would not do his business and was not to the purpose and thereupon challenged him to produce Fathers for that Point promising him at the same time a fair Answer But our Compiler durst not offer to accept of the Challenge dares not meddle with such a thing but if two or three bits of the Old Testimonies out of the Nubes may be admitted they are at my Service and from these it is that he would fain prove that even in matters of Belief the Tradition of the Catholick Church is the best Demonstration What better than the Express Testimony of Scripture it self Methinks our ignorant Compiler might have been contented to have made Tradition only as good or equal to Scripture for the Demonstration of Faith which is the highest the Council of Trent it self durst rise in favour of Tradition and never pretended to mount Tradition so much above Scripture as to make it the BEST DEMONSTRATION of Matters of FAITH But when Ignorance and too great a stock of Confidence meet together such Assertions as these are commonly the fruits of them But for this extravagant Assertion he hath a mind to bring in Origen for a Voucher who speaking concerning the Belief of Christ's being the Son of God says that is to be embrac'd which by a Succession from the Apostles is preserved in the Church by Ecclesiastical Tradition but in Answer to this Is not that Truth and Faith concerning Christ's being the Son of God expresly taught and held forth in the Holy Scriptures and which is more doth not Origen himself expresly tell us in this very place for our Compiler is for looking no further than his own Book that that Truth was to be learnt by us ab IPSO from Christ himself whose Words Doctrine and Actions are used to be thought to have been the Subject of the New Testament which I take to be Scripture and as this Doctrine was to be read in the Scriptures so it was delivered down from thence in Ecclesiastical Tradition which can mean nothing else than either that the Scriptures which did comprehend that Faith were delivered down successively from Age to Age in the Church or that this was always taught in the Sermons and Homilies of the Fathers of the Church successively And to give our Compiler a better knowledge of Origen's sence about these things I will refer him to one Passage which I will set down and desire him to consider of it Origen in Leviticum c. 7. Homilia 5. p. 144. Edit Froben 1536. Origen in his Homilies upon Leviticus speaking of the Old and New Testament tells us that in THEM every word that appertaineteh to God by which Expression the least he can mean is that every Point of Faith may be sought after and found out and all Knowledge of things may be apprehended from THEM But if any thing doth remain which the Holy Scripture doth not determine no other third Scripture ought to be received for the Authorizing any Knowledge but we are to commit to the Fire that which remaineth that is we must leave it to God for in this present World God is not for having us to know all things Our Compiler is next for having Tertullian on his side but why does he not then bring us something to prove it or rather why did he not disprove what I had produced for the Authority and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures from Tertullian He neither does the one nor offers at the other and yet this must pass it seems for vindicating And just thus he serves me after for when I in Vindication of S. Basil had quoted him declaring for the necessity of Scripture-Evidence for Matters of Faith he says not one Syllable in Answer to it but is for referring me to the old Quotations out of Basil Epiphanius and Lirinensis which I had shewn him before were not to the purpose which is such perfect trifling as none but such a Compiler as he is would be guilty of He then falls to thanking me for saying in relation to the Testimony from Gregory Nyssen that we allow the Tradition of Antiquity to be highly useful and necessary in the Interpreting or giving us the genuine Sense of Points of Faith all the Answer I will give him is much good may it do him however how far that Expression was from doing us any hurt or them any good I have abundantly shewn in my Vindication which I am loth to transcribe hither but that I may not be behind-hand in Civility for the Compiler's Thanks I will present him in Token of my Gratitude with a Passage or two from his Gregory Nyssen and other Fathers which I must recommend to his Consideration Gregory Nyssen in his Dialogue de Animâ Resurrectione lays it down for a Position which no Man ought to contradict that in that only the Truth (b) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssen Dial. de Animâ Resurrect Tom. 2. P. 639. Edit Paris 1615. must be acknowledged which hath upon it the Seal of Scripture-Testimony And in another part of his Works he calls the Holy Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem in Orat de iis qui adeunt Hierosol Tom. 2. p. 1084. a true or streight and inflexible Rule S. Austin is as clear and full against our Compiler while he assures us that in those things which are laid down plainly in the Scripture all those things are found which concern Faith or Manners (c) In iis quae aperte in Scripturâ posita sunt inveniuntur illa omnia quae continent fidem moresque vivendi August de Doctr. Christianâ l. 2. c. 9. Tom. 3. p. 17 18. S. Hierom speaking of the Hereticks in his time which made so much noise and pretended so highly to Apostolical Tradition gives this severe Doom upon them but those things also which they of themselves invent and yet feign to have received as it were by Tradition from the Apostles without the Authority and Testimonies of the Scriptures the sword of God doth smite (d) D. Hieron in Aggeum c. 1. Tom. 6. p. 230. Edit Basil 1565. I could give him several such Testimonies from other Fathers but I will neither trouble him or the Reader with any more at present it will be time enough to send him the rest when he hath answered these And will now pass to his next Chapter and the Vindication of it But here it seems there was no need of any Vindication for I am brought in as one of their own side for saying and granting that our Church doth honour the Saints in observing days in honour or memory of them and I have the Compiler's thanks for it here we have had this Concession up once already it made one of the most terrible Articles of Popery against me in our Compiler's masquerading Letter from a Dissenter to the Divines of the Church of England In my Answer to that scurrilous Letter I did sufficiently acquit my self and our
did see it necessary to speak out more plainly the Sense of their Church about the Nature of Purgatory and therefore upon the Fifth Article in the Apostles Creed about the Descent into Hell when they come to give the various Senses in which the word Hell is used they tell us it is first taken for the Receptacle of the Damned wherein the Souls of them are tormented with an Eternal and Vnquenchable Fire They next will have it to signifie Purgatory and these are their own Words Furthermore there is a PURGATORY FIRE in which the Souls of the Pious are * Praeterea est PURGATORIUS IGNIS in quo Piorum Animae ad definitum tempus cruciatae expiantur ut iis in aeternam Patriam ingressus patere possit in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur Catechism ad Parochos Pars 1. p. 50. Edit Lugd. 1676. TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME in order to their being expiated that so an Entrance into their Eternal Country may lye open unto them into which nothing polluted does enter And to let the World see they did not give their own Sense herein but that of their Church they quote in the Margin the Council of Trent it self for it in the 25th Session about Purgatory and tell us immediately after that Holy Councils by which they must mean that of Florence as well as that of Trent have declared for the Truth of this Doctrine that it is confirmed by the Testimonies of Scripture and Apostolical Tradition and therefore the Parish Priest is to treat more diligently and more frequently of Purgatory because we say the Authors of the Catechism are fallen into those times wherein Men do not endure SOUND DOCTRINE If the Times were thought so bad when that Catechism was drawn up what must be thought of ours when not only the Protestants will not endure this SOUND DOCTRINE but the Present Writers of the Church of Rome the Bishop of Meaux his Vindicator and the Compiler will no more endure this SOUND DOCTRINE of a PURGATORY FIRE than the Hereticks but cry out so often that the Church doth not believe that the Church doth not teach a Purgatory FIRE Whereas it is as evident as that there is Day and Night that this Catechism drawn up by the Order of the Council of Trent and confirmed by Pope Pius the Fifth doth not only here deliver it as Sound Doctrine that there is a PURGATORY FIRE WHEREIN THE SOULS of the FAITHFUL are TORMENTED FOR A SET TIME but in the next Page speaking of the Souls of the Faithful which departed this Life before Christ's Resurrection says that they went not to Heaven which was not opened to any before Christ's Death and Resurrection but that they were carried either into Abraham 's Bosom or as it NOW happens to those who have something to discharge when they dye were expiated or purged by the FIRE OF PURGATORY But I have a better evidence than all these to prove that by Purgatory the Church of Rome doth certainly mean a Place of Torment wherein those Souls that are detain'd in it undergo Fiery-Torments which differ no otherwise from Hell-Torments but only in the Duration of them that Purgatory Torments are but for a time but the other are everlasting and it is no other than the Office for the Dead in the Romish Missal In the Mass for the Dead the Offertory runs thus O Lord Iesu Christ King of Glory DELIVER the SOULS of all the FAITHFUL DECEASED from the PAINS OF HELL and from the BOTTOMLESS PIT Deliver them l Domine Jesu Christe Rex Gloriae libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de Poenis Inferni de profundo lacu libera eas de Ore Leonis ne absorbeat eas Tartarus ne cadant in Obscurum sed signifer Sanctus Michael repraesentet eas in Lucem Sanctam quam olim Abrahae promisisti semini ejus Missa pro Defunctis in Missali Romano fol. 51. Edit Paris in 8o. 1582. from the MOUTH of the LION that HELL may not SWALLOW THEM UP FOR EVER and that they may not fall into outer Darkness but let thy Holy Angel Michael convey them unto that Heavenly Light which thou hast promised of old to Abraham and to his Séed This is the service of the Church of Rome at this very day for the Dead the only enquiry now to be made is who these are for whom the Church of Rome is so solicitous to have them delivered out of the Pains of Hell and out of the Mouth of the Lion c. And who can I better inquire of than our Compiler himself He shall be the Man that the World may see how very fairly I deal with my Adversaries This Prayer then must be put up for one of these three sorts of men either for the Souls who are in Heaven or for the Souls who are in Hell or for some Souls who are neither in Heaven nor Hell but in a middle State or Place which their Church doth call Purgatory Is this Prayer therefore used for the Souls in Heaven No says our Compiler for it is needless to pray for those that are in Heaven there being no want there at all no want of Relief of Refreshment and consequently no Hell-Torments undergone by any Souls there of Pardon there being no Guilt there of Sins Is it for the Souls in Hell No replies the Compiler again it is as fruitless to pray for those in Hell that State being wholly irreversible So that by his help we have light upon the Souls that are prayed for there and those are the Souls in Purgatory which according to this Prayer undergo their Hell-Torments and are in a Condition nothing different from the damned but meerly in the Duration of their Pains these Souls torments being but temporary but those of the damned eternal And for the Condition of the Place in which these miserable Souls are we find it here represented in this Prayer as the same with Hell and we meet in this short Prayer with all the Terms by which Hell is described to us in the word of God so that there is no danger of our mistaking the sense of the Church of Rome about Purgatory since we find it so plainly set forth in her Office for the Souls in it as a Place of Fiery Torments However to put this thing without the possibility of a Reply that the Compiler may see that it is not I alone who gather thus much out of that Prayer I will give the Reader an account of Cardinal Capisucchi's Opinion in his 5th Controversy about the Words of this very Prayer which I have made use of and put down above The Cardinal first puts down the Opinion of them who look upon that Prayer as offer'd up for those that are in Hell who may come to be deliver'd thence as Trajan the Heathen Emperour is said to have been but This he refuses as most false and erroneous upon the reasons commonly given in
his little touches at me I had like to have slipt I know not how over his saying I impose sillily upon the Reader when in answer to the Objection made about no one 's denying the Bishop of Rome 's power of Excommunicating the Asiaticks I had said Every Bishop might deny to communicate with any other Bishop or Church against whom they had sufficient reason As if says he denying to communicate were the same thing as to Excommunicate to the doing of which an Authority or Jurisdiction over them who are Excommunicated is required whilst refusing Communion may be done without any such power Well then this Man shall have his Will and I therefore tell him that by denying Communion I meant a doing it authoritatively that is a putting the other Bishop from them by Ecclesiastical Censure but I must also tell him that an Authority or Jurisdiction over the persons to be Excommunicated is not required but that an Equality of State with the other persons is sufficient and this of his is dangerous Doctrine since every Greek can prove their Bishops of Constantinople to have Jurisdiction over the Bishop of Rome by this Argument since Photius's time who did Excommunicate the then Bishop of Rome and the Bishops of that Church do continue to excommunicate yearly to this day the Bishop and Church of Rome and not only the Greeks but the French Bishops also may by this Argument also be proved to be above the Pope since they so long ago as Monsieur Talon told the Parliament of Paris the other day threaten'd the Pope that if he came to Excommunicate them He should be Excommunicated himself for medling in things he had nothing to do with So that I suppose I shall hear no more of my imposing sillily about this thing nor the Compiler have any thanks for his untoward Observation Such little things will not serve to build that Supremacy upon which is pretended to by the Bishops of Rome And as the Primitive Fathers neither knew of nor believed nor therefore could submit to any Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome for the first six Centuries so they were as far from the Romish Doctrines about Tradition grounding all Matters of Faith as we do upon the Holy Scriptures and were as far from Invocating Saints as we of the Church of England and from the Belief of Purgatory or Transubstantiation and did detest the Worship of Images and Reliques as much as we can so that since in all these Points their Doctrines were contrary to the Doctrines of the Church of Rome and their Practices contrary to the present Practices of that Church we are bound to vindicate them to the world and to inform our Readers that they were no more Papists as to those Points mentioned by the Compiler in his Nubes Testium than we of the Reformation are and therefore I have Reason to conclude my Defence as I did my last Book against the Nubes with asserting it upon further Reasons That the Primitive Fathers were no Papists THE END Books lately Printed for Richard Chiswell A Papist not Misrepresented by Protestants Being a Reply to the Reflections upon the Answer to A Papist Misrepresented and Represented 4 to An Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England in the several Articles proposed by the late BISHOP of CONDOM in his Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church 4to A Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Exceptions of Mons de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator 4to A CATECHISM explaining the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome With an Answer thereunto By a Protestant of the Church of England 8vo A Papist Represented and not Misrepresented being an Answer to the First Second Fifth and Sixth Sheets of the Second Part of the Papist Misrepresented and Represented and a further Vindication of the CATECHISM truly representing the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome 4to The Lay-Christian's Obligation to read the Holy Scriptures 4to The Plain Man's Reply to the Catholick Missionaries 24. An Answer to THREE PAPERS lately printed concerning the Authority of the Catholick Church in matters of Faith and the Reformation of the Church of England 4to A Vindication of the Answer to THREE PAPERS concerning the Unity and Authority of the Catholick Church and the Reformation of the Church of England 4to Mr. Chillingworth's Book called The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation made more generally useful by omitting personal Contests but inserting whatsoever concerns the common Cause of Protestants or defends the Church of England with an exact Table of Contents and an Addition of some genuine Pieces of Mr. Chillingworth's never before Printed viz. against the Infallibility of the Roman Church Transubstantiation Tradition c. And an Account of what moved the Author to turn Papist with his Confutation of the said Motives An Historical Treatise written by an Author of the Communion of the Church of Rome touching Transubstantiation Wherein is made appear That according to the Principles of that Church this Doctrine cannot be an Article of Faith. 4to The Protestants Companion or an Impartial Survey and Comparison of the Protestant Religion as by Law established with the main Doctrines of Popery Wherein is shewn that Popery is contrary to Scripture Primitive Fathers and Councils and that proved from Holy Writ the Writings of the ancient Fathers for several hundred years and the Confession of the most learned Papists themselves 4to The Pillar and Ground of Truth A Treatise shewing that the Roman Church falsly claims to be that Church and the Pillar of that Truth mentioned by S. Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy chap. 3. ver 15. 