of this Argument that since the prevalency of this praying to Saints in the Church of Rome your publick rituals have had a notable change Those very Saints which in your ancient Missals you pray'd for being now a la Mode pray'd to Thus upon IV. Kalends of July in the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I. Sacrament Greg. p. 112. above 600 years after Christ we find this Prayer made in behalf of S. Leo one of your Popes Grant O Lord that this Oblation may be profitable to the Soul of thy Servant Leo. But in the present Roman Missal the Collect is changed Missale Rom. pag. 6 12. and the Address made by the Intercession of the Saint now that was formerly made by way of Intercession for Him. Grant to us O Lord that by the Intercession of Blessed Leo this Offering may be profitable to US And of this change Decret lib. 3. tit 41. p. 1373 1373. Pope Innocent the 3d. gives this honest account Viz. That the Authority of Holy Scripture says that he ' injures a Martyr that prays for a Martyr wherein yet his Infallibility mislead him it being S. Austin and not the Scripture that said so ' and they do not want our Prayers but we theirs Which the Gloss thus more fully expresses It was changed viz. this prayer for Pope Leo because anciently they pray'd FOR Him but now TO Him. And from whence therefore we may warrantably infer that in those first Ages praying TO Saints was not establish'd seeing it was then the general Custom to pray FOR them 112. The truth is the whole face of the Ancient Church seems clearly opposite to the present practise Some doubted whether the holy Saints departed do at all concern themselves for us or conduce any thing to our Salvation So Origen And these to be sure never prayed to them Others made open opposition to such service So the Council of Laodicea S. Epiphanius Vigilantius and others before mention'd Now you Canonize Saints and esteem it necessary so to do to prevent mens praying to those in Heaven who are it may be at this time tormenting in Hell. But in those first Ages we find none of these Apotheoses De beatit SS lib. 1. C. 8. and Bellarmine himself could not find out any instance of any Saint that was Canonized before the VIIIth Century If we go into your Churches we find them filled with Altars and Chappels Images and Reliques of the Saints Candles are lighted up before them Incense is burned to their Honour But in those Primitive Ages not the least shadow is to be met with of any such Superstitions Your Books of Devotion are now filled with little else than advises how to pray to the Blessed Virgin to list your selves into her service to vow your selves to her Worship her Psalter and Rosary and Salutation is in every part of your performances Even the Catechism of the Council of Trent it self the most Cautious Book that has been set forth for some Ages in your Church having taught you first how to pray to God fails not to instruct you that you must in the next place have recourse to the Saints and make Prayers to them How comes it to pass if this were the primitive practise too that none of those Holy Fathers in any of their practical discourses have ever treated of these things Nay on the contrary they every where thunder in our Ears that Protestant Heretical Maxim that we must pray to GOD ONLY and that we ought not to address our selves to any other 123. In all your Sermons you call upon the Blessed Virgin for assistance In the Ends of your Books her Name seldom fails of standing in the same return of praise in which God and our Saviour are Glorified Your publick service and private prayers are all over-run with this superstition But is there any thing of this in the Primitive Rituals Look I beseech you into the account that has been given us of the publick service of the Ancient Church by Justin Martyr Tertullian nay by the Clementine Constitutions themselves Consult the Relation which Pliny made to the Emperour Trajan of their Manners Try those famous Liturgies of the Church within the first 100 years Reply p. 19. which no body has the happiness to be acquainted with but your self see if you can pick us up but one instance but some shadow of an instance to flourish with on this occasion 124. What are the Lives of your Saints but continued Histories of their Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints and the favours which upon that account they received from them But in the ancient Compilers of such kind of Discourses we find only dry accounts of their Piety towards God of their Zeal and Constancy in the Faith of their patience in suffering any thing rather than submit to such superstitious practises as these which the Heathens indeed would have drawn them to but which the Church utterly abhorred But for their knight errantry in Honour of the Blessed Virgin for watching whole Nights before her Images or in her Chappels for turning Vagabonds in order to the visiting her Chamber at Loretto or fetching a Feather from Compostella of this New Method of Piety there are not the least traces 125. I might run out these remarks into almost infinite Examples were they not things as well known as your contrary superstition is notorious But I shall reserve these and some other Observations of the like kind till