with so palpably incredible calumnies therein inserted His Account indeed seemes chiefly designed for Vulgar Capacities and therfore he mainly endeavours to captivate their attention and belief with much sophistry and many smooth stories of some Doctors amongst Catholicks whose different Opinions about the Moods of Christian Doctrin which they believe simply as it is delivered them plainly though they Vary in their Explications of Divine Mysteries he makes pass for disagreeing in Articles of Faith of others some who schismatically affected speak the stile of their predominant passions not according to the Religion they received from their Catholick Teachers and are therefore censured by the great Overseers of Christiantâ—y whom nevertheless the Doctor makes to speak the pure sense of the Roman Churches Faith and Piety And of some too whose Judgments guided by the compass of their ambitious and unclean affections driving at gâ—eat Names and Places cause division in the outward Hierarchy and Government of the Church for which neither the Canons of our Faith and Manners gives them any authority nor may it be hoped that either the care or power of our chief Pastors may wholly avoid such Wolves since according to Christ's prophesy scandals will still arise though our Catholick Bishops still oppose themselves against them and yet the Doctor will have these either to be our Church Governors or their actions to be destructive of our Catholick Vnity But all these slights of his are to so little purpose that many sober Protestants has been startled at thâ—se his Cantings and Imputations upon so anâ—iâ—nt and grave a Body of Christians whom their former Teachers ever allowed to be members of Christ's Mystical Body and capable of salvation in their own way of Christian observance Whence as the Cruelty of the old Roman Emperours and Presidents against the Primitive Christians moved many Vnbelievers of those times to embrace the Roman Faith so has the severe Accusations of the Doctor against Catholicks moved many of their Adversaries to a more steddy enquiry into our Catholick Truths to confer more reverently with the Dispensers of the Doctrin of that defamed Religion and oft to conclude somewhat more than ordinary of truth and honesty to be found in that Way which being long since banished this Nation by very severe Laws is still so eagerly arraigned so clamorously cryed down in Press and Pulpit and at any Rate exposed to the severity of those whose Interest passion or dulness has ever since engaged them in its suppression The Doctors whole Account amounts to a pulling down and a setting up first he pulls down the Church of Rome then He sets up his Own he makes Vse of four formidable Engins to overturn that our Catholick Church which your TO KATHOLICO amply examines But surely if the Church of Rome falls all Churches which either received their belief from her or now communicate in faith with her must fall too and thus the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints an entire Article of the Apostles Creed is on a sudden cancelled Indeed it is so proper to all Church Reformers to pull down Churches and such like Monuments of our forefathers Christian piety suckt in with that faith they originally received from their Roman Apostles that our Natiâ—n has cause enough to bewail the power of thâ—â— Sword of Gospellers in whose sense we may confess The Roman Church in some measure to be no sound Church even no Church at all were their Swords as keen as their Pens and Tongues and as close-laid as Nero once wished His to an Imaginary Neck for we are ever bound to believe each one speaks and writes his own thoughts and hearty wishes The Doctor having endeavour'd to level our Roman Church and not finding One principled according to his own Acephalick passion wherewith to close lays the foundation of his Own properly His Stillingfleet Church Not Roman nor Protestant nor indeed any Church at all for where he leaves neither any constant Rule wherby to square our faith or observance in necessaries not clearly revealed in holy Wriâ—t nor any power to oblige to a conformity in Belief and Practices nor any One Visible Head for our Direction and Communion there can be no Church of Christ but a Babel and Confusion that which evidently follows from the Doctors Own Principles whereunto he pretends the faith of Protestants must be reduced as to the only true Test of its being Christian and Catholick And thus after our long reproaching that Church as Vnprincipled the Doctor in a full Council of his own thoughts assembled in Vertue of his all-truth discerning Spirit synodically pronounces his Anathema's against Vs and publishes Canons of faith to all the Churches of England and will prove it to be One Holy Apostolical and Catholick by such Rules as neither Scripture nor Councels nor Fathers nor any Church ever menâ—â—on'd before nor will ever be solemnly canoniz'd by any Synod of our Englâ—sh Pâ—â—lates however he pretends them to be Protestant wherein we may admire at their