for their direction and comfort this have Catholicks full and clearly delivered them out of holy writ and all their whole duty both towards God and their neighbour in their own language Nor are they ignorant of any thing that may appertain either to sobriety justice or piety The whole sacred story of our Lords incarnation passion and ascension all his sacraments all the whole counsels and precepts of God which may concern salvation all his promises and threats they have them all made known unto them clear and disintangled from the various tropes and schemes of rhetorick or logick so interwoven in the sacred authors writings that it puzzles the greatest clerk with all his literature and science to understand the connexions transitions of discourse objections ambâ—guous phrases hebraisms and grecisms and such-like obscurities that occur or to find out the drift and purpose and meaning of places which things do and have too too often caused mistakes and heresies in the world And all the sacred truths which it concerns them to practise the people have still been put in mind of by their priests both in private and publick to their daily edification Nor was it ever the fashion in Christianity to throw the bible among people and so leave them to themselves as the Reformers have done Most certain it is that the word and will and counsel of God consists not in letters and syllables much less in the tropes and modes of rhetorick and logick which do variously obscure the sacred writ above all books that have ever been penned by man but in the sence and meaning which is easily and securely conveighed It is no hard matter for example to understand that all men both Jews and Gentiles who have ever come to the knowledge of Christ were beholding to Gods mercy meerly to Gods mercy for that their conversion and the life of grace they had by it which is the scope of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans although to give an account how S. Paul deduces and proves this truth in that his epistle what arguments he doth either establish or refute what modes and figures he uses what tropes and rhetorical schemes be in his expressions how he passes from one thing to another in his discourse and by what art of ratiocination the context of his whole letter is knit together this is neither easie to understand nor necessary to any mans salvation to discern And yet the epistle without all this knowledge cannot be understood or rightly apprehended And if it be conceived falsly mistakes and heresies will rise The will and mind and word of God this all people are to know what he hath commanded what counselled what threatned what promised what our Lord did and suffered for us and what we are to suffer and do for him that we may be partakers of his glory But the humanity and philosophy that lies couched in holy writ vulgar people neither can nor have need to dive into it Nor was the holy scripture ever penned or intended for the people immediately but for the bishops and priests of God who are to watch over them for their good and from their lips they are to receive knowledge Christians were ever fed like pigeons by the mouth until they were so fledg that they could now fly feed themselves Once come to maturity they may read what they please on Gods name and the more they attend to lection of holy scriptures the better it is so they apply all unto action and sanctification of their lives And again in an epistle of mine its written thus I have heard many great protestant divines ingeniously acknowledge that divine comfort and sanctity of life requisite to salvation which religion onely aims at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the customs of the Roman Church which gives the sense life and meaning of Gods word unto people without the husk of the formal letter than by the way of Protestants which exhibits it to people hidden under the hard shell able to break peoples teeth Religion consists not in reading but doing to be had by heart and not in the lips that way is tedious and barren this fruitful and easie Christ our Lord drew a compendium of all divine duties into two words the great apostle into one and both of them made all to consist in practice If the several gospels for every day in the year which are or may be in the hands of all Catholicks the chief particles of divine epistles those I mean which are of general concernment books of sacred instructions and meditations upon the mysteries of salvation and spiritual treatises for all occasions and uses which be numberless adjoyned to the rites of examination of conscience continual and daily use of prayer and fasting and an orderly commemoration of the things our Lord hath wrought for us throughout the year which all men by law are tied to observe may not give sufficient acquaintance of what concerns salvation and enough to promote people towards it I am to seek what it is that can Sure I am that the world was first converted without any books at all and many millions of good Christians both lived piously and died happily who never saw the Bible What further good may it do to read the letter of S. Pauls epistle to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein are treated questions and cases that are now quite vanished out of the world and other theological discourses which vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know What more of good can accrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to practise or so much as heat of than by the