therein referred to his Bishoprick Testis est dies bodierna Beati Petri Cathedra Episcopatus exposita in qua fidei merito revelationis mysterium filium Dei confitendo Praelatus Apostolus ordinatur In cujus confessione est fundamentum Ecclesiae nec adversus hanc Petram portae inferi praevalent St. Peter's Episcopal Chair which is shewn to this Day can testify this wherein by reason of his Faith when he confessed that Mystery that was then revealed even the Son of God he was ordained a Bishop In whose Confession is the Foundation of the Church neither shall the Gates of Hell prevail against this Rock 6. We read there that the Gates of Hell do not signify Errors as the Church of Rome will have it but the State of the Dead from whence the Faith which St. Peter hath professed delivers those who imitate him Let us pray saith he that the Souls of the deceased being brought up out of Hell the infernal Gates may not prevail over the Dead because of their Crimes which the Church believes are overcome by the Faith of the Apostle 7. We find there as in the Romish Mass an high Abjuration of the Doctrine of the Merit of Works And though we find the Word Merit often used in it yet we also meet with those necessary Explications of it as are sufficient to hinder any wrong Impression that may be made by a Word of an ambiguous sense 8. I do own that we find in it the Prayer for the Dead but there are a hundred other Passages which speak them to be in Peace in the Peace of God that they are at rest and other Expressions which very plainly import that they had not received the Notion of Purgatory no more than the Authors of the Roman Liturgy had at that time I know there are some Passages in it which seem to suppose the Souls departed to be in a place of Torment but I have two things to say to this Point the one is that those Missals whose Stile comes near to the Belief of the Church of Rome are of a later Date the other is that the ordinary Article pro pausantibus for those who are at rest imports nothing like a place of Torment To these two Considerations we may add That what is ordinarily requested for them is either that they may have a part in the first that is to say a more early Resurrection which is the same with the Opinion of the Millennium or that they may be written in the Book of Life or carried into Abraham's Bosom which shews that the State of Souls after Death was not more certainly determined by those who governed these Churches at this time than by the Members of the Catholick Church any where else We read that there are divers Flocks whereof each Bishop is the Pastor as well St. Cyprian as Cornelius Indeed we find that to every Bishop is given the Title of summus Pontifex and summus Sacerdos Grant unto us Lord who this Day are celebrating the Anniversary of the Decease of thy high Priest and our Father Bishop Martin We see there the manner of administring Baptism with the Unction or anointing called the Chrismation but we do not find that they made two Sacraments of them as the Church of Rome has since done We find there also the Consecration of Wax Tapers but yet without ascribing to them all those Virtues which the Church of Rome attributes to her consecrated Tapers in the Roman Order But I go on to that which is most considerable in this Liturgy Mabillon who hath published it in France according to the Copy printed at Rome pretends that it expresly shews that the Churches which made use of this Liturgy held the Doctrine of the Real Presence If instead of some Passages that he quotes we could find there a precise Order for adoring the Sacrament after Consecration as being become the Body of Jesus Christ which we do not find in any part of it there would indeed be some ground for his Pretension but there is not so much as a Word to this purpose which makes it evident that in these Diocesses they had not received this Doctrine nor the natural Consequences of it any more than in any other part of the Catholick Church for we find that as soon as ever this Opinion was entertained it was immediately followed with supreme Adoration Neither do we find any thing therein of the Sacrifice of the Mass any more than of the Adoration of the Sacrament which is another Consequence of the Real Presence We do not find any Masses there without Communicants St. Caesarius whom I have already cited would have accounted them ridiculous and a mere Profanation Lastly We do not find that the Communion under one kind was there thought to be a Consequent as it hath been in the Church of Rome of the Real Presence And yet one would think that the Fear of prophaning the Blood of Jesus Christ as being very subject to be spilt ought to have obliged them to take the same Precautions as the Church of Rome has since done to prevent such dreadful and yet such common Inconveniencies If Mabillon had well considered these essential Defects which a Papist cannot but naturally meet with in this Gothick Liturgy in all Appearance he would not have been so lavish of his Judgment But without making use of these just Anticipations upon the matter in hand let us consider a little whether the attentive Examination of the Liturgy be not sufficient to clear these Prejudices and oblige him to put another sense upon the Words which he hath wrested to confirm his Assertion The Characters we meet