persons they have ten times more cause to fear than the common people And considering the advantage they once had by the horrible Ignorance of Priests and people it must be imputed only to the watchful eye of Divine Providence that the Scriptures being of so little use in the Roman Church have been preserved entire to our dayes There had been no such means in the world to have prevented a Reformation as this for they are not out when they take the Scripture so much for their enemy as appears by the force and restraint they put upon it and the fear and jealousie they are in about it continually If it had not been for this would any one have compared the Scriptures in the hands of the common people as my Adversary doth to a Sword in a mad mans hand Is it of so destructive a Nature and framed for no other use than a sword is which nothing but discretion keeps a man from doing mischief by and all the way a man hath though never so meek and humble to defend himself by it is by destroying his enemy with it if he continues his assault These expressions do not argue any kindness to the Scripture nor an apprehension of any great good comes to the world by it but that really men might have been more at ease and fewer differences in Religion had happened if all the Copies of the Bible had been lost assoon as the Pope had placed himself in his infallible Chair This design was once attempted as I shall shew afterwards but failed of success and I know not how far the principles of this prudence may carry them if ever such a season should fall into their hands again having found so much trouble to them from the Scriptures and so little benefit by them their Church being once owned as infallible For I would fain know whether the Scripture hath not done more mischief according to them in the hands of the Reformers than it can be supposed to do in the hands of the common people If it must be a sword in a mad mans hand whether the more strength and cunning such a one hath he be not capable of doing so much the more mischief by it And if it were possible to get it out of such a mans hands whether it were not the highest prudence and care of the publick safety to do it It can be then nothing but the impossibility of the thing which makes them suffer the Scripture to be in the hands of any who are capable of doing mischief by it and the more mischief they may do the more desirable and prudential it is to take it from them But all men see none are so capable of doing mischief thereby as men of the greatest wit and learning and that have the fairest appearance of piety to the world the consequence then of this doctrine is if pursued to the true design of it that the Scripture should be kept if possible out of the hands of the most subtle learned and pious men above all others if they be not true to the interests of the Roman Church It is but a meer shew to pretend only to keep the people in order for when are they otherwise but when cunning men have the managing of them the true meaning of this principle is that it will never be well with the World till the Books of Scripture are all burnt which are abroad and that only one Original be preserved in the Vatican to justifie the Popes title to Infallibility and that as the Sybilline Oracles of old never to be consulted but in cases of great extremity and that under the inspection of some very trusty officers nor to be interpreted but by the Pope himself If I were of the Church of Rome and owned the principles of it I must needs have condemned the great men of it in former times for want of Prudence in this matter That would have served their turn much better than forging so many decretal Epistles falsifying so many testimonies perverting so many Texts of Scripture to maintain the dignity of the Papal Chair There was only one small circumstance wanting their good will we have no cause to question and that was the possibility of it for although the Roman Church called it self Catholick they were wise enough to know there were many considerable Churches in the world besides theirs where the Scriptures were preserved and from whence copies might be procured by persons who would be so much the more inquisitive the more they were forbidden to get it Therefore they pitched upon an easier way and finding the people under a very competent degree of Ignorance they indulged them and soothed them up in it and told them they could never miss the way to Heaven though never so narrow in the dark Their only danger was too much light for then probably they might be in a great dispute whether the broad way was not the true for there they saw most of their Friends and Leaders And while they kept the people in this profound Ignorance and superstition they jogged on in their opinion as securely to Heaven as Ignatius Loyola's Mule did to Mount-serrat when he laid his Bridle on his neck to see whether he would take the way to pursue the Moor which was the more beaten track or the more craggy and untrodden way to that place of devotion and by a mighty providence and I suppose a little help of the Rider the Beast took the more narrow way But when persons began to be awakened by learning and thereby grew inquisitive in all matters and so by degrees in those of Religion they then espied their errour in letting such a Book lye abroad in so many hands from whence so many irresistible arguments were drawn against the Doctrine and practices of the Roman Church This I assure my self is the true ground of the quarrels against the Reading the Scriptures but that being now irremediable they betake themselves to smaller arts and endeavour to hinder any one particular person whom they have the least suspicion of from meddling with a Book so dangerous to their Church and Religion § 10. For if this were not it what makes them to be more jealous of the use of the Scriptures than ever the Christians were in former Ages Was there not much more danger of misunderstanding the Doctrine of the Gospel at first than ever after Nay were there not very many who were false Apostles and great and dangerous Hereticks presumptuous and arrogant if ever any were But did Christ or his Apostles for all this think it unfit to communicate the doctrine of the Gospel to the people or were the Books containing it written in Languages not to be understood by them no they chose the most popular languages of that time most largely spread and generally understood The Apostles never told their Disciples of the danger of reading the Divine Writings that were among them when they were
in which he was sometimes swallowed up in God as Bonaventures expression is and his soul melted at the sight of Christ and was so tender hearted to the poor that he sometimes put off his clothes to give them sometimes unript them sometimes cut them in pieces I suppose that he might give to the more All this while he had no Teacher but Christ and learnt all by inspiration but went besides himself at hearing the voice come from a Crucifix as any one almost would have done and it seems he was not well recovered when he came from the Cave for the people flocked about him as a mad man and gave him the common Civility to such persons of dirt and stones and his Father entertained him with dark rooms and chains as the fittest for him whom neither words nor blows could bring to himself But finding no amendment he made him renounce his Patrimony and so discharged him which S. Francis did so readily that he would not so much as keep the Clothes on his back Whereby saith Bonaventure in a wonderful zeal and being drunk in the Spirit casting away his very Breeches and being stark naked before them all said thus to his Father Hitherto I called thee Father on earth but hence forward I can securely say Our Father which art in Heaven As though his duty to God and his Parents had been inconsistent The Bishop in whose presence all this was done gave order to have his nakedness covered highly admiring his zeal and he no sooner had got some rags about him but he falls to makeing Crucifixes in Mortar with his own hands as Children do Babies in the dirt In this height of Fanaticism he goes about and preaches to the people whose words pierced their hearts much sooner than sense and reason would have done and he soon brought the superstitious and ignorant multitude to a great admiration of him for his very way of saluting the people he pretended he had by revelation At last one Bernard joyns with him but S. Francis tells him They must seek God for direction what to do and after prayers he being a great worshipper of the Trinity in honour to it opens the Gospel three times and the first three sentences he met with were to be the rule of their Order their second Brother was F. Gyles who though an Idiot and a simple man was full of God as he saith and had so many extasies and raptures that he seemed to live rather among Angels than men One day when S. Francis was alone in a solitary place He fell into an extasie of joy and had full assurance of the remission of his sins and being transported beyond himself he was catched up into a wonderful light wherein his mind being inlarged he foresaw all that should come to pass concerning his Order His number being increased to Rome he goes to confirm his Order but the Pope rejected him with scorn but in the night he saw a Palm growing between his feet into a goodly Tree which he wisely interpreting to be S. Francis sent for him and promised him fair things and upon the other Vision of his supporting the Lateran Church he approves his Rule and establishes his Order And his whole life afterwards was agreeable to this beginning 〈◊〉 and the Rule of his Order he called as Possevine tells us The Book of life the hope of salvation the marrow of the Gospel the ladder of Heaven the key of Paradise the Eternal Covenant Let any Fanaticks be produced among us though we are far from looking on them as the supporters of our Church who have exceeded S. Francis in their actions or expressions S. Brigitt saith of the Rule of S. Francis That it was not dictated or composed by the wisdom of man but by God himself nay every word therein was inspired by the Holy Ghost which she saith likewise of all the other Rules of Religious Orders What horrible blasphemy is this which is so solemnly approved in the Church of Rome for divine Revelations But lest Dominicus should seem to come behind S. Francis in â—â—sions he tells him at Rome where they met That it was revealed to him in a Vision that Christ was just coming to destroy the world for the wickedness of it and his Mother stopt him and told him she had two servants would reform it whereof himself was one and Christ approved of him as one that would do his work but his companion he did not know till he met S. Francis and so they embraced one another Which Vision out of his great humility S. Francis reported having it from the others own mouth I shall not insist on any more of Dominicus nor on the blasphemous Images set up in S. Marks Church at Venice one of which was of S. Paul with this Inscription By him we go to Christ the other of Dominicus with this but by him we go easier to Christ but I shall proceed to their followers among whom we meet with one of the most blasphemous pieces of Enthusiasm the world hath ever known § 8. For which we are to understand that in the beginning of the thirteenth Century one Almaricus a Student in Paris was suspected for some dangerous Opinions for which he was sentenced to recant and soon after dyed Among these Opinions he broached this blasphemy which was privately instilled into his followers That every person of the Trinity had his successive time of ruling the world that the Law of the Father continued till Christs comeing the Law of the Son to their time and then the time of the Holy Ghost was to begin In which the use of Sacraments was to cease and all internal administrations and every one then was to be saved by the inspiration and inward grace of the Holy Ghost without any external actions They so highly extolled Love that what would have been a sin without it they thought to be nothing with it as Fornication Adultery c. and promised impunity to the women with whom they committed these things because they said God was only good and not just That these were their opinions is delivered by Rigordus who lived in that age and was upon the place being a Monk of S. Denys and Physitian to the King of France and by Eymericus and Pegna and many others But by the care and endeavour of the Bishop and Vniversity of Paris though they had spread very far abroad and with a great deal of secrecy yet by the fraud and artifice of one imployed among them who pretended to revelations and the Spirit as highly as they could do they were convicted condemned and some of them executed Notwithstanding which severity about fifty years after this came forth a Book with the Title of Evangelium aeternum or the Eternal Gospel published by the Mendicant Fryers and supposed to be written by Iohannes de Parma
last times wherein he doth at large set forth the hypocrisie idleness flattery and baseness of the Fryers but coming to shew the near approach of the dangers he mentions he saith It is now fifty five years for about that time Almaric broached his doctrine that some have endeavoured to change the Gospel of Christ into another Gospel which they said would be better more perfect and worthy which they call the Gospel of the Holy Ghost or the everlasting Gospel which will by its coming turn the Gospel of Christ out of doors as saith he we are ready to prove out of that cursed Gospel and a little after he adds That this Everlasting Gospel was publickly explained at Paris A. D. 1254. from whence it is certain that it would be preached unless there were some other thing which hindered And afterwards he saith That in that Book this Everlasting Gospel is said to exceed the Gospel of Christ as much as the light of the Sun doth that of the Moon or the Kernel doth the Shell This Book of his extreamly incensed the Fryers and they presently sent informations against him to the Pope and by their interest got his Book to be condemned and burnt publickly before the Pope and the Court at Anagnia and afterwards at Paris to which purpose the Pope published a Bull and denounced the sentence of excommunication against any who should presume to defend it and the Write of it was deprived of his Ecclesiastical Promotions and banished France as far as the Popes power could do it All this was done in great haste before the Legats from the Vniversity could appear and when they came three of them recanted and returned only Gul. de S. Amore resolved to stand it out and answered all their objections and persisted still in the accusation of that horrible Book and at last prevailed so much that the Pope was fain to condemn the Evangelium aeternum together with S. Amours Book but it appears how unwillingly he did it by his carriage in it which is related by Matth. Paris for he condemned the other Book solemnly and caused the sentence to be publickly executed but he gave order that this Book should be secretly burnt and as much as might be without any offence to the Fryers Lo here the true zeal of the Head of the Church A Book only writ against the Mendicant Fryers is condemned as impious wicked execrable and what not in the Bull against it and a Book against Christian Religion in the highest manner hardly procured to be condemned and when it is with great fear of displeasing the Authors and approvers of it And since that time they have been very careful to suppress the least mention of the latter but very forward to set forth the other For in the Roman Bullarium the Bull against S. Amours Book is set forth at large but not the least intimation of any such Book condemned as the Evangelium aeternum So much dearer to the Pope is the honour of Fryers than of Christ and the Christian Religion And therefore S. Amour said well in the University of Paris before they went That it was to no purpose to go about to procure the condemning that Book at Rome where it had so many Favourers the design of it being to advance the honour of Religious Orders though to the overthrow of the Gospel of Christ. It is well these things were written and preserved by Writers of their own Church and persons of the same Age out of whom only I have given account of them for otherwise according to their usual Method of confuting things which do not please them they would be denyed with a mighty confidence and the world should be told that these are only the Lyes and Forgeries of Hereticks But these are to their shame preserved in their own Books and we can shew them the very words if occasion requires it § 9. Yet we are not to think that only the preaching Fryers sell into these extravagancies for the Franciscans had a great hand in them too and were as forward to promote that which they accounted their common interest And notwithstanding the Popes condemning the Book said to be taken out of Abbot Ioachims Writings yet his doctrine did in no long time after break forth again in the Franciscan Order For toward the latter end of the same Century or as most think in the beginning of the next in the time of Clement the fifth appeared one Petrus Iohannis de Oliva a great Disciple of Ioachims as Guido Carmelita Alphonsus a Castro and Franciscus Pegna affirm All the difference saith Alphonsus between them was that Ioachim made the spiritual State to commence from the founding the Benedictine Order but Petrus Iohannis would have it begin only from S. Francis Which State as Eymericus relates where he recounts his errors began with the Franciscan Order when the Angel of Christ that is S. Francis did set his mark upon all his Souldiers and that S. Francis appeared as Christ did with his wounds upon him For we are to understand that S. Francis in one of his Visions upon the very day of the exaltation of the Cross had the same bleeding wounds on his hands feet and side which Christ had upon the Cross and carried them for two years together before his death and lest this should be suspected Pope Alexander the fourth preached it in S. Bonaventures hearing that himself saw them as the sixth Lesson on S. Francis day in the Roman Breviary and Bonaventure assure us And who dares question the infallibility of the Popes eye-sight Unless the Story in latter times of Maria Visitationis as she was called Abbesse of the Annuntiation in Lisbon may give some suspicion of it For this Virgin had gained so great a reputation for sanctity not only in Portugal but in Spain Italy and the East Indies that she seemed to be a fit match for S. Francis And she out-did him in the number of her wounds for she had thirty two upon her head caused by Christs putting his Crown of Thorns upon her and in her hands and â—eet and side they were as exact as in St. Francis she made no difficulty of shewing them if her Confessor bid her but never otherwise lest she should seem too much to glory in the honour which Christ had done her This Confessor was no less a man than Ludovicus Granatensis a man highly commended for learning and piety who as verily believed them as Pope Alexander did those of S. Francis One day in the Week she laid raggs to her wounds upon which the print of the wounds was made These rags with incredible devotion saith the Writer of the Story were sent to the Pope himself and to the greatest and most religious persons in all parts by whom they were received with great Veneration And when he was Inquisitor in Sicily he saith he saw many of them