meer substance of Gods will and my own duty once well understood and daily applied unto action answerable good deeds What is there now in England when the said scripture letter is set open unto every eye any more of peace or charity piety or justice than in former Catholick times when the substance of Gods word and will was given people in short and the observance of their duty prolixly prest upon them What did they do in those antient Catholick times They flock'd every day to their Churches there to pay meditate and renew their good purposes they sung psalms hymns and canticles day night all over the land they built all our churches which we have remaining at this day amongst us and as many more now razed pulled down they founded and endowed our Universities establish'd our laws set out tithes glebe land for the clergy built hospitals erected corporations and in a word did all the good things which we find done by our forefathers for our good in this our native kingdom But what do we now what have we still been doing since the reformation quid agitur in Angliâ consulitur de religione Continually are we making and unmaking our religious rites
body either that is or has been in the World is liable to errour falshood and corruptions And what necessity in â—eed can there be in me to joyn in any Communion which may go astray and mislead me since I cannot do worse if I remain free and all alone and may perhaps do better But these contradictions are small matters So long as the Doctor opposes the Catholick Church out of which they are all fallen he is a Protestant good enough whatever he hold in particular either contrary to himself or any others The first question which is the occasion and subject of this his present book he resolves negatively averring that the same motives which might secure one born and bred in the Catholick Church to continue in it cannot secure a Protestant convinced by them to imbrace it And this his Assertion he discourses at large and confirms by various Syllogismes because invincible hinderance may perhaps excuse the one but not the other because the Protestant is safe in his own Church and therefore has no necessity to leave it because there is imminent danger in the Roman Church where there is so much Idolatry so many hinderances of good life and devotion so much divisions so much uncertainty of faith in it Unto these resolutions and argumentations of his the Catholick Proposer adjoyned presentâ—y his own reply a very rational me thinks and good one Hereupon the Doctor wrote and set forth this his present book called A Discourse against the Idolatry c. both to inlarge his own arguments and to disable the Catholick Gentlemans Reply And this was the occasion purpose and subject of the book you put in my hand to peruse and write to you the substance of it with some few brief thoughts of my own upon it Indeed the whole book is a kind of Academick Act or Commencement such a one as we have once a year in our famous Oxford Cambridge written and printed for peoples deligh and pastime and if so it please the Stars for his own honour and preferment by our Doctor And it came forth very seasonably about a fortnight before the Oxford Act. to save the wits living here abouts the great charges and some kind of pains of a Journey thither being now furnished well enough aforehand with as subtile and good an Act as that may haply be at our own doors and which may please the Women somewhat better in our Mother tongue The conclusions defended in this Holborn Act are these three 1. Popery is idolatrous And this is accomplished in two of his positions which he calls Chapters 2. Popery is a hinderance to a good life and devotion And this is dispatched at one other breathing named his third Chapter 3. Popery is divided and disunited in it self And this puft out in his fifth Chapter which concludes his Book And in midst of this great Act rises up a prevaricating Tripos to refresh our wearisomness and make a littâ—e sport And he takes up the whole Scene of his fourth Chapter And his Theme is Fanaticisme the Church of Romes Fanaticisme or the Fanaticism of the Roman Church And upon my word it has made many people merry not the softer Sâ—x only but the rougher and more serious mankind And all do so câ—ap and commend the man that one may well belâ—eve he has receiv'd his reward Idolatry ill life and divâ—sions of the Roman Church which are hâ—s three less wild conclusions we have in part already heard of even as we have heard talk of Europe Asia and Africa But Fanaticisme his merriment is I think the proper and peculiar discovery of Dr. Stillingfleet himself And he may deserve either to give or take a sirname from it as Scipio Africanus took from Africa and Vesputius Americus gave to America his new found Land What is it that wit and industry cannot bring to light if they be joyntly bent both of them upon the search And a new discovery especially of a rich pleasant Country ful of curiosities is so pleasant to the Discoverer himself so naturally pleasant that I cannot but think that Dâ—ctor Stillingfleet at his invention of Fanaticisme wherewith he hoped to make many others merry laughed heartily himself He begins his Book with the Roman Idolatry and he does wisely in it For Idolatry is such a terrible thundering charge that in all Readers judgments that Church is half condemned already which hath that crime so much as laid upon it Men therfore choose rather to be accounted Atheists than Idolaters For the first argues wit