4to A Sermon preached on St. Peter's Day published with Enlargements A short Summary of the principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines in answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Protestancy destitute of Scripture-Proofs 4to An Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled The Judgment and Doctrine of the Clergy of the Church of England concerning one special Branch of the King's Prerogative viz. In dispensing with the Penal Laws A Discourse of the Holy Eucharist in the two great Points of the Real Presence and the Adoration of the Host in Answer to the Two Discourses lately printed at Oxford on this Subject To which is prefixed a large Historical Preface relating to the same Argument Two Discourses Of Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead The People's Right to read the Holy Scriptures asserted The Fifteen Notes of the Church as laid down by Cardinal Bellarmine examined and confuted 4 to With a Table to the whole Preparation for Death being a Letter sent to a young Gentlewoman in France in a dangerous Distemper of which she died By William Wake M. A. 12mo The Difference between the Church of England and the Church of Rome in opposition to a late Book Intituled An Agreement between the Church of England and the Church of Rome 4to A Private Prayer to be used in difficult Times A True Account of a Conference held about Religion at London Sept. 29. 1687. between A. Pulton Jesuit and Tho. Tenison D. D. as also of that which led to it and followed after it 4to The Vindication of A. Cressener Schoolmaster in Long-Acre from the Aspersions of A. Pulton Jesuit Schoolmaster in the Savoy together with some Account of his Discourse with Mr. Meredith A Discourse shewing that Protestants are on the safer side notwithstanding the uncharitable Judgment of their Adversaries and that Their Religion is the surest way to Heaven 4to Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist wherein is shewed That the Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Proofs of Christian Religion A Discourse concerning the pretended Sacrament of Extreme Vnction with an Account of the Occasions and Beginnings of it in the Western Church In Three Parts With a Letter to the Vindicator of the Bishop of Condom The Pamphlet intituled Speculum Ecclesiasticum or an Ecclesiastical Prospective-Glass considered in its false Reasonings and Quotations There are added by way of Preface two further Answers the first to the Defender of the Speculum the second to the Half-sheet against the Six Conferences A Second Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England against the new Exceptions of Monsieur de Meaux late Bishop of Condom and his Vindicator The FIRST PART in which the Account that has been given of the Bishop of Meaux's Exposition is fully vindicated the Distinction of Old and New Popery Historically asserted and the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in point of Image-Worship more particularly considered 4to The incurable Scepticism of the Church of Rome By the Author of the Six Conferences concerning the Eucharist 4to Mr. Pulton considered in his Sincerity Reasonings Authorities Or a Just Answer to what he hath hitherto published in his True Account his True and Full Account of a Conference c. His Remarks and in them his pretended Confutation of what he calls Dr. T 's Rule of Faith. By Th. Tenison D. D. A Full View of the Doctrines and Practices of the Ancient Church relating to the Eucharist wholly different from those of the Present Roman Church and inconsistent with the Belief of Transubstantiation being a sufficient Confutation of Consensus Veterum Nubes Testium and other late Collections of the Fathers pretending to the contrary 4to An Answer to the Representer's Reflections upon the State and View of the Controversy With a Reply to the Vindicators Full Answer shewing that the Vindicator has utterly ruin'd the New Design of Expounding and Representing Popery An Answer to the Address presented to the Ministers of the Church of England
THE Primitive Fathers NO PAPISTS IN ANSWER to the VINDICATION of the NUBES TESTIUM To which is added An Historical Discourse CONCERNING INVOCATION of SAINTS In ANSWER to The Challenge of F. Sabran the Jesuit Wherein is shewn that Invocation of Saints was so far from being the Practice that it was expresly against the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers IMPRIMATUR Liber cui Titulus The Primitive Fathers no Papists c. Ex Aedib Lamb. Febr. 4. 1687. Guil. Needham R.R. in Christo Patri ac D.D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domest LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII THE PREFACE I Have been so much larger in my Vindication of the Primitive Fathers than I intended at first that I would not have troubled the Reader with any Preface at all but that I think it requisite to give him some account of the length of it In the present Controversy with the Writers of the Church of Rome we lye under one great unhappiness which our Forefathers were not troubled with in their Contests with the Romanists they were wont then fairly to own their Popish Doctrines and our Authors had nothing to do but to oppose them but we have not only the disproving of Popery upon our hands now but must be obliged also to prove the Popery it self upon them We must now not only prove the Worship of Images to be unlawful but prove that they worship Images This is that which hath ingaged me to be so large for the Adversary I have to do with is one of the new Stamp one of the Assertors of the NEW POPERY who since they see they cannot defend the true old down-right Popery have set up such a Popery as they think they can defend Thus when they find how perfectly inconsistent with the Honour of God and how directly contrary to the Word of God it is to give Adoration or Religious Worship to Images or Reliques they are for salving all by bearing the Reader in hand that they do not do it and thus when we shew them that their Purgatory-Fire is not only inconsistent with the Account we have of the State of the Dead in the Holy Scriptures but also with the Account of it in the Primitive Fathers for six hundred years they have no other refuge than to tell us that they do not hold a Fiery Purgatory This dissembling and betraying of their own Popery is that which hath occasion'd my insisting so largely and distinctly upon these points by which I have effectually shewn that the Church of Rome doth command and practise the Adoration of Images and Reliques and that her Purgatory differs only from Hell in the Duration of their Torments I did expect and hope I shall reap a double advantage from my care to expose these things the first of which is to confute my Adversary and the other to make it evident to the meanest Reader how very unsincere the Representer is in giving us the true State of their Popery I am sure that as to Purgatory about which he took the most pains to defend himself I have invincibly proved upon him that he either did not understand the Doctrine of his own Church or did most unfaithfully dissemble it I hope I need not trouble my self to warn our People of the Confidence with which these Romish Writers can write the most false and most disingenuous things if Confidence be all that is necessary to carry any cause I must confess that we should come off losers because we cannot tell how to imitate these men however no one is ignorant that a Mountebank is but a Mountebank still for all his pretending to Infallible Cures to never-failing Remedies But we must allow our Adversaries this Assurance since they have nothing else to set off or recommend their Cause excepting that which is a consequence of it their writing with a Contempt of us and treating us scurrilously but this we can bear chearfully enough tho' reproach is uneasy to Mankind because it does so plainly speak out that all Scholar-like Arguments are spent and that they have no other left to encounter us with Of this we have had a great deal of late and I have had my share from them I will not animadvert further on it than to say that their late Pamphlets against us are so very abusive as if they had been Written as well as Printed by the Ditch-side I do heartily forgive them and believe all our Writers do and desire to make no other return to such Treatment than to offer up hearty Prayers to God That He would bring into the way of Truth all those who have erred and are deceived and that He would frustrate the Devices of them who are endeavouring to deceive others THE CONTENTS AN Account of the Controversie about the Postscript to the Answer to the NUBES TESTIUM with Sabran the Jesuit p. 2. About the Answer it self with the Representer p. 4. His Vindication of the Nubes Testium against the Answerer shewn to be very weak and very defective from a Catalogue of Twenty seven material Points and Charges against him to which he hath given not one word of Answer p. 10. His vain attempt to clear himself about the stealing his Nubes out of a condemned Author shewn to be made up of Confidence and Falshood p. 18. F. Alexandre his Master proved to be also either a Compiler or a Falsifier of the Fathers p. 22. His Chapters in the Nubes about Schism shewn further to have been altogether impertinent p. 25. His Coldness and Diffidence about the Defence of his Chapter of the Supremacy shewn from his letting fall the Vindication of all the numerous Quotations upon that Head excepting Three The Defence of which is shewn to be very vain His Defence of his Chapter about Tradition shewn to be meerly a giving us over again two or three Pieces of his Old Testimonies in the Nubes p. 31. That the Primitive Fathers did look upon the Scriptures as containing and handing down to us all matters of Faith shewn further from Origen Gregory Nyssen S. Austin and S. Hierom. p. 32. That the Church of England doth not symbolize with the Church of Rome which gives Religious Worship to the Saints on their Festivals but with the Primitive Church who paid them only Civil Honour proved from the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna and S. Austin p. 35. His Defence of his Chapter about Invocation of Saints begun with Falsification of my Words p. 37. and built wholly upon that false Supposal That I had granted Invocation to have been practised in the Fourth and Fifth Ages p. 39. The Jesuit Sabran's Challenge about Invocation of Saints accepted and answered Wherein is proved That the Primitive Fathers did not practise Invocation of Saints during the Five first Centuries from the Acts of the Martyrdoms of S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp p. 41. from the Liturgy of the first Christians in Justin
Martyr Tertullian Clement's Constitutiones Apostolicae S. Austin p. 42. that the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers for those Ages was directly against and inconsistent with Invocation of Saints proved from Ignatius p. 45. from the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna and S. Irenaeus p. 46. from Clemens Alexandrinus and Tertullian p. 47. from Origen p. 49. from S. Cyprian and Novatian p. 54. from Lactantius p. 55. from S. Athanasius p. 56. from Hilary the Deacon p. 58. from S. Basil Gregory Nyssen and S. Ambrose p. 59. from S. Epiphanius p. 60. from S. Chrysostom p. 61. from S. Austin p. 62. p. 62. The Jesuit's Confidence in asserting in both his Letters that all the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries did teach Invocation of Saints expos'd p. 65. The Argument for Invocation of Angels and Saints from S. Ambrose disprov'd p. 67. The Jesuit's Arguments for it answered His first from S. Austin shewn to be directly against himself p. 69. His second from Origen shewn to be as much if not more against him p. 71. His third from S. Basil answered p. 72. His fourth from Gregory Nazianz. answered ibid. His fifth from Gregory Nyssen answered p. 73. His last from Theodoret answered p. 74. Three Differences assign'd betwixt what was practis'd towards the Saints in the end of the Fourth and Fifth Ages and what is practis'd towards them by the Church of Rome at this day p. 77. A Challenge to the Jesuit if he intends to reply p. 79. A horrid blundering Objection of the Representer's about Invocation displayed and confuted p. 80. The Defence of his Chapter about Reliques shewn to be disingenuous and unreasonable Cavilling from S. Athanasius p. 84. The whole of his Vindication upon this Head ruin'd by the proof of two things first That the Church of Rome doth worship Reliques prov'd from the Council of Trent from Vasques and Thomas Aquinas their Oracle p. 85. Secondly That the Primitive Church did not worship them prov'd from S. Hierom and Austin p. 89. The Purgatory of the Church of Rome shewn to be inconsistent with the Belief of the Ancients about the State of the Dead from the belief of its being a place of torments p. 93. That the Compiler has forsaken the Doctrine of his own Church by denying it to be a Place of Fire and fiery Torments p. 94. That the Purgatory of the Church of Rome is such a place prov'd from Bellarmine from the Council of Florence p. 98. from the Catechism ad Parochos p. 101. from the Office for the Dead in the Romish Missal p. 103. and from Cardinal Capisucchi's Interpretation of the Prayer in that Office p. 105. His Doctrine of the Three States of Men departed and of Purgatory shewn to be unserviceable to the Church of Rome from S. Austin himself who first taught it p. 109. That the Antients did pray for those in Heaven and for those in Hell prov'd against the Compiler from S. Ambrose p. 111. from the Canon of the Mass it self p. 112. and from S. Chrysostom and S. Austin ibid. His great disingenuity and false dealing about representing our Doctrine about the Eucharist laid open p. 113. The Insincerity of his Defence prov'd from Point to Point p. 116. That the Primitive Fathers did believe that the Eucharist does in a proper sense nourish our Bodies proved from Justin Martyr Irenaeus Origen Tertullian Isidore of Sevil c. p. 118. A digression wherein is proved that the Editors of Rabanus Maurus's Works have abused the World by putting in things which are not his and leaving out Books which certainly belong to him p. 119. His forsaking the Defence of his Proofs about Images shewn to be unavoidable since they do prove against himself p. 130. Directions to the Compiler if he intend to reply p. 132. A recapitulatory Conclusion wherein is shewn in short how far the Primitive Fathers were from being Papists 133. THE Primitive Fathers NO PAPISTS IN ANSWER to the VINDICATION of NUBES TESTIUM c. WHat reception My Answer to the Nubes Testium found among the Members of the Church of England I am neither so curious nor so vain to inquire the entertainment it met with among the Romish Party doth very fully discover that some people were very much galled and very much incensed at it for no sooner was it published in Print than I was told that the Clouds were gathering and that I should find them break in Thunder and Lightning upon me I will not trouble the World with the Stories and the Messages I had sent me about it but will only assure the Reader that if big words and great threatnings could have done any good upon me I had certainly been spoil'd for ever venturing upon Controversy again or even upon defending what I had already written therein But upon second thoughts I suppose it was that my Adversaries found it would be their best way to treat me as a Writer and that it must be their care to have some sort of an Answer made to those severe things I had charged the Representer and the Jesuit with The Jesuit Sabran was the first that took the Field against me and reason good since he had but a small Postscript of half a page to encounter and therefore after three Weeks time from the publishing of the Postscript at the end of my Answer to the Nubes Testium out comes his Letter of a Sheet and a half to a Protestant Lord in defence of the Passage in his Printed Sermon which I had reflected on Assoon as I saw his Letter I could not but smile to see them begin at the wrong end of my Book to answer it and to see them withal undertake the Defence of that thing in which they were opposed not only by us Protestants but by all the Men of Learning in their own Church and therefore I needed not to be much concerned since I perceived I was engaged with an Adversary whom I might answer as fast as I could write who instead of acquitting himself fairly of the first and single charge against him had blundered ignorantly into several other mistakes which I resolved to call him to account for and therefore immediately I wrote him an Answer and got it dispatcht so suddenly at the Press that there was but one day betwixt the publishing of his Letter to the Protestant Lord and my Letter to the Jesuit himself in Answer to it Whether the suddenness of my Reply or the discovering to the World of his further mistakes was the reason of his passionate Reply I cannot tell however I wondered to see a Jesuit who wrote with so much temper in the first Letter and resolved not to be provoked into insulting or scurrilous Language quite forget himself in the Reply he made to my first Letter and in this Reply which he published within less than a Week after his so solemn professions unto the contrary to the Protestant Lord to fall into such indecent
