as have received the most holy Body of thy Son c. 3. To instance in no more the Prayer for the Dead in this Canon doth not relate to Purgatory for the Priest says Memento Domini c. Remember O Lord thy Servants and thy Handmaids and then names the Persons whom he is to pray for who have gone before us with the mark of Faith and sleep in the sleep of Peace Which are plain demonstrations that those Prayers were made before those new Doctrines and Practices were the Belief and Customs of your Church or else there are Errours in the Mass which the Council under an Anathema forbids any man to affirm 2. The Council declares †Sess 23. cap 4. Episcopos in Apostolorum locum successisse That Bishops are the Successors of the Apostles and if so then there being an equality among the Apostles so there is also among Bishops and where then is the Pope's Supereminent Power as Successor to St. Peter and how is he above his fellow-Bishops if they all succeed the Apostles to use St. Cyprian's Phrase Pari consordio potestatis honoris In an equal right to power and honour 3. The Council * Sess 4. commands the interpretation of Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers and if so we are well assured that the Controversies between us will be easily decided on the side of the Church of England for to the Fathers we are ready to appeal And now after all this suffer me to assure you that though I love your generous dealing in the affixing your Anathema's at the end of your †Popery Mis-repres p. 117 118. Book wherein you deal much more candidly than many of your Brethren yet I cannot but mind you that you have left your self and others by reason of the generality of your Expressions liberty to explain your meaning and therefore I have added some Anathema's agreeable to your own notions of things if I understand you aright to which I should be glad to find that you sincerely say Amen and it is as lawful for me who am but a private person in the English Church as it is for you to do so in the name of the Church of Rome And withal I do engage to make good that all these Opinions which I propose to be condemn'd are maintain'd by some Writers of the Church of Rome 1. He who pays true and proper Religious Worship to Images let him be Anathema Amen 2. Whosoever confides in the Intercession of Saints and Angels as much as in that of Jesus Christ for Salvation let him be Anathema Amen 3. Whosoever believes the blessed Virgin to have as much power in Heaven as her Son and prays to her to command him and begs from her pardon of Sins and the assurance of Salvation let him be Anathema Amen 4. He who does not believe that the Merits of Jesus Christ are the onely meritorious cause of our Salvation let him be Anathema Amen 5. He who believes that a Papal Indulgence doth remit Sins or deliver from eternal Death let him be Anathema Amen 6. He who believes that the performance of Ecclesiastical Penances makes satisfaction for eternal Punishment due to his Sins let him be Anathema Amen 7. He who speaks irreverently of Holy Scripture and calls it Aesop 's Fables a Nose of Wax and unsens'd Characters c. let him be Anathema Amen 8. He who believes that the Church hath power in a General Council or otherwise to make additions to the Christian Faith let him be Anathema Amen 9. He who believes the Pope to have any personal Infallibility either è Cathedra or in Conclave let him be Anathema Amen 10. He who asserts that the Pope or any other hath any power to depose Princes to dispence with their Subjects Allegiance and to authorize them to take up Arms against them either upon the account of Heresie or for any other cause let him be Anathema Amen 11. He who asserts that the Pope or any other hath any power to dispense with any Moral Law of God and to give men a License to Murther Forswear Lye or Equivocate let him be Anathema Amen 12. He who believes any thing contrary to the Word of God to Reason and Antiquity let him be Anathema Amen 13. He who says that men are not bound to the obligation of the Ten Commandments and among them of what we call the Second you a part of the First under pain of eternal Damnation let him be Anathema Amen 14. He who thinks that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and that Mental Reservation may be used with men of another Perswasion let him be Anathema Amen 15. He who thinks that Attrition is enough to fit a man for Absolution let him be Anathema Amen 16. He who thinks that any thing besides a sincere and true Repentance can bring a man to Heaven let him be Anathema Amen 17. He who believes that the modern Miracles of the Blessed Virgin c. are to be credited as he credits the Miracles of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles recorded in Scripture let him be Anathema Amen 18. He who thinks Ignorance to be the Mother of Devotion and wilfully hides the Holy Scriptures from the sight and knowledge of the People let him be Anathema Amen 19. He who says a man ought to obey his Superiours whether Civil or Ecclesiastical in things that are sinful let him be Anathema Amen 20. He who maintains any other Doctrines than what were establish'd by Christ and his Apostles and believ'd in the Primitive Church let him be Anathema Amen These I give you as a Specimen and when these are condemn'd I shall think my self much more inclinable to be reconciled than now I am And because you are a private Person and whatever you say is but one Doctor 's Opinion and because your Writers differ where your Infallibility is fixt whether in a General Council or the Pope and if in the Pope whether in his fingle Person or in Conclave you will oblige the World if you use your interest to get these Doctrines Condemn'd by the Pope ex Cathedra and so you will bind the Jesuits and others who believe the Personal Infallibility and by the Conclave of Cardinals for this will bind others of your Communion and by a Council of all the Prelates of your Church and this will bind you the French Church and all others that call themselves Roman Catholicks for unless this be done we are still where we were And I shall tell you that the regaining so considerable a part of the Protestants as the Church of England is out of a state of Schism and Heresie as you are pleased in your great Charity to call it is a Reason weighty enough to summon such a Council and to do what is required towards an Accommodation and till this is done all that you say else is but the sprinkling of a little Holy Water and gratis
