and resolved in that their opinion by the very fury of their wrath And what will not sycophants and flatterers either say or write to pleas the mind of those on whom they depend even against their own Rules of law and religion are fixt and stable and ever the same But opinions are moveable as water and never right but when conformable to a right rule of some good law and how far they are conformable so far are they right and no more And therfore it is a madness in any one who undertakes to write against the standard of a religion to object instead of that opinions of men For first one man may have an opinion to day and write it also in a book and yet few years after nay perhaps very few days change his mind Secondly the opinion of one man may be gain-said by a thousand as wise as he who live under the same law and religion Thirdly an opinion in a book is indeed nothing at all in the world but a meer pâ—atonick idea till it be reduced to some reall existence by circumstances which actuate it and make the action really to be and some opinions are worse then nothing For which reason all the multitude of opinions which sill up the books of learned Casuists may be exercises of wit indeed but no guids can they be unto action The direction of a liveing Oracle and Counsellour who can penetrate all present circumstances and prescribe by his wisdom on which side is then most of good and least of evil which is the only rule that directs a wise counsellour what to determin this only is our guide in doubts Wherfore the great Princes of the earth recurre not to books in their difficulties but use the wisdom of their counsel wise and grave men who must hear all
ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ STILLINGFLEETON OR An account given to a Catholick Friend of Dr. Stillingfleets late book against the Roman Church Together with a short Postil upon his Text In three Letters By I. V. C. All things are not which seem to be Nor do all things seem to be which are Bruges Printed by Luke Kerchove 1672. ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ THE PREFACE SIR MAny learned Treatises have been composed and set forth by the Reverend J. V. C. the worthy Author of FIAT LUX for perswading a right Vnderstanding and Moderation in matters of Religion and for the convincing this our distracted Nation of the Innocency of our Catholick Religion and Practices in order to Church and State which have been received with much benefit and applause But that good esteem wherwith You and Others entertained the First Part of his TO KATHOLIKO did especially engage Him to endeavour the publishing the remaining Pieces therof then fitted for your view in obedience to your command as well as to undeceive Dr. Stilâ—â—'s seduced Readers both concerning his Errours and our Vnblamableness as also to discover the grand Imposture contrived by his Malice or Folly for the subversion of his Catholick Neighbours The whole Work had long since been made publick had it not as the cause it justifies suffred much Persecution almost to its utter suppression The malignity of our Adversaeries conscious of the weakness of the Doctor 's charge against Vs and fearing least the perversness of their hearts in imposing and divulging so evident calumnies should become Visible has constrained this your harmless Postill to a longer Voyage then the timely Vindication of our Churches impeached Honour would have otherwise reasonably allowed Having now escaped many storms it walks alone and ventures to look forth upon you yet had its worthy Author been longer spared with Vs you would have seen it in a fuller and more fashionable dress though even thus it is not beneath your Expectations offring unto your Consideration such sober Reflections as well become the dignity of the Holy and Apostolical Religion of Catholicks and do clearly Vindicate that our Way from the foulest aspersions carnal wisdom could utter against plain Truth and Honesty Were that freedom which the Doctor 's provocations imply allowed Vs for a legal defence of our holy Church which the Law of Nations and our Venerable Courts of Justice afford the most wretched assayled Innocents in Case of fraud and Calumny against the Prevaricators of common peace It would be easy to manifest that as our Catholick Doctrin and Devotions need no other Champion then that Churches perfection and Majesty So her many Doctors neither want skill or will to put by those weak thrusts the Doctor makes at her reputation hitherto preserved without blemish by God's assured providence over her watchful Pastours The Doctor in this his Account of the Idolatry Impiety Fanaticism Divisions and what not of Iniquity of the Roman Church hath summ'd up high Criminations against Vs and then having laid the Foundations of his own Belief concludes the Church of Rome neither to be the Catholick Church nor any sound part or member thereof but whether he designed this his so peremptory a Charge as an Obelisk with GRATITUDO POSUIT to his thereby deluded Benefactours or to be a new Dioclesian Columne with NOMINE CHRISTIANO DELETO for this Age too he knows best who framed it sure it is his fundamentals are such that they subvert all Christian Monarchy and Obedience without which not only Christianity but neither any Church consisting of more then one member can long preserve its self from mouldring into Divisions and Desolation The truth is if ever any Opposer of our Catholick Faith has betray'd his own Cause this Doctor is notably guilty of it for his Imputations upon Vs are so evidently slanderous and the Principles of his own Religion so leakie that they have rendred the whole Reformation suspected of a Notorious Cheat in its growth and progress to all unprejudiced Judgments who by the sober ways of our Religious Worship our many great encouragements to piety our zeal in obseâ—ving Evangelical Counsels and our wonderful Vnity in the groundsills of our Christianity are clearly convinced of the holiness of our Catholick Truths and Maxims of Morality and notwithstanding our Adversaries loud declaimings against Vs even from the