of all Sense of Modesty as well as betraying a want of Learning He is now come to the Body of my Answer and complains of my admirable Talent of trifling in quarrelling him for beginning his Book with The History of Donatus and shewing the Nature of Schism and for my saying That this was so far from being a Chief Point that it is no Point of Controversy at all betwixt us And upon this he falls to pitying me who had dwelt so long among Books for losing my time and then shews that a Chapter about Schism was not improper to begin his Book with But I would fain see this trifling proved and will now prove that he is the guilty person who hath shuffled three Chapters together here and hath not given us a true or fair state of the Chapters I do own that a Discourse about Schism might be a proper Introduction to a Controversial Book however I did shew that what he advanced there was perfect trifling I have once already done it sufficiently and must be forced in Vindication of my self to do it again to let the World see who is the Caviller and at whose Door the trifling must be laid His first Chapter was that the Fathers accused the Donatists of being guilty of Schism for making the wicked Lives of the Members of the Church the reason of their Separation My answer to this was that this can be no point of Controversy betwixt us and the Church of Rome as he had made it since we never urged the wicked Lives of some Members of the Church of Rome as the ground of our Separation from them and what says our Representer in Reply to this Does he either prove that that is a point of controversie betwixt us or that our Separation from the particular Church of Rome is grounded upon the same matter that the Donatists was No we have no reason to expect a fair Reply from him who did not set down the state of this Chapter at all The second Chapter was that the Fathers teach against the Donatists that the Catholick Church cannot fail This I told him could be no Controversie betwixt the Church of England and the Church of Rome since we believe with the Fathers that the Catholick Church cannot fail Was this then the trifling I am accused of if it be the Compiler had done well to have shewn it that so upon the sight of my errour I might have altered my mind but this he thought fit not at all to attempt His third Chapter was that the Fathers taught that whosoever breaks the Vnity of the Catholick Church upon any pretext whatsoever is guilty of Schism Upon this I told him that taking the word pretext for a groundless pretence I was of the same mind and did believe the Donatists who acted so to be guilty of a Criminal Schism but assured the Compiler withal that this could not be matter of dispute betwixt us who both assented to that doctrine of the Fathers and here it is my trifling must be discovered and here he will have me not only to differ from them but from the Fathers this is hard when I had assented to that Chapter as set down by him and proved by the Fathers but he will have it that I am for making the breach of the Vnity of the Catholick Church not Schism unless it be done causelesly whereas the Fathers teach there can be no just cause I grant the Fathers teach that there can be no just cause given by the Catholick Church however that particular Churches can give and do often give just cause for others to break Communion with them is what no Father will deny is what the Church of Rome it self must grant which hath not only broken Communion with us but with the whole Greek Church and yet I suppose does pretend to shew that she had a just cause for it He hath offered hereupon nothing new in defence of his three Chapters but some hard words and those I do not intend to reply to but will pass to the defence of his Chapter about the Supremacy I had charged him with giving a false and imperfect state of the Controversie betwixt us in relation to the Pope's Supremacy but this he is not willing to defend but turns it off with saying that it only is so if my word be to be taken for it but I had not only given him my word but very good reasons for it and therefore since the Compiler hath no mind to be medling with reasons it would be uncivil to be importunate with calling upon him to disprove them That Chapter as it did concern the greatest point of Controversie betwixt us and the Church of Rome so it did require a great deal of canvasing and admit of a vast variety of dispute in it I was careful to follow the Compiler through it and to debate and disprove every thing that was brought to support the Pope's Supremacy in it but our Compiler is not so civil to me nor so just to his Book in his Vindication but forsakes the defence of every one of his passages and only seems solicitous to make a shew and that he may not be accused of saying nothing at all in defence of his Testimonies and in Answer to a great many very severe charges in that Chapter he serves us up again two or three bits of his former passages and that is all I told him his first quotation from Irenaeus was of no use and gave him in short my reasons for it all the answer he makes is to give us anew a piece of the same passage and this with two or three scornful words and crying good and great must be called defending and we must be content with such from him since it seems the Man is not furnisht with better but if the old quotations presented anew will signify any thing they are at your service but upon this condition that they may serve for a defence of themselves And such is his behaviour as to the next passage from Optatus which I shewed to have been very obscure and that in affirming there was but one Cathedra in the World possessed first by S. Peter and after him by his Successours at Rome it did not only contradict the other parts of his Writings but all Church Writers before and after him for hundreds of years who make as many Cathedra's as Bishops in the World and I instanced in a most plain place in Tertullian which did assert the direct contrary to the Doctrine of that passage of Optatus All the Answer besides rude language to these reasons that I can observe is that it is a notorious fraud in me to pretend that the Father maintains here That the Chair of Rome was such that the rest of the Apostles might not have Cathedra's for themselves whereas says the Compiler S. Optatus no where affirms this but only that the rest of the Apostles should not set up other Episcopal Chairs in
opposition to this of Rome or to contend with it I believe I have considered this passage a little better than this confident Gentleman who perhaps never saw it any where but in Natalis Alexandre or some Romish Writer and upon all the care I could take I can see no reason for my being accused of fraud in this thing or for altering my opinion of its denying Cathedra's to the rest of the Apostles It first speaks of the Episcopal Cathedra being bestowed on S. Peter at Rome it immediately calls it the one Chair and requires such an Vnity to be preserved by all in this one Chair as to forbid even the Apostles themselves to erect Cathedra's for themselves and makes it Schism to set up a Chair against this SINGLE Cathedra and to secure us from mistaking his meaning it is just after this called the ONLY or SOLE Cathedra If all this be not enough to satisfie that he speaks here of a single and ONLY Cathedra exclusively to any other Chair I must confess I cannot see what words could do it since had it been as much his design here as I verily believe it was to speak of there being but one single Cathedra in the World he could not have used more full and larger expressions to declare his sense And now if this was his meaning in this passage which it certainly was notwithstanding the Compilers weak defence what crime was it in me to shew that this was contrary to the rest of the Fathers and what can be my fault to assent rather to what was the general and certain doctrine of the generality of Fathers than to a small passage in S. Optatus which does certainly contradict all them This account of that passage will I doubt not acquit me of that hard thing I am accused of in the Opinions of all unprejudiced Readers as for the Compiler's Opinion I do not value it and therefore am far from being solicitous to gain it When I did in the next place declare my dissent to two affirmations quoted from S. Hierom I did as it was just set down the reasons of that my dissent my reasons the Compiler meddles not with because it was too hard for him to answer them but thinks he has got advantage enough and he makes triumphant use of it that I durst be so hardy as not to assent to any thing said by S. Hierom as if the words of S. Hierom were sacred and one might as well deny assent to our blessed Saviour's words as to his whereas had this ignorant boaster but been conversant even in Bellarmine and Baronius he might have found them frequently enough setting aside the Authority and Interpretation of a particular Father of S. Hierom for example whose expressions about Presbyters and Bishops I do not believe this Compiler himself does subscribe to any more than I did to those mentioned above but he is too ignorant in these things and therefore makes such tragical and womanish outcries about things for which he would certainly be laught at by all men of learning even in his own Church Having made a little fluttering as to those three passages he thinks he has done very great feats and therefore needed not to trouble himself to examine the rest as they came in their order but makes one answer to serve for them all by telling the Reader I only shift them off and that the most eminent Protestants did acknowledge that the Popes did exercise a like authority with that which is attributed to the Pope by the Council of Florence and so I am shifted off the reason of which is because this Compiler is too ignorant for such things and since it would be ridiculous here to serve us up again the passages themselves out of the Nubes in the Vindication he hath nothing more for us but thinks all is well if he can but bring in the Concessions of Protestants but suppose he could bring such Protestants in why must we be obliged to stand by what they granted or affirmed any more than he thinks himself obliged to be set down by what some Schoolmen have said whom he does so frequently nay always throw by as abusers or mistakers of the Church's genuine Doctrine I used to wonder whence it came to pass that every little Romish Writer could with so much readiness quote the Protestant Writers insomuch that the most trifling Pamphleteer would not fail to serve you up with a last course of the Protestant Concessions Thus the Antiquary of Putney and the Maker of the Ecclesiastical Prospective-glass and the Representer himself not only here but in his other Pamphlets are very punctual in quoting the Protestant Authors whom they have no more read than the Alcoran in Arabick But as soon as I saw Brerely's Protestant Apology I quickly discovered that this was the Armoury out of which these doughty Writers did furnish themselves and that this is the Book out of which they all borrow and very fairly take things upon his credit the truth or falshood of which they know nothing of but why should not such men take their quotations as well as their Faith upon trust and be as confident about the truth of the first as they are of the certainty of the other I will only tell our Compiler again that I do no more pin my Faith upon the groundless Concessions of some Protestant Writers than he does his upon the Concessions of some of his Church-Writers When he is come to his Point about Tradition he is almost for thanking me for giving him but little trouble by granting there almost all that he contended for about Traditions as I had granted as kind things in favour of the Pope As to any Concessions about the Pope I shewed them to be false and groundless in my Answer to the Representer's Letter from a Dissenter by which Answer I question not but I have laid open sufficiently to the World the great Knavery of the Representer in that matter but here he is for charging me again in his own Shape what be had before accused me of in his Fanatical Disguise I have fully vindicated my self about my pretended Concessions as to Tradition and throughly explained in what sense I spoke of Tradition in my Book and as fully exposed the great Disingenuity of the Representer there I do refer the Reader for these things to my Vindication of my self in Answer to the Dissenter's Letter because I would not do like the Representer transcribe one Book into another In my Answer to the Nubes I told the Compiler that his Testimonies about Tradition did refer to matters of Discipline and Practice which every Church hath power to retain or alter as she sees most expedient and that if he intended them for to prove that Tradition doth hand down to us some Points of Faith which we are to receive tho' they cannot be shewn to be founded upon the Holy Scriptures I told him that Sett of Testimonies
the World to believe that they are not in earnest in these things I must say that the Representer with some other Writers which I could name are very unhappy men since they either are embarkt in defence of a Cause which cannot be upheld by better Arguments and Methods or they do very great hurt to their cause in defending a good cause with such unlawful Weapons But to return the only excuse that can be made for him is that he was necessitated to it for as to the three first Centuries he found there was no manner of defence to be made for their Invocation of Saints thence and that if I did not grant him that the fourth or fifth Century practised Invocation of Saints he should have nothing to say for his Church or his Book as to those five hundred years which in the Title of his Nubes Testium he had appealed and pretended to He was forc'd therefore since I neither did grant him nor could do it to set the best Face he could upon the matter and to say I had granted that Invocation of Saints was the Practice of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries And upon this all is built that he hath to say in defence of his Nubes in the Vindication and he sets very heartily to it with the assistance of his Friend Monsieur de Meaux and wonders how we can think those illustrious Fathers should practise it had not the same been a doctrine of the foregoing Ages and runs on in commending the Virtue and Learning of those Fathers forgetting all this while that he was guilty of begging the question and which is worse of taking that as granted which had been expresly denied him that those Fathers did practise Invocation of Saints He should first have proved the thing and then he might have harangued upon it but he begun at the wrong end and since he was not at leisure to disprove fairly and fully any of the Answers I had given to his Nubes but only by saying that my distinguishing betwixt Requests made to Saints and Prayers solemnly addressed to them was a shift and a piece of Controversial Legerdemain and serving us up with the old provision out of the Nubes to confirm what he said I should not trouble my self any further with this Matter but that I am called upon by his Friend F. Sabran the Jesuit and challenged to shew a difference betwixt what was practised by S. Austin and ALL the Fathers of his and the precedent Century and what is now practised by the Church of Rome in relation to Invocation of Saints This I promised to do as soon as the Controversie betwixt him and me about the 35th Sermon of S. Austin de Sanctis was either ended or dropt and since it is dropt and that matter by my second Letter to the Jesuit was to use one of his own expressions made out against him beyond the possibility of a seeming Answer I will now be just to my word and that I may more fully vindicate our Church from that Schism the Jesuit lays to her charge upon this account I will beg leave of the Reader to enlarge a little more upon this point in order to the further clearing of matters about it What is meant by Invocation it self is no matter of Controversie betwixt us their Council of Trent and their Catechism afterwards have sufficiently taught this and make it to be an offering up of Prayer to the glorified Saints and a calling upon them for their Prayers Help and Assistance I will not insist upon the invincible arguments from the Word of God against such Invocation of Saints nor stay to shew how both Old and New Testament command and direct all our Prayers and Addresses to God and how that there is not one Example of Invocation of Saints in the whole word of God but will pass to the Testimonies and Writings of the Fathers which they of the Church of Rome insist so much upon The Jesuit my Adversary hath offered nothing new but hath assaulted me with those passages out of the Nubes Testium which I had answered before and challenges me to shew what the Church of Rome doth more or different from what was practised then by S. Austin and ALL the Fathers of his Age and the precedent Century I will take leave in order to shewing these things to prove these four Particulars First That Invocation of Saints is the Practice of the Church of Rome Secondly That it is the Doctrine of the Church of Rome that it is good and profitable to invocate Saints Thirdly That Invocation of Saints was not the Practice of the Primitive Fathers Fourthly That the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers was directly against and inconsistent with any Invocation of Saints The two first of these to wit that the Invocation of Saints is not only the Doctrine but the Practice of the Church of Rome I hope the Jesuit will give me leave to suppose since those things need no proving which are the daily Practices of their Church and the avowed Doctrine of every true Son of their Church I could else fill up two or three sheets with Collections out of their Missals and Offices of the Virgin Mary to prove this thing plainly upon them but there is no need of it and therefore I will begin the proof of my Third Particular That Invocation of Saints was not the Practice of the Primitive Fathers I will deduce this methodically through the several first Ages and shew not only what was the Practice of the Church in her Liturgy but also the Practice of the most eminent Fathers thereof Century I Towards the later end of the first Century lived S. Ignatius an account of his Practice we meet with in that Relation of his Martyrdom which was drawn up by Philo Gaius and Agathopus who attended him from Antioch and were present at his Martyrdom at Rome Acta Martyrium S. Ignatii Edit Usser 1647. In that account we can meet with no recommendation of himself in his greatest distress or of his Church to any tutelar Saint or Angel or to the Virgin Mary but upon his being condemned to be torn apieces by the wild Beasts from the Emperour Trajan's own mouth we find him breaking out into joy and giving praises to the Lord for honouring him with those Chains the Souldiers were putting upon him and praying to Him for his Church of Antioch and recommending it with tears unto his Saviour When he was come to Rome and was met by the Christian Brethren there they went to Prayers together and made up a Christian Assembly with bended Knees praying earnestly to their blessed Saviour the Son of God for the several particular Churches for a stop to the Persecution and for the mutual Charity of the Christian Brethren And as the Writers of this Martyrdom represent the glorious Martyr always making his Addresses to God the Son So after his Martyrdom Ibidem they give the same