silence even by those Rules by which aâ—â—â—elief built on them not borrowed from the Roman Church may be contradictory and will be cleerly resolved not to have One Mark of the true Christian Church even to be no Church at all but a pure Stillingfleet an phantosm His design in forging these his Principles was thence to shew the Protestant Church as Protestant or as it is by Schism separated from the great Catholick Body of Christians to be Positive Vniform and Principled whereas by them it is clearly Negative Confusive and Begs the question in the root of all Briefly thus As for the first the Dr aims directly at the subversion of all traditional Revelation and of an external visible and infallible proponent of divine credibles and of all power obligeing to acceptance of them as such and consequently at the overthrow of all Articles by the Church of Rome allowed and Canonized as truths revealed upon those grounds As for the next his Canons for the interpreting Gods written Revelations are of that Latitude that whoever admits them if he please may disagree with the Doctor and all others and with himself too at different times by virtue of a pretended Personal infallible-all-truth discerning-faculty which he allows all in all fundamentals and superstructures depending on the controverted sense of Gods written Word after a sober enquiry and sincere endeavours however necessary those credibles be to salvation or the framing one Church of many truth-discerning members whether this their enquiry be performed by the working of reason only which in supernatural Truths revives Pelagianism or by a pretended personal divine assistance in regard of each Believer to which every one may as legally pretend and appropriate it to himself by pretence of having used his best means to understand Scripture as the Dr. himself or any other Teacher which is to erect an Acephalick Enthusiasm or Fanaticism And as for the last if it be a legal proof that there
though not intire § 6. But we deny saith he that Divine worship is to be given to the Elements upon the account of a â—â—â—l presence This denial also as the words â—and is good enough For none that I know worship Elements Secondly We deny that the same adoration is to be given out of Communion as in it and this is the only Controversy I had thought he said before that he could worship Christ any where but only in the Eucharist where the corporeal presence determins a worship Now he seems to say that he can worship him in Communion and not out of it and this the only controversie But we must take his grants and danyals singly and not stand to tye them one to another lest we anger our Benefactor What he gives we must take thankfully and not look a gift horse in the month and what he denyes in one page he may grant us in another if we can but have patience § 7. They cannot be sure saith he that the object deserves worship appearing still bread Scripture that saies This is my Body may be otherwise interpreted the sence of the Fathers is hard to find the present Church stands in no stead For is it enough the Pope says it No. If he define it No. If a General Council concur No. Vnless they proceed in a right way and who can be sure of that Now he throws about his Philosophy-dust to perswade us we can be sure of nothing It still appears bread So it does Even Christ our Lord appeared a meer man but the eye of Faith apprehended him the Son of the Living God a Child newly baptized appears but the same it was and yet is believed to be now regenerate and born again all that is in man appears mortal but is not believed so Mulâ—a videntur quae non sunt This divine Majesty hath words of life and power and call the things which are not as those that are and by his naming them makes them to be what he says they are And in those words of life do Caâ—holicks believe and trust when taking bread he solemnly and seriously said at his last hour instituting then an Oblation and Sacrament most soveraigne and venerable to remain in his Church for ever This is my Body and all Christians hitherto have lived and dyed in this Faith Scripture that says This is my Body may be otherwise interpreted Considering they were the last words of our Loving Lord departing from us and his final Legacy bequeathed his believers they cannot be rightly interpreted but as they sound And any other interpretation that has been yet given by any against our Catholick Faith amounts only unto thus much This is not my Body which is a strange mad interpretation The sence of the Fathers is hard to seek saith he But who seeks after it writers of controversies may take pains to cull it out and demonstrate it to unbelievers for their Conversion But Catholicks have their Faith already wherein they are educated and bred up from their youth united to their immediate Pastors as these are to the rest of the Catholick Body The present Church stands in no stead why so that is all in all as the body is to the finger hands and other members in which they all move Is it enough the Pope says it No