Infancy of Christian Religion to this Age when the Reformation was Vshered in by unclean licentiousness much different from the subtil Errours of Primitive Dissenters that neither Wit nor Malice of Man can overthrow the Faith and Moral Precepts of the Roman Church conveyed unto Vs in her sacred Canons whereas her Impugners still like Jonas Gourd wither in their blossom for the counsels of Men shall fail according to the good Gamaliels Rule but God and Truth have their Date everlasting Had the Doctor as carefully perused the large Records of our Church Histories which treasure up and continue to Vs the Body of our Christian Belief and Rules of manners unchanged through all its Ages by the Vigilancy of her Apostolical Governors by whom Primitive Truths have been unanimously conserved and conveyed unto Vs in their Original Purity as he has been in Rakeing over the foul ashes of ambitious Schismaticks Scepticks and Libertines the Cockle that still grows up with Christ's best corn and in frameing his Creed by the Square of his Truth discerning Reason that which Holy Scripture forbids to our utter peril he had discovered our Catholick Doctrin to be the very Image of her Divine Architype who IS and changes not and who has accordingly laid the Foundation of and built up this our Impregnable City of the Pilgrim Saints still guarding It with his own sacred Spirit and assisting her Visible Pastours in the Government of that his Catholick Body that as he hath promised Hell may not prevail against it Nor may the Doctor 's severe Account hope other success herein than the more powerful Swords of Pagan Cesars the Edicts of Senats and the wrath of Flamins of the Old Heathen Rome upon whose Ruins our glorious Lord hath by S. Peter built up this his everlasting Church in Communion wherewith only we can pretend to the Title of Christianity or to the promises which Jesus Christ has thereunto annexed if either Christ's promise or guift to or prayers for S. Peter may be allowed to have either power with God or any credit with Mankind Hence Sir the Doctor 's Book as it has bred admiration at his confidence and contempt of his Malice amongst all Catholicks who are better acquainted with their own Faith and practices then to be instructed in them or misled from them by any prevaricatours sounding brass or tinkling Cymbal so hath it raised up an amazement in some of the more learned Clergy of Protestants at that his boldness and caused them to suspect too their own cause which after so oft plaistring over their breach from Vs with manifold Vntruths at length needs buttressing up
with so palpably incredible calumnies therein inserted His Account indeed seemes chiefly designed for Vulgar Capacities and therfore he mainly endeavours to captivate their attention and belief with much sophistry and many smooth stories of some Doctors amongst Catholicks whose different Opinions about the Moods of Christian Doctrin which they believe simply as it is delivered them plainly though they Vary in their Explications of Divine Mysteries he makes pass for disagreeing in Articles of Faith of others some who schismatically affected speak the stile of their predominant passions not according to the Religion they received from their Catholick Teachers and are therefore censured by the great Overseers of Christiantâ—y whom nevertheless the Doctor makes to speak the pure sense of the Roman Churches Faith and Piety And of some too whose Judgments guided by the compass of their ambitious and unclean affections driving at gâ—eat Names and Places cause division in the outward Hierarchy and Government of the Church for which neither the Canons of our Faith and Manners gives them any authority nor may it be hoped that either the care or power of our chief Pastors may wholly avoid such Wolves since according to Christ's prophesy scandals will still arise though our Catholick Bishops still oppose themselves against them and yet the Doctor will have these either to be our Church Governors or their actions to be destructive of our Catholick Vnity But all these slights of his are to so little purpose that many sober Protestants has been startled at thâ—se his Cantings and Imputations upon so anâ—iâ—nt and grave a Body of Christians whom their former Teachers ever allowed to be members of Christ's Mystical Body and capable of salvation in their own way of Christian observance Whence as the Cruelty of the old Roman Emperours and Presidents against the Primitive Christians moved many Vnbelievers of those times to embrace the Roman Faith so has the severe Accusations of the Doctor against Catholicks moved many of their Adversaries to a more steddy enquiry into our Catholick Truths to confer more reverently with the Dispensers of the Doctrin of that defamed Religion and oft to conclude somewhat more than ordinary of truth and honesty to be found in that Way which being long since banished this Nation by very severe Laws is still so eagerly arraigned so clamorously cryed down in Press and Pulpit and at any Rate exposed to the severity of those whose Interest passion or dulness has ever since engaged them in its suppression The Doctors whole Account amounts to a pulling down and a setting up first he pulls down the Church of Rome then He sets up his Own he makes Vse of four formidable Engins to overturn that our Catholick Church which your TO KATHOLICO amply examines But surely if the Church of Rome falls all Churches which either received their belief from her or now communicate in faith with her must fall too and thus the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints an entire Article of the Apostles Creed is on a sudden cancelled Indeed it is so proper to all Church Reformers to pull down Churches and such like Monuments of our forefathers Christian piety suckt in with that faith they originally received from their Roman Apostles that our Natiâ—n has cause enough to bewail the power of thâ—â— Sword of Gospellers in whose sense we may confess The Roman Church in some measure to be no sound Church even no Church at all were their Swords as keen as their