pretend indeed that it is clear in the Tradition of the Fathers But for the Fathers that received the Scripture from the Apostles it is evident that they could not find any such thing in it Nor could any of them that lived in the first six hundred years Nay they were to seek for it that lived above a thousand years after the Apostles times Some indeed of the Antients have spoke of an unbloody Sacrifice and that offered by every Christian as well without the Sacrament as with it But as they alway denied any more Bloody Sacrifice So little did they think of an unbloody to take away sin and that such as none could offer but the Priest How much less that Chirst himself must be that Sacrifice nay must come from heaven both to offer and to be offered and that upon such pitiful small or needless occasions The most common pretence not to mention any worse is to fetch a soul out of Purgatory Which the Priest is to do for a small piece of Silver But they have other devices to do the same thing Therefore why must Christ come from Heaven to earn this mony And be sent on these errands ten thousand times a day And every time suffer as much as it cost him to Redeem all mankind This horrible Mystery unknown to former Ages was kept for times worthy of such a discovery Those dark dismal times that brought in the Grossest errors of Popery Other things in their Worship are new and bad Enough though they do not come up to the Monstrousness of this Namely their prayer to Angels and to Saints departed this life and their prayer for Souls in Purgatory which things together make up a great part of their Offices in the Roman Church For the first of these Prayer to Angels We cannot say that there was no such thing in the Apostles times For an Apostle by mistake was like to have used it but was forbid by the Angel to whom he offered worship And another Apostle writ purposely against it as being a Superstition that some would then have brought into the Church But those instances sufficiently shew that it could be no part of the Apostles Prayers For Prayer to Saints as the Apostles have left no Example so they could have none before them according to the Doctrine of the now Roman Church Nor is there any colour for it in Scripture nor in the Tradition of the Apostles Age. There are many things in both to the contrary But after some hundreds of years when Christianity was the Established Religion and Heathens came by droves into the Church It is no wonder that they who in their Gentilism Prayed to Deified men more than to God were apt to run into this Superstition They were still for a Religion that would affect the sense And they found matter for it at the Memories of the Martyrs where from the Miracles that were wrought for the Testimony of their Faith They took occasion to treat the Saints as before they had done their Heathen Gods and to address themselves to them for those Temporal benefits which they took to be conferred by their means It may seem strange that some of the Fathers of the Church should give countenance to this popular Error But however they complied with the weakness of the people in hope to promote their Zeal to Religion and perhaps they might have some other Hypotheses of their own yet they writ things which could not consist with this worship And some of the Fathers writ directly against it They asserted to God the whole duty of Worship They owned no other Mediator but Christ. This they all acknowledged to be the sense of the Catholic Church But the darker times grew the more that Error prevailed The people led their Guides and tolled them on with worldly advantage who repaied them with lying Wonders and Visions to confirm them in their Error At last by Poetry it got into the Offices of the Church And yet then they had no Doctrine sufficient to bear it A thousand years after Christ they were not sure that the Saints heard their Prayer or that the Saints are in Heaven which is the very Foundation of their worship Their very Prayers e taught them the contrary And therefore they that came after altered them in some places But yet still there is enough left in the Mass Book f to shew them how far they are removed from the Old Roman Church The Prayers for Souls in Purgatory could be no antienter than the Doctrine of Purgatory was And therefore having shewn that the Apostles had no such Doctrine I need not prove that these were none of their Prayers But if they prayed for the dead on any other account it doth not concern the now Roman Church For she pretends not to pray for any dead but for them that are in Purgatory And yet to do her Right she hath not one prayer expresly for them in all her Offices for the dead The Reason is because those Offices were made before that Fiction was generally believed The Offices were fitted to those Doctrines which were Then in the Roman Church Which as I have shewn were much different from what she hath now So where their Doctrines were doubtful there the Prayers are in ambiguous terms But they are plain enough in that which is of Faith that is where they pray as we do for a blessed Resurrection But because that is assured to all that die in Christ whether in a Perfect or Imperfect estate and men will not buy Prayers for that which will come without asking Therefore to get their mony there was no better way than to persuade them that their friends might be fetched out