say relating to that Vision As 1. That it is very probably believed by most learned men that SS Perpetua and Faelicitas were Montanists among whom there were many visions which the rest of the World gave no credit to but this I shall not dispute But 2. I averr that it is very disputable both from the vision it self and from the quotations in St. Austin whether Dinocrates were baptiz'd or no. I know your †Chap. 23. p. 84. Adversary says he was baptized and St. Austin would fain have it so but there is no convincing proof that he was so and the silence of the Writer of that Passion seems to imply that he was not so Now then I urge you with this Dilemma either Dinocrates was baptiz'd or not if he were not baptiz'd as it is very probable because his Father was a very violent Heathen and so in all likelihood would not suffer his Son being so young to be baptiz'd then you have nothing to do with him in Purgatory for tho you have allotted an appartment there for the unbaptiz'd Children of Christian Parents yet you allow no place there to the unbaptiz'd Children of Heathen Parents who with their Pagan Progenitors are condemn'd to Hell unless we must reckon this story with those other of St. Thecla's bringing the Soul of Falconilla out of Hell or St. Gregory's praying thence the Emperour Trajan which later story the * 〈◊〉 Munster praef ad Evang. S. Matth. Heb. p. 103 4 Jews who themselves allow of a sort of Purgatory make sport of but if he he were baptiz'd as I profess I cannot believe tho St. Austin says so then it seems very hard that a Child of seven years old when few Children are capable of understanding enough to chuse to be wicked should be sent to Purgatory for sins which he knew not of for if that be true which St. Austin says that his Father probably carryed him to the Heathen Temples as we will suppose it to be this was the Father's sin and not the Child's and so I cannot see why Dinocrates should be punisht And to confirm my conjecture that he was not baptiz'd I am apt to think that in the Vision the Water * Pass s Perp p. 15. Ed. Oxon. which Perpetua saw her Brother endeavouring to drink of but could not come at was an Emblem of the Waters of Baptism which he seem'd to endeavour after and at last Perpetua her self says * Io. p. 5. that she her self was a Catechumen when she was apprehended and that at that time she had two Brethren both Catechumens now if we reckon Dinocrates for one of those two Brethren of hers or allow him to be dead some time before as I rather conjecture I am strongly inclined to believe that while the Father was an obstinate Pagan the Sister and the other Brothers only Catechumens that this younger Son who was but seven years old when he died was not baptiz'd before he went out of the World now if he were not baptiz'd the Fathers tell you there was no hopes of Salvation for him for to omit St. Austin and the African Fathers I will only instance in two remarkable passages the one for the Western Church out of * De Dog Eccl. c. 74. Gennadius Nullum Catechumenum c. That no Catechumen tho he die in a state of good works which is more than St. Austin says of Dinocrates for he accuses him of Idolatry can attain to Eternal life unless he be a Martyr And for the Eastern Church out of St. Chrysostom †To. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ep. ad Phi. p. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mourn over those who leave the world without Baptism they deserve your sighs and lamentations they are out of the Kingdom of God among the unrighteous and the condemn'd And now if all your former Arguments will not make us Converts you tell us * Refl p. ult that if a man assent to these Articles as you have stated them he shall have admittance into your Church and probably so for we know you deal very gently with your new Converts till you have secured them but who knows how much further he must go when he is under new Oaths of Obedience to that Church who makes her unwritten Traditions which no man knows till she reveals them to be as much the Rule of Faith and Manners as the Holy Scriptures and consequently binds all her followers to an Implicit Faith to believe whatever she shall reveal And I remember that Mr. Cambden * Annal. an 1560. records a report that once there were more easie terms of Reconciliation proposed by the Pope's Nuncio viz. the allowance of the Sacrament in both kinds and the confirmation of the English Lyturgy and probably many other things so the Papal Supremacy were acknowledged but we are very well satisfied that St. Peter had no more Authority than the rest of the Apostles and that every Bishop by Divine Right is a Successor of the Apostles and consequently hath equal power in the Church of Christ that the making more Sacraments than we are sure Christ instituted is an encroachment upon his Right and that the establishment of your five additional Sacraments is such an encroachment that the Jewish Canon of the Old Testament the Jews till our blessed Saviour's time being the only True Church of God with the uncontroverted Books of the New are the only divinely inspired Oracles and a sufficient Rule of Faith and Manners without the help of the Apocrypha or of unwritten Traditions that General Councils are not infallible much less the Pope either singly or with the Colledge of Cardinals that giving the Communion in one kind is robbing the people of what our Saviour gave them a right to and that Prayers in an unknown Tongue are a contradiction to St. Paul with many other such points which it is now needless to mention for which reason the Members of the Church of England think fit to continue where they are where they enjoy all the forementioned blessings with many others which must necessarily be forfeited when they embrace the Romish Communion Thus have I curforily taken notice of your Reflections in whatever material points you have thought fit to speak to except that very weighty and most material point of the power of Deposing Princes the thorow consideration of which was the first cause of my present undertaking Now you encounter your Adversaries Golath-Argument as you seen in scorn to call it as Card. Bellarmine in the Praeface to his Answer to Barclay says that writing in defence of Princes Barclay came out like Goliah to defie all the Armies of Israel with this distinction * Refl p. 9. that in all Councils there are some Articles of Faith which all Catholicks receive and some Constitutions and Decrees relating to Discipline and Government which are not absolutely obligatory so that I perceive that in some sort
