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
if a man confess his sins and but stumble into one of the 7. Churches it is a hard case if he doth not escape at least for one thousand years I need not reckon up what vast Pardons are to be had there at easie rates since they have been so kind at Rome to publish a Catalogue of them in several books an extract out of which is very lately set forth in our own language Those who have gone about to compute them have found that Indulgences for a million of years are to be had at Rome on no hard terms Bellarmin would seem to deny these pardons for so many years as far as he durst as though they were not delivered by Authentick writers but I desire no more than what Cnuphrius hath transcribed from the Archives of the Churches themselves and we may judge of the rest by what Caesar Rasponi a Canon of the Lateran Church and a present Cardinal hath written lately of that one Church in a book dedicated to Alexander 7. He tells us therefore there is so vast a bank of the Treasure of the Church laid up there that no one need goe any further to get full pardon of all his sins and that it is impossible for any one to reckon up the number of the benefits to be had there by it In the Feast of the Dedication of that Church at the first throw if a man be well confessed before he gets if he be a Roman a pardon of a 1000. years if a Tuscan 2000 but if he comes from beyond sea 3000. years this is well for the first time The like Lottery is again at that Church on Câ—ena Domini But Boniface 9. would never stand indenting with men for number of years but declares if men will come either for devotion or pilgrimage no matter which he shall be clear from all sin and what would a man have more But besides this there are other particular seasons of opening this Treasury and then one may take out as much as they can wish for As when the Image of our Saviour is shewn all that come thither have their sins pardoned infallibly and many other days in the year which the Author very punctually reckons up and are so many that a Canon of that Church may dispose of some thousands of years nay plenary remissions and yet escape Purgatory at last himself But besides what belongs to the Church it self there is a little Oratory or Chapple belonging to it called the Holy of Holies where it is impossible for any man to reckon up the number of Indulgences granted to it These vast numbers of years then are no fiction of Pardon-mongers as Bellarmin is sometimes ready to say unless he will have the Popes called by that name or charge the Holy Churches at Rome with so gross impostures § 6. But suppose it should be a mans fortune never to see Rome as it hath many a good mans must he be content to lye and rot in Purgatory or trust only to the kindness of his Friends no we that live at this distance have some comfort left there are sonne good prayers appointed for us to use which will help us at a need or else the book of the houres of the B. Virgin secundunm usum Sarum is strangely mistaken but herein I am likewise prevented by the authoâ—â— of the preface lately mention'd but my edition being elder than either of those mention'd by him seems to have something peculiar to it or at last omitted by him As when it saith of the Prayer Obsecro te Domina Sancta Maria c. Tho all them that be in the state of Grace that daily say devowteli this prayer before owre blessed Lady of pity she wolle showâ— them her blessed vysage and warn them the day and owre of deth and in there last end the Angells of God shall yield there sowles to heaven and he shall obtayn 5 hundreth yeres and soo many Lenttis of pardon graunted by 5 holy Fathers Popes of Rome That is pretty well for one prayer But this is nothing to what follows to a much shorter prayer than that Our Holy Father Sixtus 4. Pope hath graunted to all them that devoutly say this prayer before the Image of our Lady in the sone eleven thousand years of pardon A prayer said to good purpose I confess I can hardly stoop now to those that have only dayes of pardon promised them yet for the sake of the procurer I will mention one Our Holy Father Pope Sixtus hath graunted at the Instance of the highmost and excellent Princesse Elizabeth late Quéen of Englond and wyfe to our Soveraign liege Lord King Henry the 7th God have mercy on her sweet soull and all Cristen soulls that every day in the morning after 3 tollinges of the Ave â—ell say 3 times the hole salutation of our Lady Ave Maria gratiâ that is to say at 6 the klock in the morning 3 Ave Maria att 12 of the klock at none 4 Ave Maria and att 6 a klock at even for every time so doing is graunted of the spiritual treasour of holy Church 3 hundreth dayes of parden totiens quotiens To which is annexed the pardon of the two Arch-bishops and nine Bishops forty dayes a piece three times a day which begun A. D. 1492. the seventh year of Henry 7. And the summ of the Indulgence and pardon for every Ave Maria is 800 days totiens quotiens But if a man thinks himself well provided already and hath a mind to help his Friends there is nothing like the 15 O. s of St. Brigitt Thys be the 15 O. Os. the which the holy Uirgin S. Brygytta was woente to say dayle before the holy rode in S. Pauls Church at Rome who soe says this a yere he schall deliver 15 soulles out of Purgatory of his next kyndred and convert other 15 sinners to gode lyf and other 15 righteous men of his kynd shall persevere in gode lyf And wat ye desyre of God ye schall have it if yt be to the salvation of your sowle Not long after we find a better endowment with number of years than any we have yet met with To all them that before this Image of pytie devoutly say 5 Pater Noster and 5 Aves a Credo pityously beholding these Armes of Crystys passion are graunted thirty two thousand seven hundred and fifty years of pardon and Sixtus the 4. Pope of Rome hath made the 4 and the 5 prayer and hath doubled his foresaid pardon The Prayer with Boniface 6. his Indulgence of ten thousand years pardon will hardly down with me now much less that niggardly grant of Iohn 22. of a hundred dayes pardon What customers doth he hope to find at such sordid rates Sixtus 4. for my money witness this Indulgence Our holy Father Sixtus 4. graunted to all them that beyn in state of Grace sayeing this prayer following ymmediately
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
they are expressed and that they are not equal to all but it was not fit to express it so because this would hinder peoples esteem of the Indulgence Which in plainer terms is that it is necessary to cheat the people or else there is no good to be done by Indulgences Thence Petrarch called them nets wherein the credulous multitude were caught and in the time of Boniface 9. the people observing what vast summs of money were gathered by them cryed out they were meer cheats and tricks to get money with upon which Paulus Langius a Monk exclaims O God to what are these things come Thou holdest thy peace but thou wilt not alwayes for the day of the Lord will bring the hidden things of darkness to light Conrad Vrspergensis saith that Rome might well rejoyce in the sins of the people because she grew rich by the compensation which was made for them Thou hast saith he to her that which thou hast alwayes thirsted after sing and rejoyce for thou hast conquered the world not by religion but by the wickedness of men Which is that which draws them to thee not their devotion and piety Platina saith the selling Indulgences brought the Ecclesiastical Authority into contempt and gave encouragement to many sins Vrspergensis complains that plenary Indulgences brought more wickedness into the world for he saith men did then say Let me do what wickedness I will by them I shall be free from punishment and deliver the souls of others from Purgatory Gerson saith none can give a pardon for so many years as are contained in the Popes Indulgences but Christ alone therefore what are they but cheats and impostures In Spain Indulgences were condemned by Petrus de Osma a Divine of Salamanca and his followers as appears by the Popes Bull against them A. D. 1478. In Germany by Iâ—hannes de Vesaliâ a famous Preacher of Mentz for Serrarius reckons this among the chief of his opinions that Indulgences were only pious frauds and wayes to deceive the people and that they were fools who went to Rome for them About the same time flourished Wesselus Groningensis incomparably the best Scholar of his Age and therefore called Lux mundi he was not only skilled in School Divinity almost the only learning of that time but in the Greek Hebrew Chaldee and Arabick having travelled into Greece Aegypt and been in most Vniversities of Europe and read the most ancient Authors in all kinds of learning on the account of his learning he was much in favour with Sixtus 4. and was present and admired at the Council of Basil but he was so far from being a friend to Indulgences that in his Epistles he saith that no Popes could grant an Indulgence for an hour and that it is a ridiculous thing to imagine that for the same thing done sometimes an Indulgence should be granted for 7 years sometimes for 700 sometimes for 7000 and sometimes for ever by a plenary remission and that there is not the least foundation in Scripture for the distinction of remitting the fault and the punishment upon which the doctrine of Indulgences is founded That the giving them was a design of covetousness and although the Pope once sware to the King of France's Embassadour that he did not know the corruptions of the sellers of Indulgences yet when he did know them he let them alone and they spread farther That God himself doth not give plenary remission to contrition and confession and therefore the Pope can much less do it But if God doth forgive how comes the Pope to have power to retain and if there be no punishment retained when God forgives what hath the Popeâ— to do to release Against him writes one Iacobus Angularis he confesseth there is nothing in Scripture or Antiquity expresly for Indulgences but that ought to be no argument for there are many other things owned in their Church as necessary points which have as little foundation as this viz. S. Peters being at Rome and Sacramental confession and therefore at last he takes Sanctuary in the Popes and Churches authority To this Wesselus answers that Indulgences were accounted pious frauds before the time of Albertus and Thomas that there was a great number of Divines did still oppose the errours and practices of the Court of Rome in this matter that supposing the Church were for them yet the authority of Scripture is to be preferred before it and no multitude of men whatsoever is to be believed against Scripture that he had not taken up this opinion rashly but had maintained it in Paris thirty three years before and in the Popes poenitentiary Court at Rome and was now ready to change it if he could see better reason for the contrary That the doctrine of Indulgences was delivered very confusedly and uncertainly by which it appeared to be no Catholick doctrine that it is almost impossible to find two men agree in the explication of them that the doctrine of Indulgences was so far from being firmly believed among them that there was not the strictest person of the Carthusian or other orders that should receive a plenary Indulgence at the hour of death that yet would not desire his Brethren to pray for his soul which is a plain argument he did not believe the validity of the Indulgence that many in the Court of Rome did speak more freely against them than he did That the Popes authority is very far from being infallible or being owned as such in the Church as appeared by the Divines at Paris condemning the Bull of Clement 6. about Indulgences wherein he took upon him to command the Angels and gave plenary remissions both from the fault and punishment Which authentick Bulls he saith were then to be seen at Vienne Limoges and Poictou It is notorious to the world what complaints were made in Germany after his time of the fraud of Indulgences before any other point of Religion came into dispute and how necessarily from this the Popes authority came to be questioned that being the only pretence they had to justifie them by and with what success these things were then managed it is no more purpose to write now than to prove that it is day at Noon The Council of Trent could not but confess horrible abuses in the sale of Indulgences yet what amendment hath there been since that time Bellarmin confesseth that it were better if the Church were very sparing in giving Indulgences I wonder why so if my Adversaries experience and observation be true that they prove great helps to devotion and charity Can the Church be too liberal in those things which tend to so good an end § 8. But Bellarmin would not have the people too confident of the effect of Indulgences for though the Church may have power to give them yet they may want their effect in particular persons and therefore saith he all prudent Christians do
