Again Thou having the power of a Mother with God dost beyond measure gain Pardon for them who sin beyond measure For it cannot be that thou shouldst not be heard because to all purposes and in all things and through all things God obeys thee as his true and immaculate Mother This was pretty well for the eighth Age as likewise was that of Damascene who calls the B. Virgin †Joh. Damasc lib. 4. c. 15. The Lady and Go verness of all Creatures No wonder therefore that Cardinal Peter Damian coming long after these telleth her that she comes before the Altar of Reconciliation not asking only but commanding as a Lady not as a Servant I know not whether he was the Author of those glorious Titles which have since furnished some of the Hymns that we meet with in the Offices of the Blessed Virgin * Hom. 46 de Nativ B Mar. 1. Tom. 2 p. 106. The Queen of the World The Window of Heaven The Gate of Paradise The Tabernacle of God The Star of the Sea The Heavenly Ladder by which the Heavenly King came down to us below and by which man who grovelled upon the ground ascends in exaltation to Heaven But Anselm that lived in the same Age with him speaks more fully ‖ Anselm Cant. de Excell Virgin c. 11. As God is the Father and God of all things by his power creating all things so Blessed Mary the Mother of God restoring all things by her Merits is the Mother and Lady of the Vniverse Which agrees very well with that reason he had given before why her Son went to Heaven before her †Ibid. c. 7. Perhaps O Lord lest thy Court in Heaven should stand in doubt whom it should rather go out to meet See Answer to Jesuits Chall from p. 478. to p. 495. thee their Lord coming to take possession of thy Kingdom or her their Lady ascending to that Kingdom also which belonged to her by a Mothers right To this nothing could be added in so little a time beyond Bonaventure's Psalter who taking the Psalms of David put in Lady instead of Lord in this manner O come let us sing unto our Lady c. Let every thing that hath breath praise our Lady But not content with this he framed the * Psalt Bonav p. 111 112 Paris Athanasian Creed to her Service too beginning thus Whosoever will be saved before all things it is necessary that he should hold a firm Faith concerning the Virgin Mary which Faith except a man keep whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly And now whosoever shall consider the Litanies of the Blessed Virgin and her Rosaries and the Prayers and Hymns of her Saturday's Office and her Psalters and the vast number of Books of Devotion to her and the Worship that is accordingly given to her in pretended Catholick Countries whosoever shall consider what they say to her in those Prayers and Hymns c. which the Speculum Beatoe Virginis just now published has put together may perhaps find there are Causes of Horror which Monsieur de Meaux is not so much concerned at as he ought to be He may justly fear that if the Reformation did not give some little check neither would these excesses stop here though in many places nothing now remains to be done but without any farther reservedness to erect Altars proper to the Blessed Virgin in every Church as the †Trigautii Exp. ad Sinas lib. 5. c. 15.20 Jesuites began to do in China O Blessed God look down in thy mercy upon the miserable estate of Christianity in so many parts of the Christian World When the Blessed Virgin foretold that all Generations should call her Blessed did she mean that all Generations would Worship her would Worship her Images and Pictures would make her a Mediatrix between God and man would ascribe to her the power not of prevailing with Jesus only for any thing but of commanding him too would offer Jesus himself a Sacrifice in her Honour should burn Incense to her would use Rosaries Hours and Psalters for her especial Invocation and Service would institute and maintain Fraternities for that Service would build Temples and Chappels to her and Altars and by most solemn Invocation every-where and by proper Rites of Religious Worship and by letting Devotion run out to her more than to our Lord Jesus himself to agnize her to be the Lady of Heaven and Earth the Queen of the World No she did not mean thus in saying that all Generations should call her Blessed For thus all Generations have not served her Nothing of all this was done to her for several Generations after Christ nor any thing of it in comparison till the dregs of Time till the decay of Learning and Piety made way for gross Superstition The first beginnings of these Corruptions were more general but the Improvements of them were chiefly owing to the See of Rome which as it grew in power and greatness so it protected those Abuses more effectually A Character very ill-beseeming a Church that pretends to be the Pillar and Ground of Truth The Wit of Man could not devise any thing more serviceable to Errour to make it spread in the World and to fix it than that a powerful See grasping at Supremacy and pretending to Infallibility should take it under her wing This See is the Source of all those Oppositions which they have met with that demanded a Reformation it is this See alone which hath obstructed a general Reformation when Christendom was otherwise well disposed towards it Therefore when Reformation by common consent was made Impossible by the See of Rome what remained but that the National Churches should reform themselves Our Reformation was a return to Primitive Antiquity and that it may