of Six Thousand Foot and Three Hundred Horse the others Ex veteri Instituto according to the Ancient custom being formed only of Five Thousand Foot and two Hundred Horse This great Author in all probability was better informed in the Roman Customs than the Author of the Passion of the Thebean Souldiers For the Legions having been raised to Five Thousand Men in the Roman Wars against Carthage Polybius observes that to his time they still retained the same number of Five Thousand Foot and Three Hundred Horse It cannot be deny'd but the number of the Legionary Souldiers increased under the Emperours since at the time of the Emperour Tacitus the Legions were of Six Thousand One Hundred and Twenty Foot and of Seven Hundred and Sixteen Horse which is a Remark of Modestus in the Treatise he addresses to him of the Terms used in the Military Art Vegetius who Dedicated his Book to the Emperour Valentinian tells us likewise that in his time the Legions were of the same number So that it would be an obligation to the Publick to prove by good Authors that at the time of Dioclesian and Maximian in which it is supposed that the Thebean Legion suffered Martyrdom the Legions were of 6666 or 6600 Men as 't is said in the Copies both of Surius and Chifflet CHAP. X. That in the Editions both of Surius and Chifflet a Miracle is related which hath all the appearance of a feigned Story IN the Acts of the Agaunian Martyrs there is a Miracle set down that deserves our consideration This Miracle hapned on the occasion of a man who in Surius's Original was a Gold-smith by Trade and in that of Chifflet a Black-smith or a Carpenter 'T is said in these Acts that all the Christians of Agaunum being Assembled at Church upon a Sunday this Man who was a Pagan stayed alone in the new Church which was then a Building to the Honour of the Thebean Souldiers Whereupon the Saints appearing to him in a bright and glorious Apparel dragg'd him from the place where he was stretched him as it were upon a rack and having banged him soundly reproached him with his absenting himself from the Church on the Lords-day and that he being a Pagan had been so bold as to work upon a Church which was Erecting to them It is incredible that a grave Author as St. Eucherius was should have made the Blessed Martyrs to speak such Nonsense For it is an easie thing to infer from their discourse that the Pagans themselves were obliged even as Pagans to observe the keeping of the Lords-day and this is a Tenet which one can't by any means admit For if the Fourth Commandment had obliged the Heathens as well as the Jews as the other Commandments of the Decalogue did 't would be a certain proof that the Duty enjoyned by the fourth Precept concerning the Sabbath-day is a Duty Essentially Moral of a Natural and inviolable Rectitude and it would be a very intricate difficulty to justifie the Apostolick Church about the translation of the Sabbath to the Day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ When we dispute against the Sabbatarians one of the strong Reasons we bring against them is that the distinctive Character of the Laws Essentially Moral is their extension and universality that is that they bind all sorts of Persons at all times in all places and under both Covenants So that we conclude that the observance of the Seventh Day is not a Moral Duty since the fourth Commandment did not oblige the Gentiles and I do not know if the same thing may not be said of our Sunday which hath suceeded to the Rights of the Sabbath 'T is true that after Nature hath taught Men the existence of a God it may teach them further the reasonableness of Consecrating a setled time to his Service But it can lead them no further and will leave the choice of that time to their Liberty Let it be the Fourth the Sixth or the Seventh Day 't is all one in the main And to render the Pagans guilty in not keeping the Sabbath either according to the Jewish or Christian Institution the Sabbath ought to be one of those Duties that are as well known to us as the first Principles inbred in our very Nature at our coming into the World and ingraved by the Hand of God in the Hearts of all Men. The Agaunian Saints were much in the wrong to use a Pagan so scurvily under pretence of his not observing the Sunday They ought first to have instructed him to have set before him the excellency and Holiness of the Christian Religion and shewed him how just and reasonable it is to Consecrate the Sunday to the glory of Jesus Christ the Mediator and High-Priest of this new Law And after this had he been stubborn and Rebellious to their Charitable instructions and admonitions then in Gods Name let him fall under the Censure But to knock him down out of hand this is a way of Conversion only known and practised in our Days in France and which cannot be attributed to Saints without a great offence to their Charity It was an ordinary thing indeed at that time to see the Pagans drag the Christians by force to their profane Sacrifices but not one Example of those times can be produced of any Christians in places where they had the power to do to it tormenting the Pagans and compelling them to come and joyn with them in their Worship Nay it seems that in those former times they made some scruple of admitting Infidels into the places where their Holy Mysteries were Celebrated For otherwise to what purpose should the fourth Council of Carthage have Ordered the Bishops to suffer the Pagans the Jews and other Hereticks to enter their Churches and hear the Word of God 'T is true that it is added in that Canon that they shall not be suffered to stay but to the Mass for the Catechumens so that after the Sermon and Prayer for the Catechumens the Infidels were obliged to withdraw before the Celebration of the Holy Sacraments Another circumstance against the credibility of it is that the Agaunian Saints do reproach this Pagan for his boldness in working upon the Church which was a Building for them Is it possible than an Author so wise and knowing as Sr. Eucherius was should have put in the Mouth of his Saints such unbecoming reproaches Saints are not certainly so nice as this comes to I am sure God himself is not For when Solomon was Building him a Temple it does not appear that he found fault with him for sending for Wood and Stones from Heathenish Countries And according to St. Austin he would not have taken it ill though all the Timber of his Temple had been cut down in the Groves Consecrated to Idols ex lucis alienorum Deorum When we reflect on the the prodigious number of Workmen who were employed in the Building of the
Orange But what if some Impostour here disguised himself under the Name of a Famous Disciple of St. Cesarius At least this pretended Disciple seems not to be much inform'd of his Masters Affairs He saith in one place that St. Cesarius sent some Grave and Learned Men to a Council Assembled at Valence to Condemn the Opinions of Pelagius Which having given me occasion to examine the Acts of the Councils held at Valence I â—ind nothing in them concerning the Heresie of Pelagius wherein St. Cesarius could have any hand So that being mistaken in a matter of Fact of this Importance he might as well have been over-seen in joyning Eucherius and Cesarius in the Cure of that Diseased Woman It appears that the Learned Doctor Cave relyed a little too much upon this Life of St. Cesarius He saith in his History of Ecclesiastical Writers that this Holy Bishop understanding that he was suspected of Pelagianism caused a Council to be Assembled at Valence to clear himself of this accusation and being hindred by reason of the illness of his Health from going to it he maintained there publickly by his Legates that Man in the state of Sin cannot work out his Salvation without a preventing Grace But if instead of following this Cyprian Disciple of St. Cesarius and who was afterwards Bishop of Thoulon Doctor Cave had given himself the trouble to look over the Councils of Valence he would have observed that in the first which was held in the Year 734. their whole business was about Bigamy that in the Second which met in 599. some place it in the Year 684 and some in 589. they were wholly taken up with the great Donatives which Guntran King of Burgundy had bestowed upon the Church And that the Third in which Pelagius Hinmark and John Scot were Condemned and the Acts whereof are cited by Forbesius in his Instructions was not called till the Year 855. as appears by the Acts of it being presented to the Emperour Lothary and to Charles the Bald. Now St. Cesarius was unborn at the time of the First Council since Doctor Cave brings him into the World only in the Year 469. And he was Dead when the Second met according to the same Doctor who places his Death in the Year 542. And 't is I think needless to add that he was not concern'd in the Third which was held in 855. and in which the Pelagian Opinions were Condemned This short digression which we have thought necessary to remove St. Cesarius from St. Eucherius's times will not seem I hope unseasonable It appears then that Bellarmine for all his Conjecture cannot bring St. Eucherius near enough to St Sigismond King of Burgundy