IMPRIMATUR Z. Isham R. P. D. Henrico Episc Lond. a Sacris April 6. 1686. REMARKS UPON THE REFLECTIONS Of the Author of Popery Misrepresented c. ON HIS ANSWERER Particularly as to the Deposing Doctrine In a Letter to the AUTHOR of the Reflections Together with some few Animadversions on the same Author's Vindication of his Reflections LONDON Printed for Sam. Smith at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1686. SIR IT is not any distrust of the Abilities of your former Adversary which have sufficiently made him known nor an overweening Opinion of my own undertaking that hath engaged me in this Controversie but a design to serve the Interests of Truth and to assure you that you have not yet convinc't the World that your Character of your Religion as you represent it is so just and exact or your Reasonings so cogent but there is something perhaps material and of weight to be objected to both and I shall follow the Method that * Refl p. 1. you profess to like to reason as closely as I can with all moderation and calmness without making any Reflections but such as cannot be avoided when I treat of some Subjects among which I dare undertake none shall personally concern you tho you will allow me to tell you you have not so carefully followed your own praescriptions when you impeach our †Refl p. 2. Church in general reckoning her Books of Homilies among those Books that have misrepresented Popery and in particular charge your learned and modest Adversary with the * P. 3 4 18. same crime and too liberally bestow your Characters on him charging him †Refl p. 6. with wronging you and imposing upon his Reader with * P. 16 17 18. Sophistry with understanding neither Law nor Logick and with being insincere and using tricks but probably the Answer hath made you angry and men in a passion cannot forbear hard Language I do acknowledge that it is severe dealing to pick up all the extravagant passages in private Authors and to father them on the whole Church no Church of whatever denomination being without both evil men as to their Morals and opinionative men as to their Tenets but withal I must say that it is one thing to cite Quotations from all sorts of Authors and another thing to cite Men of Eminence and Authority in your Church and such whose Station Learning and Repute were as great as ever the Bishop of Condom's or Monsieur Veron's whom yet you rely upon as you also sometimes quote other men of your Communion to confirm your Opinions whose Books also have come into the World with Licence and Priviledge and Commendations of the Authors and whose Assertions have never been condemned after they have been publisht and some of them probably Members of that very Trent-Councel which you stick to for the Articles of your Faith and in matters of fact which cannot be forreign to the Controversies between your Church and ours there is a necessity of having recourse to such Writers as I shall be often forc't to do in these Remarks And that I may consider every thing methodically that belongs to this Topick I cannot but observe your * Refl p. 13 14. Reflections on the Opinions of some Eminent men in our Communion which say you we are unwilling to have charg'd upon our Church For the first which you charge on your Antagonist That good works of justified persons are not free I must say that either I misunderstand your Adversary or you do misrepresent him for when †Ch. 6. p. 43. Ed. 3. he says That what we pretend to merit by must be our own free act for these are his words and not as you quote them citing for it the Authority of the Jesuit Coster's Enchiridion and adds That therefore the works of justified persons cannot be said to be their own free acts because the power of doing them depends upon Divine assistance and being done by the power of God's grace which could never have been done without it cannot be for that reason truly meritorious he is so far from giving an account of the Doctrine of our Church that he proves from the principles of your own that if good works be done only by the Grace of God and made acceptable only through the merits of Christ they cannot be truly said to be meritorious because not the free acts of them that do them When Mr. Thorndyke allows of prayers for the Dead though you quote no Book of his for that Assertion he does no more than in some sense our Church allows when it prays for a joyful Resurrection in her Office at Funerals and whatever the good man might add else of his own was but his private Opinion as is also his notion that the Eucharistical Sacrifice is truly the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross propitiatory and impetratory as well as the other which I take upon your credit not having the Book by me out of which you cite the Opinion however we assert that Mr. Thornayke never owned Prayers for the Dead as you do but in the sense of some of the Antients for he denied Purgatory upon which you ground your Prayers for the Dead and that our Blessed Saviour is really present in the Sacrament is the Doctrine and Belief of the Church of England and did not you limit that Real Presence to Transubstantiation there would be no difference between you and us in that point I cannot but observe your disingenuous manner of treating the Author of Jovian in charging him with a disloyal principle who hath given as many Instances of his Loyalty in the most difficult times as any man of his station and were there no other the writing of that excellent Treatise in that critical juncture is an undeniable evidence of it when by defending the Succession and the Doctrine