Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expression of Minor Bishops he means acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said alwayes apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore-fathers which had actually possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therefore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimonie of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austins time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Iudge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not foresee The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Defence of the foregoing Answer to the Questions CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images The introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallel answered Madam § 1. THat
authorised by the Church such as Bishops and Presbyters are the one succeeding the Apostles the other the 72 Disciples and afterwards they deny that the Pope himself can give any power to others to meddle in the charge of a Parish or in Preaching among them but where they are invited to it because Bishops themselves cannot otherwise act out of their own Dioceses and that the Pope in this case doth injury by violating the rights of others and if he should go about to destroy what the Prophets and Apostles have taught he would erre in so doing Besides say they if these Praedicant Fryers have a liberty to Preach where they please they are all universal Bishops and because maintenance is due to all who Preach the people will be bound to pay procurations to them which will be an unreasonable burden upon them Many other Arguments they use against this new sort of Itinerant Preachers and represent the dangers that came to the Church by them at large wherein they describe them as a kind of hypocritical Sectaries that abused the people under a fair shew and pretence of Religion having as they say a form of Godliness but denying the power of it and that the persecution of the Church by them would be equal to what it was by Tyrants and open Hereticks because they are familiar enemies and do mischief under a shew of kindness And that one of the great dangers of the Church by them would be their possessing Princes and people with prejudices against the Government of the Church by the Bishops which having done they can more easily lead them into errours both against faith and a good life That their way of dealing is first with the women and by them seducing the men as the Devil first tempted Eve and by her Adam and when they have once seduced them they tye them by oathes and vows not to hearken to the counsel of their Bishops or those who have the care of their souls That the Bishops ought to suppress these and call in the publick help to do it and to purge their Dioceses of them and that if they do it not the blood of the people will be required of them and destruction will come upon them for it and though Princes and people had taken their part that ought not to discourage them but their folly ought to be made manifest to all men After this they lay down the means to be used for suppressing them and the signes for their discovery saying that they are idle persons busie bodies wandring beggars against the Apostles express command who would have all such excluded the Church as disorderly livers and therefore conclude with an earnest exhortation to all who have a care of the Church to rise up against them as the pernicious enemies of its peace and welfare All these things which are only summarily comprehended in that Book are very largely insisted upon by Gul. de Sancto Amore in another Book entituled Collections of Holy Scripture which is wholly upon this subject The Mendicant Fryers being thus assaulted endeavoured to defend themselves as well as they could and made choice of the best wits among them for their Champions such as Bonaventure and Aquinas then were who undertook their cause and were fain to shelter themselves under the plenitude of the Popes power by which means they were sure to have the Pope on their side but his Authority was here no means of Vnity for the controversie continued long after and was managed with great heat on both sides § 8. Upon the great complaint of the priviledges and exemptions which the Monastick orders had obtained from the Popes Clement 5. promised to have this business discussed in the Council of Vienna and to that end gave order to several learned men to write about it among whom particularly Durandus Mimatensis writ a large discourse not mentioned by Possevin but Printed A. D. 1545. wherein he perswades the Pope to revoke all such exemptions because they were contrary to the ancient Canons of the Church whereby from the Apostles times all places and persons whatsoever were immediately under the jurisdiction of the Bishops and that the Pope neither ought nor could change this order of the Church Because the order of Bishops being appointed to prevent Schisms in the Church it could not attain its end if any persons were exempted from their jurisdiction And if it were in the Popes power to grant such exemptions it were by no means expedient to do it because the order of the Church would be destroyed by it the Bishops contemned and the Church divided and if the Monastick Orders paid no obedience to the Bishops the people would soon learn by their example to disobey them too And supposing it had been expedient before it could not be so then because though the Monastick orders were founded in a state of poverty yet now those who were in them were arrived at such a height of intolerable pride and arrogance that not only their Abbots and Priors but the Fryers thought themselves equal to Bishops and fit to be preferred before other Ecclesiastical persons Thus far Durandus and Aegidius Romanus at the same time writ a Book against the Exemptions of Fryers Against both of them Iacobus the Abbot of the Cistercians writt a defence of Exemptions which was published in Vienna in the time of the Council This matter was hotly debated in that Council but the Pope would not yield to the revocation of them but renews a Bull of Boniface 8. for qualifying and composing the differences that had happened to the great scandal of the Church about them wherein he takes notice of several Bulls before which had taken no effect so excellent an instrument of peace is the Popes Authority and that of a long time a most grievous and dangerous discord had been between the Bishops and Parochial Clergy on one part and the Preaching Fryers on the other Therefore the Pope very wisely considering how full of danger how prejudicial to the Church how displeasing to God so great a discord was and resolving wholly to remove it for the future by his Apostolical authority doth appoint and command that the Fryers should have liberty to Preach in all Churches Places and publick Streets at any other hour but that wherein the Bishops did Preach or did command others to Preach without a particular license to Preach then A greater instance of the discords which have been in the Roman Church nor of the insufficiency of the Popes Authority for the cure of them can hardly be produced than this is The Popes were forced to say and unsay and retract their own grants to mitigate and qualifie them and all to no purpose for the differences continued as great notwithstanding them The first Pope who interposed in this quarrel was Gregory 9. who upon complaint made by the Fryers of the Bishops exercising their jurisdiction
to enquire since their authority depends not on the Writer but the Churches approbation of them but Dr. Jackson not only calls him the worthy and learned Author of the Homilies concerning the peril of Idolatry but saith he takes him to be a Reverend Bishop of our Church and no wonder since the most eminent Bishops in that time of Queen Elizabeth wherein these Homilies were added to the former did all assert and maintain the same thing As Bishop Jewell in his excellent Defence of the Apology of the Church of England and Answer to Harding wherein he proves that to give the honour of God to a creature is manifest Idolatry as the Papists do saith he in adoration of the Host and the Worship of Images And his works ought to be looked on with a higher esteem than any other private person being commanded to be placed in Churches to be read by the people Of all persons of that Age none could be less suspected to be Puritanically inclined than Archbishop Whitgift yet in his Learned Defence of the Church of England against T. C. he makes good the same charge in these words I do as much mislike the distinction of the Papists and the intent of it as any man doth neither do I go about to excuse them from wicked and without repentance and Gods singular mercy damnable Idolatry There are saith he three kinds of Idolatry one is when the true God is worshipped by other means and wayes than he hath prescribed or would be worshipped i. e. against his express command which is certainly his meaning the other is when the true God is worshipped with false Gods the third is when we worship false Gods either in heart mind or in external creatures living or dead and altogether forget the worship of the true God All these three kinds are detestable but the first is the least and the last is the worst The Papists worship God otherwise than his will is and otherwise than he hath prescribed almost in all points of their worship they also give to the creature that which is due to the Creator and sin against the first Table yet are they not for all that I can see or learn in the third kind of Idolatry and therefore if they repent unfeignedly they are not to be cast either out of the Church or out of the Ministry The Papists have little cause to thank me or fee me for any thing I have spoken in their behalf as yet you see that I place them among wicked and damnable Idolaters Thus far that Wise and Learned Bishop After him we may justly reckon Bishop Bilson than whom none did more learnedly in that time defend the perpetual Government of Christs Church by Bishops nor it may be since who in a set discourse at large proves the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry 1. In the Worship of Images the having of which he saith was never Catholick and the worshipping of them was ever wicked by the judgement of Christs Church and that the Worship even of the Image of Christs is Heathenism Idolatry to Worship it makes it an Idol and burning Incense to it is Idolatry which he there proves at large and that the Image of God made with hands is a false God and no likeness of his but a leud imagination of theirs set up to feed their eyes with the contempt of his Sacred Will dishonour of his Holy Name and open injury to his Divine Nature 2. In the adoration of the Host of which he treats at large After these it will be less needful to produce the testimonies of Dr. Fulk Dr. Reynolds Dr. Whitaker who all asserted and proved the Church of Rome guilty of Idolatry and I cannot find one person who owned himself to be of the Church of England in all Queen Elizabeths reign who did make any doubt of it Let us now come to the reign of King James and here in the first place we ought to set down the judgement of that Learned Prince himself who so throughly understood the matters in controversie between us and the Church of Rome as appears by his Premonition to all Christian Princes wherein after speaking of other points he comes to that of Reliques of Saints But for the worshipping either of them or Images I must saith he account it damnable Idolatry and after adds that the Scriptures are so directly vehemently and punctually against it as I wonder what brain of man or suggestion of Satan durst offer it to Christians and all must be salved with nice and philosophical distinctions Let them therefore that maintain this doctrine answer it to Christ at the latter day when he shall accuse them of Idolatry and then I doubt if he will be paid with such nice Sophistical distinctions And when Isaac Casaubon was employed by him to deliver his opinion to Cardinal Perron mentioning the practices of the Church of Rome in invocation of Saints he saith that the Church of England did affirm that those practices were joyned with great impiety Bishop Andrews whom no man suspects of want of learning or not understanding the doctrine of our Church was also employed to answer Cardinal Bellarmin who had writ against the King and doth he decline charging the Church of Rome with Idolatry No so far from it that he not only in plain terms charges them with it but saith that Bellarmin runs into Heresie nay into madness to defend it and in his answer to Perron he saith it is most evident by their Breviaries Hours and Rosaries that they pray directly absolutely and finally to Saints and not meerly to the Saints to pray to God for them but to give what they pray for themselves In the same time of King James Bishop Abbot writ his Answer to Bishop in which he saith that the Church of Rome by the Worship of Images hath matched all the Idolatries of the Heathens and brought all their jugling devices into the Church abusing the ignorance and simplicity of the people as grosly and damnably as ever they did Towards the latter end of his Reign came forth Bishop Whites Reply to Fisher he calls the worshipping of Images a Superstitious dotage a palliate Idolatry a remainder of Paganism condemned by Sacred Scripture censured by Primitive Fathers and a Seminary of direful contention and mischief in the Church of Christ. Dr. Field chargeth the Invocation of Saints with such Superstition and Idolatry as cannot be excused We charge the adherents of the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry saith Bishop Usher in his Sermon preached before the Commons A. D. 1620. because that contrary to Gods express Commandment they are sound to be worshippers of Images Neither will it avail them here to say that the Idolatry forbidden in the Scripture is that only which was used by the Jews and Pagans For as well might one plead that Jewish
or Heathenish fornication was here only reprehended as Jewish or Heathenish Idolatry But as the one is a foul sin whether it be committed by Jew Pagan or Christian so if such as profess the Name of Christ shall practise that which the Word of God condemneth in Jews or Pagans for Idolatry their profession is so far from diminishing that it augmenteth rather the hainousness of the crime About the same time came forth Bishop Downams Book of Antichrist wherein he doth at large prove That to give divine honour to a creature is Idolatry and that the Papists do give it in the Worship of Saints the Host and Images which is likewise done nearer our own times by Bishop Davenant and Dr. Jackson I shall conclude all although I might produce more with the testimony of Archbishop Laud who in his Conference saith the ancient Church knew not the adoration of Images and the modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtleties in her Servants writings that defend it this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtleties or shun her practice and in his Marginal Notes upon Bellarmin written with his own hand now in my possession where Bellarmin answers the testimony of the Council of Laodicea against the Worship of Angels by saying That it doth not condemn all Worship of Images but only that which is proper to God he replyes That Theodoret who produced that testimony of the Council expresly mentions the praying to Angels therefore saith he the praying to them was that Idolatry which the Council condemns By this we see that the most Eminent and Learned Defenders of our Church of greatest authority in it and zeal for the Cause of it against enemies of all sorts have agreed in the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome And I cannot see why the authority of some very few persons though of great Learning should bear sway against the constant opinion of our Church ever since the Reformation Since our Church is not now to be formed according to the singular Fancies of some few though Learned men much less to be modelled by the Caprichio's of Superstitious Fanaticks who prefer some odd Opinions and wayes of their own before the received doctrine and practice of the Church they live in Such as these we rather pity their weakness than regard their censures and are only sorry when our Adversaries make such properties of them as by their means to beget in some a disaffection to our Church Which I am so far from whatever malice and peevishness may suggest to the contrary that upon the greatest enquiry I can make I esteem it the best Church of the Christian world and think my time very well imployed what ever thanks I meet with for it in defending its Cause and preserving persons in the communion of it THE Contents CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images THE introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallell answered P. 49 CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith p. 108. CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroyes the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English
after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successors the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about the matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own difference will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition oâ— the 39. Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by theiâ— own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours p. 355 CHAP. VI. An Answer to the Remainder of the Reply The mis-interpreting Scripture doth not hinder its being a rule of faith Of the superstitious observations of the Roman Church Of Indulgences the practice of them in what time begun on what occasion and in what terms granted Of the Indulgences in Iubilees in the Churches at Rome and upon saying some Prayers Instances of them produced What opinion hath been had of Indulgences in the Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome p. 476 ERRATA PAg. 25. l. 19. for adjuverit r. adjuvet p. ibid. Marg. r. l. 7. de baptis p. 31. Marg. r. Tract 18. in Ioh. p. 64. l. 13. dele only p. 75. Marg. r. Trigaut p. 101. l. 24. for I am r. am I p. 119. l. 28. for is r. in p. 135. Marg. for 68. r. 6. 8. p. 162. l. 17. after did put not Ch. 3. for pennance r. penance p. 219. l. 10. for him r. them p. 257. l. 21. for or r. and l. 31. for never r. ever p. 350. l. 21. for their r. the p. 414. l. 18. for these r. their p. 416. Marg. for nibaldi r. Sinibaldi p. 417. l. 2. before another insert one p. 499. l. 16. after not insert at p. 526. Marg. for act r. art p. 546. l. 8. after for insert one Two Questions proposed by one of the Church of Rome WHether a Protestant haveing the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians Answer The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick takeing that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been born or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a man to leap from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be saved as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace it or continue in it And that upon these grounds 1. Because they must