account of their own Devotions that they were offered up with tears and bended knees unto the same Lord. Century II In the second Century we have the famous Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of S. Polycarp wherein we meet with an account of his Practice in his Devotions They inform us of his continuing instant in Prayer to God day and night for the peace and Tranquillity of all the Christian Churches and have preserved us the very Prayer he used when he was tyed to the stake to suffer Martyrdom which we find addressed wholly to God the Father * Apud Euseb Hist Eccles l. 4. c. 15. through the everlasting High-Priest Jesus Christ his only Son not one syllable nor the least hint of any Romish Invocation of Saint or Angel either to assist or defend or recommend him unto God. After this account of the Religious Practice of those two most glorious Martyrs the Christian Church ever had next to the Apostles I will set down in the same Century Justin Martyr's account of the Christian Liturgie where we may justly expect to meet with a full relation to whom all the Services of the Church were addressed at that time His account is that their Publick and Common Prayers their Praises and f Justin M. in Apol. 2. Edit Paris p. 97 98. Thanksgivings for the good things of this life were offered up by their Bishop to God the Father through his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost Here is no mention in this very exact account of the Christian Service of any Prayers or so much as Wishes made to Angels or Saints no footsteps of any Practice of invocating of Saints which is evidence strong enough that such things were not then in being any where Century III In the beginning of the Third Century Tertullian in his Apologetic Terull Apologet c. 39. Edit Franck. 1597. acquaints us at large with the Practice of the Catholick Church and the nature of her Liturgy and sets her out as offering up her Prayers with the united Forces and joint requests of the whole Congregation unto God as praying to him for all Estates and Conditions and in his account of their Love-Feasts in the same place he acquaints us that they did not sit down to those Feasts till they had made their Prayers unto God that as they begun them with Prayers unto God so they ended them with singing Hymns unto God. Not a syllable is to be met with in Tertullian's Narration of the Customs and Divine Service of the Church of God of the Third Century about any Prayers to or Invocation of Saints of any Praises to God and the Virgin Mary or to God and any other of the Angels or Saints Century IV In the Fourth Century we meet with a much larger and more particular account of the Divine Service in the Christian Assemblies from the Book called Constitutiones Apostolica which bears the name of Clemens Romanus but really belongs to some Author of the Fourth Age. In this there is not only an account of their Practice but a very great many of the Prayers then used are put down at large every one of which we find directed to God alone See Clementis Romani Constitutiones Apostolicae from the 25th Chapter of the 7th Book to the end of the Eighth Book in Labbe's Councils Tom. 1. p. 428 c. not the least mention or hint of any Invocation of Saints of any Prayers to the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and as all the Prayers of the Church then in that Century according to this Author as well on all other days as the Lord's day as well in all other Offices and services of the Church as in the Communion-Service it self were offered up only to God so there is no desire or Petition in them for any of the Saints aid assistance or Intercession All which Circumstances together shew how far Invocation of Saints was from being the Practice of the Catholick Church in the Fourth Century when in the Prayers addressed to God alone there was not so much as any mention of the Saints Intercession or Aid which are things so frequent now in the Church of Rome that they desire of God for the Merits of the Saints both spiritual and temporal Blessings Century V As we find the Practice of the Fourth Century so visibly without any Prayers to or Invocation of Saints so we are as certain that such Invocation or Prayers got no footstep in the Publick Offices of the Church either during the rest of this Century or in the Fifth Century of this we cannot desire a more certain and satisfactory account than we have from S. Austin himself about whom the Jesuit Sabran hath made so much stir and doth still insist upon it that S. Austin did invocate the Virgin Mary S. Austin in his Books de Civitate Dei giving an account of the Service of the Church in his Age and of what was the Practice of the Church in relation to the Martyrs tells us indeed that the Martyrs names were recited during the divine Service but tells also as expresly that they were not then invocated by the Priest who did officiate g August de Civ Dei. l. 22. c. 10. I have traced hitherto the Practice of the Primitive Church through the Five First Centuries I have insisted chiefly upon those Authors and Books which present us with the Liturgies which are doubtless the best and only Evidences of the Practice of the Primitive Church for those Ages I have not insisted upon the Practice of particular Persons excepting those two glorious and most conspicuous Martyrs S. Ignatius and S. Polycarp whose Prayers I question not were wholly conformed to the Publick Services in the Churches in their time Had I done the same concerning the other Martyrs of the first and later Ages that I did about them two or had I been careful to urge the Practice of particular Persons apparent in their own writings I must have transcribed a great part of the ancient Martyrologies where we find all the Prayers of those Martyrs addressed to God and must have filled too many Pages with the Instances of other particular Persons and Writers But I thought the other method of urging only the Liturgies of the several first Centuries as the fairest way of understanding the Practice of the Primitive Church in those Ages and I believe I have made it fully and undeniably evident that Invocation of Saints was not the Practice of the Primitive Fathers As we are able to shew from the ancient Accounts of the Churches Services that Invocation of Saints was not their Practice so we are as able to shew that the Doctrine of the Fathers of those first five Centuries was directly against and inconsistent with any such Invocation of Saints as is now practised in the Church of Rome and this I shall the more largely insist upon because this is an Argument which they
of that Church cannot evade and this doth so firmly strengthen and back the other Argument against Invocation of Saints drawn from the Practice of the Primitive Church And this one would think would stop their mouths and make them lay aside their Pretensions to Instances of Invocation of Saints practised in the fourth and fifth Centuries to shew them not only that Invocation of Saints was not practised then but that the Doctrine of the first Ages and Fathers were directly against and utterly inconsistent with any such Invocation of Saints as is practised in the Church of Rome And this is that which I will endeavour to shew from the Writings of the several Fathers putting them down methodically in their several Ages to wit That the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers was directly against and inconsistent with any Invocation of Saints Century I S. Ignatius who lived immediately after the Apostles in his Epistle to the Philadelphians gives the Virgins of that Church his advice to direct all their Prayers to the blessed Trinity O ye Virgins says he have Christ h Ignat. in Ep. ad Philadelph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone before your Eyes and his Father in your Prayers being illuminated by the Holy Spirit If they are to direct all their Prayers to the Father and Son I am sure it is against this Doctrine of S. Ignatius to practise Invocation of Saints and direct some of their Prayers to the Virgin Mary and other Saints which the Church of Rome now does expresly against this First Father's Advice Century II The Church of Smyrna in their Golden Epistle concerning the Martyrdom of S. Polycarp giving an Account of the Devil and the Jews slandering them as if they would have left Christ and worshipped Polycarp if they could but gain his Martyred Body expose that gross Calumny by shewing i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eccl. Smyrn in Ep. de Martyr Polyc. p. 27. Edit Usser that Christians could never leave Christ who had suffered all for them nor pay any Worship to any other Person or as the Old Latin Translation hath it nor offer up the Supplication of Prayer to any other Person If they could not do it then I suppose it is not grown more lawful to do it since S. Irenaeus in the same Century discoursing about the many Graces bestowed by God upon his Church and the great benefits done by the Church to the whole World without either design of seducing or desire of gain thereupon says that as the Church doth receive those Graces freely from God's hands so she freely ministers them k Nec Invocationibus Angelicis faciat aliquid nec incantationibus nec aliqua prava curiositate sed mundè purè manifestè Orationes dirigens ad Dominum qui omnia fecit Nomen Domini nostri Jesu Christi invocans virtutes secundum utilitates hominum sed non ad seductionem perficit S. Iren. adv Haer. l. 2. c. 57. Edit Feuardent and then tells us also that the Church doth nothing by Invocation of Angels or Charms or any such curious Art but directing her Prayers purely and manifestly to her Lord who made all things and Invocating the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ doth those Miracles for the good of Mankind not for their seduction As Irenaeus is plain for the Prayers being directed only to God and his Christ and does in express Terms deny that there was any Invocation of Angels practised in the Church then so Clemens of Alexandria in the same Century and not long after him is so express against any Prayers being then put up to either Saints or Angels that he defines Prayer it self to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conversing with God which had been a very false definition had Prayers then been put up to Saints and Angels also But Clemens had reason sufficient to define Prayer in this manner to the Exclusion both of Saints and Angels since in the same Book he delivers it for the Doctrine of his time that l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clemens Alexandr Strom. l. 7. since there is but ONE GOOD GOD both we and Angels ought to make our Prayers to HIM ALONE for the obtaining of those good things which we want and for the continuance of those which we enjoy There are a great many more such Expressions to be met with in this Learned Father but this doubtless is able to convince any reasonable Person that in Clemens's time the Doctrine of the Church was that all Prayer or Invocation should be offered up to the GREAT GOD ALONE Century III That there was no alteration made in the next Century in the Doctrine of the Fathers herein we can easily shew from the most considerable Writers of that Age. Tertullian in his Apology for the Christians to the Roman Judges gives an account of the Practice of the Christians that they did invocate the Eternal God for the safety of the Emperours and acquaints them withal that They durst not offer up their Prayers to any other m Nos enim pro salute Imperatorum Deum INVOCAMUS Aeternum Haec ab alio orare non possum quà m à quo me scio consecuturum quoniam ipse est qui SOLUS praestat ego sum cui impetrare debetur famulus ejus qui eum solum observo qui propter disciplinam ejus occidor qui ei offero opimam majorem hostiam quam ipse mandavit Orationem de carne pudica de anima innocenti de spiritu sancto profectam Tertul. Apologet. c. 30. I cannot says he pray for these things to any other but to HIM at whose hands I am certain of obtaining them since it is HE ALONE that does afford them and I alone have a Right of obtaining them that am his Servant and observe HIM ALONE who am killed for his Religion and do offer unto Him that rich and best Sacrifice which He himself hath commanded Prayer proceeding from a chast Body from an innocent Soul and Holy Spirit In his Prescriptions the same Father tells us Idem de Praescript c. 33. that the serving or Worshipping of Angels brought in first by Simon Magus was reckoned to be Idolatry In considering these passages of Tertullian I cannot believe that He and the Church of Rome are of the same Faith as to this very thing about Prayer I am sure this Doctrine of his is no less than Heresy in some parts of the World and that Tertullian and the Honest Monk who translated S. Thomas of Canterbury or to speak more intelligibly Thomas à Becket's Life into English Metre were not of the same Church Tertullian told the Romans that the Christians of his time offered up their Prayers to GOD ALONE for the Welfare of the Emperours and Empire and that it was contrary to God's Will for them to offer up any Prayers to any other but this Romish Monk was of another Church sure when he gives us a very different
practice It will be very acceptable to give the Reader the Monk's Prayer not only for the extraordinary nature of it but for the Saint's sake so famous in England Having finished his Translation of the Saints Life He concludes all with this Prayer to the Saint himself To whom with all devotion now lett ws hartely pray and with this subsequent Prayer thus shall I end and seast O Laureat Precious Martyr preserve the Church all way our Kynge with the Commynaltee and send ws rest and pease The Hed Father of this Monastery with all his both more and lesse Preserve of special grace and pray for the queck and dede which for the Church cause list gladly thy blod shede Vita cum Actibus Thomae Cant. Archiep. in English Metre Translated 1497. in a MS. in Bennet College Library I will pass on to the next Father Origen who will give us the fullest account of the Doctrine of the Church especially in that Treatise which he wrote in defence of Christianity it self against Celsus the eighth Book of which Treatise is almost wholly spent in the proving that all Worship and Prayer are to be offered up to GOD ALONE through our LORD JESUS CHRIST Celsus the Heathen was of opinion that inasmuch as the Angels did belong to God men ought to make Oblations and Prayers to them that thereby they might obtain their favour and Intercession and make them propitious unto them Origen rejects this Advice with indignation Away says he with Celsus's Counsel that tells us we must PRAY TO ANGELS and let us not afford the least ear to it n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΜΟÎΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΜΟ ÎΟΓΕÎΕΙ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΛΟΓΩ ΘΕΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Origen contra Celsum l. 8. p. 395. Edit Cantabr 1658. for as for us Christians we must PRAY TO HIM ALONE who is GOD over all and we must PRAY to the WORD of GOD his only Begotten and the First-born of all Creatures and we must intreat HIM that He as High Priest would present our Prayer when come up to him unto his God and our God. And for the procuring the favour of the Angels he just after tells Celsus that the way to attain it was to lead holy Lives and to imitate the Angels in their uninterrupted service of God assuring him withal that if by that means we have God favourable to us we have all his Friends both Angels Souls and Spirits loving and affectionate to us And before this in his Fifth Book against the same Heathen upon Celsus's inquiry what the Christians lookt upon Angels to be and his answer that though they were wont from their office to call them Angels yet that they found them named Gods in the Scriptures by reason of a certain Divinity in them Origen does prevent the Heathen's Assumption that if they were such they ought to be worshipped by telling him that the Scriptures did not give Angels the Names of Gods so as to command us to worship and adore them instead of God who are ministring o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΑΣΑΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΔΕΗΣΙΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΠΡΟΣΕΥΧΗΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕÎΤΕΥΞΙΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΙΑΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΤΩ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΩ ΔΙΑ ΤΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΕΜΨΥΧΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΘΕΟΥ ΔΕΗΣΟΜΕΘΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΑΥΤΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΥ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Origen contra Celsum l. 5. p. 233. Edit Cantab. Spirits bring down to us the Blessings from God. But that ALL SUPPLICATION and PRAYER and INTERCESSION and THANKSGIVING must be sent up unto GOD ALMIGHTY by the HIGH PRIEST who is above all Angels and is the LIVING WORD and GOD. And we must put up our Supplications also unto the WORD HIMSELF our Intercessions also and Prayers and Thanksgivings must be offered up to HIM But to invocate Angels is ABSURD since we do not comprehend the knowledge of them which is out of our reach And granting that the knowledge of them which is wonderful and secret might be comprehended this very knowledge declaring their nature to us and their several charges would not suffer us to presume so far as to PRAY unto ANY OTHER but the GOD who is Lord over all and abundantly sufficient for all by our Saviour the Son of God. I cannot leave this so particular an account of the Church's Doctrine against Invocation without making an Observation from it which is that Origen does make Invocation and Worship to be Synonymous here and does confine them both to the same Object and shews that whatsoever is invocated is worshipped and that since all Worship is peculiar to God alone all Prayer upon that account must be offered up to Him alone and if this was the Church's sense at that time as we are hence certain it was we can very justly gather from it that they were far from either practising or teaching an Invocation of Saints or Angels who were for dedicating all Prayer to God alone and we may also gather this further from it that where any other Fathers do deny any worship's being paid to any Creature they did by that very denyal exclude all Invocation or Prayer being made to any even the most glorified Creature since Invocation or Prayer is one of the chief parts of Worship Origen himself and other Fathers after him as I shall shew at large do make Invocation and Adoration to be the same thing and do prove the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour from his being Invocated or prayed to which would have been a false and an absurd Argument had Saints and Angels been invocated at that time and it would have proved too much since if our Saviour is proved to be God from his being Invocated all the Saints as well as Angels were by the same Argument proved to be Gods had they been Invocated in those days I will give the Reader his words since they are of such extraordinary moment herein Origen commenting upon that passage in St. Paul How shall they call on or invocate him in whom they have not believed tells us that the Jews did not invocate Christ because they did not believe in Him and argues afterwards that if Enos Moses Aaron and Samuel did call on or invocate the Lord they did without doubt invocate Christ Jesus the Lord for if says he in proof thereof to call upon the name p Et si INVOCARE Domini nomen ADORARE DEUM UNUM atque IDEM est sicut INVOCATUR CHRISTUS ADORANDUS est Christus sicut offerimus Deo Patri primo omnium Orationes ita Domino Jesu Christo c. Orig. In Ep. ad Rom. l. 8. c. 10. p. 477 478. Edit Frob. 1536. of the Lord and to ADORE GOD be ONE and the SAME THING as CHRIST is INVOCATED so CHRIST is also to be ADORED and as