c. This man here imagins first that Catholicks have their Faith to seek which is his feeble imagination Secondly That Scripture cannot help them for his reason above specified as feeble as it And Thirdly That the present Church can availe as little because the Popes word is not assured as though the Popes word were the present Church And is not all this a strange raving talk All men know I think Sir all men excepting only this spiritual Hâ—ctor that as Catholicks have their Faith and Religion by Tradition from one Generation to another so in it they have ever lived unanimously under their immediate Priests and Pastors united altogether in the great Catholick Body the present Church and never look further Nor is there any need at all either of the Popes word or Councels unless some great sedition or scandalous Apostacy arise in some one or other particular Diocess For then the Bishop of the place calls for help of his fellow Bishops and the supreme Pastor in particular and conciliar Assemblies as Governours extraordinary in a tempest which may indanger the ship And Catholicks thus keeping close together in one body united with their Pastors whom the Holy Ghost hath set over them for their safety and peace cannot but remain steady and immoveable by the assistance and blessing of that Lord who hath promised ever to be with them even to the worlds consummation Nor do they ever seek for their Faith any where for they have it sufficiently already and all their â—are is to conform their lives to it as they ought that they may get Gods good Spirit and his holy operations in themselves which is the end of their Religion and all they do in it And what a pretty peice of ignorance is it in Dr. Stillingfleet to perswade us that they cannot be certain of their Faith who are certain and know themselves certain and declare so much before the face of the Sun and all the eyes of Heaven by their stability fixedness and immovability in Faith even this particular Faith of our Lords presence in the Eucharist so many ages together and such vast distant places not only against the dictamen of their own sences but even against all the violence and subtilty of mankind conspiring to shake all the very nerves and bones of their holy Faith out of joynt Dr. Stilling fleet has more need to consider in Gods fear how Catholicks do arrive to this strange assurance rather than emptily to tell us they cannot be sure § 8. Their own School-men puzle and are unresolved how the whole Humanity can be present how united how terminate a worship c. Here is another handful of his dust his curiosity-dust to lessen our assurance If our School-men puzle and are puzled we must needs be thought unresolved But what do these School-men puzle what are they unresolved in Not in their Faith which says that our Lord is present with us in his holy Eucharist but in the Philosophical Quomodo or how this thing or that thing is And as they cannot disagree in Faith which they received all alike one and the very same so can they not agree in Philosophy which they invent and contrive very divers every one to himself according to his genious and capacity And what is all this unto us believers or to one and another among themselves as they are all Christians even just nothing I say just nothing can the assurance of our Faith be prejudiced by any supervening curiosities of men disputing afterward in their maturer age about the Quomodo of it or the possibility of the contrary to it or the ways of Gods working
after his Resurrection And yet he had never any command to worship him in those plains either of Damascus or Libanus The particular Revelation of his presence there was a Monitor sufficient of his duty The person of Christ saith he visibly appearing to us in any place may be worshipped but there is not the same reason of believing and seeing All other good Christians before Dr. Stillingfleet judged revelation and believing to be a surer testimony in matters of Faith and Religion than our seeing is Let us hear one of our Christian Doctors speak whose testimony will serve for all the rest We have not declared unto you saith St. Peter the vertue and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in any fabulous mythology but as we have seen with our eyes his own Majesty For he received from God the Father honour and glory by a vâ—yce conveighed unto him from that glorious magnificence saying thus This is my well beloved Son in whom is my sole content And this voyce we our selves heard derived from Heaven when we were together with him in the holy Mount And yet have we more firm Prophetical words unto which while you attend as to a light shining in an obscure place ye shall do well until the dâ—y dawn and the morning Star arise in your hearts Thus speaks St. Peter our Lords great Apostle who though he beheld our Lords Glory in the Mount and heard there a voyce from Heaven unto his honour yet he prefers before both these private testimonies the one general Authority of Divine Revelation as firmer and more authentical