cleave unto false gods and idolatry This law of Moses and purpose of the law is so clear that he must be obstinately blind who sees it not And what does this concern our holy Catholick figures of St. Paul for example or Christ crucified more than Protestant sigures of young Lords and fine Ladies save that the one moves us to the love of moritification prayer patience chastity the other allures us from it the one confirms Religion the other weakens it Besides our holy Pictures are allowed by the Church the others forbidden And this indeed is the only aim of Moses when he forbids the people to make to themselves any graven images whatsoever to themselves that is on their own fancies and upon their own authority For such only were unlawful and not those they were commanded by just authority and allowed to make See saith God by Moses I have called and named Besaleel and I have filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding and all knowledge of all amnner of workmanship to devise cunning works to work in gold and silver and brass and in cutting of stones and in graving of wood to work all manner of workmanship And I have appointed Aholiab with him and in the hearts of all the wise I have put wisdom that they make all that I have commanded And by virtue whereof the said men and others after them move and graved pomgranets and lilies and placed Cherubs upon the Propitiatory between which graven Cherubims God himself gave out his Oracles to Moses as he did aâ—so heal the people by the figure of a Serpent which Moses commanded to be set up So that here is a vast difference betwixt figures graven and set up by authority and those which People make to themselves The one is commanded the other forbidden Aaron's Calf of gold destroyed the people but Moses his Serpent of brass healed them These things are not now said afresh They have been told to Ministers over and again but they are never the better for it Indeed they love not to hear of it because it spoils their sport I add yet withal over and above what is yet said that neither that law of Moses nor any of his Ten Commandments nor any other of his Precepts either ceremonial judicial or moral does any way oblige Christians at all as it comes from Moses who is not our Law-maker or master but ruler and leader of the Jews Nor do we Christians believe that theft adultery homicide or blasphemy is a sin because Moses for bad it but because we have receiv'd from Jesus our own Leg slator who justified Moses law and ratified it in all the said particulars that so it is And it is here to be observed that one of the most solemn laws contained in those two tables that I mean which ordains the seventh day to be kept holy day unto which Moses adjoyns an irrefragable and unchangeable reason namely because God rested that day when he made this visible world beginning his work saith Moses on the Sunday wherin he created light and the Friday following finishing the whole even this law of his most solemn and importunely urged by Moses is annulled and abrogaâ—ed amongst all Christians even from the beginning of Christianity for want of ratification of it from our Lord and Master Jesus who is our Law-maker and Prince And the same thing do I say of this his present Law about figures images and representations of things by sculpture or pencil which was only of temporal concernment to the then present Jews against the danger of idols which then filled the earth and as meer a ceremonial law as the other and equally concerning a ceremony of worship If our own Prelates whom Christ our Lord instituted to oversee his flock should for reasons best known to themselves take from us those little small helps we have by the Images of some of our Ancestors Martyrs Apostles Virgins Confessors then would we be without them and yet not think our selves to lose one jot of our Religion for that But we will not forfeit them for any Law made by Moses except it be established and ratified by our own Law-maker or his Prelates watching over us under our Lord unto our good if Moses should have made any law against them which indeed he did not but only against Heathen-Idols And if any one should endeavour to have or Christian representations to be abolished because he thinks and believes that Moses forbad them then is that Man say I bound to observe all the whole law of Moses as it is literally expressâ—d by him even to the least apex or iota thereoâ— For the authority of a Legislator being the same in all his whole law must oblige equally in all its parts and the distinction then between jadicial moral and ceremonial law signifies nothing seeing that Moses his commands are equally perempâ—ory and press as strongly in the one as in the other This is no imaginary Opinion of mine own but what reason and the Spirit of God moved St. Paul to aver as stoutly in the case of circumcision which is another of Moses Laws as I do here I testifie to every Man saith he who is circumcised that he is bound to keep the whole Law And this must needs be true most certainly true for by observing circumcision because it was commanded by Moses he subjects himself to the Law and Authority of Moses as his Prince and Legislator and consequently is bound to observe him equally in all things which he commands with the same authority and will to be obeyed which is no less then all his whole law And cursed is every one saith the same Apostle who is under the law and continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to fulfil them Although then it should be granted that Moses by his law prohibited all kind of figures and representations even those used by Christians which he did not yet if our Lord ratified it not it does not