thought the greatest enemies to toleration in the world now plead most vehemently for it and are even angry with us for not acting sufficiently in this cause against the Church of England But because I take you for a friend by your enquiring after these Books I must tell you it is yet a disputable point among us how far we may joyn with Antichrist to promote the interest of Christ And some insist on that place to prove the unlawfulness of it Be ye not unequally yoked others again prove it lawful because it is said Yet not altogether with the Fornicators of this world or with Idolaters whence they observe that they may joyn with them in some things or for some ends but not altogether i. e. they must not joyn with them in their Idolatries but they may against the Church of England R. P. This is too publick a place to talk of these matters in but may we not withdraw into the next room for I have a great mind to set you right in this main point of present concernment And if the Papists should be found not to be Idolaters a great part of your difficulty is gone Do you think it is not fit for you to be better informed in this matter when a thing of so great consequence depends upon it as your deliverance from the persecution of the Church of England which you know we have all sighed and groaned for a long time It is in vain for any of you to expect favour from thence as long as she is able to stand For if the Bishops were never so much inclined to it how could they possibly give ease to you without destroying themselves And since the dissenting parties are so different among themselves in their light and attainments it is impossible to please any one party without displeasing all the rest Comprehension is a meer snare and temptation to the Brethren being a design to prefer some and to leave the rest in the lurch Let us all joyn our strengths together to pull down this Church of England and then though there be a King in Israel every one may do what seemeth good in his own eyes F. C. I doubt you are not well seen in Scripture for the Text is In those dayes there was no King in Israel and every one did what seemed good in his own eyes whence you may observe a special hint by the by that Toleration agrees best with a Common-wealth But this to your self and you might justly wonder at this freedom with you but that I remember you many years ago when you and I preached up the Fifth Monarchy together in the Army Those were glorious dayes Ah the Liberty we then enjoyed Did we then think the good old Cause would ever have ended thus Well! It is good to be silent in bad times But methinks you and I however may retire and talk over old stories and refresh our memories with former out-goings together For here is little at present for us to do R. P. Whereabouts are they now in the Catalogue F. C. Among the Fathers those Old-Testament Divines What lights have we seen since their dayes We need not trouble our selves about them But I observe the Church of England men buy them up at any rate What prices do they give for a Justin Martyr or Epiphanius or Philo who they say was a meer Jew How must they starve their people with the Divinity of these men How much of the good Divinity of the late times might they have for the money We cannot but pity their blindness But I see we cannot be here so private as we wished for yonder sits a Divine of the Church of England who I suppose is the person who bought so many Fathers at the last Auction as though he had a mind to write against the Papists R. P. Sit you by a while and we will talk of our matters another time I have been much abroad since you and I were first acquainted and have lately brought over a new Book from Paris You shall see how I will handle him and if you put in upon occasion you shall find by this experiment what success our united forces would have against the Church of England F. C. Do you begin and you shall see how I will second you when occasion offers it self R. P. Sir I perceive the Divines of the Church of England do buy up the Fathers very much at Auctions I wonder that any who read the Fathers can be for the Church of England Pr. Div. And I do more wonder at you for saying so For therefore we are for the Church of England because we read both Scripture and Fathers R. P. To what purpose is all this charge and pains if there be an infallible Church P. D. Therefore to good purpose because there is no one Church infallible R. P. Is there not a Catholick Church P. D. Do you think I have forgotten my Creed R. P. Which is that Catholick Church P. D. Which of all the parts is the whole Is that your wise question Do not you know the Christian Church hath been broken into different Communions ever since the four General Councils and continues so to this day What do you mean by the Catholick Church R. P. I mean the Church of Rome P. D. Then you ask me which is the Church of Rome but what need you ask that since you know it already R. P. But the Roman Church is the Catholick Church P. D. You may as well say London is England or England the World And why may not we call England the World because the rest of the world is divided from it as you the Roman Church the Catholick Church because the other Churches are separated in Communion from it R. P. I mean the Roman Church is the Head and Fountain of Catholick Doctrine and other Churches are pure and sound as they do agree with it P. D. Your proposition is not so self-evident that the bare knowing your meaning must make me assent I pray first prove what you say before I yield R.P. Was not the Church of Rome once a sound and Catholick Church P. D. What then so was the Church of Jerusalem of Antioch and Alexandria and so were the seven Churches of Asia Were all these Heads and Fountains too R. P. But S. Paul speaks of the Church of Rome P. D. He doth so but not much to her comfort for he supposes she may be broken off through unbelief as well as any other Church R. P. Doth not S. Paul say that the Roman faith was spoken of throughout the World P. D. What then I beseech you doth it follow that faith must alwayes continue the same any more than that the Church of Philadelphia must at this day be what it was when S. John wrote those great commendations of it These are such slender proofs that you had as good come to downright begging the Cause as pretend to maintain it after such a manner
his own Author Dr. Heylin hath told him whom he means by Puritans viz. the Nonconformists for speaking of Dr. Buckeridge Bishop Lauds Tutor he saith that he opposed the Papists on one hand and on the other the Puritans or Non-conformists These are very pittiful shifts to overthrow Bishop Abbots Testimony when Dr. Heylin himself saith of him he was so moderate a Calvinian that he incurred the high displeasure of the Supralapsarians who had till then carried all before them But what saith T. G. to those whom he yields not to have been Puritanically inclined and yet charged the Church of Rome with Idolatry R. P. He saith they do not impugn the doctrine it self of the Church of Rome or the practice conformable to that doctrine but such things as they conceived to be great Abuses in the practice of it P. D. That will be best tryed by particulars the First of these is no less a Person than K. James who calls the Worship of Images damnable Idolatry and Dr. St. shews that K. James takes off their distinctions and evasions and saith Let them therefore that maintain this Doctrine answer it to Christ at the latter day when he shall accuse them of Idolatry And then I doubt if he will be paid with such Sophistical Distinctions Is all this saith D. St. nothing but to charge them with such practices which they detest Doth he not mention their doctrine and their distinctions Did not K. James understand what he said and what they did What saith T. G. to this R. P. Not a word that I can find P. D. Let us then see what he doth take notice of R. P. A very notable thing I assure you He saith they only found fault with some abuses committed in our Church and did not think men by vertue of the terms of her communion forced either to hypocrisie or Idolatry as Dr. St. doth so that it is not the doctrine of the Church of Rome if truly stated out of the decrees of her Councils or practice agreeable to that doctrine which these Divines impeach as Idolatrous but the opinions of some School-Divines or Abuses they conceived to be committed in the practice of it And for this he instanceth in the decree of the Council of Nice about the Worship of Images P. D. Who doth not know T. G. to be a man of art and to understand the way of fencing in the Schools as well as another Was it not skilfully done in this place to run to the point of Images when we had been so lately upon the Idolatry in adoration of the Host as it is declared in our Rubrick For the Constitution of the Church of Rome is plain to all persons about adoration of the Host at the elevation of it and carrying it about but in the matter of Images they endeavour to palliate and disguise their allowed practices as much as may be I answer therefore on behalf of Dr. St. 1. That when he speaks of what men are obliged to do by vertue of Communion with the Church of Rome he speaks of the things strictly required by the Rules of that Church and since our Church declares the Mass Idolatrous he doth not in the least recede from the sense of our Church in the disjunction he useth either of hypocrisie or Idolatry and I have some reason to believe that was the thing he aimed at chiefly when he spoke of the terms of Communion because he had often heard of some persons who live in the communion of that Church who being not obliged to make the same professions which Ecclesiastical persons are do content themselves with doing the same external Acts which others do but with a very different intention who look upon transubstantiation and many other doctrines as foolish and ridiculous and yet think they may joyn with those who do believe them in all external acts of worship rather than break the peace of the Church they live in such persons would say they never worshipped the Host and therefore excuse themselves from Idolatry but Dr. St. saith they cannot then excuse themselves from hypocrisie because they seem to give the same Worship which the other doth 2. As to the Idolatry committed in the Worship of Images we shall consider that in its proper place but yet by vertue of communion with the Church of Rome all persons are 1. bound to declare the worship of Images lawful as it is practised in that Church 2. To worship Images upon occasion oâ—fered as in processions c. 3. To Worship the Cross as it represents Christ with that worship which is proper to his person That which concerns us now is to give an account of the judgement of these Persons how far they suppose the Church of Rome to be guilty of the Idolatry committed in it As to K. James we have seen already how far T. G. is from answering his testimony the next is Is. Casaubon and he saith the Church of England did affirm the practises of the Church of Rome to be joyned with great impiety So that he speaks the sense of our Church and not barely his own and surely when he wrote by K. James his direction and order and had so great intimacy with Bishop Andrews and other learned men of our Church he would declare nothing to be her sense which was contrary to it And as to his own private opinion I could tell T. G. somewhat more viz. that when he was violently set upon by all the Wit and Industry of Card. Perron and disobliged by some persons of his own Communion at Paris he set himself seriously to consider the terms of Communion in that Church and whether he might with a safe conscience embrace it and I have seen in his own hand-writing the reasons which hindred him from it and the first of them was the Fear of Idolatry which he saw practised in the worship of Images and Saints Which is as full a proof as may be that he did not think any person could embrace the communion of that Church without Hypocrisie or Idolatry as to the Worship of Images and Saints The third is Bishop Andrews who not only charges the Church of Rome with Idolatry but he saith that in their Breviaries Hours and Rosaries they pray directly absolutely and finally to Saints and not meerly to the Saints to pray to God for them but give what they pray for themselves To this T. G. saith they profess they do no such thing as though we were enquiring what they professed and not what Bishop Andrews charged them with If Idolatry according to Bishop Andrews be required in the Authorized Offices of Devotion in their Church how can the members of it be excused either from hyocrisie or Idolatry The fourth is Dr. Field who chargeth the Invocation of Saints with such superstition and Idolatry as cannot be excused The fifth Dr. Jackson who saith the Papists give divine honour to Images The sixth Archbishop Laud who
we shall come to that in time At present I pray clear this matter if you can P. D. To what purpose is all this raking and scraping and searching and quoting of passages not at all to the point of Idolatry R. P. What! would you have a man do nothing to fill up a Book and make it carry something of the Port of an Answer especially to a thick Book of between 800 and 900 pages P. D. If this be your design go on but I will make my answers as short as I can for methinks T. G. seems to have lost that spirit and briskness he had before for then he talked like a man that had a mind to keep close to the point but now he flags and draws heavily on For he repeats what he had said before for some pages and then quotes out of Dr. St.'s other Books for several pages more and at last it comes to no more than this Dr. St. doth in some places of his Writings seem to favour the Dissenters I am quite tired with this impertinency yet I would fain see an end of these things that we might come close to the business of Idolatry which I long to be at R. P. Your stomach is too sharp set we must blunt it a little before you fall to P. D. You take the course to do it with all this impertinency but what is it you have to say R. P. To please you I will bring this charge as near to the point of Idolatry as I can the substance of it is this Dr. St. saith the Church of England doth not look on her Articles as Articles of Faith but as inferiour Truths from thence T. G. infers 1. The Church of Rome doth not err against any Articles of Faith 2. Dr. St. doth not believe the thirty nine Articles to be Articles of Faith 3. Then this charge of Idolatry is vain and groundless because Idolatry is an error against a Fundamental point of Faith P. D. Here is not one word new in all this long charge but a tedious repetition of what T. G. had said before It consists of two points 1. The charge upon Dr. St. for undermining the Church of England 2. The unreasonableness of the charge of Idolatry upon his own supposition Because T. G. seems to think there is something in this business which touched Dr. St. to the quick and therefore he declined giving any answer to the First Part of it I will undertake to do it for him Dr. St. doth indeed say that the Church of England doth not make her Articles Articles of Faith as the Church of Rome doth the Articles of Pope Pius the fourth his Creed And did ever any Divine of the Church of England say otherwise It is true the Church of Rome from her insolent pretence of Infallibility doth make all things proposed by the Church of equal necessity to Salvation because the ground of Faith is the Churches Authority in proposing things to be believed But doth the Church of England challenge any such Infallibility to her self No. She utterly disowns it in her very Articles therefore she must leave matters of Faith as she found them i. e. she receives all the Creeds into her Articles and Offices but makes no additions to them of her own and therefore Dr. St. did with great reason say that the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith but such as have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian world and of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self from whence he doth justly magnifie the moderation of this Church in comparison with the Church of Rome R. P. But T. G. saith That he hath degraded the Articles of the Church of England from being Articles of Faith into a lower Classe of inferiour Truths P. D. I perceive plainly T. G. doth not know what an Article of Faith means according to the sense of the Church of England He looks on all propositions made by the Church as necessary Articles of Faith which is the Roman sense and founded on the doctrine of Infallibility but where the Churches Infallibility is rejected Articles of Faith are such as have been thought necessary to Salvation by the consent of the Christian world which consent is seen in the Ancient Creeds And whatever doctrine is not contained therein though it be received as Truth and agreeable to the Word of God yet is not accounted an Article of Faith i. e. not immediately necessary to Salvation as a point of Faith But because of the dissentions of the Christian world in matters of Religion a particular Church may for the preservation of her own peace declare her sense as to the Truth and Falshood of some controverted points of Religion and require from all persons who are intrusted in the Offices of that Church a subscription to those Articles which doth imply that they agree with the sense of that Church about them R. P. But Dr. St. saith from Arch-bishop Bramhall that the Church doth not oblige any man to believe them but only not to contradict them and upon this T. G. triumphs over Dr. St. as undermining the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England P. D. Why not over Arch-Bishop Bramhall whose words Dr. St. cites And was he a favourer of Dissenters and an underminer of the Church of England Yet Dr. St. himself in that place owns a subscription to them as necessary and what doth subscription imply less than agreeing with the sense of the Church So that he saith more than Arch-Bishop Bramhall doth And I do not see how his words can pass but with this construction that when he saith we do not oblige any man to believe them he means as Articles of Faith of which he speaks just before But I do freely yield that the Church of England doth require assent to the truth of those propositions which are contained in the thirty nine Articles and so doth Dr. St. when he saith the Church requires subscription to them as inferiour Truths i. e. owning them to be true propositions though not as Articles of Faith but Articles of Religion as our Church calls them R. P. If they are but inferiour Truths saith T. G. was it worth the while to rend asunder the Peace of Christendom for them Is not this a very reasonable account as I. S. calls it of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion and a rare way of justifying her from the guilt of Schism P. D. T. G. mistakes the matter It was not our imposing negative points on others but the Church of Romes imposing false and absurd doctrines for necessary Articles of Faith which did break the Peace of Christendom We could have no communion with the Church of Rome unless we owned her Supremacy her Canon of Scripture her Rule of Faith or the equality of Tradition and Scripture her doctrines of Purgatory Invocation of Saints Worship of Images Transubstantiation c. and we were required not
only to own them as true which we know to be false but as necessary to Salvation which we look on as great hinderances to it What was to be done in this case Communion could not be held on other terms than declaring false opinions to be true and dangerous Doctrines to be necessary to Salvation On such terms as these we must renounce our Christianity to declare that we believed falshoods for truths and not barely as truths but as necessary Articles of Faith Therefore what Schism there was the Church of Rome must thank her self for And when this breach happened our Church thought it necessary to express her sense of these Doctrines that they were so far from being Articles of Faith that they were false and erroneous having no foundation either in Scripture or Antiquity and required a subscription to this declaration from such as are admitted to teach and instruct others How could our Church do less than she did in this matter if she would declare her sense to the World or take care of her own security And is this making Negative Articles of Faith about which T. G. and E. W. and others have made such senseless clamours when we only declare those things they would impose upon us to be so far from being Articles of Faith that they are erroneous Doctrines and therefore are rejected by us And this I take to be a Reasonable Account of the Potestant Religion which is more than I. S. hath given to those of his own Church of his Demonstrations R. P. But since Dr. St. grants the Church of Rome to hold all the essential points of Faith how can he charge her with Idolatry since Idolatry is an Errour against the most Fundamental point of Faith I pray answer to this for this comes home to the business P. D. I am glad to see you but coming that way To this Dr. St. hath already given a full and clear answer in his late Defence 1. He saith by the Church of Romes holding all essential points of Faith no more is meant than that she owns and receives all the Ancient Creeds 2. T. G. grants that Idolatry is giving the Worship due to God to a Creature If therefore a Church holding the essential points of faith may give the Worship due to God to a Creature then there is no contradiction between saying the Church of Rome holds all the essential points of faith and yet charging it with Idolatry Because Idolatry is a practical Errour and therefore may be consistent with holding all the doctrinal points of Faith no more being necessary to it as Dr. St. proves than entertaining a false notion of Divine Worship by which means it may really give Gods worship to a Creature and yet be very Orthodox in holding that Gods Worship ought not to be given to a Creature R. P. T. G. was aware of this Answer and thus he takes it off To err he saith strictly speaking is to teach that which is opposite to Truth but if the Church of Rome teaches that the Worship she gives to Saints and Images is not a part of the Honour due to God and yet it is then she errs against the second Commandment though she judges she doth not P. D. What is this to the purpose the question is not whether Idolatry doth not imply a practical errour against the second Commandment but whether it be consistent with the doctrinal points of Faith such as are essential to the Being of a Church For of this sort of Errours all the dispute was as is plain from Dr St.'s words which gave occasion to this objection R. P. But is it not a Fundamental Errour to destroy the doctrine of the second Commandment P. D. If it be The more care had they need to have who put it out of their Books that it may not fly in their Faces But who ever reckoned the Commandments among the Articles of Faith I do not deny it to be a very dangerous practical Errour to destroy the doctrine of the second Commandment or rather to take away the whole force of the precept but I say this is none of those essential points of Faith which Dr. St. spake of and therefore this is no answer to him R. P. Therefore T. G. adds that this doth not proceed upon a general Thesis whether some Idolatrous practice may not consist with owning the general principles of Faith but upon a particular Hypothesis whether the Worship of God by an Image be not an errour against the doctrine of the second Commandment if that be to forbid men to worship him by an Image And therefore if it be a Fundamental point to believe that to be Idolatry which God hath expresly forbidden in the Law under the notion of Idolatry and that be the worshipping of him by an Image as Dr. St. asserts 't is clear that the Church of Rome in telling men it is not Idolatry errs against a Fundamental point and he cannot according to his principles maintain his charge of Idolatry without a contradiction P. D. This is then the thing to be tryed and therefore we must judge of it by what Dr. St. said to which this is supposed to be a Contradiction Did he ever say that the Church of Rome did not erre against the doctrine of the second commandment Nay he hath invincibly proved it hath I say invincibly since T. G. gives it up in these Dialogues spending so many pages upon the repetition of his old arguments and passing over all that elaborate discourse of Dr. St. about the sense of the second Commandment on which the hinge of the Controversie depends If then Dr. St. doth charge them with a very dangerous and pernicious errour in respect of this Commandment that could not be the Fundamental errour he cleared the Church of Rome from when he said she held all essential points of Faith mark that and he explained himself purposely to prevent such a mistake to mean such doctrinal points of Faith as are essential to the constitution of a Church and the true Form of Baptism now the question is whether it be a contradiction for a man to say that the Church of Rome doth hold all these essential points of faith and yet is guilty of Idolatry And how after all hath T. G. proved it It is a fundamental point saith he to believe that to be Idolatry which God hath forbidden as Idolatry and so it is to believe that to be Perjury and Theft and Adultery which God hath forbidden under their notion But will any man say the true notion of Adultery is a doctrinal point of Faith Although therefore it be granted that the Church of Rome do err fundamentally against the second Commandment yet that doth not prove Dr. St. guilty of a contradiction because he spake not of practical errours but of the Doctrinal and essential points of Faith And now I hope we have done with all these preliminaries and may come
