79. cont Collyrid The Body of Mary was really Holy but no God. She was really a Virgin and an honourable Virgin but not intended for our Adoration in regard that she ador'd him that was begot of her Flesh And moreover by the Example of the Angel refusing Adoration and Worship from John he proves That much less the Virgin Mary either desires or ought to be Worship'd But what he said particularly of the Virgin that did St. Austin affirm at the same time concerning all the Saints that is to say That they are to be Honour'd in respect of Imitation not to be Worship'd in respect of Religion l. de vera Relig. c. ult V. Neither can they find any thing in us that is repugnant to Chastity Sobriety Mortification of the Flesh and Study of Good Works For to all these things we Pastors frequently and seriously in our Pulpits exhort our Flocks Nor by the Grace of God do we so live that we should be thought to have proclaim'd open War to all Vertue and Godliness For our not allowing that Law of Celibacy so burthenson to the Clergy is no hatred of Chastity when Celibacy it self is that which has turn'd away so many and still hurries multitudes from the true Paths of Chastity Insomuch as Pius II as Platina relates in his Life was wont to say That Wedlock was deny'd the Priests upon good Grounds but that for better Reasons it ought to be restor'd them We are not averse to Sobriety and Fasting because we reject those superstitious Observations upon the Prescribing of which the same thing is said to us as formerly they us'd to say against whom the Apostle writes Col. 2. 21. Eat not taste not touch not and to which upon the score of our Consciences we cannot submit Not that we are so addicted to luxurious Lives or so studious to indulge our Appetites but because they put a Bridle upon our Consciences contrary to the Liberty purchas'd us in Christ and constitute the Essence of Fasting not in humbling the Mind before God and Veneration of his Deity but in the nice Choice of some sorts of Meats and Rejecting others and because they affirm that by such bodily Exercises and such kind of Diet our Sins may be Expiated and that Men thereby merit Eternal Life We do not hate the Mortification of the Old Man while we reject the publick Whippings and affected Macerations of those who had rather exercise Cruelty upon Nature then correct the Corruption of it and who seem to bear a hatred to their own Flesh contrary to that of the Apostle Eph. 5. 29. Whereas they ought rather to submit the Affections of their Hearts to the Will of God. For if it were so much a Duty to Chastize and Enslave your outward and visible Bodies the Baalites Brachmans Priests of the Syrian Goddess the Mahometan Monks and those Whipsters which about Two hundred years ago the Roman Church numbred in the List of Heretics have outdone and still outdo you in those Rigorous Exercises But the Body which thou art to subdue is the Body of Sin and the Members to be extirpated are the Vices of it as the Apostle says Col. 3. 5. Mortifie your Members which are upon earth Fornication Vncleanness inordinate Affection evil Concupiscence and Covetousness which is Idolatry Lastly it is no hating of Good Works to pronounce them necessary for Salvation yet so that they may but only be the way to the Kingdom and not the Cause of Reigning the cause of our Salvation being solely ascrib'd to the Mercy and Grace of God in Jesus Christ and by no means to our own Merits joyn'd with his as if they could be Assistant toward so great a Benefit But would to God that setting aside these Controversies about the Use of Good Works we could but give our Minds both of us to practice them with a sincere Charity then Mr. Prior would not be so highly exorbitant in his Unchristianlike Judgment concerning us Then again how can any Hatred of the most sacred Eucharist be affixed upon the Reformed who urge nothing so much as the entire taking of it under Both Kinds in conformity to the Institution of Christ and who believe concerning it both what the Scripture holds forth and what the Fathers of the Ancient Church deliver But it is no hatred of this most August Sacrament to refuse to Kneel to it and to pay the highest degree of Veneration to it as it is the Custom in your Roman Church We abstain from this Adoration of the Eucharist lest we should pay to the Creature what is only owing to God. The Sacraments are Holy Things which are to be lookt upon with Decency and Reverence but not to be Ador'd The Brazen Serpent among the Israelites was a sacred Thing and as it were the permanent Sacrament of our future Redemption by the Cross of Christ but yet the Israelites were Idolaters so soon as they began to Adore it and Worship it with Frankincense We do not read that the Apostles Worshipt this Sacrament Christ indeed is to be Ador'd in the Use of this Sacrament as in every Religious Performance and in that sense it is true what St. Austin says upon Psa 98. Let no man eat his flesh unless he have first ador'd which words