As for Marriages we acknowledge the Church may dispense in some degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God His Tenth pretended Obstruction of Devotion is that we make disobedience to the Church in Disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage he saith in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication I answer That whether a Priest may Marry or no supposing the Law of the Church forbidding it is not a disputable matter but 't is out of Question even by the Law of God that Obedience is to be given to the Commands or Prohibitions of the Church The Antithesis therefore between disobedience to the Church in disputable matters and disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things is not only impertinent to the Marriage of Priests which is unquestionably forbidden but supposing the matter to remaind sputable after the Churches Prohibition destroys all obedience to the Church But if it suppose them only disputable before then why may not the Church interpose her Judgment and put them out of dispute But still it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the Word of Christ that is his Counsel of Chastity that Marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication But he considers not that though Marriage in it self be honourable yet if it be prohibited to a certain order of persons by the Church to whom Christ himself commands us to give obedience they oblige themselves by a voluntary vow to live in perpetual chastity the Law of God commanding us to pay our Vows it loses its honour in such persons and if contracted after such vow made is in the language of the Fathers no better than Adultery In the Primitive Church it was the custom of some younger Widdows to Dedicate themselves to the Service of the Church and in order therunto to take upon them a peculiar habit and make a vow of continency for the future Now in case they married after this St. Paul himself 1 Tim. 1. 12. saith That they incurred Damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith that is as the Fathers Expound it the vow they had made And the fourth Council of Carthage in which were 214 Bishops and among them St. Austin gives the Reason in these words If Wives who commit Adultery are guilty to their Husbands how much more shall such Widdows as change their Religious State be noted with the crime of Adultery And if this were so in Widdows much more in Priests if by Marrying they shall make void their first Faith given to God when they were consâ—eâ—ated in a more peculiar manner to his Service Thus much may suffice for Answer to the Argument which with its intricate terms may seem to puzzle an unlearned Reader let us now speak a word to the true state of the Controversy which is whether Marriage or single life in a Priest be more apt to obstruct or further devotion And St. Paul himself hath determined the question 1 Cor. 7. 32. where he saith He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to our Lord how he may please our Lord But he that is Married careth for the things that are of the World how he may please his Wife This is the difference he putteth between the Married and Single life that this is apt to make us care for the things which belong to God and that to divert our thoughts from him to the things of the World Judge therefore which of these states is most convenient for Priests whose proper Office it is to attend wholly to the things of God Having thus cleared Catholick Doctrines from being any ways obstructive to good life or devotion I shall proceed to his third Argument by which he will still prove that Catholicks run a great hazard of their souls in adhering to the Communion of the Church of Rome Because it exposeth the Faith of Christians to so great uncertainty This is a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant who hath no other certainty for his faith but every Man's interpretation of the Letter of the Scriptures But First he saith it doth this By making the Authority of the Scriptures to depend upon the infallibility of the Church when the Churches infallibility must be proved by the Scriptures To this I Answer that the Authority of the Scripture not in it self for so it hath its Authority from God but in order to us and our belief of it depends upon the infallibility of the Church And therefore St. Austin saith of himself That he would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move him And if you ask him what moved him to submit to that Authority he tells you That besides the Wisdom he found in the Tenets of the Church there were many other things which most justly held him in it as the consent of People and Nations an Authority begun by Miracles nourished by Hope increased by Charity and established by Antiquity the succession of Priests from the very Seat of St. Peter to whom our Lord commended the feeding of his Sheep unto the present Bishoprick Lastly The very name of Catholick which this Church alone among so many Heresies hath not without cause obtained so particularly to her self that wheras all Hereticks would be called Catholicks yet if a stranger demand where the Catholicks go to Church none of these Hereticks dares to shew either his own House or Church These saith St. Austin so many and great most dear bonds of the name of Christian do justly hold a believing Man in the Catholick Church These were the grounds which moved that great Man to submit to her Authority And when Catholick Authors prove the infallibility of the Church from Scriptures 't is an Argument ad hominem to convince Protestants who will admit nothing but Scripture and yet when they are convinced quarrel at them as illogical Disputants because they prove it from Scripture Next he saith we overthrow all foundation of Faith because We will not believe our sences in the plainest Objects of them But what if God have interposed his Authority as he hath done in the case of the Eucharist where he tells us that it is his Body must we believe our sences rather than God or must we not believe them in other things because in the particular case of the Eucharist we must believe God rather than our sences Both these consequences you see are absurd Now for the case it self in which he instances Dr. Taylor above cited confesses that they viz. Catholicks have a divine Revelation viz. Christ's word This is my Body whose Litteral and Grammatical sence if that sence were intended would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle but I add it would be no precedent to them not to believe their sences in other the plainest Objects of them
were they so scrupulous as to require him to put off his cloths before they adored him nor yet to separate him in thought from them at the time of adoration but worshipped him absolutely as then he was And then a little after whatever difference saith he there may be among Divines about the manner of speaking the Question is no other but whether Christ be to be adored with divine worship in the Eucharist This is what Bellarmin says And if the Doctor would not except against an Example from civil worship I should tell him that his stating the Controversy between us concerning the adoration of Christ in the Eucharist to be whether the Accidents be to be adored with proper Divine Worship which is due to God alone is just as if a Quaker should make the Question between him and a Protestant concerning the worship of the King in his Robes to be whether the Robes are to be worshipped with the same Regal worship which is due only to the King's Person The subtilty such as it is is Parallel in both Only the Doctor hath the fortune to be applauded for what the poor Quaker would be laughed at and hiss'd out of the Court. I cannot doubt but the Doctor who is so well vers'd in Bell. as his Objections show had read these passages in him when he subjoins that Catholicks to answer their adversaries arguments would seem to direct their worship only to Christ as under the Elements or Accidents a pretty self-conviction if well observ'd for who should we believe for the Doctrin and practise of Catholicks but themselves But what he adds that they yield that on the account of this corporal presence that which appears ought to have the same worship given to it with that which is supposed or believed is sufficiently convinced by what hath been cited out of Bellarmin in that absolute sense in which the Doctor charges it upon us to be a meer calumny as Bellarmin calls it for although he affirm that when Christ is worshipped under the Symbols that adoration belongs also to the Symbols yet he says it is in such manner as the adoration given to him upon Earth in his apparel belonged to his Garments which he qualifies with a quodammodo after a certain manner that is to say not as it is given to Christ himself but in an inferiour manner as hath been above declared Part 1. chap. 10. p. 190. § 2. After all this turning and winding to mis-represent the state of the Controversy to be whether on the account of Christ's corporal presence in the Sacrament that which appears viz. the accidents of bread ought to have the same worship given to it with that which is supposed or believed that is with Christ himself He comes at length to show that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no Man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host To prove this he makes use of a double Medium The first That no Man can be secure that the Object is such as doth deserve divine worship The second That no Man can be satisfied that he hath a sufficient reason for giving this worship to the Host And they are both of them impertinent to the present purpose and quite overthrow his supposition for proceeding upon the Principles of the Roman Church and supposing as he doth at presâ—nt a divine Revelation for the presence of Christ true God and Man in the Saccrament he must either deny Christ himself to be adorable or he must grant that the Object doth deserve Divine Worship and that there is sufficient reason to give it He that is too Prodigal in giving away what in time he may need himself casts himself upon a necessity either of begging what he gave or pretending an Error in the Deed of Gift And to these straits hath the Doctor brought himself by his over-liberality in supposing a like divine Revelation for Christ's presence in the Sacrament as for his being true God His honour will not permit him to begg what he so freely granted and therefore he takes the other course of pretending a double flaw in the donation and although his pretences be excluded by the very evidence of the deed as it stands upon Record in his own Book p. 111. yet I shall give them the hearing and show them to have nothing at all of proof in them 1. He saith p. 120. No Man can be secure that the Object is such as doth deserve divine worship If you ask him why He tells you the Mass-Bell now rings the Host is to be adored and if he should chance to believe his senses or harken to his reason he becomes an Idolater by not being a Fool or a Mad-man Again if he consider the miraculousness of the change it is so strange and sudden he can hardly say that God becoming Man was so great a wonder as a little piece of Bread becoming God If he be recall'd from carnal Reason to the Words of Christ this is my body he is told that Scripture is very obscure and dangerous for any one to be too confident of the sense of it If he be sent for the meaning of it to the unanimous consent of the Fathers he sees the World is as full of disputes concerning the sense of their words as of the Scriptures Lastly If he be counsel'd to lay aside his scruples and submit to the authority of the present Church he finds that Catholicks are not agreed about that neither Some think it enough that it is defined by the Pope Others require the concurrence of a General Council and that it be confirmed wholly by the Pope and doth proceed in the way of a Council So that he sees he may spend all his life in the study and search of these things and yet never be satisfied in them nor consequently in Transubstantiation it self which is now the Point he pretends he is not satisfied in wherefore if this be the only way of satisfaction he must forbear giving adoration or be guilty of Idolatry in doing it And doth he not manifestly prove himself here to be in the case of the Prodigal I lately mentioned when supposing a like divine Revelation of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as of his being true God he now spends no less than four whole Pages to prove that he cannot be satisfied there is any such Revelation Let Schollars judge of this illiberal manner of proceeding whilst I speak to the Argument it self And not to tire the Reader with particular Reflexions upon the sâ—veral difficulties he starts concerning the evidence of his sense the miraculousness of the change the obscurity of Scripture the consent of the Fathers which have been answered over and over by Catholick Writers to free my self from all scruples in the case I take the Authority of the present Church to be sufficient for me For however some Divines think it enough that it be
defined by the Pope who is Head of the Church Others require the concurrence of a General Council and that this General Council be wholly confirmed by the Pope and doth proceed in the way of a Council Yet I am sure that none of these are wanting in the point of Transubstantiation For it hath been defined long ago both by Popes and Councils and received as lawfully defined by the whole Church Catholick that our Lord Christ is truly and really present in the Sacrament by the conversion of the Elements into his Body and Blood and therefore for any thing the Doctor hath said in this matter I may securely give the same proper divine worship to him there which is due to his Person without fear of Idolatry § 3. But because the Doctor professes that the end why he took this way was a hope he had that it would abundantly add to the discovering the disparity between the worship given to the Person of Christ and that which is given to the Eucharist upon supposition of Transubstantiation I shall in the next Place show how he hath failed of this End and there will need no more to do it but to suppose a Socinian to take up his own argument and retort it upon him in the point of the worship of Christ as God And if he approve not my Answer for good it will be expected from him to give a better Behold then a Socinian proposing the argument in Dr. St.'s own Mood and Figure The chimes now ring all in to Church where I must give the same divine worship to Christ as to the Eternal Father But stay saith the Socinian how can I be secure that the Object is such as deserves divine worship If I should chance to believe my senses and hearken to my reason which can discover nothing in him but his Humanity I become an Idolater by not being a Fool or a Mad man Again if I consider the miraculous union of the Divine and Humane Nature in one Person it seems more strange to me that Man should be God than what the Papists say that Bread should be converted into his Body Must I rely on the bare words of Christ I and the Father are One but I am told by no less a Man than St. Peter that there are certain things in Scripture hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable deprave to their own perdition and therefore it must needs be dangerous for me to be too confident of the sense of it in so difficult a point I have heard there have been great disputes concerning the meaning of those words among the Primitive Christians And What a case am I in then if those words do not prove it Must I have recourse for the interpretation of them to the unanimous consent of the Fathers Alas what relief is this to my anxious mind For I see the World is full of disputes concerning the sense of their words as well as the Scriptures And I have heard of a late Author one Christophorus Sandius who in a Set-Treatise contends that the greatest part of those Fathers who are esteemed Orthodox deny the Son to be consubstantially One with the Father In this great confusion what ground of certainty have I to stand upon whereby to secure my mind from the Commission of a great sin While I am in this Labyrinth behold a kind Catholick offers to give me case and tells me these are doubts and scruples I ought not to trouble my self about The Authority of the present Church is sufficient for me But how shall I know what he means by the Authority of the present Church For I find Catholicks themselves are not agreed about that neither May I be sure if the Pope who is Head of the Church say it No not unless he defines it But may I be sure then No not unless a General Council concur But may I be sure if a General Council determins it Yes if it be confirmed wholly by the Pope and doth proceed in the way of a Council But how is it possible for me to judge of that when the intrigues of actions are so secret I see then if this or any of these be the only way of satisfaction I must forbear giving the same adoration to Christ as to the Father or be guilty of Idolatry in doing it Behold here the Doctor 's argument return'd upon himself and if it have any force against the adoration of Christ in the Eucharist it must have the same against the worship of Him as God And what a case is Christianity in if it depend upon his solving his own Argument But his scruples are not yet at an End CHAP. III. Of Dr. St.'s Scruple about the Host's not being consecrated for want of Intention in the Priest and His mistake of the true Reason of giving Adoration to Christ in the Sacrament § 1. THe Doctor 's next Scruple is about the Priest's Intention or rather not Intention to Consecrate and I confess I never met with any Man so unevenly scrupulous as he is that is so resolute in some cases were he of our mind as in saying his Prayers to the Sun and offering up the Host to an Image and yet so timorous in others as in this of not daring to adore Christ himself were he of our mind in the Point of Transubstantiation as supposed present in the Sacrament for fear the Host should not be consecrated through defect or malice of the Priest Suppose saith he p. 123. I am satisfied in the Point of Transubstantiation by which you see he set himself to fight against it at the same time that he told us he would suppose it it is not enough for me to know in general that there is such a change but I must believe particularly that very Bread to be changed so which I am to worship And by what means can I be sure of that It is a very evil thing to be troubled with too many scruples While the mind is perplexed with them the tongue runs unawares into Contradictions What is it else to say that he is to worship that very Bread which he must believe to be changed What common sense will charge him to honour that which he must believe not to be there This hath a relish of the old Leaven that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God And I see a custome of any thing though it be self-contradiction will turn by degrees into a second nature But to let this pass and attend to his scruple Here he would seem to return again to his former supposition of a like divine Revelation for Christ's Presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his being true God but in reality he does but seem to do it For from his whole discourse p. 111. c. where he supposes the same divine Revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christ's Divinity it is evident he speaks not only of Transubstantiation in general but also in particular What
of Sense or Reason can digest it Fools as you are what Demonstration So evident as this My God profest it And if you once can prove that He can lie This Wonder and Him too I will deny 89 What thank is it that you can credit that Which your own sense Reason's eye reads plain Heaven 's much to them beholden who will not Believe it higher is than they can strain Who jealous are of God and will not be Induc'd to trust Him further than they see 90 And yet had you these modest eyes of mine You in this gloomy Cloud would see the Sun That Sun who wisely doth disdain to shine On those who with bold prying press upon His secret Majesty which plainly I Because I make no anxious search descry 91 This is the valorous Resolution Of Gallant Faith and this will serve to be The Blessed Rule by which all those must run Who are the Scholars of Humility Yet I must tell thee Psyche itching Pride VVill not hereafter thus be satisfied And then having inveigh'd in the following Stanza's against those who will needs be prying with the skill they take for granted hath fill'd their brains that is with the Doctor 's faculty of discerning Truth and falshood into the manner how this Miracle is brought to pass He concludes with these words in favour of Transubstantiation 99 It is in vain to tell these Wranglers how Jesus could graft cold Stones into the stock Of Abraham and make them fertil grow In Israelites or that the Bread he took In 's daily Diet was not wholly spent But part into his Body's substance went 100 In vain to tell them how into his Blood The Wine he drank was changed day by day For though such speculations understood With prudent Reverence might make easier way Unto the Mystery yet Wranglers will Because they will be so be Wranglers still This and much more to this Purpose which not to surfet the Reader with too many delicacies I omit saith the Author of that Illustrious Poem in which to the satisfaction of all that read it himself hath made appear to the World what his Modesty made him willing to expect rather from others that a Divine Theam is as capable and happy a subject of Poetical Ornament as any Pagan or Humane device whatsoever And would the Gallants of both Sexes employ as many of their precious Hours in reading this excellent Piece as they do in Romances and Play-Books I dare be bold to affirm though perhaps I shall not be credited They would find not only more substance but more delight in this than in the best of them But to return to my present business My design was to let the Reader see how far my Adversary's beloved Principles of Sense and Reason are from being fit Umpires to judge of matters proposed as of divine Revelation particularly in what relates to the presence of our Saviour in the Eucharist and I thought I could not do it better than in the words of this learned and Ingenious Author whose whole Discourse seems but a Descant upon those words of St. Chrysostom when speaking of this Mystery to the People of Antioch he saith Let us obey God in all things and not gain-say Him though what is said seem to contradict both our Imaginations and Eyes Let his word obtain more credit from us than our thoughts or sight And thus let us behave our selves in the Mysteries that is in the most Holy Sacrament not beholding only those things which lye before us viz. the Symbols of Bread and Wine but holding fast his words For his Word is Infallible but our sense is easy to be deceived That never fails but this most frequently mistakes Because therfore the Word saith This is my Body let us obey and believe and behold Him with the eyes of our Understanding If the Doctor will not do so but will have his Readers to measure matters of Faith by the Rule of Sense and Reason and not trust God farther than they can see with them I am sure he gives a far greater advantage to the Enemies of the most Holy Trinity and Christ's Divinity by so unChristian a Principle than we can possibly do by asserting a like divine Revelation for his being present in the Eucharist as for his being true God notwithstanding the seeming contradictions that occur in it But perhaps the Doctor wâ—ll say that I am mistaken all this while and that he meant no such thing by the use of Reason For I remember now that when upon his Asserting that Catholicks expose the Faith of Christiaâ—s to a great uncertainty by denying to Men the use of their Judgment and Reason as to the matters of Faith propâ—sed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church which if it say any thing to the purpose it must be this that because Men must make use of their reason to find out the true Ground of believing which Catholicks affirm to be the Church therefore they must believe nothing which the Church proposes as a matter of Faith but what the Faculty in them called reason of discerning Truth and Falshood in matters proposed to our belief shall judge to be true in it self for otherwise how doth it follow that they expose the Faith of Christians to uncertainâ—y when I say upon this assertion of his I supposed and clearly enough I think that the use he would have of reason was to believe nothing but what his reason could understand He assures me p. 542. upon his word that he meant no such thing for I believe saith he an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in H. Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those Conceptions we call Reason But here I observe first as no very great sign that he means not by the use of Reason what I supposed that he doth not tell us of any one particular Article he believes with that terrible condition unless he mean he cannot reconcile all particulars concerning the existence of a Deity but huddles them up in a blind Universal that he believes all the Doctrines revealed by God in the H. Scriptures as if it were enough for a Christian to believe in general all that God hath revealed in Scripture without troubling himself about the Sense of any thing in particular for fear of over-straining his Reason to swallow something that may seem a Contradiction And I confess the Letter of the Scripture may be a sufficient Rule of such a Faith 2dly This Assertion of his exposes the Faith of Christians to as great uncertainty as that he charges upon Catholicks by its denying to Men the use of their Judgment and Reason as to matters of Faith revealed by God in the Scriptures when they must necessarily use them to find out the Scriptures and the existence of a Deity For whether the Scripture or the Church be supposed to be the Ground of believing