belonging to Angels but the necessity of obedience and therefore they are against ANY HONOUR being paid to THEM all their Honour being in God himself And in his next Chapter Lactantius excludes Saints as much as he does the Angels here from any share of Worship when he advises that we should adore NO OTHER THING nor WORSHIP u Nihilque aliud adoremus nihil colamus nisi solum Artificis Parentisque nostri UNICUM NUMEN ANY THING but the ONLY DIVINITY of our Creator and our Parent This was the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Third Century of the Church and how little it is consistent with any Worship or Invocation of Saints the most ordinary Reader will apprehend We must next inquire into the Doctrine of the Fourth Century and see whether theirs agree with what I have hitherto set down Century IV S. Athanasius the most famous Father of the Fourth Century in his Fourth Oration against the Arians proving the Vnity of the Father and the Son from that passage in the Epistle to the Thessalonians Now God himself and our Father and * 1 Thess 3.11 our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you gives this reason for it x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Athanas Orat. 4. contra Arianos p. 259 260. Edit Commelini 1601. For one would not pray to receive any thing from the Father and the Angels or from any of the other Creatures nor would one say God and the Angel give thee this or that but one would pray to receive any thing from the Father and the Son because of that Vnity and uniform manner of giving that is betwixt them two For by the Son are all Gifts given and there is no one thing which the Father doth not work by the Son. After this the Father goes on to answer the Objection from Jacob's praying to the Angel to bless the Lads and proves that that Angel was no other than God the Son and then to confirm it shews that Jacob did invocate no body but God to deliver him from his Brother Esau that David did pray to no one but God for his deliverance and that he returned his Praises to GOD ALONE for the blessing of it and concludes that it doth not belong to any other person but to GOD ALONE to bless and to bestow Deliverances I cannot read these passages of this excellent Father without reflecting upon these extravagant Applications to Saints and especially to the Virgin Mary which are so frequently or rather constantly to be met with in the Writers of the Church of Rome and can least of all forgive Cardinal Bona's Preface to the Virgin Mary which is such an undecent and almost blasphemous piece of Courtship as is not to be parallel'd in any serious and learned Writer of these days excepting F. Alexandre who in the Conclusion of one of his Volumes tells the Virgin Mary what wonderful things she had done for him and how mightily he was beholding to her with a great deal more of such fulsom stuff I am sure such things were far from being the Practice of the Church in S. Athanasius's time since his Doctrine is so directly contrary to any such thing and tho' now what so common as God and the Virgin God and such or such a Saint help you Jesus Maria and the like yet we see in S. Athanasius that no Christians were guilty of such an extravagancy as to say God and the Angel give you this or that and as they did not then pray to Angels or any other Creatures in which number the Saints must be included so neither did they offer up their Thanksgivings to any of them for any Blessings whereas now nothing is so ordinary as Praises to the Saints for this and t'other blessing and scarce a Book can be writ without thanks at the beginning or end of it to some of their Saints or the Virgin Mary for their great assistance and their continual protection and as if the Saints were equal with God or did equally communicate every blessing to a Writer such or such a Book is said to be written for the greater Glory of God and the Virgin for example and I have at this instant Cardinal Capisucchi's Book in my hands which was written forsooth ad majorem Dei Deiparae ac S. Thomae Angelici Doctoris Gloriam for the Greater Glory of God the Virgin-Mother and S. Thomas Aquinas But such things were neither so from the beginning nor of a long time after In the same Century Hilary the Deacon in his Comments on the Epistle to the Romans exposing the folly of those who were curious in searching out the natural reasons of things and the Courses of the Stars and the Qualities of the Elements and yet did neglect the Lord of all those beings gives us their pretences for it They are wont says he notwithstanding when they are put to the blush for their neglecting of God y Solent tamen pudorem passi neglecti Dei miserâ uti excusatione dicentes per istos posse ire ad Deum sicut per Comites pervenitur ad Regem Age nunquid tam demens est aliquis aut Salutis suae immemor ut Honorificentiam Regis vendicet Comiti cum de hâc re siqui etiam tractare fuerint inventi jure ut rei damnentur Majestatis Et isti se non putant reos qui honorem Nominis Dei deferunt Creaturae relicto Domino Conservos adorant quasi sit aliquid plus quod servetur Deo. Nam ideo ad Regem per Tribunos aut Comites itur quia homo utique est Rex nescit quibus debeat Rempublicam credere Ad Deum autem quem utique nihil latet omnium enim merita novit ad promerendum suffragatore non opus est sed mente devotâ Ubicunque enim talis locutus fuerit ei respondebit illi Hilarius Diacon Commen in Ep. ad Rom. c. 1. apud Ambrosii Opera Tom. 5. p. 174. Edit Froben 1538. to make use of this miserable Excuse that they can by these go to God as Men get to the King by his Officers Well then Is any Man so mad or so unmindful of his Safety as to give the King's Honour to an Officer whereas if any have been found but to treat of such a thing they are justly condemned to be guilty of Treason And yet these Men do not think themselves guilty who give to a Creature the Honour of God's Name and leave the Lord and adore their Fellow-servants as though there were any thing more that can be reserved to God. For therefore do we go to the King by his Tribunes or Officers because the King is but a Man and knows not to whom he ought to commit the Care of the Common-wealth But for God to whom nothing is hid and who knows the Merits of all Men there is no need of a Spokesman but of a devout mind to procure his favour For
wheresoever such an one shall address to God He will answer him And this same Father in his Questions out of the Old and New Testament insists upon the same Argument telling the Heathens That the Christians z Christiani autem UNUM DEUM colunt in Mysterio ex quo sunt omnia nec aliquid quod ab eo conditum est venerantur Ipsum enim solum sufficere sibi abundare sciunt ad Salutem non ignorantes quia si Gloriam Nomen ejus aliis deputaverint offendant eum quia nullus Imperator permittit ut cum Nomine ejus Tribuni Comites adorentur Idem lib. Quaestionum Vet. Nov. Testam apud Augustini Opera in Appendice ad Tom. 4. p. 46. Edit Colon. 1616. worship ONE GOD in Mystery from whom are all things and do not pay any Veneration to any thing created by him here is no exception either for Angels or Saints much less for their Reliques or Images for they know that He alone is abundantly sufficient for their Salvation and are not ignorant that if they give his Glory and his Name to others they offend Him since no Emperour does permit that his Tribunes and Officers be adored together with Himself S. Basil did look upon Prayer to be so peculiar to God that he defines Prayer to be a Request of some good which is made by pious Men unto God a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Basil Homil. in Julitt T. 1. p. 370. and his Brother Gregory Nyssen gives the same definition of Prayer which Clemens Alexandrinus had that It is a Conversing with God b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Nyssen 1. Orat. de Oratione p. 715. and in another place gives us almost the same definition of Prayer that S. Basil did that Prayer is a Request of some good things c Idem Orat. 2. de Oratione Dominica p. 724. which is offered with Supplication to God. Now had Prayers to Angels or Saints beeen either the Practice or the Doctrine of this Age in which these Fathers lived both S. Basil's and his Brother's Definitions of Prayer had been ridiculous and false since they make Prayer peculiar to God alone whereas it would have been common to God and the Saints had these been prayed to as well as God in those days I need not insist much upon what Gregory Nyssen says in his Fifth Oration against Eunomius that we are commanded in the Word of God not to worship any of those things which are created but that we are to worship and adore that Nature only which is uncreate since we have cleared this sufficiently above from Origen and others S. Ambrose is the last Father that I will urge in this Fourth Century He agrees with the Precedent Fathers about the nature of Prayer and does deny to Angels and Saints the having any Prayers put up to them in that short but comprehensive passage Notwithstanding THOU ALONE O Lord art to be INVOCATED THOU art to be INTREATED that thou d Sed tamen TU SOLUS Domine INVOCANDUS TU ROGANDUS ut eum in filiis repraesentes D. Ambros Orat. in Obitu Theodosii Tom. 3. p. 59. wouldst represent him to wit the Dead Emperour Theodosius in his Sons Century V I am now arrived at the Fifth Century of the Church and must inquire whether in this Age the Doctrine of the Church was altered from what we have shewn it to in the four precedent Centuries in relation to the Worship and Invocation of Saints S. Epiphanius does make the Invocation of Angels to be the Heresie of the Angelicks but those people had very hard measure from that Father if Invocation of Saints was not as much a Heresy since if it were lawful to invocate the one of these two the Angels ought to have had the preference since as they are God's ministring Spirits they see and hear us whereas the departed Saints do neither see nor hear us The same Father in his Confutation of the Heresie of the Collyridians concludes fully against the Worship of any Creature For neither is Elias to be worshipped tho' he is reckoned e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ἩΜΑΡΙΑ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ὁ ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΠΡΟΣΚΥÎΕΙΣΘΩ Epiphan Haer. 79. p. 1062. among the living nor John nor any other of the Saints That ancient errour shall not prevail over you to forsake the living God and to worship the things which were made by Him. For they served and worshipped the Creature more than the Creatour and became Fools For if God will not have us to worship the Angels how much more would He not have us to worship Her that was Born of Anna. Let Mary be had in honour but let the Lord be worshipped And in his Confutation of the Heresie of the Arians He does prove the Divinity of Christ from his being Worshipped For if says he f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan Haer. 69. p. 755 759. He be not true God neither is he to be worshipped and if He be a Creature He is no God and if He be not to be worshipped how comes it to pass that he is called God For it is a foolish thing to make a Creature God and to reject the first Commandment which says Thou shalt Worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve Whereupon the Holy Church of God doth not worship a Creature but the Begotten Son the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father with the Holy Ghost I appeal to all men of sense whether this Argument to prove the Divinity of Christ from his being worshipped had not been the vainest and most frivolous that ever was used had Saints or Angels been worshipped in those Days had they had Prayers put up unto them which is the highest Expression of Worship S. Chrysostom doth define Prayer as the rest of the Fathers had done before him and says g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrysost Hom. 30. in Genesim that Prayer is a discoursing with God and up and down his Works he doth frequently urge it upon Men to go directly to God himself and to make their Prayers unto Him. When saith he we have any suit to make to Men we have need of expence and servile Flattery and much hurrying hither and thither h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Chrysost in Matthaeum citat à Theodoro Daphnopato in Eclogis in Tom. 7. Operum Chrysost p 768. Edit Savil. and much contrivance For it happens often that we cannot get streight unto the Lords themselves to present our Gift and speak with them but it is necessary for us first to procure an interest in their Servants and Stewards both by Gifts and by Intreaties ' and by all other means possible and then by their mediation we may obtain our request But it is not thus with God for there is no need of Intercessours for the Petitioners nor is God so ready to gratify our Petition when intreated by others
as he is to do it when we pray to him our selves I will but instance in One Father St. Austin about whom this whole Controversy touching Invocation was begun betwixt me and Sabran the Jesuit This Father in his Enchiridion to Laurentius shewing that the things which appertain to Hope are all included in the Lord's Prayer and that the Scriptures pronounce him accursed who putteth his Trust in MAN concludes from it that for that very Reason i Ideo non nisi à Domino Deo petere debemus quicquid speramus nos vel bene operaturos vel pro bonis operibus adepturos D. Aug. Enchirid. ad Laurent c. 114. Tom. 3. p. 73. we ought not to ask or pray to any other but our Lord God alone for whatever we hope either to do well or to be rewarded for after we have done so In another part of his Works in the very last that he wrote He asks this question of the Heathen Can we then believe that these Angels whose employment is to declare to Mankind the Will of the Father k Num igitur hos Angelos quorum ministerium est declarare voluntatem Patris credendum est velle nos subdi nisi ei cujus nobis annunciant voluntatem Unde optimè admonet etiam ipse Platonicus IMITANDOS Eos potius quam INVOCANDOS Idem de Civit. Dei l. 10. c. 26. would have us be subject and serve any other besides Him whose Will they declare to us the Platonician himself doth give us herein the best Admonition That the ANGELS are to be IMITATED rather than INVOCATED If this Father was so very earnest against any Invocation of Angels we have reason to believe that upon his own reasons urged above against placing any Trust in MAN he was as positive if not much more against Invocation of Saints since according to him the Angels who are so constantly employed in the affairs of men cannot but see and understand our wants whereas the Saints according to Him know nothing of us and therefore cannot be Invocated by us except we are resolved to throw away our Prayers and to pray to those who do not hear us It is his own Doctrine in his Tract about taking care of the Dead in which after several Arguments Pro and Con he concludes l Proinde fatendum est nescire quidem mortuos quid hic agatur Idem de Cura pro Mort. c. 15. That we must acknowledge that the Dead are ignorant of what is done here upon earth He had just before this Conclusion argued that if the dead had any knowledge of things on earth he should not have wanted the constant assistance of his dear Mother Monica in his troubles and that if as the Scriptures assure us the Patriarchs themselves were ignorant of their Posterity and knew nothing of the Condition good or bad of the People of Israel we have a great deal of reason to conclude that all the Dead were in the same Condition This certainly was that Father's Opinion and this Doctrine I am sure is perfectly inconsistent with Invocation of Saints since it takes away the very foundation it self on which Invocation is built to wit that the Dead do know our wants and do hear us and are able to relieve us I will conclude the Testimonies upon this Head against Invocation of Saints with that severe question which Hilary the Deacon put to those who were wont to worship the Elements because they believed that the Government or Patronage of mens lives was intrusted with them We demand of them whether this be commanded or ordered by God m A quibus ut supra requirimus si mandatum est aut jussum à Deo quem etiam ipsi magnum summum fatentur negligunt Si enim fieri debet ab illo mandari oportuit qui Author eorum dicitur Si autem ab illo non est mandatum praesumptio est ad poenam proficiet non ad praemium quia ad contumeliam pertinet Conditoris ut contempto Domino colantur servi spreto Imperatore adorentur Comites Hilar. Diacon Quaestion Vet. Nov. Testam apud August in Append. ad Tom. 4. p. 45. whom they themselves own to be Great and the Supreme and yet neglect him If this thing must be done it ought to have been commanded by Him who is the Creatour of those Elements But if it is not commanded by Him it is a presumption and will bring us punishment not a reward because it is an affronting of the Creatour of all to have the Lord contemned and his servants worshipped to have the Emperour despised and his Officers adored It is but altering a few words in this passage and we may put the same question to the Church of Rome about their Invocation and worship of Saints We require to know whether their Invocation of Saints be commanded and appointed by God for if Invocation of Saints ought to be practised it ought to be commanded by him who made them Saints but if it is no where commanded by him Invocation of Saints is a PRESUMPTION and will bring a Punishment on their Heads that practise it since it is a Contempt and affront to God to have his Servants made sharers with him in his WORSHIP Thus I have gone through the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers down to St. Austin's time in the Fifth Age of the Church and have found their Doctrine to be like their Practice we had no reason to expect to meet with any Practice of Invocation of Saints or Angels in their days since we find their Doctrines so fully and so unanimously against any such thing I am not conscious to my self of having either curtail'd or misapply'd or perverted one of all the passages I have produced out of the Fathers of the Five Centuries I hope the Reader hath carried them in his memory that so he may help me to compare them with what Sabran the Jesuit had the Assurance in both his Letters to say concerning St. Austin and the Fathers of his and the precedent Century that Invocation of Saints was taught by S. Austin and ALL the Fathers of his Age and the Precedent Century And is all this certainly true Yes surely or else the Jesuit would have scorn'd to have asserted it so boldly in both his Letters but alas it will not prove so since what I have collected out of the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries will prove this to be a scandalous falshood for to argue the matter a little with him did S. Athanasius teach Invocation of Saints who tells us that no good Christian ever prayed to Angels or any other Creatures of which number are the Saints together with God who proves the Divinity of our Saviour from his being Invocated did Hilary the Deacon teach Invocation of Saints who does so very well expose the very ground of Invocation of going to God by the Saints and ridicules the Comparison drawn from
