though not intire § 6. But we deny saith he that Divine worship is to be given to the Elements upon the account of a â—â—â—l presence This denial also as the words â—and is good enough For none that I know worship Elements Secondly We deny that the same adoration is to be given out of Communion as in it and this is the only Controversy I had thought he said before that he could worship Christ any where but only in the Eucharist where the corporeal presence determins a worship Now he seems to say that he can worship him in Communion and not out of it and this the only controversie But we must take his grants and danyals singly and not stand to tye them one to another lest we anger our Benefactor What he gives we must take thankfully and not look a gift horse in the month and what he denyes in one page he may grant us in another if we can but have patience § 7. They cannot be sure saith he that the object deserves worship appearing still bread Scripture that saies This is my Body may be otherwise interpreted the sence of the Fathers is hard to find the present Church stands in no stead For is it enough the Pope says it No. If he define it No. If a General Council concur No. Vnless they proceed in a right way and who can be sure of that Now he throws about his Philosophy-dust to perswade us we can be sure of nothing It still appears bread So it does Even Christ our Lord appeared a meer man but the eye of Faith apprehended him the Son of the Living God a Child newly baptized appears but the same it was and yet is believed to be now regenerate and born again all that is in man appears mortal but is not believed so Mulâ—a videntur quae non sunt This divine Majesty hath words of life and power and call the things which are not as those that are and by his naming them makes them to be what he says they are And in those words of life do Caâ—holicks believe and trust when taking bread he solemnly and seriously said at his last hour instituting then an Oblation and Sacrament most soveraigne and venerable to remain in his Church for ever This is my Body and all Christians hitherto have lived and dyed in this Faith Scripture that says This is my Body may be otherwise interpreted Considering they were the last words of our Loving Lord departing from us and his final Legacy bequeathed his believers they cannot be rightly interpreted but as they sound And any other interpretation that has been yet given by any against our Catholick Faith amounts only unto thus much This is not my Body which is a strange mad interpretation The sence of the Fathers is hard to seek saith he But who seeks after it writers of controversies may take pains to cull it out and demonstrate it to unbelievers for their Conversion But Catholicks have their Faith already wherein they are educated and bred up from their youth united to their immediate Pastors as these are to the rest of the Catholick Body The present Church stands in no stead why so that is all in all as the body is to the finger hands and other members in which they all move Is it enough the Pope says it No c. This man here imagins first that Catholicks have their Faith to seek which is his feeble imagination Secondly That Scripture cannot help them for his reason above specified as feeble as it And Thirdly That the present Church can availe as little because the Popes word is not assured as though the Popes word were the present Church And is not all this a strange raving talk All men know I think Sir all men excepting only this spiritual Hâ—ctor that as Catholicks have their Faith and Religion by Tradition from one Generation to another so in it they have ever lived unanimously under their immediate Priests and Pastors united altogether in the great Catholick Body the present Church and never look further Nor is there any need at all either of the Popes word or Councels unless some great sedition or scandalous Apostacy arise in some one or other particular Diocess For then the Bishop of the place calls for help of his fellow Bishops and the supreme Pastor in particular and conciliar Assemblies as Governours extraordinary in a tempest which may indanger the ship And Catholicks thus keeping close together in one body united with their Pastors whom the Holy Ghost hath set over them for their safety and peace cannot but remain steady and immoveable by the assistance and blessing of that Lord who hath promised ever to be with them even to the worlds consummation Nor do they ever seek for their Faith any where for they have it sufficiently already and all their â—are is to conform their lives to it as they ought that they may get Gods good Spirit and his holy operations in themselves which is the end of their Religion and all they do in it And what a pretty peice of ignorance is it in Dr. Stillingfleet to perswade us that they cannot be certain of their Faith who are certain and know themselves certain and declare so much before the face of the Sun and all the eyes of Heaven by their stability fixedness and immovability in Faith even this particular Faith of our Lords presence in the Eucharist so many ages together and such vast distant places not only against the dictamen of their own sences but even against all the violence and subtilty of mankind conspiring to shake all the very nerves and bones of their holy Faith out of joynt Dr. Stilling fleet has more need to consider in Gods fear how Catholicks do arrive to this strange assurance rather than emptily to tell us they cannot be sure § 8. Their own School-men puzle and are unresolved how the whole Humanity can be present how united how terminate a worship c. Here is another handful of his dust his curiosity-dust to lessen our assurance If our School-men puzle and are puzled we must needs be thought unresolved But what do these School-men puzle what are they unresolved in Not in their Faith which says that our Lord is present with us in his holy Eucharist but in the Philosophical Quomodo or how this thing or that thing is And as they cannot disagree in Faith which they received all alike one and the very same so can they not agree in Philosophy which they invent and contrive very divers every one to himself according to his genious and capacity And what is all this unto us believers or to one and another among themselves as they are all Christians even just nothing I say just nothing can the assurance of our Faith be prejudiced by any supervening curiosities of men disputing afterward in their maturer age about the Quomodo of it or the possibility of the contrary to it or the ways of Gods working