proof of Christ's Divinity he will appeal to him whether there are the same Grounds and Motives from thence to believe Transubstantiation as there are the Divinity of Christ But if Catholicks do not acknowledge Scripture alone to be the Rule of Faith what am I concern'd whether Bellarmin produce many Texts or but One or none at all Does not the Doctor himself say that some of our Religion have said that Transubstantiation could not be prov'd from Scripture alone and have not others of it said as much of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father I am sure this was believed before the Scripture was written and so Scripture could not be the Rule of believing it But then again what if Bellarmin produc'd but One Text of Scripture for Transubstantiation therefore can there no more be produc'd Or if no more could be produc'd would there not be the same Ground of believing from thence supposing I am certain of the true sense of thâ—s One as if there were many Are we not bound as much to believe God when he says a thing once if we be sure of the true sense of what he saith as when he says the same twice or thrice And were not all those places cited by Bellarmin for Christ's Divinity as much impugned by the Arrians as this of Christ's words This is my Body is by Calvin and his Complices Why then must I because Bellarmin produces out of Scripture but one Text for Transubstantiation and many for Christ's Divinity acknowledge there are not the same Grounds or Motives to believe the one as the other § 7. I but Bellarmin himself acknowledges that there is some obscurity or ambiguity in the very Text he cites for after he had spent the greatest part of the Chapter against the Lutherans He concludes it thus saith the Doctor p. 131. Although there be some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by Councils and Fathers which is a plain Indication he thought the Doctrine of Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone But stay am I bound to believe Dr. St. upon his bare word May I not look into Bellarmin to see what he says without incurring a sin of rash judgement against my Neighbour The Book God be thanked is not so hard to be found as that of Trigautius I ventur'd to look the place upon the Remembrance of some former dexterity I had noted in him in citing of Authors and although I could hardly believe my Eyes nor did not till I look'd into another Edition I found Bellarmin not to say what he affirms him to say but in reality the contrary For after he had proved from the words of our Lord the Real Presence of his Body in the Sacrament against the Calvinists li. 1. de Euch. c. 1. and in the present Chapter had shown against the Lutherans that Transubstantiation is absolutely inferr'd from the very same words being to carry on his Proofs from Scripture to Councils and Fathers he concludes the Chapter in these words and that by way of Transition Adde quod LICET in verbis Domini ESSET aliqua obscuritas vel ambiguitas ea tamen sublata est per multa Concilia Catholicae Ecclesiae Patrum Consensum Add saith he that ALTHOUGH THERE WERE or should be which is as much as to say suppose there were some obscurity or ambiguity in the words of our Lord yet that is taken away by the many Councils of the Catholick Church and the Consent of Fathers And now I appeal to the Reader whether Dr. St. have not given us here a very rare example of reporting faithfully as he calls it in his Preface the words and sense of an Author Is it all one to say although there be and although there should be He that saith Although there be some ambiguity in the words supposes them to be ambiguous He that saith Although there should be some Ambiguity in them supposes them not to be ambiguous And this is the case between Bellarmin and the Doctor Bellarmin only puts the case they were ambiguous and by so doing supposes them not to be so and the Doctor makes him acknowledge them de facto to be ambiguous which is just as if when the Doctor himself says p. 111. supposing there were the same divine Revelation of Transubstantiation and of Christ's Divinity c. I should infer that he acknowledges the Revelation to be the same de facto in both 'T is manifest then that by this Translation he hath corrupted both the words and sense of Bellarmin And this not by mistake as appears but too too plainly for that himself makes the words of Bellarmin as he translates them to be a plain Indication that he thought Transubstantiation could not be proved from Scripture alone whereas had he reported them as they stand in Bellarmin LICET ESSET Although there were or should be some ambiguity in the words of our Lord c. They had been a plain Indication that Bellarmin for his part thought that he had sufficiently prov'd the Doctrine of Transubstantiation out of Scripture And now the Reader sees what the Doctor meant in his Preface by his design as he calls it to report faithfully And however he intended to make use of it for his advantage yet it is a very plain Indication of what shifts and artifices they are fain to avail themselves of who will maintain a bad cause To conclude I shall give him the Opinion of Dr. Taylor in this Point more faithfully who in his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. n. 16. saith that Catholicks have a Divine Revelation viz. This is my Body whose literal and Grammatical sense if that were intended is so clear and evident for Transubstantiation that it would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle CHAP. VI. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken Un-answered by Dr. St. His Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in himself § 1. HAving shown in my Reply that the Dr's Argument by which he would prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry for adoring our Lord Christ in the Eucharist would be of equal sorce srom the Pen of an Arrian against the adoration of him as God wherever present I added p. 20. that supposing Catholicks should be mistaken in their belief And I hope the Doctor will not infer from hence that I acknowledge them to be mistaken de facto yet so eminent and learned a Man among the Protestants as Dr. Taylor denies it would follow from thence that they were Idolaters And the words I cited were these out of his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. Numb 16. Idolatry saith he is a forsaking the true God and giving divine worship to a Creature or to an Idol that is to an Imaginary God who hath no Foundation in Essence or Existence And this is
not Image reinforced Pag. 33. Chap. 4. The Doctor 's Second Proof from the Reason of the Law sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on God's part is assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature pag. 57. Chap. 5. Worship unlawful by the light of Nature equally unlawful to Jews and Christians A strange Paradox advanced by Dr. Stillingfleet viz. What can an Image do to the heightning devotion or raising Affections How far his Devotion to the Sun may be allowed in the Judgement of St. Leo. pag. 76. Chap. 6. Of the Notions and practice of the Wiser Heathens in the matter of their Images The Texts of St. Paul Acts 17. 24. and Rom. 1. 21. explained Some of the Doctor 's Testimonies examined in particular the Relation He gives of what the Jesuites did in China Pag. 95. Chap. 7. Of the 2d General Council of Nice call'd most irreverently by Dr. St. that wise Synod His Constantinopolitan Father's Objections answered by Epiphanius and his Answers shown to be goâ—d pag. 118. Chap. 8. The Dr.'s Objection from the Council of Franckford examin'd and shown to be no advantage to his Cause pag. 140. Chap. 9. Of the Doctor 's Third Proof from the Judgment as He pretends of the Law-giver His Speculation concerning the Golden Calves manifestly repugnant to the H. Scripture and Fathers Mr. Thorndike's Judgment of the Meaning and Extent of the second Commandment pag. 153. Chap. 10. What kind of honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctor 's mixing School-disputes with matters of Faith shown to be sophistical pag. 176. Chap. 11. Of the Instances brought to explicate the nature of the honour given to Images from the like Reverence given to the Chair of State to the Ground to the Ark to the Name of Jesus c. The weakness of the Doctor 's Evasions laid open and His own Arguments return'd upon Him pag. 193. PART II. Of the Adoration of the most Blessed Sacrament Chap. 1. THe Practice of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs He brings for it refuted pag. 221. Chap. 2. The true State of the Controversie laid open together with the Doctor 's endeavours to mis-represent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the Adoration of Him as God pag. 243. Chap. 3. Of Dr. St.'s Scruple about the Host's not being consecrated for want of Intention in the Priest and his mistake of the true Reason of giving Adoration to Christ in the Sacrament pag. 256. Chap. 4. His Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity p. 272. Chap. 5. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation With a New Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the words and sense of an Author pag. 294. Chap. 6. Dr. Taylor 's Argument in behalf of Catholicks supposing them mistaken in the belief of Transubstantiation not answered by Dr. St. The Parallel of such a supposed mistake with that of Idolaters shown to be a real and very gross mistake in Himself pag. 317. PART III. Of the Invocation of Saints Chap. 1. THe Doctrine of the Church of Rome in this Point supposed by Dr. St. to be Idolatry but not proved The disparity between the Worship given by Catholicks to the Saints and that of the Heathens to their Inferiour Deities laid open pag. 333. Chap. 2. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the practice of making Addresses to Particular Saints pag. 353. Chap. 3. What kind of Worship of Angels was condemned by St. Paul Theodoret c. with a farther display of the disparity between the Heathens Worship of their Inferiour Deities and that given by Catholicks to Holy Angels and Saints pag. 377. Chap. 4. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Forms used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times pag. 397. Chap. 5. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us shown to be Insignificant pag. 414. Chap. 6. Of the practice of Christian People in St. Austin's time in the Invocation of Saints pag. 430. The Two Questions whence Dr. Still took Occasion to raise this Controversy 1. WHether a Protestant having the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians His Answer to the aforesaid Questions The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick taking that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been horn or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a Man to leap from the plain Ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of Salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be savâ—d as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a Member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their Souls ought to embrace it or
continue in it And that upon these Grounds 1. Because they must by the terms of communion with that Church be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with Salvation Which I thus prove That Church which requires the giving the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry for if they do it they are guilty of the latter if they do it not of the former but the Church of Rome in the Worship of God by Images the Adoration of the Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator therefore it makes the Members of it guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry That the Church of Rome in these particulars doth require the giving the Creature the honour due only to God I prove thus concerning each of them 1. Where the Worship of God is terminated upon a Creature there by their own confession the Worship due only to God is given to the Creature but in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the Creature which is thus proved The Worship which God himself denies to receive must be terminated on the Creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denies to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image 2. The same Argument which would make the grâ—ssest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same argument whereby the Papists make the Worship of the Bread in the Eucharist not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose the bread to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God and upon this ground the grâ—sser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grâ—ssâ—st Idolaters were those who supposed their Statues to be Gods And upon this ground their Worship was more lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so 3. If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathen Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papist in justification of the Invocation of Saints To these I expect a direct and punctual answer professing as much Charity towards them as is consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. Because the Church of Rome is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by such opinions and practises which are very apt to hinder a good life Such are the destroying the necessity of a good life by making the Sacrament of Penance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation the taking off the care of it by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayers of the living after death and the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in it by prayers in a language which many understand not by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not by discouraging the reading the Scripture which is our most certain rule of faith and life by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as we are ready to defend by the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn Celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ by making it in the power of any person to dispense contrary to the Law of God in oaths and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Lawes of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practises and opinions we assert that there are so many hinderances to a good life that none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them 3. Because it exposeth the â—aith of Christians to so great uncertainty By making the authority of the Scriptures to depend on the infallibility of the Church when the Churches Infallibility must be proved by the Scripture by making those things necessary to be believed which if they be believed overthrow all foundations of faith viz. That we are not to believe our senses in the plainest objects of them as that bread which we see is not bread upon which it follows that tradition being a continued kind of sensation can be no more certain than sense it self and that the Apostles might have been deceived in the Body of Christ after the Resurrection and the Church of any Age in what they saw or heard By denying to Men the use of their judgment and reason as to the matters of saith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church by making the Churches power extend to make new Articles of faith viz. by making those things necessary to be believed which were not so before By pâ—etending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not determining Controversies which are on foot among themselves All which and several other things which my designed brevity will not permit me to mention tend very much to shake the faith of such who have nothing else to rely on but the authority of the Church of Rome 3. I answer That a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incur a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not but although we know not what allowances God will make for invincible ignorance we are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroys salvation To the second Question I answer 1. I do not understand what is meant by a Christian in the Abstract or in the whole Latitude it being a thing I never heard or read of before and therefore may have some meaning in it which I cannot understand 2. But if the Question be as the last words imply it Whether a Christian by vertue of his being so be bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians I answer affirmatively and that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church and not to leave that for a corrupt one though called never so
that none of the Idols of the Heathen were to be compared to Him in Wisdom Greatness Power c. as is manifest he does from v. 12. to the end of the Chapter it is no more to the purpose for which he alledges it viz. Therefore it is forbidden to worship God himself by bowing or kneeling before an Image than if one should say There is no comparison for Riches and Greatness between a King and a Peasant therefore it is not lawful to give honour to the King by putting off ones Hat before his Picture or the Chair of State § 7. To the other Text of Deut. 4. 15. where Moses saith Take good heed to your selves for ye saw no manner of Similitude in the day that the Lord spake to you I answer That de facto no manner of Similitude was seen at that time by the People that afterwards they might not take occasion as they were apt enough to conceive it to have been a proper Representation of the Divinity and so entertain an erroneous Conceit of God Notwithstanding if it had so pleas'd him when he gave the Law he might have appeared to the People in some visible likeness without disparagement to his Nature as it is likely he did in a glorious manner to Moses at the Second giving of the Law when he descended and stood with him on the Rock and he saw the back parts of God and bowed to the Earth and worshipped Exod. 33. 23. 34. 5 8. and as both before and after he appeared to the Patriarchs and Prophets and consequently his not appearing so de facto could not be the Reason of the Law For as Dr. St. himself confesses very ingenuously p. 63. Although God had appeared with a Similitude then yet there might have been great reason for making a Law against worshipping the Heathen Idols or fixing the intention of their Worship upon the bare Image I add Even against thinking of honouring God by an Image made by men if that were the meaning of the Law as it is not since such a Law if necessary might have been made and would have obliged although God had chosen some visible likeness to appear in at that time The words then For ye saw no manner of Similitude on the day that the Lord spake to you though cited by the Doctor without a Parenthesis to make them seem of more force were not set down by Moses as the Reason of the Law But the matter of fact was made use of by him as a Motive to induce the People to the Observance of it in a Sermon he makes Deut. 4. to press them to that duty And this Explication also the Doctor might have found in his own Bible if he had but vouchsafed to cast his Eye upon the Contents of the Chapter where the whole Discourse is entituled An Exhortation to Obedience or on the Breviate on the top of the Page where the Arguments us'd in it are call'd Perswasions to Obedience But there was the word likeness in the first Text and Similitude in the second denied of God and these were enough without considering the Context or the intent of the Writer or the Contents of the Chapters to ask Whether God by that Reason doth not declare that all Worship given to him by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him Now though Protestants may hold with Dr. St. that the Scripture is the most certain Rule of their Faith yet unless they wilfully shut their Eyes they cannot think the Method he takes to be the most certain way to find out its Sense But to draw to a Conclusion in this matter § 8. Let us suppose the Argument notwithstanding all that hath been said to shew its deficiency in all its parts to be good and sound and that in its largest extent viz. The Nature of God being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it Let us grant I say this Antecedent and the Places of Scripture in the sense they are cited by him Let us grant the Consequence too he infers from them Therefore all Worship given to Him by any visible Representation of him whether Proper or Analogical is extreamly dishonourable to him Suppose I say all this to be so Will it follow from hence that Christ according to his Humanity cannot be represented but with great disparagement to Him Or that to put off our Hats when we behold the Figure of his Sacred Body as Nailed upon the Cross with intent to Worship Him must be extremly dishonourable to Him What if the Soul of Man be Invisible and cannot be represented by any Corporeal Figure or Colours Will it follow from thence that any Picture made to represent a Prince according to his External Features would be a disparagement to him and any Honour given him by means of such a Representation a Dishonour The Consequence he brings is no better in order to Christ and his Image If then his Argument do not at all concern the practise of Catholicks in making the Images of Christ and his Saints with respect to their Honour to what purpose was it to lay down for the Reason of the Law in which he will have it to be forbidden That God's Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible could not be represented without infinite disparagement to it To what purpose was it to spend no less than three Pages as he does § 6. in citing Authours to prove that the Wiser Persons of the Heathens themselves condemned the Worship of God by Images as incongruous to a Divine Nature Was it to make his Reader believe that Catholicks allow of any Pictures as proper Representations of the Invisible Deity Let him lay his Hand upon his Heart I have told him the Churches Sense in that Point What those Wiser Persons of the Heathens meant is evident from their Words and from the Time in which they lived to be this That the Nature of God being Spiritual and Invisible it could not be represented by any thing like unto it and therefore the Worship which the People gave to their Images as Gods or like unto the Gods they worshipped was incongruous to the Divine Nature and a disparagement to the Deity And if the Germans as Tacitus reporteth de morib German c. 9. rejected Images made in the likeness of men which the Doctor conveniently leaves out because they thought them unsuitable to the Greatness of Celestial Deities for Other Figures and Symbols they had in their consecrated Groves as the same Tacitus there witnesseth and Dr. St. suppresseth it was but what the Light of Nature taught them concerning the notion of a Deity which had the mystery of God made Man been revealed to them would have taught them also that it was no disparagement to Him to be represented in the likeness of Man and to be worshipped by such an Image His other Citations I took upon his word without
