because they seemed to be pleased with the blood and fat of beasts he very honestly confesseth that Heathens might plausibly object the like against the God of Israel Contra Julian l. 4. p. 125. D. because he also did require such Sacrifices to be offered to him The very same objection is taken notice of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril contra Jul. l. 1. p. 9. A. and answered by Cyril of Alexandria Again the Fathers frequently object unto the Heathens that diversity of Sects and of opinions which was to be found among their Philosophers but then they spare not to acknowledge that this objection may be retorted against them and then proceed to give what answer they think fit unto it And when Tertullian had argued that the Heathen Gods must be unjust Hot utique in Deum vestrum repercutere est Apol. c. 41. if they by reason of the faults of Christians were induced to hurt their own Votaries he adds that Heathens might retort this argument upon the Christians God and then proceeds to vindicate his God from that objection And yet if in his days the Romish Sacramental God had by all Christians been acknowledged and adored not only this particular but almost all that he and the forementioned Fathers had offered against the Heathen Deities might have been evidently retorted as we have seen already on the Christians God Why therefore did they not confess ingenuously in all those cases hoc in Deum nostrum repercutere est that they might be retorted on the Christians God and spend some time in vindication of their Sacramental God from these retorts § XIV 3. From what hath been discoursed Gorol II. we have as great assurance as sense and reason and the concurrent judgment of mankind can tender that the Host cannot be truly God and consequently that the Trent Council doth oblige all Christians as much as in them lyes to worship that as God which is not truly so and that the Members of the Roman Church are guilty of Idolatry by giving to it that worship which is due to God alone This charge I know doth very much afflict the Romanists because they clearly see that if it be made good against them our Church is justified in her refusal of communion with them seeing without consenting to and frequent practice of Idolatry we cannot be admitted to communion with them whence it will naturally follow that their Church must be as truly guilty of a wretched Schism as Jeroboam and his ten tribes were and consequently that the Major part of the Western Church may be Schismaticks by virtue of these impositions and that no persons separating on the account of the Idolatry required by the Church of Rome from the external communion of that Church can incur the guilt of Schism that the Roman and other Western Churches united with it and the supposed head thereof St. Peter's imaginary Successor is not that true Church-guide to which we are obliged to submit that a reformation may be lawful against the definitions of that Church that abuses in Doctrine and practice may be reformed by a National Church against and then much more without that Authority that National Churches and Councils are not absolutely subject to Patriarchal Hence doth it plainly follow that the doctrine of Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass the half Communion must be false hence also it is evident that we cannot safely acquiesce in the judgment of the Major part of our Church Governours concerning either the sense of Scripture the Doctrine of the ancient Church or the consent of Fathers or any article of faith defined by them nor safely practise all they do impose and consequently we may rest assured they are not infallible and therefore that there is no necessity for preservation of the Church from Sects and Heresies that they should be infallible nor is there any promise of an infallible assistance in their definitions in the Holy Scripture nor can it possibly be necessary to Salvation to believe the determinations of those Councils which by the Romanists are styled general Hence also it is evident that there can lye upon us no obligation to believe or yield assent to any Doctrines defined by them and consequently that this submission is not the only means of suppressing Heresies and Sects that to dissent from any Doctrine received or defined by them can be no mark of Heresie that there may be great hazard to the vulgar in adhering to the decisions of that Church that a right judgment may be assured that these Church Governours have erred in making this decision that Christians without this infallibility may be sufficiently secure in points of faith that certainty from sense and reason may rationally be pleaded for some Doctrines against the definitions of that Church and her supposed General Councils that all that R. H. hath said for confirmation of any of these propositions must be false And lastly that if a Church committing and teaching Idolatry is no true member of the Catholick Church the Church of Rome must cease to be so CHAP. III. The Contents The objections of the Romanists against the charge of Idolatry are considered and answered as 1. The Objection that the Prophets have foretold that all Idolatry should be extirpated by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles is answered § I. Obj. 2. That if the Church of Rome be guilty o Idolatry then the whole Church of Christ for many Ages before Luther must be charged with the same guilt answered first in general § II. In particular by shewing 1. That Image Worship was not then received in the greatest part of the Western and in some part of the Eastern Church § III. 2. That the worship of Saints departed with mental prayer or upon supposition of their acquaintance with the secret desires of the supplicant was then no article of faith in the Western Church nor is it yet received in the Eastern Church as such § IV. 3. That many in the Western Churches did not then and that the Eastern Churches do not yet give Latria to the Host § V. That this practice is no necessary consequent of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation nor is it necessary that they who do maintain a Doctrine must practise every thing which follows from it ibid. A large account of the Greek Mass § VI. A full answer to all that R. H. offers from that Mass to prove the Host is worshipped with Latria by the Greeks § VII In the times of Arianism Idolatry prevailed over the major part of the Church Catholick and both the Fathers and the Romish Doctors teach that in the time of Antichrist it will prevail much more § VIII § I THESE being therefore unavoidably the consequences of this crime of which they are accused not only by the Church of England but all other Protestants they do with all their wit and subtilty endeavour to demonstrate the falseness of this accusation and muster
the extremity of madness and stupidity for any man to worship what he eats or eat what he doth Worship i.e. to worship as the Church of Rome commands all men to worship under the highest penalties and therefore it is plain Phrensie to imagine the determination of the Trent Council and the Doctrine of the Church of Rome to be agreeable to truth When we call Wine Bacchus saith Cicero and our Fruits Ceres we use the a Cum frugâ—s Cererem vinum Liberum dicimus genere nos quidem Sermanis utiâ—ur usitato Sed eâ—quam tâ—m amentem esse putas qui illad quo vâ—scatur Deum credat esse Cicero Nat. Deâ—r Lib. 3. common mode of speaking but do you think any of us so mad as to imagin that which he eats to be his God Averroes was a learned Heathen who flourished about the XL Century when this portentous Doctrine first obtained in the Christian World which he could not forbear to brand in this sort b Apad Person Eâ—â—â— l. 3. cap. 29. p. 973. Vide etiam 12. Metaph. I have enquired into all Religions and have found none more foolish than the Christians because that very God they worship they with their teeth devour and thus he concludes because the Christians eat what they do worship let my soul go to Philosophers Lib. 2. de Euch. Cap. 12. § 2. And Bellarmin himself confesseth that this amongst the Infidels was always judged to be stuliissimum paradoxum as from the words saith he of Averroes doth appear Hence as the highest calumny which the Mahumetans can cast upon us we are by them reproached as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Devourers of our God And Mounsieur La Boulay informs us that being angry with him Voyag Part. 1 cap. 10. p. 21. Armed Ben. Edris apud Hosing Hist Eccles Sec. 16. par 2. p. 160. they amongst other names of infamy did call him Infidel and Mange Dieu i. e. an Eater of his God Nay they affirm that by thus eating of his flesh the Christians use him worse than did the Jews that crucified him because say they it is more salvage to eat his flesh and drink his blood than only to procure his death Baruch vi 72. the Prophet Jeremy in his Epistle to the Captive Jews informs them that what the Babylonians worshipped should afterwards be eaten and by this saith he you may know they are no Gods Why therefore should not the same argument suffice to shew the vanity of the supposed Godhead of the Host If as it follows there these Gods which shall be eaten be a reproach unto the Country where they are adored this Romish God must be a great reproach to all those Christian Countrys where he is eaten and adored Some of the Antient Fathers do represent this as the extremity of folly that men should worship that which other Nations eat If it be pious for all the worship God saith Origen â—Contra Celsum 5. p. 249. according to the custom of their Country as Celsus pleads then must some worship that which by other Nations is destroyed or eaten and consumed at meals for some esteem it pious to worship a Crocodile and to devour that which is adored by others some count it piety to adore a Calf and others to Deifie a Goat and would not these things introduce a great confusion into the Laws of Justice Piety Contra Gentes p. 25 26. and Religion This Athanasius reckons as an instance of the abominable and the repugnant worship of the Aegyptians that the same Fish which some of them did Consecrate as a God was made the food of others The Aegyptians saith he do adore a Calf the Lybians worship Sheep both which in other Nations are sacrificed and fed upon this saith he is a certain indication of the folly of the Heathen worship can we then possibly conceive these very Christians did dayly worship as their God what they themselves and others who participated with them did continually eat Moreover some of the Fathers do represent this as the most evident conviction of the folly of the Heathen Worship and Religion that they devoured what they themselves adored Do you not worship Nonne Apim bovem cum Aegyptiis adoratis pascitis p. 32. and also feed upon an Ox which you call Apis saith Minutius and is not this as great a folly as the worship of an Asses-head which without shew of reason you object against us Christians They saith Theodoret who changed the image of the incorruptible God into the likeness of Birds and beasts and creeping things should have considered that some of those beasts were eaten by them and should not they by parity of reason who adore the Host as their Creator and their incorruptible God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Com. in Rom. i. 23. consider that this Host is eaten by them but they saith he through the extremity of madness and stupidity did Deifie the Images of that God which themselves have eaten and if the Host which they themselves confess to be truly stiled the Image of our Lord be worshipped as a God and eaten by them must not the Romanists betruly charged with like stupidity and madness 3. Some of the Fathers do expresly say that 't is the extremity of madness to worship what we eat and that God by the prohibition of unclean beasts and by permitting his own people to eat the clean designed to preserve them from the irrational folly of the Heathens who worshipped birds and beasts c. God saith Theodoret seeing that men would fall to such extremity of madness as to worship beasts as Gods the better to restrain that wickedness permitted that they should be eaten which in the judgment of Theodoret was the most natural preservative against this mad Idolatry because saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qa 55. in Genes it is the highest folly or stupidity to worship what is eaten God therefore doth pronounce some living creatures clean and some unclean that abborring the unclean they might not Deifie them Again he adds that God pronouncing some beasts unclean and others clean persuades us not to think that any of them could be Gods for how can any man of sense think that to be a God which he abominates as unclean Quest XI in Levit. p. 104. D. or which is offered to the true God and eaten by himself He farther saith that God enjoyned the Jews to eat those Creatures which the Aegyptians worshipped as Gods Ser. 7. ad Graecos Infideles p. 150. ed. Sylb. that they might be induced to despise what they did eat For knowing that they were superstitious and yet were lovers of their Guts he cures one Disease by another and to their supperstition he doth oppose their appetites for causing them to abstain from Swines flesh as unclean which was the only flesh the Aegyptians fed upon and by his Law permitting them to eat of other creatures as
not know what the living do no not their own sons L. 2. de animd Hago de Sancto Victore saith that the spirits of the dead be there where they do neither hear nor see the things that are done or fall out to men in this life and again the dead indeed to not know what is done here whilst it is here in doing Decr. p. 2. Caus 13. qu. 2. cap. 29. and Gratian resolveth the same question by the Authority of Esaiah In Sun Part. 4. l. 3. Tr. 7. qu 6. cap. de Orat. In the XIII Century we are informed by Altissiodorensis that many did affirm that we do only pray improperly unto Saints because we pray to God that by the merits of the Saints we may be helped N. B. And Alexander Halensis determines that God alone is simply to be invoked Qu. 92. M. 1. Art 4. and that the Saints rather pray with us than are prayed to by us In the XIV Century Gabriel Biel having set down the reasons which in his time were urged against this opinion that the Saints departed knew the desires of men on earth In Can. Misslect 30. confesseth that they moved not only Hereticks but other Christians to deny it and at the last concludes no more than this that it is probably said that God reveals all things which are offered to them by men whether in magnifying and praising them or in praying to them Ibid. iect 31. In 4. Sent. dist 45. qu. 4. and imploring their help And the determination of Scotus is in effect the same viz. That it is probable that God doth specially reveal to him that is in bliss such of our prayers as are offered to him Prâ—oeâ— in quest de orat sanctorum c. Missin Bibl. Câ—ll Mert. Oxon. And John Sharp in the University of Oxford did publickly dispute these questions of praying to the Saints and praying for the dead because saith he it was esteemed by some famous men and not without probability N. B. that such suffrages and prayers were superfluous in the Church of God although some wise men thought the contrary whence it appears that what is now de fide if indeed it be so was then only probable and might as freely have been denyed by Orthodox and Pious Christians and persons famous in their times as by reputed Hereticks Aen. Snlv. de Orig. Eohem c. 35. Ep. 19. ad Joh. Molin p 1 109. Edit Paris 16 16. In Cant Serm. 6. Hist Bohem. cap. 35. In the XV. Century the Thaborites maintained that the Saints Triumphant were not to be prayed to And in the XVI Century Cassander freely doth confess that it was not necessary to hold that the Saints did understand our prayers And of this judgment were the Waldenses from the XII Century to the Reformation of whom St. Bernard doth confess that they derided them who prayed to Saints Aeneas Sylvius that they judged in vain to ask the suffrages of Saints departed seeing they could not help us Adv. Sectam Valdens p. 68. and Seysel adds that they affirmed that the petitions which were put up unto the Blessed Virgin or any other Saints were vain Now these Waldenses had such multitudes of followers as caused Bernard to complain Bern. Ep. 240. That by reason of them