as the Maxim faith Lex currit cum praxi this is very plain from the usages of the generality of people in your Church And I am sure to confirm this your way of arguing that I have somewhere read though I cannot now readily light on the place that Scribanius affirms that Adoration of Saints and Images is very lawful because Abraham bowed down to the Children of Heth Gen. 23.7 Surrexit Abraham adoravit populum terrae filios viz. Heth. As it is in the Vulgar Latine And if I must not judge of any man's Idolatry by his outward actions which is your exception then I can never know any man to be an Idolater for a Heathen may fall down before one of his Idols and call upon it for help and yet say that his intention is just and that he only meant thereby to worship the True God which is the excuse made by the men of your Church After this * Refl p. 16. you compare the Power of the Pope to that of Civil Powers as to the Obedience due to them from their Subjects but pray deal candidly Do you believe the Pope to have no more Authority in commanding Obedience than Civil Powers have Doubtless you do believe him to have more Authority or else why do so many of your Church refuse to take the Oath of Allegiance which yet you †Cath. princ sect 2. § 4. p. 3. allow to be a lawful Oath for you say they refuse it not for any unlawfulness in the Oath but because the Doctrine of Deposing Princes is therein called Heretical which they cannot allow of as the word is understood in a Catholick sense where you will allow me to observe that for the true notion of Heresie you depend on the Pope's Breve and so allow the Pope to be a Judge in matters of Faith for Heresie is contrary to the Faith and consequently the Deposing Power which the Pope hath determin'd is a matter of Faith and why do they follow the Papal Dictates in those things wherein by the Laws of God and Nations they are bound to submit to their Superiours Here also I observe that when * Popery misrepresented p. 46. you Treat of the Pope's Power you give your self a great latitude when you say That you never scruple to receive his Decrees and Definitions such as are issued forth by his Authority with all their due Circumstances and according to Law but never tell us what those Circumstances are as your Adversary well remarks which puts me in mind of somewhat which your * Tanner disp 1. de fid q. 4. dub 6. n. 263. Compton in 22. dis 22. § 5. Authors say concerning the Bull of Sixtus 5. prefixt to his Edition of the Vulgar Translation which was afterward recalled by Clement 8. That it was true the Bull was printed with the Bible but that it was not affixt to the Gates of St. Peter 's Church and in the Campo fiore so long as it ought to have been according to the Laws of the Romish Chancery as if such little things as those made Ecclesiastical Decrees more or less valid And now to shew you that your Answerer did not show his Learnlng in discovering that the Popes have dispenc't only with positive Institutions but not with the Moral Law with Lying and Forswearing as if he sought a knot in a Bull-rush and took Sanctuary in a Mystery as you term it by talking only in general terms what think you of the many Dispensations that have been given by former Popes to the Subjects of this and other Kingdoms to break their Oaths of Allegiance and Duty to their Soveraigns the relation between Princes and their Subjects being not grounded on their being Christians but on the Obligation of Civil Society so that a dispensing with the Oath of Allegiance is a dispensing with a Duty of Natural Religion which binds Subjects to obey their Superiours For either Subjection to Princes is a Duty of the Fifth Commandment as we reckon them Honour thy Father and Mother c. or it is not if it be not you will do well to assert it and we shall take care to prove it to be a Duty of that Commandment not only from the Authority of the Antients and from Reason but from the Authority of your own Catechism which †Part. 3. praec 4. § 3. 11.2 § 17 18. says That all persons who are possessors of power or dignity are included under the term Parents which is afterward explain'd by those who have Empire Magistracy or power committed to them who govern the Commonwealth But if to obey Princes be a duty of that Commandment then to dispence with that duty is to dispence with a Moral Law and to dispence with Oaths that bind to that duty is to give men a dispensation to be perjur'd and to forswear themselves And because you tell us * Pap. repraesent p. 47 48. That the Papist is taught in all Books that to Lye is a sin and to call God to witness to an untruth is damnable and that the practices of your Church are according to those praescriptions and that neither the Sacrament nor an Oath of Secrecy can excuse any man from perjury nor did you ever hear of any such thing from any Priests in Sermons or Confessions never read of them in your Books or Catechisms nor saw the practice of any of them in any of your Communion in which words there is some Art used for do you believe that any Priest of your Communion may reveal what he hears in confession against the Laws of your Church which bind him to Secrecy sub sigillo and when you tell us You never read of any such thing either in Books or Catechisms you mean I suppose Books of Devotion for in other Books you may undoubtedly read such Doctrines or else why should the Pope condemn them And when you say You never saw any such thing I hope you mean it never fell within the reach of your particular observation but if you read the account of Mr. Garnet and his accomplices you will find that they took the Sacrament as an Oath of Secrecy to carry on that Hellish design And withal subjoyn * Ib. p. 66. That the present Pope hath condemn'd all Equivocations and Mental Reservations under the penalty of Excommunication latae sententiae by his Decree March 2. 