Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome § 1. HAving thus far Vindicated the Scriptures from being the cause by being read among us of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England I now return to the consideration of the Remainder of his Reply And one thing still remains to be cleared concerning the Scripture which is whether it can be a most certain rule of faith and life since among Protestants it is left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit which is as much as to ask whether any thing can be a rule which may be mis-understood by those who are to be guided by it or whether it be fit the people should know the Laws they are to be governed by because it is a dangerous thing to mis-interpret Laws and none are so apt to do it as the common people I dare say St. Augustin never thought that Heresies arising from mis-understanding Scriptures were a sufficient argument against their being a Rule of faith or being read by the people as appears by his discoursing to them in the place quoted by him For then he must have said to them to this purpose Good people ye perceive from whence Heresies spring therefore as you would preserve your soundness in the faith abstain from reading the Scriptures or looking on them as your rule mind the Traditions of the Church but trust not your selves with the reading what God himself caused to be writ it cannot be denyed that the Scriptures have far greater excellency in them than any other writings in the world but you ought to consider the best and most useful things are the most dangerous when abused What is more necessary to the life of man than eating and drinking yet where lyes intemperance and the danger of surfetting but in the use of these What keeps men more in their wits than sleeping yet when are men so lyable to have their throats cut as in the use of that What more pleasant to the eyes than to see the Sun yet what is there so like to put them out as to stare too long upon him Therefore since the most necessary and useful things are most dangerous when they are abused my advice must be that ye forbear eating sleeping and seeing for fear of being surfetted murdred or losing your sight which you know to be very bad things I cannot deny but that the Scriptures are called the bread of life the food of our souls the light of our eyes the guide of our wayes yet since there may be so much danger in the use of food of light and of a Guide it is best for you to abstain from them Would any man have argued like St. Augustin that should talk at this rate yet this must have been his way of arguing if his meaning had been to have kept the people from reading the Scriptures because Heresies arise from mis-understanding them But all that he inferrs from thence is what became a wise man to say viz. that they should be cautious in affirming what they did not understand and that hanc tenentes regulam sanitatis holding this still as our rule of soundness in the faith with great humility what we are able to understand according to the faith we have received we ought to rejoyce in it as our food what we cannot we ought not presently to doubt of but take time to understand it and though we know it not at present we ought not to question it to be good and true and afterwards saith that was his own case as well as theirs What S. Augustine a Guide and Father of the Church put himself equal with the people in reading and understanding Scriptures In which we not only see his humility but how far he was from thinking that this argument would any more exclude the people from reading the Scriptures than the great Doctors of the Church For I pray were they the common people who first broached Heresies in the Christian Church Were Arius Nestorius Macedonius Eutyches or the great abettors of their Doctrines any of the Vulgar If this argument then holds at all it must hold especially against men of parts and learning that have any place in the Church for they are much more in danger of spreading Heresies by mis-interpreting Scriptures than any others are But among Protestants he saith Scripture is left to the Fanciful interpretation of every private Spirit If he speaks of our Church he knows the contrary and that we profess to follow the unanimous consent of the primitive Fathers as much as they and embrace the doctrine of the four General Councils But if there have been some among us who have followed their own Fancies in interpreting Scripture we can no more help that than they can do in theirs and I dare undertake to make good that there have never been more absurd ridiculous and Fanciful Interpretations of Scripture than not the common people but the Heads of their Church have made and other persons in greatest reputation among them Which though too large a task for this present design may ere long be the subject of another For the authority of Henry 8. in the testimony produced from him when they yield to it in the point of Supremacy we may do it in the six articles or other
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 it 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 denyes to receive must be terminated on the creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denyes 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 grossest 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 grosser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grossest 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 practices 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 Oathes and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practices 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 faith 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 judgement and reason as to the matters of faith 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 pretending 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 incurr 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 destroyes 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 Catholick The Proposer of the Questions Reply to the Answer Madam I
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still 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 This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. 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 affirms but without any appearance of reason And I 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 I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs 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 But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
