chapter of St. Luke who having lavished away his substance with riotous living in a forreign countrey Luke 15.15 he joyned himself to a Citizen who employed him in feeding his swine and he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat How so that delicate youth who loathed the plentiful fare of his Fathers house now fancy the husks that swine did eat Is that a proper food for a man and such a man no but the company of swine made him put off his own nature and wear theirs And when he came to himself so followeth the Text. What did he leave himself yes saith ingenious Peter Chrysologus à se migrat transit in bestiam Chrysol Ser. 2. living with beasts he left himself and turned beast That is the ordinary effect of bad company to turn into its own condition the nature of such as adhere to it To presume the contrary is to pretend to a miracle and tempt God It were indeed a miracle and a singular one that a person living in a bad company should not conform to it Our Saviour to confirm his Doctrine with an uncontrolable miracle against the obstinate Jews who condemned as Sorceries his other miraculous works got innocent children to blaze his glory in the Temple of Jerusalem according to the Prophet David Mat. 21.16 in the eighth Psalm Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise This miracle wrought deeply upon the Jews and confirmed them in the belief of the others preceding as St. Matthew relates St. Mat. â—â— 19. And when the chief Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the Temple saying Hosanna to the Son of David they were sore displeased What made them take more notice of these innocent Elegies of the children than of the other wonders he wrought 〈…〉 Euthymius glâ—ssing upon this passage answers that in other occasions they suspected Christ might have deluded their eyes with appearances of things not really existing but that their own children bred by themselves and living among them should break out into Elogies of one they saw ever contemned and reviled by them was a miracle they knew not how to controll That ears continually beaten with calumnies and opprebries against Christ should entertain any favourable opinion of him was a wonder which malice and envy it self could not suspect So strange it is that any should not act according to the temper of the company he lives in A wonder passing all wonders Such is the influence bad company hath over minds adhering to it And herewith I conclude the first Point of my Discourse how justly our Saviour in the words of our Text was so earnest in exhorting his Disciples to shun the Abominations of Jerusalem given over to corruption and reprobate obstinacy that they might not be perverted by them and that if we should see any of those three Abominations declared by the three Opinions of Interpreters related in the opening of our Text that is to say Idolatry Cruelty or Impiety or all three practised in a Church or Congregation we are to shun it with all speed and diligence Now I will proceed to the Second Point proposed of my discourse which is to declare how I saw and by what means God was pleased to let me see that all these three abominations are generally practised in the Roman Church as it stands at present to wit Idolatrie in their Manner of Worship Cruelty in their conduct of Souls and Antichristian Impiety in extolling men above God That so my receding from the Communion of It may be justified as no more nor other than a dutiful obedience to the Councel of Christ declared in our Text. But before I enter into this Point I desire my judicious hearers not to conceive I come here to scold or Insult upon my former Brethren of the Roman Communion I may not hate Them without hating my self my flesh and blood and dearest friends being among them with tender compassion I lament their Errour I could not in piety abandon the Mother at whose brest I sucked the Belief of a Christian if with tears or sweat I could hope to wash away the stains which corruption of time has cast upon her face once fair and glorious but seeing her disease appears both incurable and contagious I was forced to a divorce Mean faults could not give a just cause to it they must be grievous ones which I cannot declare without giving them their own names the same our Text and declaration of it puts into my mouth for just cause of the like seperation Idolatrie Cruelty Impiety How I came to perceive the present Practise of the Roman Church to be guilty of these faults I will endeavour to declare with the brevity and sincerity duty requires being to speak in so Illustrious an Auditory Gods Providence leading me in my younger years to the Schools of greatest credit in Spain and disposing so that having compleated in them my courses of Philosophy and Divinity I should be imployed many years in teaching the same Faculties The exercise of those Reasoning Sciences joyned with my own Genius not fit for Pythagoras his School where ipse dixit was the rule and knowledge must be taken upon credit of the Master got me a habit of demanding reason for the belief of Doctrines proposed This assisted by frequent reading of Holy Scriptures Fathers Councels and Histories of the Church made me doubt of the Truth of several Tenents introduced by the use or Authority of the Roman Church repugnant in my esteem to common reason and not warranted by Divine testimony to captivate my