all honour dignity function and power ecclesiastical as was the case of Anthimus the intruder into the See of Constantinople and may be censued as unfit to be accunted Christians which was the censure that Felix the Third and a Roman Synod past upon Acacius but when the Church by proscribing and condemning them hath taken from them all it can it cannot ake away the power of Baptism and Ordination and therefore the Church Catholick hath judged that they who were Baptised and Ordained by Hereticks and Schismaticks have both true Baptism and true Orders and hath rejected those that think otherwise as Hereticks which both innumerable Synods and Orthodox Fathers among whom Austin doth excel have proved against the Luciferians the Donatists the Arians and other Pests of the Church § IX There be some eminent Divines among us who are I hope not without reason more candid in their apprehensions of the Roman Church before the Reformation admitting it to have continued when Luther and his friends began their Reformation to have been a Church in which Salvation might be had not only for the ignorant but also for many others who did not openly renounce Communion with her That we yield no more to our Adversaries now than formerly we did Appendix part 3. p. 880. saith Dr. Field in that we acknowledge the Latine or Western Churches subject to Roman Tyranny before God raised up Luther to have been the true Churches of God in which a saving profession of the truth of Christ was found and wherein Luther himself received his Christianity Ordination and power of Ministry I will first shew that all our best and most renowned Divines did ever acknowledg as much as I have written Now that which doth induce them thus to judg was the consideration of these things 1. That notwithstanding those very many and very grievous errors which then obtained too generally and which were too much countenanced by the most powerful members of the Roman Church there still remained a profession and acknowledgment of so much truth as being joyned with Piety might be sufficient to bring her members to eternal life If at this day saith Bishop Vsher Sermon before his Majesty at Wansled p. 28. we should take a survey of the several professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world as of the Religion of the Roman and the Resormed Churches in our quarters of the Aegyptians and Aethiopians in the South of the Graecians and other Churches in the Eastern parts and should put by the points wherein they differ one from another and gather into one body the rest of the Articles wherein they all do generally agree we should find that in those propositions which without all controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is conteined as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Savlation neither have we cause to doubt but that as many as do walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded up by super-inducing any damnable Heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy Faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and mercy Which doctrine he confirms 1. from the constant practice of the Apostles in their first receiving men into the society of the Church For saith he in one of the Apostles ordinary Sermons we see there was so much matter delivered as was sufficient to convert men to the Faith and make them capable of Baptism and yet these Sermons treated only of the first principles of the Doctrine of Christ in these first principles therefore must the foundation be contained and that common unity of Faith Ibid. p. 20. which is required in all the members of the Church Again p. 16. As there is a common Salvation so is there a common Faith which is alike precious in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer for we may not think that Heaven was prepared for deep Clerks only and therefore besides that larger measure of knowledge whereof all are not capable there must be a rule of Faith common to small and great which as it must consist but of few propositions for simple men cannot bear away many so is it also requisite that these Articles should be of so much weight and moment that they may be sufficient to make a man wise unto salvation If then Salvation by believing these common principles may be had and to Salvation none can come who is not first a member of the Catholick Church of Christ it followeth that the unity of Faith generally requisite for the incorporating of Christians into that blessed Society P. 17. is not to be extended beyond these common principles Which may farther be made manifest unto us by the continual practice of the Catholick Church herself in the matriculation of her Children and first admittance of them into her Communion For when she prepared her Catechumeni for Baptism and by that door received them into the cougregation of Christs Flock we may not think her judgment to have been so weak as to omit any thing herein that was essentially necessary for the making of one a member of the Church Now the profession which she required of all that were to receive baptisin was for the Agenda or practical part an abrenuntiation of the Devil the World and the Flesh with all their sinful lusts and works and for the things to be believed an acknowledgment of of the Articles of the Creed which being performed solemnly she then baptized them in this faith intimating thereby sufficiently that this was that one faith commended to her by the Apostles Ibid. p. 17. as the other that one Baptisin which was appointed to be the Sacrament of it And that the creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholick Church was esteemed by the general suffrage of the Greek and Latine Fathers and the whole Antient Church See P tters answer to Charity Mistaken § 7. from p. 216. to 233. Mr. Chill c. 4. § 83 8â— Bishop Tayor diss part 2. l. 1. § 4. a sufficient Summary or Catalogue of fundamentals that even by the Trent Council the Trent Catechism and the best learned Romanists it is acknowledged so to be is very largely and convincingly demonstrated by many eminent Writers of our Church 2. They add that those prevailing doctrinâ—s which thwarted the great fundamentals of our faith and made salvation more difficult were indeed docrines strongly then prevailing in but not received and owned as Articles of Faith by all themembers of the Church of Rome Answ to Charity Mistaken § 3. p. 64 65. In the latter Ages before the Reformation saith Dr. Potter though the Court of Rome by cunning and violence had subdued many noble parts of Christendom under her yoke yet the servitude of that Church and her misery was somewhat more supportable
THE Absurdity and Idolatry OF Host Worship PROVED By shewing how it answers what is said in Scripture and the Writings of the Fathers to shew the Folly and Idolatry committed in the Worship of the Heathen Deities ALSO A full Answer to all those Pleas by which Papists would wipe off the charge of Idolatry And an APPENDIX against Transubstantiation with some Reflexions on a late Popish Book called The Guide in Controversies By DANIEL WHITBY D.D. Chantor of the Church of Sarum The saying of Averroes I have Travelled the World and found divers Sects in it but none so foolish as that Sect of Christians who eat the God whom they worship Dionsy Carthus in Sent. 4. Dist 10. Art 1. LONDON Printed for H. Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-Yard R. Bentley and M. Magnes in Râ—sselstreet Covent-Garden 1679. THE PREFACE FInding that Roman Catholicks are much displeased at us for saying and maintaining that they are guilty of Idoltry and for making Laws and wholsom Constitutions forbidding them to practise that Idolatry within our Realms I have these things offer in our own defence 1. That their displeasure is unjust Peccant Contra hoc mandatum Athei Apotatae Judaei Turcae Haeretici Esth in Sent. l. 3. dist §. 5. and thwarts that Golden Rule of Nature which saith do not you that to others which you are not willing they should do to you For they do peremptorily conclude that Protestants are guilty of Idolatry and therefore ought not to be angry if we return the charge upon them Their Casuists and Schoolmen do frequently declare that Hereticks are guilty of violation of that Precept which saith I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other Gods but me This Doctrine is delivered in the Roman Catechism Peccant in hoc praeceptum qui in Haeresin labuntur Part. 3. c. 2. §. 7. and so it is that Doctrine which they are obliged to own and vindicate Now if they do affirm that we are guilty of this crime by having other gods they do then manifestly say that we are guilty of Idolatry But if they do conceive us to offend against this Precept as it injoins us to acknowledg God to be our God they must conceive us to be Atheists and if they think it fit to pass so heavy and severe a censure upon us why should they take it ill that we accuse them of a lesser crime with better evidence 2. I add that our Superiours have only done their duty in making of those Laws which do forbid the practice of their Idolatry within this Nation For if the Magistrate be keeper of both the Tables of the Moral Law if it concern him to see that all his Subjects do perform those great duties which they owe to God and man he cannot duly execute his Office or be faithful to the trust committed to him whilst he permits the violation of the first and chiefest Precept of that Law but must by suffering God to be dishonored in so high a manner when it is in his power to hinder it make himself partaker of other mens sins And if Magistrates may suffer God to be dishonored in this kind I know not why we should conceive them bound to punish Thefts Schisms Heresies or Infidelity which crimes the Church of Rome excites the Magistrate to punish with extreme severity If we consult the Law of Moses we shall there find that God did frequently forbid Idolatry under the utmost and severest penalties The Books of Samuel and of the Kings give us continual instances of Gods displeasure against those Kings of Israel and Judah who did countenance Idolatry or who neglected to remove it out of their Dominions And sutable to their proceedings was the constant practice of the first Christian Emperors Christ fully doth acknowledg that the Church of Pergamus held fast his name and yet he doth object this to her as an hainous and provoking crime Rev. ii 14. that she had those amongst her who held the Doctrine of Balaam and taught men to eat things Sacrificed unto Idols and to commit Fornication The Church of Thyatira was eminent for Faith Charity and Patience and for proficiency in the ways of Piety and yet our Saviour speaks thus to her I have some few things against thee Rev. ii 20. because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a Prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit Fornication and to eat things Sacrificed to Idols Serm. before the Parliament p. 42 43. In the second of Judges they are the words of the Reverend and Learned Bishop Usher God tells the Children of Israel what mischief should come to them by tolerating the Canaanitish Idolaters in the Land they shall be thorns in their sides saith he and their Gods shall be a snare to you Which words contain in them an intimation of a double danger the one respecting the Soul the other the Body that which concerns the Soul is that their Idols shall be a snare unto them for God well knew that mans nature is as prone to Spiritual Fornication as it is to Corporal as therefore for the preventing of the one he would not havea common Harlot tolerated in Israel Lev. xix 29. lest the Land should fall to Whoredom so for the keeping out of the other he would have provocations taken away and all occasions whereby a man might be tempted to commit so vile a sin The bodily danger that followeth upon the toleration of Idolaters is that they shall be pricks in their eyes Numb xxxiii 55. and thorns in their sides and should vex them in the land wherein they dwelt Now in both these respects it is certain that the toleration of the Idolaters with whom we have to do is far more perillous than of any other in regard of the spiritual danger wherewith simple souls are more like to be ensnared because this kind of Idolatry is not brought in with an open shew of impiety as that of the Pagans but is a mystery of iniquity a wickedness covered with the veil of Piety and the Harlot which maketh the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of this fornication is both gilded herself and presenteth also her abominations to her followers in a cup of Gold If we look to outward peril we are like to find these men not thorns in our sides to vex us but daggers in our hearts to destroy us not that I take all of them to be of this furious disposition but because there are never wanting among them some turbulent humors so enflamed with the spirit of Fornication that they run mad with it and are so far transported that no tolerable terms can content them until they have attained to the utmost pitch of their unbridled desires for compassing whereof there is no Treachery nor Rebellion nor Murther nor desperate course whatsoever that without all remorse of Conscience they dare not adventure upon and whether we