his honour in this Command above others and that he will not give his glory to another but hath reserved all divine worship as peculiar to himself and no such fond excuses of relative inferiour and improper Worship will serve when they encroach upon his prerogative It was well observed by a very learned Bishop of our Church that such kind of distinctions so applyed are like the dispute among some of the Church of Rome in Scotland whether the Lords Prayer might be used to Saints or no and it was well resolved and very subtilly that ultimately principally primarily and strictly they might not but secondarily less principally and largely or relatively they might The same would certainly hold for Images too And I wonder very much they stick at any kind of Worship to be done to Images for my own part were I of their mind I should as little scruple offering up the Host to an Image as saying my Prayers to it and I should think my self hardly dealt with if I did not come off with the same distinctions For if I do it to God absolutely and for himself and to the Image only improperly and relatively wherein I am to blame I cannot understand if the Image have the honorary adoration as he calls it given to it only with a respect to what is represented by it but I may give the same kind of Worship to the Image which I do to the Prototype and that upon the rule he quotes from St. Basil although he uses it quite upon another occasion as if he looks upon the place he may see that the Worship of the Image is carryed to the Prototype or thing represented I desire therefore seriously to know of him whether any Worship doth at all belong to the image or no if none at all to what end are they kneeled before and kissed which if the Images had any sense in them would think was done to them and why doth the Council of Trent determine that due worship is to be given them if there be any due whether it be the same then is given to the Prototype or distinct from it if it be the same then proper divine Worship is given to the Image if distinct then the Image is Worshipped with divine Worship for it self and not relatively and subordinately as he speaks I know Madam when any thing pincheth them they cry presently these are disputes of the Schools and Niceties too deep for you to be able to judge of but I assure you some of the best learned among them have determined which side soever you take you fall into Idolatry and I hope that is no Scholastick nicety with you I shall endeavour to give you their sense as plainly as I can Bellarmin saith That no Image is to be Worshipped properly with that Worship which the thing represented is worshipped by for Latria as he calls it is a Worship proper to God but no Image upon account of relation or any other way is God therefore that Worship doth not belong to it It may be saith he some will say that Latria is a Worship proper to God when it is given for it self and not for another or relatively I Answer that it is of the Nature of Latria or Divine Worship to be given for it self for that is the Worship which is due to the true God as the first principle of all things and it implyes a contradiction for the highest Worship to be given to the first principle and relatively or for another and therefore this worship is given to the Image for it self which is plain Idolatry or else it is not given for it self and then it is not Latria or properly Divine Worship Again either the Divine Worship or Latria which is given to the Image relatively for another is the same with that which is given to God or an inferiour Worship if it be the same the Creature is equally Worshipped with God which certainly is Idolatry For Idolatry saith he is not only when God is forsaken and an Idol Worshipped but when an Idol is Worshipped together with God If it be an inferiour worship then it is not Latria for that is the highest Worship Thus far Bellarmin On the other side Vasquez a Iesuite a man of great reputation too and of as searching a wit as Bellarmin he saith That it an inferiour Worship be given to the Image distinct from that which is given to the thing represented he that so gives it incurres the crime of Idolatry for he expresseth his submission to a meer inanimate thing that hath no kind of excellency to deserve it from him By which we see that it is in mens choice what sort of Idolatry they will commit who worship Images but in neither way they can avoid it § 12. But yet he thinks to escape by some parallel instances as he fancies them such as the honour given to the Chair of State or the Kings picture or garment Moses and Joshua's putting off their Shooes because it was holy ground the Iews falling down before Gods footstool and Worshipping the Holy of Holies where were the Cherubims Propitiatory and Ark Protestants bowing at the name of Iesus or kneeling at the Eucharist and bowing before the Altar from these he thinks he hath sufficiently cleared that inferiour and relative Worship which they give to Images To which I answer 1. To that of the Chair of State that our dispute is not concerning Civil Worship but Divine and as to civil worship I suppose he would not say that were any honour to the King in case he had absolutely forbidden it as we have proved God hath done in the case of Images 2. To the putting off the Shooes upon holy ground 1. That we think there is some little difference to be made between what God hath commanded and what he hath forbidden for in the case of Moses and Ioshua there was an express command Exod. 3. 5. Josh. 5. 15. but in the case of Image Worship there is as plain a prohibition 2. That the special presence and appearance of God doth sanctifie a place to so high a degree that we may lawfully testifie our reverence towards it but this will not hold for Images unless God be proved present in them in the same manner as he appeared to Moses and Ioshua and yet even then the reverence he required was not kissing it or bowing to it much less praying to it but only putting off their Shooes 3. If these things had been done towards the ground the danger had not been so great as to Images because the ground had nothing of representation in it but was only Sacred by Divine consecration and therefore it could not pretend to be any similitude of God But in Images there is nothing Sacred but being an Image and so the representation is that which gives all the excellency and value to it and therefore the Reverence of holy places and things is of quite a
different nature from the Worship of Images 3. To the Iewes adoraâ—ion towards the Ark and the Holy of Holies where the Cherubims and Propitiatory were 1. That they only directed their Worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them and signifies no more to the Worship of Images than our lifting our eyes to Heaven doth when we pray because God is more especially present there 2. That though the Cherubims were there yet they were alwayes hid from the sight of the people the High-Priest himself going into the Holy of Holies but once a year that the Cherubims were no representations of God and his Throne was between them upon the mercy seat and were Hieroglyphical figures of Gods own appointing which the Iews know no more than we do which are plain arguments they were never intended for objects of Worship for then they must not have been meerly appendices to another thing they must have been publickly exposed as the Images are in the Roman Churches and their form as well known as any of the B. Virgin 4. To bowing at the name of Iesus that he might as well have instanced in going to Church at the toll of a bell for as the one only tells us the time when we ought to go to Worship God so the mentioning the name of Iesus doth only put us in mind of him we owe all manner of reverence to without dishonouring him as the object of our Worship by any image of him which can only represent that which is neither the object nor reason of our Worship 5. To kneeling at the Eucharist that of all things should not be objected to us who have declared in our Rubrick after Communion That thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians To bowing towards the Altar or at entring in and going out of the Church that it is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are there and is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith § 1. I Proceeded to the Adoration of the Host and here the Argument I proposed was to take off the common answer That this could not be Idolatry because they believed the Bread to be God upon the same ground I said they who believe the Sun to be God and Worship him on that account would be excused from Idolatry too nay the grosser their Idolatry was the more excusable it would be as that of those who supposed their Images to be Gods and upon this ground their Worship was more Lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so To this he answers two wayes 1. That they do not barely suppose that the substance of bread is changed into Christs body and that he is really present under the form of Bread but that they know and believe this upon the same grounds and motives upon which they believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored and further addes that the same argument will hold against the adoration of Christ as God as against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since they have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental signes as for his being true God and man 2. Supposing they were mistaken yet it would not follow they were Idolaters which he proves from Dr. Taylors words But notwithstanding these appearances of answering that my argument still stands good will be evident by proving these things 1. That supposing there were the same revelation of Christs Divinity and of his presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation yet there could not be the same reason for the Adoration of the Host as for worshipping Christ himself 2. That there are not the same motives and grounds to believe that Doctrine of Transubstantiatim that there are to believe that Christ is God 3. That supposing they are mistaken in the doctrine of Transubstantiation this doth not excuse them from Idolatry 4. That the same reason which would excuse them would excuse the most gross Idolaters in the World § â— That supposing there were the same divine revelation of Transubstantiation and of Christs Divinity yet there could not be the same reason for adoration of the Host as of Christ himself 1. Because there is a plain command in Scripture for one and there is nothing like it for the other All the Angels are commanded to Worship the Son of God Heb. 1. 6. and much more all men who have greater obligation to do it All men are to honour the Son as they honour the Father Joh. 5. 23. and to his name every knee is to bow Phil. 2. 10. But where is there the least intimation given that we are to Worship Christ in the Elements supposing him present there If it be said the general command doth extend to him where-ever he is present It is
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still as to the adoration of the Host. For supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same Worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. There are not the same motives and grounds to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he affirms but without any appearance of reason And I would gladly know what excellent motives and reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any man think he hath reason to believe it I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest contradictions to sense and reason imaginable But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
all the persons to whom it was communicated highly approved it yet she was not satisfied till one of her Gossips named Isabella after a whole years praying for it had the same thing revealed to her with that circumstance that this Feast had alwayes been among the Secrets of the B. Trinity but now the time was come that it should be published to the World and she in one of her extasies saw very distinctly all the heavenly orders upon their faces supplicating God that to confirm the faith of Christians this day might be speedily observed This Isabella was so much intoxicated by this Vision saith the Author that out of the abundance of her spiritual drunkenness they are his own words she declared she would promote the observing this Feast although the whole world should oppose her Which we may well think Iuliana rejoyced to hear and hence forwards they joyned counsels to advance this solemnity Iuliana gets an ignorant young Priest to draw up an Office for it and while he writ she prayed by which the Office was so well composed that it would melt saith he the hardest hearts into devotion and when it was seen by Divines they said it was not written by man but inspired by God himself And yet when Pope Vrban published his Bull upon the credit of these revelations for the Celebration of this Feast he appointed Tho. Aquinas to compose an Office for it and rejected that divine Office of Iuliana The Epistle of Vrban to Eva one of the Nuns of Liege and a companion of the two Virgins is still extant in Diestemius and Binius about the institution of this Feast of Corpus Christi And that this was the occasion of this Festival is not delivered alone by Diestemius but by Arnoldus Bostius and Petrus Praemonstratensis by Vignier and Molanus as Binius confesseth of this last who can no more be suspected of partiality in this case than Diestemius but we need no other evidence than the Popes own Bull. The story of the other is remarkable too for it is read constantly in the Roman Breviary upon the eighth of May. It came to pass that among the Droves of Cattle the Bull of a certain inhabitant wandred from the rest which having long sought for they found in the entrance of a Cave And when one shot an arrow at him to destroy him the arrow was driven back again to him that shot it Which thing so affrighted them all that they durst not come near the Cave the Sipontines consult their Bishop who appointed three dayes fasting and Prayer to seek God in the case after the three dayes the Arch-angel Gabriel admonisheth the Bishop that place was in his custody and by that act he shewed that they ought to worship God there in remembrance of him and his fellow Angels The Bishop and people go accordingly thither and they find the place already formed into the fashion of a Temple and there they perform divine Offices where many Miracles were afterwards wrought Not long after Pope Boniface Dedicated the Church of St. Michael the third of the Calends of October in which the Church celebrates the memory of all Angels but this day is consecrated to the apparition of Michael the Arch-angel Thus far the 5 or 6 Lessons of the present Roman Breviary whereby we understand what infallible grounds the Church of Rome proceeds upon in all her definitions and observations § 5. And is it not a hard case now we should be so often told of Fanaticism among us by the members of the Roman Church Where are the Visions and Revelations ever pleaded by us in any matter of Doctrine Did we never discard any of the Roman opinions or practices upon the account of Revelations made to Women or to any private persons Do we resolve the grounds of any doctrine of ours into any Visions and Extasies have we any Festivals kept upon such occasions Do we collect Fanatical Revelations and set them out with comments upon them as Gonsalvus Durantus hath done those of St. Bridgitt Have we any mother Iuliana's among us or do we publish to the world the Fanatick Revelations of distempered brains as Mr. Cressy hath very lately done to the great honour and service of the Roman Church the sixteen Revelations of Divine Love shewed to a devout servant of our Lord and Lady too called Mother Juliana We have we thank God other wayes of imploying our devout retirements than by reading such fopperies as those are Excellent men that debarr the people reading the Scriptures in their own tongue and instead of them put them off with such Fooleries which deserve no other name at the best than the efforts of Religious madness Were we to take an estimate of Christian Religion from such Raptures and Extasies such Visions and Entertainments as those are how much must we befool our selves to think it sense Did ever H. N. Iacob Behmen or the highest Enthusiasts talk at a more extravagant rate than this Iuliana doth As when she speaks of our being beclosed in the mid-head of God and in his meek-head and in his benignity and in his buxomness though we feel in us wrath debate and strife Of being substantially united to God and that God is that goodness which may not be wrath for God is not but goodness our soul is oned to him unchangeable goodness and between God and our soul is neither wrath nor forgiveness in his sight for our soul is so fulsomely oned to God of his own goodness that between God and our soul may be right naught That in mankind that shall be saved is comprehended all that is to say all that is made and the maker of all for in man is God and God is all and he that loveth thus he loveth all That our soul is so deep grounded in God and so endlesly treasured that we may not come to the knowing thereof till we have first knowing of God which is the maker to whom it is oned and therefore if we will have knowing of our soul and commoning and dalliance therewith it behooveth to seek into our Lord God in whom it is inclosed and that worshipful City that our Lord Iesu sitteth in it is our sensuality in which he is inclosed and our kindly substance is beclosed in Iesu with the blessed soul of Christ resting in the Godhead and notwithstanding all this we may never come to the full knowing of God till we know first clearly our own soul for into the time that it is in the full mights we may not be all holy and that is that our sensuality by the vertue of Christs passion be brought up into the substance with all the profits of our tribulation that our Lord shall make us to get by mercy and grace I had in party touching and it is grounded in kind that is to say our reason is grounded in God which is substantially kindness Afterwards she discourseth of three