touch us at all And that he did not renew or ratifie it is sufficiently clear to Protestants because no such law of his is found among the Evangelists and unto Catholicks no less because there is neither Gospel nor Tradition for it And if all men would separate themselves from prejudice which blinds and hardens them in their conceits they might easily believe that neither Christs immediate Disciples nor any Christians that succeeded them after our Lords departure would have either feared or hated the figure of our Lords countenance if by chance they would have met with it But if any one notwithstanding fully perswaded that Moses made a law against all sort of Images and representations should upon that authority of his abolish ours he is bound also upon the same authority to sacrifice an Ox and observe all the whole law in all and every particular under the penalty of sin Since therefore by the order of God and Moses many
never conquered France nor ever gave them any one overthrow in battle And when he was told by a neighbour of this his notorious falshood O quoth he my book two hundred years hence may pass for an authority as good as any that speak otherwise And so I think there may possibly be such impious men who out of their present malice may furnish out a lie to insect posterity in after times But he must be an unconscionable wicked man who can do such a deed § 12. Primitive Christians never used any Images as the learned of the Church of Rome acknowledge He had done well to let us know who are these learned of the Church of Rome But he will not do us that favour And we must still take his word for the judgment of the learned sort always Nay we must believe too that he is ever on the learned sorts side It is indeed unlikely that figures of those holy Persons who first spread our Christianity in the World and made it good both by their lives and death should be frequent in primitive times First because those same figures although they be honourable memories both of their persons and pieties unto whose zeal and goodness we are so much indebted yet are they not so necessarily requisite unto any such purpose but that the Church can be without them Secondly because primitive Christians had not amongst them any such plenty of Artists as we have now a days to make them Thirdly because Pagans would have mis-interpreted the end and meaning of such figures as this our Doctor does in the midst of day light But that in those primitive times there was never any Christian so ill affected towards those pious representations as is Mr. Still appears sufficiently by the testimony of those ancient Doctors who mention incidentally the customs of those primitive times especially about the figure of the Cross which they made continually on their fore-head and breasts as a preservative against evil and kept it all over their houses particularly in their Bed chambers and closets either framed in wood or stone or painted in colours There be notwithstanding the deluge of time which swallows up all things some monuments yet left among us of the respect which those Christians then bore both to the reliques and figures of their Saints The very Chair of St. James the Apostle and first Bishop of Jerusalem Eusebius in the seventh book of his history attests that it was had in great esteem and veneration in all times even to his own days Accordingly S. Clement in his sixth book of apostolical constitutions gives this general testimony of that kind of piety in those primitive Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very relicks saith he of Saints now living with God are not without their veneration Some remainds there be also of an apostolical Council at Antioch gathered out of S. Pamphilus and Origen wherein caution is given both against the Jews malice and Gentile idols by opposing the Images of Jesus and his holy Followers against them both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignatius also that worthy apostolical Prelate the third from St. Peter the Apostle in the Chair at Antioch thus signally speaks of the sign of the Cross in his Epistle to Philadelphia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Prince of this World saith he rejoyces when any one denies the Cross for he knows the confession of the Cross to be his own ruin this is the Standard against his power which so often as he either sees or hears it spoken of he shakes and trembles thus speaks that glorious Prelate The above-named Eusebius testifies also in the same book of his history that he saw even in his time the brazen Statue of our Lord Jesus which was set up in Paneada in Palestin unto his honour by the woman cured by him of the bloody flix so notable for miracles that they were spoke of all the World over This Statue of our Lord when Julian the apostate caused it to be thrown down and his own to be set up in place thereof a strange sodain fire from Heaven consumed the Statue of Julian as Zozomenus in his fist book witnesses And of the same brazen Statue of Christ our Lord write also Theophilact Damascenus and several others And here we may take notice by the way that charity and devotion set up statues to our Lord but apostasy malice pulls them down And whether Doctor Stillingfleet who busies himself so much to cast down the Images of Jesus our Lord and his holy followers would refuse to have his own set up for his great pains either in Guildhall or Cheapside he knows best himself Truly if that were done I do not believe that any of his neighbours or Countreymen would take him then for a Calf of Bethel Of the Images of the Virgin Mary made by St. Luke there is much fame amongst the antient writers in particular Theodorus Simeon