by it to the Bread and Wine or any corporal presence of Christ's Natural Flesh and Blood Will the Doctor be so unkind as to make her say that no Reverence at all is due to that Holy Sacrament that this of all things in the World ought not to have been objected against them What! will he make them fall below Calvin in their respect to that Sacrament who saith it is to be received with reverence as the Pledge of our Holy Union with Christ Is it not time now to remind him as I promised above p. 138. how his Beloved Constantinopolitan Fathers call it an Honourable Image of Christ's quickning Body And thereupon invite all those and among them the Doctor unless he will leave himself out as he did these words all those I say to rejoyce and exult with confidence who desire worship and offer it for the Salvation both of Soul and Body Though He stile me very ineptly a Revolted Protestant yet I have so much respect for those learned Persons who made that Rubrick as to think they meant by Adoration what the word now signifieth by use in English that is Divine Worship proper to God alone and not that no more Reverence should be used towards the Bread and Wine in the Church than there is to the Remainder of it at home by some seemingly Revolted Presbyterians I cannot believe them to be truly Sons of the Church of England Now what the sense of that Church was and still is unless the Doctor will have us suppose these Modern Divines to have prevaricated from their Fathers Bishop Jewel tells us in these words We only adore Christ saith he as very God but we Worship also and Reverence the Sacrament we Worship the Word of God we worship all other like things in such Religious wise to Christ belonging The same is witnessed by Bishop Morton Under the degree of Divine Worship we our selvs yield as much to the Eucharist as St. Austin did to Baptisme where he said Epist 164. We reverence Baptisme wheresoever it is Nor is this delivered by them as their private Opinion but as the sense of the Church of England as appears by their words And if you ask how they can excuse themselves from Idolatry you have the Answer of Bishop Jewel that the Sacraments be adored but the whole honour resteth not in them but is passed over from them to the things signified So that it seems I was not much miâ—â—â—ken when to paralel the Reverence given by Catholicks to Images I instanced in that which is given by Protestants to the Sacramental signs by kneeling at the Eucharist for they do not only allow a like Reverence but maintain it also with the same distinction Nor will the Doctor ever be able to perswade his Parishioners out of it till he can make them leave their usual Expression when they speak of this Sacrament that they do not receive it as Bread but as the Body of Christ § 6. The 6th and last Instance was of Reverence given to the Altar by bowing to it a practise of great Antiquity as Dr. Heylin shows in his defence of the Modern Practise of it in the Church of England against Burton p. 25. This Dr. Still saith is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are in the Church And what is this to say Himself admits a Reverence to Holy Places p. 105. and surely the Church the House of God is one of them Here then we find him incline to admit a Reverence due to the Altar and if it be of the same nature with putting off our Hats while we are in the Church as he doth the one so he may lawfully do the other But then as if he had granted too much he presently draws back and tells us This is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship which as far as I can understand the words is not of the same nature with putting off our Hats when we are in the Church but with going to Church when the Bell tolls which is to give no more Reverence to the Altar than to the Bell. But who can unfold the Riddle and tell me what he means by a natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship If he mean by that way the local situation of the Altar in the East which was the way the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship and that Nature teacheth us to direct our Worship that way although the Altar for example in St. Andrew's may serve for such a determination because it is placed in the East yet he must give another reason why those in the Savoy bow towards the Altar where it is seated in the North because it doth not there determin a Natural Act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians used to direct their Worship which was towards the East But if he mean by that way a like manner of Reverence to the Altar as was used to be given by the Ancient Christians he will find in the aforecited place out of Dr. Heylin that they acknowledged an honour and veneration due to the Holy Altar and testified that honour by bowing and kneeling to it In fine whatever the meaning of the words be to speak to the practise it self either he condemns those of the Churcâ— of England who profess and testify their reverence to the Altar by bowing to it for Idolatry or no. If he do they are at age to answer for themselves If he do not an Inferiour or Relative honour may be given to it for his sake whose Throne it is under the degree of Divine Worship due to God alone and as the allowing this will render him a true Son of the Church of England so the allowing the like to the sacred Images of Christ will make him in this point a perfect Proselyte of the Church of Rome whose Councils have decreed that we are not to give to the Images of Christ and his Saints Latria or the worship due to God but a honourary respect and veneration as to the Books of H. Scripture and other Holy things But what himself may justly fear should success crown his endeavours in putting scruples into poor simple Mens minds to with draw them from the Reverence they owe to the Sacraments of Christ his Saints his Name his Image his Altars and such like Holy things relating to his Worship is that the Event whatever the design be of his labours will be no other as those Pious and Learned Doctors of Rhemes long since observed and we see at this Day in a great measure fulfilled than to inure Men by degrees to lose all honour and respect to Christ himself to abolish all true Religion out of the World and to make them plain Atheists The Chair of State is not more an Ornament to the King's Palace than the
present in his Ascension after he was intercepted from his Disciples sight by a Cloud Was he not so present before he opened the Eyes of the two blind Men who sate by the way side Matth. 20. 30. And is he not believed by all Christians to be so present at the right hand of his Father And might none of these worship him because they could not see him If he pretend a difference in the cases because in all them he was the Object of sense either before or after but as he exists in the Sacrament he can be no Object of sense he must grant his presence there to be a matter of pure Revelation and so falls upon the other edge of his distinction that in matters of pure Revelation where the matter proposed to our Faith can be no Object of sense there firm credit is to be given to the divine Revelation and worship also suitable to his presence But to go one step further In case a thing be knowable by evidence of sense May it not also be made known by Divine Revelation And will not God's Revelation ascertain us as well if not much better than our Eyes Who saw the World rise out of nothing No less a Philosopher than Aristotle not to speak of others held it never had any beginning And yet what Christian does not believe it had more firmly upon the account of God's Revelation than if he had been present in some corner of the spatium Imaginarium and beheld the foundation of it with his Eyes Upon the whole then which way soever the Doctor turn himself unless he will maintain what he seems indeed to suppose all along in this discourse that we are to give more credit to our sense then to God's revealed word he must confess that wherever there is a Divine Revelation of Christ's presence which at present he supposes in the Sacrament there is the same if not greater Reason to believe and worship him than if he saw him as clearly as the Wise-men did in the Manger or the Thief upon the Cross And consequently that he was but too too Prodigal in granting that supposing a like Divine Revelâ—â—ion for Christ's presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his being true God yet there would not be the same reason to worship him there as when he dwelt visibly among us All that he could devise to elude the Parallel argument I urged from the Pen of an Arrian Viz. that the Argument he brings to conclude Catholicks to be Idolaters for their adoration of Christ in the Eucharist would be of as much force from the Arrians against the adoration of him as God All I say he could devise to elude this argument with standing to the true state of the Question and supposing as he does a like divine Revelation for both was to say there was not an express command to worship him in the Eucharist which how pitiful an Evasion it is I have shewed above And yet as pitiful as it is it may serve well enough to make an unwary Reader believe he concludes all the Papists in the World Idolaters for worshipping our Lord Christ himself in the Sacrament But why it should do so when nothing less than an express Prohibition could make them Idolaters in the matter of Images I cannot imagin § 6. The Second Proof he brings to show that Supposing a like divine Revelation for Christ's being present in the Sacrament as for his being true God yet there is not the same reason of adoration is p. 112. because the One he saith gives us a sufficient reason of our Worship viz. his Divinity but the other doth not because all that He can believe then present supposing Transubstantiation is the Body of Christ and that is not the Object of our Adoration But this is altogether as weak as the former for however that be all he can believe and more than he does believe God encrease his Faith yet Catholicks believe much more viz. that together with his Body in the Eucharist are present his Soul his Person his Divinity in a word whole Christ and to his Person it is they terminate their worship as hypostatically united with his Body For as the Dr. himself saith very well p. 114. although the humane nature of Christ of it self can yield us no sufficient reason of adoration yet being considered as united to the Divine Nature that cannot hinder the same Divine Worship being given to his Person which belongs to his Divine Nature any more than the Robes of a Prince can take off from the honour due unto him To elude this Answer for now his chiefest hope consists in seeking out ways to escape instead of rejoining to it upon the supposition of Transubstantiation he falls to dispute down-right against Transubstantiation it self where he tells the Reader that this Answer of Christ's Body being hypostatically united with the Divine Nature is indeed a good argument to prove the Body of Christ cannot be there by Transubstantiation And I desire the Reader to be very attentive to the argument as it is propos'd by the Doctor for otherwise perhaps it may cost him the labour of a second reading If the Bread saith he p. 113. be converted into that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature then the Conversion is not meerly into the Body but into the Person of Christ and then Christ hath as many Bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements consecrated and so all the accidents of the Bread belong to that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature Therefore the Body of Christ cannot be in the Sacrament by Transubstantiation This is his argument which he calls a Good One. I am sure I may call it a sublime One and so sublime that there wants only an Adversary of the same humour with Mr. J. S.'s to set it out for a notable piece of new Mystical Divinity For I do verily believe that neither Harphius nor Rusbrochius nor the profound Mother Juliana have any thing in their writings so seemingly un intelligible and contradictory as this discourse of the Doctor 's is really such For beside the hard words of hypostatical union consecrated Elements Conversion into the Person of Christ c. which quite put down Mr. J. S.'s vulgar ones of Potentiality Actuality Actuation supervene subsume c. First He will have it to be the same Body because it is that Body which is hypostatically united with the divine nature Then he will have it not to be the same Body because Christ would have as many Bodies as there are Elements consecrated And then again it must be the same Body because all the Accidents of Bread belong to that Body which is hypostatically united with the Divine Nature But this way of refining a discourse into Mystical Divinity is proper only to confute demonstrations and the argument I have to deal with is so far from that
which if we do not exercise in judging the truth of divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so The perfect discussion of this Principle I shall not engage my 〈◊〉 in at present The Men of Principles as the Doctor calls them not without just cause are likely enough to take it into Consideration a second and perhaps a third time too At present it may suffice to shew briefly now absurd in it self and how destructive to Christian Religion this Principle of the Doctor 's is Viz. That we are to judge of the truth of divine Revelation i.e. whether God have revealed such a thing or no by exercising our Faculty of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief that is by making our Reason the Judge whether the matter proposed to our belief be true or false This is what I can understand by the Doctor 's words to be his meaning If He can give them a better I shall be glad to find my self mistaken But if this be as to me it seems to be the sense of his words I am sorry that any thing so irrational in its self and so fatal to Religion should proceed from the Pen of a Christian. For first as I said it is absurd in it self because it can by no means subsist unless we will equal Man's knowledge with that of God For if Man cannot comprehend the depth of the knowledge and power of God that is if God both know and can do more than Man can understand it is evident that the judgment of sense and reason about the Truth of the matter proposed can never be a â—it means to assure him whether God have revealed it or no and it is as evident on the contrary that if it be sufficiently proposed and asserted as revealed by God though it seem never so absurd and contradictory to humane sense and reason we must submit our judgment to the belief of it as True ' Tâ—s not all our reasonings and syllogisms against the matter proposed that can excuse us from the Obligation of câ—ptivating our Undeâ—standing to the Obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. That which seems a Camel to us is not so much as a Gnat to the knowledge and power of God and therefore rather than give Him the lye we must strain our selves to swallow what seems to be the greatest Contradiction to Sense and Reason Imaginable Our first Mother Eve by taking part with her sense against Faith destroyed her Self and Posterity by believing the Devil rather than God and what more suitable Penance for this Fault or Cure for this Pride than for God to exact of us that we should believe Him rather than our sense and this particularly in the point of Transubstantiation of the Bread into the Body of our Redeemer that as by following sense and eating the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil Death came upon all both of Soul and Body so all may receive Life by denying the suggestions of Sense and eating the true food of the Body of Christ under the forme of Bread 2dly It is destructive to Christianity since if we must believe nothing but what our Sense and Reason can comprehend we must lay aside our Creed and neither believe the Creation of the World nor the Trinity of Persons nor the Incarnation of the Son of God nor the Resurrection of the Dead all which seem to imply as many and great Absurdities and Contradictions as the Doctor for his heart can Object against Transubstantiation It would be too tedious to insist upon them all Those who are curious may meet with them every where in the Writings both of those who impugn and of those who defend the Catholick belief in those Points Yet to give the Reader a clearer Insight into the absurdness and malignity of this Principle of the Doctors and how agreeable this proceeding of his is in this Point to that of other Desertors of the Church's Faith I shall instance in some of the Contradictions objected against the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation and that in the words of Dr. Beaumont now Master of Peter-House in Cambridge in his most excellent Poem call'd Psyche or Love's Mystery Verses I know in a Book of Controversy will seem as improper and come as unexpected as a Garden of Flowers in a rough and craggy Desâ—rt but a Traveller will not find fault with his Guide for leading him thorough it if he lead him not out of his way My Adversary without any occasion given him to please the Atheistical humour of the Wits of the Time could think fit to turn Spiritual Archy and make sport with the Saints in so prophane a manner as is no where to be parallel'd in the worst of Play-Books And I hope after so many hard and spiny Questions of the Schools wherewith he hath perplex'd the minds of his sober Readers I may have leave to divert them with citing a little Poetry which doth but express in Verse what the matter it self leads me to have said in Prose See then how the aforesaid Dr. Beaumont introduces a Cerinthian Heretick endeavouring to seduce Psyche that is the Soul from the belief of the Mysteries of the Incarnation and Trinity upon Dr. St.'s Principles of Sense and Reason 213 Blind Ignorance was grown so bold that she Sought to perswade the World it had no eyes Making the lazy Name of Mystery Instead of Demonstration suffice From this black Pit those monstrous Prodigies Of Hood-wink'd and abused Faith did rise 214 Who can imagin Heaven would e're ob'rude Upon the Faith of Reasonable Men That which against all Reason doth conclude And founded is on Contradiction Sure God so strange a Law did never give That Men must not be Men if they believe 219 For though the Marvel-Mongers †grant that He Was moulded up but of a Mortal Mettal And that his substance was the same which we Find in our selves to be so weak and brittle Yet an Eternal God they make Him too And angry are that we will not do so 220 Thus the quaint madness of a dreaming Brain Holds the same thing a Mountain and a Mite Fancies the Sun Light 's Royal Soveraign To look like swarthy and ignoble Night Imagins wretched Worms although it see They crawl in Dâ—rt Illustâ—ious Kings to be 221 But Heaven forbid that we should so blaspheme And think our God as poor a thing as we How can Eternity be born in Time How can Infinity a Baby be Or how can Heaven and Earth's Almighty Lord To Aegypt fly for fear of Herod's Sword 226 I know they strive to mince the matter by Distinguishing his Natures For their Art Being asham'd of no Absurdity Hâ—mself from his own self presumes to part Yet we durst not admit a Deity Which must on a distinction builded be 227 But how much more than Mad their doctrine is And how transcending Pagan Blasphemy Who
not content to make a God of This Both Passible and Mortal Jesus try To thrust Him into one substantial knot With his Eternal sire who Him begot 228 Two yet not Two but One these Two must be Nay and a Third into the knot they bring The Spirit must come in to make up Three And yet these Three be but one single Thing Thus fast and loose they play or ev'n and odd And We a juggling Trick must have for God 229 If God be One then let Him be so still Why jumble we we know not what together Did all the World not know their God untill This old blind Age discover'd Him Did neither The Patriarks believe nor Prophets see Aright because They took not One for Three 231 Let Love and Duty make of Christ as high And Glorious a Thing as Wit can reach Provided that against the Deity No Injury nor Sacriledge they preach If only on such terms He lov'd may be Him to neglect is Piety say we And then a little after he concludes 234 For If your Faith relies on Men who are Themselves but founded and built up of dust If yoâ— by Reason's Rule disdain to square Yoâ—r Pâ—ety and take your God on Trust Which Heaven forbid You only are a Prize Unto Impostor's fair-tongu'd Fallacies Thus doth this Ingenious Person represent an Heretick in his true Colours arguing against the Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation upon the Principles with which Doctor St. 〈◊〉 the Doctrin of Transubstantiation aâ—d in terms so equivalent that the Dr. seems but to have resolv'd into Prose what the other wrote in Verse as may appear from this following Parallel 'T is Ignorance and Madness saith the Cerinthian Heretick to believe that God can be Three and One and that Christ is God Stanz 213. 220. 'T is Folly and Madness saith Dr. St. to believe Transubstantiation He becomes an Idolater by not being a Fool or a Mad-man p. 120. The Mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation are monstrous Prodigies of abused Faith saith the Cerinthian Stanz 213. Transubstantiation saith D. St. is so strange and sudden a change that he can hardly say that God becoming Man was so great a wonder as a little piece of bread becoming God p. 120. The Cerinthian affirms of the Trinity and Incarnation that they are against all reason and founded on Contradictions Stanz 214. Dr. St. affirms of Transubstantiation that it is absurd and for a Man to believe it he must swallow the greatest Contradictions to Sense and Reason Imaginable p. 130. In a word the Cerinthian makes his Sense and Reason to be the Rule of his Faith Stanz 234. And Dr. St. will believe nothing that seems to contradict them p. 561. Only the Cerinthian affirms the Doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation to transcend Pagan-blasphemy which I do not see yet that Dr. St. â—ath ventured to say of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Perhaps he will reply to this Parallel that the difficulties the Cerinthian objects against the Trinity and Incarnation are but seeming Contradictâ—ons but those in the Point of Transubstantiation are real ones but then he must grant according to his Principles that whilst they seem to be Contradictions they are not to be believed by those to whom they seem so that is by the unlearned who are the greatest part Or if they may notwithstanding believe those Mysteries they may much rather believe that of Transubstantiation since it seems a greater Contradiction that the very self same Nature should be whole and undivided in three distinct Persons than that the same Body should be in many places and that the Invisible Word should be made Flesh than that Bread should be converted into that Flesh How Dr. St. will extricate himself I know not but the way which Dr. Beaumont takes to secure the Soul from being startled with these seeming Contradictions is to introduce her Angel Guardian conducting her to Christ's Catholick Church the Ground and Pillar of Truth And upon this Ground it is For in his Preface he recants aforehand if any thing throughout the whole Poem should happen against his Intention to prove discord to the Consent of Christ's Catholick Church that he makes the Angel perswade his Pupil to contemn all the seeming Contradictions which crafty and subtil Wits object against the Real Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament if not against Transubstantiation it self And because the Book is not every where to be found as not having been so often Printed as Dr. St.'s because there is no Prophane Invective in it against the Persons and Lives of Gods Saints I shall venture to Transcribe another parcel of Verses out of it so proper to the present subject as if written on purpose by the Ingenious Author to crush in the Egg those secret workings of Atheism and Irreligion which the aforesaid Principle is apt to breed in the Wits of this Age under so colourable a pretence as that of not being fool'd out of their Sense and Reason 74 When Jesus by his Water cleansed had His Servant's Feet and by his Grace their Hearts Shewing what Preparation must be made By all who ever mean to have their Parts In his pure Banquet down he sits again And them with Miracles doth entertain And then having described the Institution of the Sacrament he goes on 81 Sweet Jesu O how can thy World forget Their Royal Saviour and his Bounty who Upon their Tables his own self hath set Who in their Holy Cups fails not to flow And in their Dishes lie Did ever Friend So sure a Token of his Love commend 82 Infallibly there dost Thou flow and lie Though mortal Eyes discover no such thing Quick-sighted Faith reads all the Mystery And humble Pious Souls doth easily bring Into the Wonder 's Cabinet and there Makes all the Jewels of this Truth appear 83 Shee generously dares on God rely And trust his Word how strange so e're it be If Jesus once pronounces This is my Body and Blood Far far be it cries she That I should think my dying Lord would cheat Me in his Legacy of Drink and Meat 84 His Word is most Omnipotent and He Can do what e're he says and more than I Can or would understand What is 't to me If He transcends Humane Capacity Surely it well becomes Him so to do Nor were He God if he could not do so 85 Let Him say what He will I must deny Him to be God or else believe His Word Me it concerneth not to verify What he proclaims I only must afford Meek Credit and let Him alone to make Good whatsoever He is pleas'd to speak 86 Gross and unworthy Spirits sure They be Who of their Lord such mean Conceptions frame That parting from his dearest Consorts He No Tokens of his Love did leave with Them But simple Bread and Wine a likely Thing And well-becoming Heavens Magnificent King 88 Ask me not then How can the Thing be done What power
