Persecutors could no more distinguish the Conduct of this day from that of Charles IX and Henry II. They said that never did any Persecution proceed further than blood and that there was no further pretence to say that they served themselves with moderate ways for our Conversion but this Declaration of the month of July is nothing in comparison of that of the month of April for I dare say that Hell never produced any thing more horrible I impute not this to the Supream Powers who have suffered themselves to be surprised to publish such an Edict A spirit so imployed with designs of finishing his Work as is that of our King is not capable of giving attention to any thing else But I impure it to the Counsel of Conscience to the Bishops and Jesuits which draw up the Decrees and cause them to be signed with blinded Eyes I do maintain that never was there any Society gave so great marks and signs of reprobation as that which forms and executes these projects After that Monsieur de Meaux hath said that that which is done at present is an exercise of the right Fidelity and Justice that Princes have to imploy the Sword for the punishment of Malefactors Let us see how he goes on And although you will not permit to Christian Princes to revenge great Crimes because they are injurious to God may they not revenge them because they cause trouble and Sedition in the State Without doubt those that trouble the State of what Religion soever they be be they Orthodox or otherwise may be punished But who are these that trouble the State are they those which Kill which Massacre and Plunder or those which live peaceably and demand nothing but liberty to worship God according to their Consciences and agreeably to the Edicts which have been granted them with all sorts of promises and securities What trouble do we make in the State What evil have we done in putting the Crown in the Family of Bourbon and in hindering it from falling from the Head of Lewis XIV during his minority Where are our Seditions and Revolts Europe knows and sees who they are which trouble the State whether we or they which lay wast the Provinces which diminish the Revenues of the King which weaken and abolish Trade and force more than a million of souls to search out ways to get out of the Kingdom The Bishop of Meaux adds Do you not clearly see that you build upon a false Principle If it were true they were the Arrians the Nestorians and the Pelagians that had reason to complain of the Church seeing they were those which were Banished and Persecuted and Catholick Princes were those that did Persecute and Banish them First of all I say that they rendered to the Arrians no more but what they had done to the Church They had removed and chased away the Orthodox from their Churches they had Banished the Orthodox and they Banished them Secondly I answer that it is false that Catholick Princes ever did that against the Arrians the Nestorians and Pelagians that is this day done against us Let Monsieur de Meaux a little unfold his skill in History and let him make us see that the Emperors did send Armies into the Arrian Villages and by the most cruel treatments force Abjuration Let him make us see that they did exact subscriptions that they did beat imprison send to the Mines or Gallies those that refused it To conclude I say that there is a great deal of difference between Banishing and Tormenting of Hereticks A Prince that will preserve his State clean may send Hereticks whose Doctrine he would not have dispersed with their Families and Goods elsewhere If the King had been contented to have Banished us with our Families and Goods we had had subject of complaint because of the false opinion that they have entertained concerning us that we are Hereticks doth not give them any right to treat us as such and to break the Confederations made with us and our Ancestors But nevertheless we would have suffered this injustice patiently because it would have been nothing in comparison of what is done against us at this day And at present also the Catholicks which are punished with death in Sueden and so many other Kingdoms would have reason of complaint against those that call themselves Reformed and every one in his turn would have right and wrong right in one place and wrong in another and Religion would depend upon uncertainties Let not Monsieur de Meaux be displeased it is not honest to advance matters of Fact so barbarous as these without any proof yea matters of Fact the falsity whereof are notorious They punish the Catholicks in Sueden and many other Countries with death I demand for the Publick in the Age present and in the Age to come Justice for this Calumny Nothing is more false and more known to be so for there is not a Protestant State where the Papists have not permission to live and live according to their Conscience although in some places they have not the publick exercise of their Religion and they are very few I know not whether Sueden be one of them The rest of that period every one has right and wrong c. is a Riddle which-covers at the bottom the most frightful Doctrine that ever was published It is that every Prince in his Dominions hath right to exterminate by Fire and Sword all those which are not of his Religion It is the established Law which according to Monsieur de Meaux ought to be the same every where to the end that it be not exposed to uncertainties It is I say the most horrible Doctrine that a Christian can teach For according to it the Turks have right to cut the Throats of Christians in all places where they are Masters Behold the argument of Monsieur de Meaux weakned and overturned if I do not mistake nevertheless it is certain that it comprehends in brief the best of all which these Gentlemen have to say on that behalf I had designed to leave the rest of Monsieur de Meaux his Letter because the Chapter concerning the Adoration of the Eucharist and that of the Judge of Controversies which he touches transiently will have their place in the following Letters and there be handled somthing at large But I have thought that the Readers love to find an Antidote wherever they find Poison for which reason we will say something thereon that the weakness of what he doth advance may appear to the end that they may not be imposed upon by these appearances of demonstration He touches the Adoration of the Bread and says The fear that you have that they will make you adore Bread hath some appearance of truth according to your prejudice I am well pleased that they do acknowledge that our fear hath some appearance of truth at least If the real presence were engravers in the Scripture as with a beam
that though even the Church should fall into Idolatry we cannot be saved if we separate from it And I say although even the Church of Rome should have Reason at the bottom and were not Idolatrous and that we were out in our Separation we should not hazard our Salvation by continuing as we are Men are every where well where they have Christianity and the marrow and substance of it and 't is a folly to imagine that the Salvation of men depends upon the humor of their Guides It may be therefore that Luther and Calvin were mistaken i. e. That the corruption of the Church of Rome was not great enough to oblige the Faithful to go out of her let us suppose they had done better to leave things as they were I do nevertheless maintain that at this day you do not in any wise hazard your Salvation by continuing where they have placed you because however it be you have Christianity in its integrity you have it wholly pure and uncorrupt In every Society where that is found a man may be saved after whatsoever manner it be formed The Idea which men have formed of Schism for many Ages past is the most false that can be imagined but besides the falshood of it 't is the most dangerous and cruel Chimera that could be found Every Society would be Catholick Church to the exclusion of all others The Church of Rome pretends thus far for her self The Greek Church makes no less pretence thereto He that goes out of this Church breaks the Unity and he that breaks it is no longer in the Church Now he who is no longer in the Church is no longer in a state and way of Salvation whatever he say and whatever he do Behold what they say behold the Chimera We must therefore rectifie this Idea of Schism according to the Unity which we have given you The Unity of the Universal Church does not subsist within the bounds of one certain Communion nor in adherence to certain Pastors to the exclusion of all others but in the Unity of Spirit Doctrine Sacraments and Evangelical Ministry in general i. e. of Pastors declaring the Truth of the Gospel What must be done then to make a Schism with respect to the Church Universal He must renounce the Christian Doctrine the Sacraments of the Church and the Gospel Ministry that is to say He must be an Apostate or an Heretick But every Society that goes out of another and greater Society of which it was a part makes no Schism with respect to the Church Universal whilst it retains the Doctrine the Sacraments and the Ministry of the Gospel it goes not out of the Church because it carries the Church with it and it carries the Church with it because it carries Christianity with it It carries say I the Church with it in such a manner nevertheless that it leaves it in the Society which it leaves for leaving true Christianity there it leaves the true Church there also And the advantage of being the Church and of having Christianity is a Privilege which may be possessed intire and without prejudice to other Christian Societies We must therefore know that there is an Vniversal and Particular Schism Particular Schism is a Separation from a particular Church a Universal Schism is a Separation from the Universal Church Universal Schism consists in the Renunciation of the Universal Church by renouncing her Doctrine Sacraments and Ministry For example If the one half of Christians should separate from the other and set up a new Gospel according to which Moses should be set side by side with Jesus Christ the legal Ceremonies re-established the Evangelical Ministry should be changed into the Ministry of Priests after the Order of Aaron the Sacraments of the Church should be joyned to the Sacraments of the Old Testament it were certain that this would be a true Schism for these Men would renounce the Doctrine the Sacraments and the Ministry of the Gospel The Mahometans without renouncing Jesus Christ and calling him false Prophet have set up a Prophet superior to him and receive the Impostures of Mahomet admit Circumcision and reject Baptism have made a Religion truly and essentially different from that of Christ's 'T is therefore a true universal Schism The Socinians who have renounced almost all the Fundamentals of the Christian Religion who despise and neglect the Sacraments by going out of the Church are become Schismaticks and true Schismaticks with respect to the Church Universal for they have not carried the Church with them because they have not carried Christianity with them According to this Idea Universal Schism or Schism with respect to the Universal Church doth not essentially differ from Heresie and Apostacy Particular Schism is when a Man separates from a particular Church be it for some Point of Doctrine be it for some quarrel about Discipline be it for some personal Differences of the Guides among themselves Of this sort of Schisms there is an infinite number of Examples In the Second Age there was a Schism between the Church of Rome and the Church of Asia about a controversie of Ceremonies about the day on which Easter ought to be observed The Churches of Asia maintained that the Christian Passover ought to be observed on the same day that the Jews observed theirs and they said they held it as a Tradition from St. John. The Church of Rome on the contrary said that Christians ought to observe Easter on the Lord's-day following the Jewish Passover And for the sake of this goodly Controversie Victor Bishop of Rome was so rash as to separate the Churches of Asia from his Communion This Schism continued not only until the Council of Nice but a very long time after for mention is made of the Quartodecimani in the General Council of Ephesus against Nestorius in the year 431. So they called those who celebrated Easter with the Jews on the 14th day of the Month of March. In the Third Age Novatian formed a considerable Schism about a Point of Discipline viz. Whether we ought to receive those who fell in times of Persecution to the Peace of the Church This Schism continued a long time We find this Schism continuing amidst all the great troubles that were betwixt the Arrians and the Orthodox the union of Opinions that was between the Novatians and the Catholicks with respect to the Doctrine of Arrius did not put a period unto it In the same Age the Donatists made another Schism in Africa about the choice of a Bishop of Carthage Two Parties being formed about it a Division was made it spread through all Africa and continued many Ages There happened another in the beginning of the Fifth Age by one named Nestorius Bishop of Constantinople who taught there were two Persons as well as two Natures in Christ Another was made a little while after by Eutyches Abbot of a Monastery in Constantinople who desiring to oppose Nestorius who distinguished two Persons
St. Chrysostom and St. Austin Sermons or Works that are none of theirs and a man needs but indifferent Learning and little Sincerity to be convinced thereof But Father Crasset who has neither the one nor the other neither Skill nor Science takes and gives all for good In the Fifth Age he quotes Cyril of Alexandria who is surely one of the first which gave occasion to the Religious Worship of the Virgin. For by opposing Nestorius who would not suffer Mary to be called the Mother of God he passed unto the other extreme and advanced as far and as high as he could the praises of the Virgin Mary Nevertheless this might be reduced to Apostrophes Figures of Oratory and great Elogies but there is nothing of Invocation therein No Author of the Fifth Age speaks more expresly nor vehemently of the Invocation of Martyrs and of the Worship which is given to the Reliques than Theodoret. Nevertheless in the passage which Father Crasset quotes from him in his Commentary on the words of Solomon's Song My beloved is one there is nothing that favours the Worship of the Virgin in the least He applies these words My Dove my only one to the Virgin and that were the place to speak of the honour which ought to be given to her if ever there were any But all that he says concerning her is that she is the Mother of God a pure Virgin that all Nations call her blessed that she is the Dove and the only one which brought Christ Jesus into the World that in Charity she surpasses the Cherubims and Seraphims That were the place to have said that we ought to commend ourselves to her Charity and invoke her as our Mediatrix To conclude let these Gentlemen find us in the Fourth and Fifth Ages Chappels and Oratories consecrated to the Virgin as they find them consecrated to the Martyrs unless it be about the end of the Fifth age Now this being supposed I dare say that a man must have renounced all honour all modesty all sincerity and all judgment not to confess that here is an indubitable evidence that Invocation of Saints was a Novelty in the Fourth and Fifth Ages For these men had been fools not to have invoked the Virgin in those times when they invoked St. Protais and St. Gervais if they established Invocation upon the merit the dignity and the reputation that these Saints might have with God. I would fain know if those two Giants which suffered Martyrdom under Decius were in condition to intercede with God with so much efficacy as this Virgin-Mother to the Saviour of the World This false Worship had its birth from that foolish love which men had for Reliques And as they had no Reliques of the blessed Virgin so they consecrated no Churches or Chappels to her and in consequence thereof they did not call upon her We shall bring you yet in what follows new Proofs of the Novelty of this Worship An Article of Controversie A Continuation of the Answer to the Illusions of the New Converts LEt us take up again at present what follows of the Illusions which the New Converts make for themselves who endeavour to lay their Consciences asleep They conclude two things 1. That all the fundamental Truths of Christianity being Confessed by the Church of Rome they are obliged to remain with her so you go on These fundamental Truths which Popery hath preserved are the Articles of the Three Creeds that of the Apostles that of Niece or Constantinople and that which is call'd by the name of St. Athanasius 'T is true that the Church of Rome hath retained these but to conceive how you cheat yourselves I intreat you to suppose Christians which receive these three Creeds and who nevertheless Adore the Sun the Moon the Earth and almost all the Idols of Paganism you will say that these things are inconsistent But you deceive yourselves for there is nothing more possible than that that a man should believe God is the Creatour of Heaven and Earth that Jesus Christ is his eternal Son and the Creatour of the World that he was Born that he Died that he was Crucified that he will come to Raise and Judge the Living and the Dead and nevertheless that he should believe that we may Adore the Earth the Trees the Sun and Moon because God does animate and fill them The Greed says not that we must Worship none but God yea it says not that we must Worship him So that a Religion may receive the Creed in good earnest in the sence of the Universal Church and adore every thing but God Why may not men be capable of Adoring the Stars because God fills them since they Adore Bread under a supposition that Jesus Christ is there after a manner invisible precisely as God is in the Stars and Elements It is therefore a particular Providence that Christians who Adore the Eucharist are not fallen so far as to Adore the Sun Moon and Stars for I do maintain that the Papists may be carried to Adore a Stone as naturally as they are carried to Adore the Bread in the Eucharist on supposition that Jesus Christ is included under it Suppose you that they were come so far would you yet say Since all the fundamental Truths are Confessed by this Communion which Adore the Sun and Moon yea Stones we are obliged to continue with it Learn you therefore that we may retain the fundamental Truths of Christianity and build thereon Dung Poison and all sorts of Impurities The spirit of Man is capable of reconciling those things that are molt irreconcileable Behold another thing whereof you ought to be advertised that you ought to distinguish fundamental Truths from fundamental Errours You imagine that to retain all the fundamental Truths and to have no fundamental Errours is the same thing and because we do confess the Roman Church retains all the fundamental Truths you think that we confess to you that she has no fundamental Errours In this you are much mistaken a person may retain the fundamental Truths of Christianity and add thereunto fundamental Errours I gave you an Example in men who might believe the Creed in good earnest in the sence of the Church and which might add under a hundred false pretences of Devotion Pagan Idolatries I do maintain that a man may adopt into the Religion of Christians almost all the Abominations of the Bonzes of Japan and the Brachmns of India without any formal Renunciation of the Doctrine of the Christian Faith. I demand if whilst men retain the fundamental Truths they do not add fundamental Errours by espousing these Pagan Worship 'T is exactly that which the Church of Rome has done upon the Foundations of Christianity she hath built a thousand Superstitions which are purely Pagan Popery is Paganism renewed and built upon Christianity 't is an Idol Temple raised upon the Temple of Jesus Christ. A fundamental Errour is therefore an Errour or Practice which