Gloss decret in Can. Accesserunt distinct 2. of Consecration are interpreted of Spiritual Eating so that he thence infers an Argument That no Mouse can receive the Body of Christ But the Sacrament it self cannot be the Object of our Adoration nor can the Presence of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament be the Ground of it Such is the miserable Servitude of the Soul to take Signs and Symbols for Realities so that it cannot lift up the Eye of the Mind above the Corporeal Creature to receive Eternal Light as St. Austin says lib. 3. de Doctrin Christ c. 5. Without doubt Antiquity never knew what Adoration of the Sacrament meant and as little known to them was that Modern Practice of carrying it about the Streets or of erecting to it in the High-ways Altars hung about with Tapestry or of shewing it to the People at certain Hours of the Day when the Mass is not celebrated At that time it was distributed to the People either Sitting or Standing generally upon the Lord's Days when it was chiefly administred as appears out of Justin Apol. 2. but never Kneeling because it was a Crime among the Primitive Christians to Kneel upon the Lord's Day as all the Learned agree Nor do the Romanists deny but that there is some danger of Idolatry in this Adoration because that many things are requir'd in Transubstantiation which whether they are really so as they ought to be is not evidently apparent to any Man. Therefore the Famous Biel lect 50. in Can. letter O proposes to himself this difficulty Because an Error may happen in Consecration by means of which the effect of the Consecration is hindred as if the Person
Damn'd to all Eternity First Because we are guilty of Blasphemy against the Omnipotency of God in the business of the Eucharist Secondly Because we make God the Author of Sin. Thirdly Because we fasten Despair upon Christ when he was upon the Cross Fourthly Because we are injurious to the Virgin Mary and the Saints Fifthly Because we oppose Chastity Sobriety Mortification Good Works the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and every pious Institution And Sixthly Because we are Heretics or at least Seventhly Schismatics These are the Imputations which I find in Bellarmin Becanus Tirinus and Stapleton all Jesuites the great Props of your Cause and the Pillars of this cruel Sentence Nevertheless know Mr. Prior that these Accusations are no more then mere Imaginations and feigned Dreams which have no real Foundation as I shall with all possible brevity demonstrate in order both for your own and the sake of others and if these Pretences of yours be found to be groundless and unreasonable there needs no more to convince you of your Error and your stragling from Truth and Charity First therefore we are accused as if we would limit Divine Omnipotence and that we plainly deny it while we assert that it is impossible for the Bread to be Transubstantiated into the Body or that any Body should be actually in divers places or that Accidents should subsist without a Subject or that there should be some Bodies allow'd of that fill no space But far be it from us to limit the infinite Pôwer of the most Infinite or in the least to call it in question We are ready with our Blood to subscribe to the Apostles Creed in the first Article whereof we profess to believe in God the Father Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth And this we generally add for a Conclusion to our ordinary Prayers For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory for ever and ever Mat. 6. 13. Then also our Saviour taught us That those things are Easie and Possible with God which seem to Men Impossible Let him be Anathema that calls in question the Power os the most High who existing of himself because according to the common Axiom There is nothing in God which is not God it is impossible for him to be limited or bounded And this Infinity we could as certainly believe in the Sacrament of the Eucharist in reference to the destruction of the Bread and substituting the Body of Christ in the room of it as it is certain and perspicuous from the Word of God that our Bodies should rise at the Day of Judgment our Faith would be directed by the Cynosure of Divine Will nor can we doubt but that God both could and would have done it had he so decreed the thing to be done as profitable and necessary for our Salvation But as to this we find First That those Sacred Mysteries which are distributed to us from the Table of the Lord are and remain both in Substance and Name what they were as to the Substance before the Consecration Nor need we to produce the Testimony of Senses for it our Seeing Tasting Feeling Smelling which according to the Opinion of certain Philosophers are rarely deceiv'd about their proper Objects the Authority of St. Paul is sufficient and beyond all Objection 1 Cor. 10. 16. The Cup of Blessing which we bless is it not the Communion of the Blood of Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ And then again 1 Cor. 11. 