Prelate is come to a fair composition about Transubstantiation He is willing to content himself with such a reality of the Body of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament as the Pretended Reform'd themselves believe An. Avert p. 27. When he treats of the Invocation of Saints He endeavours to mitigate and extenuate this worship of the Roman Church An. p. 24. both as to her Tenets and Practice Together with the Veneration of Saints he softens that of Images An. p. 24. An. p. 65. as also the Articles of Satisfaction Sacrifice of the Mass and the Popes Authority As for Images he is ashamed of the Excess to which the Doctrine as well as Practice has been carried The Anonymus who represents him as if he had changed the Council of Trents expression in the Article of Satisfaction p. 110. will needs have it that this change in the Expression proceeds from an alteration which he introduces in the Doctrine In fine he represents him as one who is going over to the Sentiments of the new Reformation or to use his own Expression like the Dove which returns to the Ark not finding where to rest his foot An. p. 104 368. He not only lays to his charge particular Opinions about the Merits of Good Works and the Authority of the Pope but seems ready if we would conform our selves to the Doctrine of the Exposition to admit of those two Articles which so much perplex those of his Communion There is nothing generally more frequently repeated in his Book An. Avert p. 23 26. Rep. p 3. c. than the reproaches he casts upon the Author of the Exposition for deserting the Communion of the Church of Rome He wishes all those of M. de Condoms Communion would reduce themselves to the moderations in this Book An. Avert p. 30. and write conformably to its sense This would says he a little after be a happy beginning of a Reformation which might have much more happy consequences Nay more he takes an advantage from these pretended allievations These Softnings of M. de Condom says he are so far from giving us an ill opinion of our Reformation An. p. 85. they confirm us that good and moderate Person themselves condemn at least a great deal that we do and by consequence in some measure acknowledge a Reformation to be useful and necessary He should have concluded quite otherwise For a Reformation such as theirs is which tends to a change in Doctrine ought not to regard those things which are condemned already by a common consent But the pretended Reform'd are willing to perswade themselves that the Honest and moderate Persons in Communion with Rome amongst which number they allow M. de Condom a place in many things abandon the Sentiments of their Church and come over as much as they can to the new Reformation Thus you see what they are made to believe by this strange manner of mis-representing the Catholick Doctrine Being accustomed to that hideous and terrible form in which their Ministers represent it in their Pulpits they imagine those Catholicks who lay it open in its natural Purity disguise and alter it The more justly we represent it as it is the less are they acquainted with it and they imagine we are going over to them when we only disabuse them of their false preocupations 'T is true they say not always the same thing The Anonymus who accuses M. de Condom of making such considerable alterations in the Doctrine of the Church p 61 6 tells us this Exposition has nothing new in it but a dextrous and delicate turn and in fine nothing but apparent qualifying which consisting only in some expressions or in things of small consequence gives no body any Satisfaction and only raises new difficulties instead of resolving old So that he seems to be sorry for having represented the Exposition as a Book which made an alteration in the Faith of the Church in all its principal points not only in the Expressions but in the Doctrine Let him take it which way he pleases If he continue to think a Book so truly Catholick as the Exposition contrary to so many important points of the Roman Faith he shews himself never to have had any thing but false Ideas of its Doctrine And if it be true that by sweetning only the expressions or retrenching as he says matters of small consequence the Catholick Doctrine seems to him so much more tractable he will in the end find the grounds of it were better then he imagined But the truth of the matter is M. de Condom has not betrayed his trust nor dissembled the Faith of the Church in which the Holy Ghost has placed him a Bishop And the pretended Reform'd could not perswade themselves that a Doctrine which already appears less strange by the sole exposition of it and that an Exposition so plain so easie and so 〈◊〉 should be that Doctrine which their Ministers represented to them full of Blasphemy and Idolatrous We ought no doubt to give God thanks for such a disposition because although it shew in them a strange prejudice against us yet it gives us hopes they will look upon our Tenets with a more equal temper when once they are satisfied that the Doctrine of this Treatise which seems to them already more pleasing is the pure Doctrine of the Church So that we are so far from being angry at them for making so great a difficulty to to believe us when we propose our Faith to them that we are obliged in Charity to give them Lights so clear and evident that they may not hereafter doubt but it was faithfully expounded to them The thing shews it self and we need but tell them that this Treatise of the Exposition which they believe is contrary not only to the Common Tenets of the Doctors of the Roman Church but also to the words and Doctrine of the Council is approved by the whole Church and that after having received divers Testimonies of Approbation from Rome as well as from other places it has at last been approved by the Pope himself in the most express and most Authentick manner that could be expected This Book had no sooner appeared in publick but the good repute it had throughout France was testified to the Author by Letters from all sorts of People from Lay Persons Ecclesiasticks Religious and Doctors but especially from the most Learned Prelates of the Church whose Testimonies he could even then have produced had the Subject been ever so little dubious or new But because the Pretended Reform'd are apt to believe us in France to have particular thoughts and Tenets which approach nearer unto theirs in matters of Faith than the rest of the Church and particularly than Rome it is convenient we should let them see how matters there were carried on As soon as this Treatise was come forth Cardinal Bouillon sent it to Cardinal Bona desiring him to examine it with
Doctrine has naturally as I may say passed through all the degrees of Approbation till it came to that of the Pope himself which confirms all the rest Those of the Pretended Reformed Religion may at present see how they were imposed upon An. Avert p. 23. when they were told The Person was known and that a Catholick too who writ against this Exposition of M. de Condom It would certainly be a strange thing this good Catholick unknown to all others of that Religion should make the Enemies of the Church his only Confidents in a Work which he designed against a Bishop of his own Communion But this Imaginary Writer makes the World stay too long and the Pretended Reform'd are too credulous if they suffer themselves hereafter to be amused by such like Promises Thus one of the necessary Questions to be answered in vindication of the Exposition is entirely dispatch'd We need not now go about to refute those Ministers who held the Doctrine of the Exposition not to be that of the Church Time and Truth have so refuted their allegations that no room is left for a reply M. Nogâ—ier would first hear the Oracle of Rome speak before he would admit M. de Condom to have rightly explicated the Catholock Faith p. 41. I give no credit says he to those Approbations which these Bishops give in Writing Other Doctors want not the like Approbations and after all the Oracle of Rome must speak in matters of Faith The Anonymus was of the same mind and both of them supposed nothing more could be said in this matter against M. de Condom if once this Oracle had but spoken This Oracle has now spoken this Oracle I say which the whole Catholick Church hearkned to with so much respect in the very origine of Christianity and the answer it has given has shewn what this Prelate had said hath nothing new or to be suspected in it nothing in a word which is not receiv'd throughout the whole Church Nay this Question being answered all the others are in a manner insensibly dispatcht Mr. de Condom held the Catholick Doctrine was never rightly understood by the pretended Reform'd and that the Authors of their Separation had magnified the Objects to render them odious What he said appears now most certain seeing it is manifest on the one side the Exposition proposes to them the Catholick Faith in its Purity and on the other that it appeared less strange to them than they thought it was But if they find their Pretended Reformers to the end they might animate them against that Church in which their Ancestors served God and in which they themselves received Baptism were forced to fly to those Calumnies which we see now are not maintainable how can they dispence with themselves if they search not a new And why are they not afraid to persist in a Schism which is manifestly founded upon false Principles in even the most principal points They believ'd for example they had good grounds to separate from the Church under pretence that whilst she taught the merit of good Works she destroyed Free Justification Gratuite and that Confidence which a Christian ought to have in JESVS CHRIST only Their breach was principally founded upon this Article An. p. 86. The Anonymus thinks it enough to say The Article concerning Justification is one of the chief that gave occasion to the Reformation But M. Noguiers speaks more plainly Nog p. 83. Those says he who were the Authors of our Reformation had reason to propose the Article of Justification as the most principal of the rest and the most Essential Foundation of their separating At present then seeing M. de Condom tells them together with the whole Church Expos p. 14 15. That she believes we cannot have Life but in Jesus Christ in whom alone she puts all her Hope That she asks all things hopes all things and gives thanks for all things through our Lord JESVS CHRIST and in fine that she places all the hopes of Salvation on him What would they have more The Church tells us Expos p. 15. That all our Sins ars pardon'd by pure Mercy through JESVS CHRIST That we owe that Justice which is in us by the Holy Ghost to his free undeserved liberality and that all our good Works which we do are so many gifts of his Grace The Author of this Exposition who teaches this Doctrine does not teach it as his own God forbid Ibid. p. 15. He teaches it as the clear and manifest Doctrine of the Council of Trent and the Pope approves his Book After this shall it be again said That the Council of Trent and the Roman Church overthrow Free Justification and that trust which the Faithful ought to repose in Jesus Christ alone Is not this unsufferable And if we should hold our Tongues would not the Stones cry aloud and proclaim us injur'd It must be also granted as it was taken notice of in the Exposition Ex. p 15. that those Disputes which the Pretended Reform'd have raised upon so capital a Point are almost brought to nothing not to say wholly refuted No body will doubt of it if they consider what the Anonymus has writ concerning the merit of Good Works with the approbation of four Ministers of Charenton We acknowledge says he as in Justice we must M. de Condom and those of the Roman Church An. p. 104. who hold the most Orthodox Opinions concerning Grace express themselves almost in all things as we do We agree with them in the main But since he promised us so much Justice he ought to have acknowledged that M. de Condom whom he makes here to be of a particular Sect has not said one word concerning the merit of Good Works which is not taken from the Council Expos p. 13 14 15. He said Eternal Life ought to be proposed to the Children of God both as a Grace which is mercifully promised to them by the means of our Saviour Jesus Christ and as a Recompence which is faithfully rendred to their good Works and to their merits in virtue of that Promise He said That Merits are the gifts of God He said We can do nothing of our selves but that we can do all things with him who strengthens us and that our whole confidence is in JESVS CHRIST And the rest which you may see in their proper place By this means it is he has satisfied the Pretended Reform'd and made them say they agree with him in the main Seeing therefore these Propositions are taken word by word from the Council they cannot hereafter but acknowledge the Principal Subject of their complaints to be taken away by the sole proposing the Decrees and proper Terms of a Council so much hated and blamed amongst them What is it offends them most in the Satisfactions which the Church exacts from the Faithful but only that they think Catholicks looks upon those of
JESVS CHRIST as unsufficient Will they deny their Catechisms and Confessions of Faith are not grounded upon this foundation What will they now say when the Author of the Exposition tells them with the whole Church That JESVS CHRIST Expos p. 16. seq God and Man was solely capable by the infinite Dignity of his Person to offer up to God a sufficient Satisfaction for our Sins That this Satisfaction is infinite That our Saviour has payed the entire Price of our Redemption That nothing is wanting to this Price seeing it is infinite and that the Punishments reserv'd suffered in Penance come not from any defect in the Payment but from a certain Order which he has established to restrain us by just fears and by a saving Discipline These and all those other Expressions which make the Anonymus say this Author extenuates the Doctrine of Satisfaction and returns like the Dove to the Ark are the pure Doctrines of the Church and of the Council of Trent acknowledged for such by the Pope himself Why therefore will they make People believe the Church looks upon that as an aid to the Satisfactions of Jesus Christ which she proposes as a means only to apply it And with what security of Conscience could the Pretended Reform'd upon such false suppositions violate that Holy unity which JESVS CHRIST has so much recommended to his Church They look upon our Sacrifice of the Altar with Horrour as if JESVS CHRIST were again put to Death upon it Epos p. 25. What has the Author of the Exposition done to diminish this horrour so unjust but only represented the Doctrine of the Church faithfully He has told them this Sacrifice is of such a nature that it admits only a mystical and Spiritual Death of our adorable Victim who remains always impassible and immortal and is so far from diminishing the infinite Perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross It is established only to celebrate the remembrance of it and to apply the Vertue The Anonymus assures us upon this account that M. de Condom minces the Doctrine of the Catholick Church And M. Noguier also assures us he has not exposed the Truth Nog p. 286. Exp. p. 36. An. p. 61. An. p. 24. And yet he has only followed the Doctrine of the Council whose proper Terms he has made use of and the whole Church approves his Exposition Who does not therefore perceive how this Doctrine appears to the Pretended Reform'd more moderate and agreeable only because they do not find those Monsters in it which they imagine to themselves The Anonymus himself tells us Rep. p. 24 35. The Article of Invocation of Saints is one of the most Essential in Religion It is also one of those wherein M. de Condom seems to him chiefly to soften the Doctrine of his Church for he accuses him of it no less than three times But what has M. de Condom said the same that the Catechism of the Council of Trent said the same that the Council it self and the Confession of Faith drawn from it has said and the same which all Catholicks say Epos p. 6. sequ That the Saints offer their Prayers for us This is what the Confession of Faith says that they offer them by JESVS CHRIST this is what the Council says in a word That we pray to them with the same Mind we pray to our Brethren who are upon Earth with us Expos p. â— that is to Pray with us and for us to our common Master in the name of our common Mediator who is JESVS CHRIST Behold what Mide Condom has extracted out of the Council out of the Catechism and out of all the publick acts of the Church the reason his Doctrine has been so much approved This answer is sufficient to ruin the very Grounds of that horrour which the Pretended Reform'd have conceived against our Doctrine Their Catechism accuses us of Idolatry because by that recourse we have to Saints Catech. dim 34. we place one part of our Trust in them and give to them what God has reserv'd to himself But on the contrary it appears when we pray to Saints we Pray to them only to pray for us a kind of Prayer which by its own Nature is so far from being reserved by an independent Being to himself it can never be address'd to him And if this form of Prayer Pray for us diminished the trust we have in God it would be no less Condemnable to use it to the living than to the dead 1 Thes 5.25.2 3.1 and St. Paul would not have said so often Brethren pray for us The whole Scripture is full of Prayers of this Nature Heb. 13.18 But says their Confession of Faith this is to overthrow the Mediation of J. C. Who commands us to retire our selves in private Conf. Art 24. and to pray to his Father in his Name How can any one imagine this seeing the Saints who are in Heaven no more than the Faithful upon Earth make intercessions by and through themselves or in their own Names Ep. p. 6. but in the Name of JESVS CHRIST as all Catholicks teach with the Council Thus the Catholick Church has only to declare as she does her intention never was to demand any thing of the Saints but their humble Prayers in the name of JESVS CHRIST of Nature with those the Faithful offer up for one another upon Earth these few Words will convince for ever the pretendedly Reform'd that they have born to her a hatred most unjust But M Noguier declares Let M. de Candom say what he will Nog p. 54. he will never be perswaded the Roman Church has no other Intention when she tells us it is prositable to invocate the Saints but that we should ask them the assistance of their Prayers as we do those of the Faithful who live amongst us But what will he say now he sees the Roman Church so visibly approve what M. de Condom had in effect only gathered from the universal belief of those in Communion with her But why then adds M. Noguier Nog p. 57. Do Catholicks ask not only the Prayers but the Aid Protection and Succour of the blessed Virgin and of the Saints As if that were not a kind of Aid Succour and Protection to recommend the miserable to him who alone can comfort them Such is the Protection we may receive from the blessed Virgin and from the Saints It is not a small Succour to be aided by their Prayers seeing they are at the same time so humble so pleasing and so efficatious But why should we argue about words where the thing is so evident The Exposition produces to these Ministers most certain Testimonies by which it is manifest Expos p. 7. that in what Terms soever the Prayers we offer to the Saints be Couched the Intention of the Church and of the Faithful always reduces them to this Form PRAY