with her Picture and a Book of her life and eminent sanctity by a person of great authority which were preserved as precious things by the Vice-roy's Lady But this is nothing to Gregory the thirteenth then Pope who writ a Letter of encouragement to her to go on in the same way of sanctity she had begun She had been examined by the Inquisition and her wounds were allowed by them after diligent search But at last they found what she aimed at which was the Revolt of Portugall from Spain which being once suspected she is brought before the Inquisition and her Sanctity is condemned her wounds declared to be a meer Imposture being artificially made by red Lead and her self sentenced by the Inquisitors to a very severe pennance all her dayes Decemb. 8. A. D. 1588. I suppose my Adversary having been upon the place hath often heard the truth of this but if he doubts it he may find it as I have related it in Ludovicus a Paramo By which it is very easie to ghess what it is which gives and preserves the reputation of these things in the Roman Church for if this Saint had dyed before her design brake forth we might have heard of her wounds in the Roman Breviary as well as those of St. Francis and a Festival might have been kept in commemoration of her sanctity and her self as religiously invocated as the rest of the Popes making But supposing Pope Alexander the fourths authority prevailed so much upon the people to believe that S. Francis had the same wounds which Christ had c. No wonder then it should be written in the Book called The Flowers of S Francis that those only were saved by the blood of Christ who lived before S. Francis but all that followed were redeemed by the blood of S. Francis No wonder this Petrus Iohannis made the Rule of S. Francis to be the very same with the Gospel and that which Christ and his Apostles lived by of which S. Francis was the greatest observer next to Christ and his Mother and that as Christ when he was to reform the world chose twelve Apostles so S. Francis had twelve Brethren by whom the Evangelical Order was founded that those who opposed this Order were the carnal persecuting Clergy in whom the Seat of the Beast is much more than in the people that in the time of this Mystical Antichrist the Carnal Church shall oppose the doctrine life and zeal of the Saints and burn as it were with fire against them but it shall be dryed up from all spiritual Wisdom and Grace and the riches of Christ and be exposed to errors and delusion as it was with the Iews and Greeks Those who will not take the pains to see how faithfully I have translated these words out of Eymericus would imagine I have borrowed some of the canting language of the modern Quakers But he goes on saying That as Vasthi the Queen being cast off from the Kingdom and Marriage of Ahassuerus the humble Esther was chosen to succeed in her place and the King made a great Feast to his Princes and Servants so in this last state of the Church the adulterous Babylon the carnal Church being rejected the spiritual Church must be exalted and a great and spiritual Feast be kept to celebrate these Nuptials with that under the Mystical Antichrist there shall be overturnings and commotions by which the Carnal Church shall be terribly stirred up and moved against the Evangelical Spirit of Christ but that the Whore of Babylon the Carnal Church shall fall in which time the Saints shall preach saying from this time it is no longer the Church of Christ but the Synagogue of Satan and the Habitation of Devils which before said in the pride of her heart I sit as a Queen in great honour and glory I rule over my Kingdom I sit at ease I am no Widow i. e. I have Bishops and Kings on my side that the Roman Church is that great Whore spoken of in the Revelations which hath committed fornication with this world having departed from the worship and sincere love and the delights of Christ her Spouse and embraced the world the riches and pleasures of it and the Devil and Kings and Princes and Prelates and all the lovers of this world That the Teachers of this spiritual State are more properly the Gates to lead men into the wisdom of Christ than the Apostles themselves These things are expresly delivered concerning the doctrine of this Franciscan Fryer by the Inquisitor Eymericus I know Wadding in his Franciscan Annals to preserve the reputation of his Order would clear him from all suspicion of Heresie but I suppose the credit of an Inquisitor having such opportunities to know the truth so near his own time and having the examination of many of his followers is to be relyed on rather than the testimony of one at such a distance and partial for the honour of his order Especially that being considered which Possevin saith of Eymericus that most of his accounts of the times a little before his own were the very same with what was contained in a Manuscript in the Vatican Library both as to order and words which is though to have been brought from Avignon to Rome where he was made Inquisitour General by Gregory 11. A. D. 1358. But it is not denyed by Wadding or others that the Beguini and Fratricelli the Beguardi and others were his followers and we shall find so great an agreement in their opinions that it would be strange they should be accounted the Disciples of any other Eymericus gives this account of them that in the time of Clement 5. there arose in the Province of Narbonne one Petrus Iohannis a Franciscan Fryer who published by Writing and Preaching a great many Errours and Heresies in the same Province and drew many after him who had spread themselves over France Italy Germany and other places and continued in his time being daily searched for condemned by the Inquisitours They all agreed that their doctrine was from God by immediate inspiration and that all the writings of Petrus Johannis were revealed to him from the Lord and that he had declared this to some of his Friends that he was so great a Doctor that from the time of the Apostles and Evangelists there have been none greater than he in Learning and Holiness and that his writings theirs only excepted wherein they fell short of the former Sect were the most useful to the Church § 10. Their doctrines may be reduced to these four heads 1. Evangelical poverty 2. Unlawfulness of Swearing 3. The Doctrine of perfection 4. Opposition to the carnal Church Which being joyned with that greater degree of light which they supposed themselves to have above all the rest of the world makes up a Sect of Quakers after the Order of St. Francis 1. Their Doctrine of Evangelical poverty about which they said That our
how easily men were imposed upon by visions and raptures among them he saith that he knew a woman who was afterwards known to be naught that had raptures at her pleasure whom he had honoured as a Saint himself and the very ground she stood on and not only he but many others even Prelats and Cardinals too by which he saw evidently how easily the Devil could transform himself into an Angel of Light and after saith of the Beguinae that under the shew of sanctity they committed many vile things A strange instance of the impostures of one of the Beguinae who gained a great reputation for sanctity by her constancy and devotion at prayers her pretending to raptures and extasies wherein her soul was carried to Heaven her long fastings whereby she imposed upon the Bishop the Fryers and all the people to so great a degree that the Bishop was about building a Church on purpose to lay her in that all comers might behold her who led such an Angelical life and how accidentally the imposture was discovered to the great dissatisfaction of them all but especially the Bishop is at large related by Richerius 4. But notwithstanding all this they had a mighty zeal against the carnal Church and called all those blind who were not of their way as Eymericus saith of them in these maâ—ters they followed Petrus Iohannis of whose opinions about the Church we have already spoken any that suffered among them were cryed up as Martyrs and four of the Brethren suffering at Marseilles A. D. 1316. they said they were so far from suffering as Hereticks that they were as good Martyrs as St. Laurence or Vincentius that Christ was spiritually Crucified in them that all who approved or consented to their death Pope Prelats or others were all Hereticks for it and lost all right of governing the Church or administring Sacraments and are out of the Church and therefore not in a state of Salvation and they only are the true Church These are the chief of their doctrines although Eymericus reckons up no fewer than fifty five Errours and Heresies among them And notwithstanding all the care used by Popes and Inquisitours against them in the time of Clement 5. Iohn 22. Benedict 12. Clement 6. Innocent 6. and afterwards they not only continued but spread themselves still further Iohn Gerson who lived in the beginning of the next Century mentions not only the doctrines of the everlasting Gospel but those of the Begardi the substance of which he saith is that a perfect soul being reduced to God loseth its own will so that it hath no other will but the divine will which it had from eternity in that Ideal being which it had in God which being supposed they say they may do any thing which their affection puts them upon without sin because they have no will of their own The way of renouncing their own wills was somewhat different he tells us for the more cunning pretended to do it only to God but these prevailed upon the other to renounce their own wills before them which when they had done they told them they could now sin no longer and so did what they pleased together Under which pretext of renouncing their own wills all manner of wickedness was committed among them Neither were they only in France Italy Sicily and Germany but they prevailed much in Spain too for in the time of Benedict 12 in Catalonia there were many Beguardi saith Eymericus the chief of whom was Fryer Bonanatus who was burnt for his Heresie in the time of Clement 6. there arose many of them in the Province of Valencia whose leader was Iacobus Iusti and was therefore immured and so dyed In the time of Innocent 6. Vrban 5. Gregory 11. appeared in Catalonia one Arnoldus Montanerius who publickly Preached for nineteen years together the opinions of the Begardi about poverty and added these of his own that no one can be damned who wears the habit of St. Francis that St. Francis once a year goes down into Purgatory and thence draws the souls of all that have been of his order and carries them to Paradise These we have from Eymericus who saith that by order of Vrban 5. and Greg. 11. he sate as Inquisitour upon him And lest we should think this Sect inconsiderable among them Ludovicus de Paramo the Inquisitour of Sicily declares that the Fratricelli carrying an appearance of Sanctity with great poverty drew the hearts of all men to them and drove John 22. into great straights and by the Schisme they raised gave a great disturbance to the whole Church Neither was it of any short continuance if we consider the fundamental principles of this Sect which were immediate revelations renouncing property and liberty of actions for so it began with Almerick at Paris and we have seen how much afterwards promoted by the Mendicant Fryers and especially by those who called themselves of the third Order of St. Francis and pretended to far greater strictness as to their rule than others on which account Celestine 5. A. D. 1294. gave them first liberty to separate themselves from the Community which was afterwards pleaded by the Fratricelli against Clement 5. and Iohn 22. § 11. But besides these who before were of this order others took up the same way and opinions which were never originally of it as the followers of Geraldus Segarelli and Dulcinus in Italy who are called Fratricelli by Platina by others Pseudo-Apostolici and Dulcinistae Spondanus confesseth those in Italy who were the followers of one Hermannus of Ferrara to be the same with the Fraticelli and Beguini whose body saith Prateolus after he had been twenty years worshipped for a Saint was by the command of Boniface 8. taken up and burnt for an Heretick Ludovicus de Paramo saith that it was thirty years after he had been publickly worshipped by the people of Ferrara and he reckons up this as one of the great blessings which comes by the Inquisition that they are thereby undeceived in many whom they worship for Saints of which he gives several other instances But the burning of Hermannus bones did not extinguish the Sect of Fraticelli there the only effect of this severity was that they grew more numerous and bold as Patreolus and Spondanus confess They kept their Conventicles more frequently and spread the further insomuch that great multitudes of people fell in with them Among whom as their chief leaders were several of the order of St. Francis as Spondanus proves from the Extravagant Sancta Romana of Iohn 22. And of the same Sect were the Pseud-Apostolici whose chief leaders were Geraldus Segarelli and Dulcinus one of his Disciples the one of Parma the other of Novara these filled all the Countrey thereabout with their errours saith Eymericus and made an Independent Congregation among themselves which acknowledged obedience and subjection
preserve the honour of Regicides it was but seven months and twenty four dayes before Ravaillac perfected that work which the other had begun This observation I owe to an ingenuous and learned Doctor of the Sorbon yet living who detests these practices and doctrines and himself lyes under the same censure there And the more to abuse the world on the same day a Book of Mariana's was suspended which those who look no farther than the name might imagine was the dangerous Book so much complained of but upon search it appears to be a Book quite of another nature concerning Coynes The latter instance concerns the Irish Remonstrance the account of which I take from Caron the publisher of it The Popish Clergy of Ireland a very few excepted were accused of Rebellion for opposing themselves to the Kings Authority by the instigation of the Popes Nuncio after which followed a meeting of the Popish Bishops where they banished the Kings Lieutenant and took the Royal Authority upon themselves almost all the Clergy and a great part of the people joyned with them and therefore it was necessary since the Kings return to give him better satisfaction concerning their Allegiance and to decline the Oath of Allegiance which they must otherwise have taken some of them agree upon this Remonstrance to present to the King the news of which was no sooner come to Rome but Cardinal Barberin sends a Letter to the Irish Nobility 8 July A. D. 1662. to bid them take heed of being drawn into the ditch by those blind guides who had subscribed to some propositions testifying their Loyalty to the King which had been before condemned by the Apostolick See After this the Popes Nuncio at Brussels Iuly 21. 1662. sends them word how displeasing their Remonstrance was at Rome and that after diligent examination by the Cardinals and Divines they found it contained Propositions already condemned by Paul 5. and Innocent 10. and therefore the Pope gave him order to publish this among them that he was so far from approving their Remonstrance that he did not so much as permit it or connive at it and was extremely grieved that the Irish Nobility were drawn into it and therefore condemned it in this form That it could not be kept without breach of faith according to the Decree of Paul 5. and that it denyed the Popes Authority in matters of faith according to that of Innocent 10. By this very late instance we see what little countenance they receive from Rome who offer to give any reasonable security to the King of their Loyalty and by the Popes own Declaration the giving of it is an injury to the faith and a denying his Supremacy For which we are to understand that A. D. 1648. when the Papists were willing to make as good terms for themselves as they could and it was objected to them that they held Principles inconsistent with Civil Government viz. that the Pope can absolve them from their obedience that he can depose and destroy Heretical Magistrates that he can dispense with all Oaths and contracts they make with those whom they call Hereticks upon which they met together and to save themselves from banishment resolved them in the Negative but no sooner was this heard at Rome but the sacred Congregation condemned this resolution as heretical and the subscribers as lyable to the penalties against those who deny the Popes Authority in matters of faith upon which they are cited to appear at Rome and Censures and Prisons are there prepared for them The summ of it then is that they can give no security of their Loyalty to the King against the Popes power to depose him and absolve his Subjects from whatever Oaths they make to him or they must be accounted Hereticks at Rome for so doing For this good old Cause is as much still in request at Rome as ever and it is in their power to be accounted Hereticks at Rome or bad Subjects in their own Countrey but one of them they cannot avoid So much may suffice to shew that the most dangerous Principles of Fanaticism either as to Enthusiasm or Civil Government are owned and allowed in the Church of Rome and therefore the number of Fanaticks among us is very unjustly charged upon the Reading the Scriptures in our own Language CHAP. V. Of the Divisions of the Roman Church The great pretence of Vnity in the Church of Rome considered The Popes Authority the fountain of that Vnity what that Authority is which is challenged by the Popes over the Christian World the disturbances which have happened therein on the account of it The first revolt of Rome from the Empire caused by the Popes Baronius his Arguments answered Rebellion the foundation of the greatness of that Church The cause of the strict League between the Popes and the posterity of Charles Martel The disturbances made by Popes in the new Empire Of the quarrels of Greg. 7. with the Emperour and other Christian Princes upon the pretence of the Popes Authority More disturbances on that account in Christendome than any other matter of Religion Of the Schisms which have happened in the Roman Church particularly those after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successours the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own differences will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition of the 39 Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by their own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours 2. § 1. THE other thing objected as flowing from the promiscuous reading the Scriptures is the number of our Sects and the
