Imprimatur G. Iane R. P. D. Henr. Episc. Lond. Ã sac domesticis June 3. 1676. A DEFENCE OF THE DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME In ANSWER to a BOOK Entituled Catholicks no Idolaters By ED. STILLINGFLEET D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty The two First Parts London Printed by Robert White for Henry Mortlock at the Sign of the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-yard and at the White-Hart in Westminster-Hall 1676. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON One of the Lords of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council My Lord I Have heard that in some famous Prophetick Pictures pretending to represent the Fate of England the chief thing observable in several of them was a Mole a creature blind and busie smooth and deceitful continually working under Ground but now and then to be discerned by the disturbance it makes in the Surface of the earth which is so natural a description of a restless party among us that we need no Iudge of Controversies to interpret the meaning of it Our Forefathers had sufficient Testimony of their working under Ground but in our Age they act more visibly and with that indefatigable industry that they threaten without great care to prevent them the undermining of our Church and the Ruine of our established Religion Which since they cannot hope so easily to compass alone they endeavour to draw in to their Assistance all such discontented parties who are so weak if any can be so to be prevailed on to be instruments to serve them in pulling down a Church which can never fall but they must be stifled in its Ruins One would think it were hardly possible for any to run into a snare which lies so open to their view or to flatter themselves with the vain hopes of escaping better than the Church they design to destroy But such is the admirable Wisdom of Divine Providence to order things so above all humane Discretion that when the Sins of a Nation have provoked God to forsake it he suffers those to concurr in the most pernicious Counsels for enslaving Conscience who pretend to the greatest zeal for the Liberty of it So that our Church of England in its present condition seems to stand as the Church of Corinth did of old between two unquiet and boisterous Seas and there are some very busie in cutting through the Isthmus between them to let in both at once upon it supposing that no strength will be able to withstand the force of so terrible an inundation It is a consideration that might dishearten those who are engaged in the Defence of our Religion against the common Adversaries to see that they promise themselves as much from the folly of some of their most seeming Enemies as from the interest and Power of their Friends thus like S. Paul in Macedonia we are troubled on every side without are fightings and within are fears If men did but once understand the things which belong to our Peace we might yet hope to weather out the storms that threaten us and to live as the Church hath frequently done in a tossing condition with waves beating on every side But if through Weakness or Wilfulness those things should be hid from our eyes the prospect of our future condition is much more dreadful and amazing than the present can be If it were reasonable to hope that all men would lay aside prejudice and passion and have greater regard to the Common Good than to the interests of their several parties they could not but see where our main strength lies by what our enemies are most concerned to destroy And that no men of common understanding would make use of disunited Parties to destroy one Great Body unless they were sure to master them when they had done with them And therefore the best way for their own security were to unite themselves with the Church of England That were a Blessing too great for such a People to expect whose sins have made our Breaches so wide that we have too great reason to fear the common enemy may enter through them if there be not some way found out to repair those Breaches and to build up the places which are broken down For my own part I cannot see how those who could have joyned in Communion with the Christian Church in the time of Theodosius the Great can justly refuse to do it in ours For that is the Age of the Church which our Church of England since the Reformation comes the nearest to Idolatry being then suppressed by the Imperial Edicts the Churches settled by Law under the Government of Bishops Publick Liturgies appointed Antiquity Reverenced Schism discountenanced Learning encouraged and some few Ceremonies used but without any of those corrupt mixtures which afterwards prevailed in the Roman Church And whatever men of ill minds may suggest to the disparagement of those times it is really an Honour to our Church to suffer together with that Age when the Christian Church began to be firmly settled by the Countenance of the Civil Power and did enjoy its Primitive Purity without the Poverty and Hardships it endured before And the Bishops of that time were men of that exemplary Piety of those great Abilities of that excellent Conduct and Magnanimity as set them above the contempt or reproach of any but Infidels and Apostates For then lived the Gregories the Basils the Chrysostoms in the Eastern Church the Ambroses and Augustins in the Western and they who can suspect these to have been Enemies to the Power of Godliness did never understand what it meant It were no doubt the most desirable thing in our State and Condition to see the Piety the Zeal the Courage the Wisdom of those holy Bishops revived among us in such an Age which needs the conjunction of all these together For such is the insolency and number of the open contemners of our Church and Religion such is the activity of those who oppose it and the subtilty of those who undermine it as requires all the Devotion and Abilities of those great Persons to defend it And I hope that Divine Spirit which inflamed and acted them hath not forsaken that Sacred Order among us but that it will daily raise up more who shall be able to convince Dissenters that there may be true and hearty zeal for Religion among our Prelates and those of the Church of Rome that Good Works are most agreeable to the Principles of the Reformation Nay even in this Age as bad as it is there may be as great Instances produced of real Charity and of Works of Publick and pious uses as when men thought to get Souls out of Purgatory or themselves into Heaven by what they did And if it were possible exactly to compare all Acts of this nature which have been done ever since the Reformation with what there was done of the same kind for a much longer time immediately before