in itself is inconsistent with the Foundation I say in itself and by itself for men find ways of reconciling all things Impiety and Religion Piety and Superstition But we may not conclude That all that which men do joyn together is in itself reconcileable and compatible The Roman Church hath a hundred Errours and Practices of this sort her Worship of Saints Images Reliques and of the Sacrament is not by any means reconcileable with the Worship of the true God and with true Faith in Christ Jesus There is yet a third Advice which I have to give you on this subject 't is that to be able to say as you do That the Church of Rome confesses all fundamental Truths 'T is necessary not only that she hold the fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion but also those of Natural Religion 'T is a Fundamental of Natural Religion that we ought to Worship God the Church of Rome retains this Fundamental 'T is another Fundamental of Natural Religion that there is but one God and that we must Worship none but him Popery has ruined and rejected this Fundamental for it Adores a many other things beside God So that to speak properly we cannot say that the Church of Rome retains all Fundamentals We might yet observe other Fundamentals which flue receives not Don't flatter yourselves therefore my Brethren any more by this wicked Illusion The Roman Church confesses all fundamental Truths therefore we may continue there in safety For that reasoning is no better than this This Wine retains all the substance the strength the tast and the spirits of Wine therefore we may drink of it with safety though it be mingled with Poison Idolatry Errours and Superstition take away from the Doctrines of Christianity all that which is saving in them We are obliged to continue in Union with the Roman Church rather than make a positive Separation which is contrary to all the Duties of Charity and which instead of bringing back those which Err produces nothing but an eternal Distance and Animosity This is that which your Apologist says concerning which you ought to know That Christian Truths are Friends and do not desire that we should sacrifice one for the other We must not sacrifice Faith and Truth for Charity 'T is a false Charity which makes those that are re-united to the Church speak thus 't is indeed self-love and the love of ease If they could find means to cast off the Popish Superstitions which are uneasie to them from Religion without prejudice to their own Advantages it is sure that they would do it without having any regard to Charity and without concerning themselves about the scandal of Separation and the trouble of their Country-men For which reason while the King permitted every one to live peaceably without offering Violence to his Conscience Separation did not appear scandalous unto them I intreat you my Brethren to know and examine yourselves thereon do not suffer the Devil and Self-love to illude you and disguise himself into Charity and an Angel of Light. Charity demands Toleration I confess it but it hath its bounds For it is not expedient that you imagine that we ought to suffer all things under pretence of Charity Popery is Anti-christianity you can't doubt it without blinding yourselves Popery hath fundamental Errours to conclude Popery hath spoiled the Efficacy of those fundamental Truths which it hath preserved and by consequence is in no condition to require or expect Toleration Instead of bringing back those that Err Schism produces nothing but an eternal Distance and Animosity say you Do you think that this lead Complaisance which you are willing to have for those that Err is capable of reducing them Will you not confirm them in their Errours by living with them communicating with them and by partaking in their false Mysteries But let us hear what you have farther to say to us In the second place you say we do maintain That persons do not necessarily partake in the Errours of a Communion in which they are This is that you told us in the beginning of this Writing Abuses introduced by Governours cannot be imputed to the Faithful You add The common Confession of Faith ought to be esteemed as an Agreement to live together under the same Ministery but we are not therefore accountable for all the Abuses which may be or can be introduced into this Mnistery My Brethren this second thing which you tell yourselves and one another is no better than the former Where have you found that Abuses introduced by Governours may not be imputed to the Faithful Do you not very well know That there are no Abuses in the Church which have not been introduced either by the Malice or by the Ignorance of Governours They are the Doctors and Teachers which frame Heresies Were not those private persons seduced by Arrianism culpable because that Heresie was introduced by the Bishops Are you obliged to follow your Governours without examination Have you not a reasonable Mind as well as we And ought you not to make a good use of it And if you fail therein do you think that God will fail to take an account of you for it If we mull give no account of the Abuses introduced by Governours when the People of Israel suffered themselves to be seduced by a false Pastor to commit Idolatry were they not therefore culpable Nevertheless you see how God on such occasions thunders against both People and Governours When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch saith our Lord. He did very ill to speak so according to your Principles there was no body but the first blind man that lead the way who ought to fall into the Ditch Jesus Christ said to the Jewish Doctors You compass sea and land to make a Proselite and when you have gained him you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourself And why so why doth this poor Proselite become a-Child of Hell since he follows his Governours yea Governours which had a lawful Call and were Pastors of the Church If Truth be the only way to Heaven it concerns you much how you go out of it be it of your own inclination or by the instigation of another you will always fill short of Heaven Whether you go to Hell or whether another leads you thither what difference will it make will you not be certainly there Discharge yourselves therefore of this pernicious Chimera That you are not at all accountable for Abuses introduced by your Guides But you say Me do not partake necessarily in the Errours of a Communion where we are How do you understand that whilst you subscribe these Errours and practise these Idolatries There are Errours of Speculation and Errours of Practice the means of not partaking in Errours of Speculation is openly to disavow them without Scruple or Hesitation The means of not partaking in Errours of Practise which are Superstitions and Idolatries is to
corrupt and defiled in its most noble Parts Do you believe that those Illustrious Confessours which fill the Prisons and the Gallies and whom you yourselves admire do you believe I say according to them there is a necessity of joyning yourselves to Popery They have found ways of dispensing with this necessity But your necessity of joyning yourselves unto it comes from the love and adherence that you have for your Estates your Ease and your Lives An unhappy Necessity which has not its original in Charity but in Covetuousness in the Name of God take heed of it But you say we cannot find any publick Worship more pure and more holy I answer It is not always necessary to adhere to publick Worship whatever it be The Martyrs and Confessours of Jesus Christ served him after a more grateful manner although their Worship were not only private but hidden but covered in the darkness of a deep Prison although you cannot assemble your selves to pray unto God with your Brethren you have your Closets of which you may make Churches and your Hearts of which you may make Sanctuaries and Altars This necessity of Adherence to publick Worship is another Illusion made by your love of the World 'T is better saith one that hath written to us to adhere to a corrupt Worship than to live without Religion What lewd Morality it this Those seven thousand men which were so hidden that Elijah knew nothing of them had they therefore no Religion because they did not adhere to the publick Worship of Baal which was intermixed with that of the true God To refuse to participate in an Idolatrous Worship is to be truely Religious to adhere to a Worship which is known to be full of Superstition and Impurities is to have no Religion at all In conclusion you come to the example of our Fathers The example of our Fathers say you before the Reformation proves clearly that we may secure our Salvation in the Roman Communion though we adhere even to the publick Worship Whatever men say 't is inconceivable that men born and bred up in a Religion and which never heard any thing said of any other Doctrine and who lived and died without protesting against the Doctrines of their Church should never partake in the Worship thereof Would to God you would stay yourselves on the examples of your Fathers and Grand-fathers without ascending so high as your Ancestours When you have done all that you can you will not save them all you will find among them by ascending a great number which worshipped Devils and the Idols of the Pagans you must necessarily leave them to the sad Judgments of God. This example of your Fathers which were saved in the Church of Rome is a subject which comes to us often and from all parts 't is the universal Illusion 't is the Pillow on which you all lay yourselves to sleep Many of your Ancient Pastors have endeavoured to dispute this unhappy Illusion this would be a large Chapter if we should say all that may be said concerning it but I do not think it necessary therefore I will say but two or three important things about it First The first is That we do willingly confess That before the Reformation there were persons saved in the Roman Communion About two hundred Years agone there were no Communions in the World which were not corrupt at least no considerable Communions or Societies It must needs be that God had his Elect there for he never leaves the World without them Do not fear least we should send you to find these Elect among the Waldenses Abbigenses Wicklefists and Hussites these were Fore-runners and like Mornings which went before the Sun of Reformation but these Societies did not continue nor did they make a Figure great enough in the World to include all the Elect there Secondly But on the subject of those men which were saved in corrupt Communions before our Reformation know first That we must not almost at all seek them among the Adult Of a thousand Children that are born there is not the tenth part of them that attain to the Age of Reason now all Children born in the Popish Communion are saved dying before the Age of Reason because they have part in the advantage of the general Covenant of Christianity which is preserved in Popery and they have no part in the Corruptions which have been added thereto for persons have no part in the Errours which corrupt the Covenant but when they know receive or tollerate them Behold therefore nine hundred of a thousand which were saved in the most corrupt times Now when God has nine hundred Elect among a thousand men we cannot say he has left the World without Elect persons and that Christianity remained uprofitable there were therefore always a great number of Elect persons in the Roman Communion Thirdly But after all it must be known That among the Adult the number of those of whose Salvation we might well presume in the times preceeding our Reformation is so small that we may well be amazed to think of it for Histories do represent the Corruption not only of Worship but also of Manners so horrible and universal that a man knows not where to fix his eyes to find a person that might be saved The Clergy were overflown with Debauchery the Monks were Assemblies of profligate Persons and Hypocrites the Houses of Nuns were filthy Bawdy-houses The People suffered themselves to be born away by the torrent and examples of their Guides the devout People scarcely knew the difference between the Creator and the Creature and their Piety spent itself in Superstitions which are even a horrour to the wiser Doctors of the Roman Church at this day Fourthly Nevertheless let us suppose that among all these there were some Elect and some saved I do maintain that it was absolutely by Miracle I say by Miracle in the litteral sence of the word and without figure As a man which lives in a hideous Mire sunk over head and ears lives there by a Miracle For the Roman Communion is damnable that is a certain point Men are saved there 't is because the Promise of God cannot be in vain and he cannot be without Children but the time of Miracles doth not continue always and we do not find ourselves obliged to explicate unto you the manner of Miracles for we do not know by that alone that these are Miracles And 't is to you my Brethren a prodigious rashness to re-plung yourselves in a Communion where your Fathers did not live but by Miracle in hopes that naturally you shall live there 'T is just as if the Jews at this day should run head-long into the Red-sea in hopes to pass well through it because their Ancestours did heretofore go through it without danger God hath ways of withdrawing those that are his from a Spirit of Lyes and Superstition whilst they live or at least at their death which we do
by the Deed of Epiphanius which we reported touching the Image which he found in Anablata and by another passage of the same St. Epiphanius cited by the Council of Constantinople against Images in the Reign of Constantine Copronimus and reported by that Image-worshipping Council of Nice †Evag. l. 4 c. 26. Take heed to yourselves says Epiphanius retain the Traditions which you have received turn not from them to the right hand nor to the left Remember also that you put no Images in Churches nor in the Dormitories of the Saints c. nay put them not even in your own Houses St. Chrysostome saith in a passage alledged by the same Council * Synod 7. Act. 6. We have the presence of Saints by the Scriptures and not by Images Amphilochius †Synod ib. Bishop of Iconium Contemporary of St. Basil also saith We take no care to paint the fleshly Countenance of Saints with Colours upon Tables but we immitate their Life and Conversation by Piety and Vertue St. Austin upon the 123 Psalm doth expresly deny That among the Movables and Ornaments of the Church there were any Images that had Mouths and spake not and Eyes that saw not This appears also by the Fact of Serenus Bishop of Marseilles and of Gregory the First Bishop of Rome which was not till the end of the sixth Age Serenus had broken the Images of his Church because the People adored and fell down before them as those of which St. Austine speaks Gregory blames him for breaking the Images and praises him that he hindered men from worshipping them which makes it evident it was not then believed generally that they might be adored 'T is true nevertheless that in the fifth Age the brutish and superstitious People in some places began to believe that the Images of the Saints had some Vertue in them For Theodoret in the Life of Simeon Stylites reports That it was said that at Rome men set the Images of Simeon Stylites at the entrance of all their Shops to obtain some Protection and Security from them But besides that this was but a report apparently false 't was a popular Superstition in which the Church was not concerned An Article of Controversie A continuation of the matter of Schism that the great Corruption of the Roman Church forced us to a Separation HItherunto in speaking of Schism we have reason'd upon one or other of these two suppositions either that our separation was not established upon good Reasons or at least that the corruption of the Church of Rome was not at the highest degree and therefore it was in some sort tolerable We have proved in our thirteenth Pastoral Letter that although our Fathers had done ill in their Separation nevertheless you do not hazard your Salvation by continuing in the Protestant Communion Afterwards we made it appear that supposing the Church of Rome very corrupt although the Corruption were not wholly intollerable you cannot return thither at this day without destroying yourselves because the Providence of God hath drawn you thence by a Miracle in the persons of your Fathers And we have dispersed the Illusions which you put upon yourselves therein and which some amongst you have communicated to those which are fled for Protection into these Countries But at present let us no longer suppose any thing which is false let us consider things as they are i. e. let us consider the Corruption of the Church of Rome in its utmost extent and reason upon it It is the third Supposition according to which I will shew you that you cannot with a good Conscience return to Popery If the Corruption of the Church of Rome be extream if she be Idolatrous if she be Impure if she be Antichristian if she have introduced true Paganism into the Church we must necessarily Separate from her as soon as we can and the Separation being made to re-unite ourselves unto her is a Crime for which we can expect no Mercy There can be nothing of doubt in this kind of reasoning but the Supposition viz. That the Corruption of the Church of Rome is extream and wholly unsufferable So that this is the only thing which remains to do about the matter of Schism to justifie our Separation and prove to you that you cannot return to Popery without Damnation this we shall do in this and the following Letter To give you a true and natural Idea of the Corruption of Popery by a short Discription 't is necessary at first That you discharge yourselves of those vain Charms and false Appearances wherewithal they dress and present it to your Eyes First you may not consider Popery by the Christianity upon which 't is built for 't is thither that you turn your Eyes immediately 'T is a Religion say you where the true God is worshipped and the true Jesus where the Holy Trinity is believed the Incarnation of the Son of God Redemption by the Death of Christ Jesus the last Judgment the Resurrection of the Flesh everlasting Life and everlasting Death How can such a Christianity be ill Distinguish my Brethren in the Popish Church Christianity from Popery That which I would have you consider and which I have told you is Christianity But that which I will describe unto you the ugliness whereof I will set before you in an abridgement is quite another thing 't is that which hath been added to Christianity 't is Popery Say not it sufficeth us that Christianity doth continue in the Roman Church that is false it is not sufficient 'T is not enough that the Substance doth continue in poysoned Wine to make it safe and wholsom Do not you imagine that this is only a plain Comparison 't is an example that doth demonstrate and prove Wine as good and excellent as it is is not more spoiled by the Mortal Poyson mingled with it then Christianity in the Church of Rome is spoiled by the Popery added thereto Have you never read any where that the Roman Church is like a great double Temple whereof the lower part is consecrated to God and the superior part to an Idol This is a Comparison which hath all the force of Examples to prove and demonstrate Do you believe that a man after he had worshipped in the Church below consecrated to the true God should ascend into the Church above and adore Idols Do you believe say I that such a man were in a good and safe way 'T is true Christianity remains in the Roman Religion 't is the Church below but they have built upon it the Idol Church and that is Popery Do not you imagine therefore that you can Worship only in the Church below or live in the Christianity of the Roman Church without partaking in Popery This cannot be these two parts of the Roman Church are not built together as two Churches whereof the one is below and the other above By an unhappy Art of the Devil you cannot enter into the
one without entering into the other You cannot worship God without partaking in the Worship of Idols You cannot partake in the Heavenly Sacrament of Jesus Christ without participation in a false and corrupt Sacrifice and without prostrating yourselves before the Idol of Bread. You cannot confess Jesus Christ Head of the Church without adhering to a false Head to the Head of a Body which is altogether Antichristian You cannot call upon God in publick Worship unless at the same time you call upon Creatures It remains therefore that we prove unto you that Popery so confounded and mixt with Christianity is mortal impure and intollerable The second general Advice which I have to give you is That well to understand Popery you must not look upon it in the Books of your Convertors in the Explications of the Catholick Doctrine or other painted Tables which disguise to you the Religion into which they force you to enter Discharge yourselves also from this wicked imagination That we ought to attribute nothing to Popery but what is ordained by its Councils For there is nothing more false and more distant from truth then that the Councils have not expressed in their Decisions all those frightful Excesses into which Popery is fallen therefore they are not to be imputed to her 'T is a wicked consequence all that is done in a Church be it by order of her Councils be it by use and common custom ought to be imputed to her 'T is true that St. Austine in a passage which we quoted above would not grant that the Manichees should impute certain Superstitions which the People practised to the Church but 't was because there were few persons in comparison to others that fell into them And the Teachers condemned them instead of supporting and maintaining them But we impute nothing to Popery but Extravagances universally practised and defended by their most famous Doctors I will give you yet a third Advice 'T is that for the true understanding of Popery and all its Deformities you must not look on it in certain places and at certain times For Example At this day in France they shew you the Popish Religion in a smooth and polished condition with respect to the Authority of the Pope they tell you that to speak properly he is no more than the first Bishop he is not the Vicar of JESUS CHRIST that he is not the true Head of the Church nor the true Center of Unity that he is not Infallible that he has no more Power over the Bishops than the Bishops have over him they speak to you with great indifference concerning the Worship of Images as a thing esteemed not very necessary they do extreamly mollifie the Invocation of Saints reducing it to a small matter The Bishops give order that little of those popular Devotions which are capable of giving you scandal be practised in their Diocesses I do declare to you that it is not by the small Country of France nor by this little space of present time that you ought to look on Popery to know and see all its Deformities In what follows we shall have occasion to shew you that all these Reformations are nothing that they are fictitious and that although they should go further than I know not what appearances it would not suffice but in expectation of that I advise you at present my Brethren that for a true understanding of Popery it behoves you to look on it every-where and in all times You must behold it in Italy and Spain as we as in France and Germany you must look on it in all preceeding Ages at least in the seven hundred or eight hundred Years which went before our Reformation observing these three Rules 1. That you look on Popery such as it is in itself distinct from Christianity 2. That you look on it in its practice and universal usage 3. To conclude that you look on it above all in Spain and Italy as well as elsewhere and that you look on it in all those times which preceeded the Reformation If you do thus say I I do maintain that you cannot behold the Deformitie of Popery without horrour First you will there see a Head which calls himself the most Holy Lord his Holiness and the Vicar of Jesus Christ who bears on him all the Characters of Antichrist He sits in the Temple of God as if he were God he makes himself to be adored as God he has his seat at Rome the City upon seven Hills he hath ten Kings under him which give Obedience to him he is clothed in Scarlet as the Whore in the Revelations he bears a Triple Crown he has upon his Forehead the names of Blasphemy calling himself God on Earth the Vicar of Jesus Christ the Spouse of the Church the Mouth which pronounces infallible Oracles he sits upon a Beast i. e. on an Empire viz. the Roman Empire which he hath raised up again He makes the Image of the Beast to speak and be adored he hath established in the Church the true Image of the Roman Empire and causes this Image to be adored on pain of Death he hath two Horns two Powers as a Lamb the Temporal and Spiritual speaks like a Dragon and is the Protector of Lies and Falshood He works false Signs and Wonders to support his false Religion his Teachers make profession of Austerity Celibate Abstinence and Fasting and refuse Marriage He hath his seat in Babilon that City of Merchandize where all things are sold and where they make Merchandize even of the Souls of Men He causes his Mark to be born i. e. his Profession upon the hands and upon the forehead The name of Latine Church and Latine Pope contain exactly 666 which is the number of the Beast This Pope this pretended Vicar of Jesus Christ is seen under a Canopy or Cloth of State in pomp and in magnificence he is seen trampling crowned Heads under his Feet making himself to be carried on the shoulders of Emperours causing Princes to kiss his Feet He hath been seen as a furious Lion in all Ages covering the Earth with Blood dethroning Emperours pulling off their Crowns Absolving Subjects from the Oaths of Fidelity given to their Kings and thereby putting a Sword into their hands from whence have followed cruel and barbarous Civil Wars He has been seen encouraging the Father against the Son and the Son against the Father Subjects against their Kings and stirring them up to run their Swords into the Bowels of their Soveraigns He has been seen putting all Europe into a flame and carrying confusions blood and disorder every-where by his Ambition He hath been seen fighting with Competitors called Anti-popes conducting Armies shedding Bloud dispeopling Cities and laying wast Fields by Fire and Sword He has been seen with his Arms in his hands like a mad man filling the World with Horrour and Desolation to maintain his pretended Succession to the Inheritance of Christ Jesus He has been seen
