your noise R. P. You shall not escape thus what say you to bowing to the Altar is not that as great Idolatry as worship of Images P. D. Do you not remember the answer Dr. St. hath already given to this objection R. P. I tell you I read none of his Books and know not what he hath written but as I find it in T. G. P. D. What is that R. P. Have I not told you already that the Church of England doth not allow any worship to be given to the Altar P. D. And is not that to the purpose For dare any of you say so of the Church of Rome in respect of Images R. P. But T. G. saith this is not the meaning of the Canon which Dr. St. produces for he saith the Canon only implyes that they give no Religious worship to it but they do not deny any kind of worship to be given to it and Dr. St. himself grants that there is a Reverence due to Sacred Places P. D. Now your bolt is shot I hope I may have leave to say something both in behalf of the Canon and Dr. St. 1. For the Canon I say as Dr. St. did that it denyes any worship to be given to the Altar for it makes the adoration to be immediately made to the Divine Majesty without respect to the Altar either as the Object or Means of Worship which I prove 1. From the Introduction For can any words be more express than those in the Introduction For as much as the Church is the House of God dedicated to his holy Worship not to that of the Altar and therefore ought to mind us both of the Greatness and Goodness of his Divine Majesty not of the sacredness of the Altar certain it is that the acknowledgement thereof not only inwardly in our hearts but also outwardly with our Bodies must needs be pious in it self profitable unto us and edifying unto others If the intention of the Canon had been to have given any worship to the Altar the Introduction must have related to that and not to the Divine Majesty 2. From the Recommendation we therefore think it meet and behooveful and heartily commend it to all good and well-affected People members of this Church that they be ready to tender unto the Lord not to the Altar the said due acknowledgement by doing Reverence and Obeysance both at their coming in and going out of the said Churches c. according to the most ancient Custom of the Primitive Church in Purest times and of this Church also for many years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 3. From the express disowning the giving any Religious worship to the Communion Table Which is not meant of an individuum vagum but of this Act of Adoration which is the Religious worship here spoken of and thereby no kind of worship is intended to the Altar but only to God And which is more plain yet by what follows that it is not done out of an opinion of the Corporal Presence of Christs Body on the Table or in the Mystical Elements but only mark that for the advancement of Gods Majesty and to give him Alone not the Altar together with him that honour and glory which is due unto him and no otherwise Can any words be plainer than these They want only Legislative Gothick and a Finger in the Margent for T. G. to understand them 4. Archbishop Laud who certainly understood the meaning of this Canon pleads only for the worship to be given immediately to God himself God forbid saith he that we should worship any thing but God himself and he adds if there were no Table standing he would worship God when he came into his House And he calls it still Doing Reverence to Almighty God but only towards his Altar and he saith the People did understand this fully and apply the worship to God and to none but God 5. When the introducing this was made one of the Articles of his Charge by the Commons his Answer was That his bowing was only to worship God not the Altar and I hope it is no offence or treason to worship God in the Kings own Chapel or to induce others to do the like 6. I do not find any of our Divines who pleaded most for it do contend for any more than worshipping God towards the Altar and not giving any worship to the Altar the arguments they used were for determining the local circumstance of worship and not for making the Altar the object of it And the difference between these two Dr. St. hath at large cleared R. P. But cannot we say that we only worship God before an Image and do not give any Religious worship to the Image and then the case is parallel P. D. You may say so and you sometimes do to deceive ignorant people but you cannot say it truly For 1. Your Councils have determined that Religious worship is to be given to Images our Canon saith it is not to be given to the Altar therefore the case is far from being parallel And Dr. St. hath fully proved that the Nicene Council did require Religious worship to be given to Images and Anathematizes all who do it not And utterly rejects those that say they are to be had only for memory and out of some kind of Honour or Reverence for nothing but Religious worship would satisfie them And the Acts of that worship are expressed to be not only bowing but prostration kissing oblation of Incense and Lights and Dr. St. hath elsewhere shewed that all the Acts of worship which the Heathens did perform to their Images in old Rome are given to Images in modern Rome 2. Those in the Church of Rome who have only contended for the worship of God before the Image have been condemned by others as savouring of Heresie who say it is a matter of Faith in the Roman Church that Images are to be worshipped truly and properly and that the contrary opinion is dangerous rash and sovouring of Heresie which is likewise proved at large by Dr. St. R. P. But doth not Dr. St. himself allow a Reverence due to Sacred places P. D. He doth so But do you observe the difference he puts between that and Worship I will endeavour to make his distinct notion of these things plain to you First He distinguishes between Honour and Worship 1. Honour he makes to be the Esteem of Excellency Either Inward only in the mind Either Outward in acts suitable to that estimation And this Excellency may be twofold 1. Personal 2. Relative 1. Personal and that threefold 1. Civil in regard of humane Society as that of Abraham to the Children of Heth. 2. Moral on account of moral Excellencies either Natural or Acquired 3. Spiritual in regard of supernatural Graces And that may be given two wayes 1. To the Persons as present which is Religious Respect as that of Nebuchadnezzar to Daniel Dan. 2.46 Of Abraham
his own Author Dr. Heylin hath told him whom he means by Puritans viz. the Nonconformists for speaking of Dr. Buckeridge Bishop Lauds Tutor he saith that he opposed the Papists on one hand and on the other the Puritans or Non-conformists These are very pittiful shifts to overthrow Bishop Abbots Testimony when Dr. Heylin himself saith of him he was so moderate a Calvinian that he incurred the high displeasure of the Supralapsarians who had till then carried all before them But what saith T. G. to those whom he yields not to have been Puritanically inclined and yet charged the Church of Rome with Idolatry R. P. He saith they do not impugn the doctrine it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that doctrine but such things as they conceived to be great Abuses in the practice of it P. D. That will be best tryed by particulars the First of these is no less a Person than K. James who calls the Worship of Images damnable Idolatry and Dr. St. shews that K. James takes off their distinctions and evasions and saith Let them therefore that maintain this Doctrine answer it to Christ at the latter day when he shall accuse them of Idolatry And then I doubt if he will be paid with such Sophistical Distinctions Is all this saith D. St. nothing but to charge them with such practices which they detest Doth he not mention their doctrine and their distinctions Did not K. James understand what he said and what they did What saith T. G. to this R. P. Not a word that I can find P. D. Let us then see what he doth take notice of R. P. A very notable thing I assure you He saith they only found fault with some abuses committed in our Church and did not think men by vertue of the terms of her communion forced either to hypocrisie or Idolatry as Dr. St. doth so that it is not the doctrine of the Church of Rome if truly stated out of the decrees of her Councils or practice agreeable to that doctrine which these Divines impeach as Idolatrous but the opinions of some School-Divines or Abuses they conceived to be committed in the practice of it And for this he instanceth in the decree of the Council of Nice about the Worship of Images P. D. Who doth not know T. G. to be a man of art and to understand the way of fencing in the Schools as well as another Was it not skilfully done in this place to run to the point of Images when we had been so lately upon the Idolatry in adoration of the Host as it is declared in our Rubrick For the Constitution of the Church of Rome is plain to all persons about adoration of the Host at the elevation of it and carrying it about but in the matter of Images they endeavour to palliate and disguise their allowed practices as much as may be I answer therefore on behalf of Dr. St. 1. That when he speaks of what men are obliged to do by vertue of Communion with the Church of Rome he speaks of the things strictly required by the Rules of that Church and since our Church declares the Mass Idolatrous he doth not in the least recede from the sense of our Church in the disjunction he useth either of hypocrisie or Idolatry and I have some reason to believe that was the thing he aimed at chiefly when he spoke of the terms of Communion because he had often heard of some persons who live in the communion of that Church who being not obliged to make the same professions which Ecclesiastical persons are do content themselves with doing the same external Acts which others do but with a very different intention who look upon transubstantiation and many other doctrines as foolish and ridiculous and yet think they may joyn with those who do believe them in all external acts of worship rather than break the peace of the Church they live in such persons would say they never worshipped the Host and therefore excuse themselves from Idolatry but Dr. St. saith they cannot then excuse themselves from hypocrisie because they seem to give the same Worship which the other doth 2. As to the Idolatry committed in the Worship of Images we shall consider that in its proper place but yet by vertue of communion with the Church of Rome all persons are 1. bound to declare the worship of Images lawful as it is practised in that Church 2. To worship Images upon occasion oâ—fered as in processions c. 3. To Worship the Cross as it represents Christ with that worship which is proper to his person That which concerns us now is to give an account of the judgement of these Persons how far they suppose the Church of Rome to be guilty of the Idolatry committed in it As to K. James we have seen already how far T. G. is from answering his testimony the next is Is. Casaubon and he saith the Church of England did affirm the practises of the Church of Rome to be joyned with great impiety So that he speaks the sense of our Church and not barely his own and surely when he wrote by K. James his direction and order and had so great intimacy with Bishop Andrews and other learned men of our Church he would declare nothing to be her sense which was contrary to it And as to his own private opinion I could tell T. G. somewhat more viz. that when he was violently set upon by all the Wit and Industry of Card. Perron and disobliged by some persons of his own Communion at Paris he set himself seriously to consider the terms of Communion in that Church and whether he might with a safe conscience embrace it and I have seen in his own hand-writing the reasons which hindred him from it and the first of them was the Fear of Idolatry which he saw practised in the worship of Images and Saints Which is as full a proof as may be that he did not think any person could embrace the communion of that Church without Hypocrisie or Idolatry as to the Worship of Images and Saints The third is Bishop Andrews who not only charges the Church of Rome with Idolatry but he saith that in their Breviaries Hours and Rosaries they pray directly absolutely and finally to Saints and not meerly to the Saints to pray to God for them but give what they pray for themselves To this T. G. saith they profess they do no such thing as though we were enquiring what they professed and not what Bishop Andrews charged them with If Idolatry according to Bishop Andrews be required in the Authorized Offices of Devotion in their Church how can the members of it be excused either from hyocrisie or Idolatry The fourth is Dr. Field who chargeth the Invocation of Saints with such superstition and Idolatry as cannot be excused The fifth Dr. Jackson who saith the Papists give divine honour to Images The sixth Archbishop Laud who
repentance be saved Ans. It is answered that Ignorance in point of Fact so conditioned as hath been shewed doth so excuse à toto that an Action proceeding thence though it have a material inconformity with the Law of God is yet not formally a sin But I do not so excuse the Idolatry of our Fore-fathers as if it were not in it self a sin and that without repentance damnable But yet their Ignorance being such as it was nourished by Education Custom Tradition the Tyranny of their Leaders the fashion of the Times not without shew also of Piety and Devotion and themselves withal having such slender means of better knowledge though it cannot wholly excuse them from sin without repentance damnable yet it much lesseneth and qualifieth the sinfulness of their Idolatry arguing that their continuance therein was more from other prejudices than from a wilful contempt of Gods Holy Word and Will And as for their Repentance it is as certain that as many of them as are saved did repent of their Idolatries as it is certain no Idolater nor other sinner can be saved without repentance But then there is a double difference to be observed between repentance for Ignorances and known sins the one must be particular the other general the one cannot be sincere without forsaking the other may which he inlarges upon and then concludes Some of our Fore-fathers then might not only live in Popish Idolatry but even dye in an Idolatrous Act breathing out their last with their lips at a Crucifix and an Ave Mary in their thoughts and yet have truly repented though but in the General and the croud of their unknown sins even of those very sins and have at the same instant true Faith in Jesus Christ and other Graces accompanying salvation R. P. But hath not Christ promised that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against his Church P. D. This Dr. St. hath already answered thus Against what Church The whole Christian Church whoever said they could or how doth that follow The Church of Constantinople or the Church of Jerusalem Have not the Gates of the Turk been too strong for them The Church of Rome The Gates of Hell do certainly prevail against that if it doth unchurch all other Churches that are not of its communion And why may not Idolatry prevail where Luciferian Pride and Hellish Cruelty and desperate Wickedness have long since prevailed Hath Christ made promises to secure that Church from Errour which hath been over-run with all sorts of Wickedness by the confession of her own members and friends R. P. But T. G. saith that Dr. St. ought to have assigned us some Church distinct in all Ages from all Heretical and Idolatrous Congregations which Christ hath preserved alwayes from Heresie and Idolatry P. D. Why so Unless he had first yielded that Christ had promised to preserve such a distinct Congregation of Christians which he never did But he shewed the feebleness of that kind of arguing from particulars to generals as though all the promises made to the Church must fail if the Church of Rome be guilty of Idolatry R. P. But I will prove that Dr. St. ought to assign such a distinct Church because he saith that a Christian by vertue of his being so is bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians therefore there must be such a Church at all times to joyn with P. D. I answer 1. Dr. St.'s answer doth imply no more than this that a Christian is bound to joyn with other Christians in the Acts of Gods publick Worship but withal he adds immediately that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church which doth suppose a competition between two Churches where a person may embrace the Communion of either as the Church of England and the Church of Rome So that where there are distinct Communions the best is to be chosen 2. Supposing no Church to be so pure that a mans Conscience can be fully satisfied in all the practices of it yet he may lawfully hold Communion with that Church he is baptized in till the unlawful practices become the condition of his Communion As here in England the conditions of Communion are different as to Clergy-men and Lay-men if the latter be satisfied in what concerns them they have no reason to reject Communion themselves for what concerns others 3. Where any Church doth require Idolatrous Acts as conditions of Communion that Church is the Cause of a separation made for a distinct Communion So that there is no necessity of assigning a distinct Church in all Ages free from heresie and Idolatry since men may Communicate with a corrupt Church so they do not Communicate in their corruptions and when they come to that height to require this they make themselves the Causes of the Separation which is made on the account of Heresie or Idolatry R. P. Still that promise sticks with me that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church and are not Heresie and Idolatry the two Posts of those Gates P. D. If you turn over that promise never so much you will prove no more from it than the continuance of a Christian Church in the World with a capacity of salvation to the members of it And this we do not deny but it doth not prove that any particular Church shall be preserved in all Ages free from Heresie and Idolatry For whatever may be consistent with the salvation of the members of a Church may be consistent with the Gates of Hell not prevailing against it but Heresie and Idolatry may be consistent with the salvation of the members of a Church Because there are so many cases assigned by Divines wherein sins of Ignorance and Errour are consistent with salvation I say then that Christs Promises do prove a possibility of salvation in all Ages of the Christian Church but they do not prove the indefectibility of any distinct Church R. P. But why doth Dr. St. say the Gates of Hell have prevailed against the Church of Rome when himself acknowledges it to be a true Church as holding all the essential points of faith P. D. As though a man could be damned for nothing but for denying the Articles of his Creed It is in respect of Pride Cruelty and all sorts of Wickedness as well as Idolatry that he saith the Gates of Hell have prevailed against it R. P. Well! But T. G. for all that proves that all Christians are bound by vertue of their Christianity to joyn in communion with the Church of Rome P. D. Doth he so It is a great undertaking and becoming T. G. But how R. P. First There was in the world before Luther a distinct Church whose communion was necessary to salvation but this was not the Protestant for that came in after Luther therefore it was the Roman P. D. This is very subtle reasoning yet it is possible we may find out something like it
circumstantial differences will not vary the case and destroy the parallel If this be all you have to add about the Heathen Idolatry I pray let us come to the appropriate Acts of Divine Worship For since God may appropriate Acts of Worship to himself since upon that they become due only to him since Idolatry is giving to the Creature the worship due to God Dr. St. from hence proves that they who do those Acts by way of worship to any creature must be guilty of Idolatry R. P. As to this mighty argument T. G. saith the only thing to be wondred at in it are the many Equivocations False suppositions and Self-contradictions contained in it P. D. Fair and soft good Sir let us not have so many charges at one time take which of them you please provided you hold to it and not ramble from one to another R. P. What is it you understand by appropriate acts of Divine Worship for more or less may be required and so the term be equivocal P. D. I mean such which by his appointment and command become due to him and by his prohibition to give them to any other they become due only to him R. P. There is something still wanting to make the Argument conclusive against us which is that God hath so tied these Acts to his own Worship that in all cases and upon all occasions imaginable they become incommunicable to any other and this so fastned to them that it cannot be separated from them For if the appropriation may be separated upon any accounts we may and will pretend it is P. D. How doth it appear necessary that such an appropriation must be in all circumstances Is it not sufficient that it be in all Acts of Religious Worship For instance Adoration is an appropriate Act of Divine Worship but he doth not hereby exclude mens bowing to each other on account of civil respect but where the circumstances of time place c. do shew it is for Religious Worship there Dr. St. saith it ought to be given to none else but God R. P. But if those Acts be communicable to any other besides God as limited with such and such circumstances they are not absolutely appropriated to God in all cases and upon all accounts imaginable and so the Argument doth not conclude P. D. I wonder to hear you talk at this rate For the force of your Argument lies in this If it be lawful to bow to one another on a civil account then Religious Worship is not appropriated to God what a strange consequence is this Dr. St. doth say that the circumstances of time and place c. do put a sufficient discrimination between Acts of Civil and Religious Worship as between eating and drinking upon a natural account at a common Table and eating and drinking at the Eucharist What a sensless way of reasoning were this for a man to say that eating and drinking could not be appropriated to that act of Divine Worship in celebration of the Lords Supper because men eat and drink upon other occasions It is true they do so and must do so if they would live but what then May not Christ therefore institute a Supper of his own with such rites and solemnities belonging to it as may sufficiently discriminate it from a common eating and drinking And were it not a horrible profanation to appoint such a Supper as that of our Lord is in commemoration of of S. Francis or Ignatius Loyola I see I must put some questions to you to make you apprehend this a little better than I fear you do Is not the celebration of the Eucharist an appropriate Act of Divine Worship now under the Gospel R. P. I do not well know what you mean P. D. So I thought by your way of talking Is it lawful to meet together at Mass to set apart Bread and Wine and afterwards to partake of them with a design to commemorate S. Francis and St. Rosa by such a solemnity R. P. I think not because that would be a profane imitation of our Lords Supper which was instituted by Christ himself for the commemoration of his own sufferings P. D. But is it not lawful to eat Bread and to drink Wine together R. P. Who doubts of that P. D. But eating Bread and drinking Wine are the same Acts in substance which are used at the Lords Supper R. P. And what then P. D. Then the substance of the Acts being the same when done upon a civil and a religious account doth not take off from the appropriation of them to God when the circumstances declare it to be an Act of Religious Worship Therefore when a dispute arises concerning the Nature of an Act whether it be for Civil or Religious Worship common prudence is to judge of that from the circumstances of it if once it be found to be for Religious Worship then comes in the consideration of the Law of God and the appropriation of all Acts of Religious Worship to God alone And by this time I hope you understand how impertinent it is to say that if there be appropriate Acts of Divine Worship they must be so in all cases and upon all accounts imaginable Which is as much as to say that eating Bread and drinking Wine in a solemn manner in a place appointed for Divine Worship cannot be appropriated to the Lords Supper unless we never eat Bread or drink Wine but upon that occasion R. P. But what are these appropriate Acts of Divine Worship For it may be some farther light may be gathered from the Acts themselves P. D. Dr. St. hath named six Sacrifice Religious Adoration Solemn Invocation Erecting Temples and Altars Burning of Incense Making of Vows R. P. Hath God tyed us by his command to offer Sacrifice or burn Incense or make Vows to him How then can he argue the Romanists guilty of Idolatry upon the account of giving Acts appropriated to God to others beside him when himself if put to it will deny that God hath commanded them to be done at all to him P. D. To clear this matter a little more to you you may consider two things concerning appropriate Acts of Divine Worship 1. The general prohibition of giving Religious Worship to any thing besides God Which our Saviour hath delivered in those words Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Which the Primitive Church took for their fundamental Rule of Worship and understood it in this sense That all Acts of Religious Worship were to be performed to God alone And therefore of what kind soever the Acts were whether we were tied to perform them to God or not if they were looked on as Acts of Religious Worship given to any Creature they utterly and peremptorily refused to do them and rather chose to suffer Martyrdom as was plain in the case of burning Incense to the Emperours Image No Christians did then think that we were