28. Let a man examin himself and so let him eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup. Secondly We find that the eating of his Flesh and the drinking his Blood is recommended to us by Christ Joh. 6. But there there is nothing spoken of Oral feeding by which the Body of Christ is actually swallowed into our Bodies but he speaks of Spiritual and Mystic Eating by which he remains in us and we in him which does not come to pass by Chewing but by Believing not in swallowing down into the Stomach but by receiving him with the Heart with Faith as Christ in the same place clearly and frequently explains himself as when he says ver 35. He that cometh to me shall never hunger and he that believeth on me shall never thirst And thus all Antiquity has expounded this Context of St. John. And several Testimonies might be produc'd of St. Austin alone among all the rest of the Fathers to the same purpose whose following words were taken out of his Commentaries upon St. John by Gratian. Distinct 2. Consil Can. 47. Why dost thou make ready thy Teeth and Belly believe and thou hast eaten For to believe in him is the same as to eat the living Bread who believes in him eats him is invisibly fed because he invisibly grows again Now that we ought to understand the words of Christ in this place of Mystical and Spiritual Feeding the constant Rule propos'd by the same Father constrains us l. 3. de Doctrin Christ c. 16. If the Scripture saith he seems to command an unlawful and wicked act and to forbid a profitable and good deed then it is Figurative Vnless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you shall not have Life within you Here it seems to command a wicked Act. Therefore it is a Figure commanding it s to communicate the Passion of our Saviour and to remember profitably and sweetly that his Flesh was crucified and wounded for our sakes But I abstain for the nonce from farther Explication of this Matter unless occasion shall be given of vindicating this Epistle by a Reply In the mean time the sole Omnipotency of God is usually oppos'd to so many effectual Arguments by which we are constrained to assent to the Opinion of the Antients concerning the Sacrament as if God were bound to display his Power to do whatever Men fancy to themselves or that we must be said to Blaspheme his Omnipotence because we do not consent to their Dreams and Miracles whereas if those new and unprofitable Opinions were approv'd by the assent of the Divine Will we should never meddle to contradict this Argument taken from God's Omnipotency But since there is nothing that can be produc'd in their favour out of the Testament of God but on the contrary so many Demonstrations fighting against them we dare pesume to descend to the Examination of this Argument Not to limit the Omnipotence of God but to shew that those things that you Romanists would defend by virtue of that are of the number of those things which fall not under the Power of God not through Impotency or want of Strength but through the Excellency and Perfection of his Power For tho' God be Omnipotent yet he can neither Walk nor Sleep nor Die for that these things would contradict the Perfection of his Eslence In this sense the Scripture testifies that God cannot lye nor deny himself
by which the Succession of the Popes was interrupted So many Simoniacal Elections into that See which are recorded in History so many Popes in the Tenth Age to be call'd Apostatic and Renouncers of Christ rather then Apostolic upon the Testimony of Genebrade I use a new Argument to which you Romanists can make no Answer It is confirm'd as well by the Canon Law as by Custom time out of mind That a Pope may constitute a new Law and a new Form for Chusing a Successor which not being observ'd an Election otherwise made is void Hence Julius II grieving that he had invaded the Supreme Authority by Simony made a new Law concerning the Simoniacal Election of the Pope for the future whereby he ordain'd That any Pope who after him should be Simoniacally elected should be lookt upon as an Intruder a Magician a Publican an Arch Heretic and that he should by no means be acknowledg'd for a lawful Pope But that Sixtus V was chosen Simoniacally is a thing which almost every Body knows For that he might be elected he bought the Suffrages of Cardinal d'Este and the Cardinals depending upon him and covenanted with him in a Writing drawn up and subscrib'd with his own Hand that during his Pontificate he would never make Jeronymo Matthei who was de'Este's Enemy a Cardinal upon condition that by d'Este's means he obtain'd the Pontificate Upon which being made Pope by d'Este and his Faction he confess'd himself to be the work of his hands However Sixtus forfeited his Faith to Him and created Matthei Cardinal for all that which Cardinal d'Este took so ill that he sent the Contract between him and Sixtus to Philip II King of Spain who in the Year 1589 sent the Duke of Sessa his Extraordinary