Treasure too Is not this worse than to light a Candle to help the Sun to suppose Christs satisfaction so infinite as to be sufficient to redeem more worlds and yet not enough to deliver from temporal punishment without the satisfactions of the Saints 11. How come the Saints to make such large satisfactions to the justice of God if the satisfaction of Christ were of so infinite a nature and if they did make satisfactions were they not sufficiently rewarded for them if they were how come those satisfactions to help others which they were so abundantly recompensed for themselves 12. If the satisfaction of Christ doth only obtain grace for the Saints to satisfie themselves for the temporal punishment of their sins how can the application of this satisfaction by Indulgences free any from the temporal punishment of their sins Or have the satisfactions of Saints being joyned with Christs greater power now in common penitents than the satisfaction of Christ alone in the greatest Saints 13. Why the satisfaction of Christ may not serve without the Saints to remit only the temporal punishment of sins when it was sufficient alone to remit both eternal and temporal in the Sacrament of Baptism or was the force of it spent then that it needs a fresh supply afterwards but if then it could be applyed to a higher end without any other help why not where it is to have far less efficacy 14. If satisfaction be made to God for the temporal punishment of penitents by Indulgences I desire to know when and by whom the payment is made to God If it was made by the persons whose satisfactions make the Churches treasure for that end what hath the Pope to do to dispense that which God hath accepted long agoe for payment If it be made by the Pope in what way doth he make it doth he take out so much ready cash of the Churches treasure and pay it down upon the nail according to the proportion of every ones sins or doth he only tell God where such a treasure lyes and bid him go and satisfie himself for as much as he discharges of his dâ—bt 15. How came this Treasure of the Church into the Popes Keeping who gave him alone the Keys of it if there were any such thing methinks those who are trusted with the greater treasure of Christs necessary satisfaction for the remitting of eternal punishment as every Priest is by their own doctrine in the Sacrament of Penance should not be denyed the lesser of the Superfluities of Christ and the Saints sufferings for the remitting only temporal punishment When I once see these questions satisfactorily answered I may then think better of this doctrine than I doe at present for the best I can think of it now is that there never was a doctrine more absurd in the ground of it or more gainful in the practice than this of Indulgences in the Roman Church and therefore ought to be accounted one of the most notorious cheats that ever was in the Christian world § 10. But let us suppose it otherwise and then we are to enquire whether this would tend to promote or obstruct that very way of devotion which is most in request in the Roman Church there are but two ways to judge of this either by experience or the nature of the doctrine it self For experience my Adversary alledges his own and that he hath seen great devotion caused by them but by his favour the question is not what outward acts of devotion may be performed by some ignorant and silly people who are abused by great hopes of strange benefits by Indulgences and therefore prepare themselves with some shew of devotion to receive them especially when they are unusual but the question is whether they have these effects upon those who understand the nature and designe of them and the doctrine of their Church about them For as Durandus resolves it the validity of the Indulgence doth not depend on the devotion of the receiver for then saith he the Indulgence would contain a falsity in it which is that whosoever doth such a thing as going to the 7. Churches shall have plenary remission of his sins therefore saith he whoever doth the thing shall have the whole benefit of the Indulgence or else the Indulgence is false And to his experience I shall oppose that of greater observers of the world than he hath been I have already mentioned the testimony of Vrspergensis and others concerning the effects of plenary Indulgences in their times how men encouraged themselves to sin the more because of them Polydore Virgil observes that when Indulgences were grown common many men did abstain less from doing evil actions The author of the book called Onus Ecclesiae saith that they take men off from the fruits of repentance and are profitable only to the idle and wicked The Princes of Germany in the Diet of Norimberg among the grievances represented to the Pope by the consent of them all upon the mention of Indulgences reckon as the least bad consequence of them that the people were cheated of their money by them but that they say was far more considerable that true Christian Piety was destroyed by them and that all manner of wickedness did spring frâ—m thence and that men were afraid of committing no kind of sin when at so cheap a rate they could purchase a remission of them But setting aside the experience of these things let us consider what the nature of the doctrine it self tends to to those who believe it The least benefit we see allowed them is a freedom from enjoyned penances and what are these penances accounted among them but fruits of true repentance a severe mortification fasting frequent prayers and Almes so that the short of this doctrine is that men by Indulgences are excused from doing the best parts of their Religion and if this be a way of promoting devotion I leave any one in his senses to judge § 11. I proceed now to the denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ. To which he answers 3. ways 1 that the receiving in one or both kinds was ever held a matter of liberty in the Church 2 that it was as much in the Churches power to alter it after a 1000. years as in the first or second century 3 that the believing whole Christ to be present in one kind tends more to excite devotion than receiving both elements without that belief This is the substance of his answer But I have else where at large proved and need not repeat it here that the Institution of Christ as to both kinds was of an universally obligatory nature not only from the will of the first Institutor but from the universal sense of the Church concerning the nature of that Institution And there I have largely answer'd those very
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
The language of prayer proved to be no indifferent thing from St. Pauls arguments No universal consent for prayers in an unknown tongue by the confession of their own Writers Of their doctrine of the efficacy of Sacraments that it takes away all necessity of devotion in the minds of the receivers This complained of by Cassander and Arnaud but proved against them to be the doctrine of the Roman Church by the Canons of the Council of Trent The great easiness of getting Grace by their Sacraments Of their discouraging the reading the Scriptures A standing Rule of devotion necessary None so fit to give it as God himself This done by him in the Scriptures All persons therefore concerned to read them The arguments against reading the Scriptures would have held against the publishing them in a language known to the peâ—ple The dangers as great then as ever have been since The greatest prudence of the Roman Church is wholly to forbid the Scriptures being acknowledged by their wisest men to be so contrary to their Interest The confession of the Cardinals at Bononia to that purpose The avowed practice of the Roman Church herein directly contrary to that of the Primitive although the reasons were as great then from the danger of Heresies This confessed by their own Writers p. 178 CHAP. IV. Of the Fanaticism of the Roman Church The unreasonableness of objecting Sects and Fanaticisms to us as the effects of reading the Scriptures Fanaticism countenanced in the Roman Church but condemned by ours Private revelations made among them the grounds of believing some points of doctrine proved from their own Authors Of the Revelations pleaded for the immaculate Conception The Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Catharin directly contrary in this point yet both owned in the Church of Rome The large approbations of S. Brigitts by Popes and Councils and both their revelations acknowledged to be divine in the lessons read upon their dayes S. Catharines wonderful faculty of smelling souls a gift peculiar to her and Philip Nerius The vain attempts of reconciling those Revelations The great number of female Revelations approved in the Roman Church Purgatory Transubstantiation Auricular Confession proved by Visions and Revelations Festivals appointed upon the credit of Revelations the Feast of Corpus Christi on the Revelation made to Juliana the Story of it related from their own Writers No such things can be objected to our Church Revelations still owned by them proved from the Fanatick Revelations of Mother Juliana very lately published by Mr. Cressy Some instances of the blasphemous Nonsense contained in them The Monastick Orders founded in Enthusiasm An account of the great Fanaticism of S. Benedict and S. Romoaldus their hatred of Humane Learning and strange Visions and Revelations The Carthusian Order founded upon a Vision The Carmalites Vision of their habit The Franciscan and Dominican Orders founded on Fanaticism and seen in a Vision of Innocent the third to be the great supporters of the Roman Church The Quakerism of S. Francis described from their best Authors His Ignorance Extasies and Fanatick Preaching The Vision of Dominicus The blasphemous Enthusiasm of the Mendicant Fryers The History of it related at large Of the Evangelium aeternum and the blasphemies contained in it The Author of it supposed to be the General of the Franciscan Order however owned by the Fryers and read and preached at Paris The opposition to it by the Vniversity but favoured by the Popes Gul. S. Amour writing against it his Book publickly burnt by order of the Court of Rome The Popes horrible partiality to the Fryers The Fanaticism of the Franciscans afterwards of the followers of Petrus Johannis de Oliva The Spiritual State began say they from S. Francis The story of his wounds and Maria Visitationis paralleld The canting language used by the spiritual Brethren called Beguini Fraticelli and Bigardi Of their doctrines about Poverty Swearing Perfection the Carnal Church and Inspiration by all which they appear to be a Sect of Quakers after the Order of S. Francis Of the Schism made by them The large spreading and long continuance of them Of the Apostolici and Dulcinistae Of their numerous Conventicles Their high opinion of themselves Their Zeal against the Clergy and Tythes their doctrine of Christian Liberty Of the Alumbrado's in Spain their disobedience to Bishops obstinate adhering to their own fancies calling them Inspirations their being above Ordinances Ignatius Loyola suspected to be one of the Illuminati proved from Melchior Canus The Iesuites Order founded in Fanaticism a particular account of the Romantick Enthusiasm of Ignatius from the Writers of his own Order Whereby it is proved that he was the greatest pretender to Enthusiasm since the dayes of Mahomet and S. Francis Ignatius gave no respect to men by words or putting off his Hat his great Ignorance and Preaching in the Streets his glorying in his sufferings for it his pretence to mortification the wayes he used to get disciples Their way of resolution of difficulties by seeking God their itinerant preaching in the Cities of Italy The Sect of Quakers a new Order of Disciples of Ignatius only wanting confirmation from the Pope which Ignatius obtained Of the Fanatick way of devotion in the Roman Church Of Superstitious and Enthusiastical Fanaticism among them Of their mystical Divinity Mr. Cressy's canting in his Preface to Sancta Sophia Of the Deiform fund of the soul a superessential life and the way to it Of contemplating with the will Of passive Vnions The method of self-Annihilation Of the Vnion of nothing with nothing Of the feeling of not-being The mischief of an unintelligible way of devotion The utmost effect of this way is gross Enthusiasm Mr. Cressy's Vindication of it examined The last sort of Fanaticism among them resisting authority under pretence of Religion Their principles and practices compared with the Fanaticks How far they are disowned at present by them Of the Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance The Court of Rome hath alwayes favoured that party which is most destructive to Civil Government proved by particular and late Instances p. 235 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 Empeperour 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
no material difference that the Heathen called those they worshipped Gods but they do not so in the Roman Church For St. Austin saith there was scarce any difference between the Heathen and them about the name whether Angels might be called Gods or no for he thinks that they are called so in Scripture as well as Origen but the Question was about the thing whether they were to be Worshipped as Gods or no i. e. by giving any part of religious worship to them which they utterly deny And were I in the communion of the Roman Church I should much less scruple calling Canonized Saints or Angels by the names of Gods than giving them the worship of Invocation or the honour of Sacrifices but in so doing they are not only condemned by plain Scripture and reason but by those of the primitive Church who writ against the Heathen Idolatry which was the thing to be shewed § 13. 2. Another disparity is insisted on by him which is as to the manner of Worship And as to this he saith all that they understand by formal invocation is desiring or praying those Iust persons who are in glory in heaven to pray for us and if the Catholicks be guilty of Idolatry in this we must not desire the prayers of a just man even in this life because this formal Invocation will be to make him an inferiour Deitie To shew the palpable weakness of this answer I shall prove these two things 1. That those in the Church of Rome do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts 2. That supposing this were all it would not excuse them and that it is of a very different nature from desiring the prayers of just men for us in this life 1. That they do allow and practise another kind of formal Invocation from what he asserts He might very well say he did understand well what I meant by formal Invocation when he makes this to be the meaning of it for never any person before him imagined that sense of it And that term of formal Invocation was purposely chosen by me to distinguish it from the rhetorical Apostrophe's of some of the Greek Fathers the Poetical Flourishes of Damasus Prudentius and Paulinus from general wishes that the Saints would pray for us Of which are some instances in good Authors from assemblies at the monuments of Martyrs which were usual in ancient times and that which I thought any man would understand by it was that which is constantly practised in the Roman Church viz. in places and times purposely appointed for divine and religious worship with all the same external signes of devotion which we use to God himself to offer up our Prayers to Saints or Angels to help us in our necessities as well as to pray to God for us The former part none can be ignorant of that have but so much as heard of the devotion of the Church of Rome all the difficulty lies in that whether they pray to them to help their necessities as well as pray for them And so many forms of Prayer allowed and practised in their Church have been so often objected to them wherein these things are manifest that I cannot but wonder this should be denyed Do they believe we never look into their Breviaries Rosaries Houres and other Books of Devotion wherein to this day such Prayers are to be found Do they think we never heard of the Offices of the B. Virgin or our Ladies Psalter a Blasphemous Book never yet censured wherein the Psalmes in their highest strains of Prayer to God are applyed to the V. Mary I have known my self intelligent persons of their Church who commit their souls to the V. Maries protection every day as we do to Almighty Gods and such who thought they understood the doctrine