Metaphrastes and Nicephorus The last of which does also attest in his second book that the said precious Relick was carried up and down the whole habitable World of Christians who looked upon it with a most greedy and unsatisfied devotion The same Nicephorus adds moreover how Constantius the Son of Constantine translated the Relicks of St. Luke from Thebes of St. Andrew from Achaia and of St. Timothy from Ephesus unto Constantinople with a vast concourse and joy of Christian People and there with all honour and reverential respect inshrined them in a Cathedral Church dedicated to the Apostles Of the Image also of Christ our Lord imprinted by himself in a Handkercher applyed to his own face and sent to King Abagarus who requested his Picture write Evagrius Metaphrastes and otâ—ers Of another Image of Jesus Christ made by Nicodemus which being ignominiously crucified by the Jews wrought many wonderous miracles we have a solemn testimony of Athanasius cited in the fourth action of the seventh great Synod And all this testifies that Christians in primitive times were affected towards holy Pictures and Relicks as Catholicks are at this day at least not such haters and vilifiers of them as is Dr. Stillingfleet Nor can I conceive how any of the learned in the Church of Rome should be ignorant of these things Nay the very Church of England which this Doctor pretends to defend hath lately put the Images of the Apostles and Primitive Saints into their common-prayer-Common-prayer-book and Primers printed by authority So that if the Doctor had opened his eyes he might have seen clear enough that all this talk of his is now unseasonable however it might have passed well enough in the beginning of the furioâ—s reformation when they pulled down all sacred figures and suffered none to be set up either sacred or common When Husbands broke their Wives pictures and Wives their Husbands least they should give ill example to St. Peter and Paul or incourage any of the twelve Apostles to creep up again upon their Walls
the Doctors Countenance quite differing from his heart For the Presses guarded enough before against Catholicks was presently within a month after his Book came forth so stoutly beset so frequently invaded so violently searched night and day especially by the industry of one of them who entring into the Printing-houses cried out aloud And what have ye here any thing against the Doctor Stilling fleet hah that what before was difficil and extreamly dangerous was now become impossible So that I believe no Catholick in England can do him the favour which the Doctor thirsts after so earnestly in his Lips He challenged the Papâ—sts for his Credit and stopt up their way for his Security He would first make the world believe they cannot answer him and then provides that they shall not This seems to be his mind And yet I think Sir there be few Protestant Gentlemen in England who desire not as earnestly as any Catholick to see some Reply to his Book So little do they think themselves concerned in a Scroll which neither defends their Religion nor hurts or touches ours wherein nothing is said but what might as well be spoken by a Mahomet an Jew or Pagan and the most part of that which is put to disable Catholick Religion diminishes Christianity it self Some of them offered themselves to print a Reply for us But they offered but words For they found that the Bishop durst not give a License to any of our Catholick Books onely so far as to secure the Printer from danger although the Doctor be a Foe to their Rank and Order and Catholick Religion a Friend This is truly Sir a very sad case that they can freely give one a License to defame men and yet dare not give others a License to clear themselves Doctor Cousins when he was in Paris spake up and down so freely against Catholick Religion that their Clergy hearing of it came to him and told him plainly That if he had ought to say against their Religion they would both get him a License from the Bishop to print his Book and themselves pay the whole charges and then answer him when they had done for his satisfaction But we poor Creatures can obtain no favour in our own Countrey no leave to speak or justifie our selves no License to print a Book for our defence when we are both scurrilously libelled and falsely slandered and imperiously challenged to answer Nor is there any open field for our poor Men to come forth into that I know of but Tybourn and that is perhaps the Doctor 's meaning It does mightily amaze our Catholicks all over the Land to have their Ears thus beaten with slanders which are both of a high nature and still notoriously false year by year without any end thereby to make us odious to our Neighbours and them to God Our blessed Lord have pity on us and either open if it may be thy will our Magistrates hearts towards us or stop the Ministers mouths against us that our good Name and Peace may return unto thy great Glory We are if we be siâ—ent proclaimed guilty and if we speak insolent What can we do Sir here but still commend our selves unto our heavenly Lord who miraculously preserves us We do either subsist after this life or not Our Protestant Countrey men must needs believe one of these two things Either some Religion is true or it is all a fiction If it be all aâ—fiction and there is no life to come then are they as guilty as we nay something more for they have taken away our Churches from us for themselves to dissemble in If there be a life to come and this everlasting then can there certainly be nothing of greater importance in this world than to know when many ways are pretended to it which of them is the most authentick and truest wherein we may be both happy and safe for