the Churches were left without people and the people without Priests 2. Although some of the Eastern Churches do put up their petitions to Saints departed yet they ingenuously confess they do it not upon an apprehension that the Saints do hear them but only because they judg this service acceptable to God whether they hear or not they therefore may be rationally charged with superstition in this case but not with that Idolatry which is now taught and practised or at the least allowed of by the Church of Rome because they do not pray to Saints departed upon such principles as do ascribe unto them the knowledg of the heart or do require or suppose in them any farther knowledg than is consistent with a creature this will be evident from the confession of the Greek Patriarch 1 Resp Patriarch Hierem. ad Theol. wirtâ—â—b cap. 21. who saith in the behalf of his whole Church We do not invocate properly the Sai is but God for neither Peter nor Paul hear any of those that invocate them but the grace and gift that they have according to the promise I will be with you to the end of the world 2. This will be still more probable from that opinion which is generally received among them viz. that the Saints before the day of judgment do net enjoy the beatifick Vision this is the judgment of the 2 Sacraâ—â—s p. 24. Russians the b 〈◊〉 p. 13. Moscovites the c Scarga l. 2. c. 12. Greek Church of the d Bricrw p. 154. Armenians and d Bricrw p. 174 179. Marenites and more especially of the e Brierw p. 154. Jacobites who believe that the souls of just men do remain on the earth till the day of judgment Now in the judgment of the most famous Doctors of the Church of Rome our prayers are only to be directed to such Saints as do enjoy the Beatifick Vision § V That practice which we now insist on as the most clear and undeniable conviction of the Idolatry committed in the Roman Church viz. the adoration of the Host as God was not in any Age before the Reformation nor at the Reformation nor is it yet the practice of the whole Church of Christ For 1. The Doctrine of Transubstantiation on which it depends was V. Dr. whithy Idol of the R. ch p. 87 99 100. by the confession of some learned Romanists no Doctrine of Faith before the Council of Lateran and if it had not been for that Council it might say they even now be lawful to oppugne it It was say others not very antient it was determined of late the truth of which confessions hath been irrefragably made good by Mr. Aubertin 2. About the time of the Reformation this Doctrine was not owned by all Christian Churches Albertin p. 965.977 978 982 986 987. for 't was rejected by the Lollards in England the Waldenses in the Confines of France and Italy by the Thaborites and Hussites in Bohemia Brierw p. 173. V. Joh. Lasic de Rel. Arm. Lit Aethrop Alphons Jes Edit A. 1626. It was then and is still rejected by the Armenians as is apparent from the testimony of Nicephorus and their own Liturgy and by the Habissines or midland Aethiopians whose Liturgy as even the Jesuites confess is stuffed with errors and among others with this that they affirm the bread to be Christs body which as Bellarmine and others do confess can be true only in a Figurative and Metaphorick sense 2. Although we should admit that all the Eastern Churches do at present hold that Christs body is corporeally present in the Holy Sacrament yet hence it will
because these base and pernicious adjections were not yet the publick decisions or tenets of any Church but only the private conceits of the domineering Faction Of the Church l. 3. chap. 8. p. 85. We most firmly believe saith Dr. Field all the Churches of the world wherein our Fathers lived and dyed to have been the true Churches of God in which undoutedly Salvation was to be found and that they which taught embraced and believed those damnable errors which the Romanists now defend against us were a faction only in the Church as were they that denyed the Resurrection urged Circumcision and despised the Apostles of Christ in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia So Bishop Brambal frequently Dr. Potter § 3. p. 76. Others do charge these things not on the Church but Court of Rome betwixt which two there might be some considerable distinction then though now there is no difference betwixt them in any of those Doctrines which concern the objects of their worship 3. Dr. Field Append part 3. p. 881. They add that the Roman Church that then was though it had in it all the abuses and superftitious observations it now hath yet it had also others who desired the removal of all those abuses and superstitious observations which we have removed the Roman Church which then was was the whole number of Christians subject to Papal Tyranny whereof a great part desired nothing more than to shake off that yoke which as soon as he began to oppose himself they presently did but the Roman Church that now is is the multitude of such only as do magnifie admire and adore the plenitude of Papal power or at least are contented to be under the yoke of it still The gross corruption of the service of the Church was then complained of by all good men Idem Append. to his third Book of the Church p. 190. and amongst other Articles of Reformation they desired that the Breviaries and Missals might be purged Now in respect of those persons who were the prevailing faction of the Church maintaining these corrupt Doctrines as Articles of Christian Faith and upholding these superstitious abuses and pertinaciously persisting in their errors the Roman Church saith Dr. Field was verè Ecclesia truly a Church Append. 3. part p. 882. that is a multitude of men professing Christ and Baptized but not vera Ecclesia a true Church that is a multitude of men holding a saving profession of the truth in Christ But in respect of those who groaned under the yoke who secretly disliked and disowned her corrupt Doctrines and earnestly desired and wished the Reformation of her superstitious abuses and of those also who submitted to them only for want of better information in those obscure times the Roman Church was vera Ecelesia a true Church that is a multitude of men holding a saving profession of the truth in Christ So the Church of the Jews at the coming of Christ had in it the Scribes Pharisees and Saduces as well as Zachary Elizabeth Simeon and Anna in respect of the former it was truly a Church but not a true Church in respect of the latter it was a true Church Ob. But why then did not these persons if they were of any considerable number more publickly oppose what they so much disliked Answ If you look into Father Pauls History of the Council of Trent you will find them censuring most of their determinations you will find there the German Bishops determining against the adoration of Images in a Provincial Council and delcaring that the Saints departed are to be honored but with the worship of society and love P. 278 279. as also gadly men may be honored in this Life Which Explications saith Father Paul being well considered do shew how much the opinions of the Catholick Prelates of Germany do differ fromt hose of the Court of Rome youwill there also find sthem quarrelling with that saying of the Synod that Divine worship was due to the Sacrament as improper and saying it was well corrected in the sixth Canon which said that the Son of God was to be worshipt in the Sacrament 2. There was no reason to expect more open opposition of these Doctrines and abuses there being no probability of success against the Court of Rome which was then very powerful and had not only worsted mighty Princes but used extreme severity against such dissenters destroying them without all mercy V. Mr. Dodwel Answer to Qu. 2. p. 59 67. which had all the Bishops engaged to them by their oaths and worldly interests which lastly declared all things Heresie in which men differed from them and prosecuted them upon that account with the extremest infamy and highest punishments here then we have a true Western Church not Idolatrous before the Reformation in which Salvation might be had Ob. 7 § X But saith R.H. if the Church of Rome be guilty of that Idolatry with which the Writers of the Church of England charge her Discourse p. 76 77. she must be guilty of Heathenish Idolatry for according to Dr. Stillingfleet and others her Idolatry is the same with that of Heathens and surely that excludeth from Salvation and must be inconsistent with a true Church Answ When we say the Idolatry of the Church of Rome is the same with that of Heathens we do not mean that it is so either in reference to the object viz. those evil spirits which the Heathens worshiped or in respect of the rites with which they worshipped their Deacons viz. human sacrifices and unclean performances but only in this respect that both of them do worship the creature for the Creator or give that worship to the creature which belongs to God alone 2. Although the Papists be in some single actions guilty of Idolatry yet do they in the general service of their lives give God the honor due to him they pray to God trust in him they praise and love him and perform to him all the positive duties of the first Table though they do not perform them all to him alone whereas the Heathens paid their whole worship to their Demons and gave no worship to the God of Israel they were without God in the world Ephes ii 12. saith B. Paul and God was without service from them Rom. i. 21. and even they that knew God yet did not glorifie him as God Now that Idolatry which robs God of his whole service performing it intirely to evil spirits or in an undue manner may very well be damnable and inconsistent with the being of a Church whilst that which is consistent with the performance of all those positive duties which we ow to God and doth not wholly rob him of any part of our Religious worship may not deserve so hard a censure This is apparent 1. From the instance of St. Leo Sermon 7. in Nativ Dom. who speaks of some foolish persons who from some eminent places did
THE Absurdity and Idolatry OF Host Worship PROVED By shewing how it answers what is said in Scripture and the Writings of the Fathers to shew the Folly and Idolatry committed in the Worship of the Heathen Deities ALSO A full Answer to all those Pleas by which Papists would wipe off the charge of Idolatry And an APPENDIX against Transubstantiation with some Reflexions on a late Popish Book called The Guide in Controversies By DANIEL WHITBY D.D. Chantor of the Church of Sarum The saying of Averroes I have Travelled the World and found divers Sects in it but none so foolish as that Sect of Christians who eat the God whom they worship Dionsy Carthus in Sent. 4. Dist 10. Art 1. LONDON Printed for H. Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-Yard R. Bentley and M. Magnes in Râ—sselstreet Covent-Garden 1679. THE PREFACE FInding that Roman Catholicks are much displeased at us for saying and maintaining that they are guilty of Idoltry and for making Laws and wholsom Constitutions forbidding them to practise that Idolatry within our Realms I have these things offer in our own defence 1. That their displeasure is unjust Peccant Contra hoc mandatum Athei Apotatae Judaei Turcae Haeretici Esth in Sent. l. 3. dist §. 5. and thwarts that Golden Rule of Nature which saith do not you that to others which you are not willing they should do to you For they do peremptorily conclude that Protestants are guilty of Idolatry and therefore ought not to be angry if we return the charge upon them Their Casuists and Schoolmen do frequently declare that Hereticks are guilty of violation of that Precept which saith I am the Lord thy God thou shalt have no other Gods but me This Doctrine is delivered in the Roman Catechism Peccant in hoc praeceptum qui in Haeresin labuntur Part. 3. c. 2. §. 7. and so it is that Doctrine which they are obliged to own and vindicate Now if they do affirm that we are guilty of this crime by having other gods they do then manifestly say that we are guilty of Idolatry But if they do conceive us to offend against this Precept as it injoins us to acknowledg God to be our God they must conceive us to be Atheists and if they think it fit to pass so heavy and severe a censure upon us why should they take it ill that we accuse them of a lesser crime with better evidence 2. I add that our Superiours have only done their duty in making of those Laws which do forbid the practice of their Idolatry within this Nation For if the Magistrate be keeper of both the Tables of the Moral Law if it concern him to see that all his Subjects do perform those great duties which they owe to God and man he cannot duly execute his Office or be faithful to the trust committed to him whilst he permits the violation of the first and chiefest Precept of that Law but must by suffering God to be dishonored in so high a manner when it is in his power to hinder it make himself partaker of other mens sins And if Magistrates may suffer God to be dishonored in this kind I know not why we should conceive them bound to punish Thefts Schisms Heresies or Infidelity which crimes the Church of Rome excites the Magistrate to punish with extreme severity If we consult the Law of Moses we shall there find that God did frequently forbid Idolatry under the utmost and severest penalties The Books of Samuel and of the Kings give us continual instances of Gods displeasure against those Kings of Israel and Judah who did countenance Idolatry or who neglected to remove it out of their Dominions And sutable to their proceedings was the constant practice of the first Christian Emperors Christ fully doth acknowledg that the Church of Pergamus held fast his name and yet he doth object this to her as an hainous and provoking crime Rev. ii 14. that she had those amongst her who held the Doctrine of Balaam and taught men to eat things Sacrificed unto Idols and to commit Fornication The Church of Thyatira was eminent for Faith Charity and Patience and for proficiency in the ways of Piety and yet our Saviour speaks thus to her I have some few things against thee Rev. ii 20. because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel which calleth herself a Prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants to commit Fornication and to eat things Sacrificed to Idols Serm. before the Parliament p. 42 43. In the second of Judges they are the words of the Reverend and Learned Bishop Usher God tells the Children of Israel what mischief should come to them by tolerating the Canaanitish Idolaters in the Land they shall be thorns in their sides saith he and their Gods shall be a snare to you Which words contain in them an intimation of a double danger the one respecting the Soul the other the Body that which concerns the Soul is that their Idols shall be a snare unto them for God well knew that mans nature is as prone to Spiritual Fornication as it is to Corporal as therefore for the preventing of the one he would not havea common Harlot tolerated in Israel Lev. xix 29. lest the Land should fall to Whoredom so for the keeping out of the other he would have provocations taken away and all occasions whereby a man might be tempted to commit so vile a sin The bodily danger that followeth upon the toleration of Idolaters is that they shall be pricks in their eyes Numb xxxiii 55. and thorns in their sides and should vex them in the land wherein they dwelt Now in both these respects it is certain that the toleration of the Idolaters with whom we have to do is far more perillous than of any other in regard of the spiritual danger wherewith simple souls are more like to be ensnared because this kind of Idolatry is not brought in with an open shew of impiety as that of the Pagans but is a mystery of iniquity a wickedness covered with the veil of Piety and the Harlot which maketh the inhabitants of the earth drunk with the wine of this fornication is both gilded herself and presenteth also her abominations to her followers in a cup of Gold If we look to outward peril we are like to find these men not thorns in our sides to vex us but daggers in our hearts to destroy us not that I take all of them to be of this furious disposition but because there are never wanting among them some turbulent humors so enflamed with the spirit of Fornication that they run mad with it and are so far transported that no tolerable terms can content them until they have attained to the utmost pitch of their unbridled desires for compassing whereof there is no Treachery nor Rebellion nor Murther nor desperate course whatsoever that without all remorse of Conscience they dare not adventure upon and whether we