the case is the same as to the Point of Reason Men must be allowed the use of their Judgment and Reason in the search of both And therefore he must either acknowledge his Charge to have been groundless when he taxed Catholicks for exposing Faith to uncertainty or he must grant to Men though it be with contradicting himself which is much easier to do than to swallow the least seeming Contradiction in a matter of Faith that they may and ought to make use of their discerning Faculty as to the truth or falshood of matters proposed to our belief which I confess I take to be the same as to believe no more than their Reason can comprehend and so if Reason chance to meet with some seeming Contradiction with which it is not able or willing to grapple the Article ought and must be exploded for such a monstrous Prodigy of hood wink'd and abused Faith as no Man can imagine God would e're obtrude upon the Faith of Reasonable Men. But here again perhaps he will say that although God may impose upon us an Obligation of believing against the Conceptions of our Reason yet he cannot do it against the suggestion of our sense because as he asserts p. 540. This would be to overthrow all certainty of Faith where the matters to be believed depend upon mattâ—r of Fact But here I would desire to know what Angel from Heaven reveal'd this Doctrin to him Suppose in the case of the two Disciples at Emmaus that our Saviour had vanished out of their sight before he brake bread might he not hâ—ve told them afterwards that it was He who had appeared to them in a disguise without overthrowing all the certainty of Faith where matters to be believed depend upon matter of Fact St. Chrysostome above cited I am sure was of another mind in the very point of Christ's real presence in the Sacrament when he bids us obey God in that mystery though what he say seem to contradict our thoughts and eyes And so was St. Cyril too when he exhorts Christians not to consider it as naked Bread and Wine for it 〈…〉 Blood of Christ according to the words of Christ himself And although sense do suggest this to theâ— viz. that it is Bread yet let Faith confirm thee Do not judge of the thing by thy tast but know and hold for most certain that this Bread which is seen of us is not Bread though the tast judge it to be Bread but the Body of Christ and that the Wine which is seen by us although it seem Wine to the sense of tasting notwithstanding is not Wine but the Blood of Christ This is what these Holy Fathers teach in this matter and with great reason for as God is not only God of the Hills but also of the Valleys So is he God not onâ—y of our Reason but of our Senses also And if the Antidote his Goodness hath prâ—scrib'd to Cure our Corrupt Nature be prepared in such a manner as requires the captivating of our Sense as well as of our Understanding who shall question either his Wisdome or Power He hath said This is my Body though it appear to us to be bread And this being but one Exception from the General Rule of Sensation why that should overthrow all certainty of Faith more than so many exceptions as the Trinity and other Mysteries lay upon the General Rules of our Reasoning I leave to all Men of sense and Reason to judge O but this is the strangest of Miracles and Miracles ought to be the objects of sense I grant it of such Miracles as are done for the Conversion of Unbelievers but this is not done upon such an account but for the Sanctification of those who believe already And for these it is enough that Christ hath said It is his Body They know very well the danger of not believing him more than their senses And that others may know it also I shall set it before them in the words of St. Epiphanius no less than 1300. Years ago We see saith he speaking of the Blessed Sacrament that It is neither equal nor like in proportion or Image to his Flesh to the Invisible Deity to the lineaments of a Body for this is of a round forme and insensible according to power And yet because he was pleased to say through Grace This is my Body every one believeth his saying For who believeth not that it is his very true Body falleth from Grace and Salvation Thus much to the Doctors Principles of Sense and Reason Let us now see what he says against the Grounds and Motives of Transubstantiation CHAP. V. A Check to the Doctor 's bigg words against the Grounds of Transubstantiation with a new Example of reporting faithfully as he calls it the Words and Sense of an Author § 1. TO show there are not the same Grounds and Motives for Christs presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation as for his Divinity my Adversary instances in Three 1. The Authority of the Roman Church 2. Catholick Tradition 3. Scripture And for the first of these Viz. The Authority of the Roman Church if it have any at all it stands against the Doctor for Transubstantiation and that so evidently that he is forced to take the confidence p. 130. utterly to deny that to be any ground of believing at all For my part I believe every sober Person of his own Party will judge he had much better have said nothing at all And I cannot but think how St. Austin who calls the Chair of Peter that Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome and professes that the Principality of the Apostolick Chair did always conserve its vigour in the Roman Church would have startled to hear one single Doctor so pertly deny it to be any Ground at all of believing How St. Hierome who writing to Pope Damasus saith I know that upon this Rock the Church is built and whosoever eateth the Lamb out of this House is Prophane c. would have whetted his stile more against him for denying her Authority to be any Ground of believing at all than ever he did against Vigilantius for deriding Invocation of Saints Veneration of Relicks or Lighting Candles at Noon-Day in the Church c. And how St. Irenaeus would have excluded him out of the Society of Christians for this peremptory behaviour when he affirms it necessary for all other Churches convenire to have recourse and agree with the Roman by reason of its more eminent Principality That this was the Dignity and Prerogative of the Roman Church in the time of these Holy Fathers the Doctor himself cannot deny and if he pretend she is fallen from the Purity she then enjoyed it is but what the Donatists his Predecessors in this point said above twelve hundred years ago when as St. Austin tells us they call'd the Apostolick Chair the Chair of Pestilence because it oppos'd their Novelities
to make the breach bigger already too wide Thus St. Austin and Bishop Mountague and were they alive they might justly â—ear that for these singular fancies or superstitious Caprichio's as the Doctor calls them they should â—all under his lash of being accounted Men of mere Charity than Judgment CHAP. IV. Of the Term Formal Invocation and the different Formes used in the Invocation of Saints Some Instances out of the Fathers to show the like to have been used in their Times § 1. THe Doctor having made use in his Answer to the two Questions of the equivocal term of Formal Invocation to amuze his Reader I reply'd I understood not well what He meant by Formal Invocation but withall I told him that what Catholicks understand by it in the present matter is desiring or praying those just Persons who are in Glory in Heaven to pray for them To shew the palpable weakness as he calls it of this Answer he says he will prove that those of the Church of Rome do allow and practice another kind of Formal Invocation from what I assert and I think he never betrayed more paâ—pably the weakness of his own cause than in this undertaking Let the Reader judge § 2. First then he says that Never any Person before me imagin'd that to be the sense of Formal Invocation which I do when I say that what we understand by it is desiring or praying the Saints to pray for us And 〈◊〉 Himself in the very next words declarâ—s that he imagins the very same sense of it that I do when he says that the term of Formal Invocation was purposely chosen by Him to distinguish it from Rhetorical Apostrophes Poetical Flourishes and general wishes that the Saints would pray for us and from Assemblies at the Monuments of the Martyrs of all which he grants there are some instances in good Authors Viz. the Chief Fathers both of the Greek and Latin Church For what is this but to tell us that he means by Formal Invocation as I do a real address of our minds to the Saints themselves to help us with their Prayers 'T is true indeed what He would have his Reader to understand by it is what he says is constantly practis'd in the Roman Church to offer up our Prayers to Saints and Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us But what doth he say then to the Forme of Prayer used by us in the Letanies Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us Is it only a Rhetorical Apostrophe Poetical Flourish or general wish that the Saints would pray for us Or is it more If it be no more Why does he impugne what he grants was used by those good Authors If it be more 't is then a part at least of Formal Invocation as defin'd by Himself And if when we pray them to help our necessities the meaning be that they should do it by their Prayers the whole sense of Formal Invocation in this present matter is to desire them to pray for us so that though never any Person before me imagin'd this to be the sense of it yet now I have the Doctor himself concurring with me in it But to pass on to the Proofs of his Assertion § 3. All the difficulty he says p. 163. lies in this whether Catholicks pray to the Saints to help their necessities as well as pray for them that is whether besides the usual form of saying Holy Mary pray for us we do not sometimes vary the Phrase and say Help me or comfort and strengthen me O B. Virgin for as for the meaning of the words I never yet met with any Catholick so Ignorant as not to understand the sense to be to desire them to help us with their Prayers Behold then here the terrible Mystery not to be made known to Proselites saith the Doctor until they be first made safe and fast enough Viz. that sometimes they may use the like form of words to God and the Saints as a Child does to his Father when instead of saying Pray Father Pray to God to bless me he saith sometimes Bless me Father But Catholicks he saith p. 163. do this with all the same external signs of devotion which they use to God Himself And can he excuse a Child from Idolatry when he kneels down with the same external sign of devotion which we use to God and saith Bless me Father because he saith it in a different sense to his Father than he doth to God and will he not upon the same account be as charitable to us when with the like external sign of devotion we say Bless me or help me Mother of God Mr. Thorndike in all his discourses shows his unwillingness to free the Practise of the Church of Rome in this matter from Idolatry yet convinc'd by the Evidence of Truth he confesses that the Church of England having acknowledg'd the Church of Rome a true Church though corrupt ever since the Reformation he is oblig'd so to interpret the Prayers thereof as to acknowledge the corruption so great that the Prayers which it alloweth may be Idolatries if they be made in that sense which they may properly signify but not that they are necessarily Idolatries For if they were necessarily Idolatries then were the Church of Rome necessarily no Church the being of Christianity prâ—supposing the worship of one true God And although to confute the Hereticks the style of Modern devotion he saith leaves nothing to God which is not attributed to and desired of his Saints yet it cannot be denyed they may be the words of them who believe that God alone can give that which they desire And if this cannot be denyed where is the Doctor 's either Charity or Sincerity to interpret these or the like words Help me Mother of God in the same sense they carry when we say Help me GOD § 4. But what do I do expecting Charity from Him who makes it superstitious Fanaticisme or at best but Fanciful singularity in others The excess not of his Judgment but Zeal if we must call it so hath quite eaten up his Charity And every thing he meets with that is not down-right Ora pro nobis must now be Idolatrous or Blasphemous Nay it is enough he hath heard of our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book he saith never yet censured wherein the Psalms in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the Virgin Mary But what or whose Book soever that be which I first had news of from Himself his only hearing of it argues that it is no publick Devotion of the Church and so not to be charg'd upon Her And did it contain Blasphemy as he saith it doth and were publickly known no doubt it had been censured before this But then again as we are not to take all for Gospel so neither are we to take all for Blasphemy which the Doctor calls so Every one saith Aristotle judgeth
he hath mis-represented them Thus then he Liberty of Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their Name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expressions of Minor Bishops he means in acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said always apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who dâ—parted from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Forefathers which had actually possession and seizure of Mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading Man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a Man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therfore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimony of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austin's time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Judge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not fore-see The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the Scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned Men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own Opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Full Refutation OF Dr. STILLINGFLEET's Unjust Charge of IDOLATRY Against the Church of Rome The First Part. Of the Veneration of Holy Images CHAP. I. The First and Second Answer to the First Question shewn not pertinent Necessity of Communion with the Church of Rome proved and his Charge of Idolatry overthrown by his own Principles § 1. WHoever considers how Dr. Stillingfleet in his Answer to the Two Questions has engag'd himself and his Adversary in Seventeen or Eighteen of the most material Controversies between Catholicks and Protestants besides innumerable others of lesser concern which together with the former have swell'd his Rejoynder to a short Paper into a large Book will not very easily free him upon his own word from being fond of the practise of the Noble Science of Controversie or as his Friend Dr. T. calls it The Blessed Art of Eternal Wrangling especially if he reflect how easie and obvious the Answer was to the Questions themselves without running into farther Disputes To the First by shewing that the Motives which are sufficient to secure the Salvation of one bred up and well-grounded in Catholick Religion are not sufficient to secure the salvation of one bred up in the Protestant who convinced by them should embrace the Catholick To the Second by shewing the Motives for Communion with the Protestant Church to be greater and stronger than those for the Roman and therefore that to be necessarily embraced before this it being agreed between us that it is of necessity to salvation to be
between the Church of Rome and the Church of England in these words The Church of Rome imposeth new Articles of Faith to be believed as necessary to Salvation But the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but such as have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self and in other things as that no Veneration is due to Images the Bread is not Transubstantiated into the Body of Christ Saints are not to be invocated c. she requires subscription to them not as Articles of Faith but as inferiour Truths or as Dr. Bramhall Lord Primate of Ireland alledged by him calls them Pious Opinions fitted for the preservation of Unity not says he that we oblige any man to believe them but onely not to oppose or contradict them This then is the Basis and Foundation he lays of his Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion that no Doctrine of the Protestant Religion as it differs from that of the Roman is an Article of Faith that is that no Protestant believes or if he do he ought not to believe as a matter of Faith that the Images for example of Christ and his Saints are not to be honoured that the substance of the Bread is not changed into the Body of Christ that the Saints in Heaven are not to be invoked to pray for us Nay all that he is obliged to by the Church of England is not to oppose or contradict them This being so let us now see what follows from this Doctrine 1. It follows that the Church of Rome does not erre against any Article of Faith because the Church of England as he saith makes no Articles of Faith but such as are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self 2dly It follows that himself does not believe any of these Points to be Articles of Faith Viz. That Veneration is not to be given to Holy Images that Adoration is not to be given to the Eucharist or that the Saints are not to be invocated because to be Articles of Faith with him they must have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and be acknowledged to be such by Rome it self 3dly It follows that after all this bustle to make the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry in these very Points of Veneration of Images c. For ought any Man knows himself gives no interiour assent to any of the forementioned Tenets not even as to Inferiour Truths or Pious Opinions because the Church of England as he cites out of Dr. Bramhall doth not oblige any Man to believe them but only not to oppose or contradict them and it is not likely he defers more to the Church of England than she obliges him too 4thly and lastly It follows that his charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome is vain and groundless for Idolatry being an Errour against the most Fundamental Point of Faith and the Church of Rome according to him not erring against any Article of Faith 't is evident that to charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry must according to his own Principles be the most groundless unreasonable and contradictory proceeding in the World But it is time now to come to particulars onely I must not omit to desire every indifferent Reader to reflect and judge whether Dr. Stillingfleet to render the Doctrine of the 39. Articles digestible to the most squeamish stomack of the nicest Nonconformist have not done a notable piece of service to the Church of England in degrading so many of them as are not acknowledged by the Church of Rome although they be esteemed the distinctive badg of the purity of the Church of England from the dignity of being Articles of Faith into a lower Classe of Inferiour Truths as he calls them which neither himself nor any Body else know whether they have a grain of truth in them or no and consequently are not bound to believe them Nay does he not undermine the Church of England both in her Doctrine and Government In her Doctrine by freeing her Subjects from any obligation of interiour believing her Articles in which she differs from the Church of Rome to be so much as Inferiour Truths In her Government by exposing her Ordination to be invaded without scruple by such as in their hearts judg it Anti-Christian when he tells them her Sense is to oblige them no farther than not to oppose or contradict it Was it not worth the while to rend asunder the Peace of Christendom for a Company of Opinions which though Dr. Bramhall call them Pious yet the greater part of Christians both in the East and West for many Ages have and do condemn for Impious and Blasphemous Is not this a very Rational or rather as Mr. J. S. expounds the word a very Reasonable Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion and a rare way of justifying her from the Guilt of Schism Sure he never thought of charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry when he laid such sandy Principles for his Foundation Principles of so brittle a temper that it was not possible they should bear so great a Charge without breaking and discharging upon himself CHAP. II. Dr. St.'s chief Argument to prove the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry examined and his Preposterous ways of arguing laid open § 1. IT is a known saying of St. Irenaeus and St. Hierom Ep. ad Ctesiphont speaking of those who set up their own fancies in opposition to the Doctrine of the Church that to lay open what they hold is to refute it and certainly it was never more true than in the subject of the present Debate concerning the Veneration of Images the very light of nature teaching that the honour or dishonour done to a Picture or Image reflects upon the Person represented by it This Protestants themselves confess in civil matters as in the Picture or Image of the King in order to his Person and did they not corrupt themselves in those things which they know naturally they could not but acknowledg the same in the Image of Christ and his Saints in order to them For is it an honour to the King to kiss his Picture and is it not the like to Christ to put off our Hats or kneel before His Was it a dishonour to the King to shoot his Picture with Bullets a◠the Souldiers did in the late times as they march'd along the Streets And was it none to Christ to have his Image bor'd through with hot Irons as he was represented rising from the Grave upon Cheapside Cross A Man would think there needed no more but the light of Nature and Common sence to decide this Controversie and yet the Doctor will needs sustain that the honour given to the Images of Christ and his Saints does not redound at all to them but is so far from that that it is no other than down right Idolatry §
deluded with the sound of words To bow our selves down to the Images themselves without any Relation to God is by the Concession of all to worship them instead of God And is it all one to worship an Image instead of God and to worship God himself by bowing before an Image The difference is too palpable not to be seen by any one who hath not the natural Conceptions of his mind corrupted by an over-eager desire to pursue at any rate so unjust and uncharitable a Charge as that of Idolatry The Jews we know did worship God by bowing down before the Ark and the Cherubims and yet they did not worship them instead of God And if the Doctor will needs contend that this was a particular dispensation to the Jews that they might lawfully bow down before the Ark and the Cherubims to worship God he must acknowledge the Precept if it were so as to that part of not worshipping God by bowing before an Image not to have been Natural for then God had dispens'd with them in committing real Idolatry but Ceremonial and consequently not to oblige Christians unless he will engage them also in the observance of all the Ceremonial part of the Law of Moses Taking then the Terms of the Law as translated by Protestants themselves in favour of their own Cause 't is manifest that to worship God by an Image is not expresly prohibited because not at all spoken of in that Commandment 5. What I asserted to be the meaning of the Law was That God forbad to give his Worship to Idols To prove this I urged 1. The Judgment of St. Austin who makes those words Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven thing c. to be but an explication of the immediately foregoing ones Thou shalt have no other Gods before me 2. That the word Pesel in Hebrew in Latin Sculptile a graven thing was used in Scripture to signifie an Idol and particularly was translated by the Septuagint in this very place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou shalt not make to thy self an Idol To the First he answers pag. 99 by asking How am I sure this was St. Austin's constant Judgment since in his later Writings he reckons up the Commandments as others of the Fathers had done before him But before I reply to this Demand it will be convenient to lay down what was S. Austin's Judgment in his former Writing concerning the dividing of the Commandments 6. In his LXXI Question upon Exodus he treats this Point expresly and at large viz. Whether three Commandments onely are to be assigned to the first Table and seven to the second Or four to the First and six onely to the Second And he gives his Resolution in these words Those saith he who assign four to the First Table will have those words Thou shalt not make to thy self an Idol where Idols are forbidden to to be worshipped to be a distinct Precept from the foregoing words Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me and these other words Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbors Wife and Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbors house with the rest to the end of the second Table to be but One. Those who assign but Three to the First Table make whatever is commanded concerning the Worship of One God that nothing else be worshipped for God besides him to be but One Precept and divide the last words of the Second Table into Two so that Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbors Wife is one Commandment and Thou shalt not covet his house nor any thing that is his another Yet neither of them doubt of the Commandments being Ten because this the Scripture it self witnesseth But to me says He it seems more congruous to divide them into Three and Seven because those which belong to God seem to insinuate a Trinity of Persons to such as more attentively look into them And in reality the very same thing is more perfectly explicated when Idols are forbidden to be worshipped which was said in the forgoing words Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me Thus S. Austin And then having shown the last words of the Second Table Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours wife Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours house c. to be two distinct Precepts from the distinct Prohibitions Thou shalt not and Thou shalt not answerable to the different nature of the Sins forbidden he adds But as to that which is forbidden by those words Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me it is apparent that a more diligent execution of this matter is imported by the words which follow For to what does that Prohibition belong Thou shalt not make to thy self and Idol or any similitude of things in Heaven above Thou shalt not adore them nor serve them but to that which was said before Thou shalt have no other Gods before me These are the Words and the Discourse of S. Austin in which the Reader may note 1. That he translates Thou shalt not make to thy self an Idol not an Image as Protestants do very artificially to make their Assertion seem more plausible 2. That he makes the sence of the Law to be the forbidding to give the Worship of God to Idols 3. That he does not make it a distinct Precept from the foregoing words Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me but onely a more particular and perfect explication of them So that if the Judgment of S. Austin be to be followed either for the meaning of the Law or for the dividing of the Decalogue it is evident he stands on the Catholick's side and not on the Protestant's 7. This Dr. St. saw very well and therefore found no other way to evade the weight of his Judgment but to call me to Account how I am sure that this was his constant Judgment since in his latter Writings upon his bare word you must take it for there is nothing in the place to prove it he reckons up the Commandments as others of the Fathers had done before him He would seem 〈◊〉 these last words to inâ—inuate as if S. Austin had changed his Judgment upon consideration of what other Fathers had done before him but there is mention of no such thing in those later Writings cited by himself and in the former cited by me 't is plain that he had considered the Opinion of those other Fathers before him concerning the dividing the Commandments as Protestants do now and that notwithstanding their Sentiment in the case he rejected it as less congruous to the meaning of the Law and the natures of the things forbidden This then was a pretty Artifice to amuze the Reader instead of speaking to the Point But to come to his demand How I am sure that S. Austin remained constant in this Judgment Let us first see what the words are in the place to which he refers us in his Margin Who will say saith S. Austin Contra duas Ep. Pelag. li. 3. c. 4.