of Non-resistance he acquired the ill will and displeasure of all the disloyal Party Why did not you nor any other of the English Roman Catholicks write then in the defence of those Doctrines against the disloyal and rebellious Doctrines of Julian The Press was open for you and perhaps there was reason for your not answering of them * Praefat. Billarm ante tractat de potestate summi Pont. adversus G. Barclay because the generality of the Writers of your Church agree with that Author in his principles of disloyalty Well but you have found out one disloyal principle in Jovian but are you sure of it It is not your saying It is a disloyal principle that makes it to be so and therefore I must desire you and those that perhaps are misled by you to read the Book from p. 139. to p. 152. out of which you have cited the passage and then you will find it to be such a disloyal principle Theod. on Rom. 13.1 as will not allow any Christian subject 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to pray for the death of a Nero
Dioclesian though he set up Inscriptions ob deletum nomen Christianum Constantius or Valens but only for a Julian whose Apostasie and Wickedness is fingular in Ecclesiastical History and the like of whom in all probability can never be expected again Nay Sir this disloyal principle will not let Christian snbjects pray for the death of a Julian though he tyranizes never so much over their bodies goods and liberties if he do not blaspheme Christ and persecute the Church of God with a diabolical spite against the evidence of Divine Miracles It leaves the Christian subjects of all Tyrants but such as are Julians indeed under the obligation of praying for them according to the Apostle's direction and the practice of the Primitive Christians which the Author of Jovian hath so much insisted upon and commended and his Prince must be a Julian indeed a Julian in all circumstances before he can be so much as tempted to pray against him for he doth not say that he would pray but that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed And it had been happy for the Christian world if the chief Pastors and Bishops and Councils and Doctors and Casuists of that which you call the Catholick Church had never taught any principle more disloyal than this Now Sir I beseech you to tell me how much disloyalty there is in this principle which secures all Infidel Heretical and Apostate Princes against the Prayers of their Christian subjects unless they be in all degrees as bad as Julian and secures even Julians themselves against all resistance and how much disloyalty there is in a man who by his principles will pray for all Tyrants but such an one as Julian was according to the Author of Jovian Sir I would to God you and your Doctors would declare as much Loyalty as this and I desire you to tell me that suppose a Roman Catholick Prince should become a Julian indeed and take up the methods of that Apostate whether you think his Roman Catholick Subjects would be tempted to pray for his destruction and if they should do so and no more do you think they would transgress any rule of Christian Loyalty Answer me these two questions sincerely and possitively and if your answer to the last be affirmative give your arguments for your Opinion and I dare engage the Author of Jovian shall submit to your reasons or answer them For I am confident he hath no fondness for his Opinion to which it is evident he was led by his great Charity for the Bishop and Church of Nazianzum And though in apologizing for them he hath asserted that he should be tempted to pray for the destruction of a Julian indeed yet he is so Loyal a Person that I believe he would overcome the temptation and only forbear praying for him as having sinned the sin unto death After which Apology you will suffer me to tell you that your Reflections will hardly be called an answer to the Doctrines and Practices of the Church of Rome because in them you have not said a word to some material points of Controversy between you and us stated in that Book out of the Trent-Council and Catechism as if either the right were on your Adversaries side which I suppose you will be loath to acknowledge or his reasonings were unworthy your second thoughts which I suppose you will not own and if you do few wise men will acquiesce in your Sentiments for you wholly praetermit reflecting upon the Chapters of the Eucharist of Indulgences of satisfaction ex condigno of keeping the Scriptures and Prayers in an unknown Tongue of communion in one kind and of adding the Apocrypha and traditions to the holy writ with some others which being some of the most material points in difference between your Church and ours will either deserve some new thoughts or you will allow us to say that that book cannot be thought an answer which in silence passes by or leaps over so many weighty things that make up so much of the Controversy You assure us * Refl p. 5. that the Council of Trent is received here and all the Catholick World over as to its definitions of Faith though it be not wholly received in some places as to its other decrees which relate only to discipline Where I shall not ask what you mean by the Catholick World for I am well assured that you mean all Christians of the Roman persuasion which is a very narrow notion of the Catholick World excluding all other Christians from being Members of the Catholick Church but those of your own Opinion so that neither the Greek Church nor the rest of the Eastern Christians are in your sense any more Catholicks than the Church of England and the rest of the Protestants though antiently any man or Church of men were called Catholick because they agreed with the whole Catholick Church in Faith but now the holy Catholick Church of Christ must lose its name if it agree not with the particular Church of Rome but I would willingly know of you whence any particular Church hath that power that it may receive a general Council as you call that of Trent in some things and not in others I thought that the highest authority of the Church on Earth had been a general Council and if so why its definitions in matters of discipline should not be received and observed by all