the discipline of the pretended reform'd Religion under the title of Consistories Art 31. that going about to prescribe a means to end debates which might arise upon any point of Doctrine or Discipline c. they ordain first the Consistory shall endeavour to appease the whole without noise and with all the sweetness of the word of God and after having established a Consistory a Conference and a Provincial Synod as so many different degrees of Jurisdiction coming at last to a National Synod above which amongst them there is no Authority they speak of it in these terms There the entire and final resolution shall be given by the word of God to which if they refuse to acquiesce in every point and with an express disavowing of their errours they shall be cut off from the Church It is manifest those of the pretended Reformation do not attribute the authority of this last sentence to the word of God taken in it self and without dependence upon the authority of the Church for tho this word was made use of in their first Judgements yet notwithstanding they permitted an appeal It is then this word as interpreted by the soveragin tribunal of the Church which gives this final resolution to which whosoever refuses to submit in every point altho he boast he is authorized by the word of God is no more reputed but as a prosane person who corrupts and abuses it But the form of those Letters of deputation which were addres'd to the Synod of Vitre in the year 1617 to be observed by the Provinces when they were to send their Deputies to a National Synod has yet something more express it is in these terms We promise before God to submit our selves to all that shall be concluded and resolved of in your holy Assemblis to obey them and put them in execution to our utmost power being persuaded as we are that God will preside in it and lead you by his holy spirit into all Truth and equity by the rule of his word Here the point is not about receiving the resolution of a Synod after they have found it to speak according to Scripture they submit to it even before it is assembled and they do it because they are persuaded the Holy Ghost will preside in it If this persuasion be only founded upon a human presumption can a man in conscience promise before God to submit to all that shall be there concluded and resolved of to obey and execute them to the utmost of his power And if this Persuasion has its foundation in a certain belief of the assistance which the Holy Ghost gives to the Church in her final decisions Catholics themselves require no more So that the proceedings of our Adversaries shew them to agree with us in this supreme Authority without which it is impossible ever to put an end to any difficulty in Religion and tho whilst they were desirous to cast of the yoak of obedience they denied the Faithful to be obliged to submit their Judgments to that of the Church yet the necessity of establishing an order has since forced them to grant what their first undertakings had made them deny They have gone yet much further in the National Synod held at Saint Foy in the year 1578. There was some overture made of a Reconcilement with the Lutherans by means of a general form of a profession of Faith common to all their Churches which was proposed to be drawn up Those of this Kingdom were invited to send to an Assembly which was to be held upon this account Vertuous persons authorised by all the said Churches with an ample Procuration TO TREAT AGREE UPON AND DECIDE ALL POINTS OF DOCTRINE and other matters concerning that union Upon this Proposall see in that terms the resolution of the Synod of St. Foy was couched The National Synod of this Kingdom after having given God thanks for such an overture and commended the care diligence and good advice of the forementioned persons convocated and APPROVING THE REMLDIES WHICH THEY HAVE SUGGESTED that is to say principally that of framing a new Confession of Faith and to give power to some certain persons to compose it has ordained That if the copy of the above named Confession of Faith be sent in time it shall be examined in each Provincial Synod or otherwise according to the convenience of each Province and in the mean time has deputed four Min sters the most experienced in those affairs to whom express charge has been given to be present at the place and day appointed with the Letters and full Procurations of all the Ministers and Elders Deputies of the Provinces of this Kingdom as also of the Lord Viscount Turenne to do all things above said yea even incase that MEANS COULD NOT BE FOUND OUT TO EXAMINE IN EVERY PROVINCE THE SAID CONFESSION it should be referred to their prudence and sound judgement to agree and CONCLUDE all the points which shall be brought into deliberation as well FOR DOCTRINE as for other matters concerning the benefit union and peace of all the Churches It was to this in fine that this seeming tenderness of Conscience of these pretended Reformes tended How often have they reproched to us as a weakness that submission which we pay to the Decisions of the Church which say they is nothing else but a company of men lyable to error and yet nevertheless being assembled in a Body in a National Synod which represented all the Churches of the pretended Reformed in France they are not afraid by mutual consent to leave their faith to the arbitration of four men with so absolute an abandoning of their own sentiments that they gave them full power to change the very Confession of Faith it self which they do at this very day propose to the whole Christian world as a Confession of Faith which containeth nothing but the pure Word of God and for which as they said in presenting it to our Kings an infinite number of people were ready to shed their Blood I leave the prudent Reader to make his reflections upon the Decree of this Synod and shall in a few words finish the Explication of the Churches Tenets SECT XXI The Authority of the Holy See of Rome and of Episcopacy THE Son of God being desirous his Church should be one and and solidly built upon Unity hath established and instituted the Primacy of St. Peter to maintain and cement it Upon which account we acknowledg this Primacy in the Successors of the Prince of the Apostles to whom for this cause we owe that Obedience and Submission which the Holy Councils and Fathers have always taught the faithful As for those things which we know are disputed of in the Schools tho the Ministers continually alledg them to render this Power odious it is not necessary we speak of them here seeing they are not Articles of the Catholic Faith It is sufficient we acknowledg a Head established by God to conduct his whole