still building and pulling down our opinions Former Catholick Christians practised and we dispute They had a religion fixt we are still seeking one They exercised themselves in good works by the guidance of their holy faith which led them towards them and pressed their duty all these works we by our new way evacuate They had the substance of religion in their hearts we the text in our lips They had nothing to do but conform their lives to Gods will all our endeavour is to apply Gods word to our own faction Let there be no longer a mistake the question is not whether people are to have Gods word or no but whether that word consist in the letter left to the peoples disposal or in the substance and meaning of it urgently imposed upon people for their practice And we must still and ever remember that it is not Gods will or word but the letter of scripture onely which makes here-ticks this may be depraved by men unto their own destruction that cannot So that when we come to a conclusion of these things there is no such Catholick doctrine faith or religion amongst us which prescribes any of these thing put here in his third chapter upon the Roman Church For first our Catholick way is so far from keeping Gods word from the people that it has been the only great endeavour of our Church and pastors in all times and places to derive Gods word and will in such a manner unto people that they may observe and keep it however they will not permit the letter promiscuously unto all hands without a knowledge of their ability and stayedness even as they do not suffer all sorts of men to come to holy communion without a license and assurance of their lives and persons Secondly that our efficacy of sacraments depends upon meer administration without any preparation of mind is so false that every Catholick boy and girl arrived to years of discretion will hiss at it Thirdly that we pray in an unknown tongue and know not what we say is a calumny onely proper for the wise men of Gotam Fourthly that prayers for one another after this life ended do hinder our own holiness and devotion in this present life is a paradox fit onely for discourse in a tavern or coffee-house over cups Fifthly that our sacrament of penance with interiour contrition sufficeth us without any amendment of life or purpose towards it is a slander which the doctor could not have vented with applause on any other ground but Billingsgate He took it seems more pleasure to shew an evil wit than a good candid nature which is a perfection more becoming him and if I be not mistaken by too much charity more apparent in his courteous conversation with his neighbours than in his written Romances or books made against the Church of Rome which are so false and injurious that they cannot but hurt as well our Protestant neighbours who read and believe them as poor innocent Catholicks who dislike and suffer them And now dear Sir I bid you farwel the second time FINIS ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ FANATICISM I Am now Sir arrived to the Doctors merriment a merriment peculiarly prophane which has gained him much applause He endeavours in his 4. Chapter to declare and prove that the Church of Rome is fanatical founded and supported on fanaticism A merry theme and fit for a terrae filius And I suppose here that he means by the Church of Rome not any material building of stone and morter either the floar or walls windows pillars steeple or weather-cock nor yet any men or women boys or girls in England Ireland France or other countreys but the Catholick faith and religion protest all over the world by such as we now in England call Papists For his readers both Catholick and Protestant do understand him so to mean And this religion and faith he proves by such arguments to be fanatical as might infer fanaticism indifferently upon all Kingdoms of the earth and all mankind thus he speaks There were two men and as many more women in distant times and places who pretended revelations about the unspotted purity of the blessed Virgin Mary Therefore is the Catholick Church and faith fanatical Secondly one St. Catherin of Sena is said to have had shining wounds in her body and to smell the stench of lecherous men therefore is their faith and Church fanatical Thirdly St. Gregory and St. Bede write of some apparitions therefore is their religion and faith fanatical Fourthly one Bishop appointed a day to be holiday another built a Church and both were done by revelation therefore is their faith and religion fanatical Fifthly St. Bennet St. Francis St. Dominick St. Romewal and St. Bruno founders of chief religious orders among them had many symptoms of madmen as to prophesie to see angels to neglect their bodies to be beaten and scoft at by men therefore is their religion and Church fanatical Sixthly about four hundred years ago there rose a pernicious heresie which spread far and caused much disturbance before they could silence and suppress it 〈◊〉 therefore is their Church and religion fanatical Seventhly St. Ignatius founder of the Society of Jesuits was such another fool as St. Francis and laboured and suffered much before he could get his order and rule approved by the Bishop therefore is the Roman Church fanatical Eightly one man among them of late printed a spiritual book wherein were some words and phrases unusual and hardly intelligible therefore is the religion and Church of Rome fanatical Ninthly three men amongst them in this last age uttered blasphemous words against the honour and prerogative of Kings who are Gods Vicegerents upon earth therefore is Catholick religion fanatical All these hollow voices are to be heard and seen in this his Bartholmew Booth for the recreation of such as love it issuing unto our great wonderment onely from the belly of one man breaking wind in the midst of it § 1. Let us see then how all this put together does prove the Church of Rome whose emblem it is intended to be fanatical It is an easie thing to act upon a stage the gravest and soberest man alive in a drunken posture Wit without honesty and confidence without conscience can pervert and turn things upside down at pleasure But a little reflection will set all straight again The Catholick Church and religion here represented as fanatical first it has subsisted by the confession of our first reforming Protestants even from the Apostles days or very little after spread all over Europ Asia and Africa Secondly it has been imbraced and owned by Kings and Princes honourable Lawyers learned Physicians stout Captains subtil Philosophers people innumerable as the very sands on the sea shore Thirdly it made and framed the Laws both of our own Countrey and every Christian Kingdom Fourthly it built the many goodly Churches all over the world even those here wherein now Protestants the right
as those related by S. Gregory and S. Bede to prove purgatory appearances of a child to prove transubstantiation of a black man blotting sins out of a book when a thief did pennance to prove confession Very good Then were not those parcels of faith brought in by those visions And a whimsical proof by any Minister to declare and justifie his text does not infer that divine text to be therefore Enthusiasm He told us before like a Doctor that fanaticism was some new enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under pretence of it Where is all this here Is fanaticism now some other thing nothing but a weak proof whether Dr. Still himself hath ever used in his Sermons any such proof as this is when he hath discoursed of the souls superviving after this life ended I cannot tell But I am confident that if he hath he did not therefore think himself a fanatick nor yet any others who heard him speak it I should if he had either reason or apparition for any thing he utters in this Book of his think the better both of him and it The best is that all these apparitions here related were first written by venerable and grave men whose words are of greater authority than Stillingfleet-derisions § 6. They not onely prove Doctrines bus even define things meerly by private revelations Do they so What are these things so defined What is the reason he changes his phrase and says not as we might have expected he should that they not onely prove doctrines that were before but define doctrines also upon private revelations He is wary in this and calls them things not doctrines But yet hopes still that his Reader will so understand as if they