Pens and Tongues and as close-laid as Nero once wished His to an Imaginary Neck for we are ever bound to believe each one speaks and writes his own thoughts and hearty wishes The Doctor having endeavour'd to level our Roman Church and not finding One principled according to his own Acephalick passion wherewith to close lays the foundation of his Own properly His Stillingfleet Church Not Roman nor Protestant nor indeed any Church at all for where he leaves neither any constant Rule wherby to square our faith or observance in necessaries not clearly revealed in holy Wriâ—t nor any power to oblige to a conformity in Belief and Practices nor any One Visible Head for our Direction and Communion there can be no Church of Christ but a Babel and Confusion that which evidently follows from the Doctors Own Principles whereunto he pretends the faith of Protestants must be reduced as to the only true Test of its being Christian and Catholick And thus after our long reproaching that Church as Vnprincipled the Doctor in a full Council of his own thoughts assembled in Vertue of his all-truth discerning Spirit synodically pronounces his Anathema's against Vs and publishes Canons of faith to all the Churches of England and will prove it to be One Holy Apostolical and Catholick by such Rules as neither Scripture nor Councels nor Fathers nor any Church ever menâ—â—on'd before nor will ever be solemnly canoniz'd by any Synod of our Englâ—sh Pâ—â—lates however he pretends them to be Protestant wherein we may admire at their silence even by those Rules by which aâ—â—â—elief built on them not borrowed from the Roman Church may be contradictory and will be cleerly resolved not to have One Mark of the true Christian Church even to be no Church at all but a pure Stillingfleet an phantosm His design in forging these his Principles was thence to shew the Protestant Church as Protestant or as it is by Schism separated from the great Catholick Body of Christians to be Positive Vniform and Principled whereas by them it is clearly Negative Confusive and Begs the question in the root of all Briefly thus As for the first the Dr aims directly at the subversion of all traditional Revelation and of an external visible and infallible proponent of divine credibles and of all power obligeing to acceptance of them as such and consequently at the overthrow of all Articles by the Church of Rome allowed and Canonized as truths revealed upon those grounds As for the next his Canons for the interpreting Gods written Revelations are of that Latitude that whoever admits them if he please may disagree with the Doctor and all others and with himself too at different times by virtue of a pretended Personal infallible-all-truth discerning-faculty which he allows all in all fundamentals and superstructures depending on the controverted sense of Gods written Word after a sober enquiry and sincere endeavours however necessary those credibles be to salvation or the framing one Church of many truth-discerning members whether this their enquiry be performed by the working of reason only which in supernatural Truths revives Pelagianism or by a pretended personal divine assistance in regard of each Believer to which every one may as legally pretend and appropriate it to himself by pretence of having used his best means to understand Scripture as the Dr. himself or any other Teacher which is to erect an Acephalick Enthusiasm or Fanaticism And as for the last if it be a legal proof that there
body either that is or has been in the World is liable to errour falshood and corruptions And what necessity in â—eed can there be in me to joyn in any Communion which may go astray and mislead me since I cannot do worse if I remain free and all alone and may perhaps do better But these contradictions are small matters So long as the Doctor opposes the Catholick Church out of which they are all fallen he is a Protestant good enough whatever he hold in particular either contrary to himself or any others The first question which is the occasion and subject of this his present book he resolves negatively averring that the same motives which might secure one born and bred in the Catholick Church to continue in it cannot secure a Protestant convinced by them to imbrace it And this his Assertion he discourses at large and confirms by various Syllogismes because invincible hinderance may perhaps excuse the one but not the other because the Protestant is safe in his own Church and therefore has no necessity to leave it because there is imminent danger in the Roman Church where there is so much Idolatry so many hinderances of good life and devotion so much divisions so much uncertainty of faith in it Unto these resolutions and argumentations of his the Catholick Proposer adjoyned presentâ—y his own reply a very rational me thinks and good one Hereupon the Doctor wrote and set forth this his present book called A Discourse against the Idolatry c. both to inlarge his own arguments and to disable the Catholick Gentlemans Reply And this was the occasion purpose and subject of the book you put in my hand to peruse and write to you the substance of it with some few brief thoughts of my own upon it Indeed the whole book is a kind of Academick Act or Commencement such a one as we have once a year in our famous Oxford Cambridge written and printed for peoples deligh and pastime and if so it please the Stars for his own honour and preferment by our Doctor And it came forth very seasonably about a fortnight before the Oxford Act. to save the wits living here abouts the great charges and some kind of pains of a Journey thither being now furnished well enough aforehand with as subtile and good an Act as that may haply be at our own doors and which may please the Women somewhat better in our Mother tongue The conclusions defended in this Holborn Act are these three 1. Popery is idolatrous And this is accomplished in two of his positions which he calls Chapters 2. Popery is a hinderance to a good life and devotion And this is dispatched at one other breathing named his third Chapter 3. Popery is