we have spoken come not from any defect in the payment but from a certain order which he has established to retain us in a saving discipline by just apprehensions But if they also tell us we believe we can of our own selves satisfy for some part of the pain due to our sins we can with confidence assure them the contrary appears by the maxims we have established Which maxims make it clearly appear that our Salvation is no other but a work of Mercy and Grace that what we do by the Grace of God is no less his work then what he dos alone by his absolute power and lastly that what we give to him appertains no less to him that what he gives to us To which we must add that what we call Satisfaction following the Example of the primitive Church is after all nothing but the application of the infinite satisfaction of JESVS CHRIST This very consideration ought to appease those who are offended when we tell them that God is so well pleased with fraternal charity and the communion of Saints that he frequently also accepts of those Satisfactions which we offer up one for another It seems these men do not conceive how much all we are belongs to God nor how all the favours which his Goodness makes him have for the faithful the members of JESVS CHRIST are necessarily referred to this divine head But certainly those who have read and considered how God himself inspires his servants with a desire to afflict themselves with fasting hair-cloth and ashes not only for their own sins but also for the sins of all the people will not be astonished if we say that being touched with the delight he has to gratify his friends he mercifully accepts of the humble sacrifice of their voluntary mortifications in abatement of those chastisements which he prepared for his people which shows that being satisfied by these he renders himself more mild towards the others by this means honouring his Son JESVS CHRIST in the communion of his members and in the holy society of his mystical body SECT IX The Sacraments THE Order of Doctrine requires that we now speak of the Sacraments by which the merits of JESVS CHRIST are applyed to us Seeing the disputes we have concerning them if we except the Eucharist are not so hot as the others we will in the first place clear in short the cheifest difficuties which are raised concerning the other and reserve the Eucharist which is the most important of all the rest till the last The Sacraments of the new Covenant are not sacred signs only which represent Grace nor seals which confirm it to us but the Instruments of the Holy Ghost which serve to apply it to us and which confer it upon us by vertue of the words which are pronounced and the exteriour action which is performed upon condition that we put not not any Impediment by our not being rightly disposed Whilst God annexes so great Grace to exteriour signs which have not of their own nature any proportion with so admirable an effect he shows us clearly that besides all we can do interiourly of our solves by our good dispositions there must necessarily intervene before we can be justified a special operation of the Holy Ghost and a peculiar application of the merit of our Saviour which is exhibited to us by the Sacraments So that this Doctrine cannot be rejected without injuring the merits of JESVS CHRIST and the operation of his divine power in our regeneration We acknowledg seven sacred signs or Ceremonies established by JESVS CHRIST as the ordinary means for the Sanctification and perfection of the new man Their divine institution appears in the holy Scripture either by the express words of JESVS CHRIST who established them or by the Grace which according to the same Scripture is annexed to them and necessarily shows a divine institution Baptism Seeing little Children cannot supply the want of Baptism by acts of Faith Hope and Charity nor by the vow to receive this Sacrament we believe that if they do not really receive it they do not in any manner partake of the Grace of redemption and therefore dying in Adam they have not any part in JESVS CHRIST It is good to observe here that the Lutherans believe with the Catholic Church the absolute necessity of Baptism and are astonished with her that such a truth should be denied which never any one before Calvin durst openly call in question it was so firmly rooted in the minds of all the faithful Nevertheless the Pretended Reform'd are not apprehensive voluntarily to let their Children dye like the Children of Infidels without bearing any mark of Christianity and without receiving any grace if their deaths should chance to prevent the day of their assembly Confirmation The Imposition of hands practised by the Holy Apostles to confirm the Faithful against Persecutions having its principal effect in the interiour descent of the Holy Ghost Act. 8.15.17 and the infusion of his gifts it ought not to have been rejected by our adversaries under pretence that the Holy Ghost descends now no more visibly upon us Thus all Christian Churches since the Apostles times have religiously retained it making use also of Holy Chrism to shew the vertue of this Sacrament by a more express representation of the interiour unction of the Holy Ghost Penance and Sacramental Confession We believe that JESVS CHRIST has been pleased those who have submitted themselves to the Authority of the Church by Baptism and who have since violated the laws of the Gospel should come and submit themselves to the Judgment of the same Church in the Tribunal of Penance Math. 18.18 John 20.23 where she exercises the power which is given her of remitting and retaining sins The terms of that commission which is given to the Ministers of the Church to absolve from sin are so general they cannot without temerity be restrained to publick sins and seeing when they pronounce that absolution in the name of JESVS CHRIST they only follow the express terms of this Commission the sentence is looked upon as rendred by JESVS CHRIST himself by whom they are established Judges It is this invisible High Priest who interiourly absolves the Penitent whilst the Priest exteriourly exercises the function This Penitential Court of Judicature being so necessary a curb to liberty a source so fruitful of wise admonitions so sensible a consolation for souls afflicted for their Sins when their absolution is not only declared in general terms as it is practised by the Ministers but when they are in reality absolved by the authority of JESVS CHRIST after a particular examination and knowledg of the Case we cannot believe that our adversaries can look upon so many benefits without regretting their loss and without being somewhat ashamed of a Reformation which has cast off so saving and so holy a practise Extream Vnction The Holy Ghost having according to the testimony of St. James