with in this Liturgy are these 1. It makes a great Distinction between that which is taken with the Mouth and that which is received by the Heart Grant O Lord that what we have taken with our Mouths we may receive with our Minds and that the temporal Gift may be to us an eternal Remedy This Observation is decretory for the Transubstantiators own that both Good and Bad receive the Body of Christ Goffridus Vindocinensis expresly asserts it notwithstanding that St. Augustin has rejected it as a great Absurdity 2. It supposeth likewise that Jesus Christ is above the Heavens and that he is no otherwise near to us than by the Communion of our Nature which he hath taken to himself Vt qui te consortem in carnis propinquitate laetantur ad summorum Civium unitatem super quos corpus assumptum evexisti perducantur That they who rejoice to see thee their Brother in the Nearness of thy Flesh may be brought up to the Unity of those highest Citizens above whom thou hast carried up thy assumed Body 3. It supposeth the Sacrament to be only a Commemoration We remember thy Suffering and thy Body broken for the Remission of our Sins Which is a plain Allusion to the Words of St. Paul
in his Notes upon Agobardus and is lately reprinted by the same Author The words of Odo Aripertus who relates the matter translated run thus The Peace therefore being severally ratified and sealed by the King and Earl with the Blood of the Eucharist Bernard Count of Tholouse came from Barcelona to Tholouse and did Homage to King Charles in the Abby of St. Saturninus near Tholouse Mabillon acknowledges that this was not a Fact without Example Now let any Man imagine if he can whether People that believe Transubstantiation would ever have been capable of such a Profanation of the Blood of Jesus Christ or whether the Monks in whose Abby the thing was done would ever have suffer'd it had the thing appear'd as horrible unto them as it must of necessity appear to those who defend the Opinion of the Church of Rome I shall conclude this Chapter with giving an account of that courageous Opposition which the Bishops of Aquitain and Narbon made in the year 876 in the Council of Pontyon against the Enterprizes of Pope John VIII who being back'd by the Emperor Charles the Bald had a mind to subject all the Bishops of France and Germany to Ansegisus Archbishop of Sens as their Primate but at the same time as to his Vicar that he might execute his Decrees and inform him of the most important Affairs of those Churches which he pretended ought to be decided and ended at Rome which if so would have abolished the Power of Synods and Metropolitans This was in a manner the last considerable Effort they ever made to preserve their antient Discipline for soon after the Popes knew to manage the Kings that stood in need of them in Italy so well that by little and little they at last gained the Point and so made themselves absolute the Synods and Metropolitans retaining only an empty Name without almost any Authority at all CHAP. X. The State of these Diocesses in the Tenth Century WE are now come to the Tenth Century in which Ignorance and Barbarism overwhelm'd well nigh all the West and the Church of Rome fell at the same time into such monstrous Corruptions that those who have wrote the History thereof do not mention it without Horror I don't intend to make any stop here in alledging Proofs for what I say from the concurrent Testimonies of Genebrard Baronius and other Doctors of the Church of Rome 'T is a thing not deny'd by any one that hath ever heard speak of the History of the Church and hath been particularly set forth by Gerbertus Archbishop of Rheims who was afterwards advanced to the Papacy But yet in the mean time whatever the Corruption may have been which was scatter'd elsewhere we have good ground to believe that it had not quite stifled the antient Doctrine and Religion of these Diocesses which may be easily made out by the following Observations 1. I own that we find in the Writings of Odo the first Abbot of Clugny who was born in Aquitain some Expressions which import that he inclin'd to the Opinions of Paschasius as appears in his Collations which might make one judg that this Notion began then already to be propagated in Aquitain whose Duke William was the Founder of Clugny But we must here take notice of two things The first is That the antient Customs of this Monastry do plainly show that when this Congregation was founded those who were the Authors of these Customs were not of Paschasius's Opinion This is evident from chap. 30. of the second Book and from chap. 28. of the third The second is That though Odo might have entertained this Opinion of Paschasius concerning the carnal Presence of Jesus Christ yet we may easily observe that he never owned the Consequences of it For we find in the Relation of the Death of this Odo who died at Rome in the year 942 that he received the Eucharist but there is no mention made of any Adoration that he paid at his receiving it 2. We are to observe that in this Description of Odo's Departure which was made by one of his Disciples we meet with neither Confession before the receiving of the Eucharist nor the receiving of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction which are sufficient Proofs that he knew nothing of these Sacraments 3. It appears