divided and disunited in it self And this puft out in his fifth Chapter which concludes his Book And in midst of this great Act rises up a prevaricating Tripos to refresh our wearisomness and make a littâ—e sport And he takes up the whole Scene of his fourth Chapter And his Theme is Fanaticisme the Church of Romes Fanaticisme or the Fanaticism of the Roman Church And upon my word it has made many people merry not the softer Sâ—x only but the rougher and more serious mankind And all do so câ—ap and commend the man that one may well belâ—eve he has receiv'd his reward Idolatry ill life and divâ—sions of the Roman Church which are hâ—s three less wild conclusions we have in part already heard of even as we have heard talk of Europe Asia and Africa But Fanaticisme his merriment is I think the proper and peculiar discovery of Dr. Stillingfleet himself And he may deserve either to give or take a sirname from it as Scipio Africanus took from Africa and Vesputius Americus gave to America his new found Land What is it that wit and industry cannot bring to light if they be joyntly bent both of them upon the search And a new discovery especially of a rich pleasant Country ful of curiosities is so pleasant to the Discoverer himself so naturally pleasant that I cannot but think that Dâ—ctor Stillingfleet at his invention of Fanaticisme wherewith he hoped to make many others merry laughed heartily himself He begins his Book with the Roman Idolatry and he does wisely in it For Idolatry is such a terrible thundering charge that in all Readers judgments that Church is half condemned already which hath that crime so much as laid upon it Men therfore choose rather to be accounted Atheists than Idolaters For the first argues wit with other stupidity Nor will one man of a hundred trouble himself to read over a Book written on any purpose of clearing from that enormous crime either himself or religion professed by the Author of it Be the imputation never so false yet is it stil ablasting imputation which kills and overthrows not so much by proving as by naming it He must needs be impious who is an Idolater and he must be an Idolater who is called so Be it never so unjust it is still a witty trick to cry out against him as an Idolater whose honour and livelihood we would here in England undermine Sad experience has proved this to be true too too often And the Great God of Heavens anger lies I fear heavily upon us for it This thus far Now forward IMAGE IDOLATRY The Church of Rome worships God by Images and is therefore guilty of Idolatry by giving to the Creature the worship due only to the Creator For God having forbidden any such sort of worshiping him by his own law and commandments given by Moses wherein he forbids his people to make day kind of image pesel themunah eikon glypâ—on sculptile any thing represented either by carving tool or pensil cannot own that worship nor can any such worship terminate upon God And the reason of that law of Moses is unchangeable which is that God's infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be representâ—d For which reason the wisest of Heathen both particular Men and Nations judged all such representations of the invisible Godhead to be incongruous and unbecoming his glory And if this were inconsistent with Gods nature and will in the old Law much more in the new where we are taught to worship God in spirit and truth and to have no low unworthy thought of God It might therefore seem more rational to worship God in the Sun and Moon which have more of God in them and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon them to any image or shadow the same argument which excuses the one will justifie the other much more For this reason St. Paul teaches that the Godhead is not like to gold or silver or stone and blames those who change the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of corruptible man And the Heathens in doing this did ill although the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold their statues to be Gods but that they worshipped God in
his own that people may hear and read in both places not what Catholicks do but what they do not and yet so confidently charged upon them as if it were their right And thus he makes sport for himself but marrs none very careful not to obstruct but set open a way for his prattle which is a pretty piece of wit if it had a little honesty to make it rellish § 3. I do not perceive the Author to be so jolly in this his second Chapter as in his first Nor does he argue so positively against this great work of Christian Religion no less solid and certain then Christianity it self as he did before against the ceremonious use of an Image which Catholicks heed no otherways then ornaments of their Religion fruitful in so many sweet fragrant Roses and Lillies of their Martyrs and other blessed Saints And therefore Dr. St. winks himself that his reader may think here is no truth to be seen Full of doubts he is that Catholicks may be thought doubtful What can they show what can they urge for this their worship The authority of the Roman Church that is little worth A speedy quick and dextrous dispatch Catholick tradition where is it why do they not shew it who ever heard of it Poor man he cannot see wood for trees nor London perhaps in the midst of Cheapside except some body point at it The numerous volumns that have set forth this Catholick tradition as eminent as clear as universal as Christianity it self he now remembers them not no not any one of them can he now call to mind to lead him out of the maze he is in Will they pretend Scripture all that is disputed that is otherwise intérpreted If he continue in this his perplexity he will turn Atheist by and by For there is no one Article of Christian faith or Scripture that speaks it but has been disputed denied and otherwise interpreted What can Scripture saith he do without Councils and what are Councils but fallible mistaking businesses A sad plight the man is in but it is on his own accord and free will that his reader may imagine Catholicks who are all the world over