FOR VS No matter for that the Ministers will never believe it They must then raise out of their Catechism and their Confession of Faith these accusations of Idolatry with which they are filled they must retrench in their Sermons so many bloody Invectives which have no other Grounds and this they cannot resolve of and let us make what Declarations we can of our Minds they will neither believe the Council not its Catechism nor our Confession of Faith nor the Bishops nor the Pope himself It is not necessary to repeat here what is said in the Exposition as to other objections Exp. p. 8. and principally as to that where they accuse the Church of attributing to Saints a divine Knowledge and Power whilst she teaches they can neither know nor do any thing of themselves But the accusation of Idolatry has another Foundation which they accuse M. de Condom to have palliated as well as the others And it is the Article concerning Images An. Av. p. 24. where nevertheless he has searched no other Palliations but to expose faithfully the meaning of the Church Rep. p. 65. There needs no more than this to make the very Suspition of Idolatry to vanish according to the Principles of the Pretended Reform'd and they need only in this compare the Doctrine of their own Catechism with that of the Council of Trent represented in the Exposition Their Catechism upon this Commandment Dim 23. Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image Asks whether God forbids the making of any Image And the answer is No but that God forbids only the making of any Image whereby to represent God or to adore it Behold the two things which they think forbidden in this Precept of the Decalogue It may be they will do us the Justice to believe we do not pretend to represent God and that if they see in some Pictures God the Father Painted in that form which he was pleased so often to appear in to his Prophets we pretend no more to derogate from his Invisibile and Spiritual Nature than he himself when he exhibited himself under that form The Council explicates sufficiently to them upon this account Sess 25. that we pretend not thereby to represent or express the Divinity or to give it any Colours and I think I should do them an injury in proceeding to a clearer Proof Let us pass to the second part of their Doctrine and let us learn from their Catechisms what form of Adoration is condemned To Prostrate ones self says the Answer before an Image to pray to it to how the Knee before it or shew some other sign of reverence as if God exhibited himself there to us This is in effect the Errour of the Gentiles and the proper Character of Idolatry But they who believe Expos p. 9 10 11. with the Council That Images have neither Divinity nor Vertue in them for which they ought to be reverenced and who place all the benefit in their recalling the Originals to our remembrance do not believe that God in them exhibits himself to them It is not therefore Idolatry by the consent of the Pretended Reform'd and according to the proper Definition of their Catechism The Anonymus seems to have been sensible of this Truth in that place where objecting this Commandment of the Decalogue he says P. 67. that God forbids to make Images and to worship them He is in the right The words of the Precept are express and the Images there spoken of are those which are forbidden to to be made as well as to be worshiped That is to say according to the explication of his Catechism those which are made to represent God and those which are made to show him present and which are worshipped with the same intention as full of his Divinity We neither make nor suffer any of this nature We do not worship Images God forbid but we make use of Images to put us in mind of the Originals Our Council so odious to the pretended Reform'd Church teaches us no other use of them Is this then enough to make them say as that Church doth in her own Confession of Faith that all sorts of Idolatry are in vogue in the Roman Church Art 28. Is it for this that her Discipline calls us Idolaters and our Religion Idolatry Disc art 11.13 Art 5.2 Without doubt they represent to themselves other things than our Doctrine when they give us the name of Gentiles They believe we follow their abominable Errors and that we believe as they did that God shews himself to us in those Images Had it not been for these mortal Prejudices had it not been for Ideas which they frame to themselves of the sentiments of the Church Christians could never have imagined it so detestable a crime to kiss the Cross in remembrance of him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood nor that so simple and natural a demonstration of those sentiments of tenderness which that Pious Object excites in our hearts ought to make us regarded as if we Adored Baal or the Golden Galves of Samaria During this strange preocupation of the Pretended Reform'd this Treatise of the Exposition might well appear to them which really in effect it did a Book full of Artifice which did nothing but extenuate the Sentiments of Catholicks But now when they see clearly all the Artifice of this Book is to separate the Doctrines which they have imputed to the Church from those which she professes that all the mitigations he makes in Doctrine is that he has taken off that hidious Masque which the Ministers had put upon it let them confess this Church was not worthy of so much horror as they had for her and that at least she deserves to be heard Neither the Pope nor the Sea Apostolick ought to be hereafter accused of diminshing that adoration which is due to God nor that confidence which a Christian ought to establish in his sole goodness through our Lord Jesus Christ since they see without further search this Treatise of the Exposition which is made only to explicate these two Truths has received at Rome and from the Pope himself so Authentick an Approbation After this they will certainly be ashamed of that Title which they give the Pope No one can think on it without horrour nor hear without astonishment that the Pretended Reform'd who boast to follow Scripture word for word when the Apostle St. John who has alone named Antichrist tells us three or four times that Antichrist is he who denies that JESVS CHRIST is come in flesh 2. Joh. 1.7 1 Joh. 2.22.4.3 dare so much as think that he who teaches so fully the Mystery of JESVS CHRIST that is to say his Divinity his Incarnation the superbundance of his Merits the necessity of his Grace and that absolute confidence we must have in it should nevertheless be that Antichrist described by the Apostle But it is