have not just cause to say as did our Saviour in another case This day these words have been fulfilled in our ears I leave it to the discerning Reader to consider Let it be therefore manifested that our Church hath erred in passing of this heavy sentence on the Church of Rome that in her adoration of the Host and her Mass Worship she commits Idolatry or else it must be granted that we stand obliged in interest and duty to suppress that Worship And whereas some who are called mambers of the Church of England rather chuse to say the Church of Rome is in this worship guilty of Superstition than Idolatry I hope they only chuse to say the same thing which we do in a milder phrase for they well know that Superstition both in the Scripture and in the language of the Antient Fathers doth signifie Idolatry The Superstitious person 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Strom. l. 7. p. 701. saith Hesychius is a worshipper of Idols an Idolater He saith Clemens is the superstitious man who is a worshipper of Demons and who advanceth Wood and Stone and Spirits into the number of the Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prepar Evang. l. 1. c 5. p. 14. B. p. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contr. Cels l. 6. p. 287. And when St. Paul perceived that Athens was a City full of Idols he crys out I perceive you are too superstitious Act. xvii 22. The Heathen worship is by Eusebius stiled the superstitious error of the old Idolatry And Origen declares that the Philosophy of Plato was not sufficient to divert men from that which Christians call Idolatry and others Superstition We ought I humbly conceive to make this charitable construction of their words who have subscribed and yielded their assent and consent to that Rubrick after the Communion which speaks thus The Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all Faithful Christians Who secondly do own the Canons and Constitutions of the convocation held A. D. 1640. and published by the Authority of our Royal Martyr Charles the First for the due observation of them and which inform us that at the time of Reforming this Church from that gross Superstition of Popery it was carefully provided that all means should be used to root out of the minds of the people both the inclination thereunto and memory thereof especially of the Idolatry committed in the Mass for which cause all Popish Altars were demolished Who thirdly do affirm that the First and Second Book of Homilies which above twenty times do charge the Church of Rome with gross Idolatry Hom. of the peril of Idolatry Hom. of the Sacrament Part the first Art 35. and in particular do mention the gross Idolatry of Mummish Massing contain a Godly and a Wholsom Doctrine Who fourthly Art 28. do surscribe and hold that the Sacrament of the Lord Supper was not by Christs Ordinance reserved carried about lifted up and worshipped and therefore must believe that when in their Processions it is worshipped by the Romanists as God Christ is not present there and so the Creature only is then adored as a God And this is all which I thing meet to say by way of Preface to this little Book Errata in the Book PAge 14. Line 31. which Read we p. 30. l. 8. del that p. 36. l. 9. which r. with p. 62. l. 15. the r. this so p. 66. l. 20. p. 126. l. 24. p. 83. l. 14. add 3. p. 113. l. 4. add such p. 130. l. 28. Tarusius r. Tarasius p. 113. l. 1. Deacons r. Demons p. 142. l. 22. their r. there In the Margent P. 75. consentiebant dele con p 84. deinceps Brienw r. Brierw p. 91. Graeca r. Graecus p. 101. quam r. quia p. 128. qua r. quia In the Appendix P. 59. l. 12. their r. her p. 63. l. 20. by r. be p. 67. l. 21. their r. your so p. 97. l. 14. p. 84. l. 18. about r. but p. 92. l. 18. to r. do p. 95. l. 19. add he saith p. 98. l. 20. Charters r. Chartres p. 106. l. 21. these r. those l. 22. seem r. seemed l. 25. none r. not p. 115. l. 30. add 4. p. 118. l. 28. Dessius r. Lessius p. 119. l. 1. add 7. l. 2. by r. of p. 122. l. 17. to r. of l. 32 if r. it Marg. p. 78. verbe r. urbe CHAP. I. The Contents The Introduction § I. The Trent Council teacheth that the Host or Sacrament is to be Worshipped with Latria as being truly God § II. And yet this Council doth acknowledg that by Christs Precept the Communicants do eat and some of them do drink the Sacrament § II. Heathens Jews Christians do all pronounce it the extremity of folly to say or think that any man can eat his God § III. The Trent Council teacheth that Christ is truly Sacrificed by their Priests § IV. To the Antient Fathers nothing did seem more brutish and absurd than to Worship as a God what men did Sacrifice or Sacrifice what they did Worship as a God § V. The substance of the Sacrament being Christ truly God according to the Doctrine of the Roman Church whatsoever truly is affirmed of it must also truly be affirmed of our Blessed Lord. § VI. The Prophets and the Fathers deride the Heathen Gods I. Because they are carried upon mens shoulders they cannot go and if they fall they cannot rise up again § VII 2. because they may be carried Captive and are not able to deliver or preserve themselves § VIII 3. Because they needed to be preserved by Officers appointed for that purpose under Lock and Key and to be vindicated by their own votaries § IX 4. Because in times of war and danger their Priests did hide them and somtimes bury them in the earth § X. 5. Because they were exposed to injuries of Fire and consumed by it § XI 6. Because they were exposed to Rust and Moth to Corruption and the Injuries of the Weather § XII 7. Because they seemed to be contemned by those very Brutes who dung'd and gnaw'd upon them c. § XIII Vpon all these accounts the Host or Roman God is subject to the like derision from § VII to the XIII § I THE Holy Prophets make it their business to represent those Deities the Heathens Worshipped as impotent and lying vanities and things most worthy of derision and contempt but most unworthy to be Venerated and thence conclude that that they who paid their Homage to them were persons void of understanding and consideration and given up to a judicial blindness This is so largely represented by them upon two accounts which more immediately did respect the Jewish Nation 1. That when they were to go into Captivity and to be mixed with those Heathens by whom these foolish Deities were
Worshipped they might be kept from learning of their ways When you shall come to Babylon Baruch vi 4 5. saith Jeremy there you shall see Gods of Silver Gold and Wood which create terror to the Heathens nnd which are carried upon shoulders fear therefore lest you should be confirmed to the Aliens and be possessed with the dread of them seeing the multitude before and behind that worship them 2. That they who had already been seduced to the Worship of them might be reclaimed by the consideration of so great a folly and be induced to return unto the Worship of the True and Only God Beware you be not like unto these Aliens but say within thy heart I ought to worship thee O Lord. V. 6. And if those Jews who in this manner have transgressed say these Prophets will but remember that Bel and Nebo and all other Heathen Deities are born upon mens shoulders or the backs of beasts that where they place them there they stand and are not able to remove from thence that they themselves are somtimes carried Captives not being able to work deliverance for themselves If they remember this and act like men they must for ever be secure from these delusions In Complyance with this practice of the Sacred Writers the Christian Fathers in their Apologies and other writings of the like nature have used the same Topicks the more effectually to reclaim the world from Heathenish Idolatry smartly deriding the impotency of the Gods they worshipped and seoffing at the folly of that Homage which they paid unto them If therefore that which the inspired Prephets and Primitive Professors of the Christian Faith did so unanimously produce in plain derision of the Heathen Deities and whereby they endeavoured to demonstrate that they could not be truly Gods doth equally concern that Host which by the Churh of Rome and the Trent Council is declared to be the Christians God and which on that presumption they require all Christians to worship with Latria or with the Worship which peculiarly belongeth to the God of Heaven as by applying what the Holy Prophets and Primitive Christians have alledged against the Worship of the Heathen Deities unto the Host will be extremely evident it follows undeniably that they who are not yet seduced to pay this Worship to the Host must have sufficient reason to abstain from it and also that they who have already been induced to pay this Homage to it must have as powerful motives to reclaim them from so great a folly as either Jew or Gentile had to renounce the Worship of their Heathen Idols And now to make the matter evident beyond all reasonable contradiction I shall proceed to draw the Parallel betwixt the Adoration of the Romish Host and that of Heathen Deities so much derided by the Jewish Prophets and the Christian Doctors And this I shall attempt L. 5. p. 170. as saith Arnobius in a Case like this not that I take delight in thus exposing of the Romish Mysteries or representing of their Faith ridiculous but that the Romanists themselves may plainly see what injury they cast upon their bon Dieu of whom they are the Worshippers the Keepers and Avengers § II 1. Therefore the a Nullis itaque dâ—bitandi locus relinquitur qâ—iâ— omnes Christi sidelâ—s pro 〈◊〉 in Catholicà Ecclesià semper recepto N. B. Latriae cultum qui verò debetur Deo huic Sanctissimo Sacramento in veneratione exâ—iâ—eant neque enim ideo minùs adorandum est quò faerit à Christo at sâ—matâ—r institutum Concil Trid. Sess 13. cap. 5. Trent Council teacheth that it is not to be doubted in the least but that all Faithful Christians should exhibit the Worship of Latria to the Holy Sacrament that is the Consecrated Wafer even that Worship which is due to God alone and they pronounce Anathema against all persons who assert the contrary 2. The reasons of this determination they assign in the ensuing words b Nam illum eundem Deum praeclentem in eo credimus adesse qâ—â—m pater aeternus introdâ—cens in orbem terrarum dicit adorent eum omnes Angeli Dei. Qâ—â—m Magi procidentes adoraverunt quem denique in Galilaea ab Apostolis adoratum fuisse Sereptura testatâ—r ibid. for we believe the same God is present in the Host of whom the Father said let all the Angels of God Worship him and whom the wise men of the East and the Apostles Worshipped And therefore the first Canon of the thirteenth Session of that Council declareth that c Si quis negaverit in Sanctissimae Eâ—charistiae Sacramento contineri verè realiter substantialiter Corpus sanguinem unà cum anima Divinitate Domini nostri Jesu Christi aâ— perinde totum Christum anathema sit 1. Can. if any person saith that in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist Christs body and his blood together with his Soul and his divinity and so whole Christ is not substantially contained let him be accursed And accordingly in the d Orat. past missâ—â—â— Rythm of St. Thomas to the Holy Eucharâ—t they speak thus Deum meum te confitcor I confess thee to be my God Their Tenet therefore plainly is this That the Consecrated Wafer is God united to the man Christ Jesus latent under the species of bread 3. Hence it must follow that seeing they do eat this Consecrated Wafer which is as truly God and man as Christ now glorified is they do professedly eat the god they Worship and that you may not doubt of this the Council doth immediately subjoyn these words to the forementioned determination touching the Worship due unto the Host the Sacrament is not the less to be ador'd Sess 13. Cap. 5. vid. Supra because according to the institution of it it is to be eaten 4. Hence it doth also follow that seeing they do drink what is contained in the Consecrated Chalice and that according to their Doctrine is whole Christ God and man contained under the Species of Wine I say hence it doth clearly follow that they drink their God This is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome most faithfully discovered to you from their Authentick Records and if it only did assert that Christians stood oblig'd to be Cannibals to eat mans flesh and drink down human blood even this assertion would contain what is repugnant to the nature of man what hath been constantly esteemed by the sober Heathens a barbarous and inhuman thing and lastly that which by the Antient Fathers was disclaimed and rejected with the greatest horror But then if we conceive the person who is thus devoured to be also God and therefore look upon this action as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eating of our God and Maker it is so full of horror scandal and amazement that nothing can be more prodigious or more blasphemously prophane Heathers Mahumetans Jews Christians have with one voice declared that it is a demonstration of
Athenaeum 1.7 p. 299. As therefore Anaxandrides said to the Aegyptians I can have no agreement which you because of the great difference there is betwixt our customs and those which do obtain among you for whereas you do worship Oxen I Sacrifice them to the Gods an Eel is by you honoured as a great God by me 't is eaten as delicious meat So may we say unto the Romanists We can have no communion with you because you worship that as a great God which we do eat and what you Sacrifice at least in your imagination we think most worthy to be worshipped and therefore 't will be ever far from us to Sacrifice it Gen. xliii 32. Vide Ainsw in locum 'T was an Abomination to the Aegyptians to eat bread with the Hebrews because the Hebrews did cat those Cattle which the Aegyptians worshipped saith the Chaldee Parpahrase And Moses would depart from Aegypt before he Sacrificed to his God Exod. viii 26. left he should Sacrifice to the Lord the abominations of the Aegyptians before their eyes i.e. the beasts which the Aegyptians worshiped and therefore did abhor to kill or to see killed for Sacrifice We therefore who also do abhor as all the Antient Fathers did to see that Sacrificed and caten which we adore as God cannot eat of this Sacred bread with those of Rane but must first fly from Babylon as it is Prophesied the Church should do before we do commemorate that Sacrifice which they repeat § VI 3. The substance of the Sacrament being Christ truly God and man according to the Doctrin of the Roman Church whatsoever truly is affirmed of or doth belong unto the substance of the Sacrament must also be truly affirmed of our Blessed Lord. Now if we do compare those things which are delivered in their Liturgy and most Authentick Records touching the Host with what the light of Nature teacheth and what the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers have delivered in derision of the Heathen Gods which shall soon find that what the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers have offered to expose the HeathenGods to the contempt and indignation of their foolish votaries L. 5. p. 160. doth more emphatieally expose that Host which by the Papists is worshipt as a true God to the derision of mankind And truly as Arnobius saith in a like case and on like ground so say I here had the malicious Jew or the vilest Infidel designed to put affronts upon our dearest Lord I know not by what method they could have done it more effectually since the disguises which the Romanists have put upon him do certainly expose him almost to all the scoffs which have or can be cast upon the worst of Idols nor did the Jews or Herod load him with half the ignominy which is now cast upon him by the doctrine and worship of the Roman Church § VII And to begin with those considerations which the Prophet Esa doth suggest Chap. xlvi 1. To preserve the Captive Jews from paying homage to Bel and other Babylonish Idols he informs them that the Priests bear them on their shoulders they carry them and set them in their places and where they are thus placed they stand and remove not front it Remember this salth he and shew your