there has happened very considerable and essential alterations since that in this time men have overwhelmed Religion by an infinite multitude of vain Ceremonies which have degenerated into Superstitions that they have introduced the criminal Worship of Creatures that they have established the distinctions of Powers and Tribunals which at last have destroyed the true Authority of the Holy Scripture 2. It appears by that which we have shewn to you that far greater changes have yet happened since the fifth Age than had happened before for seeing that in these Ages men knew neither Transubstantiation nor the Real Presence nor the Adoration of the Sacrament nor the Worship of Images nor Purgatory nor the Sacrifice of the Mass nor the Communion under One Kind nor the Soveraign Authority of the Pope all these points being at this day fundamental Articles of Popery 't is unavoidable that since that time there have happened great changes and alterations And to prove the truth thereof against the illusion of the impossibility of insensible changes you have nothing to do my Brethren but to serve your selves of the Proofs which we have put into your hands and say In the fifth Age the Real Presence was not believed 't is believed at this day they did not adore the Sacrament they adore it now they did not worship Images they do worship them at present therefore a change is happened To convince your Converters of the possibility of changes in things that are essential serve your selves only of the Example of Masses without Communicants They will not dare to deny that this is not a thing wholly unknown to all Antiquity And I dare tell you that if they had seen a Priest communicate alone in the Mysteries they would have believed the Spirit of Reprobation were fallen upon the whole Assembly * Canon 10. of Apost decret de Gratian de consecrat Dist 2. Canon per acta distinct 1. Canon Episcopus It was not so much as permitted to assist when they did not communicate and the Regulations thereof are yet found in their Canon-Law nevertheless 't is an important affair if there be any such in Popery For 't is a frightful difference that a Feast instituted to be eaten in common by all the Believers should be changed into a Spectacle where all the Devotion of the People consists in seeing without eating and without understanding Besides thereon depends the question concerning the Sacrifice of the Mass for if it be a true Sacrifice they have some reason to say that 't is not always necessary that the Faithful eat thereof But that the Ancients did never permit any to assist at the Mysteries without participation in them is an evident proof that they did not then look on them as a Sacrifice the efficacy whereof depends upon the Oblation but as a Sacrament the whole efficacy whereof depends upon the reception An Article of Controversie An Examination of the two last false Consequences which the Papists draw from the perpetual Visibility of the Church IN our preceding Letter we have explained how the Church is Visible and always Visible and we have refuted one of the Consequences which the Converters draw from thence behold another of them unto which it behoves us to answer The Church say they is always Visible therefore 't is necessary that she should always have had a Succession of lawful Pastours This is designed to make you confess 1. That the Pastours of the Church of Rome are lawful Pastours and always have been so 2. And by consequence that we are separated from lawful Pastours and a lawful Ministery To this answer That from this that the Church is always Visible it doth indeed follow that there hath always been true Preaching in some points i. e. in fundamental Articles in like manner that it doth follow that there hath been always true Pastors in some things and in some respect but it doth not follow that the Ministery which is legitimate in some things is so in every thing for you must know that the Ministery depends only upon the Doctrine If the Christian Doctrine be wholly corrupt and annihilated in a Society the Ministery is null'd nor is there any thing lawful there If the Doctrine be pure and Christian in all its parts the Ministery is intirely legitimate in all respects To conclude if the Doctrine be partly Christian and partly Antichristian the Ministery is partly lawful and partly unlawful This is the condition of the Ministery of the Church of Rome in that Church there is Christianity and Antichristianity Christianity in the Creeds and Antichristianity in the superstitions and Idolatrous Additions The Pastors of that Church receive Commission to preach both Christianity and Antichristianity the Ministery is legitimate in that they receive Commission to preach Christianity their Ministery and their Mission is wholly illegitimate in that they receive Commission to preach Antichristianity 'T is null for we can do nothing against the Truth If you well understand this you will easily answer the question proposed unto you Why do you Separate from a true and lawful Ministery Answer we do not separate from the Ministery of the Roman Church in that which it teaches of Truth in the preaching of the three Creeds nor in that which it hath of Lawful In this respect we are united for we are in the same Doctrine and by consequence in the same Ministery We are not separate from the Ministery of the Church of Rome but with respect to the Commission she gives her Pastors to make the Body of Jesus Christ and teach Idolatry now this part of her Ministery is null vain criminal and illegitimate The third false consequence which your Converters draw from the perpetual Visibility of the Church is That Jesus Christ will always teach with these visible Pastors If Monsieur de Meaux and those like him understand thereby that Jesus Christ ought to guide them by a Spirit of Infallibility the supposition is false and there is no necessity of adding any thing to make the Falseness thereof appear For I have proved that perpetual Visibility doth not signifie that the Church by remaining always visible must necessarily be always pure and infallible This is true in its Pastors as well as in its other Members for the Pastors have no priviledge of being infallible any more than the other parts of the Church If you desire that I should add something thereon it shall be only this 'T is that the Church is as a Man who after he hath been young and sound becomes old and diseased This Man is visible with his gray Hairs and his rotten Teeth and Wrinkles just as he was when he had his complexion fresh his colour lively the air of his countenance brisk vigorous In like manner the Church hath been young sound and pure in the Ages next to the Apostles by little and little she is grown old and at last is become deformed through corruption but
to have been done by the Reliques of St. Stephen in Africa those of St. Martyn in France and those of the Anacorites in Egypt and Syria Not to enter into a long dispute on the subject of this pretended mark of the Church of Rome I answer three or four things briefly to which I pray give attention 1. That this pretended fountain of light fit and proper to make the Church of Rome visible is not for the simple and unlearned For to see the bottom and solidity thereof they must examine the History of the pretended Miracles which were done in the fourth and fifth Ages They must see what we have said in opposition to it they must examine circumstances and see if there be not reason to believe that all these stories of Miracles are either frauds or fictions They must also examine by History whether these pretended Prodigies of Sanctity be not either Fables or the disorders of sick and melancholick minds They must therefore be able to understand Latin and Greek and to read great and large Volumes To offer this as a light sutable to the capacity of the weak and unlearned is to scoff and deride them 2. I say that the Miracles of the Apostles which are certain and the Prodigies of the Sanctity of the three first Ages does not appertain by right of succession to the Church of the fourth and fifth Age but as far as she inherits the Doctrine of the Apostles These Miracles were good to prove the Divinity of the Christian Religion to Pagans But they are worth nothing to prove Novelties as are the Invocation of Saints and the Worship of Reliques which are purely Pagan Practices With far greater reason the Church of Rome hath no right by succession to the Miracles of the Apostles to prove her Worship her Idolatries and Superstitions We have as much right as she to these Miracles They are truly and properly our Miracles They are good for us all in common against the ungodly and against Infidels to prove that there is one God in three Persons that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and the true Redeemer of the World. But they are nothing to prove our Additions our Corruptions and our Alterations if it be so that either the one or the other of the Christian Sects whether Popery or Calvinism have introduced them into the Church This is clear the Miracles of the Apostles appertain not to us but as far as we have and do inherit their Doctrine 3. As to the Miracles of the fourth and fifth Age which were done in the times when they prayed to Saints and worshipped Reliques we say that they were false Miracles It is to be observed that from the death of the Apostles until the end of the fourth Age nothing was spoken of Miracles in the Church or so little and in so doubtful a manner that it doth not deserve to be reckoned for any thing but when the Devil desired to set up the Worship of Creatures he poured out a Spirit of Lying and a Spirit of Credulity which began to entertain discourses of Miracles 'T is a thing of importance press your Converters thereon Why did these Miracles cease for the space of well nigh two hundred Years or at least why were they so rare And why did they begin again exactly at the time when the Worship of Reliques grew famous Do we not see clearly that 't is a Wile of the Devil Hath God any interest to serve by Bones and Ashes was it necessary that he should begin again to do Miracles at that time And if it were of use to perswade the truth of the Religion which the Martyrs declared to the Pagans why did not God work Miracles by the Bones of the Martyrs for the first three Ages This had been much more profitable than when Paganism was rampant and the Church persecuted and oppressed Wherefore did not the Bones of Polycarpus of whom the believers of Smyrna speak with so much love work miracles Why did not so many Martyrs whose Reliques they had and whose Anniversaries they observed in the time of St. Cyprian work signs and wonders your Converters will never be able to answer this be you therefore perswaded that these pretended Miracles done by the Reliques of St. Stephen St. Gervais St. Protais St. Martyn c. were Illusions of the Devil whom God permitted to work false Miracles or the Cheats of Villains and lewd Superstitionists or to conclude Stories of the Vulgar and Fables which honest men received as Truths upon hear-say And as to the Miracles which are ascribed to the Anacorites of Aegypt and Syria I know not how Mr. Nicholas is not ashamed to draw from them a Light to make his Church visible They are Fables for the most part so gross that the Falseness of them stares in the face of the most Ignorant The Lives of St. Paul the Hermite of Hilarion and others written by St. Jerome that of St. Antony composed as they say by Athanasius are written with so little modesty and judgment that a man ought to be ashamed of them The judicious Readers that would preserve respect for the Authors of those Lives say that the Fathers composed them not as Histories but as pious Romances to divert Christians from reading the Pagan Fables We see in the Lives of those solitary persons of the Desart such as found Centaurs in the Woods Satyrs Men half Horses and half Goats who spake to them and prayed them to intreat the common Saviour to have pitty on them and to give them part in the common Salvation with them We see Hermites-which were in perpetual contests with the Devil always tempted and often beaten by him We see them which herded among the Beasts We there read in one word almost all the Impertinencies of our new Legends This makes it evident that the Fabulous Spirit entred into Christian Religion as soon as the Spirit of Superstition and Idolatry 4ly I say that although it should be true that these Miracles wrought in the Age of the establishment of the Worship of Saints and Reliques should be true Miracles it would not be a Light for the Roman Church any more than for the Greek who also worship Saints and Reliques 'T is therefore needful that we have Miracles from the Church of Rome since she was separate from the Greek Church and that it appear this Gift of Miracles is departed from all other Churches to affix itself to the Church of Rome Now the Greek Schismaticks have their Saints their Legends and their Miracles as well as the Latine Church Besides we do maintain that all the Miracles of the Church of Rome those of St. Bernard as well as others are Legendaries Tales or Illusions of the Evil Spirit 5ly To conclude I do maintain that every person who hath no other support of his Faith but Miracles is a false Believer I have said it elsewhere Miracles are not designed principally to prove Truth they are appointed above
Sollicitations of those who have the conduct of his Conscience See a new Systeme on the Apocalypse p. 224 225. They are the Priests and Clergy which have raised this Holy War against the Reformed 't is they that have blown the fire and sounded the Alarm to this Persecution and 't were a wonder that there should be a Persecution and superstitious Priests and Clergy have no hand therein One of the sharpest Persecutions that was ever raised against the Primitive Christians was promoted and encouraged by the Pagan Priests as Sozomen I think relates The best things corrupted are the worst profane Priests and Clergy-men without Conscience perpetrate and encourage the greatest Villanies in the World. 9. Though this Persecution be mostly if not wholly owing to the Clergy of France yet I do not think them all equally guilty therein Mr. Arnold in his Preface to the Defence of the Perpetuity of the Faith of the Church against Mr. Claude speaks more humanely concerning those of the Reformed Religion in France Vid. Preface in the beginning and professes a great unwillingness to disturb their outward Tranquillity and Peace or to diminish any thing of their temporal Enjoyments and Advantages He desires which all his heart he says that they might be won over to the Church by all sorts of Charity Softness and Goodness but abhors all violent means and endeavours for their Conversion And I am willing to hope that there may be others of the same spirit and temper of this learned Man. 10. But Mens Sentiments alter and what is sound Doctrine at one time is hardly so at another The same learned Man since the Persecution grew high in France hath written sundry piqued Books with bitterness and gall enough against the Reformed and thereby hath sufficiently countenanced and encouraged their Enemies against them The Bishop of Meaux late of Condum is a gentile Man a florid Orator and usually smooth in his Discourses and Conversation Vid. Serm. but has been a great Zealot though more secretly than others in promoting the ruine of what he calls Heresie and no man needs farther proof thereof than to read that fulsome Sermon of his preach'd at the Funeral of the late Queen of France insomuch that I am sometimes under a temptation to say of them all in the words of the Prophet The best of them is as a briar Mich. 7.4 the most upright is sharper than a thorn-hedge 11. I speak not these things with desire to exasperate the Government against the Roman Catholicks in England Let us but be secured that we may enjoy our own Religion in Peace and I am content that they have the private Liberty of their own If they will hear what the Learned Men of our Church have to say for the Doctrine of the Reformation and against the Doctrines which are properly and peculiarly Popish and can be argued out of the one into a belief of the other I should very much rejoyce therein 12. Those Doctrines which are peculiar to the Church of Rome are evidently Novel and by degrees introduced upon primitive and simple Christianity This hath been irrefragably proved by the Divines of our own Church against the late Pamphlets and Pretences of the Romanists See the Council of Trent examined by Catholic Tradition by D. Stilling fleet as well as by the Famous and Learned Monsieur Jurieu in his Pastoral Letters Christianity is invariable what it was in the days of the Apostles and Primitive Churches it is at this day all Additions that have been made thereunto are either needless or false and such are all the Novelties of the ROMAN Church 13. But if those of the Church of Rome cannot be argued out of their Religion and become Proselytes to the Protestant Doctrine and Discipline they must remain where they are The Churches of the Reformation have not learned from their great Master to Dragoon Men into their Communion and it seems to them to be utterly contrary to the Gentleness Softness and Kindness of Christianity It accords well enough with Mahometanism and the Alcoran to proselyte Men by drawn Swords and Pistols for there is but little Argument See Memoirs of P. Mornay vol. 1. pag. 25 26. Reason or Demonstration can be produced to persuade a Faith therein and where Men cannot be converted by Arguments they must make use of Clubs if they will gain any Proselytes Christianity is furnished with so many of the one that it has no need of the other 14. Whatever Provocations those of the Church of Rome may have given to the Church of England to treat them with Severity and Rigor I would by no means that they should use them They are Men and partake with us in the same common Nature and I would not have them treated like Beasts If care be taken that they do us no hurt I should never desire that any Violence be offered unto them let them sit under their Vines and their Fig-trees and let no man make them afraâ—d 15. I should be sorry that the Church of England should repay the measure to the Roman Catholicks that the Reformed have suffered in France The great Author of our Religion has learn'd us other Doctrine and I hope we shall never depart from the Faith and Practice thereof He hath taught us to do good for evil to pray for them that curse us Matth. 5.44 and bless them that persecute and despitefully use us We are willing to live peaceably with all men as much as in us lies Roman 12.18 19 20. we will not avenge our selves we will leave that to God to whom Vengeance belongs If they hunger we will feed them if they thirst we will give them drink and by doing thus heap coals of fire upon their heads 16. I am as jealous and suspicious of the Gentlemen of the Roman Persuasion as any Man and hope that all care will be taken that it shall not be in their power to do us hurt and when that is secure I wish they may be treated with all the kindness that Christianity requires of us I am sure the Christian Religion is most full of Love Sweetness and Obligations and there is nothing in the World that commends it more to the Acceptation of Men and none do it more Honor and more advance its Reputation than those that delight in Kindness and scatter their Obligations upon all sorts of Men herein they do like the Majesty of Heaven Matth. 5.45 who causes his Sun to rise upon the good and the bad and his rain to descend upon the just and unjust 'T is a thing of no great difficulty to treat those with Kindness that oblige us but to shew Love to our Enemies and an Affection for those that hate and destroy us is a more difficult Lesson and worthy of the Christian Religion which teaches Men those heights of Perfection which cannot be learn'd any where else 17. The Author of these following Letters