1679. We do still averr that your Church hath given dispensations for Lying and Forswearing and we know not but it may be done for the future For not to instance in the Jesuite Moralists †Filiut to 2. tr 25. n. 325. Sanches oper moral l. 3. c. 10. n. 7. 8. Filiutius Sanches c. their averring That if a man promises any thing and swears to it yet if he do not intend it he may without sin break that promise and that Oath so that the intention of the Swearer among these Casuists makes the Oath
Dioclesian though he set up Inscriptions ob deletum nomen Christianum Constantius or Valens but only for a Julian whose Apostasie and Wickedness is fingular in Ecclesiastical History and the like of whom in all probability can never be expected again Nay Sir this disloyal principle will not let Christian snbjects pray for the death of a Julian though he tyranizes never so much over their bodies goods and liberties if he do not blaspheme Christ and persecute the Church of God with a diabolical spite against the evidence of Divine Miracles It leaves the Christian subjects of all Tyrants but such as are Julians indeed under the obligation of praying for them according to the Apostle's direction and the practice of the Primitive Christians which the Author of Jovian hath so much insisted upon and commended and his Prince must be a Julian indeed a Julian in all circumstances before he can be so much as tempted to pray against him for he doth not say that he would pray but that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed And it had been happy for the Christian world if the chief Pastors and Bishops and Councils and Doctors and Casuists of that which you call the Catholick Church had never taught any principle more disloyal than this Now Sir I beseech you to tell me how much disloyalty there is in this principle which secures all Infidel Heretical and Apostate Princes against the Prayers of their Christian subjects unless they be in all degrees as bad as Julian and secures even Julians themselves against all resistance and how much disloyalty there is in a man who by his principles will pray for all Tyrants but such an one as Julian was according to the Author of Jovian Sir I would to God you and your Doctors would declare as much Loyalty as this and I desire you to tell me that suppose a Roman Catholick Prince should become a Julian indeed and take up the methods of that Apostate whether you think his Roman Catholick Subjects would be tempted to pray for his destruction and if they should do so and no more do you think they would transgress any rule of Christian Loyalty Answer me these two questions sincerely and possitively and if your answer to the last be affirmative give your arguments for your Opinion and I dare engage the Author of Jovian shall submit to your reasons or answer them For I am confident he hath no fondness for his Opinion to which it is evident he was led by his great Charity for the Bishop and Church of Nazianzum And though in apologizing for them he hath asserted that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed yet he is so Loyal a Person that I believe he would overcome the temptation and only forbear praying for him as having sinned the sin unto death After which Apology you will suffer me to tell you that your Reflections will hardly be called an answer to the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome because in them you have not said a word to some material points of Controversy between you and us stated in that Book out of the Trent-Council and Catechism as if either the right were on your Adversaries side which I suppose you will be loath to acknowledge or his reasonings were unworthy your second thoughts which I suppose you will not own and if you do few wise men will acquiesce in your Sentiments for you wholly praetermit reflecting upon the Chapters of the Eucharist of Indulgences of satisfaction ex condigno of keeping the Scriptures and Prayers in an unknown Tongue of communion in one kind and of adding the Apocrypha and traditions to the holy writ with some others which being some of the most material points in difference between your Church and ours will either deserve some new thoughts or you will allow us to say that that book cannot be thought an answer which in silence passes by or leaps over so many weighty things that make up so much of the Controversy You assure us * Refl p. 5. that the Council of Trent is received here and all the Catholick World over as to its definitions of