prove a leading example let us pray without ceasing That God would bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived THE END Faults to be Corrected PAge 81 seventh line from the bottom for Consciences read Concessions P. 82 l. 3. for Reconciled r. Recommended P. 80 l. 6. for them read then P. 88 l. 7. for safely r. falsly P. 92 l. 3. for Prayers r. Praises A Catalogue of some Discourses Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleetstreet 1. A Perswasive to an Ingenuous Tryal of Opinons in Religion 2. The Difference of the Case between the Separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome and the Separation of Dissenters from the Church of England 3. A Discourse about the Charge of Novelty upon the Reformed Church of England made by the Papists asking us the Question Where was our Religion before Luther 4. The Protestant Resolution of Faith being an Answer to Three Questions I. How far we must depend on the Authority of the Church for the true Sence of Scripture II. Whether a visible Succession from Christ to this day makes a Church which has this visible Succession an Infallible Interpreter of Scripture and whether no Church which has not this visible Succession can teach the true Sence of Scripture III. Whether the Church of England can make out such a visible Succession 5. A Discourse concerning a Guide in matters of Faith with Respect especially to the Romish pretence of the Necessity of such a one as is Infallible 6. A Discourse about Tradition shewing what is meant by it and what Tradition is to be Recieved and what Tradition is to be Rejected 7. A Discourse concerning the Unity of the Catholick Church maintained in the Church of England 8. A Discourse concerning the Necessity of Reformation with respect to the Errours and Corruptions of the Church of Rome In two Parts 9. A Discourse concerning the Object of Religious Worship or a Scripture-Proof of the Unlawfulness of giving any Religious Worship to any other Being besides the one Supreme God 10. A Discourse against Transubstantiation 11. A Discourse concerning the Adoration of the Host as it is Taught and Practised in the Church of Rome Wherein an Answer is given to T. G. on that Subject and to Monsieur Bocleau's late Book de Adoratione Eucharistioe Paris 1685. 12. A Discourse concerning Invocation of Saints 13. A Discourse concerning the Devotions of the Church of Rome 14. A Discourse concerning the Celebration of Divine Service in an Unknown Tongue 15. A Discourse concerning Auricular Confession as it is Prescribed by the Council of Trent and Practised in the Church of Rome With a Postscript on occasion of a Book lately printed in France called Historia Confessionis Auricularis 16. A Discourse concerning the Worship of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints with an Account of the Beginnings and Rise of it amongst Christians In Answer to Monsieur de Meaux's Appeal to the Fourth Age in his Exposition and his Pastoral Letter A Collection of Cases and other Discourses lately written to recover Dissenters to the Communion of the Church of England by some Divines of the City of London In two Volumes in Quarto
three First Ages for the worship of Saints Images and Reliques upon supposition that the Doctors towards the close of the Fourth Age were theirs in these Points And then I shall not fear to give the truest Account I can of those Practices at that time which grew afterward into the Superstitions we now complain of Monsieur de Meaux sayes It will not appear very likely that M. Daille should understand the sentiments of the Fathers of the three first Ages better than those who gathered as I may say the Succession of their Doctrine after their deaths These Gentlemen I perceive will content themselves with any pretence to shift off the Tryal of their Doctrines and Practices by the Authority of the three First Ages For whether that be likely or not which M. de Meaux here puts yet I hope we may look into the Writings of the most Primitive Fathers to see how things went in their times And it is very likely that M. Daille might understand the sentiments of the Fathers of the Three first Ages as well as he understood the Sentiments of those of the Fourth And so long as we can have recourse to the undoubted Writings of the three first Ages we may get the Doctrine of those Fathers this way with a little more Assurance then by guessing what their Sentiments were from the Books of their Successors Which every reasonable Man must acknowledge unless it be reasonable to suppose that the Fathers of the Three first Ages did not understoud their own Sentiments so well as the Fathers of the Fourth understood them Now in the first place the profound Silence of the three First Ages and the better half of the Fourth as to the Worship of the B. Virgin and the Saints and their Images and Reliques should be enough to determine the first Point in question And this Silence is not only directly confessed by some of our Adversaries but as effectually confessed by the rest that labor to find some hints of these Practices in these primitive Fathers but by such Interpretations and Consequences that 't is almost as great a shame to consute as to make them Now the Silence of these Fathers ought not to be rejected as an incompetent Proof because it is but a Negative For since we pretend that these Practices are Innovations and were never heard of in the Ancient Church It is not reasonable to demand a better