selves men Chap. x. 5. Bar. vi 3 4. They must needs be born because they cannot go saith Jeremy be not afraid of them In his Epistle to the Captive Jews the first thing he informs them of is this that when they come to Babylon they shall see their Gods of Silver Gold Wood born upon shoulders which the Nations fear beware therefore saith he that you be not afraid of them when you see the multitude behind them and before them worshiping them and Verse 26 27. they are born saith he upon shoulders whereby N. B. they declare to men that they are nothing worth They also that serve them are ashamed for if they fall to the ground at any time Wisd xiii 16. they cannot rise up again of themselves The Author of the Book of Wisdom saith that the Artificer when he hath made his Idol sets it in a Wall and makes it fast with Iron for be provideth for it that it might not fall knowing that it was unable to help it self On this account saith he they are more to be blamed than they who worshipped the lights of Heaven who yet are not to be excused or pardoned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contra Gent. p. 17. The Heathen Gods saith Athanasius have no power to stand or sit but must remain in the same posture which the Artificer hath given them and therefore do afford no Argument or Character of their Divinity Ibid. p. 16. What pardon can they hope for who place their confidence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in things unmoveable Sermon 10. ad Graecos p. 144. and worship them for the true God saith the same Father They cannot stand being not fastened with pins and if they be not born by others neither can they go so Theodoret. They are so rude and stupid saith St. Cyril that they carry up and down their Gods upon their shoulders they see they are unable to move and are carried whither the bearer pleaseth and yet they pray unto them Cyril in Es 1.4 p. 629 630. whereas saith he what help canst thou expect from them whom thou perceivest to be void of sense and motion but theu art as senslefs as they and fallen into the most extreme stupidity And to the like effect speak almost all the Fathers who write in confutation of the Heathen Deities And yet these things do perfectly agree as well unto the Roman Catholicks bon Dieu as to those Idols which the Heathens worshipped for the Trent Council hath determined that upon a Declarat praeterea Sancta Synodus piè religiosè admodum in Dei Ecclesiam indactum fuisse hunc morem ut singulis annis peculiari quodam festo die praecelsum hcc venerabile Sacramentum singulari venerations as solemnitate celeoraretur utque in processionibus reverenter honorisicè illud per vias loca pablica circumferetur Sess 13. Cap. 5. Corpus Christi day this Host i. e. the Roman God should be carried in Precession through publick ways and places at which times he is born upon their shoulders or their arms and he must needs be born because he cannot go and when they come unto their tabernacula quietis where their God must rest he standeth in the place in which they set him and is not able to remove from thence They also have determined b Porrò deferri ipsam sacram Eacharistiam ad infirmes have usum diligenter in Ecclesiis conservaâ—i cum summà aequitate ratione conjunctumist Quare sancts haec Synodus retinendum omnino salatarem hune necessarium morem statuit Sess 13. Cap. 6. ut neque decidere neque è pixide excati
animautibus mutis vias rationis accipite c. Arnob. l. 6. p. 202. for Swallows and other Birds cast forth their dung upon them bearing no reverence towards either their Jupiter or Aesculapius their Minerva or Serapis Blush at the last saith Arnobius and learn the ways of reason from these mute creatures and let them teach you there is no Divinity in these Images which they do not avoid nor fear to dung upon following the Laws and instinct of their nature this is another sensible demonstration from which he tells them they may learn the vanity of all that service which they pay unto them How many things do these mute creatures saith Minutius judg touching your Gods p. 26. The Mice the Swallows and the Kites perceive they have no sense they gnaw them they tread they sit upon them and if you do not drive them thence will nest within the very mouths of your supposed Deities Are thieves so foolish as to fear Priapus saith Lactantius L. 2. p. 153. In Ps 11◠Con. 2. when even the birds do sit and dung upon him Better it were saith Austin to worship Mice and Serpents and such like Creatures for they after a sort do judg of Heathen Idols in which because they see no life they do not fear the human shape Now that these things may happen to the Romish Host is evident from their own Canons which speak thus Si Hostia consecrata dispareat ab aliquo animali accepta Missal de defect Miss C. 3. S. 7. Ibid. C. 10. S. 5. vide supra If any Consecrated Host be snatched up by some beast and cannot afterwards be found another shall be Consecrated If a Fly or such like Creature fall into the Chalice he shall be taken out and burnt or swallowed by the Priest and reason good because whole Christ being contained in every particle of the blood the little insect if he drink any thing must have him wholly in his Guts Gages New Survey of the West-Indies p. 447. T was this occasioned the Conversion of Mr. Gage a Romish Priest viz. his seeing a bold Mouse come from behind the Altar and snatch a way his Wafer-God and eat half of him up before he could be rescued from his teeth This also is evident from reason for will not any Mouse or Rat Dog or Cat following the laws or instinct of their nature gnaw eat devour the Roman Host provided that the Mass-Priest do not drive them from it And if it be so horrid to conceive according to St. Austin and Arnobius that birds should nest even in the mouth of God must it not be more horrid to conceive that God should be received and drawn into the mouth and stomach of a beast Would any of them scruple think you if they had occasion and convenience to dung upon the Host or in the Chalice And is it not then evident according to St. Clemens that these beasts do bear no reverence toward the Roman God Do they not perceive according to Minutius and St. Austin that it hath no sense May we not wonder with St. Clemens that Romanists have not yet learned from these birds their Host is an insensate being May not this sensible demonstration teach them according to Arnobius that there is no Divinity in any Host and that their worship of it is a vain and fruitless service Once was the time when Aegypt was made ashamed of their chief God Theodoret Hist Eccl. l. 5. cap. 22. when they saw Mice creeping out of his belly what would they have said if they had seen their God creeping down as the Mass-God doth into the belly of those Mice or Flys CHAP. II. The Contents 8. The Scriptures and Fathers deride the Heathen Deities and say that we may knew they are no Gods because they have no use of their outward senses § I. 9. Because they are made Gods by Consecration and by the will of the Artificer part of that matter which is Consecrated into a God being exposed to common uses § II. 10. Because they were imprisoned in their Images or shut up in obscure habitations § III. 11. Because they lighted Candles to them § IV. 12. Because they clothed their Gods in costly Raiments § V. 13. Because they might be metamorphosed § VI. All this may truly be affirmed of the Roman Host from § I. to § VI. The Roman God being eaten may be vomited up again and voided at the draught § VII An expostulation with the Worshippers of the Host in the words of Arnobius § VIII All that the Fathers say against the Heathen Gods is in the person of a Heathen retorted on the Adorers of the Host § IX Corollaries from what hath been already praved 1. That the Doctrine of Transubstantiation or of the Aderation of the Host as God was not acknowledged by the Antient Fathers § X. A confirmation of this Corollary from three Considerations 1. That the Heathens could not be ignorant of this supposed Article of Christian Faith or of this practice of the Church provided that they Antiently believed and practised as doth the present Church of Rome § XI 2. That the Jews and Heathens left nothing unobjected which could with any shew of reason be offered from any other Doctrine or Practice of Christianity against the Deity and Worship of our Lord and yet say nothing against this Doctrine or this Practice § XII 3. That the Fathers of the Church do largely answer all other scruples of Hereticks and Heathens which made them to suspect the Deity of Christ but never say one word of this § XIII This never was objected by Heretick or Heathen as an absurdity till the Eleventh or Twelfth Century ibid. 2. Corol. That the Host cannot be truly God and consequently that Church by which it is Worshipped as God is guilty of Idolatry § XIV The proof of this Corollary is a sufficient vindication of the Church of England in the point of Schism and a sufficient confutation of the whole Mass of the Roman errors § I 8. THE Psalmist smartly doth deride the the Heathen Gods Psal exv 5 6 7. because they have no use of any of their outward senses They have mouths saith he but they speak not eyes have they but they see not they have ears but they hear not noses have they but they smell not they have hands but handle not feet have they but they walk not Ch. xv 14 15. The worshippers of Idols saith the Book of Wisdom are most foolish and are more miscrable than very Babes for they counted all the Idols of the Heathen to be Gods which neither have the use of eyes to see nor noses to draw breath nor cars to bear nor fingers of hands to handle and as for their feet they are slow to go They are upright as a Palm-Tree but speak not saith the Prophet Jeremy Chap. x. 5. Baruch vi 7. As for their tongue it is polished by the
d pteribus muribus corroditur Quaest Jud. Amstel Edit An. 1662. p. 346. On this account they do pronounce us and that deservedly to be the most absurd and foolish Sect that ever yet appeared in the world and ask so boldly if your Host be God why is it that by waxing mouldy he corrupts why is it that the Bats and Mice do gnaw upon him What then can be the reason that those more subtile Heathens and malitious Jews which lived in former Ages of the Church should offer nothing of this nature for their own defence or the conviction of their adversaries but only this that the belief and practice of the Christians of those former times gave no occasion to these objections and retorts § XIII Lastly To strengthen and confirm the argument it may deserve to be considered 1. That the Fathers of the Church do very largely answer and upon all occasions encounter all the other scruples which did possess the minds of Hereticks or Heathens Turpe hoc Deo indignum hoc Dei filio Apud Tert. de carne Christi c. 4. Apud August contr Faustum Manich. L. 3. Cap. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Con. Ephes Act. 3. p. 335. v. Act. 1. p. 265. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Cyril lib. 6. adv Jul. and make them to suspect our Jesus could not deserve to be adored or owned as a God or that he did not really assume the nature and infirmities of man or verily sustain the ignominies and dolors of the Cross When the Marcionites and Valentinians conceived it was improper for the Son of God to be conceived in the Womb the Manichees that it was an unworthy thing to think the God of Christians should issue from a Womb when Nestorius declared that he could not endure to worship one that was two months old or nourished with milk When Julian scoffed at the Christians for saying that the Virgin Mary was the Mother of God when they I say suggested all these things the Fathers spared no pains to satisfie them in all these particulars Lactantius doth for this very reason insist more largely on one of these particulars because saith he this very apprehension L. 4. c. 29. p. 448. that it was impossible or at the least incongruous that God should be included in a Virgins Womb was that which caused many to turn Hereticks Now since it is extremely evident that it is more improper incongruous unworthy to think the God of Christians should descend into and be included in the stomach of the most vile communicant in every Pyx and Bottle that contained the species of consecrated bread and wine in every flye that suck'd in the least drop of Holy Wine or every Mouse that swallowed the least crum of Hallowed bread why is it that these Holy Fathers do never offer the least word to rid this greater scruple out of the minds of men or to Apologize for this portentous incongruity compared to which all that the Heretick or Heathen could object were very trifles Why do they not consider one of all those great objections against the adoration of their Sacramental Jesus which from their very words we have collected If you reply that they had no occasion so to do because this adoration nor any of the consequents thereof were ever scrupled by the worst of Hereticks I answer this is very true that among all the formentioned Hereticks and many other who were so highly scandalized at the humiliation of our Saviour that they denyed either his Deity or his Humanity or the reality of all his sufferings we find not one that ever did except against the adoration of him in the Sacrament against the eating of their God the mixing of him with their spittle or with the ferment of the most depraved stomach during a thousand years we find not one complaint from any Heretick that any Christians owned or worshiped a God who presently went down into their stomachs and was exposed to the teeth of vermine this reply therefore I confess is true but then it is the strongest confutation of the adoration of the Host and that Transubstantiation which the Romanists assert that can be possibly conceived it being absolutely impossible for any rational person to imagine that all those Myriads of Hereticks should be so highly scandalized at the Cross of Christ and those infirmities he suffered in the flesh and yet that neither they nor any other Christian should for a thousand years once scruple or be scandalized at those greater imperfections and more palpable absurdities which this supposed Sacramental God was subject to nay more that they should all believe and should allow that doctrine and that practice which did most palpably refute those very Heresies which they had broached this being a most perfect demonstration against the Ebionites Photinians and all those swarms of Hereticks who questioned the Deity of Christ that he was worshipped with Latria in the Sacrament only upon the presumption of his Deity and therefore if he there deserved that worship must be God And this is also a perfect demonstration against the Marcionites Docetae Valentinians and all those Hereticks who held that Christ assumed apparent but not substantial flesh that he had only the appearance of a body but no true real body and against the Nestorians and Eutychians who taught that after Christs ascension his human nature was absorpt and changed into the divine against all these I say this is a perfect demonstration that in the Sacrament Christs Body and his Flesh are truly and substantially contained and therefore that he had a true substantial body and that his human nature still remains At the close of the twelfth Century when this Idolatry began to shew it self among the Latins how many Myriads were branded with the name of Hereticks for their stiff opposition both to this practice and to the doctrine on which it doth depend and can it be imagined that in all former Ages of the Church of Christ in which so many Heresies abounded not any single person should once have broached this new Heresie more obvious than any of them all had the known doctrine and practice of all former Ages administred the like occasion fo to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gr. p. 29. lin 50. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ib. p. 30. lin 1. 2. These Fathers in their Apologies do very carefully take notice of any thing delivered by them which they imagined the Heathens might retort upon them When Theodoret had confuted the Heathen Polytheism and had confronted to it the Rule of Moses and of Christ Who saith he doth command us to worship the Creater only N.B. he adds that they perhaps may say the Christians are not observers of the rule because they worship the whole Trinity and not the Vnity exclusively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 104. lin 50. And then he gives a copious Answer to that objection In his seventh book having derided Pagan Deities