Worshipped they might be kept from learning of their ways When you shall come to Babylon Baruch vi 4 5. saith Jeremy there you shall see Gods of Silver Gold and Wood which create terror to the Heathens nnd which are carried upon shoulders fear therefore lest you should be confirmed to the Aliens and be possessed with the dread of them seeing the multitude before and behind that worship them 2. That they who had already been seduced to the Worship of them might be reclaimed by the consideration of so great a folly and be induced to return unto the Worship of the True and Only God Beware you be not like unto these Aliens but say within thy heart I ought to worship thee O Lord. V. 6. And if those Jews who in this manner have transgressed say these Prophets will but remember that Bel and Nebo and all other Heathen Deities are born upon mens shoulders or the backs of beasts that where they place them there they stand and are not able to remove from thence that they themselves are somtimes carried Captives not being able to work deliverance for themselves If they remember this and act like men they must for ever be secure from these delusions In Complyance with this practice of the Sacred Writers the Christian Fathers in their Apologies and other writings of the like nature have used the same Topicks the more effectually to reclaim the world from Heathenish Idolatry smartly deriding the impotency of the Gods they worshipped and seoffing at the folly of that Homage which they paid unto them If therefore that which the inspired Prephets and Primitive Professors of the Christian Faith did so unanimously produce in plain derision of the Heathen Deities and whereby they endeavoured to demonstrate that they could not be truly Gods doth equally concern that Host which by the Churh of Rome and the Trent Council is declared to be the Christians God and which on that presumption they require all Christians to worship with Latria or with the Worship which peculiarly belongeth to the God of Heaven as by applying what the Holy Prophets and Primitive Christians have alledged against the Worship of the Heathen Deities unto the Host will be extremely evident it follows undeniably that they who are not yet seduced to pay this Worship to the Host must have sufficient reason to abstain from it and also that they who have already been induced to pay this Homage to it must have as powerful motives to reclaim them from so great a folly as either Jew or Gentile had to renounce the Worship of their Heathen Idols And now to make the matter evident beyond all reasonable contradiction I shall proceed to draw the Parallel betwixt the Adoration of the Romish Host and that of Heathen Deities so much derided by the Jewish Prophets and the Christian Doctors And this I shall attempt L. 5. p. 170. as saith Arnobius in a Case like this not that I take delight in thus exposing of the Romish Mysteries or representing of their Faith ridiculous but that the Romanists themselves may plainly see what injury they cast upon their bon Dieu of whom they are the Worshippers the Keepers and Avengers § II 1. Therefore the a Nullis itaque dâ—bitandi locus relinquitur qâ—iâ— omnes Christi sidelâ—s pro 〈◊〉 in Catholicà Ecclesià semper recepto N. B. Latriae cultum qui verò debetur Deo huic Sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione exâ—iâ—eant neque enim ideo minùs adorandum est quò faerit à Christo at sâ—matâ—r institutum Concil Trid. Sess 13. cap. 5. Trent Council teacheth that it is not to be doubted in the least but that all Faithful Christians should exhibit the Worship of Latria to the Holy Sacrament that is the Consecrated Wafer even that Worship which is due to God alone and they pronounce Anathema against all persons who assert the contrary 2. The reasons of this determination they assign in the ensuing words b Nam illum eundem Deum praeclentem in eo credimus adesse qâ—â—m pater aeternus introdâ—cens in orbem terrarum dicit adorent eum omnes Angeli Dei. Qâ—â—m Magi procidentes adoraverunt quem denique in Galilaea ab Apostolis adoratum fuisse Sereptura testatâ—r ibid. for we believe the same God is present in the Host of whom the Father said let all the Angels of God Worship him and whom the wise men of the East and the Apostles Worshipped And therefore the first Canon of the thirteenth Session of that Council declareth that c Si quis negaverit in Sanctissimae Eâ—charistiae Sacramento contineri verè realiter substantialiter Corpus sanguinem unà cum anima Divinitate Domini nostri Jesu Christi aâ— perinde totum Christum anathema sit 1. Can. if any person saith that in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist Christs body and his blood together with his Soul and his divinity and so whole Christ is not substantially contained let him be accursed And accordingly in the d Orat. past missâ—â—â— Rythm of St. Thomas to the Holy Eucharâ—t they speak thus Deum meum te confitcor I confess thee to be my God Their Tenet therefore plainly is this That the Consecrated Wafer is God united to the man Christ Jesus latent under the species of bread 3. Hence it must follow that seeing they do eat this Consecrated Wafer which is as truly God and man as Christ now glorified is they do professedly eat the god they Worship and that you may not doubt of this the Council doth immediately subjoyn these words to the forementioned determination touching the Worship due unto the Host the Sacrament is not the less to be ador'd Sess 13. Cap. 5. vid. Supra because according to the institution of it it is to be eaten 4. Hence it doth also follow that seeing they do drink what is contained in the Consecrated Chalice and that according to their Doctrine is whole Christ God and man contained under the Species of Wine I say hence it doth clearly follow that they drink their God This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome most faithfully discovered to you from their Authentick Records and if it only did assert that Christians stood oblig'd to be Cannibals to eat mans flesh and drink down human blood even this assertion would contain what is repugnant to the nature of man what hath been constantly esteemed by the sober Heathens a barbarous and inhuman thing and lastly that which by the Antient Fathers was disclaimed and rejected with the greatest horror But then if we conceive the person who is thus devoured to be also God and therefore look upon this action as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eating of our God and Maker it is so full of horror scandal and amazement that nothing can be more prodigious or more blasphemously prophane Heathers Mahumetans Jews Christians have with one voice declared that it is a demonstration of
Gods the practising that worship which they received from the Tradition of their Fathers And can it reasonably be imagined that they who thus condemned others did the same things themselves and only did invite them to exchange their Heathen for a Christian Deity subject to all that infamy contempt and drollery which they cast upon the Heathen Gods and way of worship Can it be reasonably thought that all those Fathers if they had practised and believed as now the Papists do would speak such plain and frequent contradictions both to their practice and their Doctrine and talk as if they equally intended to confute and render infamous the worship of the Christian and the Heathen Deities Let any reasonable person judg whether these apprehensions and assertions that to worship as a God what we do eat is an abominable and repugnant worship a certain indication of the highest folly stupidity and the extremity of madness could proceed from men who dayly worshipped as the Highest God what they themselves did eat or whether they who worshipped as God that very Host which they did sacrifice unto God could solemnly declare as the forementioned Fathers often do that to adore as God what we or others Sacrifice is to be Sacrilegious against God and ignorant of the true knowledg of God to be guilty of folly and Atheism and to do that action which will justly render us a laughing stock to all our neighbors If this was the deportment of all those Holy Fathers we have just reason to cry out Vbi fides ubi pudor and to conclude that they had not one Grain of honesty or shame or prudence in them Since that this Wafer-worship hath obtained amongst the Latins what Romanist will say with Origen the Sacrament that is the God he worships according to our Saviours words is voided at the draught with Pseudo Justin that what we eat or sacrifice cannot be worthy of the name or honor of a God With Cyril that they are rude and stupid who carry up and down their God upon their shoulders or with St. Chrysostom that it is an hyperbole of madness to own that for a God which may be stoln Since then the Fathers without distinction or exception do frequently assert these things and many more of the like nature it is extremely evident that they were not worshippers of the Host as is the present Church of Rome for if no man would thus speak who doth as the Papists do surely these Fathers were far enough from Popish practices in this particular Moreover let it be considered 1. Whether the Fathers would afford the Heathens this great advantage to retort all that they argued against the worship of their Gods and to assert that that which they condemned in them was only what they dayly practised themselves and taught all Christians to observe which certainly they did if they believed and practised as doth the present Church of Rome And 2. Whether the Heathens if this occasion had been offered would have been wholly silent and negligent of this advantage Put case I say these Pagans knew that all which by the Christians was objected against their worship and their Gods was of an equal force against the worship of the Christian Host that this Host was owned by them as the Highest God and yet was carried in their hands because it could not go was kept by Sextons under Lock and Key was sometimes burnt and sometimes buried in the carth that it was clothed with costly Raiment void of all apparent sense and life as any of the heathen Idols how could the Heathens being acquainted with these things and many others of like nature abstain from saying Thou art inexcusable O Christian whosoever thou art that judgest us on these accounts for thou that judgest dost the same things For further confirmation of this Argument consider § XI 1. That the Heathens could not be ignorant of this supposed Article of Christian Faith and this supoosed practice of the Church of Christ provided that the Christians really believed and practised always as doth the present Church of Rome For 1. The Fathers do themselves declare that 't was impossible they should conceal from Pagans what was done in their assemblies thus to that false suggestion that Christians did eat the blood of infants that they were guilty of cating human flesh it is replyed by Athenagoras Legat. p. 38. B. that if the Christians did so it was impossible that having servants more or less they ould conceal this from them We increase dayly Proficiente multitudine reorum quid ita non proficit multitudo nuntiatorum Nationes C. 7. Apol. 7 8. saith Tertullian and the more we do so the more we must be hated now the number of the guilty thus increasing how is it that the number of informers is not greather Our conversation is more known you know the days on which the Christians meet you oft beset detain oppress us in our private meetings but yet who ever came upon us whilst we were eating of an Infant were we guilty of these things when any persons came to profess the Christian Faith the Priest must first inform him that such things were to be done or Postea cognoscant necesse est being once admitted into their Communion he must behold them done and how could such a one saith he abstain from the divulging of them And if the Priest did first inform him that if he would become a Christian he must worship that which to all his senses would seen Bread and Wine as the Great God of Heaven or if being once admitted to the Holy Sacrament he was instructed so to do and beheld all other Christians doing so how could this Proselyte abstain from the divulging of this worship for this by Infidels and Heathens was always judged saith Bellarmine L. 2. de Euch. c. 12. §. 