our first fruits to pray with us and for us to our common Master in the name of our common Mediator The same Council explicates clearly and in few words what is the intention of the Church when she offers up to God the dreadful sacrifice to honour the memory of his Saints This honour which we render them in Sacrificing consists in naming them in the prayers we offer up to God as his faithful servants and in rendring him thanks for the victories which they have gained and in humbly beseeching him that he would vouchsafe to favour us by their intercession St. Augustin has told us twelve hundred years ago 8. de Civ c. 27. that we ought not to think any sacrifices were offered to the Holy Martyrs altho' the practice of the universal Church in that time was to offer Sacrifice upon their holy bodies and at their Memories that is to say before those places where their pretious reliques were conserved This Father has moreover added Tract 84. in Joh. Serm. 17 in verb. Apost that they made a commemoration of the Martyrs at the Holy Altar in the Celebration of the Sacrifice not to pray for them as they do for other persons who are dead but rather that they might pray for us I relate the sentiments of this Holy Bishop because the Council of Trent makes use of his very words almost to teach the Faithful that the Church does not offer Sacrifice to the Saint Conc. Trid. Sess 22. c. 3. but to God alone who has crowned them that the Priest also does not address himself to St. Peter and St. Paul saying I OFFER UP TO YOU THIS SACRIFICE but rendring thanks to God for their victories he demands their assistance to the end those whose memory we celebrate upon earth would vouchsafe to pray for us in Heaven It is after this manner we honour the Saints that we may obtain the Graces of God by their Intercession and the Principal of those Graces we hope to obtain is that of imitating them to which we are excited by the consideration of their admirable Examples and by the honour which we render in the presence of God to their happy memories Those who will rightly consider the Doctrine we have proposed will be obliged to grant us that as we do not rob God of any of those perfections peculiar to his infinite essence so we do not attribute to Creatures any of those qualities or operations proper to God alone which distinguisheth us so fully from Idolaters we cannot comprehend why that Title should be given us And when these Gentlemen of the pretended Reformation object to us that by addressing our Prayers to the Saints and honouring them all the world over as present we attribute to them a certain kind of Immensity or at least the knowledg of the Secrets of hearts which God has nevertheless reserved to himself as it appeares by so many testimonies of Scripture they do not sufficiently reflect upon our doctrine For in fine without examining what grounds may be had to attribute to the Saints some certain degree of knowledg as to those things which are acted amongst us or also of our secret thoughts it is manifest that to say a Creature may have the knowledge of these things by a light communicated to him by God is not to elevate a creature above his condition The Example of the Prophets justify this clearly God having not disdained to discover future things to them tho they appear much more particularly reserved to his own knowledg Moreover never any Catholic yet thought the Saints knew our necessities by their own Power no nor the desires which move us to address our secret Prayers to them The Church contents herself to teach with all antiquity these Prayers to be very profitable to such who make them whether it be the Saints know them by the ministry and communication of Angels who according to the testimony of Scripture know what passes amongst us being established by Gods order as administring Spirits to cooperate with us in the work of our Salvation whether it be that God himself makes known to them our desires by a particular Revelation or lastly whether it be that he discovers the secret to them in his divine Essence in which all truth is comprised So that the Church has not decided any thing about these different methods which God might be pleased to make use of for that end But let these means be what they will it is always certain the Church does not attribute to the Creature any of the divine perfections as the Idolaters did seeing she permits us not to acknowledge even in the greatest Saints any degree of Excellency which does not proceed from God nor any acceptableness in his sight but by their vertues nor any vertue which is not a gift of his Grace nor any knowledge of human affairs but what is communicated to them nor any power to assist us but by their prayers nor in fine any felicity but by a submission and a perfect conformity to his divine will It is therefore true that by examining what are our interiour sentiments concerning the Saints it will be found we do not raise them above the condition of Creatures and from thence one ought to judge of what nature that exteriour honour is which we render them exteriour veneration being established to testify the interiour sentiments of the mind But because this honour which the Church renders to the Saints appears principally before their Images and holy Reliques it will be proper to explicate her belief concerning them SECT V. Images and Reliques AS for Images Conc. Trid. Sess 25. Dec. de Invoc c. the Council of Trent forbids us expresly to believe any divinity or vertue in them for which they ought to be reverenced to demand any favour of them or to put any trust in them and ordains that all the honour which is given to them should be referred to the Saints themselves which are represented by them All these words of the Council are like so many characters to distinguish us from Idolaters seeing we are so far from believing with them any divinity annexed to the Images that we do not attribute to them any other vertue but that of exciting in us the remembrance of those they represent Upon this it is the honour we render Images is grounded No man for example can deny but that when we look upon the figure of JESVS CHRIST crucified it excites in us a more lively remembrance of him who loved us so as to deliver himself up to death for us While this Image being present before our eyes Gal. 2. causes so pretious a remembrance in our souls we are moved to testify by some exteriour signs how far our gratitude bears us and by humbling our selves before the Image we show what is our submission to our Saviour So that to speak precisely and according to the Ecclesiastical Stile when we honour the
