is no traditional Revelation or that God has used fraud or that his scribes have been unsincere with us because there are some divine Revelations written or again that there is no external infallible proponent or obliging Authority as to matter of faith and manners necessary because every one is an infallible proponent to himself and can use his best endeavours to discern the true sense of Scripture in necessaries to Salvation or also that the Church of Rome is not the Catholick Church nor any sound part thereof because the true believer must sinceâ—ely endeavour to discover the true meaning of written Revelations according to the intention of Gods holy Spirit if I say these of such like discourses of the Dr be first principles we need not fear begging the question in any discourse whatsoever But I purpose not here Sir to give you a special report either of the Drs. account of our Calick Religion or of his Principles of his own intending not to exceed the limits of a preliminary Epistle or to forestall your TO KATHOLIKO or the labours of others who have already entred the field or perhaps will hereafter appear there to help on the Doctors Itch of writing against the Roman Church or for his own as he makes it his Profession though to as little purpose as if he had forbid his beard to grow or the Sun to walk his usual rounds for God will preserve the work of his own hands should the Dr. scribble or babble till his dooms-day However it will be worth the while if he thinks his cause deserves it to consider his own contradictions his own Fanaticism his misrepresentations of our Catholick Devotions of our dâ—ctrine of repentance and Indulgences his Principles considered aâ—d this your Friends KATHOLIKO TO wherein he may find diversion enough for the exâ—â—cising his truth discerning faculty and sober enquiry And since he now has so notoriously injured the Catholick Church by Infamations and Novelties and has confidently provoked the Doctors therof to appear in the Field We may in all justice expect he will not as hitherto set guards upon all approaches nor shall be then want wherewith to employ his admirable talents in those his dear Fields which lay so open for himself to ramble in Now Sir as for any Answer to these our Reply's you must be sure to arm your self with a large store of Resignation either to be told by the Doctor of his many more important employments abroad and necessary Occupations at home for propagating the Gospel or to hear of some new disperate Piece against Popery which some considerable Person expects from him or that he is sick of some disease much like Demosthenes his Quinsie for 't is usual with Persons of his opportunities in this case still to answer besides the purpose nor to heed whatever has been often said unto them but ever to crow and caper as if each of them were a Conqueror so true is it That although thou shouldest bray a Fool in a Morter amongst Wheat with a Pestell yet will not his foolishness depart from Him So unwilling to detain You any longer from the perusal of this your KATHOLIKON I remain SIR Your devoted Servant J. C. June 25. 1672. TO THE READER Courteous Reader FOr preventing mistakes thou art desired to take Notice that some few Copies of J. V. C. his Third Letter speaking to the pretended Fanaticism and Divisions of the Church of Rome stole abroad without either the review or allowance of the publisher and therfore they are not owned as the true and genuine Work of that Author that which is here presented unto Thee together with his first Epistle which refutes Image Idolatry imputed to that Church formerly Printed now reprinted with addition and likewise his Second Letter replying to Dr. Stilling fleets Host Idolatry and Saint Idolatry and also to his Hindrances of good Life and Devotion Which make the whole Posthume Work of that Worthy Author answering to that Doctors Account Most considerable Errata Corrected Image Idolatry Page 20. Line 13. Beades Host Idolatry â— Pag. 30. lin 8. do take pag. 37. l. 5. for all Hindrances c. Pag. 14. l. 22. he may not Pag. 18. l. 8 how the Sacraâ—ents p. 19. l. 23. oft no waies Fanaticism Pag. 11. lin 11. propagation pag. 12. l. 9. peace and. p. 23. Acab p. 16. l. 18. Feast of the. ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ Stillingfleeton THe Book Sir which taken up with better affairs you sent unto me that I might after I had read it over draw an Abridgment of it for you with my own thoughts super-added in the close by way of a short Comment thereon is the second production as it seems of Doctor Stillingfleet against Popery Less displeasing it is I think to a Reader and nothing so tiresome as some other Books which have issued forth on that Side against the ways of Catholick Religion For there is some Truth in his Citations a seasoning of Salt and comical Wittiness sprinkled all over and no such thick gross venom of maliciousness wherewith other Books of that kind are overcharged appearing though much of it lie hid throughout his