you think fit to call me to account for them In the mean time I conclude from this short specimen I have here given that certainly the face of the Church must be very much changed as to these things Or otherwise that so great a difference could not possibly be found in the Lives the Writings the Actions the Customs the Opinions the Expressions Prayers Practises of those holy Fathers from what we see and lament in your Church at this day I go on thirdly to shew III. The Unreasonableness of this Service 126. And for that I shall offer only this one plain Argument If the Saints cannot ordinarily hear your prayers nor are able to attend distinctly to those Addresses that are made to them If those whom you Canonize are not indeed such as you suppose but many at this day tormented in Hell upon whom you call for assistance in Heaven If some of those to whom you pray never had any being but either in the Heralds Office or in the fruitful Womb of a Legendaries Brain Then it cannot be doubted but that to pray to the Saints must be the most unreasonable Devotion in the World you speak to the Wind and call upon them to as little purpose as if you should here in England make an Address to a Man in China or Tartary and you might as well have continued the Deities as you do the practise of the ancient Heathens in this service It being altogether as wise a Devotion to pray
Clergy in their Synod at Paris and by almost all the rest of the Bishops of the Western Church against your pretended General Council of Nice wherein this Doctrine was first establish'd The Definitions of this Council being sent to the Emperour out of the East he transmitted a Copy of them into England Hereupon Alcuinus who had formerly been his School-master wrote an Answer to him in the Name of the Clergy of England to declare their dislike of this Doctrine and the account of which our ancient Histories give us in these words In the Year from the Incarnation of our Lord 792 Charles King of France sent to Britain a Synode Booke which was directed unto him from Constantinople Hoveden Annal ad Ann. 792. Simeon Dunelm Hist p. 111. Mat. West ad An. 793. Spelm. Conc. Tom. 1. p. 306. in the which Book alas many things unconvenient and contrarye to the true Fayth were found in especial that it was establyshed with a whole consent almost of all the Learned of the East no less than of three hundredth Bishops or more that Men ought to worship Images the whiche the Churche of God DOTH VTTERLYE ABHORRE Against the whiche Alcuine wrote an Epistle wonderouslye proved by the Authoritye of Holy Scripture and brought that Epistle with the same Booke and Names of our Byshops and Princes to the King of France And thus neither was this Doctrine nor Practice propagated down from Austin to King Henry the Eighth but on the contrary unknown to Austin and rejected as you see by the Church of England almost 200 Years after his first Conversion of it 35. Ibid. And this may suffice to shew both your Skill in Church-History and the little pretence you have for that vain and most false Assertion that your Religion was taught and practised by S. Austin and propagated down even to King Henry the Eighth 's time whereas indeed it is made up of such Corruptions as crept into it long after his Decease Your next business is to rail at King Henry the Eighth which you do very heartily See Thuanus tho let me tell you that better Men than you are even of your own Commuion and who were much more acquainted with the Affairs of those Times speak better things of him And had he been as bad as you are able to represent him yet I could send you to some of the Heads of your Church who have as far excell'd him in Wickedness as ever any of your Canonists have pretended they did in Authority But the Merits of Princes as well as ordinary Persons are measured by some Men not according to their real worth but as they have served their Interests or opposed the Usurpations And tho King Henry the Eighth be now such a Monster yet had he not thrown off the Pope's Supremacy you would have made no difficulty to have forgiven him all his other Sins whilst he lived and would have found out somewhat to justify his Memory now he is dead We know how one of the best Popes of this last thousand Years called Heaven and Earth to celebrate the Praises of a Traytor that had murder'd his Master and possess'd himself of his Empire And Cromwell himself tho a Usurper and Heretick yet wanted not his Panegyrists among those pretenders to Loyalty who now cannot afford a good word to the Honour of a Prince from whose Royal Line their present Sovereign at this day derives his Right to the Crown he wears 36. But however were the Vices of that Prince otherwise never so detestable yet I shall leave it to the World to judg who proceeded with the most Care and Sincerity in the Point you insist upon of his Divorce with Q. Catherine the King who consulted almost all the Learned Men as well as the most famous Vniversities of Europe and then acted according to their Determination Or the Pope who by his notorious jugling with him in the whole process of that Affair shew'd that he resolved to decide it not by any Laws of God or the Church but meerly as his greater Interests with the Emperor or