account which does honour enough to the Spirit and Wit of him that made it Would to God he would take as exact an account of his own Heart Our Sheet being full you shall have no Answer to these Juggles till the following Letters March 15. 1687. The FIFTEENTH PASTORAL LETTER AN Article of Antiquity The Birth of the religious Worship of Creatures in the Fourth and Fifth Ages The proofs of the Novelty of this Worship An Article An Answer to the Reasons of the new Converts on the Subject of Schism and Separation Dear Brethren in our Lord Grace and Peace be given to you from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ SInce we entred into the Fourth Age we found there three great Innovations Monnachism General Councils and the Hierarchy The fourth important Change which altered the form of the Church happening in the Fourth and Fifth Ages is the Worship of Creatures the Adoration of Relicks and the Invocations of Saints If there be any thing certain in the World it is that this Worship was wholly unknown in the preceding Ages and no man can give attention to those few Proofs that heretofore we have made thereof without being convinced of it 't is certain that we have seen the Occasions and if I may so say the Blossoms thereof in that excessive respect which they had for the Persons of their Confessors in the regards which they had for their Intercessions and in the care that they took to collect their Bones and to bury their Bodies honourably and this is it which gave occasion to the Pagans of accusing the Christians for worshiping their Martyrs as we have seen that the Jews of Smyrna did accuse the Christians thereof on the occasion of the Body of Polycarpus which they hindred from being given unto them This is that which caused the Pagans under the Persecution of Dioclesian to dig up the Bodies of those two Martyrs Dorotheus and Gorgonius and throw them into the Sea For fear saith Eusebius * Lib. 8. Hist Eccl. cap. 6. that if they continued in their Tombs they should be adored and taken for Gods according to the Opinion they had concerning us We have seen how the Christians of Smyrna and Eusebius who transcribes their Epistle did refute this calumny Moreover Eusebius saith in this last Passage According to the Opinion that they have concerning us This makes it appear that the Opinion was false They had therefore in the beginning of the Fourth Age a very great respect for the Tombs of Martyrs but 't was a thing unheard of to open them take out their Bones and put them in Chests and Boxes to the end that they might be scattered over all the World yea long before in the fourth Age St. Anthony being about to dye declared that it was his Will that his Body should be buried and not kept upon a Bed after the manner of the Egyptians Because says he 't is an affront and a Violation of the Laws not to bury the Bodies of the Dead how holy soever they might be These were the last Words of dying Truth for afterwards Men began to search all Places and to disinterr the Bodies of Saints The deceit of Priests the Innocence of the People and the malice of the Devil advanced this unhappy Superstition Persons ran about in the search of Relicks nor would they build any Temple or Church without them they feigned Visions and devious Dreams which revealed unto them where the Bodies of Saints were laid and they took the pretended Bodies of Apostles and Martyrs from their Tombs three hundred and four hundred Years after their Death As it was impossible that this foolish Superstition should not soon degenerate into Idolatry so it did not fail to come to pass for these Relicks drawn from their Tombs wrought Miracles these Miracles were ascribed to the Saints whose Relicks they were Men could not fail of invoking those Saints which they believed did work Miracles in favour of those who did venerate and honour their Relicks We see no sensible marks of the Invocation of Saints till after the year of our Lord 360 and the most ancient Authors that speak thereof are St. Ambrose and St. Basil not that we are not persuaded that the People the Authors of this Superstition did not practise it a long time before as in the time of St. Austin we observe the Worship of Images to have taken its birth by the Superstition of some ignorant People notwithstanding the generality of the People and Pastors did not suffer themselves to be carried away to this unhappy Idolatry till a long time after In like manner it may not be doubted but that from the beginning of the Fourth Age there were some ignorant Persons among the People who ran into excess in the respect which they gave to the Ashes of the Martyrs But the practice did not become universal till the Fifth Age and the Doctors and Teachers began not to be born down thereby till about the end of the Fourth And yet there was but little of it for in all the former part of the Fourth Age we see very few Monuments or Footsteps thereof in the Authors of those times but in the Fifth Age this Torrent ran with a prodigious swiftness in such a manner that in less than Fifty Years this Superstition became as it were the reigning Religion of the People Behold then a matter of Fact which we dispute not with the Papists 't is that about the end of the Fourth Age some Examples of the Invocation of Saints are seen and a great many more in the Fifth so that it is to no purpose that they quote to us Passages from S. Austin S. Basil Chrysostom and Theodoret to prove the Invocation of Saints in that Age for 't is a Point we do not dispute with them But we do maintain these Two things 1. That the Worship of Saints took its original from that of Relicks and that Men only invoked the Martyrs whose Relicks they had 2. That this Worship was new in that Age and that it was unknown in the Ages preceding The first Point will serve in what follows for a proof of the second which is the important Point we have to prove viz. The novelty of this Worship in the Fourth and Fifth Ages 1. We prove the novelty of this Worship by the silence of Christian Authors during the space of three Hundred or four Hundred Years 'T is a thing impossible that so many Writers having so much occasion to speak of the Martyrs and Saints and having said so much concerning them did never find it convenient to speak one word concerning the Worship and Honour that was to be given them after their death The lesser Doctors among the Papists such is that from whom Mr. Pelisson produces a Latin Fragment treat this negative Argument with Contempt but no Man of good Sense will treat it so and no wise Man will ever perswade himself that for the space of three