The distance is too great to admit of any means of reconciling the Dispute We shall observe by the way that Usuard and Aimonius have commited the like mistake But because it is but a matter of three or four Years difference they may perhaps find Friends to help them out These two Writers say that Clovis was delivered from a dangerous Sickness by the Vows and Prayers of St. Severine Abbot of Agaunum And it is certain that Clovis was Dead three or four Years before Sigismond had founded that Monastery Gregory of Tours saith that he caused the same to be Built and richly Endowed it after the Death of his Father Gombaldus But Marius Bishop of Avanches marks precisely the Year in his Chronicle and saith that Sigismond founded the Agaunian Monastery under the Consulship of Florentius and Anthemius viz. Four Years after the Death of Clovis This Remark is owing to Monsieur de Valois in his Notice of the Gauls where he saith that he cannot understand how Severine could have been Abbot of that Monastery in Clovis's time Nevertheless the Miraculous recovery of a great King being of great Credit to the Prayers and Suffrages of Monasteries Usuard and Aimonius who were both Monks caused Prayers to be made for Clovis in Agaunum even before King Sigismond had it in his thoughts to build a Monastery there 'T is true that Bollandus would fain perswade us that this Prince did only repair and beautifie it But this he asserts without any ground since both the Ancient and Modern Writers who speak of the first Foundation of the Agaunian Monastery do all generally agree that 't was St. Sigismond King of Burgundy who caused it to be Built to the Honour of the Thebean Legion which suffered Martyrdom in that place CHAP. VI. That the Acts of the Council of Agaunum concerning the Thebean Legion are as false as the Acts of their Passion BUT whether King Sigismond only beautified the Monastery of Agaunum or whether he laid the first Foundations thereof 't is all one to us 'T is enough that we can prove that the Passion which we assert to be false is posteriour to all this And that it is so cannot be deny'd since mention is made there of the Basilick which was Dedicated at Agaunum to the Memory of the Thebean Souldiers If you are not pleased to rely upon the History of their Passion as it is related in Surius and Baronius and wherein notice is taken of the Rules made by St. Sigismond in the Agaunian Monastery we shall willingly pitch upon and refer our selves to the latter Acts that are mended since in these as well as in the others mention is made of a Miracle that happen'd when the Church of Agaunum was a building to the Honour of the Thebean Legion For if King Sigismond did only repair and Adorn that Church the time of these Works must necessarily be plac'd in the Year 500. and consequently St Eucherius could not have made mention of them seeing all do agree that he dyed about the Year 440. We may strengthen this Argument with another taken from the Acts of a Council supposed to have been assembled by order of King Sigismond at Agaunum and in which Sixty Bishops put it into his Head to gather the Bones of the Thebean Souldiers and to Dedicate a Basilick or stately Church to them Though this Council is visibly false and supposititious yet it will be of good help to discover the falsity of the Passion of the Souldiers of Agaunum Fathered upon St. Eucherius The Acts of this pretended Council are set down in the Fourth Tome of the Councils by Labbe and Cossart These two Learned Jesuites were very sensible of the Forgery of these Acts but it would have been too much against the grain to have confessed it They were therefore content to say they wondered they did not see amongst the Subscriptions the Name of Avitus Archbishop of Vienna who both by reason of his Eminent Qualities and for the Dignity of his See ought of course to have been present at that Council The Oratory-Priests being fairer dealers than the Jesuites Le Cointe one of them freely declares in his Annals that the Acts of this Council were altogether false However as false as they are they
Legion be of more Weight and Consideration then that of a whole Army Secondly Sulpitius Severus speaking of the persecution which Marcus Aurelius rais'd against the Christians saith That that was the first time that Martyrs were known to have suffered in Gaule Christianity having been received somewhat late beyond the Alpes From which words we may very reasonably infer That it is not likely that when Dioclesian admitted Maximian to a Partnership in the Government the Christians were so numerous as to form an Army But if to destroy this consequence and the Authority of Sulpitius Severus it be reply'd that there is no likelyhood that the Gospel was preached so late in France a Country so near adjoining to Italy since in the time of Marcus Aurelius the Apostles and their Disciples had published it in the most distant parts of the World we will oppose nothing to this Answer that may any way detract from the Antiquity of the French Churches For besides that this would carry us too far beyond our purpose the Persecution which their unworthy Posterity have raised against us shall never lessen that high and just respect and veneration we have always had for the first Churches of the Gauls But suppose it were True that St. Luke St. Philip St. Paul Crescent and some other Disciples of Christ did Preach the Gospel in Gaule and let it be suppos'd likewise That it is not without ground that Vienna Lions Aix Narbonne Sens Paris Reims Limoges and Toulouse do boast of having received the Christian Religion from the Apostles and Apostolical Men yet all this would not suffice unless we should also further suppose that these first Preachers left there both Successors and very great numbers of Converts Nay indeed it ought to be made out That their Preaching proved very effectual and made considerable progress every where But if none but well approved Acts must be trusted this matter will prove of greater difficulty than may at first be imagined The Assembly of the French Clergy having ordered all the Bishops to send Memoirs to the Messicurs of St. Marthe concerning the Foundations and Antiquity of the Churches of their Dioceses these learned Men made to these Memoirs several Additions and Discoveries of their own and at last caused those large Volumes of theirs of Christian France to be Printed 'T is true we find in them that the Christian Religion was Preached in Gaule very early by the Apostles and their Disciples and we believe That in that respect the Titles of the Gallican Churches are as good as those of many other Churches that flatter themselves with the like belief of their having been honoured with the Presence and the Preaching of some or other of the Apostles who came there in Person But if you strictly and impartially consider the Works of Messicurs de St. Marthe after the Apostolick Age you fall into a kind of Wilderness a large waste of almost 250 years fill'd up with nothing but fabulous Legends and uncertain Traditions except the Relations of some few Martyrs as those of Lions who shine as Stars in so profound and long a Darkness all the rest being made up of nothing but groundless Suppositions or Acts that may easily be proved to be spurious I have by me the Original Copy of the Memoirs which Artus de Lion Bishop of Gap sent to Mrs. de St. Marthe written by himself and signed with his own hand Where he proves that St. Demetrius Disciple of the Apostles was Bishop of Gap and gives two Reasons for it the First is That before the Protestants had pull'd down the Episcopal Palace in the year 1577 there were seen upon the Walls of the great Hall the Images of the Bishops of Gap and that St. Demetrius was at the head of them with these Words Saint Demetrius the First Bishop of the Church of Gap and Disciple of the Apostles And that by the Grace of God they had yet an Eye Witness of it in their Chapter namely Mr. Paul of Bauvais who when he wrote these things was in the hundredth year of his Age. The other Authority he produces is taken out of a Berviary which Bertrand of Champeaux Bishop of Gap caused to be Printed in the year 1499 where St. Demetrius is placed in the Calender on the 26th of October with the Character of Bishop and Martyr and the Word totum Duplex which according to the use of the Church of Gap signifies the same as according to the use of the Council of Trent Duplex primae Classis which is proper to the Festivals of Patrons and Titulars of Churches After these so special and convincing proofs who would venture now to deny that St. Demetrius Disciple of the Apostles did plant the Faith in the Diocess of Gap That Breviary of Gap Printed in the Year 1499. is a curious Piece indeed We read there in the. 8th Lesson of St. Demetrius's Office speaking of the Etymology of that Saint's Name that Demetrius ex eo dictus quia de Medio id est de Mundo triumphavit And in the fourth Lesson that the City of Gap having been taken by the Sarazens Count William beat them out of it and gave the half thereof for the Redemption of his Soul to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Year of our Lord 86 on the Kalends of January