that Christians are not bound to observe that God onely is to be served with the service of Religion that an Idol is not to be worshipped that the Name of God ought not to be taken in vain that Parents are to be honoured that Adulteries Murders Thesâ—s are not to be committed that false witness is not to be born that our Neighbours Wife that no other thing which is his is not to be coveted These are the words of S. Austin And his Intention here was no more but to recapitulate the Duties enjoyned in the Decalogue which Christians are bound to observe as is evident 1. From his first words Who will say that Christians are not bound to observe c. 2. From the occasion of them which was to answer the Calumny of the Pelagians who accused him for asserting That the Law was not given to justifie the Observers but to be a greater cause of sin 3. From his leaving out the keeping of the Sabboth as it was commanded to be observed by the Jews which he had before excepted This was his Intention in the place cited by the Doctor and not to meddle at all with the manner how the Commandments are to be divided for whether Four be assigned to the First Table and Six to the Second or Three onely to the First and Seven to the Second the Duties which Christians are bound to observe are still the same So that the Doctor has no more ground from hence to say that St. Austin divides them in this place as Protestants do than he has from the very words of the Decalogue as they are set down in Exodus where although the Commandments are expresly said to be Ten yet how many belong to the First Table and how many to the Second is not specified Concerning this he had delivered his Judgment professedly in the place cited by me to be the same which Catholicks at this day follow and if the Doctor question'd the Constancy of his Judgment any man of Reason would think it had been his part to shew he had chang'd it and not to ask his Adversary how he is sure he had not done so when he could bring nothing to prove it but the very matter it self in dispute This I confess is a new way of answering the Fathers and the readiest I ever met with excepting that of denying them Whether it be as Good as New let the Reader judge I am sure if it be allowed for good there is no more to do when an express Testimony is alledged out of any Father for any point in Controversie but to stand up and ask the Alledger confidently How he is sure that the Father did not afterwards change his mind in his later Writings although he speak not at all to that Question in them As for the particular point in debate viz. Whether those words Thou shalt not make to thee a graven thing be to be taken according to S. Austin not as a distinct Commandment but as an explication onely of the fore-going words Thou shalt have no other Gods besides me I am sure I have his Judgment professedly for me in his former Writings and having possession on my side I am yet farther sure that I ought not in justice to be deprived of it till the Doctor can bring some better evidence out of his later Writings than a bare recital of the Commandments this being in plain terms no other than to beg the Question The Reader may note here also that even in this place cited by the Doctor for himself the sense S. Austin gives of the Law whether it be a distinct Precept or no is the very same I gave in my Reply ut Idolum non colatur that an Idol is not to be worshipped And if I mistake not his Judgment is to be preferr'd before Calvin's 8. The next thing I insisted upon to shew the meaning of the Law to be the forbidding to give the Worship of God to Idols was the use of the Hebrew word Pesel in Scripture to signifie an Idol and particularly its being translated so in this very place by the Septuagint To this he returns a double Answer 1. That supposing it signified onely an Idol yet that were not enough because there is added another Word of as large a signification as may be to this purpose which is Themuna SIMILITUDE But this is nothing at all to the purpose for how large soever its signification be when taken by it self yet in our present case it is limited by the following words Thou shalt not bow down to them nor serve them to signifie the likeness of something which is made to be worshipped as God that is to be an Idol And upon this account as Mr. Thorndike Epilog Of the Laws of the Church p. 361. well observes Tertullian contr Marcion li. 2. c. 22. manifestly affirms the making of the Brazen Serpent and Cherubins not to have been against the Law because not made for Idols alledging the words of the Precept Thou shalt not worship them nor serve them for a Restriction limiting the Generality of a Carved Image And this Opinion saith he I doubt not to be true But to what purpose saith Dr. St. are words of the largest signification put into a Law if the sense be limited according to the most narrow acceptation of one word mentioned therein Instances I doubt not may be brought of Humane Laws in which words of the largest signification are frequently put in and to purpose too when the Intention of the Law-maker is that they be understood according to the narrower signification of some other word or words in the Law And that the Reader may see it was not done to no purpose in the present Law under debate I must desire him to take notice that the Heathens as Origen Hom. 8. in Exod. 20. and Theodoret Q. 38. in Exod. tell us when they expound this very Commandment had two sorts of Images some which were purely sigments or Fictions of their own Brain made to represent what had no existence but in their own Imaginations as Sphynxes Tritons Centaurs and the like and others which were made to represent such things as had a real and substantial being in the World as the Sun Moon Stars and other like things which they esteemed and worshipped as Gods And although the word Idol as it is generally taken be used to signifie any thing that is falsely esteemed and worshipped as a God whether real or imaginary yet the former onely of those Images say these Fathers are signified in this Law by the word Idol and the latter by the word Similitude From whence it appears that the term Similitude in this place is neither taken in its largest extent to signifie any Image or Representation whatsoever though with relation to the worship of the true God nor yet in the narrowest signification of the word Idol which is such an Image as is made to represent for Worship a Figment that has
no real Being but in a middle acception for an Image or resemblance of some real thing but falsely imagined to be a God And it was to the purpose that the Law should be thus enlarged for the Instruction of a people so rude and prone to all kind of Idolatry as the Jews were But supposing the Law to be Natural and not in part Ceremonial it was nothing to the purpose to put the word Similitude in its largest meaning that is as signifying any Image what soever though made with respect to the Worship of the true God when God himself commanded the Ark and the Cherubins to be made for that respect What the Doctor should prove and it is his part at present to prove against these Fathers and the General Sense of the Church of Christ for so many hundred years is that the word Similitude is to be taken so here that is for any Image made with respect to the Worship of God But all the Proof he brings is a confident I confess it cannot enter into my mind how God should have forbidden it by more express and emphatical words than he hath done and yet his own words p. 60. that God forbids any Image or Similitude to be made with respect to his Worship I conceive are much more express and emphatical to his purpose than those of the Law for Those bear a great dispute These none at all But to let this pass What he endeavours instead of proving his own Assertion is to render the explication brought by his Adversary ridiculous by a Comparison much of the same sâ—amp with his former one of a Princes making it Treason to bow down to a Sign Post with his Head upon it with Intention to honour him And to do him right the Reader shall have it as it lies If a Prince saith he should under a severe penalty you may suppose it Treason as in the other case forbid all his Subjects making any Image or resemblance with intent to give honour to him by kneeling before them would not that man be thought very ridiculous who should go about to interpret the Law thus that the Prince did not forbid them making any Picture of Himself or his Son or any of his Favorites for the Worship of these could not but redound to his own honour but onely that they should not make the Image of an Ape or an Ass or a Tyger thinking to honour their Prince thereby Much such an exposition says he is that here given of the Law God forbids any Image or Similitude to be made with respect to his Worship for it is ridiculous to imagine the Law means any thing else but he his Adversary saith This Law must not be understood to exclude a Crucifix or such-like Sacred Image with an intention to worship God by them but onely they should not worship Apis or Dagen an Ichneumon or a Crocodile or any the most ridiculous follies of the Heathen Behold here a quaint Comparison A product of pure Fancy indeed that a Prince should be imagin'd to enact a Law so much against Nature and his own honour But to make it run on all four with the Beasts mention'd in it viz. the Ape the Ass and the Tyger ought not the Doctor first to have prov'd the Sense of the Law in question to be That God forbids an Image or Similitude to be made with respect to his Worship by some better Reason than for it is ridiculous to imagine the Law means any thing else when there is not one word in the Law expressing a Prohibition of any such thing as I shewed above and the Jews were expresly commanded to make the Ark and the Cherubins and to bow down before them to that very end How quaint soever then the Comparison be it is gâ—ounded on a false Supposition and so quite beside the matter I shall take leave to set it down as I conceive it ought to be and so leave it to the Reader to judge between us Suppose that the Râ—bâ—ls of Astracan having defaced all Images in the City had set up that of their Leader Stephan Radzin in every Street and as they pass'd by put off their Hats or bow'd to it with intent to honour him by those actions Suppose farther that the Czar of Muscovy their lawful Prince having reduced the City to his Obedience should forbid under a severe Penalty all his Subjects to uncover or bow themselves to an Image and at the same time or a little after command those which were set up for the Usurper's honour to be pull'd down and burnt and others relating to himself set up to the Intent to honour him by them would not that man be thought very ridiculous who should go about to interpret the Law to be meant of any Image whatsoever though made with respect to the Prince'â— own honour by taking the word Image in its largest signification especially if there were another word or clause in the Law limiting the Generality of the word Image to those of the Usurper Just such an exposition of the Law is that given here by the Doctor Rebel Mankind had set up Idols and Images of false Gods in all parts of the World to honour that Arch Rebel the Devil by bowing down before them and God having reduc'd a part of it to his Obedience the People of the Jews forbids them to make an Idol or any similitude of things in Heaven or Earth or under the Earth to bow down to them or serve them restraining thereby the generality of the word similitude to signifie those of false Gods And at the same time or presently after commands them to make an Ark and Cherubins to give Worship to himself by bowing down before them Would not that man now be thought ridiculous who should go about to interpret the Law to mean by that general term Similitude the forbidding any Image or Similitude whatsoever to be made with respect to his own Worship Let the Reader judge whether this I have set down be not the plain state of the point in debate between us and whether there be any thing more extravagant than such an Exposition of the Law as this here given except the Reason it self he gives 〈…〉 ridiculous to imagine the Law means any thing else 9. His second Answer to my Argument is that the word Pesel is very properly rendred an Image and doth not signifie barely an Idol And what he offers by way of Proof is that it is no less than forty several times rendred by the Lxx. glypton a graven thing and but thrice by eidoolon an Idol and once by eikoon which is properly an Image But granting this to be so does it any way hinder but their Judgment was it was to be rendred by Idol in this place Nay is it not evident that translating it generally by glypton a graven thing they had some particular reason to render it by Idol rather than by graven thing or Image in this
and the other two places I but the word Pesel is oâ— so large a signification that he saith it properly signifies any thing that is carved out of Wood or Stone and being so often rendred by the Septuâ—gint a graven thing it is plain from thence saith he that when they translate it by an Idol they mean no more thereby than a graven Image But what a strange kind of consequence is this that because they oftentimes translate it a graven thing therefore when they translate it Idol they mean no more thereby than a graven thing As if the sense of a word of a stricter signification were to be regulated by another of a larger and not the more ample by the narrower especially in this place where the words Thou shalt not worship them nor serve them are as Tertullian above-cited saith a Restriction limiting the Generality of a Carved Image No assistance then can be given him from hence nor yet from the Alexandrian MS. rendring it glypton in the repetition of the Law Deut. 5. 8. nor its being translated â—ikoon Isa 40. 18. nor yet from the Vulgar Latin using Idolum Sculptile and Imago all to express the same thing Isa 44. 9 10 13. for in all these places as They may see who will look into them there is still some term or clause restraining the words Sculptile and Imago to signifie such a graven thing or Image as is made to be compared with God or to be the Object of Divine Worship that is to be an Idol from whence the contrary to what he infers is plain that when they translate it by graven Image they mean no more thereby than an IDOL As for that final Conclusion of his viz. By which it appears that any Image being made so far the Object of Divine Worship that men do bow down before it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in this Commandment not to spend time in divining what that is by which this appears it is so very mystical the Proposition it self 1. Supposes most falsely that to bow down before any Image though with intent to worship God is to make it the Object of Divine Worship and consequently an Idol 2. It contradicts also what he said before that to do so is Idolatry upon the quite contrary account viz. because it is forbidden as hath been shewn more at large above Let him not contradict Christs holy Spouse the Church if he will not contradict himself much less accuse her of Idolatry for worshipping God by bowing or kneeling before a Crucifix as the Jews were allowed to do by the like actions before the Ark and the Cherubins When he can prove this to be Idolatry from the Terms of the Law or any thing else he will do something Hitherto he hath done nothing there being not any one Term in the Law as I have shewed by which it is expresly prohibited to give Worship to God himself by an Image I advance now to his Second Proof drawn as he says from the Reason annexed to the Law CHAP. IV. Dr. St.'s Second Proof from the Reason of the Law Sophistical All Representations of God not dishonourable to him nor rejected as such by the Church of England The Proper Reason of the Law on Gods part assigned and asserted to be the Supream Excellency of his Nature § 1. THe Second Proof he brings p. 62. to shew that God in the second Commandment hath expresly prohibited the giving any Worship to himself by an Image is from the Reason annexed to it P. 58. And that he saith the Scripture tells us was derived from Gods Infinite and Incomprehensible Nature which could not be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it I expected to find this Reason because he saith it is annexed to the Law either in the Law it self or in the Preface or in the Commination against the Transgressors of it but it seems he could not find it there himself and therefore he cites for it that Text of Isa 40. 18. To whom will ye liken God Or what likeness will ye compare to him And that of Deut. 4. 15 16. Take good heed to your selves c. for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you And the Consequence from all is a desire to know whether by this Reason God doth not declare that all Worship given to him by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him This is the Sum of his Discourse apt enough I confess to dâ—lude a vulgar Auditory out of the Pulpit but altogether empty and insignificant when brought to the Test of Reason as I shall make appear in this Chapter The Reader in the mean time may please to take notice that whereas he infers now onely from the Promisses That all Worship given to God by any visible Representation of him is extreamly dishonourable to him and not that it is flat Idolatry he is either grown kind all on the suddain or jealous that his Proof falls short of his Charge since every extreamly-great sin as Blasphemy and the like is extreamly dishonourable to God and yet not Idolatry As for the Conclusion it self whether and in what sense it may be true or false shall be examined below Let us see first what truth there is in the Antecedent from whence he infers it § 2. The Proposition he lays down for the Reason of the Law is this Gods Nature being Infinite and Incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to it And if this be so what shall we say to one that should represent God in Picture as a Three-Corner'd Light casting out radiant Beams on all sides of it at a little distance a resplendent Cloud of Glory in a Circular form encompassing the Light Within the Cloud near to the Fountain of Brightness Angels adoring without the Cloud Faith and Religion praying and directly under it an Altar with an inflamed Heart offering it self in Sacrifice Would such a visible Representation as this be an infinite disparagement to God or no If my Adversary grant it as he must do if he speak consequently to himself then what becomes of the Church of England For in the Frontispiece of her Book of Common-Prayer Printed at London by Robert Barker 1642. in octavo this very Picture is exposed to the Eyes of all her People and to prevent their mistaking it as intended to represent any thing but God the incommunicable Name JEHOVAH is written in the midst of the Triangular Light and that in Hebrew Characters to strike no doubt a greater respect and reverence in the Beholders If he deny it to be an infinite disparagement then what becomes of his Fundamental Position that God being infinite and incomprehensible cannot be represented to men but in a way that must be an infinite disparagement to his Nature Whatever Calvin denies
the Church of England For Mr. Thorndike freely 〈◊〉 that he must maintain as unquestionable that the Council of Nice enjoyns no Idolatry And Dr. Field affirms that the Nicene Fathers mean nothing else by adoration of Images but embracing kissing and reverently using of them like to the honour we saith he do the Books of Holy Scripture Whereupon Bishop Montague saith Let Doctrine and Practice go together and we agree Dr. St. perhaps will rank them for this in the same Predicament of with the Nicen Fathers But herein his vanity and presumption will appear though less than in condemning a whole General Council A farther discovery of it he makes in deriding the answers given to the Objections of his Constantinopolitan Fathers Let us see what they are and with what reason he does it § 3. First saith he When the Fathers of the Synod at Constantinople had said that Christ came to deliver us from all Idolatry and to teach the Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth they bravely answer that then it is impossible for Christians meaning I suppose particular Christian to fall into Idolatry because he should have added as the Council doth the Prophets had foretold that all Idolatry should be extirpated by the preaching of Christ his Apostles and his Kingdom was always to continue and the gifts and graces of God are without repentance Which would as well hold saith the Doctor against the prevalency of the Turk as Idolatry among them And is not this bravely answered by the Doctor Doth he think that there are as great Promises in the Scripture for the Turks not over-running Christendom as there are for the Gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church Or that the Church which is Christs Kingdom could apostatize so far as to enjoyn and allow the belief and practise of Idolatry and the Gates of Hell not prevail against it If he will not maintain these impieties to be true nor deny what God hath said by the Prophet Zachary Behold the days come and I will destroy the names of Idols from off the earth and the memory of them shall be no more and this not for four or five hundred years but to the end of the World for the Kingdom of Christ is to continue always and his graces are without Repentance let him give Glory to God and acknowledge his charge of Idolatry to be false and that Christ hath done what he came to do that is as his Constantinopolitan Fathers confess to deliver us from all Idolatry § 4. The second thing he makes the Fathers of the false Synod at Constantinople to urge is That the Devil not being able to reduce the World to the former Idolatry endeavours underhand to introduce it under a pretence of Christianity bringing them again to the Worship of the Creature and making a God of a thing that is made when they have called it by the Name of Christ The words here cited were taken out of St. Gregory Nissen in the Oration he made upon his Brother St. Basil and Epiphanius in the Name of the Council of Nice charges them to have adulterated both the meaning and words of the Saint by putting the name of Christ instead of that of the Son For whereas St. Gregory's Discourse there was against the Arrians proving them to be Idolaters because they acknowledged Christ to be a Creature and yet adored and served and put their trust in him they wickedly pervert his words against the Images of Christ which although Christians retain in memory and reverence out of love to him that is represented by them yet they neither call them Gods nor serve them as Gods nor at any time put their hope of salvation in them as the Arrians did in the Son although they believed him to be a Creature The Dr. thought it not to his purpose to take notice of this Juggle of his Constantinopolitan Fathers in putting the name Christ for Son No it might put us in mind of his own dexterous managing the words and sense of Authors cited by himself as I have shewed in the foregoing Chapter Only when Epiphanius makes the difference between the Arrians and Catholicks to consist in this that the Arrians trusted in Christ and gave properly divine honour to him but Catholicks did not so to the Images of Christ but only worshiped them for the sake of the Object represented by them He comes in p. 79. with a But Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that where any thing is worshipped meerly for the sake of another it must have the same kind of worship given it which they give to the thing represented by it For as Aquinas observes the motion of the Soul towards an Image as it is an Image is the same with that which is towards the thing represented by it Therefore Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers are in the same case with the Arrians whom they acknowledge to be Idolaters § 5. I remember the Dr. in his Preface tells his Reader that his design is to argue closely How much he hath failed in the performance of his design if ever he had any such I have shown in almost every argument he brings And for the present argument there are so many failings in it that a Junior Sophister in the Schools would have given it the name not of one but of many Fallacies For to make the consequence good he ought first to have prov'd that the Nicen Fathers were of the same opinion with Aquinas and his followers or that their Argument was so evident a Dâ—monstration that they could not but be guilty of culpable ignorance if they did not see it 2dly That Aquinas and his followers did conclude themselves in virtue of so evident a proof to be Idolaters or at least they ought to have done so for giving the same Worship or Reverence to Christ and his Image to Him absolutely for himself to his Image relatively or meerly for his sake as they explicate themselves 3dly That the Arrians were Idolaters upon this very account that they gave onely relative Worship to the Son and not properly Divine Worship which St. Gregory Nissen saith they did because though they acknowledged him to be a Creature yet they ador'd and serv'd and put their trust in him as God These things he ought to have prov'd to make his own consequence good viz. Therefore the Nicen Fathers are in the same case with the Arrians whom they acknowledge to be Idolaters But to tell us that because Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers said they onely worshipped the Images of Christ for his sake who was represented by them and because not They but Aquinas and his followers have at large proved that when Christ is worshipped by his Image the same Worship or Reverence is given to him and his Image Therefore Epiphanius and the Nicen Fathers were in the same case with the Arrians that is Idolaters is such a piece of Logick if good