from Judaism but bred up in the Schools of the Greeks having suck'd the Spirit of Fables and Lies wherewith those two Nations are justly reproached forged the Oracles which he attributes to the Sybils he caused to enter there as Oracles of those ancient Prophetesses all that which he believed proper to support the Christian Religion and render it plausible to the Pagans The better to persuade the Greeks he there mingled their Fables and to please the Philosophers he entered their Dreams there making himself all things to all Men that he might gain some Among other Philosophick Dreams he inserts two in his Work The first was drawn from the Platonick Philosophy 'T was that there was a certain separate place into which he pretended the Souls of the Faithful were carried after death and where they were lodged till the Day of Judgment without enjoying the happy vision of God. The other was this that at the end of the World there would be a great Fire through which all Men must pass that should be saved An imagination which seems to have some likeness to the Stoick Philosophy which teaches that the World would be burnt after which it would return into the State wherein it was at the beginning and in a continual vicissitude pass through the same Revolutions and Changes Or rather 't is taken from what the Holy Scripture says that the World at last must be burnt by Fire We are not able to say how these two Opinions the one concerâ—â—ng the separate state of Souls and the other concerning the Torrent of Fire through which they ought to pass did readily diffuse themselves among those which had any Learning and read any thing besides the Sacred Volumes The Ancients good Men and credulous being ravished to find Books under the name of Pagan Prophesies which foretold the coming of Jesus Christ his Names his Passion the Circumstances of his Birth of his Life Death and Resurrection much more clearly than the true Prophets embraced with greediness what they found in these false Prophesies Justin Martyr who wrote well nigh in the same time that these false Oracles were forged falls into the persuasion that Souls after death are in a separate place where even in some sort they are subject to the Power and Persecution of the Devil From thence it comes to pass that he said it was the Devil that caused the true Samuel to ascend by the Charms of the Witch of Endor ‖ Dial. cum Tryph. For which reason says he when a person is near death you ought to pray that his Soul don't fall under such a power S. Ireneus Bishop of Lyons the most considerable Writer of this second Age was of the same opinion concerning this separate place where all Souls must be inclosed until the Day of Judgment without seeing the Face of God. * Advers Haeres lib. 5. He calls this place Paradise whither Enoch and Elias were transported but he also calls it Hades Hell and a place invisible Note that this Opinion is universally at this day rejected by the Papists and passes among them for an Error Pope John XXII having been accused to be of this Persuasion there was a terrible noise about it and he was forced to retract it Now this Opinion is the original of Purgatory For as we shall see afterward this place changes by little and little its-nature until at length they made of it a place of Torments and Punishments for the purging of Souls This separate state produced a little while after Prayer for the Dead which we shall see had its original about the beginning of the third Age. But whereof nevertheless we see nothing in the second unless it be towards its end On the contrary Justin Martyr tells us that we must pray for dying Souls to the end that in the place of their Separation they fall not under the Power of Devils He would not have failed to have added that we must pray for Souls after death to the end that we might draw them from under the power of Devils if Prayers for the dead had then been in use On the Subject of this praying for the Dead whereof they make such great boasts in Antiquity tell them these three things 1. That it was not in use in the first and second Age. 2. That the Reason why they began to pray for the Dead is very different from that which causes Prayers for them at this day At this day 't is to draw them from Purgatory then it was to the end that in the terrestrial Paradise or other place of Separation where they were God would increase their rest and joy for it was believed that they were there in the beginning of Happiness 3. To conclude tell them that these Prayers for the Dead are no important business in Religion and that they are not the Reason of our Separation After that press them to shew you in the second Age the least footsteps of this place of Torments whither penitent Souls must go after Death to pay the remainder of those punishments which they could not satisfie during their life Demand proofs from them that in this Age the Church prayed for Souls that they might quickly get out of torment and you will see them forced to confess that there are none I come to the Worship and Adoration of Creatures such