by the Writings of Gerbertus who was educated in the Monastery of Aurillac what was the Faith of this Diocess He had been the Tutor of Robert Son to Hugh Capet who raised him to the Archbishoprick of Rheims in the year 991 in the room of Arnulphus who was deposed He hath writ an Apology for the Council which deposed Arnulphus wherein he gives full evidence what esteem he had for the Pope and how little he believ'd the Papacy necessary to the Church not only because of the Vices of the Popes of his time but also for several political Reasons which engage every Church not to subject themselves to a foreign Power Suppose saith he that by the warlike Incursions of barbarous Nations there be no way open for us to go to Rome or that Rome it self being become subject to some barbarous Prince be at his Pleasure made part of his Kingdom shall we in this case be reduc'd to the necessity of having no Councils at all or shall the Bishops of the World to the loss and ruin of their own Kings expect the Advice and Counsels of their Enemies for the Management of the Affairs of Church and State We may see another Assertion of his in a Letter to Seguinus Archbishop of Sens I do resolvedly affirm That if the Pope of Rome himself should sin against his Brother and being often admonished should not hear the Church that this same Pope of Rome ought to be look'd upon as a Heathen and Publican Whereupon Baronius exclaims Here is a Sentence indeed worthy only to proceed from the Mouth of some great Heretick or of some most impudent Schismatick which abrogates all sacred Councils at once cuts the Throat of Canons strangles Traditions and treads under foot all the Rights of the Church that it seems impossible that a Catholick should ever dream of such things much less so saucily utter and assert them We may also gather from the subsequent Words whether or no he conceiv'd Communion with the Church of Rome to be of absolute necessity If he the Pope of Rome do therefore judg us unworthy of his Communion because none of us will comply with him in his Anti-evangelical Sentiments yet he cannot separate us from the Communion of Christ seeing a Priest ought not to be removed from his Function except he have confest or be convict of the Crime laid to his charge especially when the Apostle faith Who shall separate us from the Love of Christ And again I am certain that neither Death nor Life c. And what greater Separation can there be than to debar any Believer from the Body and Blood of the Son
your Country in Sheeps Clothing being indeed a ravenous Wolf But according to the Hint given by our Lord we know him by his Fruits The Churches are without People People without Priests Priests without due Reverence and lastly Christians without Christ The Churches of Christ are looked upon as Synagogues the Sanctuary of God is denied to be holy Sacraments are no longer esteemed sacred holy Feasts are deprived of festival Solemnities Men die in their Sins Souls are frequently snatch'd away to appear before the terrible Tribunal who are neither reconciled by Repentance nor armed with the sacred Communion The Life of Christ is denied to Christian Infants by refusing them the Grace of Baptism nor are they suffered to draw near unto Salvation though our Saviour tenderly cries on their Behalf Suffer little Children to come unto me This Man is not of God who acts and speaks things so contrary to God and yet alas he is listned to by many and has a People that believe him O most unhappy People at the Voice of an Heretick all the Voices of the Prophets and Apostles are silenced who from one Spirit of Truth have declared that the Church is to be called by the Faith of Christ out of all the Nations of the World So that the Divine Oracles have deceived us the Eyes and Souls of all Men are deluded who see the same thing fulfilled which they read before to have been foretold which Truth though it be most manifest to all he alone by an astonishing and altogether Judaical Blindness either sees not or else is sorry to see it fulfilled and at the same time by I know not what Diabolical Art perswades the foolish and senseless People not to believe their own Eyes in a thing that is so manifest and that those that went before have deceived those that come after have been deceived that the whole World even after the shedding of Christ's Blood shall be lost and that all the Riches of the Mercies of God and the Grace of the Universe are devoted upon those alone whom he deceives Pope Eugenius finding things in this Posture names Albericus Bishop of Ostia for his Legat to the People of Tholouse and to the Count of St. Gilles Baronius in his Annals gives us an Account of this Henry the Disciple of Peter de Bruys and his Death in the Year 1147 which seems to be very exact because St. Bernard writ to the Count of St. Gilles to exhort him to drive Henry out of his Country where he preached his Doctrine very freely But the Earl died in the Holy Land having been poisoned there as it was said by the Queen Wherefore in the Year 1147 Henry suffered Martyrdom at the Sollicitation of St. Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux by the Cruelty of Albericus Bishop of Ostia Cardinal and Legate of Pope Eugenius II at Tholouse where he caused him to be burnt after they had brought him thither loaden with Irons Baronius sets down with great Care whatever he thought might blemish the Reputation of the Martyr He relates all that St. Bernard wrote against him to Aldephonsus Earl of St. Gilles He quotes St. Bernard who calls Henry an Apostate Monk and accuseth him of having made use of the great Talents he had in Preaching as a means to get Money to spend at Gaming and upon his Lusts He says that Henry was a Man defiled with Adulteries who for his frequent Crimes durst not appear in several Parts of France and Germany and who by Consequence was not to be indured in the Territories of the Count of St. Gilles but yet he doth not lay any thing of Manicheism to his Charge no more than Peter de Clugny and St. Bernard Nay Baronius does more for he formally distinguisheth him from those Hereticks whom St. Bernard opposed under the Name of Apostolicks in his 66 th Homily upon the Canticles How then could the Bishop of Meaux make a Manichee of him Perhaps the loose Life whereof St. Bernard accuseth him may be a Character of it But not to undervalue the Vanity of this loose Accusation without any Proof and proceeding from a sworn and cruel Enemy which was quite overthrown by the couragious Martyrdom of Henry At this rate the Clergy of the Church of Rome who were so generally guilty of Sodomy that St. Peter Damian writ a Book intituled Gomorrhaeus must have been Manichees and upon the same Ground Johannes Cremensis a Cardinal the Pope's Legate in England for abolishing the Marriage of the Priests must likewise have been a Manichee for the English Historians say that this Holy Cardinal having assembled a Synod at Westminster wherein he represented to the Priests that it was the worst of Crimes to rise from a Whore to consecrate the Body of Jesus Christ was himself surprized in Bed with a common Whore the same Day that he had said Mass Upon this Account also the Legats of Anacletus the Competitor of Eugenius II must have been Manichees for they are taxed with carrying Women along with them in Mens Habits probably to avoid the Inconvenience that Johannes Cremensis fell into in England for want of taking this Care before-hand They charge Henry with the same Heresies which they attributed to Peter de Bruys so that what I have already said concerning the Heresies of the Petrobusians I need not repeat here Baronius adds I confess that Henry had superadded to these Heresies this Proposition Additis irrideri Deum Canticis Ecclesiasticis That the Singing in Churches was but a mocking of God And accordingly Peter de Clugny refutes this pretended Heresy with a great deal of Earnestness But if I may speak my Opinion in this matter neither did this Proposition contain any great Crime For 1 st Singing in general was owned by Isidore as an Innovation It was about 70 Years before that the Popes had abolished the ancient Liturgies to substitute the Roman Liturgy The Gothick Liturgy which was used in the Diocess of Languedock and other neighbouring Diocesses which at that time depended on the Kings of Spain had been suppressed because it was not over-favourable to the Opinions of the Church of Rome 2 dly They had at the same time introduced a sort of riming Verses which they call Proses so ridiculous so foolish and so full of Novelties both as to the Worship of Saints and as to the fabulous Stories they contained that it was very difficult for those who looked for Wisdom in their Prayers not to take them for Profanations The Hymn composed by King Robert in Honour of Queen Constantia may give us an hint what sort of things they were O Constantia Martyrum c. And now let any one judg whether Henry was a Manichee because he condemned this sort of Profanations This also is what hath been owned by Mezeray in his Chronological Abridgment of the History of France printed at Amsterdam in 1673 where upon the Year 1163 he saith That there were two sorts of Hereticks
had reduced them to the single Canon which they pretended was the best Piece of the Mass where he proved that the Holy Supper of the Lord was not the Mass saying that if the Mass were the Lord's Supper there would be all after Consecration that there was before in the Lord's Supper Whereas said he in your Mass there is no Bread for by Transubstantiation the Bread vanisheth wherefore the Mass being without Bread cannot be the Supper of the Lord wherein all know there is Bread Jesus Christ brake Bread Saint Paul brake Bread the Priest breaks the Body not Bread therefore the Priest neither doth what Jesus Christ nor what St. Paul did As Arnaud was about to proceed in these Antitheses between the Lord's Supper and the Mass to prove that it was neither of Christ's nor of the Apostles Institution the Monks Bishops Legats and Priests thought fit to withdraw themselves being resolved to hear no more for fear they might fix Impressions on those that were by which might extreamly shake their Belief of the Mass The Monk of Vaux Cernay indeavoured to render this Action suspected in saying that when these heretical Judges perceived the Weakness of their Cause and the Misfortune of ingaging in such a Dispute they refused to pronounce any Judgment concerning it as likewise to restore us our own Writings for fear adds he they might come to be published but restored the Hereticks theirs But how could two of the Pope's Legats and so many Bishops Abbots