understanding to the belief of them Of the Truth of Holy Scriptures of the Apostles Creed of that of Nice and Athanasius I never doubted Therein I acknowledged the Heavenly gift of Faith received in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and lifting my heart and eyes to Heaven gave thanks to God for this Soveraign benefit in those words of the Psalm Psal 4. v. 6. Signatum est super nos lumen vultûs tui Domine Thou hast lifted upon us O Lord and printed in our hearts the light of thy countenance Without which certainly an understanding accustomed to search exactly into the nature of things their Essential constitutes the proportion of causes with effects and to measure by these rules the credibility of them would never give so free and easie assent to the ineffable mysteries of Trinity and Unity in the Divine nature of the Incarnation Resurrection Ascention of Christ our Saviour of the Descent of the Holy Ghost in tongues of fire upon the Apostles and other mysteries contained in Holy Scripture and the Creeds On the other side the reluctancy I found in assenting to those Tenents of the Roman Church as opposite to other Christian Congregations was to me an occasion of suspecting they might not be grounded upon Divine institution all my understanding
with any that would tell me I did not answer right or that I needed a supply from him to do it My Learned Opposers were wont to say that a man so long time exercised in School debates could hardly want an Answer to Arguments but that they suspected I was not my self satisfied and their suspicion there in was not erroneous I could continue farther giving answer to others but to the serious Proposals of my own judgment in the presence of God in favour of his truth I could not resist and to them I yielded I say Thirdly that many days before my Declaration for the Protestant Church I signified by Letter and Message to such as I thought fit to divulg it of the Romish Clergy and Nobility that although I was forced to come under the protection of the most Reverend Lord Archbishop of Cashell to avoid the popular fury raised against me yet I would not declare against Communion with the Roman Church while any hopes appeared of being satisfied in the Exceptions I took against the present practice of that Church and being they had among them my Writing containing the said Exceptions which in substance are those contained in the ensuing Discourse so long time as may suffice to have Copies of it I desired any that would pretend to resolve me upon those Exceptions should appear and that I would give a willing and unpassionate hearing to his reasons But none appeared for that purpose nor signified to have a mind to do it Neither indeed had I reason to hope that any of them could give me satisfaction having so long time and very carefully studied upon the reasons given by the most Learned Defenders of their cause and found no satisfaction in them and the rather that when my Paper came to their hands containing the exceptions I took against the Romish tenents but without any mention of separation in stead of a charitable conference with my self they stirred the people to fury against me saying I was already made Minister and to preach at the Protestant Church at Cashell the Sunday following which being a fiction of their own I told it was so in a Noblemans house where I had notice of that report without any promise made much less an Oath that I should never become a Protestant which was one of the very false impostures framed against me without fear of God or shame to be found in untruths For certainly I neither said that nor had any Question made to me that would occasion saying it But those stories so enraged the people that from worthy persons who tendered my safety I had notice given me of menaces made to destroy me or convey me where I should not appear speaking against the Romish party As to the former truly I could hardly believe that Christians Countreymen and Kinsmen whom I served and never offended and from whom I had many shews of love and honour should intend to destroy me for following the dictates of my conscience nor that passion should so blind them that being under a Government dissatisfied of their Tenents they should not be contented with the gracious toleration given to them but must insult with violence and malice upon such as following the light of their conscience do embrace the Religion established by the Law and Government which God has put over us As I heartily wish and tender their welfare I earnestly desire they may avoid this foul kind of proceeding withdraw their silly Rythmers Scoulds and Forgers of Calumnies and employ their good wits in examining soberly and seriously for the Glory of God manifestation of Truth and edification of the people the Points I handle in this Discourse and shewing wherein my Arguments against their Tenents are defective or what Arguments they repute of most strength for them and that with Authority of undoubted Canonical Scripture clear reasons grounded upon it or practice uniform of the Primitive Church Not by Hyperbolical expressions of some one or more of Ancient Authours Rhetorical Flourishes and Tropical Applications of Scriptures drawing them from their direct genuine meaning to others different by the help of some Figure At which rate of disputing the Alcoran of Mahomet and the Talmud of the Jews