different Act. If the same act then there is a double worship and but one Act for there is an absolute worship of the person of Christ and a relative worship of the Image and let it be relative or what it will it is a real Act of worship and so there must be two Acts and yet it is but one Act. For is the Image or Cross worshipped or not If it be worshipped there must be an act of worship terminated on it and how can there be an act of worship terminated upon it if the same act passeth from the Image to the Prototype These are unintelligible subtleties and only invented to confound mens understandings as to the true and distinct notion of Divine Worship and to blind their minds in the practice of Idolatry Farther if this be a difference only de modo loquendi as T. G. saith then the very same act may be proper and improper absolute and relative per se and per accidens For so T. G. saith that it is one Act in substance but it is absolute as terminated on the person of Christ relative as on the Cross proper in one sense improper in the other per se in the former sense per accidens in the later Which Catharinus thought to be no less than ridiculous Lastly there is nothing in the world but may be worshipped with Latria by the help of these distinctions For a Divine presence in the creatures is really a far better ground of worship than a bare fiction of the mind that the Image and the thing represented are all one But of this we have discoursed already R. P. To tell you plainly my mind I never liked this giving Latria to Images my self but it being a common doctrine in our Church we ought to say as much for it as we can but I am only for an inferiour worship to be given to them and so is T. G. if I do not much mistake his meaning P. D. Let us then consider this inferiour worship as distinct from Latria and concerning this I shall prove that it neither answers the reasons given by Councils nor the practice of the Roman Church 1. Not the reasons given by the Councils of Nice and Trent For which I desire but these two postulata 1. That Images are to have true and proper worship given to them which is expressely determined by those Councils 2. That the Reason of this Worship is nothing inherent in the Image but something represented by it Which is affirmed by those Councils From hence I argue thus To worship Christ only before an Image is not to give proper worship to the Image which the Councils require to be given Therefore either the Image is to be worshipped for it self which were Idolatry by your own confession or Christ is to be worshipped in and by the Image R. P. Christ is to be worshipped in and by the Image P. D. Then you give Christ the worship due to him or not R. P. The worship due to him P. D. But the Worship due to Christ is proper Latria therefore you must give proper Latria to Christ as worshipped in and by the Image R. P. True but we give it to the Image of Christ otherwise than to his Person for we worship him absolutely and the Image respectively and for his sake P. D. That is it which I would have that there is no worshipping an Image on the account of representation but you must fall into the doctrine of relative Latria R. P. But may not I shew respect to the Cross for Christs sake without giving the same worship to the Cross that I do to Christ P. D. That is not the question but whether you may worship Christ in and by the Cross representing his Person without giving that worship which belongs to the person of Christ For either you worship the Cross for it self which you confess to be Idolatry or you worship Christ as represented by it if you worship Christ you must give him the worship which belongs to him and that can be no other than Latria Which not only appears by the doctrine but by the practice of your Church in the worship of the Cross. Which I prove by the second particular viz. 2. Inferiour worship doth not come up to the practice of your Church because your Church in praying to the Cross speaks to it as if it were Christ himself O Crux ave spes unica c. as Aquinas observes and many other of your Divines who never own any Prosopopoeia but do say that the Cross is truly worshipped with that worship which belongs to the person of Christ on the account of representation And can you imagine so many of your most eminent Divines would have put themselves to so much difficulty in defending a Relative Latria if they could have defended the practice of your Church without it But they saw plainly the Church did own such a worship to the Cross and when occasion was offered did declare it as in the place cited out of the Pontifical by Dr. St. which it would never have done if it had not been agreeable to its sense R. P. But this is but one single passage and will you condemn a whole Church for that P. D. Not if the sense of the Church were otherwise fully expressed against it but here we have shewed that passage to be very agreeable to the reason of worship given by your Councils and to the solemn practice of your Church in adoration of the Cross and therefore that passage ought to be looked on as a more explicite declaration of the sense of the Church For let me ask you if the Church of Rome had been against Latria being given to the Cross whether in a book of such publick and constant use as the Pontifical is it should be left standing when the Book-menders are so busie in your Church that scarce an Index of a Father can escape them nor such sentences as seem to thwart their present doctrine Of which take this Instance You remember what stir T. G. made about Gregory Nyssen's oration upon Theodore now the same person disputing against the Arians saith that no created thing is to be worshipped by men this sentence Antonius in his Melissa had put down thus that we are only to worship that being which is uncreated This Book happened to come under the Spanish Index of Cardinal Quiroga do you think he would suffer it to stand as it did No I assure you Deleatur dictio solummodo saith he satis pro imperio Away with this Only Why so was it not in the Author No matter for that It is against the practice of the Church out with it More such instances might be produced but I appeal to your self whether after such care hath been taken to review the Pontifical by Clement 8. and the publishing of it with so much Authority such a passage would have been suffered to remain if it had been
to reason Therefore I pray let us set aside all rude and unbecoming reflections and calmly consider how T. G. proves that the Charge of Idolatry is not agreeable to the sense of the Church of England R. P. Hold Sir You are a little too nimble T. G. saith his Intention was only to shew that Dr. St. had not sufficiently proved it to be the sense of the Church of England from the Testimony he then produced whatsoever he might or could do from other Acts or Authours of that Church And he elsewhere saith that T. G. did not dispute ex professo whether it were the sense of the Church of England that the Church of Rome is guilty of Idolatry or no nor whether Dr. St. dissented from the sense of his Church but what he undertook to shew was no more than that two parts of the Authours there cited by the Dr. were Puritans or Puritanically inclined by the confession of other Divines of the Church of England and therefore according to Dr. St 's own measures if they were good their Testimonies ought to be looked on as incompetent to prove what he asserted and for the other six that what they charged with Idolatry was not the Doctrine of the Church of Rome but some things which they conceived to be great abuses in the practice of it And this he saith is the true state of that Controversie P.D. If it be so I cry T.G. mercy For I thought he designed to prove this charge of Idolatry not to be agreeable to the sense of the Church of England But you say T. G. now denies it and if I were as Dr. St. I would thank him for it For would any man say this that thought it could ever be proved to be against the sense of the Church of England And what could have been more material to his purpose than this if it could have been done Well fare T. G.'s ingenuity for once that finding it impossible to be done he now denies that he ever attempted the doing it But the first question in a fray is how fell they out we shall better judge of T. G.'s design by the occasion of it Dr. St. affirmed that in the charge of Idolatry he did not contradict the sense of the Church of England Did he or did he not If he did not Dr. St. was in the right if he did why did not T. G. shew it But after this yielding up the main point in effect it is easie to prove that T. G. did design to shew as well as he could that the charge of Idolatry was against the sense of the Church of England but finding it would not do he now disowns it For 1. Doth not T. G. appeal to the Articles of the Church of England for the most authentick declaration of her sense and because the Church of Rome is not there charged with Idolatry doth he not hence dispute ex professo that it was against her sense To what purpose was that ingenious Criticism of being rather repugnant to the word of God which he interprets as though the composers of our Articles had done their endeavour to find a command against the Worship of Images but could not What do you think of this argument what did T. G. intend to prove by it Is it not as clear as the Sun that it was to shew that the charge of Idolatry was against the sense of the Church of England Why then is T. G. ashamed now of it and denies he had any such design There must be some more than ordinary cause of a mans denying what he once so openly avowed to do Nay in these very Dialogues after repeating his former words T. G. saith Thus clearly hath T. G. evinced the sense of the Church of England in this matter Say you so and yet never designed to dispute ex professo whether it were the sense of the Church of England or not Who is it I pray hath the knack of saying and unsaying of affirming and denying the very same thing in a few leaves or did T. G. never intend any such thing but the Church of England of her own accord knowing T. G.'s good affections to her stept into the Court and declared her sense Have we not the best natured Church in the world that is so kind to her enemies and expresseth her sense to be on their side whether they will or not Our Church then is like the Countrey mans River which comes without calling alas what need T. G. dispute ex professo what her sense is she offers her own Testimony and desires to be heard in the dispute whether T. G. will or not Let any man judge by these words what T. G.'s design was then whatever he thinks fit to own now 2. He shews that if it had been the sense of the Church of England in the Articles that the Church of Rome were guilty of Idolatry in the Worship of Images Adoration of the Host or Invocation of Saints all those who denyed it would have incurred excommunication ipso facto as appears by the Canons What was T. G.'s design in this if it were not to prove the charge of Idolatry to be against the sense of the Church of England Is this only to shew the Witnesses Dr. St. produced to be incompetent What a benefit it is for a man to forget what he hath no mind to remember And then to deny as stoutly as if the thing had never been done 3. Is it not T. G. who in terms asserts that Dr. St. betrayed his Church in advancing such a medium as contradicts the sense of that Church mark that It is true he adds if it be to be taken from the sentiments of those who are esteemed her true and genuine Sons Was it T. G.'s design then not to dispute what was the sense of the Church of England nor whether Dr. St. dissented from it I will not meddle with that whether T. G. be a competent judge who are the true and genuine Sons of the Church of England No doubt in his opinion those who come nearest the Church of Rome are such and advance such speculations as lay the charge of Schism at her own door But true Sons are no more for laying division to the charge of their Mother than the true Mother was for dividing the Son Those are certainly the most genuine Sons of our Church who own her doctrine defend her principles conform to her Rules and are most ready to maintain her Cause against all her enemies And among these there is no difference and there ought to be no distinction But if any frame a Church of their own Heads without any regard to the Articles Homilies and current doctrine of our Church and yet will call that the Church of England and themselves the only genuine Sons of it I do not question T. G. and your Brethren would be glad to have them thought so to lessen our number and impair
our interest but none that understand and value our Church will endure such a pernicious discrimination among the Sons of the same Mother as though some few were fatally determined to be the Sons of our Church whatever their Works and Merits were and others absolutely cast off notwithstanding the greatest service I should not mention this but that I see T. G. insinuating all along such a distinction as this and crying up some persons on purpose as the only genuine Sons of the Church of England that he might cast reproach upon others and thereby foment animosities among Brethren But whose Children those are who do so I leave T. G. to consider R. P. Whatever T. G.'s intention was yet you cannot deny that he hath proved two parts in three to be incompetent Witnesses according to his own Measures P. D. Not deny it I never saw any thing more weakly attempted to be proved as Dr. St. hath shewed at large in his Preface Bishop White being rejected as a Puritan because condemned by that party Bishop Jewel because K. Charles said he was not infallible Bishop Bilson because of his errours about Civil Government though a stout defender of the Church of England Bishop Davenant because he was none of the Fathers Bishop Vsher because his Adversary gives an ill character of him By this you may judge what powerful exceptions T. G. made against two parts in three of the Witnesses R. P. T. G. saith That Dr. St. rather waved the exceptions by pretty facetious artifices of Wit than repelled them by a downright denial out of the affection Catharinus hopes he bears still to the Cause which had been honoured by such learned and godly Bishops as Jewel Downham Usher the two Abbots and Davenant which are recorded among the Puritans by the Patronus bonae Fidei P. D. You might as well have quoted Surius Cochlaeus for your Church as this Patronus bonae Fidei for ours For he is an Historian much of their size and credit But of him we shall have occasion to speak hereafter T. G. filling page after page out of him Let the Reader judge whether Dr. St. did not shew T. G.'s exceptions to be vain and srivolous and consequently these remain substantial and competent Witnesses And as to the cause of the Church of England which these learned and pious Prelates defended and honoured Dr. St. will rejoyce to be joyned with them though it be in suffering reproach for the sake of it R. P. Let us pass over these single Testimonies and come to the most material proofs which Dr. St. used and T. G. declares he is not yet convinced by them that the charge of Idolatry was the sense of the Church of England P. D. With all my heart The First was from the Book of Homilies not barely allowed but subscribed to as containing godly and wholsome doctrine very necessary for these times which owns this charge of Idolatry not in any doubtful or single passage but in an elaborate Discourse intended for the Teachers as well as the People To which he added that the Doctrine of the Homilies is allowed in the thirty nine Articles which were approved by the Queen confirmed by the subscription of both Houses of Convocation A. D. 1571. And therefore he desires T. G. to resolve him whether men of any common understanding would have subscribed to the Book of Homilies in this manner if they had believed the main doctrine and design of one of them had been false and pernicious If saith he any of the Bishops had at that time thought the charge of Idolatry unjust and that it had subverted the foundation of Ecclesiastical Authority would they have inserted this into the Articles when it was in their power to have left it out and that the Homilies contained a wholesome and godly Doctrine which in their consciences they believed to be false and pernicious He might as well think he saith that the Council of Trent would have allowed Calvins Institutions as containing a wholesome and godly Doctrine as that men so perswaded would have allowed the Homily against the peril of Idolatry And how is it possible to understand the sense of our Church better than by such publick and authentick Acts of it which all persons who are in any place of trust in the Church must subscribe and declare their approbation of This Homily hath still continued the same the Article the very same and if so they must acknowledge this hath been and is to this day the sense of our Church And to what T. G. saith that this doth not evince every particular doctrine contained in the Homilies to be godly and wholesome because the whole Book is subscribed to as containing such doctrine he answers that there is a great deal of difference to be made between some particular passages and expressions in these Homilies and the main doctrine and design of a whole Homily and between subscribing to a whole Book as containing godly and wholsome doctrine though men be not so certain of the Truth of every passage in it and if they are convinced that any doctrine contained in it is false and pernicious Now those who deny the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry do not only look on the charge as false but as of dangerous consequence and therefore such a subscription would be shuffling and dishonest From these things laid together in my mind Dr. St. hath not only clearly proved that the charge of Idolatry was not only owned by the composers of the Homilies but by all who have honestly subscribed to the Articles from that time to our own And I would be glad to hear what answer T. G. gives to all this R. P. He answers first by repeating what he said before and then by shewing that subscription is no good argument considering what had been done and undone in that kind in the Reigns of K. Henry 8. Edw. 6. Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth not to speak of latter times P. D. What is this but in plain terms to say the subscribers of our Articles were men of no honesty or conscience but would say or unsay subscribe one thing or another as it served their turn If this be his way of defending our Church we shall desire him to defend his own But yet this doth not reach home to the Doctors argument which proceeded not meerly on their honesty but their having common understanding For here was no force or violence offered them they had the full power to consider the Articles and to compose the Homilies and would men of common sense put in things against their own minds and make and approve and recommend Homilies which they did not believe themselves This evidently proves the composers of the Homilies and Convocation at that time did approve the doctrine of these Homilies for it was in their power not to have passed them Thus far it is plain that was the doctrine of the Church then
and why should we suppose any subscribers to take them in any other sense than the Church did then mean them Nay Dr. St. challenged him to produce any one Divine of our Church who through the long reign of Q. Elizabeth did so much as once question the truth of this charge Doth T. G. upon so long consideration of this matter name any R. P. Not any that I find P. D. But that will be best seen by considering Dr. St.'s second Argument of the sense of the Church of England in this matter viz. from the current Doctrine of the Church ever since the Reformation the injunctions of Edw. 6. of Cranmer of Q. Elizabeth the Form of Thanksgiving A. D. 1594. R. P. To this T. G. answers that this was a heat in the beginning of the Reformation but after the Crown was settled upon K. James whose title was unquestionable both at Rome at home I suppose he means and abroad the dangerous consequences of the charge of Idolatry began to be more calmly and maturely considered and were so throughly weighed in the time of K. Charles I. that as Heylin saith Bishop Laud hindred the Reprinting the Books containing Calvinian Doctrines Which evidently shews saith he that that party never looked upon the expressions of Idolatry contained in those injunctions as the dogmatical sense of the Church of England P. D. A very likely story that our Church should vary in its doctrine because K. James his title to the Crown was unquestionable It seems before the Church of Rome was guilty of Idolatry because Q. Elizabeths title was not owned by the Pope What a fine insinuation is couched under all this viz. that our Church depended wholly on the Queens pleasure and fitted her doctrines to serve her Turn and when that was over the Tide turned and that was pernicious doctrine now which was wholesome before and wholesome now which was pernicious before and yet there were the same Articles the same Homilies the same subscriptions which were before R. P. But he quotes a Doctour of your own Church for what he saith P. Heylin and delivers it in his Words P. D. P. Heylin speaks not one word in that place of the charge of Idolatry although T. G. seems to represent it so but of those who reviled the Church of Rome it self and all the Divine Offices Ceremonies and performances of it Which it is plain he there speaks of the Genevian party for but just before he mentions the Geneva Bible and the dangerous positions contained in the Annotations printed with it Now these persons whom he there speaks of looked upon the Church of Rome as a meer Synagogue of Satan and no true Church and all the Offices and Ceremonies of it to be so defiled that no use could be made of them and on that account they rejected our Liturgie and Ceremonies as taken from the Church of Rome Although therefore saith he Q. Elizabeth might suffer such things to be printed in her time yet B. Laud would not allow the Reprinting of them because Q. Elizabeth might out of State policy suffer the violent transports of irregular zeal by reason of her personal quarrels with the Pope yet now those reasons being over B. Laud would not suffer them to come abroad again But that this expression cannot be understood of the charge of Idolatry I prove by these arguments 1. Pet. Heylin himself preaching before K. Charles I. and Archbishop Laud did in plain terms charge the Worship of Images with most gross Idolatry as appears by the words cited at large in Dr. St.'s general preface What saith T. G. to this R. P. I do not find a particular answer to this but I suppose he reckons him with those six of whom he saith that they do not charge the Church of Rome it self but the opinions of School Divines and abuses in practice P. D. That cannot be for Pet. Heylin goes farther saying that they who observe the manner of their Worship of Images with what Pilgrimages Processions Offerings with what affections prayers and humble bendings of the body they have been and are Worshipped in the Church of Rome might very easily conceive that she was once again relapsed into her ancient Paganism R. P. He saith they might conceive so but he doth not say they might justly conceive so P. D. This is very subtle and like T. G. himself But I pray observe P. Heylin when he gives an account of the Worship of Images saith when the Doctrine which first began in the Schools came to its growth what fruits could it bear but most gross Idolatry greater than which was never known among the Gentiles Mark that for your satisfaction What fruit could the doctrine bear and that after it came out of the Schools to its growth And when he saith they might conceive that Rome was once again relapsed into her ancient Paganism the meaning is Those that saw their Worship of Images in modern Rome and compared it with what was done in old Rome would see no difference the Idolatry was so gross in both that if there were nothing else to make a distinction a man might easily conceive Rome was relapsed into her ancient Paganism R. P. But what other argument have you to prove that P. Heylin could not speak this of the charge of Idolatry P. D. Because in his Introduction he owns the doctrine of the Homilies as to this point of Idolatry and that the compilers of the Homilies were the more earnest in this point of removing or excluding Images the better to wean the people from the sin of Idolatry in which they had been trained up from their very infancy And after he adds the people of this last Age being sufficiently instructed in the unlawfulness of worshipping such painted Images they may be lawfully used in Churches without fear of Idolatry What can this signifie if he did not take the Worship of Images to be Idolatry and therefore he could not look upon this as a heat in the beginning of the Reformation and which was quite spent in the time of B. Laud since not only P. Heylin but the Arch-Bishop himself saith that the Modern Church of Rome is too like Paganism in the Worship of Images and driven to scarce intelligible subtilties in her servants writings that defend it and this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtilties or shun her practice And in his defence against the charge of the Commons he said that he had written against the adoration and superstitious use of Images as fully as any man whatsoever What think you now Sir was this a heat in the beginning of the Reformation and when men in Archbishop Lauds time more duly weighed the consequences of this charge they grew both cooler and wiser what evidence doth T. G. produce for this When the very person he produces for it is so far from it that he saith the contrary and