2. Ex illis a very foolish Paradox this was to worship a new God obnoxious to almost all those follies and infirmities which had engaged them to renounce their Heathen Gods 2. That Christians could not conceal this practice from the Jew and Gentile will be extremely evident from this consideration that many myriads who embraced the Christian Faith were by the heat of persecution driven back to Paganism and therefore were concerned to save their credit by divulging what they esteemed most lyable to exception in the Christian Faith or practice and therefore to divulge this foolish Paradox as by the Gentiles this plain impossibility as by the Jews it was esteemed For not to mention the Apostacy of all the Asiaticks 2 Tim. i. 15. and of Phygellus and Hermogens when Nero raged against the Christians Euseb Hist Ecc. l. 4. c. 15. p. 129. Epist ad Trajan l. 10. Ep. 97. Euseb H. Eccles l. 5. c. 1. p. 156 160. c. 2. p. 167. The Apostacy of Quintus the Phrygian with many others under the persecution of Trajanus when many who had
formerly been Christians declared to Pliny they had ceased to be so some three some more some twenty years ago Nor the revolt of tose ten Gauls under the Persecution of Aurelius Verus who fell with many others from the Christian Faith nor those who under the sixth Persecution were forced by the severity of torments which Scapula inflicted on them to desert that Faith I say not to insist on these less notable defections St. Cyprian complains that by the furty of the eighth Persecution Ep. 8. §. 6. Christianity did suffer very much that they were very few who then stood firm but they who languished were very numerous Ep 9. §. 4. that the Church then with tears lamented the fall and funerals of very many De lapsis §. 2. that there was then a manifold decay of that once numerous people which professed the Chrian Faith Ibid. §. 5. that even at the first onset of the threatning enemy the greatest number of the Brethren betrayed their Faith The like we find recorded by Dionysius of Alexandria even of the chiefest of the Christians Apud Euseb Hist Ecc. l. 6. c. 40. p. 238. B. C. Hist Eccl. l. 8. C. 2. p. 294. at the first conflict in the tenth Persecution many thousands even of the Rulers of the Church apostatised saith Eusebius Lastly who knows not that the Apostate Julian was once a Reader in the Church and also that he received Christian Baptism and as a consequent of that the Blessed Sacrament That in the time of his Apostacy he prevailed on very many Hist Ecll. l. 3. C. 13. Partly by flatteries partly by bribes and partly by torments to fly back to heathenism and to renounce the Christian Faith as Socrates relates Now it is absolutely impossible that these Apostates should be ignorant of such a constant and notorious practice of the Christians as the adoration of the Host must be provided that it was then worshipped by them as their God and Saviour § XII 2. It may deserve to be considered in confirmation of this argument that both the Jews and heathens left nothing unobjected which could with any shew of reason be offered frm any other doctrine or practice of Christianity or any fame concerning it though never so ill grounded against the Deity and Worship of our Lord Vel impossibile esse vel incongruens ut Deus in uterum se mulieris includeret Lact. l. 4. c. 29. Arnob. l. 7. p. 249. Tatian p. 159. Lact. l. 4. c. 22. 29. Ceisus apud Orig. l. 1. p. 51 54. l. 2. p. 62. Minut. p. 25. or the profession of the Christian Faith They scoffed at all that any way was lyable to an exception from the Conception of our Lord to his Ascension They very frequently declare that 't was impossible or at least incongruous that God should be included in a Virgins Womb and that it is unworthy of a God to be made man or to appear unto us in the form of man or to descend unto these lower Regions that it did not become the son of God to fly to Aegypt to escape the wrath of Herod that a body so born and nourished with meat as our Lords body was could not be deemed the body of a God Lact. Ibid. they confidently say that Divine Majesty could not subject it self to those infirmities which might expose him to the derision and contempt of men Were Christ a God say they why did he make himself so weak and so contemptible as to become obnoxious to punishment from men Why did he suffer violence from mortal men Why did he not repel their force by his Superior power Why did he not shew forth his Majesty before his death Why was he haled as impotent to the judgment Seat condemned as a criminal or slain as mortal Why lastly was he not able to roul away the stone from his own Sepulchre Celsus apud Orig. l. 5. p. 269. but needed an Angel to perform that work Now they who say these things and offer these as they supposed convincing arguments that our Messiah could not be the Son of God or a fit object of Religious Worship could not have waved those more plausible pretences to except against his Deity which this supposed adoration of him in the Host afforded For is it not more incongruous that God should be included in the Stomach not only of the vilest wretch but of the meanest brute than that he should be for a time included in the hallowed womb of the most Blessed Virgin Is it not less ridiculous to say God once appeared in the form and fashion of a Man than that he constantly doth lie concealed under the form of Bread and Wine Is it unworthy of a God to fly to Aegypt and must it not be more unworthy of him to be carried Captive thither Is it beneath his Majesty to take upon him the infirmities of living flesh and is it not much more beneath him to take upon him the infirmities of dead insensate flesh and even after his Ascension to come down among us as inactive as Aesops God of Frogs Is it absurd to say that God descendeth to the Earth and is it not much more absurd to say that he descends into the Stomach or the Draught Can not that be the body of a God which feeds on ordinary meat and must that be his body which it self is eaten Doth not this Sacramental Jesus make himself as weak and as contemtible and doth he not as much expose himself to the derision both of Jew and Gentile by this conversion into a little Wafer as ever he was subject to in his infirmest state on Earth Is he not as unable in the Sacrament to scare away the Mouse that gnaws upon him as in the Sepulcher he seemed to be to roul away the stone Doth he not shew less power there for the repelling of the Thief the Wizard the Fly the Vermin than whilst he was on Earth he shewed for the repelling of his Murtherers Can it rationally be supposed that they who did so constantly object all the fore-mentioned particulars to the reproch of Christ and those that owned and worshipped him as God from the beginning of Christianity till the full triumph of it over Heathenism should never once object what in all these respects is more ridiculous had they then known what if it had been true they must have known viz. that this was then the faith and practice of the whole Christian World that every Christian believed the Sacrament was truly God and worshipped it as God In the declining Ages of the Church when this Idolatry obtained among Christians the Jew Mahometan and Heathens did constantly deride and pour contempt on Christians upon this account Now the reproach of Christians is not that they are Galileans or worshippers of him that hanged on the three but that they are God-Eaters Si hostia Deus eâ— â—â—â—r situ obductus corrumpiâ—â— Cur
d pteribus muribus corroditur Quaest Jud. Amstel Edit An. 1662. p. 346. On this account they do pronounce us and that deservedly to be the most absurd and foolish Sect that ever yet appeared in the world and ask so boldly if your Host be God why is it that by waxing mouldy he corrupts why is it that the Bats and Mice do gnaw upon him What then can be the reason that those more subtile Heathens and malitious Jews which lived in former Ages of the Church should offer nothing of this nature for their own defence or the conviction of their adversaries but only this that the belief and practice of the Christians of those former times gave no occasion to these objections and retorts § XIII Lastly To strengthen and confirm the argument it may deserve to be considered 1. That the Fathers of the Church do very largely answer and upon all occasions encounter all the other scruples which did possess the minds of Hereticks or Heathens Turpe hoc Deo indignum hoc Dei filio Apud Tert. de carne Christi c. 4. Apud August contr Faustum Manich. L. 3. Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Con. Ephes Act. 3. p. 335. v. Act. 1. p. 265. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Cyril lib. 6. adv Jul. and make them to suspect our Jesus could not deserve to be adored or owned as a God or that he did not really assume the nature and infirmities of man or verily sustain the ignominies and dolors of the Cross When the Marcionites and Valentinians conceived it was improper for the Son of God to be conceived in the Womb the Manichees that it was an unworthy thing to think the God of Christians should issue from a Womb when Nestorius declared that he could not endure to worship one that was two months old or nourished with milk When Julian scoffed at the Christians for saying that the Virgin Mary was the Mother of God when they I say suggested all these things the Fathers spared no pains to satisfie them in all these particulars Lactantius doth for this very reason insist more largely on one of these particulars because saith he this very apprehension L. 4. c. 29. p. 448. that it was impossible or at the least incongruous that God should be included in a Virgins Womb was that which caused many to turn Hereticks Now since it is extremely evident that it is more improper incongruous unworthy to think the God of Christians should descend into and be included in the stomach of the most vile communicant in every Pyx and Bottle that contained the species of consecrated bread and wine in every flye that suck'd in the least drop of Holy Wine or every Mouse that swallowed the least crum of Hallowed bread why is it that these Holy Fathers do never offer the least word to rid this greater scruple out of the minds of men or to Apologize for this portentous incongruity compared to which all that the Heretick or Heathen could object were very trifles Why do they not consider one of all those great objections against the adoration of their Sacramental Jesus which from their very words we have collected If you reply that they had no occasion so to do because this adoration nor any of the consequents thereof were ever scrupled by the worst of Hereticks I answer this is very true that among all the formentioned Hereticks and many other who were so highly scandalized at the humiliation of our Saviour that they