with other stupidity Nor will one man of a hundred trouble himself to read over a Book written on any purpose of clearing from that enormous crime either himself or religion professed by the Author of it Be the imputation never so false yet is it stil ablasting imputation which kills and overthrows not so much by proving as by naming it He must needs be impious who is an Idolater and he must be an Idolater who is called so Be it never so unjust it is still a witty trick to cry out against him as an Idolater whose honour and livelihood we would here in England undermine Sad experience has proved this to be true too too often And the Great God of Heavens anger lies I fear heavily upon us for it This thus far Now forward IMAGE IDOLATRY The Church of Rome worships God by Images and is therefore guilty of Idolatry by giving to the Creature the worship due only to the Creator For God having forbidden any such sort of worshiping him by his own law and commandments given by Moses wherein he forbids his people to make day kind of image pesel themunah eikon glypâ—on sculptile any thing represented either by carving tool or pensil cannot own that worship nor can any such worship terminate upon God And the reason of that law of Moses is unchangeable which is that God's infinite and incomprehensible Deity cannot be representâ—d For which reason the wisest of Heathen both particular Men and Nations judged all such representations of the invisible Godhead to be incongruous and unbecoming his glory And if this were inconsistent with Gods nature and will in the old Law much more in the new where we are taught to worship God in spirit and truth and to have no low unworthy thought of God It might therefore seem more rational to worship God in the Sun and Moon which have more of God in them and to say our prayers to the Sun and Moon them to any image or shadow the same argument which excuses the one will justifie the other much more For this reason St. Paul teaches that the Godhead is not like to gold or silver or stone and blames those who change the glory of the incorruptible God into the image of corruptible man And the Heathens in doing this did ill although the wiser sort among them testifie that they did not hold their statues to be Gods but that they worshipped God in
operations as in the times and places seasonable for worship and devotion But how they should worship God by images or as he speaketh oftner in the context of his discourse in images this they do not easily understand When he lays any thing to Catholicks charge he ought to speak I should think as Catholicks do and then he will be understood by them It is not to be conceived how any one can worship God by images and in images but either for the real presence there or ideal imitation or some sort of occasion of worshâ—p arising thence And so God must be worshipped by them and in them either presentially ideally or occasionally And it cannot be presentially For so God is no otherwise present in a picture than in the wall it hangs upon nor yet ideally for the picture for example of St. Mary Magdalen or St. Paul is no idea of that invisible and glorious Godhead nor yet is any other as the Crucifix for example or Christ our Lord in his Birth or Resurrection for all these figures are representations of his humanity and no idea's of his Deity at all And Mr. Stillingfleet must needs mean one of these two ways For otherwise he could not charge them with idolatry for it And therefore I say that his charge is false and slanderous But if he mean that they worship God by images in their images occasionally which is a moral interpretation and the only true one Then is such a work so far from Idolatry that it is a sublime piety For what can they better do then to give God thanks for so great graces mercies helps and comforts bestowed in Jesus our Lord upon his Apostles Martyrs Confessors and Virgins when they look upon their Figures and Pictures either in their contemplations or patience of Martyrdome or conversion of the world subduing and bringing flesh Satan and the World under their seet especially if Catholicks conceive thereby some pious resolution as well they may of doing something the more and patiently suffering for God in imitation of those pious Heroes our Predecessours in Religion and yet naturally but flesh and blood as we our selves are I say all this is signal piety and our Christian duty And according to this morall meaning Catholicks if they do worship God by their Images and in their Images do well and like good Christians But the Doctor will not charge them I suppose with a matter of so much truth and great piety as this is although his words cannot make out any other sence that is true but only this morall one And the more logical sence of worshipping God by images and in images ideally or presentially is false Let him even take whâ—ch sence he pleases either what justifies Catholicks or what falsifies his own assertion It is all one to me whether we stand or he fall § 6. He adds That the worship of God by Images does not terminate upon God because God has forbid it and so gives Gods honor to the Creature This is strange gibberish An act that tends to nothing is no act If it be some act it tends and has already tended to something and it terminates upon that thing unto which it tends and whose act it is denominated This is clear enough even to a young sophomore or one who indeed never yet came into the Air of Philosophy if he do but understand the terms and