as are Relicks Images the Blessed Virgin Saints and Angels They treat this as a small business we shall have occasion to prove to you one day that without running into any extravagance 't is a Pagan Idolatry But for the present we will content our selves to shew you that we do not find the least footsteps of these worships in the second Age wherein we now are If they did invoke Saints the Blessed Virgin and Angels if they had Images if they did kiss and adore Relicks let them shew it you let them cause you to read one Author that speaks of it Bellarmine hath the impudence to produce the words of Justin Martyr to prove the Worship of Angels We adore and venerate the Father and the Son which is come to us from him who hath taught us both us and others which follow him and the Army of good Angels by the Spirit of Prophecy c. Apol. 2. He refers the word we adored to that of Angels as if the design of Justin Martyr had been to say that they adored Angels Whereas he ought to refer Angels to the word teach his Sense being that Jesus Christ hath taught the Angels as well as us the Mystery of the Gospel according to what S. Paul says To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Eph. 3.10 It is so clear that this is the Sense of S. Justin that at this day none of your new Doctors dare quote these words to prove that they worshiped Angels in the second Age. This passage being
set aside let them produce you another Was there therefore no Saints in these Ages Had they no Martyrs Why did they not invoke the Apostles that had newly received their Crowns Why did they then neglect the Intercession of the Virgin Was it that her Credit was not well established in Heaven at that time and that she wanted time to obtain the Empire which at this day she possesses But why have the Authors of this Age been so impudent to say that they adore God alone and that they adore none but He Justin Martyr says speaking of Jesus Christ He hath taught us that we must adore but one only God when he said This the great commandment thou shalt worship God and him only shalt thou serve Apol. 2. And a little after having quoted those other words of Jesus Christ Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods He adds 't is for this reason that we adore but one only God. And as to what concerns you we give you our Services with gladness in all other things Let not your Eyes be dazled by crafty Tricks upon the word Adore as if Justin Martyr spake of Soveraign Adoration which they give to none but God according to your Converters for you ought to be advertised that he serves himself of the word Proskunoumen which signifies all sorts of Worship and Religious Service A word which signifies properly to prostrate our selves and wherewith the second Council of Nice serves it self when it appoints the Worship of Images So the sense is We do not prostrate our selves we do not give any Religious Worship but to God. See if they can say so at this day in the Church of Rome Theophilus of Antioch and Author of the same Age says * Lib. 1. ad Autol. The King will not that they call those Kings which command under him For King is his name and it is not permitted to another to take it So it is not permited to adore any other but God. St. Ireneus Bishop of Lyons speaking of the God which gave the Law †Lib. 5. cap. 22. It is he alone to whom the Disciples of Jesus Christ ought to perform worship c. And a little after The Law commands us to praise the Creator and serve him alone But hear a Testimony which will instruct you sufficiently concerning the opinions and practice of that Age about it They are the Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Polycarpus Bishop of Smyrna After the death of this Holy Bishop ⸫ Euseb lib. 4. cap. 15. his Church writ to that of Pontus an excellent Letter which is one of the most precious monuments that we have of Primitive Antiquity In this Letter the Believers of Smyrna having reported all the circumstances of the death of Polycarpus their Bishop say that the Devil used endeavours that our Brethren might not obtain his body which many among us did very much desire to the end they might participate of that sacred body Some therefore suggested to Nicetas Father of Herod and Brother of Dalces to go find out the Proconsul to advise him not to give us the body for fear say they that having abandoned Christ the Christians may come to Worship him it was at the suggestion of the Jews and at their pressing sollicitation that these Men thus represented the matter For they were the Jews that observed our Brethren when they endeavoured to take the body from the Pile of Wood. Fools which know not that we can never forsake Jesus Christ who hath suffered death for all those that must be saved nor serve any other For we Adore him as the Son of God and as for the Martyrs we love them and are kind to them as Disciples and imitators of the Lord because of the great love which they have shewn to their King and Master and we wish to be their Associates and fellow Disciples The Centurion therefore seeing the obstinacy of the Jews caused the body to be burnt upon the place according to the custom After which we gathered together his Bones more precious than the most precious Stones and more pure than Gold and laid them up in a convenient place In which place if it be possible for us and God permit it we will hold our Assemblies to Celebrate with joy and gladness the Birth day of his Martyrdom in memory of those who have undergone this glorious Combat and to instruct and confirm our descendents by such an example The passage is altogether such as we would wish for we there see all which we search after and what was the Religion of the ancient Christians with respect to Relicks and Saints and from whence began the Superstition and Idolatry which after appeared in the World. First