those indirect means which other solicitations of men tending to the like purchase are capable of All this being so how can you defend at least from blindness and imprudence your practice of more frequent recourse to your supposed Saints then to the supreme undoubted Saint of Saints Jesus Christ Not to treat at present how much this doctrine of the Invocation of Saints is in it self injurious to God by giving that worship to Creatures which belongs only to himself as may appear by all those places of Scripture which appropriate our Invocation to God only in regard of his incommunicable Attributes of Omniscience infinite goodness and power nor how dishonorable it is to Christ both in regard of his infinite merit and office of Mediator And finally the silence of such a practice in the first and better Ages of the Church so as Cardinal Perron confesses that in the Authors who lived nearer the Apostles times in the three first Centuries no foot-steps can be found of the Invocation of Saints this silence I say is a sufficient Argument of the unlawfulness of this practice how unsuitable it is to the spirit of the Apostles Origen is not only silent of such a practice but directly protests against it in several places assirming that Praiers and Supplications are to be directed only to God by Jesus Christ For being inquired by Celsus what opinion Christians had of Angels he answers That tho the Scripture somtime calls them Gods it is not with intention that we ought to worship them For all â—raiers and Supplications saies he and Intercession and Thanksgiving are to be sent up to the Lord of all by the high Priest who is above all Angels being the living word of God And reflecting often upon the unreasonableness of making addresses to Angels by reason of the little knowledg we have of their condition he adds That even such a knowledg if we were furnished with it * Origen contra Celsum lib. 5. p. 233. Edit Cantab. would not permit us to presume to pray unto any other but God the Lord of of all who is abundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Son of God And after he declares how Angels and Saints may assist us and pray for us to God if we be in the favor of God and do endeavor to please him We must endeavor to please God only saies he who is over all and pray that he may be propitious to us procuring his good will with piety and all kind of virtue And reflecting upon Celsus his proposal of worshipping Demons or Angels he addeth these remarkable words †Lib. 8. pag. 120. But if he will yet have us to procure the good will of any other after him that is God over all let him consider that as when the body is moved the motion of the shadow doth follow it so in like manner having God favorable to us who is over all it followeth that we shall have all his friends both Angels and Souls and Spirits favorable to us for they have a sympathy with them that are thought worthy to find favor with God ....... so as we may be bold to say that when men who with a resolution propose to themselves the best things do pray unto God many thousands of the sacred powers pray together with them uncalled upon Here and in other such Testimonies of Origen and others of his time we find mention of Angels and Saints to pray for men and to help them by Gods appointment but we find no mention at all of such a thing as an Invocation of them He saies they pray together with us when we pray to God himself and that not because we prai'd first to them to pray with us but uncalled upon Here we have the Spirit of that Church truly Catholic and Apostolic declared to us that we are to make our Addresses of Praiers and Invocations to God alone and thereby win the assistance and praiers of heavenly Spirits in our favor For as all the world shall fight with him against the unwise sinners so all the Court of Heaven will assist their King in favoring his Saints and Servants CHAP. XXV A great stock of Faults and Absurdities discovered in Mr. I. S. his defence of Purgatory SIR as you shew your special study to be to soure your Pen with all manner of sawciness even without occasion given to you and starting often from the point and purpose for to pleasure your self in the Sea of bitterness so it is my no small care and certainly a harder task then to answer your Arguments to refrain my Pen from pouring upon you continual showers of heavy Censures whether reflecting upon your boldness in asserting manifest untruths or upon your rudeness or malice in mis-understanding or mis-representing the state and terms of the Question in every point of my Discourse you pretend to answer or shunning shamefully or childishly the point and purpose and proposing another of your own instead of answering as Schole-boies do with riddles or hard questions as they call them when they want an answer to one of them they return for answer another of that kind of Questions Of all these faults I could easily convince you guilty in every point you handled from the beginning of your Book to the end I have abstained from doing it in formal reflexions tho in my replies faced with your Proposals the discreet Reader may easily see your foresaid faults really contained out of my aversion to offensive expressions and because I fear to offend my friends and Patrons on this side as you hope to please yours by bitter Language But when you tell palpable untruths shall I desert the defence of truth not to make you a liar when you clearly abandon the question proposed and misrepresent the case or misunderstand it shall I desist in my serious and close enquiry of the truth not to discover your ignorance and weakness So much complacency you are not to expect from me and by shewing you are guilty of all these faults in your reply to my discourse upon the point of Purgatory you will perceive I have bin indulgent to you in not enlarging upon a formal discovery of them in all the points hitherto treated upon among us Now to the proof of so much I begun my Discourse upon the point of Purgatory with the method and order that exact Disputants are wont to observe in handling seriously any subject First examining what we are to understand under the notion of Purgatory Seeondly whether such a thing be really extant As to the first I told how I did not find the more learned Men of the Roman Church so confident as the Vulgar in taking for Purgatory a determinate place in the bowels of the Earth with those frightful qualities their Legends do specify being contented to conclude from some places of Scripture by conjecture that after this life there must be some place to expiate sins without determining whether