FOR VS No matter for that the Ministers will never believe it They must then raise out of their Catechism and their Confession of Faith these accusations of Idolatry with which they are filled they must retrench in their Sermons so many bloody Invectives which have no other Grounds and this they cannot resolve of and let us make what Declarations we can of our Minds they will neither believe the Council not its Catechism nor our Confession of Faith nor the Bishops nor the Pope himself It is not necessary to repeat here what is said in the Exposition as to other objections Exp. p. 8. and principally as to that where they accuse the Church of attributing to Saints a divine Knowledge and Power whilst she teaches they can neither know nor do any thing of themselves But the accusation of Idolatry has another Foundation which they accuse M. de Condom to have palliated as well as the others And it is the Article concerning Images An. Av. p. 24. where nevertheless he has searched no other Palliations but to expose faithfully the meaning of the Church Rep. p. 65. There needs no more than this to make the very Suspition of Idolatry to vanish according to the Principles of the Pretended Reform'd and they need only in this compare the Doctrine of their own Catechism with that of the Council of Trent represented in the Exposition Their Catechism upon this Commandment Dim 23. Thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image Asks whether God forbids the making of any Image And the answer is No but that God forbids only the making of any Image whereby to represent God or to adore it Behold the two things which they think forbidden in this Precept of the Decalogue It may be they will do us the Justice to believe we do not pretend to represent God and that if they see in some Pictures God the Father Painted in that form which he was pleased so often to appear in to his Prophets we pretend no more to derogate from his Invisibile and Spiritual Nature than he himself when he exhibited himself under that form The Council explicates sufficiently to them upon this account Sess 25. that we pretend not thereby to represent or express the Divinity or to give it any Colours and I think I should do them an injury in proceeding to a clearer Proof Let us pass to the second part of their Doctrine and let us learn from their Catechisms what form of Adoration is condemned To Prostrate ones self says the Answer before an Image to pray to it to how the Knee before it or shew some other sign of reverence as if God exhibited himself there to us This is in effect the Errour of the Gentiles and the proper Character of Idolatry But they who believe Expos p. 9 10 11. with the Council That Images have neither Divinity nor Vertue in them for which they ought to be reverenced and who place all the benefit in their recalling the Originals to our remembrance do not believe that God in them exhibits himself to them It is not therefore Idolatry by the consent of the Pretended Reform'd and according to the proper Definition of their Catechism The Anonymus seems to have been sensible of this Truth in that place where objecting this Commandment of the Decalogue he says P. 67. that God forbids to make Images and to worship them He is in the right The words of the Precept are express and the Images there spoken of are those which are forbidden to to be made as well as to be worshiped That is to say according to the explication of his Catechism those which are made to represent God and those which are made to show him present and which are worshipped with the same intention as full of his Divinity We neither make nor suffer any of this nature We do not worship Images God forbid but we make use of Images to put us in mind of the Originals Our Council so odious to the pretended Reform'd Church teaches us no other use of them Is this then enough to make them say as that Church doth in her own Confession of Faith that all sorts of Idolatry are in vogue in the Roman Church Art 28. Is it for this that her Discipline calls us Idolaters and our Religion Idolatry Disc art 11.13 Art 5.2 Without doubt they represent to themselves other things than our Doctrine when they give us the name of Gentiles They believe we follow their abominable Errors and that we believe as they did that God shews himself to us in those Images Had it not been for these mortal Prejudices had it not been for Ideas which they frame to themselves of the sentiments of the Church Christians could never have imagined it so detestable a crime to kiss the Cross in remembrance of him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood nor that so simple and natural a demonstration of those sentiments of tenderness which that Pious Object excites in our hearts ought to make us regarded as if we Adored Baal or the Golden Galves of Samaria During this strange preocupation of the Pretended Reform'd this Treatise of the Exposition might well appear to them which really in effect it did a Book full of Artifice which did nothing but extenuate the Sentiments of Catholicks But now when they see clearly all the Artifice of this Book is to separate the Doctrines which they have imputed to the Church from those which she professes that all the mitigations he makes in Doctrine is that he has taken off that hidious Masque which the Ministers had put upon it let them confess this Church was not worthy of so much horror as they had for her and that at least she deserves to be heard Neither the Pope nor the Sea Apostolick ought to be hereafter accused of diminshing that adoration which is due to God nor that confidence which a Christian ought to establish in his sole goodness through our Lord Jesus Christ since they see without further search this Treatise of the Exposition which is made only to explicate these two Truths has received at Rome and from the Pope himself so Authentick an Approbation After this they will certainly be ashamed of that Title which they give the Pope No one can think on it without horrour nor hear without astonishment that the Pretended Reform'd who boast to follow Scripture word for word when the Apostle St. John who has alone named Antichrist tells us three or four times that Antichrist is he who denies that JESVS CHRIST is come in flesh 2. Joh. 1.7 1 Joh. 2.22.4.3 dare so much as think that he who teaches so fully the Mystery of JESVS CHRIST that is to say his Divinity his Incarnation the superbundance of his Merits the necessity of his Grace and that absolute confidence we must have in it should nevertheless be that Antichrist described by the Apostle But it is
means to reunite our minds We may say the same to these of the Pretended Reform'd Religion If the Merit of Good Works if Prayers addressed to Saints if the Eucharist if the humble satisfactions of Penitents who endeavour to appease the wrath of God in voluntarily revenging upon themselves by Laborious Exercises his offended Justice if the Terms we use of a Tradition which claims its Origin from the first Ages for want of being rightly understood offend you The Author of the Exposition offers himself to give you the plain and natural explication of them which the Church has always faithfully conserv'd He says nothing of his own he alledges not particular Authors and to the end he may not be suspected of changing the Tenets of the Church he uses the proper Terms of the Council of Trent where she has explicated her self upon these matters in question what can there be more rational This was the second thing he promised and he has in this only followed the Example of the Pretended Reform'd They complain as well as we their Doctrines are not rightly understood and the means they propose to come to a true knowledge of them is not different from that which M. de Condom makes use of Their Synod of Dort requires that none judge of the Faith of their Churches from Calumnies picked up here and there Conclusio Synodi Dordrac in Syntag. Confess Fidei edit Genev. p. 2. or passages of particular Authors which are often falsely cited or wrested to a sense contrary to their Intentions but from the Confessions of Faith of their Churches and from the Declaration of their Orthodox Doctrine unanimously made in this Synod The Faith then of a Church must be learnt from its publick Definitions and not from Private Authors who may be falsely quoted mis-understood and may also themselves mis-explicate the Sentiments of their Religion Upon which account it will be only necessary that to expound ours to the Pretended Reform'd we produce the Decisions of the Council of Trent I know the very name of this Council offends those of the Reformation and the Anonymus often shews his ill humour against it But what do his Invectives avail him We go not here about to justifie the Council It suffices for this Author of the Exposition that the Doctrine of this Council is universally received without Contestation through the whole Catholic Church and that she admits of no other Decisions in these matters of controversie but of this Council The Pretended Reform'd have always endeavoured to have these Decisions thought ambiguous and the Anonymus reproaches us also with their being capable of a double or triple sense Those who have not read this Council An. p. 11.12 unless it were in the Invectives of their Ministers and in the History of Fa. Paul the declared Enemy of it believe them such but one word will satisfie them It is very true there was some Points the Council would not decide and they were those concerning which there was no settled Tradition and which were disputed of in the Schools It was but reasonable they should be left undecided but for those it has decided it has spoken so precisely that amongst so many Decrees of this Council produced in the Exposition the Anonymus could not find so much as one in which there was this double or triple sence he objects against us In effect It is but reading them and one shall see they have not any ambiguity and that it is impossible for men to explicate themselves more clearly We may put the Exposition it self to the same Test and judge by that whether the Anonymus had reason to upbraid the Author of this Exposition with those rambling and general Terms in which says he he entanglingly wraps up the most difficult matters Avert p. 25. Rep. p. 12. The third thing the Author of the Exposition promised was to treat of those matters which gave occasion to the Separation This is precisely what ought to be done There is no one who knows not that in disputes there are always some certain principal points upon which mens minds are fixed It is to these a Person must apply himself who would make it his business to end or appease those contests Thus did the Author of the Exposition who immediately declared to the Pretended Reform'd that he would expound to them those points from which they took the Subject of their separation And to the end there should be no surprize Exp. p. 2. he again declares the same at the end that to keep himself fixed to what is principal Exp. p. 50. he omitted some questions which they of the Pretended Reform'd Religion did not look upon as a lawful Subject of separation He has kept his word most faithfully and the Titles alone of the Exposition will make it appear he has not omitted any one of those principal Articles So that the Anonymus should not have said that M. de Condom has some select Terms to avoid the difficulties which give him the most trouble Avert p. 22. that he leaves many questions untouched and makes hast to that of the Eucharist where he thought he could enlarge himself with less disadvantage Repl. p. 168. What an Idea would he give us of this Book of the Exposition but it destroys it self Every one sees it was M. de Condom's business to enlarge himself upon that point of the Eucharist not because he thought he could do it with less disadvantage but because this point is in reality the most difficult and full of great questions So that it will appear he has treated these matters with less or greater scope according as they appear'd less or more embroiling not to him but to those for whom he writes And if it be true that he lays aside those difficulties which give him the most trouble it must be allow'd those which give him the least are in reality those which are the most essential and those in which the Pretended Reform'd always thought themselves the most secure He has treated of the worship due to God of Prayers to Saints of the honour we render to them as also to their Images and Reliques He has spoken of justifying Grace of the Merit of Good Works of the necessity of Works of Satisfaction of Purgatory of Indulgences of Sacramental Confession and Absolution of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour in the Eucharist of that Adoration which is therein due to him of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Altar of Communion under one Species of the Authority of Tradition and that of the Church of the Divine Institution of the Popes Primacy where he has in one word explained what is to be believed of Episcopacy He has expounded all these difficulties and there needs only a little honesty to grant that he has been so far from avoiding difficulties as the Anonymus would have it thought that he has principally applied
himself to those which the Pretended Reform'd find the greatest The Anonymus himself tells us the Invocation of Saints is one of the most essential Articles of Religion and at the same time he adds P. 61. this is one of those upon which M. de Condom has been most prolix What points are more exactly treated in the Exposition than those of the Eucharist and the Sacrifice that of Images of Merit of Good works of Satisfaction And is it not in these the Pretended Reform'd find the greatest difficulties In fine we will ask even themselves whether it be not true that if they were satisfied in all those points treated of in the Exposition they would no longer hesitate to embrace the Faith of the Church It is therefore certain the Author has treated all those Capital points upon which both of us agree the greatest difficulties move Nay more he has always fixed himself to the principal knot of the difficulty seeing he applies himself chiefly according to his first promise to those parts where the Catholic Doctrine is accused to strike at the Foundations of Faith and Christian Piety It is not therefore to avoid difficulties he has left some questions untouched which are but Consequences and fuller Explications of those which he has handled or at least are such as disturb no body But on the contrary he has done it to the end he might apply himself with less distraction to the chief difficulties upon which depend the Decision of our Controversies The Author of the Exposition has been no less Faithful in performance of his fourth promise which was to affirm nothing to make the Council to be better understood which was not manifestly conformable to it and approved of in the Church The Anonymus looks upon these words Exp. p. 2. and all the design of the Exposition as a Testimony which shows the Doctrine of the Roman Church though explained so clearly and decided in the Council of Trent not yet so clear An. rep p. 11. but that it needs an explication M. Noguier seems also to draw the same Consequence Nog p. 39.40 and they have both of them looked upon the Exposition as an explication which the obscurity of the Council stood in need of But we know how the obscurity of a Decision especially in matters of Faith is not always that which makes it to be taken in a wrong sence it is a preoccupation of mind the ardour of dispute the heat of Persons engaged which make them not understand one another and often attribute to an adversary what he believes the least So that when the Author of the Exposition proposes the Decisions of the Council of Trent to the Pretended Reform'd and adds what may be useful to remove those Impressions which hinder them from understanding them aright they ought not to conclude from thence that the Decisions are Ambiguous but only that nothing is so well digested nor so clear but may be understood amiss when prejudice and passion interpose To what purpose then do M. Noguier and the Anonymus object to the Author of the Exposition the Bull of Pope Pius IV. An. p. 10. Nog p. 40. The design of the Exposition has nothing of those Glosses and Commentaries which with great reason this Pope Condemned For what did those Commentators and Glossars especially those who have writ Glosses upon the Laws what did they for the most part but fill the margents with their own imaginations which most commonly serve only to confound the Text and which notwithstanding they give for the Text it self Let us add that for the conservation of Unity this Pope was obliged not to permit every Doctor to propose Decisions upon doubts which succeeding time and vain subtilties might give birth to Nor has any thing of this nature been done in the Exposition It is one thing to interpret what is obscure and doubtful another to propose what is clear and to make use of it to remove false impressions The last is what the Author of the Exposition has endeavour'd precisely And if he have added some of his own Reflexions to the Decisions of this Council to make them more intelligible to those people who would never look upon them without prejudice it is because their preocupation had need of such an assistance But why should we speak any more of a thing which is clear nough We have in few words given a certain method to enlighten the understandings of those who are the most zealous to maintain this ambiguity of the Council They need only read in this Exposition its Decrees which are there produced and convince themselves by their own eyes What is here the most important is that the Author of the Exposition was not deceived when he promised what he should say for the better understanding of this Council should be manifestly of the same Spirit and approved of in the Church The matter is in it self clear and the following Approbations will make it apparent It must not therefore be suppos'd henceforwards that the Sentiments explained in this work are the qualifying or the extenuating thoughts of one man but the Common Doctrine which we see is for this reason universally approved It will not therefore avail M. Noguires nor the Anonymus any thing after this An. p. 2. c. Nog 38 c. either to object to us those Practices which they call general or the particular opinion of Doctors For without examining these unnecessary things it suffices in one word to say those Practises and Opinions be they what they will which are not found to be conformable to the intent and Decisions of the Council are nothing to Religion nor to the body of the Catholic Church Exp. p. 2. Daille Apol. c. 6. pag. 8. nor ought by consequence as the Pretended Reform'd do themselves avouch give the least pretence to separate from us because no one is obliged either to approve or follow them But say they those abuses ought to be suppressed as if one of the ways to suppress them were not to shew the truth in its purity without prejudice to the other means with which Prudence and Zeal may inspire the Bishops As for the remedy of Schism practised by the pretended Reformers if it were not detestable in it self the miseries which it has caused and does at present cause throughout Christendom would give us a horrour of it I will not here reproach the Pretended Reform'd with the abuses which are amongst them This work of Charity does not permit such like Recriminations It suffices I advertise them that to attaque us in reality they must combat not those abuses which we Condemn as well as they but the Doctrines which we maintain But if in examining them more narrowly they find they give not scope enough to their invectives they ought at last to acknowledge we have reason to tell them the Faith which we profess is less worthy of blame than they believed it