not annexed to the sensible species but to the proper substance of his flesh which is living and life-giving because of the Divinity which is united to it Upon which account all those who believe the real presence ought not to have any difficulty to communicate under one sole species because they there receive all that is essential to this Sacrament together with a plenitude so secure because there being now no real seperation betwixt the Body and the Blood as hath been said we receive entirely and without division him who is solely capable to satiate us This is the solid foundation upon which the Church interpreting the precept of Communion as declared we may receive the Sanctification which this Sacrament carries with it under one sole species and if she have reduced her Children to this sole species it was not out of disesteem of the other seeing on the contrary she did it to hinder those Irreverences which the confusion and negligence of people had occasioned in these later ages reserving to her self the re-establishment of communion under both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity Catholic Divines have made it appear to those of the pretended Reformation that they have themselves made use of several such like Interpretations in what belongs to the use of the Sacrament but above all they had reason to remark this which is taken out of the 12 chap. of their discipline Title of the Lords Supper art 7. where we find these words The Bread of the Lords Supper ought to be administred to those who cannot drink wine upon their making protestation that it is not out of contempt and endeavouring what they can possibly to obviate all Scandal even by approaching the cup as neer their mouths as they are able They have judged by this regulation that both species were not by the institution of JESVS CHRIST essential to the Communion otherwise they ought to have absolutely refused the Sacrament to those who could not receive it whole and entire and not to give it them after a manner contrary to that which JESVS CHRIST had commanded in which case their disability would have been their excuse But our adversaries conceived it would be an excessive rigour not to allow at least one of the species to those who could not receive the other and as this condescendence has no ground in Scripture they must acknowledge with us the words by which JESVS CHRIST proposes to us the two species are liable to some interpretation and that this interpretation ought to be declared by the authority of the Church But it might seem as if this article of their discipline which was made in the Synod of Poitiers held in the year 1560 had been reformed by the Synod of Vertueil held in the year 1567. where it is said the company is not of opinion the bread should be administred to those who would not receive the Cup. These two Synods nevertheless are no ways opposite That of Vertueil speaks only of those who will not receive the Cup And that of Poitiers of these only who cannot In effect notwithstanding the Synod of Vertueil this article remains in their discipline and has been also approved by a latter Synod then that of Vertueil by the Synod of la Rochell in 1571 where this article was review'd and put into that stare in which it now is But supposing the Synods of the pretended reform'd Religion had differed in their sentiments it would only follow that the matter in question regards not Faith and that it is of the number of those which are at the Churches disposal according to their own Principles SECT XVIII The written and unwritten Word THERE remains nothing more now but to explicate what Catholics believe touching the Word of God and the Authority of the Church JESVS CHRIST having laid the Foundation of his Church by Preaching the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this unwritten Word did not upon that account lose its Authority which makes us reiceive with equal veneration all that was ever taught by the Apostles whether by Writing or byword of Mouth as St. Paul himself has expresly declared And it is a most certain sign 2 Thes 2.14 a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally embraced by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning We cannot chuse but receive all that is established after this manner with the submission due to Divine Authority and we are persuaded those of the Pretended Reformation who are not obstinate are in the bottom of their Hearts of the same Opinion it being impossible to believe a Doctrine received from the beginning of the Church can flow from any other source than that of the Apostles Wherefore our Adversaries ought not to wonder if we who are careful to gather together all our Fathers have left us should conserve the Depositum of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures SECT XIX The Authority of the Church THE Church being established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and Tradition we receive the Canonical Scriptures from her and let our Adversaries say what they will we doubt not but it is her Authority which principally determines them to reverence as Divine Books the Canticle of Canticles which has so few visible marks of a Prophetical Inspiration the Epistle of St. James which Luther rejected and that of St. Jude which might appear suspected because of some Apocriphal Books cited in it In fine it can only be from this Authority they receive the whole Body of Scripture which all Christians accept as Divine before their reading of it has made them sensible of the Spirit of God in it Being then inseparably bound as we are to the Holy Authority of the Church by means of the Scriptures which we receive from her Hands we learn Tradition also from her and by the means of Tradition we learn the true sence of Scripture Upon which account the Church professes she tells us nothing from her self and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine she does nothing but declare the Divine Revelation by the interiour direction of the Holy Ghost who is given to her as her teacher That Dispute which was raised in the very time of the Apostles upon account of the Ceremonies of the Law shews clearly that the Holy Ghost explicates himself by the Church and their Acts have by the method by which that first Contest was decided taught all succeeding Ages by what Authority all other differences are to be ended So that as often as there shall happen any Disputes to cause a Division amongst the Faithful the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles Act. 15.28 It his seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us And when she has spoken her Children will be taught they ought not to begin
