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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61540	A discourse concerning the idolatry practised in the Church of Rome and the danger of salvation in the communion of it in an answer to some papers of a revolted Protestant : wherein a particular account is given of the fanaticism and divisions of that church / by Edward Stilingfleet.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1671 (1671)	Wing S5577; ESTC R28180	300,770	620

Martyrs with that Worship of love and society with which even in this life also holy men of God are worshipped whose heart we judge prepared to suffer the like Martyrdom for the truth of the Gospel But we worship them so much the more devoutly because more securely after they have overcome all the Incertainties of this world as also we praise them more confidently now reigning Conquerors in a more happy life than whilst they were sighting in this but with that Worship which in Greek is called Latria and cannot be expressed by one word in Latin for as much as it is a certain service properly due to the Divinity we neither worship them nor teach them to be worshipped but God alone Now whereas the offering of Sacrifice belongs to this Worship of Latria from whence they are called Idolaters who gave it also to Idols by no means do we suffer any such thing or command it to be offered to any Martyr or any holy soul or any Angel And whosoever declines into this Error we reprove him by sound Doctrine either that he may be corrected or avoided And a little after It is a much less sin for a man to be derided by the Martyrs for drunkenness then ever fasting to offer Sacrifice to them I say to sacrifice to Martyrs I say not to sacrifice to God in the memories or Churches of the Martyrs which we do most frequently by that rite alone by which in the manifestation of the New Testament he hath commanded Sacrifice to be offered to him which belongs to that Worship which is called Latria and is due only to God This was the Doctrine and practice of Christian people in St. Augustines time and that he himself held formal Invocations a part of the Worship due to Saints is evident from the prayer he made to St. Cyprian after his Martyrdom Adjuveritque nos Beatus Cyprianus orationibus suis c. Let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us who are still encompassed with this mortal flesh and labour as in a dark cloud with his prayer that by Gods grace we may as far as we are able imitate his good works Thus St. Austin where you see he directs his prayer to St. Cyprian which I take to be formal invocation and for a further confirmation of it we have the ingenuous Confession of Calvin himself Instit. li. 3. ch 20. n. 22. where speaking of the third Council of Carthage in which St. Austin was present he acknowledged it was the custom at that time to say Sancta Maria aut Sancte Petre Ora pro nobis Holy Mary or Holy Peter pray for us But now Madam what if after all this he himself shall deny that any of the opposite Tenets are Articles of his faith viz. That honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ That it is not lawful to invocate the Saints to pray for us Press him close and I believe you shall find him deny that he believes any one of these Negative points to be Divine truths and if so you will easily see his charge of Idolatry against us to be vain and groundless Having thus given a direct and punctual answer to his argument I must now expect as much charity from him as is consistent with Scripture and Reason How much that is you will see in his third Answer to the first Question But to proceed § 8. He brings a Miscellany of such opinions and practices as he calls them which are very apt to hinder a good life and therefore none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them He reckons up no less than ten 1. That we destroy the necessity of good life by makeing the Sacrament of Penance that is confession and absolution joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation And do not Protestants make contrition alone which is less sufficient for salvation But perhaps the joyning of confession and absolution with contrition makes it of a malignant nature If so certainly when the Book of Common Prayer in the visitation of the sick enjoyns the sick man if he find his conscience troubled with any weighty matter to make a special confession and receive absolution from the Priest in the same words the Catholick Church uses it prescribes him that as a means to prepare himself for a holy death which in the judgement of the Objector destroyes the necessity of good life 2. Catholicks he sayes take off the care of good life by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayer of the living after death But certainly the belief of temporal pains to be sustained after death if there be not a perfect expiation of sin in this life by works of penance is rather apt to make a man careful not to commit the least sin than to take off the care of a good life And though he be ascertained by faith that he may be holpen by the charitable suffrages of the faithful living yet this is no more encouragement to him to sin than it would be to a Spendthrift to run into debt and be cast into Prison because he knows he may be relieved by the charity of his Friends If he were sure there were no Prison for him that would be an encouragement indeed to play the Spend-thrift And this is the case of the Protestants in their denyal of Purgatory 3. The sincerity of Devotion he sayes is much obstructed by prayers in a language which many understand not If he speak of private prayers all Catholicks are taught to say them in their Mother Tongue If of the publick prayers of the Church I understand not why it may not be done with as much sincerity of devotion the people joyning their intention and particular prayers with the Priest as their Embassador to God as if they understood him I am sure the effects of a sincere devotion for nine hundred years together which this manner of Worship produced in this Nation were much different from those we have seen since the readucing of the publick Lyturgie into English as is manifest from those Monuments which yet remain of Churches Colledges Religious Houses c. with their endowments and in the conversion of many Nations from Heathenism to Christianity effected by the labours and zeal of English Missionaries in those times c. But this is a matter of Discipline and so not to be regulated by the fancies of private men but the judgement of the Church and so universal hath this practice been both in the Primitive Greek and Latine Churches and is still by the confession of the Protestant Authors themselves of the Bible of many Languages Printed at London Anno 1655. in most of the Sects of Christians to have not only the Scriptures but also the Liturgies and Rituals in a Tongue unknown but to

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