Pope to express her love to him that neither tribulation nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor nakednesâ— nor sword nor death nor life nor principalities c. should be able to separate her from the love of St. Peter in Christ Iesus our Lord whom she meant by St. Peter is very easie to understand according to the constant dialect of this Pope whose Bulls and Anathema's against Princes ran in St. Peters name But we leave Baronius admiring the Providence of God that when Princes and Bishops forsook the Church of Rome he raised up Agnes the Emperours Mother against her own Son and Beatrix and Matilda of near kindred to the Emperour to support the Pope against him and not long after we find him acknowledging that Rodolphus was confirmed by the Pâ—pe and Henry again excommunicated by him in the form of which excommunication extant in Baronius he desires all the World to take notice that it is in the Popes power to take away Empires Kingdomes Principalities Dutchies Marquisates Earldomes and the possessions of all men from them and give them to whom he shall think fit But doth Baronius in the least go about to explain or mitigate this no but instead of it he complains of the prosperity of the wicked because Henry obtained after this a signal victory over Rodolphus in his fourth Battel wherein he was wounded in his right hand and say the German Historians acknowledged therein the just judgement of God being near his death that being the hand wherewith he had sworn fidelity to the Emperour and then told his friends whatever the Pope did swear by St. Peter and St. Paul that the Popes command made him break his Oath and take that honour upon him which did not belong to him and he wished they who had put him upon it would consider how they led men to their eternal damnation by such courses which having said with great grief of mind saith Helmoldus he dyed And the Pope himself did not escape much better for the Emperour marches into Italy with a great Army takes in all the Towns which opposed him deposes Hildebrand by the Bishops of his party as the cause of all the Warr and Bloodshed and sets up Gibert of Ravenna under the name of Clement 3. besieges Rome and the Pope not trusting the Citizens who soon left him secures himself in a Castle from whence escaping to Salerno he not long after there dyes The only good thing we read of him is that which Sigebert and Florentius Wigorniensis and Matthew Paris report of him from the testimony of the Bishop of Mentz that he called when he was dying one of his Friends to him and confessed that it was through the instigation of the Devil that he had made so great a disturbance in the Christian world Whether they who applaud and admire him in the Roman Church as particularly Baronius who recommended him as a pattern to Paul 5. and rejoyced to see a man of his spirit to succeed him will believe this or no we matter not since there is so apparent evidence for the truth of the thing But we not only see the whole Empire put into a flame under pretence of this authority of the Pope and Italy laid wast by it to so great a degree saith Sigonius that Mothers devoured their Children for meer hunger but we may find him as busie though not with equal success with other Princes of Christendome He threatens the King of France to deprive him if he did not submit to him and that his Subjects should certainly revolt from him unless they would renounce their Christianity which are the words of his Bull in Baronius but finding no amendment the next year he sends another wherein he tells him that if according to his hard and impenitent heart he did treasure up the wrath of God and St. Peter by the help of God he would excommunicate him and all that should obey him the same year he excommunicates in Italy Robert Duke of Apulia Prince of the Normans and Gilulphus Prince of Saierno and sends an army against them He threatens Alphmsus King of Spain with the Sword of St. Peter he excommunicates Nicephorus Emperour of Constantinople he not only deprived Boleslaus King of Poland of his Kingdom but puts the whole Kingdom under an interdict and forbids the Bishops anointing any for King but whom he should appoint Of all the Princes of Christendome I find none so much in his favour as our William the first of the Norman Race for he coming into a Kingdom where he found no interest but what his Sword made him keeps a fair correspondency with the Pope receives his Decrees refuses to enter into an alliance against him which so pleased him whom all other Princes hated that he sends to him in his distress to come to his assistance to divert the Emperour and calls him the Iewel of Princes and saith that he ought to be the rule of obedience to all other Princes but yet William himself could not escape his threatnings when he forbad the Bishops of his Kingdom to go to Rome and utterly denyed taking any oath of fidelity to the Pope which he pressed upon him by his Legat although Baronius make him to submit to the Pope upon the receipt of his letter whereas the letters of Lanfranc and the King produced by himself expresly contradict it This we are sure of that William all his time practised that right of investiture of Bishop by a staff and a ring which had been the first cause of the quarrel between the Emperour and the Pope and which he had 〈◊〉 severely forbidden in several Councils a Rome thereby to maintain his own authority by taking off the Bishops of several Kingdoms from any aknowledgement of dependence on their own Soveraign Princes which was the truest cause of all the quarrels of Christendome raised and somented by this Hell-brand as the Centuriatours according to their Dialect call him And although Onuphrius in his life confess that this Popes designs if they had taken effect would have quite overthrown the Majesty of the Empire and that he was the first Pope who ever attempted such things yet he having now started so fair a game though he dyed in the pursuit of it his successours retrieved it and followed it with all their might and skill thence we read that Vrban being made Pope by Hildebrands faction in opposition to the Emperour renews the sentence of excommunication against him and in the Council at Piacenza not content barely to excommunicate him in the presence of Agnes or Adelais the Emperours wife he uttered saith Vrspergensis very reproachful speeches against him but he had been no fit successour for Hildebrand who could content himself with bare words especially having declared his resolution to follow the steps of so worthy a predecessour and so he did to
purpose when he set up Conradus the Emperours Son in Rebellion against his Father This Baronius would fain shift off as not arising from the Popes instigation but some private discontents for which he quotes Dodechindus but Sigonius who follows the same Author saith expresly that he took upon him the Kingdom of Lombardy against his Father by the Authority of Urban himself and Bertholdus whose testimony is afterwards produced by Baronius mentions not only their meeting at Cremona but that Conradus there took an oath of fidelity to the Pope and the Pope in requital solemnly promised him to give him all the advice and assistance he could for the obtaining the Kingdom and Empire of his Father What is somenting and encouraging Rebellion in the highest degree if this be not And the sentence of deposition of Conrade in the Diet at Aken A. D. 1096. expresly mentions as the cause of it his adhering to Pope Vrban against the Emperour his Father and there his Son Henry declared his successour and solemnly swears never to Rebell against his Father But notwithstanding this Oath Conrad being dead this Son is likewise prevailed upon by the Popes instruments to Rebell against his Father for Pascal 2. succeeding Vrban had again excommunicated Henry 4. and at a Council called by him in Rome he made all the Bishops present by particular subscription to Anathematize the Emperours heresie as they were pleased to call it and to promise obedience to Paschal and his Successours and to affirm what the Church affirmed and condemn what she condemns Having by this means secured the Bishops from adhering to the Emperours party there wanted not Agents to solicit his Son to take away his Crown from him And the first thing he did upon his rebellion was to Anathematize his Fathers heresie which was keeping the Empire in spight of the Popes and to promise obedience to the Pope as the Bishops had done at Rome and in the Diet at Northausen A. D. 1105. he calls God to witness that it was no desire of the Empire which made him take his Fathers Government from him but if he would obey the Pope he would presently yield himself to him and become his Slave And when the Son had in a perfidious manner seized on the Person of his Father and he addressed himself to the Popes Legat for his safety he plainly told him he must look for none unless he would publickly declare the justice of Hildebrand and his own unjust persecutions of the Roman See But which is the most evident testimony of all others in this case Henry 4. a little before his death A. D. 1106. at Liege whither he was forced to retire by his Sons rebellion sends an account of the whole quarrel to Philip of France wherein he declares that he had offered all reasonable satisfaction to the Pope only preserving the authority of the Empire but this not being accepted in a most unnatural manner they had armed his most beloved Son his Absolom against him who by their instigation and council had most perfidiously dealt with him but we need not so much proof of this since Baronius confesseth that the Son had no greater cause of rebelling against his Father than that he was excommunicated by the Pope and afterwards very freely delivers his mind that in case the Son did it sincerely as he pretended i. e. out of obedience to the See of Rome it was saith he an act of great piety in him to be thus cruel to his Father and that his only offence was that he did not bind him faster till he was brought to himself i. e. to the Popes beck O the admirable doctrine of obedience at Rome What an excellent commentary is this upon the fifth Commandment and the thirteent to the Romans What mighty care hath the Church of Rome alwayes taken to preserve peace and unity in the Christian Church The Historians who report the passages of this time tell us there was never known so dismal an age as that was for Warres and Bloodshed for Murthers and Parricides for Rapines and Sacriledge for Seditions and Conspiracies for horrible Schisms and Scandals to Religion the Priests opposing the Bishops the People the Priests and in some places not only robbing the Churches burning the Tithes but trampling under foot the holy Eucharist that was consecrated by such whom Pope Hildebrand had excommunicated And must we after all this believe that the Roman See is the fountain of Vnity in the Catholick Church that all Warrs and Rebellions arise from casting off such subjection to the Popes who have been the great fomenters of Rebellion ever since Hildebrands time and the disturbers of the peace of Christendome For we are not to imagine that this quarrel ended with Henry 4. for it was revived again in Henry the fifth's time between Pope Paschal and him and the Pope grants him the priviledges which his Father contended for but afterwards revoked his own grant perjury being no sin at Rome in so holy a cause and raised a Rebellion in the Empire against him and notwithstanding several agreements made between him and the successive Popes could enjoy no lasting peace in his time upon their account and dyed at last without issue going to suppress a new Rebellion After his death Conradus being to succeed as Sisters Son to Henry 5. Lotharius by the arts of the Court of Rome was set up in opposition to him he was fain to part with the rights of the Empire to satisfie the Pope who made him receive the Imperial Crown at his feet In the time of Conradus who succeeded Lotharius the Pope encouraged Guelfo the Duke of Bavaria in a Rebellion against him from whom the two loving factions of Guelphs and Gibellines had their beginning It would be endless to relate the disturbances of the Christian world which arose from the contentions of several Popes about their Authority with Frederick Barbarossa Philippus Suevus Otho 4. Frederick 2. Ludovicus Bavarus and other Emperours till such time as the Majesty of the Empire was lost in Carolus 4. or if we should give an account of all the Warrs and Rebellions and Seditions and Quarrels which happened meerly upon pretence of the Papal Authority in our own Nation or in France or elsewhere But these may at present suffice to give testimony what an excellent instrument of Peace to the Christian world the Authority challenged by the Bishop of Rome hath been and that Authority still vindicated and asserted in the Court of Rome § 6. 2. But although such civil disturbances have happened by the contentions about the Papal authority yet they may say the Church hath had its unity still as long as they were united in the same Head For this they look on as the great foundation of Vnity for say they the unity of the body consists in the conjunction of the members with the head and then
with one another and although there may be many other sorts of Vnity in the Church yet the essential Vnity of the Church they tell us lyes in conjunction of the members under one Head But what becomes then of the Unity of the Roman Church in the great number of Schisms and some of long continuance among them Were they all members united under one Head when there were sometimes two sometimes three several Heads Bellaâ—mine in his Chronologie confesseth twenty six several Schisms in the Church of Rome but Onuphrius a more diligent searchâ—r into these things reckors up thirty whereof some lasted ten years some twenty one fifty years And it seems very strange to any one that hears so many boasts of Unity in the Church of Rome above others to find more Schisms in that Church than in any Patriarchal Church in the World We should think if the Bishop of Rome had been designed Head of the Church and the fountain of Vnity that it was as necessary that Church should be freed from intestine divisions on that account as to be secured from errours in faith if it had the promise of Infallibility for errours are not more contrary to infallibility than divisions are to Vnity and the same Spirit can as easily prevent Schisms as Heresies But as the errours of that Church are the clearest evidence against the pretence of infalâ—ibility so are the Schisms of it against its being the fountain of Vnity for how can that give it to the whole Church which so notoriously wanted it in it self I shall not need to insist on the more ancient Schisms between Cornelius and Novatianus and their parties between Liberius and Felix between Damasus and Vrsicinus between Bonifacius and Eulalius between Symachus and Laurentius between Bonifacius and Dioscorus between Sylverius and Vigiâ—ius and many others I shall only mention those which were of the longest continuance in that Church and do most apparently discover the divisions of it I begin with that which first brake forth in the time of Formosus who was set up A. D. 821. against Sergius whom the faction of the Marquesse of Tuscany would have made Pope but the popular faction then prevailing Sergius was forced to withdraw and Formosus with continual opposition from the other party enjoyed the Papacy four years and six months not without the blood of many of the chief Citizens of Rome slain by Arnulphus in the quarrel of Formosus After his death Boniface 6. intruded saith Baronius into the Papal See but was after fifteen dayes dispossessed by Stephanus 7. who in a Council called for that purpose nulled all the acts of Formosus deprived all those of their orders who had been ordained by him and made them be Re-ordained and not content with this he caused his body to be taken out of the Grave and placed it in the Popes Chair with the Pontifical habits on where after he had sufficiently reviled him that could not revile again he caused the three Fingers to be cut off with which he used to give Benediction and Orders and the body to be thrown into Tiber. This last part Onuphrius would have to be a fable and Andreas Victorellus from him but Baronius saith they are mistaken who say so for not only Luitprandus who lived in that Age expresly affirms it although he attributes it to Sergius upon whose account the Schism begun but the acts of the Roman Council under Iohn 9. extant in Baronius make it evident and Papirius Massonus cites other ancient Historians for it Upon this nulling the Ordinations of Formosus a great dispute was raised in the Church for many of the Bishops would not submit to re-ordination and particularly Leo Bishop of Nola to whom Auxilius writ his Book in defence of the Ordinations of Formosus a short account whereof is published by Baronius from Papyâ—ius Masso but the whole Book is now set forth from ancient Manuscript by Morinus by which we understand the controversie of that time much better than we could before Two things were chiefly objected against Formosus his Ordinations 1. That against the Canons of the Church he was translated from one See to another being Bishop of Porto before he was made Bishop of Rome 2. That having been degraded by Iohn 8. although restored by his successour Marinus and absolved from his Oath he was not capable of conferring Orders Against the first of these Auxilius shews that translation from one See to another cannot null Ordination from the testimony of Pope Anterus the example of Greg. Nazianzen Perigenes Dositheus Reverentius Palladius Alexander Meletius and many others That the Nicene Canon against translations was interpreted by the Council of Chalcedon so as not to extend to all cases and it was so understood by Pope Leo and Gelasius and however that only nulls the translation and not the ordination Against the second he pleads that supposing it not to be lawful to remove from one Episcopal See to another yet the Ordination may be valid for Formosus was not Consecrated again himself but only reconciled by Marinus that the Popes Gregory and Leo had declared against Re-ordination as much as against Re-baptizing that the Canons of the Apostles had forbidden it that the Ordinations by Acacius were allowed by Anastasius that the Bonosiaci though Hereticks had their Orders allowed them that the Cathari were admitted to the Churches Communion by the Council of Nice only with imposition of hands that though Liberius fell to the Arian Heresie yet his Ordinations afterwards were not nulled neither those of Vigilius although he stood excommunicated by Silverius and added Homicide to it that the nulling these Ordinations was to say in effect that for twenty years together they had been without the Christian Religion in Italy that none but Hereticks could assert these things that if any Popes themselves speak or act against the Catholick faith or Religion they are not to be followed in so doing This is the substance of the first Book of Auxilius which things are more largely insisted upon in the second But by that Book it appears most evidently that the Barbarous usage of the body of Formosus was most true it being expresly mentioned therein and justified by him in the Dialogue that pleads for Re-ordination And now saith Baronius began those most unhoppy times of the Roman Church which exceeded the persecutions of Heathens or Hereticks but he out of his constant good will to civil Authority lays the fault altogether upon the power of the Marquesses of Tuscany who had then too great power in Rome but he strangely admires the providence of God in keeping the Heads of the Church from Heresie all that time Alas for them they did not trouble themselves about any matters of faith at all but were wholly given over to all manner of wickedness as himself confesseth of them when Theodora that Mother of the Church of Rome ruled in chief and her