Faith though it be not wholly received in some places as to its other decrees which relate only to discipline Where I shall not ask what you mean by the Catholick World for I am well assured that you mean all Christians of the Roman persuasion which is a very narrow notion of the Catholick World excluding all other Christians from being Members of the Catholick Church but those of your own Opinion so that neither the Greek Church nor the rest of the Eastern Christians are in your sense any more Catholicks than the Church of England and the rest of the Protestants though antiently any man or Church of men were called Catholick because they agreed with the whole Catholick Church in Faith but now the holy Catholick Church of Christ must lose its name if it agree not with the particular Church of Rome but I would willingly know of you whence any particular Church hath that power that it may receive a general Council as you call that of Trent in some things and not in others I thought that the highest authority of the Church on Earth had been a general Council and if so why its definitions in matters of discipline should not be received and observed by all particular Churches is to me a great question for I cannot but see that one of these two things must follow from your Opinion either that Councils and Popes are fallible for if they are deceived in one Opinion such as that of the power of the Church to depose Princes why may they not be deceived in another such as Transubstantiation or Purgatory or else that they are infallible in greater matters only and then to me it is a great wonder that they should erre in things of less moment and I never yet understood but that if general Councils could decide matters of Doctrine but that they had also as great a power in matters of discipline for if it be a lawful preface to the decrees of all Councils as your men say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis then the holy spirit is doubtless their guide in matters of discipline as well as in matters of Doctrine I am sure that the Antient Councils took upon them to decide both by their authority and all Christians thought themselves oblig'd to follow their dictates so the first general Council of the Apostles bound up all Christians from eating things strangled and Blood so the Council of Nice determin'd the precise day when Easter should be celebrated as well as the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and so also the second general Council made Constantinople a Patriarchate as well as Rome to go no further And I find no persons disputed those constitutions though only in matters of Discipline and
valid as the intention of the Priest makes the Sacrament Some other of the same Order have given dispensations for the breach of the Moral Law * Theol. mor. to 1. l. 7 c. 20. n. 281 c. Escobar says positively virtute bullae potest votum non peccandi mutari i. e. that a man may break his Vow of not sinning by virtue of a Bull and he instances in the committing of Fornication he †Tr. 7. ex 4. n. 118. also says That a man may Lye even to his Confessor that a man may promise a general Confession and yet not confess all his mortal sins quia quamvis mentiatur id tamen parum refert ad Confessarii judicium i. e. for tho he Lye yet that hath little or no relation to the Judgment of his Confessor Now to these proofs probably you will object that this is not the Opinion of the Church but of private men to which I answer that had it not been the Opinion of your Church when those Books were written such men would never have been allowed to be Confessors which no man can be unless by the allowance of the Pope the Bishop of the Diocess c. though it is well known that the Jesuits then were and still are as Eminent for being Confessors as any other Order in your Communion and perhaps more and this notwithstanding their owning these damnable Doctrines as both you and I agree to call them Nor is it enough to say that the Book of Escobar after having been 39 times printed for an excellent Book which is an argument it was much bought and much valued was the 40th time printed only to be censured and condemn'd by the French Bishops which the poor Jansenists lookt upon to have been a condemnation both of the Author and his Opinions whereas they found at last to their cost that themselves were censured at Rome as the criminals nor that the present Pope being more wise and moderate than some of his Predecessors hath condemnd those Doctrines which vindicates us that we have not unjustly charg'd the men of your Church with such Doctrines among which propositions if you consult the 26 and 27 it is asserted That a man may either being askt or of his own accord say and swear that he did not do a thing which he really did and yet by vertue of a secret meaning be neither a lyar nor perjured And that this he may do as often as it is necessary or profitable to save his Body Honour or Estate or for any other good end For this is to acknowledge that your Church for a long time heretofore conniv'd at or allow'd of the breach of plain moral commandments since the man in authority that doth not prohibit the sin that he may hinder