Monks and Priests suffer themselves to be drawn into a Place there to be thus abused and trick'd The Monk himself saith in the same place that the Heads of the Hereticks came to meet with the Catholicks at the Castle of Montreal to dispute with them the Catholicks therefore were in Possession of the Castle there could be therefore no Opportunity of foul Play nor of any such Violence neither was it necessary that the Moderators should pronounce their Judgment in a Case of Dispute seeing they hold that no other Judgment is necessary but that of the Pope who cannot err Besides how could this Monk know that the Albigenses were overcome seeing that no Sentence was given Perrin could have given us a faithful Extract of this Conference because himself observes that it had been brought to him from the Albigenses by Mr. Rafur Minister of the Church of Montreal in an old Manuscript From whence though he doth not express it in so many Words I judg that he reduced the Points in Question between the Albigenses and the Church of Rome to six Articles I. Article The Doctrines which they asserted in opposition to the Church of Rome were That the Church of Rome was not the Holy Church nor the Spouse of Christ but that it was a Church which had drunk in the Doctrine of Devils the Whore of Babylon which St. John describes in the Revelations the Mother of Fornications and Abominations covered with the Blood of the Saints II. That the Mass was neither instituted by Christ nor his Apostles but a humane Invention III. That the Prayers of the Living are unprofitable for the Dead IV. That the Purgatory maintained in the Church of Rome is no better than a human Invention to satisfy the Avarice of the Priests V. That the Saints ought not to be prayed unto VI. That Transubstantiation is a human Invention and erroneous Doctrine and that the worshipping of the Bread is manifest Idolatry That therefore it was necessary to separate from the Church of Rome in which the contrary was said and taught because one cannot assist at the Mass without partaking of the Idolatry there practised nor expect Salvation by any other means than by Jesus Christ nor transfer to Creatures the Honour which is due to the Creator nor say concerning the Bread that it is God and worship it as such without incurring the Pain of eternal Damnation because Idolaters shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven For all these things therefore which they asserted they have been hated and persecuted to Death This Account of the Conference of Montreal which I have copied from Perrin is enough in my Judgment fully to refute any Scruple that might remain in the Mind of a Reader who reads in Roger Hoveden the Letters of Peter Cardinal of St. Chrysogon writ in the Year 1178 which testify that the Manichees of Tholouse had been convicted by the Confession which many of them had made of the greatest part of the Articles of that Heresy It is very visible that it was upon the Authority of these Letters or upon some Informations of this Nature that Alanus who was born at Lisle in Flanders and who had spent the greatest part of his time at the University of Paris has built his Catalogue of the Heresies which he refutes in his Treatise against the Albigenses whereof I have given an Extract in the foregoing Chapter So that it is necessary to suppose one of these three things Either that the Earl Raymond of Tholouse and those whom he protected were really Manichees as they are accused to be by the Pope's Legats by the Bishops and by Peter of Vaux Cernay who sets down this Accusation and the forced Confessions of the Albigenses who own themselves to be Manichees or that the Albigenses who were the Disciples of Peter de Bruys and of Henry that were no Manichees had gone over to that Sect towards the End of the 12 th Century and afterwards again become Petrobusians and Henricians at the Beginning of the 13 th as it plainly appears they then were from the Conference of Montreal where they freely proposed their Opinions intirely opposite to Manicheism or that the Legats and Monks that persecuted them with Fire and Sword were great Impostors in taking Advantage against them from some Confessions extorted from Manichees who were here and there scattered in those Diocesses and which they made use of to animate the People of the Roman Communion and to ingage the Princes and Bishops of all places to exterminate without Mercy a sort of People who utterly subverted all the Rules of Morality which is the Band of Society and all the Principles of both natural and Christian Religion CHAP. XVIII Reflections on the Convictions of Manicheism which were said to be proved upon the Albigenses ONE of the most plausible Objections that can be made against the Purity of the Faith of the Albigenses is the Testimony of the Inquisitors who have filled their Trials with plain Confessions which several Albigenses judged and condemned by them have made of sundry Errors of the Manichees I shall produce an Extract of the Acts of the Inquisition of Tholouse which are in the Hands of Mr. Wetstein Bookseller at Amsterdam as it was sent me out of Holland and which was made by a Man of great Reputation The Albigenses saith he held some Opinions in common with the Vaudois as That to a Christian all Oaths are unlawful that the Confession of Sins made