he supposed all that were remaining of the Ten Tribes except himself to have forsaken the true God to follow Baal As for the Embassy of the Samaritans to the King of Assyria that a Priest might be sent unto them from the Captivity the reason is plain why they sent to him and not to the King of Juda because they fear'd his displeasure should they have kept Correspondence with his Enemy Moreover they thought the God of Israel to be only a Topical God and therfore they call him the God of the Land 4 Kings xvii 26. as distinct from the God of Juda. Now what the Text saith is that the Priest when he came taught them how they should fear the Lord but there is no mention at all made of his teaching them to worship him in the Calves as Symbols of his presence which was the onely thing for the Doctors purpose had it been there § 5. Having thus answer'd all the Doctors Conjectures or rather Monceius his as to the greater part of them for it is with his Heiâ—er he plows by which he endeavours to make the World believe that the Israelites intended the making of the Calves for no other end but onely to worship God in them as Symbols of his presence and shewn them to be perfectly groundless for a farther discovery of the weakness of his Dâ—scourse let us suppose it after all to be as he would have it It cannot be denied but the Calves were originally Symbols of Osiris the chief but false God of the Egyptians and himself confesses p. 94. that upon this account the Israelites made choice of them for the fittest Symbols of the presence of the true God Suppose I say they look'd upon them as such and that they were condemned of Idolatry for intending to worship the true God in them I affirm it follows no more from hence that God hath expresly prohibited in the second Commandment to give him any Worship by such Symbols or Images as are not the Symbols of false Gods than it would follow from a King 's condemning such Persons of Treason as should pretend to worship Him by honouring the Image of an Usurper that he had expresly prohibited the giving him any Worship by his own Image In fine if this discourse of the Doctors may be allowed for good I see no reason why he might not as well justifie the grossest of Idolaters the Aegyptians in their worship of Lâ—cks and Onyons from the guilt of Heathen Idolatry as the Israelites in worshipping the Calves for proceeding in his way it were but to imagin they could not be so sottish as to believe them to be Gods in the proper sense but that they look'd upon them onely as Symbols of Gods kindness to them in providing them Sauce as well as Meat though out of Reverence to those Deities they would eat neither of them § 6. To conclude this Point of the meaning of the Second Commandment he tells us that the Jews thought the Prohibition to extend to all kind of Images for Worship And I would gladly know whether we must stand or fall by the Interpretation of the Jews It was their Opinion that the Prohibition extended not only to the worshipping but also to the making all kind of Images And will the Doctor therefore condemn the Professions of Painting and Carving as unlawful and as his Constantinopolitan Fathers call them blasphemous Well but Vasquez saith he acknowledgeth with other Divines of the Roman Church that it is plain in Scripture that God did not only forbid that in the second Commandment which was unlawful by the Law of Nature as the worshipping an Image for God but the worshipping the true God by any similitude of him But to whom do they say he forbids it Does not Vasquez say expresly c. 2. that it was to the Jews which the Doctor conveniently leaves out And do not those Divines in the very words cited by himself plainly declare the Prohibition of worshipping God by any similitude of him to be but a Positive Precept when they so clearly distinguish it from the Prohibition of worshipping an Image for God which they say was unlawful by the Light of Nature And if they look'd upon that part of the Prohibition as a meer Positive Precept does he think they thought it obliged Christians Their Doctrine and Practice evince the contrary And if Divines agree not among themselves how far this Precept obliged the Jews what matter is it so they agree that what is forbidden in it to Christians is that which is unlawful by the Law of Nature The opposition then which the Doctor would make between my Assertion and that of other Catholick Divines is altogether impertinent for taking it as a Natural Precept and Immutable they say the same that I do that it onely forbids the worshipping of Idols To what he alledges of the Primitive Christians being declared Enemies to all Worship of God by Images which he saith is at last confessed by Petavius one of the most Learned Jesuites they ever had when he affirms that for the first four Centuries or farther there was little or no use of Images in the Temples or Oratories of Christians not to dispute the matter of fact of which he confesses there was some little use nor the truth of the Doctors relating the words of Petavius of which there is some little reason to doubt from what he did before with Trigautius I shall give him the Answer of Mr. Thorndike one of the most Learned Divines among the Protestants that at that time there might be jealousie of Offence in having Images in Churches before Idolatry was quite rooted out of which afterwards there might be no appearance And therefore they were afterwards admitted all over for it is manifest saith he the Church is tied no farther than there can appear danger of Idolatry And since he hath given in occasion to mention this Learned Person I shall conclude this Point with his Judgment concerning the meaning and extent of the Second Commandment that the Reader may see how diametrically opposite Dr. St.'s discourse is to the Sentiment of so Eminent a Divine in the Church of England Thus then Mr. Thorndike § 5. The second Commandment setting forth God for a God that is jealous of his People whether they worship him or not manifestly supposeth their Covenant to forsake all other Gods beside him a Contract of Marriage between Him and his People Which if it be so it is no less manifest that the Images which the Precept supposeth are the Representations of other Gods which his People were wont to commit Adultery with by Worshipping them for God For seeing it is manifest how much Idolatry was advanced by Imagery though it may be without it there can be no marvel that there should be a peculiar Precept against it Wherefore it is manifest that Jews by the Letter of this Precept are tied from all Images which their Elders
who had the power of limiting what is lawful and what is not by the Law should declare to be unlawful But to think that their declarations ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews And then a little after he goes on For Christianity saith he having put Idolatry to flight which the Law never pretended to do it is not to be imagined that the having of Images can make a man take those for God which they represent so long as the belief of Christianity is alive at the heart For neither was it Idolatry though it were a breach of this Commandment for a Jew to have such Images as were forbidden by their Elders not taking that for God which they represented But what honour of Saints departed or what signs of that honour Christianity may require what Furniture or Ceremonies the Churches of Christians and the Publick Worship of God in them may require now all the world professes Christianity and must honour the Religion which they profess this the Church is at freedom to determine by the Word of God expounded according to the best agreement of Christians This is Mr. Thorndike's Discourse in which the Reader may observe 1. That to think the Declarations of the Jews ought to bind Christians were to imagine that Christians ought to be Jews 2. That all things forbidden to the Jews by this Commandment were Not Idolatry 3. That the Images which the Precept supposeth were the Representations of other that is false Gods which his People were wont to worship for God 4. That what Furniture viz. of Images the matter he there treats of or Ceremonies the Publick Worship of God may require is left to the Judgment of the Church to determine 5. and lastly That the Opposition in this Point between Dr. St. and Mr. Thorndike is not onely concerning the obligation of the Jews as between Catholick Divines but of Christians also in order to this Commandment So that some are of opinion however Dr. St. â—eem to direct his arrows against the Church of Rome yet he meant at least by rebound to shoot them at Mr. Thorndike And had he made it any part of his business to answer his Arguments I might easily have been induc'd to have embrac'd their Opinion But those remaining untouch'd I cannot but look upon this Discourse of that Learned Person as a kind of Prophetical Confutation in the year 1662. when he printed that Book of all which Dr. Stillingfleet brings in 1671. for the proof of his Charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome in the matter of Images As for his new way of answering the Testimony I alledged of St. Austin's Judgment of the sense of this Commandment by asking me how I am sure that it was his constant Judgment I have at large refuted it in the Third Chapter to which I remit the Reader CHAP. X. What kind of Honour the Church gives to Holy Images explained and the Doctors mixing School Disputes with matters of Faith shewn to be sophistical § 1. TO clear the Doctrine and Practise of the Catholick Church from his most Unjust Charge of Idolatry I told the Reader That the Honour we give to the Sacred Images of Christ and his Saints was an inferiour or Relative Honour onely not Latria the Worship due to God but a certain Honourary Worship expressed by kissing them or putting off our Hats or kneeling before them much like the Worship which is given to the Chair of State or the Reverence which Moses and Joshua gave to the Ground by putting off their Shoes c. That this was the meaning of the Council of Nice is confessed by Dr. Field and Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed p. 124. And that the Council of Trent means no more is manifest from the words of the Council related above Chap. 2. as also for that Sess 25. it refers us expresly to the Council of Nice Yet because the Doctor is resolved to quarrel the distinction of Absolute and Relative Worship that the Reader may see what is meant by it I shall desire him to take notice first That Adoration or Worship being an Act of the Will as the Will can love one thing for it self because of the Perfection it is endow'd with and another thing not for it self but purely for that others sake to whom 〈◊〉 belongs So likewise it may adore or worship a thing either for it self that is for some intrinsecal Excellency in the thing for which it deserves Worship and then it is said to worship the thing absolutely because for it self Or it may worship it for another's sake that is for some Excellency in the Person to whom the said thing hath a Relation or Union and then it is said to worship such a thing with a Relative or Inferiour Worship because purely for that Persons sake And because Intellectual Beings are capable of having some Excellency in themselves for which they deserve to be worshipped as Virtue Sanctity Wisdom Power c. and Inanimate Beings are capable of bearing a Relation to a Person endowed with such Excellencies it follows that as Intellectual Beings may have Absolute Worship given to them so Inanimate Things relating to them may for their sakes have a Relative Respect or Honourary Adoration given to them and that so far from being injurious to the Person to whom they belong that it would be look'd upon as a disrespect and affront if in due circumstances it were not done Such a kind of Relative Worship it is we affirm to be due and to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints when we kiss them or put off our Hats before them Secondly I must desire him to observe as Mr. Thorndike doth very well that the words Adoration Worship Respect Reverence or howsoever you translate the Latine word Cultus are or may be in despite of our hearts equivocal that is sometimes they may signifie one kind of honour and sometimes another Sometimes that which belongs to God and sometimes that which belongs to the Creature And the cause of this equivocation he saith is the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signifie conceptions which came not from common sense And from this equivocation in the Words Adoration Worship c. the greatest part of the Difficulties which occur in this take their rise Now when the Doctor should set himself seriously to confute the aforesaid Explication he puts his Reader into a fit of laughing with a Drollish Parallel p. 100. that to give this Inferiour and Relative kind of Worship to the Image of Christ that is to honour and reverence it for his sake is just as if an unchaste Wife should plead in her excuse to her Husband that the person she was too kind with was extreamly like him and a near friend of his and that it was out of respect to him that she gave him the honour of his Bed But to lay open the
Respect given to it is a Fence against the Contempt of his Person He that passes by that with his Hat on thinks himself excus'd upon the same account from putting it off to the King himself The End of the First Part. THE SECOND PART OF THE ADORATION OF THE Most Blessed Sacrament CHAP. I. The Practise of the Primitive Church in this Point The Doctor 's Argument to prove it to be Idolatry built upon an Injurious Calumny that Catholicks believe the Bread to be God The sense of his first Proposition cleared and the Proofs he brings for it refuted § 1. HAving cleared the Doctrin and Practise of the Catholick Church from my Adversaries Unjust Charge of Idolatry in the Worship or Veneration she gives to the Images of Christ I come now to show the Injustice of a like accusation he brings in upon account of the Adoration she gives to Christ himself in the most H. Sacrament of the Altar A thâ—â—g so universally practiced and recommended by the Fathers of the Primitive Church both Greek and Latin that who so will condemn the practise of it at this day in the Church of Rome must have the confidence to involve the Church of that time in the same Condemnation with it Among other Apostolical Traditions which were delivered to the Church without Writing St. Basil reckons the words of Invocation when the Eucharistical Brâ—ad and Cup of Blessing were shewed And Theodoret affirms expresly that The Mystical Symbols are understood to be what they are made and are believed and adored as being the things they are believed S. Gregory Nâ—zianzen reporteth of his Sister Gorgonia as a great testimony of her devotion that in a certain sickness she had she went with Faith to the Altar and with a lowd voice besought him who is worshipped upon it for remedy giving him all his Titles or Attributes and remembring him of all the miraculous things which he had done And the same no doubt was done by St. Monica the Mother of St. Austin in her daily devotions at the Altar at which she used to assist without pretermission of any one day and from whence she knew saith he that Holy Victime to be dispensed by which the 〈◊〉 writing was blotted out which carried our condemnation in it To this Sacrament of our Redemptiâ—â— she had tied her Soul fast by the Bond of â—â—ith And in this she did no more 〈◊〉 what her Son teacheâ—â— upon the 98th Psalâ—â— where expounding 〈◊〉 words of the Psalmist Adore ye his Foot-stool to be meant of the Earth and by the Earth to be understood the Flesh of Christ he addeth that whereas Christ walked here in the Flesh and gave us that very flesh to be eaten for our Salvation and no man eateth that Flesh unless he have first adored we find saith he how such a Foot-stool of our Lord may be adored and that we do not only not sin in adoring but we sin in not adoring Viz. that Foot-stool of our Lord by which he said before was meant his most Holy Flesh And from whom did he learn this Doctrin but from the same Master from whom he learn't Christianity St. Ambrose who treating of the same place of the Psalmist saith By the Foot-stool is understood the Earth and by the Earth the Flesh of Christ which we adore also at this day in the Mysteries and which the Apostles adored in our Lord Jesus Upon this Account it is that St. Chrysostome exhorts Christians to this duty by the Example of the Wise-men These Men saith he though Barbarians after a long Journey adored this Body of our Lord in the Manger with great fear and trembling Let us imitate what they did Thou seest Him not in the Manger but on the Altar And then again by the Example of the Angels who saith he assist the Priest at the time of offring the Holy Sacrifice and the whole order of Heavenly Powers list up their Voices and the place round about the Altar is filled with the Quires of Angels in honour of Him who lyeth upon it And therfore it is called by St. Optatus the Seat or Throne of the Body of our Lord. Thus these Holy Men not as private Doctors delivering their own Opinions but as Fathers testifying and transmitting to Posterity the Doctrin and Practise of the Church of their time which was so notorious in this point of the Adoration of the Eucharist that the Heathens because they knew Christians made use of Bread and Wine in the Mysteries objected to them as St. Austin reports that they worshipped Ceres and Bacchus And hereupon Mr. Thorndike Epil 3. p. pag. 351. ingenuously saith I do believe that it was so practised and done in the ancient Church which I maintain from the beginning to have been the true Church of Christ For I do acknowledge the testimonies that are produced out of St. Ambrose St. Austin St. Chrysostome St. Gregory Nazianzen with the rest and more than I have produced And now it is in the Reader 's choice whether he will condemn so great and Holy Men and with them the Church of that time of Idolatry for adoring our Lord Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar or will absolve Uj for doing what they did It is with them we must stand or fall And the Doctor 's argument will make neither or both Idolaters But before I speak to that and that the Reader may see what force it is like to have behold how he ushers it in § 2. I proceeded saith he to the Adoration of the Host and here the argument I proposed was to take off the common answer viz. of Catholicks that it cannot be Idolatry because they believe the Bread to be God This is what the Doctor exposes in the front of his Rejoynder to publick view And if the Reader meet with such sophisticate Ware in the Mouth of the Sack What may he expect when he comes neerer to the bottom The argument I proposed saith he was to take off the Common Answer viz. of Catholicks that it cannot be Idolatry because they believe the Bread to be God And that too just as the Worshippers of the Sun believed the Sun to be God For upon the same ground he saith it is that they who believe the Sun to be God and worship him on that account would be excused from Idolatry too The unhandsomness of this Proceeding I fairly hinted to him in my Reply whereas I might justly have called it a most injurious calumny and it became an Ingenuous Writer either to have justified his charge or if he could not do that nor yet had humility enough to retract it to have wav'd at least the repeating it in his Answer But this he is so far from doing that without any proof at all what he did but insinuate before in the Body of his Argument he lays down now expresly in his Rejoinder as the Ground of his charge of
that it carries not the show of a Probability For if the Bread be converted into that Body of Christ which is hypostatically united with the divine nature and not meerly into that but into the Person of Christ does it follow that he hath as many Bodies hypostatically united to him as there are Elements consecrated No more than because the Bread the Flesh the Fish which he eat upon Earth were converted into the substance of his Body and hypostatically united to him it follows that he had as many bodies hypostatically united to him as there were several meats eaten by him Before Digestion or Conversion they were distinct by Conversion they were made the same body But if this will not serve the turn he wants not a false supposition to blind his Reader with Viz. that we make the Elements i.e. the Accidents of Bread for we we will have nothing else remain after Consecration in spight he says of all the reason and sense of the World the Object of divine worship But the falsity of this supposition I shall make appear in the next Chapter together with his mistake if it be no more of the meaning of the Council of Trent CHAP. II. The true State of the Controversy laid open together with the Doctor 's Endeavours to misrepresent it His manner of arguing against the Adoration of Christ in the Eucharist equally destructive to the adoration of Him as God § 1. IN pursuance of his former design my Adversary will now undertake p. ii4 to prove yet further that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no Man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host And this he hopes will abundantly add to the discoâ—ering of the disparity between the worship given to the Person of Christ and that which is given to the Eucharist upon supposition of Transubstantiation But before he can come to this he must needs mistake or rather mis-state the Controversy which he does in most ample manner when after a great many Preambles for three whole Pages together no more to the purpose than the Flourishes of a great Text-letter are to the force of a Bond he tells the Reader at length that the state of the Controversy between us is whether proper divine worship may be given to the Elements i. e. the Accidents on account of Christ's corporal presence under them But whatever Divines dispute concerning the Worship of the Accidents the Object of Catholicks Adoration as Dr. Taylor ingenuously confesses Viz. What is represented to them in their mind their thoughts and purposes in the B. Sacrament is the only true and Eternal God hypostatically joined with his Holy Humanity And consequently the Question between us is Whether supposing our Lord Christ to be really present under the Sacramental signs the same proper divine worship be not to be given to him there which is due to his Person wherever it is present by hypostatical union with his sacred Humanity Let the Doctor do thus and we have no quarrel with him which is an evident sign that the Question between us is not as he says whether the same Adoration ought to be given to the Accidents which we would give to the very Person of Christ But what may not be venture to say who had the confidâ—nce to advance so notorious a calumny as that it is our common answer in this matter to excuse our selves from Idolatry that we believe the Bread to be God I told the Reader what he was like to find neer the bottom of the Sack when he met with such sophistical Ware at the very top But the Doctor pretends he hath something to say here in his defence and it is this that the Council of Trent hath expresly determin'd that there is no manner of doubt left but that all Christians ought to give the same worship to this Holy Sacrament which they give to God himself For it is not therefore less to be worshipped because it was Instituted by Christ our Lord that it might be taken But who tells him that the Council here by the word Sacrament means only the Signs or Accidents of Bread Why may it not mean the Holy Victime which is dispensed from the Altar as St. Austin did when he said that his Mother St. Monica had tied her Soul fast to this Sacrament by the bond of Faith If the Council may be allowed to explicate its own meaning we shall find the sense of the word to be the Body of Christ and with it his Divinity under the Sacramental Veil for the reason it gives in the words immediately following which the Doctor conveniently leaves out of this adoration is because we believe the same God to be present in it of whom the Eternal Father said Let all the Angels of God adore him And this is yet more plain from the 6th Canon where the Anathema is denounced against those who shall say that in the most H. Sacrament of the Eucharist the only begotten of God is not to be adored with the worship of Latria But let the Council say what it will Dr. St. says that by the Sacrament it must understand the Elements or Accidents as the Immediate term of that divine worship or else the latter words that the Sacrament ought not less to be adored because it was instituted to be taken signify nothing at all And why so Do Catholicks understand nothing by the Sacrament but the Accidents Or was nothing instituted to be taken but the bare signs of Bread and Wine Dr. St. is or would be an Author of great Authority and from his own Confession we have it p. 111. that the Holy Sacrament according to Catholicks is the Body of Christ under the Accidents of Bread These are his own words and if he will not believe the Council let him believe himself whether he do so or no 〈◊〉 proceeding upon his supposition that proper divine worship is to be given to the Accidents he affirms p. 118. that this is not denied that he knows of by any who understand the Doctrine or Practise of the Roman Church I leave to the Reader to judg when he shall have heard what Bellarmin an Author not unacquainted with the Doctrin and Practise of the Church says in this matter There is not saith he any one Catholick who teaches that the External Symbols per se that is absolutely and properly are to be adored with the worship of Latria but only to be reverenced with a certain inferiour worship which is due to all Sacraments What we affirm is that Christ is properly and per se to be adored with the worship of Latria and that this adoration belongs also to the Symbols of Bread and Wine under which he is contained as they are apprehended united with him in such manner as those who adored him apparl'd upon Earth did not adore him alone but quodammodo in a certain kind his Garments also For neither