denyed either his Deity or his Humanity or the reality of all his sufferings we find not one that ever did except against the adoration of him in the Sacrament against the eating of their God the mixing of him with their spittle or with the ferment of the most depraved stomach during a thousand years we find not one complaint from any Heretick that any Christians owned or worshiped a God who presently went down into their stomachs and was exposed to the teeth of vermine this reply therefore I confess is true but then it is the strongest confutation of the adoration of the Host and that Transubstantiation which the Romanists assert that can be possibly conceived it being absolutely impossible for any rational person to imagine that all those Myriads of Hereticks should be so highly scandalized at the Cross of Christ and those infirmities he suffered in the flesh and yet that neither they nor any other Christian should for a thousand years once scruple or be scandalized at those greater imperfections and more palpable absurdities which this supposed Sacramental God was subject to nay more that they should all believe and should allow that doctrine and that practice which did most palpably refute those very Heresies which they had broached this being a most perfect demonstration against the Ebionites Photinians and all those swarms of Hereticks who questioned the Deity of Christ that he was worshipped with Latria in the Sacrament only upon the presumption of his Deity and therefore if he there deserved that worship must be God And this is also a perfect demonstration against the Marcionites Docetae Valentinians and all those Hereticks who held that Christ assumed apparent but not substantial flesh that he had only the appearance of a body but no true real body and against the Nestorians and Eutychians who taught that after Christs ascension his human nature was absorpt and changed into the divine against all these I say this is a perfect demonstration that in the Sacrament Christs Body and his Flesh are truly and substantially contained and therefore that he had a true substantial body and that his human nature still remains At the close of the twelfth Century when this Idolatry began to shew it self among the Latins how many Myriads were branded with the name of Hereticks for their stiff opposition both to this practice and to the doctrine on which it doth depend and can it be imagined that in all former Ages of the Church of Christ in which so many Heresies abounded not any single person should once have broached this new Heresie more obvious than any of them all had the known doctrine and practice of all former Ages administred the like occasion fo to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gr. p. 29. lin 50. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. p. 30. lin 1. 2. These Fathers in their Apologies do very carefully take notice of any thing delivered by them which they imagined the Heathens might retort upon them When Theodoret had confuted the Heathen Polytheism and had confronted to it the Rule of Moses and of Christ Who saith he doth command us to worship the Creater only N.B. he adds that they perhaps may say the Christians are not observers of the rule because they worship the whole Trinity and not the Vnity exclusively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 104. lin 50. And then he gives a copious Answer to that objection In his seventh book having derided Pagan Deities
because they seemed to be pleased with the blood and fat of beasts he very honestly confesseth that Heathens might plausibly object the like against the God of Israel Contra Julian l. 4. p. 125. D. because he also did require such Sacrifices to be offered to him The very same objection is taken notice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril contra Jul. l. 1. p. 9. A. and answered by Cyril of Alexandria Again the Fathers frequently object unto the Heathens that diversity of Sects and of opinions which was to be found among their Philosophers but then they spare not to acknowledge that this objection may be retorted against them and then proceed to give what answer they think fit unto it And when Tertullian had argued that the Heathen Gods must be unjust Hot utique in Deum vestrum repercutere est Apol. c. 41. if they by reason of the faults of Christians were induced to hurt their own Votaries he adds that Heathens might retort this argument upon the Christians God and then proceeds to vindicate his God from that objection And yet if in his days the Romish Sacramental God had by all Christians been acknowledged and adored not only this particular but almost all that he and the forementioned Fathers had offered against the Heathen Deities might have been evidently retorted as we have seen already on the Christians God Why therefore did they not confess ingenuously in all those cases hoc in Deum nostrum repercutere est that they might be retorted on the Christians God and spend some time in vindication of their Sacramental God from these retorts § XIV 3. From what hath been discoursed Gorol II. we have as great assurance as sense and reason and the concurrent judgment of mankind can tender that the Host cannot be truly God and consequently that the Trent Council doth oblige all Christians as much as in them lyes to worship that as God which is not truly so and that the Members of the Roman Church are guilty of Idolatry by giving to it that worship which is due to God alone This charge I know doth very much afflict the Romanists because they clearly see that if it be made good against them our Church is justified in her refusal of communion with them seeing without consenting to and frequent practice of Idolatry we cannot be admitted to communion with them whence it will naturally follow that their Church must be as truly guilty of a wretched Schism as Jeroboam and his ten tribes were and consequently that the Major part of the Western Church may be Schismaticks by virtue of these impositions and that no persons separating on the account of the Idolatry required by the Church of Rome from the external communion of that Church can incur the guilt of Schism that the Roman and other Western Churches united with it and the supposed head thereof St. Peter's imaginary Successor is not that true Church-guide to which we are obliged to submit that a reformation may be lawful against the definitions of that Church that abuses in Doctrine and practice may be reformed by a National Church against and then much more without that Authority that National Churches and Councils are not absolutely subject to Patriarchal Hence doth it plainly follow that the doctrine of Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass the half Communion must be false hence also it is evident that we cannot safely acquiesce in the judgment of the Major part of our Church Governours concerning either the sense of Scripture the Doctrine of the ancient Church or the consent of Fathers or any article of faith defined by them nor safely practise all they do impose and consequently we may rest assured they are not infallible and therefore that there is no necessity for preservation of the Church from Sects and Heresies that they should be infallible nor is there any promise of an infallible assistance in their definitions in the Holy Scripture nor can it possibly be necessary to Salvation to believe the determinations of those Councils which by the Romanists are styled general Hence also it is evident that there can lye upon us no obligation to believe or yield assent to any Doctrines defined by them and consequently that this submission is not the only means of suppressing Heresies and Sects that to dissent from any Doctrine received or defined by them can be no mark of Heresie that there may be great hazard to the vulgar in adhering to the decisions of that Church that a right judgment may be assured that these Church Governours have erred in making this decision that Christians without this infallibility may be sufficiently secure in points of faith that certainty from sense and reason may rationally be pleaded for some Doctrines against the definitions of that Church and her supposed General Councils that all that R. H. hath said for confirmation of any of these propositions must be false And lastly that if a Church committing and teaching Idolatry is no true member of the Catholick Church the Church of Rome must cease to be so CHAP. III. The Contents The objections of the Romanists against the charge of Idolatry are considered and answered as 1. The Objection that the Prophets have foretold that all Idolatry should be extirpated by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles is answered § I. Obj. 2. That if the Church of Rome be guilty o Idolatry then the whole Church of Christ for many Ages before Luther must be charged with the same guilt answered first in general § II. In particular by shewing 1. That Image Worship was not then received in the greatest part of the Western and in some part of the Eastern Church § III. 2. That the worship of Saints departed with mental prayer or upon supposition of their acquaintance with the secret desires of the supplicant was then no article of faith in the Western Church nor is it yet received in the Eastern Church as such § IV. 3. That many in the Western Churches did not then and that the Eastern Churches do not yet give Latria to the Host § V. That this practice is no necessary consequent of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation nor is it necessary that they who do maintain a Doctrine must practise every thing which follows from it ibid. A large account of the Greek Mass § VI. A full answer to all that R. H. offers from that Mass to prove the Host is worshipped with Latria by the Greeks § VII In the times of Arianism Idolatry prevailed over the major part of the Church Catholick and both the Fathers and the Romish Doctors teach that in the time of Antichrist it will prevail much more § VIII § I THESE being therefore unavoidably the consequences of this crime of which they are accused not only by the Church of England but all other Protestants they do with all their wit and subtilty endeavour to demonstrate the falseness of this accusation and muster
persona Episcoporum principum nostrorum Regi Francorum attulit Hoveden Annal. Part. 1. ad A. D. 792. Simeon Dunelm ad A. D. 793. M. Weslmonast A. D. 793. Alcuinus Tutor to Charles the Great and Scholar of Venerable Bede who wrote an Epistle against the Synodal Book of the Second Nicene Council wherein it was asserted that Images ought to be worshipped which Epistle being marvelously confirmed by the Authority of the Holy Scriptures he carried to the French King in the name of the English Bishops and Princes This Image-worship was condemned also by the Church of England in the XII and XIII Centuries For Simon Dunelmensis an Oxonian Doctor and Roger Hoveden their chief Professor and Matthew Westmonasteriensis do all concurr in this assertion that in the Second Nicene Synod are many things contained which are inconvenient and contrary to the true faith and that in that Council was established a Decree that Images should be worshipped which thing the Church of God wholly abhors Where note that in these Writers we find not the least hint of a distinction betwixt due and undue worship of an holy Image or betwixt worship which the Church of Christ allows and worship which the Church abhors nor do they say the Nicene Council doth assert eam adorationem Imaginibus deberi quam Ecclesia Dei execratur P. 146. as T. G. in his translation of these words doth very fraudulently insinuate but they say only that the second Nicene Council had declared Imagines adorari debere quod Ecclesia Dei execratur that Images were to be worshipped and that this was the Doctrine which Gods Church abhorred It was condemned in the XIV Century by Robert Holcot one of our Country men and Professor in Oxford Com. in lib. Sap. Cap. 13. voce Infelices who plainly doth assert That no adoration is to be given to any Image nor is it lawful for any man to worship Images It was