defined doctrines as well as proved them upon private revelations He has a multitude of these little tricks which I must let pass But what things do they define Let us hear them Pope Vrban the fourth determined the festival of corpus Christi day upon a revelation made to some Nuns in Leeds Pope Boniface the feast of the archangel Michael upon another made to the Bishop of Siponto And why saith he should we be told of fanaticism so often Do we found our religion upon any such visions Here we have now the things defined upon private revelations onely a couple of holy days or rather one holy day and one Church built upon a hill and neither of them upon private revelations The appearance of an Angel which caused the building of the Church was solemn and publick But corpus Christi day was instituted apart or rather transferred from Maunday thursday in holy week untill the Paschal festival were ended because in the holy week other affairs of piety towards the passion of our Lord unknown to Dr. Stillingfleet do so take up all that time that people cannot then sufficiently celebrate the institution of the Eucharist as they would and ought to do This is the known reason why corpus Christi day was instituted to be kept apart the thursday after Trinity And if some Nuns had any vision that so it ought to be what then It onely follows hence that the vision they had proved true and not that any part of Catholick religion was built upon such visions For all the religion or faith that is in this business was before that institution of the holy day A circumstance of time or place for the exercise of religion though it be defined is not to define religion it self The real presence or corpus Christi was believed and loved and reverenced long before Pope Urban and the Angels of God honoured before Pope Boniface was born Why saith Mr. Still should we hear so often of fanaticism Do we found our religion upon any such visions And who gentle Doctor does found any relgion upon them Do you call the building of a Church or institution of a holy day a founding of religion And who tells you so often of fanaticism You cast it indeed upon one another here in England Presbyterians Anabaptists and other such like I know no body else who tell you of it But if you will have me speak what I now think all the whole protestant reformation is fanaticism to me even in the most rigorous and strictest sense § 7. Their religious orders even the chief among them Benedictins Carthusians Dominians Franciscans and Jesuits were all instituted by enthusiastick persons upon the credit of their visions and revelations so much hath fanaticism contributed to their support Now this man blows upon us a little more nearly than hitherto and yet he blasts but his own soul thereby For first the Catholick Church is truly and properly supported by Jesus Christ her founder and divine Master Then by the innocence purity and powerfulness of her faith Next to this by the care and vigilancy of Apostles venerable Bishops and holy Priests who made unblameable thereby in themselves are industrious to teach and exhort and see this holy religion observed and put in practise by others committed to their charge And then also by religious people and all those good Christians who do earnestly heed those heavenly dictates of our Lord to fulfill them so distributing the time of this their short life that now they practise one good thing and then another as occasion offers till all justice be fulfilled keeping themselves unspotted of the world So that religious people do no otherways support the Church but by their studious observance of her holy laws and counsels unless the venerable Bishops do call forth some virtuous choice men amongst them for their help This is most certain Secondly no less certain it is that the founders of religious orders were both pious and wise persons and several ways proved to be so by their miraculous and innocent lives before their rule was allowed of Nor were any of them accepted as this man speaks of by the credit of their own visions Thirdly although the Benedictins and others here mentioned were very eminently religious in the West part of the Church Yet it is not so certain that they are the chief of all religious that either are or have been in Church in any place or age Very eminent were the orders founded by St. Austin that venerable Doctor and Bishop in Africa the Monks of St. Martin a Bishop in France those of St. Malachy in Ireland the religious of St. Basil of St. Pacomius of Cassianus St. Jerom and several others in the East and South part of the Church Very eminent without all doubt were those many religious Societies whom St. Jerom and others testifie to have spread themselves all over Syria Armenia Persia Ethiopia Asia and all the northern parts even amongst the Goths and Dacians before the fourth age of the Christian Church Very eminent were the religious institutes which were all over the countrey we now inhabit in the Britons time long before our forefathers the Saxons came in upon them under the rule of St. Columba
spirit from them So may we contrariwise think of this worthy society of Jesuits that such a stable gravity and fixed wisdom as is in them all must needs be derived unto them from the spirit and statutes of their founder That is I think a true moral physiognomy which is given us by the Lyrick poet especially in a continual succession of men Fortes creantur fortibus bonis Est in juvencis est in equis patrum Virtus nec imbelles ferocem Progenerant aquilam columbae But let St. Ignace be never so simple yet did he ever submit unto his Superiours and Pastours walking all his daies in Catholick religion and had his rule of life confirmed by his Prelate and therfore could be no fanatick according to the Doctours definition of it He neither invented any new way of religion nor yet resisted authority under pretence of it But I think the doctour gave us that definition of fanaticisme in the begining of this his Chapter only to keep his discourse far enough off and never to touch it § 16. The Doctour proceeds now to declare how the very Catholick way of devotion doth promote enthusiasme And what think you Sir doth he speak of here not one word of our daily psalms hymns canticles anthems sacred lessons doxologies our Lords prayer or any other devotion prescribed by the Church and almost hourly in the hands and eyes of Catholick people not a word of our examination of our selves upon our knees penitential petitions or other our obsecrations thanksgivings deprecations or interpellations for our selves and all other good Christian people for Kings and prelates and all constituted in authority over us that we may live a peaceable and quiet life with all piety and decent behaviour No mention of all this which he knows as I perceive by his talking of our Manuels and Breviaries to be our Catholick devotion no not one word What is it then he calls the Catholick way of devotion Only one spiritual book set forth by Mr. Cressy about twenty Years ago out of Father Baxers works wherin the Doctour finds some uncouth hard words which he cannot understand this is that which he calls Catholick devotion and this is all the way he shows that Catholick devotion promotes enthusiasme Have not I reason Sir to be weary in following after such a butterfly § 17. He tells us at last That Papists are guilty of resisting authority under pretence of religion which he proves first by the principles of the Jesuitical party which are destructive to government and