tied to offer incense to God and yet they esteemed it Idolatry to offer incense to any Creature therefore it is not necessary to the nature of Idolatry that the Act of Worship be such as we are tied to give unto God it being sufficient that it is an act of Religious Worship and the giving of any such to a creature is Idolatry and without this it is impossible to defend the Martyrs of the Primitive Church which all Christians are bound to do 2. As to particular Acts of Divine Worship though they are always unlawful to be given to any thing besides God yet we are not tyed after the same manner to perform them to him For 1. Some Acts of Worship are natural and always equally agreeing to the Majesty of God such as Prayer and Invocation Dependence on his Goodness and Providence Thanksgiving for Mercies received and all internal Acts of Worship which result from the relation we stand in to God and the apprehensions we ought to have of his Perfections as Fear from his Power Submission from his Providence Faith and Trust in him from his Truth and Wisdom Love from his Goodness c. All these are necessary Acts of worship and proper to God 2. Some Acts of worship are appropriated to him when they are due but they are not alwayes due such as making vows and swearing by his name Although we are not tied to perform these at any certain times yet whenever they are done they must be done to God alone 3. Some acts are not necessary to be done to God at all and yet it is unlawful to do them to any other And of this kind are the offering Sacrifices and burning Incense which were strictly required under the Law but that dispensation expiring after the coming of Christ the obligation to those Acts was wholly taken away and yet it was Idolatry to use them to any thing besides God because they were Acts of Religious Worship and therefore if to be performed at all they were so due to him that they could not without Idolatry be applied to any besides him And thus I hope I have a little helped your understanding about these appropriate Acts of Divine Worship R. P. But the force of the ceremonial Law being taken away whatever is not obliging by the Law of Nature or some express declaration of the will of Christ is left at liberty for the Church to use conformably to the light of nature and the design of Christs Doctrine P. D. All this I yield But that which I insist upon is that fundamental precept of worship as declared by Christ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve R. P. But do you think that Christ hath made a re-establishment of those Acts in the new Law which were before peculiar to God as Sacrifice Incense c. for then Christians will be as much bound by this precept to give them to God as not to give them to any other But if they are not re-established how doth it follow that because they were appropriated to God by the Law therefore now that Law is taken away they are forbidden to any other besides God P. D. I do not say that Christ did intend a re-establishment of those Acts of Worship which were peculiar to the Law of Moses but I do say that Christ by this Precept as explained by himself doth make it utterly unlawful to perform any act of Religious Worship to any but God alone And if this be all you have to prove the Mass of Equivocations False Suppositions and Self-contradictions in Dr. St.'s Discourse of appropriate Acts of Divine Worship it had been more for T. G.'s honour to have passed over this with as much silence as he did many other places which he found too hard for him R. P. Suppose this argument were good it proves nothing against us who neither give any act absolutely appropriated to God to any else besides him nor any other in the manner it is appropriated to him P. D. If you perform any act of Religious Worship either to Saints or Images this Discourse must concern you because the Law against the worship of Images is still in force among Christians and our Saviours general Rule doth forbid all external Acts of Religious Worship being applied to any besides God R. P. Nay supposing those external acts of worship to be now due to God by his Law the giving them to any besides himself will not be to give to the creature the worship due to God unless it be done with an intention to give them to a creature as esteemed worthy of Divine Honour For that is the definition of real Idolatry P. D. Then the Mandarins in China who performed all external acts of adoration in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirits secretly directing their intention to a Crucifix were not guilty of Idolatry notwithstanding the Decree of the Congregation at Rome For they did not perform those acts with an intention to give the worship to the Tutelar Spirits as esteemed worthy of Divine Honour Then the Thurificati of the Primitive Church who through fear offered incense could not be charged with Idolatry nor Marcellinus though he sacrificed in the Temple of Vesta when he only complied with Dioclesian But did not T. G. blame the Philosophers for an exteriour profession of Idolatry What is that I beseech you Is it Idolatry or not Doth not T. G. grant that there ought in reason to be some peculiar external acts appropriated to the worship of God as most agreeable to his incommunicable excellencie Why so I pray Is it not because Gods incommunicable excellency requires an external worship peculiar to it self And if so is it not to give the worship due to God to something else to apply those acts which are peculiar to himself to any thing besides him This debate in truth comes to this point at last whether there ought to be any such thing as a peculiar external worship of God or not For if external worship be due to him and such worship be due to him alone for his incommunicable excellencie then the giving external worship to a creature must be giving to it what is due only to God And to resolve the nature of Idolatry into the inward intention is all one as if one should say that Adultery were to lie with another mans Wife with an intention to cuckold her Husband but if a man did it out of love to her Person it were no adultery Why is there not an external act of Idolatry as well as of perjury theft murder and the like Where doth the Scripture give the least intimation that the nature of Idolatry is to be taken from the inward intention when the Law is express against the outward action and all men are charged with Idolatry who were guilty of the external acts without running into the thoughts and designs of their hearts Nay your own
Authors cannot deny that there is an external Idolatry as well as internal and where the outward acts are Idolatrous we ought to presume there was an implicit and indirect intention and no more is necessary to make an act Idolatrous than a voluntary inclination to do it This is therefore a meer subterfuge and can never satisfie a mans Conscience nor excuse the Roman Church from Idolatry R. P. But T. G. grants that supposing such an appropriation of external acts to remain in force to apply such acts to a creature may and ought in reason to be interpreted to be real Idolatrous worship because Idolatry is a sin directly opposite to Religion as a false worship to a true one P. D. What is it then but to cavil about words to deny that to be real Idolatry which at the same time he confesses ought to be interpreted to be so For since we cannot judge of mens intentions but by their actions when we dispute about the Idolatry practised in any Church we can be understood only of that which lies open to our judgement and that can be only the external act And since T. G. grants that the thing which the Dr. means is confessed by your selves to be inconsistent with salvation there is nothing further necessary to be done but to debate whether you are guilty of that sin or not in applying appropriate acts of Divine Worship to a Creature R. P. But doth not Dr. St. himself shew from Card. Tolet that Idolatry doth suppose an error in the mind in judging that to deserve divine honour which doth not P. D. I grant it but that only shews what practical judgement doth precede a voluntary act of Idolatry as it is distinguished from an involuntary compliance In this later case persons are really guilty as to the external act as a man that takes away his Neighbours goods out of fear of his own life is really guilty of theft although the fear he was in may lessen the wilfulness of it so in Idolatry when committed through the power of a sudden passion is a sin of the same kind with other Idolatry but not so wilful and deliberate a sin But in case of wilful Idolatry there must be a practical judgement determining the will to the act of Idolatry If you ask me what that judgement is whether true or erroneous I say it is an erroneous judgement for it determines the giving divine worship to that which doth not deserve it Not as though Idolatry implied the believing that to be truly and properly God which is not which T. G. would infer from thence but it implies only the practical judgement determining the will to give Divine Worship to that which really deserves it not As for instance suppose an Image of our Lady to stand before two persons the one declares against the Worship of it though he may be forced to do it he is guilty of real but involuntary Idolatry taking involuntary as to the free inclination of the Will the other readily and spontaneously falls down upon his knees before it and says his prayers to the Image as gravely and devoutly as if the B. Virgin were present both these do concur in the same external act of worship but from a very different judgement the one judges it fit to comply for his own safety the other judges the thing fit to be done but it is not necessary that he judges the Image to be the B. Virgin her self but that he ought to give such worship to her Image so that judging divine worship to belong to that which doth not really deserve it is all the erroneous judgement necessary to a wilful act of Idolatry and if this be any kindness to T. G. much good may it do him R. P. But T. G. saith that from hence it follows that it is not real Idolatry to worship an Image with divine worship unless it be done out of an erroneous judgement as to a thing that deserves Divine Honour P. D. No such matter for from hence it only follows that in a wilful act of Idolatry there must be a practical judgement determining the act of Divine Worship to an Image though it deserves it not So that this doth not refer to the manner of applying the external act to the object as deserving divine honour but only the antecedent judgement that the act of divine worship be given to such an object R. P. Again T. G. saith that from hence it follows that the case of the Heathens and ours is different because their Idolatry proceeded upon an erroneous belief of a creatures deserving Divine Honour when it doth not but we do no such thing P. D. Cannot T. G. understand the difference between an erroneous belief and an erroneous practical judgement I do not deny that the Heathens had a very erroneous belief in many particulars and so have other Idolaters too But the question now is what error of judgement that is which the wilful act of Idolatry doth suppose and I say it requires no more than an error in the practical judgement determining the will to give Divine Worship to that which doth not deserve it And herein I see no difference between the Heathens Idolatry and yours R. P. But let us now set aside the strict notion of Idolatry and consider whether the Church of Rome be guilty of damnable sin in the manner of their worship which must either be in not giving to God the worship due to him or by giving the worship due only to him to his Creatures P. D. The later is that which Dr. St. chiefly insists upon although he saith your Divines are to blame in the first particular because they reserve no one act of external adoration as proper to God and to be performed by all Christians and for this he quotes the resolution of Cardinal Lugo R. P. I wonder you would mention that citation of Lugo since T. G. saith the Dr. is so unhappy in his citations and the Jesuits will say that he evidently abuses both his Authority and his Eminency P. D. I have had so much experience of T. G.'s intolerable disingenuity in this matter that I durst venture an even wager which is the way T. G. proposes often in his Dialogues for ending such disputes that Dr. St. hath not miscited Cardinal Lugo R. P. T. G. saith that Cardinal Lugo doth not deny sacrifice to be an external act of worship proper to God for his words are qui non potest offerri nisi soli Deo as may not be offered but to God alone but he saith that sacrifice is not properly an act of adoration in the strict sense but of another kind distinct from it P. D. Those are not Lugo's words but licet non possit offerri nisi soli Deo yet I shall not insist upon that For that which sufficiently clears Dr. St. is the consideration of his design in bringing those words of Lugo
which was to prove that there is no one external act of adoration which is proper to Latria or the worship peculiar to God And are not Lugo's words plain and full to this purpose R. P. That cannot be denied but he takes adoration in the stricter sense P. D. Let him take it in what sense he will doth he not speak of the adoration proper to Latria or the worship peculiar to God And doth not Latria take in any peculiar act of Divine Worship And if there be no external act of adoration peculiar to God doth it not follow that there is no peculiar act whereby you express your inward submission to God in all things for that Lugo saith is the strict sense of adoration he there means And doth not this fully prove what Dr. St. brought this Testimony for R. P. But the Church of Rome doth hold sacrifice to be peculiar to God P. D. And doth not Dr. St. say as much For his words are that you confess that sacrifice is so peculiar to God that it ought not to be offered to any else but not as an Act of Latria saith Cardinal Lugo for there is no act of adoration that is so but upon another account as it signifies Gods absolute Dominion over us as to life and death and that we ought to lay down our own lives when he calls for them Which is to make sacrifice a significant ceremony peculiar to God expressing his Soveraignty but not an immediate act of worship peculiar to him for of that kind he saith there is none And therefore according to him your Church hath no one external act of Divine Worship so proper to God that it may not be offered but to him alone And from hence it appears that Lugo did not take adoration meerly for that act of Religious Worship which is performed by the motion of the Body as T. G. suggests but for whatsoever act that may tend to express the submission of our souls to God of which sort he denies any to be peculiar to Gods worship And what can be more contrary to that which T. G. admits for a Law of Nature viz. that man ought to use some external acts to testifie his submission to God and therefore there ought to be some peculiar external acts appropriated to the worship of God as most agreeable to his incommunicable excellency I could not but rejoyce to see T. G. own so reasonable a principle and I desire no other as to the meer light of Nature to prove your Idolatry For if this be a principle of Natural Religion then Idolatry even by the light of Nature lies in applying appropriate acts of Divine Worship to any but to God himself for since his excellency is incommunicable and the submission we owe to God peculiar to him and that submission ought to be expressed by external acts all which T. G. grants then all those who do use such acts to any besides God are guilty of giving the worship due to God unto a Creature For God hath not only a right to our inward submission but to the acknowledgement of it which cannot be done but by external acts and which is observable as to this matter the honour of God as to his incommunicable excellencies with respect to mankind as a body doth not lie in the bare Acts of the Mind but in the external performance of Religious Worship to him For if it be necessary that Gods Authority be owned in the world it is necessary it be done by visible acts of Worship which ought to be so appropriated to him that any one who discerns them may see the difference put between God and all his Creatures For herein lies the manifestation of that inward sense we have of Gods incommunicable excellencies when we set apart times and places and offices of Religious Worship by which we declare our submission to God as our Creator and Governor of the World And the confounding this distance between God and his Creatures is the great sin of Idolatry from whence Aquinas and others conclude it to be a sin of the highest nature and including blasphemy in it because it robs God of the honour due to him for his incommunicable excellencies R. P. What do you mean by this appropriating acts of worship to God Do you mean all of them so absolutely appropriated to God that it is not lawful upon any account to give them to any other And then the Quakers will be the only good Christians in the world or only some of them and not others as kneeling and prostrating but not bowing and then you must tell us what makes the discrimination P. D. I mean that which all mankind meant when they set apart times and places and offices for Divine Worship and every man by the help of his mother wit knew the difference between going to serve God and going to Market I say then as Dr. St. did that the circumstances do sufficiently discriminate Acts of a Religious and of a Civil Nature R. P. May not the Churches declaration that such acts are intended only for inferiour Worship towards Images or Saints make a sufficient discrimination between such acts and those which are appropriated to God P. D. If you suppose the whole power of determining Acts of Divine Worship to lie in your Churches Breast you had asked a very material question but in this case there is a Law of God antecedently prohibiting such acts being given to any besides God himself and this Law was so understood by the Christian Church when the Christian Religion put men upon suffering Martyrdom on that principle that all Religious Worship was appropriated to God because Christ had said Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve R. P. Who is so blind as not to see that this prohibition fell upon the external act as determined to be a sign of Religious Worship by the circumstances in which it was required P. D. And what then I pray for doth it not equally fall upon all external acts where the circumstances do determine them to be signs of Religious Worship Which is all I desire R. P. Doth not this justifie the Quakers in denying to give any external honour to a Creature P. D. So far from it that it shews the folly of their doctrine which arose from not being able to distinguish acts of Religious and Civil Worship R. P. But Dr. St. allows some kind of Religious Worship to be given to a Creature P. D. Not any which is Religious in its nature or by circumstances but that which might be so called being required by the Rule of Religion as civil worship is R. P. But he allows religious respect to places and religious honour to Saints and then why not those acts we give to Images and Saints on the same accounts P. D. Because the circumstances do declare those are not acts of religious worship
a publick profession and consent that those acts are applyed to those objects upon different accounts it is intolerable impertinency to understand such Acts as are in themselves equivocal in any other sense than the Church declares viz. as applyed to Saints or Images the outward Acts of Worship as bowing kneeling c. are used only as tokens or expressions of an inferiour respect and Veneration P. D. If this be all you have to say for your selves the Heathens must be excused from Idolatry as well as You. For they acknowledged by common consent and publick profession a difference between the supreme God and inferiour Spirits they allowed of different degrees of Worship and without all question did not look on their Emperours as the Supreme Deity that made and governs the world and yet I hope the primitive Christians were not guilty of intolerable impertinency in charging them with Idolatry But it seems the holy Angel was guilty of the same intolerable impertinency in so rashly rebuking the Apostle for falling down to Worship him for this was an equivocal Act and in all probability was intended only as a token of respect and Veneration inferiour to what was thought due to God over all Blessed for evermore But those Acts of Divine Worship which by the Law of God become due only to himself can by no consent or declaration of a Church be made lawful to be given to any creature however they may call them Acts of inferiour respect and Veneration as long as they are of the same nature with those which were condemned both by the Scripture and Fathers as Idolatrous Worship R. P. Doth not Dr. Hammond say that Naaman the Syrian was excused from Idolatry because of the publick profession he made that he intended not the Worship to the Idol but to his Master And will not the same plea hold for us who declare we do not give Soveraign Worship to any Creatures but only inferiour Worship P. D. If Naaman had desired leave to worship Rimmon or Saturn with an inferiour Worship declaring that he did not take Saturn for the true and Supreme God but the God of Israel and therefore he might apply the same Act after a different manner and the Prophet had then bid him Go in Peace You had some reason for your parallel But as long as Naamans question only related to the performing an act of Civil Worship to his Prince in the House of Rimmon what colour can be hence taken for giving any kind of Religious Worship to Saints or Images in places and at times set apart for Divine Worship R. P. But Monsieur Daillé saith that external signs whether of nature or Religion are to be interpreted by the publick and common practice of those who use them and not by the secret and particular intentions of this or that Person P. D. And what then I beseech you Monsieur Daillé discourses against those who would use all the external Acts of adoration of the Host which others did but with a different intention and hoped this would excuse them from Idolatry Now in this case he saith that signs of Religious Worship as uncovering the Head kneeling or prostrating the body at the sound of a little bell and such other actions are the plain and ordinary signs of the adoration of the Host and are so appointed by the Church of Rome and so understood by those who generally practise it therefore saith he those who do use these outward signs are to be understood to give adoration to the Host. From whence it follows that men cannot comply with others in the Acts of adoration of the Host without hypocrisie or Idolatry which it was Mons. Daillé's design to prove But what is all this to the proving that inferiour worship is not Idolatry we desire that these signs of Worship may be interpreted according to the common and publick practice of those who use them by which we say it is as truly Religious Worship as the Nations used which all Christians do charge with Idolatry But if your meaning be that your actions are to be interpreted in your own sense it will come to this at last that You are not guilty of Idolatry because you declare you are not guilty of it And whoever condemned themselves for it by publick declarations unless it were when they repented of it as a great sin which I do not find you are yet willing to do I pray remember this saying of Daille's when you think to justifie giving acts of Divine Worship to a Creature by your secret intention for he saith and you seem to approve his saying that such Acts when they are of the nature of Religious Worship are to be interpreted by the common and publick practice and not by particular intentions if therefore the Acts of Worship be such as by the Scriptures and sense of the Primitive Church belong only to God no intention of yours of applying them after an inferiour manner can excuse you from giving adoration to a Creature Especially if they be such Acts which God hath appropriated to himself as the six mentioned by Dr. St. for who dares alter what God himself hath appointed R. P. I think you are turning Quaker for this is their principle do not they alledge Christs precept against swearing and then say who dares alter what God himself hath appointed P. D. I may as well fear you are renouncing Christianity for what Christian ever said or thought otherwise than that it is not in the power of men to alter the Laws of Christ If Christs precept were to be understood of all kind of swearing do you really think it would be lawful to swear at all I am ashamed of this loose not to say profane way of talking about the obligation of Divine Laws R. P. I only mentioned this by the by to let you see what kind of principles the Dr. makes use of to combate the Church of Rome P. D. Just such principles as all Christians own and are bound so to do by their being Christians But do you think in earnest that it is in the power of men to alter the Laws of God R. P. No. But T. G. means that there is now no Law of God binding men concerning these external Acts of worship and therefore it is in the Power of the Church to appoint these as well as other Rites and Ceremonies and to determine the signification of them P. D. If this be his meaning it is very ill expressed But I say that our Saviour hath declared the immutable obligation of that Law concerning applying all Acts of Religious worship only to God and that the Vniversal Church of Christ in the first Ages so understood it as appears not barely by their words but by the greatest testimony of their Actions when such multitudes laid down their lives upon this Principle Therefore I say again You must call in question their Title to Martyrdom or
England and in her separation from Rome p. 168 A passage in the Irenicum cleared p. 170 How far Idolatry consistent with owning the fundamental Articles of Faith p. 175 T. G.'s shuffling about the sense of the second Commandment p. 186 Third Conference About the Nature of Idolatry p. 195 AN abstract of the Design of Dr. St.'s general Discourse of the Nature of Idolatry p. 196 Of the manner of T. G.'s answering it p. 200 The postulata granted by him p. 203 Many material omissions in T. G.'s Answer p. 205 Of the Patronus Bonae Fidei and the service he doth the Papists p. 208 The disparity between bowing towards the Altar and the Worship of Images at large cleared p. 211 Of the difference between Reverence to sacred Places and Worship of Images p. 215 The arguments of the Patronus Bonae Fidei against bowing towards the Altar answered p. 222 The supposition of Transubstantiation doth not make it more reasonable p. 227 Of Idolatry in the nature of the thing p. 233 Of the Sinfulness of Idolatry antecedently to a positive Law p. 235 T. G.'s principles justifie the Worship of God in any Creature p. 242 Relative Worship condemned by the Primitive Church p. 248 As great danger in the worship of Images as of Gods Creatures p. 252 T. G.'s trifling about Meletetiques and Mystical Theology p. 255 The incongruity of Worshipping Christ by a Crucifix p. 257 Of the Nature and Kinds of Certainty p. 258 Why the certainty of Religion called Moral p. 265 Several sorts of Certainty of the Christian Faith p. 266 Of the impossibility of falshood in it p. 268 Dr. St.'s charge of Idolatry reaches to definitions of Councils and practises generally allowed p. 270 The parallel about bowing towards the Altar farther answered p. 273 His Fidelity in citations justified against T. G.'s cavils p. 276 The citation of Lugo defended p. 277 The parallel between Reverence to sacred places and things and the Worship of Images fully disproved p. 284 The Citation of Greg. Nyssen entred upon p. 286 The parallel between the Arian and Romish Idolatry defended p. 288 T. G.'s exceptions against it answered p. 293 Greg. Nyssen's Testimony cleared p. 303 The difference of the practice of Invocation of Saints in the Church of Rome from the addresses in the fourth Century shewed in several particulars p. 306 T. G.'s answer to the Council of Laodicea examined p. 314 The testimony of Arnobius rightly cited by Dr. St. p. 325 Of relative Latria being given to Images p. 327 Of inferiour Worship as distinct from Latria and neither of them shewed to clear the Church of Rome from Idolatry p. 337 Fourth Conference About the Parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry p. 349 T. G.'s notion of Heathen Idolatry p. 350 How far Jupiter's being the Supreme God relates to the main Controversie p. 351 In what sense Jupiter might be called an Unknown God p. 354 S. Augustin makes the true God to be truly worshipped by the Athenians p. 357 T. G.'s exceptions answered p. 359 The distinction between Jupiter of Greet and the supreme Jupiter p. 365 The place of Rom. 1.19 20. not answered by T. G. p. 369 Aquinas his Testimony cleared p. 371 The state of the Controversie about the Fathers p. 373 Justin Martyr no friend to T. G.'s hypothesis p. 377 Athenagoras at large cleared p. 379 A threefold Jupiter among the Fathers p. 380 Theophilus Antiochenus not to T. G.'s purpose p. 387 Tertullian vindicated p. 388 Clemens Alexandrinus p. 400 Minucius Felix p. 405 Other Testimonies rejected as impertinent p. 415 T. G.'s Accounts of Heathen Idolatry examined p. 419 First In taking their Images for Gods at large disproved p. 420 2. In worshipping many false Gods that likewise disproved p. 429 T. G.'s arguments answered p. 431 The absurd consequences of this notion of Heathen Idolatry p. 440 T. G.'s pittiful evasions as to the modern Idolaters p. 443 3. In worshipping the Creatures instead of God the Nature of that Idolatry enquired into p. 457 Worshipping the Creatures with respect to God as Soul of the world justifiable on the the same grounds with adoration of the Host. p. 461 Why it is Idolatry to give all external worship to the Creatures p. 467 A twofold hypothesis of Heathen Idolatry p. 470 The parallel as to the Church of Rome defended p. 473 Of Appropriate Acts of Divine Worship p. 478 What errour of judgement the act of Idolatry implyes p. 491 Lugo's Testimony cleared p. 495 Whether the Church hath power to discriminate Acts of Worship p. 499 How far circumstances discriminate Acts of Civil and Religious Worship p. 501 Whether the Church of Rome doth appropriate any Act of external adoration to God p. 522 That the very Sacrifice of the Mass is offered in honour of Gods Creatures and consequently is not appropriated to the honour of God p. 526 Dr. St. doth not differ from the Divines of the Church of England about the Sacrifice of the Mass. p. 540 How far the Sacrifice of the Mass may be said to be the Act of the People p. 542 ERRATA PAge 108. Line 11. dele not p. 161. l. 21. dele not p. 215. l. 7. r. savouring p. 232. l. 13. r. declares p. 234. l. 4. r. as so Sacred p. 246. l. 15. for no r. do p. 261. l. 4. for not so r. so p. 308. l. 17. for Fallo r. Fullo p. 319. l. 1. for Idolatry r. Idolaters p. 334. l. 7. for I not r. I do not p. 511. l. 5 6. for matters r. matter First Conference Concerning the sense of the Church of England about the Idolatry of the Church of Rome Rom. P. YOU are well met at this Auction of Books I have been present at many of them beyond Sea but I never was at one in England before How go the prices of Books here Fan. Ch. Very dear methinks by the Books I have bought but I find they are so catched up by our Brethren that if we will have them we must pay dear for them R. P. May I know what they are Sir F. C. Only some few choice pieces which I have picked out of this great Catalogue such as Nepthali or the Groanings of the Church of Scotland Cooks Monarchy no Creature of Gods making but the things I most value are the Pamphlets such as Sermons before the Long Parliament in several volumes And a rare Collection of Authors about Liberty of Conscience R. P. Are there so many Books to be had about Liberty of Conscience F. C. Yes a great many have written for and against it R. P. Who are they who have written for it F. C. To tell you the truth some of the same who wrote against it heretofore but they are now more enlightned as those who wrote against Separation when time was are now the greatest advocates for it For there are some providential Truths which vary according to circumstances Do not we see the Papists who were