was It remains at present that we beg of God to grant they may read a Work without bitterness which is published only to instruct them The Success is in his hands who can alone touch the heart He knows the limits he has fixt to the Progress of Errour and the miseries of his afflicted Church by the loss of so great a number of her Children But we cannot hinder our selves from hoping some great effects towards the reunion of Christians under a Pope who exercises so piously and with so perfect a zeal free from interest the most holy Function in the World and under a King who prefers before all the Conquests that have enlarged his Kingdom those that might gain him his own Subjects to the Church AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH IN MATTERS of CONTROVERSIE SECT I. The Design of this Treatise AFter a Contestation for above an Age with those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion Matters from whence they took the ground of their Separation ought to be sufficiently cleared and their minds disposed to a right conception of the Sentiments of the Catholic Church So that to me nothing seems more proper then to propose her Tenets plainly and simply and to distinguish them right from those which have been falsely imputed to her In effect I have upon several occasions taken notice that the aversion which these Gentlemen have to most of our Sentiments is grounded upon some false Ideas which they have formed to themselves concerning them or else upon some certain words which are so offensive to them that they immediately stop there and never come so far as to consider the grounds of things Upon which account I thought nothing could be more beneficial than to explicate to them what the Church has defined in the Council of Trent concerning those points which keep them at farthest distant from us without medling with that which they are accustomed to object either against particular Doctors or against those Tenets which are neither necessarily nor universally received For all Parties agree and M. Daille himself is of that Opinion Apol. c. 6. that it is a very unreasonable thing to attribute the Sentiments of particular Persons to a whole body and he adds that no separation ought to be but upon the account of Articles authenticly established to the belief and observance of which all Persons are obliged I will not meddle then with any thing but the Decrees of the Council of Trent because in them the Church has given her Decision upon these matters now in agitation and what I shall say for the better understanding of those Decisions shall be what is approved of in the Church and shall manifestly appear conformable to the Doctrine of this Council This Exposition of our Doctrine will produce two good effects The first that many disputes will wholly vanish because it will appear thev are only grounded upon some erroneous explications of our belief The second that those disputes which remain will not appear according to the Principles of the Pretended Reform'd so Capital as at the first they endeavoured to represent them and that according to the same Principles they contain nothing any ways injurious to the grounds of Faith SECT II. Those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion acknowledg That the Catholic Church embraces all the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion ANd to begin with the fundamental and principal Articles of Faith these Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion must of necessity acknowledge they are believed and professed in the Catholic Church If they will have them to consist in believing that we must adore one only God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and that we must put our trust in God alone through his Son who became man was Crucified and rose again for us they know in their Consciences that we profess this Doctrine and if they add those other Articles which are comprehended in the Apostles Creed they do not doubt also but that we receive them all without exception and that we have a pure and true knowledge of them M. Daille has writ a Treatise intituled Faith founded upon the Scriptures in which after having exposed all the Articles of Faith held by the Pretended Reform'd Churches he tells us they are beyond all contestation Part 3. â— 1. that the Roman Church professes to believe them that in reality they do not hold all our Opinions but that we hold all their Articles of Faith This Minister then cannot unless he destroy his own Faith deny but that we believe all the principal Articles of the Christian Religion But tho' M. Daille had not granted thus much the thing is manifest in it self and all the world knows that we believe all those Articles which Protestants call Fundamental so that sincerity it self demands they should without dispute grant that we have not really rejected any of them The Pretended Reform'd who see the advantages we may draw from this acknowledgment are desirous to deprive us of them by saying that we destroy those Articles by interposing others contrary to them This is what they endeavour to perswade by Consequences drawn from our Doctrine but the same M. Daille whose authority I alledge once more not so much to convince them by the Testimony of one of their most Learned Ministers as because what he says is in it self evident tells them what they ought to think of such kind of Consequences supposing ill ones might be drawn from our Doctrine See what he writes in his Letter to M. Monglat upon account of his Apologie Altho' the Opinion of the Lutherans as well as that of Rome does according to us infer the distruction of the Humanity of JESUS CHRIST yet this Consequence cannot be attributed to them without Calumny seeing they do formally reject it There is nothing more essential to the Christian Religion then the reality of the Human Nature in JESVS CHRIST and yet tho' the Lutherans hold a Doctrine from whence is inferred the destruction of this Capital verity by Consequences which the Pretended Reform'd judge to be evident yet they have not scrupled to offer to Communicate with them because their Opinion has no poyson in it Chap. 7. as M. Daille tells us in his Apologie And their National Synode held at Charenton 1631 admits them to the Holy Table upon this ground that they agree in the principal and Fundamental points of Religion It is then a certain Maxim established amongst them that they must not in these cases look upon the Consequences which may be drawn from a Doctrine but purely upon what he proposes and acknowledges who teaches it So that when they infer by Consequences which they pretend to draw from our Doctrine that we do not sufficiently acknowledg that Soveraign Glory which is due to God nor the quality of Saviour and Mediator in JESVS CHRIST nor the infinite value of his Sacrifice nor the superabundant Plenitude of his Merits we may defend our selves without
Image of an Apostle or a Martyr our intention is not so much to honour the Image Pont. Com. de Bened. Imag. Sess 25. Dec. de Inv. c. as to honour the Apostle or the Martyr in presence of the Image Thus the Roman Pontifical tells us and the Council of Trent expresses the same thing when it say the honour we render to Images has such a reference to those they represent that by the means of those Images which we kiss and before which we kneel we adore JESUS CHRIST and honour the Saints whose Types they are In fine one may know with what intention the Church honours Images by that honour which she renders to the Cross and to the Bible All the world sees very well that before the Cross she adores him who bore our Iniquities upon the wood and that if her children bow the head before the Bible 1 Pet. 2. if they rise up out of respect when it is carried before them and if they kiss it reverently all this honour is referred to the eternal Verity which it proposeth to us They must have but little Justice who treat with the term of Idolatry that Religious Sentiment which moves us to uncover our heads and bow them before the Image of the Cross in remembrance of him who was crucified for the love of us and it would be too much blindness not to perceive the excessive difference betwixt those who put their trust in Idols out of an opinion that some divinity or some vertue was as I may say tyed to them and those who declare as we do that they will not make use of Images but to raise their minds towards heaven to the end they may there honour JESVS CHRIST or his Saints and in the Saints God himself who is the Author of all Sanctity and Grace After the same manner we ought to understand that honour which we pay to Reliques after the example of the Primitive Church and if our Adversaries would but consider that we look upon the bodies of Saints as having been Victimes offered up to God either by Martyrdom or by Penance they would not think the honour which we pay them upon this account could alienate us from that which we render to God himself We may say in general that if they would but consider how the affections which we bear to any one propagates it self without being divided to his children to his friends and after that by several degrees to the representation of him to any remains of him and to any thing which renews in us his remembrance If they did but conceive that honour has the like progression seeing honour is nothing else but Love mixed with respect and Fear in fine If they would but consider that all the exteriour worship of the Catholic Church has its source in God himself and returns back again to him they would never believe that this worship which he himself alone animates could excite his Jealousie They would on the contrary see that if God as Jealous as he is of the love of men does not look upon us as dividing our selves betwixt him and Creatures when we love our neighbour for the love of him the same God tho Jealous of the honour which his faithful pay him cannot look upon them as dividing that worship which is due to him alone when out of respect to him they honour those whom he had honoured It is true nevertheless that seeing the sensible marks of reverence are not all of them absolutely necessary the Church might without the least alteration in her doctrine extend these exteriour practices more or less according to the different exigences of times places or occurrences being desirous that her Children should not be slavishly subject to sensible things but only excited and as it were advertised by their means to fly to God and to offer up to him in Spirit and in the truth that rational service which he expects from his creatures One may see by this doctrine how truly I affirmed that a great part of our Controversies would vanish by the sole understanding of the Terms if these points were but discussed with charity and if our adversaries would but with moderation consider the foregoing Explications which comprehend the express doctrine of the Council of Trent they would cease to accuse us of injuring the mediation of JESVS CHRIST of Invocating the Saints and adoring Images after a manner which is peculiar to God alone It is true that seeing in one sense Adoration Invocation and the name of Mediator are only proper to God and JESVS CHRIST it is no hard matter to misapply these terms whereby to render our doctrine odious But if they be strictly kept to that sence in which we use them these objections and accusations will lose their force and if any other less important difficulties remain to these gentlemen of the pretended Reform'd Religion sincerity will oblige them to acknowledg they are satisfied as to the principal subject of their complaints Furthermore there is nothing so unjust as to accuse the Church of placing all her piety in these devotions to the Saints seeing as we have already observed Sess 25. Dec. de Inv. c. the Council of Trent contents it self to teach the Faithful that this practice is good and beneficial without saying any more of it So that the intention of the Church is only to condemn those who reject this practice either out of disrespect or Error She is obliged to condemn them because She is obliged not to suffer any practice which is beneficial to salvation to be despised nor a doctrine authorised by antiquity to be condemned by novellists SECT VI. Justification THE doctrine of Justification will shew yet more clearly how many difficulties may be ended by a plain exposition of our sentiments Those who are never so little versed in the history of the pretended Reformation are not ignorant that the first Authors proposed this Article to all the world as the principal of all the rest and as the most essential cause of their seperation So this is the most necessary to be well understood We believe in the first place that Our sins are freely forgiven us by the divine mercy Conc. Trid. Sess 6. c. 9. for JESVS CHRIST's sake These are the express terms of the Council of Trent which adds that we are said to be justified gratis Ibid. c. 8. because none of those acts which precede Justification whether they be Faith or good works can merit this Grace Seeing the Scripture explicates the remission of sins by sometimes telling us that God covers them and sometimes that he takes them away Tit. 3.5 6 7. and blots them out by the Grace of his Holy Spirit which makes us new creatures we believe that to form a perfect Idea of the Justification of a sinner we must joyn together both these Expressions For which reason we believe our sins not only to be covered but also
entirely washed away by the Blood of JESVS CHRIST and by the grace of regeneration which is so far from obscuring or lessening that Idea which we ought to have of the merit of this Blood on the contrary it heightens and augments it So that the Justice of JESVS CHRIST is not only imputed but actually communicated to the faithful by the operation of the Holy Spirit in so much that they are not only reputed but rendred just by his grace If that Righteousness which is in us were only such in the eyes of men it would not be the work of the holy Ghost It is then a righteousness and that before God seeing it is God himself who produces it in us by pouring forth his charity in our hearts Nevertheless it is too true that the flesh rebels against the Spirit Gal. 5.17 and the Spirit against the flesh and that we all offend in many things Jam. 3.2 So that tho our Justice be truly such by the infusion of his Charity yet it is not perfect Justice because of the combat of Concupiscence In so much that the continual sighings of a soul penitent for her offences is the most necessary duty of a Christian righteousness which obliges us to confess humbly with St. Augustin that our Justice in this life consists rather in the remission of sin than in the perfection of Vertues SECT VII Merits of Good Works AS to the merit of Good works Sess 6. c. 16. the Catholic Church teacheth us that eternal life ought to be proposed to the children of God both as a Grace which is mercifully promised to them by the mediation of our Lord JESUS CHRIST and as a recompence which is faithfully rendred to their good works and merits in vertue of this promise These are the proper terms of the Council of Trent But least human pride should flatter it self with an opinion of a presumptuous merit the same Council teacheth us that all the price and value of a Christians works proceeds from the sanctifying grace which is given us gratis in the name of JESVS CHRIST Ibid. and that it is an effect of the continual influence of this divine Head upon its Members Really the Precepts Exhortations Promises Threatnings and Reproaches of the Gospel show clearly enough we must work out our salvation by the cooperation of our wills together with the grace of God assisting us But it is one of our first Principles that the free-will can act nothing conducing to eternal happiness but as it is moved and elevated by the Holy Ghost So that the Church knowing it is this divine Spirit which works in us by his Graces all the good we do she is obliged to believe the good works of the Faithful very acceptable to God and of great consideration before him and it is just she should make use of the word Merit with all Christian antiquity whereby she may principally denote the value the price and the dignity of those works which we perform through grace But seeing all their Sanctity comes from God who produces them in us the same Church has in the Council of Trent received these words of St. Augustin as a doctrine of Catholic Faith that God crowns his own gifts in crowning the merits of his Servants We beg of those who love Truth and Peace that they would be pleased here to read a little more at length the words of this Council to the end they may once for all disabuse themselves of those false inpressions which has been given them concerning our doctrine Although we see Sess 6. c. 16. say the Fathers in this Council that holy writ esteems Good works so much That JESUS CHRIST himself promises that a glass of cold water given to the poor shall not want its reward and that the Apostle testifies how a moment of light pain endured in this world shall produce an eternal weight of Glory nevertheless God forbid a Christian should glory in himself and not in our Lord whose bounty is so great to all men that he will have those gifts which he bestowes upon them to be their merits This doctrine is dispersed throughout the whole Council which teacheth us in another Session Sess 14. c. 8. that we who can do nothing of our selves can do all things with him who strengthens us in such sort that man has nothing of which he may glory nor for which he may confide in himself but all his confidence and all his glory is in JESUS CHRIST in whom we live in whom we merit in whom we satisfy bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance which draw their vertue from him and by him are offered to his Father and accepted of by his Father through him Wherefore we ask all things we hope all things we render thanks for all things through our Lord JESVS CHRIST We confess aloud we are not acceptable to God but in and by him and we cannot comprehend why any other thought should be attributed to us We so place all the hopes of our salvation in him that we dayly make use of these words to God in the Sacrifice Vouchsafe O God to grant to us sinners thy servants who hope in the multitude of thy mercies some part and society with the Blessed Apostles and Martyers into whose number we beseech thee to be pleased to receive us not looking upon our merits but gratiously pardoning us in the name of JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Will the Church never be able to perswade her Children now become her adversaries neither by the Exposition of her Faith nor by the Decisions of her Councils nor by the Prayers in her Sacrifice that her belief is that she can have no life but in JESVS CHRIST and that she has no hope but in him This hope is so firm it makes the Children of God who walk faithfully in his wayes to find a peace which surpasseth all understanding as the Apostle tells us Phil. 4.7 But tho this hope be stronger than the promises and menaces of the world and sufficient to calm the troubles of our Conciences yet it does not wholy extinguish Fear for tho we be assured God will never abandon us of his own accord yet we are never certain we shall not lose him by our own fault in rejecting his inspirations He has been pleased by this saving fear to mitigate that confidence which he has infused into his children because as St. Augustin tells us such is our infirmity in this place of Temptations and dangers that an absolute security would produce tepidity and pride in us whereas this fear which according to the Apostles command makes us work out our salvation with trembling Phil. 2.12 renders us more vigilant and makes us rely with a more humble dependance upon him who works in us by his Grace both to will and to do according to his good pleasure as the same St. Paul expresses it Thus you have seen what is most necessary in the