Book Indeed he perverts all things by his various subtilty But that is no more but what his own fame and interest here principally aimed at would require And we must give him leave to deride also and play and sport himself in his Book as a Leviathan in his own waters It is his pastiâ—ue and pleasure and a sweetness esteemed perhaps necessary to his life And who would be so ill-natur'd as to envy it him Besides it is a pretty piece of Rhetorick both fit and very efficacious to create in his Protestant Readers an opinion of his unerring confidence which is the one great end of his Labours And if we be thus kind he will in recompence of that our civility give leave I suppose to Catholicks who see him so jocund and supinely careless in his errors thence to conclude the strange inconsiderate security of the merry man But we must know Sir that this his elaborate Book against the Church of Rome as he speaks although it be his second yet is it not intended to be his last For If Catholicks have any thing to say quoth he either against our Church or in defence of their own let them come into the open Field from whence they have of late so wisely withdrawn themselvs finding so little success in it Thus he speaks in his Preface threatning if I understand him right another Knocker as stout a one as this can be if any one dare to appear against him or say so much as Boh to a Goose And these words of his import I think a Challenge called commonly a Defiance which Catholicks as soon as they had read thought it as much their duty as it sounded to be the Doctors desire to fit their Slings unto their Arms and meet him But the thing proved alas to be but a Copy of
as those related by S. Gregory and S. Bede to prove purgatory appearances of a child to prove transubstantiation of a black man blotting sins out of a book when a thief did pennance to prove confession Very good Then were not those parcels of faith brought in by those visions And a whimsical proof by any Minister to declare and justifie his text does not infer that divine text to be therefore Enthusiasm He told us before like a Doctor that fanaticism was some new enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under pretence of it Where is all this here Is fanaticism now some other thing nothing but a weak proof whether Dr. Still himself hath ever used in his Sermons any such proof as this is when he hath discoursed of the souls superviving after this life ended I cannot tell But I am confident that if he hath he did not therefore think himself a fanatick nor yet any others who heard him speak it I should if he had either reason or apparition for any thing he utters in this Book of his think the better both of him and it The best is that all these apparitions here related were first written by venerable and grave men whose words are of greater authority than Stillingfleet-derisions § 6. They not onely prove Doctrines bus even define things meerly by private revelations Do they so What are these things so defined What is the reason he changes his phrase and says not as we might have expected he should that they not onely prove doctrines that were before but define doctrines also upon private revelations He is wary in this and calls them things not doctrines But yet hopes still that his Reader will so understand as if they defined doctrines as well as proved them upon private revelations He has a multitude of these little tricks which I must let pass But what things do they define Let us hear them Pope Vrban the fourth determined the festival of corpus Christi day upon a revelation made to some Nuns in Leeds Pope Boniface the feast of the archangel Michael upon another made to the Bishop of Siponto And why saith he should we be told of fanaticism so often Do we found our religion upon any such visions Here we have now the things defined upon private revelations onely a couple of holy days or rather one holy day and one Church built upon a hill and neither of them upon private revelations The appearance of an Angel which caused the building of the Church was solemn and publick But corpus Christi day was instituted apart or rather transferred from Maunday thursday in holy week untill the Paschal festival were ended because in the holy week other affairs of piety towards the passion of our Lord unknown to Dr. Stillingfleet do so take up all that time that people cannot then sufficiently celebrate the institution of the Eucharist as they would and ought to do This is the known reason why corpus Christi day was instituted to be kept apart the thursday after Trinity And if some Nuns had any vision that so it ought to be what then It onely follows hence that the vision they had proved true and not that any part of Catholick religion was built upon such visions For all the religion or faith that is in this business was before that institution of the holy day A circumstance of time or place for the exercise of religion though it be defined is not to define religion it self The real