words here used For example I cannot see a man in the street except my vision terminate upon him nor can my vision terminate upon him but I must see him And it is all one whether I see him close by me or by my Window or in a Looking-glass at home For I cannot see him any way but my sight must terminate upon him and if it do not I see him not And this course of nature is not hindred nor yet altered at all because that Person may haply have forbidden me to look upon him either this way or that For our acts or actions are accomplished within our selves independently of any acceptance or disacceptance of them Acceptance or dâ—sacceptance commanding or forbidding is another thing extrinsecal and quite differing from the substance of the act or action For they specifie onely either the motive or event which may make the act either good or evil either grateful or displeasing but not make it an act or no act or not to tend where it has tended And so must my act of worshipping God by images terminate upon God or else it is no act of worshipping God by them however God may have either commanded or forbid it God has forbidden blasphemy and yet the act terminates upon him otherwise it could not be a sin against him And if Gods worship by Images do not terminate on God whither on Gods name does it tend and how is God worshiped by them This he does not tell us here unless he insinuate it in those following words oâ— his but gives the honour due to God unto the Creature But how can that be If God should have forbid us by his law to see a star through a tube should we not therefore see it but the tube only or should not our sight then be terminated upon the Star So it seems by this Doctors philosophy who hath conversed with the learneder sort of Papists and the wiser sort of heathens but very little with himself Holy Fathers and Doctors have often said that the honour of an Image redounds to the Prototype but never thought or said that the honour of the Prototype redounds to the Image as it is here affirmed against both art and experience But let us hear him proceed in his discourse He will surely let fall some sence or truth ere long § 7. Gods infinite and incomprehensible Deity saith he cannot be represented O here it is This is very true What a comfortable thing it is to meet with a draught of truth sometimes when a man is dry and thirsts after it But to what purpose is this spoken here Catholicks have no representations of that invisible Deity nor none they look after Figures they have of our Lord Christ born as man amongst us and made flesh and crucified and ascending into Heaven Figures also of his holy Followers and Martyrs but representations of the invisible Deify they never yet saw nor heard nor thought of On then The wisest of Heathens judged any such representations of the Divine nature incongruous and unbecoming his glory Indeed they were wise heathens and their judgment very right and good Nor did I ever hear of any Christian wise or unwise any otherwise minded O how would this Doctor prevail if this wise Discourse of his were as pertinent as it is true But he trusts and hopes well that his good fate will so accompany his Reader that he shall not doubt at all that every word that is true in his book is also to some purpose And to some purpose indeed it is namely to
spirit from them So may we contrariwise think of this worthy society of Jesuits that such a stable gravity and fixed wisdom as is in them all must needs be derived unto them from the spirit and statutes of their founder That is I think a true moral physiognomy which is given us by the Lyrick poet especially in a continual succession of men Fortes creantur fortibus bonis Est in juvencis est in equis patrum Virtus nec imbelles ferocem Progenerant aquilam columbae But let St. Ignace be never so simple yet did he ever submit unto his Superiours and Pastours walking all his daies in Catholick religion and had his rule of life confirmed by his Prelate and therfore could be no fanatick according to the Doctours definition of it He neither invented any new way of religion nor yet resisted authority under pretence of it But I think the doctour gave us that definition of fanaticisme in the begining of this his Chapter only to keep his discourse far enough off and never to touch it § 16. The Doctour proceeds now to declare how the very Catholick way of devotion doth promote enthusiasme And what think you Sir doth he speak of here not one word of our daily psalms hymns canticles anthems sacred lessons doxologies our Lords prayer or any other devotion prescribed by the Church and almost hourly in the hands and eyes of Catholick people not a word of our examination of our selves upon our knees penitential petitions or other our obsecrations thanksgivings deprecations or interpellations for our selves and all other good Christian people for Kings and prelates and all constituted in authority over us that we may live a peaceable and quiet life with all piety and decent behaviour No mention of all this which he knows as I perceive by his talking of our Manuels and Breviaries to be our Catholick devotion no not one word What is it then he calls the Catholick way of devotion Only one spiritual book set forth by Mr. Cressy about twenty Years ago out of Father Baxers works wherin the Doctour finds some uncouth hard words which he cannot understand this is that which he calls Catholick devotion and this is all the way he shows that Catholick devotion promotes enthusiasme Have not