seems to injoyn it I also observe 1. That according to your Opinion whatever the Pope and Cardinals or other Bishops do either allow or condemn is not binding as to the Faith since the infallibility is lodg'd no where but in a general Council 2. If we look into the Censure there is nothing relating to the breach of Oaths given to Princes which is the highest trust in temporal matters and withal that the propositions are not condemn'd as contrary to the Laws of God and Nature as assertions that promote impiety and injustice but ut minimum tanquam scandalosas praxi perniciosas which is the manner of expression that Alexander 7. makes use of in his censure An. 1665. as at least scandalous and pernicious to practice and therefore to be condemn'd which whether this doth not look like a trick and juggle because you have encouraged me to use the word you your self shall be the judge for notwithstanding this censure whenever the scandal ceases which no one knows how soon that may be and they are judg'd no longer pernicious the propositions may be again owned and maintained 3. It is moreover observable that whereas former Popes have allowed these Tenents and Practices without condemning them who knows but the Successors of the present Pope may when they please licence anew the propositions which are now condemn'd 4. That some such thing hath been formerly done your * Ch. 26. m. p. 90. Adversary hath given you an instance which you did not think fit to meddle with nor to reflect upon out of Archbishop Abbot's †P. 11. Preface to his six Lectures where you will find that Pius 5. the same Pope who authoriz'd the Trent-Catechism gave his resolution to some of the English Missionaries that whenever any of them were called before a judge in England he might either refuse the Oath or Swear and answer sophistically potest Catholicus tractus coram haereticis vel recusare juramentum quod est prudentius vel sophisticè jurare sophisticè respondere suis interrogationibus And if you look into the Book called Foxes and Firebrands you will see there that Heath the Jesuit had a Bull with him dated An. 1. of the same Pius 5. allowing him to preach what Doctrine the Society of the Jesuits should order him for the dividing of the Protestants and not to instance in the dispensation given by Eugenius 4. and his Legate Card. Julian to Ladislaus King of Hungary to break his League with the Grand Signior for which he was so severely punisht in the unfortunate Battel of Varna and some other such examples the Examination of Mr. Garnet is a very plain proof of this our assertion for though some men call these little arts equivocation and mental reservation as if they were small or no sins yet you fairly and honestly condemn both alike and I know few wise and good men but look upon both as alike sinful and perhaps the equivocation the more so because the design is more cunningly laid to deceive And now I am talking of the Jesuits I think fit to mind you that whereas you seem to say * Pap. misrepre p. 69 70. that it is a scandal upon your Church to affirm that 't is more lawful to be drunk on a Fasting day than to eat flesh I have met with a Casuist †Escobar tr 1. ex 13. n. 74 75. of your commumunion who will not allow a man to eat Flesh on a Fasting day but as to drink gives great indulgence when he says that a man may drink Wine even in great quantity and if he happen to be drunk immoderatio potest temperantiam violare sed non jejun ium He may transgress the Laws of Temperance but he does not transgress the Laws of Fasting After this I will not decide the controversy between your Adversary and your self whether the story of S. Perpetua's Vision be seriously related or droll'd on who pay a great veneration to all Antient writings and can hardly think that a Martyr in view of an Eternal Crown of happiness would indulge to any thing that is light or deserves to be exposed but I have some things to
dictum And this I write to you because you appear the Advocate of your Party while I acknowledge that I make these Proposals onely as a private Person though I doubt not but all the Prelates of the Church of England would rejoyce to see so much done towards the healing of the Breaches of Christendom Amen And here I thought to have put a period to this Essay had not your Vindication of your Reflections come to my hands upon which I cannot but bestow a few Remarks while your learned Adversary will take care of a more full Reply In which among other things you undertake to †Protest Popery c. p. 16. prove by several instances That our Church is guilty of mis-representing yours because it impeaches the Papists of Idolatry in the worshipping of Images and we acknowledge that she does so impeach you but withal we affirm that there is a great difference between what is spoken by any man or any Society of men in a Homily or Sermon and what is thetically laid down as an Article or maintain'd in disputation you your selves as well as we being often forc'd to make use of this distinction to salve many Sayings of the Fathers that they were spoken not Dogmatically but Rhetorically but we need not depend on this Answer for our Homily does not speak of the Canons