judg of those quarrels I only attend the pernicious Doctrines I see assumed to maintain the interest of one side with intention to rebuke the same as universally false and destructive to the public peace and quiet Neither in truth can I understand which of both parties may fear more prejudice from the Doctrine I am reprehending I see complaints and jealousies upon both sides which of both hath more reason for it as I am not apt to determine so I do conceive that N. N. as also any other may be uncertain to which of the parties he do's prepare ruine by allowing subjects upon suspicion of danger from their fellow subjects to go to war with them without the consent of their Prince If both do complain and fear why may not either party as well as the other fall upon his fellow subjects when opportunity will assist him in conformity with that Doctrine Truly I cannot but wonder how any one living under a Prince or state that hath several Kingdoms Provinces or Societies to govern should dare to publish so pernicious a Doctrine as this I am reprehending If those of Navar and Arragon of Sicily and Sardinia of Brabant and Flanders should renew old quarrels or stir up new ones and run to war about them without the consent of their common Prince how long would the King of Spain be able to keep peace in his Dominions If his Ministers did take notice of this Doctrine and the consequences of it certainly they would have all Books containing it banished out of their territories But all this is sanctified with N. N. by telling us that the war was for Religion and since the law of God and nature do permit a Man to kill an other that pretends to take away his life with the same or more reason he may kill one that means to take away his Religion which ought to be more precious and dear to him then his life Good God whether has the perverseness of men arrived to canonize Murders and the most barbarous cruelties with the sacred name of Religion This language came not from Heaven Christ nor any of his Apostles did never teach it the Church instructed by them did not practise it Lactantius sets before us the maxims and practise of Christians in those times by these noble words Defendenda Religio est non occidendo sed moriendo non saevitia sed patientia non scelere sed fide Religion is to be defended not by killing but by dying for it not by cruelty but by patience not by mischief but by Faith Thus St. Peter and St. Paul and the rest of the Apostles thus did the brave Theban Legion defend their Religion tho able to defend it with Sword as is testified by Tertullian if the Spirit and Doctrine of Christ then steering the Church had permitted it A particular person to defend his life say you may kill by way of prevention an unjust aggressor that pretends to take it from him to this purpose you quote Divines and Civilians and from thence you infer two consequences the first that likewise a community or society may war against and destroy another society from whom it fears the like destruction the second consequence is that a private person or a Society may also by way of prevention set upon and kill another whom he suspects doth intend to take his religion from him You abuse foully the Doctrine above mentioned of Divines and Civilians by misapplying it both your consequences do not only contain a perverse Doctrine against right Divinity and Christian discipline as now declared but also do trespass against the rules of Logic. The former because it is not so easie to surprise a whole society largely dispersed as it is to surprise one particular person Evidences requisit to qualify a prudent fear such as may justify a preventing onset may not so easily be found against a society the threatning words or purpose of one particular or more in a society giveth not so much assurance of the purpose or intention of the whole society as the words of a particular may give of his intention Besides the killing of one particular is not so criminal and hainous nor so much exposed to an oppression of innocents as the killing and destroying of a whole society is therefore it s no lawful consequence a particular person may killby way of prevention another that he fear will kill him ergo a society or great party may likewise by way of prevention destroy another from whom it fears the like destruction Your second consequence above mentioned that if one to defend his life may kill an other that pretends to take it from him he may likewise kill him or them that intend to take his Religion from him this consequence also I say besides the perverse Doctrine it contains is a faulty piece of Logic it is not so easy to take his Religion from a man as his corporal life Your Religion may not be taken from you by a surprise or when you are a sleep or against your will as your corporal life may be Wherefore the same prevention cannot be necessary or lawful for the preservation of both Any that hath true Religion in him due love to God and a sincere and serious desire of his own happiness must take the loss of his corporal life for his Religion to be the greatest gain he can make it being the greatest security he can have of gaining life and glory everlasting for his Soul and body as our Saviour hath declared And is it not a desirable exchange to leave a painful short and wretched life for a glorious blessed and everlasting one Much he hath in him of Earth and little of Christian Spirit who would not wish to be dissolved if he were sure to be after his dissolution with Christ The only reason that can justifie a fear to dy and part with this miserable life is the uncertainty of what may be our doom in the other and the hopes of securing a good one by further living but when a security is given to pass by death to a life everlasting as Christ gives to such as die for God and his holy Faith what Christian consideration can justifie a fear to such a death so far as to kill those that intend to bring us to it Truly N. N. I have so much of kindness and true friendship left in me for you as made me sorry and not a little troubled to see such pernicious Doctrines as these contain'd in your book I took you for a Man better principled and if I had perceived any such errors in your conversation at the time of our acquaintance in Spain I would have refuted them and shewed my dislike to them as freely as I do now I am willing to imagine that non ex tuo haec dicis that it is not your own deliberate sentiment but imposed upon you by some of those fiery emissaries of Rome who will not stick to
