with so palpably incredible calumnies therein inserted His Account indeed seemes chiefly designed for Vulgar Capacities and therfore he mainly endeavours to captivate their attention and belief with much sophistry and many smooth stories of some Doctors amongst Catholicks whose different Opinions about the Moods of Christian Doctrin which they believe simply as it is delivered them plainly though they Vary in their Explications of Divine Mysteries he makes pass for disagreeing in Articles of Faith of others some who schismatically affected speak the stile of their predominant passions not according to the Religion they received from their Catholick Teachers and are therefore censured by the great Overseers of Christiantâ—y whom nevertheless the Doctor makes to speak the pure sense of the Roman Churches Faith and Piety And of some too whose Judgments guided by the compass of their ambitious and unclean affections driving at gâ—eat Names and Places cause division in the outward Hierarchy and Government of the Church for which neither the Canons of our Faith and Manners gives them any authority nor may it be hoped that either the care or power of our chief Pastors may wholly avoid such Wolves since according to Christ's prophesy scandals will still arise though our Catholick Bishops still oppose themselves against them and yet the Doctor will have these either to be our Church Governors or their actions to be destructive of our Catholick Vnity But all these slights of his are to so little purpose that many sober Protestants has been startled at thâ—se his Cantings and Imputations upon so anâ—iâ—nt and grave a Body of Christians whom their former Teachers ever allowed to be members of Christ's Mystical Body and capable of salvation in their own way of Christian observance Whence as the Cruelty of the old Roman Emperours and Presidents against the Primitive Christians moved many Vnbelievers of those times to embrace the Roman Faith so has the severe Accusations of the Doctor against Catholicks moved many of their Adversaries to a more steddy enquiry into our Catholick Truths to confer more reverently with the Dispensers of the Doctrin of that defamed Religion and oft to conclude somewhat more than ordinary of truth and honesty to be found in that Way which being long since banished this Nation by very severe Laws is still so eagerly arraigned so clamorously cryed down in Press and Pulpit and at any Rate exposed to the severity of those whose Interest passion or dulness has ever since engaged them in its suppression The Doctors whole Account amounts to a pulling down and a setting up first he pulls down the Church of Rome then He sets up his Own he makes Vse of four formidable Engins to overturn that our Catholick Church which your TO KATHOLICO amply examines But surely if the Church of Rome falls all Churches which either received their belief from her or now communicate in faith with her must fall too and thus the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints an entire Article of the Apostles Creed is on a sudden cancelled Indeed it is so proper to all Church Reformers to pull down Churches and such like Monuments of our forefathers Christian piety suckt in with that faith they originally received from their Roman Apostles that our Natiâ—n has cause enough to bewail the power of thâ—â— Sword of Gospellers in whose sense we may confess The Roman Church in some measure to be no sound Church even no Church at all were their Swords as keen as their Pens and Tongues and as close-laid as Nero once wished His to an Imaginary Neck for we are ever bound to believe each one speaks and writes his own thoughts and hearty wishes The Doctor having endeavour'd to level our Roman Church and not finding One principled according to his own Acephalick passion wherewith to close lays the foundation of his Own properly His Stillingfleet Church Not Roman nor Protestant nor indeed any Church at all for where he leaves neither any constant Rule wherby to square our faith or observance in necessaries not clearly revealed in holy Wriâ—t nor any power to oblige to a conformity in Belief and Practices nor any One Visible Head for our Direction and Communion there can be no Church of Christ but a Babel and Confusion that which evidently follows from the Doctors Own Principles whereunto he pretends the faith of Protestants must be reduced as to the only true Test of its being Christian and Catholick And thus after our long reproaching that Church as Vnprincipled the Doctor in a full Council of his own thoughts assembled in Vertue of his all-truth discerning Spirit synodically pronounces his Anathema's against Vs and publishes Canons of faith to all the Churches of England and will prove it to be One Holy Apostolical and Catholick by such Rules as neither Scripture nor Councels nor Fathers nor any Church ever menâ—â—on'd before nor will ever be solemnly canoniz'd by any Synod of our Englâ—sh Pâ—â—lates however he pretends them to be Protestant wherein we may