Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	doctrine_n	word_n	3,054	5	3.9718	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30890	John Barclay his vindication of the intercession of saints, the veneration of relicks and miracles, against the sectaries of the times Book II. Chap. VII. Englished by a person of quality. With allowance.; Parænesis ad sectarios. Book 2, Chapter 7. English.	Barclay, John, 1582-1621.	1688 (1688)	Wing B716; ESTC R215790	13,055	23

JOHN BARCLAY HIS VINDICATION Of the Intercession of SAINTS The Veneration of RELICKS AND MIRACLES AGAINST THE Sectaries of the Times BOOK II. CHAP. VII Englished by a Person of Quality With Allowance Printed by Mary Thompson at the Entrance into Old-Spring-Garden near Charing-Cross And Sold by Matthew Turner at the Holy-Lamb in Holbourn And John Lane at the Corner of Wild-street 1688. CONCERNING THE Intercession of SAINTS The Veneration of RELICKS AND MIRACLES BOOK II. CHAP. VII T IS one and the same Church of GOD which Triumphing in Heaven enjoys the Fruits of its Victory which Militant on Earth is expos'd to the Assaults of its Enemies and which freed from Danger tho' not yet from Punishment is cleansing by Purgatory Pains And this whole Church is in Charity because it is in GOD. Now 't is the Office of Charity that the Inferiors rejoyce at the Prosperity of their Superiors and that the Superiors as far as in them lies be assistant to their Inferiors We therefore give our Brethren who are now in Heaven what Honour we lawfully may and in return desire the Assistance of their Prayers of which we often find the Effects And as for those who being shut up in the Prison of Purgatory cannot help themselves we give them what succour we can by pouring forth our Prayers for them to the common Father of us all who is well pleas'd with this Brotherly Affection we mutually bear one another in him But these Bonds of Love the Sectaries would have broken asunder They say that the Saints mind only their own Happiness neither Hearing nor being any ways mov'd by our Prayers To which they farther add that whatever help we expect from their Suffrages we so much derogate from the Honour of CHRIST They moreover affirm that there are not contrary to what we with the most Antient Fathers believe any Punishments by which such of the Elect as are not yet perfectly clean are Purify'd after Death All these things are briefly to be asserted against them It has ever from the most Antient Times been the Custom of the Orthodox Church to request of the Blessed Spirits the Holy Martyrs and all others whom the Majesty of Miracles manifested to be in the Fruition of GOD and Heavenly Joyes that they would Pray for us to our Lord. What do ye O Sectaries dislike in this The Scriptures you say teach it not If I should answer That neither do the Scriptures forbid it what could you farther reply Why shall I not rather believe a thing to be lawful which not being prohibited by the Scriptures is practis'd by the Church than to be unlawful because it is not expresly commanded in Scripture But we seek not to shelter our selves under this Excuse For we rely on the Scriptures by which the Faithful are frequently commanded mutually to Pray for each other and in which we often find Holy Men requesting the Prayers of their Brethren 'T is so thou wilt say but these were living Men and desir'd the Prayers of the Living Shew me Sectary this difference in Scripture that 't is lawful to desire GODS Favour by the Prayers of Holy Men yet Living and unlawful so to do by the Prayers of the Deceased and I will yeild up the Cause Certainly Moses was Dead and so was Samuel when GOD declar'd That they were wont to Pray for the Jews Jer. 15. v. 1. Jeremiah also was dead when 't was reveal'd to Judas Maccabeus That he Pray'd for the People and the Temple 2 Maccab. 5. But thou wilt say There is one Mediator between GOD and Men which is CHRIST JESUS Why then do ye make so many Mediators so many Intercessors for us There can scarce be a more stupid Argument So that t is to be wondred you should so often press to have it heard There is indeed one CHRIST by whose Mediation Salvation is granted but Mediators of Intercession such as we affirm the Saints to be you your selves do not deny that there are as many as there are Believers For do not you desire the Prayers of one another And is not he whose Prayers are desir'd as much a Mediator for you as the Saints are for us Why therefore do you cry out that we injure CHRIST Why do you accuse us of esteeming his Merits insufficient The Controversy lyes in this Point whether we may desire the Prayers of that Person now triumphing in Heaven whose Intercession we might lawfully have requested when living here on Earth This is to wit the great Injury we do to CHRIST this is our Impiety this is our Forgetfulness of CHRIST's Passion But thou wilt reply The Saints neither see nor hear their Suppliants that 't is a very vain thing to Address our Discourse to these who are so far off Were it so O Sectary We Catholicks might indeed be accus'd of Folly in taking such unnecessary pains to offer up our Petitions to those who are though not unworthy yet wholly ignorant of the Addresses made to them yet this would not render us guilty of Impiety But we are by Scriptures