by the terms of communion with that Church be guilty either of Hypocrisie or Idolatry either of which are sins inconsistent with salvation Which I thus prove That Church which requires the giving the Creature the Worship due only to the Creator makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry for it they do it they are guilty of the latter if they do it not of the former but the Church of Rome in the Worship of God by Images the Adoration of the Bread in the Eucharist and the formal Invocation of Saints doth require the giving to the creature the Worship due only to the Creator therefore it makes the members of it guilty of hypocrisie or Idolatry That the Church of Rome in these particulars doth require the giving the creature the honour due only to God I prove thus concerning each of them 1. Where the Worship of God is terminated upon a creature there by their own confession the Worship due only to God is given to the creature but in the Worship of God by Images the Worship due to God is terminated wholly on the creature which is thus proved the Worship which God himself denyes to receive must be terminated on the creature but God himself in the second Commandment not only denyes to receive it but threatens severely to punish them that give it Therefore it cannot be terminated on God but only on the Image 2. The same argument which would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry lawful cannot excuse any act from Idolatry but the same argument whereby the Papists make the Worship of the Bread in the Eucharist not to be Idolatry would make the grossest Heathen Idolatry not to be so For if it be not therefore Idolatry because they suppose the bread to be God then the Worship of the Sun was not Idolatry by them who supposed the Sun to be God and upon this ground the grosser the Idolatry was the less it was Idolatry for the grossest Idolaters were those who supposed their Statues to be Gods And upon this ground their Worship was more lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so 3. If the supposition of a middle excellency between God and us be a sufficient ground for formal Invocation then the Heathen Worship of their inferiour Deities could be no Idolatry for the Heathens still pretended that they did not give to them the Worship proper to the Supream God which is as much as is pretended by the devoutest Papist in justification of the Invocation of Saints To these I expect a direct and punctual answer professing as much Charity towards them as is consistent with Scripture and Reason 2. Because the Church of Rome is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by such opinions and practices which are very apt to hinder a good life Such are the destroying the necessity of a good life by making the Sacrament of Penance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation the taking off the care of it by supposing an expiation of sin by the prayers of the living after death and the sincerity of devotion is much obstructed in it by prayers in a language which many understand not by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not by discouraging the reading the Scripture which is our most certain rule of faith and life by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as we are ready to defend by the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn Celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ by making it in the power of any person to dispense contrary to the Law of God in Oathes and Marriages by making disobedience to the Church in disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication By all which practices and opinions we assert that there are so many hinderances to a good life that none who have a care of their salvation can venture their souls in the communion of such a Church which either enjoyns or publickly allows them 3. Because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainty By making the authority of the Scriptures to depend on the infallibility of the Church when the Churches Infallibility must be proved by the Scripture by making those things necessary to be believed which if they be believed overthrow all foundations of faith viz. That we are not to believe our senses in the plainest objects of them as that bread which we see is not bread upon which it follows that tradition being a continued kind of sensation can be no more certain than sense it self and that the Apostles might have been deceived in the body of Christ after the resurrection and the Church of any Age in what they saw or heard By denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church by making the Churches power extend to make new Articles of faith viz. by making those things necessary to be believed which were not so before By pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not determining Controversies which are on foot among themselves All which and several other things which my designed brevity will not permit me to mention tend very much to shake the faith of such who have nothing else to rely on but the authority of the Church of Rome 3. I answer That a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not but although we know not what allowances God will make for invincible ignorance we are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation To the second Question I answer 1. I do not understand what is meant by a Christian in the Abstract or in the whole latitude it being a thing I never heard or read of before and therefore may have some meaning in it which I cannot understand 2. But if the Question be as the last words imply it Whether a Christian by vertue of his being so be bound to joyn in some Church or Congregation of Christians I answer affirmatively and that he is bound to choose the communion of the purest Church and not to leave that for a corrupt one though called never so Catholick The Proposer of the Questions Reply to the Answer Madam I
This is my body Why do not then the people as readily believe that as any other proposition By which we see it is not meerly reading but a more dangerous thing called considering or reasoning which make them embrace some things as they lye in words and interpret others according to the clearest evidence which the nature of the thing the comparing with other places and the common sense of mankind will give But why are we not all of a mind I would fain know the time when men were so This variety of Sects was objected against the Philosophers and thought no argument then it was objected against the primitive Christians and thought of no force then why must it signifie more in England than ever it did in any other age or place But say they It was otherwise in England before the Scriptures came to be read by all it was and is otherwise in all Churches where they are not read therefore these Sects and Fanaticisms are the dire effects of the promiscuous reading the Scriptures This is the common and popular argument All things were well with us when we offered up Cakes to the Queen of Heaven when all joyned in the communion of the Roman Church then there were no Fanaticisms nor New Lights no Sects as there are now in England therefore why should any one make any doubt but he ought to return to the Church of Rome This necessarily leads me into the examination of these two things 1. Whether there be no danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church 2. Whether the Vnity of that Church be so admirable to tempt all persons who prize the Churches Vnity to return to it § 2. Concerning the danger of Fanaticism in the Roman Church By Fanaticism we understand either an Enthusiastick way of Religion or resisting authority under a pretence of Religion In either sense it shall appear that the Church of Rome is so far from being cleared from it that it hath given great encouragement to it 1. As to an Enthusiastick way of Religion I shall now prove that there have not been greater Enthusiasts among us in England than have been in the Roman Church all the difference is they have been some alwayes others for a time allowed and countenanced and encouraged by those of the Church of Rome but among us they have been decryed and opposed by all the members of the Church of England I shall not insist upon the resolution of faith and the infallibility of the Church which must be carried to Enthusiasm at last but I shall prove it by plain revelations which have been made the grounds among them of believing some doctrines in dispute and the reasons of setting up a more perfect way of life which in the highest strain of their devotion is meer Enthusiasm 1. Revelations have been pleaded by them in matters of doctrine such I mean which depend upon immediate impulses and inspirations since the Canon of Scripture and Apostolical Traditions Of this we have a remarkable instance in a late controversie managed with great heat and interest on both sides viz. of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary about the ending of which a solemn Embassy was sent from the Kings of Spain Philip the third and Philip the fourth to the Popes Paul the fifth and Gregory the thirteenth and an account is given of it by one concerned himself in the management of the Theological part of it which he saith is therefore published that the world may understand upon what grounds the doctrines of faith are established among them One of the chief whereof insisted upon was some private revelations made to some Saints about the immaculate conception which being once received in the Church adds no small strength he saith to any doctrine and gives a solid foundation for a definition i. e. that the matter may be defined to be of faith and necessary to be believed by all Christians Upon this he reckons up several revelations publickly received in the Church one mentioned by Anselm being a divine apparition to an Abbot in a storm a fit time for apparitions whereby he was admonished to keep the Feast of the Conception of the blessed Virgin upon which as Baronius observes that Feast was first kept in England Which revelation Wadding tells us is publickly recited in the office for the day and was not only extant in several Breviaries of England France Spain and Italy but he had divers himself authorized by the Pope wherein it was recommended as true and piously to be believed and accordingly have been publickly sung and used in the Church about an hundred years And what saith he is the consequence of disbelieving this but to say in effect that the Pope and the Roman Church are easily cheated and abused by impostures and forgers of false revelations to institute new Festival Solemnities upon the credit of them Another revelation was made to Norbertus the founder of the Order of the Praemonstratenses in which the Virgin Mary appeared and commended her veneration to him and gave him a white garment in token of her Original Innocency which revelation is believed by all of that Order and taken as the reason of their habit Besides these there are several other revelations to S. Gertrude and others to the same purpose reckoned up by several Catholick Authors which no man ought to reject unless he intends to be as great a Heretick or therein as wise a man as Erasmus was Nay these revelations were so frequent he saith that there hath been no age since the tenth Century wherein there hath not been some made to devout men or women about this matter But above all these most remarkable were those to S. Brigitt who had not one or two but many to this purpose and the latest were of Joanna a Cruce which it seems were at first eagerly opposed but at last came out with the approbation of two Cardinals and several Bishops of the Inquisition in Spain But now who could imagine a thing so often revealed so publickly allowed so many times attested from Heaven should not be generally received but the mischief of it was the contrary doctrine had revelations for it too For Antoninus and Cajetan say S. Catharine of Siena had it revealed to her that she was conceived with Original sin What is to be done now Here we have Saint against Saint Revelation against Revelation S. Catharine against S. Brigitt and all the rest of them Here to speak truth they are somewhat hard put to it for they grant God cannot contradict himself and therefore of one these must be false but which of them is all the question Here they examine which of these doctrines is most consonant to Scripture and Tradition which is most for the benefit of the Church which were persons of the greater sanctity and whose revelations were the most approved For. S. Brigitts they plead stoutly that when they were delivered by her
do hold that it is only in the power of the whole Church successively from the Apostles to declare what books are Canonical and what not For the 11. article about justification he saith the Controversie is only about words because we are agreed that God alone is the efficient cause of Justification and that Christ and his passion are the meritorious cause of it and the only question is about the formal cause which our Church doth not attribute to the act of faith as he proves by the book of Homilies but only makes it a condition of our being justified and they believe that by faith we obtain our righteousness by Christ so that he can find no difference between them and us in that point He saith the Controversie about merit may be soon ended according to the doctrine of our Church for they deny as well as we article 1. 3. that any works done before the Grace of Christ and Inspiration of his Spirit can merit any thing and when we say article 12. that good works which follow justification are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ if by that we mean that they are accepted by Christ in order to a reward by vertue of the promise of God through Christ that is all the sense of merit which he or the school of Scotus contends for For works of supererogation article 14. he saith our Church condemns them upon that ground that men are said to do more by them than of duty they are bounden to do which being generally understood they condemn he saith as well as we because we can doe no good works which upon the account of our natural obligation we are not bound to perform though by particular precept we are not bound to them In the 19 article where our Church saith that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of ceremonies but also in matters of faith he distinguisheth the particular Church of Rome from the Catholick Church which is frequently understood by that name and he saith it is only a matter of faith to believe that the Catholick Church hath not erred and not that the particular Church of Rome hath not In the 20. article our Church declares that the Church ought neither to decree any thing against holy writ so besides the same it ought not to enforce any thing to be believed of necessity to salvation this he interprets of what is neither actually nor potentially in the Scriptures neither in terms nor by consequence and so he thinks it orthodox and not against traditions Article 21. wherein our Church determins expresly against the infalibility of general Councils he understands it only of things that are not necessary to faith or manners which he saith is the common opinion among them The hardest article one would think to bring us off in was the 22. viz. that the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory Pardons worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Reliques and also Invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture But we need not despaire as long as one bred up in the Schools of Scotus designes our rescue he confesses it to be a difficult adventure but what will not subtilty and kindness doe together He observes very cunningly that these doctrines are not condemned absolutely and in themselves but only the Romish doctrine about them and therein we are not to consider what the Church of Rome doth teach but what we apprehend they teach or what we judge of their doctrine i. e. that they invocate Saints as they doe God himself that Purgatory destroys the cross of Christ and warms the Popes Kitchin that Pardons are the Popes bills of Exchange whereby he discharges the debts of what sinners he pleases that they give proper divine worship to images and reliques all which he saith are impious doctrines and we doe well to condemn them So that it is not want of faith but want of wit this good man condemns us for which if we attain to any competent measure of whereby to understand their doctrine there is nothing but absolute peace and harmony between us This grand difficulty being thus happily removed all the rest is done with a wet finger for what though our Church Art 24. saith that it is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custome of the primitive Church to have publick prayer in the Church or to Minister the Sacraments in a tongue not understood of the people Yet what can hinder a Scotist from understanding by the Scripture not the doctrine or command of it but the delivery of it viz. that the Scripture was written in a known tongue nay he proves that our Church is for praying in Latin by this Article because that either is a known tongue or ought to be so it being publickly lickly taught every where and if it be not understood he saith it is not per se but per accidens that it is so I suppose he means the Latin Tongue is not to blame that the people do not understand it but they that they learned their lessons no better at School But what is to be said for Women who do not think themselves bound to go to School to learn Latin He answers very plainly that S. Paul never meant them for he speaks of those who were to say Amen at the Prayers but both S. Paul and the Canon Law he tells us forbid women to speak in the Church The case is then clear S. Paul never regarded what language the Women used and it was no great matter whether they understood their Prayers or not But what is to be said to the Council of Trent which pronounces an Anathema to those who say that Prayers are to be said only in a known Tongue This doth not touch our Church at all he thinks because in some Colledges the Prayers are said in Latin but although that be a known tongue there it is no matter as long as the Council of Trent hath put in the word only that clears our Church sufficiently Besides the Council of Trent speaks expresly of the Masse which our Article doth not mention but only publick Prayers and the Council of Trent speaks of those who condemns it as contrary to the institution of Christ but our Church only condemns it as contrary to the institution of the Apostle but all the commands of the Apostles are not the commands of Christ therefore our Church declares nothing against faith in this Article Are not we infinitely obliged to a man that uses so much subtlety to defend our Church from errrour in faith But that which is most considerable is what he cites from Canus that it is no Heresie to condemn a custome or Law of the Church if it be not of something necessary to salvation especially if it be a custome introduced since the Apostles times as most certainly this was For the five Sacraments rejected
Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome § 1. HAving thus far Vindicated the Scriptures from being the cause by being read among us of all the Sects and Fanaticisms which have been in England I now return to the consideration of the Remainder of his Reply And one thing still remains to be cleared concerning the Scripture which is whether it can be a most certain rule of faith and life since among Protestants it is left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit which is as much as to ask whether any thing can be a rule which may be mis-understood by those who are to be guided by it or whether it be fit the people should know the Laws they are to be governed by because it is a dangerous thing to mis-interpret Laws and none are so apt to do it as the common people I dare say St. Augustin never thought that Heresies arising from mis-understanding Scriptures were a sufficient argument against their being a Rule of faith or being read by the people as appears by his discoursing to them in the place quoted by him For then he must have said to them to this purpose Good people ye perceive from whence Heresies spring therefore as you would preserve your soundness in the faith abstain from reading the Scriptures or looking on them as your rule mind the Traditions of the Church but trust not your selves with the reading what God himself caused to be writ it cannot be denyed that the Scriptures have far greater excellency in them than any other writings in the world but you ought to consider the best and most useful things are the most dangerous when abused What is more necessary to the life of man than eating and drinking yet where lyes intemperance and the danger of surfetting but in the use of these What keeps men more in their wits than sleeping yet when are men so lyable to have their throats cut as in the use of that What more pleasant to the eyes than to see the Sun yet what is there so like to put them out as to stare too long upon him Therefore since the most necessary and useful things are most dangerous when they are abused my advice must be that ye forbear eating sleeping and seeing for fear of being surfetted murdred or losing your sight which you know to be very bad things I cannot deny but that the Scriptures are called the bread of life the food of our souls the light of our eyes the guide of our wayes yet since there may be so much danger in the use of food of light and of a Guide it is best for you to abstain from them Would any man have argued like St. Augustin that should talk at this rate yet this must have been his way of arguing if his meaning had been to have kept the people from reading the Scriptures because Heresies arise from mis-understanding them But all that he inferrs from thence is what became a wise man to say viz. that they should be cautious in affirming what they did not understand and that hanc tenentes regulam sanitatis holding this still as our rule of soundness in the faith with great humility what we are able to understand according to the faith we have received we ought to rejoyce in it as our food what we cannot we ought not presently to doubt of but take time to understand it and though we know it not at present we ought not to question it to be good and true and afterwards saith that was his own case as well as theirs What S. Augustine a Guide and Father of the Church put himself equal with the people in reading and understanding Scriptures In which we not only see his humility but how far he was from thinking that this argument would any more exclude the people from reading the Scriptures than the great Doctors of the Church For I pray were they the common people who first broached Heresies in the Christian Church Were Arius Nestorius Macedonius Eutyches or the great abettors of their Doctrines any of the Vulgar If this argument then holds at all it must hold especially against men of parts and learning that have any place in the Church for they are much more in danger of spreading Heresies by mis-interpreting Scriptures than any others are But among Protestants he saith Scripture is left to the Fanciful interpretation of every private Spirit If he speaks of our Church he knows the contrary and that we profess to follow the unanimous consent of the primitive Fathers as much as they and embrace the doctrine of the four General Councils But if there have been some among us who have followed their own Fancies in interpreting Scripture we can no more help that than they can do in theirs and I dare undertake to make good that there have never been more absurd ridiculous and Fanciful Interpretations of Scripture than not the common people but the Heads of their Church have made and other persons in greatest reputation among them Which though too large a task for this present design may ere long be the subject of another For the authority of Henry 8. in the testimony produced from him when they yield to it in the point of Supremacy we may do it in the six articles or other