of all you see that in the second Age they served no other but God we serve no other but God. Secondly That the Worship given to the Martyrs was a Worship of love and simple imitation we love them and have a kindness for them These people had lost all sense not to have added and we pray to them if so be they had them prayed to the Martyrs Thirdly That they had no regard to the merits of Saints and Martyrs nor did they pray to God to make us partakers of them we wish to be their Companions and fellow Disciples They might as easily have said as they say now adays we desire to be made partakers of their merits Fourthly That they did not assemble at the Tombs of the Martyrs that they might invocate and serve them but only with design to celebrate the Birth-day of their Martyrdom and the memory of their Sufferings It is an amazing stupidity not to have added and to recommend our selves to their prayers and intercession if any such thing had been in use Fifthly That they did not rend the Bodies of Martyrs in pieces nor distribute their Bones to fill Reliquaire's For they took the bones of Polycarpus and laid them in a convenient place that is to say they laid them honorably in a Tomb. In all this we see the innocence of the worship of the ancient Christians But in that which follows we see the first bloomings from whence afterward proceeded Idolatry 1. We see here an excessive love which Christians did shew towards the bodies of Martyrs they say that they are more precious than the most precious Stones and more pure than the purest Gold. 2. They assembled upon their Tombs and their burying places served them as Temples not simply through necessity for they might have assembled more conveniently in Houses but because they believed those places more Holy and more proper to excite Devotion because of the memory of the Martyrs 3. They Consecrated certain days to remember the Passion day of the Martyrs Indeed they did not Invoke or Pray to them but nevertheless this was done in their honor as we Celebrate the Birth-day of a Prince to whom we give no kind of
M. de Meaux I was tempted to believe that the Reformed of his Diocess had all fallen only under the fear of evil for I was not able to imagin that any one should write falsely concerning a matter of Fact whereof there are thirty or forty thousand Witnesses But behold the Letters which teach us what we ought to believe concerning it There are others by which it appears that all those Violences have been done in the Diocess of Meaux which have been committed elsewhere It is also known by an Eye-witness that M. de Meaux himself made use of the Kings Declaration to prevail with a sick person to Communicate which Declaration appoints that those who do not Communicate in their sickness shall be sent to the Gallies if they recover their health These things which precede are not reported but accidentally for we do not make it our duty to report to you the Violences and Cruelties that have been done and which shall be done if it be not in such degree and measure as shall be necessary to give you example of the courage and strength of our Martyrs For the design that we have in these Letters is not to irritate and provoke you against your Persecutors but to comfort and edifie you by the constancy of those which Suffer Upon this consideration and with this intention we will report some Histories which have been communicated to us which will learn you that thanks be to God our Enemies have not accomplished the cruel design which they had formed against us which was to hinder us from having Martyrs We ought not to refuse this Name and Honor to those which after they had been so weak as to sign I know not what form of Abjuration of our Religion have had the courage to raise themselves and to persevere even unto death in the profession of the Truth We owe also the same honor to those which are dead amidst the torments which the Dragoons and Persecutors have inflicted on them and which have persevered even to the last breath in the bold profession of the Truth To conclude it seems to me that without extending the signification of the word Martyr too far we may give it to those who after suffering long and cruel torments have seen death as very near them and have beheld it as certain without being the least shaken thereby So that without reckoning those that are dead by the hand of the Hangman or by the Sword of the Soldier formerly for the sake of Religion behold three sorts of Martyrs whereof we ought to have some estimation and of every one of these three Orders we will repoot unto to some Examples which have been writ unto us An Eye-Witness hath written to us that in a Village of Poictou called Gods Town Dannai an honest Man called M. Palmenteir after having suffered all the first violences by the Dragoons to wit Blasphemies Threatnings Plundering of all his Goods and other things of like nature not yielding was treated as you shall understand and in conclusion dyed amidst the torments The Archbishop of Bourdeaux returning from the Assembly of the Clergy at Paris about the end of the month September in the year past comes into the House of the said Palmenteir and asked the Dragoons why they had done their duty no better and whether there were no fire to warm this Gouty old Man After he had given this order he went up the Chamber on high and the Dragoons dragged the weak old Man out of his Bed full of the Gout for many years They dragged him on the floor they applied an Iron Plate red hot to the bottom of his Feet and to his Hands In this torment he uttered dreadful cries the Archbishop in the Chamber above laughed at it and diverted himself with it The Wife of the said Palmenteir came to the succour of her Husband they knocked her down with blows of their Daggers and the butt end of their Pistols she fell-into a