will attempt to deceive you Among others they make use of the Discourses and Writings of the Bishop of Meaux of Petisson the great Converter and Monsieur Nicholas They oblige you perpetually to read over the Exposition of the Catholick Faith written by that Bishop to paint and colour the Popish Religion Some months since the same Prelate published a Pastoral Letter to the new Converts of this Diocess with the same design and intention that is to seduce you and withdraw from your eyes the Deformity and Ugliness of the false Religion They never cease to commend unto you the mischievous difficulties of Monsieur Nicholas his Book intituled The pretended Reformed convinced of Schism There 't is proved to you that by the way of Examination and Inquiry 't is impossible to find out truth and that you will never hit on it but by submitting to the Authority of the Church Monsieur Petisson hath revived the same difficulties in a late new Book And 't is one of those Books to which those that have been seduced do send us as one of the Sources from whence they have derived their Illuminations These Books shall be the subject matter of these Letters not that I intend to examine and confute them line by line but only to expose and lay open the falsity of these Teachers the imposture and gullery of their Sophisms and the unfaithfulness of all their advances and progressions but we will not confine our selves within the bounds of Controversie We will take care to acquaint you with all things that are most considerable in this Persecution we will inform you in those passages of the Life Death and Behaviour of our Martyrs and Confessors which are most proper for your establishment and edification For which reason we do intreat all those that know any thing that is certain therein that they will inform us concerning it that we may make it publick for the benefit and advantage of the weak We will begin with the Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Meaux to the new Catholicks of his Diocess We shall pass by his Prologue and engage with him in the matter of his Letter by reflections on the manner whereby the Reformed have been brought to their pretended Change and Conversion In the mean time I cannot forbear to stay one moment on the Title thereof The Pastoral Letter of my Lord the Bishop of Meaux to the new Catholicks of his Diocess 'T is one of the pretended Successors of the Apostles which causes himself to be Printed under the Name and Title of my Lord. These Gentlemen are well advanced since the Authors and Founders of Christianity who called themselves plainly by their own names without any other Title than that of Servants of Jesus Christ and Apostles of our Lord. My Lords St. Peter and St. Paul had forgotten to set the character of their Grandeur on the front of their Pastoral Letters or Epistles If the corruption of the World proceed so far as to authorise the custom of calling Bishops Lords methinks their vanity should not be so great as to give themselves that appellation 'T is not very edifying to see the marks of pride and wordly vanity on the front of a Pastoral Letter I do not observe this to give any offence to the Bishop of Meaux in particular my dear Brethren 't is to make you sensible of that Religion whereinto they would initiate and engage you 't is a Religion the soul whereof is Pride and the principal members and heads thereof are monsters of Emptiness and Vanity Christian Humility displays its Characters upon all things but the false Religion carries Pride to its utmost height and leaves the footsteps thereof on all things wherewith it hath any conversation We shall one day have occasion to make you see it in points of much more importance than this which nevertheless is not so light but that it deserves that we take some notice of it Do not suffer your selves to be abused by those that tell you That in some Protestant States the Bishops retain the same Honours The Bishops of England have this to say for themselves That they are Peers of the Realm to which state and condition the Name and Title of My Lord doth appertain and belong but besides I am persuaded that the wiser of these Gentlemen will willingly sacrifice these Titles which do not sufficiently bespeak the humility of a Minister of Jesus Christ to a general Reformation in the Church when it shall be received On the contrary Pride is so very much of the essence of Popery that it will forsake all rather than renounce it I come to the manner how Conversions are made in France according to my Lord of Meaux I do not marvel my dearest Brethren that you are returned in Troops Pastoral Letter pag. 3. and with so much ease to the Church where your Ancestors have served God. The foundation of Christianity and as I have already said the Character of Baptism hath secretly called you thither These Gentlemen rejoyce at the Facility they have found in bringing back the Protestants to their Church that is to say in forcing Subscriptions from an infinite number of Persons who have conceded either to their threatnings or the fear of losing their Estates or the torments and persecution of the Dragoons 'T is true there have been seen examples of weakness therein which have been strange and prodigious and we know that they make a great prejudice and rock of Offence thereof they tell you If it were the true Religion would not those that profess it adhere more closely to it Some of our Brethren have wrote expresly to satisfie you against this Scandal They have shewed you that things have happened much after the same manner in the ancient Persecutions and that Defections have fallen but little short of being general In those times men ran in Troops to offer Incense to Idols as in our days they have been seen running to make Signatures and Subscriptions At all times there have been few persons capable of suffering torments Martyrs are chosen Vessels upon whom God pours out an extraordinary measure of his Grace to strike with Astonishment the Enemies of the Truth to shame and confound the weakness of those that fall and to support the Faith of the infirm These are Miracles but if they were frequent and ordinary they would not be so If the view and consideration of so many Persons as have conceded to Violence or the fear of Sufferings doth scandalize and offend you look not that way but behold and consider the stability and courage of your Ancestors which established the Reformation in the last Age. Consider the number of our ancient Martyrs behold their Constancy their Christian Kindness and the Blessings that they gave to those that burnt them Consider the strength which ennabled them to bear the most horrible Punishments and Tortures They were burn'd by a slow fire they saw their Bowels drop out in the
opinion concerning the Sense of Scripture will not acknowledge a living speaking Authority to which they must submit the Christian Church is assuredly the weakest of all Societies that are in the World the most exposed to remediless Divisions the most abandoned to Innovators and factious persons This is that to which your Ministers with all their subtleties have never been able to find an Answer and they content themselves with bringing Examples where they pretend that Councils have not always determined well All these Examples are false or ill alledged In one quarter of an hours time you which are a Man of Sense will be convinced thereof and you do receive things with too much credulity without ever putting your self on the labor to examine them But without putting you upon these Disquisitions consider only whether it be likely that God who hath permitted so many depths in the Scripture and from thence have arisen so many Schisms amongst those that profess to receive it hath not left some means to his Church to quiet and pacifie them in such manner that there is no remedy for Divisions but to let every one believe according to his fancy and thence insensibly to carry Men to an indifferency in Religion which is the greatest of all Evils Think Master think of it hear your own reason and not the subtleties of your Ministers who at what rate soever will defend their Prejudices and not pass for Teachers of Lies Think of these things excuse those Expressions which may seem a little dark and disordered it is much better that you attend to the simplicity of a Brother that endeavours to gain a Brother than a polite and studied Discourse Come and assure your self that I will do all for you whom I esteem and who are dear to me and that I am cordially Yours c. Thus Signed J. Benigne E. de Meaux Forasmuch as we have imposed a necessity upon our selves not to go beyond a Sheet we pass by our Reflections on this Letter till another Letter which we shall give you in a few days for this serves only as a Preface In the mean time we recommend you to the Grace and Mercy of God. Amen Sept. 1 1687. The SECOND PASTORAL LETTER IN WHICH What Monsieur de Meaux says concerning the right of Persecutors for submission to Councils is confuted A considerable error of the same Gentleman about a matter of Fact in Antiquity Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ THE necessity of concluding hindered us in our former Letter from adding our reflections upon that which the Bishop of Meaux wrote to one of his Diocess that was escaped by flight At present we entreat both you my Brethren and all reasonable Men in the World to compare these two Letters together the Pastoral Letter that is publick and this which is private and particular Will any one find the Bishop of Meaux here Are they two persons or is it but one Himself in publick and the same person in private According to Monsieur de Meaux's Writing and Printing for the new Converts of his Diocess neither he nor the other Bishops have ever heard any speech of Dragoons and Torments According to himself writing in his Closet to a particular person the Case is not the same It is true there is a Persecution for the sake of Religion but it is just it is allowed it is authorised by our example by that of the Ancients and by Divine and Human Laws Good God! How do these Men govern themselves And what do they think Could the Bishop of Meaux ever hope that his Printed Letter should never fall into the hands of him to whom this written Letter was addressed I would fain know what will be answered thereunto If Monsieur de Meaux hath right and reason on his side in his Letter to Monsieur Dev. why doth he say that himself and other Bishops have not heard any speech of Persecution It is a pleasure and an advantage to us to see these Gentlemen deny this Persecution and thereby against publick knowledge and notoriety charge themselves with falshood It is an homage that they pay to Truth It is a confession intelligible enough that violence and the means that they employ are contrary to the spirit of Humanity and that of the Gospel But what a shame is it for them to contradict themselves to confess in private what they deny in publick and acknowledge themselves false Witnesses by their own peoples declarations However it be behold us carried from matter of Fact to that of Right It is no longer debated whether there be a Persecution but whether they have right to Persecute for the sake of Religion It is a question on which so much hath been lately written that nothing new can be said concerning it Nevertheless having Printed the Letter of the Bishop of Meaux and because there is somthing that is dazling and apt to deceive in his manner of writing we think our selves obliged to Print also a refutation thereof we will therefore repeat his words and examine them one after another I have seen in the Letter that you wrote to Mademoiselle de V. that the true Church doth not Persecute what understand you by that Monsieur Do you understand that the Church by it self never makes use of force That is true since the Church hath no other Arms but those that are Spiritual What means this little Paragraph of Gibberish which is formed and contrived on purpose to impose upon the simple They are willing that it should mean that it is not the Church of Rome that raises the present Persecution nor is it according to the Principles thereof For it is that which they persuade the new Converts It is by this means that they take away the scandal that the new Papists take at the Conduct of their Church It is the King say they that doth it it is not the Church for it serves it self only of Spiritual Weapons if what is done be disapproved it ought not to be imputed they say to their Religion which neither appoints nor advises it That which was written to us not long since by one of their most illustrious and best satisfied Converts comes to this I do not answer says she to all that which you have said concerning the ways that are made use of to gain Converts I believe that nothing is to be imputed to any Religion but what it appoints to be believed and practised This answer is very Gentile and worthy of a Lady that thinks herself obliged to answer to nothing But it ought to be rememembred that there is a Tribunal where answers must be made one day without any regard to the difference of Sexes where no evasions will be permitted us and that we shall be punished there for having been unwilling to attend to those things which might have made us understand the nature of that Religion that we had newly
off Heads to hang and burn therefore it ought not to be imputed to her A Sovereign Magistrate contents himself to be Judg and to condemn to Death but he doth not execute he leaves that to the Hangman by consequence if he condemn the Innocent and cause them to die it ought to be imputed to the Hangman and not to him The Church doth a very fine honour to Magistrates she makes them her Hangmen she herself doth not kill but she constrains Princes to kill and burn She constrains I say by Excommunications Censures Exhortations Seductions Sollicitations and the end thereof is she would be able to say The Church dips not her hand in Blood the Church by it self never makes use of force Did the Devil ever cheat after a more impudent and frontless manner I will not say after a more fine and subtil manner for it is to lye without any hope to deceive the Snare is so broad and so ridiculous It were better without Craft to take the way that the Bishop of Meaux takes at last and to maintain that Christian Princes as such have right to punish pretended Hereticks with Death Understand you says he That Princes who are Sons of the Church never ought to make use of the Sword to abuse the Enemies thereof Do you dare to say contrary to the opinion of your Doctors which have maintaind by so many Writings that the Republick of Geneva had power and right to condemn Servetus to the Fire for having denied the Divinity of the Son of God It must be avowed that these Gentlemen are admirable in their confidence Do you dare to say Yes we dare to say it since we say it with most part of the Ancients and with the wisest and most understanding of the Moderns We dare say that the Doctrine which the B. of Meaux maintains here is bloody and cruel and that the Church ought to leave it in share to him who was a Liar and Murderer from the beginning Servetus was burnt at Geneva therefore it is lawful to burn Hugonots and the Calvinists God forgive these unhappy men which have the Cruelty to compare us with Servetus This man was not only an Enemy of the Divinity of Jesus Christ but he was an Enemy of all Divinity he was impious he was a Blasphemer And although he made profession of believing one God the irreverent manner wherewith he speaks of Holy Mysteries makes it plain enough that he had renounced all Religion as well as all Shame It ought to be permitted us to quit our hands of such men They object unto us the Sentiment of our Doctors I answer Our Doctors never did believe that we ought to persecute and burn men that confess God and Jesus Christ according to the three Creeds They never put Papists to Death for the sake of their Religion But although some of our first Writers should have gone too far in speaking concerning the punishment of Hereticks it ought to be known that our Authors are not our Teachers we have but one only Teacher and that is Jesus Christ speaking by his Prophets and Apostles We swear to no mans words but to those of God. And without serving my self of the Examples and Authority of your Doctors tell me in what place of Scripture Hereticks and Schismaticks are excepted from the number of those Malefactors against whom S. Paul hath said that God hath armed Kings and Princes It appertains not to us to shew you that Hereticks are not of the number of those against which God hath put a Sword in the hands of Princes 'T is for you Gentlemen Persecutors to prove to us that they are comprehended there For we have sense reason piety and humanity on our side and besides we have the consent of sound Antiquity for more than four hundred years How could the Church be able to put the Sword in the hand of Magistrates for the punishment of her Enemies in a time when the most scrupulous Christians found it difficult to consent to the Death of those Criminals that disturbed the publick peace and that of particular persons and did maintain that Christians without exception never ought to dip their hands in Blood. In what Dictionary hath Monsieur de Meaux found that evil thinkers and evil doers are the same thing Princes have right to punish evil doers with Death therefore they have also right to punish evil thinkers with Death They have right to punish those whose Crimes are apparent to the publick ruine therefore they have right to burn men whose Crime is in the Conscience the Empire whereof appertains only to God. If the Church have right to call in the Secular Power for the punishment of Hereticks why did S. Paul say simply A man that is an Heretick reject after the first and second admonition Why did he not say Deliver him to the secular Power that he may be burnt Did he not know that in a few Ages Princes would become Christians and have the Sword in their hands Did he only give Precepts for the present time and state Hath this Cruelty of Massacring honest well-meaning but mistaken Persons any affinity with the Precepts of Jesus Christ which commands us to serve our selves with Sweetness Humanity Prayers Exhortations and reasons for the reduction of them It is then permitted to Massacre the Jews for there are none greater Enemies to the Church than they are Is that the Spirit of the Gospel which promises a return and conversion to that Nation How shall they return if they be destroyed Will men never be ashamed of this Antichristian Barbarity Will they never know that it is the Beast in the Revelations who makes himself drunk with the Blood of Saints devours their Flesh makes War upon them and overcomes them and is therefore called Beast Lion Bear and Leopard For he must have renounced reason and humanity and be transformed into a Savage Beast that behaves himself towards Christians as the Church of Rome behaves it self towards us Monsieur de Meaux affirms that what they do against us at this day is nothing but a lawful exercise of the Power that Princes enjoy by Authority from God for the punishment of Offenders And I will prove to him in three words that it is false 1. Princes in the use of the Sword against Malefactors design their ruin that publick Societies be no more troubled with them 'T was the end that was heretofore proposed in Persecutions for Religion 'T was the end that Charles the Ninth pretended to have in the Massacre of S. Bartholomew 'T is the end of the Inquisitors who burn all those that are suspected of Heresie It hath been the end of all Persecutors in past Ages But this is not their end at this day they intend not the Destruction of the pretended Hereticks but their Conversion Therefore although it should be true that Hereticks are not eccepted out of the number of those Malefactors against whom God hath armed Princes this will
be only a power granted to punish them not to endeavour their Conversion by Torments 'T is an abominable means of Conversion which only makes Hypocrites 'T is sufficiently known that reason cannot be gained thereby The purging of Societies is the end of the Sword but Persecution at the rate that it is at this day managed will corrupt and ruine Societies by filling them with secret Hereticks who will disperse their Venom in a manner by so much the more dangerous by how much it is more private and secret What is there therefore of likeness between their treatment of us Is the lawful use of the Sword against Malefactors Do not lightly pass over what I have now said but give attention thereunto If that which Monsieur de Meaux hath said to prove that Heretiques are not excepted out of the number of those Malefactors that Princes are appointed to punish seem a little to startle you tell him that is not the question it is not debated whether obstinate Hereticks may not be punished with Death his Catholick Authors do affirm it But we would learn whether they ought to extort Subscriptions Confessions Communions profane and sacrilegious because joyned with Hypocrisie and Incredulity by Force Plunder Violence and all kind of Torments Now that is it which all the World with one accord condemn and is abominable according to the Principles of the rigid Inquisition as well as our own 'T is that which the Clergy of France have lately invented and practised and 't is that which will render their present conduct the horror of all future Ages 2. The use of the Sword that God hath put into the hands of Princes hath Justice and Righteousness for the reason and foundation of it for it is for the exercise of it and secondly Fidelity and Faithfulness for it is to preserve and maintain it But that which is perpetrated upon us at this day is an uninterrupted course of Iniquities Acts of injustice violence fraud falshood breach of Promises contradiction of Edicts violation of Oaths and of all things that can be imagined most horrid and affrightning Doth not this well resemble the Sword of good Princes armed against Sins and Crimes 3. To conclude the use of the Sword for the preserving and avenging the rights of God preserves also the rights of Men. It hath for its end the honour of God and the salvation of Souls For Justice is exercised for the salvation of the Souls of the wicked by the punishment of their Bodies But in the present Persecution they neither respect or regard the rights of God or the salvation of the Soul but only the Honour of the King. They labour plainly not for the salvation but damnation of Souls and they take all imaginable care to make it sure There is no man that is not ignorant of what is done to whom what I have said will seem an extravagance and excess of discourse But behold the proof thereof The Dragoons come into a Town or Village and without any antecedent instruction demand in the Name of the King from all the Inhabitants thereof Subscription and Abjuration on penalty of wasting their Goods beating imprisoning and torturing their Bodies with all other evils except Death All the People faint and fall they own the Romish Religion without believing it they sign the Condemnation of their own they anathematize and damn Luther Calvin and all the Reformers He goes to Confession he goes to Mass he communicates he adores the Bread he assists at the invocation of Saints and outwardly consents to that Worship that they give to Images He believes none of all this but abhors it at his Heart In the mean time they are content they have all that they desire and they demand no more Now what have they made They have made Hypocrites that say one thing and think another prophane persons that hate what they adore Idolaters that worship what they account Creatures and the workmanship of mens hands Behold what they have done and what they have desired to do For to say that by the Dragoons they desired the Calvinists to renounce their Heresie is the most foolish of all extravagances 't is well enough known that they are no proper Arguments to perswade Therefore they intended and desired to make Hypocrites profane sacrilegious persons abuses of Sacraments and Idolaters Now if these men be not in the high way to Damnation I know not who are So therefore plainly the end of these Persecutions 't is to damn men But behold farther I do maintain that they take all kinds of security to be certain of the damnation of the new Converts when they die This appears by the Declaration of the nineteenth of April 1686 by which it is appointed That if any of our Subjects of either Sex which have abjured the pretended Reformed Religion happening to be sick do refuse to receive the Sacrament of the Church from the Curates Vicars and other Priests I do declare that they will persist and die in the pretended Reformed Religion In case the said sick persons do recover their health Process being made against them by our Judges they shall be condemned if they be Men to make honorable satisfaction and to the Gallies for ever with confiscation of their Goods and if they be Women or Daughters to make honorable satisfaction and be imprisoned with confiscation of their Goods This is the Declaration that the Priests make to a person that thinks himself on his Death-bed when he refuses to communicate There is no Man so sick but he may recover He that at first according to his own conscience refuses to communicate after the manner of the Romish Church at length begins to think that if he recovers he must away to the Gallies these thoughts affright him and as the Disease of the Body increases the weakness of his mind he falls under the fear of that hideous punishment that must last as long as life He communicates again he abjures the Truths which are in his heart he adores that which he believes to be but Bread he is profane in hating an holy thing he is sacrilegious in usurping the Sacraments he is an Idolater in worshiping a Creature The Priest which hath seen him in these Conflicts in these long Oppositions in his Refusals to communicate in Acts of Incredulity and Aversion for these Miseries constrains him by fear and the Declaration of the King. Thereby he gains an assurance of the damnation of this wretch and makes him dye in the most fearful dispositions in which a person can die These are no far fetched consequences to discern them their needs neither Natural nor Artificial Logick This is to cause him to renounce God before Death hath stabbed him at the Heart All the World were struck with horror by the Declaration of the twelfth of July last which condemned all those that should make any use of the Reformed Religion to death They cryed out that at this stroke the