annexed an express promise of remission of sins 1 Jac. 14.55 and comfort of the sick to Extream Unction nothing is wanting to make this sacred ceremony a true Sacrament It is only to be remaked that according to the Doctrine of the Council of Trent Sess 14. c 2. de Sac. Extr. unc the sick are more relieved in respect of the soul than of the body and that as the spiritual profit is always the principal object of the new law so it is that also which we ought absolutely to expect from this holy unction if we be rightly disposed for it whereas the ease in sickness is only granted with a respect to our eternal salvation according to the secret dispositions of the divine Providence and the different degrees of preparation and faith which is found in the Faithful Marriage When we consider that JESVS CHRIST has given a new form to Marriage Math. 19.5 reducing this holy society to two persons immutably and indissolubly united and when we see this inseparable union Eph. 5.32 the sign of his eternal union with his Church we shall not have my difficulty to comprehend that the mariage of the Faithful is accompanied by the Holy Ghost and by Grace and we shall praise the divine bounty for having been thus pleased to consecrate the origin of our birth Orders The Imposition of Hands which the Administrators of sacred things receive 1 Tim. 4. 2 Tim. 2. being accompained with so apparent a vertue of the Holy Ghost and so full an infusion of his Grace it ought to be placed amongst the number of the Sacraments And indeed we must acknowledg our adversaries do not absolutely exclude the consecration of Ministers Conf. de Foy Art 35. but that they only exclude it from the number of the Sacraments which are common to the whole Church SECT X. Doctrine of the Church touching the real presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST in the Eucharist and the manner how the Church understand these words This is my Body VVE are come you see at the last to the Question of the Eucharist where it will be necessary that we explicate our Doctrine more fully however without exceeding too much the bounds we have prescribed our selves The real presence of the Body and Blood of our Saviour is solidly established by the words of the Institution which we understand literally and there is no more reason to ask us why we fix our selves to the proper and literal sense then there is to ask a Traveller why he follows the high Road. It is their parts who have recourse to the figurative sense and who take by-paths to give a reason for what they do As for us who find nothing in the words which JESVS CHRIST makes use of for the institution of this mystery obliging us to take them in a figurative sense we think that to be a sufficient reason to determine us to the literal But we are yet more powerfully engaged when we come to consider in this Mystery the intention of the Son of God which I will explicate after the plainest manner I am able and that by Principles which I think our adversaries themselves cannot deny I say then These words of our Saviour Take eat Math. 16. Luc. 22. this is my body given for you show us that as the antient Jews did not in Spirit only unite themselves to the Immolation of the Victim which was offered for them but that in reality they eat the sacrifised flesh which was to them a mark of their partaking of that oblation So JESVS CHRIST becoming himself our Victim would have us really eat of the flesh of his Sacrifice to the end the actual communication of this adorable flesh might be a perpetual testimony to every one of us in particular that it was for us he took it and for us he immolated it God had forbidden the Jews to eat of the sin-offering to teach them the true expiation of their crimes was not to be accomplished in the Law nor by the blood of Beasts all the people lay Levit. 6.30 as it were under an interdiction by this prohibition without being able to have any actual participation of the remission of Sins By a contrary reason it was necessary the Body of our Blessed Saviour the true Host immolated for sin should be eaten by the Faithful to show them by this eating that the remission of sin was accomplished in the new Testament God also forbid the Children of Israel to eat Blood Levit. 17.11 and one of the reasons for this Prohibition was because the Blood was given us for the Expiation of our Souls But on the contrary our Blessed Saviour gives us his Blood to drink Math. 26.28 because it is shed for the remission of Sins So that the eating of the Body and Blood of the Son of God is as real at the Holy Table as the Grace the expiation of Sins and the participation of the Sacrifice of JESVS CHRIST is actual and real in the new Covenant Nevertheless seeing he desired to exercise our Faith in this Mystery and at the same time to free us from the horror of eating flesh and drinking Blood in their proper Species it was convenient he should give us them cloathed under another Species But if these Considerations have obliged him to make us partake of the flesh of our Victim after another manner than the Jews he was not for that obliged to deprive us in the least of the reality of his Substance It appears then to accomplish the antient Figures and to put us in actual Possession of the Victim offered for our Sins that JESVS CHRIST had intention to give us really his Body and Blood Which is so evident that our Adversaries themselves would have us to believe they are in this of the same opinion with us perpetually repeating how they deny not the actual Presence nor the real Participation of the Body and Blood in the Eucharist This we will examine hereafter where we think it necessary to represent their Sentiments after we have finished the Explication of those of the Church But in the mean time we will conclude that if the plainness of our Saviours words has forced them to acknowledg his express Intention was to give us in reality his Flesh when he said This is my Body they ought not to be astonished if we cannot consent to understand these words only in Figure In reality the Son of God who was so careful to explicate to his Apostles what he taught them under Parables and Figures having said nothing here to explicate himself it appears he left these words in their natural Signification I know these Gentlemen pretend the Nature of the thing explains it self sufficiently because we see very well say they what he presents us is nothing but Bread and Wine but this reason vanishes when we consider he who speaks has an Authority which over-rules the Senses and
by Faith present upon this Holy Table together with these Signs of Death we unite our selves to him in this Estate we present him to God as our only Victim and our sole Propitiator by his Blood confessing we have nothing to offer up to God but JESVS CHRIST and the infinite Merit of his Death We consecrate all our Prayers by this Holy Oblation and in presenting JESVS CHRIST to God we learn at the same time to offer up our selves to the Divine Majesty in him and by him as living Sacrifices This is the Sacrifice of Christians infinitely different from what was offered up in the Old Law a Spiritual Sacrifice becoming the New Covenant in which the presence of the Victim is only perceived by Faith in which the Word of God is the Spiritual Sword which makes a Mystical separation betwixt the Body and the Blood in which by consequence the Blood is only shed Mystically and in which Death only intervenes by representation and yet however a most real Sacrifice in as much as JESVS CHRIST is there truly contained and presented to his Father under this Figure of Death But a Commemorative Sacrifice which is so far from taking away our adhesion to the Sacrifice of the Cross as it is objected to us on the contrary it fixes us the firmer to it by all its circumstances seeing it has not only an entire relation to it but in reality has neither being nor subsistence but by this relation from whence it deriveth all the Vertue contained in it This is the express Doctrine of the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent which teaches that this Sacrifice is instituted only to represent that which was once accomplished upon the Cross Sess 22. c. 1. to perpetuate the memory of it to the end of the World and to apply to us the saving Vertue of it for the remission of those sins which we commit every day So that the Church is so far from believing that something wants to perfect the Sacrifice of the Cross on the contrary she thinks it so perfect and so fully sufficient as what is added is only instituted to celebrate the memory and apply its Vertue By which the same Church acknowledges that all the merit of the Redemption of Mankind depends upon the Death of the Son of God and it ought to be understood from all we have already expounded that when we say to God in the Celebration of the Divine Mystery We offer unto you this Holy Host we pretend not by this Oblation to make or present to God a new payment of the price of our Salvation but to offer up to him in our behalfs the Merits of our Blessed JESVS there present and the infinite price which he once paid for us upon the Cross The Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion do not think they offend JESVS CHRIST by offering him to God as present to their Faith and if they believed him to be really there what repugnance could they have to offer him up as truly present So that the whole dispute ought indeed to be reduced to the real presence alone From hence forwards all those false Ideas which these Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion form to themselves of the Sacrifice which we offer ought to be effaced They ought freely to acknowledge Catholics pretend not to make a new propitiation to appease God anew as if he had not been sufficiently satisfied by the Sacrifice of the Cross or to make some addition to the Price of our Salvation as if it were imperfect All these things have no place in our Doctrine because all that is here done is intended by way of Intercession and Application after the manner which we have now explicated SECT XV. The Epistle to the Hebrews AFter this Explication those mighty Objections drawn from the Epistle to the Hebrews and so much enforced against us will appear to have little reason in them and it is in vain our Adversaries strive to prove from the sentiments of the Apostle that we annul the Sacrifice of the Cross But because the best way to prove that two Doctrines are not opposite to one another is to shew by explicating them that no proposition of the one is contrary to any of the propositions of the other I think I am bound in this place to propose in short the Doctrine of this Epistle The Apostle intends in this Epistle to teach us that a sinnner could not avoid Death but by substituting some one in his place to die for him that whilst Men substituted only Beasts to be killed in their places their Sacrifices operated nothing but a publick acknowledgment of their having deserved Death and that seeing the Divine Justice could not be satisfied by so unequal an exchange they begun again every day to slay new Victims which was a certain mark of the insufficiency of that substitution But that since JESVS CHRIST had vouchsafed to die for Sinners God being satisfied by a Person substituting of himself so condignly sufficient and nothing more to exact for the price of our Redemption From whence the Apostle concludes we ought not only to offer up no more Victims after JESVS CHRIST but that JESVS CHRIST himself ought to be but once offered up to Death for us Let the Reader then who is solicitous for his Souls Salvation and a lover of Truth reflect a little upon what we have said concerning the manner how JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist I am certain he will not find any Proposition contrary to those which I have here related from the Apostle or which weakens his Argument so that nothing can be objected to us but his silence upon this point But those who would but consider the wise distribution which God makes of his secrets in the several Books of Scripture would not oblige us to receive from the sole Epistle to the Hebrews all our instructions concerning a matter which was not necessary to the Subject of that Epistle seeing the Apostle intends to explicate in it the perfection of the Sacrifice of the Cross and not the different manners which God has instituted to apply it to us And to remove all equivocation if we take the word Offer in the sence it is made use of in this Epistle as implying the actual Death of the Victim we will publickly confess that JESVS CHRIST is now no more offered up neither in the Eucharist nor any where else But because this word has a larger signification in other places of Scripture where it is often said We offer up to God what we present before him the Church which forms her Language and her Doctrine not from the sole Epistle to the Hebrews but from the whole Body of the Holy Scripture is not afraid to say that JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God whereever he appears before his Face upon our behalf and that by consequence he offers up himself in the Eucharist according to
flock in his paths which those who love Concord amongst Brethren and Ecclesiastical Unanimity will most willingly acknowledg And certainly if the Authors of the Pretended Reformation had loved Unity they would neither have abolished Episcopal Government which was established by JESVS CHRIST himself and which we find in force even in the times of the Apostles nor have despised the Authority of St. Peter's Chair which has so solid a Foundation in the Gospel and so evident a succession in Tradition but they would rather have carefully conserved Episcopal Authority which establisheth unity in particular Churches and the Primacy of St. Peter's Chair which is the common Center of all Catholic Unity SECT XXII Conclusion of this Treatise THIS is the Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine in which that I might tye my self to the most principal I have left some questions untouched which those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion do not look upon as lawful matter for a Separation I hope those of their Communion who shall impartially examin all the Parts of this Treatise will be better disposed by the reading of it to give ear to those proofs upon which the Faith of the Church is established and will in the mean time acknowledg many of our Controversies may be ended by a sincere explication of our Tenets that her Doctrine is Holy and that according to their own Principles no one of her Articles destroys the grounds of Salvation If any one should think fit to answer this Treatise he is desired to consider that to accomplish his intent he must not undertake to refute the Doctrine contained in it seeing my Design was only to propose it without going about to prove it and that if in some Places I have hinted at some of the reasons which establish it it is because the knowledg of the principal reasons of a Doctrine is often a necessary part of it's Explication It would also be a quitting of the design of this Treatise to examin the different methods which Catholic Divines make use of to establish or explicate the Doctrine of the Council of Trent and the different Consequences which particular Doctors have drawn from it To urge any thing solid against this Treatise and which may come home to the point it must be proved that the Churches Faith is not here faithfully expounded and that by Acts which the same Church has obliged herself to receive or else it must be shown that this Explication leaves all the Objections in their full force and all the Disputes untouched or in fine it must be precisely shown in what this Doctrine subverts the Foundations of Faith Lettre de Monseigneur le Cardinal BONA a Monseigneur le Card. de BUILLON HO ricevnto il libro di Monsignor Vescovo di Condom che V. E. si è degnata inviarmi e sì come Conosco la qualità del favore emâ—ne pregio cosi rendo alla sua gentilezza infinite gratie e per il dono e per il pensiero che si pronde di acorescere la mia Libraria L'hò letto con attentione particolare e perche V E. mi accenna che alcuni lo accusano di qualche mancamento hò voluto particolarmente osservare in che potesse esser ripreso Mà realmente non sò trovarci se non materia di grandissima lode perche senza entrare nelle questioni spinose delle controversie conuna maniera ingegnosa facile e famigliare e con metodo per così dire geometrica da certi principii communi approvati convince i Calvenisti e li necessita à consessare la verità della Fede Cattolica Assicuro V. E. di haverlo letto con mia indicibile sodisfattione nè mi maraviglio chegli habbino trovato à dire perche tutte le Opere grandi e che sormontano l'ordinario sempre hanno contradittori Vince però finalmente la verità e da'frutti si conosce la qualità dell'albero Me ne rallegre con l' Autore il quale hà dato saggio del suo gran talento con questa a opera e potrà con molte altre servire lodevolmente à Santa Chiesa Roma 19. Gennaro 1672. Lettre de Monseigneur le Cardinal SIGISMOND CHIG la Monsieur L'Abbé de DANGEAU RICEVEI con la sua lettera ill Libro della Espositione della Dottrina Cattolica del Vescovo di Condom molto erudito e molto utile per convertire gl heretici più con le vive ragioni che con l'asprezza del discorso Parlai al Padre Mastro di S. Palazzo al Segretario dell ' Congregatione dell Indice e conobbi veramente che non viera stato chi havesse a questi Padri parlato in disfavore del medesimo Anzi li trovai pieni di estimatione per il medesimo havendo poi parlato con questi Signori Cardinali della Congregatione trovai frà gl'altri il Signor Cardinale Brancaccio molto inclinato a pregiarlo e molto propenso a lodarne l'Autore Onde io tengo certo che qua ancora Monsignor di Condom ottenga quella lode che e dovuta alla sua fatica alla sua dottrina Resto per tanto obligato alla sua gentilezza che mi ha dato modo di ammirar la medesima mentre mi pare che l'Autore string a bene i suoi argomenti e mostri chiaro i punti nei quali i divisi discordano della Chieza ne credo che il modo che tien l'Autore sia da condannarsi nell'esplicatione di qualche Dottrina insegnata dal Concilio di Trento essendo praticato da molti Scrittori essendo da lui maneggiato molto regolatamente in oltre che l'Autore non ha havuto in mente d'inte pretare i dogmi di quel Concilio ma solo importarlinel suo libro esplicati perche gl'heretici restino convinti in chiaro di tutto quello che la Santa Chiesa gl'obliga di credere Dell'autorita del Papa ne parlabene e con il dovnto rispetto della Sede Romana ogni volià che parla del capo visibile della Chiesa onde torno à dire che non e capace che di lode Roma 5. Aprile 1672. Lettre du Reverendiss Pere HYACINTHE LIBELLI alors Maistre du Sacre Palais maintenant Archevesque d'Avignon a Monseigneur le Cardinal SIGISMOND CHIGI HO letto il Libro del Sig. di Condom continente l'Espositione dellae Dottrina della Chiesa Devo infinite gratie à V. E. che mi habbia fatte consumare quattro hore di tempo sì virtuo samente e con tanto mio diletro Mi è piacciuto sopra modo e per l'Argomento singolare e per le prove che à quello correspondono La Dottrina è tutta sana ne v'ha embra di mancamento No per me sò quello che possa opporvisi e se l'Autore desidererà che si ristamp in Roma da me otterrÃ