in the fifth Indiction Though it is well known to every body that the use of the Indictions did not begin till three Hundred Years after Christ and that the Sarazens did not make Inruptions into Gaule till several years after Should we come to Examine narrowly the traditional Origins of most Gallican Churches we should not I think find much more solidity in any of them And especially we may observe that after the First Age there happened to that kind of Traditions such an Eclipse or Discontinuation that they do'nt appear again till after the time of the General Persecution And yet notwithstanding if we believe Mezeray and take his Anonimous Writer's bare word for it the Christians made a figure great enough at that time in Gaule to raise whole Armies against the Emperours However there is no need of straining very much for to preserve to the Churches of France their Antiquity and to Sulpitius Serverus the Authority he deserves in a matter of this nature For though the Apostles and their Disciples had preached the Christian Religion in Gaule very early yet this blessed Seed as well as that in the Parable was soon after choak'd by thorns and sprung not up again till a long time after so that it was very late before it came to any considerable Maturity there Gregory of Tours gives us this way of saving both the Authority of Sulpitius Severus and the Antiquity of the Gallick Church who saith that about the Year 250 under the Reign of Decius the City of Toulouse had Saturnine for its Bishop and that he came from Rome with six others to preach
the Bishop of St. Pons and taking occasion from the Feast of the Immaculate Conception to speak of the Honours due to the Blessed Virgin he carry'd them as far as Bonaventure Bernardine and Crasseâ— But at last the Archdeacon's Appeal was declared frivolous and faulty The Bishop of St. Pons was maintained in the power which the Councils of the Gallican Church gave to their Bishops of making a Calendar and regulating the Church Service of their Diocess And this Sentence was the effect of the Virtue and Honesty of the first President who without contradiction was a Great Magistrate and worthy of a better Age. I have related these Facts upon this Account only that they of the Romish Religion who may read this Work of mine may see that I had reason to question the Truth of the Acts of some of their Saints since some of the greatest Men of their Communion have done the same and do agree that many false ones are found amongst them And if some Preachers should not like our Endeavours in exposing the Falshood of the Martyrdom of the Theb. Legion because hereby they find themselves at a loss for want of so many fine Passages elevated thoughts and an Example so moving and ready at hand whenever they had a mind to exhort their Hearers to patience and perseverance in the Faith we need only to recommend them the reading their Eusebius wherein they shall find great numbers of true Martyrs whose Examples are much more instructive and fit to move the affections then the Martyrdom of the Theb. Legion is pretended to be It is neither Arthur of Britain nor the Roland of Ariosto nor the Renaldo of Tasso which those who are intrusted with the first Education and Instruction of young Princes do propose to them for a Pattern of Imitation but those Heroes who had a real being in the world such as Scipio Hanibal and Augustus In like manner Church History being full of the glorious Conflicts and great Examples of the Piety of true Martyrs Christian Princes would betray the Holiness of their Ministry did they propose to their People false Martyrs and Counterband Saints as Mr. de Valois us'd to call them CHAP. XIX That the Fabulous Relations of the pretended Agaunian Martyrs and other fictitious Saints are sufficient to destroy all the Reasons brought by the Roman Church to justify the VVorship they pay to Saints THE first shift of the Romish Church in this matter is to distinguish Worship into Absolute and Relative Mediate and Immediate They say that God alone ought to be the Object of absolute and immediate Worship but that the Relative and Mediate Worship may be paid to Saints and Angels since it passeth only through them and terminates in God That this is but a mere Evasion our Writers have shewed a thousand times And more than that they have proved that upon Examination of the Matter of Fact it is not true neither that the Romish Church renders to the deceased Saints only mediate and relative Honours For this distinction hath place only in their Schools being no way discernible in their Practice They make no distinction as to Place since they worship both God and the Saints in the same Churches nor in respect of time for as God hath his so the Saints have likewise their Holy-days nor yet in the Church-Service since the Saints are mentioned four or five times in the Service of the Mass which they offer most immediately to God nay not so much as in the bodily Postures of the Worshippers since they fall down on their Knees and make the same bodily Prostrations before God and his Saints Neither can it be distinguish'd in the quality of their Petitions since they who pray to Saints ask pardon of them for their Sins and the Grace of the Holy Ghost No more is it in the multitude of their Prayers for they will say ten Ave Maria's to one Pater noster So that the Saints do if I may so say reap all the Worship of the Roman Religion and God who should gather the whole hath only the Tithe of it This distinction therefore hath place no where but in Disputes no real difference being perceivable between the Honours paid to God and the Saints Our Writers have likewise discussed the Question de Jure viz. whether it be lawful to bestow upon the Creatures a Worship which terminates in God Their Writings are full of good Reasons shewing that religious Worship is the Glory of God's Excellency and that not so much as the least portion of this Glory can be bestow'd upon the Saints without provoking the anger of that Jealous God 'T is true that in coming near to God to know him we may make use of the Creatures as steps to the knowledge of Him But when we approach God in the duty of Worship all our Thoughts Attention and Affections ought wholly to be fix'd upon him alone We ought then to banish the thoughts of all created beings out of our Minds and so to Bless Pray to and Worship him as if there were none but He and We in the World But when all is done what use soever they may make in their Disputes of the distinction of Worship into Absolute and Relative 't is certain the Doctors of the Roman Church can make none of it when we charge them with calling upon such Saints as never had any being in the World such for instance as St. Longinus St. Christopher St. Catharine the eleven thousand Virgins and the Souldiers of the Thebean Legion They cannot surely have the face to say That the Worship paid to these pretended Saints hath any relation to God or terminates in him And therefore they ought to confess that their Church hath erred and is yet in errour Secondly The Romish Doctors to justifie the Worship they pay to the Saints say that all their Prayers to them do amount to no more according to the intention of their Church than barely to desire them that they would please to pray to God for them To which it hath been replyed and abundantly proved that the Use and Form of the Terms do determine the quality of Prayers and not the Intention of the Church that if the Matter or the Form of Prayers be faulty it is not the Intention of the Church that can rectify them and that the Common People mind only the literal signification of Prayers and never think while they are pronouncing them of giving a Catholick sense to Idolatrous Expressions Why then do they put so many ignorant People in danger of making unlawful Prayers Why do they give Protestants so great an occasion of Scandal Why do they not take out of their Prayer-Books and Breviaries all those Forms of Prayer in which they ask the Saints to have mercy on them to cleanse them from their Sins by their Merits to illuminate their hearts and to excite in them a true Repentance If this Principle of the Roman Church had any