Embassador to Rome to give Notice to Sixtus of his Intentions to call a General Council upon the Information of a Simoniacal Election and to require the Cardinals created by the Predecessors of Sixtus and other Ecclesiastics to be present at a Council to be assembled at Sevil but because upon intimation of the Council Sixtus dy'd for Despair the business went no farther This is related in a certain Book entitled Papatus Romanus cap. 10. pag. 200 c. Seeing then that Sixtus was an Illegal and Simoniac Intruder certain it is that the Papacy ceas'd in him so that they who succeeded were no true Popes because they were elected by the Cardinals which he created who being Intruders as created by a Simoniac wanted Right of Election as well according to the Council of Constance as for that according to the Rule of the Lawyers No Man can transfer more Right to another then he has himself And therefore the whole World ought not to be shut up in one City Some are of Cephas others of Paul others of Clement let it suffice a Christian to be of Christ Whoever fears God and works Righteousness in whatever part of the World he is is acceptable to God. If two or three are gathered together in the Name of Christ he will be in the midst of them The Supernal Jerusalem which enjoys her Liberty is the Mother of us all We shall not be Judg'd by the Roman or Popes Communion but by the Communion of Saints and of Christ Therefore we cannot be Schismatics upon this just necessary and sound Separation of ours There are still remaining Reverend Mr. Prior some other Motives of yours to this rash Judgment which you give of us which are now to be brought to the Touch with the rest There are some who believe a Posteriori that we are deservedly to be listed among the number of the Damned because we stand Excommunicated by the Pope and the Catholic Church But in regard these Excommunications do not strike us but either as Heretics or Schismatics they do us no hurt in regard we are neither Heretics nor Schismatics as hath bin already shewn If they are necessarily to be numbred among the Damned whom the Pope has Excommunicated of necessity all in Asia the less who dy'd during the Excommunication of Victor upon the Paschal difference must be by all Christians excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven and that the Sacraments which you our Adversaries nevertheless will allow preserve their Excellency by way of Physical Cause and in general all Public Worship must be depriv'd of their Efficacy in all Provinces which are sometimes subject to Papal Interdiction Nor ought we to pass over in silence that Observation of St. Jerom upon that place of Mat. 16. wherein the Keys of Heaven are promis'd to St. Peter This Place saith the holy Man the Bishops and Presbyters not understanding assume to themselves something of the Pride of the Pharisees even to Damn the Innocent and Absolve the Guilty whereas God regards not the Sentence of the Priest but the Life of the Offender But according to this Saying of St. Jerom all Casuists and Canonists acknowledge that an unjust Excommunication is Invalid and that such an Excommunicate may both Administer and Receive the Sacraments with a good Conscience An Excommunication without a just Cause is not valid in the Interior Court therefore such a one may Celebrate where it is no Scandal says the Jesuite Emanuel Sa voce Excommunicat § 4. But Toletus lib. Instruct Sacram. cap. 10. num 7. more positively asserts That there is no unjust Sentence of Excommunication can bind either as to God or as to the Church But it is unjust as he says again § 1. from some defect which if it be Essential makes it no Excommunication and then it is not to be dreaded neither does it bind either in the Court of Heaven or Earth Which he confirms by the Testimony of several Canonists If therefore we are unjustly Excommunicated and as the Schoolmen Phrase it Clave Errante or with an Erring Key and that these Excommunications are of no force Our Damnation cannot be inferr'd a Posteriori from such Sentences but that they are unjust and null I shall easily demonstrate An Excommunication is said to be null says Toletus ibid. § 4. if it contain an intolerable Error c. Now then a Sentence is said to contain an intolerable Error when any one is Excommunicated because he does that which is Good in it self or does not do that which is in its own act Unlawful Why then are we Excommunicated Surely because we do that which is good in it self applying our selves to the Word of God and will not adhere to those who would have us to be wiser then the Scripture can make us and refusing to do what is evil in it self or at least what we judge in our Consciences to be so and because we adhere not to a Worship unlawful and contrary to Scripture An Excommunication is void if it be pronounc'd by one already Excommunicated or Suspended from Jurisdiction or Interdicted or after a lawful Appeal says Emanuel Sa as above § 1. And Toletus has the same words Now such is