contrary full of Esteem for this Work I discoursed of it likewise to the Cardinals of the Congregation and amongst all the rest I found Cardinal Brancas much enclined to praise the Author and esteem the Book So that I doubt not but M. de Condom will receive here the same approbation which has been given him every where else and which is so legitimately due both to his Learning and his Labour I am very much obliged to you for having given me the means of admiring him and have perceived in this your old and ordinary goodness The Author is close in his Proofs and explicates very clearly the Subject he treats on in shewing the true difference betwixt the belief of Catholics and that of the Enemies of the Church I do not think the method he takes to explicate the Doctrine taught in the Council of Trent can in the least be disapprov'd This Method having been practised by many other Writers and being handled throughout his whole Book with great Exactness Certainly it was never his Intention to give the Interpretation of the Tenets of the Council but only to deliver them in his Book rightly explicated in such sort that Heretics may be convinc'd and especially in those things which the Holy Church obliges them to believe He speakes perfectly well of the Popes Authority and whereever he treats of the visible Head of the Church he appears full of respect for the Holy See In fine I must tell you once again M. de Condom cannot be too much commended c. Rome April the 5th 1672. A Letter from the Reverend Father HIACINTHUS LIBELLI at that time Master of the Sacred Palace and now Arch-Bishop of Avignon to the Cardinal SIGISMOND CHIGI I Have read M. de Condom's Book which contains an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church I am extreamly indebted to your Eminence for giving me the opportunity of employing four hours so profitably and with so much Pleasure It is impossible for me to express how much this work has pleased me both for the peculiar Excellence of the design and for the Proofs which correspond to it The Doctrine is sound in all its parts and without the smallest shadow of a fault As for my self I cannot see what can be objected against it and if the Author would have the Book Printed at Rome I will give all the necessary Approbations without changing a single Word This Author who has a great deal of Wit has shown a great deal of Judgment too in this Treatise where laying aside disputes which ordinarily speaking do but encrease Dissentions it being rare to find any who will grant the Preheminence of Wit to their Companions he has found out another and more easie Method of treating with the Calvinists from which much better Fruit may be expected In effect as soon as they can be brought to lay aside that horrour which they have sucked in with their Milk against our Tenets they come more willingly towards us and discovering the insincerity of that Doctrine which they learn'd from their Masters the principal Maxim of which is That our Doctrines are horrid and incredible they apply themselves with more tranquillity of Mind to search into Catholic Verities This is what they must be carefully exhorted to sinee there is no better Method to make them renounce their Errors and your Eminence had great reason when you lately said That Catholic Truth will always be victorious in the Mind of every man of Sense who will only without prejudice consider it in comparison with Heresy I take the Liberty to write this long Discourse to your Eminence not being able to contain within my self the Pleasure which the reading of this Book you have been pleased to let me have has afforded me I beg your Eminence will continue the like Favours to me c. Rome 26 April 1672. A Letter from the Bishop and Prince of PADERBORNE at that time Coadjutor and now Bishop of Munster to the Author THE most Christian King when he entrusted to you the Instruction and Education of his Son born to so much Greatness did by his Judgment alone sufficiently recommend your Knowledg and your Merit to all the World and all Posterity yet you have given a new Lustre to your Reputation and to the Christian Doctrine by an immortal Monument of your Worth I would say by that most excellent Book whose Title is An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church which has not only gained the vast applause of Catholics but forced the Heretics themselves to give deserved Praises to your Judgment and Erudition In this most admirable Treatise there appears a most incredible facility to unfold the most difficult the most sublime and most divine things and at the same time a most winning candor and a truly Christian Charity and Bounty capable to draw with sweetness all those who are set in Darkness and in the shadow of Death and to enlighten and conduct them into the way of Peace Insomuch that you seem to be chosen amongst the Bishops to reduce the Enemies of Catholic Faith under the easie Yoak of Truth To the end therefore the effects of this great work might be the more extended and might spread it self throughout all Germany and amongst other Nations I had formed to my self a design of having it put into Latin but after having read your Letter of the 24th of April I had a doubt whether I ought to proceed any further in it or quit my design because I perceived you were as perfect a Master of the Latin Tongue as of the French and that you writ it with so much Purity that if any other should undertake to translate your Works instead of adorning those curious Products of your Wit he might on the contrary discredit them You ought the rather therefore to be desired to put your self in Latin what you have published But seeing that perhaps you have not leisure and if you had it would be much better you should be employed in the Composition of more new Works than in the translation of those you have already Composed because you admit of it I will hasten him to whom I have committed it to finish what he has begun and will send you the Version of your own Book that you may review and correct it your self What remains for me is always infinitely to honour your Vertue and Learning and to make it my endeavour to cultivate that Friendship which my care of the Version and your Bounty have given so favourable a beginning to Continue still to love me most worthy Prelate who serve the Church so well and while you give the Dauphin so many excellent instructions contrive for me a place in the remembrance and affection of so great a Prince Give if you please my most humble Service to the Duke de Montausier In my Castle at the confluence of the Lippe the Padere and the Alise the 29th of May 1673 A Letter from the Reverend Father
objected against the Popes 2. Thes 2.3.4 that they are that wicked Person that man of Iniquity who has seated himself in the Temple of God and makes himself adored as God They who confess themselves not only mortal men but sinners who pray every day with the rest of the Faithful forgive us our offences and who never approach the Altar without Confessing of their sins and without saying in the most essential part of the Holy Sacrifice they hope for eternal life not by their own Merits but through the Bounty of God in the name of our Lord JESVS CHRIST T is true they maintain that Primacy which JESVS CHRIST has given them in the Person of St. Peter but it is by That they advance the Work of JESVS CHRIST himself the Work of Charity and Concord which would never have been perfectly accomplished if the Universal Church and all the Episcopal Order had not one head of Ecclesiastical Gover ment upon Earth to make the Members act in concurrence and accomplish in the whole Body the Mystery of Unity so much recommended by the Son of God It is just as much as nothing to answer that the Church has her true Head in Heaven who Unites her by animating her with his Holy Spirit who doubts of it But who does not know this Holy Spirit who disposes all things with as much sweetness as efficacy knows also how to prepare exteriour means proportionable to his designs The Holy Ghost both teaches and governs us interiourly therefore he establishes Pastors and Teachers to Act exterourly The Holy Ghost Unites the Body of the Church and the Ecclesiastical Government therefore it is he places at the head a common Father and a principal disposer who may Govern the whole Family of JESVS CHRIST We will call to witness the Consciences of those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion In this unfortunate age when so many wicked Sects endeavour by little and little to undermine the Foundations of Christianity and believe it enough only to name JESVS CHRIST to introduce indifferency in Religion and manifest impiety into the bosom of the Church Who sees not the necessity of a Pastor who may watch over his flock and authorized from above encite all others whose vigilance might slacken Let them in reality tell us if it be not the Seconians the Anabaptists the Independants those who under the name of Christian Liberty would establish indifferency in Religions and so many other pernicious Sects which they condemn as well as we who fly with the greatest impetuosity against St. Peters Chair and cry loudest that his Authority is Tyrannical I do not wonder at it those who would divide the Church or surprise her fear nothing more than to see her march against them like a well ranged Army under one head Let us not raise a quarrel with any let us only reflect whence come those Books wherein these dangerous Licenses and Antichristian Doctrines are taught at least none can deny but the See of Rome by the very Constitution of it is incompatible with these Novelties and if we could not know by the Gospel that the Primacy of this See is necessary for us Experience it self would convince us of it Moreover We must not be astonished if this Author of the Exposition who places the essential Authority of this See in those things wherein all Catholic Schools agree hath been approved without difficulty The Chair of St. Peter stands in need of no disputing what all Catholics acknowledge without contestation suffices to maintain that Power which was given to it for edification and not for destruction The Pretended Reform'd should hereafter give way no more to those vain Phantoms with which they are frighted What does it profit them to search in Histories for the Vices of Popes when if what they meet with there should be true does the Vices of men destroy the institution of JESVS CHRIST and the Priviledge of St. Peter shall the Church rise in Rebellion against a Power which maintains her Unity under pretence that some have abus'd it Christians are accustomed to reason upon higher and more true Principles and know that God is able to maintain his works in the midst of all the evils which accompany humane frailty We do then Conjure these of the Pretended Reform'd Religion by that Charity which is God himself by the name of Christian which is common to us both not to judge of the Doctrine of our Church by what they hear in their Sermons or read in their Books where many times the heat of dispute and Prevention not to mention any other make things frequently otherwise represented then they are but to hearken to this Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine It is a work in reality which consists not so much in disputing as in explicating clearly our belief In which to see how plainly the Author has proceeded we need only consider his design He promised in the very beginning 1. To propose the true Tenets of the Catholic Church Exp. p. 2. and to distinguish them from those which are falsely imputed to her 2. To the end no one should doubt but that he faithfully proposed the true Sentiments of the Church Exp. p. 2. he promised to take them from the Council of Trent where the Church has spoken decisively upon the things in question 3. He promised to propose to the Pretended Reform'd not all points in general Exp. p. 2. but those which caused the greatest separation betwixt them and us and to speak properly those which they made the occasions of their breach 4. He promised that what he said to make the decisions of the Council more intelligible Exp. p. 2. should be approved of in the Church and manifestly conformable to the Doctrine of the same Council All this is plain and just And in the first place no body can think it strange we should distinguish the Churches Tenets from those which are falsely imputed to her When Persons are animated beyond measure for want of a right understanding and when strange prejudices move great disputes there is nothing more natural nothing more charitable then to explicate matters clearly The Holy Fathers practised a way fraudless and calm like this to set men right again Whilst the Arians and Semi-Arians decryed the Symbol of Nice and the Consubstantiality of the Son by the false Ideas they fixed upon them St. Athanasius and St. Hilarius the two most illustrious defenders of the Nicene Faith represented to them the true sense of the Councils and St. Hilarius said to them S. Hil. lib. de syn Let us both together condemn false Interpretations but not destroy the certainty of Faith The Word Consubstantial may be mis-understood let us resolve how we may rightly understand it We may lay down the true state of Faith betwixt us if we do not overthrow what has been rightly established but remover mis-understanding It is Charity it self which dictates such words and suggests such
AN EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE Catholic Church IN MATTERS OF Controversie By the Right Reverend JAMES BENIGNE BOSSUET Counsellor to the King Bishop of Meaux formerly of Condom and Preceptor to the Dauphin First Almoner to the Dauphiness Done into English from the Fifth Edition in French LONDON Printed in the Year 1685. The Approbation of the Right Reverend the Archbishops and Bishops WE have read the Treatise intituled An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversie Composed by the Right Reverend James Benignus Bossuet Bishop and Lord of Condom Preceptor to his Royal Highness the Dauphin And we declare That after having examined it with as much application as the importance of the matter required we have found the Doctrine contained in it to be conformable to the Catholic Apostolic and Roman Faith And therefore we think our selves obliged to propose it as such to those whom God has committed to our charge We are certain the Faithful will be edified by it and we hope those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion who will read this Work with attention will receive from it so right an understanding as may conduce to put them into the way of Salvation CHARLES MAURICE LE TELLIER Archbishop and Duke of Reims CH. de ROSMADEC Bishop of Tours FELIX Bishop and Earl of Chalons De GRIGNAN Bishop of Usez D. DE LIGNY Bishop of Meaux NICHOLAS Bishop of Auxerre GABRIEL Bishop of Autun MARC Bishop of Tarbe ARMAND JOHN Bishop of Beziers STEPHEN Bishop and Prince of Grenoble JULIUS Bishop of Tule A Table of Articles contained in this Treatise I. DEsign of this Treatise Pag. 1 II. Those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion acknowledg That the Catholic Church embraces all the Fundamental Articles of the Christian Religion Pag. 2 III. Religious Worship is terminated only in God Pag. 4 IV. Invocation of Saints Pag. 6 V. Images and Reliques Pag. 9 VI. Justification Pag. 12 VII Merits of Good Works Pag. 13 VIII Satisfactions Purgatory and Indulgences Pag. 16 IX Sacraments Pag. 19 Baptism Pag. 20 Confirmation Ibid. Pennance and Sacramental Confession Ibid. Exream Vnction Pag. 21 Marriage Ibid. Holy Orders Pag. 22 X. Doctrine of the Church touching the real Presence of the Body and Blood of JESUS CHRIST in the Eucharist and how the Church understands these Words This is my Body Ibid. XI Explication of these Words Do this in remembrance of me Pag. 25 XII Explication of the Doctrine of the Calvinists concerning the real Presence Pag. 27 XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sense the Eucharist is a Sign Pag. 33 XIV Sacrifice of the Mass Pag. 34 XV. Epistle to the Hebrews Pag. 37 XVI Reflections upon the precedent Doctrine Pag. 39 XVII Communion under both Species Pag. 41 XVIII The Written and unwritten Word Pag. 43 XIX The Authority of the Church Pag. 44 XX. The Opinions of the Pretended Reform'd upon the Authority of of the Church Pag. 46 XXI Authority of the Holy See and of Episcopacy Pag. 50 XXII Conclusion of this Treatise Ibid. An Advertisement upon Account of this Present Edition ONE would have thought those of the pretended Reformed Religion in reading this Treatise should at least have granted that the Doctrine of the Church was faithfully Expounded in it The least they could have allowed a Bishop was to have understood his own Religion and to have spoke without disguise in a matter where to dissemble would be a crime But nevertheless it has fallen out otherwise This Treatise whilst a Manuscript was made use of to instruct several particular persons and many Copies of it were dispersed Upon which the sincerer part of the pretendedly Reform'd were almost every where heard to say That if it were approved it would in reality take away great difficulties But that the Author durst never publish it and if he should he would not escape the censure of all those of his Communion not particularly of Rome which would not frame it self to his Maxims After some time nevertheless this Book thus condemned to a perpetual obscurity appeared ushered in with the Approbation of several Bishops And the Author who knew very well he had only expressed in it the mind of the Council of Trent apprehended not those censures threatned by the Reformers It was not certainly probable that the Catholick Faith should be betrayed instead of being expounded by a Bishop who after having preached the Gospel all his life time without the least suspicion of his Doctrine had been newly called to instruct a Prince whom the greatest King in the World and the most zealous Defender of the Religion of his Ancestors causes to be Educated in such a manner that he may be one day one of its principal supports But these Gentlemen of the pretended Reformation ceased not to persevere in their first Opinion They expected every moment when Catholicks should oppose this Book and Rome it self condemn it The occasion of this their imagination was that the major part who know nothing of our Doctrine but as represented to them by their Ministers under the most hideous Ideas know it not again when shewn in its natural dress So that it was no hard task to represent to them the Author of the Exposition as one who mollified the Sentiments of his Religion and sought out proper and qualifying moderations to content all Parties There has appeared two Answers to this Treatise The Author of the first would not discover his name M. Claude de Langle Daille Alix and till he himself be pleased to declare it we will not reveal the secret It is enough to us that this work was approved by the Ministers of Charenton and sent to the Author of the Exposition by the late M. Conrart one endowed with all that Catholicks could desire in a Man An. p. 3. 112 113 124.137 c. excepting a better Religion The other Answer was written by M. Noguier a Minister who is amongst them of great repute and has the esteem of an able Divine Nog p. 63 94 95 109 110. An. p. 10. Nog p. 40. Nog p. 20 27. They both pretended the Exposition was contrary to the decisions of the Council of Trent They both affirm the very design it self of expounding the Doctrine of the Council to be prohibited by the Pope And they both take care to say that M. de Condom does only mince and extenuate the Doctrine of his Religion As they represent him one would think that he relents An. Avert p. 24. that he is coming over to them that he abandons the Sentiments of his own Church Rep. p. 3. An. p. 137. Nog p. 94. An Avert p. 25 26 27 28 29. and embraces those of the Pretended Reform'd In fine his Treatise agrees not with that Profession of Faith which the Roman Church proposes to all those who are of her Communion and they represent him at defiance with every Article If we believe the Anonymus this