Joyeuse Bishop of Ostia above five and fourty Years after the time when Mâ—uns de Marca saith That France received the Council of Trent wherein this Pope complains very bitterly of the refusal which they still made in France to approve this Council and to submit to its Decisions Whatsoever it is most of the Doctors of the Romish Church do agree that to know the difference which the Council of Trent hath put between things dogmatical pertaining to Religion and things meerly ritual and belonging to Discipline the most certain Rule to judge by is the Anathemas that are fasten'd on them And therefore since that Council hath Anathematiz'd all those who do not approve the Worship of Saints it follows that the Fathers of that Council did look upon this Worship as a thing of great moment and necessity in Religion and not as one of those Practices and Ceremonies which though they be allowed to be very good and profitable yet may be left out or changed at the will and pleasure of the Pope and Church But let them say what they please certain it is that the Romish Church does not only believe that it is necessary to Salvation to call upon Saints but is moreover bound to believe so And their Doctors pretend that this piece of service to Saints is commanded in the Scripture wresting I know not how many Texts to make them apparently comply with their fancy and utter what they would be at Now if we believe that God hath commanded a Worship there is no doubt but we ought also to believe that we cannot omit the peformance thereof without puting our Salvation to stake But what can they say for those Services that are established in so many places to the honour of such Saints as owe all their being to the forgeries of a parcel of Monks and the credulity of a deluded People Whereas instead of declaring these Practices to be necessary the Church of Rome ought to acknowlege that they fall short of being even good and profitable And therefore that Church must confess that it hath erred and is yet involved in error The Eight Shift is that of some Doctors of the Romish Church who do deplore the excess that the Worshiping of Saints is grown to and protest altogether that if in some places some Saints that never were are Worshiped they are but local practices tolerated though not approved by the Church This is the Rock on which do split every day the Learning Piety Knowledge and Conscience of many Ecclesiasticks in the Church of Rome who being desirous of Salvation and having made a considerable study in Religion yet comparing the mischief of that false Worship with the consequences of a Separation think it much safer for their Souls to live in a corrupted Church and to groan under its Errors than to make a breach of Charity by separating from its Communion In which they are like those cowardly and unworthy Citizens who while a generous Deliverer hazards his Fortune and his Life to preserve to them both their Laws and Country are content with folded Arms to wish him good success and prosperity and if he chances to fail in the attempt will also bewail and pity him Of which sort of People a great Man used to say that they were the most useless of all Friends for that having the Vertue of wishing us well and shedding some tears for us they had not yet courage enough to afford us their Assistance For indeed all these good Wishes and Lamentations are no remedy to the misfortunes of a Church or Country Works they are and honest endeavours which God requires at our hands and not timorous Wishes and unprofitable Vows If some of the Romish Party do sigh at the sight of a Worship which they think dishonourable to their Church why do they not likewise joyn with those who apply themselves to reform it I believe there are but few very amongst them who have not heard of the wholsom Advices of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her Indiscreet Votaries and of the Pastoral Letter which a Bishop of France adjoyn'd thereto recommending them to the perusal and practice of all the good Christians of his Diocess This was just the time and a fair occasion for those Doctors who bewail so much in private the Abuses of their Church to appear and to speak had not some unworthy considerations stop'd them in the way and made them Speechless The Prelates the Universities Rome it self condemned those wholesom Advices no body having Piety and Courage enough to defend them while Error and Falshood found a World of Zealous Protectors Crasset a Jesuite stood in the defence of all the Excesses of the Bonaventures and Bernardines And the Sorbonne by giving their Approbation to his Works condemned likewise both the wholesom Advices and the pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Tournay How can they say then that most of those things which we find fault with in the Church of Rome are but local Practices or Excesses only tolerated and not approved by the Church Those very things which we disallow are of such a nature that a bare toleration of them hath the force of an Approbation For they are not Dogmatical Errours nor empty Speculations but Errours in the Practice and False worship in the publick Service of Religion Which whenever a Christian Society does tolerate it gives thereby a sufficient ground to believe that it approves them likewise Yet had not all our just Complaints upon this matter power enough to induce the Commissioners of the Index Expurgatorius to expunge the scandalous Excesses of their Bonaventure Bernardine of Siena and Gabriel Biel. The Congregation of the Holy Office and that de Ritibus are very well informed of the Honours paid in divers Places to the Souldiers of the Thebean Legion But let the Protestants prove as clear as the Day the Forgery of their Martyrdom these imaginary Beings consecrated by a blind Superstition are permitted notwithstanding still to retain all the Deferences of Honour and Worship formerly paid to them A Ninth evasion of the Romish Party is that we cannot they say condemn their worshipping of Saints without involving both the Fathers the Church of the first Ages and the most ancient Christians in the same Condemnation But this Accusation which they enter against us with so much confidence is wholly groundless The truth is that in the times of St. Basil St. Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen in the East of St. Ambrose St. Jerom St. Austin and St. Paulinus in the West some Practices may be observed which have been in the After-Ages the Origine of the false Worship paid to the Saints The People beginning then to esteem a little too much of their Reliques they flock'd from all parts to their Sepulchers and with an extraordinary zeal they celebrated the memorial of them the Preachers in the mean time by Rhetorical Figures directing their Speech to them in such manner as if
him to convince them of their Errour and to shew them how easily they might be imposed upon in a matter wherein they pretended to so much skill But mistakes of this kind have been yet more frequently made by those who have imployed their-Criticks upon those Heathen Authors which have been left to us either by the Grecian or Latin Antiquity Every Body knows the witty trick Muret put upon Scaliger how he composed some Verses and told him he had found them in an Old Manuscript And how Scaliger who boasted that he was very well â—cquâ—inted with the genius and Style of every Age both in Prose and Verse found immediately an Ancient Author for those Verses of Muret's making And being afterwards informed they were of his composing he revenged himself of him by a Distich upon his Cheat. These feigned and Counterfeit Works were not unknown to Ancient Greece since the Learned of those times made it their Study to find them out Dionysius Longinus made a Treatise upon the same Subject and we should be informed now of a great many Fabulous Relations inserted into Histories had not the ill Fate of Learning deprived us of the Works of that excellent Critick But seeing that Men have naturally a respect for things which belong to Religion one would think that they should not suffer themselves to be mis-led by those who have made it their business to impose upon the World by inventing Fables and Publishing supposititious Ecclesiastical Writings and Transactions Nevertheless by what Misfortune I know not these frauds have been more frequent in the Church than any where else and it is impossible to Summ up the mistakes they have occasioned amongst the Learned in all Christian Societies So many spurious Writings and supposititious Facts were made and Published even in the three first Ages of Christianity that Amphilochius Bishop of Iconium so much esteemed by St. Basil one of the most worthy Fathers of the Church composed a whole Book of them which is cited in the Acts of the Seventh Council There was scarcely any thing to be seen to make use of Fontanel's Words in his History of Oracles but false Gospels false Epistles of the Apostles false Histories of their Lives c. The chief Men of the Church have been sometimes deceived c. They did not always narrowly examine what seemed to favour Religion The heat and fervour they felt when they fought for so good a cause did not always suffer them to chuse the best Weapons And the Distemper was so far from lessening in the following Ages that it still more increased and tâ—e boldness in inventing Fables and Forging false Lives of Martyrs and Saints went so far and became so common that the Church thought it necessary to put a stop to it by the Authority of its Canons For in the Council of Constantinople held in the Year 692 under Justinian the Younger the Church condemned in the 63 d Canon the false Passions and Fabulous Lives of Saints and Martyrs A great number of Learned Men have endeavoured in these latter times to find out these supposititious Writings and to ascribe to every Author the Works belonging properly to him And they would undoubtedly have been more succesful in it had they not been mis led as well as the People by Interest or Partiality For oftentimes both their Minds and Pens are sway'd by prejudice and Passion As if a Work were good or bad Ancient or Modern as it chanced to be look'd upon by