ever Why then are we who are the first not permitted to speak while all others are permitted to blaspheme us If we prove to go amiss the danger is our own and if we be in the right it cannot be any danger unto them to know it All the positive things of Religion which any of them do keep they have them all from us we borrow nothing from them And the negative points which separate them from us seem to us as false and impious as they can possibly appear true to them They have as many Articles to believe as we only some of them which made the separation are affirmative to us and negative to them And one Affirmers word is to be taken in Judgment before ten Deniers And yet will they neither read our Books nor suffer us to print any when we are falsified and mis-interpreted and challenged and obliged to do it for fear I think our Religion should prove true All rejoyce when a Book is written against Popery but no man seeks to be informed They will have it by all means to be esteemed false be it in it self what it will or can be And in that strange prejudice men venture to die onely for the pleasure of a Minister and his Wife and Children who must needs have it so The occasion of this his present book intitled A Discourse concerning the Idolatry c. was it seems a question or two propounded unto Mr. Stilling fleet by I know not what Gentlewoman who having heard the Doctor say That Protestants if they turned Roman Catholicks would lose their Salvation told him That if Protestants say so then are they full as uncharitable as Papists themselves who aver the like of Protestants She therefore consults some Catholick Gentleman in the business I do not know whom neither But he it seems put into her hand two questions to show to Doctor Still in her next encounter First was Whether the same motives which secured one born and bred in the Catholick Church to continue in it might not also serve to secure a Protestant who convinced by those motives should embrace it The second was Whether it suffice to be a Christian in genere or it be also necessary to adjoyn to some Church of Christians in particular These be the two questions The second of these two questions the Doctor reâ—â—lves affiâ—matively I affirm saith he that a Christian by vertue of his being â—oâ— is â—ound to joyn â—e the Communion of some Church or Congregation in particular Thus he resolves it and speaks not a word more of that business Yet here we may take notice that the said Resolution of his is quite contrary both to a book of his called Irenicon written in the times of our late Anarchy and also to his first work written more lately against Popery For all the whole scope of both these books is to show that a Christian by vertue of his being so is not bound to joyn in the Communion of any one Church in particular or any Organical Body as he calls it And that because every such
body either that is or has been in the World is liable to errour falshood and corruptions And what necessity in â—eed can there be in me to joyn in any Communion which may go astray and mislead me since I cannot do worse if I remain free and all alone and may perhaps do better But these contradictions are small matters So long as the Doctor opposes the Catholick Church out of which they are all fallen he is a Protestant good enough whatever he hold in particular either contrary to himself or any others The first question which is the occasion and subject of this his present book he resolves negatively averring that the same motives which might secure one born and bred in the Catholick Church to continue in it cannot secure a Protestant convinced by them to imbrace it And this his Assertion he discourses at large and confirms by various Syllogismes because invincible hinderance may perhaps excuse the one but not the other because the Protestant is safe in his own Church and therefore has no necessity to leave it because there is imminent danger in the Roman Church where there is so much Idolatry so many hinderances of good life and devotion so much divisions so much uncertainty of faith in it Unto these resolutions and argumentations of his the Catholick Proposer adjoyned presentâ—y his own reply a very rational me thinks and good one Hereupon the Doctor wrote and set forth this his present book called A Discourse against the Idolatry c. both to inlarge his own arguments and to disable the Catholick Gentlemans Reply And this was the occasion purpose and subject of the book you put in my hand to peruse and write to you the substance of it with some few brief thoughts of my own upon it Indeed the whole book is a kind of Academick Act or Commencement such a one as we have once a year in our famous Oxford Cambridge written and printed for peoples deligh and pastime and if so it please the Stars for his own honour and preferment by our Doctor And it came forth very seasonably about a fortnight before the Oxford Act. to save the wits living here abouts the great charges and some kind of pains of a Journey thither being now furnished well enough aforehand with as subtile and good an Act as that may haply be at our own doors and which may please the Women somewhat better in our Mother tongue The conclusions defended in this Holborn Act are these three 1. Popery is idolatrous And this is accomplished in two of his positions which he calls Chapters 2. Popery is a hinderance to a good life and devotion And this is dispatched at one other breathing named his third Chapter 3. Popery is divided and disunited in it self And this puft out in his fifth Chapter which concludes his Book And in midst of this great Act rises up a prevaricating Tripos to refresh our wearisomness and make a littâ—e sport And he takes