resolved to believe it for the Authority of your Church can never perswade any man that is not R. P. When you are gotten to this point of transubstantiation it is hard to get you off It is the sore place of our Church and you are like Flyes in Summer alwayes busie about it I pray return to your Rubrick for you seem to have forgotten it P. D. No I have been pursuing it hitherto R. P. But what say you to T. G.'s reasons why this must be understood of a corporeal presence of Christs natural Body because you else overthrow the doctrine of a real presence which hath been accounted the doctrine of the Church of England P. D. To this I answer 1. The Rubrick saith expresly that it is against the truth of Christs natural Body to be at one time in more places than one It doth not say against the corporeal presence of his natural Body but the truth of it from whence it follows that our Church believes the true natural body of Christ which was born of the Virgin suffered on the Cross and ascended into Heaven can be but in one place which is declared in the foregoing words And the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven and not here i. e. in Heaven exclusively from being in the Sacrament Which are not true if the same natural Body of Christ could be at the same time in Heaven and in the Host. R. P. How then can your Divines hold a real presence of Christs Body as T. G. saith they do P. D. You had heard if you had staid till I came to my second Answer which is that notwithstanding this our Church doth hold that after Consecration the Elements do become the Body and Blood of Christ and so there is a real presence of Christs Body but not of his natural but of a mystical Body I will endeavour to make this out to you because you look strangely upon me as if I were big of some mighty paradox When Paschasius Radbertus did first broach the modern doctrine of the Roman Church about the same body of Christ being in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin in the Western Church he met with great opposition therein from the most learned Divines of that Age among the rest there lived then in the Court of Carolus Calvus a man very eminent for his Learning called Joh. Scotus or Erigena This man at the request of Carolus Calvus delivered his opinion directly contrary to Paschasius for whereas he asserted that the very same Body of Christ which was born of the B. Virgin was invisibly present under the accidents of Bread and Wine Scotus denyed that the Elements were in any real sense after consecration the Body and Blood of Christ the Sacrament being only a bare commemoration or figurative representation of the Body and Blood of Christ. So Hincmarus who lived in that Age delivers his opinion which was afterwards taken up by Berengarius as appears by Lanfrank's answer to him And Ascelinus in his Epistle to Berengarius shews that Joh. Scotus out of opposition to Paschasius set himself to prove from the Fathers that what was consecrated on the Altar was not truly and really the Body and Blood of Christ. These two opposite doctrines being thus dispersed and a Schism being likely to break out upon it as appears both by Ratramnus and the Anonymous Authour published by Cellotius and extant in MS in the Cotton Library Carolus Calvus sends to Ratramnus an eminent Divine of that Age being imployed by the Gallican Church to defend the Latins against the Greeks to know his judgement in this matter He who is better known by the name of Bertram gives in his Preface an Account to his Prince of both these opinions and rejects them both as against the sense of the Fathers and Doctrine of the Church In the first part of his Book he disputes against Scotus who would allow no Mysterie and in the second against Paschasius who contended that the same Body of Christ was in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin this he saith was the state of the second Question whether that very Body of Christ which sits at the right hand of God be reâ—eived by believers in the Sacramental Mysterie And he proves the Negative at large from the Testimonies of the Fathers shewing that they did put a difference between that Body of Christ which was born of the Virgin and suffered on the Cross and that true but mystical body of Christ on the Altar and so from the Testimonies of S. Ambrose S. Augustine S. Hierom Fulgentius from the Scriptures and from the Offices of the Church he concludes point-blank against Paschasius that it was not the same Body of Christ in the Sacrament which was born of the B. Virgin But then against the opinion of Scotus he delivers his mind fully in answer to the first Question saying If there were nothing in the Sacrament but what appeared to the senses it was unfitly called a Mysterie and there would be no exercise for faith no change at all wrought in the Elements the Sacrament would fall short of Baptism and the Manna in the Wilderness and lastly to what purpose did Christ promise his Flesh to be the Food of his People which being not to be understood carnally and literally must have a spiritual signification so that though as to their outward appearance the Sacramental Elements are Figures yet according to the invisible Power and Efficacy they are the Body and Blood of Christ. And this he shews to have been the sense of the Fathers and Christian Church This opinion of Ratramnus Paschasius in his Epistle to Frudegardus calls the doctrine of those who deny the presence of Christs Flesh in the Sacrament but do hold an invisible power and efficacy in and with the Elements because say they there is no body but what is visible and palpable And whoever will read that Epistle of Paschasius will find the expressions he answers the very same that yet occur in the Book of Bertram Of the same opinion with Ratramnus in this matter was Rabanus Maurus the greatest Divine accounted of his Age who wrote his Epistle to Egilo against them who had lately broached that doctrine mark that that the Body of Christ in the Sacrament was the very same which was born of the B. Virgin and suffered on the Cross and rose from the dead And this appears from his Epistle to Heribaldus still extant wherein he saith he declared in what sense the Sacrament was the Body of Christ. Besides the Anonymus Authour published by Cellotius the only person about that time who appeared in behalf of the doctrine of Paschasius and very inconsiderable in comparison of his Adversaries confesseth the opposition made to Paschasius by Rabanus and Ratramnus and endeavours to excuse his simplicity in asserting that the same flesh of Christ was upon the Altar which was
born of the Virgin by a new and extravagant supposition of the Sacrament being the medium of uniting two real bodies of Christ viz. of his flesh and of his Church and therefore that must be a real body of Christ too which is so remote from justifying Paschasius his doctrine that Cellotius himself is ashamed of him This same doctrine of Rabanus and Ratramnus is expresly owned by the Saxon Homilies which deny the Sacrament to be a meer commemoration according to the opinion of Joh. Erigena but say that after consecration the bread becomes the Body of Christ after a spiritual and mystical manner and in the Saxon Code of Canons it is expresly determined not to be that Body of Christ which suffered on the Cross. And this I assert to be the very same doctrine which the Church of England embraced upon the Reformation as most consonant to Scripture and the Fathers which although it doth declare against the natural Body of Christ being in more places than one even that Body of Christ which is in heaven yet in the Articles it declares that the body of Christ is given taken and eaten so that to the faithful receivers the Bread consecrated and broken becomes the Communion of the Body of Christ and the cup of blessing the communion of the Blood of Christ. And so in the Catechism it is said that the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken of the faithful in the Lords Supper i. e. that after consecration such a divine power and efficacy doth accompany the Holy Sacrament as makes the elements to become the Spiritual and mystical Body of Christ as the Church is really but mystically the Body of Christ because of his Spirit dwelling in them So the Apology of our Church saith that in the Lords Supper there is truly exhibited the Body and Blood of Christ because that is the proper food of our souls as Bread and Wine tends to the nourishment of our Bodiess And if the time would permit I could not only more largely prove this to be the sense of our Church but that it is the true and genuine sense of the Fathers both of the Greek and Latine Church And thus I hope I have done that which T. G. thought so impossible a thing viz. to explain this Rubrick so as not to undermine the doctrine of the real presence asserted by the Church of England nor to leave nothing but pure Zuinglianism in the place of it R. P. I was afraid of a Paradox and it appears not without Reason for I never met with any one yet who explained the doctrine of Bertram and the Church of England after this manner and all that attempted it talked so in the clouds that transubstantiation it self did not seem more hard to understand but I remember Pet. de Marca hath proved that the Book of Bertram was the same which was written by Joh. Scotus and therefore your hypothesis is utterly overthrown P. D. I have read and considered that faint attempt of that Great Man which seemed to be designed for no other end but to make us believe that Bertrams Book was burned for heretical at the Synod of Vercelles but if any one will impartially consider the Book of Bertram and compare it with the account given of the opinion of Joh. Scotus by the Writers against Berengarius they will find De Marca's opinion without the least colour of probability R. P. But Card. Perron Mauguin Cellotius and Arnaud all say that Bertram in the First part disputes against the Stercoranists who were a sort of Hereticks who held that the Body of Christ in the Eucharist was passible corruptible and digestible and in all things just as the bread appeared to our senses and asserted that all the accidents of the Bread were founded hypostatically in the Body of Christ and not to have any proper subsistence of their own P. D. These were a notable sort of Hereticks if they could be found but it appears by the enemies of Berengarius that this opprobrious name was fixed by them on all those who asserted the substance of the Bread to remain after consecration and it would be very strange if Bertram should confute that which himself asserts for he saith the Sacramental Elements do pass into the nourishment of our Bodies But if any were lyable to this accusation it must be Paschasius if Pet. de Marca's observation of him be true that he held both substance and quantity of the Bread and Wine to be turned into the Body of Christ from whence it follows that must be the subject of all those accidents which were in the Bread before which is the very sink of Stercoranism Nay I am very much deceived if Pope Nicholas 2. in the recantation prescribed to Berengarius did not fall into the filth of it far more than Rabanus or Heribaldus for he asserts therein that the Body of Christ is truly and sensibly handled and broken by the hands of Priests and ground by the teeth of Believers But what place could be fitter for this Heresie than the Sedes Stercoraria And Guitmundus striving to help Pope Nicholas and his Council out falls into the same Heresie himself for he shews that Christs Body may be handled and chewed in the Sacrament if so it must be the subject of the Accidents of the Bread and Wine Which according to Perron and his followers is plain Stercorâ—nism R. P. But do not you fall into another Heresie viz. of Impanation P. D. A man had need look to his words when Heresies are so common and buz so about a mans ears And some think they confute a man with a vengeance if they can find out some Heresie with a hard name to fasten upon him But if you did know wherein the heresie of Impanation lay you would never charge this doctrine of our Church with it For I find two distinct wayes of Impanation and this doctrine is lyable to neither of them 1. By union of the Bread to the Body of Christ and by that to the Divinity which was the way of Joh. Parisiensis 2. By an immediate conjunction of the Divine Nature to the Bread not meerly by divine efficacy and power but by an Hypostatical Vnion which is the opinion not without ground attributed to Rupertus Tuitiensis and is lyable to this great absurdity that all that befals the Bread may be attributed to the person of Christ which Bellarmine saith it is blasphemy to imagine And then it might be said that the bread is God that the Word is made Bread and that God is both bread and wine But all which the doctrine of our Church implyes is only a real presence of Christs invisible power and Grace so in and with the Elements as by the faithful receiving of them to convey spiritual and real effects to the souls of men As the Bodies assumed by Angels might be called their Bodies while they assumed them or rather as the
Church is the Body of Christ because of his spirit quickning and enlivening the Souls of Believers so the bread and wine after consecration are the real but the spiritual and Mystical body of Christ. If any one yet thinks that some at least of our Divines have gone farther than this let them know it is the Doctrine of our Church I am to defend and not of every particular Divine in it and if any do seem to speak of the presence of the very same Body which is in Heaven I desire them in the first place to reconcile that doctrine with this dogmatical assertion at the end of this Rubrick that it is against the Truth of Christs natural Body not against the corporal presence of it to be at one time in more places than one Let men imagine what kind of presence they please of the same body I only desire to know whether to be in Heaven and to be in the Sacrament be to be in the same or distinct places If the places be distinct as no doubt Heaven and Earth are then our Church declares that it is contrary to the Truth of Christs Natural Body to be in more places than one at one time R. P. But cannot God annihilate that Cylinder of air between the Body of Christ in Heaven and the Sacrament on the Altar and so make them both to be in one place P. D. This is a very idle and extravagant question because if it be granted it only proves that there is nothing between Christs Body in Heaven and the Host but it doth not prove the Host to be that Body of Christ and withal since so many thousand Hosts are consecrated in a Day you must suppose so much air annihilated as lies between Christs Body and all those Hosts but can any man imagine God should annihilate so much air every time a Priest Consecrates and I remember a good saying of Cajetan Non est disputandum de divina potentia ubi de Sacramentis tractatur we must not dispute of Gods absolute power about the matter of Sacraments because these are so often celebrated that we are to suppose no more than an ordinary power to be imployed about them And suppose we should grant a thing possible by Gods absolute power he saith it is folly to assert all that to be in the Sacrament which God can do However this doth not reach this Rubrick which supposes distinct places and saith it is contrary to the truth of Christs natural Body to be in more places than one at one time R. P. But may not all this be understood as T. G. suggests of the natural manner of a bodies being present in more places than one viz. that it is repugnant to the Truth of Christs natural Body to be naturally present or in a corporeal manner in more places than one but it may be naturally present but in one place i. e. by way of extension or quantity but it may be present in more places after another manner P. D. I think you have strained for this and it is your last effort to which I answer 1. It yields no advantage to T. G. for supposing that some of our Divines did hold it possible that the same body might be present in several places after a different manner yet how doth it hence follow that the Rubrick doth not charge them who worship the substance of Bread and Wine with Idolatry 2. Supposing the Church did fix this charge upon those who worship the Body of Christ as present I desire to know whether another kind of presence would excuse from Idolatry i. e. supposing that to worship Christs Body as corporeally present be Idolatry it would not be Idolatry to worship the very same Body as present after another manner Which is all one as to ask whether if it be Idolatry to worship a man with his cloaths on it be likewise Idolatry to worship him with his cloaths off If it be the very same body let the manner of its being present be the same or different it doth not alter the nature or reason of worship Only of the two it seems more unreasonable to worship an invisible Body than a visible one for in a visible body he that worships is sure of something that he sees but when he fancies an invisible Body present he fancies something which if it were must be seen and yet though he cannot see it he resolves to worship it 3. It is altogether as unreasonable to believe that a Body may be present in several places after a different manner as after the same manner For whereever a Body is really present let it be with extension or without it is so in that place as not to be in another i. e. the Body of Christ being in the Host on the Altar is so there as not to be on the floor or any other place about it for otherwise it could not be said to be only under the accidents I then ask on what account the same body cannot be present in two places at once after the same manner and yet may be after a different manner Aquinas saith it doth imply a contradiction for the same Body to be in several places at once after the same manner i. e. by way of extension or quantity because it is necessary for the same thing to be undivided from it self but that which is in several places must be divided from it self But as Conink well observes this argument proves it as impossible for the same body to be in several places after a different manner for it is never the less divided from it self by being in one place after another manner than in the other yea it will be more divided because it will be after two several wayes repugnant to each other And it is much more easie to conceive that a Body should be in two several places after a natural manner than to be so in one place and in another after such a spiritual manner as is very hard to be understood It is much more repugnant saith Maeratius for the same Body to be extended and not extended than to have a double extension If it be repugnant to the finite nature of a body to be in more places than one because then it might be present in all places this saith Lugo will hold against a Sacramental Presence for that comes nearer to a Divine immensity for a Body to be in more places without quantity than with it Suarez and Gamachaeus say this comes nearer to ubiquity because a Sacramental presence supposes the Body to be whole in every part which a natural doth not And they grant that all the contradictions which follow upon being present in several places after a natural manner will hold if the one be natural and the other not i. e. that the same Body may be above it self and below it self within it self and without it self and may move with two contrary motions
upwards and downwards forwards and backwards it may be hot in one place and cold in another it may be alive in one place and dead in another and which is the highest contradiction one would think by force of this principle a man may be damned in one place and saved in another And no less a man than Ysambertus hath defended the possibility of this upon this principle for saith he a man as in one place may be killed in a mortal sin and so be damned whereas in another place he may have contrition and absolution and so be saved But Vasquez asks an untoward Question suppose such a man be reduced to one place whether shall he be saved or damned for he cannot then be both and there is no more reason he should be put out of the state of Grace by the state of sin than out of the state of sin by the state of Grace Such horrible contradictions do men run into rather than let go an absurd hypothesis and Suarez confesseth that a Sacramental Presence is liable to the same contradictions because that supposeth a capacity for Acts of the Mind under it 4. I say that asserting a Body to be present naturally in one place and spiritually and indivisibly in more doth involve more contradictions in it than to be present in several places after a natural manner For the very manner of a bodies being present indivisibly carries contradictions along with it peculiar to it self For whereever there is a body there must be quantity and whereever there is quantity there must be divisibility how then can a divisible body be indivisibly present If they say it is after the manner of a Spirit that doth by no means salve the contradiction for how can a body be after the manner of a Spirit and if it can how can the notion of Body and Spirit be differenced from each other If actual extension may be separated from a Body why not quantity it self why may not divisibility be separated from a line and two and two not make actually four supposing that they retain their intrinsick aptitude to do it What becomes of the differences of greater and less since that which is greater may be contained under the less and so the very same thing will be greater or less greater and not greater than it self What notion can we have of distance since here a Body is supposed to have all its organical parts head breast legs and feet and yet no local distance between Head and Feet R. P. I see it is a dangerous thing to give you but a hint about transubstantiation if you but once take the scent you run on so fast that it is a very hard matter to take you off I did not think this Rubrick could have held us thus long but I see you were resolved to have two or three throws at transubstantiation in passing though I warned you before about it P. D. No Sir It was T. G.'s fixing such an absurd sense upon our Church as though she made it Idolatry to Worship Christs Body as present after a corporeal manner and not after another which made me insist so long upon this R. P. What saith my Fanatick Acquaintance to all this What! sleeping F. C. Only a Nod or two I hearkened a while but I found you were about hard and unsavoury notions truly it was to me no awakening discourse R. P. Come come we will keep you waking we are now come to the Puritan Cause F. C. Ay Ay there is some life in that R. P. What think you was Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury a Puritan or not F. C. What! a Bishop a Puritan a good one I warrant you a Puritan in Lawn sleeves a Puritan with Cross and Surplice You know well what belongs to a Puritan do you not I tell you there never was a true Puritan but abhorred these things with all his heart What do you tell me of a Bishop of Salisbury for a Puritan I say again if he had been so he would have taken his Lawn sleeves and thrown them into the Fire P. D. But I pray Sir how comes in this discourse about Bishop Abbot R. P. I will tell you Among other Divines produced by Dr. St. to prove the charge of Idolatry maintained against the Church of Rome in K. James his time one was Bishop Abbot in his answer to Bishop T. G. takes this to be Archbishop Abbot and excepts against him as an abettor of the Puritan party and tells from Dr. Heylin that on that account it was thought necessary to suspend him from his Metropolitical Visitation Dr. St. makes sport with his Suspending a Bishop of Salisbury from Metropolitical jurisdiction and tells what strange things those of the Church of Rome can do with five words and upbraids T. G. with Ignorance of our Church and in truth is too Tragical upon such a slight occasion Now T. G. proves that it was only a mistake of the person and not of his quality although Dr. St. saith that he was never till now suspected for a Puritan P. D. Are you sure of that R. P. Yes T. G. saith so more than once P. D. However it is good to be sure These are Dr. St.'s words The two first he excepts against are the two Archbishops Whitgift and Abbot as Puritanically inclined but as it unhappily falls out one of them was never mentioned by me and the other never till now suspected for a Puritan I pray advise T. G. to read a little more carefully before he confutes Is it not plain that he means Archbishop Abbot was never mentioned by him and Archbishop Whitgift was never till now suspected for a Puritan It could be no want of understanding in T. G. to make him thus misconstrue his words R. P. But he proves he was Puritanically inclined and takes off his Testimony P. D. How doth he prove that R. P. From Dr. Heylin whose Histories serve us to many a good purpose for he saith he was a Calvinian though a moderate one that he was an enemy to Bishop Laud in the Vniversity that he commends Mr. Perkins and wrote his last Book of Grace and Perseverance of the Saints P. D. Very wonderful proofs As though many of the stiffest Defenders of our Church against the Puritan party had not been inclining to Calvinism as it is called in the point of Predestination especially in that moderate way wherein R. Abbot asserted it As though it were not possible for men to be zealous for our Liturgie and Ceremonies if they held the doctrine of Election and Perseverance But we do not want those of the Highest Order of our Church at this day who are eminent for Learning and Piety and Zeal for the Church who would take it very ill from T. G. upon the account of those opinions to be thought enemies to the Church of England as no doubt the Puritans were But T. G. runs on with this perpetual mistake when