and to have any authority over them because they look on themselves as a free State There can be but one lawful Head of the Church by their own principles and only they are truly united to the Church who are in conjunction with the lawful Head and therefore it follows upon their own principles that they must be in a State of Schisme who are united with any other than the true Head What then signifie the boasts of Vnity in the Roman Church if they cannot prevent the falling of their members into such dangerous Schisms To what purpose is it to tell us of one Head of the Church to whom all must submit if there have been several pretenders to that Headship and the Church hath been a long time divided which of them was the true Unless all their Vnity comes to this at last that they have an excellent Vnity among them if they could all agree And such an Vnity may be had any where But if all were agreed what need any means of agreement by one universal Head or what can that universal Head signifie to making Vnity when his title to his Headship becomes a cause of greater divisions May not we say upon better grounds that taking away the Popes authority would tend much more to the peace of the Church since that hath been the cause of so great disturbances in the world and is to this day of one of the greatest differences between the several parts of the Catholick Church For as things now stand in the Christian World the Bishop of Rome is so far from being the Fountain of Vnity that he is much rather the Head of Contention and the great cause of the divisions of the Christian Church § 7. 3. The differences have been as great in the Roman Church as out of it both as to matters of order and doctrine 1. For matters of Order and Government Have not the controversies between the Regulars and Seculars among them even here in England been managed with as much heat and warmth as to matter of Episcopal jurisdiction as between those of the Church of England and the dissenters from it Neither is this any lately started controversie among them but hath continued ever since the prevalency of the Mendicant Fryers and their pretences of exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction and encroaching upon the office of the Parochial Clergy For no sooner did the Fryers begin publickly under pretence of priviledges to take upon them to Preach without licence from the Bishops where they pleased and to take other offices of the Parochial Clergy out of their hands but great opposition was made against them by all the learned men who were friends to the Episcopal power and the peace of the Church Which being a matter of concernment for us to understand I shall give a faithful account of it from the best Writers of their own Church Assoon as the Monastick orders were found to be very serviceable to the Interests of the Court of Rome it was thought convenient to keep them in an immediate dependence upon the Pope in whatever Countrey they were From hence came the great favour of Popes to them and their willingness to grant them almost what priviledges they desired because receiving them only from the plenitude of the Popes power they were obliged to maintain and defend that from whence they derived them At first when they led a more properly Monastick life the priviledges granted them seem to be nothing else but exempting them from some troubles which were inconsistent with it either relating to their persons or the estates they enjoyed After this they began to complain of the numbers of people flocking to their Churches as inconsistent with their private and retired life from hence we first read that publick Masses by the Bishop were forbid in Monasteries to prevent a concourse of people and especially of Women to them But a long time after this they lived in subjection to the Bishops and meddled no more in Ecclesiastical than in Secular matters So Charles M. in his Capitular commands them to keep within their Monasteries to be subject to their Bishops and to meddle in no Ecclesiastical matters without the express command of the Bishop But as the Popes increased their authority the Monks inlarged their priviledges and procured exemptions from Episcopal jurisdiction which yet was not pleasing to those who valued the Churches peace above the priviledges of the Monastick orders These exemptions are therefore highly condemned by St. Bernard though a Monk himself as tending to the dissolution of the Ecclesiastical Government and by Ivo Carnotensis who saith he grew weary of his Episcopal Government by reason of them Petrus Blesensis hath an Epistle written to Pope Alexander 3. in the name of Richard Archbishop of Canterbury against the Abbot of Malmsbury who refused subjection to the Bishop of Salisbury and being cited by the Archbishop to appear before him for his contempt he declared he would be subject to none but the Pope and said they were pittiful Abbots who did not wholly exempt themselves from the Bishops power when they might for an annual pension to the Pope obtain an absolute exemption Therefore the Archbishop saith it was time for them to complain because this contagion did spread it self far and the Abbots set themselves against their Bishops and Metropolitans and the Popes by indulging these things did command disobedience and Rebellion and arm the Children against their Fathers but these and many other complaints signified nothing in the Court of Rome as long as their profit and interest were advanced by it And although we read of many affronts which the Monks put upon the Bishops before the time of the Mendicant Fryers yet their insolency grew the highest when they took upon them to Preach in Parochial Churches and hear Confessions without the Bishops leave Thence the Vniversity of Paris published the Book De periculis novissimorum temporum which although written by S. Amour went abroad in the name of all the Divines there as appears by the beginning of it wherein a Character is given of those persons who should make the last times so troublesome they should be lovers of themselves not enduring reproof covetous both of riches and applause high-minded because they would not be in subjection to the Bishops but be set before them and therefore disobedient to their spiritual Fathers And such as these are said to creep into houses which the ordinary Gloss expounds of those who enter into the houses of those who are under anothers charge these enter not by the door as the Rectors of Churches do but steal into them like Thieves and Robbers and leading captive silly women is their setting them against the Bishops and perswading them to a Monastick life These are likewise false teachers who though never so learned and holy teach without being sent and none are duly sent but such as are chosen and
over them in several things mentioned as grievances by them he publishes two Bulls or decretal Epistles to forbid the Bishops doing it for the future upon this the Fryers openly contemn the Bishops and Preach where they please and hear confessions and bury the dead in spight of them and the Parochial Clergy Innocent 4. finding how necessary their help was to him in the Controversies between him and the Emperour confirms the same priviledges to them by which they grew so insolent that they called the Parish Priests as Matthew Paris relates Ideots Dunces Drunkards Blind guids and would make the people believe that all knowledge and sanctity was only among them insomuch that in Petrus de Vineis who lived in that Age and was Chancellour to the Emperour we read a miserable complaint of the Parochial Clergy against the Fryers viz. that by these means they were brought under the greatest contempt to the general scandal of Religion they expressing the most bitter hatred against them imaginable reproaching their lives and lessening their dues so as they were brought to nothing by it and they were made a laughing stock to all people that they took away the main of their imployment from them and drew away the People from the Churches to the Convents teling them the word of God was to be heard only among them That they had nothing now left to do but to pull down their Churches in which they had scarce any thing left besides a Bell and an old resty Image but these holy Fryers while they had nothing possessed all things and professing poverty were extreamly rich But Innocent 4. a little before his death being wearied by the complaints of the Bishops and Clergy revoked the priviledges which he had so largely granted to the Fryers and confined them within certain limits forbidding them to draw away the people from their Parish Churches upon Sundayes and Holy-dayes or admitting any to pennance who had not first confessed to their Parish-priest but the Fryers were as far from being pacified by this as the Clergy were by the former for therein the Pope upbraids them with violating the rights of others with blaspheaming Religion by such actions displeasing God and drawing the souls of the faithful to perdition but he dying assoon as they had notice of this Bull they said it was a just judgement of God upon him for revoking their priviledges And Alexander 4. was no sooner settled in his Chair but they procured another Bull from him to call in that of Innocent 4. and immediately to suspend all execution of it but this did not satisfie them for they boasted they had killed Pope Innocent by their Prayers and that the V. Mary every time they invocated her name turned to her Son and said Son hear them upon which Innocent was presently struck with a Palsie and dyed from whence arose a saying in the Court of Rome from the Fryers Letanies good Lord deliver us This is related as true by Bzovius ad A. D. 1254. but is looked on as a fable of the Fryers by D'attichy Raynaldus du Boulay and others of any judgement among them But this Bull of Alexander nor all the rest he made for their sakes could make the Bishops and the Clergy give up their rights for in the time of Martin 4. the Fryers procured another Bull for hearing Confessions without license from the Bishops upon which the contention increased between the Bishops and the Fryers insomuch that not waiting the Popes revocation of his grant which he was inclined to by the perswasions of the Bishop of Amiens they called a Synod of the Gallican Church at Paris A. D. 1284. wherein the Archbishop of Bourges being president declared to them that being Pastors of the flock they ought to lay down their lives for their sheep and not to suffer the encroachments were made upon them by the Fryers by whom all things were brought to confusion in the Church that they had used all fair wayes of prevailing with them by the intreaties of the King and Nobles to forbear such intrusions into their offices as they were continually guilty of but all to no purpose they still defending themselves by Papal priviledges whereas there had been contrary Bulls to another granted at Rome And it was then agreed among them that they should maintain their own office against the Fryers incroachments by which the contention increased to so great a height that many invectives Apologies and libels were published one against another to the great disgrace saith Meyerus of the whole Ecclesiastical Order Upon which Pope Martin endeavoured an accommodation by another Bull wherein he required that all Parishioners should Confess to their own Parish Priest at least once a year But this was as far from making peace as any before therefore from Boniface 8. the Fryers procured a new Bull of priviledges which absolutely nulls all the former Bulls of restriction and limitation and by the fulness of his Apostolical power doth exempt them from all manner of power or jurisdiction of the Bishops or any other Ecclesiastical persons and decrees that they were immediately subject to the Pope and to none else And yet this Pope himself not many years after retracted this Bull and set forth that which Clement 5. renewed in order to the composing this difference which had now to the great demonstration of their Vnity and the Popes Authority continued with great violence above fifty years and was far from being ended by this Bull for Benedict 11. in another published on the same occasion saith that instead of peace troubles arose by it instead of unity and concord greater divisions and disturbances and by cutting off one head of the Hydra seven more came into its room Are not the Popes great Peace-makers the mean while Therefore he resolves to try what the other way would do and again inlarges the priviledges of the Fryers which being sound as unsuccessful as ever Clement 5. resumes the Constitution of Boniface which this Pope condemned and to as little purpose as the other had done before And now let us soberly consider whether there hath not alwayes been an admirable Vnity in the Roman Church or if divisions have arose a ready means to suppress them Here we have the Popes interposing by Bull after Bull and so far from ending the differences that occasioned them that they begot more which made the Popes contradict one another nay the same Pope to contradict himself and so the differences became greater than they were at first And after all these Bulls we find the very same Controversie at as great a height in England and Ireland as ever it had been in France or Germany Wadding saith it went so high that the Bishops and Clergy here would not suffer the Fryers to enjoy any of the priviledges granted them by the Popes which caused an appeal to the Pope made by the Fryers to whom in
8. Febr. 4. A. D. 1625. not long after he comes into England and was received with so great kindness by their party here as made the Iesuits who are friends to none but themselves soon to become his enemies especially when he began to exercise his Episcopal jurisdiction here in laying restraints upon the Regulars which the Iesuits with other Regulars grew so impatient of that they soon revived the old quarrel concerning the authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and managed it with so great heat and fierceness that the titular Bishop was fain to leave the field and withdraw into France The bottom of the quarrel was they found the kindness of their party to them abated since the Bishops coming who before had sway'd all and lived in great plenty and bravery when the poor Seculars got scarce bread to eate as Watson very sadly laments in his answer to Parsons but now the necessary support of the dignity of a Bishop made the charity of their party run in another channel which the Provincial of the Iesuits complains of in a Letter to the Bishop of Chalcedon Therefore they endeavour all they can to make a party against him among the people too which they did so effectually as amounted to his withdrawing a more civil word for his exile And now both parties being sufficiently heated the battel begins in which not only England and Ireland but France and Flanders were deeply engaged The first who appeared was Dr. Kellison Professour of Doway in a Book in Vindication of the Bishops Authority to whom Knot then Vice-Provincial of the Iesuits returned his Modest and brief discussion c. under the name of Nicholas Smith a Iesuite then dead Soon after came out another written to the same purpose under the name of Daniel of Iesu whose true name was Iohn Fluide which the other writing Ioanes for Iohn was the Anagram of he was a Iesuit too and Professour at St. Omars which Books were first censured by the Arch-bishop of Paris then by the Sorbonne and at last by the Bishops of France in an Assembly of them at Paris but the Iesuits were so far from giving over by this that they new set forth their Books in Latin with large approbations of them and publish a Remonstrance against the Bishop of Chalcedon in the name of the Catholick party in England which was disowned by the greatest number of them and cast wholly upon the Iesuits the same year 1631. three Books were published by the secular Clergy here in opposition to the Iesuits Who were so far from quitting the Field by the number of their enemies that they begin a fresh charge against both the Sorbonne Doctors and the French Clergy under the fained name of Hermannus Loemelius whose chief Author was the fore-named Iesuite Lloyd with the assistance of his Brethren as the diversity of the style shews and another Book came out against the Faculty of Paris in Vindication of Knot or Nicholas Smith with many approbations of Bishops Vniversities and private Doctors and in Vindication of the Propositions of Ireland likewise censured at Paris another Book came forth under the name of Edmundus Vrsulanus whose true name was Mac-mahone Prior of the Franciscan Convent in Lovain About the same time the Iesuits published their Censure of the Apostolical Creed in imitation of the censures at Paris against their Doctrine as though their Doctrines were as certain as that and themselves as infallible as the Apostles wherein they charge the Bishops their enemies with reviving old Heresies and broaching new ones The Iesuits having now done such great things triumph unreasonably in all places as having utterly overthrown their enemies and beaten them out of the field when in a little time after Hallier and le Maistre two Doctors of the Sorbonne undertake the quarrel against them but none was so highly magnified and infinitely applauded by the French Clergy as a person under the disguised name of Petrus Aurelius whose atchievements in this kind they celebrate next to those of the Pucelle d' Orleans and Printed all his Works together at their own charge and writ a high Elogium of him which is prefixed before them And the secular Clergy of England sent him a letter of Congratulation for his Triumphs subscribed by Iohn Colleton Dean of the Chapter and Edmond Dutton Secretary wherein they sadly lament the discords that have been among them here and the Heresies broached by their Adversaries by occasion of them The main of-this Controversie did concern the dignity necessity and jurisdiction of the Episcopal Order as appears by the Censures of the Bishops of France and by Aurelius who saith that although the Dispute began upon occasion of the Bishop of Chalcedon and the English Clergy yet it was now carried farther whether the Episcopal Order was necessary to the Being of a particular Church Whether it was by divine right or no Whether confirmation might be given without Bishops Whether the Episcopal Order was more perfect than the Monastical Whether the Regulars were under the jurisdiction of Bishops And therefore the Iesuits are charged by their Adversaries with a design to extirpate and ruine the whole Order of Episcopacy Have not these men now great reason to insult over us that some of these questions have caused great differences among us when the Iesuits in England had laid the foundation of them by their quarrels of the same kind but a little before and furnished the enemies to Episcopacy and the Church of England with so many arguments to their hands to manage their bad cause with But what becomes of the Court of Rome all this while do the Pope and Cardinals only stand still to see what the issue of the Battel will be without ever offering to compose the difference between the two parties No. The Iesuits finding how hard they were put to it make their address to Rome as their greatest Sanctuary and A. D. 1633. obtained a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for suppressing the Books on both sides without judging any thing at all of the merits of the cause or giving any censure of the authority on either side And is not now the Popes authority an excellent remedy for all divisions in the Church When in so great a heat as this was the Pope durst not interpose at all in the main business for fear of losing either side which is a plain argument that they themselves look on his Authority as so precarious a thing that they must by no means expose it where it is like to be called in Question Were not here Controversies fit to be determined To what purpose is that authority that dare not be exercised when there is most need of it and when could there be greater need than in such a time when the Church was in a flame by these contentions And yet so timerous a Decree as this was could find no acceptance For at Paris immediately comes out a disquisition upon it shewing