up the whole Scene of his fourth Chapter And his Theme is Fanaticisme the Church of Romes Fanaticisme or the Fanaticism of the Roman Church And upon my word it has made many people merry not the softer Sâ—x only but the rougher and more serious mankind And all do so câ—ap and commend the man that one may well belâ—eve he has receiv'd his reward Idolatry ill life and divâ—sions of the Roman Church which are hâ—s three less wild conclusions we have in part already heard of even as we have heard talk of Europe Asia and Africa But Fanaticisme his merriment is I think the proper and peculiar discovery of Dr. Stillingfleet himself And he may deserve either to give or take a sirname from it as Scipio Africanus took from Africa and Vesputius Americus gave to America his new found Land What is it that wit and industry cannot bring to light if they be joyntly bent both of them upon the search And a new discovery especially of a rich pleasant Country ful of curiosities is so pleasant to the Discoverer himself so naturally pleasant that I cannot but think that Dâ—ctor Stillingfleet at his invention of Fanaticisme wherewith he hoped to make many others merry laughed heartily himself He begins his Book with the Roman Idolatry and he does wisely in it For Idolatry is such a terrible thundering charge that in all Readers judgments that Church is half condemned already which hath that crime so much as laid upon it Men therfore choose rather to be accounted Atheists than Idolaters For the first argues wit with other stupidity Nor will one man of a hundred trouble himself to read over a Book written on any purpose of clearing from that enormous crime either himself or religion professed by the Author of it Be the imputation never so false yet is it stil ablasting imputation which kills and overthrows not so much by proving as by naming it He must needs be impious who is an Idolater and he must be an Idolater who is called so Be it never so unjust it is still a witty trick to cry out against him as an Idolater whose honour and livelihood we would here in England undermine Sad experience has proved this to be true too too often And the Great God of Heavens anger lies I fear heavily upon us for it This thus far Now forward IMAGE IDOLATRY The Church of Rome worships God by Images and is therefore guilty of Idolatry by giving to the Creature the worship due only to the Creator For God having forbidden any such sort of worshiping him by his own law and commandments given by Moses wherein he forbids his people to make day kind of image pesel themunah eikon glypâ—on sculptile any thing represented either by carving tool or pensil cannot own that worship nor can any such worship terminate upon God And the reason of that law of Moses is unchangeable which is that God's infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be representâ—d For which reason the wisest of Heathen both particular Men and Nations judged all such representations of the invisible Godhead to be incongruous and unbecoming his glory And if this were inconsistent with Gods nature and will in the old Law much more in the new where we are taught to worship God in spirit and truth and to have no low unworthy thought of God It might therefore seem more rational to worship God in the Sun and Moon which have more of God in them and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon them to any image or shadow the same argument which excuses the one will justifie the other much more For this reason St. Paul teaches that the Godhead is not like to gold or silver or stone and blames those who change the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of corruptible man And the Heathens in doing this did ill although the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold their statues to be Gods but that they worshipped God in
That there were both in the Council of Frankford and Nice too some Catholick Prelates who propounded difficulties against images cannot be denied For when ever any Council meets together about any affair they dispute pro and con both for and against it that the Prelates having all things set before their Eyes that can be said on both sides might be the better inabled to determine So doubtless it was done by the Apostles themselves in their great Council held in Jerusalem about Circumcision where inquisitio magna facta est great inquisition disputation and examination was made about it All this is certain enough But yet that either in Frankford or any where else were made after this their dispute any final or conclusive declaration against the â—se of images amongst Christians or that Charles the Emperor should either write Books or cause any to be written either against images or the Council of Nice wherein they had been then established or summon that Council of Frankford to withstand that other of Nice unanimously concluded by the Prelates and confirmed by the general Pastour this is a thing so apparently false and fictitious that there needs no more but the knowledge of those very Persons and times to prove it so Charles the Great was one that adored the Roman Church whereof he was himself a member above all Emperours that ever was before or since his time The Council of Frankford wherein were little less then three hundred Catholick Prelates was peaceably concluded and no commotion followed upon it which must needs have risen if they had condemned another Council lately celebrated and confirmed by all pastoral authority Nor was that Frankford Council ever annulled or any way censured either by P. Adrian or any after him Add to this that the said Council was both begun and finished under the same Pope Adrian and his Legates Theophilact