than either or yet both of them put together as the sole standing unextinguishable general light set up in the obscurity of this our dark life for the assured guidance of all men As if he had plainly told us that our private sences may be deceived especially in matters of Apparitions and transitory Visions imparted unto some one or other apart But prophetick speech and revelation this is general and the same to all this is unerring and firm this stands for ever Here have we plainly good St. Peters mind in this affair But our Doctor resolves otherwise Divine revelation although we have it will not serve his turn But if he could see Christ appearing to him any where he could worship him then and would perhaps do it There is not the same reason with him in believing and seeing and that is indeed true St. Peter sayes so like wise But St. Peter says that believing is firmer than seeing Dr. Stillingfleet avers that seeing is firmer than believing He would be afraid to act that upon meer Divine Revelation which he will not fear to do upon sight Could he see Christ appear to him he would worship him but he cannot by any means worship him where Gospel testifies his presence and he sees it not Nay he avers a little afterward that he can kneel down and worship Christ any where excepting only in the Eucharist where his corporeal presence is the cause of adoration He can do it where no cause obliges him to it no peculiar cause exacting it But in no wise will he be brought to it where his presence known by Revelation stands to claim it Gospel the custome of Christianity quite spoiles his Devotion and keeps him from doing that homage to our Lord in the Church which he could freely give him in a Market-place And if any should reply quoth he that blessed is he who hath not seen and yet believed he may know that this saying of his is impertinent to this present purpose because it relates only unto the Resurrection This he speaks not considering that the said assertion of our Lord Blessed is he who sees not and yet believes is indefinite and consequently general equally appliable unto all things our Lord ever acted or taught us either to believe or hope for And as our Lord used it to his Disciples in the business of the Resurrection so must it hold good equally in that of his Incarnation Ascention or any thing else he either spoke or acted for us And though it be applyed unto one thing it doth not therefore follow that it relates to nothing else nor is pertinent to any other mystery but that We may well and properly say according to Dr. Stillingfleet Blessed is he who hath not seen and yet believed the Resurrection But we must not say Blessed is he that hath not seen and yet believed the Incarnation Ascention Christs miracles in curing the Deaf Dumb Lame and Blind in raising the dead and preaching eternal happiness to his followers Unto all this that saying is impertinent with him it relates to nothing at all but the Resurrection And have we not here a solemn and peculiar wit and one that may well challenge the whole world to come forth into the open field against him But we must note here that the Doctor does not grant any such Divine Revelation which may either clearly speak our Lords presence in the Eucharist or justifie our worship in it only he permits it to pass for disputation sake and avers that if there were any such Revelation yet would it not suffice to free us from Idolatry and this he does to give us an experiment of his wit And that experiment we have had and must be content with it till more come § 5. It is here granted saith he that in the celebration of the Euchaâ—ist we are to give a spiritual worship unto Christ as well as to the Father performing that religious Act with a due veneration of his Majesty and power with a thankfulness for his goodness a trust in his promises and a subjection to his supreme Authority We grant also that external reverence may be shown in the time of receiving the Eucharist in signification of our humble and thankful acknowledgment for his benefits Here be a great many good things granted us here and I take them thankfully In his first Chapter he was so Zealously hot that he would grant us nothing no not so much as to hang up such pictures in our Chambers as he has himself looking upon him in his own but can we get this grant of his ratified and sealed by all the Protestants in England If it were the Church of England would look the better for it Nay will not be himself what he has granted us to day revoke again to morrow The Doctor should do well to read over now and then his own grants and denyals For he is not so fixed in them that one dare take his word as I could easily specifie both in this and other particulars But I refrain from that work now as needless Sir to you at least we have as much here granted as adoration requires But I cannot perceive he will have any of it relate to ought subsisting in the Eucharist but only to the Author of it who is in Heaven upon a consideration of his benefits which is some part of Catholick truth