Christian trust his soul with that Church which teaches that which must needs be Idolatry in all that understand not the Figure 13. There is neither Scripture nor Tradition for worshipping the Cross the Images and Reliques of Saints Therefore it evidences the same carnal hope that God will abate of his Gospel for such bribes Which is the Will-worship of Masses Pilgrimages and Indulgences to that purpose 14. Neither Scripture nor Tradition is there for the removing any soul out of Purgatory unto the Beatifical Vision before the day of Judgement Therefore the same carnal hope is seen in the Will-worship of Masses Indulgences Pilgrimages and the like for that purpose and that destructive to the salvation of all that believe that the guilt of their sins is taken away by submitting to the Keys before they be contrite and the temporal penalty remaining in Purgatory paid by these Will-worships 15. Both Scripture and Tradition condemn the deposing of Princes and acquitting their subjects of their Allegiance and enjoyning them to take Arms for them whom the Pope substitutes And this doctrine is not only false but in my opinion properly Heresie yet practised by so many Popes The Church may be divided that salvation may be had on both sides Instances The Schisms of the Popes The Schism of Acacius The Schism between the Greeks and the Latins I hold the Schism for the Reformation to be of this kind But I do not allow Salvation to any that shall change having these reasons before him though I allow the Reformation not to be perfect in some points of less moment as prayer for the dead and others Remember alwayes that the Popish Church of England can never be Canonically governed being immediately under the Pope 16. There is both Scripture and Tradition for the Scriptures and Service in a known Tongue and for the Eucharist in both Kinds How then can any Christian trust his soul with that Church which hath the Conscience to bar him of such helps provided by God These are all his own words without addition or alteration And what think you now of Mr. Thorndike was this man a secret Friend to the Church of Rome do you think who saith so plainly that a man cannot embrace the Communion of that Church without hazard of his salvation R. P. I did little think by the Use T. G. on all occasions makes of him that he had been a man of such principles But I think T. G. had as good have let him alone as have given occasion for producing such Testimonies of the thoughts which a man of his Learning and Fame had concerning the Church of Rome However you see he holds the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and can you reconcile this to what you asserted to be the Doctrine of the Church of England P. D. Yes very well If you compare what he saith here with what he declares more at large in his Book wherein you may read these remarkable words to this purpose If it can any way be shewed that the Church did ever pray that the Flesh and Blood might be substituted instead of the Elements under the accidents of them then I am content that this be accounted henceforth the Sacramental presence of them in the Eucharist But if the Church only pray that the Spirit of God coming down upon the Elements may make them the Body and Blood of Christ so that they which receive them may be filled with the Grace of his Spirit then is it not the sense of the Catholick Church that can oblige any man to believe the abolishing of the Elements in their bodily substance because supposing that they remain they may nevertheless come to be the instrument of Gods Spirit to convey the operation thereof to them that are disposed to receive it no otherwise than his flesh and blood conveyed the efficacy thereof upon earth and that I suppose is reason enough to call it the Body and Blood of Christ Sacramentally that is to say as in the Sacrament of the Eucharist And in two or three places more he speaks to the same purpose R. P. Hold Sir I beseech you you have said enough you will fall back again to transubstantiation in spite of my heart P. D. What when I only answer a Question you asked me R. P. Enough of Mr. Thorndike unless he were more our Friend than I find he was I pray what say you to Archbishop Whitgift P. D. Hath T. G. perswaded you that he is turned Puritan above seventy years after his death who never was suspected for it while he was living nor since till the transforming dayes of T. G. R. P. You may jeer as you please but T. G. tells a notable story of the Lambeth Articles and how Q. Elizabeths black Husband was like to have been divorced from her upon them and how K. James would not receive them into the Articles of the Church And all this as well as many other good things he hath out of one Pet. Heylin Is the man alive I pray that we may give him our due thanks for the service he hath done us upon many occasions For we have written whole Books against the Reformation out of his History of it and I find T. G. relyes as much upon him as other good Catholicks do on Cochlaeus and Surius or as he doth at other times on the Patronus bonae Fidei P. D. Dr. Heylin was a man of very good parts and Learning and who did write History pleasantly enough but in some things he was too much a party to be an Historian and being deeply concerned in some quarrels himself all his Historical writings about our Church do plainly discover which side he espoused which to me doth not seem to agree with the impartiality of an Historian And if he could but throw dirt on that which he accounted the Puritan party from the Beginning of the Reformation he mattered not though the whole Reformation suffered by it But for all this he was far from being a Friend either to the Church or Court of Rome and next to Puritanism I believe he hated Popery most so that if he had been alive and you had gone to thank him for the service he had done you in all probability you had provoked him to have written as sharply against you as ever he wrote against the Puritans But what is all this to Archbishop Whitgifts being suspected for a Puritan Dares Pet. Heylin suggest any such thing no he knew him too well and saith that by his contrivance the Puritan Faction was so muzled that they were not able to bark in a long time after Had he then any suspicion of his being Puritanically inclined And as to the Lambeth Articles they only prove that he held those opinions contained in them and recommended them to the Vniversity to suppress the disputes which had been there raised concerning them And what then doth this render him
order in the Church of God it is enough to make things lawful if they are not forbidden Let us now compare this saying with what he calls the Fundamental principle of Separation that nothing is lawful in the Worship of God but what he hath expresly commanded and can any thing be more contradictory to this than what Dr. St. layes down as a principle in that very page of his Irenicum that an express positive command is not necessary to make a thing lawful but a non-prohibition by a Law is sufficient for that Where then lay T. G.'s understanding or ingenuity when he mentions such a great change in the Dr. as to this principle when he owned the very same principle even in that Book and that very page he quotes to the contrary T. G. doth presume good Catholick Readers will take his word without looking farther and I scarce ever knew a Writer who stands more in need of the good opinion of his Reader in this kind than T. G. doth As I shall make it fully appear if you hold on this discourse with me for I have taken some pains to consider T. G.'s manner of dealing with his Adversary But this is too gross a way of imposing upon the credulity of Readers yet this is their common method of dealing with Dr. St. When they intend to write against him then have you Dr. St. 's Irenicum hoping to find matter there to expose him to the hatred of the Bishops and to represent him as unfit to defend the Church of England If this takes not then they pick sentences and half-sentences from the series of the discourse and laying these together cry Look ye here is this a man fit to defend your Church that so contradicts himself thus and thus when any common understanding by comparing the places will find them either falsely represented or easily reconciled In truth Sir I think you have shewed as little learning or skill or ingenuity in answering him as any one Adversary that ever appeared against your Church and especially when T. G. goes about to prove that he contradicts himself or the sense of the Church of England R. P. But I pray tell me if this charge of Idolatry were agreeable to the sense of the Church of England why the Articles of the Church do only reject the Romish Doctrine concerning worshipping and adoration of Images not as Idolatry but as a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the word of God For I perceive this sticks much with T. G. and from hence he concludes Dr. St. to contradict the sense of it who is the Champion of the Church of England P. D. I perceive T. G. kept this for a parting blow after which he thought fit to breath a while having spent so many spirits in this encounter but methinks his arm grows feeble and although his fury be as great as ever yet his strength is decayed And in my mind it doth not become a man of his Chivalry so often to leave his Lance and to run with open mouth upon his Adversary and to bite till his Teeth meet For what mean the unhandsome reflections he makes on all occasions upon his being the Champion of the Church of England and the Church of Englands having cause to be ashamed of such a Champion and of his putting him in mind of his duty as the Champion of the Church not to betray the Church he pretends to defend Where doth he ever assume any such title to himself or ever entred the lists but on the account of obedience or upon great provocation The name of Champion savours too much of vanity and ostentation whereas he only shewed how easily the Cause could be defended when his superiours first commanded such a stripling as he then was to undertake the defence of it But I shall set aside these reflections and come to the point of our Articles and therein consider 1. What T. G. objects 2. What Dr. St. answered 3. Which way the sense of the Articles is to be interpreted T. G. looks upon it as a notable observation that the Compilers of the 39 Articles in which is contained the doctrine of the Church of England sufficiently insinuate that they could find no such command forbidding the Worship of Images when they rejected the adoration of Images not as Idolatry but only as a fond thing vainly invented nor as repugnant to the plain words of Scripture but as rather repugnant to the word of God which qualification of theirs gives us plainly to understand that they had done their endeavours to find such a command but could meet with none To which Dr. St. gives this answer that the force of all he saith lyes upon the words of the English translation whereas if he had looked on the Latin wherein they give account of their doctrine to foreign Churches this Criticism had been lost the words being immo verbo Dei contradicit whereby it appears that rather is not used as a term of diminution but of a more vehement affirmation And what saith T. G. I pray to this R. P. T. G. repeats his own words at large and then blames the compilers of the Articles for want of Grammar if they intend the word rather to affect the words that follow P. D. But what is all this to the Latin Articles which Dr. St. appealed to for explication of the English And for the Love of Grammar let T. G. tell us whether there be not a more vehement affirmation in those words immo verbo Dei contradicit Either T. G. should never have mentioned this more or have said something more to the purpose For doth he think our Bishops and Clergy were not careful that their true sense were set forth in the Latin Articles And their sense being so peremptory herein and contrary to T.G. is there not all the reason in the world to explain the English Articles by the Latin since we are sure they had not two meanings This is so plain I am ashamed to say a word more to it R. P. But T. G. is very pleasant in describing the arguments Dr. St. brings to prove the Articles to make the worship of Images Idolatry because it is called Adoration of Images and said to be the Romish Doctrine about adoration But after the Cat hath plaid with the Mouse as long as he thinks fit leaping and frisking with him in his claws at last he falls on him with his Teeth and hardly leaves a bone behind him After he hath muster'd his arguments and drawn them out in rank and file and made one charge upon another for the pleasure of the Reader he then gives him a plain and solid answer viz. by the words Romish doctrine concerning adoration of Images may be understood either the Doctrine taught in her Schools which being but the opinions of particular persons no man is bound to follow or
the doctrine taught in her Councils which all those of her communion are bound to submit to If the Doctrine which the Church of England chargeth be that which is taught by some of her School Divines which he takes to be her true meaning this is also denyed at least by those very Divines who teach it to be Idolatry If by the Romish Doctrine be meant the Doctrine of Councils owned by the Church of Rome concerning worshipping and adoration of Images then herein she is vindicated from Idolatry by Eminent Divines that have been esteemed true and genuine Sons of the Church of England P. D. And doth this mighty effort come to this at last What pity it is T. G. had no better a Cause he sets this off so prettily and dazels the eyes of his beholders with the dust he raises so that those who do not narrowly look into his feats of activity would imagine him still standing when he is only endeavouring to recover a fall For 1. By Adoration of Images our Church doth not mean that which their School Divines call adoration of Images as they distinguish it from Veneration of them but it means all that Religious Worship which by the allowed Doctrine and practice of the Roman Church is given to Images And this is just the case of the Council of Francford concerning which I hear T. G. saith not one word in his last Book and I commend him for it the Western Bishops condemn adoration of Images very true saith T. G. and his Brethren but all this was a bare mistake of the Nicene Council which never approved adoration of Images but only an inferiour Worship but Dr. St. hath shewed that the Francford Council knew of this distinction well enough and notwithstanding their denying it the Western Church did not judge that the worship which they gave to Images was really adoration whether they called it so or not Just so it is with the Church of England in reference to the Church of Rome this distinguishes adoration from inferiour Worship but our Church owns no such distinction and calls that Religious worship which they give to Images adoration and supposing it were really so Dr. St. saith their own Divines yield it to be Idolatry i. e. the Church of England calls their worship of Images adoration or giving Divine Worship to a Creature but their Divines do yield this is Idolatry and therefore the Church of England doth charge the Church of Rome with Idolatry But how subtilly had T. G. altered the whole force of the argument by taking adoration not in the sense of our Church but of their School-Divines and then telling us that even those School-Divines who teach adoration of Images deny it to be Idolatry And whoever expected they should confess themselves guilty But what is this to the sense of the Church of England where doth it allow such a distinction of Divine worship into that which is superiour and inferiour or that which is proper to God and that which is not 2. By Romish Doctrine the Church of England doth not mean the doctrine of the School-divines but the Doctrine received and allowed in that Church from whence the Worship of Images is required and practised Such kind of Worship I mean as is justified and defended in common among them without their School-distinctions such worship as was required here in the Recantation of the Lollards as Dr. St. observes I do swear to God and all his Seynts upon this Holy Gospel that fro this day forward I shall worship Images with praying and offering unto them in the Worship of the Seynts that they be made after such Worship as was required here by the Constitutions of Arundel A. D. 1408. with processions genuflections thurifications deosculations oblations burnings of Lights and Pilgrimages which are called Acts of Adoration and this Constitution was a part of the Canon Law of England which all persons were then bound to observe or else might be proceeded against as Lollards And this is that which Dr. St. insists upon was the thing condemned by the Articles of our Church viz. the Worship of Images which was required and practised here in England And what reason have we to run to School-Divines for the sense of matters of daily practice as the worship of Images was before the Reformation And so I conclude if this be all T. G. in so long time hath had to say about this matter viz. above four years since Dr. St.'s General Preface was Published he hath very unreasonably charged him with dissenting from the Church of England in this Charge of Idolatry F. C. I hope you have done for this time and if you catch me again losing so much time in hearing Fending and proving about the Church of England I will give you leave to call me Fanatick If you have any thing more of this kind talk it out your selves if you please I expected to have had some comfortable talk with my old Friend about Liberty of Conscience and how many precious hours have you lost about the Church of England This will never do our business If you please my good Friend you and I will meet in private at such a place to morrow P. D. Nay Sir let me not be excluded your company since I am so accidentally faln into it and have but patience to hear us talk out these matters since we have begun them For I hear your Friends Friend T. G. hath said some things wherein your Cause is concerned F. C. I do intend for the Auction again to morrow and if I can easily get the Books I look for I will bear you company otherwise go on with your Discourse and I will come to you when I have made my Adventures It is possible I may meet with some of them to night for I hear them at Rutherford and Gillespee and our Divinity follows just after the Scotch Which was well observed by the Catalogue-maker For the Covenant bound us to reform according to the pattern of the Church of Scotland R. P. You intend then to meet here again to morrow at three of Clock to pursue our Conferences about these matters I will not fail you and so adieu The end of the first Conference THE Second Conference About the consequences of the charge of Idolatry P. D. HOw long have you been at the Auction R. P. Above an hour for I had a great desire to see how the Books were sold at them P. D. And I pray what do you observe concerning the buying of Books here R. P. I find it a pretty humoursome thing and sometimes men give greater rates for Books than they may buy them for in the Shops and yet generally Books are sold dearer here than in any part of Europe P. D. What reason can you give for that R. P. One is that the Scholars of England allow themselves greater Liberty in Learning than they do in foreign parts where commonly only one kind of
Learning is in esteem in a place but here a man that intends a Library buys all sorts of Books and that makes your Traders in Books bring over from all parts and of all kinds and when they have them in their hands they make the buyers pay for their curiosity In Italy it is a rare thing to meet with a Greek Book in the Shops In Spain you see nothing almost besides Prayer-Books Novels and School-Divinity At Antwerp and Lions School-Divinity and Lives of the Saints are most sold. At Paris indeed there is greater variety But we observe it abroad that in the best Catholick Countreys Learning is in least esteem as in Spain and Italy And where Learning is more in vogue as in France you see how ready they are to quarrel with the Pope and to fall into Heats and Controversies about Religion And therefore to deal freely with you I am not at all pleased to see this eagerness of buying of Books among you For as long as Learning holds up we see little hopes of prevailing though we and the Fanaticks had Liberty of Conscience since upon long experience we find Ignorance and our Devotion to agree as well as Mother and Daughter P. D. I am glad of any symptom that we are like to hold in our Wits and I think your observation is true enough I have only one thing to add to it which is that it was not Luther or Zuinglius that contributed so much to the Reformation as Erasmus especially among us in England For Erasmus was the Man who awakened mens understandings and brought them from the Friers Divinity to a relish of general Learning he by his Wit laughed down the imperious Ignorance of the Monks and made them the scorn of Christendom and by his Learning he brought most of the Latine Fathers to light and published them with excellent Editions and useful Notes by which means men of parts set themselves to consider the ancient Church from the Writings of the Fathers themselves and not from the Canonists and School-men So that most learned and impartial men were prepared for the Doctrines of the Reformation before it brake forth For it is a foolish thing to imagine that a quarrel between two Monks at Wittemberg should make such an alteration in the state of Christendom But things had been tending that way a good while before by the gradual restoration of Learning in these Western parts The Greeks coming into Italy after the taking of Constantinople and bringing their Books with them laid the first foundation of it then some of the Princes of Italy advanced their own reputation by the encouragement they gave to it from thence it spread into Germany and there Reuchlin and his Companions joyned Hebrew with Greek from thence it came into France and England When men had by this means attained to some skill in Languages they thought it necessary to search the Old and New Testament in their Original Tongues which they had heard of but few had seen not above one Greek Testament being to be found in all Germany then Erasmus prints it with his Notes which infinitely took among all pious and learned men and as much enraged the Monks and Friers and all the fast Friends to their Dulness and Superstition When men had from reading the Scripture and Fathers formed in their minds a true notion of the Christian Religion and of the Government and practices of the ancient Church and compared that with what they saw in their own Age they wondred at the difference and were astonished to think how such an alteration should happen but then they reflected on the Barbarism of the foregoing Ages the gradual encroachments of the Bishop of Rome the suiting of Doctrines and practices to carry on a temporal Interest the complyance with the superstitious humours of people the vast numbers of Monks and Friers whose interest lay in the upholding these things and when they laid these things together they did not wonder at the degeneracy they saw in the Christian Church All the difficulty was how to recover the Church out of this state and this puzzled the wisest men among them some thought the ill humours were grown so natural to the Body that it would hazard the state of it to attempt a sudden purging them quite away and that a violent Reformation would do more mischief than good by popular tumults by Schism and Sacriledge and although such persons saw the corruptions and wished them reformed yet considering the hazard of a sudden change they thought it best for particular persons to inform the world better and so by degrees bring it about than to make any violent disturbance in the Church While these things were considered of by wiser men the Pope goes on to abuse the People with the trade of Indulgences and his Officers in Germany were so impudent in this Trade that a bold Monk at Wittenberg defies them and of a sudden lays open the Cheat and this discovery immediately spread like Wild-fire and so they went on from one thing to another till the People were enraged at being so long and so grosly abused and Tyrannized over But when Reformation begins below it is not to be expected that no disorders and heats should happen in the management of it which gave distastes to such persons as Erasmus was which made him like so ill the Wittenberg Reformation and whatever was carried on by popular Tumults Yet Rosinus saith that the Duke of Saxony before he would declare himself in favour of Luther asked Erasmus his opinion concerning him who gave him this answer that Luther touched upon two dangerous points the Monks bellies and the Popes Crown that his doctrine was true and certain but he did not approve the manner of his Writing But here in England the Reformation was begun by the consent of the King and the Bishops who yielded to the retrenchment of the Popes exorbitant power and the taking away some grosser abuses in Henry 8's time but in Edw. 6.'s time and Q. Elizabeths when it was settled on the principles it now stands there was no such regard had to Luther or Calvin as to Erasmus and Melancthon whose learning and moderation were in greater esteem here than the fiery spirits of the other From hence things were carryed with greater temper the Church settled with a succession of Bishops the Liturgie reformed according to the ancient Models some decent ceremonies retained without the sollies and superstitions which were before practised and to prevent the extravagancies of the people in the interpreting of Scripture the most excellent Paraphrase of Erasmus was translated into English and set up in Churches and to this day Erasmus is in far greater esteem among the Divines of our Church than either Luther or Calvin R. P. If this be true which you say methinks your Divines should have a care of broaching such things which do subvert the Foundation of all Ecclesiastical Authority among you as T.
