Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n
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A58486
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Remarks by way of advertisement upon the Bishop of Grenoble's letter to the clergy of his diocese, concerning their behaviour towards the new-converts together with the lettter it self.
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1687
(1687)
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Wing R928; ESTC R33990
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7,006
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16
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REMARKS By way of ADVERTISEMENT Upon the Bishop of Grenoble's Letter TO THE CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE Concerning their Behaviour towards the New-Converts Together with the Letter it self LONDON Printed for T. Jones 1687. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER THE following Letter has made so great a noise in France and other parts beyond the Seas for more than these five Months past since it was first published by the Illustrious Author who is a Bishop of the Roman Church that I have wonder'd it has not in all this time appear'd in an English dress till the other day especially since the Press and the Publick have been so long pester'd with swarmes of Insipid as well as Malicious Pamphlets from Persons of that Communion which daily flye abroad and serve for no other end but to expose the Folly or Wickedness of the Writers and therefore I have some reason to be confident that this excellent Letter which is now sent into the World in our own Language will be the more welcome because the Instructions contained in it and the Inferences that may be drawn from them together with the Merit and Character of the Author are of great use to give us a right Information in matters of the highest Importance which hitherto have not been of such clear and unquestionable Credit And because the Age wherein we live seems to be made up of Contradictions there are two Things which will not be ingrateful to the Reader to take notice of and which will farther serve to commend the Letter and to Apologize for the present Publication of it The one is The great Opposition it has met with from the Jesuits who have endeavour'd all they could to suppress it and the other is The Kings Approbation of it who upon the reading it was pleas'd to say He saw nothing in it but what was very Innocent Which shews who are the Authors of those Severities that have been of late us'd against the Protestants in France and that the Grand Lewis himself by whose Authority they Act has not so wholly divested himself of all Principles of Humanity but in his private Judgment he condemns those Proceedings to which it may be presum'd his Consent has been extorted by these Mens Importunity The Conformity of those Rules in the general to the Doctrine of the Gospel which this Reverend and most Worthy Prelate here lays down for the Direction of his Clergy how to behave themselves towards the New Converts and the Contrariety they bear for the most part to the constant Doctrine and Practice of the Roman Church as it is a plain Demonstration that their Church even in the Opinion of some of her chiefest Members is not Infallible in all her Determinations and that she stands in great need of a Reformation which as I am very well assured is heartily wish'd as it has been in part attempted by the Author of this Letter so it gives apparently the lie to some late Writer of the French Nation Instances of this Contrariety are so visible that they appear at first sight without any wresting or forc'd Interpretation in every Article of the Letter In the First and Second Articles the Bishop in Obedience to the Command of our Saviour and his Apostles and in conformity to the Universal Practice of the Primitive Church would have the Scripture at least the Epistles and Gospels and the Publick Prayers read to the People in the Vulgar Tongue whereas nothing is more strongly pleaded for or more strictly injoyn'd and observed in the Church of Rome than the contrary practice The Third Article concerns especially the Bishop of Meaum and his Disciples and some late Representers of our own Nation who have found no way so effectual to gain Proselytes as to disguise the Tenets of their own Church which have so horrid an Aspect of themselves that they would make any Man of common sense afraid to look upon them and therefore they must be new drest up and made to come so near to that which they call Protestant Heresie that the one can hardly be distinguisht from the other and when the turn is served and the man by this means is perswaded to be of their Religion then off goes the Vizard and there is no more believing your own Senses but you must believe as the Church believes and like those Men who have had an old painted Strumpet imposed upon them for a Wife instead of a young Beautiful Virgin you must resolve to be pleas'd with your New Religion with all her Deformities The Fourth Article is a Rejection and Condemnation of several important Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome as first the Worship that is given to Saints and Angels and the Prayers that are made to them is here absolutely condemned as vain insignificant and superstitious and every thing else that is contrary to the truth and sincerity of that Worship and Adoration which belongs to God only Secondly It condemns the Romish Doctrine of the Merit of Good Works and Supererogation by teaching us to place our Confidence in the Sole Merits of Christ which is the true and saving Doctrine of the Gospel and of the Reformed Churches And lastly It condemns that common belief in the Church of Rome and all those Pilgrimages that are undertaken upon that account that there is a particular and extraordinary Virtue in Images and Relicks and a Vertue peculiar to some Images of the same Saint more than there is in others as is notorious to all the World in the different regard that is had to the Images of the Blessed Virgin at Loretto Hall Namur and other places The Fifth Article condemns that empty and ridiculous way of Preaching which is so common among the Priests of the Roman Church and which is made up of nothing else but either Sottish and Ill-contriv'd Stories of pretended Miracles or else of Invectives without any solid or convincing Arguments against the Reformation The Sixth Article condemns the Barbarities that have been exercised in France against the Protestants and the new Mission of Dragoons which has been sent into all parts of the Kingdom to ruine them in their Estates to torment them in their Bodies and so to convert them by forcing them against their Consciences to set their hands to a prescribed form of Abjuration which as I said before gives apparently the lie to some late French Authors as Maimbourg for example who has the Confidence to publish to the World in his Epistle Dedicatory to the King which is before his Life of Gregory the Great that there has been nothing but sweet and gentle Methods us'd to bring over the Protestants to the Catholick Church and that his Majesty had found out the secret of Constraining his Subjects without violence to be of his Religion The Seventh Article is a Confirmation of what is observed upon the former and gives us sufficiently to understand that among the great Numbers they boast of who have abjured their