Addresses made to Temporal Princes by the mediation of their Officers and shews that the comparison is groundless since Temporal Princes are forc'd to make use of their Officers in such things because they are but men whereas God knows the Merits of all men and therefore no need of a Spokesman to him Did S. Basil or Gregory Nyssen teach Invocation or a Praying to Saints who define Prayer to be a Request for some good thing TO GOD These are the most noted Fathers of the Fourth Century and for the Fifth did S. Epiphanius teach Invocation of Saints who proves the Divinity of Christ as S. Athanasius had done from his being worshipped the most solemn expression of Worship being Invocation or Prayer did S. Ambrose after he rightly understood the Christian Religion teach any such Invocation who said that GOD ALONE was to be INVOCATED Did S. Chrysostom teach it who does so often exhort to our going to God our selves assuring us we shall be sooner heard when we ask our selves than when we ask by another who does with the rest of the Fathers make the Essence of Prayer to be a Discoursing with God Did S. Austin lastly whom the Jesuit names teach Invocation or Prayer to Saints who says expresly that we ought to Pray to or ask of GOD ALONE those things we hope for I am so much accustomed to the Writers of the Church of Rome that I do not so much wonder as I otherwise should at the Jesuits asserting a thing so very false with so much assurance it is too frequent among them to challenge ALL the Fathers when perhaps not one in twenty is on their side and therefore for the Jesuit to assert That all the Fathers of those two Centuries are for Invocation of Saints is meerly a being in the fashion But can he think to impose upon us with such things does he think that Confidence is enough or all that is necessary for the carrying of any cause if he does he shall find himself mistaken since there is too much learning in England to let such bold and false assertions to pass upon and delude the people without controul or putting a stop to them I need not aggravate or further insist on the falseness of all that the Jesuit said there I had rather employ my self to vindicate the Fathers than to expose him and therefore in order to the doing that by answering all the passages quoted out of them by the Jesuit to defend Invocation of Saints I will only request that these two very reasonable Postulatum's may be granted me First That the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries about whom the Controversie is betwixt me and the Jesuit did know the Practices and understand the Doctrines of the Fathers of the Three preceding Ages of the Church Secondly That the Fathers of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries had so much learning as to understand and so much sense as not to contradict themselves Both these Concessions are so very just that I hope there will be no dispute about them I will then with the help of them begin the Examination of all that the Jesuit hath offered out of the Primitive Fathers in defence of Invocation of Saints And to let the Jesuit see I am not afraid of their best Arguments I will answer that one which is omitted I wonder how by himself but was not only urged in the Nubes Testium but is twice repeated by the Compiler in his Vindication of the Nubes Testium It is the passage from S. Ambrose's Book de Viduis wherein he says Obsecrandi sunt Angeli pro nobis Martyres obsecrandi the Angels are to be pray'd to who are appointed for our defence the Martyrs are to be pray'd to whose Patronage we justly claim This passage doth make the greatest shew of any for the Church of Rome however in answer to this we tell them that what S. Ambrose wrote in that Book was not the Doctrine of the Christian Church which S. Ambrose did not understand when he wrote that Book being then but a Novice as not only this passage about Angels but some others in it do very evidently shew and therefore this passage ought not to be insisted on as the Doctrine of the Church then since He doubtless did not at that time understand the Church's Doctrines nor ought it to be insisted on as S. Ambrose's Opinion at least since it is evident that he did afterwards change his mind when he understood Christianity better and did then declare his sense to be that GOD ALONE was to be INVOCATED or PRAY'D TO This Answer is fair and cannot be reasonably gainsay'd however since the Jesuit and the Compiler will be angry at my saying S. Ambrose was a Novice and did not understand the Doctrines of the Christian Church when he wrote that Book I will to prevent their Cavils offer some further reasons in defence of that Answer I have just made I will not insist upon the Concessions of their own Learned Men of the Church of Rome of Baronius for Example who do own that S. Ambrose was a Novice when he wrote that Book and therefore did not throughly understand the Christian Doctrine I have better reasons the chief of which is that this doctrine of praying to Angels and Martyrs is expresly contrary to the doctrine of the Church and the Practice of it in St. Irenaeus's time who tells us that the Church then made no use of any Invocation of Angels in Origen's time who informs us that the Church's Doctrine was that Angels were not to be PRAY'D TO nor Martyrs neither but that ALL PRAYER was to be offered up to GOD ALONE through our Lord Jesus Christ and in St. Athanasius's time who lived but a little time before S. Ambrose and who shews us that no Christian then did Pray to Angel or Martyr or Saint or any other Creature but which is worst of all this Doctrine of praying to Angels is directly contrary to a Canon of a Council of Bishops at Laodicea held not above ten years before St. Ambrose's Conversion to Christianity by which Canon an Anathema is denounced against any person that should Pray to Angels and as if the Council * Can. 35. Concil Laodicen held A.D. 364. had a mind throughly to have secured all Christians from slipping into it they call the Praying to Angels a secret Idolatry and a forsaking of Christ This is sufficient to shew that Praying to Angels was far enough from being either a Practice or a Doctrine of the Primitive Church since it was accursed and branded with the title of Idolatry and to shew further that it was not S. Ambrose's own Opinion when he understood Christianity better we need only look into that Oration I quoted above where he doth expresly teach that GOD ALONE is to be Invocated and Prayed to Had the Compiler of the Nubes Testium known the true State and Doctrines of the Primitive Church during the first four Ages
He would never have been guilty of bringing in S. Ambrose for a Teacher of Invocation and Praying to Angels which the Church had not only always opposed but had just before S. Ambrose's own time accursed as secret Idolatry and a forsaking of Christ but such passages as this and downright Heresy sometimes are quoted if they do but promise any the least service to the defence of the present Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome Unhappy Church that art forc'd to make use of such or to have none It is time for me now to attend the Jesuit and see what he produces to shew that Invocation or Prayer to Saints was taught in the Fourth and Fifth Ages He begins with S. Austin but so little is the Jesuit's Skill and so ill his Fortune that he first quotes a passage that breaks the neck of his whole design For in that answer to Faustus the Manichee who had objected to the Christians the Worshipping of their Martyrs he owns indeed as the Jesuit quotes him that they did worship the Martyrs but he tells him also that it was only with the Worship of Love and Fellowship which is paid also to the Holy Men of God while on earth I ask the Jesuit therefore what Church ever did and whether even their Church of Rome doth order Invocation or Prayers to be put up to their Fellow Christians tho' the most holy on Earth Let him but name me the Church that ever practised or appointed this and I will be his Convert upon it but since no Church in the World was ever so forsaken of God as to command this and since the worship paid to the dead Saints was the very same that is paid to the Living Saints it is evident to a Demonstration that there was nothing of Invocation in it and consequently no Patronage for Invocation of Saints from this place but the direct contrary to it The Jesuit had in his Printed Sermon and in his Letter to the Lord quoted two of S. Austin's Sermons de Sanctis for the same purpose for the passage in relation to the Virgin Mary out of the 35th Sermon de Sanctis I have sufficiently answered that already by proving that whole Sermon to be a Forgery and for the other passage out of the 18th Sermon de Sanctis I told him before that it is none of S. Austin's and for the Passage it self set down by the Jesuit in his Letter to the Protestant Peer it is almost word for word in the 35th Sermon de Sanctis so that there was Stealing in the case either the 18th stole from the 35th or the 35th served the 18th that Trick but to convince the World how little that Passage could pretend to be S. Austin's or near his Age I will give the Reader that Piece which the Jesuit left out of the middle of his Quotation It is an Address to the Virgin Mary in these Words Excuse us from what we fear for thou art the ONELY HOPE of Sinners THROUGH THEE we hope for pardon of our Sins and in THEE O most Blessed Virgin is the Expectation a Excusa quod timemus quia TU es SPES UNICA peccatorum per TE speramus veniam delictorum in TE Beatissima nostrorum est Expectatio Praemiorum Serm. 18. de Sanctis of our Rewards This is such Doctrine as had no Being in S. Austin's days and happy had it been for the whole Church had such absurd Doctrine been always kept out and I am glad to see the Jesuit so much ashamed of it as to leave it out of the middle of his Quotation His next Author for Invocation of Saints is Origen and which is still more strange his Eighth Book against Celsus which as I shewed above was particularly written against the Invocation of Angel or Saint but some men are very unhappy and it is a just Judgment that they that only steal from one another should suffer and be exposed for their Imprudence What the Jesuit quotes is That if Men would gain the Favour of many they were taught in Scripture that thousands of thousands assisted before him but what is all this to the purpose What is said here is That the Angels assist good Men with their Prayers which is nothing at all to Invocation of Angels nay the place is so far from countenancing any such thing that Origen's Design through that whole eighth Book is to shew that no Worship nor Invocation is to be offered up to Angels or Saints and upon Celsus's urging that Men should worship and pray to the Angels that they might be propitious to them Origen answers him with a Detestation of his Counsel as I have put it down at large above shewing him that all our Prayers were to be offered to God and for the obtaining the Assistance of the Angels he tells him a Holy Life is the best Means And is not this Jesuit then very skilful in these things could any other Person have had the face to quote that very place for an Instance and Proof of Invocation of Angels and Saints which was intended by the Author directly against it I believe the Jesuit never saw Origen himself I intreat him to look into that Page out of which his Quotation is taken and then I am sure he will see very good reason to thank me for saying no more to him upon this Account His next Testimony is out of S. Basil's Oration upon the Forty Martyrs that whoever was in Affliction had recourse to them whoever was in Prosperity betook himself likewise to them the one that he might find Relief the other to beg continuance of his Happiness c. There was occasion for Craft in the Translation of this Place however I do not charge it upon the Jesuit who had it from the Compiler nor the Compiler who had it from Father Alexandre nor F. Alexandre himself who had it from Bellarmine or some other of their Writers who all conspire in the same Abuse of S. Basil's Words There is not a Syllable for Invocation here for S. Basil in this place to perswade the People to frequent the Anniversaries of the Martyrs tells them that the Church of the Martyrs that is where the Martyrs Bodies or Ashes were laid was a ready help to Christians but how Because those that came to offer up their Prayers at the Memories of the Martyrs had the assistance of the Martyrs Prayers whom S. Basil believed to joyn their Prayers to those that were put up at their Memories and upon this account it is that He says people betook themselves to the Martyrs not by praying to the Martyrs as the Jesuit and the Romish Writers would insinuate but by frequenting their Assemblies and by running to the Churches of the Martyrs for immediately after he plainly enough prevents his being misunderstood as tho' he was telling how the people prayed to the Martyrs by annexing this to it Let your Prayers therefore b
ΜΕΤΑ ΜΑΡΤΥΡΩΠ〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Basil Orat. 20 in 40. Martyres p. 459. be put up or joyn'd with the Martyrs Prayers Here had been his place to have explained himself if he would have had them to have prayed to the Martyrs but we see his direction was not that they should pray To but WITH the Martyrs which is directly against Invocation of them and therefore was cunningly tho' not honestly left out of the middle of the passage by the Compiler and the Jesuit after him That which he quotes next from Gregory Nazianzen about Cyprian and Justina the Virgin that he while He was a Magician did tempt her to uncleanness and she escaped him by praying to the Virgin Mary is every bit of it a sham since the learned men of the Church do own that there was no ground in History for it but that it was a perfect Mistake throughout As to the next Quotation out of Gregory Nyssen's Oration upon Theodorus of his asking that Saint's Intercession for their Countrey it is so plainly a Rhetorical Apostrophe as nothing can be more and is put down in such familiar Style as if he was talking not praying to the Martyr and to convince us that it must be only a Rhetorical Expression or Request to the Martyr he does suppose the Martyr himself to be present there and to hear what he said as well as any of the Congregation did and to help out that Supposition he further supposes that the Martyr wheresoever his Mansion was had got leave to come down and be present at their Assemblies all which are pleasant Fancies but are such as shew that Gregory Nyssen would have thought it vain even to have talked with or called to the Martyr had he not had leave to have been present with them which is further cleared from his desiring Theodorus to get the rest of the Martyrs S. Peter S. Paul and S. John to pray for the several Churches planted by them by which very Expressions he shews his belief that they did not hear him because they were not present and therefore he was forc'd to desire of Theodorus to do it All which with more which I could add out of this very Oration upon Theodore the Martyr is absolutely inconsistent with that Invocation of Saints which is practised in the Church of Rome by which any Saint is called upon in any place and in Ten thousand places at the same time We must allow for Rhetorical Expressions and Harangues and ought not to suspect that Gregory Nyssen doth here contradict his own Doctrine as well as of all the Fathers before him by which he makes Invocation or Prayer peculiar to God when he defines Prayer to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Conversing with GOD exclusive to Saint or Angel. His next Quotation from S. Ambrose I have already answered above where I told the Reader that the Jesuit had omitted it but that was partly a Mistake but the Jesuit himself is in the fault for in his Margent here he puts Ambros de m. Cyprian whereas it should have been Ambros l. de Viduis I never met with such a blundering Margent in my days had I not had the Nubes Testium to have directed me I should no more have understood his next Quotation from Theod. de cur grac. than I did this from Ambrose The Jesuit either does not understand how to quote an Author intelligibly or hath a very unlucky Printer however H. Hills ought not to have the blame since his other Prints are just enough as to these Marginal References The Jesuit then next quotes Theodoret's Words in Serm. 8. de Martyribus about the Temples of the Martyrs being frequented and about the People praying to the Martyrs upon all occasions But to this we answer That if the whole Book de Curandis Graecorum Affectionibus be not deservedly doubted to be none of Theodoret's yet there is a very great Reason to believe that this Book about the Martyrs hath been tamper'd with since in a Book of his which is unquestionable we meet with Doctrines inconsistent with any such Prayer to Saints as is made in the Church of Rome I mean his Commentary on the 17th Verse of the Third Chapter of S. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians where upon those Words And whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him He thus comments For because they against whom S. Paul warns the Colossians did command Men c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret in 3. cap. Ep. ad Coloss in Tom. 3. p. 359. Edit Paris 1642. to worship the Angels He enjoyns the contrary that they should adorn both their Words and Actions with the Commemoration of Christ their Lord. And send up saith he Thanksgiving to God and the Father by HIM and not by the ANGELS The Synod of Laodicea also in pursuance of this Rule and being desirous to cure that old Disease made it a Law that none should pray unto Angels nor forsake our Lord Jesus Christ Theodoret urges this same Canon of the Council of Laodicea against the Worshipping of Angels spoken of in the 2d Chapter to the Colossians So that if we may judge of Theodoret's True Sentiments about these things from his undoubted Comments we are very sure he was utterly against Invocation of Angels and consequently against Invocation of Saints since the same Reasons lye against them both but are much stronger against the Invocation of Saints who must be allowed to be the less Glorious and less knowing in humane Affairs But granting notwithstanding all this that Theodoret's Eighth Discourse about the Martyrs is genuine and that there have been no Frauds committed in it yet the Reason of his Praying to the Martyrs there will not defend the present Invocation of the Church of Rome since he makes the Martyrs to be present at their Memories and to hear the Requests made to them there which was not only his but some other Fathers Opinions and this cannot properly be called Invocation since the Saint is supposed to be within the Lines of Communication and all that passes to be no more than a Request from one Friend to another nor can it be called Prayer any otherwise than improperly as we use it in Conversation when one man prays another to do such or such a thing for him And therefore tho' Invocation or Prayer be reserved in Scripture to God alone and was lookt upon as such by the Primitive Fathers yet were any man certain that S. Paul for Example was present though invisibly in the same place he is in I do not believe it would be any more against Scripture for that Man to pray S. Paul to assist him with his Prayers at the Throne of Grace than it is against Scripture for one Man here to pray another to do the same thing for him and I think such a Prayer or Request call it whether