all wise men ever did and will do to the worlds end 4. I proved they made faith uncertain by making the Churches power to extend to the making new articles of faith This he grants to be to the purpose if it were true but he saith the Church never owned any such power in her General Councils which doth not hinder but that the Heads of their Church have pretended to it and in case it be disputable among them whether the Pope be not infallible that unavoidably leaves faith at uncertainties Yet he yields what I contend for which is that it is in the Churches Power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before for whether it be by inventing new Articles or declaring more explicitely the Truths not contained in Scripture and Tradition it is all one to my purpose as long as men might be saved without believing them before and cannot afterwards which is to make the conditions of salvation mutable according to the pleasure of the Church which is the greatest inconveniency of inventing new doctrines 5. I shewed they made faith uncertain by pretending to infallibility in determining Controversies and yet not using it to determine those which are on foot among themselves The force of the argument did not lye in this as he imagines as though faith could not be certain unless all controversies were determined which was far from my thoughts but that pretending there can be no faith without infallibility in their Church to end Controversies they should give such great occasion to suspect that they did not believe themselves by imploying that Infallibility in ending the great Controversies among themselves of which I have spoken already and to this he gives no answer at all Thus much in Vindication of the third Argument I made use of to prove that all those who are in the Communion of the Roman Church do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it § 15. I now come to the third answer to the first Question which was that a Protestant leaving the Communion of our Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible Ignorance and therefore cannot equally be saved with such a one Three things he objects against this Answer 1. That this makes them both damned though unequally because the Converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so 2. That this reflects as much upon St. Austin as them who rejected the Communion of the Manichees and embraced that of the Church of Rome upon their grounds 3. That it is contrary to our distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental To which I Reply 1. That the design of my Answer was not to pass the sentence of damnation on all who dye in the communion of the Roman Church but to shew that they who forsook a better Church for it do incurre greater guils than those who are alwayes bred up in it and live and dye in the belief of its being the true Church and therefore are not in an equal capacity of salvation with them I shall make my meaning more plain by a parallel Instance or two many in the Church of Rome have asserted the possibility of the Salvation of Heathens though some Bigots have denyed it to Protestants suppose this question were put concerning two persons Whether a Christian having the same motives to become a Heathen which one bred and born and well grounded in Heathenism hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it and a third person should answer that a Christian leaving the communion of the Christian Church doth incurre a greater guilt than one who was bred up in Heathenism and continues therein by invincible Ignorance doth this answer imply that they must both be damned though equally or rather doth it not yield a greater possibility of salvation to one than to the other Or suppose to come nearer our case the question were put concerning one that revolted from the Church of Iudah to the ten Tribes which were guilty of Idolatry though not of the highest kind whether he were equally capable of salvation with one who was bred up in the communion of the Church of Israel all his dayes I should make no question to pronounce his condition more dangerous than the other yet not therein damn them both but only imply that it was much harder for to escape than the other For he that was bred up in the Church of Israel believing it was the true God he served and in a right manner and looking on the Church of Iudah as a Schismatical Church and seeing the greater number of Tribes on their side and wanting that instruction which was in the Church of Iudah might in the sincerity of his heart serve God in a false way and pray to him to pardon all his errours and corruptions and have a general repentance of all sins though not particularly convinced of the Idolatry of the ten Tribes I dare not say but God will accept of such a one that thus fears God and works Righteousness in the simplicity of his heart but I cannot say the same of one who revolts from Iudah where the true God was worshipped in a true manner where he had sufficient means of instruction and either wilful Ignorance or temporal ends or unreasonable prejudices makes him deliberately choose a worse and more impure Church before a better for that very sin makes his case much more dangerous than the other Our business is not to enquire into the salvation or damnation of any particular persons for that depends upon so many circumstances as to the aggravation or extenuation of their faults the nature and sincerity of their repentance the integrity and simplicity of their minds which none but God himself can know but to find out the truest way to salvation and to reject whatever Church requires that which is in it self sinful for though God may pardon those who live in it in the simplicity of their minds yet their hopes lying in their Ignorance and repentance none who have a care of their souls dare venture themselves in so hazardous a state Setting aside then the consideration of the danger common to both I say the case of a Revolter from us to the Church of Rome is much worse than of one who was alwayes bred up in it because he might far more easily understand the danger he runs into and wilfull Ignorance only keeps him from it and he doth upon deliberation choose a state of infinite hazard before one of the greatest safety 2. This doth not reflect on St. Austin or the Church in his time which was as far different from theirs as the Churches of Iudah and Israel were from each other neither can it destroy the distinction of Fundamentals and not Fundamentals
after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successors the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about the matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own difference will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition oâ— the 39. Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by theiâ— own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours p. 355 CHAP. VI. An Answer to the Remainder of the Reply The mis-interpreting Scripture doth not hinder its being a rule of faith Of the superstitious observations of the Roman Church Of Indulgences the practice of them in what time begun on what occasion and in what terms granted Of the Indulgences in Iubilees in the Churches at Rome and upon saying some Prayers Instances of them produced What opinion hath been had of Indulgences in the Church of Rome some confess they have no foundation in Scripture or Antiquity others that they are pious frauds the miserable shifts the defenders of indulgences were put to plain evidences of their fraud from the Disputes of the Schools about them The treasure of the Church invented by Aquinas and on what occasion The wickedness of men increased by Indulgences acknowledged by their own Writers and therefore condemned by many of that Church Of Bellarmins prudent Christians opinion of them Indulgences no meer relaxations of Canonical Penance The great absurdity of the doctrine of the Churches Treasure on which Indulgences are founded at large manifested The tendency of them to destroy devotion proved by experience and the nature of the Doctrine Of Communion in one kind no devotion in opposing an Institution of Christ. Of the Popes power of dispensing contrary to the Law of God in Oaths and Marriages The ill consequence of asserting Marriage in a Priest to be worse than Fornication as it is in the Church of Rome Of the uncertainty of faith therein How far revelation to be believed against sense The arguments to prove the uncertainty of their faith defended The case of a revolter and a bred Papist compared as to salvation and the greater danger of one than the other proved The motives of the Roman Church considered those laid down by Bishop Taylor fully answered by himself An account of the faith of Protestants laid down in the way of Principles wherein the grounds and nature of our certainty of faith are cleared And from the whole concluded that there can be no reasonable cause to forsake the communion of the Church of England and to embrace that of the Church of Rome p. 476 ERRATA PAg. 25. l. 19. for adjuverit r. adjuvet p. ibid. Marg. r. l. 7. de baptis p. 31. Marg. r. Tract 18. in Ioh. p. 64. l. 13. dele only p. 75. Marg. r. Trigaut p. 101. l. 24. for I am r. am I p. 119. l. 28. for is r. in p. 135. Marg. for 68. r. 6. 8. p. 162. l. 17. after did put not Ch. 3. for pennance r. penance p. 219. l. 10. for him r. them p. 257. l. 21. for or r. and l. 31. for never r. ever p. 350. l. 21. for their r. the p. 414. l. 18. for these r. their p. 416. Marg. for nibaldi r. Sinibaldi p. 417. l. 2. before another insert one p. 499. l. 16. after not insert at p. 526. Marg. for act r. art p. 546. l. 8. after for insert one Two Questions proposed by one of the Church of Rome WHether a Protestant haveing the same Motives to become a Catholick which one bred and born and well grounded in the Catholick Religion hath to remain in it may not equally be saved in the profession of it 2. Whether it be sufficient to be a Christian in the abstract or in the whole latitude or there be a necessity of being a member of some distinct Church or Congregation of Christians Answer The first Question being supposed to be put concerning a Protestant yet continuing so doth imply a contradiction viz. That a Protestant continuing so should have the same Motives to become a Catholick takeing that term here only as signifying one of the communion of the Church of Rome which those have who have been born or bred in that communion But supposing the meaning of the Question to be this Whether a Protestant leaving the communion of our Church upon the Motives used by those of the Roman Church may not be equally saved with those who are bred in it I answer 1. That an equal capacity of salvation of those persons being supposed can be no argument to leave the communion of a Church wherein salvation of a person may be much more safe than of either of them No more than it is for a man to leap from the plain ground into a Ship that is in danger of being wrackt because he may equally hope to be saved with those who are in it Nay supposing an equal capacity of salvation in two several Churches there can be no reason to forsake the communion of the one for the other So that to perswade any one to leave our Church to embrace that of Rome it is by no means sufficient to ask whether such a one may not as well be saved as they that are in it already but it is necessary that they prove that it is of necessity to salvation to leave our Church and become a member of theirs And when they do this I intend to be one of their number 2. We assert that all those who are in the communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace it or continue in it And that upon these grounds 1. Because they must
the Learned among them that who will dispute against it must prepare himself to hear the censure of St. Austin Ep. 118. where he saith That it is a point of most insolent madness to dispute whether that be to be observed which is frequented by the whole Church through the world 4. He sayes The sincerity of Devotion is much obstructed by making the efficacy of Sacraments depend upon the bare administration whether our minds be prepared for them or not In what Council this Doctrine was defined I never read but as for the Sacrament of Penance which I suppose he chiefly aims at I read in the Council of Trent Sess. 14. Falso quidam calumniantur That some do falsly calumniate Catholick Writers as if they taught the Sacrament of Penance did confer Grace without the good motion of the receiver which the Church of God never taught nor thought But I am rather inclined to look upon this as a mistake than a calumny in the Objector 5. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is our most certain Rule of Faith and Life Here he calls the Churches prudential dispensing the reading of Scripture to persons whom she judges fit and disposed for it and not to such whom she judges in a condition to receive or do harm by it a discouraging the reading of Scriptures which is no other than whereas St. Paul Coloss. 3. 21. enjoyns Fathers not to provoke their children lest they be discouraged one should reprove a Father for discouraging his child because he will not put a Knife or Sword into his hands when he foresees he will do mischief with it to himself or others the Scriptures in the hands of a meek and humble soul who submits its judgement in the interpretation of it to that of the Church is a Sword to defend it but in the hands of an arrogant and presumptuous Spirit that hath no Guide to interpret it but it s own fancy or passion it is a dangerous Weapon with which he will wound both himself and others The first that permitted promiscuous reading of Scripture in our Nation was King Henry the eighth and many years were not passed but he found the ill consequences of it for in a Book set forth by him in the year 1542. he complains in the Preface That he found entred into some of his peoples hearts an inclination to sinister understanding of it presumption arrogancy carnal liberty and contention which he compares to the seven worse Spirits in the Gospel with which the Devil entred into the house that was purged and cleansed Whereupon he declares that for that part of the Church ordained to be taught that is the Lay people it ought not to be denyed certainly that the reading of the Old and New Testament is not so necessary for all those folks that of duty they ought and be bound to read it but as the Prince and Policy of the Realm shall think convenient so to be tolerated or taken from it Consonant whereunto saith he the Politick Law of our Realm hath now restrained it from a great many This was the judgement of him who first took upon him the Title of Head of the Church of England and if that ought not to have been followed in after times let the dire effects of so many new Sects and Fanaticisms as have risen in England from the reading of it bear witness For as St. Austin sayes Neque enim natae sunt Haereses Heresies have no other Origen but hence that the Scriptures which in themselves are good are not well understood and what is understood amiss in them is rashly and boldly asserted viz. to be the sense of them And now whether the Scriptures left to the private interpretation of every fanciful spirit as it is among Protestants be a most certain Rule of Faith and Life I leave to your self to judge 6. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by the multitude of superstitious observations never used in the Primitive Church as he is ready to defend he should have said to prove for we deny any such to be used in the Church 7. By the gross abuse of people in Pardons and Indulgences Against this I can assert as an eye-witness the great devotion caused by the wholsome use of Indulgences in Catholick Countreys there being no Indulgence ordinarily granted but enjoyns him that will avail himself of it to confess his sins to receive the Sacraments to pray fast and give alms all which duties are with great devotion performed by Catholick people which without the incitement of an Indulgence had possibly been left undone 8. He sayes The sincerity of devotion is much obstructed by denying the Cup to the Laity contrary to the practice of the Church in the solemn celebration of the Eucharist for a thousand years after Christ. This thousand years after Christ makes a great noise as if it were not as much in the power of the Church a thousand years after Christ as well as in the first or second Century to alter and change things of their own nature indifferent such as the communicating under one or both kinds was ever held to be by Catholicks But although the Cup were not then denyed to the Laity yet that the custome of receiving but under one kind was permitted even in the primitive Church in private communions the objector seems to grant becasue he speaks only of the Administration of it in the solemn Celebration and that it was also in use in publick Communions is evident from Examples of that time both in the Greek Church in the time of St. Chrysostome and of the Latin in the time of St. Leo the great As for the pretended obstruction of Devotion you must know Catholicks believe that under either species or kind whole Christ true God and man is contained and received and if it be accounted an hindrance to devotion to receive the total refection of our soul though but under one kind what must it be to believe that I receive him under neither but instead of him have Elements of Bread and Wine Surely nothing can be more efficacious to stir up Reverence and Devotion in us than to believe that God himself will personally enter under our Roof The ninth Hinderance of the sincerity of devotion is that we make it in the power of a person to dispense in Oathes and Marriages contrary to the Law of God To this I answer That some kind of Oaths the condition of the person and other Circumstances considered may be Iudged to be hurtful and not fit to be kept and the dispensation in them is no more than to Iudge or determine them to be so and consequently to do this cannot be a hinderance but a furtherance to devotion nor is it contrary to the Law of God which commands nothing that 's hurtful to be done As for Marriages we acknowledge the Church may dispense in
some degrees of Consanguinity and Affinity but in nothing contrary to the Law of God His tenth pretended Obstruction of Devotion is that we make disobedience to the Church in Disputable matters more hainous than disobedience to Christ in unquestionable things as Marriage he saith in a Priest to be a greater crime than Fornication I Answer That whether a Priest may Marry or no supposing the Law of the Church forbidding it is not a disputable matter but 't is out of Question even by the Law of God that Obedience is to be given to the Commands or Prohibitions of the Church The Antithesis therefore between disobedience to the Church in disputable matters and disobedience to the Laws of Christ in unquestionable things is not only impertinent to the Marriage of Priests which is unquestionably forbidden but supposing the matter to remain disputable after the Churches Prohibition destroys all obedience to the Church But if it suppose them only disputable before then why may not the Church interpose her Iudgement and put them out of dispute But still it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the Word of Christ that is his Counsel of Chastitie that Marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication But he considers not that though Marriage in it self be honourable yet if it be prohibited to a certain order of persons by the Church to whom Christ himself commands us to give obedience and they oblige themselves by a voluntary vow to live in perpetual Chastity the Law of God commanding us to pay our Vows it loses its honour in such persons and if contracted after such vow made is in the language of the Fathers no better than Adultery In the primitive Church it was the custome of some Younger Widdows to Dedicate themselves to the Service of the Church and in order thereunto to take upon them a peculiar habit and make a vow of continency for the future Now in case they Married after this St. Paul himself 1 Tim. 1. 12. saith That they incurred Damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith that is as the Fathers Expound it the vow they had made And the fourth Council of Carthage in which were 214 Bishops and among them St. Austin gives the Reason in these words If Wives who commit Adultery are guilty to their Husbands how much more shall such Widdows as change their Religious State be noted with the crime of Adultery And if this were so in Widdows much more in Priests if by Marrying they shall make void their first Faith given to God when they were consecrated in a more peculiar manner to his Service Thus much may suffice for Answer to the Argument which with its intricate terms may seem to puzzle an unlearned Reader let us now speak a word to the true state of the Controversie which is whether Marriage or single life in a Priest be more apt to obstruct or further devotion And St. Paul himself hath determined the Question 1 Cor. 7. 32. where he saith He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to our Lord how he may please our Lord But he that is Married careth for the things that are of the World how be may please his Wife This is the difference he putteth between the Married and Single life that this is apt to make us care for the things which belong to God and that to divert our thoughts from him to the things of the World Iudge therefore which of these states is most convenient for Priests whose proper office it is to attend wholly to the things of God Having thus cleared Catholick Doctrines from being any wayes obstructive to good life or devotion I shall proceed to his third Argument by which he will still prove that Catholicks run a great hazard of their souls in adhering to the Communion of the Church of Rome Because it exposeth the Faith of Christians to so great uncertainty This is a strange charge from the pen of a Protestant who hath no other certainty for his faith but every mans interpretation of the Letter of the Scriptures But First he saith it doth this By making the Authority of the Scriptures to depend upon the infallibility of the Church when the Churches infallibility must be proved by the Scriptures To this I Answer that the Authority of the Scripture not in it self for so it hath its Authority from God but in order to us and our belief of it depends upon the infallibility of the Church And therefore St. Austin saith of himself That he would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move him And if you ask him what moved him to submit to that Authority he tells you That besides the Wisdom he found in the Tenets of the Church there were many other things which most justly held him in it as the consent of people and Nations an Authority begun by Miracles nourished by hope increased by Charity and established by Antiquity the succession of Priests from the very seat of St. Peter to whom our Lord commended the feeding of his Sheep unto the present Bishoprick Lastly The very name of Catholick which this Church alone among so many Heresies hath not without cause obtained so particularly to her self that whereas all Hereticks would be called Catholicks yet if a stranger demand where the Catholicks go to Church none of these Hereticks dares to shew either his own house or Church These saith St. Austin so many and great most dear bonds of the name of Christian do justly hold a believing man in the Catholick Church These were the grounds which moved that great man to submit to her Authority And when Catholick Authors prove the infallibility of the Church from Scriptures 't is an Argument ad hominem to convince Protestants who will admit nothing but Scripture and yet when they are convinced quarrel at them as illogical disputants because they prove it from Scripture Next he saith we overthrow all foundation of Faith because We will not believe our sences in the plainest objects of them But what if God have interposed his Authority as he hath done in the case of the Eucharist where he tells us that it is his Body must we believe our sences rather than God or must we not believe them in other things because in the particular case of the Eucharist we must believe God rather than our sences Both these consequences you see are absurd Now for the case it self in which he instances Dr. Taylor above cited confesses that they viz. Catholicks have a divine Revelation viz. Christs word This is my Body whose Litteral and Grammatical sence if that sence were intended would warrant them to do violence to all the Sciences in the Circle but I add it would be no precedent to them not to believe their sences in other the plainest objects of them as in the matter of Tradition or Christs body after the