Secondly by this that the said party are most countenanced in the Court of Rome But he never tells us what are these principles of the Jesuitical party nor what this Jesuitical party is He only names Mariana and one or two others who should say that a Prince excommunicated loses his Soveraignty For which boldness they suffered worthily both by their own body and others Now how this discourse of our Doctour agrees with his purpose all this while pretended here I cannot see For it has not so much as the colour which appeared in some sort hitherto His book is intitled A Discourse of the idolatrous fanaticisme of the Church of Rome but now he tells us of a Jesuitical party and the Court of Rome The Society of Jesuits a religious grave prudent family in the Catholick Church of God this I have heard of and the Church of Rome or Catholick Church I know But what is this Jesuitical party and what this Court of Rome I understand not at all The Doctour pretended to speak of the Church and her religion though indeed he hath never come neer it yet But now he speaks that which hath not so much as the sound of it A Jesuitical party and a Court what are these to our purpose now in hand There be parties and as many designs signs as there be men in this world although they should be all of one religion and not all of them nay not perhaps one in a thousand directed according to Gospel or right reason at all times but for avarice rather solicitude of this world or sensuality Who can mend this Or whose part is it to justify such things No man that defends a religion can conceive how they may concern him and he that opposes a religion if he were wise or honest would never object them And as for the Court of Rome I know no more of it then I do of the Court of France Spain or Constantinople I have long since been told that the designs of Courts and Courtiers are politick high ambitious and close And I have heard again that they are of one and the same opinion all over the face of the earth a high elevated secret mysterious way unknown to us peasants who are born in sin although it go under the name still of that rurall religion which is countenanced in their respective Kingdoms How true these things be and what this way of theirs is I know not nor do I love to speak of them at all One part of our duty I think and respect towards our Superiours is silence and not to speak at all of them For we may conclude that God subjected all other Creatures unâ—o man becaus he created them dumb And certainly enough may we imagine that the opinions of Courts and Courtiers are very high since one can hardly meet any ordinary man who would not have the whole earth under his command and power if he could get it It is not long since we had here threescore thousand of our own Protestant Countrymen armed in the field who held all of them an opinion that the Kings Crown was at their disposal So they wrote so they talked and so they acted And it is hard to say in what head are the most presumptuous ambitious and lofty opinions And our Doctour himself who so contemptuously treats King Pepin Charlemaign and other renowned Kings of the earth nay all the Catholicks in the world at once cannot be one of the humblest and modestest of men Court of Rome and Jesuitical party sounds in my ears like a thorough Bass and treble Violyn playing together the one strikeing three long humming Notes about the double Gamut the other descanting theron in short and quicker graces The Court of Rome I something perceive methinks what it should be but not what it is But the Jesuitical party with all its graces I neither know what it is nor what it should be That worthy Society of Jesuits may be considered either according to their religion or Schools or personal designs According to their religion they are as other Catholicks be in the same worship same Sacraments same Altar same Priesthood same faith same hope to come As to their Schools although they have I believe five hundred Readers of the Chair and perhaps as many publick defensions in every three years space yet did I never hear of any such thing either taught or defended in their Schools which
them And yet some antient Fathers disputed notwithstanding against that heathen practice and counted it idolatry Wherefore Germanus Patriark of Constantinople says expresly that Christians make no representation of the invisible Deity and Damascene that it is madness to go about it Wherefore the Synode of Constantinople and that of Frankford pleaded hard against the making of any images amongst Christians however the second Council of Nice vainly went about to defend them as innocent and useful helps Finally Moses himself explicates by his deeds the meaning of his own Law when he was so highly displeased with Aaron for the golden Calf he had made the people in his absence And yet Aaron did not make it to bring the people into heathen idolatry but to give them only a Symbole of the Angel who was to go before the people As also the two Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel were set up only to keep the people from going up to Jerusalem and not to bring them to the idolatry of heathens And therefore Primitive Christians never used any images as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge § 1. This is the sum of the Doctors discourse in this his first Chapter And he cannot but expect his Reader should have a mighty conceit of either his most high or most deep Divinity who hath converst so much with the learned sort of the Church of Rome the graver sort of Philosophers and wiser sort of Heathens Nothing does he here deliver that was so much as thought of by the common sort the vulgar sort the ordinary sort of Mankind And O what pleasure and content of heart will it be unto him if he could meet with an adversary of his learned sort too who viewing his airy subtilties should oppose him seriously as if he were serious himself and then distinguish as if he were dealing with some solid Divine and then ply him with proofs and testimonies refell him by shorter enthymems and longer syllogismes subtilly search in what Mood and Figure he speaks and then tell him how his consequence flaggs or antecedent is ambiguous till he have learnedly consumed a hundred pages in refutation of a trifle Then surely will the Doctour be judged by all parties to be as he would be thought to be an able man § 2. The Catholick Church uses indeed both in their publick and private oratories some pious representations of our holy Lord either in his passion or birth resurrection or ascention or miraculous working of some divine miracle And these holy figures of his are accompanied commonly with some others of his blessed Virgin Mother the renowned Apostles valorous Martyrs holy Confessors chast Virgins or other happy followers of our Lord who through many tribulations and a constant exercise of Christian vertues have passed hence to a blessed life All which do mightily avail unto our retiredness and recollection when we enter into the house of prayer a holy place separated and sanctified for Gods service from our own houses or the streets And the respect or esteem we have for such figures is nothing but what we bear either unto the sacred histories recorded of the same Persons or to those good rules of life and promises of Gospel which those Worthies have imbraced for the incouragement and imitation of us who are now strugling in that wicked world which they overcame before us For example as we reverence the history of Christs incarnation