and practice of their Church as well as others But Madam these are mysteries not to be known till they have their Proselytes safe and fast enough then by degrees they let them know what is to be done when they have given away all liberty of judging for themselves Then it is no matter what they are commanded or expected to do they must do as others do or else their sincerity is questioned and they are thought Hereticks in their hearts whatever they profess I shall not insist upon any ancient Breviaries or obsolete Forms or private Devotions which yet they are accountable for till they do condemn them I need no more than the present Roman Breviary restored according to the Council of Trent and authorized by three several Popes In the Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as though it were not enough in the Antiphonae to say Hail Blessed Virgin thou alone hast destroyed all Heresies in the world but lest this should be interpreted of doing it by her Son a formal Invocation of her follows Vouchsafe to let me praise thee O Holy Virgin and give me strength against thy enemies And in the Hymn frequently used in her Office and particularly that day she is not only called the Gate of Heaven but she is intreated to loose the bonds of the guilty to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils and to shew her self to be a Mother or as it is in the Mass-book at Paris 1634. Iure Matris impera redemptori as thou art a Mother command the Redeemer In a word They pray to her therein for purity of life and a safe conduct to Heaven But lest the Hymns should be thought only Poetical in the Feast of S. Maria ad Nives Aug. 5. a formal prayer is made to her to help the miserable to strengthen the weak to comfort those that mourn and that all who celebrate her holy Festivity may feel her assistance By which we may understand the meaning of that solemn Hymn used in her Office wherein she is called the Mother of Mercy and Clemency and is prayed to protect us from our enemies and to receive us in the hour of death Is all this only praying to her to pray for us What could be more said to Almighty God or his Son Iesus Christ Nor is this devotion only to the Blessed Virgin but we shall see it alike in that to Angels and Saints in the Antiphona upon the apparition of Michael the Archangel May 8. he is prayed to come to the help of the people of God And in the Feast of the Guardian Angels recommended to all Catholicks by Paul the fifth in the last words of the Breviary they are prayed to defend them in War that they may not perish in Gods terrible judgement In the Hymn to the Holy Apostles they are prayed to command the guilty to be loosed from their guilt to heal unsound minds and to increase their vertues that when Christ shall come they may be partakers of eternal glory These may suffice for a present taste of the sincerity of such persons who say that in
was performed to the Martyrs for neither was any Sacrifice offered up to any of them nor any other part of religious worship for thereupon he shews which is very conveniently left out in the citation that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. Iohn to fall down and worship him All the worship therefore he saith that they give to Saints is That of love and society and of the same kind which we give to holy men in this life who are ready to suffer for the truth of the Gospel But that the worship of Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin appears by what himself saith on a like occasion where he shews the difference between the Gentiles worship and theirs They saith he build Temples erect Altars appoint Priests and offer Sacrifices but we erect no Temples to Martyrs as to Gods but Memories as to dead men whose Spirits live with God we raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to one God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as men of God who have overcome the world by confessing him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And elsewhere saith Whatever the Christians do at the memories of the Martyrs is for ornaments to those memories not as any sacred Rites or Sacrifices belonging to the dead as Gods we therefore do not worship our Martyrs with divine honours nor with the faults of men as the Gentiles did their Gods Which gave occasion to Lud. Vives in his Notes on that Chapter to say that many Christians in his time what sort of Catholicks those were it is easie to guess but to be sure none of St. Austins did no otherwise worship Saints than they did God himself neither could he see in many things any difference between the opinion they had of Saints and what the Gentiles had of their Gods I cannot understand then how St. Austins answer should justifie that which he condemns He denyes that there was an Invocation of Saints but only a commemoration of them the Church of Rome pleads for any Invocation of them and condemns all those who deny it So that his answer is very far from clearing the Roman Church in the practice of Invocation and the objection we make against it that it doth parallel the Heathen Idolatry for it grants it would do so if they gave to the Saints the worship due to God of which he makes Invocation to be a part But after all this can we imagine that he should practise himself contrary to his own doctrine Yes saith he he made a prayer to St. Cyprian let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us in our prayers But is there no difference to be made between such an Apostrophe to a person in ones writing and solemn supplication to him with all the soâ—emnity of devotion in the duties of Religious worship If I should now say Let St. Austin now help me in his prayers while I am defending his constant opinion that Invocation is proper to God alone would they take this for renouncing the Protestant doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome I doubt they would not think that I escaped the Anathema of the Council of Trent for all this The Question between us is not how far such wishes rather than prayers were thought allowable being uttered occasionally as St. Austin doth this to St. Cyprian but whether solemn Invocation of Saints in the duties of Religious worship as it is now practised in the Roman Church were ever practised in St. Austins time and this we utterly deny We do not say that they did not then believe that the Saints in Heaven did pray for them and that some of them did express their wishes that they would pray particularly for them we do not say that some superstitions did not creep in after the Anniversary meetings at the Sepulchres of the Martyrs grew in request for St. Austin himself saith that what they taught was one thing and what they did bear with was another speaking of the customes used at those solemnities But here we stand and fix our foot against all opposition whatsoever that there was no such doctrine or practice allowed in the Church at that time as is owned and approved at this day in the Church of Rome But from St. Austin we are sent to Calvin whose authority though never owned as infallible by us we need not fear in this point and I cannot but wonder if he saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin that he would produce them For Calvin doth there say That the Council of Carthage did forbid praying to Saints lest the publick prayers should be corrupted by such kind of addresses Holy Peter pray for us If St. Austin were present in this Council as my Adversary saith he was I wonder what advantage it will be to him from Calvins saying that the Council did condemn and forbid those prayers which were in use by some of the people But it seems he takes the peoples part against the Council and St. Austin too and thinks it enough for them to follow the practices condemned by Councils and Fathers which we are sure they do and are glad to find so ingenuous a confession of it He may as well the next time bring St. Austins testimony for worshipping Martyrs and Images because he saith he knew many who adored Sepulchres and Pictures and for the worship of Angels because he saith he had heard of many who had tryed to go to God by praying to Angels and were thought worthy to fall into delusions § 16. But the strangest effort of all the rest is what he hath reserved to the last place viz. That the charge of Idolatry against them must be vain and groundless because if I be pressed close I shall deny any one of these Negative points to be divine truths viz. that honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ that it is not lawful to Invocate the Saints to pray for us But the answer to this is so easie that it will not require much time to dispatch it For I do assert it to be an Article of my faith That God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and he that cannot hence infer that no created Being is to be so worshipped hath the name of reasonable creature given him to no purpose What need we make Negative Articles of faith where the Affirmative do necessarily imply them If I believe that the Scripture is my only rule of faith as I most firmly do will any man that considers what he saith require me to make Negative Articles of faith that the Pope is not Tradition is not Councils are not a
obedience without this Some that frequent crossing themselves going in Pilgrimage to the Images of Saints baptizing Bells being sprinckled with holy water and buried in a Monks habit are great acts of devotion and others that they are superstitious fooleries Some think that unless they make confession of their sins to a Priest they cannot be pardoned others that sincere confession to God is sufficient and the other never necessary to the pardon of sin though it may be sometimes useful to the ease of the sinner Some that they honour God by setting up Images of him and worshipping them for his sake by addressing themselves to Saints and Angels to be Intercessors with him and others that they cannot dishonour God more than by these things Some that they may pray for what they do not understand as well as what they do others that since men expect to be answered in their prayers they ought to understand what they say in them Since these and other disputes are in the world not barely between Christians and those of other Religions but among Christians themselves what course should a person take who desires to be satisfied For he finds the several parties divided about them Can any man imagine a better way if it could be hoped for than that God himself should interpose and declare his own mind according to what way they ought to serve him And this is acknowledged to be done already by all Christians in the Scriptures and after all this must not all persons concerned be allowed to enquire into that which is owned to be the will of God Or do they think that ordinary people that understand not Latin or Greek ought not to be concerned what becomes of their souls If they be and do in good earnest desire to know how to please God and to serve him what directions will they give him If they tell him they must do as they are bidden true say they if we were to worship you for Gods we would do as you bid us for we think it fitting to serve God in his own way But we would know whether that God whom we serve hath given us any rules for his worship or no Yes say the Priests of the Roman Church he hath done so but it is not fit for you to see them To what end say the people then were they given if they may not be seen How shall we know whether we keep them or no or will you take upon you the guilt of our sins in disobeying his Will since you will not let us know what it is This seems to be a very just and reasonable request and I fear it will one day fall heavy upon those who conceal that which they confess to be the Will of God from the knowledge of the people And it hath been ingenuously acknowledged by some in the Roman Church that the people would never be kept to that way of devotion they are in there if they were suffered to read the Scriptures but the more shame the mean time for those who impose such things upon them under a pretence of devotion which are so repugnant to the Will of God But the same reason which hath made them leave out the second Commandment in their offices of devotion hath brought them to so severe a prohibition of reading the Scriptures in a known language but where themselves are already so secure of the persons that they dare to give way to it and that is lest their consciences should start and boggle at the breaking a command of God when they pretended to serve him § 9. 2. That no objection can be now made against the peoples reading the Scriptures but would have held against the publishing them in a language to be understood by the people For were the people less ignorant and heady less presumptuous and opinionative then than they are now Was not there the same danger of mistaking their sense at that time Was not the people of Israel as refractory and disobedient as any have been since Were they not as apt to quarrel with divine Laws and the authority God had set up among them Did not they fall into Sects and divers opinions by misunderstanding the Law yet were these reasons then thought sufficient for God not to make known his Law to all the people but to commit it only to Aaron and the Priests for them prudentially to dispense it to them No so far from it that strict care was taken to make the people understand it particular commands given for this very end and the Law on purpose declared to be easie and intelligible that they might not make its obscurity a pretence for their Ignorance Was not this Law given them as a rule to direct themselves by Were not all sent to this to learn to govern their actions Wherewithall shall a young man cleanse his wayes by taking heed thereto according to thy word Is not this Law said to convert the soul and to make wise the simple and was that done by not understanding it Was it not the delight exercise and continual Meditation of those who were truly devout among them But how comes our case to be so much worse under Christianity Is the Law of Christ so much more difficult and obscure than the Law of Moses Is not his Sermon on the Mount wherein he delivers the rules of a Christian Life as plain as any Chapter in Leviticus What doth the Gospel teach men but to be and to do good to love all men and to love God above all to believe in Christ and to obey his commands to repent of sins past and to live no longer in them and in short so to live in this world as they hope to live with God in happiness hereafter And are these things so hard to be understood that the people ought not to be made acquainted with them in their own language Or is there any danger they should know them too well Was ever the Law of Moses more perverted by false interpretations than in our Saviours time by the Scribes and Pharisees Why doth not he then take some other care for his own Law to prevent this for the future if that had been judged by him the proper way of cure But thereby we see the mistakes of the people are owing to their Teachers and there can be no means to prevent errours in the people but by stopping them at the fountain heads from whence they run down among them For the common people might have had a better notion of Religion if their minds had not been corrupted by the traditions and Glosses of the Pharisees Therefore methinks they have not gone the wisest way to work in the Church of Rome instead of this prudential dispensing the Scriptures their only way had been to have destroyed them as Dioclesian their predecessour in this kind of prudence once designed For let them assure themselves they who understand Greek and Latin are the