and to have any authority over them because they look on themselves as a free State There can be but one lawful Head of the Church by their own principles and only they are truly united to the Church who are in conjunction with the lawful Head and therefore it follows upon their own principles that they must be in a State of Schisme who are united with any other than the true Head What then signifie the boasts of Vnity in the Roman Church if they cannot prevent the falling of their members into such dangerous Schisms To what purpose is it to tell us of one Head of the Church to whom all must submit if there have been several pretenders to that Headship and the Church hath been a long time divided which of them was the true Unless all their Vnity comes to this at last that they have an excellent Vnity among them if they could all agree And such an Vnity may be had any where But if all were agreed what need any means of agreement by one universal Head or what can that universal Head signifie to making Vnity when his title to his Headship becomes a cause of greater divisions May not we say upon better grounds that taking away the Popes authority would tend much more to the peace of the Church since that hath been the cause of so great disturbances in the world and is to this day of one of the greatest differences between the several parts of the Catholick Church For as things now stand in the Christian World the Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Fountain of Vnity that he is much rather the Head of Contention and the great cause of the divisions of the Christian Church § 7. 3. The differences have been as great in the Roman Church as out of it both as to matters of order and doctrine 1. For matters of Order and Government Have not the controversies between the Regulars and Seculars among them even here in England been managed with as much heat and warmth as to matter of Episcopal jurisdiction as between those of the Church of England and the dissenters from it Neither is this any lately started controversie among them but hath continued ever since the prevalency of the Mendicant Fryers and their pretences of exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction and encroaching upon the office of the Parochial Clergy For no sooner did the Fryers begin publickly under pretence of priviledges to take upon them to Preach without licence from the Bishops where they pleased and to take other offices of the Parochial Clergy out of their hands but great opposition was made against them by all the learned men who were friends to the Episcopal power and the peace of the Church Which being a matter of concernment for us to understand I shall give a faithful account of it from the best Writers of their own Church Assoon as the Monastick orders were found to be very serviceable to the Interests of the Court of Rome it was thought convenient to keep them in an immediate dependence upon the Pope in whatever Countrey they were From hence came the great favour of Popes to them and their willingness to grant them almost what priviledges they desired because receiving them only from the plenitude of the Popes power they were obliged to maintain and defend that from whence they derived them At first when they led a more properly Monastick life the priviledges granted them seem to be nothing else but exempting them from some troubles which were inconsistent with it either relating to their persons or the estates they enjoyed After this they began to complain of the numbers of people flocking to their Churches as inconsistent with their private and retired life from hence we first read that publick Masses by the Bishop were forbid in Monasteries to prevent a concourse of people and especially of Women to them But a long time after this they lived in subjection to the Bishops and meddled no more in Ecclesiastical than in Secular matters So Charles M. in his Capitular commands them to keep within their Monasteries to be subject to their Bishops and to meddle in no Ecclesiastical matters without the express command of the Bishop But as the Popes increased their authority the Monks inlarged their priviledges and procured exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction which yet was not pleasing to those who valued the Churches peace above the priviledges of the Monastick orders These exemptions are therefore highly condemned by St. Bernard though a Monk himself as tending to the dissolution of the Ecclesiastical Government and by Ivo Carnotensis who saith he grew weary of his Episcopal Government by reason of them Petrus Blesensis hath an Epistle written to Pope Alexander 3. in the name of Richard Archbishop of Canterbury against the Abbot of Malmsbury who refused subjection to the Bishop of Salisbury and being cited by the Archbishop to appear before him for his contempt he declared he would be subject to none but the Pope and said they were pittiful Abbots who did not wholly exempt themselves from the Bishops power when they might for an annual pension to the Pope obtain an absolute exemption Therefore the Archbishop saith it was time for them to complain because this contagion did spread it self far and the Abbots set themselves against their Bishops and Metropolitans and the Popes by indulging these things did command disobedience and Rebellion and arm the Children against their Fathers but these and many other complaints signified nothing in the Court of Rome as long as their profit and interest were advanced by it And although we read of many affronts which the Monks put upon the Bishops before the time of the Mendicant Fryers yet their insolency grew the highest when they took upon them to Preach in Parochial Churches and hear Confessions without the Bishops leave Thence the Vniversity of Paris published the Book De periculis novissimorum temporum which although written by S. Amour went abroad in the name of all the Divines there as appears by the beginning of it wherein a Character is given of those persons who should make the last times so troublesome they should be lovers of themselves not enduring reproof covetous both of riches and applause high-minded because they would not be in subjection to the Bishops but be set before them and therefore disobedient to their spiritual Fathers And such as these are said to creep into houses which the ordinary Gloss expounds of those who enter into the houses of those who are under anothers charge these enter not by the door as the Rectors of Churches do but steal into them like Thieves and Robbers and leading captive silly women is their setting them against the Bishops and perswading them to a Monastick life These are likewise false teachers who though never so learned and holy teach without being sent and none are duly sent but such as are chosen and
authorised by the Church such as Bishops and Presbyters are the one succeeding the Apostles the other the 72 Disciples and afterwards they deny that the Pope himself can give any power to others to meddle in the charge of a Parish or in Preaching among them but where they are invited to it because Bishops themselves cannot otherwise act out of their own Dioceses and that the Pope in this case doth injury by violating the rights of others and if he should go about to destroy what the Prophets and Apostles have taught he would erre in so doing Besides say they if these Praedicant Fryers have a liberty to Preach where they please they are all universal Bishops and because maintenance is due to all who Preach the people will be bound to pay procurations to them which will be an unreasonable burden upon them Many other Arguments they use against this new sort of Itinerant Preachers and represent the dangers that came to the Church by them at large wherein they describe them as a kind of hypocritical Sectaries that abused the people under a fair shew and pretence of Religion having as they say a form of Godliness but denying the power of it and that the persecution of the Church by them would be equal to what it was by Tyrants and open Hereticks because they are familiar enemies and do mischief under a shew of kindness And that one of the great dangers of the Church by them would be their possessing Princes and people with prejudices against the Government of the Church by the Bishops which having done they can more easily lead them into errours both against faith and a good life That their way of dealing is first with the women and by them seducing the men as the Devil first tempted Eve and by her Adam and when they have once seduced them they tye them by oathes and vows not to hearken to the counsel of their Bishops or those who have the care of their souls That the Bishops ought to suppress these and call in the publick help to do it and to purge their Dioceses of them and that if they do it not the blood of the people will be required of them and destruction will come upon them for it and though Princes and people had taken their part that ought not to discourage them but their folly ought to be made manifest to all men After this they lay down the means to be used for suppressing them and the signes for their discovery saying that they are idle persons busie bodies wandring beggars against the Apostles express command who would have all such excluded the Church as disorderly livers and therefore conclude with an earnest exhortation to all who have a care of the Church to rise up against them as the pernicious enemies of its peace and welfare All these things which are only summarily comprehended in that Book are very largely insisted upon by Gul. de Sancto Amore in another Book entituled Collections of Holy Scripture which is wholly upon this subject The Mendicant Fryers being thus assaulted endeavoured to defend themselves as well as they could and made choice of the best wits among them for their Champions such as Bonaventure and Aquinas then were who undertook their cause and were fain to shelter themselves under the plenitude of the Popes power by which means they were sure to have the Pope on their side but his Authority was here no means of Vnity for the controversie continued long after and was managed with great heat on both sides § 8. Upon the great complaint of the priviledges and exemptions which the Monastick orders had obtained from the Popes Clement 5. promised to have this business discussed in the Council of Vienna and to that end gave order to several learned men to write about it among whom particularly Durandus Mimatensis writ a large discourse not mentioned by Possevin but Printed A. D. 1545. wherein he perswades the Pope to revoke all such exemptions because they were contrary to the ancient Canons of the Church whereby from the Apostles times all places and persons whatsoever were immediately under the jurisdiction of the Bishops and that the Pope neither ought nor could change this order of the Church Because the order of Bishops being appointed to prevent Schisms in the Church it could not attain its end if any persons were exempted from their jurisdiction And if it were in the Popes power to grant such exemptions it were by no means expedient to do it because the order of the Church would be destroyed by it the Bishops contemned and the Church divided and if the Monastick Orders paid no obedience to the Bishops the people would soon learn by their example to disobey them too And supposing it had been expedient before it could not be so then because though the Monastick orders were founded in a state of poverty yet now those who were in them were arrived at such a height of intolerable pride and arrogance that not only their Abbots and Priors but the Fryers thought themselves equal to Bishops and fit to be preferred before other Ecclesiastical persons Thus far Durandus and Aegidius Romanus at the same time writ a Book against the Exemptions of Fryers Against both of them Iacobus the Abbot of the Cistercians writt a defence of Exemptions which was published in Vienna in the time of the Council This matter was hotly debated in that Council but the Pope would not yield to the revocation of them but renews a Bull of Boniface 8. for qualifying and composing the differences that had happened to the great scandal of the Church about them wherein he takes notice of several Bulls before which had taken no effect so excellent an instrument of peace is the Popes Authority and that of a long time a most grievous and dangerous discord had been between the Bishops and Parochial Clergy on one part and the Preaching Fryers on the other Therefore the Pope very wisely considering how full of danger how prejudicial to the Church how displeasing to God so great a discord was and resolving wholly to remove it for the future by his Apostolical authority doth appoint and command that the Fryers should have liberty to Preach in all Churches Places and publick Streets at any other hour but that wherein the Bishops did Preach or did command others to Preach without a particular license to Preach then A greater instance of the discords which have been in the Roman Church nor of the insufficiency of the Popes Authority for the cure of them can hardly be produced than this is The Popes were forced to say and unsay and retract their own grants to mitigate and qualifie them and all to no purpose for the differences continued as great notwithstanding them The first Pope who interposed in this quarrel was Gregory 9. who upon complaint made by the Fryers of the Bishops exercising their jurisdiction
8. Febr. 4. A. D. 1625. not long after he comes into England and was received with so great kindness by their party here as made the Iesuits who are friends to none but themselves soon to become his enemies especially when he began to exercise his Episcopal jurisdiction here in laying restraints upon the Regulars which the Iesuits with other Regulars grew so impatient of that they soon revived the old quarrel concerning the authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and managed it with so great heat and fierceness that the titular Bishop was fain to leave the field and withdraw into France The bottom of the quarrel was they found the kindness of their party to them abated since the Bishops coming who before had sway'd all and lived in great plenty and bravery when the poor Seculars got scarce bread to eate as Watson very sadly laments in his answer to Parsons but now the necessary support of the dignity of a Bishop made the charity of their party run in another channel which the Provincial of the Iesuits complains of in a Letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon Therefore they endeavour all they can to make a party against him among the people too which they did so effectually as amounted to his withdrawing a more civil word for his exile And now both parties being sufficiently heated the battel begins in which not only England and Ireland but France and Flanders were deeply engaged The first who appeared was Dr. Kellison Professour of Doway in a Book in Vindication of the Bishops Authority to whom Knot then Vice-Provincial of the Iesuits returned his Modest and brief discussion c. under the name of Nicholas Smith a Iesuite then dead Soon after came out another written to the same purpose under the name of Daniel of Iesu whose true name was Iohn Fluide which the other writing Ioanes for Iohn was the Anagram of he was a Iesuit too and Professour at St. Omars which Books were first censured by the Arch-bishop of Paris then by the Sorbonne and at last by the Bishops of France in an Assembly of them at Paris but the Iesuits were so far from giving over by this that they new set forth their Books in Latin with large approbations of them and publish a Remonstrance against the Bishop of Chalcedon in the name of the Catholick party in England which was disowned by the greatest number of them and cast wholly upon the Iesuits the same year 1631. three Books were published by the secular Clergy here in opposition to the Iesuits Who were so far from quitting the Field by the number of their enemies that they begin a fresh charge against both the Sorbonne Doctors and the French Clergy under the fained name of Hermannus Loemelius whose chief Author was the fore-named Iesuite Lloyd with the assistance of his Brethren as the diversity of the style shews and another Book came out against the Faculty of Paris in Vindication of Knot or Nicholas Smith with many approbations of Bishops Vniversities and private Doctors and in Vindication of the Propositions of Ireland likewise censured at Paris another Book came forth under the name of Edmundus Vrsulanus whose true name was Mac-mahone Prior of the Franciscan Convent in Lovain About the same time the Iesuits published their Censure of the Apostolical Creed in imitation of the censures at Paris against their Doctrine as though their Doctrines were as certain as that and themselves as infallible as the Apostles wherein they charge the Bishops their enemies with reviving old Heresies and broaching new ones The Iesuits having now done such great things triumph unreasonably in all places as having utterly overthrown their enemies and beaten them out of the field when in a little time after Hallier and le Maistre two Doctors of the Sorbonne undertake the quarrel against them but none was so highly magnified and infinitely applauded by the French Clergy as a person under the disguised name of Petrus Aurelius whose atchievements in this kind they celebrate next to those of the Pucelle d' Orleans and Printed all his Works together at their own charge and writ a high Elogium of him which is prefixed before them And the secular Clergy of England sent him a letter of Congratulation for his Triumphs subscribed by Iohn Colleton Dean of the Chapter and Edmond Dutton Secretary wherein they sadly lament the discords that have been among them here and the Heresies broached by their Adversaries by occasion of them The main of-this Controversie did concern the dignity necessity and jurisdiction of the Episcopal Order as appears by the Censures of the Bishops of France and by Aurelius who saith that although the Dispute began upon occasion of the Bishop of Chalcedon and the English Clergy yet it was now carried farther whether the Episcopal Order was necessary to the Being of a particular Church Whether it was by divine right or no Whether confirmation might be given without Bishops Whether the Episcopal Order was more perfect than the Monastical Whether the Regulars were under the jurisdiction of Bishops And therefore the Iesuits are charged by their Adversaries with a design to extirpate and ruine the whole Order of Episcopacy Have not these men now great reason to insult over us that some of these questions have caused great differences among us when the Iesuits in England had laid the foundation of them by their quarrels of the same kind but a little before and furnished the enemies to Episcopacy and the Church of England with so many arguments to their hands to manage their bad cause with But what becomes of the Court of Rome all this while do the Pope and Cardinals only stand still to see what the issue of the Battel will be without ever offering to compose the difference between the two parties No. The Iesuits finding how hard they were put to it make their address to Rome as their greatest Sanctuary and A. D. 1633. obtained a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for suppressing the Books on both sides without judging any thing at all of the merits of the cause or giving any censure of the authority on either side And is not now the Popes authority an excellent remedy for all divisions in the Church When in so great a heat as this was the Pope durst not interpose at all in the main business for fear of losing either side which is a plain argument that they themselves look on his Authority as so precarious a thing that they must by no means expose it where it is like to be called in Question Were not here Controversies fit to be determined To what purpose is that authority that dare not be exercised when there is most need of it and when could there be greater need than in such a time when the Church was in a flame by these contentions And yet so timerous a Decree as this was could find no acceptance For at Paris immediately comes out a disquisition upon it shewing
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
A DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME AND The danger of Salvation in the Communion of it in answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant WHEREIN A particular Account is given of the Fanaticism and Divisions of that Church By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. LONDON Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White Hart in Westminster Hall 1671. THE PREFACE ALthough I see no great effect of the Courtship commonly used towards the Candid and Ingenuous Reader unless it be in diverting the censure from the Book to the Preface yet in some cases it looks like a breach of the Readers priviledge not to give him an account of the occasion and design of a Book Especially when the matter handled therein hath been thought so often discussed and is of so general concernment that every pretender thinks he knows as much already as is to be known in it But we really find no greater advantage hath been given to our Adversaries than this that the things in dispute between us are generally no better understood by the persons they have their designs upon For assoon as they have baffled their ignorance and mistakes these have been ready to yield up themselves and the Cause imagining nothing more could be said for it than they could say for themselves Whereby our Church hath not only suffered in its reputation as far as that is concerned in the weakness of some of its members but strange boasts and triumphs have been made by those of the Church of Rome when such who understood not their own Religion have embraced theirs While these disputes were fresh in the world every one thought himself concerned to enquire into them but since our Church hath been so long established on the principles of the Reformation and other unhappy controversies have risen up the most have taken this Cause for granted and thought it needless to enquire any farther into the Grounds of it Which our Adversaries perceiving they have found far greater success in their attempts upon particular persons than in publick Writings for these have only provoked others to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause whereas in the other by their wayes of Address and all the arts of Insinuation they have instilled their principles into the minds of some less judicious persons before they were aware of it Thence it is easie to observe that the greatest mischief they have done hath been like the Pestilence by walking in darkness and spreading their infection by whispers in corners All their hopes and strength lye in the weakness and credulity of the persons they deal with but if they meet with any who truly understand the differences between us they soon give them over as untractable But to such whose employments have not given them leave to enquire or whose capacity hath not been great enough to discern their Sophistry their first work is to make a false representation both of the Doctrines and practices of their Church and if they be of such easie faith to believe them they from thence perswade them into an ill opinion of their Teachers who possessed them with so bad thoughts of such a Church as theirs A Church of so great Holiness as may be seen by the Saint-like lives of their Popes and Converts a Church of so great Antiquity bating only the Primitive times a Church of so admirable Unity saving the divisions in it a Church so free from any Fanatick heats as any one may believe that will If this first assault doth not make them yield but they desire at least time to consider and advise in a matter of so great importance then they tell them there is not a man of our Church dares give any of them a meeting if they offer to puâ— it to a tryal they will appoint a day which they foresee will be most inconvenient for the persons they are to meet with If upon that account it be declined or deferred this is spred abroad for a Victory if it be accepted then one thing or other happens that they cannot come either the person goes out of Town unexpectedly or his Superiours have forbidden him or such conferences are not safe for them they are so sorely persecuted or at last what good can an hours talk do to satisfie any one in matters of Religion But if there be no remedy which they are seldome without and a conference happen which they scarce ever yield to but when they are sure of the person for whose sake it is then whosoever was baffled they are sure to go away with the triumph and as an evidence of it such a person went off from our Church upon it which was made sure of their side before If this way takes not then a sett of Questions is ready to be sent if another be returned to them to be answered at the same time this is declined and complained of as hard dealing as though they had only the priviledge of putting Questions and we the duty of answering them If answers be given to them after a Pass or two they put an end to the tryal of their skill in that place and seek for another to shew it in But if the Papers chance to be slighted or business hinders a present answer or there be a reasonable presumption that the person concerned hath already forsaken our Church this becomes the occasion of a new triumph the Papers are accounted unanswerable as the Spanish Armado was called invincible which we thank God we found to be otherwise and it may be are demanded again as Trophies to be preserved for the glory of the Catholick Cause All these several wayes I have had experience of in the compass of a few years since by command I was publickly engaged in the Defence of so excellent a Cause as that of our Church against the Church of Rome I confess it seemed somewhat hard to me to be put to answer so many several Papers which I have received upon their tampering with particular persons of our Church while my Book it self remained unanswered by them after so many years of trying their strength about it For those two who in some small measure have attempted it have performed it in the way that Ratts answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them for the body and design of it remains wholly untouched by them But for the satisfaction of any person who desired it I was not willing to decline any service which tended to so good an end as the preserving any member of our Church in the communion of it Which was the occasion of this present writing For some time since the person concerned after some discourses with her brought me the two Questions mentioned in the beginning of the Book to which I returned a speedy answer in the midst of many other employments not long after I received the