The faith of Rome was not more spoken of in the Apostles dayes than its errours and corruptions have been since R. P. These are general words name me one of those errours and corruptions P. D. For this time I will name the publick and allowed Worship of your Church which after all your shifts and evasions I cannot excuse from Idolatry R. P. How is that Idolatry God forbid I did not expect this charge from a Divine of the Church of England I was prepared to receive it from my old Fanatick acquaintance here he would have thundered me with the Texts of Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and have quoted half the Book of the Revelations against me before this time if we had not espyed you in the Room But I perceive though your Artillery may be different your charge is the same I pray tell me how long is it since you of the Church of England have maintained this charge For I have been often told that only one late Defender of your Church hath advanced two new charges against the Church of Rome viz. Fanaticism and Idolatry and that the true Sons of the Church of England disown them both P. D. Whoever told you so hath deceived you but it is not the only thing they have deceived you in I never yet saw so much as a tolerable Answer to the Charge of Fanaticism And for that of Idolatry the Authour you mean hath proved beyond contradiction that it hath been managed against the Church of Rome by the greatest and most learned Defenders of the Church of England and the most genuine sons of it ever since the Reformation R.P. But have not you seen what T. G. hath said to all that and how he hath shewed that his Witnesses were incompetent P. D. I have both seen and considered all that T. G. hath said and compared it with Dr. Stillingfleets Reply in the General Preface to his Answers And I must declare to you that if the sense of a Church may be known by the concurrent sense of her most eminent Divines or by her most Authentick Acts as by the Book of Homilies Forms of Prayer and Thanksgivings Rubricks Injunctions the Judgement of Convocation even that of MDCXL Dr. St. hath made it evident that the charge of Idolatry is agreeable to the sense of the Church of England R. P. You thought T. G. would have quitted this Post upon Dr. St's second charge but you are mistaken in him for I have brought over a Book of Dialogues from Paris wherein T. G. undertakes again to prove this to be only the Charge of Fanaticks and not of the Church of England nor of the Genuine Sons of it F. C. It is true we whom you call Fanaticks do charge the Church of Rome or rather the Synagogue of Antichrist with Idolatry for Is it not said And they Worshipped the Beast But you must know for your comfort that we do likewise charge the Church of England with it For what are all their bowings and kneelings and crossings but vain imaginations and the Worship of them is as bad as the Worship of Images And do not they make an Idol of the Common Prayer P. D. This is not fair Gentlemen but one at once I beseech you As to your charge of the Church of England I shall be ready to answer it when you can agree to bring it in I now desire to know what evidence T. G. brings to prove the Charge of Idolatry not to be agreeable to the sense of the Church of England Hath he brought other Homilies other Injunctions other Rubricks other Convocations or at least other Divines generally received and owned for the Genuine Sons of this Church who have from time to time freed the Church of Rome from Idolatry and looked upon the charge not only as unjust but pernicious and destructive to the Being of a Church Nay can he produce any one Divine of the Church of England before the Convocation MDCXL that ever said any such thing or did wholly acquit the Church of Rome from this charge If not let him not think we have a new Church made after another model and upon new principles or that those can be esteemed the genuine Sons of it who contradict the sense of the Church ever since the Reformation If there be any such among us they ought first to be proved to be true Sons of our Church before their testimony be allowed which if I be not mistaken will be much harder than to prove the Charge of Idolatry to be agreeable to the sense of it But what method doth T. G. take in this matter R.P. T. G. like a wary man disputes in Masquerade For he doth not think fit to appear in his own Person but he brings in a Conformist and a Non-conformist arguing the point And the Conformist speaks T. G.'s sense in acquitting the Church of Rome and the Non-conformist vindicates Dr. St. and makes a pitiful defence of him P.D. It was very wittily done And the Scene was well enough laid if the plot were only to represent Dr. St. as a secret enemy to the Church of England as I suppose it was But to what purpose are all those personal reflections and some repeated over and over with so much appearance of rancour and ill will as doth not become a man of any common ingenuity Can the Catholick Cause be maintained by no other Arts than these Methinks T. G. might have let the little Whifflers in Controversie such as the Authour of the Address to the Parliament and of that precious Pamphlet called Jupiter Dr. St's supreme God c. to have made a noise at they know not what crying out upon him as an enemy to the Church of England because he defends her cause to their great vexation and as a friend to Pagan Idolatry because he hath laid open the folly of yours These are such weak assaults as expose your cause to the contempt of all wise men who expect reason should be answered with reason and not with calumnies and reproaches which in my apprehension Dr. St. ought to rejoyce in as the marks of victory for while they have any other ammunition left no enemies will betake themselves to dirt and stones When I read through the First Part of T. G.'s Dialogues and observed how industriously he set himself to bespatter his Adversary and raked all the Kennels he could for that purpose especially that of the Patronus bonae Fidei c. I could not but think of an animal which being closely pursued and in great danger gets himself into the most convenient place for mire and dirt and there so layes about him with his Heels that no one dares to come near him It was certainly with some such design that T. G. hath at last taken sanctuary in a bog hoping his Adversary will never pursue him thither But notwithstanding this project of his we will try whether in spite of his heels we cannot bring him
to reason Therefore I pray let us set aside all rude and unbecoming reflections and calmly consider how T. G. proves that the Charge of Idolatry is not agreeable to the sense of the Church of England R. P. Hold Sir You are a little too nimble T. G. saith his Intention was only to shew that Dr. St. had not sufficiently proved it to be the sense of the Church of England from the Testimony he then produced whatsoever he might or could do from other Acts or Authours of that Church And he elsewhere saith that T. G. did not dispute ex professo whether it were the sense of the Church of England that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry or no nor whether Dr. St. dissented from the sense of his Church but what he undertook to shew was no more than that two parts of the Authours there cited by the Dr. were Puritans or Puritanically inclined by the confession of other Divines of the Church of England and therefore according to Dr. St 's own measures if they were good their Testimonies ought to be looked on as incompetent to prove what he asserted and for the other six that what they charged with Idolatry was not the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but some things which they conceived to be great abuses in the practice of it And this he saith is the true state of that Controversie P.D. If it be so I cry T.G. mercy For I thought he designed to prove this charge of Idolatry not to be agreeable to the sense of the Church of England But you say T. G. now denies it and if I were as Dr. St. I would thank him for it For would any man say this that thought it could ever be proved to be against the sense of the Church of England And what could have been more material to his purpose than this if it could have been done Well fare T. G.'s ingenuity for once that finding it impossible to be done he now denies that he ever attempted the doing it But the first question in a fray is how fell they out we shall better judge of T. G.'s design by the occasion of it Dr. St. affirmed that in the charge of Idolatry he did not contradict the sense of the Church of England Did he or did he not If he did not Dr. St. was in the right if he did why did not T. G. shew it But after this yielding up the main point in effect it is easie to prove that T. G. did design to shew as well as he could that the charge of Idolatry was against the sense of the Church of England but finding it would not do he now disowns it For 1. Doth not T. G. appeal to the Articles of the Church of England for the most authentick declaration of her sense and because the Church of Rome is not there charged with Idolatry doth he not hence dispute ex professo that it was against her sense To what purpose was that ingenious Criticism of being rather repugnant to the word of God which he interprets as though the composers of our Articles had done their endeavour to find a command against the Worship of Images but could not What do you think of this argument what did T. G. intend to prove by it Is it not as clear as the Sun that it was to shew that the charge of Idolatry was against the sense of the Church of England Why then is T. G. ashamed now of it and denies he had any such design There must be some more than ordinary cause of a mans denying what he once so openly avowed to do Nay in these very Dialogues after repeating his former words T. G. saith Thus clearly hath T. G. evinced the sense of the Church of England in this matter Say you so and yet never designed to dispute ex professo whether it were the sense of the Church of England or not Who is it I pray hath the knack of saying and unsaying of affirming and denying the very same thing in a few leaves or did T. G. never intend any such thing but the Church of England of her own accord knowing T. G.'s good affections to her stept into the Court and declared her sense Have we not the best natured Church in the world that is so kind to her enemies and expresseth her sense to be on their side whether they will or not Our Church then is like the Countrey mans River which comes without calling alas what need T. G. dispute ex professo what her sense is she offers her own Testimony and desires to be heard in the dispute whether T. G. will or not Let any man judge by these words what T. G.'s design was then whatever he thinks fit to own now 2. He shews that if it had been the sense of the Church of England in the Articles that the Church of Rome were guilty of Idolatry in the Worship of Images Adoration of the Host or Invocation of Saints all those who denyed it would have incurred excommunication ipso facto as appears by the Canons What was T. G.'s design in this if it were not to prove the charge of Idolatry to be against the sense of the Church of England Is this only to shew the Witnesses Dr. St. produced to be incompetent What a benefit it is for a man to forget what he hath no mind to remember And then to deny as stoutly as if the thing had never been done 3. Is it not T. G. who in terms asserts that Dr. St. betrayed his Church in advancing such a medium as contradicts the sense of that Church mark that It is true he adds if it be to be taken from the sentiments of those who are esteemed her true and genuine Sons Was it T. G.'s design then not to dispute what was the sense of the Church of England nor whether Dr. St. dissented from it I will not meddle with that whether T. G. be a competent judge who are the true and genuine Sons of the Church of England No doubt in his opinion those who come nearest the Church of Rome are such and advance such speculations as lay the charge of Schism at her own door But true Sons are no more for laying division to the charge of their Mother than the true Mother was for dividing the Son Those are certainly the most genuine Sons of our Church who own her doctrine defend her principles conform to her Rules and are most ready to maintain her Cause against all her enemies And among these there is no difference and there ought to be no distinction But if any frame a Church of their own Heads without any regard to the Articles Homilies and current doctrine of our Church and yet will call that the Church of England and themselves the only genuine Sons of it I do not question T. G. and your Brethren would be glad to have them thought so to lessen our number and impair
our interest but none that understand and value our Church will endure such a pernicious discrimination among the Sons of the same Mother as though some few were fatally determined to be the Sons of our Church whatever their Works and Merits were and others absolutely cast off notwithstanding the greatest service I should not mention this but that I see T. G. insinuating all along such a distinction as this and crying up some persons on purpose as the only genuine Sons of the Church of England that he might cast reproach upon others and thereby foment animosities among Brethren But whose Children those are who do so I leave T. G. to consider R. P. Whatever T. G.'s intention was yet you cannot deny that he hath proved two parts in three to be incompetent Witnesses according to his own Measures P. D. Not deny it I never saw any thing more weakly attempted to be proved as Dr. St. hath shewed at large in his Preface Bishop White being rejected as a Puritan because condemned by that party Bishop Jewel because K. Charles said he was not infallible Bishop Bilson because of his errours about Civil Government though a stout defender of the Church of England Bishop Davenant because he was none of the Fathers Bishop Vsher because his Adversary gives an ill character of him By this you may judge what powerful exceptions T. G. made against two parts in three of the Witnesses R. P. T. G. saith That Dr. St. rather waved the exceptions by pretty facetious artifices of Wit than repelled them by a downright denial out of the affection Catharinus hopes he bears still to the Cause which had been honoured by such learned and godly Bishops as Jewel Downham Usher the two Abbots and Davenant which are recorded among the Puritans by the Patronus bonae Fidei P. D. You might as well have quoted Surius Cochlaeus for your Church as this Patronus bonae Fidei for ours For he is an Historian much of their size and credit But of him we shall have occasion to speak hereafter T. G. filling page after page out of him Let the Reader judge whether Dr. St. did not shew T. G.'s exceptions to be vain and srivolous and consequently these remain substantial and competent Witnesses And as to the cause of the Church of England which these learned and pious Prelates defended and honoured Dr. St. will rejoyce to be joyned with them though it be in suffering reproach for the sake of it R. P. Let us pass over these single Testimonies and come to the most material proofs which Dr. St. used and T. G. declares he is not yet convinced by them that the charge of Idolatry was the sense of the Church of England P. D. With all my heart The First was from the Book of Homilies not barely allowed but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome doctrine very necessary for these times which owns this charge of Idolatry not in any doubtful or single passage but in an elaborate Discourse intended for the Teachers as well as the People To which he added that the Doctrine of the Homilies is allowed in the thirty nine Articles which were approved by the Queen confirmed by the subscription of both Houses of Convocation A. D. 1571. And therefore he desires T. G. to resolve him whether men of any common understanding would have subscribed to the Book of Homilies in this manner if they had believed the main doctrine and design of one of them had been false and pernicious If saith he any of the Bishops had at that time thought the charge of Idolatry unjust and that it had subverted the foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority would they have inserted this into the Articles when it was in their power to have left it out and that the Homilies contained a wholesome and godly Doctrine which in their consciences they believed to be false and pernicious He might as well think he saith that the Council of Trent would have allowed Calvins Institutions as containing a wholesome and godly Doctrine as that men so perswaded would have allowed the Homily against the peril of Idolatry And how is it possible to understand the sense of our Church better than by such publick and authentick Acts of it which all persons who are in any place of trust in the Church must subscribe and declare their approbation of This Homily hath still continued the same the Article the very same and if so they must acknowledge this hath been and is to this day the sense of our Church And to what T. G. saith that this doth not evince every particular doctrine contained in the Homilies to be godly and wholesome because the whole Book is subscribed to as containing such doctrine he answers that there is a great deal of difference to be made between some particular passages and expressions in these Homilies and the main doctrine and design of a whole Homily and between subscribing to a whole Book as containing godly and wholsome doctrine though men be not so certain of the Truth of every passage in it and if they are convinced that any doctrine contained in it is false and pernicious Now those who deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry do not only look on the charge as false but as of dangerous consequence and therefore such a subscription would be shuffling and dishonest From these things laid together in my mind Dr. St. hath not only clearly proved that the charge of Idolatry was not only owned by the composers of the Homilies but by all who have honestly subscribed to the Articles from that time to our own And I would be glad to hear what answer T. G. gives to all this R. P. He answers first by repeating what he said before and then by shewing that subscription is no good argument considering what had been done and undone in that kind in the Reigns of K. Henry 8. Edw. 6. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth not to speak of latter times P. D. What is this but in plain terms to say the subscribers of our Articles were men of no honesty or conscience but would say or unsay subscribe one thing or another as it served their turn If this be his way of defending our Church we shall desire him to defend his own But yet this doth not reach home to the Doctors argument which proceeded not meerly on their honesty but their having common understanding For here was no force or violence offered them they had the full power to consider the Articles and to compose the Homilies and would men of common sense put in things against their own minds and make and approve and recommend Homilies which they did not believe themselves This evidently proves the composers of the Homilies and Convocation at that time did approve the doctrine of these Homilies for it was in their power not to have passed them Thus far it is plain that was the doctrine of the Church then
as the younger sister to the Whore of Babylon never a barrel the better herring only we can have liberty of Conscience with one and not with the other It is all one to me to bow to an Image and to bow to the Altar to worship Images and to kneel at the Sacrament P. D. I am in hopes you are now coming to the point I pray keep there without any farther rambling F. C. Call you this rambling You know Amesius saith even in controverted points much respect ought to be had to the experience of Gods people I tell you I have found it thus with me and you ought rather to hear me teach you than dispute with me P. D. All this shall not serve I must have your arguments since you urge me thus F. C. Why look ye now d' ye see how petulant and malapert these Divines of the Church of England are But since nothing will satisfie you but arguing I have an argument ready for you will do your business To Worship the Bread is Idolatry But to kneel at the Sacrament is to Worship the Bread Ergo. P. D. I am glad to find you come to any kind of Reasoning I deny that in kneeling at the Sacrament we do worship the Bread for our Church expresly declares the contrary in this Rubrick F. C. What do I care for your Church or her Rubricks I say you do worship the Bread and prove it too That which you kneel before and look towards when you worship you do give the worship to But you kneel before and look towards the bread when you worship Ergo. P. D. I begin to be afraid of you now for you do not only prove by this argument kneeling at the Sacrament but reading the Common Prayer to be Idolatry For if that which we kneel before and look towards when we worship must be the object of our worship it is plain we must indeed make an Idol of the Common Prayer for every time we read it we kneel before it and looks towards it when we worship F. C. Look you to that I alwayes took the Common Prayer for an Idol but I did not think I had proved it now P. D. I shall endeavour to undeceive you in this matter Since we are not pure spirits but must worship God with our bodies by kneeling and looking towards something in our Acts of Worship we must not determine that to be the object of our Worship which our bodies are bended towards or we look upon in our worship unless there be some other reason for it for then Idolatry would be necessary and unavoidable For we cannot kneel with our eyes open but we must look upon some creature which according to your way of arguing must be the object of our Worship I pray Sir without being angry give me leave to ask you whether a man kneeling in the Fields and praying with his eyes lifted up to Heaven be an Idolater or not F. C. I think not P. D. Yet he kneels towards some creature and looks upon some creature when he worships therefore you must prove by some other way that we do make the bread the Object of our Worship But this we utterly deny and say the doing it is Idolatry and to be abhorred of all faithful Christians And will you make us worship it whether we will or no F. C. But you use the same postures which the Papists do and yet you charge them with Idolatry P. D. Because this is a thing many of you stumble at I will make the difference of our case and theirs plain to you In all moral Acts we are to have a great great regard to their circumstances from whence they take a different denomination He that kills a man by accident and he that kills a man out of malice do the very same thing as to the substance of the Act yet no man will say it is the same act upon a moral consideration We kneel and the Papists kneel but we declare when we kneel we intend no adoration to the Elements but the Papists cannot deny that they do give proper adoration to that which is before them which we say is bread and they say the Body of Christ under the species of bread and yet not meerly to the invisible Body of Christ but taking the species of bread as united to that Body of Christ and so directing their worship to these two together as the proper objects of divine adoration And to make this evident to you their adoration is performed at the Elevation of the Host and at the carrying it about in processions and at the exposing it on their Altars and not meerly in the participation of it Whence it is observable that the Church of Rome doth not strictly require kneeling at the participation which it would do if it looked on the kneeling at receiving as a proper Act of Adoration The Rubricks of the Mass do not that I can find require the Priest to kneel in the Act of receiving and the Pope when he celebrates receives sitting Espencaeus saith in the Church of Lions many of the People did not receive kneeling and upon complaint made about it they were by the advice of two Cardinals left to their old custome And I wonder your Brethren have not taken notice of the difference of kneeling at the elevation of the Host and in the Act of receiving it the one was required by the Constitution of Honorius and was intended for an act of adoration to the Host the other was derived from the ancient Church which although it did not alwayes use the same posture of adoration that we do yet it is sufficient for our purpose if they received the Sacrament in the same posture in which they worshipped God And this I could easily prove if this were a place or season for it F. C. Well Sir I do not love disputing I pray go on with your former Adversary R. P. Sir I thank you for the diversion you have given us if you please I will now return to the place where we left I was about to tell you the Answer T. G. gives to Dr. St.'s third Argument from the Rubrick at the end of the Communion The words are It is here declared that by kneeling no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental bread or wine there bodily received or unto any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood For the Sacramental bread and wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians and the natural Body and Blood of Christ are in Heaven and not here it being against the truth of Christs Natural Body to be at one time in more places than one About which Dr. St. charges T. G. first with Ignorance in saying it was not yet above a douzen years since it was inserted into the Communion Book whereas he might have