in it or conclusions deduced from it or a hundred such like things introduced by learned and subtile School-men for the sharpning of wits and advancement of learning The Doctor dreams I think that what ever Catholick writers speak is Catholick Faith and consequently that they puzle and are unresolved in Faith where ever they are unresolved which although it be a pittiful piece of Childishness to think yet is not he the only man that rides upon this Hobby-Horse Taylor Poole Moore Hammond Pierse Whitby Owen all of them mount upon the same Steed and one cannot tell which of them is the wisest Faith is before and antecedent Faith is the Revelation of Jesus Christ conveyed unto us by his Church uninterruptedly succeeding from generation to generation Faith is plain and single and equally common to all But School-learning is ambiguous doubtful various intricate invented by men divers and contradictory and a meer stranger in our Christianity which is a thousand years older than it and may in all probability subsist yet a thousand years more after that School-learning is quite vanisht out of the world Are all our Anti-catholick adversaries so blind that they cannot see this It is strange to me that they should not consider that all the said Popish Doctors and their Disciples remain peaceably together in the same profession of Faith all the world over notwithstanding these their clashing Philosophies For how could they otherwise call them all Popish Doctors Faith is one thing and the declarations of it may be many One single truth revealed to us by our Lord and his Church from him may give Philosophical wits occasion to raise up a hundred questions about the modes circumstances and inferences of it And these various conclusions of men both those which declare Faith and those which superadd other new things over and beyond it are Philosophies commonly called theology exposed in the Schools unto the tryal of wits where they are so sure to suffer opposition that not one conclusion in a hundred escapes it So that their puzling about curiosities of their own doth nothing at all concern either faith or faithful men Those that love it let them take their pastime in that puzling work but they do not think to be saved by it And they who never know or hear of it may haply be the better Christians for that but never the worse I believe Jesus our Lord to be present in the Eucharist and worship him there and offer up unto Almighty God all my necessities with Jesus my Lord there figured by his own institution as crucified before us all this my Faith teaches me and all this I do and can do well enough though I never either conceive or consider how his humanity is united how it is present how it terminates our worship all which concerns me nothing Let the curious speculate such like things and be never the wiser but only in a few uncouth words I am satisfied if I do my duty in simplicity and innocency that duty that is before all these speculations one and the same and remains the same after them By a vulgar and familiar example I may haply be better understood The Doctor both sees and walks and sleeps and so do I my self And yet our School-men are puzled and mightily unresolved about all these things how they are done and cannot possibly agree They cannot conclude whether our seeing be wrought by introreception or extramission of raies some say the one way some the other some both They cannot tell assuredly whether vision be effected in the crystaline humour or nerves they agree not what thing this sight or vision is nor how it is conveighed or lodged within for future dreams c. They are unresolved how we think or how the world without us gets so strangely within us or how it lyes there couched or how it circles so wonderfully in our spirits or what physical thing our thinking is whether appearances or only motion and what and where those appearances and what the moover They cannot with any uniformity declare how we walk how the various strings lye for this motion where they are knit together what command impulse or impression sets the members to move and how that impulse is conveâ—ghed and whence it comes and where sits the director paramount whose beck is so uncontroulable that each member does suddainly his duty according to command They could never yet agree in the ways of sleep whence it comes and where it resides what is that thing which so strangely silences all the sences where those spirits retire who keep daily Centinal in those Cinque-Ports and which are their Bed-Chambers what do they when they thus retire and how they rest how they issue next morning each to his own place without any director c. Here School-men puzle here they are unresolved here they dispute and differ But what then Cannot I therefore see nor walk nor think nor sleep No it seems till the School-men resolve say you so Let them never resolve them and I will try whether I can sleep at my time and walk and think and look about me Even just so it is here for the dictates and axioms of Faith