set aside let them produce you another Was there therefore no Saints in these Ages Had they no Martyrs Why did they not invoke the Apostles that had newly received their Crowns Why did they then neglect the Intercession of the Virgin Was it that her Credit was not well established in Heaven at that time and that she wanted time to obtain the Empire which at this day she possesses But why have the Authors of this Age been so impudent to say that they adore God alone and that they adore none but He Justin Martyr says speaking of Jesus Christ He hath taught us that we must adore but one only God when he said This the great commandment thou shalt worship God and him only shalt thou serve Apol. 2. And a little after having quoted those other words of Jesus Christ Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods He adds 't is for this reason that we adore but one only God. And as to what concerns you we give you our Services with gladness in all other things Let not your Eyes be dazled by crafty Tricks upon the word Adore as if Justin Martyr spake of Soveraign Adoration which they give to none but God according to your Converters for you ought to be advertised that he serves himself of the word Proskunoumen which signifies all sorts of Worship and Religious Service A word which signifies properly to prostrate our selves and wherewith the second Council of Nice serves it self when it appoints the Worship of Images So the sense is We do not prostrate our selves we do not give any Religious Worship but to God. See if they can say so at this day in the Church of Rome Theophilus of Antioch and Author of the same Age says * Lib. 1. ad Autol. The King will not that they call those Kings which command under him For King is his name and it is not permitted to another to take it So it is not permited to adore any other but God. St. Ireneus Bishop of Lyons speaking of the God which gave the Law †Lib. 5. cap. 22. It is he alone to whom the Disciples of Jesus Christ ought to perform worship c. And a little after The Law commands us to praise the Creator and serve him alone But hear a Testimony which will instruct you sufficiently concerning the opinions and practice of that Age about it They are the Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Polycarpus Bishop of Smyrna After the death of this Holy Bishop ⸫ Euseb lib. 4. cap. 15. his Church writ to that of Pontus an excellent Letter which is one of the most precious monuments that we have of Primitive Antiquity In this Letter the Believers of Smyrna having reported all the circumstances of the death of Polycarpus their Bishop say that the Devil used endeavours that our Brethren might not obtain his body which many among us did very much desire to the end they might participate of that sacred body Some therefore suggested to Nicetas Father of Herod and Brother of Dalces to go find out the Proconsul to advise him not to give us the body for fear say they that having abandoned Christ the Christians may come to Worship him it was at the suggestion of the Jews and at their pressing sollicitation that these Men thus represented the matter For they were the Jews that observed our Brethren when they endeavoured to take the body from the Pile of Wood. Fools which know not that we can never forsake Jesus Christ who hath suffered death for all those that must be saved nor serve any other For we Adore him as the Son of God and as for the Martyrs we love them and are kind to them as Disciples and imitators of the Lord because of the great love which they have shewn to their King and Master and we wish to be their Associates and fellow Disciples The Centurion therefore seeing the obstinacy of the Jews caused the body to be burnt upon the place according to the custom After which we gathered together his Bones more precious than the most precious Stones and more pure than Gold and laid them up in a convenient place In which place if it be possible for us and God permit it we will hold our Assemblies to Celebrate with joy and gladness the Birth day of his Martyrdom in memory of those who have undergone this glorious Combat and to instruct and confirm our descendents by such an example The passage is altogether such as we would wish for we there see all which we search after and what was the Religion of the ancient Christians with respect to Relicks and Saints and from whence began the Superstition and Idolatry which after appeared in the World. First of all you see that in the second Age they served no other but God we serve no other but God. Secondly That the Worship given to the Martyrs was a Worship of love and simple imitation we love them and have a kindness for them These people had lost all sense not to have added and we pray to them if so be they had them prayed to the Martyrs Thirdly That they had no regard to the merits of Saints and Martyrs nor did they pray to God to make us partakers of them we wish to be their Companions and fellow Disciples They might as easily have said as they say now adays we desire to be made partakers of their merits Fourthly That they did not assemble at the Tombs of the Martyrs that they might invocate and serve them but only with design to celebrate the Birth-day of their Martyrdom and the memory of their Sufferings It is an amazing stupidity not to have added and to recommend our selves to their prayers and intercession if any such thing had been in use Fifthly That they did not rend the Bodies of Martyrs in pieces nor distribute their Bones to fill Reliquaire's For they took the bones of Polycarpus and laid them in a convenient place that is to say they laid them honorably in a Tomb. In all this we see the innocence of the worship of the ancient Christians But in that which follows we see the first bloomings from whence afterward proceeded Idolatry 1. We see here an excessive love which Christians did shew towards the bodies of Martyrs they say that they are more precious than the most precious Stones and more pure than the purest Gold. 2. They assembled upon their Tombs and their burying places served them as Temples not simply through necessity for they might have assembled more conveniently in Houses but because they believed those places more Holy and more proper to excite Devotion because of the memory of the Martyrs 3. They Consecrated certain days to remember the Passion day of the Martyrs Indeed they did not Invoke or Pray to them but nevertheless this was done in their honor as we Celebrate the Birth-day of a Prince to whom we give no kind of
they are persons of Credit an Reputation who put into his Hands those things which they themselves heard If after all this the matter of Fact be false I do avow that we must no more believe any thing But there are but few people into whose minds it can enter that two or three thousand persons for there are not less of the Reformed Religion in Orthez should conspire to lye about an affair which after all is not of any great concernment to them For although the Angels should not have sung in the Air their Religion would not be the less true Moreover it is to be observed that our people are not Educated in the Spirit of Superstition and Credulity for Miracles On the contrary it is known that we have always made it part of our business to defend them against those delusions Besides this he must have an impudence which cannot be found but in very few Men to feign events as happening in the view of a whole City and to introduce on the Stage Men who can give them the lye and whose interest it is so to do To conclude I do not know how any one can imagine that the Magistrates of Orthez and the Parliament of Pau should publish Ordinances to hinder Men from going to hear these Voices if the thing it self were false At least it must be granted that the Reformed in Orthez did believe they heard it Incredulity which always finds out some intrenchment and defence for it self will demand that we produce the Ordinances of the Parliament of Pau and of the Magistrates of Orthez It is not at all probable that Men who would stifle both the knowledg and memory of so extraordinary an event and which was so disadvantageous to them should be willing to transcribe them upon Paper and yet much less Print and deliver these Ordinances which would have immortalized the memory of that Fact which they were willing should be forgotten But having heard above the Deposition of a person of honor who said that he heard with his Ears the publication of these Prohibitions he must be very incredulous that will deny the truth of this circumstance And he must suppose that two thousand persons are furnished with a great measure of impudence to attribute to a Court of Justice and to the Magistrates of a City a thing that is false If this be not sufficient to convince those that doubt they may tarry if they please till Men have found the secret of collecting the impressions that words make upon the Air and rendring them visible and then they will be made to see all things in their Original The same thing hath happened in Cevennes as this Country is full of Mountains where there are Eccho's which multiply and return the Voice and as night Assemblies have continually been made there where they sing Psalms with a loud Voice therefore the relations of singings which have been made in the Air would be more suspected by me But the Affair of Orthez which is a Country close and without Mountains being well proved I see no reason to doubt of that of Cevennes for which reason without scruple we will produce the Certificates which come from that Country The first Certificate I Certifie that one of my Sisters wrote to me on Feb. 8. last from a place called Collet in Cevennes where she then was in these words My dear Brother you would be informed touching the singing of Psalms which Men have told you that they hear in this Country there is nothing more true Monsieur the late Baron of Cadorve heard it two or three hours in the night with his whole Family I my self and almost all the World in this Country have heard this Voice but we have not been able to discern whether they were Psalms yea or no. It seems to us that it is a complaint and even now at the hour I write to you I hear and am sensible of it La Roquette Minister of Manoblet in Cevennes given at Lausanna March 30. 1686. The second Certificate I attest that Monsieur of the Dark Valley a Gentleman of Cevennes living near St. John de Gardonnengue writ to me September 17. 1685. this which follows We see strange things in all the places in Cevennes we hear singing of Psalms in the Air by night as if it were in the Church Wednesday last I was lying alone in my Chamber and about midnight I heard upon the roof a Voice very shrill which awoke me and afterwards five of six other Voices that assisted it and they sung five or six verses of the fifth Psalm all those of the House heard it many times The said Monsieur of the Dark Valley confirmed me in this belief by a second Letter Jan. 27. 1686. That this singing of Psalms doth constantly continue The said Monsieur adds now the beating of a Drum is heard as if Men of War were marching and this is heard at mid-day in many places Barjune Minister of St. Marselle in Cevennes now fled to Lausanna in Switzerland The third Certificate Towards the end of the month of September last being with M. d' Esperies a Gentleman of merit which is of Vigan in Cevennes and we flying to the Castle of a Gentleman of our friends named M. de Montualian we heard in the Air a considerable number of Drums Five or six days after being with the said M. d' Esperies in a little place named Ablatatz in Cevennes in the Parish of Fraisin and Fourques and in the Diocess of Mand whither my Family was fled for refuge we heard in the Air a Holy Harmony singing the Holy Praises of God this is that which I do certifie to be true forasmuch as I heard it Saligne de Marnis in Cevennes D' Esperies de Vigan in Cevennes do attest the abovesaid to be true The fourth Certificate Extracts of two Letters written to Lausanna to Mademoiselle Louise d's Vignoles by her Cousin Mademoiselle Jane de Vignoles a Maiden of Vebron Sister of M. De Lavalett who was Arrested in the Citadel of the Holy Ghost on the month of Octob. 1683. as it is reported in The defence of the Project c. which makes the third Tome of The Estate of the Reformed This Jan. 3. 1686. How happy are you my dear Cousin that you can Pray and sing the Praises of God in publick when in the mean time so many good souls have their mouths stopped and dare not discover that which passes in their minds But as to the business of singing the Praises of God it is necessary that I speak to you of the miracle which makes so much noise in this Country which is that since the intire loss of our Churches and our Pastors there has been heard in the Air Voices and sounds of Instruments very melodious and that which is most extraordinary is that many persons distinguish the Tunes of the Psalms and I can assure you of the truth thereof since I may self have distinguished more
and I will leave them in their Retirement very peaceably provided they put themselves into a state of Inaction as well in respect to us as to God but if they continue to trouble us the Dispute may have an Issue which will not turn to their honor This Digression which hath been longer than I could have wished will be the cause that we cannot proceed far in the Article of Controversie We are on the true Idea of Unity The last part of our preceding Letter was employed in refuting the false Idea of Unity We have made it appear that 't is a foolish and cruel Opinion to shut up Salvation in any single Communion and that of all the Sects of Christianity that of Rome has the least right to pretend to it The Bishop of Meaux brags much of four or five Passages of St. Cyprian to prove this cruel Paradox This ancient Doctor goes so far as to say * Lib. de Vnitate That there can be no Martyr but in the Church that when a man is separated from its Vnity 't is in vain that he sheds his blood for the Confession of Christ Jesus This Maxim in a large signification may be endured for indeed there may be Hereticks who confessing the Name of Jesus Christ but on the other side ruining the Foundations of the Christian Religion may dye for the Religion of Jesus Christ to no advantage but the Application which S. Cyprian makes thereof is one of those faults over which wise men ought to draw a Curtain He proceeds so far as to apply it to the Novatians Now it must be known these Novatians were good Christians a thousand times better than are the Papists seeing they did not ruine any of the Foundations but retained and believed all the Christian Verities only they were something severe in Discipline and would not receive those that fell in times of Persecution to the Peace of the Church Was not this a great crime Was not this a fine occasion to say as Cyprian did That a Novation was no Christian Was not this a very fine Foundation for that terrible and cruel Sentence That a Novation dying a Martyr for Jesus Christ was nevertheless damned Of what make and constitution are the Doctors of the Roman Church that make use of these Excesses which ought to be hid out of Honor to those great men which fell into them These are Scars remaining in their Flesh to the end that we should not exalt them too much by reason of their great Virtues Behold my Brethren the eye wherewith Mr. de Meaux looks on you he for your sakes makes use of the eyes which St. Cyprian had for the Novatians concerning whom he said A Novatian is out of the Church he is no Christian So says Mr. de Meaux concerning you The Calvinists are out of the Church and are no Christians And why then Gentlemen do you address to us Pastoral Letters Why do you call us your wandring Brethren Will you dare to say that we are no Christians Let these Writers of Pastoral Letters says Mr. de Meaux who shrowd themselves with some shreds of S. Cyprian take all his Doctrine entire Go to Mr. you may say unto him If you find the Doctrine of S. Cyprian so good why don't you take it whole and entire Why don't you say that all the Greeks and all the Christians of the East are not Christians Dare you say that all the Greeks which have been martyred by the Turks and Saracens since the Tenth Age are damned and that they did not suffer Martyrdom although they suffered for Jesus Christ For my part I am persuaded that if you press your Converters on this Subject with their Passages of St. Cyprian they will blush on both Cheeks Remember therefore with respect to St. Cyprian that the love which he had for the Peace of the Church and the horror that he had for Schism ran him into that excess to believe or say That out of that I know not what exterior Unity of the Church a man could not be saved 'T was in this Age that men began to corrupt the Idea of the Church as I have already observed To what will all this come and what profit will you draw thence my Brethren 'T is that thereby you will prove to your Converters the falseness of this Doctrine That the Unity of the Church is included in the Roman Church that out of this Church or in any other private Communion there is no Salvation and thereby you will convince them that they are not infallible for if this Article be false That the Roman Church alone possesses that Vnity she hath erred and that in an important and capital Affair You will also thereby convince them That the Roman Religion is the most cruel and the most damnable of all the Sects of Christianity forasmuch as it condemns the most men For by defming that she alone possesses saving Vnity and by condemning all those that are not in this Vnity she damns three fourth parts of the Christian World. And to conclude you will establish your selves in a holy confidence that by being or having been out of the Roman Communion you have not bâ—en out of the Vnity and you have not shut the door of Salvation upon your selves since Salvation is not included precisely in the Roman Communion and that saving Vnity is not shut up within the circle of any certain Communion On the Subject of this Vnity you will desire me without doubt that I will furnish you wherewithal to answer the Question which your Converters will put to you In what then does the Vnity of the Church consist if it does not consist in adherence to such and such Pastors Answer them my Brethren That this Vnity consists 1. In the Vnity of Spirit forasmuch as God and the Spirit are the Soul of all Christian Communions which do retain the fundamental Truths 2. In the Vnity of Doctrine which is one through all the World where Jesus Christ is purely taught 3. In the Vnity of Sacraments which are the same every where where they have been preserved and not corrupted Let Churches be separated and set at a distance one from another as far as the Antipodes are from us let them have no knowledge one of another They will not cease to be one by this triple Vnity of Spirit Doctrine and Sacraments If there were a pure Church in the farthest part of Ethiopia or in the utmost part of China we should be one Church with them though we had never heard any thing said one of another It is not therefore the Unity of Ceremonies of Worship Discipline and Pastors which makes the Essential Vnity that 's an accidental Unity which a man may break without going out of the true Unity So the Novatians which were separated from the Church for a little unhappy point of Discipline were in the wrong no doubt and greatly in the wrong and Novatian above all who was the