of your Councils but of the received Opinions and Practices of your Church Now that 't is a current Opinion among many of your School-men That the Image ought to have the same Worship with the Prototype I have already proved out of Cardinal Bellarmine and that the Practice of the Common People in this case was very disallowable and much like the Idolatry of the Heathen as I understand the Trent-Council is the Complaint in †Sess 25. de Imag. general of those Fathers and of some other of your Writers in particular so that herein the Homily speaks but the sence of your own Authors and with Justice censures the Usages of the People of your Communion And if what your * Ibid. Council says be true That the Idolatry of the Heathens did consist in their putting their trust in their Idols he who considers how much more Worship there is paid to the same Images of the Blessed Virgin at Loretto Monferrat c. than to other her Images elsewhere which can as well put the People in mind of the Mother of God as those famous Shrines will be perswaded that the generality of your Communion put their trust also in the Image as did the Heathens in their Idols Now to vindicate your Church from Idolatry in this case though you †Protest Pop. p. 33. acknowledge That you do give Religious Honour to Images yet you say That that Honour cannot be called Idolatry unless it makes a God of that to which it is paid But does not the Second Commandment as we reckon them forbid the worshipping of the true God by an Image And do not the worst of Idolaters say That they do not worship the Image but the God who is represented by it Doth not Celsus say so much on the behalf of the Gentile Idolaters to Origen * Lib. 7. p. 373. Orig. contr Cels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who but a perfect Fool thinks an Image made of Stone or Timber of Brass or Gold to be a God c. And for the Jews when they fell into Idolatry in the Wilderness by worshipping the Golden Calf they onely worshipt it as a representation of the true God for the Feast that was set apart for it is called †Exod. 32.5 a Feast held to Jehovah which is the incommunicable Name of the onely true God And the like might be said of the Calves in Dan and Bethel But perhaps you are of the opinion of some men of Eminence in your own Communion and whose Books have never been that I know of condemn'd who think that the Worship of the Golden Calf was not Idolatry for so Moncoeus in his Aaron Purgatus exprefly affirms as * c. 7. p. 49. Greg. de Valentia in his Apologetic for Idolatry a bold Title for a Book written by a Christian Priest argues from 1 Pet. 4.3 that because the Apostle doth forbid unlawful Idolatries abominable Idolatries as our Translation renders it that therefore there is some Idolatry that is lawful which is that of the Worship of Images But you object †Protest Pop. p. 34. that we our selves are by this Argument guilty of Idolatry by bowing to the Altar and to the Name of Jesus and by kneeling at the Sacrament Whereas I must tell you that we bow not to the Altar but towards it toward the East where the Christian Altar always used to stand and toward which part of Heaven the Primitive Christians used to direct even their private Devotions nor do we bow to the Name but at the Recital of the Name of our blessed Saviour so that we pay no Religious Worship to the Altar or to the Syllables of that Venerable Name as you confess you do to Images and when we kneel we profess we do not worship the Sacramental Elements nor the Body and Bloud of Christ hid under the Accidents of Bread and Wine but we kneel because then we pray and we worship God to whom we direct our Prayers so that these actions are not external acts of Adoration to any thing that is seen or heard but onely to God But by this way of arguing I perceive the Cause wants assistance when you borrow Arguments from our Dissenters to assault our Church with for these are their little Objections that have been so often hist off the Stage You further tell us That it is the intention of the Person who pays the Worship that makes the Worship either idolatrous or lawful And if so pray tell me if a Christian in the East Indies should go into a Pagod and bow down before one of their Images and pay it in all respects the same outward Adoration that its most bigotted Votaries offer it and at the same time intend his Worship towards the blessed Trinity does this man by virtue of his intention escape the guilt of Idolatry And I put you this Question the more willingly because some of your Jesuits have determined it in the affirmitive and acquit the votary of Idolatry and I would willingly know your Opinion for if you consult the †Let. 5. p. 61. Edit Lat. Colon. An. 1658. Provincial Letters the Author of them will tell you that the Jesuits in China and other places of the Indies taught the People that they might publickly worship the Idols of the Country Cacin choan and Keumfucum so they directed this Adoration of theirs intentionally to the Image of our blessed Saviour hid under their Cloaths and that this is no Calumny the same Author says * P. 62. That the Practice was complain'd of and censured at Rome July 9. An. 1646.