it if the Protestant Charity should seem to fall short in outward Pomp and Magnificence it would be found much more to exceed it in number and usefulness Which makes me so much the more wonder to hear and see the ill effects of the Reformation in this kind so much insisted on of late to disprove the Goodness of it If some Great men had sinister ends in it when was there any great Action of that nature wherein some Persons did not aim at their own advantage by it Who can excuse all the Courtiers in the time of Constantine or all the Actions of that Great Emperour himself Must Christianity therefore be thought the worse because it did prevail in his time and very much by his means And there were some partial Historians in those dayes that impute the demolishing of Heathen Temples and the suppressing of Idolatry to the Rapine and Sacriledge of the Times For even those Heathen Temples were richly endowed and it is not to be supposed that when such a Tree was shaking there would be no scrambling for the Fruit of it However we are not concerned to justifie the Actions or Designs of any particular Persons how Great soever but that which we plead for is that the Reformation it self was a just pious prudent and necessary thing and had both sufficient Authority to warrant it and sufficient Reason to justifie it We read in the Spanish History a remarkable Precedent which vindicates the proceeding of our Reformation in England The Gotthick Nation had been infected with Arianism two hundred and thirteen years when by the means of Leander Bishop of Sevil the King Reccaredus being duly informed in the Orthodox Faith called a Council at Toledo wherein Arianism was renounced by the declaration and subscription of the King himself being present in Council and afterwards by the Bishops who joyned with him and the Great men which being done the Council proceeded to make new Canons and Constitutions which the King confirmed by his Edict declaring that if any Bishop Priest or Deacon refused to observe them he was sentenced by the Council to excommunication if any of the higher rank of the Laity the penalty was paying half their estates to the Exchequer if others confiscation and banishment All which is extant in the Records of that Council The Arian Bishops as Mariana relates such as Athalocus and Sunna with others having the old Queen Goswinda and several of the Nobility to joyn with them made all the disturbance they could to hinder the Reformation But God not only carried it through but wonderfully preserved the Life of the King notwithstanding many conspiracies against him after whose death the Arian faction was very busie and made several Attempts by Treason and Rebellion to be restored again and they once thought themselves sure when they had gotten Wittericus of their party to the Throne but his short Reign put an end to all their Hopes I find some of the latter Spanish Historians much troubled to see all done in this Reformation by the King and the Bishops and Great men without the least mention of the Popes Authority Lucas Tudensis therefore saith that Leander was the Popes Legat but Mariana confesses that the very Acts of the Council contradict it He would have it believed that they sent Legats to the Pope afterwards to have the Council confirmed by him but he acknowledgeth that nothing appears in History to that purpose and if any such thing had been it would not have been omitted in the Epistles of Gregory who writ to Leander a Letter of congratulation for the conversion of Reccaredus But then National Churches were supposed to have Power enough to Reform themselves provided that they proceeded according to the Decrees of the Four General Councils And this is that we maintain in behalf of the Church of England that it receives all the Creeds which were then received and hath reformed those Abuses only which have crept into the Church since that Time This My Lord is the Cause which by Command of my Superiours I was first engaged to defend among whom Your Lordships Predecessour whose constant Friendship and Kindness I must never forget was one of the Chief Since that time I have had but little respite from these not so pleasing to me as sometimes necessary Polemical Exercises and notwithstanding all the Rage and Malice of the Adversaries of our Church against me I sit down with that contentment that I have defended a Righteous Cause and with an honest Mind and therefore I little regard their bitterest Censures and Reproaches In the midst of such a Croud of Adversaries it was no unpleasant entertainment to me to see the various methods with which they have attacked me some with piteous moans and outcries others grinning and only shewing their teeth others ranting and Hectoring others scolding and reviling but I must needs say the Adversary I now answer hath shewed more art and cunning than all the rest put together and hath said as much in Defence of their Cause as Wit and Subtilty could invent I wish I could speak as freely of his Fair dealing and Ingenuity Him therefore I reserved to be answered by himself after I had shaken off the lesser and more barking Creatures What I have now done I humbly present to Your Lordships hands and I am very glad of this opportunity to declare what satisfaction the Members of Your own Church and the Clergy of this great City have to see a Person of so Noble Birth so much Temper and Prudence so firm an Assertor of the Protestant Religion and Church of England appointed by his Majesty to have the Conduct and Government of them That God Almighty would assist and direct Your Lordship in those things which tend to the Peace and Welfare of this Church is the hearty Prayer of My Lord Your Lordships most dutiful and obedient Servant ED. STILLINGFLEET May 30. 1676. TO THE READER IT hath been long expected that I should have published an Answer to T. G. as the most considerable Adversary that appeared against me but it is very well known that before his Book came out I had undertaken the Answer of several others which when I had set forth a Person of Honour who had been pleased to defend me against one of my keenest Antagonists was assaulted by him whom I was in the first place obliged in gratitude to ease of any farther trouble Since that time I have applyed my self to the consideration of T. G.'s Book as much as health and other business would permit And finding such confusion in most Discourses about Idolatry and that till the Nature of it were fully and clearly Stated men would still dispute in the dark about these matters in my last Summers retirement I set my self to the strict examination of it by searching with my utmost diligence into the Idolatries practised in all parts of the world by the help of the best Authors I could