presence or corpus Christi was believed and loved and reverenced long before Pope Urban and the Angels of God honoured before Pope Boniface was born Why saith Mr. Still should we hear so often of fanaticism Do we found our religion upon any such visions And who gentle Doctor does found any relgion upon them Do you call the building of a Church or institution of a holy day a founding of religion And who tells you so often of fanaticism You cast it indeed upon one another here in England Presbyterians Anabaptists and other such like I know no body else who tell you of it But if you will have me speak what I now think all the whole protestant reformation is fanaticism to me even in the most rigorous and strictest sense § 7. Their religious orders even the chief among them Benedictins Carthusians Dominians Franciscans and Jesuits were all instituted by enthusiastick persons upon the credit of their visions and revelations so much hath fanaticism contributed to their support Now this man blows upon us a little more nearly than hitherto and yet he blasts but his own soul thereby For first the Catholick Church is truly and properly supported by Jesus Christ her founder and divine Master Then by the innocence purity and powerfulness of her faith Next to this by the care and vigilancy of Apostles venerable Bishops and holy Priests who made unblameable thereby in themselves are industrious to teach and exhort and see this holy religion observed and put in practise by others committed to their charge And then also by religious people and all those good Christians who do earnestly heed those heavenly dictates of our Lord to fulfill them so distributing the time of this their short life that now they practise one good thing and then another as occasion offers till all justice be fulfilled keeping themselves unspotted of the world So that religious people do no otherways support the Church but by their studious observance of her holy laws and counsels unless the venerable Bishops do call forth some virtuous choice men amongst them for their help This is most certain Secondly no less certain it is that the founders of religious orders were both pious and wise persons and several ways proved to be so by their miraculous and innocent lives before their rule was allowed of Nor were any of them accepted as this man speaks of by the credit of their own visions Thirdly although the Benedictins and others here mentioned were very eminently religious in the West part of the Church Yet it is not so certain that they are the chief of all religious that either are or have been in Church in any place or age Very eminent were the orders founded by St. Austin that venerable Doctor and Bishop in Africa the Monks of St. Martin a Bishop in France those of St. Malachy in Ireland the religious of St. Basil of St. Pacomius of Cassianus St. Jerom and several others in the East and South part of the Church Very eminent without all doubt were those many religious Societies whom St. Jerom and others testifie to have spread themselves all over Syria Armenia Persia Ethiopia Asia and all the northern parts even amongst the Goths and Dacians before the fourth age of the Christian Church Very eminent were the religious institutes which were all over the countrey we now inhabit in the Britons time long before our forefathers the Saxons came in upon them under the rule of St. Columba
not pretence enough unto some leading men in the Camp to raise a sedition and thereby force Aaron to make them such idols as they were acquainted with in Egypt It is well enough known that by the contagion of those leading men the Camp was ever and anon in such like tumult and ready disposition to apostacy His second reason is because no intimation is made that they fell into heathen idolatry What intimation is given thereof by the Prophet and St. Stephen he takes it seems for no intimation at all When they fell saith he into heathen idolatry mention is made of their Gods as Baal Peor Moloch Remphan but here Aaron is said to make a feast to the Lord As though there were not Egyptian idols as well as Syrian and Osiris and Isis as well as Moloch and Remphan And a feast made in honour of this their new God and Religion might well be said a feast to the Lord. It was a policy in Aaron thus to speak that the common people might not suddainly discern the alteration And we may easily believe that the leading men who brought him by perswasion and force unto this apostacy suggested the said stratagem first to get the people more universally on their side without commotion and then to put something into their mouths for to say to Moses if he should chance to come upon them suddainly and take them beyond expectation in the fact For that it was a meer pretence of policy is evident by this that they gave to Moses no such account of any feast made unto their antient true God and secondly because their principal Leaders had no purpose to make any for they had now forgot and put away their own true God