RAIMUNDUS CAPISUCCHI Master of the Sacred Palace to the Author AFter having admired with all others so sublime a desert as yours I must also shew the particular Inclination I have to serve you occasioned by that excellent and learned Work you have composed for the defence of the Catholic Faith and which has been lately translated into Italian for it 's farther spreading I am indebted to you an infinite acknowledgment for having afforded me an occasion of rendring you some Service we are all of us here in great expectation of the publishing of this excellent piece that we may enjoy the fruits of your Labours No body will have a greater satisfaction than my self who do and shall always feel an ardent desire to render my self worthy of the honour of your Commands I end with assuring you of my Respects Rome 20 June 1675. The Approbations of the Roman Edition Anno 1678. The Approbation of Signor MICHEL ANGELO RICCI Secretary to the Congregation of I. and H. R. and Consultor of the Holy Office VVHAT the Council of Trent has with great care performed in making an entire separation betwixt Articles of Faith opinions and disputes of the Schools and explicating the same Doctrines of Faith in more clear and significant Terms what Tertullian had formerly done in condemning the secession of Heretics from the Church by several Prescriptions what others have practised whilst they ingenuously combated Heretics by their own Principles and Rules the same has the Right Reverend James Benign Bossuet Bishop of Condom performed in this Work in a clear and short Method proper to perswade manifesting to us the admirable parts of the Author Which work being now for the convenience of the Italians elegantly translated out of French into our Mother Language I esteem worthy to be Printed and Published Rome August the 5th 1678. The Approbation of the Reverend Father LAURENCE BRANCATI DE LAUERA of the Congregat Consist of I. Rites Visit Consultor and Qualificator of the Holy Office and Bibliothecarian of the Vatican Library c. I Esteem most worthy publishing the little Treatise or Discourse Printed in French and several other Languages and at present Translated out of French into Italian in which the most Illustrious James Benign Bossuet Bishop and Lord of Condom does forceably combat in a Noble Grave and Solid Stile the Ministers of the Pretended Reform'd Religion and their followers as well by the common and fundamental Rules of the Church as by their own Principles showing that it is not Catholics as those Ministers imagine but the Ministers themselves who by drawing unnatural Consequences have receded from those Tenets which are common to them and us and by taking the Scriptures and Councils in a wrong sense have separated themselves from the Catholic Church But if they would examin without passion the Rules of Catholics grounded upon their Councils and especially upon that of Trent they would without doubt by the Grace of God return again to a Holy Unity all which this Author shows them in a most pleasing and no less convincing manner running through all the points of Controversie Given in the Convent of the Twelve Apostles at Rome the 25. July 1678. F. Laurentius de Laurea Min. Conventualis The Approbation of the Abbot Stephen Gradi I Have with diligence and application read the excellent Work of the Lord James Benign Bossuet Bishop of Condom faithfully and elegantly Translated into Italian where the Doctrine of the Church is explicated after a manner both concise clear and full And it wrought the same Impression in me which ordinarily those nobler sort of Writings which are the products of a sound Doctrine and solid Reason do in their Readers when they are convinc'd they could not have said any thing more to the purpose nor spoken otherwise if they had undertaken to write of the same Subject But what Transported me the most was that Wisdom and Moderation of the Author in the choice of those things which he asserts he retrenches all those things which serve only to lengthen Disputes and render a good Cause odious and betakes himself to Truth alone as to a strong hold which he renders not only secure but inaccessable applying himself wholly to establish the true state of the Question which by that means is rendred clear and easie to be judged of Upon which account all those if they will believe me who are concerned for the Peace of the Church or the Salvation of their Souls ought day and night to turn over this Book and it is impossible but it should produce in them both shame and sorrow for holding Tenets contrary to the Orthodox Faith I am of this Opinion St. G. Consultor of the Congregation de l' Indice Prefect of the Vatican Library Let it be Printed if it so please the Very Reverend Father Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace J. de Angelis Archiep. Vrb Vicesger Let it be Printed F. Raimundus Capisuccus Ord. Pred S. P. A. Magister The Brief of our Holy Father Pope Innocent the XI VEnerable Brother Health and Apostolical Benediction Your Book of the Exposition of the Catholic Faith lately presented to us contains such Doctrine and is composed in such a method and with so much prudence that it is thereby rendred proper to instruct the Readers clearly in few words and to extort even from the unwilling a Confession of the Catholic Faith For which reasons we do not only think it worthy our commendation but also to be read and esteem'd by all We hope this Work by the Grace of God will bring forth much Fruit and will not a little help to propagate the Orthodox Faith which is our continual care and principal sollicitude And in the interim we are more and more confirmed in that good Opinion we have always had of your Vertue and Piety and we feel an increase of those hopes which we had long since formed in our selves of the Education of the Dauphin of France and that he who is intrusted to your care and endowed with inclinations worthy the King his Father and all his Ancestors will receive from you those instructions which are proper to the Son of a most Christian King whose Birth entitles him both to so flourishing a Kingdom and at the same time to be a Protector of the Catholic Religion And this King who has chosen you amongst so many great men with which France flourishes at this time to so great a Province as is the laying the Foundations of a public happiness will no doubt receive an Eternal Glory from the good success of your care according to that Oracle of Scripture which tells us that a Wise Son is the Glory of his Father Continue then to go forwards chearfully in so important a work especially since you have before your Eyes such mighty Fruits of your Industry For we hear and that from all Parts and we cannot but feel an excess of Joy and Consolation amidst our many Troubles when we hear how this young Prince is carried on to vertue with a noble Fervour and daily gives new Testimonies of Prudence and of Piety This we can assure you that nothing is capable of endearing our Paternal affection to you more than thus to employ your utmost Care to inspire into this young Kings Mind those Maxims which make a mighty King that in a riper Age being happy and victorious like the King his Father he may regulate by Holy Laws and reduce to Christian Manners Barbarous Nations and Enemies of the Name of Christian as we hope to see them shortly subdu'd to the Empire of this great King since Peace being restored to Europe he has so fair an opportunity to transfer his victorious Arms into the East To conclude Assure your self that the Submission and Kespect which your Letters show you to have towards the Apostolic See and Us who now possess it tho unworthy for the Government of the Catholic Church find in Us a mutual affection the Testimonies of which you shall perceive when any occasion shall present it self With a sincere affection we give you our Apostolic Benediction Given at Rome at St. Peters under the Fishers Ring the 4th of January 1679. the third year of our Popedom Signed Marius Spinula and on the outside To our Venerable Brother James Bishop of Condom FINIS