up whatsoever they are able to produce and plead for their excuse And therefore whatsoever of this nature I have met with in their writings I will impartially consider and then shall leave it to the judgment of the discerning Reader to determine whether that which they offer in their own defence doth carry in it any weight proportionable to what we have discoursed here and other treatises have offered to justifie this accusation of the Church of England Object 1 And 1. It is objected that the Scripture doth inform us and the Prophets have foretold us that all Idolatry should be extirpated by the preaching of Christ and his Apostles and that his Kingdom was always to continue and therefore that the Church of Christ could not apostatize so far as to enjoyn and allow the belief and practice of Idolatry If Doctor Stilling fleet will not deny saith T. G. what God hath promised by the Prophet Zachary Behold P. 125. the days come and I will destroy the names of Idols from off the earth and the memory of them shall be no more and this not for four or five hundred years but to the end of the world for the Kingdom of Christ is to continue always let him give glory to God and acknowledge his charge of Idolatry to be false and that Christ hath done what he promised to do that is to deliver us from all Idolatry Answer 1 Now to this slender Argument I answer that the same Prophets have informed us that God did promise to put his laws into the hearts of Christians Jer. xxxi 33. Esa xi 9. Esa lx 21. that they should never depart from him that the knowledge of the Lord should cover the earth as the waters cover the Sea that the people of Zion should be all righteous Let then T. G. give glory to God acknowledge that the Church of Rome which by their own confessions and upon evident proof from all the writers of these Ages was over-run by ignorance and barbarity and overwhelmed with wickedness during the 10 11 12 13. Centuries was not the Church of Christ or else confess the vanity of his own inference Moreover the same Prophets have informed us that the preaching of the Gospel should have this influence upon the world that they should beat their swords into plow-shares Mich. iv 3. Hos xi 18. Esa xi 9. and their spears into pruning books that Nation shall not lift up a sword against Nation neither shall they learn war any more that he would remove the bow the sword and the battle out of the earth and would make them to lye down in safety and that they should not hurt or destroy in all his holy mountain Let then T. G. give glory to God and acknowledg that Rome Christian which hath been the cause of more wars and shed more blood than even Rome Heathen did is very unlike to be Christs holy mountain or else confess the weakness of what he thus infers from this passage of the Prophet Zachary Let him charge God with the failure of his promise or confess that all these places do only shew that the Doctrine of the Gospel doth naturally tend to work these blessed effects in all that cordially embrace it though through the perverseness lusts the superstition and corrupt interests of men it be far otherwise and then he hath an answer to this slender scruple viz. that what he cites from Zachary doth not affirm that after the coming of our Saviour there should be no Idolatry amongst professors of Christianity but only that his Doctrine had a signal tendence to the extirpation of it did not the wickedness and superstition of men deserted by God and given up to the delusions of the Devil incline them to the practice of it 3. The words of Zachary do only say that God would cot off Idols out of the Land of Judah not out of the whole earth he doth not say that God would cut off all Idols but only the names of those Idols which they formerly had worshipped in which sense in was admirably true for after their return from Babylon they superstitiously abstained from that Idolatry which they had formerly committed And 4. This objection may be as speciously urged by the Arian Idolaters and the whole Heathen world as by the Roman Church for since the words of Zachary as they are rendred by T. G. contain a promise that God would cut off the names of Idols from the earth it doth as much assure us that after the coming of our Saviour and after the promulgation of his Gospel through the world there should remain no Idols nor any worship of Idols in the whole surface of the earth as that there should remain no Idols amongst those who do profess the Christian Faith § II If the Church of of Rom. R. H. disc p. 75. say they be guilty of Idolatry in worshipping the Host or Images or praying to departed Saints then the whole Church of Christ for many Ages before Luther must have been guilty of Idolatry for the same practices say they for which we do affirm the Church of Rome to be Idolatrous are and for many Ages were used in the Eastern Church Answ That the same practices on the account of which we do affirm the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry are and for many Ages before Luther were used in the whole Church of Christ can never be made good by Roman Catholicks in answer therefore to this whole Argument it is sufficient barely to deny what they precariously do assert in this particular and call upon them to prove that which they do with so much confidence affirm by some more cogent and effectual medium than the pretended silence of Historians touching such persons as did not comply with this Idolatry For 1. There is no necessity that all who did not inwardly believe these Doctrines should outwardly declare so much when they considered that they were likely to do themselves the greatest mischief by a free declaration of their minds and the Church but little good by reason of the prevalency of these errors Multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarumscandala liberius improbare non audeo Epist ad Januar. p. 372. Dementie est tibi pernitiem accersere si nulli prosis Apud Hotting Hist Eccl. Sect. 16. Part. 2. p. 29. Vid. etiam p. 24 25. and the blind Zeal of many for them For if St. Austin in his days found reason to complain that some corruptions had so generally obtained that though he judged they ought to be redressed yet as he tells us he durst not freely disapprove them it is no wonder that in these latter times of wretched ignorance and looseness men should be more shy of reprehending those corruptions which in their judgments they disliked concluding with Erasmus that it was madness though they were convinced as he saith he was that it was very good that some
things should be changed that had obtained in the Church to hazard their own lives by speaking their minds freely when they could do but little good and being more desirous it should be done by others than themselves Who knows not that when the reformation was begun by Zuinglius and Luther they were encouraged and approved of by the best and the most learned of that Age And that innumerable persons did presently embrace and testifie their approbation of their Doctrine which is an evidence beyond exception of their good inclinations to it Doth not Elias complain that all besides himself in Israel had shamefully revolted to Idolatry and yet we are assured by God himself that the was certainly deceived And if such a great Prophet erred in his judgment touching his own time and his own Country why may not you mistakein thinking that in the former Ages of the Church all the professed members of it did bow the knee to your Baal 2. There is no necessity there should be Histories or Records of all those persons who disliked any of the practices which commonly obtained in the Church Apud Hott Hist Ecc. Sec. 16. Part. 2. p. or were possessed with that hatred of the false worship generally received Cat. test ver l. 19. p. 867. as Wesselus was or said as did Domitius Calderinus when by his friends constrained to go to Mass Eamus sanè ad communes errores Nor 3. Is it necessary that all the Histories and Records of this kind which have been written should remain and much less that they should continue perfect and uncorrupted especially considering your Church which had lately all the power in her hand hath been so wickedly industrious by her Indices expurgatorii to corrupt all Histories Records and Monuments of Antiquity which make against her But to omit all these advantages I shall ex abundanti shew the falshood of this suggestion in all those three particulars out of those Records which yet remain and have escaped her destructive hands And § III 1. Idolatry as it imports 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The worship or religious service of an Idol or the similitude of any thing in heaven or earth made to be worshipped in the service of Religion I say Idolatry in this which is the prime and natural import of the word was not the practice of the whole Church of Christ for many Ages before Luther For 1. The German and the French Churches saith Cassander Consult Cap. de Imag. p. 201. after the Council held at Frankfort most constantly continued for some Ages in that sentence which they first received from the Church of Rome viz. That Images were neither to be broken nor yet to be worshipped If then the German and French Churches continued firm in this opinion for some Ages after the Council held at Frankford A. D. 794. they must have constantly maintained it in the VIII and the IX Centuries And that they held the same opinion in the IX Century is evident from Agobardus Bishop of Lyons who was make Bishop by consent of the whole Clergy of that Nation For he wrote a Book against this Image-Worship Sect. 30. wherein he hath declared that it is contrary both to Scripture and Tradition and the Doctrine of the Old Roman Church Sect. 35. and also that whosoever worships any molten or graven Image doth not honor God Quod omnes tum in Gallia ut etiam Sirmondo observatum est consentiebant Balhuz Not. in Agobar p. 88. or Angles or holy men but Idols and in which he doth fully Answer the exceptions and evasions of the Roman party And yet Balbuzius and Sirmondus do ingenuously confess that Agobardus hath writ only that which the whole Church of France did then acknowledge Moreover in this IX Century the Second Nicene Synod was declared to be a Pseudo Synod or falsly to retain the name of Synod L. Contra Hincmar Laudun Cap. 20. Ad. A. D. 792. A. D. 794. Chrot A. D. 794. because it Decreed for Image-worship by Hincmarus Rhemensis and Ado Viennesis In the X. Century it is so stiled by Regino Abbas Prumiensis In the XI by Hermannus Contractus an Author of great Credit and Reputation in the world And that the Germans continued of the same mind in the XII Century Lib. 2. de Imp. Isaachi Angel F. 199. is evident from the plain words of Nicetas Choniates who saith that then among the Germans and Armenians the worship of Holy Images was equally forbidden And that the French Church then believed the Doctrine of the Second Nicene Council to be against the definition of the Orthodox and Antient Fathers is evident from the Continuator of Aimoinas De Gestis Francorum l. 5. c. 28. who plainly tells us that the Fathers of the Nicene Synod otherwise decreed concerning Image = worship than the Orthodox Doctors had before defined And Ivo Bishop of Chartres then declared this to be the judgment of the Council of Eliberis Nos illas non adoramus l. 1. c. 3. Num. 1. that Pictures ought not to be worshipped but that they only should be memorials of what is worshipped Was it then received by the French Church in the XIII Century No Durandus a French Bishop in his Rationale doth expresly say we do not worship Images and he moreover gives this admonition to them that do so L. 4. C. 39. N. 3. If neither men nor Angels are to be worshipped let them consider what they do who under pretence of Piety do worship divers Images for it is not Lawful to worship that which is made with hands Was it then received in the XV. Comp. Theol. in explic praecepti primi Ed. Paris 1606. Century No Gerson Chancellor of Paris who flourished Anno Domini 1420. saith we do not worship Images and that they are forbidden to be worshipped and that the words of the commandment Thou shall not bow down to them nor worship them must be thus interpreted Thou shall not bow thy body or thy knees unto them thou shall not worship them with the affection of thy mind When therefore was it that this Image-worship obtained in the Gallican Church Answ Pithoeus doth ingenuously confess that it is but of yesterday If we be willing saith he Praes in Hist P. Diaconi seriously to confess the truth it is but very lately that our people began to be in love with Images Moreover in the VII Century it was condemned by a Karolus Rex Franciae misit Synodalem librum ad Britaniam sibi à Constantinopoli directum in quo proh dolor multa inmconvenientia verae fidei contraria reperichantur maximè quod poene omnium Orientalium doctorum unanimi assartione confirmatum fuerit Imagines adorari debere quod omnino Ecclesia Dei execratur contra quod scripsit Albinus Epistolam ex authoritate divinarum Scripturarum mirabiliter dictatam illamque cum eodem Synodali libro in
persona Episcoporum principum nostrorum Regi Francorum attulit Hoveden Annal. Part. 1. ad A. D. 792. Simeon Dunelm ad A. D. 793. M. Weslmonast A. D. 793. Alcuinus Tutor to Charles the Great and Scholar of Venerable Bede who wrote an Epistle against the Synodal Book of the Second Nicene Council wherein it was asserted that Images ought to be worshipped which Epistle being marvelously confirmed by the Authority of the Holy Scriptures he carried to the French King in the name of the English Bishops and Princes This Image-worship was condemned also by the Church of England in the XII and XIII Centuries For Simon Dunelmensis an Oxonian Doctor and Roger Hoveden their chief Professor and Matthew Westmonasteriensis do all concurr in this assertion that in the Second Nicene Synod are many things contained which are inconvenient and contrary to the true faith and that in that Council was established a Decree that Images should be worshipped which thing the Church of God wholly abhors Where note that in these Writers we find not the least hint of a distinction betwixt due and undue worship of an holy Image or betwixt worship which the Church of Christ allows and worship which the Church abhors nor do they say the Nicene Council doth assert eam adorationem Imaginibus deberi quam Ecclesia Dei execratur P. 146. as T. G. in his translation of these words doth very fraudulently insinuate but they say only that the second Nicene Council had declared Imagines adorari debere quod Ecclesia Dei execratur that Images were to be worshipped and that this was the Doctrine which Gods Church abhorred It was condemned in the XIV Century by Robert Holcot one of our Country men and Professor in Oxford Com. in lib. Sap. Cap. 13. voce Infelices who plainly doth assert That no adoration is to be given to any Image nor is it lawful for any man to worship Images It was condemned in the XV. Century by Gabriel Biel In canone Missae lect 49. an Oxonian Doctor who determines that to be the truest Sentence which holds That any Image is not to be worshipped either for it self considered as it is wood or stone or metal nor yet considered as a sign er Image And that the Christian faith permits them to be reserved in the Church non ut ipsae adorentur not that they should be worshipped but that the minds of faithful men might be excited to give reverence to them whose Images they are It was condemned in the same Century by Cornelius Agrippa De vanit scientiarum cap. de Imagin who saith That the corrupt custom and false Religion of the Heathens hath infected our Religion and hath introduced into our Church Images and Idols and many barren pompous Cereonies none of which were found or practised among the primitive professors of Christianity It was condemned by Polydore Virgil De invent rerum l. 6. c. 13. who doth acknowledge that it is testified St. Jerom that almost all the antient Fathers did condemn Image-worship for fear of Idolatry It was condemned in the XVI Century by the excellent Cassander who saith Consult cap. de Imagin P. 205. It was to be desired that our predecessors had stood firm in the opinion of their Forefathers viz. that I mages were neither to be worshipped nor to be broken down And page 210 It seemeth fit saith he to be advised if matters could be thus contrived that things should be reduced to that moderation which they obtained in the more antient Church of Rome and Germany and France ut rerum gerendarum monumenta non cultus instrumenta habeantur that is that Images be used or retained as monuments of things past but not as instruments of worship It was condemned in the same Century Com. in Act. Apost cap. 7. by Ferus a very Learned Person who Preached at Mentz for the expresly saith that Images are to lerated in the Church that they may admonish not that they may be worshipped for otherwise they can admit of no excuse And to assure us that his private judgment was very sutable to the prevailing judgment of those times we find the same determination made by a Council held at Mentz A.D. C. 14. 