the King should move him to do 37. Ibid. The next step you make is from King Henry to his Son King Edward the Sixth And here you tell us Reply p. 8. That as Schism is commonly follow'd with Heresy so now the Protector who was tainted with Zuinglianism a Reform from Luther endeavour'd to set it up here in England In which you again discover your Zeal against us but not according to Vnderstanding There is hardly any one that knows any thing of the beginning of this Reformation but will be able to tell you that the chief Instrument of it was one whom you have not once mentioned Arch-bishop Cranmer I will not deny but that the Protector concur'd with him in his design but whether he was Zuinglian or what else neither you nor I can tell Dr. Heylin See your Hist Coll. p. 103. who on this occasion is usually your Oracle seems rather to think he was a Lutheran tho easie to be moulded into any form But this I know that had you been so well vers'd in these things Hosp Hist Sacram par 2. p. 33. Lampadius par 3. p. 439. Scultetus Annal. ad An. 1616. as one who pretends to write Historical Remarks ought to be you would have spared that idle Reflection of Zuinglius's being a Reform from Luther it being evident to those who understand his History that neither himself nor the Cantons in which he preach'd were ever Lutherans But on the contrary whereas Luther appear'd but in the Year 1517 Zuinglius began to preach against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome some Years before when the very Name of Luther was not yet heard of And had several Conferences with Cardinal Matthews then in Switzerland to this purpose before ever the other appear'd in publick against them So unfortunate a thing is it for Men to pretend to be witty upon others without considering their own blind side But you go on 38. Ad pag. 9. Reply And from that time the Catholick Doctrine which had been taught by our first Apostles and propagated till then began to be rejected and accused as Erroneons Superstitious and Idolatrous and they who profess'd it persecuted Answ This is still of the same kind as false as it is malicious How false it is that the Doctrine you now profess was either planted here by our first Apostles or propagated till this time in the Church of England I have already shewn And for the Persecution you speak of methinks you should have been asham'd to mention that word being to name Q. Mary's Reign in the very next Line But what at last did this Persecution amount to Were any Roman Catholicks banish'd or put to death for their Religion Were the Laws turn'd against them or any Dragoons sent to convert them No Bonner and Fisher and two others Heath Bishop of Worcester and Day Bishop of Chichester
any comfort say that God will acquit you And 4. for those whom by this Argument you endeavour to draw away from us That we confess that Men in your Church may be saved but that you utterly deny that they can be in Ours and therefore it is best for them to be on Yours that is the safer Side If they do indeed use all possible means to be satisfied in the Points in debate betwixt us if they indifferently apply themselves to the examination of them and after a diligent trial remain at last convinced in their Consciences that yours is the best and purest Church we shall then be encouraged to hope well of them as we do of others of your Communion notwithstanding such a change But now should Interest or Prejudice or any Humane Motives chance to have interposed to byass their Judgments if they chuse your Religion without this diligent and impartial Examination and suffer themselves without Reason to be seduced by you We must freely profess our Charity in this Assertion is not meant for them nor do we think your Church in this Case any way of Salvation at all to such Converts much less a safer than that of the Church of England In short the Sum of this Matter is We hope honest Men may be saved in your Communion but we are sure they shall be in Ours Whether God will condemn you for professing Errors that you do not know to be such we cannot tell we believe he will not Sure we are he would damn us should we who are convinced of your Corruptions be seduced by any base Motives to go over to you And this is enough for us to know The Other is your Concern and do you look to it But you go on and tell us 49. Ibid. Reply That the Aversion which the People had imbibed from so long continu'd Slanders could not be removed and the arising Factions in the State blew up the Coals afresh and pretended this Moderation was nothing but an inclination to Popery which so frighted the Mobile that they were ready to join with any Party that pretended to suppress such a Monster as they thought it to be From hence came Rebellions and the horrid Murder of King Charles the First 50. Answ That the People had an Aversion to Popery then I can easily believe from what I have the satisfaction to find in them at this day But that this Aversion sprung from any Slanders that had been laid upon you heretofore I no more believe than I do that it proceeds from our Misrepresenting your Doctrine now No Sir believe me there is enough in Popery to make an honest Man hate it without raising any Calumnies against it to render it the