Is not a power to excommunicate and absolve a part of that jurisdiction which T. G. doth distinguish from the bare power of Orders R. P. Yes without doubt P. D. Is not this power given by the very Form of Orders in your Church R. P. Yes but what then P. D. Doth not the Council of Trent say the character is imprinted upon saying those words Accipe spiritum sanctum c. R. P. What would you be at P. D. Is the character of Orders given by words that signifie nothing and carry no effect along with them R. P. No certainly P. D. Then these words have their effect upon every man that hath the power of Orders R. P. And what then P. D. Then every one who hath the power of Orders hath the power to excommunicate and absolve R. P. Be it so P. D. But the power to excommunicate and absolve is a part of jurisdiction therefore a power of Orders carries a power of jurisdiction along with it and consequently valid Ordination must suppose lawful Authority to use and exercise the power of excommunication and absolution R. P. In the name of T. G. I deny that P. D. Hold a little you are denying the conclusion Consider again what you deny Do you deny this power to be given in your Orders R. P. No. P. D. Do you deny this power to be part of jurisdiction R. P. No. P. D. Then this power of jurisdiction is given wherever the Orders are valid R. P. This cannot be for T. G. complains over and over of Dr. St.'s ignorance wilful and intolerable mistake unbecoming a Writer of Controversies for not distinguishing between the validity of Ordination and the power of Jurisdiction which he would never have done if one had carried the other along with it P. D. Do not tell me what T.G. would or would not have done I tell you what he hath done and judge you now with what advantage to himself R. P. But T. G. is again up with his undeniable Maxim that none can give to another what he hath not himself and this he thinks will carry him through all P. D. I tell you that very Maxim overthrows the validity of Ordinations as he applyes it For if the Validity of Orders doth suppose Authority to be conveyed and there can be no such Authority given in the case of Idolatry then the Power of Orders is taken away as well as Jurisdiction Besides Is not the Power of giving Orders a part of that lawful Authority which belongs to Bishops R. P. I do not understand you P. D. Can any man give Orders without a Power to do it R. P. No. P. D. Is not that Power a part of Episcopal Authority R. P. Yes P. D. How then can there be a power of giving Orders without Authority R. P. Now you shew your Ignorance Do not you know that there is an indelible character imprinted in the Soul by the Power of Orders which no act of the Church can hinder a Bishop from giving in the Sacrament of Orders or a Priest from receiving but jurisdiction is quite another thing that is derived from the Church or rather from the Pope who is the fountain of jurisdiction and this may be suspended or taken away P. D. I cry you mercy Sir I was not bred up in your Schools this may be currant doctrine with you but I assure you I find no footsteps of it either in Scripture or Fathers and if I be not much mis-informed some of your greatest Divines are of my mind I see all this out-cry of T. G.'s concerning Dr. St. 's Ignorance comes at last to this Mysterie of the Indelible Character imprinted in the soul by the Sacrament of Orders which makes Ordination to be valid but gives no Authority or Jurisdiction I pray make me a little better acquainted with this character for at present I can neither read nor understand it R. P. Yes yes This you would be alwayes at to make us explain our School-notions for you to fleer and to mock at them P.D. But this I perceive is very material to prevent intolerable errour and mistake and for all that you know I may come to be a Writer of Controversies and then I would not be hooted at for my Ignorance nor have the boyes point at me in the Streets and say There goes a man that doth not understand the character which in my mind would sound as ill as saying there goes one that cannot read his A. B. C. I beseech you Sir tell me what this indelible Character is for to tell you truth I have heard of it before but never met with one who could tell what it was R. P. Yes that is it you will not believe a thing unless one can tell you what it is Why it is a mark or a seal imprinted in the soul by the Sacrament of Orders that can never be blotted out and therefore Ordination is valid because if re-ordination were allowed one character would be put upon another and so the first would be blotted out Do not you understand it now P. D. I suppose altogether as well as you Is it a Physical kind of thing just like the strokes of a pen upon paper or rather as the graving of a Carver upon Stone so artificially done that it can never be taken out while it continues whole or is it only a moral relative thing depending upon divine institution and only on the account of distinction called a Character R. P. Without doubt it is an absolute thing but whether to call it a habit or a power whether it be a quality of the first or the second or the third or fourth kind that our Divines are not agreed upon and some think it is a new kind of quality nor whether it be imprinted on the essence or powers of the soul and if in the Faculties whether in the Vnderstanding or Will but it is enough for us to believe that there is really such an absolute indelible Character imprinted on the soul from whence that Sacrament can never be reiterated which doth imprint a Character as that of Orders doth P. D. I am just as wise by all this account as I was before For the only reason of the point is it must needs be so R. P. Yes the Church hath declared it in the Council of Trent and that is instead of all reasons to us P. D. But what is this to Dr. St. Must he be upbraided with ignorance errour and tergiversation because he doth not believe the indelible character on the Authority of the Council of Trent R. P. No that is not the thing but because he did not understand the difference between the Power of Order and jurisdiction P. D. Are you sure of that If I do not forget he hath this very distinction in that pestilent Book called Irenicum which T. G. hits him in the teeth with on all occasions R. P. But he did not or would not understand it
here P. D. Yes he knew it well enough but he thought if he proved the Validity of Ordination he proved the lawfulness of Authority and Jurisdiction because the giving Orders is part of Church Authority and Authority is received in taking Orders and the Church never allowed one but it allowed the other also If you have any thing more to say about this matter I am willing to hear you but as yet I see no reason for T. G.'s clamours about such a mistake in Dr. St. for I think the mistake lay nearer home R. P. But E. W. publickly reproved Dr. St. for this mistake and yet after that he goes on to confirm his former answer with new proofs and Testimonies that Bishops ordained by Idolaters were esteemed validly ordained and doth not speak one word in answer to what was objected by T. G. viz. that the English Bishops must want lawful authority to exercise the power of Orders if their first Ordainers were Idolaters And E. W. calls it an intolerable mistake and T. G. saith he hath heard he was a main man esteemed for his Learning After repeating the words of E. W. at length T. G. very mildly adds as if he were wholly insensible of the gross and intolerable errour E. W. taxed him with he runs again into the same shameful mistake But saith T. G. Are the Power of giving Orders and lawful Authority to give them so essentially linked to each other that they cannot be separated May not a Bishop or Priest remaining so be deprived of all lawful Authority to exercise their Functions for having faln into Heresie or Idolatry And if they have none themselves can they give it to others P. D. On whose side the intolerable mistake lyes will be best seen by examining the force of what T. G. saith as to E. W. the matter is not great which lyes I suppose in this that those who do fall into Idolatry or Heresie may ordain validly for saith he from Estiâ—s no crime or censure soever can hinder the Validity of Ordination by a Bishop but he may be deprived of any lawful Authority to do it and therefore cannot convey this lawful Authority to others ordained by him From hence T. G. saith no crime can hinder the Validity of Ordination but Idolatry he saith doth ipso facto deprive Bishops of the Authority of exercising Orders or conveying jurisdiction and therefore though the Ordination of the Bishops of England may be valid yet their jurisdiction cannot be lawful and so the Foundation of their Authority is subverted by the charge of Idolatry I hope you will allow this to be the force of all that T. G. saith R. P. Yes now you have hit upon his right meaning P. D. Let us then consider more closely on which side the mistake lay which will be discerned by this whether we are to follow the Modern Schools or the Judgement of Antiquity in this matter For Dr. St. spake according to the sense and practice of Antiquity and T. G. according to the modern notions and distinctions of their Schools It is true their Schoolmen have so distinguished the power of Order and Jurisdiction that they make the one to depend upon an indelible unintelligible character which no crime can hinder having its valid effect but that jurisdiction or the right of excommunication and absolution may be suspended or taken away Since the Councils of Florence and Trent this Doctrine of the indelible Character given in Orders is not to be disputed among them and therefore they hold the character to remain wherever Orders are received in the due form but then they say this character is capable of such restraints by the Power of the Church that it remains like Aristotles first matter a dull and unactive thing till the Church give a new Form to it and this they call the Power of jurisdiction But that all this is new doctrine in the Church and a late Monkish invention will appear by these considerations 1. How long it was before this doctrine was received in the Church by the confession of their own Schoolmen Scotus and Biel and Cajetan no inconsiderable men in the Roman Church do confess that the doctrine of the Character imprinted in the soul can neither be proved from Scripture nor Fathers but only from the Authority of the Church and that not very ancient neither And Morinus takes notice that it was not so much as mentioned by P. Lombard or Hugo de Sancto Victore although they debate those very Questions which would have required their expressing it if they had known any thing of it 2. How many of their Schoolmen who do acknowledge the character of Priesthood yet make the power of Orders to belong to jurisdiction so Albertus Magnus and others cited by Morinus but Alex. Alensis carries this point so far that he saith that because of the indelible character of Priesthood the power can never be taken from a Priest but only the execution of it But in a Bishop there is no new character imprinted and therefore in the degrading him not only the execution but the Power of Giving Orders is taken away And Scotus saith if a Bishop be excommunicated he loseth the power of giving Orders if Episcopacy be not a distinct Order as you know many of the Schoolmen hold And Morinus grants that if Episcopacy be not a distinct Order but a larger commission the power of Bishops may be so limited by the Church as not only to hinder them from a lawful Authority but from a power of Acting so that what they do carries no validity along with it 3. How many before the dayes of the Schoolmen were of opinion that the censures of the Church did take away the power of Orders Gratian holds it most agreeable to the Doctrine of the Fathers that a Bishop degraded hath no power to give Orders although he hath to Baptize only for S. Augustines sake he thinks they may distinguish between the Power and the execution of it Gul. Parisiensis saith that Bishops deposed can confer no Order because the Church hath the same power in taking away which it hath in giving and the intention of the Church is to take away their Power If what T. G. asserts had been alwayes the sense of the Church I desire him to resolve me these Questions 1. Why Pope Lucius 3. did re-ordain those who had been ordained by Octavianus the Anti-pope 2. Why Vrban 2. declared Nezelon or Wecilo an excommunicate Bishop of Ments to have no power of giving Orders and that upon T. G.'s own Maxim That which a man hath not he cannot give to another because he was ordained by Hereticks 3. Why the Synod of Quintilinberg under Greg. 7. declared all Ordinations to be Null which were made by Excommunicated Bishops 4. Why Leo 9. in a Synod voided all Simoniacal Ordinations 5. Why Stephanus 6. re-ordained those which were ordained by Formosus 6.