Religion wherein they had been Educated there are but very few sincere Converts by their not coming to Mass and refusing to participate of any of their Sacraments when they are not compell'd to it which the Bishop in this and in the 8th and 11th Articles condemns and by their taking all Opportunities to leave their Native Country and to seek for Relief and Protection among Strangers where upon their Repentance they may be again receiv'd into the Communion of that Church from which through Fear and Cowardâ—se they had Apostatiz'd as appears by the vast numbers who daily come out of France and take Sanctuary in England Holland Suitzerland and other Protestant Countreys The Ninth Article is an Insinuation of the Abuses that are committed in Auricular Confession and the Impurities which usually accompany it and which are almost inseparable from it when one of the frail Sex is forced upon pain of Damnation to lay open her own shame with all the Circumstances that attended her sin and especially when the gentleness of a favourable Pennance is made a fresh encouragement to her for the Repetition of the same Crime The Twelfth Article is a Condemnation of that barbarous Inhumanity which has been and is still practised all over France towards the dead Bodies of those pretended Converts who refus'd their Sacraments before their death by dragging them about the Streets and not suffering their Friends to bury them but carrying them into the Fields and there setting a Watch over them till they are devour'd by Dogs and other ravenous Creatures A Practice unknown to the most barbarous Nations who never extended their malice even to their greatest Enemies beyond death and which nothing but a Religion that delights in nothing but Cruelty could ever prompt Men to The remaining Articles are an earnest Exhortation of the Clergy of that Diocese to whom the Letter is particularly addressed to painfulness and watchfulness in the discharge of their Duty to meekness forbearance condescention and a Universal Love and Charity which shews that the Author is a Person of a truly Evangelical Spirit and deserves a better fate than to live any longer in the Communion of that Church which is by its very Essence and Constitution apt to inspire its Members with Principles of a quite different and contrary Nature Those things which the Reverend Author mentions as having been constantly of Faith and the Belief of his Church in opposition to the Doctrine of the Schools I must beg his Eminencies leave to say that it will hardly be proved that they were always the Faith of his Church and that his meaning is he wishes they had always remain'd in the same Purity wherein Christ and his Apostles left them And now let N. Thomson who was the first Publisher of this Letter in English make the most of it he can for the honour of his Church which besides a little respect to his own gain was the main design of Printing it in English nor is it to be doubted but his Translation is as Catholique as the letter it self But I have one word of Advice to him and then I have done That when he publishes a Second Edition of it he would alter the Title and call it A Catalogue of some Corruptions of the Roman Church both in Doctrine and Practice by an Author of that Communion A COPY OF A LETTER OF Cardinal Camus BISHOP and PRINCE of GRENOBLE TO THE CLERGY of his DIOCESE Concerning the Conduct they are to observe with regard to the New-Converts SIR THough I have sufficiently declared to you in our last Synod the Method I would have you use in my Diocese with respect to the New-Converts nevertheless I have thought good to set down in Order the principal things to which I think you ought to give a more particular attention 1. You are to explain every Sunday the Gospel or Epistle for the Day after having read it distinctly in the French Language out of the time of Divine Service And that you may be the better qualified to instruct those that are under your Care you are to apply your self with all seriousness to the study of the Word of God being provided of a good Commentary which explains the Text in a Literal and Moral Sense 2. Upon Holidays and Sundays you are to use the short Catechising by way of Questions and Answers and engage the New-Converts to bring their Children and Domesticks to it And do not fail to have the Prayers both Evening and Morning upon Holidays and Sundays in the French Tongue 3. You are never to disguise or mis-represent the Doctrine of the Church and the Truths which it proposes to be believ'd by a false Condescention under a pretence of obliging the New-Converts the more easily to come in to our Communion Neither are you to teach them any other Doctrines than such as are constantly of Faith and have been decided in the Council of Trent and have a care of proposing the Opinions of the School as if they were the Doctrine of the Church 4. Make it your business to disabuse them of those false Prejudices which they have taken up against the Roman Church by letting them see that she does not give the Worship of a true and sincere Adoration to any but to God only that it is in the alone Merits of Jesus Christ that she places her Confidence that she puts no trust neither in Images nor in the Relicks of Saints and that it was never her Belief there was any particular Vertue affix'd to these Images or Relicks 5. You are to hinder in your Parishes any from Preaching up or vouching for fabulous or uncertain Miracles and that they do not speak of Indulgences after any other manner than they are spoken of in the Council of Trent But Preach and cause to be Preach'd solidly the Truths of the Gospel in all their Purity and with the greatest plainness that is possible 6. Take care that in some measure every New-Convert does his Duty as becomes a good Catholick but without Constraint and without Violence God would have the Service that we render him should be voluntary And therefore you are never to use any harsh or reproachful Language nor any threatnings in the publications you make in the Church in your Sermons or upon any other Occasions to oblige them to come to Church or to receive our Sacraments 7. Do all you can to bring them to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass but be not too severe in taking notice of them and do not place Inspectors at the Church Doors to observe those that fail to be present at it 8. You are never to administer the Sacraments but to such as you judge in every respect rightly and duly dispos'd to receive them and who have declared to you that they firmly believe all that the Catholick Apostolick and Roman Church believes and that they will live and dye in her Communion And let not any Humane Consideration prevail