first spread abroad and never so proper a season to give them caution as then But instead of that they advise them to take heed to the sure word of Prophecy and that they did well therein that the Scriptures were written for their instruction and comfort that being divinely inspired they were able to make them wise unto salvation What did the Apostles never imagine all this while the ill use that might be made of them by men of perverse minds yes they knew it as well as any and did foretell Schismes and Heresies that should be in the Church and saw them in their own dayes and yet poor men wanted that exquisite prudence of the Roman Church to prevent them by so happy an expedient as when they had written Epistles to several Churches to forbid the promiscuous reading of them But it may be it was the awe of the Apostles and their infallible Spirit in interpreting Scripture made this prohibition not so necessary in their own time did the Church then find it necessary to restrain the people after their Decease We have an occasion soon after given wherein to see the opinion of the Church at that time the Church of Corinth fell into a grievous Schisme and opposition to their spiritual Governours upon this Clemens writes his Epistle to them wherein he is so far from forbidding the use of Scripture to them to preserve unity that he bidds them look diligently into the Scriptures which are the true Oracles of the Holy Ghost and afterwards take St. Pauls Epistle into your hands and consider what he saith and commends them very much for being skilled in the Scriptures Beloved saith he ye have known and very well known the holy Scriptures and ye have throughly looked into the Oracles of God therefore call them to mind Which language is as far different from that of the Roman Church as the Church of that Age is from theirs Nay the counterfeit Clemens whom they can make use of upon other occasions is as express in this matter as the true For he perswades private Christians to continual meditation in the Scriptures which he calls the Oracles of Christ and that this is the best imployment of their retirements But we need not use his testimony in this matter nor the old Edition of Ignatius wherein Parents are bid to instruct their Children in the Holy Scriptures nor that saying of Polycarp to the Philippians out of the old Latin Edition I am confident you are well studied in the Scriptures for in the Greek yet preserved he exhorts them to the reading of St. Pauls Epistles that they might be built up in the faith So little did these holy men dream of such a prudent dispensing the Scriptures among them for fear of mischief they might do themselves or others by them Clemens Alexandrinus mentions the reading the Scriptures among Christians before their Meales and Psalmes and Hymns at them and Tertullian mentions the same custome Origen in the Greek Commentaries lately published perswades Christians by all means by attending to Reading Prayer Teaching Meditation therein day and night to lay up in their hearts not only the new Oracles of the Gospell Apostles and Apocalypse but the old ones too of the Law and the Prophets And elsewhere tells his hearers they ought not to be discouraged if they met with difficulties in reading the Scriptures for there was great benefit to be had by them But lest it should be thought he speaks here only of publick reading the Scriptures in his Homilies on Leviticus he speaks plainly that he would not only have them hear the Word of God in publick but to be exercised and meditate therein in their houses night and day For Christ is every where present and therefore they are commanded in the Law to meditate therein upon their journeys and when they sit in their houses and when they lye down and rise up But had not the Church yet experience enough of the mischief of permitting the Scriptures to the people Were there ever greater and more notorious heresies than in those first ages of the Church and those arising from perverting the words and designes of the Scriptures But did the Church yet afterwards grow wiser in the sense of the Roman Church In the time of the four General Councils they had tryal enough of the mischief of Heresies but did the Fathers of the Church forbid the reading the Scriptures on that account No but instead of that they commend the Scriptures to all as the best remedy for all passions of the mind so St. Basil and St. Hierome call it and this latter commends nothing more to the Women he instructed in devotion than constant reading the Scriptures and withall they say that infinite evils do arise from ignorance of the Scriptures from hence most part of Heresies have come from hence a negligent and careless life and unfruitful labours Nay so frequent so earnest and vehement is St. Chrysostome in this matter of recommending the reading of Scriptures that those of the Roman Church have no other way to answer him but by saying he speaks hyperbolically which in plain English is he speaks too much of it But how far different were the opinions of the wise men of the Church in those times from what those have thought who understood the interest of the Roman Church best We may see what the opinion of the latter is by the counsel given to Iulius 3. by the Bishops met at Bononia for that end to give the best advice they could for restoring the dignity of the Roman See that which was the greatest and weightiest of all they said they reserved to the last which was that by all means as little of the Gospel as might be especially in the vulgar tongue be read in the Cities under his jurisdiction and that little which was in the Mass ought to be sufficient neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more For as long as men were contented with that little all things went well with them but quite otherwise since more was commonly read For this in short is that Book say they which above all others hath raised those Tempests and Whirlewinds which we are almost carryed away with And in truth if any one diligently considers it and compares it with what is done in our Churches will find them very contrary to each other and our very doctrine not only to be different from it but repugnant to it A very fair and ingenuos confession and if self-condemned persons be Hereticks there can be none greater than those of the Roman Church especially the prudential men in it such as these certainly were whom the Pope singled out to give advice in these matters But how different is the wisdom of the Children of this world from that of the Children of Light We have already seen what another kind of judgement
the ancient Fathers had of the usefulness of Scriptures to the people than they have in the Roman Church but we need not more to prove it since it is acknowledged by those who are against the reading the Scriptures by the people that it was otherwise in the Primitive Church so Alphonsus à Castro and Sixtus Senensis confess Espencaeus quotes many plain places from St. Austin and St. Chrysostom to prove that the people ought to be very diligent in reading the Scriptures in their own houses and that nothing should excuse them from it and confesseth that St. Pauls precept Colos. 3. let the word of God dwell richly in you was intended for the people and that they ought to have it among them not only sufficiently but abundantly The sum of this argument is that the reasons now urged against the peoples Reading the Scriptures would have held against the publishing of them in a language to be understood by the people that they saw the same inconveniencies which are objected now and yet commended the reading the Scriptures to all that in all the primitive Church the practice was not only retained but vehemently urged after all the Heresies which had risen in the Church in their time and therefore for the Church of Rome to account it wisdome to keep the people from it is to charge not only the Fathers of the Church with folly but the Apostles and our Saviour and God himself CHAP. IV. Of the Fanaticism of the Roman Church The unreasonableness of objecting Sects and Fanaticisms to us as the effects of reading the Scriptures Fanaticism countenanced in the Roman Church but condemned by ours Private revelations made among them the grounds of believing some points of doctrine proved from their own Authors Of the Revelations pleaded for the immaculate Conception The Revelations of S. Brigitt and S. Catharin directly contrary in this point yet both owned in the Church of Rome The large approbations of S. Brigitts by Popes and Councils and both their revelations acknowledged to be divine in the lessons read upon their dayes S. Catharines wonderful faculty of smelling souls a gift peculiar to her and Philip Nerius The vain attempts of reconciling those Revelations The great number of female Revelations approved in the Roman Church Purgatory Transubstantiation Auricular Confession proved by Visions and Revelations Festivals appointed upon the credit of Revelations the Feast of Corpus Christi on the Revelation made to Juliana the Story of it related from their own Writers No such things can be objected to our Church Revelations still owned by them proved from the Fanatick Revelations of Mother Juliana very lately published by Mr. Cressy Some instances of the blasphemous Nonsense contained in them The Monastick Orders founded in Enthusiasm An account of the great Fanaticism of S. Benedict and S. Romoaldus their hatred of Humane Learning and strange Visions and Revelations The Carthusian Order founded upon a Vision The Carmelites Vision of their habit The Franciscan and Dominican Orders founded on Fanaticism and seen in a Vision of Innocent the third to be the great supporters of the Roman Church The Quakerism of S. Francis described from their best Authors His Ignorance Extasies and Fanatick Preaching The Vision of Dominicus The blasphemous Enthusiasm of the Mendicant Fryers The History of it related at large Of the Evangelium aeternum and the blasphemies contained in it The Author of it supposed to be the General of the Franciscan Order however owned by the Fryers and read and preached at Paris The opposition to it by the Vniversity but favoured by the Popes Gul. S. Amour writing against it his Book publickly burnt by order of the Court of Rome The Popes horrible partiality to the Fryers The Fanaticism of the Franciscans afterwards Of the followers of Petrus Johannis de Oliva The Spiritual State began say they from S. Francis The story of his wounds and Maria Visitationis paralleld The canting language used by the spiritual Brethren called Beguini Fraticelli and Begardi Of their doctrines about Poverty Swearing Perfection the Carnal Church and Inspiration by all which they appear to be a Sect of Quakers after the Order of S. Francis Of the Schism made by them The large spreading and long continuance of them Of the Apostolici and Dulcinistae Of their numerous Conventicles Their high opinion of themselves Their Zeal against the Clergy and Tythes their doctrine of Christian Liberty Of the Alumbrado's in Spain their disobedience to Bishops obstinate adhering to their own fancies calling them Inspirations their being above Ordinances Ignatius Loyola suspected to be one of the Illuminati proved from Melchior Canus The Iesuites Order founded in Fanaticism a particular account of the Romantick Enthusiasm of Ignatius from the Writers of his own Order Whereby it is proved that he was the greatest pretender to Enthusiasm since the dayes of Mahomet and S. Francis Ignatius gave no respect to men by words or putting off his Hat his great Ignorance and Preaching in the Streets his glorying in his sufferings for it his pretence to mortification the wayes he used to get disciples Their way of resolution of difficulties by seeking God their itinerant preaching in the Cities of Italy The Sect of Quakers a new Order of Disciples of Ignatius only wanting confirmation from the Pope which Ignatius obtained Of the Fanatick way of devotion in the Roman Church Of Superstitious and Enthusiastical Fanaticism among them Of their mystical Divinity Mr. Cressy's canting in his Preface to Sancta Sophia Of the Deiform fund of the soul a superessential life and the way to it Of contemplating with the will Of passive Vnions The method of self-Annihilation Of the Vnion of nothing with nothing Of the feeling of not-being The mischief of an unintelligible way of devotion The utmost effect of this way is gross Enthusiasm Mr. Cressy's Vindication of it examined The last sort of Fanatioism among them resisting authority under pretence of Religion Their principles and practices compared with the Fanaticks How far they are disowned ai present by them Of the Vindication of the Irish Remonstrance The Court of Rome hath alwayes favoured that party which is most destructive to Civil Government proved by particular and late Instances § 1. 2. WE come to consider whether the reading the Scriptures be the cause of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England He might much better have charged the Philosophers especially Aristotle with all the disputes in the world for they not only by their writings have occasioned many but have taught men the pernicious use of reasoning without which the world might be as quiet as a Flock of Sheep If they could but perswade men to lay aside that mischievous faculty I dare undertake for them that let the people have the Bible never so much among them they shall never hurt the Church of Rome Do they not tell us that the words of Scripture are plain for Transubstantiation