by Faith present upon this Holy Table together with these Signs of Death we unite our selves to him in this Estate we present him to God as our only Victim and our sole Propitiator by his Blood confessing we have nothing to offer up to God but JESVS CHRIST and the infinite Merit of his Death We consecrate all our Prayers by this Holy Oblation and in presenting JESVS CHRIST to God we learn at the same time to offer up our selves to the Divine Majesty in him and by him as living Sacrifices This is the Sacrifice of Christians infinitely different from what was offered up in the Old Law a Spiritual Sacrifice becoming the New Covenant in which the presence of the Victim is only perceived by Faith in which the Word of God is the Spiritual Sword which makes a Mystical separation betwixt the Body and the Blood in which by consequence the Blood is only shed Mystically and in which Death only intervenes by representation and yet however a most real Sacrifice in as much as JESVS CHRIST is there truly contained and presented to his Father under this Figure of Death But a Commemorative Sacrifice which is so far from taking away our adhesion to the Sacrifice of the Cross as it is objected to us on the contrary it fixes us the firmer to it by all its circumstances seeing it has not only an entire relation to it but in reality has neither being nor subsistence but by this relation from whence it deriveth all the Vertue contained in it This is the express Doctrine of the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent which teaches that this Sacrifice is instituted only to represent that which was once accomplished upon the Cross Sess 22. c. 1. to perpetuate the memory of it to the end of the World and to apply to us the saving Vertue of it for the remission of those sins which we commit every day So that the Church is so far from believing that something wants to perfect the Sacrifice of the Cross on the contrary she thinks it so perfect and so fully sufficient as what is added is only instituted to celebrate the memory and apply its Vertue By which the same Church acknowledges that all the merit of the Redemption of Mankind depends upon the Death of the Son of God and it ought to be understood from all we have already expounded that when we say to God in the Celebration of the Divine Mystery We offer unto you this Holy Host we pretend not by this Oblation to make or present to God a new payment of the price of our Salvation but to offer up to him in our behalfs the Merits of our Blessed JESVS there present and the infinite price which he once paid for us upon the Cross The Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion do not think they offend JESVS CHRIST by offering him to God as present to their Faith and if they believed him to be really there what repugnance could they have to offer him up as truly present So that the whole dispute ought indeed to be reduced to the real presence alone From hence forwards all those false Ideas which these Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion form to themselves of the Sacrifice which we offer ought to be effaced They ought freely to acknowledge Catholics pretend not to make a new propitiation to appease God anew as if he had not been sufficiently satisfied by the Sacrifice of the Cross or to make some addition to the Price of our Salvation as if it were imperfect All these things have no place in our Doctrine because all that is here done is intended by way of Intercession and Application after the manner which we have now explicated SECT XV. The Epistle to the Hebrews AFter this Explication those mighty Objections drawn from the Epistle to the Hebrews and so much enforced against us will appear to have little reason in them and it is in vain our Adversaries strive to prove from the sentiments of the Apostle that we annul the Sacrifice of the Cross But because the best way to prove that two Doctrines are not opposite to one another is to shew by explicating them that no proposition of the one is contrary to any of the propositions of the other I think I am bound in this place to propose in short the Doctrine of this Epistle The Apostle intends in this Epistle to teach us that a sinnner could not avoid Death but by substituting some one in his place to die for him that whilst Men substituted only Beasts to be killed in their places their Sacrifices operated nothing but a publick acknowledgment of their having deserved Death and that seeing the Divine Justice could not be satisfied by so unequal an exchange they begun again every day to slay new Victims which was a certain mark of the insufficiency of that substitution But that since JESVS CHRIST had vouchsafed to die for Sinners God being satisfied by a Person substituting of himself so condignly sufficient and nothing more to exact for the price of our Redemption From whence the Apostle concludes we ought not only to offer up no more Victims after JESVS CHRIST but that JESVS CHRIST himself ought to be but once offered up to Death for us Let the Reader then who is solicitous for his Souls Salvation and a lover of Truth reflect a little upon what we have said concerning the manner how JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist I am certain he will not find any Proposition contrary to those which I have here related from the Apostle or which weakens his Argument so that nothing can be objected to us but his silence upon this point But those who would but consider the wise distribution which God makes of his secrets in the several Books of Scripture would not oblige us to receive from the sole Epistle to the Hebrews all our instructions concerning a matter which was not necessary to the Subject of that Epistle seeing the Apostle intends to explicate in it the perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross and not the different manners which God has instituted to apply it to us And to remove all equivocation if we take the word Offer in the sence it is made use of in this Epistle as implying the actual Death of the Victim we will publickly confess that JESVS CHRIST is now no more offered up neither in the Eucharist nor any where else But because this word has a larger signification in other places of Scripture where it is often said We offer up to God what we present before him the Church which forms her Language and her Doctrine not from the sole Epistle to the Hebrews but from the whole Body of the Holy Scripture is not afraid to say that JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God whereever he appears before his Face upon our behalf and that by consequence he offers up himself in the Eucharist according to