Reply but hearing for a great while no further of the person for whose sake this Discourse began and having affairs more than enough to take up my time I laid aside the Papers supposing that business at an end But about Christmass last they were called for by a near Friend of the party concerned and a personal Conference being declined an intimation was given me that the Papers were thought unanswerable I began to fear so too for at first I could not find them but assoon as I did I found the great improvement they had made by lying so long for what at first I looked on as inconsiderable was in that time thought to be too strong to be meddled with and I could not tell what they might come to in time if I let them alone any longer And I was informed by a worthy person that I. S. the man of confidence and principles had expressed great wonder I had not answered them as though we had no cause to wonder that the noble Science of Controversie should be so abandoned by him and that a man of such mettal should all this while leave his poor demonstrations alone to defend themselves Vpon these suggestions I resolved as fast as other imployments would give leave for we are not those happy men to have only one thing to mind to give a full and punctual answer to them Which I have now made publick and printed the Papers themselves at large that my Adversary may not complain of any injury done him by mis-representing his words or meaning And besides other reasons I the rather chose to appear in publick to draw them from their present way of pickeering and lying under hedges to take advantage of some stragling members of our Church not so able to defend themselves and whom they rather steal from us than conquer being blinded with their smoke more than overcome by any strength of argument If they have any thing to say either against our Church or in Defence of their own let them come into the open Field from which they have of late so wisely withdrawn themselves finding so little success in it And since these Disputes must be I am very well pleased that the Adversary I have now to deal with hath the Character of a Learned and Ingenuous man and I do not desire he should lose it in the Debate between us hoping that nothing shall proceed from me but what becomes a fair and ingenuous Adversary If I were not fully satisfied that we have truth and reason on our side I should never have been engaged in these combats I am so great a friend to the peace of the Christian world that I could take more pleasure in ending one Controversie than in being able to handle as many as the most Voluminous Schoolmen have ever done For however Noble some may think the Science of Controversie to be I am not fond of the practice of it especially being managed with so much heat and passion such scorn and contempt of Adversaries so many reproaches and personal reflections as they commonly are as if men forgot to be Christians when they began to be Disputants I do not think it such a mighty matter to throw dirt in a mans face and then to laugh at him or rather to take a Metaphor now from dry weather to raise such a dust as may endanger the eye-sight of weaker persons I think it no great skill to make things appear either ridiculous or dark but to give them their due Colours and set them in the clearest light shewes far more art and ingenuity And even that smartness of expression without which Controversie will hardly go down with many seems but like the throwing Vinegar upon hot Coals which gives a quick scent for the present but vanishes immediately into smoke and air In matters of Truth and Religion reason and evidence ought to sway men and not passion and noise and though men cannot command their judgements they may and ought to do their expressions And although this looks as like an Apologie for a dull Book as may be yet I had much rather it should suffer for want of wit and smartness than of good nature and Christianity My design is to represent the matters in difference between us truly to report faithfully and to argue closely and by these to shew that no person can have any pretence of reason to leave our Church to embrace the communion of the Church of Rome because the danger is so much greater there in the nature of their Worship and tendency of their doctrine and what they object most against us in point of Fanaticism and divisions will equally hold against them so that they have no advantages above us but have many apparent dangers which we have not Among the chiefest dangers in the communion of that Church I have insisted on that of Idolatry not to make the breach wider than some others have done but to let persons first understand the greatness of the danger before they run into it I wish I could acquit them from so heavy a charge but I cannot force my judgement and while I think them guilty it would be unfaithfulness in me not to warn those of it whom it most concerns to understand it And where other things are subtle and nice tedious and obscure this lyes plain to the conscience of every man if the Church of Rome be guilty of Idolatry our separation can be no Schism either before God or man because our communion would be a sin And although it may be only an excess of charity in some few learned persons to excuse that Church from Idolatry although not all who live in the communion of it yet upon the greatest search I can make I think there is more of charity than judgement in so doing For the proof of it I must refer the Reader to the following Discourse but that I may not be thought in so severe a censure to contradict the sense of our Church which I have so great a regard to I shall here shew that this charge of Idolatry hath been managed against the Church of Rome by the greatest and most learned defenders of it ever since the Reformation What greater discovery can be made of the sense of our Church than by the Book of Homilies not barely allowed but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsom doctrine and necessary for these times and nothing can be more plainly delivered therein than that the Church of Rome is condemned for Idolatry So the third part of the Sermon against the peril of Idolatry concludes Ye have heard it evidently proved in these Homilies against Idolatry by Gods Word the Doctors of the Church Ecclesiastical Histories reason and experience that Images have been and be worshipped and so Idolatry committed to them to the great offence of Gods Majesty and danger of infinite souls c. Who the Author of these Homilies was is not material
an image if not in one neither is it in the other But what doth this answer signifie unless there be an equal presence and union of the Divine nature of Christ with the Image as there was with the humane nature Which union was the reason of the adoration given to the person of Christ and what ground can there be then of giving divine worship to the Image of Christ unless the same union be supposed If the humane nature without the union of the divine could yield us no sufficient reason of divine worship being given to it how much less can an Image deserve it which can only at the best represent but the external lineaments of that humane nature And if the divine nature be supposed united with the Image then the same divine honour is due to the Image of Christ which is to God himself which yet these Nicene Fathers deny and the Image then joyned with the divine nature is as proper an object of divine worship without respect to any Prototype as the person of Christ is consisting of the divine and humane nature Again they urge If the humane nature of Christ be represented in the Image of Christ to be worshipped as separate from the divine this would be plain Nestorianism To this the good Nicene Fathers not knowing what to answer plainly deny the conclusion and cry They Nestorians No they lye in their teeth they were no more Nestorians than themselves nor so much neither And now good men they say It is true they do represent Christ only by his humane nature in an Image and when they look on Images they understand nothing but what is signified by them as when the birth of the Virgin is represented they conceive in their minds that he who was born was truly God as well as man Alas for them that they should ever be charged with the worship of Images They plead for nothing now but a help to their profound Meditations by them But the Controversie was about worship what ever they think and their Adversaries argument did not lye in the Images being considered as an object of perception but of worship i. e. if the Image can only represent the humane nature of Christ as separate from the divine and in that respect be an object of worship to us then the charge of Nestorianism follows but this they very wisely pass by and their distinction of the Image from the principal cannot serve their turn since the Image receiving the worship due to the principal must have not only the name as they say but the reason of worship common with the principal which it represents After this the Fathers of Constantinople proceed to another Argument which is That all the representation of Christ allowed us by the Gospel is that which Christ himself instituted in the Elements of the Lords Supper whose use was to put us in remembrance of Christ. No other Figure or Type being chosen by Christ as able to represent his being in the flesh but this This was an honourable Image of his quickning body made by himself say they which he would not have of the shape of a man to prevent Idolatry but of a common nature as he took upon him the common nature of man and not any individuated person and as the body of Christ was really sanctified by the divine nature so by institution this holy Image is made divine through sanctification by Grace Here the Nicene Council quarrels with them for calling the Eucharist an Image contrary as they say to the Scriptures and Fathers but they are as much to be believed therein as in their admirable proofs that the worship of Images was the constant doctrine of the Church and having strenuously denyed this they suppose that to be enough to answer the argument Besides these particular arguments against the Images of Christ the Council of Constantinople useth many more against the Images of any other Because these being the chief there can be less reason for any other besides that there is no tradition of Christ or his Apostles or the primitive Fathers for them no way of consecration of them prescribed or practised no suitableness in the use of them to the design of Christian Religion which being in the middle between Iudaism and Paganism it casts off the Sacrifices of the one and not only the Sacrifices but all the Idolatries of the other and it is blasphemy to the Saints in Heaven to call in the Heathen superstitions into Christianity to honour them by that it is unbecoming their glory in Heaven to be set up on earth in dull and sensless Images that Christ himself would not receive testimony from Devils though they spake truth neither can such a Heathenish custome be acceptable to the Saints in Heaven though pretended to be for their honour That nothing can be plainer in the Gospel than that God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and in truth to which nothing can be more contrary than the going about to honour God by worshipping any Image of himself or his Saints These and many other arguments from the Scriptures and Fathers that Council insists upon to shew the incongruity of the worship of Images to the nature of God and the design of the Christian Religion to which the Council of Nice returns very weak and trivial answers as shall more largely appear if any one thinks good to defend them And we have this apparent advantage on our side that although the Popes of Rome sided with these worshippers of Images yet the Council at Francford condemned it called together by Charles the Great Not out of misunderstanding their Doctrine as some vainly imagine because as Vasquez well proves the Copy of the Nicene Council was sent to them by Pope Adrian because the Acts of that Council were very well known to the Author of the Book written upon this subject under the name of Charles the Great and published by du Tillet at Paris about the middle of the last Century which is acknowledged by their learnedst men to have been written at the same time because the Popes Legats Theophylactus and Stephanus were present and might easily rectifie any mistake if they were guilty of it and none of the Historians of that time do take notice of any such error among them But Vasquez runs into another strange mistake himself that the Council of Francford did not condemn that of Nice which is evident they did expresly by the second Canon of of that Council published by Sirmondus And all the Objections of Vasquez are taken off by what Sirmondus speaks of the great authority and antiquity of that MS. from which he published them and from the consent of the Historians of that time that the Council of Francford did reject that of Nice and Sirmondus saith they had good reason to deny it to be an Oecumenical Council where only the Greeks met together and none of other Provinces were called
or asked their opinion and Pope Adrian himself he saith in his defence of it against the Caroline Books never gives it the name or authority of an Oecumenical Council The same Council was rejected here in England as our Historians tell us because it asserted the adoration of Images which the Church of God abhors which are the words of Hoveden and others And we find afterwards in France by the Synod of Paris called by Ludovicus Pius upon the Letters of Michael Balbus Emperour of Constantinople in order to the Vnion of Christendome in this point that these Western Churches persisted still in the condemnation of the Nicene Council which they would not have done after so long a time to inform themselves if a meer mistake of their Doctrine at first had been the cause of their opposition But whosoever will read the Caroline Books or the Synod of Paris or Agobardus and others about that time will find that they condemn all religious worship of Images as adoration and contrary to that honour which is due to God alone and to the commands which he hath given in Scripture And I extreamly wonder how any men of common sense and much more any of learning and judgement that had read the Book of Charles the Great against the Nicene Synod could imagine it altogether proceeded upon a mistake of the meaning of it when it so distinctly relates and punctually answers the several places of Scriptures and Fathers produced by it for the worship of Images In the first Book an answer is given to many impertinent places of the Old Testament alledged in that Council which the second proceeds with and examines several testimonies of the Fathers and in the two remaining Books pursues all their pretences with that diligence that no one can imagine all this while that the Author did not know their meaning And that by adoration he means no more than giving Religious Worship to Images appears from hence because he calls the Civil worship which men give to one another by the name of adoration when he shewes that it is another thing to give adoration to a man upon a civil respect and to give adoration to Images upon a religious account when God challenges all religious worship or adoration to himself and whatever reason will hold for such a worship of Images will much more hold for the worship of men who have greater excellency in them and more honour put upon them by God than any Images can ever pretend to That God allows no other kind of adoration to be given to any but himself but that which we give to one another Can any be so senseless to think that by this civil adoration he meant we honoured every man we met as our Soveraign Prince And as little reason is there to say that by adoration given to Images he meant only the incommunicable worship due only to God in the sense of those Fathers Can we imagine saith he that S. Peter would allow the worship of Images who forbad Cornelius to worship him Or St. John whom the Angel checked for offering to worship him and bid him give that honour to God Or Paul and Barnabas who with such horror ran among the men of Lycaonia when they were about to worship them and yet surely Angels and such persons as these deserved more to be worshipped than any Images can do But we see by these examples that even these are not to be adored with any other kind of adoration than what the offices of civility require from us Besides in his language those who followed the Council of Constantinople are said not to adore Images by which nothing else can be meant than their giving no Religious worship to them and when he shews the great inconsequence of the argument from the adoration of the Statues of the Emperours to the adoration of Images because in matters of Religious Worship we are not to follow the customes of men against the will of God he thereby shews what kind of adoration he intended not the worship of Latria but supposed to be of an inferiour sort In so much that Binius confesseth that the design of these books was against all worship of Images It is true Pope Hadrian in the answer he sent to these Books which is still extant in the Tomes of the Councils doth deny that the Synod intended to give proper divine worship to Images but that is no more than the Synod it self had in words said before but that was not the Question what they said but what the nature of the thing did imply Whether that religious worship they gave to Images was not part of that adoration which was only due to God And he that expects an answer to this from him will find himself deceived who is so pitifully put to it for an answer to the demand of any example of words of the Apostles to justifie Image-worship that he is forced to make use of some Mystical passages of Dionysius the supposed Areopagite wherein the word Image hapning to be is very sufficient to his purpose And this answer of Hadrians gave so little satisfaction to the Western Bishops that A.D. 824. the Synod at Paris being called by Ludovicus Pius to advise about this point did condemn expressely Pope Hadrian for asserting a superstitious adoration of Images which they look on as a great impiety and say that he produces very impertinent places of the Fathers and remote from his purpose and that setting aside his Pontifical authority in his answer to the Caroline Books there were some things apparently false and they have nothing to excuse him by but his Ignorance And therefore they at large shew that the Religious worship of Images came first from Hereticks and that it was alwayes condemned by the Fathers of the Christian Church and answer the arguments produced on the other side out of the Writings of the Fathers And supposing that superstitious custome of worshipping Images had for some time obtained yet they shew by several testimonies that it ought to be abrogated No wonder then that Bellarmine is so much displeased with this Synod for offering so boldly to censure the Popes Writings and a Synod approved by him wherein the saith they exceed the fault of the Author of the Caroline Books because as he confesseth they offered to teach the Pope and resisted him to the face And yet no doubt they had read and considered Hadrians words wherein he disowns the giveing true divine honour to Images Not long after this Synod came forth the Book of Agobardus Archbishop of Lyons against Images occasioned saith Papirius Massonus by the stupendous superstition in that Age in the worship of them And this saith he is the substance of his Doctrine out of St. Augustine and other Fathers that there is no other Image of God but what is himself and therefore cannot be