in a peaceable possession of this their faith to be in the same pickle too He simply conceits Catholicks to have their faith to pick up some where and he cannot possibly tell where they should glean it with any assurance or quiet at least he would have it thought they cannot Bellarmin saith he declares by convincing arguments that Christ is God and to be worshipped but what Church what tradition what Counsel what Fathers tell us any such thing of the Host Alas poor dark man we must not then ever think to pick our Religion out of Bellarmin it seems And so must needs be in the same case with those Christians who lived before Bellarmins time that is to say either to have our Religion already without Bellarmins help or to seek it But where had Bellarmin yet a Child where had he his Faith before he wrote any thing surely not out of Bellarmins books It is a wonder the Dr. thinks not of this to help him a little to his sound sences But he is in his extasie and will be in it still And he tells us in this his rapture that Bellarmin proved by convincing arguments that Christ is God and to be worshiped but who ever said the like of the Host We know and remember well enough that the same Bellarmin who proves so laboriously that Christ is God declares also no less effectually in a whole treatise of the same volume of controversies both our Lords Divine presence in the Eucharist and our supream veneration love and honour there due unto him This we know and this the Dr. did himself know also before he drave himself into these his fained Apoplexies wherein he has indeed some imperfect glimpses of it even now that we may give him his due but the whole treatise in Bellarmin seems to him now at this his distance but as a small black mote such as an Eagle may happly appear to us flying in the Clouds five miles high above our heads an atome a little on this side nothing and therefore not worth speaking of And by this means he goes on glibly in his extacies and exclamations unto the end What ground have Papists what ground have they for this their worship Scripture Tradition Councels Fathers Church Reason where are they what are they worth who ever saw them why are they not shown Thus the good man raves Although all people before this last and worst age who ever in any place bore the name of Christians both Latin and Greek Bishopricks who filled up Europe and all the rest every where Armenians Habassins Maronites Jacobites Muscovites Melthites had all of them this one solemn adoration of God in the Eucharist as the great work of Christianity although antient Fathers especially the Grecians have left more record of it than any other parcel of Christian belief and practice although many great laborious and learned volumnes have been set forth in this last age both in France Germany and England whereby that Catholick piety is so demonstrated that none who considers things in earnest can refrain to acknowledg it yet does Dr. St. in his deep extasy forget all this and cryes out who ever said it who ever proved it who ever profest it And he hopes his Reader who is seldom wiser than his book will answer to his question and say No body No body Sir you are in the right and Papists are meer Fools and Blockheads § 4. The drift of this Chapter is to shew that we can neither believe our Lords presence in the Eucharist nor do any homage to God in him there figured according to his own solemn Institution as Crucified among us unto our reconciliation and peace And truly his discourse here tending thereunto is all of it so extraordinary slight that one cannot tell whether himself be serious or that he do indeed take us all for Mushromes so soft and foolish that we will be carryed away at his pleasure by any thing or indeed by nothing Suppose saith he we have the same Divine Revelation of Christs presence in the Eucharist as of the Divinity of his Person yet can we not possibly worship here as there because there it is said let all the Angels adore him but we have no command to worship the Host As though one and the same command Let all the Angels adore him would not serve indifferently both in Heaven and Earth both for Angels and men where ever he is present The Divine revelation of his presence needs no further command to ingage our worship nor is that said command Let all men honour the Son as the Father and let all the Angels worship him determined to any one place or to any one mode of his presence St. Paul worshipped our Lord in the fields of Damascus where he met him
one and the same and has no other superior Church on earth either to resist or observe But yet does this man go nimbly about his work without either fear or scruple For first revelations have been countenanced in that Church One of an Abbat in a storm another of St. Norbert of St. Gertrude of St Briget St. Joan St. Catherin of Sena about the Conception and these revelations were contradictory to one another one affirming the immaculate conception the other denying it Oho is this the first proof of fanaticism in the Church A very pretty one surely He has already forgotten his own definition of fanaticism For here is no mention made either of any new way of religion invented or of resisting authority under pretence of it But all that he esteems whimsical or fanciful stuff must it seems be called fanatical But can any vain fancies dreams or visions of two or three who profess a religion prove that religion to be fanatical Yes will he say if they be countenanced But first they might be countenanced and yet not as any part of their religion Secondly how does he prove they were countenanced because some Doctors maintained one of those contradictory revelations and some the other till the whole business was silenced Thus he tells his story But is this to countenance any thing I think not nor yet can any one in reason think it It is moreover certainly believed by all Catholicks in the world that the blessed Virgin Mother of our Lord Jesus was ever most pleasing to God and immaculate in all her ways even from her first Beeing and this is not questioned by any The dispute in