the Holy Fathers expressions Now to imagine this manner by which JESVS CHRIST presents himself to God should injure the Sacrifice of the Cross is what cannot in any kind be supposed without overthrowing the the whole Scripture and particularly this Epistle which is so vehemently objected against us For it must by the same reason be concluded that when JESVS CHRIST offered up himself to God In entring into the World Heb. 10.5 to substitute himself in place of those Victims which could not please him he injured that Action by which he offered up himself upon the Cross Heb. 9.24 that when he continues to appear before God for us Heb. 9.26 he weakens that Oblation by which he appeared once Heb. 7.25 by the immolation of himself and that not ceasing to interceed for us he accuses of insufficiency that intercession which he made in dying with so many tears and such an exclamation Heb. 5.7 All this would be ridiculous We must therefore understand that JESVS CHRIST who once offered up himself to be the humble Victim of the Divine Justice does not cease to offer up himself always for us that the infinite perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross consists in this that whatsoever preceded it as well as what follows it has an entire reference to it that as what preceded it was a preparation to it so that which follows it is the consummation and application of it that in reality the payment of the price of our Redemption is no more reiterated because it was fully discharged the first time but that what applies that Redemption to us continues without ceasing that lastly we must make a distinction betwixt those things which are reiterated as imperfect and those which are continued as perfect and necessary SECT XVI Reflections upon the preceding Doctrine WE conjure all those of the Pretended Reformation to make some little Reflection upon what has been said concerning the Eucharist The Doctrine of the Real Presence has been the necessary foundation of it This Foundation is impugned by the Calvinists There is nothing appears more important than this in our Controversies seeing the Question is concerning the real Presence of JESVS CHRIST himself There is nothing our Adversaries find more difficult to believe And there is nothing in which we are so directly opposite as in this In most other Disputes when these Gentlemen hear us with Calmness they find the difficulties to vanish and that they are more offended with words than with the things themselves On the contrary upon this Subject we agree more about the manner of speaking because both sides use the words of Real Participation and the like But the fuller we explicate our selves the more we find our selves opposed because our Adversaries do not receive all the consequences of those truths which they admit being discouraged as I said by the difficulties which Sence and Human Reason find in these consequences This is therefore to speak truly the most difficult of all our Controversies and that in which we are the most opposite to one another Nevertheless God has permitted the Lutherans should adhere to the belief of the real Presence as well as we and he has also permitted the Calvinists should declare this Doctrine to have no poison in it that it does not subvert the foundations of Salvation and Faith and that it ought not to break communion betwixt Brethren Let those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion who think seriously of their Salvation render themselves here attentive to that Order which the Divine Providence makes use of to bring them insensibly nearer to us and Truth One may either intirely dissipate all the other grounds of their complaints or at least reduce them to very few Heads with a little explication In this where we cannot hope to conquer by this Method they have themselves removed the chief difficulty by declaring this Doctrine to contain nothing in it contrary to Salvation or to the fundamentals of Religion It is true the Lutherans tho they concur with us in the ground of the reality yet admit not all the consequences of it They put Bread together with the Body of JESVS CHRIST some of them reject the Adoration and they seem to acknowledg the real Presence only in the Act of receiving But all the subtilty of the Ministers can never perswade ingenuous and understanding Persons but that if they maintain the real Presence which is the most important and the most difficult point they ought also to maintain the rest Moreover the same Providence which labours secretly for our nearer Union and lays the foundations of Reconciliation and of Peace in the midst of Bitterness and Disputes has farther permitted the Calvinists to allow that supposing these words This is my Body ought to be taken in a literal sence Catholics reason better and more consequently than the Lutherans If I relate not the passages which have been so often cited on this account I hope I shall easily be excused because all those who are not obstinate will grant us without difficulty that the reeal Presence being supposed our Doctrine is that which most naturally follows It is then an established Truth that our Doctrine in this point contains nothing but the real Presence rightly understood But we must not stop there and we beseech the Pretended Reformed to consider we make use of no other things to explicate the Sacrifice of the Eucharist but only such as are necessarily included in this reality of presence If it should be asked us after this how it comes then to pass the Lutherans who believe the real presence should nevertheless reject the Sacrifice which is according to us only a consequence of it our answer is in one word that this Doctrine must be numbred amongst the other consequences of the real presence which these Lutherans have not understood and which we have penetrated much better then they as the Calvinists themselves confess If our Explications persuade these last that our doctrine about the Sacrifice is included in that of the real presence they ought to see clearly that this mighty dispute of the Sacrifice of the Mass which has filled so many Volumes and occasioned so many Invectives ought from henceforwards to be retrenched from the body of their controversies because this point has not now any particular difficulty and which is much more important because this Sacrifice against which they have so great repugnance is no other but a necessary consequence and a natural explication of a Doctrine which according to them has no venom in it Let them now examin themselves and after this try before God whether they have so much reason as they imagine to withdraw themselves from those Altars where their fore-fathers received the Bread of life SECT XVII Communion under both kinds THere remains one other Consequence of this doctrine to be examined which is that JESVS CHRIST being really present in the Sacrament The Grace and Benediction is