Swoon In this estate they bathed her with two or three Buckets of Water This punishment being indured a long time this poor Man was so weak not to Abjure his Religion but to promise to use means for his instruction and information The Archbishop desired at least that he would sign this promise but the condition his hands were in not permitting him to move them the Archbishop signed for him and sent the writing to the Bishop of Poicters intreating him to send Missionaries to Convert this Family This poor sick person had no sooner consented to this Signature but he retracted it and caused a person to write to the Bishops that he had no need of instruction and would dye in his Religion In the mean time the Wounds of his burning wherewith he was covered all over grew to inflammation and resisted all remedies a Fever joyns it self thereunto and he dyed within a few days after bewailing without ceasing his weakness and repeating every moment those words of Psalm 51. God be merciful to me a sinner and repelling couragiously the temptations of a Carmelite and a Jesuite which persecuted him to the last breath I see no reason why we should refuse the honor of Martyrdom to this Man since he dyed confessing the name of God amidst the cruel Wounds that had been given him because he would not abjure it We ought not to refuse a place in the Catalogue of our Martyrs to M. de Villiers a younger Brother of the House Juigne a Family sufficiently known This Gentleman was arrested at Francy near to Bolonia indeavouring to save himself by flight They carried him to Calice from whence the Intendant sent him to Paris by the Provost where he was put in prison in Bishop-Fort there he continued from Jan. 8. till the 22. of August last During the whole time of his Imprisonment he preached by his actions and words after a manner the most efficacious in the world He was both Learned and Pious that he confounded all the Converters after a manner that edified the other Prisoners which suffered for the same Cause The chief President took the pains one day to come and see him They entered into Discourse but there was found that inequality betwixt him and Monsieur de Villiers that he was constrained to leave him saying what formerly a Cardinal said to Ariosto on occasion of his Poem called Orlando Furioso Oh God! where have you gotten so much Roguery An Answer well worthy the Gravity of a chief Magistrate about so serious an Affair M. de Villiers had to do with all sorts of persons Men of the Church and Men of the Sword assaulted him and he disingaged himself from all their Attacks always with an admirable success The inconveniences of the Prison caused him to fall into a Bloody Flux whereof he died at the end of six weeks During his Sickness they denyed him all commerce with the other Prisoners of his own Religion he saw none but Persecutors and Tempters But nevertheles
upon this folly and be ashamed thereof Be assured that every hand which gives you the true Doctrine is good in that respect the saving Remedy of Truth heals from whomsoever it comes Where is this pretended Unity of the Roman Ministry Where was this Ministry and this Unity of Ministry during the space of a hundred and fifty years in the Tenth Age and half the Eleventh a time in which Baronius and all the Roman Doctors do confess to us that the Popes were Monsters Ungodly Wicked Adulterers Magicians Poisoners Simoniacks and Blasphemers 'T is the Popish History it self which teacheth us this Was not this a very fine centre of Unity The Lines which proceed from this Centre to the Circumference were they not very clean The Rays which beam from such a Star do they not pour down benign Influences These were the Successors of the Apostles Blessed Successors They left what they did receive they gave one another an infamous Mission irregular and against the Canons by the Ministry of two Whores which ruled at Rome Behold the brave Vnity and Succession of this pretended Ministry What became of this glorious Unity of the Ministry in the time of the Western Schism when we saw for the space of fifty years a Pope at Rome and another at Avignon which damned one another of which one was the Vicar of Jesus Christ and the other of Antichrist who not only mutually damned each other but also thousands of millions of Men which lived in the different Obedience of Avignon and Rome What a fine thing was this to see two Centres of Vnity How finely at ease would Mr. de Meaux and his Collegues have been at that time they who speak so much to us of the centre of the Unity of the Ministry instead of one only centre to have had two Confess my dear Brethren that this Unity of Ministry is a foolish dream in it self yea vain in the Church of Rome who find it no more there than elsewhere The Church as all Societies in the World in its progress suffers a thousand changes in its form We may not imagine that the Ministry of the first Ages of the Church was constituted as that of this Age. The Bishops were neither Worldlings nor great Lords nor Plenipotentiaries nor Tyrants in the Church They were the first Presbyters and the perpetual Presidents of the Elders or Presbyteries who were of the same Order with themselves 'T is the Pride and Vanity of Man which hath made this distinction between the Bishop and the Presbyter 'T is the mystery of Iniquity which began to work even in the times of the Apostles The Presbyters were then so little distinguished from the Bishops that even the Clergy were not essentially distinguished from the People Remember my Brethren that which you have read in the eighth Pastoral Letter that in the time of Tertullian all the Laicks were accounted Presbyters and that it was permitted even to them to celebrate the Eucharist in private and in their Families So that this Unity of the Ministry could not depend upon I know not what