of Purgatory or might be eased in it by such Prayers as were then used in the Church There might have been new Prayers made for the purpose But as bad as times were in that darkness of Popery some would have declared against such a gross Innovation Therefore it was thought enough to keep the old Prayers and get the Church to interpret them as she hath done sufficiently to shew her own Novelty in this matter For the other parts of their Worship we read that the Ptimitive Christians that lived next the Apostles times had their Lessons from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament So they have some likewise in the Roman Church But for every such Lesson they have Two Lessons out of other Books And no small part of them I say no more than I can prove are as arrant Fables as any that are in the Heathen Poets For the Language of their Prayers and Offices in their Church it is all in Latin and that is an Unknown tongue It is a chance if any there understands it And
for that Prayer above-mentioned in Canon Missae Commem pro defunctis they first left out those words All thy Servants and All thy Hand-maids and Prayed thus Lord remember Them who have gone before us as it standeth in Ed. Pamelii p. 182. But the word Them extending to Saints as well as others they altered it again Remember Lord thy Servants and Hand-maids N. and N. who are gone before us But still the end of that Prayer remains as it was Grant All that rest in Christ a place of refreshing and of light and peace we humbly beseech thee They that Made this Prayer did not believe that the Saints were already in Heaven and therefore they knew not the Foundation of these Prayers to Saints that are now used in the Roman Church a p. 24 29 30. b 2 Tim. i. 18. St. Paul prays for Onesiphorus the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that Day that is at the day of Judgment He might well be living when St. Paul made that Prayer c Conc. Trent Sess. 25. That the Souls which are kept there in Purgatory are profited by the Prayers of the Faithful Bellarm. de Purg. lib. 2. c. 38. It is certain that the Prayers of the Church do not profit the Blessed nor the Damned but only them that live in Purgatory Azor. Instit. Moral Tom. I. lib. 8. c. 20. Neque vero saith the Greeks pray for the dead but Certainly neither for the Blessed nor for the Damned which were plainly Absurd and Impious The truth is the Greeks prayed for the Blessed even for the Virgin Mary and the Apostles And so did the Antient Roman Church in those Offices which the present Roman Church hath both corrupted and misapplyed d In the Mass for the dead there is not the name of Purgatory nor it doth not appear that the Church thought of any such thing The Hymn is wholely of the day of Judgment The Prayers are for deliverance at that Day and if they are for any thing else it is nothing but what is asked for All the Faithful as much as for any person The Lessons and Sequences are all concerning the Resurrection There is not among them One Text of those Many that are brought for the proof of Purgatory except only 2. Mac. xii 43. Which according to the Roman Doctrine should be rather for 〈◊〉 than for Purgatory But indeed it relates to neither but as the Office intends it to the Resurrection a They are agreeable enough to several of those opinions concerning the state of Souls which are mentioned before p. 29. Note a. b See p. 55 56. c Miss pro defunct Oâ—â—ertorium Lord Iesus deliver the souls of All Faithful 〈◊〉 from the Pains of Hell that they may not fall into darkness But that the standard-bearer St. Michael may carry them into eternal light Ibid. The Prayer in the Obits We pray thee for the soul of thy Servant N. that thou wouldest not deliver it into the hands â—f the Enemy noâ— fâ—rget it for ever but command it to be received by thy Holy Angels and be led to the land of the Living That he may come to rejoyce in the Society of thy Saints So Miss Sarum That he may not suffer Eternal pains but pâ—ssess Eternal joys So the Old Roman But the New has changed Eternal into Infernal as being more for the sense of the present Church d Ib. Tractus Absolve O Lord the Souls of all the Faithful deceaâ—t from every bâ—nd of their sins and by the 〈◊〉 if thy Grace let them obtain to escape the Iudgment of Vengeance and to enjoy the blessedness of Eternal Light Ib. Post-communion among the diverse Prayers O Lord the soul of this thy servant from every bond of his sins that in the glory of the Resurrection he being Raised again may have refreshment among thy Saints and 〈◊〉 ones a Câ—â—nc Trâ—nt Sess. 25. dâ—cr Of Purgatâ—ry Let the Bishops take care that the suffrages of the living Faithful vâ—â— the Sacrifices of Misses and Prayers c. which have been usually made for the Faithful deceased be made according to the Ordinance of the Church a See p. 20. Note d. b For their Saints whom they make sharers with Christ in their Prayers and pray to God to be heard for their Merits and Intercession not a few of the Persons themselves are meer Fictions as St. Christopher St. Parnel St. Catherine St. Winâ—frid St. Vrsula and her eleven thousand companions Most of the others are of doubtful Authority and Some for ought they can know and as they have reason to fear are Damned Souls as Pope Steven Pope Marcelâ—â—nus Pope Felix II St. Thomas Becket St. Deminie But of the true Saints not a few of their stories are Fables as those of the Immuculate Conception Presentation and Assumption of the Virgin Mary of the Apparition of St. Michael May S. Of the Martyrdoms of some Apostles Of almost all the Antient Popes Of St. Denis and his fellows c. Add the Tales of St. Peters chains August 1. Of the Dedication of the Laterâ—n and the Vatican Churches Novemb. 