were before School-mens doubts and resolutions and will be ever the same what ever they resolve or doubt of § 9. The sence of those words This is my Body is doubted of and interpreted now another way and several disputes arise What have Papists to rely upon sith the Fathers are themselves as fallible as other men neither are they assured that they have any Priests amongst them for to consecrate c. If we can now but save our eyes we are well For we have but two or three motes more to trouble us All is doubtful he says doubtful whether we have any Priests or no doubtful whether we have any certain sence to our words doubtful whether we have any men to make sence of them doubtful whether we have any trust and assurance upon those men And what shall we do now Surely he would have us either do or not do somthing or other but I know not what We cannot heed holy Fathers for they are fallible and doubted men We cannot believe Protestants for they are doubtful men and divided and unsettled in their opinions of this point We cannot regard Dr. Still for he is a doubt-making man and blunders and settles upon nothing and not certain himself according to what he speaks here of Priests out of Chillingworth whether he be a Minister or no or a Clark or a Christian or so much as a Stillingfleet I think we had best keep our selves where we are who doubt nothing at all and leave the Doctor to play at his Blind-man-buff all alone If Infidelities and Cavils of men disputes and difficulties surmised doubts and vain sophismes must annul our Faith then can we not possibly in this world either keep or receive any Faith in God at all And Christ our
Lord must needs then have appeared among us on this our Earth in vain For both himself and all the whole truth he delivered us was in his time and all following ages contradicted round about and opposed and rendred thereby doubtful by Jews and Pagans and no less by those people who Apostatized from that Catholick Society than any other their outward and forrein Adversaries And I suppose the Giantly witts of former ages amongst the Rabbies and Philosophers did with somwhat a more stronger shot from sâ—nce and reason invade our Christian assurance than any is here discharged out of his Elder potgun by our doubt-making Doctor This is uncertain Church is slighted Fathers are otherwise interpreted there are now who deny it c. What news in all this can trouble me who could not but foresee if I did but use my common reason that all these things would happen It is not to be expected that all men should believe at once And he that believes not will both conceive doubtâ— and urge them both hare a believer and persecute him too perhaps to death without any doubt at all These doubts and oppositions and 〈◊〉 raised against Faith can have no other effect in a true believer but to strengthen and spread the roots of it more wide and deeper in his heart There was a notable Propheâ—ie of our Lord uttered by St. Siâ—â—â—on a worthy great Personage at his birth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This Jesus is set both for the fall and rising of many in Israel and for a sign to be contradicted Both Christ and his whole Faith delivered by him is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Signe and eminent Trophy set up in the eyes of the whole world by all grumbling unbelievers to be enviously glanced at malitiously traduced and all possible ways opposed and persecuted O but what if this Faith of Papists should prove to be false saith he then cannot Papists be excused from Idolatry as their own learned men acknowledg This is even wondrous true whether our own learned men who are still brought in by him for the imbellishment of his own Clarkship do acknowledg it or no. And so if Jesus Christ himself should prove not to be what he is believed by Catholicks then would the Doctor also who is ready to worship him upon the account of that our Faith declared and maintained by the Catholick Councel of Nice be an Idolator too A false consequence may easily flow from a false and impossible supposition But wise men are more apt to consider their own danger than other mens And the Doctor if he were indeed in earnest and heeded rather his own Salvation then vain glory should rather ask his own soul I should think what if this Catholick Faith should be true Catholicks have for it clear Gospel universal tradition all Christian Churches in the world believing it and that in all ages the Doctor has nothing but his own sence and John Calvin who fell from that Church to plead for him Were not the Manichees censured as Idolaters for worshiping the Sun in the Firmament believing it to be God They well deserved to be censured For that was a fancy of their own grounded upon that word he hath set his Tabernacle in the Sun drawn unto a fond sence by their private interpretation contrary to the Authority of the Church and Pastors whom they would not obey when they checked and reproved them for it Even as now our present Protestants do put their various