Resurrection 3. He saith that We expose faith to great uncertainty by denying to men the use of their Judgement and Reason as to matters of faith proposed by a Church that is we deny particular mens Iudgement as to matters of faith to be as good if not better than the Churches and to inferre from henâ—e that we make Faith uncertain is just as if on the contrary one should say that Protestants make faith certain by exposing matter of faith determined by the Church to be discussed and reversed by the Iudgement and reason or rather fancy of every private man We have good store of this kind of certainty in England But as for the use of our Iudgement and Reason as to the matters themselves proposed by the Church it is the daily business of Divines and Preachers not only to shew them not to be repugnant to any natural truth but also to illustrate them with Arguments drawn from reason But the use he would have of reason is I suppose to believe nothing but what his reason can comprehend and this is not only irrational in its self but contrary to the Doctrine of St. Paul where he commands us to captivate our understandings to the Obedience of Faith 4. He adds We expose faith to uncertainty by making the Church power extend to making new Articles of Faith And this if it were true were something indeed to his purpose But the Church never yet owned any such power in her General Councils but only to manifest and establish the Doctrine received from her Fore-fathers as is to be seen in the prooems of all the Sessions of the Council of Trent where the Fathers before they declare what is to be believed ever premise that what they declare is the same they have received by Tradition from the Apostles And because it may happen that some particular Doctrine was not so plainly delivered to each part of the Church as it happened in St. Cyprians case concerning the non-rebaptization of Hereticks we acknowledge it is in her power to make that necessary to be believed which was not so before not by inventing new Articles but by declaring more explicitely the Truths contained in Scripture and Tradition Lastly he saith We expose Faith to great uncertainty because the Church pretending to infallibility does not determine Controversies on foot among our selves As if faith could not be certain unless all Controversies among particular men be determined what then becomes of the certainty of Protestants faith who could yet never find out a sufficient means to determine any one Controversie among them for if that means be plain Scripture what one Iudgeth plain another Iudgeth not so and they acknowledge no Iudge between them to decide the Controversie As for the Catholick Church if any Controversies arise concerning the Doctrine delivered as in St. Cyprians case she determines the Controversie by declaring what is of Faith And for other Controversies which belong not to faith she permits as St. Paul saith every one to abound in his own sence And thus much in Answer to his third Argument by which and what hath been said to his former Objections it appears that he hath not at all proved what he asserted in his second Answer to the first Question viz. That all those who are in the Communion of the Church of Rome do run so great a hazard of their Salvation that none who have a care of their souls ought to embrace or continue in it But he hath a third Answer for us in case the former faile and it is § 10. That a Protestant leaving the Communion of the Protestant Church doth incurr a greater guilt than one who was bred up in the Church of Rome and continues therein by invincible ignorance This is the directest answer he gives to the Question and what it imports is this That invincible Ignorance and he doth not know what allowance God will make for that neither is the only Anchor which a Catholick hath to save himself by If by discoursing with Protestants and reading their Books he be not sufficiently convinced whereas he ought in the supposition of the Answerer to be so that the Letter of the Scripture as interpretable by every private mans reason is a most certain Rule of Faith and Life but is still over-ruled by his own Motives the same which held St. Austin in the bosome of the Catholick Church he is guilty of wilful Ignorance and consequently a lost man there is no hope of Salvation for him Much less for a Protestant who shall embrace the Catholick Communion because he is supposed doubtless from the same Rule to have sufficient conviction of the Errors of the Roman Church or is guilty of wilful Ignorance If he have it not which is a damnable sin and unrepented of destroyes salvation So that now the upshot of the Answer to the Question Whether a Protestant embracing Catholick Religion upon the same motives which one bred and well grounded in it hath to remain in it may be equally saved with him comes to this that they shall both be damned though unequally because the converted Catholick more deeply than he that was bred so And now who can but lament the sad condition of that great Doctor and Father of the Church and hitherto reputed St. Austin who rejecting the Manichees pretended rule of Scripture upon the aforesaid grounds left their Communion to embrace the Communion of the Church of Rome And what is become now of their distinction of points fundamental from not fundamental which heretofore they thought sufficient to secure both Catholicks and Protestants Salvation and to charge us with unconscionable uncharitableness in not allowing them to be sharers with us The absurdness of these consequences may serve for a sufficient conviction of the nullity of his third and last answer to the first Question As for what he saith to the second I agree so far with him that every Christian is bound to choose the Communion of the purest Church but which that Church is must be seen by the grounds it brings to prove the Doctrines it teaches to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles That Church is to be judged purest which hath the best grounds and consequently it is of necessity to Salvation to embrace the communion of it What then you are bound to do in reason and conscience is to see which Religion of the two hath the strongest Motives for it and to embrace that as you will answer the contrary to God and your own soul. To help you to do this and that the Answerer may have the less exception against them I will give you a Catalogue of Catholick Motives though not all neither in the words of the forecited Dr. Taylor advertising only for brevity sake I leave out some mentioned by him and that in these I set down you also give allowance for some expressions of his with which he hath mis-represented them Thus then he Liberty of
dangerous for me to be too confident of the sense of it I have heard some wise men of our church have said that these words may bear a figurative sense like that rock was Christ and that if there were no other evidence for transubstantiation but what the Scripture gives there were no reason to make it an Article of faith I have heard the great names of Scotus Aliaco Biel Fisher Cajctan Canus and others quoted to this purpose and their testimonies produced What a case am I in then if those words do not prove it Now I think better of it I must trust the Church for the sense of Scripture and if I be not strangely mistaken I am sworn to interpret Scripture according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers but alas what relief is this to my anxious mind This is a thing I am to do or not to do almost every day and to be resolved of it I am put to a task which will hold me all my life time and may be as unsatisfied at last as I am now For I see the world is full of Disputes concerning the sense of their words as well as the Scriptures One saith that a Father by a figure means a substance and that another by a substance means a figure one man sayes his adversaries authorities are counterfeit and another sayes the same of his one quotes the saying of an Heretick for the Orthodox and another makes it appear that if he spake his own mind he must contradict himself and others of the Fathers One produces a Pope confirming the Doctrine of transubstantiation and another as plain a testimony of a Pope of greater antiquity and more learning overthrowing it One appeals to the first Ages of the Church another to the latest one saith the Fathers spake Rhetorically and another Dogmatically One that they loved to talk mystically and another that they spake differently about this matter In this great confusion what ground of certainty have I to stand upon whereby to secure my mind from commission of a great sin I am sure if I live in wilful sin all my dayes I shall be damned but God hath never told me if I do not study the Fathers all my life I shall be damned It is satisfaction I desire and that I am not like to have this way when I see men of greater Wit and Subtlety and Judgement than ever I am like to come to are still disputing about the sense of the Fathers in this point Witness the late heats in France about it While I am in this Labyrinth a kind Priest offers to give me ease and tells me these are doubts and scruples I ought not to trouble my self about the authority of the present Church is sufficient for me I thank him for his kindness only desiring to know what he means by the authority of the present Church For I find we Catholicks are not agreed about that neither May I be sure if the Pope who is Head of the Church say it No not unless he defines it but may I be sure then No not unless a General Council concur but may I be sure if a General Council determines it Yes if it be confirmed wholly by the Pope and doth proceed in the way of a Council but how is it possible for me to judge of that when the intrigues of actions are so secret I see then if this be the only way of satisfaction I must forbear giving adoration or be guilty of Idolatry in doing it But suppose I am satisfied in the point of transubstantiation it is not enough for me to know in general that there is such a change but I must believe particularly that very bread to be changed so which I am now to worship and by what means can I be sure of that For my Church tells me that it is necessary that he be a Priest that consecrates and that he had an intention of consecrating that very bread which I am to adore But what if it should come to pass after many consecrations that such a person prove no Priest because not rightly baptized which is no unheard of thing what became of all their actions who worshipped every Host he pretended to consecrate They must be guilty of Idolatry every Mass he celebrated But how is it possible for me to be sure of his Priesthood unless I could be sure of the intention of the Bishop that ordained him and the Priest that baptized him which it is impossible for me to be Yet suppose I were sure he was a Priest what assurance have I that he had an intention to consecrate that very Wafer which I am to adore If there were thirteen and he had an intention to consecrate only twelve if I worship the thirteenth I give divine honour to a meer creature for without the intention of the Priest in consecration it can be nothing else and then I am guilty of downright Idolatry So that upon the principles of the Roman Church no man can be satisfied that he doth not worship a meer creature with divine honour when he gives adoration to the Host. 2. No man can be satisfied that he hath sufficient reason for giving this worship to the Host. For which we must consider what suppositions the adoration of the Host depends upon if any of which prove uncertain I am in as bad a case as I was before I first suppose that the bread being really and substantially changed into that very body of Christ which was crucified at Hierusalem I ought to give the same honour to that body of Christ in the Sacrament which I am to give to the person of Christ as God and man and that the body of Christ being present in the Sacrament I may on the account of that presence give the same honour to the Sacrament in which he is present But if it prove uncertain whether the humane nature of Christ as conjoyned to the divine nature be capable of receiving proper divine worship then it must be much more so whether the body of Christ as present in the Sacrament be so But granting that it may be yet uncertain whether I ought to give the same honour to the visible part of the Sacrament which I do to the humanity of Christ for though Christ may be present there his presence doth not make the things wherein he is present capable of the same divine honour with himself Now that these things are uncertain upon their own principles I now make appear I find it generally agreed by the Doctors of the Roman Church that the humane nature of Christ considered alone ought not to have divine honour given to it and I find it hotly disputed among them whether Christs humane nature though united to the divine ought abstractly considered to have any true divine honour given it and those who deny it make use of this substantial argument proper divine honour is due only to God but the humane nature of Christ
was performed to the Martyrs for neither was any Sacrifice offered up to any of them nor any other part of religious worship for thereupon he shews which is very conveniently left out in the citation that not only Sacrifice was refused by Saints and Angels but any other religious honour which is due to God himself as the Angel forbad St. Iohn to fall down and worship him All the worship therefore he saith that they give to Saints is That of love and society and of the same kind which we give to holy men in this life who are ready to suffer for the truth of the Gospel But that the worship of Invocation is expresly excluded by St. Austin appears by what himself saith on a like occasion where he shews the difference between the Gentiles worship and theirs They saith he build Temples erect Altars appoint Priests and offer Sacrifices but we erect no Temples to Martyrs as to Gods but Memories as to dead men whose Spirits live with God we raise no Altars on which to sacrifice to Martyrs but to one God the God of Martyrs as well as ours at which as men of God who have overcome the world by confessing him they are named in their place and order but are not invocated by the Priest who sacrifices And elsewhere saith Whatever the Christians do at the memories of the Martyrs is for ornaments to those memories not as any sacred Rites or Sacrifices belonging to the dead as Gods we therefore do not worship our Martyrs with divine honours nor with the faults of men as the Gentiles did their Gods Which gave occasion to Lud. Vives in his Notes on that Chapter to say that many Christians in his time what sort of Catholicks those were it is easie to guess but to be sure none of St. Austins did no otherwise worship Saints than they did God himself neither could he see in many things any difference between the opinion they had of Saints and what the Gentiles had of their Gods I cannot understand then how St. Austins answer should justifie that which he condemns He denyes that there was an Invocation of Saints but only a commemoration of them the Church of Rome pleads for any Invocation of them and condemns all those who deny it So that his answer is very far from clearing the Roman Church in the practice of Invocation and the objection we make against it that it doth parallel the Heathen Idolatry for it grants it would do so if they gave to the Saints the worship due to God of which he makes Invocation to be a part But after all this can we imagine that he should practise himself contrary to his own doctrine Yes saith he he made a prayer to St. Cyprian let Blessed Cyprian therefore help us in our prayers But is there no difference to be made between such an Apostrophe to a person in ones writing and solemn supplication to him with all the soâ—emnity of devotion in the duties of Religious worship If I should now say Let St. Austin now help me in his prayers while I am defending his constant opinion that Invocation is proper to God alone would they take this for renouncing the Protestant doctrine and embracing that of the Church of Rome I doubt they would not think that I escaped the Anathema of the Council of Trent for all this The Question between us is not how far such wishes rather than prayers were thought allowable being uttered occasionally as St. Austin doth this to St. Cyprian but whether solemn Invocation of Saints in the duties of Religious worship as it is now practised in the Roman Church were ever practised in St. Austins time and this we utterly deny We do not say that they did not then believe that the Saints in Heaven did pray for them and that some of them did express their wishes that they would pray particularly for them we do not say that some superstitions did not creep in after the Anniversary meetings at the Sepulchres of the Martyrs grew in request for St. Austin himself saith that what they taught was one thing and what they did bear with was another speaking of the customes used at those solemnities But here we stand and fix our foot against all opposition whatsoever that there was no such doctrine or practice allowed in the Church at that time as is owned and approved at this day in the Church of Rome But from St. Austin we are sent to Calvin whose authority though never owned as infallible by us we need not fear in this point and I cannot but wonder if he saw the words in Calvin or Bellarmin that he would produce them For Calvin doth there say That the Council of Carthage did forbid praying to Saints lest the publick prayers should be corrupted by such kind of addresses Holy Peter pray for us If St. Austin were present in this Council as my Adversary saith he was I wonder what advantage it will be to him from Calvins saying that the Council did condemn and forbid those prayers which were in use by some of the people But it seems he takes the peoples part against the Council and St. Austin too and thinks it enough for them to follow the practices condemned by Councils and Fathers which we are sure they do and are glad to find so ingenuous a confession of it He may as well the next time bring St. Austins testimony for worshipping Martyrs and Images because he saith he knew many who adored Sepulchres and Pictures and for the worship of Angels because he saith he had heard of many who had tryed to go to God by praying to Angels and were thought worthy to fall into delusions § 16. But the strangest effort of all the rest is what he hath reserved to the last place viz. That the charge of Idolatry against them must be vain and groundless because if I be pressed close I shall deny any one of these Negative points to be divine truths viz. that honour is not to be given to the Images of Christ and his Saints that what appears to be bread in the Eucharist is not the body of Christ that it is not lawful to Invocate the Saints to pray for us But the answer to this is so easie that it will not require much time to dispatch it For I do assert it to be an Article of my faith That God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and he that cannot hence infer that no created Being is to be so worshipped hath the name of reasonable creature given him to no purpose What need we make Negative Articles of faith where the Affirmative do necessarily imply them If I believe that the Scripture is my only rule of faith as I most firmly do will any man that considers what he saith require me to make Negative Articles of faith that the Pope is not Tradition is not Councils are not a
A DISCOURSE Concerning the IDOLATRY Practised in the CHURCH OF ROME AND The danger of Salvation in the Communion of it in answer to some Papers of a Revolted Protestant WHEREIN A particular Account is given of the Fanaticism and Divisions of that Church By Edward Stillingfleet D. D. 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 1671. THE PREFACE ALthough I see no great effect of the Courtship commonly used towards the Candid and Ingenuous Reader unless it be in diverting the censure from the Book to the Preface yet in some cases it looks like a breach of the Readers priviledge not to give him an account of the occasion and design of a Book Especially when the matter handled therein hath been thought so often discussed and is of so general concernment that every pretender thinks he knows as much already as is to be known in it But we really find no greater advantage hath been given to our Adversaries than this that the things in dispute between us are generally no better understood by the persons they have their designs upon For assoon as they have baffled their ignorance and mistakes these have been ready to yield up themselves and the Cause imagining nothing more could be said for it than they could say for themselves Whereby our Church hath not only suffered in its reputation as far as that is concerned in the weakness of some of its members but strange boasts and triumphs have been made by those of the Church of Rome when such who understood not their own Religion have embraced theirs While these disputes were fresh in the world every one thought himself concerned to enquire into them but since our Church hath been so long established on the principles of the Reformation and other unhappy controversies have risen up the most have taken this Cause for granted and thought it needless to enquire any farther into the Grounds of it Which our Adversaries perceiving they have found far greater success in their attempts upon particular persons than in publick Writings for these have only provoked others to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause whereas in the other by their wayes of Address and all the arts of Insinuation they have instilled their principles into the minds of some less judicious persons before they were aware of it Thence it is easie to observe that the greatest mischief they have done hath been like the Pestilence by walking in darkness and spreading their infection by whispers in corners All their hopes and strength lye in the weakness and credulity of the persons they deal with but if they meet with any who truly understand the differences between us they soon give them over as untractable But to such whose employments have not given them leave to enquire or whose capacity hath not been great enough to discern their Sophistry their first work is to make a false representation both of the Doctrines and practices of their Church and if they be of such easie faith to believe them they from thence perswade them into an ill opinion of their Teachers who possessed them with so bad thoughts of such a Church as theirs A Church of so great Holiness as may be seen by the Saint-like lives of their Popes and Converts a Church of so great Antiquity bating only the Primitive times a Church of so admirable Unity saving the divisions in it a Church so free from any Fanatick heats as any one may believe that will If this first assault doth not make them yield but they desire at least time to consider and advise in a matter of so great importance then they tell them there is not a man of our Church dares give any of them a meeting if they offer to puâ— it to a tryal they will appoint a day which they foresee will be most inconvenient for the persons they are to meet with If upon that account it be declined or deferred this is spred abroad for a Victory if it be accepted then one thing or other happens that they cannot come either the person goes out of Town unexpectedly or his Superiours have forbidden him or such conferences are not safe for them they are so sorely persecuted or at last what good can an hours talk do to satisfie any one in matters of Religion But if there be no remedy which they are seldome without and a conference happen which they scarce ever yield to but when they are sure of the person for whose sake it is then whosoever was baffled they are sure to go away with the triumph and as an evidence of it such a person went off from our Church upon it which was made sure of their side before If this way takes not then a sett of Questions is ready to be sent if another be returned to them to be answered at the same time this is declined and complained of as hard dealing as though they had only the priviledge of putting Questions and we the duty of answering them If answers be given to them after a Pass or two they put an end to the tryal of their skill in that place and seek for another to shew it in But if the Papers chance to be slighted or business hinders a present answer or there be a reasonable presumption that the person concerned hath already forsaken our Church this becomes the occasion of a new triumph the Papers are accounted unanswerable as the Spanish Armado was called invincible which we thank God we found to be otherwise and it may be are demanded again as Trophies to be preserved for the glory of the Catholick Cause All these several wayes I have had experience of in the compass of a few years since by command I was publickly engaged in the Defence of so excellent a Cause as that of our Church against the Church of Rome I confess it seemed somewhat hard to me to be put to answer so many several Papers which I have received upon their tampering with particular persons of our Church while my Book it self remained unanswered by them after so many years of trying their strength about it For those two who in some small measure have attempted it have performed it in the way that Ratts answer Books by gnawing some of the leaves of them for the body and design of it remains wholly untouched by them But for the satisfaction of any person who desired it I was not willing to decline any service which tended to so good an end as the preserving any member of our Church in the communion of it Which was the occasion of this present writing For some time since the person concerned after some discourses with her brought me the two Questions mentioned in the beginning of the Book to which I returned a speedy answer in the midst of many other employments not long after I received the
or Heathenish fornication was here only reprehended as Jewish or Heathenish Idolatry But as the one is a foul sin whether it be committed by Jew Pagan or Christian so if such as profess the Name of Christ shall practise that which the Word of God condemneth in Jews or Pagans for Idolatry their profession is so far from diminishing that it augmenteth rather the hainousness of the crime About the same time came forth Bishop Downams Book of Antichrist wherein he doth at large prove That to give divine honour to a creature is Idolatry and that the Papists do give it in the Worship of Saints the Host and Images which is likewise done nearer our own times by Bishop Davenant and Dr. Jackson I shall conclude all although I might produce more with the testimony of Archbishop Laud who in his Conference saith the ancient Church knew not the adoration of Images and the modern Church of Rome is too like to Paganism in the practice of it and driven to scarce intelligible subtleties in her Servants writings that defend it this without any care had of millions of souls unable to understand her subtleties or shun her practice and in his Marginal Notes upon Bellarmin written with his own hand now in my possession where Bellarmin answers the testimony of the Council of Laodicea against the Worship of Angels by saying That it doth not condemn all Worship of Images but only that which is proper to God he replyes That Theodoret who produced that testimony of the Council expresly mentions the praying to Angels therefore saith he the praying to them was that Idolatry which the Council condemns By this we see that the most Eminent and Learned Defenders of our Church of greatest authority in it and zeal for the Cause of it against enemies of all sorts have agreed in the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome And I cannot see why the authority of some very few persons though of great Learning should bear sway against the constant opinion of our Church ever since the Reformation Since our Church is not now to be formed according to the singular Fancies of some few though Learned men much less to be modelled by the Caprichio's of Superstitious Fanaticks who prefer some odd Opinions and wayes of their own before the received doctrine and practice of the Church they live in Such as these we rather pity their weakness than regard their censures and are only sorry when our Adversaries make such properties of them as by their means to beget in some a disaffection to our Church Which I am so far from whatever malice and peevishness may suggest to the contrary that upon the greatest enquiry I can make I esteem it the best Church of the Christian world and think my time very well imployed what ever thanks I meet with for it in defending its Cause and preserving persons in the communion of it THE Contents CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images THE introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallell answered P. 49 CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith p. 108. CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroyes the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English