first Author of that Separation But 't is a ridiculous Chimera to imagine that they were out of the Essential Unity seeing that when they went away they carried with them the true Jesus the true Doctrine and the true Sacraments They were yet the Church they were Christians whatever St. Cyprian says of them and not only their Martyrs obtained the Crown of Martyrdom but their penitent Christians obtained Salvation although they died in Schism There are particular Unities and a general Unity Particular Unity consists in certain Bonds such as are common Ecclesiastick Government common Discipline and certain common Ceremonies You are not in particular Unity with the Episcopal Church of England with respect to Government But this Unity signifies nothing to Salvation he must be a mad man to damn Christians because they either have or have not Bishops The general Unity which consists in the three things which I have said is the only essential necessary and saving Unity If you agree with the Church in Government Discipline and Ceremonies and don 't agree with it in Opinions in Sacraments and Spirit you have no Communion with it if you differ in Government and Discipline and agree in Truths Sacraments and the same Jesus you are at Unity with it and with God. This Vnity of the Church whereof we have now discoursed makes me think of that unity of Souls which ought to prevail among the true Members of the Body of Christ It is the Character under which the Apostolick Church is described unto us They were all of one heart and one mind 'T is this holy Unity which draws down the holy Spirit for when the firy Tongues fell upon the Apostles they were all with one accord assembled in one place 'T is the absence of this holy Unity which in part hath drawn down those unhappy Effects of the Wrath of God under which we now groan Call to mind the Divisions the immortal Hatreds Jealousies Quarrels and Strifes which have been seen in the midst of you even on occasions and in things for which Peace and the Spirit of Charity were particularly requited One was of Paul another of Peter but not one for Jesus Christ Men made their own Passions and Interests to triumph and trampled under foot the Glory of God and the publick Edification The strictest friendships were always ready to break on the first transport of Passion The Spirit of Vengeance had no rest till it had revenged the Injuries it thought it had received and we knew not what it was to sacrifice a resentment to the Love of God and his Christ God has made these civil Wars to cease by a cruel and strange War. You have a common tye more than you have had you have had the same Faith the same Sacraments the same Churches and the same Holy Table besides you have at this day your common Affliction and your common Misfortunes 'T is certain that even in the World this makes a tye among Souls and it should do with far greater reason when men suffer the same grief for the same cause and for the same God. You ought mutually to love each other because you are afflicted for God and by consequence you ought to love those also who suffer for you they are your Confessors who have the glory to maintain in the Prisons those Truths with you have been so weak only to keep close in your Hearts having not the courage to shew them openly Among those which are in divers Prisons of the Realm for the Cause of God there are an infinite number that want all things these are Voices that cry against you to Heaven in a terrible manner and say What a shame is it that Jesus Christ is in Prison that he is Sick Hungry and Thirsty that he freezes with cold during the rigor of the Winter and that these Peters who grew pale at the word of a Servant don't go to visit him to give him Bread and Cloaths You know what will be the Sentence that the Lord will give to such think of it and partake-in the Bonds of your Brethren though they be at the utmost ends of the Kingdom Feb. 1. 1687. The TWELFTH PASTORAL LETTER AN Article of Antiquity The beginning of the History of Christianity of the Fourth and Fifth Ages Of the Original of Monks An Article of Controversie Of the Unity of the Ministry HAving finished the History of the Christianity of the Third Age we enter upon the Fourth We shall not distinguish that of the Fourth and Fifth they are so interwoven that they cannot be separated All the Superstitions false Worship and Corruptions of Discipline which are found established in the Fifth Age took their beginning in the Fourth We enter upon Ages in which the Church had entirely changed its Face it is no longer a persecuted Church it triumphs it reigns it ascends the Throne The Emperors becoming Christians drew along with them by their Authority and Examples an infinite number of Pagans who had that Complaisance and Civility for their Masters as to become Christians But the Church also on her part had the Complaisance to burthen Religion with vain Worship and Ceremonies borrowed from Paganism All that which she thought might be innocently taken from thence she took to draw them over to her The Bishops inrich'd by the Liberality of Constantine and his Successors became proud they would have a distinct Jurisdiction from the Civil they established for themselves Tribunals It appears by the Book of Constitutions falsely ascribed to the Apostles that the Bishops had Flatterers which said of them or rather they said of themselves many incredible proud and impertinent things * Vit. Const lib. 2. cap. 37 38. They set themselves above Kings they said that they must pay them Tributes and Tenths and that Men owed them greater Honors than Kings and that they had power to condemn to everlasting Fire Above all the Pomp and Pride of the Bishops of Rome that ruling City became such that they gave jealousie to the Chief Magistrates of the Empire They added to the Sacraments new Ceremonies an Unction before Baptism beside that which followed after it the Prayers and Ceremonies of the Liturgy of the Eucharist which they call at this day the Mass were much increased and augmented they made use of Holy Waters they consecrated Oyls and Chrism their Funerals were enriched with Ceremonies borrowed from Judaism or Paganism they had their Ninth day their Fortieth day and their yearly Obits or Prayers for the Dead they affixed Prayers to certain hours which at this day they call Canonical the Cock crowing Nine of the Clock Mid-day Three of the Clock and Vespers In these Ages they did essentially alter Divine Service by intermingling therewith the Service of Creatures A kind of Furie for Relicks seized on the Spirits of Men nothing was heard to be spoken of but Visions by which they had been discovered and Miracles which had been done by them they carried
Agents The Monks at this day think it an Honor to acquaint us with the Combats and the Travels which the Men of their Order have sustained to hinder the Worship of Images from falling 'T was in the Convent of Corbie and in the Brains of Paschasius the Monk that the Opinion of Transubstantiation had its Birth When that new sort of Monks which are called Mendicants came into the World a Man cannot tell the Evils which they caused there the Superstitions that they brought and the Corruptions which they introduced into it It is from them that those Excesses whereof the honest Men of the Church of Rome themselves at this day have an abhorrence took their Original These Excesses say I which respect the Worship of the blessed Virgin the Invocation of Saints and the Adoration of Images and Relicks Excesses which are gone so high by the assistance of the Monks that all which is most odious in Pagan Idolatry did never go beyond it 'T is that whereof your Converters themselves are at an Agreement with us 't is of that which they tell you that we ought to make no use that we ought not to impute those things to the Church which were the foolish imaginations of the Friers of the last Ages and the Devotions of Monks as they themselves call them and that honest Men did never approve 'T is a thing far enough from Truth that the Church of Rome never approved these Excesses But it is not a thing upon which we have any pâ—rpose to stay at present It is sufficient for you that it is evil by the confession of your Converters and that this Corruption took its original from Monks They are the same Men which have dishonored Christianity by a an Historical Theology more shameful and fabulous than was that of the Pagans and Poets 'T is to them that we owe the Legends the Lives of Saints the Châ—onicles and Annals the Orders of S. Francis the Jacobites and the Carmelites in which Works the least trace of Truth and Purity is not to be seen but a heap of ridiculous Fictions impertinent Miracles and filthy Fables whereof at this day Men of the Character of Canus Bishop of the Canaries and de Launoy are ashamed and make no scruple to confute them in all their Shapes and Forms Do not these Gentlemen also confess that the Monks have been always the Instruments of the Violence of Popes and the Incendiaries of Christendom They were the Men that preached the Croisades against pretended Hereticks 'T was they that kindled the Fires and committed the Massacres They were those that mutinied the People against those Kings and Emperors that would not obey the Pope They were they that seized on the Rights of Bishops and favoured the Pope in all those ways whereof he served himself to oppress the other Bishops They have withdrawn themselves from the Authority of their Ordinances by Immunities obtained in the Court of Rome They have withdrawn Confessions from the ordinary Pastors They were the Masters of the Chairs and publick Teachers during the space of four Hundred or five Hundred Years To conclude 't is certain they have always been the most potent Supports of that Throne of Iniquity which hath raised it self in the Church For their Manners I can make it appear by Testimonies that cannot be reproached that never were Lives so debauched as those of the Monks that during more than seven or eight Hundred Years they were the Sinks of all the Impurities that could be imagined and we have the Confession of the Arnolds the Maimbourghs and other famous Defenders of Popery in this Age concerning it They add that it is not so now and that the Convents at this day are well governed and the Monastick Life very clean and innocent He must be very bold to advance a matter of Fact so little known If there be some Convents reformed there are a great many others that are not so I have a little enlarged my self on this Article concerning the original of Monks their History their Spirit and their Conduct because I know 't is a Snare in which many Persons shut up in Convents have unhappily fall'n They have written to us from thence that they have been much moved with the great Piety which they have found in these Houses with the Mortification of the Nuns with their constancy in Prayer with their Humility with the continual elevation of their Hearts to God and with their entire renunciation of the World. And they have given us to understand that this hath been the principal Motive of their Conversion And even very devout and pious persons who thanks be to God do yet persevere in the Truth have not been able to escape some surprize by these fair Appearances and Formalities God is witness that we have no intention to lessen the Reputation of any Person in particular and yet much less of these Nuns of whom so much good is spoken we wish that there were more of truth therein And if it be so that there is so much virtue in Some of them we hope that God will not suffer them to die in the sad estate wherein they are But we do advise our Brethren and Sisters to be on their guard and beware of this Temptation and to consider First That these Mortifications wherewith they seem to be so much charmed are human Devotions upon which God doth not pour down his Blessing It may be seen by that which we have reported concerning the Mortifications of the first Monks how far this miserable Spirit of superstition and false Devotion may go That kind of Life observed by the Monks of Attrappe for example doth not find its Original or Model in the Gospel and they are those Worships of which it will be said Who hath required these things at your hands We must not make it a thing of Merit to be more wise than God than Jesus Christ and his Apostles and do more than they have done It is a folly and madness to believe that a Man is more acceptable to God by shutting himself up in a place where he may see no body where he speaks to no body where he renounces his Friends and Relations where he deprives himself of the society of good Men whose conversation might assist his piety 2. I do intreat them to consider that in these kind of things the false Religions go farther than that which is true Ask your Converters and they will not deny that the Mortifications of the Mahometan Monks and those of the penitent Indians and Mexicans are infinitely more cruel to the Body than are those of our most mortified Europeans so they are at least equivocal things with respect to which we must be extreamly upon our guards 3. In the third place it must be known That there are depths in the conduct of God which cannot be fathomed 't is his pleasure that we walk always in the midst of Thorns and among Snares 't is for
permit this re-union with the Roman Church even on supposition that her corruption is not extreme for 't is a shameful cowardize and unworthy of an honest man to betray his own Sentiments and to give to a Church which he believes impure that homage which is due only to a Church that is clean and undefiled To conclude I say that your Salvation will not permit you to put a period to your Separation from the Roman Church even supposing that her corruption is in some sort tolerable for that corruption which might not destroy your Soul when you were there having been educated brought up and instructed therein from your Infancy becomes mortal when you receive it not having been born brought up nor instructed therein The difference is clear and the reason thereof is evident It is certain that there is a Superstition ungrateful to God which he tolerates in an ignorant Person but he will not suffer nor endure it in a Man of Knowledge and Understanding for a Person which practises a considerable Superstition against his Conscience makes appear therein an Abyss of Perverseness contempt of God his Laws and Truth and such a love of the World and the interests of the Flesh which put him absolutely out of the state of Salvation Behold already something advanced to deliver you from those vain horrors which they would thrust upon you for your Separation under the name of Schism for 1. Although the Schism or Separation had been rash you would have no reason to be afraid of your Salvation 2. Although the corruption of the Roman Church had been in some sort tolerable and although there had been something of Precipitation in the Separation nevertheless you would have no Obligation to return to the Roman Church but you would be obliged to the contrary And here we shall find an occasion to answer to the Fallacy which the new Converts as they call them put upon themselves and which we have mentioned in our Tenth Pastoral Letter and which is one of the most effectual means by which they lay themselves to sleep in that unhappy state where they are There is in it a Question of Right and another of Fact. The matter of Fact is to know whether indeed the Roman Church be corrupted to that degree that we report it The Question of Right is Whether supposing the Roman Church very corrupt we may separate our selves from it and persevere in that Separation to this day We will first handle the Question of Right because 't is thereby that they enchant you and thereby that the most part of you do quiet and calm your selves 't is thereby say I that they do enchant you for your Converters following the Principles of the Author of the Legitimate Prejudices against the Calvinists and Mr. Ferrand's Treatise concerning the Church tell you * Book of Prejudices p. 147 148 c. That although the Church of Rome were Idolatrous and Heretical the Calvinists had no right to separate themselves from it and to set up other Churches and another Ministry 'T is also thereby that those which would be at rest in the Roman Church do lull themselves asleep for this Proposition that though the Roman Church were Heretical and Idolatrous you ought not to separate from it in the Writings of your Converters Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Ferrand is nothing but a false Supposition to make you see the more clearly the necessity of Adherence to the Church of Rome and the horror of Schism And if they found themselves pressed too hard on this spot of ground they might be able always to retrench themselves behind and say Now it is not true that the Church of Rome is Heretical and Idolatrous But at this day one part of these new Converts from a false Supposition draw a very solid Conclusion They receive the Supposition as true That the Church of Rome is very corrupt and maintain this Thesis That nevertheless they ought not to separate from it and that Men may or ought to return to it We have heard the Reasonings of one of these Men in our Tenth Letter we must hear it once more for he says all that these Men think Speaking of the Questions which perplex the New Converts First says he on the positive Separation which ous Fathers made we say that we ought to suffer many things rather than separate from the Vnity of the Church that the Abuses introduced by the Governors thereof may not be imputed to the Faithful that all Scripture which makes mention of Heresies doth not command Separation for the sake of them on the contrary it commands us to bear them It says that we may build upon the Foundation which is Christ Wood Hay and Stubble that Jesus Christ only will make Separation the one from the other that the good Grain and the Chaff will be separated at the last day but that they must grow together till then After he adds some Reflections on a Conjecture of the Author of the Accomplishment of Prophesies which 't is not necessary to report here because they will have their place elsewhere And he concludes this Points with these Words And although the Pope should be Antichrist that would not infallibly hinder Christians from being saved in the Roman Church The Letter contains another Article on the Question Whether the Roman Church be Idolatrous in worshiping the Eucharist or Jesus Christ in the Eucharist This also shall have its place elsewhere Afterwards he adds At last they conclude two things the first That all the Fundamental Truths of Christianity being confessed by the Roman Church we are obliged to continue united with it without making a positive Separation which is against all the duties of Charity and which instead of bringing back those which err produces nothing but an eternal Distance and Animosity In the second place they do maintain That we do not necessarily partake in the Errors of a Communion in which we are the common Confession of Faith ought to be esteemed as an agreement to live under the same Ministry but we are not therefore responsible for all the Abuses which may be or can be introduced into the Ministry Provided we adore the same God and profess the same Fundamentals of Christianity the rest cannot be imputed to single Persons above all when there is a necessity of joyning our selves to this first Christian Society and we cannot find any publick Worship more pure and more edifying The Examples of our Fathers before the Reformation prove clearly That we may secure our Salvation in the Roman Communion even in adhering to the publick Worship Whatever Men say it is inconceivable that Men born and brought up in a Religion who never heard speak of any other Doctrine and who lived and died without protesting against the Opinion of their Church should not partake in the Worship thereof Behold an exact account of all the Illusions which these new re-united Persons put upon themselves and an
and Theodoret and you will find that they all generally express this that they went to the Shrines and Memories of the Martyrs so they called the places where they had put the Reliques that there they performed their Devotions that they recommended themselves to the intercession of the Martyr that they expected from him miraculous deliverances But not one will tell you that they invocated the Saints in their Closets or in Churches where their Reliques were not Now who does not see that this is an extravagance If the Invocation of Saints be good why is it not as good in a Closet as in a Church Why not in a Church where there are no Bones nor Ashes of a Martyr as well as in one where they are But this practice was founded upon a vulgar opinion that the Souls of Saints were not found but near their Tombs and that they loved their Ashes as St. Jerome tells us And behold the reason why 1. They did not invocate Angels whilst they did invocate Martyrs 't was because the worship of Saints began with that of Reliques and Angels having left no Reliques here below their invocation did not make the same progress 2. 'T is for the same reason that they invocated only Martyrs and not other Saints 't was because they had recollected with care only the bones and ashes of the Martyrs and for others they suffered them to rest in their Graves because their flesh had not been honoured by the Cross of Christ 3. 'T is the reason also why they did not invocate all Martyrs but only those of whom they had Reliques 4. To conclude 'T is for the same reason that they began so lately to invocate the Virgin. They had no Reliques of her they knew not where her Tomb was and this was it that gave occasion to the Fable of the Assumption of her Body into Heaven Her other Reliques her Shifts her Slippers her Girdles her Vails her Hair her Milk all these were not invented and produced till a long time after This is a point upon which you will do well to press your Converters Desire of them that they will shew you in the fourth or fifth Age those Reliques of the Virgin which are at this day the object of the Piety of the Devote's Those believers were very negligent in not searching after the Milk of the Virgin whereof at this day the World is full And 't is wonderful that among the Reliques which gave occasion to invocate the Martyrs in the fourth and fifth Ages they did not reckon those old Clothes and Rags which have since been put among the precious moveables of the Devote's There was nothing but Ashes and Bones which did then pass for true Reliques and such as were worthy of veneration Gather together I intreat you my Brethren all these things and make reflection upon them About the end of the fourth Age men began to invocate Saints But 1. They did not invocate all Saints no not the Apostles themselves 2. They prayed only to the Martyrs nor did they invocate all the Martyrs themselves and those which they did invocate they did not invocate in all places but only where their Reliques were 3. They did not invocate Angels who are much more worthy of honour and invocation than the Saints 4. They did not invocate the Virgin who is above all Saints and Angels Is it not plain that this was an unformed Worship a Worship in its birth a Worship which as yet had no Principles to establish it upon and which had for all its foundation a popular superstition for the ashes of those who had suffered Martyrdom Last of all to convince you that indeed this Superstition was as yet a Religion in its birth without Form and without Principles give attention to this which follows 't is that this Devotion was without form in its Doctrine as well as in its Worship All Religious Worship is founded in some Doctrine The Worship of Saints is established upon the opinion that they know our Needs hear our Prayers and see the Face of God with whom they can intercede Now in the fourth and fifth Ages all men were in doubt concerning these things They knew not whether the Saints did hear the Prayers of Men yea or no. Gregory Nazianzen in his Funeral Oration for his Sister Gorgonia speaks to her but knew not whether she heard him If thou hast any regard says he to her to the Honours that we give thee if holy Souls receive from God the gift of knowing things kindly accept our Discourse St. Ambrose in the Book concerning the Death of his Brother Satyrus says that God had withdrawn him from the World to the end that he might not see the miseries of the age and speaking to him says Considering the compassion which your holy Soul had for those which belonged unto you if now you know that Italy is oppressed by an enemy so near unto it how will you sigh how much grief will you feel by reason of it It seems to me that this supposes that the dead know not what is done below St. Jerome who speaks often of the dead speaks always of them as not knowing what the living suffer He says concerning Nepotian that he saw not what was done here and that we could not speak unto him He says to Demetrius to comfort her concerning the death of her Father that he is happy in that he did not see the desolation of his Countrey We see that 't is Nature that speaks and St. Jerome in these passages deserves much more to be believed than when he tells us that the Souls of Saints move about their Tombs 'T is a thing very observable that St. Austin was very unquiet and uncertain in this matter whereby we discover also the uncertainty of the Divines of his age This is seen chiefly in the Book which he writ concerning Care for the Dead Paulinus Bishop of Nola had consulted him about the Devotion of a Woman who wisht that her Son had been buried near the Tomb of St. Felix the Martyr formerly Bishop of Nola. This gave him occasion to handle the Question how the Dead knew our Necessities He durst not deny that the Martyrs did help and assist us because of so many Miracles that were done says he near their Remains But he doubted very much whether they heard us and knew our wants Afterwards he proceeds beyond doubt and lays down and proves plainly and strongly that they do not hear us * Cap. 13. De cura pro mort Afterwards he says that Souls may know not all but part of that which is done here below either by the report of Angels or by that of the Dead or by some immediate Revelation †Cap. 14. But at last it may be seen apparently that he enclines to believe that Souls have no knowledge of our Prayers and that they are Angels which do Miracles in the name of Saints yea that altho' the Souls of