fanciful interpretations of signe and figure upon the words of Gospel This is my Body which the whole Church of God out of which they fell ever loved and reverenced as the most clear evidence of a Heavenly Legacy the truest and reallest that was ever made to man and of highest concernment to him Only the Maâ—â—chees judged by their erring surmise that our Lords Body was really there where the Church taught them it was not Protestants think it not really there where the same Church teaches them it is And thus have we passed through those handful of doubts which the Dr. casts before our eyes to perswade us we are not sure where he knows we are immoveable And we may worship our Lord in the Eucharist still as we did before for Stillingfleet § 10. The residue of this Chapter bewraies our third Catholick Idol Saints namely and their invocation There be but three or four words in it of substance if a falshood may be said indeed to subsist at all dilated so by his pretty rhetorick as if he had a mind to teach young Lawyers how to plead in a false cause The Heathens saith he were not blamed by Christian Doctors for their ill choice of worship Venus for example or Vulcan who were wretches but for giving divine honour to any but the true God as Papists do Here are two untruths and both notorious ones For neither do Catholicks give divine honour to Saints their fellow Servants and Domesticks of Faith neither is it true that antient Christian Doctors did not blame the Heathens for their ill choyce of worship as monuments yet extant various and weighty monuments do witness both in St. Austins Civitate Dei and elsewhere Wise Heathens worshiped one God supreme heeding the rest as inferiour powers under him as Papists do their Saints These be two more falshoods as is already declared in part For neither are Saints any inferiour powers to help us from themselves as the Sun Moon or Mercury but friends of God in Heaven and welwishers to their Brethren on Earth ready as Onias Job Abraham and Daniel and all the good Angels both to desire and rejoyce at their conversion and peace Neither did the wise Heathens worship one God supreme as St. Paul expresly testifies in his Epistle to the Christians at Rome where he tells them that even the Pagan Philosophers whom Dr. Stilling fleet calls the wiser Heathens held the truth in injustice that they did not glorifie nor worship the supreme God that they became as vain in their thoughts and deeds as any even the unwiser sort of them that pretending to be wise or wiser Heathens they became starke Noddies that they transformed Gods truth discerned even by his works of Creation into a lye and that they worshiped and served the Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not the Creator I know well enough that Varro with some others of the Heathens about Rome where all sorts of Idols were brought together for the renown and pomp of that conquering City began to plead thus and excuse their Idolatry as the Doctor has learned by him here to do But did St. Austin admit that plea or was there ever any Christian who opposed it not together with all our holy Prophets and Apostles What subordination was there amongst the Egyptian Cyrian and Chaldean Idols or what Country ever was there among the Heathens who looked not upon their own Idol-God as Supreme Papists build Churches to Saints offer Sacrifice
end we say our daily prayers with our hymns and canticles for this end we meditate for this end we fast and chastise our bodies for this we do penance make restitution give alms frequent sacraments and all that we endeavour according to our poor abilities Gods good counsels and holy grace assisting us He who shall please onely to peruse the writings of Dr. Eckius and his fellow Catholicks who opposed Martin Luther and his Protestant-reformation when it first rose up may there clearly see that this interiour sanctity and renovation and holiness of life is the one great Catholick point stoutly maintained against those wild and dissolute Reformers who began now to corrupt the world with that cursed opinion of theirs that faith alone is sufficient to salvation And what a strange man is this Dr. Stillingfleet If any one indeed of our men had objected to Protestants that in their reformation-way neither penance nor contrition nor satisfaction nor renovation of life is needful according to the first Masters of the Reformation who taught and maintained openly and in the eyes of this very Sun that nothing is necessary to salvation but onely to believe and by that naked faith to apply Christs merits to themselves all interiour sanctification being both impossible and needless he had said no more than truth and what he might easily have proved out of the first Reformers principles however I hope not maintained now by many of our wiser Protestants in England who notwithstanding remain still in that reformation which was chalked out for them by such wicked Leaders But now to lay upon Catholicks that wicked doctrine of Reformers opposed now a whole hundred years