Proof of it than that in their Books some of which give large and particular Accounts of their Worship and of their Doctrines concerning Worship we can no where meet with the least Intimation or Footstep of them Would our Adversaries have us bring express Testimonies out of the Fathers against these things as if they wrote and disputed by the Spirit of Prophecy against those Corruptions that should arise several Ages after they were dead We have as I shall shew other ways of discovering their Sentiments besides this that they make not the least mention of these Services But to demand more than their perpetual Silence in these Cases is unreasonable because no satisfactory Account can be given of it but this That the Worship we speak of was indeed no part of their Religion Had it been some indifferent Rite or Ceremony that we contend about this Argument from the Silence of the Fathers against its Antiquity might with some Colour be rejected because it were unreasonable to expect that they should take notice in their Writings of every Custom of how little moment soever And yet we find that in matters even of this slight nature in comparison they have not been wanting to give us very much Information But it is altogether incredible that so notable and famous a Part of the the Worship of Christians as that which is now given to the B. Virgin and to the Saints should not be mentioned by any one of them if it had been the Custom of those times Justin Martyr Athenagoras Tertullian Minutius Felix all the Apologists or at least one of them would have taken some notice of it especially since this part of their Religion would have needed Exposition and Defence more than all the rest for it would have made them obnoxious to the Recriminations of the Heathens and brought all their own Arguments upon themselves which they had used against the Heathens in Defence of their own Worshipping the one God and him only But perhaps they all agreed toconceal this Saint-Worship from the Heathens for the same Reason why Salmeron thinks the Apostles and Evangelists concealed it at first from both Jews and Gentiles because forsooth it had been hard to require it of the Jews who had been taught to pray to God only Salmer in 1 Tun. 2. Disp 8. and to Worship none but him and by publishing it Occasion had been given to the Gentiles to think that many Gods were now offered them instead of that multitude of Gods which they had forsaken A very likely Reason thus far That if this had been the Doctrine of the Church it was highly necessary to keep it secret till Heathen Idolatry were extinguished and none should be left to upbraid the Christians with removing the old Gods of the Heathens to make way for new ones of their own And without all doubt those that were prevail'd upon in every Persecution by Force and Flattery to revolt from Christianity though they had been false to the rest of their Religion yet were true to this Secret of it and never discovered to the Heathens that whatever the Church pretended they had been taught to say Ave Maries to the B. Virgin and to Worship her and the dead Saints and Martyrs with Prayers and Hymns c. I thank this Jesuit however for confessing so manifest a Truth that this Adoration of Saints was not fit to be exposed to the Gentiles But if Matters were carried thus I think they were not carried with great Sincerity This might be like the Policy of Jesuits but it did not by any means become the Simplicity of Christians And yet I think a Jesuit would hardly have carried a Secret in his Sleeve so dangerous to be discovered and so impossible to be concealed For that the Church should have the good Fortune to conceal it for above 300 Years from the Idolatrous Philosophers and Priests of the Gentiles was of all other things that passed in that long time the most miraculous and requires such a Faith to believe it as believes a thing the more the more incredible it is But though this in the Opinion of all indifferent persons will be a sufficient Prejudice against supposing that the Church kept her Doctrine and Practice from the Knowledge of her Enemies Yet I believe it will be a stronger Prejudice against it amongst those of which number I profess my self to be one that honor the Memories of the Ancient Martyrs and love them for their Constancy to the Death in adhering to our dear Lord and Master Jesus that
late If the Church had then for an hundred and fifty years together served her as the Queen of Heaven with solemn Rites of Worship That man who ventured to disparage the B. Virgin in this fashion was foolish to Admiration But if Origen knew that the Church had given her these Honors from the beginning he wise was enough to have stopped this Madman's mouth with that Argument or rather to have said nothing of him since no body could need any instruction to hold him for a ridiculous Fellow But he thought fit to instruct the people how they should answer this man and that in this manner If Mary was pronounced Blessed in those hymns that were uttered by the instinct of the holy Spirit How can any man say that our Saviour denied her Origen speaks very honorably of the B. Virgin but yet he represents her as an instance of humane Frailty and one that needed Forgiveness of sins as well as the Apostles and that because she was offended as he it seems was perswaded at the Passion of Christ What says he do we think that when the Apostles were scandalized that the Mother of our Lord was free