9. and 18. c Conc. Trent Sess. 22. cap. 8. It hath seemed to the Fathers not to be expedient that every where Mass should be said in the Vulgar Tongue There is an Order indeed that oftentimes between the Masses some body should expound Somthing to the people of what is read to them in the Mass. Suppose some part of the Gospel or the like But that will not make them able to join with him that reads it And Bellarmin saith in those Mysteries there are Many things which Ought to be secret meaning I suppose that the People Ought not to understand them Bellar. de Verbo Dei I. II. c. 15. Septimâ— a Gun-powder Treason Edit 1679. p. 1â—9 Fâ—r from the year Eliz. 1. unto 11. all Papists came to our Church and Service without Scruple But when 〈◊〉 the Bull of Pope Pius Quintus was come and published wherein the Queen was accursed and deposed and her Subjects discharged of their Obedience and Oath yea Cursed if they did obey her Then did they all fâ—râ—â—with refrain the Church then would they have no more society with us in Prayer a 3â— Art Art 6. b See p. 10. Note â— c. c lb. Art 6. And this is proved in Bishop Cousins Book of the Canon of the Scripture d Art 8. e Office of Baptism Wilt thou be Baptized in this Faith I will f This alone was enough to make one a Catholic in the times of the Christian Emperors Cod. Theodos. lib. XVI Edicta de Fide Catholicà a Canon Anno 1571. of Preâ—â—â—ers We are obliged under pain of Excommunication to teach nothing but what is agreeable to the Old and New Testament and what the Catholic Fathers and Antient Bishâ—ps have gathered out of that very Doctrin Statut. 1. Eliz. 1. We judg all those things to be Heresie which were declared so by the four General Councils therein following the Judgment of the Antient Church See Aelfrics Saxon Canon 33. There were four Councils for defence of the Faith against Haereties There were many 〈◊〉 since that time but these four were the most firm b Art S. c See the Commination d 1 Cor. i. 11 12. and v. 2 c. and see Clemens Epistle to the Corinthians e Art 23. and Offices of Ordination a Proved by Mason in his Book de Minist Angl. b Rom. xiii 6. c Mason Ibid. and Bramhal of Succession d Art 25. e Art 24. f 1 Cor. xiv 16. a Art 20. b 1 Cor. xiv 40. c Art 34. and Preâ—aâ—es before the Liturgy d Cypâ—â—â— Epist. â—2 p. 151. 〈…〉 Carthag de 〈◊〉 Bapt. P. 353. e Anno 1603. Can. 3â— the Church of England declares that she was so far from being willing to depart from the Churches of Italy France Spain Germany c. in all things that she knew they held and Observed that she disserted from those Churches in thâ—se Articles Only in which they first fell away â—â—th from their own former Integrity and also from the Apostolical Churches from which they had their Original a Matth. xxiv 23. Mar. xiii 21. b John vi 68. c 2 Tim. i. 13. d Jude verse 3. a 2 Tim. iii. 16 17. b Verse 15. c Heb. xiii 17. d Heb. x. 25. e Rom. vi 5. a 1 Cor. xi 26. b 2 Pet. iii. 18. a Heb. xii 14. a Heb. vi 9.
either common to other Societies as well as a true Church or if they are proper to such a Church they are elsewhere no less nay much more in some others than in theirs As for the Essential Properties here in my Text they are but four and those are from an Infallible Authority The like whereof cannot be shewed for any other Therefore our Church desires nothing more than to be tried by these Tokens If the same way of Tryal does not please them so well in the Roman Church we cannot wonder at it for these make no way for them but against them in every Particular I shall make a short Proof of it trying their Catholic Church as they call it by these Characters of the Primitive Apostolick Church And first for the Doctrine of the Apostles If the Publick Profession of that without any other be required of any true Church and if the Scriptures contain all the Doctrine of the Apostles as it was firmly believed by the Fathers in the Primitive Church How come they of the Roman Church to find out so many Doctrines of which there is no mention in the Scripture nor in any of the Primitive Fathers In what place were they kept to be made known in after-times that were not known to them that lived in or near the Apostles times But they have I know not how many such Doctrines and they are properly Doctrines of their Church They are declared by their Councils with most dreadful Anathemas to all those that shall presume to deny them We see they Unchurch us we know what they have done more and may guess what they would do more to us for denying them But they have them in their Creed the Creed that is sworn by all their Clergy They swear first the old Nicen and add to that the new Roman Creed They conclude it in these terms Hanc esse veram Catholicam Fidem extra quam nemo salvus esse potest That this is the true Catholick Faith without which no man can be saved What a horrible thing is this to couple together I believe in God and in our Lord Iesus Christ with I believe the Doctrines of Transubstantiation Auricular Confession Image-Worship