admire at their silence even by those Rules by which aâ—â—â—elief built on them not borrowed from the Roman Church may be contradictory and will be cleerly resolved not to have One Mark of the true Christian Church even to be no Church at all but a pure Stillingfleet an phantosm His design in forging these his Principles was thence to shew the Protestant Church as Protestant or as it is by Schism separated from the great Catholick Body of Christians to be Positive Vniform and Principled whereas by them it is clearly Negative Confusive and Begs the question in the root of all Briefly thus As for the first the Dr aims directly at the subversion of all traditional Revelation and of an external visible and infallible proponent of divine credibles and of all power obligeing to acceptance of them as such and consequently at the overthrow of all Articles by the Church of Rome allowed and Canonized as truths revealed upon those grounds As for the next his Canons for the interpreting Gods written Revelations are of that Latitude that whoever admits them if he please may disagree with the Doctor and all others and with himself too at different times by virtue of a pretended Personal infallible-all-truth discerning-faculty which he allows all in all fundamentals and superstructures depending on the controverted sense of Gods written Word after a sober enquiry and sincere endeavours however necessary those credibles be to salvation or the framing one Church of many truth-discerning members whether this their enquiry be performed by the working of reason only which in supernatural Truths revives Pelagianism or by a pretended personal divine assistance in regard of each Believer to which every one may as legally pretend and appropriate it to himself by pretence of having used his best means to understand Scripture as the Dr. himself or any other Teacher which is to erect an Acephalick Enthusiasm or Fanaticism And as for the last if it be a legal proof that there
the idols as gods but worshiped God in them O very good Thus the wiser sort among the Heathens say But first who are these wiser sort It behooved him to let us know this But yet for his own procket-reasons he does not But 2ly what says he himself to it O that is needless for his Reader will understand well enough what he ought to think when such a Doctor as Stillingfleet tells him what the wiser sort have thought No body would think with fools but with the wiser sort always And his whole discourse proceeds on this supposed knowledge of the wiser sort and according to it concludes we cannot therefore doubt of his mind But have we no wise sort of antient believers who lived among the Heathens to testifie unto us what the heathens did Have we no Apostles and Prophets to hearken to no renowned and infallible persons to inform us Surely we have and those so many that we need not have recourse either unto persons unknown amongst the heathens for their testimony or to Mr. Stillingfleet the ingenious trifler He tells us that the Heathens did not worship their Idols as Gods but worshiped God in them But our Apostles and Prophets tell us contrary things Hear Moses speak who lived among the thickest of the Heathens To whom did they sacrifice O Moses whom did the Heathens worship Immolaverunt Demoniis non Deo Deut. 32. They worshiped not God but devils they sacrificed to devils saith he and not to God The Nations change their gods and indeed they are no Gods saith Jeremy ch 2. but my people have changed their glory unto an Idol Baruch another Prophet brings in his testimony chap. 4. You have provoked him who made you saith he even the eternal God sacrificing to Devils and not to God The holy Psalmist he tells us no less peremptorily That they immolated their Sons and Daughters to Devils and sacrificed to the idols of Canaan Ps 105. and that all the gods of the Heathens are Devils Ps 95. Saint Paul our own Christian Doctor is bold and expresly testifies both against Stillingfleet and his wiser heathens That the things which Gentiles immolated they sacrificed to Devils and not to God 1 Cor. 10. And yet after all this our Doctor is not ashamed to justifie those his clyents the heathens They did not worship their Idols saith he for Gods but worshiped God in them And whom shall we here believe Moses Jeremy Baruch david St. Paul and all our Christian Doctors or Stillingfleet rather and his wiser Heathens unknown to himself They sacrificed to Devils and not to God they changed their glory into an Idol they irritated the eternal God immolating to devils and not to God they sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils not to God Thus speak our Prophets and Apostles But Mr. Stillingfleet affirms they sacrificed to God they imolated to God they worshiped God and not devils they worshiped not the Idols but God in them But I discern well enough the cause of his mistake Because they abstracted the general notion of God and applyed it each one to his own idols therefore he thinks he may say they worshiped