Schools yet undecided is only about the Moode Tense of it whether that her Sanctity were in her from the beginning by way of preservation from the blemish of sin for every conceivable Instant of her being in her passive Conception as Scotus teaches in his School or whether it were by way of Sanctification after the first real instant of her Beeing wherein as other Children of Adam by natural progation she was lyable to Original sin as the followers of St. Thomas affirm And this was the matter of those their Revelations or Dreams according to the pious opinion They conceived of our Lady's purity These of their Angelical Doctors contemplations But how does this prove that our general Faith wherein they all lived and dyed is Enthusiastick There be Dreamers in England good store and those that dream waking too and yet may not the Church of England be called Fanatick for that Fond contradictory fancies of some make not the general Religion unto whose guidance they are to submit when they come to be questioned any ways in fault Indeed the Doctors of these Schools as they have been too earnest in the maintaining their School Curiosities to the admiration of innocent Believers not at all concern'd in their subtilities So were some of them strongly perswaded about the said Revelations or dreams for the honour each of their Schools and the positions they teach but our Catholick Bishops who heed Religion only concern not themselves in School Niceties but in plain and solid Faith It is the property of such as are meer School-men to reverence their School dictates oft to the prejudice of grace and charity That these women should pretend Revelations about a School point was either the strength of their own fancy working on the way they had heard or the weakness of their guides It matters not whether for Saints are not Saints in every point of their lives flesh and blood will sprout Imbecilities until their perfection comes And how hard it is to discern the Original of Visions which of them is divine which humane and perhaps an evil Motion we have examples enough in holy Writ amongst the Prophets and Sons of Prophets When Josaphat and Achal Kings of Judah and Israel were to make War on Ramoth Gilead all the chief Prophets were called together even four hundred of them to give their Counsel All of these pretended revelations from God and yet speak contrary things especially Micheas Zedechias were at open defiance one with another about the truth of their Visions And yet all this made not any proof that the Religion of the Hebrews was Fanatick But he that wil read more of these theological subtilties may see it if he please in the works of that learned Divine Franciscus à Sancta Clara a Catholick Doctor especially in his book De Schismate his other called Paralipomena philosophica and a third called Religio Philosophi in a more ample and solid manner there discust I have now said enough of this business and something more may chance to add by and by when occasion offers § 4. Saint Catherin had her five shining wounds in her bands feet and side insensible of all pains in her extasies and could smell stinking vitious souls as St. Philip Nerius did afterwards which is one degree above the enthusiasm of a Quaker I know not how many degrees it is above the enthusiasm of a Quaker sure I am it is far below the fanaticism of Doctor Stillingfleet who talks at this wild rate What is all this if it were true to the definition of fanaticism and where does the fanaticism lie is not this man strangely frantick himself who cannot distinguish between peoples religion and the accidenâ—â— that do befall them Were these wounds and Noses any part of their Creed Although the Doctor have no such nose yet may he have such a stink and though he want the wounds he may have fairy nips that are as bad If St. Catherin were so estranged from sensual things and so absorpt in God as is here related God be thanked for it if she was not I can believe in God nevertheless and my religion is still the same I did once read a story of a young man in Hungary who flying for fear at the coming in of the Turks into the adjoining woods lived there so long estranged from all human diet that all his friends and neighbours after the Turks departure could not take him till he chanced to slip into a deep pitfall set on purpose to catch him The reason was as he afterward related because his smell became so refined and pure by his living in the woods on the wild and thin provision there that he smelt men a mile or two off before they could come near him And this story I judg to be true as well as that of St Catherin who had heavenly helps beside And if Dostor Still unacquainted with such things esteem them whimsical let him think so What them I do not It is but the various judgment of two petty Doctors My religion however is still the same solid faith it was unless the pain I have now actually in my side must give the Church of God a pleurisie § 5. Visions and apparitions have been made use of by them to prove Doctrines that were before
Gospel wherein he lived himself and bred up all his followers inviolably I think Dr. Still notwithstanding his own definition which he does not himself heed calls all those fanaticks who do not as he does or do practise that which he cannot or have had those gifts from God which he has not Otherwise how should living in a cave subduing lust by nettles a power over devils the spirit of discerning at a distance knowledg of Gods divine mysteries and the like seem to him any properties of a fanatick All this if it be true makes for St. Bennets glory and no part of it to his disparagement His retirement into rocks and caves his mortification of lust and all the rest are good and glorious And he hath no less a man than St. Paul the great Apostle a companion with him also in his dislike of human learning who both vilifies it and gives us as great a caution against it as ever St. Bennet did the same blessed Apostle as dusty and dirty in his travels and careless of his outward man as ever St Bennet could be however taken as Dr. Still here