Protestant or Popish Eyes false and supposititious if contrary to their Opinions but Ancient and of the true stamp if it proved fovourable to them But though they should be allowed to have been free from Prejudice and Passion yet it is no strange thing to see Men differ in their Judgments This follows necessarily the different applications and Natural inclinations of their minds Some view things only on one side and some on another The greatest part fix themselves before they have well examined all the Reasons that are and may be produced on both sides And sometimes it happens that Men concern themselves for some Works as they do for some Persons without knowing why they are more for those than for the others Hence it is that the Writers of the same Church do not always agree in their Opinions Cardinal Baronius speaks of the Recognitions attributed to St. Clement as of a sink full of filthiness and lies Whereas Bellarmine maintains that they are St. Clement's own or of some other Author as Ancient and as Learned as he The same difference in Opinions is observed amongst the Protestants concerning St. Ignatius's Letters though these Letters are generally and with good reason look'd upon as one of the fairest Monuments of the Apostolick Age. And Mr. Dupin in his Bibliotheca nova sets aside in a hundred places the Judgment and Authority of his Friends Possevinus Sixtus of Siena Rainaldus Bellarmine Labbe and other Writers of his Religion who have Criticis'd upon the Works of the Fathers This shews that the most Learned may sometimes be mistaken in their Judgments upon the Works of the Ancients Nor is this much to be wondered at since the intricacy and confusedness wherewith some Transactions are related and the distance of the time wherein they happened make it a very hard matter for us now to discern Truth from Falshood Criticks borrow most part of their Light from the Quality of the Manuscripts and sometimes these Manuscripts the Antiquity whereof sounds so high with some Men are but Modern Writings And particularly we shall consider in another place wh a Judgment one ought to pass upon a Relation of the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion which Peter Francis Chifflet took out of an Ancient Manuscript of St. Claudius's Monastery But 't is now time to come to our Proofs CHAP. V. That St. Eucherius Bishop of Lions â—s not the Author who wrote that Passion of the Thebean Souldiers which both Surius and Baronius have followed THE first proof we bring against the Relation of the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion is That it is clear and plain that St. Eucherius Bishop of Lions is not the Author of it and that his Name hath been set to it by some Cheat to gain more Credit thereto from the esteem which the Church always had for the extraordinary Virtues and Merits of this great Prelate To be convinced of this 't will suffice to mention only one passage wherein 't is said of Sigismond King of Burgundy That they never cease Night nor Day to sing Psalms and Hymns in the Monastery of Agaunum And that this Holy Praclice first appointed there by the blessed King and Martyr St. Sigismond is observed there to this very day It visibly appears from this place that when this Relation was made King Sigismond was dead It follows moreover from thence that it must have been compos'd several Years after the Death of this Prince since that Author after he
have brought great incomes to the Monastery of Agaunum They make St. Sigismond to give to it a great number of Villages and very considerable Lands in the Dioceses of Vienna Lions Grenoble and of the Cities of Aâ—â—te Avanches Lausanne and Besanson c. The Cheat indeed was worth the making But we must confess that the makers thereof were not very skilful in their contrivance of it The truth is that in those times People were so credulous that they gave Credit to the grossest tales They were contriv'd and conceiv'd under the shadow of Monkish Holiness and were brought forth into the World without contradiction or any Body to oppose them The Monk who Forged this Council makes both King Sigismond and the Bishops to say very ridiculous things The Country Peasants of Valesia would now speak better Sense Le Cointe observeth that the Acts of this Council are Dated in the beginning of the last of April and towards the end of the Ides of May That it is said at first that the Council was held at Agaunum and again that it was Assembled near that place Which shews the poor Monk hardly knew what he did He adds that Sixty Bishops met together at Agaunum and in Sigismond's time there were not above Seven and Twenty Bishops in all throughout the whole Kingdom of Burgundy He saith that Theodorus Bishop of Sion in Valesia asked what should be done with the Bodies of the Thebean Souldiers that laid yet unburied upon the Ground And in St. Sigismond's time there was no Bishops-See at Sion The Bishops-See was transferred thither not till many Years after it having always been before at a place which is called Martignac or Martigni which is the Ancient Octodurum So that this Theodorus being contemporary with King Sigismond ought to have been call'd Octodurensis Episcopus and not Sedunensis as the Council-Forger hath done But the thing we ought chiefly to observe is that both Labbe and Cossart place this Council in the Year 516. The Acts do expresly mention that when it was held the Buildings which King Sigismond ordered to be made at Agaunum were finished and wanted only to be Dedicated and appointed to their use This Prince saith in the beginning of his Deed of Gift that he makes Hinnemond Abbot of the Monastery of Agaunum which by the help of God he hath Built in his Kingdom of Burgundy And a little before he says that all the Bishops do represent to him that the Reliques of Mauricius Exuperius Candidus and Victor ought to be deposited in the New Church which he hath caused to be Built The Bishops of this pretended Council are there chiefly taken up with regulating the singing of Psalms the Offices Observances and whatever was to be Practised in that Monastery Now the business is to know whether the Passion of the Thebean Legion which we assert to be false is anteriour to that Council or happen'd after its sitting If they say it is anteriour we ask how could the Author of it speak of a Monastery which was not yet Built and of Rules not yet establish'd If it be answered that this Passion was Written after the sitting of the Council which according to Labbe and Cossart met in the Year 516. it follows that St. Eucherius is not the Author of this Passion since he died in the Year 440. If the Acts of this Council be compared with the Passion one cannot but suspect that the Impostour who composed it had before his Eyes the Acts of this Council 'T is said in these Acts that the Bishops consulted with King Sigismond what Discipline was to be set up in the Monastery of Agaunum and that the Rules which should be prescrib'd to the Monks might be so framed as to last for ever And the Author of the Martyrdom of the Thebean Souldiers as it is related both by Baronius and Surius saith that they never cease Day nor Night to sing Psalms and Hymns in the Agaunian Monastery this practice having been established by the Blessed King and Martyr St. Sigismond and being still in force there to this very day But that the Acts of this Council are forged Father Le Cointe hath given infallible proofs And whereas Labbe and Cossart place this Council in the Year 516. we should not fear being much mistaken if we charged the Forgery upon some Impostor of the Seventh or Eighth Century For these and the like Writings are the Titles and Foundations both of the Worship vast Power and Immense Revenues of the Church of Rome 'T is true we are told that the Manuscripts of these things are kept in the Vatican Library or in that of Florence and that they have all the Characters of an uncontroulable Antiquity But Marsham a man very well skilled in distinguishing between Old and Modern Manuscripts adviseth us to trust to them so much the less by how much the Older they are said to be And he is favoured in his Opinion by Papebrook a Jesuite who observes that you 'l scarcely find any Acts or Manuscripts true and sincere from the Reign of Dagobert the First upwards that is beyond the Year of our Lord 640. Which is much about the time in which the Fables which we are now Examining were invented 'T is strange indeed that Father Mabillon one of the most Eminent Men in Europe in that kind of Learning should Condemn the Opinion both of Marsham and Papebrook He thinks that these two Learned Men were mistaken and to prove it he reports some Acts of the 6 th or 7 th Age but this is nothing to the purpose for Marsham and Papebrook did never deny but there were true Acts ancienter than the Reign of Dagobert the First but they only affirmed that these Writings are very scarce and can hardly be found so that Father Mabillon to have an occasion to contradict these two great Men makes them say absolutely what they only meant with a restriction And besides 't is one thing to go about to prove from the Words of some Authors that there have been Kings before Dagobert the First who made Gifts in Writing to several Churches and another to prove that these Writings do yet continue and have been handed down to us and that they have not been worn out by time lost or destroyed by the Accidents and Revolutions which have happened in the course of so many Ages nor falsify'd and corrupted by the covetousness ignorance and infidelity of Men. The first of these two things which is not in question Father Mabillon takes upon him to prove but saith not one word of the second which he ought to have proved But here is the business Papebrook is plain and downright because he being a Jesuite is of an Order of a very new Date and which therefore needs not go up and search very high for Titles Whereas Father Mabillon is a Benedictine Monk of the Congregation of St. Maur. And St. Benet's Order hath a