Proph. Sect. 20. Speaking of Catholicks The beauty and Splendour of their Church their pompous he should have said solemn Service the stateliness and solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of Catholick which they suppose he should have said their very Adversaries give them as their own due and to concern no other Sect of Christians the Antiquity of many of their Doctrines he should have said all the continual succession of their Bishops their immediate derivation from the Apostles their Title to succeed St. Peter the flattering he should have said due expression of Minor Bishops he means acknowledging the Pope head of the Church which by being old records have obtained credibility the multitude and variety of People which are of their perswasion apparent consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected and a pretended and sometimes he should have said alwayes apparent consent with some elder Ages in matters Doctrinal The great consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide of Faith The great differences which are commenced among their Adversaries abusing the liberty of Prophecying into a very great licentiousness Their happiness of being Instruments in converting divers he should rather have said of all Nations The piety and austerity of their Religious Orders of Men and Women The single life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their exteriour observances the great reputation of their first Bishops for faith and sanctity the known holiness of some of those persons whose institutes the Religious persons pretend to imitate the oblique Arts and indirect proceedings of some of those who departed from them and amongst many other things the names of Heretick and Schismatick which they with infinite pertinacity he should have said upon the same grounds the Fathers did fasten upon all that disagree from them These things saith he and divers others may very easily perswade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Fore-fathers which had actually possession and seizure of mens understandings before the opposite professions to wit of Protestant Presbyterian Anabaptist c. had a name Thus Dr. Taylor an eminent and leading man amongst the Protestants and if he confess that these Motives were sufficient for a Catholick to retain his Religion they must be of like force to perswade a dis-interessed Protestant to embrace it unless the Protestants can produce Motives for their Religion of greater or at least equal force with these which so great a man among them confesseth that Catholicks have for theirs Here therefore you must call upon the Author of the Paper you sent me to produce a Catalogue of grounds or at least some one ground for the Protestant Religion of greater or equal force with all these And as Dr. Taylor saith divers others which he omitted viz. The Scripture interpreted by the consent of Fathers the determination of General Councils the known Maxime of Catholicks that nothing is to be believed of Faith but what was received from their Fore-fathers as handed down from the Apostles The testimonie of the present Church of no less Authority now than in St. Austins time both for the Letter and the sence of the Scripture c. Do this and the Controversie will quickly be at an end Particular disputes are endless and above the understanding of such as are not learned but in grounds and principles 't is not so hard for Reason and common sence to Iudge That you may the better do it in your case I shall desire you to take these two Cautions along with you First That the Subject of the present Controversie are not those Articles in which the Protestants agree with us and for which they may pretend to produce the same Motives we do But in those in which they dissent from us such as are no Transubstantiation no Purgatory no honour due to Images no Invocation to Saints and the like in which the very Essence of Protestant as distinct from Catholick consists What Motives they can or will produce for these I do not foresee The pretence of Scriptures being sufficiently plain hath no place here because then the foresaid Negatives would be necessary to be believed as divine Truths And for their own Reason and Learning it will be found too light when put into the scale against that of the Catholick Church for so many Ages The second Caution is That you be careful to distinguish between Protestants producing grounds for their own Religion and finding fault with ours An Atheist can cavil and find fault with the grounds which learned men bring to prove a Deity such as are the Order of this visible World the general consent of Nations c. In this an Atheist thinks he doth somewhat But can he produce as good or better grounds for his own opinion No you see then 't is one thing to produce grounds for what we hold and another to find fault with those which are produced by the contrary part The latter hath made Controversie so long and the former will make it as short let the Answerer therefore instead of finding fault with our Motives produce his own for the Articles in Controversie and I am confident you will quickly discern which carry the most weight and consequently which are to be preferred A Defence of the foregoing Answer to the Questions CHAP. I. Of the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome in the Worship of Images The introduction concerning the occasion of the debate The Church of Rome makes its members guilty of Hypocrisie or Idolatry First Of the Worship of God by Images Some propositions for clearing the notion of Divine Worship It is in Gods power to determine the way of his Worship which being determined Gods Law and not our intention is to be the rule of Worship The main question is Whether God hath forbidden the worshipping of himself by an Image under the notion of Idolatry Of the meaning of the second Commandment from the terms therein used the large sense and importance of them which cannot be understood only of Heathen Idols Of the reason of that Law from Gods infinite and invisible nature How far that hath been acknowledged by Heathens The Law against Image Worship no ceremonial Law respecting meerly the Iews the reason against it made more clear by the Gospel The wiser Heathen did not worship their Images as Gods yet their worship condemned as Idolatry The Christian Church believed the reason of this Law to be immutable Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice the opposition to it in Greece Germany France and England Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment in the Golden Calf and the Calves of Dan and Bethel Of the distinctions used to excuse image-worship from being Idolatry The vanity and folly of them The instances supposed to be parallel answered Madam § 1. THat
different nature from the Worship of Images 3. To the Iewes adoraâ—ion towards the Ark and the Holy of Holies where the Cherubims and Propitiatory were 1. That they only directed their Worship towards the place where God had promised to be signally present among them and signifies no more to the Worship of Images than our lifting our eyes to Heaven doth when we pray because God is more especially present there 2. That though the Cherubims were there yet they were alwayes hid from the sight of the people the High-Priest himself going into the Holy of Holies but once a year that the Cherubims were no representations of God and his Throne was between them upon the mercy seat and were Hieroglyphical figures of Gods own appointing which the Iews know no more than we do which are plain arguments they were never intended for objects of Worship for then they must not have been meerly appendices to another thing they must have been publickly exposed as the Images are in the Roman Churches and their form as well known as any of the B. Virgin 4. To bowing at the name of Iesus that he might as well have instanced in going to Church at the toll of a bell for as the one only tells us the time when we ought to go to Worship God so the mentioning the name of Iesus doth only put us in mind of him we owe all manner of reverence to without dishonouring him as the object of our Worship by any image of him which can only represent that which is neither the object nor reason of our Worship 5. To kneeling at the Eucharist that of all things should not be objected to us who have declared in our Rubrick after Communion That thereby no adoration is intended or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or any corporal presence of Christs natural Flesh and Blood for the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians To bowing towards the Altar or at entring in and going out of the Church that it is of the same nature with the putting off our Hats while we are there and is only determining a natural act of Reverence that way which the ancient Christians did use to direct their Worship CHAP. II. Of their Idolatry in Adoration of the Host and Invocation of Saints The Argument proposed concerning the Adoration of the Host the insufficiency of the Answer to it manifested supposing equal revelation for Transubstantiation as for Christs Divinity yet not the same reason for Worshipping the Host as the person of Christ the great disparity between these two at large discovered the Controversie truly stated concerning Adoration of the Host and it is proved that no man on the principles of the Roman Church can be secure he doth not commit Idolatry in it The confession of our Adversaries that the same Principles will justifie the Worship of any Creature No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bishop Taylor 's Testimony answered by himself To Worship Christ in the Sun as lawful as to Worship him in the Host. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds The argument proposed and vindicated concerning the Invocation of Saints practised in the Church of Rome The Fathers Arguments against the Heathens hold against Invocation of Saints the state of the Controversie about Idolatry as managed by them They make it wholly unlawful to give divine Worship to any Creature how excellent soever The Worship not only of Heathen Gods but of Angels condemned The common evasions answered Prayer more proper to God than Sacrifice No such disparity as is pretended between the manner of Invocating Saints and the Heathens Invocating their Deities In the Church of Rome they do more than pray to Saints to pray for them proved from the present most Authentick Breviaries Supposing that were all it would not excuse them St. Austin no friend to Invocation of Saints Practices condemned by the Church pleaded for it Of Negative points being Articles of faith § 1. I Proceeded to the Adoration of the Host and here the Argument I proposed was to take off the common answer That this could not be Idolatry because they believed the Bread to be God upon the same ground I said they who believe the Sun to be God and Worship him on that account would be excused from Idolatry too nay the grosser their Idolatry was the more excusable it would be as that of those who supposed their Images to be Gods and upon this ground their Worship was more Lawful than of those who supposed them not to be so To this he answers two wayes 1. That they do not barely suppose that the substance of bread is changed into Christs body and that he is really present under the form of Bread but that they know and believe this upon the same grounds and motives upon which they believe that Christ is God and consequently to be adored and further addes that the same argument will hold against the adoration of Christ as God as against the adoration of him in the Eucharist since they have a like Divine Revelation for his real presence under the Sacramental signes as for his being true God and man 2. Supposing they were mistaken yet it would not follow they were Idolaters which he proves from Dr. Taylors words But notwithstanding these appearances of answering that my argument still stands good will be evident by proving these things 1. That supposing there were the same revelation of Christs Divinity and of his presence in the Eucharist by Transubstantiation yet there could not be the same reason for the Adoration of the Host as for worshipping Christ himself 2. That there are not the same motives and grounds to believe that Doctrine of Transubstantiatim that there are to believe that Christ is God 3. That supposing they are mistaken in the doctrine of Transubstantiation this doth not excuse them from Idolatry 4. That the same reason which would excuse them would excuse the most gross Idolaters in the World § â— That supposing there were the same divine revelation of Transubstantiation and of Christs Divinity yet there could not be the same reason for adoration of the Host as of Christ himself 1. Because there is a plain command in Scripture for one and there is nothing like it for the other All the Angels are commanded to Worship the Son of God Heb. 1. 6. and much more all men who have greater obligation to do it All men are to honour the Son as they honour the Father Joh. 5. 23. and to his name every knee is to bow Phil. 2. 10. But where is there the least intimation given that we are to Worship Christ in the Elements supposing him present there If it be said the general command doth extend to him where-ever he is present It is
is not God and therefore that honour ought not to be given it and I am further told by them that the Church hath never determined this controversie Let me now apply this to our present case It is certain if the body of Christ be present in the Eucharist as distinct from the divine nature I am not not to adore it It is very uncertain if it be present whether I am to give divine worship to the body of Christ but it is most certain that if I worship Christ in the Sacrament it is upon the account of his corporal presence For although when I worship the person of Christ as out of the Sacrament my worship is terminated upon him as God and man and the reason of my worship is wholly drawn from his divine nature yet when I worship Christ as in the Sacrament I must worship him there upon the account of his bodily presence for I have no other reason to Worship him in the Sacrament but because his body is present in it And this is not barely determining the place of Worship but assigning the cause of it for the primary reason of all adoration in the Sacrament is because Christ hath said this is my body which words if they should be allowed to imply Transubstantiation cannot be understood of any other change than of the bread into the body of Christ. And if such a sense were to be put upon it why may not I imagine much more agreeably to the nature of the institution that the meer humane nature of Christ is there than that his Divinity should be there in a particular manner present to no end and where it makes not the least manifestation of it self But if I should yield all that can be begged in this kind viz. that the body of Christ being present his divinity is there present too yet my mind must unavoidably rest unsatisfied still as to the adoration of the Host. For supposing the divine nature present in any thing gives no ground upon that account to give the same Worship to the thing wherein he is present as I do to Christ himself This the more considerative men of the Roman Church are aware of but the different wayes they have taken to answer it rather increase mens doubts than satisfie them Greg. de Valentiâ denies not that divine honour is given by them to the Eucharist and that the accidents remaining after Consecration are the term of adoration not for themselves but by reason of the admirable conjunction which they have with Christ. Which is the very same which they say of the humane nature of Christ and yet this same person denies that they are hypostatically united to him which if any one can understand I shall not envy him Bellarmin in answer to this argument is forced to grant as great an hypostatical union between Christ and the Sacrament as between the divine and humane nature for when he speaks of that he saith it lyes in this that the humane nature loseth its own proper subsistence and it assumed into the subsistence of the divine nature and in the case of the Sacrament he yields such a losing the proper subsistence of the bread and that what ever remains makes no distinct suppositum from the body of Christ but all belong to him and make one with him and therefore may be Worshipped as he is Is not this an admirable way of easing the minds of dissatisfied persons about giving adoration to the Host to fill them with such unintelligible terms and notions which it is impossible for them to understand themselves or explain to others Vasquez therefore finding well that the force of the argument lay in the presence of Christ and that from thence they must at last derive only the ground of adoration very ingenuously yields the Consequence and grants that God may very lawfully be adored by us in any created being wherein he is intimately present and this he not only grants but contends for in a set disputation wherein he proves very well from the principles of Worship allowed in the Roman Church that God may be adored in inanimate and irrational beings as well as in Images and answers all the arguments the very same way that they defend the other and that we way Worship the Sun as lawfully and with the same kind of Worship that they do an Image and that men may be worshipped with the same worship with which we Worship God himself if our mind do not rest in the Creature but be terminated upon God as in the adoration of the Host. See here the admirable effects of the doctrine of divine worship allowed and required in the Roman Church For upon the very same principles that a Papist Worships Images Saints and the Host he may as lawfully worship the Earth the Stars or Men and be no more guilty of Idolatry in one than in the other of them So that if we have no more reason to Worship the person of Christ than they have to adore the host upon their principles we have no more ground to worship Christ than we have to worship any creature in the World § 5. 2. There are not the same motives and grounds to believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation that there are to believe that Christ is God which he affirms but without any appearance of reason And I would gladly know what excellent motives and reasons those are which so advantageously recommend so absurd a doctrine as Transubstantiation is as to make any man think he hath reason to believe it I am sure it gives the greatest advantage to the enemies of Christs Divinity to see these two put together upon equal terms as though no man could have reason to believe Christ to be the Eternal Son of God that did not at the same time swallow the greatest contradictions to sense and reason imaginable But what doth he mean by these motives and grounds to believe The authority of the Roman Church I utterly deny that to be any ground of believing at all and desire with all my heart to see it proved but this is a proper means to believe Transubstantiation by for the ground of believing is as absurd as the doctrine to be believed by it If he means Catholick Tradition let him prove if he can that Transubstantiation was a Doctrine received in the universal Church from our Saviours time and when he pleases I shall joyne issue with him upon that Subject And if he thinks fit to put the negative upon me I will undertake to instance in an Age since the three first Centuries wherein if the most learned Fathers and Bishops yea of Rome it self be to be credited Transubstantiation was not believed But if at last he means Scripture which we acknowledge for our only rule of faith and shall do in spight of all pretences to infallibility either in Church or Tradition I shall appeal even to Bellarmin himself in this
and him only shalt thou serve and that we are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that are Gods on which account saith he we worship God alone and give cheerful service in all other things to you Theophilus Bishop of Antioch who lived in the second Century after Christ as well as Iustin giving an account why the Christians refused giving adoration to the Emperours which was then used not that adoration which was proper to the Supream God for none can be so senseless to imagine they required that but such kind of religious worship as they gave to the Images of their Gods saith That as the King or Emperour suffers none under him to be called by his name and that it is not lawful to give it to any but himself so neither is it to worship any but God alone and elsewhere saith that the Divine Law doth not only forbid the worship of Idols but of the Elements the Sun and Moon and Stars or any thing else in Heaven in Earth in Sea or Fountains or Rivers but we ought only to worship the true God and Maker of all things in the holiness of our hearts and integrity of our minds To the same purpose speak Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian Cyprian Origen Athenagoras Lactantius Arnobius who all agree that religious worship is proper to the true God and that no created thing is capable of it on that very account because it is created it were easie to produce their testimonies if it were requisite in so evident a matter as this is If it be said That all these testimonies are only against that Idolatry which was then practised by the Heathens I answer 1. Their reasons equally extend to the giving divine worship to any created being whatsoever so that either they argued weakly and unskilfully or else it is as unlawful to give divine worship now to Saints as it was then to any creature 2. I would willingly understand why it should be more unlawful to worship God for his admirable Wisdom and Power and Goodness in the works of Creation than in supposed Saints i. e. why I may not as well honour God by giving worship to the Sun as to Ignatius Loyola or St. Francis or any other late Canonized Saint I am sure the Sun is a certain monument of Gods Goodness Wisdom and Power and I cannot be mistaken therein but I can never be certain of the Holiness of those persons I am to give divine worship to For all that I can know Ignatius Loyola was a great hypocrite but I am sure that the Sun is none but that he shines and communicates perpetual influences to the huge advantage of the world However I know the best of men have their corruptions and to what degree it is impossible for others to understand but I am certain the spots in the Sun are no Moral impurities nor displeasing to God And Philip Nerius could not be mistaken in the shining of the Sun although he might be in the shining of Ignatius his face which yet is thought so considerable a thing that it is read in the Lessons appointed for Ignatius in the Roman Breviary 3. On what account should the Christians refuse giving all external signs of Religious worship to the Heathen Emperours if they thought it lawful to be given to any sort of men Why might not they worship the Statues of Kings and Princes as well as others do those of Rebels and Traytors I mean why might not the Image of King Henry the second have the same reverence shewn to it that the Shrine of Thomas Becket had unless it be more meritorious to disobey a Prince than to give him reverence Might not the Primitive Christians have much easier defended themselves in giving those outward signs of worship to the Images of Emperours than others can do in the worship they give to Saints For they might have pleaded that external signs are to be interpreted by the intention of the person who uses them that they intended no more by it but the highest degree of Civil honour on the account of the authority they possessed or if this would not serve might not they have said that Kings and Princes were Gods Vicegerents and represented him to the world and that in giving divine worship to them they gave it to God and that their absolute ultimate and terminative worship was upon God and only a relative inferior and transient worship was given to them and all this might be better justified by St. Basils rule That the honour of the Image passes to the Prototype for he there pleads for the worship of Christ because he is one with the Father being his Image as the Image of a King is called the King and hath the same honour given to it for the honour of the Image passeth to the thing represented And as Christ hath the advantage above all by being Gods natural Image so Princes above Saints in that they represent God to the world which the other do not But notwithstanding all these Pleas the Primitive Christians were so punctual in observing that Command of worshipping God alone that they rather chose to lose their lives and suffer Martyrdom than be in the least guilty of giving any divine worship to a creature 4. They absolutely deny any religious worship to be given to the most excellent created Beings and therefore did not only condemn the Idolatry then in use but that which hath obtained in the Roman Church supposing all the persons worshipped therein to have been real Saints For that we are to consider that all the Heathens were not such great Fools as some men make them to excuse themselves if the wiser men were contented to let the people worship the Poetical Gods having their minds possessed with those Idea's of them which they had taken up by their education yet they understood them only as Allegories as some make the Image of St. Christopher and St. George in the Church of Rome to be no other and they had Temples erected to the greatest Vertues to Piety Faith Concord Iustice Chastity Clemency c. and others to the greatest Benefactors to mankind which was the only ground they pleaded for giving worship to them but still they acknowledged one Supream God not Iupiter of Creet but the Father of Gods and men only they said this Supream God being of so high a nature and there being other intermediate beings between him and men whose Office they conceived it was to carry the prayers of men to God and to bring down help from him to them they thought it very fitting to address their solemn supplications to them Here now was the very same case in debate altering only the names of things which is between us and the Church of Rome and if ever they speak home to our case they must do upon this point And so they do but very little to their comfort § 10.