and Stephanus who had presided lately in the said Nicen Council where the lawful use of images was established It cannot possibly be imagined that the same Pope and Presidents should conclude in Frankford quite contrary to what they ordered in Nice but seven or eight years before It is also certain that the said Council of Frankford was summoned and assembled not about images only as the Doctor imagines but about the question of our Lord Christ his filiation as all antient histories testifie against Foelix and Elipand two Spanish Bishops and Claudius Taurinensis who teaching that our Lord is rather to be called an adoptive than natural Son of God raised much commotion in Spain and France and this novelty of theirs was first condemned at Ratisbone and afterwards at Frankford For Foelix after his first condemnation repaired to the Emperour Charles his Court who then wintered at Rheginum and there submitting to the Prelates was sent thence to the presence of Pope Adrian where in the Cathedral of St. Peter he revok'd his Errour Elipand hearing of his submission grew more violent and by his books both regained Foelix again and disturbed all Germany as he had France and Spain before And now to prevent the infection the Pope and Charles the Emperour agreed to bring together a conciliar Assembly of Prelates in Frankford wherin presided Theophylact and Stephanus who had lately concluded the second Council of Nice Whence it clearly appears that Doctor Stillingfleet quite mistakes the businesse Now if the same Pope and his very self-same Legates presided first in the Nicen Council and then in Frankford as the Doctor acknowledges we may rationally enough conclude that the Nicen decrees about images lately finished in the East were made known to the West by their acceptation and promulgation at Frankford where the business of filiation was decided For this is indeed very true But no way can we think that the same Presidents would now undo what they had done a little before And that this is indeed the whole truth in this business may be yet confirmed by the authority of the Council of Senon kept not long after which in their 14. decree thus speaks Carolus magnus Francorum Rex Christianissimus in Francorum furdensi conventu ejusdem erroris iconomachorum suppressit insaniam quam infelicissimus quidam Faelix in Gallias Germanias invexerit By this testimony it appears that Felix over and above his capital errour about Christ our Lords adoption was an iconomachus too or adversary of images and suffered at Frankford for both his errours which is not unlikely by the testimony of Platina and Paulus Emilius For Platina in the life of Pope Adrian Bienniâ— post saith he Theophylactus Stephanus Episcopi insignes Adriani nomine Francorum Germanâ—rum Synâ—dum habuerunt in qua Synodus quam septimam Graeci appellabant haeresis Feliciana de tollendis imaginibus abrogata est And P. Emilius in his second book de gestis Francorum speaking of that Council of Frankford Et imaginibus saith he suus honor restitutus est The like may be proved out of Blondus Sabellicus and other historians So that all these things rightly considered and put together will sufficiently convince his relation of the Frankford Council to be fictitious and groundless If the Council were assembled by the agreement of the Pope and Emperour then not of the Emperour against the Pope If to suppress Elipand Claudius and Felix then not the Nicen Prelates If under the same Pope and Presidents which presided lately in Nice then not against any thing determined and concluded in Nice If upon the motive of Elipands errour against our Lord's filiation then was not an image the principal occasion of it If Felix were there condemned for his opposition to images then were not images condemned If Charles the Great one of the devourest to the Roman Church that ever raigned so much swayed in that Council then would he not suffer the Roman Church to be there affronted and censured If an upright Catholick he would not in spiritual affairs gainsay the Prince of Prelates who had so lately set his hand and seal to Nicen definitions In a word if Charles the Great called that Council at Frankford as the Doctor affirms then without all doubt was that ratified there which was established at Nice a little before For Charles was as much a Roman Catholick as either Stephen and Theophilact or the Pope himself and knew as well as any man what obedience is due to the definitions of a Council rightly consummated and confirmed as that of Nice was Binius the great Collector of the Councils proves at large that all this story of the Carolin books and Frankford Synod assembled against that of Nice is a groundless fiction And so do Alanus Surius Vasquez and several other Doctors And they are all amazed whence the rumour should arise and by whom and in what age or time But I cannot wonder much at it since I heard lately of a French Gentleman who affirms and shows in a Book of his that the English