means else his first Proof p. 111. that there is a plain command in Scripture for adoring Christ himself but not the least intimation given that we are to worship Him in the Elements supposing Him present there And again what means his 2d Proof p. 112. that the one gives us a sufficient reason of our worship viz. that he is the Eternal Son of God but the other doth not supposing the Bread to be really converted into the Body of Christ Who sees not here that the supposition is of the real and undoubted presence of Christ by the change of the Bread into his Body and that he does but endeavour to take back by parcels what he unwarily gave away in the lump when he raises doubts and scruples about the certainty of the change of this or that particular Bread But let him contradict himself never so much it makes nothing for us We must be guilty of Idolatry every time we hear Mass unless we can be sure that there is a change made of the bread into the Body of Christ in that very particular Host which is to be worshipped And by what means can we be sure of that For the Church saith he p. 124. having declared that it is necessary that he that consecrates be a Priest and that he have an intention of consecrating if either the Consecrator should chance to be no Priest because not rightly baptized which is no unheard of thing or not have an intention to consecrate they who worship the Host must be guilty of Idolatry every time he celebrates This is the mighty scruple which torments his mind and although the absurdness of the Assertion that another Man's defect or wickedness should make me incur the crime of Idolatry whether I will or no might suffice to make any reasonable Man to depose so chimaerical a scruple yet because he will not or cannot do it I would ask him what kind of certainty it is he would have If no less than certainty of Faith or evidence of sense will serve his turn I would ask again what like certainty hath a Child or a Husband that those Persons whom they take the one for his Father the other for his Wife are so in very deed I cannot believe him so rigid a Casuist as neither to permit a child to do his duty to his Mother's Husband till he have a Divine Revelation that he is his true Father nor a Husband to pay the conjugal debt unless he first have as much evidence as sense can give him that Lia is not put in the place of Rachel and when that is done perhaps a Divine Revelation may be necessary to know whether she be not married before to another Man for this also is no unheard of thing Who might not say here as the Disciples did on another occasion Matth. 19. 10. If the case of a Man with his Wife be so it is not expedient to marry But as I said before I cannot believe the Doctor will be so rigid in this Point But why then must we be tyed up from giving worship to Christ as present in this or that particular Host unless we be certain either by evidence of sense or by Divine Revelation that it is truly consecrated If the want of such a certainty ought to make us suspend our Worship I am sure the want of the like for true disposition ought to make the Communicant forbear receiving But if he speak of such a certainty as is usually found in the aforesaid humane Actions and others of the like nature why may not this suffice as well to secure Christians from sinning in their adoration as those other Persons in paying their respective duties Doth it happen oftner that a Person supposed to be a Priest is no Priest because not rightly baptized than that a Person supposed to be a Father is not the Man Or doth it happen oftner that a Priest cheats the People by having no intention to consecrate than that a light Hous-wife wheadles a second Man to marry her while her Husband unknown to him is yet alive It is not in the nature of Man to sin so frequently out of pure malice as it is upon the account of some profit or pleasure thence resulting Why then must we be more guilty of Idolatry though the Host through defect or Malice on the Priest's side should happen not to be truly consecrated than such a Person is of Adultery or a Child of undutifulness for having their own good Intentions abus'd by the malice of others Wantonness may make a Wife forget her duty but doth not make a Child criminal in doing his to him whom he believes to be his Father And the wickedness of a Priest as there was one Judas among the Twelve may make him a Devil but that cannot make me an Idolater For whilst my Adoration is directed not to the Bread which I suppose not to be there but to the Person of Jesus Christ true God whom I firmly believe to be in every Host duly consecrated and have not the least reasonable cause to suspect other at present the Action on my part hath all that is requisite to make it good and lawful and is so far from being Idolatry that it is a real honouring of Christ and will be so accepted When Hephaestion was honoured by a mistake for Alexander that great Prince was so far from condemning the Person as a Traytor that he took the honour as done to himself And in case those Gentiles who were so desirous to see our Saviour Jo. 12. 21. had either for want of a Guide to direct them to the Person or by the treacherous malice of a Judas prostrated themselves at the Feet of some other what reasonable Man would have condemned them for Idolaters And yet we poor unfortunate Roman Catholicks if it should chance at any time to happen that either the Priest be no true one or have no intention to consecrate though our Intentions be never so sincere to adore only our Lord Jesus Christ must stand condemned of downright Idolatry for so the Doctor calls it p. 124. and that without any Proof at all but the old Ipse dixit that without the Intention of the Priest in consecrating it can be nothing else § 2. The second Medium he takes p. 125 to prove that upon the Principles of the Roman Church no Man can be assured that he doth not commit Idolatry every time he gives adoration to the Host is that no Man can be satisfied that he hath sufficient reason for giving this worship to it And the substance of the reason he gives is because if I worship Christ saith he in the Sacrament it is upon account of his corporal presence and he finds it generally agreed by the Doctors of the Roman Church that the humane Nature of Christ considered alone ought not to have divine honour given to it and hotly disputed among them whether Christ's humane nature though united to the
the end of this be but the banishing Faith and Christianity out of the World § 3. After all these endeavours to wrest out of our hands the supposition he so freely granted p. 110. of the same Revelation for Christ's Presence in the Eucharist as for his Divinity he would bring the business at last to a Composition if we will beg of him to yield that the Body of Christ being present his Divinity is there present too And I am not so nice if it will come no cheaper way as not to begg it of him for Christianity's sake but then he adds that even upon this supposition that Christ's Divinity is present with his Body in the Sacrament p. 127. his mind must still unavoidably rest unsatisfied as to the Adoration of the Host For supposing the divine Nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself But here again he relapses into his former mistake of the Controversy which in spight of the practise of Catholicks which is to adore Christ under the Accidents in like manner as he was worshipped in his Apparel he will have to be that proper divine worship is to be given to the Accidents For this is what he means here by the Host Let him state the Question as it ought to be that is Whether Christ may not be worshipped under the Accidents as well as in his Garments Or if he will needs mix the Questions of the Schools with those of Faith Whether the Accidents may not be worshipped together with Christ in like manner as his Garments were worshipped together with Him And the Controversy will quickly be at an End But not to tire the Reader with following him in his Repetitions his scruple if I mistake not at present is why supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground to worship every thing in which he is present yet his presence in the Eucharist should be a sufficient reason to worship the Accidents together with him And to this I give Bellarmin 's answer which I take also to be the sense of Greg. de Valentia in the place cited by the Doctor Longe aliter Christus est in Eucharistia c. That Christ is in the Eucharist in a far different manner than God is in other things For in the Eucharist there is but one only Suppositum and that divine All other things there present belong to that and in a certain manner make one with that though not in the same manner mark that Hence it is that the whole is rightly worshipped together as we said before of Christ apparell'd But although God be in all other things yet not so that he is one Suppositum with them nor is there such an Union between God and the Creature in which he is that they can be said to be in a manner One. By this it appears that as Greg. de Valentia deservedly calls this presence of Christ to the Accidents an admirable Conjuction so the Doctor unjustly imposes upon Bellarmin that he grants as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Accidents as between the divine and humane Nature for although Bellarmin say that all things there present in a certain manner make One with the Suppositum yet he declares expresly that it is not in the same manner But here the Doctor complains of un-intelligible terms and notions used in this matter And might he not do the same with as much reason of the terms and Notions used by the School-men in explicating the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation How un-intelligible soever the School-terms appear to him yet it is very easy to understand that neither Greg. de Valentia nor Bellarmin mean to give divine honour to the Accidents for themselves and yet much easier to understand what Christian People mean when they profess the Object of their Adoration in the Eucharist to be the only begotten Son of God under the Accidents of Bread and Wine As for what he alledges out of Vasquez that supposing the presence of Christ to be the Ground of Adoration it follows in his Opinion that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created Beeing wherein he is intimately present I have spoken to it in the 5th Chapt. of the 1. Part And as Vasquez himself acknowledges the danger of that Doctrine if it should be commonly and publickly put in practise by the People for possibly there may be another consideration for Philosophical and Contemplative Men in their private Devotions as St. Leo there cited seems to grant so if the Doctrine be Good what follows from thence is that Christ being supposed to be really present in the Sacrament and in a particular manner by Transubstantiation may most certainly be adored in it Vasquez was a Man of great learning and of a searching wit but it is noted of him as of Lactantius that he was more subtil in oppugning the Opinions of others than solid in establishing his own CHAP. IV. Dr. St.'s Fundamental Principle of judging of matters proposed to our Belief by Sense and Reason shown to be absurd in it self and destructive to Christianity § 1. WE come now to the Doctor 's Second Proposition that there are not the same Motives and Grounds to believe the Doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he saith I affirm without any appearance of reason And he would gladly know what excellent Motives and Reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any Man think he hath reason to believe it He is sure he saith it gives the greatest advantage to the Enemies of Christ's Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no Man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest Contradictions to sense and reason imaginable This is a Topick in which the Doctor wonderfully delights himself as all others have done before him who have deserted the Faith of the Church We have it over and over at every turn as if the whole System of Christian Faith and every particular Article of it were to be measured by the Standard of Sense and Reason so that if any thing seem absurd and contradictory to them no grounds or motives can recommend it so advantageously as to make any Man think he hath reason to believe it This is what lies at the bottom of his Discourse and himself lays it down for the only Principle oâ— Criterium by which we are to judge of the Truth of Divine Revelation when in his second Câ—asse of Principles he affirms There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judg of the Truth of divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters propos'd to our Belief
Jupiter and Sabaoth to be the same neither indeed to be any God at all but a Devil who is delighted with the name of Jupiter an Enemy to Men and God 2dly For the Intermediate Beings it is asserted by the same Origen that they were Devils also and according to the differently formed statues in which they assisted one was esteemed to be Bacchus another Hercules c. The like is affirmed also by Theophilus Antiochenus above cited and St. Austin upon the 96. Psalm But then because the supreme God was conceived to be of so high a Nature that he knew not what passed in this sublunary World Therefore 3dly The Office of these Inferiour Deities or Devils was to carry up the Prayers of Men to God as the Doctor himself cites out of St. Austin but very insincerely for St. Austin saith not to God but ad Deos to the Gods that is to Devils out of a supposition that they cannot know the necessities and prayers of Men but by Intervention of these Spirits and so to bring down to Men the blessings they prayed for And 4thly To oblige them to perform this Office of Nuncii or Messengers as St. Austin calls them they exacted of Men to give them Divine Worship by the Oblation of Victims and Sacrifices as the Fathers every where testify This then is the Scheme of the Heathens Divinity and Devotion The Doctor 's Father of Gods and Men was according to the Fathers an Arch-Devil The Inferiour Deities were Inferiour Devils Their Office was to inform the Superiour Gods of what passed here below and the reward they required for this service was no less than the Offering of Sacrifice to their Devil-ships And now was this the very same case altering only the Names of Things which he saith is in debate between Him and the Church of Rome concerning the Invocation of Saints Surely a more Injurious Calumny scarce ever dropt from the Pen of the greatest Enemy of Christianity except that of Julian the Apostate who charged the Christians of his time for their worshipping the Martyrs that for the one true God they worshipped many Men who were not Gods A most Injurious Calumny I say For r. The God whom we adore is not that wise Father of Gods and Men who was so high as not to know what was done here below but the true and Immortal God Maker of Heaven and Earth who sees the secrets of our hearts and knows our necessities before we utter them 2dly The Persons to whom we address our selves for their Prayers are not Devils or wicked Wretches but the Friends and Servants of God whom the Doctor himself as little respect as he hath for them acknowledges to exceed those other in excellency 3dly Their Office is not to inform the Supream God of what he knows not but to be Joynt Petitioners with us and for us to his divine Majesty as other Holymen are upon Earth 4thly and Lastly We do not procure or buy this favour of them by offering Sacrifice to them for as St. Austin saith What Bishop officiating at the Altar doth say at any time We offer to Thee Peter or Paul or Cyprian But as the same Holy Doctor there saith We celebrate their Memory with Religious Solemnity both to excite us to their imitation and to become partakers of their Merits and Prayers but so that we erect Altars not to any of the Martyrs but to the God of Martyrs although in Memory of them And now having spoken thus home to the Case I leave it to the Reader 's Judgment whether the Practice of Catholicks in honouring and Invocating the Saints be the same with that of the Heathens in the worship of their Inferiour Deities To make the Case run Parallel on all four the Doctor must prove either that the God we worship is not the very true God but an Arch-Devil or that the Holy Angels and Saints are not his friends and servants but inferiour Devils Or that we believe him to be so ignorant that he stands in need of them to inform him or that we offer sacrifice and erect Altars to them And when he can do all or any of these he will speak something to the Point But I believe these are none of those things which he threatens largely to prove if further occasion be given And I have good reason to believe so by his present undertaking which is not to prove any of these things in which the Parallel must consist if there be any but to cast a mist before his Readers eyes and make him lose both his labour and the Question as I shall show in the following Chapter CHAP. II. What kind of Honour Catholicks give to the Saints The Testimonies of Origen and St. Ambrose explained Of the Practice of making Addresses to particular Saints § 1. THe Question at present between Dr. St. and the Church of Rome is not whether divine worship be to be given to the Saints for this is abhor'd of all faithful Christians but whether an Inferiour Worship of like kind with that which is given to Holy Men upon Earth for their Holiness and neer Relation to God may not be lawfully given to them now they are in Heaven This is the true state of the Question between us which the Doctor afraid to grapple with turns aside and will he saith insist upon these two things 1. That the Fathers did condemn all such kind of worshâ—p supposing their Principle true that is as far as I can understand it supposing what they said was true 2. That they did not only condemn it in those spirits which the Heathens worshipped but in good Angels themselves And before I engage with Him upon the Testimonies of the Fathers I must disperse the Mist he raises by his Egregious equivocating in the words All such kind of worship What kind of worship is it the Fathers deny may be given to the most excellent created Beings He tells us p. 145. any Religious Worship And what doth he mean by Religious Worship To dispute saith Mr. Thorndike whether we are bound to honour the Saints or not were to dispute whether we are to be Christians and to believe this or not Whether this be Religious or Civil nothing but equivocation of words makes disputable and the cause of that equivocation the want of words vulgar use not having provided words properly to signify conceptions which came not from Common sense Plainly their excellence and the Relation we have to them being Intelligible only by Christianity must borrow a Name from that which vulgar language attributes to God or to Men our Superiours And then a little after he saith That the Relation which God hath settled between the Church Militant and Triumphant may be reasonably called Religious provided that the distance be not confounded between the Religious honour of God and that Honour of the Creature which the Religious honour of God enjoins being neither Civil nor
that whether you will or not every Petition to a Prince or Court of Justice is necessarily a Prayer and he that makes it Invocates or Calls upon that Prince or Court for favour or for Justice The Notion then of Prayer may be distinguished as well as that of Worship and Protestants themselves when they pray others to pray for them use it in a quite different sense than when they pray to God for as applyed to God it imports a total dependance upon him as the Author of all good but as apply'd to Just and Holy-men it implies no more than a Communion of Love and Society in the Members of the Church Militant with those of the Triumphant for the assistance of their Prayers to him who only can give what we ask And in this sense the words Prayer Invocation c. are used by Catholicks when they are applyed to the Holy Angels and Saints And that Origen when he denies that our Prayers are to be offered to any but Christ alone speaks of Prayer in the first sense and not in the latter is evident from what he had said before in the beginning of the first Book where he acknowledges that the Angels do offer up the Prayers of Men to God and surely it can never be Idolatry in us to desire them to do what they do and much more from his own practice in his first Homily upon Ezechiel where he Invocates an Angel in these words Come Holy Angel and receive Him who is converted from his former Errour And therfore when he says We are not to pray to them who pray for us He adds as the Doctor cites him p. 149. That we ought not to divide our supplications between God and them By which he explains himself to mean that we ought not to pray to them in the same manner as we do to God for that indeed were to divide our supplications But to desire them to offer up our Prayers or to pray for us is not to divide our supplications between God and them but to unite their Prayers to ours as we do the Prayers of â—ust Men upon Earth whom we desire to pray for us It is evident then and mostly out of the very places cited by the Doctor himself that the Invocation or Honour which Origen denies to be given to Angels is that which is due to God § 4. But now the Doctor weary it seems of being serious so long to no purpose thought fit to entertain his Reader with an other Essay for one Enterlude of this kind we have had already in the 1st Chap. of the peculiar Faculty he hath in exposing the Saints to derision Celsus saith he p. 150 yet further urges that according to the doctrin of the Aegyptians every part of a Man hath a particular Daemon or Ethereal God and every one of these being invocated heals the diseases of the parts proper to themselves why then may they not justly be invocated saith Celsus And if one of the Church of Rome saith Dr. Still had been to answer him he must have told him that the thing was rational which he said only they were out in their Names for instead of Chnumen Chnaachumen Cnat Sicat Biu Eru c. They should have chosen Raphael for travelling and against Diseases Apollonia against the Toothâ—ach Sebastian and Roch against the Plague St. Nicholas against Tempests Michael and St. George against Enemies and others in like cases Thus the Doctor makes sport for himself and others of his humour by deriding a practice used by some Catholick People of addressing themselves to some particular Saints rather than others against particular dangers oâ— diseases as if there were no difference between the Aegyptians daemons or Ethercal Gods and the Saints but in the Names or between the Aegyptians addresses to those Devils and those of Catholicks to the Holy Saints and Angels but in the language and that there needed no more but to correct the Names as you would do faults escaped in Printing viz. for Chnumen to read Raphael for Chnaachumen Apollonia for Cnat Sebastian for Sicat Roch for Biu Michael and I suppose for c. it is so like the Dragon's Tail St. George who otherwise must be left out But the sport is not more pleasing to those who mock at all Religion than I shall make it appear ridiculous to all sober Readers by showing Two things 1. The difference between the Doctrine and Practice of the Aegyptians and that of Catholicks 2. The reasonableness of the practice of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another First then That Catholicks look upon the Saints with a different regard from what the Aegyptians did their Daemons is evident in that the Aegyptians believed them to be Gods which is far from the hearâ— of any Catholick to believe of the Angels and Saints And it is no less evident that the addresses they make to them are different from those the Aegyptians made to those Gods because as Origen saith the Invocation which Celsus contended for was Votiva illis sacrificia reddere to offer sacrifice to them which is due to God alone and that upon account that they had power to heal the Disâ—ases of the Parts proper to themselves But the Invocation which Catholicks make to the Holy Angels and Saints is but to desire them as we do Holy Men upon Earth to pray for us And therefore when the Doctor saith that If one of the Church of Rome had been to Answer Celsus he must have told him that the thing was Rational which he said I must tell him that what he saith is Irrational and false because both the Conceit they have of the Angels and Saints and the addresses they make to them as I have shewed are point blank opposite to those of the Aegyptians But now on the other side supposing the Aegyptians had the same conceit of their Daemons which Catholicks have of the Holy Angels and Saints and that they did no more but as Catholicks do desire them to pray for them to the supream God would it follow that Catholicks may not desire the Prayers of the Saints and Angels No more than because the Aegyptians erected Temples and offred Sacrifice to their great God Osiris therefore Catholicks may not do the same to the very true God himself or because they made their solemn supplications to a false God therefore Protestants may not offer up their Prayers to the true One 2. The reasonableness of making addresses to one particular Saint rather than another in some particular occasions And this will appear from the Consideration upon which it is usually done which is not a division of Offices among the Saints every one of whom may equally intercede without entrenching upon the Propriety of another and their Intercession may be implored by us in all kinds of necessities whatsoever but it is grounded upon a Reflexion which the suppliant makes either upon some signal Grace which shined in that
here by the Doctor he affirms that that service which is given by servants to their Masters is wont to be called by another Name in Greek that is dulia But this the Reader was not to know for fear he might infer that if some degree of the service called in Greek dulia might be given by Servants to their Masters then surely a higher degree of it may be given to the Holy Angels § 4. But now after all these endeavours used by the Doctor to hide himself in the General terms of such worship Religious worship Prayer Invocation c. and some obscure passages of the Fathers He tells us that he knows very well and I pray God his own knowledge may not rise against him in the Day of Judgment by what Arts all these Testimonies are endeavoured to be evaded or rather by what Light he will be discovered to have said nothing to the purpose Viz. That these sayings of the Fathers were intended against the Heathens Idolatry who worshipped those Spirits as Gods and offered Sacrifices to them But the Church of Rome denieâ— the Angels and Saints to be Gods and asserts that the worship by Sacrifice is proper only to God This Answer is indeed given by St. Austin very often and others of the Fathers And there needed no other to the Testimonies he produces if all who read his Book knew as much as himself But such devices as these for so he calls them though prov'd to be the sense of the Fathers out of the very places cited by him he saith can never satisfy an impartial mind And to return him his own words in a like occasion I must tell him that if ever he speak home to our case he must do it upon this Point And so he does but very little to his comfort as I shall make appear by showing the nullity of the Reasons with which he endeavours to make the aforesaid Answer seem insufficient 1. The First is because The Fathers he saith p. 158. do expresly deny that Invocation or Prayer is to be made to the Angels and Saints But this is but to say the same thing over again or to equivocate as Mr. Thorndike saith in the terms of Prayer and Invocation which are not so proper to God but that in despite of our hearts they may be used in signifying requests made also to Men. 2. His second Reason is because It would be no more unlawful to sacrifice to Saints or Angels than to Invocate them And this Reason clearly destroys it self because it supposes we hold it unlawful to sacrifice to the Saints as the Heathens did to their Inferiour Deities But to let that pass with the rest If he take the word Invocation here to signifie the Prayer we make to God as the Author and Giver of all Good I grant it no less unlawful to sacrifice to Saints and Angels than to Invocate them For what Catholick ever taught or thought that it was lawful to Invocate any Angel or Saint upon that account But if the word Invocation on the one side as in despite of all opposition it may be and by the Custome of the Church it is used be taken to signify the requests we make to Angels and Saints to pray for us and on the other side the offering of sacrifice be not only by the custome of the Church but of all Mankind as St. Austin teacheth appropriated to signify the absolute worship due only to God Who sees not the unlawfulness of offering it to any Saint or Angel may consist with the lawfulness of desiring them to pray for us The case is plain in just Men upon Earth For St. Paul and Barnabas accepted willingly the Prayers which others made to them for their assistance but utterly refused to admit the sacrifice which the Lycaonians Acts 14. would have offered to them and it is as plain of the Saints in Heaven because we pray no otherwise to them than we do to Holy Men upon Earth though more devoutly upon the account of their unchangeable state of Bliss How then could the Doctor parallel these two together and not only parallel them but make it less unlawful to pray to the Saints than to offer sacrifice to them I 'le tell you Catholicks when they write against Inâ—idels or Hereticks make use of the Answers which the Fathers have formerly given to their Objections But Dr. St. being to oppose the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the Point of Invocation of Saints is forâ—'t to maintain an Argument of the Heathens against St. Austin Nay saith he p. 158. The Heathens in St. Austin argued very well that sacrifices being meer external things might more properly belong to the Inferiour Deities but the more Invisible the Deity was the more Invisible the sacrifices were to be and the greater and better the Deity the sacrifice was to be still proportionable Thus the Doctor to show that in all reason the duty of Prayer ought to be reserved as more proper to God than any External sacrifice or as he vaâ—ies the Phrâ—â—se than a meer outward sacrifice and consequently that Prayer was less communicable to a Saint than Sacrifice But do you not think the Doctor us'd the utmost of his confidence here to own and maintain for good nay very good an Argument of the Heathens confuted by St. Austin in that very place The Heathen saith Dr. St. argued very well I deny it saith St. Austin because in so arguing they manifest that they do not know nesciunt that visible sacrifices are the signs of the Invisible Sacrifices of the mind like as the words we speak are the signs of things For as when we pray or praise we direct the words to him to whom we offer in our hearts the things themselves which we signify by them so when we sacrifice we know that the visible Sacrifice is to be offered to no other but to Him whose Invisible Sacrifice we our selves ought to be in our hearts And upon this account he adds a little below it is and no other that the Devils require sacrifice to be offered to them because they know it to be due to God alone endeavouring by that means to hinder access to the true God that Man may not be his sacrifice whilst sacrifice is offered to any but to him Thus St. Austin in Answer to the Heathens Objection and the Doctor 's By which it appears 1st That in the Judgment of St. Austin external sacrifice being the highest expression of the highest part of Prayer which is the devoting and sacrificing our selves in our hearts to God it ought of all others to be reserv'd as most proper and acceptable to him And that Religion which admits no external visible sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the Publick Worship of God 2dly That in the Judgment of the same St. Austin the Doctor if he speak as he thinks knows no more than the Heathens did what the