private Spirit is not for all these things are necessarily implyed therein And so for all particular doctrines rejected by us upon this principle we do not make them Negative points of faith but we therefore refuse the belief of them because not contained in our only rule of faith On this account we reject the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation Infalibility of the present Church in delivering points of faith Purgatory and other fopperies imposed upon the belief of Christians So that the short resolution of our faith is this that we ought to believe nothing as an Article of faith but what God hath revealed and that the compleat revelation of Gods will to us is contained in the Bible and the resolution of our worship is into this principle that God alone is to be worshipped with divine and religious worship and therefore whether they be Saints or Angels Sun Moon and Stars whether the Elements of a Sacrament or of the World whether Crosses and Reliques or Woods and Fountains or any sort of Images in a word no creature whatsoever is to be worshipped with religious worship because that is proper to God alone And if this principle will excuse them from Idolatry I desire him to make the best of it And if he gives no more satisfactory answer hereafter than he hath already done the greatest charity I can use to those of that Church is to wish them repentance which I most heartily do CHAP. III. Of the hindrance of a good Life and Devotion in the Roman Church The doctrines of the Roman Church prejudicial to Piety The Sacrament of Pennance as taught among them destroys the necessity of a good life The doctrine of Purgatory takes away the care of it as appears by the true stating it and comparing that doctrine with Protestants How easie it is according to them for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Purgatory dreadful to none but poor and friendless Sincerity of devotion hindred by prayers in an unknown Tongue The great absurdity of it manifested The effects of our Ancestors devotion had been as great if they had said their prayers in English The language of prayer proved to be no indifferent thing from St. Pauls arguments No universal consent for prayers in an unknown tongue by the confession of their own Writers Of their doctrine of the efficacy of Sacraments that it takes away all necessity of devotion in the minds of the receivers This complained of by Cassander and Arnaud but proved against them to be the doctrine of the Roman Church by the Canons of the Council of Trent The great easiness of getting Grace by their Sacraments Of their discouraging the reading the Scriptures A standing Rule of devotion necessary None so fit to give it as God himself This done by him in the Scriptures All persons therefore concerned to read them The arguments against reading the Scriptures would have held against the publishing them in a language known to the people The dangers as great then as ever have been since The greatest prudence of the Roman Church is wholly to forbid the Scriptures being acknowledged by their wisest men to be so contrary to their Interest The confession of the Cardinals at Bononia to that purpose The avowed practice of the Roman Church herein directly contrary to that of the Primitive although the reasons were as great then from the danger of Heresies This confessed by their own Writers § 1. 2. THe second Reason I gave why persons run so great a hazard of their salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because that Church is guilty of so great corruption of the Christian Religion by opinions and practices which are very apt to hinder a good life which is necessary to salvation But 1. This necessity I said was taken off by their making the Sacrament of Pennance joyned with contrition sufficient for salvation Here he saith That Protestants do make contrition alone which is less sufficient for salvation and our Church allowing confession and absolution which make the Sacrament of Pennance in case of trouble of conscience they being added to contrition cannot make it of a malignant nature To this I answer That contrition alone is not by us made sufficient for salvation For we believe that as no man can be saved without true repentance so that true repentance doth not lye meerly in contrition for sins For godly sorrow in Scripture is said to work repentance to salvation not to be repented of and it cannot be the cause and effect both together Repentance in Scripture implyes a forsaking of sin as it were very easie to prove if it be thought necessary and without this we know not what ground any man hath to hope for the pardon of it although he confess it and be absolved a thousand times over and have remorse in his mind for it when he doth confess it And therefore I had cause to say that they of the Church of Rome destroy the necessity of a good life when they declare a man to be in a state of salvation if he hath a bare contrition for his sins and confess them to the Priest and be absolved by him For to what end should a man put himself to the trouble of mortifying his passions and forsaking his sins if he commits them again he knows a present remedy toties quoties it is but confessing with sorrow and upon absolution he is as whole as if he had not sinned And is it possible to imagine a doctrine that more effectually overthrows the necessity of a good life than this doth I cannot but think if this doctrine were true all the Precepts of Holiness in the Christian Religion were insignificant things But this is a doctrine fitted to make all that are bad and willing to continue so to be their Proselytes when so cheap and easie a way of salvation is believed by them especially if we enquire into the explication of this doctrine among the Doctors of that Church I cannot better express this than in the words of Bishop Taylor whom he deservedly calls an eminent leading man among the Protestants where after he hath mentioned their doctrines about contrition The sequel of all he saith is this that if a man live a wicked life for sixty or eighty years together yet if in the article of his death sooner than which God say they hath not commanded him to repent by being a little sorrowful for his sins then resolving for the present that he will do so no more and though this sorrow hath in it no love of God but only a fear of Hell and a hope that God will pardon him this if the Priest absolves him doth instantly pass him into a state of salvation The Priest with two Fingers and a Thumb can do his work for him only he must be greatly prepared and disposed to receive it greatly we say according to the sense of the Roman Church for he must be
about A. D. 1254. who was General of the Franciscan Order but the Book was received and defended by both Orders as will presently appear But it will be first necessary to consider what the doctrines are which are contained in this Book and if ever there were higher Fanaticism than is therein or rather greater blasphemies let them have leave to triumph The most perfect account we have of it is from Nicol Eymericus who was himself an Inquisitor and tells us these Heresies or Errors are contained in it 1. That the doctrine of Abbot Ioachim a great Fanatick excelled the doctrine of Christ and consequently the New and Old Testament 2. That the Gospel of Christ is not the Gospel of the Kingdom and therefore is not edifying 3. That the New Testament is to be evacuated or lose its force as the Old hath already 4. That the New Testament shall not remain in force above six years longer viz. to A. D. 1260. 5. That they which shall live beyond that time shall be in the state of perfection 6. That the Gospel of Christ shall give way to another Gospel and so instead of the Priesthood of Christ another Gospel shall succeed 7. That no simple man is fit to instruct men in spiritual and eternal things but they that walk barefoot 8. That although God afflict the Iews in this world yet he will save them though they remain in Iudaism and will in the end deliver them from all the opposition of men remaining such as they are 9. That the Church hath not yet brought forth Children nor will do before the end of the temporal reign which shall be after six years and by this we are to understand that the Christian Religion which hath brought forth many called to the faith of Christ is not the Church 10. That the Gospel of Christ brings no man to perfection 11. That the Gospel of the Holy Ghost coming or Ioachims work obtaining called the Everlasting Gospel or of the Holy Ghost the Gospel of Christ shall be done away 12. That no man in Religious Orders is bound to expose his life for defence of the faith or preserving the worship of Christ but other men are 13. That as when Iohn Baptist came the things that were before must needs be confuted because of new things coming in their place so when the time of the Holy Ghost shall come or the third state of the world the things that were before must be confuted for the sake of the New which are to come from whence it must be understood that the New Testament must be refuted and the old cast away 14. That Christ and his Apostles were not perfect in the contemplative life 15. That the Order of the Clergy shall perish but one of a Religious Order shall be perferred above all in dignity and honour and that as the authority under the Father was committed to one of the married order so under the Holy Ghost to one or some of the order of Monks 16. That those who are over the Colledges of Monks ought in those dayes to think of departing from the Seculars and prepare themselves to return to the ancient people of the Iews 17. That the Preachers which shall be in the last state of the world shall be of greater dignity and authority than the Preachers of the Primitive Church 18. That the Preachers and Doctors of Religious Orders when they shall be infested by the Clergy shall go over to the Infidels and it is to be feared lest they go thither for that end to bring them in battel against the Roman Church according to the doctrine of S. Iohn Apocalyps 15. These may suffice out of twenty seven to let the world know where the height of Blasphemy and Fanaticism was first hatched and no one could imagine that any who had the face or name of Christians should own these things yet they came from those excellent and inspired persons of the newly founded Religious Orders And if it had not been for the mortal hatred that then was between the University of Paris and the Mendicant Fryers who usurped the Professors places in the Vniversity against their will God knows how far this doctrine might have prevailed without the least censure For the Popes were extreamly partial to the Fryers and would hear no ill of them they now finding them their most useful instruments in all their quarrels with Princes the Secular Clergy and the People So Matth. Paris relating the Story of the quarrels between the University and the Fryers tells That though the King and the City were for preserving the priviledges of the Vniversity yet the Fryers being at the Popes devotion and doing them a great deal of service were more acceptable in the Court of Rome and therefore got the better of the Vniversity Nay so zealous was Alexander the fourth in the cause of the Fryers against the Vniversity that in the six years of his Popedom he sent out near forty Bulls against the Vniversity of which not one now appears in the Bullarium but most of them are preserved in that accurate Preface before the Works of Gul. de Sancto Amore the zealous Defender of the Vniversity against the encroachments of the Fryers and in the late History of the Vniversity of Paris In the midst of these heats some intimation was given the Divines of the Vniversity of such a Book which was in great esteem among the Fryers called Evangelium aeternum wherein were very dangerous doctrines which were saith Matthew Paris preached read and taught by the Fryers and were put together by them in a Book called Evangelium aeternum and taken saith he chiefly out of the Books of Abbot Joachim and Richerius acknowledgeth that the Book was composed by the Fryers and that the Divines of Paris by some art got a Copy of it and extracted some Heads out of it which were contrary to faith and upon that as Du Bouley saith they caused it to be burnt publickly at Paris But not being satisfied herewith they preached against it as appears by a Sermon of Gul. de Sancto Amore at the end of his Works wherein he saith That he had seen no small part of that Book and he had heard that it doth in all contain more than the Bible and therein he saith it is taught that the Sacraments of the Church are nothing that the Gospel of Christ is not the true Gospel and that the Book it self is the Gospel of the Holy Ghost and the everlasting Gospel and that the Gospel of Christ should be preached but for five years to come that then men shall have another Rule of life and the Church shall be otherwise managed Which saith he is execrable and abominable to be spoken But not content with bare preaching against them he writ a very smart Book in the name of the Vniversity of Paris de periculo novissimorum temporum of the dangers of the
as he adds to none but God himself and said that they followed the Apostolical rule in a very singular manner This Geraldus saith Paramo and his followers by a shew of extraordinary sanctity drew many to their party but Friar Salimbenus in a Manuscript seen by Pegna in the Library of Cardinal Savelli at Rome being himself a Franciscan gives this account of him whom he calls Gherardinus Segalellus that being desirous to be admitted into their order he was refused by them after which he spent some time in the Franciscans Church where observing the pictures of the Apostles and the habits they were drawn in he put himself as exactly as he could into the very same habit and having sold his house and received the money for it he distributed it all among the people and afterwards got a companion who was a servant to the Franciscans but by degrees their number increased so that in a short time they spread over many Cities in Italy and from thence were dispersed over almost all Europe They went up and down in the Streets saith Eymericus Preaching repentance with a white Mantel a white Coat and long hair barefoot and bareheaded and what they eat was publickly in the Streets and only what was given to them after forty years in which they mightily prevailed Boniface 8. caused Gerald to be taken and burnt upon this Dulcinus with six thousand of his companions retired into the Alps where they increased so much saith Pegna that Clement 5. was forced to send a Croisado against them where they starved a great part of them but Dulcinus and his Wife Margareta as Patreolus calls her were taken and burnt It is not credible saith Bzovius how long they endured upon the Alps all extremities of hunger and cold rather than they would yield to their Adversaries But notwithstanding all the endeavours could be used they could not wholly extinguish that Sect saith Prateolus but the remainders of it were still left in the Mountains about Trent and continued to his time which was about A. D. 1560. These were of the same opinions with the Fratricelli before mentioned as to the Roman Church that by reason of the wickedness of the Clergy and Religious Orders it was a reprobate Church and the Whore of Babylon but being no more content with this than the greatest Fanaticks of our Age they pretended to great things themselves that they were the only spiritual Congregation sent and chosen out by God to bear testimony to his truth in the last ages and that they and only they had the power which St. Peter had that Geraldus Segarelli was a plant of Gods own planting growing up from the root of faith by whom God began the work of Reformation of his Church to the purity perfection life state and poverty of the primitive Church in that state wherein Christ committed his Church to St. Peter That they only are the Church of God and in that perfection wherein the Apostles were and therefore are bound to live in subjection to none because their rule which was immediately from Christ is free and hath the greatest perfection that no one can be saved who is not of their Order that it is a sign any one is in a state of damnation to persecute them that all the Popes from Sylvester downward and all the Prelats were impostours and deceivers excepting only Celestine 5. who renounced his Popedome and gave leave to the spiritual Brotherhood to separate from the rest in the Franciscan Order That the Orders of Clergy and Religion are dangerous to the Church That no lay-men ought to pay any tithes to Priest or Prelat who lives not in the same perfection and poverty which the Apostles did That it was as well to Worship God in Woods or Stables or Barnes as in consecrated Churches That it was unlawful for Christians to swear at all saith Prateolus or never but in case of the Articles of faith or the divine commands say Turrecremata and Eymericus but in all other cases it was lawful to use all aequivocations and mental reservations and to deny their Sect with their mouths as long as they kept true to them in their hearts That nothing was unlawful which was done out of a principle of Love and that all things in the worst sense were to be common among them and therefore they are charged with allowing and practising promiscuous mixtures among themselves if their Adversaries do not charge them as unjustly in this point as the Prmitive Christians were charged by the Heathen This is the summ of their Principles and practices as they are reported by Turrecremata Eymericus Prateolus Spondanus Raynaldus and others But that which is still observable to our purpose is that these were looked on as a sort of Fryers in the Roman Church for when Honorius 4. condemned them by his Bull extant in Eymericus he doth it upon this account that they were a sort of Mendicant Fryers not approved by the Roman See whereas Greg. 10. in the Council of Lyons had absolutely forbid all Orders of Mendicants after the Lateran Council that should not receive express confirmation from the Pope but his Holiness was informed that some who called themselves of the Apostolical Order had since that time assumed to themselves a new habit of Religion without due applications being made to his See and a great number of these went up and down as Mendicants into many parts of the world doing unseemly things to their own peril and the scandal of others especially some among them being guilty of Heresie therefore all Ecclesiastical Officers are required to admonish and compell them to lay down their habits and to enter themselves among some of the approved Religious Orders and in case of refusal they ought to proceed judicially against them and to deliver them over to the secular power By which we understand the true ground of the quarrel against them viz. not yielding subjection enough to the Roman See and how easily all their Blasphemies and Villanies might be forgiven if they entred themselves into any of the approved Religious Orders § 12. As we see all the care used could not root out this Sect wholly but the remainders of them continued in some of the Mountains of Italy so I am very much mistaken if the Alumbrado's in Spain or the Sect of Illuminati were any other than a remainder of the Beguini and Fraticelli whom we observed before to have got footing there Spondanus indeed and some others from him say they were detected in the Diocesses of Sevil and Cadiz A. D. 1623. and were condemned by Andreas Pachecus the general Inquisitour in Spain in twenty six Articles and the seven chief of them were burnt but withall he saith they were not so much a new Sect as a renewal of an old one with some additions Nay we meet with the very same name of the Sect long
preserve the honour of Regicides it was but seven months and twenty four dayes before Ravaillac perfected that work which the other had begun This observation I owe to an ingenuous and learned Doctor of the Sorbon yet living who detests these practices and doctrines and himself lyes under the same censure there And the more to abuse the world on the same day a Book of Mariana's was suspended which those who look no farther than the name might imagine was the dangerous Book so much complained of but upon search it appears to be a Book quite of another nature concerning Coynes The latter instance concerns the Irish Remonstrance the account of which I take from Caron the publisher of it The Popish Clergy of Ireland a very few excepted were accused of Rebellion for opposing themselves to the Kings Authority by the instigation of the Popes Nuncio after which followed a meeting of the Popish Bishops where they banished the Kings Lieutenant and took the Royal Authority upon themselves almost all the Clergy and a great part of the people joyned with them and therefore it was necessary since the Kings return to give him better satisfaction concerning their Allegiance and to decline the Oath of Allegiance which they must otherwise have taken some of them agree upon this Remonstrance to present to the King the news of which was no sooner come to Rome but Cardinal Barberin sends a Letter to the Irish Nobility 8 July A. D. 1662. to bid them take heed of being drawn into the ditch by those blind guides who had subscribed to some propositions testifying their Loyalty to the King which had been before condemned by the Apostolick See After this the Popes Nuncio at Brussels Iuly 21. 1662. sends them word how displeasing their Remonstrance was at Rome and that after diligent examination by the Cardinals and Divines they found it contained Propositions already condemned by Paul 5. and Innocent 10. and therefore the Pope gave him order to publish this among them that he was so far from approving their Remonstrance that he did not so much as permit it or connive at it and was extremely grieved that the Irish Nobility were drawn into it and therefore condemned it in this form That it could not be kept without breach of faith according to the Decree of Paul 5. and that it denyed the Popes Authority in matters of faith according to that of Innocent 10. By this very late instance we see what little countenance they receive from Rome who offer to give any reasonable security to the King of their Loyalty and by the Popes own Declaration the giving of it is an injury to the faith and a denying his Supremacy For which we are to understand that A. D. 1648. when the Papists were willing to make as good terms for themselves as they could and it was objected to them that they held Principles inconsistent with Civil Government viz. that the Pope can absolve them from their obedience that he can depose and destroy Heretical Magistrates that he can dispense with all Oaths and contracts they make with those whom they call Hereticks upon which they met together and to save themselves from banishment resolved them in the Negative but no sooner was this heard at Rome but the sacred Congregation condemned this resolution as heretical and the subscribers as lyable to the penalties against those who deny the Popes Authority in matters of faith upon which they are cited to appear at Rome and Censures and Prisons are there prepared for them The summ of it then is that they can give no security of their Loyalty to the King against the Popes power to depose him and absolve his Subjects from whatever Oaths they make to him or they must be accounted Hereticks at Rome for so doing For this good old Cause is as much still in request at Rome as ever and it is in their power to be accounted Hereticks at Rome or bad Subjects in their own Countrey but one of them they cannot avoid So much may suffice to shew that the most dangerous Principles of Fanaticism either as to Enthusiasm or Civil Government are owned and allowed in the Church of Rome and therefore the number of Fanaticks among us is very unjustly charged upon the Reading the Scriptures in our own Language CHAP. V. Of the Divisions of the Roman Church The great pretence of Vnity in the Church of Rome considered The Popes Authority the fountain of that Vnity what that Authority is which is challenged by the Popes over the Christian World the disturbances which have happened therein on the account of it The first revolt of Rome from the Empire caused by the Popes Baronius his Arguments answered Rebellion the foundation of the greatness of that Church The cause of the strict League between the Popes and the posterity of Charles Martel The disturbances made by Popes in the new Empire Of the quarrels of Greg. 7. with the Emperour and other Christian Princes upon the pretence of the Popes Authority More disturbances on that account in Christendome than any other matter of Religion Of the Schisms which have happened in the Roman Church particularly those after the time of Formosus wherein his Ordinations were nulled by his successours the Popes opposition to each other in that Age the miserable state of that Church then described Of the Schisms of latter times by the Italick and Gallick factions the long continuance of them The mischief of those Schisms on their own principles Of the divisions in that Church about matters of Order and Government The differences between the Bishops and the Monastick Orders about exemptions and priviledges the history of that Controversie and the bad success the Popes had in attempting to compose it Of the quarrel between the Regulars and Seculars in England The continuance of that Controversie here and in France The Jesuits enmity to the Episcopal Order and jurisdiction the hard case of the Bishop of Angelopolis in America The Popes still favour the Regulars as much as they dare The Jesuits way of converting the Chinese discovered by that Bishop Of the differences in matters of Doctrine in that Church They have no better way to compose them than we The Popes Authority never truly ended one Controversie among them Their wayes to evade the decisions of Popes and Councils Their dissensions are about matters of faith The wayes taken to excuse their own differences will make none between them and us manifested by Sancta Clara's exposition of the 39 Articles Their disputes not confined to their Schools proved by a particular instance about the immaculate conception the infinite scandals confessed by their own Authors to have been in their Church about it From all which it appears that the Church of Rome can have no advantage in point of Vnity above ours 2. § 1. THE other thing objected as flowing from the promiscuous reading the Scriptures is the number of our Sects and the