from it And so he interprets those words A Sword shall pierce through thy own Soul also by this paraphrase The Sword of unbelief shall pierce thy own Soul and thou shalt be smitten with the edge of Doubtfulness I doubt it will not be convenient to enquire of Origen any further As for Athenagoras Minutius Felix St. Cyprian Arnobius Lactantius they have left us nothing at all concerning her unless St. Cyprian says somewhere that Christ was conceived in the Womb of a Virgin c. But if that be all I am sure he neglected some very inviting occasions of putting his People in mind of a great deal more which he ought not to have neglected if the Doctrine of the Primitive Church concerning the B. Virgin had been the same with that of the pretended Catholick Church at this day And so we are gotten out of the three first Ages But perhaps Athanasius makes amends for all that were before him in the Sermon upon the Annuntiation of the Blessed Virgin That Sermon I confess is a very surprising thing to any man that considers there was not the least preparation for the Doctrine it would pretend to establish in the foregoing Ages But then this as well as many other things that go under the name of Athanasius is none of his as Bellarmin and others of his party obliged by the Strength of Truth have actually confessed And in all probability it was written no less than 348 Years after his Death In his genuine Works there is more frequent mention of the Virgin then in the Fathers before him especially in his Orations against the Arrians which he wrote about the Year 360. But we must go further down to find where her Worship began for as yet there is no Appearance of it Hilary who wrote about the same time says nothing new in this Matter Hilar. Pictav Com. in Matth. p. 497. He does Industriously assert the Virginity of Mary which and the like things were done by some of those that went before him But of her Worship not a word To conclude the Fathers do generally speak of her without the Addition of any Title of Honor. For the most part they call her Mary sometimes the Virgin the Mother of our Lord rarely and the mother of God never I think till the Church was obliged to guard the belief of the Divine Nature of Christ by all kind of proper Expressions And even then this honourable Appellation was used not for her sake but to secure the right Faith of our Lord's Divinity especially against the Nestorian Heresie In short the Protestants do customarily mention the Virgin Mother with honorable Additions beyond what the Fathers of the Three First Ages did But we Worship her just as they did that is Rev. 19.10 not at all For my own part when I consider that she had the Glorious Priviledge to be the Mother of God I should have much ado to forbear regretting the little Regard wherewith some of the Fathers speak of her sometimes but that I find our Saviour himself in those * Luke 2.49 Ch. 11.27 28. Joh. 2.4 three Sayings concerning her which are reported in the Gospels not to Magnify her over greatly And the Truth is I should have wondred at that too had not the excess of later Devotion to her put me in mind that the H. Writers were guided by a Spirit of Prophecy and have therefore recorded nothing that Christ said to his most H. Mother but what might be of use in such times as these §. 8. Let us now see whether the Religion of Praying to Martyrs and Saints and Worshipping their Images and Reliques has the Authority of the Primitive Church and all Antiquity It may very well be presumed that it has not unless we think that the Fathers preferred the other Saints before the B. Virgin But to say the Truth tho hitherto the Virgin and the rest of the Saints were equal as to any Religious Worship neither she nor they being yet thought of for that purpose yet when Superstition at length began to creep into the Church the Martyrs got the start of the Virgin In process of time her Worship overtopped theirs but theirs began before her turn came The most holy Religion of the Gospel was delivered all at once and which is most considerable it is the Religion which God hath sealed and so it was and is all of a piece But the Corruption of that Religion coming on by degrees as contingent Occasions gave Birth and Growth to it could not be regularly contrived but would need a great deal of patching and mending to bring it to a Face of Uniformity As for Praying to Saints I know not how any Man can imagin that the Primitive Fathers taught or used it who considers in what Terms they taught that God only was to be Invocated That they counted the Worship of Invocation a better Sacrifice than those which had been offered to God as the Law of Moses required and which all acknowledge were to be offered to God only and that they argued the Divinity of Christ from hence that Prayers were to be offered to him Irenoeus tells us that the Church did nothing by Invocations of Angels or Incantations to them or any other evil Curiosity Fevardentius pretends that this excludes evil Spirits only from being invoked But let any unprejudiced Man judge by what follows Iren. lib. 2. c. 57. But says he she directs her Prayers chastly purely and manifestly to the Lord that made all things Now according to Fevardentius he should have added and to good Spirits also For 't is a vain thing to say that he intended to oppose those only that Worshipped malicious Spirits since if this had been his Intention the plain laws of Discourse had obliged him rather to omit