as is now plain from Marcellinus and Faustinus whose Book was published by Sirmondus at Paris where Sulpitius Severus saith more than four hundred Western Bishops were present who were all excommunicated by T. G.'s principle and what now becomes of all Ecclesiastical Authority But Dr. St. hath shewed that the Christian Church was wiser than to proceed upon T. G.'s principle proving from Authentick Testimonies of Antiquity that the Arian Ordinations were allowed by the Church although the Arians were condemned for Idolaters R. P. Yes T. G. saith That Dr. St. was resolved to go on in the same track still and to prove that the Act it self of Ordination is not invalid in case of the Idolatry of the Givers which was never denied by his Adversary P. D. How is it possible to satisfie men who are resolved to cavil Doth not Dr. St. by that instance of the Arian Bishops evidently prove that the Authority of giving Orders was allowed by the Christian Church at that time and that which he calls their jurisdiction as well as the power of Orders because nothing more was required from the Arian Bishops but renouncing Arianism and subscribing the Nicene Creed and thus for all that I can see by T. G.'s principle they still remained under St. Paul's excommunication and so Ecclesiastical Authority is all gone with them R. P. But do not you think that Dr. St. had some secret design in all this really to subvert the Authority of the Church of England For T.G. lays together several notable things to that purpose to make it appear that he purposely declined defending the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Church of England I assure you it is a very politick Discourse and hath several deep fetches in it First he begins with his Irenicum and there he lays the Foundation that the Government may be changed 2. The Book was reprinted since the Bishops were reestablished by Law 3. He perswades the Bishops in that Book to reduce the form of Church Government to its primitive State and Order by restoring Presbyteries under them c. 4. When this would not do he charges the Church of Rome with Idolatry and makes this the sense of the Church of England to make her contribute to the subversion of her own Authority 5. When T. G. told him of the consequence of this he passed it by as if he saw it not and trifled with his Adversary about the validity of Ordination 6. When E. W. endeavoured to bring him to this point he still declined it and leaves Episcopacy to shift for it self And after all these T. G. thinks he hath found out the Mole that works under ground P. D. A very great Discovery I assure you and T. G. deserves a greater reward than any common Mole-catchers do But I never liked such Politick Informers for if people are more dull and quiet than they would have them they make plots for them to keep up their reputation and interest They must have always something to whisper in Great Mens Ears and to fill their Heads with designs which were never thought of by which means they torment them with unreasonable suspicions and tyrannize over them under a pretence of kindness Just thus doth T. G. do by the Governours of our Church he would fain perswade them that there is one Dr. St. who hath undertaken to defend the Church but doth carry on a very secret and subtile design to ruine and destroy it If they say they do not believe it he seems to pity them for their incredulity and weakness and endeavours to convince them by a long train of his own inventions and if they be so easie to hearken to it and to regard his insinuations then he flatters and applauds them as the only Friends to the Church when in the meantime he really laughs at them as a sort of weak men who can be imposed upon by any man who pretends to be a Friend although even in that he doth them and the Church the greater mischief I cannot believe such kind of insinuations as these can prevail upon any one man of understanding in our Church against a person who hath at least endeavoured his utmost to defend it But since T. G. talks so politickly about these maters I will convince you by one argument of common prudence that if Dr. St. be a man of common sense much more if he be so politick and designing as T. G. represents him all these suggestions must be both false and foolish For that which all designing men aim at is their own interest and advantage Now can any man that hath common sense left in him imagine that Dr. St. can aim at any greater advantage by ruining the Church than by preserving it Are not his circumstances more considerable in the Church of England than ever he can hope they should be if it were destroyed They who would perswade others that he carries on such a secret design must suppose him to be next to an Ideot and such are not very dangerous Politicians But what is it then should make him act so much against his interest It can be nothing but folly or malice But I do not find they have taxed him of any malice to the Church of England or of any occasion for it which the Church hath given him if he were disposed to it Why then should any be so senseless themselves or suppose others to be so as to go about to possess men with an opinion of an underground plot Dr. St. is carrying on not only to blow up the Thames but the rising Fabrick of St. Pauls too i. e. to ruine and destroy himself If he be a Fool he is not to be feared if he be not he is not to be mistrusted R.P. But what say you to T. G.'s proofs Do you observe the several Mole-hills which he hath cast up and is not that a sign he works un-derground What say you to his Irenicum in the first place P. D. I will tell you freely I believe there are many things in it which if Dr. St. were to write now he would not have said For there are some things which shew his youth and want of due consideration others which he yielded too far in hopes of gaining the dissenting Parties to the Church of England but upon the whole matter I am fully satisfied the Book was written with a design to serve the Church of England and the design of it I take to be this that among us there was no necessity of entring upon nice and subtile disputes about a strict jus divinum of Episcopacy such as makes all other Forms of Government unlawful but it was sufficient for us if it were proved to be the most ancient and agreeable to Apostolical practice and most accommodate to our Laws and Civil Government and there could be no pretence against submitting to it but the demonstrating its unlawfulness which he knew was impossible to be done And for what
Divines of the Roman Church do allow that there ought to be some peculiar external Acts of Divine Worship which he likewise proves from the infinite distance between God and his Creatures and from the remarkable Testimonies of the Heathens to that purpose 2. From Gods appropriating some external Acts of Worship to himself wherein he speaks to two things 1. What those Acts are which God hath appropriated to himself of which he reckons up six 1. Sacrifice 2. Religious adoration 3. Erection of Temples and Altars 4. Burning of Incense 5. Solemn Invocation 6. Vows 2. How far Gods appropriating these Acts doth concern us Which he thus resolves 1. It is granted there must be some peculiar Acts. 2. God is the best Judge of them 3. What he hath once appropriated cannot be made common till his Will be declared 4. Christ hath made no alteration herein by his Law 5. The Apostles suppose the same notion of Idolatry to continue still 6. The Jews did esteem it Idolatry to use those acts of Worship towards any Creature Where he shews that Idolatry may be committed as many wayes as Worship may become due to God 3. From the sense of the Christian Church which hath condemned those for Idolatry who have applyed these appropriate Acts of Worship to any thing besides God 3. How the applying the Acts of Religious Worship to a Creature makes that Worship Idolatry Where he explains 1. What real honour we do allow to the Saints on the account of their excellencies 2. What Worship we deny to them 1. Inward submission of our souls in prayer dependence and thanksgiving 2. External and solemn Acts of Religious Worship which are given to Saints in the Church of Rome and he proves from unquestionable Testimonies of Antiquity that the Fathers did deny to be given to them And so he concludes that Discourse with a full and clear explication of a Testimony of S. Augustin against Invocation of Saints This is a brief Abstract of the design of Dr. St.'s discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry whose parts are too well considered and put together to be blown down with a puff or two of Wit Let me now hear how T. G. hath acquitted himself in this matter which we shall the better judge of by having this Scheme before us R. P. I perceive you expect T. G. should have followed Dr. St.'s method and have answered him part by part but he was wiser than so for he charges him with three things 1. That he makes vain and endless and unnecessary discourses 2. That he ought to have laid down the true notion of Idolatry from the nature of the thing which he hath not done 3. That he hath unfaithfully reported the words and sense of Authors After which he disproves the parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry P. D. This last if you please we will reserve to another Conference for I believe the other three will hold us long enough I pray begin where T. G. doth R. P. First He complains much of the Bulk of the Book and brings in a kind of a Taylors bill of the number of pages Imp. of T. G.'s notion of Idolatry p. 183. It. Of the Nature of Divine Worship p. 164. It. Of the Controversie about Images between Christians and Heathens p. 140. It. Of Images in the Christian Church p. 180. odd It. Of the sense of the second Commandment p. 113. It. Of Instances and facings and linings p. 96. Sum. tot p. 877. Was not this enough to put any man out of humour P. D. No doubt when he considered he was to pay it all And I do believe what he saith that he was very uneasie when he read it and like the Laconian in Boccalini who was condemned to read over Guicciardines War of Pisa and desired rather to be condemned to the Gallies For there is nothing more troublesome to a man than to see that he owes more than he is ever able to pay R. P. But T. G. shews how much of the Bill might have been cut off P. D. The shortest way had been to have thrown all into the Fire as no doubt he would have done if it had been in his Power and that had been the most effectual Discharge to Dr. St. 's charge of Idolatry But do you think it is a good answer to an Indictment to say it consisted of too many lines R. P. T. G. saith he ought to have proceeded more Mathematically P. D. How so R. P. By laying down only these four Postulata 1. That Idolatry may consist with the acknowledgement of one Supreme Being 2. That God ought to be worshipped according to his own appointment 3. That the Wiser Heathens pretended they did not look on their Images as Gods but as Symbols of that Being to which they gave divine Worship 4. That for the four first Centuries there was little or no use of Images in the Temples and Oratories of Christians Which as far as I understand T. G. he was willing to have granted him P. D. Are you sure of that If these things be fairly granted they will go a great way toward the resolution of the present Question But I pray let me understand how far and in what sense R. P. For the first that Idolatry may consist with the acknowledgement of one supreme Being I perceive T. G. puts this limitation to it at least as Idolatry is taken by Dr. St. for the giving external Acts of Worship due only to God to a Creature P. D. Let us then lay up this at present that real Idolatrous Worship is consistent with the acknowledgement of one supreme God which may be of use to us in this debate R. P. For the second T. G. saith that it is no where denyed but is supposed by him when he saith that if God have forbidden himself to be worshipped after such a manner the giving him such worship will be dishonouring of him though the Giver intend it never so much for his honour much more then the giving acts of worship appropriated to him to another P. D. This is very kind For then if it appear that God hath forbidden the Worship of himself by an Image it follows that no intention of the person can excuse such worship from Idolatry R. P. For the third concerning the practice of the wiser Heathens T. G. allows the Dr. to make his best of it P. D. Then there may be Idolatrous worship of Images where the Images themselves are not made the objects of Worship and consequently if such worship be forbidden in the second Commandment that cannot be understood only of bowing down to the Images themselves R. P. For the fourth he saith since the Church hath a power in decreeing Rites and Ceremonies it had been no prejudice to his Cause if it had been longer before the Use of Images was brought into Churches P. D. If the Church had looked on the worship of Images as an
to the Angels Gen. 18.2 2. To them as absent and this is Religious Honour and it lyes chiefly in Thanksgiving to God for them and celebrating their memories because the Honour of Divine Graces ought to redound chiefly to the giver of them 2. Relative from the relation which things have to what we esteem on the account of its own excellency 1. Civil Relation to our Friends or strangers whom we esteem and so we set a value on their Pictures on their Letters or Hand-writing or any thing belonging to them 2. Spiritual Relation to God and his Worship and the regard to these he calls Reverence And that lies in these things 1. Discrimination from common use 2. Consecration to a sacred use 3. Suitable Vsage of them in regard of that relation But if you ask wherein the difference of this lies from Worship He saith from the greatest Divines of your Church that 2. Worship hath a respect to Power and Superiority and that is 1. Civil in regard of the Power and Authority of Magistrates 2. Religious in regard of Gods peculiar Soveraignty over us And that is twofold 1. Internal in Submission Dependence 2. External which must be 1. Such as express our submission and dependence as 1. Sacrifice 2. Solemn invocation 3. Adoration 4. Vows 5. Swearing by him c. 2. They must be peculiar to himself 1. From the dictate of Nature as to the peculiarity of Gods Soverainty 2. From the Will of God which appropriates such Acts to himself 3. From the consent of Nations and the Christian Church Therefore the giving that Worship which is due to God and doth express our subjection to him to any thing besides him is violation of the Rights of Gods Soveraignty and if it be given to any creature it receives its denomination from the Nature of that Creature to which it is given 1. To Animate Creatures Angels Good Bad. Dead men Saints Wicked Brutes of all sorts 2. To Inanimate Natural Elements Minerals Plants Artificial made to represent the objects of Worship and therefore called Images Which is properly Idolatry being the worship of a representation but because that word Idol is extended to any creature to which the Worship proper to God is given therefore every such kind of Worship is in Scripture and by the Christian Church called Idolatry And by this Scheme of Dr. St.'s notion of these things you may easily understand the difference he puts between Reverence and Worship R. P. But T. G. saith The Church of Rome requires by the terms of Communion with her no more than Reverence or Honorary respect to Images P. D. Why doth T. G. go about thus to impose on his Readers without answering what Dr. St. had produced to the contrary From three things 1. From the Decrees of the second Council of Nice 2. From the constant opinion of their most eminent Divines both before and after the Council of Trent 3. From the publick and allowed Practises of their Church 1. In Consecration of Images for Worship with Forms prescribed in the Roman Pontifical 2. In Supplication before them with prostrations and all other Acts of Worship which the Heathens used towards them 3. In Solemn Processions with Images with the same kind of Pomp and Ceremony which was used in Heathen Rome And after all this can T. G. have the confidence to say this is only Honorary Respect without answering to any one of these particulars which were purposely alledged to prove the contrary R. P. But now Sir look to your self for the Patronus bonae Fidei knocks all down before him and proves bowing to the Altar practised in the Church of England to be worse than Popish or Egyptian Idolatry P. D. I hope not worse than the Power of Excommunication which the same excellent Advocate for Fanaticks hath bestowed as ill names upon and with as little Reason but such as it is I am prepared to receive it R. P. The Patronus bonae Fidei saith that However Dr. St. wheadled and blinded with preferments for that is the meaning of T. G.'s c. endeavours to palliate this kind of Adoration and to vindicate it from the crime of Idolatry yet I doubt not to affirm that this bowing outvies the Idolatry both of Egyptians and Romanists not only in horrible iniquity and enormitie but in madness and folly F. C. Who is this Patronus bonae Fidei you speak so much of He is a good man I warrant him He speaks home to the business P. D. Yes if ignorance and confidence doth it for never did man betray more than your Advocate in this saying F. C. He will prove it I warrant you P. D. Just as you did Kneeling at the Communion to be Idolatry if so well But first for the Roman Idolatry R. P. It is not saith he so much madness in them to adore the Lord Jesus under the species of bread as it is an error in them to believe transubstantiation But it is an Hypochondriacal madness and giddy-brained stupidity for men to perform adoration towards that place where Christ is no more present than any where else and where neither the Table nor Altar nor any thing that is set upon the Table unless perchance a clean Towel two Books richly bound or a pair of Candlesticks with two Candles in them not to be lighted till their minds be quite drunk with Popery represent either Christ or his Image A Fanatical Adoration he calls it without any Object P. D. Call you this proving It is rather raving and foaming at the mouth This is such biting as may endanger an Hydrophobia There is no arguing with such a man but in a dark Room and under good Keepers But that you may take no advantage by his sayings how can it be Idolatry without an Object i.e. Idolatry without an Idol But can there be no Object of worship but what is visible What doth he worship himself Or rather whom do his Clients the Fanaticks worship Nothing Because not a visible object Is not adoration a part of Worship If not it is no Idolatry to give it to an Image If it be then bowing to an Invisible Object in a place dedicated to Divine Worship is giving to God that Worship which being given to an Image makes it Idolatry I pray Sir do you answer for him F. C. I understand you not P. D. I thought so But I will endeavour to make you understand me Is the bowing down to an Image Idolatry F. C. Yes without all doubt P. D. Is not Idolatry giving to a Creature the Worship that is due to God F. C. Yes P. D. How can that be giving to a Creature the Worship due to God if it be not lawful to give this Worship to God which you give to the Creature F. C. I know not what you mean P. D. Not yet Is not adoration of an Image Idolatry F. C. Yes I told you so once already P. D. Then adoration is to
Persons of the Father and Holy Ghost are too R. P. You may account this an absurdity but we account it none at all yea some of our Divines have said If the Holy Trinity were not every where yet it would be in the Eucharist by vertue of this Concomitancy P. D. I do not now meddle with your opinions I only consider the Patronus bonae Fidei and his Brethren who do look on these as absurdities and yet are so foolish to say that our worshipping God towards the Altar is more absurd than your worshipping Christ on the Altar on supposition of Transubstantiation But why worse than Egyptian Idolatry I beseech you R. P. The Egyptians saith he pretended some colour for their Idolatry as than an Ape or a Cat or a Wolf c. had some participation of the Divinity but those that bow down to a Wooden Table are themselves stocks with much more to that purpose P. D. Is such a man to be endured in a Christian Common-wealth not to say a Church for excommunication he regards not who parallels the adoration given only to the Divine Majesty as our Church professeth with the Worship of an Ape or a Cat or a Wolf c Nay he makes the Egyptian Idolatry more reasonable than our Worship of God The only thing that can excuse him is Rage and Madness and therefore I leave him to his Keeper But I pray tell me was it meer kindness to the Church of England which made T. G. to produce all these passages at full length out of the Patronus bonae Fidei Or out of pure spite to Dr. St. by so often repeating the passage of his being delinitus occaecatus And why in such a place where he pretends only to give an account of Dr. St.'s vain and endless Discourses doth he bring in this at large Is it only for his comfort to let him see there is one body at least in the world more foolish and impertinent than he We have seen enough of what T. G. ought not to have done let us now see what he saith Dr. St. ought to have done R. P. The first thing to be done in a Dispute is to settle the state of the Controversie upon its true Grounds by laying down the true notion of the matter in debate therefore Dr. St. ought in the first place to have given us the true Notion of Idolatry in the nature of the Thing and then to have shewn that notion to have agreed to the honour and veneration which the Church of Rome in her Councils declares may be given to the Images of Christ and the Saints but he chose rather to dazle the eyes of the Reader with the false lights of meer external Acts the obscure practice even of wiser Heathens and the clashing of School-Divines P. D. Now I hope we are come to something worthy of consideration I like the method of proceeding very well And I like Dr. St.'s Book the better because I think he pursued the right method beginning first with the Nature of Idolatry and Divine Worship and then coming to the first Particular of Image-worship which he hath handled with great care and exactness in respect of your Councils as well as your Practices and School-Divines R. P. It is true he proposed well at first but like a Preacher that hath patched up a Sermon out of his note-book he names his Text and then takes his leave of it For what he was to speak to was Idolatry in the nature of the thing independently of any positive Law whereas he speaks only of an Idolatry forbidden by a positive Law but if there be no Idolatry antecedent to a positive prohibition the Heathens could not be justly charged with Idolatry P. D. In my mind he did not recede from his Text at all but pursued it closely but you are uneasie at his Application and therefore find fault with his handling his Text. What could a man speak to more pertinently as to Idolatry in the Nature of the thing than to consider what that is which is acknowledged to be Idolatry both in the Heathens and Arrians What that was which the Primitive Church accounted Idolatry in them What opinons those have of God whom the Roman Church do charge with Idolatry Wherein the Nature of Divine Worship consists not only with respect to positive commands but the general consent of mankind Did he not expresly argue from the Reason and design of solemn Religious worship abstractly from positive Laws Did he not shew from many Testimonies that the Heathens did look on some peculiar Rites of Divine worship as Sacred and Inviolable that they chose rather to dye than to give them any but a Divine Object It is true after this he enquires into the Law of God and what acts of worship he had appropriated to himself and was there not great Reason to do so Are we unconcerned in the Laws God made for his worship In my apprehension this was the great thing T. G. had to do to prove that Gods Law about worship was barely ceremonial and only respected the Jews but that we are left to the Liberties of the Law of Nature about Religious worship but he neither doth this nor if he had done it had he overthrown Dr St.'s Book For he proves in several places that the Heathens had the same distinctions of soveraign and inferiour worship absolute and relative which are used in the Roman Church and if these do excuse now they would have excused them who by Scripture and the consent of the Christian Church are condemned for Idolatry And judge you now whether Dr. St. took leave of his Text whether he did not speak to Idolatry in the Nature of the thing R. P. But he saith the Heathens could not understand the nature and sinfulness of Idolatry if not from some Law of God which is in effect to clear the Heathens from Idolatry till that Law was delivered to them whereas S. Paul saith they had a Law written in their hearts whereby they might understand it and Dr. St. ought to have shewn wherein the deordination and sinfulness of Idolatry did consist antecedently to any positive prohibition and till this be done he can make no parallel between the Heathen Idolatry and that of the Roman Church P. D. I am glad to find any thing that looks like a difficulty which may give an occasion of farther thoughts about this weighty matter and of clearing the Doctors mind concerning it Herein I shall endeavour to explain these two things 1. How far Dr. St. doth make the nature and sinfulness of Idolatry to depend on the Law of God 2. Wherein the sinfulness of Idolatry doth consist abstractly from a positive Law 1. How far he makes the sinfulness of it to depend on a positive Law 1. He supposes Natural Religion to dictate these things 1. That God ought to be solemnly worshipped 2. That this worship ought to be
Works which being neither from Mathematical Demonstrations nor supernatural infallibility he called Moral Certainty Which he might do from these grounds 1. Because the force of the Argument from the Creatures depends upon some Moral Principles Viz. From the suitableness and fitness of things to the Wisdom of an Intelligent and Infinite Agent who might from thence be inferred to be the Maker of them It being unconceivable that meer matter should ever produce things in so much beauty order and usefulness as we see in every Creature in an Ant or a Fly as much as in the vast bodies of the Heavens 2. Because they do suppose some Moral Dispositions in the persons who do most readily and firmly assent to these Truths For although men make use of the highest titles for their arguments and call them Infallible Proofs Mathematical Demonstrations or what they please yet we still see men of bad minds will find something to cavil at whereby to suspend their assent which they do not in meer Metaphysical notions or in Mathematical Demonstrations But vertuous and unprejudiced minds do more impartially judge and therefore more readily give their assent having no byas to incline them another way Although therefore the principles be of another nature and the arguments be drawn from Idea's or series of Causes or whatever medium it be yet since the perverseness of mens will may hinder the force of the argument as to themselves the Certainty might be called Moral Certainty 2. As to the Christian Faith So he grants 1. That there are some principles relating to it which have Metaphysical Certainty in them as that Whatever God reveals is impossible to be false or as it is commonly expressed though improperly is infallibly True 2. That there is a rational Certainty that a Doctrine confirmed by such Miracles as were wrought by Christ and his Apostle must come from God that being the most certain Criterion of Divine Revelation 3. That there was a Physical Certainty of the truth of Christs Miracles and Resurrection from the dead in the Apostles who were eye-witnesses of them 4. That there was an Infallible Certainty in the Apostles delivering this doctrine to the world and writing it for the benefit of the Church in all Ages 5. That we have a moral Certainty of the matters of Fact which do concern the Doctrine the Miracles and the Books of Scripture which is of the same kind with the certainty those had of Christs Doctrine and Miracles who lived in Mesopotamia at that time which must depend upon the credibility of the Witnesses who convey these things which is a Moral Consideration and therefore the Certainty which is taken from it may be properly called Moral Certainty Of which there being many degrees the highest is here understood which any matter of fact is capable of And now I pray tell me what reason hath there been for all this noise about Moral Certainty R. P. T. G. owns that the Dr. in other places doth acknowledge a true certainty of the principles of Religion but he saith he can say and unsay without retracting with as much art and ease as any man he ever read P. D. I had thought unsaying had been retracting But Dr. St. saith as much in those very places T. G. objects against as in those he allows Only T. G. delights in cavilling above most Authors I have ever read R. P. But doth not Dr. St. allow a possibility of falshood notwithstanding all this pretence of Certainty P. D. Whatever is true is impossible to be false and the same degree of evidence any one hath of the truth of a thing he hath of the impossibility of the falshood of it therefore he that hath an undoubted certainty of the truth of Christianity hath the same certainty that it is impossible it should be false And because possibility and impossibility are capable of the same distinctions that Certainty is therefore according to the nature and degrees of Certainty is the possibility or impossibility of falshood That which is Metaphysically certain is so impossible to be false that it implyes a contradiction to be otherwise but it is not so in Physical Certainty nor in all rational Certainty nor in Moral and yet whereever any man is certain of the truth of a thing he is proportionably certain that it is impossible to be false R. P. This only relates to the person and not to the Evidence Is there any such evidence of the Existence of a Deity as can infallibly convince it to be absolutely true and so impossible to be false P. D. I do not doubt but that there are such evidences of the Being of God as do prove it to any unprejudiced mind impossible to be otherwise And T. G. had no reason to doubt of this from any thing Dr. St. had said who had endeavoured so early to prove the Being of God and the Principles of Christian Faith before he set himself to consider the Controversies which have happened in the Christian Church T. G. therefore might well have spared these reflections in a debate of so different a nature but that he was glad of an opportunity to go off from the business as men are that know they are not like to bring it to a good issue R. P. T. G. confesseth this is a digression but he promises to return to the matter and so he does I assure you for he comes to the second thing which he saith the Dr. ought to have done viz. to have shewed how the Notion of Idolatry doth agree to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in her Councils P. D. It is a wonder to me you should think him defective in this when he shews that there are two things from whence the sense of the Roman Church is to be taken 1. From the Definitions of Councils 2. From the practice of the Church 1. From the Definitions of Councils And here he entred upon the consideration of what that worship was which was required to be given to Images and shewed from the words of the Council and from the Testimony of the most eminent Divines of the Roman Church that it was not enough to worship before Images and to have an intention to perform those external Acts but there must be an inward intention to worship the Images themselves and that the contrary doctrine was esteemed little better than downright Heresie 2. From the Practice of the Church For he shews many of your best Divines went upon this principle that God would not suffer his Church to err and therefore they thought the allowed practice of the Church sufficient for them to defend those things to be lawful which they saw generally practised And from hence he makes it appear that the Church of Rome hath gone beyond the Council of Nice in two things 1. In making and worshipping Images of God and the B. Trinity which was esteemed madness and Pagan Idolatry in the time of the