There was in the World before Julius Caesar some Civil Society in which it was necessary for a man to live for his own preservation but this was not the Roman Empire for that rose up after him therefore it was the Roman Common-wealth But doth not this imply that there was no other Civil Society in the world wherein a man could preserve himself but the Roman Common-wealth But I will put the case a little farther home after Britain was made a Province it became a Member of the Roman Empire and depended so much upon the strength and Arms of Rome that it was not able to defend it self it being sore distressed by enemies and in danger of Ruine sends to Rome for help there it is denyed and the Britains forced to look out for help elsewhere Now after T. G.'s way of reasoning the Britains must return to the Romans because once they had been members of the Roman Empire The case is alike in the Church the time was when the Western Church was united under one Head but by degrees this Head grew too heavy and laid too great a load on the members requiring very hard and unreasonable conditions from them upon this some of the members seek for relief this is denyed them they take care of their own safety and do what is necessary to preserve themselves The Head and some corrupt members conspiring denounce excommunication if they do not presently yield and submit These parts stand upon their own rights and ancient priviledges that it was not an Vnion of submission but association originally between several National Churches and therefore the Church of Rome assuming so much more to it self than did belong to it and dealing so tyrannically upon just complaints our Church had Reason to assert her own Freedom and to reform the abuses which had crept either into her doctrine or practice And that this was lawful proceeding it offered to justifie by Scripture and Reason and the Rules of the Primitive Church Now the question of Communion as it was stated between T. G. and Dr. St. comes to this whether any person being baptized in this Church ought in order to his salvation to forsake the communion of it for that of the Church of Rome And this being the true state of it I pray where lies the force of the argument Dr. St. yields communion with some Church to be necessary and what follows the communion of the Church of England is so to one baptized in it why must any such leave it for that of the Church of Rome Yes saith T. G. there was a distinct Church before Luther whose communion was necessary to salvation and what then what have we to do with Luther we are speaking of the present Church of England which was reformed by it self and not by Luther Why is it necessary to leave this Church in which persons are baptized and not in that before Luther Here lyes the main hinge of the Controversie to which T. G. ought to speak and not to run to a Church before Luther The Church of England was the Church of England before the Reformation as well as since but it hath now reformed it self being an entire body within it self having Bishops to govern it Priests and Deacons to administer Sacraments to preach the Word of God to officiate in the publick Liturgie in which all the Ancient Creeds are read and owned the question now is whether salvation cannot be had in the communion of this Church or all persons are bound to return to the Church of Rome This is the point if T. G. hath any more to say to it R. P. T. G. urgeth farther Nothing can render the communion of the Roman Church not necessary to salvation but either Heresie or Schism not Heresie because she holds all the essential articles of Christian Faith not Schism because then Dr. St. must assign some other distinct Church then at least in being from whose Vnity she departed P. D. A right Doway argument one would take T. G. for a young Missioner by it it is so exactly cut in their Form But it proceeds upon such false suppositions as these 1. That Communion with the Roman Church as such i. e. as a Body united under such a Head was necessary to salvation which we utterly deny and it can never be proved but by shewing that Christ appointed the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Church which is an argument I do not find that now adays You are willing to enter upon being so thread-bare and baffled a Topick 2. That no Doctrines but such as are contrary to the Articles of the Creed can be any reason to hold off from the Communion of a Church but we think the requiring doubtful things for certain false for true new for old absurd for reasonable are ground enough for us not to embrace the Communion of a Church unless it may be had on better terms than these 3. That no Church can be guilty of Schism unless we can name some distinct Church from whose Vnity it separated whereas we have often proved that imposing unreasonable conditions of Communion makes the Church so imposing guilty of the Schism Surely T. G.'s stock is almost spent when he plays the same game so often over These are not such terrible arguments to be produced afresh as if they had never been heard of when there is not a Missioner that comes but hath them at his fingers end R. P. But the Roman Church was once the true Church Rom. 1. and the Christian world of all Ages believed it to be the only true Church of Christ but it cannot be proved not to be the true one by an evidence equal to that which once proved it true therefore we are bound to be of the communion of that Church P. D. O the vertue of sodden Coleworts How often are they produced without shame To be short Sir 1. We deny that the Church of which the Pope is Head was ever commended by St. Paul or in any one Age of the Christian World was owned by it to be the only true Church which is very much short of the whole Christian World of all Ages 2. Since the evidence is so notoriously faulty about proving the Roman Church to be the only true Church a small degree of evidence as to its corruptions may exceed it and consequently be sufficient to keep us from returning to its communion But what doth T. G. mean by repeating such stuff as this Which I dare say Dr. St. only passed by on account of the slightness and commonness of it they being arguments every day brought and every day answered And if he had a mind to see Dr. St.'s mind about them he might have seen it at large in his Defence of Archhishop Laud And do you think it fair for him every Book he writes to produce afresh every argument there which hath received no Answer R. P. I perceive you begin to be out
of patience P. D. Not I assure you when I meet with any thing that deserves it R. P. Here comes our Fanatick Friend to refresh you a little What is the matter man why so sad have you met with an ill bargain at the Auction F. C. No no. I got a Book last night hath taken me up till this time and truly I have read something in it which fits much upon my Spirit R. P. What is it if we may ask you F. C. It is no comfort either to you or me R. P. If I be concerned I pray let me know F. C. You know last night we heard them at Rutherford and Gillespee I came in time enough for Gillespee's Miscellany Questions a rare Book I promise you And by a particular favour I carried it home with me and looking upon the Contents I found the Seasonable Case viz. About Associations and Confederacies with Idolaters Infidels or Hereticks and he proves them to be so absolutely unlawful from Scripture and many sound Orthodox Divines that for my part he hath fully convinced and setled me and I thought it my duty to come and to tell you so R. P. Well we will let alone that discourse at present we are at our old trade again and I was just coming to a seasonable question for you viz. Whether you have not as much reason to separate from the Church of England as the Church of England had from the Church of Rome F. C. Who doubts of that P. D. I do Sir nay more I absolutely deny it F. C. What matter is it what you say or deny You will do either for a good preferment Have not you assented and consented to all that is in the Book of Common Prayer and what will you stick at after P. D. Consider Sir what it is to judge rash judgement I wonder men that pretend to Conscience and seem so nice and scrupulous in some things can allow thmselves in the practice of so dangerous a sin If you have a mind to debate this point before us without clamour and impertinency I am for you F. C. You would fain draw me in to dispute again would you No such matter there is your man he will manage our Cause for us against you of the Church of England I warrant you R. P. I am provided for it For T. G. desires of Dr. St. for the sake of the Presbyterians Anabaptists and other separated Congregations to know why the believing all the ancient Creeds and leading a good life may not be sufficient to Salvation unless one be of the Communion of the Church of England P. D. A very doughty question As though we were like you and immediately damned all persons who are not of the Communion of our Church We say their separation from us is very unjust and unreasonable and that there is no colour for making their case equal with ours as to the separation from the Church of Rome R. P. I will tell you of a man who makes the case parallel it is one Dr. St. in his Irenicum and T. G. produces many pages out of him to that purpose P. D. To save you the trouble of repeating them I have read them over and do think these Answers may serve for his vindication 1. That in that very place he makes separation from a Church retaining purity of Doctrine on the account of some corrupt practices to be unlawful and afterwards in case men be unsatisfied as to some conditions of communion he denies it to be lawful to erect New Churches because a meer requiring conformity in some suspected rites doth not make a Church otherwise sound to be no true Church or such a Church from which it is lawful to make a total separation which is then done when men enter into a new and distinct Society for worship under distinct and peculiar Officers governing by Laws and Church Rules different from those of the Church they separate from And now let your Fanatick Friend judge whether this man even in the dayes of writing his Irenicum did justifie the practices of the separated Congregations which he speaks expressely against F. C. No truly We are all now for separated Congregations and know better what we have to do than our Fore-Fathers did Alas what comfort is there in bare Nonconformity For our people would not endure us if we did not proceed to separation He that speaks against separation ruins us and our Cause P. D. So far then we have cleared Dr. St. from patronizing the Cause of the separated Congregations 2. He saith that as to things left undetermined by the Law of God in the Judgement of the Primitive and Reformed Churches and in matters of Order Decency and Government every one notwithstanding what his private judgement may be of them is bound to submit to the determination of the lawful Governours of the Church Can any thing be said plainer for Conformity than this is by the Author of the Irenicum R. P. But how then come in those words produced by T. G. P. D. I will tell you he supposes that some scrupulous and conscientious men after all endeavours used to satisfie themselves may remain unsatisfied as to the Lawfulness of some imposed Rites but dare not proceed to positive separation from the Church but are willing to comply in all other things save in those Rites which they still scruple and concerning these he puts the Question whether such bare-nonconformity do involve such men in the guilt of Schism And this I confess he resolves negatively and so brings in that long passage T. G. produces out of him I now appeal to your self whether T. G. hath dealt fairly with Dr. St. in two things 1. In not distinguishing the case of separation from that of bare nonconformity only in some suspected Rites and in producing these words to justifie the separated Congregations 2. In taking his judgement in this matter rather from his Irenicum written so long since than from his late Writings wherein he hath purposely considered the Difference of the Case of those who separate from the Church of England and of our separation from the Church of Rome R. P. But hath he done this indeed and did T. G. know it P. D. Yes very well For it is in that very Book the Preface whereof T. G. pretends to answer in these Dialogues and he doth not speak of it by the by but discourseth largely about it Is this fair dealing But the Irenicum served better for his purpose as he thought and yet he hath foully misrepresented that too R. P. But yet Dr. St. must not think to escape so for he hath searched another Book of his called his Rational Account and there he finds a passage he thinks in favour to Dissenters from the Church of England and which undermines the Church of England P. D. Therefore the Church of Rome is not guilty of Idolatry R. P. Have a little patience
to the point of Idolatry it self R. P. Hold a little you are still too quick I have something more yet to say to you before we come to it P. D. What is that R. P. I have a great deal to tell you out of Mr. Thorndikes Just Weights and Measures about the Charge of Idolatry and the mischievous consequences of it P. D. To what end should you repeat all that I begin to think you were not in jest when you said T. G. put in some things to fill up his Book Dr. St. had before declared the great esteem he had for Mr. Thorndikes Learning and Piety but in this particular he declared that he saw no reason to recede from the common doctrine of the Church of England on the account of Mr. Thorndikes Authority or Arguments And I have already given you such an account of his opinion with respect to the Church of Rome as I hope will take off Mr. Thorndikes Testimonies being so often alledged against us by T. G. and his Brethren If T. G. had not purposely declined the main matters in debate between Dr. St. and him he would never have stuffed out so much of his Book with things so little material to that which ought to have been the main design of it R. P. But I have somewhat more to say to you which is that you charge T. G. with declining the dispute about the sense of the second Commandment whereas he doth speak particularly to it P. D. I am glad to hear it I hope then he takes off the force of what Dr. St. had said in his late Defence about it For I assure you it was much expected from him R. P. What would you have a man do he produces at least four leaves of what he had said before and then a little after near two leaves more and within a few pages above two leaves again out of his old Book and then tells how Dr. St. spends above an hundred pages about the sense of the second Commandment whereas he neither removes the contradictions nor answers the arguments of T. G. but criticizeth upon the exceptions of T. G. to the several methods for finding out the sense of the Law but saith he what need so much pains and labour be taken if the Law be express and do not you think this enough about the second Commandment P. D. No truly Nor you neither upon any consideration For the Dr. in his Discourse upon the second Commandment 1. hath manifestly overthrown T. G.'s notion of an Idol viz. of a figment set up for Worship by such clear and convincing arguments that if T. G· had any thing to have said in defence of it he would never have let it escaped thus 2. He hath proved the sense he gives of the Commandment to be the same which the Fathers gave of it 3. He takes off T. G.'s instances of worshipping before the Ark and the Cherubims and the Testimony of S. Austin 4. He answers T. G.'s objections and clears the sense of the Law by all the means a Law can be well understood And is all this do you think answered by T. G.'s repeating what he had said before or blown down by a puff or two of Wit I do not know what T. G. thinks of it but I do not find any understanding man takes this for an answer but a meer put-off So that I may well say Dr. St.'s proofs are invincible when T. G. so shamefully retreats out of the Field and sculks under some hedges and thorns which he had planted before for a shelter in time of need R. P. But why did not Dr. St. answer punctually to all that T. G. said P. D. Because he did not think it material if the main things were proved R. P. Bu◠T. G. will think them unanswerable till he receive satisfaction concerning them P. D. That it may be is impossible to give a man that hath no mind to receive it but if you please let me hear the strength of what T. G. lays such weight upon that he may have no such pretence for the future and lest the third time we meet with the same Coleworts R. P. Doth not Dr. St. make express Scripture his most certain rule of Faith Doth not he on the other side deny any thing to be an Article of Faith which is not acknowledged to be such by Rome it self Then if God hath expresly forbidden the worship of himself by an Image it is an Article of Faith that he ought not to be worshipped by an Image and since Rome doth not acknowledge it it is not an Article of Faith Therefore T. G. calls upon the Dr. to speak out Is it or is it not an Article of Faith But T. G. saith he hath found out the Mysterie of the business for he can find out Mysteries I assure you as well as discover plots and catch Moles to gratifie the Non-conformists the Articles of the Church of England must pass only for inferiour truths but when the Church of Rome is to be charged with Idolatry then they are Articles of Faith so that as T. G. pleasantly saith the same proposition taken Irenically is an inferiour Truth but taken Polemically it must be an Article of Faith because expresly revealed in Scripture P. D. Is this it which T. G. thought worth repeating at large surely it was for the sake of the Clinch of Irenically and Polemically and not for any shew of difficulty in the thing For all the Mist is easily scattered by observing a very plain distinction of an Article of faith which is either taken 1. For an essential point of faith such as is antecedently necessary to the Being of a Christian Church and so the Creed is said to contain the Articles of our Faith and in this sense Dr. St. said the Church of Rome did hold all the essential points of faith which we did 2. For any doctrine plainly revealed in Scripture which is our Rule of faith And did Dr. St. ever deny that the Church of Rome opposed some things clearly revealed in Scripture nay it is the design of his Books to prove it doth And if every doctrine which can be deduced from a plain command of Scripture is to be looked on as an Article of Faith then that the Cup is to be given to those who partake of the Bread that Prayers are to be in a known Tongue will become Articles of Faith and do you think Dr. St. either Irenically or Polemically did ever yield that the Church of Rome did not oppose these If T. G. lays so much weight on such slight things as these I must tell you he is not the man I took him for and I believe it was only civility in Dr. St. to pass such things by R.P. But T.G. would know what he means by expresly forbidden only that it is clear to himself expecting that others should submit to his saying it
observes what the common people do to imagine that they place no Sanctity Vertue or Divinity in their Images When they walk so many miles barefoot to a certain Image of our Lady when they creep upon their bare knees towards it when they make formal supplications to the Images with as much Ceremony as if the persons they represent were present when they look with so much submission and devotion towards them when they come with such mighty expectations of relief and help from them when they tell stories of so many miracles which have been wrought by them nay when their learned men who should have more wit or honesty write Books on purpose to heighten these follies and madnesses of the People Can you with any face say there is not so much danger in the worship of Images as in the worship of the Creatures I did not expect after what Dr. St. had represented in this matter T. G. should have given so wretched an answer as this For if this were all to keep men from the Relative worship of Creatures I dare affirm that most of the Fathers arguments against this sort of Idolatry were very weak and feeble and that they did not reach the Philosophical and contemplative men but only the dull and stupid vulgar that there was nothing of real Idolatry in their worship of the Creatures but only danger to the common people and scandal to the weak Name me that Christian who through all the Primitive Church ever let fall an expression to this purpose It was Idolatry downright Idolatry they charged them with in the worship of the Creatures and not any meer scandalous complyance with the ignorant vulgar If this had been all they meant for all that I can see the Work of the Apostles and Primitive Christians had been to have informed them only of the True God whom they were to worship in the Creatures and if all the People were once throughly informed of this all the ancient Rites of worship might have continued They might have still baked Cakes to the Queen of Heaven and worshipped the whole Host of Heaven they might have continued their Devotion to the Earth and Fire and Trees and Fountains if they did but direct their worship through them to God What mean all those sayings of Fathers all those Canons of Councils wherein this very manner of Worship was condemned for Idolatry as Dr. St. hath in part shewed Speak out Gentlemen and let us know what you think of the Primitive Church which so freely condemned this Relative Worship but never imagine that we will be guided by your modern Schools or the Doctrine of your Church in these things against the consent of the whole Primitive Christian Church whose Fathers you must condemn as Children and whose Martyrs you must look on as Fools if your doctrine of Relative worship be allowed For most of those who suffered Martyrdom might have escaped if they had allowed these principles of Relative worship no more being required of them but to do as the rest did to burn a little incense in obedience to the Laws to make some customary libations before the Emperours Images to make the common supplications at the Temples of Vesta or Ceres or any other of the Gods which the Philosophers understood of the several parts of the world and might they not have done all these things and referred the worship ultimately to the True God I do not think this so trifling a matter as T. G. makes it but I think the honour of Christianity and of the Primitive Martyrs deeply concerned in it and I wish you not to maintain your Fooleries upon such principles as reflect dishonour upon Christianity it self R. P. Methinks the speaking Trumpet hath roused you and put you into a fit of furious zeal P. D. No Sir I do assure you It is the honour I have for Christianity which hath made me speak thus warmly for I am very unwilling to have the primitive Christians to suffer as Fools and as weak Brethren R. P. But T. G. saith from Vossius That the Gentiles concluded Nature it self to be God and the parts of it also to be Deities and that they forsook God and staid in the worship of Nature P. D. Some persons not inferiour to Vossius for learning or judgement in these matters do suppose it to be a great mistake in him to make the Gentiles worship inanimate nature for a true God which say they is in plain terms to make them Atheists For then they must own nothing but meer matter in the world And to what purpose men should worship an inanimate senseless being it is very hard to understand it is therefore much more probable that they did own some inferiour Deities over the several parts of the world and one Supream which passed through all whom they did worship in and by his Creatures But I am not now to give an account of the Pagan Idolatry of which we shall have occasion to discourse afterwards That which I insist upon is that those who had a right notion of God might upon the principles of relative worship have justified themselves in doing the same things which the Heathens did provided their intentions were directed aright and consequently that there was no necessity of taking away the Heathen Rites as Idolatrous in reference to the parts of the world but only of acquainting them more fully with the Notion of God and the nature of Relative Worship R. P. But T. G. still stands to it that there is more danger in worshipping the Creatures than in the worship of Images because the Creatures are not so apparently representative of God as an Image is of the Person represented by it which carries the thoughts presently and effectually to him But the other needs a great deal of discourse to discover the analogy they bear to the Creator and the dependence they have of him for their very being yet so that from the greatness and beauty of the Creatures the Maker of them may proportionably be seen P. D. To this Dr. St. gave a full answer when he said that in an object of worship we are not so much to consider the quickness of representation as the perfections represented Although therefore an Image may carry ones mind sooner to the thing represented than the Creatures yet the one is so infinite a disparagement to the Divine Nature in comparison of the other that there is far greater danger upon T. G.'s principles in one than in the other I will make this plain to you by this instance Suppose the Image of a venerable old man with Pontifical Habits set up to represent God Almighty as hath been usual in the Church of Rome and one man worships God by this another he looks upon the Sun as a wonderful Work of God and he worships God as manifesting himself in the Sun the Question now is whether there be more danger in worshipping God by an