sounding in our ear so do we look upon the figure of it râ—â—â—esented to our eye As we love the story of St. Mary Magdalens conversion so do we like her Picture As we honour St. Pauls life and Martyrdome so do we respect his Image And St. Lawrences most cruel passion upon the hot burning Gridiron when it is represented to us in a Pictâ—re we are in the self same manner affected towards it as we are to the invincible vertue and patience there shown for the Love and honour of Jesus our Lord whose steps he followed So that what authentick history records to us in words of the vertue and valour of any of our Christian Ancestors or what holy Gospel tells us of the glory and crown to be rendred unto the good works of sobriety charity chastity purity patience and the like the same is without words painted unto us by these compendious hieroglyphicks serving more speedily than words can do to fasten us unto a strict recollection in our Prayers by one short glance about us and to a fear and awfulness of Gods presence in that place where we are met together for his Service accompanied with the sigures of so many of our pious Ancestours who are gone to Heaven before us and also to a dissipation of any worldly thoughts that may as they are apt enough to do at that time come along with us there unto our hinderance All this benefit we have by our Pictures when we have haply no book to look upon or know not by our ignorance to read or cannot by darkness or other lettance attend unto that labour And this is all the whole business of Images as to Religion In the Road of Philosophy trodden by School-Divines where thousands of conclusions over and above faith are advanced and opposed by one another unto the sharpning of their wits many things are said about every thing as the creation resurrection and the like which faith in the same things is silent of Nor are we in our defence of faith concerned at all in them And it may be easily discerned by our Catholick practice what use we make of our Images when of a hundred people entring into a Church nor one of them ever casts his eye wistly upon them but contented with a general glance compose themselves presently unto their prayers and meditations they keep silently in spirit towards God And when our Pictures are so sullied and spoiled that they will no more serve our use we put them into the fire as we would do also a page of sacred Scriptures uttterly obliterated and fouled § 3. Indeed all the whole business of the use of Images at all is but a matter of discipline and government for the help of people in the great work of recollection and prayer as is the use of Churches and the musick used in them with the Harp Viol other Instruments the Use of Beads and Prayer-books All which our Religion could spare and yet be not at all impaired as to any its essential or substantial parts Nay there be inconveniences in any one of these things Nor do I know any good thing in this world without some inconvenience or other It is enough for us that the conveniences and benefits of any good we have or use are more and greater than the inconveniences be Many worthy Prelates in Christianity have at times excepted very strongly against Organs as some hindrance of the great work of spâ—ritual contemplation which Christian people meet to practice together in their
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
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
for their direction and comfort this have Catholicks full and clearly delivered them out of holy writ and all their whole duty both towards God and their neighbour in their own language Nor are they ignorant of any thing that may appertain either to sobriety justice or piety The whole sacred story of our Lords incarnation passion and ascension all his sacraments all the whole counsels and precepts of God which may concern salvation all his promises and threats they have them all made known unto them clear and disintangled from the various tropes and schemes of rhetorick or logick so interwoven in the sacred authors writings that it puzzles the greatest clerk with all his literature and science to understand the connexions transitions of discourse objections ambâ—guous phrases hebraisms and grecisms and such-like obscurities that occur or to find out the drift and purpose and meaning of places which things do and have too too often caused mistakes and heresies in the world And all the sacred truths which it concerns them to practise the people have still been put in mind of by their priests both in private and publick to their daily edification Nor was it ever the fashion in Christianity to throw the bible among people and so leave them to themselves as the Reformers have done Most certain it is that the word and will and counsel of God consists not in letters and syllables much less in the tropes and modes of rhetorick and logick which do variously obscure the sacred writ above all books that have ever been penned by man but in the sence and meaning which is easily and securely conveighed It is no hard matter for example to understand that all men both Jews and Gentiles who have ever come to the knowledge of Christ were beholding to Gods mercy meerly to Gods mercy for that their conversion and the life of grace they had by it which is the scope of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans although to give an account how S. Paul deduces and proves this truth in that his epistle what arguments he doth either establish or refute what modes and figures he uses what tropes and rhetorical schemes be in his expressions how he passes from one thing to another in his discourse and by what art of ratiocination the context of his whole letter is knit together this is neither easie to understand nor necessary to any mans salvation to discern And yet the epistle without all this knowledge cannot be understood or rightly apprehended And if it be conceived falsly mistakes and heresies will rise The will and mind and word of God this all people are to know what he hath commanded what counselled what threatned what promised what our Lord did and suffered for us and what we are to suffer and do for him that we may be partakers of his glory But the humanity and philosophy that lies couched in holy writ vulgar people neither can nor have need to dive into it Nor was the holy scripture ever penned or intended for the people immediately but for the bishops and priests of God who are to watch over them for their good and from their lips they are to receive knowledge Christians were ever fed like pigeons by the mouth until they were so fledg that they could now fly feed themselves Once come to maturity they may read what they please on Gods name and the more they attend to lection of holy scriptures the better it is so they apply all unto action and sanctification of their lives And again in an epistle of mine its written thus I have heard many great protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion onely aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church which gives the sense life and meaning of Gods word unto people without the husk of the formal letter than by the way of Protestants which exhibits it to people hidden under the hard shell able to break peoples teeth Religion consists not in reading but doing to be had by heart and not in the lips that way is tedious and barren this fruitful and easie Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine duties into two words the great apostle into one and both