Purgatory Indulgences and what not some of which things some of themselves do confess are not so much as once mentioned in Scripture and none of them is mentioned there in plain words not in any words that were understood so by the Fathers for many Ages after Christ. For the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Besides that we find nothing for it but many things against it in the Ancients so many that we are sure it could not be the Tradition of those Times We see at its first birth it was declared to be a Novelty and a Falshood by Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz and by other of the learnedst men that lived eight or nine hundred years after Christ. We find at that time and for two hundred years after it was a rude lump which askt much licking over to perfect it And then having both Shape and a Name it was defined to be of Faith by Pope Innocent in his Lateran-Council above twelve hundred years after Christ. For Confession to a Priest the necessity of it was unknown to the Fathers of the Primitive Church Nay above a thousand years after Christ it was held disputable in the Roman Church And though the Practice of it was imposed by Pope Innocent in his Council of Lateran yet even then it remained disputable as to the Doctrine till it was made to be of Faith by the Trent Council For their Doctrine of Image-Worship than which nothing can be more contrary to the Scriptures as they were understood by the Primitive Fathers we know it was established by the second Nicen Council and we know what a Council that was But it was condemned in the same Age by two as numerous Councils that of Constantinople a little before it and that of Frankfort immediately after it And the matter was held in debate all that Age in both the Eastern and Western Church till at last it was setled in the East according to the Nicen Council which they have so much out done in the Roman Church that even the Greeks charge them with Idolatry And they are not wholy excused from it by many of their own Communion For their Doctrin of Purgatory it doth not appear that any one of the Ancients hit upon it among all the different Opinions that they had concerning separated Souls till St. Austins time and yet then we are as sure it was no Catholic Tradition as we can be of any thing of that Age. After near two hundred years more it was believed by one of great Name from whose fabulous writings it got Credit And so crept by Degrees into the Faith of the Roman Church But it is received by no other Christians For their Doctrin of Indulgences It is so confessedly new It was at first so ill grounded and so wickedly designed that God seemed to have suffered them to run on into this to shew the World as afterward he did by this Example what Stuff the Lusts of men left to themselves would bring into the Christian Religion It were easie to shew the like in all their new Articles of Faith Most of them I shall consider as they come under the other Heads of my Discourse The mean while these may pass for a sample of the rest They all sprung up in late corrupt Times and went at first as Private Opinions only but being found to make well for the Interests of the Clergy they were concerned to bring them in credit with the People And they took a way for it that could not fail in such an Age by forging New Revelations and Miracles when by these means worthy of their Doctrines they had brought them into the Christian Faith then beside the Interest that first brought them in there was another reason to continue them It was necessary for the Credit of the Infallibility of the Roman Church Touch that and you shake the whole building of Popery even to the Foundation that is the Papacy it self To secure that they are brought under this miserable necessity of holding all for Catholic Faith that is once received in the Roman Church Whatsoever she bringeth forth must be fathered on the Apostles though there is not the least Colour for it in their Writings But to shew how little trust they have in the Apostles writings there needs no other instance than this that their Church hath forbid her Laity to read them and hath taken a course that if they read they cannot well understand them The Scripture was writ by the Apostles in the most vulgar language of their times the Greek which was the mother tongue of most and well
pain according to the Degrees of their sins All the Fathers were of some or other of these Opinions which are all inconsistent with the Roman Doctrine of Purgatory b Aúg. de Fide Operibus c. 15. Tom. IV. p. 69. E. saith Some think men that die in sin may be purged with Fire and then be saved holding the Foundation For so they understand that Text. 1 Cor. iii. 13. They shall be saved as by Fire So Enchirid. ad Laurent c. 67â— Tom. III. p. 175. C. Ibid. de Fide Operibus p. 71. B. He saith that this is one of those places which St. Peter saith are hard to be understood which men ought not to wrest to their own Destruction Ibid. c. 16. p. 73. B. He saith for his own part he understandeth that Text to be meant of the Fire of Tribulation in this life So Enchir. ad Laur. Ib. c. 68. But for the Doctrine he saith that some such thing may be is not Incredible and whether it be so it may be enquired and it may be found or it may not So Enchir. ad Laur. c. 69. p. 176. D. All these Texts he repeats again in his answer to the first