particular Churches is to me a great question for I cannot but see that one of these two things must follow from your Opinion either that Councils and Popes are fallible for if they are deceived in one Opinion such as that of the power of the Church to depose Princes why may they not be deceived in another such as Transubstantiation or Purgatory or else that they are infallible in greater matters only and then to me it is a great wonder that they should erre in things of less moment and I never yet understood but that if general Councils could decide matters of Doctrine but that they had also as great a power in matters of discipline for if it be a lawful preface to the decrees of all Councils as your men say Visum est spiritui sancto nobis then the holy spirit is doubtless their guide in matters of discipline as well as in matters of Doctrine I am sure that the Antient Councils took upon them to decide both by their authority and all Christians thought themselves oblig'd to follow their dictates so the first general Council of the Apostles bound up all Christians from eating things strangled and Blood so the Council of Nice determin'd the precise day when Easter should be celebrated as well as the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father and so also the second general Council made Constantinople a Patriarchate as well as Rome to go no further And I find no persons disputed those constitutions though only in matters of Discipline and
that Canon and Can. 26. the words are plain quae ab eo per Dei gratiam misericordiam Jesu Christi meritum c. And if so the Controversie seems to me easily decided for if it be of grace how is it then of works where is the merit Your Answer to the Goliah Argument of your Adversary as you are pleased to call it I remit to be consider'd towards the end of these Remarks because it ought to be spoken to more largely and by it self and proceed to take notice that * Refl p. 11. you blame your Adversary for taking the sense of your Church from some expressions in your old Missals and Rituals tho I am apt to think that the Church of England will be contented to be judged by her Liturgy and Rituals in the like case but perhaps you are not disgusted at the use of your Missals but at the use of old Missals and I am persuaded that you have reason so to be because the subtilty of the modern Church hath made it self appear in your present Missals and Breviaries as well as in your Edition of the Vulgar Translation of the Bible and in other Treatises For instance in the old Roman Breviary printed at Venice An. 1482. and at Paris An. 1543. Jun. 28. lect 2. noct 2. S. Leonis the words run thus In eo Concilio damnati sunt Cyrus Sergius Honorius Pyrrhus Paulus c. in that Synod Cyrus and Sergius Honorius c were condemned but in the new Breviary the name of Honorius is left out which had it been left there would have reflected too much on the Papal Infallibility and inform'd the World that even Popes themselves have fallen into Heresie while in the same Office they take care to keep up the memory that that Pope Leo 2. fregit superbiam Ravennatum brought the Archbishop of Ravenna to acknowledge the Roman Supremacy which before that time that See did not A second Instance may be this In all the antient Missals in Cathedra S. Petri Antioch Feb. 22. as also in the old Diumale printed at Antwerp 1553. the Prayer is read in these words Deus qui B. Petro Apostolo collatis clavibus regni coelestis animas ligandi atque solvendi pontificium dedisti i. e. O God who having given thy blessed Apostle St. Peter the Keys of thy heavenly Kingdom gavest him Episcopal power of binding and loosing Souls but they have now left out the word Animas i. e. Souls for with that limitation the Pope's power was only Priestly to use the Keys in binding and loosing men's Souls but without that limitation every man is at liberty to believe that St. Peter's Keys may be imployed in temporal affairs also in binding Kings and setting up a Pontifical Monarchy to which I shall add one Instance more that whereas in the Sacramentarium of St. Gregory the Prayer for St. Leo runs thus Annue nobis Domine c. Grant O Lord that this Oblation may be advantageous to the Soul of thy Servant Leo now the words are altered into Annue c. Grant Lord that by the intercession of thy Servant Leo this Oblation may be profitable to us the first being an Instance of the Antients Prayers for the Dead for Saints as well as others the latter an endeavour to countenance Prayers to Saints by asserting their intercession And whereas to requite us for quoting your Missals * Ibid. you object to us all the expressions of Prayer Preaching and Devotion in our Church the parallel doth not hold unless you mean our authoriz'd Liturgy in whose collects we are ready to vindicate whatever is asserted Nor is it fair to say that an Atheist may make himself sport with Scripture if he may be allowed to separate an infinite number of expressions there i. e. as I understand you to make use of broken sentences for if an Atheist uses Scripture in the sense to which the coherence leads him he can never make Christianity ridiculous much less as ridiculous as Turcism and for the passages quoted out of your Missals they are quoted in the sense in which they are meant and if you deny this you may right your self by shewing the contrary Nor do you do well with the Church of England to say * Refl p. 11. she allows the Psalms in Meeter I dare be confident to averr that the Singing Psalms as they are usally called were never commanded by our Church to be used and are no part of our service as our Rubric's will inform you where there is not the lest mention of them though we acknowledge the custom was brought in through the connivance of our Governors who at that time were intent upon matters of greater moment nor do we say that the sense of the Church will help out the non-sense or ill expressions of any of those Rhymes which is a subtle insinuation but withal we say that since custom hath brought in the use no Priest of our Communion that I know of is so weak I am sure no one ought to be so but he knows how to choose out of that great number some few Psalms that are pertinently enough