condemned in the XV. Century by Gabriel Biel In canone Missae lect 49. an Oxonian Doctor who determines that to be the truest Sentence which holds That any Image is not to be worshipped either for it self considered as it is wood or stone or metal nor yet considered as a sign er Image And that the Christian faith permits them to be reserved in the Church non ut ipsae adorentur not that they should be worshipped but that the minds of faithful men might be excited to give reverence to them whose Images they are It was condemned in the same Century by Cornelius Agrippa De vanit scientiarum cap. de Imagin who saith That the corrupt custom and false Religion of the Heathens hath infected our Religion and hath introduced into our Church Images and Idols and many barren pompous Cereonies none of which were found or practised among the primitive professors of Christianity It was condemned by Polydore Virgil De invent rerum l. 6. c. 13. who doth acknowledge that it is testified St. Jerom that almost all the antient Fathers did condemn Image-worship for fear of Idolatry It was condemned in the XVI Century by the excellent Cassander who saith Consult cap. de Imagin P. 205. It was to be desired that our predecessors had stood firm in the opinion of their Forefathers viz. that I mages were neither to be worshipped nor to be broken down And page 210 It seemeth fit saith he to be advised if matters could be thus contrived that things should be reduced to that moderation which they obtained in the more antient Church of Rome and Germany and France ut rerum gerendarum monumenta non cultus instrumenta habeantur that is that Images be used or retained as monuments of things past but not as instruments of worship It was condemned in the same Century Com. in Act. Apost cap. 7. by Ferus a very Learned Person who Preached at Mentz for the expresly saith that Images are to lerated in the Church that they may admonish not that they may be worshipped for otherwise they can admit of no excuse And to assure us that his private judgment was very sutable to the prevailing judgment of those times we find the same determination made by a Council held at Mentz A.D. C. 14. 1549. during the Session of the Trent Council which speaks thus Let our Pastors accurately teach the people that Images are not propouuded to be worshipped or adored but that we may by them be brought to the remembrance of those things which we ought profitably to call to mind It was condemned also by the Church of Cologn In Antididag Colon. cap. de Imag. which saith thus We Christians when we bend our knees before the Image of the Holy Cross do not adore the very wood but him who died upon it for our sins and doth conclude with Gregory the Great that it is not lawful in any wise to worship any thing that is the work of our own hand Moreover from the XII Century to the Reformation it was condemned by the Waldenses the Albigenses and the Hussites who spread themselves throughout the greatest part of Europe and propagated their Doctrine through France Spain England Scotland Italy Germany Bohemia Saxony Polonia Lithuanid and other Nations Lastly Dr. Still defence p. 837.838 This Image-worship was condemned by the Armenians from the VI. Century to this present time For they having begun their Schism before this practice found any countenance in the Church of Christ not only do refuse to worship Images but roundly do pronounce Anathema on them that do so § IV 2. We say the Roman Church is guilty of Idolatry in worshipping the Saints departed because they worship them with mental prayer believing that they understand the secrets or inward motions of the hearts of them who put up to them mental prayers Now this we say was never any Article of Faith Sess 25. p. 527 528. even in the Latine Church till the Trent Council had determined that they who said it was a foolish thing to put up mental prayers to Saints departed were guilty of impiety and did pronounce Anathema On all that held or thought the contrary till then I say it was no Article of Faith even in the Western Church For in the XII Century this Question was moved by the Master of the Sentences whether the Saints do hear the prayers of suppliants and the desire of petitioners do come unto their notice and this Answer is returned to it that it is not incredible that the souls of the Saints Lomb. Sent. l. 4. Dist 45. which in the secret of Gods presence are joyed with the illustration of the true light do in the contemplation of it understand the thing that we done abroad as much as appertaineth either to them for jay or to us for help Anselmus Landunensis who lived in the same Century notes this that Ausim saith Glass inter◠i◠Esa lxiii that the dead even the Saints do
not know what the living do no not their own sons L. 2. de animd Hago de Sancto Victore saith that the spirits of the dead be there where they do neither hear nor see the things that are done or fall out to men in this life and again the dead indeed to not know what is done here whilst it is here in doing Decr. p. 2. Caus 13. qu. 2. cap. 29. and Gratian resolveth the same question by the Authority of Esaiah In Sun Part. 4. l. 3. Tr. 7. qu 6. cap. de Orat. In the XIII Century we are informed by Altissiodorensis that many did affirm that we do only pray improperly unto Saints because we pray to God that by the merits of the Saints we may be helped N. B. And Alexander Halensis determines that God alone is simply to be invoked Qu. 92. M. 1. Art 4. and that the Saints rather pray with us than are prayed to by us In the XIV Century Gabriel Biel having set down the reasons which in his time were urged against this opinion that the Saints departed knew the desires of men on earth In Can. Misslect 30. confesseth that they moved not only Hereticks but other Christians to deny it and at the last concludes no more than this that it is probably said that God reveals all things which are offered to them by men whether in magnifying and praising them or in praying to them Ibid. iect 31. In 4. Sent. dist 45. qu. 4. and imploring their help And the determination of Scotus is in effect the same viz. That it is probable that God doth specially reveal to him that is in bliss such of our prayers as are offered to him Prâ—oeâ— in quest de orat sanctorum c. Missin Bibl. Câ—ll Mert. Oxon. And John Sharp in the University of Oxford did publickly dispute these questions of praying to the Saints and praying for the dead because saith he it was esteemed by some famous men and not without probability N. B. that such suffrages and prayers were superfluous in the Church of God although some wise men thought the contrary whence it appears that what is now de fide if indeed it be so was then only probable and might as freely have been denyed by Orthodox and Pious Christians and persons famous in their times as by reputed Hereticks Aen. Snlv. de Orig. Eohem c. 35. Ep. 19. ad Joh. Molin p 1 109. Edit Paris 16 16. In Cant Serm. 6. Hist Bohem. cap. 35. In the XV. Century the Thaborites maintained that the Saints Triumphant were not to be prayed to And in the XVI Century Cassander freely doth confess that it was not necessary to hold that the Saints did understand our prayers And of this judgment were the Waldenses from the XII Century to the Reformation of whom St. Bernard doth confess that they derided them who prayed to Saints Aeneas Sylvius that they judged in vain to ask the suffrages of Saints departed seeing they could not help us Adv. Sectam Valdens p. 68. and Seysel adds that they affirmed that the petitions which were put up unto the Blessed Virgin or any other Saints were vain Now these Waldenses had such multitudes of followers as caused Bernard to complain Bern. Ep. 240. That by reason of them the Churches were left without people and the people without Priests 2. Although some of the Eastern Churches do put up their petitions to Saints departed yet they ingenuously confess they do it not upon an apprehension that the Saints do hear them but only because they judg this service acceptable to God whether they hear or not they therefore may be rationally charged with superstition in this case but not with that Idolatry which is now taught and practised or at the least allowed of by the Church of Rome because they do not pray to Saints departed upon such principles as do ascribe unto them the knowledg of the heart or do require or suppose in them any farther knowledg than is consistent with a creature this will be evident from the confession of the Greek Patriarch 1 Resp Patriarch Hierem. ad Theol. wirtâ—â—b cap. 21. who saith in the behalf of his whole Church We do not invocate properly the Sai is but God for neither Peter nor Paul hear any of those that invocate them but the grace and gift that they have according to the promise I will be with you to the end of the world 2. This will be still more probable from that opinion which is generally received among them viz. that the Saints before the day of judgment do net enjoy the beatifick Vision this is the judgment of the 2 Sacraâ—â—s p. 24. Russians the b 〈◊〉 p. 13. Moscovites the c Scarga l. 2. c. 12. Greek Church of the d Bricrw p. 154. Armenians and d Bricrw p. 174 179. Marenites and more especially of the e Brierw p. 154. Jacobites who believe that the souls of just men do remain on the earth till the day of judgment Now in the judgment of the most famous Doctors of the Church of Rome our prayers are only to be directed to such Saints as do enjoy the Beatifick Vision § V That practice which we now insist on as the most clear and undeniable conviction of the Idolatry committed in the Roman Church viz. the adoration of the Host as God was not in any Age before the Reformation nor at the Reformation nor is it yet the practice of the whole Church of Christ For 1. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation on which it depends was V. Dr. whithy Idol of the R. ch p. 87 99 100. by the confession of some learned Romanists no Doctrine of Faith before the Council of Lateran and if it had not been for that Council it might say they even now be lawful to oppugne it It was say others not very antient it was determined of late the truth of which confessions hath been irrefragably made good by Mr. Aubertin 2. About the time of the Reformation this Doctrine was not owned by all Christian Churches Albertin p. 965.977 978 982 986 987. for 't was rejected by the Lollards in England the Waldenses in the Confines of France and Italy by the Thaborites and Hussites in Bohemia Brierw p. 173. V. Joh. Lasic de Rel. Arm. Lit Aethrop Alphons Jes Edit A. 1626. It was then and is still rejected by the Armenians as is apparent from the testimony of Nicephorus and their own Liturgy and by the Habissines or midland Aethiopians whose Liturgy as even the Jesuites confess is stuffed with errors and among others with this that they affirm the bread to be Christs body which as Bellarmine and others do confess can be true only in a Figurative and Metaphorick sense 2. Although we should admit that all the Eastern Churches do at present hold that Christs body is corporeally present in the Holy Sacrament yet hence it will