second Council of Nice and is justified by the modern Divines of the Church of Rome from the general practice of their Church 2. In giving the Worship of Latria to Images which was condemned by the Council of Nice and notwithstanding is defended by multitudes of Divines in the Roman Church from the allowed practice in the Worship of the Cross both before and after the Council of Trent After which he enquires at large into the publick Offices and commended Devotions of that Church in respect to Images and from thence he proves that 1. As to Consecration of Images for worship 2. As to the Rites of Supplication to them 3. As to pompous procession with them the modern Church of Rome doth not fall short of the practice of Pagan Rome And do you think all this is not applying the notion of Idolatry home to the Roman Church When 1. He shews by the principles of the second Council of Nice the modern practices of the Church of Rome are chargeable with Idolatry 2. That the practices agreeable with that Council were charged with Idolatry by the Western Church in the Council of Francford not from any mistake of their meaning but because they looked on the Worship then decreed to be proper adoration R. P. But T. G. saith If the Worship defined by the Council of Nice were inferiour Worship and not Latria as Dr. St. confesseth then nothing can be clearer than that it was not the Worship due to God and consequently the Church of Rome cannot be chargeable with Idolatry from any thing contained in that decree P. D. Will T. G. never understand the difference between the intention of the person and the Nature of the Act They might declare it to be only inferiour Worship but the Council of Francford took it to be proper adoration which was due only to God And if that Councils Judgement must stand all those in the Church of Rome who give Latria to the Cross must be guilty of Idolatry R. P. Doth not the Church of England allow bowing to the Altar which if the Altar had any sense would think were done to it as T. G. saith he was certainly informed of a Countrey fellow who being got near the Altar in his Majesties Chapel thought all the Congies had been made to him and so returned Congy for Congy And if bowing may be used out of Religious respect to the Altar why not kneeling or prostration or fixing our eyes in time of Prayer or burning Incense or Lights before the Images of Christ and his Saints but how can Dr. St. purge the Church of England from Idolatry in that practice when he saith that any Image being made so far the object of Divine Worship that men do bow down before it and he supposes the same will hold for any other creature it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment P. D. What would T. G. have done had it not been for this practice of bowing towards the Altar when yet he cannot but know that the practice of it is not enjoyned by our Church for the Canon leaves it at liberty If the Church of Rome did the same about the Worship of Images the parallel would hold somewhat better But the Church of Rome declares Religious Worship is to be given to Images and our Church declares that none is to be given to the Altar and doth not this make an apparent difference If the Countrey fellow standing without the rails fancied the Congies made to himself what would he have done if he had stood within an Image of our Lady and seen all the Courtship that had been used towards her by some of her devoted servants and slaves when he beheld the bare knees bleeding the tears trickling the breast knocking the eyes scarce lifted up to shew the greater reverence and humility towards the Image what could he have thought but that he was shut up within the bowels of the Goddess they worshipped Whereas if the Countrey fellow had gone up into the Court and seen the ancient servants make their Reverences after dinner in the Presence chamber he would soon have been better informed if some of the old Courtiers had told him it was the ancient Custome of the Court to make their Reverences in all Chambers of Presence and from thence when they went into his Majesties Chapel they used the same custome out of Reverence to God Almighty whose Presence-chamber they accounted the Chapel to be What is all this to giving Religious Worship to the Altar wherein the force of all T. G. saith must lye R. P. But you do bow before the Altar as we do before Images P. D. I utterly deny that For your Church declares bowing before Images without an intention to worship the Images is next to Heresie if we are to take the sense of your Councils from their own words and the explication of Divines You explode their Doctrine who say that we are only to worship God before them And is there no difference between the Acts of these two men as to Images themselves The one declares that he looks on no Religious worship as due to an Image but it serves him only to put him in mind of him who is the proper object of Worship and he never intends by any Act of his to worship the Image it self another saith the Church requires Images to be worshipped and for my part I think my self bound to do what the Church requires and therefore it is my intention to give Worship not barely to the object represented but to the very Image it self although it be on the account of its representation And the latter Dr. St. hath shewed to be the only allowed sense in the Church of Rome and the other rejected either as heretical or next to it Which T. G. never so much as once takes notice of But however this doth not reach our case for we believe the second Commandment to be still in force which is express and positive against all worship of Images and bowing down to them but that which was lawful among the Jews notwithstanding that precept viz. to Worship God towards the Mercy Seat is still lawful among Christians viz. to Worship God alone but towards the Altar And thus I hope T. G. will at last be brought a little better to understand the sense of our Church in this practice and how far it is from being a parallel with your Worship of Images R. P. T. G. finds great fault with Dr. St. 's citation out of Card. Lugo about submission to Images because he left out aliquis and potest dici and I tell you he makes a huge outcry about it and fills up several pages with it P. D. Doth he truly It was a great sign he wanted matter to fill up his book But I pray on what occasion was this passage brought in It may be that will give us some light
into this matter R. P. T. G. referrs to the page but he never mentions the occasion It is such a page P. D. Let us see what Dr. St. was proving in that place It was that by the Council of Nice as it is explained by the Divines of the Roman Church true and real Worship is to be given to Images and for this he produces the several Testimonies of Suarez Medina Victoria Catharinus Naclantus Bellarmine Soto Velosillus Pujol Tannerus Ysambertus Bassaeus Sylvius Arriaga and at last Card. Lugo If the thing be not proved which he designed why is Card. Lugo alone produced If it be proved why is Card. Lugo produced at all R.P. Because he left out aliquis and dici potest P. D. But suppose the other be sufficient to express his concurrence with the rest what unfairness is there in that to shorten his words when he layes no weight upon the manner but upon the thing Had Dr. St. charged Lugo with holding greater submission than the rest and then left out the qualifying expressions he had done him injury But he knew Lugo meant no more than the rest and produced him for no other purpose If there be but any inward affection carried to the Image which may be called a certain kind of submission to the Image it is all one to Dr. St.'s purpose which was only to prove as he saith in the same page from the Acts of the Council and the Judgement of their learned and eminent Divines that by the Decree of the Nicene Council such true and real Worship is to be given to Images as is terminated upon the Images themselves Did these Testimonies prove this or did they not If they did not why did not T. G. discover them all if they did why doth he so vainly cavil about some thing impertinent to the main business in the very last of all So that after all this cry there is very little Wool unless it be that which is made of Goats hair R. P. But this tends to breed an impression in the Reader that the inward affection Card. Lugo required was of giving submission to an Image as superiour because in another place he quotes the same Author for making cultus to signifie Reverence towards Superiours P. D. But doth not the Cardinal say so R. P. T. G. saith nothing to the contrary which I am sure he would have done if he had not P. D. Well then Lugo makes worship to be a Reverence towards Superiours but he saith that true worship is due to Images And is not this making the Image Superiour R. P. I thought where I should have you but T. G. hath explained Lugo's meaning from himself P. D. Let me hear it as T. G. that candid and ingenuous dealer hath it R. P. 1. He saith When we worship an Image the inward affection is not carried to the Image after the same manner it is to the Prototype for we worship the Prototype absolutely i. e. for its own proper excellency but the Image only with a relative worship i. e. for the excellency not of the Image it self but of the Prototype which kind of Worship he affirms to be far inferiour to the other which is absolute 2. We have not the same inward submission towards the Image which we have towards the Prototype for we submit our selves to the Prototype acknowledging it to be more excellent than our selves and superiour to us which kind of submission we cannot prudently conceive to belong to an Image nor indeed any at all by which we submit our selves to it preferring it before us 3. The sole external act of kissing or bowing is not so carryed to the Image but that some inward affection also goes along with it which he saith may be called also some kind of affection of submission by which he means an affection of submitting our selves to the Image for as much as the Act of the Will from which it proceeds is an affection of performing those acts about their Images which we are wont to exercise towards our Superiours P. D. Now I hope we have the Cardinals true meaning From whence I desire you to observe 1. That the difference he puts between the Worship of the Image and the Prototype lyes in the inward estimation of the Excellency of the one above the other which is as much as to say that he doth really think there is more excellency in Christ himself than in a Crucifix Which deserves a special remark especially being made by a Cardinal When one might venture to say that there is scarce an Idolater so sottish in the world but will acknowledge his Deity to be much better than the Image of him and that he worships one for his own excellency and the other only out of respect to him 2. He acknowledges that all those Acts whereby we express reverence towards Superiours may be used towards Images as bowing kneeling prostration c. 3. That there is some kind of inward affection which may be called a certain kind of affection of submission going along with these external Acts. And doth not all this amount to true and real worship which was the thing Dr. St. designed to prove For here without exception all those Acts whereby our reverence towards Superiours is expressed may be used to Images i. e. all tokens of submission to them and an inward affection of some kind which may be called affection of submission By which we find it yielded to us that all external Acts of Adoration may be given to Images provided that the inward affection be carryed after a different manner to the Prototype and to the Image which no Idolater in the world if Maimonides may be believed would ever deny if they believed any other Gods besides their Idols as he saith there were none but did So that Card. Lugo upon fair ground gives up all peculiarity of any external Acts of Divine Worship and for all that I can see may sacrifice to an Image or offer up the Host to it on the same reasons that they make their prostrations before it And he understood the consequence of his own Doctrine so well that he doth not seem to boggle at it on the account of adoration But as long as T. G. yields that Cardinal Lugo doth allow all external Acts of submission to Images and such an inward affection as to make that submission sincere and real Dr. St. hath all which his heart could desire from this testimony of Lugo R. P. But all this amounts to no more T. G. saith from him but that the Prototype deserves to be treated honourably not only in it self but in all things which have connexion with it as an Image or the like P. D. That is God may be worshipped in any Creature and any act of adoration may be performed towards it if it have a respect to him whether by a real or imaginary presence Which takes away the distinction of divine worship as
giving Doulia to Christ to be Idolatry 5. That the notion of an Idol is so far from being a meer imaginary figment or Chimera that it was attributed by the Fathers to the most excellent Being even to Christ himself when Divine Worship was given to him as a Creature These are matters of great moment if they hold good doth he pass all these by only to fall upon one single Testimony If he doth it is a shrewd sign though he cried out of Gregory Nyssen yet he was pinched somewhere else Well but what is this horrible crime about Gregory Nyssen Hath he brought him under an Index Expurgatorius Hath he falsified his words and corrupted the Text Or hath he wilfully altered his sense and meaning Hath he done it in all the quotations out of him or only in one Whatever it is let us have it R. P. It is in the citation out of his Oration de laudibus Basilii P. D. But the Dr. hath three or four more out of the same Author It seems they stand well enough Hath not the Dr. truly cited his words R. P. Yes T. G. saith as to the general truly enough P. D. What is the fault then R. P. That he doth not add the words that follow wherein he shews what kind of worship that was which the Arians gave to Christ viz. not only to worship and serve him but also to six hopes of salvation in a Creature and to expect judgement from it And was it not neatly done of the Doctor to wrap up all this in those short words The Devil perswaded men to return to the worship of the Creature Which is a Laconism not observed by him on other occasions but it was here done on purpose to conceal from the Reader the apparent difference between the worship of Saints in the Church of Rome and the Arians worship of Christ. P. D. I am glad it is out at last after so much straining See how much choler there is in it Indeed it might have done him much harm if he had kept it in any longer But I wonder the Laconick Gentleman doth complain of shortness Do you think the Laconian in Boccalini would have made such a noise for missing a page or two in Guicciardins War of Pisa Do you in earnest think Dr. St. should take such pains to conceal that which every one knows that the Arians fixed their hopes of Salvation on Christ and expected him to come to Judgement What wonderful discovery is this which T. G. hath made Nay Dr. St. himself takes notice of this Objection that they did give a higher degree of worship to Christ than any do to Saints and returns this Answer to it that they did only give a degree of worship proportionable to the degrees of excellency supposed to be in him far above any other creatures whatsoever But still that worship was inferiour to that which they gave to God the Father and at the highest such as the Platonists gave to their celestial Deities And although the Arians did invocate Christ and put their trust in him yet they still supposed him to be a creature and therefore believed that all the Power and Authority he had was given to him so that the worship they gave to Christ must be inferiour to that honour they gave to the Supreme God whom they believed to be Supreme Absolute and Independent R. P. T. G. takes notice of this Answer and objects two things against it First That it stands too far off from the words of Nyssen at the distance of 350 pages and so proves a very late salve for so old a wound P. D. Especially considering how poor Nyssen lay a bleeding all that while Is it not enough for us to unswer Objections unless we put them just in the page you would have them after the way of Objections and Solutions I pity the hard fate of the Laconian that hath 350 leaves to turn over longer than the War of Pisa. O for the Gallies But I hope he will consider better of it R. P. You may jest as you please at this Answer but the second is a very solid one for T. G. shews the parallel to be inconsistent both with the practice of the Arians and Doctrine of the Fathers P. D. What parallel doth he mean Dr. St. proves from hence inferiour relative worship given to a creature to be Idolatry in the sense of the Fathers Is this true or is it not R. P. You have not patience to hear T. G.'s answer out For 1. He saith The Fathers do acknowledge a worship due to the Saints and particularly Gregory Nyssen in an Oration produced by him and therefore if they had condemned the Arians of Idolatry for giving only a like worship to Christ though in a higher degree they had condemned themselves for the like crime 2. The Arians made no such Apology for themselves as the Doctor makes for them viz. that they gave Soveraign and absolute worship to God and only inferiour and relative worship to Christ. 3. Why might not the generality at least believe Christ to be of a superiour Order so as to have true Divinity in him as the Heathens did of their lesser Gods and that being assumed as a Consort in the Empire absolute Divine Honour was due to him 4. They were chargeable with Idolatry because they did avowedly give those Acts of Worship to Christ believing him to be a Creature which by the common consent and publick practice of Christians from whence exteriour signs in the duties of Religion receive their determination were understood to be due only to God incarnate Which makes their case very much different from that of the Church of Rome which gave to Saints and Images only such Acts of Worship as by the common use and practice of the Christian World before Luther were determined and understood when applied to Saints and Images to express an inferiour degree of Reverence or Worship than what is due to God himself This is the substance of T. G.'s answer P. D. I confess T. G. now offers something worthy a serious debate Which may be reduced to these two things 1. What those Acts of Worship were which the Arians were charged with Idolatry for giving to Christ supposing him a Creature 2. How far the Church of Rome is liable to the same charge for the worship she gives to Saints and Images 1. For the Acts of Worship which the Arians were charged with Idolatry in giving to Christ as a Creature The strength of T. G.'s answer lies in two things 1. That they were given absolutely to Christ as a lesser God 2. That they were such Acts which by the consent of the Church did signifie proper Divine worship 1. Let us consider whether the worship given to Christ could be absolute upon their supposition that Christ was a Creature T. G. speaks somewhat faintly in this matter at first saying only Why might it not be absolute
at least as to the generality But afterwards he takes heart and sayes roundly that the Fathers evermore charge the Arians for giving absolute Divine Worship to Christ although they believed him to be of a different nature from the Supreme God which he hopes is far enough from the Doctors relative or inferior Worship But I am very far from being satisfied with this Answer For I pray tell me wherein lies the difference between Soveraign Worship and Inferiour In Acts of the Mind or in External Acts R. P. In Internal doubtless on T. G.'s principles who makes External Acts to signifie according to the determination of the Church P. D. What are those Internal Acts wherein the Worship of the Supreme God consists R. P. A due esteem of his excellency and suitable affection to it P. D. Must not this due esteem distinguish him from all Creatures R. P. Yes surely for otherwise it can be no due esteem the distance being infinite between God and his Creatures P. D. Can a man then have an equal esteem of God and a Creature which he acknowledges to be made by him R. P. Certainly not P. D. Then it must be unequal according to the difference of uncreated and created excellencies R. P. Yes P. D. Then the Worship must be unequal and that which is given to a Creature must be inferiour worship R. P. But T. G. saith they might believe true Divinity to be in him as the Heathens did of their lesser Gods P. D. True Divinity What is that when they believed him to be a Creature did they take him for an uncreated creature For that can be no true Divinity which is not uncreated and yet you confess they owned Christ to be a Creature What nonsense and contradiction would T. G. cry out upon if Dr. St. had ever said any such thing R. P. Might not they believe Christ to be assumed as Consort in the Empire and so absolute Divine Honour to be due to him P. D. What do you mean by this absolute Divine Honour For I have already proved it must be inferiour Worship R. P. I do suppose absolute Divine Honour is that which is given to a Being on the account of its own excellency and relative from the respect it hath to another P. D. But whether absolute or relative it is proper Divine Honour you mean And doth not that imply an esteem of proper divine excellency and is not that proper to God alone and uncreated How then can this absolute Divine Honour be given to a Created Being R. P. How did the Gentiles to their false Gods P. D. Just as the Arians for they made distinctions in their worship as will appear when we come to that subject R. P. What do you make then this worship of the Arians to be P. D. An Inferior and Relative Worship for they supposed they worshipped God when they gave those Acts of Worship to Christ which were agreeable to the excellencies that were in him R. P. But 2. Those Acts were such as by the consent of the Church were understood to be due only to God incarnate P. D. Here we are to know both what these Acts were and what power the Church hath to impose a signification upon them R. P. T. G. names these 1. Worshipping and serving him with Latria 2. Putting their trust in him as Mediator of Redemption 3. Invoking him as the Judge of the quick and the dead c. P. D. What means this c. I am afraid here is something beyond the trick about Gregory Nyssen which lies under this Dragons Tayl. Are these all which Dr. St. mentioned R. P. I know not that if you know more I am sure to hear of it P. D. You are not mistaken for Dr. St. had shewed at large 1. That external adoration was one of those things which the Fathers charged the Arians with Idolatry for giving to Christ supposing him to be a Creature from Peters forbidding Cornelius and the Angel St. John because this is only proper to God from the plain testimonies of Athanasius Epiphanius and St. Cyril 2. That invocation of Christ as a Mediator of Intercession was condemned as Idolatry in the Arians Athanasius supposes it inconsistent with Christianity to joyn Christ if he were a creature in our prayers together with God 3. That they made no such distinction of worshipping and serving with Latria as T. G. insinuates For he shews from the Testimonies of Athanasius and even Gregory Nyssen St. Cyril and Theodoret that the very worship which they condemn for Idolatry is called Doulia by them And therefore these are meer shifts and evasions which do not remove the difficulty at all I deny not but they did put their trust in Christ for Salvation and expect his coming to judge the quick and the dead but I say these were but expressions suitable to the apprehensions they had of his excellencies above any other Creatures but still inferiour to Gods and the Fathers did not charge them with Idolatry meerly for these Acts but for the other likewise mentioned before R. P. But T. G. hath a reserve still behind viz. that it is in the Churches Power to determine the signification of external Acts of Worship what belongs to Soveraign or proper Divine Worship and what to inferiour worship that at that time the Church might take those for Acts of Divine Worship which afterwards by consent of the Church came only to signifie inferiour Acts of Worship when applied to Creatures and therefore the argument cannot hold from that time to after Ages P.D. I think you have hit upon T. G.'s meaning and in truth it is the only thing to be said in the case For if Idolatry be a thing in the Churches Power to determine it is the only way in the world for the Church of Rome to free her self supposing that power to be lodged in her but if it should happen that the Law of God the consent of Nations the Reason of Divine Worship and the Practice of the Primitive Church have determined Idolatry antecedently to the power of the present Church what a case are you then in The guilt of Idolatry must lie heavily upon you and if it be so great a sin as your own Schoolmen determine you have a great deal to answer for notwithstanding all the tricks and evasions of T. G. But why doth not T. G. make the external Acts of Theft Adultery Murder and Perjury as much under the Churches power as those of Idolatry But I forbear now supposing that we shall meet with this useful notion again before we end this debate R. P. You are mistaken if you think T. G. had no other answer to give For he saith they could not be understood of that worship which our Church gives to Saints because they acknowledge an inferiour worship due to the Saints for which he quotes St. Austin Gregory Nazianzen St. Hierom and Gregory Nyssen P. D.