was performed to the Martyrs for neither was any Sacrifice offered up to any of them nor any other part of religious worship for thereupon he shews which is very conveniently left out in the citation that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. Iohn to fall down and worship him All the worship therefore he saith that they give to Saints is That of love and society and of the same kind which we give to holy men in this life who are ready to suffer for the truth of the Gospel But that the worship of Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin appears by what himself saith on a like occasion where he shews the difference between the Gentiles worship and theirs They saith he build Temples erect Altars appoint Priests and offer Sacrifices but we erect no Temples to Martyrs as to Gods but Memories as to dead men whose Spirits live with God we raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to one God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as men of God who have overcome the world by confessing him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And elsewhere saith Whatever the Christians do at the memories of the Martyrs is for ornaments to those memories not as any sacred Rites or Sacrifices belonging to the dead as Gods we therefore do not worship our Martyrs with divine honours nor with the faults of men as the Gentiles did their Gods Which gave occasion to Lud. Vives in his Notes on that Chapter to say that many Christians in his time what sort of Catholicks those were it is easie to guess but to be sure none of St. Austins did no otherwise worship Saints than they did God himself neither could he see in many things any difference between the opinion they had of Saints and what the Gentiles had of their Gods I cannot understand then how St. Austins answer should justifie that which he condemns He denyes that there was an Invocation of Saints but only a commemoration of them the Church of Rome pleads for any Invocation of them and condemns all those who deny it So that his answer is very far from clearing the Roman Church in the practice of Invocation and the objection we make against it that it doth parallel the Heathen Idolatry for it grants it would do so if they gave to the Saints the worship due to God of which he makes Invocation to be a part But after all this can we imagine that he should practise himself contrary to his own doctrine Yes saith he he made a prayer to St. Cyprian let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us in our prayers But is there no difference to be made between such an Apostrophe to a person in ones writing and solemn supplication to him with all the soâ—emnity of devotion in the duties of Religious worship If I should now say Let St. Austin now help me in his prayers while I am defending his constant opinion that Invocation is proper to God alone would they take this for renouncing the Protestant doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome I doubt they would not think that I escaped the Anathema of the Council of Trent for all this The Question between us is not how far such wishes rather than prayers were thought allowable being uttered occasionally as St. Austin doth this to St. Cyprian but whether solemn Invocation of Saints in the duties of Religious worship as it is now practised in the Roman Church were ever practised in St. Austins time and this we utterly deny We do not say that they did not then believe that the Saints in Heaven did pray for them and that some of them did express their wishes that they would pray particularly for them we do not say that some superstitions did not creep in after the Anniversary meetings at the Sepulchres of the Martyrs grew in request for St. Austin himself saith that what they taught was one thing and what they did bear with was another speaking of the customes used at those solemnities But here we stand and fix our foot against all opposition whatsoever that there was no such doctrine or practice allowed in the Church at that time as is owned and approved at this day in the Church of Rome But from St. Austin we are sent to Calvin whose authority though never owned as infallible by us we need not fear in this point and I cannot but wonder if he saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin that he would produce them For Calvin doth there say That the Council of Carthage did forbid praying to Saints lest the publick prayers should be corrupted by such kind of addresses Holy Peter pray for us If St. Austin were present in this Council as my Adversary saith he was I wonder what advantage it will be to him from Calvins saying that the Council did condemn and forbid those prayers which were in use by some of the people But it seems he takes the peoples part against the Council and St. Austin too and thinks it enough for them to follow the practices condemned by Councils and Fathers which we are sure they do and are glad to find so ingenuous a confession of it He may as well the next time bring St. Austins testimony for worshipping Martyrs and Images because he saith he knew many who adored Sepulchres and Pictures and for the worship of Angels because he saith he had heard of many who had tryed to go to God by praying to Angels and were thought worthy to fall into delusions § 16. But the strangest effort of all the rest is what he hath reserved to the last place viz. That the charge of Idolatry against them must be vain and groundless because if I be pressed close I shall deny any one of these Negative points to be divine truths viz. that honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ that it is not lawful to Invocate the Saints to pray for us But the answer to this is so easie that it will not require much time to dispatch it For I do assert it to be an Article of my faith That God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and he that cannot hence infer that no created Being is to be so worshipped hath the name of reasonable creature given him to no purpose What need we make Negative Articles of faith where the Affirmative do necessarily imply them If I believe that the Scripture is my only rule of faith as I most firmly do will any man that considers what he saith require me to make Negative Articles of faith that the Pope is not Tradition is not Councils are not a