may be defended as plausibly as the Council of Trent The God of Peace and his Son Jesus who bequeathed it for inheritance to his Disciples make us appear to be of them living in peace and charity together in this Life that so we may joyn to praise him in Life everlasting Amen Mr. ANDREW SALL 's Declaration made in the Church of St. John in the City of Cashell the Fourth Sunday after Easter May the Seventeenth present the most Reverend THOMAS Lord Archbishop of Cashell and the Right Reverend HUGH Lord Bishop of Waterford VVHEREAS I Andrew Sall have been born and bred in the Communion of the Roman Catholick Church followed a Religious Life and compleated my Courses of Philosophy and Divinity in Colledges of the Order of JESUS in Spain and was imployed in teaching of the said Faculties many years I acknowledge that since by occasion of this Function I applyed my self to a structer enquiry and examining of matters and by frequent reading of the Holy Scriptures Fathers Councils and Histories of the Church my knowledge was farthered and my judgment ripened I began to doubt of the truth of several Articles introduced by the Vse and Authority of the Roman Church repugnant to human reason and not warranted by Divine Writ as Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory Worship of Images c. yet smothered my scruples while I was in Spain partly fearing the severity of that Countrey against Opposers of their Tenents partly amused with a supposition that the Church and Pope of Rome were infallible in their Decrees touching Faith and so may stand with security to their declarations But having arrived to this Countrey disputed often and closely of Religion with several Persons eminent in Learning and Integrity but principally with the most Reverend Father in God and mine truly in Christ his Grace Thomas Lord Archbishop of Cashell present who mindful of the duty of a good Pastor did procure to bring into his Fold this straying sheep with an unspeakable constancy and indefatigable charity suffering for six years of continual battery my obstinate resistance till at last by means of his solid doctrine and of the example of his pious and upright Life to the glory of God be I permitted to say thus much here the Lord was pleased to give me a more clear sight of the errours I was in yet a full assent I delayed to give partly fearing that the weakness I felt might be of my capacity rather than of the cause I maintained partly frighted with the confusions and dangers I conceived might wait upon my deserting of the Romish Communion and so betook my self to a must diligent study of the case leaving no stone unmoved to quiet the trouble of my conscience reading with indifferent eyes the
God commanded Two Hebrew words Exod. 20. or Two stones signifying Doctrine and Truth to be put in the breast plate of the High Priest And what then will you infer thence more Infallibility in the Pope than in those High Priests you bring for example Will you make them all Infallible even Caiphas If we will speak in earnest I would suppose these words so inserted were an advertisement to the High Priest that he was to exercise Doctrine and Truth as becoming his place The same advertisement I allow the Pope should have and I wish he did always do accordingly This is the utmost That Text can afford And of this weight are the other Texts they bring to assure us of the Infallibility pretended to build all our Belief on This main Foundation of the Romish Church being thus weakned I began with more liberty to pry into and examine exactly the Mysteries and Tenents of both parties Protestant and Romish To which purpose if I had no other notice of the Protestant cause than that afforded by Popish Writers and Informers as long time I had not I should have been for ever kept from adhering to it Here I perceived a great Insincerity of dealing in the proceeding of Romanists who to make odious their Adversaries gathered up out of the Writings of some particular persons a heap of some extravagant doctrines adding thereto humane frailties of their private lives whether true or false I will not debate now but certainly such as any wise and modest Protestant would abhor no less than any of themselves And if he were to repay them in the like coyn he may by their own mouth do it superabundantly For Two certain Families or Orders of them reputed the most learned and grave of all but very opposite in doctrine passing from the Gravity of Scholastick Disputes to the Scurrility of Infamatory Libels have published of late such damnable doctrines and hideous vices the one of the other as any humane and more a Christian heart would tremble to hear Which lest I should defile this sacred place or your ears or my own mouth I will not relate now But I thought it fit to insinuate to them that this foul and killing Armour of their own against themselves is in a readiness if our necessary defence would require to draw it but such a necessity not intervening I think it unbecoming an Evangelical Preacher to stir that dung and indeed no effective way to conclude with serious minds upon so weighty a matter being certain that in all Congregations of men there are defects in particulars The true and proper way being to deal as becomes men of solid and serious temper is to examine these Tenents wherein each party doth generally agree with publick Uniform consent which I have