ever made bold with his Manuscript The Acts of the Agaunian Souldiers having no such thing in them as Gifts to Monks and Monasteries 't was no hard matter to find them corrected in some Old Manuscripts But I question much whether any such Manuscript can be produced as will serve to rectifie the Acts of the Council of Agaunum wherein so many considerable Revenues are bestowed on the Monks of that place Let any Body read Mr. Dodwel's Dissertation upon the small number of Martyrs and he will see there what stress one ought to lay upon the Acts and the Manuscripts from whence they were taken 'T is true that Theodore Ruinart in the Edition he hath lately put out at Paris of the Acts of some Martyrs prefixes a long Preface wherein he opposes Mr. Dodwels Opinion concerning the small number of Martyrs but at the same time he confesses that they who gathered their Acts have often added to or cut off from them what they listed One may see in the same Preface that the Acts of most of the Martyrs having perished either by the ravage and burnings made by the Barbarians or by the Orders of Heathen Magistrates others were substituted in their place but such as have not the Authority of the former and much less can they pretend to the same sincerity and exactness These Acts have been by the Monks of the last Ages so disfigur'd and stuffed with so many Fables that the honester and more ingenuous of the Church of Rome have been ashamed of it and have publickly expressed their Sorrow for it Lewis Vives and Melchior Canus have grievously complained that Diogenes Laertius has Written the Lives of the Pagan Philosophers with more integrity and Wisdom than the Christians have done those of their Martyrs Confessors and Virgins When it was first given out that Lippomanus Bishop of Verona was upon correcting the Acts and Old Legends of Saints all good Men of the Romish Church were very glad at the News hoping that he would have purged them from all the gross lies which Metaphrastes Comestor and Jacobus de Voragine had left behind them But Lippomanus and Surius made all things worse instead of mending them For before this the Acts and Lives of Saints were look'd upon as pious Romances and a production of the ill-regulated zeal of the Legend-Writers But then they were esteemed quite another thing after they had been Revised by Surius Lippomanus and Junius Mombritius who contented themselves with taking away only the most palpable and obvious falsities retaining those which they thought were not so offensive and then protesting that they had gone up to the head and had consulted the best Manuscripts Rosweidus Bollandus Godfrey Henschenius and Papebrochius who are come after thinking to do some Service to the Learned by gathering all whether good or bad have not given us a truer account of the Acts of Martyrs and Saints but only have incumbred Mens Studies with their huge and bulky Volumes 'T is not that we believe that the Doctors of the Romish Communion are willing to countenance lyes and Forgeries We do them more justice than so They would undoubtedly have all this silly stuff taken out of their Church Service Breviaries and Martyrologies but they know not how it can be done They fear to give some advantage to the Protestants and to furnish them with Weapons against the infallibility of their Church And the Learned amongst them are afraid to bring upon themselves the hatred and persecution of Monks and Fryers who make a Trade of these Impostures amongst silly Women and the more ignorant sort of People 'T is known all over France what troubles they brought upon the Bishop of St. Pons one of the most worthy Prelates of that Kingdom for taking out of the Calendar of his Diocese several Saints whose Saintship might be called in question and whose Suffrages he did not so much esteem This is the reason why most of those who are sufficiently convinced of these abuses are contented to bewail them in secret not having the Courage to undertake the redressing of them There are some others who thinking it unsufferable that their Religious Worship should seem to have no other ground than the false Legends of Saints and Martyrs have indeed taken away from the Story what was most fictitious but yet have kept still the Essential part of it Father Chifflet was perhaps one of these and therefore he found just in time a Manuscript of the Passion of the Agaunian Martyrs more accurate and truer than the Manuscripts of Surius and Baronius Finally we might add that Manuscripts as well as other Books are subject to the rigour of the Index Expurgatorius And how should they stick at maiming them when they fear they will give any advantage to the Protestants since they make no scruple sometimes of suppressing them wholly We are not willing to set down here the Story of the Edition of Anastase Published by the Jesuits of Mayence in 1602. in which they cut off what we read in the Manuscript of Heydelberg about Pope John and of the trick they put us upon Marquardus Freherus who had discovered it to them Fabrotus in his new Edition of that Author Printed at Paris in the Year 1649. hath been so sincere as to own the expunging that passage but at the same time was not so ingenuous as to restore it Every Body knows the Story of St. Chrysostom's Letter to Cesarius the Monk and of Theodoret's Commentary upon the difference that arose between St. Paul and St. Peter the which as not favouring Transubstantiation and the Authority and Infallibility of the Pope they have endeavoured to stifle and to suppress Mr. Alix having discovered this Mystery of iniquity acquainted the Publick with it in his excellent Letter to Mr. Hambden But after all Peter Francis Chifflet is not the first Writer who to extricate himself out of a difficulty or to purchase the glory of some curious discovery hath taken an occasion to find a Manuscript 'T is not of late Years that there have been Annius's of Viterbo and Varilla's especially amongst the pretenders to Antiquity and Compilers of Anecdota or Secret Histories But though these Remarks may not perhaps seem unseasonable yet we have no need of them for clearing the matter of Fact now in question Father Chifflet's Manuscript hath not brought us to such straits as to reduce us to meer guesses and conjectures For admitting his Manuscript to be both as Ancient and Correct as he pleases the Thebean Souldiers would not be a jot the better for it We shall in the conclusion examine their cause without any regard to the Manuscripts and Acts of their Passion and shall deduce from the very circumstances of their Martyrdom such Arguments as will demonstrate the falsity of it And we must own our obligation to Father Chifflet that we shall now Fight no longer in the Dark without either seeing or knowing our Adversary
opportunity to make their escape sought notwithstanding for Death Christ saith he withdrew himself to shun the malice of the Jews who laid in wait for him and though he knew that the time appointed in the Counsel of his Father was not far off he went not in search after his Cross but waited for it from the fury of the Jews in a solitary place whither he did retire And when he foretold his Apostles of all the Persecutions they were to suffer for his Names sake he told them that they should be delivered to the Councils and Synagogues Whereupon this Bishop observes that Christ said they shall deliver you and not Ye shall deliver your selves For this reason Mr. de Tillemont in his History of the Emperours makes this wise observation speaking of the Acts of St. Maximus That these Acts do appear very well deserving the esteem which Baronius had for them though they do express that this Saint delivered himself to Death which is more usually seen in spurious than in true Acts. In short one may see what were the Morals of the Ancient Church about this thing from a Canon of the Council of Eliberis and from a special place in St. Austin and the same Morals may be seen practised in the Lives of St. Cyprian and Athanasius who fled from Persecution whenever God gave them opportunity to do it All the business is then to examine whether the Thebean Souldiers being informed of the Emperour's resolution might have prevented it by their flight and for the clearing of this point we need only read the Acts of their Martyrdom The Army of Maximian having passed the defiles of