the Sacrament when Christ invisibly is present but also when it is placed upon the Altar and there a Sacramentum Eucharistiae non servatur apud nos in templis ut fit hic apud Europaeos Christoph Licanatus Aethiopum legatus apud Hotting Hist Eccl. Sac. 16. p. 44. vide Damian à Goes de Moribus Aethiop p. 506. reserved in the Pyx and when it is carryed in Procession The Eastern Churches have no such custom of placing it upon the Altar in a little Box or carrying it in b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Metroph Critopulus Pomp to be adored by the people now in these adorations performed to the reserved Hosts consisteth more especially and plainly the Idolatry of Roman Votaries § VIII But 2. If by the Christian world R. H. and others do understand all Christians without exception declaring for and practising those things which we esteem Idolatrous we say that no such Idolatry hath been admitted by the whole Church of Christ but if they understand only the greater part of Prelates or the most numerous part of Christians and say as R. H. doth Cuid di c. 2. c. 5. §. 63. n. 2. that they must be reputed as the whole I Answer that Idolatry may in this sense prevail over the Christian Church as formerly it did over the Church of Israel and Judah For as in the days of Elias there was so great Apostacy as that the Prophet said I only am left alone and yet God had his Church preserved in those 7000 who bewed not their knees to Baal so may it also be in the Church of Christ there may be an Apostacy so great as to prevail on the most numerous party in each Christian Church and yet there may remain besides those numerous Churches and Persons we have reckoned up even many thousands of the Roman Church who did not in their hearts believe or in their practices submit to their Idolatry The Roman Doctors as well as Antient Fathers do acknowledg that this hath been the state of Christians and that it shall be so again they do acknowledg that when Arianism prevailed thus it was Act. 6. p. 409. the second Nicene Council informs us that Arius Aetius Eunomius Eudoxius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and others were the men by whom the Devil brought again into the Christian world that Idol-worship which had been rooted out and that through the as2istance of the Emperors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. the disease grew strong and prevalent so that all principalities contended for it saith the Latine were over-powered by it saith the Greek and when almost all the world had joyned themselves to the prevailing part God raised up St. Basil as an Elias under Ahab to support the Priesthood which dfter a manner was now fallen This is the relation of that great Apostacy made by Gregory Nyssen who lived in these times and approved by the Second Nicene Council and more particularly by the Author of the answer to the Constantinopolitan Synod v. Whitbies Ans to Cressie ch 9. §. 21. p. 118. and the truth of this assertion hath been proved already from the clear testimonies of Nazianzen Basil Vincentius Lyrinensis and divers others to whom add that of Athanasius who compares the Pious and Orthodox in his time to Elias and the Prophets Ep ad Solit. vitam agentes hid by Obadiah in a Cave and who tells us that where there were any Orthodox persons they did either thrust themselves into the Dens and Caverns of the Earth or solitarily wander in the Deserts Gaide disc 2. ch 2. §. 26. n. 2. Ibid. §. 27. n. 3. Now let the indifferent Reader judg whether from such sayings we find no ground to affirm that Arianism at any time had infected or pessessed a major part of Christianity as R. H. confidently saith and whether when these things were spoken no question could be made but that the major part of the Prelates of the Vniversal Church professed the Catholick Faith I am sure the words of the forementioned Fathers by no means will admit of such a sense and therefore R. H. thought fit not to produce them but to spend a long Harangue full of intolerable faults in confutation of their testimonies under the Covert of confuting Protestants Moreover it is the judgment both of the Fathers and of Roman Catholicks that when the reign of Antichrist prevails Ep. 71. p. 864. the Church will be reduced to the like Estate St. Basil considering the wonderful prevalency of Arianism crys out hath the Lord quite deserted his Church is it the last hour and doth the defection now take place by which the Son of perdition is to be revealed In Sophon c. 2. St. Jerom saith however it may seem at the first view absurd he that considereth that of the Apostle in the latter days there shall be perillous times c. and that of Christ when the Son of man cometh shall he find Faith upon the earth will not wonder at the extreme desolations of the Church Chap. xviii 18. which by the reign of Antichrist will be brought to solitude Theophylact on that of Luke shall he find Faith on the earth speaks thus the Lord asketh the question because then there shall hardly be found any Faithful Op. imperf in Matt. Hom. 49. for so greatly will the Son of perdition prevail as to seduce if it were possible the very Elect And St. Chrysostom adds that the sacrifice of Christians will be destroyed by Antichrist Christians will fly to the Deserts none being left either to enter into the Church or offer an Oblation to God Ep. 80. ad Hesyc p. 236. P. 219. Edit Colon. A. P. 1603. Add to this that Prophetick testimony of St. Austin that in the time of Antichrist the Church shall not appear being eclipsed by the persecutions of ungodly men and that of Ephraim Syrus or whosoever is the Author of that Tract which bears his name that men should ask whether the Gospel be continued upon earth and answer should be returned in the negative v. Hieron in locum And thus that place in Daniel Ch. ix 27. He shall cause the Sacrifice and the Oblations to cease is expounded by Hilary and by Hippolytus and by Apollmarius of the time of Antichrist And in this the Fathers are followed by whole Troops of Papists in the times of Antichrist saith Pererius there shall be no sacrifice in publick places In Dan. p. 888. Non quod omnes sunta fide catholicâ sicut exponunt aliqui recessuri sed quam major pars credentium discedel à fide De Pontifi Rom. l. 3. c. 7. neither shall any publick honor be given to it the Holy Fathers tell us saith the same Pererius that then all Christians shall be either Martyes or Apostates or shall lie concealed like wild beasts in Dens and Solitudes Lyra upon the Thessal ii
2. saith that the Apostle seems to speak of a departure from the Catholick Faith not that all shall recede from it but that the major part shall do so Bellarmin adds that it is certain that it will be so L. 13. Doct. Prin. c. 2. L. 2. de temp nov c. 15. To the same purpose speak Stapleton Acosta with divers others And all this they ground upon those passages of the Revelation which seem very concluding to this sense and clearly to intend it as the slaughter of the two witnesses by whom the Orthodex members of the Church is understood the flight of the woman that is the Church into the Desert and the worship which the whole world will then pay to the Beast Where note that these Witnesses which represent the Church are but two and they at last are slain Rev. xiii 7 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aret. in locum and that the Dominion of Antichrist is over all Kingdoms Tongues and Nations and he is said to cause the earth and him that dwelleth therein to worship him and both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive his mark All which seemeth to signifie as much as the testiinonies forecited Now seeing it is Prophesied concerning Antichrist that he should exalt himself above all that is called God Rev. ix 20. and of the people of those Antichristian times that they should worship Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and of Brass and Stone and of Wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk Rev. xiii 12. and that the earth and they that dwell therein should become worshippers of the Beast and of his Image therefore it must be also Prophesied that Idolatry should reign and spread it self over the Christian World CHAP. IV. The Contents Ob. 3. That if the Church be guilty of Idolatry the Gates of Hell would have prevailed against her Answered by shewing that by this phrase the Gates of Hell errors in Doctrine or Corruption in manners cannot be understood but only the state of death § I. Ob. 4. That if the Church be Idolatrous she cannot be Holy Answered by shewing what is the Holiness of the Church visible § II. Ob. 5. We grant the Papists may be saved and consequently must grant they are not guilty of Idolatry Answered I. by shewing that moderate Papists grant that Protestants may be saved whom yet they charge with Heresie and Schism and such like damning sins § III. 2. That their Repentance for their unknown sins and consequently their unknown Idolatries may obtain mercy for those who wanted means of better information § IV. 3. That in the same circumstances we believe that Idolaters may be saved ibid. Ob. 6. The Church of Rome cannot be guilty of Idolatry because we do acknowledg her to be a true Church Answered I. By shewing that true Church may still continue so to be when it is guilty of Idolatry § V. 2. That the Church of Rome may be a true Church in that large sense in which the Protestants confess she is so and yet be guilty of Idolatry they only saying that she is a true visible Church in that sensein which Heretical and Idolatrous Churches may be so § VI. To admit the Church of Rome to be in this sense a true visible Church is sufficient to justifie the Ordination and Succession of our Clergy I. Because the Ordination of Hereticks is valid § VII And so is also the Ordination of Idolaters § VIII Some of our Divines acknowledg that in the Church of Rome when Luther first begun his Reformation there was a saving profession of the truth of Christ § IX This acknowledgment is explained and the inference thence made that the Church of Rome was not then Idolatrous though Idolatry prevailed much in it ibid. Ob. 7. That if the Church of Rome be truly charged with this crime she must be guilty of Heathenish Idolatry answered by shewing that she is so only in that sense in which all Idolatry may be stiled Heathenish § X. And 2. by divers instances of such Idolatry which in the judgment of the Romanists themselves is not exclusive of salvation ibid. § I Ob. 3 AND this is all that is needful to be said in answer to this Argument p. 125. But yet ex abundanti I will add some remarks upon those Arguments which T. G. and R. H. do further offer to demonstrate 1. That the whole Church of Christ cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is the minor proposition of this objection And first T. G. thus Argues that if the Church which is Christs Kingdom could Apostatize so far as to enjoyn and allow the belief and practice of Idolatry the Gates of Hell would have prevailed against it but the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it Ergo. Answ These words the Gates of Hell do not contain a promise of preservation of the Church from sin or error of what kind soever but only signifie that all true Christians who die in the Lord shall be delivered from death and shall obtain a joyful Resurrection For the Gates of Hell in Scripture phrase do never signifie the power of Heresie or Satan sin or error but both in the Old Testament the Jewish writers and the Antient Heathens it constantly is used to signifie the state of death as will be evident to any person who consults the places cited in the Synopsis and doth with them compare the passages in which this phrase is used in the Old Testament and in the Jewish writers I said Es xxxviii 10. saith Hazekiah in the cutting off of my days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall go to the Gates of Hell I am deprived of the residue of my years and what is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gates of death is by the Septuagint Translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gates of Hell Chap. xvi 13. Mac. v. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praepar Ev. l. 1. c. 3. p. 7. D. Job xxxviii 17. Thou hast the power of life and death saith the Author of the Book of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou bringest down to the Gates of Hell and raisest up again They cryed to the Lord to have mercy on them now being even at the point of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the Gates of Hell Nor did Eusebius doubt the truth of this exposition of the words for he declares that God had hereby promised that the Church should not be overcome by death and that by virtue of this one voice Vpon this rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her the Church continues not subdued by her enemies nor yielding to the Gates of death 2 This Scripture may concern the Church considered as invisible Ecclesia in iis est qui aedificant supra petram i. e. qui audiunt verba Christi faciunt Aug. de unit Eccl. c. 16. c. 18. De Bapt.