external form for this external form hath changed perpetually until at length it degenerated into this Antichristian Power which is seen in the Roman Hierarchy This Unity is no more in Succession For we cannot find a Church which hath not suffered Interruption in its Ministry either by the Violences of Persesecutions or by the intrusion of false Pastors or by the Crimes and Vices of wicked Bishops If Mr. Bossuet were obliged to prove the Unity of his Ministry without interruption from Mr. St. Faron to himself he would it may be have something of trouble therein In what then consists the Unity of the Ministry In the Unity of Doctrine and Religion If the Bonzes of China and the Brachmans of India did preach the same crucified Jesus with my self and the same Christianity pure and without corruption they would have the same Ministry with me It would signifie very little with me from whence they derived their Succession whether from St. Thomas the Apostle or from another Thomas a Nestorian Heretick God has not tied Salvation to such and such hands nor hath he obliged us to a necessity of receiving the Gospel from some certain men rather than from others But enough concerning this Article of the Unity of the Ministry because 't is a matter which must be handled again when we come to dissipate the cheats and juggles by which your Converters endeavour to perplex you about the Character and Mission of those from whom we have received the Reformation If we would see a lamentable Desolation we must behold the Province of Languedoc Persons worthy to be believed lately arrived from thence do represent unto us this Desolation as one of the most hideous and frightful Objects which ought to have place in the Histories of these days It can never be well understood how the fury of false zeal should transport the Court to make a horrible Desart of one of the most lovely Territories of the Kingdom Cevennes and lower Languedoc are cover'd with Troops which find means to live where Turks would have died of Famine more than six months since after the Plunder Extortions and Wastes that have been made there that is to say after these miserable People had suffered those Oppressions which had drawn from them that little Blood that did remain so that Paleness Fear and Death may be seen written and engraven upon their countenances There are Villages and Towns wholly depopulate The Inhabitants that could not flee are guarded by Dragoons which carry them to Mass with Muskets and Swords in their hands and who at their coming out of the Church put them into Files that they may number them and see whether any be wanting yea or no. There are a great number that lye in Woods which have no other places of Refuge but Rocks no other Houses but Caves neither Nourishment but Roots of the Field because whereof they do better resemble Carkasses than Men. The City of Nismes have had experience of new Severities They have banished to the Islands and I know not whither beyond the Seas four hundred of its Inhabitants and they have hanged eleven and sent Prisoners the Heads of the chief Families M. Baudan la Cassaigne and others all eminent Persons to Carcassoon and Pierre An Cise Who can doubt but this is a just Castigation of that unworthy Action which the Country suffered to be extorted from them France did oblige a great number of men to give under their own hand that from henceforward they would do all the duty of good Roman Catholicks that they would be found no more at Conventicles that they would discover their Relations and Friends that they would Communicate and that if they failed in any of these things they intreated the King to chastise them severely for it Who doubts but such an Action as this is capable of bringing down the most terrible Judgments of
Hundred and sixty Years Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Ireneus Cyprian Eusebius Athanasius Hillary and so many others should not speak one word of this religious Worship of Creatures if it had been then in use Besides this negative Proof we make use of all those positive Proofs which we have proved from the Second and Third Age by which it appears that the Primitive Christians invoked none but God and that they did not invoke even Angels 'T is that which Origen hath plainly told us and 't is that which Ireneus had said before him * Iren. lib. 2. cap. 58. That the Church doth nothing by the Invocation of Angles nor by any other wicked Curiosity but by Addressing purely plainly and openly her Prayers to the Lord the maker of all things Among these positive Proofs we have seen some of them which formally tell us that the Church neither worships invokes nor adores Martyrs such is the Epistle of the Christians of Smyrna about the Martyrdom of Polycarpus Is it not therefore an amazing boldness in your Converters to mantain to you that there was no change in the Doctrine and Practice of the Church thereon in the Fourth Age 'T is clear that Men did not invoke Saints in the Third Age it is clear that they began to do it about the end of the Fourth it is therefore clear that a Change did happen But they will say where is the Author of this Change Where is the Innovator This Question is absurd 'T was not one single Person that introduced this alteration in Worship 't was the superstitious People the great respect which the People saw Men had for the Tombs of Martyrs carried some Dotards to advance that the Souls of Martyrs were about their Tombs And 't is apparently according to the conjecture of Albespinus that which the Thirty fourth Canon of the Council of Eliberis hath respect unto * Albasp Annot in Concil Eliberitan That we ought not to light up Torches in the day time in the Coemetaries lest we disturb the Spirits of the Saints They imagined that these Spirits fluttering about their Tombs might suffer inconvenience by