by our Catholick Divines is a desperate confidence befitting none but men wholly unconscionable Let them keep their own dirt to themselves and not throw it into our faces however they begin now to be weary and ashamed of it The precepts of holiness sobriety and justice are insignificant to them who have hitherto even from the very cradles of this unlucky reformation publickly defended them to be insignificant and not to us who have still maintained that they are the very all in all of Christianity I have troubled my self some while to think what should move Dr. Still to invent this slander Some word or other he must pervert but I cannot conclude what it should be Perhaps he may take occasion from hence that whereas there be several things concurring to our purification after sin as Gods grace and our dislike of our own ill deeds fear of Gods wrath and punishment grief for his love and favour forfeited an humble confession purpose of amendment and renovation of life some Schoolmen have amongst their other curiosities considered into which of these many things may our justification be principally attributed as the principal virtue and cause of it under God For God who created us without our selves will not redeem us without our selves And if any one in his philosophy have said that confession and sorrow have the chiefest influence on our fide that may be enough for Dr. Still to say as here he does that we make confession and contrition all in all and renovation of life nothing Or perhaps because Catholick Doctors have taught that confession together with contrition may sometimes be so great and cordial at the last hour that evil men may thereby find mercy with God as the good thief did although they have no further leasure to mend and renew their lives therefore does this man conclude that with us confession with contrition is sufficient without any more ado Whence soever he concludes or gathers it he knows best himself But this I know that it is an abominable slander And if all his readers were as skilful in our Catholick religion as we our selves who profess it he would not have dared to speak these things despairing then of finding any credit either with man woman or child § 2. They of the Church of Rome need little to heed a good life who can have their sins expiated in Purgatory by the prayers of the living which is a doctrine very pleasing to rich men but uncomfortable to the poor Pretty stuff And need not then any man heed either to have patience in afflictions or do his duty because another prays to God either that he may do so or find mercy if he have done otherwise Or must he needs be negligent of himself to day because he hopes good people will pray for him to morrow when he cannot help himself Souls departed are by our Christianity believed to be now out of the place and way of merit for there is neither art nor industry nor any good work to be done in the grave whether we all hasten And if friends on earth where Gods favour may by our dutiful compliance be obtained do commend their dead to Gods mercy and goodness this surely cannot make those friends careless of themselves while they remain here living All men know that it is not enough for our entrance into heaven to cry Lord Lord which is the voice of those who think that onely faith saves but the will of God who is in heaven is to be fulfilled by every one that shall enter there And yet it is good and pleasing and profitable notwithstanding to cry and supplicate unto our Lord God with all earnestness of heart both for our selves and friends But the poor are then in a sad condition and the rich man may easilier enter into the kingdom of heaven than a camel through a needles eye by procuring Masses for their Souls Who told this man that the Souls of the poor are not prayed for in the Catholick Church He onely thinks so And he thinks amiss therein as he loves to do Whence doth he gather that the rich go to heaven so easily in our esteem by Masses This he thinks too Perhaps he does For I am much deceived if he do not utter many a falshood which he knows to be such before he utters it At least none of ours ever told him the one nor the other and what we believe or do our selves he may easily mistake and we have had already sufficient experience of his ignorance therein or some worser misdemeanor Prayer or whatever good work of Christianity although it may do some good ye◠does it not therefore do all and what does not all good must not therefore be denied to do some Poor Lazarus's may by their cold hunger and nakedness here on earth patiently endured satisfie for their humane frailties so far with God here that after this life having no utmost farthing to account for they may chance not to need any farther help But the rich men of the world will not easily be brought unto those many voluntary penances and mortifications which their sensualities exact unto their expiation and peace with God It were a happy thing if they would be perswaded in their life-time to distribute part of their goods unto