1549. during the Session of the Trent Council which speaks thus Let our Pastors accurately teach the people that Images are not propouuded to be worshipped or adored but that we may by them be brought to the remembrance of those things which we ought profitably to call to mind It was condemned also by the Church of Cologn In Antididag Colon. cap. de Imag. which saith thus We Christians when we bend our knees before the Image of the Holy Cross do not adore the very wood but him who died upon it for our sins and doth conclude with Gregory the Great that it is not lawful in any wise to worship any thing that is the work of our own hand Moreover from the XII Century to the Reformation it was condemned by the Waldenses the Albigenses and the Hussites who spread themselves throughout the greatest part of Europe and propagated their Doctrine through France Spain England Scotland Italy Germany Bohemia Saxony Polonia Lithuanid and other Nations Lastly Dr. Still defence p. 837.838 This Image-worship was condemned by the Armenians from the VI. Century to this present time For they having begun their Schism before this practice found any countenance in the Church of Christ not only do refuse to worship Images but roundly do pronounce Anathema on them that do so § IV 2. We say the Roman Church is guilty of Idolatry in worshipping the Saints departed because they worship them with mental prayer believing that they understand the secrets or inward motions of the hearts of them who put up to them mental prayers Now this we say was never any Article of Faith Sess 25. p. 527 528. even in the Latine Church till the Trent Council had determined that they who said it was a foolish thing to put up mental prayers to Saints departed were guilty of impiety and did pronounce Anathema On all that held or thought the contrary till then I say it was no Article of Faith even in the Western Church For in the XII Century this Question was moved by the Master of the Sentences whether the Saints do hear the prayers of suppliants and the desire of petitioners do come unto their notice and this Answer is returned to it that it is not incredible that the souls of the Saints Lomb. Sent. l. 4. Dist 45. which in the secret of Gods presence are joyed with the illustration of the true light do in the contemplation of it understand the thing that we done abroad as much as appertaineth either to them for jay or to us for help Anselmus Landunensis who lived in the same Century notes this that Ausim saith Glass inter◠i◠Esa lxiii that the dead even the Saints do
not follow as some Romanists conceive that they do worship with Latria this most Holy Sacrament For our Lords Body is no due object of Latria and that his Soul and his Divinity is there united to his body they do not affirm nor can it be collected from these words this is my body broken and my blood shed for you his body broken and his blood shed being his body and his blood disunited or in a state of actual separation from his soul if you collect from reason that if his body be there present his Divinity must be there also because it is united hypostatically to the body and therefore never separated from the body as R. H. Frequently insinuates I answer 1. That if we must not be permitted to use our reason to confute this Doctrine neither are you to use your reason to establish it for why a demonstration against a Doctrine should not as well destroy the supposed truth of that Doctrine as a demon stration for it should confirm its truth I am not able to conceive Besides is it a contradiction to assert that Christs Almighty power may reproduce his body not thus united to his soul and his Divinity or not If it be not then may his body be thus extant in the Holy Sacrament If you say it is a contradiction to assert that the same body should be united to the word and not united I Answer if the same body of our Lord may be both eaten and not eaten eaten by them who have received the Host and not eaten by them who have not yet received eaten in the Host received not eaten in the Host reserved if it may be under the species of bread and not under the species of bread under the species of bread as it is in the Holy Sacrament and not under the species of bread as it is in Heaven why may it not be united to the word and not united to the word united to the word as it is in Heaven but not united to the word as it lies sensless on the Altar When therefore R. H. doth so often mind us that Christ body was never separated from the divinity I Answer that this is a most certain truth when it is spoken of his Natural and Glorified body but is not so when it is spoken of his Sacramental body of which ten thousand things may be asserted which agree not to his Celestial body 3. As it is certain that the Lutherans do hold the Consecrated Elements to be Christs real body and blood and yet do never tender the worship of Latria to them so may the Eastern Churches also do nay it is certain that they do not tender the worship of Latria to them as the Papists do and are obliged to do by the custom and command of their Church Sacranus doth inform us of the Russians that they do not adore the Consecrated Elements Neither the Greeks nor Russians do perform any worship to them saith the Jesuit Scarga L. 3. de Sacr. Euch. c. 21. The Greeks aster the Consecration of the Elements exhibit none or very little reverence to them saith Arcadius moreover the Cophti and the Habassines do not so much as elevate the Confecrated Host nor afterwards reserve it as doth the Church of Rome Brievw p. 158 167. which is a farther evidence that they do not adore it with the worship of Latria But saith R.H. this adoration is a necessary consequent of the belief of the real presence Galde disc 3. ch 8. §. 82. n. 3. to this I Answer 1. by denying that this is any necessary consequence of the belief of Transubstantiation and if it were so we have hence reason to presume the doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be antient seeing this necessary consequence of it was not observed in the Western Church before the XI or XII Century this adoration being not practised and much less enjoyned by the Church till then De Cub Lat. l. 7. cap. 44. l. 3. cap. 19. as Mr. Dally hath demonstrated 2. I Answer that nothing is more frequent than for Churches and persons to maintain a doctrine and yet in practice to disclaim the necessary consequences of that doctrine I hope R. H. doth urge against us nothing but what he thinks will necessarily follow from our doctrine and yet he knows we do disclaim his inferences and may in due time shew him we have sufficient reason so to do Ibid. p. 265 266. § IV And whereas R.H. doth endeavour to prove that the Greek Church agree with them in giving of this adoration to the Consecrated Host from certain passages of the Mass used among them that the disingenuity and weakness of his pleas may be more evident Which are all taken from the Author of the Tract styled Perpet de la Foy c. and answered by Mr. Dally de cult Lat. c. 3. c. 19. Chrysost To. 6. p. 983. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 9.4 Ib. l. 29 30. Ib. l. 35 40. I shall at large relate their manner of proceeding in the performance of their Mass and then return a satisfactory Answer to what he offers from these passages for confirmation of his vain presumption First then the Greeks begin this Mass with worshipping or bowing thrice towards the East before the Image of our Saviour and of the Blessed Virgin Soon after they bow thrice before the Table on which the Sacred Gifts that is the Bread and Wine is placed though yet they be not laid upon the Altar to be Consecrated Then the Priest saith O God be propitious to me a sumer and have mercy on me and again O our Saviour thou being nailed to the Cross and pierced with a Spear hast redeemed us from the Curse of the law and opened the fountain of eternal life glory be given to thee then taking the Oblation i.e. the Bread which hath the figure of a Gross impressed upon it called Sigillum into his left hand and the spear into his right hand he fastneth the Lance into the right side of the Cross upon the Bread Ib. l. 39. Ib. l. 41. and saith he was brought as a sheep to the slaughter then fastning it in the left side he adds that as an innocent lamb which is dumb before the shearer L. 43. he openeth not his mouth then fastning it in the upper part of the Cross he adds P. 985 l. 1. in his humiliation his judgment was taken away then he fasteneth it in the lower part and adds who can declare his Generation L. 8. his life was taken away or lift up from the earth Then the Deacon saith sacrifice Sir L. 10. and the Priest sacrisiceth him N. B. saying L. 13. The lamb of God which taketh away the sms of the world is facrifieed for the life and salvation of the world Then the Deacon saith pierce him Sir L. 14. and the Priest pierceth him with the Spear saying one of the Soldiers
2. saith that the Apostle seems to speak of a departure from the Catholick Faith not that all shall recede from it but that the major part shall do so Bellarmin adds that it is certain that it will be so L. 13. Doct. Prin. c. 2. L. 2. de temp nov c. 15. To the same purpose speak Stapleton Acosta with divers others And all this they ground upon those passages of the Revelation which seem very concluding to this sense and clearly to intend it as the slaughter of the two witnesses by whom the Orthodex members of the Church is understood the flight of the woman that is the Church into the Desert and the worship which the whole world will then pay to the Beast Where note that these Witnesses which represent the Church are but two and they at last are slain Rev. xiii 7 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aret. in locum and that the Dominion of Antichrist is over all Kingdoms Tongues and Nations and he is said to cause the earth and him that dwelleth therein to worship him and both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive his mark All which seemeth to signifie as much as the testiinonies forecited Now seeing it is Prophesied concerning Antichrist that he should exalt himself above all that is called God Rev. ix 20. and of the people of those Antichristian times that they should worship Devils and Idols of Gold and Silver and of Brass and Stone and of Wood which can neither see nor hear nor walk Rev. xiii 12. and that the earth and they that dwell therein should become worshippers of the Beast and of his Image therefore it must be also Prophesied that Idolatry should reign and spread it self over the Christian World CHAP. IV. The Contents Ob. 3. That if the Church be guilty of Idolatry the Gates of Hell would have prevailed against her Answered by shewing that by this phrase the Gates of Hell errors in Doctrine or Corruption in manners cannot be understood but only the state of death § I. Ob. 4. That if the Church be Idolatrous she cannot be Holy Answered by shewing what is the Holiness of the Church visible § II. Ob. 5. We grant the Papists may be saved and consequently must grant they are not guilty of Idolatry Answered I. by shewing that moderate Papists grant that Protestants may be saved whom yet they charge with Heresie and Schism and such like damning sins § III. 2. That their Repentance for their unknown sins and consequently their unknown Idolatries may obtain mercy for those who wanted means of better information § IV. 3. That in the same circumstances we believe that Idolaters may be saved ibid. Ob. 6. The Church of Rome cannot be guilty of Idolatry because we do acknowledg her to be a true Church Answered I. By shewing that true Church may still continue so to be when it is guilty of Idolatry § V. 2. That the Church of Rome may be a true Church in that large sense in which the Protestants confess she is so and yet be guilty of Idolatry they only saying that she is a true visible Church in that sensein which Heretical and Idolatrous Churches may be so § VI. To admit the Church of Rome to be in this sense a true visible Church is sufficient to justifie the Ordination and Succession of our Clergy I. Because the Ordination of Hereticks is valid § VII And so is also the Ordination of Idolaters § VIII Some of our Divines acknowledg that in the Church of Rome when Luther first begun his Reformation there was a saving profession of the truth of Christ § IX This acknowledgment is explained and the inference thence made that the Church of Rome was not then Idolatrous though Idolatry prevailed much in it ibid. Ob. 7. That if the Church of Rome be truly charged with this crime she must be guilty of Heathenish Idolatry answered by shewing that she is so only in that sense in which all Idolatry may be stiled Heathenish § X. And 2. by divers instances of such Idolatry which in the judgment of the Romanists themselves is not exclusive of salvation ibid. § I Ob. 3 AND this is all that is needful to be said in answer to this Argument p. 125. But yet ex abundanti I will add some remarks upon those Arguments which T. G. and R. H. do further offer to demonstrate 1. That the whole Church of Christ cannot be guilty of Idolatry which is the minor proposition of this objection And first T. G. thus Argues that if the Church which is Christs Kingdom could Apostatize so far as to enjoyn and allow the belief and practice of Idolatry the Gates of Hell would have prevailed against it but the Gates of Hell cannot prevail against it Ergo. Answ These words the Gates of Hell do not contain a promise of preservation of the Church from sin or error of what kind soever but only signifie that all true Christians who die in the Lord shall be delivered from death and shall obtain a joyful Resurrection For the Gates of Hell in Scripture phrase do never signifie the power of Heresie or Satan sin or error but both in the Old Testament the Jewish writers and the Antient Heathens it constantly is used to signifie the state of death as will be evident to any person who consults the places cited in the Synopsis and doth with them compare the passages in which this phrase is used in the Old Testament and in the Jewish writers I said Es xxxviii 10. saith Hazekiah in the cutting off of my days 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I shall go to the Gates of Hell I am deprived of the residue of my years and what is in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gates of death is by the Septuagint Translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gates of Hell Chap. xvi 13. Mac. v. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Praepar Ev. l. 1. c. 3. p. 7. D. Job xxxviii 17. Thou hast the power of life and death saith the Author of the Book of Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou bringest down to the Gates of Hell and raisest up again They cryed to the Lord to have mercy on them now being even at the point of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the Gates of Hell Nor did Eusebius doubt the truth of this exposition of the words for he declares that God had hereby promised that the Church should not be overcome by death and that by virtue of this one voice Vpon this rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her the Church continues not subdued by her enemies nor yielding to the Gates of death 2 This Scripture may concern the Church considered as invisible Ecclesia in iis est qui aedificant supra petram i. e. qui audiunt verba Christi faciunt Aug. de unit Eccl. c. 16. c. 18. De Bapt.