God in them But this is a gross mistake For to worship God in a thing and to worship a thing for God who is no God are two very differing cases Christians worship God in Christ and they do well Heathens who worshiped their Idols for God did ill Cromwell our late Usurper after he had murdered our good King and set the Crown upon his own head would have taken it well if his Army had told him they honoured him for their King but not if they had said they worshiped the King in him The first word had sounded in his ears as a grateful flattery the other as treason to himself To abstract the Deity and apply it to another subject unto whom it does not belong is as far as we are able to behead the true God and set his Crown upon the shoulders of usurping devils And because the true real Deity cannot be removed either by the pleasure of the Usurper or worshiper therefore are these idols devils and false Gods God cannot be worshiped in them because he is not in them and if they be worshiped as Gods it is Idolatry or else there is no such thing as idolatry upon Earth Aaron saith he made the golden Calf not to reduce the People unto heathen idolatry but for an embleme of the good Angel who was to go before them Here is another excuse of Aaron his small fault which drove Moses his brother and Prince into as great a passion of wrath as perhaps he ever felt even so prevalent a grief and anger that it dashed in pieces the very tables of the Law he had in his hands though he was by the testimony of holy writ the mildest of men and all this it seems for an embleme And why that emblem since they had such an emblem before in the pillar of cloud by day and sire by night which was a more significant emblem of the angel who went before them then any Calf of gold could be The holy Prophets testifie of those People and Aaron that in Moses absence this figure was melted and founded by them to be set up in place of the God who had hitherto conducted them with Moses now as they thought vanished out of Egypt into Arabia and to lead them on the rest of their way as their supream conduct after the manner of Egyptian Deities They made a calf in Horeb and adored the figure they changed their glory into the likeness of a Calf eating hay and forgot their God Psal 125. Now if they forgat their own God and slighted him and cast him from them and changed his glory into a Calf and worshiped the very figure then must that sculptil or statue be now accepted for their God The like testimony gives St. Stephen Act. 7. They made saith he a Calf in those days and offered sacrifice unto the Idol and made themselves merry in the works of their own hands What can this import but that they had now altered their religion renounced their former God and made to themselves a new one after the manner of Egypt It is pitty Mr. Stillingfleet had not been with Aaron his confidence would have pleaded for him a little more handsomly then he did for himself But the excuse perhaps being hypocritical and false would have more offended Moses than his former fault Aaron knew well enough what he had done And although he somewhat minced his fault yet would he not tell a lye I cast a little mettal into the fire saith he to Moses and there came out this Calf The Doctor adds two pretty reasons why neither he nor the people could ever think of declining then to any heathen idolatry First because they had no pretence of doing so As though the very absence of Moses whom they had long expected and now thought lost were
is here put upon the Jesuitical party And yet it is nothing to our purpose if it were But as to the personal designs of them or any others we can no more dive into them then into the several wandering thoughts and purposes of men museing daily in London-streets about their affairs And one man or other thus museing amiss amongst the Jesuits can no more be called the Jesuitical party then such a one here in England be termed the English party Mariana I am sure has been soundly checkt amongst them and other Catholicks for his fault here spoken of And if the Court or Courtiers of Rome have any fancy that they are higher than Kings and by their excommunication can render them Kings no more as this Doctour here speaks this may argue indeed that they are a high minded people But Courtiers do not walk so exactly according to our Christian religion that this can prove that vanity of theirs to be any part of it Catholick Kings who have been here in England well nigh twenty since the Conquest more among the Saxons and others not a few amongst our antient Brittains and the present Catholick Kings of France Spain the Emperour German Princes and others have and do all know well enough that such a fancy is no part of our Catholick religion Nor did our King Henry the Eighth who first left it off express any such cause or reason for it The times would be very good and happy if all the words and actions of every particular man were answerable to his holy faith But this is not to be expected in this evil world And