painted and he ought not to be worshipped in any Image but what he hath prescribed us to worship which is Christ that adoration is external or internal that both of them are called Religion by which we are bound eternally to God and only to him from whence it follows that neither Angels nor Saints are to be worshipped by any religious worship for this is the Law of Adoration that no creature no phantasm of God in our minds no work of mens hands ought to be worshipped for if Gods creatures are not to be worshipped much less ours such as Images of God Angels and Saints are Neither is it enough to say that they do not worship the Image but the thing represented for the object terminates the worship and it is a deceit of the Devil under the pretence of honouring the Saints to bring mens minds to Idols and from the true God to carnal things that Images are to be used only for shew and memory and not at all for Religion that God alone is to be worshipped with all Religious worship whether called Latria or Doulia or what name soever and for the casting away all superstition that no Images be painted in Churches no Statues erected nor accounted holy that the true God may be worshipped alone for ever This is the abstract of his Doctrine delivered by Massonus whose other Writings shew he was far from being partial towards the Reformation And the Book it self is lately published by Baluzius again where any one may easily satisfie himself concerning fidelity But Baluzius very honestly tells us some have suspected this Book not to be very Catholick and therefore it was censured by Baronius and the Spanish Index yet he ingenuously confesseth he saith no more than the whole Gallican Church believed in that Age. What that was I have already shewed This I have the larger insisted upon to shew that it is no new thing for us to plead for all Religious worship being appropriated to God and that the command against Image-worship was no Ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews but that the reason of it doth extend to all Ages and Nations and especially to us who live under the Gospel From all which it follows that it was not meerly the Heathen Idolatry which was forbidden by God nor barely to prevent their falling to that by degrees but the giving to himself such a worship which he judges so unworthy of him § 10. 3. From those who were best able to understand the meaning of it We can imagine none so competent a Judge of the meaning of a Law as the giver of it and what he afterwards declares to be the sense of this Law The first occasion given for knowing the meaning of the Law concerning Images was not long after the making of it when upon Moses his absence they compelled Aaron to make them a Golden Calf Exod. 32. 4. Here was an Image made contrary to the Law as is on all sides acknowledged but the question is Whether by this the Israelites did fall into the Heathen Idolatry or only worship the true God under that Symbol of his presence That they did not herein fall back to the Heathen Idolatry I thus prove 1. From the occasion of it which was not upon the least pretence of Infidelity as to the true God or that they had now better reason given them for the worship of other Gods besides him but all they say was that Moses had been so long absent they knew not what was become of him and therefore they say to Aaron make us Gods or a God as in Nehem. 9. 18. to go before us We cannot imagine the people so sottish to desire Aaron to make them a God in the proper sense as though they could believe the Calf newly made to have been the God which before it was made brought them out of the Land of Aegypt as they say afterwards v. 4. but it must be understood as the symbol of that God which did bring them from thence the controversie then lyes here Whether they thought the Aegyptian Gods delivered them out of Aegypt while they forsook all their own worshippers to preserve those who were so great enemies to them that their very way of worship was an abomination to all the Aegyptians Exod 8. 26. and whether they could think the Gods of Aegypt had wrought all the Miracles for them in their deliverance and after it Whether they appeared not long before on Mount Sinai and delivered the Law to them Or whether it were not the true God they meant who had made that the Preface to his Laws I am the God that brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt to whom they intended still to give honour but the only question was concerning the symbol of his presence that was to go before them For which we are to consider that immediately before Moses his going up into the Mount the last promise God made to them was that he would send his Angel before them Exod. 23. 20 23. which is elsewhere called his presence Exod. 33. 14. Moreover they understood that there should be some extraordinary symbol of this presence but what it was they could not tell for Moses was then gone into the Mount to learn but he not being heard of in forty dayes they took it for granted he was not to be heard of more therefore they fall upon devising among themselves what was the fittest symbol for the presence of God going before them and herein the greatest number being possessed with the prejudices of their education in Aegypt where golden Bulls were the symbols of their chief God Osiris they pitch upon that and force Aaron to a complyance with them in it 2. There is no intimation given in the whole story that they fell into the Heathen Idolatry for when afterwards they fell into it the particular names of the Gods are mentioned as Baal-peor Moloch Remphan Numb 25. 3. Acts 7. 43. But here on the contrary Aaron expresly proclaims a Feast to the Lord Exod. 32. 5. and the people accordingly met and offered their accustomed offerings v. 6. whereas if it had been the Aegyptian Idolatry their common Sacrifices were abominations they must not have sacrificed Sheep and Oxen as they were wont to do And that it was not the Idolatry of other Nations who worshipped the Host of Heaven is plain from St. Stephens words Acts 7. 41 42. And they made a Calf in those dayes and offered Sacrifice unto Idols and rejoyced in the works of their own hands then God turned and gave them up to worship the Host of Heaven Whereby it is both observable that the Idolatry of the Calf was distinct from the other Heathen Idolatry this being a punishment of the other and withal though the Calf was intended by them to be only a symbol of Gods presence yet being directly against Gods Command and having divine worship given it it is by S. Stephen called an Idol
no material difference that the Heathen called those they worshipped Gods but they do not so in the Roman Church For St. Austin saith there was scarce any difference between the Heathen and them about the name whether Angels might be called Gods or no for he thinks that they are called so in Scripture as well as Origen but the Question was about the thing whether they were to be Worshipped as Gods or no i. e. by giving any part of religious worship to them which they utterly deny And were I in the communion of the Roman Church I should much less scruple calling Canonized Saints or Angels by the names of Gods than giving them the worship of Invocation or the honour of Sacrifices but in so doing they are not only condemned by plain Scripture and reason but by those of the primitive Church who writ against the Heathen Idolatry which was the thing to be shewed § 13. 2. Another disparity is insisted on by him which is as to the manner of Worship And as to this he saith all that they understand by formal invocation is desiring or praying those Iust persons who are in glory in heaven to pray for us and if the Catholicks be guilty of Idolatry in this we must not desire the prayers of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deitie To shew the palpable weakness of this answer I shall prove these two things 1. That those in the Church of Rome do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts 2. That supposing this were all it would not excuse them and that it is of a very different nature from desiring the prayers of just men for us in this life 1. That they do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts He might very well say he did understand well what I meant by formal Invocation when he makes this to be the meaning of it for never any person before him imagined that sense of it And that term of formal Invocation was purposely chosen by me to distinguish it from the rhetorical Apostrophe's of some of the Greek Fathers the Poetical Flourishes of Damasus Prudentius and Paulinus from general wishes that the Saints would pray for us Of which are some instances in good Authors from assemblies at the monuments of Martyrs which were usual in ancient times and that which I thought any man would understand by it was that which is constantly practised in the Roman Church viz. in places and times purposely appointed for divine and religious worship with all the same external signes of devotion which we use to God himself to offer up our Prayers to Saints or Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us The former part none can be ignorant of that have but so much as heard of the devotion of the Church of Rome all the difficulty lies in that whether they pray to them to help their necessities as well as pray for them And so many forms of Prayer allowed and practised in their Church have been so often objected to them wherein these things are manifest that I cannot but wonder this should be denyed Do they believe we never look into their Breviaries Rosaries Houres and other Books of Devotion wherein to this day such Prayers are to be found Do they think we never heard of the Offices of the B. Virgin or our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book never yet censured wherein the Psalmes in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the V. Mary I have known my self intelligent persons of their Church who commit their souls to the V. Maries protection every day as we do to Almighty Gods and such who thought they understood the doctrine and practice of their Church as well as others But Madam these are mysteries not to be known till they have their Proselytes safe and fast enough then by degrees they let them know what is to be done when they have given away all liberty of judging for themselves Then it is no matter what they are commanded or expected to do they must do as others do or else their sincerity is questioned and they are thought Hereticks in their hearts whatever they profess I shall not insist upon any ancient Breviaries or obsolete Forms or private Devotions which yet they are accountable for till they do condemn them I need no more than the present Roman Breviary restored according to the Council of Trent and authorized by three several Popes In the Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as though it were not enough in the Antiphonae to say Hail Blessed Virgin thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the world but lest this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son a formal Invocation of her follows Vouchsafe to let me praise thee O Holy Virgin and give me strength against thy enemies And in the Hymn frequently used in her Office and particularly that day she is not only called the Gate of Heaven but she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is in the Mass-book at Paris 1634. Iure Matris impera redemptori as thou art a Mother command the Redeemer In a word They pray to her therein for purity of life and a safe conduct to Heaven But lest the Hymns should be thought only Poetical in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives Aug. 5. a formal prayer is made to her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn and that all who celebrate her holy Festivity may feel her assistance By which we may understand the meaning of that solemn Hymn used in her Office wherein she is called the Mother of Mercy and Clemency and is prayed to protect us from our enemies and to receive us in the hour of death Is all this only praying to her to pray for us What could be more said to Almighty God or his Son Iesus Christ Nor is this devotion only to the Blessed Virgin but we shall see it alike in that to Angels and Saints in the Antiphona upon the apparition of Michael the Archangel May 8. he is prayed to come to the help of the people of God And in the Feast of the Guardian Angels recommended to all Catholicks by Paul the fifth in the last words of the Breviary they are prayed to defend them in War that they may not perish in Gods terrible judgement In the Hymn to the Holy Apostles they are prayed to command the guilty to be loosed from their guilt to heal unsound minds and to increase their vertues that when Christ shall come they may be partakers of eternal glory These may suffice for a present taste of the sincerity of such persons who say that in
the corrupt lives of those who believe it From hence the trade of saying Masses hath proved so gainful and such multitudes of them have been procured for the benefit of particular persons this being a much easier way of procuring Grace and Salvation than fervent prayer constant endeavours after a Holy Life Mortification Watchfulness and other things we make necessary to enjoy the benefit of what Christ hath done and suffered for us And these things have been complained of by persons of their own communion who have had any zeal for devotion and the practice of true Goodness Cassander although he denyes the doctrine of the efficacy of the Sacraments without the devotion of the receiver to be the received doctrine of the Roman Church yet cannot deny but such a Pharisaical opinion as he calls it had possessed the minds of many of those who did celebrate Masses and were present at them and that too just an occasion was given to those who upbraid them with that opinion because of the multitude of Masses which were celebrated by impure and wicked Priests meerly for gain at which those who are present think they depart from them with a great deal of sanctity although they never once resolve to change their lives but return from thence immediately to their former sins Mons. Arnauld in his Book of frequent communion written upon that occasion confesseth that some in the Roman Church by their doctrine and instructions given to persons did destroy all preparations as unnecessary to the partaking the benefits of the Eucharist and that the worst persons might come without fear to it And that the most required as necessary by them is only the Sacrament of Penance to recover Grace by which he saith they reduce to bare confession and that this by them is not made necessary neither by the more probable opinion but only being at that time free from the guilt of mortal sin It is not to be denyed that Mons Arnauld hath proved sufficiently the other opinion to be most consonant to Scripture and Fathers and the rules of a Christian life but when that is granted the other opinion is yet more agreeable to the doctrine of the Roman Church For although Cassander produce some particular testimonies against it of persons in that Church yet we must appeal for the sense of their Church to the decrees of the Council of Trent which are so contrived as not to condemn the grossest doctrine of the opus operatum For when it doth determine That whosoever shall say that the Sacraments do not confer grace ex opere operato shall be Anathema it cannot be interpreted according to the sense of Cassander and those he mentions that the efficacy of Sacraments doth not depend upon the worth of the Priest For the twelfth Canon relates to that Whosoever shall say that the Minister being in mortal sin although he useth all the essentials to a Sacrament yet doth not celebrate a Sacrament let him be Anathema Those reverend Fathers were not sure so prodigal of their Anathema's to bestow two of them upon the same thing Their meaning then in the eighth Canon must be distinct from the twelfth and if it be so the opus operatum cannot have respect to the worth of the Priest but the devotion of the receiver and it is there opposed to the faith of the divine promise This will appear more plain by the account given of it in the History of that Council After they treated of condemning those who deny Sacraments do confer grace to him that putteth not a barr or do not confess that Grace is contained in the Sacraments and conferred not by vertue of faith but ex opere operato but coming to expound how it is contained and their causality every one did agree that grace is gained by all those actions that excite devotion which proceedeth not from the force of the work it self but from the vertue of devotion which is in the worker and these are said in the Schools to cause grace ex opere operantis There are other actions which cause grace not by the devotion of him that worketh or him that receiveth the work but by vertue of the work it self such are the Christian Sacraments by which grace is received so that there be no barr of mortal sin to exclude it though there be not any devotion So by the work of Baptism grace is given to the Infant whose mind is not moved towards it and to one born a Fool because there is no impediment of sin The Sacrament of Chrisme doth the like and that of extream Vnction though the sick man hath lost his memory But he that hath mortal sin and doth persevere actually or habitually cannot receive grace by reason of the contrariety not because the Sacrament hath not vertue to produce it ex opere operato but because the receiver is not capable being possessed with a contrary quality I dare now appeal to the most indifferent Judge Whether what I objected to them concerning the efficacy of Sacraments whether the minds of the receivers of them be prepared or no were not so far from being a calumâ—y that there is not so much as the least mistake in it if the doctrine of the Council of Trent be embraced by them And any one who shall consider their number of Sacraments and the admirable effects of every one of them may very well wonder how any man among them should want Grace or have any Devotion For Grace being conferred by the Sacraments at so many convenient seasons of his life whether he hath any devotion or no he is sure of Grace if he doth but partake of their Sacraments and need need not trouble himself much about devotion since his work may be done without it Never any doctrine was certainly better contrived for the satisfaction of impenitent sinners than theirs is Our Saviour seems very churlish and severe when he calls sinners to repentance that they may be saved but they have found out a much easier and smoother passage like that of a man in a Boat that may sleep all the while and land safe at last Not so much as the use of reason is required for the effect of that blessed Sacrament of extream Vnction by which like a Ship for a long Voyage a person is pitched and calked for eternity Surely it is the hardest thing that may be for any one to want Grace among them if they do but suffer the Vse of Sacraments upon them and they are the gentlest givers of it imaginable for all they desire of their Patients for Grace is only for them to lye still but if they should chance to be unruly and kick away the Priests or their rites of Chrisme I know not then what may become of them Yet the Church of Rome hath been so indulgent in this case that supposing men under a delirium or wholly insensible if before it be but probable they desired