difficulty from such Consequences by this short answer of M. Daille and tell them that the Catholic Church disavowing them they cannot be imputed to her without Calumny But I will go yet further and show these Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion by the sole Exposition of our Doctrine that the Catholic Church is so far from ruining the Fundamental Articles of Faith either directly or indirectly that on the contrary she establishes them after so solid and evident a manner that no one can question her right understanding of them without great injustice SECT III. Religious Worship is terminated in God alone TO begin with that Adoration which is due to God alone the Catholic Church teaches us that it consists principally in believing he is the Creator and Lord of all things and in adhering to him with all the Powers of our Soul by Faith Hope and Charity as to him alone who can render us happy by the Communication of an infinite Good which is himself This interiour Adoration which we render to God in Spirit and in Truth has its exteriour marks of which the principal is Sacrifice which cannot be offered to any but to God because a Sacrifice is established to make a publick acknowledgment and a solemn protestation of Gods Soveraignity and our absolute dependance The same Church teaches us that all Religious worship ought to terminate in God as its necessary end and that if the honour which she renders to the Blessed Virgin and to the Saints may in some sence be called Religious it is for its necessary Relation to God But before we explicate any further in what this honour consists it will not be unuseful to take notice how those of the Pretended Reformation obliged by the strength of truth begin to acknowledge that the custom of praying to Saints and honouring their Reliques was established even in the fourth age of the Church Monsieur Daille grants thus much in that book he published against the Tradition of the Latin Church about the object of Religious worship and accuses St. Basil St. Ambrose St. Hierome St. John Chrysostom St. Augustin and many more of those famous Lights of Antiquity who lived in that Age and above all St. Gregory Nazianzen who is called the Divine by excellence of having altered in this point the Doctrine of the three foregoing ages But it will not appear very likely that M. Daille should understand the Sentiments of the Fathers of the first three Ages better then those who gathered as I may say the succession of their Doctrine after their deaths and this will be so much the less credible because the Fathers of the fourth Age were so far from perceiving that they introduced any novelty in that worship that this Minister on the contrary has quoted several express Texts by which he shows clearly that they pretended in Praying to Saints to follow the example of their Predecessors But without any further examination what might be the Sentiments of the Fathers of the three first ages I will content my self with what M. Daille is pleased to grant who allows us so many great men who taught the Church in the fourth age For tho' he has taken upon him twelve hundred years after their deaths to give them in derision the name of a kind of Sect calling them Reliquarists that is to say Relique honourers yet I hope those of his Communion will have more respect for these great men They dare not at least accuse them of falling into Idolatry by praying to Saints or of destroying that trust which Christians ought to put in JESVS CHRIST and it is to behoped henceforwards they will not reproach these things to us when they consider they cannot do it without accusing at the same time these excellent men whose sanctity and learning they profess a reverence for as well as we But seeing our design is here to expound our belief rather then to show who were the defenders of it we must continue our explication SECT IV. Invocation of Saints THe Church in teaching us that it is profitable to pray to Saints teaches us to pray to them in the same Spirit of Charity and according to the same order of fraternal society which moves us to demand assistance of our brethren living upon Earth and the Catechism of the Council of Trent concludes from this Doctrine that if the quality of Mediator Cat. Rom. part 3. tit De Cultu Invoc Sanct. which the Scripture gives to JESVS CHRIST received any prejudice from the Intercession made to the Saints who Reign with God it would receive no less from the Intercession made to the faithful who live with us This Catechism shows us clearly the extream difference betwixt our manner of imploring God's assistance and that of imploring the aid of Saints For saith it we pray to God either to give us good things Part 4. tit Quis orandus sit or to deliver us from evil but because the Saints are more acceptable to him than we are we beg of them to undertake our cause and to obtain for us those things we stand in need of From whence it comes to pass that we use two very different forms of Prayer for to God the proper manner of speaking is to say HAVE PITY ON VS HEAR OVR PRAYER whereas we only desire the Saints TO PRAY FOR VS From whence we ought to understand that in what Terms soever those prayers which we address to Saints are couched the intention of the Church and of her faithful reduces them always to this form as the Catechism presently after confirms Ibid. But it is good to consider the words of the Council it self which prescribing to Bishops how they ought to speak of the Invocation of Saints Sess 25. Dec. de Invoc c. obliges them to teach that the Saints who reign with JESUS CHRIST offer up to God their prayers for men that it is good and profitable to invocate them after an humble manner and to have recourse to their prayers aid and assistance to obtain of God his Benefits through our Lord JESUS CHRIST his Son who is our sole Saviour and Redeemer After which the Council condemns those who teach a contrary Doctrine We see then to invocate the Saints according to the sense of this Council is to have recourse to their prayers for obtaining benefits from God through JESVS CHRIST So that in reality we do not obtain those benefits which we receive by the intercession of the Saints otherwise then through JESVS CHRIST and in his name seeing these Saints themselves pray in no other manner than through JESVS CHRIST and are not heard but in his name This is the Faith of the Church which the Council of Trent has clearly explicated in few words After which we cannot imagine that any one should accuse us of forsaking JESVS CHRIST when we beseech his members who are also ours his Children who are our Brethren and his Saints who are
a Power which has Dominion over universal Nature The Son of God has no more difficulty to render his Body present in the Eucharist by saying This is my Body than to Cure a Woman of her Infirmity Luc. 13.12 by saying Woman thou art freed from thy Infirmity or to preserve the Life of a young Man by saying to his Father John 4.50 Thy Son liveth or to forgive the Sins of the Man sick of the Palsy Mat. 9.2 by saying to him Thy Sins are forgiven thee So that not troubling our selves how he will execute what he has said we rest precisely upon his words He who does what he will by speaking does what he pleases and it was more easy for the Son of God to force the Laws of Nature to verify his word than it is for us to accommodate our Understandings to these kind of violent Interpretations which break the Laws of common Discourse These Laws of Discourse teach us that a sign which represents a thing naturally receives often the name of the thing represented being as it were its nature to bring the Idea of the thing into the Mind The same also happens tho with some restriction to instituted Signs when they are received and Persons accustomed to them But that in establishing a Sign which has no relation to the thing as for example a Morsel of Bread to signify the Body of a Man the name of the thing signified should be given to it with out any Explication and before any agreement as JESVS CHRIST has done in his last Supper is a thing unheard of and of which we find no example in holy Writ not to say in any Language Neither do the Gentlemen of the Pretended Reform'd Religion so fix themselves to the figurative Sense which they would give to these words of JESVS CHRIST but that they do at the same time acknowledge he had intention in pronouncing them to give us in reality his Body and Blood SECT XI Explication of these Words Do this in remembrance of me AFter having proposed the Sentiments of the Church touching these words This is my Body we must explicate what she thinks of those others which JESVS CHRIST added Do this in remembrance of me It is manifest the intention of the Son of God is to oblige us by these words Luc. 22.19 to remember the Death which he has endured for our Salvation 1 Cor. 1â— 24 and St. Paul concludes from these same words that we declare the Death of our Saviour in this Mystery But they must not perswade themselves 2 Cor. 11.26 that remembrance of our Saviours Death excludes the real Presence of his Body on the contrary if they consider what we have lately explicated they will clearly understand this Commemoration to be grounded upon the real Presence For as the Jews in eating of the Peace-Offerings remembred they had been immolated for them in the same manner in eating of the flesh of JESVS CHRIST our Victim we ought to remember he died for us This very flesh then eaten by the Faithful not only renews in us the memory of his immolation but confirms also to us the reality of it And we are so far from having reason to say that this solemn Commemoration which JESVS CHRIST ordains us to make excludes the Presence of his Body that on the contrary we see this tender remembrance which he would have us to make at the Holy Table of him as immolated for us is grounded upon this that this very flesh ought to be there taken really seeing in effect it is not possible for us to forget it was for us he gave his Body in Sacrifice when we see he daily gives us the same Victime to eat Must Christians under pretence of celebrating in the Lords Supper the memory of the Passion of our Saviour deprive this Pious Commemoration of what it has most efficacious and tender in it Ought they not to consider that JESVS CHRIST does not command them only to remember him but to remember him in eating of his Flesh and Blood Consider the Connexion and the force of his words He does not say simply as those of the Pretended Reformation seem to understand him That the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist should be to us a Memorial of his Body and Blood but he advertises us that in doing what he has prescribed that is in receiving his Body and Blood we should remember him What is there in reality more powerful to make us remember him And if Children do so tenderly remember their Parents and their Bounties towards them when they approach the Tombs where their Bodies are interred how ought our Remembrance and our Love to be excited when we possess under these sacred Vails under this mystical Sepulchre this living and Life-giving Flesh and this Blood yet flowing with his Love and full of Spirit and Grace But if our Adversaries continue to tell us That he who commands us to remember him does not give us his proper Substance we must in fine desire them to agree amongst themselves They profess not to deny the real Communication of the proper substance of the Son of God in the Eucharist If their words are serious if their Doctrine be not an illusion they must necessarily say with us the remembrance does not exclude all kinds of Presence but only that which strikes the Senses Their Answer shall be ours seeing that tho we affirm JESVS CHRIST to be present yet we acknowledg at the same time that he is not present after a sensible manner And if it should be demanded how it comes to pass that believing as we do the Senses to have nothing to do in this Mystery we should not believe it sufficient that JESVS CHRIST should be present by Faith It is easie to answer and to clear this Equivocal Objection It is one thing to say the Son of God is present to us by Faith and another thing to say we know by Faith that he is present The first manner of speaking imports only a moral presence but the second signifies to us a very real one because our Faith is most real and this real Presence known by Faith Habac. 2.4 is sufficient to work all the forementioned Effects in the Just Man who lives by Faith SECT XII Exposition of the Calvanists Doctrine concerning the real Presence BUT to remove all the Equivocations which Calvinists make use of in this matter and show at the same time how near they have approached to us it will be convenient to add here the exposition of their Sentiments tho I only undertook to explicate the Doctrine of the Church Their Doctrine has two parts the one speaks of nothing but the Figure and the other of nothing but the Reality of the Body and Blood We shall see each of these parts in order They tell us first This great Miracle of the real Presence which we admit is useless that it is enough for our Salvation JESVS
naturally form in the minds of the Faithful give us nothing but the Ideas of his real presence Therefore it was necessary our adversaries should find out some expressions the sound of which might at least give us a confused Idea of this reality When a Man fixes himself either entirely upon Faith as Catholicks do or entirely upon humane Reason as Infidels do it is easie for him to establish a connected and uniform model of Doctrine But when a man goes about to make a composition of one and the other he always says something which he would not say and afterwards falls into opinions the sole contrarieties of which shew the manifest falsity of them This is what has hapned to these Gentlemen of the pretended reform'd Religion and God has so permitted it to facilitate their return to Catholic unity For whereas their proper experience shows them they must necessarily express themselves as we do to speak the language of Truth ought they not to judge it necessary to think as we do to understand it right If they observe in their own belief many expressions which have no sence but according to our tenets is it not sufficient to convince them that Truth is not in its full perfection but amongst us And those unconnected parts of Catholick Doctrine which are scatered here and there in their Catechisms but which as I may say require to be united to the whole ought they not to excite them to search in the Communion of the Church a full and entire explication of the Mystery of the Eucharist They would no doubt of it be brought to it did not humane Reflections trouble and perplex their Faith which has too much dependance upon Sence But having shown what Fruit they ought to reap from the Exposition of their Doctrine let us finish the explication of our own SECT XIII Of Transubstantiation and Adoration and in what sence the Eucharist is said to be a Sign IT having been convenient as it was said before that the Senses should not perceive any thing in this Mystery of Faith it was necessary nothing should be changed in respect of them in the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist Upon which account being we see the same Species and feel the same Effects as before in this Sacrament we must not wonder if the same name be given to them sometimes and in some certain Sense Yet notwithstanding Faith being attentive to his word who performs what pleases him in Heaven and on Earth acknowledges here no other Substance but what is designed by the same word that is to say the proper Body and Blood of JESVS CHRIST into which the Bread and Wine are changed this is what we call Transubstantiation However That real verity which is interiorly contained in the Eucharist hinders not the exterior and sensible part from being a sign but a sign of such a Nature that it is so far from excluding the reality of the thing signified it bears it necessarily along with it seeing that in effect these words This is my Body pronounc'd upon that matter which JESVS CHRIST himself made choice of is to us a certain sign that his Body is present and though the Symbols appear always the same to our Senses yet our Mind judges otherwise of them and not according to Sense because a Superior Authority interposes So that whereas certain Species and a certain sequel of natural impressions on our Senses have been accustomed to design to us the substance of Bread and Wine the Authority of Him in whom we believe causes these same Species to begin to shew us another substance For we give ear to him who said that this which we receive and eat is his Body and such is the force of these words they hinder us from referring those exteriour appearances to the Substance of Bread and induced us to refer them to the Body of JESVS CHRIST there present Insomuch that the presence of such an adorable Object being rendered certain to us by this sign we are not afraid to pay it our adorations I will not dwell upon the point of Adoration because the most learned and the most intelligent of our Adversaries have long since granted us those who are perswaded of the real Presence of JESVS CHRIST in the Eucharist ought to pay him in it their Adorations In fine being once convinced the all-powerful words of the Son of God operate whatever they declare we believe that in the last Supper they had their effect as soon as they were pronounced by him and by a necessary Consequence we acknowledg the real Presence of his Body before our receiving of it SECT XIV Sacrifice of the Mass THese things being supposed there remains no particular difficulty about the Sacrifice which we acknowledg in the Eucharist We have observed two actions in this Mystery which cease not to be distinct the one of them has a Relation to the other The first is the consecration by which the Bread and Wine are changed into the Body and Blood and the second is the receiving by which we partake of them In the Consecration the Body and the Blood are mystically seperated because JESVS CHRIST said separately This is my Body this is my Blood which includes a lively and efficacious Representation of the violent Death he suffered So that the Son of God is placed upon the Holy Table in vertue of these words cloathed with those signs which represent his Death this is effected by consecration and this Religious action carries with it an acknowledgment of Gods Soveraignty in as much as JESVS CHRIST there present renews and perpetuates in some sort the remembrance of his being obedient even to the Death of the Cross So that there is nothing wanting to render this a true Sacrifice We cannot doubt but this Action as distinct from that of Communicating is of it self acceptable to God and makes him look upon us with a more propitious Eye because it represents to him that voluntary Death which his beloved Son has suffered for us Sinners or rather places before his Eyes that very Son of his under the signs of this Death by which his Wrath had been appeased All Christians will confess the sole Presence of JESVS CHRIST to be a most Powerful Intercession before God for all mankind according to the saying of the Apostle That JESVS CHRIST presents himself and appears for us before the Face of God Heb. 9.24 So that we believe that JESVS CHRIST being present upon the Holy Table under this Figure of Death intercedes for us and represents continually to his Father that Death which he has suffered for his Church It is in this Sense we say JESVS CHRIST offers up himself to God for us in the Eucharist it is after this manner we conceive this Oblation renders God more propitious to us and therefore we call this a Propitiatory Sacrifice When we consider what it is JESVS CHRIST operates in this Mystery and that we see him