of the eight Questions of Dulâ—itius De Civitate Dei l. XXI c. 26. Tom. V. p. 1315. B. He again delivereth the same meaning of that Text. And as to the Doctrin he saith I do not find fault with it for Perhaps it is true Ibid. p. 1316. B. I suppose St. Austin would not have said this of the Doctrine of Christs Incarnation c Pope Gregory I. in his Dialogues where among many idle tales he hath some that are palpably false andd such as bewray both his Ingorance and Credulity together For Example that of St. Paulins being a Slave in Afric till the Death of the King of the Vandals who could be no other than Genseric that out-lived St. Paulin five and forty years And yet Gregory saith I heard this from our Elders and this I do as firmly believe as if I had seen it with my own Eyes lib. 1. Praef. c. 1. d Bishop Fisher against Luthers Assert Art 18. p. 132. saith it was a good while unknown and then it was believed by some pedetentim by little and little and so at last it came to be generally received by the Church e Platina who then lived in the life of Eugenius IV. Edit Colon. 1593. p. 310. saith After many meetings and much contention about it the Greeks at last being overcome with reasons did believe there was a place of Purgatory But he adds that not long after they returned to what they held before And in the life of Nicolas V. p. 323 324. he saith that he would fain have reduced them to the Catholic Faith but he could not Bishop Fisher ubi supra saith There is none or very seldom mention of it among the Ancients and it is not believed by the Greeks to this day Alphonsus de Castro adv Haeres l. 8. Tit. Indulg hath the same words and l. 12. Tit. Purgatorium saith That this is one of the most known Errors of the Greeks and Armenians Bzov. contin Baron Anno 1514. n. 19. saith The Muscovites and Russians believe no Purgatory Most of these believe a middle State as those Ancients did but that will not stand with this Doctrin a For the Age of it scarce any go higher than the Stations of Pope Gregory I. Who lived about the year Six hundred And to fetch it from those Times they have no antienter Author than Thomas Aquinas for neither Gratian nor Peter Lombard have so much as one word of this matter So Cardinal Cajetan Opusc. Tom. I. tract 15. c. 1. saith This only has been written within these three hundred years as concerning the Antient Fathers that Pope Gregory instituted the Indulgences of Stations as Aquinas hath it So likewise Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus a Castro both ubi Supra Cardinal Bellarmin de Indulg l. 3. offers some kind of proof from Elder Times in such a manner as if he would not oblige us to believe it But for the Instance of Pope Gregory I. he saith we are Impudent if we deny it But with Bellarmins leave a French Oratoire Morinus de Poenit. l. 10. â— 20. does deny it and convicts this and all his other Proofs of Indulgences before Gregory VII to be nothing but Forgery and Imposture It seems probable indeed that Gregory VII commonly known by his former name Hildebrand was the first that granted any Indulgences and that was above a thousand years after Christ. Cardinal Tolet. casuum l. VII c. 21. 1. saith that Paschal II. was the first that granted Indulgences for the Dead That must be about the year eleven hundred And Ibid. lib. VI. c. 24. 3. he saith that the first that granted Plenary Indulgences was Pope Boniface VIII who lived about the year thirteen hundred So antient is this new Catholic Faith b The Ground of this Faith according to Bellarmin de Indulg l. 2 3. is made up of a number of School Opinions put together about which Opinions as he there saith the School-men have differed among themselves But all his comfort is that they that did not hold his way were ready to acquiess in the Iudgment of the Church if she held otherwise He might as well have said that the Church when they lived was so far from having declared her Judgment of this Doctrine that she had not yet declared her sense of those Opinions which were to be the Ground of it in after-times c The design of Hildeâ—ands Indulgences was to engage men to fight in his quarrel and to do other Services to the Papacy Greg. VII Epist. II. 54. and VI. 10 15. and VII 13. and VIII 6. The design of Pope Boniface in his farther Improvement of this Invention was to get Mony Chron. Citiz. Anno 1289. He was greedy of Mony and to gather it he sent his Legates into divers parts of the world to trade with Indulgences And with these he raised very great sums enough to have maintained a Holy War But what became of it we shall know at Doomsday a Transubstantiation for the Honour of the Clergy Confession for their Power and Authority Image Worship to bring in Oblations to the Church Purgatory for the Profit of Masses to the Lower Clergy Indulgences for the Profit of the Superior Plenary Indulgences for the Popes own Coffers a For Transubstantiation the first that wrote was Paschas Rathertus about the year 820. And he tells us of sundry Persons that had seen instead of the Host one a Lamb another a Child another flesh and blood Paschas de corp sang Dom. c. 14. And after the year 1200 when it was defined to be of Faith Caesarius of Heisterbach wrote a whole Volume of Miracles that were wrought in that Age to confirm the Truth of it more in number than are Recorded in Scripture to confirm the whole Divine Revelation