to her Confessors they were strictly examined and after them by the Bishops and Divines of Sweden and approved as divine revelations from them they were sent as such to the Council of Basil from thence they were examined over again at Naples and there allowed and preached in the presence and by command of the Queen and Archbishop before all the people of the City again examined at Rome by Prelats and Cardinals A. D. 1377. by the Popes appointment and there approved and A. D. 1379. they are declared by those Vrban the sixth committed the new examination of them to to be authentick and to come from the Spirit of God and so much is declared by Boniface the ninth in the Bull of her Canonization and at last approved saith Wadding at the General Council of Basil. What could be expected less after this than that they should have been received as Canonical Scriptures they having never taken so much pains in examining and approving any controverted Books of the Bible as they had done about these revelations And no man knows how far their authority might have prevailed if the whole Sect of Dominicans had not been engaged in the opposite opinion For nothing else that I can find hath given any discredit to her revelations but this which makes Cajetan call them old Wives dreams as Wadding confesseth But it falls out very conveniently that S. Catharines revelation was just in the Dominican way in which she had been educated and for all that I can see wants little of the reputation of St. Brigitt For they were both very wonderful persons and had more familiar reyelations than any of the Prophets we read of S. Brigitt in her Childhood if we believe the account given of her in the Bull of Canonization by Bonifacius and her life by Vastavius had Visions as frequently as other Children have Babyes and was as well pleased with them the Virgin Mary was once her Midwife as the Pope very gravely tells us but her revelations after Christ took her for his Spouse have filled a great Volume Wherein a person that hath leisure enough may see strange effects of the power of imagination or a Religious Melancholy and to that Book the Pope in his Bull refers us and if any thing can be more considerable than the Popes authority the whole Roman Church in the prayers upon S. Brigitts day do confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her and in one of the Lessons for that day do magnifie the multitude of her divine revelations But to say truth the Church of Rome allows fair play in the case for it magnifies S. Catharine as much as S. Brigitt for her holy Extasies are mentioned in the Lessons upon her day in one of which were five rayes coming from the five wounds of our Saviour to five parts of her body and she being wonderfull humble prayed our Lord that the wounds might not appear for fear she should have been thought as holy as S. Francis and immediately the colour of the blood was changed into pure light upon her hands and feet and heart And her Confessor Raimund who is alwayes a principal man in these things as Matthias a Suecia was to S. Brigitt without whom she was advised from Heaven to do nothing saw these splendid wounds upon her body but by what instrument did he see the wound in her heart Well though we Hereticks are not apt to be too credulous in these cases the Church of Rome very gravely tells us in the next Lesson that her learning was not acquired but infused by which she answered the most profound Doctors in the most difficult speculations in Divinity but these were nothing to her revelations and the service she did the Church of Rome by them in a time of Schisme But one gift she had above S. Brigitt which was that while she was on earth she could not only see but smell souls too and could not endure the stench of wicked souls as Raynaldus tells us from her Confessor Raimund a gift very few had besides her and Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians for Raynaldus one of his Order tells us from Bacius the Writer of his life that he was sometimes so offended with the smells of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Iakes of their souls Such divine Noses had these two Saints among them A degree of Enthusiasme above the Spirit of discerning any Quakers among us have ever pretended to Pope Pius the second in the Bull of Canonization of S. Catharine not only acknowledgeth a gift of Prophecy to have been in her but that sometimes her Extasies were so great that she was sensible of no kind of pain in them And S. Brigitt was often seen much above ground in her devotions and one saw Rivers and another Fire came out of her mouth but I think not at the same time These are things we rake not the old Kennells of the Golden Legends for but are at this day allowed and approved of in the Roman Church and their dayes kept and they prayed to upon the account of such things as these are § 3. Yet still we are to seek what is to be done when two Revelations contradict each other for the Dominicans are as peremptory for the revelation of S. Catharine as their adversaries are for that of S. Brigitt Two bold Fellows called Henricus de Hassia and Sybillanus knew no other way but to reject both as illusions and fancies but what becomes then of the Popes and Councils infallibility who have approved both Franciscus Picus Mirandula being a Learned and Ingenuous man confesseth himself at a loss both being concerning a thing passed there must be truth on one side and falshood on the other for the case is not the same saith he as to past and future things in which a condition may be understood By which means St. Bernard escaped when he promised great success to an expedition into the Holy Land and they who went in it found the quite contrary But at last gives us leave to conjecture his meaning when he saith That if any thing be false in a prophecy though some prove true we have cause to suspect all especially if it come from women whose judgements are weak and their passions vehement and imaginations easily possessed with what they are most desirous of and least able to distinguish between the strength of imagination and a divine revelation but as to that particular case of S. Catharine and S. Brigitt where both were women he saith The Divines were generally for the former and the Monks for the latter but which was in the truth he thinks cannot be known upon earth Martin Del Rio discoursing of the Revelations of Canonized Saints who were women in the Church of Rome reckons up S. Angela a Carmelitess whose Book of Revelations came out above four hundred years
about A. D. 1254. who was General of the Franciscan Order but the Book was received and defended by both Orders as will presently appear But it will be first necessary to consider what the doctrines are which are contained in this Book and if ever there were higher Fanaticism than is therein or rather greater blasphemies let them have leave to triumph The most perfect account we have of it is from Nicol Eymericus who was himself an Inquisitor and tells us these Heresies or Errors are contained in it 1. That the doctrine of Abbot Ioachim a great Fanatick excelled the doctrine of Christ and consequently the New and Old Testament 2. That the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the Kingdom and therefore is not edifying 3. That the New Testament is to be evacuated or lose its force as the Old hath already 4. That the New Testament shall not remain in force above six years longer viz. to A. D. 1260. 5. That they which shall live beyond that time shall be in the state of perfection 6. That the Gospel of Christ shall give way to another Gospel and so instead of the Priesthood of Christ another Gospel shall succeed 7. That no simple man is fit to instruct men in spiritual and eternal things but they that walk barefoot 8. That although God afflict the Iews in this world yet he will save them though they remain in Iudaism and will in the end deliver them from all the opposition of men remaining such as they are 9. That the Church hath not yet brought forth Children nor will do before the end of the temporal reign which shall be after six years and by this we are to understand that the Christian Religion which hath brought forth many called to the faith of Christ is not the Church 10. That the Gospel of Christ brings no man to perfection 11. That the Gospel of the Holy Ghost coming or Ioachims work obtaining called the Everlasting Gospel or of the Holy Ghost the Gospel of Christ shall be done away 12. That no man in Religious Orders is bound to expose his life for defence of the faith or preserving the worship of Christ but other men are 13. That as when Iohn Baptist came the things that were before must needs be confuted because of new things coming in their place so when the time of the Holy Ghost shall come or the third state of the world the things that were before must be confuted for the sake of the New which are to come from whence it must be understood that the New Testament must be refuted and the old cast away 14. That Christ and his Apostles were not perfect in the contemplative life 15. That the Order of the Clergy shall perish but one of a Religious Order shall be perferred above all in dignity and honour and that as the authority under the Father was committed to one of the married order so under the Holy Ghost to one or some of the order of Monks 16. That those who are over the Colledges of Monks ought in those dayes to think of departing from the Seculars and prepare themselves to return to the ancient people of the Iews 17. That the Preachers which shall be in the last state of the world shall be of greater dignity and authority than the Preachers of the Primitive Church 18. That the Preachers and Doctors of Religious Orders when they shall be infested by the Clergy shall go over to the Infidels and it is to be feared lest they go thither for that end to bring them in battel against the Roman Church according to the doctrine of S. Iohn Apocalyps 15. These may suffice out of twenty seven to let the world know where the height of Blasphemy and Fanaticism was first hatched and no one could imagine that any who had the face or name of Christians should own these things yet they came from those excellent and inspired persons of the newly founded Religious Orders And if it had not been for the mortal hatred that then was between the University of Paris and the Mendicant Fryers who usurped the Professors places in the Vniversity against their will God knows how far this doctrine might have prevailed without the least censure For the Popes were extreamly partial to the Fryers and would hear no ill of them they now finding them their most useful instruments in all their quarrels with Princes the Secular Clergy and the People So Matth. Paris relating the Story of the quarrels between the University and the Fryers tells That though the King and the City were for preserving the priviledges of the Vniversity yet the Fryers being at the Popes devotion and doing them a great deal of service were more acceptable in the Court of Rome and therefore got the better of the Vniversity Nay so zealous was Alexander the fourth in the cause of the Fryers against the Vniversity that in the six years of his Popedom he sent out near forty Bulls against the Vniversity of which not one now appears in the Bullarium but most of them are preserved in that accurate Preface before the Works of Gul. de Sancto Amore the zealous Defender of the Vniversity against the encroachments of the Fryers and in the late History of the Vniversity of Paris In the midst of these heats some intimation was given the Divines of the Vniversity of such a Book which was in great esteem among the Fryers called Evangelium aeternum wherein were very dangerous doctrines which were saith Matthew Paris preached read and taught by the Fryers and were put together by them in a Book called Evangelium aeternum and taken saith he chiefly out of the Books of Abbot Joachim and Richerius acknowledgeth that the Book was composed by the Fryers and that the Divines of Paris by some art got a Copy of it and extracted some Heads out of it which were contrary to faith and upon that as Du Bouley saith they caused it to be burnt publickly at Paris But not being satisfied herewith they preached against it as appears by a Sermon of Gul. de Sancto Amore at the end of his Works wherein he saith That he had seen no small part of that Book and he had heard that it doth in all contain more than the Bible and therein he saith it is taught that the Sacraments of the Church are nothing that the Gospel of Christ is not the true Gospel and that the Book it self is the Gospel of the Holy Ghost and the everlasting Gospel and that the Gospel of Christ should be preached but for five years to come that then men shall have another Rule of life and the Church shall be otherwise managed Which saith he is execrable and abominable to be spoken But not content with bare preaching against them he writ a very smart Book in the name of the Vniversity of Paris de periculo novissimorum temporum of the dangers of the
with her Picture and a Book of her life and eminent sanctity by a person of great authority which were preserved as precious things by the Vice-roy's Lady But this is nothing to Gregory the thirteenth then Pope who writ a Letter of encouragement to her to go on in the same way of sanctity she had begun She had been examined by the Inquisition and her wounds were allowed by them after diligent search But at last they found what she aimed at which was the Revolt of Portugall from Spain which being once suspected she is brought before the Inquisition and her Sanctity is condemned her wounds declared to be a meer Imposture being artificially made by red Lead and her self sentenced by the Inquisitors to a very severe pennance all her dayes Decemb. 8. A. D. 1588. I suppose my Adversary having been upon the place hath often heard the truth of this but if he doubts it he may find it as I have related it in Ludovicus a Paramo By which it is very easie to ghess what it is which gives and preserves the reputation of these things in the Roman Church for if this Saint had dyed before her design brake forth we might have heard of her wounds in the Roman Breviary as well as those of St. Francis and a Festival might have been kept in commemoration of her sanctity and her self as religiously invocated as the rest of the Popes making But supposing Pope Alexander the fourths authority prevailed so much upon the people to believe that S. Francis had the same wounds which Christ had c. No wonder then it should be written in the Book called The Flowers of S Francis that those only were saved by the blood of Christ who lived before S. Francis but all that followed were redeemed by the blood of S. Francis No wonder this Petrus Iohannis made the Rule of S. Francis to be the very same with the Gospel and that which Christ and his Apostles lived by of which S. Francis was the greatest observer next to Christ and his Mother and that as Christ when he was to reform the world chose twelve Apostles so S. Francis had twelve Brethren by whom the Evangelical Order was founded that those who opposed this Order were the carnal persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the people that in the time of this Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the doctrine life and zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with fire against them but it shall be dryed up from all spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the riches of Christ and be exposed to errors and delusion as it was with the Iews and Greeks Those who will not take the pains to see how faithfully I have translated these words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting language of the modern Quakers But he goes on saying That as Vasthi the Queen being cast off from the Kingdom and Marriage of Ahassuerus the humble Esther was chosen to succeed in her place and the King made a great Feast to his Princes and Servants so in this last state of the Church the adulterous Babylon the carnal Church being rejected the spiritual Church must be exalted and a great and spiritual Feast be kept to celebrate these Nuptials with that under the Mystical Antichrist there shall be overturnings and commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying from this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the pride of her heart I sit as a Queen in great honour and glory I rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side that the Roman Church is that great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed fornication with this world having departed from the worship and sincere love and the delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the world the riches and pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the lovers of this world That the Teachers of this spiritual State are more properly the Gates to lead men into the wisdom of Christ than the Apostles themselves These things are expresly delivered concerning the doctrine of this Franciscan Fryer by the Inquisitor Eymericus I know Wadding in his Franciscan Annals to preserve the reputation of his Order would clear him from all suspicion of Heresie but I suppose the credit of an Inquisitor having such opportunities to know the truth so near his own time and having the examination of many of his followers is to be relyed on rather than the testimony of one at such a distance and partial for the honour of his order Especially that being considered which Possevin saith of Eymericus that most of his accounts of the times a little before his own were the very same with what was contained in a Manuscript in the Vatican Library both as to order and words which is though to have been brought from Avignon to Rome where he was made Inquisitour General by Gregory 11. A. D. 1358. But it is not denyed by Wadding or others that the Beguini and Fratricelli the Beguardi and others were his followers and we shall find so great an agreement in their opinions that it would be strange they should be accounted the Disciples of any other Eymericus gives this account of them that in the time of Clement 5. there arose in the Province of Narbonne one Petrus Iohannis a Franciscan Fryer who published by Writing and Preaching a great many Errours and Heresies in the same Province and drew many after him who had spread themselves over France Italy Germany and other places and continued in his time being daily searched for condemned by the Inquisitours They all agreed that their doctrine was from God by immediate inspiration and that all the writings of Petrus Johannis were revealed to him from the Lord and that he had declared this to some of his Friends that he was so great a Doctor that from the time of the Apostles and Evangelists there have been none greater than he in Learning and Holiness and that his writings theirs only excepted wherein they fell short of the former Sect were the most useful to the Church § 10. Their doctrines may be reduced to these four heads 1. Evangelical poverty 2. Unlawfulness of Swearing 3. The Doctrine of perfection 4. Opposition to the carnal Church Which being joyned with that greater degree of light which they supposed themselves to have above all the rest of the world makes up a Sect of Quakers after the Order of St. Francis 1. Their Doctrine of Evangelical poverty about which they said That our
among them having now gotten persons to his mind and for fear the Friends of some of his chief confidents in Spain should take them off he offers to go himself and dispatch their business for them In his return to Spain he observes his former course of Preaching and Begging and was followed by such a multitude of people that he was fain to Preach in the Fields where which deserves admiration in so weak and mortified a man though he could not raise his voice yet it was heard distinctly above a quarter of a mile say Orlandinus and Ribadeneira but Maffeius more prudently omits it But he helps us with as good a passage instead of it Ignatius was prevailed upon now by his Disciples to make use of a horse in his journey to Spain which when he was come thither he left to an Hâ—spital which the people looked on with so much reverence that no man durst use him afterwards but as a consecrated horse was preserved in ease and good pasture all his life time At Venice at the time appointed his companions meet him where they debate their voyage to Hierusalem and their custome Orlandinus saith was this in any matter of debate they were to joyne together in Prayer and after seeking God what opinion the most were of that they resolve upon which they observed saith he till the self-denying Ignatius was after much seeking God in their way made the General and then his Will was to rule them after a years stay about Venice their courage being now cooled as to Hierusalem wherein Ignatius and the rest that were yet Lay-men entred into Orders they determine to go to Rome and submit themselves wholly to the Popes pleasure and in the mean time wander about the Countrey Preaching in the Streets and Market places and making use of the Bulks of Shops for their Pulpits and invited the people to hear them saith Maffeius with a loud voice and whirling their Caps over their heads and though few understood them being strangers yet all admired and commended them and no doubt they converted many as their followers have done from the use of Laces and Ribbands All this while since Ignatius began to have any smattering of Learning we read little of his visions and revelations but the time coming near that he hoped for a confirmation of his Order from the Pope now saith Maffeius he began to have them again as frequently as he had at Manresa which in a kind of a religious jest he saith he was wont to call his primitive Church nay he exceeded them for what he now saw being above humane nature cannot be expressed only one Vision did him a great deal of service which was that lying in a trance which was frequent with him as well as Mahomet he saw God the Father commending Ignatius and his Brethren to his Son Iesus bearing his Cross whom he very kindly received and spake these words with a smile to Ignatius I will be favourable to you at Rome which gave him and his companions great comfort At Rome hearing the fame of St. Benedict and his Revelations or remembring them in the Legends he withdraws to the same place Monte Cassino and there it fell out luckily that he might come behind none of them in visions as St. Benedict saw the soul of Germanus go to Heaven so did he in the very same manner the soul of Hozius one of his Society and a little after as he was praying to the Saints he saw Hozius among them all Notwithstanding all this they met with great difficulties at Rome but Pope Paul 3. being throughly satisfied in the main point of their being serviceable to the interest of that Church all other difficulties were soon conquered and the Pope himself became Enthusiastical too and cryed out having read saith Maffeius the first draught of the rules of the Society made by Ignatius The Spirit of the Lord is here and many things to the same purpose But one of the Cardinals to whom the examination of them was committed still opposing the establishing this Order Ignatius flyes to his usual refuges for besides fastings prayers keeping of dayes c. he and his Friends offered three thousand Masses for this end alone and it must be a hard heart indeed that would not yield with so much suppling this Cardinal all of a sudden quite changed his mind and commended the business himself to the Pope and so the Society of Iesus was confirmed by the Popes Bull 3 Octob. A. D. 1540. to the joy of Ignatius his heart and soon after he was made General of the Order which he accepted with as many tears and protestations and intreaties till he plainly saw it was the will of God it must be so as ever any Vsurper took the Government into his hands which he had most eagerly sought after And now let the world judge whether there hath appeared a greater Enthusiast or pretender to revelations than Ignatius was since the dayes of Mahomet and St. Francis Methinks they might be ashamed to upbraid us with the Fanaticism of the Quakers and such persons the chiefest of whom fall very much short of Ignatius in those very things for which they are condemned by us yet any one who compares them would imagine the life of Ignatius had been their great exemplar I know not whether any of that innocent and religious order of Iesuits had any hand in forming this new Society among us as hath been frequently suggested but if one may guesse the Father by the Childs likeness Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Iesuits was at least the Grandfather of the Quakers § 14. Thus I have gone through the most illustrious Orders of the Church of Rome and shewed how they have been founded on Fanaticism and given encouragement thereby unto it It remains now that I consider the way of devotion in greatest request among them and prove that it doth encourage and promote Enthusiasme For this we are to take notice that those of the Church of Rome who have set themselves to the Writing Books of Devotion have with great zeal recommended so mystical and unintelligible a way of devotion as though their design had been only to amuse and confound the minds of devout persons and to prepare them for the most gross Enthusiasme and extravagant illusions of Fancy But this is the fruit of leaving the Scriptures and that most plain and certain way of Religion delivered therein there can be no end of Phantastical modes of devotion and every superstitious Fanatick will be still inventing more or reviving old ones No Laws or Rules publickly allowed can serve their turn they must have something peculiar to themselves to gain a reputation of greater sanctity by and it is hard if they do not light upon some affected phrases unintelligible notions ridiculous or singular postures that they may be sure to charge those with following carnal reason who