not exactly understand Nevertheless what your Apologist hath advanced is very rash and very criminal for he supposeth with Monsieur Nicolas Monsieur de Meaux and your other Convertors That all those that live in the Romans Church and which were saved there did partake in all her Superstitions This is false and we are perswaded that an infinite number received Christianity there without taking part in Antichristianity or that they repented of it before their death Because they do not comprehend how this may be done was it not therefore done This is to put bounds to the Divine Power God hath his ways which are known to none but himself Fifthly But I have almost no need of all this that I have said in the present Affair for I declare to you that although all your Ancestours should be saved in the Roman Church whilst they pertook in her Worships although all the honest Papists at this day should be saved nevertheless you would not be in the way of Salvation in the way in which now you are and I will convince you thereof in two words the first is That your own Apologist condemns you Your Father saith he were born and bred up in a Religion and never heard any other Doctrines discoursed on How dare you compare your state to that Although he should have mercy for such persons would he have it for such who have been brought up in the Bosom of Truth who have not forsaken the Faith but only the Profession of it who have subscribed to Errours against their Conscience who adhere to Worships whereof the strong and the weak do know the Filthiness and Impurities I have already said unto you and I do say it over again To act contrary to Conscience hath something so aggravating in an evil action that it makes a moderate Superstition become a kind of Sin against the Holy Ghost You do well perceive this when you go to Mass with such terrible regret and reluctancy it is your Conscience that accuses and condemns you The other circumstance which puts you absolutely out of all condition to compare with your Ancestours is That by your weakness you have ruined the greatest Works of the Grace and Providence of God which hath appeared since the Establishment of Christianity that is to say the Work of Reformation 'T is a thing past doubt that since the death of the Apostles there hath nothing happened so great as this magnificent Work whereby God at one shock did overthrow almost half the Antichristian Empire and very much weakned the other half God is jealous of his Works and he cannot but look with a Soveraign Indignation upon the lapse of those who by their fall runied the late glorious Reformation and who proceeded so far as to blame it and say as you say to us We must not Separate we must tolerate Abuses we must expect the Separation that Jesus Christ will make at the Day of Judgment Oh criminal Imagination We must live in the Dirt and Slime we must not restore to the Church her primitive Beauty we must not disengage the Truth from a hideous Mass of Lyes that do oppress it we must not restore to God that Worship that hath been ravished from him we must not remove from before his eyes so many Idols of Jealousie Have you never no holy Compunction for entertaining such thoughts Do not you perceive that your weakness in suffering yourselves to be led to Mass will ruine the Reformation if God don't bring a speedy Remedy thereunto The Protestants of the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland will have the same Complaisance for their King that you have for yours Popery re-united will confederate against all Protestant States and then behold them speedily tumbling into Superstition by your Principles and by your Conduct So that by following you we shall soon see the fruit of much Blood so many Martyrs and so many glorious Confessions perish and come to nothing If you give attention to this you will no more compare yourselves to those poor miserable Ignorants which went whither they were led who being placed in a night of deep Superstition saw not a beam of better Light which way soever they turned their eyes on one hand they saw behind them a multitude of Ages corrupt as their own a Corruption which came by so long a descent to them that it appeared a natural state on the other hand they saw before them an Authority which swallowed them up a Clergy Magnificent Powerful Tyrannical Numerous rich and abounding in Spiritual and Temporal Thunders all this amazed them in such a manner that they could not distinguish the state in which they were We do not think them savable in this state but we think you far less so in the estate in which you are God by a blow from Heaven the most miraculous that ever was seen hath broken this dismal Charm he hath thundred he hath lightned from Heaven and dispersed this Darkness See whether you who have been Partakers of this Heavenly Light be in an estate to flatter yourselves with a Tolleration which God might have for your Ancestours so then if you gain any thing by your reasonings it will not be for you but for your Children for 't is of them concerning whom we may say it seems they were born in that Religion they were educated therein 't is probable God will save them although they do communicate in a Worship Impure and full of Superstitions But in truth you gain nothing either for your Children or yourselves The past time will return no more the times of Darkness and Ignorance may indeed return but the times of Tolleration and Sufferance will never return again That which is done can never be undone The Light of the Reformation hath cast abroad a very great Lustre and although at this day men endeavour to stifle it the memory thereof will never be extinguished and the Truth which we have set in so great a light can never be abolished For which reason both we and our Posterity in all following Ages are obliged to see follow and entertain this Light If we do otherwise there will be neither Excuse nor Illusion which will be able to save us out of the hands of the Judge of the World. IN the preceding Letter we sent you some News from Languedoc Behold a Letter that will tell you more we will give it you without any change or mutation You have heard of the Death of Monsieur de Cross Monsieur Brousson had bailed him seeing him sick in the Vessel which was to carry him with others into America He was an Example without Equal The Bishop of Marseilles told him Monsieur If your Religion be true I must confess that you are a Saint Let him die in his Religion and be buried in a Dormitory of the Turks He had not the grief to understand the death of his youngest Daughter who had been carried some little time since from the
a simple Historian in the 208th Page of the second Part of my Colection That this Father knowing what had been his first Employment counselled him to explain that Greek of Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is expressed by another Proverb Let not the Shooemaker go beyond his Last Nevertheless Monsieur Soulier fears not to advance by the blackest Calumnie which can be imagined in the 678th Page of his Book That I have exceeded in that which is most gross what all the Protestant Writers have published against him Where is Faith where is Conscience The Father Mesnier which I have transcribed in the Chapter concerning Monsieur Soulier doing him the same favour in a multitude of heads wherein he is accused by this Father Is he a Protestant I could sooner have pardoned him if he had only dissembled that the Father Mesnier is the Author of the Evil which I have done him Dogs bite the Staff wherewithal we strike them But that he makes me the Eccho of the Protestants in the contempt which they put upon him when I plaid the good Husband in what concerned his Reputation by treating him less ill than those of our Religion which know him better than I this is that which cannot be endured I do nevertheless affirm Monsieur that I find my self all at once disarmed when I think that there is nothing of Merit or Honour to be gotten by such an Adversary He boasts at this day that he hath studied the business of Edicts thirty Years and in his Work of 1681 he confesses as Father Mesnier reproaches to him that he had never seen those that Henry the Fourth had granted to the Cities of the League whereof nevertheless he was willing to make use against the Syndicks and the Censors of the Diocess of the Kingdom Who will not despise an Adversary which proves that I have not the least knowledge of the Affairs of those of the Protestant Reformed Religion because I have quoted a National Synod held at Loudun And to maintain this false Accusation he says Page the 681 of his Book That if I had only read the first leaf of the Ecclesiastical Discipline of those of the Reformed Religion I should have found in the Table of the National Synods of those of that Religion that there war never any held at Loudun For if there were never any held at Loudun why did he write in the 63 Page of his New Bernard this which follows in express terms The twelfth Article of the National Synod held at Loudun the 5th of April 1596 c This was pitty but there is more in the case This Doctor in point of Tables of Books this man conversant in the matter of Edicts for these thirty Years knows not that in the Year 1659 there was a National Synod of those of the Reformed Protestant Religion held at Loudun by the permission of his Majesty A man is therefore Ignorant according to this unlearned Author because he knows that which is arid is not ignorant of it or because he doth not fain himself ignorant thereof as he doth After this is he to be believed when he says I have transcribed or copied him My Work contains 800 Pages and he accuses me to have Abridged the biggest and the most considerable of his Books in the fifteen first Never was falshood published with so little colour I make the Publick Judge thereof and if I have any thing wherewith to reproach myself it will be that I was not willing to see the faults of his Works that I might not be obliged to reprove them I have said for example in the twelfth Page of my Work that Peter Mengin was burnt at Meaux with thirteen of his Companions by a Decree of the Parliament of Paris he says in the ninth Page of his History of Edicts of Pacification that he was burnt with fourteen of his Companions which is contrary to the Decree which takes notice of no more but thirteen and those mentioned by their Names and Sirnames I could produce a hundred faults of like nature but to what good purpose would It be An Author like him who fears not to give the Lie to the Clergy of France and to some of its illustrious Members bears so visible a Character of Malice in the opinion of all honest men that if they would pray for him it is that the Clergy might double his Pension to put him to sitlence Behold the proof of what I affirm Authors of the Reformed Protestant Religion having maintained in their Works that the Edict of Nantes was granted to their Fathers as an acknowledgment of the Service they had done for the State Monsieur Soulier in his History of Calvinism says That it was the strangest Paradox that ever was published it being not true that they had obtained this Edict by their Services Nevertheless the General Assembly of France held at Paris in the Years 1655 and 1656 in a Session where Cardinal Mazarine sat President did acknowledge that King Henry the Fourth coming out of the bosom of Heresie * * Page 152 of the Verbal Process of this Assembly and being willing to acknowledge the Services which had been done him by those of that Party granted them the Edict of Nantes And the late Monsieur de Perefixe ††History of Henry the Great p. 223. of the Paris Edition in 1662. Archbishop of Paris speaks of him in these words Henry the Fourth with all his Prudence had scarce enough to govern himself in such manner that the Catholicks and the Pope might be content with his Conduct and that the Hugenots might have no cause of Fear or Division his Duty and Conscience inclined him to the assistance of the former but Reason of State and the great Obligations he had to the latter would not permit him to make them desperate Therefore to keep a necessary temperament he granted them an Edict larger than those which went before which is called the Edict of Nantes After this Monsieur will you not think me dispensed withal for answering more at large to the Dreams and Dotages of Monsieur Soulier 'T was six Years since that Father Mesnier reproacht to him That he understood not Latine and that he had scarce wit enough to Write and Read He ought at least to have applied himself thereto sine that time but he hath neglected to do it and labours himself to revive the old French Proverb 'T is a brave thing for a Priest to know how to Read and Write Behold some proofs thereof He writes in Page the 632 of his last Book Je plaidè ces affaires it ought to have been written Je plaidai at the 678 J ' y âjoutè j'en donnè instead of saying J ' y ajoutai j'en donnai the same place he hath written Plagieres instead of Plagiaires you will find a hundred of this kind But behold enough to justifie me against so feeble an Enemy Let him write till Dooms-day
profess it But there is in this place one circumstance so evident to convince these Villains of their Knavery that a man cannot escape the sight thereof The Minister Vignier died in the year 1666 as Soulier himself says Why did he when he was about to die give this Act of Montpazier as a thing in trust To what could this Act serve It was seven years since that this pretended Conspiracy with the English was made the Affairs of England had intirely changed their face the King was restored and at War with the Hollanders every one knows he was so far from entring Leagues in favour of the Protestants that on the contrary he rather engaged against them There was not a man living in the World upon whom they could cast their eyes to accomplish the Conspiracy but Cromewell or the Parliamentarians this Piece therefore was absolutely on one hand of no use and on the other hand 't was capable of destroying an infinite number of single persons and the whole intire Body of the Reformed in France Monsieur Vignier therefore when he was dying lost his Understanding and Charity itself to be willing to preserve a Paper which was good for nothing but to destroy his Brethren a Piece which ought to have been burnt and which he should have burnt when he was dying The father we look into this thing the more we find that these Villains were smitten with a Spirit of Blindness in all the circumstances of their Fiction As to the Bishop of Agen he was a Court Bishop which had always a thousand good reasons to continue at Paris about the Affairs of his Diocess I have had a long time in my hands a Letter of Monsieur the Procurator-General who appointed him in the name of the King in a manner very rough and harsh speedily to put an end to his Non residence and to return to his Diocess whither he went very seldom These sort of men are always at watch that they may have something to produce which may make them stay at the Court where they are willing to be that they may be always ready to hunt after a Benefice greater than their own As to Monsieur de Quesne Vicar-General to the Bishop of Condom we know him not he may say true and yet all that we have said receive no blemish nor disadvantage thereby he might really receive the Piece from Mounier a revolted Minister Mounier might be the man that forget it And that which I find most probable is that Soulier and Mounier are the two Authors of it Soulier was at the Synod of Montpazier he rejoyces to produce an Affair which passed there in a Synod where he was Mounier principal Author of the Falshood might furnish the Names he inserted that of Durel as a person proper to Negotiate with the English Soulier who knew not Monsieur Durel reading over the Act forged between them read Daret And 't is probable that 't was he who made him Assistant-Moderator at the foot of the Act for Mounier would never have committed so gross a fault Soulier had a Conference with Monsieur Asimont the Missionaries above all those of the parts and strength of Soulier who knew neither Divinity nor Language receive nothing but confusion from those Conferences and they always carry a mortal hatred against the Ministers that do confound them with design to revenge themselves at any rate Monsieur Asimont had been really Secretary to draw up the Acts of the Synod of Montpazier for which reason this Synod was to be chosen rather than another that the Minister Asimont might be chastised for the trouble which he had put this Missonary to in the Conference This Act was put into the hands of the King the King delivered it to Monsieur Chasteau-neuf Neither the one nor the other made any account of it because Monsieur Chasteau-neuf who had the true Acts of Montpazier saw no conformity betwixt them neither in the Commissary nor in the Assistant besides that the Piece bore many other Characters of Falshood Nevertheless it is kept in the Office as they keep a thousand and a thousand false Pieces in such places For example the Chests of the Evidences of Abbies are inexhaustible Fountains of forged Pieces Monsieur de Launoy hath given us notice thereof some-where on the subject of the Abby of Saint Dennis by reason of the Pieces which Doublet hath produced in his History of Saint Dennis And saving the respect which is due to the King and his Library 't is full of false Manuscripts For example the Jesuite Mesnier the Priest Soulier and Doctor le Feure do say that they have drawn from that Library the Secret Articles of the Edict of 1577 in one of which 't is said The King permits to the Prince of Condy the Exercise of Religion in his House upon the Loire yea although he himself were absent Nevertheless 't is certain that there never was in the House of Monsieur the Prince any Land which bore the name de la Ferte upon Loire and that there is not any City or Village of this name upon the Loire from its Fountain till it enters the Sea. Let this be observed by the by That we may know what account we ought to make of the Manuscripts of the King's Library which Soulier quotes so often Men throw into these Repositories all Pieces that go up and down whether they be true or false the true fifty Years hence will be so confounded with the false that nothing will be certainly known Fifty Years hence the Act of Montpazier well kept in the Office of Monsieur Chasteau-neuf will be as good as if it were true Behold how things go If the Son of the Minister Mounier at present Canon of Tarbies be troubled that we make such a Knave of his Father he ought not to accuse us who do not make men but take them as they are As to the Letter which he hath written for the Justification of his Father 't is evident that 't is worse than nothing in the present Affair his Testimony is of no weight and henceforth 't will be his interest to retract it unless he will have his Father pass for the most profligate of all Men. For if it be true as he would have it be believed that his Father put this Piece into the hands of Monsieur de Quesne 't is unavoidable that he was the Forger of it it being certain as we have proved it that the Piece is false and that he could not receive it from Monsieur Vignier So that 't is no officious Lye in favour of his Father 't is an Act the most wounding to his Reputation that could be produced against him We will stop here because we have impos'd a necessity upon ourselves to speak nothing but of the Act of the Synod of Montpazier for which reason we will not refute all the Calumnies of Soulier nor repel all the Injuries which he speaks in every Page against