Politian Patriarch of Alexandria and Theodoret of Antioch and Elias of Ierusalem sending these for their Legats to this Council I had thought it had been only the Popes Prerogative to make titular Patriarchs and he gravely magnifies the zeal and courage both of the Patriarchs and Legats for venturing so much in such a time of Persecution and then falls into a mighty Encomium of the two Legats that Tarasius sent for venturing through a thousand deaths to get to the Patriarchs when God knows they never came near them But which is far more to be wondred at Pope Adrian in his Answer to Charles the Great about the Nicene Synod had the face to say That the Synodical Epistle of the three Patriarchs of Cosmus of Alexandria and of Theodore of Antioch it seems Elias is turned to Theodore again and Theodore of Ierusalem was read and approved in this Council of Nice than which with his Holiness's leave there never was a more notorious falshood unless it were that of Tarasius who upon the approbation of these Letters of the Monks cry'd out That the East and the West the North and the South were all agreed and the whole Council followed this with an acclamation of Glory be to God that hath united us when the Eastern Patriarchs knew nothing of the Council the Western Bishops opposed it as soon as ever they knew it And was not this a very hopeful General Council having as T. G. saith The Popes Legats for Presidents and the Vicars of the Oriental Patriarchal Sees assisting in it 2. That it was not received for a General Council by the Church For even in the Greek Church it self Theophanes only saith That the Emperour called together all the Bishops within his own Dominions which is said likewise by Landulphus Sagax only Theophanes would have it believed that the Oriental Patriarchs sent their Legats which was very false as not only appears from the very Acts of the Council wherein the Monks Letter is inserted but because this Council was not received many years after in those Patriarchal Sees which is evident from Photius his Encyclical Epistle to the Patriarch of Alexandria and others not long since published in Greek from a Ms. brought out of the East wherein Photius expostulates the case why the Nicene Council was not received among them as the six General Councils were In that Copy which is extant in Baronius translated by Metius and with great diligence compared with two Mss. whereof one was a very ancient one it is said expresly That it was reported among them that none of the Churches under the Apostolical See of Alexandria did own the Nicene Synod for a General Council which in B. Montagues Copy is mitigated into some but by the tenour of his Discourse it appears it was not published in their Churches nor received among them as a General Council and he useth many arguments to perswade them to it among the rest he saith That Thomas was present in it from his See and others with him but he doth not say he came as Legate And he hath found out Companions for him too which is more than the Nicene Council discovered and yet he acknowledges that by reason of the persecution of the Saracens the Acts of that Council never came to them which would be very strange if the Patriarch of Alexandria sent a Legate thither Baronius ingenuously confesses that this Nicene Council was not received as an Occumenical Council in any of the Eastern Patriarchates excepting only that of Constantinople and he is very hard put to it to prove that it was owned as such even at Rome it self because Nicholaus 1. in a Council at Rome in the cause of Photius reckons up but six General Councils which Photius upbraids him with and it is but a pitiful pretence which Baronius hath for it viz. that they had only a bad Translation of it such a one as it was it was of Hadrians procuring as Anastasius saith If they had received it as a General Council where were the Authentick Acts of it or if they did not understand Greek could they not have procured a better Latine Translation before the time of Anastasius But the plain Truth was although Pope Hadrian joined with it and would not allow Tarasius his being Patriarch till he undertook to get the worship of Images confirmed yet the Nicene Council was so very ill received in the Western Church that the following Popes were ashamed to call it an Oecumenical Council as Binius confesses in the very words of Baronius according to his custom And long after their times it was so little known or esteemed in the Western parts that Aquinas and the ancient Schoolmen never mention it in the matter of Images but determine expresly against it Which either shews it was not known or had not any value put upon it For if Baronius his reason hold good as soon as Anastasius had finished his Translation this Council would have been as much known here as any other and so much the more because so many Schoolmen were concerned to justifie the worship of Images and they were so much to seek for arguments to defend it that they would have leaped for joy to have had a Decree of an allowed General Council on their side or if they had found it against them they would some way or other have answered it But the greatest Testimony against it is the Council of Francford which expresly condemned it and as Sirmondus confesses Did not look upon it as an Oecumenial Council because none but Greeks met in it and other Churches were not asked their opinion nay he saith that Pope Hadrian himself did not give it the title of a General Council To this T. G. answers That what weight soever that Exception carried at that time yet it is certain now it hath no force at all since the Council it self hath for many hundreds of years been accepted as a true and lawful General Council and its doctrine as Catholick by all the Provinces of Christendom and the contrary to it condemned for Heresie This latter is evidently false as I have shewed before and there is no reason for the other for by the confession of their own Writers the Copies of this Nicene Council lay buried in these Western parts for many Ages which is the reason they give why the Schoolmen take no notice of it and in the former Century the Copies of it were first published from some Mss. that were very little known The account whereof was that this Council meeting with so brisk an opposition from the Council of Francford and afterwards from the Gallican Bishops and being rejected here in England by the consent of our Historians the very name of it was almost quite forgotten thence it never was once cited either by Ionas Aurelianensis or Walafridus Strabo as Spalatensis observes when they had the