I reason Sir to be weary in following after such a butterfly § 17. He tells us at last That Papists are guilty of resisting authority under pretence of religion which he proves first by the principles of the Jesuitical party which are destructive to government and Secondly by this that the said party are most countenanced in the Court of Rome But he never tells us what are these principles of the Jesuitical party nor what this Jesuitical party is He only names Mariana and one or two others who should say that a Prince excommunicated loses his Soveraignty For which boldness they suffered worthily both by their own body and others Now how this discourse of our Doctour agrees with his purpose all this while pretended here I cannot see For it has not so much as the colour which appeared in some sort hitherto His book is intitled A Discourse of the idolatrous fanaticisme of the Church of Rome but now he tells us of a Jesuitical party and the Court of Rome The Society of Jesuits a religious grave prudent family in the Catholick Church of God this I have heard of and the Church of Rome or Catholick Church I know But what is this Jesuitical party and what this Court of Rome I understand not at all The Doctour pretended to speak of the Church and her religion though indeed he hath never come neer it yet But now he speaks that which hath not so much as the sound of it A Jesuitical party and a Court what are these to our purpose now in hand There be parties and as many designs signs as there be men in this world although they should be all of one religion and not all of them nay not perhaps one in a thousand directed according to Gospel or right reason at all times but for avarice rather solicitude of this world or sensuality Who can mend this Or whose part is it to justify such things No man that defends a religion can conceive how they may concern him and he that opposes a religion if he were wise or honest would never object them And as for the Court of Rome I know no more of it then I do of the Court of France Spain or Constantinople I have long since been told that the designs of Courts and Courtiers are politick high ambitious and close And I have heard again that they are of one and the same opinion all over the face of the earth a high elevated secret mysterious way unknown to us peasants who are born in sin although it go under the name still of that rurall religion which is countenanced in their respective Kingdoms How true these things be and what this way of theirs is I know not nor do I love to speak of them at all One part of our duty I think and respect towards our Superiours is silence and not to speak at all of them For we may conclude that God subjected all other Creatures unâ—o man becaus he created them dumb And certainly enough may we imagine that the opinions of Courts and Courtiers are very high since one can hardly meet any ordinary man who would not have the whole earth under his command and power if he could get it It is not long since we had here threescore thousand of our own Protestant Countrymen armed in the field who held all of them an opinion that the Kings Crown was at their disposal So they wrote so they talked and so they acted And it is hard to say in what head are the most presumptuous ambitious and lofty opinions And our Doctour himself who so contemptuously treats King Pepin Charlemaign and other renowned Kings of the earth nay all the Catholicks in the world at once cannot be one of the humblest and modestest of men Court of Rome and Jesuitical party sounds in my ears like a thorough Bass and treble Violyn playing together the one strikeing three long humming Notes about the double Gamut the other descanting theron in short and quicker graces The Court of Rome I something perceive methinks what it should be but not what it is But the Jesuitical party with all its graces I neither know what it is nor what it should be That worthy Society of Jesuits may be considered either according to their religion or Schools or personal designs According to their religion they are as other Catholicks be in the same worship same Sacraments same Altar same Priesthood same faith same hope to come As to their Schools although they have I believe five hundred Readers of the Chair and perhaps as many publick defensions in every three years space yet did I never hear of any such thing either taught or defended in their Schools which
things that can be said on both sides hic nunc and ponder them deeply before a judgment can result And it often happens amongst them that they will determin in one year that action to be rejected which was in another time expedient and good only upon change of circumstances It is in my mind a vain labour to write long discourses about probable opinions as some do For if we speak of an opinion in a strict sence an opinion tending to action and yet separated or abstracted from all circumstances of person time place means motives events and connexions with ill or welfare which no writer of a book can see such an opinion is nothing at all in the world but a meer fantosme more apt to mislead then secure any action of life And he that goes to a book to learn there how he is to act in any business he is about goes like one blind man to another blind guide to lead him For this reason all antient good Christians ever had their consciences gâ—ided by living Oracles of men who laying the general rule of religion before them still gave that for safest counsel which all circumstances considered