Valesia the Thebean Legion which was in the Rear understood at Agaunum that this Army was designed to cut off the Christians in Gaul They stopped at this News and refused to March any further First every Body will agree that they might have disbanded and betook themselves to flight for in such cases as this Military Laws ought to yield to that of self-preservation and then desertion is not it seems a greater infraction of Military Discipline than to refuse to March at the Orders of the General 'T is further said in the Acts that Maximian being informed of the refusal of the Thebean Souldiers commanded them to be Decimated hoping by the Death of some to terrifie the others into their duty The Legion with an undaunted Courage suffered the Decimation and the Ministers who Executed the Emperours Orders made their report to him that the Rebellious Legion was nothing frighted by this Exemplary punishment but persisted in their obstinate resolution not to March. During all this while the Army is not seen to come back in Order to observe the Motions of this Legion neither was it observed that the Emperour did command any Troops to watch them for preventing the ill effects of their mutinous disposition 'T is very natural to think that if the whole Legion was not able to save all their Lives part of them at least might have got away and yet 't is said in the Acts that not so much as one of them did escape the Emperours Cruelty Whatever care is now taken to hinder the Desertions in an Army all the diligence and watchfulness of the Officers cannot hinder a great many Souldiers to run away from their Colours every Campaign and what is yet worth our observation is that the Situation of Agaunum afforded great facility to the Thebean Souldiers to flee away for their safety I have passed my self that way when I went with the Corps of Duke Schomberg from Turin to Lauzane where he had ordered me to Bury him And having then some Thoughts of this Dissertation I staid a good while to consider the â—venues and Situation of Agaunum It is seated at the bottom and further end of a very narrow Valley and there is no access to it but by continual Defiles having on both sides Woods and high Mountains So that had the Thebean Souldiers taken advantage from the place the whole Army of the Emperour had not been able to have hindred the greatest part of them from making their escape From this we may conclude that the Author of their Acts hath not much observed the rules of Probability in the Romance he hath left us since he saith that all the Thebean Souldiers were Massacred not one of them caring to make his escape but all with one accord chearfully holding up their Necks and wishing for nothing so much as the glory of Martyrdom CHAP. XII That there is no likelyhood that a Legion should be sent for from the East to suppress a Tumult of the Gauls WE have hitherto considered the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion with Relation both to the Acts wherein it is contain'd and to the Author to whom these Acts are attributed 'T is time now to come to the Fact it self and to treat it without any regard either to the Acts or their Author Father le Cointe thought in his Annals to salve both the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion and the Relation of their Passion by betaking himself to the Acts and to the Copy of Father Chifflet We do not deny saith he that the Acts of the Martyrs of Agaunum were written by St. Eucherius Bishop of Lions but we say that those published by Surius and which are found in the Manuscripts of most Churches are spurious and falsly attributed to St. Eucherius We acknowledge none to be true besides those published by Francis Chifflet in his Paulinus Illustratus and the which he hath Extracted out of a very Ancient Manuscript of St. Claud's Monastery And we believe St. Eucherius to be the true Father of that Work But whether St. Eucherius be the Author of that work or whether he be not whether the Acts be falsified in the Copy of Surius and whether they be true in Father Chifflet's Manuscript this is now no more the matter in question We have hitherto in a manner Attack'd only the Out-works but we come now close to the Fact and will shew in it palpable Characters of falsity The first of which is this supposition namely that the Emperour Maximian caused a Legion to be put Death which he had sent for from the East to go with him into Gaul We don't deny but there were in the East some Legions call'd Thebeans In the Book we have already cited of the Dignities of the Empire mention is made of four Thebean Legions Sub dispositione Viri illustris Magistri militum per Orientem Legiones Comitatenses 9. Secunda Flavia Constantia Thebaeorum secunda Felix Valentis Thebaeorum And in another Chapter Sub dispositione Viri illustris Magistri militum per Thracias Legiones Comitatenses Prima Maximiana Thebaeorum Tertia Diocletiana Thebaeorum We will not deny neither but that the Exigencies of the Empire calling Maximian into Gaul the Emperour might have been attended by some of those Legions They are all four numbred amogst those Legions
good foundation I don't see why she might not as well have put an Arrian Creed into her Liturgy with a warning to her Children to follow her Intentions and give an Orthodox sense to that Heretical-Creed It would prove a hard matter to reduce to an Orate pro nobis that Prayer used at the Consecration of their Altars Sanctify O Lord this Stone to thine Honour to the Honour of the Virgin Mary and to the Honour of all Saints You see here the Saints and the Blessed Virgin joyn'd equally with God Mons de le Habespine Bishop of Orleans hath laboured in vain to justify this Prayer And from hence we must necessarily conclude that the Romish Church pays to the Saints a Religious Worship of the same nature with that which she gives to God For otherwise Bellarmine does not argue well when he proves from the Form of Baptism that the Holy Ghost being joined therein with the Father and the Son ought therefore to be esteemed God as well as the Father and the Son Go and Baptise all Nations in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost But what can the Romish Church reply when it is objected that she prays to Saints who never had any being as St. Christopher St. Catharine the eleven thousand Virgins and the Souldiers of the Theb. Legion Let these Prayers be reduced as much as they please to the general Spirit of the Church yet she cannot justify them and therefore she must confess that she hath erred and is yet in error Thirdly They of the Church of Rome to excuse the Worship they pay to the Saints say That they pray to them in the same manner as we pray our living Brethren to intercede for us But had they not thus explain'd their meaning by the Bishop of Meaux's Pen we would hardly believe that they were in good earnest What! Is there then no difference between the Prayers which the Sick Protestants desire to be made for them in their Churches that God would comfort and relieve them in their several necessities and those which the Papists direct to their Saints When the Protestants desire these Offices of Charity of their Brethren do they ask them after the same manner and in the same order as the Romish Church implores the Intercession and Assistance of her Saints Do they consecrate Holy-days and Altars to them Build them Churches Make Vows and Pilgrimages to their Honour Do they light Wax-candles before their Images Approach them with Censers Present them with Offering And make Processions and Confraternities in honour of their Memories Quite contrary Our Brethren are there present with us where they see our necessities with their own Eyes and we desire them to joyn with us in Prayer We don't look upon them as if they were of a superior Order to us but as Fellow Labourers subject to the same weaknesses and infirmities as we are and thereby ingaged to compassionate our sufferings Our practice is authorized by the Example of the Faithful of all Ages and by the express command of the Apostle St. James who exhorteth us to Pray one for another But the Romish practice is very far from having a Title to any of these advantages Under the Old Testament no Prayers were ever made to the deceased Saints though the Faithful prayed one for another as we do Notwithstanding they had at that time Saints whose Holiness could not be call'd in question since God himself had if I may so speak canonized Elias and Enoch All these Answers are solid and good But how can they apply this Or what other Answer can they make when we charge them with praying to such Saints as never were in the World such as St. Christopher St. Catharine the eleven thousand Virgins and the Souldiers of the Theb. Legion seeing these Saints were only meer fictions and the invention of Legend-Writers They cannot sure answer that they Pray to these after the same Manner as we do to our living Brethren and therefore they ought to confess that they have erred and do remain still in error The Fourth Evasion of the Romish Church is to have recourse to the equivocal Sense of the Terms Worship and Adoration They say that there is a Supream Worship and Adoration of Latria