tells us by countrey people for a beast But let the beast be where it will God sees not as man sees And what is comely in our eyes is an abomination to that holy one who regards the heart Saint Bennet is content with his own company of Apostles and Prophets who did the same things with him and had the like gifts and heeds little any derision of Stillingfleets long finger § 10. Petrus Damianus reports of St. Romwal that he was hard to learn in his youth that he took ugly birds to be devils and chaced them away that he was converted by a vision of St. Apollinaris that he had devils lying upon his legs and sometimes bruising him in his prayers that he wept bitterly when he said Mass saw Monks going up to Heaven on a Ladder of light And that St. Bruno and Hugo built the grand Chartreus upon a vision This is all he can pick out against St. Romwall and St. Bruno to prove them fanaticks that is to say mad men for I cannot tell what else he should mean Nor can any one perceive by his phrase of speech whether he relates these few things of them or those of St. Bennet as things he believes to be true or which he thinks to be false If false then Peter Damian Writer of their Lives is the fanatick and not St. Bruno or Romwall If true then Dr. Still is the fanatick and not Peter Damian For what blame is it in any either to be hard to learn in youth or to see devils if he did see them or to be converted by a vision or to weep at Mass or the like where lyes the fanaticism of this business Here is no news of any new religion invented or any resisting Authority under pretence thereof He that walks all his whole life in the ways of Christian piety may have such things as these happen to him partly in his youth and partly in his maturer age None of these things are unusual or impossible where Christianity odious to evil Angels is practised and professed in earnest The Religion of these men is the same one Catholick Faith that is common to all though all do not keep so strict rules to observe it as they did nor are all block heads or hard to learn in their youth nor have all men devils lying upon their legs or bruising them in their prayers nor do all weep at Mass or see Ladders of light or the like And whether these oppressions and apparitions in any one Catholick young or old be true or false imaginary or real this cannot make his religion either better or worse however the man may be otherwise affected then others of the same religion who are free If Dr. Still could but see the daily lives of the Camaldulensian Monks or Carthusians from their first Founders time in profound silence austerity and prayers he would find there is some other thing there to do then to scare Crows § 11. St. Francis St. Dominick were the persons whom Pope Innocent the third saw in a vision to support the Lateran Church hence therefore called the two Lamps c. Surely these two men will prove no fanaticks but grave solid Orthodox Christians For fanaticks pull down Churches but support none And yet our Doctour will not have it so They must by all means be fanaticks too nay the chiefest of fanatick and enthusiastick men For Cardinal Vitriaco saith he calls St. Francis an illiterate man and St. Bonaventure describes him no otherwise His first conversion to that strict course of life was by visions wherein he was swallowed up in God as St. Bonaventure will have it and his soul melted at the sight of the Crucifix So tender hearted was he to the poor that sometimes be rent off his cloaths to give them and sometimes unript and divided them amongst them in all this having no teacher but Christ whose voice when he heard from a Crucifix he was besides himself so that people flockt about him as a mad man and cast dirt at him and his own father renounced him before the Bishop upon which St. Francis rejoyced now that he could better say Our Father which art in Heaven In this height of fanaticisme he made crucifixes in mortar and preaching to the people pierced their hearts Then opening the Gospel thrice he took the first three Sentences for the rule of his Order He had many extasies and raptures and in one of them had a full assurance of his sins remitted His rule confirmed afterwards by the Pope he called the book of life and marrow of Gospel St. Dominick comes not much behind him For he had a vision also that God had chose him and St. Francis to reform the world and the evil manners of men This is what he can cull out of St. Francis and St. Dominicks life to prove them both fanaticks and enthusiastick men And he interlards his narration with much jesting girds of his own to make it have the more fanatick rellish but all in vain For though he omit here in a manner all the whole life of those holy and blessed men as he did before in others and picks out thence onely such few passages as he thought he could lash as he went with the Scorpions of his bold derision yet will not this serve his turn For all that is here reported of St. Francis the scurrillous manner of his relation excepted is onely his voluntary poverty his neglect of humane learning and worldly wealth his divine visions and entertainments with God his charity to the poor his efficacious preaching unto the reformation of evil manners his rule of life drawn out of Gospel and confirmed by the chief Christian Prelate All which things are so far from fanaticism that they are quite opposite to it Here is no news of any new invented enthusiastick way of