the unreasonableness of it in suppressing Books without enquiring into the merits of the cause in a matter of so great consequence as that was that this would give great occasion of triumph to the Hereticks when such scandalous and seditious Books as those of the Jesuits are meet with the same favour at Rome with the censure of the Bishops of France that their profane and Atheistical Censure of the Apostles Creed must have no mark of disgrace put upon it nor such sayings of theirs wherein they call the Bishops and Divines of France by most contumelious names and say they are the enemies of the truth and piety The Iesuits instead of defending themselves against Aurelius write a pittiful defence of this Decree of suppressing the Books on both sides and so all the means which the Court of Rome durst use to extinguish this flame proved but an occasion of adding to it And whether this Controversie be yet at an end among them let all the heats in France and England of late years concerning the Iesuits give testimony § 10. I shall not now insist any longer upon them but only produce some late passages of things which though they happened at a greater distance are yet sufficiently attested to shew what spight the Iesuitical Order bears to the Authority of Bishops what arts they have used to enervate it what power to affront their persons and expose them to all the contempt that may be when they go about to stop their proceedings or exercise any jurisdiction over them The great occasion of the Controversie between the Bishops and them was that the Iesuits took upon them to Preach and hear Confessions c. without any permission from the Bishop of the Diocese So they did in the Philippine Islands whereupon the Arch-bishop of Manille Don Hernando Guerrero called a Synod wherein it was resolved that the Archbishop ought to bring the Iesuits to account for what they did which he did and all the satisfaction he could get from them was that they had priviledges the Arch-bishop not satisfied with this proceeds against them they name a Conservator an enemy of the Arch-bishops For the Popes to keep the Bishops in awe have allowed them by a Bull for that purpose liberty in case of difference between the Bishops and them to choose a Conservator to defend their priviledges against them this Conservator proceeds against the Arch-bishop and the Iesuits procure the Governour to joyne with him who without giving leave to him to make his Defence resolve to banish him The Arch-bishop understanding their resolution to send him away goes with the Clergy about him into his Chappel and there to secure himself from the insolency of the Souldiers in his Pontifical habit holds the Eucharist in his hand notwithstanding which they came and dragged out all the Fryers who took the Arch-bishops part and afterwards the old Arch-bishop himself who fell down in the crowd with the Pix in his hand and wounded himself in the face Such exorbitances made that impression on one of the Souldiers that he drew his Sword and falling upon it said He had rather dye by his own hands than see such enormities among Christians At last the Arch-bishop was forced to let go his Pix and was presently carryed away out of the City and put into a little pittiful Barque unprovided of all things without permitting any food to be given him or any of his servants to accompany him and was conveyed by five Souldiers into a Desart Island where he had not so much as a Cabin for shelter and there he was kept till he yielded to their terms O the admirable unity peace and submission to Bishops in the Roman Church But we have yet a more remarkable instance of this kind in the notorious case of the difference between the Bishop of Angelopolis in America and the Iesuits which was heard at Rome and several Bulls published by Innocent 10. in it I shall give an account of it from the Popes Bulls and from the letter which the Bishop himself sent to the Pope about it A. D. 1649. which is extant in the Collection of the end of Mr. S. Amours Iournal which he had from Cosimo Ricciardi Sub-librarykeeper of the Vatican who received it immediately from the Bishops Agent The controversie began there upon the very same grounds which it had done in the Philippine Islands for the Iesuits would acknowledge no subjection at all to the Bishop but would Preach and hear Confessions without any license from the Bishop which difference grew so high that the Iesuits chose Conservators against the Bishops authority as the Popes Bull granted May 14. A. D. 1648. doth declare and not only so but these Conservators very fairly excommunicated the Bishop and his Vicar General upon this the Bishop sends an Agent to Rome and the Iesuits appear in behalf of their Society the Pope commits the cause to a particular Congregation of Cardinals and Bishops who upon the hearing of both sides give sentence in favour of the Bishop Apr. 16. A. D. 1648. But the Iesuits as appears by the Bishops letter bearing date Ian. 8. A. D. 1649. were resolved not to wait for the Popes resolution but finding that the people contemned their censures and adhered to the Bishop were so enraged at it that they resolved to imprison him to that end they bribe the King of Spains Vice-roy the Bishops particular enemy with a great summ of money and by that means clapt up most of his Friends and threatned them with worse if they would not obey the Conservators the Bishop himself they had appointed Souldiers to seize upon on Corpus Christi day the better day the better deed who understanding their minds sent commissioners to treat with them to prevent the tumults and disorders were like to follow on these differences but they used them with contempt and would hear of no terms unless the Bishop would submit himself and his jurisdiction to them and their Conservators but instead of peace they proceed to more open acts of hostility by imprisoning his Vicar General and using all manner of insolencies among the People who joyned with the Bishop to defend him against them The good Bishop seeing things in so bad a posture thought it his greatest prudence to withdraw to the mountains thinking himself safer among the Serpents and Scorpions there than in the City among the Iesuits There he continues for twenty dayes almost famished and afterwards for four months lay hid in a pittiful Cottage the Iesuits in the mean time offering great summs of money to those who should bring him alive or dead But not finding him they bring the excommunicated Conservators with great pomp into the City and erect a Tribunal or in the language of the late times a Highâ—Court of Iustice among them where according to their pleasure they fine banish imprison as many as they thought their enemies and there solemnly declare what mighty
injury the Bishop had done the Iesuits in forbidding them to Preach without licenses from him or till such time as they produced those which they had from his predecessours then they declare the Bishops See to be vacant and caused it to be published in the Churches that the Iesuits did not need any license from the Bishop they null all censures against them recall all Orders published by the Bishop for the good Government of his Diocese The Bishop in the mean time privately sends monitory letters to the people to bear the present persecution with patience but by no means to associate with or to hear those excommunicated persons who had offered such affronts to his authority and jurisdiction by which means the people not being prevailed upon they with a great summ of money procure some secular Iudges to forme a judicial process against the Bishop for Sedition to which end they suborn witnesses against him but could make evidence of nothing tending to sedition but forbidding the Iesuits to Preach This not taking they attempt another way to expose him to contempt upon the Sacred day of their holy Father Ignatius they put their Scholars in Mascarade and so personating the Bishop and his Clergy they make a procession through the Town in the middle of the day and sung the Pater noster and Ave Maria as they went with horrible blasphemies perverting both of them to the abuse of the Bishop and his party instead of saying libera nos à malo they said libera nos à Palafox which was the name of the Bishop and others had the Episcopal staffe hanging at a Horses taile and the Miter on their stirrups to let them see how much they had it under their feet others sung Lampoons against the Bishop others did such things which are not fit to be repeated Which were parts of this glorious triumph of the Iesuits over the Bishop and his Authority But in the midst of this excessive jollity the King of Spains Navy arrived wherein the Kings commands were brought for removing the Vice-Roy who was the great Friend of the Iesuits the news of this abated their heat and the Bishop secretly conveys himself into his Palace which the people hearing of ran with incredible numbers to embrace him for several dayes together upon which the Iesuits complain to the old Vice-Roy of a sedition and obtained from him a command to the Chapter not to yield to the Bishops jurisdiction which caused a great division among them one part adhering to the Bishop and another to the Iesuits The Bishop therefore seeing the differences to rise higher and the Schism to be greater and the miserable condition the Church was in among them was fain to submit and promise to innovate nothing but to wait the Popes decision Not long after another Ship arrived from Spain with an Express from the King wherein the Vice-Roy was commanded immediately to surrender his Government and was severely rebuked for assisting the Iesuits against the Bishop and all the acts in that matter were nulled by the Kings authority but the Iesuits according to their usual integrity gave out just the contrary to the Orders received and framed letters on purpose which they dispersed among the people But these arts never holding long when the Vice-Roy's Successour was established the truth brake forth and the Bishop returned to the exercise of his former Authority But notwithstanding the Kings declaration and the Popes Breve was now published among them the Iesuits persisted still in their obstinate disobedience and although excommunicated by the Bishop yet continued to Preach and act as before And hereby we have a plain discovery what a mighty regard the Iesuits have to the Papal See if it once oppose their designes and what an effectual instrument of Peace and Vnity the Popes Authority is for they presently found wayes enough to decline the force of the Popes Bull. For 1. They said it could have no force there because it was not received by the Council of the Indies it seems pasce oves and dabo tibi claves c. signifie nothing in the Indies unless the Kings Council pleases or rather unless the Iesuits please to let it do so 2. They pleaded bravely for themselves that the priviledges granted them by the Popes were in consideration of their merits and so were of the nature of contracts and Covenants and therefore could not be revoked by the Pope 3. That the Popes constitutions in this matter were not received by the Church and Laws which are not received are no Laws But as the Bishop well urges against them if these wayes of interpreting the Popes Bulls be allowed his Authority will signifie nothing and all his Constitutions shall have no more force than those against whom they are directed be pleased to yield to them and it will be impossible to preserve peace in the Church if it shall be in the power of offenders to declare whether the Laws against them are to be received for Laws or no. But this saith he is the inspiration and illumination of the Iesuits and their method of interpreting the Papal constitutions which he heard very often from their own mouths in the frequent conferences he had with them about these matters But they had another way to decline the Kings Authority for the King and his Council being all Lay-men they had nothing to do in Ecclesiastical matters By which means as the Bishop saith they make themselves superiour both to King and Pope and free from all jurisdiction either spiritual or temporal And I dare appeal to the most indifferent person whether any Doctrine broached by the greatest Fanaticks among us ever tended more to the dissolution of Government the countenancing sedition the perpetuating Schisms in the Church than these of the Iesuits do And therefore the Bishop saith that he had rather lay down his life than by yielding up his jurisdiction expose his Authority to Contempt and the Church to the continual danger of Schisms and by many weighty arguments perswades the Pope if he truly designed the peace and flourishing of the Church speedily and effectually to reform the whole Order of the Iesuits without which he saith it is impossible especially in those remoter parts for the Bishops to preserve any Authority And besides other corruptions among them he tells strange stories of their wayes of propagating Christian Religion in China and other neighbour Nations which they boast so much of at this distance but he saith they who are so much nearer and understand those things better have cause to lament the infinite scandals which they give to the Christian Religion in doing it The account which he gives of these things this Bishop protests he sends to the Pope only to clear his own Conscience that he might not be condemned at the day of judgement for concealing that which he so certainly knew to be true by those who were eye-witnesses of it Their first work is to
not trust the Popes infallibility nor all the promises they pretend Christ hath made to their Church but govern their affaires wholly by the rules of humane Policy And on this account when the heats brake forth in France about Iansenism and both parties made application to the Court of Rome the Pope could never be prevailed with to suffer the main controversies to be touched or any decree to pass about them but at last condemned some ambiguous Propositions as taken out of Iansenius his book which both parties condemned according to their different senses and they were left to dispute it out which sense it was the Pope meant them in And therefore the Iansenists Advocate who was well versed in the practices of the Court of Rome gave them the truest account of the intentions of that Court in their affaire which was to delude both the one side and the other and that Cardinal Ginetti had told him that either nothing would be done or if any thing that which would doe neither good not hurt And therefore in stead of ending the controversies the Popes definition only produced more viz. whether the Propositions condemned were in Iansenius or no whether the Pope might not erre in matter of fact the Iansenists affirming this the Iesuits denying it and charging each other with no less than Heresie about it For upon the Iesuits asserting Octob. 12. A.D. 1661. that the Pope hath the same infallibility that Iesus Christ hath not only in Questions of right but in matters of fact and that thence those of their Church are bound to believe with a divine faith that the 5. condemned Propositions are in Iansenius the Iansenists publish a charge of heresie against the Iesuits and such as was never broached in the Church before being not only a solitary error or simple heresie but a whole source of errors or rather an universal heresie which overthrows all Religion Which they goe about at large to prove by shewing that this builds mens faith on the word of man and not on the word of God because it concerns a thing neither revealed nor attested by God as to know whether Propositions are really an Authors of this last Age and as he goes on to make the Popes word equal with the word of God is not only heresie but horrid impiety and a species of Idolatry for this is giving to man the honour due only to God because such an entire submission of our mind and of all our intellectuals comprehended in the act of our faith is that Adoration which we pay to the prime verity it self And I dare now leave any one to Judge whether upon so late an experiment of the Constitutions of two Popes Innocent 10. and Alexander 7. in order to the ending so great a Controversie as this was it be not apparent that the Popes Authority signifies no more to the ending Controversies than the parties who are concerned are willing that it should i. e. as far as they doe consent to obey them and no farther § 14. But it may be said that it is true there are differences among them about the Popes power and infallibility and therefore he may not be so fit to end Controversies but there is no dispute among them about Pope and Council together therefore in that case they are all agreed that they ought to submit These are fine things to be said and appeare plausibly to those who doe not search into them but those that doe will easily find this as ineffectual a remedy as the other For if we examine but the ways used by the several parties among them to avoid the decisions of some Councils against their particular opinions we may see how little the decrees of Councils can bind those who have no mind to be tyed up by them Either they say the decision depended on a matter of fact which the Council was not sufficiently informed in and they believe a Council may erre in a matter of fact or else it did not proceed after the way of a Council or it was not general or its decrees were not received by the Catholick Church or though some were received yet not all or however the infallibility of a Council is not absolute but supposing that it proceeds according to the constant tradition of the Church which unavoidably leaves the matter as much under debate as if the Council had never meddled with it But if they doe in earnest believe that the Pope and Council can put an end to all Controversies among them when they please I would fain know why they have not done this hitherto Is not unity desirable among them if not why doe they boast of it if it be why have they not obtained it since they can so easily doe it what made them so extremely cautious in the Council of Trent of meddling with any thing that was in Controversie among themselves or was it that they were all so much of a mind that they had nothing to doe but to condemn their enemies which was so far from being true that there were very few things which came into bebate that they were agreed in and therefore they were put sometimes to strange shifts to find out general and ambiguous terms which might not displease the dissenters and yet leave the disputes as great as ever They could not agree so much as about the Title of the Council many of the Bishops were for adding to the Title of the most holy Council Representing the Church Vniversal which was eagerly opposed by the Italians and with much adoe avoided by the Legats being no small controversie about words but of very great consequence about the power and authority of Pope and Council if they had been suffered to goe on in it But the Pope hearing of this dispute at the beginning sent word to the Legats not to broach any new difficulties in matter of faith nor to determine any of the things controversed among Catholicks and to proceed slowly in the Reformation Excellent instructions for the advancement of Peace and Holiness Whoever will for that end peruse that incomparable history of the Council will find how high the Controversies among themselves were between the Bishops and the Regulars about priviledges between the Dominicans and Franciseâ—ins in many weighty points between the Italian Bishops and others about Residence and the extent of Episcopal power between the Divines in most of the matters of doctrine as might easily be shewed at large if I loved the pains of transcribing but I had rather referre the Reader to that excellent history it self But I only renew my demand why must no controversies among Catholicks be ended in the Council could they be better decided any where else if so then the Council is not the best means of Vnity if not then it seems there is no necessity of ending controversies among them but they have Vnity enough without it And in truth it is Interest and not