the Smoak of Torches and Candles Is not this a pleasant Imagination S. Jerome writing against Vigilantius doth also say That the Souls of Martyrs love their Ashes hover about then and are always present with them We know that the Vulgar are naturally inclined to Superstition and 't is easie to conceive how the People instructed in such an Opinion should conceive an extraordinary respect for those places where were the Bodies and Souls of Martyrs And conceiving that these Souls which conversed about their Tombs had also the liberty of flying back to Heaven when they thought good it was very easie for ignorant People to fall into a perswasion that it was very good to recommend themselves to their care and intercession There was therefore no need of an Innovator or a new Preacher nothing more was needful but to let the People do as they pleased Mark this well all Heresies have been introduced by Doctors for there is need of Wit and Knowledg to innovate in Opinions but all Superstitions have been introduced by the People For nothing more is needful to become superstitious than Sottishness Simplicity and Ignorance therefore the Authors of Innovation in Doctrine may be observed for they are ordinarily single Persons but we cannot observe the first Innovators in matter of Superstition because they are the People But it will be said why did not the Doctors oppose themselves to the Superstition of the People First it is not true that the Doctors did not oppose themselves to Superstitions at their birth S. Austin and S. Jerome himself blamed the Superstitions which began to take place in their Age and which afterwards overcame all Contradiction But nevertheless 't is true that they did not oppose them as they ought to have done yea that they suffered themselves to be carried away with them as others did because that these Superstitions were established by little and little and that the beginnings which the Doctors did easily suffer because 't was but a small matter gave place to the toleration of that which was introduced afterwards which nevertheless was altogether intolerable To conclude 't is of little importance to us how and why the Doctors suffered themselves to be carried into Errors and popular Superstitions The matter of Fact is certain and ought to be indisputable by the proof that we have made thereof and by that which we shall make thereof in what follows Our Second Proof of the novelty of this Worship in the Fifth Age is that then Men did not invoke all the Saints as 't is done at this day yea they did not invoke those Saints which are most eminent such were the Apostles excepting S. Peter and S. Paul whose Relicks were believed to be at Rome others had no Churches Temples Memorials nor Persons devoted to them S. Basil the most ancient of all those which speak of the Invocation of Saints celebrates the Memory only of the Forty Martyrs that of Julitta and the Martyr Mamas In this Homily upon Julitta the Martyr there is nothing that teaches us they did invoke her In the Homily upon the Forty Martyrs he says indeed that Persons fled to them for refuge and that the pious Wife prayed there for her Children that she there desired the return of her absent Husband and his Health when he was sick First it appears that this was the Devotion of Women who are inclined to Superstition Secondly 't is not very clear that these Prayers were addressed to Martyrs for in the beginning these Prayers are addressed to the God of Martyrs with respect to the Merits and Sufferings of Martyrs to whom God would do Honour by Miracles 'T is true that in the Homily on the Martyr Mamas the Invocation of the Saint appears more express But observe that this Julitta this Mamas and these Forty Martyrs were obscure Saints and of little Reputation in comparison of the Apostles concerning the Invocation of whom S. Basil speaks not one word This is a strange thing and that whereof they know not how to give us a reason Make the same observation upon the Passages of S. Austin which they quote unto you for the Invocation of Saints He there speaks of the Invocation of S. Protais and of S. Garvais Good God! what Saints are these in comparison of S. Matthew and S. John. 'T is true that this Father speaks of the Invocation of S. Stephen the first Martyr But however eminent this great Saint was he was but a Deacon and we ought not to make him equal with the Apostles Nevertheless there appears no Invocation of the Apostles in the Writings of S. Austin I call not this a simple Proof 't is a Demonstration of the Novelty of this superstitious Worship If the Worship and Invocation of Saints were ancient if they were from the time of the Apostles why
the year 1606 was made the Treaty called the Pacification between Rodolphus Emperour and King of Hungary and Stephen Bothskey Kis-ma-ria The first Article whereof grants That the Reformed Hungarians should not in any thing be troubled in the exercise of their Religion and that all the Churches taken from them during the Troubles should be restored to them All the Kings of Hungary which have been since Matthias Ferdinand the Second and Ferdinand the Third have confirmed these Priviledges by their Declarations To conclude the present Emperour in the year 1655 when he was crowned King of Hungary confirmed by an express Declaration all that his Predecessours had done The eleventh Article of that Declaration concedes That for the Conservation of Peace amongst all the Orders and States of Hungary the business of Religion shall remain free without receiving any Disturbance according to the Constitution of Vienna and the Articles published before the Coronation in such sort that the exercise of Religion shall be entirely free for the Barons Lords Nobles free Citizens and generally for all Estates and Orders of Hungary as also for the Towns and Villages which