all wise men ever did and will do to the worlds end 4. I proved they made faith uncertain by making the Churches power to extend to the making new articles of faith This he grants to be to the purpose if it were true but he saith the Church never owned any such power in her General Councils which doth not hinder but that the Heads of their Church have pretended to it and in case it be disputable among them whether the Pope be not infallible that unavoidably leaves faith at uncertainties Yet he yields what I contend for which is that it is in the Churches Power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before for whether it be by inventing new Articles or declaring more explicitely the Truths not contained in Scripture and Tradition it is all one to my purpose as long as men might be saved without believing them before and cannot afterwards which is to make the conditions of salvation mutable according to the pleasure of the Church which is the greatest inconveniency of inventing new doctrines 5. I shewed they made faith uncertain by pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not using it to determine those which are on foot among themselves The force of the argument did not lye in this as he imagines as though faith could not be certain unless all controversies were determined which was far from my thoughts but that pretending there can be no faith without infallibility in their Church to end Controversies they should give such great occasion to suspect that they did not believe themselves by imploying that Infallibility in ending the great Controversies among themselves of which I have spoken already and to this he gives no answer at all Thus much in Vindication of the third Argument I made use of to prove that all those who are in the Communion of the Roman Church do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it § 15. I now come to the third answer to the first Question which was that a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurre 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 Three things he objects against this Answer 1. That this makes them both damned though unequally because the Converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so 2. That this reflects as much upon St. Austin as them who rejected the Communion of the Manichees and embraced that of the Church of Rome upon their grounds 3. That it is contrary to our distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental To which I Reply 1. That the design of my Answer was not to pass the sentence of damnation on all who dye in the communion of the Roman Church but to shew that they who forsook a better Church for it do incurre greater guils than those who are alwayes bred up in it and live and dye in the belief of its being the true Church and therefore are not in an equal capacity of salvation with them I shall make my meaning more plain by a parallel Instance or two many in the Church of Rome have asserted the possibility of the Salvation of Heathens though some Bigots have denyed it to Protestants suppose this question were put concerning two persons Whether a Christian having the same motives to become a Heathen which one bred and born and well grounded in Heathenism hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it and a third person should answer that a Christian leaving the communion of the Christian Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in Heathenism and continues therein by invincible Ignorance doth this answer imply that they must both be damned though equally or rather doth it not yield a greater possibility of salvation to one than to the other Or suppose to come nearer our case the question were put concerning one that revolted from the Church of Iudah to the ten Tribes which were guilty of Idolatry though not of the highest kind whether he were equally capable of salvation with one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Israel all his dayes I should make no question to pronounce his condition more dangerous than the other yet not therein damn them both but only imply that it was much harder for to escape than the other For he that was bred up in the Church of Israel believing it was the true God he served and in a right manner and looking on the Church of Iudah as a Schismatical Church and seeing the greater number of Tribes on their side and wanting that instruction which was in the Church of Iudah might in the sincerity of his heart serve God in a false way and pray to him to pardon all his errours and corruptions and have a general repentance of all sins though not particularly convinced of the Idolatry of the ten Tribes I dare not say but God will accept of such a one that thus fears God and works Righteousness in the simplicity of his heart but I cannot say the same of one who revolts from Iudah where the true God was worshipped in a true manner where he had sufficient means of instruction and either wilful Ignorance or temporal ends or unreasonable prejudices makes him deliberately choose a worse and more impure Church before a better for that very sin makes his case much more dangerous than the other Our business is not to enquire into the salvation or damnation of any particular persons for that depends upon so many circumstances as to the aggravation or extenuation of their faults the nature and sincerity of their repentance the integrity and simplicity of their minds which none but God himself can know but to find out the truest way to salvation and to reject whatever Church requires that which is in it self sinful for though God may pardon those who live in it in the simplicity of their minds yet their hopes lying in their Ignorance and repentance none who have a care of their souls dare venture themselves in so hazardous a state Setting aside then the consideration of the danger common to both I say the case of a Revolter from us to the Church of Rome is much worse than of one who was alwayes bred up in it because he might far more easily understand the danger he runs into and wilfull Ignorance only keeps him from it and he doth upon deliberation choose a state of infinite hazard before one of the greatest safety 2. This doth not reflect on St. Austin or the Church in his time which was as far different from theirs as the Churches of Iudah and Israel were from each other neither can it destroy the distinction of Fundamentals and not Fundamentals