by our Church Art 25. he saith they are not absolutely rejected as Sacraments but as Sacraments of the same Nature with Baptism and the Lords Supper which they yield to For Transubstantiation which is utterly denyed by our Church Art 28. he very subtilly interprets it of a carnal presence of Christs Body which he grants to be repugnant to Scripture and to destroy the nature of a Sacrament but they do believe Christs Body to be present after the manner of a Spirit and so our Church doth not condemn theirs As to communion in both kinds asserted by our Church Art 30. he saith it is not condemned by the Council of Trent therein which only Anathematizes those who make it necessary to Salvation which our Church mentions not and however we condemn communion in one kind Canus proves him not to be guilty of Heresie who should say that the Church hath erred therein The 31 Article condemns the Sacrifice of the Masse i.e. saith he independently on the Sacrifice of the Crosse which is propitiatory of it self and the other only by vertue of it The 32. of the lawfulness of Priests Marriage he understands of the Law of God in respect of which it is the most common opinion among them he saith that it is lawful The 34. about Traditions he interprets of those which are not Doctrinal The Book of Homilies approved Art 35. he understands as they do Books approved by their Church not of every sentence contained therein but the substance of the Doctrine and he grants there are many good things contained therein For the 36. of consecration of Bishops and Ministers he proves from Vasquez Conink Arcudius and Innocent 4. that our Church hath all the essentials of Ordination required in Scripture and if the difference of form of words did null our Ordinations it would do those of the Greek Church too The last Article he examins is Art 37. Of the Civil Magistrates power in opposition to the Popes Authority and he grants that the King may be allowed a Supermacy i.e. such as may not be taken away by any one as his Superiour and that by custome a sufficient right accrues to him over all Ecclesiastical causes and that by divine and natural right he hath jurisdiction over all Ecclesiastical persons so far as the publick good is concerned And withall he grants that we yield no spiritual jurisdiction to the King and no more than is contended for by the French and the Parliament of Paris That part which denyes the Popes jurisdiction in England he saith may be understood of the Popes challenging England to be a Fee of the Roman See but if it be otherwise understood he makes use of many Scholastick distinctions of actus signatus exercitus c. the sense of which is that it is in some cases lawful for a temporal Prince to withdraw his obedience from the Pope but leaves it to be discussed whether he had sufficient reason for doing it But there can be no Heresie in matter of fact it remains then according to the sense put upon our Articles by him with the help of his Scholastick subtleties we differ no more from them in points of faith than they do from one another For such kind of distinctions and senses are they forced to use and put upon each others opinions to excuse them from disagreeing in articles of faith and there is no reason that we should not enjoy the benefit of them as well as they so that either they must be guilty of differing in matters of faith or we are not § 16. 3. They plead that their differences are only confined to their Schools and do not disturb the peace of the Church But there is as little truth in this as there is Vnity in their Church as plainly appears by what hath been said already Was the Controversie about the Popes temporal power confined to the Schools did not that make for several Ages as great disturbances in the Church as were ever known in it upon any quarrel of Religion Were the Controversies between the Bishops and the Monks confined to their Schools about the extent of the Episcopal jurisdiction in former times or in the renewing of this Hierarchical Warr as one of the Iansenists calls it in France But these things are at large discovered already I shall only adde one thing more which seems more like a dispute of the Schools between the several Orders among them about the immaculate conception and it will easily appear that whereever that dispute began it did not rest in the Schools if we consider the tumults and disturbances which have been made only on the account of it This Controversie began in the Schools about the beginning of the 14 Century when Scotus set up for a new Sect in opposition to Thomas Aquinas and among other points of Controversie he made choice of this to distinguish his followers by but proposed it himself very timerously as appears by his resolution of it in his Book on the Sentences however his followers boast that in this blessed quarrel he was sent for from Oxford to Paris from Paris to Cologne to overthrow all Adversaries and that he did great wonders every where But however this were there were some not long after him who boldly asserted what he doubtfully proposed of whom Franciscus Mayronis is accounted the first after him Petrus Aureolus Occam and the whole order of Franciscans But the great strength of this opinion lay not in the wit and subtilty of the defenders of it nor in any arguments from Scripture or Antiquity but in that which they called the Piety of it i. e. that it tended to advance the honour of the B. Virgin For after the worship of her came to be so publick and solemn in their Church I do not in the least wonder that they were willing to believe her to be without sin I much rather admire they do not believe all their Canonized Saints to have been so too and I am sure the same reasons will hold for them all But this Opinion by degrees obtaining among the people it grew scandalous for any man to oppose it So Walsingham saith towards the latter end of this Century the Dominicans Preaching the contrary opinion against the command first of the Bishops in France and then of the King and Nobles they were out-lawed by the King and absolutely forbid to go out of their own Convents for fear of seducing the people and not only so but to receive any one more into their Order that so the whole Order might in a little time be extinguished The occasion of this persecution arose from a disturbance which happened in Paris upon this Controversie one Ioh. de Montesono publickly read against the immaculate conception at which so great offence was taken that he was convented before the Faculty of Sorbonne but he declared that he had done nothing but by advice of the chief of his Order
Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome § 1. HAving thus far Vindicated the Scriptures from being the cause by being read among us of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England I now return to the consideration of the Remainder of his Reply And one thing still remains to be cleared concerning the Scripture which is whether it can be a most certain rule of faith and life since among Protestants it is left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit which is as much as to ask whether any thing can be a rule which may be mis-understood by those who are to be guided by it or whether it be fit the people should know the Laws they are to be governed by because it is a dangerous thing to mis-interpret Laws and none are so apt to do it as the common people I dare say St. Augustin never thought that Heresies arising from mis-understanding Scriptures were a sufficient argument against their being a Rule of faith or being read by the people as appears by his discoursing to them in the place quoted by him For then he must have said to them to this purpose Good people ye perceive from whence Heresies spring therefore as you would preserve your soundness in the faith abstain from reading the Scriptures or looking on them as your rule mind the Traditions of the Church but trust not your selves with the reading what God himself caused to be writ it cannot be denyed that the Scriptures have far greater excellency in them than any other writings in the world but you ought to consider the best and most useful things are the most dangerous when abused What is more necessary to the life of man than eating and drinking yet where lyes intemperance and the danger of surfetting but in the use of these What keeps men more in their wits than sleeping yet when are men so lyable to have their throats cut as in the use of that What more pleasant to the eyes than to see the Sun yet what is there so like to put them out as to stare too long upon him Therefore since the most necessary and useful things are most dangerous when they are abused my advice must be that ye forbear eating sleeping and seeing for fear of being surfetted murdred or losing your sight which you know to be very bad things I cannot deny but that the Scriptures are called the bread of life the food of our souls the light of our eyes the guide of our wayes yet since there may be so much danger in the use of food of light and of a Guide it is best for you to abstain from them Would any man have argued like St. Augustin that should talk at this rate yet this must have been his way of arguing if his meaning had been to have kept the people from reading the Scriptures because Heresies arise from mis-understanding them But all that he inferrs from thence is what became a wise man to say viz. that they should be cautious in affirming what they did not understand and that hanc tenentes regulam sanitatis holding this still as our rule of soundness in the faith with great humility what we are able to understand according to the faith we have received we ought to rejoyce in it as our food what we cannot we ought not presently to doubt of but take time to understand it and though we know it not at present we ought not to question it to be good and true and afterwards saith that was his own case as well as theirs What S. Augustine a Guide and Father of the Church put himself equal with the people in reading and understanding Scriptures In which we not only see his humility but how far he was from thinking that this argument would any more exclude the people from reading the Scriptures than the great Doctors of the Church For I pray were they the common people who first broached Heresies in the Christian Church Were Arius Nestorius Macedonius Eutyches or the great abettors of their Doctrines any of the Vulgar If this argument then holds at all it must hold especially against men of parts and learning that have any place in the Church for they are much more in danger of spreading Heresies by mis-interpreting Scriptures than any others are But among Protestants he saith Scripture is left to the Fanciful interpretation of every private Spirit If he speaks of our Church he knows the contrary and that we profess to follow the unanimous consent of the primitive Fathers as much as they and embrace the doctrine of the four General Councils But if there have been some among us who have followed their own Fancies in interpreting Scripture we can no more help that than they can do in theirs and I dare undertake to make good that there have never been more absurd ridiculous and Fanciful Interpretations of Scripture than not the common people but the Heads of their Church have made and other persons in greatest reputation among them Which though too large a task for this present design may ere long be the subject of another For the authority of Henry 8. in the testimony produced from him when they yield to it in the point of Supremacy we may do it in the six articles or other
who should visit the 12. Churches and their own Cathedral all Lent Fasting as full an Indulgence as if they went to Hierusalem and besides this every first Sunday in the month as great an Indulgence i. e. I suppose for as many days as a man could take up sands in both hands This Baronius thinks a little too much and therefore rejects it as fabulous because the same Pope in an Indulgence given to the Church of Ferrara grants but a year of criminals and a seventh part of venials but he doth not consider that the case of Ancona was peculiar because of the great friendship that city had shewn to the Pope in his distress and this Indulgence was transcribed from a very ancient Manuscript and better attested than many other things which he never disputes But if it be a cheat let it pass for one and it is no great matter to me whether it were a cheat of the Popes or the Church of Ancona But he doth not at all question the Indulgence granted by the same Pope to those who would take up arms against the Albigenses which to those who dye in that cause is not only pardon of all their sins but an eternal reward but such that refused to goe no less than excommunication is denounced against them And Honorius 3. in the same cause granted an Indulgence in the same terms as to those who went to the Holy Land and Gregorius 9. to all who should take his part against the Emperour Frederic 2. which Bzovius confesseth to be usual with the Popes to give to those who would fight against Saracens hereticks or any other enemies of theirs This practice of Indulgences being once taken up was found too beneficial to be ever let fall again and private Bishops began to make great use of it not in such a manner as the Popes but they were unwilling not to have as great a share as they could get in it thence they began to publish Indulgences to those who would give money towards the building or repairing Churches or other publick works for this they promised them a pardon of the 7. or 4. or 3. part of their sins according as their bounty deserved This was first begun by Gelasius 2. for the building of the Church of Saragoza A. D. 1118. and was followed by other Bishops in so much that Morinus is of opinion that Mauricius Bishop of Paris built the great Church of Nostredame there in that manner and he saith he can find no ground for this practice of Indulgences before the 12. century and answers Bellarmins arguments for a greater antiquity of them and proves all his testimonies from Gregories Stations Ludgerus his epistle and Sergius his indulgence in the Church of S. Martin at Rome produced by Baronius to be meer impostures But the Bishops of Rome finding how beneficial these Indulgences were soon resolved to keep the keys of this Treasury of the Church in their own hands and therefore quickly abridged other Bishops of this power and made great complaint that by the indiscreet use of Indulgences by the Bishops the keys of the Church were contemned and discipline lost so Innocent 3. in the Council of Lateran can 62. and therefore decrees that in the dedication of a Church though where there were several Bishops together they should not grant any Indulgence above a year nor any single Bishop above 40. days But we are not to imagine that the Popes ever intended to tye their own hands by these Canons but they were too wise to let others have the managing of so rich a stock as that of the Church was which would bring in so great a harvest from the sins of the people Thence Boniface 8. first instituted the year of Iubilee A. D. 1300 and in his Bull published for that end grants not only a plenary and larger but most plenary remission of sins to them that if Romans for 30 if strangers for 15. days in that year should visit the Churches of the Apostles This was brought afterwards by Clem. 6. to every 50. years and since to 25. or as often as his Holines please but in all of them a most plenary remission of sins is granted It were worth the while to understand the difference between a plenary larger and most plenary indulgence since Bellarmin tells us that a plenary Indulgence takes away all the punishment due to sin But these were the fittest terms to let the people know they should have as much for their money as was to be had and what could they desire more And although Bellarmin abhorres the name of selling Indulgences yet it comes all to one the Popes gives Indulgences and they give money or they doe it not by way of purchase but by way of Alms But commend me to the plain honesty of Boniface 9. who being not satisfied with the oblations at Rome sent abroad his Iubilees to Colen Magdeburg and other Cities but always sent his Collectors to take his share of the money that was gathered and inserted in them that Clause porrigentibus manus Adjutrices which in plain English is to those who would give money for them without which no Indulgence was to be had as Gobelinus Persona saith Who likewise addes this remarkable passage that the preachers of the Indulgences told the people to encourage them to deale for them that they were not only à poená but à culpâ too i.e. not meerely from the temporal punishment of sin but from the fault it self which deserved eternal this made the people look into them and not finding those terms but only a most plenary remission they were unsatisfied because they were told that the fault could be forgiven by God alone but if they could but once find that the Pope would undertake to clear all scores with God for them they did not doubt but they would be worth their money Whereupon he saith those very terms were put into them then the wiser men thought these were counterfeit and made only by the Pardon-mongers but upon further enquiry they found it otherwise How far this trade of Indulgences was improved afterwards in the time of Alexander 6. and Leo 10. the Reformation which began upon occasion of them will be a lasting monument which was the greatest good the world ever received by them § 5. But we are not to think since Indulgences are such great kindnesses to the souls of men that they should be only reserved for years of Iubilee for what a hard case may they be in who should chance to dy but the year before Therefore the Popes those tender Fathers of the Church have granted very comfortable ones to many particular places and for the doing some good actions that no one need be in any great perplexity for want of them Other places it is probable a man may goe to Heaven assoon from as Rome but there is none like that for escaping Purgatory