This is my body Why do not then the people as readily believe that as any other proposition By which we see it is not meerly reading but a more dangerous thing called considering or reasoning which make them embrace some things as they lye in words and interpret others according to the clearest evidence which the nature of the thing the comparing with other places and the common sense of mankind will give But why are we not all of a mind I would fain know the time when men were so This variety of Sects was objected against the Philosophers and thought no argument then it was objected against the primitive Christians and thought of no force then why must it signifie more in England than ever it did in any other age or place But say they It was otherwise in England before the Scriptures came to be read by all it was and is otherwise in all Churches where they are not read therefore these Sects and Fanaticisms are the dire effects of the promiscuous reading the Scriptures This is the common and popular argument All things were well with us when we offered up Cakes to the Queen of Heaven when all joyned in the communion of the Roman Church then there were no Fanaticisms nor New Lights no Sects as there are now in England therefore why should any one make any doubt but he ought to return to the Church of Rome This necessarily leads me into the examination of these two things 1. Whether there be no danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church 2. Whether the Vnity of that Church be so admirable to tempt all persons who prize the Churches Vnity to return to it § 2. Concerning the danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church By Fanaticism we understand either an Enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under a pretence of Religion In either sense it shall appear that the Church of Rome is so far from being cleared from it that it hath given great encouragement to it 1. As to an Enthusiastick way of Religion I shall now prove that there have not been greater Enthusiasts among us in England than have been in the Roman Church all the difference is they have been some alwayes others for a time allowed and countenanced and encouraged by those of the Church of Rome but among us they have been decryed and opposed by all the members of the Church of England I shall not insist upon the resolution of faith and the infallibility of the Church which must be carried to Enthusiasm at last but I shall prove it by plain revelations which have been made the grounds among them of believing some doctrines in dispute and the reasons of setting up a more perfect way of life which in the highest strain of their devotion is meer Enthusiasm 1. Revelations have been pleaded by them in matters of doctrine such I mean which depend upon immediate impulses and inspirations since the Canon of Scripture and Apostolical Traditions Of this we have a remarkable instance in a late controversie managed with great heat and interest on both sides viz. of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary about the ending of which a solemn Embassy was sent from the Kings of Spain Philip the third and Philip the fourth to the Popes Paul the fifth and Gregory the thirteenth and an account is given of it by one concerned himself in the management of the Theological part of it which he saith is therefore published that the world may understand upon what grounds the doctrines of faith are established among them One of the chief whereof insisted upon was some private revelations made to some Saints about the immaculate conception which being once received in the Church adds no small strength he saith to any doctrine and gives a solid foundation for a definition i. e. that the matter may be defined to be of faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians Upon this he reckons up several revelations publickly received in the Church one mentioned by Anselm being a divine apparition to an Abbot in a storm a fit time for apparitions whereby he was admonished to keep the Feast of the Conception of the blessed Virgin upon which as Baronius observes that Feast was first kept in England Which revelation Wadding tells us is publickly recited in the office for the day and was not only extant in several Breviaries of England France Spain and Italy but he had divers himself authorized by the Pope wherein it was recommended as true and piously to be believed and accordingly have been publickly sung and used in the Church about an hundred years And what saith he is the consequence of disbelieving this but to say in effect that the Pope and the Roman Church are easily cheated and abused by impostures and forgers of false revelations to institute new Festival Solemnities upon the credit of them Another revelation was made to Norbertus the founder of the Order of the Praemonstratenses in which the Virgin Mary appeared and commended her veneration to him and gave him a white garment in token of her Original Innocency which revelation is believed by all of that Order and taken as the reason of their habit Besides these there are several other revelations to S. Gertrude and others to the same purpose reckoned up by several Catholick Authors which no man ought to reject unless he intends to be as great a Heretick or therein as wise a man as Erasmus was Nay these revelations were so frequent he saith that there hath been no age since the tenth Century wherein there hath not been some made to devout men or women about this matter But above all these most remarkable were those to S. Brigitt who had not one or two but many to this purpose and the latest were of Joanna a Cruce which it seems were at first eagerly opposed but at last came out with the approbation of two Cardinals and several Bishops of the Inquisition in Spain But now who could imagine a thing so often revealed so publickly allowed so many times attested from Heaven should not be generally received but the mischief of it was the contrary doctrine had revelations for it too For Antoninus and Cajetan say S. Catharine of Siena had it revealed to her that she was conceived with Original sin What is to be done now Here we have Saint against Saint Revelation against Revelation S. Catharine against S. Brigitt and all the rest of them Here to speak truth they are somewhat hard put to it for they grant God cannot contradict himself and therefore of one these must be false but which of them is all the question Here they examine which of these doctrines is most consonant to Scripture and Tradition which is most for the benefit of the Church which were persons of the greater sanctity and whose revelations were the most approved For. S. Brigitts they plead stoutly that when they were delivered by her
to her Confessors they were strictly examined and after them by the Bishops and Divines of Sweden and approved as divine revelations from them they were sent as such to the Council of Basil from thence they were examined over again at Naples and there allowed and preached in the presence and by command of the Queen and Archbishop before all the people of the City again examined at Rome by Prelats and Cardinals A. D. 1377. by the Popes appointment and there approved and A. D. 1379. they are declared by those Vrban the sixth committed the new examination of them to to be authentick and to come from the Spirit of God and so much is declared by Boniface the ninth in the Bull of her Canonization and at last approved saith Wadding at the General Council of Basil. What could be expected less after this than that they should have been received as Canonical Scriptures they having never taken so much pains in examining and approving any controverted Books of the Bible as they had done about these revelations And no man knows how far their authority might have prevailed if the whole Sect of Dominicans had not been engaged in the opposite opinion For nothing else that I can find hath given any discredit to her revelations but this which makes Cajetan call them old Wives dreams as Wadding confesseth But it falls out very conveniently that S. Catharines revelation was just in the Dominican way in which she had been educated and for all that I can see wants little of the reputation of St. Brigitt For they were both very wonderful persons and had more familiar reyelations than any of the Prophets we read of S. Brigitt in her Childhood if we believe the account given of her in the Bull of Canonization by Bonifacius and her life by Vastavius had Visions as frequently as other Children have Babyes and was as well pleased with them the Virgin Mary was once her Midwife as the Pope very gravely tells us but her revelations after Christ took her for his Spouse have filled a great Volume Wherein a person that hath leisure enough may see strange effects of the power of imagination or a Religious Melancholy and to that Book the Pope in his Bull refers us and if any thing can be more considerable than the Popes authority the whole Roman Church in the prayers upon S. Brigitts day do confess these revelations to have come immediately from God to her and in one of the Lessons for that day do magnifie the multitude of her divine revelations But to say truth the Church of Rome allows fair play in the case for it magnifies S. Catharine as much as S. Brigitt for her holy Extasies are mentioned in the Lessons upon her day in one of which were five rayes coming from the five wounds of our Saviour to five parts of her body and she being wonderfull humble prayed our Lord that the wounds might not appear for fear she should have been thought as holy as S. Francis and immediately the colour of the blood was changed into pure light upon her hands and feet and heart And her Confessor Raimund who is alwayes a principal man in these things as Matthias a Suecia was to S. Brigitt without whom she was advised from Heaven to do nothing saw these splendid wounds upon her body but by what instrument did he see the wound in her heart Well though we Hereticks are not apt to be too credulous in these cases the Church of Rome very gravely tells us in the next Lesson that her learning was not acquired but infused by which she answered the most profound Doctors in the most difficult speculations in Divinity but these were nothing to her revelations and the service she did the Church of Rome by them in a time of Schisme But one gift she had above S. Brigitt which was that while she was on earth she could not only see but smell souls too and could not endure the stench of wicked souls as Raynaldus tells us from her Confessor Raimund a gift very few had besides her and Philip Nerius the Father of the Oratorians for Raynaldus one of his Order tells us from Bacius the Writer of his life that he was sometimes so offended with the smells of filthy souls that he would desire the persons to empty the Iakes of their souls Such divine Noses had these two Saints among them A degree of Enthusiasme above the Spirit of discerning any Quakers among us have ever pretended to Pope Pius the second in the Bull of Canonization of S. Catharine not only acknowledgeth a gift of Prophecy to have been in her but that sometimes her Extasies were so great that she was sensible of no kind of pain in them And S. Brigitt was often seen much above ground in her devotions and one saw Rivers and another Fire came out of her mouth but I think not at the same time These are things we rake not the old Kennells of the Golden Legends for but are at this day allowed and approved of in the Roman Church and their dayes kept and they prayed to upon the account of such things as these are § 3. Yet still we are to seek what is to be done when two Revelations contradict each other for the Dominicans are as peremptory for the revelation of S. Catharine as their adversaries are for that of S. Brigitt Two bold Fellows called Henricus de Hassia and Sybillanus knew no other way but to reject both as illusions and fancies but what becomes then of the Popes and Councils infallibility who have approved both Franciscus Picus Mirandula being a Learned and Ingenuous man confesseth himself at a loss both being concerning a thing passed there must be truth on one side and falshood on the other for the case is not the same saith he as to past and future things in which a condition may be understood By which means St. Bernard escaped when he promised great success to an expedition into the Holy Land and they who went in it found the quite contrary But at last gives us leave to conjecture his meaning when he saith That if any thing be false in a prophecy though some prove true we have cause to suspect all especially if it come from women whose judgements are weak and their passions vehement and imaginations easily possessed with what they are most desirous of and least able to distinguish between the strength of imagination and a divine revelation but as to that particular case of S. Catharine and S. Brigitt where both were women he saith The Divines were generally for the former and the Monks for the latter but which was in the truth he thinks cannot be known upon earth Martin Del Rio discoursing of the Revelations of Canonized Saints who were women in the Church of Rome reckons up S. Angela a Carmelitess whose Book of Revelations came out above four hundred years