came nearest to the intent and scope of Gospel Truly I cannot but grieve to see men talk so much as they do now adaies about opinions For we are to hold nothing but Gospell and our holy Christian tradition and no opinions at all in religious affaires And if opinions do rise therin as needs they must sometimes by variation of circumstances that is still to be rejected which most swarves from the intent of holy Gospel or which is all one hath least in it of good and most of ill Let not only three men but three millions of men hold any thing to the breach of this rule it is not to be heeded They who write books of moral actions and conscience can know nothing either of the person actually concerned or of the various circumstances which must bring this action into a just existence let them in their abstracted aery problems say what they please nor innumerable events therof although there be some opinions that no circumstance can justify Nor do Catholick Kings and Princes ever heed at all what people talk in their Schools and Academies unless it proceed to action If any do act well he has peace and if any do ill death is at his door however opinions go But of this enough Doctor Still threatens us here with a more accurate examination of these things from the authour who wrote against the Apology for Catholicks I know not who that Authour is But I can tell him thus much that the right honourable Authour of that charitable Apology stands now actually ready with his Pen in hand to entertain him as he hath once already done And that Protestant writer will find him still a main strong Castle not to be blown down or so much as shaken by his impertinent waves All after ages shall make honourable mention of that noble man when his adversary shall be swallowed up in the deep of oblivion Not only Catholicks but many worthy Gentlemen even amongst our Protestant countrymen have grieved in their hearts to see us lie open to so many grievous defamaâ—ions of men But this noble Person ventured to speak and write an Apology for us And if no man should be valorous truth â—ow kept under lock and key for a whole hundred years would never appear as it is and in its own shape § 18. Sir one mistake of mine committed in my first packet wherin I told you that this piece of Fanaticisme was Doctour Stillingfleet's own proper invention I must here revoke For it is not so I wondred indeed that in his arguments against the Church of Rome set down in the begining of his book wherin is mention made of that Churches Idolatry hinderances of a good life and divisions there was not there any one word of Fanaticisme which here fills up a whole chapter in his book compiled as himself speaks in defence of those arguments But I was inlighten'd in this my doubt by a meer chance For meeting with a Protestant Stationer I asked him if he ever heard of an Authour called Foolis or Foulis who is quoted once or twice by Doctour Stillingfleet O quoth he presently Foolis is an asse he printed last year an ecclesiastical history wherein he says that Papish Saints were fanaticks I had the book but threw it out of my shop It is sold now up and down the streets for wast paper I considered then with my self that the Doctour's arguments were made as himself speaks two Years ago this his book in defence of them is but now printed and Foolis his book a Year ago came forth My riddle is now out The Doctour never dreamed of fanaticisme till he learned it of Foolis And yet does he not quote this Foulis in all his Chapter of Fanaticisme though he does in another ambitious it seems to have the honour of the invention ascribed to himself alone Nor is it hard since Foolis his book is become wast paper to find out not the Master only from whom our Doctour learned his lesson of fanaticisme but the very chair also wheron he sat when first he learned it fith bookish men are very apt to peruse the wast paper they are then to use But it was a lucky chance for Doctour Stillingfleet He applied therefore his wast paper and saying in his heart Here is a gallant matter for a whole new Chapter in my book he rose and tied up his breeches ΤΩ ΚΑΘΟΛΙΚΩ DIVISIONS UNto this fifth Chapter I shall speak Sir very little becaus it is wholly parergicall and besides his or what ought to be his purpose A Reader who looks upon his book conceives him to speak of divisions which are contrary to their unity of faith And yet the Doctour by a multitude of stories which make up this chapter exemplifies only and declares divisions that have been in several times and places contrary to the unity of affections in matter of honor wealth and power some in Italy some in France some in England some in America some about their School conceptions some about power and jurisdiction liberty and freedom and the like So that all that has happened in the Catholick world the space of a thousand years contrary to that peace humility love tendernes justice mercy patience prudence which religion requires so much of it as he found related in Catholick authors to his hand is the miscellan hodg podg of this his fifth chapter called Divisions not ever intended by any of those Catholicks authors unto Dr. Still purpose unto which the said stories are wholly improper 1. The story of the wars and differences in Italy nine hundred years ago about Church-lands managed on one side by Charles Martell King Pepin Charlemaign Ludovicus Pius Lotharius and others for the Popes right against Emperours and their Lieftennants on the other And here by