translated and incentive of Devotion by singing of which neither God is dishonor'd nor the Congregation engaged to any thing that is either evil or ridiculous which Apology cannot be made for any of your Missals which your Priests were obliged to use without any power left them to choose what Collects or Antiphona's c. they pleased And now you will allow me to smile when †Refl p. 12. you say that if we conclude a Papist guilty of Idolatry because he bows down kneels c. to an Image we may as well say that Abigail was guilty of constructive Idolatry when she fell on her face before David and so are Subjects when they kneel to their Prince and the Lincolns-Inn-Field Beggars when they kneel for an Alms to those who pass by For these instances do not reach the case that we are talking of for if Abigail should have kneel'd before the Picture of David or a Subject before the Picture of his Prince or a Beggar before a Gentleman's Picture and begg'd with earnestness and seeming devotion any blessing there is no sober man but would believe that they were either very mad or very foolish but if they thought them sober and in their right sense as we do believe your people at Church to be they cannot be acquitted of Idolatry if so be the honour be Religious as you acknowledge your veneration of Images is more than civil honour so that by these instances you seem to run into the errour of those * Alens Aq. Bonav c. apud Bellar. to 2. lib. 2. c 20. § 2. Opinio Schoolmen that the same honour let it be Latria hyperdulia or dulia is due to the Image that is due to the person represented and if any Law be to be judg'd of by the common practice
Clergy which is equivalent to an act of our Convocation for the agreement will not hold because the dispute is not between the English and the French Church but between the Church of England and the Roman-Catholick Church in this point now we averr that the whole Church of England damns and disowns the Doctrine of Deposing but you tell us that only a part of your Catholick Church doth so too whereas a far greater part own and defend it we assert that it is Heresie to own the Doctrine but you dare not give it that name lest you offend his Holiness Nay it is plain from experience that so far are the Pope and the great men of your Church from condemning the Deposing Doctrine that those few men among you that have been so just and stout as to assert the rights of Princes have fallen under the Church Censures of which I need quote no more instances than Widdrington of old and F. Barnes if he be yet alive and F. Welsh at this present Excommunicate for affirming it to be the Duty of Subjects to Swear Allegiance to their Prince and to defend him even against the Pope himself and all his Censures whereas we daily see the assertors of the Deposing Doctrine not only live and dye in your Communion without Censure but to be the most thriving men and the soonest preferr'd to dignities So very true is that saying of * Ostens err Suares c. 3. n. 1. p. 918. ad cali to 2. de rep Eccl. Marcus Aut. de Dominis Archbishop of Spalato that the Pope and his followers are not pleased with any thing so much as with the rendring the power of Kings vile weak and contemptible to which I will add and the exposing all who defend it And to convince you that you your self have not that venerable Opinion of the Majesty of Princes and the Duty which their Subjects owe them as you ought I cannot but observe that you not only tell us * Pap. repres p. 50. that it is a disputed point among your Doctors as if it were one of those School-points which you mention p. 72. which may be maintain'd this way or that way without any breach of Faith or injury to Religion but withal that whereas upon every other head of Doctrine or Discipline that you represent you are frequent in quotations out of holy Scripture to prove your assertions how pertinently applyed your Adversary hath consider'd upon this head of the deposing power as also when you treat of it more largely than of any other thing in your * Sect. 2. § 4. p. 3. Roman Catholick principles if that Book be yours you quote not one text against Rebellion you confess that Rebellion against a Prince is contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Nation injurious to Soveraign power destructive to peace and Government and by consequence in his Majesties Subjects impious and damnable where I shall not take notice of your limitation of the proposition to his Majesties Subjects which hath no relation at all to the question whether the Subjects of an Heretical Prince as you account him may not take up Arms against him but why do not you speak out and say it is directly impious and damnable if you will not say it is Heretical being against an express Law of God that binds you to obey even a Nero or a Dioclesian * Rom. 13.5 not only for wrath but for conscience sake that tells you that †1 Sam. 26.9 no man upon any pretence whatsoever can lift up his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless For by your way of arguing if the Fundamental Laws of a Nation may be secured by such a Rebellion and you know the pretence of all Rebels is Liberty and Property and the Government duly setled peace promoted and the Soveraign power i. e. the Monarchy not injured though a particular Monarch may be and yet your Deposing Divines say that it is no injury to an Heretical Prince to depose him but a just Execution of the Laws then a Rebellion may be lawful But upon the principles of the Church of England if all these things could be secured yet no man can be a Rebel but he must be damn'd because the Laws of God forbid Rebellion taking up Arms against a Prince or endeavouring to depose him for as long as the word of God stands firm and the above-cited texts with many others are not blotted out of our Bibles we think it directly damnable and not only by consequence as you do to take Arms against our Soveraign let his Religion be what it will So that upon the whole I cannot but ask you while you have endeavoured to prove Purgatory Invocation of Saints c. from both Scripture and Fathers how happens it that in the defence of the Rights of Princes you quote neither especially when you cannot but remember