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B02310
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An answer, to a little book call'd Protestancy to be embrac'd or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy
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Con, Alexander.
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1686
(1686)
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Wing C5682; ESTC R171481
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80,364
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170
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AN ANSWER To a little Book call'd PROTESTANCY To be Embrac'd OR A New and infallible Method to reduce ROMANISTS FROM POPERY to PROTESTANCY Printed in the Year 1686. TO THE READER AT this time in which all that comes from Pen or Pulpit against Popery is of so good Coyn with PROTESTANTS that they have Re-printed a late in Scotland to amuse more the Ignorant People a little Book bearing for the Title A New Method c. I have resolved to put an Answer of it to the Press Altho' it pleases the Author to call it New I scarce find any New thing in it it containing hardly any thing which has not been Objected and Answered His turn indeed from the R. Catholick Religion to the Protestant was then New but it and all its Circumstances being of small or no importance to the publick I take no notice of it For the Dogmatical part of his Book since he runs through allmost all our Articles endeavouring so to blemish every one with his Pen that his Book seems more to be a Slanderous Libel then a Confutation of our Religion I have thought it was not amiss to give it such an Answer as might be both a Solution to what is Objected and an Explanation of our Tenets in that manner that it may appear how much they wrong us when the R. Catholick Religion is represented to the Common People as groundless and full of Superstition And for this latter Reason Courteous Reader you will excuse me if I am a little longer then seem'd to require the Answer of so small a matter To make my Work less tedious to those who will do me the Honour to Read it I have divided the whole into several Chapters Sections and Subsections with Titles relating to their different Subjects Fare-well Unto the Right Honourable JAMES EARL OF PERTH c. Lord High Chancellour of SCOTLAND Sir GEORGE LOCKHART Lord President of the Session GEORGE Viscount of Tarbet Lord Clerk-Register Sir James Foulis of Collingtoun Lord Justice-Clerk Sir John Lockhart of Cassle-Hill Sir David Balfour of Forret Sir James Foulis of Reidfoord Sir Roger Hogg of Hearease Sir Andrew Birnie of Saline Sir Patrick Ogilvie of Boyn Sir John Murray of Drumcairn Sir George Nicolson of Kemnay John Wauchop of Edmistoun Sir Thomas Stewart of Balcasky Sir Patrick Lyon of Carse Senators of the Colledge of Justice and Ordinar Lords of Council and Session JOHN Marquess of ATHOL c. Lord Privy Seal WILLIAM Duke of Hamiltoun c. ALEXANDER Earl of Murray c. Secretary of State for the Kingdom of Scotland PATRICK Earl of Strathmore c. Extraordinar Lords of the Council and Session MY LORDS YOu are the Great Reasoners of this Nation our Wise Kings have judiciously set you on your Seats with Power to bring other Men to Reason Wherefore I hope you will not take it ill I beg your Patronage and favourable Look upon a Book which defends it self not so much by Authority as by Reason Passages from the Holy Fathers it backs by Reason to Passages of the Holy Scripture it submits with Reason for Faith is Superior to Reason and Reason it self tells us that to Faith we must submit our Reason Would we think that Man reasonable who would doubt to submit his Reason to God the Principle of Reason God will and ought to be Worshiped our Nature and Reason tells us but how we know not unless he himself reveal it Some thought the Deity they acknowledged was to be Worshiped with the Sacrifice of themselves or the Burning of their Children as some Pagans In the Old Law they thought God was to be Ador'd by the Sacrifice of Beasts But in the New we abhor such Sacrifices Roman Catholicks among Christians offer him daily the Sacrifice of his Son Incarnate Protestants condemn this Sacrifice and content themselves to Honour him with the improper Sacrifice of their Prayers and of sorrow for their Sins From this Variety of Judgement in Men as to the Worship of God Let us Reason My Lords certainly God is not at present content to be Worshiped by any of these waies I please for one disallows the other Judging it abominable If the Spirit of God moves me to one of these in particular the same Spirit cannot move another to abhor my way of Worship and condemn it and if it be the true Spirit that moves him who condemns me 't is not the true Spirit by which I am moved so that its impossible for Man to know by which way he ought to turn himself to God without a Revelation You see then 't is but Natural to expect it from him and that we would be all at a stand without it We find in our selves a violent inclination to Lust Intemperance and other Evils lay aside the Revelation of Original Sin the cause of these Disorders to whom shall we ascribe it Shall we say that God who made our Nature and all that is in it implanted in us these vitious inclinations No. They are Motions contrary to the Motions of his Spirit a Law contrary to the Law of God they formally oppose his Sanctity and contradict him speaking to us by Reason Rom. 7.23 They cannot be then from God but from whom else we had not known had we not had a Divine Revelation When we following our Appetites have worked against Reason Reason tells us we have offended the Author or Giver of our Reason but again in what manner we ought to make amends we know not without a Revelation We Christians then unanimously conceive that God has revealed both what he would have us Believe of him and what he would have us do to serve him And hold that all those Divine Truths are shut up in a Book we call the Bible We all run to this Book earnest to know what is our Duty to God which is indeed as the wise Man saies omnis Homo and without which in Truth nihil est omnis Homo But who shall Interpret this Book to us We see our greatest Divines cannot agree among themselves in the sense of it how shall meaner Capacities hope to understand it When we are at variance in our understanding of a Passage and which misunderstood is our Destruction 2 Petr. 3.16 Who shall be our Judge to set him who is wrong right and so compose our difference The Scripture it self by a conference of Passages My LORDS I appeal to your Wisdom and your Knowledge of the Duty of a Judge or a Man in your Station Is it not the part of a Judge so to give Sentence that all present may know who of the two Dissenting Parties is in the right or who is in the wrong according to the Judges Sentence But after the Scripture has said all it can to our learndest Men after they have conferred Passage with Passage in the Vulgar and Original Tongues Prayed used what other means you please excepting their submission to an Infallible Church Neither of them will avow