Paulinus that this leud saying hath taken its original That Images are the Books of the Ignorant 4. The fourth thing to which you ought to give attention is That then they did not set in Churches any Figure Image or Statue of a single person but Historical Representations in large Tables where many persons and many actions were represented This makes almost an infinite difference for it never entred into the mind of Man that Historical Tables whereon were some times represented the Devil tempting Jesus Christ oftentimes Hang-men pblucking off the flesh of a Martyr with Pincers were placed there for Worship For so men would Worship the Devil as well as Jesus Christ and the Hangmen as well as the Martyr Indeed when the Idolatry of Images was brought into the Church 't was by Pictures or Statues which represented but one or two of the Saints Now 't is certain say I that about the end of the fourth Age those which gave themselves liberty of introducing Images into Churches placed nothing there but Historical Pictures and Tables To prove the contrary to you they may produce a passage of Gregory Nazianzen where he complains of this That some would destroy the City of Diocesarea raze the Temples and pull down the Statues thereof * Epist ad Olympium Our greatest grief says he is not that the Statues are pluckt down although that be troublesome too Because immediately before he was speaking of the Ruine of Temples some it may be will serve themselves of that to perswade you that Statues were in their Temples But that is false and 't is certain that he speaks of Statues which were in their publick places Our grief is says he that with the Statues they pull down and destroy an ancient City And to the end that you may not be able to delude your selves thereby be advertised That the Greeks would never suffer Statues in their Churches and that yet to this day they Adore nothing but Images or plain and flat Pictures and by a humour sufficiently pleasant they accuse the Latines of being Idolators because they Adore Statues As if their Images of Mosaick Work were much more worthy of Adoration than Embossed Figures However it be this demonstrates that Gregory Nazianzen could not speak of Statues which were in Churches 5. To conclude the last thing whereof you are to be advertised about the Original of Images is That in the time that this mischeivous Custom of putting Images in Churches began in some places the good Bishops opposed themselves thereto with Zeal and treated it as an Abomination It were convenient that you should read thereon a passage of Epiphanius Bishop of Salamina in Cyprus who lived about the year 375 that is to say exactly in the same time that Gregory Nissen suffered Pictures in the Churches of Cappadocia I came one day says Epiphanius into a Village which is called Anablata 't was a Village in Palestine * Epiphan in Epist ad Joh. Jerus having seen there as I passed by a burning Lamp I enquired what place it was I learnt that it was a Church and being entred there to Pray I found on the Door of the Church a died Vail hanging there having an Image painted on it as it were of Christ or some Saint for I do not remember in good truth whose Image it was having therefore seen that contrary to the Authority of the Scripture they had hung the Image of a Man in the Church I rent the Vail and advised the Sexton of the place to employ it rather to wrap up the body of some poor dead person to carry him to his Grave John Patriarch of Jerusalem took it ill that Epiphanius had attempted such an Action in a Diocess where he had no Jurisdiction but he did not condemn the Action in itself This passage is without reply and your Seducers will never have any thing to answer to it It appears that the use of introducing Images into Churches was so rare and so little received that he which undertook to put one in the Church of Anablata did not dare to put it any farther then the Door At this day men have the insolence to set them upon Altars And even Epiphanius a little while before in the Church where this Image was lookt upon the attempt as the Violation of the Law although it were even the Image of Jesus Christ for he supposes it might be the Image of our Lord nevertheless he made not the least scruple to rend it and hated not the attempt ever the less Notwithstanding 't is very probable that after St. Epiphanius the Custom of so placing Pictures and Tables in the Churches of the Martyrs did continue and increase The People which naturally fall into Superstition did not tarry long ere they abused those Images which were placed for them in the Sepulchres of the Martyrs 't is from the People that the Worship of Images came as well as the Invocation of Saints that could not stay long after this for when they adored men which might be painted 't is natural to make Images of them So St. Austine learns us that in his time the Invocation of Saints passing from the People to the Pastors the People running much father began to Adore the Pictures of the Martyrs But behold how he speaks of it The Manichees heaped together all the popular Superstitions and all the Actions of private Persons to make Crimes of them against the Church and upon that St. Austine tells them * Lib. 1. de-Moribus Eccl. c. 34. Do not collect those who making profession of being Christians have nothing which answers to their Profession do not joyn yourself to the croud of ignorant People who being on the side of true Religion are superstitious c. I know there are many which Worship Pictures and Sepulchres Unto the middle of the fifth Age nevertheless few Images were seen in Churches after the year 450 many of them were seen there 'T was not only those of the Martyrs that were placed there they put also those of the Bishops in the Churches of their Diocesses The Image of Thomas Bishop of Apamea was set on the top of the Church †Evag. lib. 4. cap. 26. Theodorus Lector tells us That in the Reign of Anastatius * Lib. 2. Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople caused his Images to be set in Churches and that Timothy who was put in his place some time after would not perform Divine Offices in any Church before he had caused the Images of Macedonius to be removed It cannot be imagined these Images were set there for Adoration for no man makes his own Images to be adored But that in the fourth and fifth Ages men did not give any Religious Worship to Images by the publick Authority and Approbation of the Pastors is a truth which cannot be disputed by those who have any remains of Conscience and Honour This appears by the Testimonies of Authors of that time
double Adultery against Christ Jesus These are pitiful Declamations according to my apprehension To judge of the nature of these Actions we must know what were the Principles of those who did them Why should they observe Celibacy since they lookt upon it as a Yoak of which they desired to deliver the Clergy because it had produced a world of Impurities and Abominations so that a Deluge was not capable of purging them They have broken their Vows They were unlawful Vows made under a tyrannical Empire conceived in a false Religion unacceptable to God because they served as a Vail to an infinite number of Corruptions and at the same time to a debaucht and hypocritical life They forsook Babylon and it behoved them to forsake all the Badges thereof This kind of life which under an appearance of Piety hides such great Disorders is the true Character of the Beast These Monks are those Hypocrites whose Consciences are seared as with a hot Iron forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from Meats which God hath permitted which teach a Doctrine of Devils and serve as a Support to the Throne of the Beast So that these Reformers being delivered from the tyrannical Yoak of this unhappy Empire ought to return to the enjoyment of all their Rights and of all their Liberty and being put in the possession of it they may and ought to use it There needs but one thing to confound all these Calumniators who are willing to stain and blacken the Lives of the Authors of our Reformation What have these Reformers gained what have they gotten to do the work of Impostors Have they gained Riches Honours or great Dignities Have they left great Houses have they left Heirs and Children that were great Lords Never did persons despise their own Interests more than they did they never got wherewithal to be buried decently and scarcely got wherewith to live Their Zeal Firmness Constancy and Perseverance joyned with a contempt of their own Interest make up a Character very opposite to that of dishonest men If they had been debauched effeminate Lovers of Pleasure why did they go out of the Body of the Roman Clergy who enjoyed all the pleasures of the flesh even those which were most infamous with so much convenience and advantage These Gentlemen say that the principal reason which gave such success to the New Gospel was the licentiousness of the Church-men and the Monks of that Age. This is it which that same Lady does confess who makes the ill Conversation of the Authors of our Separation one cause of her return to the Church of Rome But this Confession and this Truth which is publickly known doth it not utterly ruine the Accusation which the Papists make against our Reformers Is there any probability that the great number of people which forsook the Roman Church being scandalized by the wicked Lives of its Guides should list themselves under the Ensigns of other wicked persons which were no better than those they had forsaken If they were not vicious and debaucht at least say they they were fierce proud Lovers of themselves passionate ambitious vain and violent These are stroaks striken in the Air and Accusations which make it evident they have nothing to say Concerning Ambition there doth not appear any footstep thereof in their Conversation And that which they call Pride and Fierceness is according to us Zeal and Vigour in the maintenance of Truth as we shall make it appear in examining the third Accusation The third Accusation is that it 's evident the Authors of our Separation were inspired with a dark Malignity against the Roman Church they vomited out against her say they flouds of Injuries and every-where is to be seen a Character of black Gholer which discharges it self both upon their Persons and Religion They support and strengthen this Accusation by the Confession of some Protestants who were of another frame and temper of mind and did not approve those methods of proceedure that were so full of flame and fire I answer That Grace which changes mens Manners does not change their Temper and Constitution but governs and serves it self thereof Although it should be true that there appeared a great deal of fire in the Authors of our Reformation that would be no sufficient cause to condemn them it being the temper of all Great men And this temper is of so great necessity for the execution of great things that without it 't is very difficult to carry on and prosecute great Designs and Enterprizes This is a thing unto which those men have too little regard which at this day do so highly commend and advance the Elogies of sweetness and moderation in Controversies and who perswade us to imitate other Great men who are of a quite contrary Character and temper of Mind If these honest men of this last Order that is to say these soft and moderate men had been born in the past Age and had been engaged in that great Work they had neither maintained nor carried it so far as did those men the heat of whose Temper they would fain make a Crime If Luther had not had a heart fearless and of inconceivable courage he had never been able to bear up against the Torrent of Contradictions and Oppositions that he met withal and repelled Father Paul the famous Venetian Divine who became famous on occasion of the Affair of the Interdict of that Republick knew assuredly the Corruption of the Roman Church at least as well as Luther He made no secret of it no eminent Protestant passed by Venice to whom he did not discover himself concerning it They often represented to him that he was obliged in Conscience to break with a Church the Impurity and Idolatry whereof he so well understood He had a thousand Reasons to offer on his own behalf sometimes that he separated the good from the bad sometimes that he was of use to a thousand persons that lay hid and had good sentiments at last when he was pressed hard he would say that God had not given to him the Heart and Spirit of Luther It is certain that if Father Paul had been of the Temper and Spirit of Luther Venice had been at this day what Geneva is And it is also certain that if Luther Zuinglius and Calvin had been of the Temper and Spirit of Father Paul all Europe had been yet what Venice is at this day It behoves us therefore to admire the great and profound Wisdom of God who chose for so great a Work men whose Temper was fit to maintain improve and exercise Zeal effectually To this Consideration add another the Authors of our Reformation have indeed spoken ill of the Church of Rome of its Priests of its High-Priest of its Monks and its Guides And why might they not speak ill of them I do maintain that they said nothing but what was true they could scarcely speak too much ill of Popery They said that the Church
all to awaken mens minds to oblige them to give attention to Truth Mr. Nicholas to the Miracles and Prodigies of Sanctity of the Ancients which make the Church of Rome according to him visible joyns also the Sanctity of the present Church of Rome her Reformed Orders her great Men the Nuns de Trap c. and concludes That although a man should have regard to nothing but the Sanctity of the Manners of the Church of Rome she is even thereby distinguished from all other Societies and that she hath in persons of eminent Piety sensible Characters of the Spirit of God which will animate and inspire her to the end of the World. Mr. Nicholas speaking of all preceding Ages did always joyn Miracles with Sanctity At present he lays by Miracles and why is this He well knows his Church pretends as yet to have the Gift of Miracles And there is not a place eminent for Devotion as are the famous Ladies of Arsillieres of Montferrat of Loretto where they do not pretend to see Miracles The Father de Aviano ran all the World over to make it evident that the Gift of Miracles did not dye with the Apostles He dares not produce to us that as a Light he perceives very well that all these Miracles are suspected Plainly he himself hath not much Faith for them And so by this silence Mr. Nicholas doth tacitly consent that at this day the Roman Church doth no Miracles If it be so I would very willingly know why the Roman Church worke no more Miracles at this day when she had never more need thereof to convert so many ill converted Hereticks and which cry out so loudly of the Violence which they have suffered by the sending of the Dragoons The Miracles whereof they tell us as done at present may very well be Juggles or Fables according to what Mr. Nicholas lets us think by saying nothing of them for what reason may not all those of the Ages past for seven or eight hundred years particularly be very well also accounted Impostures These Miracles of the Church of Rome and of Popery do very well deserve that we should make larger Reflections on them and an occasion thereof will be presented to us elsewhere But in the mean while I pray give attention to this It is if they reckon the Miracles which are found in the Legends from the fifth Age wrought expresly to support the Invocation of Saints Adoration of Reliques Worship of Images and of Purgatory it will be found that God hath wrought without Hyperbole a thousand times more Miracles for the establishment of these false Doctrines these wicked Worships than he hath wrought to confirm the Christian Religion We have told you long since that a Monk for his part raised two and fifty dead persons and others in proportion Now judge if it were probable that these new Doctrines supposing they were true should be so important that to confirm them God should work a thousand and a thousand times more wonders than he hath wrought to establish the Faith of the greatest Mysteries of the Christian Religion As to the Article of the Holiness of the Church of Rome at this day whereof Mr. Nicholas and Mr. Arnold make an evidence for her I can destroy it by making appear the enormous Corruptions which are yet seen in her most considerable parts of Spain and Italy I can prove the disorders of her Clergy and of her Monks I can prove that these prodigious Austerities which they produce to us as the effects of the Spirit of God are but the effects of the Spirit of Hypocrisie or Fanaticism But to the end that I may not trouble those that pride themselves of the Virtue and Piety in the Roman Church I will say that if there be Piety in some of the Members of that Church they owe it not to Popery and Antichristianism but to the remainders of Christianity which continue in that Communion I come to the third Light by which Mr. Nicholas would make the Church visible It is the Holy Scripture To conclude behold him come to the only place from whence the true Light can be drawn It is false saith he that this Author hath believed that the point concerning the Church cannot be proved by the Scriptures and that the proofs are not accommodated to the capacity of the Vulgar We have shewn Mr. Nicholas how much there is of Absurdity in what he says here that a man may prove the point concerning the Church by the Scripture after a manner that is fitted to the capacity of the Vulgar and yet we know not how to prove the other Articles of Faith which are controverted after the same manner It hath been made evident that the Controversie concerning the Church is the most difficult of all It hath been represented to him that to deside this Controversie by the Scripture according to the method which he hath imployed against us it is necessary that an ignorant man should be able to compare the Translations with the Originals and by consequence that he should understand Greek and Hebrew that he may be able to read the Commentaries of the Ancients and the Moderns and by consequence that he should be able to understand Latine All this is as necessary to determine one single Controversie as to determine a hundred We have proved unto him that it is false to say that a man may very well prove by Scripture the Soveraign Authority of the Church but that he cannot prove thereby the Trinity or Incarnation and on that subject he is reduced to an eternal silence For which reason we shall not press him farther on an Article which he grants us by his silence But it is necessary to acquaint you that his Affirmation is intirely false and rash viz. That the Holy Scripture furnishes sufficient Light to the Vulgar to make them see that the Roman Church is the true Church Either these Gentlemen mean that by the Scripture they can easily prove that there ought to be always a visible and infallible Church upon Earth or they mean that the Holy Scripture shews with its finger the Church of Rome and makes it known for the true Church to the Exclusion of all other Sects of Christians or to conclude they mean the Holy Scripture forms a Light to make the Roman Church visible because it contains includes and teaches all the Doctrines and Worship which this Church doth authorize and command As to the first sence although it should be true Popery would gain nothing thereby although they should prove even by the Scripture that there ought always to be a visible and infallible Church upon Earth this would not prove that this must be the Church of Rome For the Greek Church pretends to be that Church which is built upon the rock and against which the gates of hell cannot prevail to the exclusion of the Latine Church and 't is that in which we ought to observe the perpetual Illusion
of the Roman Doctors They oppress you with Sophisms to convince you that there ought to be a Judge an infallible Interpreter of Scripture a Church that cannot err Answer them in one word Although all this which you say should be true it would be no advantage to you we must seek this Church and this infallible Interpreter elsewhere for 't is certain you have erred I come to the second sence viz. That the Scripture makes a Light which renders the Church visible because it shews with the Finger the Roman Church as the true Church to the exclusion of all others Now this is a Falshood sensible to all the World the Holy Scripture speaks not one word of the Church of Rome or of her Infallibility 'T is true there is an Epistle addressed to the Church of Rome but St. Paul so little thought of her as infallible that he speaks to her as a Church that would fall or at least as one that might be cut off from the true Olive and from the root of Jesus Christ There remains only the third sence in which your Converters can say that the Scripture forms a Light which makes the Church of Rome visible 'T is that the Doctrine of the Scripture is found perfectly conformable to that of the Church of Rome That is it which they must say if they will say any thing that is solid for the truth is that there is not any mark of the Church but this viz. Her conformity to the Holy Scripture Let alone therefore all this pretended heap of Marks of the Church which are either false or equivocal and keep you close to this alone Tell your Converters if you will make your Church visible to me let me see it conformable to the Scripture and 't is there you will reduce them to Extremities 'T is here that we have an evident proof that Popery is an Antichristian Religion Behold a proof to which all the subtilty of Hell can never oppose any thing we say then every Society and every Religion which hath nothing conformable with the Law of Jesus Christ is not the true Religion now Popery hath nothing conformable to the Law of Jesus Christ therefore it hath nothing of Christianity I intreat you to give attention to this If a Sect of the Turks calling themselves Mahometans had nothing among them like to the Alcoran which is the Law of Mahomet would you not tell them that they lie If the Jews calling themselves Jews should re-establish a Worship which hath nothing like the Worship prescribed by Moses would any one endure that they should say they were of the Religion of Moses Every Religion hath its Books and every Sect to shew that 't is of such a Religion ought to prove its conformity with those Books Common sence say thus If therefore Popery have nothing at all like the Writings of Christians 't is clear that 't is not Christianity Now this is it which we take for granted and which we are ready to prove before all sorts of Judges even Jews and Pagans viz. That Popery hath no conformity with the Scripture which is the common Law of Christians To be convinced of this my Brethren first separate Christianity from Popery in the Roman Church and don 't suffer yourselves to be blinded by what your Converters say unto you Are not we Christians Do we not believe one God in three Persons one Jesus crucified for the sins of men one Resurrection one Paradise and one Hell Does not the Scripture teach all this Is not our Religion therefore conformable to Revelation Answer them thereon Yea you are Christians in all that you believe with us but you are Antichristians in that wherein you believe without us These points whereof you speak are in the Scripture 't is true but 't is my Religion rather than yours 't is Christianity whereof 't is true I acknowledge you have preserved the Fundamentals But this makes nothing for your Religion which is Popery it makes nothing for Purgatory Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images and Reliques the Sacrifice of the Mass the Adoration of the Sacrament the Latine Tongue in the Worship of God a Communion without the Cup a Head of the Church besides Jesus Christ Behold Popery and 't is that which we maintain hath no conformity with the Scripture Indeed when your Converters will prove their Doctrines by the Scripture it seems they have renounced common Sence as well as Faith and Honesty To understand this there is no need to examine any Books of Controversie as they would fain perswade you there needs no more but eyes to open and read them For Example When they endeavour to prove the Pope is the Soveraign Head of the Church the Center of Unity the Mouth that utters Oracles and him to whom we must adhere if we will be saved and they produce to us for the whole proof these words Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not feed my sheep When say I they produce this and produce nothing else to prove the most important point of Popery which is the Authority of the Pope I do maintain that he must be stricken with a Spirit of Blockishness to regard it as proof He must I dare say be abandoned to a Spirit of Reprobation to suppose that the Scripture that tells us of Pastors and Teachers as Guides of the Church should not speak one word of this great Office of Pope and Soveraign Pastor When for the Sacrifice of the Mass propitiatory for the living and the dead they produce to us as proof from the holy Scriptures these Texts Melchizedeck offered bread and wine they shall offer to my Name a pure sacrifice from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same Soveraign wisdom hath prepared her victuals and mingled her wine We have an Altar of which they have no right to partake which serve the Tabernacle Do this in remembrance of me When say I they produce these passages for the intire proof of the Sacrifice of the Mass are you not tempted to believe they do not speak in good earnest for nothing seems more opposite to sound sense To prove that we must invocate Saints they refer us to those words of Jacob The Angel which delivered me from all evil keep the lads and those of Eliphaz to Job And to which of the Saints wilt thou turn thy self that is to say of the Saints which are upon Earth and those of Daniel Have mercy upon Israel for the sake of Abraham Isaac and Jacob. To prove that we must prostrate our selves before Images and worship Reliques they produce those words of God to Moses Pluck off thy shoes for the place where thou standest is holy ground and those of David Worship before his footstool and those of St. Paul to Timothy From thy childhood thou hast learnt the holy Scriptures Here is nothing to be laught at