disturbances which have been among us upon their account whereas among them the Government of the Church is so ordered as to keep all in peace and Vnity This makes it necessary to examine that admirable Vnity they boast so much of and either they mean by it that there hath been less disturbance in the world before the Reformation or no Schisms among themselves or no differences in the matters of Religion But I shall now prove 1. That there have never been greater disturbances in the World than upon the account of that Authority of the Pope which they look on as the Foundation of their Vnity 2. That there have happened great and scandalous Schisms among themselves on the same account 3. That their differences in Religion both as to matter of Order and Doctrine have been as great and managed with as much animosity as any among us 1. The disturbances in the World upon the account of the Popes Authority I meddle not barely with his usurpations which work is lately and largely done but the effects of them in these Western Churches For which we are to consider what authority that is which the Pope challenges and what disturbances hath been given to the peace of Christendome by it The Authority claimed by the Pope is that of being Vniversal Pastor over the Catholick Church by vertue of which not only spiritual direction in matters of faith but an actual jurisdiction over all the members of it doth belong unto him For otherwise they say the Government of the Church is imperfect and insufficient for its end because Princes may easily overthrow the Unity of the Church by favouring Hereticks if they be not in subjection to the Pope as to their temporal concernments because it may happen that they have a regard to no other but these if it were not therefore in the Popes power to depose Princes and absolve Subjects from their Alleagiance when they oppose the Vnity of the Church his power say they is an insignificant title and cannot reach the end it was designed for Besides they urge that all Princes coming into the Church are to be supposed to submit their Scepters to Christ so as to lose them in case they act contrary to the Catholick Church of which they are made members for whosoever doth not hate Father and Mother c. cannot be my Disciple And what officer is there so fit to take all Escheats and Forfeitures of Power as Christs own Vicar upon Earth But to adde more strength Bellarmin very prettily proves it out of Pasce oves for every Pastor must have a threefold power to defend his flock a power over wolves to keep them from destroying the Sheep a power over the Rams that they do not hurt them and a power over the Sheep to give them convenient food now saith he very subtilly if a Prince of a sheep should turn a Ram or a Wolf must not he have power to drive him away and to keep the people from following him This is then the only current doctrine concerning the Popes Authority in the Court of Rome although some mince the matter more than others do and talk only of an indirect power yet they all mean the same thing and ascribe such power to the Pope whereby he may depose Princes and absolve subjects from the duty they owe to them And how much in request this Doctrine continues at Rome appears by the Counsel given by Michael Lonigo Master of the Palace to Pope Greg. 15. Printed A. D. 1623. about perswading the Duke of Bavaria then newly made Elector to receive a confirmation of his title from the Pope to which end he saith some skilful person ought to be imployed to acquaint him that the power of the Empire was the meer issue of the Church and did spring from it as a Child from the Mother and that it was a great sin for any Christian to call this into Question and consequently the Popes power and authority to determine concerning the State and affairs of the Empire and this he attempts to prove by no fewer than nineteen arguments all of them drawn from the former Usurpations of the Popes and encroachments upon the Empire from whence he concludes that the Electorship could not be lawfully taken away from one and given to another without the Popes consent and authority and that such a disposal of it was in it self null and of no force The same year came forth a Book of Aphorisms concerning the restoring the state of the Church by the decree and approbation of the Colledge of Cardinals collected by the same person and by him presented to the Pope wherein the same power of the Pope is asserted and that it belongs to him to transferr the Electoral dignity from one to another and that it ought to be taken away from the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg for opposing his Authority and that to allow the Emperour authority in these things was to rob the Apostolick See of its due rights By which we may understand what that Authority over the Church is which is challenged by the Pope as supream Pastour in order to the preserving the Unity of it § 2. We now consider what the blessed effects of this pretended power hath been in the Christian World and I doubt not to make it appear that this very thing hath caused more warrs and bloodshed more confusions and disorders more revolts and rebellions in Christendome than all other causes put together have done since the time it was first challenged and this I shall prove from their own Authors and such whose credit is the greatest among them The revolt of Rome and the adjacent parts from the subjection due to the Roman Emperour then resident at Constantinople was wholly caused by the Pope The first Pope saith Onuphrius that ever durst openly resist the Emperour was Constantine 1. who opposed Philippicus in the matter of Images which the Emperour commanded to be pulled down because they were abused to Idolatry and the Pope utterly refused to obey and not only so but set up more in opposition to him in the Pertico of St. Peter and forbad the use of the Emperours name and title in any publick Writings or Coines The same command was not long after renewed by Leo 3. upon which saith Onuphrius Gregory 2. then Pope took away the small remainder of the Roman Empire from him in Italy and Sigonius more expresly that he not only excommunicated the Emperour but absolved all the people of Italy from their Alleagiance and forbad the payment of any Tribute to him whereupon the inhabitants of Rome Campania Ravenna and Pentapolis i.e. the Region about Ancona immediately rebelled and rose up in opposition to their Magistrates whom they destroyed At Ravenna Paulus the Emperours Lieutenant or Exarch was killed at Rome Peter the Governour had his eyes put out in Campania Exhilaratus and his Son Hadrian were both
with one another and although there may be many other sorts of Vnity in the Church yet the essential Vnity of the Church they tell us lyes in conjunction of the members under one Head But what becomes then of the Unity of the Roman Church in the great number of Schisms and some of long continuance among them Were they all members united under one Head when there were sometimes two sometimes three several Heads Bellaâ—mine in his Chronologie confesseth twenty six several Schisms in the Church of Rome but Onuphrius a more diligent searchâ—r into these things reckors up thirty whereof some lasted ten years some twenty one fifty years And it seems very strange to any one that hears so many boasts of Unity in the Church of Rome above others to find more Schisms in that Church than in any Patriarchal Church in the World We should think if the Bishop of Rome had been designed Head of the Church and the fountain of Vnity that it was as necessary that Church should be freed from intestine divisions on that account as to be secured from errours in faith if it had the promise of Infallibility for errours are not more contrary to infallibility than divisions are to Vnity and the same Spirit can as easily prevent Schisms as Heresies But as the errours of that Church are the clearest evidence against the pretence of infalâ—ibility so are the Schisms of it against its being the fountain of Vnity for how can that give it to the whole Church which so notoriously wanted it in it self I shall not need to insist on the more ancient Schisms between Cornelius and Novatianus and their parties between Liberius and Felix between Damasus and Vrsicinus between Bonifacius and Eulalius between Symachus and Laurentius between Bonifacius and Dioscorus between Sylverius and Vigiâ—ius and many others I shall only mention those which were of the longest continuance in that Church and do most apparently discover the divisions of it I begin with that which first brake forth in the time of Formosus who was set up A. D. 821. against Sergius whom the faction of the Marquesse of Tuscany would have made Pope but the popular faction then prevailing Sergius was forced to withdraw and Formosus with continual opposition from the other party enjoyed the Papacy four years and six months not without the blood of many of the chief Citizens of Rome slain by Arnulphus in the quarrel of Formosus After his death Boniface 6. intruded saith Baronius into the Papal See but was after fifteen dayes dispossessed by Stephanus 7. who in a Council called for that purpose nulled all the acts of Formosus deprived all those of their orders who had been ordained by him and made them be Re-ordained and not content with this he caused his body to be taken out of the Grave and placed it in the Popes Chair with the Pontifical habits on where after he had sufficiently reviled him that could not revile again he caused the three Fingers to be cut off with which he used to give Benediction and Orders and the body to be thrown into Tiber. This last part Onuphrius would have to be a fable and Andreas Victorellus from him but Baronius saith they are mistaken who say so for not only Luitprandus who lived in that Age expresly affirms it although he attributes it to Sergius upon whose account the Schism begun but the acts of the Roman Council under Iohn 9. extant in Baronius make it evident and Papirius Massonus cites other ancient Historians for it Upon this nulling the Ordinations of Formosus a great dispute was raised in the Church for many of the Bishops would not submit to re-ordination and particularly Leo Bishop of Nola to whom Auxilius writ his Book in defence of the Ordinations of Formosus a short account whereof is published by Baronius from Papyâ—ius Masso but the whole Book is now set forth from ancient Manuscript by Morinus by which we understand the controversie of that time much better than we could before Two things were chiefly objected against Formosus his Ordinations 1. That against the Canons of the Church he was translated from one See to another being Bishop of Porto before he was made Bishop of Rome 2. That having been degraded by Iohn 8. although restored by his successour Marinus and absolved from his Oath he was not capable of conferring Orders Against the first of these Auxilius shews that translation from one See to another cannot null Ordination from the testimony of Pope Anterus the example of Greg. Nazianzen Perigenes Dositheus Reverentius Palladius Alexander Meletius and many others That the Nicene Canon against translations was interpreted by the Council of Chalcedon so as not to extend to all cases and it was so understood by Pope Leo and Gelasius and however that only nulls the translation and not the ordination Against the second he pleads that supposing it not to be lawful to remove from one Episcopal See to another yet the Ordination may be valid for Formosus was not Consecrated again himself but only reconciled by Marinus that the Popes Gregory and Leo had declared against Re-ordination as much as against Re-baptizing that the Canons of the Apostles had forbidden it that the Ordinations by Acacius were allowed by Anastasius that the Bonosiaci though Hereticks had their Orders allowed them that the Cathari were admitted to the Churches Communion by the Council of Nice only with imposition of hands that though Liberius fell to the Arian Heresie yet his Ordinations afterwards were not nulled neither those of Vigilius although he stood excommunicated by Silverius and added Homicide to it that the nulling these Ordinations was to say in effect that for twenty years together they had been without the Christian Religion in Italy that none but Hereticks could assert these things that if any Popes themselves speak or act against the Catholick faith or Religion they are not to be followed in so doing This is the substance of the first Book of Auxilius which things are more largely insisted upon in the second But by that Book it appears most evidently that the Barbarous usage of the body of Formosus was most true it being expresly mentioned therein and justified by him in the Dialogue that pleads for Re-ordination And now saith Baronius began those most unhoppy times of the Roman Church which exceeded the persecutions of Heathens or Hereticks but he out of his constant good will to civil Authority lays the fault altogether upon the power of the Marquesses of Tuscany who had then too great power in Rome but he strangely admires the providence of God in keeping the Heads of the Church from Heresie all that time Alas for them they did not trouble themselves about any matters of faith at all but were wholly given over to all manner of wickedness as himself confesseth of them when Theodora that Mother of the Church of Rome ruled in chief and her
daughter Marocia's Son by Pope Sergius came to be Pope himself when as Platina saith it grew to be the custome of Popes to null all that their predecessours had done Were not these goodly heads of the Church the mean time and did not they keep the Church in great Vnity under their agreeable conduct Methinks the providence of God is as much concerned to preserve holiness and peace as faith in the world and were not these excellent instruments for doing it Baronius grants the acts of Stephanus to be such as the most barbarous Nations could not endure to hear of and are too bad to be believed and all the following Age he calls Iron for its rust and barrenness and leaden for its badness and dulness and confesseth that Monsters of impurity then raigned in the Apostolical See that infinite evils sprung from thence and horrible Tragoedies and mischiefs not to be spoken of And yet a very Catholick faith and the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of peace must be supposed to be there infallibly all this while but if all their faith and unity be of such a kind as was in the 10 Century in the Roman Church I should think Baronius might have said more in admiration of the providence of God in preserving the Catholick faith and Vnity among the Devils in Hell for the Scripture tells us they believe and tremble and our Saviour saith that the Devils Kingdom cannot stand if it be divided against it self and these are clearer and stronger testimonies than can be brought of the faith and Vnity of the Roman Church when such horrid wickedness is acknowledged to have had Dominion in it and that Church was therein unlike the Devils Kingdom that it was divided against it self In the very beginning of this Century Pope Stephen is cast into Prison and there strangled as Baronius proves from his Epitaph and now the Roman faction prevailing they make one Romanus Pope the first and only thing he did was to condemn all that Stephen had done as Platina Onuphrius and Ciacconius all agree but he continued not much above four months after him Theodorus who held out about twenty dayes and followed the steps of Romanus to him succeeded Iohn 10. as Platina calls him of the same faction who set all Formosus his Acts to rights again condemning all that Stephen had done in a Council at Ravenna whither he was driven by the prevalency of the faction at Rome against him where in the presence of seventy four Bishops the Acts of the Council under Stephen were burnt in which the Ordinations of Formosus were nulled and Sergius Benedictus and Marinus were Anathematized for being instruments in the Acts against Formosus The next Pope Benedict escapes without any thing but a dull Epitaph but Leo his successour had not been above forty days in the place but he is cast into Prison by one of his servants who is made Pope in his place and seven months after he is served the same way by Sergius who now at last recovered the Popedome and the greatest thing he did was to condemn Formosus again and all who had appeared for him so that now as Sigebert saith nothing was talked of so much as ordinations and exordinations and superordinations by the contrary Acts of these Popes to one another Baronius confesseth this Sergius to have been a man of a most infamous and dissolute life after his death Theodora was not at rest till she had gotten her Gallant to be Pope under the name of Iohn 11. and what manner of Cardinals saith Baronius may we imagine such a Pope would make But Marozia her daughter was not so well pleased with him for by her order his Brother was killed in his presence and he put into prison and there smothered After him saith Luitprandus her own Son by Pope Sergius is made Pope who was cast into Prison by his Brother Albericus who being not pleased with Stephen who followed him he was set upon and so wounded and deformed thereby that he durst not let his face be seen and the seditions saith Platina continued so high in his time that he could do no great thing At last Alberic's Son called Octavianus got possession of the See under the name of Iohn 13. or 12. as oâ—hers besides Platina call him who was such a Monster for all wickedness that Otho the Emperour was called into Italy to displace him who called a Council wherein he was accused for ordaining a Deacon in a Stable and making a Bishop of ten years of age but these were small faults to his Adulteries Sacriledge Cruelties drinking healths to the Devil and at Dice calling upon the Devils for help When these accusations were sent to him from the Council he only threatned to excommunicate them all if they chose another Pope against him but they not regarding his threatning depose him and choose Leo 8. in his place Here Baronius storms unreasonably that a Council should take upon it to depose a Pope though so abominably bad as he confesseth this man to have been and makes them guilty of an intolerable Errour and Heresie in so doing because it implyes their believing that the power of the Keys did depend on the worth of the person and therefore he detests Leo as a Schismatical Pope And to make sure of a Schisme after the infamous death of Iohn 13. being killed in the act of Adultery the opposite faction in Rome chose Benedict 5. to succeed him who was carried away prisoner by Otho into Germany but before his death Iohn 13. called a Council wherein he nulled all the Acts of the other Council and pronounced them Schismaticks and decreed that all that were ordained by them must be re-ordained Is not here now a most admirable Vnity in the Roman Church After Leo another Iohn is chosen by the Emperours party but as Platina saith it being now grown customary to depose Popes they drive him away by seditions against him being first imprisoned by Rotfredus and then expelled the City But they suffered sufficiently for it by the severity of Otho against them The next Pope Benedict 6. was cast into Prison by the other faction and there strangled or famished Iohn 14. came to his end after the same manner dying in Prison by the faction of Ferrucius the Father of Boniface 7. who was driven away from Rome after his being made Pope after whom Benedict 7. was set up and Iohn succeeding him Boniface's faction recovering again he was for a few months restored to the Popedome Against Greg. 5. the faction of Crescentius set up one Ioh. 17. who by the power of the Emperour was deprived of his eyes and the Popedome together and a little after of his life But these factions in Rome did not end with this Century for in the next A. D. 1044 we find a new Schism breaking out on the account of them We are contented
authorised by the Church such as Bishops and Presbyters are the one succeeding the Apostles the other the 72 Disciples and afterwards they deny that the Pope himself can give any power to others to meddle in the charge of a Parish or in Preaching among them but where they are invited to it because Bishops themselves cannot otherwise act out of their own Dioceses and that the Pope in this case doth injury by violating the rights of others and if he should go about to destroy what the Prophets and Apostles have taught he would erre in so doing Besides say they if these Praedicant Fryers have a liberty to Preach where they please they are all universal Bishops and because maintenance is due to all who Preach the people will be bound to pay procurations to them which will be an unreasonable burden upon them Many other Arguments they use against this new sort of Itinerant Preachers and represent the dangers that came to the Church by them at large wherein they describe them as a kind of hypocritical Sectaries that abused the people under a fair shew and pretence of Religion having as they say a form of Godliness but denying the power of it and that the persecution of the Church by them would be equal to what it was by Tyrants and open Hereticks because they are familiar enemies and do mischief under a shew of kindness And that one of the great dangers of the Church by them would be their possessing Princes and people with prejudices against the Government of the Church by the Bishops which having done they can more easily lead them into errours both against faith and a good life That their way of dealing is first with the women and by them seducing the men as the Devil first tempted Eve and by her Adam and when they have once seduced them they tye them by oathes and vows not to hearken to the counsel of their Bishops or those who have the care of their souls That the Bishops ought to suppress these and call in the publick help to do it and to purge their Dioceses of them and that if they do it not the blood of the people will be required of them and destruction will come upon them for it and though Princes and people had taken their part that ought not to discourage them but their folly ought to be made manifest to all men After this they lay down the means to be used for suppressing them and the signes for their discovery saying that they are idle persons busie bodies wandring beggars against the Apostles express command who would have all such excluded the Church as disorderly livers and therefore conclude with an earnest exhortation to all who have a care of the Church to rise up against them as the pernicious enemies of its peace and welfare All these things which are only summarily comprehended in that Book are very largely insisted upon by Gul. de Sancto Amore in another Book entituled Collections of Holy Scripture which is wholly upon this subject The Mendicant Fryers being thus assaulted endeavoured to defend themselves as well as they could and made choice of the best wits among them for their Champions such as Bonaventure and Aquinas then were who undertook their cause and were fain to shelter themselves under the plenitude of the Popes power by which means they were sure to have the Pope on their side but his Authority was here no means of Vnity for the controversie continued long after and was managed with great heat on both sides § 8. Upon the great complaint of the priviledges and exemptions which the Monastick orders had obtained from the Popes Clement 5. promised to have this business discussed in the Council of Vienna and to that end gave order to several learned men to write about it among whom particularly Durandus Mimatensis writ a large discourse not mentioned by Possevin but Printed A. D. 1545. wherein he perswades the Pope to revoke all such exemptions because they were contrary to the ancient Canons of the Church whereby from the Apostles times all places and persons whatsoever were immediately under the jurisdiction of the Bishops and that the Pope neither ought nor could change this order of the Church Because the order of Bishops being appointed to prevent Schisms in the Church it could not attain its end if any persons were exempted from their jurisdiction And if it were in the Popes power to grant such exemptions it were by no means expedient to do it because the order of the Church would be destroyed by it the Bishops contemned and the Church divided and if the Monastick Orders paid no obedience to the Bishops the people would soon learn by their example to disobey them too And supposing it had been expedient before it could not be so then because though the Monastick orders were founded in a state of poverty yet now those who were in them were arrived at such a height of intolerable pride and arrogance that not only their Abbots and Priors but the Fryers thought themselves equal to Bishops and fit to be preferred before other Ecclesiastical persons Thus far Durandus and Aegidius Romanus at the same time writ a Book against the Exemptions of Fryers Against both of them Iacobus the Abbot of the Cistercians writt a defence of Exemptions which was published in Vienna in the time of the Council This matter was hotly debated in that Council but the Pope would not yield to the revocation of them but renews a Bull of Boniface 8. for qualifying and composing the differences that had happened to the great scandal of the Church about them wherein he takes notice of several Bulls before which had taken no effect so excellent an instrument of peace is the Popes Authority and that of a long time a most grievous and dangerous discord had been between the Bishops and Parochial Clergy on one part and the Preaching Fryers on the other Therefore the Pope very wisely considering how full of danger how prejudicial to the Church how displeasing to God so great a discord was and resolving wholly to remove it for the future by his Apostolical authority doth appoint and command that the Fryers should have liberty to Preach in all Churches Places and publick Streets at any other hour but that wherein the Bishops did Preach or did command others to Preach without a particular license to Preach then A greater instance of the discords which have been in the Roman Church nor of the insufficiency of the Popes Authority for the cure of them can hardly be produced than this is The Popes were forced to say and unsay and retract their own grants to mitigate and qualifie them and all to no purpose for the differences continued as great notwithstanding them The first Pope who interposed in this quarrel was Gregory 9. who upon complaint made by the Fryers of the Bishops exercising their jurisdiction