and cast him out of their mind as holy text speaks obliti sunt Dei sui The Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel were only to keep the People from going up to Jerusalem and not to bring them to any idolatry of the hearthens Here is another excuse for Jeroboam and his peccadillo Who would not take Mr. Stillingfleet to be a very charitable man who can cover such a multitude of sins and yet is it all no other but a secret prodigious malice against Catholicks who must bear the more and hear the worse for it Jeroboam saith he did not alter the divine worship or give any occasion of idolatry No no. He only kept the People saith he from going up to Jerusalem whither they used once a year to resort And this could be no such great matter since they had the same service the same sacrifice and adoration at home But why then is Jeroboam charged with idolatry in holy Scripture as one that had done evil above all that went before him and made him other gods and molten images to provoke God to anger and to cast his own God behind his back 1 Reg. 14. O ho thence we conclude saith our Doctor that an image set up for Gods honor is idolatry as it is among Papists And is not this a pretty nimble leigerdemaine of a slight man First who taught him that Papists set up images for Gods honour I have learned amongst them that they are set up for our incouragement and imitation and for an honourable memory of their holy Martyrs and Apostles But what honour can one of those images be to God none at all I think except indirectly because God is the blessed author of all good whence the said Apostles and Martyrs receiv'd their strength and grace Secondly where does this confident man find that Jeroboam set up his images for Gods honour Even no where at all His own boldness is so strong in him that he says what he lâ—st without any ground or occasion at all any where either among sacred writers or prophane Thirdly whence doth he gather his negative word that Jeroboam acted none of the heathen idolatry nor brought the People to it Even from his own confident brain whence he has the other expresly contrary to the testimony of holy Writ which speaks as it were passionatly and very emphatically of his notorious idolatry wherein he did evil above all that were before him wherein he made him other gods and molten Images to provoke God to anger and cast his own God behind his back Can he be justly charged with all this only because he kept the Israelites from going up to Jerusalem and made them do those devotions at home which they were wont to do in that mother Citty Can only change of place suffice for the criminous imputation of idolatry where is the same adoration same rites same sacrifice same Priests and same God Is it possible that the same service and Common-prayer-book read by Ministers of the same kind of London and Highgate be Gods service in one place and idolatry in the other all other things agreing but only the circumstance of place No indeed it is not possible it should be so But it is very possible it should be said so Mr. Stillingfleet here speaks it and speaks it stoutly on his own head even against all Divine authority and upright reason People may sin against ecclesiastical obedience indeed by not coming up to their parochial Church when they are commanded But they cannot only upon that ground be charged with idolatry or making strange gods or casting their own God bâ—hind their back He must be a very passionaâ—e Prelate and extreamly unjust and sinfully injurious who lays that imputation upon people upon no other ground or motive then that one circumstantial neglect of place And yet holy Scripture several times thus charges Jeroboam and puts such a blot upon his scutcheon both for his own idolatry and that into which he induced all the people that he is seldom or never mentioned without his black sirname Jeroboam who made Israel to sin If it were true at least as Mr. Stillingfleet here speaks that Jeroboam and Israels sin were only a circumstance of place and that they and he did in their own tribes but what was done in Jerusalem then must it needs follow that there were in the Temple of Jerusalem such like representations as those Calves set up by Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel and indeed the very same with them And thence we may gather for our learning if this be all true an axiom of great truth and concernment namely that one and the same piece of worship which pleases God in the Catholick Church is an abomination to him in the ways of heresie and schisme The very same thing which in Jerusalem and the tribe of Judah were called Cherubims in Samaria and all the rest of Israel apostatiled from them was but a Calf § 11. Charles the Great a noble Emperor caused Books to be set forth against the Council of Nice where images had been established called Carolin Books and assembled also a Council at Frankford wherein both the said Nicen Council was condemned and all their reasons for images confuted c.