more odious and I do not find since your Endeavours to vindicate your selves against us that it begins to be at all more liked than it was before 51. For what you mention of the Original of the Civil Wars in King Charles the First 's Reign I readily grant that the fears of Popery contributed much to blow up the People into Rebellion But I am perswaded we must look somewhat farther if we mean to rise up to the true Authors of them Shall I tell you freely what I think I do believe there was more at the bottom of those Civil Wars than either the People did then believe or it may be the wisest Men are at this day able sufficiently to dive into But yet thus much we do all know 1st That the King himself in the very first breaking out of them observed that the Fanaticks proceeded upon Popish Principles against him See the King 's large Declar. about the Scotch Troubles p. 3 4. Their Maxims says he are the same with the Jesuits their Preachers Sermons have been deliver'd in the very Phrase and Stile of Becanus Scioppius and Eudaemon Johannes Their poor Arguments which they have deliver'd in their Seditious Pamphlets printed or written are taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmine and Suarez and the means which they have used to induce a Credit of their Conclusions with their Proselytes See his Majesty's Declarat after the Battel at Edg-Hill Kings Works part 2. pag. 213. are purely and meerly Jesuitical Fables false Reports false Prophesies pretended Inspirations and Divinations of the weaker Sex As if now Herod and Pilate were once again reconciled for the ruin of Christ and of his true Religion and Worship 2. That in the Year 1640 there was discover'd to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Design in which the Pope Cardinal Richlieu many of the English Papists but especially the Jesuits were concerned in stirring up those Divisions that had just before broke out in Scotland for the Ruine of the King and of the Arch Bishop This may be seen at large in the Histories of those Times Vol. 3. p. 13 10 c. and the very Papers themselves may be found in Mr. Rushworth's Collections 3. That Sir William Boswell his Majesty's Resident at that Time at the Hague and to whom this Discovery was first made See in the Life of A. B. Usher Append p. 27. Letter 17. did find out that the Romish Clergy gull'd the misled party of our English Nation under a Puritanical Dress That they had received Indulgences from the See of Rome and Council of Cardinals to educate their Scholars in Principles and Tenets contrary to the Episcopacy of the Church of England That within the compass of two Years above sixty of the Romish Clergy were gone out of France to preach up the Scotch Covenant and to pull down the English Episcopacy as being the chief support of the Imperial Crown of our Nation 4. That Arch-bishop Bramhal being in France some time after the King's Death did there learn how all these things were managed See Ep Usher's Life 293. Letter p. 611. That in the Year 1646 above an hundred Romish Clergy were sent over into England who were most of them Souldiers in the Parliament Army and were daily to correspond with the Romanists in the King's Army That in the Year 1647. they had a Consult with one another wherein they discoursed about the Death of the King and England's being a Commonwealth that hereupon the Romish Orders wrote to their several Convents but especially to the Sorbonists to know whether it might be lawful to make away the King and the Prince In short that the Sorbonists return'd That it was lawful for Roman Catholicks to work Changes in Governments for the Mother-Churches Advancement and chiefly in an Heretical Kingdom and so lawfully make away the King. 5. * Salmonet Hist des troubles d'Angleterre liv 3. p. 165. That after the Engagement at Edge-Hill several Romish Priests were found among the slain of the Parliament Army This Father Salmonet declares in his History of those Civil Wars printed in France with the allowance of the King and adds that the Parliament had two Companies of Walloons besides others of that Religion in
to a Jupiter or an Apollo that never lived in the World as to a St. George or a St. Christopher that never had any more being in it than they And yet were we now to inquire into these Circumstances without a full knowledg of which this Invocation can never be a reasonable service what uncertain accounts should we receive from you For In his suppress'd Edition Expos of Mr. de Meaux Sect. IV. p. 7. 