his Church and People and he was still their God according to his promise Lev. xxvi 11 12. I will set my Tabernacle amongst you and will walk among you and you shall be my people and I will be your God And indeed God in Scripture is said to walk among them by his gracious presence in his Tabernacle 2 Sam. vii 6. 1 Chron. xvii 5. Psal ix 11. cxxxv 21. Es xviii 4. Joel iii. 21.2 Chr. vi 2. xxxvi 15. Psal lxxiv. 7. lxxvi 2. lxxix 7. Es xviii 4. Joel iii 17.2 King xiii 23. Hos xi 9. he dwelt among them by dwelling at Jerusalem in that Temple and that City or by continuing his special presence there and upon this account in Scripture the Temple is oft stiled his dwelling place Now even in the times of the Idolatry of Israel and Judah God still was present with them he walked and dwelt among them and was their God in Covenant he I say was still graciously preent with he walked and dwelt among them for yet he had not cast them from his presence he was still the holy one in the midst of Ephraim he was not yet departed from them for he by way of commination saith Wo unto them Hos ix 12. when I shall depart from them After that they had even broken God with their whorish hearts which had departed from him and with their eyes which went a whoring after their Idols yet the glory of the Lord was not departed from the Sanctuary but still appeared in the Temple Ezek. vi 9 13. Ezek. ix 3 4. x. 3 4. xviii 19. Ezek. xvi 20. and between the Cherubims they after this bare sons and daughters unto God Moreover that he was still their God in Covenant appears from those expressions of the Prophets when pleading in behalf of this backsliding people they speak thus Break not thy Covenant with us thou art our Father Jer. xiv 21. Es lxiv. 8 9. Jer. iii. 14. we are all thy people turn O backsliding Children for I am married to you and from innumerable places in which he owns them for his people still and is not yet ashamed to be called their God This will be farther evident from the New Testament for in the Church of Corinth there were many of the strongest Christians who being in thier Consciences convinced that an Idol was nothing and so could have no power to defile the meat which had been offered to it did upon this presumption sit down with others in the Idol Temples and eat and drink that which they knew was offered to the Idol This the Apostle plainly tells them was Idolatry that it was in effect to have communion with Devils 1 Cor. x. 7 11 â—0 21 to drink he cup of Devils and to be partakers of the table of Devils and yet he clearly doth insinuate that they who through that error or mistake were guilty of this Idol worship might still remain his Christian brethren and beloved Moreover that Babylon was the Mother of Harlots and Abominations that she commanded all her subjects to commit spiritual Fornication or Idolatry St. John doth frequently inform us Rev. xviii 4. and yet that even here God had his Church and People is evident from that voice from Heaven saying Come out of her my people for how could God have said Come out of her my people had he not then preserved alive within this Throne of Satan a people to himself Lastly the Jewish Synagog in the days of our Saviour Christ had taken away the Key of knowledg Luke xi 52 Matt. xxiii 13. they neither entered themselves into his Kingdom who were the keepers of that key nor suffered others so to do That little knowledg which remained among them was damnably corrupted not only with the Saducean Heresie which mightily prevailed amongst the wealthiest of them but also with the leaven of the Scribes and Phraisees who had by their Traditions made void the Law of God Matth. xv 6 9. and rendered his worship vain these Scribes and Pharisees are by the Baptist styled a Generation of Vipers Matth. iii. 7. Matth. xxiii by Christ Blind foolish Hypocrites persons that coald not scape the damnation of Hell Of the whole people Christ pronounceth that they were of their father the Devil Joh. viii 44. and his works they would do and yet God had his Church even then among them in which both Zacharias Elizabeth the Virgin Mary and our Lord was born of which both he and his Apostles were then members and into which they were admitted by Circumcision Their Priests were owned by our Saviour who sent the Lepers to them Matth. viii 4. Matth. xxiii 2 3. he acknowledged that these Scribes and Pharisees still sat in Moses Chair and that obedience was therefore due unto them in all lawful matters Nor could it possibly be otherwise seeing Christs Church and Kingdom was not begun till after his own Resurrection nor do we read of any that were added to the Church till then Answ § VI 3. Tha the Church of Rome may be a true visible Church in that sense in which our English Protestants confess she is so i. e. as having truth of visible existence though not truth of doctrine and yet be guilty of Idolatry will be apparent from these considerations 1. That the notion of a visible Church which they lay down as the true ground of this their Charitable judgment containeth in it nothing inconsistent with the practice or allowance of Idolatry For to the visibility of a Church say they is only requisite an outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very essence of Christianity Eccl. Pol. l. 3. §. 1. p. 126. and are necessarily required in every Christian man So the judicious Mr. Hooker Now among the things which supernaturally appertain to the essence of Christianity they do not reckon Moral Righteousness and Honesty of life because although the want of these excludeth from Salvation yet are they not of supernatural Revelation but are discovered to us by the light of Nature they are the duties as well of Heathens as of Christians and so concern us saith Mr. Hooker not as Christians only but as men Hence they infer that every thing which excludeth from Salvation excludes not from the visible Church this therefore cannot be say they essential to the being of a Church visible that it doth hold or practise nothing which excludeth from Salvation For instance Despair want of Charity secret Infidelity the proud and envious spirit are all exclusive from Salvation but none of them exclude a person who outwardly professeth all the essentials of Christian Faith from being a true member of a Chuch visible Should we then grant that the Idolatry now practised in the Church of Rome was totally exclusive of Salvation it would not follow that she did not continue a true visible Church in the forementioned sense Agreeable to this we
because these base and pernicious adjections were not yet the publick decisions or tenets of any Church but only the private conceits of the domineering Faction Of the Church l. 3. chap. 8. p. 85. We most firmly believe saith Dr. Field all the Churches of the world wherein our Fathers lived and dyed to have been the true Churches of God in which undoutedly Salvation was to be found and that they which taught embraced and believed those damnable errors which the Romanists now defend against us were a faction only in the Church as were they that denyed the Resurrection urged Circumcision and despised the Apostles of Christ in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia So Bishop Brambal frequently Dr. Potter § 3. p. 76. Others do charge these things not on the Church but Court of Rome betwixt which two there might be some considerable distinction then though now there is no difference betwixt them in any of those Doctrines which concern the objects of their worship 3. Dr. Field Append part 3. p. 881. They add that the Roman Church that then was though it had in it all the abuses and superftitious observations it now hath yet it had also others who desired the removal of all those abuses and superstitious observations which we have removed the Roman Church which then was was the whole number of Christians subject to Papal Tyranny whereof a great part desired nothing more than to shake off that yoke which as soon as he began to oppose himself they presently did but the Roman Church that now is is the multitude of such only as do magnifie admire and adore the plenitude of Papal power or at least are contented to be under the yoke of it still The gross corruption of the service of the Church was then complained of by all good men Idem Append. to his third Book of the Church p. 190. and amongst other Articles of Reformation they desired that the Breviaries and Missals might be purged Now in respect of those persons who were the prevailing faction of the Church maintaining these corrupt Doctrines as Articles of Christian Faith and upholding these superstitious abuses and pertinaciously persisting in their errors the Roman Church saith Dr. Field was verè Ecclesia truly a Church Append. 