Works which being neither from Mathematical Demonstrations nor supernatural infallibility he called Moral Certainty Which he might do from these grounds 1. Because the force of the Argument from the Creatures depends upon some Moral Principles Viz. From the suitableness and fitness of things to the Wisdom of an Intelligent and Infinite Agent who might from thence be inferred to be the Maker of them It being unconceivable that meer matter should ever produce things in so much beauty order and usefulness as we see in every Creature in an Ant or a Fly as much as in the vast bodies of the Heavens 2. Because they do suppose some Moral Dispositions in the persons who do most readily and firmly assent to these Truths For although men make use of the highest titles for their arguments and call them Infallible Proofs Mathematical Demonstrations or what they please yet we still see men of bad minds will find something to cavil at whereby to suspend their assent which they do not in meer Metaphysical notions or in Mathematical Demonstrations But vertuous and unprejudiced minds do more impartially judge and therefore more readily give their assent having no byas to incline them another way Although therefore the principles be of another nature and the arguments be drawn from Idea's or series of Causes or whatever medium it be yet since the perverseness of mens will may hinder the force of the argument as to themselves the Certainty might be called Moral Certainty 2. As to the Christian Faith So he grants 1. That there are some principles relating to it which have Metaphysical Certainty in them as that Whatever God reveals is impossible to be false or as it is commonly expressed though improperly is infallibly True 2. That there is a rational Certainty that a Doctrine confirmed by such Miracles as were wrought by Christ and his Apostle must come from God that being the most certain Criterion of Divine Revelation 3. That there was a Physical Certainty of the truth of Christs Miracles and Resurrection from the dead in the Apostles who were eye-witnesses of them 4. That there was an Infallible Certainty in the Apostles delivering this doctrine to the world and writing it for the benefit of the Church in all Ages 5. That we have a moral Certainty of the matters of Fact which do concern the Doctrine the Miracles and the Books of Scripture which is of the same kind with the certainty those had of Christs Doctrine and Miracles who lived in Mesopotamia at that time which must depend upon the credibility of the Witnesses who convey these things which is a Moral Consideration and therefore the Certainty which is taken from it may be properly called Moral Certainty Of which there being many degrees the highest is here understood which any matter of fact is capable of And now I pray tell me what reason hath there been for all this noise about Moral Certainty R. P. T. G. owns that the Dr. in other places doth acknowledge a true certainty of the principles of Religion but he saith he can say and unsay without retracting with as much art and ease as any man he ever read P. D. I had thought unsaying had been retracting But Dr. St. saith as much in those very places T. G. objects against as in those he allows Only T. G. delights in cavilling above most Authors I have ever read R. P. But doth not Dr. St. allow a possibility of falshood notwithstanding all this pretence of Certainty P. D. Whatever is true is impossible to be false and the same degree of evidence any one hath of the truth of a thing he hath of the impossibility of the falshood of it therefore he that hath an undoubted certainty of the truth of Christianity hath the same certainty that it is impossible it should be false And because possibility and impossibility are capable of the same distinctions that Certainty is therefore according to the nature and degrees of Certainty is the possibility or impossibility of falshood That which is Metaphysically certain is so impossible to be false that it implyes a contradiction to be otherwise but it is not so in Physical Certainty nor in all rational Certainty nor in Moral and yet whereever any man is certain of the truth of a thing he is proportionably certain that it is impossible to be false R. P. This only relates to the person and not to the Evidence Is there any such evidence of the Existence of a Deity as can infallibly convince it to be absolutely true and so impossible to be false P. D. I do not doubt but that there are such evidences of the Being of God as do prove it to any unprejudiced mind impossible to be otherwise And T. G. had no reason to doubt of this from any thing Dr. St. had said who had endeavoured so early to prove the Being of God and the Principles of Christian Faith before he set himself to consider the Controversies which have happened in the Christian Church T. G. therefore might well have spared these reflections in a debate of so different a nature but that he was glad of an opportunity to go off from the business as men are that know they are not like to bring it to a good issue R. P. T. G. confesseth this is a digression but he promises to return to the matter and so he does I assure you for he comes to the second thing which he saith the Dr. ought to have done viz. to have shewed how the Notion of Idolatry doth agree to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in her Councils P. D. It is a wonder to me you should think him defective in this when he shews that there are two things from whence the sense of the Roman Church is to be taken 1. From the Definitions of Councils 2. From the practice of the Church 1. From the Definitions of Councils And here he entred upon the consideration of what that worship was which was required to be given to Images and shewed from the words of the Council and from the Testimony of the most eminent Divines of the Roman Church that it was not enough to worship before Images and to have an intention to perform those external Acts but there must be an inward intention to worship the Images themselves and that the contrary doctrine was esteemed little better than downright Heresie 2. From the Practice of the Church For he shews many of your best Divines went upon this principle that God would not suffer his Church to err and therefore they thought the allowed practice of the Church sufficient for them to defend those things to be lawful which they saw generally practised And from hence he makes it appear that the Church of Rome hath gone beyond the Council of Nice in two things 1. In making and worshipping Images of God and the B. Trinity which was esteemed madness and Pagan Idolatry in the time of the
second Council of Nice and is justified by the modern Divines of the Church of Rome from the general practice of their Church 2. In giving the Worship of Latria to Images which was condemned by the Council of Nice and notwithstanding is defended by multitudes of Divines in the Roman Church from the allowed practice in the Worship of the Cross both before and after the Council of Trent After which he enquires at large into the publick Offices and commended Devotions of that Church in respect to Images and from thence he proves that 1. As to Consecration of Images for worship 2. As to the Rites of Supplication to them 3. As to pompous procession with them the modern Church of Rome doth not fall short of the practice of Pagan Rome And do you think all this is not applying the notion of Idolatry home to the Roman Church When 1. He shews by the principles of the second Council of Nice the modern practices of the Church of Rome are chargeable with Idolatry 2. That the practices agreeable with that Council were charged with Idolatry by the Western Church in the Council of Francford not from any mistake of their meaning but because they looked on the Worship then decreed to be proper adoration R. P. But T. G. saith If the Worship defined by the Council of Nice were inferiour Worship and not Latria as Dr. St. confesseth then nothing can be clearer than that it was not the Worship due to God and consequently the Church of Rome cannot be chargeable with Idolatry from any thing contained in that decree P. D. Will T. G. never understand the difference between the intention of the person and the Nature of the Act They might declare it to be only inferiour Worship but the Council of Francford took it to be proper adoration which was due only to God And if that Councils Judgement must stand all those in the Church of Rome who give Latria to the Cross must be guilty of Idolatry R. P. Doth not the Church of England allow bowing to the Altar which if the Altar had any sense would think were done to it as T. G. saith he was certainly informed of a Countrey fellow who being got near the Altar in his Majesties Chapel thought all the Congies had been made to him and so returned Congy for Congy And if bowing may be used out of Religious respect to the Altar why not kneeling or prostration or fixing our eyes in time of Prayer or burning Incense or Lights before the Images of Christ and his Saints but how can Dr. St. purge the Church of England from Idolatry in that practice when he saith that any Image being made so far the object of Divine Worship that men do bow down before it and he supposes the same will hold for any other creature it doth thereby become an Idol and on that account is forbidden in the second Commandment P. D. What would T. G. have done had it not been for this practice of bowing towards the Altar when yet he cannot but know that the practice of it is not enjoyned by our Church for the Canon leaves it at liberty If the Church of Rome did the same about the Worship of Images the parallel would hold somewhat better But the Church of Rome declares Religious Worship is to be given to Images and our Church declares that none is to be given to the Altar and doth not this make an apparent difference If the Countrey fellow standing without the rails fancied the Congies made to himself what would he have done if he had stood within an Image of our Lady and seen all the Courtship that had been used towards her by some of her devoted servants and slaves when he beheld the bare knees bleeding the tears trickling the breast knocking the eyes scarce lifted up to shew the greater reverence and humility towards the Image what could he have thought but that he was shut up within the bowels of the Goddess they worshipped Whereas if the Countrey fellow had gone up into the Court and seen the ancient servants make their Reverences after dinner in the Presence chamber he would soon have been better informed if some of the old Courtiers had told him it was the ancient Custome of the Court to make their Reverences in all Chambers of Presence and from thence when they went into his Majesties Chapel they used the same custome out of Reverence to God Almighty whose Presence-chamber they accounted the Chapel to be What is all this to giving Religious Worship to the Altar wherein the force of all T. G. saith must lye R. P. But you do bow before the Altar as we do before Images P. D. I utterly deny that For your Church declares bowing before Images without an intention to worship the Images is next to Heresie if we are to take the sense of your Councils from their own words and the explication of Divines You explode their Doctrine who say that we are only to worship God before them And is there no difference between the Acts of these two men as to Images themselves The one declares that he looks on no Religious worship as due to an Image but it serves him only to put him in mind of him who is the proper object of Worship and he never intends by any Act of his to worship the Image it self another saith the Church requires Images to be worshipped and for my part I think my self bound to do what the Church requires and therefore it is my intention to give Worship not barely to the object represented but to the very Image it self although it be on the account of its representation And the latter Dr. St. hath shewed to be the only allowed sense in the Church of Rome and the other rejected either as heretical or next to it Which T. G. never so much as once takes notice of But however this doth not reach our case for we believe the second Commandment to be still in force which is express and positive against all worship of Images and bowing down to them but that which was lawful among the Jews notwithstanding that precept viz. to Worship God towards the Mercy Seat is still lawful among Christians viz. to Worship God alone but towards the Altar And thus I hope T. G. will at last be brought a little better to understand the sense of our Church in this practice and how far it is from being a parallel with your Worship of Images R. P. T. G. finds great fault with Dr. St. 's citation out of Card. Lugo about submission to Images because he left out aliquis and potest dici and I tell you he makes a huge outcry about it and fills up several pages with it P. D. Doth he truly It was a great sign he wanted matter to fill up his book But I pray on what occasion was this passage brought in It may be that will give us some light
giving Doulia to Christ to be Idolatry 5. That the notion of an Idol is so far from being a meer imaginary figment or Chimera that it was attributed by the Fathers to the most excellent Being even to Christ himself when Divine Worship was given to him as a Creature These are matters of great moment if they hold good doth he pass all these by only to fall upon one single Testimony If he doth it is a shrewd sign though he cried out of Gregory Nyssen yet he was pinched somewhere else Well but what is this horrible crime about Gregory Nyssen Hath he brought him under an Index Expurgatorius Hath he falsified his words and corrupted the Text Or hath he wilfully altered his sense and meaning Hath he done it in all the quotations out of him or only in one Whatever it is let us have it R. P. It is in the citation out of his Oration de laudibus Basilii P. D. But the Dr. hath three or four more out of the same Author It seems they stand well enough Hath not the Dr. truly cited his words R. P. Yes T. G. saith as to the general truly enough P. D. What is the fault then R. P. That he doth not add the words that follow wherein he shews what kind of worship that was which the Arians gave to Christ viz. not only to worship and serve him but also to six hopes of salvation in a Creature and to expect judgement from it And was it not neatly done of the Doctor to wrap up all this in those short words The Devil perswaded men to return to the worship of the Creature Which is a Laconism not observed by him on other occasions but it was here done on purpose to conceal from the Reader the apparent difference between the worship of Saints in the Church of Rome and the Arians worship of Christ. P. D. I am glad it is out at last after so much straining See how much choler there is in it Indeed it might have done him much harm if he had kept it in any longer But I wonder the Laconick Gentleman doth complain of shortness Do you think the Laconian in Boccalini would have made such a noise for missing a page or two in Guicciardins War of Pisa Do you in earnest think Dr. St. should take such pains to conceal that which every one knows that the Arians fixed their hopes of Salvation on Christ and expected him to come to Judgement What wonderful discovery is this which T. G. hath made Nay Dr. St. himself takes notice of this Objection that they did give a higher degree of worship to Christ than any do to Saints and returns this Answer to it that they did only give a degree of worship proportionable to the degrees of excellency supposed to be in him far above any other creatures whatsoever But still that worship was inferiour to that which they gave to God the Father and at the highest such as the Platonists gave to their celestial Deities And although the Arians did invocate Christ and put their trust in him yet they still supposed him to be a creature and therefore believed that all the Power and Authority he had was given to him so that the worship they gave to Christ must be inferiour to that honour they gave to the Supreme God whom they believed to be Supreme Absolute and Independent R. P. T. G. takes notice of this Answer and objects two things against it First That it stands too far off from the words of Nyssen at the distance of 350 pages and so proves a very late salve for so old a wound P. D. Especially considering how poor Nyssen lay a bleeding all that while Is it not enough for us to unswer Objections unless we put them just in the page you would have them after the way of Objections and Solutions I pity the hard fate of the Laconian that hath 350 leaves to turn over longer than the War of Pisa. O for the Gallies But I hope he will consider better of it R. P. You may jest as you please at this Answer but the second is a very solid one for T. G. shews the parallel to be inconsistent both with the practice of the Arians and Doctrine of the Fathers P. D. What parallel doth he mean Dr. St. proves from hence inferiour relative worship given to a creature to be Idolatry in the sense of the Fathers Is this true or is it not R. P. You have not patience to hear T. G.'s answer out For 1. He saith The Fathers do acknowledge a worship due to the Saints and particularly Gregory Nyssen in an Oration produced by him and therefore if they had condemned the Arians of Idolatry for giving only a like worship to Christ though in a higher degree they had condemned themselves for the like crime 2. The Arians made no such Apology for themselves as the Doctor makes for them viz. that they gave Soveraign and absolute worship to God and only inferiour and relative worship to Christ. 3. Why might not the generality at least believe Christ to be of a superiour Order so as to have true Divinity in him as the Heathens did of their lesser Gods and that being assumed as a Consort in the Empire absolute Divine Honour was due to him 4. They were chargeable with Idolatry because they did avowedly give those Acts of Worship to Christ believing him to be a Creature which by the common consent and publick practice of Christians from whence exteriour signs in the duties of Religion receive their determination were understood to be due only to God incarnate Which makes their case very much different from that of the Church of Rome which gave to Saints and Images only such Acts of Worship as by the common use and practice of the Christian World before Luther were determined and understood when applied to Saints and Images to express an inferiour degree of Reverence or Worship than what is due to God himself This is the substance of T. G.'s answer P. D. I confess T. G. now offers something worthy a serious debate Which may be reduced to these two things 1. What those Acts of Worship were which the Arians were charged with Idolatry for giving to Christ supposing him a Creature 2. How far the Church of Rome is liable to the same charge for the worship she gives to Saints and Images 1. For the Acts of Worship which the Arians were charged with Idolatry in giving to Christ as a Creature The strength of T. G.'s answer lies in two things 1. That they were given absolutely to Christ as a lesser God 2. That they were such Acts which by the consent of the Church did signifie proper Divine worship 1. Let us consider whether the worship given to Christ could be absolute upon their supposition that Christ was a Creature T. G. speaks somewhat faintly in this matter at first saying only Why might it not be absolute
any wayes repugnant to the sense of the Church R. P. But T. G. saith the Terms of Communion with the Church are not the Opinions of her School-Divines but the Decrees of her Councils P. D. And what then Did Dr. St. meddle with the School-Divines any otherwise than as they explained the sense of Councils or the practice of the Church And what helps more proper to understand these than the Doctrine of your most learned Divines T. G. will have one Mr. Thorndike to speak the sense of the Church of England against the current Doctrine of the rest as Dr. St. hath proved yet he will not allow so many Divines of greatest Note and Authority to explain the sense of the Church of Rome Is this equal dealing R. P. T. G. saith That for his life he cannot understand any more the Idolatry of worshipping an Image than the Treason of bowing to a Chair of State or the Adultery of a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture and that the same subtilties may be used against these as against the other and therefore notwithstanding the disputes of School-Divines honest nature informed with Christian Principles will be security enough against the practice of Idolatry in honouring the Image of Christ for his sake P. D. What is the matter with T. G. that for his life he can understand these things no better after all the pains which hath been taken about him Hath not the difference of these cases been laid open before him Do not your own Writers confess that in some cases an Image may become an Idol by having Divine Worship given to it Is this then the same case with a Wives kissing her Husbands Picture Doth not this excuse the Gnosticks worship of the Image of Christ as well as yours If there may be Idolatry in the worship of an Image we are then to consider whether your worship be not Idolatry Especially since both parties charge each other with Idolatry those who will have it to be Latria and those who will not And I do not see what honest nature can do in this case however assisted unless it can make the worship of Images to be neither one nor the other I see T. G. would fain make it to be no more than bare honour of an Image for the sake of Christ but this doth not come up to the Decrees of Councils the general sense of Divines and the constant practice of your Church If ever worship was given to Images you give it by using all Acts of Adoration towards them R. P. But suppose the King had made an Order that due honour and respect should be given to the Chair of State ought not that to be observed notwithstanding the disputes which might arise about the nature of the Act P. D. To answer this we must suppose a Command from God that we must worship an Image of Christ as we do his Person but here it is just contrary The Reason of the second Command being owned by the Christian Church to hold against the worship of Images now as well as under the Law But those in the Church of Rome who do charge each other with Idolatry without supposing any such command do proceed upon the nature of the Worship which must either be Divine Worship which one party saith is Idolatry being the same which is given to God or an inferiour Religious Worship which the other party saith must be Idolatry being an expression of our submission to an inanimate thing And for my life I cannot see what answer T. G. makes to this R. P. T. G. saith the Rules of the Church are to be observed in this case as the Rules of the Court about the Chair of State P. D. What! are the Rules of the Church to be observed absolutely whether against the Law of God or not Which is as much as to say at Court that the Orders of the Green-cloth are to be observed against his Majesties pleasure But not to insist on that I say in this case the Rules of the Church help nothing for they who do follow the Rules of the Church must do one or the other of these and whichsoever they do they are charged with Idolatry And therefore Dr. St. had great reason to say Where there is no necessity of doing the thing the best way to avoid Idolatry is to give no worship to Images at all R. P. What will become of the Rules of the Church saith T. G. if men may be permitted to break them for such Capriches as these are P. D. Are you in earnest Doth T. G. call these Capriches Idolatry is accounted both by Fathers and Schoolmen a crime of the highest nature and when I am told I must commit it one way or other by your Divines if I give worship to Images is this only a Capriche R. P. Will not the same reason hold against bowing to the Altar bowing being an act of worship appropriated to God P. D. Will the same reason hold against bowing out of Reverence to Almighty God which I have told you again and again is all our Church allows in that which you call bowing to the Altar I see you are very hard put to it to bring in this single Instance upon every turn against the plain sense and declaration of our Church If this be all T. G. upon so long consideration hath to say in this matter it is not hard to judge who hath much the better Cause R. P. I pray hold from triumphing a while for there is a fresh charge behind wherein you will repent that ever you undertook to defend Dr. St. it is concerning the unjust parallel he hath made between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry P. D. I see no cause to repent hitherto And I hope I shall find as little when I come to that THE Fourth Conference About the Parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry R. P. HAVE you considered what T. G. saith concerning the parallel between the Heathen and Romish Idolatry and doth not your heart fail you as to the defence of Dr. St. which you promised to undertake P. D. No truly The more I have considered it the less I fear it R. P. What think you of the notion of Idolatry he chargeth on T. G. viz. that it is the giving the Soveraign Worship of God to a Creature and among the Heathens to the Devil as if the Idolatry of the Heathens consisted only in worshipping the Devil whereas it appears from the words Dr. St. cites out of him that he charged the Heathens with Idolatry in worshipping their Images for Gods and the Creatures for Gods although withal they worshipped evil Spirits and T. G. contends that their Supream God was an Arch-Devil P. D. Is this such a difficulty to be set in the Front I suppose it is only to try whether I will stumble at the threshold If the Supreme God whom the Heathens worshipped was an Arch-devil as T. G.