all of a mind and it is not necessary to the Unity of the Church that they should be but they have the only way of composing differences and they do not differ in matters of faith from each other and their differences lye only in their Schools and do not disturb the peace of the Church This is the utmost I can find their best wits plead for the Vnity of the Roman Church and if these be sufficient I believe they and we will be proved to be as much at Unity as they are among themselves 1. They say the Vnity of the Church doth not lye in actual Agreement of the members of it in matters of Doctrine but in having the best means to compose differences and to preserve consent which is submission to the Popes Authority So Gregory de Valentiâ explains the Vnity of their Church for actual consent he grants may be in other Churches as much as theirs and there is nothing singular or peculiar attributed to their Church supposing they were all of a mind which it is plain they are not but therein saith he lyes the Vnity of their Church that they all acknowledge one Head in whose judgement they acquiesce and therefore they have no more to do but to know what the Pope determines If this be all their Unity we have greater than they for we have a more certain way of ending Controversies than they have which I prove by an argument like to one in great request among them when they go about to perswade weak persons to their Religion viz. that it must needs be safer to be in that Religion wherein both parties agree a man may be saved than in that where one side denies a possibility of salvation so say I here that must be a safer way for Unity which both parties agree in to be infallible than that which one side absolutely denyes to be so but both parties agree the Scriptures to be infallible and all Protestants deny the Pope to be infallible therefore ours is the more certain way for Vnity But this is not all for it is far from being agreed among themselves that the Pope is infallible it being utterly denyed by some among them and the asserting it accounted Heresie as is evident in some late Books written to that purpose in France and England What excellent means of Vnity then is this among them which it is accounted by some no less than Heresie to assert § 13. But supposing they should yield the Pope that submission which they deny to be due to him yet is his definition so much more certain way of ending Controversies than the Scriptures Let them name one Controversie that hath been ended in their Church meerly by the Popes Decrees so as the opposite party hath declared that they believed contrary to what they believed before on the account of the Popes definition We have many instances to the contrary wherein controversies have been heightened and increased by their interposing but none concluded by them Do they say the Scripture can be no means of Vnity because of the various senses which have been put upon it and have they no wayes to evade the Popes definitions Yes so many that his Authority in truth signifies nothing any farther than they agree that the upholding it tends to their common interest But when onces he comes to cross the interest of any party if they do not in plain terms defie him yet they find out more civil wayes of making his Definitions of no force Either they say the Decree was procured by fraud and the Pope made it by mis-information which is the common way or he did not define it as a matter of faith sitting in Cathedrâ or the sense of his definition is quite otherwise than their Adversaries understand it or supposing that be the sense the Pope is never to be supposed to define any thing contrary to the Scriptures and Fathers and ancient Canons Of all which it were no difficult task to give late and particular instances but no one who is acquainted with the history of that Church can be ignorant of them and the late proceedings in the point of the five Propositions are a sufficient evidence of these things to any one who reads them For when was there a Fairer occasion given to the Pope to shew his Authority for preservation of the Churches unity than at that time when the matter of the five Propositions was under debate at Rome The same controversie was now revived which had disturbed their Church so often and so much before In the time of Clement 8. the heats were so great between the Iesuits and Dominicans that the Pope thought it necessary for the peace of the Church to put an end to them to that end he appointed Congregations for several years to discuss those points that he might come to a resolution in them This Pope at first was strangely prepossest by the arts of the Iesuits against the Dominicans but sending for the General of the Dominicans he told him what sad apprehensions he had concerning the peace of the Church by reason of the disputes between the Iesuits and them and therefore charges him that those of his Order should no longer molest the Iesuits about these things to whom he replyed that he assured him with as great Protestation as he was able that it was no meer Scholastical dispute between them but it was the cause of faith that was concerned which he discoursed largely upon to the Pope and made such impressions upon him that the Dominicans verily believe that had that Pope lived to the Vespers of Pentecost that year he dyed in March he had published a Bull against the Iesuits in presence of the Colledge of Cardinals and created F. Lemos Cardinal After his death the congregations were continued in the time of Paul 5. but at last were broken up without any decision at all If the Popes determination be such an absolute Instrument of peace in the Church it is the strangest thing in the world it should be made so little use of in such cases where they all acknowledge it would be of infinite advantage to their Church to have an issue put to such troublesome controversies as these were But they know well enough that the Popes Authority is the more esteemed the less it is used and that it hath alwayes been very hazardous to determine where there have been considerable parties on both sides for fear the condemned party should renounce his Authority or speak plainer truths than they are willing to hear And therefore it was well observed by Mons. S. Amour that they are very jealeus at Rome of maintaining the Authority of the decrees which issue from thence and that this consideration obliges the maker of them to look very well to the compliance and facility that may be expected in their execution before they pass any at all Which is a most certain argument they dare
not trust the Popes infallibility nor all the promises they pretend Christ hath made to their Church but govern their affaires wholly by the rules of humane Policy And on this account when the heats brake forth in France about Iansenism and both parties made application to the Court of Rome the Pope could never be prevailed with to suffer the main controversies to be touched or any decree to pass about them but at last condemned some ambiguous Propositions as taken out of Iansenius his book which both parties condemned according to their different senses and they were left to dispute it out which sense it was the Pope meant them in And therefore the Iansenists Advocate who was well versed in the practices of the Court of Rome gave them the truest account of the intentions of that Court in their affaire which was to delude both the one side and the other and that Cardinal Ginetti had told him that either nothing would be done or if any thing that which would doe neither good not hurt And therefore in stead of ending the controversies the Popes definition only produced more viz. whether the Propositions condemned were in Iansenius or no whether the Pope might not erre in matter of fact the Iansenists affirming this the Iesuits denying it and charging each other with no less than Heresie about it For upon the Iesuits asserting Octob. 12. A.D. 1661. that the Pope hath the same infallibility that Iesus Christ hath not only in Questions of right but in matters of fact and that thence those of their Church are bound to believe with a divine faith that the 5. condemned Propositions are in Iansenius the Iansenists publish a charge of heresie against the Iesuits and such as was never broached in the Church before being not only a solitary error or simple heresie but a whole source of errors or rather an universal heresie which overthrows all Religion Which they goe about at large to prove by shewing that this builds mens faith on the word of man and not on the word of God because it concerns a thing neither revealed nor attested by God as to know whether Propositions are really an Authors of this last Age and as he goes on to make the Popes word equal with the word of God is not only heresie but horrid impiety and a species of Idolatry for this is giving to man the honour due only to God because such an entire submission of our mind and of all our intellectuals comprehended in the act of our faith is that Adoration which we pay to the prime verity it self And I dare now leave any one to Judge whether upon so late an experiment of the Constitutions of two Popes Innocent 10. and Alexander 7. in order to the ending so great a Controversie as this was it be not apparent that the Popes Authority signifies no more to the ending Controversies than the parties who are concerned are willing that it should i. e. as far as they doe consent to obey them and no farther § 14. But it may be said that it is true there are differences among them about the Popes power and infallibility and therefore he may not be so fit to end Controversies but there is no dispute among them about Pope and Council together therefore in that case they are all agreed that they ought to submit These are fine things to be said and appeare plausibly to those who doe not search into them but those that doe will easily find this as ineffectual a remedy as the other For if we examine but the ways used by the several parties among them to avoid the decisions of some Councils against their particular opinions we may see how little the decrees of Councils can bind those who have no mind to be tyed up by them Either they say the decision depended on a matter of fact which the Council was not sufficiently informed in and they believe a Council may erre in a matter of fact or else it did not proceed after the way of a Council or it was not general or its decrees were not received by the Catholick Church or though some were received yet not all or however the infallibility of a Council is not absolute but supposing that it proceeds according to the constant tradition of the Church which unavoidably leaves the matter as much under debate as if the Council had never meddled with it But if they doe in earnest believe that the Pope and Council can put an end to all Controversies among them when they please I would fain know why they have not done this hitherto Is not unity desirable among them if not why doe they boast of it if it be why have they not obtained it since they can so easily doe it what made them so extremely cautious in the Council of Trent of meddling with any thing that was in Controversie among themselves or was it that they were all so much of a mind that they had nothing to doe but to condemn their enemies which was so far from being true that there were very few things which came into bebate that they were agreed in and therefore they were put sometimes to strange shifts to find out general and ambiguous terms which might not displease the dissenters and yet leave the disputes as great as ever They could not agree so much as about the Title of the Council many of the Bishops were for adding to the Title of the most holy Council Representing the Church Vniversal which was eagerly opposed by the Italians and with much adoe avoided by the Legats being no small controversie about words but of very great consequence about the power and authority of Pope and Council if they had been suffered to goe on in it But the Pope hearing of this dispute at the beginning sent word to the Legats not to broach any new difficulties in matter of faith nor to determine any of the things controversed among Catholicks and to proceed slowly in the Reformation Excellent instructions for the advancement of Peace and Holiness Whoever will for that end peruse that incomparable history of the Council will find how high the Controversies among themselves were between the Bishops and the Regulars about priviledges between the Dominicans and Franciseâ—ins in many weighty points between the Italian Bishops and others about Residence and the extent of Episcopal power between the Divines in most of the matters of doctrine as might easily be shewed at large if I loved the pains of transcribing but I had rather referre the Reader to that excellent history it self But I only renew my demand why must no controversies among Catholicks be ended in the Council could they be better decided any where else if so then the Council is not the best means of Vnity if not then it seems there is no necessity of ending controversies among them but they have Vnity enough without it And in truth it is Interest and not
Vnity they look after all such who hold opinions contrary to their Interest must be proceeded against and condemned but for others let them quarrel and dispute as long as they will they let them alone if they touch not the Popes Authority nor any of the gainful opinions and practices which are allowed among them And supposing their Interest be kept up which the Inquisition is designed for the Court of Rome is as great a Friend to toleration as may be only what others call different perswasions they call School points and what others call divisions they call disputes the case is the same with their Church and others only they have softer names for the differences among themselves and think none bad enough for those who cast off the Popes Authority and plead for a Reformation Here then lyes the profound mystrey of their Vnity that they are all agreed against us though not among themselves and are not we so against them too May not we plead for the Vnity that they have on the same grounds We are all agreed against Popery as much as they are against Protestants only we have some Scholastick disputes among us about indifferent things and the Episcopal Authority as they have we have some zealous Dominicans and busie and factious men such as the Iesuits among them are but setting aside these disputes we are admirably well agreed just as they are in the Roman Church § 15. 2. They say they doe not differ in matters of faith But this is as true as the other for are they agreed in matters of faith who charge one another with heresie as we have already seen that they doe But if they mean that they doe not differ in matters of faith because those only are matters of faith which they are agreed in they were as good say they are agreed in the things they doe not differ about for the parties which differ doe believe the things in difference to be matters of faith and therefore they think they differ from one another in matter of faith But they are not agreed what it is which makes a thing to be a matter of faith and therefore no one can pronounce that their differences are not about matters of faith for what one may think not to be de fide others may believe that it is we see the Popes personal infallibility is become a Catholick doctrine among the Iesuits and declared to be plain heresie by their Adversaries The deliverance of souls from Purgatory by the prayers of the living is generally accounted a matter of faith in the Roman Church but we know those in it who deny it and say it was a novel opinion introduced by Gregory 1. against the consent of Antiquity It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans and Iansenists to attribute to God alone the praise of converting grace and that grace efficacious by it self was the doctrine of Fathers and Councils and the Catholick Church and is it not then a matter of faith in their opinion wherein the Iesuits and they differ from each other To which purpose it was well said by the author of a Book printed at Paris A. D. 1651. containing essayes and reflections on the state of Religion that because of the Controversies between the Iansenists and the Iesuits it might with more reason be affirmed now than in the time of Arrianism it self that the whole Church seems to become heretical For admitting saith he what is most certain that the Church hath decreed Calvinism Pelagianism and Semipelagianism to be heresies and that the Doctors are those who sit in the Chair to be consulted withall upon points of Religion all Catholicks are reduced to a most strange perplexity For if a man shall address himself to those of the Iansenian party they will tell him that those who are termed Molinists are Pelagians or at least Semi-pelagians and on the other side the Molinists will bear him down that their Adversaries are Calvinists or else Novatians Now all the Doctors of the Catholick Church a very few excepted are either of the one or the other party I leave you then to consider to what prodigious streights mens minds are reduced since this is held as a general Maxime that whosoever fails in one point of faith fails in all It is a matter of faith say the Dominicans that all persons Christ only excepted were born in sin and therefore the contenders for the immaculate conception must in their judgment differ in a point of faith from them But if this distinction should be allowed to preserve the unity of their Church why shall it not as well cure the divisions of ours The most considerable in all respects of the dissenters from the Church of England declare that they agree with us in all the articles of doctrine required by our Church will this be enough in their opinion to make us at unity with each other if not let them not plead the same thing for themselves which they will not allow to us I cannot understand that the controversies about Ceremonies considered in themselves among us are of any greater weight than the disputes among the Fryars concerning their habits have been and yet this controversie only about the size of their hoods lasted in one Order almost an Age together and was managed with as great a heat and animosity as ever these have been among us and was with very much adoe laid asleep for a time by the endeavours of 4. Popes successively But if this signifies nothing to unity to say that the matters are not great about which the Controversies are if the disturbances be great which are caused by them that will reflect more sharply on their Church than on ours which hath so many differences which they account not to be about any matters of faith But if these differences in point of doctrine among them prove to be none in matters of faith it would be no difficult task upon the same grounds to shew that they have no reason to quarrel with us for breaking the unity of their Church because then we may differ from them as little in matters of faith as they doe from one another This I need not take upon me to shew at large because I find it already done to my hand by F. Davenport al. Sancta Clara in his paraphrastical exposition of the 39. articles of our Church about half of them he acknowledges to be Catholick as they are without any further explication The first he meets with difficulty in is that about the number of Canonical books point blank against the Council of Trent but he acknowledges that Cajetan and Franciscus Mirandula fully agree with our Church in it who quote Hierom Ruffinus Antoninus and Lyra of the same opinion as they might have done many others but because our Church doth not cast them wholly out of the Canon he dares not say it is guilty of heresie simply and the rather because Waldensis and Driedo
it becomes a duty to such a one But hold say they of the Church of Rome to S. Paul this is only meant of those whom the Church allowes to marry but if the Church once forbid it to any they are not to marry let their case be what it will Here then lyes the dispute between S. Paul and them S. Paul saith to avoid fornication a man ought to marry they say that to marry after the prohibition of the Church is worse than Fornication S. Paul might it may be ask what authority their Church had to determin contrary to what he had done in this case Or men to make vows against the most proper remedy of some of the Infirmities of humane nature and which God hath not promised to any to keep them from If obedience to the Church be indisputable it is only in such things which God hath not antecedently determin'd by his own Law but in the case between marriage and fornication God himself hath given a Law before hand which no Church in the world can reverse And however indifferent a thing in the general it be to marry or not yet when it comes to that point either marriage or Fornication I wonder at the confidence of any who dare upon any account whatsoever make marriage a greater crime than Fornication But he saith it seems strange to them who either cannot or will not take the word of Christ that is his counsel of chastity that marriage in a Priest should be a greater sin than Fornication It doth I assure you seem strange to us because we are desirous to keep the Commands of Christ and we are sure marriage is against none of them but Fornication is Doth that man take Christs counsel of chastity that rather chooses to commit Fornication than marry What admirable chastity is that and what a beastly institution must marriage be if Fornication be a less crime than that But what a reflection is this the mean while on the author of it and that state of innocency and purity wherein it was first appointed They must needs think themselves very holy men who look on that state as too impure for them which was allotted to man in his greatest Innocency But although the first Ages of the Christian Church were so full of hardship and difficulties that if ever it should have been required of the Governours of the Church to have been above this state it should have been at that time yet we find no such thing in the Apostolical times or afterwards when the necessities of affairs would most have required it But when the Christian Church came to have settlement in the world and by degrees persons were fixed with endowments to particular places and some care of affaires of the world was necessarily joyned with those of the Church there was far less reason to make such a prohibition of marriage to the Clergy than ever was before And the scandals were so abominable where those restraints were most in force that on that very account the wisest men though as fond as any of the Churches authority thought there was more reason to give liberty to Priests to marry than ever there had been to restrain them from it I am not bound to defend all the extravagant and indiscreet passages which fell from some of the Fathers concerning marriage but I am sure the Church preserved her liberty in it notwithstanding them as I might easily prove if it were suitable to my present designe And S. Cyprian speaking of those Virgins who came nearest to vows of virginity as Rigaltius observes saith that it were better for them to marry than to fall into bell by their sins when they either will not or cannot keep their promise the same thing is said by S. Augustin by Epiphanius by the author of the epistle ad Demetriadem as Bishop Iewel hath long since proved and need not here be repeated Two things he objects to prove marriage worse than fornication after a vow of continency one from the authority of S. Paul who saith the younger Widdows that marry after the dedicating themselves to the service of the Church doe incurre damnation because by so doing they made void their first faith i. e. as the Fathers expound it the vow they had made But doth he really think that they did not break their first faith and incurre damnation by Fornication as well as by Marrying If they did how can this prove marriage worse than Fornication I grant that by their first faith hath been understood the promise made to the Church and who denies the breach of promise to be a bad and scandalous thing which is that S. Paul means by damnation and is not Fornication much more so where a thing in it self evil is committed besides the breach of the promise Can any one think that is not more waxing wanton against Christ than meer marrying is Therefore S. Paul would have the younger Women to marry and not make any such promises which they would be in danger of breaking he would have none admitted into the condition of Church-widdowes but those that were 60. years of ages and so in reason to be supposed passed the temptations to Fornication Whereby he shews what rule ought to be observed in all such promises and that none ought to be brought under them but such as are to be supposed past the common temptations of humane nature in those things But his second authority is more to his purpose if it were good for any thing which is the 104. Cannon of the 4. Council of Carthage as it is called but he might have found in Iustellus his preface to the Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae that this 4. Council of Carthage is of no Authority at all and we need not be concerned for any Canon contained therein which is not in the Code of the African Church as this is not but seems taken out of some Decretals of the Popes as will appear by comparing the 101. Canon in the Collection of Cresconius with the 104. of this Council And it would be very strange if S. Augustin were present in this Council that he should herein oppose what he had said elsewhere for he determins that the marrying again of the widdows that had vowed continuance in that state was no Adultery but a lawful marriage and that husband and wife ought not to be separated from each other upon such marriages and by that means make the husbands truely Adulterers when they separate from them and marry other wives and therefore saith he that which the Apostle condemns in them is not so much their marrying as their will to marry whether they doe or no whereby they break their first faith So that it is not marriage but lust which the Apostle condemns from whence it appears that S. Austin could never if he spake consonantly to himself condemn marriage after a vow of continency to be worse than
Fornication Indeed he saith that this falling from that holy chastity which was vowed to God may in some sense be said to be worse than Adultery but he never imagined such a construction could be made of his words as though the act of Fornication were not a greater falling from it than meer marriage could be So much shall suffice for the Instances produced in the Roman Church of such things which tend to obstruct a good life and devotion § 14. The 3. argument I used to prove the danger a person runs of his salvation in the communion of the Roman Church was because it exposeth the faith of Christians to so great uncertainties which he looks on as a strange charge from the Pen of a Protestant As strange as it is I have at large proved it true in a full examination of the whole Controversie of the Resolution of faith between us and them to which I expect a particular Answer before this charge be renewed again To which I must refer him for the main proof of it and shall here subjoyn only short replyes to his Answers or references to what is fully answered already 1. His distinction of the authority of the Scripture in it self and to us signifies nothing for when we enquire into the proofs of the Authority of Scripture it can be understood no otherwise than in respect to us and if the Scriptures Authority as to us is to be proved by the Church and the Churches Authority as to us to be provved by the Scripture the difficulty is not in the least avoided by that distinction And as little to the purpose is the other that it is only an argument ad hominem to prove the Infallibility of the Church from Scriptures for I would fain know upon what other grounds they build their own belief of the Churches Infallibility than on the Promises of Christ in the Scripture These are miserable evasions and nothing else For the trite saying of S. Austin that he would not believe the Gospel c. I have at large proved that the meaning of it is no more than that the Testimony of the Vniversal Church from the Apostles times is the best way to prove the particular books of Scripture to be authentical and cannot be understood of the Infallibility of the present Church and that the testimony of some few persons as the Manichees were was not to be taken in opposition to the whole Christian Church Which is a thing we as much contend for as they but is far enough from making the Infallibility of our faith to depend on the Authority of the present Church which we say is the way to overthrow all certainty of faith to any considering man 2. To that of overthrowing the certainty of sense in the doctrine of transubstantiation he saith that divine revelation ought to be believed against the evidence of sense To which I answer 1. that divine revelation in matters not capable of being judged by our senses is to be believed notwithstanding any argument can be drawn from sensible experiments against it as in the belief of God the doctrine of the Trinity the future state of the soul c. 2. that in the proper objects of sense to suppose a Revelation contrary to the evidence of sense is to overthrow all certainty of faith where the matters to be believed depend upon matters of fact As for Instance the truth of the whole Christian doctrine depends upon the truth of Christs resurrection from the dead if sense be not here to be believed in a proper object of it what assurance can we have that the Apostles were not deceived when they said they saw Christ after he was risen If it be said there was no revelation against sense in that case that doth not take off the difficulty for the reason why I am to believe revelation at any time against sense must be because sense may be deceived but revelation cannot but if I yield to that principle that sense may be deceived in its most proper object we can have no infallible certainty by sense at all and consequently not in that point that Christ is risen from the dead If it be said that sense cannot be deceived where there is no revelation against it I desire to know how it comes to be deceived supposing a revelation contrary to it Doth God impose upon our senses at that time then he plainly deceives us is it by telling us we ought to believe more than we see that we deny not but we desire only to believe according to our senses in what we doe see as what we see to be bread that is bread that what the Apostles saw to be the body of Christ was the body of Christ really and substantially and not meerly the accidents of a body Besides if revelation is to be believed against sense then either that revelation is conveyed immediately to our minds which is to make every one a Prophet that believes transubstantiation or mediately by our senses as in those words this is my body if so than I am to believe this revelation by my senses and believing this revelation I am not to believe my senses which is an excellent way of making faith certain All this on supposition there were a revelation in this case which is not only false but if it were true would overthrow the certainty of faith 3. To that I objected as to their denying to men the use of their judgement and reason as to the matters of faith proposed by a Church when they must use it in the choice of a Church he answers that this cannot expose faith to any uncertainty because it is only preferring the Churches judgement before our own but he doth not seem to understand the force of my objection which lay in this Every one must use his own judgement and reason in the choice of the Church he is to rely upon is he certain in this or not if he be uncertain all that he receives on the Authority of that Church must be uncertain too if the use of reason be certain then how comes the Authority of a Church to be a necessary means of certainty in matters of faith And they who condemn the use of a mans reason and judgement in Religion must overthrow all certainty on their own grounds since the choice of his Infallible Guide must depend upon it Now he understands my argument better he may know better how to answer it but I assure him I meant no such thing by the use of reason as he supposes I would have which is to believe nothing but what my reason can comprehend for I believe an Infinite Being and all the Doctrines revealed by it in Holy Scriptures although I cannot reconcile all particulars concerning them to those conceptions we call reason But therefore to argue against the use of mens judgements in matters of faith and the grounds of believing is to dispute against that which