ago S. Gertrude A. D. 664. S. Hildegardis in Germany A. D. 1180. and about the same time S. Elizabeth of Sconaugh all whose revelations were published and the last collected by Roger an English Cistertian and in latter times he mentions S. Brigitt and S. Catharine whose revelations he saith were opposed by some but he declares for his part that he is not at all moved with their arguments for that would diminish too much the honour due to those holy Spouses of Christ as he calls them but in truth he confesses the honour of their Church is concerned in it for saith he several Popes upon diligent examination have allowed and approved these revelations as Eugenius the third did those of Hildegardis as well as Boniface the ninth those of S. Brigitt For the argument from the contradiction of these revelations he knows not how to come off but by a charge of Forgery on the Dominican side and why might not they as well return it on the other unless Matthias a Suetia Confessor to S. Brigitt were more infallible than Raimundus or those who believed S. Catharine But this is not the only case wherein these female revelations so much approved by the Church of Rome are contradictory to each other in those things whereon the proof of a point of doctrine depends For who knows not to what end the revelation of S. Gregoryes delivering the soul of Trajan by his prayers is so frequently urged and this is confirmed by a revelation of S. Brigitt to that purpose from whence Salmeron calls it an unanswerable argument and Alphonsus Ciacconius published by the Popes authority an Apology for that revelation Yet Baronius tells us that S. Mathildis had a revelation to the contrary and if it were not contradictory to S. Brigitts it must be contradictory to it self And therefore he very fairly rejects them all but with what honour to his Church which had before approved them I can by no means understand And Bellarmin to the revelation of Mathildis wherein she desired to know what became of the souls of Sampson Solomon Origen and Trajan and God answered her that none should know what he had done with them opposes another revelation wherein the soul of Origen was seen together with that of Arius and Nestorius in Hell So infallible are these revelations even when they contradict each other How often have visions and apparitions of souls been made use of to prove the doctrine of Purgatory Witness the famous testimonies to this purpose out of S. Gregories Dialogues and Bedes History which latter is at large recited being very proper for it in the late great Legend published by Mr. Cressy under the name of a Church History who justifies the substance of the story as far as it concerns the Doctrine of Purgatory although he doth not think the person really dead but only in a Trance which is all one to our purpose as long as such arguments as these are made use of to prove matters of faith by We need not go so far back as Gabriel Biel to shew that the doctrine of Transubstantiation hath been proved by the appearance of a Child in a Host such an argument hath been lately published to the World and Bellarmin reckons up several to this purpose one wherein instead of Bread was seen real Flesh and another wherein Christ was seen in the form of a Child Which are well attended with St. Anthony of Padua 's Horse which would never have left his Provender to Worship the Host unless he had seen some notable sight there And he very doughtily proves Auricular Confession by a certain Vision of a tall and terrible man with his Book in his hand which blotted out presently all the sins which the humble Thief confessed upon his knees to the Priest but he hath not proved that terrible man did not represent the Devil who by that Ceremony might shew that he turned over the keeping of his Books of Accompts to the Priest who upon Confession might tell mens sins as well as he could do without But they have not only attempted to prove matters of Doctrine by these things but things have been defined in the Church meerly upon the credit of private revelations So the Spanish Ambassadour urges the Pope smartly upon the Revelations of St. Bridgitt That there were many of his predecessors that had determined more things in the Church partly relying upon private Revelations therein whose authority was not greater than hers were Pius 1. he saith determined the Controversie of Easter-day upon the credit of a Revelation made to Hermes Urban 4. Instituted the Festival of Corpus Christi in opposition to the denyers of Transubstantiation upon the instinct and revelation of a certain Woman Paul the Hermite was Canonized for a Saint upon the Authority of a Vision and Revelation to Anthony the one of his soul flying to Heaven the other of his being there The Feast of the apparition of the Arch-angel Michael which is constantly observed in the Church of Rome depended upon a revelation to the Bishop of Siponto and a few Drovers upon the Mountain Garganus These are things briefly touched by the Ambassadour but it will not be amiss to give a more particular account of those instances which concern the Institution of Festival Solemnities by which it will appear that they are Fanatical even in their Superstitions Pope Vrban 4. in the Bull still extant for the Celebration of Corpus Christi day mentions that as one of the great reasons of appointing it that while he was in a lower capacity he understood that a revelation had been made to certain Catholicks that this Feast should be observed in the Church This which is only intimated here is at large explained by Ioh. Diestemius Blaerus Prior of St. Iames in Liege where these things happened In an Hospital hard by the Town he tells us there was a famous Virgin called Iuliana which had many Extasies and Raptures and so Prophetical a Spirit as to discern the thoughts and intentions of her Neighbours Hearts she wrestled with Devils discoursed with the Apostles and wrought many Miracles But one thing peculiar to her was that in her Prayers she almost alwayes saw the Moon in her brightness but with a snip taken off from her roundness at which she was much troubled but by no means could get it out of her Phancy At last God was pleased to reveal it to her that the Moon signified the present Church and that fraction the want of one solemnity more to be observed in it upon which she received a command from Heaven to proclaim the observation of this solemnity For twenty years she prayed that God would excuse her and make choice of a more worthy person but none being found she communicates it to Iohannes de Lausenna and he to Iacobus de Trecis then Arch-deacon of Liege and afterwards Vrban 4. But although
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
properties in the Holy Trinity of the Fatherhead of the Motherhood and of the Lordship and she further saw that the second person which is our Mother substantially the same dear worthy person is now become our Mother sensual for we be double of Gods making substantial and sensual We may justly admire what esteem Mr. Cressy had of that Lady to whose devout retirements he so gravely commends the blasphemous and senseless tittle tattle of this Hysterical Gossip It were endless to repeat the Canting and Enthusiastick expressions which signifie nothing in Mother Iuliana's Revelations and one would wonder to what end such a Book were published among us unless it were to convince us of this great truth that we have not had so great Fanaticks and Enthusiasts among us but they have had greater in the Roman Church And by this means they may think to prevail upon the Fanaticks among us by perswading them that they have been strangely mistaken concerning the Church of Rome in these matters that she is no such enemy to Enthusiams and Revelations as some believe but that in truth she hath not only alwayes had such but given great approbation and encouragement to them So that among all their visions they do but mix some that confirm their particular Doctrines as the Visions of Iuliana concerning the great Worship of the B. Virgin from her son the holy Vernacle at Rome and such like fopperies these make all the rest very acceptable among them § 6. 2. That which they account the most perfect way of life hath been instituted by Enthusiastick persons and upon the credit of visions and revelations and the highest way of devotion in that Church is meer Enthusiasme 1. That the Religious orders were instituted among them by Enthusiastick persons upon the credit of their visions and revelations The most celebrated orders at this day in the Roman Church are the Benedictines Carthusians Dominicans Franciscans and Iesuites and if I can prove this concerning each of these we shall see how much Fanaticism hath contributed to the support of the Roman Church And it is a very fair way towards the proof of it that Bellarmin confesseth concerning the four first and that of Romoaldus that they were at first instituted by St. Benedict St. Romoaldus St. Bruno St. Dominick St. Francis by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and for Ignatius Loyola if he do not appear as great a Fanatick as ever hath been in the world we shall be contented to be upbraided with the charge of Fanaticism among us It is observable in the life of St. Benedict as St. Gregory relates in the second Book of his Dialogues that he was a great hater of humane learning and that was the first occasion of his retiring from the World being very much afraid a little knowledge should have destroyed him He therefore forsook not only his Studies but his Fathers house and business being as St. Gregory saith knowingly ignorant and wisely unlearned he might as well have said ignorantly learned and foolishly wise One might have suspected it had been rather hatred of his Book than devotion at his age which made him run away from School and his Fathers house but one of his Visions in his Cave makes it more probable there was some other occasion of it But however away he goes and only an old Nurse with him and he requited her soon for it for he by his Prayers set together the winnowing Sieve which she had broken in pieces which was after hanged up before the doors of the Church to the Lombards times But this is nothing to his being three years in a Cave without the knowledge of any but St. Roman who let him down victuals by a rope and a Bell and the Devil owing him a great spight threw a huge stone and broke the Bell. Here he lay so close that he was fain to be discovered by a vision and was so devout that he had forgotten Easter day till he was put in mind of it by the person who by a vision was sent to him and was so little like a man that the shepherds took him for a beast lying in a den But at last he is brought to light and found to be a wonderful person for among superstitious people ignorance and devotion are most admired together and now many are sent to him for education having conquered his amorous passions by rowling himself naked among thornes and nettles which thorns a long time after St. Francis grafted Roses upon as Bollandus well observes which bear in the coldest part of Winter and of them Rose water is made which is sent as a present to the greatest Princes He had an admirable Sagacity in spying Devils for he saw a little black Devil which led away a Monk from Prayers and was fain to pray two dayes with Pompeianus and Maurus that God would afford them the Grace to see him too and at last Maurus being young and his sight good saw him but Pompeianus being older and wiser could not However St. Bennet sent the little Devil packing with a stroke of his rod as he did at other times with the sign of the cross and easily caused a stone to be lifted up whereon the Devil sate which could not be stirred before his coming It would take up too much time to tell of his Miracles my business is only with his visions and revelations by which he could not only foretell things to come but could discover absent things so that the Monks could not eat out of his sight but he could tell as well as if he saw the meat in their teeth when they denyed it He discovered Riggo's fraud when he came to him in Totila's habit and told Totilas how long he should raign nay if we believe St. Gregory he knew the secrets of the Divinity being one Spirit with God no wonder then the unhappy Boy could not hide one Flask of Wine nor the Monks receive handkerchiefs of the Women but he found it out but most admirable was his sight of his Sister Scholastica's soul entring into Heaven in the shape of a Dove and another time the soul of Germanus Bishop of Capua in a fiery Circle carryed by Angels to Heaven but above all was his seeing all the world under one ray of the Sun which he could not do Gregory concludes without a Divine internal light upon which a dispute hath been raised in the Schooles whether St. Benedict saw the divine Essence or no Aquinas thinks not but only that he had an extraordinary revelation Vasquez doth not seem much to oppose it but upon two grounds the one very considerable that we never read the Virgin Mary did it who ought to have the highest share in revelations and visions the other only a plain place of Scripture No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son of the Father he hath revealed him As
about A. D. 1254. who was General of the Franciscan Order but the Book was received and defended by both Orders as will presently appear But it will be first necessary to consider what the doctrines are which are contained in this Book and if ever there were higher Fanaticism than is therein or rather greater blasphemies let them have leave to triumph The most perfect account we have of it is from Nicol Eymericus who was himself an Inquisitor and tells us these Heresies or Errors are contained in it 1. That the doctrine of Abbot Ioachim a great Fanatick excelled the doctrine of Christ and consequently the New and Old Testament 2. That the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the Kingdom and therefore is not edifying 3. That the New Testament is to be evacuated or lose its force as the Old hath already 4. That the New Testament shall not remain in force above six years longer viz. to A. D. 1260. 5. That they which shall live beyond that time shall be in the state of perfection 6. That the Gospel of Christ shall give way to another Gospel and so instead of the Priesthood of Christ another Gospel shall succeed 7. That no simple man is fit to instruct men in spiritual and eternal things but they that walk barefoot 8. That although God afflict the Iews in this world yet he will save them though they remain in Iudaism and will in the end deliver them from all the opposition of men remaining such as they are 9. That the Church hath not yet brought forth Children nor will do before the end of the temporal reign which shall be after six years and by this we are to understand that the Christian Religion which hath brought forth many called to the faith of Christ is not the Church 10. That the Gospel of Christ brings no man to perfection 11. That the Gospel of the Holy Ghost coming or Ioachims work obtaining called the Everlasting Gospel or of the Holy Ghost the Gospel of Christ shall be done away 12. That no man in Religious Orders is bound to expose his life for defence of the faith or preserving the worship of Christ but other men are 13. That as when Iohn Baptist came the things that were before must needs be confuted because of new things coming in their place so when the time of the Holy Ghost shall come or the third state of the world the things that were before must be confuted for the sake of the New which are to come from whence it must be understood that the New Testament must be refuted and the old cast away 14. That Christ and his Apostles were not perfect in the contemplative life 15. That the Order of the Clergy shall perish but one of a Religious Order shall be perferred above all in dignity and honour and that as the authority under the Father was committed to one of the married order so under the Holy Ghost to one or some of the order of Monks 16. That those who are over the Colledges of Monks ought in those dayes to think of departing from the Seculars and prepare themselves to return to the ancient people of the Iews 17. That the Preachers which shall be in the last state of the world shall be of greater dignity and authority than the Preachers of the Primitive Church 18. That the Preachers and Doctors of Religious Orders when they shall be infested by the Clergy shall go over to the Infidels and it is to be feared lest