Although therefore the Heathens did own and worship many Gods yet they looked on them as inferiour and subordinate to the Supreme and only imployed by him in the administration of things under him And as for the partners you mention they were not such quoad plenitudinem potestatis but only made use of in their particular Offices you know the distinction and it serves better here than in the Court of Rome But I cannot but wonder when T. G. had upbraided Dr. St. for two pages together with his Father Livy Father Varro Father Cicero Father Seneca Father Virgil c. he should at last sink so low as to quote Father T. G. in his Roman Antiquities against him surely any one of those Fathers in a matter of Roman Antiquities would weigh down a hundred Father T. G.'s and yet even this Testimony doth not prove that the Gods that were supposed to be in Heaven by their own right were supreme and independent Deities but the Dij Consentes were of a higher rank than the semidei or indigites the one having been always in Heaven according to the Platonists supposition the other being assumed from among men which comes at last to the distinction of Angels and Saints 2. How far your opinion and practice do differ from theirs And here I pray remember that I go not about to compare the Heathen Gods with Angels and Saints as to their excellencies for the Apostle tells us however the Gentiles intended it they did really sacrifice to Devils and not to God but I am only to compare the Heathens notion of worship and yours together And if you do allow Gods by participation viz. Spirits assumed into such a share of Government as to have the care of some things and places committed to some more than to others and if addresses and supplications are allowed to be made to them on that account I desire to know how the Heathens are justly charged with Idolatry and you not Was it Idolatry to pray to Diana as an inferiour Deity which presided over hunting and is it none to pray to S. Hubert on the like account Was it Idolatry to pray to Vesta to preserve from the Fire and is it none to pray to S. Agatha If two persons in the same storm prayed as to their Tutelar Deities the one to Neptune the other to S. Paul is the one guilty of Idolatry and the other not If two women in travail prayed for help the one to Lucina the other to the B. Virgin is the first only guilty of Idolatry They might be accused of Ignorance and Folly in making a bad choice but I do not see how the Heathens could be charged with Idolatry and not the other When Saints are Canonized to be Particular Patrons of Places as S. Rosa lately for Peru why may not the inhabitants make particular addresses to her as their Patroness and Tutelar Deity as Lipsius did to the B. Virgin Is not this to make such a Saint a sharer in the Government of the World as much as the Heathens did their Tutelar Gods under one Supreme And therefore upon T. G.'s own ground you are as justly charged with Idolatry as the Heathens were For the Heathens did not look on their Tutelar Gods as the Original Givers but as the subordinate Ministers R. P. But as T. G. saith we do not pray to them to obtain the things we desire but that they would be our Intercessors with God for us P. D. I wonder T. G. would say this again without answering what Dr. St. had said in his late Defence to shew 1. That the very words of the Council of Trent do allow more than bare intercession 2. That formal prayers to them to bestow blessings are allowed and practised among them of which he produces several Instances of present use in the approved Books of Devotion 3. That such prayers do not contradict any received Doctrine of the Roman Church and he challenges T. G. to shew what Article of your Creed what Decree of your Church what Doctrine of your Divines it doth contradict for any man to pray directly to the Virgin Mary for the destruction of heresies support under troubles Grace to withstand temptations and reception to Glory And what can we beg for more from God himself But I do not yet understand how you can charge those Heathens with Idolatry who owned a Supreme God and worshipped inferiour Deities as subordinate to them and their Images but the charge will return upon your selves R. P. Will you never be satisfied Did not T. G. say they were justly charged with it on two accounts 1. Because those Images were instituted by publick Authority for the worship of false Gods and they concurred with the vulgar in all the external practices of their Idolatry 2. Because though in their Schools they denied them to be Gods yet they gave divine honour to them as the people did P. D. You must excuse me Sir I have such an imperfection in my understanding that it will not be satisfied without the appearance at least of Reason which I confess I cannot yet see in this answer For I pray how comes it to be Idolatry in them who give only an inferiour and relative worship if that worship be not Idolatry R. P. T. G. saith they were not guilty of internal Idolatry but of external complying with the vulgar who did worship them as truely and properly Gods and that in such a manner that they were judged to do the same thing and therefore it was at least an exteriour profession of Idolatry in them P. D. But you have not yet proved that the Gentiles did worship many independent Gods and I have very lately shewed the contrary from the express testimonies of the Fathers and therefore this answer doth not reach to the case Yet suppose that against the general sense of understanding men the common people should take the inferiour Gods for independent and absolute Deities is not this the case of your own Church as Dr. St. observed the common people take their Images for Gods or take the B. Virgin for the Queen of Heaven and pray to them accordingly which is both internal and external Idolatry in them however T. G. and their learned men comply with them in all their external Acts of Worship are they guilty of the exteriour profession of Idolatry or not R. P. I thought where you would be but is it the same case of some few men complying with a common and publick custom of Idolatrous worship and of those who follow the publick profession and do the same Acts with some private men who turn them to Idolatrous worship P. D. But if the publick profession of the Gentiles was to worship one Supreme God as I have already proved then the case is the very same as to the profession and practice of Idolatry which is the main thing insisted on And the shewing of many other
tied to offer incense to God and yet they esteemed it Idolatry to offer incense to any Creature therefore it is not necessary to the nature of Idolatry that the Act of Worship be such as we are tied to give unto God it being sufficient that it is an act of Religious Worship and the giving of any such to a creature is Idolatry and without this it is impossible to defend the Martyrs of the Primitive Church which all Christians are bound to do 2. As to particular Acts of Divine Worship though they are always unlawful to be given to any thing besides God yet we are not tyed after the same manner to perform them to him For 1. Some Acts of Worship are natural and always equally agreeing to the Majesty of God such as Prayer and Invocation Dependence on his Goodness and Providence Thanksgiving for Mercies received and all internal Acts of Worship which result from the relation we stand in to God and the apprehensions we ought to have of his Perfections as Fear from his Power Submission from his Providence Faith and Trust in him from his Truth and Wisdom Love from his Goodness c. All these are necessary Acts of worship and proper to God 2. Some Acts of worship are appropriated to him when they are due but they are not alwayes due such as making vows and swearing by his name Although we are not tied to perform these at any certain times yet whenever they are done they must be done to God alone 3. Some acts are not necessary to be done to God at all and yet it is unlawful to do them to any other And of this kind are the offering Sacrifices and burning Incense which were strictly required under the Law but that dispensation expiring after the coming of Christ the obligation to those Acts was wholly taken away and yet it was Idolatry to use them to any thing besides God because they were Acts of Religious Worship and therefore if to be performed at all they were so due to him that they could not without Idolatry be applied to any besides him And thus I hope I have a little helped your understanding about these appropriate Acts of Divine Worship R. P. But the force of the ceremonial Law being taken away whatever is not obliging by the Law of Nature or some express declaration of the will of Christ is left at liberty for the Church to use conformably to the light of nature and the design of Christs Doctrine P. D. All this I yield But that which I insist upon is that fundamental precept of worship as declared by Christ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve R. P. But do you think that Christ hath made a re-establishment of those Acts in the new Law which were before peculiar to God as Sacrifice Incense c. for then Christians will be as much bound by this precept to give them to God as not to give them to any other But if they are not re-established how doth it follow that because they were appropriated to God by the Law therefore now that Law is taken away they are forbidden to any other besides God P. D. I do not say that Christ did intend a re-establishment of those Acts of Worship which were peculiar to the Law of Moses but I do say that Christ by this Precept as explained by himself doth make it utterly unlawful to perform any act of Religious Worship to any but God alone And if this be all you have to prove the Mass of Equivocations False Suppositions and Self-contradictions in Dr. St.'s Discourse of appropriate Acts of Divine Worship it had been more for T. G.'s honour to have passed over this with as much silence as he did many other places which he found too hard for him R. P. Suppose this argument were good it proves nothing against us who neither give any act absolutely appropriated to God to any else besides him nor any other in the manner it is appropriated to him P. D. If you perform any act of Religious Worship either to Saints or Images this Discourse must concern you because the Law against the worship of Images is still in force among Christians and our Saviours general Rule doth forbid all external Acts of Religious Worship being applied to any besides God R. P. Nay supposing those external acts of worship to be now due to God by his Law the giving them to any besides himself will not be to give to the creature the worship due to God unless it be done with an intention to give them to a creature as esteemed worthy of Divine Honour For that is the definition of real Idolatry P. D. Then the Mandarins in China who performed all external acts of adoration in the Temple of the Tutelar Spirits secretly directing their intention to a Crucifix were not guilty of Idolatry notwithstanding the Decree of the Congregation at Rome For they did not perform those acts with an intention to give the worship to the Tutelar Spirits as esteemed worthy of Divine Honour Then the Thurificati of the Primitive Church who through fear offered incense could not be charged with Idolatry nor Marcellinus though he sacrificed in the Temple of Vesta when he only complied with Dioclesian But did not T. G. blame the Philosophers for an exteriour profession of Idolatry What is that I beseech you Is it Idolatry or not Doth not T. G. grant that there ought in reason to be some peculiar external acts appropriated to the worship of God as most agreeable to his incommunicable excellencie Why so I pray Is it not because Gods incommunicable excellency requires an external worship peculiar to it self And if so is it not to give the worship due to God to something else to apply those acts which are peculiar to himself to any thing besides him This debate in truth comes to this point at last whether there ought to be any such thing as a peculiar external worship of God or not For if external worship be due to him and such worship be due to him alone for his incommunicable excellencie then the giving external worship to a creature must be giving to it what is due only to God And to resolve the nature of Idolatry into the inward intention is all one as if one should say that Adultery were to lie with another mans Wife with an intention to cuckold her Husband but if a man did it out of love to her Person it were no adultery Why is there not an external act of Idolatry as well as of perjury theft murder and the like Where doth the Scripture give the least intimation that the nature of Idolatry is to be taken from the inward intention when the Law is express against the outward action and all men are charged with Idolatry who were guilty of the external acts without running into the thoughts and designs of their hearts Nay your own
say If Christ be the Sacrifice he must be slain again at every Mass as he was once on the Cross or you can assign no destruction which you say is necessary to such a true and proper Sacrifice R. P. Do not you observe T. G.'s words that Christ is whole under either species and his Blood separated from his Body not really but Mystically only and in representation P. D. How is that Whole Christ under the bread and whole Christ under the wine and the blood separated from the Body not really but mystically only and by representation This is admirable stuff and true Mystical Divinity If the body of Christ doth remain whole and entire where is the true proper Sacrifice where is the change made if not in the Body of Christ if that be uncapable of a change how can it be a true and proper Sacrifice If the blood be not really separated from the Body where is the mactation which must be in a propitiatory Sacrifice If Christ do remain whole and entire after all the Sacrificial Acts where I say is the true and proper Sacrifice T. G. had far better said and more agreeably to Scripture Antiquity and Reason that there is no real and proper sacrifice on the Altar but only mystical and by representation R. P. But T. G. saith that Religion which admits no external visible Sacrifice must needs be deficient in the most signal part of the publick worship of God P. D. I pray remember it is an external and visible Sacrifice which you contend for and now tell me where it is in your Church Doth it lye in the mimical gestures of the Priest at the Altar in imitation of Christ on the Cross If that be it the necessary consumption of the Sacrifice will be no comfortable doctrine to the Priest Doth it lye in the consecration of the Elements which are visible But you say the essence of the Sacrifice consists in the change and we can see no visible change made in them and therefore there is no external and visible Sacrifice Besides if the Sacrifice did lye in the change of the Elements after Consecration into the Body of Christ then the Elements are the thing sacrificed and not the Body of Christ for the destructive change is as to the elements and not as to the Body of Christ. Or doth it lye in the swallowing down and consumption of the species after Consecration by the Priest But here likewise the change is in the accidents and not in the Body of Christ which remains whole and entire though the species be consumed and I think there is some difference between changing ones seat and being sacrificed For all that the Body of Christ is pretended to be changed in is only its being no longer under the species but T. G. I suppose will allow it to be whole and entire still Doth it then lye in pronouncing the words of consecration upon which the Body of Christ is under the species of Bread and the Blood under that of Wine and so separated from the Body But this can least of all be since T. G. assures us that whole Christ is under the Bread as well as under the Wine and so there cannot be so much as a moment of real separation between them and we know how necessary for other purposes the doctrine of Concomitancy is Tell me then where is your external and visible Sacrifice which you boast so much of since according to your own principles there is nothing that belongs to the essence of a sacrifice is external and visible and consequently your own Church labours under the defect T. G. complains of R. P. But what makes Dr. St. so bitter against the Sacrifice of the Altar since the most true and genuine Sons of the Church of England do allow it as Mr. Thorndike Dr. Heylin and Bishop Andrews and doth not this rather look like betraying the Church of England than defending it P. D. I see now you are wheeling about to your first Post and therefore it is time to give you a space of breathing Your great business is to set us at variance among our selves but you have hitherto failed in your attempts and I hope will do I do not think any two or three men though never so learned make the Church of England her sense is to be seen in the Publick Acts and Offices belonging to it And in the Articles to which T. G. sometimes appeals your Sacrifices on the Altar are called blasphemous Figments and dangerous Impostures But as to these three persons I answer thus 1. Mr. Thorndike as I have shewed already declares against the true proper Sacrifice defined by the Council of Trent as an innovation and a contradiction And that which he pleads for is that the Eucharist is a commemorative and representative Sacrifice about which Dr. St. would never contend with him or any one else and immediately after the words cited by T. G. he adds these It is therefore enough that the Eucharist is the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross as the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is represented renewed revived and restored by it and as every representation is said to be the same thing with that which it representeth 2. Pet. Heylins words are expresly only for a commemorative Sacrifice as T. G. himself produces them and therefore I wonder what T. G. meant in citing them at large For he quotes the English Liturgie for the Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving and S. Chrysostom calling it the remembrance of a Sacrifice and many of our learned Writers a Commemorative sacrifice What is there in all this in the least repugnant to what Dr. St. had delivered R. P. But he quotes Bishop Andrews saying Take from the Mass your Transubstantiation and we will have no difference with you about the sacrfiice P. D. Bishop Andrews calls the Eucharist a commemorative sacrifice and he saith it was properly Eucharistical or of the nature of peace-offerings concerning which the Law was that he that offered should partake of them and a little after follow those words you mention to which he adds We yield you that there is a remembrance of Christs sacrifice but we shall never yield that your Christ being made of Bread is there sacrificed Which is the very thing that T. G. is so angry with Dr. St. about And have not you bravely proved that Dr. St. hath herein gone against the sense of the genuine Sons of the Church of England If you have any thing yet left which you think material I pray let us have it now for fear lest T. G. make use of it to stuff out another Book R. P. I think we are near the Bottom P. D. So I imagine by the dregs which came last R. P. There is one thing yet left for a close which is Dr. St. saith supposing this sacrifice were allowed yet this doth not prove that we reserve any
external Act of worship belonging to all Christians because this sacrifice belongs to the Priests only to offer P. D. And what answer doth T. G. give to that R. P. He saith that nothing is more notorious than that those of the Church of Rome are bound on every Sunday and Holy Day to hear Mass. P. D. To hear Mass A very Christian duty no doubt especially if they understand never a word of it and as Diana saith a man is not bound to hear a word that is said But what then R. P. By this external Act he saith they testifie the uniting their intention with the Priest as the publick Officer of the Church in the Oblation of the sacrifice P. D. I have often heard of the skill you have of directing intentions but I never knew of this knack of uniting Intentions before I know how necessary the Priests intention is in your Church but what if the People should fail of uniting their intention with his as they often think and talk of other things at hearing Mass would it not be a sacrifice without the Vnion of their Intentions Suppose the Priests Intention should wander what would the Peoples uniting their intentions signifie towards the Sacrifice You will not say they have any power to offer the sacrifice therefore the Act of sacrificing belongs only to the Priest whether the Peoples intentions be united or not If the People first offered that which was to be sacrificed to the Priest and then he sacrificed it in their name as among the Jews they might be said to have a share in the sacrifice but when the sacrifice is supposed to come down from Heaven upon the Priests words and he doth not represent the People but Christ in the Act of sacrificing What doth the Peoples uniting their intentions signifie to the sacrifice I pray tell me in whose name doth the Priest pretend to the power of offering up the Body of Christ in Sacrifice on the Altar the Peoples or Christs R. P. In the name of Christ doubtless for the People have no power to do it P. D. If they have no power to do it and all the Authority be supposed to be derived from Christ for doing it what doth the uniting the Peoples intentions with the Priests signifie as to the offering up the sacrifice You might as well say that the Jews under the Cross might unite their intentions to Christs in offering himself on the Cross to the Father and so it might become their Act as well as Christ's But in my mind your phrase of hearing and seeing Mass is much more proper if men were bound either to hear or see which your Casuists say they are not than this of uniting their intentions with the Priest which is absurd and ridiculous Doth T. G. so little consider the honour of the Priestly Office as to talk of the Peoples uniting their intentions with the Priests in the oblation of the Sacrifice The next step may be that the sacrificing may depend on the Peoples Intentions as well as the Priests and what a case are you in then Aquinas and Cajetan were much wiser than T. G. in this matter for they both declare that this sacrifice belongs only to the Priests and not to the People as Dr. St. told T. G. R. P. T. G. saith he cannot find the Citation in the place quoted by him but he dares affirm that Cajetan was not so silly a Divine as to deny it to belong to the People to offer the sacrifice by and with the Priest P. D. And I dare affirm Cajetan was much wiser than to say that the offering the sacrifice did in any sense belong to the People and so much T. G. might have found in the place cited by the Doctour only qu. 86. was put for q. 85. and not as Cajetans bare opinion but as the judgement of Aquinas too He saith indeed that the Priests do offer the sacrifice for themselves and others but he was not so silly to imagine that they were to unite their intentions with the Priests in the oblation but that expression only shews for whose sake and not in whose name the sacrifice was offered For there are other sacrifices saith he which every one may offer for himself and those saith Cajetan are spiritual sacrifices of Devotion and Vertue but for the sacrifice of the Altar that belongs only to the Priests and Officers of the Church R. P. But the very Mass-Book calls it meum ac vestrum sacrificium and desires God to accept it for all those pro quibus tibi offerimus vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium P. D. I will tell you the mysterie of this business and so put an end to this long Conference It was the ancient custom of the Roman Church as well as others for the Communicants to make an oblation of the Bread and Wine at the Altar of which they were afterwards to partake This I prove from the Sacramentary of S. Gregory published by Pamelius where it is said while the Offertory is singing i. e. the Anthem then used the oblations are made by the People and laid upon the Altar that they might be consecrated And the Ordo Romanus declares these oblations to be the Bread and Wine of which it adds that the Arch-deacon took as much and laid upon the Altar as would serve for the people that were to communicate These oblations continued in the Church a long time and were inforced by Canons and Constitutions when the people began to slacken in their devotion Upon which the Church of Rome thought fit to bring in the use of Wafers instead of common bread and so these oblations grew into disuse or were turned into offerings of money instead of them Sirmondus and Card. Bona have proved beyond all dispute that the ancient Latin Church did use common and leavened Bread in the Eucharist that was offered by the people till a thousand years after Christ. But then the doctrine of Transubstantiation coming into the Roman Church it was no longer thought fit that the Bread which was to be turned into the Son of God should be made after a common manner or with the unsanctified hands of the Laity but by those who did attend upon the Altar remembring what the good woman told Gregory I. that she wondred that the Bread which she made with her own hands should be called the Body of Jesus Christ which the people had more reason to do when they came to define the manner of the presence as they did about this time although it were not made an Article of Faith till afterwards From hence the dispute began between the Greeks and Latins about unleavened bread and from henceforward the custom of oblations for the service of the Altar declined and is only kept up on some particular solemnities as Canonization of Saints Inauguration of Princes Consecration of Bishops Marriages and Funerals however the