unhappy circumstances he hardly could discover to be errors 3. I answer that if the defect of a particular Repentance for or an acknowledgment of every mortal sin committed by a Christian will certainly obstruct the possibility of his Salvation then the Salvation of a Papist must be exceeding hazardous upon their own avowed Principles for it is evident beyond denial and proved by a late Author that Roman Casuists do teach The Practical Divinity of Papists c. that Murther Fornication Uncleanness Adultery Theft Lying Anger Revenge Reviling Drunkenness and Covetousness which is Idolatry and all those sins which by the Scriptures are pronounced mortal and so exclusive of the soul from Heaven are either in some cases which may often happen none at all or only venial sins 't is also certain that these Casuists are often subject to very gross mistakes in passing this determination when a sin is venial and when 't is mortal and very often contradict each the other nay some of them confess they are not able 〈…〉 â—um 〈…〉 ialia 〈◊〉 à Gra 〈…〉 i non exâ—â—â—imur taceâ—â—â—citra culpam â—â—ssunt Sess 14. c. 5. after all their study to lay down any certain rules in this particular If then the Lay-man being deceived by his Priest judge that to be only a venial sin which in reality is mortal he being also taught by the trent Council and his Roman Doctors that he may without fault conceal a venial sin and not at all confess it he according to the Doctrine of R. H. must be condemned to eternal misery for following the judgment of his blind mistaken Priest Ob. 6 § V It is objected that a true Church R. H. Disc 78. whilst it continues so to be cannot be guilty of Idolatry since therefore we acknowledg the Church of Rome to be and to continue a true Church we cannot truly say that she is guilty of Idolatry Answ It is already truly answered by the Reverend and Learned Dr. Stilling fleet Answ to Sev. Treat Part. 1. p. 20. that this objection is very disingenuous because it doth not answer any of those Arguments which we have used to prove the Church of Rome Idolatrous but only doth oppose the judgment of Charity to that of Reason which doth engage us to conclude they are Idolatrous and therefore to believe that if Idolatry be not consistent with the true being of a Church we err in this our Charitable judgment and therefore stand obliged to reverse it For instance suppose one of the Church of Judah should have called the Chuch of Israel in the time of Jeroboam a true Church because they did acknowledg the true God and did admit the Law of Moses in all other matters and did believe the acknowledgment of those truths to be sufficient to preserve the essentials of a Chuch among them and afterwards the same person should endeavour to convince the Ten Tribes of their Idolatry in worshipping God by the Calves of Dan and Bethel would this be thought a sufficient way of answering him to say that he contradicted himself by granting them a true Church and yet charging them with Idolatry No the true consequence would be that he thought some kind of Idolatry consistent with the being of a Church and if this were not so his Charity must be mistaken provided that his reason could not be gainsayed 2. That a true Church may yet continue so to be when it is guilty of Idolatry may be made evident from the consideration of the Jewish Church For first that the whole Church ws guilty of Idolatry in worshipping the golden Calf the Romanists do not deny the Scriptures having clearly said that by so doing they changed the image of the incorruptible God into the Similitude of a Calf Ps cvi 19 20. That they who worshipped the Calf did offer Sacrifice to an Idol Acts vii 41. and more expresly that they were Idolatrous 1 Cor. 10.7 2. That notwithstanding this Idolatry they still continued to be Gods Church and People if he had then a Church on earth is evident and therefore Verse 14. it is said that God repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his peoples Moreover that the worship of the Calves which Jeroboam had set up in Dan and Bethel was Idolatry is evident from these considerations 1. That it was a worship like to that of the Golden Calf which we have proved to be Idolatrous 2. God so esteemed this action for thus he speaks to Jeroboam 1 King xiv 9. Thou hast done evil above all that were before thee for thou hast gone and made thee other Gods and molten Images to provoke me to anger 3. These Calves are by the Scripture called Idols Hos viii 4 5. 2. That even from the time of Jeroboam to the Captivity of Israel the worship of the Calves was the Established Religion of the Ten Tribes For from the time of Jeroboam even to the days of Hosea that is the time when Israel was carried away into Assyria we find not any King of Israel who Reigned above one Month of whom it is not said expresly that he walked in all the ways of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin Moreover it is said expresly that when once Jeroboam had prevailed with Israel to commit that great sin of worshipping the Calves of Dan and Bethel the Children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did they departed not from them till the Lord removed Israel out of his sight Whence it must necessarily follow that from the days of Jeroboam to the Reign of Hosea the Church of Israel continued in her Idolatry 3. That God during that time or at the least some portion of it did still esteem and own them as his Church and people for Jehu was by a Prophet of the Lord Anointed King over the people of the Lord N. B. even over Israel 2 Kings ix 6. Israel was therefore then the people of the Lord though they continued in the sins of Jeroboam as also Jehu did 2 Kings x. 29. 2 King xiii 6. 2. In the days of Jehoahaz it is Recorded that the Children of Israel departed not from the sins of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin but walked in them 2 King xiii 23. and yet it is Recoded also that then the Lord was gracious to them and had compassion on them and respect to his Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and would not destroy them nor cast them from his preence as yet Now his Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob was this that he would be their God and the God of their seed after them to have respect to this Covenant must therefore be to continue still to be their God and own them for his people 3. They with whom God was present amongst whom he walked in the midâ—â— of whom he dwelt and with whom he was God in Covenant were still
his Church and People and he was still their God according to his promise Lev. xxvi 11 12. I will set my Tabernacle amongst you and will walk among you and you shall be my people and I will be your God And indeed God in Scripture is said to walk among them by his gracious presence in his Tabernacle 2 Sam. vii 6. 1 Chron. xvii 5. Psal ix 11. cxxxv 21. Es xviii 4. Joel iii. 21.2 Chr. vi 2. xxxvi 15. Psal lxxiv. 7. lxxvi 2. lxxix 7. Es xviii 4. Joel iii 17.2 King xiii 23. Hos xi 9. he dwelt among them by dwelling at Jerusalem in that Temple and that City or by continuing his special presence there and upon this account in Scripture the Temple is oft stiled his dwelling place Now even in the times of the Idolatry of Israel and Judah God still was present with them he walked and dwelt among them and was their God in Covenant he I say was still graciously preent with he walked and dwelt among them for yet he had not cast them from his presence he was still the holy one in the midst of Ephraim he was not yet departed from them for he by way of commination saith Wo unto them Hos ix 12. when I shall depart from them After that they had even broken God with their whorish hearts which had departed from him and with their eyes which went a whoring after their Idols yet the glory of the Lord was not departed from the Sanctuary but still appeared in the Temple Ezek. vi 9 13. Ezek. ix 3 4. x. 3 4. xviii 19. Ezek. xvi 20. and between the Cherubims they after this bare sons and daughters unto God Moreover that he was still their God in Covenant appears from those expressions of the Prophets when pleading in behalf of this backsliding people they speak thus Break not thy Covenant with us thou art our Father Jer. xiv 21. Es lxiv. 8 9. Jer. iii. 14. we are all thy people turn O backsliding Children for I am married to you and from innumerable places in which he owns them for his people still and is not yet ashamed to be called their God This will be farther evident from the New Testament for in the Church of Corinth there were many of the strongest Christians who being in thier Consciences convinced that an Idol was nothing and so could have no power to defile the meat which had been offered to it did upon this presumption sit down with others in the Idol Temples and eat and drink that which they knew was offered to the Idol This the Apostle plainly tells them was Idolatry that it was in effect to have communion with Devils 1 Cor. x. 7 11 â—0 21 to drink he cup of Devils and to be partakers of the table of Devils and yet he clearly doth insinuate that they who through that error or mistake were guilty of this Idol worship might still remain his Christian brethren and beloved Moreover that Babylon was the Mother of Harlots and Abominations that she commanded all her subjects to commit spiritual Fornication or Idolatry St. John doth frequently inform us Rev. xviii 4. and yet that even here God had his Church and People is evident from that voice from Heaven saying Come out of her my people for how could God have said Come out of her my people had he not then preserved alive within this Throne of Satan a people to himself Lastly the Jewish Synagog in the days of our Saviour Christ had taken away the Key of knowledg Luke xi 52 Matt. xxiii 13. they neither entered themselves into his Kingdom who were the keepers of that key nor suffered others so to do That little knowledg which remained among them was damnably corrupted not only with the Saducean Heresie which mightily prevailed amongst the wealthiest of them but also with the leaven of the Scribes and Phraisees who had by their Traditions made void the Law of God Matth. xv 6 9. and rendered his worship vain these Scribes and Pharisees are by the Baptist styled a Generation of Vipers Matth. iii. 7. Matth. xxiii by Christ Blind foolish Hypocrites persons that coald not scape the damnation of Hell Of the whole people Christ pronounceth that they were of their father the Devil Joh. viii 44. and his works they would do and yet God had his Church even then among them in which both Zacharias Elizabeth the Virgin Mary and our Lord was born of which both he and his Apostles were then members and into which they were admitted by Circumcision Their Priests were owned by our Saviour who sent the Lepers to them Matth. viii 4. Matth. xxiii 2 3. he acknowledged that these Scribes and Pharisees still sat in Moses Chair and that obedience was therefore due unto them in all lawful matters Nor could it possibly be otherwise seeing Christs Church and Kingdom was not begun till after his own Resurrection nor do we read of any that were added to the Church till then Answ § VI 3. Tha the Church of Rome may be a true visible Church in that sense in which our English Protestants confess she is so i. e. as having truth of visible existence though not truth of doctrine and yet be guilty of Idolatry will be apparent from these considerations 1. That the notion of a visible Church which they lay down as the true ground of this their Charitable judgment containeth in it nothing inconsistent with the practice or allowance of Idolatry For to the visibility of a Church say they is only requisite an outward profession of those things which supernaturally appertain to the very essence of Christianity Eccl. Pol. l. 3. §. 1. p. 126. and are necessarily required in every Christian man So the judicious Mr. Hooker Now among the things which supernaturally appertain to the essence of Christianity they do not reckon Moral Righteousness and Honesty of life because although the want of these excludeth from Salvation yet are they not of supernatural Revelation but are discovered to us by the light of Nature they are the duties as well of Heathens as of Christians and so concern us saith Mr. Hooker not as Christians only but as men Hence they infer that every thing which excludeth from Salvation excludes not from the visible Church this therefore cannot be say they essential to the being of a Church visible that it doth hold or practise nothing which excludeth from Salvation For instance Despair want of Charity secret Infidelity the proud and envious spirit are all exclusive from Salvation but none of them exclude a person who outwardly professeth all the essentials of Christian Faith from being a true member of a Chuch visible Should we then grant that the Idolatry now practised in the Church of Rome was totally exclusive of Salvation it would not follow that she did not continue a true visible Church in the forementioned sense Agreeable to this we
are told by Zanchy De Nat. dei Praefat. p. that in spight of Satan the Church of Rome retained still the chief foundations of the Faith though weakned with the Doctrines of men it retained the publick Preaching of the word of God though in many places misunderstood and misconstrued the Invocation of the name of Christ though joyned also with the Invocation of dead men the administration of Baptism instituted by Christ himself howsoever defiled with the addition of many superstitions so as together with the Symbol of the Covenant the Covenant it self remained still in her the Church of Rome therefore is yet the Church of Christ Apud Bishop Hall To. 2. p. 94. In the Roman Church saith Dr. Primrose God doth still keep his word in the Old and New Tetament as the contract of his Marriage with her in her is the true Creed the true Decalog the true Lords Prayer in her Christ is Preached though corruptly in her the Trinity and Incarnation of Christ are believed in her the Father Son and Holy Ghost are prayed to though in an unknown tongue to the most part in her the little Children are Baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and no man will deny that their Baptism is a true Sacrament whereby their children are born to God seeing we do not rebaptise them when leaving them they join to us Who then can deny that she is a true Church seeing out of the true Chuch there is no Baptism and the Church alone beareth Children to God Now the belief of all these things here mentioned by Dr. Primrose and Mr. Zanchy are well consistent with the practice and allowance of Idolatry and therefore in their judgments the truth of the visible Church may be consistent with it also 2. They also add that a true visible Church may still continue so to be even when she most deserves to be Divorced provided God doth not give her a Bil of Divorce remove her Candlestick or take away the Kingdom of God from her Two things are requisite Lect. in Apoc. p. 430 431. saith Episcopius to Vnchurch a people 1. That she merit a Divorce by reason of some deadly or fundamental error 2. That God doth deal with her accordng to her merit by sending her a Bill of Divorce both these are necessary to cause a Church to be so for as a wife by being an Adulteress doth not yet cease to be a wife whilst her own husband will acknowledg her and not Divorce her from him so is it with the Church of God The Church of Sardis is by Christ owned as a Church though as himself pronounceth Ibid. p. 521. V. Hall To. 2. Tr. of the Old Religion p. 76. she only had a name to live but really was dead The being of a Church saith Bishop Davenant doth principally stand upon the action of God calling men out of darkness and death to the participation of light and life in Christ Jesus so long as God continues this calling to a people though they as much as in them lies darken this light and corrupt the means which should bring them to Life and Salvation in Christ yet where God calls men to the participation of life in Christ by the Word and by the Sacraments there is the true being of a Church let men be never so false in the exposition of Gods word or never so untrusty in mingling their own Traditions with Gods Ordinances Thus the Church of the Jews lost not the being of a Church when she became an Idolatrous Church Thus to gran that the Roman was and is a true visible Church though in Doctrine a false and in practice an Idolatrous Church is a true assertion and of greater use and necessity in our Controversie with Papists about the perpetuity of the Christian Church than is understood by those that gainsay it 3. They say that a true visible Church ceaseth not to be so though she doth add to the profession of those essentials which constitute her a true visible Church such tenets as by unseen consequence do overthrow some of them The Church of Rome saith Bishop Hall Advertis p. 51. professing to hold those things diectly which by inferences she closely overthrows she is a truly visible Church but an unsound one Again the Church of Rome saith he under a Christian face hath an Unchristian heart overturning that foundation by necessary inferences which by open profession it avows that face that profession those avowed principles are enough to give it claim to the true outward visibility of a Christian Church nor can those inferences Dischurch it whilest those main principles are kept alive in that crazy and corrupted body And again p. 63. if we measure the true being of a visible Church by the direct maintaining of Fundamental Principles though by consequences indirectly overturned and by the possession of the word of God and his Sacraments though not without foul adulteration what judicious Christian can deny that the Church of Rome hath yet the true visibility of a Church of Christ In respect of the common truths yet professed among the Papists they may Apud Bishop Hall To. 2. Part 2. p. 82. saith Dr. Prideaux and ought to be termed a true visible Church in opposition to Jews Turks and Pagans who directly deny the foundation howsoever their Antichristian additions make them no better than the Synagogue of Satan 4. They whilst they do allow her to be a true visible Church do also say she is Heretical and do allow Heretical Churches to be true visible Churches Advertisement p. 51. also that which Rome holds with us makes it a Church saith Bishop Hall that which it obtrudes upon us makes it Heretical and elsewhere to this question is the Church of Rome still a part of the truly existent visible Church of Christ Reconciler p. 61. He answers Surely no otherwise than an Heretical and Apostatical Church is or may be Their Roman Church saith Dr. Crakenthorp is Heretical yet must she be accounted both to be in the Church and be a Church not simply not according to the integrity of Faith not according to any inward virtue Defens Eccl. Angl. adv Spalat c. 16. not so effectually that it should avail to Salvation for a man to be in it but yet a Church it is in some respects according to the external profession of Faith and of the word of God accordin gto the Administration of the Sacraments according to some Doctrines of true belief by which as by so many outward ligaments she is yet knit to the Orthodox and Catholick Church And to this Question Is the Roman Church at this day no part of the Church of God Appen part 3. p. 883. our learned Dr. Field thus answers Surely as Austin noteth that the societies of Hereticks in that they retain the profession of many parts of heavenly truth and the ministration of the Sacrament
