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
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
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
Gods the practising that worship which they received from the Tradition of their Fathers And can it reasonably be imagined that they who thus condemned others did the same things themselves and only did invite them to exchange their Heathen for a Christian Deity subject to all that infamy contempt and drollery which they cast upon the Heathen Gods and way of worship Can it be reasonably thought that all those Fathers if they had practised and believed as now the Papists do would speak such plain and frequent contradictions both to their practice and their Doctrine and talk as if they equally intended to confute and render infamous the worship of the Christian and the Heathen Deities Let any reasonable person judg whether these apprehensions and assertions that to worship as a God what we do eat is an abominable and repugnant worship a certain indication of the highest folly stupidity and the extremity of madness could proceed from men who dayly worshipped as the Highest God what they themselves did eat or whether they who worshipped as God that very Host which they did sacrifice unto God could solemnly declare as the forementioned Fathers often do that to adore as God what we or others Sacrifice is to be Sacrilegious against God and ignorant of the true knowledg of God to be guilty of folly and Atheism and to do that action which will justly render us a laughing stock to all our neighbors If this was the deportment of all those Holy Fathers we have just reason to cry out Vbi fides ubi pudor and to conclude that they had not one Grain of honesty or shame or prudence in them Since that this Wafer-worship hath obtained amongst the Latins what Romanist will say with Origen the Sacrament that is the God he worships according to our Saviours words is voided at the draught with Pseudo Justin that what we eat or sacrifice cannot be worthy of the name or honor of a God With Cyril that they are rude and stupid who carry up and down their God upon their shoulders or with St. Chrysostom that it is an hyperbole of madness to own that for a God which may be stoln Since then the Fathers without distinction or exception do frequently assert these things and many more of the like nature it is extremely evident that they were not worshippers of the Host as is the present Church of Rome for if no man would thus speak who doth as the Papists do surely these Fathers were far enough from Popish practices in this particular Moreover let it be considered 1. Whether the Fathers would afford the Heathens this great advantage to retort all that they argued against the worship of their Gods and to assert that that which they condemned in them was only what they dayly practised themselves and taught all Christians to observe which certainly they did if they believed and practised as doth the present Church of Rome And 2. Whether the Heathens if this occasion had been offered would have been wholly silent and negligent of this advantage Put case I say these Pagans knew that all which by the Christians was objected against their worship and their Gods was of an equal force against the worship of the Christian Host that this Host was owned by them as the Highest God and yet was carried in their hands because it could not go was kept by Sextons under Lock and Key was sometimes burnt and sometimes buried in the carth that it was clothed with costly Raiment void of all apparent sense and life as any of the heathen Idols how could the Heathens being acquainted with these things and many others of like nature abstain from saying Thou art inexcusable O Christian whosoever thou art that judgest us on these accounts for thou that judgest dost the same things For further confirmation of this Argument consider § XI 1. That the Heathens could not be ignorant of this supposed Article of Christian Faith and this supoosed practice of the Church of Christ provided that the Christians really believed and practised always as doth the present Church of Rome For 1. The Fathers do themselves declare that 't was impossible they should conceal from Pagans what was done in their assemblies thus to that false suggestion that Christians did eat the blood of infants that they were guilty of cating human flesh it is replyed by Athenagoras Legat. p. 38. B. that if the Christians did so it was impossible that having servants more or less they ould conceal this from them We increase dayly Proficiente multitudine reorum quid ita non proficit multitudo nuntiatorum Nationes C. 7. Apol. 7 8. saith Tertullian and the more we do so the more we must be hated now the number of the guilty thus increasing how is it that the number of informers is not greather Our conversation is more known you know the days on which the Christians meet you oft beset detain oppress us in our private meetings but yet who ever came upon us whilst we were eating of an Infant were we guilty of these things when any persons came to profess the Christian Faith the Priest must first inform him that such things were to be done or Postea cognoscant necesse est being once admitted into their Communion he must behold them done and how could such a one saith he abstain from the divulging of them And if the Priest did first inform him that if he would become a Christian he must worship that which to all his senses would seen Bread and Wine as the Great God of Heaven or if being once admitted to the Holy Sacrament he was instructed so to do and beheld all other Christians doing so how could this Proselyte abstain from the divulging of this worship for this by Infidels and Heathens was always judged saith Bellarmine L. 2. de Euch. c. 12. §. 2. Ex illis a very foolish Paradox this was to worship a new God obnoxious to almost all those follies and infirmities which had engaged them to renounce their Heathen Gods 2. That Christians could not conceal this practice from the Jew and Gentile will be extremely evident from this consideration that many myriads who embraced the Christian Faith were by the heat of persecution driven back to Paganism and therefore were concerned to save their credit by divulging what they esteemed most lyable to exception in the Christian Faith or practice and therefore to divulge this foolish Paradox as by the Gentiles this plain impossibility as by the Jews it was esteemed For not to mention the Apostacy of all the Asiaticks 2 Tim. i. 15. and of Phygellus and Hermogens when Nero raged against the Christians Euseb Hist Ecc. l. 4. c. 15. p. 129. Epist ad Trajan l. 10. Ep. 97. Euseb H. Eccles l. 5. c. 1. p. 156 160. c. 2. p. 167. The Apostacy of Quintus the Phrygian with many others under the persecution of Trajanus when many who had
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