of them made all to consist in practice If the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all Catholicks the chief particles of divine epistles those I mean which are of general concernment books of sacred instructions and meditations upon the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberless adjoyned to the rites of examination of conscience continual and daily use of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things our Lord hath wrought for us throughout the year which all men by law are tied to observe may not give sufficient acquaintance of what concerns salvation and enough to promote people towards it I am to seek what it is that can Sure I am that the world was first converted without any books at all and many millions of good Christians both lived piously and died happily who never saw the Bible What further good may it do to read the letter of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein are treated questions and cases that are now quite vanished out of the world and other theological discourses which vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know What more of good can accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to practise or so much as heat of than by the meer substance of Gods will and my own duty once well understood and daily applied unto action answerable good deeds What is there now in England when the said scripture letter is set open unto every eye any more of peace or charity piety or justice than in former Catholick times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those antient Catholick times They flock'd every day to their Churches there to pay meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles day night all over the land they built all our churches which we have remaining at this day amongst us and as many more now razed pulled down they founded and endowed our Universities establish'd our laws set out tithes glebe land for the clergy built hospitals erected corporations and in a word did all the good things which we find done by our forefathers for our good in this our native kingdom But what do we now what have we still been doing since the reformation quid agitur in Angliâ consulitur de religione Continually are we making and unmaking our religious rites
owners excluded by violence do preach Fifthly it set out the glebe land and tyths whereon they live Sixthly it founded our Corporations raised our famous Universities and furnished their Libraries with books Seventhly it has preicribed and delivered us the forms not of the Sacraments onely but of any sort either of ecclesiastical or civil instalments Eighthly it has triumphed over Jews and Pagans notwithstanding their power and furious opposition by Gods blessing and her own innocence prudence and constancie and laid asleep the very heresies that have risen up against her in all ages out of her own bowels All these things that I may speak no more are not the works of fanaticism they are not the properties power or gestures of fanaticks Fanaticism rises up suddenly and dies like a mushrom utters a fond defiance and so vanishes destroys but builds nothing chatters a little like a moon calf and is seen no more § 2. That our Doctor may proceed somewhat doctor-like he tells us in the begining of this his Chapter what he means by fanâ—ticism By it saith he I understand an enthusiastick way of religion or resisting authority under pretence of religion This is his desiartion of it But whether it be one definition or two it is not easie to say Indeed and truth it is no definition at all but onely an obscure dark wording of things so purposely ordered that he may put what he pleases in the circle of fanaticism besides himself It is saith he an enthusiastick way of religion But what is enthusiastick what does way mean in these our affairs and what is a way of religion A definition ought to be plain and familiar without either amphibology or trope and more intelligible than the thing defined This is not so Enthusiasm in Greek is but the same thing as Inspiration Were then the Apostles and Prophets who were inspited and taught that their inspired way of religion the fanaticks here spoken of or no Secondly what is meant by way Is it a way chalked out for a man by his just and legal guids or a way invented by himself This is a main business and perhaps the very essence of fanaticism and yet it is not here exprest Thirdly what is a way of religion Is it religion it self or some certain fanciful gestures in the exercise of it or some odd mode in defending it or some peculiar manner of applying it unto the conduct of our lives A clergy man may either in a pulpit or at an altar have many simple wild gestures and yet be a sound Christian for all that But is such a one to be understood here to have an enthusiastick way of religion He who makes it a part of his religion to defame his innocent neighbours wrongfully persuading people that he does God good service therein is this man a fanatick and yet he practises a very mad way of religion To side first with our English prelacie and when it is overborn by unlawful violence to turn unto them who overthrew it and as soon as it is reestablished to come back again to it is this fanaticism I am sure it is a mad way of religion He that disables his own Protestant Bishops in one book being a Protestant himself and in another inveighs heavily against some Jesuists for resisting their Papist Bishops whom himself also does not approve is this man a fanatick yea or no And yet he follows and treads a very strange mad way of religion So that obscure general and tropical words are so far from keeping him out that they include rather and hem in Dr. Still himself and wholly inclose him in his own circle of faâ—aticism Again his other part or other whole definition of fanaticism A resisting authority under a pretence of religion is obscure enough too For there be many sorts of resisting and many sorts of authority and many sorts of pretences and many religions pretended and yet not all of them fanatick All Protestants in their first reformation resisted all authority of the whole Catholick world both ecclesiastical and civil and that under pretence of religion a new way of religion invented by themselves opposite to the Catholick way wherein they had all been born and bred Are all these and their successors unto this very day fanaticks or no He will say no perhaps because they had good reason to do it But do not Quakers whom Dr Still speaks openly to be fanaticks say also that they have good reason to withstand and desert our Protestant English Church O but no body says so but themselves Neither did any but those first Protestâ—nts say they had any reason at all but the whole Catholick world rose up and condemned them So that we have got but little light by this definition of his left wholly in as much obscurity as ever he was himself after he had been puzling among the Schoolmen Truth is we are neither to seek into logick or into dictionaties for the meaâ—ing and signification of fanaticks or fanaticism For the word as it relates to religion here in England is of voluntary imposition never before applied unto any Sects of Christianity till my Lord General Monk used it in Parliament some few years ago to express those men who under pretence of their new invented doctrines contemned and rose up against all authority and waged war and overthrew both Church and State before them unto the utter impoverishing and desolation of the Land These