Fathers and the practice of the Church assur'd the contrary If Moses says our Lord by the Prophet Jeremiah Chap. 15. v. 1. and Samuel shall stand before me my Soul is not towards this People Now how vain would this have been had not Moses and Samuel then often stood before him and been accustom'd according to the exigency of Affairs and Times to intercede for the Jews I omit its being most clearly said in the Maccabees Chap. 15. That Hieremias and Onias who were then departed out of this World Pray'd for all the People of the Jews And throughout the whole Apocalypse 't is said That the Angels and Saints do by the Power of God behold these Earthly things Moreover the Angel Raphael as we find it in Tobias Chap 12. when he was standing before Almighty GOD Offer'd up to our Lord the Prayers of Tobias 't is not therefore to be question'd but he heard them Finally dost thou believe that thou art wiser in this matter than the much to be Venerated Primitive Church Whose Custom and Doctrine in the time of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose I shall in their words set before thee The Angels says St. Ambrose in his Book De viduis are to be Supplicated who are given us for a Guard of whom we may seem to challenge some sort of Patronage from the Pledge of their Bodies They can Pray for our Sins who have with their own Blood wash'd away what Sins themselves have had For they are GOD 's Martyrs our Prelates the Beholders of our Lives and Actions Let us not be asham'd to use them as Intercessors for our Infirmities because they themselves well knew the Infirmity of the Body even when they overcame it St. Augustine in his Book De cura pro Mortuis Chap. 4. has these words When ever therefore the Mind reflects on the Place where the Body of a most dear Friend is Buried if

expect Help and desire it Thou wilt see in fine that all these things are as right and sincere approv'd by Miracles These Reliques we either deposite under the Altars or lay up in Beautified Coffers And both these according to Antient Custom St. Hierom against Vigilantius has these words Is it therefore ill done of the Roman Bishop to offer Sacrifices to our Lord over the Venerable Bones as we esteem them of St. Peter and St. Paul who are Dead though in thy Opinion 't is only useless Dust And in the same place he says of the same Vigilantius He grieves that the Reliques of the Martyrs are cover'd with costly Vails and not rather bound up in Rags or Hair-cloth We go also to the places where these Reliques are kept there to Pray to GOD or speak to the Saints and falling down we Kiss their Sepulchres These things also we have from Antient Institution For St. Hierom calls Vigilantius a Moster deserving to be Banish'd to the farthest parts of the Earth for daring to write these words The Souls of the Martyrs therefore love their Bodies and hover about them and are always present lest if an Orator should perhaps come they being absent might not hear him Now who can believe either that Vigilantius would have written those things had it not been at that time usual with the Christians to crave the Martyrs Intercession at the Places where their Reliques were reserv'd or that the most Learned St. Hierom would have been so highly offended with Vigilantius for scoffing at this Practice had not he who was educated in the Church and throughly vers'd in Antiquity well known that this was Piously to GOD's Honour and with the Churches Approbation perform'd by Christians The same St. Hierom in the Life of St. Hilarion writes thus of one Constantia whom he calls A most Holy Woman She was wont to watch whole Nights at his St. Hilarion's Sepulchre and there to Discourse with him as if he were present to hear her Prayers And St. Augustine in his Treatise of the City of GOD lib. 22. ch 8. relates that one Pauladia was by a very great Miracles Cur'd of a most dreadful Disease who says he Went to make her Prayers to the Holy Martyr St. Stephen We believe in fine That at the presence of such Reliques the Devils are vex'd and tormented Nor mayst thou therefore call us simple and credulous Coxcombs For in this we have the Church for our Mistress and the most Antient Fathers for our Authors Was the Emperor Constantine says St. Hierom against Vigilantius guilty of Sacriledge in Translating to Constantinople the Holy Reliques of St. Andrew St. Luke and St. Timothy in whose presence the Devils roar There is a remarkable Passage in St. Augustin's 137 Epistle to the Clergy and People of Hippo which I will for thy sake O Sectary here transcribe GOD indeed who created all things is every where being contain'd or included in no place and he must by all true Worshipers be Worship'd in Spirit and Truth that hearing in Secret he may also Justify and Crown in Secret. Nevertheless as to those things which are visibly known to men who can search into his Counsel why these Miracles are Wrought in some places and not in others For the Sanctity of the place where the Body of Blessed Felix of Nola is Buried is known to many whether I desir'd that they to wit Boniface the Priest accus'd of an hainous Crime together with his Accuser should go because from hence it may more easily and Faithfully be written to us what shall be manifested in either of them For we know that in