the same Author layes it down as a fundamental rule that God only by his holy Inspirations is the guide and directour in an Internal contemplative life and that all the light they have therein is from immediate divine illumination as well as our strength from the divine operation and that this light doth extend further and to more and other more particular objects than the divine light or Grace by which good Christians living common lives in the world are lead extends to yea than it does even in those that seek perfection by the exercises of an active life But which is very extraordinary in this supernatural light he saith that generally when there is proposed the not doing or doing of an external work and both of them are lawfull the divine inspiration moves to the not doing but this is not all but among the impediments to divine Inspirations he reckons not only all external duties of Religion but the doing things meerly for Edification A most excellent and Apostolical doctrine but it is happy for the Christian world the Apostles had other kind of Inspirations from these or else they had never done much good in the World or been such eminent examples of holy life and actions What becomes of all the precepts they have left us of doing good of mutual edification of constant business besides the commands for the outward duties of Worship if these be the hinderances in the way to perfection And although he would not have his spiritual internal liver to pretend to extraordinary apparitions voices conversations with spirits message from Heaven c. Yet in his Discourse of Passive Vnions he saith that God reveals himself to the soul by a supernatural species impressed in her which revelations are either sensible as apparitions words c. or intellectual either immediately or by Angels the effects of which supernatural inactions of God are Rapts or Extasies internal visions c. in which he saith that the less experienced and imperfect are to advise with their directour about them but those who were more eminently perfect have followed their own light in judging of those things and practising accordingly without consulting others and withall addes that such souls which receive these things must carefully observe her internal direction and that they are not so absolutely obliged to resign their judgements and wills to others as to neglect their own proper call received from God And doth this doctrine now differ from that of the Fanatick Sectaries which have swarmed in England Yes Mr. Cressy in his Preface undertakes at large to shew the difference by answering the objection taken from thence against the publishing this doctrine because it would justifie them in all their frenzies and disorders and in order to this 1. He very foolishly goes about to prove the necessity of divine Inspirations from the necessity of divine Grace for the doing good actions which is not denyed by the greatest enemies to Enthusiasme 2. He saith we ought to correspond to those Divine Inspirations which stirr us up to good actions if he means by them nothing but the assistance of Divine Grace no one questions it 3. That there may be false suggestions of the Devil which may appear like the motions of Gods Spirit 4. That it being necessary these should be distinguished from each other the only means imaginable that can be proper natural and efficacious to obtain such a supernatural light to discern Gods will in all things as pure spiritual prayer exercised by a soul living an abstracted internal recollected life spent in a continual attendance on God c. i. e. in short the directions of F. Augustin Baker And is not this think we a very cunning way of vindicating his doctrine from Fanaticism to make Enthusiasm necessary to distinguish the motions of the good and bad Spirit in our minds I have already shewed that he teaches the highest Enthusiasm and it seems those who made the objection were sensible of it But how doth Mr. Cressy answer it by shewing what they condemn to be necessary and in effect that no man can know the difference between the motions of the Holy Ghost and the Devil but by Enthusiasme nay that is the plain meaning of his words for this contemplative prayer he saith is the only means to gain such a supernatural light whereby we can distinguish one from the other An admirable way to tell men they must first be mad before they can know whether they be in their wits or no. But since this contemplative state hath besides the common though immediate illuminations many passive unions or extraordinary revelations attending it suppose the Question were put how one should know whether these came from God or the Devil what answer will Mr. Cressy then give will he return back again to try illuminations by inspirations as he calls them and so inspirations by illuminations which is just like the Scripture by the Church and the Church by Scripture But here saith Mr. Cressy is no pretending to new or strange revelations no walking in mirabilibus super se yes I think he doth so when he utters these things for what are passive unions but new revelations and as great as ever any Fanatick Sectary pretended to Did not they deliver this for their Doctrine that men ought to hearken to the immediate impulses of the Spirit of God within them and that now God doth acquaint his own people with his mind and will in a way peculiar to themselves And what have they done of the mystical way but only changed a few terms and asserted the thing it self higher than our Enthusiasts did who did not boast of so many raptures visions and revelations as those of the Church of Rome have done Lud. Blosius in his works hath one Book called Monile Spirituale which consists of nothing but the new and strange revelations which were made to four Women Saints St. Gertrude St. Mathildis St. Bridgitt and St. Catharine and in his Preface saith it is a sign of a carnal mind to despise such revelations as these are for the Church of God is wonderfully enlightned by them What saith he did not the Prophets and Apostles receive truth from Heaven by Revelations As though the case were the very same in these melancholy Women and in the holy Prophets and Apostles and we had just as much reason to believe the effects of hysterical vapours and the divine Spirit And lest we should imagine these were only the Fancies of some Women which their Church would not be concerned for the credit of he concludes with saying that these Revelations were known to the world and approved For those of St. Bridgitt we have before shewed how much they were approved For St. Gertrudes he saith the same and that one very learned and illuminate man did say after the accurate reading of them that man could not have
with one another and although there may be many other sorts of Vnity in the Church yet the essential Vnity of the Church they tell us lyes in conjunction of the members under one Head But what becomes then of the Unity of the Roman Church in the great number of Schisms and some of long continuance among them Were they all members united under one Head when there were sometimes two sometimes three several Heads Bellaâ—mine in his Chronologie confesseth twenty six several Schisms in the Church of Rome but Onuphrius a more diligent searchâ—r into these things reckors up thirty whereof some lasted ten years some twenty one fifty years And it seems very strange to any one that hears so many boasts of Unity in the Church of Rome above others to find more Schisms in that Church than in any Patriarchal Church in the World We should think if the Bishop of Rome had been designed Head of the Church and the fountain of Vnity that it was as necessary that Church should be freed from intestine divisions on that account as to be secured from errours in faith if it had the promise of Infallibility for errours are not more contrary to infallibility than divisions are to Vnity and the same Spirit can as easily prevent Schisms as Heresies But as the errours of that Church are the clearest evidence against the pretence of infalâ—ibility so are the Schisms of it against its being the fountain of Vnity for how can that give it to the whole Church which so notoriously wanted it in it self I shall not need to insist on the more ancient Schisms between Cornelius and Novatianus and their parties between Liberius and Felix between Damasus and Vrsicinus between Bonifacius and Eulalius between Symachus and Laurentius between Bonifacius and Dioscorus between Sylverius and Vigiâ—ius and many others I shall only mention those which were of the longest continuance in that Church and do most apparently discover the divisions of it I begin with that which first brake forth in the time of Formosus who was set up A. D. 821. against Sergius whom the faction of the Marquesse of Tuscany would have made Pope but the popular faction then prevailing Sergius was forced to withdraw and Formosus with continual opposition from the other party enjoyed the Papacy four years and six months not without the blood of many of the chief Citizens of Rome slain by Arnulphus in the quarrel of Formosus After his death Boniface 6. intruded saith Baronius into the Papal See but was after fifteen dayes dispossessed by Stephanus 7. who in a Council called for that purpose nulled all the acts of Formosus deprived all those of their orders who had been ordained by him and made them be Re-ordained and not content with this he caused his body to be taken out of the Grave and placed it in the Popes Chair with the Pontifical habits on where after he had sufficiently reviled him that could not revile again he caused the three Fingers to be cut off with which he used to give Benediction and Orders and the body to be thrown into Tiber. This last part Onuphrius would have to be a fable and Andreas Victorellus from him but Baronius saith they are mistaken who say so for not only Luitprandus who lived in that Age expresly affirms it although he attributes it to Sergius upon whose account the Schism begun but the acts of the Roman Council under Iohn 9. extant in Baronius make it evident and Papirius Massonus cites other ancient Historians for it Upon this nulling the Ordinations of Formosus a great dispute was raised in the Church for many of the Bishops would not submit to re-ordination and particularly Leo Bishop of Nola to whom Auxilius writ his Book in defence of the Ordinations of Formosus a short account whereof is published by Baronius from Papyâ—ius Masso but the whole Book is now set forth from ancient Manuscript by Morinus by which we understand the controversie of that time much better than we could before Two things were chiefly objected against Formosus his Ordinations 1. That against the Canons of the Church he was translated from one See to another being Bishop of Porto before he was made Bishop of Rome 2. That having been degraded by Iohn 8. although restored by his successour Marinus and absolved from his Oath he was not capable of conferring Orders Against the first of these Auxilius shews that translation from one See to another cannot null Ordination from the testimony of Pope Anterus the example of Greg. Nazianzen Perigenes Dositheus Reverentius Palladius Alexander Meletius and many others That the Nicene Canon against translations was interpreted by the Council of Chalcedon so as not to extend to all cases and it was so understood by Pope Leo and Gelasius and however that only nulls the translation and not the ordination Against the second he pleads that supposing it not to be lawful to remove from one Episcopal See to another yet the Ordination may be valid for Formosus was not Consecrated again himself but only reconciled by Marinus that the Popes Gregory and Leo had declared against Re-ordination as much as against Re-baptizing that the Canons of the Apostles had forbidden it that the Ordinations by Acacius were allowed by Anastasius that the Bonosiaci though Hereticks had their Orders allowed them that the Cathari were admitted to the Churches Communion by the Council of Nice only with imposition of hands that though Liberius fell to the Arian Heresie yet his Ordinations afterwards were not nulled neither those of Vigilius although he stood excommunicated by Silverius and added Homicide to it that the nulling these Ordinations was to say in effect that for twenty years together they had been without the Christian Religion in Italy that none but Hereticks could assert these things that if any Popes themselves speak or act against the Catholick faith or Religion they are not to be followed in so doing This is the substance of the first Book of Auxilius which things are more largely insisted upon in the second But by that Book it appears most evidently that the Barbarous usage of the body of Formosus was most true it being expresly mentioned therein and justified by him in the Dialogue that pleads for Re-ordination And now saith Baronius began those most unhoppy times of the Roman Church which exceeded the persecutions of Heathens or Hereticks but he out of his constant good will to civil Authority lays the fault altogether upon the power of the Marquesses of Tuscany who had then too great power in Rome but he strangely admires the providence of God in keeping the Heads of the Church from Heresie all that time Alas for them they did not trouble themselves about any matters of faith at all but were wholly given over to all manner of wickedness as himself confesseth of them when Theodora that Mother of the Church of Rome ruled in chief and her
behalf of the Clergy was sent Richard Fitz-Ralph the learned Bishop of Armagh best known by the name of Armachanus who there with great smartness opposed the Fryers to the Popes face in a long and set discourse still extant wherein he gives an account that coming to London about some business of his See he found great disputes about the priviledges of the Fryers and being desired to Preach he made seven or eight Sermons wherein he declared his mind against them both as to their Order and Priviledges in which he followed the doctrine of the Divines at Paris above an hundred years before delivered by them upon the like occasion asserting it not to be in the Popes power to grant such priviledges which destroy the rights of the Parochial Clergy or the jurisdiction of the Bishops The Fryers charge him with Heresie as they are wont to do those who are wiser than themselves saith Boulay Armachanus dyed at Avignon but so did not the Controversie with him although the Fryers seem to have had the better there they being the Popes Ianisaries and ready in all places to serve his turn yet Walsingham saith it was not without corrupting the Popes Court by great bribes given by the Fryers that they obtained the confirmation of their priviledges yet seven years after Harpsfield saith this Controversie was referred to the Parliament to be determined Very strange that a Parliament in England should be thought a more likely means for Vnity in the Church than the Authority of so many Popes who had interposed in it for putting an issue to this difference After Armachanus Wickliffe undertook this quarrel against the Fryers and made use of the same arguments against them which those who defended the Clergy had done before For in his Book against the Orders of Fryers he particularly insists upon this That they for pride and covetise had drawen fro Curats there Office and Sacraments in which lyen winning or worship and so maken dissention betwixt Curats and there Ghostlié Childer Which are his own words But Wickliffe and his Disciples carrying the Controversies much farther to points of doctrine and other practices in the Roman Church made the other parties more quiet out of opposition to these whom they looked on as their common enemies It may be therefore they will say that although the Popes Pastoral power may not alwayes cure their divisions yet the opposition of Hereticks makes them run together like a flock of sheep if this were true it seems they are more beholding to Hereticks for their Vnity than to the Popes Authority but we shall find that neither one nor the other of these nor both together can keep them from divisions and those managed with as great animosity as we have ever found in the most differing Sects § 9. Witness the proceedings between the Iesuits and the Secular Priests begun in Wisbich Castle in the latter end of Q. Elizabeths Reign when it came to a separation from each other about the authority of the Arch-Priest And they mutually charged each other with being guilty of a horrible Schism maintained saith Watson by the Iesuits and Arch Priest with infinite violence much infamy for the time and innumerable particular wrongs thereupon not unknown to the meanest Catholick in England The secular Priests finding themselves unjustly accused as they said to the Pope published a Book in Latin which they Dedicated to his Holiness called declaratio motuum turbarum which saith Parsons in his answer called A manifestation of the great folly and bad spirit of certain in England calling themselves secular Priests is made up only of invectives and passionate words injurious and manifest false slanders they in their Reply charge Parsons with follie and madness and the highest degree of impudencie If any one hath a mind to furnish himself with all the terms and phrases of scolding reproach and infamy he may find them in the Books they then writ against each other or if he thinks that too great a trouble he may meet with a goodly parcel of them put together out of Fa. Parsons his own writings by Watson at the end of the Reply to Parsons's Libell The short account of the breach among them was this all the loud talk they made abroad concerning their cruel persecution could not hinder ambition and envy from having its effects among them from these first arose misunderstandings and then quarrels between the secular Priests and the Iesuits from thence the Priests proceed to the framing a sodality as they called it among themselves the better to strengthen themselves against the Iesuits which they understanding prevail with one of the number of the associated Priests to betray their Councils him they send to Rome who in the name of all the Priests in England desired for the preventing differences for the future and the curing those that were already that there might be a Government and subordination settled among them Fa. Parsons being then at Rome follows the matter close and represents to the Pope the necessity of it because of the great discords which were among them in England Whereupon the Pope according to Fa. Parsons desire referrs the whole business to Cardinal Cajetan their Protector Who being governed by the Iesuits pitched upon a person wholly at their devotion as the seculars thought which was Blackwell a man swayed altogether by Garnet Provincial of the Iesuits well known for his zeal in the Catholick cause by suffering as one of their Martyrs in the Gunpowder Treason and one of the Arch-Priests instructions was in all matters of moment to be advised by the Provincial of the Iesuits The Secular Priests finding themselves thus over-reached by the cunning of the Iesuits and that they designed hereby wholly to govern their affairs make many demurrs to his Authority both concerning the manner and the substance of it and desire a Breve from the Pope and then promise to submit Parsons procures one to their purpose and an appearance of peace was for a little time among them and they mutually promised not to charge the Schism upon each other but within a month or six weeks the flame brake out with greater fury than ever the Arch-Priest sending his directions into all parts that none of the Seculars should be admitted to the Sacraments without acknowledging themselves Schismaticks So that the Popes Breve was so far from ending the difference that it encreased it Fa. Parsons charging them and the Seculars not denying it that after it they were farther from obeying the Arch-Priest than they were before So unhappy have the Popes been when they have gone about to use their Authority for composing differences among those who are in their own Church But we leave this and come to a later controversie among them about the same matters of Order and Government Richard Smith titular Bishop of Chalcedon was invested with the Authority of Ordinary over their English Clergy by Vrban