much above and more Glorious than the dead Remains of any Saint and therefore must needs be much further from the giving WORSHIP to the Saints Reliques Having thus proved these two things that the Church of Rome doth worship Reliques and that the Primitive Church did not we ought to conclude as to this Point about Reliques that the Primitive Fathers were no Papists but Protestants since they did declare against the Worship of Reliques as much as the Church of England doth and did detest the Worshipping of them as much as we can There is one Great Mistake that the Compiler must be rectified in before I leave this Chapter about Reliques and that is from the Community of Actions and Expressions to gather that the same thing was done by some of the Fathers towards the Reliques that is done now in the Church of Rome He cannot be ignorant that most of the External Expressions of Respect are common to Civil and Religious Worship and yet that no Body is so wild as to conclude from thence that Civil and Religious Worship are the same thing When Abraham bowed himself to the ground before the Children of Heth he used the very same Gesture that he was wont to make use of in his Worship of God and yet I hope our Compiler would not have it concluded from the same Gesture used upon both those Occasions either that Abraham when he bowed to the Children of Heth paid Religious Worship unto them or that he using the same Gesture in the Service of God paid only a Civil Worship unto Him. And yet This is all that he builds upon when he is so earnest about the thing and would confound Civil and Religious Worship by shewing what no Body denies that several of the Outward Expressions of Civil and Religious Worship are the same Whereas notwithstanding the Outward Gestures be the same we do easily know Religious from Civil Worship by the Object to whom it is paid and by the Professions of them who pay it And by this we are able to decide and resolve that Scruple which the Compiler would fain raise about the Matter of Reliques The Primitive Fathers did declare that they were against giving any Religious Worship to Reliques and therefore when we meet with any extraordinary Expressions or Actions among them which might otherwise appear to be Religious we are obliged to look upon them only as Expressions of Civil Worship by reason of the Declaration so often made by them that they did not worship Reliques But for the same Gestures or Actions used by the Church of Rome towards the Reliques or Bodies of the Saints we are obliged upon the very same Reason to look upon them as Expressions of a Religious Worship or Adoration since She hath prevented our taking them in the other Sense by declaring and decreeing in her Council of Trent that the BODIES and RELIQUES of the SAINTS are to be WORSHIPPED or ADORED And further to let him see this by an Instance used by Himself He urges that they used to touch and kiss the Reliques of the Martyrs and shews it from Gregory Nyssen which was the highest Expression of Respect used then towards Reliques Now how far this is from being Religious Worship in them or the same Kiss from being but Civil Worship in the Church of Rome I have already abundantly cleared from the Professions made about Reliques by the Primitive Fathers and by the Church of Rome in her Council of Trent I have insisted the longer upon this Business about the Reliques because the Compiler himself did and have taken the more care to clear the whole Matter about the Worship of Reliques because He took so much pains to disguise and obscure it and by confounding Civil and Religious Worship to bear the credulous Reader in hand that the Church of Rome and the Primitive Church are exactly the same in their Respect to Reliques and that the Church of Rome doth no more pay a Religious Worship or Adoration to Reliques than the Primitive Fathers did the Vanity and Falshood of all which I have fully display'd that so the Compiler being driven out of this Hold and being made ashamed of such groundless Delusions and Distinctions may e'en fall into the Old Track of defending Popery and speak out fairly the Sense of their Church about the Worship of Reliques and defend with the Angelical Doctor S. Thomas Aquinas and his Disciples who Sabran the Jesuit tells us are above One half of the Divines of the Christian World that THE RELIQUES of the SAINTS OUGHT TO BE ADORED He next undertakes the business of Purgatory and finding that I had invincibly shewn that the Primitive Fathers notwithstanding their Prayers for the Faithful deceased did believe that they were at the same time in a state of Bliss of Comfort of Peace of Joy and Light and Tranquillity nay in Heaven it self every one of which is utterly inconsistent with the Condition of Purgatory believed and taught by the Church of Rome He hopes to salve all by granting what he could not deny of the Primitive Fathers believing the Faithful deceased to be in such a Condition and reconciling all this to the Belief of Purgatory in his Church To this purpose he tells us that the supposing those Souls for which the Fathers pray'd to be in a State of Joy and Comfort does most nearly agree with the present Practice and Doctrine of the Church of Rome I am glad to hear this and now I perceive there is none of those torments and burnings in the Case with which the people used to be frighted out of their Wits themselves and to scare one another but the unhappiness is this is too good news to be true and I doubt we shall find by and by that the Romish Purgatory is the very same place that it used to be thought and that it is just as hot and as tormenting and intolerable at this very day as it was six hundred years ago when those lamentable shreeks were so often heard from the poor Souls in Purgatory However since I suppose our Compiler knows himself not to have been so careful of his Life as to imagine he shall escape calling at Purgatory I cannot discommend his making Purgatory as easy as he can and his representing it to be just such a place as he would with all his heart find it when he comes thither He endeavours to prove this agreement from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass used in their Church wherein they pray God to grant to those his faithful Servants who rest in the sleep of Peace a Place of Comfort Light and Peace In answer to which I will only tell him here that this Old-Prayer in the Canon of the Mass is directly against the present Church of Rome in the business of Purgatory and against what the Compiler hath positively asserted a little after this about Prayer not being made for those in Bliss or those in Hell but only
Whether this Fire be taken properly or Metaphorically and whether it signify the Pain of sense or of loss as some will have it This he did gather as he tells us immediately after in the same Chapter from the Testimonies of the Fathers for ALL of them says He did call the Punishment of Purgatory FIRE Here we find Bellarmine determining that Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire are the very same by Nature and the Title of his next Chapter is Ignem Purgatorii esse Corporeum that the FIRE of Purgatory is CORPOREAL for the proof of which Idem ibid. l. 2. c. 11. He urges that it is Communis sententia Theologorum the Common Opinion of their Divines that Purgatory-Fire is True and Real Fire and of the same kind with our Elementary Fire I have chosen thus to give Bellarmine's words in this Controversy because he does not urge his own sense or Thoughts only about the Nature of Purgatory but insists upon it and tells us that it is the COMMON JUDGMENT of their DIVINES that Purgatory-Fire is true real Elementary Fire as before he had deliver'd as a thing CERTAIN that Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire are the same in kind But I need not content my self with Bellarmine and the Common Consent of the Divines of the Church of Rome to prove that the Romish Purgatory is a Place of Torments by Fire I have better evidence for it and such as our Compiler nor any of the New Expositors of Popery dare not refuse if they will allow One of their General Councils to be of as much Authority among them as another In the Account we have of the General Council of Florence we find the Latins continually contending for a Purgatory-Fire Thus in the History of what did immediately precede the First Session of this Council at Ferrara from whence by reason of the Plague it was removed to Florence we find a select number of twelve Latins and twelve Greeks appointed to meet and debate of the chief points in Controversy betwixt the Greek and Roman Church The point about Purgatory was the first debated where the Latins at first word told their Churches sense that by Purgatory they meant a Purging FIRE and throughout the whole debate we find them still using the term Purgatory-Fire for to express their Churches sense about the Nature of Purgatory the Greeks are perfectly against there being any such thing as a Purgatory-Fire and their Opinions are distinctly set down in the Preliminary Acts of that Council which I will transcribe hither for to shew not only that the Romans did believe Purgatory to be Fire but also to let the World see that the Compiler tho' he was for the Church of Rome in his Nubes Testium is since run over in his Vindication to the Opinion of the Greeks about Purgatory The sense of the Latin Church is thus delivered The Italians do acknowledge a Fire even during this present World and a Purging by Fire They own also a FIRE in the World h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Concil Florent p. 28. Edit Cossart to come but not a Purgatory Fire but an Eternal One and that during this World the Souls are purged by FIRE and delivered thence sooner or later according to every ones Sins so that He which hath committed many Sins is not delivered thence till after he hath been a long time purged but he that was guilty of but few sins was the sooner absolved the Church also as hath already been said helping them and lastly that all are PURGED by FIRE Wherefore the Italians do take this FIRE to be TEMPORARY during this present World but ETERNAL in the World to come and THIS TEMPORARY FIRE they name PURGATORY After this the sense of the Greeks about it is immediately set down in these very Words But the Greeks think that there is NO FIRE but in the World to come tho' they do own a temporary Punishment of Souls which they make to consist herein that the Souls of Sinners go into a Dark Place into a Place of Grief where they are grieved for a time and punished with the want of Divine Light or as our Compiler hath expressed it of seeing and enjoying God but by the Prayers and Sacrifices of the Priests and by Alms they are purged that is they are delivered out of that obscure Place and Affliction and are dismiss'd thence but not in the least purged by FIRE for the Greeks do not own any Operation of Fire here with the Italians but meerly that Prayer Intercession and Alms do operate and obtain that Deliverance After the setting down of both the Latins and Greeks Opinions in this manner I will end this with the Conclusion that was placed there in the Acts of that Council immediately after them This then is the Difference betwixt them the Greeks say there is a Punishment and Affliction and a Place for this Punishment but that it is NOT BY FIRE but the Italians on the other hand say i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Concil Florent p. 28. that this Punishment and Purgation is BY FIRE This Account of the Sence of the Roman Church is so plain for a Purgatory Fire which differs only from Hell Fire in that the one is Temporary and during this World but the other Eternal in the World to come that it would be very vain to offer at any thing for the further clearing of it here I must only not forget to take notice of the Confidence of the Compiler who will very magisterially have the Greeks and the Latins to differ chiefly herein about a Name and is angry at me for saying the Greeks disown any such Place as Purgatory whereas it is as plain as the Sun that the Greeks do disown Purgatory as it signifies a Place of Torment wherein Souls are purged by Fire which he cannot but know was the Sence in which I used the word and the whole Church of Rome too excepting a few Expositors and Representers who since they cannot defend the Doctrines and Practices of their Church are running away quite from them and setting up a New Popery which they think they can defend The Passages I have produced out of the Council of Florence it self do unanswerably shew what the Latins do mean by Purgatory and we find after all the Debates and Contests in the Council that the Pope Eugenius insisted mostly upon having it granted that those faithful who dyed in the state of the Penitents do GO into a PURGATORY FIRE and after having been PURGED there are removed to the Society of them k Concil Flor. Sessio 25. p. 494 who enjoy the Vision of God. Another Authority I am able to produce which if it be not equal yet is next to that of a General Council from the Catechism ad Parochos drawn up by the Order of the Council of Trent Tho the Council it self was so sly about the business of Purgatory yet the Persons who drew up the Catechism
this Case He next puts down their Opinion that will have it to relate to those who are just a dying and drawing on but this Opinion he says is generally rejected not only because those that are only drawing on cannot be with any propriety of Speech called the Souls of the Dead but because the Custom of the Church is to use this Prayer for those Souls which have many years ago left the Body After which He concludes that this Prayer is used for those that are in Purgatory and gives us this Exposition of the Words of the Prayer Deliver O Lord the Souls of all the Faithful Deceased from the Pains of Hell that is from PURGATORY-FIRE WHICH IS HELD TO BE ALTOGETHER THE SAME WITH HELL-FIRE and from the Bottomless-Pit and from the Mouth of the Lion that is from the Prison hid under m Juxta haec singula illius Orationis verba exponi possunt nam dicitur Domine libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis Inferni id est à PURGATORIO IGNE qui IDEM prorsus esse perhibetur atque IGNIS INFERNI de profundo lacu de Ore Leonis à Carcere nimirum sub Terram abdito ubi detentae expurgantur animae piorum Ne absorbeat eas Tartarus hoc est ne amplius diutius eas profundi illius Carceris Cavernae vincula remorentur nec Inferni poenae tanquam fauces quaedam belluae immanis saevae truculentae detineant Unde IGNEM PURGATORIUM cum sit IDEM qui IGNIS INFERNI appellat Ecclesia Tartarum Ne cadant in Obscurum id est ne obscurum quas cadentes excepit longius detineat Fr. Raimund Capisucchi Controversiae Theolog selectae Controversia 5 ta p. 237. Edit Romae 1677. the Earth wherein the Souls of the Faithful are detain'd to be purged that HELL may not swallow them up for Ever that is that the Receptacles and Bands of that deep Prison may not stay them further or any longer nor the PAINS OF HELL as the Jaws of some fierce cruel and savage Beast detain them Whereupon the Church doth call PURGATORY-FIRE Hell because Purgatory-Fire and Hell-Fire is the same that they may not fall into outer darkness that is that this Obscure Place may no longer detain the Souls which it receives falling into it Here is the Interpretation of a Great Cardinal of the Church of Rome now alive and which is more the Chief Licenser of all Divinity Books at Rome as Master of the sacred Palace one of the qualifications for which place certainly is to understand the Faith and Doctrines of the Church of Rome Here we meet with him explaining that Prayer in the Mass for the Dead as relating to Purgatory and calling it over and over again a place of Torment Purgatory-Fire and declaring it to be the same with Hell-Fire I took the pains to peruse and transcribe that large passage about the Exposition of this Prayer hither because I could not call it to mind without a secret Indignation that this Cardinal Capisucchi but two years before the Printing of this Book which was not then first written but Reprinted was one of those who Licensed and so much commended the Bishop of Condom's Exposition in which we find an account of Purgatory perfectly inconsistent with what the Cardinal had written in his Controversies In the Bishop of Condom's Exposition we find these expressions about Purgatory This is what the Council of Trent proposes to our Belief touching the Souls detained in Purgatory without determining n Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholick Church By the Bishop of Condom p. 15. in WHAT Their PAINS consists or many other such like things concerning which this holy Council demands great moderation blaming those who divulge what is uncertain or suspected Such is the innocent and holy DOCTRINE of the CATHOLICK CHURCH touching Satisfactions But for all Cardinal Capisucchi's Licensing and approving this passage in that Exposition He himself had written the direct contrary when he makes the Pains of Purgatory to be by Fire and makes Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire to be the SAME and not only knew this to be but published that it was the Faith of their Church that does in that Prayer for the Dead call Purgatory Hell because Purgatory-Fire and Hell Fire were the very same All the defence that can be made for Cardinal Capisucchi must be that the Bishop of Condom's words were restrained to the Council of Trent which Council it is certain did not determine any thing about what the Purgatory pains consisted in but this can by no means excuse him since it is false that the Bishop of Condom's words are confin'd to that Council for he just after the mention of the Council says that what he had set down there about Satisfactions in this World or in Purgatory was the innocent and holy Doctrine of the CATHOLICK CHURCH which thing Cardinal Capisucchi did not only know in his Conscience to be false but had written the contrary to it which I suppose he is willing should be thought the truer of the two But granting that the Bishop of Condom's words had been restrain'd wholly to the Council of Trent Cardinal Capisucchi ought not to have Licensed or approved that Bishop's Exposition if he would have approved himself a sincere Man since he could not but know that this passage of the Bishop of Condom about Purgatory was a perfect Juggle and altogether unbecoming a Christian much more a Bishop for tho' the Council had been so reserved about the nature of the Pains in Purgatory yet he knew too well that their Church their Catholick Church had plainly and fully determined about the nature of those Purgatory Pains in her Office for the Dead by which she had spoken her sense intelligibly enough to the very meanest Capacities that those pains are by FIRE by FIRE which is the SAME with HELL-FIRE I will urge this thing no further but only pray to God that those great men may repent of such unwarrantable actions and of such arts which are altogether a dishonour to our Holy Religion I think I have very fully shewn what I did undertake for upon this business to wit that the Romish Purgatory is a place of Torment wherein the Souls of those who are in it undergo the same pains that the damned do and that there is no other difference betwixt Hell-Fire and Purgatory-Fire but that the One is Eternal and the other but Temporal Having shewn all this so effectually from their approved Writers from the Council of Florence from the Catechism ad Parochos and from the Office for the Dead in their Romish Missal it would be the veriest loss of Paper and the greatest affront to Readers of any sense to set formally here to the shewing how inconsistent this Romish Purgatory is with the Opinions of the Primitive Fathers about the State of the Deceased Faithful whom they believed to be when they