they go thither for that end to bring them in battel against the Roman Church according to the doctrine of S. Iohn Apocalyps 15. These may suffice out of twenty seven to let the world know where the height of Blasphemy and Fanaticism was first hatched and no one could imagine that any who had the face or name of Christians should own these things yet they came from those excellent and inspired persons of the newly founded Religious Orders And if it had not been for the mortal hatred that then was between the University of Paris and the Mendicant Fryers who usurped the Professors places in the Vniversity against their will God knows how far this doctrine might have prevailed without the least censure For the Popes were extreamly partial to the Fryers and would hear no ill of them they now finding them their most useful instruments in all their quarrels with Princes the Secular Clergy and the People So Matth. Paris relating the Story of the quarrels between the University and the Fryers tells That though the King and the City were for preserving the priviledges of the Vniversity yet the Fryers being at the Popes devotion and doing them a great deal of service were more acceptable in the Court of Rome and therefore got the better of the Vniversity Nay so zealous was Alexander the fourth in the cause of the Fryers against the Vniversity that in the six years of his Popedom he sent out near forty Bulls against the Vniversity of which not one now appears in the Bullarium but most of them are preserved in that accurate Preface before the Works of Gul. de Sancto Amore the zealous Defender of the Vniversity against the encroachments of the Fryers and in the late History of the Vniversity of Paris In the midst of these heats some intimation was given the Divines of the Vniversity of such a Book which was in great esteem among the Fryers called Evangelium aeternum wherein were very dangerous doctrines which were saith Matthew Paris preached read and taught by the Fryers and were put together by them in a Book called Evangelium aeternum and taken saith he chiefly out of the Books of Abbot Joachim and Richerius acknowledgeth that the Book was composed by the Fryers and that the Divines of Paris by some art got a Copy of it and extracted some Heads out of it which were contrary to faith and upon that as Du Bouley saith they caused it to be burnt publickly at Paris But not being satisfied herewith they preached against it as appears by a Sermon of Gul. de Sancto Amore at the end of his Works wherein he saith That he had seen no small part of that Book and he had heard that it doth in all contain more than the Bible and therein he saith it is taught that the Sacraments of the Church are nothing that the Gospel of Christ is not the true Gospel and that the Book it self is the Gospel of the Holy Ghost and the everlasting Gospel and that the Gospel of Christ should be preached but for five years to come that then men shall have another Rule of life and the Church shall be otherwise managed Which saith he is execrable and abominable to be spoken But not content with bare preaching against them he writ a very smart Book in the name of the Vniversity of Paris de periculo novissimorum temporum of the dangers of the
Salamanca where he finds no kinder entertainment being put into chains in the Dungeon and strictly examined For here he follows his former course he and his companions in an Enthusiastical manner being meer lay-men as Maffeius acknowledgeth going up and down the Streets Preaching in all places and to all sorts of persons and being examined by the Sub-prior of the Dominicans what Studies they followed Ignatius very fairly confessed the truth that they were unlearned He then asked him why they took upon them to Preach Ignatius very subtilly told him they did not Preach they did only hold forth to the people in a familiar manner concerning vertue and vice and thereby endeavoured to bring them to the hatred of one and love of the other The Sub-prior told him this was Preaching which no one could pretend to do but either by learning or immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost and since you do not pretend to learning you must pretend to be inspired Here Ignatius finding himself caught resolutely denyed to give him any answer unless he were legally impowred to examine him Say you so said the Dominican I will take care of that suddenly So they were three dayes kept in the Convent and after that by order of the Bishop of Salamanca were committed to close Prison where he Preached to the people with great zeal who now flocked in great numbers to him and gloried as much in his sufferings and talked at the same rate that the Ring-leaders of the Quakers are wont to do among us And just with the same resolution when the rest of the Prisoners made their escape by the negligence of the keepers Ignatius and his companions would not stirr When they were called to answer Ignatius Preached at large upon several points of Divinity to them under pretence of answering questions After twenty two dayes promising to submit themselves to the judgement of the Church they are dismissed but with a charge in four years time not to meddle with nice Cases of Conscience which Ignatius took with so much indignation that he had a present impulse upon his mind to be gone and no consideration whatever could hinder him but away he must go to Paris to see if he could meet with any better success there And accordingly he begins his journey driving all his learning before him which was an Asse laden with Books as Maffeius relates and so reaches Barcelona and afterwards arrived safe at Paris Where being sensible of his own ignorance and dulness he resolves to ply his Book better and to that end enters himself among the Boyes in the School and begins his Grammar again A sad case that after two years Schooling at Barcelona being at two Vniversities in Spain and having so many revelations he should be yet so great a Dunce that he could not tell the rules of Grammar Now he finds it necessary to pray and whip less and to study more Here he finds so cold a reception that Hospitals Begging help from Countrey men were all little enough to keep him at first from starving but however after eighteen months spent in learning a little Latin he applyes himself to Philosophy but the Enthusiastick heat of his brain was so great that he had much adoe to keep his mind to it but at last he obtained his Degree in Philosophy after three years and a half study or at least so much time spent there Then he goes to the Dominican School to learn Divinity where he got just enough to keep him from being a Heretick for so much Maffeius his words imply All this while his Enthusiastick head was full of projects in order to the drawing Disciples to himself that he might in imitation of former Heroes Found a new order for this it is apparent he aimed at and for the sake of this he went through so many difficulties and pretended so much to Enthusiasm without which he knew his design could not be compassed Orlandinus therefore tells us that being at Antwerp as he used to make excursions sometimes from Panis to beg a subsistence being in a company of Merchants he looked stedfastly upon a young Merchant and not knowing what effect such words might have upon him afterwards he called him aside and told him he ought to thank God who had chosen him to build a Colledge for the Society of Iesus in his own Countrey By which it is plain what he designed at that time before he had yet formed any thing like a Society and the same Author would have men believe that God had then revealed it to him that he should found that Society otherwise he saith well no man would have taken so much pains as he did unless he had such a thing in his head During his abode at Paris he had prevailed upon three Students and the first thing he perswaded them to was to give away all that they had and their Books too and to beg their bread which caused a great heat in the Vniversity he being suspected to have made them mad and by force they took them away from the Hospital whither he had drawn them I omit his flying or rather being carryed as it were in a rapture from Paris to Rouen and the joy and extatick expressions he had in it his standing up in dirt and mire to the neck to represent to his companion the filthiness of the sin he lived in his so narrowly escaping being publickly whipt in the University for seducing the Students that Orlandinus makes it almost a Miracle But we are now to take notice that his design being to form a Society he had for that purpose used himself to all the arts of insinuation imaginable accommodating himself to the humours of the persons he had to do with endeavouring to oblige all men with expressions of the greatest kindness bearing all affronts with a wonderful dissimulation as Maffeius describes him By these arts he labours to get some of the most hopeful Students in the University to him and at last prevailes upon nine to joyne with him he studies their humours and applies himself accordingly not acquainting them at first with his design but by degrees prepares them for it among them Xaverius at first laughed at him and despised him but was at last won by his obsequiousness flattery and insinuation And finding his former Disciples soon grew weary of him and forsook him he resolves to tye these faster and to that end appoints a meeting in a Church dedicated to the B. Virgin in the Suburbs of Paris where they all solemnly vow before receiving the Eucharist none but themselves being present either to go to Ierusalem or to offer themselves to the Popes service which was done A. D. 1534. upon the day of Assumption of the B. Virgin to whose Patronage they particularly devoted themselves After this Ignatius fearing their relapse kept them together as much as might be and used all means to prevent any differences happening
Murdered by the people of Rome and not content with this he writ a Letter to the Emperour full of the greatest reproaches imaginable Baronius is here very hard put to it to Vindicate the Pope for he confesses the Rebellion of the people was occasioned by the Popes opposing the Emperour and commends their zeal for Religion in it and acknowledgeth that the Emperour laid all the blame on the Pope and that the Greek Historians Theophanes and Zonaras do so too but all this he saith proceeded only from their spight against the Roman Church and their ignorance of affairs in it but if we believe him the Pope rather endeavoured to keep them in obedience to the Emperour and when they would have chosen another he opposed it which he proves from Paulus Diaconus and Anastasius But what is that to the business the question is not whether the Pope did not hinder the choosing another Emperour but whether he did not draw the people off from their obedience to the Emperour that then was And this is not only affirmed by the Greek historians but by those of the Roman Church Sigebert saith that Gregory 2. finding the Emperour incorrigible he made Rome Italy and all the West to revolt from him and forbad his Tributes the same is affirmed by Otto Frisingensis Conradus Vrspergensis Hieronymus Rubeus and others who cannot be suspected of any enmity to the Roman Church As for the making a new Emperour therein the Pope had another game to play he was not willing the Souldiery should make another Emperour for as Hadrianus Valesius well observes the Pope durst not so affront the Emperour if he had not held a private correspondency with Charles Martel at that time whose honour and armes were the greatest in these Western parts Having thereby strengthened his interest against both the Emperour his known enemy and the Lombards that were at best but unfaithful friends he makes what advantage he can of the places that owed subjection to the Emperour to make up the Patrimony of the Church as Valesius observes particularly of Sutrium but Sigonius saith the people not only cast off the Emperour but did swear to be faithful to the Pope no wonder then he was not willing to have a new Emperour chosen so that at this time Rome and the Roman Dutchy came into the hands of the Pope the Cities of which are enumerated by Sigonius and therefore Papirius Massonus deservedly makes this Pope the founder of the greatness of the Roman Church which we see was laid in down-right rebellion and can be no otherwise justified than by making the Pope absolute Governour of the World Not long after the Pope begins saith Valesius a warr with the Lombards who watched any occasion to take away some part of his newly gotten Patrimony he therefore sends away Anastasius and Sergius into France to Charles Martel with the Keyes of St. Peters Sepulchre in token of their owning him as their Protector Which Embassie being acceptable to Charles he procures a peace to be concluded between the Lombards and the Romans which was contrary to the Popes desire who sent several Letters and Messengers to him to come into Italy to revenge St. Peters quarrel against the Lombards with Fire and Sword and as he loved St. Peter he would come with all Speed into Italy as appears by the letters still extant and published by Sirmondus But he soon after dying his Son Pepin succeeding in all his power and growing weary of having so much as the name of a King above him sends to Pope Zachary to know whether it were not fitter for him to bear the name who did all the business of a King who very well understood his meaning and readily assented to it upon which Chilperick was deposed and put into a Monastery and Pepin was afterwards absolved by the Pope from his Oath of fidelity with all the Nobles and People There being now so close a League between the Popes interest and Pepins the ones title to his Crown depending on the Popes authority the others security upon his protection no wonder to see them endeavour the promoting each others advantage The Popes Territories being not long after molested by Aistulphus King of the Lombards Stephen writes a very pittiful Letter of complaint to Pepin and Charles and Charlemagne his Sons wherein he saith that Aistulphus had almost broke his heart with grief because he would not leave one foot of Land to St. Peter and the Holy Church and therefore he conjures them by St. Peter who had anointed them Kings that they would recover the lands again out of the Lombards hands or otherwise they may think what a sad account they will give to St. Peter in the day of Judgement These are the words of the Popes letter lately published by Delaland Sirmondus his Nephew in his Supplement of the Gallican Councils Upon this Pepin comes to his assistance and every peace addes still more to the Churches Revenew by which it was now grown very considerable by the spoiles of the Empire the Exarchat of Ravenna in Pope Stephens time being destroyed which was the only remainder then left of the Empire in Italy and the revenews of it were given by Pepin to the Church of Rome as appears by an ancient inscription in Ravenna mentioned by Papirius Massonus Which the Pope solicited hard for when he went himself into France on purpose to stirr up Pepin against the Lombards and was much afraid lest the Exarchat should have been restored again to the Emperour but Pepin promising to give the Region of Pentapolis and Ravenna to the Roman See assoon as he had taken them from the Lombards the Pope went away well satisfied and drew after him a mighty Army whereby a great part of Italy was laid waste and the people miserably harrassed for no other end but to secure that to the Pope which did by all right belong to the Emperour Who sent Ambassadours first to the Pope and then to Pepin to desire the restitution of those places to their true owner but the Pope denyed and Pepin urged the promise he had already made to the Pope and that he could not go back from it because he undertook that quarrel meerly for his souls and the Popes sake without expecting any advantage to himself by it Aistulphus being dead Desiderius takes upon him the Kingdom of Lombardy but he fearing Rachis the right heir makes a League presently with the Pope and by surrendring up some more Cities makes him wholly of his party and Rachis is fain to retire again to a Monastery but after a while Desiderius finds an occasion to quarrel with the Pope and takes several cities into his hands which the Pope had gotten possession of and threatens suddenly to besiege Rome Pope Adrian finding himself in these straights dispatches away messengers with all speed to