not annexed to the sensible species but to the proper substance of his flesh which is living and life-giving because of the Divinity which is united to it Upon which account all those who believe the real presence ought not to have any difficulty to communicate under one sole species because they there receive all that is essential to this Sacrament together with a plenitude so secure because there being now no real seperation betwixt the Body and the Blood as hath been said we receive entirely and without division him who is solely capable to satiate us This is the solid foundation upon which the Church interpreting the precept of Communion as declared we may receive the Sanctification which this Sacrament carries with it under one sole species and if she have reduced her Children to this sole species it was not out of disesteem of the other seeing on the contrary she did it to hinder those Irreverences which the confusion and negligence of people had occasioned in these later ages reserving to her self the re-establishment of communion under both kinds according as it should become more advantagious to Peace and Unity Catholic Divines have made it appear to those of the pretended Reformation that they have themselves made use of several such like Interpretations in what belongs to the use of the Sacrament but above all they had reason to remark this which is taken out of the 12 chap. of their discipline Title of the Lords Supper art 7. where we find these words The Bread of the Lords Supper ought to be administred to those who cannot drink wine upon their making protestation that it is not out of contempt and endeavouring what they can possibly to obviate all Scandal even by approaching the cup as neer their mouths as they are able They have judged by this regulation that both species were not by the institution of JESVS CHRIST essential to the Communion otherwise they ought to have absolutely refused the Sacrament to those who could not receive it whole and entire and not to give it them after a manner contrary to that which JESVS CHRIST had commanded in which case their disability would have been their excuse But our adversaries conceived it would be an excessive rigour not to allow at least one of the species to those who could not receive the other and as this condescendence has no ground in Scripture they must acknowledge with us the words by which JESVS CHRIST proposes to us the two species are liable to some interpretation and that this interpretation ought to be declared by the authority of the Church But it might seem as if this article of their discipline which was made in the Synod of Poitiers held in the year 1560 had been reformed by the Synod of Vertueil held in the year 1567. where it is said the company is not of opinion the bread should be administred to those who would not receive the Cup. These two Synods nevertheless are no ways opposite That of Vertueil speaks only of those who will not receive the Cup And that of Poitiers of these only who cannot In effect notwithstanding the Synod of Vertueil this article remains in their discipline and has been also approved by a latter Synod then that of Vertueil by the Synod of la Rochell in 1571 where this article was review'd and put into that stare in which it now is But supposing the Synods of the pretended reform'd Religion had differed in their sentiments it would only follow that the matter in question regards not Faith and that it is of the number of those which are at the Churches disposal according to their own Principles SECT XVIII The written and unwritten Word THERE remains nothing more now but to explicate what Catholics believe touching the Word of God and the Authority of the Church JESVS CHRIST having laid the Foundation of his Church by Preaching the unwritten Word was the first Rule of Christianity and when the Writings of the New Testament were added this unwritten Word did not upon that account lose its Authority which makes us reiceive with equal veneration all that was ever taught by the Apostles whether by Writing or byword of Mouth as St. Paul himself has expresly declared And it is a most certain sign 2 Thes 2.14 a Doctrine comes from the Apostles when it is universally embraced by all Christian Churches without any possibility of shewing its beginning We cannot chuse but receive all that is established after this manner with the submission due to Divine Authority and we are persuaded those of the Pretended Reformation who are not obstinate are in the bottom of their Hearts of the same Opinion it being impossible to believe a Doctrine received from the beginning of the Church can flow from any other source than that of the Apostles Wherefore our Adversaries ought not to wonder if we who are careful to gather together all our Fathers have left us should conserve the Depositum of Tradition as well as that of the Scriptures SECT XIX The Authority of the Church THE Church being established by God to be the Guardian of Scripture and Tradition we receive the Canonical Scriptures from her and let our Adversaries say what they will we doubt not but it is her Authority which principally determines them to reverence as Divine Books the Canticle of Canticles which has so few visible marks of a Prophetical Inspiration the Epistle of St. James which Luther rejected and that of St. Jude which might appear suspected because of some Apocriphal Books cited in it In fine it can only be from this Authority they receive the whole Body of Scripture which all Christians accept as Divine before their reading of it has made them sensible of the Spirit of God in it Being then inseparably bound as we are to the Holy Authority of the Church by means of the Scriptures which we receive from her Hands we learn Tradition also from her and by the means of Tradition we learn the true sence of Scripture Upon which account the Church professes she tells us nothing from her self and that she invents nothing new in her Doctrine she does nothing but declare the Divine Revelation by the interiour direction of the Holy Ghost who is given to her as her teacher That Dispute which was raised in the very time of the Apostles upon account of the Ceremonies of the Law shews clearly that the Holy Ghost explicates himself by the Church and their Acts have by the method by which that first Contest was decided taught all succeeding Ages by what Authority all other differences are to be ended So that as often as there shall happen any Disputes to cause a Division amongst the Faithful the Church will interpose her Authority and her Pastors assembled will say after the Apostles Act. 15.28 It his seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us And when she has spoken her Children will be taught they ought not to begin
again to examine those Articles once so resolved on but are bound humbly to receive her Decisions In this we shall follow the example of St. Paul and Silas who carried this first Sentence of the Apostles to the Faithful and were so far from permitting a new Discussion of what had been decided that on the contrary They went from place to place Acts 16.4 teaching them to observe the Ordinances of the Apostles Thus it is the Children of God acquiess in the Judgment of the Church believing that from her Mouth they hear the Oracle of the Holy Ghost and upon account of this belief it is that after having said in our Creed I believe in the Holy Ghost we add immediately The Holy Catholic Church by which we oblige our selves to acknowledg an infallible and perpetual verity in the universal Church because this very Church which we believe existent in all Ages would cease to be the Church if she ceased to teach the truth revealed by God So that those who apprehend least she should abuse her Power to establish a Lye have no Faith in him by whom she is governed And if our Adversaries would but look upon these things in a more mild and candid manner they would be obliged to acknowledg the Catholic Church is so far from making her self Mistress of her Faith as they have accused her that on the contrary she has done what she could to bind and deprive herself of all the means of Innovation seeing she not only submits herself to the Holy Scriptures but to the end she might for ever banish all arbitrary Interpretations which make Mens Imaginations pass for Scripture she has obliged herself to interpret them in what relates to Faith and Manners Conc. Trid. Sess 14. according to the sence of the Holy Fathers from which she prosesseth never to depart declaring in all her Councils and in all the Professions of Faith she has published that she does not receive any Doctrine which is not conformable to the Tradition of all preceding Ages Moreover if our Adversaries consult their Consciences they will find the name of the Church has more Authority over them than they dare avouch in their disputes and I do not think there is any one Prudent Man amongst them who finding himself the only Person of a Perswasion tho it appeared to him never so Evident but would abhor that Singularity so true it is that Men have need in these matters to be supported in their Tenets by the Authority of some Society that is of the same opinion with them And for this reason God who created us and who knows what is most proper for us hath ordained for our Good that all Particulars should be subject to the Authority of his Church which of all other Authorities is without doubt the best Established In effect it is established not only by that Testimony which God himself gives of it in the Holy Scriptures but also by the marks of his divine Protection which are no less visible in the inviolable and perpetual subsistence of it than in its miraculous Establishment SECT XX. The Sentiments of those of the Pretended Reform'd Religion concerning the Authority of the Church THIS Supream Authority of the Church is so necessary to regulate the differences which arise in matters of Faith and about the Sense of Scripture that our Adversaries themselves after having decryed it as an unsupportable Tyranny have been at last obliged to establish it amongst themselves When those who are called Independents declared openly that each one of the Faithful ought to follow the light of his own Conscience without submitting his Judgment to the Authority of any Body or Ecclesiastical Assembly and upon this Ground refused to submit toany Synods That of Charenton held 1644. censured this Doctrine upon the same Reasons and for the same Inconveniencies for which we reject it This Synod observes in the first place that this Error of the Independents consists in this that they teach Every Church ought to be governed by her proper Laws without a dependance upon any Person in Ecclesiastical Matters and without any Obligation to acknowledg the Authority of Conferences and Synods for her regulation and conduct After which this Synod determines that this Sect is a prejudicial to the State as to the Church that it opens a door to all sorts of Irregularities and Extravagancies that it takes away all the means of applying any remedy to it and that if it took place there might be as many Religions framed as Parishes or particular Assemblies These last words shew it is principally in matters of Faith this Synod would establish a Dependance seeing the greatest Inconvenience into which it observes the faithful would fall by an Independence is that there might chance to be as many Religions formed as Parishes Every Church then according to the Doctrine of this Synod and much more every private Person must necessarily depend in what concerns matters of Faith upon some other superior Authority which resides in some Assembly or in some Body to which Authority all the Faithful submit their Judgments For the Independents do not refuse to submit to the Word of God according as they think it ought to be understood nor to accept the decisions of Synods when after having examined them they judg them reasonable What they refuse to do is to submit their Judgments to that of any Assembly for its sake because our Adversaries have taught them that every Assembly even that of the Universal Church is a Society of men subject to Error and to which by consequence a Christian ought not to submit his Judgment that submission being only due to God From this pretention of the Independents it is those inconveniences follow which the Synod of Charenton so well observed For let a man make what Profession he pleaseth to submit himself to the word of God if every one think he has a right to interpret it according to his own Sense and against the Tenets of the Church declared in her last Sentence this pretention will open a door to all sorts of Extravagancies it will take away all the means of applying a remedy because the decision of the Church is not a remedy to those who think themselves not obliged to submit to it in fine it gives way to the framing as many Religions not only as there are Parishes but also as there are Persons To avoid these inconveniencies from whence the ruin of Christianity would follow the Synod of Charenton finds her self obliged to establish a Dependence in Ecclesiastical matters and that even in Points of Faith but this dependence will never hinder those pernicious consequences which they desired to prevent if they do not with us establish this Maxim that every particular Church and much more every particular person amongst the faithful ought to believe themselves obliged to submit their private judgment to the Authority of the Church Thus we see in the 5th chapter of
the discipline of the pretended reform'd Religion under the title of Consistories Art 31. that going about to prescribe a means to end debates which might arise upon any point of Doctrine or Discipline c. they ordain first the Consistory shall endeavour to appease the whole without noise and with all the sweetness of the word of God and after having established a Consistory a Conference and a Provincial Synod as so many different degrees of Jurisdiction coming at last to a National Synod above which amongst them there is no Authority they speak of it in these terms There the entire and final resolution shall be given by the word of God to which if they refuse to acquiesce in every point and with an express disavowing of their errours they shall be cut off from the Church It is manifest those of the pretended Reformation do not attribute the authority of this last sentence to the word of God taken in it self and without dependence upon the authority of the Church for tho this word was made use of in their first Judgements yet notwithstanding they permitted an appeal It is then this word as interpreted by the soveragin tribunal of the Church which gives this final resolution to which whosoever refuses to submit in every point altho he boast he is authorized by the word of God is no more reputed but as a prosane person who corrupts and abuses it But the form of those Letters of deputation which were addres'd to the Synod of Vitre in the year 1617 to be observed by the Provinces when they were to send their Deputies to a National Synod has yet something more express it is in these terms We promise before God to submit our selves to all that shall be concluded and resolved of in your holy Assemblis to obey them and put them in execution to our utmost power being persuaded as we are that God will preside in it and lead you by his holy spirit into all Truth and equity by the rule of his word Here the point is not about receiving the resolution of a Synod after they have found it to speak according to Scripture they submit to it even before it is assembled and they do it because they are persuaded the Holy Ghost will preside in it If this persuasion be only founded upon a human presumption can a man in conscience promise before God to submit to all that shall be there concluded and resolved of to obey and execute them to the utmost of his power And if this Persuasion has its foundation in a certain belief of the assistance which the Holy Ghost gives to the Church in her final decisions Catholics themselves require no more So that the proceedings of our Adversaries shew them to agree with us in this supreme Authority without which it is impossible ever to put an end to any difficulty in Religion and tho whilst they were desirous to cast of the yoak of obedience they denied the Faithful to be obliged to submit their Judgments to that of the Church yet the necessity of establishing an order has since forced them to grant what their first undertakings had made them deny They have gone yet much further in the National Synod held at Saint Foy in the year 1578. There was some overture made of a Reconcilement with the Lutherans by means of a general form of a profession of Faith common to all their Churches which was proposed to be drawn up Those of this Kingdom were invited to send to an Assembly which was to be held upon this account Vertuous persons authorised by all the said Churches with an ample Procuration TO TREAT AGREE UPON AND DECIDE ALL POINTS OF DOCTRINE and other matters concerning that union Upon this Proposall see in that terms the resolution of the Synod of St. Foy was couched The National Synod of this Kingdom after having given God thanks for such an overture and commended the care diligence and good advice of the forementioned persons convocated and APPROVING THE REMLDIES WHICH THEY HAVE SUGGESTED that is to say principally that of framing a new Confession of Faith and to give power to some certain persons to compose it has ordained That if the copy of the above named Confession of Faith be sent in time it shall be examined in each Provincial Synod or otherwise according to the convenience of each Province and in the mean time has deputed four Min sters the most experienced in those affairs to whom express charge has been given to be present at the place and day appointed with the Letters and full Procurations of all the Ministers and Elders Deputies of the Provinces of this Kingdom as also of the Lord Viscount Turenne to do all things above said yea even incase that MEANS COULD NOT BE FOUND OUT TO EXAMINE IN EVERY PROVINCE THE SAID CONFESSION it should be referred to their prudence and sound judgement to agree and CONCLUDE all the points which shall be brought into deliberation as well FOR DOCTRINE as for other matters concerning the benefit union and peace of all the Churches It was to this in fine that this seeming tenderness of Conscience of these pretended Reformes tended How often have they reproched to us as a weakness that submission which we pay to the Decisions of the Church which say they is nothing else but a company of men lyable to error and yet nevertheless being assembled in a Body in a National Synod which represented all the Churches of the pretended Reformed in France they are not afraid by mutual consent to leave their faith to the arbitration of four men with so absolute an abandoning of their own sentiments that they gave them full power to change the very Confession of Faith it self which they do at this very day propose to the whole Christian world as a Confession of Faith which containeth nothing but the pure Word of God and for which as they said in presenting it to our Kings an infinite number of people were ready to shed their Blood I leave the prudent Reader to make his reflections upon the Decree of this Synod and shall in a few words finish the Explication of the Churches Tenets SECT XXI The Authority of the Holy See of Rome and of Episcopacy THE Son of God being desirous his Church should be one and and solidly built upon Unity hath established and instituted the Primacy of St. Peter to maintain and cement it Upon which account we acknowledg this Primacy in the Successors of the Prince of the Apostles to whom for this cause we owe that Obedience and Submission which the Holy Councils and Fathers have always taught the faithful As for those things which we know are disputed of in the Schools tho the Ministers continually alledg them to render this Power odious it is not necessary we speak of them here seeing they are not Articles of the Catholic Faith It is sufficient we acknowledg a Head established by God to conduct his whole