Religion but on the contrary a tenour and rule of life drawn out of Gospel and confirmed by his own Prelate and Ecclesiastical Superiour The ways of fanaticks fanaticism are quite contrary to this Much less have we here any resistance of Authority but a submission to Authority and an humble expectation of their approbation and licence He must surely think our Kingdom of England to be much alienated from the Kingdom of God if he hope to perswade them that love of poverty neglect of worldly wealth and humane literature charity to the poor divine revelations powerful preaching against sin melting affections towards God and a rule of life drawn out of Gospel is fanaticisme He will be a very dull reader who will not hence conclude that our twelve Apostles were the first and chiefest fanaticks in the world And this our wits too much prone to loosness and atheism will greedily enough and nimbly infer and perhaps rejoyce that they have an Atheist in Print to propagate their infidelity Atheism loves not lonelines but is then most secure when the company is greatest But it will be here objected why then did St. Bennet St. Francis and St. Dominick make themselves new rules Is not this a new religion Sir although a Catholick cannot easily be so ignorant as to ask any such question as this is yet because it may be the straw at which Dr. Still stumbles who as in this his whole book he speaks like a Child so for ought I know he may understand like a Child I say therefore that a new rule is so far from a new religion that the Gospel can do little good without it For the counsels and precepts of Gospel whereby our souls are to be sanctified and ordered to our final end are all general and abstracted from any circumstance of time or place or measure or manner to the end they may be indifferent to the many conditions professions and imployments of mankind in their several states and ages Watching fasting works of charity mortification of sensuality continence repentance administration of Sacraments and the various like good things commended to us in our holy Gospel are so prescribed and counselled us that the manner the when the where how often how long and other such like circumstances without which those rules and counsels cannot be brought down to execution and practâ—ce are not specified Therefore hath the Catholâ—ck Church brought down some of these things unto individual circumstances when she appointed rites and times for Sacraments set holy days for people to meet together in their meditations and prayers set times for fasts others for confession others for Communion some for rejoycing in our Lord some for mourning and doing pennance so much and in such a manner as might well consist with the generality of the Catholick world But because neither is this sufficient for our daily progress unless people considering their own particular occasions and the lettanees which may occur more in one hour of the day then another ether set themselves a further rule for their daily piety and particular ordering of their houses or follow the direction herein of some wiser and better man Hence it is that so many rules have issued forth in the Christian world by which some people have governed their own private houses accommodating them in the best wise they could unto their affairs and others have quite retired out of the world to serve God more perfectly all their life according to this or that approved rule in a more full observance of it under Monastical obedience This is the motive nature and end of so many rules in the Church of God whereof some suit best with one complexion and some with another And all of them tend unto the bringing down of Gospel unto a constant practice And what Christian soever sets himself no such rule nor follows any must needs live a loose and careless if not a wicked life although he should have the whole Gospel by heart and be able to speak it all without book If the exact lives and pious rules of St. Bennet St. Francis St. Dominick St. Basil St. Brunâ— St. Romwall and such like men were printed together in our English tongue with the pictures of their Religious men met together either in their Refectory Schools or Quire this one sight would I am confident more move my good Protestant Country-men who are daily abused with Ministerial lies against us then any one book of controversie can do I will only set down here the one rule of St. Francis according to which his religious disciples are regulated all their life time throughout the world whereby either your self Sir or any other may judge whether he be worthily called either fool or fanatick St. Francis his Rule Chap. 1. THe rule and life of Fryar minours is this To observe the holy Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord living in obedience without property of goods and in chastity Brother Francis doth promise obedience and reverence unto Bishop Honorius his Lord and to his Successors Canonically installed and to the Roman Church And be other Fryars bound to obey Brother Francis and his Successors Ch. 2. If any shall be willing to take this life and shall therefore present themselves to our Brothers let them be sent to the Provincial Ministers who may only and none besides them have power to admit them The Ministers must be diligent to examine them about Catholick Religion and Church Sacraments And if they believe these things and will faithfully confess them and firmly observe them to the end and either have no Wives or those Wives if any they have are entered into Monasteries or by the authority of the Bishop of the Diocesse are dismist a vow of continence now solemnly made and their said Wives be of that age that there can arise no suspicion of them let the Ministers then speak unto them the word of holy Gospel that they go and sell all their goods and bestow them upon the Poor Which thing if they cannot be able to do their good will in this part may suffice And let the Brothers beware and their Ministers too that they be not solicitous about the temporal goods of these men that they may freely dispose those things of their own as our Lord shall inspire them And if Counsel be required the Ministers have leave to send them unto some men fearing God by whose advice they may bestow their goods upon the Poor After this they may grant them their vest of probation namely two tunicks without a capuce and a girdle and drawers and a caparoon down to the girdle unless the Ministers shall otherwise think fit according to God After the year of probation is ended let them be received unto obedience promising ever to observe this life and rule And in no wise shall it be lawful for them to go out of this religion according to the command of my Lord our chief Bishop because according to