its notorious vices That which takes place of a minor hath two Propositions in it The Jews in this occasion were damnable Vnbeleivers and what they denied was a fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do beleive it Where we see two distinct Propositions the second abruptly intruded without any connexion or affinity with the medium placed in the major And thence you pass to your third or rather fourth Proposition bearing by Ergo or therefore the mark of a Conclusion but no more For a Conclusion indeed ought to be a verity contained in the Premises in neither of your Premises is your Conclusion contained nor in both What only seemeth to have some affinity with the Conclusion is that second part of your Minor That what the Jews deny'd was a Fleshly eating of his real Body as the Papists do believe but tho this be so it s far from fetching in the Conclusion That Christ did sufficiently propose unto them a fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do believe it For tho they deny'd a fleshly eating it was not that only what they denied They denied also a Spiritual eating they denied a Fleshly eating but impertinently to the proposal of Christ They denied what was not demanded of them by a mistake of his meaning which our Saviour corrected immediately by saying Joh. VI. 63. The words he spoke to them were Spirit and Life You alledg that I acknowledged the Jews to have understood Christ of a Corporal and Fleshly eating as Papists do But you conceal fraudulently how I said and proved that they misunderstood him and Christ did tax them with a mis-understanding as now mention'd Where is now in all this any even probable ground for your Conclusion which you pretend to have found out clearly in the foresaid place of St. John that Christ in that occasion did sufficiently propose to them a Fleshly eating of his real Body as Papists do believe it that only in denying such eating they were damnable Unbelievers You affirm decretorially without giving any reason for it that the words of our Saviour The Flesh profiteth nothing it s the Spirit that quickeneth c. was not a check to the Jews for understanding him of a Fleshly eating but to us for judging of this Mystery by the senses of the Flesh and by natural reason Sir we are ready by the help of divine Grace to captivate our seases and reason to the Obedience of Faith in God wheresoever we find him declare his Will to us without any further examen But such captivity of our understanding we do upon good grounds deny to your Decrees as undue to them In what the Church of England believes touching the holy Eucharist there is a large compass for divine Faith to be exercised It s no work of nature by sense or reason to understand or believe so strange an Union tho Spiritual as the Gospel tells us and we believe 'twixt Christ and the faithful Receiver of this Sacrament such streams of divine Grace such feeding of Souls to life everlasting To this we willingly pay a captivity of our understanding because we find it clearly declared in the Word of God tho never surpassing so much the reach of our natural Understanding From niceties touching the mode we do religiously abstain being God was not pleased to declare it according to that grave and religious expression of King James Quod legit Ecclesia Anglicana pie credit quod non legit pari pietate non inquirit What the Church of England reads that it doth piously believe what it doth not read with equal Piety omits to pry into CHAP. XIX Several Answers to my Arguments against Transubstantiation refuted TO all my Reasons touching the absurdity of the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the repugnance of it with all humane reason Mr. I. S. gives an easie Answer that in matters of Faith we must renounce Reason He should first prove that this is a point of Faith a doctrine contained in the Word of God His endeavors for it we have seen and declared to be vain in the precedent Chapter then it being an Article of their making he may not expect from us more subjection of our Intellects then his reâ—son will gain and he confessing Reason do's not assist him I take it for a confession that he is cast in the suit I urged that there was no necessity of forcing men to believe so hard a doctrine neither for the effect of the Sacrament nor for the verification of our Saviours words in the Institution of it Mr. I. S. confesses the first but denies the second upon a very trivial and no less weak Argument which I will shew rather proves against him then for him He saies that allowing the word Body is equivocal and indifferent to be taken for a real or figurative Body yet put in a Proposition it s determined to signifie that of which only the Predicate can be verified but only of Christ's real Body can it be verified that it was given for us therefore this Proposition This is my Body which is given for you is to be understood of Christ's real Body Here we have one Proposition made of two and the Predicate of the former made the Subject of the latter to frame a designed fallacy The former Proposition which is the proper Subject of our debate is this Hoc est Corpus meum this is my Bod. The Subject of this Proposition is the Bread Christ had in his hands and gave his Disciples to eat The Predicate is our Saviours Body and the question is how to understand the words of the Predicate so as they may be agreeable to the Subject The words of the Predicate are indifferent to be taken for a real or figurative Body and to be determined according to the quality of the Subject that so the Identity of both requisite for a true Proposition may be seen according to the rule above mentioned by Mr. I.S. all which proves that the word Body is to be taken rather in a figurative sense then in a real otherwise it could not be agreeable to the Subject which was Bread real and visible and called such before and after Consecration both by Christ and St. Paul Now take notice Reader of the egregious fallacy of our Adversary The foresaid complex Proposition he assumes to work upon This is my Body which is given for you is composed of two Propositions the one is hat now declared relating to what Christ had in his hand This is my Body The other relating to Christ's Body of which as subject of the second Proposition another Predicate is affirmed that it was given for us upon the Cross which was given for you Mr. I. S. to do his own work confounds these two Propositions and makes the Predicate of the former Proposition a Subject to the latter and instead of fitting the said Predicate of the former Proposition to the Subject of it as he should do being to speak to