all of a mind and it is not necessary to the Unity of the Church that they should be but they have the only way of composing differences and they do not differ in matters of faith from each other and their differences lye only in their Schools and do not disturb the peace of the Church This is the utmost I can find their best wits plead for the Vnity of the Roman Church and if these be sufficient I believe they and we will be proved to be as much at Unity as they are among themselves 1. They say the Vnity of the Church doth not lye in actual Agreement of the members of it in matters of Doctrine but in having the best means to compose differences and to preserve consent which is submission to the Popes Authority So Gregory de Valentiâ explains the Vnity of their Church for actual consent he grants may be in other Churches as much as theirs and there is nothing singular or peculiar attributed to their Church supposing they were all of a mind which it is plain they are not but therein saith he lyes the Vnity of their Church that they all acknowledge one Head in whose judgement they acquiesce and therefore they have no more to do but to know what the Pope determines If this be all their Unity we have greater than they for we have a more certain way of ending Controversies than they have which I prove by an argument like to one in great request among them when they go about to perswade weak persons to their Religion viz. that it must needs be safer to be in that Religion wherein both parties agree a man may be saved than in that where one side denies a possibility of salvation so say I here that must be a safer way for Unity which both parties agree in to be infallible than that which one side absolutely denyes to be so but both parties agree the Scriptures to be infallible and all Protestants deny the Pope to be infallible therefore ours is the more certain way for Vnity But this is not all for it is far from being agreed among themselves that the Pope is infallible it being utterly denyed by some among them and the asserting it accounted Heresie as is evident in some late Books written to that purpose in France and England What excellent means of Vnity then is this among them which it is accounted by some no less than Heresie to assert § 13. But supposing they should yield the Pope that submission which they deny to be due to him yet is his definition so much more certain way of ending Controversies than the Scriptures Let them name one Controversie that hath been ended in their Church meerly by the Popes Decrees so as the opposite party hath declared that they believed contrary to what they believed before on the account of the Popes definition We have many instances to the contrary wherein controversies have been heightened and increased by their interposing but none concluded by them Do they say the Scripture can be no means of Vnity because of the various senses which have been put upon it and have they no wayes to evade the Popes definitions Yes so many that his Authority in truth signifies nothing any farther than they agree that the upholding it tends to their common interest But when onces he comes to cross the interest of any party if they do not in plain terms defie him yet they find out more civil wayes of making his Definitions of no force Either they say the Decree was procured by fraud and the Pope made it by mis-information which is the common way or he did not define it as a matter of faith sitting in Cathedrâ or the sense of his definition is quite otherwise than their Adversaries understand it or supposing that be the sense the Pope is never to be supposed to define any thing contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers and ancient Canons Of all which it were no difficult task to give late and particular instances but no one who is acquainted with the history of that Church can be ignorant of them and the late proceedings in the point of the five Propositions are a sufficient evidence of these things to any one who reads them For when was there a Fairer occasion given to the Pope to shew his Authority for preservation of the Churches unity than at that time when the matter of the five Propositions was under debate at Rome The same controversie was now revived which had disturbed their Church so often and so much before In the time of Clement 8. the heats were so great between the Iesuits and Dominicans that the Pope thought it necessary for the peace of the Church to put an end to them to that end he appointed Congregations for several years to discuss those points that he might come to a resolution in them This Pope at first was strangely prepossest by the arts of the Iesuits against the Dominicans but sending for the General of the Dominicans he told him what sad apprehensions he had concerning the peace of the Church by reason of the disputes between the Iesuits and them and therefore charges him that those of his Order should no longer molest the Iesuits about these things to whom he replyed that he assured him with as great Protestation as he was able that it was no meer Scholastical dispute between them but it was the cause of faith that was concerned which he discoursed largely upon to the Pope and made such impressions upon him that the Dominicans verily believe that had that Pope lived to the Vespers of Pentecost that year he dyed in March he had published a Bull against the Iesuits in presence of the Colledge of Cardinals and created F. Lemos Cardinal After his death the congregations were continued in the time of Paul 5. but at last were broken up without any decision at all If the Popes determination be such an absolute Instrument of peace in the Church it is the strangest thing in the world it should be made so little use of in such cases where they all acknowledge it would be of infinite advantage to their Church to have an issue put to such troublesome controversies as these were But they know well enough that the Popes Authority is the more esteemed the less it is used and that it hath alwayes been very hazardous to determine where there have been considerable parties on both sides for fear the condemned party should renounce his Authority or speak plainer truths than they are willing to hear And therefore it was well observed by Mons. S. Amour that they are very jealeus at Rome of maintaining the Authority of the decrees which issue from thence and that this consideration obliges the maker of them to look very well to the compliance and facility that may be expected in their execution before they pass any at all Which is a most certain argument they dare
Vnity they look after all such who hold opinions contrary to their Interest must be proceeded against and condemned but for others let them quarrel and dispute as long as they will they let them alone if they touch not the Popes Authority nor any of the gainful opinions and practices which are allowed among them And supposing their Interest be kept up which the Inquisition is designed for the Court of Rome is as great a Friend to toleration as may be only what others call different perswasions they call School points and what others call divisions they call disputes the case is the same with their Church and others only they have softer names for the differences among themselves and think none bad enough for those who cast off the Popes Authority and plead for a Reformation Here then lyes the profound mystrey of their Vnity that they are all agreed against us though not among themselves and are not we so against them too May not we plead for the Vnity that they have on the same grounds We are all agreed against Popery as much as they are against Protestants only we have some Scholastick disputes among us about indifferent things and the Episcopal Authority as they have we have some zealous Dominicans and busie and factious men such as the Iesuits among them are but setting aside these disputes we are admirably well agreed just as they are in the Roman Church § 15. 2. They say they doe not differ in matters of faith But this is as true as the other for are they agreed in matters of faith who charge one another with heresie as we have already seen that they doe But if they mean that they doe not differ in matters of faith because those only are matters of faith which they are agreed in they were as good say they are agreed in the things they doe not differ about for the parties which differ doe believe the things in difference to be matters of faith and therefore they think they differ from one another in matter of faith But they are not agreed what it is which makes a thing to be a matter of faith and therefore no one can pronounce that their differences are not about matters of faith for what one may think not to be de fide others may believe that it is we see the Popes personal infallibility is become a Catholick doctrine among the Iesuits and declared to be plain heresie by their Adversaries The deliverance of souls from Purgatory by the prayers of the living is generally accounted a matter of faith in the Roman Church but we know those in it who deny it and say it was a novel opinion introduced by Gregory 1. against the consent of Antiquity It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans and Iansenists to attribute to God alone the praise of converting grace and that grace efficacious by it self was the doctrine of Fathers and Councils and the Catholick Church and is it not then a matter of faith in their opinion wherein the Iesuits and they differ from each other To which purpose it was well said by the author of a Book printed at Paris A. D. 1651. containing essayes and reflections on the state of Religion that because of the Controversies between the Iansenists and the Iesuits it might with more reason be affirmed now than in the time of Arrianism it self that the whole Church seems to become heretical For admitting saith he what is most certain that the Church hath decreed Calvinism Pelagianism and Semipelagianism to be heresies and that the Doctors are those who sit in the Chair to be consulted withall upon points of Religion all Catholicks are reduced to a most strange perplexity For if a man shall address himself to those of the Iansenian party they will tell him that those who are termed Molinists are Pelagians or at least Semi-pelagians and on the other side the Molinists will bear him down that their Adversaries are Calvinists or else Novatians Now all the Doctors of the Catholick Church a very few excepted are either of the one or the other party I leave you then to consider to what prodigious streights mens minds are reduced since this is held as a general Maxime that whosoever fails in one point of faith fails in all It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans that all persons Christ only excepted were born in sin and therefore the contenders for the immaculate conception must in their judgment differ in a point of faith from them But if this distinction should be allowed to preserve the unity of their Church why shall it not as well cure the divisions of ours The most considerable in all respects of the dissenters from the Church of England declare that they agree with us in all the articles of doctrine required by our Church will this be enough in their opinion to make us at unity with each other if not let them not plead the same thing for themselves which they will not allow to us I cannot understand that the controversies about Ceremonies considered in themselves among us are of any greater weight than the disputes among the Fryars concerning their habits have been and yet this controversie only about the size of their hoods lasted in one Order almost an Age together and was managed with as great a heat and animosity as ever these have been among us and was with very much adoe laid asleep for a time by the endeavours of 4. Popes successively But if this signifies nothing to unity to say that the matters are not great about which the Controversies are if the disturbances be great which are caused by them that will reflect more sharply on their Church than on ours which hath so many differences which they account not to be about any matters of faith But if these differences in point of doctrine among them prove to be none in matters of faith it would be no difficult task upon the same grounds to shew that they have no reason to quarrel with us for breaking the unity of their Church because then we may differ from them as little in matters of faith as they doe from one another This I need not take upon me to shew at large because I find it already done to my hand by F. Davenport al. Sancta Clara in his paraphrastical exposition of the 39. articles of our Church about half of them he acknowledges to be Catholick as they are without any further explication The first he meets with difficulty in is that about the number of Canonical books point blank against the Council of Trent but he acknowledges that Cajetan and Franciscus Mirandula fully agree with our Church in it who quote Hierom Ruffinus Antoninus and Lyra of the same opinion as they might have done many others but because our Church doth not cast them wholly out of the Canon he dares not say it is guilty of heresie simply and the rather because Waldensis and Driedo
do hold that it is only in the power of the whole Church successively from the Apostles to declare what books are Canonical and what not For the 11. article about justification he saith the Controversie is only about words because we are agreed that God alone is the efficient cause of Justification and that Christ and his passion are the meritorious cause of it and the only question is about the formal cause which our Church doth not attribute to the act of faith as he proves by the book of Homilies but only makes it a condition of our being justified and they believe that by faith we obtain our righteousness by Christ so that he can find no difference between them and us in that point He saith the Controversie about merit may be soon ended according to the doctrine of our Church for they deny as well as we article 1. 3. that any works done before the Grace of Christ and Inspiration of his Spirit can merit any thing and when we say article 12. that good works which follow justification are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ if by that we mean that they are accepted by Christ in order to a reward by vertue of the promise of God through Christ that is all the sense of merit which he or the school of Scotus contends for For works of supererogation article 14. he saith our Church condemns them upon that ground that men are said to do more by them than of duty they are bounden to do which being generally understood they condemn he saith as well as we because we can doe no good works which upon the account of our natural obligation we are not bound to perform though by particular precept we are not bound to them In the 19 article where our Church saith that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of ceremonies but also in matters of faith he distinguisheth the particular Church of Rome from the Catholick Church which is frequently understood by that name and he saith it is only a matter of faith to believe that the Catholick Church hath not erred and not that the particular Church of Rome hath not In the 20. article our Church declares that the Church ought neither to decree any thing against holy writ so besides the same it ought not to enforce any thing to be believed of necessity to salvation this he interprets of what is neither actually nor potentially in the Scriptures neither in terms nor by consequence and so he thinks it orthodox and not against traditions Article 21. wherein our Church determins expresly against the infalibility of general Councils he understands it only of things that are not necessary to faith or manners which he saith is the common opinion among them The hardest article one would think to bring us off in was the 22. viz. that the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Reliques and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture But we need not despaire as long as one bred up in the Schools of Scotus designes our rescue he confesses it to be a difficult adventure but what will not subtilty and kindness doe together He observes very cunningly that these doctrines are not condemned absolutely and in themselves but only the Romish doctrine about them and therein we are not to consider what the Church of Rome doth teach but what we apprehend they teach or what we judge of their doctrine i. e. that they invocate Saints as they doe God himself that Purgatory destroys the cross of Christ and warms the Popes Kitchin that Pardons are the Popes bills of Exchange whereby he discharges the debts of what sinners he pleases that they give proper divine worship to images and reliques all which he saith are impious doctrines and we doe well to condemn them So that it is not want of faith but want of wit this good man condemns us for which if we attain to any competent measure of whereby to understand their doctrine there is nothing but absolute peace and harmony between us This grand difficulty being thus happily removed all the rest is done with a wet finger for what though our Church Art 24. saith that it is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custome of the primitive Church to have publick prayer in the Church or to Minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understood of the people Yet what can hinder a Scotist from understanding by the Scripture not the doctrine or command of it but the delivery of it viz. that the Scripture was written in a known tongue nay he proves that our Church is for praying in Latin by this Article because that either is a known tongue or ought to be so it being publickly lickly taught every where and if it be not understood he saith it is not per se but per accidens that it is so I suppose he means the Latin Tongue is not to blame that the people do not understand it but they that they learned their lessons no better at School But what is to be said for Women who do not think themselves bound to go to School to learn Latin He answers very plainly that S. Paul never meant them for he speaks of those who were to say Amen at the Prayers but both S. Paul and the Canon Law he tells us forbid women to speak in the Church The case is then clear S. Paul never regarded what language the Women used and it was no great matter whether they understood their Prayers or not But what is to be said to the Council of Trent which pronounces an Anathema to those who say that Prayers are to be said only in a known Tongue This doth not touch our Church at all he thinks because in some Colledges the Prayers are said in Latin but although that be a known tongue there it is no matter as long as the Council of Trent hath put in the word only that clears our Church sufficiently Besides the Council of Trent speaks expresly of the Masse which our Article doth not mention but only publick Prayers and the Council of Trent speaks of those who condemns it as contrary to the institution of Christ but our Church only condemns it as contrary to the institution of the Apostle but all the commands of the Apostles are not the commands of Christ therefore our Church declares nothing against faith in this Article Are not we infinitely obliged to a man that uses so much subtlety to defend our Church from errrour in faith But that which is most considerable is what he cites from Canus that it is no Heresie to condemn a custome or Law of the Church if it be not of something necessary to salvation especially if it be a custome introduced since the Apostles times as most certainly this was For the five Sacraments rejected
if a man confess his sins and but stumble into one of the 7. Churches it is a hard case if he doth not escape at least for one thousand years I need not reckon up what vast Pardons are to be had there at easie rates since they have been so kind at Rome to publish a Catalogue of them in several books an extract out of which is very lately set forth in our own language Those who have gone about to compute them have found that Indulgences for a million of years are to be had at Rome on no hard terms Bellarmin would seem to deny these pardons for so many years as far as he durst as though they were not delivered by Authentick writers but I desire no more than what Cnuphrius hath transcribed from the Archives of the Churches themselves and we may judge of the rest by what Caesar Rasponi a Canon of the Lateran Church and a present Cardinal hath written lately of that one Church in a book dedicated to Alexander 7. He tells us therefore there is so vast a bank of the Treasure of the Church laid up there that no one need goe any further to get full pardon of all his sins and that it is impossible for any one to reckon up the number of the benefits to be had there by it In the Feast of the Dedication of that Church at the first throw if a man be well confessed before he gets if he be a Roman a pardon of a 1000. years if a Tuscan 2000 but if he comes from beyond sea 3000. years this is well for the first time The like Lottery is again at that Church on Câ—ena Domini But Boniface 9. would never stand indenting with men for number of years but declares if men will come either for devotion or pilgrimage no matter which he shall be clear from all sin and what would a man have more But besides this there are other particular seasons of opening this Treasury and then one may take out as much as they can wish for As when the Image of our Saviour is shewn all that come thither have their sins pardoned infallibly and many other days in the year which the Author very punctually reckons up and are so many that a Canon of that Church may dispose of some thousands of years nay plenary remissions and yet escape Purgatory at last himself But besides what belongs to the Church it self there is a little Oratory or Chapple belonging to it called the Holy of Holies where it is impossible for any man to reckon up the number of Indulgences granted to it These vast numbers of years then are no fiction of Pardon-mongers as Bellarmin is sometimes ready to say unless he will have the Popes called by that name or charge the Holy Churches at Rome with so gross impostures § 6. But suppose it should be a mans fortune never to see Rome as it hath many a good mans must he be content to lye and rot in Purgatory or trust only to the kindness of his Friends no we that live at this distance have some comfort left there are sonne good prayers appointed for us to use which will help us at a need or else the book of the houres of the B. Virgin secundunm usum Sarum is strangely mistaken but herein I am likewise prevented by the authoâ—â— of the preface lately mention'd but my edition being elder than either of those mention'd by him seems to have something peculiar to it or at last omitted by him As when it saith of the Prayer Obsecro te Domina Sancta Maria c. Tho all them that be in the state of Grace that daily say devowteli this prayer before owre blessed Lady of pity she wolle showâ— them her blessed vysage and warn them the day and owre of deth and in there last end the Angells of God shall yield there sowles to heaven and he shall obtayn 5 hundreth yeres and soo many Lenttis of pardon graunted by 5 holy Fathers Popes of Rome That is pretty well for one prayer But this is nothing to what follows to a much shorter prayer than that Our Holy Father Sixtus 4. Pope hath graunted to all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lady in the sone eleven thousand years of pardon A prayer said to good purpose I confess I can hardly stoop now to those that have only dayes of pardon promised them yet for the sake of the procurer I will mention one Our Holy Father Pope Sixtus hath graunted at the Instance of the highmost and excellent Princesse Elizabeth late Quéen of Englond and wyfe to our Soveraign liege Lord King Henry the 7th God have mercy on her sweet soull and all Cristen soulls that every day in the morning after 3 tollinges of the Ave â—ell say 3 times the hole salutation of our Lady Ave Maria gratiâ that is to say at 6 the klock in the morning 3 Ave Maria att 12 of the klock at none 4 Ave Maria and att 6 a klock at even for every time so doing is graunted of the spiritual treasour of holy Church 3 hundreth dayes of parden totiens quotiens To which is annexed the pardon of the two Arch-bishops and nine Bishops forty dayes a piece three times a day which begun A. D. 1492. the seventh year of Henry 7. And the summ of the Indulgence and pardon for every Ave Maria is 800 days totiens quotiens But if a man thinks himself well provided already and hath a mind to help his Friends there is nothing like the 15 O. s of St. Brigitt Thys be the 15 O. Os. the which the holy Uirgin S. Brygytta was woente to say dayle before the holy rode in S. Pauls Church at Rome who soe says this a yere he schall deliver 15 soulles out of Purgatory of his next kyndred and convert other 15 sinners to gode lyf and other 15 righteous men of his kynd shall persevere in gode lyf And wat ye desyre of God ye schall have it if yt be to the salvation of your sowle Not long after we find a better endowment with number of years than any we have yet met with To all them that before this Image of pytie devoutly say 5 Pater Noster and 5 Aves a Credo pityously beholding these Armes of Crystys passion are graunted thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifty years of pardon and Sixtus the 4. Pope of Rome hath made the 4 and the 5 prayer and hath doubled his foresaid pardon The Prayer with Boniface 6. his Indulgence of ten thousand years pardon will hardly down with me now much less that niggardly grant of Iohn 22. of a hundred dayes pardon What customers doth he hope to find at such sordid rates Sixtus 4. for my money witness this Indulgence Our holy Father Sixtus 4. graunted to all them that beyn in state of Grace sayeing this prayer following ymmediately