127. First As to the main foundation of all Whether the Saints hear your prayers In what doubt is your Bishop of Meaux still in his Exposition and you know he was once in a great deall more All he has to say is that you teach That your prayers to the Saints are very profitable Whether it be that they know them by the Ministry and Communication of the Angels or whether it be that God himself makes known to them our desires by a particular Revelation or whether it be that he discovers the secret to them in his Divine Essence in which all truth is Comprised If we enquire of your more Ancient Authors we shall find all full of Uncertainty Lombard sent lib. IV. dist 45. Scotus ibid. Qu. 4. Gabr. Biel. in Can. Miss l. 31. Lombard thought it was not incredible to suppose that the Saints might know the prayers that were addressed to them Scotus went a little farther and judged it to be probable that God revealed these things to them And so did Gabriel Biel. Those who pretend to more certainty yet are able to give but very little reason why * Bellarm. de Eccles Triumph l. 1. cap. 20. unless you will take this for a reason that their Church generally belives so and that otherwise it would be vain and absur'd to pray to them In short how the Saints hear your prayers you do not pretend to know and I desire you to give Me but one rational Argument to convince me that by whatever means it is they do ordinarily and constantly and certainly and particularly understand the Addresses that you make to them For to deal freely with you I never yet met with any thing that but inclined me to believe this but much to the contrary 128. Secondly Concerning the Canonization of your Saints may I beg leave to ask you Are you sure that all those whom your Church has placed in Heaven are truly there if you are not I am sure you do very unreasonably to pray to them Now this I the rather desire to be satisfied in because here again I find your Authors very much unresolved what to say Bellarm. l. 1. de Beat. SS e. 8. 9. Vasquez l 1. de Ador. disp V. c. 3. First It is but the common Opinion no matter of Faith that the power of Canonizing Saints belongs to the Pope and therefore it cannot be without all doubt whether those whom he Canonizes are infallibly Saints or no. Secondly The Jesuit Vasquez tells us there are Catholicks He means those of your Communion who do not think it without doubt that all whom your Church has Canonized are indeed Saints Cajetane libr. de Indulg c. 8. Canus loc Theol. lib. 5. c. 5. Gerson de 4. dom cons 2. c. de Exam. doctr cons 1. See Bishop Taylours Polem disc pag. 333. And he mentions no less a man than Cardinal Cajetane for one And that Cardinal in the book to which Vasquez refers alledges the great Doctour of your Schools S. Thomas for another To these I will add Melchior Canus Antoninus and Gerson who at most esteem it but piously credible not absolutely certain But Augustinus Triumphus goes farther and doubts not freely to declare that all who are Canonized by the Pope cannot be in Heaven And Prateolus tells us that Herman the Author of the Heresie of the Fratricelli was for twenty years together after his death honour'd as a Saint and then his body was taken up and burnt for a Heretick And now if you are not yet sensible of the danger you run by this means whilst you not only call upon a damned soul for aid and assistance but as in some of your prayers you do pray unto God so to give you Grace on Earth as he has glorified them in Heaven De SS beat l. 1. c. 9. Sect. secundo I shall leave it to your own Cardinal Bellarmine to inform you of it Thirdly It is confessed by those of your own Church that among your Canonized Saints some there have been whose Lives were not to be commended Others whose Opinions have been condemned as Heretical and for my part when I consider the Character of some to whom you pray such as Thomas a Becket Dominick c. I cannot but say that if these be the men whom you place in Heaven what the poor Indians did of the Spaniards that then the other is certainly the more desirable portion For and I am perswaded that were but S. Martin again alive to summon their Souls before him as he once did that of a supposed Saint in his time Vid Bellar. de beat SS l. 1. cap. 7. they would make the same Confession that wretched Spirit is reported to have done and prove much more worthy your Compassion than your Adoration Now that which the more encreases this danger is Fourthly The almost infinite Number of Saints that have been received amongst you and whose Consecration depending wholly on matter of Fact in which you do not pretend the Pope to be Infallible it can hardly be supposed but that he must have very often proved mistaken For to keep only to your own Order a late Author of yours tells us Calendarium Benedictinum ad 26. Dec. that your Domestick Saints alone did long since by computation amount to fourty four thousand And I find another †Dr. Jackson T. 1. p. 937. list increasing them to fifty thousand Now to consider all the Arts and Intrigues that are used to procure these Canonizations by what Popes many of them have been placed in Heaven what Characters several among them have in your own Histories of their Lives these and many other Reflections would I confess prompt me were I otherwise as well satisfied of the Innocence of this Worship as I am fully convinced of the unlawfulness of it yet to pray to the greatest part of your Saints as he once did to Saint Cutbert Si Sanctus sis Ora pro me IF THOU ART A SAINT pray for me 129. It is I know the last refuge of many who consider this uncertainty to say That at least your good intention shall render these Prayers acceptable to God Vossius Thes Theol. p. 106. for what says the Learned Erasmus if the Saints do not perceive our desires yet Christ do's know them and will for them give us what we ask But yet still this will not make it a reasonable Service nor can you with a firm Faith call upon those in Heaven of whom you have