to call that religion which is done or spoken contrary unto it is a very great injury and injustice Our holy religion teaches us to observe and obey our Kings and Superiours as Gods Vicegerents upon earth though they be Infidels and Pagans and rather to lay down our lives for them then suffer them to be hurt And this is nothing but the very law of Nature antecedent to any religion whatsoever and holds good although there were neither heaven nor hell nor any reward or punishment to come And what power can any man upon earth have to take that away which he never gave nor ever had He that creates can only annihilate So long as kings are Catholicks the Pope prays for them And if they cease to be so he is nothing to them any more And yet are they the same they were in all their royalty and power uncontroulably If the King of France should receive the Garter from our King of England he is thought to be so long his friend as he is pleased to wear it But if he throw it off he is King of France still as much as ever he was I know not what the Court or Courtiers of Rome may think or say in this business For what the Doctour here tells us about the Irish remonstrance is a personal business and not so circumstanced that one can draw any general conclusion or position from it But if they be only so much as said either to have conceived or countenanced any such opinion looked upon by all Catholicks and good Christians upon earth as ungrounded fals and impious it behoves them I should think both for the publick good honour of Catholick religion and their own credit to see it censured with all speed that the progress of Christianity be not stopped by it For no Pagan King will venture at a promise of everlasting felicity with the hazard of his Crown at the pleasure of one man whom he never saw nor knows Sure I am if any such opinion had been heard of when Christianity was first planted in Kingdoms it had never found footing in this world And if it be now countenanced the progress of Christianity is at an end I doubt not but that a Cotholick writer may in his controversy about religion if so he pleas defend an opinion also of any one or other who has professed the Catholick religion which he maintains But this is more then any one needs to do For religion is quite another thing derived from another authour and original established in another manner no less differing from an opinion then a fixed star in the firmament from the mist or fog ariseing from the earth Faiâ—h is one known thing but opinions are innumerable and endless If the various opinions entertained in mens minds but one only day in any City of England were all faithfully recorded at night they would exhibite to a Reader a most prodigious spectacle Opinions are infinitly various infinitly changable infinitely contradictory and absurd in the world Nor may we doubt but that thousands of them are contrary both to religion and law Angry rageing men and wanton women unfaithful servants and di obedient children theevs and murderers cheats and liars can we think when they act according to their own disordered passions that they hold not then an opinion that in such circumstances it is expedient for them so to do Wicked sinners hold wicked opinions be the religion what it will Gainsay and blame them in their heat and it will soon appear that they are stiff and resolved in that their opinion by the very fury of their wrath And what will not sycophants and flatterers either say or write to pleas the mind of those on whom they depend even against their own Rules of law and religion are fixt and stable and ever the same But opinions are moveable as water and never right but when conformable to a right rule of some good law and how far they are conformable so far are they right and no more And therfore it is a madness in any one who undertakes to write against the standard of a religion to object instead of that opinions of men For first one man may have an opinion to day and write it also in a book and yet few years after nay perhaps very few days change his mind Secondly the opinion of one man may be gain-said by a thousand as wise as he who live under the same law and religion Thirdly an opinion in a book is indeed nothing at all in the world but a meer pâ—atonick idea till it be reduced to some reall existence by circumstances which actuate it and make the action really to be and some opinions are worse then nothing For which reason all the multitude of opinions which sill up the books of learned Casuists may be exercises of wit indeed but no guids can they be unto action The direction of a liveing Oracle and Counsellour who can penetrate all present circumstances and prescribe by his wisdom on which side is then most of good and least of evil which is the only rule that directs a wise counsellour what to determin this only is our guide in doubts Wherfore the great Princes of the earth recurre not to books in their difficulties but use the wisdom of their counsel wise and grave men who must hear all