of Baptism are so far joined with the Catholick Church and the Catholick Church in and by them bringeth forth children to God so the present Roman Church is still in some sort a part of the visible Church of God but no otherwise than other societies of Hereticks are in that it retaineth the profession of some parts of heavenly truth and ministreth the true Sacrament of Baptism to the Salvation of the Souls of many thousand Infants We must acknowledg even Hereticks themselves to be though a maimed part yet a part of the Church visible saith the judicious Hooker Eccl. Pol. l. 3. §. 1. if the Fathers do any where saith he as oftentimes they do make the true Church of Christ and her companies opposite they are to be construed as separating Hereticks not altogether from the company of Believers but from the fellowship of sound Believers Lastly They also do assert that an Idolatrous Church may yet continue to be a true Church visible Lo say the Romanists Reconcil p. 64 65. we are of the true visible Church why then forsaken Ans Alass poor souls saith Bishop Hall do they not know that Hypocrites leud persons Reprobates are no less members of the visible Church what gain they by this but a deeper damnation to what purpose did the Jews cry the temple of the Lord whilst they despighted the Lord of that Temple They are of the viâ—â—â—le Church but shamefully Idolatrous in practice Our Saviour saith Mr. Hooker ubi Supra compareth the Kingdom of Heaven to a Net which gathereth together good Fish and bad and to a Field where Tares manifestly known and seen of all men do grow intermingled with good Corn and even so shall continue to the consummation of the world When the people of God worshipped the Calf in the Wilderness when they adored the Brazen Serpent when they bowed the knee to Baal and served the Gods of the Nations when they burnt Incense and offered Sacrifice to Idols true it is the wrath of God was most fiercely inflamed against them and they were forsaken of God in respect of that singular mercy wherewith he kindly embraceth his faithful children howbeit retaining the Law of God and the holy Seal of his Covenant the sheep of his visible flock they continued even in the depth of their disobedience and rebellion wherefore among them od always had a Church not only because be had thousands who never bowed the knee to baal but even they whose knees were bowed to Baal were also of the visible Church of God Of the same judgment are Bishop Davenant Dr. Primrose Zanchy and Episcopius in the fore-cited places § VII Now to admit the Church of Rome to be in the large sense a true visible Church of Christ serves no designs of Popery and is sufficient to justifie the Ordinations and succession of the Clergy of the Church of England For I. admit the first Reformers of our Church received their Ordination from those Bishops which were themselves guilty of Heresie or Schism or both and therefore no true living Members of Christs body nor any other ways to be reputed Members of the Church visible than Schismaticks and Hereticks may be This is abundantly sufficient to justifie our Ordination and Succession and our entrance into the visible Church by Baptism conferred by them For of the Baptism of Hereticks without exception and therefore of those Hereticks who by the judgment of the Universal Church have been esteemed Idolaters Sess 7. cap. de Bapt. Can. 4. the Church of Rome in her Trent Council hath determined that it is valid and hath pronounced an Anathema on those who say the contrary Jews Hereticks Part 2. Cap. II. Sect. 24. and Infidels may confer true Baptism saith the Roman Catechism as many Antient Fathers and Decrees of Council teach particularly the General Council of Constantinople and the sixth General Council held in Trullo the Council held at Florence and the Lateran Council Moreover that the Ordination of Hereticks is valid Preface to his Answer to several Treat Sess 7. Can. 9.23 Can. 4. Cap. 68. Act. 1. the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet hath largely proved from the definition of the Trent Council from the Code of Canons of the African Church from the judgment of the second Nicene Council from the General reception of this Doctrine in the Roman Church for as Morinus witnesseth De Sacris Ord. Part 3. Exercit 5. c. 1. n. 12. the opinion of the validity of Orders conferred by Hereticks hath only obtained in the Roman Church during the last four Centuries to which I add the definition of the first Nicene Council in the Case of the Cathari Can. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Con. Nicen. 2. Act. 1. p. 68. or the Novatian Hereticks that they returning to the Catholick and Apostolick Church should remain in that Order of Clergy in which they were only receiving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the imposition of hands for benediction and reconciliation and that if any of them were found either in Villages or Cities to be the only Bishops that were there Ordained they should continue in that same rank Whereas concerning the Pauliani who as St. Austin thinks De Haeres Cap. 44. did not observe the essentials of true Baptism the Council doth determine that if any of them should be found among the Clergy they should be Rebaptized and then receive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ordination by some Bishop of the Catholick Church Can. 19. so that the Ordination of the Novatian Hereticks who were very numerous and whose Bishops had continued in a long Succession at Constantinople Ephesus Socrat. Hist Eccles l. 2. cap. 38. p. 114. l. 7. cap. 11. at Cyzicum and in most other places is by this great and holy Synod here pronounced valid and they who were Ordained by their Bishops were not received into the Church as Greeks or degraded into the rank of Lay-men whereas by reason of some fundamentla error in the case of Baptism it is determined that the Pauliani who were of their Clergy should be by Baptism admitted first into the Church and then by Ordination of the Bishop into the number of the Clergy The judgment of St. Austin is so clear in this point that we need nothing more to evidence the Faith and practice which then obtained in the Church For that the Ordination of Hereticks is valid he both asserts against the Donatists and proves by these two mediums 1. That their Baptism being valid according to the determination of the Church their Ordination must be deemed so there is no reason Lib 2. Contra Epist Parm. c. 13. saith he that they who cannot lose their Baptism should lose the power of giving Baptism to others for they both of them are Sacraments both of them are given by Consecration one when the person is Baptized the other when he is Ordained and therefore in the Catholick Church it is not lawful
to reiterate either of them 2. Because saith he a person who after his Ordination in the Church Catholick Non sunt rursus ordinandi sed sicut Baptismus in eis ita Ordinatio mansit integra qua in praecisione erat vitium non in Sacramentis quae ubicunque sunt ipsa vera sunt Ibid. becomes an Heretick must not at his return to the Church be Re-ordained and therefore neither must he be Re-ordained who hath received Ordination out of the Church Catholick and hence it is saith he that if any Bishops of the Donatists are won over to the Church and it doth seem convenient that they should bear the same Offices which formerly they did they are not by the Church Ordained but as their Baptism so their Ordination remains intire By this determination the Doctors of the Roman Church are generally swaied so that there is saith Bellarmine Bell. 1.4 de Rom. Pâ—ntif C. 10. § at emtra scarce any Catholick who knows not that they who are Baptized by Hereticks are Baptized truly and they that are Ordained by Hereticks are Ordained truly when the Heretick that Ordains is truly a Bishop at least as to his Character § VIII 2. That the Ordination made by those Hereticks who really were or by the Church have been condemned as Idolaters or persons guilty of more hainous crimes when these Ordainers were true Bishops was esteemed valid by the Church the same Learned Person hath demonstrated Desence of his Discourse part 2. Chap. 4. p. 795 798. 1. From the judgment of the second Nicene Council in the Case of Meletius who was ordained by Arian Bishops and whose Ordinations were accounted valid by an Alexandrian Synod in their Synodal Epistle Eccles Hier. l. 2. cap. 10. § 9 which saith Petavius contains the faith received in the whole Church Catholick and in the Synodal Epistle of the first Nicene Synod which saith Petavius Idem App. To. 3. Eccl. Hier. l. 2. c. 3 § 4. determined that they who were constituted and confirmed by mystical imposition of hands should be received into the Communion of the Church and enjoy their functions with these provisions that they should be in every Church and Parish after those Bishops and Presbyters which were ordained by Alexander Bishop of Alexandria that they should have no power of electing whom they pleased nor of propounding of the names of those whom they thought fit to be chosen into the body of the Clergy 2. This he doth prove from a fuller testimony of the general sense of the Church of that age Hist Eccles l. 1. c. 28. recorded by Ruffinus concerning the admission of those who had received orders from the Arian Bishops to the exercise of their Priestly Office with which decree of the Alexandrian Council about the receiving the Arian Bishiops and Priests upon disowning their Heresie Adv. Lucifer init though Lucifer did quarrel yet Jerom saith that it was universally received by the Church This will be farther evident from the 7. Canon of the second General Council of Constantinople and from the 95. Canon of the Synod held at Trullo in both which Canons it is determined that the Arian Baptism should be esteemed valid Contra Epist Parmen lib. 2. c. 13. Sess 23. c. 4. Synod Ephes Epist ad Theod. Vale t Imperat Act. Synod cap. 7. Audemus Anathematizare Nestorii Idololatriam in homine 2 Nic. Concil Act. 7. Epist ad Constantinum Iren. Act. 1. p. 68. E. Haer. 80. n. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 10 Act. 1. p. 72. E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 1. p. 77. E. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 4. p. 236. A Act 6. p. 357. B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 1. p. 77. C. Act. 3. p. 160. D.E. and not to be reiterated and therefore as S. Austin doth infer they must esteem their Ordination also valid and not to be reiterated Because in the Sacrament of Orders as well as Baptism saith the Tret Council an indelible Character is impressed Moreover That the Nestorians were Idolaters hath been declared by the Church and yet their Ordination by the same Church hath been accounted valid saith the second Nicene Council That the Massaliani or Euchytae were worshippers of the Devil Epiphanius doth inform us and yet their Ordinations were allowed by the third General Council of Ephesus and it was there decreed saith the Second Nicene Council that as many of their Clergy as would renounce their Heresie and return to the Church should remain in the number of the Clergy Concerning the Heresie of the Iconoclasts it is determined by the members of the Second Nicene Council that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the worst of evils and of vHeresies What shall we esteem them saith Tarusius who sitbvert Sacred Images They must be counted saith the Synod as Atheists Jews and enemies of the truth They who reject them are like to Jews and Samaritans faith the same Synod and again if the making of Images be likened to Idols the mystery of our redemption is made void saith the same Council and yet this very Council doth determine that even these very persons who confessed that they were born and bred up in this worst of Heresies should be admitted into the Order of Priesthood which they had formerly received and doth accordingly admit them Moreover from the Trent Council I thus argue that power which is not Temporary and therefore never can be taken away continues with Idolatrous Priests and Bishops as well as with other Hereticks but according to the definition of the Trent Council that power which is given in the Sacrament of Orders impressing on the receiver an indelible Character never can be taken away For so they do expresly testifie in these words Because in the Sacrament of Order as well as Confirmation and Baptism a Character is impressed In Sacramento ordinis Character imprimitur nec delert auferri po Sess 23. 4. which neitehr can be blotted out nor taken away N.B. This holy Syned justly condemneth their opinion who hold that Priests of the New Testament have only a temporary power Lastly agreeable to this determination of the Trent Council is the determination of the Schools for that every Bishop is a Minister of Scred Orders is so true saith Estius In Sent. l. 4. dist 25. § 3. that no Crime how enormous soever as Heresie Schism Apostacy nor any censure how weighty soever as V.G. that of Excommunication can hinder the validity of any Ordination made by such a person even out of his own Jurisdiction provided he observe the due rites of Ordination in things essential to that Sacrament This doctrine saith he is sufficiently confirmed by the continual practice of the Church which never reordained any who returned from any Heresie or Schisin whatsoever in which they were ordained Men saith Petavius De Eccl. Hier. l. 2. Cap. 9. § â— may be deprived of the Communion of the Church of
all honour dignity function and power ecclesiastical as was the case of Anthimus the intruder into the See of Constantinople and may be censued as unfit to be accunted Christians which was the censure that Felix the Third and a Roman Synod past upon Acacius but when the Church by proscribing and condemning them hath taken from them all it can it cannot ake away the power of Baptism and Ordination and therefore the Church Catholick hath judged that they who were Baptised and Ordained by Hereticks and Schismaticks have both true Baptism and true Orders and hath rejected those that think otherwise as Hereticks which both innumerable Synods and Orthodox Fathers among whom Austin doth excel have proved against the Luciferians the Donatists the Arians and other Pests of the Church § IX There be some eminent Divines among us who are I hope not without reason more candid in their apprehensions of the Roman Church before the Reformation admitting it to have continued when Luther and his friends began their Reformation to have been a Church in which Salvation might be had not only for the ignorant but also for many others who did not openly renounce Communion with her That we yield no more to our Adversaries now than formerly we did Appendix part 3. p. 880. saith Dr. Field in that we acknowledge the Latine or Western Churches subject to Roman Tyranny before God raised up Luther to have been the true Churches of God in which a saving profession of the truth of Christ was found and wherein Luther himself received his Christianity Ordination and power of Ministry I will first shew that all our best and most renowned Divines did ever acknowledg as much as I have written Now that which doth induce them thus to judg was the consideration of these things 1. That notwithstanding those very many and very grievous errors which then obtained too generally and which were too much countenanced by the most powerful members of the Roman Church there still remained a profession and acknowledgment of so much truth as being joyned with Piety might be sufficient to bring her members to eternal life If at this day saith Bishop Vsher Sermon before his Majesty at Wansled p. 28. we should take a survey of the several professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world as of the Religion of the Roman and the Resormed Churches in our quarters of the Aegyptians and Aethiopians in the South of the Graecians and other Churches in the Eastern parts and should put by the points wherein they differ one from another and gather into one body the rest of the Articles wherein they all do generally agree we should find that in those propositions which without all controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is conteined as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Savlation neither have we cause to doubt but that as many as do walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded up by super-inducing any damnable Heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy Faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and mercy Which doctrine he confirms 1. from the constant practice of the Apostles in their first receiving men into the society of the Church For saith he in one of the Apostles ordinary Sermons we see there was so much matter delivered as was sufficient to convert men to the Faith and make them capable of Baptism and yet these Sermons treated only of the first principles of the Doctrine of Christ in these first principles therefore must the foundation be contained and that common unity of Faith Ibid. p. 20. which is required in all the members of the Church Again p. 16. As there is a common Salvation so is there a common Faith which is alike precious in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer for we may not think that Heaven was prepared for deep Clerks only and therefore besides that larger measure of knowledge whereof all are not capable there must be a rule of Faith common to small and great which as it must consist but of few propositions for simple men cannot bear away many so is it also requisite that these Articles should be of so much weight and moment that they may be sufficient to make a man wise unto salvation If then Salvation by believing these common principles may be had and to Salvation none can come who is not first a member of the Catholick Church of Christ it followeth that the unity of Faith generally requisite for the incorporating of Christians into that blessed Society P. 17. is not to be extended beyond these common principles Which may farther be made manifest unto us by the continual practice of the Catholick Church herself in the matriculation of her Children and first admittance of them into her Communion For when she prepared her Catechumeni for Baptism and by that door received them into the cougregation of Christs Flock we may not think her judgment to have been so weak as to omit any thing herein that was essentially necessary for the making of one a member of the Church Now the profession which she required of all that were to receive baptisin was for the Agenda or practical part an abrenuntiation of the Devil the World and the Flesh with all their sinful lusts and works and for the things to be believed an acknowledgment of of the Articles of the Creed which being performed solemnly she then baptized them in this faith intimating thereby sufficiently that this was that one faith commended to her by the Apostles Ibid. p. 17. as the other that one Baptisin which was appointed to be the Sacrament of it And that the creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholick Church was esteemed by the general suffrage of the Greek and Latine Fathers and the whole Antient Church See P tters answer to Charity Mistaken § 7. from p. 216. to 233. Mr. Chill c. 4. § 83 8â— Bishop Tayor diss part 2. l. 1. § 4. a sufficient Summary or Catalogue of fundamentals that even by the Trent Council the Trent Catechism and the best learned Romanists it is acknowledged so to be is very largely and convincingly demonstrated by many eminent Writers of our Church 2. They add that those prevailing doctrinâ—s which thwarted the great fundamentals of our faith and made salvation more difficult were indeed docrines strongly then prevailing in but not received and owned as Articles of Faith by all themembers of the Church of Rome Answ to Charity Mistaken § 3. p. 64 65. In the latter Ages before the Reformation saith Dr. Potter though the Court of Rome by cunning and violence had subdued many noble parts of Christendom under her yoke yet the servitude of that Church and her misery was somewhat more supportable