after the elevation of the body of our Lord clene remission of all their sins perpetually enduring And also Iohn the 3 Pope of Rome at the request of the Quéen of England hath graunted unto all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lord Crucified as many days of pardon as there were wounds in the body of our Lord in the tyme of his bitter passion the which were 5365. It is well Sixtus came after him or else his market had been spoyled the other so much out-bid him Next to clean pardon Iohn 22. offers fair only the task is somewhat harder it being for three Prayers Thys 3 prayers be wrytton in the Chappelle of the holy crosse in Rome otherwise called Sâ—cellum sanctae Crucis 7 Romanorum whoo that devoutly say them shall obtayn 90000 years of pardon for dedly sins graunted by our holie Father Iohn 22. Pope of Rome Methinks he should have come to a full hundred thousand when his hand was in But there is one odd condition implyed in some of these prayers called being in a state of Grace the want of which may hinder the effect of them but although due confession with absolution will at any time put a man into it yet is there no remedy without it we will try once more for that and end these Indulgences And I think the prayer of S. Bernardine of Siena will relieve us Thys most devoutly prayer sayd the holy Father S. Bernardine daylie kneeling in the worship of the most holy name Iesus And yt is well to believe that through the invocation of that most excellent name of Iesu S. Bernard obtayned a singular reward of perpetual consolation of our Lord Iesu Christ. And thys prayer is written in a Table that hangeth at Rome in S. Peters Church nere to the high awter there as our holy Father the Pope duely is wonte to say the office of the Masse And hoo that devoutly with a contrite heart dayly say this Oryson yf he be that day in the state of eternal damnation than this eternal payne shall be chaunged him in temporal payne of Purgatory than yf he hath deserved the payne of Purgatory yt shall be forgotten and forgiven thorow the infinite mercy of God This is enough of all reason And so much shall serve to set forth what the practice of Indulgences hath been in the Church of Rome and what is expressed in them § 7. 2. I now come to give account what opinion hath been had of these Indulgences in their own Church wherein some have freely confessed they have no Foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are only pious frauds and those who have gone about to defend them have been driven to miserable shifts in the defence of them 1. Some have confessed that they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity Durandus saith that very little can be affirmed with any certainty concerning Indulgences because neither the Scripture speaks expresly of them and the Fathers Ambrose Hilary August Hierome speak not all of them and therefore he hath no more to say but that the common opinion is to be followed herein The same is said by another School-man who addes this that though it be a Negative argument yet it is of force because in the time of those Fathers they were very much skilled in the Scriptures and it were very strange if Indulgences were to be found there that they did not find them This is likewise affirmed by Cajetan Dominicus Soto and all those who assert that the use of Indulgences came into the Church upon the relaxing the severity of the primitive discipline which they say continued in use for a 1000 years after Christ. But the most express testimonies in this case are of Bishop Fisher who saith that the use of Indulgences came very late into the Church and of Polydore Virgil following his words and of Alphonsus à Castro who ingenuously confesseth that among all the controversies he writes of there is none which the Scripture or Fathers speak less of than this but however he saith though the use of them seem to have come very late into the Church they ought not to be contemned because many things are known to latter ages which the ancient writers were wholly ignorant of for which he instanceth in Transubstantiation procession from the Son and Purgatory But he ought to have remembred what himself had said before in a chapter of finding out heresies that the novelty of any doctrine makes it of it self to be suspected because Christ and his Apostles did give sufficient instructions for attaining eternal life and after the Law given by Christ no other Law is to be expected because his Testament is eternal Let this be applyed to his own confession of these doctrines and the consequence is easily discerned And it is an excellent saying of Bellarmin that in things which depend on the will of God nothing ought to be affirmed unless God hath revealed it in the H. Scriptures Therefore according to the opinion of these persons who assert the doctrine of Indulgences to have no Foundation in Scripture or Antiquity it can be no other than a notorious Cheat. 2. Some in the Church of Rome have called them pious frauds This appears by the Controversies which arose upon Indulgences at the same time when they began to grow common For Aquinas and Bonaventure tell us that there were some in the Church who said that the intention of the Church in Indulgences was only by a pious fraud to draw men to charitable acts which otherwise they would not have done as a mother which promiseth her Child an apple to run abroad which she never gives him when she hath brought him to it Which is the very instance they used as Gregory de Valentiâ confesseth But this Aquinas rejects as a very dangerous opinion because this is in plain terms to make the Church guilty of a notorious Cheat and as he saith from St. Augustine if any falshood be found in Scripture it takes away the authority of the whole so if the Church be guilty of a cheat in one thing she will be suspected in all the rest This saith Bonaventure is to make the Church to lye and deceive and Indulgences to be vain and childish toyes But for all these hard words they had a great deal of reason on their side for the Indulgences were express for the remission of the sins of those who did such and such things as the giving a small summ of money towards the building of a Church or an Hospital they therefore asked whether the Indulgences were to be taken as they were given or no if they were then all those had full remission of sins on very easie terms if not then what is this else but fraud and cheating and can be only called pious because the work was good which they did This put the
defenders of Indulgences very hard to it Praepositivus one of the eldest of the Schoolmen confesseth that it looks a little oddly for a man to be absolved from all his sins for three pence given in three several places and that the rich by this means have a mighty advantage over the poor but he resolves it all into the power of the Church Petrus Cantor confesseth the difficulties great but only for the Churches Authority and especially in those general Indulgences which are pronounced without any distinctions Therefore he saith Greg. 4. as he calls him Morinus thinks Greg. 8. in the Dedication of the Church of Benevento told the people it was much safer for them to undergoe their penance than to receive an Indulgence from him of any part of it and another Bishop being desired an Indulgence would give it but for two dayes but if any one asks whether the remission of sins were presently obtained after Indulgence or only when they are uncapable of penance viz. after death for his part he saith he desires them to consult the Pope or the Bishop that gives the Indulgence whether of these opinions is true and when the Bishop of Paris shewed him the magnificent Church he had built by vertue of Indulgences Cantor told him he had done much better if he had let them alone and perswaded the people to undergoe their penance But because the form of Indulgences ran in such large and general terms it grew to be a great Question among the Schoolmen Whether the validity of Indulgences was as great as the words of them which in other terms is whether the Church did cheat or not in giving them for if they were not to understand them according to the plain words of them what is this but a gross imposture to abuse the credulous people and laugh in their sleeves at them for their simplicity For while the people have so good an opinion of their Church as to believe the truth of what she declares and to take Indulgences according to the sense of the words if their meaning who give them be otherwise than is expressed it is one of the most abominable cheats that ever was invented by men For picking purses forging deeds or betraying men are tolerable things in comparison but to abuse and ruine their souls under a pretence of pardoning their sins is the utmost degree of fraud and imposture Let us now see how these Hucksters defend their Church in this case for the Question hath been debated among the Schoolmen ever since Indulgences came up Some resolve it thus that Indulgences do signifie as much as the Church declares but with these conditions that there be sufficient authority in the giver necessity in the receiver that he believes the Church hath power to give them that he be in a state of grace and give a sufficient compensation which is to overthrow what they said unless those conditions were expressed in the Indulgences Some say that common Indulgences held only for sins of Ignorance others for venial sins others for penances negligently performed others for Purgatory pains Some again said that these could signifie no more than a relaxation of Canonical Penance whatever the words were and that they were introduced for no other end and they do not reach any farther than the Churches Canonical power or judgement doth and not to the judgement of God But this opinion saith Greg. de Valentiâ doth not differ from the Hereticks and withall he saith upon this principle Indulgences do more hurt than good for if it were not for them the sinner by his penance might take away some part of his punishment but now he relyes upon his Indulgence and does no penance and so undergoes his whole punishment Albertus M. saith they are much mistaken who say that Indulgences are to be understood as large as their words are without any farther condition and that this is to enlarge the Court of Gods mercy too far and sayes many conditions are to be understood which are not expressed in them This gave the first occasion to the Treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas to satisfie this argument of Albertus concerning the mercy of God being extended too far by Indulgences for hereby what punishment is taken away from one is made up by the punishment of another which is reckoned upon his account And therefore he saith the cause of the remission of punishment is not the devotion work or gift of the receiver but the Treasure of merits which was in the Church which the Pope might dispense and therefore the quantity of the remission was not to be proportioned to the acts of the receiver but to the stock of the Church This rich Banck of the Churches Stock being thus happily discovered they do not question now but to set all accounts even with it and therefore Aquinas confidently affirms that Indulgences are to be understood simply as they are expressed for God saith he doth not need our lye or deceit which he grants must have been if Indulgences had not been meant as they were expressed and all men would sin mortally who Preached Indulgences Yet to obtain the Indulgence he saith that every man must give according to his ability for the objection being put concerning an Indulgence being given to three several places that whosoever gives a penny towards the building of a Church in every one of these places shall for each of them have the third part of his sins forgiven him so that for three pence a man gets a plenary remission he answers that a poor man may indeed have it so but it is to be understood that a rich man ought to give more For it is all the reason in the world that a rich man should pay greater Vse for the stock of the Church than a poor man can do and it is reasonably to be presumed that he had more sins to be pardoned than the other and therefore whatever the general terms are there must be some reserve to hook in more from the rich than was expressed in the first bargain But if the rich man should plead Law in the case and cry out it was Covin and Fraud to demand more than the first Contract was I am not skilful enough to determin what action the Church can have against him But there is another shrewd objection mentioned by Bonaventure which is that a man gets by sinning as suppose two men to receive the remission of a third part of their sins by an Indulgence one owes but it may be 90 years penance for his sins and another hath run upon the score so far that he owes 900 years both receive a third part Indulgence in which case we see plainly the greater sinner hath mightily the advantage of the other and where one gets but 30. the other gets 300. And therefore Bonaventure is fain to run back again and to say that Indulgences are not to be understood as
grand imposture 5. To disown what is so taught by such a Church is not to question the veracity of God but so firmly to adhere to that in what he hath revealed in Scriptures that men dare not out of love to their souls reject what is so taught 6. Though nothing were to be believed as the will of God but what is by the Catholick Church declared to be so yet this doth not at all concern the Church of Rome which neither is the Catholick Church nor any sound part or member of it This may suffice to shew the validity of the principles on which the faith of Protestants stands and the weakness of those of the Church of Rome From all which it followes that it can be nothing but willful Ignorance weakness of Judgement strength of prejudice or some sinful passion which makes any one forsake the Communion of the Church of England to embrace that of the Church of Rome The End §. 1. The necessity of writing in these Controversies §. 2. The present arts used by our Adversaries to gain Proselyter §. 3. The occasion of this present writing §. 4. Of the manner and design of the writing §. 5. Of the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome Articl 35. Homil. partâ— 2. p. 75. Dr. Iackson Original of Unbelief Sect. 4. Ch. 34. Defence of the Apology ch 7. div 2. p. 552. Answer to Harding 8. articl p. 283. Art 14. p. 368. p. 382. Defence of the Answer to the Admonition tr 8. p. 152. Bish. Bilson Disâ— of Christian subjection part 4. p. 319. p. 321. p. 324. p. 530 c. Dr. Fulks confutation of an Idolatrous Treatise of Nicol. Sanders Dr. Reynolds de Idolat Eccles. Rom. Dr. Whitaker c. Duraeum l. 5. p. 138. K. Iames his Works p. 303. Is Casaub. Ep. ad Cardin Perron ad quartam Instant Ad Tortâ— librum respons p. 312. Answer to Perron 20. chapt p. 58. Bish. Abbor against Bishop Tom. 2. p. 1106. Whites Reply to Fisher. p. 209. Dr. Field of the Church l. 3. ch 20. p. 109. Bish. ushers Sermon before the Commons p. 30. Downam de Antichristo l. 5. c. 1 2 c. Davenant deter quaest 18. D. Iacksons Original of Unbelief sect 4. Archbish. Lauds Conference p. 277. Bell. de sanct beat l. 1. c. 20. Ep. 17. ad Marcellam Li. de Bapt. cont Donat. c. 1. Tract 18. in To. Sozomen li. Hist. c. 5. Niceph. li. 13. c. 11. S. Leo Ser. 4. de Quad. Li. contr Epist. fund The Introduction Of the Idolatry of the Roman Church Of the Worship of Images Of the meaning of the second Commandment Of the reason of the second Commandment Isa. 40. 19. 20. 21. 22. Of the wiser Heathens Notion of Images Theodoret. c. Graec. Serm. 3. p. 519. Clem. Alexand Strom. 5. p. 584. Isa. 44. 16 17. Clem. Alexand Protrept p. 46. Strom. 1. p. 304. Plutarch in Numâ Varro apud Augustin de Civit. Dei l. 4. c 31. Philo de legat ad Caium p. 1035. Eusâ—bius de prepar Evang. l. 6. c. 10. Herodot l 1. Strabo l 15. Diog. Laert. prooem Tacit. de morib German c. 9. Lucian de Dea Syria init The reason of this Law more clear by the Gospel John 4. 23 24. Morinus in Pentatench Samarit Exerc. 1. S. 9. c. 5. Act. 17. 〈◊〉 25. 29. Rom. 1. 19. 21. 23. V. 18. 21. Celsus apud Origen l. 7. p. 373. Euseb. de preparat Evang. l. 3. c 7. Athanas. c. Gent. p. 24. 31. Arnob. c. Gent. l. 6. p. 203. August Tom. 8. in Psal. 113. Maxim Tyrius dissert 38. Iulian. op frag ep ed. Peravii p. 537. Eusâ—b prepar Evang. l. 4. c. 1. Trirant de Christian. Expedit apud Sinas l. 5. c. 16. p. 588. The Christian Church believed this Law immutable Clem. Alex. Strom. 5. p. 559. Origen c. Cels l. 7. p. 375. L. 6 p. 284. Synod Nic. 2. Act. 4. Ep. ad Iohan. Synad Ad Thom. Claudiop Ep. ibid. Damascen Orthod sid l. 4 c. 17. Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. cap. 8. Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice Synod Nicaen 2. Act. 6. Aquinas Summ. p. 3. q. 25. art 3. Vasquez in l. 2. q. 25. disp 107. c. 5. Sirmond Concil Gall. To. 2. p. 194. Spelman Conâ— Tom. 1. p. 306. Hovedeni Annal. p. prior ad A. D 792 Simeon Dunel Histor. p. 111. Matth. Westmon ad A. D. 793. Caroli Capitut de non adoraâ—dis imagiâ—ibus Paris A. D. 1549. in Goldasti Coâ—stit Imperial To. 1. Synod Paris in Supplement Concil Gall. ad A. D. 824. Agobardi opera Ed. Massoni Balazii Caroli liber de Imag. l. 2. c. 24. Cap. 25. C. 31. L. 3. c. 15. Concil Tom. 5. p. 553. Tom. 6. p. 143. C. 36. Delaland Supplem Concil Gall. p. 109. Bellarm. Append. ad lib. de cultu Imag. c. 3. C. 4. Agobardi opera p. 221. Ed. 1666. Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment Pâ—tav dogmat Theol. To 5. l 15. â— 13. s. 3. c. 14 s. 8. Vasâ— eâ— in 3. Thom. disp 94. q. 25. c. 3. Of the distinctions used to excuse this from being Idolaâ—ry Aug. c. duas Epist Peâ—ag l. 3 c. 4. B. Andrews Answer to Perron p. 57 Beâ—â—arm de imag l. 2. â—â—4 Vasquez 3. Th. disp 108. q. 25. art 3. c. 9. The instances supposed to be parallel Answered Of the Adoration of the Host. Concil Trident Sess. 13. c. 5. The State of the Controversie Joh. 20. 29. Rubrick after Communion Concil Tâ—â— dent 〈◊〉 c. 5. No security in the Roman Church agaâ—nst Idolatry in Adoration of the Host. Greg. de Val. de Idolol l. 2. c. 5. Bell. de Sacr. Euchar l. 4. c. 30. De Incarnat l. 3. c. 8. Vasquez Tom. 1. disp 108. c. 12 n. 111. Disput. 110. c. 2 3. No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bellar. de Sacr. Euch. l. 3. c. 19. De Christo l. 1. c. 4. A mistake doth not excuse from Idolatry Coster Enchir Contr. c. 8. de Euch. Sacram p. 308. Fisher c. Oecolompad l. 1. c. 2. p. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 760. B. Taylors second part of disswasive Introduct in Answ. to I S. 5. way 2. Part of dissâ—as b. 2. s. 6. p. 139. Ductor dubitant b. 2. c. 2. p. 344. p. 339. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds Aug. prefat in Psal. 93. To. 8. p. 2. p. 184. Aug. c. Faust Manich. l. 20. c. 1. 68. Garcilasso de la vega le Conmentaire Royal. liv 2. c. 1. Of Invocation of Saints The Fathers arguments against Heathen Idolatry condemn Invocation of Saints Iustin. Martyr Apol. 2. p. 65 66. Theophil ad Autolyc l. 1. p. 77. L. a. p. 110. Breviar Rom. 31. Iul. Antw. 1663. S. Basil. ad Amphiloch p. 332. V. Aug. c. Faust. l 20. c. 9. Baron Martycol Apr. 23 Iulii 25. All divine worship given to a creâ—ture condemned by the Fathers Origen c. câ—ls