pray'd for them in a State of Comfort Joy and Tranquillity if our Compiler be not convinced also by what I have proved here that there is really no more agreement betwixt their Purgatory in the Church of Rome and the State of Bliss and Comfort of the Primitive Fathers than there is between Light and Darkness betwixt Torment and Pleasure I must tell him that I will never have any further to do with an Adversary that is obstinate and resolute not to be overcome and therefore resolved not to be persuaded I question not but this account of Purgatory that I have given from such unquestionable Authority in their Church will no little discompose the Compiler not only because it will ruine all he contended for about Purgatory in his Vindication but for a nearer concern because it shews that the Compiler in giving such a contrary account of Purgatory in his Vindication either did not know the Doctrine of his own Church about Purgatory or did dissemble it the first of which makes him unable the second unfit to write about these things since Ignorance or Insincerity are singly sufficient Bars against any Man's gaining Credit that will notwithstanding set up for a Writer Notwithstanding that which I have already demonstrated about the Romish Purgatory's Inconsistency with any Opinions of the Primitive Fathers touching the State of the Faithful deceased ought justly to supersede all further Controversie with the Compiler about Purgatory yet since he offers something further in Defence of himself and his Church I will consider it briefly He says the Primitive Fathers did believe three States of Men gone off the Stage of this World and that the middle State to wit of them who were neither very bad nor very good did suffer Temporal Punishment after their Death in order to their thorough Purgation We enquire therefore from what Fathers he proves this his Stock is small and S. Austin is his only Author for all this whom of all the Primitive Fathers he ought least to have insisted upon since S. Austin is on every side and is in for almost every of the different Opinions about the State of the Dead as I could easily shew here were it worth while We grant S. Austin did talk of three States of Men after this Life but must tell our Compiler withal that S. Austin was the First Father that begun this Distinction and therefore it ought to be of no consideration herein especially since it apparently contradicts the Doctrines of the Elder Fathers who did look upon the Dead in the two Conditions only of Good Men who were carried into Abraham's Bosom and Wicked Men who were hurried into the Place of Torments This I made sufficiently apparent in my Answer to the Nubes Testium particularly from S. Chrysostom whose Third Homily upon the Epistle to the Philippians doth evidently divide the Dead into Two States only the Righteous whom he makes to go immediately after they have left this world to God and to be possessed of Crowns and eternal Rest and the Wicked whom he places among the Damned and looks upon their Judgments alike irreversible But as S. Austin first talkt of Three Conditions of Men after Death so we own that he talkt of Temporal Pains after this Life for the middle Condition of those departed Souls yet all this will do the Church of Rome no Service for her Pargatory since S. Austin is not only so very doubtful about any such Temporal Pains after this Life which plainly shews it then to have been no Doctrine of the Catholick Church but his Temporal Pains are wholly different from those of the Romish Purgatory It is impossible to express any thing more doubtfully than he did this Enchiridion ad Laurentium c. 69. That there may be such a thing speaking of this his Notion about Temporal Pains for some after this Life is not incredible and whether it be so or no it may be questioned and either be found out or lye conceal'd And is not this a pleasant Account of that thing for which the Church of Rome pretends to the Tradition of the Catholick Church and told the Greeks at the Council of Florence that she had this Doctrine delivered to her from hand to hand successively from S. Peter and S. Paul. But these Temporal Pains S. Austin here spoke of are wholly different from those of the Romish Purgatory that the Pains of the Romish Purgatory are by Fire I have just now proved whereas S. Austin's are no more as is apparent from the preceding Chapter than an intense Grief with which Men are afflicted or burnt for the loss of those things which they o Salvus est quidem sic tamen quasi per ignem Quia urit eum rerum dolor quas dilexerat amissarum Idem ibid. c. 68. loved very much here on Earth The last Argument our Compiler hath for his Purgatory which is rather insinuated than urg'd barefac'd is That since it is allowed the Fathers did pray for the Dead it must be only for them who want Relief and are in Purgation and neither for them who are in Heaven nor for them who are in Hell for the former of which they are needless and for the other fruitless And this is what F. Alexandre our Compiler's Master does speak out plainly But to ruine this Conclusion I will prove these two things That the Fathers did pray for those they believed to be in Heaven and That secondly they prayed for those in Hell. For the Proof of my first I will make use of our Compiler's help who brings in S. Ambrose praying for the Soul of the Emperour Theodosius in his Nubes Testium and will I suppose still yield it me that the Father did pray for the Emperour's Soul. Now that S. Ambrose did at the same time believe that that Emperour's Soul was in Heaven is evident beyond contradiction since he does in the same Oration expresly affirm that the Emperour's Soul was then placed in the Heavenly Jerusalem which all People own to be Heaven it self I could prove further from the ancient Liturgies that the Prayers of the Church were made for the best of Men for the Martyrs themselves whom they of the Church of Rome suppose to be in Heaven but I need not stay to do it however I will to take notice of that Evasion which S. Austin hath taught them who looking upon it as an absurd thing to pray for the Martyrs who were fitter to pray for us and yet finding the Liturgies of the Church directly practising it had no other way to answer the Practice of the Church but by saying as our Compiler quotes him that the Prayers of the Church when put up for such as Martyrs were Thanksgivings but for others were a Propitiation which with all Reverence towards S. Austin is a Fineness of too bold and too groundless a Nature since had the Church intended only to praise God for the Martyrs I question not but
she would have made her Intentions plain enough by putting down the Praises for the Martyrs as distinctly and as properly as she would the Prayers for others I must not forget to prove this also from that Prayer in the Canon of the Mass urged by our Compiler wherein they pray not only for those Servants of God who have gone before them with the Seal of Faith and rest in the Sleep of Peace but for ALL WHO REST in CHRIST which does comprehend all even Martyrs as well as Saints or Men of Lesser Sanctity and as it includes Martyrs it prays for those whom the Compiler and his whole Church believe to be in Heaven But this Prayer is no more consistent with the Doctrines of the present Writers of the Church of Rome than it is with the present Purgatory of that Church which supposes the Faithful deceased to endure Fiery Torments in order to Expiation whereas this very Old Prayer supposes them to rest in the Sleep of Peace That they prayed also even for the Damned is plain from S. Chrysostom who in his above-quoted Third Homily upon the Philippians did advise such Prayers upon this Perswasion that tho' they could not obtain a Release for them from Hell yet they would procure for them some Alleviation of Torments some small Relief and S. Austin himself seems to be for the same thing when he speaks of the Prayers of the Living profiting so much as either p Aut ad hoc prosunt ut sit plena Remissio aut certe tolerabilior fiat ipsa Damnatio D. August Enchirid. ad Laur. c. 110. to procure a compleat and full Remission or that their Damnation should be made more tolerable Our Compiler cavils before he leaves this Point very rudely at me for saying S. Chrysostom only advises the Oblation of Alms for the Increase of Happiness to his Son's Soul and does very scornfully ask me what means S. Chrysostom's bidding him also pray for the discharge of his Son's Guilt I can answer him without such rudeness in a very few Words That the Increase of Glory was the sole Intention of his praying for the discharge of the Guilt of Sin and that the latter was wholly design'd for the former Thus I have got through that Chapter about Purgatory and have fixed all that I had proved before in my Answer to the Nubes Testium that the Fathers neither knew of nor taught any such Purgatory as the Church of Rome doth and therefore since they believed the Romish Purgatory no more than we of the Church of England they are no more Papists than we are in this thing When he is come to the next great Controversy about Transubstantiation he was resolved to divert himself and his Reader and in order to it by perverting of my sense to make himself sport He pretends to be mightily at a loss what I would have the Doctrine of our Church to be about the Eucharist and brings me in first saying Christ's Body is really present in the Eucharist then that 't is the Body of Christ Figuratively only but within four lines after that it is the Flesh and Blood of Christ ABSOLUTELY without any addition of really or figuratively yet that in the next page 't is not Christ's True Natural Body but his Figurative or Symbolical Body So that he says I play backward and forward in declaring the Doctrine of our Church and make the Sacrament to be really Christ's Body and yet to be Figuratively only that is really not his Body But does this Man believe himself in all this Does he from his heart think that I am guilty of all this confusion and contradiction about this thing I am well enough assured that no Man of the least sense doth find such stuff in my Book it self and therefore that the Compiler did not but was forc'd to abuse my sense and falsify my words in order to his ridiculing of them and me For as to the first passage about Christ's Body being really present in the Eucharist it was occasion'd by my telling Him that the Controversy betwixt the Church of England and Rome is not about a Real Presence which the Church of England did believe when she looks upon the Consecrated Elements not to be the Body and Bloud of Christ themselves but to be appointed by God to exhibit to every faithful Receiver not to every Receiver the Body and Bloud of Christ But for the Consecrated Elements themselves she believes them to be Figuratively only Christ's Body and Bloud the Reason of which I so often inculcated because BREAD and WINE CAN NO OTHERWISE BE THE BODY and BLOUD of CHRIST AND BREAD STILL AT THE SAME TIME and therefore our Compiler ought to blush at his great disingenuity when he brings me in contradicting those very words within four lines of them and says I grant there that It that is the Sacrament is the Flesh and Bloud of Christ ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT ANY ADDITION of Really or Figuratively whereas any Man else would have carried my meaning along with him for so short a way as four lines had I said so absolutely without any Addition of Really or Figuratively but this is absolutely false for immediately after I had granted as to Justin Martyr's words that the Consecrated Food was the Flesh and Bloud of Christ to prevent any such misinterpretation of my words as the Compiler would make notwithstanding it I added these very words However to corroborate what we said above which was that the Blessed Bread is the Flesh of Christ but Figuratively only it is evident to a Demonstration that This Consecrated Food was still Bread and NOT TRANSUBSTANTIATED into the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ Did I here then say it was the Flesh of Christ absolutely without any Restriction or Explication of my words and sense Is this the Candour that becomes a Scholar Is this the Sincerity that becomes a Christian Is this the Veracity of a Priest of the Living God Well Well If this be answering an Adversary I perceive it is no matter whether it be true or false which we write nor whether it be right or wrong which we assert so that we secure our main design of ridiculing or abusing our Adversary That I might state the Controversy betwixt us and Rome aright in this great point I shewed our Compiler that it was whether upon Consecration the Bread and Wine were transubstantiated into that very Body and Bloud of Christ which was nail'd and pour'd out upon the Cross or whether after Consecration there is no other substance there but the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ This I told him we expect they should prove and that it is to no purpose to bring us only passages of the Fathers to shew that they gave to the Consecrated Elements the Name and Appellation of the Body and Bloud of Christ and that they said of the Elements that they were Consecrated made or turned into the Body and Bloud of
Condiscipulo at the end of which Salutation every Body will allow me that Salutem is understood Let me but put it down then there and we shall next see how very finely this Preface runs in Sirmondus's Edition Paschasius Radbertus Monachorum omnium peripsema Placido suo Salutem Dilectissimo Filio Vice Christi praesidenti Magistro Monasticae Disciplinae alternis successibus veritatis Condiscipulo Salutem Is not here plainly two Salutations and therefore two beginning of this little Epistle which is just such a Solecism as if a Man writing a short Letter to a Friend should begin Dear Sir To your self and all with you health in Christ Dear Sir To your self and all with you health in Christ. Which thing discovers not only that this beginning about Paschasius and his Placidus is a downright Patch that makes a gross Tautology at the very entrance of the Preface but that he was a very Bungler that forg'd it that could not invent something for his Paschasius to begin with which would sute with the rest of the Preface Another Argument I have against Paschasius's being the Author of this Tract and for Rabanus taken from the Doctrine of the Discourse it self which will fully dispatch the Controversie It is as known a thing that Rabanus Maurus did hold that the Sacramental Body of Christ was different from the Body which he took from Mary as that Paschasius Radbertus did hold that they were both the very same This we learn from the MS. of an Anonymus which Mabillon hath since found out to be Herigerus Abbot of Lob concerning the Opinions of these very men in Sidney College Library in Cambridge which tells us that Paschasius Radbertus Abbot of Corbey doth lay down from S. Ambrose that the Flesh of Christ which is received from the Altar is altogether no other than that which was born of the Virgin r ponit ex Beati Ambrosii nomine quod non alia plane sit caro quae sumitur de Altari quam quae nata est de Maria Virgine Passa in Cruce quae resurrexit de Sepulchro quaeque pro mundi vitâ hodie offeratur Contra quem satis argumentatur Rabanus in Epistolâ ad Elgionem Abbatem Ratramnus quidam libro composito ad Karolum Regem dicentes aliam esse vel testimonio Beati Jeronymi qui dicit dupliciter dici Corpus Domini vel ex auctoritate Sancti Augustini qui dicit tripliciter Liber de Sacramento MS. in Sidney Coll. Library in 4 to markt K. 3.6 Mary suffered upon the Cross rose out of the Grave and is daily offered for the Life of the World. Against whom both Rabanus doth sufficiently argue in his Epistle to Abbot Elgio and one Ratramnus in a Book made for King Charles the Bald saying that the Flesh is not the same either from the Testimony of S. Hierom who says that the Body of Christ is twofold or from the Authority of S. Austin who says there is a Threefold Body of Christ Here we find the Opinions of these two Men as opposite as the two Poles and we find Paschasius so utterly against the Opinion of his Adversaries about a Threefold Body of Christ that in his Epistle to Fredugardus he warns him not to follow ineptias de tripartito Christi Corpore those Fooleries about a Threefold Body of Christ I will then inquire with whether of these two Men the Doctrine of the Treatise contended for doth agree Had Sirmondus but given us the Chapters of this Treatise and the Titles of 'em as distinctly as they are in the Colen Edition and in the two Cambridge MSS. the Title of the 15th Chapter had decided this business which is that the Body of s Quod tribus modis Corpu-Christi appelletur Christ is so called three ways but tho' his Title does not yet his Chapter doth prove as well as ours the distinction of a Threefold Body of Christ and does begin with shewing that the Body of Christ is so called three ways or to make it more intelligible English that there are three Bodies of Christ which the Chapter divides and makes his Mystical Body the Church his Symbolical Body the Eucharist and his Natural Body which he took from the Virgin Mary Now who does not plainly see that the Doctrine of this Chapter alone is directly contradictory to Paschasius Radbertus's Doctrine who was not only against the distinction but calls it foolery in his unquestioned Epistle to Fredugardus and therefore that this Tract which so formally asserts it cannot be Paschasius Radbertus's And on the contrary we see that the Doctrine of this Chapter does exactly agree and is the very same with what the Manuscript of Herigerus told us was the Doctrine of Rabanus in his Epistle to Abbot Elgio This is but what was the case of his other Tract left out by these people which in Steuartius bears the name of Liber Poenitentialis ad Heribaldum but Baluzius hath very well proved that its true Title is Epistola ad Heribaldum or Egilo as others write it And I must confess that this doth almost persuade me that the Tract concerning the Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Epistle to the Abbot Egilo are one and the same thing under two names especially since I find that account from Augustine about the Threefold Body of Christ which Herigerus tells us was urged by either Rabanus in his Epistle to Egilo or Ratramn against Paschasius not in Rathramn's Book to Charles the Bald but in this 15th Chapter of this Tract almost word for word as Herigerus afterwards puts it down in his Tract but this only is a Conjecture and let it pass as such I am sure I have sufficiently proved that that Tract which the Romish Party have ravisht unjustly from Rabanus was truly his and not Paschasius's I will take the leave now I am in at this sort of writing to animadvert a little upon Sirmondus's Notes upon that Tract in his Edition of Radbertus because it will further corroborate what I have insisted upon here In the Third Chapter of this Discourse according to Sirmond's Edition for it is the 9th in the Colen Edition Rabanus for so I hope I may now call the Author of that Treatise hath these Expressions about the Sacraments of the Church Now Christ's Sacraments in his Church are Baptism Chrism and the Body and Bloud of our Lord. Upon this Sirmondus in his Notes not finding here the seven Sacraments of his Church but that four of them are disown'd tells us very gravely that Paschasius mentions only three of the seven Sacraments of the Church for example sake only and that it was not his business here to treat of the number of the Sacraments But this is not answering but eluding the place and to shew the Vanity of it we will look into another of Rabanus's Tracts and see whether he is not of the same mind when