as he is affected and nothing more subject to different construction than words They are like those Pictures which represent a Man to one that stands on the right hand and a Beast to another who stands on the left or like the Pillar of Cloud which gave Light to the Israelites but was darkness to the Aegyptians For Example those words of Christ to his Apostles You are the Light of the World if you set a Jew on the one side and Dr. St. on the other The Jew who owns Christ for no other than a Seducer will call them Blasphemous but the Doctor I hope will not do so although Christ say of Himself that He is the Light of the World And the only Reason he can give is because though the words be the same yet the sense in which they are applyed to Christ and his Apostles is very different And possibly those highest strains of Prayer to God which he saith are applyed in that Psalter to the B. Virgin may if examined be found not chargeable with Blasphemy on the like account For if it be not the dead words but the Intention of the Speaker that animates them which makes them to be Prayer otherwise a Parrot which should be taught to say Help me God would pray as well as a Christian it follows that as the Intention of the Speaker is different so will the Prayer be also that is the same words spoken to God will have respect to Him as who alone can give what we desire but applyed to the B. Virgin will signifie only that we desire her Prayers to obtain for us of God what we believe that he alone can give and consequently no strain of Prayer properly so called which is made to GOD will be applyed to the B. Virgin § 5. But now the Doctor will be so just as not to insist upon the Ancient Breviaries or Obsolete Forms or Private Devotions among which surely the Psalter he speaks of may be ranked There is Blasphemy and Idolatry enough he thinks in the present Roman Breviary to serve his turn The first Instance he gives is that of the Antiphon Hail B. Virgin Thou alone hast destroy'd all the Heresies in the World and least this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son as the Church doth when she presently addeth Dum virgo Deum Hominem genuisti that is by bringing Him into the World who was both God and Man a Formal Invocation of Her he saith follows Give me strength against thy Enemies to which he adds those Ejaculations in the Hymn Ave Maris stella Wherein she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and drive away our evils but he leaves out and to beg for us all good things and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is saith he in the Masse-Book at Paris 1634. Jure Matris Impera Redemptori As thou art a Mother Command the Redeemer But then again least the Hymn should be thought only Poetical he saith that in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives a formal Prayer is made to Her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn where again he leaves out Pray for the People Intercede for the Clergy c. And the like forms he saith are used to St. Michael and the Angel Guardians and to the Apostles And now saith he is all this only praying to the Saints to pray for us Yes surely if it be the sense which makes the words to be Prayer as I shewed above and not the bare Characters or Letters And that the Church's sense is no other but to desire them to obtain for us of God the blessings expressed in those forms viz. help comfort light c. is manifest both from her frequent intermixing that usual form of Pray for us which the Doctor conveniently leaves out and from her publick Doctrin as set down in the Council of Trent and inculcated to all the Faithful in their Catâ—chisms But what can be said to those words in the Mass-Book at Paris 1634. Jure Matris Impera Redemptori As thou art a Mother Command thy Son I Answer 1. That those words shew thy self to be a Mother to which the Doctor makes these other of the Mass-Book at Paris correspond are not found in any Mass-Book at all that I can hear of nor do the words cited by the Doctor agree in their number and measure with the rest of the Verses of that Hymn and consequently I have some Reason to believe him mistaken at least in citing that Mass-Book But 2dly Supposing the words as cited by the Doctor to be found in that Mass-Book I confess they express a vehemency of Spirit not unsuitable to the brisk and sudden efforts propet to that Nation but yet they are such as may admit of a fair construction if they meet with a Reader who is not obstinately bent to be way-ward There are even in Scripture some expressions which seem to carry with them as great an excess as this For example when it is said that Josue spake to our Lord and the Sun stood still God obeying the voice of a Man And when our Saviour saith of Himself that in Heaven he will make his Servants to sit down to Meat and will serve them Now as the former of these expression doth not signify a real Obedience in God to the voice of Man but his readiness to do the will of those that fear him nor the latter that Christ will really serve the Elect at Table but only signifies the great care He will take that nothing shall be wanting to the complement of their joy and satisfaction â—o also the words objected by the Doctor Aâ— thou art a Mother Command the Redâ—emâ—◠〈◊〉 not signify that she should really command Him as she did when he was subject to her upon Earth but that she would use that Grace and Favour on Our behalf which She hath with Him as a Mother above all other Saints And this being understood to be the sense of the words all that the Doctor can say is that the Author was too Hyperbolical in the manner of his Expression and in this I dare affirm he will find very few Catholicks dissenting from him Nay more I have reason to believe that the Parisian Missal of 1634. if there were any such words in it hath been since corrected Otherwise my Adversary would doubtless have cited the Mass-Book of 1670. and not of 1634. And then the words he objects ought to have been cast among the Obsolete Forms which he said before he should not insist upon § 6. But now again if we use the same form of words to the B. Virgin and other Saints as we do to God as when we desire her to strengthen the weak to give light to the blind c. From whence saith the Doctor must the People take the sense of these Prayers if not from the
signification of the words I Answer not meerly from Lilly's Grammar Rules but from the Doctrine of the Church delivered in her Councils and Catechisms and from the common use of such words and expressions among Christians If a Child being taught by his Parents that God alone can give what we ask when he saith to his Father Bless me understands the meaning of the words to be that his Father should pray to God to bless him then surely much more must Catholick People when they pray to the B. Virgin to drive away all evils understand the sense to be that she would pray to God to deliver them from all evil there being besides the common Doctrine of Christianity by which they are taught that God alone is the Giver of all good things so many Sermons Catechisms and Explications both by word and writing daily made in the Catholick Church by Priests to the People and Parents to their Children in this particular Point Well but if this were all saith the Doctor why in all this time that those Prayers have been complained of viz. by those who have revolted from the Church hath not their sense been better expressed Why have they not been expunged all this while after that their Breviaries have been so often reviewed This I fear if done would not be enough to keep them from telling us Once upon a time there was a blasphemous Book or in the Mass-Book Printed at Paris in such a Year there was But why to comply with the humour of a few Opiniators whom no Reason can satisfy must Mankind be debarred the natural manner of expressing their affections And why have not those scrupulous Person◠all this while devised a Dictionary or Phrase-Book to furnish us with words and forms of speaking which may equal our Conceptions and express every little variation of our thoughts and all the different tempers and emotions of the Spirit Do we not do the same action sometimes more quick and smartly than at others Why then must we be tyed to use always the same form of words Why may we not sometimes utter the same affection in a more fervent manner of expression than at others He that sees himself in an imminent danger makes no long Preambles but cries out Help me And St. Gregory Nazianzen records it as an act of great devotion in St. Justina that to free her self from the snares of Satan she call'd upon the Virgin Mary to help and succour her But the Doctor hath now found a Staff to beat Bellarmin with for offering to instance in Scripture that the Apostles are said to save Men Viz. by their Prayers c. Therefore in the like sense we may desire them to save us And he lays on so hard that he hath beat all the brains out of the Cardinal's head at a blow For will any Man saith he in his Wits say the Case is the same in Ordinary Speech and in Prayer Is it all one saith he for a Man to say that his Staff helped him in his going and to fall down upon his Knees and pray to his Staff to help him And now I pray who so proper a Man to confute Bellarmin as Dr. St. Bellarmin speaks of such Instruments as have both Understanding and Will to help us to Heaven by their Prayers and he presently lets drive at Him with his Staff for speaking Non-sense Let the Reader judge whether the Instrument be more Irrational or the Use he makes of it I have long since observ'd that whenever he makes other Men out of their Wits The Reader hath reason to suspect all is not right at home But St. Paul doubtless was a Rational Instrument and What would He have said saith the Doctor to one who should say to him I pray you pardon my sins and assist me with the grace of God I believe he would neither have condemned him of gross Idolatry nor prodigious Folly as the Doctor doth but considering the bitterness of his Soul by the eagerness of his Expression would have given him the assistance of his Prayers to obtain what he aimed to procure by his means of God § 7. Having thus cleared the fense of those Forms of Prayer we sometimes use to the B. Virgin and other Saints to be no other than praying to them to pray to God for us as I asserted in my Reply and answered the little exceptions the Doctor made against it I shall conclude this Point with some Instances of like expressions either used or approved by the Fathers of the Primitive times And first for the usual form of Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us the Instances are so numerous that to transcribe them would make a Volume Many of the Fathers are taxed for this practice by the Magdeburgenses and other Protestant Writers and for this sort of Invocation Mr. Thorndike saith it is confessed that the Lights both of the Greek and Latin Church Basil Nazianzen Nyssen Ambrose Hierome Austin Chrysostom Cyrils both Theodoret Fulgentius St. Gregory the Great Leo more or rather all after that time have spoken to the Saints and desired their Assistance Nay the Doctor himself though diminute in his Confession acknowledges there are some Instances of them in good Authors although he will needs have them to be but Rhetorical Apostrophes and Poetical Flourishes or Wishes that the Saints would pray for us as we Englishmen when we are at play saith Mr. Perkins and I wonder so pat an Example could escape the Doctor call upon the Bowls to rubb or to run as we would have them At this sport he fancies St. Hierome to have been when he cry'd to Paul after her death Help me O Paul in my old Age with thy Prayers And so no doubt was the Emperor Theodosius too when as Ruffinus reporteth Hist Eccl. l. 2. c. 33. He went to visit the Sepulchers of the Martyrs accompanyed with all the Clergy and People it was it seems a General Day of Bowling and prostrate before their Ashes You may imagin to take surer aim implored aid by their Intercession or as St. Chrysost hath it in the same or a like occasion Ho. 26. in 2 Cor. besought the Saints to be his Patrons and Advocates with GOD. And the Doctor Himself brings in Saint Austin as playing at the same Game when he says p. 173. that he wishes rather than praise that St. Cyprian would help him with his prayers Confessing also as I said before that there are some Instances of this pleasant kind of Invocation to be found in good Authors The difficulty then lies in those prayers which we make to Saints to help our Necessities But of these also there want not Instances in the Writings of good Authors of the Primitive times parallel to those which the Doctor objects out of the present Roman Breviary and Office of our Lady Do we say there Hail B. Virgin Thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the World Vouchsafe Holy Virgin to
let me praise Thee St. Cyril saith By Thee Holy Mother and Virgin every Creature that worshipped Idols hath been converted to the knowledge of the Truth Praise and Glory be to Thee O Sacred Trinity Praise also be to Thee O Holy Mother of God Who can sufficiently set forth thy Praises Do we entreat the B. Virgin to help the miserable to strengthen the weak c. St. Gregory Nazianzen above-cited commends St. Justina for beseeching the B. Virgin to help and succour her Do we desire her to protect us from our Enemies and shew her self to be a Mother St. Gregory Nissen calls upon St. Theodorus to fight for his Country as a Souldier and to use that liberty of speech for his Fellow-servants which besits a Martyr Do we supplicate the Angels to come to our help and defend Us St. Ambrose saith that they are to be supplicated for us who are given us for our Protectors Lastly Do we desire the Apostles Jubere the word signifies to wish or desire as well as to command but the Doctor will have it here to command the guilty to be loosed And He might as well have translated Jubeo te valere I command you to farewell It is not so much as what that devout Woman in St. Austin said to St. Stephen when upon the death of her Child before Baptism she brought the dead Body to the shrine of the B. Martyr and there exacted ofhim saith St. Austin to restore her Son to Life with these words Redde filium meum c. Give me my Son that I may behold him in the presence of him who crowned thee A thing both commended by St. Austin as a Testimony of her great Faith and confirmed for such by God in restoring her Son to Life at the Intercession of the Saint Thus much may suffice to show that whil'st the Doctor casts so much Dirt upon the Doctrine and Practice of the present Roman Church He makes it fly in the Faces of those great Fathers and Lights of the Primitive Times And much less might have sufficed for an Objection which taken in all its parts is as like the seeking for a knot in a Bul-rush as ever yet I met with any but that as the Apostle saith We are Debtors both to the Wise and to the Unwise Let us see whether the next be any better CHAP. V. The disparity assigned by Dr. St. between desiring the Saints in Heaven and Holy Men upon Earth to pray for Us shown to be Insignificant § 1. TO manifest farther the weakness of the Doctor 's Argument I added in my Reply that if Catholicks must be guilty of Idolatry for desiring just Persons in Heaven to pray for them upon the same account we must not desire the Prayers of a just Man even in this Life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an Inferiour Deity And the Doctor rejoins p. 168. that supposing this were all yet this would not excuse them But from what He was loath to name it the consequence is so absurd yet he would have his Reader believe that it would not excuse them from Idolatry And the Reason he gives is For their practice is very different in their Invocation of Saints from desiring our Brethren on Earth to pray for us And he cannot but wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be imposed upon so easily in this matter But if he suppose that what we doâ— Invocating the Saints is no more than to desire them to pray for us as we do other Holy Men upon Earth How comes the one to be Idolatry and not the other The difference as far as I can gather from his words consists in this that amidst the Solemn Devotions of the Church after we have prayed to the Persons of the Holy Trinity to have mercy on us remaining upon our Knees we address to the Saints and require the assistance of their prayers saying Holy Peter and Paul pray for us and this without being sure that they hear us This together with a hint of our setting up their Images in some higher place in the Church and burning Incense before them is the whole summe of his Argument These circumstances he says make the desiring the Saints in Heaven to pray for us to be of a very different nature from desiring the same from our Brethren on Earth And I wonder how any Men of common sense can suffer themselves to be so far imposed upon as to believe that any thing of this or all of it together can amount to Idolatry Why we do not the same in all respects to Holy Men upon Earth St. Austin gives the Reason when he says that we worship the Saints in Heaven so much more devouâ—ly than when they were upon Earth because more securely after they have overcome all the dangers and uncertainties of this World as also we praise them more confidently now reigning Conquerours inâ—a more happy Life than whilst they were fighting in this So that what we do more to them in Heaven than whilst they were upon Earth in praying to and praising of them is an expression of a greater devotion to them now than then upon the account of their secure injoyment of a state of Bliss which they can never lose But for that Worship which is call'd Latria for as much as it is a certain service proper to the Divinity we neither worship them saith St. Austin and all Catholicks with him nor teach them to be worshipped but God alone But to return to the Doctor § 2. The first thing he cavils at is our turning to the Apostles with the same postures and expression of devotion to desire them to pray for us after we have invoked the Persons of the Holy Trinity And where lies the Idolatry here if we desire them only as he supposes to pray for us Is the desiring a just Man to pray for us to give him the honour due to God Why then were Job's Friends sent to him for his Intercession Or is it the doing it upon our Knees Why then do Parents permit their Children to ask them blessing in that posture Or is it the using that posture in the Church Are all the People then Idolaters for desiring upon their Knees the Priest nay one another to pray unto God for them These are such pitiful trifles that they were not worth the reciting much less refuting if as St. Hierom saith of the like to recite them were not to refute them Well but St. Peter he saith who would not permit Cornelius to fall down before him and St. Paul who rent his Garments and cryed out to the Men of Lystra Why do you these things would no doubt have been less pleased with this And why so if Cornelius as St. Hierome thinks intended through Error to worship him with divine honour and the Men of Lystra as St. Luke relates to offer sacrifice to St. Paul as to
us For This saith the afore-cited Bish Forbes is a Testimony in which all Dissenters wonderfully exult and even Triumph But those of the Church of Rome saith he do answer and indeed truly that St. Austin speaks here of Invocation in the Liturgy and at the Altar where forasmuch as Sacrifice is truly offered to God though he think many of the Church of Rome mistaken in their Explication of it Invocation is to be directed to God alone And that this was St. Austin 's meaning in that place would have appeared from the Reason he gives in the words immediately following the Doctor 's citation had he not most conveniently left them out Viz. Because the Priest saith St. Austin sacrifices to God and not to the Martyrs although he sacrifice in Memory of the Martyrs for he is the Priest of God and not of the Martyrs Who sees not that St. Austin here speaks of Invocation made by the Priest at the Offering of the Sacrifice § 4. But that He did allow at other times the direct Invocation of Saints I have already shown in the 4th and 5th Chapters from the Examples of the devout Mother exacting of St. Stephen the restoring her Son to Life and of the poor Man who prayed to the Twenty Martyrs to be cloathed Both which St. Austin highly commends and relates them no doubt as patterns for our Imitation In his 17th Sermon de verbis Apostoli he expresly affirms that it is an Injury to pray for a Martyr to whose Prayers we ought to be commended And in his Book of the Care for the Dead c. 4. 5. he saith that the Christians of his time did not only recommend the Souls of their deceased Friends to God but to the Martyrs also as their Patrons to be helped by them And this he gives for the Reason why they desired to have their Bodies buried neer the Shrines or Sepulchers of the Martyrs Viz. That the Memory of the Place where they were buried might excite their Friends to recommend them by their Prayers to those very Saints These Testimonies are so clear that they cannot possibly be evaded by any shift or pretence whatsoever of Rhetorical Apostrophes or Poetical Flourishes or General Wishes that the Saints would pray for us And although Bishop Mountague with his piercing Wit being press'd with these Authorities sought every chink to escape out at yet Bish Forbes c. 4. p. 320. confesses it was in vain and that he is very sorry that the said Bish Mountague gave so just a cause to Joannes Barclaius to expostulate with Him for imposing upon the credulity of his Soveraign and others in this matter And had he been now alive he might with grief enough have pronounced the same as I doubt not but many other learned Protestanas do of Dr. Stillingfleet As for what he quotes to have been observed by Lud. Vives if his Observation were true that many Christians in his time did offend in re bona in a thing good in it self which the Doctor leaves out because they did saith he no otherwise worship Saints than they did God himself the contrary whereof is asserted by St. Austin of the Christians of his time it imports at most but an Errour or Abuse in some particular Persons such as St. Austin saith in the place above-cited against Faustus that whoever falls into it is to be reproved by sound Doctrine that he may be either corrected or avoided § 4. From St. Austin's Testimony of the custome of Christian People in his time I passed to his Practice and for a Proof of it I instanced in the Prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdome in these words Let blessed Cyprian therefore help Us with his Prayers c. This the Doctor calls an Apostrophe that is a Counterfeit Invocation such as Mr. Perkins said we English men make to a Bowl when we pray it globum rogamus to rubb or run And the comparison being so Parallel between Mr. Perkins's Globum rogamus and St. Chrysostom's Sanctos rogamus I cannot but wonder that English-men who are generally esteemed the best Invocators of Bowls in the World should nevertheless be no better Invocators of Saints For if the devotion be the same it can be no more Idolatry to call upon the Saints than upon the Bowls But to speak to the words of St. Austin Let B. Cyprian therefore help us with his Prayers whoever considers the Motive alledged by Him why he addressed himself to St. Cyprian which was for that in Heaven He saw more clearly the truth of that Question of which himself had formerly doubted and St. Austin was then treating of and the necessity he had of his Prayers as being yet in this Mortal Flesh and labouring as in a dark Cloud will easily see that it was not a counterfeit but a true and serious address to Him for the assistance of his Prayers And Chemnitius no doubt understood it so when speaking of this very passage of St. Austin's invocating St. Cyprian This saith he Austin did suffering himself to be carried away with the Times and Custome Well but for all this the Doctor will have it to be a wish rather than a Prayer and he doubts his saying the like to St. Austin Let Blessed Austin now help me with his Prayers would not be taken by us for a renouncing the Protestant Doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome To this I Answer although the word Adjuvet taken Grammatically be of the wishing or Optative Mood yet taken with all the circumstances above-mention'd and the custome of Christian People of that time approved by St. Austin it imports as much a formal request as if a Child should say to his Father Benedicat Let my Father bless me For it is not so much the Mood as the Mode that is use and custome which determins the sense of words And if the Doctor will hazard a tryal of it Let him but profess as St. Austin did that we ought to celebrate with Religious Solemnity the Memories of the Martyrs to be assisted by their Prayers and that it is good and lawful to commend our selves to their Prayers and upon this account say as St. Austin said Let B. Cyprian help me with his Prayers I dare undertake his own Party shall take it for renouncing the Protestant Doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome But he is so far either from making this Profession with St. Austin or saying to him Let B. Austin now help me with his Prayers that he would have the Reader to take it for one of the superstitions which he would give us to understand crept in after the Anniversary Meetings at the Sepulchers of the Martyrs grew in request For S. Austin himself saith he affirmeth that what they taught was one thing and what they did bear with was another speaking of the customes used at those Solemnities And is it possible he could think so great a