and that God alone deserves this Worship and Adoration but that there is an inferiour Worship and a Service of Dulia which we ought to pay to Angels and Saints But this Distinction is not in nor is it grounded upon Scripture For St. Paul makes use of the Term Dulia when he speaks of the Supream Worship telling the Thessalonians That they turn'd to God from Idols to serve the Living and True God And the Septuagint have used it in the same Sense 1. Sam. c. 7. v. 3. and Ps 11. v. 11. and on the contrary they have expressed by that of Latria the Services which Men do one to another in that Threatning which God makes to his People That they should servetheir Enemies which God would send against them in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness But besides this Distinction is very insignificant for let the Terms be never so Equivocal yet the things expressed by them are not so For Churches Festivals Altars Vows Offerings Lights and Processions are not Equivocal things but determined to the highest sort of Religious Worship To prove this let an Indian or a Chinese go into a Popish Church tell him That this Temple is consecrated to Francis of Assise that this is his Holy-day and that they are going to make a Procession to his Honour That the Image which he seeth adorned with so many flowers and illuminated with so many Torches is his Representation And let him see afterwards all the People prostrating themselves before it in order to the Addressing their Prayers to it And then ask him what this People is a doing He will answer that they adore St. Francis or his Image the simple Notions of Nature leading him to that Answer because all the Actions of this People are determined to Religion which being taken altogether are the formal and distinct Signs of the Supreme Worship And therefore it is in vain for them to endeavour to palliate the Matter by a pretended equivocal use of Words Had the Romish Doctors been pleased to express themselves more clearly there would have been no wrangling about the Terms We acknowledg that the Acts of Religion are not all of the same Weight and Importance The first are those that are call'd Elicite and Immediate which are referred only to God The second are grounded upon the reference or relation which certain Things and Persons have to Religion In this Rank we place the reverence due to Pastors to Churches Holy Vessels to the Elements of the Sacraments to Saints to Angels to the blessed Mother of God That is That there are some Degrees of respect due to each of these in proportion to the Rank
they had been actually alive But however the Veneration they had then for them came nothing near to the Worship which the Romish Church pays to them now adays Gregory the First who died in the Seventh Century began in his time to innovate in the publick Worship of the Church by inserting in the Litanies the Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary those of the Saints having not been introduced till a long time after And we defy the Doctors of the Church of Rome to shew us that the Worship which they render to Saints is mentioned in any of the Ecclesiastical Writers who lived before the Year of our Lord 350. Martin Perez Hiala Bishop of Cadiz confesses that they cannot justify by ancient authority the Invocation and Intercession of Saints before the time of Cornelius who lived towards the end of the Third Century And this good Prelate would have descended yet a Hundred Years lower had he seen the Reasons which Blondel alledges to prove that that which is cited of Cornelius is meerly spurious Had the Invocation of Saints been in use in the times of St. Athanasius and St. Hilary we must confess that the Arrians had but very little wit when it being objected as it was by these Fathers to them that they were down-right Idolaters in praying as they did to Christ whom they thought to be but a Creature they did not reply that this Accusation ought to rebound on their Adversaries also since notwithstanding they did not believe their Saints to be Gods yet they made Prayers and Supplications to them But how is it possible to believe that in those first Ages of Christianity the Christians made their Addresses to the deceased Saints seeing they were of Opinion that the Souls of the Faithful did not enjoy the Beatifick Vision before the general Resurrection of the Dead If we ask Cardinal Bellarmine why the Saints were not invoked under the Old Testament he answers Because the Souls of the Just were then in Limbo and did not yet behold the Face of God For which very Reason we may likewise conclude that the Christians of the first Ages did not pray to Saints since they believed that their Souls were not to be admitted into the presence of God till the General Resurrection Which Opinion of theirs hath forced Cardinal Richlieu to make this Confession That several Fathers in the First Ages held for certain that the Souls of the Faithful deceased in the Grace of God those of Martyrs only excepted should not enjoy the Beatifick Vision till after the Resurrection of the Dead and therefore ' its no wonder that they spoke in those times of the Veneration and Invocation of Saints with more caution and wariness than it hath been done since it hath been commonly believed that the Souls of the Faithful who have departed this Life in the fear of God did not wait till the Resurrection for the enjoyment of the Beatifick Vision In the Church of the first Ages they observed another Practice inconsistent with that Worship which the present Church of Rome renders to the Saints For now a days the Living Pray to the Dead whereas formerly the Living pray'd for them Cardinal Richelieu as you have seen in the place above quoted hath excepted the Martyrs from the general Rule but in this case there was no exception made of any for according to the Liturgy ascrib'd to St. Mark the Christians us'd to say Remember O Lord Our Ancestors the Patriarcks the Prophets the Martyrs and all the Spirits who are perfect in the Faith of Jesus Christ and grant that their Souls may rest in the Sanctuary of thy Saints This practice of praying for all the Saints was yet in use in Hinkmar's time And in the Rubrick upon the Decretals at the Title of the Celebration of Masses ch 6. sect Oratio quae dicitur c. we find this curious Remark in the Gloss on the Margent It was formerly said Grant O Lord that this Prayer may be profitable to the Soul of thy Servant Leo But now it is said Grant that this Prayer may be profitable to us by the Intercession of thy Servant Leo. So little distinction was made in those times between the Martyrs and the Saints of the first Order That they used to pray even for the Blessed Mother of God For in the Liturgy attributed to St. Chrysostom we find these Words Let us pray to the Lord for all those who have heretofore administred and fulfilled the Duties of Priesthood for the eternal remission of their Sins and for the memory of all those who are deceased in hope of the Resurrection Forgive them O Merciful Lord. And we offer also this reasonable Service unto thee for our Ancestors who rest in the Faith the Fathers the Patriarâ—s the Prophets the Apostles the Martyrs and especially for the most Blessed and Immaculate Mary After this do ye think it well done of the Romanists to accuse us of condemning the Primitive Church and all the Ancient Fathers because we condemn the Worship which they pay in our days to the Saints Certain it is that in this we don 't condemn Origen who wrote thus against Celsus We ought not to pray to Creatures who have as much need to make Prayers and Supplications for themselves and do therefore rather by their calling upon him admonish us to make our addresses to God only and not to debase our selves before them by dividing between God and them the honour of Prayer God forbid that we should follow Celsus's advice who would have us to pray to Angels We ought to pray to none but God who is the Paramount Lord of aâ—l things We do not condemn St. Austin who saith That were St. Paul and the other Apostles our Mediators we should have many of them but then this Apostle had not been in the right who saith that there is but one God and one Mediator between God and Man who is Jesus Christ. And he declares in another place That in offering the Sacrifice mention was made of the Martyrs as of Men of God who by the Confession of his Name had triumphed over the World but that they were not invocated We don't condemn Ignatius a Disciple of the Apostles who recommended this to the Christians to have none before their Eyes when they pray but Christ Jesus and his Father We do not condemn St. Irenaeus that Holy Bishop of Lions who had framed himself both upon the Lessons and Examples of Polycarp and who saith That the Church does not mix in her Service either the Invocation of Angels or any other criminal Curiosity but does direct her Prayers meerly purely and openly to God the maker of all things by calling upon the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ We do not condemn Tertullian who giving an Account of the Faith and Hope of the Christians before the Roman Emperors saith That they do Invocate none but the true