our great General never to be mentioned in England without honour called Fanaticks that is to say mad foolish blasted men who preferring their own instable conceits for they had now fallen and shivered into many Sects before solid obedience unto Church and State rooted up what ever was fixt for the general good of all men and contenting themselves with the pillage of the Land could settle nothing at all themselves either of religion or government in the end These he called Fanaticks And in his great prudence he made choice of that new word upon hopes that every one of these several sects would lay the epither upon his neighbour as indeed they did And amongst these men yea the very chief and ringleaders of them did Mr. Still our Doctor joyn himself And yet does he here in his own little subtilty lay the whole ignominy now upon the Quakers as a burthen for the younger brothers to carry And yet were they hardly born when the work of fanaticism in England was accomplished By all this we may easily discern what fanaticism means But yet we must notwithstanding content our selves with the definition he has given us so far as it can bear any fixt or certain sense and so proceed § 3. The Church of Rome saith he is both ways fanatical both in an enthusiastick way of religion and resisting authority A man would wonder how this charge should be made good of a Catholick Church whose religion is ever settled and delivered by tradition from generation to generation still
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
us to our Lord Jesus Christ receives somtimes peculiar visits and priviledges from God so is it likly to meet with contempt hunger nakednes scourges and persecutions in this world And these are the things which Dr. Stillingfleet hâ—re derides in these five Catholick Saints which be either the genuin works of spiritual wisdom or secondly some peculiar priviledges conferred from heaven upon it or thirdly some afflictions that do annoy it either from evil Angels or men That they fled from their Fathers hous mortified their flesh and carnal concupiscence retired to rocks and caves wept at their devotions neglected human literature that they were swallowed up in God melted at the sight of the crucifix tender hearted towards the poor covering them sometimes with their own cloaths those texts of holy Gospel for the rule of their life these and such like things are but the connatural operations of divine wisdom and Gods good spirit in them Secondly that they perceived angels or drove them away by the sign of the cross that they seemed to be besides themselves after they had conversed with God in prayer and unlike unto other men that they pierced their hearers hearts when they preached and exhorted them that they discerned the dissimulation and fraud of people who appeared before them and somtimes the evil deeds and counsels of men out of their sight that divine visions were made either to themselves or to other men concerning them and their peculiar friendship with God all such things as these are but peculiar priviledges of heaven graunted unto some special friends and lovers who are wise to God Thirdly that they were taken for beasts derided scoft pelted with dirt or stones whipt renounced by their parents buffeted and bruised by angels of Satan walking in extream hunger and dirty attire reviled and contumeliously treated these are but afflictions falling upon them by evil angells and men and all of them either voluntarily undertaken or voluntarily accepted and entertained when they fell upon them for his love and respect who so suffered and so entered into glory And the doctour if he were honest and truly wife would never dare to lay fanaticisme unto Saints becaus some men here in England who are according to his own definition fanaticks indeed pretend some of those things for which antient Saints were much renowned He might and ought to remember that these good things bear no part at all in the definition of fanaticisme but are the very lineaments of evangelical perfection nor is all evil which such men do It is neither wisdom nor honesty nor so much as a manly behaviour to deride good or innocent things even in those men we may by custome and education dislike Papists Quaker or how ever they be called By these proceedings atheisme spreads its roots in the hearts of those who read such flouts and contumelies perhaps further than the gibeing author of the libell himself intended If the doctour who by his little parcels of story endeavours to render these five great persons contemptible do believe those relations of them to be true then must he needs believe also that the Patriarchs and Prophets Apostles Martyrs and all the Saints of God so esteemed hitherto were all mad men and fanaticks If he believe them not but judg them false relations then is he a mad man himself to conclude them fanaticks by that which never was So that be the stories true or false the doctour will be thought either unwise or impious which he pleases These worthy Sir are the five thoughts wherewith my mind was then wholly taken up before I put my Pen to paper which now too much tired already with his many impertinencies and falshoods I can but only mention And I wish with all my heart that the doctour had so moderated and guided his words that neither his own Prelates nor other grave People of the Land who cannot but fore-see the dismal event of such wild talk as his is might not take offence or be scandalized thereat All our Bishops mouths are now stopt against fanaticks if the said enthusiasts do derive their pedigree from renowned Saints who by the Bishops authority are put every Year into the Calendar § 13. The things I had to say concerning the Orders and families of these Saints were yet more and greater than any I could speak of the men themselves who lived but a short time in this world And all this I must also now omit Only I wish with all my heart that my countrimen would first think in their mind what a comely and blessed Land this was when it was inamelled up and down with so many beauteous tabernacles of religious men in their several rites and habits chanting the praises of God night and day with Hymns Psalms and Canticles perpetually living in common chastly and obediently all their days After this if they please to consider the hourly imployments of all these families throughout the day while they now worked now prayed now subdued their bodies with hard disciplines now wrote out books for the use of posterity now chanted out Gods praises met all together seven hours a day in the Quire and thus ended their lives in the arms of one another they cannot but applaud that happy society of men thus dedicated to God and think the Country wherein they live the happier for them All the many books both greek latin and hebrew historians oratours and works of antient Fathers had never possibly been deduced unto our times had they not been renewed age by age still in several kingdoms by the labour of these religious men before Printing was invented Nor had England seen any of these goodly Churches that remain in it to this day nor yet enjoied those wise and equitable laws by which this land is still governed contrived all of them by Catholick Princes Monks and Bishops Nor is Catholick religion against the law as some now think but with the law and the law with it and for it and by it however some superadditional statutes have been contrived of late against that holy antient faith since the reformation Thirdly they may consider if â—â—ey pleas the wondrous convenience of these general granaries in a land religious foundations I mean not only in spiritual things wherin we have good helps and examples all the land over at our own doors but even in our temporals also For no sooner was a child born to any man but he had choice of occasions to provide for him without any further cost or charges both for his soul and body which is a benefit so wanted now that neither high nor low know well now adaies how to dispose of their children Fourthly they may call to mind and admire the great love and respect the Christian world ever had for those holy orders and their founders unto whose company they flocked continually with exulting hearts And happy he who could be thought worthy to be admited into their society even of all