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
all wise men ever did and will do to the worlds end 4. I proved they made faith uncertain by making the Churches power to extend to the making new articles of faith This he grants to be to the purpose if it were true but he saith the Church never owned any such power in her General Councils which doth not hinder but that the Heads of their Church have pretended to it and in case it be disputable among them whether the Pope be not infallible that unavoidably leaves faith at uncertainties Yet he yields what I contend for which is that it is in the Churches Power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before for whether it be by inventing new Articles or declaring more explicitely the Truths not contained in Scripture and Tradition it is all one to my purpose as long as men might be saved without believing them before and cannot afterwards which is to make the conditions of salvation mutable according to the pleasure of the Church which is the greatest inconveniency of inventing new doctrines 5. I shewed they made faith uncertain by pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not using it to determine those which are on foot among themselves The force of the argument did not lye in this as he imagines as though faith could not be certain unless all controversies were determined which was far from my thoughts but that pretending there can be no faith without infallibility in their Church to end Controversies they should give such great occasion to suspect that they did not believe themselves by imploying that Infallibility in ending the great Controversies among themselves of which I have spoken already and to this he gives no answer at all Thus much in Vindication of the third Argument I made use of to prove that all those who are in the Communion of the Roman Church do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it § 15. I now come to the third answer to the first Question which was that a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible Ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one Three things he objects against this Answer 1. That this makes them both damned though unequally because the Converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so 2. That this reflects as much upon St. Austin as them who rejected the Communion of the Manichees and embraced that of the Church of Rome upon their grounds 3. That it is contrary to our distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental To which I Reply 1. That the design of my Answer was not to pass the sentence of damnation on all who dye in the communion of the Roman Church but to shew that they who forsook a better Church for it do incurre greater guils than those who are alwayes bred up in it and live and dye in the belief of its being the true Church and therefore are not in an equal capacity of salvation with them I shall make my meaning more plain by a parallel Instance or two many in the Church of Rome have asserted the possibility of the Salvation of Heathens though some Bigots have denyed it to Protestants suppose this question were put concerning two persons Whether a Christian having the same motives to become a Heathen which one bred and born and well grounded in Heathenism hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it and a third person should answer that a Christian leaving the communion of the Christian Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in Heathenism and continues therein by invincible Ignorance doth this answer imply that they must both be damned though equally or rather doth it not yield a greater possibility of salvation to one than to the other Or suppose to come nearer our case the question were put concerning one that revolted from the Church of Iudah to the ten Tribes which were guilty of Idolatry though not of the highest kind whether he were equally capable of salvation with one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Israel all his dayes I should make no question to pronounce his condition more dangerous than the other yet not therein damn them both but only imply that it was much harder for to escape than the other For he that was bred up in the Church of Israel believing it was the true God he served and in a right manner and looking on the Church of Iudah as a Schismatical Church and seeing the greater number of Tribes on their side and wanting that instruction which was in the Church of Iudah might in the sincerity of his heart serve God in a false way and pray to him to pardon all his errours and corruptions and have a general repentance of all sins though not particularly convinced of the Idolatry of the ten Tribes I dare not say but God will accept of such a one that thus fears God and works Righteousness in the simplicity of his heart but I cannot say the same of one who revolts from Iudah where the true God was worshipped in a true manner where he had sufficient means of instruction and either wilful Ignorance or temporal ends or unreasonable prejudices makes him deliberately choose a worse and more impure Church before a better for that very sin makes his case much more dangerous than the other Our business is not to enquire into the salvation or damnation of any particular persons for that depends upon so many circumstances as to the aggravation or extenuation of their faults the nature and sincerity of their repentance the integrity and simplicity of their minds which none but God himself can know but to find out the truest way to salvation and to reject whatever Church requires that which is in it self sinful for though God may pardon those who live in it in the simplicity of their minds yet their hopes lying in their Ignorance and repentance none who have a care of their souls dare venture themselves in so hazardous a state Setting aside then the consideration of the danger common to both I say the case of a Revolter from us to the Church of Rome is much worse than of one who was alwayes bred up in it because he might far more easily understand the danger he runs into and wilfull Ignorance only keeps him from it and he doth upon deliberation choose a state of infinite hazard before one of the greatest safety 2. This doth not reflect on St. Austin or the Church in his time which was as far different from theirs as the Churches of Iudah and Israel were from each other neither can it destroy the distinction of Fundamentals and not Fundamentals
for the possibility of salvation allowed to any in their Church is built upon the supposition that they have all that is fundamentally necessary in order to it though there are many dangerous errours and corruptions in that Church whose communion they live in § 16. The Answers to the first Question being thus vindicated there remains little to be added concerning the second For he tells me that he agrees so far with me that every Christian is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church But which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles And to be even with him I thus far agree with him in the way of proof of a Churches purity viz. by agreement with the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and that that Church is to be judged purest which shews the greatest evidence of that consent and that every one is bound to enquire which Church hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace the communion of it Being thus far agreed I must now enquire into what motives he offers on behalf of their Church and what method he prescribes for delivering ours For the former he produces a large Catalogue of Catholick Motives as he calls them in the words of Dr. Taylour Liberty of Prophecy Sect. 20. And I do not know a better way of answering them than in the words of the same eminent and learned Person which he uses upon a like occasion to his demonstrating Friend I. S. But now in my Conscience saith the Bishop this was unkindly done that when I had spoken for them what I could and more than I knew they had ever said for themselves and yet to save them harmless from the iron hands of a tyrant and unreasonable power to keep them from being persecuted for their errours and opinions that they should take the arms I had lent them for their defence and throw them at my head But the best of it is though I. S. be unthankful yet the Weapons themselves are but wooden Daggers intended only to represent how the poor men are couzened by themselves and that under fair and fraudulent pretences even pious well meaning men men wise enough in other things may be abused And though what I said was but tinsel and pretence imagery and whipt Cream yet I could not be blamed to use no better than the best their cause could bear yet if that be the best they have to say for themselves their probabilities will be soon out-ballanced by one Scripture-testimony urged by Protestants and thou shalt not Worship any graven Images will out-weigh all the best and fairest imaginations of their Church But then I. S. might if he had pleased have considered that I did not intend to make that harangue to represent that the Roman Religion had probabilities of being true but probabilities that the Religion might be tolerated or might be endured and if I was deceived it was but a well meant errour hereafter they shall speak for themselves only for their comfort this they might have also observed in that Book that there is not half so much excuse for the Papists as there is for the Anabaptists and yet it was but an excuse at the best But since from me saith he they borrow their light Armour which is not Pistol-proof from me if they please they may borrow a remedy to undeceive them and that in the same kind and way of arguing for which he referrs to a letter written by him to a Gentlewoman seduced to the Church of Rome out of which I shall transcribe so much as may over-ballance the probabilities produced elsewhere by him After directions given rather to enquire what her Religion is than what her Church is for that which is a true Religion to day will be so to morrow and for ever but that which is a holy Church to day may be Heretical at the next change or may betray her trust or obtrude new Articles in contradiction to the old c. and shewing the unreasonablness of believing the Roman to be the Catholick Church he descends thus to particulars You are now gone to a Church that protects it self by arts of subtlety and arms by violence and persecuting all that are not of their minds to a Church in which you are to be a subject of the King so long as it pleases the Pope In which you may be absolved from your Vows made to God your Oaths to the King your Promises to Men your Duty to your Parents in some cases a Church in which men Pray to God and to Saints in the same Form of words in which they Pray to God as you may see in the Offices of Saints and particularly of our Lady a Church in which men are taught by most of the principal Leaders to Worship Images with the same Worship with which they Worship God or Christ or him or her whose Image it is and in which they usually picture God the Father and the Holy Trinity to the great dishonour of that Sacred mystery against the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church against the express doctrine of Scripture against the honour of a divine Attribute I mean the immensity and spirituality of the divine nature You are gone to a Church that pretends to be infallible and yet is infinitely deceived in many particulars and yet endures no contradiction and is impatient her Children should enquire into any thing her Priests obtrude You are gone from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half from Christs Institution to a human Invention from Scripture to uncertain Traditions and from ancient Tradition to new pretences from Prayers which ye understood to Prayers which ye understand not from confidence in God to rely upon Creatures from intire dependance upon inward-acts to a dangerous temptation of resting too much in outward ministeries in the external work of Sacraments and Sacramentals You are gone from a Church whose Worshipping is simple Christian and Apostolical to a Church where mens Consciences are loaden with a burden of Ceremonies greater than that in the dayes of the Jewish Religion for the Ceremonial of the Church of Rome is a great Book in Folio You are gone from a Church where you were exhorted to read the Word of God the Holy Scriptures from whence you sound instruction institution comfort reproof a treasure of all excellencies to a Church that seals up that Fountain from you and gives you drink by drops out of such Cisterns as they first make and then stain and then reach out and if it be told you that some men abuse Scripture it is true for if your Priests had not abused Scripture they could not thus have abused you but there is no necessity they should and you need not unless you list any more than you need to abuse the Sacrament or Decrees of the Church or the messages of your