to know whether it was singular in him or the sense of the Church of that Age R. P. No doubt T. G. brings it for an instance of the sense of the Church for it were to no great purpose to produce a singular opinion or practice of one man condemned by the rest of the Church P. D. Then I ask whether offering up ones self or offering up a cake to a Saint be the greater Idolatry R. P. A mans self certainly P. D. Do not they who devote themselves to a particular Saint choosing her for their perpetual Patroness vowing themselves to be her slaves offer up themselves to her R. P. What would you have P. D. I will tell you Epiphanius who lived in the same Age with Greg. Nyssen condemns those for rank Idolatry who offered up Cakes to the B. Virgin and do you think he would have excused those who offered up themselves and their devotions to her And at the same time he condemns the worship both of Saints and Angels in the places produced by Dr. St. What answer hath T. G. made to this R. P. I do not remember he takes notice of it P. D. T. G. would make an excellent Commentator for he knows how to pass over a hard place as well as any I have met with But still I have one question more Whether Greg. Nyssen did argue well against the Arians or not R. P. Why should you question that P. D. Do you think he spake consistently to himself Or if not is his opinion to be taken from a Panegyrical Oration or a strict Dispute R. P. A strict dispute for then men consider every word and the consequence of it P. D. Greg. Nyssen goes upon this principle To give Divine Worship to a Creature is Idolatry but the Arians in worshipping Christ as a Creature do give Divine Worship to a Creature therefore c. To make good the particulars of this charge we must consider what Greg. Nyssen makes to be the parts of Divine Worship and if I can prove that Greg. Nyssen doth make prayer to be such a part of Divine Worship then by necessary consequence he makes praying to a Creature to be Idolatry Now it is very well known that Greg. Nyssen in several places makes prayer with supplication to be peculiar to God therefore he calls it a conversing with God a request of good things with supplication unto God In which he agrees with the rest of the Fathers who made Religious Invocation peculiar to God Sed tamen tu solus Domine invocandus es saith S. Ambrose I do not pray to any besides thy self saith Ephreem Syrus in the Officium Diurnum of the Maronites We call not on the name of this man or that man saith S. Chrysostome but on the name of the Lord. This is an honour he saith God hath reserved to himself to call upon him and will not give it to Angels or Arch-angels as he elsewhere speaks Vnto God alone do we pray saith the Greek Catena on the fifth Psalm To whom shall I call but unto thee saith S. Augustine This is the best sacrifice we can offer unto God say Clemens of Alexandria and Tertullian It were easie to produce many more Testimonies to this purpose if these be not sufficient to prove that in Greg. Nyssens Age as well as before Prayer was looked on as a peculiar part of Divine Worship R. P. To what purpose since no body denyes that prayer as it is a means to obtain blessings from God as the Author of them is peculiar to God P. D. This Answer doth not take off the force of the argument For prayer may be considered two wayes 1. As a Means to obtain blessings 2. As a solemn part of Divine Worship Now if they reserved prayer to God on the latter account then it follows that whatever Invocation doth take off from the peculiarity of this part of external worship is against the design of the Fathers So Origen argues that Invocation and Adoration do imply each other Invocare nomen Domini adorare Deum unum atque idem est To invocate God and to adore him is all one from whence he proves that those who invocate Christ do adore him And where the Church of Smyrna declares in her Epistle about the Martyrdom of Polycarp that they did not worship any other but Christ the old Latin Translation renders it neque alteri cuiquam precem orationis impendere And Theodoret makes praying to Angels and the worshipping of them the same thing So that prayer was looked on as a part of adoration therefore whosoever gives the external worship of prayer to another besides God doth give to a Creature that which belongs to God R. P. I know not what you mean I pray explain your self more P. D. Is not God worshipped solemnly by us when we joyn together in prayer to him R. P. Yes P. D. Is not this external worship that which the Fathers mean by the adoration that is implyed in prayer R. P. Suppose it be P. D. Wherein lyes this external worship Is it not that we meet together and joyn in acts of Devotion to testifie our acknowledgement of Gods Soveraignty and dependence upon him R. P. What then P. D. Then whosoever do use the same external Acts of Worship to a Creature do apply that to a Creature which the Fathers did suppose to belong only to God as if men kneel and pray to Saints in the same place at the same time with the same Ceremonies of Devotion they use to God himself they take off the peculiarity of this worship to God and make it common to his Creatures R. R. This only reaches to the external Acts but the intention and design of the worshippers with us make the difference P. D. I do not now meddle with your intention and design but I am pursuing the force of the argument used by the Fathers To make this yet more plain to you The Fathers use the argument of external adoration against the Arians for say they Peter forbad Cornelius to worship him and the Angel S. John from whence they infer that God only ought to be worshipped and therefore giving external adoration to Christ supposing him to be a Creature is Idolatry Is this argument good or not R. P. Let me consider a little It was good then but it is not now for T. G. saith it is in the Churches power to determine the signification of exteriour signs P. D. An admirable answer which makes the arguments of the Fathers in truth to have no force at all For the Arians might say the external acts of adoration did not signifie the same with them which they did with Catholicks for they only signified an inferiour and relative worship when applyed to the Son and Soveraign and absolute worship when given to the Father So that if there be any force in what the Fathers did argue against the Arians it will
make the inferiour and relative worship of a Creature to be Idolatry notwithstanding Greg. Nyssens Oration upon Theodore R. P. I am like T. G. who hates a great Book upon one subject so do I a long discourse upon one argument methinks Greg. Nyssen hath taken up a great deal of our time and I have something more yet to say to you before we part P. D. I pray let me hear it and I suppose it will admit of a quicker dispatch R. P. It is upon the same head of the Doctors fidelity in quoting Authors and it concerns the passage in Arnobius in which T. G. charged him with cogging in the word Divinity in the singular number instead of adorable Deities in the Plural and Dr. St. answers with a protestation that he translated these words nihil numinis inesse simulachris which he saith are but two lines above the words T. G. charges him with P. D. And how I pray doth T. G. clear himself for in my mind he is most concerned to vindicate himself R. P. He doth it very well for he denyes not those words to be there which Dr. St. translated but he saith he ought not to have translated the words of Arnobius to the Heathens but the words of the Heathens to Arnobius since his design was to prove the Heathens did not worship the Images themselves for Gods P. D. A pitiful shift T. G. charged Dr. St. with cogging in the word Divinity in the singular number Dr. St. shews it was so used but two lines before those words which T. G. cites and those were the words he translated Now saith T. G. those were the words of Arnobius to the Heathen what then doth he not confute them in something which they held if he proves nihil numinis inesse simulachris must not they hold aliquid numinis c. so that it comes all to one But to put this out of all doubt if T. G. had looked a little farther he might have found these very words of the Heathens Illud etiam dicere simulachrorum assertores solent surely these are the Heathens non ignorasse antiquos nihil habere numinis signa What doth T. G. think now Had he not better look more about him before he makes such rude and impertinent clamours about Dr. St.'s insincerity in quoting Authors Of which you may judge by this one Instance where himself is so notoriously faulty and yet from hence he concludes what a sad account of Citations we are like to have from him R. P. What say you to Dr. St.'s obsâ—rvations of the Council of Trent about the Worship of Images P. D. Have you ever been a hunting of Squirrels R. P. Why do you ask me such an impertinent question P. D. Not so impertinent as you think for the Squirrels leaping from bough to bough forwards and backwards is just like T. G.'s answer to Dr. St.'s Book For he makes nothing of leaping a hundred or two hundred pages forwards and backwards as the humour takes him However let us hear what he hath to say to those observations For I remember very well what the design of them was viz. that though the worship of Latria was owned before it by many Divines to be given to Images and that were against the decree of the Council of Nice yet the Council of Trent allows all external acts of adoration of Images gives no intimation against this kind of Worship and since it many of the most eminent Divines of your Church have justified the giving Latria to Images and that from the words of this Council R. P. But T. G. saith those very Divines do not mean by Latria proper Divine Worship which is due to God and terminated upon him but that the Act being in their opinion one in substance to the Prototype and the Images it is terminated absolutely upon the Person of Christ for himself and falls upon the Image after an inferiour manner as a thing only relating to him and purely for his sake for which reason some call it relative Latria others secundary others improper others Analogical others per accidens and the dispute in effect is rather de modo loquendi than of the thing it self P. D. To clear this matter we must consider 1. That the Council of Nice doth deny Latria to be given to an Image 2. That the Divines of the Roman Church do say that the practice of the Church cannot be defended in the Worship of the Cross without giving Latria to it 3. That the Council of Trent when just occasion was given declares nothing against this for although it referrs to the Council of Nice yet when it gives the reason of worship it doth it in such terms that many of your Divines say must infer the worship of Latria to be given to them R. P. What if it doth saith T. G. since it is only a dispute about words and all agree that the worship proper to God signified primarily by the word Latria is not to be given to Images P. D. That must be a little better considered For do you think it is possible to give the worship proper to God to an Image or not If it be not why did the Council of Nice declare against it if it be tell me in what Acts that Worship of Latria doth consist R. P. It is when men give proper divine honour to an Image P. D. What is this proper divine honour for you are not one step forwarder by this answer I see I must come to particulars Were the Gnosticks and ancient Hereticks to blame in their Worship of Images or not R. P. No doubt they were for they stand condemned by the Church for that worship they gave to Images P. D. Wherein did their fault lye R. P. In giving Divine Honour and Worship to the Image P. D. Did not they worship the Image of Christ R. P. And what then P. D. Then their fault lay in giving divine Worship to the Image of Christ R. P. Yes proper divine Worship P. D. What was that proper divine worship was it absolute or relative R. P. Absolute P. D. Then it was giving divine worship to an Image of Christ without respect to Christ which is either non-sense or a contradiction Is it possible to give divine worship to an Image of a person without respect to the person Men may worship a piece of Wood or a Stone without respect to a person but to worship that which represents and on that account because it represents without any respect to what it represents is a contradiction therefore the worship of an Image as such is a relative worship and proper Latria as given to an Image is relative Latria R. P. But men may give absolute divine worship to an Image for may not a man joyn in his mind the Image and person represented as one object of Worship and so give proper divine worship to both considered as one P. D. I thank you
for that For so I find some of your Divines have determined that in this sense absolute and proper divine worship may be given to the Cross. And Dr. St. produced several of them who contended for an absolute Latria to be due to Images such as Ludovicus à Paramo Paulus Maria Quarti Gamachaeus a late Professour of Divinity in the Sorbon and others R. P. But T. G. saith they only differ in modo loquendi P. D. I think rather in modo colendi For are not absolute and relative worship two distinct kinds how else comes the giving absolute worship to be Idolatry and not the giving relative And if giving absolute worship be Idolatry all in your Church are guilty of it who worship the Image and thing represented as one object If it be not then there can be none to an Image as such R. P. Yes if they offer sacrifice to Images as the Gnosticks did P. D. S. Augustin and Theodoret say they adored Images and offered Incense to them And is not the very same practised in your Church If this were Idolatry in them why not in you Unless your Church hath power to change the Nature of Idolatry which is all one with changing the nature of Vertues and Vices R. P. But they sacrificed to Images as the Heathens did P. D. True for the burning Incense before Images was thought to be sacrificing to them being joyned with adoration And the Christians chose rather to dye than to joyn in that act of worship towards the Images of the Emperours whence Dr. St. observed that burning of Incense towards Images was the same tryal of Christians that eating of Swines flesh was of the Jews I pray tell me was there any harm in this or not supposing the Christians looked on the Emperours as Gods Vicegerents and the Images only as representing them R. P. I see what you aim at you would have me condemn the primitive Christians or our selves according to the sense of the Church at that time it was unlawful but according to the sense of our Church now it is lawful to do the same things out of honour to the Images of Christ or his Saints P. D. That is your Church is innocent if your Church may be judge But I now dispute upon your own principles of relative worship whether those Acts might not have been done to the Emperours Images which had saved the lives of so many Martyrs R. P. No for the Emperours then exacted to be worshipped as Gods i. e. with divine worship P. D. Was that Divine Worship supreme or not i. e. did they take the Emperours for supreme Deities R. P. No but they gave them the Worship of the supreme Deity P. D. Then the giving this Worship was thought Idolatry though mens conceptions were right as to their being Creatures R. P. But what is this to the worship of Images P. D. Was it not lawful to give the same worship to the Images of the Emperours as to the Emperours themselves Might not they look on the Emperours as Gods Vicegerents and so give them relative Latria on that account and then look on their Images as representing them and so give a secundary improper Analogical relative Latria to their Images and by this means the Heathens and the Christians had only differed in modo loquendi but the Christians had saved their lives by the bargain R. P. But our dispute is of the Images of Christ and not of Heathen Emperours P. D. I only shew the absurd consequences of this doctrine and how inconsistent it is with the principles of primitive Christianity But I return to the distinctions of your Divines about Latria being given to Images You all agree T. G. saith that the worship proper to God is not to be given to Images Is not Latria the Worship proper to God R. P. Yes proper Latria is but not improper and relative P. D. Is there any worship so proper to God that it cannot be improperly and relatively given to an Image R. P. What do you mean for I do not understand you P. D. Rather you will not I ask you whether there be any such act of worship so proper to God that you may not in respect to God do that to his Image or in respect to Christ do that to the Cross R. P. Although there may be none such yet the Church doth not use all acts of worship to the Image which it doth to God P. D. I not ask what you do but what upon your principles you may do And suppose a man doth that Act which your Church allows not is he guilty of Idolatry or bare disobedience in doing it to an Image R. P. Of Idolatry P. D. Then there are such external acts of worship so proper to God himself that the doing them to an Image for his sake is Idolatry As to sacrifice to an Image for the sake of Christ is Idolatry Is it not R. P. Yes P. D. Is the improper and relative sacrificing to an Image Idolatry R. P. You ask an untoward question For I see what you drive at P. D. Answer me directly Is it or is it not R. P. I think it is P. D. Then it follows that this distinction of proper and improper absolute and relative Latria signifies nothing For if the Acts of Worship are proper to God no relative or improper use of them can excuse from Idolatry if they are not proper then it is no Latria R. P. I must think again of this matter For as you represent it this can never excuse us P. D. I wonder so many subtle men should ever think it would But I will not thus give it over When the Council of Nice did forbid Latria being given to an Image did they mean to an Image as a piece of Wood or Stone or to an Image as an Image R. P. As an Image For they did forbid giving Latria to that which they worshipped but they worshipped it as an Image for the sake of the Prototype P. D. Your reason is unanswerable Therefore I say they did forbid all relative Latria of an Image call it by what name soever you please For the Worship of an Image as such must be relative worship Therefore all those who contend for relative Latria are condemned by the Council of Nice Besides I would fain know of these Gentlemen whether their improper and relative Latria be Latria or Inferiour worship one or other it must be and it is a contradiction to say Latria is inferiour worship for that is to say It is Latria and it is not If it be then true Latria I ask whether the Image as an Image be God or a Creature if it be a Creature as no doubt it is then true Latria is given to a Creature which according to T. G. must be Idolatry Again Either it is the same Act of Latria which is terminated on the Person of Christ absolutely and on the Cross relatively or it is a
any wayes repugnant to the sense of the Church R. P. But T. G. saith the Terms of Communion with the Church are not the Opinions of her School-Divines but the Decrees of her Councils P. D. And what then Did Dr. St. meddle with the School-Divines any otherwise than as they explained the sense of Councils or the practice of the Church And what helps more proper to understand these than the Doctrine of your most learned Divines T. G. will have one Mr. Thorndike to speak the sense of the Church of England against the current Doctrine of the rest as Dr. St. hath proved yet he will not allow so many Divines of greatest Note and Authority to explain the sense of the Church of Rome Is this equal dealing R. P. T. G. saith That for his life he cannot understand any more the Idolatry of worshipping an Image than the Treason of bowing to a Chair of State or the Adultery of a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture and that the same subtilties may be used against these as against the other and therefore notwithstanding the disputes of School-Divines honest nature informed with Christian Principles will be security enough against the practice of Idolatry in honouring the Image of Christ for his sake P. D. What is the matter with T. G. that for his life he can understand these things no better after all the pains which hath been taken about him Hath not the difference of these cases been laid open before him Do not your own Writers confess that in some cases an Image may become an Idol by having Divine Worship given to it Is this then the same case with a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture Doth not this excuse the Gnosticks worship of the Image of Christ as well as yours If there may be Idolatry in the worship of an Image we are then to consider whether your worship be not Idolatry Especially since both parties charge each other with Idolatry those who will have it to be Latria and those who will not And I do not see what honest nature can do in this case however assisted unless it can make the worship of Images to be neither one nor the other I see T. G. would fain make it to be no more than bare honour of an Image for the sake of Christ but this doth not come up to the Decrees of Councils the general sense of Divines and the constant practice of your Church If ever worship was given to Images you give it by using all Acts of Adoration towards them R. P. But suppose the King had made an Order that due honour and respect should be given to the Chair of State ought not that to be observed notwithstanding the disputes which might arise about the nature of the Act P. D. To answer this we must suppose a Command from God that we must worship an Image of Christ as we do his Person but here it is just contrary The Reason of the second Command being owned by the Christian Church to hold against the worship of Images now as well as under the Law But those in the Church of Rome who do charge each other with Idolatry without supposing any such command do proceed upon the nature of the Worship which must either be Divine Worship which one party saith is Idolatry being the same which is given to God or an inferiour Religious Worship which the other party saith must be Idolatry being an expression of our submission to an inanimate thing And for my life I cannot see what answer T. G. makes to this R. P. T. G. saith the Rules of the Church are to be observed in this case as the Rules of the Court about the Chair of State P. D. What! are the Rules of the Church to be observed absolutely whether against the Law of God or not Which is as much as to say at Court that the Orders of the Green-cloth are to be observed against his Majesties pleasure But not to insist on that I say in this case the Rules of the Church help nothing for they who do follow the Rules of the Church must do one or the other of these and whichsoever they do they are charged with Idolatry And therefore Dr. St. had great reason to say Where there is no necessity of doing the thing the best way to avoid Idolatry is to give no worship to Images at all R. P. What will become of the Rules of the Church saith T. G. if men may be permitted to break them for such Capriches as these are P. D. Are you in earnest Doth T. G. call these Capriches Idolatry is accounted both by Fathers and Schoolmen a crime of the highest nature and when I am told I must commit it one way or other by your Divines if I give worship to Images is this only a Capriche R. P. Will not the same reason hold against bowing to the Altar bowing being an act of worship appropriated to God P. D. Will the same reason hold against bowing out of Reverence to Almighty God which I have told you again and again is all our Church allows in that which you call bowing to the Altar I see you are very hard put to it to bring in this single Instance upon every turn against the plain sense and declaration of our Church If this be all T. G. upon so long consideration hath to say in this matter it is not hard to judge who hath much the better Cause R. P. I pray hold from triumphing a while for there is a fresh charge behind wherein you will repent that ever you undertook to defend Dr. St. it is concerning the unjust parallel he hath made between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry P. D. I see no cause to repent hitherto And I hope I shall find as little when I come to that THE Fourth Conference About the Parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry R. P. HAVE you considered what T. G. saith concerning the parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry and doth not your heart fail you as to the defence of Dr. St. which you promised to undertake P. D. No truly The more I have considered it the less I fear it R. P. What think you of the notion of Idolatry he chargeth on T. G. viz. that it is the giving the Soveraign Worship of God to a Creature and among the Heathens to the Devil as if the Idolatry of the Heathens consisted only in worshipping the Devil whereas it appears from the words Dr. St. cites out of him that he charged the Heathens with Idolatry in worshipping their Images for Gods and the Creatures for Gods although withal they worshipped evil Spirits and T. G. contends that their Supream God was an Arch-Devil P. D. Is this such a difficulty to be set in the Front I suppose it is only to try whether I will stumble at the threshold If the Supreme God whom the Heathens worshipped was an Arch-devil as T. G.