for their direction and comfort this have Catholicks full and clearly delivered them out of holy writ and all their whole duty both towards God and their neighbour in their own language Nor are they ignorant of any thing that may appertain either to sobriety justice or piety The whole sacred story of our Lords incarnation passion and ascension all his sacraments all the whole counsels and precepts of God which may concern salvation all his promises and threats they have them all made known unto them clear and disintangled from the various tropes and schemes of rhetorick or logick so interwoven in the sacred authors writings that it puzzles the greatest clerk with all his literature and science to understand the connexions transitions of discourse objections ambâ—guous phrases hebraisms and grecisms and such-like obscurities that occur or to find out the drift and purpose and meaning of places which things do and have too too often caused mistakes and heresies in the world And all the sacred truths which it concerns them to practise the people have still been put in mind of by their priests both in private and publick to their daily edification Nor was it ever the fashion in Christianity to throw the bible among people and so leave them to themselves as the Reformers have done Most certain it is that the word and will and counsel of God consists not in letters and syllables much less in the tropes and modes of rhetorick and logick which do variously obscure the sacred writ above all books that have ever been penned by man but in the sence and meaning which is easily and securely conveighed It is no hard matter for example to understand that all men both Jews and Gentiles who have ever come to the knowledge of Christ were beholding to Gods mercy meerly to Gods mercy for that their conversion and the life of grace they had by it which is the scope of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans although to give an account how S. Paul deduces and proves this truth in that his epistle what arguments he doth either establish or refute what modes and figures he uses what tropes and rhetorical schemes be in his expressions how he passes from one thing to another in his discourse and by what art of ratiocination the context of his whole letter is knit together this is neither easie to understand nor necessary to any mans salvation to discern And yet the epistle without all this knowledge cannot be understood or rightly apprehended And if it be conceived falsly mistakes and heresies will rise The will and mind and word of God this all people are to know what he hath commanded what counselled what threatned what promised what our Lord did and suffered for us and what we are to suffer and do for him that we may be partakers of his glory But the humanity and philosophy that lies couched in holy writ vulgar people neither can nor have need to dive into it Nor was the holy scripture ever penned or intended for the people immediately but for the bishops and priests of God who are to watch over them for their good and from their lips they are to receive knowledge Christians were ever fed like pigeons by the mouth until they were so fledg that they could now fly feed themselves Once come to maturity they may read what they please on Gods name and the more they attend to lection of holy scriptures the better it is so they apply all unto action and sanctification of their lives And again in an epistle of mine its written thus I have heard many great protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion onely aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church which gives the sense life and meaning of Gods word unto people without the husk of the formal letter than by the way of Protestants which exhibits it to people hidden under the hard shell able to break peoples teeth Religion consists not in reading but doing to be had by heart and not in the lips that way is tedious and barren this fruitful and easie Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine duties into two words the great apostle into one and both of them made all to consist in practice If the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all Catholicks the chief particles of divine epistles those I mean which are of general concernment books of sacred instructions and meditations upon the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberless adjoyned to the rites of examination of conscience continual and daily use of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things our Lord hath wrought for us throughout the year which all men by law are tied to observe may not give sufficient acquaintance of what concerns salvation and enough to promote people towards it I am to seek what it is that can Sure I am that the world was first converted without any books at all and many millions of good Christians both lived piously and died happily who never saw the Bible What further good may it do to read the letter of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein are treated questions and cases that are now quite vanished out of the world and other theological discourses which vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know What more of good can accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to practise or so much as heat of than by the meer substance of Gods will and my own duty once well understood and daily applied unto action answerable good deeds What is there now in England when the said scripture letter is set open unto every eye any more of peace or charity piety or justice than in former Catholick times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those antient Catholick times They flock'd every day to their Churches there to pay meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles day night all over the land they built all our churches which we have remaining at this day amongst us and as many more now razed pulled down they founded and endowed our Universities establish'd our laws set out tithes glebe land for the clergy built hospitals erected corporations and in a word did all the good things which we find done by our forefathers for our good in this our native kingdom But what do we now what have we still been doing since the reformation quid agitur in Angliâ consulitur de religione Continually are we making and unmaking our religious rites
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