done And beginning with the Church of England I find the eminent persons of it by Uniform consent of word and writing Article 20. assert the summe of their Faith and Religion to be the Word of God contained in the undoubted Canonical Scripture besides which the plain indubitable consequence of it they require nothing to be believed as matter of Faith What rule could be imagined more sacred and excellent than this for the instruction of men in Faith and good manners if you fancy Infallibility or Antiquity what more Infallible or Ancient than the eternal Word of God if Sanctity and Wâ—sedom what can be imagined more holy and wise than the councels of Christ our Saviour the sentences of holy Prophets and Apostles if the Lustre of Miracles what more admirable and certain than those wrought by our Saviour and his Prophets and Apostles in confirmation of their doctrine if Universality all true Christians do agree in embracing and honouring Canonical Scripture Now as to the Roman Church the Tenents of it as opposite to the Protestant shall be considered for the present to be reducible to these seven heads First the Infallibility and Supremacy of the Pope Secondly the Mystery of Transubstantiation Thirdly the Worship of Images Fourthly the Praying to Saints and Angels Fifthly the Half Communion denied to the Laity Sixthly the use of Indulgences and doctrine of Purgatory Seventhly the celebrating of publick Divine Worship in a Language generally unknown to the people and prohibiting the generality the reading of the Holy Scriptures Pope's Infallibility As to the First we have already declared how ill grounded their pretence to Infallibility is St. Tho. 22. q. 13. Art 3. â—â—iman â—â— 4. tr â—0 c. 6. Now it remaineth to shew how heinous a crime it is to attribute it to the Pope or his Council Their own Divines with St. Thomas Aquinas do agree in asserting that of all sins Blasphemy is the greatest 1 p q 16 ar 18 30. The same Divines do accord in saying it is Blasphemy to attribute to any creature what is proper to God whereas God's Attributes are indistinct from himself and so to ascribe any of them to a creature is to make such a creature God Now that Infallibility is one of Gods chief Attributes incommunicable to any creature 1 p. q 16. ar 8. the same St. Thomas teacheth expresly grounding his Opinion upon these words of the Eleventh Psalm Psal 11.1 according to the Latine Translation Quoniam diminutae sunt veritates à filiis hominum that verities are maimed among the children of men To which is consonant the English Translation of the same Text that the faithful fail from among the children of men Psal 115. v. 11. but more resolutely the hundred and fifteenth Psalm declareth that all men are lyars Therefore the Romanists Attributing Infallibility of Doctrine to their Pope are guilty of Blasphemy the most hainous of all crimes which is evidently deduced from premisses of their own Theologie This hainous Blasphemy of parallelling the Pope with God in the Attribute of Infallibility is raised to a higher degree in their practice of making him Supreme and Absolute Judge and Arbiter of the Law of God and his Holy Scripture So as for the belief and practice of all we must stand to his Declaration in such degree Bellarmin li 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 5. that Bellarmine sticketh not to say if the Pope did command Vices and prohibit Virtues the Church would be obliged to believe Vice to be good and Virtue bad Nay the Council of Constance professedly commandeth the Popes Decrees to be preferred to the Institutions of Christ Whereas confessing that our Saviour did ordain the giving of the Sacred Communion under both kinds to the Faithful people and that the Apostles and Primitive Church did practise it so notwithstanding they command Concil Constan Sess 13. that for the future it be not given to the Laity but under one kind Proposing no other reason for it than that the precedent Popes and Church govern'd by them practised it so though contrary to the practice of Christ and His Apostles Whereby they extol the Pope to a
distinction very few certainly When they bow down to an Image the Image it self down-right they worship Then generally they commit Idolatry in this practice or at least a sin in exposing themselves to a danger of committing it But what of the inconveniences of this practice one comes to a Church or Chappel loaden with Images and before he can recollect himself and think of God his imagination and eyes run upon those pictures and he returns home more full of Figures than of Spirit Inveration of Saints Now to the Fourth Their invocation of Saints is contrary to God's Ordinance Rom 8.34 who hath appointed his Son Jesus to make intercession for us who is more compassionate better able and more willing than any of the Saints or Angels to help us Joh. â— 16. And himself assureth us that whatsoever we ask the Heavenly Father in his Name Acts 4. â—2 he will give it us Contrary to this and the declaration of St. Peter that there is not salvation in any other and that there is no other name under Heaven given among men whereby we must be saved The Romish Church teacheth her children to call the blessed Virgin Mary their life and hope vita dulcedo spes nostra their Redeemer and Savioress Reparatrix Salvatrix desperantis animae their comfort and giver of spiritual grace irroratrix