Milain at the Sepulchres of the Saints where the Devils wonderfully and Terribly Confess acertain Thief who came to that place with a full intent to deceive by Swearing a Falshood was forc'd to confess his Theft and restore what he had stoln The Matter being sufficiently asserted by such eminent Persons by so Antient a Practice and Belief I shall conclude with the Opinion of Gennadius of Marseilles which he himself thus delivers among the Ecclesiastical Decrees Lib. de Ecclesiast Dogmat. cap. 73. We believe that the Bodies of the Saints and especially the Reliques of the Blessed Martyrs are most sincerely to be Honour'd as Members of CHRIST and that the Churches call'd by their Names are with most Pious Affection and Faithful Devotion to be frequented as Holy Places Dedicated to Divine Worship Whosoever shall oppose this Sentence is not to be thought a Christian but an Eunomian and Vigilantian Tell me Sectary if Gennadius had liv'd in this Age would he not have added you to Eunomians and Vigilantians and said He is not to be thought a Christian but a Puritan or Protestant Matters are so connex'd that whilst we assert one thing we at the same time Plead for another For you deny all Belief to Miracles which you say to have seen frequent in the Churches Infancy but that now the Christian Faith being Establish'd they are ceas'd But consider O Sectary that this Faith was in St. Augustin's time receiv'd and settled throughout the World And that the frequency of Miracles was then ceas'd by which the Foundations of the Church in the Apostles time Encreas'd and yet He as thou seest acknowledges that Miracles were wrought in his Age especially at the Reliques of the Saints nor that only in these Places we have already cited but in many others also Likewise says he Lib. 1. Retract cap. 13. Whereas I said in my Book concerning true Religion That these Miracles were not permitted to continue to our Times lest the Soul should always seek visible things and Mankind now grow cold by their frequency which was heretofore inflam'd by their Novelty This indeed is true for they do not now when Hands are laid on the Baptiz'd so receive the Holy Ghost as to speak with the Tongues of all Nations Nor are the Sick now Cur'd by the Shaddow CHRIST's Preachers as they pass along The same may be said of such other things as were then done and have since manifestly ceas'd But what I said is not so to be understood that no Miracles should be now believ'd to be done in the Name of CHRIST For I my self when I writ that very Book well knew that a Blind-man in the City of Millain receiv'd his Sight at the Bodies of certain Martyrs there with several other Miracles of which there are even in our Times so many wrought that we can neither know them all nor reckon those which we know In the same Book ch 14. he says In another place having related the Miracles which our Lord JESVS did when he was here in the Flesh I added these words You will say why are not these things done now And answered Because they would not move if they were not wonders and they would not be wonders if they were frequent Now this I said because neither all those nor yet so great Miracles are now wrought and not because there are now none at all He has related also at large the Miracles of his Age in his Tract of the City of GOD lib. 22. cap. 8. What how great and how many are the Miracles there recited And those indeed certain clear done in his own Memory and of which he himself was for the most part also a Witness Nor did he commit to Writing all that he then knew to have happen'd being in a manner overcome with their Multitude For he says The desire I have of finishing according to my Promise this my Treatise permits me not to mention all I know of this kind and without doubt most of my Friends who shall happen to read what I have here set down will be sorry that I have omitted so many which they know as well as I. Whose pardon I now beg desiring them to reflect what a Toil it would be for me to do that which the Work I have here undertaken will by no means allow For to say nothing of others should I but set down the Miraculous Cures wrought by 〈◊〉 Martyr the most glorious St. Stephen in the Town of Calama as also in our own it would require the Writing of many Books and yet they would not all be collected Why therefore should our Age be thought destitute of Miracles What use was there then for them which may not happen now What Scripture what word of GOD banishes from us these VVorks of the Almighty If thou have regard to those frequent and as I may say daily Miracles by which the Church was in her beginning asserted they were already as St. Augustin confesses ceas'd in his time but as for such as are more seldom though no less certain neither was that Age nor is ours without them But 't is no wonder you would have those Miracles remov'd from the Minds and Eyes of Men by which your Cause is overthrown since there are none wrought amongst you but such by which you may learn that you are in Error since you are Enemies to Holy Relicks at which CHRIST often does these Supernatural Works since lastly as many Miracles as are wrought amongst us are so many Thunderbolts of Almighty GOD by which he confounds your Heresy The End of the Seventh Chapter James Stuart the 1st