he does neither § 14. From hence the author proceeds to a new argument fit as he thinks to prove the Church of Romes fanaticisme which indeed so exalts her honour that it proves her the only powerful Judg that does suppress it He tells us then a long and punctual story of some disturbances and heresies that rose about three hundred Years ago in the Christian world who were the chief authors when and where they first appeared how far they spread what tumults they caused what Catholick Doctours opposed them and what Pope at last censured and silenced them And this was the heresy of the Fratricelli Begwini and such like others And he is so exact in his narration that he spends almost forty pages in it thereby to daz'e the Reader and lead him on so far that he may not reflect upon the impertinence of it For heresies will rise and the first uprise of them must needs be amongst some who lived thitherto in the Catholick Church And if they will not hear and be quiet as the rest are they will be censured in the end And this was all the business here But the Doctour twits at the Pope for that he delayed his censure so long still favouring the Fryars amongst whom there were some great sticklers in that madness Surely Sir it is a part not of prudence only but justice too in any judg to hear all parties speak and to defer an extreme sentence till he see where it is most due And sometimes the commotion is so disorderly wild or ambâ—guous that true prudence will doubt whâ—ther punishment be to be inflâ—cted on this or thâ—t side or perhaps on either until aâ— least it appear so seasonable that it may do good But thus I say If theâ—e men â—ere named Almarious Parma Oliva Peter John Geraldus Sagarellus Dulcinus Hermanus and other Fratricelli were fanaticks or their opinions fanaticisme then did the Church justly and prudently so to silence them that they are now no more extant in the world If they were not fanaticks then all the Doctours narration is but a tale of Tom Thumb I can tell the Doctour of another fanaticisme far greater and of more dismal consequence than this which rose up in the Catholick Church but one hundred Years ago begun promoted and spread over half Europe by Martin Luther an Augustin Fryar John Calvin a Priest and as I think a Cannon too Swing in s who I am sure was both Carolstade an arch-deacon in Wittenburg Bucer a Dominican Fryar Lismanin a franciscan Richerius a Carmelite Alciat and David George from Transilvania Valentin Gentile from Italy Castalio from France Peter Martyr and Ochyn from Florence Alasco from Poâ—and Bâ—za from Burgundy Servetus from Spain Melanchton from Germany as if the whole earth had conspired to cast forth her dead unto the infection and ruin of mankind These had been all Catholick hitherto and Catholick Priests too And what dâ—d they now hold forth and what did they pretend and teach a perfect fanaticisme here described by the Doctour and both the waies of it both a new enthusiastick way of Religion and a resisting of authority under pretence of it They would have now no more obedience to their Prelates which is the very essence of fanaticisme no obligation to the religious duties wherein they had hicherto been trained no respect to Church laws or rules of discipline fasts or other observances The best works were sins Restitution superfluous Monasteries and religious retirement superstitious Gods law impossible to be kept No oblation no altar no priesthood any more And such negatives innumerable This was their new religion the maddest that ever was broched upon earth and far short even of Pagan honesty And how did they go on Even with point of pen and force of arms defying and defaming all Superiority upon earth They razed and threw to the ground hundreds of fair Monasteries and Churches filled all Germany where the fanaticisme began with ruins perverted England Ireland Denmark Swethland and all the Islands here abouts and pillaged the whole Kingdoms This fanatick heresy was opposed by all the learned Catholicks in Christendom and censured not by the Pope only but by a general councel of Bishops gathered together round about to apply their helping hands and stop the ruin And yet has this one dangerous infection been yet too strong for all indeavour Other lesser fanaticismes have yielded to the incessant care and vigilance of Catholick Prelates But this of Protâ—stants holds out as yet and so will still till the temptation be removed by the hand of heaven which turns all mens hearts when the Hour is fittest for it § 15. After this the Doctour gives us the story of St. Ignace Founder of the Society So contumeliously related that his conversion to a stricter life by reading the lives of former Saints his backwardness to human literature his patient sufferings and travels to and fro as his pious purposes led him his fasting and meditations the examinations made of his rigorous course of life and various oppositions his gathering Disciples and indeavour to have his rule confirmed by the Supreme Bishop are all made to sound conformably either to Don Quixots Romance or the esteemed madnesses of Quakers who are saith he at least Grand-children to the founder of the Jesuits Truly these Quakers either are or must it seems be thought an odd kind of people They are Benedictins Franciscans Dominicans Jesuits and all within the compass of one Chapter And yet they profess none of all this nor know nothing of it But here Sir you may perceive at least how easy it is to make a pious and serious matter to sound ridiculous or wild by the meer manner of relating it which is a great and necessary caution against the poison of slanderous tongues What Mâ—ffeius Ribbadanira and Orlandius learned Jesuits write seriously of that holy man if not all to his honour yet no part of it to his disparagement this by prophane irony is travested into mockery Thus do Jewes tell the story of our Christianity and its â—oly founder unto their Châ—ldren in such a Stilling fleetian way that they are made to hate and scorn it all their life after But Jesuits have too much gravity and wisdom in them to be laâ—â—ght out of countenance by a triflâ—ng prevaricator Let St. Ignace be as great a fool as St. Francis or yet as great as tâ—is Author can speak him yet can he not deny but he has wise and grave and learned children whose books have helped him many a tâ—me to make up his Sermon When King Saul began to pâ—ophesy the people wondred at it and asked one another Is Saul also among the Prophets unto whom another replyed How came he there Quis est pater cjus who is his father giving the rest therby to understand that his prophesy was not genuin nor likely to be fixt and constant becaus he was not a Prophet of prophets nor had his