that the Assertors of the Pope's Temporal Monarchy and his power over Princes are frequent in their doughty arguments from holy Scripture such as God made two great Lights behold here are two Swords Feed my sheep rise Peter kill and eat c. and is there no place to be found in all the sacred Oracles that forbids Rebellion and requires Obedience does not that inspired Book injoyn all Christians * Mat. 22.21 to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar 's and †1 Pet. 2.13 to submit to every ordinance of Man for the Lord's sake and if you are a Priest are you not requir'd to teach others so to do * Titus 3.1 to put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers to obey Magistrates and to be ready to every good work Is there also nothing in the Fathers that looks this way doth not Tertullian say that a Prince is inferiour only to God doth not Irenaeus aver that by the same power that men are made are Princes constituted Doth not Origen tell Celsus that among the Christians he should not find any act of sedition or tumult notwithstanding all their pressures and persecutions and doth not St. Ambrose say to the Emperor we intreat thee O Prince we do not fight not to multiply quotations And before I leave this head I cannot but remark that whereas the * Part. 3. praecep 4. § 11. Trent Catechism allows that Emperors and Magistrates are called Fathers and so are included in the Commandment Honour thy Father c. which is more than you acknowledge yet they quote no place of Scripture to make this good but the History of Naaman sic Naaman à famulis pater vocabatur where his Servants call him Father which does not look like fair dealing for the Example does not reach the Doctrine unless the Fathers of that Council praevaricate Naaman being a Subject to the King of Syria whereas they might have found without much seeking that * 1 Sam. 24.11 David calls Saul my Father who was his King and in
dictum And this I write to you because you appear the Advocate of your Party while I acknowledge that I make these Proposals onely as a private Person though I doubt not but all the Prelates of the Church of England would rejoyce to see so much done towards the healing of the Breaches of Christendom Amen And here I thought to have put a period to this Essay had not your Vindication of your Reflections come to my hands upon which I cannot but bestow a few Remarks while your learned Adversary will take care of a more full Reply In which among other things you undertake to †Protest Popery c. p. 16. prove by several instances That our Church is guilty of mis-representing yours because it impeaches the Papists of Idolatry in the worshipping of Images and we acknowledge that she does so impeach you but withal we affirm that there is a great difference between what is spoken by any man or any Society of men in a Homily or Sermon and what is thetically laid down as an Article or maintain'd in disputation you your selves as well as we being often forc'd to make use of this distinction to salve many Sayings of the Fathers that they were spoken not Dogmatically but Rhetorically but we need not depend on this Answer for our Homily does not speak of the Canons of your Councils but of the received Opinions and Practices of your Church Now that 't is a current Opinion among many of your School-men That the Image ought to have the same Worship with the Prototype I have already proved out of Cardinal Bellarmine and that the Practice of the Common People in this case was very disallowable and much like the Idolatry of the Heathen as I understand the Trent-Council is the Complaint in †Sess 25. de Imag. general of those Fathers and of some other of your Writers in particular so that herein the Homily speaks but the sence of your own Authors and with Justice censures the Usages of the People of your Communion And if what your * Ibid. Council says be true That the Idolatry of the Heathens did consist in their putting their trust in their Idols he who considers how much more Worship there is paid to the same Images of the Blessed Virgin at Loretto Monferrat c. than to other her Images elsewhere which can as well put the People in mind of the Mother of God as those famous Shrines will be perswaded that the generality of your Communion put their trust also in the Image as did the Heathens in their Idols Now to vindicate your Church from Idolatry in this case though you †Protest Pop. p. 33. acknowledge That you do give Religious Honour to Images yet you say That that Honour cannot be called Idolatry unless it makes a God of that to which it is paid But does not the Second Commandment as we reckon them forbid the worshipping of the true God by an Image And do not the worst of Idolaters say That they do not worship the Image but the God who is represented by it Doth not Celsus say so much on the behalf of the Gentile Idolaters to Origen * Lib. 7. p. 373. Orig. contr Cels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Who but a perfect Fool thinks an Image made of Stone or Timber of Brass or Gold to be a God c. And for the Jews when they fell into Idolatry in the Wilderness by worshipping the Golden Calf they onely worshipt it as a representation of the true God for the Feast that was set apart for it is called †Exod. 32.5 a Feast held to Jehovah which is the incommunicable Name of the onely true God And the like might be said of the Calves in Dan and Bethel But perhaps you are of the opinion of some men of Eminence in your own Communion and whose Books have never been that I know of condemn'd who think that the Worship of the Golden Calf was not Idolatry for so Moncoeus in his Aaron Purgatus exprefly affirms as * c. 7. p. 49. Greg. de Valentia in his Apologetic for Idolatry a bold Title for a Book written by a Christian Priest argues from 1 Pet. 4.3 that because the Apostle doth forbid unlawful Idolatries abominable Idolatries as our Translation renders it that therefore there is some Idolatry that is lawful which is that of the Worship of Images But you object †Protest Pop. p. 34. that we our selves are by this Argument guilty of Idolatry by bowing to the Altar and to the Name of Jesus and by kneeling at the Sacrament Whereas I must tell you that