largitrix spiritualis gratiae with other extravagancies certainly unwelcome to that glorious Mother of Christ and true humble soul who in that her famous canticle acknowledgeth her very lowliness to be the motive of God's high favours to her Luke 1.46 for he hath regarded the lowliness of his Hand-maiden The like exorbitancies they preach and teach of other Saints As I was considering this Point came to my hands a paper of my own censuring the doctrine I heard in a Sermon preached where I was present in the City of Palencia in Spain the year 1661. by a Fryer of a certain Order upon the Festivity of one of their Saints saying of him that he was incapable of erring in his doctrine that his doctrine was of equal authority with the Bible that whatsoever such a Saint did say though false in it self he saying it must be true The proofs he brought for these desperate positions were as mad as the positions themselves and so ridiculous that dare not relate them in this grav Auditory though I have them in writing Let not malice gather by this discourse that I revile the Saints or repine at their glory I rejoyce at it and bless God for so rewarding his Servants What I reprehend is the blasphemous abuses committed in the worship of them unpleasing certainly to the Saints A facetious expression of a Spanish Preacher may be a serious proof of this being so Preaching upon the Festivity of a Saint Founder of a certain Order he feigned that studying his Sermon he had an extasie or dream wherein finding himself in Heaven he saw that Saint he preached of behind the door hiding himself and being questioned why he did so answered He came there being ashamed to hear the mad expressions of his Fryer's in praising and extolling him upon such days And certainly if the Saints living in glory were capable of shame and sorrow they would grieve and be asham'd at the proceedings of their wild worshippers Of this I made grievous complaints to the Inquisitor General of Spain crying against exorbitancies of that kind repugnant to all Christianity being commissioned by himself to give him account of what doctrine I found censurable Even then and in that Countrey I cried against these exorbitancies but how succesful my good intention to that purpose was I do not know for this malady groweth still The way of getting the credit of a sound Catholick with the blind Vulgar is to exceed in this Practice as to spight the Jews and seem true Christians they will eat more Pork than their stomach can bear so to spight Protestants they will run beyond all measure even of their own principles in advancing Saints For one Church dedicated to our Saviour you will see an hundred dedicated to divers Saints for one Pater noster ten Ave Maries for one discourse or praise of God a thousand of their respective Saints Whereof I often saw to my deep grief sad experiences A person of Quality lyes dying in comes a Fryar of this Order and falls with all his Rhetorick to exhort him to devotion towards the Saints of his own Order to take the habit scapulary or cord of it Then comes one of another Order and falls likewise a commending the Saints and habit of his Order and so each one as they come Among them all little or no mention of our Saviour Jesus his Passion to rely upon Would you think it is the good of that soul or the honour of the Saint they are zealous for or rather the interest of the Convent judge it you and let others of more liberty speak it Have pity O good God of souls left to such Instruction Half Communion Touching the fifth point of denying the Chalice to the Laity I think it an injury to our cause to seek after any farther proof of it than their own Confession that our Saviour Jesus did institute and the Primitive Church did practise the administration of the blessed Sacrament under both kinds to the people as it is used in the Church of England But the Roman Church thought fit to do otherwise This confession is their greatest confusion and too too sufficient confutation It was to me a horror to see the boldness of the Council of Constance confessing the foresaid and coming down with a non obstante That Concil Constâ—n lâ—ss 13. notwithstanding Christ's institution and the practice of the Primitive Church therein the Council prohibited all Priests under pain of Excommunication to administer the Communion under both kinds to the Laity For causes they do not express neither do we need to labour in searching after them it being sufficient for our purpose to know that they can find or pretend causes to alter Christ's institutions and introduce others contrary to them The onely reason they give for their Decree herein is the Authority of the Church and some preceding Popes or Fathers and yet acknowledging that Christ ordained the contrary Is not this to transgress the commandment of God by your tradition Maâ— 15 3. is not this to agree with that attribute of Antichrist who opposeth and exalteth himself over all that is called God The Pope would seem to clear himself from that imputation bearing for title Servant of the Servants of God Gen 27 22 The voice is Jacob 's voice but the hands are the hands of Esau The Pope's speech in calling himself Servant of the Servants of God is Christian but his Deed in preferring his own Law and Institution to the Institution of Christ is Antichristian They cry Antiquity and Authority of the Church for this practice