3. part p. 882. that is a multitude of men professing Christ and Baptized but not vera Ecclesia a true Church that is a multitude of men holding a saving profession of the truth in Christ But in respect of those who groaned under the yoke who secretly disliked and disowned her corrupt Doctrines and earnestly desired and wished the Reformation of her superstitious abuses and of those also who submitted to them only for want of better information in those obscure times the Roman Church was vera Ecelesia a true Church that is a multitude of men holding a saving profession of the truth in Christ So the Church of the Jews at the coming of Christ had in it the Scribes Pharisees and Saduces as well as Zachary Elizabeth Simeon and Anna in respect of the former it was truly a Church but not a true Church in respect of the latter it was a true Church Ob. But why then did not these persons if they were of any considerable number more publickly oppose what they so much disliked Answ If you look into Father Pauls History of the Council of Trent you will find them censuring most of their determinations you will find there the German Bishops determining against the adoration of Images in a Provincial Council and delcaring that the Saints departed are to be honored but with the worship of society and love P. 278 279. as also gadly men may be honored in this Life Which Explications saith Father Paul being well considered do shew how much the opinions of the Catholick Prelates of Germany do differ fromt hose of the Court of Rome youwill there also find sthem quarrelling with that saying of the Synod that Divine worship was due to the Sacrament as improper and saying it was well corrected in the sixth Canon which said that the Son of God was to be worshipt in the Sacrament 2. There was no reason to expect more open opposition of these Doctrines and abuses there being no probability of success against the Court of Rome which was then very powerful and had not only worsted mighty Princes but used extreme severity against such dissenters destroying them without all mercy V. Mr. Dodwel Answer to Qu. 2. p. 59 67. which had all the Bishops engaged to them by their oaths and worldly interests which lastly declared all things Heresie in which men differed from them and prosecuted them upon that account with the extremest infamy and highest punishments here then we have a true Western Church not Idolatrous before the Reformation in which Salvation might be had Ob. 7 § X But saith R.H. if the Church of Rome be guilty of that Idolatry with which the Writers of the Church of England charge her Discourse p. 76 77. she must be guilty of Heathenish Idolatry for according to Dr. Stillingfleet and others her Idolatry is the same with that of Heathens and surely that excludeth from Salvation and must be inconsistent with a true Church Answ When we say the Idolatry of the Church of Rome is the same with that of Heathens we do not mean that it is so either in reference to the object viz. those evil spirits which the Heathens worshiped or in respect of the rites with which they worshipped their Deacons viz. human sacrifices and unclean performances but only in this respect that both of them do worship the creature for the Creator or give that worship to the creature which belongs to God alone 2. Although the Papists be in some single actions guilty of Idolatry yet do they in the general service of their lives give God the honor due to him they pray to God trust in him they praise and love him and perform to him all the positive duties of the first Table though they do not perform them all to him alone whereas the Heathens paid their whole worship to their Demons and gave no worship to the God of Israel they were without God in the world Ephes ii 12. saith B. Paul and God was without service from them Rom. i. 21. and even they that knew God yet did not glorifie him as God Now that Idolatry which robs God of his whole service performing it intirely to evil spirits or in an undue manner may very well be damnable and inconsistent with the being of a Church whilst that which is consistent with the performance of all those positive duties which we ow to God and doth not wholly rob him of any part of our Religious worship may not deserve so hard a censure This is apparent 1. From the instance of St. Leo Sermon 7. in Nativ Dom. who speaks of some foolish persons who from some eminent places did
to reiterate either of them 2. Because saith he a person who after his Ordination in the Church Catholick Non sunt rursus ordinandi sed sicut Baptismus in eis ita Ordinatio mansit integra qua in praecisione erat vitium non in Sacramentis quae ubicunque sunt ipsa vera sunt Ibid. becomes an Heretick must not at his return to the Church be Re-ordained and therefore neither must he be Re-ordained who hath received Ordination out of the Church Catholick and hence it is saith he that if any Bishops of the Donatists are won over to the Church and it doth seem convenient that they should bear the same Offices which formerly they did they are not by the Church Ordained but as their Baptism so their Ordination remains intire By this determination the Doctors of the Roman Church are generally swaied so that there is saith Bellarmine Bell. 1.4 de Rom. Pâ—ntif C. 10. § at emtra scarce any Catholick who knows not that they who are Baptized by Hereticks are Baptized truly and they that are Ordained by Hereticks are Ordained truly when the Heretick that Ordains is truly a Bishop at least as to his Character § VIII 2. That the Ordination made by those Hereticks who really were or by the Church have been condemned as Idolaters or persons guilty of more hainous crimes when these Ordainers were true Bishops was esteemed valid by the Church the same Learned Person hath demonstrated Desence of his Discourse part 2. Chap. 4. p. 795 798. 1. From the judgment of the second Nicene Council in the Case of Meletius who was ordained by Arian Bishops and whose Ordinations were accounted valid by an Alexandrian Synod in their Synodal Epistle Eccles Hier. l. 2. cap. 10. § 9 which saith Petavius contains the faith received in the whole Church Catholick and in the Synodal Epistle of the first Nicene Synod which saith Petavius Idem App. To. 3. Eccl. Hier. l. 2. c. 3 § 4. determined that they who were constituted and confirmed by mystical imposition of hands should be received into the Communion of the Church and enjoy their functions with these provisions that they should be in every Church and Parish after those Bishops and Presbyters which were ordained by Alexander Bishop of Alexandria that they should have no power of electing whom they pleased nor of propounding of the names of those whom they thought fit to be chosen into the body of the Clergy 2. This he doth prove from a fuller testimony of the general sense of the Church of that age Hist Eccles l. 1. c. 28. recorded by Ruffinus concerning the admission of those who had received orders from the Arian Bishops to the exercise of their Priestly Office with which decree of the Alexandrian Council about the receiving the Arian Bishiops and Priests upon disowning their Heresie Adv. Lucifer init though Lucifer did quarrel yet Jerom saith that it was universally received by the Church This will be farther evident from the 7. Canon of the second General Council of Constantinople and from the 95. Canon of the Synod held at Trullo in both which Canons it is determined that the Arian Baptism should be esteemed valid Contra Epist Parmen lib. 2. c. 13. Sess 23. c. 4. Synod Ephes Epist ad Theod. Vale t Imperat Act. Synod cap. 7. Audemus Anathematizare Nestorii Idololatriam in homine 2 Nic. Concil Act. 7. Epist ad Constantinum Iren. Act. 1. p. 68. E. Haer. 80. n. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10 Act. 1. p. 72. E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 1. p. 77. E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 4. p. 236. A Act 6. p. 357. B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 1. p. 77. C. Act. 3. p. 160. D.E. and not to be reiterated and therefore as S. Austin doth infer they must esteem their Ordination also valid and not to be reiterated Because in the Sacrament of Orders as well as Baptism saith the Tret Council an indelible Character is impressed Moreover That the Nestorians were Idolaters hath been declared by the Church and yet their Ordination by the same Church hath been accounted valid saith the second Nicene Council That the Massaliani or Euchytae were worshippers of the Devil Epiphanius doth inform us and yet their Ordinations were allowed by the third General Council of Ephesus and it was there decreed saith the Second Nicene Council that as many of their Clergy as would renounce their Heresie and return to the Church should remain in the number of the Clergy Concerning the Heresie of the Iconoclasts it is determined by the members of the Second Nicene Council that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worst of evils and of vHeresies What shall we esteem them saith Tarusius who sitbvert Sacred Images They must be counted saith the Synod as Atheists Jews and enemies of the truth They who reject them are like to Jews and Samaritans faith the same Synod and again if the making of Images be likened to Idols the mystery of our redemption is made void saith the same Council and yet this very Council doth determine that even these very persons who confessed that they were born and bred up in this worst of Heresies should be admitted into the Order of Priesthood which they had formerly received and doth accordingly admit them Moreover from the Trent Council I thus argue that power which is not Temporary and therefore never can be taken away continues with Idolatrous Priests and Bishops as well as with other Hereticks but according to the definition of the Trent Council that power which is given in the Sacrament of Orders impressing on the receiver an indelible Character never can be taken away For so they do expresly testifie in these words Because in the Sacrament of Order as well as Confirmation and Baptism a Character is impressed In Sacramento ordinis Character imprimitur nec delert auferri po Sess 23. 4. which neitehr can be blotted out nor taken away N.B. This holy Syned justly condemneth their opinion who hold that Priests of the New Testament have only a temporary power Lastly agreeable to this determination of the Trent Council is the determination of the Schools for that every Bishop is a Minister of Scred Orders is so true saith Estius In Sent. l. 4. dist 25. § 3. that no Crime how enormous soever as Heresie Schism Apostacy nor any censure how weighty soever as V.G. that of Excommunication can hinder the validity of any Ordination made by such a person even out of his own Jurisdiction provided he observe the due rites of Ordination in things essential to that Sacrament This doctrine saith he is sufficiently confirmed by the continual practice of the Church which never reordained any who returned from any Heresie or Schisin whatsoever in which they were ordained Men saith Petavius De Eccl. Hier. l. 2. Cap. 9. § â— may be deprived of the Communion of the Church of