we bow not to the Altar but towards it toward the East where the Christian Altar always used to stand and toward which part of Heaven the Primitive Christians used to direct even their private Devotions nor do we bow to the Name but at the Recital of the Name of our blessed Saviour so that we pay no Religious Worship to the Altar or to the Syllables of that Venerable Name as you confess you do to Images and when we kneel we profess we do not worship the Sacramental Elements nor the Body and Bloud of Christ hid under the Accidents of Bread and Wine but we kneel because then we pray and we worship God to whom we direct our Prayers so that these actions are not external acts of Adoration to any thing that is seen or heard but onely to God But by this way of arguing I perceive the Cause wants assistance when you borrow Arguments from our Dissenters to assault our Church with for these are their little Objections that have been so often hist off the Stage You further tell us That it is the intention of the Person who pays the Worship that makes the Worship either idolatrous or lawful And if so pray tell me if a Christian in the East Indies should go into a Pagod and bow down before one of their Images and pay it in all respects the same outward Adoration that its most bigotted Votaries offer it and at the same time intend his Worship towards the blessed Trinity does this man by virtue of his intention escape the guilt of Idolatry And I put you this Question the more willingly because some of your Jesuits have determined it in the affirmitive and acquit the votary of Idolatry and I would willingly know your Opinion for if you consult the †Let. 5. p. 61. Edit Lat. Colon. An. 1658. Provincial Letters the Author of them will tell you that the Jesuits in China and other places of the Indies taught the People that they might publickly worship the Idols of the Country Cacin choan and Keumfucum so they directed this Adoration of theirs intentionally to the Image of our blessed Saviour hid under their Cloaths and that this is no Calumny the same Author says * P. 62. That the Practice was complain'd of and censured at Rome July 9. An. 1646.
c. or that which is directed by the Revelations made in Holy Scriptures and by the unanimous Interpretations made of those Scriptures by the ancient Fathers as the Church of England expresly doth 2. That you follow the methods of the French Church which is so far from being the Catholick Church even in your sence of the word that it is but a small part of it from them you take your Principles from the Bishop of Condom and Monsieur Veron and after their Example you make your complaints of being mis-represented for so the Gallican Bishops did in their late general Assemblies held July 11. An. 1685. complain of being mis-represented and of the Calumnies Injuries and Falsities which the Reformed Churches lay to their charge desiring that King in their Petition prefixt to the Acts of that Assembly to revoke all the Edicts made in behalf of the Hugonots because permitted onely in times of disturbance and for reasons which no longer subsist which though they afterwards modifie and limit onely to the passing an Edict to forbid the calumniating their Religion yet every considering man sees what they aim at And upon this Address the King past an Edict Aug. 23. forbidding all the Reformed to preach or write any thing against the Catholick Religion either directly or indirectly and to allow them the liberty of the Press onely for printing the Confession of their Faith their Prayers and the Rules of their Discipline but no other Books written by the Reformed Divines of that Kingdom and what the effects of that and other Edicts have been every wise Observer hath seen May our blessed and holy Saviour the true and undoubted Head of the Catholick Church heal all the Breaches thereof convert all Hereticks to the knowledge of the Truth shame and bring back all Schismaticks into the Unity of his Mystical Body that we may be one Sheepfold under one Shepherd the Bishop of our Souls Amen FINIS Advertisement of BOOKS Printed for Samuel Smith at the Princes Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard THE Vanity of all Pretences for Tolleration wherein the Late Pleas for Tolleration are fully answered and the Popular Arguments drawn from the Practice of the United Netherlands are stated at large and shewn to be weak fallacious and insufficient Quarto The Book of Bertram or Ratramnus Priest and Monk of Corbey concerning the Body and Bloud of the Lord in Latine With a New English Translation more exact than the former Also an Historical Dissertation concerning the Author and this Work wherein both are vindicated from the Exceptions of the Writers of the Church of Rome Protestancy proved Safer than Popery by a late Convert to the Church of England Miscellanea in quibus Continentur praemonitio ad Lectorem de infantum Communione apud Graecos Defensio Libri de Graecae Eccles statu contra Object Authoris Hist Criticae super fide Ritibus orientalium Brevis succincta Narratio de Vita studiis Gestis Martyrio D. Cyrilli Lucarii Patriarchae Constantinopolitani Commentatio de Hymnis matutino Vespertino Graecorum Exercitatio Theologica de Causis remediisque dissidiorum quae orbem Christianum hodie affligunt Authore Thoma Smith Becles Augl Presbyt 1686. Octavo History of the Original and Progress of Ecclesiastical Revenues By the Learned P. Simon Octavo Enquiry after Happiness by the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo The Duty of Servants containing 1. How Parents ought to breed up their Children that they may be fit to be employed and trusted 2. How Servants may wisely chuse a Service 3. How they are to behave themselves in it in discharging their Duty towards God their Master and themselves with Prayers suited to each Duty To which is added a Discourse of the Sacrament intended chiefly for Servants By the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo Miracles Works above and contrary to Nature or an Answer to a late Translation out of Spinosa's Tractatus Theolog. Politicus Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan c. Quarto A Sermon about Frequent Communion By Dr. Tho. Smith Quarto