pravis ejusmodi Scripturae vel Conciliorum intelligentiis Catholicam communionem reliquisse Et si ipsi Ministri Catholicorum Regulas in Conciliis praesertim in Tridentino fundatas absque passione serutarentur proculdubio ex Dei auxilio ad sanctam redirent unitatem discurrens per singulas controversias suaviter sed palmariè id exequitur Datum in Conventu Sanctorum XII Apostolorum Romae die 25. Julii 1678. F. LAVRENTIVS DE LAVREA MIN. CONVENTVALIS Approbatione del Sign Abbate STEPHANO GRADI LEGI diligenter studiosè egregium summi Viri Jacobi Benigni Condoménsis Antistitis Opus in sermonem Italicum fideliter eleganter que conversum quo Doctrina Ecclesiae breviter enucleatè luculenter exponitur Indeque sic affectus animo discessi ut legentes optima quaeque at que à sana doctrina summa ratione optimè parata solent discedere ut non alia se dicturos nec aliter locuturos si ad scribendum de talibus se contulissent existiment Super omnia verò me cepit Scriptoris ut it a dicam sobrietas in delectu rerum quas promit dum circumcisis quae lites extendere meliori causae invidiam conflare nata sunt ipsam veritatis arcem capessit tutamque inaccessam praestat totus in rectè constituendo controversiae statu quam ea re dijudicatu facilem expeditam efficit Hune itaque librum si me audient quibus concordi Ecclesia Christiana salva sua ipsorum anima opus est diurna nocturnaque manu versare non desinent neque non fieri potest ne eos diversa à Fide orthodoxa sentire non pigeat pudeatque Ita sentio ego STEPHANUS GRADIUS S. Congreg Indicis Consultor Biblioth Vatic Praef. Imprimatur si videbitur Reverendiss P. S. P. Apost Magistro J. DE ANGELIS Archiep. Urb. Vicesger Imprimatur F. RAIMUNDUS CAPISUCCUS Ord. Praed S. P. A. Magister Bref De N. S. P. le Pape INNOCENTIUS PP XI VEnerabilis Frater salutem apostolicam benedictionem Libellus de Catholicae Fidei Expositione à fraternitate tua compositus nobisque oblatus ea doctrina eaque methodo ac prudentia scripius est ut perspicua brevitate legentes doceat extorquere possit etiam ab invitis Catholicae veritatis confessionem Itaque non solùm à nobis commendari sed ab omnibus legi at que in pretio haberi meretur Ex eo sanè non mediocres in orthodoxae Fidei propagationem quae nos praecipuè cura intentos ac solicitos habet utilitates redundatliras Déo benè juvante confidimus ac vetus interim nostra de tua virtute ac pietate opinio comprobatur magno cum incremento spei jampridem susceptae fore ut institutioni tuae creditus eximia hoc est paterna avitaque praeditus indole DELPHINVS eam à te hauriat disciplinam qua maximè informatum esse decet Christianissimi Regis filium in quem unà cum florentissimo regno Catholicae Religionis defensio perventura est idque perenni cum Regis ipsius decore qui Fratermtatem tuam inter tot egregios viros quibus Gallia abundat ad opus potissimùm elegit in quo publicae foelicitatis fundamenta jacerentur cùm divino doceamur Oraculo patris gloriam esse filium sapientem Tu perge alacriter in incepto ad quod incitare te praeter alia magnoperc debet qui jam apparet laborum atque industriae tuae fructus Audimus enim quidem ex omnium sermone ac magno cum animi nostri solatio inter tot prementia mala audimus DELPHINVM ipsum magno ad omnem virtutem impetu ferri paria pietatis atque ingenii documenta praebere Illud tibi pro certo affirmamus nulla in re devincire te arctiùs posse paternam nostram erga te voluntatem quà m in regio adolescente bonis omnibus Rege maximo dignis artibus imbuendo ut is adulta posted aetate Barbaras gentes Christiani nominis inimicas quas parentem inclytum reddita Europae pace translatis in orientem invictis armâ—s Imperio latè suo adjecturum speramus victor ipse sanctissimis legibus moribusque componat Devotionem interim atque observantiam quam erga sanctam hanc Sedem nosque ipsâ—s qui in ea Catholicae Ecelesiae immerito praesidemus tuae ad nos literae luculenter declarant mutuae charitatis affectu complectimur cujus profectò in occasionibus quae se dederint Fratenitati tuae argumenta non deerunt tibique Apostolicam benedictionem peramanter impertimur Datum Romae apud S. Petrum sub annulo Piscatoris die IV. Januarii 1679. Pontificatus nostri anno 111. MARIVS SPINVLA Et au dessus Venerabili Fratri Jacobo Episcopo Condomensi The foregoing Testimonies rendred into English from the French A Letter from his E. the Cardinal BONA of happy Memory to his E. the Cardinal de BUILLON I Have received the R. Bishop of Condom's Book which your E. did me the Honour to send me and as I am sensible of the quallity of this Favour and esteem my self much honoured by it so I render you my most Cordial thanks as well for the Present as for the Care you take to encrease my Library I have read it with a particular attention and because your E. tells me there are some who find some fault in it I endeavour'd expresly to observe in what it might be worthy of reprehension But in effect I could not find any thing in it but matter of great Commendation seeing without entring into the more difficult questions in Controversy he makes use of a most ingenious easie and familiar manner and of a Method as I may say Geometrical to convince the Calvinists by common and approved Principles and to force them to confess the Catholick Faith I can assure your E. I found in reading it a Satisfaction which I cannot express and I am not astonished that some have found fault with it for all Works great and above the common Level find Persons still to contradict them But Truth prevails in the End and the quality of the Tree is known by the Fruit. I congratulate with the Author who has by this work given us an Essay of his great Talents and may by many others render considerable Service to the Church Rome the 19th January 1672. A Letter from Cardinal SIGISMOND CHIGI of happy Memory to the Abbot of DANGFAU I Have received together with your Letter the Exposition of the Catholick Doctrine compos'd by the Bishop of Condom I have found it full of Erudition and so much the more proper to convert Heretics as it presses them with lively Reasons without any Bitterness I made mention of it to the Reverend Father Master of the Sacrod Palace and to the Secretary of the Congregation dell ' Indice I understood that no body had spoken against it to these Fathers who seemed to me on the
RAIMUNDUS CAPISUCCHI Master of the Sacred Palace to the Author AFter having admired with all others so sublime a desert as yours I must also shew the particular Inclination I have to serve you occasioned by that excellent and learned Work you have composed for the defence of the Catholic Faith and which has been lately translated into Italian for it 's farther spreading I am indebted to you an infinite acknowledgment for having afforded me an occasion of rendring you some Service we are all of us here in great expectation of the publishing of this excellent piece that we may enjoy the fruits of your Labours No body will have a greater satisfaction than my self who do and shall always feel an ardent desire to render my self worthy of the honour of your Commands I end with assuring you of my Respects Rome 20 June 1675. The Approbations of the Roman Edition Anno 1678. The Approbation of Signor MICHEL ANGELO RICCI Secretary to the Congregation of I. and H. R. and Consultor of the Holy Office VVHAT the Council of Trent has with great care performed in making an entire separation betwixt Articles of Faith opinions and disputes of the Schools and explicating the same Doctrines of Faith in more clear and significant Terms what Tertullian had formerly done in condemning the secession of Heretics from the Church by several Prescriptions what others have practised whilst they ingenuously combated Heretics by their own Principles and Rules the same has the Right Reverend James Benign Bossuet Bishop of Condom performed in this Work in a clear and short Method proper to perswade manifesting to us the admirable parts of the Author Which work being now for the convenience of the Italians elegantly translated out of French into our Mother Language I esteem worthy to be Printed and Published Rome August the 5th 1678. The Approbation of the Reverend Father LAURENCE BRANCATI DE LAUERA of the Congregat Consist of I. Rites Visit Consultor and Qualificator of the Holy Office and Bibliothecarian of the Vatican Library c. I Esteem most worthy publishing the little Treatise or Discourse Printed in French and several other Languages and at present Translated out of French into Italian in which the most Illustrious James Benign Bossuet Bishop and Lord of Condom does forceably combat in a Noble Grave and Solid Stile the Ministers of the Pretended Reform'd Religion and their followers as well by the common and fundamental Rules of the Church as by their own Principles showing that it is not Catholics as those Ministers imagine but the Ministers themselves who by drawing unnatural Consequences have receded from those Tenets which are common to them and us and by taking the Scriptures and Councils in a wrong sense have separated themselves from the Catholic Church But if they would examin without passion the Rules of Catholics grounded upon their Councils and especially upon that of Trent they would without doubt by the Grace of God return again to a Holy Unity all which this Author shows them in a most pleasing and no less convincing manner running through all the points of Controversie Given in the Convent of the Twelve Apostles at Rome the 25. July 1678. F. Laurentius de Laurea Min. Conventualis The Approbation of the Abbot Stephen Gradi I Have with diligence and application read the excellent Work of the Lord James Benign Bossuet Bishop of Condom faithfully and elegantly Translated into Italian where the Doctrine of the Church is explicated after a manner both concise clear and full And it wrought the same Impression in me which ordinarily those nobler sort of Writings which are the products of a sound Doctrine and solid Reason do in their Readers when they are convinc'd they could not have said any thing more to the purpose nor spoken otherwise if they had undertaken to write of the same Subject But what Transported me the most was that Wisdom and Moderation of the Author in the choice of those things which he asserts he retrenches all those things which serve only to lengthen Disputes and render a good Cause odious and betakes himself to Truth alone as to a strong hold which he renders not only secure but inaccessable applying himself wholly to establish the true state of the Question which by that means is rendred clear and easie to be judged of Upon which account all those if they will believe me who are concerned for the Peace of the Church or the Salvation of their Souls ought day and night to turn over this Book and it is impossible but it should produce in them both shame and sorrow for holding Tenets contrary to the Orthodox Faith I am of this Opinion St. G. Consultor of the Congregation de l' Indice Prefect of the Vatican Library Let it be Printed if it so please the Very Reverend Father Master of the Sacred Apostolic Palace J. de Angelis Archiep. Vrb Vicesger Let it be Printed F. Raimundus Capisuccus Ord. Pred S. P. A. Magister The Brief of our Holy Father Pope Innocent the XI VEnerable Brother Health and Apostolical Benediction Your Book of the Exposition of the Catholic Faith lately presented to us contains such Doctrine and is composed in such a method and with so much prudence that it is thereby rendred proper to instruct the Readers clearly in few words and to extort even from the unwilling a Confession of the Catholic Faith For which reasons we do not only think it worthy our commendation but also to be read and esteem'd by all We hope this Work by the Grace of God will bring forth much Fruit and will not a little help to propagate the Orthodox Faith which is our continual care and principal sollicitude And in the interim we are more and more confirmed in that good Opinion we have always had of your Vertue and Piety and we feel an increase of those hopes which we had long since formed in our selves of the Education of the Dauphin of France and that he who is intrusted to your care and endowed with inclinations worthy the King his Father and all his Ancestors will receive from you those instructions which are proper to the Son of a most Christian King whose Birth entitles him both to so flourishing a Kingdom and at the same time to be a Protector of the Catholic Religion And this King who has chosen you amongst so many great men with which France flourishes at this time to so great a Province as is the laying the Foundations of a public happiness will no doubt receive an Eternal Glory from the good success of your care according to that Oracle of Scripture which tells us that a Wise Son is the Glory of his Father Continue then to go forwards chearfully in so important a work especially since you have before your Eyes such mighty Fruits of your Industry For we hear and that from all Parts and we cannot but feel an excess of Joy and Consolation amidst our many Troubles when we hear how this young Prince is carried on to vertue with a noble Fervour and daily gives new Testimonies of Prudence and of Piety This we can assure you that nothing is capable of endearing our Paternal affection to you more than thus to employ your utmost Care to inspire into this young Kings Mind those Maxims which make a mighty King that in a riper Age being happy and victorious like the King his Father he may regulate by Holy Laws and reduce to Christian Manners Barbarous Nations and Enemies of the Name of Christian as we hope to see them shortly subdu'd to the Empire of this great King since Peace being restored to Europe he has so fair an opportunity to transfer his victorious Arms into the East To conclude Assure your self that the Submission and Kespect which your Letters show you to have towards the Apostolic See and Us who now possess it tho unworthy for the Government of the Catholic Church find in Us a mutual affection the Testimonies of which you shall perceive when any occasion shall present it self With a sincere affection we give you our Apostolic Benediction Given at Rome at St. Peters under the Fishers Ring the 4th of January 1679. the third year of our Popedom Signed Marius Spinula and on the outside To our Venerable Brother James Bishop of Condom FINIS
the utmost Rigour Letters could no sooner return from Rome to Paris but there came also from this Learned and Holy Cardinal whose memory will be perpetuated in the Church with eternal Benediction that honourable approbation of his which you will find in the sequel among the rest that we shall speak of The Book was Printed the first time about the end of the year 1671. And this Cardinals answer is dated the 26. January 1672. Cardinal Sigismond whose death the whole Church doth still regret writ no less favourably concerning it to M. l' Abbe de Dungeau He tells us expresly that M. de Condom has spoken very well of the Popes Authority and whereas this Abbot had written him word that some scrupulous persons here apprehended lest this Exposition should be looked upon at Rome as one of those Explications of the Council prohibited by Pope Pius IV he shews how ill grounded this scruple is He adds that he found the Master of the Sacred Palace the Secretary and the Consulters of the Congregation dell ' Indice all the Cardinals that compose it and in particular the Learned Cardinal Braneas President of it of the same opinion and that they did all of them highly applaud this Treatise of the Exposition This Letter bears date the 5th of April 1672. The Master of the Sacred Palace was at time the Reverend Father Hyacinth Libelli a famous Divine whose merits and great Learning raised him shortly after to the Dignity of Archbishop of Avignon His Letter of the 26th of April 1672 written to his E. the Cardinal Sigismond shews what esteem he had of this Book for he tells him there is not so much as the shadow of a fault in it and that if the Author desire it should be Printed at Rome he will give all the necessary permissions without altering the least tittle in it In effect M. l' Abbe Nazari famous for the Journal des Scavans which he writes with so much elegance and exactness was at that time about an Italian Version of it which his E. the Cardinal d' Estrees caused to be reviewed and did himself peruse some of the principal parts that it might be entirely conformable to the Original The Book had been already done into English by the late Abbot Montaigue whose zeal and vertue is known to the whole World and there wanted not many Testimonies to shew that his Version was well received by all the Catholicks of England This Translation was Printed in the Year 1672 And in the Year 1675 it was put into Irish and Printed at Rome by the Printers of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide The Author of this Version the Reverend Father Porter of the Holy order of St. Francis and Superiour of the Convent of St. Isidorus had some time before ordered a book called Securis Evangelica to be Printed at Rome it self in which a great part of this Treatise of the Exposition was inserted to prove the tenets of the Church when faithfully expounded to be so far from ruining the Foundations of Faith that they do establish them In the mean time the Italian Version went on with an exactness which became a Subject of that importance where one word ill rendred would spoil the whole work and the Reverend Father Capisucchi Master of the Sacred Pallace Licensed it to be Printed in the Year 1675 as appears by his answer of the 27th of June following to M. de Condoms Letter of thanks for it This Prelate after having heard from several parts of Germany that this Treatise had been well approved of there received a more ample Testimony of it in a Letter of the 27th of April 1673 from the Bishop and Prince of Paderhoâ—n then Coadjutor and at present Bishop of Munster in which that Prelate whose name bears with it his Elogium says that he took care that this work should be turned into Latin that it might be made Common every where and especially in Germany but the succeeding Wars or some other occupations having hindred the performance of it the Bishop of Castory Apostolical Vicar in the United Provinces was desirous that a Latin Version which the Author himself had examined might be made publick and accordingly it was Printed at Antwerp in the Year 1678. Not long after in the same year by the same Bishops order this Treatise was again Printed at Antwerp in Dutch with the Approbation of the Ordinary and the Doctors in those parts so much did this Prelate who composes such excellent things himself judge this to be profitable for the instruction of his People The Bishop of Strasbourgh who notwithstanding the miscries of War was no less careful of his Flock resolved about the same time to procure that this Book might be turned into High Dutch and published with a Pastoral Letter to all those of his Diocess and having advertised the Pope of his design his Holiness caused him to be informed that he knew the Book long before and that as he had heard from all parts it was the occasion of many Conversions so the translation of it could not but be advantagious to his People About this time the Italian Version was finished with all the exactness and elegancy possible Monsieur l' Abbe Nazari dedicated it to the Cardinals of the Congregation de propaganda side by whose order it was printed the same Year 1678. by the Printers belonging to that Congregation In the front of this Version was placed the Cardinal Bona's Letter the Coppy of which was fouâ—â— at Rome in the Hands of his Secretary as also the Approbations of M. l' Abbe Ricci Consultor of the Holy Office of the Reverend Father M. Laurence Brancati de Laurea Religious of the Order of St. Francis Consultor and Qualificator of the Holy Office and Bibliothecarian of the Vatican and of M. L' Abbe Gradi Consultor of the Congregation Dell ' Indice and Bibliothecarian of the Vatican that is by the chief men in Rome for Piety and Learning This Book was presented to the Pope as the Latin Translation had been before And he had the goodness to order M. l' Abbe de St. Luke to write to the Author and to let him know that he was satisfied with it which he also repeated several times to the French Embassadour The Author who thought he had nothing more to wish for after such an Approbation gave with a profound respect his most humble thanks to the Pope in a Letter dated Nov. 22. 1678. In answer to which he received a Breve from his Holiness of the Fourth of Jan. 1679 which contains such an express approbation of this Book that it cannot be hereafter doubted but it maintains the pure Doctrine of the Church and of the Apostolick See After this approbation I needed not to have mentioned any others but I was willing to shew how this Book which was threatned by the Ministers with such opposition in the Church and which they imagined was so contrary to her common