friend or the Letters you receive or the Laws of the Land all which are lyable to be abused by evil persons but not by good people and modest understandings It is now become a part of your Religion to be Ignorant to walk in blindness to believe the man that hears your Confessions to hear none but him not to hear God speaking but by him and so you are lyable to be abused by him as he please without remedy You are gone from us where you are only taught to worship God through Jesus Christ and now you are taught to Worship Saints and Angels with a Worship at least dangerous and in some things proper to God for your Church Worships the V. Mary with burning Incense and Candles to her and you give her presents which by the consent of all Nations used to be esteemed a Worship peculiar to God and it is the same thing which was condemned in the Collyridians who offered a Cake to the V. Mary A Candle and a Cake make no difference in the Worship and your joyning God and the Saints is like the device of them that fought for King and Parliament the latter destroys the former To which he subjoynes that the points of difference between us and the Church of Rome are such as do evidently serve the ends of Covetousness and Ambition in them and that very many of her Doctrines are very ill Friends to a good life and that our Religion is incomparably beyond theirs in point of safety as in point of Praying to God alone and without Images relying on God as infallible which are surely lawful but it is at least hugely disputable and not at all certain that any man or society of men can be infallible that we may put our trust in Saints or Worship Images c. From whence he concludes So that unless you mean to preferr a danger before safety temptation to unholiness before a severe and holy Religion unless you mean to lose the benefit of yours prayers by praying what you perceive not and the benefit of the Sacrament in great degrees by falling from Christs Institution and taking half instead of all unless you desire to provoke God to jealousie by Images and man to jealousie in professing a Religion in which you may in many cases have leave to forfeit your faith and lawful trust unless you will choose a Catechism without the second Commandment and a faith that grows bigger or lesser as men please and a hope that in many degrees relyes on men and vain confidences and a Charity that damns all the world but your selves unless you will do all this that is suffer an abuse in your Prayers in the Sacrament in the commandments in faith in hope in Charity in the Communion of Saints and your duty to your Supream you must return to the bosome of your Mother the Church of England and I doubt not but you will find the comfort of it in all your life and in the day of your death and in the day of Judgement Thus far that excellent person and I leave you now to judge between the Motives on both sides as they are laid down by him whom my Adversary appeals to and I must thank him for the kindness of mentioning him against me without which I had wanted so good a representation of the Motives of either side and so full an Answer to the pretences brought for the Church of Rome The other Motives which he adds of Fathers Councils and Tradition he knows are utterly denyed by us and I wonder he should insist upon them since in the matters of our debate Antiquity is so evidently of our side as against Worship of Images and Saints against Purgatory Transubstantiation Prayers in an unknown tongue and he thinks it no great matter to allow us a thousand years against communion in one kind and yet all this while Scripture Fathers Councils and Tradition are all on their side For the testimony of the present Church we deny that S. Austin speaks of it as of it self sufficient and though he did that concerns not the Roman Church any more than other parts of the Catholick Church and he may assoon prove Tyber to be the Ocean or S. Peters at Rome to have been before the Temple at Hierusalem as prove the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or the Mother of all others § 17. But I must conclude with the method he prescribes to you for satisfaction from me which is not to meddle with particular disputes which we know very well the reason of but to call upon me for a Catalogue of our grounds and to bring things to Grounds and Principles as they have learnt to Cant of late and then he saith Controversie will soon be at an end I should be glad to see it so notwithstanding his Friend I. S. accounts it so noble a Science unless he hath changed his mind since for so many years now he hath failed in the Defence of his Demonstrations But to satisfie the men of Principles and to let them see we can do more than find fault with their Religion I shall give an account of the faith of Protestants in the way of Principles and of the reason of our rejecting their impositions which is all we can understand by Negative Points and if we can give an account of the Christian faith independently on their Churches Authority and Infallibility it evidently follows that cannot be the foundation of faith and so we may be very good Christians without having any thing to do with the Church of Rome And I know no other Answer necessary not only to this present demand but to a Book called Protestants without Principles the falsity of which will appear by what follows Principles Agreed on both sides 1. THat there is a God from whom man and all other Creatures had their Being 2. That the notion of God doth imply that he is a Being absolutely perfect and therefore Justice Goodness Wisdom and Truth must be in him to the highest degree of perfection 3. That man receiving his Being from God is thereby bound to obey his will and consequently is lyable to punishment in case of disobedience 4. That in order to mans obeying the will of God it is necessary that he know what it is for which some manifestation of the will of God is necessary both that man may know what he hath to do and that God may justly punish him if he do it not 5. Whatever God reveals to man is infallibly true and being intended for the rule of mans obedience may be certainly known to be his Will 6. God cannot act contrary to those essential Attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness and Truth in any way which he makes choice of to make known his will unto man by These thing being agreed on both sides we are now to inquire into the particular wayes which God hath made choice of for revealing his will to mankind 1. AN entire
obedience to the will of God being agreed to be the condition of mans happiness no other way of Revelation is in it self necessary to that end than such whereby man may know what the will of God is 2. Man being framed a rational Creature capable of reflecting upon himself may antecedently to any external Revelation certainly know the Being of God and his dependence upon him and those things which are naturally pleasing unto him else there could be no such thing as a Law of Nature or any principles of Natural Religion 3. All supernatural and external Revelation must suppose the truth of natural Religion for unless we be antecedently certain that there is a God and that we are capable of knowing him it is impossible to be certain that God hath revealed his will to us by any supernatural means 4. Nothing ought to be admitted for Divine Revelation which overthrows the certainty of those Principles which must be antecedently supposed to all Divine Revelation For that were to overthrow the means whereby we are to Judge concerning the truth of any Divine Revelation 5. There can be no other means imagined whereby we are to judge of the truth of Divine Revelation but a Faculty in us of discerning truth and falshood in matters proposed to our belief which if we do not exercise in Judging the truth of Divine Revelation we must be imposed upon by every thing which pretends to be so 6. The pretence of Infallibility in any person or Society of men must be Judged in the same way that the truth of a Divine Revelation is for that Infallibility being challenged by vertue of a supernatural assistance and for that end to assure men what the will of God is the same means must be used for the trial of that as for any other supernatural way of Gods making known his Will to men 7. It being in the power of God to make choice of several wayes of revealing his will to us we ought not to dispute from the Attributes of God the necessity of one particular way to the Exclusion of all others but we ought to enquire what way God himself hath chosen and whatever he hath done we are sure cannot be repugnant to Infinite Justice Wisdome Goodness and Truth 8. Whatever way is capable of certainly conveying the will of God to us may be made choice of by him for the means of making known his will in order to the happiness of mankind so that no Argument can be sufficient a priori to prove that God cannot choose any particular way to reveal his mind by but such which evidently proves the insufficiency of that means for conveying the Will of God to us 9. There are several wayes conceivable by us how God may make known his Will to us either by immediate voice from Heaven or inward inspiration to every particular person or inspiring some to speak personally to others or assisting them with an infallible spirit in Writing such Books which shall contain the Will of God for the Benefit of distant Persons and future Ages 10. If the Will of God cannot be sufficiently declared to men by Writing it must either be because no Writing can be intelligible enough for that end or that it can never be known to be Written by men infallibly assisted the former is repugnant to common sense for words are equally capable of being understood spoken or written the latter overthrows the possibility of the Scriptures being known to be the Word of God 11. It is agreed among all Christians that although God in the first Ages of the World did reveal his mind to men immediately by a voice or secret inspirations yet afterwards he did communicate his mind to some immediately inspired to Write his Will in Books to be preserved for the benefit of future Ages and particularly that these Books of the New Testament which we now Receive were so Written by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus Christ. 12. Such Writings having been received by the Christian Church of the first Ages as Divine and Infallible and being delivered down as such to us by an universal consent of all Ages since they ought to be owned by us as the certain rule of faith whereby we are to Judge what the Will of God is in order to our Salvation unless it appear with an evidence equal to that whereby we believe those Books to be the Word of God that they were never intended for that end because of their obscurity or imperfection 13. Although we cannot argue against any particular way of Revelation from the necessary Attributes of God yet such a way as writing being made choice of by him we may justly say that it is repugnant to the nature of the design and the Wisdom and Goodness of God to give infallible assurance to persons in Writing his Will for the benefit of Mankind if those Writings may not be understood by all persons who sincerely endeavour to know the meaning of them in all such things as are necessary for their salvation 14. To suppose the Books so Written to be imperfect i. e. that any things necessary to be believed or practised are not contained in them is either to charge the first Author of them with fraud and not delivering his whole mind or the Writers with insincerity in not setting it down and the whole Christian Church of the first Ages with folly in believing the Fulness and Prefection of the Scriptures in order to Salvation 15. These Writings being owned as containing in them the whole Will of God so plainly revealed that no sober enquirer can miss of what is necessary for salvation there can be no necessity supposed of any infallible society of men either to attest or explain these Writings among Christians any more than there was for some Ages before Christ of such a Body of men among the Iews to attest or explain to them the Writings of Moses or the Prophets 16. There can be no more intolerable usurpation upon the faith of Christians than for any Person or Society of men to pretend to an assistance as infallible in what they propose as was in Christ or his Apostles without giving an equal degree of evidence that they are so assisted as Christ and his Apostles did viz. by miracles as great publick and convincing as theirs were by which I mean such as are wrought by those very persons who challeng this infallibility and with a design for the conviction of those who doe not believe it 17. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend the necessity of such an infallible commission and assistance to assure us of the truth of these writings and to interpret them and at the same time to prove that commission from those writings from which we are told nothing can be certainly deduced such an assistance not being supposed or to pretend that infallibility in a body of men is not as lyable to doubts and disputes as in those books from
whence only they derive their infallibility 18. There can be no hazard to any person in mistaking the meaning of any particular place in those books supposing he use the best means for understanding them comparable to that which every one runs who believes any person or society of men to be infallible who are not for in this latter he runs unavoidably into one great errour and by that may be led into a thousand but in the former God hath promised either he shall not erre or he shall not be damned for it 19. The assistance which God hath promised to those who sincerely desire to know his will may give them greater assurance of the truth of what is contained in the bookes of Scripture than it is possible for the greatest infallibility in any other persons to doe supposing they have not such assurance of their infallibility 20. No mans faith can therefore be infallible meerly because the Proponent is said to be infallible because the nature of Assent doth not depend upon the objective infallibility of any thing without us but is agreeable to the evidence we have of it in our minds for assent is not built on the nature of things but their evidence to us 21. It is therefore necessary in order to an infallible assent that every particular person be infallibly assisted in Judging of the matters proposed to him to be believed so that the ground on which a necessity of some external infallible Proponent is asserted must rather make every particular person infallible if no divine faith can be without an infallible assent and so renders any other infallibility useless 22. If no particular person be infallible in the assent he gives to matters proposed by others to him then no man can be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible and so the Churches infallibility can signifie nothing to our infallible assurance without an equal infallibility in our selves in the belief of it 23. The infallibility of every particular person being not asserted by those who plead for the infallibility of a Church and the one rendring the other useless for if every person be infallible what need any representative Church to be so and the infallibility of a Church being of no effect if every person be not infallible in the belief of it we are farther to inquire what certainty men may have in matters of faith supposing no external proponent to be infallible 24. There are different degrees of certainty to be attained according to the different degrees of evidence and measure of divine assistance but every Christian by the use of his reason and common helps of Grace may attain to so great a degree of certainty from the convincing arguments of the Christian Religion and authority of the Scriptures that on the same grounds on which men doubt of the truth of them they may as well doubt of the truth of those things which they Judge to be most evident to sense or reason 25. No man who firmly assents to any thing as true can at the same time entertaine any suspition of the falshood of it for that were to make him certain and uncertain of the same thing it is therefore absurd to say that those who are certain of what they believe may at the same time not know but it may be false which is an apparent contradiction and overthrowes any faculty in us of judging of truth or falshood 26. Whatever necessarily proves a thing to be true doth at the same time prove it impossible to be false because it is impossible the same thing should be true and false at the same time Therefore they who assent firmly to the doctrine of the Gospel as true doe thereby declare their belief of the Impossibility of the falshood of it 27. The nature of certainty doth receive several names either according to the nature of the proof or the degrees of the assent Thus moral certainty may be so called either as it is opposed to Mathematical evidence but implying a firme assent upon the highest evidence that Moral things can receive or as it is opposed to a higher degree of certainty in the same kind so Moral certainty implies only greater probabilities of one side than the other in the former sense we assert the certainty of Christian faith to be moral but not only in the latter 28. A Christian being thus certain to the highest degree of a firme assent that the Scriptures are the word of God his faith is thereby resolved into the Scriptures as into the rule and measure of what he is to believe as it is into the veracity of God as the ground of his believing what is therein contained 29. No Christian can be obliged under any pretence of infallibility to believe any thing as a matter of faith but what was revealed by God himself in that book wherein he believes his will to be contained and consequently is bound to reject whatsoever is offered to be imposed upon his faith which hath no foundation in Scripture or is contrary thereto which rejection is no making Negative Articles of faith but only applying the general grounds of faith to particular instances as because I believe nothing necessary to salvation but what is contained in Scripture therefore no such particular things which neither are there nor can be deduced thence 30. There can be no better way to prevent mens mistakes in the sense of Scripture which men being fallible are subject to than the considering the consequence of mistaking in a matter wherein their salvation is concerned And there can be no sufficient reason given why that may not serve in matters of faith which God himself hath made use of as the means to keep men from sin in their lives unless any imagine that errours in opinion are far more dangerous to mens souls than a vitious life is and therefore God is bound to take more care to prevent the one than the other It followeth that 1. There is no necessity at all or use of an infallible Society of men to assure men of the truth of those things which they may be certain without and cannot have any greater assurance supposing such infallibility to be in them 2. The infallibility of that Society of men who call themselves the Catholick Church must be examined by the same faculties in man the same rules of tryal the same motives by which the infallibility of any divine revelation is 3. The less convincing the miracles the more doubtful the marks the more obscure the sense of either what is called the Catholick Church or declared by it the less reason hath any Christian to believe upon the account of any who call themselves by the name of the Catholick Church 4. The more absurd any opinions are and repugnant to the first principles of sense and reason which any Church obtrudes upon the faith of men the greater reason men still have to reject the pretence of infallibility in that Church as a
grand imposture 5. To disown what is so taught by such a Church is not to question the veracity of God but so firmly to adhere to that in what he hath revealed in Scriptures that men dare not out of love to their souls reject what is so taught 6. Though nothing were to be believed as the will of God but what is by the Catholick Church declared to be so yet this doth not at all concern the Church of Rome which neither is the Catholick Church nor any sound part or member of it This may suffice to shew the validity of the principles on which the faith of Protestants stands and the weakness of those of the Church of Rome From all which it followes that it can be nothing but willful Ignorance weakness of Judgement strength of prejudice or some sinful passion which makes any one forsake the Communion of the Church of England to embrace that of the Church of Rome The End §. 1. The necessity of writing in these Controversies §. 2. The present arts used by our Adversaries to gain Proselyter §. 3. The occasion of this present writing §. 4. Of the manner and design of the writing §. 5. Of the charge of Idolatry against the Church of Rome Articl 35. Homil. partâ— 2. p. 75. Dr. Iackson Original of Unbelief Sect. 4. Ch. 34. Defence of the Apology ch 7. div 2. p. 552. Answer to Harding 8. articl p. 283. Art 14. p. 368. p. 382. Defence of the Answer to the Admonition tr 8. p. 152. Bish. Bilson Disâ— of Christian subjection part 4. p. 319. p. 321. p. 324. p. 530 c. Dr. Fulks confutation of an Idolatrous Treatise of Nicol. Sanders Dr. Reynolds de Idolat Eccles. Rom. Dr. Whitaker c. Duraeum l. 5. p. 138. K. Iames his Works p. 303. Is Casaub. Ep. ad Cardin Perron ad quartam Instant Ad Tortâ— librum respons p. 312. Answer to Perron 20. chapt p. 58. Bish. Abbor against Bishop Tom. 2. p. 1106. Whites Reply to Fisher. p. 209. Dr. Field of the Church l. 3. ch 20. p. 109. Bish. ushers Sermon before the Commons p. 30. Downam de Antichristo l. 5. c. 1 2 c. Davenant deter quaest 18. D. Iacksons Original of Unbelief sect 4. Archbish. Lauds Conference p. 277. Bell. de sanct beat l. 1. c. 20. Ep. 17. ad Marcellam Li. de Bapt. cont Donat. c. 1. Tract 18. in To. Sozomen li. Hist. c. 5. Niceph. li. 13. c. 11. S. Leo Ser. 4. de Quad. Li. contr Epist. fund The Introduction Of the Idolatry of the Roman Church Of the Worship of Images Of the meaning of the second Commandment Of the reason of the second Commandment Isa. 40. 19. 20. 21. 22. Of the wiser Heathens Notion of Images Theodoret. c. Graec. Serm. 3. p. 519. Clem. Alexand Strom. 5. p. 584. Isa. 44. 16 17. Clem. Alexand Protrept p. 46. Strom. 1. p. 304. Plutarch in Numâ Varro apud Augustin de Civit. Dei l. 4. c 31. Philo de legat ad Caium p. 1035. Eusâ—bius de prepar Evang. l. 6. c. 10. Herodot l 1. Strabo l 15. Diog. Laert. prooem Tacit. de morib German c. 9. Lucian de Dea Syria init The reason of this Law more clear by the Gospel John 4. 23 24. Morinus in Pentatench Samarit Exerc. 1. S. 9. c. 5. Act. 17. 〈◊〉 25. 29. Rom. 1. 19. 21. 23. V. 18. 21. Celsus apud Origen l. 7. p. 373. Euseb. de preparat Evang. l. 3. c 7. Athanas. c. Gent. p. 24. 31. Arnob. c. Gent. l. 6. p. 203. August Tom. 8. in Psal. 113. Maxim Tyrius dissert 38. Iulian. op frag ep ed. Peravii p. 537. Eusâ—b prepar Evang. l. 4. c. 1. Trirant de Christian. Expedit apud Sinas l. 5. c. 16. p. 588. The Christian Church believed this Law immutable Clem. Alex. Strom. 5. p. 559. Origen c. Cels l. 7. p. 375. L. 6 p. 284. Synod Nic. 2. Act. 4. Ep. ad Iohan. Synad Ad Thom. Claudiop Ep. ibid. Damascen Orthod sid l. 4 c. 17. Bellarm. de Imag. l. 2. cap. 8. Of the Doctrine of the second Council of Nice Synod Nicaen 2. Act. 6. Aquinas Summ. p. 3. q. 25. art 3. Vasquez in l. 2. q. 25. disp 107. c. 5. Sirmond Concil Gall. To. 2. p. 194. Spelman Conâ— Tom. 1. p. 306. Hovedeni Annal. p. prior ad A. D 792 Simeon Dunel Histor. p. 111. Matth. Westmon ad A. D. 793. Caroli Capitut de non adoraâ—dis imagiâ—ibus Paris A. D. 1549. in Goldasti Coâ—stit Imperial To. 1. Synod Paris in Supplement Concil Gall. ad A. D. 824. Agobardi opera Ed. Massoni Balazii Caroli liber de Imag. l. 2. c. 24. Cap. 25. C. 31. L. 3. c. 15. Concil Tom. 5. p. 553. Tom. 6. p. 143. C. 36. Delaland Supplem Concil Gall. p. 109. Bellarm. Append. ad lib. de cultu Imag. c. 3. C. 4. Agobardi opera p. 221. Ed. 1666. Of the Scripture Instances of Idolatry contrary to the second Commandment Pâ—tav dogmat Theol. To 5. l 15. â— 13. s. 3. c. 14 s. 8. Vasâ— eâ— in 3. Thom. disp 94. q. 25. c. 3. Of the distinctions used to excuse this from being Idolaâ—ry Aug. c. duas Epist Peâ—ag l. 3 c. 4. B. Andrews Answer to Perron p. 57 Beâ—â—arm de imag l. 2. â—â—4 Vasquez 3. Th. disp 108. q. 25. art 3. c. 9. The instances supposed to be parallel Answered Of the Adoration of the Host. Concil Trident Sess. 13. c. 5. The State of the Controversie Joh. 20. 29. Rubrick after Communion Concil Tâ—â— dent 〈◊〉 c. 5. No security in the Roman Church agaâ—nst Idolatry in Adoration of the Host. Greg. de Val. de Idolol l. 2. c. 5. Bell. de Sacr. Euchar l. 4. c. 30. De Incarnat l. 3. c. 8. Vasquez Tom. 1. disp 108. c. 12 n. 111. Disput. 110. c. 2 3. No such motives to believe Transubstantiation as the Divinity of Christ. Bellar. de Sacr. Euch. l. 3. c. 19. De Christo l. 1. c. 4. A mistake doth not excuse from Idolatry Coster Enchir Contr. c. 8. de Euch. Sacram p. 308. Fisher c. Oecolompad l. 1. c. 2. p. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 760. B. Taylors second part of disswasive Introduct in Answ. to I S. 5. way 2. Part of dissâ—as b. 2. s. 6. p. 139. Ductor dubitant b. 2. c. 2. p. 344. p. 339. The grossest Idolatry excusable on the same grounds Aug. prefat in Psal. 93. To. 8. p. 2. p. 184. Aug. c. Faust Manich. l. 20. c. 1. 68. Garcilasso de la vega le Conmentaire Royal. liv 2. c. 1. Of Invocation of Saints The Fathers arguments against Heathen Idolatry condemn Invocation of Saints Iustin. Martyr Apol. 2. p. 65 66. Theophil ad Autolyc l. 1. p. 77. L. a. p. 110. Breviar Rom. 31. Iul. Antw. 1663. S. Basil. ad Amphiloch p. 332. V. Aug. c. Faust. l 20. c. 9. Baron Martycol Apr. 23 Iulii 25. All divine worship given to a creâ—ture condemned by the Fathers Origen c. câ—ls