for the possibility of salvation allowed to any in their Church is built upon the supposition that they have all that is fundamentally necessary in order to it though there are many dangerous errours and corruptions in that Church whose communion they live in § 16. The Answers to the first Question being thus vindicated there remains little to be added concerning the second For he tells me that he agrees so far with me that every Christian is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church But which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles And to be even with him I thus far agree with him in the way of proof of a Churches purity viz. by agreement with the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and that that Church is to be judged purest which shews the greatest evidence of that consent and that every one is bound to enquire which Church hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace the communion of it Being thus far agreed I must now enquire into what motives he offers on behalf of their Church and what method he prescribes for delivering ours For the former he produces a large Catalogue of Catholick Motives as he calls them in the words of Dr. Taylour Liberty of Prophecy Sect. 20. And I do not know a better way of answering them than in the words of the same eminent and learned Person which he uses upon a like occasion to his demonstrating Friend I. S. But now in my Conscience saith the Bishop this was unkindly done that when I had spoken for them what I could and more than I knew they had ever said for themselves and yet to save them harmless from the iron hands of a tyrant and unreasonable power to keep them from being persecuted for their errours and opinions that they should take the arms I had lent them for their defence and throw them at my head But the best of it is though I. S. be unthankful yet the Weapons themselves are but wooden Daggers intended only to represent how the poor men are couzened by themselves and that under fair and fraudulent pretences even pious well meaning men men wise enough in other things may be abused And though what I said was but tinsel and pretence imagery and whipt Cream yet I could not be blamed to use no better than the best their cause could bear yet if that be the best they have to say for themselves their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urged by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will out-weigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church But then I. S. might if he had pleased have considered that I did not intend to make that harangue to represent that the Roman Religion had probabilities of being true but probabilities that the Religion might be tolerated or might be endured and if I was deceived it was but a well meant errour hereafter they shall speak for themselves only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that Book that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there is for the Anabaptists and yet it was but an excuse at the best But since from me saith he they borrow their light Armour which is not Pistol-proof from me if they please they may borrow a remedy to undeceive them and that in the same kind and way of arguing for which he referrs to a letter written by him to a Gentlewoman seduced to the Church of Rome out of which I shall transcribe so much as may over-ballance the probabilities produced elsewhere by him After directions given rather to enquire what her Religion is than what her Church is for that which is a true Religion to day will be so to morrow and for ever but that which is a holy Church to day may be Heretical at the next change or may betray her trust or obtrude new Articles in contradiction to the old c. and shewing the unreasonablness of believing the Roman to be the Catholick Church he descends thus to particulars You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtlety and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oaths to the King your Promises to Men your Duty to your Parents in some cases a Church in which men Pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they Pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to Worship Images with the same Worship with which they Worship God or Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the Holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that Sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the divine nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her Children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christs Institution to a human Invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Tradition to new pretences from Prayers which ye understood to Prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon Creatures from intire dependance upon inward-acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose Worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens Consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the dayes of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the Holy Scriptures from whence you sound instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that Fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacrament or Decrees of the Church or the messages of your
friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are lyable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be Ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are lyable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you are only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to Worship Saints and Angels with a Worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church Worships the V. Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the V. Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the Worship and your joyning God and the Saints is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former To which he subjoynes that the points of difference between us and the Church of Rome are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition in them and that very many of her Doctrines are very ill Friends to a good life and that our Religion is incomparably beyond theirs in point of safety as in point of Praying to God alone and without Images relying on God as infallible which are surely lawful but it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints or Worship Images c. From whence he concludes So that unless you mean to preferr a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of yours prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs Institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a faith that grows bigger or lesser as men please and a hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the commandments in faith in hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supream you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of England and I doubt not but you will find the comfort of it in all your life and in the day of your death and in the day of Judgement Thus far that excellent person and I leave you now to judge between the Motives on both sides as they are laid down by him whom my Adversary appeals to and I must thank him for the kindness of mentioning him against me without which I had wanted so good a representation of the Motives of either side and so full an Answer to the pretences brought for the Church of Rome The other Motives which he adds of Fathers Councils and Tradition he knows are utterly denyed by us and I wonder he should insist upon them since in the matters of our debate Antiquity is so evidently of our side as against Worship of Images and Saints against Purgatory Transubstantiation Prayers in an unknown tongue and he thinks it no great matter to allow us a thousand years against communion in one kind and yet all this while Scripture Fathers Councils and Tradition are all on their side For the testimony of the present Church we deny that S. Austin speaks of it as of it self sufficient and though he did that concerns not the Roman Church any more than other parts of the Catholick Church and he may assoon prove Tyber to be the Ocean or S. Peters at Rome to have been before the Temple at Hierusalem as prove the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or the Mother of all others § 17. But I must conclude with the method he prescribes to you for satisfaction from me which is not to meddle with particular disputes which we know very well the reason of but to call upon me for a Catalogue of our grounds and to bring things to Grounds and Principles as they have learnt to Cant of late and then he saith Controversie will soon be at an end I should be glad to see it so notwithstanding his Friend I. S. accounts it so noble a Science unless he hath changed his mind since for so many years now he hath failed in the Defence of his Demonstrations But to satisfie the men of Principles and to let them see we can do more than find fault with their Religion I shall give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions which is all we can understand by Negative Points and if we can give an account of the Christian faith independently on their Churches Authority and Infallibility it evidently follows that cannot be the foundation of faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome And I know no other Answer necessary not only to this present demand but to a Book called Protestants without Principles the falsity of which will appear by what follows Principles Agreed on both sides 1. THat there is a God from whom man and all other Creatures had their Being 2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect and therefore Justice Goodness Wisdom and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection 3. That man receiving his Being from God is thereby bound to obey his will and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience 4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God it is necessary that he know what it is for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not 5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will 6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of to make known his will unto man by These thing being agreed on both sides we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind 1. AN entire
obedience to the will of God being agreed to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary to that end than such whereby man may know what the will of God is 2. Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the Being of God and his dependence upon him and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any principles of Natural Religion 3. All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means 4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation 5. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so 6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men must be Judged in the same way that the truth of a Divine Revelation is for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance and for that end to assure men what the will of God is the same means must be used for the trial of that as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men 7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen and whatever he hath done we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice Wisdome Goodness and Truth 8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us 9. There are several wayes conceivable by us how God may make known his Will to us either by immediate voice from Heaven or inward inspiration to every particular person or inspiring some to speak personally to others or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages 10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted the former is repugnant to common sense for words are equally capable of being understood spoken or written the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God 11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. 12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God that they were never intended for that end because of their obscurity or imperfection 13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation 14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole mind or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation 15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets 16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it 17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from
the unreasonableness of it in suppressing Books without enquiring into the merits of the cause in a matter of so great consequence as that was that this would give great occasion of triumph to the Hereticks when such scandalous and seditious Books as those of the Jesuits are meet with the same favour at Rome with the censure of the Bishops of France that their profane and Atheistical Censure of the Apostles Creed must have no mark of disgrace put upon it nor such sayings of theirs wherein they call the Bishops and Divines of France by most contumelious names and say they are the enemies of the truth and piety The Iesuits instead of defending themselves against Aurelius write a pittiful defence of this Decree of suppressing the Books on both sides and so all the means which the Court of Rome durst use to extinguish this flame proved but an occasion of adding to it And whether this Controversie be yet at an end among them let all the heats in France and England of late years concerning the Iesuits give testimony § 10. I shall not now insist any longer upon them but only produce some late passages of things which though they happened at a greater distance are yet sufficiently attested to shew what spight the Iesuitical Order bears to the Authority of Bishops what arts they have used to enervate it what power to affront their persons and expose them to all the contempt that may be when they go about to stop their proceedings or exercise any jurisdiction over them The great occasion of the Controversie between the Bishops and them was that the Iesuits took upon them to Preach and hear Confessions c. without any permission from the Bishop of the Diocese So they did in the Philippine Islands whereupon the Arch-bishop of Manille Don Hernando Guerrero called a Synod wherein it was resolved that the Archbishop ought to bring the Iesuits to account for what they did which he did and all the satisfaction he could get from them was that they had priviledges the Arch-bishop not satisfied with this proceeds against them they name a Conservator an enemy of the Arch-bishops For the Popes to keep the Bishops in awe have allowed them by a Bull for that purpose liberty in case of difference between the Bishops and them to choose a Conservator to defend their priviledges against them this Conservator proceeds against the Arch-bishop and the Iesuits procure the Governour to joyne with him who without giving leave to him to make his Defence resolve to banish him The Arch-bishop understanding their resolution to send him away goes with the Clergy about him into his Chappel and there to secure himself from the insolency of the Souldiers in his Pontifical habit holds the Eucharist in his hand notwithstanding which they came and dragged out all the Fryers who took the Arch-bishops part and afterwards the old Arch-bishop himself who fell down in the crowd with the Pix in his hand and wounded himself in the face Such exorbitances made that impression on one of the Souldiers that he drew his Sword and falling upon it said He had rather dye by his own hands than see such enormities among Christians At last the Arch-bishop was forced to let go his Pix and was presently carryed away out of the City and put into a little pittiful Barque unprovided of all things without permitting any food to be given him or any of his servants to accompany him and was conveyed by five Souldiers into a Desart Island where he had not so much as a Cabin for shelter and there he was kept till he yielded to their terms O the admirable unity peace and submission to Bishops in the Roman Church But we have yet a more remarkable instance of this kind in the notorious case of the difference between the Bishop of Angelopolis in America and the Iesuits which was heard at Rome and several Bulls published by Innocent 10. in it I shall give an account of it from the Popes Bulls and from the letter which the Bishop himself sent to the Pope about it A. D. 1649. which is extant in the Collection of the end of Mr. S. Amours Iournal which he had from Cosimo Ricciardi Sub-librarykeeper of the Vatican who received it immediately from the Bishops Agent The controversie began there upon the very same grounds which it had done in the Philippine Islands for the Iesuits would acknowledge no subjection at all to the Bishop but would Preach and hear Confessions without any license from the Bishop which difference grew so high that the Iesuits chose Conservators against the Bishops authority as the Popes Bull granted May 14. A. D. 1648. doth declare and not only so but these Conservators very fairly excommunicated the Bishop and his Vicar General upon this the Bishop sends an Agent to Rome and the Iesuits appear in behalf of their Society the Pope commits the cause to a particular Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops who upon the hearing of both sides give sentence in favour of the Bishop Apr. 16. A. D. 1648. But the Iesuits as appears by the Bishops letter bearing date Ian. 8. A. D. 1649. were resolved not to wait for the Popes resolution but finding that the people contemned their censures and adhered to the Bishop were so enraged at it that they resolved to imprison him to that end they bribe the King of Spains Vice-roy the Bishops particular enemy with a great summ of money and by that means clapt up most of his Friends and threatned them with worse if they would not obey the Conservators the Bishop himself they had appointed Souldiers to seize upon on Corpus Christi day the better day the better deed who understanding their minds sent commissioners to treat with them to prevent the tumults and disorders were like to follow on these differences but they used them with contempt and would hear of no terms unless the Bishop would submit himself and his jurisdiction to them and their Conservators but instead of peace they proceed to more open acts of hostility by imprisoning his Vicar General and using all manner of insolencies among the People who joyned with the Bishop to defend him against them The good Bishop seeing things in so bad a posture thought it his greatest prudence to withdraw to the mountains thinking himself safer among the Serpents and Scorpions there than in the City among the Iesuits There he continues for twenty dayes almost famished and afterwards for four months lay hid in a pittiful Cottage the Iesuits in the mean time offering great summs of money to those who should bring him alive or dead But not finding him they bring the excommunicated Conservators with great pomp into the City and erect a Tribunal or in the language of the late times a Highâ—Court of Iustice among them where according to their pleasure they fine banish imprison as many as they thought their enemies and there solemnly declare what mighty