exhibetur refertur ad prototypa quae illae representant Ita ut per Imagines quas osculamur coram quibus caput aperimus procumbimus Christum adoremus sanctos quorum illae silmitudinem gerunt veneremur Id quod Niceni Synodi Decretis Can. 2. Act. 3 4. contra Imaginum oppugnatores est sancitum That is The Holy Synod c. commands the Pictures of Christ of the Virgin Mother of GOD and other Saints to be had and retained especially in Churches and that one give to them the due respect and Veneration not that we believe that there is any Divinity or Vertue in them for which they are to be Honour'd or that we ought to ask any thing of them or that we ought to put our trust in Pictures as the Gentiles did who plac'd their hope in Idols but because the Honour which is given to them is directed to the Originals which they represent So that by Images which we kiss and afore which we take of our Hats and bow down we Adore Christ and Worship the Saints whose likeness they represent to us And this is ratified by the Decrees of the Council of Nice Can. 2. Act. 3 4. From Image Worship he comes to that of the Consecrated Host and saies this is more intolerable because the Priest may forget the intention of Consecrating or designedly will not to Consecrate it Answer Of this Intention I spoke enough in the matter of Baptism and how hard it is for a Priest not to have a virtual one such as I explained there and which suffices But if you suppose him to omit it maliciously there will not be for that danger of Idolatty for all Worship and Adoration given to the Host altho explicitly and formally it be absolute yet virtually and implicitly it involves this condition If it be Consecrated So if it be not consecrated my adoration doeth not fix on it but goes to him whom I intended to adore not to what I see to wit the species of Bread and thus ther 's no Idolatry commited Because it fals out often that he is thought the Father of a Child who really is not did our Adversary doubt to respect him who was his Father No more Reason have Catholicks to doubt to yield to the Holy Host a Soveraign Worship For the reliques of Saints because we meet with many we know not whither they be authentick or not our respect to them always involves in it this Tacit condition of which above if it be the true relique of such a Saint As to that he sayes 't is not of Faith that the Soul of such a Saint for example of St. Francis of Assisium is in Heaven I deny it because altho' the Pope be not Infallible in his canonizing as some Roman Catholicks hold yet when his Decree is receiv'd by the acceptation of the whole Church by their positive cult and Honouring of the Saint its equivalent to the Decree of a General Council SECT III. Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary does not with draw us from God nor dishonour CHRIST OUr Doctrine sayes our Adversary relating to the Mediation of the Virgin Mary and other Saints with-draws us from rendring to Christ due Honour and Glory c. Answer He does not remark the difference which is between Intercession and Impetration Intercession presupposes always a request or desire which is a Prayer made to be presented by the Intercession to God or to him from whom we intend to obtain a Favour to whom the address is made for the Client or Petitioner by the Intercessor Impetration not always for a Favour may be obtained from the King for me on which I did not so much as Dream Thus you see our invocation of Saints as Intercessors does not withdraw us from God because it presupposes the request made to be presented by them to God Nay nor from due Honour to Christ since in all our Prayers in which the Church has her recourse to Saints in the Mass or Breviary after we have begun our Prayer by God saying O God c. we always end per Dominum nostrum Iesum c. desiring that whatsomever we Pray for to be given us from God by the Intercession of Saints come to us through the Merits of Jesus So we only Pray them that they Pray that what we demand may be given us through the Merits of Christ And this way is so far from Dishonouring Christ that it Honours him more as he signified of the Centurion who thinking himself unworthy to approach Christ immediatly made his approach first by his Friends whom he imagin'd more in Favour with Christ Luke 7. v. 3. and 6. And Christ praised him Matth. 8. v. 10. For this Humility proceeding from the Faith he bad of the Grandour of his Person And if God had alwayes demanded our immediate recourse to himself he would not have sent Eliphaz to Iob Iob 42. v. 8. saying Go to my Servant Job and my Servant Job will Pray for you for him will I accept Here you see v. 7. that God would not hear Eliphaz who had offended him Are you who reject the recourse to Saints more Innocent afore God then Eliphaz was Lay your Hand to your Heart But why did God send Eliphaz to Iob Because Iob had Honoured him and God says 1 Sam. 2. cap. v. 30. who will have Honoured me I will Honour him Now for our Invoking the Name of Mary is it less Holy then that of David And yet did not Solomon Pray thus for thy Servant David 's sake turn not away the Face of thy Anointed Psalm 132. v. 10 As if he had Pray'd God thus O Lord who hast said Exod. 20. v. 5. I am the Lord thy God a Zealous God visiting the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children into the third and fourth Generation of them that hate me Thou hast also said vers 6. showing Mercies unto thousands of them that love and keep my Commandments Thou then who hast mercy on Children for the Sainctity of their Parents have mercy on me for my Fathers sake What mean't Iacob Gen. 48 v. 14. when he bid his Name be call'd upon the Sons of Iosepth but that he expected God should do them good upon that call for his sake And what mean't Moses praying for the whole People Exod. 32 v. 11. When he besought God to remember Abraham Isaac c And was not God pacified there-with v. 14. Note in the old Testament they did not say as we do now to Saints pray for us because the Fathers were not yet in Heaven nor saw God The way into the Holiest of all was not yet made manifest while as the first Tabernacle was yet standing Heb. 9 v. 8. I avow then we mind indeed sick People invock Jesus and Marry together but in a different way Jesus to save them and Mary to Pray him for them If some simple People rely more on what they do then on what Christ did