Elements or whatsoever creature it be to give that worship to it which is due only to God is to make other Gods besides him and this I thought had been agreed on all sides R. P. If they give Divine Worship to any one of these as an absolute Deity as T. G. well observes and not if they refer the worship they give to them to the true God P. D. What means the giving divine worship as to an absolute Deity Is it to suppose that which they worship to be truly and properly God as T. G. saith That is to suppose it not to be a Creature And upon this ground those who supposed the Spirits or Stars or Elements to be Creatures could not be guilty of Idolatry in the Worship of them and so the greatest part of the Heathen World will be excused from it Or is it to give divine worship to the Creatures without any respect to God the Maker of the World and of all things in it But then either they did at that time believe him to be the Maker of those Beings or they did not if they did either they worshipped them as created or as uncreated beings if as created beings how could they wholly pass by the Creator if as uncreated how could they at the same time believe them to be created by him R. P. T. G. was aware of this for he puts the question concerning the Heathens how those who acknowledged one Supreme Being could think any others to be truely and properly Gods besides him And he resolves it thus that the generality of the Heathens had no clear and distinct notion of one Supreme Being but only the Wiser Philosophers P. D. By this answer none but the dull and stupid vulgar could be guilty of Idolatry such who believed if any did there were no other Gods besides their Images or if there were they never considered more than that they were all called Gods alike and they knew no distinction between one Chief and the rest but if they happened to suppose one Supreme and the others made by him as I have shewed from Tertullian they generally did then they are free from Idolatry in all acts of worship performed with that opinion For if Idolatry doth suppose a belief of more Gods than one truly and properly so called then all those who did own and acknowledge one first cause from whence all other beings were derived could not be guilty of it and consequently all those who had the true knowledge of God could not commit Idolatry because they could not at the same time believe but one true God and many true Gods And if the true notion of Idolary doth consist in believing and worshipping many Gods truely and properly so called then let us see how many of the Heathens will stand clear from the guilt of it 1. All those who worshipped Deified men and believed them to be such although they gave them the worship proper to true Gods For as long as they did not think them to be such it could not be real Idolatry and so Cicero Varro and Seneca and the rest of the Wise Statesmen will be excused 2. All those who believed Inferiour Gods having their first being from one Supreme as the ancient Poets Platonists and many others 3. All those who worshipped the parts of the World with respect to one God as the Stoicks and others 4. All those who opposed Christianity upon this ground that although there were but one Supreme God yet others might receive divine worship together with him and upon this principle the most bitter enemies of Christianity disputed viz. Celsus Porphyrius Hierocles Julian Maximus Symmachus and others And to own it not to be Idolatry to give divine worship to created beings supposing them not to be owned to be truely and properly Gods is in plain terms to give up the Cause of Christianity against Heathen Idolatry And this I insist upon as the main argument in this matter and desire you or T. G. or any one else to answer it Dr. St. hath made it evident from the Testimonies of Celsus Julian and the modern Platonists that the Dispute about Idolatry between them and the Christians was not whether there were only one God truely and properly so called and others only by participation from him for this they yielded but the question was whether upon that supposition that they were inferiour and subservient Gods they might not have divine worship given to them in a degree suitable to their excellencies And upon this point the hinge of the Controversie turned Either the Christians were right in condemning such Worship for Idolatry or not If not the Cause of Christianity is given up to Celsus and Julian if they were in the right then Idolatry doth not lie in believing and worshipping many Gods properly and truely so called but in giving divine worship to any Creature whatsoever And why did not T. G. answer to this which was the most material point of all others but run out into long discourses of the Ignorance of the vulgar Heathen which no man doubts any more than the Ignorance of vulgar Papists although I hope not to the same degree concerning the true God And yet we could tell him of another sort of Statesmen who love to keep the People in Ignorance lest they should by the help of the Scriptures see too far into these matters And some of your own Church have told us that they could find no difference between the common peoples opinion of Saints and what the Heathens had of their Gods And thus the parallel holds good still But the common people though more gross in their apprehensions and do commit greater follies in their practices may yet be safer in their Ignorance than those who ought to inform them better But when we enquire what is lawful we must not run to the practices or opinions of the vulgar as T. G. doth here but to the state of the case as it was managed by those who best understood it And they did not put it upon that issue whether it were lawful to worship many independent Deities but whether it were lawful to give Divine worship to any created beings on the account of that power and authority which God had put into their hands And if this were not Idolatry Celsus and Julian thought Heathenism justified and the doctrine of Christianity overthrown and so did Origen S. Cyril and S. Augustin too 5. The modern Idolaters will be excused too if the nature of Idolatry doth consist in a multitude of independent Deities or of Gods truely and properly so called For Dr. St. hath proved abundantly that the Eastern Western Southern and Northern Nations which are or have been charged with Idolatry by the Roman Church do own one Supreme God and others as inferiour Deities And this he chiefly proves from the Testimonies of those of the Roman Church who have been sent as Missioners to convert them from their
his argument is the stronger for the distinction between them For although no prayers be made to Confutius no divine power be supposed to be in him as in the Tutelar Spirits yet because he had a Temple in every City with his Image in it and all other external Rites of adoration used as genuflections wax-candles incense and oblations such as your Church useth to Images without prayers yet these are condemned as Idolatrous And although the Cardinals might not then reflect on the consequence of this resolution as to their own practices yet I cannot but admire at the Wisdom of that Providence which once directed Caiaphas to speak a great Truth beside his intention that so overruled the Congregation of Cardinals to condemn their own Idolatry under the name of Confutius For if the using those external acts of adoration towards the Image of Confutius be Idolatry why shall it not be so where prayers are added as they are in your Church to the Images set up in your Churches Let T. G. tell me wherein the Nature of that Idolatry lay which consisted in external Acts of adoration without any opinion of Confutius being a God truly and properly so called 3. That external Acts are capable of Idolatry however the intention of the mind be directed For although the Cardinals believed the Crucifix to be a proper object of Divine Worship yet they condemned those Acts as Idolatrous which were directed to it in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirits And upon the whole matter I think no impartial Reader will believe that T. G. hath said any thing to purpose upon this matter and that he had better left those few leaves still vacant than have filled them with such an insignificant Postscript and he hath no reason to thank his Friend for putting him upon laying open so much the Weakness of his Cause For from hence it farther appears that the Modern Idolaters will likewise be excused if the nature of Idolatry doth consist as T. G. saith in Worshipping many Gods truly and properly so called R. P. But you are mistaken if you think T. G. placeth the Nature of Idolatry wholly in this for he saith that the Heathens were guilty of Idolatry in worshipping Nature instead of God either the several parts of the Vniverse as Sun Moon and Stars c. understanding the Fire by Jupiter the Air by Juno c. or the Soul of the World as the Stoicks did whereby the Heathens did as T. G. often repeats it from Vossius relicto Deo in Naturae Veneratione consistere forsaking God stay in the worship of the Creatures and for this he quotes Athanasius S. Augustine and Athenagoras P. D. It is sufficient for Dr. St.'s design if the worship of Images and of intellectual Beings under one supreme God were Idolatry among the Heathens for then it must remain so among Christians as well as Murder and Adultery are the same whereever they are found But since you have proposed it I shall consider with you how far the worship of the Creatures in general is Idolatry But I have some few questions to ask you about this sort of Idolatry 1. Whether you think the Heathens Idolatry did lye in worshipping meer matter as God Or 2. In worshipping God as the soul of the world and the several parts of it with respect to him Or 3. In acknowledging a Creator but giving all the worship to the Creatures R. P. In all these according to their several opinions P. D. Do you really think any of them did worship meer matter without life sense or understanding for God For either they did believe some other God or not if they did how is it possible they should not worship that which could hear and understand and help them and worship that which could do none of these If they did not believe any other God they were Atheists and not Idolaters For are not those Atheists who acknowledge no other God but meer matter i. e. no God at all For so Vossius himself saith those who held meer matter to be God verbo Deum fatebantur re negabant did only seem to believe a God whom they really denyed For what kind of God saith he was that which had neither sense nor reason R. P. It was Idolatry then to worship the parts of the world with a respect to God as the Soul of it which as T. G. saith in his Postscript is to make a false God P. D. There are two things which deserve to be considered as to this matter 1. In what sense making God the soul of the world is setting up a false God 2. How far the Gentiles could be charged with Idolatry who worshipped the parts of the world with respect to God as the soul of it R. P. Do not you think making God the soul of the world is setting up a false God P. D. I pray tell me what you mean by the soul of the world For either you mean the natural series of Causes or the more subtil and active parts of matter diffused through the Vniverse without Mind and Vnderstanding or you mean an Intelligent Being which by Wisdom and Providence orders and governs the world but withall is so united to it as the Soul is to the Body If you mean the former I say all such who held it were really Atheists and only differed in the way of speaking from those who worshipped meer matter for let them call God the soul of the world never so much they mean no more than that there is no other God but the Power of Nature If you mean an Vnderstanding Being Governing the World whose essence is distinct from matter but yet is supposed to be so united to it as the Soul is to the Body then I pray tell me in what sense you make him to be a false God and how it comes to be Idolatry to worship the parts of the world with respect to him R. P. S. Augustin proves against Varro that God was not the Soul of the World if there were any such thing but the Creator and Maker of it and he shews that this opinion is attended with impious and irreligious consequences P. D. I do not go about to defend the opinion but I hope I may ask wherein the Idolatry lay of worshipping one God under this notion as he animated the world and the several parts of it R. P. In worshipping the several parts of the world with Divine Worship not with a respect to the Body but to God as the Soul of it for therein Aquinas placeth their Idolatry P. D. Is relative Latria Idolatry R. P. Why do you ask me such an impertinent question P. D. Nothing can be more pertinent for this is meer relative Latria R. P. It was Idolatry in them but yet not so in us when we worship the Crucifix with respect to Christ. P. D. You may as well say Lying with another mans Wife was Adultery in them but not
P. Suppose they were P. D. Did not they believe there was no other substance but of God present in what they worshipped R. P. And what follows P. D. Do you not perceive That to suppose that not to be which really is and that to be which is not doth not excuse from Idolatry R. P. I must talk a little farther with T. G. about this matter But I have another reason yet to charge the Heathens with Idolatry viz. that they forsook the Worship of the Creatour and staid in the Worship of the Creature P. D. Do you mean that they gave him no external Worship or that they gave him no worship at all or do you think any that believed a God gave him no inward worship i. e. no Reverence or esteem suitable to his Excellency R. P. Why do you ask these questions P. D. Because many of the Heathens thought external Worship beneath the excellency of the Supreme God as Dr. St. hath fully shewed from the Testimonies of Porphyrius Numa the Platonists the Mandarins in China and the Ynca's of Peru Is it then Idolatry to deny external Worship to God out of Reverence to his Majesty and to give it to inferiour Beings R. P. It is Idolatry to give all external Worship to his Creatures and to reserve none to himself because some external Worship is due to him P. D. If external Worship be due to God it is not because he needs it but because it is fit for us his Creatures to testifie our subjection to him as our Creatour R. P. Be it so P. D. Ought not that Worship then to be so peculiar to him as to manifest the different esteem we have of the Creatour and his Creatures R. P. Yes P. D. Is it not then an injury to Gods honour to give that Worship which ought to be peculiar to himself to any of his Creatures and that which the Scripture calls Idolatry R. P. But how will you know what external Acts of worship those are which are peculiar to God for therein lyes the great difficulty P. D. Either we suppose God to have revealed his will to mankind or not If not we have the light of Nature and the consent of mankind to direct us if he hath we must consider the Revelation he hath made of his Will in this matter For since God hath the power to determine our duty and he knows best what makes for his honour it is but just and reasonable that we should judge of these things according to his Will What he appoints as due to himself becomes due by his appointment and to give that to another which he hath made due only to himself is without question the giving the worship due to God to his Creatures which is Idolatry Our business therefore is to consider whether God hath appropriated any Acts of worship to himself what those Acts are how far the obligation of them doth extend to us what we find to that purpose in the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles what the sense of the Christian Church hath been concerning them in the best and purest times of it If you can think of any better wayes than these I pray acquaint me with them R. P. I see what you are coming to viz. the appropriate Acts of Divine worship but before we debate that business I have something more yet to say to you about the Heathen Idolatry P. D. What is that R. P. T. G. observes that the Heathens did worship their Gods as sharers with Jupiter in the Divine Power and Authority and upon that account believed them to be truly and properly Gods in whose power it was to bestow those benefits upon them which they desired and they were justly charged with Idolatry by the Fathers for so doing And he observes from T. Godwin in his Roman Antiquities that some were Gods by their own right others only by right of Donation of the former sort were those who were partners in the Government of the world Now saith he to give worship to any other besides God as a sharer with him in it though but in this or that particular will be Idolatry and in this consideration were there no other they might be justly charged with it by the Fathers but in our Church we own God to be the sole Giver of every good and perfect gift and make our addresses to Angels and Saints as his Ministers and Servants not to obtain of them the benefits we desire but of God alone by their intercession through his only Son and our only Redeemer Jesus Christ as the Council of Trent hath declared P. D. Here are two things to be cleared 1. How far the Heathens did make other Gods sharers with the Supreme in the Government of the World 2. How far your opinion and practice differ from theirs 1. How far the Heathens did make other Gods sharers with the Supreme in the Government of the World For which we are to consider a double Hypothesis which was received among the Heathens First Of those who worshipped the same God under several names and titles with respect to particular powers which Dr. St. proved from Plotinus Plutarch Apuleius and your own Simon Majolus who on this account commends the Poetick Theology beyond that of Pythagoras and Socrates And this hypothesis S. Augustin takes particular notice of viz. that the same God was Jupiter above Juno in the Air Neptune in the Sea and in the bottom of it Salacia Pluto upon Earth Proserpina under it Vesta in the Hearth Vulcan in the Forge Apollo in Oracles Mercury in Trade Mars in War Ceres in Corn Diana in the Woods Minerva among Wits with many more which he reckons up and then concludes that all these Gods and Goddesses are but one Jupiter or the several parts and powers of the same God and this he saith was the opinion of many learned and great men among them Quae sententia velut magnorum multorumque Doctorum est All these made no sharers in Divinity by believing them to be truely and properly Gods but only different titles and powers of the same God Secondly There was another hypothesis more general than this viz. of one Supreme God and many inferiour who were imployed by him Of which you may remember the words of Tertullian that the greatest part asserted the Supreme Power to be in one and the subordinate Offices to be in many And Orosius saith that both the Philosophers and common Heathens did believe one God the Author of all things but under this God they worshipped many inferiour and subservient Gods In the Council of Carthage under Cyprian Saturninus a Tucca who was both a Bishop and Confessor saith that the Heathen Idolaters did acknowledge and confess the Supreme God Father and Creator And this was so known a thing that Faustus the Manichee charged the Christians with being of the same faith with the Pagans as to one Supreme God
but those you give to Images and Saints are R. P. I see the weight of this whole debate lies at last upon this determination of circumstances but how comes the Dr. after all the great bustle he makes about Gods appropriating external acts of worship to himself to put the trial of his cause at last upon the determination of circumstances P. D. What other way should the difference of moral actions be tried What incongruity is there between Gods appropriating acts of religious worship to himself and the finding out what those acts are by the circumstances Is it not thus in the other Commandments God in general forbids Murder Theft and Adultery but are not those prohibited acts to be judged by the circumstances For there is the same substance of the act in and unlawful actions If a man kills another by chance or out of malice if a man takes away another mans goods with his consent or without it is the same act as to its substance and what discrimination can be made but by the circumstances and therefore I cannot but wonder to hear you object against this or think it any repugnancy to Gods appropriating acts of Divine Worship to himself R. P. How can the nature of such acts be determined wholly by circumstances unless the appropriation of them be taken away for if that continues the Law determines the nature of the acts P. D. Do you not apprehend the difference between the discrimination of acts of civil and religious worship and the appropriation of the latter to God by his Law I say the Law makes them peculiar to God when they are found to be acts of religious worship but the circumstances are to determine whether they are civil or religious acts As all acts of murder are forbidden by Gods Law but whether such an act be murder or no is to be judged by circumstances R. P. But then if the external acts of worship given to Creatures in the Church of Rome chance to prove accompanied with such circumstances by which they may and generally are understood not to be acts of Divine Worship but of inferiour veneration then they are acquitted from the guilt of Idolatry according to the Dr.'s own principles P. D. No such matter unless we suppose those acts to be wholly indifferent and left free by any Divine Law and that it is in the Churches Power to declare what is to pass for divine worship and what for inferiour worship But no particular circumstances can make an act lawful which the Law of God hath made unlawful As suppose the Spartan Common-wealth allow pilfering or taking away Goods from each other without consent of the owners here is one circumstance which goes a great way towards the altering the nature of such actions but if there be an antecedent Law of God which makes such acts unlawful they remain so still notwithstanding the declaration of the Spartan State Just thus it is in the present case your Church declares such Acts of Worship may be lawfully applied to Images and Saints but what then hath your Church the Power to repeal the Law of God if not the acts remain as unlawful as ever notwithstanding the circumstance of such a declaration R. P. But T. G. saith all Dr. St. 's discourse about discrimination of acts of civil and religious worship by circumstances is only a popular discourse and upon enquiry will be found as incoherent and weak as an adversary could wish P. D. I shall not take T. G.'s judgement in this matter for I have not found him so impartial and just that I should submit to his arbitration If you have any thing to object against that discourse I do not question we shall hear of it R. P. First Acts take their nature from the formal reason or account upon which they tend to their objects and from thence they become either civil or religious though they may receive another denomination from the circumstances which do accompany them P. D. I pray consider the thing we enquire after is the difference between Acts of Civil and Religious Worship which Dr. St. saith is to be taken from the circumstances no say you it must be taken from the formal reason or account on which they tend to their objects but the formal reason of acts being secret and invisible the question is whether that be sufficient to put a discrimination between Acts of an external and visible nature as those of civil and religious worship are I will make this plain to you by a noted instance While the Christian Emperors required no more than meer civil worship the Christians made no scruple of giving it to them in the same postures which were used in divine worship but when they suspected that divine worship was required they utterly refused it here we have the same acts as to the substance of them in both cases and yet the Christians could easily discern which did belong to civil and which to religious worship was it from such a reason and intention of the persons which none could know but the doers or else from the circumstances which did make it appear that more than civil worship was required And yet this worship which the Heathens gave to their Emperours was only an inferiour sort of divine worship and so understood by the general consent of the Heathens themselves from whence we gather 1. That the discrimination of acts of civil and divine worship do not depend upon the intention of the Doer but the outward circumstances of them For if it had depended on the inward intention of the person the Christians might have saved their lives and honours by doing the external acts with a different intention and that which was divine worship in him that designed it for such were but civil worship in him that intended no more 2. That the declaration of an inferiour sort of divine worship doth not make it lawful For it could be no otherwise understood by the Christians and yet they refused it as Idolatrous Worship R. P. 2. If the circumstances of time and place and such like do so restrain and limit the signification of external acts that it is easie to discern one worship from another how can you make it out that the people did not give religious worship to David when in a most solemn act of devotion it is said that the people worshipped the Lord and the King where we see the same act at the same time a time of solemn devotion given to God and the King and the People never charged for giving religious worship to the King P. D. T.G. need not have gone so far back for such an argument For the Kings Chaplains in a sacred place and at a solemn time of devotion do bow three times to the King when they enter into the Pulpit and yet who is there imagines they give him divine worship It is not therefore the circumstance of time and place alone which