will embrace it so that no person of what estate or condition soever may be hindered by his Majesty or other Temporal Lords in any manner or under any pretence whatsoever from the free use and exercise of the said Religion Things were in this estate in the year 1671 when a Jesuite named George Barze Titular Bishop of Warradine calling himself Counsellour to his Imperial Majesty published a Book with this Title Truth declared to all the World which makes it appear by three Arguments that his Imperial Majesty is not obliged to Tollerate the Lutheran and Calvinist Sect in Hungary It is easie to understand what a Work of this Title that has a Jesuite for its Author doth contain The design thereof was to justifie the Persecutions which had been already made against the Protestants of Hungary as well as those they were preparing to make For already a long time before the publication of this Writing some particular Lords had set up for cruel Persecutors Among others Francis Nadasti Paul Esthersiazy and many others at the instigation of the Priests and Jesuites had employed both fire and sword they had massacred the Reformed in their Churches hanged them up on the bars of their Church-doors and many others they had thrown head-long from Turrets The Arch-bishops Bishops and Popish Gentlemen had thus used them and also pulled down the Churches in the Countries which held and depended on them The free Cities and those who depended only on the Emperour were exempt from this storm but they shall have their turn on the occasion following Many great Hungarian Lords of the Popish Religion as the Nadasties the Serinies the Frangipanes joyn themselves to Francis Rakotsqui and took Arms against the Emperour for private Quarrels The Troops of Austria on this occasion entred into Hungary on the year 1670 and defeated these Rebels The Arch-bishops Bishops and Jesuites of Hungary thought they must not let slip the opportunities they now had to persecute the Protestants They served themselves of these insolent victorious Troops in all the free Cities to do the same Violences which had been done by particular Lords against the Reformed Without form of Process they took away their Churches they banished the Ministers they put them in Prison they massacred a great number they charged the People and even the Nobility with Taxes Souldiers and Garisons they offered a thousand and a thousand Violences to oblige people to change their Religion All the Ecclesiasticks every one by himself acted like unbridled Furies The Prisons were filled with these miserable Wretches the Churches were razed every-where in the most places there were horrible Massacres and even whole Villages burnt because they were wholly inhabited by Protestants they hung the Ministers at the Doors of their Churches There was one named John Baki a Minister of the Church of Comana who was burnt At Cassovia and Posonium they put to death a great number of persons of all Sexes of all Ages and all Qualities They banished all those whom they dare not kill In one word all Hungary became a place like Hell for the Reformed where death punishments and torments presented themselves every-where before their eyes To give some colour of Justice to these Violences they established a Chamber at Posonium made up of all such as were found most cruel Enemies to the Protestants They summon'd the people before they summon'd their Pastors hoping that they would fall the more easily by the Temptation and that fear would cause them to change their Religion those which appeared and supported themselves on their innocency were cast into Prisons oppressed with Fines persecuted after a hundred manners and constrained at last to change their Religion To those which had courage enough not to renounce the Truth they presented a Writing to be subscribed by which they made them promise they would forsake their Pastors that they would not protect them and that they would not oppose the Priests in taking possession of their Churches On which Condition they promised to let them live in peace in hope and expectation that the Spirit would enlighten and Convert them Some fell and made their subscriptions others perished through misery famine and torments in the prisons When they had thus subdued and abused the people they turn themselves to their Pastors they established three Chambers of Justice the one at Tinew and two at Posonium before whom they summoned at first a small number of Pastors of the Confession of Ausburgh They appeared to the number of thirty two or thirty three the 25th of September 1673 they presented them a Writing to be subscribed importing That it was their will and pleasure that they should say that to escape the sentence which might be pronounced against them for their Rebellion they did consent to one of these three things Either to Renounce all exercise of their Office for ever and to live as good Subjects privately in the Realm or to go voluntarily into Exile with promise never to return again into the Estates of the Emperour or to embrace the Catholick Religion in which case they might remain in the Kingdom and enjoy all sorts of Advantages there The providence of God permitted this unjust and altogether unrighteous procedure to the end that these poor accused persons might have an opportunity to justifie themselves from the Crime of Rebellion whereof they were accused Is it so that men used to proceed against those that are Traytors And has it been usual to punish them with a voluntary Exile or by a simple Renunciation of their Offices and Charges They did all that they could to oblige the Pastors to subscribe this Writing and the most part of them fearing death did subscribe confessing themselves culpable though they were innocent and went voluntarily into Banishment Section This attempt having succeed sufficiently well