Dr. St. makes to discriminate civil and religious worship but the concurrence of all circumstances together If I bowed to a Friend at Church is any man so senseless to take this for Idolatry Where there is an antecedent ground for civil worship and respect which is well known and understood among men there is nothing like Idolatry although we do use the same external acts towards men which we use towards God himself As among the Israelites no man doubted that their bowing to the King was upon a quite different account from their bowing to God although they bowed to the King in a place dedicated to divine worship And where the reason of worship is so well understood to be of a quite different nature from that of religious worship that very reason makes a discrimination besides the circumstances of time and place Which I shall make appear from the case of Naaman the Syrian whose bowing in the house of Rimmon was therefore free from Idolatry because of the known custom of paying civil respect every where else to his Prince in that manner and by his publick protestatition against the Idolatrous worship there performed as T. G. shews at large from Dr. H. T. G. therefore very much mistakes Dr. St.'s meaning if he thinks he assigned the discrimination of acts of religious and civil worship barely to the circumstances of time and place without taking in the object and reason of worship R. P. But from hence it appears that bowing in the House and Presence of an Idol and in the very time of worship is not Idolatry For then Naaman could not be excused P. D. Where the worship is known to be given not to the Idol but to the Prince to whom it is acknowledged to be due elsewhere Dr. St. never supposed such an act of worship though done in an Idol-temple to be Idolatry R. P. But suppose men should ask a Bishop blessing in a Church and at Prayer-time this is not civil worship and is this Idolatry P. D. Worship may be said to be civil two wayes 1. When it is performed on a meer civil account as it is to Magistrates and Parents 2. When it is performed on the account of a spiritual relation as in the respect shewed to Bishops as spiritual Fathers The worship is of the same kind with that which is shewed to natural Parents but the relation is of another kind on which account it may be called Spiritual Respect but it is in it self an act of civil worship arising upon a moral relation which being of a different nature from that which is between Princes and Subjects and Parents and Children and being founded upon Religious Grounds may be said to be Religious or Spiritual Respect rather than Worship R. P. If the first Christians had upon their knees in time of prayer begged S. James his benediction had this been an unlawful Act of Worship P. D. If they were upon their knees in prayer to God I think it was a very unseasonable time to ask their Bishop blessing although the act in it self were lawful R. P. But is not this an act of the same kind with that of invocation of Saints in times and places of Divine Worship when we only pray to them to pray for us P. D. I say again that is not all You do for you own their Patronage Protection and Power to help you in your necessities and your Prayers must be understood according to your Doctrines But suppose you did only pray to them to pray for you yet 1. You do it with all the solemnity of Divine Worship in the publick Litanies of the Church when you are in the posture of your greatest Devotion And the Angel rebuked no less man than St. John for using the posture of Divine Adoration to him 2. In kneeling to a Bishop to pray for us we suppose nothing that encroaches upon the Divine excellencies for we are certain he hears and understands us and we desire nothing from him but what is in his power to do and is very fitting for us to request from him But when you pray to Saints you can have no possible assurance that they do or can hear what you say to them and so it is a foolish and unreasonable worship and when you do it with the same external Acts of Devotion which you use to the Divine Majesty you take away that peculiarity of Divine Worship which is due to God by reason of his incommunicable excellencies and so it is superstitious and idolatrous Worship these two wayes 1. As it supposes as great excellencies in Creatures as those did who for that reason were charged with Idolatry I do not meddle with the possibility of an intelligent being disunited from matter 's hearing at such a distance as the Saints are supposed to be from us nor whether God may not communicate such knowledge to them but that which I insist on is this I find those charged with Idolatry not only in Scripture and the Fathers but by the Church of Rome it self who professed to worship some inferiour Spirits as Mediators between God and men and such Mediators as were never imagined to be Mediators of Redemption but barely of Intercession as being believed to carry up the prayers of men and to bring down help from above Now here is no Omnisciency or Omnipotency or other incommunicable excellency attributed to these Spirits and all the addresses made to them was under the notion of Mediators to intercede for them i. e. to pray to them to pray for them and yet these were charged with flat Idolatry It were easie to make it appear from unquestionable testimonies that the Heathen Idolaters did worship inferiour spirits only as Mediators as Apuleius expresses it inter caelicolas terricolasque vectores hinc preeum inde donorum wherein he only interprets Plato's sense and that this was one of the most common and universal kinds of Idolatry and therefore I would fain know why they must be charged with Idolatry and you escape Either be just to them and vindicate the Heathen Worship or else you must condemn your own 2. T. G. confesses that by the Law of Nature there ought to be some peculiar external Acts appropriated to the worship of God as most agreeable to his incommunicable excellency now among all mankind no one external Act of Worship hath been supposed more peculiar to the Divine Nature than solemn Invocation in places and times appropriated to Divine Worship but the Invocation practised in the Roman Church hath all the solemnity and circumstances of Divine Worship and therefore it is robbing God of the peculiar Acts of his Worship which is Idolatry And he must be very dull indeed who cannot distinguish this Invocation from a casual or accidental meeting with a Bishop at Church and kissing the hem of his Garment or asking his Benediction on ones knees R. P. But where there are different objects in themselves and
you must own this for a true Christian Principle R. P. But we declare our meaning in those which Dr. St. calls appropriate Acts of Divine worship when we apply them to any creatures to be only to use them as tokens of inferiour respect and Veneration as Invocation Building of Temples and Altars burning of Incense making of Vows c. But that which God hath forbidden is that we shall not use them to any besides himself as tokens of that inward submission of our souls which is proper to him P. D. Did not you say that the Appropriation of these Acts by the Law of Moses being taken away by the ceasing of that Law they are now to be looked on as indifferent Rites and Ceremonies R. P. And what then P. D. Did that Law cease at the coming of Christ that those Acts were to be used only to God as tokens of that inward submission which is proper to him R. P. No that doth never cease P. D. But this you say was the sense in which God did appropriate them to himself and therefore the Appropriation doth still continue R. P. I suppose T. G.'s meaning is that the appropriation before extended to them as tokens of inferiour respect and veneration which Law ceasing it is now lawful to use them in that sense P. D. Then these Acts under the Law were forbidden in that sense whatsoever profession or declaration were made by those that used them As suppose that the Jews had invocated Saints and Angels in their Temple or Synagogues and worshipped Images just as you do and made the same professions of their meanings and intentions as your Church doth this had been Idolatry in them but not in you Is this his meaning R. P. I suppose it must be P. D. Then inferiour Religious worship was once Idolatry but it ceased to be so at the coming of Christ. Is not this a rare invention And by this means Christ destroyed Idolatry not by rooting it out but by making that not to be Idolatry which was so before and so he might take away all other sins by making those breaches of the other nine Commandments not to be sins to Christians which were so to the Jews But we have not only the express words of Christ making all Religious worship of a Creature unlawful against this invention but the Doctrine of the Apostles who charged the Gentiles with Idolatry without regarding this distinction who were not under the Law of Moses and the Consent of the Christian Church which judged this inferiour Religious Worship to be Idolatry still And if this be all you have to say it is impossible to clear your selves from the charge of Idolatry notwithstanding all your meanings and intentions R. P. I have one thing yet more to say viz. that Christ appropriates the Titles of Good Father and Master to God and yet we apply them to men in a different sense and why may we not do the same in equivocal Acts of Worship P. D. Our Saviour's design was to deter men from assuming or affecting such titles of excellency superiority or Authority over others in teaching as seemed to encroach too much on the divine perfections but this holds much more against the pretence of infallibility in any person than for the lawfulness of inferiour Religious worship For Christ never forbids the common use of those titles among men when they have no respect to Divine Matters no more than he doth the Acts of Civil worship in men towards Magistrates or Parents and thus far the parallel is good as to Words and Actions but as Christ doth forbid the affectation of Infallibility though of an inferiour sort under the titles of Rabbi Father and Master so he doth likewise all inferiour sort of Religious worship when he saith Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve And therefore the equivocation which lyes in mens power to determine is not that of the degrees of Religious worship but of the acts of Civil and Religious worship But if it be lawful to apply the signification of external Acts of worship to higher or lower degrees why may ye not do the same as to Sacrifice as well as Invocation c. R. P. This is a scruple which hath troubled the Doctours notions from the beginning But T. G. gives two answers to it 1. That Sacrifice in general is both by the custom of the Church and the consent of all mankind as S. Augustine teaches appropriated to signifie the absolute worship due only to God 2. For the particular sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ the nature and dignity thereof requireth that it be offered to God alone P. D. I am sorry to see you dissemble the force of the Doctours argument when you pretend to give an answer to it For he saith that S. Augustine joyns adoration and Sacrifice together as appropriated to signifie the worship peculiar to God How then saith Dr. St. comes S. Augustines Authority to be quitted for the one and so greedily embraced for the other What doth T. G. answer to that R. P. I do not find he takes notice of S. Augustine for any thing more than the consent of mankind about Sacrifice P. D. Was it not wisely done and then to talk a great deal about the remainder of the Doctours Discourse whether sacrifice of it self doth signifie absolute worship more than adoration without taking notice that S. Augustine joyned them together though the Church of Rome separates them And T. G. gives no manner of reason why the antecedent consent of mankind as to one of these should not prevail in your Church as well as in the other which is the main ground according to T. G. why sacrifice ought still to be appropriated to the peculiar Worship of God R. P. What advantage doth the Doctor get by insisting so much on that question why Sacrifice may not be offered to Creatures as well as other external Acts of Worship for he can only infer from thence that in such case the Church of Rome might possibly have no external act of Worship appropriated to God if she have none but Sacrifice but whilest she hath no such custom de facto as offering Sacrifice to Saints and Images 't is manifest he cannot accuse them in that point of having no external Act of Worship proper to God or of giving it to any besides him P. D. It was to very good purpose that he insisted on that question on these accounts 1. Because either it is in the power of the Church to appoint appropriate Acts of Divine Worship or it is not If it be in the Churches Power then sacrifice may be as lawfully offered to the B. Virgin if the Church think fit as prayers and invocations notwithstanding the general consent of mankind in appropriating Sacrifice to God If not then there is some antecedent reason why some external Acts of Worship are
appropriated to the absolute worship of God if so then all such Acts are appropriated where the same reason holds whether it be Divine Institution or the consent of mankind in general or of the Fathers of the Christian Church and consequently though the Church of Rome may reserve Sacrifice to God as peculiar to him yet they may give other acts of Divine worship to his Creatures which have the same reason to be appropriated which Sacrifice it self hath 2. Because though in words they seem to appropriate Sacrifice to God as a peculiar act of external worship yet they do in effect overthrow it by these two assertions 1. That its peculiarity is not as being an Act of Adoration but upon another account as a significant Ceremony of our total subjection to God And this was that which Dr. St. charged your Divines with that they reserve no one Act of external adoration as proper to God and that they say that Sacrifice doth not naturally signifie any worship of God but only by the imposition of men So that your Divines confess there is no natural Act of Divine worship no external Act of Adoration which is reserved as peculiar to God but only an outward Ceremony which doth not of it self signifie the worship of God nor our subjection to him But solemn Prayers and Praises do of themselves signifie our dependence on God and therefore have an antecedent reason to the consent of mankind why they should be appropriated to the worship of God 2. That even Sacrifice is allowed by the Roman Church to be offered for the honour of Creatures which Dr. St. saith is joyning Creatures together with God in the honour of Sacrifice and if Sacrifice be so appropriate to the honour of God that it cannot signifie any thing else then it is nonsense to sacrifice to God for the honour of another if it may signifie any thing else and be so used in the Church of Rome then you do not reserve so much as sacrifice for an appropriate sign of the absolute Worship of God R. P. To what miserable shifts saith T. G. are men put when they would have such trivial kind of arguing as this to pass for solid reasoning and it must be a hard world when a man of the Doctours abilities must be forced to feign that he doth not know how the same Sacrifice may be a propitiation for sins and a thanksgiving for benefits especially the Sacrifice of the Altar being the same with that of the Cross in which all the differences of the legal Sacrifices were fulfilled P. D. It is a hard world indeed when such stuff as this must pass for answering Dr. St. never denyed that thanksgivings might be offered to God in the time of most solemn Worship for the Graces of his Saints nor that the circumstances of Divine worship might redound to their Honour as the Primitive Christians offering up their devotions to God at their Sepulchres but the question is whether it be consistent with the appropriation of Sacrifice to the Honour of God to offer it up for the Honour of his Creatures especially the Sacrifice of the Altar i. e. the Son of God as a propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and the dead R. P. Why may not we say We offer this Sacrifice to God in the honour of S. Michael to testifie our application of it in thanksgiving for the favours and Graces bestowed on him P. D. I pray consider 1. You say that Sacrifice in your Church is appropriated to the Honour of God 2. That Sacrifice doth not signifie the Worship of God of it self but by institution or consent of mankind 3. Then the intention of Sacrifice is to signifie that Honour which is peculiar to God Now how can it signifie the Honour due only to God if it may signifie the honour due to his Creatures R. P. Is it not for the honour of a Person to praise God for him and Sacrificing being the offer of a present in token of gratitude doth that diminish or add to the Act of thanksgiving And if it be a greater declaration of thanksgiving it must consequently be a greater declaration also of the honour of the Person for whom it is offered P. D. It is one thing to make the Graces of Saints an occasion of Thanksgiving to God and another to offer up a Sacrifice for the honour of the Saints as it is expressed in the Offertory In the former case there is no question but the Honour is designed wholly to God as the Giver of those Graces although a consequential Honour doth redound thereby to the Saints themselves but in the latter case the intended and designed Honour of the very Act it self is declared to be to the Saints as well as to God himself If a Courtier gives the King solemn thanks for great kindness shewed to one of his Subjects the honour of the Action belongs wholly to the King although occasionally and consequentially it redound to the reputation of the Person for whom it is done but if a Courtier on New years day should make a present to the King upon his Knees and say I offer this New years gift to your Majesty in honour of your Majesty and of the Groom of your Stole or Chamberlain of your Houshold c. how do you think this would be taken at Court And yet this is just the Form of the Offertory in your Missal We make this Oblation to thee O Holy Trinity and for the honour of the Blessed Virgin and all Saints can any one say that this is not the designed and intended honour which belongs to the Act it self and not meerly that which is occasional and consequential If those who offered Cakes to the B. Virgin had said We offer these Cakes to the honour of the Blessed Trinity and the Virgin Mary had not this been joyning them together in the honour of those oblations And is it not the same case here Besides you are guilty of a greater absurdity for those might be only Eucharistical oblations but in your Sacrifice of the Mass you pretend to make a present you say to God but what is it nothing less than his own Son if your doctrine be true And for what end to be a propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and the dead And is this indeed the present you make to Almighty God in honour of his Saints I cannot with patience think of the absurdities which follow from hence For how came you to make a Present to God of his own Son When we make a Present to any one it is understood to be of something in our power to bestow and which we are willing to part with for his sake to whom we offer it Do you indeed in this sense make a Present of the Son of God to the Father Have you the power of bestowing him in your hands And are you willing to part with your whole right and interest in
say If Christ be the Sacrifice he must be slain again at every Mass as he was once on the Cross or you can assign no destruction which you say is necessary to such a true and proper Sacrifice R. P. Do not you observe T. G.'s words that Christ is whole under either species and his Blood separated from his Body not really but Mystically only and in representation P. D. How is that Whole Christ under the bread and whole Christ under the wine and the blood separated from the Body not really but mystically only and by representation This is admirable stuff and true Mystical Divinity If the body of Christ doth remain whole and entire where is the true proper Sacrifice where is the change made if not in the Body of Christ if that be uncapable of a change how can it be a true and proper Sacrifice If the blood be not really separated from the Body where is the mactation which must be in a propitiatory Sacrifice If Christ do remain whole and entire after all the Sacrificial Acts where I say is the true and proper Sacrifice T. G. had far better said and more agreeably to Scripture Antiquity and Reason that there is no real and proper sacrifice on the Altar but only mystical and by representation R. P. But T. G. saith that Religion which admits no external visible Sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the publick worship of God P. D. I pray remember it is an external and visible Sacrifice which you contend for and now tell me where it is in your Church Doth it lye in the mimical gestures of the Priest at the Altar in imitation of Christ on the Cross If that be it the necessary consumption of the Sacrifice will be no comfortable doctrine to the Priest Doth it lye in the consecration of the Elements which are visible But you say the essence of the Sacrifice consists in the change and we can see no visible change made in them and therefore there is no external and visible Sacrifice Besides if the Sacrifice did lye in the change of the Elements after Consecration into the Body of Christ then the Elements are the thing sacrificed and not the Body of Christ for the destructive change is as to the elements and not as to the Body of Christ. Or doth it lye in the swallowing down and consumption of the species after Consecration by the Priest But here likewise the change is in the accidents and not in the Body of Christ which remains whole and entire though the species be consumed and I think there is some difference between changing ones seat and being sacrificed For all that the Body of Christ is pretended to be changed in is only its being no longer under the species but T. G. I suppose will allow it to be whole and entire still Doth it then lye in pronouncing the words of consecration upon which the Body of Christ is under the species of Bread and the Blood under that of Wine and so separated from the Body But this can least of all be since T. G. assures us that whole Christ is under the Bread as well as under the Wine and so there cannot be so much as a moment of real separation between them and we know how necessary for other purposes the doctrine of Concomitancy is Tell me then where is your external and visible Sacrifice which you boast so much of since according to your own principles there is nothing that belongs to the essence of a sacrifice is external and visible and consequently your own Church labours under the defect T. G. complains of R. P. But what makes Dr. St. so bitter against the Sacrifice of the Altar since the most true and genuine Sons of the Church of England do allow it as Mr. Thorndike Dr. Heylin and Bishop Andrews and doth not this rather look like betraying the Church of England than defending it P. D. I see now you are wheeling about to your first Post and therefore it is time to give you a space of breathing Your great business is to set us at variance among our selves but you have hitherto failed in your attempts and I hope will do I do not think any two or three men though never so learned make the Church of England her sense is to be seen in the Publick Acts and Offices belonging to it And in the Articles to which T. G. sometimes appeals your Sacrifices on the Altar are called blasphemous Figments and dangerous Impostures But as to these three persons I answer thus 1. Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed already declares against the true proper Sacrifice defined by the Council of Trent as an innovation and a contradiction And that which he pleads for is that the Eucharist is a commemorative and representative Sacrifice about which Dr. St. would never contend with him or any one else and immediately after the words cited by T. G. he adds these It is therefore enough that the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is represented renewed revived and restored by it and as every representation is said to be the same thing with that which it representeth 2. Pet. Heylins words are expresly only for a commemorative Sacrifice as T. G. himself produces them and therefore I wonder what T. G. meant in citing them at large For he quotes the English Liturgie for the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving and S. Chrysostom calling it the remembrance of a Sacrifice and many of our learned Writers a Commemorative sacrifice What is there in all this in the least repugnant to what Dr. St. had delivered R. P. But he quotes Bishop Andrews saying Take from the Mass your Transubstantiation and we will have no difference with you about the sacrfiice P. D. Bishop Andrews calls the Eucharist a commemorative sacrifice and he saith it was properly Eucharistical or of the nature of peace-offerings concerning which the Law was that he that offered should partake of them and a little after follow those words you mention to which he adds We yield you that there is a remembrance of Christs sacrifice but we shall never yield that your Christ being made of Bread is there sacrificed Which is the very thing that T. G. is so angry with Dr. St. about And have not you bravely proved that Dr. St. hath herein gone against the sense of the genuine Sons of the Church of England If you have any thing yet left which you think material I pray let us have it now for fear lest T. G. make use of it to stuff out another Book R. P. I think we are near the Bottom P. D. So I imagine by the dregs which came last R. P. There is one thing yet left for a close which is Dr. St. saith supposing this sacrifice were allowed yet this doth not prove that we reserve any
same form of words continues still in the Offices as if the oblations of Bread and Wine were still made by the People and so Sirmondus and Bona both say those expressions of the Mass-Book you mention are to be understood of these oblations of the People and not of the Sacrifice of Christs Body And that these oblations were called sacrifices appears by the known passages of S. Cyprian Locuples dives es Dominicum celebrare te credis quae in Dominicum sine sacrificio venis quae partem de sacrificio quod pauper obtulit sumis In which he blames the rich women that came without an Oblation which he calls a sacrifice and did partake of that which the poor offered which S. Augustin calls de aliena oblatione communicare and therefore he bids all Communicants to make their own oblations at the Altar But suppose these expressions were not to be understood of the oblations of the people as it is certain the prayers called Secretae and the first part of the Canon of the Mass are yet it was not fairly done of T. G. to leave out a very significant word which immediately followed viz. laudis qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis If the People be allowed their share in the Eucharistical Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving what is this to their offering up the proper propitiatory sacrifice of the Body of Christ I do not deny that the People had a share in the sacrifice according to the sense of Antiquity not only from their oblations but because as Cassander well observes the Ancients did call the whole Eucharistical Office as it took in the Peoples part as well as the Priests by the name of a sacrifice and so the Oblations Prayers Thanksgivings Consecration Commemoration Distribution Participation did all belong to the sacrifice But since you restrain the true and proper sacrifice to the oblation of the Body of Christ to God by the Priest Dr. St. had reason to say that the sacrifice among you belongs to the Priests and is not an external Act of Worship common to all And so according to the sense you put on the Mass-Book you leave no one Act of peculiar external worship appropriated to God which is to be performed by all Christians which was the thing to be proved THE END Books Printed for and Sold by Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster-Hall A Rational account of the grounds of Protestant Religion being a Vindication of the Lord-Archbishop of Canterbury's Relation of a Conference c. from the pretended Answer of T. C. Folio Sermons preached upon several occasions with a Discourse annexed concerning the true reasons of the Sufferings of Christ wherein Crellius's Answer to Grotius is considered Folio Irenicum A Weapon-Salve for the Churches wounds in Quarto Origines Sacrae or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scriptures and matters therein contained Quarto A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the Communion of it in Answer to some Papers of a revolred Protestant wherein a particular account is given of the Fanaticisms and Divisions of that Church Octavo An Answer to several late Treatises occasioned by a Book entituled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the hazard of Salvation in the communion of it the first Part Octovo A second Discourse in vindication of the Protestant grounds of Faith against the pretence of Infallibility in the Roman Church in Answer to the Guide in Controversie by R. H. Protestancy without Principles and Reason and Religion or the certain Rule of Faith by E. W. with a particular enquiry into the Miracles of the Roman Church Octavo An Answer to Mr. Cressey's Epistle Apologetical to a person of Honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet Octavo A Defence of the Discourse concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in Answer to a Book entituled Catholicks no Idolaters all written by Edward Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The Rule of faith or an Answer to the Treatise of Mr. I. S. Entituled Sure Footing c. by John Tillotson D. D. Preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn To which is adjoyned a Reply to Mr. I. S. his third Appendix c. by Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. Dean of St. Pauls and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The Antiquities of Nottinghamshire Extracted out of Records Original Evidences Lieger Books other Manuscripts and Authentick Authorities beautified with Maps Prospects and Portraictures by Robert Thoroton Dr. of Physick Folio FINIS Dial p. 13. p. 10. Cath. no Idol p. 197. Dial. p. 62. Preface to Cath. no Idol Dial. p. 9. Dial. p. 15. Dial. p. 17. Cypr. Anglic p 364. 1 Ed. P. 3â— Necessary Introd to the History of B. Laud. p. 14. Conference with Fisher. p. 277. History of his Tryal p. 472. Cypr. Angl. p. 435· Dial. p. 28. Dial. p. 19. Cypr. Angl. p. 418. Dial. p. 21. Hincmar de praedest c. 31. Lanfranc de Corp. Sang. Christ. c. 4. Guitm de sacr l. 1. Cajet in Aquin. 3. p. q. 75. art 1. 2. â— Aq. 4. dist 44. q. 2. ar 2. Conink de sacr qu. 75. art 3. Maerat de sacr disp 24. sect 1. Lugo de Sacram. disp 5. §. 1. Suarez in 3. p. disp 48. art 1 §. 4. Gamach iâ— 3. p. qu. 76. c. 4. Ysambert qu. 75. disp 3. art 8. Vasq. in 3. p. disp 109. c. 4. art 6. p. 28. Dial. p. 25 27. Cypr. Angl. p. 48.1 ed. P. 66. Dial. p. 30. to 33. Laws of the Ch. Ch. 4. p. 30. Dial. p. 42. c. Cypr. Angl. p. 62. Cypr. Angl. p. 189. Dial. p. 46 47 c. Dial. p. â—7 Dial. p. 49. Prodr p. 76. B. Andrews Resp. ad Apolog. Bell. p. 37. compared with Burâ—â—il Deâ—ens Respons ad Apolog. c. 6. q. 21. B. Sanders Preface to his Serm. §. 15. De obligat cons. prael 4. §. 33. Dial. p. 51 c. P. 63. Dial. p. 52. P. 160. P. 162. Dial. p. 59 60 61. Dial. p. 53 54. P. 56. Defence p. 581. Joh. Rosin vit â—â—ed sapient Dial. p. 141 c. Dial. p. 132. Dial. p. 133 134. Pontificale Rom. de ordinat Presbyt Concil Trident. Sess. 23. c. 4. Dial. p. 143. Dial. p. 151 c. P. 155. P. 157. Scot. in sâ—nt l. 4. dist 4. q. 9. Biel. in Sâ—nt q. 2. Cajet in 3. p. q. 63. art 1. Morin de Ordin part 3. Exercit. 3. c. 1. â— 4. Alex. Al. 4. p. q. 8. memb 5. art 1. §. 6. ad 2. Scot. in 4. dist 25. q. 1. resp ad 3. Morin ib. exerc 5. c. 9. n. 12 13. Grat. 1. q. 1. post can 97. Gul. Paâ—is de Sacr. Ord. c. 7. Morin de Ord. Sacr. p.